Now, the general premise of why you’re interested in something should be 80 percent of it or thereabouts. I mean, you don’t want to be chasing down every idea that way, so you should have a strong presumption.
不过,你之所以对某项投资感兴趣的基本前提应当占到大约80%。我的意思是,你不想用这种方法追踪每一个想法,所以你需要有一个强有力的假设前提。
You should be like a basketball coach who runs into a seven-footer on the street. I mean, you’re interested to start with; now you have to find out if you can keep him in school, if he’s coordinated, and all that sort of thing. That’s the scuttlebutt aspect of it.
你应该像一个篮球教练在街上遇到一个七英尺高的球员一样。我的意思是,你一开始就应该感兴趣;然后你需要了解他是否能留在学校,是否协调,诸如此类的事情。这就是“走访调查法”的一个方面。
But I believe that as you’re acquiring knowledge about industries in general, companies specifically, that there really isn’t anything like first doing some reading about them, and then getting out and talking to competitors, and customers, and suppliers, and ex-employees, and current employees, and whatever it may be.
但我相信,在你获取行业一般知识和具体公司信息时,确实没有什么比先阅读资料,然后与竞争对手、客户、供应商、前雇员、现雇员以及其他相关人士交流更有效的方法了。
And you will learn a lot. But it should be the last 20 percent or 10 percent. I mean, you don’t want to get too impressed by that, because you really want to start with a business where you think the economics are good, where they look like seven-footers, and then you want to go out with a scuttlebutt approach to possibly reject your original hypothesis.
你会从中学到很多。但这应该是最后的20%或10%的工作。我的意思是,你不想对这些印象过深,因为你确实应该从一家你认为经济状况良好的企业开始,就像那些七英尺高的篮球运动员一样,然后用“走访调查法”来验证或否定你的原始假设。