I.H.100.Warren Buffett.Right Business
巴菲特有一个几十年不变的股票投资策略：“Right Business、Right People、Right Price”，最早形成于1977年的股东信：《1978-03-14 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
We select our marketable equity securities in much the same way we would evaluate a business for acquisition in its entirety.W e want the business to be (1) one that we can understand, (2) with favorable long-term prospects, (3) operated by honest and competent people, and (4) available at a very attractive price. We ordinarily make no attempt to buy equities for anticipated favorable stock price behavior in the short term. In fact, fi their business experience continues to satisfy us, we welcome lower market prices of stocks we own as an opportunity to acquire even more of a good thing at a better price.
我们投资股票的选择方式与买进整家企业的模式很相近，我们想要的企业必须是： (1) 我们能够理解； (2) 具有良好的长期前景； (3) 由诚实且能干的人经营； (4) 非常吸引人的价格。我们通常不会因为预期短期股价走势有利而去买股票。事实上，只要我们对其经营表现的判断依然满意，我们反而欢迎所持股票的市场价格下跌，因为那意味着我们可以用更好的价格，买到更多同样好的东西。
策略的开头和结尾都跟理解人类的行为有关：（1）“我们能够理解的生意”即能力圈；（2）“由诚实且能干的人经营”指向别人，“非常吸引人的价格”则指向自己。
在这个主题中，我们主要针对“Right Business”做深入的讨论，如何区分企业的好坏？什么样的企业是好的？
1、Right Business
巴菲特对“Right Business”总的定义是“ with favorable long-term prospects”（具有良好的长期前景），如何理解“良好的长期前景”？这类企业具有什么样的特征？巴菲特在1991年的股东信中总结了“franchise”（特许经营），参考：《1992-02-28 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
An economic franchise arises from a product or service that: (1) is needed or desired; (2) is thought by its customers to have no close substitute and; (3) is not subject to price regulation. The existence of all three conditions will be demonstrated by a company’s ability to regularly price its product or service aggressively and thereby to earn high rates of return on capital. Moreover, franchises can tolerate mis-management. Inept managers may diminish a franchise’s profitability, but they cannot inflict mortal damage.
所谓“经济意义上的特许经营”，来源于一种产品或服务，它：（1）被需要或被渴望；（2）在客户心中没有接近的替代品；（3）不受价格管制。这三项条件是否齐备，会通过一家公司能否经常性地对其产品或服务进行强势定价、并因此赚取高资本回报率而得到验证。更进一步，特许经营能够容忍管理不善：无能的经理人可能会降低特许经营的盈利能力，但无法造成致命伤害。
2007年的股东信换了另一种说法：护城河，参考：《2008-02 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
A truly great business must have an enduring “moat” that protects excellent returns on invested capital. The dynamics of capitalism guarantee that competitors will repeatedly assault any business “castle” that is earning high returns. Therefore a formidable barrier such as a company’s being the lowcost producer (GEICO, Costco) or possessing a powerful world-wide brand (Coca-Cola, Gillette, American Express) is essential for sustained success. Business history is filled with “Roman Candles,” companies whose moats proved illusory and were soon crossed.
真正伟大的企业必须拥有可持续的“护城河”，以守护其出色的投入资本回报。资本主义的动力机制决定了：凡是能获得高回报的商业“城堡”，竞争者都会一再攻城。因此，像成为行业低成本生产者（GEICO、Costco）或拥有强大的全球品牌（Coca-Cola、Gillette、American Express）这样的坚固壁垒，是长期成功的关键。商业史充斥着“Roman Candles”式的公司——它们的护城河被证明是虚幻的，很快就被跨越。
我在这里将两种描述做了综合。
（1）a stable industry
1991年的“needed or desired”实际指向长期存在的需求，不是短期潮流、一次性时髦、靠新奇而非长期偏好支撑的需求，比如，巴菲特经常举的例子：hula hoops / pet rocks。
巴菲特给出的正面案例写在2014年的股东信中，包括：（1）铁路/能源；（2）住宅/汽车；（3）保险，参考：《2015-02-27 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
Those building blocks rest on a rock-solid foundation. A century hence, BNSF and Berkshire Hathaway Energy will still be playing vital roles in our economy. Homes and autos will remain central to the lives of most families. Insurance will continue to be essential for both businesses and individuals. Looking ahead, Charlie and I see a world made to order for Berkshire. We feel fortunate to be entrusted with its management.
这些构件建立在坚如磐石的基础之上。一个世纪之后，BNSF和Berkshire Hathaway Energy仍将在人类经济中发挥关键作用。住宅和汽车仍将是大多数家庭生活的核心。保险对企业和个人依然不可或缺。展望未来，Charlie和我看到一个为Berkshire量身定制的世界。我们很幸运被托付去管理它。
行业有长期的经济前景不等于企业就有可持续的“护城河”，但是行业的基本属性会起到非常重要的作用。巴菲特在2007年的股东信中有一句总结性的话：“Long-term competitive advantage in a stable industry is what we seek in a business”（我们在企业中寻找的是：处于稳定行业中的长期竞争优势）。
（2）“moat”
如果没有护城河的保护（没有持久的竞争优势），投入的资本就有可能被吞蚀，先是不知不觉，后面是“被动且强制”的走向失败，那么什么是“护城河”？1991年股东信指向“franchise”（特许经营），其中第2个标准是“is thought by its customers to have no close substitute”（在客户心中没有接近的替代品），2007年的股东信换成了“moat”（护城河）。
巴菲特认为“ with favorable long-term prospects”（具有良好的长期前景）可以有两个分支：lowcost producer、a powerful world-wide brand，不只有“franchise”（特许经营）下不断“提价”这一个选项。
可以从DCF（Discounted Cash Flow，未来现金流折现）的角度理解两种形式的“护城河”，一个企业要想赚到越来越多的钱（持续的增长）就两种方式：1、提价/强势定价；2、扩大市场份额，前者的Attention是“做好自己”，后者需要跟竞争对手抢夺生意，是退而求其次的生存状态，有常识的很容易想明白两者之间的本质区别。
- a powerful world-wide brand
原来的写法是“is thought by its customers to have no close substitute”（在客户心中没有接近的替代品），而“a powerful world-wide brand”更体现结果的重要性，关键词：share of mind、pricing power、“少变化、少杠杆、长期高ROE”。
- pricing power
定价权是最重要的单一变量，参考：《2010-05-26 Warren Buffett.Interview With FCIC》。WARREN BUFFETT:There is no staff. I make all the investment decisions and I do all my own analysis. And basically it was an evaluation both of Dun and Bradstreet and Moody’s but of the economics of their business. And I never met with anybody. Dun and Bradstreet had a very good business and Moody’s had an even better business. And basically the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. You’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, and you’ve got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent (laughs), then you got a terrible business. And I’ve been in both and I know the difference.Warren Buffett：没有什么团队。我做所有投资决策，也做所有分析。基本上，我评估的是 Dun and Bradstreet 与 Moody’s 的业务经济性（economics of their business）。而且我从未与任何人见面。Dun and Bradstreet 的生意非常好，而 Moody’s 的生意更好。说到底，评估一家企业时最重要的单一决策因素，就是定价权（pricing power）。如果你能提价而不把生意拱手让给竞争对手，那你就拥有一家非常好的企业。反过来，如果你每次把价格提高十分之一美分之前还得先开个祷告会（笑），那你拥有的就是一家糟糕的企业。我两种生意都做过，所以我知道其中区别。
- share of mind
巴菲特认为心智份额约等于市场份额，什么样的产品能在客户的心智中长期保持？巴菲特经常举的例子是see's candy、Coca-Cola，这些品牌在用户心智中留下的都是正面、美好的感觉。而乔布斯认为品牌是跟价值观绑定的，参考：《1997-09-23 Steve Jobs.Introduced the “Think Different”.》。To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world, and we’re not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.对我来说，marketing 讲的是价值观。这是一个非常复杂的世界，这个世界非常嘈杂，我们没有机会让人们记住我们太多。没有哪家公司能做到，因此，我们必须清楚我们希望他们了解我们的哪些信息。
没有比他讲的更好的解释：“这是一个非常复杂的世界，这个世界非常嘈杂”，正面、美好再加上简单优雅的价值观是占据用户心智的最有效方法。我在这里想举两个例子，一个是76岁的大爷，参考：《76岁大爷哭了：最美校花，是我初恋，这辈子值了！》。我们学校最漂亮，家里最有钱的女孩一下子就抱住了我，快吻我，快吻我。。。
这跟巴菲特描述see's candy的场景是一样的，如果一盒巧克力在中间起了点作用，那么巧克力可以跟随这种美好的记忆停留非常长的时间。
如果再深入观察，Coca-Cola，Dairy Queen，See's candy，Helzberg/Borsheim，这些摆在一起明显有共同的特征，强度从need的Coca-Cola到desired的Helzberg/Borsheim，最终，成长的最好、跑的最远的是基于刚需的Coca-Cola（饮料），后面三个（Dairy Queen，See's candy，Helzberg/Borsheim）从谈恋爱到结婚，都需要美好的感觉，可靠的承诺，这些又都是提价能力的基础。相反的例子是医药行业，如果仔细思考，医药在两条护城河的路线中是找不到位置的：（1）医药肯定不是低成本取胜的商品化业务，需要投入大量的研发；（2）另一方面医药也很难建立强大的品牌，医药给人的印象通常是和痛苦挂钩的，而痛苦在人的心智中停留的时间非常短，最长不超过18个月；（3）医药跟巴菲特描述市场泡沫的起因有非常相似的地方，一半是真的，一半是自己想象出来（病痛更容易出现这种幻觉），他们有同一个底层机制：“真实需求 + 高不确定性 + 可讲故事空间大” 的地方，主要赚钱的方式是骗。
- 少变化、少杠杆、长期高ROE
定价权是最重要的单一因素，而“少变化、少杠杆、长期高ROE”是这类企业所呈现的综合素质，好生意自然展现好的生存状态，参考：《1988-02-29 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。The Fortune champs may surprise you in two respects. First, most use very little leverage compared to their interest-paying capacity. Really good businesses usually don’t need to borrow. Second, except for one company that is “high-tech” and several others that manufacture ethical drugs, the companies are in businesses that, on balance, seem rather mundane. Most sell non-sexy products or services in much the same manner as they did ten years ago (though in larger quantities now, or at higher prices, or both). The record of these 25 companies confirms that making the most of an already strong business franchise, or concentrating on a single winning business theme, is what usually produces exceptional economics.Fortune 的冠军公司可能会在两个方面让你感到意外。第一，它们相对于自身支付利息的能力，使用的杠杆普遍很低。真正优秀的企业通常不需要借钱。第二，除了一家“高科技”公司和几家生产处方药的公司之外，这些公司的业务整体看起来相当“朴素”。大多数公司卖的都是“不性感”的产品或服务，而且销售方式与十年前大体相同（只是如今卖得更多、价格更高，或两者兼有）。这25家公司的记录证明：把一个本来就很强的商业特许经营权发挥到极致，或专注于一个单一的制胜商业主题，通常才是产生卓越经济回报的路径。
- lowcost producer
这是两个版本（1991/2007）重点修改的部分，巴菲特对通过成本优势建立护城河有了更多的信心，lowcost producer的关键词：Commodity businesses（商品化的业务），Something that people need（刚需），as a low-cost operator for a much longer time（长期、结构化的成本优势），can be killed by poor management（不能经受糟糕的管理）。
- Commodity businesses
商品化的特点是缺少差异化，比如，Wells Fargo（银行）、GEICO（保险）、Costco（零售），这些企业有成本优势但也很难垄断整个市场（政府不允许，消费者也不允许）。
- Something that people need
商品化的业务更依赖扎实的用户需求，最好是刚需和必需品，GEICO的汽车保险是最典型的例子。
- as a low-cost operator for a much longer time
长期、结构化的成本优势，需要注意的是最终形成优势的往往不是新的设备、新的技术，而是某种心理上难以复制的能力，比如，汽车保险和零售业都是非常传统并且稳定的行业，GEICO和Costco因为革新的做法一点点吞蚀呆在原地不动的竞争对手。
- can be killed by poor management
A competitively-beset business such as USAir requires far more managerial skill than does a business with fine economics. Unfortunately, though, the near-term reward for skill in the airline business is simply survival, not prosperity.像 USAir 这种被竞争围困的业务，对管理能力的要求远高于一家经济属性优良的企业。不幸的是，在航空业，管理出色在短期内得到的回报往往只是“活下来”，而不是“繁荣”。
强竞争的商业模式非常考验管理能力：（1）最好能想出结构性的成本优势，能保持比较长的时间；（2）时刻保持聪明，保持强大的执行力，不进则退；（3）一旦跌下去很难再回来。
（3）enduring “moat”
巴菲特列了两个排除的指标：处于快速且持续变革的行业，以及成败系于“名帅”的企业。
- 处于快速且持续变革的行业
若护城河必须不断重建，最终就等同于没有护城河，除此以外，快速且持续的变化还有一连串的问题，包括眼睛盯着快速变富本身就是风险；快速变化在企业经营中会造成天然的紧张，人在紧张状态下更容易做出不理性的决策，等等。
- 成败系于“名帅”的企业
内在价值是企业未来现金流的折现，“名帅”也许能暂时获得超额且增长的收益，但这对其未来并无太多说明。“名帅”属于极端的假设条件，极端假设条件下才成立的事情更像是赌博。
2、Business
FlightSafety，巴菲特在2007年股东信里举的第2个例子，这个例子隐含了危险的信号，参考：《2008-02 Warren Buffett.Businesses – The Great, the Good and the Gruesome》。
Last year See’s sales were $383 million, and pre-tax profits were $82 million. The capital now required to run the business is $40 million. This means we have had to reinvest only $32 million since 1972 to handle the modest physical growth – and somewhat immodest financial growth – of the business. In the meantime pre-tax earnings have totaled $1.35 billion. All of that, except for the $32 million, has been sent to Berkshire (or, in the early years, to Blue Chip). After paying corporate taxes on the profits, we have used the rest to buy other attractive businesses. Just as Adam and Eve kick-started an activity that led to six billion humans, See’s has given birth to multiple new streams of cash for us. (The biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply” is one we take seriously at Berkshire.)
去年 See’s 的销售额为 3.83 亿美元，税前利润为 8,200 万美元。如今运营该业务所需资本为 4,000 万美元。这意味着自 1972 年以来，我们仅需再投资 3,200 万美元，便能支撑业务有限的物理扩张——以及相当“不有限”的财务扩张。同时期累计税前利润已达 13.5 亿美元。除这 3,200 万美元外，全部利润都上缴给了 Berkshire（早年则交给 Blue Chip）。在缴纳公司所得税后，我们用剩余资金去收购其他有吸引力的企业。正如 Adam and Eve 开启了最终导致 60 亿人口的活动一样，See’s 为我们“繁衍”出了多条新的现金流。（“要生养众多”这一圣经训令，在 Berkshire 我们是认真的。）
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Nevertheless, this business requires a significant reinvestment of earnings if it is to grow. When we purchased FlightSafety in 1996, its pre-tax operating earnings were $111 million, and its net investment in fixed assets was $570 million. Since our purchase, depreciation charges have totaled $923 million. But capital expenditures have totaled $1.635 billion, most of that for simulators to match the new airplane models that are constantly being introduced. (A simulator can cost us more than $12 million, and we have 273 of them.) Our fixed assets, after depreciation, now amount to $1.079 billion. Pre-tax operating earnings in 2007 were $270 million, a gain of $159 million since 1996. That gain gave us a good, but far from See’s-like, return on our incremental investment of $509 million.
尽管如此，这项业务若要增长，就需要对盈利进行大量再投资。我们在 1996 年收购 FlightSafety 时，其税前经营利润为 1.11 亿美元，固定资产净投资为 5.7 亿美元。自收购以来，累计折旧为 9.23 亿美元；但资本开支合计达到 16.35 亿美元，其中大部分用于采购与不断推出的新机型相匹配的模拟机。（一台模拟机成本可超过 1,200 万美元，我们共拥有 273 台。）目前我们的固定资产（扣除折旧后）为 10.79 亿美元。2007 年税前经营利润为 2.7 亿美元，较 1996 年增加 1.59 亿美元。就这 5.09 亿美元的增量投资而言，回报“不错”，但远非 See’s 式的卓越。
首先是FlightSafety和See's candy在资本效率上的对比，两组数据：
- FlightSafety，1996年到2007年，增量资本投入5.09亿美元，增量的税前利润1.59亿美元，增量资本回报率=1.59/5.09=31%，即每投入 3.2美元 的新增资本，每年能多赚 1美元；
- See's candy，从1972年到2007年，增量资本投入3200万美元，增量的税前利润8200-500=7700万美元，增量资本回报率=7700/3200=240%，即每投入0.41美元 的新增资本，每年能多赚 1美元。
两者的重要差别还在于FlightSafety的投入是“被动且强制”的：FlightSafety 的大部分资本开支（16.35亿美元）是用于“采购与不断推出的新机型相匹配的模拟机” 。如果它不花这笔钱，它的护城河就会被侵蚀，客户就会流失。
“被动且强制”的（institutional imperative，制度性强制力）是个危险的信号，如果失去定价权就个生意就麻烦了，institutional imperative，这个词应该是巴菲特自己创造的，用来描述人的心理状态，同样适用于企业，这个词的另一面就是护城河（持久的竞争优势），如果没有就会进入“institutional imperative”的状态，对institutional imperative保持敏感，对护城河（持久的竞争优势）有持续的追求是一回事，要么同时存在，要么同时消失。
没有护城河保护的商业模式怎么做都有问题，缺少韧性，始终处于不确定的状态，参考：《1992-02-28 Warren Buffett.Right Business》。
In contrast, “a business” earns exceptional profits only if it is the low-cost operator or if supply of its product or service is tight. Tightness in supply usually does not last long. With superior management, a company may maintain its status as a low-cost operator for a much longer time, but even then unceasingly faces the possibility of competitive attack. And a business, unlike a franchise, can be killed by poor management.
相对地，“生意”（business）只有在两种情况下才会获得超额利润：要么它是最低成本运营者，要么它所提供的产品或服务处在供给偏紧的状态，供给偏紧通常不会持续太久。即使在更优秀的管理下，一家公司也许能更长时间保持其最低成本地位，但即便如此，它仍会持续面临竞争对手的攻击风险。而且，“生意”不同于特许经营：糟糕的管理是可能把它“做死”的。
（1）low-cost operator
不能在产品上获得定价权，就此失去大部分的最优解，维持低成本的竞争优势是非常困难的，竞争压力和保持理性是相互冲突的，所以需要更优秀的管理团队。
典型例子是巴菲特买过的几家鞋厂：Brown Shoe、Dexter Shoe，参考：《1992-02-28 Warren Buffett.H. H. Brown》。
Brown (which, by the way, has no connection to Brown Shoe of St. Louis) is the leading North American manufacturer of work shoes and boots, and it has a history of earning unusually fine margins on sales and assets. Shoes are a tough business—of the billion pairs purchased in the United States each year, about 85% are imported —and most manufacturers in the industry do poorly. The wide range of styles and sizes that producers offer causes inventories to be heavy; substantial capital is also tied up in receivables. In this kind of environment, only outstanding managers like Frank and the group developed by Mr. Heffernan can prosper.
Brown（顺便说一句，它与 St. Louis 的 Brown Shoe 毫无关系）是北美领先的工作鞋与工装靴制造商，并且长期以来在销售与资产上都能赚到异常优异的利润率。鞋业是个艰难的行业——美国每年购买的约10亿双鞋中，大约85%依赖进口——行业里大多数制造商都经营得很差。由于生产商提供的款式与尺码组合极其繁多，库存往往很重；同时，应收账款也会占用大量资本。在这种环境里，只有像 Frank 以及 Heffernan 先生培养出来的团队那样卓越的管理者，才能做得好、做得久。
鞋厂最终是失败的，就像巴菲特自己说的：“当一个“以卓越著称”的管理层，遇到一门“以经济性差著称”的生意时，最终能被证明始终成立的，往往是这门生意“经济性很差”的名声”。
McLane可能是为数不多的正面案例，一家给零售商做配送的企业，巴菲特对这家企业有几段评论，其中一段是刚买入时的评价，参考：《2004-02-27 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
In early spring, Byron Trott, a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, told me that Wal-Mart wished to sell its McLane subsidiary. McLane distributes groceries and nonfood items to convenience stores, drug stores, wholesale clubs, mass merchandisers, quick service restaurants, theaters and others. It’s a good business, but one not in the mainstream of Wal-Mart’s future. It’s made to order, however, for us.
初春时节，Goldman Sachs 的董事总经理 Byron Trott 告诉我，Wal-Mart 想出售其 McLane 子公司。McLane 向便利店、药店、批发俱乐部（wholesale clubs）、大型综合零售商（mass merchandisers）、快餐连锁（quick service restaurants）、影院等客户分销食品杂货与非食品商品。这是一门好生意，但并不属于 Wal-Mart 未来战略的主航道；不过对我们而言，却是量身定做。
McLane has sales of about $23 billion, but operates on paper-thin margins — about 1% pre-tax — and will swell Berkshire’s sales figures far more than our income. In the past, some retailers had shunned McLane because it was owned by their major competitor. Grady Rosier, McLane’s superb CEO, has already landed some of these accounts — he was in full stride the day the deal closed — and more will come.
McLane 年销售额约 230 亿美元，但利润率薄得像纸——税前大约只有 1%——它会把伯克希尔的“营收数字”推高很多，却不会同等幅度地增加我们的“利润数字”。过去，一些零售商曾刻意回避 McLane，因为它归他们的主要竞争对手所有。McLane 出色的 CEO Grady Rosier 已经把其中一些客户争取了回来——交易完成当天他就已经火力全开——未来还会有更多客户加入。
For several years, I have given my vote to Wal-Mart in the balloting for Fortune Magazine’s “Most Admired” list. Our McLane transaction reinforced my opinion. To make the McLane deal, I had a single meeting of about two hours with Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart’s CFO, and we then shook hands. (He did, however, first call Bentonville). Twenty-nine days later Wal-Mart had its money. We did no “due diligence.” We knew everything would be exactly as Wal-Mart said it would be — and it was.
多年来，在 Fortune Magazine 的“Most Admired（最受赞赏）”评选投票中，我一直把票投给 Wal-Mart。这笔 McLane 交易，让我的看法更坚定。为了促成交易，我只与 Wal-Mart 的 CFO Tom Schoewe 见了一次面，约两个小时，然后我们就握手成交。（当然，他事先还是给 Bentonville 打了电话。）29 天后，Wal-Mart 就拿到了钱。我们没有做任何“尽职调查（due diligence）”。我们知道 Wal-Mart 说的一切都会分毫不差——事实也确实如此。
当时买入的理由就比较牵强，可能是因为欣赏Wal-Mart。
金融危机之后有一段评论，参考：《2010-02-26 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
Almost all of the many and widely-diverse operations in this sector suffered to one degree or another from 2009’s severe recession. The major exception was McLane, our distributor of groceries, confections and non-food items to thousands of retail outlets, the largest by far Wal-Mart.
本板块中几乎所有数量众多、且高度多元化的业务，在 2009 年严重衰退中都不同程度地受到了冲击。最主要的例外是 McLane——我们向成千上万家零售网点分销杂货、糖果与非食品商品的公司，而其中规模最大、遥遥领先的客户是 Wal-Mart。
Grady Rosier led McLane to record pre-tax earnings of $344 million, which even so amounted to only slightly more than one cent per dollar on its huge sales of $31.2 billion. McLane employs a vast array of physical assets — practically all of which it owns — including 3,242 trailers, 2,309 tractors and 55 distribution centers with 15.2 million square feet of space. McLane’s prime asset, however, is Grady.
Grady Rosier 带领 McLane 创下了 3.44 亿美元的税前利润纪录；即便如此，相对于其高达 312 亿美元的巨额销售额，这也只相当于“每 1 美元销售额略多于 1 美分”的利润。McLane 拥有大量实体资产——几乎全部为自有资产——包括 3,242 辆挂车、2,309 辆牵引车，以及 55 个配送中心，总面积达 1,520 万平方英尺。不过，McLane 最重要的资产是 Grady 本人。
这时候承认不是太好的生意，主要依靠管理团队的能力。
第三段评论出现在2018年的股东大会，参考：《2018-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》。
JONATHAN BRANDT: McLane’s core operating margins have dropped about 50 percent from where they’ve generally been since acquisition [from Walmart]. Could you elaborate on the competitive pressures in the grocery and convenience store distribution business that have caused the deterioration in profits? And do you expect the margin structure of that business to eventually get back to where it was, or is this the new normal?
JONATHAN BRANDT：McLane 的核心经营利润率，比起我们从 [Walmart] 收购以来一般水平，已经下降了大约 50%。你能否展开讲讲：杂货与便利店分销业务里，哪些竞争压力导致利润恶化？你是否预期这个行业的利润率结构最终会回到过去水平，还是说这就是新的常态？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I don’t know the answer to the second part about the future, but there’s no question that the margins have been squeezed. They were very, very narrow, as you know, they were about one cent on the dollar pretax, and they have been squeezed from that. Payment terms get squeezed. In some cases we have fairly long-term contracts on that, so it will go on for five years (inaudible). It’s a very, very tight margin business. And the situation is even worse than you portray because within McLane we have a liquor distribution business in a few states and that business has actually increased its earnings moderately, and we’ve added to that business, so within McLane’s figures there are about 70 million or so pretax from the liquor part that have nothing to do with the massive parts you’re talking about, in terms of food distribution. So it’s even - the decline is even greater in what you’re referring to than you’ve (inaudible). That’s just become very much more competitive.
WARREN BUFFETT：嗯，关于未来那一部分我不知道答案，但利润率被挤压这一点毫无疑问。你也知道，它原本就非常非常薄——税前大约是“每一美元销售额赚 1 美分”（1%）左右——而现在是在这个基础上又被进一步挤压。付款条款也被挤压。在某些情况下，我们有相对长期的合同条款，所以这种状态还会持续五年（听不清）。这是一门利润率极其极其紧的生意。而且情况甚至比你描述的更糟：McLane 里还有一块酒类分销业务，分布在少数几个州，这块业务的盈利其实还温和增长了，我们也还在扩张这块业务。所以 McLane 的整体数据里，大约包含了 7,000 万美元左右的税前利润来自酒类分销——它跟你所说的那一大块“食品分销”的核心业务没什么关系。所以就你关心的那部分而言，实际下滑甚至比你（听不清）所呈现的还要更大。简单说，这门生意就是变得更竞争了。
We have to decide - if you’ll look at our competitors, they’re not making much money either. And that’s capitalism. I think, you know, there comes a point where the customer says, you know, “I’ll only pay X,” and you have to walk away. And there’s a great temptation when you’re employing - particularly employing thousands of people -and you’ve built distribution facilities, and all of that sort of thing - take care of them to meet what you’d like to term as “irrational competition,” but that is capitalism. And - you’re right. We took - the earnings went up quite a bit from the time we bought it. And we’re still earning more than then. And we’ve earned a lot of money over time. But, as I say, a fair amount of that is actually coming from liquor distribution, activities in about four states that we purchased - very well-run. And - we will do our best to get the margins up.
我们必须做判断——你看看我们的竞争对手，他们也没赚到多少钱。这就是资本主义。我觉得，总会有那么一个点：客户会说，“我最多只付 X”，那你就得选择退出。当你雇佣了——尤其是雇佣了成千上万的人——你又建了配送设施等等，你会非常容易被一种诱惑牵着走：为了照顾这些人、照顾这些设施，让自己去迎合你可能会称之为“非理性竞争”的环境；但这就是资本主义。你说得对。我们当初收购后的一段时间里，盈利确实涨了不少。现在赚得仍然比当年更多。并且我们长期以来也赚了很多钱。但正如我说的，其中相当一部分其实来自酒类分销——我们在大概四个州买下的业务——运营得非常好。我们会尽最大努力把利润率拉回去。
跟航空公司一样，把自己绑定成千上万的人以及大量的固定资产，这时候自己能起到的作用自然就小了，情绪被这些东西牵着走是自然而然的结果，如果管理团队的心理状态有问题，制度性强制力（institutional imperative）可以在这种情况下成倍的放大。
But I would not - I could not tell you - give you a really - your guess is almost as good as mine, or better than mine, maybe, as to what margins will be in that distribution business five years from now. It’s a very essential service. We do $40-some billion. And we move more of the product of all kinds of companies that names are known to you, than anybody else. But - when you get when you get - Kraft Heinz for that matter, or Philip Morris, or whomever it may be, on one side of the deal, and you get Walmart and some other - 7/11 - on the other side of the deal, sometimes they don’t leave you very much room in between. Charlie?
但我没法给你一个很确定的判断：五年后那门分销生意的利润率会是什么水平。你的猜测几乎和我的一样好——甚至可能比我更好。这是非常关键、必不可少的服务。我们一年做 400 多亿美元的规模。我们搬运、分销很多你耳熟能详公司的产品，比任何人都多。但当你夹在两边——比如一边是 Kraft Heinz、Philip Morris 或其他供应商；另一边是 Walmart 以及其它像 7/11 这样的客户——有时他们在中间留给你的空间真的不大。Charlie？
CHARLIE MUNGER: I think you’ve described it very well. (Buffett laughs)
CHARLIE MUNGER：我觉得你描述得很到位。（Buffett 笑）
最后再看一看McLane自2003年收购以来的经营业绩，如下表所示：
McLane的利润增速只能说平庸，但是从投资的角度可能还优于前面的FlightSafety。
- McLane，税前利润从2003年的2.2亿到2024年的3.19亿（中间有比较大的起伏，只能算个平均值），增长45%，年化复合增速1.70%，但当时的买入价只有税前利润7倍，并且是以全现金的方式支付了14.5亿美元，综合回报=1.7%+15%（7倍PE）=16.7%。
- FlightSafety，税前利润从1996年的1.11亿美元到2007年的2.7年美元，年化复合增速8.42%，当时的买入价是税前利润的14倍，一半现金、一半股票，综合回报=8.42%+7%（14倍PE）=15.42%。
两者相差无几，但因为FlightSafety有一半支付的是BRK的股票，McLane可能要好于FlightSafety，巴菲特在买入FlightSafety时有没有因为提价能力导致情绪结构产生了偏离？
回到McLane，不到2%的年复合增速应该是管理团队付出很大努力的结果，low-cost operator并且缺少护城河的保护，这样的商业模式可能需要更狠的角色，比如，京东的刘强东和顺丰的王卫，但是这种能“翻跟头”的拼劲又不见得对资本有利。
（2）bob-around
周期性波动的模式更适合BRK，低成本运营并且缺少护城河保护的模式很容易一脚踩进去没有跳出来的机会，周期性波动不一样，一波波情绪总是来来回回，不存在一去不回的情况，参考：《2014-10-07 Warren Buffett.Fortune MPW》。
So far, home construction pickup has been slower than I anticipated — but I have a lot of faith in hormones. (Laughs) I don’t really think that their impact will be less five or ten years from now. We will have a catch-up period.
到目前为止，住宅建造的回升比我预期的更慢——但我对荷尔蒙很有信心。（笑）我并不认为五年或十年之后，荷尔蒙的影响会变小。我们会迎来一段补涨（catch-up）时期。
最典型的例子是保险，BRK旗下的NICO经历长时间的业绩下滑（1986-1999年，下降幅度超过80%），参考：《2005-02-28 Warren Buffett.Insurance》。
Insurers have generally earned poor returns for a simple reason: They sell a commodity-like product. Policy forms are standard, and the product is available from many suppliers, some of whom are mutual companies (“owned” by policyholders rather than stockholders) with profit goals that are limited. Moreover, most insureds don’t care from whom they buy. Customers by the millions say “I need some Gillette blades” or “I’ll have a Coke” but we wait in vain for “I’d like a National Indemnity policy, please.” Consequently, price competition in insurance is usually fierce. Think airline seats.
保险公司通常回报很差，原因很简单：它们卖的是一种近似大宗商品的产品（commodity-like）。保单条款（policy forms）相当标准化，市场上供应者众多，其中一些还是互助保险公司（mutual companies，“由保单持有人而非股东‘拥有’”），其盈利目标天然受限。更重要的是，大多数被保险人并不在乎从谁那里买保险。成千上万的消费者会说“我需要一些 Gillette 刀片”或“我要一杯 Coke”，但我们却很难听到有人说“请给我一份 National Indemnity 的保单。”因此，保险行业的价格竞争通常异常激烈。想想航空公司机票座位就知道了。
So, you may ask, how do Berkshire’s insurance operations overcome the dismal economics of the industry and achieve some measure of enduring competitive advantage? We’ve attacked that problem in several ways. Let’s look first at NICO’s strategy.
那么你可能会问：Berkshire 的保险业务是如何克服行业糟糕的经济性，并获得某种可持续的竞争优势的？我们从几个方向去解决这个问题。先从 NICO 的策略讲起。
When we purchased the company — a specialist in commercial auto and general liability insurance — it did not appear to have any attributes that would overcome the industry’s chronic troubles. It was not well-known, had no informational advantage (the company has never had an actuary), was not a low-cost operator, and sold through general agents, a method many people thought outdated. Nevertheless, for almost all of the past 38 years, NICO has been a star performer. Indeed, had we not made this acquisition, Berkshire would be lucky to be worth half of what it is today.
当我们收购这家公司时——它专注于商业车险（commercial auto）和一般责任险（general liability insurance）——它看起来并不具备任何足以克服行业长期困境的优势。它不出名，没有信息优势（公司从来没有雇过精算师），也不是低成本运营者，而且通过一般代理人（general agents）渠道销售——许多人认为这种方式已经过时。尽管如此，在过去 38 年中的几乎所有年份里，NICO 都是明星级的表现者。事实上，如果当年我们没有完成这笔收购，Berkshire 今天的价值能有现在的一半就算走运了。
What we’ve had going for us is a managerial mindset that most insurers find impossible to replicate. Take a look at the facing page. Can you imagine any public company embracing a business model that would lead to the decline in revenue that we experienced from 1986 through 1999? That colossal slide, it should be emphasized, did not occur because business was unobtainable. Many billions of premium dollars were readily available to NICO had we only been willing to cut prices. But we instead consistently priced to make a profit, not to match our most optimistic competitor. We never left customers — but they left us.
我们真正的优势，是一种大多数保险公司根本无法复制的管理者心态（managerial mindset）。看看对页的数据：你能想象有任何一家上市公司，会主动拥抱一种商业模式——它会导致我们在 1986 到 1999 年间经历的那种营收下滑吗？必须强调的是，这种断崖式下滑并不是因为拿不到业务。只要我们愿意降价，市场上有“数十亿美元”的保费规模可以轻易被 NICO 拿到。但我们始终坚持：定价的目标是赚取利润，而不是去匹配我们最乐观的竞争对手的价格。我们从未离开客户——是客户离开了我们。
Most American businesses harbor an “institutional imperative” that rejects extended decreases in volume. What CEO wants to report to his shareholders that not only did business contract last year but that it will continue to drop? In insurance, the urge to keep writing business is also intensified because the consequences of foolishly-priced policies may not become apparent for some time. If an insurer is optimistic in its reserving, reported earnings will be overstated, and years may pass before true loss costs are revealed (a form of self-deception that nearly destroyed GEICO in the early 1970s).
大多数美国企业都有一种“制度性冲动”（institutional imperative），它会本能地排斥长期的业务量下降。哪个 CEO 愿意向股东报告：不仅去年业务收缩了，而且未来还会继续下滑？而在保险业，这种“继续承保、继续做大规模”的冲动会更强，因为愚蠢定价的保单所带来的后果，往往要过一段时间才会显现。如果一家保险公司在准备金计提（reserving）上过于乐观，那么其报表利润就会被高估，而且可能要过很多年，真实的损失成本才会暴露出来。（这是一种自我欺骗，其形式几乎在 1970 年代初毁掉了 GEICO。）
另一个例子是Clayton Homes，做的装配式住宅，周期性和高融资需求的结合势必增加一路上的颠簸，并且Clayton的产品不是不动产（real property），不支持正常的住房按揭贷款，只能做动产贷款，巴菲特看到了Clayton和BRK的匹配性，自2003年买入以后成长的非常好，如下表所示：
Clayton在巴菲特买入第5年（2008年）进入衰退期，2012年走出衰退期，前后5年耗死很多竞争对手，Clayton在被收购前的市场份额是14%，2010年扩大到47%，参考：《2011-02-26 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。
At Clayton, we produced 23,343 homes, 47% of the industry’s total of 50,046. Contrast this to the peak year of 1998, when 372,843 homes were manufactured. (We then had an industry share of 8%.) Sales would have been terrible last year under any circumstances, but the financing problems I commented upon in the 2009 report continue to exacerbate the distress. To explain: Home-financing policies of our government, expressed through the loans found acceptable by FHA, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, favor site-built homes and work to negate the price advantage that manufactured homes offer.
在 Clayton，我们生产了 23,343 套住房，占全行业 50,046 套总产量的 47%。对比之下，在 1998 年的高峰期，全行业生产了 372,843 套（当时我们只有 8% 的市场份额）。无论在什么情形下，去年装配式住房的销售都会非常惨淡，而我在 2009 年年报中提到的融资难题，则进一步加剧了这种困境。具体来说：政府的住房贷款政策（反映在 FHA、Freddie Mac 和 Fannie Mae 所认可的贷款类型上），倾向于支持传统现浇/砖混的现场建造住房，从而在实质上削弱了装配式住房在价格上的优势。
We finance more manufactured-home buyers than any other company. Our experience, therefore, should be instructive to those parties preparing to overhaul our country’s home-loan practices. Let’s take a look.
我们为装配式住房买家提供的融资规模，超过任何其他公司。因此，我们在这一领域的实际经验，对那些准备重构美国住房贷款体系的人来说，应该具有重要的参考价值。下面我们就来具体看一看。
一场金融危机帮助Clayton获得了市场的主导地位，危机以后的Clayton一直处于快速增长的状态，税前利润从2004年的1.92亿到2024年的18.85亿，年复合增速12.10%，2003年的买入价是税前利润的8.85倍，是一笔非常成功的投资。
Appendix
Appendix.1.《1776 Adam Smith.The wealth of nations》
The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
劳动生产力的最大改进，以及在任何地方对劳动进行指挥或加以运用时所依赖的技能、熟练与判断中的大部分，似乎都源自分工的作用。
What do you look for in a core stock?
在核心股票上你看重什么？
They are all low-cost producers; they are all either world leaders in their fields or can fully measure up to another of my yardsticks, the Japanese competition. They all now have promising new products, and they all have managements of above-average capabilities by a wide margin.
它们都是低成本生产者；要么是各自领域的全球领导者，要么能够完全符合我另一个衡量标准——经得起与日本竞争对手的比拼。它们现在都有很有前景的新产品，并且管理层的能力远高于平均水平。
跟巴菲特的想法一模一样，或者巴菲特就是从Phil Fisher得到的启发。
Appendix.3.《1988-02-29 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》
There’s not a lot new to report about these businesses—and that’s good, not bad. Severe change and exceptional returns usually don’t mix. Most investors, of course, behave as if just the opposite were true. That is, they usually confer the highest price-earnings ratios on exotic-sounding businesses that hold out the promise of feverish change. That prospect lets investors fantasize about future profitability rather than face today’s business realities. For such investor-dreamers, any blind date is preferable to one with the girl next door, no matter how desirable she may be.
关于这些业务，并没有太多新东西可报告——这不是坏事，反而是好事。剧烈变化与卓越回报通常很难兼容。当然，大多数投资者的行为却好像恰恰相反：他们往往给那些听起来“异域”“新奇”的企业以最高的市盈率，因为这些企业承诺会发生令人发热的变化。这样的前景让投资者可以沉浸在对未来盈利的幻想中，而不必直面当下的商业现实。对这类“做梦的投资者”而言，任何一次盲约都胜过与隔壁那个女孩约会——不管她其实多么可取。
热衷于新奇=逃避现实，1岁以前对现实世界没有基本的信任。
Experience, however, indicates that the best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago. That is no argument for managerial complacency. Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error. Furthermore, economic terrain that is forever shifting violently is ground on which it is difficult to build a fortress-like business franchise. Such a franchise is usually the key to sustained high returns.
但经验表明，最好的商业回报往往来自这样的公司：它们今天做的事，与五年或十年前做的事非常相似。这并不是在为管理层的自满开脱。企业总是有机会改进服务、产品线、制造技术等等，这些机会显然应当抓住。但一家企业如果持续遭遇重大变化，也就持续遭遇大量重大犯错的机会。更进一步说，在一个永远剧烈震荡、地形不断变化的经济环境里，很难建立起堡垒般的商业特许经营权（franchise）。而这种特许经营权，通常正是维持长期高回报的关键。
The Fortune study I mentioned earlier supports our view. Only 25 of the 1,000 companies met two tests of economic excellence—an average return on equity of over 20% in the ten years, 1977 through 1986, and no year worse than 15%. These business superstars were also stock market superstars: During the decade, 24 of the 25 outperformed the S&P 500.
我前面提到的 Fortune 研究支持了我们的观点。在1000家公司中，只有25家通过了两个“经济卓越”的测试：在1977到1986这十年间，平均权益回报率超过20%，并且任何一年都不低于15%。这些商业超级明星，在股市上也同样是超级明星：在那十年里，25家中的24家跑赢了标普500指数。
The Fortune champs may surprise you in two respects. First, most use very little leverage compared to their interest-paying capacity. Really good businesses usually don’t need to borrow. Second, except for one company that is “high-tech” and several others that manufacture ethical drugs, the companies are in businesses that, on balance, seem rather mundane. Most sell non-sexy products or services in much the same manner as they did ten years ago (though in larger quantities now, or at higher prices, or both). The record of these 25 companies confirms that making the most of an already strong business franchise, or concentrating on a single winning business theme, is what usually produces exceptional economics.
Fortune 的冠军公司可能会在两个方面让你感到意外。第一，它们相对于自身支付利息的能力，使用的杠杆普遍很低。真正优秀的企业通常不需要借钱。第二，除了一家“高科技”公司和几家生产处方药的公司之外，这些公司的业务整体看起来相当“朴素”。大多数公司卖的都是“不性感”的产品或服务，而且销售方式与十年前大体相同（只是如今卖得更多、价格更高，或两者兼有）。这25家公司的记录证明：把一个本来就很强的商业特许经营权发挥到极致，或专注于一个单一的制胜商业主题，通常才是产生卓越经济回报的路径。
少变化、少杠杆、长期高ROE。
Berkshire’s experience has been similar. Our managers have produced extraordinary results by doing rather ordinary things—but doing them exceptionally well. Our managers protect their franchises, they control costs, they search for new products and markets that build on their existing strengths and they don’t get diverted. They work exceptionally hard at the details of their businesses, and it shows.
Berkshire 的经验也相似。我们的经理人通过做相当普通的事，取得了非凡的结果——但他们把普通事做到了极致。我们的经理人保护自己的特许经营权，他们控制成本，他们寻找能够建立在既有优势之上的新产品与新市场，而且他们不被分心。他们在业务细节上付出了异常艰苦的努力，而成果清清楚楚地写在业绩里。
Appendix.4.《1992-02-28 Warren Buffett.Right Business》
“特许经营”（franchise）的系统性描述。
Our portfolio shows little change: We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.
我们的投资组合几乎没有变化：我们继续发现，打呼噜的时候赚得比忙活的时候更多。
Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior. Neither we nor most business managers would dream of feverishly trading highly-profitable subsidiaries because a small move in the Federal Reserve’s discount rate was predicted or because some Wall Street pundit had reversed his views on the market. Why, then, should we behave differently with our minority positions in wonderful businesses? The art of investing in public companies successfully is little different from the art of successfully acquiring subsidiaries. In each case you simply want to acquire, at a sensible price, a business with excellent economics and able, honest management. Thereafter, you need only monitor whether these qualities are being preserved.
“不作为”在我们看来是一种聪明的行为。无论是我们，还是大多数企业管理者，都不会因为有人预测 Federal Reserve 的贴现率会小幅变动，或因为某个 Wall Street 评论员又改口了，就去紧张兮兮地频繁买卖那些盈利能力极强的子公司。那么，我们为什么要在持有优秀企业的少数股权时表现得不一样呢？成功投资上市公司的艺术，与成功收购子公司的艺术几乎没有区别：在两种情形下，你都只是想以合理价格买入一家经济特性优秀、管理层有能力且诚实的企业。此后，你只需要持续观察这些关键特质是否被保持住即可。
When carried out capably, an investment strategy of that type will often result in its practitioner owning a few securities that will come to represent a very large portion of his portfolio. This investor would get a similar result if he followed a policy of purchasing an interest in, say, 20% of the future earnings of a number of outstanding college basketball stars. A handful of these would go on to achieve NBA stardom, and the investor’s take from them would soon dominate his royalty stream. To suggest that this investor should sell off portions of his most successful investments simply because they have come to dominate his portfolio is akin to suggesting that the Bulls trade Michael Jordan because he has become so important to the team.
当这种投资策略被有能力地执行时，常常会导致一个结果：投资者最终会持有少数几只证券，而它们会逐渐占据投资组合中非常大的比重。你可以把这类结果类比为：如果一个投资者采取的策略是，购买若干位出色的大学篮球明星未来收益的 20% 权益，那么其中少数几位会最终成为 NBA 的超级巨星，而投资者从他们那里获得的收入很快就会主导其“版税现金流”。因此，若有人建议这个投资者仅仅因为最成功的投资占比过高，就应该卖掉一部分，这就好比建议 Chicago Bulls 把 Michael Jordan 交易走，只因为他对球队变得太重要了。
In studying the investments we have made in both subsidiary companies and common stocks, you will see that we favor businesses and industries unlikely to experience major change. The reason for that is simple: Making either type of purchase, we are searching for operations that we believe are virtually certain to possess enormous competitive strength ten or twenty years from now. A fast-changing industry environment may offer the chance for huge wins, but it precludes the certainty we seek.
在研究我们对全资子公司与普通股所做的投资时，你会发现我们偏好那些不太可能发生重大变化的企业与行业。原因很简单：无论是收购子公司，还是买入股票，我们都在寻找这样一种经营体——我们相信它在 10 年或 20 年后几乎必然仍将拥有极强的竞争实力。行业环境变化过快也许提供“赢很大”的机会，但它排除了我们所追求的那种确定性。
汽车保险的优点在于变化缓慢。
I should emphasize that, as citizens, Charlie and I welcome change: Fresh ideas, new products, innovative processes and the like cause our country’s standard of living to rise, and that’s clearly good. As investors, however, our reaction to a fermenting industry is much like our attitude toward space exploration: We applaud the endeavor but prefer to skip the ride.
我需要强调的是：作为公民，Charlie 和我欢迎变化。新想法、新产品、创新流程等等会推动国家生活水平上升，这显然是好事。但作为投资者，我们对“正在发酵的行业”的态度，颇像我们对太空探索的态度：我们为这一事业喝彩，但更愿意跳过这趟旅程。
Obviously all businesses change to some extent. Today, See’s is different in many ways from what it was in 1972 when we bought it: It offers a different assortment of candy, employs different machinery and sells through different distribution channels. But the reasons why people today buy boxed chocolates, and why they buy them from us rather than from someone else, are virtually unchanged from what they were in the 1920s when the See family was building the business. Moreover, these motivations are not likely to change over the next 20 years, or even 50.
当然，所有企业在某种程度上都会变化。今天的 See’s 在许多方面已经不同于我们 1972 年买下它时：它提供的糖果组合不同，使用的机器不同，通过不同的渠道进行销售。但人们今天为什么会买盒装巧克力，以及为什么会从我们这里买而不是从别人那里买——这些根本原因，几乎和 1920 年代 See 家族打造这门生意时一模一样。而且，这些动机在未来 20 年，甚至 50 年里，都不太可能改变。
We look for similar predictability in marketable securities. Take Coca-Cola: The zeal and imagination with which Coke products are sold has burgeoned under Roberto Goizueta, who has done an absolutely incredible job in creating value for his shareholders. Aided by Don Keough and Doug Ivester, Roberto has rethought and improved every aspect of the company. But the fundamentals of the business—the qualities that underlie Coke’s competitive dominance and stunning economics—have remained constant through the years.
我们在可交易证券上也寻找类似的可预测性。以 Coca-Cola 为例：在 Roberto Goizueta 的领导下，Coke 产品的销售热情与想象力大幅提升；他为股东创造价值的工作堪称不可思议。在 Don Keough 与 Doug Ivester 的协助下，Roberto 重新思考并改进了公司运作的每一个方面。但这门生意的基本面——构成 Coke 竞争主导地位与惊人经济回报的那些要素——多年来始终如一。
I was recently studying the 1896 report of Coke (and you think that you are behind in your reading!). At that time Coke, though it was already the leading soft drink, had been around for only a decade. But its blueprint for the next 100 years was already drawn. Reporting sales of $148,000 that year, Asa Candler, the company’s president, said: “We have not lagged in our efforts to go into all the world teaching that Coca-Cola is the article, par excellence, for the health and good feeling of all people.” Though “health” may have been a reach, I love the fact that Coke still relies on Candler’s basic theme today—a century later. Candler went on to say, just as Roberto could now, “No article of like character has ever so firmly entrenched itself in public favor.” Sales of syrup that year, incidentally, were 116,492 gallons versus about 3.2 billion in 1996.
我最近在读 Coke 1896 年的年度报告（你以为你读得慢，其实我更慢！）。当时 Coke 虽然已是领先的软饮品牌，但成立还只有十年。然而，它未来 100 年的蓝图当时就已经画好。那一年公司报告销售额 148,000 美元，公司总裁 Asa Candler 说：“我们在向全世界宣传可口可乐是对于所有人的健康与良好感觉而言首屈一指的产品这件事上从未懈怠。” 尽管把“health”挂在嘴边也许有些夸张，但我喜欢这样一个事实：一个世纪之后，Coke 依然在沿用 Candler 的这个基本主题。Candler 还接着说了一句——Roberto 今天同样可以这么说——“没有哪篇同类作品能像这篇那样如此牢固地赢得公众的青睐。” 顺便一提，当年糖浆销量为 116,492 加仑，而 1996 年约为 32 亿加仑。
I can’t resist one more Candler quote: “Beginning this year about March 1st . . . we employed ten traveling salesmen by means of which, with systematic correspondence from the office, we covered almost the territory of the Union.” That’s my kind of sales force.
我忍不住还想再引用一句 Candler 的话：“从今年大约三月一日开始……我们雇用了十名巡回推销员，通过他们并辅以办公室的系统性函件，我们几乎覆盖了整个联邦的领土。” 这才是我喜欢的销售队伍。
Companies such as Coca-Cola and Gillette might well be labeled “The Inevitables.” Forecasters may differ a bit in their predictions of exactly how much soft drink or shaving-equipment business these companies will be doing in ten or twenty years. Nor is our talk of inevitability meant to play down the vital work that these companies must continue to carry out, in such areas as manufacturing, distribution, packaging and product innovation. In the end, however, no sensible observer—not even these companies’ most vigorous competitors, assuming they are assessing the matter honestly—questions that Coke and Gillette will dominate their fields worldwide for an investment lifetime. Indeed, their dominance will probably strengthen. Both companies have significantly expanded their already huge shares of market during the past ten years, and all signs point to their repeating that performance in the next decade.
像 Coca-Cola 和 Gillette 这样的公司，很可能可以被称作“The Inevitables”（“必然者”）。预测者也许会在细节上有所分歧，比如这些公司在 10 年或 20 年后到底会卖出多少软饮料或剃须用品。我们谈“必然性”，也并不是要淡化这些公司必须持续做好工作的事实——例如在制造、分销、包装以及产品创新等方面。归根结底，没有任何理性的观察者——甚至包括这些公司最强劲的竞争对手（假设他们诚实评估）——会怀疑 Coke 和 Gillette 在一个投资者的持有周期里仍将全球主导各自领域。事实上，它们的主导地位很可能还会加强。过去十年，两家公司在本已极高的市场份额基础上又显著扩张，而所有迹象都表明：它们在未来十年会重复这种表现。
Inevitables的定义，后来的说法是：have an enduring “moat”。
Obviously many companies in high-tech businesses or embryonic industries will grow much faster in percentage terms than will The Inevitables. But I would rather be certain of a good result than hopeful of a great one.
当然，很多身处高科技行业或新兴行业（embryonic industries）的公司，在增长率上很可能会远快于这些“必然者”。但我宁愿确定地得到一个不错的结果，也不愿只是希望得到一个伟大的结果。
Of course, Charlie and I can identify only a few Inevitables, even after a lifetime of looking for them. Leadership alone provides no certainties: Witness the shocks some years back at General Motors, IBM and Sears, all of which had enjoyed long periods of seeming invincibility. Though some industries or lines of business exhibit characteristics that endow leaders with virtually insurmountable advantages, and that tend to establish Survival of the Fattest as almost a natural law, most do not. Thus, for every Inevitable, there are dozens of Impostors, companies now riding high but vulnerable to competitive attacks. Considering what it takes to be an Inevitable, Charlie and I recognize that we will never be able to come up with a Nifty Fifty or even a Twinkling Twenty. To the Inevitables in our portfolio, therefore, we add a few “Highly Probables.”
当然，即便 Charlie 和我用一生去寻找，我们也只能识别出少数几个“必然者”。仅有领先地位并不能带来确定性：看看多年前 General Motors、IBM 和 Sears 所遭遇的冲击就知道了，它们都曾长期显得不可战胜。确实，有些行业或业务线具有某些特征，能够赋予行业龙头几乎不可逾越的优势，并使“Survival of the Fattest”（“胖者生存”）几乎成为一种自然法则；但多数行业并非如此。因此，每出现一个“必然者”，就会有几十个“冒牌货”（Impostors）：它们眼下风光无限，却容易受到竞争攻击。考虑到要成为“必然者”所需具备的条件，Charlie 和我也清楚：我们永远不可能凑出一套 Nifty Fifty（漂亮五十）甚至 Twinkling Twenty（闪耀二十）。因此，在我们的投资组合里，除了这些“必然者”，我们还会加入少数几个“Highly Probables”（“高度大概率者”）。
You can, of course, pay too much for even the best of businesses. The overpayment risk surfaces periodically and, in our opinion, may now be quite high for the purchasers of virtually all stocks, The Inevitables included. Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.
当然，即便是最好的企业，你也可能买得太贵。过度支付的风险会周期性出现；而在我们看来，对几乎所有股票的购买者而言——包括那些 “The Inevitables”——眼下这种风险可能相当高。在一个过热的市场里做买入的投资者必须意识到：即便是一家卓越公司，也常常需要很长时间，其内在价值才能追上你所支付的价格。
A far more serious problem occurs when the management of a great company gets sidetracked and neglects its wonderful base business while purchasing other businesses that are so-so or worse. When that happens, the suffering of investors is often prolonged. Unfortunately, that is precisely what transpired years ago at both Coke and Gillette. (Would you believe that a few decades back they were growing shrimp at Coke and exploring for oil at Gillette?) Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me when we contemplate investing in businesses that in general look outstanding. All too often, we’ve seen value stagnate in the presence of hubris or of boredom that caused the attention of managers to wander. That’s not going to happen again at Coke and Gillette, however—not given their current and prospective managements.
但更严重的问题，是一家伟大公司的管理层被带偏了方向：在收购一些平庸甚至更差的业务时，忽视了原本极其出色的核心业务。一旦发生这种情况，投资者所遭受的痛苦往往会被拉得很长。不幸的是，多年前 Coke 和 Gillette 都曾经出现过这种情况。（你敢相信吗？几十年前 Coke 居然在养虾，而 Gillette 居然在勘探石油。）当 Charlie 和我考虑投资那些看起来总体很优秀的企业时，最令我们担忧的就是“失去聚焦”。我们见过太多次：在傲慢或无聊的驱使下，管理者的注意力游离，导致价值在原地踏步。不过，Coke 与 Gillette 不会再重演这种情况——至少在它们当前与未来的管理层配置之下不会。
Appendix.6.《1997-05-05 Warren Buffett.Share of mind》
“Share of mind”的系统性解释。
Appendix.7.《1997-09-23 Steve Jobs.Introduced the “Think Different”.》
有关广告的最好的解释。
Appendix.8.《1998-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
79. Difficult to get capital out of a sub-par business
从低于平均水平的业务里把资本“解救出来”很难
CHARLIE MUNGER: And your other question, you said, why is it that these investors accept below-average results? Well, in the nature of things, approximately half the investors are going to get below-average results. They didn’t exactly accept it in advance. It’s just the way it turned out.
CHARLIE MUNGER：你另一个问题是，为什么这些投资者会接受低于平均的结果？从事物本性看，大约一半的投资者最终会拿到低于平均的结果。他们并不是事先“接受”了，只是事实发展成了那样。
WARREN BUFFETT: And the money tends to be fairly captive, once it’s in a company. I mean, it takes a lot — if you have a business that gets subnormal returns over time, there’s a big threshold in terms of either a takeover, or a proxy fight, or something like that to unleash the capital. So, money that’s tied up in an unprofitable business, or a sub-profitable business, is likely to stay tied up for a good period of time. Eventually something will probably correct it. But capitalism does not operate so efficiently as to move capital around promptly when it’s misallocated. We are in a better position to do that when Berkshire owns a company. And obviously, we’re in no position to do it — because it involves something we don’t want to do — if we own it through some other enterprise. We just sell to somebody else who takes another — who takes our chair — at the table, in effect.
WARREN BUFFETT：而且一旦钱进了某家公司，它往往就会变得相当“被困住”。我的意思是，如果一门生意长期只能赚到低于正常水平的回报，要把那里面的资本“释放出来”，门槛很高——通常得靠被收购、代理权争夺（proxy fight）之类的大动作才行。因此，被绑在亏钱生意、或者回报偏低的生意里的资金，很可能会在相当长的一段时间里都被绑住。最终也许会有某种力量去纠正它，但资本主义的运行并没有高效到能在资本被错误配置时，立刻就把资金迅速挪到更好的地方。Berkshire 直接拥有一家公司的时候，我们更有条件去做资本的重新配置。反过来，如果我们只是通过某个“别的企业”间接持有它，我们显然就没有条件这么做——因为那会涉及我们并不愿意做的事情。我们最多就是把股票卖给别人，相当于把“桌上的椅子”让给另一个人坐下去，仅此而已。
会出现大量需要应付的事，越来越多。
64. Avoid the “Frozen Corporation”
避免“冻结型公司
WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 6, please.
WARREN BUFFETT：请第 6 区提问。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is George Donner from Fort Wayne, Indiana. My question has to do with estimating the intrinsic value of a company, in particular the capital intensive companies like you were mentioning. I’m thinking of things like McDonald’s and Walgreens, but there are lots of others where you have a very healthy and growing operating cash flow, but it’s marginally or completely offset by heavy expenditures on putting up new stores or restaurants, or building a new plant. And so my question is, what do you do for your estimate of future free cash flow? And with Treasurys around — long Treasurys around 6 percent — at what rate do you discount those cash flows?
AUDIENCE MEMBER：两位下午好。我叫 George Donner，来自印第安纳州 Fort Wayne。我的问题与估算一家公司的内在价值有关，尤其是你们刚才提到的那种资本密集型公司。我想到的例子有 McDonald’s、Walgreens，当然还有很多类似公司：它们的经营性现金流非常健康、并且增长不错，但几乎被持续重投入抵消——比如不断开新店、建新餐厅、或者新建工厂。我的问题是：你们在估算未来自由现金流时怎么处理这种情况？另外，当长期国债收益率在 6% 左右时，你们用什么贴现率来贴现这些现金流？
Dairy Queen的解释中就和McDonald’s做了对比，McDonald’s的自营门店太多了。
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we discount at the long rate just to have a standard of measurement across all businesses. But we would take the company that is spending the money as it comes in, and they don’t get credit for gross cash flow, they get credit for whatever net cash is left every year. But of course, if they’re spending the money wisely, even though you have to discount it for more years, the growth in cash development should offset that or they weren’t investing it wisely. The best business is one that gives you more and more money every year without putting up anything to get it, or very little. And we’ve got some businesses like that. The second-best business is a business that also gives you more and more money. It takes more money, but the rate at which you invest — reinvest — the money to get that growth is a very satisfactory rate. The worst business of all is the one that grows a lot, and where you’re forced — forced, in effect — forced to grow to stay in the game at all, and where you’re reinvesting the capital at a very low rate of return.
WARREN BUFFETT：嗯，我们用长期利率来贴现，只是为了在所有企业之间有一个统一的度量标准。但对于那种“现金一进来就花掉”的公司，我们不会因为它有“总现金流（gross cash flow）”就给它记功；我们只给它每年真正“剩下来的净现金（net cash）”记功。当然，如果它花这笔钱花得很聪明，即使你不得不把现金流贴现到更远的年份，未来现金创造能力的增长也应该能抵消这一点；否则就说明它并没有把钱投得明智。最好的生意，是那种每年给你越来越多的钱，却几乎不需要再投入任何资本（或投入极少）就能做到的生意——我们确实拥有一些这样的企业。第二好的生意，是那种同样能每年给你越来越多的钱，但它需要投入更多资本；不过为了获得增长所进行的投资——再投资——回报率非常令人满意。最差的生意，则是那种增长很快，但你是被迫——从本质上讲是被迫——为了不出局、为了还能留在牌桌上而不得不增长，而且你投入进去的资本回报率却非常低。
And sometimes people are in those businesses without knowing about it. But in terms of discounting, in terms of calculating intrinsic value, you look at the cash that is expected to be generated and you discount back at — in our case, we use the long-term Treasury rate. That doesn’t mean that you pay the amount that that present value calculation leads to, but it means that you use that as a common yardstick, that Treasury rate. And that means that if somebody is reinvesting all their cash flow the next five years, they’d better have some very big figures coming in down the road. Because at some day, a financial asset has to give you back cash to justify you laying out cash for it now. Investing is the art, essentially, of laying out cash now to get a whole lot more cash later on, and something at some point better deliver cash. Ben Graham in his class, we used to talk about what he called the Frozen Corporation. And the Frozen Corporation was a company whose charter prohibited it from ever paying anything to its owners, or ever being liquidated, or ever being sold and —
有时候人们身处那类生意里却并不知道自己是在那类生意里。但就贴现、就内在价值计算而言，你要看预期能产生的现金流，然后贴现回现在——在我们这里，我们用长期国债利率。这里并不意味着你就要按那个现值计算结果去付钱买入，而是说你把长期国债利率当作一个统一的“标尺”。这也意味着：如果有人未来五年把所有现金流都拿去再投资，那他最好在更远的将来能带回非常巨大的数字。因为总有一天，金融资产必须把现金还给你，才能证明你现在拿出现金是合理的。投资本质上是一门艺术：现在拿出现金，换取未来更多的现金——而且在某个时点，必须真的有东西把现金交付回来。Ben Graham 在课堂上，我们常谈他所谓的“Frozen Corporation（冻结型公司）”。所谓 Frozen Corporation，就是一家公司，它的章程禁止它对所有者支付任何东西，禁止它被清算，禁止它被出售——
CHARLIE MUNGER: Sort of like a Hollywood producer. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：有点像好莱坞制片人。（笑声）
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And the question was, what was such an enterprise worth? Well, that’s sort of a theoretical question, but it forces you to think about the realities of what business is all about. And business is all about putting out money today to get back more money later on. Charlie?
WARREN BUFFETT：对。问题是：这样的企业到底值多少钱？这当然有点偏理论，但它会逼着你去思考“企业到底是怎么回事”这种现实问题。企业的核心就是：今天拿出钱，未来拿回更多的钱。Charlie？
CHARLIE MUNGER: I do think there is an interesting problem that you raise, because I think there is a class of businesses where the eventual cash back part of the equation tends to be an illusion. I think there are businesses where you just keep pouring it in and pouring it in, and then all of a sudden it doesn’t work, and no cash comes back. And what makes our life interesting is trying to avoid those and get in the alternative kind that drowns you in cash. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：我确实认为你提了一个很有意思的问题，因为我认为确实存在一类企业：在那类企业里，“最终把现金拿回来的那一半”往往只是幻觉。我觉得有些生意，你就是不断往里倒钱、不断往里倒钱，直到某一天突然不灵了，然后现金根本回不来。我们这行之所以有意思，就在于努力避开那种生意，转而找到另一种——能把你“淹没在现金里”的生意。（笑声）
WARREN BUFFETT: The one figure we regard as utter nonsense is the so-called EBITDA. I mean, the idea of looking at a figure before the cash requirements and merely staying in the same place — and there usually are — any business with significant fixed assets almost always has with it a concomitant requirement that major cash be reinvested in order simply to stay in the same place competitively and in terms of unit sales — to look at some figure that is before — that is stated before those cash requirements, is absolute folly and it’s been misused by lots of people to sell lots of merchandise in recent years.
WARREN BUFFETT：我们认为最荒唐的一个指标就是所谓的 EBITDA。我的意思是：你看一个数字，却把“维持现状所必需的现金需求”排除在外——而这种需求通常是存在的——任何拥有显著固定资产的企业，几乎都必然伴随着一个要求：必须投入大量现金再投资，才能在竞争地位、单位销量等方面“仅仅保持在原地”。在忽略这些现金需求的前提下去看一个“事前指标”，简直是愚蠢至极。近些年，这个指标被很多人滥用来推销大量“商品”（包括证券）。
重资产企业天生固有的宿命。
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s not to the credit of the investment banking fraternity that it has learned to speak in terms of EBITDA. I mean, the idea of using a measure that you know is nonsense, and then piling additional reasoning on that false assumption, it’s not creditable intellectual performance. And then once everybody is talking in terms of nonsense, why, it gets to be standard. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：投资银行这个圈子学会用 EBITDA 这种语言来讲话，并不值得称道。我的意思是：明知道某个衡量标准是胡扯，却还以这个胡扯为前提堆叠更多推理，这不是一种值得尊敬的智力表现。而一旦大家都开始用胡扯来讲话，它就会变成“行业标准”。（笑声）
89. Beware of companies that must “spend money like crazy”
小心那些“疯狂花钱”的公司
WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’re going to go to zone 6 and I’m going to have a Dilly Bar, and Charlie has got one here, too. (Laughter and applause) These are terrific.
WARREN BUFFETT：好，我们到第 6 区。我得吃一根 Dilly Bar，Charlie 这儿也有一根。（笑声与掌声）这东西真不错。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question has to do with what you mentioned earlier about how companies have to reinvest a certain amount of cash in their business every year just to stay in place. And if one could say that the best businesses are the ones that not only throw off lots of cash, but can reinvest it in more capacity. But I suppose the paradox is that the better a company’s opportunities for making expansionary capital expenditures, the worse they appear to be as consumers of cash rather than generators of cash. What specific techniques have you used to figure out the maintenance capital expenditures that you need to do in order to figure out how much cash a company is throwing off? What techniques have you used on Gillette or other companies that you’ve studied?
AUDIENCE MEMBER：我的问题和你们之前提到的一点有关：很多公司每年必须把一定数量的现金再投入到业务里，才能“仅仅维持在原地”。如果可以说最好的生意，是那种不仅能产生大量现金，还能把现金再投入去扩张产能的生意；但悖论似乎在于：一家公司的扩张性资本开支机会越好，它在报表上看起来越像“吞金兽”（更像现金消费者而不是现金生成者）。那么，你们具体用什么方法来估算“维持性资本开支（maintenance capex）”，以判断公司到底能吐出多少现金？在研究 Gillette 或其他公司时，你们用过哪些具体技巧？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, if you look at a company such as Gillette or Coke, you won’t find great differences between their depreciation — forget about amortization for the moment — but depreciation and sort of the required capital expenditures. If we got into a hyperinflationary period or — I mean, you can find — you can set up cases where that wouldn’t be true. But by and large, the depreciation charge is not inappropriate in most companies to use as a proxy for required capital expenditures. Which is why we think that reported earnings plus amortization of intangibles usually gives a pretty good indication of earning power, and — I don’t — I’ve never given a thought to whether Gillette needs to spend a hundred million dollars more, a hundred million dollars less, than depreciation in order to maintain its competitive position. But I would guess the range is even considerably less than that versus its recorded depreciation. Businesses you have to worry about — I mean, an airline business is a good case. In the airlines, you know, you just have to keep spending money like crazy.
WARREN BUFFETT：嗯，如果你看像 Gillette 或 Coke 这样的公司，你不会发现它们的折旧（depreciation——暂时先不管摊销 amortization）和“所需资本开支”之间有很大的差异。除非进入恶性通胀时期之类——你当然可以构造出一些情景让这条规律失效。但总体而言，在大多数公司里，把折旧费用当作“所需资本开支”的一个近似替代（proxy），并不算离谱。这也就是为什么我们认为：报表利润加上无形资产摊销，通常能对“盈利能力”给出一个相当不错的指示。我从来没有认真去想过：为了维持竞争地位，Gillette 到底需要比折旧多花 1 亿美元，还是少花 1 亿美元。我猜实际偏离折旧的幅度，可能比 1 亿还要小得多，相对于它记录的折旧而言。你真正要担心的生意——航空业就是个好例子——在航空业里，你就是得不停地“疯狂烧钱”。
横跨多年的资产负债表。
And you have to spend money like crazy if it’s attractive to spend money, and you have to spend it the same way if it’s unattractive. You just — it’s part of the game. Even in our textile business, to stay competitive we would’ve needed to spend substantial money without any necessary — any clear prospects of making any money when we got through spending it. And those are real traps, those kind of businesses. And they make out one way or another, but they’re dangerous. And in a See’s Candy we would love to be able to spend 10 million, 100 million, $500 million and get anything like the returns we’ve gotten in the past. But there aren’t good ways to do it, unfortunately. We’ll keep looking, but it’s not a business where capital produces the profits. At FlightSafety, capital produces the profits. You need more simulators as you go along, and more pilots are to be trained, and so capital is required to produce profits. But it’s just not the case at See’s.
如果花钱很“划算”、很“吸引人”，你就得疯狂花钱；如果花钱很“不划算”、很“没吸引力”，你也同样得疯狂花钱。你只能——这就是游戏规则的一部分。就算在我们当年的纺织业务里，要保持竞争力，也必须投入大量资金，但投入完之后却未必——甚至没有任何明确前景——能赚到钱。这类生意是真正的陷阱。它们最终也许会以某种方式“熬出来”，但非常危险。至于 See’s Candy，我们当然希望能投入 1,000 万、1 亿、5 亿美元，然后还能获得过去那种回报；但不幸的是，并没有什么好办法可以做到这一点。我们会继续寻找，但 See’s 不是那种“资本投入带来利润”的生意。在 FlightSafety，资本投入会带来利润：你得不断增加模拟器，随着飞行员培训需求增加，资本投入是产出利润所必需的。但 See’s 并不是这样。
And at Coca-Cola, particularly when new markets come along, you know, the Chinas of the world or East Germany or something of the sort, the Coca-Cola Company itself would frequently make the investments needed to build up the bottling infrastructure to rapidly capitalize on those markets, the old Soviet Union. So those are — those are expenditures — you don’t even make the calculation on them, you just know you’ve have to do it. You got a wonderful business, and you want to have it spread worldwide, and you want to capitalize on it to its fullest. And you can make a return on investment calculation, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a waste of time because you’re going to do it anyway, and you know you want to dominate those markets over time. And eventually, you’ll probably fold those investments into other bottling systems as the market gets developed. But you don’t want to wait for conventional bottlers to do it, you want to be there.
再比如 Coca-Cola，尤其当出现新市场时——比如世界上的 China（中国这样的市场）、East Germany（东德）之类——Coca-Cola Company 本身经常会亲自投入资金，去建立装瓶体系（bottling infrastructure），以便迅速抓住这些市场（比如旧苏联市场）。这些投入——这些开支——你甚至都不用去算；你就是知道你必须这么做。你拥有一门极好的生意，你希望它在全球铺开，你希望把它的潜力发挥到极致。你当然可以去算投资回报率（ROI），但在我看来那是浪费时间，因为你无论如何都会去做，而且你知道自己希望在这些市场上长期占据主导地位。等市场逐渐成熟以后，你最终很可能会把这些早期投入并入其他装瓶系统里。但你不想等那些传统装瓶商慢慢来，你要自己先到场。
One of the ironies, incidentally — and might get a kick out of it, some of the older members of the audience — that when the Berlin Wall went down and Coke was there that day with CocaCola for East Germany, that Coke came from the bottling plant at Dunkirk. So there was a certain poetic — (crowd noise) — irony there. Charlie, do you have anything on this?
顺便说一个讽刺（也许现场一些年纪较大的听众会觉得挺有意思）：当 Berlin Wall（柏林墙）倒塌那天，Coke 就已经带着 Coca-Cola 出现在东德市场上；而那批 Coke，竟然来自 Dunkirk 的装瓶厂。所以这里面有一种颇具诗意的——（现场嘈杂声）——讽刺意味。Charlie，你有什么要补充的吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: I’ve heard Warren say since very early in his life that the difference between a good business and a bad business is usually the good business just throws up one easy decision after another, whereas the bad business gives you a horrible choice where the decision is hard to make and, is this really going to work? And is it worth the money? If you want a system for determining which is a good business and which is a bad business, just see which one is throwing the management bloopers time after time after time. Easy decisions. It’s not very hard for us to decide to open a new See’s store in a new shopping center in California that’s obviously going to succeed. It’s a blooper. On the other hand, there are plenty of businesses where the decisions that come across your desk are just awful. And those businesses, by and large, don’t work very well.
CHARLIE MUNGER：我听 Warren 从他人生很早的时候就一直在说：好生意和坏生意的区别，往往在于——好生意会不断抛给你一个又一个“容易做”的决策；而坏生意则会不断给你一个糟糕透顶的选择，你很难决断，而且会反复怀疑：这东西真能成吗？值不值得花这笔钱？如果你想要一套判断“好生意/坏生意”的系统，那就看它是不是一次又一次地给管理层制造“bloopers（失误/烂摊子）”。好生意对应的是“容易的决定”。比如，对我们来说，在加州某个新的购物中心开一家新的 See’s 店，明摆着会成功，这种决策一点也不难——这就是个“blooper”（指那种几乎不会出错、顺手就能做对的决定）。反过来，有很多生意，摆在你桌上的决策简直糟糕透顶。而这类生意，大体上都不会运行得很好。
WARREN BUFFETT: I’ve been on the board of Coke now for 10 years, and we’ve had project after project come up, and there’s always an ROI. But it doesn’t really make much difference to me, because in the end almost any decision you make that solidifies and extends the dominance of Coke around the world in an industry that’s growing by a significant percentage, and which has great inherent underlying profitability, the decisions are going to be right and you’ve got people there that will execute them well.
WARREN BUFFETT：我在 Coke 的董事会里已经 10 年了，一项接一项的项目不断提交上来，每个项目都会附一个 ROI（投资回报率）。但对我来说，这其实没那么重要，因为最终你所做的几乎任何一个决策，只要它是在一个以相当比例增长、且内在盈利能力极强的行业里，去巩固并扩展 Coke 在全球的主导地位，那这些决策大概率都会是正确的；而且公司里也有能把事情执行好的团队。
CHARLIE MUNGER: You’re saying you get blooper after blooper.
CHARLIE MUNGER：你的意思是，你那儿是一波又一波的“blooper”（轻松就能做对的决策）。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And then Charlie and I sat on USAir, and the decisions would come along, and it would be a question of, you know, do you buy the Eastern Shuttle, or whatever it may be? And you’re running out of money. And yet to play the game and to keep the traffic flow with connecting passengers, I mean, you just have to continually make these decisions — whether you spend a hundred million dollars more on some airport. And they’re agony because, again, you don’t have any real choice, but you also don’t have any real conviction that it’s going to translate — those choices are going to — or lack of choices — are going to translate themselves into real money later on. So one game is just forcing you to push more money in to the table with no idea of what kind of a hand you hold, and the other one you get a chance to push more money in, knowing that you’ve got a winning hand all the way. Charlie? Why’d we buy USAir? (Laughter) Could’ve bought more Coke.
WARREN BUFFETT：对。然后我和 Charlie 也曾经一起坐在 USAir 的董事会里。那边摆到你面前的决策，会变成这样的问题：你要不要买下 Eastern Shuttle（东方航空穿梭航线）之类的资产？而且你们还快没钱了。但为了“继续玩下去”、为了保持转机乘客的客流链条，你就不得不持续做这些决定——比如要不要在某个机场再多花 1 亿美元。这样的决策让人非常煎熬，因为你其实没有真正的选择；但你也没有真正的把握相信：这些选择——或者说“没得选”——未来能转化成真实的钱。所以，一种游戏是逼着你不断把钱推到牌桌上，却根本不知道自己手里到底是什么牌；另一种游戏则是你有机会继续往里加注，而且你知道自己一路拿着必胜的牌。Charlie？我们当年为什么要买 USAir？（笑声）本来可以买更多 Coke 的。
98. How Phil Fisher’s “scuttlebutt” method changed Buffett’s life
菲尔·费雪的“scuttlebutt（打探法）”如何改变了巴菲特的人生
WARREN BUFFETT: Area 5?
WARREN BUFFETT：第 5 区？
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Travis Heath (PH). I’m from Dallas, Texas. And my question regards what Phil Fisher referred to as “scuttlebutt.” When you’ve identified a business that you consider to warrant further investigation — more intense investigation — how much time do you spend commonly, both in terms of total hours and in terms of the span in weeks or months that you perform that investigation over?
AUDIENCE MEMBER：我叫 Travis Heath（发音），来自德州 Dallas。我的问题与 Phil Fisher 所说的“scuttlebutt（打探法）”有关。当你确定某个企业值得进一步——甚至更深入——研究时，你通常会投入多少时间？既包括总小时数，也包括以周或月为单位的调查周期。
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the answer to that question is that now I spend practically none because I’ve done it in the past. And the one advantage of allocating capital is that an awful lot of what you do is cumulative in nature, so that you do get continuing benefits out of things that you’d done earlier. So by now, I’m probably fairly familiar with most of the businesses that might qualify for investment at Berkshire. But when I started out, and for a long time I used to do a lot of what Phil Fisher described — I followed his scuttlebutt method. And I don’t think you can do too much of it. 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. 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.
WARREN BUFFETT：这个问题的答案是：现在我几乎不再花时间做这些了，因为过去已经做过很多。资本配置有一个优势：你做的很多事情具有“累积效应”，你会持续从早年做过的功课中受益。所以到现在为止，我大概对大多数可能符合 Berkshire 投资标准的业务都相当熟悉了。但在我刚开始的时候，以及相当长的一段时间里，我确实做了很多 Phil Fisher 描述的那种事——我照着他的 scuttlebutt（打探法）去做。而且我认为，这种事做得再多也不算过分。不过，你之所以对某个标的感兴趣的“总前提”，应该占到你判断的 80% 左右。也就是说，你不应该对每个点子都用这种方式穷追不舍；你需要一个强有力的先验判断。你应该像一位篮球教练在街上碰到一个身高七英尺的人：你一开始就会感兴趣；接下来才需要弄清楚他能不能留在学校、他是否协调、以及诸如此类的问题。
That’s the scuttlebutt aspect of it. 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. 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. Or maybe, if you confirm it, maybe do it even more strongly. I did that with American Express back in the ’60s and essentially the scuttlebutt approach so reinforced my feeling about it that I kept buying more and more and more as I went along. And if you talk to a bunch of people on an industry and you ask them what competitor they fear the most, and why they fear them, and all of that sort of thing.
这就是 scuttlebutt（打探法）的部分。但我相信，当你在积累对行业（总体）与公司（具体）的认知时，没有什么能替代这样一套流程：先做一些阅读，然后走出去，去和竞争对手、客户、供应商、离职员工、在职员工——以及任何相关的人——聊一圈。你会学到很多。但它应当只占最后的 20% 或 10%。也就是说，你不应该被这些“打探来的信息”过度打动；你真正要做的是从一门你认为经济特性很好的生意开始——它看起来像那个七英尺的人——然后再用 scuttlebutt 的方法去“可能推翻”你最初的假设。或者，如果这些打探反而验证了你的假设，那你就可以更有力地行动。我在 60 年代研究 American Express 时就是这么做的；打探法极大地强化了我对它的判断，于是我在过程中越买越多、越买越多、越买越多。再比如，如果你和一个行业里的很多人交谈，问他们最害怕哪个竞争对手、为什么害怕、以及诸如此类的一切问题……
先有一个聪明的假设非常重要，先把注意力的方向确定了。
You know, who would they use the silver bullet of Andy Grove’s on and so on, you’re going to learn a lot about it. You’ll probably know more about the industry than most of the people in it when you get through, because you’ll bring an independent perspective to it, and you’ll be listening to everything everyone says rather than coming in with these preconceived notions and just sort of listening to your own truths after a while. I advise it. I don’t really do it much anymore. I do it a little bit, and I talked in the annual report about how when we made the decision on keeping the American Express when we exchanged our Percs for common stock in 1994, I was using the scuttlebutt approach when I talked to Frank Olson. I couldn’t have talked to a better guy than Frank Olson. Frank Olson, running Hertz Corporation, lots of experience at United Airlines, and a consumer marketing guy by nature. I mean, he understands business.
你知道，比如问他们：“如果有一颗 Andy Grove 说的那种 silver bullet（银弹），你会用在谁身上？”通过这类问题，你会学到很多。等你做完这一圈打探之后，你对这个行业的了解，很可能会超过大多数身在其中的人，因为你带着独立的视角去看问题，而且你会认真听每个人说的话，而不是带着先入为主的成见进去，过一阵子就只是在反复听自己认定的“真理”。我非常建议大家这么做。只是我现在自己做得已经不多了，只是偶尔还会做一点。我在年度报告里讲过，我们在 1994 年决定继续长期持有 American Express，并把手里的 Percs 换成普通股时，我就是在用 scuttlebutt（打探法）——那时我去找 Frank Olson 谈。我不可能找到比 Frank Olson 更合适的人了。Frank Olson 经营 Hertz Corporation，在 United Airlines 有丰富的经历，本性上就是做消费者营销出身的人。换句话说，他非常懂生意。
And when I asked him how strong the American Express card was and what were the strengths and the weaknesses of it, and who was coming along after it, and so on, I mean, he could give me an answer in five minutes that would be better than I could accomplish in hours and hours and hours or weeks of roaming around and doing other things. So you can learn from people. And Frank was a user of it. I mean, Frank was paying X percent to American Express for his Hertz cars. And Frank doesn’t like to pay out money, so why was he paying that? And if he was paying more than he was paying on Master Charge or Visa, why was he paying more? And then what could he do about it? I mean, you just keep asking questions. And I guess Davy [Lorimer Davidson] explained that in that video we had ahead of time. I’m very grateful to him for doing that, because that was a real effort for him.
当我问他 American Express 的卡到底有多强、它的优势和劣势分别是什么、有哪些后来者在追赶等等这些问题时，他在五分钟内给出的答案，比我自己花好几个小时、好几个星期四处打听所能得到的东西都要好。所以你完全可以向人学习。Frank 自己也是用户——他为 Hertz 车队刷 American Express，要付给 American Express X% 的费用。而 Frank 本人是不爱花钱的，那他为什么愿意付这笔钱？如果他付给 American Express 的费率高于 Master Charge 或 Visa，那为什么还愿意多付？那他又能拿这件事怎么办？你就是不断地追问下去就行了。我想 Davy（Lorimer Davidson）在我们会前放的那个视频里已经解释过这一点了。我非常感激他愿意那样做，因为对他来说那确实是下了很大一番功夫。
当时说服巴菲特的“特许经营权”可能是 corporate card（企业卡），AMEX在企业卡的占比很高，Hertz对接企业端的租车业务（差旅）。
But that was really what I was doing back in 1951 when I visited him down in Washington, because I was trying to figure out why people would insure with GEICO rather than with the companies that they were already insuring with, and how permanent that advantage was. You know, what other things could you do with that advantage? And you know, there were just a lot of questions I wanted to ask him, and he was terrific in giving me the answer. It, you know, changed my life in a major way. So I have nobody to thank but Davy on that. But that’s the scuttlebutt method and I do advise it. Charlie?
但这其实正是我在 1951 年去华盛顿拜访他时做的事。当时我想搞清楚：为什么人们会选择跟 GEICO 投保，而不是继续跟原来那家保险公司投保？这种优势的持久性有多强？你还能围绕这种优势做些什么？我有一大堆这样的问题想问他，而他给出的回答都非常出色。这在很大程度上改变了我的人生。所以在这件事上，我只需要感谢 Davy 一个人。这就是所谓的 scuttlebutt（打探法），而且我确实极力提倡这种方法。Charlie？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.
CHARLIE MUNGER：没什么要补充的。
114. Due diligence is useless and misses the point
尽职调查无用且抓错重点
WARREN BUFFETT: Area 9, please.
WARREN BUFFETT：请第 9 区提问。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. My name is Fred Strasheim (PH) and I’m from here in Omaha. I have a question about your acquisition methodology. And I was intrigued to read in your annual report about your acquisition of Star Furniture. And as I understand the process you followed, Mr. Buffett, you met with Mr. — or you — I’m sorry, you reviewed financials for a brief period, liked what you saw, then you met with Mr. Melvyn Wolff for two hours and struck a deal. And you wrote you had no need to check leases, work out employment contracts, et cetera.
AUDIENCE MEMBER：两位下午好。我叫 Fred Strasheim（发音），就住在 Omaha。我有一个关于你们收购方法的问题。我在你们年报里读到收购 Star Furniture 的过程，很受触动。按我理解的流程，Buffett 先生，你先——呃，抱歉——你先简单看了一段时间的财务数据，觉得不错，然后和 Melvyn Wolff 先生见面谈了两个小时就敲定了交易。而你在年报里写到，你不需要去核查租约、也不需要拟定雇佣合同之类的东西。
WARREN BUFFETT: Right.
WARREN BUFFETT：对。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that most companies, when they do acquisitions, would feel the need to do a significant amount of legal due diligence, to do things like check the leases, check into things like undisclosed environmental liability, or perhaps threatened litigation. And I guess my question is, have you ever been burned by your approach?
AUDIENCE MEMBER：我想多数公司在做并购时，都会觉得必须做大量法律尽调，比如核查租约、核查是否有未披露的环境责任、或者潜在诉讼之类的问题。所以我想问的是：你们这种做法有没有让你们“吃过亏”？
WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve been burned by the — we’ve been burned only in the sense that we’ve made mistakes on judging the future economics of the business, which would’ve had nothing to do with due diligence. We regard what people normally refer to “due diligence” as, as really sort of boilerplate in most cases. It’s a process that big companies go through. And they feel they have to go through it. And they’re ignoring — oftentimes, in our view — they’re ignoring what really counts, which is evaluating the people they’re getting in with, and evaluating the economics of the business. That’s 99 percent of the deal. You know, you may run into an environmental liability problem, you know, one time in a hundred, or you may, you know, you may find a bad lease. I asked Melvin about, you know, “Do you have any bad leases?” I mean, that’s the easiest way to do it.
WARREN BUFFETT：我们确实“吃过亏”，但——我们吃亏只是在这样一个意义上：我们在判断这门生意未来的经济性时犯过错误，而这跟尽职调查一点关系都没有。我们认为，人们通常所说的“due diligence（尽职调查）”，在大多数情况下其实就是一套“样板流程”（boilerplate）。大公司都会走这一套流程，他们觉得自己必须走；但在我们看来，他们往往在忽略真正重要的东西——也就是：评估你要与之共事的人，以及评估这门生意的经济性。这两点占交易的 99%。当然，你可能会遇到环境责任问题——也许一百次里会碰到一次；或者你可能发现一份糟糕的租约。我当时就直接问 Melvin：“你有没有什么糟糕的租约？”我的意思是，这才是最省事的做法。
And I could read them all and try and look for every clause or something, but it isn’t going to — you know, that is not the problem. We’ve made bad — lots of bad deals. We made a bad deal when we bought Hochschild Kohn, for example, the department store operation, back in 1966. But it had — fine people — but we were wrong on the economics of the business. But the leases didn’t make any difference. You know, that sort of thing just was not important. And I can’t recall any time that what other people refer to as due diligence would’ve avoided a bad deal for us.
我当然可以把所有租约都读一遍，去抠每一个条款之类的，但那并不能——你知道——那不是问题所在。我们做过糟糕的交易——做过很多糟糕的交易。比如 1966 年我们买 Hochschild Kohn（百货公司业务）就是一笔坏交易。但那家企业的人——人很不错——只是我们对这门生意的经济性判断错了。但租约并不构成差异。你知道，那类东西并不重要。我想不起来有哪一次，是“别人所说的那种尽调”能够帮我们避免一笔坏交易。
CHARLIE MUNGER: I can’t either.
CHARLIE MUNGER：我也想不起来。
WARREN BUFFETT: No. That’s 30-some years. And I — The key thing — you just don’t want to do — I go — I’m on various public company boards — I’ve been on 19 public company boards — and you know, their idea of the due diligence is to send the lawyers out and have a bunch of investment bankers come in and make presentations and all that. And I regard that as terribly diversionary, because the board sits there, you know, entranced by all of that, and everybody reporting how wonderful this thing is and how they checked out patents and all that sort of thing. And nobody is focusing really on where the business is going to be in five or 10 years. You know, business judgment about economics — and people to some extent — but the business economics — that is 99 percent of deal making. And the rest, people may do it for their protection. I think too often they do it as a crutch just to go through with the deal that they want to go through with anyway, and of course all the professionals know that. So believe me, they come back with the diligence, whether due or not.
不，这已经是三十多年了。而且我——关键在于——你不该去做那种事——我在不少上市公司董事会任职——我当过 19 家上市公司的董事——他们对“尽调”的理解，就是把律师派出去，再让一堆投行来做路演式的展示，等等。我认为这非常“转移注意力”（diversionary），因为董事会成员坐在那里，被这些东西迷住：每个人都在汇报这交易多么好、他们怎么核查了专利之类的东西。但真正没有人把注意力放在：这门生意五年或十年后会变成什么样。你知道，真正需要的是对经济性的商业判断——当然也包括对人的判断到一定程度——但“生意的经济性”才占交易决策的 99%。剩下的东西，有些人可能是为了自我保护才去做。我觉得很多时候，他们把这当成拐杖，只是为了让自己更容易“把本来就想做的交易做下去”；而所有专业人士当然都懂这一点。所以你相信我，他们总会带回一份“尽调报告”——不管它是否真的“应当尽”。（笑声）
一开始的Attention是错的，后面的所有都什么价值。
And — (Laughter) We are not big fans of that. I don’t know how many deals we’ve made over the years, but I cannot think of anything that traditional due diligence has had a thing to do with.
而且——（笑声）——我们并不是这种东西的粉丝。我不知道这些年我们做过多少交易，但我想不出哪一笔交易是“传统尽调”真正起过作用的。
CHARLIE MUNGER: No, we’ve had surprises on the favorable side a couple of times —
CHARLIE MUNGER：没有。倒是有过几次“意外惊喜”——
WARREN BUFFETT: That is true. That is true. The kind of people that we’ve generally dealt with have usually told us the bad things first and good things after we made the deal. We made a deal with a fellow over in Rockford in 1969, Eugene Abegg, Illinois National Bank and Trust Company. I made that deal in a couple of hours and, I mean, there just wasn’t any way that Gene was going to be hiding anything bad. For the next ten years when I went over there, every time I’d go to lunch he’d point out some building in town that we owned that wasn’t on the books, or some foundation we had that had money in it he hadn’t told me about. And he even gave me some bills, one of which I carry in my pocket, that he had still sitting around that were issued by the bank that were our own money which he never told me about. We could cut them out like paper dolls. I mean, Gene was not a guy to show all his cards.
这倒是真的，这倒是真的。我们通常打交道的那类人，一般会先把坏消息告诉我们，等交易做完以后才把好消息慢慢讲出来。1969 年我们在 Rockford 跟一个人做过交易——Eugene Abegg，Illinois National Bank and Trust Company。我几乎是两小时内就把交易谈成了；而且我的意思是，Gene 绝不可能去藏什么坏东西。接下来十年里，我每次去那边、每次去吃午饭，他都会指着镇上某栋楼告诉我：“这栋也是我们公司的资产，但账上没记。”或者告诉我我们有某个基金会，里面还有钱，他当初没跟我说。甚至他还给了我一些纸币，其中一张我现在还放在口袋里——那是银行发行的、实际上属于“我们自己的钱”，但他之前从未提过。那些纸币我们甚至可以像剪纸娃娃一样把它们剪下来。我的意思是，Gene 不是那种会把所有牌都亮给你看的人。（笑声）
(Laughter) And those are the kind of people we’ve generally dealt with, and I would certainly say that Melvyn and [his sister] Shirley [Toomin] fit that description in spades.
（笑声）我们通常打交道的就是这样的人，而我可以非常肯定地说，Melvyn 和（他的妹妹）Shirley（Toomin）在这方面完全符合——而且是“加倍地符合”这种描述。
Fully as important in my decisions to both use and buy NetJets, however, was the fact that the company was managed by Rich Santulli, the creator of the fractional-ownership industry and a fanatic about safety and service. I viewed the selection of a flight provider as akin to picking a brain surgeon: you simply want the best. (Let someone else experiment with the low bidder.)
不过，在我决定既使用、又收购 NetJets 的原因中，同样重要的一点是：公司由 Rich Santulli 管理——他是分割所有权行业的开创者，并且对安全与服务近乎偏执。我把选择飞行服务提供商看作类似选择一位脑外科医生：你只想要最好的。（让别人去尝试最低报价者吧。）
一句话就能说清楚的商业模式，NetJets所对应的Attention非常清晰。
Last year NetJets again gained about 70% of the net new business (measured by dollar value) going to the four companies that dominate the industry. A portion of our growth came from the 25-hour card offered by Marquis Jet Partners. Marquis is not owned by NetJets, but is instead a customer that repackages the purchases it makes from us into smaller packages that it sells through its card. Marquis deals exclusively with NetJets, utilizing the power of our reputation in its marketing.
去年，NetJets 再次拿下了行业四大主导公司所获得“净新增业务”（按美元口径衡量）的约 70%。我们增长的一部分来自 Marquis Jet Partners 提供的 25 小时卡。Marquis 并不归 NetJets 所有，它是我们的客户：把从我们这里购买的飞行小时再打包成更小的产品，通过卡的形式出售。Marquis 只与 NetJets 合作，并在营销中利用我们声誉的力量。
Our U.S. contracts, including Marquis customers, grew from 3,877 to 4,967 in 2004 (versus approximately 1,200 contracts when Berkshire bought NetJets in 1998). Some clients (including me) enter into multiple contracts because they wish to use more than one type of aircraft, selecting for any given trip whichever type best fits the mission at hand.
我们的美国合同（包括 Marquis 客户）在 2004 年从 3,877 份增长到 4,967 份（而 Berkshire 在 1998 年收购 NetJets 时约为 1,200 份）。一些客户（包括我）会签多份合同，因为他们希望使用不止一种机型；每次出行都可选择最适合当次任务（mission）的机型。
NetJets earned a modest amount in the U.S. last year. But what we earned domestically was largely offset by losses in Europe. We are now, however, generating real momentum abroad. Contracts (including 25-hour cards that we ourselves market in Europe) increased from 364 to 693 during the year. We will again have a very significant European loss in 2005, but domestic earnings will likely put us in the black overall.
去年 NetJets 在美国实现了小幅盈利。但我们在美国赚到的利润，很大程度上被欧洲的亏损所抵消。不过，我们现在正在海外形成真正的增长势能。欧洲合同数（包括我们自己在欧洲销售的 25 小时卡）在一年中从 364 份增长到 693 份。2005 年我们在欧洲仍会出现相当可观的亏损，但美国业务的盈利很可能使我们总体上实现盈利。
Europe has been expensive for NetJets — far more expensive than I anticipated — but it is essential to building a flight operation that will forever be in a class by itself. Our U.S. owners already want a quality service wherever they travel and their wish for flight hours abroad is certain to grow dramatically in the decades ahead. Last year, U.S. owners made 2,003 flights in Europe, up 22% from the previous year and 137% from 2000. Just as important, our European owners made 1,067 flights in the U.S., up 65% from 2003 and 239% from 2000.
欧洲对 NetJets 来说代价高昂——远远超出我原先的预期——但这对于打造一个“永远独一档”的飞行运营体系是必不可少的。我们的美国客户已经希望无论去哪里旅行都能获得高品质服务，而他们在海外的飞行小时需求，在未来几十年几乎必然会大幅增长。去年，美国客户在欧洲完成了 2,003 次飞行，较上一年增长 22%，较 2000 年增长 137%。同样重要的是，我们的欧洲客户在美国完成了 1,067 次飞行，较 2003 年增长 65%，较 2000 年增长 239%。
Appendix.11.《2007-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
WARREN BUFFETT: I figured it out in 20 years, though. I’ll have to say that for myself. (Laughs)
沃伦·巴菲特：不过，我在 20 年内想明白了。我得为自己说这一点。（笑）
Twenty years, and I finally figured out I was in the wrong business.
二十年后，我终于明白我选错了行业。
But there are businesses — if you gave me first draft pick of all the CEOs in America and said it’s your job to run Ford Motor now or, you know, pick a company that’s in a terribly tough business, you know, I wouldn’t do it.
但是有些企业——如果你让我从所有美国的首席执行官中挑选第一顺位，并说现在你的工作是经营福特汽车公司，或者选择一家处于极其艰难行业的公司，我不会去做。
I mean, that it’s just too tough. They may get it solved, you know, if they get cooperation from unions and a whole bunch of things, but it will not be solely in the control of the CEO who has that job.
我的意思是，这实在是太难了。你知道，如果他们得到工会和一大堆事情的合作，他们可能会解决这个问题，但这不会仅仅由担任该职位的首席执行官控制。
He is dependent on too many good things happening outside to say that he alone can get the job, even if he’s the best in the world.
他过于依赖外界的好事来临，无法仅凭自己就能好这份工作，即使他是世界上最优秀的。
乔布斯回到苹果后再不想做To B的业务，他认为To C才是他真正想做的。
在1991年股东信的基础上对“Right Business”的描述做了一次更新。
Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical
差异化是生存之道，而宇宙希望你平庸如常
This is my last annual shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon, and I have one last thing of utmost importance I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazonians take it to heart.
这是我作为亚马逊首席执行官撰写的最后一封年度股东信，我有一件极其重要的事情想要传授。我希望所有亚马逊人都能铭记于心。
Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins’ (extraordinary) book *The Blind Watchmaker*. It’s about a basic fact of biology.
以下这段话摘自理查德·道金斯那本非凡之作《盲眼钟表匠》，讲述的是一个基本的生物学事实。
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”
“抵御死亡是一项必须努力完成的任务。若不加干预——也就是当生命终结时——身体会趋于与周围环境达到平衡的状态。如果你测量某种生命体的参数，例如体温、酸碱度、水分含量或电位，你通常会发现这些数值与环境中的对应值存在明显差异。比如我们的体温通常高于外部环境，在寒冷的气候中，我们必须努力维持这种温差。当我们死去，这种‘努力’停止，温差开始消失，最终我们的体温与环境一致。并不是所有动物都会为避免与环境温度趋于平衡而付出巨大努力，但所有动物都会在某种程度上做类似的事情。比如在干燥的地区，动物和植物要努力保持细胞中的水分含量，抵抗水分自然流向干燥外部环境的趋势；如果失败，它们就会死亡。更普遍地说，如果生物不积极行动加以抵抗，它们最终将融入周围环境，不再作为独立体存在。这正是它们死亡时所发生的事情。”
While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?
虽然那段话本意并非比喻，但它仍是一个精彩的隐喻，与亚马逊息息相关。我认为它同样适用于所有公司、所有机构，以及我们每个人的生活。世界是如何在潜移默化中试图让你变得“正常”的？你又需要付出多少努力，才能维持你与众不同的特质？才能保留住那些让你特别的东西？
I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?” They both smile and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal.
我认识一对幸福的夫妻，他们之间有个常开的玩笑。丈夫常常假装苦恼地看着妻子说：“你就不能正常点吗？”然后他们会一起微笑、发笑。当然，内心深处的真相是：正是她与众不同的地方让他深深地爱着她。但与此同时，不可否认的是，如果我们稍微“正常”一些，事情往往也会变得更简单、更省力。
This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.
这种现象存在于所有层面。民主制度并不是常态，历史上专制才是常态。如果我们不再为维持这方面的独特性持续努力，很快我们就会与专制趋于平衡。
We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.
我们都知道，与众不同、独创性是有价值的。从小我们就被教导要“做自己”。但我真正想告诉你的是，要正视并接纳：维持这种与众不同需要付出巨大的能量。世界千方百计地想让你变得平庸普通——不要让它得逞。
You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.
保持独特是要付出代价的，但这是值得的。童话版本的“做自己”是：一旦你展现出与众不同，所有的痛苦都会消失。但这只是误导。做自己确实值得，但不要指望这条路轻松或没有代价。你必须不断地投入能量，才能维持它。
The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.
世界永远会试图让亚马逊变得更“典型”——与环境趋于平衡。这需要我们持续不断的努力，但我们可以，也必须，比这更出色。
Appendix.14.《2023-05-08 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
And now, with 330 million people, all brands in the United States have, like, 18,000 dealers or something. It’s just a business where you’ve got a lot of worldwide competitors, they’re not going to go away. And it looks like there are winners in any given time, but it doesn’t get you a permanent place. Although, as I mentioned, I would say Ferrari is in a special place.
现在，美国有 3.3 亿人，所有品牌大约有 18,000 个经销商。这只是一个有很多全球竞争对手的行业，他们不会消失。在任何给定的时间，看起来都有赢家，但这并不能让你获得一个永久的位置。尽管如此，正如我提到的，我会说法拉利处于一个特殊的位置。
巴菲特不喜欢汽车制造业，但他喜欢Ferrari。
Appendix.15.《2025-05-03 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
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。
汽车制造和汽车玻璃。
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。
Attention Is All You Need，影响心理上锚定的目标。
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。
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