I.H.105.Warren Buffett.Media Companies
广告的本质是价值观，这个世界非常复杂，有大量的噪音，任何企业都做不到让消费者记住太多的信息，一个伟大的品牌必须清楚自己想传递的信息。
A Change in Media Economics and Some Valuation Math
媒体经济学的变化，以及一点估值算术
In last year’s report, I stated my opinion that the decline in the profitability of media companies reflected secular as well as cyclical factors. The events of 1991 have fortified that case: The economic strength of once-mighty media enterprises continues to erode as retailing patterns change and advertising and entertainment choices proliferate. In the business world, unfortunately, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield: A few years back no one linked to the media business—neither lenders, owners nor financial analysts—saw the economic deterioration that was in store for the industry. (But give me a few years and I’ll probably convince myself that I did.)
在去年的报告中，我表达了一个看法：媒体公司的盈利能力下滑，既有周期性因素，也有结构性（长期趋势）因素。1991年的事件进一步加强了这一判断：随着零售模式改变、广告和娱乐选择大幅增加，昔日强大的媒体企业的经济实力仍在持续侵蚀。在商业世界里，不幸的是，后视镜永远比挡风玻璃更清晰：几年前，凡是与媒体行业有关的人——无论是放贷人、所有者还是金融分析师——都没有看见行业即将发生的经济恶化。（不过再给我几年时间，我大概也会说服自己：我当时看见了。）
The fact is that newspaper, television, and magazine properties have begun to resemble businesses more than franchises in their economic behavior. Let’s take a quick look at the characteristics separating these two classes of enterprise, keeping in mind, however, that many operations fall in some middle ground and can best be described as weak franchises or strong businesses.
事实是，报纸、电视和杂志这些资产，在经济行为上已经开始更像“生意”（business），而不是“特许经营”（franchise）。我们快速看看这两类企业的区分特征。当然也要记住：很多业务处在中间地带，最贴切的描述往往是“弱特许经营”或“强生意”。
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。
“特许经营”（franchise），这和2007年股东信里定义的护城河有一些对应的地方：
1、needed
对应lowcost producer的必需品（Something that people need），长期、结构性的成本优势是可以作为护河城的。
2、desired
对应world-wide brand的心智份额（share of mind），(1) desired+(2) is thought by its customers to have no close substitute and+(3) is not subject to price regulation，三者是强关联的关系。
3、“特许经营”的强度测试
能容忍管理不善，2007年写在可持续（enduring）的定义中，排除两个特征：（1）处于快速且持续变革的行业；（2）成败系于“名帅”的企业。
（1）1991年，能容忍管理不善，差经理会降利润但不致命。
（2）1987年，“少变化、少杠杆、长期高ROE”，经济地形剧烈变化的地方，很难建立“堡垒式的 business franchise”。
合在一起就是2007年所定义的可持续（enduring）。
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。
“生意”（business）对应2007年的lowcost producer：
1、if it is the low-cost operator or if supply of its product or service is tight
（1）前者可以成为有效的护城河，这个观点没有改变过，但问题是长期、结构性的低成本是不是足够坚固的护城河？lowcost producer对应的必需品因为缺少差异化会持续面临竞争对手的攻击。
（2）后者更差一些，没有长期结构性的成本优势会进入另一种状态的生存模式：成为周期性的行业。
2、unceasingly faces the possibility of competitive attack
持续面临竞争是“生意”（business）的通病，和“特许经营”（franchise）的区别就在这里，这里可以看出企业得以生存的几种方式：
（1）定价权型护城河
desired-》world-wide brand，不是必需品，在客户心中没有接近的替代品，不受价格管制，占据心智份额（share of mind），有最为坚固的护城河。
（2）成本优势型护城河
必需品，持续面临竞争对手的攻击但有长期、结构性的成本优势，GEICO、Costco、BNSF都是很好的例子。
（3）供给约束/周期型
盈利会随经济周期在这个水平上下波动。“上下浮动”（bob-around）模式是大多数“生意”的宿命——它们的收入流只有在所有者愿意投入更多资本（通常以留存收益的形式）时才会增长。
Until recently, media properties possessed the three characteristics of a franchise and consequently could both price aggressively and be managed loosely. Now, however, consumers looking for information and entertainment (their primary interest being the latter) enjoy greatly broadened choices as to where to find them. Unfortunately, demand can’t expand in response to this new supply: 500 million American eyeballs and a 24-hour day are all that’s available. The result is that competition has intensified, markets have fragmented, and the media industry has lost some—though far from all—of its franchise strength.
直到不久以前，媒体资产具备特许经营的三项特征，因此既能强势定价，也能“松松垮垮”地管理。然而现在，寻找信息与娱乐的消费者（他们主要关心的是后者）在获取渠道上拥有大幅扩展的选择。遗憾的是，需求并不会因为供给增加而同步扩张：美国人的眼球总量就那么多——大约5亿双——一天也只有24小时可用。结果就是竞争加剧、市场被切碎，媒体行业失去了一部分——尽管远未失去全部——特许经营的力量。
现在的Google，“松松垮垮”地管理也经理的非常好。
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The industry’s weakened franchise has an impact on its value that goes far beyond the immediate effect on earnings. For an understanding of this phenomenon, let’s look at some much over-simplified, but relevant, math.
行业“特许经营”力量的削弱，对其价值的影响远远超过对当期盈利的直接冲击。要理解这种现象，我们来看一些大幅度过度简化但与问题相关的算术。
A few years ago the conventional wisdom held that a newspaper, television or magazine property would forever increase its earnings at 6% or so annually and would do so without the employment of additional capital, for the reason that depreciation charges would roughly match capital expenditures and working capital requirements would be minor. Therefore, reported earnings (before amortization of intangibles) were also freely-distributable earnings, which meant that ownership of a media property could be construed as akin to owning a perpetual annuity set to grow at 6% a year. Say, next, that a discount rate of 10% was used to determine the present value of that earnings stream. One could then calculate that it was appropriate to pay a whopping $25 million for a property with current after-tax earnings of $1 million. (This after-tax multiplier of 25 translates to a multiplier on pre-tax earnings of about 16.)
几年前的主流看法认为：一家报纸、电视或杂志资产会永远以大约每年6%的速度增长盈利，而且不需要额外投入资本。理由是折旧费用大体会与资本开支相当，而营运资金需求很小。因此，报表上的盈利（扣除无形资产摊销之前）也几乎等同于可自由分配的盈利。换句话说，拥有一家媒体资产，几乎可以被视为拥有一份“永续年金”，并且这份年金每年还会以6%的速度增长。接着，假设用10%的贴现率来计算这条盈利流的现值，那么你就会得出：对一家当前税后盈利为100万美元的媒体资产，支付高达2,500万美元是合理的。（税后25倍的乘数，大致相当于税前约16倍的乘数。）
25倍PE=4%+6%（增长）=10%。
Now change the assumption and posit that the $1 million represents “normal earning power” and that earnings will bob around this figure cyclically. A “bob-around” pattern is indeed the lot of most businesses, whose income stream grows only if their owners are willing to commit more capital (usually in the form of retained earnings). Under our revised assumption, $1 million of earnings, discounted by the same 10%, translates to a $10 million valuation. Thus a seemingly modest shift in assumptions reduces the property’s valuation to 10 times after-tax earnings (or about 6 1/2 times pre-tax earnings).
现在我们换一个假设：把这100万美元视为“正常盈利能力”，并且认为盈利会随经济周期在这个水平上下波动。“上下浮动”（bob-around）模式确实是大多数“生意”的宿命——它们的收入流只有在所有者愿意投入更多资本（通常以留存收益的形式）时才会增长。在这个修正后的假设下，同样的100万美元盈利，用同样10%的贴现率折现，对应的估值就是1,000万美元。于是，一个看似并不大的假设变化，就把该资产的估值降到了税后盈利10倍（或税前大约6.5倍）。
Dollars are dollars whether they are derived from the operation of media properties or of steel mills. What in the past caused buyers to value a dollar of earnings from media far higher than a dollar from steel was that the earnings of a media property were expected to constantly grow (without the business requiring much additional capital), whereas steel earnings clearly fell in the bob-around category. Now, however, expectations for media have moved toward the bob-around model. And, as our simplified example illustrates, valuations must change dramatically when expectations are revised.
无论这1美元来自媒体资产还是来自钢铁厂的经营，都是1美元。过去买家之所以愿意为“媒体的1美元盈利”付出远高于“钢铁的1美元盈利”的价格，是因为媒体资产的盈利被预期会持续增长（而且不需要太多额外资本），而钢铁的盈利显然属于“上下浮动”那一类。如今，市场对媒体的预期却已经向“上下浮动”模型靠拢。正如我们这个简化例子所示，一旦预期被修正，估值就必须发生剧烈变化。
从特许经营滑落、落入普通生意=失去有意义的增长，因为收入流只有在所有者愿意投入更多资本（通常以留存收益的形式）时才会增长。
We have a significant investment in media—both through our direct ownership of Buffalo News and our shareholdings in The Washington Post Company and Capital Cities/ABC—and the intrinsic value of this investment has declined materially because of the secular transformation that the industry is experiencing. (Cyclical factors have also hurt our current look-through earnings, but these factors do not reduce intrinsic value.) However, as our Business Principles on page 2-3 note, one of the rules by which we run Berkshire is that we do not sell businesses—or investee holdings that we have classified as permanent—simply because we see ways to use the money more advantageously elsewhere. (We did sell certain other media holdings sometime back, but these were relatively small.)
我们在媒体行业有相当大的投资——既包括直接拥有 Buffalo News，也包括持有 The Washington Post Company 与 Capital Cities/ABC 的股份——而由于该行业正在经历的结构性转型，这部分投资的内在价值已经显著下降。（周期性因素也损害了我们当期的“穿透式”盈利，但这些因素并不会降低内在价值。）不过，正如第2-3页我们的《经营原则》所写，Berkshire 的一条经营规则是：我们不会仅仅因为看到了在其他地方更有利的用钱方式，就出售我们拥有的企业——或我们已归类为“永久持有”的被投资公司股权。（我们确实在较早时期卖出过一些其他媒体持股，但那些规模相对较小。）
从一开始就为这样的结果留出空间，这是必然会出现的结果，有两个理由：
（1）从容面对好过于匆匆忙忙，在内部造成紧张氛围会损害企业文化；
（2）“Water the flowers and skip over the weeds.”，任何时候都应该抓住关键问题，注意力留给鲜花而不是野草。
The intrinsic value losses that we have suffered have been moderated because the Buffalo News, under Stan Lipsey’s leadership, has done far better than most newspapers and because both Cap Cities and Washington Post are exceptionally well-managed. In particular, these companies stayed on the sidelines during the late 1980’s period in which purchasers of media properties regularly paid irrational prices. Also, the debt of both Cap Cities and Washington Post is small and roughly offset by cash that they hold. As a result, the shrinkage in the value of their assets has not been accentuated by the effects of leverage. Among publicly-owned media companies, our two investees are about the only ones essentially free of debt. Most of the other companies, through a combination of the aggressive acquisition policies they pursued and shrinking earnings, find themselves with debt equal to five or more times their current net income.
我们遭受的内在价值损失之所以被部分抵消，是因为 Buffalo News 在 Stan Lipsey 的领导下表现远好于多数报纸公司，而且 Cap Cities 与 Washington Post 的管理也异常出色。尤其值得一提的是：在上世纪80年代末那段时期，媒体资产的买家经常支付非理性的高价，而这两家公司当时选择了按兵不动。此外，Cap Cities 与 Washington Post 的负债都很少，而且它们持有的现金大体可以抵消这些负债。因此，它们资产价值的收缩并没有被杠杆效应进一步放大。在上市媒体公司中，我们这两家被投资公司几乎是仅有的基本无债公司。其他大多数公司则因为激进收购政策与盈利下滑的双重作用，债务已膨胀到相当于其当前净利润的五倍甚至更高。
杠杆只是加速器，如果相信自己肯定会赢，应该享受过程而不是想着加速。
The strong balance sheets and strong managements of Cap Cities and Washington Post leave us more comfortable with these investments than we would be with holdings in any other media companies. Moreover, most media properties continue to have far better economic characteristics than those possessed by the average American business. But gone are the days of bullet-proof franchises and cornucopian economics.
Cap Cities 与 Washington Post 强健的资产负债表和强大的管理层，使我们持有它们比持有任何其他媒体公司都更安心。此外，大多数媒体资产依然拥有远好于美国平均企业的经济特性。但那种“子弹打不穿的特许经营”与“聚宝盆般的经济学”的时代已经一去不复返了。
2、《1995-04-20 Steve Jobs.Interview with Daniel Morrow》
Steve Jobs: The market competition model seems to indicate that where there is a need there is a lot of providers willing to tailor their products to fit that need and a lot of competition which forces them to get better and better. I used to think when I was in my twenties that technology was the solution to most of the world's problems, but unfortunately it just ain't so. I'll give you an analogy. Alot of times we think "Why is the television programming so bad? Why are television shows so demeaning, so poor?" The first thought that occurs to you is "Well, there is a conspiracy: the networks are feeding us this slop because its cheap to produce. It's the networks that are controlling this and they are feeding us this stuff but the truth of the matter, if you study it in any depth, is that networks absolutely want to give people what they want so that will watch the shows. If people wanted something different, they would get it. And the truth of the matter is that the shows that are on television, are on television because that's what people want. The majority of people in this country want to turn on a television and turn off their brain and that's what they get. And that's far more depressing than a conspiracy. Conspiracies are much more fun than the truth of the matter, which is that the vast majority of the public are pretty mindless most of the time. I think the school situation has a parallel here when it comes to technology. It is so much more hopeful to think that technology can solve the problems that are more human and more organizational and more political in nature, and it ain't so. We need to attack these things at the root, which is people and how much freedom we give people, the competition that will attract the best people. Unfortunately, there are side effects, like pushing out a lot of 46 year old teachers who lost their spirit fifteen years ago and shouldn't be teaching anymore. I feel very strongly about this. I wish it was as simple as giving it over to the computer.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：市场竞争模式似乎表明，只要有需求，就会有很多供应商愿意根据需求定制产品，而激烈的竞争也会迫使他们变得越来越好。在我二十多岁的时候，我曾经认为技术可以解决世界上的大多数问题，但不幸的是，事实并非如此。我给你打个比方。很多时候我们会想："为什么电视节目这么糟糕？为什么电视节目如此贬低人，如此差劲？"你首先想到的是："嗯，这是一个阴谋：电视网给我们提供这些泔水，因为制作成本低。是电视网在控制这一切，他们在给我们提供这些东西，但如果你深入研究一下，事情的真相是，电视网绝对是想给人们他们想要的东西，这样人们才会看这些节目。如果人们想要不同的东西，他们就会得到。而事实的真相是，电视节目之所以能在电视上播出，是因为这正是人们想要的。这个国家的大多数人都想打开电视，关掉大脑，这就是他们所得到的。这比阴谋论更让人沮丧。阴谋论比事实真相有趣得多，事实真相是绝大多数公众在大多数时候都很无脑。我认为，在技术方面，学校的情况与此类似。认为技术可以解决更人性、更组织化、更政治化的问题，这种想法更有希望，但事实并非如此。我们需要从根本上解决这些问题，也就是人的问题，以及我们给予人们多少自由的问题，还有吸引最优秀人才的竞争问题。 不幸的是，这样做也有副作用，比如把很多 46 岁的教师挤走了，他们在 15 年前就失去了斗志，不应该再教书了。我对此深有感触，我希望这能像交给计算机那么简单。
想通过短视频提供高质量的内容几乎不可能，这时候大脑的慢系统是关闭的，最多暂时添加收藏，等到以后再仔细研究。
3、《1997-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
51. “It’s not share of market. It’s share of mind that counts”
“决定胜负的不是市场份额，而是心智份额”
WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 1 again.
WARREN BUFFETT：再次请1号区。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mike Assail (PH) from New York City. Could you explain a little more about what you call the “mind of the consumer” and the “nature of the product” and explain how you actually apply these concepts to find the companies with the growing demand and the best investment potential? And thank you for being two of the greatest professors I’ve ever had.
观众：来自 New York City 的 Mike Assail（音）。能否进一步解释你所说的“消费者心智”和“产品的本质”，并说明你们如何把这些概念真正应用到选股中，去寻找需求在增长、投资潜力最好的公司？另外，谢谢你们两位——这是我遇到过的最出色的两位“教授”。
WARREN BUFFETT: Thanks. (Applause) You know, what you really — when you get into consumer products, you’re really interested in finding out — or thinking about — what is in the mind of how many people throughout the world about a product now, and what is likely to be in their mind five or ten or 20 years from now? Now, virtually every person on the globe — maybe, well, let’s get it down to 75 percent of the people on the globe — have some notion in their mind about Coca-Cola. They have — the word “Coca-Cola” means something to them. You know, RC Cola doesn’t mean anything to virtually anyone in the world, you know, it does to the guy who owns RC, you know, and the bottler. But everybody has something in their mind about Coca-Cola. And overwhelmingly, it’s favorable. It’s associated with pleasant experiences. Now, part of that is by design. I mean, it is where you are happy. It is at Disneyland, at Disney World. And it’s at ballparks.
WARREN BUFFETT：谢谢。（掌声）你知道，当你研究消费品时，真正要做的——或者说要思考的——是：当下全世界有多少人对某个产品在“心里”形成了什么印象？而在5年、10年、20年后，他们“心里”又大概率会是什么印象？如今，几乎全球每一个人——好吧，我们保守点，说全球75%的人——心里都对 Coca-Cola 有某种概念。对他们而言，“Coca-Cola”这个词是有含义的。相反，RC Cola 对世界上几乎所有人都没有意义——当然，对 RC 的所有者、对装瓶商是有意义的。但几乎所有人“心里”对 Coca-Cola 都有点什么——而且绝大多数是正面的。它和愉快的体验相连，这其中有一部分是精心设计的，也就是说，它总是出现在你开心的场景里：在 Disneyland、在 Disney World、在球场。
真正有效的护城河，不是 P&L 表上的某一行，而是用户脑子里的那点“偏见”：一旦形成正确的“心智绑定”，价格、竞争者动作、渠道威胁都只能在外圈打转。
And it’s every place that you’re likely to have a smile on your face, including the Berkshire Hathaway meeting I might add. (Laughter) And that position in the mind is pretty firmly established. And it’s established in close to 200 countries around the world with people. A year from now, it will be established in more minds. And it will have a slightly, slightly, slightly different overall position. In ten years from now, the position can move just a little bit more. It’s share of mind. It’s not share of market. It’s share of mind that counts. Disney, same way. Disney means something to billions of people. And if you’re a parent of a couple young children and you got 50 videos in front of you that you can buy, you’re not going to sit down and preview an hour and a half of each video before deciding what one to stick in front of your kids. You know, you have got something in your mind about Disney. And you don’t have it about the ABC Video Company. Or you don’t even have it about other — you don’t have it about 20th Century.
它出现在一切能让你面带微笑的地方——顺带一提，也包括 Berkshire Hathaway 的股东会。（笑）这种“心智中的位置”已经相当牢固；它在全球接近200个国家的人群心中建立起来。再过一年，会有更多人的心里形成这种位置；整体印象会一丁点、一丁点地变化；十年后，又会再小幅推进。这就是“心智份额”。关键不是市场份额，而是心智份额。Disney 也是同样的道理。对数十亿人而言，Disney 这个名字“有意义”。如果你是家里有两三个小孩的父母，面前摆着50张可买的录像带，你不会先把每一盘都预览一个半小时再决定给孩子看哪一盘。你“心里”对 Disney 已经有定见了；但对 ABC Video Company 没有这种定见；对其他公司——比如 20th Century——你也没有这种定见。
You know, you don’t have it about Paramount. So that name, to billions of people, including lots of people outside this country, it has a meaning. And that meaning overwhelmingly is favorable. It’s reinforced by the other activities of the company. And just think of what somebody would pay if they could actually buy that share of mind, you know, of billions of people around the world. You can’t do it. You can’t do it by a billion dollar advertising budget or a $3 billion advertising budget or hiring 20,000 super salesmen. So you’ve got that. Now, the question is what does that stand for five or ten or 20 years from now? You know they’ll be more people. You know they’ll be more people that have heard of Disney. And you know that there will always be parents that are interested in having something for their kids to do. And you know that kids will love the same sort of things. And, you know, that — (Munger accidentally knocks over his microphone) — what’s? (Laughter) He emphasizes the key points when we get to those.
你看，对 Paramount 你同样没有这种定见。可这个名字（Disney）对数十亿人——包括美国以外的很多人——是“有含义”的，而且这种含义压倒性地正面；公司其它活动又在不断强化这种含义。想一想：如果有人真能把这种“覆盖全球数十亿人的心智份额”买下来，他会愿意出多少钱？这是买不到的。即使用10亿美元、30亿美元的广告预算，或者雇2万名超级销售，也买不到。因此，你已经拥有的是“心智资产”。接下来该问的是：5年、10年、20年后，它还能代表什么？你知道人口会更多；你知道会有更多人听说 Disney；你也知道永远都会有父母在意“给孩子点什么可做的事情”；你知道孩子们喜欢的东西大体相似。然后，你看——（Munger 不小心碰倒了话筒）——怎么了？（笑）每当我们说到关键点，他就会来个强调。
(Laughter) But that is what you’re trying to think about with a consumption product. That’s what Charlie and I were thinking about when we bought See’s Candy. I mean, here we were. It’s 1972. You know, we know a fair amount about candy. I know more than when I sat down this morning. (Laughs) I mean, I had about 20 pieces already. (Laughter) But, you know, what — whose, you know — does their face light up on Valentine’s Day, you know, when you hand them a box of candy and say, you know, it’s some nondescript thing and say, “Here, honey, I took the low bid,” you know, or something of the sort, and — (Laughter) No. I mean, you want something — you know, you’ve got tens of millions of people — or at least many millions of people — that remember that the first time they handed that box of candy, it wasn’t that much thereafter that they got kids for the first time or something. So it’s — the memories are good.
（笑）但这正是你在做消费品时要思考的事。我们买下 See’s Candy 时，Charlie 和我想的就是这些。也就是说，当时是 1972 年。你知道，我们对糖果了解不少。今天早上坐下来之前我知道得还没这么多（笑）。我是说，我刚才已经吃了大概 20 颗了（笑）。但是，你想想——在 Valentine’s Day，你把一盒糖递给对方，同时说这是一件来路不明的东西，或者来一句“亲爱的，我选了最低价”（笑）——对方的表情会亮起来吗？不会。我的意思是，你想要的是——有上千万，至少几百万人还记得：第一次把那盒糖送给心上人，没过多久他们就迎来了人生第一次有了孩子，或类似的美好时刻。所以——这些记忆是美好的。
The association’s good. Total process. It isn’t just the candy. It’s the person who takes care of you at Christmastime when they’ve been on their feet for eight hours, and people have been yelling at them because they’ve been in line with 50 people in line, and that person still smiles at them. The delivery process. It’s the shop in which they get all kinds of things, the treat we give them. It’s all part of the marketing personality. But that position in the mind is what counts with a consumer product. And that means you have a good product — a very good product — it means you may need tons of infrastructure, because you’ve got to have that — I had a case of Cherry Coke awaiting me at the top of the Great Wall when I got there in China. Now that — you’ve got to have something there so that the product is there when people want it. And that happened — in World War II, General Eisenhower, you know, said to Mr. Woodruff that he wanted a Coca-Cola within arm’s length of every American serviceman in the world.
这种联想是好的。是一个“全流程”。它不只是糖果本身。是 Christmas 时那个照顾你的店员——他们已经站了八个小时，顾客在有 50 人的长队里大喊大叫，可他们仍然对顾客微笑。还包括配送流程。包括门店里人们能买到各种东西、以及我们给他们的小礼遇。这一切共同构成了品牌的“营销人格”。但在消费品领域，真正关键的是“心智中的位置”。这意味着你得有一个好产品——一个非常好的产品——也意味着你可能需要庞大的基础设施，因为你必须做到这一点——我在 China 登上 Great Wall 的长城顶时，就有一箱 Cherry Coke 正在等我。要做到这一点——你必须确保在消费者想要时，产品就在那里。类似的事在 World War II 期间也发生过：General Eisenhower 对 Mr. Woodruff 说，他希望让全世界每一位美国军人“伸手可及”就能喝到一瓶 Coca-Cola。
And they built a lot of bottling plants to take care of that. That sort of positioning can be incredible. It seems to work especially well for American products. I mean, people want certain types of American products worldwide, you know, our music, our moves, our soft drinks, our fast food. You can’t imagine, at least I can’t, a French firm or a German firm or a Japanese firm having that — selling 47 or 48 percent of the world’s soft drinks. I mean, it just doesn’t happen that way. It’s part of something you could broadly call an American culture. And the world hungers for it. And Kodak, for example, probably does not have quite the same — and George Fisher’s doing a great job with the company. This goes back before that. But Kodak probably does not have the same place in people’s mind worldwide quite as it had 20 years ago. I mean, people didn’t think of Fuji in those days, we’ll say, as being in quite the same place. And, then, Fuji took the Olympics, as I remember, in Los Angeles.
他们为此建了许多装瓶厂。这种“占位”能力是惊人的。它似乎对美国产品格外有效。我的意思是，全世界的人都想要某些美国产品：我们的音乐、电影、软饮、快餐。你很难想象，至少我无法想象，一家法国、德国或日本公司能做到那样——卖出全球 47% 或 48% 的软饮。这种事并不是那样发生的。这是你可以笼统称为美国文化的一部分，而全世界对此“饥渴”。再比如 Kodak，也许如今在全球消费者心中的地位，已经不完全等同于 20 年前了——且先不说 George Fisher 把公司带得很好，那些变化发生在他之前。换句话说，人们在当年并不把 Fuji 视为与 Kodak 地位相当的品牌。随后，Fuji（据我记得）在 Los Angeles 的 Olympics 上拿下了赞助。
心智的本质是文化，正确的文化才能建立正确的心智。
And they just — they put them — they pushed their way to more of a parity with a Kodak. And you don’t want to ever let them do that. And that’s why you can see a Coca-Cola or a Disney and companies like that doing things that you think, well, this doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. You know, if they didn’t spend this $10 million, wouldn’t they still sell as much Coca-Cola? But, you know, that — I quoted from that 1896 report of Coca-Cola and the promotion they were doing back then to spread the word. You never know which dollar’s doing it. But you do know that everybody in the world, virtually, has heard of your product. Overwhelmingly, they’ve got a favorable impression on them and the next generation’s going to get it. So that’s what you’re doing with consumer products. With See’s Candy, you know, we are no better — we want — no better than the last person who’s been served their candy or the last product they’ve been served.
他们就这样——一步步地——把自己推到了更接近 Kodak 的位置。而你绝不应该让他们做到这一点。这也就是为什么你会看到像 Coca-Cola、Disney 这样的公司，去做一些你会觉得“好像不太合算”的事。你知道的，如果他们不花这 1000 万美元，难道就卖不出同样多的 Coca-Cola 吗？但是你看——我引用过 1896 年 Coca-Cola 的那份报告，当时他们就在做推广来“扩散名声”。你永远不知道究竟是哪一美元起了作用。但你确定的是，几乎全世界每个人都听说过你的产品；他们对它的印象在压倒性的多数情况下是正面的，而且下一代也会继承这种印象。这就是做消费品的要义。对于See’s糖果来说，我们的声誉仅仅取决于最后一个购买糖果的顾客，或是最后一次提供的产品质量。
But as long as we do the job on that, people can’t catch us. You know, we can charge a little more for it because people are not interested in taking the low bid. And they’re not interested in saving a penny a bottle on colas. Remember we’ve talked about in these meetings, private labels, in the past. And private label has stalled out in the soft drink business. They want the real thing. And 900 and some odd million eight-ounce servings will be served today of Coca-Cola product around the world. Nine-hundred million, you know. And it’ll go up next year, the year after. And I don’t know how you displace companies like that. I mean, if you gave me a hundred billion dollars — and I encourage if any of you are thinking about that to step forward — (laughter) — if you gave — and you told me to displace the CocaCola Company as the leader in the world in soft drinks, you know, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to do it. And those are the kind of businesses we like. Charlie?
但只要我们把这件事做好，别人就追不上我们。你知道，我们可以多收一点价，因为人们并不想要“最低报价”。他们也不在乎每瓶可乐能不能便宜一分钱。还记得我们在过去的股东会上谈过的“自有品牌”吗？在软饮行业，“自有品牌”的发展已经停滞了。消费者要的是真正的那一款。而今天，全世界会消费 9 亿多份 8 盎司的 Coca-Cola 产品。9 亿多，你懂的。明年、后年还会继续增长。我不知道你要怎么把这样的公司从龙头位置上拉下来。我的意思是，就算你给我 1000 亿美元——如果你们当中有人在考虑，不妨现在就站出来（笑）——如果你给了我这笔钱，并让我把 Coca-Cola 从全球软饮领导者的位置上“挤下来”，老实说，我一点头绪都没有。而我们喜欢的，正是这种类型的生意。Charlie？
渠道方（Walmart、Costco）随时可以推自己的“自有品牌”，并在一堆产品中横跳（横向选择，做不好就做下一个），这种方式理论上搞不过专注于一个产品的品牌。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. I think the See’s Candy example has an interesting teaching lesson for all of us. Warren said we were — it’s the first time we really stepped up for brand quality. And it was a very hard jump for us. We’d been used to buying dollar bills for fifty cents. And the interesting thing was that if they had demanded an extra $100,000 for the See’s Candy company, we wouldn’t have bought it. And that was after Warren had been trained under the greatest professor of his era, and had worked 90 hours a week.
CHARLIE MUNGER：是的。我认为 See’s Candy 这个例子，对我们所有人都有一个很有意思的启示。Warren 说过，那是我们第一次真正为了“品牌质量”而“抬价出手”。对我们来说，这一步跨得很艰难。我们过去习惯于“花 50 美分去买 1 美元”。有意思的是，如果当时他们再多要 10 万美元，我们可能就不会买 See’s Candy 了——而那可是 Warren 在当时那个时代最伟大的教授门下学成，并且每周工作 90 小时之后的决定。
WARREN BUFFETT: And eaten a lot of chocolates, too. (Laughs)
WARREN BUFFETT：而且还吃了很多巧克力。（笑）
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Absorbing everything in the world. I mean, we just didn’t have minds well enough trained to make an easy decision right. And by accident, they didn’t ask the extra $100,000 for it. And we did buy it. And as it succeeded, we kept learning. I think that shows that the name of the game is continuing to learn. And even if you’re very well-trained and have some natural aptitude, you still need to keep learning. And that brings along the delicate problem people sometimes talk about: two aging executives. (Laughter) I don’t know what the hell that means as an adjective because I don’t know anybody that is going in the other direction. (Laughter and applause) But you people who hold shares are betting, for a while at least, until younger successors come along, you’re betting to some extent on what we’ll now tactfully continue to call “aging executives” continuing to learn.
CHARLIE MUNGER：对。尽可能吸收世上一切有用的东西。我的意思是，我们当时的大脑训练得还不够好，没法轻松地把正确决定做出来。碰巧的是，他们并没有再多要那额外的 10 万美元，于是我们就买下了它。随着它成功，我们也不断学习。我认为这说明“游戏的本质就是持续学习”。即便你受过良好训练、还有点天赋，也仍需要持续学习。而这就引出了人们偶尔会谈到的微妙问题：两位“日渐年长的高管”。（笑）我也不知道把“年长”当作形容词到底是什么意思，因为我不认识有人在朝相反方向走的。（笑与掌声）不过，各位持股人现在押注的——至少在更年轻的接班人到来之前——在某种程度上，正是我们这些“日渐年长的高管”会继续学习。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, if we hadn’t have bought See’s, with some subsequent developments after that because that made us aware of other things, we wouldn’t have bought Coca-Cola in 1988. I mean, you can give See’s a significant part of the credit for the, I guess, $11 billion-plus profit we’ve got in Coca-Cola at the present time. And you say, “Well, how could you be so dumb as not to be able to recognize a Coca-Cola?” Well, I don’t know, but —
WARREN BUFFETT：是的。嗯，如果我们当初没有买 See’s，后来也就不会由此开了眼界、注意到别的东西，那么我们在 1988 年就不会去买 Coca-Cola。换句话说，如今我们在 Coca-Cola 上获得的——我想——超 110 亿美元的利润，See’s 理应记上一大功。你可能会说：“你怎么会蠢到连 Coca-Cola 这样的生意都没认出来？”嗯，我也不知道，但——
转移注意力的方向非常困难，Attention Is All You Need。
CHARLIE MUNGER: You were only drinking about 20 cans a day.
CHARLIE MUNGER：你那时一天也就喝大约 20 听而已。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Right. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been exposed to it, or — (Laughter) It’s amazing. But it just made us start thinking more. I mean, we saw how decisions we made in relation to See’s played out in a marketplace and that sort of thing. And we saw what worked and didn’t work. And it made us appreciate a lot what did work and shy away from things that didn’t work. But it led — it definitely led to a Coca-Cola. And we’ve had the good luck to buy some businesses themselves in their entirety that taught us a lot. You know, we bought — and it’s worked in the other direction. I mean, we were in the windmill business, one time. I was. Charlie stayed out of the windmill business. But I was in the windmill business and pumps and — third-level department — or second-level — department stores. And I just found out how tough it was and how it didn’t — you could apply all kinds of energy to them. And it didn’t do any good.
WARREN BUFFETT：对，没错。并不是我没接触过它，或者——（笑）这很有意思。但这件事促使我们开始思考更多东西。我的意思是，我们看到了与 See’s 相关的那些决策在市场中的后续表现之类的事；我们看清了哪些有效、哪些无效；这让我们更懂得珍惜有效的东西，并远离无效的东西。而这些——确实把我们引向了 Coca-Cola。我们也有好运，曾整买下一些企业本身，从中学到了很多。你知道，我们也有反面的经历。比如，我们有一段时间做过风车生意。我做过；Charlie 则没有。可我做过风车、做过水泵，还有——三流的百货店——或者说二流的百货店。结果我发现这些生意有多难做，你对它们投入再多精力也没用；根本不起作用。
It made a great deal of sense to figure out what pond to jump in. And what pond you jumped in was probably more important than how well you could swim. Charlie?
明白“该跳进哪一个池塘”这件事意义重大。你跳进哪个池塘，很可能比你“游得多好”还要重要。Charlie？
CHARLIE MUNGER: I don’t think it’s necessary that people be as ignorant as we were, as long as we were. (Laughter) I think American education could be better, but not in the hands of any of the people who are now teaching. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：我不认为人们有必要像我们那样“久长地无知”。（笑）我觉得美国的教育可以更好，但前提是别交到当下这些教书人的手里。（笑）
WARREN BUFFETT: Is there any group we’ve forgotten to offend? I mean — (Laughter)
WARREN BUFFETT：我们是不是还有哪个群体没得罪到？我是说——（笑）
That gets us to the marketing side of things.
这让我们进入了市场营销的方面。
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.
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。
1年前划的重点是下一句，Attention Is All You Need，最好是高度压缩、简单优雅又到处适用的价值观。
And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us. Now, Apple, fortunately, is one of the half-a-dozen best brands in the whole world—right up there with Nike, Disney, Coke, Sony. It is one of the greats of the greats, not just in this country but all around the globe.
因此，我们必须清楚我们希望他们了解我们的哪些信息。幸运的是，苹果是全球六大最佳品牌之一——与耐克、迪士尼、可口可乐、索尼齐名。它是伟大品牌中的伟大品牌，不仅在这个国家，在全球范围内都是如此。
贝佐斯在一个备忘录中列了一个相似的表，事实上对自己有怀疑不等于能想明白，已经在错误的路径上走了很远，最好的方式不是成为乔布斯，参考：《2011 Amazon.The Everything Store-Amazon.Love》。
Some big companies develop ardent fan bases, are widely loved by their customers, and are even perceived as cool,’ he wrote. For different reasons, in different ways and to different degrees, companies like Apple, Nike, Disney, Google, Whole Foods, Costco and even UPS strike me as examples of large companies that are well- liked by their customers.”
“有些大公司拥有狂热粉丝群体，深受顾客喜爱，甚至被认为很酷，”他写道，“基于不同的原因、以不同的方式、在不同程度上，像苹果、耐克、迪士尼、谷歌、Whole Foods、好市多，甚至UPS，都是客户普遍喜欢的大型企业。”
On the other end of spectrum, he added, companies like Walmart, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and ExxonMobil tended to be feared.
在光谱的另一端，他补充道，沃尔玛、微软、高盛和埃克森美孚这类公司往往令人畏惧。
But even a great brand needs investment and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality. And the Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years. And we need to bring it back. The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. It’s not to talk about MIPS and megahertz. It’s not to talk about why we are better than Windows. The dairy industry tried for twenty years to convince you that milk was good for you. It’s a lie, but they tried anyway. And the sales were going like this [hand mimics a line running down and to the right]. And then they tried “Got Milk?” and the sales started going like this [hand goes up and to the right]. “Got Milk?” doesn’t even talk about the product! As a matter of fact, the focus is on the absence of the product.
即使是一个伟大的品牌，如果想保持其相关性和活力，也需要投资和关注。而在过去几年里，苹果品牌显然在这方面被忽视了。我们需要将它重新带回正轨。要做到这一点，不是通过谈论速度和性能参数，不是通过讨论MIPS和兆赫兹，也不是通过说我们为什么比Windows更好。乳制品行业用了二十年的时间试图说服你牛奶对你有好处。这是个谎言，但他们还是努力了。然而，销售额却在持续下滑【手势模拟出一条向右下方倾斜的线】。然后他们推出了“Got Milk?”的广告，销售额开始上升【手势模拟出一条向右上方倾斜的线】。“Got Milk?”广告甚至没有谈论产品！事实上，广告的重点在于产品的缺失。
雷军，以及一帮跟相似的都喜欢做的事，喜欢这么做是因为没有更好的想法，换一种说法，没有正确价值观的指引，公司所强调的这些偏离正确方向的说辞等同于错误激励，总有一天把路走偏了，参考：《I.H.183.Warren Buffett.Wrong Incentives》。
But the best example of all, and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen, is Nike. Remember: Nike sells a commodity! They sell shoes! And yet when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the products. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles, and why they are better than Reebok’s air soles. What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes, and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are. That’s what they are about.
但所有例子中最好的一个，也是宇宙中最伟大的营销工作之一，就是耐克。记住：耐克销售的是商品！他们卖鞋子！然而，当你想到耐克时，你感受到的却与鞋公司不同。在他们的广告中，正如你所知道的，他们从不谈论产品。他们从不告诉你他们的气垫鞋底，以及为什么它们比锐步的气垫鞋底更好。耐克在广告中做什么？他们尊敬伟大的运动员，尊敬伟大的体育精神。这就是他们。这就是他们所代表的。
Apple spends a fortune on advertising. You’d never know it. You’d never know it.
苹果在广告上花费了巨额资金。你永远不会知道。你永远不会知道。
So when I got here, Apple had just fired their agency, and there was a competition with twenty-three agencies, and, you know, four years from now, we would pick one. We blew that up, and we hired Chiat/Day, the ad agency I was fortunate enough to work with several years ago. We created some award-winning work, including the commercial voted the best ad ever made, “1984,” by advertising professionals.
当我来到这里时，苹果刚刚解雇了他们的广告代理机构，并与二十三家代理机构展开竞争，你知道，可能要四年后我们才会选出一个代理。我们打破了这种局面，重新聘用了Chiat/Day广告公司，这家广告公司是我几年前有幸合作过的。我们一起创造了一些屡获殊荣的作品，包括被广告业界人士评为史上最佳广告的“1984”商业广告。
We started working about eight weeks ago. The question we asked was, “Our customers want to know: Who is Apple, and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world?”
我们大约八周前开始工作。我们问的问题是：“我们的客户想知道：苹果是谁，我们代表什么？我们在这个世界中处于什么位置？”
And what we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases.
我们所追求的并不仅仅是制造让人们完成工作的盒子，尽管我们做得很好。在某些情况下，我们做得比几乎任何人都要好。
But Apple is about something more than that. Apple, at the core—its core value—is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe.
但苹果的意义不仅仅如此。苹果的核心——其核心价值——是我们相信有激情的人可以让世界变得更好。这就是我们的信念。
Make something wonderful，Put Something Back。
And we’ve had the opportunity to work with people like that. We’ve had the opportunity to work with people like you, with software developers, with customers, who have done it—in some big and some small ways.
我们有机会与这样的人合作。我们有机会与像您这样的软件开发人员、客户合作，他们在某些大大小小的方面都做到了。
And we believe that in this world, people can change it for the better. And that those people that are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that actually do.
我们相信，在这个世界上，人们可以使其变得更好。而那些疯狂到认为自己能够改变世界的人，正是那些真正做到的人。
And so, what we’re going to do, in our first brand-marketing campaign in several years, is to get back to that core value. A lot of things have changed. The market is a totally different place than it was a decade ago. And Apple’s totally different, and Apple’s place in it is totally different. And believe me: the products, and the distribution strategy, and manufacturing are totally different—and we understand that. But values and core values: those things shouldn’t change. The things that Apple believed in at its core are the same things that Apple really stands for today. And so we wanted to find a way to communicate this. And what we have is something that I am very moved by. It honors those people who have changed the world. Some of them are living. Some of them are not. But the ones that aren’t, as you’ll see, you know that if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac.
因此，我们在几年内第一次品牌营销活动中要做的，就是回归那个核心价值。很多事情都发生了变化。市场与十年前完全不同。苹果也完全不同，苹果在其中的位置也完全不同。相信我：产品、分销策略和制造都是完全不同的——我们对此有清晰的认识。但价值观和核心价值观：这些东西不应该改变。苹果在其核心信仰的东西，正是今天苹果真正代表的东西。因此，我们想找到一种方式来传达这一点。而我们所拥有的，是让我非常感动的东西。它向那些改变世界的人致敬。其中一些人还在世，一些人则不在。但那些不在的人，正如你将看到的，你知道如果他们曾经使用过电脑，那一定是 Mac。
And the theme of the campaign is “Think Different.” It’s honoring the people who think different and who move this world forward. It is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company.
这次活动的主题是“Think Different.”。它在向那些与众不同、推动世界前进的人致敬。这就是我们的宗旨。这触动了公司的灵魂。
So I’m going to go ahead and roll it, and I hope that you feel the same way about it that I do.
所以我将继续进行，希望你们对它的感觉和我一样。
5、《2013-03-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》
We Buy Some Newspapers . . . Newspapers?
我们买了些报纸……报纸？
During the past fifteen months, we acquired 28 daily newspapers at a cost of $344 million. This may puzzle you for two reasons. First, I have long told you in these letters and at our annual meetings that the circulation, advertising and profits of the newspaper industry overall are certain to decline. That prediction still holds. Second, the properties we purchased fell far short of meeting our oft-stated size requirements for acquisitions.
在过去十五个月里，我们以3.44亿美元的成本收购了28家日报。这可能有两个方面让你困惑。第一，我长期在这些信件和我们的年度会议上告诉你，整个报业的发行量、广告和利润肯定会下降。这个判断依然有效。第二，我们购买的标的远远达不到我们常常强调的并购规模要求。
We can address the second point easily. Charlie and I love newspapers and, if their economics make sense, will buy them even when they fall far short of the size threshold we would require for the purchase of, say, a widget company. Addressing the first point requires me to provide a more elaborate explanation, including some history.
第二点很好解释。Charlie 和我热爱报纸，只要其经济性说得通，即使它们远远达不到我们收购（比如某个零部件公司）时会要求的规模门槛，我们也会买。至于第一点，则需要我做更详细的说明，包括一点历史。
News, to put it simply, is what people don’t know that they want to know. And people will seek their news – what’s important to them – from whatever sources provide the best combination of immediacy, ease of access, reliability, comprehensiveness and low cost. The relative importance of these factors varies with the nature of the news and the person wanting it.
简单说，新闻就是人们还不知道、但想要知道的东西。人们会从能在“及时性、可获得性、可靠性、全面性和低成本”上提供最佳组合的任何来源去获取与自己相关的重要信息。这些因素的相对重要性，会因新闻的性质和读者的不同而变化。
Before television and the Internet, newspapers were the primary source for an incredible variety of news, a fact that made them indispensable to a very high percentage of the population. Whether your interests were international, national, local, sports or financial quotations, your newspaper usually was first to tell you the latest information. Indeed, your paper contained so much you wanted to learn that you received your money’s worth, even if only a small number of its pages spoke to your specific interests. Better yet, advertisers typically paid almost all of the product’s cost, and readers rode their coattails.
在电视和互联网出现之前，报纸是各种各样新闻的首要来源，这使其对相当大比例的人群不可或缺。无论你关注国际、国内、地方、体育还是金融行情，你的报纸通常都是最先告诉你最新信息的。事实上，报纸包含了太多你想了解的内容，即便只有少数版面契合你的特定兴趣，你也物有所值。更妙的是，广告商通常承担了几乎全部的产品成本，读者则“搭了便车”。
Additionally, the ads themselves delivered information of vital interest to hordes of readers, in effect providing even more “news.” Editors would cringe at the thought, but for many readers learning what jobs or apartments were available, what supermarkets were carrying which weekend specials, or what movies were showing where and when was far more important than the views expressed on the editorial page.
此外，广告本身也向大量读者传递了至关重要的信息，实际上提供了更多“新闻”。编辑可能会对此皱眉，但对许多读者而言，了解有哪些工作或公寓可选、哪些超市有周末特价、哪些电影何时何地上映，比社论版表达的观点重要得多。
In turn, the local paper was indispensable to advertisers. If Sears or Safeway built stores in Omaha, they required a “megaphone” to tell the city’s residents why their stores should be visited today. Indeed, big department stores and grocers vied to outshout their competition with multi-page spreads, knowing that the goods they advertised would fly off the shelves. With no other megaphone remotely comparable to that of the newspaper, ads sold themselves.
反过来，本地报纸对广告主也不可或缺。若 Sears 或 Safeway 在 Omaha 开店，他们需要一个“扩音器”告诉市民为什么今天就该去逛店。事实上，大百货商店和杂货商用多版面广告争相盖过竞争对手的声量，因为他们知道，被宣传的商品会迅速脱销。在没有任何其他可与报纸相提并论的“扩音器”的情况下，广告几乎是“自带销量”的。
As long as a newspaper was the only one in its community, its profits were certain to be extraordinary; whether it was managed well or poorly made little difference. (As one Southern publisher famously confessed, “I owe my exalted position in life to two great American institutions – nepotism and monopoly.”)
只要一座城市里只有一家报纸，它的利润就几乎必然非同寻常；管理得好或差，影响都不大。（正如一位南方出版人著名的自白：“我之所以位高权重，归功于两大美国制度——裙带关系与垄断。”）
Over the years, almost all cities became one-newspaper towns (or harbored two competing papers that joined forces to operate as a single economic unit). This contraction was inevitable because most people wished to read and pay for only one paper. When competition existed, the paper that gained a significant lead in circulation almost automatically received the most ads. That left ads drawing readers and readers drawing ads. This symbiotic process spelled doom for the weaker paper and became known as “survival of the fattest.”
多年来，几乎所有城市都变成“一报城市”（或者拥有两家竞争报纸，但合并为一个经济实体运营）。这种收缩不可避免，因为大多数人只愿意阅读并为一份报纸付费。一旦存在竞争，在发行量上取得显著领先的那份报纸几乎自然而然地获得最多广告。于是广告吸引读者、读者又吸引广告。这种共生过程注定了弱者的结局，被称作“最胖者生存”。
Now the world has changed. Stock market quotes and the details of national sports events are old news long before the presses begin to roll. The Internet offers extensive information about both available jobs and homes. Television bombards viewers with political, national and international news. In one area of interest after another, newspapers have therefore lost their “primacy.” And, as their audiences have fallen, so has advertising. (Revenues from “help wanted” classified ads – long a huge source of income for newspapers – have plunged more than 90% in the past 12 years.)
如今世界已经改变。股市行情和全国性体育赛事的细节，在印刷机开动前就已成“旧闻”。互联网提供了关于职位与住房的大量信息。电视向观众密集投送政治、国内与国际新闻。于是，一块又一块的兴趣领域里，报纸丧失了“首要地位”。随着受众下滑，广告也随之下降。（“help wanted” 分类广告——报业长期的重要收入来源——在过去12年里收入下降逾90%。）
Newspapers continue to reign supreme, however, in the delivery of local news. If you want to know what’s going on in your town – whether the news is about the mayor or taxes or high school football – there is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job. A reader’s eyes may glaze over after they take in a couple of paragraphs about Canadian tariffs or political developments in Pakistan; a story about the reader himself or his neighbors will be read to the end. Wherever there is a pervasive sense of community, a paper that serves the special informational needs of that community will remain indispensable to a significant portion of its residents.
不过，在提供本地新闻方面，报纸仍然无可匹敌。如果你想了解自己城市正在发生什么——无论是市长、税收还是高中橄榄球——一份尽职尽责的本地报纸是不可替代的。读者读到关于加拿大关税或巴基斯坦政治进展的两三段，眼神可能就开始涣散；但涉及他本人或邻居的报道会从头读到尾。只要社区归属感普遍存在，满足该社区特殊信息需求的报纸就会对相当一部分居民不可或缺。
Even a valuable product, however, can self-destruct from a faulty business strategy. And that process has been underway during the past decade at almost all papers of size. Publishers – including Berkshire in Buffalo – have offered their paper free on the Internet while charging meaningful sums for the physical specimen. How could this lead to anything other than a sharp and steady drop in sales of the printed product? Falling circulation, moreover, makes a paper less essential to advertisers. Under these conditions, the “virtuous circle” of the past reverses.
不过，即使是有价值的产品，也可能因为错误的商业战略而自我毁灭。而在过去十年里，几乎所有大型报纸都在上演这一幕。出版商——包括 Berkshire 在 Buffalo 的报纸——在互联网上免费提供内容，同时对纸质版收取相当的费用。除了导致纸质产品销量又快又稳地下滑，这还能有什么结果？发行量下降还会使报纸对广告主的重要性降低。在这种条件下，过去的“良性循环”开始反转。
The Wall Street Journal went to a pay model early. But the main exemplar for local newspapers is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, published by Walter Hussman, Jr. Walter also adopted a pay format early, and over the past decade his paper has retained its circulation far better than any other large paper in the country. Despite Walter’s powerful example, it’s only been in the last year or so that other papers, including Berkshire’s, have explored pay arrangements. Whatever works best – and the answer is not yet clear – will be copied widely.
The Wall Street Journal 很早就采用了付费模式。但本地报纸的主要示范是 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette，由 Walter Hussman, Jr. 出版。Walter 同样较早采用付费形式，在过去十年里，他的报纸在保持发行量方面的表现远胜全国其他大型报纸。尽管 Walter 的示范效应强大，直到最近一年左右，其他报纸（包括 Berkshire 的）才开始探索付费安排。无论哪种方式效果最佳——答案尚不明确——都会被广泛复制。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Charlie and I believe that papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly-bound communities and having a sensible Internet strategy will remain viable for a long time. We do not believe that success will come from cutting either the news content or frequency of publication. Indeed, skimpy news coverage will almost certainly lead to skimpy readership. And the less-than-daily publication that is now being tried in some large towns or cities – while it may improve profits in the short term – seems certain to diminish the papers’ relevance over time. Our goal is to keep our papers loaded with content of interest to our readers and to be paid appropriately by those who find us useful, whether the product they view is in their hands or on the Internet.
Charlie 和我相信，只要报纸能向紧密联系的社区提供全面而可靠的信息，并配合合理的互联网策略，它们就能在很长时间里保持生命力。我们不认为削减新闻内容或出版频率会带来成功。事实上，内容稀薄几乎必然导致读者稀薄。而一些大城镇或城市正在尝试的“非每日出版”——尽管短期可能改善利润——从长期看几乎注定会削弱报纸的相关性。我们的目标是，让报纸持续装载读者感兴趣的内容，并让认为我们有用的人给予恰当的付费，无论他们阅读的是纸质版还是网络版。
Our confidence is buttressed by the availability of Terry Kroeger’s outstanding management group at the Omaha World-Herald, a team that has the ability to oversee a large group of papers. The individual papers, however, will be independent in their news coverage and editorial opinions. (I voted for Obama; of our 12 dailies that endorsed a presidential candidate, 10 opted for Romney.)
我们的信心，还来自 Omaha World-Herald 的 Terry Kroeger 所领导的杰出管理团队的支持——这支团队有能力统筹管理大量报纸。不过，各份报纸在新闻报道与社论观点上将保持独立。（我把票投给了 Obama；在我们 12 家公开支持总统候选人的日报中，有 10 家选择了 Romney。）
Our newspapers are certainly not insulated from the forces that have been driving revenues downward. Still, the six small dailies we owned throughout 2012 had unchanged revenues for the year, a result far superior to that experienced by big-city dailies. Moreover, the two large papers we operated throughout the year – The Buffalo News and the Omaha World-Herald – held their revenue loss to 3%, which was also an above-average outcome. Among newspapers in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, our Buffalo and Omaha papers rank near the top in circulation penetration of their home territories.
我们的报纸当然无法置身于压低收入的各种力量之外。尽管如此，我们在 2012 年整年持有的六家小型日报全年收入保持不变，这一结果远胜大城市日报。此外，我们全年经营的两家大型报纸——The Buffalo News 与 Omaha World-Herald——把收入降幅控制在 3%，这同样优于行业平均。在全美 50 个最大都会区的报纸中，我们的 Buffalo 与 Omaha 报纸在本土市场的发行渗透率名列前茅。
This popularity is no accident: Credit the editors of those papers – Margaret Sullivan at the News and Mike Reilly at the World-Herald — for delivering information that has made their publications indispensable to community-interested readers. (Margaret, I regret to say, recently left us to join The New York Times, whose job offers are tough to turn down. That paper made a great hire, and we wish her the best.)
这种受欢迎绝非偶然：要感谢这些报纸的编辑——The News 的 Margaret Sullivan 与 The World-Herald 的 Mike Reilly——他们提供的信息使出版物对关注社区的读者不可或缺。（遗憾的是，Margaret 近期离开我们加入 The New York Times——那里的邀约确实难以拒绝。那份报纸做出了一次很棒的聘任，我们祝她一切顺利。）
Berkshire’s cash earnings from its papers will almost certainly trend downward over time. Even a sensible Internet strategy will not be able to prevent modest erosion. At our cost, however, I believe these papers will meet or exceed our economic test for acquisitions. Results to date support that belief.
Berkshire 从报纸业务获得的现金收益几乎可以肯定会随时间下行。即使是合理的互联网策略，也难以完全避免温和的流失。不过，以我们的成本来看，我相信这些报纸将达到或超过我们对并购的经济性检验。截至目前的结果支持这一判断。
Charlie and I, however, still operate under economic principle 11 (detailed on page 99) and will not continue the operation of any business doomed to unending losses. One daily paper that we acquired in a bulk purchase from Media General was significantly unprofitable under that company’s ownership. After analyzing the paper’s results, we saw no remedy for the losses and reluctantly shut it down. All of our remaining dailies, however, should be profitable for a long time to come. (They are listed on page 108.) At appropriate prices – and that means at a very low multiple of current earnings – we will purchase more papers of the type we like.
不过，Charlie 和我仍遵循经济原则第 11 条（详见第 99 页），不会继续经营任何注定长期亏损的业务。我们从 Media General 成批收购的一份日报，在其原东家手中长期大幅亏损。分析其经营结果后，我们认为无解，只得忍痛关停。至于其余的日报，我们预计未来很长时期都将盈利。（名单见第 108 页。）在合适的价格——也就是当前收益的一个很低倍数——我们还会继续收购我们喜欢的那类报纸。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A milestone in Berkshire’s newspaper operations occurred at yearend when Stan Lipsey retired as publisher of The Buffalo News. It’s no exaggeration for me to say that the News might now be extinct were it not for Stan.
Berkshire 报业的一块里程碑，出现在年末——The Buffalo News 的发行人 Stan Lipsey 光荣退休。毫不夸张地说，若非 Stan，如今 The News 也许早已不复存在。
Charlie and I acquired the News in April 1977. It was an evening paper, dominant on weekdays but lacking a Sunday edition. Throughout the country, the circulation trend was toward morning papers. Moreover, Sunday was becoming ever more critical to the profitability of metropolitan dailies. Without a Sunday paper, the News was destined to lose out to its morning competitor, which had a fat and entrenched Sunday product.
Charlie 和我在 1977 年 4 月收购了 The News。那时它是一份晚报，工作日占优，但没有周日版。全国范围内，发行趋势正转向晨报；而且，周日对都会区日报的盈利性愈发关键。没有周日版，The News 注定要败给其晨报对手——后者拥有份量十足且根深蒂固的周日版。
We therefore began to print a Sunday edition late in 1977. And then all hell broke loose. Our competitor sued us, and District Judge Charles Brieant, Jr. authored a harsh ruling that crippled the introduction of our paper. His ruling was later reversed – after 17 long months – in a 3-0 sharp rebuke by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. While the appeal was pending, we lost circulation, hemorrhaged money and stood in constant danger of going out of business.
于是我们在 1977 年底开始印刷周日版。接着，风波骤起。竞争对手起诉我们，District Judge Charles Brieant, Jr. 作出严苛裁决，几乎使我们的新版本步履维艰。17 个月后的 Second Circuit Court of Appeals 以 3–0 的判决强烈驳回了该裁定。在上诉期间，我们流失发行、亏损惨重，企业命悬一线。
Enter Stan Lipsey, a friend of mine from the 1960s, who, with his wife, had sold Berkshire a small Omaha weekly. I found Stan to be an extraordinary newspaperman, knowledgeable about every aspect of circulation, production, sales and editorial. (He was a key person in gaining that small weekly a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.) So when I was in big trouble at the News, I asked Stan to leave his comfortable way of life in Omaha to take over in Buffalo.
这时登场的是 Stan Lipsey——我在 1960 年代结识的一位朋友，他与妻子曾把一家 Omaha 的小型周报卖给 Berkshire。我发现 Stan 是一位非凡的报人，对发行、印制、销售与编辑的每个环节都了然于心。（1973 年，那份小周报获得 Pulitzer Prize，他是关键人物。）于是当 The News 陷入困境时，我请 Stan 放弃在 Omaha 安逸的生活，赴 Buffalo 接手。
He never hesitated. Along with Murray Light, our editor, Stan persevered through four years of very dark days until the News won the competitive struggle in 1982. Ever since, despite a difficult Buffalo economy, the performance of the News has been exceptional. As both a friend and as a manager, Stan is simply the best.
他毫不犹豫。与我们的主编 Murray Light 一道，Stan 经历了四年艰难岁月，直到 1982 年 The News 赢得这场竞争。从那以后，尽管 Buffalo 的经济环境不易，The News 的表现始终出类拔萃。无论作为朋友还是管理者，Stan 都无可挑剔。
同样是2013年，张一鸣的商业计划书已经很清晰的描述了推荐引擎战胜会比Google的搜索引擎更有效率，并且，推荐引擎能用技术的手段解决巴菲特所说的社区用户的属于长尾性质的需求。
6、《2015-01-31 Peter Thiel.Going from Zero to One》
And it's easy in some ways to make fun of people in business school or people who are sort of conventionally tracked. But I think we should recognize that we're all very prone to this.
在某种程度上，嘲笑商学院学生或循规蹈矩的人很容易。但我们应当意识到，我们每个人都很容易陷入这种状态。
Already in the time of Shakespeare, the word ape meant both primate and to imitate. And there is something very deep in human nature that is imitative. It has a lot of good things. It's how language gets learned by kids.
早在莎士比亚时代，ape 既指猿猴，也指模仿。模仿深植于人性，带来许多好处——孩子们学习语言就是靠模仿完成的。
It's how culture gets transmitted in our society, but it also can lead to sort of a lot of insane behavior, lead to the madness of crowds, to bubbles, to sort of mass delusions of one sort or another, and I think it can And I think it's advertising. We always tell ourselves that we're not that prone to this. And I think that's something I'd encourage all of us to rethink.
这正是文化在社会中得以传播的方式，但它也可能引发许多疯狂行为，导致群体狂热、泡沫，以及各种形式的大规模错觉，而我认为广告正是这种现象的体现。我们总是告诉自己不容易被其左右，但我鼓励大家重新思考这一点。
We always think of advertising as something that just afflicts other people, that never afflicts ourselves. I think this is very far from the case. And so the monopoly competition is not just this intellectual failure.
我们总以为广告只会影响别人，从不影响自己。事实远非如此。因此，那种趋同竞争不仅是一种思想层面的失败。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, Walmart. But it's been accentuated, I think. We have a new retailing environment now. It isn't like it goes from night to day, but it moves somewhat. And brands that people spent billions of dollars developing and sponsoring TV shows or sponsoring radio shows in the old days-- Campbell's soup was always on there with Jack Benny or something when I was a kid, and it was big.
WARREN BUFFETT：对，Walmart。但我觉得这种趋势被进一步放大了。我们现在处在一个新的零售环境中。它不是一夜之间天翻地覆，但确实在变化。过去人们花数十亿美元打造品牌、赞助电视节目或广播节目——我小的时候，Campbell's soup 经常出现在 Jack Benny 的节目里之类，那影响可大了。
And adult brands, and people obviously like the product, too. But people are more willing to change, and it's a somewhat different world than what-- it is night and day. You're very unlikely to keep changing brands everyday. But it really surprised me that Gillette lost position. Men don't like to experiment much. Women are better at experimenting.
还有面向成年人的品牌，而且人们显然也喜欢这些产品。但如今大家更愿意改变偏好，世界与以往相比在某种程度上不同——并不是天翻地覆。你不太可能每天都换品牌。但让我吃惊的是 Gillette 的地位下滑。男性并不喜欢尝试，女性在尝试方面更积极。
When you were a kid, Gillette cavalcade of sports was your pal, and brought you the Rose Bowl and the World Series, and all that sort of thing. You just shaved with Gillette the rest of your life. And you still do to a great degree. But it's not exactly the same as it was, even five years ago or so, when we bought Kraft.
你小时候，Gillette 的体育转播就是你的伙伴——给你带来 Rose Bowl、World Series 之类。然后你这辈子就用 Gillette 刮胡子。到今天很大程度上依然如此。但情况已不完全相同了——甚至和大约五年前我们买 Kraft 时相比都不同。
学界大概从三个方向系统地研究了这种现象：
1. “消费者社会化”：小孩怎么被训练成带着品牌偏好的大人
正式名字叫 consumer socialization of children，研究小孩如何从父母、媒体、广告、同伴那里学会“做消费者”、形成品牌偏好和忠诚。
- John 1999 在 Journal of Consumer Research 做过一个 25 年综述，系统梳理了儿童在成长过程中如何发展消费知识、价值观和品牌态度
- 研究发现：
- 父母、电视广告、后来是网络与同伴，是儿童品牌偏好的核心“社会化代理”
- 早期形成的偏好可以持续影响青少年乃至成年期的选择，尤其是高频、低风险的消费品（零食、饮料、日用品）
跟巴菲特讲的小男孩一边看 Rose Bowl、一边看 Gillette 广告，本质一模一样：父母+媒体+仪式化场景（体育、重要比赛）一起，把“剃须 = Gillette”写进了孩子的消费脚本。
2. 早期品牌接触 + 怀旧：偏好可以真的跟一辈子
这条线更接近你问的“能不能终身”的问题：
- 有研究专门看 childhood nostalgia 与成年后品牌忠诚 的关系：
- 儿时的品牌体验，会在大脑里和“安全感、家庭、快乐记忆”绑定；
- 成年后看到同一品牌，会触发怀旧和情绪加成，显著提高品牌忠诚度和复购意愿
- 有营销综述指出，大约 25% 的品牌偏好可以从童年延续到成年，而且很大程度由童年时期的情感联结和怀旧驱动
这跟巴菲特那句话几乎可以一一对照：“When you were a kid, Gillette Cavalcade of Sports was your pal… You just shaved with Gillette the rest of your life.”
学界的版本就是：
- 高频曝光 + 强情绪场景 + 家庭和同伴的正向强化
→ 在童年形成一个“带情绪标签的品牌节点”
→ 这个节点在成年后会通过怀旧反复被激活，推动长期忠诚。
当然，研究也强调：
- 环境变化（新渠道、电商、对价格更敏感、同伴文化等），会削弱这种粘性，所以现在的代际忠诚比巴菲特那一代弱很多
3. 更基础的一层：心理学里的 “mere exposure effect”（单纯曝光效应）
在品牌之前，心理学早就研究过“反复曝光 → 喜好提升”的机制：
- Zajonc 1968 的经典工作提出：
仅仅反复看到某个刺激（词、符号、面孔），就足以让人更喜欢它，即使没有任何理性理由。
- 后来的 meta 分析显示：
- 单纯曝光效应非常稳健，在各种刺激类型上都能复现；
- 多次曝光后，偏好会提升，而且延时测量时效果往往更强——说明它能留在记忆和态度系统里一段时间
广告界直接把这套理论拿来用：不一定要讲特别有道理的 story，只要在高情感场景（体育、节日、家庭时刻）反复出现，就能在消费者心中种一个“熟悉 + 好感”的种子。
Buffett 小时候的 Campbell’s、Gillette，就是被“单纯曝光效应 + 情绪场景（体育转播、家庭氛围）”长期叠加的经典例子。
8、《2024-08-14 Eric Schmidt.The Age of AI》
Eric：And my conclusion is the CEOs in general are maximizing revenue.
Eric：我的结论是，总的来说，CEO们都在努力最大化收入。
To maximize revenue, you maximize engagement.
为了最大化收入，他们最大化用户参与度。
To maximize engagement, you maximize outrage.
为了最大化用户参与度，他们最大化煽动性内容。
The algorithms choose outrage because that generates more revenue.
算法选择煽动性内容，因为这会带来更多的收入，对吧？
Therefore, there's a bias to favor crazy stuff.
由此，算法更倾向于推荐些极端的内容。
And on all sides, I'm not making a partisan statement here.
这并不是单方面的问题。我并不是在这里做出任何偏袒的声明。
That's a problem.
这是一个问题。这个问题必须得到解决。
That's got to get addressed in a democracy. And my solution to TikTok, we talked about this earlier privately, is there was when I was a boy, there was something called the equal time rule,
在一个民主制度中，我对TikTok的解决方案是，我们之前私下讨论过，在我年轻时，有一个叫做"平等播放时间"的规则。
because TikTok is really not social media. It's really television, right?
因为TikTok实际上并不仅仅是社交媒体，它更像是电视，对吧？
There's a programmer making you the numbers by the way are 90 minutes a day, 200 TikTok videos per TikTok user in the United States.
It's a lot, right?
有程序在幕后控制你，根据统计，TikTok在美国的用户每天观看90分钟，每个用户平均观看200个TikTok视频。
So and the government is not going to do the equal time rule, but it's the right thing to do.Some form of balance that is required.
这是很大的数量，对吧？因此，政府必须采取某种形式的平衡措施。
9、《2024-11-06 The Winners and Losers From the ‘Trump Trade’ Gripping Markets》
Meta Platforms, the parent of Facebook, was the outlier among the Magnificent Seven group of tech stocks, slipping slightly. Trump referred to Facebook as “an enemy of the people” earlier this year.
Facebook 的母公司Meta Platforms是“七大科技股”中表现异常的一只，略有下滑。特朗普今年早些时候称 Facebook 为“人民的敌人”。
10、《2024-12-18 Disney’s Decision to Settle Trump Defamation Suit Prompts Backlash at ABC News》
Trump filed the suit in March, days after Stephanopoulos said multiple times in an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) on ABC’s Sunday morning news show “This Week” that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A federal jury determined he was liable for sexual abuse, but not rape.
特朗普在三月提起诉讼，此前几天，斯蒂芬诺普洛斯在 ABC 周日早间新闻节目“本周”与南卡罗来纳州众议员南希·梅斯的采访中多次表示，特朗普被判定对作家 E. Jean Carroll 的强奸负有民事责任。联邦陪审团认定他对性虐待负有责任，但不是强奸。
Stephanopoulos later went on CBS’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and reasserted his claim that “rape” was an appropriate word to use, based on comments made by the judge in the case. “I’m not going to be cowed out of doing my job because of the threat,” Stephanopoulos said of Trump’s lawsuit.
斯特凡诺普洛斯后来参加了 CBS 的《斯蒂芬·科尔伯特晚间秀》，并重申了他的主张，认为根据案件中法官的评论，“强奸”是一个合适的词。斯特凡诺普洛斯在谈到特朗普的诉讼时说：“我不会因为威胁而不敢履行我的职责。”
A Florida judge tossed ABC’s motion to dismiss the suit in July, saying, “a reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory.”
佛罗里达州的一名法官在七月份驳回了 ABC 的撤诉动议，称“一个合理的陪审团可能会将斯特凡诺普洛斯的言论解读为诽谤。”
11、《2025-04-29 Mark Zuckerberg.Meta's AGI Plan》
Monetizing AGI
AGI的货币化
Dwarkesh Patel
Speaking of value to be unlocked, what do you think the right way to monetize AI will be? Obviously digital ads are quite lucrative. But as a fraction of total GDP, it's small compared to all remote work. Even if you can increase productivity without replacing work, that's still worth tens of trillions of dollars. Is it possible that ads might not be it? How do you think about this?
谈到可释放的价值，你认为变现人工智能的正确方式是什么？显然数字广告是非常赚钱的。但在GDP总量中所占比例，它仍远小于远程工作的规模。即便只是提高工作效率而不替代工作，本身就价值数十万亿美元。有没有可能广告并不是最终答案？你是怎么考虑这个问题的？
Mark Zuckerberg
Like we were talking about before, there's going to be all these different applications, and different applications tend toward different things.
就像我们之前讨论的，会有各种不同的应用场景，而不同的应用会自然适配不同的商业模式。
Ads are great when you want to offer people a free service. Because it's free, you need to cover it somehow. Ads solve this problem where a person does not need to pay for something. They can get something that is amazing for free. Also by the way, with modern ad systems, a lot of the time people think the ads add value to the thing if you do it well.
广告非常适合用来支持免费服务。因为服务是免费的，你总得有办法去支付成本。广告很好地解决了这个问题——用户不需要付钱也能获得很棒的服务。而且现在的广告系统做得很先进，如果做得好，用户甚至会觉得广告本身是有价值的补充。
You need to be good at ranking and you need to have enough liquidity of advertising inventory. If you only have five advertisers in the system, no matter how good you are at ranking, you may not be able to show something to someone that they're interested in. But if you have a million advertisers in the system, then you're probably going to be able to find something pretty compelling, if you're good at picking out the different needles in the haystack that that person is going to be interested in.
你得有很好的广告排序能力，也要有足够多的广告主。如果系统里只有五个广告主，不管排序做得多好，都可能无法为用户匹配到他们感兴趣的内容。但如果系统里有上百万个广告主，再加上你能精准地从海量信息中找出那个“针”，就很有可能展示出让人感兴趣的广告。
搜索引擎的数据库仍然是有价值的。
So that definitely has its place. But there are also clearly going to be other business models as well, including ones that just have higher costs so it doesn't even make sense to offer them for free. By the way, there have always been business models like this.
所以广告显然有它的用武之地。但也肯定会出现其他商业模式，尤其是那些成本较高、根本无法以免费形式提供的服务。其实一直以来就存在这样的商业模式。
There's a reason why social media is free and ad-supported, but then if you want to watch Netflix or ESPN or something, you need to pay for that. The content that's going into that, they need to produce it, and that's very expensive for them to produce. They probably could not have enough ads in the service in order to make up for the cost of producing the content. Basically, you just need to pay to access it.
比如，社交媒体之所以免费并依靠广告，是因为它的内容生产模式不同。但如果你想看Netflix或ESPN，就必须付费，因为这些内容需要制作，而制作成本非常高。他们可能根本无法通过广告覆盖掉这些制作成本。所以你就得为这些内容付费。
The trade-off is fewer people do it. Instead of billions, you're talking about hundreds of millions of people using those services. There's a value switch there. I think it's similar here. Not everyone is going to want a software engineer, or a thousand software engineering agents, or whatever it is. But if you do, that's something you're probably going to be willing to pay thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars for.
这种模式的权衡是：使用人数会少很多。不是十亿人用，而是几亿人用。这其实是价值层级的切换。我认为AI也类似。不是每个人都需要一个或上千个软件工程师代理人。但如果你确实需要，那你很可能愿意为此支付几千、几万、甚至几十万美元。
That just speaks to the diversity of different things that need to get created. There are going to be business models at each point along the spectrum. At Meta, for the consumer piece we definitely want to have a free thing. I'm sure that will end up being ad-supported. But I also think we're going to want to have a business model that supports people using arbitrary amounts of compute to do even more amazing things than what it would make sense to offer in the free service. For that, I'm sure we'll end up having a premium service. But I think our basic values on this are that we want to serve as many people in the world as possible.
这恰恰说明了不同场景背后的多样化需求。不同层级都会有适配的商业模式。在Meta，我们希望面向消费者的服务可以是免费的，我相信最终它会通过广告来支持。但我们也需要有一种商业模式，来支持用户使用大量算力去做一些更惊艳的事情——那些不是免费服务能覆盖的部分。为此，我们肯定会推出高级付费服务。但我们的核心理念是，我们希望服务尽可能多的人。
David: Super scale economies? Yeah.
David：“超级规模经济”？也许吧。
Ben: Where does this come from? Auction-based businesses. Whenever you have auctions to determine pricing, the more liquidity you have, the higher price is. Are there other businesses that we can look at that are similar? Do scale economies ever explain why scale gets you more revenue? What is the thing where with an increase in scale, their prices go up? They maximize their available take on any given micro auction.
Ben：这是从哪里来的？我觉得是拍卖驱动型的商业模式。只要你用拍卖来定价，流动性越大，价格就越高。有没有别的行业也这样？有没有规模经济能解释“规模越大、营收越高”的？什么情况下，公司规模越大，价格反而能越高？他们能从每场微型拍卖中榨取的价值也就越大。
This is weird. I’m trying to think in another auction-based world. Christie’s would have this. Or Sotheby’s. As you get more and more people into the auction house audience, any given sale is likely to go at a higher value. A real estate brokerage, if people were actually loyal clients of a real estate brokerage.
这还挺特别的。我试图类比其他拍卖场景。比如佳士得或者苏富比就是这样，人越多，每次拍品的成交价就越高。或者一家房地产中介，如果客户真的很忠诚，也是这个逻辑。
David: Oh, is this just network economies? That the more queries you have, the more advertisers you’ll have? The more advertisers you’ll have, the more…?
David：噢，这会不会其实就是网络效应？你的搜索请求越多，就能吸引越多广告主；广告主越多，又反过来吸引更多搜索请求……
Ben: But typically network economies are when people join the network, it creates value for other people in the network. That is true from an advertiser to a searcher and a searcher to an advertiser. We should say this definitely has network economies. It’s almost like there’s negative network economies from advertiser to advertiser. You don’t want your competitors to be on the platform, but Google does.
Ben：但传统定义上的网络效应，是说新用户加入网络，会给其他用户带来价值。在 Google 这确实也成立，比如广告主对搜索用户有价值，反之亦然。所以我们可以说 Google 是有网络效应的。但广告主对广告主之间，反而有点“负网络效应”——你不希望你的竞争对手也在平台上，但 Google 却希望。
David: Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s something unique to auction models here because the price is dynamic.
David：你可能说得对。也许这确实是拍卖模型的一种独特性，因为它的价格是动态浮动的。
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Refer To：《2009-02-27 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。 To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: Our decrease in net worth during 2008 was $11.5 billion, which reduced the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B ...2025-10-14 Tracy Britt Cool.What I Learned Working With Buffett
Refer To：《2025-10-14 Tracy Britt Cool.What I Learned Working With Buffett》。 INTRODUCTION 引言 SHANE PARRISH: Tracy, welcome to the show. SHANE PARRISH：Tracy，欢迎来到节目。 TRACY BRITT COOL: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. I appreciate it. TRACY BRITT ...2010-05-26 Warren Buffett.Interview With FCIC
INTERVIEWER: Thank you. Mr. Buffett we’re with the staff of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. We were formed by Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the financial crisis both globally and domestically. And to do a report, due at the ...1988-02-29 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders
Refer To：《1988-02-29 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。 To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: Our gain in net worth during 1987 was $464 million, or 19.5%. Over the last 23 years (that is, since present management took ...