AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Jerry McLaughlin. I’m from San Mateo, California. First, I just want to thank you for all the effort you put into the annual reports, the letters, and these conversations. I’ve learned a lot, and they’re terrific, which is why I’m here from half a country away. (Applause) You know, you’ve said that great companies are those that have an economic moat, and I understand that phrase to mean a sustainable competitive advantage. Do businesses begin their lives with sustainable competitive advantages, or must that be developed over a very long time? And then, what are the fundamental bases upon which you’ve seen companies successfully develop sustainable competitive advantages? Of those, which do you think is the most enduring and which is the least?

观众：早上好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫 Jerry McLaughlin，来自加利福尼亚州 San Mateo。首先，我想感谢你们在年报、信件以及这些对话中投入的所有心力。我从中学到了很多，这些内容非常精彩，这也是为什么我从半个国家之外专程赶来这里。（掌声）你们曾说，伟大的公司是那些拥有经济护城河的公司，而我理解这个说法指的是可持续的竞争优势。企业在诞生之初就会具备可持续的竞争优势吗，还是说这必须经过很长时间的发展才能形成？另外，你们所见过的公司成功建立可持续竞争优势，最根本的基础有哪些？在这些基础当中，你认为哪一种最持久，哪一种最不持久？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, sometimes they can develop it very quickly. I mean, I would say that Microsoft, in terms of the operating system, you know, that was a relatively quick development. But that was an industry that was exploding, and things were changing very fast. On the other hand, if you go back to See’s Candy, which started in 1921, you know, there was no way you could build a sustainable competitive advantage, at least that would be recognizable, in times measured shorter than decades. I mean, you opened up one shop at a time, and nobody’d heard of you originally, and then a few people did. And boxed chocolates were something that, you know, people may have bought once or twice a year for a holiday occasion or whatever. So, you weren’t going to embed yourself in the minds of Californians in one or two or five years just because you were turning out, you know, outstanding box of chocolates. So it depends on the way the industry itself is developing. Walmart has done a fabulous job in a — an incredible job — in quite a short period of time.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，有时候它们可以非常快地建立起来。比如说，我会认为 Microsoft 在操作系统这一块，发展得就相对很快。不过，那是一个正在爆发式增长的行业，变化也非常迅速。另一方面，如果你回头看 See’s Candy——它创立于1921年——你就会明白，想建立一种可持续的竞争优势，至少是那种人们能够明确辨认出来的竞争优势，如果用短于几十年的时间尺度来衡量，那几乎是不可能的。我的意思是，你一次只开一家店，最开始根本没人听说过你，后来才有少数人知道你。而盒装巧克力这种东西，人们也许一年只会在节假日之类的场合买上一两次。所以，你不可能仅仅因为做出了极其出色的盒装巧克力，就在一两年、五年之内深深植入加州人的心智当中。所以，这要取决于行业本身是如何发展的。Walmart 在相当短的时间里做得极其出色——简直是不可思议地出色。

But even they, you know, they took it in the small towns, and they progressed along, and refined their techniques as they went. But I would say that there could be things in new industries. I would say with NetJets, we have a sustainable competitive advantage. And that’s an industry that was only originated in 1986 when Rich Santulli got the idea, and it was in its infancy — I mean total infancy — for a good many years after that. But what he has built, and is building and fortifying, is that sustainable competitive advantage. But it depends very much on the industry you’re in. And I mean, Coca-Cola, 1886, Jacobs Pharmacy, Atlanta, Georgia, you know, John Pemberton came up with a product. And did he have a sustainable competitive advantage that day? If he did, he blew it because he sold the place for 2,000 bucks to Asa Candler. He did — and it took decades, thousands of competitors over that time, and — you know, but they were painting one barn at a time and designing one Saturday Evening Post ad at a time, and all of that.

不过，即便是他们，也是先从小城镇做起，边推进边不断打磨自己的方法。但我会说，在新兴行业里，的确可能有一些公司能比较快地建立起这种优势。我会说，NetJets 就拥有可持续的竞争优势。而这个行业其实直到1986年 Rich Santulli 产生那个想法时才刚刚诞生，在之后的很多年里，它都还处在萌芽期——我是说，完全的萌芽期。但他已经建立起来、并且还在持续建设和加固的，正是这种可持续的竞争优势。不过，这仍然非常取决于你所处的行业。再比如 Coca-Cola，1886年，在乔治亚州亚特兰大的 Jacobs Pharmacy，John Pemberton 发明了一种产品。那么，他在那一天就拥有可持续的竞争优势了吗？如果有的话，那他也把它浪费掉了，因为他后来只用2000美元就把这门生意卖给了 Asa Candler。之后又经历了几十年时间、成千上万的竞争对手——但他们是一块广告牌一块广告牌地刷，一则《Saturday Evening Post》广告一则广告地设计，一步一步做出来的，等等。

And — and pebbles — you know, around the world in World War II, General Eisenhower went to Mr. Woodruff and he said, “I want a Coke within the arm’s length of every American serviceman.” He said, “I want something to remind them of home.” And so he built a lot of bottling plants for Coke around the world. And that was a huge impetus. But that was, what, 60 years or so after the product was invented. So it takes — it takes a long time in certain kinds of products, but I could see certain areas of the world where a huge competitive advantage is built in a very short period of time. I would say that probably, in terms of animated feature-length films, for example, Walt Disney did that. And after “Snow White” and a few more, it took him a while until he could cash in on it, but he — it became Disney and nobody else in that field for quite a while, and fairly quickly. Charlie?

而且——一点一滴地累积——你知道，在第二次世界大战期间，艾森豪威尔将军去找 Woodruff 先生，对他说：“我希望每一位美国军人伸手可及的地方都有一瓶 Coca-Cola。”他说：“我想给他们一些能让他们想起家的东西。”于是，他们在世界各地为 Coca-Cola 建了很多装瓶厂。这是一个巨大的推动力。但那已经是这款产品发明出来大约60年之后的事了。所以，在某些类型的产品上，这确实需要很长时间；但我也能想象，在世界上某些领域里，巨大的竞争优势可以在非常短的时间内建立起来。我想，举例来说，在动画长篇电影这个领域，Walt Disney 大概就做到了这一点。在《Snow White》以及后面的几部作品之后，他还花了一些时间才真正把这种优势变现，但很快，这个领域就成了 Disney 的天下，在相当长一段时间里，别人都无法与之匹敌。Charlie？

BUFFETT: People want to be entertained and they want to be informed. I mean, the demand for that is huge, is worldwide, it’s going to go on forever. So you know, newspapers satisfy that in a very important way, particularly on a local basis. And the nature of newspapers was that you didn’t want to subscribe to five of them, you subscribed to one and if there were two in town and one had 1,000 ads and one had 200 ads, you were going to buy the one with 1,000 ads because it told you were more jobs were available, more apartments were available, it gave you more sports news and whatever. So it lent itself to a single product. Now you have media where you go to the Internet and you can go— you can essentially hop from one source to another, you know, in a— in a fraction of a second. So it’s a different— it’s a whole different equation. It isn’t— the desire for entertainment and information, you know, is— will be around forever. It’s insatiable. How to get paid for it appropriately, you know, the world has changed and it’s changed dramatically, and I do not consider myself an expert in the least about where media is going to go in the next 10 or 20 years. I do not know where the money is going to be made. Somebody will make a lot of money, but I’m just not that good at picking the future on it. I understood the past on that. I understood the big network television station. I mean, back when there were three networks only in the ’60s, you could have run a test pattern, you know, on your television station and made a lot of money. It was— it was— it was a cinch. The orders came in over the transom. But all of a sudden they started putting more highways out there, more electronic highways and the fact that you had one of the three electronic highways diminished in importance enormously, so now you’ve got a network that is getting a 10 percent share, losing tons of money, and you’ll have a network with, you know, a 2 share, like ESPN, making a fortune because of the way the dynamics have worked out. I don’t have any great insights on that for the future. If I did, I’d— it’s just— I’m just not smart enough.

BUFFETT：人们希望被娱乐，也希望获得信息。我的意思是，这种需求是巨大的，是全球性的，而且会永远存在。所以你知道，报纸在这方面以一种非常重要的方式满足了这种需求，尤其是在本地层面。而报纸的特性在于，你不会订阅五份报纸，你只会订阅一份；如果一个城市里有两份报纸，一份有 1000 条广告，另一份只有 200 条，你会选择那份有 1000 条广告的，因为它会告诉你更多的工作机会、更多的房源信息，还会提供更多体育新闻等等。所以这种模式天然适合单一产品。现在的媒体不同了，你可以上互联网，你可以——你可以在极短时间内，从一个信息源跳到另一个信息源。所以这已经是完全不同的——完全不同的逻辑。并不是——对娱乐和信息的需求，你知道，是——会永远存在的，是无止境的。问题在于如何从中获得合理的收益，你知道，世界已经改变了，而且是剧烈地改变了，而我一点也不认为自己是媒体未来 10 年或 20 年发展方向的专家。我不知道钱会在哪里赚到。肯定会有人赚很多钱，但我并不擅长判断这种未来。我理解过去。我理解大型电视网的时代。我的意思是，在 60 年代只有三大电视网的时候，你甚至可以在电视台播放测试图案，也能赚很多钱。这是——这是——这是轻而易举的事。订单会源源不断地自己进来。但突然之间，他们开始铺设更多“高速公路”，更多电子信息通道，而你拥有其中三条电子通道之一这一点，其重要性大幅下降，于是现在你会看到一个电视网占有 10% 收视份额却亏损严重，而另一个只有 2% 份额的频道，比如 ESPN，却赚得盆满钵满，因为行业结构发生了变化。对于未来，我没有什么深刻见解。如果我有的话，我——只是——我没那么聪明。

JOE: I hear what you’re saying, it’s the same problem everyone has. I don’t even know, is it content? Is that king? Or is it delivery, like Apple? I mean, you look at, Apple might be the perfect company for when I— when I, you know, with all these mobile devices.

JOE：我明白你的意思，这也是每个人面临的同样问题。我甚至不知道，是内容吗？内容为王？还是分发渠道，比如 Apple？我的意思是，你看看 Apple，随着这些移动设备的发展，它可能就是最完美的公司。

BUFFETT: Yeah.

BUFFETT：对。

JOE: But I don’t even know whether it’s content or the distribution that is— that win.

JOE：但我甚至不知道，究竟是内容，还是分发渠道，最终会胜出。

BUFFETT: Well, if you’re the best heavyweight fighter in the world, which is the way I often think of you, Joe, actually, but if you’re the best heavyweight fighter in the world, if you’re the best singer in the world, you know, whatever it may be, you’ve got the ultimate asset. I mean, the delivery mechanism will pay you one way or another and you can command it from them. But obviously, I’m not— I’m not in a position to compete in that game. So the only way I can compete is in the delivery mechanisms and all that and I’m just not that smart. But the answer is I don’t have to be right about everything or even understand everything, I don’t have to know what cocoa beans are going to do or what cotton’s going to do, I just have to right on the decisions I make. So I stay with the simple things. Now a simple thing many years ago, back in 1965 I owned 5 percent of Disney and the whole Disney company was selling for $80 million, so at 4 million bucks bought 5 percent of the company. Well, Disney had a tremendous franchise and they could bring out “Snow White” every seven years or “Mary Poppins” or whatever it might be and wrote them down to zero, initially. Well, that was an easy decision. But I don’t see easy decisions like that now and if I don’t see an easy decision, I don’t play.

BUFFETT：嗯，如果你是世界上最优秀的重量级拳击手——其实我常常这么看你，Joe——但如果你真的是世界上最优秀的重量级拳击手，或者是世界上最顶级的歌手，不管是什么，你就拥有终极资产。我的意思是，分发渠道迟早会为你买单，你也可以向它们索取。但显然，我并不具备在那种领域竞争的能力。所以我唯一能参与的方式就是在分发渠道之类的环节，但我也没有那么聪明。不过关键在于，我不需要在所有事情上都正确，甚至不需要理解所有事情。我不需要知道可可豆会怎样，也不需要知道棉花会怎样，我只需要在我做出的决策上是正确的。所以我坚持做简单的事情。很多年前，在 1965 年，我持有 Disney 5% 的股份，当时整个 Disney 公司市值只有 8000 万美元，所以我用 400 万美元买了 5% 的股份。Disney 拥有极其强大的特许经营能力，他们可以每隔七年推出一次《Snow White》或《Mary Poppins》之类的作品，而且当时这些资产在账面上几乎被摊销为零。这是一个非常容易的决策。但现在我看不到这样的简单机会，如果我看不到一个简单明确的机会，我就不会出手。