I.H.74.Warren Buffett.Think about worst cases

I.H.74.Warren Buffett.Think about worst cases

1、《2012-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

55. No magic formula for calculating risk
计算风险没有魔法公式

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky? 沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Scott Bondurant who is from Chicago, Illinois, and he’s a shareholder.
贝基·奎克：这个问题来自于来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥的斯科特·邦杜兰特，他是一名股东。

And he asks, “Can you please elaborate your views on risk? You clearly aren’t a fan of relying on statistical probabilities, and you highlight the need for $20 billion in cash to feel comfortable. Why is that the magic number, and has it changed over time?”
他问：“你能详细阐述一下你对风险的看法吗？显然你不喜欢依赖统计概率，并且你强调需要 200 亿美元的现金才能感到安心。为什么这个数字是魔法数字，它是否随着时间而变化？”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, it isn’t the magic number, and there is no magic number.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。其实这不是一个魔法数字，也没有魔法数字。

I would get very worried about somebody that walked in every morning and told us precisely how many dollars of cash we needed to be, you know, secured at three sigma or something like that.
我会非常担心那些每天早上进来告诉我们需要多少现金才能在三倍标准差的情况下保持安全的人。

Charlie and I have had a lot of — we saw a lot of problems develop in an organization that expressed their risks in sigma, and we even argued sometimes with the appropriateness of how they calculated their risk.
查理和我经历了很多——我们看到一个组织在以西格玛表达他们的风险时出现了很多问题，有时我们甚至争论过他们计算风险的合理性。

CHARLIE MUNGER: It was truly horrible.
查理·芒格：这真是太可怕了。

WARREN BUFFETT: And they were a lot smarter than we were. (Laughs) That’s what’s depressing.
沃伦·巴菲特：他们比我们聪明得多。（笑）这让人感到沮丧。

But we both have the same bend of mind whereby we think about worst cases all the time, and then we add on a big margin of safety, and we don’t want to go back to go.
但我们俩都有相同的思维方式，总是考虑最坏的情况，然后再加上一个很大的安全边际，我们不想回到起点。

I mean, I enjoy tossing those papers in the other room, but I don’t want to do it for a living again.
我是说，我喜欢把那些纸扔到另一个房间，但我不想再以此为生。

So we undoubtedly build in layers of safety that others might regard as foolish, but we’ve got 600,000 shareholders and we’ve got members of my family that have 80 or 90 percent of their net worth in the company.
所以我们无疑建立了其他人可能认为愚蠢的安全层，但我们有 60 万股东，还有我的家族成员将 80%或 90%的净资产投入到公司中。

And I’m just not interested in explaining to them that we went broke because there was a one-hundredth of 1 percent chance that we would go broke and there was a — the remaining probability was filled by the chance of doubling our money, and I decided that that was just a good gamble to take.
我对此没有兴趣向他们解释，我们破产是因为有0.01%的机会破产，而剩余的概率是我们翻倍的机会，我决定这是一个值得冒的好险。

We’re not going to do that. It doesn’t mean that much. We are never going to risk what we have and need for what we don’t have and don’t need. We’ll still find things to do where we can make money, but we don’t have to stretch to do it.
我们不会那样做。这并没有那么重要。我们永远不会冒险去牺牲我们拥有和需要的东西，去追求我们没有和不需要的东西。我们仍然会找到可以赚钱的事情，但我们不必勉强去做。

And it’s my job — and Charlie thinks the same way. We don’t have to talk about it much.
这就是我的工作——查理也是这么认为的。我们不需要多谈这个。

But it’s our job to figure out what can really go wrong with this place and, you know, we’ve seen September 11th, and we’ve seen September of 2008, and we’ll see other things of a different nature but similar impact in the future.
但我们的工作是弄清楚这个地方可能出现的真正问题。你知道，我们见过 911 事件，也见过 2008 年 9 月的情况，未来我们还会看到其他性质不同但影响相似的事件。

And we not only want to sleep well all those nights, we want to be thinking about things to do with some excess money we might have around.
我们不仅希望在那些夜晚睡得很好，还希望考虑如何利用我们可能有的多余资金。

So it is — if you’re calibrating it in some mathematical way, I would say it’s really dangerous. I could give you a couple examples on that, but unfortunately I’ve learned about them on a confidential basis.
所以，如果你以某种数学方式进行校准，我会说这真的很危险。我可以给你几个例子，但不幸的是，我是以保密的方式了解到这些的。

But some really great organizations have had dozens of people with advanced mathematical training and make — and thinking about it daily, making computations, and they don’t really — they don’t really get at the problem.
但一些非常优秀的组织拥有数十名受过高级数学训练的人，他们每天都在思考这个问题，进行计算，但他们实际上并没有真正解决这个问题。

So it’s at the top of the mind, always, around Berkshire, and your returns in 99 years out of 100 will probably be penalized by us being excessively conservative, and one year out of a hundred, we’ll survive when some other people won’t.
所以这始终是伯克希尔最重要的事情，99%的年份里，你的回报可能会因为我们过于保守而受到惩罚，而在 100 年中，有一年我们会生存下来，而其他一些人则不会。

Charlie? 查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, how do these super-smart people with all these degrees in higher mathematics end up doing these dumb things?
查理·芒格：是啊，这些拥有高等数学学位的超级聪明的人怎么会做出这些愚蠢的事情呢？

I think it’s explainable by the old proverb that, “To a man with a hammer, every problem looks pretty much like a nail.” They’ve learned these techniques and they just twist the problem so they fit the solution, which is not the way to do it.
我认为这可以用一句古老的谚语来解释：“对一个手握锤子的人来说，所有问题看起来都像钉子。”他们学会了这些技巧，只是把问题扭曲成适合解决方案的样子，这并不是正确的方法。

WARREN BUFFETT: And they have a lack of understanding of history, I would say.
沃伦·巴菲特：我会说他们对历史缺乏理解。

One of the things — in 1962, when I set up our office in Kiewit Plaza, where we still are, it’s a different floor, I put seven items on the wall. Our art budget was $7, and I went down to the library, and for a dollar each I made photo copies of the pages from financial history.
1962年，我在我们仍然在的基维特广场设立了办公室，虽然在不同的楼层，我把七项内容贴在墙上。我们的艺术预算是7美元，我去图书馆，每页花一美元复印了金融历史的页面。

And one of those cases, for example, was in May of 1901 when the Northern Pacific Corner occurred, and it’s kind of interesting in terms of being in Omaha because Harriman was trying to get control of the Northern Pacific, and James J. Hill was trying to control the Northern Pacific.
其中一个例子是1901年5月北太平洋铁路角事件，这在奥马哈特别有趣，因为哈里曼试图控制北太平洋铁路，詹姆斯·J·希尔也在试图控制北太平洋铁路。

And unbeknownst to each other, they both bought more than 50 percent of the stock. Now, when two people buy more than 50 percent of the stock each, and they both really want it, they’re not just going to resell it. You know, interesting things happen.
而他们互不知情地都买了超过50%的股票。当两个人都购买超过50%的股票，并且他们都非常想要时，他们不会简单地转售。你知道，会发生有趣的事情。

CHARLIE MUNGER: To the shorts.
查理·芒格：这对空头来说。

WARREN BUFFETT: And in that paper of May 1901, the whole rest of the market was totally collapsing because Northern Pacific went from $170 a share to $1000 a share in one day, trading for cash, because the shorts needed it.
沃伦·巴菲特：在1901年5月的那篇报道中，整个市场完全崩溃，因为北太平洋的股价在一天内从170美元飙升至1000美元，现金交易，因为空头需要它。

And there was a little item at the top of that paper, which we still have at the office, where a brewer in Troy, New York, committed suicide by diving into a vat of hot beer because he’d gotten a margin call.
而在那篇报道的顶部有一个小消息，我们现在仍然在办公室里有记载，纽约特洛伊的一位酿酒师因收到保证金催缴通知而跳入热啤酒桶自杀。

And to me, the lesson — that fellow probably understood sigmas and everything and knew how impossible it was that in one day a stock could go from 170 to 1,000 to cause margin calls on everything else.
对我来说，这个教训——那家伙可能理解了西格玛和一切，并知道在一天之内，一只股票从 170 涨到 1,000 是不可能的，这会导致其他所有股票的保证金追缴。

And he ended up in a vat of hot beer, and I’ve never wanted to end up in a vat of hot beer. (Laughter)
他最后掉进了一个热啤酒的桶里，我从来不想掉进热啤酒的桶里。（笑声）

So those seven days that I put up on the wall — life in financial markets has got no relation to sigmas.
所以我在墙上贴的那七个例子——金融市场的生活与西格玛没有任何关系。

I mean, if everybody that operated in financial markets had never had any concept of standard errors and so on, they would be a lot better off.
我的意思是，如果所有在金融市场运作的人都没有任何标准误差等概念，他们会过得好得多。

Don’t you think so, Charlie?
你不这么认为吗，查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, sure. (Laughter)
查理·芒格：当然可以。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: Here, have some fudge. (Laughs)
沃伦·巴菲特：来，吃点软糖。（笑）

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s created a lot of false confidence and — now, it has gone away.
查理·芒格：这造成了很多虚假的信心——现在，这一切都消失了。

Again, as I said earlier, the business schools have improved. So has risk control on Wall Street. They now have taken the Gaussian curve and they’ve just changed its shape.
再说一次，正如我之前所说，商学院已经有所改善。华尔街的风险控制也是如此。他们现在已经采用了高斯曲线，并且只是改变了它的形状。

WARREN BUFFETT: Threw it away.
沃伦·巴菲特：把它扔掉了。

CHARLIE MUNGER: They threw it away. Well, they just made a different shape than Gauss did, and it’s a better curve now, even though it’s less precise.
查理·芒格：他们把它扔掉了。好吧，他们只是做了一个与高斯不同的形状，现在它是一个更好的曲线，尽管它的精确度较低。

WARREN BUFFETT: They talk about fat tails, but they still don’t know how fat to make them. They have no idea.
沃伦·巴菲特：他们谈论肥尾，但他们仍然不知道该多肥。他们没有头绪。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, but they knew — they’ve learned through painful experience they weren’t fat enough.
查理·芒格：嗯，但他们知道——通过痛苦的经验，他们意识到之前的设计不够“肥”。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. They learned the other was wrong, but they don’t know what’s right.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。他们知道之前的方法是错的，但不知道什么才是正确的。

CHARLIE MUNGER: We always knew there were fat tails. Warren and I, in the Salomon meetings, would look over at one another and roll our eyes when the risk control people were talking.
查理·芒格：我们一直知道存在肥尾现象。沃伦和我在所罗门会议上，会互相看一眼，翻个白眼，当风险控制人员在讲话时。
67. Learning from the follies of others
向他人的愚蠢行为学习

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Station 3.
沃伦·巴菲特：好的。站点 3。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Jeff Chen (PH). I’m from San Francisco. I’m 26, and I run a software start-up out there.
观众成员：嗨，我叫杰夫·陈（音）。我来自旧金山。我 26 岁，正在那里经营一家软件初创公司。

My question is about mistake minimization. I found that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my business, looking back, and I want to know besides thinking harder and learning from your own mistakes, what are the most effective techniques you’ve used to minimize the mistakes?
我的问题是关于错误最小化的。我发现回顾过去，我在生意中犯了很多错误，我想知道除了更加努力思考和从自己的错误中学习之外，你使用过的最有效的技术是什么，以最小化错误？

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I — we made mistakes; we’ll make more mistakes.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。嗯，我——我们犯了错误；我们还会犯更多错误。

We do — we think not so much — we think in terms of not exposing ourselves to any mistakes that could really hurt our ability to play tomorrow.
我们考虑的不仅仅是思考错误，而是要避免让自己暴露于可能严重影响我们明天能力的错误中。

And so we are always thinking about, you know, worst-case situations and there are — on the other hand, we have a natural instinct to do things big, both of us.
因此，我们总是在考虑最坏的情况，另一方面，我们俩都有一种天然的倾向去做大事情。

So we have to think about whether we’re doing anything really big that could have really terrible consequences.
所以我们必须考虑我们是否在做一些可能会产生非常严重后果的重大事情。

And, I would say this, that A) I don’t worry much about mistakes, I mean, the idea of learning from mistakes. The next mistake is something different. So I do not sit around and think about my mistakes and things I’m going to do differently in the future or anything of the sort.
我想说的是，A) 我不太担心错误，我的意思是学习错误的想法。下一个错误是不同的事情。所以我不会坐在那里想我的错误和未来我将要做的不同的事情或类似的事。

I would say that the — you may get some advantage — I think I’ve learned something over the years. I haven’t learned more about a basic investment philosophy. I got that when I was 19 and I still —
我想说的是，您可能会获得一些优势——我认为多年来我学到了很多。我并没有在基本投资理念上学到更多。我19岁时就得到了这些，现在仍然是这样。

I think I’ve learned more about people over the years. And I’ll make mistakes with people. You know, that’s inevitable. But, I think I’ll make more good judgments about people. I’ll recognize the extraordinary ones better than I would have 40 or 50 years ago.
我觉得这些年来我对人们的了解更多了。我会在与人交往中犯错误。你知道，这是不可避免的。但是，我认为我会对人做出更好的判断。我会比 40 或 50 年前更好地识别出那些非凡的人。

So I think that improves, but I don’t think it improves by certainly any conscious sitting around and focusing on what mistake did I make with that person or this person. I just don’t operate that way.
所以我认为这方面是有所改善的，但我不认为这是通过坐下来专注于我在那个人或这个人身上犯了什么错误而改善的。我就是不以这种方式运作。

Charlie? 查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Warren, I would argue that what you’ve done, and what I’ve done to a lesser extent, is to learn a lot from other people’s mistakes. That is really a much more pleasant way to learn hard lessons. (Laughter)
查理·芒格：沃伦，我认为你所做的，以及我在较小程度上所做的，就是从其他人的错误中学到了很多。这确实是一种更愉快的学习艰难教训的方式。（笑声）

And we have really worked at that over the years, partly because we find it so interesting, the great variety of human mistakes and their causes. And I think this constant study of other people’s disasters and other people’s errors has helped us enormously, don’t you, Warren?
而且我们多年来一直在努力，部分原因是我们发现人类错误及其原因的多样性非常有趣。我认为这种对他人灾难和错误的持续研究对我们帮助巨大，你不觉得吗，沃伦？

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh yeah, well that’s true. In terms of reading of financial history and all that sort of thing, I’ve always been absolutely absorbed with reading about disasters. (Laughs)
沃伦·巴菲特：哦，是的，这是真的。在阅读金融历史和所有这些事情方面，我一直对阅读灾难充满了兴趣。（笑）

And there’s no question. I mean, when you look at the folly of humans — you know, I’ve focused on the folly in the financial area — there’s all kinds of folly elsewhere — but just the financial area will give you plenty of material if you like to be a follower of folly.
毫无疑问。我是说，当你看到人类的愚蠢时——你知道，我专注于金融领域的愚蠢——其他地方也有各种愚蠢——但仅仅金融领域就会给你提供大量的素材，如果你喜欢追随愚蠢的话。

And I do think that understanding — and that’s what gave us some advantage over these people that have IQs of 180, you know, and can do things with math that we couldn’t do.
我确实认为理解力——这就是我们相对于那些智商 180 的人所拥有的一些优势，他们能够做我们做不到的数学题。

They just — they really just didn’t have an understanding of how human beings behave and what happens. 2008 was a good example of that, too.
他们确实——他们根本没有理解人类的行为和发生的事情。2008年就是一个很好的例子。

So we’ve — we have been a student of other people’s folly, and its served us well.
所以我们一直在研究他人的愚蠢，这对我们很有帮助。

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