Morning Session
Opening Remarks
开场致辞
Warren Buffett: If everyone will please take their seats. This is my 60th annual meeting, and it’s the biggest and I think it’ll be the best yet. Before I start, I’d like to give you a few figures from yesterday because we set all kinds of records.
Warren Buffett：请大家就座。这是我第60次年度股东大会，规模最大，我也认为会是最好的一次。开始之前，我想先分享一些昨天的数据，因为我们创造了各种纪录。
Yesterday we had 19,700 people join us in the afternoon between noon and 5:00, up from 16,200 which was the previous record the year before. In every aspect we set records. See’s Candy did $317,000 against $283,000 the year before, and most of these were limited by capacity. There were lines throughout the entire day. Brooks did $310,000 – an all-time record sales day for them. I think they have close to 3,000 runners lined up for Sunday, which is a lot of people. We’ve had 2,200 or 2,400 before, but 3,000 – and that doesn’t count me, and it won’t count me.
昨天中午到下午5点之间，有19,700人到场，比前一年的纪录16,200人还多。在各个方面我们都创造了新高。See’s Candy 的销售额达到317,000美元，高于前一年的283,000美元，而且多数还是受制于产能。全天都在排队。Brooks 的销售额为310,000美元——他们历史上单日最高。我想他们周日会有接近3,000名跑者参赛，这可是很多人。我们以前有过2,200或2,400人，但这次是3,000人——当然不包括我，也不会包括我。
I could go up and down the line. Jazz wares did around $250,000, double the previous years. They just sell as fast as they can sell. Most every place had people lined up at the cash register, sometimes for a longer wait than we’d wish. But we’ll learn the game eventually. Every company set records.
我还可以一路说下去。Jazz wares 大概做了250,000美元，是往年的两倍。他们能卖多快就卖多快。几乎每个柜台前都有人排队结账，有时候等待的时间比我们希望的还要长。但我们最终会把节奏摸清。每家公司都创了纪录。
There’s no way of knowing how many people we have here today. We have people listening in around the world, but I think we’ll probably set records in a great variety of ways.
我们今天现场究竟有多少人无从得知。全世界也都有在收听的人，但我想我们很可能会在很多方面再创纪录。
I would like to first introduce our directors. I’m Warren Buffett, and I was born and raised here in Omaha. We have Greg Abel – he was born and raised in Canada, and we have Ajit Jain who was born and raised in India. So we have a very diverse group.
我先介绍一下我们的董事。我是 Warren Buffett，我在奥马哈出生并长大。我们有 Greg Abel——他在加拿大出生长大，还有 Ajit Jain——他在印度出生长大。所以我们是一个非常多样化的团队。
I will introduce our directors alphabetically, and if they’ll stand as I introduce them – withhold your applause till the end so we can get through the list:
接下来我将按字母顺序介绍我们的董事，请我点到名字时起立——请把掌声留到最后，这样我们可以顺利把名单介绍完：
Howard Buffett
Susan Buffett
Steve Burke
Ken Chenault
Chris Davis
Sue Decker, who’s our lead director
Charlotte Guyman
Tom Murphy Jr.
Ron Olson – and I’ll have a few more things to say about him
Wally Scott
Meryl Witmer
And with that, you’ve got our all-star cast. Ron, if you don’t mind standing, I would like to point out that Ron has reached our director age limit at Berkshire. I think we had five directors over 90 not so long ago, but we have the highest age limit of any company Sue has checked. Ron has been on the board for 28 years and has been associated with Charlie Munger at Munger Tolles for many years beyond that. He has been around at various times of crisis, joy, disappointments, and surprises at Berkshire and has been of invaluable help to us. So I’d like to give a special hand to Ron Olson.
至此，我们这支全明星阵容就介绍完了。Ron，如果你不介意请站起来，我想指出，Ron 已经达到了 Berkshire 的董事年龄上限。我记得不久前我们还有五位超过90岁的董事，但据 Sue 调查，我们的年龄上限在所有公司中是最高的。Ron 在董事会任职28年，早在此之前他就与 Charlie Munger 在 Munger Tolles 共事多年。在 Berkshire 经历危机、喜悦、失望与惊喜的许多时刻，他一直在场并给予我们无价的帮助。所以我想为 Ron Olson 送上特别的掌声。
I think I’ll do something else that isn’t usually done at annual meetings. I listened to Apple’s quarterly call on Thursday afternoon – it’s the only investment quarterly call that I listen to. I understand Tim Cook is here, and it’ll be tough for me to see him from up here, but there he is. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more money than I’ve ever made Berkshire Hathaway.
我还想做一件年会里不常见的事。周四下午我听了 Apple 的季度电话会——那是我唯一会收听的与投资相关的季度电话会。我知道 Tim Cook 今天在场，我在台上不太容易看到他，但他就在那儿。我有点不好意思地说，Tim Cook 为 Berkshire 赚的钱，比我为 Berkshire Hathaway 赚的要多得多。
I knew Steve Jobs briefly, and Steve of course did things that nobody else could have done in developing Apple. Steve picked Tim to succeed him, and he really made the right decision. Steve died young as you know, and nobody but Steve could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim could have developed it as he has. So on behalf of all of Berkshire, thank you Tim.
我与 Steve Jobs 有过短暂的相识，当然，在打造 Apple 的过程中，Steve 做到了他人无法做到的事。Steve 选择了 Tim 作为继任者，这确实是一个正确的决定。正如你们所知，Steve 英年早逝，除了 Steve 没有人能创造 Apple，但除了 Tim 也没有人能把 Apple 发展到今天这个样子。所以我代表整个 Berkshire，感谢你，Tim。
There are a couple other people I’d like to thank. I don’t do any work in terms of the show or anything else around Berkshire, but what you see today is the product of a lot of people at Berkshire. The people of Berkshire put on this show every year – our chief financial officer and just everybody pitches in. It’s a remarkable organization that way. But it’s led this year and in the last few years by Melissa Shapiro, and she’s made this whole thing work.
还有另外几位我想致谢的人。关于这场活动和 Berkshire 周边的种种，我本人并不参与工作，但你们今天所见，都是 Berkshire 许多人努力的成果。Berkshire 的同事们每年都把这场活动办起来——我们的首席财务官以及所有人都参与其中。就这点而言，这是一个了不起的组织。而在今年以及过去几年中，是 Melissa Shapiro 在主导，把整件事组织得井井有条。
We also had an idea a while back… maybe 65 years ago, I met Carrie Sa’s grandfather and his wife. They had nine children, and Susie and I joined a playhouse group. I don’t look like the kind of guy that would join a playhouse group, but it turned out to be a great move in many ways. I enjoyed the plays, but beyond that I met not only Carrie’s grandfather, who ran an insurance company in Omaha – Bill Kaiser – but I also met the Kiewit boys’ parents, Louis and Francis.
我们还在很久以前有过一个念头……也许是65年前，我认识了 Carrie Sa 的祖父以及他的妻子。他们有九个孩子，Susie 和我加入了一个 playhouse group。看上去我不像会加入剧团的人，但事实证明在很多方面这是一次很好的决定。我很喜欢那些戏剧，更重要的是，我不仅结识了 Carrie 的祖父——他在奥马哈经营一家保险公司，名叫 Bill Kaiser——我还结识了 Kiewit boys 的父母，Louis 和 Francis。
In connection with Carrie, her father ran a company called Central States, and later on we bought that company and her father ran it. Her sister went to work for Berkshire some years ago and then left to have a family with four kids. Carrie moved right in and had amazing talents. About 10 or 11 years ago, I asked Carrie to do a 50th anniversary book about Berkshire and just use her imagination. She’d never edited a book, never published a book, never dealt with printers before, but she put together the 50th anniversary book.
说到 Carrie，她的父亲经营一家名为 Central States 的公司，后来我们收购了这家公司，她父亲继续负责经营。几年前她的姐姐到 Berkshire 工作，之后离职组建家庭并育有四个孩子。Carrie 随即接手，她展现了非凡的才华。大约在10或11年前，我请 Carrie 为 Berkshire 制作一本50周年纪念册，并让她尽情发挥想象。她从未编辑过书、也没出版过书、从未和印刷商打过交道，但她最终把这本50周年纪念册做出来了。
Then Carrie got married and had three kids, so she had to leave us. We go to a baseball game once a year and invite some of our distinguished alumni like Carrie to join us. Even though she was raising three children, she volunteered to create a 60th anniversary book. She kept doing things with her kids and every now and then I’d ask how it was going. She got it done about a week before the meeting because I gave her the assignment very late.
后来 Carrie 结婚并育有三个孩子，因此她不得不离开我们。我们每年会去看一场棒球比赛，并邀请像 Carrie 这样的优秀“校友”参加。尽管她要抚养三个孩子，她仍主动提出制作一本60周年纪念册。她一边陪孩子做各种事情，我也不时问问进度。因为我很晚才把任务交给她，她在会议前大约一周完成了这本书。
Yesterday we sold about 4,400 books. We printed 8,000 – we intended to print 5,000 – so we have roughly 3,600 left for today. It’s kind of whimsical but accurate, and she came out with just the book I hoped she would. Carrie wouldn’t take a dime, but I did get her to name her favorite charity – the Stephen Center, which takes care of homeless people and does many other things. It’s located about five or six miles south of here and has been doing wonderful work. Her grandfather helped form it, and her husband has now joined the board.
昨天我们卖出了大约4,400本。我们印了8,000本——原本打算印5,000本——所以今天大致还剩3,600本。它有点天马行空但非常准确，正是我所期望的那本书。Carrie 分文不取，但我让她选了一个最喜欢的慈善机构——Stephen Center，它为无家可归者提供服务并开展许多其他工作。该机构位于离这里南面大约五六英里的地方，长期以来成绩斐然。她的祖父曾参与创建，如今她的丈夫也加入了董事会。
We are selling 20 special copies of the book. We sold 10 prior to the meeting and raised a few hundred thousand doing that – I think we sold one for $100,000. The only difference between these and the $25 version is that Carrie and I signed them. The six we sold yesterday brought $148,000, which is about $25,000 per book. We saved four more, and this afternoon when we disband at 1:00, the area behind us with the bookstore will sell the final four. When we’re all through, I’ll match whatever we’ve raised from the 20 books, and we’ll give the Stephen Center a boost both financially and in awareness.
我们还在出售20本特别版。会前我们已售出10本，筹得了数十万美元——我记得其中一本卖到了10万美元。这些特别版与25美元的普通版唯一的区别是上面有 Carrie 和我的签名。昨天卖出的六本共计带来148,000美元，平均每本约25,000美元。我们还留了四本，今天下午1点会议结束时，身后书店区域会卖出最后四本。等全部卖完，我会按我们从这20本书募集到的金额进行一比一配捐，在资金与知名度上共同为 Stephen Center 提供助力。
When you look at that book, Carrie really did the whole thing. There’s a lot of information in there, and she dug through it all. She came by a couple times to check a fact or two, but she got material from the Munger family – she just did a wonderful job. I couldn’t get her to take a penny for it, so I’m going to ask her to do a lot of other things in the future.
当你翻看这本书时，会发现几乎全是 Carrie 一手完成。书里信息量很大，都是她亲自挖掘整理。她曾来过几次核对一两处事实，也从 Munger 家族那里取得资料——她完成得非常出色。我始终没法让她收一分钱，所以未来我会请她帮我们做更多事情。
With that, I think we’ve covered all the business. We will move to questions, alternating between Becky with questions she’s received from around the country and from our audience which we have organized by zones.
说到这里，我想我们议程上的事项都已经覆盖。接下来进入提问环节：由 Becky 转述她从全国各地收到的问题，并与我们按分区组织的现场观众提问交替进行。
Q&A Session
Becky Quick: Thanks Warren. This first question comes from Bill Mitchell. I received more questions about this than any other question. He writes, “Warren, in a 2003 Fortune article, you argued for import certificates to limit trade deficits and said these import certificates basically amounted to a tariff, but recently you called tariffs an act of economic war. Has your view on trade barriers changed or do you see import certificates as somehow distinct from tariffs?”
Becky Quick：谢谢 Warren。第一个问题来自 Bill Mitchell。关于这个话题我收到的问题比其他任何问题都多。他写道：“Warren，你在 2003 年的《Fortune》文章中主张用 import certificates 限制贸易逆差，并表示这些 import certificates 本质上等同于关税，但最近你又称关税是经济战争的行为。你的贸易壁垒观是否发生了变化，还是你认为 import certificates 与关税在某种程度上是有区别的？”
Warren Buffett: Well, the import certificates were distinct, but their goal was to balance imports against exports so that the trade deficit would not grow in an enormous way. It had various provisions to help third world countries catch up a little bit. They were designed to balance trade, and I think you can make very good arguments that balanced trade is good for the world.
Warren Buffett：嗯，import certificates 与关税是有区别的，但它们的目标是让进口与出口相匹配，从而避免贸易逆差不断扩大。方案里还有若干条款，帮助第三世界国家略微追赶。它的设计目的是实现贸易平衡，而我认为有充分理由相信，贸易平衡对世界是有益的。
It makes sense for cocoa to be raised in Ghana and coffee in Colombia and a few other things. Over time, America has gone from being an agricultural country – this was nothing but an agricultural country 250 years ago – to a very industrial country. We did not want to run greater and greater deficits building up greater and greater debts against the country.
可可在 Ghana 种植、咖啡在 Colombia 种植，这些安排是合理的。随着时间推移，美国从一个农业国家——250 年前几乎只是农业国家——转变为高度工业化的国家。我们不希望出现越来越大的逆差、让国家背负越来越多的债务。
So I designed this import certificate plan, which Charlie thought was a little too much like Rube Goldberg – it’s gimmicky, but it’s certainly better than what we’re talking about now. There’s no question that trade can be an act of war, and I think it’s led to bad things like the attitudes it’s brought out in the United States. We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.
所以我设计了这个 import certificate 方案，Charlie 觉得它有点像 Rube Goldberg——花哨了一点，但肯定比我们现在讨论的做法更好。毫无疑问，贸易可以被当作战争工具，我认为这在美国已经引发了一些不好的心态。我们应该着眼于与世界其他地区进行贸易。我们做自己最擅长的事，其他国家也做他们最擅长的事。
With eight countries possessing nuclear weapons, including a few I would call quite unstable, I don’t think it’s a great idea to design a world where a few countries say, “Haha, we’ve won” while other countries are envious.
如今有八个国家拥有核武器，其中有几个我会称之为相当不稳定。在这样的世界里去设计一种局面，让少数国家说“哈哈，我们赢了”，而其他国家心生嫉妒，我认为这不是个好主意。
My import certificate idea went nowhere. The main thing is that trade should not be a weapon. The United States has become an incredibly important country starting from nothing 250 years ago – there’s never been anything like it. And it’s a big mistake when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well and you have 300 million people crowing about how well they’ve done.
我的 import certificate 想法并没有走远。关键在于，贸易不应成为武器。美国在 250 年前从一无所有出发，成长为一个极其重要的国家——史无前例。而当你让 75 亿人不怎么喜欢你，却让 3 亿人到处夸耀自己多么成功时，那是个巨大的错误。
I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise. The more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won’t be at our expense – the more prosperous we’ll become and the safer we’ll feel and your children will feel someday. But don’t expect my import certificate idea to go down in history with Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
我不认为那是正确的，也不认为那是明智的。世界其他地区越繁荣，这并不会以我们的牺牲为代价——我们自己也会越繁荣，我们以及你们的孩子有一天也会感到更安全。但别指望我的 import certificate 想法能与 Adam Smith 的《Wealth of Nations》一起名垂史册。
Audience Member (Zone 1): Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel, and Mr. Jain. Good morning. I’m St. J. from Hong Kong. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger did a very good and successful investment in Japan in the past five or six years. The recent CPI in Japan is currently above 3%, not far away from its 2% target. Bank of Japan seems very determined in raising rates while Fed, ECB, and other central banks are considering cutting them. Do you think BOJ makes sense to proceed with the rate hike? Will its planned rate hike deter you from further investing in the Japanese stock market or even considering realizing your current profits? Thank you very much for arranging this greatest event every year. Finally, I wish you health always and to keep holding this shareholder meeting.
Audience Member（Zone 1）：Buffett 先生、Abel 先生和 Jain 先生，早上好。我是来自香港的 St. J。过去五六年里，Buffett 先生和 Munger 先生在日本进行了非常成功的投资。日本近期的 CPI 目前高于 3%，离其 2% 目标不远。Bank of Japan 似乎非常坚定要加息，而 Fed、ECB 和其他央行则在考虑降息。你认为 BOJ 继续加息是否合理？它计划中的加息是否会让你们减少对日本股市的进一步投资，甚至考虑实现当前利润？非常感谢你们每年安排这场伟大的活动。最后，祝您健康长久，并持续举办这场股东大会。
Warren Buffett: Well, I’m going to extend the same goodwill to Japan that you’ve just extended to me. I’ll let the people of Japan determine their best course of action in terms of economics. It’s an incredible story.
Warren Buffett：嗯，我会把你刚才对我表达的善意同样延伸给日本。关于经济政策选择，我会让日本人民自己决定最佳路径。日本的发展故事令人难以置信。
It’s been about six years now since our Japanese investments. I was just going through a little handbook that probably had two or three thousand Japanese companies in it. One problem I have is that I can’t read that handbook anymore – the print’s too small. But there were these five trading companies selling at ridiculously low prices. So I spent about a year acquiring them. And then we got to know the people better, and everything that Greg and I saw, we liked better as we went along.
自从我们在日本投资至今大约六年。我当时翻阅了一本小册子，里面大概列了两三千家日本公司。我的一个问题是现在已经看不清那本册子了——字太小。但当时有五家 trading companies 的估值低得离谱。所以我花了大约一年时间买入它们。随后我们与相关人士越走越近，而我与 Greg 所看到的一切，也随着了解的加深而更加喜欢。
So we got fairly close to the 10% limit that we told the companies we would never exceed without their permission. We did ask them whether that limit could be relaxed, and it’s in the process of being relaxed somewhat. I would say that – I’ll speak for Greg beyond me – in the next 50 years, we won’t give a thought to selling those positions.
因此，我们的持股接近了我们曾经承诺在未获对方许可的情况下绝不超越的 10% 上限。我们确实询问过能否放宽这个上限，目前正处于一定程度放宽的过程中。我想说——也替 Greg 一并表达——在未来 50 年里，我们不会考虑卖出这些持仓。
Japan’s record has been extraordinary. My guess is that Tim Cook would tell you that iPhone sales there are about as great as any country outside the United States. American Express would tell you that they sell their product very well in Japan. Coca-Cola, another big investment of ours, does extraordinarily well in Japan. They have a number of habits and a civilization that operates differently than ours. Japan is by far the biggest market for Coca-Cola’s soft drink containers.
日本的业绩非常出色。我的猜测是，Tim Cook 会告诉你，日本的 iPhone 销量几乎可与美国以外任何国家相媲美。American Express 会告诉你，他们在日本的业务销售得非常好。Coca-Cola，这是我们的另一项重要投资，在日本的表现也极为出色。日本在许多习惯和文明运作方式上与我们不同。就 Coca-Cola 的软饮容器市场而言，日本遥遥领先。
We have been treated extremely well by the five companies. They talk primarily with Greg. I went over there a year or two ago, but Greg’s more cosmopolitan than I am.
这五家公司对我们非常友好。他们主要与 Greg 沟通。我一两年前也去过日本，但 Greg 比我更具国际化气质。
Greg Abel: When you think of the five companies, there’s definitely a couple meetings a year, Warren. The thing we’re building with the five companies is, one, it’s been a very good investment, but we really envision holding the investment for 50 years or forever. We also are building relationships to do incremental things with each of those companies. We really hope to do big things with them globally. They bring different perspectives and different opportunities, and that’s why we’re building that long-term relationship with them.
Greg Abel：说到这五家公司，Warren，我们一年肯定会开上几次会。我们和这五家公司在打造的东西，首先，这是一次非常好的投资，但我们的设想是持有它们50年，甚至永远。与此同时，我们也在建立关系，以便与每一家逐步推进更多合作。我们真心希望能在全球范围内与他们一起做大事。他们带来不同的视角和不同的机会，这正是我们要与他们建立长期关系的原因。
They have different customs, different approaches to business – that’s true around the world. We don’t have any intention of trying to change what they’ve done because they do it very successfully. Our main activity is just to cheer and clap, and I can still do that at 94.
他们有不同的习俗、不同的经商方式——这在全世界都如此。我们无意去改变他们的做法，因为他们做得非常成功。我们的主要任务就是为他们加油鼓掌，而到了94岁我仍然能做这件事。
We will not be selling any stock. That will not happen in decades, if then. My guess is that they will find things – they cover the world pretty much – and we will find opportunities that may be very large for any individual company there. They may be assisted by some help we bring to the situation, but that will be an expanding relationship.
我们不会卖出任何股票。即便数十年内也不会发生（如果会的话）。我的判断是，他们会不断发现项目——他们几乎覆盖全球——而我们也会发现一些机会，对于其中任何一家企业来说都可能非常重大。我们也许会在某些情况下提供协助，这将是一种不断扩展的合作关系。
It’s too bad that Berkshire has gotten as big as it is because we love that position and I’d like it to be a lot larger. Even with the five companies being very large in Japan, we’ve got at market in the range of $20 billion invested, but I’d rather have $100 billion than $20 billion. That’s how I feel about several other investments we have. But size is an enemy of performance at Berkshire, and I don’t know any good way to solve that problem.
遗憾的是，Berkshire 已经变得如此庞大，因为我们喜欢这样的地位，我也希望它还能更大。即使这五家公司在日本都很庞大，我们市值层面的持仓大约也就200亿美元，但相比200亿，我更希望是1000亿美元。我们在其他几项投资上也是这种感觉。但在 Berkshire，规模是业绩的敌人，而我并不知道有什么好办法能解决这个问题。
Charlie always told me that having a few problems was good for me. The Japan investment has just been right up our alley.
Charlie 总跟我说，有些问题对我是好事。日本这笔投资正合我们的胃口。
Greg Abel: I absolutely agree, Warren. I do believe we’ll see some very large opportunities long term, and that’s just been a great plus of that relationship.
Greg Abel：我完全同意，Warren。我确实相信，从长期看我们会遇到一些非常大的机会，而这正是这种关系带来的巨大增益。
Warren Buffett: I would say they want to present us with opportunities, and we would like to receive them. We’ve got the money. We get along very well with each other. They have some different customs than we have. They drink Georgia coffee as their number one Coca-Cola product. I haven’t converted them to Cherry Coke, and they’re not going to convert me to Georgia Coffee. But it’s a perfect relationship. I just wish we could get more like it.
Warren Buffett：我会说，他们希望把机会带给我们，而我们也乐于接住。我们有资金。我们彼此相处得很好。他们的某些习俗与我们不同。他们把 Georgia coffee 当作 Coca-Cola 的头号产品。我没能把他们“转化”为 Cherry Coke，他们也不会把我“转化”为 Georgia Coffee。但这是一段完美的关系。我只是希望能多来几段这样的关系。
I never dreamt of that when I picked up that handbook. It’s amazing what you can find when you just turn the page. We showed a movie last year about “turn every page,” and I would say that turning every page is one important ingredient to bring to the investment field. Very few people do turn every page, and the ones who turn every page aren’t going to tell you what they’re finding. So you’ve got to do a little of it yourself.
当年我拿起那本小册子时，做梦也没想到会有今天。你只要翻下一页，就能发现的东西实在令人惊叹。去年我们播放了一部关于“turn every page”的电影，我想说，在投资领域，“翻遍每一页”是一个非常重要的要素。很少有人会真的把每一页都翻一遍，而那些翻遍每一页的人也不会告诉你他们发现了什么。所以你得自己动手做一点。
Becky Quick: This next question comes from Advate Prasad in New York. He writes, “Today, Berkshire holds over $300 billion in cash and short-term investments, representing about 27% of total assets, a historically high figure compared to the 13% average over the last 25 years. This has also led Berkshire to effectively own nearly 5% of the entire US Treasury market. Beyond the need for liquidity to meet insurance obligations, is the decision to raise cash primarily a de-risking strategy in response to high market valuations? Or is it also a deliberate effort to position Berkshire’s balance sheet for a smoother leadership transition, providing Greg Abel with maximum flexibility and a clean slate for future capital allocation decisions?” And I will add one line from another shareholder, Mike Conway, who asks, “Are you encouraged you may see some fat pitches coming your way?”
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自纽约的 Advate Prasad。他写道：“目前，Berkshire 持有超过3000亿美元的现金与短期投资，占总资产约27%，与过去25年平均13%相比已处于历史高位。这也使得 Berkshire 实际上持有了近5%的整个美国国债市场。除了满足保险义务所需的流动性之外，提升现金头寸的决定主要是为了在高估值环境下去风险吗？还是说这也是一种有意安排，以便为领导层顺利交接而优化 Berkshire 的资产负债表，从而为 Greg Abel 提供最大的灵活性和未来资本配置的‘白纸’？”另外我补充一位股东 Mike Conway 的一句话：“你是否对即将到来的‘fat pitches’感到鼓舞？”
Warren Buffett: Well, I wouldn’t do anything nearly so noble as to withhold investing myself just so that Greg could look good later on. If he gets any edge of what I leave behind, I’ll resent it.
Warren Buffett：嗯，我不会那么高尚，为了让 Greg 将来看起来更好而刻意按捺自己不去投资。如果他从我留下的东西上占到一点便宜，我还会不高兴呢。
The amount of cash we have – we would spend $100 billion if something is offered that makes sense to us, that we understand, offers good value, and where we don’t worry about losing money. The problem with the investment business is that things don’t come along in an orderly fashion, and they never will.
就我们手头的现金而言——只要有一个我们看得懂、对我们有意义、有足够价值、且不用担心亏钱的机会出现，我们会花1000亿美元去做。投资这门生意的问题在于，机会不会按部就班地出现，而且永远不会。
I’ve had about 16,000 trading days in my career. It would be nice if every day you got four opportunities or something like that with equal attractiveness. If I was running a numbers racket, every day would have the same expectancy that I would keep 40% of whatever the handle was, and the only question would be how much we transacted. But we’re not running that kind of business.
我的职业生涯大概经历了16,000个交易日。要是每天都有四个同等吸引力的机会，那当然很美好。如果我是在做“numbers racket”（地下博彩），每天的期望都是留住押注额的40%，唯一的问题就是成交量有多大。但我们不是在做那样的生意。
We’re running a business which is very opportunistic. Charlie always thought I did too many things. He thought if we did about five things in our lifetime, we would end up doing better than if we did 50, and that we never concentrated enough.
我们经营的是一门高度机会主义的生意。Charlie 总觉得我做的事情太多。他认为，如果我们一生只做五件事，最终的结果会比做五十件更好，而且我们从来都不够集中。
We would rather have conditions develop where we would have like $50 billion in cash rather than $335 billion in treasuries. But that’s just not the way the business works. We have made a lot of money by not wanting to be fully invested at all times.
我们更希望环境演变到只需要大约500亿美元的现金，而不是3350亿美元的国债。但这门生意并不是这么运转的。我们之所以赚到很多钱，正是因为我们并不追求始终满仓。
We don’t think it’s improper for passive investors to make a few simple investments and sit with them for life. But we’ve made the decision to be in the business, so we think we can do a little better by behaving in a very irregular manner.
对于被动投资者而言，做几笔简单的投资并长期持有，并没有什么不妥。但我们已经决定要从事这门生意，所以我们认为，通过一种非常不规则的行为方式，我们可以做得更好一些。
If you told me that I had to invest $50 billion every year until we got down to $50 billion in cash, that would be the dumbest thing in the world. Things get extraordinarily attractive very occasionally. The long-term trend is up. But nobody knows – Greg doesn’t know, Ajit doesn’t know, nobody knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, or next month. Nobody knows what business is going to do tomorrow, next week, or next month. But they spend all their time talking about it because it’s easy to talk about, though it has no value.
如果你告诉我必须每年投资500亿美元，直到把现金降到500亿美元，那将是世界上最愚蠢的事情。极具吸引力的机会只是偶尔出现。长期趋势是向上的。但没有人知道——Greg 不知道，Ajit 也不知道——没有人知道市场在明天、下周或下个月会如何。也没有人知道企业经营在明天、下周或下个月会如何。但人们却把时间都花在讨论这些上，因为这很容易谈，却毫无价值。
The process of leafing through things like that big Japanese book I can’t read anymore – that’s a treasure hunt. Every now and then you find something. Occasionally, very occasionally – but it’ll happen again, I don’t know when – it could be next week, it could be 5 years off, but it won’t be 50 years off – we will be bombarded with offerings that we’ll be glad we have the cash for.
翻阅那些资料的过程，比如那本我现在已经看不清的大部头日本公司手册——那就是一次寻宝。时不时你会发现些什么。偶尔，极其偶尔——但它还会再发生，我不知道具体什么时候——可能是下周，也可能是5年后，但绝不会是50年后——我们会被大量涌来的机会砸个正着，到时我们会庆幸手里有充足的现金。
It would be a lot more fun if it would happen tomorrow, but it’s very unlikely to happen tomorrow. It’s not unlikely to happen in five years, and the probabilities get higher as you go along. It’s kind of like death – if you’re 10 years old, the chances that you’re going to die the next day are low. If you get to be 115, it’s almost a certainty, particularly if you’re a male, as all the longevity records are held by females. I tried to get Charlie to have a sex change so he could test out whether it would extend his life. He did pretty well for being a male, I’ll put it that way.
如果明天就发生当然更有趣，但明天发生的概率很低。五年内发生并非不可能，而且随着时间推移概率会越来越高。这有点像死亡——你在10岁时，第二天就会死的概率很低；如果活到115岁，那几乎是必然，尤其是男性，因为所有长寿纪录都由女性保持。我曾试图劝 Charlie 做“性别转换”，看看能不能延长寿命。就作为一个男性而言，他已经做得相当不错了，我只能这么说。
Audience Member (Zone 2): Good morning, Warren, Greg and Ajit. My name is Jackie Han. I’m from China and now work in Toronto, Canada. This is my eighth Berkshire Hathaway meeting. At this point, I’ve probably spent more time with you than most people spend on Netflix. As you might guess, coming from a Chinese family, we always had a soft spot for real estate. So the question isn’t why don’t you own a house, it’s why are you still buying stocks instead of more property? So here is my question: With today’s high interest rates and global uncertainty, do you still believe in being greedy when others are fearful, or is value investing facing new challenges in today’s environment? Thank you.
Audience Member（Zone 2）：早上好，Warren、Greg 和 Ajit。我叫 Jackie Han，来自中国，现在在加拿大多伦多工作。这是我参加的第八次 Berkshire Hathaway 年会。到目前为止，我花在你们身上的时间可能比多数人看 Netflix 的时间还多。你们也能猜到，出身于一个中国家庭，我们一直对房地产情有独钟。所以问题不是你为什么不买房，而是为什么你仍在买股票而不是更多的不动产？我的问题是：在当今高利率与全球不确定性的环境下，你是否仍然相信“当别人恐惧时要贪婪”，还是说价值投资在当下遭遇了新的挑战？谢谢。
Warren Buffett: Well, in respect to real estate, it’s so much harder than stocks in terms of negotiation of deals, time spent, and the involvement of multiple parties in the ownership. Usually when real estate gets in trouble, you find out you’re dealing with more than just the equity holder.
Warren Buffett：关于房地产，就谈判、所需时间以及所有权涉及多方而言，它比股票难太多。通常当房地产出了问题时，你会发现你应对的不仅仅是股权持有人。
There have been times when large amounts of real estate have changed hands at bargain prices, but usually stocks were cheaper and they were a lot easier to do. Charlie did more real estate. Charlie enjoyed real estate transactions, and he actually did a fair number of them in the last 5 years of his life. But he was playing a game that was interesting to him.
确实有过大量房地产以低价易手的时期，但通常股票更便宜、也更容易操作。Charlie 做过更多房地产交易。Charlie 享受房地产交易，事实上他在生命最后5年也做了不少。但那是他个人觉得有趣的一种“游戏”。
I think if you’d asked him to make a choice when he was 21 – either be in stocks exclusively for the rest of his life or real estate for the rest of his life – he would have chosen stocks. There’s just so much more opportunity, at least in the United States, that presents itself in the security market than in real estate.
我认为，如果你在他21岁时让他选择——此后一生只做股票或只做房地产——他会选择股票。至少在美国，证券市场呈现的机会远多于房地产。
In real estate, you’re usually dealing with a single owner or a family that owns a large property they’ve had a long time. Maybe they’ve borrowed too much money against it. Maybe the population trends are against them. But to them, it’s an enormous decision.
在房地产中，你通常面对的是一个单一业主或一个长期持有大宗资产的家族。也许他们在这笔资产上借了太多钱，也许人口趋势对他们不利。但对他们来说，这都是一个巨大而艰难的决定。
When you walk down to the New York Stock Exchange, you can do billions of dollars worth of business, totally anonymous, and you can do it in 5 minutes. The trades are complete when they’re complete. In real estate, when you make a deal with a distressed lender, when you sign the deal, that’s just the beginning. Then people start negotiating more things, and it’s a whole different game with a different type of person who enjoys the game.
你走到 New York Stock Exchange，匿名就能做数十亿美元的交易，五分钟就能完成。一旦成交，就算完事。而在房地产里，当你和一个困境放贷方达成协议、签了字，那只是开始。接着大家还要就更多事项谈判——那完全是另一种游戏，适合另一类享受这种游戏的人。
We did a few real estate deals that came our way in 2008 and 2009, but the amount of time they would take compared to doing something intelligent and probably better in securities – there was just no comparison. In a real estate deal, every sentence is important to the person. In stocks, if somebody needs to sell 20,000 shares of Berkshire and they call us and the price is right, it’s done in 5 seconds and it closes right away.
2008 和 2009 年我们也做过几笔找上门来的房地产交易，但与在证券市场做一些更明智、而且可能更好的事情所耗费的时间相比——根本没法比。在房地产交易里，每一句话对对方都很重要；而在股票里，如果有人需要卖 20,000 股 Berkshire，打个电话给我们、价格合适，五秒钟就成交并立即交割。
The completion rate for working on anything in stocks, assuming you’ve got a meeting of the minds on price, is essentially 100%. In real estate, the negotiation just begins when you agree on deals, and then they take forever. For a 94-year-old, it’s not the most interesting thing to get involved in something where the negotiations could take years.
在股票里，只要价格达成一致，做任何事情的“完成率”基本是100%。在房地产里，你们同意了交易条款，谈判才刚刚开始，而且可能旷日持久。对一个94岁的人来说，卷入可能谈上多年的事，并不是最有趣的事。
We have seen some huge failures in real estate. If you go all the way back to Zeckendorf in the 1960s, he was going to change the world, and Century City in California is a product of his vision. If you go to Reichmann with the Canary Wharf buildings in London, he was sitting on top of the world, but people tend to get in trouble in that business.
我们在房地产里见过一些巨大的失败。追溯到20世纪60年代的 Zeckendorf，他曾想改变世界，加州的 Century City 就是他愿景的产物。再看伦敦 Canary Wharf 的 Reichmann，他也曾登临巅峰，但在那门生意里，人们往往会陷入麻烦。
The banks usually don’t want to recognize problems, but it takes a long time to go through the bank processes. They just got through redoing the Musk loan that he made when he was buying Twitter three years ago. Real estate transactions have parties on both sides that aren’t ready to act. We find it much better when people are ready to pick up the phone and you can do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business in a day. I’ve been spoiled, but I like being spoiled, so we’ll keep it that way.
银行通常不愿承认问题，而银行体系处理问题又要花很久。他们刚刚处理完 Musk 三年前为收购 Twitter 而借的那笔贷款的重组。房地产交易的双方往往都没有做好行动准备。我们更喜欢另一种场景：当对方拿起电话，你一天之内就能做数亿美元的生意。我已经被这种效率“宠坏”了，但我就喜欢被宠坏，所以我们会继续这样做。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Sam England in San Francisco and it’s for Warren and Ajit. As AI systems become more capable and harder to interpret, how do you see that affecting the insurance industry’s ability to assess, price, and transfer risk? Are there parallels to past disruptions Berkshire has navigated in underwriting or capital allocation?
Becky Quick：这个问题来自旧金山的 Sam England，提给 Warren 和 Ajit。随着 AI 系统能力增强且越来越难以解释，你们认为这将如何影响保险行业在风险评估、定价与转移方面的能力？在承保或资本配置上，是否存在与 Berkshire 过去应对的颠覆相类似之处？
Ajit Jain: There is no question in my mind that AI is going to be a real game-changer. It’s going to change the way we assess risk, we price risk, we sell risk, and then the way we end up paying claims.
Ajit Jain：在我看来毫无疑问，AI 将是一个真正的“游戏改变者”。它会改变我们评估风险、定价风险、销售风险以及最终理赔的方式。
Having said that, I certainly also feel that people end up spending enormous amounts of money trying to chase the next fashionable thing. We are not very good at being the fastest or the first mover. Our approach is more to wait and see until the opportunity crystallizes and we have a better point of view in terms of risk of failure, upside, and downside.
话虽如此，我同样认为，人们最终会为追逐下一件“时髦”事物而花费巨额资金。我们不擅长当最快或第一个行动的人。我们的做法更偏向观望，直到机会成形，并且我们对失败风险、上行与下行有更清晰的判断。
Right now the individual insurance operations do dabble in AI and try to figure out the best way to exploit it. But we have not yet made a conscious big-time effort in terms of pouring a lot of money into this opportunity. My guess is we will be in a state of readiness, and should that opportunity pop up, we’ll jump in promptly.
目前，各个保险业务确实在尝试 AI，试图找出最佳用法。但我们还没有有意地在这方面投入大量资金。我的判断是，我们会保持随时待命，一旦机会出现，就会迅速介入。
Warren Buffett: I wouldn’t trade everything that’s developed in AI in the next 10 years for Ajit. If you gave me a choice of having a hundred billion dollars available to participate in the property casualty insurance business for the next 10 years and a choice of getting the top AI product from whoever’s developing it or having Ajit making the decisions, I would take Ajit anytime – and I’m not kidding about that.
Warren Buffett：我不会用未来十年里 AI 的所有成果去交换 Ajit。如果让我在未来十年里拿到一千亿美元参与财产意外险业务、并在“获得某家开发的顶级 AI 产品”与“让 Ajit 来拍板”之间二选一，我会毫不犹豫地选择 Ajit——这不是玩笑。
Audience Member (Zone 3): Hello, I’m Sean Seagull from Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for investing your time and to you and the executive committee for putting on this meeting and for bringing together a diverse group of people in attendance under one roof. Out of all the companies that Berkshire Hathaway owns, there was one that you acquired – the Chicago-based company Portillo’s Hot Dogs. How did you know that this would be a good fit for the overall company’s portfolio?
Audience Member（Zone 3）：大家好，我是来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥的 Sean Seagull。感谢你们投入时间，也感谢你和执行委员会举办这次会议，把多元的与会者聚在一起。在 Berkshire Hathaway 所拥有的公司中，有一家你们收购了——总部在芝加哥的 Portillo’s Hot Dogs。你们如何判断它会与公司整体投资组合相契合？
Warren Buffett: Well, I’ll have to ask Greg about that because I don’t know anything about it. So, maybe he bought it when I was looking the other way. But I think I got to call a friend on this one. I like to think I know most of our companies, but I really don’t know a thing about it. I’m sorry, but that may be a good thing. I do know something about hot dogs, though. And we do have a lot of companies in Chicago.
Warren Buffett：嗯，这个问题我得问问 Greg，因为我对此一无所知。也许是我没留意的时候他买下的。我想我得“求助朋友”了。我喜欢以为自己了解我们的大多数公司，但这家我确实不了解。抱歉，不过这也许不是坏事。当然，我对热狗倒是略知一二。而且我们在芝加哥确实有很多公司。
Greg Abel: Through Marmon, that’s been a great opportunity where we’ve accumulated a variety of excellent companies under that portfolio, but I don’t believe Portillo’s falls under that.
Greg Abel：通过 Marmon，我们的确抓住了很好的机会，在该投资组合下积累了许多优秀的公司，但我不认为 Portillo’s 属于其中之一。
Warren Buffett: I look at the financial statements of about 50 or 60 of our companies every month. But in the case of Marmon, for example, Marmon itself owns over 100 companies. It was created by Jay Pritzker and his brother Bob, and it was a remarkable company when we bought it, but it was highly diversified already and then we’ve diversified it further. So it is something of a Berkshire within Berkshire.
Warren Buffett：我每个月会查看我们大约五六十家公司的财务报表。但以 Marmon 为例，Marmon 自身就拥有 100 多家公司。它由 Jay Pritzker 和他的兄弟 Bob 创建，我们收购时它已非常出色，同时高度多元化，后来我们又进一步多元化。所以它有点像“Berkshire 里的 Berkshire”。
We found that’s working very well as an arrangement. Jay Pritzker was a remarkable manager, and there are various branches of the Pritzker family. In 1954, they changed the federal tax code very dramatically in the United States – quite a blow to me because I’d been at Columbia reading a J.K. Lasser book about the tax code, and then they went and changed the whole thing. But 1954 was a big year of change, and those years come every now and then, like 1986, and you may see a big one one of these days.
我们发现这种安排运作得非常好。Jay Pritzker 是位了不起的管理者，Pritzker 家族也有多个分支。1954 年，美国联邦税法发生了重大调整——这对我打击很大，因为我在 Columbia 正研读 J.K. Lasser 的税法书，结果他们把整套规则给改了。不过 1954 确实是大变革之年，而类似年份会不时出现，比如 1986，你们或许很快又会见到一次大的变动。
There was a company called Rockwood Chocolates in Brooklyn, and they made Rockwood Chocolate Bits, which we used to sell at the Buffett grocery store for people to make chocolate chip cookies. It turned out that cocoa, which lately has had a big run, was 5 cents a pound in 1941 when LIFO was first allowed for tax purposes. The Rockwood chocolate company went on the LIFO method, so they owned about 30 million pounds of cocoa.
布鲁克林有一家名为 Rockwood Chocolates 的公司，生产 Rockwood Chocolate Bits；我们当年在 Buffett 的杂货店里就卖这种供人做巧克力曲奇的巧克力粒。后来发现，可可（最近大涨的那个）在 1941 年、LIFO 首次被允许用于税务时，每磅仅 5 美分。Rockwood 采用了 LIFO，因此他们持有大约 3,000 万磅可可。
Then cocoa took a run in 1955. I had just moved to New York. There was a provision in the new tax code that if you were in two or more businesses and did certain things and had been in them for 5 years and got out of one of them, there would be no capital gains tax on LIFO inventory gains. Tax rates were around 48% or 52%, so there was this huge profit because cocoa had gone up in price, but that made it terrible for them selling Rockwood chocolate bits because the retail price of the chocolate bits did not match what was going on at wholesale. Something almost identical has been happening in the chocolate business recently – Hershey just reported they’re going to have a bad quarter as we’re paying $4.50 a pound for chocolate because of events in West Africa.
1955 年，可可大涨。我那时刚搬到纽约。新税法里有一条：如果你同时从事两项或以上业务、符合某些条件、并持续经营满 5 年后退出其中一项，那么对 LIFO 存货增值不征收资本利得税。彼时税率大概在 48% 或 52%，所以由于可可涨价而产生了巨额账面收益；但这也让他们卖 Rockwood 巧克力粒变得很糟，因为零售价并未反映批发端的变化。最近巧克力行业几乎发生了同样的事——Hershey 刚刚披露他们将迎来一个糟糕的季度，因为受西非事件影响，我们为巧克力支付的价格达到每磅 4.50 美元。
In any event, Jay Pritzker bought control of Rockwood. I was 24 or 25 years old, and they called a meeting to split off one of the chocolate businesses in a way that would enable them to recognize the gain on these cocoa beans without paying 50% federal taxes. So I went to the meeting in Brooklyn, and nobody was there except one guy – I was 24 and he was 29, and it was Jay Pritzker.
无论如何，Jay Pritzker 收购了 Rockwood 的控制权。我当时 24 或 25 岁，他们召开了一次会议，计划剥离其中一个巧克力业务，以一种方式确认这批可可豆的收益而无需支付 50% 的联邦税。我去了布鲁克林的那场会，现场除了一个人之外空无一人——我 24 岁，他 29 岁，那人就是 Jay Pritzker。
Jay gave me a lecture or really a lesson on the tax code. I could have gone to graduate school for years and never learned as much as he taught me that day. Later we actually bought the Marmon Company, which after some other transformations grew from what was once Rockwood.
Jay 给我上了一堂“税法课”。即便我在研究生院读上好多年，也未必能学到他那天教给我的东西。后来我们确实买下了 Marmon Company，它在经历一些转型后，溯源可追到当年的 Rockwood。
Marmon, among other things, developed the car that won the first Indianapolis Speedway race and invented the rear view mirror. At the Indianapolis 500, they used to have two people in the car – one to look back and see what the other racers were doing and one to drive. When our guy got sick, they invented the rear view mirror. So if you want to see what’s going on in the laboratories of Berkshire Hathaway, we’ve got people working on things like the rear view mirror.
Marmon 等等，还开发了赢得首届 Indianapolis Speedway 比赛的汽车，并发明了后视镜。在 Indianapolis 500 的早年，赛车里通常要坐两个人——一个负责回头看其他赛车在做什么，另一个负责驾驶。后来我们那位看后方的人病了，于是他们发明了后视镜。所以如果你想知道 Berkshire Hathaway 的“实验室”里都在做什么——我们的人，做的就是类似“后视镜”这样的东西。
Greg Abel: A friend did call. Peter Eastwood, who runs one of our Berkshire subsidiaries and does a great job, tracked down that Portillo’s is owned by a private equity firm called Berkshire Partners. So that was the basis of the question, but it’s not associated with Berkshire Hathaway. So, we got to the bottom of that one.
Greg Abel：确实有朋友打来电话。我们的一家 Berkshire 子公司由 Peter Eastwood 负责，他工作非常出色，他查清楚了 Portillo’s 的所有者是一家名为 Berkshire Partners 的私募股权公司。所以提问的依据是这个，但它与 Berkshire Hathaway 并无关联。于是，这件事我们就搞清楚了。
Warren Buffett: That’s just a sample of the way we operate around here.
Warren Buffett：这正是我们在这里处理事情的一个缩影。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Jessica Pune who says, “You’ve long been a strong believer in the American tailwind and the resilience of the United States, and history has proven you correct. Today, the US appears to be undergoing significant and potentially revolutionary changes. Some investors are now questioning the concept of American exceptionalism. In your view, are investors being overly pessimistic about the US economy or is the country indeed entering a period of fundamental change that requires a reassessment from a new perspective?”
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自 Jessica Pune。她说：“你一直坚信 American tailwind 和美国的韧性，历史也证明你是对的。今天，美国似乎正在经历重大的、甚至可能是革命性的变化。一些投资者开始质疑 American exceptionalism 的概念。在你看来，投资者是否对美国经济过于悲观，还是美国确实正进入一个需要从新视角进行重新评估的根本性变革期？”
Warren Buffett: Well, I would say that Jessica, who I believe is the step-granddaughter of one of our managers that I mentioned in the annual report, asks a good question. America has been undergoing significant and revolutionary change ever since it was developed. I mentioned that we started out as an agricultural society with high promises that we didn’t deliver on very well. We said all men were created equal, and then we wrote a constitution that counted blacks as three-fifths of a person. In Article 2, you’ll find male pronouns used 20 times and no female pronouns. So it took until 1920, with the 19th amendment, to finally give women the vote that we had promised back in 1776.
Warren Buffett：我想说，Jessica（我相信她是我在年报中提到过的一位经理的继外孙女）问了一个好问题。自从美国建立以来，就一直在经历重大而具革命性的变化。我提到过，我们起初是一个农业社会，许下了很高的承诺，却并未很好兑现。我们说所有人生而平等，但随后写进宪法的是把黑人按“三分之五的人”来计算。你会在第二条里发现男性代词出现了20次，却没有女性代词。所以一直到1920年通过第十九修正案，女性才终于获得了我们在1776年就承诺的选举权。
We’re always in the process of change, and we’ll always find all kinds of things to criticize in the country. But the luckiest day in my life is the day I was born, because I was born in the United States. At that time, about 3% of all births in the world were taking place in the United States. I was just lucky, and I was lucky to be born white, among other things.
我们始终处在变化之中，也总能在这个国家发现各种可批评之处。但我一生中最幸运的一天是我出生的那天，因为我出生在美国。那时全世界大约有3%的新生儿是在美国出生。我只是运气好，而且运气好在其中包括我生而为白人。
If you don’t think the United States has changed since I was born in 1930, you’re not paying attention. We’ve gone through all kinds of things – great recessions, world wars, the development of the atomic bomb that we never dreamt of when I was born. So I would not get discouraged about the fact that we haven’t solved every problem that’s come along.
如果你认为自我1930年出生以来美国没有发生变化，那就说明你没有留心。我们经历了各种事件——大萧条、世界大战、以及我出生时做梦都想不到的原子弹的研制。因此，对于我们尚未解决每一个出现的问题，我不会因此而气馁。
If I were being born today, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said I could be in the United States. We’re all pretty lucky. We’ve got two non-United States guys here who now live in the US.
如果我今天要出生，我会在母腹中一直“谈判”，直到他们同意让我在美国出生。我们都相当幸运。这里就有两位非美国出生的人，如今也居住在美国。
Audience Member (Zone 4): Hi, Mr. Buffett. My name is Daniel and I’m from Tenafly, New Jersey. First of all, I just want to say how grateful I am for getting the opportunity to ask you a question. When it comes to your principles of investing, you often talk about how important it is to be patient. Has there ever been a situation in your investing career where breaking that principle and acting fast has benefited you? Thank you.
Audience Member（Zone 4）：您好，Buffett 先生。我叫 Daniel，来自新泽西州 Tenafly。首先，非常感谢能有机会向您提问。谈到您的投资原则，您常强调耐心的重要性。在您的投资生涯中，是否有过违背这一原则、快速行动却反而受益的情形？谢谢。
Warren Buffett: That’s a good question. There are times when you have to act fast. In fact, we’ve made a great deal of money because we’re willing to act faster than anybody around.
Warren Buffett：这是个好问题。有些时候你必须迅速行动。事实上，我们赚到不少钱，正是因为我们愿意比身边任何人都动作更快。
Jessica Pune is the step-granddaughter of Ben Rosner, a manager of ours. In 1966, I got a call from a fellow named Phil Steinberg in New York. He said, “I represent Mrs. Anenberg. We have a business we’d like to sell you.” So I called Charlie up, got a few details, and it sounded very interesting.
Jessica Pune 是我们的一位经理 Ben Rosner 的继外孙女。1966年，我接到一位名叫 Phil Steinberg 的纽约人的电话。他说：“我代表 Anenberg 夫人。我们有个业务想卖给你。”于是我打电话给 Charlie，了解了一些细节，听起来非常有意思。
Charlie and I went to Will Steinberg’s office in New York – he was a marvelous guy. He was handling things for Mrs. Anenberg, whose husband had been the partner of Ben Rosner, but he had died, and Ben got kind of tense about working with her.
我和 Charlie 前往纽约 Will Steinberg 的办公室——他是个了不起的人。他在为 Anenberg 夫人处理事务。她的丈夫曾是 Ben Rosner 的合伙人，但他去世了，Ben 对继续与她共事感到有些紧张。
So he offered us this business at a bargain price – $6 million. It had $2 million of cash, a $2 million piece of property on Market Street in Philadelphia, and it was making $2 million a year pre-tax.
于是他以极具吸引力的价格向我们出售这项业务——600万美元。其中包含200万美元现金、位于费城 Market Street 上一处价值200万美元的不动产，并且每年税前盈利200万美元。
Ben Rosner was there, and he was upset about doing business with his partner’s widow. She was extremely wealthy. He said to me and Charlie, “I’ll run this business for you until December 31st, and then I’m out of here.” Charlie and I went out in the hallway, and I said, “If this guy quits at the end of the year, you can throw away every book on psychology I’ve ever read.”
当时 Ben Rosner 在场，他对与合伙人的遗孀做交易感到心烦。她非常富有。他对我和 Charlie 说：“我可以替你们把这个业务经营到12月31日，然后我就走人。”我和 Charlie 走到走廊上，我说：“如果这家伙年底真的离职，那我读过的所有心理学书都可以扔了。”
That began a wonderful relationship. We bought the company and had a great partnership. People in the East had a stereotype in their mind of what people from the Midwest were like. Ben had been married first to a woman from Iowa, and he just figured that anybody from the Midwest was okay.
这开启了一段很棒的关系。我们买下了那家公司，并建立了很好的合作。东部的人们对中西部人有固定印象。Ben 的第一任妻子来自 Iowa，他就认定来自中西部的人都挺靠谱。
The trick when you get in business with somebody who wants to sell you something for $6 million that’s got $2 million of cash, a couple million of real estate, and is making $2 million a year, is you don’t want to be patient at that moment. You want to be patient in waiting to get the occasional call. My phone will ring sometime with something that wakes me up. You just never know when it’ll happen.
当有人以600万美元出售一项业务，其中有200万美元现金、几百万的不动产、且每年赚200万美元时，诀窍就在于：那一刻你可别“耐心”。你要有耐心的是等待偶尔响起的那个电话。总有一天我的电话会响，传来一个把我惊醒的机会。你永远不知道它何时到来。
That’s what makes it fun. So patience is a combination of patience and a willingness to do something that afternoon if it comes to you. You don’t want to be patient about acting on deals that make sense, and you don’t want to be very patient with people talking to you about things that will never happen.
这正是这行的乐趣所在。所以，“耐心”是两件事的结合：一是耐心等待；二是一旦机会在当天下午就摆到你面前，你要愿意立刻出手。对于真正合算的交易，你不该在行动上“耐心”；对于那些永远不会发生的空谈，你也不该太有耐心。
Greg Abel: As you’re being patient, I happen to know – and I think that goes for Ajit also and all our managers – while we’re looking at opportunities and as you touched on, we want to act quickly, but never underestimate the amount of reading and work that’s being done to be prepared to act quickly. We know that when the opportunity presents itself, whether it be equities or private companies, we’re ready to act, and that’s a large part of being patient – using the time to be prepared.
Greg Abel：当你保持耐心时，我恰好知道——我想 Ajit 以及我们所有的经理人都一样——在我们寻找机会、并且正如你提到的那样希望迅速行动的同时，千万别低估为“快速行动”所做的阅读与准备工作量。我们清楚，一旦机会出现——不论是公开市场股票还是非上市公司——我们都已整装待发。而这正是“耐心”的重要组成部分：利用时间来做好准备。
One of the great pleasures – it is the great pleasure actually in this business – is having people trust you. That’s really why I work at 94 when I’ve got more money than anybody could count. It means nothing in terms of how I’m going to live or how my children are going to live or anything else.
在这门生意里，最大的乐趣之一——其实是最大的乐趣——就是别人信任你。这实际上也是我在94岁仍然工作的原因，尽管我拥有多到数不清的钱。这对我将如何生活、我的孩子将如何生活，或者其他任何事情，都没有实际意义。
But both Charlie and I just enjoyed the fact that people trusted us. They trusted us 60 or 70 years ago in partnerships we had. We never sought out professional investors to join our partnerships. Among all my partners, I never had a single institution – I never wanted an institution. I wanted people. I didn’t want people who were sitting around having presentations every three months and being told what they wanted to hear. That’s what we got, and that’s why we’ve got this group here today.
但 Charlie 和我都享受被信任这件事。早在六七十年前，我们的合伙事业中，人们就信任我们。我们从未主动去找职业投资机构加入合伙。在我所有的合伙人中，一个机构投资者都没有——我从不想要机构。我要的是“人”。我不想要那种每三个月就坐着听汇报、只听想听之话的人。我们当年得到的正是这种人与这种信任，这也是为什么今天会有在座的这一群体。
It’s all worked out. But you don’t want to be patient when the time comes to act – you want to get it done that day.
一切都证明行之有效。但当需要行动的时刻到来时，你不该“耐心”，你应该当天就把事做成。
Becky Quick: This question is from Flavio Montenegro, a shareholder from Guatemala. A couple of years ago in this meeting, Mr. Jain outlined the significant challenges GEICO faced in modernizing and integrating its IT systems. It was also mentioned that competitors were ahead in their pricing strategies because of the use of telematics. Today, Geico’s turnaround is evident through strong pricing and operational improvements. Could you provide more details on the specific actions taken under Todd’s leadership and how those changes will help sustain a long-term competitive advantage in the coming years?
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自股东 Flavio Montenegro（来自 Guatemala）。几年前的年会上，Jain 先生曾概述 GEICO 在 IT 系统现代化与整合方面面临的重大挑战。当时也提到，由于采用 telematics，竞争对手在定价策略上领先。如今，Geico（GEICO）的转变已通过强有力的定价与运营改进得到验证。能否请你们进一步介绍在 Todd 的领导下采取了哪些具体措施，以及这些变化将如何帮助 GEICO 在未来几年维持长期竞争优势？
Ajit Jain: Todd has done a great job in turning around the operations. When he took over, there were two major issues that GEICO was behind its competitors on. First, the term we’ve been using is “matching rate to risk,” and second, telematics. We were at the bottom of the list in telematics about five or six years ago. Since then, we have made rapid strides. Telematics, which used to be a source of competitive disadvantage to us, is no longer so, and I would argue that our telematics at GEICO is about as good as anyone else’s today.
Ajit Jain：Todd 在扭转经营方面做得非常出色。他接手时，GEICO 相较竞争对手主要落后在两点。其一，是我们一直强调的“matching rate to risk”（费率与风险的匹配）；其二，是 telematics。大约五六年前，我们在 telematics 方面几乎垫底。此后我们快速追赶。过去 telematics 曾是我们的竞争劣势来源，如今不再如此——我甚至认为，GEICO 的 telematics 今天已经与任何同行不相上下。
In terms of matching rate to risk, there again, I think we have caught up with our competitors and we’re as good as anyone else in the field. All this, together with the cost reduction effort that Todd gets a lot of credit for – he has basically reduced the workforce by 20,000. Starting with around 50,000, he’s brought it down to 30,000, which translates to at least $2 billion per year in savings.
在费率与风险匹配方面，我认为我们同样已经追上竞争对手，达到业内一流水平。所有这些，再加上 Todd 主导的降本举措——他基本上减少了20,000名员工规模：从大约50,000人降至30,000人——这相当于每年至少节省 20 亿美元成本。
So all this has allowed GEICO to become a much more focused competitor. So much so that in the last seven quarters, GEICO has shown a combined ratio that has an eight in front of it. I never thought I’d live to see the day when anyone could have a combined ratio as low as it is right now. GEICO has done a great job – its 80 combined ratio translates to the largest profit anyone is making on the underwriting side in the personal automobile business.
因此，GEICO 由此成为一家更专注的竞争者。以至于在过去七个季度里，GEICO 的 combined ratio（综合成本率）都以“8”打头。我从未想过自己能活着看到今天这种低到这个水平的综合成本率。GEICO 表现非常出色——80 多的综合成本率，意味着在个人汽车险的承保端，它创造了业内最大的承保利润。
We’ve achieved a lot, but I don’t want to be so arrogant as to say “mission accomplished.” We’ve achieved a lot, but I still think we need to do a lot more in technology. AI is going to be a big force, and we need to be in a state of readiness.
我们已经取得很多成就，但我不想傲慢地宣告“任务完成”。我们确实做了很多，但我仍认为在技术上还有大量工作要做。AI 将成为一股重要力量，而我们必须随时待命。
Warren Buffett: It’s a fascinating case study, and that’s what’s so interesting about the whole game of business – each one is a little different. They all have challenges of certain sorts, but they also have opportunities.
Warren Buffett：这是一个引人入胜的案例研究，而这正是商业这场游戏之所以迷人的原因——每家公司都稍有不同。它们都有各自类型的挑战，但同样也都有机会。
We paid $50 million for half of GEICO in 1976. We now own 100%, and $50% of the $2 billion that we earned in the first quarter is $1 billion, which on a $50 million investment is 20-to-1 in a quarter. That takes years to develop, but the interesting thing is that the auto insurance policy, which didn’t even exist 120 years ago, is by far the largest item in the property casualty insurance business. It’s huge.
我们在 1976 年以 5,000 万美元买下 GEICO 的一半股权。如今我们持有 100%。第一季度我们赚了 20 亿美元，其中的 50% 等于 10 亿美元——相对于当年的 5,000 万美元投资，这相当于单季“20 比 1”。这需要多年积累才能达到。但有趣的是，120 年前还不存在的 auto insurance policy，如今已成为财产意外险业务中体量最大的项目。它非常庞大。
Ajit Jain: The only thing I’d like to add is that in addition to the underwriting profit, GEICO provides $29 billion of float.
Ajit Jain：我只想补充一点：除了承保利润之外，GEICO 还提供了 290 亿美元的 float（保险浮存金）。
Warren Buffett: Yes, and that’s not unimportant when you paid $50 million to get a business that’s giving you $29 billion to work with for nothing and on top of that gives you a billion dollars of profit in a quarter.
Warren Buffett：是的，这一点可不小，当年我们花 5,000 万美元买下这门生意，如今不仅白白获得 290 亿美元的资金可运用，而且单个季度还能带来 10 亿美元的利润。
The interesting thing about auto insurance is that we’re selling the same product as in 1936 when the company was started. We’re just being more sophisticated about pricing it. The founder, who came from USAA, made the judgment that government employees (the name GEICO stands for Government Employees Insurance Company) were better drivers than average. He wasn’t an actuary, but he made that observation, left USAA, and started GEICO with a few hundred thousand dollars. He made money from underwriting the first year and the second year.
关于汽车保险，有趣之处在于我们卖的产品与 1936 年公司创立时是同一种。变化只是在定价上更为精细化。创始人来自 USAA，他做出判断：政府雇员（GEICO 的全称即 Government Employees Insurance Company）驾驶水平整体优于平均。他不是精算师，但基于这一观察，从 USAA 离职，用几十万美元创立了 GEICO，并在第一个和第二个承保年度就实现盈利。
This isn’t a public offering type deal with phony accounting for 10 years – he just priced it to make money, and that’s exactly what’s been done since 1936. The policy really looks a lot like the one from back then. This huge field has sprung up around us and it’s still growing. Nobody likes to buy insurance, but they sure like to drive.
这不是那种搞上市、用十年“假会计”包装的项目——他只是把价格定在能赚钱的水平，这正是自 1936 年以来我们一直在做的事。保单的样貌与当年其实相差无几。围绕我们，这个庞大的领域蓬勃发展、仍在增长。没有人喜欢买保险，但大家都喜欢开车。
GEICO is a fascinating story. About three times over the years, the company has gotten sidetracked one way or another and then gotten back to basics. It’s a wonderful business.
GEICO 是一个引人入胜的故事。多年来公司大概有三次以不同方式“跑偏”，随后又回到基本面。这是一门很棒的生意。
We showed at this annual meeting one time a message from Lorimer Davidson. In January 1951, he was the only person in the building when I’d gone down on a Saturday to visit. It turned out they didn’t work on Saturdays in Washington, and I pounded on the door until finally a janitor let me in. I said to the janitor, “Is there anybody I can talk to here except you?” and he didn’t take it personally. He said, “Well, there’s one guy up on the sixth floor,” and a fellow named Lorimer Davidson did wonderful things for me.
我们曾在某次年会上播放过一则来自 Lorimer Davidson 的信息。1951 年 1 月的一个周六，我去拜访时，整栋楼里只有他一个人。原来在 Washington 周六不上班。我敲了半天门，终于被一位门卫放进去了。我问门卫：“除了你之外，这里还有谁可以聊聊？”他并不介意，说：“六楼还有一位。”那位名叫 Lorimer Davidson 的先生，后来对我帮助良多。
You get a few breaks in life in terms of people you meet who just change your life dramatically. If you’ve had a handful of those, you treasure them. We’ve had them on this board of Berkshire – Tom Murphy, Sandy Gottesman, Walter Scott, Bill Scott – we’ve made lifelong assets out of people that are the right sort, with incredible talent, who are lots of fun to work with, always doing more than their share. To get a chance to talk to Lorimer Davidson on a Saturday afternoon, you just listen carefully. That comes in the category of “turn every page.” You just get lucky in life, and you want to take advantage of your luck.
人生中会遇到少数几位改变你一生的人。如果你有幸遇到，就要珍惜。在 Berkshire 的董事会里，我们就有这样的伙伴——Tom Murphy、Sandy Gottesman、Walter Scott、Bill Scott——我们把这些“对的人”视作终身资产：才华横溢、合作愉快、总是多做一分。能在一个周六下午与 Lorimer Davidson 交流，你只需认真倾听。这属于“turn every page（翻遍每一页）”的范畴。人生里你会走运，而你要做的是抓住这份好运。
Audience Member (Zone 5): My name is Benjamin Graham Sanderson from Pasadena, California. Warren, thank you for all you’ve taught us over the years. Earlier, you said nobody but Steve Jobs could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim Cook could have developed it like he has. Warren, nobody but you could have created Berkshire. And I presume you view Greg as an outlier among outliers, but he seems so normal. Sorry, Greg. So, I was hoping you could share what specifically about Greg makes him your preferred successor. And Greg, we’re excited to get to know you more over the next few decades. Thank you.
Audience Member（Zone 5）：我叫 Benjamin Graham Sanderson，来自加州 Pasadena。Warren，多年来谢谢你的教诲。你之前说过，除了 Steve Jobs 没人能创造 Apple，但除了 Tim Cook 也没人能把它发展到今天。Warren，也只有你能创造 Berkshire。我猜在你眼里 Greg 是“outlier among outliers（异类中的异类）”，但他看起来非常“正常”。抱歉，Greg。所以我想请你具体谈谈，Greg 的哪些特质让他成为你心目中的接班人之选。Greg，未来几十年我们也很期待更加了解你。谢谢。
Warren Buffett: You’ve hit on the most important question in terms of the business. We’ve got a wonderful group of businesses. We’ve got an ability to do things that nobody else can do, which is hard to get in a capitalistic system that’s been developed as fully as the United States has been. I mean, imagine being able to create something in a very big playing field – it would be very hard to develop anything like it. I don’t think you could develop the people around it, let alone the capital position, history, and everything else.
Warren Buffett：你问到了对这门事业而言最重要的问题。我们拥有一组出色的业务，也具备别人做不到的能力——在像美国这样高度成熟的资本主义体系中，这种能力尤为难得。想象一下，能在如此广阔的赛场上“造出”这样的机制——几乎不可能复制。我甚至不认为你能复制围绕它聚拢的人，更别提资本地位、历史积淀与其他一切了。
It takes a long long time and it takes getting around you a small cadre of people which then spreads out somewhat. Where you’ve got mutual trust, where people do more than their share. I’ve been around a lot of businesses over the years, and by nature I’m somewhat critical of everything. I’m looking for what’s wrong in things because that’s part of investing – looking at what you’re missing.
这需要很长很长时间，还需要你身边先聚拢起一支小团队，继而逐步扩散开去。其间要有彼此信任，人们会自觉多做一分。多年来我见过很多企业，而我天性里对一切都带着些挑剔。我总在寻找潜在问题，因为那是投资的一部分——寻找你可能忽略的东西。
But we have people that, if they’re asked to put on a show like this instead of doing their regular job, they participate. I went around the groups of people who were exhibiting yesterday for an hour and a half, and these are people thanking me and totally enthused about coming and doing a lot of work for which they don’t get paid anything extra. They work hard and they enjoy their work.
但我们有这样一群人：哪怕让他们放下本职来办一场这样的活动，他们也会投入其中。昨天我花了一个半小时在各个展区走访，人们在向我致谢，兴致勃勃地投入大量工作，却并无额外报酬。他们勤勉工作，也享受工作。
You really want to work at something you enjoy. I’ve had five bosses in life and I liked every one of them – they were all interesting. I still decided that I’d rather work for myself than anybody else. But if you find people that are wonderful to work with, that’s the place to go. I’ve told my kids basically that you don’t get lucky like I did when I found what interested me at seven or eight years of age. It could have taken a lot longer, but you want to find what you love.
你确实应该从事自己热爱的事业。我一生有过五位老板，我都很喜欢——他们都很有趣。但我仍选择为自己工作，而不是为别人。不过，如果你能找到一群适合共事的人，那就是你该去的地方。我常跟孩子们讲，并不是每个人都像我这么幸运，在七八岁就找到自己的兴趣。也许这需要更久，但你要努力找到你所热爱的东西。
There’s a movie called “The Glenn Miller Story,” and Glenn Miller went from having a broken-down band for 15 years to turning out the first gold record. He “found the sound” and created the first gold record – the Chattanooga Choo Choo in 1941. He turned around from being a nothing with a band to finding the sound.
有一部电影叫《The Glenn Miller Story》。Glenn Miller 曾带着一支不太起眼的乐队混了 15 年，但最终“找到了声音”，缔造出第一张金唱片——1941 年的《Chattanooga Choo Choo》。他从“一事无成”到“找到声音”，彻底完成了逆转。
I’ve always told my kids that their sound isn’t my sound, but you don’t necessarily find it on the first job you take. But if you get lucky like I did, you find it when you’re very young and then you just keep doing it. Don’t worry too much about starting salaries and be very careful who you work for because you will take on the habits of the people around you. There are certain jobs you shouldn’t take.
我一直告诉孩子们：他们的“声音”不是我的“声音”，而且你未必能在第一份工作里就找到它。但如果你足够幸运，像我一样很早就找到，那就持续去做。别过分在意起薪，并且要谨慎选择你的雇主，因为你会沾染身边人的习惯。有些工作，你就不该去做。
You’ve got the greatest country in the world and the greatest time in the world. You can’t even dream all the dreams you could have about a place like Berkshire. But the big thing you have to do is always be sure you can play the next day. In terms of financial activities on a meaningful scale, you don’t want to do anything that risks what’s been created.
你身处这个世界上最伟大的国家与最伟大的时代。关于像 Berkshire 这样的地方，你甚至无法穷尽所有可能的梦想。但最重要的一点是：务必确保自己“明天还能继续上场”。就有意义规模的金融活动而言，别做任何可能危及既有成果的事。
If very stupid things are happening around you, you do not want to participate. If people are making more money because they’re borrowing money or participating in securities that are pieces of junk but they hope to find a bigger sucker later on, you have to forget that. That’ll bite you at some point. The basic game is so good, and you’ve been so lucky to be born now.
如果你周围正在发生非常愚蠢的事，你不要参与。如果人们靠借钱或参与垃圾证券来赚更多钱，指望日后找到更大的“接盘侠”，你必须远离。这终会在某个时刻反噬你。基本盘已经如此之好，而你又如此幸运地生在当下。
If I’d been born in 1700, I’d say, “I want to go back in the womb. What the hell with this? It’s too hard.” But now I’ve come along to do something where I can just play around all day with things I enjoy doing. It’s a pretty wonderful life.
如果我生在 1700 年，我会说：“让我回到母腹里吧，这是什么鬼？太难了。”但现在我能做的事，是整天摆弄我热爱的东西。这是相当美好的人生。
Greg Abel: I couldn’t be more humbled and honored to be in this role, but to have actually been part of Berkshire for 25+ years, to have had the opportunity to work with you and Ajit and our board and many other people in our company – as you touched on, when you find something like Berkshire that’s so special, you fall in love with it and it becomes what you want to do every day. It’s just an incredible opportunity. So, thank you.
Greg Abel：能担任这个角色，我既谦卑又荣幸；而真正让我受益匪浅的是在 Berkshire 超过25年的经历，有机会与你、Ajit、我们的董事会，以及公司里的许多人一起共事——正如你所说，当你遇到像 Berkshire 这样特别的事业时，你会爱上它，并把它当作每天都想做的事。这是一个难以置信的机遇。谢谢你。
Warren Buffett: And to the gentleman who asked the question, if you don’t find it immediately, don’t starve to death in the meantime, but you will find it. It’s somewhat like finding the right person in marriage – you may not marry the person you met on your first date. Sometimes it pays to wait.
Warren Buffett：也送给刚才提问的那位先生一句话：如果你一时还没找到，也别在这期间“饿死”，你终会找到的。这有点像婚姻中找到对的人——你未必会和第一次约会的人结婚。有时候，等待是值得的。
Becky Quick: This is a question from Mark Bonnke and Helen Friedrien in Rapid City, South Dakota. As the US dollar quickly loses value in relation to other foreign currencies in 2025, is Berkshire Hathaway taking steps to minimize this currency risk and its impact on quarterly and annual earnings? If so, please explain. And I’ll just add from Mary Chang, another shareholder: Berkshire currently borrows in Japanese yen to offset its currency risk and its Japanese stock investments. In the future, will you invest in foreign currency denominated assets unhedged?
Becky Quick：这是来自南达科他州 Rapid City 的 Mark Bonnke 和 Helen Friedrien 的提问。随着 2025 年美元相对于其他外币迅速贬值，Berkshire Hathaway 是否采取措施尽量降低这一汇率风险及其对季度和年度盈利的影响？如果有，请解释。另外补充一位股东 Mary Chang 的问题：Berkshire 目前通过以日元计价的借款来对冲其日本股票投资的汇率风险。未来你们会不做对冲、直接投资以外币计价的资产吗？
Warren Buffett: Well, we always have – the Japanese situation is different because we intend to stay so long with that position and the funding situation is so cheap that we’ve attempted to some degree to match purchases against yen-denominated funding. But that’s not a policy of ours. In fact, that’s the first time we’ve done that. We’ve owned lots of securities in foreign currencies.
Warren Buffett：我们一直都有这样做——日本的情况有所不同，因为我们打算持有那笔仓位非常久，且融资成本极低，所以我们在一定程度上用日元计价的负债去匹配我们的购入。但这并非我们的通行政策。事实上，这是我们首次这么做。我们过去持有过大量以外币计价的证券。
We do nothing in terms of its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. We don’t do anything based on its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. There’s never been a board meeting I can remember where I’ve said, “If we do this, our annual earnings will be this, therefore we ought to do it.” The number will turn out to be what it’ll be. What counts is where we are five or 10 or 20 years from now.
我们不会为了季度或年度利润的影响而去做什么。我们从不基于对季度或年度盈利的影响来行事。我记忆中从未在董事会上说过：“如果我们这么干，年利润会是多少，因此就该去做。”数字最后会呈现它该有的样子。关键在于五年、十年或二十年后我们所处的位置。
If you start focusing on what number you’re going to produce, you will quickly get tempted to play around with the numbers and sometimes seriously play around with the numbers. I’ve seen people I trust in all kinds of other ways, but they regard playing around with numbers as perfectly okay. That’s just not something we do – we just don’t think about that.
一旦你开始盯着“要做出什么数字”，很快就会受到“修饰数字”的诱惑，有时甚至会严重动手脚。我见过在其他方面值得信任的人，却把摆弄数字视为理所当然。那不是我们会做的事——我们根本不往那方面去想。
Actually, the yen relationship in the last quarter resulted in certain GAAP charges, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’ll change next month or next year. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to own anything in a currency that we thought was really going to hell.
事实上，上个季度因为日元关系，我们在 GAAP 下确认了一些费用，但这无关紧要。下个月或明年情况就会变。显然，我们不会愿意持有任何以我们认为会“一塌糊涂”的货币计价的资产。
That’s the big thing we worry about with the United States currency. The tendency of a government to want to debase its currency over time – there’s no system that beats that. You can pick dictators, you can pick representatives, you can do anything, but there will be a push toward weaker currencies.
这正是我们对美国货币所担心的大问题。政府随着时间推移有贬损其货币的倾向——没有体制能完全克服这一点。无论是独裁者还是代议制代表，无论采取什么安排，都会存在把货币推向走弱的动力。
I mentioned very briefly in the annual report that fiscal policy is what scares me in the United States because of the way it’s made, and all the motivations are toward doing things that can cause trouble with money. But that’s not limited to the United States – it’s all over the world, and in some places, it gets out of control regularly. They devalue at rates that are breathtaking, and that’s continued.
我在年报里非常简短地提到，让我担心美国的，是其财政政策的形成机制，各种动机都倾向于做出会在货币层面惹麻烦的事。但这并不限于美国——全球皆然，且在某些地方经常失控。它们以惊人的速度贬值，这种现象持续不断。
People can study economics and you can have all kinds of arrangements, but in the end, if you’ve got people who control the currency, you can issue paper money or engage in clipping currencies like they used to centuries ago. There will always be people who, by the nature of their job – I’m not singling them out as particularly evil – but the natural course of government is to make the currency worthless over time. That’s got important consequences, and it’s very hard to build checks and balances into the system to keep that from happening.
人们可以研究经济学，可以设计各种制度，但归根结底，只要有人掌控货币，他就可以发行纸币，或像几百年前那样“剪币”（clipping）。总会有人基于其职能——我并非指责他们“天生邪恶”——而顺着政府的自然路径，在时间推移中让货币变得不值钱。这具有重大后果，而要在体制中构建足够的制衡来阻止它，极其困难。
We’ve had a lot of fun here watching what happens when people try to make sure they aren’t running fiscal risks. That game isn’t over and never will be over in finality. If you look up the great inflations of post-World War II, it’s just a list that goes on forever, and the same names keep popping up.
当人们试图确保自己没有承担财政风险时，我们在旁观中看到了很多“好戏”。这场游戏没有终局，也永不会真正结束。回看二战后的那些大通胀，名单长到没有尽头，而且同样的名字不断出现。
So currency value is a scary thing, and we don’t have any great system for beating that. We do in this particular Japanese position because we expect to hold it for 50 or 100 years or more, and we’ll be owning something denominated in yen and easily predictable. As long as the carry on it is right, we’ll attempt to issue Japanese-denominated liabilities, but that’s not because of anything we care about in terms of quarterly or annual earnings.
因此，货币价值这件事确实令人担忧，而我们并没有什么万全之策来战胜它。就这笔日本持仓而言例外，因为我们预计会持有 50 年、100 年甚至更久，而且我们持有的是以日元计价、可预期性强的资产。只要其套息（carry）合适，我们就会尝试发行以日元计价的负债，但这并不是出于对季度或年度盈利的任何考量。
Greg Abel: Relative to the question, there’s no question we were fundamentally very comfortable with investing in the five Japanese companies and recognizing we’re investing in yen. The fact we could then borrow in yen was almost just a nice incremental opportunity. But we were very comfortable both with the Japanese companies and with the currency we would ultimately realize in yen.
Greg Abel：就这个问题而言，我们对投资那五家日本公司在根本上是非常放心的，也清楚那就是以日元计价的投资。随后我们能够以日元融资，这几乎只是一个锦上添花的“增量机会”。无论对这些日本公司，还是对最终以日元实现的币种，我们都感到很安心。
Warren Buffett: We only made one big currency play, which was connected a little bit with when I wrote that article for Fortune. We went long 12 other currencies – I remember only four or five of them are really big currencies. When I say we got long, that means we’re short the dollar. We held that position for a couple years and made several billion dollars on it, which was significant to us then and still is.
Warren Buffett：我们只做过一次“大规模”的外汇操作，和我为《Fortune》写那篇文章有点关系。我们做多了12种其他货币——我记得其中真正体量很大的也就四五种。说我们“做多”，就意味着我们“做空美元”。我们持有这个头寸两年左右，从中赚了数十亿美元，当时对我们意义重大，现在看依然如此。
Charlie always felt that if he had to pick an area outside of stocks in which to invest – and he knew a lot about bonds, real estate, and other things – he thought he could make a lot of money in foreign currency. But we’ve done it once. It’s not inconceivable we would do it again, but it’s unlikely.
Charlie 一直认为，如果必须在股票之外选一个投资领域——他对债券、房地产等也很懂——他觉得自己在外汇上能赚很多钱。但我们只做过那一次。并非不可想象再做一次，但可能性不大。
There could be things happen in the United States that would make us want to own a lot of other currencies. I suppose if we made some very large investment in a European country, there might be a situation where we would do a lot of financing in their currency. But it’s not a regular activity. It was something that was obvious to do in the Japanese situation where we had the ability to borrow at a very low carrying cost, and we felt very good about the income we’d be receiving from these securities.
在美国可能发生某些事情，会让我们想持有大量其他货币。假设我们在某个欧洲国家做了非常大的投资，也许会出现用当地货币大量融资的情形。但这不是常规操作。在日本那笔交易中，这么做是“显而易见”的：我们能以极低的套息成本借到日元，而且对这些证券将带来的收入很有把握。
If the present conditions, which they won’t – they never do – prevail for decades and decades, we would probably keep doing the same sort of thing. But things change in the world, so don’t take that as a prediction.
如果当前条件能——但不会，历史上从未如此——持续数十年，我们或许会一直这么做。但世界在变化，所以别把这当成预测。
Audience Member (Zone 6): Good morning Warren, Greg, and Ajit. Thank you so much for hosting this event. Good to be here. My name is Dash Boyar and I’m from the great country of Mongolia. A little background about my country: Mongolia is an emerging market and landlocked country sandwiched between Russia and China. But we are rich in history and minerals and have full democracy and a growing economy.
Audience Member（Zone 6）：早上好，Warren、Greg 和 Ajit。非常感谢你们举办这场活动，能来到这里很高兴。我叫 Dash Boyar，来自伟大的 Mongolia。简单介绍一下我的国家：Mongolia 是一个新兴市场、内陆国家，夹在 Russia 和 China 之间。但我们历史悠久、矿产丰富，拥有完善的民主制度，经济正在增长。
Last week, we hosted our second annual Mongolia investor conference in New York to attract investors like yourself. I know you meet and give advice informally to government leaders such as South Korea, China, and India. What advice would you give to government and business leaders of emerging markets like Mongolia to attract institutional investors like yourself? It’d be great if you have long-term plans for exposure to emerging markets as a hedge or an opportunistic investment. Lastly, I welcome all of you to Mongolia, and my country folks would be very happy if you can make it to our economic forum this July.
上周我们在 New York 举办了第二届 Mongolia 投资者大会，旨在吸引像您这样的投资者。我知道您会非正式地会见并向 South Korea、China、India 等国家的政府领导人提供建议。您会给像 Mongolia 这样的新兴市场的政府与商业领袖哪些建议，以吸引像您这样的机构投资者？如果你们有将新兴市场纳入长期配置、作为对冲或机会性投资的计划，那就太好了。最后，欢迎各位来到 Mongolia；如果你们能在今年7月参加我们的经济论坛，全国人民都会非常高兴。
Warren Buffett: I have trouble planning a trip to Council Bluffs, which is just a few miles from here. But thank you for the invitation.
Warren Buffett：我连计划去一趟 Council Bluffs（离这儿只有几英里）都有困难。但还是感谢你的邀请。
I actually met a fellow here at the annual meeting about 20 years ago or more who did a lot in Mongolia. He did very well there and actually moved there for quite a while.
大概二十多年前的某次年会上，我在这里碰到过一位在 Mongolia 干了很多事的人。他在那边干得很成功，甚至在当地住了相当长一段时间。
If you’re looking for advice to give the government over there, it’s to develop a reputation for having a solid currency over time. We don’t really want to go into any country where we think there’s a significant probability of runaway inflation. That’s too hard to figure. Other people have figured out ways to make money in hyperinflationary situations, but that’s not our game, and I don’t think I’d play it well. So that would be a factor for us.
如果你想要给政府的建议，那就是：长期建立起“货币稳健”的声誉。我们确实不愿进入我们认为存在较大“恶性通胀”概率的国家。那太难判断。也有人能在恶性通胀中赚钱，但那不是我们的游戏，我也不觉得我们能玩得好。这会是我们考量的因素。
The chances are we won’t find anything in Mongolia that fits our size requirements aside from that. But like I say, I think my friend that I met here 20 years ago has done very well in Mongolia.
除此外，我们很难在 Mongolia 找到符合我们体量要求的项目。但正如我所说，我当年在这里认识的那位朋友在 Mongolia 做得确实很好。
If the country develops a reputation for being business-friendly and currency-conscious, that bodes very well for the residents of that country, particularly if it has some natural assets that it can build around. I don’t know that much about the minerals there or anything of the sort, but who would have bet on the United States in 1790?
如果一个国家能建立“友好营商、重视货币稳健”的名声，这对该国居民非常有利——尤其在拥有可依托的自然资源时。我对那里的矿产了解不多，但话说回来，1790 年有谁会押注 United States 呢？
We didn’t have to have perfection. We just had to be better than the other guy for quite a while. We started out with nothing and ended up with close to 25% of the world’s GDP, faster growth rates, generally sounder currencies, and all kinds of things. So I wish you well.
我们不必追求完美。我们只需要在相当长一段时间里“比别人更好”。我们从一无所有起步，最终拿下全球接近 25% 的 GDP、更快的增长、总体更稳健的货币，以及其他种种。所以祝你们一切顺利。
Becky Quick: This question is from Peter Shen in New Jersey. It’s for Mr. Buffett and Mr. Jain. In recent years, large private equity firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR have aggressively expanded into insurance, raising permanent capital, managing float, and aiming to replicate the model that Berkshire pioneered decades ago. Given that these firms are now directly competing for insurance assets, often using higher leverage and more aggressive investment strategies, how do you view their impact on Berkshire’s insurance operations and underwriting discipline? Do you believe that the private equity model poses risks to policyholders in the broad financial system, and has this competition made it more challenging for Berkshire to find and price insurance opportunities safely and profitably today?
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自 New Jersey 的 Peter Shen，提给 Buffett 先生和 Jain 先生。近年来，Blackstone、Apollo、KKR 等大型私募股权公司大举进入保险业，募集永久资本、管理浮存金，试图复制 Berkshire 几十年前开创的模式。鉴于这些公司如今直接竞争保险资产，且往往采用更高杠杆和更激进的投资策略，你们如何看待它们对 Berkshire 保险业务与承保纪律的影响？你们是否认为，私募股权模式对投保人以及更广泛的金融体系构成风险？如今这种竞争是否也让 Berkshire 更难以在安全且可盈利的前提下发现并定价保险机会？
Ajit Jain: Part of the question is very easy. There’s no question the private equity firms have come into the space, and we are no longer competitive in the space. We used to do a fair amount in this space, but in the last 3-4 years, I don’t think we’ve done a single deal.
Ajit Jain：这个问题有一部分很好回答。毫无疑问，私募股权公司已经进入了这个领域，而我们在这个领域里已不再具备竞争力。我们过去在这个领域做过不少交易，但在过去三四年里，我认为我们一笔都没有做。
You should separate this whole segment into two parts: the property casualty end of the business and the life end of the business. The private equity firms you mentioned are all very active in the life end of the business, not the property casualty end.
你应该把这个板块分成两部分：财产意外险端和寿险端。你提到的那些私募股权公司都在寿险端非常活跃，而不是在财产意外险端。
You are right in identifying the risks these private equity firms are taking on both in terms of leverage and credit risk. While the economy is doing great and credit spreads are low, these firms have taken the assets from very conservative investments to ones where they get a lot more return. As long as the economy is good and credit spreads are low, they will make money – they’ll make a lot of money because of leverage.
你指出这些私募股权公司在杠杆和信用风险方面所承担的风险，这一点是正确的。在经济表现良好、信用利差较低的时候，这些公司把资产从非常保守的投资转向回报更高的投向。只要经济向好、信用利差偏低，他们就会赚钱——由于杠杆效应，他们会赚很多钱。
However, there is always the danger that at some point the regulators might get cranky and say they’re taking too much risk on behalf of their policyholders, and that could end in tears. We do not like the risk-reward that these situations offer, and therefore we put up the white flag and said we can’t compete in this segment right now.
然而，总存在这样的风险：在某个时点，监管机构可能会变得不耐烦，认为他们代表保单持有人承担了过多风险，而那可能会以悲剧收场。我们不喜欢这类情形所提供的风险回报，因此我们举起白旗，表示我们目前无法在这个板块竞争。
Warren Buffett: I think there are people that want to copy Berkshire’s model, but usually they don’t want to copy it by also copying the model of the CEO having all of his money in the company forever. They have a different equation – they’re interested in something else. That’s capitalism, but they have a whole different situation and probably a somewhat different fiduciary feeling about what they’re doing.
Warren Buffett：我认为有人想复制 Berkshire 的模式，但他们通常不愿意连“CEO 把自己所有的钱永远放在公司里”这一点也一起复制。他们的等式不同——他们关心的是别的东西。这就是资本主义，但他们的处境完全不同，对所作所为的受托职责感受也可能有所不同。
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, they go on to other things. If what we do at Berkshire doesn’t work, I spend the end of my life regretting what I’ve created. So it’s just a whole different personal equation.
有时有效，有时无效。如果无效，他们就转去做别的事。如果 Berkshire 做的事情无效，我会在余生都为自己创造的一切而后悔。所以这完全是另一种个人层面的等式。
There is no property casualty company that can basically replicate Berkshire. That wasn’t the case at the start – at the start we just had National Indemnity a few miles from here, and anybody could have duplicated what we had. But that was before Ajit came with us in 1986, and at that point the other fellows should have given up.
没有哪家财产意外险公司能够在本质上复制 Berkshire。起初并非如此——当初我们只是拥有离这儿几英里的 National Indemnity，任何人都可以复制我们当时所拥有的一切。但那是在 1986 年 Ajit 加入我们之前，从那时起，其他人就该放弃了。
Audience Member (Zone 7): Hi, my name is Marie. I’m from Melrose, Massachusetts. Thank you for the time today. As a young person interested in investing like myself, I would love to hear your insights, Mr. Buffett. What were some pivotal lessons you learned early in your career? And what advice do you have for young investors who are looking to develop their investment philosophy? Thank you.
Audience Member（Zone 7）：你好，我叫 Marie，来自 Massachusetts 的 Melrose。感谢你今天的时间。作为一名对投资感兴趣的年轻人，我很想听听你的见解，Buffett 先生。你在职业生涯早期学到的关键教训有哪些？对于正在形成投资理念的年轻投资者，你有什么建议？谢谢。
Warren Buffett: Those are good questions. Who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.
Warren Buffett：这些是很好的问题。你与谁为伍极其重要。别指望每一个选择都做对，但你的人生会大体朝着你共事、你敬佩、并成为朋友的那群人的方向前进。
I mentioned a few fellows that have died in the last couple years. All of those people were people that, if we were working together on something one-ten-thousandth the size of Berkshire, they’d be the kind of people you’d choose. They’re people that make you want to be better than you are. You want to hang out with people that are better than you are and that you feel are better than you are because you’re going to go in the direction of the people you associate with.
我提到了过去几年逝去的几位朋友。即使我们只是在做规模为 Berkshire 万分之一的事情，他们也会是你愿意选择的那类人。他们会让你想要成为更好的自己。你应该与那些比你更优秀、并让你也感觉他们更优秀的人在一起，因为你会朝着与你为伍的那群人的方向走。
That’s something you learn later in life – it’s hard to really appreciate how important some of those factors are until you get much older. But when you’ve got people around you like Tom Murphy and Sandy Gottesman and Walter Scott, you’re just going to live a better life than if you just go out and look at somebody that’s making a lot of money and decide you’re going to try and copy them.
这往往是你在更成熟时才真正体会到的——在变老之前，你很难真正认识到这些因素有多重要。但当你身边有 Tom Murphy、Sandy Gottesman、Walter Scott 这样的人时，你的生活会比你仅仅去看那些赚很多钱的人然后决定去模仿他们要好得多。
I would try to be associated with smart people too where I could learn a lot from them, and I would try to look for something that I would do if I didn’t need the money. What you’re really looking for in life is something where you’ve got a job that you’d hold if you didn’t need the money, and I’ve had that for a very long time.
我也会尽力与聪明人同行，从他们那里学到很多；同时我会寻找这样一件事：即便不需要钱，我也愿意去做。你在一生中真正要寻找的，是一份哪怕不需要钱也愿意坚持的工作，而我很长时间以来就拥有这样的工作。
All the fellows I named had it, and they also always did more than their share and never sought more than their share of the credit. They behaved the way you’d like anybody you work with to behave. When you find them, you treasure them, and when you don’t find them, you still keep doing whatever enables you to eat. But you don’t give up on looking around, and you will find people who do wonderful things for you.
我提到的那些人也都如此，而且他们总是做得比自己分内的更多，却从不索取超过自己应得的功劳。他们的行为正是你希望与你共事的任何人所具备的样子。遇见他们时要珍惜；没有遇见时，也要继续做能让你糊口的事。但别放弃寻找，你终会遇到那些能给你带来美好的人。
I mentioned earlier going down to GEICO and knocking on the door when the door was locked. Who knows what was behind that door? But in 10 minutes, I found that I had a man that was going to be just wonderfully helpful to me. And of course, if somebody’s going to be helpful to you, you want to try to figure out ways to be helpful to them. So you get a compounding of good intentions and good behavior. Unfortunately, you can get the reverse of that in life, too.
我先前提到过：我去 GEICO 时，门还锁着，我就去敲门。谁知道门后是什么？但十分钟后，我发现自己遇到了一位会对我大有帮助的人。而且，当然，如果有人能帮到你，你也会想办法去帮他。于是善意与良行会复利增长。不幸的是，人生中也会发生反过来的情况。
I was lucky in having a good environment for living that kind of life, and other people have a whole different environmental situation they have to overcome. But don’t feel guilty about your good luck if you’ve got it. If you live in the United States, with 8 billion people in the world and 330 million in the United States, you’ve already won the game to a great degree. Just keep making the most of it.
我很幸运，拥有适合过这种生活的良好环境；而另一些人必须克服完全不同的环境。但如果你拥有好运，不必因此内疚。如果你生活在 United States——世界有 80 亿人口，美国 3.3 亿——你在很大程度上已经赢得了这场游戏。只需要继续把握好它。
You don’t want to associate with people or enterprises that ask you to do something that you shouldn’t be doing. Different professions select for different types of people. It’s interesting to me that in the investment business, so many people get out of it after they’ve made a pile of money. You really want something that you’ll stick around for whether you need the money or not.
你不应该与那些要求你去做不该做之事的人或企业为伍。不同的行业会筛选出不同类型的人。让我觉得有趣的是，在投资行业里，很多人在赚到一大笔钱后就离开了。你真正需要的是，不管是否需要钱，你都会愿意留在其中的事业。
Greg doesn’t need the money, Ajit doesn’t need the money – not remotely – but they enjoy what they do and they’re so damn good at it. I’ve had the advantage of seeing how that works over time.
Greg 不需要钱，Ajit 也不需要钱——差得远呢——但他们热爱所做的事，而且做得非常出色。多年来我有幸见证了这一点是如何发挥作用的。
The best manager I ever knew – and there’s a lot of contention for who that would be – but actually was Tom Murphy Sr., who lived to almost 98. I’ve never seen anybody who could get the potential out of other people more than Murph. If you wanted to become a better person, you’d want to work for Tom Murphy. There are all kinds of successful people that don’t bring that to the party. I’m not saying that’s the only way to succeed, but I think it’s the most pleasant way to succeed for sure.
我所认识的最佳管理者——尽管对此有很多争议——实际上是 Tom Murphy Sr.，他几乎活到了 98 岁。我从未见过谁能像 Murph 那样把他人的潜能最大化。如果你想成为更好的人，你会想为 Tom Murphy 工作。很多成功人士并不具备这种特质。我并不是说那是唯一的成功之道，但我确信那是最令人愉悦的成功之道。
The Berkshire experience is pretty dramatic – to operate with Sandy Gottesman from 1963 until he died a couple years ago, Walter Scott for 30 years – you really can’t miss it. You’ll learn all the time, but you’ll not only learn how to be successful at business, you’ll learn how to be successful at life.
Berkshire 的经历相当精彩——自 1963 年起与 Sandy Gottesman 合作直至他几年前去世，与 Walter Scott 合作 30 年——这些你真的不容错过。你会一直学习，但不仅仅是学习如何在商业上成功，还会学习如何在人生中成功。
So that’s my recommendation. And for some reason, apparently you live longer too. It’s pretty amazing – these people I’m talking about, including myself. I think a happy person lives longer than somebody that’s doing things they don’t really admire that much in life.
所以这是我的建议。而且不知为何，看起来你也会活得更久。这相当神奇——我说的这些人，包括我自己。我认为，一个快乐的人会比那个一生做着自己并不怎么欣赏的事情的人活得更久。
Becky Quick: The first quarter ended March 31st and it did show that Berkshire’s cash pile expanded from the end of the last year. But the greatest market turmoil came in April. Martin Devine, a shareholder from Scotland who is attending the meeting today, wants to know: has the recent market volatility presented Berkshire with opportunities? And Martin just wrote in an addendum in the last 40 minutes or so, pointing out that you mentioned Berkshire almost invested $10 billion recently and wanting to know if you could talk more about that.
Becky Quick：第一季度在 3 月 31 日结束，数据显示 Berkshire 的现金储备较去年底有所增加。但最大的市场动荡发生在 4 月。来自苏格兰、今天到场参会的股东 Martin Devine 想知道：近期的市场波动是否为 Berkshire 带来了机会？此外，Martin 在大约 40 分钟前又补充写道，指出你提到 Berkshire 最近几乎投资了 100 亿美元，并想知道你是否可以多谈一些细节。
Warren Buffett: Well, I can give you a good answer to the second part, which is no. But $10 billion wouldn’t have done that much anyway.
Warren Buffett：关于第二个问题，我可以给出一个很好的答案——不行。不过就算投了 100 亿美元，也不会产生多大影响。
What has happened in the last 30-45 days, 100 days, whatever this period has been, is really nothing. There have been three times since we acquired Berkshire that Berkshire has gone down 50% in a fairly short period of time – three different times. Nothing was fundamentally wrong with the company at any time. This is not a huge move.
过去 30 到 45 天、或 100 天——无论你把这段时间怎么界定——其实都不算什么。自我们收购 Berkshire 以来，曾有三次在相当短的时间里下跌了 50%——三次。任何一次公司在基本面上都没有问题。相比之下，这次的波动不算大。
The Dow Jones average was at 381 in September of 1929 and got down to 42. That’s going from 100 to 11. This has not been a dramatic bear market or anything of the sort. I’ve had about 17,000 or 18,000 trading days. There have been plenty of periods that are dramatically different than this.
1929 年 9 月，道琼斯指数在 381，随后跌到 42。这等于从 100 跌到 11。现在远称不上什么“戏剧性的熊市”。我经历过大约 17,000 到 18,000 个交易日，其中有大量时期与现在截然不同。
When I was born on August 30, 1930, the Dow Jones was at 240. Between that and the low, it went from 240 to 41. So if people think there’s been a really major change, there hasn’t been. If it had gone up 15% instead of down 15%, people would take that with remarkable grace. But if it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy because the world is not going to adapt to you. You’re going to have to adapt to the world.
我在 1930 年 8 月 30 日出生时，道琼斯在 240，随后最低到 41。所以如果有人认为这回发生了什么重大的变化，那并没有。若不是下跌 15% 而是上涨 15%，人们会优雅地接受。但如果你的股票是否下跌 15% 会让你情绪大变，那你需要换一种投资哲学，因为世界不会适应你——你得适应世界。
You will see a period in the next 20 years that will be a “hair curler” compared to anything you’ve seen before. That just happens periodically. The world makes big mistakes, and surprises happen in dramatic ways. The more sophisticated the system gets, the more the surprises can come out of left field.
未来 20 年里你一定会遇到一个比你之前所见任何时期都更“卷毛（惊心动魄）”的阶段。这种事是周期性发生的。世界会犯大错，意外也会以戏剧性的方式出现。系统越复杂，意外就越可能从“左外野”袭来。
That’s part of the stock market, and that’s what makes it a good place to focus your efforts if you’ve got the proper temperament for it and a terrible place to get involved if you get frightened by markets that decline and get excited when stock markets go up. I don’t mean to sound particularly critical – I know people have emotions, but you’ve got to check them at the door when you invest.
这就是股市的一部分。如果你具备合适的气质，股市是值得投入精力的好地方；但如果你在下跌时就害怕、在上涨时就兴奋，那它就是个糟糕的去处。我并非刻意苛责——我知道人都有情绪——但投资时你必须把情绪留在门外。
Audience Member (Zone 8): Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel, and Mr. Jain. My name is Peter Chen. I’m from Shanghai, China. This is my first time attending this shareholders meeting. I would like to ask a question about the wisdom of life. Have you ever encountered any major setbacks or low points in your life, and how did you get through and overcome them? Thank you very much.
Audience Member（Zone 8）：早上好，Buffett 先生、Abel 先生、Jain 先生。我叫 Peter Chen，来自中国上海。这是我第一次参加这场股东大会。我想请教一个关于人生智慧的问题：您在人生中是否遭遇过重大挫折或低谷？您是如何渡过并克服它们的？非常感谢。
Warren Buffett: Well, everybody gets setbacks. Some people have particularly bad luck in that respect, and others get through with fairly minor ones. Charlie had setbacks, I had setbacks – it’s part of life, and they’re not any fun.
Warren Buffett：每个人都会遭遇挫折。有些人运气特别不好，另一些人遭遇的只是小挫折。Charlie 有过，我也有过——这是人生的一部分，并不有趣。
I don’t have any great advice about having the time of your life while you’re having some major setback, but it comes with life. You certainly have a setback when you die, and everybody’s got that one guaranteed. Some people get extraordinary bad luck, and other people get extraordinary good luck. Usually the people who get good luck don’t really think it was so much luck as themselves, but you’re just going to have setbacks.
我也没有什么“在重大挫折中依然玩得尽兴”的高招，但挫折与人生相伴。人死时必遭大挫折，这一条人人都“保底”。有人极倒霉，也有人极走运。通常走运的人不太认为那是“运气”，而归功于自己；但无论如何，你总会遇到挫折。
I think you’re less likely to have setbacks now in terms of medical problems and various things in life. You were born at a good time. If you look all the way through the history of China, when would you rather have been born? 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or now? It’s just hands down – you’ve been lucky.
就医疗与生活中的许多方面而言，如今遭遇挫折的概率小了。你生在一个好时代。回望中国的历史，你更愿意出生在何时？100 年前、500 年前、1,000 年前，还是现在？答案不言自明——你是幸运的。
If I came from 20 generations of shepherds, I think I’d get kind of tired of looking at sheep every day. Everything in life has been made so much better. You’ve got to figure that you drew a lucky straw by staying in the womb for a couple hundred thousand years and then emerging at the right time.
如果我出自 20 代牧羊人的家族，我想我每天看羊会看腻的。如今生活中的一切都改善太多了。你得意识到：你在“母腹里”熬了几十万年，最终在正确的时代出生——这是抽中了“幸运签”。
So I would focus on the things that have been good in your life rather than the bad things that happen, because bad things do happen. It can often be a wonderful life even with some bad breaks. So far that really hasn’t happened with me, but it’s happened with some of my friends.
所以，与其盯着发生的不幸，不如专注于你生命中那些美好的事——因为不幸总会发生。即便有些坎坷，人生常常依然美好。到目前为止，这些坎坷并未真正在我身上发生过，但在我一些朋友身上发生过。
For 94 years I’ve been able to drink whatever I want to drink. They predict all kinds of terrible things for me, but it hasn’t happened yet. If you look at the lifespan of professional athletes after a while, you really decide that you’re better off if you weren’t the first one chosen to be on the baseball team or the basketball team.
94 年来我想喝什么就喝什么。人们替我预言过各种可怕的事，但还没发生。看看那些职业运动员过一段时间后的寿命，你大概会觉得：当年没被棒球队或篮球队第一个选中，或许才是更好的命运。
Charlie and I never really exercised that much or did anything – we were carefully preserving ourselves for these years.
Charlie 和我从来运动不多，也没做什么特别的事——我们是在小心翼翼地把自己“保存”到这些年头。
Look at the bright side of things to the extent that you can. You’re lucky enough to be here today, you’re healthy, you’ve come from a long distance, and you’re getting a chance to learn more about something that interests you. Compare that with the situation a couple hundred years ago that you would have been offered.
尽量去看事物光明的一面。你今天能来到这里、身体健康、远道而来、还能有机会深入了解你感兴趣的事物——把这与几百年前你可能面对的处境相比。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Himanshu Bindal for Ajit and Warren. Autonomous vehicles are already driving across roads in American cities with no driver involvement. How do Warren and Ajit think about any disruption risk from these autonomous vehicles to GEICO’s auto insurance business, which is built around understanding and underwriting human drivers? Wouldn’t what we call auto insurance today just become product liability for autonomous vehicles and autonomous software companies?
Becky Quick：这个问题来自 Himanshu Bindal，提给 Ajit 和 Warren。如今在美国城市，autonomous vehicles 已经在无人干预的情况下上路行驶。对于 GEICO 以理解并承保人类驾驶者为基础的汽车保险业务，Warren 和 Ajit 如何看待这些 autonomous vehicles 带来的颠覆性风险？我们今天所说的 auto insurance 是否会转变为针对 autonomous vehicles 和自动驾驶软件公司的 product liability？
Ajit Jain: There’s no question that insurance for automobiles is going to change dramatically once self-driving cars become a reality. The big change will be what you identified. Most of the insurance that is sold and bought revolves around operator errors – how often they happen, how severe they are, and therefore what premium we ought to charge.
Ajit Jain：毫无疑问，一旦 self-driving cars 成为现实，汽车保险将发生剧烈变化。最大的变化正如你指出的那样。大多数出售和购买的保险都围绕着“operator errors”——发生频率、严重程度，以及据此应收取的保费。
To the extent these new self-driving cars are safer and involved in fewer accidents, that insurance will be less required. Instead, it’ll be substituted by product liability. So we at GEICO and elsewhere are certainly trying to get ready for that switch, where we move from providing insurance for operator errors to being more ready to provide protection for product errors and errors and omissions in the construction of these automobiles.
如果这些新的 self-driving cars 更安全、事故更少，那么这类保险的需求就会下降。取而代之的将是 product liability。因此在 GEICO 以及其他地方，我们确实在为这一转变做准备：从为“operator errors”提供保险，转向更好地为产品缺陷以及这些汽车在设计制造中的“errors and omissions”提供保障。
Warren Buffett: We expect change in all our businesses. If I’d settled for being in New England textiles – even though it worked well for 70 years or so prior – the world changes. If the game didn’t change, it really wouldn’t be very interesting. If every time you swung at a baseball you hit a home run, or every time you hit a golf ball you had a hole in one, it wouldn’t be interesting.
Warren Buffett：我们预期所有业务都会发生变化。如果我当年固守 New England 的纺织业——尽管此前七十来年它运转得不错——那也经不起世界的变化。如果这场“游戏”从不改变，反而一点都不有趣。就像你每次挥棒都是全垒打，或每次打高尔夫都是“一杆进洞”，那也没意思。
The fact that there will be things you have to think about all the time as you go along and you’ll make mistakes – that’s really part of the fun. Your brain would turn to mush if you didn’t have a few problems now and then.
一路走来总有需要时刻思考的事情，也会犯错——这其实是乐趣的一部分。如果不时遇不到几个难题，你的大脑都会“糊掉”。
Auto insurance will change, although it’s remarkable how little it has changed in its relatively short history. Who knows what we’ll be doing in transportation 100 years from now? If you go back a couple hundred years ago, who could have predicted the United States would look like what it does and people would move like they do and enjoy themselves like they do?
汽车保险会改变，虽然有趣的是，在其相对短暂的历史中它其实变化不大。谁知道一百年后我们的交通会是什么样？回溯几百年前，谁又能预测今天的 United States 会长成现在这样，人们会以这样的方式出行并享受生活？
It’s a dynamic world. The biggest thing we have to worry about, unfortunately, is that we’ve learned how to destroy the world too. We’ve got this wonderful world, but now we know there are eight countries – and probably a ninth coming – that can destroy it, and we don’t necessarily have the perfect people leading each of those countries.
这是个动态的世界。不幸的是，我们最大的担忧在于，人类也学会了如何毁灭这个世界。我们拥有一个美好的世界，但如今我们知道有八个国家——可能还会有第九个——能够摧毁它，而这些国家并不一定由“完美的人”来领导。
When Einstein came up with E=mc² back in 1905, he didn’t dream that mass could be converted into energy in a way that would change the world. When I was born in 1930, they had known about Einstein’s law of physics for 25 years, but nobody had thought about what it could do to change warfare in the future.
当 Einstein 在 1905 年提出 E=mc² 时，他并未想到质量可以以一种会改变世界的方式转化为能量。到我 1930 年出生时，人们已经知道 Einstein 的这条物理定律 25 年了，但没人想到它会如何改变未来的战争。
Then in August 1939, Roosevelt got the most famous letter in history from Leo Szilard. Szilard couldn’t get his letter in front of Roosevelt because who had heard of Leo Szilard? But he got Einstein to sign it. Roosevelt probably understood about as much about physics as I do, but he understood that Einstein signed it. So he called in General Groves and said, “We should do something about this.” All we did was learn how to destroy the world.
随后在 1939 年 8 月，Roosevelt 收到了 Leo Szilard 发来的历史上最著名的信件。Szilard 自己的信送不到 Roosevelt 桌上——谁听说过 Leo Szilard 呢？但他让 Einstein 签了名。Roosevelt 对物理的理解大概跟我差不多，但他明白“Einstein 签了字”。于是他召见 Groves 将军，说“我们得做点什么”。而我们学到的，却是如何毁灭世界。
We needed to do it – Germany had Heisenberg and he looked like he was ahead of us. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle. The world changes, and we’ve got wonderful things, but we also have a guy in North Korea with nuclear weapons. What does North Korea need nuclear weapons for? Can that be a good thing in the world? But they’re not going to go away.
我们当时必须那样做——Germany 有 Heisenberg，看起来领先我们。这个“精灵”已经放出，装不回去了。世界在变化，我们拥有许多美好事物，但我们也面对 North Korea 拥核的现实。North Korea 需要核武器做什么？这能是世界上的好事吗？但这些东西不会自行消失。
So it’s a world of change. We are enjoying incredible change that’s contributed to everybody in this room living so much better than people were living a couple hundred years ago. But we haven’t changed human beings very much so far. We’ve certainly changed weapons of mass destruction, but we haven’t made much progress with the human race. We’ll see what happens with that.
所以，这是一个充满变化的世界。我们正享受着惊人的变革，使在座每个人的生活远胜几百年前。但到目前为止，人类自身并没有改变太多。我们确实改变了大规模杀伤性武器，却未能在人类本身上取得相称的进步。对此我们拭目以待。
But in the meantime, we’ll see changes in auto insurance and cars, and that will be easier for us to deal with than when we had to deal with the problems of turning out textiles in New England. You deal with the world as it develops, and like I say, everybody here is living in the luckiest period. Enjoy your luck and try to figure out the answers to what’s going to happen. We’ve done pretty well actually adapting to the changes.
但与此同时，我们会看到汽车与汽车保险的改变，而应对这些，比当年在 New England 纺织业所面对的问题要容易。随着世界演进去应对它。正如我所说，在座每个人都生活在最幸运的时代。享受你的好运，并努力思考接下来会发生什么。事实上，我们在适应变化方面做得相当不错。
Ajit Jain: I’d like to add that we talked about the shift to product liability and protection for accidents that take place because of an error in product design or supply. In addition to that shift, I think what we’ll see is a major shift where the number of accidents will drop dramatically because of automatic driving. But on the other hand, the cost per repair every time there’s an accident will go up very significantly because of the amount of technology in the car.
Ajit Jain：我想补充一点，我们刚才谈到了向产品责任的转变，以及对因产品设计或供应错误而导致事故的保障。除了这种转变之外，我认为我们还会看到另一项重大变化：由于自动驾驶，事故数量将显著下降。但另一方面，每次发生事故的单次维修成本将会大幅上升，因为汽车中所包含的技术含量越来越高。
How those two variables interact with each other in terms of the total cost of providing insurance, I think, is still an open issue.
关于这两个变量如何相互作用、从而影响提供保险的总成本，我认为仍是一个悬而未决的问题。
Warren Buffett: I’ll give you two interesting figures to ponder. When I walked into GEICO’s office in 1951, the average price of a policy was around $40 a year. Now it’s easy to get up to $2,000 depending on location and other factors. During that same time, the number of people killed in auto accidents has fallen from roughly six per 100 million miles driven to a little over one.
Warren Buffett：我给你们两个有意思的数据来思考。1951 年我走进 GEICO 办公室时，一份保单的平均价格大约是每年 40 美元。现在根据地区和其他因素，很容易就涨到 2,000 美元。在同一时期，汽车事故中的死亡人数则从每行驶一亿英里大约 6 人，下降到略高于 1 人。
So the car has become incredibly safer, and it costs 50 times as much to buy an insurance policy. When people talk about developments in car driving, it’s a lot easier to look at the Buck Rogers aspect of it, but they don’t actually think about what really happens to the math of the business.
所以汽车变得不可思议地更安全了，但购买一份保险的成本却提高了 50 倍。人们谈到驾驶技术的发展时，更容易被那些“科幻感十足”的方面吸引，而没有真正去思考这门生意背后的数学变化。
The auto insurance industry has been a huge growth industry. Homeowners insurance prices in Nebraska have doubled in the last 10 years, adjusted for general inflation, and convective storms have just gone on a tear. It’s still unprofitable to write homeowners insurance in Nebraska after doubling in the last 10 years.
汽车保险行业一直是一个巨大的增长型产业。内布拉斯加州的房主保险价格在过去 10 年（扣除总体通胀因素后）翻了一番，对流风暴频发、破坏性更强。即使在过去 10 年翻倍之后，在内布拉斯加州承保房主保险仍然是不赚钱的。
So it’s very hard to predict what these big changes mean. You just have to keep thinking all the time. But you don’t want to read some research report that says the world’s coming to an end or the world’s going to be wonderful because of this or that – there are about 50 other developments going on at the same time that you need to think about and keep observing as you go along.
因此，很难准确预测这些重大变化意味着什么。你只能不停地思考。但你不该去看那些研究报告——要么说世界末日将至，要么说世界将因某个因素变得美好——因为同时还在发生着大约 50 种其他演变，你需要在行进中持续思考与观察。
You never reach a final answer in this business – you reach a point of action that you take. We try to get into high probability things and play the game in the same way. But it will be different than you think, and you should wake up every morning and think about that if you’re in the business of managing businesses.
在这门生意里，你永远得不到最终答案——你只能到达一个“采取行动的节点”。我们努力只参与胜率高的事情，并始终以同样的方式参与这场游戏。但结果会与想象不同，如果你的事业是经营企业，你应该每天早晨醒来就想到这一点。
Greg Abel: Warren, as we approach the break, would you like to address the operating earnings?
Greg Abel：Warren，休息时间快到了，你要不要谈谈经营性收益？
Warren Buffett: Yes, let’s put up the information. We released our 10-Q this morning. We always try to do it on a Saturday so nobody gets a jump on other people.
Warren Buffett：要的，把数据放上来。我们今天早上发布了 10-Q。我们总尽量选在周六发布，这样没有人能凭时点占别人便宜。
You’ll see that our insurance underwriting income was down dramatically for the first quarter. Last year was as good a year as you’ll see in insurance – everything broke our way. Prices are down this year, and risks are up this year. But we do have unusual advantages in the insurance business that can’t really be replicated by our competition.
你会看到，我们第一季度的保险承保收入大幅下降。去年是保险行业“你所能见到的最好的一年”——一切都向着我们有利的方向发展。今年价格下来了，风险上去了。但在保险业务上，我们确实拥有竞争对手难以复制的特殊优势。
We just announced within the last 24 hours that we, Zurich, and Chubb have arranged a joint operation to be the writer of really large sums that very few people can do. Of course, we’ve got to write them at the right price in terms of liability, but we can do that sort of thing without blinking.
就在过去 24 小时内，我们宣布与 Zurich 和 Chubb 共同组织了一项联合安排，用于承保极大额度、非一般机构所能承接的保单。当然，我们必须以符合责任风险的正确价格承保，但处理这种规模对我们而言毫不眨眼。
Our investment income did not change that much because we have a float that grows a little bit, which gives us more money for investment, and then we have retained earnings which grow. So we would expect in any year to have like $40 billion or more that we’ll build up unless we find things to do with it.
我们的投资收入变化不大，因为我们的 float 会小幅增长，带来更多可投资资金，同时留存收益也在增长。所以，除非我们找到可投之处，否则我们任何一年都可能会累积像 400 亿美元或更多的资金。
The interest rates on short-term bills are less than they were before, so you had that negative effect pulling investment income down, but not that much, and we had more money. So we came up with a little more in the way of earnings.
短期国债的利率低于此前水平，这对投资收益有负面拖累，但幅度不大，而且我们钱更多了。综合起来，我们的收益还是略有增加。
The railroad is earning a little more than last year, but it’s not earning what it should be earning at the present time. But that’s solvable and is getting solved. It’s still an incredible asset for Berkshire.
铁路业务的盈利略高于去年，但尚未达到目前应有的水平。不过这个问题可解，且正在解决中。对 Berkshire 而言，它依然是非常了不起的资产。
The energy company last year was having particular problems, and those are absent this year. So those earnings are up. Then among our range of general businesses, they were pretty much a push.
能源公司去年遇到了一些特定问题，而这些问题今年已不存在。因此该板块收益上升。至于我们的一般性业务组合，整体大致相互抵消。
Greg Abel: Of our 49 businesses that we measure closely, 21 were up and 28 were down. So you can tell it was really a mixed quarter when you go across the non-insurance operating businesses.
Greg Abel：在我们重点跟踪的 49 家业务中，21 家上升、28 家下降。由此可见，撇开保险运营业务，整体来看这是一个“表现不一”的季度。
Warren Buffett: Our financial condition continues to hold a lot more in cash and treasuries than I would like, but that’s simply a question of when opportunities occur. If you get real opportunities every five or six years, you have to be patient.
Warren Buffett：我们的财务状况中持有的现金与国债仍然多于我所期望的水平，但这只是机会何时出现的问题。如果真正的机会每五六年才来一次，你就必须有耐心。
Charlie always pointed out that we made most of our money out of about eight or nine ideas over 50 years. We talked about it every day and read every report and did everything else. But if you think you can get an idea a day from listening to your broker or reading financial information, forget it. Every now and then you get extraordinary opportunities, and most of the time you don’t have much of an edge.
Charlie 总是指出，过去 50 年里我们的多数收益来自大约八九个点子。我们每天讨论、阅读每一份报告、把该做的都做了。但如果你以为靠听经纪人的建议或读金融资讯就能每天得到一个点子，那就算了。偶尔你会遇到非凡的机会，但大多数时候你并没有多少胜算。
We also have our float which continues to build. There’s no property casualty company that has our float.
我们还有不断增长的 float（保险浮存金）。没有哪家财产意外险公司拥有像我们这样的浮存金。
Ajit Jain: Clearly we are heads and shoulders above anyone else.
Ajit Jain：显然我们遥遥领先于其他任何同行。
Warren Buffett: That is money that, as long as we’re writing at an underwriting profit, is absolutely free money. We would expect that over a 50 or 100-year period that we would be able to say the same thing. But there will be years when you have a very bad underwriting record, and it’ll eat into the float earnings.
Warren Buffett：只要我们的承保保持盈利，那笔钱就是绝对免费的资金。我们预期在未来 50 年、100 年仍能这么说。但也会有某些年份承保业绩很差，从而侵蚀浮存金带来的收益。
Ajit Jain: I think if you look at the entire range including life insurance, our cost of float is negative 2.2%. That means we’ve got the float plus somebody’s given us 2.2% of cash.
Ajit Jain：我认为，如果把寿险也纳入考量，我们的浮存金成本是负 2.2%。这意味着我们不仅拿到了浮存金，还有人等于再给了我们 2.2% 的现金。
Warren Buffett: It’s like running a bank where people leave their money with you and you pay a minus 2.2% and you don’t have any check clearing or anything else to do. We run our business with a different mindset than any other P&C company in the world, and I wouldn’t be talking about it if I thought they could duplicate it.
Warren Buffett：这好比经营一家银行，人们把钱交给你，而你付出的“利息”是负 2.2%，而且你不需要做票据清算等其他事务。我们经营业务的思维方式与全球其他任何财产意外险公司都不同——如果我认为他们能复制，我们就不会谈论它了。
The final page is on share repurchases. Clearly we haven’t made any share repurchases so far this year. If Berkshire buys Berkshire shares in repurchases, we now pay more than you will pay if you buy Berkshire shares.
最后一页是关于股票回购。很明显，今年到目前为止我们尚未进行任何回购。如果 Berkshire 回购 Berkshire 的股票，我们现在支付的成本要高于你们直接买入 Berkshire 股票所支付的成本。
I don’t think people generally know that, but there is a tax that was introduced a year or so ago where we pay 1%. That not only hurts us because we pay more for it than you do – it’s a better deal for you than for us – but it actually hurts some of our investee companies quite substantially.
我不认为大众普遍知道这一点，但大约一年前引入了一项税，我们需要支付 1%。这不仅使我们受损，因为我们为回购支付的成本高于你们——对你们来说比对我们更划算——而且它实际上也大幅伤害了我们的一些被投资公司。
Tim Cook has done a wonderful job running Apple, but he spent about $100 billion in a year repurchasing shares, and there’s a 1% charge attached to that now. So that’s a billion dollars a year that he pays when he buys Apple stock compared to what you pay. It doesn’t sound like much, but there are people who want to increase that particular rate dramatically.
Tim Cook 在经营 Apple 方面做得非常出色，但他一年用于回购的金额大约是 1000 亿美元，而现在要为此支付 1% 的费用。相比你们买 Apple 股票，他每年因此要多付 10 亿美元。听起来不多，但有人希望把这个税率大幅提高。
We will only buy in our shares if we think that they are almost certainly underpriced as valued very conservatively. We get that opportunity occasionally, but the higher that charge goes that the federal government charges us for doing it, the less we will be able to do repurchases.
只有当我们认为在非常保守的估值下，公司股票几乎可以肯定被低估时，我们才会回购。这样的机会偶尔会有，但联邦政府对回购征收的费用越高，我们就越难以开展回购。
So on that happy note, we will rejoin at 11:00, continue till 1:00, and in the meantime enjoy yourself. I think all our exhibit doors are still open. So bring your wallets to the cash registers.
说到这里，我们将在 11:00 重新开始，持续到 1:00。其间请大家尽情享受。我想我们的展区仍然开放。所以请带上你们的钱包到收银台去。
Afternoon Session
Warren Buffett: Okay, everyone. We’re ready to go. I’m going to lead off by actually recommending a movie. I know that’s why you came, but I would recommend to all of you that you go to Amazon Prime. I’ve got no financial interest in this. But go to Amazon Prime and click on a documentary called “Becoming Katherine Graham.” It’s an incredible story from 50 or so years ago. To some extent, I had the good luck to be kind of a viewer of some American history that I think is fascinating. If you feel that I misled you, you can write me a note, but I promise to report how many readers didn’t agree. But check out “Becoming Katherine Graham” and you’ll see a remarkable story of American history.
Warren Buffett：好了，各位。我们继续。我想先推荐一部电影。我知道这正是你们来的原因。我建议大家去 Amazon Prime。我与此毫无财务利益。但请到 Amazon Prime 上点开一部纪录片，叫做“Becoming Katherine Graham”。那是大约50年前的一段不可思议的故事。在某种程度上，我很幸运，得以作为旁观者见证了一段我认为很迷人的美国历史。如果你觉得我误导了你，可以写信给我，但我保证会报告有多少读者不同意。不过请去看看“Becoming Katherine Graham”，你会看到一段非凡的美国历史。
Audience Member (Zone 9): Hi Warren. My name is Robert and I’m a shareholder from Toronto, Canada. Three years ago Charlie Rose asked you a question to the effect of what you wanted to be remembered for and your reply was “he was a teacher.” So in that spirit, Greg, I’m curious to hear maybe a story of where you learned something very profound from Warren. And vice versa, if we have the time, Warren, what’s something that you maybe learned from Greg?
Audience Member（Zone 9）：你好，Warren。我叫 Robert，是来自加拿大多伦多的股东。三年前 Charlie Rose 问过你一个问题：你希望人们怎样记住你？你的回答是“he was a teacher”。基于这个精神，Greg，我想听一个你从 Warren 那里学到非常深刻东西的故事。反过来，如果时间允许，Warren，你从 Greg 那里学到过什么？
Greg Abel: Well, Warren is obviously a remarkable teacher and I benefit from that every day and for many years. I’m fortunate that if I had to be remembered as something right now, I’d want to be remembered as a great father, but equally a coach. And that goes to family, friends, and just being involved with the kids I coach in hockey or baseball or whatever it may be. I think we’ve got a great opportunity to give back to them at a very young age.
Greg Abel：毫无疑问，Warren 是一位出色的老师，多年来我每天都从中受益。如果此刻必须被人以某种身份记住，我希望被记为一位伟大的父亲，同时也是一名教练。这既指向家庭与朋友，也指我在冰球、棒球或其他运动中执教的孩子们。我认为我们有非常好的机会在他们很年轻的时候回馈他们。
I love thinking of Warren truly as a teacher and I get the opportunity to continue to learn every day. Warren and I have strong dialogue every week and we’re always talking around opportunities in Berkshire or things that are going on globally or in the US, and each one’s truly a learning moment.
我真心把 Warren 当作老师，并且每天都有机会继续学习。我们每周都会深入对话，围绕 Berkshire 的机会以及全球或美国发生的事情展开，每一次都是真正的学习时刻。
I’ll maybe go back to the very first meeting with Warren because it still stands out in my mind. Warren was thinking about acquiring Mid-America Energy Holdings Company at that time, and we had the opportunity with my partners to go over there on a Saturday morning. We were discussing the business and Warren had the financial statements in front of him. Like anybody, I was sort of expecting a few questions on how the business was performing, but Warren locked in immediately to what was on the balance sheet and the fact we had some derivative contracts, the “weapons of mass destruction.”
或许我可以回到第一次见 Warren 的场景，因为它至今历历在目。那时 Warren 正在考虑收购 Mid-America Energy Holdings Company。某个周六早晨，我和合伙人有机会去见他。我们在讨论业务，Warren 面前摆着财务报表。像任何人一样，我本以为会先被问到经营表现，但 Warren 立刻盯住了资产负债表，注意到我们持有一些衍生品合约——他称之为“financial weapons of mass destruction”。
In the utility business, we do have derivatives because they’re used to match certain positions. They’re never matched perfectly, but we have them and they’re required in the regulated business. I remember Warren going to it immediately and asking about the composition and what was the underlying risk, wanting to thoroughly understand. It wasn’t that big of a position, but it was absolutely one of the risks he was concerned about as he was acquiring Mid-America, especially in light of Enron and everything that had gone on.
在公用事业行业，我们确实会使用衍生品来对冲某些头寸。对冲永远不可能完美，但在受监管业务中它们是必要的。我记得 Warren 立刻深入追问持仓构成及其底层风险，并要彻底弄清楚。仓位并不大，但在考虑收购 Mid-America 时，这绝对是他关切的风险之一，尤其是在 Enron 以及相关事件之后。
The followup to that was a year or 18 months later. There was an energy crisis in the US around electricity and natural gas, and various companies were making significant sums of money. Warren’s follow-up question to me was, “How much money are we making during this energy crisis? Are we making a lot? Do we have speculative positions in place?” The answer was we weren’t making any more than we would have been six months ago because all those derivatives were truly to support our business and weren’t speculative. That focus on understanding the business and the risks around it still stands out in my mind.
一年或十八个月后，美国在电力与天然气方面发生了一场能源危机，不少公司赚了大钱。Warren 随后问我：“我们在这次能源危机期间赚了多少？赚了很多吗？是否持有投机性头寸？”答案是，我们的利润并未超过六个月前，因为那些衍生品确实只是支持业务运转，而非投机。这种对业务本质与相关风险的关注，至今令我印象深刻。
Warren Buffett: It’s one thing we’ve really never talked about here, but I spend more time looking at balance sheets than I do income statements. Wall Street doesn’t pay much attention to balance sheets, but I like to look at balance sheets over an 8 or 10 year period before I even look at the income account because there are certain things it’s harder to hide or play games with on the balance sheet than with the income statement.
Warren Buffett：有件事我们几乎没在这里谈过：我花在资产负债表上的时间多于利润表。华尔街往往不太看重资产负债表，但我喜欢先把8到10年的资产负债表逐一过一遍，再看利润表，因为相比利润表，有些东西更难在资产负债表上隐藏或“玩花样”。
Neither one gives you the total answer on anything, but you should understand what the figures are saying and what they don’t say and what they can’t say and what the management would like them to say that the auditors wouldn’t like them to say. You learn more from balance sheets in my view than most people give them credit for.
两张表都不会给你全部答案，但你应当理解这些数字在说什么、没说什么、不能说什么，以及管理层希望它们说什么而审计却不会允许它们那么说。在我看来，从资产负债表能学到的，比大多数人给予它的重视更多。
I’m not worried about being remembered. People don’t remember enough about Katherine Graham, for example, in terms of this story that shaped America in many ways.
我并不担心被如何记住。就像 Katherine Graham，这个在许多方面塑造了美国的故事，人们对她的记忆其实并不足够。
Charlie was probably the best person you could imagine in what he learned. Charlie was never satisfied with just superficial things about any subject. He really wanted to understand it and he always would tell me that you shouldn’t take a position on anything until you can describe the arguments against it better than the person who is arguing with you – that you should be able to argue their case better than they can. He was a remarkable teacher. And so were those other fellows I mentioned. And of course my dad was an incredible teacher. Make the most of the people you meet that are going to make you a better person and probably forget about the rest to quite an extent.
Charlie 在求知方面可能是你能想象到的最好的人。他从不满足于任何主题的表面理解，他要真正弄懂。他常对我说：在你能比对手更好地陈述反方观点之前，不要贸然站队——你应该能把对方的论点表述得比他们自己还好。他是一位非凡的老师，我提到的那些人也是。当然，我的父亲更是一位了不起的老师。尽量从那些能使你变得更好的人身上汲取一切——至于其他人，在很大程度上就忘了吧。
Becky Quick: This question comes from David Rubin, a shareholder from Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s a question for Greg. We’ve heard over the decades and are familiar with Warren and Charlie’s investment thesis and their circle of competence. During the first 10 years after taking over as CEO, Greg will be tasked with allocating more capital during that time than Berkshire has had to allocate in its history. Given this, I’d like to hear from Greg about his views on capital allocation, particularly into new businesses.
Becky Quick：这个问题来自亚利桑那州 Scottsdale 的股东 David Rubin，提给 Greg。几十年来我们都熟悉 Warren 和 Charlie 的投资论纲及其“circle of competence”。在接任 CEO 后的前10年里，Greg 面临的资本分配规模将超过 Berkshire 历史上的任何时期。鉴于此，我想听听 Greg 对资本配置的看法，特别是关于进入新业务的看法。
Greg Abel: This bar is not too high! We start from a great place at Berkshire. We’ve got a great culture within the business. We have values that we as a management team, as defined by Warren and Charlie and everybody associated with the business – we’ve got great values that really set Berkshire up well for the future.
Greg Abel：这道门槛并不算高！在 Berkshire，我们起点就很好。公司内部有很棒的文化。我们有一套由管理团队、由 Warren 和 Charlie 以及所有与公司有关的人共同定义的价值观——这些优秀的价值观为 Berkshire 的未来打下了坚实基础。
As we deploy capital and allocate capital, it’s critical to Berkshire going forward, and equally it’s around managing risk. When I think of our values, a couple are absolutely critical. One: we will maintain the reputation of Berkshire and that of our company. I view that in investing or how we operate things across each of our businesses. That will always be a priority and something we’ll ensure is in the forefront of our minds.
随着我们投入与配置资本，这对 Berkshire 的未来至关重要，同样重要的是风险管理。谈到我们的价值观，有两点绝对关键。第一：我们将维护 Berkshire 以及旗下公司的声誉。我把这一点贯穿在投资与各业务的运营方式中。这始终是第一要务，也会始终置于我们思考的最前沿。
Looking at our balance sheet, as Warren commented, we will have a fortress of a balance sheet. I thought Sue Decker, our lead director, said it well yesterday. We’ve got a significant amount of cash right now, but it’s an enormous asset to have that and that will continue to be a philosophy. When we can deploy it, we’ll deploy it well. We recognize it as a strategic asset that allows us to weather difficult times and not be dependent on anybody.
从资产负债表看，正如 Warren 所言，我们要保持“堡垒式”的资产负债表。我觉得我们的首席独立董事 Sue Decker 昨天说得很好。我们目前持有大量现金，但这本身就是一项巨大资产，这也将继续是我们的理念。只要有机会投放，我们就会高质量地投放。我们把它视为战略性资产，让我们能度过艰难时期而不依赖任何人。
We will remain Berkshire and will never be dependent on a bank or some other party for Berkshire to be successful. With allocation of capital comes management of risk and understanding risk. That falls upon all our managers, insurance and non-insurance, but we’ll bring that across Berkshire.
我们将始终保持 Berkshire 的本色，绝不会把成功系于任何银行或第三方。资本配置必然伴随风险管理与风险认知。这是所有管理者（无论保险还是非保险）共同的职责，而我们会在 Berkshire 全面落实。
The other value I would touch on relates to where I’m going: ultimately we have a great set of operating companies that produce significant cash flows, be it in the insurance companies creating float or our various non-insurance companies producing significant cash flows on an annual basis. We intend to continue to ensure that’s a strength of Berkshire going forward.
我还想谈另一条价值观，与我将要做的方向相关：归根结底，我们拥有一组出色的运营公司，它们能产生可观现金流——保险公司创造 float，我们的各类非保险公司每年也产生大量现金流。我们将继续确保这成为 Berkshire 未来的持续优势。
With those cash flows and with the float, and with significant resources already on our balance sheet, we’ll continue to move forward with a very similar philosophy. It’s an identical philosophy to what we’ve had currently and for the past 60 years.
依托这些现金流与浮存金，以及资产负债表上已具备的充足资源，我们会在高度一致的理念下继续前进。这一理念与我们当前、以及过去 60 年所秉持的理念完全一致。
We’ll start by looking at opportunities within our business – are our insurance and non-insurance businesses properly capitalized and do they have the opportunity to manage their business? They’ll operate in an autonomous way, but Berkshire still manages the capital that will go into those businesses or what potentially will come out of them.
我们会先从内部机会着手——我们的保险与非保险业务资本是否充足、是否具备自主管理业务的机会？它们将以自治方式运营，但进入这些业务（或可能从中调出）的资本仍由 Berkshire 统一管理。
The next opportunity is to acquire businesses in their totality, 100%. There are great times when we can do that. Warren touched on the $10 billion acquisition in the last quarter. But the value relative to the risk have to be right. If it’s right, we want to own it. If it’s not the time, there’ll be another time to own assets like that.
下一类机会是整体并购（100% 收购）。有些时候我们正适合这么做。Warren 提到过上季度那笔 100 亿美元的并购。但价值与风险的匹配必须正确。对则拿下；不合适，就等待下一次合适的时点去拥有那类资产。
Then there’s the opportunity to own pieces of companies through equity. But as Warren’s always highlighted, though we own a piece of a company, we own a piece of that cash flow, a piece of their balance sheet. It’s not just a share certificate. We’ll approach it with the thought that we’re going to own this company for the long term.
此外，还有通过权益投资持有公司部分股权的机会。但正如 Warren 常强调的，即便只持有一部分，我们持有的是其一部分现金流与资产负债表，而不只是一张股票凭证。我们会以“长期持有该公司”的心态来对待。
We need to thoroughly understand what the economic prospects of those companies will look like – as Warren said earlier – 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. If we don’t have a view of that, we won’t be investing, be it 100% or 2% of a company through equities. We have to thoroughly understand what those prospects look like and the underlying risks of the businesses. It’s really the investment philosophy and how Warren and the team have allocated capital for the past 60 years. It will not change, and it’s the approach we’ll take going forward.
我们需要彻底理解这些公司的经济前景——如 Warren 早前所说——5 年、10 年、20 年之后会是什么样。如果我们对这一点没有判断，就不会投资，无论是 100% 并购还是通过股票持有 2%。我们必须彻底理解前景与底层风险。这正是过去 60 年来 Warren 与团队配置资本的投资哲学。它不会改变，这也是我们未来的方法论。
Warren Buffett: I don’t want to go on too long on this, but this is important. It’s very obvious that the country needs an incredible improvement, rethinking, redirection to some extent in the electric grid. We’ve outgrown what would be the model that America should have. In a sense, it’s a problem something akin to the interstate highway system where you needed the power of the government really to get things done because it doesn’t work so well when you get 48 or 50 jurisdictions that each has their own way of thinking about things.
Warren Buffett：我不想在这个话题上说太久，但它很重要。很显然，这个国家在电网方面需要大幅改进、重新思考、在某种程度上需要重新定向。我们已经超出了美国应有的电网模型。从某种意义上说，这更像当年的州际高速公路系统——你需要政府的力量来推动，否则在 48 或 50 个辖区各自为政的情况下，事情很难推进。
In World War II, we called in people at a dollar an hour. We knew we had to turn out ships like crazy. We knew that we had to convert Ford Motor from being a car manufacturer into an aircraft manufacturer in a matter of days, not weeks or months.
在二战期间，我们按每小时一美元召集人手。我们知道必须疯狂造船。我们也知道必须在几天内（而不是几周或几个月）把 Ford Motor 从汽车制造商改造成飞机制造商。
There are certain really major investment situations where we have capital like nobody else has in the private system. We have particular knowhow in the whole generation and transmission arena. The country is going to need it. But we have to figure out a way that makes sense from the standpoint of the government, from the standpoint of the public, and from the standpoint of Berkshire, and we haven’t figured that out yet.
在一些重大的投资情境中，我们在私营体系里拥有他人不具备的资本实力。我们在发电与输电领域也有独到的能力。国家将需要这些。但我们必须找出一种对政府、公众以及 Berkshire 都讲得通的方式，而这点我们尚未完全想清。
It’s a clear and present use of hundreds of billions of dollars. You have people that set up funds and they’re getting paid for just assembling stuff, but that’s not the way to handle it. The way to handle it is to have some kind of government-private industry cooperation similar to what you do in a war. When they were doing the highway system, I don’t think the government set up its own guys that were going to pour cement, but you needed cooperation. We’re at that point in terms of energy, but I don’t think we’ve made any progress particularly.
这是一个“明确当下”需要数千亿美元投入的领域。有人设基金、靠“拼装项目”来收费，但这不是解决之道。正确方式应是类似战时那样的政企协作。当年修建高速公路时，政府也不是自己去浇筑水泥，但需要协作。能源领域现在正处于这一节点，但我认为我们在这方面并未取得实质性进展。
Greg Abel: These are very unique situations that reflect where we’re at. There will be very significant investment opportunities across a variety of industries. As Warren touched on, in the electric industry or energy space, we obviously know that well with our existing business. The capital required to meet the long-term needs of what’s currently projected as demand is enormous, and we as Berkshire will be in a good position to help address those needs. But the model around it and the risks that need to be addressed to deploy that type of capital will be different than they are today.
Greg Abel：这些非常独特的情境反映了我们的所处位置。未来在多个行业都会出现重大投资机会。正如 Warren 所说，在电力或更广义的能源领域，我们凭借既有业务非常熟悉。满足当前预测的长期需求所需的资本巨大，而 Berkshire 具备良好条件来帮助满足这些需求。但为部署那类资本所需的机制与必须解决的风险，与今天会有所不同。
The muscle of the federal government will be needed. But the test of whether you can have 48 or 50 jurisdictions that are cooperating to do something that has opposition – there will be opposition in every single state. If they’d taken a vote during World War II or on the interstate highway system, it would have been slowed down to an incredible degree.
我们需要联邦政府的“肌肉”。但难点在于：如何让 48 或 50 个辖区在存在反对声的情况下依然协作——每个州都会有反对意见。如果二战时期或修建州际高速时搞全民投票，推进速度会被严重拖慢。
So the question is how to use the strengths that this country has to actually turn it into what it should be capable of while still preserving a republic with 48 connected and a couple unconnected states. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. We do have capital and we actually have some knowledge that very few places have. We know what the game’s about, but putting together that energy with knowledge and with capital is just not easy.
问题在于，如何利用这个国家已有的优势，把潜力转化为应有的能力，同时仍然维持由 48 个相连、数个不相连州构成的共和国。接下来会很有意思。我们有资本，也确实拥有少数机构才具备的知识。我们懂这门“游戏”，但把动力、知识与资本结合起来并不容易。
It should be something that we’re capable of in the country, but the country was not designed for having 48 different jurisdictions that could mess up anything that you were attempting to do. During wartime, it’s one thing to get agreement, but during peace time, it’s a different problem. That’s going to be one for the next generation.
这本应是国家能力范围内的事，但我们的体制并非为“48 个辖区可能搅乱任何你尝试之事”而设计。战时达成共识是一回事，和平时期又是另一回事。这将留给下一代去解。
Audience Member (Zone 10): Good morning Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel. I’m Darcus Tang. I’m 14 years old. My father brought me here for two consecutive years, and I promise I will come back every year. I queue up at 2 in the morning for every meeting you hold. My dad owned BRKA shares and he said I need to work hard to earn my piece of BRKB. We are both from China, Hong Kong, and I would like to ask what’s the essential element for a global teenager like me if we want to be part of Berkshire? What piece of knowledge should I learn so you hire me in the future?
Audience Member（Zone 10）：早上好，Buffett 先生、Abel 先生。我叫 Darcus Tang，今年 14 岁。父亲连续两年带我来这里，我也承诺每年都会再来。每次你们开会，我都会凌晨两点起排队。父亲持有 BRKA，他说我得努力争取属于我的 BRKB。我们都来自中国香港。我想请问，像我这样的全球青少年，如果想成为 Berkshire 的一员，最关键的素质是什么？我应该学习哪些知识，才能在未来被你们录用？
Finally, Mr. Buffett, I learned a lot from this meeting and of course I will come here every year. I wish you can attend as many as possible. You and Mr. Charlie Munger are the most respectful people who have inspired me and my father a lot. I wish you happy and healthy, and maybe one day in the future we can make the world more prosperous all together like you said.
最后，Buffett 先生，这次会议让我受益匪浅，我当然每年都会来。我希望您能尽可能多地参加年会。您和 Mr. Charlie Munger 值得我和父亲最崇敬，给我们带来巨大启发。祝您幸福健康，也许在未来某一天，我们能像您所说的那样共同让世界更加繁荣。
Greg Abel: Well, I think your dad said it best. He highlighted that to become part of Berkshire, to own some Berkshire shares, you’re going to have to work hard. Hard work takes all of us a long way in life, and I would never diminish that. There’s a lot of things that matter in life, but if you start with a great work ethic and have that attitude that you want to contribute, you’re going to go a long way in life. You’ll find great enjoyment because, as Warren said, if you work hard, you’re going to find the things you love in life and it’ll lead to that. We truly look forward to the day you’re part of Berkshire.
Greg Abel：我认为你父亲说得最到位。他强调，若想成为 Berkshire 的一员、拥有一些 Berkshire 的股票，你就必须努力工作。勤奋会让我们的人生走得很远，我绝不会低估这一点。人生重要的事很多，但如果你以出色的职业道德为起点，并抱持愿意付出的态度，你的人生就会走得很远。你也会从中获得巨大乐趣，因为正如 Warren 所说，如果你努力工作，你会在生活中找到你所热爱的事物，并因此走向它。我们真心期待有一天你能成为 Berkshire 的一份子。
Warren Buffett: Keep a lot of curiosity and read a lot, as Charlie would say.
Warren Buffett：保持强烈的好奇心并大量阅读，正如 Charlie 常说的那样。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Matthew Teisac in Leighton, Utah. He said, “Please discuss your strategy on how to protect our company from future liabilities due to wildfires blamed on our electric utility companies out west.”
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自犹他州 Leighton 的 Matthew Teisac。他说：“请谈谈你们的策略，如何保护我们公司免受未来因西部地区电力公用事业公司被指责引发野火而产生的负债冲击？”
Warren Buffett: That’s a very good question. We made some mistakes in the past when we bought PacifiCorp in 2005. Walter Scott, David Sol, and myself – three guys who were capitalists at heart and dealing with our own money – we made a mistake by not carving it up into the seven states that we were buying. It came with an aggregation where it wasn’t state by state, and we kept the same structure. That was a big mistake.
Warren Buffett：这是个非常好的问题。2005 年我们收购 PacifiCorp 时，过去确实犯过一些错误。Walter Scott、David Sol 和我——三位内心都是资本家、并且拿着自己的钱办事的人——没有把所收购的业务按当时涉及的七个州拆分清楚，而是照原先的“打包结构”整体接手，并维持了这种结构。这是一个重大错误。
Every part of the country is going to need electricity, and there are going to be places where privately held electric utilities would be very foolish to operate. How that gets resolved in a democracy, we will find out.
全国各地都需要电力供应，但在某些地方由私人持有的电力公用事业继续经营将非常不智。如何在民主制度下解决这个问题，我们拭目以待。
Greg Abel: The reality is the risk around wildfires – do the wildfires occur – they’re not going away, and we know that. The risk probably goes up each year. But what we can do is reduce the risk of it impacting our system and our underlying assets, and unfortunately the liabilities that come with such events. We can’t eliminate the risk, but we can reduce it.
Greg Abel：现实是，关于野火的风险——野火是否会发生——并不会消失，这一点我们心知肚明，而且这种风险很可能每年都在上升。但我们能做的是降低其影响我们系统、核心资产以及（不幸的是）由此引发的法律责任的概率。风险无法消灭，但可以降低。
Our teams in the west are addressing this across all our energy infrastructure because wildfires have now occurred in Texas and throughout the US. We’re all very focused on how we manage that risk. We start by addressing the actual assets, how we’re maintaining them and where we invest in them. We try to make sure that they’re either not causing the fire or potentially even hardening the system as to what they can withstand. It’s very much an operational focus.
我们在西部的团队正把这一问题纳入全部能源基础设施的管理，因为如今野火不仅发生在德州，也在全美多地发生。我们都在高度关注如何管理这种风险。我们从资产本身入手，关注如何维护、在何处投入。我们力求确保这些资产不会成为起火源，并尽可能“加固”系统以提升其承受极端情形的能力。这是高度“运营导向”的工作。
We then take it even further. The utilities started to recognize when we have these unusual weather events – and Warren touched on what’s been happening in Nebraska with storms – but they’re equally occurring out west. When we have those, we’ve gotten very good at saying we have to manage the system differently and potentially de-energize because there’s likely to be an event.
我们还会更进一步。公用事业公司逐步认识到，当出现异常天气事件时——Warren 刚才谈到内布拉斯加的风暴，但西部同样频发——我们必须以不同方式管理系统，并在可能时主动“断电”（de-energize），因为极端事件很可能发生。
But the one thing we hadn’t tackled – this is very relevant to the significant event we had back in 2020 in PacifiCorp – is we didn’t de-energize the system as the fire was approaching. Our employees and the whole management team have been trained all their lives to keep the lights on, and the last thing they want to do is turn those lights off and have a system de-energized.
但我们此前有一项没有做到位——这与 2020 年 PacifiCorp 发生的重大事件密切相关——当大火逼近时我们没有切断电力。我们的员工与管理团队一直以来都被训练要“保持供电”，他们最不愿做的就是主动关灯、让系统断电。
After those events and as we looked at how we’re going to move forward in managing the assets and reducing risk, we recognized as a team that we have to de-energize those assets. Now as we get fires encroaching at a certain number of miles, we de-energize because we do not want to contribute to the fire nor harm any of our consumers or contribute to a death. We had to take our team to managing a different risk now. It’s not around keeping the lights on, it’s around protecting the general public and ensuring the fire does not spread further.
在那次事件之后，我们重新审视未来的资产管理与风险降低之道，团队达成共识：必须主动断电。如今当火势逼近到某一距离，我们就会断电，因为我们既不愿加剧火情，也不愿伤害任何用户或导致伤亡。我们必须引导团队去管理一种不同的风险：焦点不再是“保持照明”，而是保护公众安全、防止火势蔓延。
We’re probably the one utility or across our utilities that does that today, and we strongly believe in that approach.
我们可能是当下少数、甚至唯一一批真正这样做的公用事业公司，我们坚信这种做法。
Moderator (Becky): Doesn’t that open you up to other risk if you shut down your system, a hospital gets shut down, somebody dies?
Moderator（Becky）：但如果你们关闭系统，导致医院停电、造成人员伤亡，岂不是会带来其他风险？
Greg Abel: That’s something we do deal with a lot because we have power outages that occur by accident. When we look at critical infrastructure, that’s an excellent point and we’re constantly re-evaluating it. We do receive a lot of feedback from our customer groups as to how to manage that.
Greg Abel：这确实是我们经常需要处理的问题，因为意外停电也会发生。针对关键基础设施，你的提醒非常重要，我们在持续复盘与评估。我们从不同客户群体获得了大量反馈，用于改进管理。
We spend a lot more time educating the consumers and our customer groups. We explain what will happen and need to understand their unusual situations and how we can best tackle that so we don’t take on another liability. There’s a lot around de-energization.
我们投入更多时间去教育用户与客户群体。我们解释可能发生的情况，并了解他们的特殊需求，从而找到最佳应对之策，避免承担新的责任。围绕“断电”需要做的工作非常多。
To take it to the last step – and Warren touched on this in general on energy policy – we have to work with our states and our regulators to ensure they understand this was never a risk we took on or envisioned when we were investing in utilities, nor would any of the investors who’ve invested in other energy companies.
再说最后一步——Warren 也从能源政策层面提到过——我们必须与所在州及监管者合作，确保他们理解：在投资公用事业时，我们从未承担、也未预期承担这类风险，其他能源公司的投资者亦然。
You earn a very set return for taking on a very defined risk associated with that asset, and this has gone well beyond that. We don’t earn the type of returns nor can you earn a large enough return to take on these risks. So it’s not just solving the return side. We really have to solve the risk side, which means we work with our regulators and state legislators to get to the right answer. That’ll be an ongoing process. There are no silver bullets, but every day our teams across utilities are working hard to reduce that risk, recognizing the fundamental risk of the wildfires is not going away.
投资者获得的是与资产所定义风险相匹配的既定回报，而当前的风险已远超原有范畴。我们并没有、也不可能获得足以覆盖这些新增风险的回报。因此问题不仅在回报，更在风险本身。我们必须与监管者与州立法机构合作，寻找正确答案。这将是持续过程，没有灵丹妙药，但我们的各家电力公司团队每天都在努力降低风险，同时清醒认识到野火这种根本性风险不会消失。
Warren Buffett: There’s some problems that can’t be solved, and we shouldn’t be in the business of taking investors’ money and tackling things that we don’t know the solution for. You can present the arguments, but it’s a political decision when you are dealing with states or the federal government.
Warren Buffett：有些问题是无解的，而我们不应拿着投资者的钱去硬扛那些我们并不知其解的问题。我们可以陈述观点，但一旦牵涉到州或联邦政府，最终就是政治决策。
If you’re in something where you’re going to lose, the big thing to do is quit. You present your case as well as you can, but if you don’t hold the pen in the end, we don’t have any business taking your money and doing dumb things with it. We can do our best to explain what the intelligent things are, but it’s your money.
如果你参与的是一桩必输的事，最该做的就是退出。你尽力陈述理由，但若最终“笔不在你手里”，我们就没有资格拿着你的钱去做蠢事。我们能做的是尽力解释何为“明智之举”，但归根到底，那是你的钱。
It’s very hard to tell how to handle politically determined decisions that are going to go to court in many cases. We know what we think a sensible system would be, and we ought to explain what we think it is and do the best to get our position because it’s pro-social to have the right solution. But there’s some problems that can’t be solved, and we are not in the business of trying to solve insolvable problems.
很多政治性决定最终往往要诉诸法庭，如何应对并不容易。我们知道在我们看来什么是“合理的制度”，也应当阐明并努力争取，因为正确的解决方案有利于社会。但有些问题确实无法解决，而“解决无解之题”并不是我们的商业职责。
The problem you have, of course, is that the people that work for you – that’s their job. So they want to have reasons to keep going. Those are tough choices if you’re managing, but that’s why they have managers.
当然，问题在于为你工作的人——他们的工作就是“把事继续做下去”，他们会寻找继续前进的理由。身为管理者，这些都是艰难抉择，但这也正是为什么需要管理者存在的原因。
Greg Abel: I was just going to add that effectively, for example with the utilities and the wildfires, we can’t just become the insurer of last resort that’s going to cover any cost and all costs irrespective of what occurred. That’s a little bit of the situation we’re in right now with our largest challenge, a 2020 wildfire.
Greg Abel：我想补充一点，就像在公用事业和野火问题上，我们不可能成为“最后保险人”，不管发生了什么都要承担任何成本、所有成本。我们当前最大的挑战——2020 年的那场野火——在某种程度上就是这种局面。
There were four fires occurring at a challenging time. One we’ve always asserted was a lightning strike that was not inside our service territory. The fire burnt into our service territory and we became responsible for that fire effectively through the courts. We continue to hold firm that we’re not responsible for that – we didn’t contribute to it, we didn’t initiate it, nor did we feel we ever contributed to it. But it’s getting to where if you look at the risk that’s there, we have to manage through things like that.
当时在一个艰难时点上同时发生了四场火灾。其中一场我们一直坚持认为是一次不在我们服务辖区内的雷击所致。那场火蔓延进入我们的服务区，而我们最终通过法院裁定“被承担”了责任。我们依然坚称对此不负责任——我们没有促成、没有引发，也不认为曾对其有任何贡献。但现实是，面对这样的风险，我们必须设法应对。
We’ll get through that litigation. We’re happy to report, for example, on that one, after 5 years, the Oregon Forestry Department has come out and said the other fires we did have that we were able to manage and extinguish did not contribute to that fire. And that fourth fire is the largest fire of the four – it’s 60% of the claims. We’re 5 years into effectively getting that information into the courts.
我们会挺过这场诉讼。令人欣慰的是，以此案为例，经过 5 年时间，Oregon Forestry Department 已经表示，我们确实发生且已控制并扑灭的其他火情并未对那场火灾产生影响。此外，第四场火是四场中最大的一场——占到索赔金额的 60%。我们已花了 5 年时间，实质性地将这些信息提交法院。
That will outline our legal strategy going forward, but these are things we’re dealing with. We continue to learn from this as a utility industry. We’re working with each of the legislators to make sure we get clear definition of where liability falls, what the economic damages can be, but most importantly, what the non-economic damages can be. Again, with the thought we can’t be the insurer of last resort. We just can’t be responsible for everything that happens in a state.
这些进展将勾勒我们后续的法律策略，但这就是我们正在处理的现实。作为公用事业行业，我们在持续学习。我们正与各州立法者合作，确保明确责任归属、可判定的经济损害范围，更重要的是，非经济损害的界定。仍要重申，我们不能成为“最后保险人”，不可能对一个州里发生的所有事情都负全责。
Warren Buffett: If we want to do it with our own money, we can do it, but we’re not going to do things with your money that we think are stupid. You ought to get rid of us if we do. It’s easier to do stupid things with other people’s money than it is with your own. That’s one of the problems government has generally – we don’t want to bring it to private enterprise.
Warren Buffett：如果要用我们自己的钱，我们可以去做，但我们不会用你们的钱去做我们认为愚蠢的事。如果我们那样做，你们就该把我们换掉。用别人的钱干蠢事比用自己的钱容易得多。这是政府普遍存在的问题之一——我们不想把这种问题带到私营企业来。
But it is important that the United States have an intelligent energy policy, just as it was important during World War II that we learned how to make ships instead of cars extremely fast. We figured out the answer. We combined private enterprise with the power of government.
但美国拥有一项明智的能源政策非常重要，就像二战期间我们必须迅速学会造船而非造车一样重要。我们当时找到了答案——把私营企业与政府的力量结合起来。
But how feasible that is in a democracy – it was clearly obvious during World War II what needed to be done and we did it. But it’s not so clear when you get 330 million people all arguing their own self-interest and having the people often who are making the decisions reacting as they did 20 years earlier, when they don’t really bear the responsibility for the decision. But anyway, that’s management and we’ll do our best.
但在民主制度下要做到这一点有多可行——二战时期需要做什么一清二楚，我们也做到了。可当 3.3 亿人各自争论自身利益、而决策者往往仍沿用 20 年前的反应模式、并且并不真正承担决策后果时，情况就没那么清晰了。不管怎样，这就是管理，我们会尽力而为。
Audience Member (Zone 11): Hello, my name is Alitia Burk and I’m from Poland but I currently live in Chicago. This question is on behalf of an inspiring man that I know, Wid Ahmed, who’s here with us today.
Audience Member（Zone 11）：大家好，我叫 Alitia Burk，来自 Poland，目前住在 Chicago。这个问题是替一位鼓舞人心的朋友 Wid Ahmed 提出的，他今天也在现场。
Mr. Buffett, nearly 74 years ago, on a cold Saturday in January 1951, you traveled 8 hours by train from New York to Washington. You went all the way on nothing but hope that someone might teach you more about the insurance industry. Arriving at GEICO’s office to find the doors locked, you persisted until a janitor let you inside. You credit that meeting with Lorimer Davidson for the insurance float that was the rocket fuel behind Berkshire’s success.
Buffett 先生，近 74 年前，也就是 1951 年 1 月的一个寒冷周六，您从 New York 乘火车跋涉 8 小时到 Washington，只怀着“或许有人能教我更多保险知识”的希望。到达 GEICO 办公室却发现大门紧锁，您坚持不懈，直到一位门卫把您放进去。您将那次与 Lorimer Davidson 的会面，视为孕育 Berkshire 成功“火箭燃料”的保险 float 的开端。
In 2011, when I was 15, I wrote to you with similar determination asking to meet. You kindly wrote back saying you had only 3,000 days left and more pressing priorities. Well, Mr. Buffett, it’s now been 5,000 days since you replied. And so inspired by your persistence in 1951 and the tenacity of Mrs. B, I humbly renew my request for just a quarter of the time Davey gave you – a single hour in your office.
2011 年我 15 岁时，也以相同的决心写信请求与您会面。您善意回信说，您只剩 3,000 天并且有更紧迫的优先事项。如今，Buffett 先生，自您回信已过去 5,000 天。受您 1951 年的坚持与 Mrs. B 的韧性所激励，我再次谦逊地请求：仅仅是 Davey 当年给予您的四分之一时间——在您办公室的一小时。
You may wonder why must it be you? You have often shared an anecdote about a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz who said to you once, “Warren, I’m very slow to make friends because when I look at someone I ask myself, would they hide me?” You said that the number of people would hide you was the best test of a life well lived. Well, I believe that at this meeting you have not 40,000 shareholders but 40,000 people who would hide you. You are testament to a life extraordinarily well-lived.
您或许会问，为何必须是您？您常分享一个轶事：一位幸存于 Auschwitz 的 Polish 犹太人对您说过，“Warren，我交朋友很慢，因为我看着一个人会问自己：他会藏起我吗？”您说，愿意“藏起你”的人数，是衡量人生是否值得的一项最佳标准。在我看来，本次会议上在场的不是 40,000 名股东，而是 40,000 名愿意“藏起您”的人。您的人生，正是非凡价值的明证。
So respectfully I ask again Mr. Buffett, before father time wins, will you please grant Wid Ahmed an hour of your time or any time you can dedicate?
因此，我再次恭敬地请求，Buffett 先生，在“时间之父”获胜之前，能否请您拨冗给 Wid Ahmed 一小时，或任何您能安排的时间？
Warren Buffett: I grant an hour to everybody of the 40,000 here. We’ll have an interesting time the rest of my life.
Warren Buffett：我把一小时“授予”在座 40,000 人每一位。这样的话，我余生都会非常“有意思”。
But I will give you one tip. I found that when I was very young, I would drive around to various companies all over the country. Because I was very young and these were offbeat companies, they didn’t have investor relations departments then, almost every CEO would see me because they figured they’d never see me again. And they weren’t getting calls like that.
不过我给你一个建议。我年轻时会在全国各地开车拜访各家公司。因为我很年轻、而且这些公司也相对“冷门”，当时还没有投资者关系部门，几乎每位 CEO 都愿意见我——他们估计这辈子也不会再见到我了，而且他们也很少接到这种电话。
I would ask them two questions. I would explain to them – it’s not a bad idea, incidentally – if you’re going to walk into somebody’s office and you say you want 10 minutes of their time, take an hourglass and stick it on the desk of the person you’re talking to and turn it up so it’s going to go for 10 minutes. You say you’re going to leave in 10 minutes unless they ask you to stay. That sets the terms.
我通常只问两个问题。我会向他们解释——顺带说一句，这主意不坏——如果你走进某人的办公室并说只要 10 分钟，就带一个沙漏，放在对方桌上，倒转让它计时 10 分钟，并表明除非对方挽留，你 10 分钟后就离开。这样先定好“规矩”。
But once you have that, if they’re in the coal business, which happened to be one that I was interested in 70 years ago or so, you just ask them one question: if they were to be stuck on a desert island and they had to own only one of their competitors’ stock during the 10 years they were going to be on that island, which one would it be, and why? And then after they give you that answer, you ask the same thing if they were to short one of their competitors’ stock, which would it be and why?
在定好规矩之后，如果他们做的是煤炭生意——那大概是我 70 年前感兴趣的行业——你只问一个问题：如果他们被困在荒岛 10 年，只能持有一家竞争对手的股票，会选哪一家？为什么？等他们答完，你再问：如果他们必须做空一家竞争对手的股票，会选哪一家？为什么？
Because every manager likes to talk about their competitors. They’re like little school kids when they get into talking about their competitors. I probably learned more about various industries by just making sure that they didn’t think I’d stay too long and that in the meantime they would have the floor and talk about their competitors. I kept my own mouth shut in those days. That’s a lesson I’ve lost somewhere along the line.
因为每个管理者都喜欢谈论竞争对手。一旦聊到对手，他们就像小学生一样兴奋。我关于各行各业学到的许多东西，正是来自这种方式：确保对方不担心我“赖太久”，并把话筒交给他们去谈竞争对手。那时候我自己很少插话。遗憾的是，这一点我后来某个阶段有些忘了。
They’ve departmentalized investor relations in all companies of size frankly now. You’ve got 3,000 companies or whatever they have and they all have departments and each one of them has an investor relations department. Their job is to say this is the best thing you can do today is buy our stock. Well, that whole concept is total idiocy. But it’s a big business and it gets bigger and the investor relations department gets bigger. It’s what we have now.
坦率地讲，现在所有规模化公司都把投资者关系部门“部门化”了。无论是 3,000 家还是更多，每家都有投关部，他们的工作就是宣称“今天你能做的最好一件事就是买我们的股票”。这个概念本身就是荒唐的。但这是个庞大产业，而且越做越大，投关部也越来越大——这就是当下的现实。
But do a little of your own work your own way. Berkshire Hathaway has got plenty of material out there for you to read. And when you get through reading it all, you’ll know way more than most the people that work at Berkshire. So, you don’t need a personal interview. If we take an hour times even the 40,000 people we may have here, plus Becky’s many listeners and viewers, it just doesn’t work. I admire your effort, but you’ll just have to settle for the admiration that you get.
不过，还是要用自己的方式做一些自己的功课。Berkshire Hathaway 有大量公开资料可供阅读。等你都读完，你对公司的了解会超过大多数在 Berkshire 工作的人。所以，你并不需要一场当面的采访。若按每人一小时来算，光在场的 40,000 人，再加上 Becky 的众多听众与观众，那根本不可行。我欣赏你的努力，但你只能接受大家对你的敬意作为“回报”了。
Becky Quick: This is a question that you touched on in a lot of ways in the last answer, but I did get this question from a few different people, so I’d like to ask it.
Becky Quick：这个问题你刚才的回答从很多角度都已涉及，但有不少人都提到了它，所以我还是想再问一次。
Ricardo Bri, a longtime shareholder based in Panama, says that he was very happy to see Berkshire acquire 100% of BHE. It was done in two steps: one in late 2022 – 1% was purchased from Greg Abel for $870 million implying a valuation of BHE of $87 billion, and then in 2024 the remaining 8% was purchased from the family of Walter Scott Jr. for $3.9 billion implying a valuation of $48.8 billion for the enterprise. That second larger transaction represented a 44% reduction in valuation in just two years.
来自 Panama 的长期股东 Ricardo Bri 表示，他很高兴看到 Berkshire 收购了 BHE 的 100% 股权。该交易分两步完成：第一步在 2022 年底——从 Greg Abel 手中以 8.7 亿美元购买 1%，对应 BHE 估值 870 亿美元；第二步在 2024 年——以 39 亿美元从 Walter Scott Jr. 家族手中购得剩余 8%，对应企业估值 488 亿美元。第二笔更大的交易意味着仅两年时间估值下调了 44%。
Ricardo writes that PacifiCorp liabilities seem too small to explain this. Therefore, what factors contributed to the difference in value for BHE between those two moments in time?
Ricardo 写道，PacifiCorp 的负债似乎不足以解释这一点。那么，在这两个时间点之间，是什么因素导致了 BHE 价值的差异？
Warren Buffett: Well, we don’t know how much we’ll lose out of PacifiCorp and decisions that are made, but we also know that certain of the attitudes demonstrated by that particular example have analogues throughout the utility system. There are a lot of states that so far have been very good to operate in, and there are some now that are rat poison, as Charlie would say, to operate in.
Warren Buffett：嗯，我们并不知道 PacifiCorp 最终会带来多少损失以及相关决策会如何落地，但我们也清楚，这个特定案例所体现的某些态度在整个公用事业体系中都有对应。很多州迄今为止经营环境不错，但也有一些州，如 Charlie 所说，如今经营起来就像“老鼠药”一样致命。
That knowledge was accentuated when we saw what happened in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s eventuated by what we’ve seen as to how utilities have been treated in certain other situations. So it wasn’t just a direct question of what was involved at PacifiCorp. It was an extrapolation of a societal trend.
当我们看到 Pacific Northwest 发生的情况时，这一认知被进一步强化；此外，我们也看到在其他一些情境下公用事业公司被对待的方式如何演变。因此，这并不仅仅是 PacifiCorp 个案的直接问题，而是对一种社会趋势的外推。
Secondly, we also had a decision we didn’t expect at all in the real estate business. Those kind of things can change values, and courts can change values. It’s a lot easier to make those decisions when you just own marketable securities than when you own businesses. I’ve made plenty of those decisions as I’ve watched what has happened in various industries and companies over 70 years.
其次，我们在房地产业务上也遇到了一项完全意料之外的裁决。这类事情会改变价值，法院也会改变价值。只持有流通证券时做这类决策要容易得多，而当你拥有的是企业本身时就难多了。过去 70 年里，我在观察各行各业与公司变化时，做过很多类似的决策。
Greg made the decision, which was fine with us, to get out. He had no knowledge of what was going to be happening in either the real estate field or the utility field.
Greg 做出了退出的决定，我们对此并无异议。彼时他并不知道房地产或公用事业领域会发生什么。
We’re not in the mood to sell any business. But Berkshire Hathaway Energy is worth considerably less money than it was two years ago based on societal factors. And that happens in some of our businesses. It certainly happened to our textile business. The public utility business is not as good a business as it was a couple of years ago.
我们并无出售任何业务的意愿。但基于社会层面的因素，Berkshire Hathaway Energy 的价值较两年前显著下降。这种情况在我们的部分业务中发生过——纺织业务就是一例。公用事业行业如今不如几年前那般“好做”。
If anybody doesn’t believe that, they can look at Hawaiian Electric and look at Edison in the current wildfires situation in California. There are societal trends that are changing things.
如果有人不相信，可以看看 Hawaiian Electric，以及在 California 当前野火情势下的 Edison。这些社会趋势正在改变一切。
I just got a note here on my monitor that says the books are now sold out. So you’ll have to spend your money on other things.
我刚在监视器上收到一条提示：那本书已经售罄了。所以你们得把钱花在别的地方了。
But that’s the explanation – values change and they don’t always change upward. When we made the deal with Greg, we would have been happy to buy out the Scott family at that price. And when we made a deal with the Scott company, we wouldn’t have been happy to pay Greg the price that he received.
不过这就是解释——价值会变化，而且并不总是向上。当我们和 Greg 达成交易时，我们也乐意用那个价格买下 Scott 家族的股份。而当我们与 Scott 家族达成交易时，我们已经不愿再按 Greg 当时的价格去支付了。
But that’s like Berkshire shares – we bought in stock at X and we buy in stock at less than X if conditions change. Over the years we pay more and more because it builds in value, but it doesn’t do it in a straight line.
但这就像 Berkshire 的自家股票——条件变化时，我们会在价格为 X 时回购，也会在低于 X 时回购。长期看我们支付的价格越来越高，因为内在价值在提升，但这并非一条直线。
I would say that our enthusiasm for buying public utility companies is different now than it would have been a couple years ago. That happens in other industries, too, but it’s pretty dramatic in public utilities. And it’s particularly dramatic in public utilities because they are going to need lots of money. So, if you’re going to need lots of money, you probably ought to behave in a way that encourages people to give you lots of money.
我想说，我们如今对收购公用事业公司的热情，与几年前已经不同。这种变化在其他行业也会出现，但在公用事业上尤为显著，尤其因为这个行业未来需要海量资本。因此，如果你需要大量资金，你大概就应当以一种能鼓励别人愿意提供资金的方式来行事。
We will see where we go. We’d like to see public utilities do well, but our responsibilities are to the shareholders of Berkshire.
我们走一步看一步。我们希望公用事业发展良好，但我们的职责在于 Berkshire 的股东。
Audience Member (Zone 1): Dear Warren, dear Greg, dear fellow owners, it’s such a pleasure to be here. My name is Revy Paneida. I was born in communist Albania, but I’m now teaching economics in London, England. The wonderful writing of Warren and Charlie has significantly shaped my thinking and teaching. I thank you both very much for the many insights over the years.
Audience Member（Zone 1）：亲爱的 Warren、亲爱的 Greg、各位共同的所有者，很高兴来到这里。我叫 Revy Paneida，出生于共产主义时期的 Albania，如今在英国 London 教授经济学。Warren 和 Charlie 精彩的著作深刻影响了我的思维与教学。多年来得到诸多启发，在此深表感谢。
Warren has often written about the importance of Berkshire’s earning power to owners. My question is, what was in your estimate Berkshire’s earning power in the latest fiscal year? It would be great if you can comment on any significant items that either increased or decreased the earning power as compared to reported net income measures for Berkshire. Thank you.
Warren 经常撰文谈到 Berkshire 对所有者而言“earning power（获利能力）”的重要性。我的问题是：在你们的估算中，Berkshire 最近一个财年的“earning power”是多少？若能就与净利润等报表口径相比，会显著提升或削弱“earning power”的重要因素做一些点评，将不胜感激。谢谢。
Warren Buffett: Well, I think our underlying earning power was affected negatively here a while back by what happened in the utility field. I think that our earning power was not enlarged by any large acquisitions that come along, but they come along periodically. We will see something at some point that could add to earning power. I mean, why else would we do it?
Warren Buffett：嗯，我认为前一阵子公用事业领域发生的事情对我们的基础获利能力产生了负面影响。我也认为，近期并没有通过大型收购来放大我们的获利能力——尽管这类机会会周期性出现。某个时点我们会看到能提升获利能力的事情出现。我的意思是，否则我们为什么要去做呢？
That’s very situational and of course it depends so much on what the general market is doing and what interest rates are doing and what psychology is doing. We will make our best deals when people are the most pessimistic. That’s been true ever since I was born in 1930. Things got much more attractive over the next two years, and apparently I didn’t do anything about it – I blew it by worrying about the kid in the next crib or something.
这非常依赖具体情境，当然也与大盘走势、利率走向和市场心理息息相关。当人们最悲观时，我们会做出最好的交易。自我1930年出生以来一直如此。随后两年里机会变得诱人得多，而显然我当时并没有把握——可能忙着担心旁边婴儿床里的小孩之类，把机会给错过了。
Over my lifetime I’ve had fabulous opportunities sometimes, and they happen because humans are human. I don’t get fearful by things that other people are afraid of in a financial way. The idea that if Berkshire went down 50% next week – I would regard that as a fantastic opportunity and it wouldn’t bother me in the least. Most people react differently.
在我的一生中，时不时会出现极好的机会，而这恰恰源于“人之常情”。在金融层面，别人害怕的事不会让我害怕。假如 Berkshire 下周下跌50%——我会把那视为极佳的机会，丝毫不会困扰我。大多数人的反应并非如此。
It’s not that I don’t have emotions, but I don’t have emotions about the prices of stocks. Those decisions get all the way to my brain, whereas emotions can get bogged down some other place.
并不是我没有情绪，而是我对股价没有情绪。有关股价的决策能直接走到我的大脑里，而情绪会被搁置在别处。
Berkshire will increase its earning power over time as we retain money. We are making decisions every day. People are working. We’re retaining earnings. We will build the earning power, but it won’t be coming in any even stream. And it certainly won’t be matched dollar for dollar on either the upside or the downside in market prices. But that’s what makes it a good business – the investment business is that everything isn’t properly appraised, and the more fearful other people get, the better your opportunities get.
随着我们留存资金，Berkshire 的获利能力会逐步提升。我们每天都在做决策，人们在努力工作，我们在留存收益。我们会建设起更强的获利能力，但这不会以平滑的曲线到来，更不会与市场价格的涨跌一一对应、美元对美元地同步。但这正是投资这门生意的魅力所在——并非一切都会被正确定价，而别人越恐惧，你的机会就越好。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Achie Patel and it’s about the big cap technology stocks. In the 2017 annual meeting, you said Warren, you really don’t need any money to run these companies and referred to them as ideal businesses, referring to the big tech companies – Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. With all of those companies now announcing massive capital investment endeavors around AI ambitions, have you rethought the above comment just in terms of them being asset light and what you think of them as a result?
Becky Quick：下一个问题来自 Achie Patel，关于大型科技股。2017 年年会上，你说过，Warren，这些公司运营几乎不需要资金，并称它们是理想的生意，指的就是 Apple、Alphabet、Microsoft、Amazon 等大型科技公司。如今这些公司都宣布围绕 AI 目标进行巨额资本开支，你是否重新思考过此前关于“资产轻”的评论？你现在对它们的看法有什么变化？
Warren Buffett: Well, it’s always better to make a lot of money without putting up anything than it is to make a lot of money by putting up a lot of money.
Warren Buffett：嗯，不用投入什么资本就能赚很多钱，总是好过投入大量资本去赚很多钱。
A business that takes no capital to speak of – Coca-Cola, the finished product which has gone through bottling companies takes a lot of capital, but in terms of selling the syrup or concentrate, that doesn’t take a lot of capital. So, one is a fabulous business and one depends where it is.
有些业务几乎不需要资本——比如 Coca-Cola，终端装瓶环节确实很“吃资本”，但就卖糖浆或浓缩液这块，本身并不需要太多资本。所以，前者要看所处环节，后者则是极好的生意。
Coca-Cola is popular every place, but if you’re in the bottling business, it costs real money. You have real trucks out there and all kinds of machinery and capital expenditures coming up. We’ve got businesses that take very little capital that make really high returns on capital. The ones the politicians talk about as making high returns actually aren’t making high returns usually in terms of capital.
Coca-Cola 到处都受欢迎，但如果你做的是装瓶业务，那是真金白银的投入：要有卡车、各类设备，以及不断到来的资本开支。我们也拥有一些几乎不需资本、却能取得极高资本回报的业务。那些被政客指摘为“高回报”的行业，通常并非以“资本回报率”来衡量时真的高回报。
Property casualty insurance is kind of a rare business because you need capital as a guarantee fund that you will keep your promises, but you can use it to buy other low capital-intensive businesses. You can buy Apple and have it support that business. That can be a pretty good business and it’s one of the reasons we’ve done well over time.
财产意外险是相对少见的生意，因为你需要资本作为“保证基金”来履约，但你又可以用这笔资本去配置其他低资本密集的业务。你可以买 Apple，让它反哺保险主业。这会是一门相当不错的生意，也是我们长期表现良好的原因之一。
It’ll be interesting to see how much capital intensity there is now with the Magnificent 7 compared to a few years ago. Basically, Apple has not really needed any capital over the years and it’s repurchased shares with a dramatic reduction. Whether that world is the same in the future or not is something yet to be seen.
把现在的“Magnificent 7”与几年前相比，它们的资本密集度变化如何，这将很有意思。基本上，Apple 多年来并不需要多少新增资本，却能大幅回购股票。未来是否仍如此，有待观察。
Hollywood’s answer was always to get their money from other people to put up the capital. A lot of people have gotten very rich in the country by essentially figuring out how to get others to put up the capital. That’s what people do in the money management business – they get very rich because they get an override on other people’s capital.
Hollywood 的解法一直是“用别人的钱”。在这个国家，很多人之所以致富，本质上就是学会了如何让别人出资。这正是资管行业在做的事——因为能对“别人的资本”抽成，他们就会非常富有。
Incidentally, if all of you were paying 1% for investment management fees at Berkshire last year, you would have paid $8 billion for managing, and you really wouldn’t have had to do it. Investment management is a very good game because other people put up the capital and you charge them for the capital whether they do well or not, and then you charge them a lot more if they do well. It’s a well-designed business for the people who practice it – and who can blame them? That is capitalism.
顺带说一句，若你们去年为在 Berkshire 的资产支付 1% 的投管费，你们会为“管理”多付出 80 亿美元，而其实完全没必要。资管是一门很“好”的生意：别人出资，你无论业绩好坏都能收费，业绩好了还能多收。这对从业者来说是“精心设计”的商业模式——谁能责怪他们呢？这就是资本主义。
I saw that in operation when I was working at Salomon, but I didn’t need to see it. I knew what existed anyway. The trick in life is to get somebody else’s capital and get an override on it. Charlie and I decided it wasn’t too elegant a business after a while. We were not criticizing the efficacy of it – it just didn’t appeal to us after a while. I did it for 12 years though.
我在 Salomon 工作时亲眼见过这种运作，但其实不看也知道它的存在。人生中的“诀窍”之一，就是用别人的资本、对其抽成。过了一阵，Charlie 和我觉得这门生意不太“优雅”。我们并非否定它的有效性——只是后来它不再吸引我们而已。尽管如此，我也做了12年。
The one difference that Charlie and I did from other people is we put all our own money into it. So we really did share the losses with our own capital, but we got an override on other people’s capital. People have made advances where they get the override on other people’s capital without putting up any of their own capital to speak of. That’s a very good business, but it can lead to a lot of abuse.
我们与他人的一个区别在于，我们把自己的全部资金也投了进去。所以我们确实用自有资本承担亏损，同时对他人的资本抽成。如今有人更进一步，几乎不出自有资本就能对他人资本抽成。这固然是一门“很好的生意”，但也容易滋生滥用。
Warren Buffett: Capitalism in the United States has succeeded like nothing you’ve ever seen. But what it is is a combination of this magnificent cathedral which has produced an economy like nothing the world’s ever seen, and then it’s got this massive casino attached.
Warren Buffett：美国的资本主义取得了前所未有的成功。但它本质上是两部分的结合：一座宏伟的大教堂——孕育了世界从未见过的经济；以及紧挨着它的一座巨大的赌场。
In the casino, everybody’s having a good time and there’s lots of money changing hands, but the cathedral is what you’ve got to make sure gets fed too. The temptation is very high now to go over to the casino where people say we’ve got magic boxes and all kinds of things that’ll do wonderful things for you. That’s where people are happiest, where you get the most promises, where the most money is for the people that are pushing things.
在赌场里，人人玩得尽兴、资金频繁易手；但也必须确保“大教堂”同样得到供养。如今转向赌场的诱惑极大——那里的人声称有“魔法盒子”和各种能为你创造奇迹的玩意儿。那是人们最开心的地方、承诺最多的地方、也是推动者最能赚钱的地方。
The balance between the casino and the cathedral – it’s very important that the United States in the next hundred years make sure that the cathedral is not overtaken by the casino. People really like to go to casinos – it’s just so much more fun. They bring bells when you win, they bring you drinks and everything else. It’s designed to move money from one pocket to another.
赌场与大教堂之间的平衡——在未来一百年里，美国务必要确保“大教堂”不被“赌场”淹没。人们确实更愿意去赌场——因为实在更有趣。你赢了就有铃声、饮料和一切招待。它的设计目的，就是把钱从一个人的口袋转到另一个人的口袋。
In the cathedral, they’re designing things that will be producing goods and services for 300 and some million people like it’s never been done before in history. It’s an interesting system we developed, but it’s worked. It dispenses rewards in what seems like a terribly capricious manner. The idea that people get what they deserve in life – it’s hard to make that argument. But if you argue with it that any other system works better, the answer is we haven’t found one.
而在大教堂里，人们在设计能为三亿多人口提供前所未有的商品与服务的事物。这是我们创造的一套有趣体系，但它确实奏效。它分配回报的方式看似极其任性。要坚持“人生中人人都得到应得之物”的说法——很难自洽。但若要论证有别的体系更好，答案是我们还没找到。
Audience Member (Zone 2): Hi, my name is Patrick Nester. I am 13 years old and from Tampa, Florida. I’m here with my brother John who’s 15 and my dad. Thank you for hosting this meeting. This is my first ever shareholder meeting. My question is, what high school class or activity helped influence you to who you are today as the greatest investor of all time?
Audience Member（Zone 2）：你好，我叫 Patrick Nester，13 岁，来自佛罗里达州 Tampa。我和 15 岁的哥哥 John 以及父亲一起来到这里。感谢你们举办这次会议。这是我人生中的第一次股东大会。我的问题是：在高中阶段，哪门课程或哪项活动对你成为今天的“史上最伟大投资者”影响最大？
Warren Buffett: The teachers you get in your life have this incredible impression on you, and a lot of it are the formal teachers you have, but some are informal teachers too. I’ve learned from certain employers so much. You really hope you’re learning from everybody you find who’s well-intentioned and has had a lot of experience. I had a lot of good luck in that.
Warren Buffett：你一生遇到的老师会对你留下难以置信的深刻影响，其中很多是学校里的正式老师，但也有非正式的“老师”。我从一些雇主身上学到了很多。你确实应该努力向每一个善意且经验丰富的人学习。我在这方面非常幸运。
I would say that where I was really lucky was my dad was in the investment business. So I would go down on Saturday and I’d wait for him to go to lunch, and I’d read the books that were around there that nobody else ever read. Numbers talk to me, and I could never get my fill of them.
我真正的幸运在于，我父亲从事投资行业。所以每逢周六我就去他办公室，等他去吃午饭时，翻看堆在那儿、几乎没人看的书。数字会“对我说话”，而我永远读不够。
Then I discovered the public library and I read every book there was on investments, literally, in the Omaha public library. I enjoyed learning about that. Unlike Charlie – if Charlie was reading about electricity, he would want to have known everything that Thomas Edison knew and more, and go through the same thought processes and understand how everything worked. I didn’t care how it worked. I just cared whether it worked. That’s a limitation – I’m confessing here, I’m not bragging.
后来我发现了公共图书馆，几乎把 Omaha 公共图书馆关于投资的书“全都”读了一遍。我很享受这种学习。不像 Charlie——如果他读电学，他会想知道 Thomas Edison 所知的一切甚至更多，沿着同样的思路把原理弄透。我不在乎“它如何运作”，我只在乎“它是否有效”。这是一种局限——我在坦白，不是在夸耀。
As Charlie would say, people would always ask, “If you could only have lunch with one person living or dead, who would it be?” And Charlie said, “I’ve already had lunch with all of them because I’ve read all their books.”
正如 Charlie 常说，人们总问：“如果你只能和一位生者或逝者共进午餐，你会选谁？”Charlie 回答：“我已经和他们都吃过了，因为我读过他们所有的书。”
I think having curiosity and finding sympathetic teachers is very useful. I ran into a couple of teachers both in high school and college. In fact, I would say that I went to three different universities and I went to high school in Washington, and at each place I found about two or three really outstanding people. I just spent my time with them and didn’t pay much attention to the other classes.
我认为保持好奇心、找到“同频”的老师非常有用。我在高中和大学都遇到过这样的老师。事实上，我上过三所不同的大学，也在 Washington 上过高中，在每个地方我都能找到两三位真正出色的人。我把时间花在他们身上，而不太在意其他课程。
I was lucky to find something that fit me very early on. If my ambition had been to become a ventriloquist or whatever it might have been, it wouldn’t have worked. I just spent hours and hours and hours on investing.
我很幸运很早就找到了契合自己的事。要是我的志向是当腹语师之类的，大概就不行了。我只是把无数个小时投入在投资上。
I don’t believe in that book that talked about spending 10,000 hours at something. I could spend 10,000 hours at tap dancing and you’d throw up if you watched me. But if I spent 10 hours reading Ben Graham, I would be damn smart when I got through.
我不信那本“干任何事要一万小时”的书。我就算花一万小时练踢踏舞，你看了也会想吐。但如果我花 10 小时读 Ben Graham，我读完就会变得非常聪明。
Minds are really different. I watch great bridge players, great physicians – people have really different talents. I think you’re supposed to have 88 billion cells in your brain. I’m not sure that all of mine are flashing bright lights, but you are different than anybody else. That’s what my dad always used to tell me – that you’re something different. It may not be good at the moment, but you find your own path and you will find the people in schooling that want to talk to you.
大脑确实各不相同。我看过伟大的桥牌手、杰出的医生——人们的天赋差异极大。人的大脑大约有 880 亿个神经元。我不确定我的是否都在“闪光”，但你确实独一无二。我父亲总这样对我说——“你与众不同”。这未必马上显得好，但你会找到自己的路径，也会在学校遇见愿意与你交流的人。
People that teach, in general, love having a young student who’s actually really interested in the subject, and they’ll spend extra time with you. I ran into that. I had Graham and Dodd at Columbia. Dave Dodd treated me like a son basically. But I was interested in what they were saying and they found it kind of entertaining that I was so interested, so I would look around at what really fascinates you. I wouldn’t try and be somebody else.
一般而言，老师都喜欢真正对学科感兴趣的年轻学生，并愿意为你多花时间。我就遇到过。于 Columbia，我有 Graham 和 Dodd。Dave Dodd 基本上把我当儿子。当时我对他们所讲的极为投入，而他们也觉得这种投入很有意思。所以去寻找真正令你着迷的东西，不要试图成为别人。
You’ll find the teachers at a school, and you’ll find some outstanding people that are teachers. I’ve had at least 10 people that have had huge impacts on my life, and every one of them was positive because I got to select, in a sense. A number of people really like helping younger people. I found that in school, and it probably helps to look a little bit lost like you need help.
你会在学校里找到老师，也会遇见一些以“老师”角色出现的杰出人物。至少有 10 个人对我的人生产生了巨大影响，而每一位都带来了正面影响——在某种意义上，这也是因为我“主动选择”了他们。许多人真心喜欢帮助年轻人。我在学校体验过这一点——而且看起来略显迷茫、仿佛需要帮助，有时也会有点帮助。
I would say my school experiences were good, but I attribute it much more to the individual than to the institutions.
我会说我的求学经历不错，但我更把功劳归于那些“个人”，而非“机构”。
Becky Quick: This question comes from Scott Williams in Portland, Oregon. He said, “Do you think the net benefit of DOGE will be positive or negative for the long-term health of the United States?”
Becky Quick：这个问题来自俄勒冈州波特兰的 Scott Williams。他说：“你认为 DOGE 的净效应对美国的长期健康是正面还是负面？”
Warren Buffett: I think that bureaucracy is something that is amazingly prevalent and contagious even in our capital system, and big corporations overwhelmingly most of them look like they could be run better. I’m sure Berkshire does in many respects. And government is the ultimate. It really doesn’t have any checks on it.
Warren Buffett：我认为官僚主义在我们的资本体系中也惊人地普遍且具有传染性，绝大多数大型公司看起来都有提升经营的空间。我确信在很多方面 Berkshire 也是如此。至于政府，那更是终极形态——它实际上缺乏有效的制衡。
That’s why it scares you to some extent about what the future of the currency will be, because they can print currency. If you have people that get elected by promising people things – that doesn’t mean that they aren’t sincere about all kinds of items, but there’s no politician that says to anybody that has money, “I really think you have bad breath and if you don’t mind, would you step away from me.” It just doesn’t happen.
这也是为什么我们在一定程度上会对货币的未来感到担忧，因为他们可以印钞。若有人靠向民众许诺而当选——这并不意味着他们对各项主张不真诚，但没有政治人物会对有钱人说：“我觉得你口气很糟，麻烦离我远一点。”这种事不会发生。
I think the problem of how you control revenue and expenses in government is the one that is never fully solved and has really hurt dramatically many civilizations. I don’t think we’re immune from it, and we’ve come close to it.
我认为政府如何控制收支这个问题从未得到彻底解决，并且严重伤害过许多文明。我不认为我们能免疫，而且我们已多次接近危险边缘。
We’re operating at a fiscal deficit now that is unsustainable over a very long period of time. We don’t know whether that means two years or 20 years because there’s never been a country like the United States. But as Herbert Stein, the famous economist, said, “If something can’t go on forever, it will end.” We are doing something that is unsustainable, and it has the aspect to it that it gets uncontrollable to a certain point.
我们当前的财政赤字在很长时期内是不可持续的。究竟是两年还是二十年，我们并不知道，因为从未有过像美国这样的国家。但正如经济学家 Herbert Stein 所言：“不能永远持续的事，终将终止。”我们正在做一件不可持续的事，而且其中有一部分会在某个点变得不可控。
Paul Volcker kept that from happening in the United States, but we came close. We’ve come close multiple times. We’ve still had very substantial inflation in the United States, but it’s never been runaway yet. That’s not something you want to try and experiment with because it feeds on itself.
Paul Volcker 曾阻止这种情况在美国发生，但我们离临界点很近；而且不止一次。美国也经历过相当高的通胀，但尚未失控。你绝不想拿它做试验，因为一旦启动就会自我增强。
I wouldn’t want the job of trying to correct what’s going on in revenue and expenditures of the United States with roughly a 7% gap when probably a 3% gap is sustainable. The further away you get from that, the more you get to where the uncontrollable begins. It’s a job I don’t want, but it’s a job I think should be done. And Congress does not seem good at doing it.
我不愿意接手修正美国收支问题的工作——现在缺口大约是7%，而大概3%才是可持续水平。偏离越远，就越接近不可控。我不想做这件事，但我认为它必须有人去做。而国会看起来并不擅长此事。
We’ve got a lot of problems always as a country, but this is one we bring on ourselves. We have a revenue stream, a capital-producing stream, a brains-producing machine like the world has never seen. And if you picked a way to screw it up, it would involve the currency. That’s happened a lot of places.
作为一个国家，我们总会有很多问题，但这一项是我们自找的。我们拥有前所未见的收入创造力、资本生成力与人才生产机制。如果你非要挑一种方式把这一切搞砸，那就是货币问题。许多地方都发生过。
In theory, you would make it so there was substantial downside for anybody that screwed things up, but there isn’t downside. There’s upside. It’s the problem of the most successful company in the history of the country, in the history of the world.
理论上，你应当为任何把事情搞砸的人设置巨大的负面后果，但现实中并没有，反而有上行激励。这是这个国家、乃至世界历史上最成功体系所面临的问题。
Audience Member (Zone 3): Hello Mr. Buffett. My name is Saskia from Germany, and first of all I want to thank you because you made such a great impact in my life and the lives of people I love, and that’s priceless.
Audience Member（Zone 3）：您好，Buffett 先生。我叫 Saskia，来自 Germany。首先感谢您，因为您对我的人生以及我所爱之人的人生产生了巨大影响，这无价之宝。
Mr. Buffett, imagine it’s 1776 and you’re sitting alongside Benjamin Franklin helping to shape the foundation of a new nation. What core economic principles would you advocate for building a fair, resilient, and opportunity-driven capitalist society – one that supports long-term prosperity for future generations?
Buffett 先生，假设现在是 1776 年，您与 Benjamin Franklin 并肩坐着，共同为一个新国家奠基。为了打造一个公平、韧性强、以机会为驱动的资本主义社会——能够支持子孙后代实现长期繁荣——您会主张哪些核心经济原则？
Warren Buffett: That’s a good question, but I would probably say to Ben Franklin, “You just keep thinking and don’t talk to me because you’ll come up with some better ideas than I will.” He was an incredibly remarkable person. He was almost probably the last person to almost have a grasp of every aspect of activity in the country.
Warren Buffett：这是个好问题，但我大概会对 Ben Franklin 说：“你继续思考，别理我，因为你的想法肯定比我的更好。”他是一个极其非凡的人，或许几乎是最后一个几乎能把国家各个领域活动都掌握在心上的人。
He invented all kinds of things. Incidentally, we were talking about the power of compound interest – he left a will that left a sum of money to Philadelphia and another sum to Boston that would serve as an example for a couple hundred years of the power of compounding. He was so far ahead of his time that the best thing I could do if I was under that tree with him was to get out of his way and let him keep thinking.
他发明了各种东西。顺带说一句，我们刚谈到复利的力量——他在遗嘱中把一笔钱留给 Philadelphia，又把一笔钱留给 Boston，用以在接下来几百年里展示复利的力量。他超越时代太多了，如果我和他一起坐在树下，我能做的最好事情就是让开，让他继续思考。
He saw the problems that success could bring to a society as well as other problems. The problems of how to take 8 billion people – because there’s no way we can separate ourselves from the rest of the world. We can be an example to the rest of the world, and I think it behooves us since we have had all this good fortune in this country and we do have a pretty good system.
他既看到了成功可能给社会带来的问题，也看到了其他问题。比如如何安顿 80 亿人——因为我们不可能把自己与世界其余部分隔离开来。我们可以为世界树立榜样，而鉴于我们国家拥有如此多幸运与相对完善的制度，我认为我们有责任这么做。
I don’t think you get very far by lecturing the world on how you’re the one that should tell them what they should do with their lives. I think you get a certain amount of resentment when, just a few hundred years ago, a whole different group of countries were running the world, and now you start giving them advice. I think it’s a real mistake in communication or persuasion to lecture a bunch of people when you’ve just won the game.
我不认为靠训诫世界、告诉别人该如何过日子能走得很远。几百年前掌控世界的是另一批国家，如今你开始给他们上课，很容易招致反感。我认为在你刚赢了比赛的情况下去教训别人，是沟通或说服上真正的错误。
I would advise Ben to figure out how to win the game and keep a certain amount of humility at the same time. And I would tell him to try and design a system that doesn’t invent too many things that can destroy the planet – that become uncontrollable once you get them out there.
我会建议 Ben 想清楚如何赢得这场比赛，同时保持一定的谦卑。我还会告诉他，尽量设计一种制度，不要发明过多能毁灭地球、且一旦面世就不可控的东西。
There was no alternative to us developing the atom bomb, but the expansion of the number of people that have the ability from one to eight, and nine probably pretty soon with Iran – that’s a mistake that society just could not afford to make. Solving the problem with nine variables instead of simply one.
我们当年别无选择只能研制原子弹，但让掌握这种能力的国家从一个扩展到八个，很快可能还有 Iran 成为第九个——这是社会承受不起的错误。把一个变量的问题变成九个变量的问题。
It’s totally understandable – my dad was in Congress when the atom bomb was first used. It’s amazing how Sam Rayburn kept the House of Representatives uninformed because they were supposed to appropriate all the money. They had 435 congressmen there and they had no idea they were appropriating money for Los Alamos or what was going on in Chicago or Tennessee.
这完全可以理解——原子弹首次使用时，我父亲在国会。令人惊讶的是，Sam Rayburn 居然能让众议院蒙在鼓里，明明他们负责拨款。435 名众议员对自己给 Los Alamos 拨款、以及 Chicago 或 Tennessee 的动向一无所知。
We do have a society that is far beyond anything that Ben Franklin dreamt of. It’s moving in the right direction toward solving some problems where we made broad declarations about all men being created equal, etc. Then we did some of the things we did, but generally speaking we moved in the right direction.
我们的社会已经远远超出 Ben Franklin 的想象。我们在一些问题上正朝着正确方向前进，比如落实“人人生而平等”的宏大宣言。尽管一路走来做过一些不那么光彩的事，但总体而言方向是对的。
But we face problems – I don’t know how Ben Franklin would attack the problem of what you do once you get weapons of mass destruction in many hands, and when you essentially look at the world as something where there are winners and losers, and the winners humiliate the losers and do all kinds of things.
但我们也面临难题——我不知道 Ben Franklin 会如何应对“大规模杀伤性武器落入多方之手”的问题；也不知道当世界被看作“胜者与败者”的竞技场、且胜者羞辱败者、无所不用其极时，他会如何应对。
I’ll let the people who are a lot younger figure out the answers on that. But it’s still the most wonderful – there’s never been anything you could dream like what has happened in the United States. So it’s the best place and the best time to be alive by miles in the street.
我把答案留给更年轻的人去寻找。但即便如此，这仍是最美好的时代——美国发生的一切前所未有、超越想象。所以，这里依旧是最适合活着的地方与时刻，远超其他。
Just think of a couple hundred years ago and somebody yanking out a few of your teeth and pouring whiskey down you. The subsistence, and particularly in this Midwest – just imagine waiting till the Missouri froze over every year just to see whether you can get your wagon across, and maybe having a pregnant woman in the back. It’s just amazing what has happened of a positive nature during my lifetime.
想想几百年前，人们把你的几颗牙生生拔掉，再灌你点威士忌。再想想谋生之艰，尤其在中西部——每年都得等 Missouri 结冰，看看马车能否渡河，车厢后头也许还坐着一位孕妇。在我的一生中，积极的变化实在令人惊叹。
The question is how do you keep it and how do you improve it? I do think that fundamental to all of it is having a currency that does not get debased. What that does to the stability of a society where all the people that trust their government get screwed and all the people that figure out ways to profit off of it become rich or richer – I don’t think you want a society that operates in that manner.
问题在于如何守住并改进这些成就？我确实认为一切的根本是拥有“不被贬损的货币”。一旦货币被贬，对社会稳定的伤害在于：信任政府的人被坑害，而钻营牟利的人变得富有或更富。我不认为你会希望社会以这种方式运转。
Becky Quick: This question is for you, Greg. It comes from a shareholder named Jay Milroy, who writes, “Mr. Buffett has a hands-off approach to managing the operating subsidiaries. How would you describe your approach?”
Becky Quick：这个问题问你，Greg。来自股东 Jay Milroy。他写道：“Buffett 先生对运营子公司的管理一向‘少干预’。你会如何描述你的管理方式？”
Greg Abel: Well, we’ve got our managers over there and I would say going back to 2018, it’s been very fortunate to be in this role because one, I had to learn a lot of the businesses and there’s no question as Warren bought the businesses, he had that general knowledge.
Greg Abel：首先，我们有一线的经理人。回溯到 2018 年，我很幸运能担任这个角色，因为一方面我必须学习大量业务；而在 Warren 买下这些公司时，他对它们已有整体把握，这一点毫无疑问。
I absolutely had to engage with each of them and they’ve been great in sharing their business models, their approach, their thoughts around where the risks and opportunities are. And I think as we went through that there’s no question I had questions and wanted to engage with them. Warren talks about curiosity being important as you go through things.
我必须与他们每一个人深入互动——他们非常乐于分享各自的商业模式、经营方法、以及对风险与机会的看法。在这个过程中，我当然提出了很多问题，也希望与他们充分交流。Warren 常说，处理事务时好奇心很重要。
That would be my style to have questions and comments around their business, their frameworks. At the same time, they have great businesses and they run them very autonomously and that remains in place. But if there’s opportunities to see where maybe I’ve seen something in another business or an opportunity I may see in their industry, we’re going to discuss it and see if that’s something we should pursue or if we are properly addressing the risk.
这就是我的风格——围绕他们的业务与框架提出问题与意见。同时，他们的业务很优秀，也高度自治，这一点会保持不变。但如果我在其他业务中见到可借鉴之处，或在他们行业里看到机会，我们就会讨论，评估是否值得推进，以及我们是否正确应对了风险。
And I found all our managers to be absolutely engaging on that and want to have those dialogues. And I’d say that’s a reflection of my approach. I’d also say that when you think of our managers, again, very autonomous. They run their businesses. They know it better than I ever will.
我发现我们的经理人都非常投入，乐于开展这种对话。这反映了我的做事方式。我还要强调，我们的经理人非常自治，他们经营自己的业务，对业务的了解远胜于我。
But if I see an opportunity that it’s well worth their time to talk to another one of our managers, if it’s Geico and they’ve gone through a technology transformation, they’re not by themselves that need to be thinking that way. We want to make sure the right folks are talking and figuring out how we can benefit from the prior experiences.
但如果我看到值得他们抽时间与其他经理人交流的机会——比如 Geico 完成了一次技术转型——那就不该只是他们孤军思考。我们会确保合适的人彼此交流，从过往经验中汲取最大收益。
So, I would say more active but hopefully in a very positive way, and we’ve got an exceptional group. So, it’s worked out exceptionally well as I’ve gone through that period of time.
所以，我会说我更为主动，但希望是以非常积极的方式；我们拥有一支出色的团队。实践证明，在这段时间里，这种方式运作得非常好。
Warren Buffett: It’s working way better with Greg than with me because I just didn’t want to work as hard as he worked and I could get away with it because we’ve got a basically good business, very good business and I wasn’t in danger of you firing me by virtue of both ownership and the fact that we would do pretty well.
Warren Buffett：在 Greg 手里运转得比在我手里好得多，因为我并不想像他那样努力工作，而我之所以还能蒙混过关，是因为我们本来就是一家好公司，非常好的公司；再加上我既是股东又能交出不错的成绩，所以你们也不可能把我开掉。
But the fact that you can do pretty well doesn’t mean you couldn’t do better. And Greg can do better at many things. Many people want to be managed, need help in being managed. Some don’t. Some you just leave alone.
但“做得还不错”并不意味着“不能做得更好”。而在许多方面，Greg 能做得更好。很多人希望被管理、也需要在管理中得到帮助；也有一些人不需要，对他们你只要放手不管就好。
We’ve had managers it would have been crazy to start giving instructions to because they just quit. And I wouldn’t blame them because I’d be the same type myself. But a lot of people really do welcome direction and help, particularly when they’re getting it from somebody like Greg that really lives the life himself and doesn’t just come down from on high and say “here’s what you do” while I do something else. A manager that behaves differently than what he’s asking the people beneath them to behave – it just doesn’t work over time.
我们也有一些经理人，你一旦开始指手画脚那就太疯狂了——他们会直接辞职。我不会责怪他们，因为我自己也属于那一类人。但也有很多人确实欢迎方向与帮助，尤其当这帮助来自像 Greg 这样“身体力行”的人——不是高高在上地说“你就这么干”，而自己却去做别的事。一个管理者如果要求下属那样做、自己却那样做，长久看是行不通的。
And people want a manager that they admire and they’re not going to admire them if those people profess to behave in one manner and behave in another manner. It’s easier – this is a sad thing, but it’s easier for an organization to see its quality move downward than it is upward.
人们希望有一个值得敬佩的管理者；如果一个人言行不一，就不会赢得敬佩。有件令人遗憾的事是：一个组织的素质往下滑比往上升要容易得多。
I mean, if the boss behaves badly, it causes everybody to behave badly. That is really catching. It’s not as catching on the way up in upper management. But if the manager is doing a lot of little things to grease his own situation, pretty soon, let’s say you’re running a retail establishment, pretty soon all the employees or a lot of the employees are telling their friends that they get a discount with the retail operation and if they want something they’ll put it on their account and then get the discount.
我的意思是，如果老板行为不端，大家都会学坏——这传染性极强。向上感染没那么快，但如果管理者为了自己方便在很多小事上“抹油走账”，很快——比如你经营一家零售店——员工们就会告诉朋友可以拿员工折扣，想买什么先挂自己账户然后再打折。
Once you start deviating downward, it is really contagious and it is hard to rebuild. So, you really need someone that behaves well on top and is not playing games for their own benefit. And we get a lot of managers that bend over backwards not to do that sort of thing. And then we get a few that bend over forwards. And if you get enough companies, you’re going to get a lot of different forms of behavior, and Greg does something about it and I’ve generally been lax in doing something about it, but he’s done a way better job at that than I have.
一旦开始向下偏离，就会迅速蔓延，而且很难重建。所以你必须在顶层放一个行为端正、不玩小算盘的人。我们有很多经理人为此竭尽全力，也有少数人“向前弯腰”。当公司多了，各种行为都会出现；Greg 会着手处理，而我通常不够严格——在这方面他做得比我好得多。
Audience Member (Zone 4): Hello, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel. My name is Kansas Lomire. I am a junior at Elkhorn South High School and was born and raised in Omaha. My question is directed to Greg Abel.
Audience Member（Zone 4）：您好，Buffett 先生、Abel 先生。我叫 Kansas Lomire，是 Elkhorn South High School 的高二学生，在 Omaha 出生长大。我的问题是给 Greg Abel 的。
Berkshire Hathaway is the second largest utility provider in the United States and a 2025 Reuters investigation found that its coal fleet is the dirtiest in the nation. There is currently no concrete plan to retire coal and fully transition to renewable energy. I’m 17 years old. Considering that, what do you have to say to young people like me who will live with the consequences of climate change caused by companies like Berkshire?
Berkshire Hathaway 是美国第二大公用事业供应商，而 2025 年 Reuters 的调查发现其燃煤机组是全美最“脏”的。目前并没有明确的计划淘汰燃煤、彻底转向可再生能源。我今年 17 岁。考虑到这些，你想对像我这样需要承受由 Berkshire 等公司导致的气候变化后果的年轻人说些什么？
Greg Abel: Thank you for both your question and your comments because it is important to understand Berkshire Hathaway Energy but also how they operate. Maybe using Iowa as a starting example because I think that was one of the states cited in the report.
Greg Abel：感谢你的问题与评论。理解 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 以及它们如何运营非常重要。也许可以从 Iowa 说起，因为我记得那是报告中提到的州之一。
One of the important things that I’d say early in us acquiring our energy companies – I go back to when we acquired Mid American in 1999, Berkshire purchased Mid-American in 2000. One thing that became very clear to myself and our teams was that what we do within our utilities is really driven in two fronts. One, we absolutely have to meet the requirements and the law that’s laid out federally, but most importantly, we had to recognize we implement public policy across these states.
我们早年收购能源公司的一个关键信念——回到我们在 1999 年收购 Mid American（Berkshire 在 2000 年完成收购）的时候——很快就变得清晰：公用事业的所作所为由两条主线驱动。第一，必须严格遵守联邦层面的法律与要求；更重要的是，要认识到我们是在各州落实公共政策。
And that was an interesting conversation when I go back to Iowa. Again, the report cited that as a significant problem. It was early in the 2000s when for the first time in Iowa we were going to as a utility be short of power. So, we didn’t have the energy and we entered into a significant discussion with our governor at the time and really sat down and said, “Where do you want us to go as Mid-American and what resources do you want as a state?”
回到 Iowa，这是一次颇有意思的对话——报告也把它作为一个重要问题。2000 年代初，Iowa 首次出现公用事业电力短缺。我们当时电力不足，于是与当时的州长进行了深入讨论，坐下来直面问题：“作为 Mid-American，你们希望我们走向何方？作为一个州，你们需要哪些能源资源？”
At that time, we were predominantly a coal based state. We recognize that obviously and fundamentally personally viewed it as a risk, but we needed to have that conversation with our state as to how we would manage that going forward. The interesting thing was that as we had that conversation in the early 2000s again with the leadership of our state, it was clearly decided we wanted to continue to be long power, i.e. not be short for our customers.
当时我们基本以煤为主。这一点我们很清楚，并且从根本上、就我个人也认为这是风险，但我们必须与州方讨论未来如何管理这一结构。有趣的是，2000 年代初与州领导层的讨论明确了方向：我们要“电力过剩”，也就是绝不能让客户缺电。
We discussed the type of resource and I remember a very clear conversation around we wanted to stay balanced across a variety of energy sources. At that time it was really coal and natural gas, and at that time we made the decision to build the largest wind project in the US in Iowa.
我们讨论了资源结构，我记得很清楚，当时的共识是要在多种能源之间保持平衡。当时主要还是煤与天然气，同时我们决定在 Iowa 建设全美最大的风电项目。
So we undertook an effort to build three resources, a coal plant, a gas plant, and what was the first wind project we owned in Mid-American. Again, it was very consistent with what the state wanted. But we also laid some important groundwork there because we started to define the importance of renewable energy, non-carbon resources, but it has to be consistent with what the state wanted.
因此我们推进了“三支柱”：一座燃煤电厂、一座燃气电厂、以及 Mid-American 的首个自有风电项目。这完全符合该州的诉求。同时也为未来打下基础——开始明确可再生能源与非碳资源的重要性，但必须与州政策保持一致。
And we’ve gone on over the since that period of time to deploy $16 billion into Iowa associated with renewable energy. Again, very consistent with what our state wanted us to do, i.e. the underlying policy. We don’t get to make that decision and just spend 16 billion. It’s done in conjunction with our governors, our legislators, our regulators.
自那以后，我们在 Iowa 投入了 160 亿美元用于可再生能源。这同样与州方的政策诉求高度一致。我们并不是自己“想花就花 160 亿”，而是与州长、立法机构与监管部门协同推进。
And at the same time, we’ve had the opportunity to retire five of the 10 coal units. Now, as the report highlighted, I understand people would like those other five coal units retired at this time, but to think we deployed 16 billion to retire five and it’s a very good outcome for our customers.
与此同时，我们已经退役了 10 台燃煤机组中的 5 台。报告也提到，大家希望现在就退另外 5 台，但请考虑我们投入 160 亿并退了 5 台——对客户而言这是一个很好的阶段性成果。
We’ve been able to maintain our rates. They’re some of the lowest in the country. So, it’s been done very efficiently. But the reality is we still need those five coal units to keep the system stable. We cannot have a Spain Portugal situation.
我们维持了电价水平——在全美处于较低行列。这说明推进得很高效。但现实是，为了系统稳定，我们仍需要那 5 台燃煤机组。我们不能出现类似 Spain、Portugal 的电力系统事件。
So we absolutely respect the input. We absolutely respect the process and will continue to work with each of our states to identify the path they would like to chart and we work hard to ensure there’s good balanced outcomes because we recognize the challenges associated with others’ desires. So, I think you’ll continue to see our utilities implement policy consistent with the needs of their stakeholders, their customers, and at the same time always respecting what’s required by any of the federal standards.
因此，我们完全尊重各方意见与流程，并将继续与各州合作，明确他们想要制定的路径；我们会努力实现平衡的结果，因为我们理解各种诉求背后的挑战。未来你会继续看到我们的各家公用事业公司按照利益相关者与客户的需要执行相应政策，同时始终遵守所有联邦标准的要求。
Warren Buffett: We’re spending close – it’s hard to get the precise figure, but close to 20% of GDP on health. And if you go back to 1960, there were a number of countries that were each spending around 5%. And then the lines began to diverge dramatically. But the mathematical fact that there are only 100 percentage points in the equation didn’t change.
Warren Buffett：我们在医疗上的开支接近——确切数字很难给出，但接近——GDP 的 20%。如果回到 1960 年，当时有不少国家各自大约只花 5%。此后曲线开始显著分化。但“总量只有 100 个百分点”这一数学事实并没有改变。
So we tried that experiment with JP Morgan and Amazon and we had three people that didn’t think they knew the answer, but thought that in my case I use the term that it was a tapeworm in the economy. We also found out that the tapeworm was alive in every part of the country. I mean the hospitals liked it. The hospitals had prominent people working with people. People generally like their doctor, didn’t like the system. I mean all kinds of things, but in the end, JP Morgan and Amazon and Berkshire were not going to have any effect on changing that 20%.
所以我们与 JP Morgan 和 Amazon 一起做了那个尝试。我们三个人并不自认为知道答案，但我用过一个说法：这是经济体内的一条“tapeworm（绦虫）”。我们也发现，这条“绦虫”寄生在全国每个角落。比如医院也“喜欢”它，医院里有显赫人物在与各方打交道。人们普遍喜欢他们的医生，但不喜欢这个体系。情况五花八门，但最终，JP Morgan、Amazon 和 Berkshire 不可能把那 20% 改变掉。
Now that 20% – there are only 100 percentage points available and other countries spend six or 7% and perhaps use our system to their advantage which is also very true. That is an enormous percentage of an economy and we simply – it was too entrenched to really do much in the way of change.
而那 20%——总共也就 100 个百分点，别的国家花 6% 或 7%，还可能利用我们的体系为己所用，这也确实存在。医疗占经济的比重过于庞大，而这个体系根深蒂固，我们确实很难推动实质性改变。
And we spent some money on it and we did some work and we learned a good bit about our own systems and we saw the degree to which the present system was ingrained in so many people’s lives, whether the health care providers or whether everybody. And these aren’t evil people. I mean, they’re just going about something and trying to save lives.
我们花了些钱，也做了不少工作，从中学到了很多关于我们自身体系的东西，也看到了当下体系是如何深深嵌入无数人的生活——无论是医疗服务提供者，还是普通大众。这些人并不“邪恶”，他们只是各司其职、试图挽救生命。
But we found that whether it was in Canada or France or Britain or wherever it might be, that if you looked at our costs that they were just far higher and to some extent we were subsidizing the rest of the world. And people would come to the United States to do the really unusual or challenging aspects of health in terms of operations and that sort of thing.
但我们发现，无论在 Canada、France、Britain 或其他地方，相比之下我们的成本要高得多，而且在某种程度上我们是在补贴世界其他国家。很多人在涉及高难度手术等复杂医疗时会来到 United States。
But we made no progress and there comes a point where the government – and I mean it’s so involved in the situation and health is so important to most to everybody, and we couldn’t – as I said to Jamie and Jeff, I said well the tapeworm won.
但我们没有取得进展，而到了某个节点，政府——我指的是政府在其中的深度参与——再加上医疗对几乎所有人都至关重要，我们也无能为力。正如我对 Jamie 和 Jeff 说的：“tapeworm 赢了。”
There are problems of society when you get 20% of your GDP going into a given industry, the degree of enthusiasm for changing that industry, the political power that the industry will have, and that doesn’t mean they’re evil. It’s just everybody – they just end up there.
当一个行业吃掉 GDP 的 20% 时，社会就会出现问题：你要改变该行业的热情会被削弱，该行业的政治力量会壮大。这不意味着他们“邪恶”，只是所有人最终都会被卷入到那样的格局里。
So I don’t know – we came to the conclusion we didn’t know the answer, the three of us, and we had the money to do it and we didn’t know how to change how 330 million people felt about their doctor, felt about our healthcare, what they felt entitled to.
所以我也不确定——我们三人得出的结论是：我们没有答案。我们有资金，但我们不知道如何改变 3.3 亿人对医生的感受、对医疗的看法以及他们认为自己“理应拥有”的权利。
It won’t change by itself and government is the only one that can change it and the only people in government that can change it are getting majority of 435 people and 100 people. And my dad lost one election in his life in 1948 and he was a very strong Republican and in 1950 he went back and beat the guy that beat him in 1948 and he got the doctors behind him. And they believe 100% in what they’re doing. They’re helping people every day.
这件事不会自发改变，只有政府才能改变；而政府中能改变它的人，必须在 435 人与 100 人中取得多数。我父亲一生只在 1948 年输过一次选举，他是铁杆 Republican，1950 年他又回去击败了 1948 年击败他的对手，因为他争取到了医生群体的支持。他们 100% 相信自己所做的事——他们每天都在帮助他人。
And during the pandemic, the sacrifices made by people to save other people – just incredible. Can you imagine working in something where they’re bringing in people that are going to die by the dozens and dozens and dozens and you try to somehow keep your own morale up and keep working with them. So, you can’t argue about the importance of it.
在疫情期间，人们为拯救他人所作的牺牲——令人难以置信。想象一下，你在一个场景下工作，身边不断送来一批又一批濒危的人，而你要设法保持士气并继续投入。对医疗的重要性，这是无可争辩的。
But our costs are so different than any country in the world that it’s a huge element and we’re a very rich country. So we can do things other countries can’t do. And through our elected representatives and a whole variety of things over time, we’ve developed a system that is enormously resistant to any kind of major change and it’s important in every community that it’s in.
但我们的成本与世界任何国家相比都过于悬殊，而我们又是一个非常富裕的国家，因此我们能做其他国家做不到的事。长期以来，通过民选代表和各种过程，我们形成了一个对任何重大变革都极其“抗性”的体系，而且这套体系在每个社区都举足轻重。
So, I wish we had an answer for you, but I was somewhat pessimistic going in and I was a little more pessimistic when we came out. But I’m glad we did what we did and we learned something about our own failings in the process. So, Berkshire in effect got its money’s worth, but we didn’t kill the tapeworm.
所以，我也希望能给你一个答案，但进入时我就偏悲观，出来时更悲观一些。不过我仍庆幸我们做了那次尝试，也在过程中看见了自身的不足。换言之，Berkshire 的投入没有白花，但我们没能“杀死绦虫”。
Trying to change things in government is an interesting proposition in the country because you get self-selection in terms of the people that go into government and continue in it. And to some extent they keep having to make decisions that they don’t like as they go along and they learn to accept them or rationalize them or whatever it may be.
在这个国家，试图通过政府去改变，是一个“有趣”的命题，因为走进并留在政府的人群本身就具有自我筛选的特征。在某种程度上，他们一路上会做出自己并不喜欢的决定，并逐渐学会接受、或为之寻找理由，诸如此类。
But it’s still – this country’s worked out better than any country in the world. So you can’t argue it was a failure, but you can’t argue that there are certain problems that are terribly tough to figure out ways to solve. And of course, one of them gets back to the fiscal problem I mentioned before because it’s easy to spend money and it’s hard to cut people’s receipts.
但即便如此——这个国家的运转仍优于世界上任何国家。所以你不能称之为失败；但你也不能否认，有些问题极难找到解决路径。当然，其中之一又回到我之前提到的财政问题：花钱容易、削减他人收入很难。
And if you get elected, you’re going to say to yourself, well, I can do more good if I stay, and then if I really vote my conscience on this sort of thing. So, you give away a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit there and finally you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror anymore. And that’s – I grew up in a political family, but I watched how people behaved and they behave like human beings which is what you have to expect and I behave like human beings.
而当你当选，你会告诉自己：如果我留在这里，我就能做更多好事；然后在这种事情上你若按良知投票……于是这里让一点，那里让一点，久而久之镜子里已认不出自己。我出身政治家庭，见过人们的行为模式，他们的表现与“人性”一致，这是你必须预期到的——而我也同样具有人的弱点。
We still manage to keep moving forward in dramatic way. It’s so much better to live here than it was 100 years ago or 200 years ago. It’s dramatic. So you can’t say the system’s a failure, but you can say that it is very difficult to make major changes in it.
我们仍然能以令人瞩目的方式向前推进。生活在今天远胜 100 年、200 年前，变化是剧烈的。因此不能说这套体系失败了，但可以说在其中推动重大变革极其困难。
Audience Member (Zone 5): Hi Warren Greg. My name is Pig Huang Chen. I’m from Taiwan. This is my seventh time here. First of all, I want to thank you Warren for your generosity of sharing your wisdom and lesson. You changed my life and you are my role model and my hero. And my question is, Warren, you mentioned that Greg will be in charge of capital allocation in the future and I’d like to know your perspective on is it easier for business operator to be an investor or for investor to be a business operator. Thank you.
Audience Member（Zone 5）：你好，Warren、Greg。我叫 Pig Huang Chen，来自 Taiwan。这是我第七次来到这里。首先感谢你，Warren，慷慨分享智慧与经验。你改变了我的人生，你是我的榜样与英雄。我的问题是：你提到未来由 Greg 负责资本配置。我想听听你的看法——是经营者更容易转型为投资者，还是投资者更容易转型为经营者？谢谢。
Warren Buffett: No, that’s a good question. I see we call him Greg even. Thank you. And I’ll – you’ll take it and it’s a lot tougher to be an operator. I mean it is. It’s easier to sit in a room like I do and play around with money. It’s just an easier life. That doesn’t mean it’s a more admirable life. It doesn’t, but it’s actually been a pleasant life for me. So, I don’t complain in the least.
Warren Buffett：不，这是个好问题。我看到我们都直接叫他 Greg 了。谢谢。我要说——由你来回答也行——当运营者要难得多。确实如此。像我这样坐在房间里“摆弄”资金要容易得多。这确实是种更轻松的生活。这并不意味着它更值得钦佩。并不是这样，但对我而言它的确是愉快的生活。所以我一点也不抱怨。
And I’ve been able to choose my friends, which has made an enormous difference in my life. I’ve never had to work for anybody that I really didn’t admire. I mean, that’s a luxury in life. I had five different people I worked for and they were fantastic, whether it was the manager of the local Penneys which used to be located a couple miles from here, and newspaper managers, everything. I have never been really disappointed by any teacher I’ve had.
而且我能够选择我的朋友，这对我的人生影响巨大。我从未不得不为我不敬佩的人工作。那是一种人生的奢侈。我曾为五位不同的人工作过，他们都很棒——无论是当年离这里几英里的当地 Penneys 的经理、还是报业经理，等等。我从未真正被任何一位“老师”辜负过。
But I have to admit that I’ve been able to choose what I do with my day to an extraordinary degree compared to being a business operator. And in many cases, I wouldn’t like to compete to be a top-notch business operator in terms of some of the behavior that might be forced upon me.
但我必须承认，相比作为一名企业运营者，我能在极大程度上选择自己一天要做什么。而在很多情况下，如果成为一流的企业运营者需要我被迫采取某些行为，我并不愿意参与那种竞争。
I am the master. I mean, I’ve found myself in this position where I can run the kind of company I want to run and that’s an extraordinary luxury.
我是自己的主人。我的意思是，我处在这样的位置，可以按我想要的方式经营公司——这是一种非同寻常的奢侈。
Warren Buffett: I have a five-minute warning, so I would like to turn to a subject that I want to discuss with you for a few minutes.
Warren Buffett：我收到了“五分钟提醒”，所以我想把话题转向一个我希望花几分钟跟大家讨论的事情。
Tomorrow we’re having a board meeting of Berkshire and we have 11 directors. Two of the directors who are my children, Howie and Susie, know of what I’m going to talk about. The rest of them – this will come as news to them.
明天我们将召开 Berkshire 的董事会，我们有 11 位董事。其中两位是我的孩子，Howie 和 Susie，他们知道我要说的内容。其他人——对他们来说这将是个新消息。
I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year-end. I want to spring that on the directors effectively and then give that as my recommendation. Let them have the time to think about what questions or what structures or anything that they want, and then the meeting following that, which will come in a few months, we’ll take action on whatever the view is of the 11 directors. I think they’ll be unanimously in favor of it.
我认为时机已到，Greg 应在今年年底成为公司首席执行官。我打算有效地把这个提议“抛给”董事们，并以此作为我的建议。让他们有时间思考他们想要提出的问题、组织架构或其他事项；在随后几个月内的下一次会议上，我们将按照 11 位董事的意见采取行动。我认为他们会一致赞成。
That would mean that at year-end Greg would be the chief executive officer of Berkshire. I would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases. But the final word would be what Greg said, in operations, in capital deployment, whatever it might be.
这意味着到年底 Greg 将成为 Berkshire 的首席执行官。我仍会留在身边，在某些情况下可能发挥作用。但在运营、资本投放等所有事项上，最终的决策权将由 Greg 作出。
I could be helpful, I believe, in certain respects if we ran into periods of great opportunity or anything. I think that Berkshire has a special reputation that when there are times of trouble for the government, we are an asset and not a liability, which is very hard to have because usually the public and government get very negative on business if there’s a time like that.
我相信在某些方面，如果我们遇到重大机遇等情形，我仍能提供帮助。我认为 Berkshire 拥有一种特殊声誉：当政府处于困难时期，我们是资产而非负债。这很难得，因为通常在那样的时刻，公众与政府会对企业持非常负面的看法。
But Greg would have the tickets. Whether it’s acquisitions – I think the board would be more welcome to giving him more authority on large acquisitions probably if they knew I was around. But Greg would be the chief executive, period.
但“车票”在 Greg 手里。无论是并购——我想如果董事会知道我仍在，他们大概会更愿意赋予他更大的大型并购权限。但无论如何，Greg 将是首席执行官，这一点不变。
The plan is – and Greg doesn’t know anything about this until what he’s hearing right now – that the board will be able to ask me questions tomorrow about more of the specifics of what they should be thinking about. They’ll digest it, and then at the next board meeting after that, if they act, then obviously we have something to announce to the world as a material change and we’ll go forward with that operation.
计划是——Greg 直到这一刻才第一次听到——明天董事会可以就他们需要考虑的具体问题向我提问。他们会消化这些内容，然后在之后的下一次董事会上，如若作出决定，我们显然会对外公告这一重大变更，并据此推进。
I will play with the ouija board or whatever comes out in terms of doing things. But I have no intention, zero, of selling one share of Berkshire Hathaway – it will get given away.
至于我会用“碟仙板”还是其他方式参与事务另当别论。但我没有、零意愿卖出哪怕一股 Berkshire Hathaway——这些股票将被捐赠出去。
I would add this – the decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine. There may come a time when we get a chance to invest a lot of money, and if that time comes, I think it may be helpful with the Board that they know I’ve got all my money in the company and I think it’s smart. And I’ve seen what Greg has done. So that’s the news hook for the day. And thanks for coming.
我还要补充——我保留每一股股票的决定是一个经济决定，因为我认为在 Greg 的管理下，Berkshire 的前景会优于在我手里。未来也许会有机会投入大量资金，届时若董事会知道我把全部财富都放在公司里，并且我认为这是明智之举，那会有所帮助。而且我见证了 Greg 所做的一切。这就是今天的“新闻点”。感谢各位到来。
The enthusiasm shown by the audience’s response can be interpreted in two ways. But I’ll take it as positive. Thank you.
观众反应所展现的热情可以有两种解读。但我会把它理解为正面。谢谢大家。