I.H.68.Warren Buffett.Loyalty Effect

1、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

33. Berkshire is the “Metropolitan Museum of businesses”

伯克希尔是“企业界的大都会博物馆”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 8.

沃伦·巴菲特：第八位提问者。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, my name is Norman Rentrop. I’m from Bonn, Germany. I want to thank you very much for so patiently listening and answering and sharing yesterday and today. And I’m a shareholder since 1992. And this is my first meeting.

观众提问：巴菲特先生，芒格先生，我是诺曼·伦特罗普，来自德国波恩。非常感谢您昨天和今天耐心倾听、回答并分享。我从1992年起成为股东，这是我第一次参加股东大会。

I came here being inspired by Robert Miles’ book, “101 Reasons to Own Berkshire Hathaway.” And I was very careful, listening to you, the reasons how you pick good people, that it’s love for the business and not so much love for the money.

我是受罗伯特·迈尔斯的书《拥有伯克希尔哈撒韦的101个理由》的启发来到这里的。我非常认真地听了您关于如何挑选优秀人才的理由：对事业的热爱远胜于对金钱的热爱。

And I’d like to hear a little bit more on your philosophies, now that Berkshire Hathaway is more and more buying companies. On this, how you make sure that it’s true love and how you pick people.

现在伯克希尔哈撒韦收购的公司越来越多，我想多听听您关于这个问题的理念。您如何确保这是对事业的真正热爱，又是如何挑选合适的人才的？

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s a terrific question. I don’t know exactly how to answer. Maybe Charlie will think of it while I’m stumbling around, but —

沃伦·巴菲特：这是个很棒的问题。我不太确定该怎么回答。也许查理会在我思考的同时想出答案，但——

I really — I think I can do that quite well. But I don’t know of any way to give somebody else a set of questions to ask, or, you know — I don’t know how to tell someone else how to select managers using those criteria: do they love the business or do they love the money?

事实上，我认为自己在这方面做得还不错。但我不知道如何给别人提供一套问题，或者说——我不知道如何教别人用这些标准来选择管理者：他们是热爱事业还是热爱金钱？

It’s very, very important. I mean, it’s crucial. Because it — well, we see it all the time. I mean, you’ve got people around who love the money. And you see them in public companies and doing things that we wouldn’t want to have associated with us.

这是非常非常重要的。我是说，这是关键。因为我们经常看到这种情况：有些人热爱的是金钱。你会在一些上市公司里看到他们，他们做的事情是我们不想与之扯上关系的。

And on the other hand, if they love the business, and we’ll tell — I’ll tell an owner this. I will say to them, “You built this business lovingly for 50 years, and maybe your parents before you, maybe even your grandparents.” One of these businesses we’re buying is fourth generation.

另一方面，如果他们热爱的是事业，我们会对他们说——我会对一个企业主说，“你花了50年的时间满怀热情地建设了这家公司，也许在你之前是你的父母，甚至是你的祖父母。”我们收购的其中一家公司已经是第四代传承了。

And the clincher, in fact, I used it with Jack Ringwalt back in 1967. I said to Jack, who had built it over a long period of time, “Do you want to sell this? You know, do you want to dispose of this, the most — you know, your creation, your painting? Or do you want some 26-year-old trust officer to do it the day after you die?”

实际上，我在1967年用这个理由说服了杰克·林格沃特。我对他这样说道，他花了很长时间建立了这家公司，“你真的想卖掉它吗？你是想处理掉它，你的创作，你的画作？还是让一个26岁的信托官在你去世的第二天来处理它？”

And the thought of who was going to handle this masterpiece, which he’d created himself, was important to him. And I tell him, If they want to put it in our museum, we will make sure, A, it doesn’t get resold, that it gets the proper respect, and that you can keep painting it.

想到谁会来接手这件他亲手创作的“杰作”，对他来说非常重要。我告诉他，如果他们愿意将它放入我们的“博物馆”，我们会确保：第一，它不会被转卖；第二，它会得到应有的尊重；第三，你可以继续创作它。

We won’t come in and tell you to use reds instead of yellows or anything like that. So even though it’s a masterpiece now, you can keep adding to it.

我们不会介入告诉你用红色代替黄色之类的事情。所以，即使现在它是一件杰作，你仍然可以继续完善它。

So we like to think that we’re the Metropolitan Museum of businesses and that we can get really outstanding creations to reside in our museum. But it — we’ve got to deliver the kind of museum to these painters of businesses, in effect, that we would want, if we were doing the same sort of thing.

所以我们喜欢把自己想象成企业界的大都会博物馆，我们希望真正出色的“作品”能够在我们的博物馆中“安家”。但实际上，我们必须为这些企业的“画家”提供一种博物馆，正如如果我们从事同样的事情时，我们希望拥有的那种环境。

To some people, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. I mean, all they want to do is auction their business, you know. And they probably cheat on their figures a little in the last year or two before they sell it to dress it up. And they do all kinds of things.

对某些人来说，这毫无意义。他们只想拍卖掉自己的企业。他们可能会在出售前的一两年里稍微调整数字美化一下业绩。他们会做各种各样的事情。

And they employ some investment banker who pretends that he’s getting bids from other people to jack it up some more. And that’s standard procedure for a lot of people.

他们会雇佣一些投资银行家，这些人假装从其他买家那里得到了报价，进一步抬高价格。这对很多人来说是标准操作流程。

We have no interest in buying in with them at any price because we don’t want to be on the other side of the table for the rest of our lives with somebody that’s going to do that.

无论价格如何，我们对与这些人进行交易毫无兴趣，因为我们不想在未来的人生中，与会这样做的人同桌共事。

If somebody loves their business — and I love Berkshire, I mean, you create something over a period of time — it means something to you.

如果有人热爱自己的企业——就像我热爱伯克希尔一样，我的意思是，当你在一段时间内创造了某些东西时，它对你来说是有意义的。

Some people get it out of how they decorate their home, or some people get it out of all kinds of different things, their golf game or whatever. But some of us get it out of building a business. And it has to be enormously important, what kind of a home it finds.

有些人通过装饰他们的家找到意义，有些人通过各种其他事情，比如他们的高尔夫球比赛或其他事情。而我们中的一些人则通过建立企业找到意义。而它最终的归宿是什么样的“家”是至关重要的。

And there comes a time, in many situations, for estate taxes, or because the kids don’t get along, or whatever the hell it may be, why people need to do something with that business. But they don’t want it auctioned off. And we get — we have a good home for that.

在许多情况下，会因为遗产税、子女之间的不和或其他任何原因，人们需要对企业做出某种安排。但他们不希望它被拍卖掉。而我们能提供一个好的归宿。

I think I can tell pretty well what people’s motivations are when they come in with a business. And so far, we’ve batted pretty well.

我认为，当人们带着企业找到我们时，我大致能够判断出他们的动机。到目前为止，我们的表现还不错。

We’ve made mistakes. There’s no question about that. But in a sense, I think they’ve gotten fewer over the years.

我们确实犯过错误，这毫无疑问。但从某种意义上说，我认为这些错误随着时间的推移变得越来越少了。

And we have — our disappointments with people have been very, very few. We’ve been wrong about the economics of the business sometimes. But that’s our mistake, not theirs. We’ve seldom been wrong about the people.

我们对人的失望非常少。我们有时会在企业的经济状况上判断错误，但那是我们的错误，不是他们的错误。而我们很少会看错人。

人是相对容易判断的。

And I wish I could give you a checklist that you could go down, and you could say, “Well, this guy loves the money. So he’s going to be gone in six months. And this one loves the business. So as long as I leave him alone to do his job and appreciate what he does, be fair with him, that he’s going to stay around here as long as he can.”

我希望能给你一份清单，你可以逐项检查，然后说，“这个人热爱金钱，所以他六个月后就会离开。而这个人热爱事业，所以只要我让他专注于自己的工作，欣赏他所做的一切，并公平对待他，他就会尽可能长久地留在这里。”

Charlie, have you got any thoughts on how you separate these people out?

查理，你对如何区分这些人有什么想法吗？

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think our culture is very old fashioned. In other words, I think it’s Ben Franklin and Andrew Carnegie. It’s very old fashioned.

查理·芒格：我认为我们的文化非常传统。换句话说，它是本·富兰克林和安德鲁·卡内基式的，非常传统。

And what I think is amazing about Berkshire is how well these very old-fashioned ideas still work.

而让我觉得惊讶的是，这些非常老派的理念在伯克希尔依然行之有效。

Can you imagine Andrew Carnegie calling in a compensation consultant or — (laughter) — an investment banker to tell him whether he should buy another steel mill? Or —

你能想象安德鲁·卡内基请一个薪酬顾问或者——（笑声）——一个投资银行家来告诉他是否应该买另一个钢厂吗？或者——

We don’t get imitated much. We’re imitating the behavior of a period that has been gone for a long time. But, I don’t see — a lot of the businesses we buy are kind of cranky like us and old fashioned. And I hope we continue it that way.

我们的做法并没有被广泛模仿。我们是在模仿一个早已过去的时代的行为。但我发现，我们购买的许多企业也像我们一样有些“古怪”和传统。我希望我们能一直保持这种方式。

WARREN BUFFETT: They’re sitting out there, Charlie. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：他们就在那儿坐着呢，查理。（笑声）

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, yeah. Well, but I think the businesses do have standards. See’s has standards. It has its own personality. But it’s — but maintaining standards is a huge part of it.

查理·芒格：是的，是的。我认为企业确实需要有标准。See’s 有自己的标准，也有自己的个性。但保持这些标准是非常重要的一部分。

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie hit on one thing. The idea of asking investment bankers or somebody to evaluate the businesses you’re going to buy, I mean, that strikes us as idiocy. If you don’t know enough about a business to decide whether to buy it yourself, you’d better forget it.

沃伦·巴菲特：查理提到了一个关键点。请投资银行家或其他人来评估你要购买的企业，这对我们来说简直是愚蠢。如果你对一家企业的了解不足以让你自己决定是否购买，那你最好直接忘了这件事。

It does not make sense. (Applause) You bring in somebody who’s going to get a very large check if you buy it, and a very small check if you don’t, that displays a faith in human nature that would strain Charlie and me. (Laughter)

这毫无意义。（掌声）如果你找来一个人，他在你购买时能得到一大笔佣金，而在你不买时只能得到很少，这种对人性的信任会让查理和我都难以接受。（笑声）

It’s a key point, which you raise. And frankly, if I think there’s anything we’re good at, I think we’re pretty good at what you’re talking about there.

这是一个你提到的关键点。坦白说，如果我们擅长某件事，那我认为我们在你说的这方面确实相当擅长。

It’s an important part of capital allocation. Because we do not — we are not in a position to manage the businesses ourselves.

这是资本配置中非常重要的一部分。因为我们并不——我们没有能力自己管理这些企业。

And we want management as well as the business. And we’ve gotten it. And we’ve gotten it in spades from people that stay on and have done a terrific job for us. And it makes life a lot easier, too.

我们想要的不仅仅是企业，还有优秀的管理团队。而我们确实得到了这样的团队，而且这些团队表现非常出色。他们的存在也让我们的工作变得更加轻松。

2、《2001-04-28 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

60. The value of Berkshire’s “loyalty effect”

伯克希尔“忠诚效应”的价值

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 6.

沃伦·巴菲特：第六区域。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, hi. I’m James Halperin from Dallas, Texas. And I’ve been a shareholder since 1995. And I feel great about it, so thank you.

观众提问：你好，我是詹姆斯·哈尔佩林（音译），来自德克萨斯州达拉斯。从1995年起，我就是一名股东，我对此感到非常满意，所以谢谢你们。

This question has to do with Berkshire’s so-called permanent holdings and whether, when making investment decisions, you somehow mathematically calculate a value to Berkshire’s reputation for loyalty to its public investees.

我的问题与伯克希尔所谓的永久持股有关。是否在做投资决策时，你们以某种数学方式计算了伯克希尔对其公开投资对象忠诚声誉的价值？

Let’s say you are confident enough that Pepsi or Procter and Gamble would grow cash flow faster than Coke or Gillette would. And that the replacement value of the stock was less expensive enough to more than make up for the taxes.

假设你们足够确信百事可乐或宝洁的现金流增长速度会快于可口可乐或吉列。而且其股票的替代价值足够便宜，足以弥补税收成本。

Would you then sell Coke, for example, to buy Pepsi? And if not, why not? And how do you value this reputation for loyalty aspect in those decisions?

那么，你们会卖掉可口可乐的股票去买百事可乐吗？如果不会，为什么不会？在这些决策中，你们如何评估这种忠诚声誉的价值？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think that’s a very good question.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为这是一个非常好的问题。

I don’t think we would ever — I think it’s very unlikely we would come to the conclusion that we were that certain that — you mentioned P&G and Pepsi versus the ones — but that some major consumer products company would do better than the ones we’re in.

我不认为我们会——我认为我们很难得出这样的结论，即我们可以确定地认为——你提到的宝洁和百事可乐与我们所持有的公司相比——某家主要的消费品公司会表现得更好。

We might very well decide that some other one is going to do quite well and buy that additionally.

我们很可能会决定某些其他公司表现不错，并额外购买它们的股票。

As a practical matter, if I’m on the board of a company, or Charlie were to be, representing Berkshire, it’s very difficult — I would say it’s almost impossible for us to trade in their securities.

实际上，如果我在某家公司董事会中，或者查理代表伯克希尔进入董事会，我们很难——我会说几乎不可能交易该公司的证券。

It just — it creates too many problems. People would think we knew something we didn’t. Or, you know, particularly if we were selling it, you know, we would have people questioning very much whether we had detected something within the company that was not available to the rest of the world.

这会带来太多问题。人们会认为我们知道一些他们不知道的事情。特别是当我们出售它时，人们会质疑我们是否发现了公司内部一些外界无法得知的问题。

So we really give up an enormous amount of investment mobility when we go on a board.

所以，当我们进入董事会时，我们实际上放弃了很大一部分投资的灵活性。

And so I don’t even think about doing what you’re suggesting, although I might very well if I were just a money manager running the business.

因此，我甚至不会考虑你所建议的那种操作，尽管如果我只是一个管理资金的经理人，我可能会这么做。

We certainly, and we’ve laid it out in the ground rules in the back of the — in our Owner’s Manual back in the annual report — we’ve certainly said, in terms of businesses we buy control of, that they just aren’t for sale. And a fancy price will not tempt us.

我们明确表示过——我们在年度报告附录的《股东手册》中也制定了规则——对于我们控股的企业，它们是绝不会出售的。即使是一个极具诱惑力的高价也不会打动我们。

And that we lay out that exception relating to businesses where we think there’s a permanent loss of cash for as far as the eye can see, or businesses where we have labor troubles, which we — I described earlier in the day, we might’ve had at The Buffalo News at that one period.

当然也有例外，比如那些我们认为在可预见的未来会产生永久性现金损失的企业，或者那些存在劳资问题的企业——就像今天早些时候我提到的《水牛城新闻》在某段时期的问题。

But otherwise, simply because we can use the money better someplace else, we’re not interested in it.

但除此之外，仅仅因为我们可以在其他地方更好地使用这笔钱，我们对此并不感兴趣。

You know, I can’t really dig into my psyche and tell you how much of that is because I think that will help us buy businesses in the future if we behave that way, or how much is just my natural inclination that when I make a deal with somebody and I’m happy with how they behave with me, that I want to stick with them. It’s probably both, you know?

我无法深入内心告诉你，这有多少是因为我认为如果我们以这种方式行事，会帮助我们未来购买企业；又有多少只是因为我的自然倾向——当我与某人达成交易并对他们的行为感到满意时，我会愿意坚持与他们合作。这可能两者都有，你知道吗？

And I wouldn’t want to try and weight the two. I’m happy, you know, with the results of the first and I’m happy with the way I feel, essentially, about the second.

我不想尝试去权衡这两者。你知道，我对第一种结果感到满意，也对第二种带给我的感觉本质上感到满意。

I just think it’s crazy — I know if I owned all of Berkshire myself, I wouldn’t dream of trading around businesses with people that have trusted in me and that I like and have been more than fair with me.

我只是觉得那样做很疯狂——我知道，如果我自己拥有整个伯克希尔，我绝不会想要与那些信任我、我喜欢并且对我非常公平的人的周围进行业务交易。

I wouldn’t dream of trading around businesses so that my estate was 105 percent of some very large number instead of 100 percent of some large number. I just would regard that as a crazy way to live.

我不会为了让我的遗产达到某个非常大的数字的105%而不是100%去进行业务交易。我只是会认为那是一种疯狂的生活方式。

And I don’t want the fact I run a public company to cause me to behave in a way that I would be uncomfortable behaving if we were a private company.

我也不希望因为我经营一家上市公司而导致我以一种让我在经营私人公司时会感到不舒服的方式行事。

But I also feel that you, as shareholders, are entitled to know that that’s an idiosyncrasy of mine. And therefore, I lay it out, and have laid it out for 20 years, as something that you should understand, as an investor or before you become an investor.

但我也认为，作为股东的你们，有权知道这是我的一个特殊癖好。因此，我将其明确说明，并且已经说明了20年，作为投资者或者在成为投资者之前，你们应该了解这一点。

I’m sure it helps us in acquisitions over time. But whether that in any way compensations the opportunity costs that Charlie talks about of making an occasional advantageous disposal, I don’t know and it’s something I’ll never calculate.

我确信，这在长期来看有助于我们的收购。但是否在某种程度上弥补了查理提到的因偶尔错过有利的处置机会而产生的机会成本，我不知道，这也是我永远不会去计算的事情。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I do tend to calculate it, at least roughly. And so far, I think that the loyalty effect is a plus in our life.

查理·芒格：嗯，我倾向于至少大致地计算一下。到目前为止，我认为忠诚效应对我们的生活是一个加分项。

WARREN BUFFETT: Would you regard that as true though in both public — I mean, both marketable securities and owned businesses?

沃伦·巴菲特：你认为这一点在公开公司和自有企业中都成立吗？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Oh, no. I don’t think the loyalty effect in lots of public companies is nearly as important as it is with the private companies.

查理·芒格：哦，不。我不认为忠诚效应在许多上市公司中像在私营公司中那样重要。

WARREN BUFFETT: You can say it’s a mistake for us to be directors of companies, because we give up huge amount of flexibility in investment because we are directors. I — and there’s no question that we do.

沃伦·巴菲特：你可以说我们成为公司董事是一个错误，因为我们放弃了大量的投资灵活性，仅仅因为我们是董事。这一点是毫无疑问的。

It’s — if you’re thinking solely of making money, you do not want to be a director of any company. So there’s just no question about that.

我的意思是，如果你的目标只是赚钱，你绝不想成为任何公司的董事。所以，这一点是毫无疑问的。

I.H.68.Warren Buffett.Loyalty Effect

I.H.68.Warren Buffett.Loyalty Effect

1、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

2、《2001-04-28 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

Article Comments Update

热门标签

Related Articles

1994-03-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders

2023-05-03 WARREN BUFFETT GUIDE TO INVESTING-FROM CNBC

1985 Warren Buffett on Adam Smith's Money World

1967-07-12 Warren Buffett's Letters to Limited Partners

1966-11-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Limited Partners