2016-04-18 CAROL LOOMIS.BECOMING WARREN BUFFETT
Refer To：《CAROL LOOMIS.BECOMING WARREN BUFFETT》。
CAROL LOOMIS INTERVIEW
卡罗尔·卢米斯访谈
BECOMING WARREN BUFFETT
《成为沃伦·巴菲特》
KUNHARDT FILM FOUNDATION
昆哈特电影基金会
CAROL LOOMIS
卡罗尔·卢米斯
April 18, 2016
2016 年 4 月 18 日
Interviewed by: Peter Kunhardt
采访者：彼得·昆哈特
Total Running Time: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
总时长：1 小时 28 分钟
TITLE Tap dancing to work
标题 《踩着舞步去上班》
10:11:12:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
It’s a phrase that Warren had used, I think imprinted sometime in which he said that his whole life was focused on—on—on Berkshire and he said, “I love my work so much, I describe myself as tap dancing to work.” And—and so when we were searching for a title for a book, and some very inappropriate ones were coming up, I suddenly thought of this one and I thought, that’s it. And fortunately Warren agreed and the publisher agreed too. Warren loved it, from the minute—he said that, “I’m in for that!” It is just as appropriate as it has always been. He truly loves to do what he does.
沃伦曾用过这个说法，我记得他某次提到自己把全部人生都投入到伯克希尔，他说：“我如此热爱我的工作，以至于形容自己是踩着踢踏舞步去上班。”后来我们在为一本书寻找书名时，出现过一些极不合适的提议，我突然想到这个短语，心想“就是它了”。幸运的是，沃伦同意了，出版社也同意了。沃伦从一开始就爱上了这个标题，他说：“我认同！” 直到今天，这个标题依旧恰如其分；他确实发自内心地热爱自己的工作。
TITLE On their friendship
标题 关于他们的友谊
10:12:21:07
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I—I speak to Warren a lot. First of all, there are a couple of things that we do during the year that I participate in, so I’m always involved over November, and December and January and February with the annual letter. That’s a lot of work between the two of us. He—he writes it, I edit it, I send it back to him, he makes some suggestions and some changes according to what I’ve suggested. He sends it back to me: I make some of the same suggestions that if I really feel strongly about them and sometimes they get picked up and sometimes they don’t but on top of that, we talk a lot. And when I was at Fortune, we talked really, really a lot. We talked almost every day because there were a lot of things coming up in the business world that were interesting to both of us and so we would talk. We don’t talk quite as much today but we—we—we do talk about important things and the two of us are always feel free to call the other so that’s how it works.
我——我经常和沃伦通话。首先，每年我们会合作几件事，其中之一是年度股东信，所以每年十一月、十二月以及次年一月、二月我都会深度参与。这对我们俩来说都是大量工作：他撰写信件，我进行编辑，再发回给他；他会根据我的建议作出一些修改并再寄回给我；如果我对某些修改意见非常坚持，就会再提一次，有时被采纳，有时不被采纳。除此之外，我们也经常聊天。我在《财富》杂志工作时，我们几乎每天都谈，因为商界总有许多令我们都感兴趣的新鲜事。现在我们聊得没那么频繁，但我们依旧会在重要事情上交流，而且彼此都可以随时打电话给对方——就是这样运作的。
TITLE Weekly bridge games
标题 每周桥牌赛
10:13:38:06
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren and I play bridge together one night a week online. He also plays a lot with a world champion named Sharon Osberg and that’s—that’s a great thing. I don’t let much interfere with my Monday nights.
我和沃伦每周有一个晚上会在线一起打桥牌。他还常与世界冠军莎伦·奥斯伯格搭档比赛，那也非常棒。我几乎不会让任何事情打扰我的周一夜晚。
I would say Warren is—in bridge as much as he is in business, he’s very competitive. He doesn’t like to make mistakes. He doesn’t like to be frozen into rules that other people might think were mandatory for them to have. He likes to be a little more flexible than that. He plays his cards extremely well. He sometimes will take a little bit of a flier on a bid but he’s a very good player and I’m sorry to say he’s better than I am. Not much more but he’s better than I am.
我想说，在桥牌中，沃伦像在商业上一样好胜。他不喜欢犯错，也不喜欢被别人视为必须遵守的规则所束缚，他更喜欢灵活运用。他的出牌技巧极佳，有时在叫牌上会略显冒险，但他确实打得很好，遗憾的是他比我强——虽然只强一点点，但确实比我强。
10:11:03:14
We were playing bridge at Kay Graham’s apartment in New York over on the east side. I think the other two players were probably my husband, John Loomis and a friend of ours, George Gillespie although the constitution of the bridge game sometimes changed. And they wanted a picture for Fortune Magazine where I worked and they said lets get one at the bridge table so I went—went over and sat down and pulled my cards back, tried to look like—exactly like we were playing, and Warren on a spur of the moment leaned over to look at my cards and I broke into laughter. It was—it was perfect, it was a great example of his sense of humor which is—is very extraordinary. When people say things to him, his instinctive wish is to say something funny back and he—he manages to do that a greater number of times than almost any person I know.
那次我们在纽约东区凯·格雷厄姆的公寓里打桥牌。我记得另外两位牌手大概是我的丈夫约翰·卢米斯，以及我们的朋友乔治·吉莱斯皮，虽然参赛阵容有时会变化。《财富》杂志需要一张照片，他们说想在桥牌桌旁拍一张，于是我走过去坐下，把牌收近，摆出正在打牌的样子。沃伦一时兴起，凑过来看我的牌，我立刻笑出声来。那一刻十分完美，充分展示了他非凡的幽默感。别人跟他说话时，他本能地就想说句俏皮话回应，而且他做到这一点的次数，比我认识的几乎任何人都多。
TITLE First hearing about Warren Buffett
标题 首次听说沃伦·巴菲特
10:12:22:07
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I first came to hear about Warren Buffett when my husband who was a—always worked in Wall Street jobs and was working for a small institutional firm at that time was assigned the Mid West to cover and he read about Warren, never had heard of him. Here was this fellow in Omaha who seemed to be making a move in investments and
我第一次得知沃伦·巴菲特，是因为我丈夫——他一直在华尔街工作，当时在一家小型机构担任分析师——被派去负责中西部市场，他读到有关沃伦的报道，此前从未听说过此人。原来奥马哈有这么一位在投资界崭露头角的人物。
Warr—John wrote him a letter and said, “I’m going to be in Omaha on Monday, could I possibly come over to see you?” And to me, the amazing fact is Warren saw John because he never got his ideas from securities salesmen yet here he was wiling to have John stop by and they went out to lunch, had a good time. I’m sure that John told him I work for Fortune. I’m sure that Warren was immediately interested because he had said, that if he hadn’t been an investor, he would have been a journalist and that would have been a great loss for the investment world but a really a great gain for the journalism world.
于是约翰给他写信说：“我星期一会到奥马哈，能否拜访你？” 令我惊讶的是，沃伦同意见约翰——他一向不从证券销售员那里获取投资想法，却愿意接待约翰，两人还一起共进午餐，聊得十分愉快。我相信约翰告诉他我在《财富》杂志工作。我也确信沃伦立刻产生了兴趣，因为他曾说过，如果不做投资人，他会去当记者；那对投资界会是巨大损失，但对新闻界则是莫大收获。
10:13:32:18
And—so when he and Susie, his late wife Susie came to New York not very long after that, they asked us to have lunch and first I—John came back from this meeting with Warren and said, “I think I may have met the smartest investor in the country.” And I’m sure I rolled my eyes like wives do when their husbands overstate things, but I said, “oh yes, ok.” And then when we went to lunch with Susie and Warren a couple of months later, I said, this guy is the smartest investor in the country. If not, the smartest guy. I’ve never been sure it’s been limited to investments.
之后不久，沃伦和已故妻子苏茜来到纽约，邀请我们共进午餐。约翰与沃伦见面回来后说：“我可能遇到了全国最聪明的投资者。” 我肯定像很多妻子那样翻了个白眼，觉得他夸大其词，只答道：“哦，是吗？” 但几个月后，我们与苏茜和沃伦一起吃午餐时，我心想：这人确实是全国最聪明的投资者，甚至可能是最聪明的人——我从未确定他的聪明是否仅限于投资领域。
TITLE Warren and investing
标题 沃伦与投资
10:14:30:12
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Well, about investments, his father once said of him, “That boy can see around corners where investments are concerned.” And I do think that he can—he does have a vision for investments that other people find it extremely hard to duplicat—duplicate and he has a philosophy to go with it. And he sticks with the philosophy and he’s incredibly patient, which most investors are not. That is a big failing of investors. And then he knows business so well. He has a better grasp of business than anybody I know, of all businesses. And if it’s one he doesn’t know, he’s willing to take the time to learn it, he’s willing to be patient about that and he brings this incisive mind to the job. His IQ is off the charts. All the Buffett children were tested for their IQ when they were kids. I’m not sure that Warren was even the highest, the girls I think were extremely high but his IQ is way, way up there and he has the ability to use it in ways that are beyond other people. He’s amazing.
谈到投资，他父亲曾说：“这孩子在投资方面能拐过弯看见前方。” 我确实认为他拥有别人难以复制的投资远见，并且配以一套完整的投资哲学。他始终坚持这一哲学，且具有惊人的耐心——大多数投资者都缺乏耐心，这是他们的重大缺陷。此外，他对企业的了解无人能及，几乎所有行业他都比我认识的任何人掌握得更透彻。若遇到不熟悉的行业，他愿意花时间学习，耐心钻研，并以敏锐头脑投入其中。他的智商高得惊人。巴菲特家的孩子在童年时都做过智商测试，我不确定沃伦是不是最高的，女孩们的分数也非常高，但他的智商绝对名列前茅，而且他能以常人难及的方式加以运用。他令人惊叹。
TITLE Warren’s childhood
标题 沃伦的童年
10:16:02:07
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren’s childhood was as you—indeed I did not know him at all at the time so I only know what I’ve heard. He was not close to his mother. He never would talk very much, at least to me about the relationships between him and his mother. He was extremely close to his father. His father was his hero. I think he was a hero to his sisters also. But Warren grew up thinking of his father as the man he would most like to emulate and it was something that’s never left him. To this day, that he says that his father influenced him immeasurably and installed in him a code of ethics that he’s never ever stopped following.
关于沃伦的童年——当时我完全不认识他，只能转述听来的故事。他与母亲关系不亲密，至少在我面前他很少谈及母子关系。他与父亲感情极深，父亲是他的英雄——我想也是他妹妹们的英雄。沃伦从小就把父亲视作最想效仿的人，这种想法至今未曾改变。他常说父亲对他影响深远，在他心中植入了一套终身遵循的道德准则。
10:17:04:18
I did meet his mother. At one time as a matter of fact, I made a special effort to—to interview her. I thought at one time I might write a book about Warren. As I’ve described it, it was all hat and no cattle. And we never ended up doing it, primarily because he didn’t want to put the time in that it would have taken just knowing how many hours he would have to be thinking about the book even though I was going to write it. And anyway, for that I interviewed his mother. Prob—it was probably the second time I had met her. I interviewed Bertie, his younger sister and so I—I did—I did talk to his mother. I came away with the feeling that she didn’t influence him very much. I think there was a gap between them and he was—he and his mother sort of got along—well they didn’t get along but they sort of lived parallel lives and he was mainly influenced by his father, very much so.
我确实见过他的母亲。有一次我特意去采访她，当时我想也许能写本关于沃伦的书——正如我形容的，那只是“雷声大雨点小”，最终并未成书，主要因为他不愿投入那必须花费的大量时间去思考书稿内容，即便撰写工作由我完成。为此我采访了他母亲，那大概是我第二次见她。我还采访了他的小妹伯蒂。所以我确实与他母亲聊过。我的感觉是，她对他的影响并不大。他们之间存在隔阂，算不上合得来，却也算不上不合，只是各自过着平行的生活；他主要受父亲影响——影响极深。
TITLE Warren’s love of boxing
标题 沃伦对拳击的热爱
10:18:45:16
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I think that one thing they would be surprised to know about Warren if they didn’t know him and—and hadn’t read is that he loves prizefights, boxing. He watches every Friday night. He has even had Floyd Mayweather, the boxer on a Buffett movie. That just always has struck me as one of those idiosyncratic things that you just qui—can’t quite imagine for Warren Buffett. I don’t—otherwise, his personality is sort of out there. What you see is what you get.
如果人们不认识沃伦、也没读过相关报道，他们也许会惊讶地发现他热爱拳击比赛。他每周五晚上都会看拳赛，甚至曾让拳王弗洛伊德·梅威瑟出现在一部关于巴菲特的影片里。这一直让我觉得颇为独特——很难把这种嗜好与沃伦·巴菲特联系在一起。除此之外，他的个性就摆在那儿——你看到的就是他本人的样子。
TITLE The game of business
标题 商业游戏
10:19:37:06
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When he says that business is a game that he plays, I think he means that he’s not in it for the money but that it’s the most astounding game that exists, for anybody who has his talents and interests and he enjoys playing it better than anyone else has and it’s—it’s extraordinary what he’s accomplished. Berkshire is an amazing company, fourth largest company in the Fortune 500. He is the only man, only person I should say in the—in the history of the Fortune 500, which is now 50 years old who has ever from scratch from a tiny little company built a company that is in the top ten of the Fortune 500. Berkshire Hathaway is—is an amazing company and sometimes I think that people don’t realize just how amazing it is.
当他说“商业是一场游戏”时，我认为他的意思并不是为了赚钱，而是因为对拥有他那样天赋与兴趣的人来说，这是世上最精彩的游戏，他比任何人都更享受其中，并且取得了非凡成就。伯克希尔是一家惊人的公司，位列《财富》500 强第 4。他是《财富》500 强 50 年历史中唯一一个从零开始、把一家小公司做进前十的人。伯克希尔·哈撒韦确实是一家了不起的企业，我有时觉得人们并未真正意识到其卓越之处。
TITLE Warren’s social interactions
标题 沃伦的人际互动
10:21:03:16
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Well Warren Buffett probably is the most rational person I’ve ever met. Charlie Munger would be a close rival, maybe—maybe one would have the edge. And—and most people are not as rational as Warren and Charlie are. And so I think that when he was dealing with people, he was expecting rationality and they—they were not behaving that way. So I think that was what he—and they—they would say things also that they did not—that were—they would say things that were not exactly honest knowing that they weren’t—going to quite live up to them whereas he always knew that what he was going to do he was going to live up to and I think those were things that he found it hard to accommodate in the way that other people be—reacted.
沃伦·巴菲特大概是我遇到过最理性的人，查理·芒格可算势均力敌，或许略胜一筹。大多数人都不像沃伦和查理那样理性。因此，当他与人交往时，会预期对方同样理性，可事实往往并非如此。人们有时会说一些他们明知无法兑现、并不完全诚实的话，而沃伦始终明白自己要言而有信。我想正是这种不匹配，使他难以适应他人那种反应方式。
TITLE Warren’s values
标题 沃伦的价值观
10:22:15:14
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren’s values are to be very honest, to do what you’re going to say—say. When Berkshire Hathaway makes a bid for a company, there are people who are out there in the world who think this bid isn’t going to go through and the fact is, that bid is always going to be accomplished, always going to be followed through on and so that’s a big part of his values. His values are to never—never equivocate although he can be—he has a great deal of judgment about how to handle people and so he may be very tactful in what he says but basically he—he wants to lead a life that he and his father—if his father was still living would say is a good one. And his values extend through all of his life. He does not have a pers—one personality he brings to business and one personality he takes home, that is absolutely not the way he is. He’s got a set of values that he sticks to.
沃伦的价值观是保持高度诚信，说到做到。当伯克希尔·哈撒韦对某家公司发出收购要约时，外界总有人怀疑交易能否完成，但事实是，这类要约必定会被履行到底——这正是他价值观的重要组成部分。他从不含糊其词，虽然他深谙待人之道，措辞常常委婉而圆融，但根本上，他希望过一种连他的父亲——如果尚在世——都会认可的好人生。他的价值观贯穿一生，不会在商务场合和私人生活中出现两幅面孔——那绝不是他的行事方式。他有一整套坚定不移的价值准则并始终恪守。
TITLE Susie
标题 苏茜
10:23:54:00
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Susie was one of the warmest and charming people that I’ve ever met. She was extremely empathetic. She had a great interest in other people. She could have been a journalist in one way because Warren used to talk about that if—if Susie sat by somebody at the end of—at a dinner, that a half an hour later they were—had given her—taken her into their complete confidence and they would know she would go home thinking about it. And very smart, very interested in—in—in doing the right things and using the money that the Buffett’s came to have in ways that would be beneficial for people who weren’t so lucky. She was an extraordinary person.
苏茜是我遇到过最温暖、最迷人的人之一。她极具同理心，对他人充满兴趣。沃伦常说，如果晚宴结束时苏茜坐在某人旁边，半小时后那人就会完全信任她，而她也会把对方的事放在心上。从某种角度看，她本可以成为一名记者。她非常聪明，热衷于做正确的事，并把巴菲特家族积累的财富用于帮助那些不那么幸运的人。她是一个非凡的人。
I absolutely would say that Susie led Warren toward interacting socially and changing his political views. He grew up as a young republican: his father was a republican congressman. Warren had nothing in his early life that would suggest he could have been a strong democrat but Susie saw things in different ways and led him—led him toward changing his political views and he certainly has—has stuck with them now for an enormously long time. It’s possible that he would have changed without Susie but I sort of doubt, she was the catalyst.
毫无疑问，是苏茜引导沃伦更多地社交，并改变了他的政治观念。他年轻时是共和党人——他的父亲是共和党国会议员。沃伦早年的经历并未显示他会成为坚定的民主党人，但苏茜用不同的视角看问题，引导他改变立场，而他此后长期坚持这些立场。没有苏茜他或许也会改变，但我对此存疑——她就是那个催化剂。
TITLE Warren as a child
标题 沃伦的童年
10:26:24:16
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I didn’t know Warren when all of this was occurring but I think he was a strange kid. In some ways he was beyond his years. When he was young, he could talk to adults and they loved him as a matter of fact. Here was some smart kid, he was funny. They really loved how he was but I think he was a little bizarre in some ways. When he went to interview for Harvard business school, I think he was 15, wait—he has said he looked like he was 12. And he didn’t get accepted which of course the Harvard business school has never been able to live down. And I think he takes a kind of a joy in that he couldn’t get into Harvard business school. But I think she made him into a much more normal kind of person. She changed his political sensibilities, she was always there for him whenever he needed to turn to her and he was extremely dependent on Susie and what she was like.
这些事情发生时我并不认识沃伦，但我觉得他是个有点古怪的孩子。在某些方面他早熟得超出同龄人。小时候他就能与大人交谈，而且大人们都很喜欢他——聪明风趣。不过他在某些方面也显得有些离奇。他去哈佛商学院面试时大约十五岁——他说自己看起来像十二岁——最后没被录取，这让哈佛商学院至今难堪。我想他对进不了哈佛商学院还有几分得意。但苏茜让他变得更加“正常”。她改变了他的政治敏感性，每当他需要依靠她时，她总在身边；他对苏茜及其性格极为依赖。
TITLE Emotion and business
标题 情感与商业
10:29:24:04
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I think that part of Warren’s success comes from the fact that he does not have the same emotional currents affecting his business decisions that other people do. He tries to extract emotions from his business decisions. This is part of his rationality. That’s a key part of being rational. But I—I al—but I think that he may overstate that too. He hates to fire people. Emotions som—certainly come into that. He’s very caring about his employees so that I—I don’t think that he just erases emotion from what he does but in his investment decisions, it is essential to the decisions that he’s making. If he wished not to be emotional and which I think he does, I don’t think he succeeds completely because he does have these things that infringe on his decisions.
我认为沃伦成功的一部分在于，他在商业决策中并不像其他人那样受情绪左右。他努力把情感从商业决策中剥离，这是他理性的一部分，也是理性的关键。但我也认为他可能把这一点说得过了。他讨厌解雇员工——情感显然会介入其中。他非常关心员工，所以我不认为他完全消除了行动中的情感。不过在投资决策上，情感抽离对他至关重要。如果说他确实想做到不夹杂情绪——我相信他想——我觉得他并未完全成功，因为仍有这些因素渗入他的决策。
TITLE Warren’s opinion of Wall Street investment bankers
标题 沃伦对华尔街投行家的看法
10:34:17:20
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren’s opinions of Wall Street investment bankers would not endear him to their mothers. He feels that they’re for the most part not out for their clients: they’re out for their own business interests. I don’t think he thinks that their honesty is always great so he is not a general admirer of Wall Street bankers. I think that certain investment bankers knew how smart Warren was. I remember Bruce Rosenstein, a very famous Wall Streeter saying you have to be very careful when negotiating with Warren because he’s so smart that he’ll pick you if you’re not careful and so—and also he was mor—Warren was more inflexible than a—than an investment banker would want him to be. He—he’d name a price on a business and he thought that was the price that the business was worth and he wouldn’t budge from that and—and Wall Street bankers really like people who negotiate. Warren is not a negotiator. I’m just thinking, he and Don Trump would not be exactly on the same wavelength about negotiating.
沃伦对华尔街投资银行家的看法不会让他们的母亲喜欢。他认为他们大多不是为客户着想，而是为了自己的商业利益。我想他也不认为他们总是很诚实，因此他并不是一般意义上的华尔街投行崇拜者。我记得著名华尔街人士布鲁斯·罗森斯坦说过，与沃伦谈判必须非常小心，因为他太聪明，如果你不谨慎就会被他占便宜。而且沃伦的立场比投行家希望的更为坚定。他会给企业报出一个认为合理的价格，绝不会让步——而投行家喜欢讨价还价。沃伦不是谈判者。我想，他和唐纳德·特朗普在谈判这件事上肯定不在同一频道。
TITLE Warren’s investment into Salomon Brothers
标题 沃伦对所罗门兄弟的投资
10:36:22:01
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When Warren made the investment in Salomon, I was one of the people, along with many, many others who were quite amazed, because he—he had taken a very critical tone in talking about investment bankers and their greed and here he was, investing in one, Salomon brothers that was known to be a member of the club. It just didn’t quite add up. But there was a man then running Salomon, John Goodfriend that Warren had had business dealings with and had found John always to be honest and forthcoming and beneficial to the client and that was very important for Warren. If somebody has treated him honestly and expertly, he is likely to come back and respond.
沃伦投资所罗门兄弟时，包括我在内的许多人都感到十分惊讶，因为他过去谈到投资银行家及其贪婪时一直持批判态度，而此刻他却投资了一家众所周知属同一行列的所罗门兄弟，这似乎说不通。但当时管理所罗门的是约翰·古德弗伦德，沃伦曾与他有过业务往来，并一直认为约翰诚实、坦率且对客户有利，这对沃伦来说极其重要。如果有人以诚信与专业对待他，他就很可能回报以行动。
TITLE Issues at Salomon Brothers
标题 所罗门兄弟的问题
10:37:45:15
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When Salomon’s problems erupted, my memory is that Warren first learned about it when he was in Las Vegas except he really didn’t quite understand what the problems were at the time. And he had gone to Las Vegas with a family named Blumpkin who ran the Nebraska Furniture Mart. And it was a once a year expedition that they all looked forward to. And he got a call and went out to a pay telephone, he got a call about Salomon, went to a pay telephone to understand that there was something very important that John Goodfriend wanted to talk to him about and he had no idea what it was and did not learn that evening really what it was.
据我记得，所罗门的问题爆发时，沃伦身在拉斯维加斯，但当时他并未真正弄清问题所在。他与经营内布拉斯加家具商场的布朗普金一家一年一次地出游拉斯维加斯，大家都很期待。途中他接到电话，特地走到付费电话亭，再次接到关于所罗门的来电，只得知约翰·古德弗伦德有件极其重要的事情要与他谈，却完全不知其内容，当晚也未弄清究竟发生了什么。
10:39:20:15
The problem at Salomon that Warren eventually h—learned about was that a – an important employee of Salomon’s had basically lied to the Federal Reserve about Salomon’s accumulation of a certain issue of government bonds and the lying to the Fed was just not something that was done. It was a—it was an egregious crime and once it was discovered by management at Salomon, it had not been—it had been covered up. They never thought of it that way but it—it—it was covered up and the Fed did not learn what had happened.
沃伦后来了解到，所罗门的问题源于一名关键员工向美联储谎报公司对某期国债的持仓；对美联储撒谎是绝不可为之事，这是一桩严重罪行。管理层发现后并未上报，事实上被掩盖起来——他们并未如此自觉，但确实如此，美联储并不知道发生了什么。
10:40:11:21
There was a letter from the Federal Reserve to the management of Salomon saying that the crime had been a grievous crime and it was likely that the Fed would have to take action about this and the Fed assumed that the letter had gone to the board of directors. Warren was not a part of management at this time the company was run by John Goodfriend and—but the board never saw this letter so there were conversations that Warren engaged in after that where mysterious references were made to a letter that he had no idea what they were talking about. It was like two people were talking right by each other. And it was only much later that he learned about the letter.
美联储曾致函所罗门管理层，指出该行为是严重罪行，美联储可能必须采取行动，并假定这封信已递交董事会。当时沃伦并非管理层成员，公司由约翰·古德弗伦德经营，但董事会从未见过此信。随后沃伦在交谈中听到别人神秘提到一封信，他根本不知所指何物，双方仿佛对牛弹琴。直到很久以后，他才知道那封信的存在。
TITLE Warren’s reaction to the Salomon Brothers scandal
标题 沃伦对所罗门兄弟丑闻的反应
10:41:21:15
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When – when Salomon’s problems erupted, Warren was in Omaha doing his usual thing of running Berkshire Hathaway, making one big decision a year as he has sometimes said. And he was on the phone with John Goodfriend and Tom Strauss, the number two guy at Salomon and it became clear to Warren during that conversation as I remember it on a Friday morning that he—that somebody needed to step in and run Salomon, there was a need and he was the logical guy to do it. To this day, I think that Warren thinks he suggested that he come to New York to start running Salomon. I think John Goodfriend, who just recently died might say that it was his idea for Warren to do this but at any rate, the upshot was that Warren, if this happened on a Friday, by Saturday he was in New York and by Sunday he was appearing before the press as the new acting CEO of Salomon.
当所罗门的问题爆发时，沃伦正在奥马哈做他日常的伯克希尔管理工作——他常说自己一年只做一次重大决策。那天周五早晨，他与约翰·古德弗伦德及所罗门的二号人物汤姆·施特劳斯通话。沃伦在通话中意识到，必须有人接管所罗门，而他是合乎逻辑的人选。直到今天，沃伦可能仍认为是他提议自己赴纽约执掌所罗门；而已故的约翰·古德弗伦德或许会说这是他的主意。无论如何，结果是：若事发周五，周六沃伦便抵达纽约，周日就以所罗门新任代理 CEO 身份出现在媒体面前。
TITLE Salomon Brothers’ threat
标题 所罗门兄弟的威胁
10:42:47:17
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
There was an important moment in this whole Salomon affair in which Warren called Nick Brady who was the secretary of the Treasury. Nick Brady was at the horse races in Saratoga and I guess he was pulled out of the stands to take this call and Warren told him if the Fed went through with its threat, that it was going to change Salomon’s status and not allow it to—not allow it to sell and trade in government bonds, that it would destroy Salomon. And Warren thought, and he still thinks to this day, he does think that if S—if Salomon went down, it would take other important parts of Wall Street with it and he said all of this to Nick Brady and Nick kept saying, “now Warren you’re overstating this problem, it’s going to be alright.” They were old friends. And Warren kept saying to him, “No you don’t understand. The matter is as serious as I’m saying it is to you and you need to take some action.” And when Nick Brady had gotten off the phone, he still hadn’t been convinced but events then began to change and in time he did take some action.
在整起所罗门事件中，有一个关键时刻：沃伦给时任美国财政部长尼克·布雷迪打电话。当时布雷迪正在萨拉托加赛马场观看比赛，我想他是被人从看台上叫出来接通此话的。沃伦告诉他，如果美联储兑现其威胁——改变所罗门的资格，禁止其买卖政府债券——那将摧毁所罗门。沃伦认为（并且至今仍认为）如果所罗门垮掉，华尔街其他重要机构也会被拖下水。他把这些都告诉了布雷迪，而布雷迪不断说：“沃伦，你把问题夸大了，一切都会好的。” 他们是多年的老友。但沃伦继续对他说：“不，你不了解，事情正如我说的那样严重，你必须采取行动。” 布雷迪挂电话时仍未被说服，但随后事态发展，他最终采取了措施。
这个人的母亲Eliot Chace，是BRK的老股东。
10:44:31:18
The threat from Treasury that made Warren think that it was so dire that he could—that Salomon could not take it was that Salomon would no longer be able to be a government trader. The Fed had that ability to say who could trade government bonds and the Fed was in effect saying you are—you are terribly—you’re an evil force and we don’t want you trading our bonds.
让沃伦认定问题严峻到所罗门无法承受的，是财政部的威胁：所罗门将被剥夺政府债券承销商资格。美联储有权决定谁能参与国债交易，这实际上就是美联储在说：“你们太糟糕——是个害群之马，我们不想让你们交易我们的债券。”
TITLE August 18th, 1991
标题 1991 年 8 月 18 日
10:45:11:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren said that it was the most important day in his life. I’ve always—I’ve always thought about that, just because I think the most important day of his life was when he married Susie. I always wondered what Susie thought about that. Warren had always said that you can go through life building your reputation and in five minutes it can be destroyed and he believed that at that particular point that his reputation was on the line. He had not—he had not come in to take over Salomon brothers to save it from bankruptcy. He had come in to keep it on its feet, get it restored as a—as a trader of government bonds and the thought that it was going to end up as bankruptcy was just unimaginable to him. And I don’t—and he—he said—he told Nick Brady that he not going to stay around to run it if it became bankrupt and Nick Brady did not believe him but I believe it would have happened. He would have said, “I was not—I did not come to rescue Salomon with the thoughts that it was going to become bankrupt and I will—I’m not gonna stay around, you can find somebody else for that.”
沃伦说那是他一生中最重要的一天。我一直对此颇有感触，因为我认为他生命中最重要的日子应是他与苏茜结婚的那天，不知道苏茜对此作何感想。沃伦常说，人的名誉可用一生去建立，却能在五分钟内毁掉；而在那一刻，他相信自己的名誉岌岌可危。他接手所罗门兄弟，并不是要把公司从破产中拯救出来；他是为了让它站稳脚跟，恢复其政府债券交易商的地位，根本无法想象公司最终走向破产。他告诉尼克·布雷迪，如果所罗门破产，他不会留下来管理。布雷迪并不相信，但我相信沃伦会这么做——他会说：“我来所罗门可不是为了看它破产，我不会留下，你们另请高明吧。”
TITLE The impact Salomon had on Warren’s persona
标题 所罗门事件对沃伦形象的影响
10:47:06:04
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Well in the end, the Fed did not—in the end the Fed did not come forth with the most terrible thing it could do. It relented to some point—at some point— to some—it relented to some degree and Salomon proceeded to—although its stock was wrecked at that point, proceeded to behave pretty much as it had been but the whole incident had been so extreme and carried out in the public that the government called hearings and Warren had to go down and testify. Certainly for the first time that he’d ever had to do anything like that. He’d hardly been involved in anything that hadn’t gone well and here he was, the man on the spot being called to testify at government hearings and to this day, he uses that episode, the televised episode as he began, it goes in every Berkshire movie because he wants the people who work for him, the managers of his business to hear that every year. Extraneous. I always argue that it’s time to take it out. I don’t get any place.
最终，美联储并没有采取最严厉的处罚，而是有所让步。虽然当时所罗门的股价已被重创，但公司随后基本恢复正常运作。事件极为轰动、公开，政府因此举行听证会，沃伦不得不到场作证——这是他人生首次经历此类场合。他之前几乎未曾卷入过负面事件，却成了风口浪尖的人物。直到今天，他仍把那段电视直播片段放进每年的“伯克希尔电影”，让旗下经理人年年观看。我总说该删了，可从未成功。
TITLE Warren’s message to Congress regarding Salomon
标题 沃伦就所罗门事件给国会的讯息
10:48:54:14
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
He has said that if it’s a mistake—if—if an employ—if a Salomon employee makes a mistake, he will understand. If he—if he is—if he does something that could land up on the front page of the New York Times, he will be unforgiving, he will be ruthless. And—it was a big word. I argued at the time it was too big a word. I was having conversations with Warren during this period. First of all, he was—he was in New York and I saw him maybe once or twice. There was a shareholder meeting while all of this was going on and during his famous press conference on Sunday right after he had become acting CEO of Salomon, I was at that press conference so I was very tuned in to what was going on.
他说过，如果所罗门的员工只是犯了错误——他可以理解；但如果做了可能登上《纽约时报》头版的事情，他将绝不宽恕，甚至会“无情”——这是个分量很重的词。我当时认为这词太重了。在那段时间我多次与沃伦交流；他人在纽约，我见了他一两次。事件期间正好赶上股东大会，而他成为所罗门代理 CEO 后那个周日举行的著名新闻发布会，我也在现场，因此对整个过程了如指掌。
TITLE Having faith in Warren
标题 对沃伦的信心
10:50:09:13
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I was nervous for him. On the other hand, I think he is so capable of handling almost any situation I thought—I thought he would—I thought he would do it. This one was putting strains on him that he had never had before but when a question came up at the press conference about how he was going to handle the fact that he had this big company in Omaha and he was gonna be in New York handling Sal—Salomon, he said, “Well my mother has sewn my name on my underwear so it’s going to be ok.”
我为他感到紧张。但另一方面，我觉得他几乎能应付任何情况，我相信他能做到。这件事给他带来了前所未有的压力，可当记者会上有人问他：既要在奥马哈管理那家大公司，又要在纽约处理所罗门的事务，该怎么办？他回答说：“没关系，我妈已经把名字缝在我内裤上了。”
TITLE Warren didn’t take any pay from Salomon
标题 沃伦未从所罗门领取报酬
10:51:11:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren did—decided from th—the—or said from the very beginning that if he took over at—at Salomon, first of all he hoped it would be temporary and he would be taking no money from Salomon. He was a dollar a year man I guess in the sense that that word is often used. He—he never—he never took any money for it. And people said, well of course he’s doing this because of his large stake in Salomon Brothers. And I never believed that was true. I—I believed—of course he wouldn’t have been in the position if he hadn’t had that large stake because there wouldn’t have been any—a dialogue between him and John Goodfriend but I never believed that. I—it was—it was a potential blot on his life, he did not want this to happen, he wanted to save the firm and I think the money that Berkshire had in it was a very secondary matter.
沃伦一开始就表示，如果他接管所罗门，首先希望只是暂时的，其次不会领取任何报酬。他算是名义上的“年薪一美元”人士——实际上一分钱都没拿。有人说这当然是因为他在所罗门兄弟持股很多。我从不认同这种看法。当然，没有那笔大持股，他也不会处于那样的位置，无法与约翰·古德弗伦德对话；但我从未认为赚钱是他的动机。这件事可能给他的人生抹黑，他不愿意这样，他想拯救公司，而伯克希尔投进去的那点钱只是次要因素。
TITLE One good business decision per year
标题 一年只要做出一个好决策
10:53:36:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Well when Warren took the job at Salomon, he—he had once said that he was—if he made one good decision at Berkshire a year, he was doing his job. Salomon required him to make one decision after another, every day. A hundred—maybe not a hundred a day but certainly ten big ones a day and it was a world he wasn’t totally familiar with but he—he did it because he—he—he knew that somebody had to do it and he said, “I was the right person.” I’m sorry I think I forgot part of your question. In this world where he had to make all these decisions, where he had to deal with all these people who were very, very greedy where he could not even make any headway against a compensation system that was pretty egregious and is still today being fought over. He knew that—that he—he was at the right place. Omaha all his life was the place he wanted to be and he knew that the work he was doing at Berkshire which he never considered work, it was part of his tap dancing to work routine, he knew that how lucky he’d been that he was not in this environment and that he was going to return to the environment that was perfect for him.
沃伦接手所罗门时，他曾说过：在伯克希尔一年只要做出一个好决策就算尽职。而在所罗门，他必须天天连下重决策，也许不是每天一百个，但肯定有十个大决定。这是他并不熟悉的世界，可他还是做了，因为他知道必须有人站出来，而他说：“那个人就是我。” 抱歉我可能漏掉了你问题的一部分。在这里，他得面对一群极其贪婪的人，还要与严重失衡的薪酬体系博弈——至今仍饱受争议。他明白自己此刻身处正确的位置。奥马哈始终是他想待的地方，而他在伯克希尔所做的工作，他从不视为工作，那是他“踩着舞步去上班”日常的一部分；他清楚自己多么幸运，不必长久呆在这种环境里，并终将回到最适合他的那片天地。
TITLE If Salomon had gone down
标题 如果所罗门倒下了
10:55:48:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
We’ll never know what would’ve happened if Salomon had gone down but Warren believed and still believes to this day that it was an integral part of this Wall Street where promises are taken for granted and people trade every day on the theory that they will get paid. He felt that the infrastructure there was not set up for a severe shock like Salomon going down, and on that Sunday when all of this was being debated as what would happen, the key point was that the Japanese market was going to open that night and if it was – if the Salomon situation was still as severe as the Fed wanted it to be, Warren believed that trading in Japan would be really effected and then it would just roll around the world. And he believed there was a “too big to fail” scenario. The term was not used then like it later came to be in 2008 but he believed that Salomon was too big to fail and that it would fail if the Feds stuck to it’s dictum that it was to be removed from trading.
我们永远无法知道如果所罗门倒下会发生什么，但沃伦当时就相信，至今也相信，所罗门是华尔街生态中不可或缺的一环——那里默认承诺必将兑现，人们每天基于“交易后一定能收款”的理念进行买卖。他认为，该系统的基础设施无法承受所罗门倒下的剧烈冲击。那周日大家激辩后果时，关键问题是：当晚日本市场即将开盘；如果美联储依旧让局势维持在极度严峻的状态，沃伦相信日本的交易将受到严重影响，并会波及全球。他认定存在“太大而不能倒”的情形——当年还未像 2008 年那样广为人知，但他确信所罗门“不能倒”，若美联储坚持将其踢出交易席位，所罗门必将破产。
TITLE Ben Graham and “value investing”
标题 本·格雷厄姆与“价值投资”
10:57:27:12
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Unfortunately my total exposure to Ben Graham was hearing a speech of his one day but he believed that—he basically coined the term “value investing.” He believed in a careful scrutiny of a companies financial statements, decisions based on the probability that this was a success—a company that could survive under any circumstances and the belief that if you bought value, it would eventually prove out. And one of his dictums that Warren has said is, the two rules of investing according to Warren and I think he got this from Ben Graham. The first rule is never lose money and the second rule is never forget the first rule.
不幸的是，我与本·格雷厄姆的全部接触就是某天听过他的演讲。他基本上创造了“价值投资”这一术语，主张仔细审阅公司财务报表，并基于公司在任何环境下都能存续并取得成功的概率来作决策，相信只要买入价值，最终必会兑现。沃伦常引述他的格言：投资有两条规则——第一条，永远不要亏钱；第二条，永远不要忘记第一条。
TITLE Investments as cigar butts
标题 投资烟蒂
10:59:01:07
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When Warren was first into investments, and he learned this from Ben Graham, he was—his investments often were to buy a company you could figure was a discarded cigar butt, but it had one more smoke in it and he wanted to buy at the right time to be able to pull out the one smoke, to be able to benefit from the one smoke and so the cigar—the discarded cigar butt theory was one that he used at the beginning of his investment life. Warren, if he bought a discarded cigar butt company would certainly make himself known to the management of that country, would state his opinions as to what might be good for it and would hang around looking around, looking for the last puff from the cigar butt.
当沃伦刚开始投资时，他从本·格雷厄姆那里学到这样做——常去买那些看似被丢弃的烟蒂型公司，因为里面还剩最后一口烟可抽， 他要在合适时点买入，抽完那口烟并获利。于是，被丢弃的“烟蒂”理论成了他投资生涯早期的利器。若沃伦买下一家烟蒂型公司，他一定会让公司管理层知晓自己的存在，提出改进意见，并守在旁边等待那最后一口烟带来的收益。
11:01:12:00
The cigar butt theory only was important if you were dealing with small companies. You just couldn’t expand that into, and multiply that into large acquisitions. And it was—Warren would have continued to be a small operator if he had stuck to the cigar butt theory and he—he is an opportunist. He is always looking for the right opportunities. He’s willing to have anybody bring a strange—strange thought to him as to what he might do and to move on it and it just wasn’t going to work to stick to discarded cigar butts if Berkshire was to be built into any kind of important company.
烟蒂理论只适用于小公司，无法推广到大型并购。如果沃伦继续坚持这种策略，他就会一直是“小玩家”。而他是机会主义者，总在寻找合适机会，乐于聆听任何新奇想法并迅速行动。如果想把伯克希尔打造为重要企业，捡烟蒂显然行不通。
TITLE Charlie Munger
标题 查理·芒格
11:02:09:06
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
What made the turn was that Warren got to know Charlie Munger, a California lawyer who had also grown up in Omaha but the two young men had not known each other because Charlie was eight years older than Warren and they just didn’t happen to—but they both worked for Warren’s grandfather’s grocery store but at separate times so they didn’t know each other. And Charlie became Warren’s sort of alter ego and became a man that Warren depended on heavily, just to discuss things with. Charlie’s opinion was important, and Charlie felt and managed to convince Warren, and this was a real turning point in Warren’s business life that buying important companies, buying good companies at fair prices was the way to proceed and leave the dis—cigar butts in the gutter, if you’ll pardon the expression.
转折点在于沃伦结识了查理·芒格——这位加州律师也在奥马哈长大，但比沃伦年长八岁，因此两人早年未曾相识；他们都在沃伦祖父的杂货店工作过，只是时间不同。查理成了沃伦的“另一半”，沃伦在讨论事务时高度倚重他的意见。查理认为，并成功说服沃伦——这成为沃伦商业生涯的真正转折——应当以合理价格收购优质且重要的公司，把“烟蒂”留在阴沟里。
11:03:31:13
Charlie’s influence on Warren and pushing him in the direction of good businesses at fair prices was huge turning point for Warren and Berkshire. There’s no telling what Berkshire would be to today if that turn of events hadn’t occurred. We’d—we’d all be poorer, that’s for sure and so tha—Warren has said that after he left the ci—discarded cigar butt era, he was still drawn to them occasionally but Charlie was keeping him—and Warren was learning increasingly that buying good companies at fair prices was the way to go.
查理推动沃伦转向以合理价格买入优质公司的影响，对沃伦和伯克希尔都是巨大转折。若无此转变，今日的伯克希尔难以想象——我们肯定都更穷。沃伦说，离开烟蒂时代后他偶尔仍被那类投资吸引，但在查理的提醒下，他逐步认识到：以公平价格收购好公司才是正确道路。
TITLE Warren’s initial plan with Berkshire Hathaway
标题 沃伦最初的伯克希尔哈撒韦计划
11:04:33:00
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
10:58:25:00
Warren’s initial—initial plan when he made the investment to buy Berkshire Hathaway was to end up selling his stock back to the company at a profit and it—it—this could have happened, the company was at that time selling off a mil here and there, getting a little cash, paying a big dividend and Warren was expecting to end up benefitting from this. Then the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway engaged in a little bit of chicanery, promising him one price for a tender offer that they were making, that was their way of buying in stock and the—the CEO of Berkshire promised him one price and then went back on it. And that was just something Warren couldn’t live with and so he changed his strategy. Seabury Stanton’s change made Warren very, very angry. I imagine he was just about livid with anger.
沃伦最初投资伯克希尔·哈撒韦的计划，是最终把自己持有的股票以获利的价格卖回给公司。这原本可能实现——当时公司不时出售一台纺机，套现一些现金并派发高额股息，沃伦指望从中受益。然而伯克希尔的首席执行官耍了小伎俩：在实施要约回购时，先向他承诺一个价格，随后又反悔。沃伦无法容忍这样的行为，于是改变了策略。西伯里·斯坦顿的反悔让沃伦怒不可遏。
11:06:31:07
Warren took great offense at what Seabury Stanton did. Warren did not like two-timing of any kind. He probably did not—in this case, probably did not put quite enough study into what he was actually buying but he made an effort—he changed his strategy and became to think that he would take over control of Berkshire Hathaway because the CEO Seabury Stanton had cheated him, or gone back on his promise and so he ended up buying this textile company which was not in great shape and which Warren has said was the biggest mistake he ever made, was buying this textile company, or getting control of it, not buying it.
沃伦对西伯里·斯坦顿的所作所为极为不满，他厌恶任何形式的背信弃义。在这桩交易上，他或许对自己买下的东西研究不足，但他决定调整策略，想着要掌控伯克希尔·哈撒韦，因为 CEO 西伯里·斯坦顿欺骗了他、食言了。于是他最终买下了这家状况不佳的纺织企业。沃伦后来坦言，收购（或者说控制）这家纺织公司是他一生最大的错误。
TITLE Early days of Berkshire Hathaway
标题 伯克希尔哈撒韦的早期日子
11:08:20:22
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
As Warren got into Berkshire Hathaway, I think he realized it’s frailties. He worked hard to—to make the company do the right—go down the right road but to the extent that it was pulling off—throwing off cash, he wasn’t going to put it back into textiles and in the first of Berkshire’s ability to take cash and use it in a—in a—an important and constructive way in other businesses, he took cash from Berkshire Hathaway and moved it into insurance and insurance turned out to be just ideal for Warren. It itself accumulated cash or threw off cash and so that was the beginning of Warren’s ability to build a large company from this company he really claims was a mistake to buy in the first place. And he stuck with the company, he wanted it to succeed. He really did. He didn’t want those people—those—those employees who were going to be thrown out of work, he did not want that to happen so he stuck with it, longer than he probably should’ve. But finally he had to concede that it--Berkshire—the mills must be shut down—the mill must be shut down. And the textile business disappeared.
当沃伦深入伯克希尔后，他意识到了公司的脆弱性。他努力让企业走上正轨，但凡公司产生现金，他绝不会再投回纺织业务。伯克希尔第一次把现金用于其他重要且具建设性的行业时，他将资金转进了保险——这一领域对沃伦而言再合适不过，自身便能持续积累与释放现金。由此他开始把这家原本视为“买错”的公司打造成一个庞大企业。他坚守伯克希尔，真心希望其成功；他不愿看到那些员工失业，因此坚持得比应有的时间更长。但最终他不得不承认，伯克希尔的纺织厂必须关闭，纺织业务宣告终结。
无与伦比的韧性。
TITLE Liquidating companies
标题 清算公司
11:13:27:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
When Warren started investing, he—he sometimes and I would say pretty often had the intention of liquidating the company. He thought the cost of gaining control of the company was not as much as the assets of the company and that there was a profit to be made there and his intention was to move forward with liquidating companies. This wouldn’t always have been the case but—but oft—but often. But I think his first experiences in that business so to speak convinced him that it was not exactly where he wanted to be. There was a small company called Dempster in Nebraska, it was a small town whose—whose population depended heavily on this company existing and closing it down—liquidating it was a lot of pain for—and he was not a man who enjoyed causing pain and Susie was probably at home saying, “I’m so sorry for all of those people there!”
沃伦最初投资时，常常打算清算所收购的公司。他认为取得控制权的成本低于公司资产价值，其中大有可图，因此意图走清算之路。这并非每次都如此，但颇为常见。然而他的早期经历让他意识到，这并非自己想要置身其间的领域。内布拉斯加有家名为 Dempster 的小公司，所在小镇居民很大程度上依赖该厂生存；关闭并清算将给他们带来巨大痛苦。沃伦不是一个乐于制造痛苦的人，苏茜在家里大概也会说：“我真为那些人难过！”
TITLE The impact of his father’s death
标题 父亲去世的影响
11:15:10:13
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I know it was that his father’s death was a huge sadness for Warren: he had been so close to his father. They had—they worked together, he’d—he’d—he’d been a—as a young boy he had worked sometimes at his fathers brokerage office and he—he admired his father and his standards so greatly that to have this person leave his life as amazing—was so hard for him. He actually has not been happy to talk about it because it was a huge—a huge calamity for him to deal with but Warren has the ability to pick himself up from things and move forward, he’s amazing that way.
我知道父亲的去世给沃伦带来了巨大的悲痛；他与父亲极为亲近。两人共事过，少年时期他还曾在父亲的经纪行帮忙。他极其敬仰父亲及其标准，失去这样的人对他来说异常艰难。他不愿谈及此事，因为那是他必须面对的巨大创伤。但沃伦有从困境中自我振作并继续前行的能力，这一点令人敬佩。
TITLE Looking forward rather than back
标题 向前看而非回顾过去
11:16:19:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren definitely has a tendency to look forward and to think optimistically. I don’t think he could have ever gotten where he’s gotten if he hadn’t been an optimist and he believes that there are pessimists around who don’t understand facts as well as he does. And he is—he is in the business of being a teacher trying to straighten out the landscape for these people.
沃伦确实倾向于向前看并保持乐观。我认为如果他不是个乐观主义者，他不可能达到今天的成就；他相信周围有些悲观者并不像他那样了解事实。他把自己当作老师，努力为这些人理清局面。
TITLE Closing down the partnership in 1969
标题 1969 年关闭合伙基金
11:16:56:07
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Warren decided to close down his partnership in ’69 because the late 60’s were a period of enormous speculation and stock prices had gotten to levels that Warren just could not understand in many cases that people were buying and he said, “I just don’t understand this market and I’m better getting out of it.” And so he just chose to shut down the hedge fund, which it was, and Berkshire meanwhile was there. He had taken control of that in 1965. People used to write how he had left the investment business and I used to laugh at that because he hadn’t left the investment business, he just changed the party through which he was doing it and so he—he just said, “There’s idiocy out here in this stock market and I don’t really want to have a part of it.”
沃伦在 1969 年决定关闭自己的合伙基金，因为 60 年代末投机盛行，股价被推高到他无法理解的水平。他说：“我完全看不懂这个市场，退出为妙。” 于是他选择关掉这只对冲基金；与此同时伯克希尔仍在，他早在 1965 年就已掌控。有人写他离开了投资界，我常为此发笑，因为他并没有离开，只是换了一个载体。他说：“股市里尽是愚蠢，我可不想参与。”
TITLE Becoming Warren Buffett
标题 成为沃伦·巴菲特
11:19:00:21
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Becoming Warren Buffett is a— that’s a long period of years in which he was becoming Warren Buffett and he was not the statesman that he now is when he started out. Of course he was so young nobody would have accepted him as a statesman anyway. But he has developed over the years so much. He’s broadened, and that is the best word for him: he—he has broadened in ways that have made him a different man. I think my expression was that Fortune, for which I worked, was lucky to have been standing alongside Warren Buffett as he was becoming Warren Buffett. He—he changed. Not only that, he kept creating—journalists loved this—kept creating new stories and he was never dull. You knew that just when you thought you understood the kind of thing that Warren Buffett was going to do, he’d come up with something new and for a journalistic organization to be standing alongside him while he did that—and to have some pretty good access because I had known him for so long—was a wonderful thing.
“成为沃伦·巴菲特”是一个漫长过程；在那个过程中，他逐渐蜕变为今日的巴菲特，起初他并非如今这位“国士”。当然，他当时太年轻，没人会把他当成国士。但这些年他成长巨大，用“拓宽”形容最恰当：他的视野和格局大为拓宽，成为了不同以往的人。我常说，《财富》杂志能在巴菲特“成型”过程中与他并肩而立实属幸运。他不断变化，也不断制造新闻，记者们对此爱不释手；你以为已看透他的套路，他又带来新故事。对一家媒体而言，能在旁见证并因长期相识而获得独家接触，真是幸事。
TITLE Warren and The Washington Post
标题 沃伦与《华盛顿邮报》
11:20:41:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Wa—Warren was—was quite an expert about newspapers. He bought the Buffalo Evening News and he—he got interested in the Post because he recognized it as a greatly undervalued company and he got to know Kay Graham, told her he had no evil intentions at all and he wasn’t going to try to tell her what to do with her newspaper. It was a great investment opportunity for him; if there was something else, I don’t know what it was. The political strife surrounding The Washington Post during Nixon’s era hurt its value and made most people run from the stock. The share price collapsed to almost inconceivable levels, and Warren realized just how extraordinarily cheap it was, so he—always looking for undervalued situations—moved in, and this one was right in plain sight.
沃伦对报业颇有研究。他曾买下《布法罗晚报》，后来关注《华盛顿邮报》，因为他看到这家公司被极度低估。他结识了凯·格雷厄姆，向她保证自己绝无恶意，不会干预报纸运营。这对他而言是极佳的投资机会；若还有其他动机，我并不知情。尼克松时期的政治纷争打击了《华邮》估值，大多数投资者纷纷逃离，股价跌到几乎难以想象的水平。沃伦意识到价格低得离谱——他一向喜欢捡便宜货，于是出手，而这样的机会就摆在眼前。
TITLE Warren and Kay Graham
标题 沃伦与凯·格雷厄姆
11:22:39:23
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
Kay Graham was—Warren did think she was undervalued. She had been thrown into this job for which in some senses people would have said she had no background for. Very, very important journalistic job. She was not—she was not—she didn’t have a lot of self-confidence and so she needed constantly to have her self-confidence build up. She was not familiar with financial figures. Finance was not a big part of her life and Warren was a teacher and he has said his whole ambition in life was to be a teacher. He—Kay Graham was one of his primary students. She said that he—that she was going to the Buffett school of business, which is kind of ludicrous considering that he couldn’t get into Harvard business school. And he had a great opportunity to influence the way that The Post was going to go even though I don’t mean that journalistically because he was hands off entirely in what The Post was running.
凯·格雷厄姆——沃伦确实认为她被低估了。她被推上一个在某些人看来毫无背景可言的职位，这可是极其重要的新闻岗位。她缺乏自信，需要不断被鼓励。她对财务数字并不熟悉，财务在她的生活中并非重点；而沃伦自称毕生志向就是当老师——凯便成了他的主要“学生”之一。她笑称自己正在就读“巴菲特商学院”，想想他当年竟考不上哈佛商学院，这话听来颇为滑稽。沃伦因此获得巨大机会去影响《华邮》的走向——虽不涉编辑内容，他始终对报纸运营完全放手。
11:24:09:20
Kay Graham did introduce Warren to the world of Washington and it was a little bit rocky at times. I think he turned up for one of his first dinners with her without a tuxedo and they had to find a tuxedo on very short notice in Washington, but he enjoyed it. I think at first he probably felt like he was in a totally unfamiliar environment and he was. But he could talk with the best of ‘em and he enjoyed it and Kay—Kay had wonderful dinner parties so he got—he liked it.
凯·格雷厄姆把沃伦带进了华盛顿的社交圈；最初场面有些尴尬——记得第一次赴宴他竟没带晚礼服，只得临时在华盛顿到处找一套，但他最终乐在其中。一开始他也许觉得环境全然陌生，事实确实如此，可他很快能与在座精英侃侃而谈，还乐在其中；凯的晚宴向来精彩，他也渐渐喜欢上那种氛围。
11:25:11:18
I think that whole period after which he became involved with The Washington Post was important to his growth. He—he thought more broadly. His democratic inclinations—pol—political democratic inclinations were strengthening and he was able to—to test them out, talking to people like the editorial editor of The Washington Post Meg Greenfield. He—he was introduced to new people, entirely different group than he had dealt with before and still he wanted to go back to Omaha but he didn’t mind getting into Washington politics a little bit.
我认为，他介入《华盛顿邮报》后的那段时期对其成长意义重大。他的思考视野更开阔，政治上更趋民主，并且可以和《华邮》社论版主编梅格·格林菲尔德等人交流印证自己的想法。他结识了过去从未接触的全新群体，虽然依旧想回奥马哈，却也不排斥在华盛顿略作政治涉足。
TITLE Women in a man’s world
标题 男人世界里的女性
11:26:40:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
I—I think of 1970 as being sort of the key year in which the conditions for women changed in the business world. And Kay was getting involved in that time in the management of The Post. I was at Fortune, I never did think of myself on any kind of battlefield there. I just—I knew I’d been put into a job most women didn’t do and I was enjoying that and I was trying to get better all the time. And—and Kay was a learner and Warren—one thing I will say about Warren, among many, is that I have never ever met a business leader who is as unprejudiced as Warren is about gender or nationality, ethnic—anything. Warren has only one prejudice and that is about intelligence and he doesn’t care where that turns up. It—and so I think of him as being more supportive of women over the years then any business executive I know. Because many—many of business executives that I respect for other reasons are just a little bit insensitive on the women front and Warren has none of that. Warren has always been a supporter or women.
我认为 1970 年是商界女性处境转折的关键一年。那时凯正在进入《华邮》管理层。我在《财富》任职，从未把自己视作战场上的斗士，只知道自己被放在一个大多数女性未涉足的岗位上，乐在其中并不断提升。凯乐于学习，而沃伦——在众多优点中，有一点尤为突出：我从未见过像他这样对性别、国籍、族裔毫无偏见的商业领袖。沃伦唯一的偏好是才智，不在乎它出现于何处。因此我觉得多年来他对女性的支持超过任何我所认识的企业家。许多我尊敬的高管在性别议题上多少有些迟钝，沃伦则毫无此弊，他始终支持女性。
TITLE The importance of insurance at Berkshire Hathaway
标题 保险业务在伯克希尔哈撒韦的重要性
11:29:02:01
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡罗尔·卢米斯：
For Berkshire, insurance is in itself a profitable business, particularly when it’s well run and Warren has had a real knack for getting good people to run his insurance companies but it has the additional advantage of creating something called float, and float is the money that hangs around Berkshire while a claim is waiting to be paid. Eventually someone is going to get that claim payment but in the meantime, the money is there that in effect has been reserved for payment and can be used by Berkshire to invest in other things and Warren turned out to have an extraordinary ability to both run the insurance companies, accumulate float and use the money thrown off both by the running and the float to buy companies that fed the growth of Berkshire.
对伯克希尔而言，保险本身就是一项盈利业务，尤其经营得当时更是如此；沃伦在物色优秀管理人才方面尤为老到。此外，保险还能创造所谓“浮存金”——在理赔金尚未支付期间留在伯克希尔的资金。最终赔款会支付给受益人，但在此之前，这笔实际上已被预留的资金可由伯克希尔用于其他投资。沃伦在运营保险公司、积累浮存金以及把承保利润和浮存金投入并购、推动伯克希尔壮大方面展现出非凡才能。
TITLE See’s Candy
标题 喜诗糖果
11:30:30:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I think See’s, for Warren, represented his departure from the cigar butt days to the time of buying good companies at fair prices. See’s is a company that has thrown off money, I mean it does—it doesn’t need a lot of capital investments. Historically, Warren has tried to stay—did try for many, many years to stay away from companies that required large amounts of capital investments. Eventually, to build Berkshire, he had to move into companies like the railroad and the utility that do require large capital expenditures. If— Berkshires growth would’ve—have stopped if—if he hadn’t done that but See’s was a company that threw off all this money that could be used for other things and meanwhile was a wonderful company. People love it, I have some in the kitchen and so it was a great—a great acquisition for Warren and one that I still think he feels very proud of today.
我认为喜诗糖果对沃伦来说，标志着他从“烟蒂股”时代转向以合理价格收购优质公司的阶段。喜诗是一家源源不断产出现金的企业——几乎不需要大量资本投入。多年来，沃伦一直避免投资那些高资本密集型公司。为了推动伯克希尔的发展，他最终必须涉足铁路和公用事业等需要巨额资本支出的行业。若不如此，伯克希尔的增长本会停滞；但喜诗能持续产生大量现金，可用于其他投资，而且本身还是一家备受喜爱的优秀公司——我厨房里就放着一些。对沃伦而言，这是一桩极佳的收购，他至今仍为此深感自豪。
自我更新，不断适应新的环境。
TITLE Warren’s comfort zone
标题 沃伦的舒适区
11:32:14:03
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I think that Warren could think of some of his investments as a comfort zone. He understands them, like Coca-Cola. He doesn’t think they’re gonna go away because he himself could probably not exist if he didn’t have frequent infusions of Coca-Cola. I think he—he does feel that knowing a business and knowing the kind that’s not gonna go away, can’t be changed by technology: those are important pegs for him to use when he’s considering investment, absolutely.
我认为沃伦把其中一些投资视为“舒适区”。他深谙这些企业，比如可口可乐；他不担心它们会消失——若无法经常喝到可口可乐，他自己都难以生活。我相信他确实认为，了解一家不会消失、且不会被技术颠覆的企业，是他做出投资决策的重要基石。
技术约等于一个聪明的idea，聪明的想法经常有，少有人敢想并且敢做的事不常见。
TITLE Balancing personal and professional life
标题 平衡个人与职业生活
11:33:19:22
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Warren’s divisions of his life—his business life has always been the one that he focused on and—he—he was not—I think he’d probably say this himself, he was not the most dedicated father who ever existed although his kids all grew up to be wonderful people, and wonderful admirers, very devoted to their father but Warren’s personal life did not include a lot of time spent away from the reading and the thinking about Berkshire that made it grow, he just—he just wasn’t built that way.
沃伦的人生划分中，事业始终最受关注——他并不是（我想他自己也会这么说）最尽责的父亲。尽管如此，孩子们都成长为优秀且敬爱他的好人。但在私人生活里，沃伦很少抽离阅读与思考伯克希尔的时间，他天生如此。
TITLE On Susie leaving to San Francisco
标题 关于苏茜搬去旧金山
11:34:59:19
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Susie’s leaving for California was—was kind of unprecedented as a way for a married couple to live because they continued to travel together after she was in California. I think it was a great blow for Warren because he had depended on her so much. He had sort of—she had—she had filled in every emotional facet of his life and it—it was extraordinarily hard for him. On the other hand, he still had the business and he could turn to that and draw the strength that it had always given him. It was—it—most of his friends didn’t quite understand what was going on but it was something that they managed to work out for a lot of years. In Omaha she was always going to be Mrs. Buffett. Mrs. Warren Buffett. She—she had staked out her own area of philanthropy but she needed—she needed time—she needed a different venue for her own interests and I never thought of it really but I guess it could be because women were kind of reaching out in every direction. I don’t know.
苏茜搬去加州，这对一对已婚夫妇而言是前所未有的生活方式，因为她搬去后两人仍一起旅行。我认为这对沃伦是个巨大打击，他非常依赖她——她在情感上填补了他的每一个角落，这对他来说极其艰难。另一方面，他仍有事业可凭借，从中汲取一贯给予他的力量。大多数朋友并不完全理解他们的处境，但他们以这种方式相处了多年。在奥马哈，人们依旧称她为巴菲特夫人——沃伦·巴菲特的妻子。她在慈善领域开辟了自己的天地，但她需要时间和不同的舞台来发展兴趣。我以前没有这样想过，但我猜这与当时女性在各方面寻求突破有关，我也不是很确定。
TITLE Avoiding the tech bubble of the 1990’s
标题 避开20世纪90年代科技泡沫
11:39:13:17
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Warren was able to avoid the tech bubble because he—he recognized something about the tech—tech companies many people did not recognize and still don’t. That technology changes and that a company that is highly prosperous in 1985 or 1990 can be kind of thrown out: lets talk about AOL, think about AOL, where it stood in the late 80’s and the fact that it was soon to assume a much less important role, still around today but Warren does not like to buy businesses that change. He likes businesses like—well now Coca-Cola you can argue has changed because everyone’s worried about their weight but he likes businesses that are going to continue to—to be there, to operate pretty much in the same way that they always have and to turn out the good profits that they always have so technology was too much change for him. He never knew where they were going to be ten years from there. They might be great in year one but year ten they could’ve been even almost put out of business by change and technology, it wasn’t for him.
沃伦能避开科技泡沫，因为他意识到许多人当时乃至现在仍未意识到的一点：技术会变革。1985或1990年极为兴盛的科技公司，可能很快被抛在后面。以美国在线为例，想想它在80年代末的地位，而后不久就大不如前，虽仍存在。沃伦不喜欢会发生剧变的企业。他偏爱——拿可口可乐来说，虽说如今人们担心体重问题，但其模式依旧——偏爱那些将持续存在、经营方式基本不变、且持续创造丰厚利润的公司。科技行业变化过于剧烈，他无法预测十年后的景况：第一年或许辉煌，十年后却可能因技术变革而几乎破产，这与他的投资标准不符。
TITLE Warren’s lack of involvement in technology
标题 沃伦未涉足科技领域
11:41:00:14
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
In the late 80’s, he was pretty much said to be a has‑been. People said it was all over for Warren Buffett just because he was not involved in technology. The technology bubble was forming, it was going to explode in the early 90’s and they just said though, Warren Buffett doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not with it, he’s not cool. He is somebody who just has had his day and it’s gone. Warren doesn’t enjoy criticism, published criticism any more than anyone else I think, but I think that down deep he knew that his methods were the right thing for him. He was not to be swerved in a different direction and I don’t see any sign that he changed his way of operating so I—I don’t think it got to him very much. It had to be a long period in his life because it went on for a number of years. I remember that Charlie and he talked about, that they both wanted to be around when the bubble burst because they just couldn’t quite imagine how things had gotten as much out of kilter as they had.
在 80 年代末，他几乎被贴上“过气人物”的标签。仅仅因为没有涉足科技，人们就说沃伦·巴菲特的时代结束了。科技泡沫正在酝酿，并将在 90 年代初破裂，人们便说沃伦·巴菲特不懂自己在做什么，不跟潮流、不够酷，辉煌已逝。沃伦与别人一样不喜欢公开批评，但我认为他内心深处清楚自己的方法最适合自己，不会被迫改变方向。我没看到他在经营方式上有任何改变，所以这件事对他影响不大。这段时期在他的人生中持续多年。我记得他和查理谈过，两人都想等到泡沫破裂那一刻，因为他们无法想象事情怎么会失衡到那种程度。
TITLE Warren and criticisms from the media
标题 沃伦与媒体的批评
11:42:53:14
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
He hates to be misquoted and—and Berkshire was a complicated company. When Berkshire Hathaway—when somebody at Berkshire
Hathaway buys a stock, they always—the headline writers intuitively turn to headlines that say, Buffett buys—Buffett buys apple, as we’re hearing these days. Were—there are now three buyers. There have always been at least two, or for many decades there have been at least two. But now they’re at three buyers so it could easily be, and in the Apple investment for example was not Warren’s investment at all, it was one of the two guys who work for him, Ted Wechsler and Todd Combs and so it’s easy for the press to get things wrong about Berkshire because it’s a complicated company. I do think that he would like to always be quoted accurately in the press and have Berkshire described in the way that it actually is happening but he—he manages to—and I think that one of the reasons he’s gone on television more is because he wanted to be able to explain himself. He didn’t want to have the press standing—interpreting what he was doing. He wanted to be the guy who was the explainer. And his speeches, which can be very complicated, are always done extemporaneously. And so they do not lend themselves to being put down in perfect order, I—I know this personally because I have had to take some of them and edit them into—into articles. But that’s the way with extemporaneous speeches but he has been on stage—public stage a lot and has grown to enjoy it I would say. And now Charlie is growing to enjoy it also.
他讨厌被断章取义——而且伯克希尔是一家复杂的公司。当伯克希尔哈撒韦——当公司里有人购买股票时，标题作者总会直觉地写成“巴菲特买入……”“巴菲特买入苹果”，就像如今常见的那样。事实上，现在有三位买手，过去数十年至少也有两位。例如苹果投资根本不是沃伦的决定，而是他麾下的两位经理特德·韦施勒和托德·孔布斯的一项投资。伯克希尔复杂，媒体很容易写错。我相信他希望媒体始终准确引用他的言论，如实描述伯克希尔的运作。他因此更多上电视，亲自解释，而不是让媒体揣测他的意图。他想当那个解释者。他的演讲常常即兴且颇为复杂，因此难以原样整理——我深有体会，因为我曾将其中一些整理成文章。即兴演讲就是如此。他频繁出现在公众舞台，并渐渐乐在其中；如今查理也越来越享受这种过程。
TITLE On Susie’s illness
标题 关于苏茜的病情
11:46:22:01
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Warren called me, it was—I—I think I was not aware at the time she came to that Fortune conference of what she had just learned. She left very quickly after the conference. She told me that a friend of hers was ill. That was during the AIDS period and she had some friends who were ill with AIDS but now even as we talk about it, it was because she herself was the one—she knew her—she herself was the one who was ill and was going off to deal with it. And Warren—and—and I learned—I learned that Susie was ill when Warren had called to tell me that she had throat cancer. He was taking it pretty hard.
沃伦给我打电话——我想，当时在那次《财富》会议上我并不知道她刚得知的消息。会议结束后她匆匆离开。她告诉我有位朋友生病了。那是艾滋病盛行的年代，她确实有些朋友身患艾滋。但如今回想，是因为她自己才是真正生病的人——她清楚地知道自己病了，要去治疗。当沃伦打电话告诉我苏茜得了喉癌时，我才得知她的病情。他承受得很艰难。
TITLE Warren taking care of Susie
标题 沃伦照顾苏茜
11:47:52:12
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
He went to San Francisco every weekend for I don’t know, how long? But it was a long period and it was not the normal kind of thing for him to do but the circumstances of Susie being that ill, the brightening that I—that I think it would have brought to her weekends when he was out there, I think he knew it was important. It was important for him too.
我不知道他连续多少个周末飞去旧金山，但那确实持续了很长一段时间，这并非他的惯常作风。然而鉴于苏茜病情严重，他的到访能为她的周末带来光亮，我想他明白这很重要，对他自己也同样重要。
TITLE Hearing the news of Susie’s death
标题 获悉苏茜去世的消息
11:48:35:11
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I was playing golf at—I heard the news about Susie dying at Winged Foot Golf Club where I was playing golf. I walked off after a match, it was the women’s tournament, a competition it has once a year and I walked off after playing a match and my daughter was standing there. And I looked at her, why—why was she there and she said to me, “Susie Buffett has died.” And, I said, “Oh my gosh, he’ll never be able to stand this.” That’s what I said, I remember it perfectly.
那天我正在温格德富特高尔夫俱乐部打球——也就是我得知苏茜去世消息的地方。我刚打完一场一年一度的女子锦标赛走下场时，看见女儿站在那里。我心想她怎么会在这儿，她对我说：“苏茜·巴菲特去世了。”我脱口而出：“天哪，他肯定受不了。”我记得这一瞬非常清楚。
TITLE Warren coping with Susie’s death
标题 沃伦应对苏茜的离世
11:49:24:15
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
He – he got up and—and went back to work and recovered. Not recovered because he was still distraught by it but he went back to work in a way that I could not have imagined he would do. And I’ve heard his daughter Susie say, “I thought he might disappear into his bedroom and never come out.” And the fact is, he picked himself up and resumed his life. After Susie’s death, Warren definitely did throw himself back into his work in a way that let him keep going in a forward sort of way. I don’t recall that I talked to him any more, it was always—when I did talk to him was with a feeling of enormous sympathy because I—I knew what a void it would have been in his life.
他——他振作起来回到工作岗位。严格说并非完全复原，因为他仍极度悲痛，但他以一种我难以想象的方式回到工作。我听女儿苏茜说过：“我以为他会躲进卧室，再也不出来。”结果他还是振作起来，继续生活。在苏茜去世后，沃伦确实把自己重新投进工作，让自己得以前行。我后来很少与他交谈，每次开口都带着深切同情，因为我知道这给他的生活留下了巨大的空缺。
TITLE Warren’s place among the greatest American businessmen
标题 沃伦在美国伟大企业家中的地位
11:51:19:02
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Well I think that Warren’s place in the pantheon of American businessmen is totally established. I laugh a little bit at lists of leaders in business that need to change every year journalistically because you can’t run the same list every year and then leave Warren Buffett off because I think that he is without doubt the leading businessman of the country. I think he is quite possibly, quite probably going to be the only one that ended up in the history books although I recall saying this to a friend recently and the friend said, “When you’re talking about 100 years from now, which is what you’re saying, there aren’t gonna be any books.” And I said, ah, I think he’s going to end up in the history books 100 years from now. I’m not sure though what role he’s going to be assigned. Will he be famous for what he did as an investor, as a businessman, because there is a difference, or as a philanthropist? And I’m—I’m just not sure which of those roles, you know. Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie, more accurately was a businessman before he was a philanthropist but we remember him today as a philanthropist and I’m just not sure the w—how it’s gonna turn out.
我认为沃伦在美国企业家殿堂中的地位早已确立。我对媒体每年都要改动的商业领袖榜单略感好笑，因为不可能年年更新榜单却把沃伦·巴菲特漏掉——他无疑是这个国家最卓越的企业家。我认为他极有可能成为唯一写进历史书的人物。虽然我最近跟朋友这么说时，朋友调侃：“若说一百年后，恐怕连书都没了。”我依旧相信他一百年后会载入史册。但我不确定届时他将以哪种角色著名：投资家、企业家（两者有别），还是慈善家？安德鲁·卡内基在成慈善家之前也是企业家，但今日人们记得的却是他的慈善事业。沃伦最终会以何种面貌被铭记，我难以断言。
TITLE Shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway
标题 伯克希尔哈撒韦的股东
11:53:27:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
The shareholders, well they range from people with not much money to hedge fund guys who are the richest and often considered the most – the greediest of all kinds of businessmen. I would say that an awful lot of the people I’ve met out there have been people you like to spend your time around and I’ve seen letters that have come in to Warren after the meeting from people talking about how much they—they enjoyed the people they met, how much they liked the whole atmosphere. How friendly they it is, of course that’s a mid‑western trait anyway and I think it’s a congenial crowd that is drawn back just because it’s not only Warren and Charlie up there but the whole atmosphere of all these people who have—had very good fortune in many cases because they bought the stock but who sort of see themselves as a part of something a little bit bigger than the stock.
伯克希尔的股东从手头拮据的小散户，到对冲基金里的大富豪——常被视为最贪婪的商界人士——应有尽有。我遇到的很多股东都是让人乐于相处的朋友，也看过会后写给沃伦的信，大家都说非常喜欢结识到的人、喜欢那里的整体氛围。那里的友好本就带有中西部气质，而这股亲切力吸引大家年年回归，不只是为了见沃伦和查理，更在于整场氛围——许多人因买入股票而获益匪浅，但他们更把自己视为某个超越股票本身、更宏大的事物的一部分。
11:55:00:16
There is definitely a sense of—of a Buffett community with a—Charlie Munger geography on the side and these—these people, they don’t sell their stock. If there’s statistics about this, they’re probably—would—we’d probably find there are more long‑term holders of Berkshire than of any company. People consider it a religion. They don’t—they don’t want to—it’s always been a mistake to sell Berkshire Hathaway and so they don’t want to making the mistake now and so they do see themselves as being a part of a community and Warren does everything he can to encourage that feeling because he regards shareholders as owners of the business. And he regards the smallest of them as equal in size with the biggest.
的确存在一种“巴菲特社群”的感觉——旁边还有一块“查理·芒格地带”。这些人不卖股票。若有数据，我们大概会发现伯克希尔的长期持有者比任何公司都多。人们把它当成一种信仰。卖出伯克希尔哈撒韦历来是个错误，他们不想现在再犯。于是他们将自己视为社群的一员，而沃伦尽其所能强化这种归属感，因为他把股东当成公司的所有者，并且视最小股东与最大股东同等重要。
TITLE Warren’s tactfulness
标题 沃伦的圆融
11:56:21:08
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Many questions that are asked, the question are either asked for a response from both Warren and Charlie or Warren turns to Charlie or Charlie intercedes to answer and Warren’s answers are always given with great tact. He’s very careful how he answers questions. Charlie has no tact. I once wrote of him, that when they handed out humility that he didn’t get his fair share but he says what’s on his mind and he doesn’t care whether he insults the questioner or not. So you’ll get this sort of Ying and Yang where Warren is being very tactful and Charlie is almost saying to Warren, “you know you don’t really mean that. The really truth is this.” It’s a very interesting conversation.
很多问题会让沃伦和查理共同回答，或者沃伦让查理回答，或者查理插话。沃伦的回答总是非常圆融，他对措辞格外谨慎。查理则毫无圆融可言。我曾写过他：发“谦逊”那天他没领到应得的一份。他想到什么就说什么，不在乎是否冒犯提问者。于是你会看到一种阴阳相生的场景：沃伦极其委婉，查理几乎对沃伦说：“你其实不是这个意思，真相是这样。”对话颇为有趣。
TITLE The financial crisis of 2008
标题 2008 年金融危机
11:58:01:19
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
What happened in 2008 is as close as—as ever happened leaving aside the depression of the 30’s, to the countries financial structure sort of falling apart. This country depends on prompt payments. There’s a system out there where everyone is expected to pay what they owe and Wall Street is probably the epitome of this. And we were very close in 2008, in September 2008 specifically to that whole structure breaking down and heroic efforts by a lot of people managed to prevent this from happening but I don’t think that most people realize how really terrible it was.
2008 年的事情，仅次于 20 世纪 30 年代的大萧条，几乎让美国金融体系土崩瓦解。美国依赖及时付款的机制，人人都该履行债务，而华尔街正是这种机制的缩影。2008 年 9 月，我们离体系全面崩溃只有一步之遥，许多人的英勇努力才避免悲剧，但大多数人并未意识到那时有多危险。
11:59:13:23
I was talking to him on the phone. He was getting calls from various people seeking help. He—he knew it was very, very bad. I don’t recall that he ever said, we’ve got two days otherwise we’re gonna have a disaster but he knew it was bad and he was—he was talking to everyone and he was getting calls from people like Tim Geithner in Washington, Secretary of the Treasury was calling him about very, very important things and the dialogue between the two of them was going to determine a lot of what happened in the country. I don’t think he does anything without some sort of purpose, or the belief that it will be to the – to the good. And he knew that his was a voice – that would be important in the dialogue. And then I also believe that he thought that the right actions would be taken in Washington because to contemplate that they wouldn’t be taken was to lead to disaster, and so he himself was optimistic that the right strategies were going to formed and carried out.
那时我在电话里与他交谈。他不断接到各方求助来电，他清楚情况糟透了。我不记得他提到“两天内不救就完了”之类的话，但他知道形势严峻，与所有人沟通，包括华盛顿的蒂姆·盖特纳等人——时任财政部长就紧急要事致电他，他们的对话将左右国家走势。我认为他做任何事都抱有目的，相信能带来益处。他也知道自己的声音在讨论中很关键。同时他也坚信华盛顿会采取正确行动；若认为他们不会，那就意味着灾难，因此他对正确策略的制定与执行保持乐观。
TITLE Derivatives
标题 衍生品
12:01:51:12
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
12:07:37:00
Well, derivatives are securities whose value is derived from some other benchmark, like the value of a stock, so a stock option for example is a derivative. It is a means by which one financial party transfers risk to another financial party. But an important thing about it is the risk doesn’t go away, it’s changed hands. Guy A has gotten it out of his hands and transferred it to guy B but the risk is still there and still something that kind of hangs over the economy and as derivatives have exploded, they are—they are a huge force in the financial world and Warren does not think well of them. He has called them—he has called them weapons of mass destruction, right.
衍生品是一类证券，其价值源自其他基准，例如股票期权就是衍生品。它是金融主体之间转移风险的工具。但关键在于，风险并未消失，只是换了手。甲方把风险甩出，转给乙方，可风险仍在，仍笼罩着经济。随着衍生品爆炸式增长，它们已成金融界的巨型力量，而沃伦对其评价不高——他称之为“大规模杀伤性武器”，没错。
TITLE The giving pledge
标题 捐赠誓言
12:03:27:14
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Well I learned it—I learned that Warren was going to give away—well it was always apparent after Susie’s death that Warren suddenly had a problem on his hand that he hadn’t—hadn’t anticipated. He was going to have to be the person to determine where his fortune—how it would be allocated. He had expected this but there wasn’t anybody else to do it so he was going to have to deal with it. I heard him talk about it a little in conversations we had after Susie died but I then think I just got a call from him, said, “Well I’ve made the decision. I’m going to give most of my money to the Gates Foundation.” And I said we’d like to write about that. So we—Fortune did do the story that broke that news.
我得知——我了解到沃伦准备把钱捐出去——其实在苏茜去世后就明显看出，沃伦突然面对一个此前没料到的问题：他必须亲自决定自己的财富如何分配。他早知总有这一天，但没人能替他操办，所以必须自己处理。苏茜去世后，我们的几次谈话中他略提过此事；后来他打电话告诉我：“我已经决定了，要把大部分财富捐给盖茨基金会。”我说我们《财富》杂志想报道此事，于是《财富》刊出了那篇首发报道。
TITLE Warren’s children’s foundations
标题 沃伦子女的基金会
12:06:09:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I definitely think that each—each one of those four foundations is carrying out purposes, missions that Susie would’ve approved of and—absolutely, I know quite a lot about the three—the three—the foundations of three children. They have all risen—the children have risen to the occasion. The work they’re doing is wonderful and I know very personally the work of the Susan T. Buffett Foundation and I can say that it—it’s mission is being carried out well. Susie would have loved it all.
我毫不怀疑，这四家基金会各自执行的宗旨与使命都符合苏茜的意愿——绝对如此。我对三个孩子名下的基金会也颇为了解，他们都不负所托，工作出色。我对苏珊·T·巴菲特基金会的工作尤为熟悉，可以肯定其使命落实得很好。苏茜一定会为此高兴。
TITLE The foundations and Warren’s business
标题 基金会与沃伦的事业
12:07:33:22
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation does not go around seeking out the press. It probably—it probably is not known to a lot of people but I would say it’s known to quite a few too and heaven knows the information is publicly available, no—no problem about finding out what any foundation is doing.
苏珊·汤普森·巴菲特基金会并不会主动找媒体曝光。或许很多人不熟悉它，但亦有不少人了解，况且所有信息皆公开透明，要了解任何基金会的动向并不困难。
TITLE Her relationship with Warren
标题 她与沃伦的关系
12:08:22:01
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I feel very privileged to have known—to have known Warren and to—to have played an important—a role anyway, maybe important in working with him on his annual letter because he regards that as a part of his legacy and it—it’s not only been a privilege to work with him on that, and to maybe help just a little bit, make it better but not much because the content of it is entirely his. I feel that even if he didn’t, everybody needs an editor but even if he hadn’t had an editor, this letter would be famous. And also just to have had the chance to play bridge and to be at social occasions ‘cause every—I was in a group that every two years met which I always called the Buffett group although it had a very—it had a very wide range of names but it was the—essentially the only way you could describe this group was friends of Warren Buffett. And to—to have been a part of a life as big as Warrens is a wonder for anybody who ever managed to enjoy that. I’ve been very lucky in that.
能认识沃伦，并在他的年度股东信中扮演一份——也许重要——的角色，我深感荣幸；他把那封信视为自己遗产的一部分。与他合作、略尽薄力润色，使之更好——其实调整不多，因为内容完全出自他本人——已是难得特权。我想即便没有编辑，那封信也会声名显赫。此外，能与他打桥牌、参加社交聚会——我们有个两年一聚的圈子，我称之为“巴菲特圈”，虽有各种名称，但本质上只能说是“沃伦·巴菲特的朋友”。能参与沃伦如此丰富的人生，对任何有幸经历的人都是奇迹。我非常幸运。
TITLE Berkshire Hathaway when Warren is gone
标题 沃伦离世后的伯克希尔哈撒韦
12:10:21:12
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Well I don’t see how anybody could perform with the excellence that Warren has and Charlie has had in a slightly less important position. They have been such great leader of that company that I don’t know how anybody can follow that. It’s a tough act to follow if ever there was one. However, Berkshire is a bunch of assets—is a collection of assets that is really wonderful. And I know that Charlie—I’ve heard Charlie say again and again, “I’ve told my kids not to sell, because this company is going to thrive on and on.” And I—I think that is probably right, the assets are so wonderful.
我实在难以想象有人能达到沃伦的卓越水平，查理虽职位稍低，也同样杰出。他们是公司极佳的领袖，任何继任者都难以望其项背。然而，伯克希尔是一组极其优质的资产组合。我多次听查理说：“我告诉孩子们不要卖，因为这家公司会持续繁荣。”我想这大概是真的——这些资产确实出类拔萃。
TITLE Favorite Buffett rule
标题 最喜欢的“巴菲特法则”
12:12:13:19
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Well, my very favorite Buffett rule is don’t—in investing, rule number one is don’t lose—don’t lose money and rule number two is don’t forget the first rule, so I—I love that. God, other Buffett rules, lets see…other Buffett rules.
我最喜欢的巴菲特法则是：投资第一条规则是不要亏钱——不要亏钱；第二条规则是别忘了第一条。我非常喜欢这句话。嗯，其他巴菲特法则，让我想想……
TITLE Warren’s tough side
标题 沃伦的严厉一面
12:13:25:01
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
No, I don’t think I’ve experienced his tough side but I do know that he has that reputation as being tough with some of his managers and I’ve heard about that and I know of one—I know almost complained or certainly commented on how tough and maybe even harsh, strict he was but I have not seen it personally.
不，我个人并未体验过他的严厉，但我知道他在对待某些经理人时以强硬著称，我也听说过这点。我认识的某人几乎抱怨过他多么严格、甚至苛刻，但我自己没亲眼见过。
TITLE Warren’s success with Berkshire Hathaway
标题 沃伦打造伯克希尔哈撒韦的成功
12:16:18:19
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
Well I’m not certain that there’s ever been more brainpower employed in a more creative way than Warren has expended on Berkshire. He has never allowed himself to be trapped in any kind of formulaic way. He has been opportunistic and there’ve been lots of opportunities that have come along and he has created some and some he seized. And it was—and he all through this, he has had a devotion of one idea. He wants to make Berkshire better and it is something for 50 years now, that’s been his every thought. When he gets up in the morning, what can I do? What—if there is a business happening, what can I—what can we—how does this affect us? What can we glean from this? And if you’re spending 50 years with pretty much 100% of your very high intelligence and energy focused on one ambition, it’s probably not surprising the company has grown into the fourth largest in the country.
我不确定是否有人能像沃伦那样，将如此巨大的智慧以如此有创意的方式投入伯克希尔。他从未让自己陷入任何公式化模式；他抓住机会，也创造机会。有些机会他创造出来，有些机会他把握住。贯穿始终，他只专注于一个目标：让伯克希尔更好。五十年来，他每天醒来都在想：我能做什么？如果有什么商业动态，对我们有何影响？我们能汲取什么？当你用近五十年的全部高智力与精力专注于一个愿景，公司成长为美国第四大企业也就不足为奇了。
12:18:15:14
The companies that form Berkshire are a collection of good businesses, as identified by a man who undoubtedly has one of the great minds for business that ever existed. The companies in the Standard and Poor’s 500 are just everybody whose in the Standard and Poor’s 500 and some of these are not good businesses and some of these are companies that Warren would not even have gotten close to considering he belonged to—cons—cons—would not have come close to realizing should be—to thinking should be in a—in this group of carefully chosen companies that Berkshire have become.
构成伯克希尔的公司是一组优质企业，由一位无疑拥有商业天才的人精挑细选。而标普500中的企业不过是所有符合入选条件的公司，其中不少并非好生意，有些甚至是沃伦绝不会考虑、也不认为应列入伯克希尔这种精挑细选组合的公司。
TITLE Investors in Berkshire Hathaway
标题 伯克希尔哈撒韦的投资者
12:19:38:10
CAROL LOOMIS:
卡萝尔·卢米斯：
I think investors who own Berkshire Hathaway feel good about themselves because they—they bought a company that has grown, has grown in a way that has distinguished it in the business enterprise—in the business environment and there—there—they cant think of anything bad about being a Berkshire shareholder. It’s—they see themselves as a part of a community. They see Warren and Charlie as the—the leaders. They see a great reputation. They know that to say I’ve been a Berkshire shareholder for a number of years is a credit to themselves and I think they’re just people who—who relish being in this community.
我认为持有伯克希尔股票的投资者对自己感到满意，因为他们买入了一家持续成长、在商业环境中脱颖而出的公司——做伯克希尔股东没有丝毫坏处。他们把自己视为社群一员，把沃伦和查理看作领袖，享受这份卓越声誉。对他们来说，说“我持有伯克希尔多年”本身就是一种荣誉，他们乐于身处这个社群。
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