I.H.210.Warren Buffett.Stock options
股票期权是顺应人性的激励手段，但在计算Owner earnings时需要反映实际的成本。
The most egregious case of let’s-not-face-up-to-reality behavior by executives and accountants has occurred in the world of stock options. In Berkshire’s 1985 annual report, I laid out my opinions about the use and misuse of options. But even when options are structured properly, they are accounted for in ways that make no sense. The lack of logic is not accidental: For decades, much of the business world has waged war against accounting rulemakers, trying to keep the costs of stock options from being reflected in the profits of the corporations that issue them.
高管与会计师在逃避现实方面最恶劣的案例，发生在股票期权领域。在 Berkshire 的1985年年报中，我阐述了对期权使用与滥用的看法。但即使期权设计得当，其会计处理方式也常常毫无道理。其不合逻辑并非偶然：几十年来，商界相当一部分人一直在与会计规则制定者“开战”，努力阻止股票期权成本反映到发行这些期权的公司的利润中。
Typically, executives have argued that options are hard to value and that therefore their costs should be ignored. At other times managers have said that assigning a cost to options would injure small start-up businesses. Sometimes they have even solemnly declared that “out-of-the-money” options (those with an exercise price equal to or above the current market price) have no value when they are issued.
通常，高管会辩称期权难以计价，因此其成本应当忽略。还有时候，经理人会说给期权计成本会伤害小型初创企业。有时他们甚至郑重其事地宣称，“价外”期权（行权价等于或高于当前市价）在授予时没有价值。
Oddly, the Council of Institutional Investors has chimed in with a variation on that theme, opining that options should not be viewed as a cost because they “aren’t dollars out of a company’s coffers.” I see this line of reasoning as offering exciting possibilities to American corporations for instantly improving their reported profits. For example, they could eliminate the cost of insurance by paying for it with options. So if you’re a CEO and subscribe to this “no cash-no cost” theory of accounting, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse: Give us a call at Berkshire and we will happily sell you insurance in exchange for a bundle of long-term options on your company’s stock.
奇怪的是，Council of Institutional Investors 也附和了一个变体观点，认为期权不应视为成本，因为它们“并未让公司现金流出”。在我看来，这种逻辑为美国公司立刻改善报表利润提供了令人“振奋”的新可能。例如，它们可以用期权来支付保险，从而“消除”保险成本。所以，如果你是 CEO 并认同这种“无现金即无成本”的会计理论，我有一个你无法拒绝的提议：打电话给 Berkshire，我们很乐意用你公司股票的一揽子长期期权来交换我们出售给你的保险。
Shareholders should understand that companies incur costs when they deliver something of value to another party and not just when cash changes hands. Moreover, it is both silly and cynical to say that an important item of cost should not be recognized simply because it can’t be quantified with pinpoint precision. Right now, accounting abounds with imprecision. After all, no manager or auditor knows how long a 747 is going to last, which means he also does not know what the yearly depreciation charge for the plane should be. No one knows with any certainty what a bank’s annual loan loss charge ought to be. And the estimates of losses that property-casualty companies make are notoriously inaccurate.
股东应当明白：当公司向他方交付有价值之物时就已发生成本，而不只是现金发生变动时才有成本。此外，声称某项重要成本因为无法“精确到毫厘”就不该确认，这既愚蠢又犬儒。会计本就充满不精确：毕竟，没有哪位经理人或审计师知道一架747究竟能用多久，这也意味着他并不知道每年的折旧该计多少。没有人能确定一家银行的年度贷款损失计提应是多少。财产意外险公司的损失估计出了名的不准确。
Does this mean that these important items of cost should be ignored simply because they can’t be quantified with absolute accuracy? Of course not. Rather, these costs should be estimated by honest and experienced people and then recorded. When you get right down to it, what other item of major but hard-to-precisely-calculate cost—other, that is, than stock options—does the accounting profession say should be ignored in the calculation of earnings?
这是否意味着这些重要成本因为无法绝对精确计量就应被忽略？当然不是。相反，这些成本应由诚实且经验丰富的人进行估计并予以入账。说到底，除了股票期权之外，还有哪一项重大的、难以精确计量的成本是会计行业认为可以在利润计算中忽略不计的？
Moreover, options are just not that difficult to value. Admittedly, the difficulty is increased by the fact that the options given to executives are restricted in various ways. These restrictions affect value. They do not, however, eliminate it. In fact, since I’m in the mood for offers, I’ll make one to any executive who is granted a restricted option, even though it may be out of the money: On the day of issue, Berkshire will pay him or her a substantial sum for the right to any future gain he or she realizes on the option. So if you find a CEO who says his newly-issued options have little or no value, tell him to try us out. In truth, we have far more confidence in our ability to determine an appropriate price to pay for an option than we have in our ability to determine the proper depreciation rate for our corporate jet.
此外，期权并没有那么难以计价。诚然，授予高管的期权常带有各种限制，这会影响价值，但并不会令其价值归零。事实上，既然我正有“要约”的兴致，我愿向任何获得受限期权的高管再提一个——即便该期权处于价外：在授予日，Berkshire 愿意以一笔可观的金额购买他/她未来在该期权上实现的全部收益权。所以，如果你遇到声称其新发期权“几乎无价值”的 CEO，劝他来找我们试试。老实说，相比确定公司公务机的合适折旧率，我们更有信心给期权定出一个合适的价格。
It seems to me that the realities of stock options can be summarized quite simply: If options aren’t a form of compensation, what are they? If compensation isn’t an expense, what is it? And, if expenses shouldn’t go into the calculation of earnings, where in the world should they go?
在我看来，股票期权的实质可以非常简单地概括：如果期权不是一种报酬，那它是什么？如果报酬不是费用，那又是什么？如果费用不该计入利润，那它究竟该去哪儿？
The accounting profession and the SEC should be shamed by the fact that they have long let themselves be muscled by business executives on the option-accounting issue. Additionally, the lobbying that executives engage in may have an unfortunate by-product: In my opinion, the business elite risks losing its credibility on issues of significance to society—about which it may have much of value to say—when it advocates the incredible on issues of significance to itself.
会计行业与 SEC 应该为此感到羞愧：在期权会计问题上，他们长期允许自己被企业高管施压。此外，高管们展开的游说还有一个不幸的副作用：在我看来，当商业精英在涉及自身切身利益的问题上鼓吹“难以置信”的观点时，他们在对社会重大议题（其实他们本可以提出许多有价值见解）的发言上，将面临公信力受损的风险。
2、《1997-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
34. Abuse of stock options as executive compensation
将股票期权滥用于高管薪酬
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we’ll talk about comp then, a little.
WARREN BUFFETT：那我们就稍微谈一点薪酬的问题。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, comp, yeah.
CHARLIE MUNGER：对，薪酬，是的。
WARREN BUFFETT: The — comps — there are three or four aspects to that. On the subject of options, I would say that most options are constructed poorly, from the standpoint of the owner, but they’re constructed very well from the standpoint of the person who receives them, which is not entirely unexplainable because the — it’s a very strange form of negotiation when the beneficiary is the one that also really does all the design and hires the experts to come in and tell him what is good for the company when the expert knows that the guy who signs the check would be quite interested also in hearing what’s good for him. There’s nothing wrong with options per se, at all. Frankly, in terms of Berkshire, it would have been perfectly appropriate if a properly designed option had been given to me or to Charlie. I mean, we have responsibility for the whole enterprise, and we believe that any kind of incentive for performance should be related to the area in which you have responsibility. We feel that if you want a typist to type 100 words a minute, that you ought to pay for typing 100 words a minute, not what the earnings per share were last year.
WARREN BUFFETT：——薪酬这件事——有三四个方面。关于期权，我要说，从所有者（股东）的角度看，大多数期权设计得很糟，但从领取者（受益人）的角度看却设计得很好。这并非难以理解，因为这是种很奇怪的“谈判”形式：受益人自己主导设计，还雇所谓专家来告诉他什么对公司“有利”，而专家又清楚签支票的人也很想听到那些对他“有利”的话。本质上，期权并非天生有错。坦率说，就Berkshire而言，如果给我或Charlie授予一个“设计得当”的期权，那完全合适。我的意思是，我们对整个企业负有责任，我们认为任何绩效激励都应与受激励者的职责范围相匹配。比如，如果你想让打字员达到每分钟100词，你就应该按“每分钟100词的打字表现”付钱，而不是按去年每股收益来付钱。
We feel if a salesman gets paid for how many of the product is sold, he should get paid for that and not for some production quotas met. So we believe in tying incentive comp to performance for which you have responsibility. And there are certain areas of a business that don’t lend themselves to that staff performance and so on. But that would lead to the corollary, that the people that are responsible for the entire results of the business, it’s perfectly appropriate to compensate them by options that in some way reflect the performance of that entire business. The trouble is that stock prices reflect other things than the performance of the business. For one thing, over a period of time, they reflect simply the reinvestment of earnings. You know, I have pointed out in the past that if you gave me an option on your savings account — to manage your savings account — and you reinvested all the interest, I would take away a significant payment at the end of ten years simply because you left the interest in.
我们也认为，推销员应按卖出去多少产品来拿钱，而不是按什么生产指标来拿钱。所以我们主张把激励薪酬和受激励者“所负责的绩效”紧密绑定。当然，企业中也有一些职能不容易这样衡量。但这就引出一个推论：对那些对企业整体业绩负全部责任的人，用“某种方式能反映整个企业绩效”的期权来补偿他们，是完全合适的。麻烦在于，股价反映的不仅仅是企业经营表现。比如，长期看，股价会“自动”反映利润再投资的效果。你知道，我过去说过：如果你把你的储蓄账户“期权”给我——让我来“管理你的储蓄账户”——而你把所有利息都再投资，十年后我就能拿走一笔相当可观的回报，只是因为你把利息留在账户里。
With a company that pays no dividend like Berkshire, if you’re going to leave all your capital in every year, for me to get a fixed-price option for ten years would mean that I was getting a royalty on money that you left with me. And I made the choice to have you leave it with me. So that does not strike me as equitable. So I think any option should have a step-up in price that reflects the fact that money is reinvested by the shareholders annually. That if somebody wants to pay out a hundred percent of the earnings every year, then I’d say that you can have a fixed-price option. If you give me the money every year, and you do more with the money that’s left with you than the original sum, that’s fine. But if money is left with someone for ten years, there’s going to be some increase in value even if they spend every day golfing. And to give a piece of that away simply over — to have a royalty on the passage of time for them is a mistake. I think options ought to be granted, basically, at the fair value of the business at the time they’re granted.
对于像Berkshire这样不分红的公司，如果你每年都把全部资本留在公司，给我一个“10年固定行权价”的期权，等于让我对你留给我的钱抽取“版税”。而“让你把钱留在我这里”也是我做出的决策。这在我看来并不公平。所以我认为，任何期权的行权价都应该“逐年递增”，去反映股东每年都在进行再投资这一事实。如果某家公司每年把100%的利润都分掉，那我会说可以用“固定行权价”的期权——因为你每年都把钱“还给我”了；而你手里留下的钱若能创造超过本金的价值，那很好。但如果钱被留在某人那里整整十年，即便他每天都去打高尔夫，价值也会增加一些。把其中一部分“无偿让渡”出去，仅仅因为“时间流逝”，等于给了对方“时间版税”，这是错误的。我认为，期权基本上应该按授予当时企业的“公平价值（fair value）”来定价授予。
Sometimes that’s the market price, sometimes it isn’t the market price, but — Certainly the management of a company would not give an option on their business to some third party at a market price they felt was way too low, so I find it a little disingenuous when managements say that they’re — when they get a takeover bid, they say that the company’s really worth twice that much, but they’re perfectly willing to issue options to themselves at this price which they say is totally inadequate, when the owners get the option elsewhere. But options, properly structured, for people with responsibility for the business, I think, makes — can make sense. And I think that if something happened to me and to Charlie, in terms of the manager of the business subsequently, if it was structured properly, I would not see anything wrong with an option arrangement. We carry this philosophy down to our subsidiaries where they generally get incentive arrangements that relate to the operation of their business.
有时“公平价值”就是“市场价”，有时不是——但有一点很清楚：若管理层认为市场价“远低于”企业价值，他们绝不会把以这个价位定的“公司期权”卖给第三方。所以，当公司收到收购要约时，管理层一边说“公司至少值要约价的两倍”，一边又“非常乐意”用他们刚称为“严重低估”的价格，给自己发期权——而真正的所有者（股东）只能在别处拿到这样的“好处”——这种做法在我看来有点不厚道。不过，只要“结构得当”，为“对业务负有责任”的人授予期权，是有道理的。我也认为，假如将来我和Charlie都不在了，只要结构设计合理，我也不觉得期权安排有什么不可以。我们把这种理念也落实到子公司层面，通常都会给他们设计“和各自业务经营表现相关”的激励安排。
But they don’t have incentive arrangements that relate to Berkshire overall, because if Chuck Huggins does a wonderful job at See’s Candy, as he has done, and I fall on my face, in terms of allocating capital, Berkshire stock will go no place despite what Chuck does. And to penalize him, or to tie his rewards to something over which he has no control, I think, is kind of silly. So we tie it instead to the operations of the candy business.
但是他们的激励安排并不与整个 Berkshire 绑定，因为即使 Chuck Huggins 在 See’s Candy 做得非常出色（他确实如此），如果我在资本配置上“栽了跟头”，那么无论 Chuck 做得多好，Berkshire 的股价都不会有起色。去惩罚他，或者把他的报酬捆在他无法控制的事情上，我认为有点荒唐。所以我们把激励改为与糖果业务本身的经营表现相绑定。
In terms of overall level of compensation, the real sin is having a mediocre manager. I mean, that is what costs owners very significant amounts of money over time. And if a mediocre manager is paid a relatively small sum, it’s still a great mistake. And if they’re paid huge sums, it’s a travesty. And that happens sometimes. It’s almost impossible to pay the outstanding manager a sum that’s disproportion to the value of that outstanding manager, when you get a large enterprise. Coca-Cola had a market value of $4 billion when Roberto Goizueta took over.
就总体薪酬水平而言，真正的罪过是任用平庸的经理人。我的意思是，这才是长期让所有者损失巨额财富的根源。哪怕平庸的经理人拿的薪水不算高，那仍然是个大错误；如果他们拿到巨额薪酬，那更是荒谬——而这种事有时确实会发生。对于一家大型企业而言，几乎不可能给一位卓越经理人的报酬高到“与其创造的价值不相称”。当 Roberto Goizueta 接手时，Coca-Cola 的市值只有 40 亿美元。
巴菲特首次买入KO是1988年，Roberto Goizueta的任职时间：1981年3月—1997年10月18日（至去世）。
It had stagnated during the previous decade under an earlier management, despite having the same product and those great Mean Joe Greene commercials you saw, that was — Mean Joe Greene was in the ’70s. The “Teach the World to Sing” commercial was in the ’70s. All these great commercials. But the company didn’t do much. Roberto — if we’d bought the entire Coca-Cola Company — I wish we had — in 1981 or ’2, whenever he came in, for 4 billion and we now had a business worth 150 billion, Roberto would have earned more money with us than he’s earned under the present arrangement. I mean, having the right person in place is just enormously important. How much they should take is another question. That’s more a philosophical question. Tom Murphy, best manager, you know, in the world, he just didn’t feel like taking a lot of money out of it, you know. And you know, I tip my hat to him, but I don’t think that necessarily makes it wrong for somebody else to take more money for doing the job. But I think it ought to be related to doing the job.
在他之前的管理层主政的上一个十年，公司陷入停滞——尽管产品还是同样的产品，还有你们看到的那些精彩广告：Mean Joe Greene 的广告是在 70 年代，“Teach the World to Sing”的广告也在 70 年代。广告一个比一个好，但公司本身并没有取得什么成绩。Roberto——如果我们在 1981 或 1982 年，也就是他上任时，以 40 亿美元把整家 Coca-Cola 买下来（我真希望我们当时就这么做了），而如今这门生意价值 1500 亿，那么在我们这里 Roberto 赚到的钱会比他在当前安排下赚到的更多。我的意思是，找对人这件事极其重要。至于“应该拿多少”，那是另一个问题，更偏哲学层面。Tom Murphy，你知道的，世界上最好的经理人，他就是不想从中拿太多钱。我向他致敬，但我也不认为这就意味着别人为干成同样的活而多拿一些钱一定是错的。只是我认为，报酬必须与“把工作干好”直接相关。
When I ran a partnership in the 1960s, I took a quarter of the profit over 6 percent a year. And I didn’t get paid any salary, but I could make a lot of money doing that. And that thought occurred to me as I ran the place from day to day, and I think it probably helped a little. (Laughter) So I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to have somebody get paid for making money for the shareholders. But they ought to get paid for really making it, not simply because the shareholders reinvest money with them. They ought to make it based on the fair value of what they had when they took over, and they ought to make it really for just excellent performance. Charlie?
在 20 世纪 60 年代我管理合伙基金时，我按“超过 6% 的年回报部分”收取 25% 的分成。我不拿固定薪水，但那样做我可以赚到不少钱。日常管理时我会想到这一点，我觉得这大概也确实起了一点激励作用（笑）。所以，我并不认为“因为替股东赚钱而拿到报酬”是件坏事。但人们应当是因为“真的赚到了钱”而获得报酬，而不是仅仅因为股东把钱继续留在他们手里。他们的报酬应当以他们“接手时企业的公平价值”为基准，并且确实要来自“卓越的经营表现”。Charlie？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, we have remarked in previous Berkshire Hathaway meetings that we regard present mandated corporate accounting, with respect to stock options as weak, corrupt, and contemptible. And it is.
CHARLIE MUNGER：嗯，我们在以往的 Berkshire Hathaway 股东会上已经说过，对股票期权的现行强制性公司会计处理，我们认为“软弱、腐败、可鄙”。而事实确实如此。
WARREN BUFFETT: Otherwise, we’re undecided. (Laughter)
WARREN BUFFETT：除此之外，我们还没下结论呢。（笑）
CHARLIE MUNGER: If something is so wonderful as a standard technique of compensation, why does it have to be masked under weak, corrupt, and contemptible accounting? I think it is no credit to our civilization that we’ve drifted into this particular modality. And you can get, if you overuse stock options, where the whole thing is sort of a chain letter. I mean, in Silicon Valley there’s one company that practically paid everybody in options, and as long as the chain letter galloped, it worked as far as the income account because nothing went through expense. And then once everybody is issuing stock options, everybody else feels that he has to do it. And the practice spreads. So I am not totally wild about the extreme prevalence of the stock option modality in American corporate life. Personally, I would vastly prefer different modalities, which would probably involve stock instead of stock options. I’m all for sharing with the kind of people who are doing the important work pretty well down in the organization in a place like Costco or Coca-Cola or any other such company. But I don’t much like the present scheme that civilization has drifted into.
CHARLIE MUNGER：如果某种薪酬方式真有那么“美妙”，为什么非要用“软弱、腐败、可鄙”的会计处理把它遮掩起来？我认为，我们的文明社会居然滑入这种做法，是我们的耻辱。过度使用股票期权，会把整件事弄得像“连锁信”。在 Silicon Valley 有家公司几乎用期权给所有人发薪，只要“连锁信”还在狂奔，就能在利润表上“跑通”，因为没有任何东西通过“费用”科目。而一旦有人开始大量发期权，其他人也觉得不得不跟进，于是这种做法蔓延开来。因此，我对股票期权在美国企业生活中“极度流行”的状况并不热衷。就我个人而言，我更愿意采用其他方式，可能是“发放股票而非股票期权”。我完全赞成把成果分享给那些在像 Costco 或 Coca-Cola 这类公司里、处在组织较深处、承担重要工作的员工。但我不怎么喜欢当下社会普遍滑向的这一整套安排。
有些想法如果真的好那就不可能是神秘的，历史上大量聪明实践以后仍然很神秘根本不符合常识，本分、平常心，这一类提法都带着“没吃饱”的印迹，已经不用了。
With respect to the subject of do we have some wretched excesses in American corporate compensation, my answer would be yes. I don’t think the excess is necessarily the guy who got the most money. In many cases I agree with Warren, that the money has been deserved. But such is the envy effect that the practice spreads to everybody else. And then the taxi driver and everybody starts thinking the system is irrational, unfair, crazy. And I think that’s what causes some people, as they rise in American corporations, to, at a certain point of power gaining and wealth gaining, they start exercising extreme restraint as a sort of moral duty. And that’s what Warren was saying about Tom Murphy. And I would argue that the Tom Murphy attitude is the right attitude. And it goes way, way back in the history of civilization. The word “liturgy” comes from a Greek word which is just the same. I mean, if you were an important citizen of Athens, it was a lot like being an important person in Jewish culture. I mean, you had duties to give back and to act as a certain example. And the civilization had social pressures that enforced those duties.
至于“美国企业薪酬是否存在糟糕的过度现象”这个问题，我的回答是：有。我不认为“过度”的对象必然是拿钱最多的人。很多情况下，我同意 Warren 的观点：他们确实配得上这些钱。但“嫉妒效应”使这种做法向所有人扩散，然后出租车司机等普通人就会觉得整个体系“非理性、不公平、疯狂”。我认为，这正是为什么一些人在美国公司里地位和财富不断上升到某个阶段时，会把“严格自我克制”当作一种道德责任去践行——这就是 Warren 对 Tom Murphy 的评价。我认为 Tom Murphy 的态度是正确的，而且可一直追溯到文明史早期。“liturgy”这个词来自希腊语，含义相通。也就是说，如果你是雅典的重要公民，就很像在犹太文化中成为重要人物：你有回馈社会、以身作则的义务，而文明社会也通过社会压力来强化这些义务。
And I would argue that the Berkshire Hathaway compensation system, considering what the people at the top already have, it would be better if we saw a little more of it.
而且我还要补充，就 Berkshire Hathaway 的薪酬体系而言，考虑到高层已然拥有的一切，如果能看到更多这种（克制与担当的）态度，那会更好。
WARREN BUFFETT: A few —
WARREN BUFFETT：有几——
CHARLIE MUNGER: I think Warren and I do all right. (Laughter and applause)
CHARLIE MUNGER：我觉得 Warren 和我都干得还不错。（笑声与掌声）
WARREN BUFFETT: A few years — I think an added problem is the sort of, in terms of the accounting, the sort of hypocrisy that it pushes people into, and then which becomes accepted and sort of a norm, particularly when leaders do it. And you know, you had a situation a few years back when there’s no question that any manager would say that stock options are a form of compensation. They would say that compensation is a form of expense, and they would say that expense belongs in the income account. But they didn’t want to have stock options counted because they felt that it might restrict their use. So when the federal — the FASB, Financial Accounting Standards Board — came up with a proposal to actually have reality reflected en masse, corporate chieftains descended on Washington to pressure legislators to have Congress start enacting accounting standards, which as I mentioned, one time in Indiana in the 1890s, there was a legislator that introduced a bill to have the value of pi changed to an even 3 because he thought that 3.14159 was too tough for the schoolchildren and it would ease computational problems.
WARREN BUFFETT：几年前——我认为另一个问题是，会计处理把人们推向某种“虚伪”，而当这种虚伪被接受、甚至成了“常态”时（尤其是领导者这么做时），问题更大。你看，就在几年前，任何经理人都会承认股票期权是一种补偿；他们会承认补偿是一种费用；他们也会承认费用应计入损益表。但他们却不愿把股票期权计入费用，因为他们觉得那会限制期权的使用。所以，当联邦层面的 FASB（Financial Accounting Standards Board）提出要“如实反映”这件事的准则草案时，一群企业领袖蜂拥到 Washington，向立法者施压，逼迫国会介入制定会计准则。就像我提过的，1890 年代在 Indiana 还发生过这么一件事：有位议员提案把圆周率 pi 的数值改成整数 3，因为他觉得 3.14159 对学生太难了，这样能让计算更容易。
Well, that sort of behavior by corporate chieftains when they are in there, you know, arguing that black is white, in order to feather their own nest and maybe create a little higher stock prices, I think that it means that they forfeit, to some degree, their right to be taken seriously when they claim they’re operating for the good of the Republic, and march on Washington in other regards. And I just think that when the organization recognizes its hypocrisy and so on, I think there’s a degradation that can set in through an organization that — whose leaders are also leaders in hypocrisy. Like I say, we have no strong feelings on this subject, but — (Laughter) Charlie, do you have anything?
而企业领袖们那样的行为——你知道的，把黑说成白，为的是肥己、也许还能推高一点股价——在我看来，这使得他们在其他场合“高举为共和国利益而行事”的旗号、走上 Washington 时，在某种程度上丧失了被认真对待的资格。我还认为，当一个组织自己也意识到这层虚伪时，组织里就会滋生一种“退化”，尤其当其领导者也是“虚伪的带头人”。就像我说的，我们对这个话题并没有什么强烈的看法，但是——（笑）Charlie，你还有什么要补充的吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s rather interesting, though. There’s an earlier example. Commodore Vanderbilt took no salary from his railroads. After all, he controlled the railroads. They paid all the dividends that he needed, and he got the fun of running the whole railroad, and he thought it was beneath Commodore Vanderbilt to take a salary. We’ve never quite reached the Vanderbilt standard, but — (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：不过这事倒挺有意思的。早些年有个例子。Commodore Vanderbilt 不从他的铁路公司拿薪水。毕竟他控制着这些铁路，公司把他需要的股息都付给了他，他也享受着经营整条铁路的乐趣，他认为对 Commodore Vanderbilt 来说，领薪水是有失身份的。我们当然从没达到 Vanderbilt 的标准，但是——（笑）
WARREN BUFFETT: We don’t have any dividends, Charlie.
WARREN BUFFETT：我们可没有股息啊，Charlie。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, yeah. (Laughs) Well, maybe that’s the reason. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：对，对。（笑）嗯，也许这就是原因吧。（笑声）
3、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
24. Most companies hide the true cost of stock options
大多数公司会隐藏股票期权的真实成本
WARREN BUFFETT: OK, if area one is ready, we’re ready to start answering.
WARREN BUFFETT：好的，如果第一片区准备好了，我们就开始答问。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi.
AUDIENCE MEMBER：你好。
WARREN BUFFETT: Hi.
WARREN BUFFETT：你好。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Steve Check. I’m from Costa Mesa, California. My question is regarding stock options. I’ve taken your suggestion and have been attempting to subtract stock option compensation from reported income when evaluating companies. When I read annual reports, I usually find companies estimating option costs using the Black-Scholes model. However, the assumptions going into the Black-Scholes model seem quite different from company to company. These assumptions, of course, are what is used for risk-free interest rates — quote unquote, “risk-free” interest rates, expected option lives — even though options have stated lives, and expected volatility. Help me out a little bit. What is the best way to calculate option costs? Do you think BlackScholes is appropriate? If so, how should we normalize the assumptions? And just one short follow-up: how can we possibly estimate future earnings for companies, when companies, such as even Microsoft last week, in response to a lower stock price, simply reissue a bunch of new options?
AUDIENCE MEMBER：我叫 Steve Check，来自加州 Costa Mesa。我的问题是关于股票期权的。我采纳了你的建议，在评估公司时尝试把期权补偿从报告利润中扣除。但我读年报时通常看到公司用 Black-Scholes 模型估算期权成本。不过各家公司在 Black-Scholes 模型中的假设似乎差异很大。这些假设当然涉及到无风险利率——所谓“无风险”利率、期权的预期存续期——尽管期权本身有合同期限，以及预期波动率。请指点一下：计算期权成本的最佳方法是什么？你认为 Black-Scholes 合适吗？如果合适，我们应该如何统一这些假设？再追问一个简短问题：当公司（比如上周的 Microsoft）面对股价下跌就干脆重新发一大堆新期权时，我们又如何可能去估算这些公司的未来利润？
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, the — I can tell you, from some personal experience, that companies attempt to use the lowest figure they can, even though it doesn’t hit the income account. So they like to make fairly short assumptions as to the life of the options, even though they’re granted on a ten-year basis. Because they’ll make certain assumptions about exercise date or forfeiture and so on. I think the most appropriate way, when you’ve got a pattern, which you have at many companies, of what they do on options, is simply to make an educated guess as to the average option issuance that they’re going to incur, or they’re going to elect to do over time. And, generally, what you really want to — if you were to be precise — you would try to figure out what they could’ve sold those options for in the open market. Because that’s the opportunity cost of giving them to the employees instead of selling the same option in the market.
WARREN BUFFETT：是的——根据我的一些亲身经验，公司会尽量用能用到的最低数字，即使它不进入损益表。所以他们喜欢把期权的存续期假设得相当短，尽管授予时合同期可能是十年。因为他们会对行权日期、失效（forfeiture）等等做出某些假设。我认为，更合适的做法——当你看到很多公司在期权上存在可重复的模式时——是对它们在一段时期内平均年度期权发放量做一个有根据的估计。总体而言，如果你想更精确，真正要做的是：算一算这些期权拿到公开市场能卖多少钱。因为把期权送给员工而不是把同样的期权在市场上卖掉，差的这部分就是机会成本。
I think you’ll find, generally, that if you take a value of about a third, for a ten-year option, if you take a value of about a third — obviously, it depends on dividend rate and volatility and a whole bunch of things — but about a third of the market value, strike price, at the time they’re issued, that’s the expectable cost. We believe in using the expectable cost versus the actual cost. I mean, that is how we would look at it. If we were issuing options at Berkshire, and we issued options on $100 million worth of stock a year, we would figure it was costing us, probably in our case, with no dividend, at least $35 million a year to issue those options. And we would figure that if we gave people $35 million in some other form of result-oriented compensation, that it would be a wash. And that is not the way most managements, of course, figure. At least that’s my experience.
我想你通常会发现，对于十年期期权，用大约三分之一的价值来估（当然这取决于股息率、波动率等一堆因素）——以授予时的市场价格/行权价为基准，取大约三分之一，这就是期望成本（expectable cost）。我们主张用“期望成本”，而不是事后实际成本。也就是说，我们会这样看。如果在 Berkshire 我们每年在市值1亿美元的股票上发期权，结合我们没有股息的情况，我们会估计发这些期权每年至少要花掉我们大约3500万美元。我们也会认为，如果改用其他与结果挂钩的补偿形式发给员工3500万美元，经济效果是相同的。当然，大多数管理层并不是这么算的——至少按我的经验是这样。
《I.C.S.416.Capital.Consumer Products.KO》，我们这个分析中用了事后回购的实际成本（Anti-Dilution Cash）而不是报表给出的SBC，拿账上的净利润回购被稀释的股票就是一种实际的支出。And we would figure we could use that 35 million in a more shareholder-oriented way and one where the employee (who) was productive would be sure of getting results, as opposed to having it be at the whims of the market. And I think you’ll see a lot of option repricing. Everybody says they won’t reprice their options, until they do it. And, you’ll see that with a lot of schemes. It would be interesting to see whether CONSICO is willing to bankrupt all the executives who made loans to buy the stock and had those loans guaranteed by the company. And the company initially said they would enforce those loans. And we’ll see whether they do it. I would say, in many cases, they won’t. I don’t know what CONSICO will do. But, a lot of things that are said in connection with executive option schemes and that sort of thing are what they’ll do if it works in their favor. And then they’ll do something else if it doesn’t work in their favor. And that’s not spelled out in the initial approval that’s granted. Charlie, you have anything to add?
我们还会认为，可以把这3500万美元用在更偏向股东、并且能确保有产出的员工拿到结果的地方，而不是任由市场情绪摆布。而且我认为你会看到很多期权重定价。每个人都会说“我们不会重定价期权”，直到他们真的去这么做。很多方案都会这样。看看 CONSICO 会不会真的让那些贷款买公司股票、且贷款由公司担保的高管们统统破产，这将很有意思。公司一开始说会强制执行这些贷款条款，我们拭目以待。我会说，很多情况下他们不会这么做。我不知道 CONSICO 会怎么做。但围绕高管期权计划这类事情，很多承诺都是顺风时这么做，不顺风时就换一种做法。而这些在最初获批时通常并没有写清楚。Charlie，你有什么要补充的吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, Warren’s somewhat critical attitude is very understated compared to mine. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER：嗯，Warren 的批评态度相较于我，已经算含蓄了。（笑声）
WARREN BUFFETT: We’re going to leave raisins out of this particular — (laughter) — analysis. Let’s go to area 2. We do believe, incidentally, if a company is going to end up giving out 10 percent of the, company over a 10-year period or 15 percent on options, that is like buying an apartment house and letting the seller keep a 10 or 15 percent interest in the upside. Or it’s like buying an oil field and giving somebody a 10 or 15 percent interest-free override. It changes the value of the property. Make no mistake about it. It is a — it has a huge economic impact on the value of a property. And just go out and try and sell your house and say, “I want to keep 15 percent of the appreciation in it,” and ask the buyer whether he’s going to pay the same price for the house. Options subtract value the moment they are granted. And, like I say, unless companies — some companies follow a practice of making a mega-grant every three or four or five years. A lot of them just issue a fairly constant amount annually. And you can figure out the cost.
WARREN BUFFETT：这次我们就不谈“葡萄干”——（笑声）——的分析了。我们转到第二片区。顺带说一句，我们确实认为：如果一家公司打算在十年里通过期权把公司10%或15%送出去，那就好比你买了一栋公寓楼，却让卖家保留10%或15%的上涨分成；或者你买了一个油田，却给了别人10%或15%的免息超额分成。这会改变这项资产的价值——毫无疑问。它对资产价值有巨大的经济影响。你不妨试试：去卖你的房子，同时说“未来涨价的15%我要保留”，再问问买家是否还愿意按原价成交。期权在授予的那一刻就会削弱价值。而且正如我所说，除非公司——有些公司每三四五年搞一次超级授予（mega-grant），更多公司是年年发一个相对稳定的额度。这样你就能把成本算出来。
And, you know, they don’t want to tell the shareholders there’s a cost. And that’s why they fought through Congress and everything else in order to prevent it from being the truth. But, you know, Galileo had that problem many years ago and finally won out. So maybe we will, too. (Laughs)
而且你知道，他们并不想告诉股东这里面有成本。这也是为什么他们会通过国会等各种渠道去阻止真相被承认。不过你看，很多年前 Galileo 也遇到过类似的问题，最后他赢了。也许我们也会如此。（笑）
In 1994 seven slim accounting experts, all intelligent and experienced, unanimously decided that stock options granted to a company's employees were a corporate expense. Six fat CPAs, with similar credentials, unanimously declared these grants were no such thing.
1994年，七位身材苗条、聪明且经验丰富的会计专家一致认为，授予公司员工的股票期权属于公司费用。六位身材肥胖、资历相当的注册会计师（CPA）则一致宣称此类授予压根算不上费用。
Can it really be that girth, rather than intellect, determines one's accounting principles? Yes indeed, in this case. Obesity -- of a monetary sort -- almost certainly explained the split vote.
难道真是腰围而不是智力决定了一个人的会计原则？在这个案例里，确实如此。这里的“肥胖”——是指金钱层面的肥胖——几乎可以肯定地解释了这种分歧。
The seven proponents of expense recognition were the members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, who earned $313,000 annually. Their six adversaries were the managing partners of the (then) Big Six accounting firms, who were raking in multiples of the pay received by their public-interest brethren.
主张将其列为费用的七人是Financial Accounting Standards Board的成员，他们每年薪资为313,000美元。与之对立的六人是当时Big Six会计师事务所的管理合伙人，他们的收入是这些公共利益同僚的数倍。
In this duel the Big Six were prodded by corporate CEOs, who fought ferociously to bury the huge and growing cost of options, in order to keep their reported earnings artificially high. And in the pre-Enron world of client-influenced accounting, their auditors were only too happy to lend their support.
在这场对决中，Big Six受到了企业CEO的怂恿，这些CEO竭力掩埋不断膨胀的期权成本，以便人为地维持报表利润的高位。而在Enron事件前那个客户影响会计判断的世界里，他们的审计师也乐于提供支持。
The members of Congress decided to adjudicate the fight -- who, after all, could be better equipped to evaluate accounting standards? -- and then watched as corporate CEOs and their auditors stormed the Capitol. These forces simply blew away the opposition. By an 88-9 vote, U.S. senators made a number of their largest campaign contributors ecstatic by declaring option grants to be expense-free. Darwin could have foreseen this result: It was survival of the fattest.
国会成员决定裁决这场争论——毕竟，还有谁更适合评判会计准则呢？——随后他们眼看着企业CEO及其审计师蜂拥而至国会山。这股力量轻而易举地击溃了反对者。以88比9的投票结果，U.S. senators通过了将期权授予视为“无费用”的决定，让多位最大的竞选金主欢欣鼓舞。达尔文早已能预见这个结果：这是“最胖者生存”。
The argument, it should be emphasized, was not about the use of options. Companies could then, as now, compensate employees in any manner they wished. They could use cash, cars, trips to Hawaii or options as rewards -- whatever they felt would be most effective in motivating employees.
需要强调的是，争论并不是关于是否可以使用期权。那时和现在一样，公司可以按照自己的意愿对员工进行激励：可以用现金、汽车、夏威夷旅行或者期权——任何他们认为最能激励员工的方式。
But those other forms of compensation had to be recorded as an expense, whereas options -- which were, and still are, awarded in wildly disproportionate amounts to the top dogs -- simply weren't counted.
但其他形式的报酬必须计入费用，而期权——当时如此、现在亦然——大量倾斜授予高层，却被直接不计入费用。
The CEOs wanting to keep it that way put forth several arguments. One was that options are hard to value. That is nonsense: I've bought and sold options for 40 years and know their pricing to be highly sophisticated. It's far more problematic to calculate the useful life of machinery, a difficulty that makes the annual depreciation charge merely a guess. No one, however, argues that this imprecision does away with a company's need to record depreciation expense. Likewise, pension expense in corporate America is calculated under wildly varying assumptions, and CPAs regularly allow whatever assumption management picks.
想维持现状的CEO们提出了好几个理由。其一是“期权难以估值”。这纯属无稽之谈：我买卖期权已有40年，深知其定价模型非常成熟。相比之下，估算机器设备的使用年限更棘手，年度折旧额往往只是“估计值”。然而没人据此主张企业可以不计折旧。同理，美国公司的养老金费用在千差万别的假设下计算，CPA也经常接受管理层挑选的任何假设。
Believe me, CEOs know what their option grants are worth. That's why they fight for them.
相信我，CEO非常清楚自己拿到的期权值多少钱——这正是他们如此争取它们的原因。
It's also argued that options should not lead to a corporate expense being recorded because they do not involve a cash outlay by the company. But neither do grants of restricted stock cause cash to be disbursed -- and yet the value of such grants is routinely expensed.
还有人辩称，期权不应计入公司费用，因为它们并不产生现金支出。但授予限制性股票也不会立即付出现金——然而其价值照样被常规计入费用。
Furthermore, there is a hidden, but very real, cash cost to a company when it issues options. If my company, Berkshire, were to give me a 10-year option on 1,000 shares of A stock at today's market price, it would be compensating me with an asset that has a cash value of at least $20 million -- an amount the company could receive today if it sold a similar option in the marketplace. Giving an employee something that alternatively could be sold for hard cash has the same consequences for a company as giving him cash. Incidentally, the day an employee receives an option, he can engage in various market maneuvers that will deliver him immediate cash, even if the market price of his company's stock is below the option's exercise price.
此外，公司发放期权还存在一项隐藏但确实存在的现金成本。假设我的公司Berkshire今天按市价授予我一份10年期、标的为1,000股A类股票的期权，那就是用一个至少价值2,000万美元的资产来补偿我——如果公司把类似期权卖到市场上，今天就能拿到这笔现金。给员工某个“也可以卖成真金白银”的东西，对公司来说与直接给现金没有区别。顺带说一句，员工拿到期权当天就可以通过各种市场操作获取即时现金，即使公司股价当时低于行权价也可以实现。
Finally, those against expensing of options advance what I would call the "useful fairy-tale" argument. They say that because the country needs young, innovative companies, many of which are large issuers of options, it would harm the national interest to call option compensation an expense and thereby penalize the "earnings" of these budding enterprises.
最后，反对将期权列支的人还搬出了我称之为“好用的童话”的论点：他们说国家需要年轻、创新型公司，而这些公司往往大量发放期权；如果把期权薪酬算作费用、从而压低这些新生企业的“利润”，就会损害国家利益。
Why, then, require cash compensation to be recorded as an expense given that it, too, penalizes earnings of young, promising companies? Indeed, why not have these companies issue options in place of cash for utility and rent payments -- and then pretend that these expenses, as well, don't exist? Berkshire will be happy to receive options in lieu of cash for many of the goods and services that we sell corporate America.
那么，为什么现金薪酬要计入费用——这同样会“伤害”有前途的年轻公司的利润？事实上，为什么不让这些公司用期权代替现金去支付水电和租金——然后假装这些费用也不存在呢？对于我们向美国企业出售的诸多商品与服务，Berkshire乐意接受用期权来“替代现金”。
At Berkshire we frequently buy companies that awarded options to their employees -- and then we do away with the option program. When such a company is negotiating a sale to us, its management rightly expects us to proffer a new performance-based cash program to substitute for the option compensation being lost. These managers -- and we -- have no trouble calculating the cost to the company of the vanishing program. And in making the substitution, of course, we take on a substantial expense, even though the company that was acquired had never recorded a cost for its option program.
在Berkshire，我们经常收购那些给员工发期权的公司——随后我们会取消期权计划。当这些公司与我们谈出售时，其管理层理所当然地期待我们提供新的“基于绩效的现金激励”来替代失去的期权。这些管理者——以及我们——都能轻松算出“消失的期权计划”对公司的成本。当然，在进行替代时，我们确实承担了可观的费用，尽管被收购的公司从未在账上记录过其期权计划的成本。
Companies tell their shareholders that options do more to attract, retain and motivate employees than does cash. I believe that's often true. These companies should keep issuing options. But they also should account for this expense just like any other.
公司对股东说，期权在吸引、留住、激励员工方面的效果胜过现金。我相信这往往属实。这些公司可以继续发放期权。但同样必须像对待其他费用那样，把它们记入费用。
A number of senators, led by Carl Levin and John McCain, are now revisiting the subject of properly accounting for options. They believe that American businesses, large or small, can stand honest reporting, and that after Enron-Andersen, no less will do.
由Carl Levin与John McCain牵头的多位参议员正在重审“如何恰当核算期权”这个议题。他们相信，无论大小，美国企业都经得起诚实的报告；在Enron-Andersen之后，低于此标准的做法都不可接受。
I think it is normally unwise for Congress to meddle with accounting standards. In this case, though, Congress fathered an improper standard -- and I cheer its return to the crime scene.
我通常认为国会插手会计准则并不明智。但在这个案例里，是国会亲手制造了一个不当的标准——我欢迎他们“重返案发现场”。
This time Congress should listen to the slim accountants. The logic behind their thinking is simple:
这一次，国会应该听听这些“苗条会计师”的意见。他们的逻辑很简单：
1. If options aren't a form of compensation, what are they?
1）如果期权不是一种薪酬，那它是什么？
2. If compensation isn't an expense, what is it?
2）如果薪酬不是费用，那什么是费用？
3. And if expenses shouldn't go into the calculation of earnings, where in the world should they go?
3）如果费用不该计入利润计算，那它们究竟该被记到哪里？
The writer is chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a diversified holding company, and a director of the The Washington Post Co., which has an investment in Berkshire Hathaway.
作者是Berkshire Hathaway Inc.的首席执行官，这是一家多元化控股公司；同时担任The Washington Post Co.的董事，该公司持有对Berkshire Hathaway的投资。
I’m enclosing an op-ed piece I wrote for The Washington Post describing a truly breathtaking bill that was passed 312-111 by the House last summer. Thanks to Senator Richard Shelby, the Senate didn’t ratify the House’s foolishness. And, to his great credit, Bill Donaldson, the investor-minded Chairman of the SEC, has stood firm against massive political pressure, generated by the check-waving CEOs who first muscled Congress in 1993 about the issue of option accounting and then repeated the tactic last year.
我随信附上了一篇我为《The Washington Post》写的评论文章，描述了去年夏天众议院以 312-111 通过的一项令人瞠目结舌的法案。多亏参议员 Richard Shelby，参议院没有批准众议院的这套愚蠢做法。并且值得高度称赞的是：Bill Donaldson——这位具备投资者视角的 SEC 主席——在巨大政治压力下依然立场坚定；这些压力来自那些“挥舞支票本”的 CEO：他们先在 1993 年就期权会计问题胁迫国会，去年又故技重施。
Because the attempts to obfuscate the stock-option issue continue, it’s worth pointing out that no one — neither the FASB, nor investors generally, nor I — are talking about restricting the use of options in any way. Indeed, my successor at Berkshire may well receive much of his pay via options, albeit logically-structured ones in respect to 1) an appropriate strike price, 2) an escalation in price that reflects the retention of earnings, and 3) a ban on his quickly disposing of any shares purchased through options. We cheer arrangements that motivate managers, whether these be cash bonuses or options. And if a company is truly receiving value for the options it issues, we see no reason why recording their cost should cut down on their use.
由于混淆期权会计问题的企图仍在继续，有必要指出：无论是 FASB、广大投资者，还是我，都没有在讨论“限制期权使用”的任何想法。事实上，我在 Berkshire 的继任者很可能会以期权作为主要薪酬来源——当然，应当是逻辑结构合理的期权安排，包括：1）合适的行权价（strike price）；2）行权价随公司留存收益（retention of earnings）而递增的机制；3）禁止其迅速出售通过期权获得的股票。只要能激励管理层，无论是现金奖金还是期权，我们都欢迎。并且，如果一家公司确实从其发行的期权中获得了价值，我们看不出“把期权成本入账”为什么会减少期权的使用。
The simple fact is that certain CEOs know their own compensation would be far more rationally determined if options were expensed. They also suspect that their stock would sell at a lower price if realistic accounting were employed, meaning that they would reap less in the market when they unloaded their personal holdings. To these CEOs such unpleasant prospects are a fate to be fought with all the resources they have at hand — even though the funds they use in that fight normally don’t belong to them, but are instead put up by their shareholders.
事实很简单：某些 CEO 很清楚——如果期权必须计入费用，他们的薪酬就会被更理性地确定；他们也怀疑，如果采用真实的会计处理，他们公司的股票会卖得更便宜，这意味着当他们抛售个人持股（unloaded their personal holdings）时，能在市场上收获的收益会更少。对这些 CEO 来说，这种不愉快的前景就是必须动用手头一切资源去对抗的命运——尽管他们用来打这场仗的资金，通常并不属于他们本人，而是股东提供的。
Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won’t change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO’s pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO — aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo — all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.
美国高管薪酬往往与业绩荒谬地不匹配。而且这种状况也不会改变，因为在 CEO 薪酬问题上，牌局对投资者极其不利。结果就是：一个平庸甚至更差的 CEO——在他亲自挑选的人力资源副总裁，以及来自永远“善解人意”的 Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo 咨询公司顾问的帮助下——常常会从一个设计糟糕的薪酬方案中捞到一大把钱。
Take, for instance, ten year, fixed-price options (and who wouldn’t?). If Fred Futile, CEO of Stagnant, Inc., receives a bundle of these — let’s say enough to give him an option on 1% of the company — his self-interest is clear: He should skip dividends entirely and instead use all of the company’s earnings to repurchase stock.
比如说，十年期、固定行权价的期权（谁不想要呢？）。如果 Stagnant, Inc. 的 CEO——Fred Futile——拿到一大捆这种期权——假设足以让他拥有公司 1% 的期权权益——他的自利动机就很明确：他应该完全不分红，把公司全部利润都用来回购股票。
分红附带的好处。
Let’s assume that under Fred’s leadership Stagnant lives up to its name. In each of the ten years after the option grant, it earns $1 billion on $10 billion of net worth, which initially comes to $10 per share on the 100 million shares then outstanding. Fred eschews dividends and regularly uses all earnings to repurchase shares. If the stock constantly sells at ten times earnings per share, it will have appreciated 158% by the end of the option period. That’s because repurchases would reduce the number of shares to 38.7 million by that time, and earnings per share would thereby increase to $25.80. Simply by withholding earnings from owners, Fred gets very rich, making a cool $158 million, despite the business itself improving not at all. Astonishingly, Fred could have made more than $100 million if Stagnant’s earnings had declined by 20% during the ten-year period.
假设在 Fred 的领导下，Stagnant 真的“名副其实”——毫无增长。在授予期权后的十年里，公司每年在 100 亿美元净资产上赚 10 亿美元；最初对应到当时 1 亿股流通股，就是每股收益 10 美元。Fred 不分红，并且每年把全部利润拿去回购股票。如果股价始终以每股收益的 10 倍交易，那么到了期权期满时，股价将上涨 158%。原因是：持续回购会把流通股数降到 3,870 万股，而每股收益就会因此提高到 25.80 美元。仅仅通过把本该属于股东的利润“扣下来”不发，Fred 就能暴富——净赚 1.58 亿美元——尽管公司本身一点也没有变好。更惊人的是：即便 Stagnant 的利润在十年间下降 20%，Fred 仍然可能赚到 1 亿多美元。
Fred can also get a splendid result for himself by paying no dividends and deploying the earnings he withholds from shareholders into a variety of disappointing projects and acquisitions. Even if these initiatives deliver a paltry 5% return, Fred will still make a bundle. Specifically — with Stagnant’s p/e ratio remaining unchanged at ten — Fred’s option will deliver him $63 million. Meanwhile, his shareholders will wonder what happened to the “alignment of interests” that was supposed to occur when Fred was issued options.
Fred 还可以通过不分红，把从股东那里扣下来的利润投入到一堆令人失望的项目与收购中，为自己取得同样漂亮的结果。即使这些举措只带来可怜的 5% 回报，Fred 仍然能赚一大笔。具体来说——在 Stagnant 的市盈率保持 10 倍不变的情况下——Fred 的期权也能让他赚到 6,300 万美元。与此同时，他的股东会纳闷：当初给 Fred 发期权时承诺的那种“利益一致”，到底跑到哪里去了。
A “normal” dividend policy, of course — one-third of earnings paid out, for example — produces less extreme results but still can provide lush rewards for managers who achieve nothing.
当然，即便采用一种“正常”的分红政策——比如把三分之一的利润分出去——结果也不会那么极端，但仍然足以让那些毫无作为的管理者获得丰厚回报。
CEOs understand this math and know that every dime paid out in dividends reduces the value of all outstanding options. I’ve never, however, seen this manager-owner conflict referenced in proxy materials that request approval of a fixed-priced option plan. Though CEOs invariably preach internally that capital comes at a cost, they somehow forget to tell shareholders that fixed-price options give them capital that is free.
CEO 们懂这套数学，并且知道：每多分出去一毛钱股息，就会降低所有未到期期权的价值。但我从未见过，在要求股东批准固定行权价期权计划的委托书材料里，有人提到过这种“经理人—所有者”之间的利益冲突。尽管 CEO 在公司内部总是宣讲“资本是有成本的”，他们却莫名其妙地忘了告诉股东：固定行权价期权让他们得到的是“零成本资本”。
It doesn’t have to be this way: It’s child’s play for a board to design options that give effect to the automatic build-up in value that occurs when earnings are retained. But — surprise, surprise — options of that kind are almost never issued. Indeed, the very thought of options with strike prices that are adjusted for retained earnings seems foreign to compensation “experts,” who are nevertheless encyclopedic about every management-friendly plan that exists. (“Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.”)
事情本不必如此：董事会设计一种期权方案，让它把“留存收益自动累积所带来的价值增长”考虑进去，简直轻而易举。但——真是“意外中的意外”——这种期权几乎从不被发行。事实上，把期权行权价按留存收益进行调整的想法，对薪酬“专家”来说似乎完全陌生；然而他们对各种“对管理层友好”的方案却又熟得像百科全书一样。（“吃谁的面包，就唱谁的歌。”）
Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed, he can “earn” more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the alltoo-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure.
被解雇反而可能给 CEO 带来格外丰厚的回报。确实，他在那一天收拾办公桌时“赚到的钱”，可能比一位美国工人一辈子擦厕所赚得还多。别再念叨“成功会带来更多成功”的老格言了：如今在高管层里，过于常见的规则是——“失败最能带来成功”。
Huge severance payments, lavish perks and outsized payments for ho-hum performance often occur because comp committees have become slaves to comparative data. The drill is simple: Three or so directors — not chosen by chance — are bombarded for a few hours before a board meeting with pay statistics that perpetually ratchet upwards. Additionally, the committee is told about new perks that other managers are receiving. In this manner, outlandish “goodies” are showered upon CEOs simply because of a corporate version of the argument we all used when children: “But, Mom, all the other kids have one.” When comp committees follow this “logic,” yesterday’s most egregious excess becomes today’s baseline.
巨额遣散费、奢华福利、以及对平庸业绩的超额支付，经常发生，是因为薪酬委员会已经成了“对标数据”的奴隶。流程很简单：在董事会开会前的几个小时里，三位左右的董事（当然不是随机挑的）会被一堆薪酬统计数据狂轰滥炸——这些数据永远只会把标准往上拧。委员会还会听到别的公司又给管理层发了哪些新福利。于是，离谱的“好处”就这样被倾盆大雨般浇到 CEO 身上，理由不过是公司版的童年争辩——“可妈妈，别的孩子都有。”当薪酬委员会按这种“逻辑”办事时，昨天最荒唐的过度行为，就会变成今天的基准线。
Comp committees should adopt the attitude of Hank Greenberg, the Detroit slugger and a boyhood hero of mine. Hank’s son, Steve, at one time was a player’s agent. Representing an outfielder in negotiations with a major league club, Steve sounded out his dad about the size of the signing bonus he should ask for. Hank, a true pay-for-performance guy, got straight to the point, “What did he hit last year?” When Steve answered “.246,” Hank’s comeback was immediate: “Ask for a uniform.”
薪酬委员会应该学习 Hank Greenberg 的态度——这位 Detroit 的强打者，是我童年的偶像。Hank 的儿子 Steve 曾经当过球员经纪人。某次 Steve 代表一位外野手与大联盟球队谈判时，向父亲探口风：签约奖金该要多少。Hank 是真正的“按绩付薪”派，直奔主题：“他去年打了多少？”当 Steve 回答“.246”时，Hank 立刻回敬：“那就要一套球衣吧。”
(Let me pause for a brief confession: In criticizing comp committee behavior, I don’t speak as a true insider. Though I have served as a director of twenty public companies, only one CEO has put me on his comp committee. Hmmmm . . .)
（我在这里先作个小小的坦白：批评薪酬委员会的行为时，我并不是那种真正的“圈内人”。尽管我当过二十家上市公司的董事，但只有一位 CEO 曾把我安排进他的薪酬委员会。嗯……）
7、《2017-05-06 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
31. “If the board hires a compensation consultant after I go, I will come back”
“如果董事会在我走后雇了薪酬顾问，我会回来”
WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Andrew?
WARREN BUFFETT: 好的。Andrew？
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Warren. This comes from a shareholder who I think is here, who asked to remain anonymous. Writes: “Three years ago, you were asked at the meeting about how you thought we should compensate your successor. You said it was a good question, and you would address it in the next annual letter. We’ve been patiently waiting. (Laughter) “Can you tell us now, at least philosophically, how you’ve been thinking about the way the company should compensate your successor, so we don’t have to worry when the pay consultants arrive on the scene?”
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Warren。这是来自一位我认为也在现场、但要求匿名的股东的问题。他写道：“三年前，在股东大会上，有人问你我们应该如何给你的继任者定薪。你说这是个好问题，你会在下一封年度股东信中回答。我们一直耐心等着。（笑声）你现在能否至少从理念层面谈谈，你是如何考虑公司应当如何给你的继任者定薪的，这样等薪酬顾问登场时我们就不用担心了？”
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, that — unfortunately, at my age I don’t have to worry about things I say — said three years ago, but this guy, obviously much younger, remembers. (Laughter) I’m not — well, I’ll accept his word that I said that. But the — there’s a couple possibilities, actually. I don’t want to get into details on them, but you may have — and I, actually, would hope that we would have somebody, A) who’s already very rich — which they should be if they’ve been working a long time and have got that kind of ability — that’s very rich, and really is not motivated by whether they have 10 times as much money that they and the families can need or a hundred times as much. And they might even wish to perhaps set an example by engaging for something far lower than actually what you could say their true market value is. And that could or could not happen, but I think it’d be terrific if it did. But I can’t blame anybody for wanting their market value.
WARREN BUFFETT: 是的。嗯——不幸的是，在我这个年纪，三年前我说过什么我不必太操心，但这位明显年轻得多的先生还记得。（笑声）我不——好吧，我接受他说我当时那样讲过。只是——其实有几种可能。我不想细节展开，但你可以——而且我确实希望我们能有这样一个人：A）已经非常富有——如果他长期工作且具备那样的能力，本来就该很富有——确实很富，不会被“自己和家人所需的十倍或一百倍的钱”这种目标所驱动。他们甚至也许愿意以远低于所谓“真实市场价值”的待遇来树立榜样。这也许会发生、也许不会，但如果发生了，我会觉得非常好。不过，我也不能责怪任何人想要拿到自己的市场价。
And then — if they didn’t elect to go in that direction, I would say that you — would probably pay them a very modest amount and then have an option which increased in value by — or increased in striking price — annually. Nobody does this, hardly. The Washington — Graham Holdings has done it, The Washington Post Company did a little bit — but would increase because it’s assuming that there were substantial retained earnings every year. Because why should somebody retain a bunch of earnings and then claim they’ve actually improved the value, simply because they withheld the money from shareholders? So it’s very easy to design that, and in private companies people do design it in that way. They just don’t want to do it in public companies, because they get more money the other way. But they might have a very substantial one that could be exercised, but where the shareholder’s — the shares had to be held for a couple years after retirement, so that they really got the result over time that the majority of the stockholders would be able to get, and not be able to pick their spots, as to when they exercised and sold a lot of stock.
再者——如果他们没选择那条路，我会说，你——大概给很克制的固定薪酬，然后配一份期权，这份期权的价值——或者说行权价——每年上调。几乎没有人这么做。The Washington — Graham Holdings干过，The Washington Post Company也做过一点——之所以上调，是因为它假设每年都有可观的留存收益。因为为什么有的人留下一堆收益，就仅仅因为把钱从股东那里扣留下来，就宣称自己提升了价值呢？这种结构很容易设计，在私人公司里确实常这么做。只是他们在公开公司里不愿意这么做，因为按另一种方式他们能拿到更多钱。不过期权的授予可以很可观，但要求这样：在股东——也就是受益人——退休后仍需持有这些股票几年，这样他们获得的结果在时间上就能与绝大多数股东一致，而不能“挑时点”去行权并抛售大量股票。
It’s — it would — it’s not hard to design. And it really depends who you’re dealing with, in terms of actually how much they care about money and having money beyond what they can possibly use. And most people do have an interest in that, and I don’t blame them. But I don’t know. What do you think, Charlie?
这——它确实——并不难设计。而且真正取决于你面对的人：他们到底有多在意金钱，尤其是超出其一生所能使用的那部分钱。大多数人对此是有兴趣的，我不责怪他们。不过我不知道。Charlie，你怎么看？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I — one thing I think is that I have avoided, all my life, the compensation consultants. To me it’s a — I hardly can find the words to express my contempt. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER: 我——我认为的一点是，我一生都在回避薪酬顾问。在我看来这——我几乎找不到词来表达我的蔑视。（笑声）
WARREN BUFFETT: I will say this. If the board hires a compensation consultant after I go, I will come back. (Laughter)
WARREN BUFFETT: 我就这么说吧：如果我走后董事会雇了薪酬顾问，我会回来。（笑声）
CHARLIE MUNGER: Mad. Mad. So I think there’s a lot of mumbo jumbo in this field, and I don’t see it going away.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 会很生气。很生气。所以我觉得这个领域有一大堆玄乎其玄的东西，而且我不认为它会消失。
WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, it isn’t going to go away. No, it’s going to get worse. It — I mean, the — if you look at, I mean, the way compensation gets handled, I mean, it — you know, everybody looks at everybody else’s proxy statement and says, “We can’t possibly hire a guy that hasn’t been — ”
WARREN BUFFETT: 哦，它不会消失。不，还会更糟。也就是说——如果你看高管薪酬是如何被处理的——你知道，大家都在看别人的proxy statement，然后说：“我们不可能去雇一个没有——”
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s ridiculous.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 太荒唐了。
WARREN BUFFETT: —so on. And the human relations department, you know, who work for the CEO, come in and suggest a consultant. What consultant is ever going to get another assignment if he says, “You should pay your CEO below the — down in the fourth quartile because you’re getting a fourth quartile result?” It — I mean, it just, you know — it isn’t that the people are evil or anything. It’s just the nature of the situation just — it produces a result that is not consistent with how representatives of the owners should behave.
WARREN BUFFETT: ——诸如此类。然后人事部门——你知道的，他们为CEO工作——就会进来说推荐一个顾问。哪有顾问会在建议里说：“你应该把CEO的薪酬定在第四四分位以下，因为你的业绩也在第四四分位”，还能再接到下一单？这——我的意思是，并不是说这些人是恶的。这只是情境的本性如此——它会产出一种结果，而这种结果与所有者代表应有的行为并不一致。
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s even worse than that. Capitalism is the golden goose that we all live on. And if people generally get so they have contempt for it because they don’t like the pay arrangements in the system, your capitalism may not last as well. And that’s like killing the golden goose. So I think the existing system has a lot wrong with it.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 甚至比那更糟。资本主义是养活我们所有人的“下金蛋的鹅”。如果大众因为不喜欢体系里的薪酬安排而对它心生蔑视，你们的资本主义可能也就难以长久。这就像把“下金蛋的鹅”杀了。所以我认为现行体系有很多问题。
WARREN BUFFETT: I think there is something coming in pretty soon — I may be wrong about this — where companies are going to have to put in their proxy statement the CEO’s pay to the average pay, or something like that. That isn’t going to change anything. I mean —
WARREN BUFFETT: 我想很快会有一件事——我可能会判断错误——公司将不得不在他们的proxy statement里披露CEO薪酬与平均薪酬的比值之类的东西。但那不会改变任何事情。我的意思是——
CHARLIE MUNGER: It won’t change a thing.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 它根本不会改变任何事情。
WARREN BUFFETT: It won’t change a thing. And, you know, it’ll cost us virtually —
WARREN BUFFETT: 它不会改变任何事情。而且你知道，这几乎会让我们——
CHARLIE MUNGER: By the way, it won’t get any headlines, either. It’ll be tucked away.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 顺便说一句，它也不会上任何头条。只会被塞在角落里。
WARREN BUFFETT: It’ll cost us a lot of money, with 367,000 people employed around the world. And, I mean, we’ll hope to get something that makes it somewhat simpler so we can use estimates or something of the sort. But to get the median income or mean income or whatever, however the rules may read, you know, and —
WARREN BUFFETT: 这会让我们花很多钱，因为我们在全球雇用了367,000名员工。我的意思是，我们会希望拿到一种能让流程简单一些的规定，好让我们可以用估算或类似做法。但要去计算中位收入或平均收入，或不管规则怎么写的那些口径，你知道，然后——
CHARLIE MUNGER: That’s what consultants are for, Warren. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER: 这就是顾问存在的意义啊，Warren。（笑声）
WARREN BUFFETT: It — it’s, you know, it is human nature that produces this. And, you know, the most —I write in this letter to the managers every two years, I said, “The only excuse I won’t take on something is that everybody else is doing it.” But of course, “everybody else is doing it,” is exactly the rationale for why people did not want to count the costs of stock options as a cost — I mean, it was ridiculous. All these CEOs went to Washington and they got the Senate, I think, to vote 88 to 9 to say that stock options aren’t a cost. And then a few years later, you know, it became so obvious that they finally put it in so it was a cost. You know, it reminded me of Galileo or something, I mean, all these guys.
WARREN BUFFETT: 这——你知道，这一切都是人性造成的。还有，你知道，最——我每两年写给经理人的那封信里都说过，“我唯一不接受的借口就是：别人都这么干。”但当然，“别人都这么干”，恰恰就是当年那些人不愿把股票期权计作成本的理由——我的意思是，那太荒唐了。所有这些CEO跑到Washington去，我记得他们让参议院以88票对9票的结果通过，说股票期权不是成本。然后再过几年，你知道，事实显而易见，他们最终把它列入成本。这事让我想起Galileo之类的场景，我是说，所有这些人。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Worse. It was way worse. The pope behaved better to Galileo in the —and he was —
CHARLIE MUNGER: 更糟。远远更糟。那位教皇在对待Galileo这件事上——而他当时——
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, anyway, it’s — it — I would hope, you know, like I say, somebody — well — and it doesn’t even have to be, I’m not talking about the current successor or anybody else. I mean, successors down the line are probably going to have gotten very wealthy by the time they’re running Berkshire. And the incremental value of wealth gets very close to zero at some point. And there is a chance to use it as a different sort of model. But I don’t have any problem, if it’s — a system is devised that recognizes retained earnings. Nobody wanted — I’ve never heard anybody talk about it, you know, in the 20 boards I’ve been on. You know, if you and I were partners in a business, you know, and we kept retaining earnings in the business and I kept having the value to buy a portion of you out at a constant price, you’d say, “This is idiocy.”
WARREN BUFFETT: 好吧，总之，这——我会希望，你知道，就像我说的，某个人——唔——而且这甚至不一定是指当前的继任者或其他任何人。我的意思是，未来的继任者在执掌Berkshire之前大概率已经非常富有了。而财富的边际价值在某个点以后会非常接近于零。这里有机会把它作为一种不同的样板来用。但我不反对——如果能设计出一种承认留存收益影响的体系。没有人愿意——在我待过的20个董事会里，我从没听到有人谈论它。你知道，如果你和我是某家企业的合伙人，而我们不断把收益留在企业里，但我却还能一直以一个恒定的价格，买下你的一部分权益，你会说：“这太愚蠢了。”
But of course that’s the way all option systems are designed, and it’s better to be — for the CEO and for the consultants. And of course, usually if there’s — there’s some correlation between what CEOs are paid and what boards are paid. If CEOs were getting paid at the rate that they got paid 50 years ago, adapted to present dollars, director pay would be lower. So it’s — you know, it’s got all these built-in things that, to some extent, sort of kindle the —
但当然，所有期权体系基本都是这么设计的，而这对CEO和顾问来说更有利。当然，通常CEO的薪酬与董事会的薪酬之间也存在某种相关性。如果CEO今天的薪酬水平仍按50年前的标准折算到今天的美元，那么董事薪酬也会更低。所以这——你知道，它内置了所有这些机制，在某种程度上，会点燃——
CHARLIE MUNGER: No Berkshire director is in it for the money.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 没有哪个Berkshire董事是为了钱来的。
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, they are if they own a lot of stock. And they bought it in the market just like the —
WARREN BUFFETT: 嗯，如果他们持有大量股票，那就算是。而且他们是在市场上买的，就像——
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, it’s —
CHARLIE MUNGER: 是的，这——
WARREN BUFFETT: — shareholder did.
WARREN BUFFETT: ——股东所做的那样。
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s a very old-fashioned system.
CHARLIE MUNGER: 这是一套非常老派的制度。
WARREN BUFFETT: I looked at one company the other day, and seven of the directors had never bought a share of stock with their own money. Now they’d been given stock, but not one of them — I mean, I shouldn’t say not one — seven of the directors had never actually bought a share of stock. And there they are, you know, making decisions on who should be CEO and how they should be paid and all that sort of thing. But, you know, they never felt like shelling out a dollar themselves. Now they’d been given a lot of stock. And it’s, you know, we’re dealing with human nature here, folks. (Laughs) And that — what you want is to have a system that works well in spite of how human nature’s going to drive it. And we’ve done awfully well in this country in that respect. I mean, American business has — overall has done very well for the Americans generally. But not every aspect of it is exactly what you want to teach your kids.
WARREN BUFFETT: 我前几天看了一家公司，其中七位董事从未用自己的钱买过一股股票。的确他们被授予过股票，但他们没有一个——我是说，我不该说“没有一个”——是七位董事从来就没有真正用自有资金买过一股。而他们却在做决定：谁该当CEO、该如何给他定薪等等。但你知道，他们自己从来不愿掏出一美元。虽然他们被授予了很多股票。而这，你知道，各位，我们处理的是人性。（笑）而——你真正想要的是一套即便在人性驱动之下也能运行良好的制度。在这方面我们这个国家已经做得相当不错。我的意思是，美国商业整体上为美国人总体做得非常好。但并不是每个方面都值得你拿去教给你的孩子们。
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