By Brent Schlender; Warren Buffett; Bill Gates
July 20, 1998
(FORTUNE Magazine) – The queue of students stretched through the lobby and out the door of the University of Washington's Husky Union Building in Seattle on a balmy Friday afternoon in late May. You could tell by the abundance of pressed chinos and dress shirts (and the shortage of nose rings) that this wasn't the ticket line for a Phish concert. Instead, the well-groomed group was staking out prime seats for, of all things, a lecture--albeit a very special lecture. The students and a few lucky guests were to be treated to a rare, public dialogue between the two richest businessmen in the solar system: Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
《财富》杂志——在五月下旬一个温暖的星期五下午，学生们的队伍从华盛顿大学位于西雅图的哈士奇学生活动中心大堂一直排到门外。从大家整洁的卡其裤和衬衫（以及很少见到的鼻环）就能看出，这里可不是摇滚乐队 Phish 演唱会的售票口。相反，这群打扮体面的学生和少数幸运来宾正在为一场——确切地说是一场非常特别的——讲座抢占好座位。这些学生和来宾将有幸见证两位太阳系最富有商人——微软创始人兼首席执行官比尔·盖茨与伯克希尔-哈撒韦董事长沃伦·巴菲特——罕见的公开对谈。
The billionaire buddies conceived the event to coincide with Buffett's weekend visit to Gates' home, following Microsoft's annual summit meeting for CEOs. The superinvestor and the cybertycoon asked some 350 business school students to participate in the session and invited the Public Broadcasting System and FORTUNE to document the affair. (PBS filmed the interchange and will offer copies to its affiliates for broadcast during pledge drives this fall.)
这对亿万富翁好友之所以举办此次活动，是为了配合巴菲特在微软年度 CEO 峰会结束后周末到访盖茨家的行程。这位“超级投资人”和那位“网络大亨”邀请了约 350 名商学院学生参与，并且请美国公共广播系统（PBS）和《财富》杂志记录整场对话。（PBS 已完成拍摄，并将在今年秋季筹款活动期间向旗下各台提供播出拷贝。）
While the students milled downstairs, Gates and Buffett bantered with their wives and a small group of friends that included, among others, Katharine Graham, the former CEO of the Washington Post Co., and Bill's dad and sister. They noshed on fresh fruit in a makeshift greenroom while a makeup artist powdered Bill's nose and trimmed Warren's unruly eyebrows, much to Susie Buffett's amusement. At one point the Oracle of Omaha entertained the group with a goofy imitation of Richard Nixon's "V for victory" sign.
当学生们在楼下聚集时，盖茨和巴菲特正与各自的妻子以及一小群朋友闲聊打趣，其中包括前《华盛顿邮报》公司首席执行官凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆，以及盖茨的父亲和妹妹。他们在临时化妆间里一边吃着新鲜水果，一边让化妆师为盖茨补粉、帮巴菲特修剪那顽固的眉毛，逗得苏茜·巴菲特直乐。其间，“奥马哈先知”还学着理查德·尼克松摆出夸张的“胜利 V”手势，让众人捧腹。
As showtime approached, the two gamely posed for photos and traded barbs like old college roomies. The other guests' main concern was that the titans not be too long-winded, so everyone could get back to Gates' house in time to play bridge. It felt like a convivial family reunion--granted, of one very high-powered family.
随着开场时间临近，两人积极配合拍照，互相调侃得像老同寝室友。其他来宾最担心的是这两位巨擘话太多，耽误大家回盖茨家打桥牌的时间。现场氛围俨然一次其乐融融的家庭聚会——当然，是一个能量异常强大的“家族”。
For a guest in that greenroom, perhaps the most lasting impression was the cross-generational affection between America's best-known billionaires. (For the record, on that day the 42-year-old Gates' net worth hovered around $48 billion, compared with Buffett's $36 billion. Buffett, who only a few years ago was considerably richer than Gates, has managed to remain 25 years older, though.) Buffett's presence seemed to calm Gates, who acted loose and gregarious despite Microsoft's legal fisticuffs with federal trustbusters and the stress of hosting several dozen prominent CEOs for the previous two days. Although Bill has finally begun to look his age--nascent crow's-feet now crease the corners of his eyes, and he's no longer the beanpole he was--the Buffetts and Graham still dote on him like a wunderkind. He, in turn, treats them with a warm hint of deference, quite a contrast to his usual debater's demeanor.
对在场的嘉宾而言，印象最深的或许是这两位全美最知名富豪跨越年龄的友爱。（顺带一提，当天 42 岁的盖茨身家约 480 亿美元，而巴菲特则为 360 亿美元。几年前资产还远超盖茨的巴菲特，如今依旧大他 25 岁。）巴菲特的到来似乎让盖茨放松了许多，尽管微软正与联邦反垄断官员打官司，且过去两天他才刚招待完数十位重量级 CEO，盖茨表现得依旧随和健谈。如今，比尔终于开始显出年龄——眼角出现细小鱼尾纹，身形也不再是一根“豆芽”——但巴菲特夫妇和格雷厄姆仍把他当神童般宠爱；他则礼貌回以温暖的敬意，与平日唇枪舌剑的形象大相径庭。
Finally the two made their way to the stage, pausing in the wings for University of Washington Business School dean Bill Bradford's introduction. Unfortunately, the dean's remarks, which mainly praised Microsoft for hiring University of Washington students, missed the point. The funny, philosophical, extraordinary conversation that followed would be much more than a pep talk from a local employer and his pal. See for yourself.
最终，两人走向舞台，在侧幕处停下，等候华盛顿大学商学院院长比尔·布拉德福德的介绍。遗憾的是，院长的致辞主要赞扬微软录用了华大毕业生，却有些偏题。随后的对话妙趣横生、富于哲思，远非本地雇主及其朋友的普通打气演讲。敬请拭目以待。
--Brent Schlender
1. How We Got Here Warren and Bill explain how they became richer than God.
我们是如何走到今天的——沃伦和比尔讲述他们如何富可敌神。
BUFFETT: I thought I ought to start this off by announcing that Bill and I have a small bet as to who would get the most applause. I suggested that I bet my house against his. We settled on a small sum, but evidently it isn't such a small sum to Bill, because just before we came out he gave me this Nebraska Cornhusker shirt to wear, and then he puts on this purple University of Washington shirt himself.
巴菲特：我觉得我应该先宣布一下，比尔和我打了个小赌，看谁能得到最多的掌声。我提议拿我的房子赌他的房子。最后我们改成赌一笔小钱，但显然这对比尔来说并不算小钱，因为就在上场前他给了我一件内布拉斯加康哈斯克球衣让我穿，然后他自己套上了这件华盛顿大学的紫色球衣。
They've asked us to start out talking, the two of us, about what got us here, but then it's on to your questions. How I got here is pretty simple in my case. It's not IQ, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear. The big thing is rationality. I always look at IQ and talent as representing the horsepower of the motor, but that the output--the efficiency with which that motor works--depends on rationality. A lot of people start out with 400-horsepower motors but only get a hundred horsepower of output. It's way better to have a 200-horsepower motor and get it all into output.
他们让我们先谈谈——就我们两个人——是什么让我们走到今天的位置，但随后就轮到你们提问了。就我而言，来到这里的原因很简单。不是智商，这一点你们听了会高兴。关键是理性。我总把智商和天赋看作发动机的马力，而产出——也就是发动机的效率——取决于理性。很多人起步时有 400 马力的发动机，却只输出 100 马力。拥有 200 马力并把它全部转化为输出要好得多。
So why do smart people do things that interfere with getting the output they're entitled to? It gets into the habits and character and temperament, and behaving in a rational manner. Not getting in your own way. As I said, everybody here has the ability absolutely to do anything I do and much beyond. Some of you will, and some of you won't. For the ones who won't, it will be because you get in your own way, not because the world doesn't allow you.
那么，为什么聪明人会做出妨碍自己获得应有产出的事情呢？这就涉及习惯、品格和气质，以及以理性方式行事，不要给自己添堵。正如我说的，在座每个人都完全有能力做到我做的事，甚至做得更好。你们中的一些人会做到，一些人则不会。那些做不到的原因是你们自己挡住了路，而不是世界不允许。
So I have one little suggestion for you: Pick out the person you admire the most, and then write down why you admire them. You're not to name yourself in this. And then put down the person that, frankly, you can stand the least, and write down the qualities that turn you off in that person. The qualities of the one you admire are traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming.
所以我有个小建议：选出你最钦佩的那个人，然后写下你钦佩他的原因。这里面你不能写自己。接着，再写下那个坦白说你最受不了的人，并列出让你反感的品质。你所钦佩的那个人的品质，只要稍加练习，你就可以使其成为自己的特质，而且一旦练习就会形成习惯。
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. At my age, I can't change any of my habits. I'm stuck. But you will have the habits 20 years from now that you decide to put into practice today. So I suggest that you look at the behavior that you admire in others and make those your own habits, and look at what you really find reprehensible in others and decide that those are things you are not going to do. If you do that, you'll find that you convert all of your horsepower into output.
习惯的枷锁在变得沉重到无法打破之前，轻得几乎感觉不到。在我这个年纪，我已经改不了任何习惯了，我被定型了。但你们二十年后所拥有的习惯，将是你们今天决定付诸实践的那些。所以我建议你们观察他人身上你所欣赏的行为，并把它们变成自己的习惯；再看看你们觉得令人不齿的行为，并决定绝不去做那些事。如果你们这样做，就会把所有马力都转化为产出。
GATES: I think Warren's absolutely right about habit. I was lucky enough when I was quite young to have an exposure to computers, which were very expensive and kind of limited in what they could do, but still they were fascinating. Some friends of mine and I talked about that a lot and decided that, because of the miracle of chip technology, they would change into something that everybody could use. We didn't see any limit to the computer's potential, and we really thought writing software was a neat thing. So we hired our friends who wrote software to see what kind of a tool this could really be--a tool for the Information Age that could magnify your brainpower instead of just your muscle power.
盖茨：我认为沃伦关于习惯的观点完全正确。我很幸运，在年纪还小的时候就接触到了计算机。当时的电脑价格高昂、功能受限，但依旧令人着迷。我和几个朋友对此谈论甚多，并且认定凭借芯片技术的奇迹，计算机将变成人人都能使用的东西。我们看不到它潜力的上限，也觉得编写软件是一件很酷的事。于是我们雇了会写代码的朋友，一起探索电脑究竟能成为什么样的工具——信息时代的工具，能够放大脑力，而不仅仅是体力。
By pursuing that with a pretty incredible focus and by being there at the very beginning of the industry, we were able to build a company that has played a very central role in what's been a pretty big revolution. Now, fortunately, the revolution is still at the beginning. It was 23 years ago when we started the company. But there's no doubt that if we take the habits we formed and stick with them, the next 23 years should give us a lot more potential and maybe even get us pretty close to our original vision--"a computer on every desk and in every home."
凭借近乎痴迷的专注，以及在行业起步阶段就参与其中，我们得以建立一家在这场巨大变革中扮演核心角色的公司。幸运的是，这场革命仍处于早期。我们创办公司是在 23 年前。但毫无疑问，只要坚持当初养成的那些习惯，未来 23 年将释放更大的潜力，甚至可能真正接近我们最初的愿景——“让每张桌子、每个家庭都拥有一台电脑”。
盖茨的回答和巴菲特的不在一个层面，洞察力是跟本质联系在一起的。
I was wondering how you define success, personally?
我很好奇，你个人如何定义“成功”？
BUFFETT: I can certainly define happiness, because happy is what I am. I get to do what I like to do every single day of the year. I get to do it with people I like, and I don't have to associate with anybody who causes my stomach to churn. I tap-dance to work, and when I get there I think I'm supposed to lie on my back and paint the ceiling. It's tremendous fun. The only thing in my job that I don't like--and this just happens every three or four years--is that occasionally I have to fire somebody.
巴菲特：我当然可以定义“快乐”，因为我就是快乐的。我一年 365 天都在做自己喜欢的事，并且与喜欢的人一起工作，不必和任何让我胃里翻腾的人打交道。我“踢踏舞”般去上班，到了办公室就觉得自己该躺下来刷天花板——乐趣无穷。工作中唯一让我不喜欢的事情——而且三四年才发生一次——就是不得不开除某个人。
They say success is getting what you want and happiness is wanting what you get. I don't know which one applies in this case, but I do know I wouldn't be doing anything else. I'd advise you that when you go out to work, work for an organization of people you admire, because it will turn you on. I always worry about people who say, "I'm going to do this for ten years; I really don't like it very well. And then I'll do this...." That's a little like saving up sex for your old age. Not a very good idea.
人们常说，成功是得到你想要的，而幸福是想要你所得到的。我不知道哪句更适用于此，但我清楚自己不会去做别的事。我建议你们步入职场时，为你钦佩的那群人工作，因为那会点燃你的热情。我总为那些说“我先干这份并不喜欢的工作十年，然后再去做……的人”感到担忧——这就像把性爱攒到老年再体验一样，并不是个好主意。
I have turned down business deals that were otherwise decent deals because I didn't like the people I would have to work with. I didn't see any sense in pretending. To get involved with people who cause your stomach to churn--I say it's a lot like marrying for money. It's probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but it's absolutely crazy if you're already rich, right?
我拒绝过一些本来条件不错的生意，只因为我不喜欢那些必须一起共事的人。我认为装作喜欢毫无意义。与会让你胃里翻腾的人合作——在我看来就像为了钱而结婚。在任何情况下都不是好主意，更何况你已经很富了，对吧？
GATES: I agree that the key point is that you've got to enjoy what you do every day. For me, that's working with very smart people and it's working on new problems. Every time we think, "Hey, we've had a little bit of success," we're pretty careful not to dwell on it too much because the bar gets raised. We've always got customer feedback telling us that the machines are too complicated and they're not natural enough. The competition, the technological breakthroughs, and the research make the computer industry, and in particular software, the most exciting field there is, and I think I have the best job in that business.
盖茨：我同意，关键是你必须享受每天的工作。对我来说，这意味着与非常聪明的人合作并解决新问题。每当我们觉得“嘿，我们稍微成功了一点”，都会很谨慎，不会沉溺其中，因为目标随即被抬高。客户总反馈说机器太复杂、不够自然。竞争、技术突破和研究，使计算机行业——尤其是软件——成为最令人兴奋的领域，而我认为自己拥有这行里最棒的工作。
BUFFETT: Don't you think Dairy Queen is more important than that? [Berkshire Hathaway bought International Dairy Queen last fall, for $585 million.]
巴菲特：你不觉得冰雪皇后比那还重要吗？【伯克希尔-哈撒韦去年秋天以 5.85 亿美元收购了国际冰雪皇后。】
GATES: You can manage Dairy Queen, Warren. I'll go and buy the Dilly Bars.
盖茨：沃伦，你来管理冰雪皇后吧。我去买 Dilly Bars 冰淇淋棒。
BUFFETT: We'll raise the price when you come.
巴菲特：等你来了我们就涨价。
Starting a new company is very risky. How do you determine when is the best opportunity to start a new company?
创业风险极高。您如何判断什么时候是创办新公司的最佳时机？
GATES: When I started Microsoft, I was so excited that I didn't think of it as being all that risky. It's true, I might have gone bankrupt, but I had a set of skills that were highly employable. And my parents were still willing to let me go back to Harvard and finish my education if I wanted to.
盖茨：当我创办微软时，我太兴奋了，以至于根本没觉得那有多冒险。确实，我可能会破产，但我拥有一套很抢手的技能。而且，如果我愿意，父母仍支持我回到哈佛完成学业。
BUFFETT: You've always got a job with me, Bill.
巴菲特：比尔，在我这里你永远有份工作。
GATES: The thing that was scary to me was when I started hiring my friends, and they expected to be paid. And then we had customers that went bankrupt--customers that I counted on to come through. And so I soon came up with this incredibly conservative approach that I wanted to have enough money in the bank to pay a year's worth of payroll, even if we didn't get any payments coming in. I've been almost true to that the whole time. We have about $10 billion now, which is pretty much enough for the next year.
盖茨：真正让我害怕的是我开始雇用朋友，他们还指望拿工资。后来我们有些客户破产——我原指望他们付款的。于是我很快采取了极其保守的策略：银行里必须存够一年的工资，即使一分钱进账都没有也能发薪水。几乎一直以来我都坚持这一点。现在我们大约有 100 亿美元现金，基本够发下一年的工资了。
Anyway, if you're going to start a company, it takes so much energy that you'd better overcome your feeling of risk. Also, I don't think that you should necessarily start a company at the beginning of your career. There's a lot to be said for working for a company and learning how they do things first. In our case, Paul Allen and I were afraid somebody else might get there before us. It turned out we probably could've waited another year, in fact, because things were a little slow to start out, but being on the ground floor seemed very important to us.
总之，如果你要创业，需要投入巨大的精力，所以最好先克服对风险的恐惧。我也不认为一定要在职业生涯一开始就创办公司。先到一家公司工作并学习他们的做法，有很多好处。就我们而言，保罗·艾伦和我担心别人会抢先一步。事实上后来证明，我们其实可以再等一年，因为市场启动得有点慢，但对我们来说站在行业起跑线上非常重要。
How do you get people to support you?
你怎样让人们支持你？
GATES: At first you'll run into some skepticism. If you're young, it's hard to go lease premises. You couldn't rent a car when you were under 25, so I was always taking taxis to go see customers. When people would ask me to go have discussions in the bar, well, I couldn't go to the bar.
盖茨：一开始你会遇到一些质疑。如果你很年轻，连租办公场所都很难。25 岁以下连车都租不了，所以我总是打出租车去见客户。有人约我去酒吧谈事情，可我还进不了酒吧。
That's fun, because when people are first skeptical, they say, "Oh, this kid doesn't know anything." But when you show them you've really got a good product and you know something, they actually tend to go overboard. So, at least in this country, our youth was a huge asset for us once we reached a certain threshold.
这很有趣，因为别人最初怀疑时会说：“哦，这小子什么都不懂。”但当你证明自己确实有好产品、有真本事时，他们往往会热情过头。所以，至少在美国，一旦我们达到某个门槛，年轻反而成了我们巨大的资产。
2. The World Is Our Oyster Why Warren is sure everyone in China will want to drink Coke.
世界是我们的舞台——沃伦坚信中国人人都会想喝可口可乐。
How do you as businessmen take your companies global?
作为商界人士，你们如何让公司走向全球？
BUFFETT: [At Berkshire Hathaway] we don't take our businesses global directly. Our two largest commitments are Coke and Gillette. Coke has 80% of its earnings coming from abroad, and Gillette has two-thirds of its earnings coming from abroad. So they are participating in a worldwide improvement in living standards, and we go global by piggybacking on them. I can sit in Omaha and let Doug Ivester [CEO of Coca-Cola] fly all over the world.
巴菲特：[在伯克希尔·哈撒韦] 我们并不会直接把自己的业务推向全球。我们最大的两项投资是可口可乐和吉列。可口可乐 80% 的利润来自海外，吉列约三分之二的利润来自海外。因此，它们正在借助全球生活水平的提升而增长，而我们则搭它们的便车完成全球布局。我可以待在奥马哈，让Doug Ivester〔可口可乐首席执行官〕满世界飞。
GATES: Our business is truly global. The PC standard is a global standard. What you need in a spreadsheet in Korea or Egypt is about the same as what you need in the U.S. We have to do some adaptation for the local languages, and that's a fun part of our business--understanding bi-directional languages and the large alphabets that you have in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
盖茨：我们的业务真正具有全球化特点。个人电脑的标准是全球统一的。无论是在韩国还是埃及，大家在电子表格里需要的功能与美国几乎一样。我们只是要针对本地语言做一些调整——这正是我们业务中有趣的部分：去理解双向书写的语言，以及中文、日文、韩文那些超大字符集。
In fact, our market share is much higher outside the U.S. than it is inside, because it's relatively hard to set up local subsidiaries and to understand local conditions, local distribution and relationships. Since most of our competitors are from the U.S. and aren't as good at doing international business, we thrive even better in these other countries.
事实上，我们在美国以外的市场份额远高于美国国内，因为要在当地设子公司、理解当地情况、渠道和人脉都相对困难。多数竞争对手也来自美国，却并不擅长国际化运作，所以我们在其他国家反而发展得更好。
Most of our growth will come from outside the U.S. Here it will get to the point where it is largely a replacement market. Now, that doesn't mean U.S. customers don't want better software that can see, listen, and learn. But outside the U.S. we still have that early-growth-slope phenomenon.
未来的大部分增长都将来自美国以外。美国国内迟早会进入主要靠设备替换的阶段。当然，这并不是说美国用户不渴望能“看、听、学”的更好软件；只是美国之外的市场仍处于陡峭的早期增长阶段。
What impelled you to make a trip together to China in 1995, and how has that trip affected your global business decisions since?
1995 年你们一同去中国，动因是什么？那次旅行对你们后来的全球业务决策有什么影响？
GATES: We went to China for a lot of reasons. Partly to relax and have fun. We found a few McDonald's there, so we didn't feel too far away from home. It was also exciting to go and see all the changes taking place, to see different parts of the country, and to meet some of the leaders.
盖茨：原因很多。一方面放松、看看世界。我们在那儿还找到了几家麦当劳，所以并没有离家太远的感觉。同时，亲眼目睹中国正在发生的种种变化，走访不同地区并且会见一些领导人，也十分令人兴奋。
China is a market that Microsoft had already been investing in. We've upped that a lot since then. As a percentage of our sales, though, it's tiny--well under 1%--and so even though it will double every year for the next five years, it's really only by taking a ten-year view that we can say it's worth the emphasis we're putting on it.
在那之前微软就已投入中国市场；此后我们投入得更多。但就销售额占比而言，目前仍很小——不到 1%。即便未来五年每年翻番，也只有用十年的视角来看，才能说这种投入是值得的。
Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.
中国一年大约卖出三百万台电脑，但用户并不为软件付费。不过总有一天会付的。既然他们现在要盗版，我们希望他们盗我们的，这样他们会上瘾；接下来十年我们总能想办法把钱收回来。
BUFFETT: My family was amazed that I went. I never traveled beyond the outer reaches of the county in Nebraska. I had a terrific time and also confirmed my feeling that there's going to be a lot of Coca-Cola sold there in the future. I told everyone over there that it acts as an aphrodisiac.
巴菲特：家里人听说我要去都震惊，我以前连内布拉斯加州的县界都很少出。结果玩得非常开心，也更加确信未来中国会卖出大量可口可乐。我跟那边所有人说，可乐还能当春药呢。
3. Innovations “r” Us—Warren ponders Internet chewing gum
创新是我们的标签——沃伦谈“互联网口香糖”
Both of you are innovators in your given industries. I was wondering what your definition of innovation is?
你们俩在各自行业中都被视为创新者。你们如何定义“创新”？
BUFFETT: I don't do a lot of innovating in my work. I really have just two functions: One is to allocate capital, which I enjoy doing. And the second one is to help 15 or 20 senior managers keep a group of people enthused about what they do when they have no financial need whatsoever to do it. At least three-quarters of the managers that we have are rich beyond any possible financial need, and therefore my job is to help my senior people keep them interested enough to want to jump out of bed at six o'clock in the morning and work with all of the enthusiasm they did when they were poor and starting. If I do those two things, they do the innovation.
巴菲特：严格说来，我的工作并不需要大量“创新”。我只有两项主要职能：第一是配置资本，这件事我非常乐在其中；第二是帮助 15 到 20 名高管，让他们手下那批早已“财务自由”的人依然对工作充满热情。至少四分之三的经理人已经富得再也不需要为钱工作，因此我要做的是让这些高管使他们仍然愿意在早晨六点跳下床，像当年一穷二白创业时那样充满干劲。只要我把这两件事做好，真正的创新就会由他们来完成。
GATES: The technology business has a lot of twists and turns. Probably the reason it's such a fun business is that no company gets to rest on its laurels. IBM was more dominant than any company will ever be in technology, and yet they missed a few turns in the road. That makes you wake up every day thinking, "Hmm, let's try to make sure today's not the day we miss the turn in the road. Let's find out what's going on in speech recognition, or in artificial intelligence. Let's make sure we're hiring the kinds of people who can pull those things together, and let's make sure we don't get surprised."
盖茨：科技行业道路曲折、变化莫测，这也是它有趣的原因——没有任何企业可以躺在功劳簿上睡大觉。IBM 曾经占据的主导地位前无古人、后恐怕也难有来者，但它仍然在某些路口错过了转弯。这种历史让你每天醒来都在想：“今天千万别成为我们错过弯道的那天。语音识别、人工智能都发展到哪一步了？我们是否招到了能把这些东西整合在一起的人？我们又该如何避免被突如其来的变化打个措手不及？”
Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority. It wasn't like somebody told me about it and I said, "I don't know how to spell that." I said, "Yeah, I've got that on my list, so I'm okay." But there came a point when we realized it was happening faster and was a much deeper phenomenon than had been recognized in our strategy. So as an act of leadership I had to create a sense of crisis, and we spent a couple of months throwing ideas and E-mail around, and we went on some retreats. Eventually a new strategy coalesced, and we said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do; here's how we're going to measure ourselves internally; and here's what the world should think about what we're going to do."
但有时我们也会被打个措手不及。举例来说，互联网兴起时，它在我们的工作清单里只排到第五、第六位。并不是没人跟我提起互联网，我还说“Internet 这词怎么拼？”——我当时确实把它列上了清单，自以为稳妥。然而后来我们意识到，互联网发展的速度和深度远超我们原先判断。我必须以领导者的身份制造一种“危机感”。于是我们用两三个月时间到处抛点子、发邮件、搞闭门研讨。最后，一项全新的战略逐渐成形，我们说：“好，我们就按这个干；内部就按这些指标衡量；外界就应该这样看待我们的行动。”
That kind of crisis is going to come up every three or four years. You have to listen carefully to all the smart people in the company. That's why a company like ours has to attract a lot of people who think in different ways, it has to allow a lot of dissent, and then it has to recognize the right ideas and put some real energy behind them.
这种“危机时刻”大约三四年就会出现一次。因此你必须认真倾听公司里所有聪明人的声音。也正因为如此，公司必须广纳各种思维方式的人才；必须容忍大量异议；最后还得识别出真正正确的想法，并在其后投入真金白银与全力执行。
Which countries and companies are best prepared to take advantage of the information age that is revolutionizing society?
在这场正在改变社会的信息时代里，哪些国家和企业最有条件脱颖而出？
BUFFETT: When you think about it, 15 years ago this country almost had an inferiority complex about its ability to compete in the world.
巴菲特：想想看，15 年前，美国几乎还对自身的全球竞争力抱着自卑情结。
GATES: Everybody was talking about how the Japanese had taken over consumer electronics and that the computer industry was going to be next, and that their system of hard work somehow was superior, and that we had to completely rethink what we were doing. Now, if you look at what's happened in personal computers or in business in general, or at how we allocate capital, and how we let labor move around, the U.S. has emerged in a very strong position. And so the first beneficiary of all this information technology has been the U.S.
盖茨：那时人人都在说日本已统治了消费电子业，电脑业下一个就要落入他们手中；他们的“勤奋体系”似乎比我们更优越，我们得重新思考自己的一切。而现在看看个人电脑产业、整个商业环境，以及我们如何配置资本、让劳动力自由流动，美国其实已稳坐最强势的地位。所以信息技术的第一波最大受益者确实是美国。
In places like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Scandinavian countries, people are adopting the technology at basically the same rate that we are. And there are a few countries that, relative to their level of income, are going after the technology at an even higher rate than we are because they believe so much in education. In Korea and in many parts of China we see incredible penetration of personal computers even at very low income levels, because people there have decided it's a tool to help their kids get ahead.
在新加坡、香港和斯堪的纳维亚国家，人们采纳新技术的速度几乎与美国同步。还有少数国家，按其人均收入衡量，拥抱技术的速度甚至超过美国，因为他们极度重视教育。比如韩国和中国的许多地区，即便收入水平很低，个人电脑的普及率也惊人，因为那里的家庭认定电脑是孩子向上攀升的工具。
The whole world is going to benefit in a big way. There will be this shift where, instead of your income level being determined by what country you are from, it will be determined by your education level. Today, a Ph.D. in India doesn't make nearly as much as a Ph.D. in the U.S. When we get the Internet allowing services and advice to be transported as efficiently as goods are transported via shipping, then you'll get essentially open-market bidding for that engineer in India vs. an engineer here in the U.S. And that benefits everyone, because you're taking better advantage of those resources. So the developed countries will get the early benefit of these things. But in the long run, the people in developing countries who are lucky enough to get a good education should get absolutely the biggest boost from all this.
全球都会从中受益，并且出现一个转变：决定你收入高低的不再是你来自哪个国家，而是你的受教育程度。今天，印度的博士收入远不如美国的博士；可一旦互联网让服务与顾问像实物通过航运那样高效流通，印度工程师和美国工程师将在真正开放的市场上竞标。这样可以更充分地利用全球资源，人人受益。发达国家会先尝到甜头，但从长远看，发展中国家那些受过良好教育的人将获得最大提振。
BUFFETT: I didn't grasp it at first, but it's huge. The technological revolution will change the world in dramatic ways, and quickly. Ironically, however, our approach to dealing with that is just the opposite of Bill's. I look for businesses in which I think I can predict what they're going to look like in ten or 15 or 20 years. That means businesses that will look more or less as they do today, except that they'll be larger and doing more business internationally.
巴菲特：最初我没看懂这股浪潮，但它的规模确实巨大。技术革命将以极快的速度、以极具戏剧性的方式改变世界。然而讽刺的是，我们应对这股浪潮的策略和比尔恰恰相反。我挑选那些 10 年、15 年、甚至 20 年后还能被我一眼看穿的企业——也就是未来的样子和今天大同小异，只是更庞大、国际化程度更高而已。
So I focus on an absence of change. When I look at the Internet, for example, I try and figure out how an industry or a company can be hurt or changed by it, and then I avoid it. That doesn't mean I don't think there's a lot of money to be made from that change, I just don't think I'm the one to make a lot of money out of it.
因此我关注的是“缺乏变化”。以互联网为例，我会先判断它会如何冲击或改变某个行业或企业，然后——我就绕道走。这并不代表我否认其中蕴藏巨大的赚钱机会；只是我自认并不是那个能把钱赚到手的人。
Take Wrigley's chewing gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people are going to chew gum. Bill probably does. I don't think it's going to change the fact that Coke will be the drink of preference and will gain in per capita consumption around the world; I don't think it will change whether people shave or how they shave. So we are looking for the very predictable, and you won't find the very predictable in what Bill does. As a member of society, I applaud what he is doing, but as an investor, I keep a wary eye on it.
就拿箭牌口香糖来说吧——互联网不会改变人们咀嚼口香糖的方式，比尔也许不这么看。我也不认为它会动摇可口可乐作为首选饮料的地位，或阻止其人均消费量继续增长；它也不会让人们不再刮胡子，或彻底改变他们的刮胡方式。我们所寻找的是“极度可预见”的生意，而你在比尔那里是找不到这种稳定性的。作为社会公民，我为他所做的一切喝彩；可作为投资者，我保持戒心。
GATES: This is an area where I agree strongly with Warren. I think the multiples of technology stocks should be quite a bit lower than the multiples of stocks like Coke and Gillette, because we are subject to complete changes in the rules. I know very well that in the next ten years, if Microsoft is still a leader, we will have had to weather at least three crises.
盖茨：在这一点上，我非常赞同沃伦。我认为科技股的市盈率本应远低于像可口可乐、吉列那样的公司，因为我们的游戏规则随时可能被彻底改写。我很清楚：如果未来十年微软仍想保持领先，就至少得闯过三场危机。
4. See You in Court! Bill and Warren talk about tangling with trust-busters
法庭见！比尔与沃伦谈“反垄断交锋”
What is the appropriate role for antitrust law in American business?
美国反垄断法在商业领域应当扮演什么样的角色？
BUFFETT: We had one civil antitrust case at the Buffalo Evening News in 1977. And believe it or not, in the Salomon situation in 1991, in addition to having problems with the Federal Reserve in New York, and the SEC, and the U.S. Treasury, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, we also had the Department of Justice antitrust division after us. I don't know what happened to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They missed us for some reason. Those are the only two experiences I had, and in neither case did I feel that we had done anything wrong. I might add that there was never any adjudication against us either time.
巴菲特：1977 年，我们旗下的《布法罗晚报》卷入过一起民事反垄断诉讼。信不信由你，1991 年所罗门公司出事时，除了要应付纽约联储、美国证监会、财政部、纽约南区联邦检察官办公室，我们还被司法部反垄断司盯上。我都不知道印第安事务局当时去哪儿了，大概漏掉了我们。那就是我仅有的两次“反垄断”经历，而两次我都确信自己没做错事——事实上，最终也从未被裁定有罪。
I am no antitrust scholar. I met Bill eight years ago, and he's a terrific teacher. He spent six or seven hours explaining Microsoft to me. Here I am the world's biggest dummy on technology, and he explained it to me pretty darn well. When he got through with it, I bought a hundred shares of stock so I could keep track of it. That shows two things: One is that I've got an IQ of about 50, and the second is that I didn't think he had any monopoly.
说实话，我可算不上反垄断专家。我在八年前认识比尔，他是个出色的老师——花了六七个小时给我讲解微软。以我这种科技盲的资质，他竟然能让我听明白。听完后我买了 100 股微软，只为随时关注它。这说明两点：第一，我智商大概也就 50；第二，我真没看出他有什么垄断行为。
GATES: The key role of competition law is to protect consumers and to make sure that new products get created and that those products are very innovative. And you can look at different sectors of the economy and ask, "where is that happening very well?" No matter how you score it, there's no doubt that one sector of economy would stand out as absolutely the best, and that's the personal computer industry. I don't say the computer industry at large, because you have to remember that before personal computers came along, the structure was very different. People were stuck. Once you bought a computer from Digital or IBM or Hewlett-Packard or anyone else, the software that you created only ran on that computer.
盖茨：竞争法的核心作用是保护消费者，并确保新产品不断涌现且保持高度创新。要验证这点，你只需看看各行各业，问自己：“在哪些行业这件事做得最好？”无论用什么标准打分，最突出的肯定是个人电脑行业。我特意说“个人电脑”，而不是整个计算机行业——因为在 PC 出现之前，行业结构完全不同：顾客被牢牢锁定，一旦买了 Digital、IBM、惠普或其他厂商的机器，你写的软件就只能在那台机器上跑。
The vision of Microsoft was that all of these computers would work the same. The reason for that is that if you want to get a lot of great software, you have to have a lot of computers out there—millions and millions of them. So you've got to make them cheap, and make them so you don't have to test the software on all the different ones. The goal of the PC industry was to have every company competing to make the most portable one, or the fastest one, or the cheapest one. That would be great for consumers, and it would spark a big software market.
微软的愿景就是让所有电脑都按照同一套规则运转。原因很简单：若想催生海量优质软件，首先要让市场上拥有成百上千万台电脑——这就意味着价格要低，而且软件开发者不必在每台机器上反复测试。PC 行业的终极目标，是促成厂商之间围绕“最小巧”“最快速”“最便宜”展开竞争。这不仅让消费者获益，也能点燃庞大的软件市场。
The price of computing before the PC came along was going down at a certain rate, and since the PC came along it's gone down at an incredible rate. The variety and quality of software has also increased at a phenomenal rate. We're absolutely at the peak of that today. The number of new software companies being started, the number of new jobs being created, the level of investment, the number of companies going public, you name it. It's way beyond even what it was three years ago. So consumers are doing very well.
在个人电脑出现之前，计算成本一直以某个固定速度下降；而自从 PC 问世后，成本的下降速度变得惊人。同时，软件的种类和质量也在以爆炸性的速度提升。今天我们正处于这股浪潮的巅峰：新软件公司成立的数量、新增就业岗位、投资规模、企业上市的家数——无论用什么指标衡量，都远超三年前的水平。消费者由此受益匪浅。
Part of the PC dynamic is that instead of asking software developers to duplicate one another's work, we take anything that's typical in all those applications and put those features in Windows. So for things like connecting to the Internet, instead of everybody having to do that themselves, we put that in. That's been the evolution—graphical user interfaces came in, hard-disk support, networking support, now Internet support, including the browser.
PC 产业的活力还体现在：我们不要求开发者去重复彼此的劳动，而是把各种应用中“大家都会用到”的共性功能直接整合进 Windows。比如上网功能，就不用每家公司各搞一套；我们干脆把它做进系统。这就是演进过程——先有图形界面，再到硬盘支持、网络支持，如今是互联网支持，包括浏览器。
I think antitrust laws as written are fine. There are people who will debate whether they should be weaker, but that's of academic interest. When I come in to do business, I'm very careful to check with our lawyers to be sure we're steering a hundred miles away from anything that would be questionable. So it is somewhat of a surprise to find ourselves in an antitrust controversy. Thank goodness for the judiciary, which is an environment in which facts are tested and people can see if competition worked in the way it should and has been beneficial to consumers. There's no doubt in our minds where that is going to come out.
我认为现行反垄断法本身没有问题。有人争论是否该放松，但那更多只是学术探讨。现实中，只要涉及业务决策，我都会让律师把关，确保我们离任何“灰色地带”都有一百英里的安全距离。因此，当公司被卷入反垄断纠纷时，我们确实有些意外。还好有司法体系——在那里事实会被检验，公众可以看到竞争究竟是否按照应有方式运作、是否真正让消费者受益。对此，我们对最终结果毫不怀疑。
为什么要辞职？韧性只能来自洞察力，来自对判断的确信程度。
In the meantime, we're going to be the focus of a lot of controversy because the filing of a lawsuit is a very big deal. You've got the government taking on that challenge and saying a lot of righteous things, and that's just something we'll have to be sure doesn't distract us from what we're really all about.
当然，诉讼一旦立案，事情就会引发巨大争议，我们也将成为舆论焦点。政府方会提出各种“正义”指控，这些声音势必喧嚣。但我们必须确保自己不被干扰，继续专注于真正该做的事情。
5. What's a Company Really Worth? Warren explains why Berkshire stock costs more than a Lexus.
公司真正值多少钱？沃伦解释为何伯克希尔一股比一辆雷克萨斯还贵
QUESTION: Mr. Buffett, I was told that you have a policy against splitting stock, and I wondered if you might comment on Microsoft's history of splitting stock?
提问：巴菲特先生，我听说您反对拆股。能否请您谈谈微软屡次拆股这件事？
BUFFETT: I've never really felt that if I went into a restaurant and said, "I want two hat-checks instead of one for my hat," I'd really be a lot better off. But I also don't have any quarrel with companies that do split their stock, and I don't think Microsoft's been hurt by it.
巴菲特：我从没觉得走进一家餐厅，把帽子交给衣帽间时说“给我两张帽子存根”会让我就此受益。对于拆股的公司，我也无意批评；微软多次拆股，也并未因此受损。
I think that our policy fits us very well. There's nothing in my religious upbringing that causes me to recoil from stock splits. I'm on the boards of three companies, two of which have split their stock in the last couple of years. I happen to think that by not splitting Berkshire stock, we attract a slightly more long-term-oriented group of investors.
我们的做法对伯克希尔非常合适。我所受的宗教教育里并没有“拒绝拆股”这一戒条；我担任董事的三家公司里，有两家刚在过去两年拆过股。我之所以不拆伯克希尔的股，是因为这样能吸引更偏长期的股东。
What you want to do is attract shareholders that are very much like you, with the same time horizons and expectations. We don't talk about quarterly earnings, we don't have an investor relations department, and we don't have conference calls with Wall Street analysts, because we don't want people who are focusing on what's going to happen next quarter or even next year. We want people to join us because they want to be with us until they die.
理想状态是让股东和你“气味相投”，拥有相同的投资周期和期望。我们从不公布季度指引，也没有投资者关系部，更不会与华尔街分析师开电话会议，因为我们不欢迎那些只盯着下一个季度、甚至下一年的短期投资者。我们希望的，是愿意“一辈子同行”的伙伴。
If I were to split the stock dramatically, would I change that shareholder composition much? No, but I'd change it just a little. And remember, all the shareholder seats are filled, just like this auditorium. If I say something that offends all of you, and you all leave and another group comes in, am I better off or worse off? Well, that depends upon what they're like and what you're like. But I think I already have a very good group of shareholders who are attracted to these policies, and I think this policy reinforces it slightly.
假如我大幅拆股，股东结构会不会彻底变样？不会，但多少会变一点。要记住，如同这间会堂的座位已经坐满，我们的股东“席位”同样满员。如果我一句话把你们全得罪走，换来一批新人，对我来说是好是坏？那得看新旧两拨人都是什么样。但我认为现有股东已经非常理想，而“不拆股”这一政策能微妙地强化这种理想股东结构。
GATES: Warren has done something admirable by signaling to people that it's a "different stock" and that they ought to think of Berkshire Hathaway as being a little different from your typical company. Having that unusual stock price is probably a good thing, as long as the newspaper doesn't screw it up. He's caused a lot of problems, you know, with the widths of those columns in the stock tables.
盖茨：沃伦做了一件很了不起的事——用高股价提醒大家：“伯克希尔是一只与众不同的股票。” 这种与众不同大概是好事，只要报纸在行情表里别排版出错就行。他的高股价可给报纸列印股价栏宽度带来了不少麻烦呢。
Mr. Buffett, what's your response to those who say that traditional methods for valuing companies are obsolete in this market?
巴菲特先生，有人说在当下的市场里，传统的公司估值方法已经过时了。您怎么看？
BUFFETT: I think it's hard to find companies that meet our tests of being undervalued in this market, but I don't think that the methods of valuation have changed. It's just that in some markets, like in the mid-1970s, every security you looked at was really dramatically undervalued.
巴菲特：在当前的市场环境中，确实很难再找到符合我们“被低估”标准的公司，但这并不意味着估值方法本身变了。只是有些时期——比如 1970 年代中期——几乎所有股票都被严重低估而已。
I once ran an investment partnership for about 13 years, ending in 1969, and closed it up because I couldn't find anything. I hadn't lost the ability to value companies; there just weren't any left that were cheap enough, and I wasn't in the business of shorting stocks.
我曾经经营了一个投资合伙企业，持续了大约 13 年，到 1969 年结束。关闭的原因是找不到可以投资的标的。并不是我不会给公司估值了，而是市场上已经没有足够便宜的股票，而我又不做空。
But I think that there's no magic to evaluating any financial asset. A financial asset means, by definition, that you lay out money now to get money back in the future. If every financial asset were valued properly, they would all sell at a price that reflected all of the cash that would be received from them forever until Judgment Day, discounted back to the present at the same interest rate. There wouldn't be any risk premium, because you'd know what coupons were printed on this "bond" between now and eternity. That method of valuation is exactly what should be used whether you're in 1974 or you're in 1998. If I can't do that, then I don't buy. So I'll wait.
评估金融资产并不存在什么魔法。所谓金融资产，本质就是你现在掏钱，将来收回更多的钱。如果所有金融资产都被正确定价，它们的市价就应等于从现在起直到世界末日期间能够收到的全部现金流，以同一利率折现到今天。由于未来现金流已确定，也就不存在风险溢价。无论是 1974 年还是 1998 年，评估方法都应如此。如果我无法这么做，那我就不买，耐心等机会。
Would you look for a higher price-to-earnings ratio at this point than you did in 1969?
那在现在的市场里，您会接受比 1969 年更高的市盈率吗？
BUFFETT: That ratio would be affected by interest rates. The difference between now and 1969 or any other time, in terms of calculating a valuation, wouldn't be affected by anything else. Now, if you looked at the overall market, returns on equity are much higher than they were in 1969 or 1974, or any other time in history. So if you're going to say you're going to value the overall market, the question becomes: "Do you crank in the present 20% returns on equity for American business in aggregate, and say that's a realistic figure to stick on for this future that runs out until eternity?" I'd say that's a fairly reckless assumption and doesn't leave much margin of safety. And I would say that present market levels discount a lot of that, and so that makes me quite cautious.
巴菲特：市盈率会受利率影响；除了利率外，估值计算与 1969 年或其他任何时期并无本质区别。若看整体市场，如今美国企业的股本回报率远高于 1969 年、1974 年乃至历史上任何时候。那么问题来了：你是不是要把“当前平均 20% 的 ROE”直接套用到未来直到永远？我认为那是相当鲁莽的假设，几乎没有安全边际。目前的市场价格已把这种高回报预期折现进去了，这让我相当谨慎。
Do you feel that technology has made businesses more efficient to the point that you can pay more for them?
您是否认为科技让企业效率大幅提升，因此值得为它们支付更高的价格？
GATES: There's definitely a one-time lift when you start using technology, and particularly if U.S. companies are using it better than their competitors outside the U.S. You get the ability to communicate better, and you get global scale in a lot of businesses that wouldn't have had it before.
盖茨：当企业开始应用科技时，肯定会迎来一次性的跃升；如果美国公司比海外竞争对手用得更好，这种收益就更明显。技术让沟通效率更高，也让许多原本难以全球化的业务迅速获得世界级规模。
When you look at the really big earners, the ones generating this 20% return on equity and going to that worldwide marketplace—companies like Coca-Cola or Microsoft or Boeing or GE—I know that every one of those has been helped by technology. But that cannot explain why ten years from now they'd be getting that kind of return on equity. Almost certainly there's something ephemeral about current conditions.
放眼那些真正赚大钱、能在全球市场上拿到 20% 股本回报率的公司——可口可乐、微软、波音、通用电气——我知道它们无一例外都受益于科技。但这并不能说明十年后它们仍能保持同样的 ROE；眼下这种高回报多半含有一些暂时性的因素。
BUFFETT: I'm sure technology has made companies more efficient, and if I thought otherwise, I'd be afraid to say so with Bill sitting right here beside me. But the question you might ponder is this: Let's just say that I found a way to clone Jack Welch, and ran off 499 clones of him. Jack continued to run General Electric, and these other 499 ran the rest of the FORTUNE 500. Is the FORTUNE 500 going to have a higher return on equity five years from now or not?
巴菲特：我当然承认科技让企业效率更高；要是不这么想，我也不好意思在比尔面前说出来。不过你可以想想这么个问题：假设我能克隆杰克·韦尔奇，复制出 499 个复刻版。原版杰克继续管通用电气，其他 499 位杰克去管理《财富》500 强里剩下的公司。五年后，《财富》500 强的总体 ROE 会不会更高？
I don't think the answer to that is easy. Because if you get 500 Jack Welches out there, they are going to be doing things in a competitive way that may well produce lower returns for American business than if you've got a bunch of clods out there and a guy like Jack competing with them. If you've got great variation in the quality of management, it improves the chances enormously of a relatively significant number getting terrific returns.
这个答案并不简单。若全世界都是杰克·韦尔奇，他们彼此竞争，结果可能反而把整体回报压低；而如果只有少数杰克对上一群笨手笨脚的对手，他就能赚得更多。管理层水准差异越大，少数高手获得超高回报的几率就越大。
So I would say that a lot of things in business, including technology, really have the same effect as if you went to a parade and the band started coming down the street and all of a sudden you stood up on tiptoe. In another 30 seconds everybody else is on tiptoe, and it would be hell on your legs and you still wouldn't be seeing any better.
因此我认为，商业中的很多改进——包括技术——就像在游行里，你为了看得清楚先踮起脚尖；30 秒后大家都踮脚，你的小腿酸得要命，可视线并没有更好。
Capitalism tends to be self-neutralizing like that in terms of improvements. That's marvelous because it means we have better everything than otherwise. But the real trick is to stand up on tiptoe and not have anyone notice you.
资本主义的改进常常会自我抵消。这很美妙，因为它让整个社会的东西都更好。但真正的窍门是：你先踮脚，而且没人发现你。
"Simple Idea"就是那些一直踮着脚但没人真正看明白的想法。
The recent wave of mergers has been staggering. Could you comment on how any of these mergers will create value for shareholders?
最近一波并购潮令人目不暇接。能否谈谈这些并购将如何为股东创造价值？
BUFFETT: Actually, the two of us have a small announcement we would like to make… [laughter].
巴菲特：其实我们俩有个小公告要发布……（笑）
It won’t stop. Mergers will be motivated by very good considerations. There truly are synergies in a great many mergers. But whether there are synergies or not, they are going to keep happening. You don’t get to be the CEO of a big company by being a milquetoast. You are not devoid of animal spirits. And it gets contagious. I’ve been a director of 19 different public companies over the years, and I can tell you that the conversation turns to acquisitions and mergers much more when the competitors of the particular company are engaging in those. As long as our economy works the way it does—and I think it works very well—you’re going to see a lot of it. A generally buoyant market tends to encourage mergers, because everybody’s currency is more useful in those circumstances. [A few weeks later, Berkshire Hathaway agreed to pay $23.5 billion in stock to acquire General Re, the world’s third-largest reinsurance company.]
并购不会停止。许多交易确实出于很正当的理由，而且的确可以产生协同效应。但无论有没有协同，并购都会继续。你若是个唯唯诺诺的人，当不上大公司的 CEO；CEO 身上都有“动物精神”，而且这种情绪还很容易传染。我这些年当过 19 家上市公司的董事，一旦竞争对手开始并购，本公司董事会就会更加热烈地谈论并购。只要我们的经济体系以现在这种方式运转——而且我认为它运转得相当好——大量并购就会出现。市场情绪普遍亢奋时，更会助长并购，因为在那种环境下，每家公司的“股票货币”都更值钱。（几周后，伯克希尔·哈撒韦同意以 235 亿美元股票收购全球第三大再保险公司通用再保险。）
GATES: I think it’s good to have a healthy skepticism. But General Motors was created out of a restructuring of the automobile industry from a specialized orientation to companies that did the whole job. And anybody who missed that was basically wiped out.
盖茨：保持适度的怀疑态度是好事。不过别忘了，通用汽车就是在汽车行业从“专业分工”转向“全流程整合”的重组浪潮中诞生的，错过那波整合的人基本都被淘汰了。
We’ve bought a lot of small companies, and I’d say that’s been vital to us. These are companies that on their own probably wouldn’t have made it, but when their abilities are combined with ours, both of us are able to create a much better set of products than we could’ve otherwise.
我们收购过很多小公司，这对微软至关重要。这些公司单打独斗可能活不下来，但把它们的技术与我们的平台结合，双方就能做出远超各自能力范围的产品。
I think in banking today, if you’re a medium-sized bank, you’re probably going to need to participate in all this stuff that’s going on. It doesn’t make that much sense to have so many banks in this country, and so there will be certain ones going after scale. But there are a lot of silly mergers too.
我认为在今天的银行业，如果你是一家中型银行，恐怕就得参与这场并购大潮。美国真的没必要存在这么多家银行，所以一定会有一些银行追求规模效应。当然，也有不少完全是“胡闹”的并购。
At the end of the day, is the shareholder better off after a merger?
到了最后，完成并购后，股东真的会更好吗？
BUFFETT: In most acquisitions, it's better to be the target than the acquirer. The acquirer pays for the fact that he gets to haul back to his cave the carcass of the conquered animal.
巴菲特：在大多数收购中，当“被买方”往往比当“买方”更划算。收购方得为能把猎物拖回山洞而付出昂贵的代价。
I am suspicious of people who just keep acquiring almost by the week, though. If you look at the outstanding companies—say, a Microsoft or an Intel or a Wal-Mart—their growth overwhelmingly has been internal. Frequently, if some company is on a real acquisition binge, they feel they're using funny money, and it has certain aspects of a chain-letter game.
不过，那些几乎“隔周并购”的公司，我会保持警惕。看看那些卓越企业——比如微软、英特尔、沃尔玛——它们的大部分成长都是内生的。通常，如果一家公司陷入并购狂潮，多半是觉得自己手里拿着“花不完的假钞”，多少带点“击鼓传花”的味道。
Beyond that, I'd like to see a period where merged companies just run by themselves after a deal, rather than moving around the accounting and putting up big restructuring charges. I get suspicious when there's too much activity. I like to see organic growth.
此外，我希望并购完成后，合并后的公司能踏踏实实先运营一段时间，而不是立刻忙着“调账”、计提大额重组费用。动作太多，我就会怀疑。我更喜欢看到自然、内生的增长。
6. Aw, Shucks! Warren and Bill muse on their mistakes, their business partners, and managerial succession.
啊，糟了！ Warren和Bill对他们的错误、商业伙伴和管理继承进行了大的缪斯。
What was the best business decision you made?
你们做过的最佳商业决策是什么？
BUFFETT: It was just jumping in the pool, basically. The nice thing about the investment business is that you don't need very many deals to succeed. In fact, if when you got out of business school here, you got a punch card with 20 punches on it, and every time you made an investment decision you used up one punch, and that's all you were going to get, you would make 20 very good investment decisions. And you could get very rich, incidentally. You don't need 50 good ideas at all.
巴菲特：基本上就是“跳进游泳池”，勇敢下水。投资行业的妙处在于：成功不需要做很多笔交易。打个比方，如果你商学院毕业时只拿到一张“20 次打孔卡”，每作出一次投资决定就要打掉一个孔，而且一辈子就这 20 个孔——那你肯定会把每一孔都用在极好的机会上。顺带说一句，只要那 20 次投资足够好，你就能变得非常富有。你根本不需要 50 个点子。
I hope the one I made yesterday was a good one. But they've always been kind of simple and obvious to me. The truth is, you know them when you see them. They're so cheap. When I got out of Columbia University, I went through the Moody's manuals page by page—the industrial manual, the transportation manual, the banks and finance manual—just looking for things. And I found stocks at one times earnings. One was Genessee Valley Gas, a little tiny company up in upstate New York, a public utility selling at one times earnings. There were no brokerage reports on it, no nothing, but all you had to do was turn the page. It worked out so well I actually went through the book a second time. Bill was reading the World Book at that time. He's since put it out of business.
我当然希望自己昨天做的决定也是好决定。但对我来说，所有好机会总是显而易见、而且相当简单。说真的，你一看就知道：它们便宜得离谱。刚从哥伦比亚大学毕业时，我把穆迪年鉴一页页翻——工业卷、交通卷、银行与金融卷——专门找这种东西。我就真的找到市盈率只有 1 倍的股票。比方说 Genessee Valley Gas，一家位于纽约州北部的小型公用事业公司，股价只有 1 倍收益。没有券商研报，什么资料都没有，只要翻书就能发现。那次太成功了，我又把整本书从头到尾翻了一遍。那时比尔在看《the World Book》，后来他直接把那套百科全书给淘汰掉了。
GATES: We were talking at breakfast this morning about which of all Warren's investment decisions was the worst one. They're tough to find because his track record is unbelievable. But we decided that, by some metric, buying the one that his company is named after—Berkshire Hathaway—was probably his worst investment decision.
盖茨：今天早餐时我们还在聊，沃伦所有投资里哪一笔算是“最糟糕”。说实话很难找，因为他的成绩单好得吓人。不过要硬挑的话，按某些标准来看，他买下那家后来成了自己公司名字的企业——伯克希尔·哈撒韦——大概算是他最差的一笔投资。
BUFFETT: That's true. We went into a terrible business because it was cheap. It's what I refer to as the "used-cigar-butt" approach to investing. You see this cigar butt down there, it's soggy and terrible, but there's one puff left, and it's free. That's what Berkshire was when we bought it—it was selling below working capital—but it was a terrible, terrible mistake.
巴菲特：确实如此。当初我们买进的是一家糟糕透顶的企业，只因为它便宜。我把这种投资法叫作“烂雪茄屁股”策略：地上躺着一截又湿又丑的雪茄头，但还剩最后一口烟，而且不要钱。伯克希尔当年就是这么个玩意儿——股价低于流动资产净值——结果成了极其糟糕的错误。
I've made all kinds of bad decisions that have cost us billions of dollars. They've been mistakes of omission rather than commission. I don't worry about not buying Microsoft, though, because I didn't understand that business. And I didn't understand Intel. But there are businesses that I did understand—Fannie Mae was one that was within my circle of competence. I made a decision to buy it, and I just didn't execute. We would've made many billions of dollars. But we didn't do it. Conventional accounting doesn't record that, but believe me, it happened.
我做过各种糟糕决定，让我们少赚了数十亿美元。这些都是“没出手”的错误，而不是“出手失误”。没买微软我并不后悔，因为我不懂那门生意；英特尔也是。但有些公司我完全看得懂——房利美就是在我能力圈里的。我当时决定要买，却最终没下单；要是买了，我们能多赚好几十亿美元。财务报表不会把这类损失写进去，但它确实发生了。
GATES: In my case, I'd have to say my best business decisions have had to do with picking people. Deciding to go into business with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list, and subsequently, hiring a friend—Steve Ballmer—who has been my primary business partner ever since. It's important to have someone who you totally trust, who is totally committed, who shares your vision, and yet who has a little bit different set of skills and who also acts as something of a check on you. Some of the ideas you run by him, you know he's going to say, "Hey, wait a minute, have you thought about this and that?" The benefit of sparking off somebody who's got that kind of brilliance is that it not only makes business more fun, but it really leads to a lot of success.
盖茨：对我来说，最好的商业决策基本都与“选人”有关。和保罗·艾伦一起创业恐怕是首要一条；后来又招聘了朋友史蒂夫·鲍尔默，此后他一直是我最重要的业务伙伴。你需要一个完全信任、全身心投入、共享愿景、技能互补、还能对你形成制衡的人。有时你抛出一个想法，他就会说：“等等，你考虑过这个那个吗？”——跟这样才华横溢的人碰撞，不仅让工作更有趣，也极大提高了成功率。
BUFFETT: I've had a partner like that—Charlie Munger—for a lot of years, and it does for me exactly what Bill is talking about. You have to calibrate with Charlie, though, because Charlie says everything I do is dumb. If he says it's really dumb, I know it is, but if he just says it's dumb, I take that as an affirmative vote.
巴菲特：我身边也有这样的搭档——查理·芒格——很多年了，他对我的作用跟比尔所说的一样。不过跟查理相处要“校准”一下，因为他觉得我做的所有事都很蠢；要是他说“非常蠢”，那肯定真蠢；如果只说“蠢”，我就当作他同意了。
两个人做的一致的地方，检验自己的Apperceptive Mass，是不是足够的确信？
It seems that in both of your companies, your success is driven by yourselves and your leadership skills. What will happen when you’re gone?
看起来你们两家公司的成功都离不开你们本人以及你们的领导能力。如果有一天你们不在了，会发生什么？
BUFFETT: Your assumption is wrong. I will keep working until about five years after I die, and I’ve given the directors a Ouija board so they can keep in touch. But if the Ouija board doesn’t work, we have outstanding people who can do what I do. People are not going to stop drinking Coca-Cola if I die tonight, they’re not going to quit shaving tonight, they’re not going to eat less See’s candy, or fewer Dilly Bars, or anything of the sort. Those companies have terrific products, they’ve got outstanding managers, and all you’ll need at the top of Berkshire is someone who can allocate capital and make sure you have the right managers down below. We’ve got the people identified to do that, and the board of directors of Berkshire knows who they are.
巴菲特：你的假设错了。我会在死后再工作大概五年，我已经给董事们准备了一块通灵板，好让他们继续跟我联系。万一通灵板不灵，我们也有一批出色的人才可以做我做的事。就算我今晚死了，人们也不会因此就不喝可口可乐，不刮胡子，也不会少吃 See’s 糖果或少舔 Dilly Bars。这些公司都有伟大的产品，也有卓越的经理人。伯克希尔高层所需要的，只是一个懂得如何配置资本、并确保下属经理用对位置的人。我们已经确定了接替人选，伯克希尔的董事会也都知道他们是谁。
In fact, I’ve already sent out a letter that tells what should be done, and I’ve got another letter that’s addressed that will go out at the time, and it starts out, “Yesterday I died,” and then tells what the plans of the company are.
事实上，我已经发出了一封信，说明该怎么做；还有另一封信信封已写好，会在我去世时寄出，开头就是“昨天我死了”，随后详细说明公司的安排。
GATES: My attitude is a lot like Warren’s. I want to keep doing what I’m doing for a long, long time. I think probably a decade from now or so, even though I’ll still be totally involved with Microsoft because it’s my career, I will pick somebody else to be CEO.
盖茨：我的态度和沃伦很像。我希望自己还能干很久很久。我想大概十年后吧，虽然我仍会全身心投入微软，因为那是我的事业，但我会挑选另一个人来担任 CEO。
BUFFETT: I see some hands in the audience here.
巴菲特：我看到台下有人举手想应聘了。
GATES: That’s a long time hence, and our top managers are always sitting down and talking about succession in general, because we want to make sure that we’re giving people the opportunity to move up. We don’t want to ever create a situation where they feel like it’s clogged and they have to go off somewhere else to get big challenges. Our growth helps a lot. We’re able to spawn off very, very big jobs for people. Picking that next person is something I give a lot of thought to, but it’s probably five years before I have to do something very concrete about it. If there was a surprise, well, there’s a contingency plan.
盖茨：那还早着呢。我们的高管团队一直在坐下来讨论整体的接班问题，因为我们想确保大家都有晋升机会，不会觉得上面被堵住了，必须离开公司才能获得更大的挑战。公司的高速增长大有帮助，我们能够不断衍生出非常重要的岗位。挑选下一任接班人是我常常思考的事，但大概要五年后我才需要采取非常具体的行动。如果突然有什么意外——嗯，我们也有应急预案。
7. Charity Begins When I'm Ready Bill and Warren explain why they'll give away 99% of their wealth... someday.
等我准备好了再行善 比尔和沃伦解释为什么他们将把 99% 的财富捐出去……总有一天。
As two of the world's most successful business people, what role do you see for yourselves in giving back to your communities? And how do you use your influence to get others to give back as well?
作为世界上最成功的两位商界人士，你们认为自己在回馈社区方面应承担什么角色？你们又如何利用自己的影响力促使其他人也参与回馈？
BUFFETT: We both have a similar philosophy on that. I know in my own case that 99%-plus will go back to society, just because we've been treated extraordinarily well by society.
巴菲特：我们在这方面的理念非常相似。我个人至少会把 99% 以上的财富回馈社会，因为社会对我们实在是厚爱有加。
I'm lucky. I don't run very fast, but I'm wired in a particular way that I thrive in a big capitalist economy with a lot of action. I'm not adapted for football, I'm not adapted for violin playing. I happen to be in something that pays off huge in this society. As Bill says, if I had been born some time ago I would've been some animal's lunch.
我很幸运。我跑不快，但我的“线路”正好适合在充满活力的大型资本主义经济体中大展拳脚。我不适合踢橄榄球，也不适合拉小提琴，恰好所从事的事情在当今社会能获得巨大的回报。正如比尔所说，要是我生在久远年代，早就成了某只动物的午餐了。
I do not believe in the divine right of the womb. Frankly, I don't think it's right that the quarterback of the Nebraska football team next year should be the eldest son of the quarterback of the Nebraska football team of 22 years ago. Nor do I think that our Olympic team in 2000 should be chosen from the same family that was on the Olympic team in the various respective sports in 1976.
我不相信“母胎赋权”的神圣性。坦率地讲，我不认为明年内布拉斯加橄榄球队的四分卫应该非得是 22 年前那位四分卫的长子；我也不认为 2000 年奥运代表队必须从 1976 年各项目奥运选手的同一家族里挑人。
We believe in a meritocracy when it comes to athletics and all sorts of things. Now, why not have a meritocracy in terms of what you go out into the world with in terms of the productive goods? Let the resources flow to those who use them best, and then I believe they should give them back to society when they get through.
在体育以及各种领域，我们都信奉精英治之理念。那么，为什么不让这种精英制也体现在你带着哪些生产要素走向世界上？让资源流向最善于利用它们的人，然后在他们功成之后再把资源返还社会，这才合理。
GATES: That's a great philosophy, not to mention that passing along a lot of money can be bad for the people who receive it.
盖茨：这是个很棒的理念，更不用说把大量财富直接传给继承人往往对他们并不好。
BUFFETT: You'd better not put it to a vote.
巴菲特：你最好别把这事拿去投票决定。
How do you use your role as successful businessmen in influencing others, even those who are not as successful, to give back?
作为成功的商人，你们如何利用自己的角色去影响他人，甚至是那些并不那么成功的人，来进行回馈？
BUFFETT: Let me suggest another way to think about this. Let's say that it was 24 hours before you were born, and a genie appeared and said, "You look like a winner. I have enormous confidence in you, and what I'm going to do is let you set the rules of the society into which you will be born. You can set the economic rules and the social rules, and whatever rules you set will apply during your lifetime and your children's lifetimes."
巴菲特：我来提供另一种思考方式。假设现在距离你出生还有 24 小时，一位精灵出现并说：“你看起来像个赢家。我对你充满信心，所以我要让你来制定你即将出生的社会规则。经济规则也好，社会规则也好，只要你定下，这些规则都会在你和你子女的一生中适用。”
And you'll say, "Well, that's nice, but what's the catch?"
而你会说：“听起来不错，但条件是什么？”
And the genie says, "Here's the catch. You don't know if you're going to be born rich or poor, white or black, male or female, able-bodied or infirm, intelligent or retarded." So all you know is that you're going to get one ball out of a barrel with, say, 5.8 billion balls in it. You're going to participate in what I call the ovarian lottery. It's the most important thing that will happen to you in your life, but you have no control over it. It's going to determine far more than your grades at school or anything else that happens to you.
精灵会说：“条件就是，你不知道自己会生而富有还是贫穷，白人还是黑人，男性还是女性，健康还是残障，聪明还是迟钝。”你唯一知道的是，你将从一个装有大约 58 亿个球的桶里抽出一个球；你要参加我所谓的“卵巢彩票”。这是你一生中最重要的事件，却完全不受你控制，它对你命运的影响远胜过你的学校成绩或其他任何事情。
Now, what rules do you want to have? I'm not going to tell you the rules, and nobody will tell you; you have to make them up for yourself. But they will affect how you think about what you do in your will and things of that sort. That's because you're going to want to have a system that turns out more and more goods and services. You've got a great quantity of people out there, and you want them to live pretty well, and you want your kids to live better than you did, and you want your grandchildren to live better than your kids. You're going to want a system that keeps Bill Gates and Andy Grove and Jack Welch working long, long after they don't need to work. You're going to want the most able people working more than 12 hours a day. So you've got to have a system that gives them an incentive to turn out the goods and services.
那么，你想要什么样的规则？我不会告诉你，也没人会告诉你；必须由你自己制定。但这些规则会影响你对遗嘱等事务的看法。原因是你肯定想要一个能够不断产出商品和服务的制度。外面有很多人，你希望他们活得不错；你希望你的孩子比你过得好，你的孙辈又比你的孩子更好。你需要一个体系，让比尔·盖茨、安迪·格鲁夫、杰克·韦尔奇即便早已不必工作，也仍然愿意继续埋头苦干；让最有才能的人每天工作超过 12 小时。因此，你得建立一个能激励他们持续产出商品和服务的体系。
But you're also going to want a system that takes care of the bad balls, the ones that aren't lucky. If you have a system that is turning out enough goods and services, you can take care of them. You don't want people worrying about being sick in their old age, or fearful about going home at night. You want a system where people are free of fear to some extent.
但你也需要一个能照顾“坏球”——那些不走运之人——的体系。只要制度能产出足够多的商品与服务，你就能照顾他们。你不希望人们担忧老年疾病，或害怕夜晚回家；你想要一个在某种程度上让人们免于恐惧的社会。
So you'll try to design something, assuming you have the goods and services to solve that sort of thing. You'll want equality of opportunity--namely a good public school system--to make you feel that every piece of talent out there will get the same shot at contributing. And your tax system will follow from your reasoning on that. And what you do with the money you make is another thing to think about. As you work through that, everybody comes up with something a little different. I just suggest you play that little game.
因此，你会尝试去设计一套制度，前提是你拥有解决这些问题所需的商品和服务。你会想要机会平等——也就是良好的公共教育体系——让你相信每份人才都能获得同样的贡献机会。接着，你的税收体系也会顺着这种逻辑建立。而你如何处置赚到的钱，则是另一个需要思考的课题。当你逐步推演时，每个人都会得出稍有差异的答案。我只是建议你玩玩这场“小游戏”。
How do you see yourselves as leaders in facets of human experience other than business?
除了商业领域之外，你们如何看待自己在其他人类体验层面的领导者角色？
GATES: You have to be careful, if you're good at something, to make sure you don't think you're good at other things that you aren't necessarily so good at. I come in every day and work with a great team of people who are trying to figure out how to make great software, listening to the feedback and doing the research. And it's very typical that because I've been very successful at that, people come in and expect that I have wisdom about topics that I don't.
盖茨：如果你在某件事情上很擅长，就必须谨慎，别因此就以为自己在其他并不擅长的领域也同样出色。我每天都会到公司，与一支优秀的团队合作，努力开发卓越的软件，倾听反馈并开展研究。很常见的情况是，因为我在这方面取得了巨大成功，人们就会找上门来，希望我在一些我并不懂的议题上也能提供真知灼见。
I do think there are some ways that we've run the company--the way we've hired people, and created an environment and used stock options--that would be good lessons for other businesses as well. But I always want to be careful not to suggest that we've found the solutions to all problems.
我确实认为，我们在经营公司时所采取的一些做法——例如招聘方式、营造的工作环境以及股票期权的运用——对其他企业也有借鉴意义。但我始终保持谨慎，从不暗示我们已经找到了所有问题的答案。
BUFFETT: You can learn a lot by studying Microsoft and Bill. And you can learn the most by studying what it is he does year after year. But if he devoted 5% or 10% to what he's now doing, and then spread the remainder of his attention over a bunch of other things, well, society would be worse off, in my view.
巴菲特：研究微软和比尔，你能学到很多；要想学得最多，就去看他年复一年实际在做什么。但在我看来，如果他只把 5% 或 10% 的精力放在当前的工作上，而把剩余注意力分散到一堆其他事情上，社会反而会因此受损。
Bill's right, occasionally there are things--like campaign finance reform--that he may want to take a position on. But you still don't want to say that the whole world ought to follow you on it. I'm very suspect of the person who is very good at one business--it also could be a good athlete or a good entertainer--who starts thinking they should tell the world how to behave on everything. For us to think that just because we made a lot of money, we're going to be better at giving advice on every subject--well, that's just crazy.
比尔说得对，有时确实会有一些事情——比如竞选资金改革——值得他表明立场。但你仍不应要求全世界都追随你的观点。我对那种在某个领域非常出色——可能是企业家，也可能是顶尖运动员或娱乐明星——却开始自认为有资格告诉世人一切该怎么做的人持怀疑态度。仅仅因为我们赚了很多钱，就认为自己能在所有议题上给出更好的建议——那简直太荒唐了。
Having fielded their last question, the two billionaires briefly acknowledged the applause and bolted off the stage, leaving behind an audience that clearly would have relished another two hours of them. But no. Practically before the applause had died down, the two had jumped into Gates' Lexus and sped off. After all, they had a bridge game to play.
在回答完最后一个问题后，这两位亿万富翁简单致意便匆匆离开舞台，留下显然还想再听他们聊上两小时的观众。但并没有更多了。几乎在掌声尚未落定之时，两人已跳进盖茨的雷克萨斯疾驰而去——毕竟，他们还约好打一盘桥牌。