2024-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

Warren Buffett: I’m Warren Buffett and that’s me with Charlie in an unscripted and spontaneous photo taken in Savannah, Georgia early in 1982. Our wives could tell us apart, as long as we wore name tags. When Charlie and I first met in 1959, if was as if twins who had been separated at birth had been reunited. But there were a few important differences between Charlie and me that people missed. Let me elaborate.

沃伦·巴菲特：我是沃伦·巴菲特，这张照片是我和查理在 1982 年初在乔治亚州萨凡纳拍的，完全没有剧本和准备。我们的妻子只要我们佩戴名牌，就能分辨出我们。当查理和我在 1959 年第一次见面时，就像是失散多年的双胞胎重聚。但查理和我之间有一些人们忽视的重要区别。让我详细说明。

For one thing, I was only interested in whether things worked. Charlie wanted to know how things worked. I would turn on a switch and if the tv or light bulb went on, I could not care less about what had caused that miracle. Charlie, however, would want to understand every aspect of how a generator worked, how electricity traveled to his home, the merits of AC vs DC, whatever. You could say that Charlie understood electricity better than Thomas Edison ever did.

有一点，我只对事物是否有效感兴趣。查理想知道事物是如何运作的。我只需打开一个开关，如果电视或灯泡亮了，我根本不在乎是什么导致了这个奇迹。然而，查理会想要理解发电机的每一个方面，电是如何传输到他家里的，交流电与直流电的优缺点等等。你可以说查理对电的理解比托马斯·爱迪生更深刻。

Like his hero, Ben Franklin, Charlie wanted to understand everything, and he pretty well succeeded. Additionally, Charlie liked to design things. When we met in 1959, he was designing the building, the house in which he lived throughout his life. He once wanted to design a home for me in Santa Barbara, on a piece of property Berkshire had inherited - fat chance! In 1958, I bought the house I now live in, but I would have been happy with any of 100 or more houses as long it was in the general neighborhood of where I had been renting. Of course I wanted my wife to like it and wanted to have room for 4 or 5 kids, but what it looked like inside, outside was irrelevant.

像他的英雄本·富兰克林一样，查理想要理解一切，并且他做得相当成功。此外，查理喜欢设计东西。当我们在 1959 年见面时，他正在设计他一生中居住的那栋房子。他曾经想为我在圣巴巴拉设计一所房子，那是一块伯克希尔继承的土地——希望渺茫！在 1958 年，我买下了我现在居住的房子，但只要在我租房的附近，我会对 100 多栋房子中的任何一栋都感到满意。当然，我希望我的妻子喜欢它，并希望有 4 或 5 个孩子的空间，但房子的内部和外观对我来说并不重要。

The difference, of course, was of supreme relevance to Berkshire. Charlie’s architectural thoughts led to the Berkshire Hathaway of today. Some of you may be surprised that Charlie first became a director of Berkshire in 1978. Through a small partnership, I bought control of Berkshire early in 1965. Charlie then didn’t have a penny invested in Berkshire. But he immediately told me purchase was just plain dumb. Which it was.

当然，这个差异对伯克希尔来说至关重要。查理的建筑思想导致了今天的伯克希尔哈撒韦。你们中的一些人可能会惊讶，查理在 1978 年首次成为伯克希尔的董事。通过一个小型合伙企业，我在 1965 年初买下了伯克希尔的控制权。那时查理在伯克希尔没有投资一分钱。但他立刻告诉我，这笔购买简直是愚蠢的。确实如此。

Charlie then did for me what needed to be done to correct my error. And over time, we worked together to achieve his vision. Charlie, in effect, then became the architect of today’s Berkshire. The architect is the person who dreams of, then designs, and finally supervises the construction of great structures. The carpenters and the (inaudible), that’s me, are needed, but the architect is the genius who provides the blueprint.

查理为我做了纠正错误所必需的事情。随着时间的推移，我们共同努力实现他的愿景。查理实际上成为了今日伯克希尔的建筑师。建筑师是梦想、设计并最终监督伟大建筑建造的人。木匠和（听不清的），也就是我，是必需的，但建筑师是提供蓝图的天才。

Berkshire has become a great company with a unique group of owners. The directors of Berkshire are the trustees of the structure Charlie designed that lives beyond his lifetime and will live far beyond mine. I’m now going to introduce these directors and give you a short first quarter report and the outlook for the company. After that, we will take your questions. Please turn up the lights, and I hope you’ll join me in applauding Charlie Munger, the architect of Berkshire.

伯克希尔已经成为一家伟大的公司，拥有独特的股东群体。伯克希尔的董事们是查理设计的结构的受托人，这一结构将超越他的生命，并将远远超越我的生命。现在我将介绍这些董事，并给您一个简短的第一季度报告以及公司的前景。之后，我们将回答您的问题。请调亮灯光，我希望您能和我一起为伯克希尔的建筑师查理·芒格鼓掌。

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Warren Buffett: Yeah. Don’t wear out all your clapping on Charlie. I mean, we got, in addition, well, we have, first of all, Greg Abel, a director, and Ajit Jain sitting next to him who runs insurance. And moving then to this back of this first section. If each of the directors there would remain standing until we finish. We’ll go alphabetically down the line. And we’ve got Howard Buffett, we have Susan Buffett, Steve Burke, Ken Chenault, Chris Davis, Sue Decker, Charlotte Guyman, Tom Murphy Jr, Ron Olson, Wally Weitz, and Merrill Whitmer.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。不要把所有的掌声都给查理。我是说，此外，我们有，首先，格雷格·阿贝尔，一位董事，还有阿吉特·贾因，他负责保险。然后转到这一部分的后面。如果在场的每位董事能站着直到我们结束，那就太好了。我们将按字母顺序进行。我们有霍华德·巴菲特，苏珊·巴菲特，史蒂夫·伯克，肯·陈诺特，克里斯·戴维斯，苏·德克，夏洛特·古伊曼，汤姆·墨菲·小，罗恩·奥尔森，沃利·维茨，以及梅里尔·惠特默。

Okay, there are two people I would like to thank, and then we’ll get on to the brief description of the results of the first quarter. First of all, I’d like to thank Melissa Shapiro, who put this whole event together. You can’t imagine the work that goes into it. She just reported to me that we set a new record for Sees candy. I think they brought along six tons and they will sell out. And one thing I do want to mention, we have only one book at the bookstore of the bookworm this year. Normally we have about 25, but we have poor Charlie’s Almanac, fourth

好的，我想感谢两个人，然后我们将简要描述第一季度的结果。首先，我要感谢梅丽莎·夏皮罗，她组织了整个活动。你无法想象这背后付出了多少努力。她刚刚告诉我，我们创造了 Sees 糖果的新纪录。我想他们带来了六吨糖果，并且会售罄。我还想提到的是，今年书虫书店只有一本书。通常我们有大约 25 本，但我们有《poor Charlie’s Almanac》，第四版。

edition, and I think we sold about 2400 of them yesterday. And that will be the only book. Next year we’ll go back to having our usual selection, but we thought we would just turn it over to Charlie this year.

版本，我想我们昨天卖出了大约 2400 本。这将是唯一的一本书。明年我们会恢复我们通常的选择，但我们认为今年就交给 Charlie 处理。

And then I would like to introduce one further person, and that’s the person who put that movie together. And you can’t imagine the amount of work it is because, for example, on those scenes that we’ve used from the past, if they involve Hollywood stars or various people, we needed to get permission all over again to show it because we told them originally we would only show it within the confines of our auditorium here. And of course, it went out on CNBC. And you just can’t imagine how much effort. But also the great cooperation we got from all those desperate housewives and Jamie Lee. And with the desperate housewives, we had to get Disney’s okay, and that was easy to get. But running down five desperate housewives, that one came in toward the end. But the job of putting this together has been handled by the same fellow that handles us. Been doing these for years and years and years and years. And I just would appreciate it if you could just put the spotlight on Brad Underwood for just a minute.

然后我想介绍另外一个人，那就是把这部电影制作在一起的人。你无法想象这需要多少工作，因为，例如，在我们使用的那些过去的场景中，如果涉及好莱坞明星或其他人，我们需要重新获得许可才能展示，因为我们最初告诉他们我们只会在这里的礼堂内展示。当然，它在 CNBC 上播出了。你无法想象这需要多少努力。但我们也得到了所有那些绝望主妇和杰米·李的极大合作。对于绝望主妇，我们需要获得迪士尼的许可，这很容易获得。但追踪五位绝望主妇，这个是在最后阶段才完成的。但把这一切整合在一起的工作是由同一个人负责的，他一直在处理我们这些事情。多年来一直在做这些。我只希望你能把聚光灯照在布拉德·安德伍德身上，哪怕只有一分钟。

Okay. We put out some results for the first quarter this morning at 07:00 our time. And some few sharp eyed analysts and press people already picked up one or two items from it, which I’m sure we’ll get some questions on later. But if we could start out with slide number one, which should be showing now, you’ll see that in the first quarter. The way, and we talk about operating earnings at Berkshire, we’ve explained that many times, is why we think these figures that we give you are the most descriptive of what’s really going on in the business and take out the wild swings in the market that otherwise just, you know, and that was reporting big earnings one quarter and big losses another quarter.We pay no attention to those at Berkshire, but you will see that we had a better than average quarter.

好的。我们今天早上 07:00 发布了一些第一季度的结果。一些敏锐的分析师和媒体人员已经从中发现了一两个项目，我相信我们稍后会收到一些问题。但如果我们可以从第一张幻灯片开始，现在应该可以看到，您会看到在第一季度。我们在伯克希尔谈论经营收益的方式，我们已经多次解释过，为什么我们认为这些数据是最能描述业务实际情况的，并且排除了市场中那些剧烈波动的因素，否则就会出现一个季度报告大盈利，另一个季度报告大亏损。我们在伯克希尔对此不予关注，但您会看到我们这一季度的表现好于平均水平。

And Ajit Jain wants me to point out to everyone that you cannot take the insurance earnings of the first quarter and multiply by four. It just doesn’t work that way in insurance. And while we insure storms around the world, the major storms, for example, that would affect our earnings would be probably number one, would be something that went along the, that came in at the wrong place from our standpoint, and that just kept going up the east coast.

阿吉特·贾因希望我提醒大家，不能将第一季度的保险收益乘以四。这在保险行业中是行不通的。虽然我们为全球的风暴提供保险，但影响我们收益的主要风暴，例如，首先是那些从我们角度来看出现在错误位置的风暴，并且一直沿着东海岸向上移动。

And that’s our that’s our number one risk as we evaluate things. But we’re in all kinds of risks. There can be an earthquake tomorrow, there can be an earthquake ten years from now, and we’re in that sort of business. But the first quarter does hit the, should be our best quarter, certainly shouldn’t be our worst quarter. The most likely quarter to be the worst quarter’s the third quarter. But anything can happen. Insurance. But fortunately, nothing much happened in insurance during the first quarter, so we had much improved earnings in insurance underwriting, and then our investment income was almost bound to well, it was almost certain to increase. And I said that in the annual report, because yields are so much higher than they were last year. And we have a lot of fixed short term investments that are very responsive to the changes in interest rates. So that figure is up substantially, and I can predict that that one will be up for the year. But we’ve got more money to invest as we’ll get to in a minute, and that’s fairly predictable. So that number will be up.

这是我们评估事物时的首要风险。但我们面临各种风险。明天可能会发生地震，十年后也可能会发生地震，而我们正处于这样的行业中。但第一季度应该是我们最好的季度，当然不应该是我们最糟糕的季度。最有可能成为最糟糕季度的是第三季度。但任何事情都有可能发生。保险。不过幸运的是，第一季度保险方面没有发生太多事情，因此我们的保险承保收益大幅改善，而我们的投资收入几乎肯定会增加。我在年报中提到过，因为收益率比去年高得多。我们有很多固定的短期投资，对利率变化非常敏感。因此，这个数字大幅上升，我可以预测这一年会继续上升。但我们还有更多资金可以投资，稍后会提到，这相对可预测。因此，这个数字会增加。

When you get into the railroad. The railroad earnings. We’re down modestly, but we should. Not immediately, but we should be earning somewhat more money than we are earning under present traffic conditions. And then traffic conditions can also hit the earnings, hit the potential earnings of the railroad. And if you want, every Wednesday, you can get car loadings from the previous week. And I’ll regard you as a little deranged if you do get them. But I get them every week. They’re available. And you’ll see that car loanings have been running for the industry, have been running down modestly, and these earnings were as is expected, but we should earn somewhat more money than that on the equivalent amount of car loadings.

当你进入铁路行业时，铁路收益。我们略有下降，但我们应该。不是立即的，但我们应该在目前的运输条件下赚取比现在更多的钱。然后，运输条件也会影响收益，影响铁路的潜在收益。如果你愿意，每周三你可以获取前一周的装车量。如果你真的去获取这些数据，我会认为你有点失常。但我每周都会获取这些数据。它们是可用的。你会看到，行业的装车量一直在略微下降，这些收益是如预期的，但我们应该在相同的装车量上赚取比这更多的钱。

And in the energy company, we had better earnings, but our earnings were distorted. Well, they were affected by conditions that I wrote about in the annual report, and we’ll undoubtedly discuss more this morning. But off a low base of last year, they were up somewhat. And so you get down to the final figure, and 11.2 billion is quite an improvement from last year.

在能源公司，我们的收益更好，但我们的收益被扭曲了。嗯，它们受到了我在年报中提到的条件的影响，今天早上我们无疑会进一步讨论。但与去年的低基数相比，它们有所上升。因此，最终数字是 112 亿美元，比去年有了相当大的改善。

But we would expect our earnings should go up modestly from year to year, because, after all, we’re retaining, like, 37 billion last year of earnings. So if we put 37 billion more, and you left it with us, we should do something that’s satisfactory. And the goal of Berkshire, economic goal, is to increase the operating earnings and decrease the shares outstanding. It’s that simple to describe. It’s not quite so simple pull off, necessarily.

但我们预计我们的收益应该会逐年适度增长，因为毕竟，我们去年保留了大约 370 亿美元的收益。所以如果我们再投入 370 亿美元，并且你把它留给我们，我们应该能做一些令人满意的事情。伯克希尔的经济目标是增加运营收益并减少流通股数。描述起来就是这么简单。但要实现这一点并不一定那么简单。

But that’s what we’re attempting to do.

但这正是我们试图做到的。

And if we’ll turn to slide two, please. I’ve got the history, and I just picked the pre pandemic year of when we hit 24 billion, and then we fell off in the first year of the pandemic. And then, as you see, we’ve moved up from 27 to 30 to 37 billion. And interesting thing about these earnings is they’re after depreciation and amortization and taxes and all that sort of thing. So you can figure that, essentially, Berkshire has a little over $100 million per day, including weekends and holidays, coming in to deploy. And we’ve set out many times when we’re attempting to, we’re attempting to deploy that money, but we have that responsibility.

如果我们转到第二张幻灯片，请。我有历史数据，我选择了疫情前的年份，当时我们达到了 240 亿美元，然后在疫情的第一年我们下降了。然后，正如你所看到的，我们从 270 亿上升到 300 亿，再到 370 亿。这些收益的有趣之处在于，它们是在折旧、摊销和税收等所有这些因素之后的。因此，你可以算出，实际上，伯克希尔每天有超过 1 亿美元的收入，包括周末和假期，可以进行投资。我们多次表示，我们正在努力部署这笔资金，但我们有这个责任。

And sometimes, if you’ll turn to the next page, well, you’ll see how that’s built up the shareholders equity so that Berkshire had March 31, 570 billion, and through retaining earnings. And we’ve been retaining earnings ever since we took control of Berkshire Hathaway, except one day, as I remember, I think it was maybe 1968, or 9 the directors declared a ten cent a share dividend, and I think I must have been in the restroom or something at the time.

有时候，如果你翻到下一页，你会看到这如何增加了股东权益，以至于伯克希尔在 3 月 31 日达到了 5700 亿美元，并通过留存收益。自从我们控制了伯克希尔哈撒韦以来，我们一直在留存收益，除了有一天，我记得可能是 1968 年或 1969 年，董事会宣布每股派发十美分的股息，而我当时可能在洗手间里。

So if you leave out that period of madness, we’ve been retaining. We’ve been saving your money, putting it to work, and sometimes we’ve done things that were big mistakes, but we never get close to fatal mistakes, and every now and then, we do something that really works. And as Charlie pointed out in the past, you know, it’s really, there’s probably been a half a dozen to a dozen over 57 or 58 or whatever it would be really important, big decisions, and there’s been nothing close to fatal. So that continues to be the guideline.

所以如果你忽略那段疯狂的时期，我们一直在保持。我们一直在节省你的钱，让它发挥作用，有时我们做了一些大错误，但我们从未接近致命错误，偶尔我们会做一些真正有效的事情。正如查理过去指出的，你知道，实际上，在 57 或 58 年或其他什么年份里，可能有六到十二个非常重要的大决策，而没有接近致命的错误。所以这仍然是我们的指导方针。

And we have accumulated 571 billion. And I couldn’t help but look at who’s second. And JP Morgan had 327 billion at year end, and they’re up to 338, I believe, at the end of the quarter. But they pay significant dividends. They repurchase shares. They’ve got a business that earns better returns on equity, but they don’t pile it, and they shouldn’t. They don’t pile it back exactly like we have. And this does show what can be done, really, without any miracles, if you save money over time.

我们已经积累了 5710 亿。我不禁想看看谁排第二。摩根大通在年末时有 3270 亿，我相信在季度末他们已经达到了 3380 亿。但他们支付了可观的股息。他们回购股票。他们的业务获得了更好的股本回报，但他们并没有像我们一样将其全部积累起来，也不应该这样做。这确实显示了如果你随着时间节省资金，实际上可以做到什么，而不需要任何奇迹。

更神奇的是没有人复制。

And we have a group of shareholders, we had a group of partners, originally, Charlie and I did, that wanted to save money and left their money with, like in that film you just saw. You saw Eddie and Dorothy Davis and the Davis family and the children and the grandchildren, periodically did some other things with the money, but they also basically left it with us. And we were a savings vehicle and they were able to do, live very well, but they weren’t trying to live like the kings and queens of earlier capitalism and used to build the houses in New England and have a servant standing behind everybody eating and all that sort of thing. So we’ve had very few, what I would call, look at me type people that are attracted. There’s nothing wrong with it, but they just go someplace else. And they are spending sort of unbelievable sums after a while, by the standards of the past. And our people, nobody. We have nobody that’s a miser or a hoarder or anything like that in our group, they live very well. But the math of compounding and a long runway have done wonders. And we will talk a little later, right before lunch. We’ll give an illustration of that, of what can be done with that sort of philosophy.

我们有一群股东，最初，查理和我有一群合作伙伴，他们想省钱，把钱留给我们，就像你刚才看到的那部电影。你看到了埃迪和多萝西·戴维斯以及戴维斯家族，还有孩子和孙子们，偶尔用这些钱做其他事情，但他们基本上还是把钱留给了我们。我们是一个储蓄工具，他们能够过得很好，但他们并不想像早期资本主义的国王和女王那样生活，建造新英格兰的房子，身后有仆人伺候，吃饭等等。因此，我们吸引的很少有我所称的“看看我”的人。这样并没有什么错，但他们只是去别的地方了。过了一段时间，他们花费的金额在过去的标准下简直不可思议。而我们的人，没有人是吝啬鬼或囤积者，他们过得很好。但复利的数学和长时间的积累做了奇迹。我们稍后会谈谈，正好在午餐前。我们将对此进行说明，展示这种哲学可以做些什么。

So our cash and treasury bills were 182 billion at the quarter end. And I think it’s a fair assumption that they brought probably about 200 billion at the end of this quarter. We’d love to spend it, but we won’t spend it unless we think we’re doing something that has very little risk and can make us a lot of money.

所以我们的现金和国库券在季度末为 1820 亿。我认为可以合理假设在本季度末它们可能达到了 2000 亿。我们很想花这笔钱，但除非我们认为所做的事情风险极小且能为我们带来丰厚的利润，否则我们不会花这笔钱。

And our stock is at a level where it adds slightly to the value when we buy in shares. But we would. We would really buy it in a big way, except you can’t buy it in a big way because people don’t want to sell it in a big way, but under certain market conditions, we could deploy quite a bit of money in repurchases. And as you’ll see on the final slide, we have bought it in the last five years. We can’t buy them like a great many other companies because it just doesn’t trade that way. The volume isn’t the same because we have investors, and the investors, the people in this room, really, they don’t think about selling. They probably would hope. Many of you don’t even check the price daily or weekly. The people who check the price daily have not made the money that the people who have forgotten about it basically have over the years.

我们的股票处于一个可以在购买股份时略微增加价值的水平。但是我们会。我们确实会大规模购买，除非你不能大规模购买，因为人们不想大规模出售，但在某些市场条件下，我们可以在回购中投入相当多的资金。正如你在最后一张幻灯片上看到的，我们在过去五年中进行了购买。我们不能像许多其他公司那样购买，因为它的交易方式并不相同。交易量也不一样，因为我们有投资者，而在座的各位投资者，实际上，他们并不考虑出售。他们可能希望。你们中的许多人甚至不会每天或每周查看价格。每天查看价格的人并没有赚到那些基本上忘记它的人多年来所赚到的钱。

And that’s sort of the story of Berkshire. We’ll try to increase operating earnings, and we will try to reduce shares when it makes sense to do so. And we will hope for an occasional big opportunity. And we’re quite satisfied with the position we’re in. So with that background, I think we’ll turn it over to Becky Quick, and we will alternate questions between Becky and those of you in the audience.

这就是伯克希尔的故事。我们会努力增加运营收益，并在合适的时候减少股份。我们也希望能有偶尔的大机会。我们对目前的状况感到相当满意。基于这些背景，我想我们可以把时间交给贝基·奎克，我们将交替提问，贝基和在场的各位。

Becky, you want to start with the first question?

贝基，你想先从第一个问题开始吗？

Becky Quick: Sure. Thanks, Warren. Let’s start. Just given what you mentioned, there was some news that came out in the 10Q this morning. It shows that Berkshire sold another 115 million shares of Apple in this last quarter. That’s Berkshire’s largest holding. And I think in that vein, we’ll start with a question from Sherman Lamb. He is a 27 year old Berkshire Hathaway class b shareholder from Malaysia. And he asks, last year you mentioned Coca Cola and American Express being Berkshire’s two long duration partial ownership positions, and you spent some time talking about the virtues of both these wonderful businesses in your recent shareholder letter. I noticed that you have excluded Apple from this group of businesses. Have you or your investment manager’s views of the economics of Apple’s business or its attractiveness as an investment changed since Berkshire first invested in 2016?

贝基·奎克：当然。谢谢，沃伦。我们开始吧。根据你提到的，今天早上 10Q 中有一些新闻。它显示伯克希尔在上个季度又出售了 1.15 亿股苹果股票。这是伯克希尔最大的持股。我想在这个背景下，我们先来一个来自谢尔曼·兰博的问题。他是一位来自马来西亚的 27 岁伯克希尔哈撒韦 B 类股股东。他问，去年你提到可口可乐和美国运通是伯克希尔的两个长期部分持有的投资，并且你在最近的股东信中花了一些时间谈论这两家优秀企业的优点。我注意到你将苹果排除在这些企业之外。自从伯克希尔在 2016 年首次投资以来，你或你的投资经理对苹果业务的经济状况或作为投资的吸引力的看法是否发生了变化？

Warren Buffett: No, I would. But we have sold shares, and I would say that at the end of the year, I would think it extremely likely that Apple is the largest common stock holding we have now. One interesting thing is that Charlie and I looked at common stocks or marketable equities or the things that people love to look at as being businesses. And so when we own a dairy queen or we own whatever it may be, we look at that as a business. And when we own Coca Cola or American Express, we look at that as a business. Now we can buy really wonderful companies in the market as businesses. We can’t buy all of them. I mean, all of their shares.

沃伦·巴菲特：不，我会这么做。但我们确实出售了股份，我得说在年底，我认为苹果非常可能是我们现在持有的最大普通股。一个有趣的现象是，查理和我看待普通股或可交易证券，或者人们喜欢看到的那些被视为业务的东西。所以当我们拥有冰雪皇后或者我们拥有其他任何东西时，我们将其视为一项业务。当我们拥有可口可乐或美国运通时，我们将其视为一项业务。现在我们可以在市场上以业务的形式购买真正出色的公司。我们不能购买它们全部。我的意思是，他们所有的股份。

We can’t buy 90% or 80% or anything like that. But when we look at Coca Cola and American Express and Apple, we look at them as businesses.

我们不能购买 90%或 80%或类似的东西。但当我们看可口可乐、美国运通和苹果时，我们将它们视为企业。

Now, there’s differences in taxes, factors, there’s difference in manageable responsibility, a whole bunch of things. But in terms of deploying your money, we always look at every stock as a business, and we don’t, we have no way, no attempt made to predict markets. We have no attempt made to pick stocks. I went through many, many years doing the wrong thing. I got interested in stocks very early, and I was fascinated by them.

现在，税收上有差异，因素上有差异，管理责任上也有差异，还有很多其他事情。但在部署资金方面，我们总是将每只股票视为一项业务，我们没有，也从未尝试去预测市场。我们也没有尝试去挑选股票。我经历了很多年做错误的事情。我对股票非常早就产生了兴趣，并且对它们很着迷。

I wasn’t wasting my time, because I was reading every book possible and everything else. But finally, I picked up a copy of the Intelligent Investor in Lincoln, and there was a few sentences in there that said, much more eloquently than I can say it. If you look at stocks as a business and treat the market as something that doesn’t tell you, isn’t there to instruct you, but it’s there to serve you, you’ll do a lot better over time than if you try to take charts and listen to people talk about moving averages and look at the pronouncements and all of that

我不是在浪费时间，因为我阅读了所有可能的书籍和所有其他的东西。但最终，我在林肯拿起了一本《聪明的投资者》，里面有几句话，比我能说的更有力地表达了这一点。如果你将股票视为一项业务，并将市场视为不是告诉你、不是用来指导你的东西，而是为你服务的东西，你随着时间推移会做得比试图拿图表、听人们谈论移动平均线、看那些声明等等要好得多。

sort of thing. And so that made a lot of sense to me then, the way I’ve been allowed to deploy it. Charlie and I talked about this, of course, constantly. It’s changed over the years, is the amount of capital we have and has changed and all that.

这种事情。因此，这让我当时感到很有道理，我被允许以这种方式部署它。查理和我当然一直在谈论这个。多年来，这种情况发生了变化，我们拥有的资本数量也发生了变化，所有这些都改变了。

But the basic principle was laid out by Ben Graham in that book, which I picked up for a couple of dollars, and which basically said to me, you’ve been wasting your time now, but maybe you can use what you’ve learned or been reading about and put it to better use. And then Charlie came along and told me how to put it to even better use. And that’s sort of the story of why we own American Express, which is a wonderful business. We own Coca Cola, which is a wonderful business, and we own Apple, which is an even better business.

但基本原则是由本杰明·格雷厄姆在那本书中阐述的，我花了几美元就买到了这本书，它基本上告诉我，你一直在浪费时间，但现在也许你可以利用你所学到的或一直在阅读的东西，并将其更好地利用起来。然后查理出现了，并告诉我如何将其更有效地利用。这就是我们拥有美国运通的原因，它是一家很棒的公司。我们拥有可口可乐，它也是一家很棒的公司，我们还拥有苹果，这是一家更好的公司。

And we will own, unless something really extraordinary happens, we will own Apple and American Express in Coca Cola when Greg takes over this place. And it’s such a simple approach that it’s almost deceptive. Most things, if you keep working harder and harder at it, you learn a little more math or you learn a little more physics, but investments, you don’t really have to do that. You really have to have your mindset properly. So we will end up, unless something dramatically happens that really changes capital allocation strategy,we will have Apple as our largest investment, but I don’t mind at all, under current conditions, building the cash position.

我们将拥有苹果、美国运通和可口可乐，除非发生真正非凡的事情，否则当格雷格接管这个地方时，我们仍将拥有它们。这种方法如此简单，几乎具有欺骗性。大多数事情，如果你持续不断地更加努力地工作，你会学到更多的数学或者更多的物理，但在投资方面，你并不真的需要这样做。你真正需要的是正确地调整你的心态。因此，除非发生了戏剧性的变化，真正改变了资本配置策略，否则我们将拥有苹果作为我们最大的投资，但在当前条件下，我完全不介意增加现金头寸。

简单的让人难以相信。

I think when I look at the alternative of what’s available, the equity markets, and I look at the composition of what’s going on in the world, we find it quite attractive. And one thing that may surprise you, but we, almost everybody I know pays a lot more attention to not paying taxes, and I think they should. We don’t mind paying taxes at Berkshire, and we are paying a 21% federal rate on the gains we’re taking in Apple. And that rate was 35% not that long ago, and it’s been 52% in the past when I’ve been operating.

我认为，当我查看可用的替代方案、股市，并观察世界上发生的事情的组成时，我们发现这非常有吸引力。有一件事可能会让你感到惊讶，但我认识的几乎每个人都非常关注不交税，我认为他们应该这样做。我们在伯克希尔不介意交税，我们在苹果的收益上支付 21%的联邦税率。这个税率不久前是 35%，而在我经营的过去，它曾达到 52%。

And the government owns. The federal government owns a part of the earnings of the business we make. They don’t own the assets, but they own a percentage of the earnings, and they can change that percentage any year. And the percentage that they’ve decreed currently is 21%. And I would say with the present fiscal policies, I think that something has to give, and I think that higher taxes are quite likely, and the government wants to take a greater share of your income, or mine or Berkshire’s, they can do it. And they may decide that someday they don’t want the fiscal deficit to be this large, because that has some important consequences, and they may not want to decrease spending a lot, and they may decide they’ll take a larger percentage of what we earn and we’ll pay it. We always hope, at Berkshire, to pay substantial federal income taxes. We think it’s appropriate that a company, a country that’s been as been as generous to our owners, it’s been the place.I was lucky. Berkshire was lucky, was here.

政府拥有。联邦政府拥有我们所创造的商业收益的一部分。他们不拥有资产，但他们拥有收益的一定比例，他们可以在任何一年改变这个比例。他们目前规定的这个比例是21%。我想说，根据目前的财政政策，我认为有些事情必须让步，我认为更高的税收相当有可能，如果政府想要占有你、我或伯克希尔收入的更大份额，他们可以做到。他们可能会决定某天他们不想要财政赤字这么大，因为那有一些重要的后果，他们可能不想大幅度削减开支，他们可能会决定占有我们所赚取的更大比例，我们会支付。在伯克希尔，我们总是希望支付大量的联邦所得税。我们认为，对于一个对所有者如此慷慨的国家，这是恰当的，这个国家一直对我们很慷慨。我很幸运。伯克希尔很幸运，就在这里。

If we send in a check like we did last year, we sent in over $5 billion to the US federal government. And if 800 other companies had done the same thing, no other person in the United States would have had to pay a dime of federal taxes, whether income taxes, no Social Security taxes, no estate taxes. It’s open down the line now. I would like to. I hope things develop well enough with Berkshire that we say we’re in the 800 club and maybe even move up a few notches. It doesn’t bother me in the least to write that check. I would really hope, with all America has done for all of you, it shouldn’t bother you that we do it. And if I’m doing it at 21% this year and we’re doing it at a higher percentage later on, I don’t think you’ll actually mind the fact that we sold a little Apple this year.

如果我们像去年一样寄出支票，我们就向美国联邦政府寄出了超过 50 亿美元。如果其他 800 家公司也这样做，那么美国没有其他人需要支付一分钱的联邦税，无论是所得税、社会保障税还是遗产税。现在一切都开放了。我希望事情在伯克希尔发展得足够好，以至于我们可以说我们是 800 俱乐部的一员，甚至可能再往上升几个等级。写这张支票对我来说一点也不烦。我真的希望，考虑到美国为你们所做的一切，这对你们来说也不应该是个问题。如果我今年以 21%的税率这样做，而我们以后以更高的比例这样做，我认为你们实际上不会介意我们今年卖了一点苹果。

Okay, let’s go to section one.

好的，我们去第一部分。

Questioner: Hi, Mr Buffet, this is Matthew Lai from China Hong Kong. I’m running my listed listing company called FW, and we are so grateful that you learned from you and you really inspire us. My question is, besides the electrical car company, BYD, under what circumstances you will reinvest and reconsider to invest? Hong Kong and China company. Thank you

提问者：嗨，巴菲特先生，我是来自中国香港的马修·赖。我正在经营一家名为 FW 的上市公司，我们非常感激能向您学习，您真的激励了我们。我的问题是，除了电动车公司比亚迪，在什么情况下您会重新投资和考虑投资？香港和中国公司。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, our primary investments will always be in the United States. We do think it.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们的主要投资将始终在美国。我们确实这样认为。

The companies we invest in the United States, American Express does business around the world. And no company hardly does business around the world like Coca Cola. I mean, they are the preferred soft drink. You know, in something maybe like 170 or 180 out of 200 countries. Those are rough approximations from a few years back, probably, but that degree of acceptance worldwide is, I think it’s almost unmatched. I can’t really think of any company that has it. American Express has a position in the credit card deal, which I think is extremely strong. And part of the reason for that is one of the directors that I introduced a few minutes ago, Ken Chenault. But it has strengthened dramatically over the last 20 years for a lot of reasons.

我们在美国投资的公司，美国运通在全球范围内开展业务。几乎没有哪家公司像可口可乐那样在全球范围内开展业务。我是说，他们是首选的软饮料。你知道，在大约 200 个国家中，可能有 170 或 180 个国家是这样的。这些是几年前的粗略估计，但我认为这种全球接受度几乎是无与伦比的。我真的想不出有哪家公司能做到这一点。美国运通在信用卡交易中占有非常强大的地位。我认为这非常强大。部分原因是我几分钟前介绍的董事之一，肯·陈诺特。但在过去 20 年中，由于很多原因，它的地位显著增强。

The BYD investment was a, well, we made the commitment in Japan, which I did five years ago, and that was just overwhelmingly, it was compelling. It was extraordinarily compelling. And we bought it as fast as we could, and we spent a year and we got a few percent of our assets in five very big companies. But that’s the problem of being our size. But you won’t find us making a lot of investments outside the United States, although we’re participating through these other companies in the world economy.

比亚迪的投资是，嗯，我们在日本做出的承诺，我五年前做的，那是非常有说服力的。它极具吸引力。我们尽快进行了投资，花了一年时间，获得了我们资产中几个百分点的五家大公司。但这就是我们规模的一个问题。不过，您不会发现我们在美国以外进行大量投资，尽管我们通过这些其他公司参与了全球经济。

But I understand the United States rules, weaknesses, strengths, whatever it may be. I don’t have the same feeling for economies generally around the world. I don’t pick up on other cultures extremely well. And the lucky thing is, I don’t have to, because I don’t live in some tiny little country that just doesn’t have a big economy. I’m in an economy already, that has, after starting out with half a percent of the world’s population, has ended up with well over 20% of the world’s output in an amazingly short period of time. So we will be American oriented.

我理解美国的规则、弱点、优势等。我对世界各地的经济没有同样的感觉。我并不非常擅长理解其他文化。幸运的是，我不必这样做，因为我不是生活在一个经济体量很小的国家。我已经处于一个经济体中，它从最初仅占世界人口的0.5%开始，在惊人的短时间内最终占据了世界产出的20%以上。因此，我们将以美国为中心。

I mean, if we do something really big, it’s extremely likely to be in the United States. Charlie, in all those years, there’s only two times he’s told me that this one is really…He would always go along with me and say, well, when I was suggesting something, he’d say, well, this is really not that great, but it’s probably the best you’ll come up with. So I’ll go along with the idea. But Charlie twice pounded the table with me and just said, you know, buy, buy, buy. And BYD was one of them and Costco was the other. And we bought a certain amount of Costco and we bought quite a bit of BYD but looking back, he already was aggressive. But I should have been more aggressive in Costco. It wasn’t fatal that we weren’t. But he was right big time in both companies. And I’m aware of what goes on in most markets, but I think it’s unlikely that we make any large commitments in almost any country you can name, although we don’t rule it out entirely. And I feel extremely good about our Japanese position, and we’ll have that.

我的意思是，如果我们做一些真正大的事情，那么非常可能在美国。查理，这么多年来，只有两次他告诉我这个真的是……他总是会同意我，并说，当我提出建议时，他会说，嗯，这个真的不是那么好，但可能是你想出的最好的。所以我会同意这个想法。但查理两次拍着桌子对我说，你知道，买，买，买。比亚迪是其中之一，好市多是另一个。我们买了一定数量的好市多，我们也买了相当多的比亚迪，但回顾过去，他已经表现得很积极了。但我在好市多上本可以更积极一些。我们没有这样做并不是致命的。但在这两家公司上，他都是大对特对。我对大多数市场的情况有所了解，但我认为我们几乎不可能在你所能说出的任何国家做出任何大的承诺，虽然我们并没有完全排除这种可能性。我对我们在日本的立场感到非常高兴，我们将拥有那个。

I don’t know in how many years, Greg will be sitting with that at some point, and we couldn’t be happier with that. But you really have to. We really have a different outlook in looking at. We’ll, we look at your money, which we couldn’t bear to lose, and we feel that we’re very less likely to make any truly major mistakes in the United States than in many other countries.Okay, Becky.

我不知道过了多少年，Greg 会在某个时刻坐在那里，我们对此感到无比高兴。但你真的必须这样做。我们在看待问题时有着不同的观点。我们会关注你的钱，我们无法承受失去它的痛苦，我们觉得在美国犯下真正重大错误的可能性远低于许多其他国家。好的，Becky。

Becky Quick: This next question comes from Stanley Holmes, who is a Berkshire shareholder from Salt Lake City. He asks: In his 2024 annual letter to shareholders, Chairman Buffett noted the severe earnings disappointment experienced at Berkshire Hathaway Energy last year and expressed concern about earnings and asset values in the utility industry. Recognizing that investors are worried about climate change related expenses and that new uncertainties cloud the regulatory environment, the chairman suggested that some jurisdictions may adopt the public power model. There are now signs that policymakers in Utah, citing state sovereignty, may already be poised to move in that direction. The Utah legislature recently mandated the state’s right to serve as sole purchaser of energy from an in-state power plant and under some circumstances,

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自斯坦利·霍尔姆斯，他是伯克希尔公司的股东，来自盐湖城。他在信中问道：在2024年致股东的年度信函中，巴菲特董事长提到了伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司去年遭受的严重收益失望，并对公用事业行业的收益和资产价值表示担忧。意识到投资者对与气候变化相关的开支感到担忧，新的不确定性使得监管环境变得模糊不清，董事长建议一些司法管辖区可能会采纳公共电力模式。现在有迹象表明，犹他州的政策制定者，以州的主权为由，可能已经准备朝这个方向迈进。犹他州立法机构最近规定了该州作为州内发电厂能源的唯一购买者的权利，在某些情况下

purchase the power plant before it can be retired. The state utility regulator will be legally bound to prioritize public purchases of power and facilities that could include assets owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy specific core utility Rocky mountain power. Will Berkshire, through BHE, continue to invest resources in jurisdictions where corporate assets may be subject to confiscatory state policies and actions? And how is Berkshire energy working with officials in Utah to minimize potential corporate losses if and when state control is asserted over its electrical utility sector.

州公用事业监管机构将依法有义务优先考虑公共购买电力和设施，这可能包括伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司特定核心公用事业Rocky Mountain Power所拥有的资产。伯克希尔是否会通过BHE继续在公司资产可能受到州政策和行动的没收性措施的地方投资资源？伯克希尔能源公司如何与犹他州官员合作，以在州政府对其电力公用事业部门施加控制的情况下，最小化潜在的企业损失？

Warren Buffett: I will let Greg join with me, and the answer on this, but I would say our feeling is that Utah is actually very likely to treat us fairly. Whether the action is in granting appropriate rates that give us the return, we expect that generally expected in terms of our own properties or if they decide for some reason to go to public power, I think they would compensate us fairly. In the 1930s. George Norris, a senator from Nebraska, just turned Nebraska into a public power state. And our experience in Iowa would indicate that free enterprise has its role and that we can run a privately owned utility company that will be more efficient for society than, at least in most states, people can do with public power.

沃伦·巴菲特：我会让格雷格和我一起参与这个问题，但我想说我们的感觉是犹他州实际上很可能会公正对待我们。无论是通过授予适当的费率来给予我们预期的回报，还是出于某种原因决定转向公共电力，我认为他们会公平地补偿我们。在 1930 年代，来自内布拉斯加州的参议员乔治·诺里斯刚刚将内布拉斯加州变成了一个公共电力州。我们在爱荷华州的经验表明，自由企业有其作用，我们可以经营一家私有公用事业公司，这对社会的效率会更高，至少在大多数州，公众电力无法做到这一点。

But what has happened is that there’s going to be enormous amounts of money, enormous amounts of money spent on power. And if you’re going to do it with private owners, there’s nobody better situated than Berkshire to satisfy the portion, but a large portion of the needs of the country. And we will do it at a rate of return that is not, you know, it’s not designed to make us rich or anything like that. It’s a sensible rate of return, but we won’t do it if we think we’re not going to get any return. It would be kind of crazy. And we’ve seen actions in a few states where some of the costs associated with climate change, they’re not being regarded as costs that the utility shouldn’t incur. Well, believe me, if it was publicly owned, they would have incurred it too. But we’ll do what society tells us and we have got the money and we’ve got the knowledge to participate big in something that is enormously important for the country. But we’re not going to do, we’re not going to, we’re not going to throw good money after bad in the field. I don’t worry about, my understanding is, and Greg can elaborate on this now immediately, but I don’t regard Utah as being unfriendly to the idea of utilities being treated fairly. Charlie. Charlie, I’m so used to that. I had actually checked myself a couple times already, but I’ll slip again.

但发生的事情是，将会有大量资金，巨额资金用于电力。如果你打算与私人业主合作，没有人比伯克希尔更适合满足国家的部分需求。我们将以一个合理的回报率来做这件事，这并不是为了让我们变得富有。它是一个合理的回报率，但如果我们认为不会有任何回报，我们就不会去做。这有点疯狂。我们在一些州看到了一些行动，其中与气候变化相关的一些成本并没有被视为公用事业不应该承担的成本。相信我，如果是公有制，他们也会承担这些成本。但我们会按照社会的要求去做，我们有资金，也有知识参与到对国家极其重要的事情中。但我们不会在这个领域里继续投入好钱去追逐坏钱。我不担心，我的理解是，Greg 现在可以立即对此进行详细说明，但我不认为犹他州对公用事业被公平对待的想法不友好。Charlie。Charlie，我对此已经习惯了。我实际上已经检查过自己几次了，但我又会犯错。

Greg Abel: That’s a great honor. Yeah. When we touched on it initially in your letter relative to the challenges in the industry, and then you’ve just alluded to the significant investment that has to go into the energy industry, the utility sector, for many years to come. And I think if we start there, if I think of our different utilities, it will definitely come to Utah and Pacific Corp. But if you look at the underlying demand that is building in each of those utilities and the amount of dollars that are going to have to go in to meet that demand, it’s absolutely incredible. So when you raised it in your letter, it’s a really important issue. We have to have a regulatory compact that works between, if it’s a public utility, it has to work in concert with the state, Utah being an example, or it ultimately becomes potentially a public power.

格雷格·阿贝尔：这是一种很大的荣誉。是的。当我们在您的信中最初提到行业面临的挑战时，您也提到了未来许多年里能源行业和公用事业部门需要进行的重大投资。我认为如果我们从这里开始，想到我们不同的公用事业公司，肯定会想到犹他州和太平洋公司。但是如果你看看每个公用事业公司正在积累的潜在需求，以及为了满足这种需求需要投入的资金，真是令人难以置信。因此，当您在信中提到这个问题时，这确实是一个非常重要的问题。我们必须有一个有效的监管协议，如果是公用事业，它必须与州政府协同工作，以犹他州为例，否则它最终可能会变成公共电力。

So just to set the frame a little bit, if I think of Iowa, which you mentioned, and the underlying, we’ve made substantial investments there, it’s been very consistent with both the public policy that the state and legislator wanted, and they enacted very specific laws to encourage that. But that utility is more than 100 years old right now. And if we look at the demand that’s in place for Mid American Iowa utility over the next, say, into the mid 2030s associated with AI and the data centers, that demand doubles in that short period of time, and it took 100 years plus to get where we are today, and now it’s going to double. And that will require substantial amounts of capital from mid american and its shareholders.

为了稍微设定一下背景，如果我考虑到你提到的爱荷华州，以及我们的潜在投资，我们已经在那里进行了大量投资，这与该州和立法者希望的公共政策非常一致，他们制定了非常具体的法律来鼓励这种投资。但是这个公用事业已经有100多年的历史了。如果我们看看未来，比如说到2030年代中期，与人工智能和数据中心相关的MidAmerican爱荷华公用事业的需求，那个需求在那么短的时间内翻了一番，而我们花了100多年才达到今天的位置，现在它将翻一番。这将需要来自MidAmerican及其股东的大量资本。

And how that will function is if we have a proper regulatory compact in place, which you’ve highlighted, if we then go to, say, Nevada, where we own two utilities there and cover the lion’s share in Nevada, if you go over a similar timeframe and you look at the underlying demand in that utility and say, go into the later 2030s, it triples the underlying demand and billions and billions of dollars have to be put in. Our rate base will literally go from,it’s not a modest level now, but you’re talking probably an incremental six to 10 billion at least of rate base going into that type of entity, which requires, again, alignment with the state and their policies and a proper recovery of our underlying both capital and a return on capital.

它的运作方式是，如果我们有一个适当的监管协议到位，正如您所强调的，然后我们去内华达州，我们在那里拥有两个公用事业并且占据了内华达州的绝大部分市场份额，如果你在类似的时间框架内观察那个公用事业的潜在需求，比如说到2030年代后期，它的潜在需求增加了三倍，并且必须投入数十亿美元。我们的费率基数现在本身就不是一个小数目，但你说的是至少有60亿到100亿美元的额外费率基数投入到这类实体中，这再次需要与州及其政策保持一致，并且适当地回收我们的资本以及资本的回报。

So when we come to the wildfires, that’s been a substantial challenge because it’s the first time there’s been a lot of discussion around one of our utilities. One experienced significant losses associated with the wildfires. What portion of those costs will be recovered? And that’s really the dialogue we’re in. And does that properly work? When I think of the wildfires, there’s been many claims in a recent additional claim last week for $30 billion, and we don’t take that lightly, but it is an incremental claim to an already existing lawsuit that’s in place.

所以当我们谈到野火时，这一直是一个重大挑战，因为这是第一次围绕我们的一家公用事业公司进行大量讨论。该公司因野火遭受了重大损失。这些成本中有多少部分能够得到补偿？这正是我们正在进行的对话。这是否合理？当我想到野火时，最近又有许多索赔，上周又有一项 300 亿美元的额外索赔，我们对此并不轻视，但这只是对已经存在的诉讼的增量索赔。

And when I think of PacifiCorp, we’re in a place where first and foremost, all the litigation will be challenged because the basis for it, at least we believe there’s places where it’s unfounded and will continue to challenge it. And it will take many years to be resolved, as Warren highlighted in the letter. But if you think of Pacificorp and the litigation there, number one, how we think and operate those assets have to change. Because we’ve had a regulator, we have worked with the states, across all our states for many years with the fundamental goal to be to keep the power on. And our teams and our employees worked incredibly hard to keep the power on, day in, day out, through storms. Unfortunately, through the 2020 fires, the instincts were not to turn off the power. The instinct was to keep the power on, to keep hospitals, fire stations responding. It’s not in their mind, or at least culturally, it wasn’t in our minds to de energize.

当我想到太平洋电力公司时，我们处于一个首先要挑战所有诉讼的地方，因为我们相信其中有些诉讼是没有根据的，并将继续对此进行挑战。正如沃伦在信中强调的，这将需要许多年才能解决。但是如果你考虑太平洋电力公司及其诉讼，首先，我们对这些资产的思考和运营方式必须改变。因为我们有一个监管机构，多年来我们与各州合作，基本目标是保持供电。我们的团队和员工日复一日、风雨无阻地努力保持供电。不幸的是，在 2020 年的火灾中，直觉并不是关闭电源。直觉是保持供电，以确保医院和消防站能够响应。在他们的思维中，或者至少在我们的文化中，并没有考虑到断电。

So the first thing we had to do was step back and say, we’ve got to fundamentally change the culture, not just at Pacific Corp. But across all our utilities. The first thing we have to recognize is that there’s now going to be situations where we prioritize de-energizing the assets, and that’s completely different than with how we’ve operated those assets, as I’ve highlighted, for 100 plus years. So we start with the culture. We had to change that. The second thing is we’ve now changed our operating systems so that we can turn off the power very quickly. If there’s a fire that’s increasing, approaching, we will turn off our systems now and we’ll go, the minute the conditions are safe again, we’ll re-energize it. But we’ve had to do that. And then the third thing is continuing to invest in a way that allows us to try to minimize the risk of the fire.

所以我们首先要做的是退后一步，明确我们必须从根本上改变文化，不仅是在太平洋公司，而是在我们所有的公用事业中。我们首先必须认识到，现在会有优先切断资产电源的情况，这与我们过去 100 多年运营这些资产的方式完全不同。因此，我们从文化开始。我们必须改变这一点。第二，我们现在已经改变了我们的操作系统，以便能够非常快速地切断电源。如果火势在增加、逼近，我们现在会切断系统，一旦条件再次安全，我们会重新供电。但我们必须这样做。第三，我们要继续投资，以尽量减少火灾的风险。

But when you get back to Utah and Pacific Corp. The challenge we do have is within Pacific Corp. As we go through both litigation and through continuing to operate that entity, it generates a certain amount of capital and profits that will remain in that entity and being reinvested back into that business. But fundamentally, as we go forward, we need both legislative and regulatory reform across the Pacific Corp. states if we’re going to deploy incremental capital, make incremental contributions into that business. As Warren said, we don’t want to throw good capital after bad capital, so we’ll be very disciplined there. But the reality is there are opportunities to both solve the legislative and regulatory solutions. And the best example we actually have, and I think it’s the gold standard across the country, is Utah.

但当你回到犹他州和太平洋公司时，我们面临的挑战在于太平洋公司。在我们进行诉讼并继续运营该实体的过程中，它会产生一定数量的资本和利润，这些资本和利润将留在该实体中并重新投资于该业务。但从根本上讲，随着我们向前推进，如果我们要投入增量资本，向该业务做出增量贡献，我们需要在太平洋公司所在的各州进行立法和监管改革。正如沃伦所说，我们不想在坏资本之后投入好的资本，因此我们会在这方面非常谨慎。但现实是，有机会解决立法和监管问题。我们实际上拥有的最佳例子，我认为这是全国的黄金标准，就是犹他州。

So as Warren touched on. It’s a state we’re happy we’re investing in. It is part of Pacific Corp. So there’s a certain amount of balance there as to how we do it. But in the last legislative session that existed, Utah actually passed the bill that does a couple very important things. One, it caps non economic damages on wildfire claims. So if you go back to the wildfires we have in Oregon and the claims you’re hearing filed for, there’s economic damages associated with them, and those harms should receive the economic damages associated with that. But unfortunately, and even though there’s legislature and case law in Oregon that says wildfire non economic damages should not be awarded, there’s very substantial non economic damages being awarded there. Utah took a very proactive position to say, we will cap those non economic damages and it creates an environment. Again, it’s back to that, is there an environment where you want to invest in? Yes, and then incrementally they’ve created a very substantial fund. It’s literally called the Wildfire Fund for fires in Utah that will help facilitate both liquidity and the ability to resolve the situation.

正如沃伦提到的。我们很高兴能够投资于这个州。它是太平洋公司的一个部分。因此，在我们如何进行投资方面有一定的平衡。但是在上一个立法会议上，犹他州实际上通过了一项法案，做了几件非常重要的事情。首先，它对野火索赔的非经济损害进行了上限。因此，如果你回顾我们在俄勒冈州发生的野火以及你听到的索赔，这些索赔是与经济损失相关的，这些损害应该获得与之相关的经济损失。但是不幸的是，尽管俄勒冈州有立法和案例法规定不应授予野火的非经济损害，但在那里仍然授予了非常可观的非经济损害。犹他州采取了非常积极的立场，表示我们将对这些非经济损害设定上限，这创造了一个环境。再一次，回到那个问题，是否有一个你想投资的环境？是的，然后他们逐步创建了一个非常可观的基金。这个基金被称为犹他州的野火基金，将帮助促进流动性和解决问题的能力。

So Utah, we believe, including the legislation, that a lot of other things came out of it is the actual gold standard as we go forward. So very important issue for Berkshire Hathaway Energy, but at the same time, it is a Pacific Corp. issue. The risk of regulatory compacts not being respected is a much broader one that we will always evaluate and be careful how we deploy our capital. But both Pacific Corp. Will manage through it. And I see other very good and significant opportunities in Pacific Corp. I mean, in Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

所以犹他州，我们相信，包括立法在内，很多其他事情都是我们前进的实际黄金标准。因此，这对伯克希尔哈撒韦能源来说是一个非常重要的问题，但同时也是太平洋公司面临的问题。监管协议不被尊重的风险是一个更广泛的问题，我们将始终评估并谨慎部署我们的资本。但太平洋公司将会应对这一挑战。我在太平洋公司看到其他非常好且重要的机会。我的意思是，在伯克希尔哈撒韦能源中。

Warren Buffett: The return on equity investment that’s been promulgated and been achieved over the years has been, particularly in recent years, well below the return on equity that has been achieved by American industry generally. And so whether you earn x or x plus a half a percent or x minus a half a percent, that differs by state, and some states are more attractive than others. But whether you earn x or go broke is not an equation that works. And, you know, we won’t put our shareholders’ money, they didn’t give it to us to lose it all. And they might like it if it’s better when it’s plus a half a percent, the next minus a half a percent.

沃伦·巴菲特：多年来宣传并实现的股本投资回报率，尤其是在最近几年，远低于美国工业普遍实现的股本回报率。因此，无论你赚取的是 x 还是 x 加 0.5%或 x 减 0.5%，这在各州之间有所不同，有些州比其他州更具吸引力。但无论你赚取 x 还是破产，这个等式都不成立。我们不会把股东的钱投入到会让他们全部损失的地方。他们可能会喜欢当回报是加 0.5%时，而不是减 0.5%。

But the electric utility industry will never be as good as, I mean, just remotely as good as, you know, the kind of businesses we own in other arenas. I mean, you look at the return on tangible equity at Coca Cola or American Express or to really top it off, Apple. It’s just, it’s, you know, it’s just a whole different game. But in utilities, the trade has been, the compact has been that you get a modest return and climate change comes along and it causes way more fires. That’s just the cost of doing business. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t do things to mitigate fires in the future. And you can make different policies on when you turn off the lights, but somebody’s going to do, somebody’s going to put up many, many hundreds of billions, maybe in the trillions, and climate change enters into that, and it can be done through public power or it can be done through private enterprise to quite a degree. And we would be, certainly good for 100 billion or more, but we’re not going to throw good money after bad.

但电力公用事业行业永远不会像我们在其他领域拥有的那种业务那样好，我的意思是，根本无法相提并论。你看看可口可乐、美国运通，或者更不用说苹果的有形股本回报。这完全是不同的游戏。但在公用事业中，交易的前提是你获得适度的回报，而气候变化的到来导致了更多的火灾。这就是做生意的成本。这并不意味着我们不能采取措施来减轻未来的火灾风险。你可以制定不同的政策来决定何时关灯，但总会有人投入数千亿，甚至可能是万亿，而气候变化也会影响这一点，这可以通过公共电力或在很大程度上通过私营企业来实现。我们当然可以提供 1000 亿或更多，但我们不会在坏账上继续投入好钱。

跟保险公司看到的情况相似，相互制衡的力量，没钱赚就不干，能不能找到成本更低的方案？每个市场主体有自己的价值就有相应的生存空间。

Okay, let’s do station four.

好的，我们来做第四站。

Questioner: Hi, I’m Joe, visiting from San Francisco. How do you think about the role of technological advances, especially generative AI, on more traditional industries? Thank you.

提问者：嗨，我是乔，来自旧金山。您如何看待技术进步，特别是生成性人工智能，对更传统行业的影响？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, I made a mistake in calling on four, but I’ll get back to two later on.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我在叫四的时候犯了一个错误，但我稍后会回到二。

I don’t know anything about AI, but I do have, that doesn’t mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort. And last year I said that we let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons, and that Genie has been doing some terrible things lately. And the power of that genie is what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And then I don’t know any way to get the genie back in the bottle. And AI is somewhat similar. It’s part way out of the bottle, and it’s enormously important, and it’s going to be done by somebody.

我对人工智能一无所知，但我确实有，这并不意味着我否认它的存在或重要性或其他任何类似的事情。去年我说过，当我们开发核武器时，我们放出了一个精灵，而这个精灵最近做了一些可怕的事情。这个精灵的力量是我非常害怕的。而且我不知道有什么办法能把这个精灵放回瓶子里。人工智能在某种程度上是类似的。它已经部分地从瓶子里出来了，它极其重要，而且会由某个人来完成。

We may wish we’d never seen that genie or may do wonderful things, and I’m certainly not the person that can evaluate that, and I probably wouldn’t have been the person that could have evaluated it during World War Two, whether we tested a 20,000 ton bomb that we felt was absolutely necessary for them United States, and would actually save lives in the long run. But where we also had Edmund Teller, I think it was, it was on a parallel with Einstein in terms of saying, you may, with this test, ignite the atmosphere in such a way that civilization doesn’t continue. And we decided to let the genie out of the bottle and it accomplished the immediate objective.

我们可能希望我们从未见过那个精灵，或者可能做出了不起的事情，我当然不是能够评估这一点的人，我可能也不会是那个能够在第二次世界大战期间评估它的人，无论我们是否测试了一枚我们认为对美国绝对必要的20,000吨炸弹，实际上从长远来看会拯救生命。但我们也有埃德蒙·泰勒，我认为，他在某种程度上与爱因斯坦持平，说，你可能会因为这次测试以这样的方式点燃大气层，以至于文明无法继续。我们决定让精灵从瓶子里出来，它实现了直接的目标。

But whether, whether it’s going to change the future of society, we will find out later. Now, AI, I had one experience that does make me a little nervous, and I’ll just explain it that very, very recently, fairly recently, I saw an image in front of my eyes on the screen, and it was me and it was my voice. And wearing the kind of clothes I wear, and my wife or my daughter wouldn’t have been able to detect any difference. And it was delivering a message that no way came from me. So it, when you think of the potential for scamming people, if

但无论它是否会改变社会的未来，我们稍后会发现。现在，人工智能，我有一个经历让我有点紧张，我就简单解释一下，最近，我在屏幕上看到了一幅图像，那是我，还是我的声音。穿着我平时穿的衣服，我的妻子或女儿根本无法察觉任何不同。而且它传达的信息完全不是我发出的。所以，当你想到欺骗人的潜力时，

you can reproduce images that I can’t even tell that, say, I need money, you know, it’s your daughter, I’ve just had a car crash. I need $50,000 wired. I mean, scamming has always been part of the American scene, but this would make me, if I was interested in investing in scamming. It’s going to be the growth industry of all time, and it’s enabled in a way.

你可以复制我甚至无法辨认的图像，比如说，我需要钱，你知道的，那是你的女儿，我刚刚遭遇了一场车祸。我需要转账5万美元。我的意思是，诈骗一直是美国景象的一部分，但如果我对投资诈骗感兴趣的话，这将使我，如果我是，这将是所有时间里增长最快的行业，而且它在某种程度上被促成了。

Obviously, AI has potential for good things, too, but I don’t know how, based on the one I saw recently, I practically would send money to myself over some crazy country. So I don’t have any advice on how the world handles it because I don’t think we know how to handle what we did with the nuclear genie. But I do think, as someone who doesn’t understand a damn thing about it, that it has enormous potential for good, an enormous potential for harm. And I just don’t know how that plays out. I’d like to mention to Becky that Ajit will not be participating in the afternoon session, so if you could focus on any, if there are insurance questions you want to ask, that be a good one?

显然，人工智能也有做好事的潜力，但我不知道怎么做，根据我最近看到的，我几乎会把钱寄给我自己，而不是某个疯狂的国家。因此，我对世界如何处理它没有任何建议，因为我认为我们不知道如何处理我们对核精灵所做的事情。但我认为，作为一个对此一无所知的人，它有巨大的潜在好处，也有巨大的潜在危害。我只是不知道结果会如何。我想对贝基说，阿吉特将不参加下午的会议，所以如果你能专注于任何问题，如果有你想问的保险问题，那将是一个很好的问题？

Becky Quick: Yeah. This next question is for both Warren and Ajit. It’s from Ben Noll, who’s a Minneapolis shareholder who’s been a shareholder since 1995. And he says in an interview this past year, Todd Combs said that in first meeting you in 2010, he told you GEICO is better at marketing and branding, Progressive is a data company, and data is going to win in the long run. But it appears you did not prioritize data analytics at GEICO until a decade later, when you made Todd CEO. As business units like GEICO age and need new strategic direction, I wonder if Berkshire’s hands off management approach is a source of vulnerability. Will you please review your thinking on changes made at GEICO and explain how Berkshire is structured to react if the Berkshire CEO sees that a business unit is strategically off track and Ajit, I hope you will continue to update us on yours and Todd’s progress at remedying the data analytics shortcomings at GEICO.

贝基·奎克：是的下一个问题是问沃伦和阿吉特的 Yeah.下一个问题是问沃伦和阿吉特的来自本-诺尔，他是明尼阿波利斯的股东从1995年起就是股东了他说，在去年的一次采访中，托德-康博斯（Todd Combs）说，在2010年第一次见到你时，他告诉你GEICO更擅长营销和品牌推广，Progressive是一家数据公司，从长远来看，数据会是赢家。但似乎直到十年后您任命托德为首席执行官时，才将数据分析列为 GEICO 的优先事项。随着像 GEICO 这样的业务部门逐渐老化，需要新的战略方向，我不知道伯克希尔放手不管的管理方法是否会造成漏洞。阿吉特，我希望你能继续向我们介绍你和托德在弥补 GEICO 数据分析缺陷方面的最新进展。

Warren Buffett: Ajit, would you like to?

沃伦·巴菲特：阿吉特，你想要吗？

Ajit Jain: Yeah. As Warren has pointed out in the past one of the drawbacks that GEICO is faced with, it hasn’t been doing as good a job as matching rate with risk and segmenting and pricing product based on the risk characteristics. This has been a disadvantage at GEICO for a few years now. We are trying to still play catch up. Technology is something that is unfortunately a bottleneck. But there again, we are making progress. And equally importantly, we have hired people who are much better than what they inherited in terms of data analytics and pricing and slicing data. So, yes, I recognize we are still behind. We’re taking steps to bridge the gap, and hopefully by the, certainly by the end of 25, we should be able to be along with the best of players when it comes to data analytics, whether it’s pricing, whether it’s claims or any other factor that drives the economics of the insurance business.

阿吉特·贾因：是的。正如沃伦在过去指出的那样，GEICO 面临的一个弊端是，它没有很好地将费率与风险相匹配，也没有根据风险特征对产品进行细分和定价。几年来，这一直是 GEICO 的劣势。我们仍在努力追赶。遗憾的是，技术是一个瓶颈。但我们正在取得进展。同样重要的是，我们聘用的员工在数据分析、定价和数据切片方面比他们继承的员工要强得多。所以，是的，我承认我们仍然落后。我们正在采取措施缩小差距，希望到 25 年底，在数据分析方面，无论是定价、理赔还是其他任何推动保险业务经济性的因素，我们都能与最优秀的公司并驾齐驱。

Warren Buffett: I would add, equating rate with risk obviously is important in every line of insurance business. I mean, that’s what you’re involved with, is deciding whether a given rate offers us the chance or the probability that we will make a little of money on it, and that sometimes we’re only risking losing a little and sometimes we’re risking losing huge amounts. But GEICO, and Progressive has done a better job in that recently, but our fundamental advantage at GEICO, of course, is that we have lower costs than virtually anybody. And that cost advantage has been dramatic. We’ve driven our underwriting expense ratio below 10%, and there’s just very, very, very few companies that can compete with that. So it isn’t, it’s not in the least a survival question, and it isn’t even exactly a profitability thing.

沃伦·巴菲特：我要补充的是，在每一条保险业务线上，将费率与风险等同起来显然是很重要的。我的意思是，你所涉及的，是决定一个给定的费率是否为我们提供了赚钱的机会或可能性，有时我们只是冒着损失一点点的风险，有时我们冒着损失巨大的风险。但GEICO，以及最近做得更好的Progressive，我们GEICO的根本优势当然是我们的成本比几乎任何人都低。而且这种成本优势一直是显著的。我们已经将我们的承保费用比率降至10%以下，能够与之竞争的公司非常、非常、非常少。所以这并不是，这根本不是一个生存问题，甚至也不完全是盈利问题。

But, you know, we would rather have x percent of the market than a half of x percent. But, we roughly, I think in the month of March we didn’t lose policyholders and we got 16 million or whatever it is, of them, and we’ve got the lowest cost operations. So it’s not a threat. It’s not remotely a threat to survival, it’s not a throat, it’s not a threat to even profitability. But on the other hand, we would like to be growing with something that is the best model around in the insurance business of delivering at a low cost.

但是，你知道，我们宁愿拥有市场的 x 百分比，而不是 x 百分之半。但是，我认为在三月份我们没有失去保单持有人，我们得到了 1600 万或其他的，他们的运营成本是最低的。所以这不是威胁。这根本不是生存的威胁，也不是对盈利能力的威胁。但另一方面，我们希望能够与保险行业中以低成本提供最佳模式的公司一起成长。

And we now have a recognition that we didn’t have back when Leo Goodwin started in 1936. But the same principle that worked then is that if you can offer somebody a good product, cheaper than the other guy, and everybody has to buy it, and it’s a big business you know, it’s very attractive to be in, and GEICO is a very attractive business and has got its lowest cost thing, and it does have to do a better job of matching rate to risk.

我们现在认识到的情况与 1936 年利奥·古德温开始时不同。但当时有效的原则是，如果你能以比其他人更便宜的价格提供一个好的产品，而每个人都必须购买，并且这是一个大生意，你知道，这非常有吸引力，GEICO 是一个非常有吸引力的业务，并且它有最低的成本，确实需要在匹配费率与风险方面做得更好。

But our low costs have masked the fact that for a while that we could do without progressing as much as we should have in the matching of right to risk. And now Todd has been working intensively at that, and he’s made a lot of progress, but there’s still work to be done. But in the meantime, we’re not going to shrink, and we should make better underwriting profits than most companies in the auto insurance business.

但我们的低成本掩盖了这样一个事实：在一段时间内，我们在风险匹配方面的进展并没有达到应有的水平。现在，Todd 一直在对此进行深入工作，他取得了很大进展，但仍然有很多工作要做。与此同时，我们不会缩减规模，我们应该比大多数汽车保险公司获得更好的承保利润。

这个问题需要更完整的视角，观察几十年对同一个问题的讨论，大致的结论是“敢为天下后”。

Okay, I’m going to back up and go to. I think I left station two out of it earlier. So do we have somebody there?

好的，我要退回去。我想我之前把第二站漏掉了。那么我们那里有人吗？

Questioner: Yeah. Good morning. My name is Sebastian Sartre. I’m from Munich, Germany. Berkshire is a very respected company in Germany. And my question is, who are your most trusted advisors today? Is it Ted and Todd? Is it Greg and Ajit? Is it your wife, your children? And what do you value about them? Thank you.

提问者：是的。早上好。我叫塞巴斯蒂安·萨特尔。我来自德国慕尼黑。伯克希尔在德国是一家非常受尊敬的公司。我的问题是，您今天最信任的顾问是谁？是泰德和托德吗？是格雷格和阿吉特吗？是您的妻子，还是您的孩子？您对他们的价值是什么？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, it depends whether they’re advising me on money or on other things. I trust my children and my wife totally, but that doesn’t mean I ask them what stocks to buy. In terms of managing money, there wasn’t anybody better in the world to talk to for many, many decades than Charlie. And that doesn’t mean I didn’t talk to other people. But if I didn’t think I could do it myself, I wouldn’t have done it. So to some extent, I talked to myself on investments, and I think my children have gotten a whole lot wiser over the years. And so I listened to them on a lot of things. I’ll listen to my daughter on who to vote for locally, because she knows a lot more about that than I do. And I’ll listen to my wife on a lot of things and I won’t get into details. So it is important.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这要看他们是在给我提供关于钱的建议还是其他方面的建议。我完全信任我的孩子和妻子，但这并不意味着我会问他们买什么股票。在管理资金方面，很多很多年里，没有人比查理更适合与我交谈。这并不意味着我没有和其他人交谈过。但如果我认为自己做不到，我就不会去做。因此，在某种程度上，我在投资方面是和自己对话，我认为我的孩子们这些年来变得聪明了很多。所以我在很多事情上听取他们的意见。我会听我女儿关于地方投票的建议，因为她对这方面了解得比我多。我也会听我妻子在很多事情上的意见，但我不会详细说明。所以这很重要。

If you don’t live a life where you surround yourself and limit yourself to people you trust, it won’t be much fun. I mean, I literally have been in the position ever since I was in my twenties of being able to have people I trusted around me. And I’ve made mistakes occasionally, but they filter out over time. You learn. And when I found Charlie, for example, in all kinds of matters, not just investment, I knew I’d have somebody that, well, I’ll put it this way. You can think about this, Charlie. In all the years we worked together, not only never once lied to me, ever but he didn’t even shape things so that he told half lies or quarter lies to sort of stack the deck in the direction he wanted to go. He absolutely considered, total, of utmost importance that he never lied. Now, that occasionally got him in trouble at dinner parties or something. If he said to the woman, I really prefer the way you used to do your hair, the way that somebody over across the room does.

如果你的生活中没有围绕并限制在你信任的人周围，那么生活就不会那么有趣。我的意思是，从我二十多岁起，我就能够拥有我信任的人在我周围。我偶尔也会犯错误，但这些错误随着时间的推移会被筛选出去。你从中学习。比如，当我遇到查理时，在各种事务上，不仅仅是投资，我知道我找到了一个这样的人，这么说吧。你可以想想这个，查理。在我们共事的所有这些年里，他不仅从来没有对我撒过谎，他甚至没有为了让事情看起来半真半假或部分真实而有所隐瞒，以引导事情朝他想要的方向发展。他绝对认为，始终保持完全诚实是极其重要的。现在，这偶尔让他在晚宴聚会上或其他场合遇到麻烦。如果他对一位女士说，我真的更喜欢你以前打理头发的方式，就像房间另一边的那位女士那样。

But in terms of having a partner, I simply cannot think of a conversation I ever had with Charlie that in the least he misled me or shaped it his way or anything of the sort. So when you get that in your life, you know, you cherish those people and you sort of forget about the rest. Okay.

但在拥有一个伙伴方面，我简直想不出我和查理有过的任何一次对话，他至少误导了我或以他的方式塑造了它或任何诸如此类的事情。所以当你在生活中得到这样的伙伴，你知道，你珍惜这些人，而你会忽略其他的一切。好的。

Becky Quick: Again, this question is for Ajit comes from Meher Barucha. Climate change seems to be impacting the insurance industry heavily, with major players pulling out of markets like California because of wildfire and flooding risks combined with payouts increasing. How does Mr Jain see this risk expanding to other regions, and how has the thesis on insurance investments changed because of it?

贝基·奎克：这个问题是针对阿吉特的，来自梅赫·巴鲁查。气候变化似乎对保险行业产生了重大影响，主要参与者因野火和洪水风险以及赔付增加而退出加利福尼亚等市场。贾因先生如何看待这种风险扩展到其他地区的情况，以及由于这一点，保险投资的理论发生了怎样的变化？

Ajit Jain: Climate change. Climate risk is certainly a factor that has come into focus in a very, very big way more recently. Now, the one thing that mitigates the problem for us, especially in some of the reinsurance operations we are in, is our contractual liabilities are limited to a year in most cases. So as a result of which, at the end of a year, we get the opportunity to reprice, including the decision to get out of the business altogether if we don’t like the pricing in the business. But the fact that we are making bets that tie us down to one year at a time certainly makes it possible for us to stay in the business longer term than we might have otherwise. Because of climate change, clearly, prices need to go up. It is difficult to be very scientific about how much the prices need to go up. They need to go up a lot. And we keep increasing prices and hope we stay ahead of the curve. But that doesn’t happen in all cases.

Ajit Jain：气候变化。气候风险确实是最近非常、非常大规模地成为焦点的一个因素。现在，有一件事可以缓解我们的问题，特别是在我们参与的一些再保险业务中，我们的合同责任在大多数情况下限于一年。因此，一年结束时，我们有机会重新定价，包括决定完全退出业务，如果我们不喜欢业务的定价。但事实上，我们所做的赌注将我们绑定到一年一次，这当然使我们有可能比原本可能的更长期地留在业务中。由于气候变化，显然，价格需要上涨。要非常科学地确定价格需要上涨多少是很困难的。他们需要大幅度上涨。我们不断提高价格，希望我们能保持在曲线的前面。但这并不在所有情况下都发生。

The regulators don’t make it any easier by tying our feet to the ground and making it difficult for us to withdraw from certain territories or to make dramatic changes in the pricing of certain products, as a result of which a number of insurance carriers, including ourselves, have decided to, to not write business in certain states. I think the regulators are getting a little more realistic about the, and they are waking up to the fact that the insurance carriers need to make some kind of a return, a decent return for us to keep deploying our capital.

监管机构并没有通过将我们的脚绑在地上来让事情变得更简单，这使我们在某些地区撤出或对某些产品的定价进行重大调整变得困难，因此包括我们在内的多家保险公司决定不在某些州开展业务。我认为监管机构对这一点变得更加现实，他们意识到保险公司需要获得某种回报，只有这样我们才能继续投入我们的资本。

It’s a constant battle back and forth. It’s been against the capital providers these last few years, but I think we are coming back into balance. If you look at the results that have been recently announced by the insurance carriers, everyone’s now making record profits. Obviously that will not last, but certainly for the next several months, I think the insurance industry, in spite of climate change, in spite of increased risk of fires and flooding, it’s going to be an okay place to be in.

这是一场不断反复的斗争。这几年来一直是在与资本提供者对抗，但我认为我们正在恢复平衡。如果你看看保险公司最近公布的结果，大家现在都在创纪录地盈利。显然，这种情况不会持续，但我认为在接下来的几个月里，尽管面临气候变化，尽管火灾和洪水风险增加，保险行业仍然会是一个不错的地方。

Warren Buffett: Climate change increases risks and in the end it makes our business bigger over time. But not if we, if we misprice them, we’ll also go broke. But we do it one year at a time, overwhelmingly. And I would say this, I would rather have Ajit assessing us than any thousand underwriters or insurance managers in the world. I mean, the factors aren’t, you know, we’ll take Atlantic hurricanes, which would be probably our biggest risk. There’s no question that you can measure the temperature of the water in the Atlantic and you know, what warm water does to hurricanes. But you don’t know necessarily whether that’s good or bad because it may cause them to turn faster, you know, and it may, it may change the path as well as the intensity and frequency of losses. But we’ll write it one year at a time and we’ll have Ajit underwriting it and, you know, we don’t have to tell you what’s going to happen fast five years from now or ten years from now. And people who don’t have sort of analytical insurance minds that comment on this subject really don’t expand our knowledge.

沃伦·巴菲特：气候变化增加了风险，最终随着时间的推移使我们的业务变得更大。但如果我们定价错误，我们也会破产。但我们基本上是一年一年地这样做。我想说，我宁愿让阿吉特来评估我们，而不是世界上任何一千名承销商或保险经理。我的意思是，因素并不是，你知道，我们将承担大西洋飓风，这可能是我们最大的风险。毫无疑问，你可以测量大西洋水温，你知道温水对飓风的作用。但你不一定知道这是好是坏，因为它可能使它们转向更快，它可能改变路径以及损失的强度和频率。但我们会一年一年地承保，我们将让阿吉特来承销，你知道，我们不需要告诉你五年后或十年后会发生什么。而那些没有分析性保险思维的人对这个问题的评论确实不会扩展我们的知识。

We get a lot of letters from people that I’m sure have good IQs, but they don’t really know, they don’t understand the insurance business and they’re not wrong, I don’t think, in my mind about climate change. But if there was no risk, there’d be no insurance business. And we’re in the business of evaluating it and we do it one year at a time. And there’s some exceptions where you can’t do it, where your decisions extend for a long time in the future. We try to avoid those. But again, you don’t need a thousand people analyzing water currents. I think you need one very, very, very smart guy. And we’ve got him. Okay?

我们收到很多来自人们的信件，我相信他们的智商很高，但他们并不真正了解保险行业，我认为他们在气候变化方面并没有错。但如果没有风险，就不会有保险行业。我们在评估风险的业务中，一年一年地进行。有些例外情况是你无法做到的，因为你的决策会延续很长时间。我们尽量避免这些情况。但再说一次，你不需要一千个人来分析水流。我认为你只需要一个非常非常聪明的人。我们有这样的人。好吗？

Ajit Jain: Yeah. The only thing I’d add is that climate change, much like inflation done right, can be a friend of the risk bearer. And it has been for us. If you look at GEICO, it had 175,000 policies roughly in 1950, and it was getting roughly $40 a car. So that was 7 million of volume. You know, now we have, we’re getting over $2,000. Well, all the advances in technology and everything like that, if we had been wedded to some formula, what we did with $40, we’d have had a terrible business. But in effect, by making the cars much safer, they’ve also made it much more expensive to repair. And a whole bunch of things have happened, including inflation. So now we have a $40 billion business from something that was 7 million back when I called on it. So if we’d operated in a non inflationary world, GEICO would not be a $40 billion company. Okay, we’re now finally coordinated towards station three I believe.

Ajit Jain：是的。我唯一想补充的是，气候变化，就像正确处理的通货膨胀一样，可以成为风险承担者的朋友。对我们来说确实如此。如果你看看 GEICO，1950 年大约有 175,000 份保单，每辆车大约获得 40 美元。所以那时的业务量是 700 万美元。你知道，现在我们每辆车获得超过 2000 美元。所有技术的进步和其他因素，如果我们一直依赖某种公式，按照 40 美元的方式运营，我们的业务会很糟糕。但实际上，通过让汽车更安全，他们也使得维修成本大幅上升。还有很多事情发生，包括通货膨胀。所以现在我们从当时的 700 万美元发展成了 400 亿美元的业务。如果我们在一个没有通货膨胀的世界中运营，GEICO 就不会成为一家 400 亿美元的公司。好的，我相信我们现在终于协调到第三个站点。

保险能对抗通胀是因为它的方式比较直接，体现在金额，也体现在时间上。

Questioner: Hello. Hey, everyone. Hi Warren. I’m Liam. I’m 27, from Newmark, Ontario, Canada.

提问者：你好。大家好。嗨，沃伦。我是利亚姆。我 27 岁，来自加拿大安大略省纽马克。

I got invested in Berkshire, thanks to my dad, who brought me down to this meeting. I’m so excited to be here. Most 27 year olds had idols who are rappers, but instead, my idols are Warren, Charlie, who will miss forever, and also your cousin Jimmy, who unfortunately had to go this year, too. It’s been a tough year as a Canadian.

我投资了伯克希尔，感谢我的父亲，他带我来参加这个会议。我很高兴能在这里。大多数 27 岁的人崇拜的偶像是说唱歌手，但我的偶像是沃伦、查理，我将永远怀念他们，还有你的表弟吉米，不幸的是他今年也去世了。作为一个加拿大人，这一年很艰难。

Similar with Greg, I always wonder about our Canadian economy and what you think about the Canadian economy. We got some beat down bank stocks right now, and I don’t know what your opinions are on these. And I also wonder, in your nineties, if the rumors are true and you’re still able to eat McDonald’s. I like fast food myself, but I always wonder at 93, he’s still able to eat those and enjoy the Coca Cola. Thanks, Warren. Okay,

与 Greg 类似，我总是对我们的加拿大经济感到好奇，也想知道你对加拿大经济的看法。我们现在有一些被打压的银行股票，我不知道你对此有什么看法。我还想知道，在你九十多岁的时候，传闻是否属实，你是否仍然能吃麦当劳。我自己喜欢快餐，但我总是想，93 岁时，他仍然能吃这些并享受可口可乐。谢谢你，沃伦。

Warren Buffett:well, we’ve got a Canadian here, so we’ll let him answer the first part. And if you watch me, you’ll see what I like to eat. Go to it, Greg.

沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我们这里有位加拿大人，所以我们让他回答第一部分。如果你看我，你会看到我喜欢吃什么。来吧，Greg。

Greg Abel: Okay. Yeah. Well, we are fortunate to have a number of operations up in Canada. It goes across many of our operating entities. And then, as Warren touched on, all the businesses that we have, a piece of that we’re invested in are up in Canada. So the presence is significant, where we’re always looking at making incremental investments there, because it’s an environment we’re very comfortable with. Warren touched on understanding the US environment, business environment, and I would put Canada equally in that bucket that we understand it and would be comfortable. And I would say the economy moves very closely to the US.

格雷格·阿贝尔：好的。是的。我们很幸运在加拿大有许多业务运营。它跨越了我们的许多运营实体。然后，正如沃伦提到的，我们投资的所有业务中有一部分是在加拿大。所以我们的存在是显著的，我们总是在寻找在那里进行增量投资的机会，因为这是一个我们非常熟悉的环境。沃伦提到了理解美国的环境、商业环境，我会将加拿大同样放在那个我们理解并且感到舒适的篮子里。我会说，加拿大的经济与美国非常紧密地联系在一起。

So the results we’re seeing out of our various businesses that report both the US and Canadian operations aren’t drastically different. And there’s a few that we’re on the energy side, for example, we make very substantial investments up there in Alberta. But again, it’s very consistent with how that economy is growing, and I would see it being very consistent with what we see here. Warren, anything to?

我们从报告美国和加拿大业务的各个公司看到的结果并没有显著差异。有一些在能源方面的公司，例如，我们在阿尔伯塔省进行了非常可观的投资。但这与该经济体的增长非常一致，我认为这与我们在这里看到的情况非常一致。沃伦，有什么要补充的吗？

Warren Buffett: Yeah, no, obviously there aren’t as many big companies up there as there are in the United States. But when we get. I got one from Canada just the other day that I sent over to Greg, too. When we see anything that’s suggesting an idea that’s of a size that would interest and meets other requirements, we don’t have any hesitancy about putting big money in Canada. And there are things we actually can do fairly well, where Canada could benefit from Berkshire’s participation. We did it some years ago, not that many years ago, but there was a financial institution up there. They had a problem and they did, as I remember, 30 plus various other people that were kicking it around. And meanwhile, the place was getting close to the edge for not a fundamental problem. And Ted Weschler from our office went up there. I heard about it on a Monday or something. Ted Wesler went up there and we offered a solution in a couple of days to something that was getting close to the brink. So we do not feel uncomfortable in any way, shape or form putting our money into Canada. In fact, we’re actually looking at one thing now. But, you know, they still have to meet our standards in terms of what we get for our money.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，显然，加拿大的大公司数量没有美国多。但是当我们看到一些建议的想法时，如果它的规模足够大并符合其他要求，我们毫不犹豫地在加拿大投入大笔资金。前几天我从加拿大收到一个项目，我也把它发给了格雷格。我们实际上可以做一些事情，加拿大可以从伯克希尔的参与中受益。几年前，我们做过一次，不是很久以前，但那里有一家金融机构。他们遇到了问题，我记得有 30 多个其他人在讨论这个问题。与此同时，这个地方快要陷入困境，但并不是因为根本性的问题。我们办公室的泰德·韦施勒去了那里。我在某个星期一听说了这件事。泰德·韦施勒去了那里，我们在几天内提供了一个解决方案，解决了一个快要崩溃的问题。因此，我们在任何方面都不会感到不舒服地将我们的资金投入加拿大。事实上，我们现在实际上正在考虑一件事情。但是，你知道，他们仍然必须满足我们的标准，以便我们能得到物有所值的东西。

But they don’t have a, they don’t have a mental, we don’t have any mental blocks about that country. And of course, there’s a lot of countries we don’t understand at all. So Canada, it’s terrific. When you’ve got a major economy, not the size of the US, but a major economy that you absolutely give them, you feel confident about operating there. Okay, Becky.

但他们没有，我们对那个国家没有任何心理障碍。当然，还有很多国家我们完全不理解。所以加拿大非常棒。当你有一个主要经济体，虽然不及美国那么大，但这是一个主要经济体，你绝对会给他们信心，觉得在那儿运营很有信心。好的，贝基。

Becky Quick: Warren, you just said that you’d rather have a Ajit running risk assessment at the insurance operations than any other thousand insurance adjusters in the world. So I’d like to follow up with a question that came in from Mark Blackley in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He said, Warren, for years you have spoken about the incredible impact Ajit has had on Berkshire. You often joke, if you and Ajit are in a sinking boat and we can only save one of you, swim to Ajit. While we often discuss plans for the next CEO of Berkshire, little is mentioned on who will one day replace Ajit. How should we think about the future of the Berkshire insurance operations, given how challenging it may be to find another Ajit? And I’d like to hear Ajit’s thoughts on this as well.

贝基·奎克：沃伦，你刚才说过，你宁愿让一个Ajit在保险业务中进行风险评估，也不愿意让世界上其他一千个保险理算师来做。所以我想跟进一个来自俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的马克·布莱克利的问题。他说，沃伦，多年来你一直在谈论阿吉特对伯克希尔的巨大影响。你常常开玩笑说，如果你和阿吉特在一只沉船上，只能救一个人，那就游向阿吉特。虽然我们经常讨论伯克希尔下任首席执行官的计划，但很少提到谁将来会取代阿吉特。考虑到找到另一个阿吉特可能是多么具有挑战性，我们应该如何看待伯克希尔保险业务的未来？我也想听听阿吉特对此的看法。

Warren Buffett: Well, I would say we won’t find another Ajit, but fortunately, he’s a good bit younger than I am, so I hope you have to worry a little bit about me first before I start working about Ajit. We won’t find another Ajit, but we have an operation that he has created and that at least part of it, there are certain parts of it that are almost impossible for competitors to imitate. And if I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t try and imitate them. And so we’ve institutionalized some of our advantages, but Ajit is. Well, his presence allowed us to do it and he did it.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我想我们不会再找到另一个阿吉特，但幸运的是，他比我年轻很多，所以我希望你们在我开始担心阿吉特之前，先担心我一点。我们不会再找到另一个阿吉特，但我们有一个他创建的运营，至少其中有某些部分几乎不可能被竞争对手模仿。如果我是他们，我不会尝试模仿他们。因此，我们已经将我们的一些优势制度化，但阿吉特是。嗯，他的存在让我们能够做到这一点，而他也确实做到了。

But now we’ve created a structure that didn’t exist when he came in 1986. Nothing close to it existed with us or with anybody else. And insurance is the most important business at Berkshire. Marketable securities are important, but they’re not in the class exactly as our insurance business. And Ajit. We won’t have the same business if Ajit isn’t running it, but we’ll have a very good business. And again, that’s thanks to Ajit. I’d been in the business when he came in 1986. I first went to GEICO in 1950. We first bought national indemnity in 1957, and it was something that we’d made quite a bit of money in the stocks of insurance companies, but we needed an Ajit, unfortunately, he came into the office on a Saturday and he was tired of working at something where he really didn’t - it just challenges his intellect. And I said, well, we got a lot of challenges. Nobody’s perfect. So you’ve never seen an insurance policy or owned an insurance stock, but here are the keys, and that’s worked out very well.

但现在我们创造了一个1986年他加入时不存在的结构。我们这里或其他地方都不存在类似的东西。保险是伯克希尔最重要的业务。可交易证券很重要，但它们并不完全属于我们的保险业务类别。阿吉特。如果没有阿吉特来经营，我们不会有同样的业务，但我们会有一个很好的业务。再次感谢阿吉特。他在1986年加入这个行业时，我已经在这个行业了。我第一次去GEICO是在1950年。我们第一次购买国家赔偿公司是在1957年，我们在保险公司的股票上赚了不少钱，但我们不幸地需要一个阿吉特，他一个星期六来到办公室，他厌倦了在一个真正不挑战他智力的地方工作。我说，好吧，我们有很多挑战。没有人是完美的。所以你从未见过保险单或拥有保险股票，但这是钥匙，结果非常好。

Ajit: Thank you very much, Warren. Thank you very much, everyone. But the fact of the matter is, nobody is irreplaceable. And we have Tim Cook here in the audience, I believe, who has proved that and has set an example for a lot of people who follow.

阿吉特：非常感谢你，沃伦。非常感谢大家。但事实是，没有人是不可替代的。我相信我们在观众中有蒂姆·库克，他证明了这一点，并为许多追随者树立了榜样。

Warren Buffett: That’s a great observation.

沃伦·巴菲特：这是一个很好的观察。

Ajit Jain: Now, having said that, I will also add that our board is conscious of the succession issue, not only at Warren’s level, but also at my level. And every year they have me sitting in front of them answering questions and having me share my ideas with them in terms of what would happen to the operations if I get hit by a truck. We go through the various operations we have. I review with them a short list of people I think ought to be candidates for replacing me. And in addition to that, I go a step further and identify a particular individual as the person I would hand over the keys to if something were to happen to me. Obviously that would be subject to change. But we take this issue fairly seriously. And I think at the end of the day, as Tim Cook has proved to us, it will be the biggest non issue of the day. The earth will still keep revolving around the axis.

Ajit Jain：话虽如此，我还要补充说，我们的董事会对继任问题非常关注，不仅在沃伦的层面，也在我这个层面。每年他们都会让我坐在他们面前回答问题，并让我与他们分享我的想法，即如果我被卡车撞了，业务会发生什么。我们审视我们拥有的各种业务。我向他们回顾我认为应该成为接替我的候选人的简短名单。除此之外，我更进一步，确定一个特定的个人，如果我发生了什么事情，我会把钥匙交给他。显然，这可能会有变化。但我们相当严肃地对待这个问题。我认为归根结底，正如蒂姆·库克向我们证明的那样，这将是当天最大的不重要的问题。地球仍将围绕轴线旋转。

Warren Buffett: Okay, we know what we will do. We know it’s a good answer, but we know it isn’t. It isn’t. We won’t have another Ajit. Station five.

沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我们知道我们将要做什么。我们知道这是一个好的答案，但我们知道它不是。不是的。我们不会再有一个阿吉特。第五站。

Questioner: Hi, my name is Ange Andrew Nickes and I’m wondering, if you. Had one more day with Charlie, what would you do with him?

提问者：嗨，我的名字是安杰·安德鲁·尼克斯，我想知道，如果你再有一天和查理在一起，你会和他做什么？

Warren Buffett: Well, it’s kind of interesting because, in effect, I did have one more day. I mean, it wasn’t a full day or anything, but he. We always lived in a way where we were happy with what we were doing every day. I mean, Charlie liked learning. He liked, as I mentioned in the movie, he liked a wide variety of things. So he was much broader than I was. But I didn’t have any great desire to be as broad as he was. And he didn’t have any great desire to be as narrow as I. But we had a lot of fun doing anything. And, you know, we played golf together, we played tennis together, we did everything together. And this you may find kind of interesting. We had as much fun, perhaps even more to some extent, with things that failed, because then we really had to work and work our way out of them. And in a sense, there’s more fun having somebody that’s your partner in digging your way out of a foxhole than there is just sitting there and watching an idea that you got ten years ago just continually produce more and more profits. So it wasn’t, you know, he really fooled me, though. He went to 99.9 years. I mean, if you pick two guys, you know, he never publicly said he never did a day of exercise except where it was required when he was in the army. He never did a day of voluntary exercise. He never thought about what he ate.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这有点有趣，因为我确实多享受了一天。我的意思是，这不是一个完整的一天或类似的事情，但他。我们总是以一种方式生活，即我们对每天所做的事情感到满意。我的意思是，查理喜欢学习。他喜欢，正如我在电影中提到的，他喜欢各种各样的事情。所以他比我涉猎更广泛。但我没有强烈的愿望像他那样广泛。他也没有强烈的愿望像我这样狭窄。但我们做任何事情都很开心。而且，你知道，我们一起打高尔夫球，我们一起打网球，我们一起做了所有事情。你可能会觉得这有点有趣。我们对失败的事情也许甚至更有趣，因为那时我们真的必须努力工作，设法摆脱它们。从某种意义上说，有一个伙伴和你一起从战壕中挖出一条路比坐在那里看着你十年前得到的想法不断产生越来越多的利润更有趣。所以这不是，你知道，他真的愚弄了我，尽管如此。他活到了99.9岁。我的意思是，如果你选两个人，你知道，他从未公开说过他从未做过一天的锻炼，除非在军队里要求他这么做。他从未自愿做过一天的锻炼。他从未考虑过他吃什么。

You know, we started every day, and Charlie had. He was interested in more things than I was, but we never had any doubts about the other person, period. And so if I’d had another day with him, we’d probably have done the same thing we were doing the earlier days and we wouldn’t have wanted another.

你知道，我们每天都开始，查理有。他对的事情比我感兴趣，但我们从来没有对对方有任何怀疑。因此，如果我能再和他多一天，我们可能会做和之前几天一样的事情，我们也不会想要其他的。

We only had one day. There’s a great advantage in not knowing where you’re going, what day you’re going to die. And Charlie always said that, just tell me where I going to die, so I’ll never go there. Well, the truth is he went everywhere with his mind, and therefore he was not only interested in the world at 99, but the world was interested in him. It’s remarkable, you know. I told him toward that. In the last few years, I’d never seen anybody that was peaking, you know, in 99 and where the world wanted to come and see him. I mean, they actually wanted to go out to 351 North Yune street. And whether it was, well, I could name a whole bunch of names, but just. I’ll start with Elon Musk, but go down the list. And they all wanted to meet Charlie, and Charlie was happy to talk with them. And the only person I could think of otherwise was the Dalai Lama. I don’t know that they had a lot else in common, but it was, he lived his life the way he wanted to, and he got to say what he wanted to say. He, like I, loved having a podium again. I can’t remember any time that he was mad at me or I was mad at him. It just didn’t happen. And calling him was fun back when long distance rates were high and we didn’t talk as often as the years, in recent years, as we used to be on daily for long periods. And we did keep learning and we liked learning together, but, you know, we tended to be a little smarter because as the years went by, because we had mistakes and we had other things where we learned something.

我们只有一天。对不知道自己要去哪里、哪一天会死的人来说，这是一种巨大的优势。查理总是说，告诉我我会死在哪里，这样我就永远不会去那里。其实，他的思想无处不在，因此他不仅对 99 岁的世界感兴趣，世界也对他感兴趣。这是非常了不起的，你知道吗。我对他说过。在过去的几年里，我从未见过任何人在 99 岁时达到巅峰，全世界的人想要来见他。我的意思是，他们真的想去 351 North Yune 街。无论如何，我可以列出一大堆名字，但我先从埃隆·马斯克开始，然后继续往下列。他们都想见查理，而查理也乐于与他们交谈。我能想到的唯一另一个人是达赖喇嘛。我不知道他们是否有很多共同点，但他过着自己想要的生活，能够说出自己想说的话。他和我一样，喜欢再次拥有讲台。我记不起来有任何时候他对我生气，或者我对他生气。这根本没有发生过。打电话给他很有趣，那时候长途电话费很高，我们的交流没有像以前那样频繁。近年来，我们不像以前那样每天长时间交谈。我们确实在不断学习，并且喜欢一起学习，但你知道，随着时间的推移，我们往往变得聪明一些，因为我们犯了错误，还有其他事情让我们学到了东西。

And the fact that he and I were on the same wavelength in that respect meant that the world was still a very interesting place to us when he got to be 99 and I got to be 93. So I don’t have a perfect answer for you there, but I can tell you the ingredients that would go into. Sometimes people would say to me or Charlie at one of these meetings, you know, if you had only have lunch with one person that lived over the last 2000 or so years, you know, who would you want to have it with? Charlie says, I’ve already met all of them. You know, because he read all the books. I mean, he, and he eliminated all the trouble of going to restaurants to meet him or anything like that. He just went through a book and he met Ben Franklin. And he really, he was remarkable.

而我和他在这方面的共鸣意味着，当他 99 岁，我 93 岁时，世界对我们来说仍然是一个非常有趣的地方。所以我没有一个完美的答案，但我可以告诉你其中的成分。有时人们会在这些会议上对我或查理说，你知道，如果你只能和过去 2000 年中生活的一个人共进午餐，你会想和谁一起吃？查理说，我已经见过他们所有人。因为他读过所有的书。我的意思是，他省去了去餐馆见他们的麻烦。他只是翻阅一本书，见到了本·富兰克林。他真的很了不起。

He said he really had no one else to meet because he’d read all their stuff and he liked Ben Franklin’s stuff better than he liked mine. But with Ben Franklin, he just had to read about it. He didn’t have to go have lunch with him or anything of the sort. But it’s an interesting question. What you should probably ask yourself is who do you feel that you’d want to start spending the last day of your life with? And then figure out a way to start meeting them, or tomorrow, and meet them as often as you can, because why wait a little last day and don’t bother with the others? Okay, Becky.

他说他真的没有其他人可以见，因为他已经读过他们所有的东西，而且他更喜欢本·富兰克林的作品，而不是我的。但是对于本·富兰克林，他只需要读关于他的东西。他不需要和他共进午餐或其他类似的事情。但这是一个有趣的问题。你可能应该问自己的是，你觉得你想和谁一起度过你生命的最后一天？然后想办法开始见他们，或者明天见他们，尽可能多地见他们，因为为什么要等到最后一天而不去见其他人呢？好的，贝基。

Becky Quick: this question comes from Carol de Gend in Switzerland, in Europe, and this is for both Mr Buffett and Mr Jain. As political instability in the world is growing with a rise in the number of armed conflicts and trade tension, there is also increasing risk of cyberattacks. What are your views on cybersecurity insurance? Asking this question in general, for retail, small businesses and large companies, including critical key infrastructure such as power plants, harbors, airports, nuclear plants, etc. Do you see a potential for profit making in cybersecurity insurances, and what are the key challenges?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自瑞士的卡罗尔·德·根德，这是针对巴菲特先生和贾因先生的。随着世界政治不稳定性加剧，武装冲突和贸易紧张局势增多，网络攻击的风险也在增加。您对网络安全保险有什么看法？这个问题是针对零售、小型企业和大型公司，包括关键基础设施如发电厂、港口、机场、核电站等。您认为网络安全保险有盈利的潜力吗？主要挑战是什么？

Ajit Jain: Okay, let me start. Cyber insurance has become a very fashionable product these days over these last few years. It is at least a $10 billion market right now globally, and profitability has also been fairly high. I think profitability is at least 20% of the total premium has ended up as profit in the pockets of the insurance bearers. Now, having said that, we at Berkshire tend to be very, very careful when it comes to taking on cyber insurance liabilities. Actually for two reasons. One is it’s very difficult to know what is the quantum of losses that can be subject to a single occurrence, and the aggregation potential of cyber losses, especially if some cloud operation comes to a standstill. That aggregation potential can be huge, and not being able to have a worst case cap on it is what scares us.

Ajit Jain：好的，让我开始。网络保险在这几年变得非常时尚。现在它在全球市场的规模至少为 100 亿美元，盈利能力也相当高。我认为盈利能力至少占总保费的 20%，最终成为保险承保者的利润。话虽如此，我们在伯克希尔在承担网络保险责任时往往非常谨慎。实际上有两个原因。其一，很难知道单次事件可能导致的损失量，以及网络损失的聚合潜力，特别是如果某些云操作停滞不前。这种聚合潜力可能是巨大的，而无法对其设定最坏情况的上限正是让我们感到害怕的原因。

Secondly, it’s also very difficult to have some sense of what we call loss cost, or the cost of goods sold could potentially be. It’s not just for a single loss, but for losses across over time, they have been fairly well contained out of 100 cents of the dollar. The premium losses over the last four or five years, I think, have not been beyond forty cents of the dollar, leaving a decent profit margin. But having said that, there’s not enough data to

其次，我们很难对我们所称的损失成本或销售成本有一些概念。这不仅仅是针对单一损失，而是针对一段时间内的损失，它们在每一美元的 100 美分中相对较好地控制住了。在过去四五年中，保费损失我认为没有超过每美元 40 美分，留下了不错的利润空间。但话虽如此，数据仍然不足以

be able to hang your hat on and say what your true loss cost is. So in our insurance operations, I have told the people running the operations is, I’ve discouraged them from writing cyber insurance to the extent they need to write it so as to satisfy certain client needs. I have told them, no matter how much you charge, you should tell yourself that each time you write a cyber insurance policy, you’re losing money. We can argue about how much money you’re losing, but the mindset should be you’re not making money on it, you’re losing money. And then we should go from there. So it is good. It’s projected to be a huge business. My guess is at some point it might, it might become a huge business, but it might be associated with huge losses. And our approach is to sort of stay away from it right now until we can have access to some meaningful data and hang our hat on data.

能够依靠并说出你的真实损失成本。因此，在我们的保险业务中，我告诉负责运营的人，我不鼓励他们在满足某些客户需求的情况下撰写网络保险。我告诉他们，无论你收取多少费用，你都应该告诉自己，每次你撰写网络保险政策时，你都是在亏损。我们可以争论你亏损了多少，但心态应该是你并没有赚钱，而是在亏损。然后我们应该从这里出发。所以这是好的。预计这将是一个巨大的业务。我的猜测是，在某个时刻，它可能会成为一个巨大的业务，但可能会伴随巨大的损失。我们的做法是暂时远离它，直到我们能够获得一些有意义的数据并依靠数据。

跟GEICO的数据化转型一样的思维方式，敢为天下后。

Warren Buffett: Well, you’ve just made, you’ve just heard why Ajit is invaluable. Because when you insure something, you really want to think of what, how much can you lose? And the question, I remember the first time it was, happened, I think in 1968 when there were the riots in various cities, because I think it was the Bobby Kennedy death that set it off for the Martin Luther King death. I’m not sure which one. But in any event, when you write a policy, you have a limit in that policy. But the question is, what is one event? So if somebody is assassinated in some town and that causes losses at thousands of businesses all over the country, if you’ve written all those thousands of policies, you have one event, or do you have a thousand events? And there’s no place where that kind of a dilemma enters into more than cyber. Because if you think about it, if, you know, let’s say you’re writing $10 million of limit per risk, and that’s fine, if you lose 10 million for some event, you can take it. But the problem is if that one event turns out to affect 1000 policies and somehow they’re all linked together in some way and the courts decide that way, you’ve written something that in no way we’re getting the proper price for and could break the company.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你刚刚听到了为什么阿吉特是无价之宝。因为当你保险某样东西时，你真的需要考虑，你可能会损失多少？我记得第一次这种情况发生是在1968年，当时各个城市发生了骚乱，因为我认为肯尼迪的死引发了马丁·路德·金的死。我不确定是哪一个。但无论如何，当你写一份保单时，你在该保单中有一个限额。但问题是，一个事件是什么？所以如果有人在某个城镇被暗杀，导致全国数千家企业遭受损失，如果你写了所有这些数千份保单，你有一个事件，或者你有一万个事件？而没有什么地方比网络更会出现这种困境了。因为如果你想想，比如说你写了每份风险1000万美元的限额，如果你因为某个事件损失了1000万美元，你可以承受。但问题是，如果那一个事件最终影响了1000份保单，并且以某种方式它们都以某种方式联系在一起，而法院也这样决定，你写的是完全没有得到适当价格的东西，可能会破坏公司。

And I will tell you that most people want to be in anything that’s fashionable when they write insurance. And cyber’s an easy issue. You can write a lot of it. The agents like it. You know, they’re getting the commission on every policy they write. And you’ve got to have somebody in charge of things that understands that you may get an aggregation of risks that you never dreamt of and maybe worse as, and some earthquake happening someplace just because you have a whole bunch of policies with a million dollar limit. And I would say that human nature is such that most insurance companies will get very excited and their agents will get very excited, and it’s very fashionable and it’s kind of interesting, and as Charlie would say, it may be rat poison. Okay, well, that cheerful view. We’ll go to station six.

我会告诉你，大多数人在写保险时都想参与一些时尚的东西。而网络安全是一个简单的问题。你可以写很多。代理人喜欢它。你知道，他们在每一份保单上都能获得佣金。而你必须有一个负责的人，理解你可能会面临一些你从未想过的风险聚集，甚至更糟，比如某个地方发生地震，仅仅因为你有一堆百万美元限额的保单。我会说，人性使然，大多数保险公司会非常兴奋，他们的代理人也会非常兴奋，这非常时尚，也有点有趣，正如查理所说，这可能是老鼠药。好吧，这种乐观的看法。我们去第六站。

Questioner: Good morning. This question is for Warren Buffett and Greg Abel. My name is Maria Preenas. I am a retiree from Las Vegas, Nevada. I am here today as a member of (inaudible) Nevada, a group of developed Latin leaders for the environment of justices. I am almost here representing many Latin families in Nevada who are struggling to pay their utility bills and want access to affordable, clean electricity. I want to add today, why is NV Energy, which is owned by the Berkshire Hathaway, building new gas plants instead of investing in solar energy? With Nevada one and the sunniest state in the country, can I expect to see future leadership take dangerous investments in the fossils levels more seriously? Thank you.

提问者：早上好。这个问题是问沃伦·巴菲特和格雷格·阿贝尔的。我的名字是玛丽亚·普雷纳斯。我是来自内华达州拉斯维加斯的退休人员。今天我作为内华达州（听不清）的一员来到这里，这是一个为正义环境而发展的拉丁裔领导者团体。我几乎是代表内华达州许多正在努力支付公用事业账单的拉丁家庭，他们希望能够获得负担得起的清洁电力。我今天想补充的是，为什么由伯克希尔·哈撒韦拥有的 NV Energy 要建设新的燃气电厂，而不是投资于太阳能？作为全国最阳光明媚的州之一的内华达州，我能否期待未来的领导层更加认真地对待化石燃料的危险投资？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: And thank you, Maria. Greg, you?

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你，玛丽亚。格雷格，你呢？

Greg Abel: Sure. Thank you. So, as we touched on with NV energy even earlier, there’s a lot going on there. When I think of, there’s no question solar is a great opportunity for nv energy, and we’ll continue to utilize that as a resource and continue to invest in it in that utility and the other utility we have in Nevada. We’re also in a point where, when you think of a transition that’s going on within the energy sector, we are transitioning from carbon resources to renewable resources, as was noted, but it will not occur overnight. That transition will take many years. And as we use, be it renewable resources such as solar or wind, they are intermittent, and we do try to combine it with batteries. But at this point in time, we cannot transition completely away from the carbon resources.

格雷格·阿贝尔：当然。谢谢。所以，正如我们之前提到的 NV 能源，那里发生了很多事情。当我想到时，毫无疑问，太阳能是 NV 能源的一个很好的机会，我们将继续将其作为资源并继续在该公用事业及我们在内华达州的其他公用事业中进行投资。我们也正处于一个阶段，当你想到能源部门正在进行的转型时，我们正在从碳资源转向可再生资源，正如所提到的，但这不会一夜之间发生。这个转型将需要很多年。随着我们使用可再生资源，如太阳能或风能，它们是间歇性的，我们确实尝试将其与电池结合。但在目前，我们无法完全摆脱碳资源。

So if I think of Nevada in the next two years, our last two coal units are. Well, actually, in the next year, our last two coal units will retire, but we are replacing them with a new gas unit, which is truly needed to make sure that system remains reliable and available to, to our customers. And that’s done in conjunction with our, with the state representatives and our regulatory agencies to make sure we can serve those customers every day and every minute. We have great examples in Iowa where at times, 100% of our energy comes from wind. And we’re thrilled with that. And I believe we hit that, for example, on earth day. We had enough wind that we could meet the demand of that state. But the next day, if the wind’s not blowing, we need our gas resources, our gas plants, to fill that gap. And really, that’s the situation we still have in Nevada. So we’ll continue the transition to renewable resources, be it solar in Nevada. And wind and other areas combined with batteries. But for the foreseeable future, we do see gas being a very important resource to help maintain reliability and meet our customer needs. And to meet it in an affordable way is also an important piece of that. So thank you for your comments.

所以如果我想到内华达州在接下来的两年，我们最后两台煤电机组将会退役。实际上，在明年，我们最后两台煤电机组将退役，但我们将用一台新的天然气机组来替代它们，这确实是必要的，以确保系统保持可靠并可供我们的客户使用。这是与我们的州代表和监管机构共同完成的，以确保我们能够每天、每分钟为这些客户服务。我们在爱荷华州有很好的例子，有时我们 100%的能源来自风能。我们对此感到非常兴奋。我相信我们在地球日那天达到了这一点。那天的风力足以满足该州的需求。但第二天，如果风不吹，我们需要我们的天然气资源，我们的天然气电厂来填补这个空缺。实际上，这就是我们在内华达州仍然面临的情况。因此，我们将继续向可再生资源过渡，无论是在内华达州的太阳能，还是在其他地区的风能和电池结合。但在可预见的未来，我们确实认为天然气是一个非常重要的资源，有助于维持可靠性并满足客户需求。而以可负担的方式满足这些需求也是一个重要的部分。所以感谢你的评论。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, we’ve got the capital to do whatever makes the most sense in a place like Nevada and the Nevada, I don’t know. Each state calls their ruling commission something different, but they probably call it the public service commission or something like that. And they’re making the decision as to what they think can and should be done in terms of getting from where a vastly complicated utility business moves towards something different without messing things up in the meantime and having the lights go off. And they, I think they would probably agree with you very much, Maria, that they what they where they want to get, but they can’t do it tomorrow because of the intermittent problems. And their job is to make sure the lights stay on. And their job is also to move toward better sources. But solar will never be the only source of electricity because, well, Greg may know more about this, but barring some real breakthroughs in storage and that sort of thing. Right?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们有资本去做在内华达州最有意义的事情，而内华达州，我不知道。每个州对他们的监管委员会有不同的称呼，但他们可能称之为公共服务委员会或类似的东西。他们正在决定他们认为可以和应该在从一个极其复杂的公用事业业务转向不同的东西时所能做的事情，而在此过程中不搞砸事情，确保灯光不熄灭。我认为他们可能会非常同意你的看法，玛丽亚，他们知道他们想要达到的目标，但由于间歇性的问题，他们无法在明天实现。而他们的工作是确保灯光保持亮着。他们的工作也是朝着更好的能源来源迈进。但太阳能永远不会是唯一的电力来源，因为，嗯，格雷格可能对此了解更多，但除非在储存和那类事情上有一些真正的突破，对吧？

Greg Abel: Yeah. Yeah. Generally a battery right now to do it in an economical way is a four hour battery. And when you think of the time without the sun being available, that’s a challenge. Now there’s a lot of technology advancements and that’s stretching out and you throw dollars, a lot of things, you can accomplish things, but the reality is that there’s a careful balance of the reliability and also balancing, as it was noted, the

格雷格·阿贝尔：是的。是的。一般来说，现在以经济的方式做到这一点需要一个四小时的电池。当你考虑到没有阳光可用的时间时，这就是一个挑战。现在有很多技术进步，这在不断延伸，如果投入资金，很多事情都可以实现，但现实是，可靠性和之前提到的平衡之间需要谨慎的平衡。

rates do matter and how much customers are paying. So delicate balance of both delivering reliability but doing it in an affordable way.

费率确实很重要，客户支付的金额也很重要。因此，需要在提供可靠性的同时，以可承受的方式实现两者之间的微妙平衡。

Warren Buffett: My friend Bill Gates, he’s working on shortening up that, lengthening the time the battery works on. And so you got some very smart people working on it, but it isn’t something that you actually do overnight. And I can understand why people want it done overnight, but it is going to take a lot of money. It’s going to take a lot of good ideas and smart people like Bill and Greg, not me. I don’t understand why the damn lights go on when I even turn the switch, but those, those fellas really do. And there’s plenty of them working on it and we got plenty of money to implement it. But there are certain things that just take a certain amount of time. My daughter hates it when I use this example, but it’s really true that you can’t create a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. I mean, you may want a baby, so there are certain laws of nature that you have to work with. Okay, Becky.

沃伦·巴菲特：我的朋友比尔·盖茨，他正在努力延长电池的工作时间。所以你有一些非常聪明的人正在研究这个问题，但这并不是你一夜之间就能完成的事情。我能理解为什么人们希望它能一夜之间完成，但这将需要很多钱。这将需要很多好主意和像比尔和格雷格这样的聪明人，不是我。我不明白为什么我一打开开关灯就会亮，但那些家伙真的懂。有很多人正在研究这个问题，我们也有足够的资金来实施它。但有些事情就是需要一定的时间。我女儿不喜欢我举这个例子，但这是真的，你不能通过让九个女人同时怀孕，并在一个月内生出一个婴儿。我的意思是，你可能想要一个婴儿，所以有些自然法则你必须遵守。好的，贝基。

Becky Quick: this question comes from Rich. McCloskey in Dunedin, Florida. He says, Warren and Ajit, would you let us know what you think about the car and property insurance situation in Florida as a resident? Both seem out of control since the Florida market seems to be so mismanaged. Is this an opportunity for Berkshire?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自佛罗里达州邓尼丁的里奇·麦克洛斯基。他说，沃伦和阿吉特，作为居民，您能告诉我们您对佛罗里达州汽车和财产保险情况的看法吗？这两者似乎都失控了，因为佛罗里达市场似乎管理不善。这是伯克希尔的机会吗？

Ajit Jain: Yeah. The Florida market, both for auto insurance and for homeowners insurance, has had a few tough years. The two problems we face in Florida and all the risk bearers face in Florida, one is the lawyers and the amount of corruption that takes place in the Florida market keeps skyrocketing, making it difficult for us to price the product and make a profit. And secondly, the amount of activity in terms of storms, both the

Ajit Jain: 是的。佛罗里达市场，无论是汽车保险还是房主保险，经历了几年的艰难时期。我们在佛罗里达面临的两个问题，以及所有风险承担者在佛罗里达面临的问题，一个是律师和佛罗里达市场上不断上升的欺诈现象，这使我们很难为产品定价并获得利润。其次，风暴活动的数量，既包括

frequency and the severity, is also so severe that the losses in Florida tend to make it very difficult for a risk bearer to make money. Having said that, we fortunately had a very good run at Florida last year. We increased our exposure in Florida as we talked about last year, and fortunately nothing bad happened. So a lot of our premiums that were in the top line flew straight to the bottom line. Florida is a large market. Florida is the market that’s subsidized by the rest of the country. I don’t think those that’s going to stand the test of time.

频率和严重性也是如此严重，以至于佛罗里达的损失往往使得风险承担者很难赚钱。话虽如此，我们去年在佛罗里达非常幸运。我们增加了在佛罗里达的敞口，正如我们去年所讨论的，幸运的是，没有发生任何坏事。因此，我们的许多保费直接从收入线飞到了利润线。佛罗里达是一个大市场。佛罗里达是得到全国其他地区补贴的市场。我不认为这种情况能够经受住时间的考验。

The Florida market, the legislators are trying to improve it. They have passed law that is bringing down the amount of fraud that takes place in Florida. And I hope Florida will be a fairly buoyant insurance market because at the end of the day, they do believe in the free market more than some of the other states that have an insurance crisis, like California and New York. So, yes, Florida has a problem. Prices will go up fairly substantially, but at the end of the day, I think we’ll achieve a degree of balance so that the risk bearers can make a decent profit and will be deploying capital out there.

佛罗里达市场，立法者们正在努力改善它。他们通过了一项法律，减少了佛罗里达州发生的欺诈行为。我希望佛罗里达能成为一个相对活跃的保险市场，因为归根结底，他们比一些面临保险危机的州（如加利福尼亚和纽约）更相信自由市场。因此，是的，佛罗里达确实存在问题。价格将会大幅上涨，但最终，我认为我们会实现一定程度的平衡，以便风险承担者能够获得合理的利润，并在市场上投入资本。

Warren Buffett: Okay. Station seven, please.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。请到第七站。

Questioner: Hi, Warren. My name is Christine Hone Garcia and I’m from Agora Hills, California. Thank you for being an excellent teacher and imparting your wisdom to us throughout the years. What advice would you like to share today that you believe everyone needs to hear?

提问者：嗨，沃伦。我叫克里斯汀·霍恩·加西亚，来自加利福尼亚州的阿戈拉山。感谢您多年来作为一位优秀的老师，将您的智慧传授给我们。您今天想分享什么建议，您认为每个人都需要听到的？

Warren Buffett: Well, too bad you added that, what the rest of us would like to hear. I would say that if I had one piece of advice, I would try to. Well, and you’re lucky to live in this country just to start with, because you’ve got opportunities here that wouldn’t exist in much of the world. But I would like, I would like to really sort of use Charlie’s advice of thinking how you like your obituary to read, and then start selecting the educational pass, the social pass, whatever, that your particular situation in terms of associating, and perhaps certainly in my day, it would have been marrying the person that would best help you do that. Well, Charlie would say you were offering some similar benefit to the partner. But the opportunity in this country is basically limitless. When you think of going back not that many centuries, if you were going to be a shepherd or something like that, 100 years from now, your grandson or granddaughter, was going to be a shepherd, nothing really happened. And what has happened in the last 200 years with the combination of the industrial revolution, whether it’s science or education or health, you name it. We are so lucky to be born when we were, the people in this room, and many of us were lucky enough to be born in the United States as well. You’re entering the best world that’s ever existed, and you want to find the people to share it with and the activities to participate in that fit you. And if you get lucky, like Charlie and I did, you find things that interest you young.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，太可惜了，你加了那句，其他人想听的。我会说，如果我有一个建议，我会尝试。嗯，你很幸运能生活在这个国家，首先，因为你在这里有机会，这在世界上很多地方是不存在的。但我想，我真的想利用查理的建议，思考一下你希望自己的讣告如何写，然后开始选择教育路径、社交路径，等等，与你的特定情况相关的，或许在我那个时代，最好的选择是嫁给一个能帮助你做到这一点的人。嗯，查理会说你也在为伴侣提供类似的好处。但在这个国家的机会基本上是无限的。当你想到回到不久前的几个世纪，如果你要成为一个牧羊人，或者类似的职业，100 年后，你的孙子或孙女也会成为牧羊人，实际上没有什么变化。而在过去 200 年里，随着工业革命的结合，无论是科学、教育还是健康，等等，发生了巨大的变化。我们很幸运在这个时候出生，这个房间里的每一个人，以及我们中的许多人也很幸运出生在美国。你们正进入有史以来最好的世界，你们想要找到可以分享这个世界的人，以及适合你们参与的活动。如果你们像查理和我一样幸运，你们会在年轻时找到让你们感兴趣的事物。

But if you don’t find them right away, you keep looking. And I always tell students to take the job. I mean, find the job that you would like to have if you didn’t need a job. And sometimes you can find that very early, and sometimes you go through various experiences, but don’t forget what you actually are trying to do, and there’s no place to do it like this country. Find the person that you like to share your life with in many cases. And, you know, sometimes you get lucky into that early, and sometimes you make mistakes. But I would try to, in a very, very general way, I would try to figure out how you’d want to look back on your life and think about yourself and start today to go on the path that leads to that goal and expect some difficulties along the way. But if you’re thinking that way, you’re more likely to get there. Becky.

但如果你没有立即找到它们，你会继续寻找。我总是告诉学生们去工作。我的意思是，找到那份即使你不需要工作也会喜欢的工作。有时你可以很早就找到它，有时你会经历各种经历，但不要忘记你实际上试图做的事情，而且没有哪个地方比这个国家更适合做这件事了。找到那个你喜欢与之共度一生的人。你知道，有时你很早就很幸运地遇到了，有时你会犯错误。但我会尽量以一种非常非常普遍的方式，我会试图弄清楚你希望你的生活回顾起来是什么样子，想想你自己，并从今天开始就走上通往那个目标的道路，并预计沿途会有一些困难。但如果你这样想，你更有可能到达那里。贝基。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Axel Mayerseek in Hamburg, Germany. What has changed for Berkshire’s operating CEO’s since Greg Abel and Ajit Jain became vice chairman, for example? Can and do the operating CEOs still reach out to Warren Buffett directly?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自德国汉堡的阿克塞尔·梅耶希克。自从格雷格·阿贝尔和阿吉特·贾因成为副董事长以来，伯克希尔的运营首席执行官发生了什么变化？运营首席执行官是否仍然可以直接联系沃伦·巴菲特？

Warren Buffett: The answer might surprise you, but they overwhelmingly, the operating executives, well, they prefer to talk to Greg or to Ajit. And that’s understandable because I don’t really do much and I don’t operate at the same level of efficiency than I would have 30 years ago or 40 years ago. I don’t know the managers as well

沃伦·巴菲特：这个答案可能会让你感到惊讶，但他们绝大多数，运营高管，嗯，他们更喜欢和格雷格或阿吉特交谈。这是可以理解的，因为我实际上做得不多，而且我的效率水平与 30 年前或 40 年前相比并没有那么高。我对管理者的了解也没有那么深入。

as I would have when we were smaller and when I could get more accomplished in a day than I can now. And you’ve got. When you’ve got somebody like Greg in Ajit, why settle for me, basically? So it’s worked out extremely well. And I almost can’t imagine anything working better because Greg in a year accomplishes. I mean, he sees more of them, understands more about their problems, you know, can give them suggestions. He’s got incredible amounts of energy and nobody has more wisdom than Ajit about insurance. And they’ve got access in insurance to him now. They had it before we stuck some of those titles on in insurance.

正如我在我们规模较小、一天内能完成的工作比现在多时所拥有的那样。当你有像格雷格和阿吉特这样的人时，为什么还要满足于我呢？所以这非常成功。我几乎无法想象有什么能比这更好，因为格雷格一年内所完成的……我的意思是，他看到了更多，更了解他们的问题，可以给他们建议。他有着惊人的精力，没有人比阿吉特对保险更有智慧。他们现在在保险方面可以接触到他。在我们给他加上一些头衔之前，他们就已经可以接触到他了。

Whereas with Greg, he much expanded things when he became the vice chairman in charge of really everything except insurance. If you polled our managers that fall under his jurisdiction, which would be a lot of them, they would much prefer, unless like a few, they weren’t paying as much attention to their business and I wouldn’t do anything about it, but Greg would. And they still like it when he does it. He can deliver news very well to people. There will be some people. If you have. If you have 20 children and you’re very rich, you’ll have some that will be go getters anyway, and you’ll have some that won’t. And we are a very, very rich company and we don’t - we haven’t had a history of being very tough on people that coasted. And we’ve had some that would do that. And Greg will do something about it. And Charlie and I wouldn’t have. Not because we didn’t know it should be done, but because we were doing so well ourselves.

与格雷格相比，当他成为负责几乎所有事务的副主席时，他大大扩展了事情的范围，除了保险。如果你对在他管辖下的经理们进行调查，他们中的大多数会更喜欢，除非像少数几个人一样，他们对自己的业务没有那么关注，而我不会对此采取任何措施，但格雷格会。而且他们仍然喜欢他这样做。他能很好地向人们传达消息。会有一些人。如果你有 20 个孩子，而且你非常富有，你会有一些人是积极进取的，而有一些则不是。我们是一家非常非常富有的公司，我们没有 - 我们没有对那些混日子的人采取过于严厉的态度。我们中有一些人会这样做。而格雷格会对此采取措施。而查理和我不会。不是因为我们不知道应该这样做，而是因为我们自己做得很好。

We wouldn’t make the effort. We didn’t want to change our lives that way. Plus, we slowed down in various ways, ways physically and everything. So I would say that the number of calls I get from managers is essentially awfully close to zero. And Greg is handling those. I don’t know quite how he does it, but we’ve got the right person, I can tell you that. And with Ajit, he does less physical moving and the insurance people are more used to working with Ajit, obviously, over the years. So I wouldn’t say that changing the title really changes as much there because he was in charge of insurance anyway. You can go to a business school and they can give you way better answers than I’ve just given you, but that’s the way we do it at Berkshire.

我们不会费那个劲。我们不想以那种方式改变我们的生活。此外，我们在各个方面都放慢了速度，身体上也是如此。所以我可以说，我接到的经理电话的数量基本上接近于零。而格雷格在处理这些。我不知道他是怎么做到的，但我可以告诉你，我们找对人了。至于阿吉特，他的身体活动少了，保险公司的人显然在这些年里更习惯与阿吉特合作。所以我不会说更改头衔真的会改变太多，因为他本来就负责保险。你可以去商学院，他们能给你比我刚才说的更好的答案，但这就是我们在伯克希尔的做法。

Ajit Jain: Yeah. If I can add a comment. From my perspective, the transition has worked out very, very well, but I think the credit really goes to how Warren has handled the situation. And what I mean by that is, after the transition was announced, and a lot of the operating managers used to be. They were used to calling Warren directly on some issue or the other. After the transition, when they would continue to do so, Warren would very skillfully, in his manner, handle them such that he would not answer what they were looking for, but at the same time made them feel good and told them that he sort of enjoyed hearing from them and talking to them. So as a result of which, you know, the transition took place, people got the message. They got the message and were very responsive to it. And it’s a non issue as far as today is concerned.

Ajit Jain：是的。如果我可以补充一下。从我的角度来看，这次过渡非常成功，但我认为真正的功劳在于沃伦如何处理这种情况。我的意思是，在过渡宣布之后，许多运营经理习惯于直接向沃伦咨询某些问题。在过渡之后，当他们继续这样做时，沃伦以他独特的方式非常巧妙地处理他们，使得他不会回答他们所寻求的内容，但同时让他们感到愉快，并告诉他们他很享受与他们的交流。因此，过渡顺利进行，人们明白了这个信息。他们明白了这个信息，并对此反应积极。就今天而言，这已经不是一个问题。

Greg Abel: I would probably add. Yeah, the only thing I would add is we do have an exceptional set of managers across both the non insurance and insurance. And, yes, Warren made it incredibly easy, but so did they. It was a very easy transition because they cared deeply about Berkshire, they cared deeply about the culture, and they very much wanted it to be a success. And we’re fortunate to have those managers in insurance and non insurance.

格雷格·阿贝尔：我可能会补充一点。是的，我唯一想补充的是，我们在非保险和保险领域都有一批杰出的管理者。而且，沃伦确实让这一切变得非常简单，但他们也是如此。这是一个非常顺利的过渡，因为他们对伯克希尔非常关心，他们对文化非常关心，他们非常希望这能取得成功。我们很幸运能拥有这些保险和非保险领域的管理者。

Warren Buffett: Thank you. Yeah. What Greg is talking about is they really wanted more direction in some cases than I gave them. You know, I mean, I just sat there reading the Wall Street Journal or whatever, and Greg is. You know, one way or another, there are more than 24 hours in his day, and I just don’t know how he covers the ground. He does, but he knows more about the people. We got the same feeling in terms of judging the attractiveness of businesses and making capital decisions and that sort of thing. He’s willing to work. I mean, I, you know, I, you know, and I couldn’t get as much done anyway. You know, what I could do in a couple of hours, you know, may take 8 hours now. I just don’t read as fast and everything. But it’s working very well. And this place, if anything happened to me, it would be working extremely well the next day. I don’t get any phone calls. You can actually. We can. We can rig something up so we got some answering machine that

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。是的，格雷格所说的是，他们在某些情况下确实希望得到比我给的更多的指导。你知道，我只是坐在那里看《华尔街日报》或其他东西，而格雷格是。你知道，无论如何，他的日子里有超过 24 小时，我就是不知道他是怎么覆盖这些工作的。他确实做到了，但他对人们的了解更多。我们在判断商业吸引力和做出资本决策等方面有相同的感觉。他愿意工作。我是说，我，你知道，我，我也无法完成那么多工作。你知道，我在几个小时内能做的事情，现在可能需要 8 个小时。我就是读得不够快，其他方面也是。但这运作得非常好。如果我发生了什么，这个地方第二天会运作得极其顺利。我没有接到任何电话。你实际上可以。我们可以。我们可以搞一些东西，所以我们有一些答录机。

people think I’m still around, you know, or something. So, anyway, that’s. That’s much, much less than you’d learn in business school, but that’s the way we do it at Berkshire. Okay. Station eight.

人们认为我还在，知道吗，或者其他什么。所以，不管怎样，那就是。这远远少于你在商学院学到的，但这就是我们在伯克希尔的做法。好的，第八站。

Questioner: Dear Warren, Greg and Ajit, thank you for having us. Your teachings have not only made us better investors, but more importantly, better people. Thank you for that. My name is Rajiv Agarwal, and I am from New Jersey. I run an India focused fund called Do Darshi India Fund. My question is related to India. Indian economy and Indian equities have done quite well in the last 5, 10, 20 years. It is the fifth largest economy and will be the third largest in the next few years. My question is, is Berkshire actively looking for opportunities in the Indian equity market and what will allow you to buy anything meaningful there? Thank you.

提问者：亲爱的沃伦、格雷格和阿吉特，感谢你们的接待。你们的教导不仅让我们成为了更好的投资者，更重要的是，让我们成为了更好的人。对此，我深表感谢。我叫拉吉夫·阿加瓦尔，来自新泽西。我经营一个名为 Do Darshi India Fund 的印度专注基金。我的问题与印度有关。印度经济和印度股票在过去的 5 年、10 年、20 年中表现相当不错。它是世界第五大经济体，并将在未来几年内成为第三大经济体。我的问题是，伯克希尔是否在积极寻找印度股市的机会，以及什么会让你们在那儿购买任何有意义的东西？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Yeah. Well, that’s a very good question. And obviously India, you know, I’m sure there are loads of opportunities in a place like India. And the question is, do we have any advantage in either insights into those businesses or contexts, it will make possible some transaction that might what the parties in India would particularly want us to participate. I would say that that’s something that a more energetic management at Berkshire could pursue, because we do have the reputation. Now, Berkshire is known, not like it’s known in the United States, but it’s known around the world. And, you know, our Japanese experience has been fascinating in that respect. So there may be an unexplored or unattended to opportunity in that area. I’m not the one to do it, but that may be something that in the future, it might be opportunities. There are opportunities.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。这是个很好的问题。显然，印度，你知道，我相信在像印度这样的地方有很多机会。问题是，我们是否在对这些业务的洞察或背景方面有任何优势，这将使某些交易成为可能，而这些交易可能是印度的各方特别希望我们参与的。我会说，这是伯克希尔更有活力的管理层可以追求的事情，因为我们确实有声誉。现在，伯克希尔的知名度虽然不像在美国那样，但在全球范围内是有名的。你知道，我们在日本的经历在这方面是非常有趣的。因此，在那个领域可能存在未被探索或未被关注的机会。我不是合适的人选，但这可能是未来的机会。确实有机会。

The question is, does Berkshire have some kind of advantage in actually pursuing those opportunities against, particularly against people that are using other people’s money, that where they get paid based on assets managed or something of this sort. I mean, there are plenty of people in the game who are buying and running businesses that do not really have our philosophy. I mean, they’re going to get rich no matter what happens, and their payment may be based on how much they buy rather than what they buy. So we’ll see how the next management plays the game out at Berkshire. Fortunately, you don’t have too long to wait on that. Generally, I feel fine, but I know a little bit about actuarial tables, and I just. Well, I would say this. I shouldn’t be taking on any four year employment contracts like several people doing in this world in an age where you can’t be quite that sure where you’re going to be in four years. Okay. But you’re absolutely right about, if you were energetic, had some way to become a buyer or a party that people particularly wanted to do business with. Japan was great, and India could be great, but India and Japan aren’t the same. I mean, I don’t adapt myself terribly well to different cultures, and some people are really good at it, and almost anybody’s better than I am. But I stumbled into one or two, but that could happen in act two of Berkshire Hathaway. Becky.

问题是，伯克希尔在追求这些机会时是否有某种优势，特别是相对于那些使用他人资金的人，他们的报酬是基于管理的资产或类似的东西。我是说，游戏中有很多人正在购买和经营与我们哲学不太相符的企业。我是说，无论发生什么，他们都会变得富有，他们的报酬可能是基于他们购买的数量，而不是他们购买的内容。所以我们将看看下一个管理层如何在伯克希尔进行游戏。幸运的是，你不需要等太久。一般来说，我感觉很好，但我对精算表有一点了解，我只是。好吧，我想说的是。在这个时代，你不能完全确定自己四年后会在哪里，我不应该签订任何四年的雇佣合同，就像这个世界上几个人所做的那样。好的。但是你绝对是对的，如果你精力充沛，有某种方式成为买家或人们特别想要合作的对象。日本很好，印度也可能很好，但印度和日本并不相同。我意思是，我对不同文化的适应能力不是很好，有些人对此非常擅长，几乎任何人都比我强。但我偶然遇到了一两个，但这可能发生在伯克希尔·哈撒韦的第二幕中。贝基。

Becky Quick: this is a question from Rafael DePino from Spain. Berkshire has grown tremendously thanks to, and among other things, its architect, Mr Munger, and you, its general contractor, were all tremendously thankful to you for taking us along the way. We are aware that both of you and many others have spent an enormous amount of time ensuring Berkshire’s culture provides a solid footing on which to grow the building. You also currently have a very talented bench of what we may label as subcontractors. Mr Abel, Mr Jain, Mr Combs, and Mr Weschler. However, for a long time, you’ve had the advantage that talented subcontractors have wanted to work with a once in a generation architect and general contractor.

贝基·奎克：这是来自西班牙的拉斐尔·德皮诺的问题。伯克希尔的增长得益于许多因素，其中包括其建筑师芒格先生，以及您作为总承包商，我们都非常感谢您一路带领我们。我们知道，您和许多其他人花费了大量时间，确保伯克希尔的文化为建筑的成长提供了坚实的基础。您目前还有一支非常有才华的团队，我们可以称之为分包商。阿贝尔先生、贾因先生、科姆斯先生和韦施勒先生。然而，长期以来，您一直拥有一个优势，那就是有才华的分包商希望与这位千载难逢的建筑师和总承包商合作。

How do you envision Berkshire will overcome the loss of said advantage when the contractor bench needs to be renewed again? And what are potential renovation works in this great building that may necessitate a new architect?

你如何设想伯克希尔将在承包商团队需要再次更新时克服上述优势的损失？在这座伟大的建筑中，可能需要新建筑师的潜在翻新工作有哪些？

Warren Buffett: Yeah, well, that’s a great question, which Charlie and I obviously talked a lot about over time. And of course, Berkshire, to the extent it remains the sort of entity that it is, will not need to attract people very often. It would be absolutely crazy for anybody, for our board of directors to ever pick anybody to run this business that thought, you should retire at 65. It may be that they should retire the next day when you learn what they’re really like managing something, or it may turn that you want to keep them around till they really

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这确实是个好问题，查理和我显然在这方面讨论了很多。当然，伯克希尔在保持其现有实体的情况下，不需要经常吸引人才。我们的董事会如果选择任何一个认为应该在 65 岁退休的人来管理这项业务，那简直是疯狂。也许他们应该在你了解他们真正管理能力的第二天就退休，或者可能你希望他们继续留任，直到他们真正……

start being affected by old age. Which hits different people at different times, but it hits everybody eventually. It’s very likely if the directors, and it’s very tough, because they will be acting against conventional wisdom, which is always difficult. But I think we’ve got the group on that, and they will not have to make a decision very often. If they pick the right CEO, that’s 99% of the job of the directors. And if they. The other 1% is, do you have a good method to correct it if you’ve made a wrong decision? And that’s extremely hard to do in our present system. It’s not impossible, but it’s just not something that happens. It’s too good a job to be a director, to try and throw over somebody, particularly if you can use the money from directorships and you want to be on other boards and everything. We do not have a perfect system in terms of boards or directors at all. And it’s. It doesn’t operate at all, well, I shouldn’t say at all, but it doesn’t operate as people may think. It generally operates. We’ve really got the problem solved for the next 20 years unless something untoward happens. And if something untoward happens, then. Then the directors need to find, probably within our own organization, somebody that they’ve got confidence in to maintain the special advantages we have over another 20 years period.

开始受到衰老的影响。这对不同的人在不同的时间产生影响，但最终每个人都会受到影响。如果董事们这样做，很可能会很艰难，因为他们将与传统智慧作对，这总是很困难。但我认为我们在这方面有了团队，他们不需要经常做出决定。如果他们选择了合适的首席执行官，那就是董事们 99%的工作。如果他们。剩下的 1%是，如果你做出了错误的决定，你是否有好的方法来纠正它？在我们目前的系统中，这非常难以做到。这并不是不可能，但这并不是经常发生的事情。作为董事的工作太好了，尤其是如果你可以利用董事职位的收入，并且你想要在其他董事会任职。我们在董事会或董事方面并没有一个完美的系统。并且。它根本没有像人们想象的那样运作。它通常运作良好。我们已经为接下来的 20 年解决了这个问题，除非发生意外。如果发生意外，那么。然后，董事们需要在我们自己的组织内找到一个他们信任的人，以维持我们在未来 20 年内所拥有的特殊优势。

There’s various things that are low probabilities, but you still have to think about them, and we are in that position now. Now, if you asked me whether, if something happened to Greg today, everybody says, don’t travel on the same plane. The thing to do is not travel in the same auto. Planes don’t go down that often. Autos crash all the time. I’ve seen all these corporate policies on that, which are kind of crazy when you think about the real risk. But in any event, Greg is going to have to tell the directors about what if something happened tomorrow. He has to tell the directors about what should be done if anything happens to him. And that’s not an easy thing to do, and I don’t have - well, it will be his decision, and then the director’s really to decide whether he’s made the right one, but he will make the right one.

有各种低概率的事情，但你仍然需要考虑它们，而我们现在正处于这种情况。如果你问我，如果今天发生了什么事对格雷格，大家都会说，不要坐同一架飞机。正确的做法是不坐同一辆车。飞机出事的频率并不高，汽车却经常发生事故。我见过所有这些企业政策，想想真正的风险，这些政策有点疯狂。但无论如何，格雷格必须告诉董事们，如果明天发生了什么该怎么办。他必须告诉董事们，如果他发生了什么事情应该怎么做。这并不是一件容易的事，我没有——好吧，这将是他的决定，然后董事们真正决定他是否做出了正确的决定，但他会做出正确的决定。

And what you really have to hope is that you get lucky on how long managers stick around. I mean, you might need three in the century, and you might need six or seven, but the answer is you need a little luck, and you need some break in the mortality tables. But we’ve got an entity that if you really aspire to be a certain kind of manager, of a really large entity, there’s nothing like it in the world. So we’ve got something to offer the person who we want to have. It’s sort of like Charlie said about marrying the best person that will have you. Well, we’ve got something that the right person would want to marry, basically, in terms of Berkshire. And if we get the wrong person, then the directors have to do something about it, and that probably won’t happen. But it’s always a contingency, a possibility, I should say. Greg, having been put on the spot like that, you don’t have to name anybody now, but I’m sure the crowd would love it and make news.

你真正需要希望的是，管理者在职的时间能幸运一些。我的意思是，你可能在一个世纪里需要三位，也可能需要六七位，但答案是你需要一点运气，还需要一些在死亡表上的突破。但是我们有一个实体，如果你真的渴望成为某种类型的大型实体的管理者，世界上没有什么能比得上它。因此，我们有一些东西可以提供给我们想要的人。这有点像查理所说的，嫁给愿意接受你的最好的人。好吧，从伯克希尔的角度来看，我们有一些东西是合适的人想要嫁的。如果我们得到错误的人，那么董事会就得采取措施，而这可能不会发生。但这始终是一个应急情况，我应该这么说。格雷格，被这样当场提问，你现在不必提到任何人，但我相信观众会喜欢这个，并且会成为新闻。

Greg Abel: Well, the only thing I would add, Warren, is, and it’s really how the comment started, was around culture. The culture we have at Berkshire and that being our shareholders, being our partners and our managers of our business, having that ownership mentality, that’s never going to change and that will attract the right managers at every level. So I think, as Warren said, we have a very special company in Berkshire, but it’s that culture that makes it special, and that’s not going to change.

格雷格·阿贝尔：好吧，我唯一想补充的是，沃伦，这实际上是评论开始时提到的，关于文化。我们在伯克希尔的文化，以及我们的股东、合作伙伴和业务管理者，拥有那种所有权心态，这永远不会改变，这将吸引各个层级的合适管理者。因此，我认为，正如沃伦所说，我们在伯克希尔拥有一家非常特别的公司，但正是这种文化使其特别，而这不会改变。

Warren Buffet: Okay, station nine. I’m never sure where nine is.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第九站。我总是不确定第九站在哪里。

Questioner: Hi, I’m Sherman Lam, a Berkshire shareholder, and I work for family office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Just really happy to see you, Warren and the team. And where I come from, you’re a hero. And both you and Charlie have positively transformed mine and many, many other Malaysians and Southeast Asians lives, not only financially, but also in how we navigate our lives and relationships. Thank you very, very, very much.

提问者：嗨，我是 Sherman Lam，一名伯克希尔股东，我在马来西亚吉隆坡的一家家族办公室工作。很高兴见到你，沃伦和团队。在我所在的地方，你是个英雄。你和查理不仅在财务上改变了我和许多其他马来西亚人以及东南亚人的生活，还改变了我们如何处理生活和人际关系。非常非常感谢你。

Warren Buffett: Thank you. Thank you. That makes us feel good.

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。谢谢你。这让我们感到很好。

Questioner: Question is, what have your team’s greatest learnings been on business, capital allocation, stock picking and portfolio allocation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period over the last five years? And, Warren, appreciate it if you can get your views, as well as your representations on Ted and Todd, as well as directly from Greg and Ajit, too, on their respective businesses.

提问者：问题是，在过去五年中，您的团队在商业、资本配置、选股和投资组合配置方面在 COVID-19 大流行期间最大的收获是什么？沃伦，如果您能分享您的看法，以及您对 Ted 和 Todd 的看法，还有 Greg 和 Ajit 各自业务的直接看法，我们将不胜感激。

Warren Buffett: Thank you. Yeah, I don’t think I want to give individual appraisals, but really what you’re doing is in terms of capital allocation, which is my job, I don’t go out and sell insurance policies or anything of the sort. And you represent a group of shareholders like we do represent. We are totally clear on our mission. And, you know, it may be that other people don’t agree with them, but I would say that in a great many places, you know, I just don’t agree with their mission. I would say that, for example, that anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire. They might get retired the next day if they were the wrong person. But there’s just certain things we don’t want, and we’re well fixed now. And that the odds are very good, but far from certainty that that takes care of the next 20 years. But you have to provide for the contingency. And there are several people on the board that know what I would do on that, but it’s up to Greg. But if Greg and I go at the same time, then you’ll move into making another decision.

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。是的，我不想给出个人评估，但你所做的实际上是在资本配置方面，这是我的工作，我不会出去卖保险单或做类似的事情。你代表一群股东，就像我们代表的一样。我们对自己的使命非常清楚。而且，也许其他人不同意他们的看法，但我会说，在很多地方，你知道，我只是不同意他们的使命。我会说，例如，任何想在 65 岁退休的人都不符合成为伯克希尔首席执行官的资格。如果他们是错误的人，可能第二天就会被退休。但有些事情是我们不想要的，而我们现在的状况很好。虽然未来 20 年的情况非常好，但远非确定。但你必须为意外情况做好准备。董事会中有几个人知道我会怎么做，但这取决于格雷格。如果格雷格和我同时离开，那么你们就会做出另一个决定。

There are a few people who know my thoughts on that, but the job of the director is then to come up with the right CEO, and the right CEO can’t make a terrible business great. Tom Murphy, who was the best, he was the best business manager I’ve ever known. And Tom Murphy, you know, he said the real key was buying the right business. And now Murph brought a million other attributes to it after that. But, you know, Charlie said, what was this? He had a saying on that.

有几个人知道我对此的想法，但董事的工作就是找到合适的首席执行官，而合适的首席执行官无法将糟糕的企业变得伟大。汤姆·墨菲是最优秀的，他是我所认识的最优秀的职业经理。汤姆·墨菲，你知道，他说真正的关键是买对业务。之后，墨菲带来了其他一百万个特质。但，你知道，查理说，这是什么？他对此有一句话。

But basically, we could have brought in Tom Murphy and told him his job was to run the textile business, and it would have done a little bit better, but it still would have failed. And one of the reasons I stuck with the textile business as long as I did was that I liked Ken Chase so much, and I thought he was a terrific guy, and he was a very good manager. If he’d been a jerk, you know, we’d have quit the textile business much faster, and we’d have been better off.

但基本上，我们可以引入汤姆·墨菲，告诉他他的工作是管理纺织业务，这样可能会稍微好一些，但仍然会失败。我之所以在纺织业务上坚持了这么久，是因为我非常喜欢肯·蔡斯，我认为他是个了不起的人，而且他是一位非常好的经理。如果他是个混蛋，你知道的，我们会更快地退出纺织业务，那样我们会更好。

So the answer was for him to get in the TV business, like Murph had done and had supported. You know, Murph figured that out early, and he started with a pathetic operation, which was a VHF in Albany, New York, competing against GE and everything. And he was operating out of a home for retired nuns, and he only painted the side that faced the street. He had one car dashing around town, and he called it news truck number six. But from that, he built an incredible company, and he built it because he was the best manager I’ve ever met. But beyond that, he was in a good business. And the key will be to find another Tom Murphy and then hand them a bunch of good businesses, and he or she will know what to do with it.

所以他的答案是让他进入电视业务，就像墨菲所做的并支持的那样。你知道，墨菲很早就想通了这一点，他是从一个可怜的运营开始的，那是在纽约奥尔巴尼的一个VHF，与通用电气等竞争。他在一个退休修女的家中运营，他只粉刷了面向街道的那一面。他有一辆车在城里四处奔波，他称之为新闻卡车第六号。但正是从那时起，他建立了一个令人难以置信的公司，他之所以能建立起来，是因为他是我见过的最好的经理。但除此之外，他所处的是一个好行业。关键是找到另一个汤姆·墨菲，然后交给他们一堆好业务，他或她将知道如何处理。

Now, that’s not as precise as you would get in most companies, but you really can’t get more precise than that. I mean, you can have committees and management consultants and everybody. But it wasn’t a management consultant that hired Tom Murphy. And I forget whether he was doing. His sales volume was a couple thousand a week at first. And then as soon as he hit, that was his goal. It got to 2000, he says. Now my goal is 3000. He kept doing that, surpassed all these people, like CBS and ABC, that only had the world by the tail. And it was just a wonderful lesson in life to get. Just to be able to view something like that. I learned an awful lot from what he said to me, but I just learned by watching somebody like him operate. I mean, it’s like watching a great golfer, a great tennis player, then you ought to learn something about the kind of swing you’re trying to develop or something of sort. So that’s not a great answer for you. But so far, it’s worked, and I think it works.

现在，这并不像大多数公司那样精确，但你真的无法比这更精确。我是说，你可以有委员会和管理顾问以及所有人。但雇用汤姆·墨菲的并不是管理顾问。我忘了他当时在做什么。他的销售额最初每周只有几千。然后一旦他达到了，那是他的目标。他说达到了 2000，现在我的目标是 3000。他一直这样做，超越了所有这些人，比如 CBS 和 ABC，他们只是掌控了世界。这真是人生中一个美妙的教训。能够看到这样的事情。我从他对我说的话中学到了很多，但我只是通过观察像他这样的人运作来学习。我是说，这就像看一个伟大的高尔夫球手，一个伟大的网球运动员，然后你应该学到一些关于你想要发展的挥杆技巧或类似的东西。所以这对你来说不是一个很好的答案。但到目前为止，这有效，我认为它有效。

I’m very sure it works with Greg, and it’s up to people in the future when, you know, I’m underground or wherever they put me, to really make a decision every 20 years or something like that. On average, it’s the right decision, but correct it if it turns out to be the wrong decision. That’s what a board of directors is for. And

我很确定这对格雷格有效，未来的人们在我去世后，或者他们把我放在任何地方时，真的要每 20 年左右做一次决定。平均来说，这是正确的决定，但如果结果证明是错误的决定，就纠正它。这就是董事会的作用。

we’ve got the people on the board that really understand that responsibility. They take it seriously, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and so therefore, they don’t necessarily wanna do a lot of things just to look busy. And they aren’t using us as a stepping stone to get on other boards, but we’ve got people that really believe in what we’re doing, and they’re the ones that are going to have to make this place work. And if they got lucky on Greg’s mortality, they can do just what everyone else did and go to sleep for 20 years or so and then make another decision. And Berkshire has every tool in the world available to be what it is now and continue to be what it is now.

我们董事会上的人真正理解这种责任。他们认真对待，但又不把自己看得太重，因此，他们不一定想做很多事情只是为了看起来忙碌。他们也不是把我们当作跳板去加入其他董事会，而是我们有真正相信我们所做事情的人，他们是让这个地方运作的人。如果他们在格雷格的生死问题上走运，他们可以像其他人一样，睡 20 年左右，然后再做另一个决定。伯克希尔拥有世界上所有的工具，可以成为现在的样子，并继续保持现在的样子。

I mean, we’ve gotten from 20 million of net worth to 570 billion. And, you know, we. There aren’t as many things to do, but we can do a few big things better than anybody else can do. And there will be occasional times when we’re the only one willing to act. And at those times, we want to be sure that the US government thinks we’re an asset to the situation and not a liability or a supplicant, as the banks were in say in 2008 and ‘9, they were all tarred with the same brush. But we want to be sure that the brush that determines our future is not tarred. And I think we’re in the. I don’t think anybody’s got a better position to do it than Berkshire. Becky?

我的意思是，我们的净资产从2000万美元增长到了5700亿美元。你知道，我们可以做的事情没有那么多，但我们能比其他人更好地做几件大事。而且偶尔会有我们愿意采取行动的时候。在那些时候，我们希望确保美国政府认为我们是这种情况的资产，而不是负债或请求者，就像银行在2008年和2009年那样，它们都被用同样的刷子涂抹。但我们希望决定我们未来的那把刷子没有被涂抹。我认为我们……我不认为有人比伯克希尔更有条件来做这件事。贝基？

Becky Quick: This question’s from Johan Halen, who writes, you’re sitting on $168 billion of cash, which he told us today is now more than $182 billion. His questions are, one, what is Buffett waiting for? And two, why not at least deploy some of it?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自约翰·哈伦，他写道，你们手上有 1680 亿美元的现金，他今天告诉我们现在已经超过 1820 亿美元。他的问题是，第一，巴菲特在等待什么？第二，为什么不至少部署一部分？

Warren Buffett: Well, I think that’s pretty easy to answer. I don’t think anybody sitting at this table has any idea of how to use it effectively. And therefore, we don’t use it. And we don’t use it now at 5.4%. But we wouldn’t use it if it was. If it was at 1%. Don’t tell the Federal Reserve that, but prefer it. We only swing at pitches we like. And if anybody tried to swing at every pitch, or felt that because they hadn’t swung at a pitch for the last two pitches, they ought to swing at the third one or something like that. There are times, and obviously. But I would say this, I would not like to be running 10 billion now. 10 million. I think we could. I think Charlie or I could earn high returns on, because I think there are just a few things that happen on a very, very small scale. But if we had 10 billion, I wouldn’t basically see many more opportunities than we found now. It’s true that something like Japan, we could have done, if the company had had a 30 or 40 billion, and we’d make. We’d have had great returns on equity. But if I saw one of those now, I’d do it for Berkshire. It isn’t like I’ve got a hunger strike or something like that going on. It’s just that things aren’t attractive, and there’s certain ways that can change, and we’ll see whether they do. Okay. Station ten.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为这很容易回答。我不认为坐在这张桌子的任何人都知道如何有效地使用它。因此，我们不使用它。即使现在利率是5.4%，我们也不使用它。但如果利率是1%，我们也不会使用它。不要告诉联邦储备委员会这一点，但我们更喜欢它。我们只会对我们喜欢的投球挥棒。如果有人试图对每个投球都挥棒，或者觉得因为他们在过去两个投球没有挥棒，他们应该在第三个投球挥棒或类似的事情。显然，有时候是这样。但我会说，我不想现在管理100亿美元。1000万美元。我认为我们可以。我认为查理或我可以赚取高回报，因为我认为只有少数几件事情发生在非常小的规模上。但如果我们有100亿美元，我不会比我们现在发现的更多的机会。确实，像日本这样的公司，如果公司有300亿或400亿美元，我们本可以做得很好，我们会在股本上获得很好的回报。但如果我现在看到这样的机会，我会为伯克希尔做。并不是我正在进行绝食抗议或类似的事情。只是事情没有吸引力，有些方式可以改变，我们将看看它们是否会改变。好的，第十站。

Questioner: Mr Buffett, this is an incredible meeting that you host every year. My name is Sean Cawley. I am a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Arizona and California. My mother, Cindy, my brother, and my two sisters all sell real estate with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services for many years. We love being a part of the Berkshire family, and along with the 70,000 other agents that sell real estate for the company. Mr Buffett, Home Services of America recently settled our class action lawsuit, regarding commissions, for $250 million last week. This dollar amount is about 100 million more than Keller Williams’ 166.5 million, more than Anywhere Real estate, which is Better Homes and Gardens and Coldwell Banker. As a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway home services in multiple markets, and a shareholder who’s been coming to this meeting for 15 straight years, that’s one of the reasons I got involved with real estate, is because of this meeting. What are your thoughts on buying and selling a home in light of this recent settlement? And maybe ask the note to Greg and Ajit, too. Would you consider a Berkshire agent when buying your next home?

提问者：巴菲特先生，您每年举办的这个会议真是令人难以置信。我叫肖恩·考利，是亚利桑那州和加利福尼亚州伯克希尔哈撒韦房地产服务的房地产经纪人。我的母亲辛迪，我的兄弟和两个姐妹都在伯克希尔哈撒韦房地产服务工作多年。我们喜欢成为伯克希尔大家庭的一部分，以及与其他 70,000 名为公司销售房地产的经纪人一起。巴菲特先生，美国房地产服务公司上周刚刚以 2.5 亿美元解决了我们的集体诉讼，涉及佣金。这一金额比凯勒·威廉姆斯的 1.665 亿美元多出约 1 亿美元，比 Anywhere 房地产（即美好家园与花园和冷温银行）还要多。作为在多个市场的伯克希尔哈撒韦房地产服务的房地产经纪人，以及连续 15 年来参加这个会议的股东，这也是我参与房地产的原因之一。您对最近的和解在买卖房屋方面有什么看法？也许可以问问格雷格和阿吉特。您在购买下一个家时会考虑伯克希尔的经纪人吗？

Warren Buffett: I don’t buy them that often, as some people have noted. I certainly would consider him but I say the probability of that happening is low. And I really appreciate the fact you’ve joined up with us, but I’m going to. In terms of the settlement, I mean, Greg kept me informed, but I turned it over 100% to him. So, Greg, you want to talk about it?

沃伦·巴菲特：正如一些人所指出的，我并不经常购买它们。我当然会考虑他，但我认为这种情况发生的概率很低。我非常感谢你加入我们，但我会。在和解方面，我是说，格雷格一直让我保持知情，但我完全交给了他。那么，格雷格，你想谈谈这个吗？

Greg Abel: Sure. So, thank you for you and your family for being an agent and working for our company, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. I think there’s a few questions in there. One, there’s no question the industry will go through some transitions because of that settlement. Ours and the every other major player in the industry settled. The National Association of Realtors settled for more than 400 million. So effectively everybody was swept up in that settlement, and it did set the grounds for both home services and for the industry to move forward. There’s a lot of changes that happen in, or are being proposed associated with that settlement. The one thing that I think you hopefully would absolutely agree with, the real estate agent, is still an important part of these transactions.

格雷格·阿贝尔：当然。感谢您和您的家人作为代理人，为我们的公司——伯克希尔哈撒韦房地产服务工作。我认为这里有几个问题。首先，毫无疑问，行业将因该和解而经历一些转变。我们和行业内的其他主要参与者都达成了和解。全国房地产经纪人协会的和解金额超过 4 亿。因此，实际上每个人都卷入了这次和解，这为房屋服务和行业的前进奠定了基础。与该和解相关的变化有很多正在发生或被提议。我希望您能完全同意的一件事是，房地产经纪人在这些交易中仍然是一个重要的部分。

It’s the one time in our lives where we make these massive investments, and having that counsel and guidance is critical. And that’s really what our business and those other businesses rely on. How the commission structures change and how it’s negotiated, which is really what the settlement was. It was no longer that a buyer would automatically pay a commission agent to the to the selling agent. That now has to be negotiated. That’ll impact things, but I think the realtors will continue to be a very important part of that. And I think home services and the industry will remain very relevant. And then the only thing I would share with our shareholders on a broader basis is that obligation resides with Home Services and can be met by Home Services. And that was an important condition because they were also pursuing Berkshire and Berkshire Hathaway Energy. And we said, you can pursue us separately, but that settlement will reside with Home Services and be an obligation of that. And they decided the ultimate settlement. And. We’ll go forward from there. So, Warren, any other comments?

这是我们生活中唯一一次进行如此大规模投资的时候，拥有那样的咨询和指导至关重要。这确实是我们的业务以及其他业务所依赖的。佣金结构如何变化以及它是如何协商的，这正是和解的内容。不再自动由买方支付佣金给卖方经纪人。现在这必须进行协商。这将影响事情，但我认为房地产经纪人将继续是一个非常重要的一部分。而且我认为家庭服务和整个行业将保持非常相关。然后我会在更广泛的范围内与我们的股东分享的是，义务由家庭服务承担，并且可以由家庭服务满足。这是一个重要条件，因为他们也在追究伯克希尔和伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司。我们说，你们可以分别追究我们，但和解将由家庭服务承担，并且是该部门的义务。他们决定了最终的和解。我们将从那里继续前进。那么，沃伦，还有其他评论吗？

Warren Buffett: Well, yeah, I’ve sold two houses in the last, well, the last 93 years, and I’ve bought one that I still have, but I obviously bought the other two, and I have not negotiated down the commission, even though the last one sold for 7 million or something like that. People do negotiate down commissions to some extent, but I can tell you, I’ve looked at the figures and I think the system has really worked out very well. When I got out of school, they had what they called FSBO for sale by owner and so I’ve been involved to some degree in watching the whole system operate, and I know what our average agent makes. I know how long they work on things sometimes that don’t materialize.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，是的，我在过去的 93 年里卖了两套房子，我买了一套现在还在，但我显然买了另外两套，我没有谈判佣金，尽管最后一套卖了 700 万左右。人们确实在某种程度上谈判佣金，但我可以告诉你，我看过这些数字，我认为这个系统运作得非常好。当我毕业时，他们有一种叫做 FSBO（业主自售）的方式，所以我在某种程度上参与了观察整个系统的运作，我知道我们平均代理人的收入。我知道他们有时在一些没有结果的事情上工作了多长时间。

I don’t think we’ll end up with a better system, but it’s up to Greg and the people at Home Services we work through here. But I like our agency group, and we’ve got a very large number of real estate agents, and I’ve encouraged the expansion we’ve done in the real estate brokerage business. It was just one or two operations when we bought Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and we really built up quite a company. And I think it’s a very fundamental business. You need help - 90% of the people need help in buying a home or selling one. And I’ve watched it operate all my life and been involved with lots of people who have been in the business. But there was a decision in court, and I told Greg to handle it, whatever seemed best to him.

我认为我们不会得到一个更好的系统，但这取决于格雷格和我们在这里合作的家庭服务团队。但我喜欢我们的代理团队，我们有非常多的房地产经纪人，我鼓励我们在房地产经纪业务上的扩展。当我们收购伯克希尔哈撒韦能源时，只有一两个业务，而我们真的建立了相当大的公司。我认为这是一个非常基础的业务。你需要帮助——90%的人在买房或卖房时需要帮助。我一生都在观察这个行业，并与许多从业人员有过接触。但法院做出了一个决定，我告诉格雷格处理这件事，随他认为最合适的方式。

And I’m quite. I’m perfectly happy with the way we’ve handled - I think I’m surprised at the decision, but we get surprised in decisions in the insurance business lots of times. I mean, just think of the various things we faced, and when 911 came along, we never thought something like that could happen, but it happened, and then we didn’t know what was one event or more events. If they closed down the New York Stock Exchange, a bunch of brokers. Well, all kinds of people lose their jobs or lose their income for a while. Is that one event or multiple events? There’s all kinds of things come up in business, and we just play the ball wherever we find it. And I was surprised by the decision. Was it in Missouri? Missouri, yes. Yeah. But we’ve gotten surprised by some other decisions, and we’ll keep doing sensible things as we move forward. Greg, do you want to.

我对此感到相当满意。我对我们处理事情的方式感到非常满意——我对这个决定感到惊讶，但在保险行业，我们经常会对决策感到惊讶。我的意思是，想想我们面临的各种情况，当 911 事件发生时，我们从未想过会发生这样的事情，但它发生了，然后我们不知道这是一个事件还是多个事件。如果他们关闭纽约证券交易所，一大堆经纪人。那么，各种各样的人会失去工作或暂时失去收入。这是一个事件还是多个事件？商业中会出现各种各样的事情，我们只需在发现的地方应对。我对这个决定感到惊讶。是在密苏里州吗？是的，密苏里州。是的。但我们也对其他一些决定感到惊讶，随着我们向前推进，我们会继续做明智的事情。格雷格，你想要吗？

Greg Abel: No, I think the only thing I would add back, maybe to how the model has changed. And he asked one. Yes, we’ll always, I can’t speak for Ajit, but we’ll always use Home Services agents. But it’s interesting. I have bought a home abroad. I lived over in the United Kingdom, in Newcastle, running our utility over there.

格雷格·阿贝尔：不，我认为我唯一想补充的可能是模型如何变化。他问了一个问题。是的，我们会一直使用家庭服务代理。我不能代表阿吉特，但我们会一直使用家庭服务代理。不过有趣的是，我在国外买过房子。我曾住在英国纽卡斯尔，负责我们那里的公用事业。

And it is a completely different experience to buy a home outside of the US. Our agents take great responsibility for the whole transaction. In the US, they put, as Warren said, time and capital at risk to ensure the transaction closes. And when you do close, they make sure what you bought, you actually what you thought you were purchasing, you end up with, and that’s not the way it is always around the world. And there are more affordable models, but it’s the old saying, you get what you pay for. So I think our real estate agents still provide incredible value within our business, and as Warren touched on it, it’ll survive. The form may be a little bit different, but there’s no question it’ll continue to thrive.

在美国以外购买房屋的体验完全不同。我们的代理人对整个交易承担很大的责任。在美国，他们像沃伦所说的那样，投入时间和资本以确保交易完成。当你完成交易时，他们会确保你所购买的确实是你所想要的，而这并不总是全球的情况。还有更实惠的模式，但老话说得好，你得到的就是你所支付的。因此，我认为我们的房地产代理人在我们的业务中仍然提供了巨大的价值，正如沃伦提到的，它会继续存在。形式可能会有所不同，但毫无疑问，它会继续蓬勃发展。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, we still will want to buy real estate brokerages at the right price, and I hope we’re bigger in the industry ten years from now and 20 years from now than we are currently. And I did sell a house for 7 million. I did not negotiate the 6% down, and I feel I got my money’s worth and then some. And I’m cheap by nature, so it isn’t that I’m careless about it. I just. I got my money’s worth. And so let’s move on to becky.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们仍然希望以合适的价格收购房地产经纪公司，我希望在未来十年和二十年内，我们在行业中的规模比现在更大。我确实以 700 万美元卖出了一套房子。我没有谈判 6%的佣金，我觉得我得到了物有所值，甚至更多。而我本性上是节俭的，所以并不是说我对此不在意。我只是。我得到了物有所值。那么我们继续谈谈贝基吧。

Becky Quick: This question’s for Warren and Ajit. It’s from Jeff Oyster. As a Berkshire and Tesla shareholder, I would like to hear your thoughts on the potential financial effects to GEICO, assuming Elon Musk delivers on his fully autonomous driving goal. On Tesla’s most recent earnings call, Elon said, if you’ve got, at scale, a statistically significant amount of data that shows conclusively that the autonomous car has, let’s say, half the accident rate of a human driven car, I think that’s difficult to ignore. Assuming Elon succeeds in reducing accidents by 50% versus human drivers, wouldn’t auto insurance rates fall to reflect the reduced underwriting risks, thereby adversely impacting GEICO’s revenues and float and perhaps margins, too?

贝基·奎克：这个问题是问沃伦和阿吉特的。来自杰夫·奥伊斯特。作为伯克希尔和特斯拉的股东，我想听听你们对假设埃隆·马斯克实现其完全自动驾驶目标后，GEICO 可能面临的财务影响的看法。在特斯拉最近的财报电话会议上，埃隆说，如果你有大量的、统计上显著的数据，明确显示自动驾驶汽车的事故率，比如说，只有人类驾驶汽车的一半，我认为这是很难忽视的。假设埃隆成功将事故率降低 50%与人类驾驶员相比，汽车保险费是否会下降以反映降低的承保风险，从而对 GEICO 的收入、浮存金甚至利润率产生不利影响？

Warren Buffett: Well, yeah. Well, let’s just take the extreme example. Let’s say there are only going to be three accidents in the United States next year for some crazy reason that anything that reduces accidents is going to reduce costs. But that’s been harder to do than people have done before. But obviously. But if it really happens, the figures will show it, and our data will show it, and the prices will come down. There have been a lot of people talk about doing that in the past.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，是的。好吧，我们就拿一个极端的例子来说。假设明年美国只会发生三起事故，出于某种疯狂的原因，任何减少事故的措施都会降低成本。但这比人们以前做的要难得多。但显然。如果真的发生了，数据会显示出来，我们的数据会显示出来，价格也会下降。过去有很多人谈论过这样做。

I mean, General Motors used to be very big in the insurance business, and when Uber first started, they used some firm, which now is, I think Ajit will confirm they’re close to bankruptcy now, aren’t they? Because of taking things on at the wrong prices. Is that true?

我意思是，通用汽车曾经在保险业务中非常庞大，而当优步刚开始时，他们使用了一家公司，我想阿吉特会确认他们现在快破产了，是吗？因为以错误的价格接手业务。这是真的吗？

Ajit: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Ajit: 是的。是的。是的。

Warren Buffett: Insurance always looks easier than it is, and it’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, you know, and then you find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on. But it’s a very tempting business when somebody hands you money and you hand them a little piece of paper. But really knowing whether you’re - I mean, if accidents get reduced 50%, it’s going to be good for society and it’s going to be bad for insurance companies’ volume. But, you know, but for society is what we’re looking for so far.

沃伦·巴菲特：保险看起来总是比实际容易，而且这非常有趣，因为你一开始就拿到了钱，你知道，然后你会发现自己是否做了愚蠢的事情。但当有人把钱给你，而你给他们一张小纸条时，这确实是一个非常诱人的生意。但真正知道你是否——我的意思是，如果事故减少 50%，这对社会是有好处的，但对保险公司的业务量来说则是坏事。但你知道，我们目前所追求的就是对社会的好处。

You might find it kind of interesting. I mean, the number of people killed per 100 million passenger miles driven. I think it actually, when I was young, it was like 15, but even post world war two, it only fell like seven or thereabouts and Ralph Nader probably has done more for the american consumer than just about anybody in history because that seven or six has now come down to under two. And I don’t think it would have come down that way without him. There have been some kind of fluke figures of what people did during the pandemic, which are quite interesting because they, they didn’t drive immediately, they didn’t drive as many miles, but they drove more dangerously, didn’t they? Is that right, Ajit?

你可能会觉得有点意思。我是说，每行驶一亿英里的乘客死亡人数。我记得我年轻的时候，这个数字大约是 15，但即使在二战后，这个数字也只下降了七左右，而拉尔夫·纳德可能为美国消费者做的事情比历史上任何人都要多，因为这个七或六现在已经降到了两以下。我认为如果没有他，这个数字不会下降到这个程度。在疫情期间，人们的驾驶行为出现了一些有趣的异常数据，因为他们没有立即开车，行驶的里程也没有那么多，但他们的驾驶方式却更危险，不是吗？对吗，Ajit？

Ajit Jain: Yeah. Yeah. So the point I want to make in terms of Tesla and the fact that they feel that because of their technology, the number of accidents do come down, and that is certainly provable. But I think what needs

Ajit Jain: 是的。是的。所以我想强调的是，特斯拉认为由于他们的技术，事故数量确实减少，这一点是可以证明的。但我认为需要

to be factored in as well is the repair cost of each one of these accidents has skyrocketed. So if you multiply the number of accidents times the cost of each accident, I’m not sure that total number has come down as much as Tesla would like us to believe. Tesla has been toying with the idea of writing insurance directly or indirectly. And so far it hasn’t really sort of been much of a success. Time will tell. But I think, you know, automation just shifts a lot of the expense from the operator to the equipment provider.

需要考虑的是，这些事故的修理成本已经飙升。因此，如果将事故数量乘以每次事故的成本，我不确定这个总数是否下降得如特斯拉所希望的那样。特斯拉一直在考虑直接或间接提供保险的想法。到目前为止，这并没有真正取得太大的成功。时间会证明一切。但我认为，自动化只是将许多费用从操作员转移到了设备提供商。

Warren Buffett: Okay, we’re getting close to noon when we’re going to break for lunch. I just want to tell everybody that I would appreciate it very much if they will get in their seats and be ready at 1:00 when we reconvene, because we will have another very short little movie and we’ll just have a little explanation of something that I think will be of interest, certainly of interest to me. So I would like to. We will break promptly at 12, and I would like everybody to really make an attempt to be in their seat and quiet at 1:00 and if you can’t do that, if you’ll wait a few minutes and watch in the halls and all that. But we do not want to be seating people and have people milling here at 1:00 and just like a play in New York or something. It’ll take a few minutes and only a few minutes to cover what. We’re going to it at 1:00 but we don’t want to be seating people during that period. But now let’s. We’ll go on till 12:00 and then we’ll have a break until 01:00 and we will go to station 11.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们快到中午了，准备休息吃午餐。我想告诉大家，如果他们能在 1:00 重新集合时就坐好并准备好，我将非常感激，因为我们将播放另一部非常短的小电影，并且我会简单解释一些我认为会引起兴趣的事情，当然对我来说是有趣的。所以我希望大家能在 12 点准时休息，我希望每个人都能努力在 1:00 时就坐并保持安静，如果你不能做到，那就等几分钟，在走廊里等一下。但我们不希望在 1:00 时让人们入座，或者让人们在这里闲逛，就像在纽约的戏剧一样。我们只需要几分钟来覆盖我们在 1:00 要做的事情，但我们不希望在那段时间内让人们入座。现在我们继续到 12:00，然后休息到 1:00，我们将前往 11 号站。

Questioner: My name is Humphrey Liu, and I am from Charlottesville, Virginia. I asked the question last year and wish to pose it again. It can be considered a follow up. There is something to be said for traditions.

提问者：我的名字是汉弗莱·刘，我来自弗吉尼亚州的夏洛茨维尔。我去年问过这个问题，想再次提出。这可以视为一个后续问题。传统是有其意义的。

It is the same question, but it is a changing and different world we are in. Looking at global trends, it increasingly does seem that zero emission vehicles may have finally reached the cusp of massive adoption. Do you see any opportunities in this space, either in specific vehicle manufacturers or in related technologies? As an addendum, I will note that Berkshire has very relevant interests in energy, pilot, flying J and BYD.

这是同样的问题，但我们所处的世界正在变化且不同。观察全球趋势，零排放车辆似乎终于达到了大规模采用的临界点。您在这个领域看到任何机会吗，无论是在特定的汽车制造商还是相关技术方面？作为补充，我要指出，伯克希尔在能源、飞行员、Flying J 和比亚迪方面有非常相关的利益。

Warren Buffett: Thank you. Yeah, well, we will. I hope you’re right. And massive adoption has been sort of a moving target so far, but I hope we get there. But Berkshire would not be, I don’t think that we bring any special talent to that field. You’ve got vehicle manufacturers, and I would certainly not know how to pick the winners in an industry like that. But I’ll be delighted if there are some winners. But don’t count on us foreseeing who the winners will be, and don’t count on us for predicting when something will happen. It obviously has been a moving target so far, and it is an incredible problem that society faces, and it may be that governments are not very good at solving it for a while.

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。是的，我们会的。我希望你是对的。大规模采用到目前为止一直是一个不断变化的目标，但我希望我们能达到。但我认为伯克希尔在这个领域不会带来任何特别的才能。你有汽车制造商，而我当然不知道如何在这样的行业中挑选赢家。如果有一些赢家，我会很高兴。但不要指望我们能预见谁会是赢家，也不要指望我们能预测某件事情何时会发生。显然，到目前为止这一直是一个不断变化的目标，这是社会面临的一个令人难以置信的问题，可能政府在一段时间内并不擅长解决这个问题。

All of climate change, it’s got a terrible problem just in the fact that the United States particularly has been the one that’s caused the problem the most. And then we’re asking poorer societies to say, well, you’ve got to change the way you live, because we live the way we did. But that really hasn’t been settled yet. It’s a fascinating problem to me, but I don’t have anything to add to how you really slice through the world.

气候变化的所有问题，特别是美国是造成问题最多的国家，这本身就是一个可怕的问题。然后我们要求较贫穷的社会说，好吧，你们必须改变生活方式，因为我们是这样生活的。但这实际上还没有得到解决。对我来说，这是一个引人入胜的问题，但我没有什么可以补充的，关于你如何真正切入这个世界。

When I was born in 1930, there were just essentially 2 billion people in the world population statistic. Now there’s 8 billion. Now, if you’d asked anybody in 1930, if you take the 50 smartest people in the world and you said, what’s the optimum population for the world. When you’re 93 years old, they would have not said 8 billion. There wouldn’t be anybody close to it. But we did it. Now we’re reaping some of the consequences of having done that, and we got the benefits in the United States. I’m exaggerating here to some extent, but the developed world basically got it. And then we’re telling a whole bunch of other people that we want them to change the way they live because of the way we lived. So we will see what happens with it. But that’s a problem that is very, very, very hard to solve among a couple hundred countries. And I really don’t have anything to contribute on it.

当我在 1930 年出生时，世界人口统计大约只有 20 亿人。现在有 80 亿。如果你在 1930 年问任何人，如果你选出世界上 50 个最聪明的人，问他们世界的最佳人口是多少。当你 93 岁时，他们不会说是 80 亿。没有人会接近这个数字。但我们做到了。现在我们正在收获这样做的一些后果，而我们在美国得到了好处。我在这里有些夸大，但发达国家基本上得到了这一点。然后我们告诉一大堆其他人，我们希望他们改变生活方式，因为我们生活的方式。所以我们将看看会发生什么。但这是一个在几百个国家之间非常非常难以解决的问题。我真的没有什么可以贡献的。

And now I’ve got instructions from the thing, the monitor in front of me. I would like to introduce one person here that has, you all know, because she’s been here so many times, but my friend Carol Loomis, who is now, well, she’s going to be 95 on June 25. You can send presents, care of our office. And Carol has edited the

现在我收到了来自我面前的显示器的指示。我想在这里介绍一个人，你们都认识她，因为她来过很多次，我的朋友卡罗尔·卢米斯，她现在，嗯，她将在 6 月 25 日满 95 岁。你们可以通过我们的办公室寄送礼物。卡罗尔编辑了

Berkshire annual report since 1977. There we are. And there’s, there are two points I’d like to mention. Every year I give Carol a little item for a bracelet that is a replica of the front page of the report that year and their different colors and all of that sort of thing. And so she now has, what, since 1977, what, 47 of them. I think she’s put ten on each one. But I’ve always wondered if she put them all on one arm, whether one arm would now be four or five inches longer than the other. But I’m sure she foresaw that. But I want to reveal one other. Well, I want to ask one more question while Carol was here, because I’m sure most everybody in this audience grew up like I did, knowing that Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting average was 367. I mean, he’s the leader among everyone, and it may be that that record is never broken. And Ty Cobb, 367’s immortal. But Carol has a distinction that probably most of you don’t know, but she dated Ty Cobb.

伯克希尔年报自 1977 年以来。我们在这里。还有，我想提到两点。每年我都会给卡罗尔一个小物件，作为那一年报告封面的手链复制品，颜色各异，诸如此类。因此，自 1977 年以来，她现在有了 47 个。我想她每个上面放了十个。但我一直在想，如果她把它们都放在一只手臂上，那只手臂现在会比另一只长四到五英寸吧。但我相信她预见到了这一点。不过，我想再问一个问题，因为卡罗尔在这里，因为我相信在座的大多数人和我一样，知道泰·科布的终身击球率是 367。我是说，他在所有人中都是领先者，这个记录可能永远不会被打破。泰·科布，367 是永恒的。但卡罗尔有一个大多数人可能不知道的特别之处，她曾与泰·科布约会。

And Carol was officed at 6th Avenue and 50th street in the Time Life building. And NBC was right across the street in, in Rockefeller center. And the quiz shows became the hit of tv. And Carol, being the kind of person she is, walked across the street at lunchtime and went on the quiz show of the late 1950s. And they gave her the, they gave her the questions regarding baseball. And Carol answered them all correctly, of course, she was encyclopedic on all kinds of things. So she knew all the answers. And she proceeded. And she was single at the time. And she proceeded back to her office at fortune. And at some point she got a phone call from, sounded like a fairly young man in Georgia. And he said, my uncle is Ty Cobb, and he would like to take you to lunch at 21. And so Carol went to lunch with Ty Cobb at 21. And I think he subsequently had one more lunch. And then she decided to call it off.

卡罗尔在第六大道和第五十街的时代生活大厦办公。NBC 就在街对面，位于洛克菲勒中心。问答节目成为了电视的热门节目。卡罗尔是那种人，午餐时她走过街去参加了 1950 年代晚期的问答节目。他们给了她关于棒球的问题。卡罗尔当然回答得全对，她对各种事情都如数家珍。所以她知道所有的答案。然后她继续进行。那时她还是单身。然后她回到了财富杂志的办公室。某个时候，她接到了一个电话，听起来像是乔治亚州的一个年轻人。他说，我的叔叔是泰·科布，他想请你去 21 号餐厅吃午餐。于是卡罗尔和泰·科布在 21 号餐厅共进午餐。我想他后来又请她吃了一次午餐，然后她决定不再继续。

But those of you who follow baseball may have noticed that in the 1990s, they found that the statistics had been faulty when Ty Cobb played. And that he actually only batted 366, that there were a couple of bad bats that didn’t count. So the real question I want to know from Carol, and I think she should maybe tell us, is that would she have dated Ty Cobb if she not - I mean, I know she wouldn’t have. I know she wouldn’t have dated Ty Cobb if his batting average had been 300 or something like that. But where was the cut off point at which she would have told Ty Cobb to stay in Atlanta and forget about coming up to New York? And if Carol would. If anybody has a microphone, Carol would care to express herself on that question. It’s the unanswered question that I’ve had and all inquiring minds have had, and only she knows the answer. And she’s with her daughter. She married a wonderful guy, John Lewis. And Barbara’s. Barbara’s with her. I’m sure Barbara’s been always wanting to ask this question, but it’s kind of tough when you’re in the family. But I’m sort of a non anxious guy. Older, in front of a lot of people. Carol. Or are we gonna have Barbara’s guests?

但那些关注棒球的人可能注意到，在 1990 年代，他们发现泰·科布打球时的统计数据是错误的。实际上他的击球率只有 366，还有几个糟糕的击球没有算在内。所以我想问卡罗尔的真正问题是，如果她没有——我的意思是，我知道她不会。我知道如果泰·科布的击球率是 300 或者类似的，她是不会和他约会的。但她会在什么样的临界点上告诉泰·科布留在亚特兰大，别想来纽约？如果卡罗尔愿意的话。如果有人有麦克风，卡罗尔愿意在这个问题上表达一下自己。这是我一直想知道的未解之谜，所有好奇的人都想知道，只有她知道答案。她和她的女儿在一起。她嫁给了一个很棒的家伙，约翰·刘易斯。巴巴拉也在她身边。我相信巴巴拉一直想问这个问题，但在家里问起来有点困难。但我算是一个不焦虑的人。年长，在很多人面前。卡罗尔。还是我们要请巴巴拉的客人？

Barbara: Either one will. She would have been happy to go either. Right. Thank you.

芭芭拉：无论哪个都可以。她会很高兴去任何一个。对吧。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Carol is the best business writer. She comes from a town of called Camp, Missouri. I don’t know, around a thousand, probably. She never took an accounting course. And she ended up becoming the best business writer in the United States. You know, she didn’t want to be an editor, actually. I mean, she could have done other things at Fortune, but she just plain liked writing business stories. And like I say, that nobody came close to her. And she started from scratch. But in 1977, I asked her to edit my report, and she turned out to be just a good an editor as she was a writer. And all the way through this year, including this year, Carol has edited the Berkshire report. And to the extent anybody enjoys reading them. Let’s give a hand to Carol.

沃伦·巴菲特：卡罗尔是最优秀的商业作家。她来自密苏里州的一个名叫坎普的小镇。我不知道，大约一千人吧。她从未上过会计课。结果她成为了美国最优秀的商业作家。你知道，她其实并不想当编辑。我的意思是，她本可以在《财富》杂志做其他事情，但她就是喜欢写商业故事。正如我所说，没有人能与她相提并论。她是从零开始的。但在 1977 年，我请她编辑我的报告，结果她的编辑能力和写作能力一样出色。在这一年，包括今年，卡罗尔一直在编辑伯克希尔的报告。只要有人喜欢阅读这些报告，就让我们为卡罗尔鼓掌。

Okay. And I’ve been told to show a video right before you go to lunch, because it’s only 30 some seconds, and then we’ll talk a little bit about more about it when we come. So if we’ll dim the lights, we will have showing what a Berkshire shareholder did when she sold us a billion dollars worth of stock the other day. And you’ll meet somebody that I hope is, I know she is the prototype. She may have more zeroes, but she’s the prototype of a good many Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. It’ll be the first thing we talk about when we come back. But some of you may have noticed whenever it was a few weeks back, when Ruth Gottesman gave $1 billion to Albert Einstein to take care of all of us, and Ruth doesn’t like a lot of attention drawn to herself.

好的。我被告知在你们去午餐之前播放一个视频，因为它只有 30 秒多一点，然后我们回来后会再多谈谈。所以如果我们调暗灯光，我们将展示一位伯克希尔股东在前几天卖出价值 10 亿美元股票时的表现。你们将见到一个我希望是，实际上她是一个原型。她可能有更多的零，但她是许多伯克希尔哈撒韦股东的原型。这将是我们回来后讨论的第一件事。但你们中的一些人可能注意到几周前，鲁思·戈特斯曼向阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦捐赠了 10 亿美元来照顾我们所有人，而鲁思并不喜欢太多的关注。

But here’s how they felt at Albert Einstein when they announced that Ruth Gottesman had just made a decision to take care of all of the costs of education at Albert Einstein, and it’s going to be in perpetuity. So let’s just show the film.

但当他们宣布鲁思·戈特斯曼刚刚决定承担阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦所有教育费用，并且这将是永久性的时，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的感受是这样的。那我们就放映影片吧。

Video: I’m happy to share with you that starting in August this year, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition free.

视频：我很高兴地与您分享，从今年八月开始，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院将免学费。

Warren Buffett: And that’s why Charlie and I have had such fun running Berkshire. She transferred a billion dollars to other people. She happened to do it with Berkshire stock, and, you know, they offered to rename the school after and everything like that. But she said, Albert Einstein. That’s a pretty good name to start with. So there’s no ego involved in it, no nothing. She just decided that she’d rather have 100 plus, closer to 150 eventually, of students be able to start out debt free and proceed in life. And she did it happily, and she did it without somebody asking, you know, name it, you know, put my name on for all four sides of neon lights, and I salute her. So let’s all have lunch, and we’ll come back and talk a little bit more about that. Thanks.

沃伦·巴菲特：这就是为什么查理和我在经营伯克希尔时如此开心的原因。她把十亿美元转给了其他人。她恰好用伯克希尔的股票来做这件事，你知道，他们还提议把学校改名，诸如此类的事情。但她说，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦。这是一个很好的名字。所以没有自我参与其中，没有任何东西。她只是决定，她宁愿让 100 多个，最终接近 150 的学生能够无债务地开始生活并继续前行。她愉快地做了这件事，而且没有人要求，知道的，给我在霓虹灯的四面上写上我的名字，我向她致敬。所以让我们一起吃午餐，然后我们再回来谈谈这个。谢谢。

Afternoon Session 下午场次

Warren Buffett: So please take your seats. We’re going to finish at three, so the sooner we start, the sooner more chance we’ll have to talk about various questions you may have. I just like to follow on, however, with that film we showed just before we left for lunch, because it says something about Berkshire. There are all kinds of public companies and wealthy public companies throughout America. And there are certainly cases where in one family, somebody has made a very large amount of money and is devoting it to philanthropy, or much of it to philanthropy, such as the Walton family would be the number one thing in Walmart. And certainly Bill did the same thing, Bill Gates did the same thing at Microsoft. But what is unusual about Berkshire is that a very significant number of Berkshire shareholders located all over the United States, not just in Omaha, but the number of different Berkshire holders who have contributed $100 million or more to their local charities, usually with people not knowing about it. I think it’s many multiples of any other public company in the country. It’s not more multiples than those put a whole lot into philanthropy, and I don’t know the details of the family, but clearly there’s a huge sum of money that the Walmart family, I’m sure, has done all kinds of things philanthropic and will continue to do it.

沃伦·巴菲特：请大家就座。我们将在三点结束，所以越早开始，我们就越有机会讨论你们可能有的各种问题。不过，我想继续谈谈我们在午餐前放映的那部电影，因为它提到了伯克希尔。美国有各种各样的上市公司和富有的上市公司。确实有一些案例，在一个家庭中，有人赚了很多钱并将其用于慈善事业，或者大部分用于慈善事业，比如沃尔顿家族在沃尔玛的情况。当然，比尔·盖茨在微软也做了同样的事情。但伯克希尔不同的是，伯克希尔的股东分布在美国各地，不仅仅在奥马哈，许多不同的伯克希尔股东向他们当地的慈善机构捐赠了 1 亿美元或更多，通常人们对此并不知情。我认为这比全国任何其他上市公司都要多得多。这并不是比那些投入大量资金于慈善事业的家庭更多的倍数，我不知道这个家庭的具体情况，但显然沃尔玛家族有一笔巨额资金，我相信他们已经做了各种慈善事业，并将继续这样做。

But I don’t think you’ll find any company where a group of shareholders who aren’t related to each other. So many of them have done something along the lines of what Ruth did a few weeks ago, just to exchange a little piece of paper that they’ve held for five decades, and they’ve lived well themselves. They haven’t denied their family anything, but they don’t feel that they have to create a dynasty or anything, and they give it back to society. And a great many do it anonymously. They do it in many states to some extent. We see some concentration of it in Nebraska, because generally, when you’re giving away a lot of money, they call it, in the philanthropic world, they call it absorption capacity. And the truth is, it’s very hard to give away a billion dollars to $10 at a time to people who are needy or something of the sort. And so large institutions have this absorption capacity, which tend to be universities or colleges or that sort of thing. And some philanthropies are much more imaginative than others. But the one thing I’ve never.

但我认为你不会找到任何一家公司的股东之间没有关系的团体。他们中的许多人做过类似于鲁思几周前所做的事情，只是为了交换一小张他们持有了五十年的纸条，而他们自己过得很好。他们没有对家人否认任何东西，但他们并不觉得自己必须建立一个王朝之类的，他们把它回馈给社会。而且很多人都是匿名进行的。他们在许多州在某种程度上都在这样做。我们在内布拉斯加州看到了一些集中现象，因为通常，当你捐赠大量资金时，在慈善界，他们称之为吸收能力。事实上，给有需要的人每次捐赠 10 美元，想要捐赠十亿美元是非常困难的。因此，大型机构具有这种吸收能力，通常是大学或学院之类的。而一些慈善机构比其他机构更具想象力。但我从未见过的一件事。

Well, most of them want to do it anonymously, so I can’t tell their specific stories. But I have to say one thing that was astounding is that the same day we bought a billion dollars worth of Berkshire class A stock from Ruth. So that. And I guess we were actually buying it from the school at that point because he’s just given them. So the transaction was with them. But Mark Millard in our office bought a billion dollars from them, but he also bought $500 million worth of stock from somebody else that nobody will ever have heard of and in a different state. And I won’t elaborate beyond that, but we have had a very significant number of people, and there’s more to come. And obviously, they had to be people that came in early, or their parents did, or their

好吧，他们大多数人想匿名，所以我不能讲他们的具体故事。但我必须说一件令人震惊的事情，那就是我们在同一天从 Ruth 那里购买了价值十亿美元的伯克希尔 A 类股票。所以就是这样。我想我们实际上是在那时从学校购买的，因为他刚刚把它们给了他们。所以交易是与他们进行的。但我们办公室的 Mark Millard 从他们那里购买了十亿美元，但他还从其他一个没人听说过的人那里购买了五亿美元的股票，那个地方在不同的州。我不会再详细说明，但我们有相当数量的人，而且还会有更多显现出来。显然，他们必须是早期进入的人，或者是他们的父母。

grandparents did, but they’ve all lived good lives. They haven’t denied themselves anything. You know, they have second homes, and they. But they generally, in fact, I would say almost universally, they - people knew them in the community, everything. But they’ve used what they accomplished, what they saved.

祖父母做过的事情，但他们都过得很好。他们没有剥夺自己任何东西。你知道，他们有第二个家，但他们通常，实际上，我几乎可以说是普遍地，他们在社区里被人们认识，一切都是如此。但他们利用了他们所取得的成就和所节省的东西。

They denied themselves consumption. That’s what savings are, is consumption deferred. And they’ve given, they’ve financed everything all over the country. And usually they like to do it anonymously. I outed my sister when I wrote about her in the annual report, but Bertie’s here today. I told her she should wear a T-shirt or something, said no solicitors allowed or something, but they just do it. And it’s really both, Charlie and I felt it’s really fun to work for a group of people like that rather than for index funds or for hedge funds or whatever it may be. I mean, you’re just seeing what people actually - it sort of restores your faith in humanity, that people defer their own consumption within a family for decades and decades, and then they could do something like. And they will. I think it may end up being 150 people to pursue different lives and talented people and diverse people to become a dream of being a doctor and not have to incur incredible debt to do it, or whatever may be the case. There’s a million different examples. And I want you to know that you’re a unique, actually, group of shareholders among public companies, as far as I know, in terms of the way you’ve deferred your own consumption while living fine to help other people. And it takes a lot of years, but it can really amount to something very substantial.

他们拒绝了消费。这就是储蓄，消费的延迟。他们在全国各地资助了一切。通常他们喜欢匿名做这件事。我在年度报告中提到我的姐姐时暴露了她，但伯蒂今天在这里。我告诉她应该穿一件 T 恤，上面写着不允许推销员之类的，但他们就是这样做。而且，查理和我都觉得为这样一群人工作真的很有趣，而不是为指数基金或对冲基金或其他什么工作。我的意思是，你看到的是人们实际上 - 这在某种程度上恢复了你对人性的信心，人们在一个家庭中延迟自己的消费几十年，然后他们可以做这样的事情。他们会的。我认为最终可能会有 150 人追求不同的生活，才华横溢和多样化的人们实现成为医生的梦想，而不必承担巨额债务，或者其他什么情况。还有无数不同的例子。我想让你知道，作为公众公司中的一群股东，你们实际上是独特的，因为你们在过得不错的同时，推迟了自己的消费来帮助他人。据我所知，这需要很多年，但确实可以积累成非常可观的东西。

And what Ruth did, was roughly my age, she looked at a little piece of paper which actually was a claim check on the output of others in the future. And she said instead of the output being for her, that the output would be for a continuing stream of people, for decades and decades and decades to come, that we’re having a different life in the pursuit of becoming doctors than they otherwise would have. And Berkshire has been, of course, her husband Sandy contributed substantially to Berkshire’s record. Sandy was a wonderful partner to have. So it was both input by him, and then there was deferred consumption by his family. And then there was ultimately this final gift to Albert Einstein. And like I say, the same day, there’s only 500 million it’ll go to in a different way. But it’s happening all over, and I don’t think any, any companies like that. So I just want to tell you that it’s inspiring to work for a group of shareholders. And Becky, go to it.

鲁思所做的，差不多和我同龄，她看着一小张纸，那实际上是对未来他人输出的索赔单。她说，输出不再是为了她，而是为了未来几十年、几十年、几十年后不断涌现的人们，他们在追求成为医生的过程中，过着与他们本来会过的不同的生活。而伯克希尔，当然，她的丈夫桑迪对伯克希尔的业绩贡献巨大。桑迪是一个很棒的合作伙伴。因此，既有他的投入，也有他家庭的延迟消费。最终，还有这份赠予阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的最终礼物。就像我说的，同一天，只有 5 亿会以不同的方式流向它。但这正在各地发生，我认为没有任何公司像这样。所以我只是想告诉你，为一群股东工作是令人鼓舞的。贝基，去吧。

Becky Quick: All right, the next question comes from Slavin Vucelbrot. As CEO, will Mr Abel be in charge of the portfolio of common stocks that Mr Buffett has been managing, or will this function be exercised by Mr Combs and Mr Weschler? As investing could be defined as the discipline of relative selection, can major capital allocation decisions, such as large acquisitions, be separated from the common stock selection process?

贝基·奎克：好的，下一个问题来自斯拉文·武切尔布罗特。作为首席执行官，阿贝尔先生会负责巴菲特先生一直在管理的普通股投资组合吗，还是这个职能将由科姆斯先生和韦施勒先生来执行？由于投资可以被定义为机会成本的学科，是否可以将大型收购等主要资本配置决策与普通股选择过程分开？

Warren Buffett: Yeah, I would say that decision actually will be made when I’m not around, and I may try and come back and haunt them if they do it differently. But I’m not sure the Ouija board will get that job done. So that job, I’ll never know the answer on whether it get covered, but I feel very comfortable about the fact that it will be made by a board, that they’ve got loads of brainpower, they’ve got a dedication to an unusual institution, and they will figure things out. But I would say that if I were on that board and were making the decision, I would probably, knowing Greg, I would just leave. I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. And he understands businesses extremely well. And if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks. I mean, if you really know how business works, you are an investment manager. How much you manage, maybe just your own funds or maybe other people. And if you really are primarily interested in getting assets under management, which is where the money is, you know, you don’t really have to understand that sort of thing. But that’s not the case with Ted or Todd, obviously. But I think the responsibility ought to be entirely with Greg.The responsibility has been with me, and I farmed out some of it. And I used to think differently about how that would be handled, but I think the responsibility should be that of the CEO. And whatever that CEO decides may be helpful in effectuating that responsibility. That’s up to him or her to decide at the time they’re running

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我会说这个决定实际上会在我不在的时候做出，如果他们做得不同，我可能会试着回来纠缠他们。但我不确定灵媒板能否完成这个工作。所以这个问题，我永远不会知道是否会被覆盖，但我对这个决定感到非常放心，因为它将由一个董事会做出，他们拥有丰富的智慧，他们对一个不寻常的机构有着奉献精神，他们会找到解决办法。但我会说，如果我在那个董事会并且在做决定，我可能会，了解格雷格的情况下，我会选择离开。我会把资本配置留给格雷格。他对商业的理解非常透彻。如果你理解商业，你就理解普通股。我的意思是，如果你真的知道商业是如何运作的，你就是一个投资经理。你管理多少，可能只是你自己的资金，或者其他人的资金。如果你真的主要关注的是管理资产，这就是钱所在的地方，你知道，你并不一定需要理解那种事情。但显然，泰德或托德并不是这样的情况。但我认为责任应该完全在格雷格身上。责任在我身上，我将其中一些工作外包了出去。我曾经对如何处理这件事有不同的看法，但我认为责任应该由首席执行官承担。无论首席执行官决定什么，都可能有助于履行这一责任。这取决于他或她在执掌时的决定。

the money. So I would say that my thinking on that has developed to some extent as the sums have grown so large at Berkshire, and we do not want to try and have 200 people around that are managing a billion each of just doesn’t work. And I think that when you’re handling the sums that we will have, you’ve got to think very strategically about how to do very big things, and I think Greg is capable of doing that. I think I’ve missed a lot of stuff in the past, so I’m actually wiser about doing that now. But I, you know, I would do it better this time around in 2008 and ‘9, if something akin to that happened. But it won’t be exactly like 2008 or ‘9, you can be sure of that. But you also can say that there will be times when having huge sums available extremely quickly.

钱。因此，我会说我的思考在某种程度上随着伯克希尔的资金规模增长而发展，我们不想试图让 200 个人管理每人十亿，这根本行不通。我认为，当你处理我们将拥有的巨额资金时，必须非常战略性地思考如何做非常大的事情，我认为格雷格有能力做到这一点。我觉得我过去错过了很多东西，所以我现在在这方面实际上更有智慧。但是，我知道，如果 2008 年和 2009 年发生类似的事情，我会做得更好。但你可以肯定，这不会完全像 2008 年或 2009 年。但你也可以说，会有一些时候需要非常迅速地获得巨额资金。

Maybe it will be once every five years, probably be more like once every ten years or something. But as the world gets more sophisticated, complicated, and intertwined, more can go wrong. And there’s no sense going through here exploring the possibilities of the different things that could happen. But you do want to be able to act when it happens. And I think the chief executive should be somebody that can weigh buying businesses, buying stocks, doing all kinds of things that might come up at a time when nobody else is willing to move. It wasn’t that people didn’t have money in 2008. It’s that they were paralyzed. And we did have the advantage of having some capital and a willingness and eagerness,even, to act, and a government that, in effect, looked at us as an asset instead of a liability. And I think that all of those qualities will be even more important as our capital pile grows. So I think Greg may have even more fun than I had in a period when extraordinary things were happening and we were the logical place to go. You never know whether it’ll be next week, next year, next decade, but you won’t be, you know, it won’t be a century from now, that is for sure, and be more intertwined. It’s sophisticated. The world financial situation gets the more vulnerable it gets in a certain sense. It solves a lot of small problems, but it leaves it more vulnerable to large problems. Greg, does that bother you at all or not?

也许这会是每五年一次，可能更像是每十年一次之类的。但随着世界变得越来越复杂、精密和交织，更多的事情可能会出错。而在这里探讨可能发生的不同事情并没有意义。但你确实希望在事情发生时能够采取行动。我认为首席执行官应该是一个能够权衡收购企业、购买股票、以及在其他人不愿意行动时可能出现的各种事情的人。2008 年并不是人们没有钱，而是他们陷入了瘫痪。我们确实有一些资本的优势，以及一种愿意和渴望采取行动的态度，还有一个实际上把我们视为资产而不是负担的政府。我认为，随着我们的资本积累增长，这些品质将变得更加重要。因此，我认为格雷格在发生非凡事件的时期可能会比我更有乐趣，而我们是一个合乎逻辑的去处。你永远不知道这会是下周、明年还是下个十年，但可以肯定的是，不会是一个世纪之后，而且会更加交织在一起。这是复杂的。从某种意义上说，世界金融状况变得越脆弱。它解决了很多小问题，但也使其对大问题更加脆弱。格雷格，这让你感到困扰吗？

这个问题有普遍性，比如，PGR，只能在眼面前的问题上不断工作，没能力承担大的波动，很多从事套利也一样，不断放大杠杆赚取越来越少的利润。

Greg Abel: Without directly answering the question, I think there’s one important thing, is I think as we go through any transition, it’s important to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire lives by today will continue to survive, Warren. And I think that’s the thing I’d want to communicate, that we have our operating businesses, insurance, non insurance, we’re going to cap that. We’ll provide them the capital necessary to be successful and grow, if it’s appropriate. At the same time, we’re expecting return of capital from them when they have excess cash. And then, as we’ve discussed, or you’ve touched on always looking at potentially new businesses as a whole or in a piece, and as you’ve always highlighted, and I fully agree, it’s, we’ll always look at equities as we’re investing in a business, either 1% or 100%, but we’re looking at the business, we’re looking at the economic prospects of that business, how sustainable it is, and what it will look like ten years from now. And is our, the capital we originally put in at exponential risk, or where’s that risk set, that profile.

格雷格·阿贝尔：虽然没有直接回答这个问题，但我认为有一件重要的事情，那就是在我们经历任何过渡时，了解伯克希尔今天所遵循的资本配置原则将继续存在是很重要的，沃伦。我想传达的就是，我们有我们的运营业务，保险和非保险，我们会对其进行限制。我们会提供他们成功和增长所需的资本，如果合适的话。同时，我们期待他们在有多余现金时能回报资本。正如我们讨论过的，或者你提到的，总是会考虑潜在的新业务，无论是整体还是部分，正如你一直强调的，我完全同意，我们会始终将股票视为投资于一项业务，无论是 1%还是 100%，但我们关注的是业务本身，我们关注的是该业务的经济前景，它的可持续性，以及十年后的样子。我们最初投入的资本是否面临指数风险，或者这种风险的设定在哪里，风险的特征是什么。

And then, of course, and then we’ll obviously continue to always put excess cash in the safest investment there is in us treasuries, knowing we want to maintain that fortress of a balance sheet for two reasons. One, to act, but also to always protect our shareholders. We want to maintain the position Berkshire is in now, realistically for to ensure it endures.

然后，当然，我们将始终把多余的现金投入到美国国债这一最安全的投资中，因为我们希望保持这个堡垒般的资产负债表，原因有两个。一是为了行动，二是始终保护我们的股东。我们希望保持伯克希尔现在所处的位置，实际上是为了确保它能够持续下去。

Warren Buffett: Well, when he says that, it makes me wish I’d stayed around to be number two instead of number one in this process over the years. It’s, you know, it doesn’t get more fun than what we’re doing, and we’re better positioned than ever before. We’re not positioned though, however, to earn extraordinary returns versus what american business generally earns. I would hope we could be slightly better, but nobody’s going to be dramatically better over the next century. It gets very hard. It gets very hard to predict who the winner will be. If you look back, as we did a few meetings ago, as the top 20 companies in the world at ten year intervals, you realize the game isn’t quite as easy as it looks. Getting a decent result actually is reasonably, should be reasonably easy if you just don’t get talked out of doing what has works in the past, and don’t get carried away

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，当他这么说的时候，我真希望我留下来做二号人物，而不是多年来一直做一号人物。你知道，没有什么比我们正在做的事情更有趣的了，我们比以往任何时候都更有优势。然而，我们并没有定位于相对于美国商业总体而言获得非凡的回报。我希望我们能稍微好一点，但下一个世纪没有人会显著更好。这变得非常困难。预测谁会是赢家变得非常困难。如果你回顾一下，就像我们在几次会议上做的那样，每隔十年回顾一下世界排名前 20 位的公司，你就会意识到这个游戏并不像看起来那么容易。如果你不被说服去做过去有效的事情，不被冲昏头脑，得到一个体面的结果实际上是相当容易的。

with fads, and don’t listen to people who have different interests in mind than the interests of our shareholders. Okay, we’ll go to station number one.

与潮流一起，不要听那些与我们股东利益不同的人。好的，我们去第一站。

Questioner: Hello, Mr Buffett, my name is Tomo Drge. I’m from Dusseldorf, Germany. This is my first time out here in Omaha, so thank you for having us here. Today. So my question is directed to you, Mr Buffett and Mr Abel. In 2019, you reportedly made a bid for the IT distribution business, tech data, and commented that you understand its role as a middleman. I wonder if you could kindly elaborate on the criteria you look at when evaluating IT distribution businesses like tech data and their competitive position. Thank you.

提问者：你好，巴菲特先生，我叫 Tomo Drge。我来自德国杜塞尔多夫。这是我第一次来奥马哈，感谢您邀请我们来这里。今天我的问题是针对你们的，巴菲特先生和阿贝尔先生。据报道，2019 年，你们竞购了 IT 分销业务 tech data，并表示你们理解其作为中间商的角色。我想请你们详细说明一下，在评估科技数据等 IT 分销业务时，你们会考虑哪些标准，以及它们的竞争地位。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, we had some experience with distribution businesses, and we know their potential to a degree and their limitations. And, Greg, you were involved in that more than I was. I mean, that was a case where there had been a bid made and there was a go shop provision, and I think the management probably would have preferred that we buy it. And when we went in with a better bid, the original party raised their bid, and we never make the same offer twice, so. Greg, tell.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们在分销业务方面有一些经验，我们在一定程度上了解它们的潜力和局限性。而且，Greg，你参与其中的次数比我多。我的意思是，这是一个已经出价并且有 go shop 条款的情况，我认为管理层可能更愿意我们购买它。当我们提出更好的出价时，原来的一方提高了他们的出价，而我们从不重复同样的报价，所以。格雷格，告诉我。

Greg Abel: Yeah, so, absolutely. In 2019, we saw tech data as a unique opportunity. When we saw the other bid and the underlying value of that distribution business, we did. Warren and I were talking, others made the conclusion we should talk to management. We talked to the team. They were very interested in Berkshire being their long term owner, and we still saw good value in the opportunity. And we had a good understanding of distribution businesses. We have TTI. It’s not exactly identical to Tech Data in that they’re very specific to the, who their customers are and who they serve and supply and who they purchase from. Because on the distribution side, it’s important to have that input coming in from folks who want their product. And, you know, it’s needed on the other side that there’s demand for it. And they had an excellent model.

格雷格·阿贝尔：是的，绝对是这样。在2019年，我们看到了Tech Data作为一个独特的机会。当我们看到其他竞购者和分销业务的潜在价值时，我和沃伦进行了交谈，我们得出的结论是我们应当与管理层进行对话。我们与团队进行了交谈。他们非常希望伯克希尔成为他们长期的拥有者，我们仍然看到了这个机会的良好价值。我们对分销业务有很好的理解。我们拥有TTI。它与Tech Data并不完全相同，因为它们非常特定于它们的客户是谁，它们服务和供应的对象是谁，以及它们从哪里购买。因为在分销方面，重要的是要有那些需要他们产品的人的投入。而且，你知道，在另一方面，需要有对产品的需求。他们有一个非常好的模式。

If you think of TTI, for example, that Warren talked about Paul many times and the person who founded this business. But it’s a unique business in that our revenues on that business is approximately $10 billion. The average part they sell is a little over nine cents. Ninety five billion parts go through their warehouse every, every year. But it’s a model that if you have the right people on both sides of the equation and you understand that, well, there’s, there’s a unique opportunity there. And, and that is something we saw in Tech Data. And as Warren highlighted, we made our bid. Unfortunately, it was then topped by the original bidder and we moved on. But we thought very highly of it.

如果你想到 TTI，例如，沃伦多次提到保罗和创办这家公司的那个人。但这是一家独特的企业，因为我们在这项业务上的收入大约为 100 亿美元。他们销售的平均零件价格略高于九美分。每年有 950 亿个零件通过他们的仓库。但这是一个模型，如果你在方程的两边都有合适的人，并且你理解这一点，那么，那里就有一个独特的机会。这是我们在 Tech Data 看到的。正如沃伦强调的，我们提出了我们的出价。不幸的是，随后被原始投标者超越，我们继续前进。但我们对此非常看好。

Warren Buffett: We’ve probably seen at least five of them in aggregate, over the last three or four, five years. It’s not a business that you can dream about because it’s a decent business. But, for example, many of the items that the manufacturers just, they don’t want to tie up their capital. If you have, you know, a million plus skus, they go stock keeping units, it’s like selling jelly beans or something like that. And you do. You’re serving a purpose to a degree, but you don’t. You don’t really. It isn’t your product, in effect.

沃伦·巴菲特：在过去三到四、五年里，我们可能总共见过至少五个这样的案例。这不是一个你可以梦想的生意，因为它是一个不错的生意。但是，例如，许多制造商不想占用他们的资本。如果你有超过一百万个 SKU（库存单位），就像是在卖果冻豆或类似的东西。你确实在某种程度上发挥了作用，但实际上你并没有。它并不是真正属于你的产品。

I mean, you’re just a good system for the producer of the equipment to get it to the end user without tying up a lot of capital. Being in a business they don’t want to be in. We understand, but there’s no magic to it. With TTI, you had a marvelous man running things, and when you get a marvelous person running something, to some extent, that’s selects for better people underneath. Greg and I went to Paul Andrews funeral a few years ago, and there were 300 people or so there, and there wasn’t one person that had to say something particularly nice, but stretched a little bit about the deceased. I mean, everybody. Paul Andrews was the real McCoy, and he was an amazing man. He behaved wonderfully with Berkshire. I mean, he wanted to do more for Berkshire than Berkshire would do for him. I mean, it was very simple.

我的意思是，你只是一个良好的系统，让设备的生产者能够将其交付给最终用户，而不需要占用大量资本。处于他们不想参与的业务中。我们理解，但这并没有什么魔法。与 TTI 合作时，有一个出色的人在管理事情，当你有一个出色的人在管理某件事时，在某种程度上，这会选择出更优秀的下属。几年前，格雷格和我参加了保罗·安德鲁斯的葬礼，那里大约有 300 人，没有一个人必须说特别好的话，但都稍微夸赞了一下已故者。我的意思是，大家都这样。保罗·安德鲁斯是真正的佼佼者，他是一个了不起的人。他与伯克希尔的合作非常出色。我的意思是，他想为伯克希尔做的事情比伯克希尔愿意为他做的要多。我的意思是，这非常简单。

And you run into those people, as I say, you run into people that bend over backwards for us and then some bend over forwards. But that’s just the way it is in this world, and we’ve had quite a few that have been over backwards for us. The distribution business is not a wonderful business, but it is a business, and it’s a business that, if it’s big enough, it’s one we would look at and we would buy additional, and TTI makes some smaller acquisitions on its own all the time. I don’t even. I don’t even hear about them until I read the quarterly reports. And so we. We want to build up. We want to build our businesses in every area that we operate, and we’ve got unlimited capital to do it. So we’re willing to have small acquisitions take place if they fit in with something we already have. But we’re not in the business of going out after small acquisitions, and if we did, we would. We just don’t have the people for it, and it wouldn’t move the needle anyway. At Berkshire, we may or we would have been happy doing the deal with the questioner asked about. But if we don’t do it, you know, it just doesn’t make that much difference. We want to do it. If we do it, we’ll do it well. We’ll do it right. They’ll make the right decision. If they don’t, you know, we will find something else to do with the money in the end. And we can always buy a little more of TTI for you, the shareholders, by just buying in our stock, too.

你会遇到这样的人，就像我说的，你会遇到那些为了我们而竭尽全力的人，然后有些人则会向前弯腰。但这就是这个世界的运作方式，我们遇到了不少对我们竭尽全力的人。分销业务并不是一个很棒的业务，但它是一个业务，如果它的规模足够大，我们会考虑并可能进行额外的购买，而TTI一直在自行进行一些小规模的收购。我甚至……我甚至在阅读季度报告之前都不会听说它们。所以我们……我们想要建立……我们想要在我们运营的每个领域建立我们的业务，我们有无限的资本来这样做。因此，如果这些小规模的收购适合我们已经拥有的东西，我们愿意它们发生。但我们不是在寻找小规模收购的业务，如果我们做了，我们就会……我们只是没有这方面的人手，而且无论如何也不会有太大影响。在伯克希尔，我们可能会对提问者提到的交易感到满意。但如果我们不做，你知道，这并没有太大的区别。我们想做的话，我们会做好。我们会做对。他们会做出正确的决定。如果他们不这样做，你知道，我们最终会找到其他方法来使用这些资金。而且我们总是可以通过购买我们的股票，为你们，股东，购买更多的TTI。

Greg Abel: Exactly.

格雷格·阿贝尔：没错。

Warren Buffett: Yeah. Okay. Let’s see. We need Becky next, don’t we? Yeah, Becky.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。好的。我们需要贝基，没错？是的，贝基。

Becky Quick: All right, Warren, earlier you talked about selling some of the apple shares in order to build up your cash supply. And I think it’s had a lot of people wondering where you see opportunities or what might be coming or market valuations. So I’ll ask this question from Foster Taylor. At the 1999 annual meeting, you mentioned that if you owned all of America’s 500 businesses, you would be making $334 billion while paying $10.5 trillion. You emphasize that this was not a good return on investment. Today, by my math, the S&P 500 has a market capitalization of around 44 trillion, with profits of around 1.45 trillion. This is a very similar return on investment to the 1999 levels. Do you see similarities in the market today and the 1999 levels?

贝基·奎克：好的，沃伦，早些时候你提到过出售一些苹果股票以增加现金储备。我想这让很多人想知道你看到的机会在哪里，或者可能会发生什么，或者市场估值如何。所以我将从福斯特·泰勒那里问这个问题。在 1999 年的年会上，你提到如果你拥有美国的 500 家企业，你将赚取 3340 亿美元，而支付 10.5 万亿美元。你强调这不是一个好的投资回报。今天，根据我的计算，标准普尔 500 指数的市值大约为 44 万亿美元，利润约为 1.45 万亿美元。这与 1999 年的投资回报非常相似。你认为今天的市场与 1999 年的水平有相似之处吗？

Warren Buffett: Well, one thing has changed dramatically from. Well, from 1990. I misunderstood on the 1999, but there have been times in my life that I’ve been awash in so many opportunities that I could have invested everything by nightfall. And then there’s other times when the year goes, well, not in the early days, but now we just - we haven’t seen anything that makes sense that moves the needle. Now, we’ve made small acquisitions during the year. Our companies have made acquisitions. And we. You know, Greg and I may talk about something that involves a $300 million purchase or something like that. And, you know, if it fits well enough, we do it. And if our managers see things that fit them, we want to look at them, because our managers do not have necessarily the same equations in mind that we do. But there’s some managers which we would have just say, you know, whatever you decide to do. And then there’s other managers that would not know how to allocate capital, particularly, and that they don’t have to be able to be great capital allocators. If they happen to be great at serving customers and understand their own industry and all of that, they can be great managers. A good many of them are capital allocators and others are.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，有一件事从1990年起发生了巨大变化。我在1999年的理解是错误的，但在我的生活中有些时候，我淹没在如此多的机会中，以至于我本可以在夜幕降临前投资所有资金。然后还有其他时候，一年过去了，好吧，不是在早期，但现在我们只是——我们没有看到任何有意义的、能产生重大影响的事情。今年我们进行了一些小规模的收购。我们的公司进行了收购。你知道，格雷格和我可能会讨论一些涉及3亿美元购买的事情。如果它足够合适，我们会做的。如果我们的经理看到适合他们的东西，我们希望看到它们，因为我们的经理不一定有我们心中的相同等式。但有一些经理我们会说，你知道，无论你决定做什么。然后还有其他经理可能不知道如何配置资本，特别是他们不必能够成为伟大的资本配置者。如果他们擅长服务客户，了解他们自己的行业等等，他们可以成为伟大的经理。他们中的很多人是资本配置者，其他人也是。

But this is not a time when the phone is going to be ringing often. But there are times from that, and Greg will know how to handle them as well or better than I have. Over time, Charlie and I, we missed a lot of things, and what we really regretted was missing something that turned out to be very big. We never worried about missing something that we didn’t understand. Why should we be able to predict the future of every business any more than we can predict what wheat yields are likely to be in Illinois next year? Well, not wheat in Illinois, wheat in Kansas, but corn in Illinois. So I don’t really think of whether it’s similar to 1999 because I’m not that good on chronology anyway. Unless something really dramatic happened at the time. I mean, I remember things from 2008 and ‘9 much better than I remember whether something happened in 2015 or. Or 1987 or well, 1987 I remember because of October 19. But I just don’t think that way. I just look at what I can do every day. Greg.

但现在不是电话会频繁响起的时候。不过有些时候，Greg 会知道如何处理这些情况，甚至比我处理得更好。随着时间的推移，Charlie 和我错过了很多事情，而我们真正后悔的是错过了一些结果非常重大的事情。我们从来没有担心错过我们不理解的事情。我们为什么能预测每个行业的未来，就像我们不能预测明年伊利诺伊州的小麦产量一样？好吧，不是伊利诺伊州的小麦，是堪萨斯州的小麦，但伊利诺伊州的玉米。所以我并不真的考虑它是否类似于 1999 年，因为我在时间顺序上并不那么擅长。除非当时发生了什么真正戏剧性的事情。我是说，我对 2008 年和 2009 年的事情记得比我对 2015 年或 1987 年发生的事情记得要好。或者 1987 年我记得是因为 10 月 19 日。但我就是不这样想。我只是关注我每天能做的事情。Greg。

Greg Abel: I’m gonna have to use it. Nothing. Sorry. Nothing to add.

格雷格·阿贝尔：我得用它。没什么。抱歉。没什么好补充的。

Warren Buffett: Okay, well, we’ll go to station two. I mean, it’s nice to know what lines you can get an applause for. Station two.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们去第二站。我是说，知道哪些台词能赢得掌声真不错。第二站。

Questioner: Hello. My name is Stefan Wuernbacher. I am a shareholder from Hamburg, Germany.

提问者：你好。我叫斯特凡·乌恩巴赫。我是来自德国汉堡的股东。

I’ve been coming to Omaha since 2007, and I’m deeply grateful for all the things I could learn here, both about investing and about life, in particular, creating circumstances that will enable me to lead a productive life during my entire healthy lifespan. So thank you for that. My question to Warren, your favorite holding period is forever. Holding American Express or Coca Cola for decades. Berkshire recently went in and out of Markel, and you, I believe, sold and later bought Oxy, which I think happens to everyone all the time. But can you maybe to us, give examples of your thoughts process when you exit positions? Thank you.

我从 2007 年开始来到奥马哈，我非常感激在这里学到的所有东西，无论是关于投资还是生活，特别是创造能够让我在整个健康的生命周期内过上富有成效的生活的环境。所以谢谢你。我的问题是，沃伦，你最喜欢的持有期限是永远。持有美国运通或可口可乐几十年。伯克希尔最近进出Markel，而你，我相信，卖掉了然后又买回了 Oxy，我认为这对每个人来说都是常有的事。但你能否给我们举例说明你在退出头寸时的思考过程？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, there are various reasons for exiting positions. One is if you need the money, but that doesn’t happen very often with us. But it used to happen on every decision I made when I started when I was 20 years old, which I consider the post graham period, although I actually started in 1942, if you just talk about buying stocks. But in any event, the decision process is really quite interesting in certain ways because we made - charlie and I made decisions extremely fast. But in effect, after years of thinking about the parameters that would enable us to make the quick decision when it presented itself.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，退出头寸的原因有很多。一个是如果你需要钱，但这在我们这里并不常见。但在我 20 岁时开始做每个决定时，这种情况经常发生，我认为那是后格雷厄姆时期，尽管如果只谈买股票，我实际上是从 1942 年开始的。但无论如何，决策过程在某些方面确实非常有趣，因为我们 - 查理和我做决定的速度非常快。但实际上，在经过多年的思考后，我们才形成了能够在机会出现时迅速做出决策的参数。

People have speculated on how I’ve decided to really put a lot of money into Apple, and for a reason I can’t -one thing that Charlie and I both learned a lot about was consumer behavior. That didn’t mean we thought we could run a furniture store or anything else. But we did learn a lot when we bought a furniture chain in Baltimore. And we quickly realized that it was a mistake. But having made that mistake, made us smarter about actually thinking through what the capital allocation process would be and how people were likely to behave in the future with department stores and all kinds of things that we wouldn’t have really focused on.

人们猜测我为什么决定投入大量资金到苹果公司，原因我无法说明——查理和我都学到了很多关于消费者行为的知识。这并不意味着我们认为可以经营一家家具店或其他任何东西。但当我们在巴尔的摩购买一家家具连锁店时，我们确实学到了很多。我们很快意识到这是一个错误。但犯了这个错误让我们在思考资本配置过程以及人们未来在百货商店和各种我们本不会真正关注的事物上的行为时变得更加聪明。

So we learned something about consumer behavior from that. We didn’t learn how to run a department store. Now, the next one was See’s candy. And See’s candy was also a study of consumer behavior. We didn’t know how to make candy. You know, we didn’t. There were all kinds of things we didn’t know. But we’ve learned more about consumer behavior as we go along. And that sort of background, in a very general way, led up to the study of consumer behavior in terms of Apple’s products. And in that case, while I watched what was happening at the furniture mart, in terms of people leaving the store, even though we were selling Apple at a price where we weren’t even making any money, but it was just so popular that if we didn’t have it, people left the store and went to best buy or someplace. And if you know the Blumkins, they can’t stand anybody leaving the store, so they behave accordingly.

所以我们从中学到了一些关于消费者行为的知识。我们并没有学会如何经营一家百货商店。接下来是 See's 糖果。See's 糖果也是对消费者行为的研究。我们不知道如何制作糖果。你知道，我们确实不知道。有很多事情我们都不知道。但随着时间的推移，我们对消费者行为的了解越来越多。这种背景在很大程度上促成了对苹果产品消费者行为的研究。在这种情况下，当我观察家具市场上人们离开商店的情况时，即使我们以一个连盈利都没有的价格在销售苹果产品，但它实在是太受欢迎了，以至于如果我们没有它，人们就会离开商店，去百思买或其他地方。如果你知道 Blumkins，他们无法忍受任何人离开商店，所以他们会相应地采取行动。

But then you learned that had the interest in the brand, and then you had a million different inputs. But I think the psychologists call this apperceptive mass. But there is something that comes along that takes a whole bunch of observations that you’ve made and knowledge you have and then crystallizes your thinking into action. Big action in the case of Apple. And there actually is something, which I don’t mean to be mysterious, but I really can’t talk about, but it was perfectly legal, I’m sure, you know, that. It just happened to be something that entered the picture that took all the other observations. And I guess my mind reached what they call apperceptive mass, which I really don’t know anything about, but I know the phenomenon when I experience it. And that is, we saw something that I felt was, well, enormously enterprise.

但后来你了解到对这个品牌的兴趣，然后你有了无数不同的输入。但我认为心理学家称之为apperceptive mass。但有一些东西出现了，它将你所做的所有观察和你所拥有的知识凝聚成行动。在苹果的案例中是重大行动。实际上有一些东西，我并不想显得神秘，但我真的不能谈论，但我相信这完全是合法的，你知道的。它恰好是进入这个画面的一些东西，汇集了所有其他观察。我想我的思维达到了他们所称的apperceptive mass，我对这个概念并不了解，但我知道当我经历它时的现象。那就是，我们看到了一些我觉得是，嗯，极其规模化的东西。

Maybe I’ve used this example before, but if you talk to most people, if they have an iPhone and they have a second car, the second car cost them 30 or $35,000, and they were told that they never could have the iPhone again, or they could never have the second car again. They would give up the second car. But the second car cost them 20 times. Now, people don’t think about their purchases that way, but I think about their behavior. And so we just decide without knowing. I don’t know. There may be some little guy inside the iPhone or

也许我之前用过这个例子，但如果你和大多数人谈谈，如果他们有一部 iPhone 和第二辆车，第二辆车花费了他们 3 万或 3.5 万美元，而他们被告知他们再也不能拥有 iPhone，或者他们再也不能拥有第二辆车，他们会放弃第二辆车。但第二辆车的成本是 iPhone 的 20 倍。现在，人们并不会以这种方式考虑他们的购买，但我会考虑他们的行为。因此，我们在不知道的情况下做出决定。我不知道。可能在 iPhone 里面有个小家伙。

something. I have no idea how it works. But I also know what it means. I know what it means to people, and I know how they use it. And I think I know enough about consumer behavior to know that it’s one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time. And the value it offers is incredible. And I think it has, and Tim Cook, I think it has somebody that, in his own way, is the equivalent of a partner, partner with Steve Jobs that could do one thing extraordinarily well and more than one application, but one thing. And Tim was the perfect partner to serve sequentially with him. So it’s, you sort of know it when you see it.

有些事情我一点也不知道它是如何运作的。但我也知道它意味着什么。我知道它对人们意味着什么，我知道他们是如何使用它的。我想我对消费者行为有足够的了解，知道它是有史以来最伟大的产品之一，也许是最伟大的产品。它提供的价值是不可思议的。我认为它有，而蒂姆·库克，我认为它有一个人，以他自己的方式，相当于史蒂夫·乔布斯的合作伙伴，能够非常出色地做一件事，而且不止一个应用，但就是一件事。而蒂姆是与他相继合作的完美伙伴。所以，你看到它时就会知道。

I actually saw it with GEICO when I went there in 1950. I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing, but Lorimer Davidson on a Saturday, in 4 hours, taught me enough about what I understood what auto insurance was, and I knew what a car was, and I knew what went through people’s minds. I knew they didn’t like to buy it, but I knew they couldn’t drive without it. So that was pretty interesting. And then, but he filled in all the blanks in my mind as I sat there on that Saturday afternoon. And, you know, every now and then it happens. You know, why do you have this, the person you met? You know, there are all these different potential spouses in the room, and then something happens that you decide that this is the one for you. You know, I think Rogers and Hammerstein, that some enchanted evening, wrote about that.

我实际上在 1950 年去 GEICO 时看到了这一点。我并不知道自己到底看到了什么，但洛里默·戴维森在一个星期六的 4 小时内教会了我足够多的知识，让我理解了汽车保险是什么，我知道什么是汽车，我知道人们的想法。我知道他们不喜欢购买它，但我知道他们没有它就无法驾驶。所以这非常有趣。然后，他在我那个星期六下午坐在那里时，填补了我脑海中的所有空白。你知道，这种事情偶尔会发生。你知道，为什么你会遇到这个人？房间里有这么多不同的潜在配偶，然后发生了一些事情，让你决定这个就是你要找的人。你知道，我认为罗杰斯和汉默斯坦在某个迷人的夜晚中写到了这一点。

Well, our idea of an enchanted evening is to come up with a business, Charlie and me, and there is an aspect of knowing a whole lot and having a whole lot of experiences and then seeing something that turns on the light bulb. And that will continue to happen. And I hope it happens a few times to you, but you can’t make it happen tomorrow, but you can prepare yourself for it happening tomorrow, and it will happen sometimes.

好吧，我们对一个迷人夜晚的想法是，查理和我一起创办一家公司，这其中有很多知识和经验的积累，然后看到某个瞬间点亮了灵感。这种情况会继续发生。我希望你也能经历几次，但你不能强迫它明天就发生，但你可以为它明天的发生做好准备，它有时会发生。

Greg Abel: Hey, Warren, he mentioned Oxy, which I think is a great example where you made the original decision basically on a weekend with some thought. But as the more you learned about Oxy and the asset position, they had their ability to operate in an exceptional manner, and then a strong CEO around capital allocation. I think your confidence, which was reflected in continuing to acquire more shares, is sort of that type of process.

格雷格·阿贝尔：嘿，沃伦，他提到了 Oxy，我认为这是一个很好的例子，你最初的决定基本上是在一个周末经过一些思考做出的。但是随着你对 Oxy 及其资产状况了解得越来越多，他们在卓越运营方面的能力，以及在资本配置方面有一位强大的 CEO。我认为你的信心，体现在继续收购更多股份上，正是这种类型的过程。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, it’s exactly to the point. I mean, I just learned more as I went along. I learned enough. You know, I’d never, I’d heard of Occidental Petroleum. Occidental petroleum happens to have been a descendant, not a descendant, but it’s a continuation of city service, which was the first stock I bought. And, of course, I knew a lot about the oil and gas business, but I didn’t know anything about geology, so I knew the economics of it. I had a lot of various things stored in my mind about the business, but I never heard of Vicki until, I guess, it was a Friday or Saturday, and we met on Sunday morning. We made a deal, but that was one sort of deal. And then as time passed, all the kinds of different events happened. You know, Icahn came in.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，正中要害。我是说，我在不断前进中学到了更多。我学到了足够的东西。你知道，我以前听说过西方石油。西方石油恰好是城市服务的延续，而城市服务是我买的第一只股票。当然，我对石油和天然气行业了解很多，但我对地质学一无所知，所以我了解其经济学。我脑海中存储了很多关于这个行业的各种信息，但我直到星期五或星期六才听说过Vicki，然后我们在星期天早上见面。我们达成了一笔交易，但那只是其中一种交易。随着时间的推移，各种不同的事件发生了。你知道，Icahn来了。

I mean, there are a million things you couldn’t predict at the start, and I formed certain opinions as I went along, but then I learned more as I went along. And then at a point when I heard an investor call that it put things together for me in a way it didn’t mean I knew I had a sure thing or anything like that. I don’t know what the price of oil was going to be next year, but I knew that it was something to act on. So we did, and we’re very happy we did, and we still don’t know what the price of oil is going to be next year. Nobody does, but I think the odds are very good that it was, but not a cinch that it was a good decision, and we’ve got options to buy more stock, and when we get through with it, it could be a worthwhile investment for Berkshire. We’re in it, and we’re in it for keeps. There are other things that we own that we aren’t in for keeps.

我的意思是，有无数的事情你在开始时是无法预测的，我在过程中形成了某些观点，但后来我学到的更多。然后在某个时刻，当我听到一位投资者的来电，它以一种方式让我把事情整合在一起，这并不意味着我知道我有一个确定的事情或类似的事情。我不知道明年的油价会是多少，但我知道这是需要采取行动的事情。所以我们这么做了，我们很高兴我们这么做了，我们仍然不知道明年的油价会是多少。没有人知道，但我认为有很好的机会证明这是一个好的决定，但并不是轻而易举的。我们有购买更多股票的期权，当我们完成它时，它可能成为伯克希尔一项有价值的投资。我们参与其中，我们是为了长期参与。我们拥有的其他东西并不是为了长期持有。

Oh, incidentally, I should just throw this out, since there’s been speculation on it. We’ve sold. A, I was 100% responsible for the paramount decision. I read speculation that either Ted or Todd had some involvement in that. No, it was 100% my decision, and we sold it all, and we lost quite a bit of money, and that happens in this business, too. But actually owning Paramount made me think even further. I like to think deeper, but I certainly thought harder even about the whole question of what people do with their leisure time and what the governing principles are of running an entertainment business of any sort, whether it’s sports or movies or whatever it

哦，顺便提一下，我应该把这个说出来，因为有关于这个的猜测。我们已经出售了。我对这个重要决定负有 100%的责任。我看到有人猜测是泰德或托德参与了这个决定。不，这完全是我的决定，我们全部出售了，我们损失了相当多的钱，这在这个行业中也是常有的事。但实际上拥有派拉蒙让我思考得更深。我喜欢更深入地思考，但我确实对人们如何利用他们的闲暇时间以及经营任何类型的娱乐业务的基本原则进行了更深入的思考，无论是体育、电影还是其他。

人在闲暇时间关闭大脑的慢思考，服务低端、服务人的低端部分都不是好的模式，参考华谊兄弟和马云、崔永元、冯小刚、范冰冰的烂人烂事。

might be. And I think I’m smarter now than I was a couple years ago. But I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did. But I just want to be very clear that, a, we lost money on Paramount, and, b, and I did it all by myself, folks, I don’t know whether I’ve anticipated one of Becky’s questions now, but we will find out. Let’s see now. Yeah, you’re next, Becky.

可能是。我觉得我现在比几年前聪明了。但我也觉得我变得更穷了，因为我以这样的方式获得了知识。但我想非常明确地说，a，我们在派拉蒙上亏了钱，b，我都是自己做的，伙计们，我不知道我是否已经预见到贝基的一个问题，但我们会找到答案。现在看看。是的，贝基，你下一个。

Becky Quick: Yes, you did anticipate one of the questions. Let’s go to another one. This question comes from Vincent James in Munich, Germany. In the chairman’s letter, Warren points out that the profit margins for BNSF have slipped relative to all five other railroads. However, Warren comments in the letter, BNSF carries more freight and spends more on capital expenditures than any of the other five major railroads, and has a vast service territory second to none. Given the comments from Warren about the clear strengths of BNSF, what explains the decline in revenue and profit, and in particular, the profit margins relative to the other five railroads? What are the issues relative to the other railroads, and what is being done to address them? Please be specific. Okay.

贝基·奎克：是的，你确实预见到了其中一个问题。我们来看看另一个问题。这个问题来自德国慕尼黑的文森特·詹姆斯。在董事长的信中，沃伦指出，BNSF 的利润率相对于其他五家铁路公司有所下降。然而，沃伦在信中评论，BNSF 运输的货物更多，资本支出也超过其他五家主要铁路公司，并且拥有无与伦比的广阔服务区域。鉴于沃伦对 BNSF 明显优势的评论，是什么原因导致收入和利润下降，特别是相对于其他五家铁路公司的利润率下降？与其他铁路公司相比存在哪些问题，正在采取什么措施来解决这些问题？请具体说明。好的。

Warren Buffett: And I will. Well, how specific we get depends on what Greg wants to say. But Greg is that. It’s Greg’s responsibility. It’s my responsibility for the purchase and for the operation up till Greg took over.

沃伦·巴菲特：我会的。那么，我们的具体程度取决于格雷格想说什么。但格雷格就是这样。这是格雷格的责任。在格雷格接手之前，购买和运营是我的责任。

But I think I’ll let Greg answer that.

但我想我会让格雷格来回答这个。

Greg Abel: Sure. Yeah, the Warren touched on it. And the comments as reflected there are very accurate. If you look at this quarter’s results or our last year’s results, they were both. - they’re disappointing as shareholders and disappointing relative to the other class one railroads. And as highlighted in the question, there’s five other class one railroads. So it’s pretty easy to understand how you’re performing versus the others. And there’s a lot of other variables, but there’s some very simple things to look at.

格雷格·阿贝尔：当然。是的，沃伦提到了这一点。反映在那里的评论非常准确。如果你看看本季度的业绩或我们去年的业绩，它们都是令人失望的，作为股东令人失望，相对于其他一级铁路公司也是如此。正如问题中强调的，还有其他五家一级铁路公司。因此，了解你与其他公司的表现是相对简单的。还有很多其他变量，但有一些非常简单的事情可以关注。

When we look at where we’ve been on with, associated with Burlington, I would. I would just back up a little bit, because if you go back to 2021, the Burlington team and management team and the group, we’re making excellent progress on a lot of fronts when it comes to our operating in both being efficient and effective in how we’re operating the railroad. And I remember very specific comments from myself in 2022, where I commented that that was the year there was all the supply chain issues, a lot going on in the west coast ports.

当我们回顾与伯灵顿相关的进展时，我想稍微退后一步，因为如果你回到 2021 年，伯灵顿团队和管理团队以及整个团队在多个方面取得了卓越的进展，尤其是在我们如何高效和有效地运营铁路方面。我记得在 2022 年我曾做过非常具体的评论，我提到那一年出现了所有的供应链问题，西海岸港口发生了很多事情。

Our trains were backed up in a variety of places, and we called that a reset year. And I think we did need a reset year on the operational side. But as we moved into 23, the business cost level, cost structure, we didn’t reset it to the underlying demand we were seeing. We anticipated more demand, and we did not reset our cost structure. And the team’s working very hard as we speak, to both reset the cost structure and allocate the cost resources where they need to be. And when you go through something like that, what we’ve recognized as an organization, yes, the demand of the rail will drive a certain amount of the cost, but the reality is that the rail industry, if you go back many, many years, it’s flat. There’s not a lot of growth in the industry. There’s opportunities become more efficient, effective, and our margins can go up. But the reality is the demand is going to be flat. But it does move within different sectors of the rail. It can be in the consumer products, it can be an industrial, it can be in Ag. But overall, it’s generally going to be relatively flat. So we need to get our cost structure right, and we need to get it right, both for the coming year, but for the long term. And that means it’s going to be a continuous exercise. We can’t stop. We can’t say we, we’ve gotten far enough. Because our competitors, and we compete with the other rails, but we also do compete with the truck industry. We have to have a cost structure, allows us to compete both within our rail industry and within the transportation sector as a whole.

我们的列车在多个地方出现了积压，我们称之为重置年。我认为我们确实需要在运营方面进行重置。但当我们进入 23 年时，业务成本水平和成本结构并没有根据我们看到的潜在需求进行重置。我们预期会有更多的需求，但我们没有重置我们的成本结构。团队正在努力工作，既要重置成本结构，又要将成本资源分配到需要的地方。当经历这样的事情时，我们作为一个组织认识到，铁路的需求确实会推动一定的成本，但现实是，铁路行业如果追溯很多年前，基本是平稳的。这个行业没有太多的增长。机会在于提高效率和效益，我们的利润率可以上升。但现实是需求将保持平稳。但它在铁路的不同领域之间是会有所波动的。它可以在消费品领域，也可以在工业领域，或者农业领域。但总体而言，它通常会保持相对平稳。所以我们需要正确制定我们的成本结构，并且我们需要在来年以及长期内都做到这一点。这意味着这将是一个持续的过程。我们不能停下来。我们不能说我们已经走得够远了。因为我们的竞争对手，我们与其他铁路竞争，但我们也与卡车行业竞争。我们必须拥有一个成本结构，使我们能够在铁路行业内以及整个运输行业中进行竞争。

So the team at Burlington is working very hard to address the cost structure, just like we have in the past. I think one thing we do recognize, when the other railroads have implemented precision scheduled railroading, there’s other metrics that we have to continue to pay attention to and challenge ourselves. If we’re not at their level, what are the things that are driving it? So we’re gonna. When they ask for specifics, I’ll give you a few.

所以伯灵顿的团队正在努力解决成本结构，就像我们过去所做的那样。我认为我们确实认识到的一点是，当其他铁路公司实施精确调度铁路时，还有其他指标我们必须继续关注并挑战自己。如果我们没有达到他们的水平，是什么因素在推动这一点？所以我们会。当他们要求具体信息时，我会给你一些。

We have to look at our rail yards and understand how we’re managing that. We have to look at our locomotive fleet, both the size and how we’re utilizing that, and challenge ourselves. And we have to then go back to how we’re using our employee resources and allocating them across the business. So there’s a lot to be done there. Our team’s 100% committed to driving to the right cost structure that’s going consistent with the underlying demand in the business, and then we can’t stop there is the answer. So, a lot to be done, but we have a team that’s absolutely engaged and committed to it, and we’re going to make good progress in this current year.

我们必须审视我们的铁路场，并了解我们是如何管理的。我们必须查看我们的机车车队，包括规模和使用情况，并挑战自己。然后，我们必须回过头来看看我们如何使用员工资源，并在业务中进行分配。因此，这里还有很多工作要做。我们的团队 100%致力于推动与业务中潜在需求一致的正确成本结构，而我们不能止步于此。因此，还有很多工作要做，但我们有一个完全投入和承诺的团队，我们将在今年取得良好的进展。

Warren Buffett: At Berkshire, we want everybody to have the idea that there’s a lot to be done with every business, you know? So, I mean, it is. We built a remarkable, remarkable company and Omaha building company, really remarkable. And there’s this question, after everything they did, that was something that was done particularly well, you know, digging a tunnel under the East river or something, said it couldn’t be done. He would say he would be. He was pleased, but not satisfied. And that is exactly the way we want the attitude to be at Berkshire forever. Omaha is a railroad town. If President Lincoln, in 1862, I think it was, had decided to pick St. Joe or Plattsmith or anyplace else to build the transcontinental railroad, Omaha would probably build a little town of 20,000 or something on the banks of the Missouri. But making, with Lincoln’s desire to make this the eastern connection and make a transcontinental railroad, Omaha just took off. So it’s been it’s been railroading at its base. The. You know. And anybody that was interested in financial matters had to think about railroads. Plus they had a certain glamor to them anyway.

沃伦·巴菲特：在伯克希尔，我们希望每个人都能意识到每个业务都有很多事情可以做，你知道吗？所以，我的意思是，确实如此。我们建立了一家非凡的、非凡的公司，以及奥马哈的建筑公司，真的很了不起。在他们所做的一切之后，有一个问题，那就是有些事情做得特别好，你知道，像是在东河下挖隧道之类的，大家都说这不可能。他会说他很高兴，但并不满足。这正是我们希望伯克希尔永远保持的态度。奥马哈是一个铁路城镇。如果林肯总统在 1862 年，我想是那一年，决定选择圣约瑟夫、普拉特斯密斯或其他任何地方来修建横贯大陆铁路，奥马哈可能会在密苏里河岸上建立一个两万人的小镇。但由于林肯希望将其作为东部连接并修建横贯大陆铁路，奥马哈就腾飞了。所以这一直是铁路的基础。你知道的。任何对金融事务感兴趣的人都必须考虑铁路。此外，铁路本身也有一定的魅力。

But the interesting thing is that UP, which is our main competitor themselves, fell way behind 20 or 25 years ago. Before Jim Young came in, in 2000, whenever it was ‘08 or so, I started buying three railroad stocks in Union Pacific, BNSF and Norfolk Western, I believe. I don’t know why I wasn’t buying C and O, but in any event, Jim Young had done a marvelous job with Union Pacific. So we owned all three stocks. But what we did in 2009 is we were able. Well, we already owned 22% of it, but overall, it was $35 million a billion dollars, which was a significant part of our capital. We were able to put it to work in a business we liked. And there’s certain tax advantages that come in terms of making money in something that’s more than 80% owned. We call it 100% owned, in this case, versus making it through stocks. So it has a net benefit to us from making the same amount of money owning one of the other railroads, by owning all of the railroads, and we got 35 billion out during a recessionary period.

但有趣的是，联合太平洋（UP），作为我们的主要竞争对手，自己在20或25年前就远远落后了。在吉姆·扬（Jim Young）2000年左右，我想是08年左右，我不记得了，我开始购买联合太平洋、BNSF和诺福克西方三家铁路公司的股票。我不知道为什么我没有购买C和O，但无论如何，吉姆·扬在联合太平洋做得非常出色。所以我们拥有这三家公司的股票。但在2009年，我们已经能够做到。嗯，我们已经拥有22%的股份，但总的来说，这是35亿美元，这是我们资本的一个重要部分。我们能够将其投入到我们喜欢的业务中。而且，在拥有超过80%的股份的情况下，有一些税收优势。我们称之为100%拥有，这种情况下，与通过股票赚钱相比，拥有所有铁路公司，而不是其他铁路公司，对我们来说有净收益，我们在经济衰退期间拿出了350亿美元。

I think that was the worst quarter, the third quarter of 2009, maybe the rails had had for a long time. So it’s worked out. Actually, it’s worked out very well, but it’s because we were putting out capital in 2008 and nine, and if we put money in anything, we’d have made a lot of money. But it’s more satisfying, and it’s actually better in certain ways, tax wise, to make it from something that’s 100% owned and a bunch of 5% or 10% owned businesses. As I mentioned in the annual report, railroads are absolutely essential to the country. That doesn’t mean they’re on the cutting edge of everything. They’re just essential to the country. And that’s why the government, I think they took them over one time, and they negotiate what our labor settlements will be and everything. And if you shut down the railroads of the country, it would be incredible, the effects, but. And they would be impossible to construct now.

我认为 2009 年第三季度是最糟糕的一个季度，也许铁路已经经历了很长时间的低谷。所以情况有所好转。实际上，情况发展得非常好，但这是因为我们在 2008 年和 2009 年投入了资本，如果我们把钱投入任何项目，我们都会赚很多钱。但从某种意义上说，从 100%拥有的东西和一堆 5%或 10%拥有的企业中获利更令人满意，税务上也更好。正如我在年报中提到的，铁路对国家是绝对必要的。这并不意味着它们在所有方面都处于前沿。它们只是对国家至关重要。这就是为什么我认为政府曾经接管过它们，并协商我们的劳动协议等一切。如果你关闭全国的铁路，影响将是不可想象的，但现在要重建它们几乎是不可能的。

I mean, look at what’s happening in California when they’re trying to build a line. I mean, you know, everybody’s worried about the environmental effect of every mile, and, you know, and what will happen to the various species of birds. Can you imagine the rail system of the United States being built? It would take decades, unless the war was on and the government took over things and just ordered them. You can’t create it. So we love owning a business like that. It’s going to be around 100 years from now, won’t be the best growth business in the world at all during that period, but it will be essential. And what it earns in its relation to its replacement value is a pittance. But we’ll do fine in terms of what we paid for it. And we’ll distribute substantial amounts in relation to what we paid to Berkshire in a very tax efficient way. So it’s when.The question is, what are the issues relative? The other railroads. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world at all if we bought the Union Pacific and Jim Young had stayed alive to run it for us. That would have been great, too. But we had the opportunity to buy BNSF, and it’s been good for them, and it’s been good for us. And we think it’s been a very important asset to the country. And I just hope we can find something in other industries that makes as much sense as that, where we can put a whole bunch of money to work at an advantageous time. So, let’s go on to station three. Is that correct or not? Yeah. Okay.

我的意思是，看看加利福尼亚州正在发生的事情，当他们试图修建一条线路时。我的意思是，每个人都在担心每一英里对环境的影响，以及各种鸟类会发生什么。你能想象美国的铁路系统是如何建成的吗？除非战争爆发，政府接管并直接下令，否则需要几十年的时间。你无法创造它。所以我们喜欢拥有这样的业务。它将在100年后仍然存在，在那期间它将不会是世界上最好的增长业务，但它将是必不可少的。它相对于其重置价值所赚取的利润微不足道。但就我们为其支付的价格而言，我们会做得很好。我们将以非常有税收效率的方式向伯克希尔分配大量资金。所以，问题是，相对于其他铁路公司的问题是什么？如果我们购买了联合太平洋，吉姆·扬还活着为我们运营它，那也不会是世界末日。那也将会很棒。但我们有机会购买BNSF，这对他们有好处，对我们有好处。我们认为这对国家来说是一个非常重要的资产。我只是希望我们能在其他行业中找到像那样有意义的东西，我们可以在有利的时机投入大量资金。所以，让我们继续进行到第三站。对吗？是的。好的。

Questioner: Kia ora, good afternoon. Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel. My name is Sirapob Wu. A resident of New Zealand but originally from Thailand. This is my first time in America and first time attending the meeting. The journey was rough, but it was all worth it because I can now personally thank you, Mr. Buffett—and the late Charlie Munger, were he still with us—for organising such a wonderful event and, most importantly, for being such exceptional role models and sharing your wisdom with us all these years. So, thank you.

提问者：你好，下午好。巴菲特先生，阿贝尔先生。我叫 Sirapob Wu，居住在新西兰，但我来自泰国。这是我第一次来美国，也是第一次参加会议。旅程很艰难，但一切都是值得的，因为我现在可以亲自感谢您，巴菲特先生——以及已故的查理·芒格，如果他还在我们身边——为组织这样一个精彩的活动，最重要的是，感谢您们这些年来作为杰出的榜样，与我们分享智慧。所以，谢谢您。

Here’s my question for you, Mr. Buffett. Towards the end of 2018, you mentioned that you guarantee you could make a 50% annual return if you had to start again with under $1 million. The question is: if tomorrow you woke up in the body of a 20-year-old American, your name was now Warren a la carte, and you had some money to invest on a full-time basis, what method or methods would you use to achieve that return? Would it involve flipping through 20,000 pages of Moody’s Manual and similar publications to find cigar butts? Or would it be hunting for great companies at a fair price, as Mr. Munger would? Or would it be a combination of both, with opportunity cost serving as the final arbiter of which method to use, given that your investing universe had now broadened significantly? Thank you. Kob khun krab.

这是我对您的问题，巴菲特先生。在 2018 年末，您提到如果您必须在不到 100 万美元的情况下重新开始，您保证可以实现 50%的年回报。问题是：如果明天您醒来，变成了一位 20 岁的美国人，您的名字现在是沃伦·阿拉卡特，并且您有一些资金可以全职投资，您会使用什么方法来实现这个回报？这是否涉及翻阅 20,000 页的穆迪手册和类似出版物来寻找“雪茄屁股”？还是像芒格先生那样寻找价格合理的优秀公司？或者这两者的结合，机会成本作为最终裁决者，考虑到您的投资范围现在已经显著扩大？谢谢。感谢您。

Warren Buffett: Good question. I’m glad you came. The answer would be, in my particular case, it would be going through the 20,000 pages. And since we were talking about railroads, you know, I went through the Moody’s transportation manual a couple of times. That was 1500 or 2000 pages or probably 1500 pages. And I found all kinds of interesting things when I was 50 or when I was 20 or 21. And I don’t imagine there’s anybody here that knows about the Green Bay and Western Railroad Company, but there were hundreds and hundreds of railroad companies, and I like to read about every one of them. The Green Bay and western, in those days, everybody had a nickname for railroads. I mean, that was just what northern Pacific was, the Nipper. And, you know, Phoebe Snow was one of them in the east that used to go up to Cornell and the green band, Western was known as grab baggage and walk and GB&W. And they had a bond that was actually the common stock, and they had a common stock that was actually a bond. And, you know, that that could lead to unusual things, but they wouldn’t lead to unusual things that would work for you with many millions of dollars, but if you collected a whole bunch of those, which I set out to do. And actually, that’s what impressed Charlie when I first met him, because I knew all the details of all these little companies on the west coast that he thought I would never have heard of, but I knew about the Los Angeles Athletic Club, or whatever it might be, and he thought he was the only one that knew about that. And that became an instant point of connection.

沃伦·巴菲特：好问题。很高兴你来了。在我特殊情况下的答案会是，翻阅那2万页的内容。既然我们谈到了铁路，你知道，我翻阅了穆迪的交通手册几次。那是1500或2000页，可能大约是1500页。当我50岁或者20或21岁时，我发现了许多有趣的事情。我不认为这里有人知道绿湾和西部铁路公司，但有成百上千的铁路公司，我喜欢阅读它们每一个的故事。在那些日子里，绿湾和西部铁路公司，每个人都有铁路的昵称。我的意思是，那就是北方太平洋铁路，被称为Nipper。而且，你知道，Phoebe Snow是东部的一个，曾经开往康奈尔的，绿色乐队，西部被称为抓行李和走路的GB&W。他们有一种债券实际上是普通股，他们有一种普通股实际上是债券。而且，你知道，那可能会导致不寻常的事情，但它们不会导致对你有数百万美元的不寻常事情，但如果你收集了一大堆那些，我就开始这么做。实际上，这就是我第一次遇到查理时给他留下深刻印象的地方，因为我知道所有这些他以为我永远不会听说过的西海岸的小公司的细节，但我知道洛杉矶运动俱乐部，或者可能是其他什么，他认为他是唯一知道那个的人。这成为了我们即时联系的一个点。

So to answer your question, I don’t know what the equivalent of Moody’s manuals or anything would be now, but I would try and know everything about everything small, and I would find something. And with a million dollars you could earn 50% a year. But you have to be in love with the subject. You can’t just be in love with the money. You really got to just find it like a true, you know, essentially, like, you know, people find other things in other fields because they just love looking for it. A biologist looks for something because they want to find something, and it’s built into. I don’t know how the human brain works that much, and I don’t think anybody understands too well how the human brain works. But there’s different people that just find it exciting to expand their knowledge in a given area. I know great bridge players, I know great chess players. Actually, Kasparov came to. Oh, mom met Mrs. B. I’ve had the luck of meeting a lot of people that are unbelievably smart in their own arena and do some unbelievably dumb things in other areas.

所以回答你的问题，我不知道现在穆迪手册或其他类似的东西的等价物是什么，但我会尽量了解所有小事，我会找到一些东西。用一百万美元你可以每年赚取 50%。但你必须热爱这个主题。你不能只是爱钱。你真的要像真正的那样去寻找，基本上，就像人们在其他领域寻找其他东西，因为他们只是喜欢寻找。生物学家寻找某样东西是因为他们想要发现某样东西，这已经内化了。我不知道人类大脑是如何运作的，我认为没有人真正理解人类大脑是如何运作的。但有些人只是觉得在某个领域扩展知识是令人兴奋的。我认识很棒的桥牌玩家，我认识很棒的国际象棋玩家。实际上，卡斯帕罗夫来过。哦，妈妈见过 B 女士。我有幸遇到很多在自己领域中极其聪明的人，但在其他领域却做了一些极其愚蠢的事情。

So all I know is the human brain is complicated, but it does its best when you find out what your brain is really suited for, and then you just pound the hell out of it from that point. And that’s what I would be doing if I had a small amount of money and I wanted to make 50% a year, but I also wanted to just play the game. And you can’t do it if you really, if you don’t find the game of interest, whether it’s bridge, or whether, you know, whatever it may be, chess, or in this case, finding securities that are undervalued. But it sounds to me like you’re on the right track. I mean, anybody that’ll come all the way to this annual meeting has got something in their mind other than bridge or chess . So I’m glad you came and come again next year. And now we move. Now we move to Becky.

所以我所知道的是人脑很复杂，但当你发现你的大脑真正适合什么时，它会尽力而为，然后你就从那时起全力以赴。如果我有一小笔钱，想要每年赚 50%，但我也想玩这个游戏，我会这样做。如果你真的没有找到感兴趣的游戏，无论是桥牌，还是国际象棋，或者在这种情况下，寻找被低估的证券，你是无法做到的。但在我看来，你走在正确的道路上。我的意思是，任何能来到这个年度会议的人，心中都有其他想法，而不仅仅是桥牌或国际象棋。所以我很高兴你来了，明年再来。现在我们继续。现在我们转到贝基。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Denny Poland, a shareholder from Pittsburgh. When describing the principal agent problem, Mr Munger said that capitalism often works best when the people managing the property also own the property. In recent years, agents of pension funds and asset management firms who do not have significant personal ownership stakes in Berkshire have forwarded proposals that were not in the economic interest of shareholders. What can be done to limit the negative influence of these agents in the decades after you’re no longer able to cast significant votes against them?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自匹兹堡的股东丹尼·波兰。在描述委托代理问题时，芒格先生表示，当管理财产的人也拥有该财产时，资本主义往往运作得最好。近年来，养老金基金和资产管理公司的代理人没有在伯克希尔拥有显著的个人股权，提出了一些不符合股东经济利益的提案。在您无法对这些代理人投下重要反对票的几十年后，有什么办法可以限制他们的负面影响？

Warren Buffett: Well, that’s a very perceptive question, and it’s been answered in a temporary manner, but who knows how the situation will develop in the future? All I know is that you have a wonderful hand at Berkshire Hathaway, but you have to be able to think your way. I mean, obviously, you have to think your way through political realities. You have to think your way for what will cause a. You want to be on. You want to be regarded as an asset to the country because you’ll find more solutions. If you are an asset, you owe to the country anyway. But beyond that, you’ll find more solutions than if you’re regarded as evil or something, and worse yet, if you deserve it. So it’s something that’s constantly in our mind, and it needs to be in the mind of the directors, and they need to think for themselves on this rather than bow to conventional wisdom, which, you know, in a sense, you don’t want to become a cynic about life, but almost everybody that approaches you, if you have tons of resources that’s got some interest in figuring out how to use your resources to their advantage, and that’s true whether they’re in politics or whether they’re in investment banking or whether they’re selling you, well, whatever it may be that they’re selling, I don’t want to do any injury to anybody, but life insurance agents see the advantage of buying life insurance, and investment managers who get paid based on assets managed to get interested in selling you their services.

沃伦·巴菲特：这是一个非常有洞察力的问题，而且已经以一种临时的方式得到了回答，但谁知道将来情况会如何发展呢？我只知道在伯克希尔·哈撒韦，你拥有一手好牌，但你必须能够自己思考。我的意思是，显然，你必须通过政治现实来思考你的路。你必须思考什么会导致你想要处于的位置。你希望被视为国家的资产，因为你会发现更多的解决方案。如果你是资产，你反正也欠国家的。但除此之外，如果你被视为邪恶或什么的，你就会发现的解决方案会更少，更糟糕的是，如果你应得的话。所以这是我们一直在考虑的事情，它需要在董事们的心中，他们需要自己思考这个问题，而不是屈服于传统智慧，你知道，在某种意义上，你不想对生活变得愤世嫉俗，但是几乎每个接近你的人，如果你拥有大量资源，他们就有兴趣弄清楚如何利用你的资源来获得优势，无论是在政治上还是在投资银行中，或者无论他们是在向你推销什么，嗯，无论他们可能在推销什么，我不想伤害任何人，但是人寿保险代理人看到了购买寿险的优势，而那些根据管理资产获得报酬的投资经理则对你销售他们的服务感兴趣。

Imagine if everybody in this room were following the investment advice of somebody that said, you know, for 1% a year, I’ll tell you how to invest your money. And in 1950, when we started in 1965, they would have said, well, buy Berkshire Hathaway, and if they were around now and they saw the 1% deal, they’d be collecting $8 billion a year from people who aren’t getting any dividends from us. So they would have a different interest in the kind of contract they worked out with you than you would have. And best thing to do was just pay them a commission one time and own the stock. But you have to be alert to how what human nature does to both other people and to you.

想象一下，如果这个房间里的每个人都遵循某个人的投资建议，那个人说：“你知道，每年1%的费用，我会告诉你如何投资你的钱。”而在1950年，或者我们1965年开始的时候，他们会说：“好吧，买伯克希尔·哈撒韦股票。”如果他们现在还在，看到1%的交易，他们会从那些没有从我们这里获得任何股息的人那里每年收取80亿美元。所以他们与你达成的合同类型的利益会有所不同，而你的利益则不同。最好的做法就是一次性给他们支付佣金，然后拥有股票。但你必须警惕人性对他人和你自己的所作所为。

And then, you know, if you think it through well and actually listen to what Charlie has told you, you’ll have a big head start on most people. Charlie - there’s one thing that I should mention that really is terribly interesting about Charlie. Charlie knew the importance of psychology and human behavior and incentives and all of that. He figured that out very early. And, of course, he gave some talks, even on 25 or so ways, whatever it happened to be. I don’t remember the exact number, but the different ways that one person could take advantage of another by understanding how humans behave. And then after doing a magnificent job of explaining it. He believed in understanding what others would do, but he thought it was beneath him to actually use those methods to manipulate people. Really interesting human being that thinks through the psychology of human behavior and figures out, you know, how you become a great insurance salesman or manager on Wall Street, or accumulate assets under management or whatever it may be. And you get very rich by understanding the weaknesses of others to some extent, and then decide that it’s very important for you to recognize these when they occur. It’s very important for you to know them better than the person that actually is using them, but not that you don’t have to stoop to using them yourself. And Charlie told me that in his lifetime after he figured this out, there were a couple of times when he used them. He wasn’t proud of it, but he also never lied to me. So he explained to me that there were a couple times when he used some of these techniques, but he didn’t plan on using them anymore. Also wanted me to know that if I ever did something like that, I wasn’t really behaving terribly, that he allowed for the fact that humans may misbehave.

然后，你知道，如果你仔细思考并真正聆听查理告诉你的话，你将在大多数人面前拥有一个巨大的先机。查理——有一件事我应该提一下，这真的是关于查理非常有趣的一点。查理知道心理学、人类行为、激励等的重要性。他很早就明白了这一点。当然，他甚至做过一些演讲，关于25种左右的方式，或者无论具体数字是多少，关于一个人如何通过理解人类行为来利用另一个人的不同方式。在出色地解释了这一点之后，他相信理解他人会做什么，但他认为自己使用这些方法去操纵人是有失身份的。真正有趣的人，他思考了人类行为的心理学，并弄清楚了，你知道，如何成为一个伟大的保险销售员或华尔街的经理，或者积累管理下的资产，或者无论它可能是什么。你通过在一定程度上理解他人的弱点，然后决定在它们出现时认识到这些是非常重要的。对你来说，比实际使用它们的人更了解它们是非常重要的，但这并不意味着你非得降低自己去使用它们。查理告诉我，在他一生中，当他明白这一点后，有几次他使用了它们。他并不为此感到骄傲，但他也从未对我撒谎。所以他向我解释说，有几次他使用了这些技巧，但他不打算再使用它们了。他还想让我知道，如果我做了类似的事情，我的行为并不是真的很糟糕，他允许人类可能会有不当行为的事实。

So I’m sure that I behaved somewhat better before my marriage than I did afterwards in my enthusiasm for different activities, like dancing or something. And he said, we all do it, but don’t do it again. So that’s part of acquiring human wisdom. And speaking of human wisdom, we’ve just got that one book out there by Charlie, I mean, poor Charlie’s Almanac, and that’s worth reading three or four times. I think I read Ben Graham’s book about five or six times. And each time I read it, I realized that I just needed to think a little more deeply about certain things. They weren’t complicated or anything. But, you know, it’s better to. If you’ve got some great instruction, like you get with Charlie, it’s better to read it several times than to just figure you’ll just read every book once it’s in the library. Okay, let’s go to section four.

所以我可以肯定，在我结婚之前，我在对不同活动的热情上表现得比结婚后要好一些，比如跳舞或其他什么。他说，我们都会这样做，但不要再这样做了。这就是获得人类智慧的一部分。说到人类智慧，我们刚刚有了查理的那本书，我的意思是，poor Charlie’s Almanac，值得读三四遍。我想我读本·格雷厄姆的书大概五六遍。每次我读它，我意识到我只需要更深入地思考某些事情。它们并不复杂或其他什么。但是，你知道，最好是。如果你得到了像查理那样的伟大指导，最好多读几遍，而不是认为你需要在图书馆里看完每本书。好的，让我们去第四部分。

Questioner: Jeff Rabelir from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I’m thinking of Doctor Graham, Mr Munger, your father. And my question is, for all of us, but it’s probably especially for the younger people in the room, the importance of picking the right heroes in life. Choosing friends wisely, and maybe tell us, a story, if you could, about each of those folks. Thank you, sir.

提问者：来自俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的杰夫·拉贝利尔。我在想格雷厄姆博士、芒格先生和您的父亲。我的问题是，对于我们所有人来说，尤其是房间里年轻人，选择生活中正确的英雄的重要性。明智地选择朋友，如果可以的话，给我们讲一个关于这些人的故事。谢谢您，先生。

Warren Buffett: Well, there’s no question you’re 100% right in terms of having the right heroes. And, you know, you’re lucky if you get them. I mean, Charlie had them, I had them. And the interesting thing, my sister is here today, my younger sister, with the two survivors. And we both experienced having the same hero, even though as we grew older, we saw that we didn’t agree with plenty of his ideas, but we did agree with his values and motivation. And that’s, that’s a better lesson than having somebody that reading to you from a catechism, that has got a lot of rules in it, which are pretty good rules, but, but there’s a special, special place for somebody that is going to continue loving you even if you break some of the rules. And that’s what Charlie had in his life, was what Bertie and I had in our life. So I would just repeat what you said. I don’t need to give you a bunch of, well, when I ran away from home, I’ll give you a specific example with me.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，毫无疑问，你在选择正确的英雄方面是 100%正确的。而且，你知道，如果你能得到他们，那你就是幸运的。我是说，查理有他们，我也有他们。有趣的是，我的妹妹今天在这里，我的妹妹和两位幸存者。我们都经历过拥有同一个英雄，尽管随着年龄的增长，我们发现我们并不同意他很多的想法，但我们确实认同他的价值观和动机。这比有人给你读教义更好，那里面有很多规则，这些规则相当不错，但，有一个特别的地方是，有人会继续爱你，即使你违反了一些规则。这就是查理在他生活中所拥有的，也是伯蒂和我在我们生活中所拥有的。所以我只想重复你所说的。我不需要给你一堆，嗯，当我离家出走时，我会给你一个具体的例子。

When I ran away from home and went and we hitchhiked up to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and got picked up by the state police and everything. And I talked these other two guys into it and we lied like crazy to the state police, you know, saying we had our parents permission. Some kid at the place where we stayed had tipped them off that we’d run away from home. And we started, like I said, state police picked us up. We decided two things. You know, we decided to tell them a bunch of lies about the fact we had our parents permission. And we decided we better get out of Hershey because these cops were going to find out sooner or later. And so anyway, we end up back in Washington after a couple days. And when I walked in the door, well, one of the boy’s mother and this other kid was the congressman, Roger Bell. And his mother was in the hospital over this whole thing. He’d taken out his cash and his savings bonds. And so she was sick. And Judge Bell, her husband, was all concerned and everything. And I walked in the door in Washington and my mother said, how come he came back so soon? And my father said, he said, I know you can do better. And I just paid more attention to my father than my mother. So you want to have the right heroes and you don’t have to have them. It’s not the heroes based on what they’ve accomplished. It’s the people that you want to be yourself. And if you copy the right people, you’re off to a great start. And I don’t mean great start about making money. I mean a great start about living your life. So you can check with my sister Bertie who’s here, and see if I’ve told the story correctly. She ran away from home, too, incidentally, but she didn’t get as far as I got. She was running away to go over to my grandfather’s house, which was about 2 miles away. But I don’t want to denigrate her runaway

当我离家出走，搭便车去宾夕法尼亚州的赫尔希时，被州警拦下了。我说服了另外两个家伙，我们对州警撒了很多谎，声称得到了父母的许可。我们住的地方有个孩子向他们透露了我们离家的事。正如我所说，州警把我们抓了。我们决定了两件事。我们决定对他们撒谎，说我们得到了父母的许可。我们还决定最好离开赫尔希，因为这些警察迟早会发现真相。于是，几天后我们回到了华盛顿。当我走进门时，其中一个男孩的母亲和另一个孩子是国会议员罗杰·贝尔。他的母亲因为这件事住院了。他拿出了现金和储蓄债券。她生病了。贝尔法官，他的丈夫，非常担心。当我走进华盛顿的门时，我母亲问，怎么这么快就回来了？我父亲说，我知道你可以做得更好。我对父亲的关注比对母亲的多。所以你想要有正确的英雄，而你不必拥有他们。这些英雄并不是基于他们所取得的成就，而是你想成为的那种人。如果你模仿正确的人，你就有了一个良好的开端。我并不是说赚钱的良好开端，而是关于生活的良好开端。所以你可以问我在这里的姐姐贝尔蒂，看看我是否正确地讲述了这个故事。顺便提一下，她也曾离家出走，但她没有我走得远。她是为了去我祖父的家，距离大约 2 英里。但我不想贬低她的逃跑

abilities because she was much more accomplished than I am in all kinds of other things. But when it comes to running away, I definitely outclassed her. Okay, let’s go to Becky.

能力，因为她在其他各种事情上比我更有成就。但在逃跑方面，我绝对胜过她。好吧，我们去找贝基。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Vedant Sharma in India. Warren, you and Charlie have often said that you were able to identify the people you want to go into business with and have had an exceptional record in that. However, in the case of Pilot, we noticed that the final stake purchase ended up in a dispute and had a sense of smart accounting, to put it one way, to squeeze a little more out from the deal than was deserved by the seller. Knowing well that this has been settled out of court, and needs due confidentiality, I would like your views on some of the lessons learned that may be beneficial for future deals to watch for and for coming leadership to look out for as well.

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自印度的维丹特·夏尔马。沃伦，你和查理常常说你们能够识别出想要合作的人，并且在这方面有着卓越的记录。然而，在 Pilot 的案例中，我们注意到最终的股份购买出现了争议，并且可以说有一些聪明的会计手法，从交易中榨取了比卖方应得的更多的利益。虽然我知道这已经在法庭外解决，并且需要保密，但我想听听你对一些经验教训的看法，这些教训可能对未来的交易有所帮助，并且对即将上任的领导者也有启示。

Warren Buffett: Well, I’ll make two comments on that. A couple of the directors had their doubts about going in, and in any event, Pilot is working out well for us. And my friend Sam Butler one time said to me that, and he was talking in general about certain kinds of situations, but he said, well, Warren, he said, all is well that ends, and that’s where we are. So we’ll go to station five. Well, while we’re getting to station five, I’ll tell you a little bit more about the fellow that is now running Pilot. I knew you may have met here that Greg had known for a long, long time. And he grew up in Omaha and came from a poor family and was raised by his mother. And went to the same high school, public high school that my wife went to, North High. Went to University of Omaha, set an all time record in rushing yardage playing there. He was a bouncer, yes. Drafted by the New York Giants, as I remember. But then injured, actually, in spring training, I remember, in some way. And so he ended up being an intern. Not an intern, but a trainee, you might say, for mid American before I was there. And now here he is, still relatively young, and he’s running a huge company, and we’ve got incredible confidence in what he will do. And we like very, very, very much the business that was created by Big Jim Haslam. And it really is almost an only in America type story, but it does show you with somebody with some real stuff and with a mother that believes in them and with bad breaks along the way. I mean, imagine how you’d feel if you were drafted by the New York Giants and then you suffered some injury in spring training or something. I mean, you spend your life, it just, it hurts, but it’s not an experience I would have ever had. I was the last guy chosen. But to see that he’s running a company depends on the price of deal, but it’s a huge company. What does he have, 25,000 or something? And he’s got many, many, many years to go. So I couldn’t be more pleased about not only the acquisition of Pilot, but just what it tells you about America. You can, what do you have to look up to? Read about them in Google or an interview with Adam?

沃伦·巴菲特：我对此有两点评论。几个董事对进入这个项目持怀疑态度，但无论如何，Pilot对我们来说进展顺利。我的朋友萨姆·巴特勒曾经对我说过一句话，他说的是一般情况下的某些情况，但他说，沃伦，所有事情只要结局好就好，这就是我们现在的情况。所以我们会转到第五站。不过，在我们到达第五站之前，我会告诉你们一些关于现在负责运营Pilot的那位同事的事情。我知道你们可能在这里见过他，他是格雷格很久以前就认识的人。他在奥马哈长大，来自一个贫困家庭，由母亲抚养长大。他上的同一所高中是我妻子就读的公立高中，North High。他去了奥马哈大学，在那里创造了一个全场冲球码数的纪录。他曾是一名保镖，是的。他被纽约巨人队选中，如果我没记错的话。但后来在春训中受伤，我记得是这样的。所以他最终成为了一名实习生。其实不能算是实习生，而是可以说是MidAmerican的培训生，那是在我到那里之前。而现在，他还很年轻，却管理着一家巨大的公司，我们对他将来能做的事情充满了信心。我们非常非常非常喜欢由Big Jim Haslam创建的这家公司。这确实几乎是一个“美国独有”的故事，但它向你展示了一个有真正实力的人，并且有一个相信他们的母亲，即使一路上遇到了坏运气。我是说，想象一下，如果你被纽约巨人队选中，然后在春训中受伤，那种感觉会是怎样。你可能会一生都感到痛苦，但这不是我会有的经历。我是最后一个被选中的。但看到他现在经营着一家公司，这取决于交易的价格，但这是一个庞大的公司。他有多少员工？2.5万人？他还有很多很多年可以奋斗。所以我对收购Pilot以及它所体现的美国精神感到非常满意。你可以去查一下，Google上或和Adam的采访中应该有他的资料。

人的性格特征是很容易观察的，支持这笔交易的还有一个合适的负责人。

Greg Abel: Yeah, I try and think if it’s. A podcast.

格雷格·阿贝尔：是的，我试着想这是否是一个播客。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, he’s got a podcast. Podcast that will just blow you away. And if you don’t think this is a great country, it has a lot of great people. All you got to do is read that podcast. So.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，他有一个播客。这个播客会让你大吃一惊。如果你不认为这是一个伟大的国家，那它有很多伟大的人。你只需阅读那个播客。

Greg Abel: But we do have a great set of assets. Oh, yeah. You know, if you look at Pilot, we have 800, more than 800 stations, travel centers, and just so everybody knows, I mean, the beauty of that, and there’s a question regarding this morning around fuel choices at Pilot. And the exciting thing is, in the end, pilot’s going to serve whatever fuel our customers need. It can be electric, it can be renewable diesel, it can be diesel or any of the various sustainable fuels. But the point is, it has exceptional locations that are on the interstate highways. Hundreds of them. And we bought an incredible franchise and now we have a great leadership team in both Adam and his team that’s around him. So we’re pleased where that opportunity will go.

格雷格·阿贝尔：但我们确实拥有一套很棒的资产。哦，是的。你知道，如果你看看 Pilot，我们有 800 多个加油站、旅行中心，大家都知道，这其中的美妙之处在于，今早有个关于 Pilot 燃料选择的问题。而令人兴奋的是，最终，Pilot 将提供我们客户所需的任何燃料。可以是电动的，可以是可再生柴油，可以是柴油或任何各种可持续燃料。但关键是，它在州际公路上有着卓越的地点。数百个。而且我们购买了一个令人难以置信的特许经营，现在我们有一个出色的领导团队，包括亚当和他周围的团队。因此，我们对这个机会的发展感到满意。

Warren Buffett: Yeah, we’ve got probably the average one might be ten or twelve acres or something like that zoned commercial on interstates throughout the whole United States. Who knows? But what was created there is amazing, too. You had a fellow that played at University of Tennessee, and undefeated and came away from this football team and you think, well, another football player, you know, maybe he goes out and, and there may be some intermediate parts in the story a little bit, but he buys a gas station and he turns it into something that is huge. So we’re really delighted with it. And it’s another kind of only in America story. You know, how many of us can become an all american, number one ranked team, let alone start a business that goes on these sort of heights. So we feel very good about it. Becky?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们可能拥有的平均面积大概是十到十二英亩左右，在全美国的州际公路旁被划为商业区的土地。谁知道呢？但在那里创造的东西也很了不起。有一位在田纳西大学打球的人，他所在的球队不败，他离开了这支足球队，你可能会想，他不过是另一个足球运动员，可能出去闯荡一下，故事中可能还有一些中间的细节，但他买了一家加油站，然后把它发展成了一个庞大的企业。所以我们对此感到非常高兴。这又是另一个“美国独有”的故事。你知道，有多少人能成为全美第一的球队成员，更别提创办一个达到这种高度的企业了。所以我们对此感到非常满意。贝基？

Greg Abel: No, I think they’re ready for five now. Oh, I see. He’s up there now, ready to go.

格雷格·阿贝尔：不，我认为他们现在准备好五个了。哦，我明白了。他现在在那儿，准备好了。

Warren Buffett: Okay, go do it.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，去做吧。

Questioner: Hello, Mr. Buffett. My name is Zhang Yabo. I came from micro City, Hainan, China. So I want to express my sincere gratitude for you, for the extraordinary value you generated for shareholders and the positive influences you’ve had on younger generation of investors like us. And my question relates to the concept of maximizing the duration of compounding. As individuals age, the quality of compounding inevitably diminishes. What are your secrets in maintaining your sharp man? Extraordinary judgment and great physical condition. We wish you well. Thank you.

提问者：您好，巴菲特先生。我叫张亚博，来自中国海南的微城。我要对您表示衷心的感谢，感谢您为股东创造的非凡价值，以及您对我们这一代年轻投资者的积极影响。我的问题与最大化复利持续时间的概念有关。随着个人年龄的增长，复利的质量不可避免地会下降。您在保持敏锐的判断力和良好的身体状态方面有什么秘诀？祝您一切顺利。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, you don’t know me well, but that’s. I like. Just keep talking. You know, you have to be just plain lucky. I mean, there’s no question about it that there’s 100 or a thousand. You know, multiply a number of times that some drunk could have pulled out of the car and broadsided me, or, you know, just the bad luck you can have in life. And I can say my great skill has been avoiding bad luck, but that isn’t a skill. That’s luck or bad activities. And then to get to be. I would not have been if you’d taken my high school class. And you say a couple of you are going to live to be 90. Men are going to live to be 93, maybe I’ve got. You know, I wouldn’t. I would not have been a heavy favorite, I can tell you that. And I wouldn’t have bet on myself. But you just. Now, you should make the most of your luck when you get it. And sometimes I’ve done that and sometimes I haven’t.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你可能不太了解我，但我喜欢继续说下去。你知道，你必须非常幸运。这是毫无疑问的，有成百上千次，某个醉汉可能会把车开出来撞到我，或者你在生活中可能遇到的厄运。我可以说，我最大的技能是避免了厄运，但这并不是一种技能。这只是运气或者避免了不好的行为。再说，如果你把我的高中班级里的几个人挑出来，说你们中有几个会活到90岁，可能有男的会活到93岁，或许我会...你知道，我不会是个热门人选，我可以告诉你这点。我自己也不会下注支持自己。但你只需要在幸运降临时好好利用它，有时候我做到了，有时候我没有。

I mean, it is absolutely true that if I had to do over again, there’d be a lot of different choices I would make, whether they would have ended up working out as well as things that worked out. It’s hard to imagine how they could have worked out any better. So. But it is interesting how many mistakes you can make if you just keep going. And Charlie, you know, when he used to talk about that, that you just soldier through, you just keep going, and. But you still need luck, you know, you don’t want to. Anybody that says I did it all myself is just kidding. I mean, it’s just. They’re delusional and, you know, actually living in a country with a life expectancy is pretty darn good, you know, so that alone is a huge plus.

我意思是，如果我可以重来一次，我会做出很多不同的选择，不管这些选择是否会像那些成功的选择一样有效。很难想象它们会有更好的结果。所以。但是，如果你继续前进，你可以犯下多少错误是很有趣的。查理，你知道，当他谈到这个时，他说你只需坚持下去，继续前进。但是你仍然需要运气，你知道，你不想。任何说我全靠自己的人都是在开玩笑。我是说，他们只是。那些人是妄想的，实际上生活在一个预期寿命相当不错的国家，这本身就是一个巨大的优势。

I was born, if I’d been born, my sister’s here, and she was born female, and she’s just. Just as smart as I was and everything. But even my own family, who really did well, particularly my dad, love us all equally in a terrific manner. But he still told me that this is, well, was born ten years after the 19th amendment was past, but he basically told my sisters that marry young, well, you still have your looks. And he told me that the world, that power in you is new in nature and you really could do anything. Well, I found there were a lot of things I couldn’t do, but the message given to females and males was incredibly different by the most well meaning and loving of parents.

如果我出生的时候，我的妹妹也在场，她是个女性，她和我一样聪明，各方面都很优秀。但是，即便是在我的家庭中，尤其是我的父亲，他对我们所有人都一视同仁，充满爱心，但他还是告诉我姐妹们，在她们年轻时结婚，因为她们还保持着美貌。而他告诉我，世界的力量在你身上是新生的，你真的可以做任何事情。当然，我发现有很多事情我做不了，但即便是最有善意和最爱我们的父母，给男孩和女孩传递的信息也是截然不同的。

You know, like I say, in 1930, I mean, it’s been that way for millions of years. It’s changed quite dramatically, but obviously not completely, but during my lifetime, but it’s been during the latter half of my lifetime. If you take my sisters, if they’d been born even five or ten years later, they still would have been getting instructions when they went away to college, to be sure, and get married while we get arranged so that you’re going to be married while you’re in school, because after you get out, all the good ones are taken. Bertie was telling me that was a message that that basically had been imparted to a lot of the women she had met, obviously. So it really, it’s extraordinary how much progress we’ve made, but it’s unbelievable how long it took to get it made. I

你知道，就像我说的，1930 年，我的意思是，这种情况已经持续了数百万年。它发生了相当大的变化，但显然并不是完全的，但在我的一生中，尤其是在我生命的后半段。如果你看看我的姐妹们，如果她们晚出生五年或十年，她们在上大学时仍然会收到指示，确保结婚，而我们则安排好在上学期间结婚，因为一旦你毕业，所有好的对象都被占有了。伯蒂告诉我，这基本上是她遇到的许多女性所传达的信息，显然。所以，真的，令人惊讶的是我们取得了多大的进步，但令人难以置信的是，这一切花了多长时间才实现。

mean, it really does make you wonder about, you know, we’ve got all these heroes from american history and all the wonderful things they did, but how could they say all men are created equal and then write a constitution that women, you know, allowed women not to be able to own property and depending on the state. I mean, just terrible conditions. But anyway, that’s how you learn about what the humans can do.

这确实让人思考，我们有这么多美国历史上的英雄和他们所做的所有伟大事情，但他们怎么能说所有人都是平等的，然后又写出一部宪法，让女性不能拥有财产，具体取决于州的不同。我是说，条件真是糟糕。不过，无论如何，这就是你了解人类能做什么的方式。

And I feel, and you’ve got to feel better about the future for your kids than you would have felt 100 years ago, no matter what the situation is. Anyway, we’ll move to Becky.

我觉得，无论情况如何，你对孩子们的未来感到的比 100 年前要好。无论如何，我们来看看贝基。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Linda Frazier in Westport, Connecticut. Dear Mr Buffett, in the past, you’ve specified that 90% of your wife’s inheritance be invested in a low cost S&P 500 index fund and 10% in short term government bonds. But the market cap of the magnificent seven tech stocks now represents more than one quarter of the market cap weighted S&P 500 index, which seems like a big bet on the tech sector.

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自康涅狄格州韦斯特波特的琳达·弗雷泽。亲爱的巴菲特先生，过去您曾明确表示，您妻子遗产的 90%应投资于低成本的标准普尔 500 指数基金，10%投资于短期政府债券。但现在，七大科技股的市值已占加权标准普尔 500 指数市值的四分之一以上，这似乎是对科技行业的重大押注。

I was wondering if you would now recommend investing some portion of the funds in a low cost, equal weight S&P 500 index fund, rather than having all of the equity exposure in a tech heavy market cap weighted fund.

我在想你是否会建议将部分资金投资于低成本、等权重的标准普尔 500 指数基金，而不是将所有的股票敞口放在一个以科技为主的市值加权基金中。

Warren Buffett: Well, that’s an interesting question. And I will tell you that I revise my will about every three years or so, and I get little thoughts from time to time, and then you don’t change it. Every time you do it, you get a tiny thing. But the one section I haven’t changed is that, that with my wife, that she got left a huge amount of money by practically anybody’s measurement, except a pittance, compared to what I’ve accumulated in total. And it won’t make one bit of difference to her in life whether she beats the S&P or anything else. All I want to leave is plenty of money to take care of way beyond anything she’ll ever spend, and at the same time, give her as much peace of mind as possible and really make sure that the trustee who administers it doesn’t really have to worry about whether, it just doesn’t make any difference whether she beats the S&P or not. And the main thing is that she feels that. She feels that she’s in a financial position, which, of course, she will be, that she doesn’t even need to think about it. And the trustee doesn’t have to worry about getting sued or anything else.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是个有趣的问题。我会告诉你，我大约每三年就会修订一次遗嘱，我时不时会有一些小想法，然后你就不去改变它。每次你做这件事时，都会有一点小变化。但我没有改变的一个部分是，我的妻子几乎在任何人的标准下都得到了巨额的遗产，除了与我所积累的总额相比，那简直是微不足道的。这对她的生活没有任何影响，无论她是否超过标准普尔或其他任何东西。我想留下的只是足够的钱来照顾她，远远超过她可能花费的任何东西，同时尽可能给她带来内心的平静，确保管理这些财产的受托人不必担心，无论她是否超过标准普尔，这都没有任何区别。最重要的是，她能感受到这一点。她感到自己处于一种财务状况，当然，她会这样，甚至不需要考虑这些。受托人也不必担心被起诉或其他任何事情。

So it’s simply not an economic condition. Now, obviously, with 99% plus of what I have going to philanthropy, and I’ve got my three children. The one good thing is that at the age of 70, 69 and 65, they have matured remarkably, probably more than their father. But at the same time, they’ve got less time to work with the money than they would have. You know, they were 50 or something like that. So you do, you do the best in accomplishing your objectives in your will, and, and in the end, you know, you can’t, you don’t know what’s going to happen after you die, but you make sure that, that to the extent that you leave, you have a lot of money to leave. You take. Obviously, you want to say thanks to a lot of people and quite a few people in terms of specific requests, you want to take care of your family. But in my case, that requires practically no money and a fair amount for taxes. But I have, and my children are in charge of what happens to the funds that are left. But like I say, the problem is when you live as long as I have. And the kids get older, who knows what happens with mortality tables? And they’re the ones that I really want to see handle the distributions.

所以这根本不是经济条件。显然，我有 99%以上的财富用于慈善事业，而我有三个孩子。唯一好的一点是，在 70 岁、69 岁和 65 岁时，他们成熟得非常快，可能比他们的父亲还要成熟。但与此同时，他们能用这些钱的时间比他们 50 岁时要少。所以你尽力在遗嘱中实现你的目标，最终，你知道，死后会发生什么你并不知道，但你确保你留下的财富是相当可观的。显然，你想感谢很多人，并且在特定请求方面照顾你的家人。但在我的情况下，这几乎不需要多少钱，税务方面需要相当多的费用。但我有，我的孩子们负责处理剩余资金的分配。但正如我所说，问题在于，当你活得像我这样久时，孩子们变老了，谁知道死亡率表会发生什么？而他们正是我真正希望看到处理分配的人。

And they will, and they’ll be very good about it. But if we’re all alive three years from now, they’ll be three years older. So everything, you can’t solve everything in life. You do the best you can with it. People do interesting things.

他们会的，而且他们会非常好地处理这件事。但如果我们在三年后还活着，他们就会大三岁。所以生活中的一切，你无法解决所有问题。你尽力而为。人们会做有趣的事情。

I’ve been around probably as many rich people as almost anybody, and a fair number of, I know what they’re doing or have done with their funds. And the idea that you can have a huge amount of money and leave everybody very rich and have people liking each other less when it all happens. Humans are really, they are interesting to watch. Some of them handle it beautifully and others are terrible. The one thing lawyers will always tell you is don’t use codicils. In other words, you know, when you change your mind on a will, just write a new one, but tear up the old one. Don’t do it by just adding codicils.

我见过的富人可能和几乎所有人一样多，我知道他们在资金方面的所作所为。拥有大量财富的想法是，可以让每个人都变得非常富有，但当这一切发生时，人们之间的关系却变得更差。人类真的很有趣。有些人处理得很好，而另一些人则很糟糕。律师们总是会告诉你的一件事就是不要使用附录。换句话说，当你改变遗嘱时，直接写一份新的，撕掉旧的，不要仅仅通过添加附录来处理。

But I believe I’m correct. Certainly read it. That Paul Getty, who was the richest man in the world, presumably at one point in the 1950s or sixties, and it was a very interesting guy to read about, and he had five wives, and he’s the one whose grandson was kidnapped, and they sent Paul Getty an ear of the child and everything. I mean, it’s not a happy life when you get through it. But the one, one thing he did that was kind of interesting, he actually liked to use codicils because I think he had like 25 of them. And it was kind of his way of writing, well, I’m taking you out of the will because, you know, and so he sort of delighted in explaining through his will how he felt about all these people.

但我相信我说的是对的。一定要读一下。保罗·盖蒂，他曾是世界上最富有的人，可能在 1950 年代或 60 年代的某个时候，他是一个非常有趣的人，值得一读，他有五个妻子，他的孙子被绑架了，他们给保罗·盖蒂寄了一只孩子的耳朵等等。我是说，经历这一切并不是一个快乐的生活。但他做的一件有趣的事情是，他实际上喜欢使用附录，因为我想他有大约 25 个。这是他写的方式，嗯，我把你从遗嘱中剔除，因为，你知道，所以他在遗嘱中乐于解释他对所有这些人的感受。

I mean, you really get some strange things revealed in a will. I just read about a will of a fellow that made a whole lot of money and was leaving it to his, I don’t know whether it was children, grandchildren, whatever it may have been, but in any event, his opening line and his will is, and this was done some years ago, but I know something about the family. His opening line, in effect, said, I’m writing this will while I am writing in the economy section of Eastern Airlines, number such and such. I mean, he believed in getting right to the point of what the people who were recipients, how they should live, and he was going to be judging them. It’s just so damned interesting to watch people’s wills. But one guy left a lot of money to his wife on the condition that she remarry, so that at least one man would mourn his passing. Well, I’m not giving legal advice here, as I always say, but I feel very, very, very good about how things have turned out.

我想，你真的会在遗嘱中看到一些奇怪的事情。我刚刚读到一个人的遗嘱，他赚了很多钱，打算把这些钱留给他的，我不知道是孩子、孙子，还是其他什么人，但无论如何，他遗嘱的开头一句话是，这个遗嘱是在东航经济舱的某个座位上写的。这是几年前的事，但我对这个家庭有些了解。他的开头实际上是说，我在东航经济舱的某个座位上写这份遗嘱。他相信要直接告诉那些受益人，他们应该如何生活，而他将会对他们进行评判。看人们的遗嘱真是太有趣了。但有一个人把很多钱留给他的妻子，条件是她再婚，这样至少会有一个人会为他的去世感到悲伤。好吧，我在这里并不是给出法律建议，正如我总是说的，但我对事情的发展感到非常非常好。

And I wish I could figure out ways better to use the really vast resources I’ve got into some of the really important questions of the world, but I haven’t been able to do that. I had a few goals when I was 30 or 40, and may have written them in the wills then, in terms of what the world needed done and how the money could be used. And unfortunately, I decided that they weren’t feasible to accomplish. And of course I was setting out to accomplish things that were important. Nobody’s solved yet, so you got to expect that why should I be able to solve them? But nevertheless, it’s an interesting - and the one thing about it is everybody here, I don’t know about the ones who’ve come from other countries, but you should have a will, because if you don’t have a will, you still have a will, and it’ll be whatever the state says. And it’s amazing. Four american presidents died intestate without wills. Four, you know, we’ve only had 45.

我希望能找到更好的方法，将我拥有的丰富资源用于一些世界上真正重要的问题，但我还没有做到。当我 30 或 40 岁时，我有几个目标，可能当时在遗嘱中写下了这些目标，关于世界需要做什么以及如何使用这些资金。不幸的是，我决定这些目标无法实现。当然，我当时设定的目标都是重要的。没有人解决过，所以你得想，为什么我能解决它们？但尽管如此，这仍然是一个有趣的事情——而且这里的每个人，我不知道那些来自其他国家的人怎么样，但你应该有一份遗嘱，因为如果你没有遗嘱，你仍然会有一份遗嘱，那就是州政府所说的。真是令人惊讶。四位美国总统去世时没有遗嘱。四位，你知道，我们只有 45 位总统。

And imagine becoming president of the United States and not having a will. But you can look up somebody recently, I think, Lincoln, I’m certain Lincoln was one of the four. And here’s a man, I mean, I don’t know what you can always say. Well, he didn’t get around to it, but that’s hard to imagine why Abraham Lincoln would have died intestate. I’m sure we’ve got some Lincoln scholars out there that will write me after this and explain why, and I’ll be interested to receive their letters. But human beings are human beings, and we all have weaknesses and peculiarities and everything else. And don’t be too hard on yourself, because you have some of those. But don’t be totally forgiving either. You can change the future. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future. Okay? Station six.

想象一下成为美国总统却没有遗嘱。但你可以查找最近的某个人，我想，林肯，我确信林肯是四位之一。这里有一个人，我是说，我不知道你总是可以说什么。好吧，他没来得及，但很难想象亚伯拉罕·林肯会死于无遗嘱。我相信我们有一些林肯学者会在这之后给我写信解释原因，我会很高兴收到他们的信。但人类就是人类，我们都有弱点和特性以及其他一切。不要对自己太苛刻，因为你也有这些。但也不要完全宽恕。你可以改变未来。你不能改变过去，但你可以改变未来。好吗？第六站。

Questioner: Good afternoon. My name is Caroline and I’m a lawyer in San Diego. Please don’t hold that again with me. Remember, Mr Munger was once an attorney too. First, I’d like to sincerely thank you, Mr Buffett, for your business integrity, tireless leadership, and generous contribution to philanthropy. My question for the distinguished panel of two is, now that the AI genie is out of the bottle, as someone astutely put it earlier today, what business in Berkshire Hathaway may be most at risk with AI.

提问者：下午好我叫卡罗琳，是圣地亚哥的一名律师。请不要再对我说这些了。请记住，芒格先生曾经也是一名律师。首先，我要衷心感谢你，巴菲特先生，感谢你的商业诚信、孜孜不倦的领导以及对慈善事业的慷慨贡献。我想向尊敬的两位嘉宾提出的问题是，既然人工智能的精灵已经从瓶子里出来了，正如今天早些时候有人敏锐地指出的那样，伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的哪些业务可能会因人工智能而面临最大风险？

Warren Buffett: Well, that’s a wonderful question. The problem is I really don’t know anything about AI, obviously, anything that’s labor intensive and that it can create an enormous amount of leisure time. Now, what the world does with leisure time is another question, whether more leisure time. I know an awful lot of people think when they go to work at first what they want is leisure time. And what I like is actually having more problems to solve. But AI is profound. That’s what makes it, makes it a genie. Is what going to happen?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是个很好的问题。问题是我对人工智能真的一无所知，显然，任何劳动密集型的东西都能创造出大量的闲暇时间。那么，世界如何利用闲暇时间是另一个问题，是否会有更多的闲暇时间。我知道很多人一开始上班时想要的就是闲暇时间。而我喜欢的实际上是有更多的问题去解决。但人工智能是深刻的。这就是它的魅力所在。接下来会发生什么？

I could tell a few genie jokes but I better not. I guess. When we probably, I don’t know what, you know, in terms of our businesses, they’ll figure things out. I mean, we’ve got smart people. Obviously, if it’s used in a pro social way, it’s got terrific benefits to society. But I don’t know how you make sure that that’s what happens any more than I know how to be sure that when you use two atomic bombs in World War Two that you knew that you hadn’t created something that could destroy the world later on.

我可以讲几个精灵笑话，但我最好还是不讲。我想。当我们可能，我不知道，关于我们的业务，他们会搞清楚事情。我是说，我们有聪明的人。显然，如果以促进社会的方式使用，它对社会有巨大的好处。但我不知道你怎么能确保这就是发生的事情，就像我不知道在第二次世界大战中使用两颗原子弹时，你怎么能确保你没有创造出可能在以后摧毁世界的东西。

Greg Abel: Yeah, I think when we think of AI at a lot of the business units, I mean, we’re truly one, trying to think how does it make us more efficient, more effective? I mean, it results in more idle time. And we’re probably not thinking of the iterative AI where we’re looking at very specific processes where our people can implement it. And either at times it displaces the labor, but then hopefully there’s other opportunities for them within the business. But I think when you think of all our businesses, I mean, we do have a heavy labor workforce and a lot of them, but I think at the stage we’re at as a company and maybe where it’s at right now, it’s really around how do we do things more effective, more efficiently, more safely, if it involves dangerous processes? So we’re early innings.

格雷格·阿贝尔：是的，我认为，当我们在很多业务部门考虑人工智能时，我的意思是，我们是真正的一个，试图思考它如何使我们更有效率、更有效？我的意思是，这会导致更多的闲置时间。我们可能没有考虑到迭代式人工智能，我们正在研究非常具体的流程，我们的员工可以在这些流程中实施人工智能。有时，人工智能会取代劳动力，但希望他们能在业务中找到其他机会。但我认为，当你想到我们所有的业务时，我的意思是，我们确实有大量的劳动力，但我认为，在我们公司所处的阶段，也许是现在所处的阶段，如果涉及到危险的流程，我们如何更有效、更高效、更安全地做事？因此，我们还处于起步阶段。

Warren Buffett: John Maynard Keynes was just wonderful to read and incredible mind. But in around the time I was born, he wrote a book about what could happen. I don’t know whether it was in the next hundred years or whatever. And he predicted correctly that that output per capita would grow at this incredible rate that it has. But in terms of speculating as what people would do with that, I mean, this guy was unbelievably smart, but it hasn’t developed exactly the way he predicted. He was right about what was going to go into the equation, but he wasn’t. He didn’t have it figured out exactly what at all, what would be the result? So it is really, well, we didn’t know when we were developing the bomb that there would probably be this very soon nine countries, three of whom we should worry about plenty that will have what they have, but we didn’t really have any choice. And you could have had all kinds of papers written on and everything else, but we were going to do it anyway. We needed to do it.

沃伦·巴菲特：约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯的书真是令人惊叹，思维也不可思议。但在我出生的那个时候，他写了一本关于可能发生的事情的书。我不知道那是在接下来的百年还是其他什么。他正确地预测了人均产出将以这种惊人的速度增长。但在推测人们会如何利用这一点时，我的意思是，这家伙真是聪明得不可思议，但事情的发展并没有完全按照他的预测进行。他对将要进入方程的内容是正确的，但他并没有完全弄清楚结果会是什么。所以，实际上，我们在开发炸弹时并不知道很快会有九个国家，其中三个我们应该非常担心，他们会拥有他们所拥有的，但我们真的没有选择。你可以写各种各样的论文和其他一切，但我们无论如何都会去做。我们需要这样做。

And if you haven’t read it, it’s fascinating to go to Google and read the letter by Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt, written about a month before, almost exactly a month before Germany moved into Poland. And it laid out well, Leo Szilard knew what was going to happen or had a good hunch of what was going to happen in terms of nuclear bomb development. And he couldn’t get through to Roosevelt. But he knew that a letter signed by Albert Einstein would. So it’s probably the most important letter ever written and you can read it, which is just fascinating to me, but that started the Manhattan project. That started it. Just everything flowed out of it. And I’ll bet anything that Roosevelt didn’t understand it, but he understood that Albert Einstein sent a letter and he probably knew what he was talking about. And he better get, he better start the Manhattan project. It is just unbelievable what happens in this world. Anyway, let’s move on to Becky, I guess, is next, right?

如果你还没有读过，那去谷歌上看看莱奥·西拉德和阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦写给罗斯福总统的信是非常吸引人的，这封信是在德国几乎正好一个月前入侵波兰之前写的。信中清楚地阐述了，莱奥·西拉德知道即将发生的事情，或者对核弹开发有很好的直觉。他无法直接与罗斯福沟通。但他知道一封由阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦签署的信会有效。因此，这可能是有史以来最重要的信件，你可以阅读它，这对我来说非常吸引人，但这开启了曼哈顿计划。这一切都由此而来。我敢打赌罗斯福并不理解信的内容，但他知道阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦发了一封信，他可能知道爱因斯坦在说什么。他最好开始曼哈顿计划。这个世界上发生的事情真是不可思议。无论如何，我想接下来是贝基，对吧？

Becky Quick: Yep. Randy Jeffs from Irvine, California. The March 25, 2024 Wall Street Journal reported that the treasury market is about six fold larger than before the 2008-2009 crisis. Do you think that at some point in time the world market will no longer be able to absorb all of the US debt being offered?

贝基·奎克：是的。来自加利福尼亚州尔湾的兰迪·杰夫斯。2024 年 3 月 25 日《华尔街日报》报道，国债市场的规模比 2008-2009 年危机前大约大六倍。你认为在某个时刻，全球市场将无法吸收所有提供的美国债务吗？

Warren Buffett: Well, I would say the answer, of course, I don’t know, but my best speculation is that US debt will be acceptable but for a very long time because there’s not much alternative. But it won’t be the quantity. The national debt was nothing to speak of for a long, long time. It won’t be the quantity. It will be whether in any way inflation would get let loose in a way that really threatened the whole world economic situation.

沃伦·巴菲特：我想答案当然是，我不知道，但我最好的推测是，美国债务在很长一段时间内会是可以接受的，因为没有太多替代品。但这不是数量的问题。国家债务在很长一段时间内并不算什么。这不是数量的问题，而是通货膨胀是否会以某种方式失控，从而真正威胁到整个世界经济形势。

And there really isn’t any alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency. And you get a lot of people who give you a lot of speeches on that, but that really is the answer. And Paul Volcker worried about that back in 19, before 1980, but he had threats on his life. And I happened to have a little contact with him at that time. He was an amazing amazing fellow that, in effect, decided that he had to act or really the financial system would fall

而作为储备货币，美元确实没有任何替代品。很多人会对此发表很多演讲，但这确实是答案。保罗·沃尔克在 1980 年前就对此感到担忧，但他曾受到生命威胁。我当时与他有过一些接触。他是一个非常了不起的人，实际上决定了他必须采取行动，否则金融系统将会崩溃。

apart in some way that he couldn’t predict. And he did it and he had people threatening his life and do all kinds of things, but he was the man for that crisis. But it wasn’t the quantity of US debt that was being offered that threatened the system then. It was the fact that inflation and the future value of the dollar, the cash is trash type thinking that turned, that was setting up something that could really affect the future of the world in terms of its economic system. And Paul Volcker took it on and he was (inaudible) as could be.

以某种他无法预测的方式分开。他做到了，甚至有人威胁他的生命，做各种事情，但他是应对那场危机的人。但当时威胁系统的并不是所提供的美国债务的数量。而是通货膨胀和美元未来价值的事实，那种“现金是垃圾”的思维方式正在酝酿着可能真正影响世界经济体系未来的事情。保罗·沃尔克承担了这一切，他尽可能地（听不清）。

And if you haven’t read a book or two about him or the one he last wrote, you really ought to take a look at it. But it is, I don’t worry about the quantity, I worry about the fiscal deficit, but I’m not a worrier just generally, I mean I think about it, but I don’t sit and get up, work myself into a stew about it in the least. But I, but I can’t help thinking about it and that’s, we’ve got a, we’ve got a great attention. It’s interesting, I think media enters into this and focuses on the Fed and they, you know, they just love it because things are always happening and economists are always saying what’s going to happen with the fed and everything else. But the fiscal deficit is what should be focused on. And Jay Powell is not only a great human being, but he’s, he’s a very, very wise man, but he doesn’t control fiscal policy.

如果你还没有读过一本或两本关于他或他最近写的书，你真的应该看看。但我不担心数量，我担心财政赤字，但我一般不担心，我是说我会考虑它，但我不会坐在那里为此烦恼。但我，我无法不去想它，这就是，我们有一个，我们有一个很大的关注点。我觉得媒体介入其中，关注美联储，他们，你知道，他们就是喜欢，因为事情总是在发生，经济学家总是在说美联储会发生什么以及其他一切。但财政赤字才是应该关注的重点。杰伊·鲍威尔不仅是一个伟大的人，而且他是一个非常非常聪明的人，但他并不控制财政政策。

And every now and then he sends out a kind of a disguised plea for please pay attention to this because that’s where the trouble will be if we have it. As one of the comics used to say, there was a stand up comic used to say, who have I forgotten to offend after this talk? And I always feel like that after these meetings. But we’ve got time for at least one question and maybe two. But let’s go to station seven.

有时他会发出一种伪装的请求，请大家关注这个，因为如果我们有问题，就会出现在这里。正如一位喜剧演员曾经说过的，谁在这次谈话后我忘记冒犯了？每次开会后我总是有这种感觉。但我们至少还有时间问一个问题，可能两个。但我们先去第七站。

Questioner: Hello, my name is Dennis from Giffon, Germany. By my first time here, I’m here with my friend who would, by the way, love to invite you to dinner. You talked about the importance of heroes, and we are very happy to and thankful that we have you as our hero with great values and thank you for that. First of all, my question is, it is clear that you achieved great success in life. Earlier you talked about every investment having opportunity cost. From what I’ve learned in life, that does not only apply it to investing your money, but also to investing your time. Every hour you spend in your office is an hour you cannot spend with your spouse or children. With the life experience you have now, if you had the possibility to start all over again, would you set your priorities any different? If yes, how and why? And what’s the best way to invite you to dinner?

提问者：你好，我叫丹尼斯，来自德国的吉芬。这是我第一次来这里，我和我的朋友在一起，他顺便想邀请你共进晚餐。你谈到了英雄的重要性，我们非常高兴并感激有你这样的英雄，拥有伟大的价值观，感谢你。首先，我的问题是，显然你在生活中取得了巨大的成功。你之前提到过每项投资都有机会成本。从我在生活中学到的，机会成本不仅适用于投资你的钱，也适用于投资你的时间。你在办公室花费的每一个小时都是你无法和配偶或孩子共度的一个小时。以你现在的生活经验，如果你有机会重新开始，你会改变你的优先事项吗？如果会，怎么改变，为什么？邀请你共进晚餐的最佳方式是什么？

Warren Buffett: That definitely won’t be one of my priorities if I figure out how to do that. But don’t take it personally, because you can figure out at the maximum all the period I’ve got. I don’t think, I mean, I can figure out all kinds of things that should have been done differently, but so what, you know, I mean, I’m not perfect. I don’t believe in lots of self criticism or being unrealistic about either what you are or what you’ve accomplished or what you’d like to do. You do the, you know, you do a lot of things and who knows whether somewhat different trade offs. You know, you just can’t, you can’t. You don’t know what the paths would have led. I feel. I don’t think there’s any, any room in beating up yourself over what’s happened in the past. It’s happened and you get to live the rest of the life and you don’t know how long it’s going to be. And you keep trying to do the things that are important to you.

沃伦·巴菲特：如果我能弄明白怎么做，那绝对不会是我的优先事项。但不要把它当回事，因为你可以在我拥有的时间里尽量去理解。我并不认为，我的意思是，我可以想出各种应该以不同方式处理的事情，但那又怎么样呢，你知道，我并不完美。我不相信过多的自我批评或对自己是什么、取得了什么成就或想做什么抱有不切实际的期望。你做了很多事情，谁知道是否有一些不同的权衡。你知道，你就是不能，你不知道那些路径会导致什么。我觉得，我认为在为过去发生的事情自责上没有任何价值。事情已经发生，你要继续生活，而你不知道这将持续多久。你要继续努力做对你重要的事情。

If I was a doctor or if I was all kinds of different professions, I might do different things, but I really enjoy managing money for people who trust me. I don’t have any reason to do it for financial reasons. I’m not running a hedge fund or getting an override or anything, but I just like the feeling of being trusted. Charlie felt the same way. You know, that’s a good way to feel in life and it continues to be a good feeling. So I’m not really looking to change much. And, you know, if I’m very lucky, I get to play it off for six or seven years and it could end tomorrow. But that’s. That’s true of everybody. Although the equation isn’t exactly the same. But I don’t believe in beating yourself up over anything you’ve done in the past. And I don’t believe in, well, I believe in trying to find what you’re good at, what you enjoy. And then I think the one thing that you can aspire to be, because this can be done by anybody and it’s amazing, doesn’t have anything to do with money. But you can be kind. You can be kind if you’re. And then the world’s better off.

如果我是一名医生，或者从事各种不同的职业，我可能会做不同的事情，但我真的很享受为那些信任我的人管理资金。我没有任何财务上的理由去这样做。我不是在经营对冲基金，也没有获得额外的收益，但我就是喜欢被信任的感觉。查理也有同样的感觉。你知道，这是一种在生活中很好的感觉，并且这种感觉一直很好。所以我并不想改变太多。你知道，如果我非常幸运，我可以这样持续六七年，明天可能就结束了。但这对每个人都是如此。虽然这个公式并不完全相同。但我不相信要为自己过去做过的事情自责。我相信，嗯，我相信要努力找到你擅长的事情，和你喜欢的事情。然后我认为你可以追求的唯一一件事，因为任何人都可以做到这一点，这很了不起，和金钱无关。但你可以善良。如果你能做到这一点，世界会变得更好。

I’m not sure that the world will be better off if I’m richer, but there’s no question that. I mean, you know, kind people, and in the end, aspire to be more. Or I’m sure many of you are yourself, but just aspire to be more. So. And I guess we can take one more question from Becky, and then we’d wind up.

我不确定如果我更富有，世界是否会变得更好，但毫无疑问的是。我是说，你知道，善良的人，最终都渴望变得更好。或者我相信你们中的许多人也是如此，只是渴望变得更好。所以。我想我们可以再问贝基一个问题，然后我们就结束。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Devon Spurgeon. On March 4, Charlie’s will was filed with the county of Los Angeles. The first codicil contained an unusual provision. It reads, averaged out, my long life has been a favored one, made better by duty, imposed by family tradition, requiring righteousness and service. Therefore, I follow an old practice that I wish was more common now, inserting an ethical bequeath that gives priority not to property, but to transmission of duty. If you were to make an ethical bequest to Berkshire shareholders, what duties would you impose and why?

贝基·奎克：本问题来自德文-斯伯吉恩（Devon Spurgeon）。3 月 4 日，查理的遗嘱提交给了洛杉矶郡。第一份遗嘱包含一项不同寻常的规定。它写道："我漫长的一生是受宠的一生，因责任而变得更加美好，因家族传统而变得更加美好，因正义和服务而变得更加美好。因此，我遵循一种古老的做法，我希望这种做法现在能更普遍一些，即插入一项伦理遗赠，优先考虑的不是财产，而是责任的传承。如果你要给伯克希尔公司的股东留下一份伦理遗赠，你会规定哪些义务，为什么？

Warren Buffett: I’d probably say read, Charlie. I mean, he’s expressed it well, and I would. Well, I would say that if they’re not financially well off, if you’re being kind, you’re doing something that most of the rich people don’t do, even when they give away money. But that’s on the question of whether you’re rich or poor. And I would say, if you’re lucky in life, make sure a bunch of other people are lucky, too. Okay. Just in case. You know what my advice to myself would be has been during this period.

沃伦·巴菲特：我可能会说，读读查理的东西吧。他已经表达得很好了。我会说，如果他们不富裕的话，那么如果你心地善良，你在做的是大多数富人即使在捐钱时都不做的事情。但这与是否富裕无关。我会说，如果你在生活中幸运的话，确保让一群其他人也能幸运。好吧，以防万一。你知道，在这段时间里，我对自己的建议是什么。

So we only got 33 questions, or whatever it is. But thank you very, very much for coming, and I not only hope that you come next year, but I hope I come next year.

所以我们只有 33 个问题，或者其他什么。但非常非常感谢你们的到来，我不仅希望你们明年能来，我也希望我明年能来。

2024-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

2024-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

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