介绍

WARREN BUFFETT: (Applause) Yeah, don’t wear out all your clapping on Charlie, I mean, we got (Laughs) In addition, well, we have, first of all, Greg Abel, our director, and — (Applause) And Ajit Jain, sitting next to him on insurance. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT：（掌声）是的，别把你们所有的掌声都用在 Charlie 身上。我是说，我们还有——（笑声）。另外，首先介绍的是我们的董事 Greg Abel。（掌声）还有坐在他旁边、负责保险业务的 Ajit Jain。（掌声）

And moving, then, to the 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 — (applause) Susan Buffett (applause) Steve Burke, Ken Chenault, Chris Davis, Sue Decker, Charlotte Guyman, Tom Murphy, Jr., Ron Olson, Wally Weitz, and Meryl Witmer. OK. (Applause)

接下来，我们再看这一排后面。如果那里的各位董事能一直站着直到介绍结束，我们会按照字母顺序依次介绍。我们有 Howard Buffett，还有（掌声）Susan Buffett（掌声）、Steve Burke、Ken Chenault、Chris Davis、Sue Decker、Charlotte Guyman、Tom Murphy, Jr.、Ron Olson、Wally Weitz，以及 Meryl Witmer。好。（掌声）

WARREN BUFFETT: 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. (Applause) She just reported to me that we set a new record for See’s Candy. I think they brought along six tons. And they will sell out.

第一季度业绩与 1820 亿美元现金

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We put out some results for the first quarter this morning at 7 o‘clock our time. And some a 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.

WARREN BUFFETT：好的。今天早上我们当地时间 7 点发布了第一季度的业绩。一些眼尖的分析师和媒体已经从中注意到一两个项目，我相信稍后我们会收到相关的问题。现在如果可以的话，我们先从第一张幻灯片开始，现在应该已经显示出来了。

You’ll see that in the first quarter the way and we talk about operating earnings at Berkshire, we’ve explained that many times that’s 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, is going to have us 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.

你们会看到，在第一季度——我们在 Berkshire 一直强调经营利润（operating earnings），这一点我们已经解释过很多次。我们认为我们向大家提供的这些数字，最能真实反映企业经营状况，同时剔除了市场剧烈波动的影响，否则市场波动会让我们某个季度报告巨额盈利、另一个季度又报告巨额亏损。对此 Berkshire 从不予以关注。不过你们会看到，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. And that’s our number one risk as we evaluate things. But we’re in all kinds of risk. There can be an earthquake tomorrow. There can be an earthquake ten years from now. And then they‘re going to you know we’re in that sort of business. But the first quarter does it does hit the it should be our best quarter. Certainly shouldn’t be our worst quarter. The most likely quarter to be the worst quarter is the third quarter. But anything can happen in insurance. But fortunately, nothing much happened in insurance (laughs) during the first quarter. So, we had much-improved earnings in insurance underwriting.

Ajit Jain 让我提醒大家一件事：你不能把第一季度的保险盈利直接乘以四。在保险行业里事情不是这样运作的。虽然我们为全球各地的风暴提供保险，但真正可能对我们盈利产生重大影响的风暴，例如最典型的一种，是从我们的角度看“在错误的地点登陆”，然后一路沿着美国东海岸向北移动的风暴。在我们评估风险时，这是头号风险。不过我们处在各种各样的风险之中。可能明天就发生地震，也可能十年以后才发生地震。我们做的就是这样一种生意。第一季度通常应该是我们最好的季度之一，至少不应该是最差的季度。最有可能成为最差季度的通常是第三季度。不过在保险行业里什么事情都可能发生。幸运的是，今年第一季度在保险方面几乎没有发生什么大事（笑）。因此我们的保险承保利润有了明显改善。

And then our investment income was almost bound — 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 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. 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.

然后是我们的投资收益，这几乎注定会增加。实际上在年度报告里我已经提到过这一点，因为收益率比去年高得多。我们持有大量固定收益的短期投资，这些投资对利率变化非常敏感。因此这一数字大幅上升。我可以预期，这一项全年都会增加。我们还有更多资金可以投资，稍后会谈到这一点。这是相当可预测的，因此这个数字还会继续上升。

When you get into the 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 could also hit the earnings. It’s a potential earnings at the railroad. And if you want, every Wednesday, you can get car loadings from the previous week. It‘s a little deranged if you do get them, but I get them every week. They’re available and you’ll see that car loadings 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.

再看铁路业务，铁路的盈利略有下降。不过在当前的运输量条件下，我们本来应该能够赚到比现在稍多一些的钱。当然，运输量的变化也会影响铁路的盈利，这仍然存在一定的盈利潜力。如果你愿意的话，每周三都可以看到上一周的铁路装车量数据。如果你真的每周都去看，多少有点“走火入魔”，不过我每周都会看。这些数据都是公开的，你会看到整个行业的装车量最近略有下降。这些盈利表现基本符合预期，不过在相同装车量的情况下，我们本来应该赚到比现在稍多一些的钱。

And we 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 it‘s quite an improvement from last year. 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.

在能源业务方面，我们的盈利有所改善，不过这些盈利也受到了一些扭曲。更准确地说，是受到了我在年度报告中提到的一些情况影响，我们今天上午大概还会进一步讨论。不过因为去年基数比较低，所以今年的盈利还是有所上升。因此，最终的数字是 112 亿美元，这比去年有了相当明显的改善。不过我们本来就预期盈利会逐年温和增长，因为毕竟去年我们保留了大约 370 亿美元的利润。

So, if we put 37 billion more you left it with us we should do something that’s satisfactory. And the goal at 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 to pull off, necessarily. But that’s what we’re attempting to do.

如果你们把这 370 亿美元留在我们这里，我们理应把这笔钱用在令人满意的地方。Berkshire 的经济目标其实很简单：提高经营利润，同时减少流通在外的股份数量。说起来很简单，但要真正做到并不那么容易。不过这正是我们努力要做的事情。

And if we’ll turn to slide two, please I’ve got the history and I just picked the pre-pandemic year, 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 a hundred million dollars per day, including weekends and holidays, coming in to deploy. And we’ve set out many times what we’re attempting to deploy that money. But we have that responsibility.

如果把幻灯片切换到第二页，你们可以看到历史数据。我选的是疫情之前的一年，那一年我们的盈利是 240 亿美元。随后在疫情的第一年出现了下降。然后你们可以看到，之后盈利又从 270 亿、300 亿上升到 370 亿美元。这些盈利有一个有趣的地方：它们是在扣除了折旧、摊销、税收等各种费用之后的数字。因此可以这样理解，Berkshire 每天——包括周末和节假日——大约都会产生超过 1 亿美元的现金，可以用于再投资。我们已经多次说明过，我们打算如何配置这些资金。这就是我们所承担的责任。

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 at March 31st 574 billion 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’ve been in the restroom or something at the time. (Laughter)

如果再翻到下一页，你们会看到这些资金如何逐渐累积成股东权益。截至 3 月 31 日，通过持续保留利润，Berkshire 的股东权益已经达到 5740 亿美元。自从我们取得 Berkshire Hathaway 的控制权以来，我们一直在保留利润——只有一次例外。我记得那大概是在 1968 或 1969 年，董事会宣布每股派发 10 美分的股息。我想那时候我可能正好在洗手间之类的地方。（笑声）

So, if you leave out that period of madness, we’ve been retaining earnings we’ve been saving your money putting it to work. And sometimes sometimes, we’ve done things that were big mistakes. But never 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, there’s really there‘s probably been half a dozen to a dozen over 57 or 58 years 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，如果把那段“疯狂时期”排除在外，我们一直都在保留利润，把你们的钱留在公司里并投入使用。当然，有时候我们也会犯一些很大的错误。但我们从未接近过那种致命的错误。而且时不时地，我们也会做出一些真正奏效的决策。正如 Charlie 过去指出的，在过去 57 或 58 年里，真正重要的大决策大概也就六到十二个左右。而且其中没有一个接近致命的错误。这也一直是我们的基本原则。

And we have accumulated 571 billion, and I couldn’t help but look at who’s second. And JPMorgan 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.

我们已经累计了 5710 亿美元的股东权益。我忍不住去看了一下谁排第二。JPMorgan 在去年年底是 3270 亿美元，我想在本季度末大概是 3380 亿美元。不过他们会支付大量股息，也会回购股票。

They’ve got a business that earns better returns on equity. But they don’t plow it and they shouldn’t they don’t plow it back exactly like we have. And this does show what can be done really, without any miracles if you save money over time. 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.

他们有一门能够获得更高股本回报率的生意。但他们不会、也不应该像我们这样把所有利润重新投入进去。这实际上说明了一件事：如果长期持续储蓄，不需要任何奇迹，也能取得很大的成果。最初 Charlie 和我拥有一群合伙人，他们希望把钱存下来，并把钱留在我们这里，就像你们刚才在影片里看到的那样。你们看到了 Eddie 和 Dorothy Davis。Davis 家族、他们的子女以及孙辈，有时也会把钱用于其他用途，但总体上他们还是把钱留在我们这里，而我们实际上就是一个储蓄工具。

And they were able to 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, you know, 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.

他们的生活都非常富足。但他们并没有像早期资本主义时期的那些“国王和王后”那样生活——建造新英格兰那种巨大的宅邸，在餐桌后面站着一排仆人之类的生活方式。因此，我们这里很少吸引那种我称为“看我多厉害”的人。那种生活方式也没什么错，只不过那类人会去别的地方。而且按照过去的标准来看，他们最终花的钱往往会变得难以想象地多。

And our people nobody we‘ve had nobody that’s a 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 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. So, our cash and Treasury bills were 182 billion at the quarter end. And I think it’s a fair assumption that they’ll probably be about 200 billion at the end of this quarter. We’d love to spend it, but we won’t spend it unless we think they’re doing something that has very little risk and can make us a lot of money.

而在我们的股东群体里，没有人是守财奴或者囤积者之类的人。他们的生活都很好。但复利的数学，加上一条非常长的跑道，创造了惊人的结果。稍后在午餐前，我们还会举一个例子来说明这种理念能够做到什么程度。因此，截至本季度末，我们持有的现金和 Treasury bills 为 1820 亿美元。我认为一个合理的假设是，到本季度结束时这个数字可能会接近 2000 亿美元。我们当然很愿意把钱花出去，但除非我们认为某项投资风险非常低、而且能够为我们赚很多钱，否则我们不会动用这笔资金。

And our stock is at a level where it adds slightly to the value when we buy-in shares. But we would really buy it in 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-in 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 you know, the people in this room, really they don’t think about selling.

目前我们的股价处在这样一个水平：当我们回购股票时，它确实能略微增加公司的价值。如果可以的话，我们其实愿意进行大规模回购，但问题是你无法大规模回购，因为大家也不愿意大规模卖出。不过在某些市场条件下，我们确实可以把相当多的资金用于回购。正如你们在最后一张幻灯片上会看到的，在过去五年里我们确实进行了股票回购。但我们无法像许多公司那样回购，因为交易方式不同，成交量也不同。原因在于我们的股东——也就是在座的各位——他们通常不会想着卖出股票。

I would hope many of you don’t even check the price daily, or weekly. You know, the people who check the price daily have not made the money that the people who’ve forgotten about it (laughs) basically have over the years. 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.

我希望在座的很多人甚至不会每天、或者每周去查看股价。事实上，那些每天盯着价格的人，并没有像那些“几乎忘了它的人”（笑声）那样赚到那么多钱。这基本上就是 Berkshire 的故事。我们的目标是持续提高经营利润；在合适的时候减少流通在外的股份数量；并且等待偶尔出现的大机会。对于目前所处的位置，我们非常满意。

由于未来可能提高税率而现在出售部分 Apple 股票

WARREN BUFFETT: 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. And Becky, you want to start with the first question?

WARREN BUFFETT：在这样的背景下，我们把时间交给 Becky Quick。接下来我们会在 Becky 提问和现场观众提问之间轮流进行。Becky，你要不要先从第一个问题开始？

BECKY QUICK: Sure. Thanks, Warren. Let’s start, just given what you mentioned there was some news that came out in the 10-Q this morning. It shows that Berkshire sold another 115 million shares of Apple in this last quarter. That’s Berkshire’s largest holding.

BECKY QUICK：好的，谢谢 Warren。我们先从一个今天早上 10-Q 报告中披露的消息开始。报告显示，Berkshire 在上个季度又卖出了 1.15 亿股 Apple 股票。这是 Berkshire 最大的一项持仓。

And I think in that vein, we’ll start with a question from Sherman Lam. 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 managers’ views of the economics of Apple’s business or its attractiveness as an investment changed since Berkshire first invested in 2016?”

因此，我们先从 Sherman Lam 的问题开始。他是一位来自马来西亚的 27 岁 Berkshire Hathaway B 类股东。他的问题是：“去年您提到 Coca-Cola 和 American Express 是 Berkshire 两项长期、部分所有权的投资。在最近的股东信中，您也花了一些时间谈到这两家优秀企业的优点。我注意到您并没有把 Apple 列入这一类企业。自从 Berkshire 在 2016 年首次投资 Apple 以来，您或您的投资经理对 Apple 商业模式的经济特性，或者它作为一项投资的吸引力，是否发生了变化？”

WARREN BUFFETT: No, 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 if we own whatever it may be, we look at that as a business. And when we own Coca-Cola, or American Express, or Apple, we look at them as businesses.

WARREN BUFFETT：没有。不过我们确实卖出了一些股份。我想说的是，到今年年底，Apple 很可能仍然会是我们最大的普通股持仓。有一点很有意思，Charlie 和我一直把普通股、可交易股票——也就是大家通常喜欢关注的那些证券——当作企业来看待。所以，当我们拥有 Dairy Queen，或者其他任何一家企业时，我们把它看作一家企业。当我们持有 Coca-Cola、American Express 或 Apple 的股票时，我们同样把它们看作企业。

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. We can’t buy 90 percent or 80 percent or anything like that. But when we look at Coca-Cola, and American Express, and Apple, we look at them as businesses. Now, there’s differences in tax factors. There’s difference in managerial 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.

在市场上，我们可以把一些非常优秀的公司当作企业来购买。当然，我们无法买下它们全部的股份——不可能买下 90% 或 80% 的股份。但当我们看待 Coca-Cola、American Express 或 Apple 时，我们始终把它们视为企业。当然，在税收因素、管理责任以及很多方面都会有所不同。但在资金配置上，我们始终把每一只股票看作一家企业。我们不会——也没有办法——去预测市场，也不会尝试去“选股票”。

It 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 percent. 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 if 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. And 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 generous to our owners — it’s been the place I was lucky, Berkshire was lucky, it was here.

政府——也就是联邦政府——实际上拥有我们企业所创造收益的一部分。他们并不拥有企业的资产，但他们拥有收益中的一个比例。而且这个比例每一年都可以改变。目前他们规定的比例是 21%。在当前的财政政策下，我认为某些事情迟早必须发生改变。我认为更高的税率是相当有可能出现的。如果政府想从你的收入、我的收入，或者 Berkshire 的收入中拿走更大的份额，他们完全可以这样做。也许有一天政府会决定，他们不希望财政赤字继续保持这么大的规模，因为那会带来一些重要后果。同时他们也可能不愿意大幅削减支出，于是可能会选择从我们赚到的钱里拿走更高的比例。而我们会支付这笔税。在 Berkshire，我们一直希望能够缴纳相当规模的联邦所得税。我们认为这是合适的，因为这个国家对我们的股东一直非常慷慨。我个人很幸运，Berkshire 也很幸运，我们能够在这里发展。

And if we send in a check like we did last year — we sent in over five billion dollars to the U.S. 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 — nothing down the line. (Applause) Now that’s — 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. And I would really hope with all that America’s done for all of you, that it shouldn’t bother you that we do it. And if I’m doing it at 21 percent this year, and we’re doing it at a lot higher percentage later on, I don’t think you’ll actually mind the fact that we sold a little Apple this year.

如果我们像去年那样寄出一张支票——去年我们向美国联邦政府缴纳了超过 50 亿美元——如果再有 800 家公司也这样做，那么美国其他任何人都不需要缴纳一分钱联邦税。无论是所得税、社会保障税、遗产税，整个税收体系都不需要再向其他人征税。（掌声）我希望 Berkshire 未来的发展足够好，使我们能够说自己属于“800 家俱乐部”，甚至在这个名单里再往上升几个位置。写出那样一张支票，对我来说一点也不困扰。考虑到美国为你们所有人所做的一切，我也希望大家不会因为我们缴纳这些税而感到困扰。如果今年我们按 21% 的税率缴税，而未来按更高的税率缴税，我想你们也不会太介意我们今年卖出了一点 Apple 股票。

我们喜欢日本投资，但整体仍将以美国为中心

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Let’s go to section one. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT：好，我们进入第一部分。（掌声）

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Mr. Buffett. This is Matthew Lai (PH) from China, Hong Kong. I’m running my (unintelligible) listed company called F-Dub (PH). And we are so grateful to learn 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 companies? Thank you.

观众提问：您好，Buffett 先生。我是来自中国香港的 Matthew Lai。我经营一家上市公司 F-Dub。我们非常感激能向您学习，您也给了我们很大的启发。我的问题是：除了电动车公司 BYD 之外，在什么情况下您会再次考虑投资香港或中国的公司？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT：好的。（掌声）

Well, our primary investments will always be in the United States. We do think it — (Applause) — The companies we invest in 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 American Express has a position in the credit card field which I think is extremely strong. And part of that was one of the directors one of the reasons 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.

我们的主要投资始终会在美国。（掌声）我们在美国投资的这些公司，其业务本身已经遍布全球。American Express 在全球范围内开展业务，而几乎没有哪家公司像 Coca-Cola 一样在全球经营。Coca-Cola 在大约 200 个国家中的 170 或 180 个国家里都是首选软饮品牌——这是几年前的大致数字。如此程度的全球接受度，我认为几乎是无与伦比的。我几乎想不出还有哪家公司能像 American Express 在信用卡领域那样占据如此强的地位。原因之一是我刚才介绍过的一位董事 Ken Chenault。当然，在过去 20 年中，它的竞争地位由于很多原因而显著增强。

So, we will — the BYD investment was a — And well, we made the commitment in Japan, which I did five years ago, and that was just overwhelmingly compelling. It was extraordinarily compelling. And we bought it as fast as we could. And we spent a year, and, you know, we got a few percent of our assets in five very big companies. But that’s the problem with 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. 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. But I’m in an economy already that has, you know, after starting out with a half a percent of the world’s population, has ended up with well over 20 percent of the world’s output, and in an amazingly short period of time. So I we will be American-oriented. 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, you know, this one is really you know? He would always go along with me, you know, 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.” (Laughs)

至于 BYD 的投资——另外，我们在日本做出的投资决定是五年前做的，那是一个极具吸引力的机会，吸引力非常强。我们尽可能快地买入，大约用了一年的时间，把资产中的几个百分点配置到了五家非常大的公司上。但这也是我们规模过大的一个问题。不过你不会看到我们在美国之外进行大量投资。虽然通过这些公司，我们实际上参与了全球经济。但我更了解美国这个体系——无论是规则、弱点还是优势。对于世界上其他经济体，我并没有同样深的理解。我对其他文化也没有那么敏锐的把握。幸运的是，我也不需要这样做，因为我并不生活在一个经济规模很小的国家。我所在的是美国经济体。美国最初只占全球人口的大约 0.5%，但在非常短的时间内却创造了超过全球 20% 的经济产出。因此，我们的投资仍然会以美国为中心。如果我们要做一笔真正很大的投资，那极有可能还是发生在美国。在这么多年里，Charlie 只有两次明确对我说过：“这个真的值得做。”平常我提出某个想法时，他通常会配合我，说：“这个其实也没那么好，不过大概是你能想出来最好的主意了，所以我就同意吧。”（笑）

如果州政府施加过高的气候政策成本，我们的公用事业不会继续“坏钱追坏钱”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, Becky?

WARREN BUFFETT：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.

BECKY QUICK：下一个问题来自 Stanley Holmes，他是来自 Salt Lake City 的 Berkshire 股东。他的问题是：“在 2024 年致股东信中，Buffett 主席提到 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 去年经历了严重的盈利失望，并对整个公用事业行业的盈利能力和资产价值表达了担忧。考虑到投资者担心与气候变化相关的成本，而且新的不确定性正在笼罩监管环境，主席曾表示，一些地区可能会转向“公共电力模式”。现在已经出现迹象表明，Utah 的政策制定者可能正在朝这个方向前进，并以州主权为理由推动这一变化。

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, 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’s PacifiCorp 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?”

Utah 州议会最近规定，州政府有权成为州内某些发电厂电力的唯一购买方，并且在某些情况下，可以在发电厂退役之前直接购买该电厂。州公用事业监管机构也将被法律要求优先推动公共部门购买电力和相关设施，其中可能包括 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 旗下 PacifiCorp（Rocky Mountain Power）拥有的资产。在这种情况下，如果企业资产可能受到州政府具有“征收性质”的政策影响，Berkshire 是否还会通过 BHE 继续在这些地区投资？如果 Utah 最终在电力行业实施更强的州控制，Berkshire Energy 正在如何与当地官员合作，以尽量减少潜在的企业损失？

WARREN BUFFETT: I will let Greg join with me in 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 expected — 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, the 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. But what has happened is that there’s going to be enormous amounts of money — enormous amounts of money — spent on power.

WARREN BUFFETT：我会让 Greg 和我一起回答这个问题。但我想说的是，我们的感觉是 Utah 实际上很可能会公平地对待我们。无论是通过批准合理的电价，使我们能够获得通常应有的投资回报，还是如果他们因为某些原因决定转向公共电力模式，我认为他们都会对我们进行公平的补偿。在 1930 年代，来自 Nebraska 的参议员 George Norris 把 Nebraska 变成了一个公共电力州。而我们在 Iowa 的经验表明，自由企业是有其作用的。至少在大多数州，我们认为由私人拥有和运营的公用事业公司，可以比公共电力体系为社会提供更高效率的服务。但现在正在发生的事情是，未来将在电力领域投入巨额资金——非常巨额的资金。

And we’ve been — we’re — if you’re going to do it with private owners, there’s nobody better situated than Berkshire to satisfy a large portion of the needs of the country. And we will do it at a rate of return that is 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’d be kind of crazy. And we’ve seen actions in a few states where some of the costs associated with climate change are not being regarded as costs that the utility shouldn’t incur. Well, believe me, if it was publicly owned, they would’ve incurred it too. But we’ll do what society tells us. And we have got the money, we’ve got the knowledge to participate big in something that is enormously important for the country. But we’re not going to throw good money after bad. I don’t worry about — my understanding is — and Greg’s going to elaborate on this now immediately — but I don’t regard Utah as being unfriendly to the idea of utilities being treated fairly. Charlie? Oh, Charlie. I’m so used to it. (Laughter and applause) I had actually checked myself a couple times already. But I’ll slip again.

如果这些投资要通过私人企业来完成，那么没有谁比 Berkshire 更适合承担国家相当大一部分的需求。我们会在一个合理的回报率下去做这些事情，这并不是为了让我们变得特别富有，而是一个理性的回报水平。但如果我们认为最终得不到任何回报，我们就不会去做，那样就太疯狂了。我们已经看到有些州采取了一些做法，把与气候变化相关的一些成本视为不应该由公用事业公司承担的成本。但请相信，如果这些电力系统是公共所有，这些成本同样也会发生。我们会按照社会的要求去行动。我们拥有资金，也拥有知识，可以在这一对国家极其重要的领域中发挥重大作用。但我们不会把好钱继续投入到坏钱之后。我并不担心这一点——据我理解，而且 Greg 马上会进一步说明这一点——我并不认为 Utah 对公平对待公用事业公司这个理念是敌对的。Charlie？哦，Charlie。我已经习惯这样说了。（笑声和掌声）其实我刚才已经提醒自己好几次了，但还是又说错了。

GREG ABEL: That’s a great honor. Yeah, when we — well, Warren you 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 — and we’ll definitely come to Utah and PacifiCorp — 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 entity.

GREG ABEL：这是一个很大的荣誉。Warren 在致股东信中已经提到了这个行业面临的挑战，而刚才你也谈到未来许多年里能源行业、尤其是公用事业部门需要进行的大规模投资。如果从这里开始看，我们可以看看我们旗下不同的公用事业公司——当然我们也会谈到 Utah 和 PacifiCorp——但如果你观察这些公用事业系统中正在形成的电力需求，以及为满足这些需求所必须投入的资金规模，那是非常惊人的。所以你在股东信中提出这一点，是一个非常重要的问题。我们必须建立一个有效运作的监管契约。如果是私人公用事业公司，它必须与州政府形成协同关系，Utah 就是一个例子。否则，最终就可能转变为公共电力体系。

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 legislature wanted, and they enacted very specific laws to encourage that. But that utility is more than a hundred years old right now. And if we look at the demand that’s in place for MidAmerican 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 that happened — it took a hundred years-plus to get where we are today. And now it’s going to double. And that will require substantial amounts of capital from MidAmerican and its shareholders. And how that will function is if we have a proper regulatory compact in place, which you’ve highlighted.

为了给这个问题建立一个背景，如果看 Iowa——正如 Warren 刚才提到的——我们在那里已经进行了大量投资。这些投资与州政府和州议会所推动的公共政策高度一致，他们也制定了非常具体的法律来鼓励这种投资。但那家公用事业公司现在已经有一百多年的历史。如果我们看 MidAmerican 在 Iowa 的电力需求，在未来到 2030 年代中期，由于 AI 和数据中心的发展，这一需求将在很短时间内翻倍。而达到今天这个需求水平用了超过一百年的时间，而现在却将在短时间内再翻一倍。这将需要 MidAmerican 及其股东投入大量资本。要使这一体系正常运作，前提是必须建立一个合适的监管契约，正如 Warren 刚才强调的那样。

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 time frame 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 ten 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.

如果再看 Nevada，我们在那里拥有两家公用事业公司，并且覆盖了 Nevada 电力供应的大部分。如果在类似时间框架下观察需求，到 2030 年代后期，这一地区的基础电力需求将会增长到现在的三倍。这意味着必须投入数十亿美元的资本。我们的监管资产基础（rate base）将大幅增长——现在的规模已经不小，但未来至少还需要新增 60 到 100 亿美元的资产基础投入到这样的公用事业系统中。而这再次要求与州政府及其政策保持一致，同时确保我们能够回收投入的资本，并获得合理的资本回报。

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 experiencing 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 and a recent additional claim last week for 30 billion dollars. And it’s — we don’t take that lightly. But it is an incremental claim to an already existing lawsuit that’s in place. And when I think of PacifiCorp, we’re in a place where, first and foremost, all that litigation will be challenged because the basis for it, at least we believe, there’s places where it’s unfounded. And we’ll continue to challenge it. And it will take many years to be able to resolve this, as Warren highlighted in the letter.

当谈到野火问题时，这就成为一个非常大的挑战，因为这是第一次我们旗下的一家公用事业公司因为野火而出现了重大损失，并且围绕这些损失展开了广泛讨论：其中有多少成本能够得到回收？这正是我们目前正在进行的核心对话——这一监管机制是否能够正常运作。当我谈到野火问题时，目前已经出现了很多索赔，而就在上周又新增了一项 300 亿美元的索赔。我们对此绝不会掉以轻心。但这实际上只是已经存在的诉讼中的一项新增索赔。谈到 PacifiCorp，我们的立场首先是要对这些诉讼进行全面抗辩，因为在我们看来，其中一些指控的基础并不成立。我们会继续进行法律抗辩，而正如 Warren 在股东信中提到的，这些问题需要很多年时间才能解决。

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 regulatory relationship — we have worked with the states, across all our states, for many years with the fundamental goal being 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. So, the first thing we had to do was step back and say, we’ve got to fundamentally change the culture. Not just at PacifiCorp, 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 how we’ve operated those assets, as I’ve highlighted, for a hundred-plus years. 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 encroaching. We will turn off our systems now. And 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 a fire.

但如果从 PacifiCorp 的角度来看，面对这些诉讼，首先必须改变的是我们对这些资产的运营方式。多年来，我们与各州政府建立了一种监管关系，而我们的核心目标一直是确保电力持续供应。我们的团队和员工每天都在努力保持电力运行，无论是面对风暴，还是不幸发生的 2020 年野火。当时的本能不是关闭电力，而是保持供电，让医院、消防站等关键设施能够继续运转。从文化上讲，主动断电从来不是我们系统里的思维方式。因此，我们首先必须退一步，彻底改变这种文化。这不仅仅是 PacifiCorp，而是我们所有公用事业公司的文化。我们现在必须认识到，在某些情况下，优先选择断电将成为必要的操作。这与我们过去一百多年运营这些资产的方式完全不同。第二个变化是，我们已经调整了运营系统，使得在火灾威胁逼近时可以非常迅速地切断电力。现在一旦风险出现，我们会关闭系统；而当条件恢复安全时，我们会立即重新送电。同时，我们也在继续进行投资，以尽可能降低火灾发生的风险。

But when you get back to Utah and PacifiCorp, the challenge we do have is that within PacifiCorp, as we go through both the litigation and continue to operate that entity, it generates a certain amount of capital and profits that will remain in that entity and be reinvested back into that business. But fundamentally, as we go forward, we need both legislative and regulatory reform across the PacifiCorp states if we’re going to deploy incremental capital and make additional investments into that business. As Warren said, we don’t want to throw good capital after bad capital.

回到 Utah 和 PacifiCorp 的问题，我们面临的挑战是：在 PacifiCorp 内部，随着诉讼推进和业务继续运营，它仍然会产生一定的现金流和利润，这些资金会留在公司内部并重新投入业务。但从根本上说，如果我们要继续投入新的资本，在 PacifiCorp 所覆盖的各个州，我们都需要看到立法和监管层面的改革。正如 Warren 所说，我们不会把好的资本继续投入到坏的资本之后。

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. So as Warren touched on, it’s a state where we’re happy we’re investing in. It is part of PacifiCorp, 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 a bill that does a couple of very important things. One, it caps non-economic damages on wildfire claims.

因此，我们在这方面会保持高度纪律性。但现实是，通过立法和监管改革来解决问题仍然存在机会。而最好的例子——我认为也是全国的标杆——其实就是 Utah。正如 Warren 刚才提到的，这是一个我们非常愿意继续投资的州。Utah 是 PacifiCorp 体系的一部分，因此在投资安排上需要一定的平衡。但在最近一次立法会议中，Utah 通过了一项法案，其中包含几个非常重要的内容。其中之一，就是对野火索赔中的“非经济损害赔偿”设定了上限。

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.

如果回到 Oregon 发生的那些野火，以及现在提出的各种索赔，其中确实存在经济损失。这些损失理应获得相应的经济赔偿。但不幸的是，尽管 Oregon 的立法和判例都表明野火案件中不应授予非经济损害赔偿，现实中却仍然出现了数额非常巨大的非经济损害赔偿裁决。

Utah took a very proactive position to say we will cap those non-economic damages, and increase 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. 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 PacifiCorp issue. The risk of regulatory compacts not being respected is a much broader one that we’ll always evaluate and be careful how we deploy our capital. But both PacifiCorp will manage through it, and I see other very good and significant opportunities in Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Utah 采取了非常主动的立场，对这些非经济损害赔偿设定上限，从而营造出一个更适合投资的环境。除此之外，他们还逐步建立了一个规模相当可观的基金，名为 The Wildfire Fund。这个基金用于应对 Utah 的野火事件，可以帮助提供流动性，并推动相关问题的解决。因此，我们认为 Utah 以及围绕这一立法形成的一整套制度，是未来的一个“黄金标准”。这对 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 来说是一个非常重要的问题。但同时，这也是 PacifiCorp 的具体问题。监管契约可能得不到尊重的风险其实更为广泛，我们在配置资本时始终会评估这一点并保持谨慎。不过 PacifiCorp 会设法应对这些挑战，而我也在 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 中看到了其他非常好的、规模可观的机会。

WARREN BUFFETT: The return on equity investment that’s been promulgated and 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 we won’t put our shareholders’ money — they didn’t give it to us to lose it all. And we might like it if it’s X plus a half a percent instead of X minus a half a percent.

WARREN BUFFETT：多年来公用事业行业所规定并实现的股本回报率，尤其在最近几年，明显低于美国整体产业所实现的股本回报率。因此，不同州之间的差别可能只是 X、X 加半个百分点，或者 X 减半个百分点。有些州比其他州更具吸引力。但如果变成“要么赚 X，要么破产”，那就不是一个可行的商业模式。我们不会把股东的钱拿去承担这种风险——他们把钱交给我们不是为了让我们把它亏光。当然，如果回报是 X 加半个百分点而不是 X 减半个百分点，我们会更喜欢。

人工智能（AI）可能会让诈骗成为“史上增长最快的行业”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Let’s do station four.

WARREN BUFFETT：好，我们请 4 号区。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: 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.

观众提问：你好，我叫 Joe，从 San Francisco 过来。您怎么看待技术进步，尤其是生成式 AI，对那些更传统行业所产生的作用？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I made a mistake in calling on four, but I’ll get back to two later on. (Laughs) The — 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, you know, that we let the 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 on the other hand, I don’t know any way to get the genie back in the bottle.

WARREN BUFFETT：是的。我刚才点到 4 号区是个错误，不过我等会儿会再回到 2 号区。（笑）我对 AI 一无所知。但这并不意味着我否认它的存在、重要性，或者类似的任何事情。去年我说过，当我们发明核武器的时候，就等于是把精灵从瓶子里放了出来，而那个精灵最近已经做出了很多可怕的事情。那个精灵所拥有的力量，真的让我害怕。另一方面，我也不知道有什么办法能把这个精灵再装回瓶子里。

And AI is somewhat similar. It’s out — it’s part-way out of the bottle. And it’s enormously important, and it’s going to be done by somebody. So we may wish we’d never seen that genie or it 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’ve evaluated during World War II whether we tested a 20,000-ton bomb that we felt was absolutely necessary for the United States and would actually save lives in the long run, but where we also had Edmund [Edward] Teller, I think it was, it was on a par with Einstein, in terms of saying, you may, with this test, ignite the atmosphere in such a way that civilization doesn’t continue.

而 AI 在某种程度上也很相似。它已经出来了，至少已经有一部分从瓶子里出来了。它极其重要，而且总会有人把它做出来。所以，也许未来我们会希望自己从未见过这个精灵；也许它也会做出很美妙的事情。我显然不是那个有能力评估这件事的人。就像在二战时期，我大概也不会是那个能够评估这样一个问题的人：当时我们测试一枚 2 万吨级的炸弹，认为它对美国来说绝对必要，而且从长期看还可能挽救生命；但与此同时，似乎是 Edmund Teller——一个大概可以与 Einstein 并列的人物——也提出过一种可能：这次试验或许会以某种方式点燃大气层，从而使文明无法延续下去。

And we decided to let the genie out of the bottle, and it accomplished the immediate objective. But 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. 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.

而我们最终还是决定把精灵放出来，它也确实完成了当时的直接目标。至于它是否会改变整个社会的未来，我们只能在以后才知道。至于 AI，我有过一次亲身经历，确实让我有点紧张。我简单说一下。就在不久前，我在屏幕上看到一个画面，里面那个人是我，声音也是我的，穿的也是我平常会穿的那种衣服。我的妻子或者女儿都不可能看出任何区别。但它所传递的信息，却绝不可能是我本人发出来的。

So when you think of the potential for scamming people, if 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 fifty thousand dollars 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 — you know, 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 in some crazy country. (Laughter)

所以，当你想到这种技术在诈骗上的潜力时——如果它能复制出连我自己都分辨不出来的影像，然后对你说：“我需要钱，我是你女儿，我刚出了车祸，赶紧给我电汇 5 万美元。”——那就非常可怕了。诈骗一直都是美国社会的一部分。但如果我是一个想投资“诈骗行业”的人，那它很可能会成为有史以来增长最快的行业。而且它是以这样一种方式被赋能的——当然，AI 也显然有做好事的潜力——但至少根据我最近看到的那个例子，我几乎会把钱汇给“身处某个疯狂国家里的我自己”。（笑声）

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 and enormous potential for harm, and I just don’t know how that plays out.

所以，对于这个世界该如何应对它，我没有任何建议，因为我认为我们甚至都还不知道该如何应对当年那个“核武器精灵”。但我确实觉得，作为一个对这项技术根本谈不上理解的人，它既有巨大的向善潜力，也有巨大的作恶潜力，而我根本不知道最终会如何演变。

GEICO 正在追赶竞争对手，在用数据技术进行费率定价方面补课

WARREN BUFFETT: I’d like to mention to Becky that Ajit [Jain] 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 he’d be a good one.

WARREN BUFFETT：我想提醒 Becky 一下，Ajit [Jain] 下午场不会参加，所以如果你有保险方面的问题想问，他现在是个很合适的提问对象。

BECKY QUICK: Yeah. This next question is for both Warren and Ajit. It’s from Ben Knoll, 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 but Progressive is a data company and data is going to win in the long run.

BECKY QUICK：好的。下一个问题同时问 Warren 和 Ajit。提问者是来自 Minneapolis 的股东 Ben Knoll，他自 1995 年起就是股东。他的问题是：“Todd Combs 在去年一次采访中说，2010 年他第一次见到您时就告诉过您：GEICO 在营销和品牌方面更强，但 Progressive 本质上是一家数据公司，而从长期看，数据会赢。

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 in remedying the data analytics shortcomings at GEICO.”

但看起来，直到十年后您任命 Todd 为 CEO 时，您才开始在 GEICO 真正优先推动数据分析。像 GEICO 这样的业务单元随着时间推移会老化，并需要新的战略方向，我想知道 Berkshire 这种放手式管理方式，会不会本身就是一种脆弱性来源。能否请您回顾一下 GEICO 已经做出的这些改变背后的思路，并解释一下：如果 Berkshire 的 CEO 发现某个业务单元在战略上偏离了方向，Berkshire 的组织结构是如何对此作出反应的？另外，Ajit，我也希望您继续向我们更新您和 Todd 在弥补 GEICO 数据分析短板方面所取得的进展。”

WARREN BUFFETT: Ajit, would you like to —

WARREN BUFFETT：Ajit，你要不要先来回答——

AJIT JAIN: Yeah. As Warren has pointed out in the past, one of the drawbacks that GEICO is faced with is that 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.

AJIT JAIN：好的。正如 Warren 过去提到过的，GEICO 面临的一个短板是：它在让费率与风险相匹配，以及根据风险特征进行客户分层和产品定价方面，做得还不够好。这个问题已经让 GEICO 处于劣势有好几年了。我们现在仍然是在努力追赶。很遗憾，技术在这里确实是一个瓶颈。但即便如此，我们也正在取得进展。同样重要的是，我们已经招募了一批在数据分析、定价以及数据切分处理方面，明显强于过去团队的人。

So, yes, I recognize we are still behind. We’re taking steps to bridge the gap and hopefully by — 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.

所以，是的，我承认我们现在仍然落后。但我们正在采取措施弥补这一差距。希望到 2025 年底，至少在数据分析这一点上——无论是定价、理赔，还是其他任何影响保险业务经济性的关键因素——我们都能够追上行业里最优秀的参与者。

WARREN BUFFETT: I would add that equating rate with risk, obviously, is important in every line of the 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 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.

WARREN BUFFETT：我还想补充一点，把费率和风险相匹配，显然在保险业的每一条业务线上都很重要。因为你真正做的事情，就是判断某个费率是否给了我们一个机会，或者说一种概率，让我们能从中赚到一点钱；而有时候我们承担的只是小损失的风险，有时候承担的却是巨额损失的风险。近几年，在这一点上，Progressive 做得比 GEICO 更好。

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 percent, and there’s — well, 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. 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 were just — we didn’t lose policyholders, and we’ve got 16 million, or whatever it is, of them. And we’ve got the lowest cost of operation. So, it’s not a threat — it’s not remotely a threat to survival. 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. And we now have a recognition that we didn’t have back when Leo Goodwin started it in 1936, but the same principle that worked then is that if you can offer somebody a good product cheaper than the other guy, then practically everybody has to buy it.

大致上，我想在 3 月份我们至少没有继续流失保单持有人。我们大概拥有 1600 万客户，差不多就是这个数量。而且我们的运营成本是最低的。所以，这根本谈不上对生存构成威胁，甚至连对盈利的威胁都谈不上。但另一方面，我们当然希望自己能够依靠保险业里最好的低成本交付模式继续增长。现在我们已经认识到一些在 Leo Goodwin 于 1936 年创办 GEICO 时还没有的东西，但当年有效的那个原则今天依然成立：如果你能以比别人更低的价格向客户提供一种好产品，那么几乎每个人都不得不来买你的产品。

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. But our low costs have masked the fact that, for a while, that we could do without progressing as much as we should’ve in the matching of rate to risk.

这是一个很大的生意。你知道，身处其中是很有吸引力的，而 GEICO 本身也是一门非常有吸引力的生意，并且它拥有最低成本这一优势。不过，它的确必须在费率与风险匹配这件事上做得更好。只是过去有一段时间，我们的低成本优势掩盖了这样一个事实：在费率与风险的匹配上，我们本来应该取得更大的进展，但实际并没有做到。

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’re going — we should make more underwriting profits than most companies in the auto insurance business.

而现在 Todd 一直在非常集中地推进这件事，也已经取得了很大进展。但仍然还有工作要做。不过与此同时，我们不会萎缩，而且在汽车保险行业里，我们应该仍然能比大多数公司赚到更多的承保利润。

让自己身边围绕着你信任的人，就像Charlie Munger一样

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. 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?

WARREN BUFFETT：好的。我要退回去，我想我之前跳过了第二站。那里有人吗？

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. Good morning. My name is Sebastian Zartorter (PH). I'm from Munich, Germany. Berkshire Hathaway 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.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: 有。早上好。我叫Sebastian Zartorter（音译）。我来自德国慕尼黑。Berkshire Hathaway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Ted和Todd？是Greg和Ajit？是您的妻子，您的孩子？您看重他们什么？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it depends whether they're advising me on money or on other things. (Laughs) I trust my children and my wife totally, but that doesn't mean I ask them what stocks to buy. (Laughs) 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. To some extent I talk to myself on investments.

WARREN BUFFETT：这取决于他们是在给我建议投资还是其他事情。（笑）我完全信任我的孩子和妻子，但这并不意味着我会问他们该买什么股票。（笑）在投资管理方面，几十年来，全世界没有比Charlie更好的交流对象了。这并不意味着我不和其他人交流。但如果我认为自己做不到，我就不会去做。在某种程度上，投资这件事我是在和自己对话。

I think my children have gotten a whole lot wiser over the years. And so I listen to them on a lot of things. You know, I 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. (Laughs) So it is important. 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, you know, I knew I'd have somebody that well, I'll put it this way, and you can think about this.

我认为我的孩子们这些年来变得聪明多了，所以在很多事情上我会听他们的。比如本地选举投谁，我会听我女儿的，因为她在这方面比我懂得多。很多事情我也会听我妻子的，细节就不说了。（笑）所以这很重要。如果你的生活里没有让自己只与信任的人为伍，那日子不会有什么乐趣。从二十多岁开始，我就一直处于这样的状态——身边都是我信任的人。我偶尔也会看走眼，但时间会过滤掉这些错误，你会从中学习。比如当我遇到Charlie，在各种事情上，不只是投资，我知道我找到了一个——我这样说吧，你们可以想想看。

善待他人——这个世界就会因此变得更好