I.H.29.Warren Buffett.Right Business
有些行业总是不停的有新的竞争者加入，比如汽车制造、零售业，等等；而有些行业的参与者一直非常少，比如价值投资；很多行业介于两者之间。
1、《1998-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
37. Benjamin Graham and how Buffett would teach investing
本杰明·格雷厄姆及巴菲特对投资教学的看法
WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5.
沃伦·巴菲特： 请第5区。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name’s James Claus (PH) from New York City. And I just wanted to ask you a question.
观众提问者： 你好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我是来自纽约市的詹姆斯·克劳斯（音），我有个问题想问您。
Both you and Mr. Munger have repeatedly said that you don’t believe that business valuation is being taught correctly at our universities, and as a Ph.D. student at Columbia Business School, that troubles me, understandably, because in a couple of years I’ll be joining the ranks of those teaching business valuation.
您和芒格先生都多次表示，您认为我们的大学没有正确地教授企业估值。作为哥伦比亚商学院的一名博士生，这让我感到困扰，因为几年后我也会加入教授企业估值的行列。
My question isn’t what sources, such as Graham or Fisher or Mr. Munger’s talks, you would point people that are teaching business valuation to, but do you have any counsel about the techniques of teaching business valuation?
我的问题并不是您会推荐像格雷厄姆、费舍尔或芒格先生的演讲这样的资料，而是您对教授企业估值的方法是否有任何建议？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I was lucky. I had a sensational teacher in Ben Graham, and we had a course there, there’s at least one fellow out in the audience here that attended with me. And Ben made it terribly interesting, because what we did was we walked into that class and we valued companies.
沃伦·巴菲特： 我很幸运，我有一位非常出色的老师——本·格雷厄姆。在他的课程中，我们至少有一位观众和我一起上过他的课。本让课程变得非常有趣，因为我们进入课堂后，就开始评估公司。
And he had various little games he would play with us. Sometimes he would have us evaluate company A and company B with a whole bunch of figures, and then we would find out that A and B were the same company at different points in its history, for example.
他会设计各种小游戏和我们互动。有时，他会让我们用一堆数据评估公司A和公司B，然后我们会发现A和B其实是同一家公司在其历史上的不同阶段。
And then there were a lot of little games he played to get us to think about what were the key variables and how could we go off the track.
他还设计了许多小游戏，让我们思考关键变量是什么，以及我们可能会在哪些方面偏离轨道。
I remember one time Ben met with Charlie and me and about nine or so other people down in San Diego in 1968 or so, when he gave all of us a little true/false test, and we all thought we were pretty smart — we all flunked.
我记得1968年左右，本在圣地亚哥和查理、我以及其他大约九个人见面时，给了我们一个小的是非测试。我们都认为自己很聪明——结果全都不及格。
But that was his way of teaching us that a smart man playing his own game and working at fooling you could do a pretty good job at it.
但这是他教导我们的方式：一个聪明人玩自己的游戏并试图愚弄你时，可能会做得非常成功。
But I would, you know, if I were teaching a course on investments, there would be simply one valuation study after another with the students, trying to identify the key variables in that particular business, and evaluating how predictable they were first, because that is the first step.
如果是我来教一门投资课程，我会让学生们进行一个又一个的估值研究，尝试识别特定业务中的关键变量，并首先评估这些变量的可预测性，因为这是第一步。
If something is not very predictable, forget it. You know, you don’t have to be right about every company. You have to make a few good decisions in your lifetime.
如果某件事情不可预测，那就忘了它。你不需要对每家公司都做出正确判断。你只需要在一生中做出几个好的决定。
But then when you find — the important thing is to know when you find one where you really do know the key variables — which ones are important — and you do think you’ve got a fix on them.
但当你发现一个公司时，重要的是知道你是否真正掌握了它的关键变量——哪些变量重要——并且你认为自己已经掌握了这些变量。
Where we’ve been — where we’ve done well, Charlie and I made a dozen or so very big decisions relative to net worth, but not as big as they should have been. And we’ve known we were right on those going in. I mean they just weren’t that complicated. And we knew we were focusing on the right variables and they were dominant.
在我们做得好的地方，查理和我做出了十几个与净值相关的重大决定，但这些决定本应做得更大一些。而且我们知道自己在这些决策上是对的。它们并不复杂。我们知道自己关注的是正确的变量，而且这些变量是主导因素。
And we knew that even though we couldn’t take it out to five decimal places or anything like that, we knew that in a general way we were right about them. And that’s what we look for. The fat pitch. And that’s what I would be teaching — trying to teach students to do. And I would not try to teach them to think they could do the impossible.
我们知道，即使我们无法精确到小数点后五位或类似的程度，我们还是能够总体上正确把握这些变量。这就是我们寻找的——“好球”。这也是我会教学生的内容——尝试让他们学会这样做。我不会试图教他们认为自己可以完成不可能的任务。
Charlie?
查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. If you’re planning to teach business valuation, and what you hope to do is teach the way people teach real estate appraising. So you can take any company, and your students, after studying your course, will be able to give you an appraisal of that company, which will indicate, really, its future prospects compared to its market price, I think you’re attempting the impossible.
查理·芒格： 是的。如果你打算教授企业估值，并希望以教房地产评估的方式进行教学，也就是说，任何一家公司，你的学生在学习了你的课程后，能够给出一个评估结果，指出该公司未来的前景与其市场价格相比的真实价值，那么我认为你是在尝试完成不可能的任务。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, probably on the final exam I would take an internet company, and I would say the final exam, the question is, “How much is this worth?” And anybody that gave me an answer I would flunk. (Laughter)
沃伦·巴菲特： 是的，也许在期末考试中，我会拿一家互联网公司作为例子，我会问，“这家公司值多少钱？”如果有人给出了答案，我会让他不及格。（笑声）
CHARLIE MUNGER: Right. Right.
查理·芒格： 没错，没错。
WARREN BUFFETT: Make grading papers easy, too. (Laughter)
沃伦·巴菲特： 这样改试卷也轻松了。（笑声）
75. End of Cold War isn’t an investing factor
冷战结束不是投资的决定性因素
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Second question. Has to do with Ben Graham. And he changed his valuation standards as the decades progressed.
观众提问：第二个问题与本·格雷厄姆有关。他随着时间的推移改变了自己的估值标准。
When he couldn’t buy stocks below a net-net, he changed his standards because the environment changed.
当他无法以低于净流动资产的价格买入股票时，他改变了自己的标准，因为环境发生了变化。
Now, the world today seems to be a much different place than in 1989 when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Even they are stumbling toward the free enterprise system. The Russian mafia is a perverse illustration of that.
如今，今天的世界看起来与1989年苏联解体时大不相同。即使是他们，也在踉踉跄跄地走向自由企业体系。俄罗斯黑手党就是一种反常的体现。
Now there is only one superpower in the world, the U.S.A., and we must be extremely grateful for the men who put us on the track to the free enterprise system.
现在世界上只有一个超级大国，那就是美国。我们必须非常感激那些让我们走上自由企业体系道路的人们。
Now, the free enterprise system is out of the bottle, it’s not going to get back in. It seems to be expanding and accelerating around the world. With the resulting expansion of world trade, may that lead to a reevaluation of historical measures for measuring investments?
如今，自由企业体系已经走出了瓶子，不会再被关回去。它似乎正在全球范围内扩展和加速。伴随着世界贸易的扩张，这是否会导致对衡量投资的历史标准进行重新评估？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, my answer to that would be that I doubt it, but I, you know, I also don’t know.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我对此的回答是，我对此表示怀疑，但我也不确定。
But I don’t think that the end of the Cold War is something that I would factor into my evaluation of businesses. There are all kinds of events that happened, and their impact, in terms of being quantified, very difficult to figure over time, very difficult to isolate any single variable in a complex economic equation.
但我不认为冷战的结束会成为我评估企业时的一个考虑因素。世界上发生了各种各样的事件，而要对它们的影响进行量化，在时间长河中非常困难，很难在复杂的经济方程中孤立出单一的变量。
So in terms of how the world was going to work ten years from now, or the returns are going to be on equity in business, you know, I don’t know what will be all the variables that impact on that.
所以，关于世界十年后的运行方式，或者企业股权的回报，我不知道有哪些变量会对这些产生影响。
And obviously, right now people are very bullish about the fact that those returns — or something like those returns — will continue.
显然，现在人们对这些回报——或类似的回报——能够持续下去感到非常乐观。
But I don’t — I would not rely in making such a projection on the fact that the Cold War has ended or really any political or economic development around the world.
但我不会依赖冷战结束的事实，或世界上任何政治或经济发展的事实来进行这样的预测。
I don’t know how to predict future earnings of American business. And when I look at all of the great historic events of the past, nothing there gives me much in the way of a clue as to which ones would signal major changes in profitability of American business.
我不知道如何预测美国企业的未来收益。而当我回顾过去所有的重大历史事件时，没有任何事件能给我提供关于哪些事件会导致美国企业盈利能力发生重大变化的线索。
Charlie?
查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think you raise one very interesting question. If the rest of the world becomes very much more prosperous, as it will if it adopts the free enterprise system, which investments are likely to do best?
查理·芒格：嗯，我认为你提出了一个非常有趣的问题。如果世界其他地区变得更加繁荣——假如它们采用自由企业体系——哪些投资可能表现得最好？
I would argue that the Cokes and Gillettes and so on are likely to be helped by a great increase in prosperity in what is now the Third World. And I’m not so sure that’s true of a lot of other businesses.
我认为，可口可乐、吉列等公司可能会因目前第三世界国家的巨大繁荣而受益。而我不确定这一点是否适用于许多其他企业。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we like the international businesses we have. And as I say, our three top holdings all have a major international aspect to them, and really, in aggregate, a dominant international aspect to them.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们喜欢我们拥有的国际化业务。正如我所说，我们的三大主要持仓都有重要的国际化特性，实际上，总体上它们具有主导性的国际化特征。
And there’s no question in my mind that a Coke will grow faster outside of the United States than in the United States, and the same is true of Gillette, maybe the same is true of American Express. So that’s built into what we — our evaluation of those businesses.
毫无疑问，可口可乐在美国以外的增长速度会比在美国更快，吉列也是如此，也许美国运通也是如此。这些都被纳入了我们对这些业务的评估之中。
But I felt that way before 1989, too. I mean, it’s very hard to evaluate how the ball is going to bounce, generally, around the world. But it is a plus to have products such as Gillette has or Coke has, that have demonstrated the fact that they travel extraordinarily well around the world, the people crave those products, and that they’re going to — no one’s going to find a way to do it better than those two companies in their respective fields. And they sell an inexpensive product, so all of that’s going for us.
但早在1989年之前我就有这种看法。我的意思是，很难评估全球格局的走势。但拥有像吉列或可口可乐这样的产品是一大优势，这些产品已经证明它们在全球范围内非常受欢迎，人们对它们有很大的需求。而且没有人会在各自的领域找到比这两家公司更好的运营方式。它们销售的是廉价的产品，这对我们来说是一个优势。
But in terms of how stocks generally sell or the profitability of American business generally is in the future, it doesn’t help me much.
但关于股票的整体表现或美国企业未来的盈利能力，这些对我帮助不大。
Charlie, any more on that?
查理，还有补充吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: No more.
查理·芒格：没有补充了。
WARREN BUFFETT: OK.
沃伦·巴菲特：好的。
89. Beware of companies that must “spend money like crazy”
小心那些“疯狂花钱”的公司
WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’re going to go to zone 6 and I’m going to have a Dilly Bar, and Charlie has got one here, too. (Laughter and applause)
沃伦·巴菲特：好的，现在请第6区提问。我先吃一根Dilly Bar，查理也有一根。（笑声与掌声）
These are terrific.
这些真的很棒。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question has to do with what you mentioned earlier about how companies have to reinvest a certain amount of cash in their business every year just to stay in place.
观众提问：我的问题与您之前提到的公司每年必须在业务中再投资一定数量的现金以保持现状有关。
And if one could say that the best businesses are the ones that not only throw off lots of cash, but can reinvest it in more capacity. But I suppose the paradox is that the better a company’s opportunities for making expansionary capital expenditures, the worse they appear to be as consumers of cash rather than generators of cash.
如果说最优秀的企业不仅能创造大量现金流，还能将这些现金再投入到扩大产能上去的话，那么这里就存在一个悖论：一家企业越是拥有更好的机会来进行扩张性资本支出，就越会显得它在消耗现金，而非在创造现金。
What specific techniques have you used to figure out the maintenance capital expenditures that you need to do in order to figure out how much cash a company is throwing off? What techniques have you used on Gillette or other companies that you’ve studied?
您使用了哪些具体方法来确定维护性资本支出，以了解一家公司能产生多少现金？在吉列或其他公司上，您使用了哪些方法？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, if you look at a company such as Gillette or Coke, you won’t find great differences between their depreciation — forget about amortization for the moment — but depreciation and sort of the required capital expenditures.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，如果你看像吉列或可口可乐这样的公司，你会发现它们的折旧费用——暂时不考虑摊销——与所需的资本支出之间没有太大差异。
If we got into a hyperinflationary period or — I mean, you can find — you can set up cases where that wouldn’t be true.
如果我们进入一个超级通胀时期——我的意思是，你可以设想一些例子，这种情况可能不成立。
But by and large, the depreciation charge is not inappropriate in most companies to use as a proxy for required capital expenditures. Which is why we think that reported earnings plus amortization of intangibles usually gives a pretty good indication of earning power.
但总体来说，大多数公司的折旧费用用作所需资本支出的替代指标是比较适当的。这也是为什么我们认为报告的收益加上无形资产摊销通常能很好地反映公司的盈利能力。
I don’t — I’ve never given a thought to whether Gillette needs to spend a hundred million dollars more, a hundred million dollars less, than depreciation in order to maintain its competitive position. But I would guess the range is even considerably less than that versus its recorded depreciation.
我从未考虑过吉列是否需要比折旧多花一亿美元，或少花一亿美元，以维持其竞争地位。但我猜测，这个范围比其记录的折旧费用还要小得多。
Businesses you have to worry about — I mean, an airline business is a good case. In the airlines, you know, you just have to keep spending money like crazy. And you have to spend money like crazy if it’s attractive to spend money, and you have to spend it the same way if it’s unattractive. You just — it’s part of the game.
你需要担心的业务——我的意思是，航空业就是一个很好的例子。在航空业，你知道的，你必须不停地疯狂花钱。即使花钱很有吸引力，你也得这么做；而即使花钱不划算，你也得这么做。这就是游戏的一部分。
Even in our textile business, to stay competitive we would’ve needed to spend substantial money without any necessary — any clear prospects of making any money when we got through spending it.
即使在我们的纺织业务中，为了保持竞争力，我们也需要投入大量资金，而在投入后并没有明确的赚钱前景。
And those are real traps, those kind of businesses. And they make out one way or another, but they’re dangerous.
而这些业务就是实实在在的陷阱。这些业务可能会通过某种方式取得一些成果，但它们很危险。
And in a See’s Candy we would love to be able to spend 10 million, 100 million, $500 million and get anything like the returns we’ve gotten in the past.
在See’s糖果业务中，我们很想投入1000万、1亿、甚至5亿美元，并获得类似我们过去的回报。
But there aren’t good ways to do it, unfortunately. We’ll keep looking, but it’s not a business where capital produces the profits.
但不幸的是，没有好的方式实现这一点。我们会继续寻找，但这不是一个资本能直接带来利润的业务。
At FlightSafety, capital produces the profits. You need more simulators as you go along, and more pilots are to be trained, and so capital is required to produce profits. But it’s just not the case at See’s.
在FlightSafety，资本确实带来了利润。随着业务发展，你需要更多的模拟器，需要培训更多的飞行员，因此资本是产生利润的必要条件。但在See’s糖果业务中情况并非如此。
And at Coca-Cola, particularly when new markets come along, you know, the Chinas of the world or East Germany or something of the sort, the Coca-Cola Company itself would frequently make the investments needed to build up the bottling infrastructure to rapidly capitalize on those markets, the old Soviet Union.
在可口可乐公司，尤其是当新市场出现时，比如中国、东德或类似的地方，可口可乐公司本身通常会进行必要的投资，建立瓶装基础设施，以快速抓住这些市场的机会，比如前苏联市场。
So those are — those are expenditures — you don’t even make the calculation on them, you just know you’ve have to do it.
所以这些——这些支出——甚至无需计算，你只需要知道必须这么做。
You got a wonderful business, and you want to have it spread worldwide, and you want to capitalize on it to its fullest.
你拥有一个出色的业务，你希望它在全球范围内扩展，并充分利用其潜力。
And you can make a return on investment calculation, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a waste of time because you’re going to do it anyway, and you know you want to dominate those markets over time.
你可以进行投资回报计算，但在我看来，这是浪费时间，因为你无论如何都会去做，而且你知道你希望长期主导那些市场。
And eventually, you’ll probably fold those investments into other bottling systems as the market gets developed. But you don’t want to wait for conventional bottlers to do it, you want to be there.
最终，随着市场的发展，你可能会将这些投资纳入其他瓶装系统中。但你不想等传统的瓶装公司来做，你希望自己提前布局。
One of the ironies, incidentally — and might get a kick out of it, some of the older members of the audience — that when the Berlin Wall went down and Coke was there that day with Coca-Cola for East Germany, that Coke came from the bottling plant at Dunkirk.
顺便提一下，这有点讽刺——在场的年长观众可能会觉得有趣——当柏林墙倒塌时，可口可乐当天为东德提供的饮料是来自敦刻尔克的瓶装厂。
So there was a certain poetic — (crowd noise) — irony there.
所以，这里确实有某种富有诗意的——（观众骚动）——讽刺。
Charlie, do you have anything on this?
查理，你对这个问题有什么补充吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: I’ve heard Warren say since very early in his life that the difference between a good business and a bad business is usually the good business just throws up one easy decision after another, whereas the bad business gives you a horrible choice where the decision is hard to make and, is this really going to work? And is it worth the money?
查理·芒格：从很早的时候起，我就听沃伦说过，好的生意和坏的生意之间的区别通常在于，好的生意会不断抛出一个又一个简单的决策，而坏的生意则会让你面临一个又一个糟糕的选择，让人难以决断：“这真的会有效吗？值得投入这笔钱吗？”
If you want a system for determining which is a good business and which is a bad business, just see which one is throwing the management bloopers time after time after time.
如果你想要一个评估什么是好生意，什么是坏生意的系统，那就看看哪种生意不断地让管理层轻松做出明智决策。
Easy decisions. It’s not very hard for us to decide to open a new See’s store in a new shopping center in California that’s obviously going to succeed. It’s a blooper.
简单的决策。比如，我们决定在加州一个显然会成功的新购物中心开一家See’s店，这并不难。这就是轻松的选择。
On the other hand, there are plenty of businesses where the decisions that come across your desk are just awful. And those businesses, by and large, don’t work very well.
另一方面，有许多生意的决策非常糟糕。而这些生意整体表现通常不太好。
WARREN BUFFETT: I’ve been on the board of Coke now for 10 years, and we’ve had project after project come up, and there’s always an ROI. But it doesn’t really make much difference to me, because in the end almost any decision you make that solidifies and extends the dominance of Coke around the world in an industry that’s growing by a significant percentage, and which has great inherent underlying profitability, the decisions are going to be right and you’ve got people there that will execute them well.
沃伦·巴菲特：我已经在可口可乐董事会待了10年，期间我们审议了一个又一个项目，每个项目都有投资回报率（ROI）的计算。但这对我来说并不重要，因为最终，只要你做出的决策能巩固和扩大可口可乐在全球的主导地位，而这个行业的增长率又非常可观，且具有巨大的内在盈利能力，那么这些决策大概率是正确的，而且公司有优秀的人去很好地执行它们。
CHARLIE MUNGER: You’re saying you get blooper after blooper.
查理·芒格：你的意思是，你们一个又一个地做出简单的明智决策。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And then Charlie and I sat on USAir, and the decisions would come along, and it would be a question of, you know, do you buy the Eastern Shuttle, or whatever it may be?
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。而查理和我在USAir的董事会时，做出的决策就完全不同了，比如“你是否要买下东部航线”，或者其他类似问题。
And you’re running out of money. And yet to play the game and to keep the traffic flow with connecting passengers, I mean, you just have to continually make these decisions — whether you spend a hundred million dollars more on some airport.
而且你的资金快用完了。但为了参与竞争并维持转机乘客的流量，你必须不断做出这些决策——比如是否再在某个机场投入一亿美元。
And they’re agony because, again, you don’t have any real choice, but you also don’t have any real conviction that it’s going to translate — those choices are going to — or lack of choices — are going to translate themselves into real money later on.
这些决策很痛苦，因为你其实没有真正的选择，而且你也没有真正的信心认为这些选择——或者说缺乏选择——最终会带来实际的收益。
So one game is just forcing you to push more money in to the table with no idea of what kind of a hand you hold, and the other one you get a chance to push more money in, knowing that you’ve got a winning hand all the way.
所以，一个是你被迫投入更多资金，但对自己手上的牌完全没底；而另一个则是你有机会投入更多资金，同时知道自己从头到尾都握着一副好牌。
Charlie? Why’d we buy USAir? (Laughter)
查理？我们为什么会买USAir？（笑声）
Could’ve bought more Coke.
我们本可以买更多可口可乐的股票。
98. How Phil Fisher’s “scuttlebutt” method changed Buffett’s life
菲尔·费雪的“边界调查法”如何改变了巴菲特的人生
WARREN BUFFETT: Area 5?
沃伦·巴菲特：请第5区提问？
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Travis Heath (PH). I’m from Dallas, Texas.
观众提问：我叫特拉维斯·希思（音），来自德克萨斯州达拉斯。
And my question regards what Phil Fisher referred to as “scuttlebutt.” When you’ve identified a business that you consider to warrant further investigation — more intense investigation — how much time do you spend commonly, both in terms of total hours and in terms of the span in weeks or months that you perform that investigation over?
我的问题是关于菲尔·费雪提到的“边界调查法”。当您确定一家值得进一步深入调查的企业时，通常您会花多少时间进行这项调查？总时长是多少？调查通常会持续几周或几个月？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the answer to that question is that now I spend practically none because I’ve done it in the past. And the one advantage of allocating capital is that an awful lot of what you do is cumulative in nature, so that you do get continuing benefits out of things that you’d done earlier.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这个问题的答案是，我现在几乎不花时间了，因为过去我已经做过这些调查了。而资本配置的一大优势在于，很多事情的性质是累积性的，因此你会从之前做过的事情中持续受益。
So by now, I’m probably fairly familiar with most of the businesses that might qualify for investment at Berkshire.
因此，到现在为止，我可能已经相当熟悉那些可能符合伯克希尔投资标准的业务了。
But when I started out, and for a long time I used to do a lot of what Phil Fisher described — I followed his scuttlebutt method. And I don’t think you can do too much of it.
但在我刚起步的时候，以及很长一段时间里，我做了很多菲尔·费雪描述的事情——我遵循了他的“边界调查法”。而且我认为这方面的调查永远不会做得过多。
Now, the general premise of why you’re interested in something should be 80 percent of it or thereabouts. I mean, you don’t want to be chasing down every idea that way, so you should have a strong presumption.
不过，你感兴趣的某件事情的总体前提应该占到80%左右。我的意思是，你不想用这种方法追踪每一个想法，所以你需要有一个强有力的假设前提。
You should be like a basketball coach who runs into a seven-footer on the street. I mean, you’re interested to start with; now you have to find out if you can keep him in school, if he’s coordinated, and all that sort of thing. That’s the scuttlebutt aspect of it.
你应该像一个篮球教练在街上遇到一个七英尺高的球员一样。我的意思是，你一开始就应该感兴趣；然后你需要了解他是否能留在学校，是否协调，诸如此类的事情。这就是“边界调查法”的一个方面。
But I believe that as you’re acquiring knowledge about industries in general, companies specifically, that there really isn’t anything like first doing some reading about them, and then getting out and talking to competitors, and customers, and suppliers, and ex-employees, and current employees, and whatever it may be.
但我相信，在你获取行业一般知识和具体公司信息时，确实没有什么比先阅读资料，然后与竞争对手、客户、供应商、前雇员、现雇员以及其他相关人士交流更有效的方法了。
And you will learn a lot. But it should be the last 20 percent or 10 percent. I mean, you don’t want to get too impressed by that, because you really want to start with a business where you think the economics are good, where they look like seven-footers, and then you want to go out with a scuttlebutt approach to possibly reject your original hypothesis.
你会从中学到很多。但这应该是最后的20%或10%的工作。我的意思是，你不想对这些印象过深，因为你确实应该从一家你认为经济状况良好的企业开始，就像那些七英尺高的球员一样，然后用“边界调查法”来验证或否定你的原始假设。
And if you talk to a bunch of people on an industry and you ask them what competitor they fear the most, and why they fear them, and all of that sort of thing. You know, who would they use the silver bullet of Andy Grove’s on and so on, you’re going to learn a lot about it.
如果你和一群业内人士交谈，问他们最害怕的竞争对手是谁，为什么害怕，以及相关的事情，比如他们会用“安迪·格罗夫的银弹”瞄准谁，你会从中学到很多东西。
You’ll probably know more about the industry than most of the people in it when you get through, because you’ll bring an independent perspective to it, and you’ll be listening to everything everyone says rather than coming in with these preconceived notions and just sort of listening to your own truths after a while.
等你完成调查时，你可能比业内大多数人对行业的了解更多，因为你带来了一个独立的视角，并且会倾听每个人的看法，而不是抱着预设立场，仅仅听从自己一开始的成见。
I advise it. I don’t really do it much anymore. I do it a little bit, and I talked in the annual report about how when we made the decision on keeping the American Express when we exchanged our Percs for common stock in 1994, I was using the scuttlebutt approach when I talked to Frank Olson.
我建议大家使用这种方法。我现在几乎不怎么用了，只是偶尔用一下。我在年度报告中提到过，当我们1994年决定将我们的优先股换成美国运通的普通股时，我就是通过与弗兰克·奥尔森的对话使用了“边界调查法”。
I couldn’t have talked to a better guy than Frank Olson. Frank Olson, running Hertz Corporation, lots of experience at United Airlines, and a consumer marketing guy by nature. I mean, he understands business.
没有人比弗兰克·奥尔森更适合交谈了。他经营着赫兹公司，有丰富的United Airlines经验，本质上是一个消费品营销专家。他真的很懂生意。
And when I asked him how strong the American Express card was and what were the strengths and the weaknesses of it, and who was coming along after it, and so on, I mean, he could give me an answer in five minutes that would be better than I could accomplish in hours and hours and hours or weeks of roaming around and doing other things.
当我问他美国运通卡有多强，它的优势和劣势是什么，以及未来可能有哪些竞争对手时，他能在五分钟内给我一个比我花数小时甚至数周时间调查得到的答案更好、更全面的答案。
So you can learn from people. And Frank was a user of it. I mean, Frank was paying X percent to American Express for his Hertz cars. And Frank doesn’t like to pay out money, so why was he paying that? And if he was paying more than he was paying on Master Charge or Visa, why was he paying more? And then what could he do about it?
你可以从人那里学到很多东西。弗兰克自己就是美国运通的用户。他为赫兹的租车业务向美国运通支付了X%的费用。而弗兰克并不喜欢支付额外的费用，那么他为什么愿意支付这笔钱？如果这比他支付给万事达或Visa的费用更高，他为什么还愿意支付？他还能做些什么？
I mean, you just keep asking questions.
我的意思是，你需要不断地问问题。
And I guess Davy [Lorimer Davidson] explained that in that video we had ahead of time. I’m very grateful to him for doing that, because that was a real effort for him.
我想洛瑞默·戴维森在我们之前的视频中解释过这一点。我非常感激他这么做，因为这对他来说确实是一次重要的付出。
But that was really what I was doing back in 1951 when I visited him down in Washington, because I was trying to figure out why people would insure with GEICO rather than with the companies that they were already insuring with, and how permanent that advantage was.
但实际上，这正是我1951年去华盛顿拜访他时所做的事情。当时我试图弄清楚，人们为什么会选择和GEICO投保，而不是继续使用他们已经在使用的保险公司，这种优势能持续多久。
You know, what other things could you do with that advantage? And you know, there were just a lot of questions I wanted to ask him, and he was terrific in giving me the answer. It, you know, changed my life in a major way. So I have nobody to thank but Davy on that.
这种优势还能带来什么？我有很多问题想问他，而他给了我非常出色的答案。这在很大程度上改变了我的人生。所以，这方面我只能感谢戴维。
But that’s the scuttlebutt method and I do advise it.
但这就是“边界调查法”，而且我确实建议大家使用它。
Charlie?
查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.
查理·芒格：无可补充。
114. Due diligence is useless and misses the point
尽职调查无用且抓错重点
WARREN BUFFETT: Area 9, please.
沃伦·巴菲特： 第九区，请提问。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. My name is Fred Strasheim (PH) and I’m from here in Omaha.
观众： 下午好。我是弗雷德·斯特拉斯海姆（音），来自这里的奥马哈。
I have a question about your acquisition methodology. And I was intrigued to read in your annual report about your acquisition of Star Furniture.
我想问您关于收购方法的问题。我在您的年报中读到您收购Star Furniture的过程，感到很有趣。
And as I understand the process you followed, Mr. Buffett, you met with Mr. — or you — I’m sorry, you reviewed financials for a brief period, liked what you saw, then you met with Mr. Melvyn Wolff for two hours and struck a deal. And you wrote you had no need to check leases, work out employment contracts, et cetera.
据我所知，巴菲特先生，您的过程是这样的：您花了一小段时间审阅财务数据，觉得不错，然后与梅尔文·沃尔夫先生会面两个小时并达成协议。您写道，您认为不需要检查租约、制定雇佣合同等事宜。
WARREN BUFFETT: Right.
沃伦·巴菲特： 没错。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that most companies, when they do acquisitions, would feel the need to do a significant amount of legal due diligence, to do things like check the leases, check into things like undisclosed environmental liability, or perhaps threatened litigation.
观众： 我认为大多数公司在进行收购时，会觉得需要做大量的法律尽职调查，比如检查租约、调查未披露的环境责任或可能的法律诉讼等事项。
And I guess my question is, have you ever been burned by your approach?
所以我的问题是，您的这种方法是否让您吃过亏？
WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve been burned by the — we’ve been burned only in the sense that we’ve made mistakes on judging the future economics of the business, which would’ve had nothing to do with due diligence.
沃伦·巴菲特： 我们吃过亏，但仅限于在判断企业未来经济状况时犯了错误，而这与尽职调查无关。
We regard what people normally refer to “due diligence” as, as really sort of boilerplate in most cases.
我们认为，人们通常所说的“尽职调查”，在大多数情况下实际上只是例行公事。
It’s a process that big companies go through. And they feel they have to go through it. And they’re ignoring — oftentimes, in our view — they’re ignoring what really counts, which is evaluating the people they’re getting in with, and evaluating the economics of the business. That’s 99 percent of the deal.
这是大公司会走的一个流程。他们觉得必须这么做。但他们忽视了——在我们看来经常忽视了——真正重要的东西，那就是评估与他们合作的人，以及评估企业的经济状况。这占交易的99%。
You know, you may run into an environmental liability problem, you know, one time in a hundred, or you may, you know, you may find a bad lease.
你可能会遇到环境责任问题，这种情况大概百次中有一次，或者你可能会发现一个糟糕的租约。
I asked Melvin about, you know, “Do you have any bad leases?” I mean, that’s the easiest way to do it. And I could read them all and try and look for every clause or something, but it isn’t going to — you know, that is not the problem.
我问梅尔文，“你有没有什么糟糕的租约？”这是最简单的方法。我可以全部读一遍，试图寻找每一条条款或问题，但这不会——你知道，这不是问题的关键。
We’ve made bad — lots of bad deals. We made a bad deal when we bought Hochschild Kohn, for example, the department store operation, back in 1966. But it had — fine people — but we were wrong on the economics of the business.
我们确实做过糟糕的交易，很多糟糕的交易。例如，在1966年，我们收购百货商店Hochschild Kohn时就是一次糟糕的交易。当时有很好的人在经营，但我们对业务的经济状况判断错误。
But the leases didn’t make any difference. You know, that sort of thing just was not important. And I can’t recall any time that what other people refer to as due diligence would’ve avoided a bad deal for us.
但租约并没有什么影响。这种事情根本不重要。我想不起有任何时候，其他人所说的尽职调查能帮我们避免一笔糟糕的交易。
CHARLIE MUNGER: I can’t either.
查理·芒格： 我也想不起有过这样的情况。
WARREN BUFFETT: No. That’s 30-some years. And I —
沃伦·巴菲特： 没有。这是三十多年来的经验。并且——
The key thing — you just don’t want to do — I go — I’m on various public company boards — I’ve been on 19 public company boards — and you know, their idea of the due diligence is to send the lawyers out and have a bunch of investment bankers come in and make presentations and all that.
关键是——你不想做的事情就是——我在不同的上市公司董事会中任职——我曾在19个上市公司董事会任职——你知道，他们所谓的尽职调查就是派律师去，然后让一群投资银行家进来做演示之类的事情。
And I regard that as terribly diversionary, because the board sits there, you know, entranced by all of that, and everybody reporting how wonderful this thing is and how they checked out patents and all that sort of thing. And nobody is focusing really on where the business is going to be in five or 10 years.
我认为这完全是分散注意力，因为董事会坐在那里，被这些东西迷住了，每个人都在汇报这件事多么好，他们检查了专利等等。而没有人真正关注这个业务五年或十年后会怎样。
You know, business judgment about economics — and people to some extent — but the business economics — that is 99 percent of deal making. And the rest, people may do it for their protection. I think too often they do it as a crutch just to go through with the deal that they want to go through with anyway, and of course all the professionals know that. So believe me, they come back with the diligence, whether due or not. And — (Laughter)
你知道，对经济状况的商业判断——以及某种程度上的对人的判断——但关键是业务的经济状况——这是交易中99%的关键。剩下的，人们可能出于自我保护而做这些事。我认为他们太常把尽职调查当成一种借口，只是为了推进他们本来就想推进的交易。当然，所有专业人士都知道这一点。所以相信我，无论尽职调查是否必要，他们都会把结果带回来。（笑）
We are not big fans of that. I don’t know how many deals we’ve made over the years, but I cannot think of anything that traditional due diligence has had a thing to do with.
我们不是这种方式的忠实拥护者。我不知道这些年来我们做了多少笔交易，但我想不出有哪笔交易与传统的尽职调查有关。
CHARLIE MUNGER: No, we’ve had surprises on the favorable side a couple of times —
查理·芒格： 不过，有几次我们在积极方面得到了意外惊喜——
WARREN BUFFETT: That is true. That is true.
沃伦·巴菲特： 确实如此，确实如此。
The kind of people that we’ve generally dealt with have usually told us the bad things first and good things after we made the deal.
我们通常打交道的人，往往会先告诉我们坏消息，而好消息是在交易完成后才告诉我们的。
We made a deal with a fellow over in Rockford in 1969, Eugene Abegg, Illinois National Bank and Trust Company. I made that deal in a couple of hours and, I mean, there just wasn’t any way that Gene was going to be hiding anything bad.
1969年，我们在罗克福德和尤金·阿贝格（Eugene Abegg）达成了一笔交易，他是伊利诺伊国家银行和信托公司的负责人。我在几个小时内就完成了这笔交易，我的意思是，吉恩不可能隐瞒任何坏消息。
For the next ten years when I went over there, every time I’d go to lunch he’d point out some building in town that we owned that wasn’t on the books, or some foundation we had that had money in it he hadn’t told me about.
在接下来的十年里，每次我去那里吃午餐时，他都会指出城里一些我们拥有但未记录在账上的建筑，或者告诉我一些我们有资金但他之前没提过的基金会。
And he even gave me some bills, one of which I carry in my pocket, that he had still sitting around that were issued by the bank that were our own money which he never told me about. We could cut them out like paper dolls. I mean, Gene was not a guy to show all his cards. (Laughter)
他甚至给了我一些钞票，其中一张我现在还放在口袋里，那是银行发行的我们自己的钱，但他从未告诉过我。我们甚至可以像剪纸一样把它们剪出来。我的意思是，吉恩并不是那种会把所有底牌都亮出来的人。（笑）
And those are the kind of people we’ve generally dealt with, and I would certainly say that Melvyn and [his sister] Shirley [Toomin] fit that description in spades.
这些人正是我们通常打交道的对象，我可以肯定地说，梅尔文和[他的妹妹]雪莉[图明]完全符合这个描述。
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