But I knew that Warren Buffett was not going to talk to me — because he was very famous. He did not like Wall Street. He did not do interviews. He did not communicate with Wall Street. He said things like, “If you want to maintain your integrity, hold your nose when you walk past Wall Street.” He was quite disdainful.
但我知道沃伦·巴菲特不会和我说话——因为他非常有名。他不喜欢华尔街，不接受采访，也不与华尔街交流。他说过类似这样的话：“如果你想保持诚信，走过华尔街时捂住鼻子。”他对华尔街相当轻蔑。
So I embarked on this project not expecting to have the usual access to management that analysts have to ask questions and get their facts straight. But he got wind of what was happening. Someone must have told him that I was working on this project.
所以我开始这个项目时，并没指望能像分析师通常那样，直接接触管理层、提问并核实信息。但他得知了这件事，肯定有人告诉了他我正在做这个项目。
One day, I was in my office and my assistant came in and said that I had a message from Warren Buffett and handed me a phone slip with a number to call. I was literally shaking because I couldn’t imagine placing a phone call to Warren Buffett — but I knew I had to respond right away.
有一天，我在办公室里，助理走进来说我收到了一条来自沃伦·巴菲特的留言，并递给我一张写着电话号码的便条。我当时真的在发抖，因为无法想象自己会打电话给沃伦·巴菲特——但我知道必须立刻回电。
I called the number and a voice said, “Yello!” I said, “This is Alice Schroeder. I’m calling for Mr. Buffett.” He said, “Oh, Alice! Oh, thank you for calling me back!” And \[then] I realized that it was him. He answers his own phone and he had given me his direct number, which was astonishing because nobody in his position should be giving out their direct phone number. I later learned that he does research and he’s very careful and he only gives his direct number to people who he’s sure will not pass it around irresponsibly — because he does answer his own phone — and that he had checked me out. But, at the time, I just had no idea. I was just astonished.
我拨通了电话，一个声音说：“Yello！”我说：“我是 Alice Schroeder，我找巴菲特先生。”他说：“哦，Alice！哦，谢谢你回我的电话！”这时我才意识到是他本人。他自己接电话，并把直线号码给了我，这让我很惊讶，因为以他这样的身份，本不该把直线电话随便给别人。后来我才知道，他会做调查，非常谨慎，只会把直线号码给那些他确信不会随意转给他人的人——因为他确实会亲自接电话——而且他已经查过我的情况。但当时我一无所知，只是感到非常震惊。
On that call, he told me that I had taken the initiative and not asked him for anything — which he liked. He loves people who don’t ask him for favors. And that he had done some work reading my research and he likes the way I think. He likes the way I write. And, so, he would cooperate with me and he would let me be the only analyst that he would ever work with \[and] who could talk to him.
在那通电话里，他告诉我，我主动联系他而没有向他要求任何事情——这是他喜欢的。他喜欢那些不向他求情或索取好处的人。他说他读过我的研究，喜欢我的思维方式，也喜欢我的写作方式。因此，他愿意与我合作，让我成为唯一一个能够与他对话、并与他共事的分析师。
He invited me to come out to Omaha. He invited me to spend time, see his businesses, interview him — as much time as I needed — and he proposed that the next time he was in New York, a few weeks later, that I fly back to Omaha on his private jet with him and his wife Susie and interview him on the plane and then he would give me a tour of Berkshire Hathaway’s businesses. This was my first inkling of what Warren Buffett was like — the phone call and then this opportunity \[to visit Omaha].
他邀请我去奥马哈，与他共度时间、参观他的企业、采访他——时间不限。他还提议说，几周后他下次来纽约时，我可以和他以及他的妻子 Susie 一起乘他的私人飞机返回奥马哈，并在飞机上采访他，之后他会带我参观伯克希尔·哈撒韦的企业。这是我第一次对沃伦·巴菲特的为人有了初步印象——先是那通电话，然后是这个机会（去奥马哈）。
I had never flown on a private jet, so I was very nervous, first of all, about how to even behave. I showed up and met the two of them at their hotel that morning and then we drove out and we got on this Gulfstream IV, which at the time was the world’s largest private jet. I was amazed at this beautiful plane. Then Warren sat down at a table and sat across from me — and then the flight attendant arrived and said, “What would you like for breakfast? We can make omelettes, pancakes, waffles, Eggs Benedict…” and started listing all these things. I was thinking, “Oh, I would love an omelette!” Warren said, “I’ll have some potato chips and a Cherry Coke,” and I said, “Same!”
我以前从未坐过私人飞机，所以非常紧张，首先是不知道该怎么表现。那天早晨我到了他们的酒店，与他们二人会合，然后我们驱车前往登机。这架 Gulfstream IV 当时是世界上最大的私人飞机。我被这架漂亮的飞机震撼到了。然后沃伦坐在一张桌子前，与我面对面坐下——接着空乘员过来问：“早餐想吃什么？我们可以做煎蛋卷、松饼、华夫饼、班尼迪克蛋……”并开始列出各种选择。我心想：“哦，我真想要个煎蛋卷！”沃伦却说：“我要薯片和樱桃可乐。”我就说：“我也一样！”
For the next four hours, we flew to Omaha and Warren talked while eating potato chips steadily — so I did, too. It was the first inkling — had I known it — of what was about to happen over the next ten years, which was that I was going to have many meals with Warren Buffett during which I would gain a lot of weight.
接下来的四个小时，我们飞往奥马哈，沃伦一边不停地吃薯片一边说话——我也跟着吃。这其实是一个预兆——如果我早知道的话——预示着接下来十年我会和沃伦·巴菲特一起吃很多饭，而且会因此胖不少。
He helped me along in the interview because I was so nervous that I really was tongue-tied and my questions were all really idiotic. With hindsight, once I got to know him very well, I can’t even believe how bad it was — but he was actually used to talking to people who were tongue-tied and nervous, so he helped me along and we had a good conversation.
他在采访过程中帮了我一把，因为我当时太紧张了，真的是说不出话来，问题也都很愚蠢。事后回想，当我对他非常熟悉之后，我甚至难以相信自己当时有多糟糕——但实际上，他很习惯与那些紧张得说不出话的人交谈，所以他帮我引导谈话，我们最终有了一次不错的交流。
The remarkable part of that trip was what happened when we got to Omaha. He took me first to his office and, in those days, it was that institutional green that very much resembles the Department of Motor Vehicles or maybe what I imagine a prison would be. It was that kind of dirty green. The carpet looked as though it had not been cleaned or changed in twenty-some-odd years, but he was just very indifferent to it all.
那次旅行最特别的部分，是我们到达奥马哈后的经历。他首先带我去了他的办公室，当时办公室是那种机构用的绿色，很像机动车管理局，或者像我想象中的监狱——那种发脏的绿色。地毯看起来已经二十多年没有清洗或更换过了，但他对此毫不在意。
We spent a few minutes there and then we went over to the Nebraska Furniture Mart. Now, the Nebraska Furniture Mart was, at the time, the largest furniture store in North America. It covered acres — tens, maybe over a hundred acres — and Warren was going to give me a tour. He’s about six inches taller than me and his legs are probably eight inches longer than mine. So he starts walking and I started jogging along behind him through these tens and tens and tens of acres.
我们在那里待了几分钟，然后就去了内布拉斯加家具商场。当时，这家商场是北美最大的家具店，占地数十英亩，可能超过一百英亩。沃伦打算带我参观。他比我高大约六英寸，腿可能比我长八英寸。所以他开始走的时候，我不得不一路小跑着跟在他后面，穿过一片又一片的商场区域。
As we went through the Nebraska Furniture Mart, he would point things out. He would say, “This is the grandfather clock department. We sell 48 of that model a year.” And then we’d get to the beds and he’d say, “This is our best-selling mattress. We make \$2 a square inch on this mattress in profit margin.” I started to get this sense of the grasp of the detail. Finally, he said, “Let’s go to the carpet warehouse!”
在穿过商场时，他会指着某些地方介绍说：“这是落地钟部门，这款钟我们一年卖48台。”然后走到床具区时，他会说：“这是我们最畅销的床垫，我们每平方英寸能赚2美元的利润。”我开始感受到他对细节的把握之深。最后，他说：“我们去地毯仓库看看！”
The Nebraska Furniture Mart was a company he had bought from a woman named Rose Blumkin, who was a tiny — meaning 4 ft. 10 \[in.] — Jewish immigrant who had come through Siberia and traveled over 2,000 miles to reach the United States during the pogroms. \[She] was extremely elderly and the carpet department was her special place that she cared deeply about — possibly because she grew up sleeping on a bare wood floor covered with straw. Carpet was important to her.
内布拉斯加家具商场是他从一位名叫 Rose Blumkin 的女士手中买下的。她身材娇小——只有4英尺10英寸高——是一位犹太移民，在大屠杀时期穿越西伯利亚，跋涉2000多英里才到达美国。她年事已高，地毯部门是她特别关心的地方——可能是因为她小时候一直睡在铺着稻草的裸木地板上，地毯对她意义非凡。
The Nebraska Furniture Mart sold millions of yards of carpet a year and they had an enormous warehouse full of carpet. We went to the carpet warehouse and, as we started going through, Warren is walking along and I’m jogging along behind him and he says, “That is our best-selling carpet in brown. We sell 2,000 yards of that a week and our margin on that is about 22%, but this week we’re discounting it and we’ll only make about 11%. But this one over here, this carpet is not quite as big a seller but we don’t ever have to put it on sale so we may only sell 1,500 yards this week but we’ll make our 20% margin. Now this pile — see, in the corner here — this is stuff that Rose… She didn’t like to ever discount anything below her cost, but I persuaded her that it’s better to just move the inventory and get it out of here — so we lose about 20% on what we paid for this carpet. This green one here is our worst seller. We have to move this out at about half of what we paid for it.”
内布拉斯加家具商场每年售出数百万码地毯，并有一个巨大的仓库堆满了地毯。我们走进仓库时，沃伦边走边说，我则一路小跑跟在后面。他说：“那块棕色地毯是我们最畅销的，每周能卖出2000码，利润率大约22%，不过这周我们在打折，所以只能赚11%左右。而这块，这款地毯销量不如前一款，但我们从不打折出售，所以本周可能只卖1500码，但能保持20%的利润率。至于这堆——看到角落里的这些吗——这些是 Rose 的货……她从不喜欢以低于成本的价格卖任何东西，但我说服她，清库存更好，所以这些地毯我们要亏掉大约20%的成本。这块绿色的是最滞销的，我们得以半价处理掉它。”
We continued to move through the carpet warehouse — row after aisle after row after aisle — with him explaining to me the individual rolls and styles of carpet and how much they cost, what they sold for, how many yards were sold a week, and at what profit margin. It was at that point that I started to really understand that this was no ordinary human being — because this was only one of the businesses that Berkshire Hathaway owned.
我们继续穿过地毯仓库——一排又一排，一条过道又一条过道——他向我解释每一种地毯卷和款式的成本、售价、每周的销售码数以及利润率。就在那一刻，我开始真正明白，这绝不是一个普通人——因为这仅仅是伯克希尔·哈撒韦所拥有的众多业务之一。
And, while we were in the office, he had also shown me some reports from See’s Candies — which is a chocolate confectionary chain that Berkshire owns. I had been a bit surprised to see that they showed sales by store by week for all the hundred-some-odd stores. He had explained to me why the Santa Monica store was doing better than the Sacramento store on this particular week.
在办公室的时候，他还向我展示了 See’s Candies（伯克希尔旗下的一家巧克力糖果连锁店）的报告。我有些惊讶地看到，报告按周列出了全部一百多家门店的销售情况。他向我解释了为什么圣莫尼卡的门店在那一周的表现好于萨克拉门托的门店。
That level of detail, multiplied across forty-some-odd businesses, was something that he mastered and just voraciously sucked up information. I found that very unusual and, clearly, that was the secret of his success. So I went back to New York \[and] I wrote my report. It was somewhat of a sensation because no one had ever really written a big research report on Berkshire Hathaway before.
这种细致入微的程度，乘以四十多家企业，就是他所精通并贪婪吸收的海量信息。我觉得这非常不同寻常，而且很显然，这是他成功的秘诀之一。于是我回到纽约，写出了我的研究报告。这份报告引起了不小的轰动，因为之前从未有人真正为伯克希尔·哈撒韦写过一份大型研究报告。
Five years went by and, during that time, I saw Warren usually twice a year. I would go out partly for the shareholder meeting and then he’d invite me to a party that he has and then I’d usually go out at least one other time a year to just visit him. He always said, “Call me anytime!” but I never did because I thought he must be so busy and I’m the least important person that could ever want to talk to him.
五年过去了，在这段时间里，我通常每年会见沃伦两次。我会去参加股东大会，然后他会邀请我参加他的聚会，此外我通常每年还会去一次只是为了拜访他。他总是说：“随时给我打电话！”但我从来没有打过，因为我觉得他肯定非常忙，而我可能是最不重要、最没资格打扰他的人。
So he would call me. And he called me with great regularity and we would talk. As time passed, he became the person who I most wanted to hear from — and I would occasionally call if something important happened because his opinion would be the thing I would most want to know.
所以是他打电话给我。他打电话的频率很规律，我们会聊天。随着时间的推移，他成了我最想听取意见的人——如果发生了重要的事情，我偶尔也会打电话给他，因为他的看法是我最想知道的。
After five years, something happened — and that something happened on September 11, 2001. I was in New York that day. I actually saw the second tower get hit — and I knew a lot of people who were in it. It was not a good day, obviously, for many people. I have a lot of bad memories. But, the next day, the first person that I called was Warren because I wanted to just hear his thoughts on the whole thing. What I found was that he was extremely angry and that was not at all what I was expecting. It was one of only two occasions that I’ve ever seen him be very, very angry.
五年后，发生了一件事——2001年9月11日的事。那天我在纽约，我亲眼看到第二座大楼被撞——而且我认识不少在大楼里的人。对很多人来说，那天显然是极其糟糕的一天。我有很多不好的记忆。但第二天，我打电话的第一个人就是沃伦，因为我想听听他对整件事的看法。结果发现，他非常愤怒，这完全出乎我的意料。这是我见过的他仅有的两次非常非常生气的情形之一。
What had happened was he, of course, had absorbed the terrorist attack. He had thought deeply about it and we would go on to have many, many interesting conversations about terrorism and risk.
事情是这样的，他当然已经消化了恐怖袭击的事实，他对此进行了深入思考，后来我们就恐怖主义和风险进行了许多有趣的对话。
But why he was angry was that, six months earlier, he had spoken to the leaders of the two big insurance companies that Berkshire owned: National Indemnity, which was run by Ajit Jain, who you may have heard of. He just went on the board of directors at Berkshire Hathaway. And he had spoken to the CEO of General Re, which was the company that Berkshire bought whose stock I had followed that had led me, ultimately, to get involved in the first place. He had told those two people to go and survey how much insurance exposure that they had in the \[World] Trade Centers. How many customers did they have? And if something happened to those two buildings, what did Berkshire have at stake that it could lose?
但他之所以生气，是因为在六个月前，他曾与伯克希尔旗下两家大型保险公司的负责人谈过话：一家是由 Ajit Jain（你可能听说过他）管理的 National Indemnity，他刚刚进入伯克希尔·哈撒韦董事会；另一家是 General Re，也就是伯克希尔收购的那家公司，我曾经跟踪其股票，这也是我最初与伯克希尔结缘的原因。他让这两个人去调查他们在世贸中心的保险风险敞口有多大——有多少客户？如果那两座大楼发生事故，伯克希尔会面临多大的潜在损失？
When he found out the numbers, he told both of those two executives, “When July comes,” which is a very typical date to renew commercial insurance policies, “I want you to cancel and not renew as many of those policies as possible.”
当他拿到数据后，他告诉这两位高管：“等到七月份”（这是商业保险保单续约的典型日期），“我要你们尽可能多地取消并不续签这些保单。”
One of those two people — Ajit Jain — had done exactly that and cut his exposure in the Trade Center very sharply. The other, from General Re, did not and ignored Warren’s instructions — and the end result was that it cost Berkshire Hathaway \$2.4 billion in property losses.
其中一人——Ajit Jain——严格执行了指令，大幅削减了在世贸中心的风险敞口。另一人，即来自 General Re 的负责人，没有执行，忽视了沃伦的指示——最终导致伯克希尔·哈撒韦在财产保险方面损失了24亿美元。
Warren was apoplectic. That was what he calls an unforced error, as in baseball. It was something that he had foreseen, he had instructed them not to do this, they had ignored him, and they had lost what he felt was his money. And a large part of it was his money because he was the largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway.
沃伦当时气得暴跳如雷。他称之为棒球中的“非受迫性失误”。这是他事先预见到的风险，他已经下达了不要这么做的指令，但他们无视了，最终损失了他认为属于自己的钱——而且很大一部分确实是他的钱，因为他是伯克希尔·哈撒韦的最大股东。
I was astounded by this story. Not just by the fact that he was so angry — because the two times I’ve seen him angry were both when people ignored instructions and it cost him money. There was a cold rage that came out on those two occasions. But the other astounding thing about this story was that, six months before 9/11, he had thought to do this thing. He would be the first to say that he did not predict 9/11 in any way, shape, or form — but what he did know is that there had been a terrorist attack \[there] before, that it did have a large concentration of insurance risks, and that the world is generally not a safe place. He had this way of thinking about things involving risk that I had never encountered and I thought was pretty remarkable.
这个故事让我震惊，不仅仅因为他如此愤怒——我见过的两次他生气都是因为别人无视指示而让他损失了钱。这两次他都表现出一种冷冽的怒火。但更让我惊讶的是，在“9·11”事件发生的六个月前，他就想到了要做这件事。他自己会第一个承认，他绝没有以任何方式预测到“9·11”，但他确实知道那里曾经发生过一次恐怖袭击，那里有大量集中的保险风险，而且这个世界总体来说并不安全。他对风险有一种我从未见过的独特思维方式，我觉得相当了不起。
In the aftermath of 9/11, I ended up becoming kind of an expert on terrorism and ended up doing a whole bunch of things \[with] terrorism as it pertains to insurance risk. I ended up testifying before Congress and consulting for the CIA and doing all kinds of weird things. And, finally, Warren said to me, “You have really done everything that you can do as an analyst and your career is getting larger than that. You really should quit your job and write a book.” I said, “But, Warren, what would I write about?” He said, “You’ll think of something.” (Laughs)
在“9·11”事件之后，我逐渐成了恐怖主义领域的某种专家，并围绕恐怖主义与保险风险做了很多工作。我甚至在国会作证、为中情局提供咨询，还做了各种稀奇古怪的事。最后，沃伦对我说：“作为分析师，你已经做到了能做的一切，你的事业已经不止于此。你真的应该辞掉工作写一本书。”我说：“但是，沃伦，我该写什么呢？”他说：“你会想到的。”（笑）
We had this conversation at least three times and I just couldn’t figure out what he thought I should write about. Then, one day, it dawned on me — after seeing him on television — that there really could only be one thing that he would think would be important enough for me to spend full-time writing about. And that would be himself.
我们至少有过三次这样的对话，但我始终没弄明白他认为我该写什么。直到有一天，我在电视上看到他，突然意识到，他认为值得我全职去写的东西，可能只有一件——那就是他自己。
I called him and I said, “Warren, when you suggested that I quit my job and write a book, were you thinking that I might write about you?” He said \[in an excited voice], “Oh! If you’ll do that, you can spend as much time here and I’ll talk to you. You could have unlimited access to me and I’ll give you all my papers and I’ll have my friends and my family and all my colleagues all interview with you and I’ll arrange everything for you.” And I was like, “Ooo-kay.” (Laughs)
我打电话给他说：“沃伦，当你建议我辞掉工作写书时，你是不是在想让我写你？”他说（用一种兴奋的语气）：“哦！如果你愿意这样做，你可以在这里待多久都行，我会和你交谈。你可以不受限制地接触我，我会把我所有的资料都给你，还会让我的朋友、家人和同事都接受你的采访，我会为你安排好一切。”我当时心想：“哦——好吧。”（笑）
I decided to do it because it was an important book that needed to be written and he had never given access to any author before. He said he chose me because he likes the way I think \[and] likes the way I write, \[but] I am also absolutely certain that there are two other factors: One is that I was not a journalist and I think that he did not want a journalist that had (a) an agenda and (b) he thought he could probably have a bit more control with someone who had never written a biography before. The second thing is I was a woman. Warren loves to hang around with women, flirt with women, and show off in front of women. That’s just his personality.
我决定接受这个任务，因为这是一本值得写的重要书，而且他以前从未对任何作者开放过。他说他选择我是因为喜欢我的思维方式和写作风格，但我也完全确信，还有两个原因：第一，我不是记者——我认为他不想找一个（a）有预设立场的记者，而且（b）他觉得从未写过传记的人可能更容易让他掌控；第二，我是个女人。沃伦喜欢与女性相处、与女性调情、在女性面前表现自己——这就是他的性格。
If you haven’t read The Snowball, I hope you will because some of the best stories in there are about Warren’s relationships with women and how funny he is around women. If he was going to sit on his sofa for a year and a half telling stories of his life, it certainly wasn’t going to be to a man.
如果你还没读过《雪球》，我希望你能去读，因为里面一些最精彩的故事是关于沃伦与女性的关系，以及他在女性面前的幽默表现。如果他要在沙发上坐一年半讲述自己的人生故事，那对象肯定不会是男人。
So, in June 2003, I flew out to Omaha and set up camp there in the Doubletree Inn and I began to work with Warren. At the time, they were starting to renovate the office and his office had been renovated. It was a corner office — always had been — and he had had it redone with new brown carpet, new brown wood furniture with brown upholstery, brown wallpaper on the walls, and corner windows with wooden brown shutters on them which he keeps closed all the time to block out the view because he does not want to be distracted by the sky. His office feels a little bit like being inside of a cuckoo clock.
于是，在2003年6月，我飞到奥马哈，在Doubletree Inn安营扎寨，开始与沃伦合作。当时，他们正开始装修办公室，而他的办公室已经翻新完毕。这是一个角落办公室——一直都是——他用新的棕色地毯、新的棕色木质家具配棕色软垫、墙上贴棕色壁纸来重新布置，角落的窗户装了木质棕色百叶窗，他总是将它们关上，以免天空景色分散他的注意力。他的办公室感觉有点像待在一个布谷钟里。
I would spend the next year and a half — most of my time — there and it was a little bit claustrophobic and, to escape, I would go to the file rooms. Rooms, plural. If you’ve ever seen a documentary on TV and he does the tour of the office, he doesn’t show the file rooms. He claims he does not keep everything, but I think his definition of “everything” is pretty elastic. He has two enormous file rooms. He has files of every investment he’s ever made, every company he’s ever studied, and there’s an entire semi-secret wall of files on people. They’re not like J. Edgar Hoover files exactly, but I found a file on myself the first day there. He likes to write letters, so all the correspondence with people goes there. It’s a very logical thing to do, but he also was very, very worried about giving me access to the files.
接下来一年半的时间里，我大部分时间都在那儿工作，多少有些幽闭感。为了“逃离”，我会去翻阅档案室。注意，是“档案室”复数。如果你在电视上看过介绍他办公室的纪录片，你会发现他从不带人参观档案室。他声称自己不是“什么都留”，但我觉得他对“什么都留”的定义相当宽松。他有两个巨大的档案室，里面有他做过的每一笔投资、研究过的每一家公司，还有整整一面半秘密的墙，放的是关于人的档案。它们并不像J. Edgar Hoover的那种档案，但我第一天就发现了一个关于我自己的档案。他喜欢写信，所以与人的所有往来信件都保存在那里。这么做很合乎逻辑，但他也非常担心让我接触这些档案。
The only thing he said I couldn’t publish that I found was anything he might have written or said that would be critical of someone else. He said, “You can write anything critical of me. I don’t care. But if I’ve said something unflattering about another person, please don’t put it in the book.” And, I said, “Well, it depends on what it is.”
他唯一明确表示不能让我发表的，是我在档案中发现的、他对别人可能有批评的言论或文字。他说：“你可以写任何批评我的东西，我不在乎。但如果我说过对别人不好的话，请不要写进书里。”我回答说：“那得看具体内容。”
跟我们现有的设计一模一样，Right Business+Right People，最终我们的思路也是受到他的影响。
But there is one thing… I’ll tell you a story later where I am keeping the name a secret.
不过，有一件事……我之后会讲一个故事，但我会保密名字。
So we started and I sat down on the sofa and the very first question I asked him was the big one, which is, “Warren, if you had to really capture the true secret to your success, honestly dig deep and tell me what it is.” And he said, “It’s silly. \[It’s] focus.” But what he means by focus is not what you and I mean by focus — and it was more than just going through the carpet warehouse and having spent so much focus that he knew that the shaggy green carpet from twenty years ago had to be marked down.
于是我们开始了访谈。我坐在沙发上，问他的第一个大问题是：“沃伦，如果你要真正概括自己成功的秘诀，真诚地深挖，然后告诉我，那会是什么？”他说：“这很傻——专注。”但他所谓的“专注”，并不是你我平常理解的那种专注——而且不仅仅是像在地毯仓库那样专注到记住二十年前那块毛绒绿色地毯必须降价处理。
What I came to learn is that if Warren Buffett bought a pizza parlor, unlike most people he would not just look at the financial statements of the pizza parlor and ask questions about them. He would study the price of wheat over time. He would learn how much water went into the pizza dough and how much it cost. He would know everything there was to know about pizza sauce and the cost of it. Cheese, all of the toppings, whether there was a way to make pizza with a bit fewer of them. He would know the price of pizza ovens, all the different kinds of pizza ovens, what it costs to run them, what it costs to repair them, how often they had to be replaced. He would know everything about how much you had to pay employees and delivery people and what the kind of turnover of those employees was, how reliable they were. He would know everything about the leasing terms of the pizza store. The level of detail that he would know before he would own a pizza business would start with the price of wheat. And that’s what I mean by focus. It was an incredible amount of focus.
我后来了解到，如果沃伦·巴菲特收购了一家比萨店，他不会像大多数人那样只看财务报表、问几个问题。他会研究小麦价格的历史走势，了解做比萨面团需要多少水、成本多少。他会知道有关比萨酱的一切信息及其成本；奶酪、所有配料，以及是否有办法减少配料的用量。他会了解比萨烤炉的价格、各种型号、运营成本、维修费用以及更换频率。他会清楚雇佣员工和外送员的工资、员工流动率和可靠性。他会完全掌握比萨店的租赁条款。他在拥有一家比萨店之前所掌握的细节，会从小麦的价格开始。这就是我所说的“专注”——一种极致的专注。
I also learned, as I got to know him, the personal side of that focus. One of the people I met fairly early was Astrid Menks, who is now Astrid Buffett, his second wife. They were living together in Omaha. He was still married to Susie, his first wife, who lived in San Francisco. They lived separate lives. And I also met Susie, who lived in San Francisco, but I met her out in San Francisco.
随着对他的了解加深，我也看到了他在个人生活中的这种专注。我在比较早的时候认识了 Astrid Menks，她现在是 Astrid Buffett，他的第二任妻子。当时他们在奥马哈同住，而他与第一任妻子 Susie 依然维持婚姻关系，但她住在旧金山，他们过着各自独立的生活。我也见过住在旧金山的 Susie，不过是在旧金山见到的。
But Astrid was one of my better sources because she would tell me stories that were really kind of revealing about Warren in a different way.
而 Astrid 是我最好的信息来源之一，因为她会讲一些能从不同角度揭示沃伦性格的故事。
Such as this one…
比如这个——
You probably have heard that Warren likes to play bridge on the computer — and he plays three nights a week typically. In the family room of their house, it’s quite a large room. It’s the length of this stage and about twice the width. It looks like it was last decorated in the 1970s — and probably was. On one wall… Let’s turn this around. That’s the long wall \[and] there are windows and curtains and then a TV — and Astrid watches TV. On this wall is the door and then here’s Warren’s computer setup \[on] a table and he’s got a big monitor and that’s where he plays bridge.
你可能听说过，沃伦喜欢在电脑上打桥牌——他通常每周打三晚。在他们家的起居室里，这个房间相当大，长和舞台差不多，宽度大约是舞台的两倍。看上去最后一次装修是在20世纪70年代——也很可能确实如此。在一面长墙上，有窗户和窗帘，还有一台电视——Astrid 会在这里看电视。另一面墙有房门，然后是沃伦的电脑桌，上面放着一台大显示器——这是他打桥牌的地方。
One night, a bat got into the house. The bat started banging off the walls, getting tangled in the curtains, making all kinds of racket. Astrid — terrified — started screaming, “Warren! Help! Help! There’s a bat in here! Help me!” Warren never turned his face away from the computer, never took his hand off the mouse, and just said, “It’s not bothering me any.” So Astrid called the pest control people, they came, they removed the bat, it all took about an hour to get it done, and during the entire time Warren played bridge and never looked away from the monitor. That’s a different kind of focus.
有一晚，一只蝙蝠飞进了屋子，到处撞墙、缠在窗帘里，弄得乱七八糟。Astrid 吓坏了，大喊：“Warren！快来帮忙！屋里有蝙蝠！帮帮我！”沃伦从头到尾没把脸从电脑屏幕转开过，手也没离开鼠标，只是说：“它没打扰我啊。”于是 Astrid 打电话叫了灭虫公司，他们来了，把蝙蝠抓走，整个过程大约花了一个小时，而沃伦在这段时间里一直在打桥牌，连眼睛都没离开显示器。这是一种不同层次的“专注”。
Warren and I started to get to know each other a little bit on a personal level. He did something very unusual, which is he began to ease me out of my marriage. He decided that he did not think my husband was right for me. He did it in a very subtle way, which was to ask me questions such as, “I wonder if you would treat your husband the way he’s treating you. Would you?” And I would think, “Hell no!” But I had never thought of the question that way before. And gently, gently — like the drops of water on a stone — I began to feel empowered that I really needed to get a divorce.
沃伦和我开始在个人层面上多了一些了解。他做了一件很不寻常的事——他开始慢慢引导我离开婚姻。他觉得我的丈夫不适合我。他的方式很委婉，比如会问我：“你会像他对你那样对待你的丈夫吗？你会吗？”我心里想：“当然不会！”但我之前从没用这种角度想过。就这样，温和而持续地——像水滴石穿那样——我渐渐意识到，我真的需要离婚。
Now, in fairness to my own family and my own father, who was also saying some of these things, this was not entirely Warren. But it was very interesting that he wanted to have that influence. He felt very paternal. He felt that I wasn’t married to the right person. And later, when I remarried, he did ask for — and get — approval rights.
当然，为了公允起见，我的家人，尤其是我的父亲，也说过类似的话，所以这不完全是沃伦的影响。但有趣的是，他确实想要产生这种影响。他有一种父辈的关怀，觉得我嫁错了人。后来，当我再婚时，他确实提出——并且得到了——“批准权”。
He loves my second husband and gave us a fantastic wedding gift and sent a video and it feels like I got the right one this time. But he also feels that he taught me a lot about how to choose the right person — which is actually true.
他很喜欢我的第二任丈夫，送了我们一份很棒的结婚礼物，还录了视频祝贺。这一次，我觉得自己找对了人。而且他也认为，是他教会了我很多如何选择合适伴侣的道理——其实这确实是真的。
At that time, I decided that I was going to buy a house as I was getting divorced. I had a lot going on in my life, obviously, so I went out, looked for a house, made an offer, \[and] did a contract. Usually we talked about Warren — we didn’t talk as much about me — so when I told Warren, he was quiet for a minute and then he said, “Is it too late to get out?” I said, “Well, I’ve put down a deposit and signed a contract, so while technically I could get out I would lose my deposit.”
那时候，我正在离婚，决定买一套房子。很显然，我当时生活中发生了很多事。我出去找房子、出价并签了合同。我们平时的谈话大多是关于沃伦的，很少聊到我自己，所以当我告诉他这件事时，他沉默了一会儿，然后问：“现在退出是不是太晚了？”我说：“嗯，我已经付了定金、签了合同，虽然理论上可以退出，但会损失定金。”
This was in 2004. And his response was, “Well, there’s going to be a housing crash, but if you can hold on for ten years you’ll be able to sell it for what you paid for it.”
那是2004年，他的回应是：“嗯，房市要崩盘了，但如果你能撑十年，你就能以买入价把它卖掉。”
Later, in 2008, he said he didn’t foresee the housing crash — and I believe he meant that sincerely, that he didn’t foresee the magnitude of it. He thought there was a bubble in ’04, \[but] he didn’t really think it was going to get so much worse. But I will tell you that I did sell my house ten years later for essentially what I paid for it. And, in between, it was ugly. (Laughs)
后来在2008年，他说自己并没有预见到房市崩盘——我相信他是真心这么说的，他没料到规模会那么大。他在2004年认为存在泡沫，但并不觉得情况会恶化得那么厉害。不过我可以告诉你，十年后我确实几乎是以买入价卖掉了房子。而这中间的过程，非常难熬（笑）。
He was right — and it was spooky. It took me back to 9/11 and his way of knowing things. While I did not think there was anything the least bit supernatural about it, whenever he makes a prediction or says something in public that is like a forecast or suggests that something might happen and you should be concerned about it, I always take it now as gospel that it is true and will be right.
他说对了——而且准得让人心里发毛。这让我想起了“9·11”以及他那种“知道事情”的方式。虽然我并不认为这有什么超自然的成分，但现在只要他做出预测，或者在公开场合说一些像预报一样的话，暗示某件事可能会发生、需要你注意，我都会把它当成福音——相信它是真的，而且会成真。
I’ve heard a lot of people question and say that he’s got some motive or there’s some reason why he’s saying these things, but I don’t think so. Having spent as much time around him as I have, he just is so good at putting dots together.
我听过不少人质疑，说他之所以这样说，是出于某种动机或目的，但我并不这么认为。因为我和他相处的时间足够长，我知道他只是非常擅长把零散的信息联系起来。
The interesting thing about this one is that he had absolutely no interest in real estate. He has lived in the same house since 1956 and, as I said, it looked like it hadn’t been remodeled since 1976. He doesn’t invest in real estate. He doesn’t buy REIT investments. It’s a whole area of expertise that he has consciously avoided getting any involvement in. In fact, once I even asked him what color his bedroom walls were and he said he didn’t know. And I actually believe that given that his office is all brown and I’m not even sure he knows that it’s brown.
有趣的是，他对房地产完全没有兴趣。他自1956年以来一直住在同一所房子里，而且正如我所说，那房子看起来自1976年起就没翻新过。他不投资房地产，也不买REIT（房地产投资信托）产品。这是一个他有意回避、不涉足的领域。事实上，我曾经问过他卧室的墙壁是什么颜色，他说自己不知道。我完全相信这一点，因为他的办公室全是棕色的，而我甚至不确定他是否意识到那是棕色。
But, as you can see, he was having an influence on me. Of course, I was his biographer and my job was to be objective and I could see, then, that this is what happens when you write about a living person. You do become quite captivated by that person — and I had become captivated by the whole family.
不过，正如你所看到的，他对我是有影响的。当然，我是他的传记作者，我的工作本应保持客观，但我发现，写一个在世人物时，就会不自觉地被这个人吸引——而我已经被整个家族吸引住了。
Warren had, early on, introduced me to Doris. He had told me that I reminded him of Doris in my personality. She had a very lively personality. In fact, he had told me about Doris’s divorces because he thought there was a similarity in the creativity with which she handled her divorces. At one point, Doris’s second husband was trying to serve her with some papers or something and she didn’t want to be served, so she got a nun’s habit. (Laughs) She traveled a lot. She liked to travel, so she went all around the country dressed as a nun to avoid this person who was trying to serve her with papers.
沃伦很早就把 Doris 介绍给我，他说我在性格上让他想起 Doris。她性格非常活泼。事实上，他还跟我说过 Doris 离婚的故事，因为他觉得我和她在处理离婚的创意方式上有相似之处。比如有一次，Doris 的第二任丈夫想向她送达某些法律文件，而她不想被送达，于是她搞来了一身修女服（笑）。她非常喜欢旅行，于是穿着修女服在全美各地到处跑，以躲避那个想送文件给她的人。
The Buffett children — Doris, Warren, and their other sister Bertie — had their IQs tested when they were very young, or their parents had it done. Their IQs were all within one point of each other and they are very, very high. Someday, when they’re all gone, I’ll say what the number is. I don’t want to do it now because I don’t want them to be pestered — but they are all well, well up into the genius range. And, interestingly, they are all essentially the same.
巴菲特家的孩子——Doris、Warren 以及他们的另一位妹妹 Bertie——在很小的时候都做过智商测试，或者说是他们的父母给他们做的。三个人的智商差距在1分以内，而且都非常非常高。将来等他们都不在了，我会说出具体数字，但现在我不想让他们被打扰——可以说，他们的智商都远远在天才区间。而有趣的是，他们三人的智商几乎完全一样。
Doris became a very dear friend. I’ve come out and stayed with her at her house in Fredericksburg. She has talked about this college to me many times and how much it meant to her, her love of American history, her program with domestic violence victims, with the prisons — teaching history in prisons. I’ve stayed at her house in Maine. She’s someone that I just consider very special and precious. She’s in Boston now with her grandson Alex Rozek, who is also a fantastic person.
Doris 后来成了我的挚友。我曾去弗雷德里克斯堡她的家中住过。她多次跟我谈起这所大学，以及它对她的重要意义，她对美国历史的热爱，她在家庭暴力受害者项目和监狱中的工作——在监狱里教历史。我也曾住过她在缅因州的家。她是我认为非常特别、非常珍贵的人。她现在住在波士顿，和她的外孙 Alex Rozek 在一起，Alex 也是一个非常出色的人。
But I just wanted to say that tonight because one of the greatest gifts I got from the opportunity to write this book was the opportunity to get to know Doris — or Dodo, as she is known within the family. That was absolutely fantastic.
我今晚之所以要特别提到她，是因为写这本书带给我的最大礼物之一，就是让我有机会认识 Doris——在家族中她被称为 Dodo。这真是件非常美妙的事。
So, as you can see, Warren is very much someone who influences the people around him. Perhaps the most notable example of when he’s done that was with Katharine Graham and the Washington Post.
所以，如你所见，沃伦确实是一个会深刻影响身边人的人。其中最著名的例子之一，就是他与 Katharine Graham 及《华盛顿邮报》的故事。
This is a different kind of focus because he not only bought the Post stock at a time when it was very depressed and the company was in trouble, but he saw an opportunity of a company that had a leader who had inherited the business after her husband committed suicide. She had no business experience. She was personally very insecure, despite being a powerful woman in her own way. And he saw that he could make a difference. He could influence, through his friendship with her, the success of his own investment — and, at the same time, she made his life better.
这是一种不同的“专注”，因为他不仅是在公司陷入困境、股价极度低迷时买入《华盛顿邮报》的股票，还看到了这家公司有一位特殊的领导者——她在丈夫自杀后继承了公司，没有任何商业经验，尽管以自己的方式很有力量，但她在个人上非常缺乏安全感。而他看到了自己可以发挥作用的机会——他可以通过与她的友谊影响自己投资的成功，同时，她也让他的生活变得更美好。
When I interviewed her son, Don — she had already passed away — he took me in and gave me something amazing, which was the files of the packages that Warren had sent to him and his mother over the years to teach them about business.
当我采访她的儿子 Don 时——她已经去世了——他带我进去，并给了我一份非常了不起的东西，那是一套沃伦多年来寄给他和他母亲的资料包，用来教他们商业知识的档案。
Warren and Kay socialized together a lot. She was here in Washington all the time and she introduced him to the rich and famous of the world and introduced him to the world of politics, but what he gave them in return nobody knows. What it was was a daily package that had articles and newsletters and letters and bulletins that he had gone through, annotated, underlined, written marginal notes in — to teach them about how to run a great business and how the economy works and how to invest. This had gone on for years and years and years and years.
沃伦和 Kay 经常在一起社交。她常年在华盛顿，把他介绍给世界上有钱有势的人，并让他进入政治圈，但没人知道他回馈给她的是什么。其实，那是一份日常寄送的资料包，里面有他精挑细选的文章、新闻简报、信件和公告，上面都有他的批注、下划线和页边笔记——用来教他们如何经营一家伟大的企业、经济如何运作以及如何投资。这种做法一连持续了很多很多年。
Don let me make copies of most of it, so I have it now. Whenever I want a refresher on what truly matters in business and the economy, this is like my masterclass that I got secondhand from Warren, that he gave to Don and Kay. Because he did it once and it was an immense effort and he wasn’t ever going to do it again. So that was amazing.
Don 允许我复印了大部分资料，所以我现在也有一份。每当我想重温商业和经济中真正重要的东西时，这些资料就像是我从沃伦那里间接得到的“商业大师课”——他送给 Don 和 Kay 的一份礼物。因为他只做过一次，这是一项巨大的工作量，他不可能再做一次。这真是太了不起了。
The impact of that was that he was on the board of directors of the Post. Some even said that he was the shadow CEO of the Post. I think that’s not true, but he did obviously have an enormous influence on that company’s business decisions and its history — and its future. As a result, that became one of the most valuable investments that Berkshire Hathaway ever made.
这件事的影响是，他进入了《华盛顿邮报》的董事会。有人甚至说他是《邮报》的影子CEO。我觉得这不是真的，但显然，他确实对这家公司的商业决策、历史以及未来有着巨大的影响。结果，这也成了伯克希尔·哈撒韦最有价值的投资之一。
GEICO is another one. I’ll give a very quick example in terms of this focus, this unrelenting focus. With GEICO, he encountered it when he was a teenager — reading about it in a library — and he went down to Washington, D.C., because the company is based here. He went to see the company on a snowy Saturday morning and found the president was in the office working. He went in and spent four hours talking to Lorimer Davidson to learn about the auto insurance business. Just to learn.
GEICO 是另一个例子。我会用它快速说明这种专注、不懈的专注。他在十几岁时第一次接触到 GEICO——是在图书馆读到的——然后他去了华盛顿特区，因为这家公司总部在这里。一个下雪的星期六早晨，他去拜访公司，发现总裁正在办公室工作。他走进去，花了四个小时与 Lorimer Davidson 交谈，学习汽车保险业务——纯粹是为了学习。
He went back and bought the stock and he put 75% of all of the money he had into GEICO. He wrote an article and called it “The Security That I Like Best” and published it in The Commercial & Financial Chronicle, which was like the Barron’s newspaper of its time. And, from then on, he owned GEICO stock.
回去之后，他买入了这只股票，把自己所有资金的75%都投进了 GEICO。他写了一篇题为《我最喜欢的证券》的文章，发表在当时相当于《巴伦周刊》的《The Commercial & Financial Chronicle》上。从那时起，他就一直持有 GEICO 股票。
But it was twenty years before there was a situation where he had enough money and GEICO ran into some trouble and was cheap enough that he was able to buy a huge percentage of the company — and, in effect, acquire control. He did that in 1976. During the entire time throughout, he kept up his friendship with Lorimer Davidson, he met the other managers, he made regular visits to GEICO. He got to know everything about their operations — and he wanted GEICO. He craved GEICO.
但又过了二十年，才出现这样一个机会——他有了足够的资金，而 GEICO 遇到了麻烦，股价便宜到他可以收购公司大量股份——实际上取得控制权。他在1976年这么做了。在这整个过程中，他一直与 Lorimer Davidson 保持友谊，认识了其他管理层，定期拜访 GEICO。他对他们的运营了如指掌——他想要 GEICO，渴望 GEICO。
Then, in 1996, he bought the whole company. He bought the rest of it. So, over a forty year period, he followed this company, he knew everything about it, and the more he knew and the more he learned, the more he wanted to own it.
然后在1996年，他买下了整家公司，收购了剩余股份。也就是说，在长达40年的时间里，他持续跟踪这家公司，对它的一切都了如指掌，而且了解得越多，就越想拥有它。
Now, GEICO is the second-largest auto insurer in the United States and I believe, probably, the most profitable. But, at the time that he bought it, it was probably ranked #20. It was so small compared to a company like Allstate, which it’s now larger than. It was being dismissed by those kinds of companies as not even important. But Warren saw then what it was going to be — and he spent forty years getting hold of it. That was in 1996, so now roll forward another 22 years and it has grown enormously since he bought it. That story, to me, is absolutely amazing.
如今，GEICO 是美国第二大汽车保险公司，而且我相信，它可能是最赚钱的。但在他收购时，它的规模大概只排在第20位，与当时的 Allstate 等公司相比小得多，甚至被这些公司视为无足轻重。但沃伦当时就看出了它的未来——并花了40年时间将它收入囊中。那是1996年，如今再往前推22年，自他收购以来，它的规模已经实现了巨大的增长。在我看来，这个故事简直令人惊叹。
But with all of this intense focus on business, there was a myopia. I had noticed, in getting to know Warren, that there was a lot that he did not see. If you’re that focused on narrow things, you can look at things right in front of you and just not see them.
不过，在对商业如此高度专注的同时，也会产生某种“近视”。在了解沃伦的过程中，我注意到有很多事情他根本看不到。如果你过于专注在狭窄的领域，就可能对眼前的事物视而不见。
So, by then, I had spent 2-3 years maybe on the writing and I had spent a year-and-a-half either in Omaha or traveling with him — and then I had been to Omaha periodically after that. Maybe a hundred — I don’t know how many — occasions. Days and days and weeks on end where we had seen each other.
到那时，我已经花了两三年的时间在写作上，其中一年半的时间要么是在奥马哈，要么是与他一起旅行——此后我也定期去奥马哈。大概有上百次——我也记不清——成天成周地和他在一起的经历。
I decided that I would play a trick on Warren. One day, I called him on the phone from my house in Connecticut and I said, “Warren, what color is my hair?” Play the Jeopardy song — 🎶 doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo 🎶. Finally, after the longest silence I think I have ever heard from him, he said, “Not black.” (Laughs) It was a very precise answer. He gave me the full extent of his knowledge.
我决定跟沃伦开个玩笑。一天，我在康涅狄格的家里打电话给他，说：“沃伦，我的头发是什么颜色的？”（配上《Jeopardy》节目的等待音乐——🎶 doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo 🎶）终于，在我听过的他最长的一次沉默之后，他说：“不是黑色。”（笑）这是个非常精确的答案，他给出了自己知识的全部范围。
By 2006, 2007, 2008, we were starting to dig down into some really deep stuff and talk about the meaning of life and what’s it all about. At that point, I ask him the question directly: What do you think the purpose of life is? And he said, “To me, the purpose of life is to be loved by as many of the people that you want to have love you.”
到了2006、2007、2008年，我们开始探讨一些非常深刻的话题，比如人生的意义是什么。那时我直接问他：“你认为人生的目的是什么？”他说：“对我来说，人生的目的就是被尽可能多的、你希望爱你的人所爱。”
I had to chew on that a little bit because most people would say the purpose is to be loved by as many people as possible or something like that. But, no, he was thinking about how many people do you want to have love you and then you want to bat 1.000 on that. If you want three people to love you, you want all three. If you want fifty, you want all fifty. But maybe you don’t want a thousand people to love you.
我得仔细琢磨一下，因为大多数人会说，人生的目的就是尽可能多地被人爱。但不是的，他想的是：你希望多少人爱你，然后要做到100%命中率。如果你想让三个人爱你，那就要三个人全都爱你；如果是五十个人，就要五十个全都爱你。但你可能并不希望一千个人爱你。
One thing I had learned about Warren was that he really did want to be loved. It’s because, if you read The Snowball, you’ll see that he wasn’t loved as a child — at all. So he had learned to crave that love and try to find it in people as an adult.
我了解到的关于沃伦的一点是，他确实非常渴望被爱。因为如果你读过《雪球》，你会知道他在童年时期完全没有被爱过。所以他学会了渴求这种爱，并在成年后努力从他人那里寻找。
He told me a story about how important that love is and what it’s like to live in the celebrity world, where if you’re rich and famous — particularly both — it’s very hard to be loved. People — even people who don’t know it — often have an ulterior motive. They have an agenda. And you can get very confused, if you’re a celebrity, into thinking that people like you or they are your friend when really it’s all just about your money and the position that you have. What can end up happening is you get invited to parties, you get invited to dinner at the White House, you get invited to play golf at Augusta, you get invited to be on the Top 40 list of this and the Top 10 list of that and you’re on the cover of a magazine.
他跟我讲过一个故事，说明这种爱的重要性，以及身处名人世界的感受——如果你既有钱又出名，尤其是两者兼具，要想被真正地爱是非常困难的。人们——哪怕是他们自己都没意识到——往往有某种潜在动机，有自己的目的。如果你是个名人，就很容易混淆，以为别人喜欢你、是你的朋友，但实际上，这一切都只是因为你的财富和地位。最终的结果是，你会被邀请去参加派对、去白宫赴宴、去奥古斯塔打高尔夫、上各种“前40名”“前10名”的榜单，还会登上杂志封面。
You feel very important — but it can be very deceiving.
你会觉得自己很重要——但这可能是非常虚假的。
Then, Warren told me a story and he said, “You can never tell who this story is about while I’m alive,” and I promised. But, if I do a speech again and you come when he’s not alive, I will tell you who this story is about. Just not yet.
然后，沃伦给我讲了一个故事，并说：“在我活着的时候，你绝不能说出这个故事是关于谁的。”我答应了。但如果将来我再做演讲，而你刚好来听，那时他已经不在了，我就会告诉你这个故事是关于谁的——只是现在还不能说。
He said, “There is this man and he thinks that he is just adored by everyone, but everyone actually that he knows… No one can stand this person. And he doesn’t know it. If he were up on stage giving a speech and he fell off into the audience and had a heart attack, not one person would dial 9-1-1. Not his wife. Not his kids. Not his colleagues. Not his so-called friends. They would all just watch while it happened.” He said, “I don’t ever want to be \[like that]. That is not who I want to be. I want to be somebody who is loved.”
他说：“有这么一个人，他以为自己受到所有人的喜爱，但实际上，他认识的每一个人……没有一个能忍受他。而他自己并不知道。如果他在台上演讲时掉下台，在观众席中心脏病发作，没有一个人会打911。不是他的妻子，不是他的孩子，不是他的同事，也不是所谓的朋友。他们都会只是看着事情发生。”他说：“我绝不想成为那样的人。我想成为一个被人爱的人。”
I could see that in him and, at the same time, it was very interesting because over the course of several years of writing, I had encountered quite a number of people who he had dealt with in business who felt a little roughly treated. I had learned that, among the circle of people who Warren Buffett wanted to be loved by, were not necessarily everybody he did business with — because sometimes money mattered more.
我能在他身上看到这种想法，同时也觉得很有意思，因为在写作的这几年中，我遇到过不少与他有过生意往来、但觉得自己被他“对待得有些狠”的人。我了解到，在沃伦·巴菲特希望被爱的人群中，并不一定包括所有与他做过生意的人——因为有时候，钱更重要。
I had interviewed people who had reason to be angry with him because they felt he had bested them in one business deal or another. If you read The Snowball, you’ll read quite a few stories in there about him exacting terms from people that were quite tough — and being, I would call it, ruthless.
我采访过一些对他有理由生气的人，因为他们觉得自己在某些交易中被他占了上风。如果你读过《雪球》，会看到书里有不少故事讲到他对交易条件的要求非常苛刻——甚至可以说是无情的。
And, yet, I interviewed these people and even the ones who were still mad on some level love Warren Buffett — which I found to be quite extraordinary. They just couldn’t help it. They would say things like, “I’m so mad at him for XYZ that he did in 19-whatever, but I just can’t help it. I love the guy.” Because he is lovable.
然而，即便如此，我采访的这些人——哪怕在某种程度上还心存怨气——依然爱着沃伦·巴菲特，这让我觉得非常特别。他们就是忍不住会这么说：“我真是气他在19XX年做的那件事，但我就是没办法不喜欢他。我爱这个人。”因为他确实讨人喜欢。
One of those people was a woman I mentioned earlier named Rose Blumkin. She was the woman who built and created the Nebraska Furniture Mart, which was the business that I went jogging through the carpet warehouse at the beginning that I told you about. Rose sold her business to Warren when she was in her nineties and she was still running it. But, by age 95, she had had a falling out with her grandsons over how to run the carpet department, which she took a special interest in, and she quit. And she went and bought a warehouse across the street — literally — and started a competing business.
这些人中有一位就是我之前提到过的 Rose Blumkin。她是创立并打造内布拉斯加家具商场的人——也就是我开头讲过的、跟着沃伦在地毯仓库里小跑的那家企业。Rose 在九十多岁时将她的企业卖给了沃伦，但她依然在经营它。然而到了95岁那年，她因地毯部门的经营问题与外孙们闹翻了，这个部门是她特别关心的业务，于是她辞职了。接着，她就在街对面——字面意义上的街对面——买了个仓库，开了一家竞争对手公司。
She was, within a year, trouncing on a square-foot basis the Nebraska Furniture Mart. And, of course, the Omaha World-Herald was all over this because it just made the juiciest fodder you could imagine for a newspaper — to have the Blumkin family feuding with each other with two businesses across the street, one of them run by a 96-year-old woman at the time.
不到一年，她在每平方英尺的销售额上就击败了内布拉斯加家具商场。当然，《奥马哈世界先驱报》对此大肆报道，因为这几乎是报纸能遇到的最吸引眼球的新闻——Blumkin 家族公开内斗，两家店隔街相望，其中一家由一位当时已96岁的老太太经营。
After a little over two years, Warren just cried uncle. He couldn’t take any more. She was not only winning, but it was causing terrible publicity for the Furniture Mart. What he may not have fully understood himself was that Rose was still mad at him because when he bought the Furniture Mart he had paid a price for it that she later felt cheated. Her family, on the record, probably will not talk about this — but they told me, several of them, how mad she was.
两年多以后，沃伦最终“认输”了。他实在受不了了——她不仅在业绩上取胜，还给家具商场带来了糟糕的舆论。而沃伦自己可能并没有完全意识到的是，Rose 依然对他心存怨气，因为在他收购家具商场时，所付的价格让她后来觉得受了骗。她的家人可能不会在公开场合谈论这件事——但其中好几个人私下告诉我，她当时有多么生气。
With hindsight, she felt that she had left \$30+ million on the table. In the 1980s, that was an incredibly huge amount of money. It still is, but at the time it was amazing. She felt a bit taken advantage of because Warren was competing against another bidder for this business and the other bidder offered a great deal more money, but she turned them down because they were German. And she sold to Warren.
回想起来，她觉得自己在交易中少拿了三千多万美元。在上世纪80年代，这是一个极其庞大的数字。即便在今天，这也是巨款，但在当时简直令人咋舌。她觉得自己有点被占了便宜，因为当时沃伦在收购这家企业时，另一位竞标者出价比他高得多，但她拒绝了对方，只因为他们是德国人，最终选择把企业卖给了沃伦。
So there were some feelings there, but she still loved Warren — just like everyone else. After a couple of years of this fight going on, Warren bought two dozen pink roses and went to her house. She only felt comfortable in a furniture store environment, so her daughters had furnished the house with price tags still hanging on all of the furniture. That was how she felt comfortable.
所以她心里是有些疙瘩的，但她依然爱着沃伦——就像其他人一样。经过两年的竞争，沃伦买了两打粉色玫瑰，去了她家。她只在家具店的环境中感到自在，所以她的女儿们把家里布置得像家具店一样，所有家具上都挂着价签——这是让她安心的方式。
Warren went over there and sat down on the sofa with the price tag hanging off it and there was a lamp with a price tag and gave her the roses and then flattered her and said, “I can’t do this without you. I need you back. Please let me buy your new company for \$5 million and I will bring you back in.”
沃伦走过去，坐在挂着价签的沙发上，旁边的灯上也挂着价签。他把玫瑰花递给她，然后奉承地说：“没有你，我做不下去。我需要你回来。请让我用500万美元买下你的新公司，把你请回来。”
But there was a catch. She was 98 years old at the time and he made her sign a non-compete agreement. Not only that, the non-compete was a five-year non-compete and would not start to run until she quit. So if she quit the day after she came back, it would last until she was 103. If she left at age 100, she would be tied up until 105.
但其中有个条件。她当时已经98岁了，而他让她签了一份竞业禁止协议。不仅如此，这是一份为期五年的竞业禁止，而且从她辞职那天才开始计算。如果她第二天就辞职，那协议会持续到她103岁；如果她在100岁时离开，那就会一直限制到她105岁。
I knew about this because I found the non-compete in the file room. This story had never been told. I found the non-compete and I went in and was like, “What is this?!?” She had signed it with an “X” because she never did learn to read or write English. She could do math in her head. She was fantastic at that. But English, she just never did get.
我之所以知道这件事，是因为我在档案室里找到了这份竞业禁止协议。这段故事从未被公开过。当我找到那份协议时，我走过去问：“这是什么鬼？！”她在文件上画了一个“X”作为签名，因为她从未学会读写英语。她能用心算做数学，而且非常擅长，但英语她就是一直没学会。
So Warren told me this story and I said, “Listen, why did you think you needed a five-year non-compete with a 98-year-old woman?” And he said, “You know, I thought she might go on forever. And, with Rose, I needed five years beyond forever with her.”
后来沃伦给我讲了这个故事，我问：“说真的，你为什么觉得需要和一个98岁的老太太签一份五年的竞业禁止协议？”他说：“你知道，我觉得她可能会一直做下去。至于 Rose，我需要在她‘永远’之后再多五年的保障。”
The interesting thing about that is Rose Blumkin is the one person that Warren feels competitive with now — because he wants to run Berkshire Hathaway forever. If you go to him in ten years, when he’s 98… If I could, I’d love to go and offer him a non-compete, he would sign it in a heartbeat. He would love that. He would love to work until he’s 103. He would love to be in the situation where he could live five years beyond forever. Nothing would please him more.
有趣的是，Rose Blumkin 是沃伦现在唯一感到有竞争意识的人——因为他想永远经营伯克希尔·哈撒韦。如果十年后你去找他，那时他已经98岁……如果我能去给他递上一份竞业禁止协议，他会立刻签下。他会非常高兴。他会乐于工作到103岁，甚至乐于身处“永远”之后还能多五年的情境。没有什么比这更让他开心的了。
But, just in case that doesn’t happen, let’s suppose that it was him up here on this stage tonight instead of me. And let’s suppose that he fell off this stage and it was him who had a heart attack. I think that he would have one of the greatest and most fulfilling moments, finding that he had gotten his greatest wish in life because he would hear hundreds of people grabbing their cell phones, calling 9-1-1, and he would know that he was loved by the people who \[he wanted to have] love him — because that includes all of you. That’s even better than five years beyond forever.
不过，以防那种情况没发生，我们假设今晚站在台上的不是我，而是他。假设他从台上跌落并心脏病发作，我想他会体验到人生中最美好、最满足的时刻之一——因为他会听到几百人同时拿起手机拨打911，他会知道自己被那些他希望爱自己的人所爱——包括在座的各位。这比“永远之后多五年”还要好。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
Q: Can you give us some examples where he showed compassion for other people? It sounds like people died in the Twin Towers and he’s worried about a couple billion dollars. It sounds like he’s a strange sort of guy.
问：你能举一些他对他人表现出同情心的例子吗？听起来世贸双塔里有人遇难，而他却在担心几十亿美元。这听起来有点奇怪。
Schroeder: (Laughs) He is very left-brained. That is for sure. But I have seen him show compassion a number of times. It is with people he knows, generally, that he feels that more. For example, he got very worried back in the 2000s before Obamacare about people that he was close to about the possibility that they might become wiped out by catastrophic medical expenses. These included people who worked for Berkshire Hathaway, people who were retired, people he just knew. He set up a pool and he put \$20 million into this pool and designated people and said that if any of them had some terrible thing befall them, health-wise, that he would pay for whatever expenses were not covered by their health insurance to make sure they got all the medical care they needed and they would never have to fear being bankrupted by healthcare costs. That was the time when that was happening regularly to people.
施罗德：（笑）他的确是非常左脑型的人，这是肯定的。但我确实见过他多次展现出同情心。一般来说，他对自己认识的人会更有这种情感。比如，在奥巴马医保推出之前的2000年代，他非常担心身边一些人会因灾难性的医疗费用而倾家荡产。这些人包括伯克希尔·哈撒韦的在职员工、退休人员，以及他认识的其他人。他设立了一个资金池，往里面投入了2000万美元，并指定了受益人，如果他们中有人在健康方面遇到重大不幸，他会承担医保未覆盖的所有医疗费用，确保他们能得到所需的全部医疗护理，并且不必担心因医疗费用破产。在那个年代，这种事情在人们身上经常发生。
He is somebody who will, for a friend, lend his reputation when it’s appropriate. He will make a phone call to help somebody get the access that they need. He will do a lot of very kind things and very thoughtful and considerate \[things].
他是那种在适当的时候会为朋友借出自己声誉的人。他会打电话帮别人争取所需的机会。他会做很多善良、体贴和周到的事情。
I’ll tell you one really short story because I know we have other questions, but there was a woman named Vanita Mae Brown who he dated when he was young. I didn’t put this story in the book. I talked about how he dated her, but she had been Miss Nebraska and she was very beautiful \[and] she got married to one of his friends.
我讲一个简短的故事，因为我知道还有其他问题。曾有一位名叫 Vanita Mae Brown 的女性，他年轻时和她约会过。我在书里提到过他们约会的事，但没写这个故事。她曾是内布拉斯加州小姐，非常漂亮，后来嫁给了他的一位朋友。
There was something not right about her mentally — I’m not sure what it was — but she got divorced from his friend. They had a crazy… It was an unusual divorce, I’ll just say that. And, then, she started writing Warren letters — and they were thirty, forty, fifty page letters saying horrible things about him. “You’re this terrible, horrible…” Just awful. And then six months later there would be a letter that just was like normal. “Dear Warren, I miss you. How are you doing?”
她在精神上有些问题——我不确定具体是什么——但她和他的朋友离了婚。他们的离婚过程很奇怪……只能这么说。之后，她开始给沃伦写信——每封信有三十、四十、五十页，里面充满了对他的恶毒指责：“你是个可怕的家伙……”诸如此类。可六个月后，她又会寄来一封很正常的信：“亲爱的沃伦，我想你了，你好吗？”
I think like 99% of us would just cut off a person like that and say, “I can’t afford to have this person in my life. They’re crazy. They’re sending me abusive mail.” Warren decided that he was going to help her. Every crazy, bad letter that she sent, he just ignored — and every good one that was like from a normal, not deranged person, he wrote back lovely replies. I have the whole file.
我想99%的人都会与这样的人断绝联系，说：“我不能再让这个人在我生活中出现了。她疯了，还寄侮辱性的信给我。”但沃伦决定要帮她。她寄来的所有疯狂、恶毒的信，他全都忽略——而每封像正常人写的信，他都会回一封温暖的信。我把整个通信记录都保存下来了。
Over the years, she changed and she got fixed somehow. I’m convinced that, similar to animal training behavior, he extinguished her whatever it was that was causing her to be abusive in writing. She ended up coming out for the high school reunion and meeting all of his friends and being perfectly fine.
多年下来，她的状态逐渐改变，某种程度上被“治愈”了。我相信，就像动物训练中的“消退”一样，他让她写作时那种攻击性的习惯消失了。最后，她甚至参加了高中同学聚会，见到了他的所有朋友，一切都很正常。
That was sheer kindness on his part. He didn’t have to do that. And she took a lot of his time to do this. He guards his time very jealously. If we had two hours, I could think of 50 more things like that. He’s very compassionate.
这完全是出于善意。他完全没有义务这么做，而且这件事占用了他大量的时间——而他是非常珍惜时间的人。如果我们有两个小时，我还能举出五十个类似的例子。他是个非常有同情心的人。
Q: How did he and Bill Gates get together?
问：他和比尔·盖茨是怎么认识的？
Schroeder: It was Katharine Graham who introduced him to Bill, before Bill ever even really knew Melinda — or right around the time when they were just starting to date, well before they were married. Katharine Graham had a close friend who had a house on Bainbridge Island in Washington and they went out for Memorial Day Weekend. This friend was friends with Bill Gates’s mother, who was a grande dame in the Seattle area. One of the great socialites of Seattle, who’s now deceased.
施罗德：是凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆把他介绍给比尔的，那是在比尔真正认识梅琳达之前——或者说正好在他们刚开始约会的时候，远在他们结婚之前。凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆有一位好朋友，在华盛顿州班布里奇岛有一栋房子，他们一起去那里度过阵亡将士纪念日的周末。这位朋友与比尔·盖茨的母亲是好友，她是西雅图地区一位德高望重的名媛，也是当地著名的社交人物，现在已经去世。
The Gateses were having a party out at their place on the Hood Canal and the Gateses wanted Warren and Bill to meet each other — and Kay wanted Warren and Bill to meet each other. Warren and Bill did not want to meet each other. Bill said, “Why do I want to meet this ancient investor guy from Omaha?” and Warren said, “I don’t care anything about technology. Why do I want to meet this computer guy?”
盖茨一家当时在胡德运河的住所举办聚会，盖茨一家希望沃伦和比尔见面，凯（格雷厄姆）也希望他们见面。但沃伦和比尔都不想见面。比尔说：“我为什么要见这个来自奥马哈的古董投资人？”沃伦说：“我对科技一点都不感兴趣，我为什么要见这个电脑家伙？”
But they went and Bill said, “I’m only going to talk to him for ten minutes,” and Warren said, “I’m only going to talk to him for ten minutes and then we’re going to leave.” They met and Warren said, “Can you explain to me why IBM is a good investment or not? Should I buy it or not?” And Bill started talking.
但他们还是去了。比尔说：“我只打算和他聊十分钟。”沃伦也说：“我也只打算和他聊十分钟，然后我们就走。”他们见面后，沃伦问：“你能不能跟我解释一下，IBM是不是一个好的投资？我该不该买？”于是比尔就开始聊了起来。
One of the things about Bill — he’s not the most socially fluent person, but if you ask him a question about something that he’s knowledgeable about, he is fascinating to talk to. Warren had asked him probably the best introductory question anybody ever could and, for the next hours and hours and hours, they spent \[talking]. There’s a picture in the book of them walking on the beach next to a seaplane. They were inseparable. People had to go and try to pry them apart to get them to even show any interest in the other people at the party. And, then, it went from there.
比尔的一个特点是——他在社交方面不算特别流畅，但如果你问他一个他熟悉的问题，他会变得非常有趣。沃伦问了他一个可能是任何人都能问到的最佳开场问题，接下来他们就聊了好几个小时。《雪球》这本书里有一张照片，是他们在海滩上、海上飞机旁边散步的场景。他们形影不离，别人不得不去把他们拉开，让他们去对聚会上的其他人表现出一点兴趣。从那以后，他们的关系就发展起来了。
Warren educated Bill about investing. Bill educated Warren about technology. Warren knows a lot about technology. He never bought technology stocks because he thought that it was too hard to get a sustainable competitive advantage in technology. He thought these companies would be short-lived. And he said at the shareholder meeting last year, he was wrong. He did not understand the power that Facebook and Google and Amazon would have and their ability to sustain, through the network effect, their business and achieve profits from it.
沃伦教比尔投资，比尔教沃伦科技。沃伦其实对科技了解不少，但他一直不买科技股，因为他认为科技行业很难获得可持续的竞争优势，觉得这些公司生命周期短。而他在去年的股东大会上说，他错了。他没有意识到 Facebook、Google 和 Amazon 的实力，以及它们利用网络效应长期维持业务并从中获取利润的能力。
Now, with what’s happening with Facebook right now, he might reconsider — but I don’t think so. He said, “We could have tried harder. We were perfectly capable of understanding it and we just didn’t because we felt like we were doing fine and we were doing just as well with the things that we knew and understood, so we just didn’t bother. And it was a mistake.” He called it one of his biggest mistakes.
当然，考虑到 Facebook 现在发生的事情，他或许会重新审视——但我觉得他不会这么做。他说：“我们本可以更努力一些。我们完全有能力理解这些东西，但我们没有去做，因为我们觉得自己做得很好，而且在熟悉的领域也同样做得不错，所以就懒得去碰。结果这是一个错误。”他把这称作自己最大的错误之一。
So that’s the answer.
所以，这就是答案。
Q: The relationship between Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger is intriguing. You indicated early on in your book that, at times, Mr. Munger and Mr. Buffett would stop talking in their conversations and communicate by mental telepathy. Would you expand on that?
问：沃伦·巴菲特和查理·芒格的关系很有趣。您在书中提到过，有时芒格先生和巴菲特先生在交谈中会突然不说话，改用“心灵感应”交流。您能详细解释一下吗？
Schroeder: In their early years, Warren and Charlie were known for being glued together and obsessively talking for 10+ hours at a stretch. They know each other so well at this point that they can — and I’ve seen this happen — both predict exactly what the other one will think or say on any given situation. So they tend to not need to talk because they know what the other one will say.
施罗德：在早期，沃伦和查理几乎是形影不离，能连续聊十几个小时。到了现在，他们彼此熟悉到——我亲眼见过——在任何情境下都能准确预判对方会怎么想、怎么说。所以很多时候他们根本不需要说话，因为他们已经知道对方要说什么了。
And, in the case of both of them, they disagree on quite a number of things — particularly philanthropy. They tend to not talk when they know that the other one would say something disapproving of what they’re going to do. (Laughs) They don’t agree on politics, so they go their own way on that. They are still just as good of friends as ever, but they are sort of like a friendship where they can do it by osmosis.
而且，他们在很多事情上意见并不一致——尤其是在慈善方面。当他们知道对方会反对自己想做的事时，就会选择不谈（笑）。他们在政治观点上也不同，所以各走各的路。不过，他们依然是非常好的朋友，只是这种友谊有点像“靠渗透”维系的关系。
Q: Everyone who plays bridge understands that it’s a very competitive game. How competitive is Warren with bridge? I understand he plays with Bill Gates sometimes as a partner. And, also, how many Masterpoints does Warren have?
问：打桥牌的人都知道，这是一项竞争性很强的游戏。沃伦在桥牌方面有多好胜？我知道他有时会和比尔·盖茨搭档。另外，他有多少桥牌大师分？
Schroeder: Warren’s partner is Sharon Osberg, who is a two-time world champion. She took his game from being a casual game to being a serious game. He has played in the national championships before with her. I don’t know the points system and I don’t know the points, but Sharon is probably also his closest friend. He doesn’t say a lot about that in public because it would annoy some other people who think they’re his closest friend, but she actually is the one who is. She also plays with Bill a lot as his partner — and, increasingly, is playing with Bill more and more in tournaments. Warren was a better player than Bill, but now as Bill is devoting more time to it, he’s moving up. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you numbers because I don’t know.
施罗德：沃伦的搭档是莎朗·奥斯伯格（Sharon Osberg），她是两届世界冠军。她让沃伦从随便玩玩桥牌变成了认真对待。他以前也和她一起打过全美锦标赛。我不了解大师分的体系，也不知道他的具体分数。但莎朗可能也是他最亲近的朋友。他在公开场合不太会说这个，因为这样会让其他自认为是他最亲密朋友的人不高兴，但实际上莎朗才是那个“最亲密的人”。她也经常和比尔搭档——而且在比赛中和比尔搭档的次数越来越多。沃伦曾经比比尔打得好，但现在比尔投入更多时间后，他的水平在上升。不过分数方面我真的不知道。
Q: I’m fascinated by his relationship with Katharine Graham and how he mentored her. Did he mentor other people and were they all women?
问：我对他和凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆的关系，以及他指导她的方式很感兴趣。他还指导过其他人吗？这些人都是女性吗？
Schroeder: (Laughs) Very few. He has had a few people come in to Berkshire Hathaway… I’ve seen this happen twice. He hired them and he gets kind of enthusiastic and infatuated with people. They come in, they think they’re going to be mentored, and then he gives them a job and he spends half an hour with them and then they never really see him again. He is not a natural one-on-one coach. That’s not what he likes to do. He likes to get up in front of an audience and teach and talk.
施罗德：（笑）很少。他确实招过一些人进入伯克希尔……我见过两次这种情况。他会因为某个人而感到很兴奋、很欣赏，于是招他们进来。这些人以为会得到他的指导，但实际上他只会花半小时跟他们聊聊，然后就再也没什么接触。他并不是一个天生的一对一教练型人物，他不喜欢那样。他喜欢站在观众面前演讲和教学。
With Kay, it was different. I really believe that was the only time that he’s put in that kind of time and devotion.
而在凯身上，这种情况不一样。我真的认为那是他唯一一次投入了那样的时间和精力。
Q: I heard a story about his wallpaper and it went like this. One day, he went on vacation and his children decided that he needed new wallpaper. It was money. The wallpaper was printed with money. Not real money, but it was money \[wallpaper]. And they decided to re-do his office and so they took it down and when he returned, it took him a couple of days to figure out what in the world is different — and then he realized it was different wallpaper. He made them go out and buy money wallpaper and replace it.
问：我听说过一个关于他墙纸的故事，大概是这样——有一天，他去度假，他的孩子们觉得他需要换墙纸。原来的墙纸是钱的图案，不是真钱，但上面印着钱。他们决定重新装修他的办公室，于是把墙纸换掉。等他回来时，他花了几天才发现哪里不一样——然后才意识到是墙纸换了。他让他们重新去买钱图案的墙纸换回去。
Schroeder: That is a true story. That is true. His daughter does a lot of this kind of shopping for him and he used to insist that she would shop for his cars and he would make her go to up to forty dealerships looking for the cheapest car of the same make and model. And she would find one — usually that had been damaged by hail.
施罗德：这是真的，确有其事。他的女儿经常帮他买这种东西，他以前甚至坚持让她帮他买车，而且会要求她跑遍多达四十家经销商，只为了找到同一品牌、同一型号里最便宜的那辆。通常，那辆车还会是被冰雹砸坏过的。
Q: How did Mr. Buffett get away from Benjamin Graham, because I know he worked for him for a while, and then get into his own company and still get the information and all of the resources that he did to get the success that he did?
问：巴菲特先生是如何离开本杰明·格雷厄姆的？我知道他曾为格雷厄姆工作过一段时间，那么他后来是如何建立自己的公司，并且依然获得实现成功所需的各种信息和资源的？
Have you read my book?
你读过我的书吗？
I just bought it and I am very excited \[to read it].
我刚买了，非常期待阅读。
Great! You will find out!
太好了！你会在书里找到答案的！
It’s a great question. It really is. It’s a long answer. He did go through quite a process and so you will find the whole answer in the book. It’s been said that it’s not an investing book, \[but] actually it is an investing book. It tells you exactly how he did it.
这是个很棒的问题，真的。不过答案比较长。他确实经历了一个相当复杂的过程，你会在书里看到完整的解释。有人说这本书不是一本投资书，但其实它就是一本投资书，而且会告诉你他是如何做到的。
1.Warren Buffett has expressed this sentiment on numerous occasions. “I get to paint my own painting,” he told University of Nebraska students in 2003. “I go down there every day and I feel like Michelangelo working on the Sistine Chapel or something. Nobody else may think it’s a great painting, but I get to paint my own painting. I do not have people second-guessing me. I do not have people saying, ‘Why don’t you use a little more red paint or blue paint? Why don’t you paint a seascape instead of a landscape?’ I get to do my own thing.”
沃伦·巴菲特多次表达过这种感受。2003年，他在内布拉斯加大学对学生说：“我每天都能画自己的画。我走进办公室，就觉得自己像是在西斯廷教堂作画的米开朗基罗。别人或许不会觉得这是一幅伟大的画，但我可以画自己的画。我没有人对我指手画脚，没有人会说，‘你为什么不多用点红色或蓝色？你为什么不画海景而是画风景？’我可以做自己的事。”
2.The exact quote is, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
这句话的原文是：“如果人们知道我为了掌握这些技能付出了多么艰苦的努力，他们就一点也不会觉得这有多么了不起。”
3.In the press release announcing Berkshire’s acquisition of Gen Re, Buffett listed four areas of “powerful synergy” that justified the premium price paid for the insurance giant.
在宣布伯克希尔收购通用再保险（Gen Re）的新闻稿中，巴菲特列出了四个“强大协同效应”领域，来说明为这家保险巨头支付溢价的合理性。
“First, this transaction removes constraints on earnings volatility that have caused General Re, in the past, to decline certain attractive businesses and, in other cases, to lay off substantial amounts of the business that it does write. Because of both its status as a public company and its desire to maintain its AAA credit rating, General Re has, understandably, been unable to operate in a manner that could produce large swings in reported earnings. As part of Berkshire, this constraint will disappear, which will enhance both General Re’s long-term profitability and its ability to write more business. Furthermore, General Re will be free to reduce its reliance on the retrocessional market over time, and thereby have substantial additional funds available for investment.”
“第一，这笔交易消除了过去限制通用再保险盈利波动的约束，这些约束曾导致公司放弃某些有吸引力的业务，或在其他情况下削减其已承保的大量业务。由于其上市公司身份以及维持AAA信用评级的愿望，通用再保险显然无法以一种会导致报告利润出现大幅波动的方式运营。成为伯克希尔的一部分后，这一限制将消失，这将提升通用再保险的长期盈利能力及其承保更多业务的能力。此外，通用再保险将能够逐步减少对再分保市场的依赖，从而获得大量额外可用于投资的资金。”
“Second, Gen Re has substantial opportunities to develop its global reinsurance franchise. As part of Berkshire, General Re will be able to make investments to grow its international business as quickly as it sees fit.”
“第二，通用再保险在发展其全球再保险业务方面拥有巨大机遇。作为伯克希尔的一部分，通用再保险将能够根据自身意愿投资并加速国际业务的增长。”
“Additionally, General Re will gain tax flexibility as a result of the merger. In managing insurance investments, it is a distinct advantage to know that large amounts of taxable income will consistently recur. Most insurance companies are in no position to make this assumption. Any Berkshire insurance subsidiary can fashion its investment strategy without worry as to the presence of taxable income in the future due to Berkshire’s large and diverse streams of taxable income.”
“此外，合并将使通用再保险在税务方面获得更大的灵活性。在管理保险投资时，能够明确预期大量应税收入会持续出现，是一项显著优势。大多数保险公司都无法做出这一假设。伯克希尔的任何一家保险子公司都可以在不担心未来应税收入存在与否的情况下制定投资策略，因为伯克希尔拥有庞大且多元化的应税收入来源。”
“Finally, Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries never need to worry about having abundant capital. Therefore, they can follow whatever asset strategy makes the most sense, unconstrained by the effect on the capital of the Company of a sharp market decline. Periodically, this flexibility has proven of enormous advantage to Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries.”
“最后，伯克希尔的保险子公司永远无需担心资本充足性。因此，它们可以采取最合理的资产配置策略，而不会因市场急剧下跌对公司资本的影响而受限。在某些时期，这种灵活性已被证明为伯克希尔保险子公司带来了巨大的优势。”
4.A link to Schroeder’s seminal analysis of Berkshire Hathaway.
施罗德对伯克希尔哈撒韦的开创性分析链接。
5.On October 1, 2001, vice president Joe Brandon (now CEO of Berkshire-owned Alleghany) took over the Gen Re top spot from retiring CEO Ronald Ferguson. Though the timing seems more than coincidental on first glance, it does not appear to be related to the 9/11 situation. The leadership transition was first announced on September 6 — before the terrorist attacks (and Buffett’s subsequent anger).
2001年10月1日，副总裁乔·布兰登（现为伯克希尔旗下Alleghany的首席执行官）从退休的首席执行官罗纳德·弗格森手中接任通用再保险（Gen Re）最高职位。虽然从表面上看，这一时间点似乎并非巧合，但它似乎与“9·11”事件无关。这一领导层交接早在恐怖袭击（以及巴菲特随后愤怒）之前的9月6日就已宣布。
6.In her recent chat with Business Insider after Buffett’s retirement announcement, Schroeder explained the Oracle’s approach to praise vs. criticism. “One thing that he has said to me, in a number of different ways, is that if you are talking to someone and you say 99 things about them that are positive and throw in one small criticism — the only thing they’ll remember is the criticism. That’s how he manages people. I did not really understand that until I spent so much time with him, but I’ve seen it since in life, over and over, that you really have to give undiluted praise if you want people to feel it.”
在巴菲特宣布退休后，施罗德近期与《商业内幕》对话时解释了这位“股神”在赞美与批评上的处理方式。“他用多种方式跟我说过这样一件事：如果你在与某人交谈时，说了99句积极的话，再加上一句小小的批评——他们唯一记住的就是那句批评。这就是他管理员工的方式。我直到花了大量时间与他相处才真正理解这一点，但后来在生活中一次又一次地看到，如果你希望别人真切感受到你的赞赏，就必须给予不掺杂任何批评的纯粹表扬。”
7.Schroeder also told this story in the aforementioned Business Insider interview. “When I got married to my second husband,” she said, “\[Warren] had veto power over who I chose. That’s how much I trust his judgment about people. I was happy to give him veto power. Thankfully, he liked David.”
施罗德还在上述《商业内幕》采访中讲了这样一个故事。她说：“当我与第二任丈夫结婚时，[沃伦]对我选择的对象拥有否决权。这就是我对他判断力的信任程度。我很乐意将这种否决权交给他。幸运的是，他喜欢大卫。”
8.Buffett discussed his relative indifference to real estate at this year’s annual meeting. “In respect to real estate,” he said, “it’s so much harder than stocks in terms of negotiation of deals, time spent, and the involvement of multiple parties in the ownership.”
巴菲特在今年的股东大会上谈到自己对房地产的相对冷淡。他说：“在交易谈判、耗费时间以及所有权涉及的多方参与方面，房地产比股票难得多。”
“When you walk down to the New York Stock Exchange, you can do billions of dollars worth of business — totally anonymous — and you can do it in five minutes. The trades are complete when they’re complete. In real estate, when you make a deal with a distressed lender, when you sign the deal, that’s just the beginning. Then people start negotiating more things and it’s a whole different game with a different type of person who enjoy the game.”
“当你走进纽约证券交易所时，你可以在五分钟内完全匿名地完成数十亿美元的交易。一旦成交，交易就算结束。而在房地产领域，当你与一家陷入困境的贷款机构达成交易时，签署协议只是开始。接下来人们会继续谈判更多事项，这是一种完全不同的游戏，参与其中的人也完全不同，而且他们很享受这种游戏。”
9.Alex Rozek, great-nephew of Warren Buffett, served as co-CEO and co-chairman of Boston Omaha Corp. until 2024. Some had called Boston Omaha a “Baby Berkshire” because of its conglomerate form, Rozek’s relationship to Buffett, and Berkshire-like annual letters.
沃伦·巴菲特的外甥孙亚历克斯·罗泽克曾担任波士顿奥马哈公司（Boston Omaha Corp.）的联席首席执行官和联席董事长，直至2024年。由于该公司是多元化控股结构、罗泽克与巴菲特的亲属关系，以及类似伯克希尔的年度股东信，一些人称其为“小伯克希尔”。
10.This collection of files sounds like the Holy Grail of business education and wisdom. It would be incredible to read through them and get a vicarious masterclass from Buffett himself. Adding this to my investing bucket list.
这套文件听起来就像是商业教育与智慧的“圣杯”。能读一遍这些资料，就像亲身接受巴菲特的商业大师课一样令人震撼。我已将其加入自己的投资愿望清单。
11.On May 3, 1989, Mrs. B stormed out of the Nebraska Furniture Mart after being left out of a major carpet purchase decision by two of her grandsons. “I got mad and I quit,” she told the Omaha World-Herald. Buffett tried to stay out of the dispute, praising Mrs. B as “one of a kind” and “one of my heroes”. But, to her disappointment, he chose not to overrule the grandsons — even though that would run counter to his entire management philosophy. Even so, she did not seem to blame Buffett. “They sold him a snow job,” she said.
1989年5月3日，因在一项重大地毯采购决策中被两个孙子排除在外，B太太愤然离开了内布拉斯加家具商场。她对《奥马哈世界先驱报》表示：“我生气了，所以我辞职了。”巴菲特尽量置身事外，并称赞B太太是“独一无二的”和“我的英雄之一”。但令她失望的是，他选择不推翻孙子的决定——尽管这与他一贯的管理理念相悖。即便如此，她似乎并没有责怪巴菲特，而是说：“他们给他灌了迷魂汤。”
12.Mrs. B eventually made peace with her grandsons. “Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “Maybe I was too hard on them.” She admitted that she couldn’t deal with giving up decision-making authority in her store — and “if things aren’t run the way I want it, I don’t like it”. NFM then bought Mrs. B’s Warehouse for \$4.94 million — with her spite store then becoming Mrs. B’s Clearance and Factory Outlet.
B太太最终与孙子们和解。她说：“也许是我错了，也许我对他们太苛刻了。”她承认自己无法接受放弃在商店的决策权——并表示“如果事情不是按我想要的方式运作，我就不喜欢”。随后，内布拉斯加家具商场以494万美元收购了B太太的仓储店——这家“赌气店”随后改名为“B太太清仓及工厂直销店”。
13.Why hadn’t Buffett demanded a non-compete agreement the first time in 1983? “I was young and inexperienced,” he laughed.
为什么巴菲特在1983年第一次收购时没有要求签署竞业禁止协议？他笑着说：“那时候我年轻又缺乏经验。”
14.“We avoided the tech stocks because we felt we had no advantage there and other people did,” Charlie Munger said at the 2017 Berkshire AGM. “I think that’s a good idea not to play where the other people are better. But, in retrospect … I think we were smart enough to figure out Google.” Buffett added that GEICO was an early customer on Google and “we were paying them \$10-11 a click or something like that. Any time you’re paying somebody \$10-11 every time somebody just punches a little thing where you’ve got no cost at all, that’s a good business.”
“我们回避科技股，是因为我们觉得自己在这方面没有优势，而其他人有。”查理·芒格在2017年伯克希尔股东大会上说，“我认为不去玩别人更擅长的领域是个好主意。但回头看……我认为我们足够聪明，完全可以看懂谷歌。”巴菲特补充道，GEICO是谷歌的早期客户，“我们当时每次点击付给他们10到11美元之类的费用。只要你每次付别人10到11美元，而对方的边际成本几乎为零，那就是个好生意。”