DAVID “SANDY” GOTTESMAN INTERVIEW  

大卫“桑迪”戈特斯曼采访  

BECOMING WARREN BUFFETT  

成为沃伦·巴菲特  

KUNHARDT FILM FOUNDATION  

库恩哈特电影基金会  

DAVID “SANDY” GOTTESMAN  

大卫“桑迪”戈特斯曼  

May 18, 2016  

2016年5月18日  

Interviewed by: Peter Kunhardt  

采访者：彼得·昆哈特  

Total Running Time: 1 Hour 3 Minutes  

总时长：1小时3分钟  

标题  首次听说沃伦·巴菲特  

10:12:01:21  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Well I was one of the few people at the business school that went down to Wall Street in 1950 when we graduated and I started dealing with clients, etcetera and the more I dealt with various people, I started to hear about Warren. And Bill Ruane who was in the class before me was a very good friend and Rick Kiniff, his partner, was in my class and a good friend of mine. So we had lunch one day and it was probably early in the 60’s, early and he said to me, “you know, you buy the same stocks as if—a friend of mine, Warren Buffett who I met at Columbia. You gotta meet him.” So Bill arranged a lunch with Warren so that was my first exposure. And then, coincidentally, I would guess within the month, or maybe a couple weeks late—maybe a couple weeks after that, a client of mine up in Westport who was I think dealing with Warren on the sale of Warren’s company at the time. It—or it was not his company, it was Dempster actually, I think, said to me, “This guy is coming up and he’s the brightest guy we’ve met and lets play golf—lets all play golf together.” So I went up and I played golf in Westport with Warren. So from then on it was a complete romance.  

当年我们从商学院毕业是在1950年，我是少数几个去了华尔街的人之一。我开始与客户打交道，等等，随着我与各种人往来得越多，我就开始听到关于沃伦的事情。比尔·鲁安是我前一届的同学，也是非常好的朋友，而他的合伙人里克·基尼夫和我是同班同学，也和我关系很好。有一天我们一起吃午饭，大概是在60年代初，他对我说：“你知道吗，你买的股票和我在哥伦比亚认识的一个朋友沃伦·巴菲特买的一样。你得见见他。”于是比尔安排了与沃伦共进午餐，那就是我第一次接触他。然后碰巧，大概在那个月之内，或者也许是几周之后，我在韦斯特波特的一位客户——我想他当时与沃伦在商谈沃伦那家公司（实际上是丹普斯特公司，我想）的出售事宜——跟我说：“这个家伙要过来了，他是我们见过的最聪明的人，让我们一起去打高尔夫吧——我们一起去打高尔夫。”于是我就去了韦斯特波特和沃伦打高尔夫。从那以后，简直就是一段彻底的‘情投意合’。  

标题  与沃伦打高尔夫  

10:13:38:11  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

You know, he’s a very competitive guy and Warren and I used to play golf in a twosome or a foursome and we would always, if we hit the ball straight out, I would guess that we were within four feet of each other when the ball landed but he was a heck of a competitor and I would say, you know Warren didn’t overdo golf and so I’m sure he could have gotten it well into the 70’s, but he—he was probably around a 90 or so, that’s where I was.  

他是一个非常有竞争心的人。沃伦和我常常两人或四人一起打高尔夫，如果我们把球直接击出去，球落地时几乎总是在彼此相距不到四英尺的地方。但是他真的很有竞争性。我想说，沃伦并没有在高尔夫上投入太多精力，我相信他完全可以打进70多杆的水平，但他大概在90杆左右，我也差不多就是那个水平。  

标题  苏西是他的“社交主席”  

10:14:35:12  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I mean one of the reasons that we were—we became very close friends at the time was that Susie met my wife and she loved my wife and my wife love—she was a very lovable person and there’s no doubt about the fact that—I mean Warren told me the same story only he told me 50 years ago, maybe more than 50 years ago. He was very indebted to Susie and he loved her deeply.  

我们当时之所以变得非常要好，其中一个原因是苏西认识了我妻子，她非常喜欢我妻子，而我妻子也很喜欢她——她是一个非常惹人喜爱的人。毫无疑问，我是说，沃伦给我讲过同样的故事，只不过是50年前，或者更早以前给我讲的。他非常感激苏西，并且深深地爱着她。  

标题  巴菲特的个性与魅力  

10:15:30:16  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Everybody’s got a certain amount of personality and charm in that family. I mean Howie is terrific and Susie’s great and I’m not so sure it wasn’t in the genes to begin with. I didn’t know his father but he had enormous love and respect for his father and his father must have been a very charismatic guy because he was in Washington as a representative for a number of terms.  

他们一家人都带着某种程度的个性与魅力。我是说，霍华德很出色，苏西也很棒，而且我认为这或许一开始就与他们的基因有关。我没见过他父亲，但是他对他父亲有着极大的爱与敬意，而他父亲一定是个非常有魅力的人，因为他在华盛顿当了好几届众议员。  

标题  沃伦与他母亲的关系   

10:16:16:00  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I missed it at first but it came through very strongly and I think he was very afraid of his mother. She lived up the street. I think I only met her once and I used to go out to Omaha and I wondered, you know—I—I—when I first went out there, I stayed at Warren’s house ‘cause he was very hospitable and he didn’t know many guys down on Wall Street but he never talked to her about her and I learned not to ask any questions.  

起初我没有察觉，但后来感觉非常强烈，我认为他非常害怕他母亲。她就住在街上方。我想我只见过她一次。我过去常去奥马哈，我想，你知道——我——我——当我第一次去那儿时，我住在沃伦家里，因为他非常好客，而且他在华尔街并不认识很多人，但他从来不谈她关于他母亲，我也学会了不要问任何问题。  

标题  周日晚上与沃伦通电话  

10:17:15:09  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I would think it started around—well it started right after I met Warren actually, but it wasn’t every Sunday night then, it was just occasional. But I was very much into stocks in those days and I was doing a lot of research and I was doing research on very undervalued stocks. In those days, you know Warren was doing the same thing, only more so and there were many decent opportunities at three, four, five, six times earnings and half book value and you know, every Sunday night after I worked like hell during the week, I would call Warren with all my best ideas. Warren would sit upstairs in his—I think on the landing where he had his chair and—or a little office there and I would bring up the name of a company and most of the time, he knew much more than I did about the company. He’d know how many shares were outstanding, he’d know the capitalization, he’d know the earnings, it was absolutely incredible. But every idea I had I batted up to Warren. It was like getting the good housekeeping seal of approval, particularly if he was going to buy some.  

我想那大概开始于——其实就是我遇到沃伦之后不久，不过那时候还不是每个星期天晚上，只是偶尔一次。但当时我对股票非常感兴趣，做了很多研究，并主要研究非常被低估的股票。那时候，你知道，沃伦也在做同样的事，而且做得更多。有很多不错的机会，市盈率只有三倍、四倍、五倍、六倍，市值是账面价值的一半。然后，每个星期天晚上，在我努力工作一周之后，我会给沃伦打电话，告诉他我所有最好的想法。沃伦会坐在楼上——我想是在楼梯平台，他放着椅子的地方，或者一个小办公室——我说出一家公司的名字，大多数时候，他比我更了解那家公司。他会知道公司流通股数、资本结构、盈利情况，简直不可思议。但我所有的想法都会向沃伦“投球”。如果他要买一点的话，那就像是获得了一种权威认可。  

10:18:45:00  

I don’t know about Warren, but when we were finished at maybe eleven or twelve, I was so stirred up. Which I think is something Warren is capable of doing; I was so stirred up and so excited I didn’t go to sleep for a couple of hours.  

我不知道沃伦如何，但每次我们在大约十一二点结束通话的时候，我总是激情澎湃。我想这就是沃伦所能带给人的感觉；我太兴奋了，好几个小时都睡不着。  

标题  沃伦这位“推销员”  

10:19:51:10  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I thought Warren was a terrific salesman. I mean when Warren said something; it meant a heck of a lot. And I think all of us paid a lot of attention to Warren when he took a definite stand on something and you know, right from the start, Warren knew where he was going. I mean he wanted to have an outstanding reputation. He wanted to have an out—an out—a reputation that he never really upset the apple cart when he bought a business, that he kept the management in place. He never sold one of the things he acquired even though it was a mistake and so he was establishing a reputation that paid off later in life. Look at the reputation he has today, but h—it’s been building and building ever since I’ve known him.  

我觉得沃伦是个极棒的推销员。我是说，当沃伦说出一些话时，那分量可真不小。我想当他对某件事做出明确表态时，我们所有人都会非常关注。你知道，从一开始，沃伦就清楚自己要去哪里。我的意思是，他想要一个卓越的声誉。他想要一个——一个——这样的名声：当他收购一家公司时，他从不会把一切弄得天翻地覆，而是保留原有的管理层。他从未卖掉他收购的公司之一，哪怕那是个错误，因此他在建立一种能让他在日后获益的声誉。看看他今天的名声吧，自我认识他以来，这种声誉就一直在不断累积壮大。  

标题  沃伦早期的商业经历  

10:21:25:01  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

In the late 60’s, Warren was not so interested in stocks anymore. He felt the market was very high and he was buying less and less and the partnership had grown considerably. So I don’t know whether he mentioned this or not but I called him up and suggested he buy something that belonged to my wife’s family, or part of it belonged to my wife’s family and it was a department store in Baltimore. And Warren and Charlie flew in because this was a fairly big deal at the time and it was the number one department store in Baltimore. And just like Warren does, I mean within 24 hours he made up his mind that he would—the price was right and he would buy it, he liked the people very much. When he owned the business for about a year, it was a business that really didn’t interest him. It was a retail business, it was very competitive. There were three other competitors all on the same opposite corners in the main thoroughfare of downtown Baltimore and Warren, while the department store was profitable, very profitable, it kept expanding and it kept putting money back into branches and elevators and furniture stores and outlying—outlying, you know, furniture stores. So he said to me, “I like businesses that throw off cash. I don’t like businesses that eat a lot of cash.” And this business particularly, and I think that’s true of a lot of retail businesses—and that’s why there’s very few department stores around today. They do require a lot of capital expenditures. And Warren said, “Why don’t you think about selling it?” So I did, and Warren had very good relationships with the management and I think they were all in favor of it and—I mean they really wanted to please Warren and I think—I think one of the things about Warren is when he buys a business, people love him and they—and they try their best to do their very best while he owns the operation.  

在60年代末，沃伦对股票不再那么感兴趣了。他觉得市场价格太高，他买的越来越少，而合伙企业的规模却扩大了不少。所以我不知道他是否提过这事，但我给他打了电话，建议他收购一部分属于我妻子家族的企业，或者说其中一部分归我妻子家族所有，那是一家位于巴尔的摩的百货公司。沃伦和查理坐飞机过来，因为这在当时算是笔相当大的交易，而且这家店是巴尔的摩最好的百货商店。就像沃伦一贯的作风，我的意思是，他在24小时内就下定了决心：价格合适，他会买下来，而且他非常喜欢那儿的人。他拥有这家公司大约一年后发现，这不是他真正感兴趣的生意。那是一家零售企业，竞争非常激烈。在巴尔的摩市中心的主要街道上，还有另外三家对手，分布在相对的转角上。虽然这家百货公司盈利丰厚，但它不断扩张，不断把资金投入到分店、电梯、家具商店和偏远地区的那些——那些偏远的家具商店里。所以他说：“我喜欢能产生现金流的企业，不喜欢那些需要大量现金投入的企业。”而这家企业尤其如此，我觉得很多零售企业都是这样——这也是为什么现在还能见到的百货商店并不多。它们确实需要大量资本支出。沃伦说：“你要不要考虑把它卖了？”于是我就这么做了。沃伦和管理层关系很好，我想他们都很赞成——我的意思是，他们真的很想让沃伦满意。我想——我想沃伦的一个特点就是：当他收购一家企业时，人们都会很喜欢他，并在他经营这家企业期间尽最大努力做到最好。  

10:24:09:11  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

So to come back to your point about Dempster, he was not buying the greatest businesses in the world. He was buying difficult businesses that were selling at big discounts. I mean Dempster made, I think, windmills. So how big a market was there for windmills in those days and I would think the electric motor and other things have changed the business considerably. I mean, but he bought Dempster very, very cheaply and made a fair amount of money out of it but it’s not characteristic of what he does today and he learned over the years also.  

回到你提到的丹普斯特公司这个话题，他当时并不是在买那些世界上最好的企业，而是在买一些困难重重、折价很大的公司。比如丹普斯特，我想他们是做风车的。那么在那个年代，风车又有多大的市场？而且电动机等其他技术的出现大幅改变了这个行业。我的意思是，他非常便宜地收购了丹普斯特并从中赚到了一些钱，但这并不是他今天的典型做法，他这些年里也在不断学习。  

标题  沃伦对保险业的兴趣  

10:25:14:01  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

When he bought Berkshire, he—he had become very interested in the insurance business and because of his interest in Geico, he learned a lot about the insurance business and he was a very fast learner and he understood these businesses very well. So again he knew exactly where he was going over the years but it started out very slowly in Berkshire. Meanwhile, he was interested in making as much money for Berkshire as possible. So occasionally I would come up with some idea for him and we would go into it and whenever he worked—he joined me in anything or I joined him, it was a great success.  

当他收购伯克希尔时，他已经对保险业产生了浓厚的兴趣。因为他对GEICO的关注，他学到了很多关于保险行业的知识，而且他是一个学习速度非常快的人，并且非常透彻地理解这些业务。所以他这些年来一直都很清楚自己的目标，但在伯克希尔刚开始时，进展很缓慢。与此同时，他也希望尽可能让伯克希尔挣到更多的钱。所以偶尔我会有一些想法，然后我们一起研究，而只要他和我共同参与了什么项目，或者我加入他的项目，那几乎总能取得巨大的成功。  

10:26:34:19  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

It’s true that—you know he had very good friends like Walter Schloss and that’s what they were doing but I think Warren was well above the cigar butt philosophy in the late 60’s and wasn’t buying cigar butts ‘cause they weren’t big enough and he didn’t want to waste his time on them and there were other very reasonably priced securities you could buy and do extremely well. And everything I ever suggested to Warren that interested him, he always made a big contribution that made it more valuable than I even thought about, and faster.  

确实——他有像沃尔特·施洛斯这样的好朋友，他们就是这么做的，但是我认为到了60年代末，沃伦早就超越了“烟蒂股”的那种投资理念。他没有去买那些“烟蒂股”，因为它们盘子太小，他不想在那上面浪费时间。而且还有其他估值合理的证券可以收购，并且能获得相当不错的收益。而我过去建议过沃伦的任何他感兴趣的东西，他都会做出极大的贡献，让其价值远超我原本的设想，并且速度也更快。  

标题  苏西去世之后  

10:27:55:05  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

When—when Warren lost his wife, he tried to have a composure that was reasonably, you know, composed but you could see inside he was suffering greatly and he let it go once in a while. ‘Cause we—I flew out there with a couple friends of Warrens and we paid a visit and my wife was along and you could just see the pain that he was going through. I think he became much more—you know, I could see it towards his kids and towards his family and everything else. He did change over the years, no doubt about it but I don’t—I don’t remember a lot of tough things. He was a softie in many respects. He might’ve been a little tough with the kids once in a while but that’s ‘cause he—he—in the early years, he wasn’t really into running the kids. It was Susie that ran the kids so he was much more aloof than he was later on but look at the family today.  

当——当沃伦失去妻子时，他努力让自己保持相对平静，你知道，但你能够看出他内心正承受着极大的痛苦，他偶尔也会流露出来。因为那次我——我和沃伦的几位朋友一起飞到那里去看望他，我妻子也同去，你就能看到他正在经历的那种痛苦。我想他后来对孩子、对家庭以及其他方面都更加用心了。毫无疑问，他这些年确实发生了变化，但我……我不记得有太多他艰难的时刻。他在很多方面都是个“心软”的人。有时他也许会对孩子稍微严厉一点，但那是因为在早些年，他并不是真的在管教孩子，而是苏西在带孩子，所以他那时候比后来要疏离得多。不过看看他如今的家庭吧。  

标题  结束合伙企业  

10:29:54:04  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Bill Ruane had started his firm and Warren had asked him, ‘cause Warren thinks ahead of time all the time. Warren asked him to start a small fund for small investors that would invest the way Bill invested at the time so Bill started Sequoia Fund, which of course has become very, very successful and all the accounts that were small, lets say under a hundred thousand or so, he would suggest that they go into Sequoia. There were other clients that were larger and I guess some of those went to Bill and some went to me. And I still have fortunately, the heirs of some—of one or two of those now. And they’ve been very good clients.  

比尔·鲁安当时已经创立了自己的公司，而沃伦让他这样做，是因为沃伦一直习惯未雨绸缪。沃伦请他为小投资者创立一只小型基金，按照比尔当时的投资方式来运作，于是比尔就创建了红杉基金。当然，红杉基金后来非常、非常成功。对于那些规模较小的账户，比方说低于十万美元左右的，沃伦会建议他们转到红杉基金去。还有一些规模更大的客户，我想其中一部分转给了比尔，一部分转给了我。而且幸运的是，我现在仍然服务于其中一两位客户的继承人，他们一直都是非常好的客户。  

标题  20世纪60年代华尔街的环境  

10:31:15:17  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

There were very few hedge funds back then. There was A.W. Jones, there was Steinhart and a couple of others and they were—well there was an interview actually in the paper about this that got one of them in trouble about fancy information and there was a lot of fancy information being passed around between the brokers and the—some of the funds and some of the investors. And Warren I don’t think wanted any part of that. He was not somebody who wanted to get inside information because he was all by himself and if he had his value line in front of him, he could appraise a company in a very few minutes and very successfully.  

当时对冲基金很少。有A.W. Jones、斯坦哈特等两三家。当时报纸上还采访过其中的一家，结果他们因某些“花哨信息”而惹上了麻烦，很多经纪商、某些基金和部分投资者之间都在传递这些“花哨信息”。而我认为沃伦不想参与任何此类事情。他并不是那种想要获取内部消息的人，因为他一直独来独往，只要面前有一份价值线(Value Line)报告，他就能在很短时间内非常成功地评估一家公司。

标题  与沃伦共同投资  

10:32:17:21  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Well we had an analyst at the firm who had done a fair amount of work on a company called Home Insurance and it was selling at 17 or half—18 which is almost half book value and so I sent the report out to Warren that we had and Warren read it and said lets start buying it. So I mean, Warren had much more buying power centralized than we did so Warren really bought a substantial piece of it and I bought some of it for clients and we were paying an average of 18, 19 dollars a share for quite a while, and after Warren got to 10% in Berkshire and he had to disclose his holdings, he decided maybe it was a good opportunity to sell it. So he suggested to me that I try out somebody in Chicago that he had done business with earlier about a position that I wasn’t involved in called Lone Star Steel. So I went out there, I spoke to the—spoke to them, gave a report on Home Insurance and lo and behold, they loved the idea even though they were—this was an old railroad holding company.  

我们公司里有一位分析师曾对一家名叫Home Insurance的公司做了相当多的研究，当时它的股价是17或18美元，差不多是其账面价值的一半左右。我们把那份研究报告寄给了沃伦，他看完后说让我们开始买进。我的意思是，沃伦集中的买入能力比我们强得多，所以他真的买下了这家公司很大一部分股份，而我也为客户买了一些。我们在相当长一段时间内的平均买价大约是18、19美元一股。后来沃伦在伯克希尔的持股达到了10%，需要对外披露他所持有的股份，他就觉得这也许是个不错的卖出时机。于是他建议我联系一个在芝加哥的人——他以前曾和那个家伙在另一个我没参与的项目（Lone Star Steel）上有过合作。于是我去了芝加哥，向他们介绍了Home Insurance的情况，结果他们非常感兴趣，虽然那家公司是一个老式铁路控股公司。  

10:33:53:01  

And they made an offer for the stock we had and we had some other insurance companies that joined us and they made the offer at 30 bucks a share but Warren thought the stock was worth substantially more than 30 dollars. So when we sold the stock, we made an agreement that if they resold it at a higher price, that we would participate in a good part of the profits and sure enough, when they tried to move in on Home Insurance because they had this big box of stock, a million shares, the management didn’t want any part of them and so that’s one of the things that was going on these days. There were—there was a company called City Investing. It was a high flyer of the first order back then and they offered up almost 100 dollars a share for Home Insurance because it had a lot of assets and they were asset light. So they took over and of course you know, from a value standpoint, you couldn’t compete with people like that. Within a year or two got into big trouble and had to liquidate. But I think that was truly the times, I mean there was a lot of high flyers out there that were taking off—it’s like the conglomerates today. Bidding wars, everything else was going on back then and I don’t think Warren liked that at all.  

他们给我们所持有的股票开出了一个报价，还有一些保险公司和我们一起在卖，他们出的价格是每股30美元，但沃伦认为这只股票远不止30美元。当我们出售这些股票时，我们达成一项协议：如果他们以更高的价格再次转手，我们会参与其中相当大部分的利润。果不其然，当他们想要介入Home Insurance时，因为手里头攒着大量股票（大约一百万股），公司管理层并不想让他们插手。当时还发生了另一件事：有一家名为City Investing的公司，当时是顶尖热门股之一，他们为Home Insurance开出了将近每股100美元的报价，因为Home Insurance资产丰富，而City Investing则属于资产较轻的类型。于是他们接管了Home Insurance。你也知道，就价值投资的角度而言，想和这样做法的公司竞争是不可能的。他们在一两年内就陷入了严重麻烦，最后不得不清算。但我觉得这就是当时的时代氛围，有很多“高飞”公司在不断崛起——就像今天的一些企业集团。当时盛行各种竞购战等等，而我认为沃伦对此一点也不感兴趣。  

10:35:38:10  

We had another opportunity. We had a couple but I must say, in anything that I suggested to Warren turned out to be much better than what I ever thought and this was a company called Studebaker which was going out of the car business and they had a huge tax loss so I called up Warren, I told him that we’d done work on Studebaker. They had started to diversify. They owned a company called Onam, which was—which is still a well-known manufacturer of generators. They owned another company called STP, which was really the most important company they owned which was the additive to your car to supposedly be good for your engine. So STP was an unknown quantity, you couldn’t get any information in those days about it and companies didn’t supply that kind of information but we knew there was a big tax loss in Studebaker and there was a lot of assets and it was—looked like a very, very cheap stock. So we started to buy it and Warren dispatched either a friend of his or one of the people in the office and I don’t—I forget who it was; it could’ve been Bill Scott but I’m not sure.  

我们还遇到另一个机会。我们其实有好几个机会，但我要说的是，我建议给沃伦的任何项目，结果都比我原本想象的要好很多。那个项目是一家叫Studebaker的公司，他们打算退出汽车业务，正好面临一大笔税收亏损。所以我给沃伦打了电话，告诉他我们对Studebaker做过一些研究。他们开始多元化经营，拥有一家名为Onam的公司——这家公司至今仍是知名的发电机制造商。另外他们还拥有一家名为STP的公司，这是他们最重要的资产之一，是一种汽车添加剂，据说对发动机有好处。在当时，STP几乎是个未知数，你无法获取这方面的信息，公司也不会提供此类数据。但我们知道Studebaker有巨额税收亏损，而且还有大量资产，看起来股价非常便宜。于是我们开始买入它，沃伦就派了一个朋友或者公司里的人过去调查。我记不清是谁了，可能是比尔·斯科特，但我不太确定。  

10:37:16:13  

And they went out to the railroad track outside the factory at—which was near Chicago and they counted the number of railroad cars going into the factory and the number of railroad cars that were coming out of the factory and that gave Warren and ourselves some idea of the size of STP and we—we bought quite a bit of stock and in those days I was working pretty hard and I would leave the office and—around seven, eight o’clock at night. I’d go to Grand Central Station to catch the train. So there was no such thing as quote machines but I would buy the Herald Tribune, which had an eve—a morning addition that came out at 9:00 o’clock at night. It had all the prices in it. So I picked—I started to read through the paper and there was a full-page ad by a man named—I think is name is Murphy in Honolulu who was in the—in the car business, he was offering 35 dollars a share for the stock that we had been buying for 18 and 20. I like that price range.  

他们跑到靠近芝加哥的那家工厂外的铁路轨道边，数了进出工厂的火车车厢数量，这样就让沃伦和我们对STP的产能规模有了大致的概念。然后我们买了不少股票。当时我每天工作非常努力，经常在晚上七八点离开办公室，然后去中央车站（Grand Central Station）赶火车。那时候没有什么行情报价机，但我会买一份先驱论坛报（Herald Tribune），他们有一个早报版在晚上9点左右出刊，上面会刊登当日的所有股价。有一天我翻报纸时，看到一整版的广告，是一个名叫——我想他叫墨菲（Murphy）的人在火奴鲁鲁从事汽车生意，他愿意以每股35美元的价格收购我们一直以18或20美元买入的那只股票。我很喜欢这个价位。  

So I called up Warren, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock at night when I got home. I said, “Warren, this guy who’s a car dealer is—has this full page ad in it, is making this offer on Studebaker.” So Warren said to me, without blinking at all, without hesitating, he said, “ok,” he says, “tomorrow morning, go into the crowd on—on—this is on the stock exchange and buy everything that—at the opening, just clean it all off. So that’s what we did. That was the end of that bid because the stock went up above that. They were wild and wooly days back then.  

我回家后，晚上十点、十一点左右给沃伦打电话，说：“沃伦，这个在卖车的人在报纸上整版广告，正开出这个价收购Studebaker的股票。”沃伦听完，没有任何迟疑就说：“好的，明天早上一开盘就进场，把所有能买到的都买下来。”我们就照做了。这样一来，那个人的收购要约就无疾而终了，因为股价涨到了那之上。那真是个疯狂又混乱的时代。  

10:39:36:00  

So then, the question was, what would we do? A couple days later, I got a call from somebody I knew out in California and he was—he was trying to put a deal together. So he offered us 44 bucks for the stock. We had cleaned up around 35. And they were wild and wooly days back then so I said, “ok, we’ll do it. We’ll sell it to you.” I thought it was a very rich price. So he—he didn’t have the money and he didn’t have the client and maybe in the next couple hours, he called up Warren and said, “I have this terrific company for sale” and of course Warren said, “I’m the seller.” So anyhow, he had—we had put the trade up on the New York Stock Exchange and he was obligated so it went through finally.  

然后问题就变成了：我们要怎么办？几天后，我接到了一个在加州认识的人打来的电话，他正在撮合一笔交易。他提出以每股44美元的价格收购我们手里的股票。我们之前是在35美元左右清掉大部分。那时候真是个狂放的时代，所以我说：“好，我们愿意卖给你。”我觉得这是个相当好的价位。不过，他既没有钱，也没有买家。也许就在接下来几个小时里，他打电话给沃伦，说：“我有一家很棒的公司要出售。”当然沃伦说：“我才是卖家。”不管怎样，我们已经在纽约证券交易所里挂出了这笔交易，他也必须履行这个义务，所以最终这笔交易还是成功完成了。  

标题  苏西对沃伦的影响  

10:13:28:11  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

The—the black bank though, was probably part of Susie’s influence. He had a good friend by the name Nick Newman and Nick and he, Nick was in a—he had a grocery chain. It was in Omaha and some of the other cities, I forget where but very nice guy and a good friend of Warren’s and together, they took an active part in helping the black community and I’m sure that that was Susie’s influence.  

不过，那家“黑人银行”或许就是受到了苏西的影响。他有一位好朋友叫尼克·纽曼，尼克和他……尼克当时经营着一家连锁杂货店，地点在奥马哈以及其他一些城市，我记不清具体哪些城市了，但尼克人很好，也是沃伦的好朋友。他们俩一起积极参与帮助黑人社区，我确信那是苏西的影响。  

标题  沃伦打破障碍  

10:14:19:13  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Omaha was a pretty segregated area back then and Warren belonged to the Omaha country club and his friends were Jewish, belonged to Happy Hollow so Warren wanted to break down the barriers at—at the Omaha country club and also there was I think another club, an eating club downtown for lunches that was also very exclusive. So Warren felt the only way he could do it was to apply to the Jewish country club for membership and the country club directors had a great deal of trouble with that. On the one hand, they wanted to have Warren as a member, on the other hand, there was a limit to how many members they could have and they had a waiting list that was all Jewish potential members and he was taking one of those spots so there was a real thought process that went into that and I think that they finally saw what Warren was trying to do and they pushed it through and he joined that club. Now I don’t know the other side. I don’t know at what point, whether they did open up or not but I do know about Happy Hollow.  

当时的奥马哈种族隔离还相当严重，沃伦是奥马哈乡村俱乐部的会员，而他的朋友是犹太人，他们加入了“快乐山谷”俱乐部。所以沃伦想要打破奥马哈乡村俱乐部以及——我想还有一家位于市中心、只提供午餐的餐饮俱乐部的封闭性。沃伦觉得，他只能通过向犹太乡村俱乐部申请会员资格来实现这一点。但俱乐部董事会对此很头疼。一方面，他们希望让沃伦加入，另一方面，俱乐部的会员名额有限，等候名单上都是犹太裔候选人，而沃伦占据了其中一个名额，所以他们就得好好思考一下。后来我想他们终于明白了沃伦想要做什么，就同意了他的申请，他也就加入了那家俱乐部。至于另一个俱乐部的情况，我就不太清楚了，也不知道他们后来是不是开放了，但对“快乐山谷”的事我是了解的。  

标题  沃伦没有偏见  

10:16:08:21  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I think Warren is free of all prejudice, completely free of it. And if he learned that from his father, I wasn’t aware of it but I—but he has no prejudice whatsoever. White, yellow, black, it doesn’t make any difference to him.  

我认为沃伦完全没有任何偏见。他完全不带偏见。如果说这是他从父亲那里学到的，我也不太清楚，但不管怎样，他对任何人都没有偏见。无论白人、黄种人、黑人，对他来说都没有区别。  

10:17:22:18  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I’m not sure that I’m 100% right on this but in those days, Salomon was a very, very cheap stock. It was selling for much less than its value. And they had done some things in mergers, etc. that affected the value so I actually discussed Salomon brothers with him as a potential candidate ‘cause it was right there in value line and I’d done some work on it and Salomon was a pretty good franchise at the time. I mean they were a top trader. Every large block of stock went through Salomon Brothers and they were a very, very aggressive, successful firm. Warren made up his mind to go ahead and buy this—buy this—there was a block of stock that was available and he bought that block of stock and it was a cheap price but he didn’t know at the time anything about what he was getting into as far as you know, getting into trouble with the government about government bonds and that came up shortly thereafter he got involved. I don’t know that it—I mean I think Warren was sorry that he got involved but Warren and Charlie were on the board and Charlie couldn’t stand what was going on there and didn’t like the culture at all. I think that, you know when the thing exploded, Warren had 24 hours or less to make up his mind as whether he was gonna go forward or just bow out and I think at point, Salomon Brothers could have gone into bankruptcy. And Warren stepped up and took responsibility, which is not so characteristic of him. He likes other people to step up and take the responsibility and work things out but certainly in Salomon Brothers, he deserves every bit of praise and as you know, every year at the—were you at the annual meeting this year? In that movie, almost every year they show his testimony in front of the committee. So I thought it—I think in the final analysis it—it furnished his reputation but at the time, he was very upset about it.  

我不敢肯定自己百分之百正确，但在那个时期，所罗门兄弟的股价非常非常低，远低于其实际价值。他们在并购方面做了些事情，这些操作影响了股价。所以我确实曾跟他讨论过所罗门兄弟，作为一个潜在投资标的，因为《价值线》（Value Line）上就有相关信息，而且我也做过一些研究。那时候所罗门兄弟确实是家不错的公司，他们是顶级的交易商，每一笔大宗股票交易几乎都要经过所罗门兄弟，而且他们非常强势，也十分成功。沃伦下定决心去买——去买……当时有一大笔股票可以收购，他就把那大笔股票买下了，价格很便宜。可他那时并不知道自己会卷入政府关于国债的调查，这是在他入股后不久就出现的。也许沃伦后来为此感到遗憾，但不管怎样，他和查理都在董事会里，而查理完全无法容忍那里的种种行为，也不喜欢那种文化。爆发危机后，沃伦只有二十四小时甚至更短的时间决定是继续留在那儿还是干脆退出。我想在那一刻，所罗门兄弟是有可能破产的。沃伦最终站了出来，承担起责任，这其实并不是他的一贯做法。他更习惯让别人出面承担责任、并负责解决问题。但在所罗门兄弟事件中，他确实值得所有的赞誉。你知道，每年在——你今年参加股东大会了吗？在那部影片里，他们几乎每年都会播放他在委员会前作证的场景。所以我觉得，从最终结果来看，这对他声誉的提升确实有帮助，但当时他对此非常不安。  

标题  沃伦在所罗门兄弟丑闻时期的声誉   

10:20:49:08  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Everybody on Wall Street, by that time, knew about Warren. Whether investors knew about Warren, I never thought about that and I can’t answer that question. Certainly his reputation by that time had really spread. It was no—no secret. And I’m not so sure he—he certainly didn’t have that in mind when he went into Salomon Brothers. I mean, he had an investment and he had a responsibility and he faced up to it but I don’t think he was looking at it that this would improve his reputation on a national basis, I just don’t think so.  

到那时候，整个华尔街都已经知道沃伦了。至于投资者是否也知道沃伦，我从来没有想过这个问题，也无法回答。但可以肯定的是，到那时他的声誉已经非常广为人知，并不是什么秘密。我也不觉得他——他当然不会是抱着“提升全国名声”的想法去参与所罗门兄弟的。我是说，他有投资在那儿，也有责任，他勇敢地面对了，但我不认为他是为了借此在全国范围内提升声誉，我是真的不这么想。  

标题  查理·芒格与沃伦的关系  

10:21:49:07  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Charlie met Warren through a Doctor friend. Charlie comes from Omaha so he met Warren through a friend of his who was a doctor. I think he was a doctor, and an investor in Warren’s partnership and Charlie was starting a small partnership after his career in law out in LA because Charlie saw there was more money in running a partnership than running a law firm so he started this firm called Munger, Wheeler & Company and Charlie was a very, very bright man and a very good Lawyer at the time and he met Warren a year before—a couple years before I met him maybe at around—probably around 1960 or 1959 through this doctor friend and you know, same thing. I mean he met Warren and had the same reaction that I did or anyone else does who meets Warren, just wow and I think Warren thought about Charlie in the same way.  

查理是通过一位医生朋友认识沃伦的。查理来自奥马哈，他通过那位医生朋友认识了沃伦。我想那个人是位医生，同时也是沃伦合伙企业的投资人。查理在洛杉矶从事法律工作后，开始筹办一个小型合伙基金，因为查理发现管理一个合伙基金比经营一家律师事务所赚得更多，所以他创办了Munger, Wheeler & Company。查理非常非常聪明，当时也是一位很出色的律师。他比我早一两年认识沃伦，大概是在1960年或1959年左右，通过那位医生朋友认识的。你知道，情况都是一样的：他见到沃伦后，反应和我以及其他见过沃伦的人都一样，就是“哇”，我想沃伦对查理的看法也一样。  

10:22:55:04  

But I would say Charlie has been a very, very strong anchor for Warren. When we—we made one investment together in that store in Baltimore, because Warren invited us each to buy 10% and from then on, we—we—we were involved in a company called Diversified Retailing until a number of years later. And every time Warren wanted to do something and he would pass it by Charlie and pass it by me, I was 100% in favor of it, Charlie always had a couple of strong reservations so I think Charlie has been sort of an anchor man and he’s been very useful to Warren in pointing out some of the problems.  

不过我想说，查理一直是沃伦非常非常有力的“压舱石”。我们曾在巴尔的摩那家商店上共同投资过一次，因为沃伦邀请我们各买10%的股份。从那以后，我们就共同参与了一家叫Diversified Retailing的公司，直到好几年之后才结束。每次沃伦想做什么，他都会先告诉查理，再告诉我，我一般是百分之百赞成，而查理总能提出一两个强烈的保留意见。所以我觉得查理在某种程度上是一名“定海神针”，在指出一些问题方面，对沃伦很有帮助。  

标题  尼克·布雷迪与所罗门兄弟  

10:25:42:04  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

There was an element of fraud involved in this man—this man at Salomon brothers who had broken the law of the Federal Reserve I think on how many bonds you can buy in a government auction and he had gone way above that and he had—he took the inventory and when the bond went up a little bit, he would sell it out and make a—a substantial profit for Salomon Brothers and they used their capital that way many times so when—well you know the story, I mean he went to Goodfriend and said, you know, I’ve got a problem because I guess he’d gotten a questionnaire from the government and Goodfriend didn’t react the way he should have at the time. He didn’t say, lets—lets get down there and confess, and say mea culpa and make a deal so they—he sort of kept it to himself and I think when Brady moved in, if it was Brady or the fed moved in or the treasury department, they were very much at risk of losing their ability to trade governments, it was going to be taken away form them and I think Warren had to step in, in a very short period of time. I mean it could’ve been 24 or 48 hours and he made the decision that he would step in it. certainly redounded to his benefit because he came out very well but it was a heartbreaking thing for a while.  

在所罗门兄弟有个人涉嫌欺诈，他违反了美联储关于政府债券拍卖中可购买数量的法律，他远远超出了限额。他会买入债券库存，然后等债券价格稍稍上涨就卖出，从而为所罗门兄弟赚取可观利润，而且他们用这种方式动用资金不止一次。后来，你也知道故事的走向，他去找古德弗兰德，说自己出了问题，因为他好像收到了政府的问询表，但古德弗兰德当时没做出应有的反应。他并没有说：“我们赶紧去坦白认错、表达悔意，然后尝试达成协议吧。”而是选择隐瞒。我想当时布雷迪（如果是布雷迪，或者是美联储，或者是财政部）介入时，所罗门兄弟面临着被剥夺政府债券交易资格的危险。沃伦不得不在非常短的时间内介入，也许只有24或48小时，他就做出了决定。最后的确对他有利，因为他处理得很好，但在那段时间里，这件事着实令他心力交瘁。  

标题  沃伦对保险业的兴趣  

10:28:33:02  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Warren, as an analyst went down to Washington one weekend and, I mean lo and behold he knocks on the door of this company and nobodies there in the office and finally some watchman answers the door and says, “what do you want?” And Warren says, you know, “I’m a research analyst and I’d love to interview the—speak to the president.” So he—by chance he was in his office upstairs and Warren went up to meet him and he was enthralled by this man and the man spent the better part of the day talking to Warren about GEICO and what a good business the insurance business was and of course, under Warren’s [unclear] years later, GEICO became a much, much more important business and really went all out in the mail order business and made it very, very efficient but what Warren likes about any of those businesses is that he has a fair amount of money that’s sitting there as—supposedly as float and he can use the float to invest in other things so GEICO was making, after it had a very low expense ratio, because they were very, very efficient at GEICO at the time and they became even more efficient, the expense ratio was low compared to all the other insurance companies so they were earning money when it was difficult for other companies to earn money and in addition they had this big reservoir of money that was float.  

当时，沃伦还是一名分析师，他有个周末去了华盛顿。我是说，他径直去敲了那家公司的门，结果办公室里没人，最后有个看门人应门，问：“你想干什么？”沃伦说：“我是做研究分析的，我想采访——和这家公司的总裁谈谈。”刚好那位总裁当时在楼上的办公室，沃伦就上去见他了。沃伦被这个人深深吸引，而那个人花了大半天时间跟沃伦聊GEICO以及保险行业的优势。后来，经过沃伦（[听不清]）多年的发展，GEICO成了一家更加重要的公司，大力推动邮购业务，把它做得非常高效。沃伦之所以喜欢这类企业，正是因为它们拥有一笔数额可观的资金——也就是所谓的浮存金，而他能用这笔浮存金去投资其他项目。当时GEICO的费用率很低，因为他们的运营非常高效，之后效率更是进一步提升，所以相比其他保险公司，GEICO的费用率要低很多。这意味着当其他公司难以赚钱时，GEICO还能盈利。除此之外，他们还拥有一大笔浮存金可用。  

10:30:22:09  

Now the float in the automobile insurance business is not as good as the float at other companies that he has but it’s substantial and it adds up into what is a large float of free money that Warren can take to buy businesses and invest so it’s a to-for.  

当然，车险业务的浮存金可能不及他在其他公司里获得的浮存金那么好，但数额仍然相当可观。而所有浮存金加起来就成了一大笔“免费资金”，可以让沃伦用来收购公司和投资，这就形成了双重收益。  

标题  喜诗糖果  

10:31:06:20  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

As far as I know, Charlie had a man working for him who had been, I think, a petroleum engineer and Charlie and Warren were approached on See’s and they were going to make an offer that was below what See’s wanted and this man piped up and said, you know, “You’re doing the wrong thing, this is a high quality business, it’s going to have substantial growth, there’s plenty of leeway to raise the price on chocolates and you really should raise your bid because you’re buy—you’re not buying an asset, you’re buying a name, you’re buying a brand, you’re buying a real franchise here so they did raise their bid and they bought it and of course looking back, it was the start of buying good businesses at relatively favorable prices and Charlie was more responsible for that than anybody.  

据我所知，查理手下有个人，好像是个石油工程师。后来有人找上查理和沃伦，向他们兜售喜诗糖果。他们最初想出的报价比喜诗糖果的心理价位要低，但那个人就插话说：“你们这样做不对。喜诗是一家高质量的企业，它会有可观的增长空间，而且在巧克力提价方面还有很多操作余地。你们应该把出价提高一点，因为你们买的并不仅仅是资产，而是一个名声、一块品牌，是真正的特许经营。”于是他们提高了报价并成功收购。回头看看，这也算是他们开始以相对合理的价格收购优质企业的起点，而在这点上，查理比任何人都起到了更大作用。  

10:31:06:20  

Warren has this—I shouldn’t say theory, it’s a—it’s not a proverb either but he has a strong feeling which he communicates to all of us that if you buy a good business and you stay with it for a long time, you’re gonna make a fair amount of money so that’s really what Berkshire is and what some of the companies that Warren’s bought, I mean he’s made a lot of money buying Coca Cola even though it’s now subject to criticism. He’s made a lot of money in American Express doing that, he’s made a lot of money in a lot of companies and I think that all of us learned a lot out of that See’s.  

沃伦有一个——我不该称之为“理论”，它也不算是箴言，但他一直对我们强调这样一种观念：如果你买的是一家好公司，并且长期持有，就能赚到可观的收益。这实际上也是伯克希尔和沃伦所收购的许多公司的真实写照。比如他买可口可乐，虽然现在有些人批评这家企业，但他从中赚了很多钱。他在美国运通身上也赚了很多，在很多公司上都收获颇丰。我想我们所有人都从那次收购喜诗糖果中学到不少东西。  

​标题  沃伦与《华盛顿邮报》  

10:33:47:08  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

It was probably 1972, 73—for some reason, The New York Times went public with a restricted stock, an A and a B. A whole group of previously privately owned companies also became public and the stocks all fell down. Market was going down and these stocks went down and Washington Post went down substantially from its initial offering price so Warren started to buy some stock and I must say, you know Warren is very good about sharing his thoughts with people and directing them in various ways and he had—he had talked to a whole gr—we—we—I mean Carol I’m sure told you about the group meetings that we had and he had talked about you know, the value of broadcasters, the value of newspapers, etcetera, he saw real value and in these newspapers and also not only the franchise value but the thrill of being involved in a newspaper like Washington Post. And Kay Graham had some advisors in those days that were on the board that checked Warren out and here was this young guy who was buying a big piece of Washington Post and they were very, very suspicious about it. I ha—my wife and I happened to be out in California.  

大概是在1972年、73年左右。出于某种原因，《纽约时报》以受限股的形式上市了，分为A和B两种股份。一批原本私营的公司也相继上市，结果股价全都下跌。市场整体在走低，这些股票也跟着下跌，而《华盛顿邮报》的股价从最初的发行价大幅下跌，于是沃伦开始买进一些股票。不得不说，沃伦非常善于跟别人分享自己的想法，并且通过各种方式给予指引。他和我们一大群人——我想卡罗尔肯定跟你说起过我们曾经组织的集体会议——在会上谈到了广播公司和报业的价值等内容，他不仅看到了这些报纸的特许经营价值，也对参与像《华盛顿邮报》这样一家媒体感到兴奋。当时凯·格雷厄姆的董事会里有一些顾问，他们去调查沃伦的背景。眼看着这样一个年轻人买下《华盛顿邮报》的大笔股份，他们非常怀疑这件事。我和我妻子当时正好在加利福尼亚。  

10:35:58:11  

We visited Warren during the summers then, he had a place in Laguna, and we would go out and, we’d play golf, we’d go out at night with Susie, and occasionally with Charlie, etcetera and Warren had invited Kay Graham out directly. She was strong enough to say to herself, I’m not gonna listen to al my advisors, I want to find out for myself so she came out to California and she met him and I re—I was there at the time and—this is a story you won’t get from many people but anyhow, Warren started talking to her and when Warren starts to talk, he’s very convincing and he can talk for a long time so she—she looked out the window and here is this beautiful beach, and the—it was a beautiful U-shaped cove and she said, I think I’ll go for a swim so she changed into her bathing suit, came downstairs, Warren started the conversation again. We walked down to the beach, I was there, Warren is fully dressed, he started walking into the water, and Warren doesn’t swim and he doesn’t go in the water and all of a sudden when he got up to his waist, he realized he was in the water, and he turned around and—and went out. But he was thrilled by her visit and I think she was very taken with Warren from then on so she didn’t listen to her advisors at all.  

那时我们在夏天会去拜访沃伦，他在拉古纳海滩有一处住所。我们会一起出去玩、高尔夫球，晚上跟苏西出去，有时还会叫上查理等等。沃伦直接邀请了凯·格雷厄姆过来。她当时足够有主见，不愿只听从自己顾问的话，而是想亲自来了解一下，于是她就飞到加州来见他。我还记得——我当时也在场，很少有人会讲这个故事……不管怎样，沃伦开始跟她谈话。沃伦一旦开口，就很有说服力，而且能谈很久。她看向窗外，看见外面是个风景优美的海滩，是个漂亮的U形海湾，就说：“我想去游泳。”于是她换上泳衣下楼，沃伦又继续跟她聊。我们走到海滩上，我也在场，当时沃伦还穿着衣服，他开始往水里走。可沃伦并不会游泳，他也不常下水，结果他走到齐腰深时才意识到自己在海水里，就赶紧回头上岸了。不过他对她的来访感到非常兴奋，我觉得她从那以后也非常欣赏沃伦，所以她根本没听她的顾问们怎么说。  

​标题  他的60岁生日派对  

10:11:06:20  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

My brother threw a small birthday party for me at the hotel uptown and we were probably 35 or 40 people there, good friends, and Warren and Susie came, Susie sang and then there were a lot of toasts afterwards. Warren’s toast was, “may you live ‘till Berkshire splits” and that was 30 years ago. And so far, so good, I’m here and Warren hasn’t split the stock. So that’s made a big difference in my life because I think about that often.  

我哥哥在城北的一家酒店给我办了个小型生日派对，大约有三十五四十个人来，都是好朋友，沃伦和苏西也来了。苏西唱了歌，然后有很多人敬酒。沃伦举杯说：“愿你活到伯克希尔拆股的那一天。”那是三十年前的事了。到目前为止，一切都好，我还在这儿，而沃伦还没有拆股。这件事对我的生活影响很大，因为我经常想起这句话。  

​标题  苏西的演唱  

10:12:22:18  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Well I mean if Bill Ruane was here, he’d really tell you about it but you know, Susie was interested in singing in front of various groups and she was goin—she would—she was willing to go to various night—semi-night clubs in New York and sing there. Maybe it was for the experience or maybe she wanted to do it because she enjoyed it but anyhow, they would come to New York and Bill would arrange for her to sing at various small little clubs and we would go and listen to her but she loved it and Bill really killed himself setting up those dates for her and I think Warren was very proud. She had a grea—she had a very wonderful voice, yeah and she had a good sen—she sang the oldies really, show tunes and that kind of stuff.  

如果比尔·鲁安在这儿，他会很详细地跟你说这件事。你知道，苏西对在各种场合演唱很感兴趣，她愿意去纽约的夜总会或半夜总会唱歌。也许她是想积累经验，或者纯粹因为自己喜欢。无论如何，他们来纽约时，比尔会为她安排在一些小俱乐部演唱，我们就去听，而她特别享受这种过程。比尔真是费尽心思为她安排那些演出，而我觉得沃伦也非常自豪。她拥有一副非常好的嗓音，而且很有感觉——她主要唱一些经典老歌、音乐剧曲目之类的东西。  

​标题  沃伦对朋友的忠诚  

10:14:23:06  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Warren, like nobody else I know has had an enormous loyalty to all of us. There’s nobody that he’s ever turned his back on that I know of. The group that we had, maybe Warren outgrew many of the people in it but he never abandoned anybody and he was always inclusive and he was very, very loyal. We had a group of eight of us that would go out to the west coast and play golf at pebble and three other golf clubs over a four-day period. And Warren was getting busier and busier but yet every year—every two years, he would show up and he would play golf for four days even though it wasn’t his greatest interest in the world. And as far as the meetings that he had, well he was meeting all the famous people in the world and everybody was coming to his doorstep but he remained very, very loyal to all of his friends and of course that group that Carol described to you was composed for the most part of people that he knew starting back in the 60’s so I—I don’t know anybody like that. He could go down to the president’s home anytime he wanted to and in fact, there’s some great stories. He was invited out to Rea—he was invited out with Reagan to Walter Annenberg home in Palm Springs.  

沃伦对我们所有人的忠诚，是我见过任何人都难以比拟的。据我所知，他从来没有抛弃过谁。我们那群人里，也许随着时间推移，沃伦的层次比很多人都高了，但他却从没离开过任何人，一直非常包容，非常忠诚。我们当时有八个人，会在西海岸打高尔夫，像圆石滩以及其他三个球会，打上四天。虽然沃伦越来越忙，但他每年或者每两年还是会来，打满这四天高尔夫，尽管这并不是他最大的爱好。至于他在这期间还得见全世界的名人，所有人都想来拜访他，但他始终对朋友非常忠诚。卡罗尔和你提起过的那个聚会小组，成员主要是沃伦在60年代就认识的人。我想说，我不认识其他有这样特质的人。他随时都能去总统的家里，而且确实也有一些有趣的故事。比如里根总统曾邀请他一起去棕榈泉的沃尔特·安嫩伯格家中做客。  

10:16:08:11  

Walter Annenberg had this house that was a fairly well known house evidently. It’s now an institution but he would invite various people down for weekends and you know Warren was getting to be very big in the newspaper business and he was a great investor and so Walter wanted to cultivate Warren so he invited him out when he had Reagan who was then President, for the weekend. And Warren went out there and there were other people out there too and everybody had their own room and they had attendants that were helping them unpack and pack. It was all very, very impressive and luxurious. So Walter had a 9-hole golf course that he played as 18 holes and every single ball on the range that they used was never hit twice. Just one trip on a ball. So Annenberg said to his friends who were there, golfers, saying, “I’ve reserved starting times for you across the street…” at one of the courses, I forget the name of it, it could’ve been Thunderbird or one of those. He says, “It’s too crowded over here” so Walter and Reagan and Warren went out to play golf on this golf course, they were the only ones but it was kind of cute that they—he sent everybody across the street, said it’s too crowded so Warren had some good stories about his various things and I mean Warren could go any place he wanted to at that time but he was extremely loyal to his friends.  

沃尔特·安嫩伯格有一栋很有名的房子，现已成为某种机构。他周末会邀请各种各样的人来小住。那时沃伦在报业领域已经很有影响力，他也是位很出色的投资者，所以沃尔特想与沃伦搞好关系，就在那周末里根总统也在的时候把沃伦请来。沃伦去了，那儿还有其他一些人。每个人都有自己的房间，还有专门的服务人员帮忙收拾行李，一切都非常奢华令人印象深刻。沃尔特那儿有一座9洞的高尔夫球场，他会把它当成18洞来打，而且练习场的球只打一次，绝不重复使用。安嫩伯格跟那里的其他高尔夫球友说：“我在对面的球场给你们订好了出发时间……” 我不记得那球场的名字了，可能叫“雷鸟”之类的。他说：“这边太拥挤了。”于是沃尔特和里根、沃伦就一起在这个球场上打球，而他们是仅有的几个人。挺有意思的是，他把别人都支到对面，说这边太拥挤了。沃伦也因此有了一些很好的见闻和故事。我的意思是，那时候沃伦想去哪里都可以，但他对朋友依旧极其忠诚。  

​标题  伯克希尔长远投资的建议  

10:11:52:06  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

We never bought Berkshire directly, we got our stock through diversified, the same way that Charlie got most of his stock. And I don’t know of a better investment for my children and my grandchildren and maybe a couple people that come after that than Berkshire as long as the culture remains the same. And that’s the most important thing and I know that the people who are coming along and that we’re thinking about as potential replacements for Warren today have a very strong sense of culture and have a very strong sense of obligation to Warren and everything Warren stands for so I have no doubt for 25 years afterwards, the culture isn’t going to change and meanwhile, you own a group of companies that are extraordinary and maybe—maybe new management will do a few things that Warren might not have done, but otherwise they’re gonna be very strong value oriented people and very decent, decent, honest individuals. You know, when anytime when Warren says something, you can take it to the bank and I think people understand that and—but I think Berkshire really stands for—culture, is complete decency and honesty, yes.  

我们从未直接购买过伯克希尔的股票，而是通过一家多元化公司获得了股份，查理的大部分股票也是这么来的。只要伯克希尔的文化不变，我想不出还有什么比它更适合作为我子孙，或者再往后的一些人所持有的投资。那是最重要的因素，而且我知道，如今被视作沃伦潜在接班人的这些人，都对伯克希尔的文化有强烈的认同感，也对沃伦以及他所代表的一切抱有强烈的责任感。所以我毫不怀疑，在接下来的25年里，这种文化都不会改变。同时，你还拥有一群非同凡响的公司。也许，也许新的管理层会做一些沃伦本人不会去做的事，但他们依然会是坚定的价值导向者，为人正派诚实。你看，沃伦说的话，你完全可以当作金科玉律，我想人们都明白这一点。我认为伯克希尔所代表的，正是这样一种文化，就是彻底的正直与诚实。

​标题  沃伦对慈善事业的影响  

10:13:49:06  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

There was a time before Warren made his big gifts to the Gates foundation that he was getting criticized and you can see it in the blogs that were written back then and some of the letters and other things that—here was this very, very rich man who was getting richer every year and really wasn’t giving a lot of money away and there was terrific criticism by some people which Warren never said anything about and didn’t answer but all along, people were getting very rich on owning Berkshire, particularly those people who started out with a few dollars in his partnership. And I mean, there were—there’s still instances where you’ve got this man who died a couple years ago in Brooklyn who came from a—he was a professor at Brooklyn who came from—he was a professor at Brooklyn Polytechnic and he left a fortune of 700, 800 million dollars, nobody had ever heard of him before but he had been a partner of the original partnership, put a few dollars in and had given most of it away. He didn’t have any children. There was actually a Rabbi in—in—in Omaha, it was a great story.  

在沃伦向盖茨基金会捐出大笔资金之前，他确实曾遭到一些批评。你从当时的一些博客、来信及其他东西上都能看到这些声音——有人说他是个极其富有的人，每年都在变得更富，却并没有捐出很多钱。有人对他提出了严厉的指责，而沃伦对此从未做出回应。不过在这整个过程中，很多人持有伯克希尔而变得非常富有，尤其是那些最初在他合伙企业只投入少量资金的人。其实现在也还有类似的情况，比如说之前在布鲁克林去世的一位先生——他曾是布鲁克林的一位教授，在布鲁克林理工学院任教，谁也没听说过他，可他在最初那家合伙企业里投了一点钱，然后大部分都捐出去了。他没有孩子。奥马哈还有一位拉比，也有一个非常精彩的故事。

10:15:17:10  

His name was Kripke and his wife met Susie because his wife was drawing children’s books and Susie met her because she was interested in the books. And so she called up and she met her and then she thought she was charming and so they started playing bridge at night with—once a month or once every couple weeks with the Rabbi and his wife and they had a very strong friendship and the—the wife said to—Warren was young and running the partnership. Warren said to the Rabbi, I mean his wife said to the Rabbi, you really should put some money into the—Warren’s partnership because you know, his brilliance always shown through and the Rabbi was very reluctant because this was his retirement fund. But finally he did put some money in, very small amount and when he retired, he had a few—I think he had a son, I don’t know who else he had, I think he’s still alive in that—he’s in an old age home in Omaha but he had given—nobody thought he had—I don’t think he ever made more than 15, 16 thousand dollars a year as a salary but he gave something like 30 or 40 million dollars to the seminary in New York for a brand new entrance hall and research facility I think and nobody ever heard of him before and these people are all popping up all over.  

那位拉比名叫克里普克(Kripke)，他太太因为绘制儿童读物而认识了苏西。苏西感兴趣，就联系了她，觉得她很有魅力，于是他们开始每个月或每隔几周与拉比夫妇一起晚上打桥牌，两家关系很好。那时候沃伦还年轻，正在管理合伙企业。沃伦建议那位拉比投资一点资金到他的合伙企业。确切地说，是拉比的太太对拉比说：“你真的应该在沃伦的合伙企业里投一点钱，因为他非常聪明。”拉比一开始很犹豫，因为那是他的退休基金。不过最终他还是投入了一点点钱。后来他退休时，好像有个儿子，不确定还有谁。我想他现在还活着，在奥马哈的一家养老院里。当时没人会想到他其实捐了很多钱。我觉得他年薪从没超过一万五六千美元，但他却捐出了三四千万美元给纽约的一所神学院，用于修建一座新的入口大厅和研究设施。没人听说过他，可是这种人在各地都不时出现。

10:16:54:06  

And I heard a story about somebody the other night who made a large gift, somebody who really was quite poor in—in—they had come over, they were a holocaust victim. They had put a few bucks into Warren’s partnership and they gave hundreds of millions of dollars to some university and you hear about it all the time where—I know in my case, I mean I thank Warren all the time because I—well I don’t give away to Berkshire, that’s sort of sacrosanct but it’s made it possible for me to make a fair amount of major gifts that have brought joy to the whole family. So I think that Warren’s influence on giving things away and charity has been a real leadership position and people just don’t appreciate it that much. And you know the—I think what he’s done with his children is terrific.  

我前几天还听说另一个人捐了一大笔钱给某大学，此人原本很穷，好像是个大屠杀幸存者。他在沃伦的合伙企业里投了些钱，后来向一所大学捐出了几亿美元。这种故事不断出现。我知道就我个人而言，我一直心存感激沃伦。虽然我并不会把伯克希尔的股票捐出去（它对我来说可谓神圣不可侵犯），但正因为它，我得以做出不少重要的慈善捐赠，让整个家庭都感到快乐。所以我觉得沃伦在慈善捐赠方面一直起着领导作用，只是人们并没有那么欣赏罢了。而你看，他对自己孩子所做的安排也很棒。

10:17:56:23  

I mean you we—you spoke to Howie and you spoke to some of the others, they’ve all thrived because they’re running these foundations and are able to give away money. And I mean Warren’s influence is strong and he spends his time the way he really—you know he’s only got so much time and he spends his time very carefully but he feels that he is delegated Gates as the best person possible to run a lot of his charitable activities and I think he’s correct. But the amount of money he’s made for other people because of Berkshire is extraordinary and all that money is being given away over the years. And all those remarks about him years ago are just absolutely incorrect.  

我知道你和霍华德以及其他人都谈过，他们之所以能取得成功，部分原因在于他们管理这些基金会，能够进行慈善捐赠。我想沃伦的影响力非常强大，他很谨慎地分配自己的时间，因为他的时间有限。他认为把大量的慈善活动交给盖茨去管理是最好的选择，而我也同意这一点。而正是因为伯克希尔，他为他人创造的财富数额惊人，这些钱多年来都被捐献出去。那些对他早先的批评毫无道理可言。  

​标题  2008年的金融危机  

10:19:26:15  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

I did not realize the severity of it at—when it started but I was in Omaha for a meeting and Warren was getting calls left and right from various companies that had a lot of leverage and needed funds and in those days, he would—had the opportunity to buy extremely high yielding preferred stocks that were convertible or had warrants in some very good companies like Goldman Sachs and a host of other companies that made a lot of money for Berkshire in the long run but I think that the severity of that decline at the time and the crisis and the—what’s happened with housing ever since and the affect on employment was not—I—I didn’t see it coming as strongly as it came and it turned out to be one of the most serious events we had outside of the depression in ‘29 and I think Warren and Charlie both handled themselves extremely well.  

危机刚开始的时候，我并没有意识到它会这么严重。当时我在奥马哈开会，沃伦不断接到一些高杠杆、急需资金的公司打来的电话。在那个时候，他有机会以极高的收益率买入一些可转换优先股或带认股权证的优先股，像高盛以及一批其他优秀企业，这些投资从长期来看为伯克希尔赚了很多钱。但我想，回头看当时的暴跌程度、整个危机以及自那以后房地产的状况和对就业的影响，都比我预想的要严重得多。最终它成了除1929年大萧条之外最严重的事件之一，而我认为沃伦和查理在这方面都应对得极为出色。  

10:20:56:13  

Warren always has his wonderful view that you get greedy when other people are fearful and you get fearful when other people are greedy and he certainly used that opportunity to build the – build Berkshire and of course Berkshire is a fortress. It’s impregnable as far as the financial condition, but I think the country was in serious trouble and I mean I’m not an expert economist but this wh—the fact that interests rates have been coming down and down, in fact they’re almost nothing now is still a reflection of the unemployment and the housing and all the things that are the aftermath of what happened back then. Incidentally, Warren has a great expression about macro—people who have a real macro feeling and I’ve never forgotten it. He says, “there’s a place in the cemetery that’s reserved for all those people who think they can see what’s gonna happen in the market.” So I didn’t see it.  

沃伦一贯持有一个很棒的观点：在别人恐惧时你要贪婪，而在别人贪婪时你就得恐惧。他确实利用了那个机会来壮大伯克希尔。当然伯克希尔就像一座堡垒，从财务上来讲固若金汤。但我认为整个国家当时都陷入了严重的麻烦。我并不是专业的经济学家，不过利率一路下行，实际上现在几乎降到零，这仍然反映了当时危机对失业、房地产以及其他方面所造成的余波。顺带一提，沃伦对宏观经济以及那些自以为能预测市场的人有句话，我一直记得很清楚。他说：“公墓里专门给那些自以为能预测市场走向的人留了块地儿。”而我当时确实也没预料到这场危机会如此严重。  

​标题  沃伦的乐观主义  

10:22:49:16  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Well I think his message has always been very optimistic about the United States and the place the United States in the world and the place you really should have your money because the United States is growing and things are so good here in spite of all the problems and everything else and I think he—he fundamentally believes it like nobody else that I know. He’s a strong believer and a strong salesman on that.  

我认为他一直对美国以及美国在世界上的地位抱着非常乐观的态度，也一直强调美国才是最应该配置资产的地方。尽管这里也有各种问题和挑战，但美国依然在成长，整体情况很好。我觉得他是发自内心地这样相信，没有第二个人能像他那样坚定。他不仅自己信得非常牢固，也会极力向别人推销这种观点。  

​标题  与沃伦的友谊 

10:25:09:07  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Look, in so many ways, Warren has been an enormous influence on me and our family and for example, even though the family, some of the family doesn’t care about business at all, they all have made the trip to Omaha, they all know Warren, they all think the world of Omaha—of—of Warren. They have tremendous respect for him and his values. I use some of Warren’s material; I send it to the kids so that they can read what he has to say about—about life and I think he’s had an enormous influence on my life and my wife’s life, he’s made it much more enjoyable. We love some of the friends we’ve made because Warren has—one thing that Warren does is he brings everybody together and he shares everybody. He doesn’t keep anyone to himself. So all of Warren’s friends, you know, I got to meet early in the game.  

你看，从很多方面来说，沃伦对我和我的家庭都有极大的影响。举个例子，家里有些成员对商业毫无兴趣，可他们都曾经去过奥马哈，也都认识沃伦，而且都极为敬重他，也钦佩他的价值观。我会把沃伦写的一些文章寄给孩子们，让他们去读读他对生活的看法。我想他对我和我妻子的生活都产生了巨大影响，让我们生活得更加愉快。我们也很珍视由于沃伦而结识的一些朋友。沃伦有个特点：他喜欢把所有人召集到一起，然后与大家分享。他不会把谁只留给自己。所以沃伦的那些朋友，我很早就有机会认识了。  

Murphy and Burke and all these other people we know fairly well, the Loomis’s, etc. all came out of being involved with Warren so it’s been a wonderful experience. It hasn’t hurt me from a business standpoint either. It’s—it’s very nice. There’s—I—I mean I’m very careful about the way I handle myself and not to impose on any of Warren’s reputation but still and all, it—it rubs off.  

像墨菲、伯克等许多我们熟识的人，还有卢米斯夫妇等等，都是因为沃伦而相识的，这段经历让人非常美好。从商业角度来说，这对我也大有裨益，真是很不错。我的意思是，我一直对自己的言行很谨慎，不会去消耗沃伦的声望，但无论怎样，这种影响力始终能够传递过来。  

​标题  加入董事会  

10:28:01:16  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Warren doesn’t forget anything he ever says and you know, Warren’s gone way beyond anything I can handle but when we sold Diversified, I was Vice Chairman and Charlie was a Vice Chairman, primarily because of our ownership. And Warren said to me, “look, come to Berkshire, you can become a Vice Chairman just like Charlie and we’re happy to have you.” But he said, “There is a conflict, if you—if you stay in the money management business and you’re gonna be buying these stocks, you’re gonna have to report everything you buy and I’m gonna have to report everything I buy and they’re gonna combine them and it’s going to be a problem.” So I said, “that’s fine Warren, I don’t need that.” So he said, “if you ever get in a position when you’re out of First Manhattan, my offer stands.” So, after Susie passed away, which is well over 10 years ago I guess, I think the world changed as far as Warren was concerned and again, loyalty has been very important and integrity again and so Warren ca—there was an opening on the board and Warren came to me and said, “would you like to be on the board now.” So I said, you know I’m gonna jump at this opportunity but let me think about it overnight. So Warren said to me, “You know, you’ve been a very private person and the minute you go on the board, you’re gonna have to start reporting.” So by that time I had given away some of my Berkshire to family and I thought about it and I felt that the advantages of being on the board versus not being on the board were substantial and I said, “great.” So that’s another example of his great loyalty.  

沃伦从来不会忘记自己说过的任何话。你也知道，沃伦已经发展到远远超出我所能应付的层次了。当我们出售Diversified（多元化零售公司）时，我是副董事长，查理也是副董事长，主要是因为我们拥有相当数量的股份。当时沃伦对我说：“瞧，你来伯克希尔吧，你可以像查理一样成为副董事长，我们非常欢迎你。”但他也说：“这会有一个冲突，如果你继续做资金管理业务，还要买这些股票，那么你买什么都得披露，而我买什么也要披露，到时候两边合并起来，就会很麻烦。”于是我说：“好的，沃伦，那我就不做了。”他便说：“如果有一天你离开First Manhattan，我的提议依然有效。”后来，苏西去世之后，差不多是十多年前吧，我想就沃伦而言，世界变了。忠诚依然很重要，正直依然很重要。于是沃伦——当董事会出现了一个空缺时，沃伦来找我说：“你现在愿意来董事会吗？”我当时想：“这是一个绝好的机会。”但我还是跟他说让我考虑一晚上。沃伦对我说：“你一直以来是个非常低调的人，但只要你一进董事会，你就得开始对外披露信息了。”那时候我已经把一些伯克希尔的股票分给了家人，所以我想了想，觉得进入董事会比不进入能带来更大好处，就说：“好的。”这也是他高度忠诚的另一个例子。

​标题  沃伦将留下怎样的传承？  

10:28:01:16  

SANDY GOTTESMAN:  

桑迪·戈特斯曼：  

Oh, look, there must 30 books out about Warren right now and Warren’s influence on the investment world has been unbelievable. Certainly he deserves much more credit, I think than Ben Graham although Ben Graham has been idolized because some extent because Warren has pushed that but I think Warren’s influence is far greater today and I think for a long, long time, that influence in the financial area is gonna be felt. I’m not so sure that you know, any gifts he makes or any gifts that the kids make are gonna—he’s not a—he’s not a guy who wants to put his name on a lot of things and he’s not somebody who wants to create institutions in his image so there isn’t going to be anything like that. Or at least it doesn’t look like it right now so I think he’s been a—you know, there’s a whole generation of people who have grown up and they’ve gotten to know Warren, either going to the meetings, watching him on CNBC or just going to the sessions he—he invites these ten or twelve colleges out there every year and he talks to them.  

瞧，现在市面上至少有三十本关于沃伦的书，而他在投资界的影响是无法想象的。我觉得他比本·格雷厄姆更值得赞扬，尽管本·格雷厄姆被奉为偶像部分也因为沃伦在推崇他，但我认为沃伦如今的影响力要大得多，而且我相信这种影响将在金融领域持续很长很长时间。我不太确定他自己捐赠的钱或者他孩子捐赠的钱会不会——他并不是那种喜欢把自己名字刻到很多东西上，或者要按照自己的形象去创办某些机构的人，所以那样的事大概不会发生。至少目前看来并不那么像。所以我觉得他——你知道，有整整一代人是在与沃伦打交道中成长起来的，不管是参加股东大会也好，看他在CNBC的采访也好，还是听他每年邀请十来所大学去奥马哈时所做的演讲。

10:31:56:01  

And he—he’s really in the teaching business. He may be in the investing business but he’s also in the teaching business. And he shares his—shares his advice with all these big executives that go into these companies. When Immelt became head of GE, I would say the first thing Immelt did was fly to Omaha and talk to Warren. And I think that goes on all the time and Warren gives him great advice so—from the standpoint from naming a university or a big charity after him, I don’t know that anything like that is going to happen. Of course it’s up to the children to some extent but—or maybe Bill Gates who loves him, absolutely loves him, so. But I’m sure some kind of an important thing may be done.  

他其实是真正在做“教育工作”。或许他在做投资生意，但他同样也在做教育的事。他把自己的建议分享给各大公司里那些重要高管。比如伊梅尔特刚上任担任通用电气CEO时，我想他做的第一件事就是飞去奥马哈找沃伦。我觉得这类事情一直都在发生，而且沃伦给出的建议都很有价值。所以如果从给大学或者大型慈善组织冠名的角度来说，我并不觉得会发生这种事情。当然，这在某种程度上也取决于他的子女，或者也许还取决于比尔·盖茨，盖茨真的非常爱戴他。但我想，也肯定会有某种形式的重要纪念来体现他的贡献。