作者：巴菲特

來源：Heisup（ID：HEISUP001）

巴菲特最經典的一次演講，盛傳投資大佬段永平曾說「 建議你看下巴菲特1998年在 Florida university 的那個演講。

可以多看幾次,看到明白為止哈。

這個演講我聽了不下10次,非常值得仔細聽 」。

巴菲特在這次演講中，用樸實、幽默，甚至有些戲謔的口吻，向當時佛羅里達大學的MBA傳授自己在投資與人生上的經驗，非常值得一聽。

01

巴菲特的經驗和智慧

• 與自己認可的人和公司為伍，保持長期主義，時間會贈予豐厚的回饋

• 把喜歡和熱愛放到決定是否做一件事的第一位，不要犧牲自己來追求所謂的成功

• 認清自己的能力邊界，不投資看不懂的公司，關注有核心競爭力的公司

• 不要試圖理解所有公司，就算只理解一部分公司，也可以有非常可觀的收益

• 對于有投資能力的人，發現少數認可的公司就足夠了，不要再盲目多元化投資

• 投資業務能被理解，管理層正直且有能力，能預見未來十年發展狀況的公司

• 區分清楚真正重要和不重要的因素，公司層面比宏觀層面更加重要，也更可知

• 最佳的投資往往不是計算出來，而是情緒主導，這時你對公司產品有強烈信心

• 一家公司是大盤股還是小盤股不重要，重要的依然是你是否認可這家公司

• 當股市下跌時，更加仔細研究已經可能買入的公司，因為這時可能出現買入價格

• 在浮躁的市場保持冷靜，固定留給自己一些時間和空間去做思考

• 不要貪婪，任何事情都有失敗的可能性，留出容錯空間

• 吸收教訓不可避免，但要盡可能地多從別人的錯誤中吸取教訓

02

中英雙語演講文稿

I would like to say a few words primarily and then the highlight for me will be getting your questions. I want to talk about what is on your mind.

我想先講幾句話，之后對我來說最精彩的部分就是回答你們的問題。我想談談你們關心的事情。

I would like to talk for just one minute to the students about your future when you leave here. Because you will learn a tremendous amount about investments, you all have the ability to do well; you all have the IQ to do well. You all have the energy and initiative to do well or you wouldn't be here. Most of you will succeed in meeting your aspirations.

我想花一分鐘時間和同學們談談你們畢業后的未來。因為你們在這里會學到大量關于投資的知識，你們都有能力做好；你們都有足夠的智商做好這件事。你們都有精力和主動性去做好，否則你們也不會坐在這里。你們中的大多數人都會實現自己的抱負。

But in determining whether you succeed there is more to it than intellect and energy. I would like to talk just a second about that. In fact, there was a guy, Pete Kiewit in Omaha, who used to say, he looked for three things in hiring people: integrity, intelligence and energy. And he said if the person did not have the first two, the later two would kill him, because if they don't have integrity, you want them dumb and lazy.

但在決定你們是否成功的因素中，除了智力和精力，還有其他方面。我想簡單說一下這一點。事實上，在奧馬哈有個人叫皮特·基威特，他過去常說，他在招人時會看三點：誠信、智慧和精力。他說如果一個人沒有前兩點，后兩點會害了他，因為如果他們沒有誠信，你寧愿他們又笨又懶。

We want to talk about the first two because we know you have the last two. You are all second-year MBA students, so you have gotten to know your classmates. Think for a moment that I granted you the right--you can buy 10% of one of your classmate’s earnings for the rest of their lifetime. You can't pick someone with a rich father; you have to pick someone who is going to do it on his or her own merit. And I gave you an hour to think about it.

我們想談談前兩點，因為我們知道你們具備后兩點。你們都是MBA二年級的學生，所以你們對同學們都有了一定了解。現在設想一下，我賦予你們一項權利——你們可以買下某個同學未來余生10%的收入。但你們不能挑選有富爸爸的人，必須挑選要靠自身實力取得成就的人。我給你們一個小時來思考這個問題。

Will you give them an IQ test and pick the one with the highest IQ? I doubt it. Will you pick the one with the best grades? The most energetic? You will start looking for qualitative factors, in addition to (the quantitative) because everyone has enough brains and energy. You would probably pick the one you responded the best to, the one who has the leadership qualities, the one who is able to get other people to carry out their interests. That would be the person who is generous, honest and who gave credit to other people for their own ideas. All types of qualities. Whomever you admire the most in the class. Then I would throw in a hooker. In addition to this person you had to go short one of your classmates.

你會給他們做智商測試，然后挑選智商最高的人嗎？我對此表示懷疑。你會挑選成績最好的人嗎？還是最有活力的人？你會開始尋找除（量化指標）之外的定性因素，因為每個人都有足夠的智力和精力。你可能會選擇那個與你最合得來、具備領導才能、能讓別人為其實現利益的人。這個人會很慷慨、誠實，并且會認可他人的想法。各種各樣的品質。也就是你在班上最欽佩的人。然后我再給你出個難題。除了選這個人，你還得做空你的一個同學。 （注：原文中 “Then I would throw in a hooker.” 表述可能有誤，結合語境推測可能是 “Then I would throw in a hitch.” ，hitch有“意外障礙、難題”的意思 ，譯文按推測含義翻譯。如果原詞無誤，“hooker”常見釋義為“妓女”，但在此處語義不通，需根據實際情況進一步確認。 ）

That is more fun. Who do I want to go short? You wouldn't pick the person with the lowest IQ, you would think about the person who turned you off, the person who is egotistical, who is greedy, who cuts corners, who is slightly dishonest.

這就更有意思了。你會選擇做空誰呢？你不會挑選智商最低的人，而是會想到那個讓你反感的人，那個自負、貪婪、偷工減料、有點不誠實的人。

As you look at those qualities on the left and right hand side, there is one interesting thing about them, it is not the ability to throw a football 60 yards, it is not the ability the run the 100 yard dash in 9.3 seconds, it is not being the best looking person in the class, they are all qualities that if you really want to have the ones on the left hand side, you can have them.

當你審視左右兩邊的這些品質時，會發現一個有趣的現象：這些品質不是能把橄欖球扔出60碼遠的能力，不是能在9.3秒內跑完100碼的速度，也不是班上顏值最高的長相。如果你真的想要擁有左邊的那些品質，你是可以做到的。

They are qualities of behavior, temperament, character that are achievable, they are not forbidden to anybody in this group. And if you look at the qualities on the right hand side the ones that turn you off in other people, there is not a quality there that you have to have. You can get rid of it. You can get rid of it a lot easier at your age than at my age, because most behaviors are habitual. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. There is no question about it. I see people with these self- destructive behavior patterns at my age or even twenty years younger and they really are entrapped by them.

這些都是行為、氣質和性格方面的品質，是可以培養出來的，在座的每個人都有機會擁有。再看看右邊那些讓你討厭別人的品質，沒有一個是你必須具備的。你可以摒棄這些品質。在你們這個年紀摒棄它們，比在我這個年紀要容易得多，因為大多數行為都是習慣養成的。習慣的枷鎖很輕，輕到你察覺不到，直到重得無法打破。這一點毫無疑問。我見過和我年紀相仿甚至比我小20歲的人，被這些自我毀滅的行為模式困住。

They go around and do things that turn off other people right and left. They don't need to be that way but by a certain point they get so they can hardly change it. But at your age you can have any habits, any patterns of behavior that you wish. It is simply a question of which you decide.

他們四處行事，總是讓身邊的人反感。他們本不必如此，但到了一定程度，就很難改變了。但在你們這個年紀，你們可以養成任何你們想要的習慣和行為模式，這僅僅取決于你們的選擇。

If you did this… Ben Graham looked around at the people he admired and Ben Franklin did this before him. Ben Graham did this in his low teens and he looked around at the people he admired and he said, "I want to be admired, so why don't I behave like them?" And he found out that there was nothing impossible about behaving like them. Similarly he did the same thing on the reverse side in terms of getting rid of those qualities. I would suggest is that if you write those qualities down and think about them a while and make them habitual, you will be the one you want to buy 10% of when you are all through. And the beauty of it is that you already own 100% of yourself and you are stuck with it. So you might as well be that person, that somebody else.

如果你這么做……本·格雷厄姆會觀察身邊那些他敬佩的人，在他之前，本·富蘭克林也這么做過。本·格雷厄姆在十幾歲的時候就這樣做了，他觀察身邊那些他敬佩的人，然后說：“我希望受到別人的敬佩，那我為什么不像他們那樣行事呢？”他發現，像他們那樣行事并非不可能。同樣，在摒棄那些不良品質方面，他也采取了相同的做法。我建議你們把這些品質寫下來，思考一會兒，讓它們成為習慣，這樣等你們完成學業后，就會成為那個你愿意購買其10%未來收入的人。美妙之處在于，你已經完全屬于自己，而且無法改變這一點。所以，你不妨成為那個人，成為讓別人欣賞的人。

Well that is a short little sermon. So let's get on with what you are interested in. Let's start with questions………..

好了，這就是一段簡短的教誨。那么，我們來聊聊你們感興趣的內容吧。現在開始提問……

Question: What about Japan? Your thoughts about Japan?

問題：日本的情況如何？你對日本有什么看法？

Buffett: My thoughts about Japan? I am not a macro guy. Now I say to myself Berkshire Hathaway can borrow money in Japan for 10 years at one percent. One percent! I say gee, I took Graham's class 45 years ago and I have been working hard at this all my life maybe I can earn more than 1% annually, it doesn't seem impossible. I wouldn't want to get involved in currency risk, so it would have to be Yen-denominated. I would have to be in Japanese Real Estate or Japanese companies or something of the sort and all I have to do is beat one percent. That is all the money is going to cost me and I can get it for 10 years. So far I haven't found anything. It is kind of interesting. The Japanese businesses earn very low returns on equity - 4% to 5% - 6% on equity and it is very hard to earn a lot as an investor when the business you are in doesn't earn very much money.

巴菲特：我對日本的看法？我不是一個關注宏觀經濟的人。現在我心里想，伯克希爾·哈撒韋可以在日本以1%的年利率借到10年期的貸款。1%！我心想，我45年前上了格雷厄姆的課，并且一生都在努力鉆研投資，或許我每年能賺到超過1%的收益，這似乎并非不可能。但我不想涉足匯率風險，所以借款必須是日元計價的。我得投資日本房地產、日本公司之類的，而我要做的就是收益超過1%。這就是這筆錢的成本，而且我能借10年。到目前為止，我還沒找到合適的投資項目。這有點意思。日本企業的股權回報率非常低——只有4% - 5% - 6%，當你投資的企業賺不了多少錢時，作為投資者也很難獲得豐厚回報。

Now some people do it. In fact, I have a friend, Walter Schloss, who worked at Graham at the same time I did. And it was the first way I went at stocks to buy stocks selling way below working capital. A very cheap, quantitative approach to stocks. I call it the cigar butt approach to investing. You walk down the street and you look around for a cigar butt someplace. Finally you see one and it is soggy and kind of repulsive, but there is one puff left in it. So you pick it up and the puff is free--it is a cigar butt stock. You get one free puff on it and then you throw it away and try another one. It is not elegant. But it works. Those are low return businesses.

現在有些人就是這么做的。事實上，我有個朋友叫沃爾特·施洛斯，我在格雷厄姆公司工作時，他也在那里。我最初投資股票的方法就是購買股價遠低于營運資本的股票。這是一種非常廉價的、基于量化的股票投資方法。我把它稱為“撿煙蒂式”投資法。你走在街上，四處尋找煙蒂。最后你看到一個，它又濕又臟，有點讓人厭惡，但里面還有一口可抽。于是你把它撿起來，這一口是免費的——這就是一支“煙蒂股”。你免費抽了一口，然后把它扔掉，再去找下一個。這種方法并不高雅，但很有效。這些都是低回報的企業。

But time is the friend of the wonderful business; it is the enemy of the lousy business. If you are in a lousy business for a long time, you will get a lousy result even if you buy it cheap. If you are in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little bit too much going in you will get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.

但時間是優質企業的朋友，是糟糕企業的敵人。如果你長期投身于一家糟糕的企業，即便買入成本很低，最終結果也會很糟糕。而如果你長期投資一家優質企業，即便初始買入價格略高，只要長期持有，也會收獲出色的回報。

I find very few wonderful businesses in Japan at present. They may change the culture in some way so that management gets more share holder responsive over there and stock returns are higher. At the present time you will find a lot of low return businesses and that was true even when the Japanese economy was booming. It is amazing; they had an incredible market without incredible companies. They were incredible in terms of doing a lot of business, but they were not incredible in terms of the return on equity that they achieved and that has finally caught up with them. So we have so far done nothing there. But as long as money is 1% there, we will keep looking.

目前，我在日本幾乎找不到什么優質企業。他們或許會在某些方面改變企業文化，讓管理層對股東的回應更積極，進而提高股票回報率。當下，日本有許多低回報的企業，即便在日本經濟繁榮時期也是如此。這很不可思議，他們曾經擁有一個令人難以置信的市場，卻沒有與之匹配的卓越公司。他們在開展大量業務方面表現出色，但在股權回報率方面卻不盡人意，而這最終還是對他們產生了影響。所以到目前為止，我們在日本沒有任何投資。但只要日本的資金成本維持在1%，我們就會繼續尋找機會。

Question: You were rumored to be one of the rescue buyers of Long Term Capital, what was the play there, what did you see?

問題：有傳言稱你是長期資本管理公司（Long Term Capital）的拯救性買家之一，當時是怎么回事，你看到了什么情況呢？

Buffett: The Fortune Magazine that has Rupert Murdoch on the cover. It tells the whole story of our involvement; it is kind of an interesting story. I got the really serious call about LTCM on a Friday afternoon that things were getting serious. I know those people most of them pretty well--most of them at Salomon when I was there. And the place was imploding and the FED was sending people up that weekend. Between that Friday and the following Wed. when the NY Fed, in effect, orchestrated a rescue effort but without any Federal money involved. I was quite active but I was having a terrible time reaching anybody.

巴菲特：就是那期封面人物是魯珀特·默多克的《財富》雜志。它講述了我們參與（長期資本管理公司事件）的整個過程，這是個挺有意思的故事。在一個周五的下午，我接到了關于長期資本管理公司（LTCM）的非常嚴肅的電話，說情況變得很嚴重了。我和那里的大多數人都很熟——我在所羅門公司（Salomon）的時候，他們中的大多數人也在那里。當時那家公司（長期資本管理公司）正面臨崩潰，那個周末美聯儲還派人過去了。從那個周五到接下來的周三，紐約聯邦儲備銀行實際上精心策劃了一場救援行動，但沒有動用任何聯邦資金。我當時非常積極地參與其中，但聯系上任何人都讓我費了好大勁。

We put in a bid on Wednesday morning. I talked to Bill McDonough at the NY Fed. We made a bid for 250 million for the net assets but we would have put in 3 and 3/4 billion on top of that. $3 billion from Berkshire, $700 mil. from AIG and $300 million. from Goldman Sachs. And we submitted that but we put a very short time limit on that because when you are bidding on 100 billion worth of securities that are moving around, you don't want to leave a fixed price bid out there for very long.

我們在周三上午提交了一份報價。我和紐約聯邦儲備銀行的比爾·麥克多諾談過。我們出價2.5億美元收購其凈資產，但除此之外我們還會額外投入37.5億美元。其中伯克希爾哈撒韋公司出資30億美元，美國國際集團（AIG）出資7億美元，高盛集團出資3億美元。我們提交了報價，但設定了非常短的時限，因為當你對價值1000億美元且價格不斷波動的證券進行出價時，你不會希望讓一個固定價格的報價長時間有效。

In the end the bankers made the deal, but it was an interesting period. The whole LTCM is really fascinating because if you take Larry Hillenbrand, Eric Rosenfeld, John Meriwether and the two Nobel prize winners. If you take the 16 of them, they have about as high an IQ as any 16 people working together in one business in the country, including Microsoft. An incredible amount of intellect in one room. Now you combine that with the fact that those people had extensive experience in the field they were operating in. These were not a bunch of guys who had made their money selling men’s clothing and all of a sudden went into the securities business. They had in aggregate, the 16, had 300 or 400 years of experience doing exactly what they were doing and then you throw in the third factor that most of them had most of their very substantial net worth’s in the businesses. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of their own money up (at risk), super high intellect and working in a field that they knew. Essentially they went broke. That to me is absolutely fascinating.

最終，銀行家們達成了交易，但那真是一段有趣的時期。整個長期資本管理公司（LTCM）的事件確實很引人深思，因為如果你想想拉里·希倫布蘭德、埃里克·羅森菲爾德、約翰·梅里韋瑟以及那兩位諾貝爾獎得主。把他們這16個人放在一起，他們的智商總和大概比美國任何一個行業里一同共事的16個人都要高，包括微軟公司的員工。同一間辦公室里匯聚了極其強大的智力資源。 現在，再結合這樣一個事實，即這些人在他們所從事的領域有著豐富的經驗。他們可不是一群靠賣男裝賺了錢，然后突然轉行進入證券行業的人。總的來說，這16個人在他們所從事的業務上，有著三四百年的經驗積累。然后還有第三個因素，他們中的大多數人把自己相當可觀的凈資產都投入到了公司業務中。他們投入了數億美元的自有資金（面臨風險），擁有超高的智商，并且在自己熟悉的領域工作。但基本上，他們最后還是破產了。這一點對我來說，絕對是非常值得探究的。

If I ever write a book it will be called, Why Smart People Do Dumb Things. My partner says it should be autobiographical. But this might be an interesting illustration. They are perfectly decent guys. I respect them and they helped me out when I had problems at Salomon. They are not bad people at all.

如果我要寫一本書，書名就叫《為什么聰明人會做蠢事》。我的搭檔說這本書應該寫成自傳。但長期資本管理公司這件事或許就是個很有意思的例證。他們都是非常不錯的人。我尊重他們，而且我在所羅門公司遇到麻煩的時候，他們還幫過我。他們壓根兒就不是壞人。

But to make money they didn’t have and didn’t need, they risked what they did have and what they did need. That is just plain foolish; it doesn’t matter what your IQ is. If you risk something that is important to you for something that is unimportant to you it just doesn’t make sense. I don’t care if the odds you succeed are 99 to 1 or 1000 to 1 that you succeed. If you hand me a gun with a million chambers with one bullet in a chamber and put it up to your temple and I am paid to pull the trigger, it doesn’t matter how much I would be paid. I would not pull the trigger. You can name any sum you want, but it doesn’t do anything for me on the upside and I think the downside is fairly clear. Yet people do it financially very much without thinking.

但是，為了賺取他們本沒有且也不需要的錢，他們拿自己所擁有且確實需要的東西去冒險。這簡直太愚蠢了，不管你的智商有多高都是如此。如果你為了一些對你來說不重要的東西，而去拿對你來說重要的東西冒險，那真的毫無道理。不管你成功的幾率是99比1，還是1000比1，我都不在乎。如果你遞給我一把有一百萬個彈膛的槍，其中一個彈膛里有一顆子彈，然后把槍抵在你的太陽穴上，還說只要我扣動扳機就給我錢，不管給我多少錢，我都不會扣動扳機。你可以說出任何你想要的金額，但這對我來說沒有任何好處，而且我覺得后果是相當明顯的。然而，人們在金融領域常常不假思索地就做出這樣的冒險行為。

There was a lousy book with a great title written by Walter Gutman—You Only Have to Get Rich Once. Now that seems pretty fundamental. If you have $100 million at the beginning of the year and you will make 10% if you are unleveraged and 20% if you are leveraged 99 times out of a 100, what difference if at the end of the year, you have $110 million or $120 million? It makes no difference. If you die at the end of the year, the guy who makes up the story may make a typo, he may have said 110 even though you had a 120. You have gained nothing at all. It makes absolutely no difference. It makes no difference to your family or anybody else.

沃爾特·古特曼寫過一本糟糕的書，卻有著很棒的書名——《你只需富一次》。這道理似乎相當基本。如果你年初有1億美元，在不使用杠桿的情況下能獲得10%的收益，而在100次里有99次使用99倍杠桿的情況下能獲得20%的收益，那么到了年底，你擁有1.1億美元還是1.2億美元又有什么區別呢？根本沒什么區別。如果你在年底去世了，撰寫關于你的事跡的人可能會打錯字，也許你有1.2億美元，可他卻寫成了1.1億美元。你根本沒有多得到什么。這絕對沒有任何差別。這對你的家人或者其他任何人來說都沒有差別。

The downside, especially if you are managing other people’s money, is not only losing all your money, but it is disgrace, humiliation and facing friends whose money you have lost. Yet 16 guys with very high IQs entered into that game. I think it is madness. It is produced by an over reliance to some extent on things. Those guys would tell me back at Salomon; a six Sigma event wouldn’t touch us. But they were wrong. History does not tell you of future things happening. They had a great reliance on mathematics. They thought that the Beta of the stock told you something about the risk of the stock. It doesn’t tell you a damn thing about the risk of the stock in my view.

不利的一面在于，尤其是當你在管理別人的錢時，不僅會賠光所有的錢，還會身敗名裂、顏面掃地，而且還要面對那些被你賠了錢的朋友們。然而，16個高智商的人卻參與了那樣的游戲。我認為這簡直是瘋狂之舉。在某種程度上，這是由于過度依賴某些東西導致的。那些人在我還在所羅門公司的時候就曾對我說：六西格瑪事件不會降臨到我們頭上。但他們錯了。歷史并不能告訴你未來會發生什么事情。他們過于依賴數學了。他們認為股票的貝塔系數能說明這只股票的風險情況。但在我看來，它對于股票的風險根本說明不了任何問題。

Sigma’s do not tell you about the risk of going broke in my view and maybe now in their view too. But I don’t like to use them as an example. The same thing in a different way could happen to any of us, where we really have a blind spot about something that is crucial, because we know a whole lot of something else. It is like Henry Kauffman said, “The ones who are going broke in this situation are of two types, the ones who know nothing and the ones who know everything.” It is sad in a way.

在我看來，西格瑪值并不能告訴你破產的風險，或許現在他們也這么認為了。但我并不想以他們為例。類似的事情換種方式也可能發生在我們任何人身上，我們在某些關鍵問題上確實存在盲點，因為我們對其他很多方面了解得太多了。就像亨利·考夫曼說的那樣：“在這種情況下破產的人有兩種，一種是什么都不懂的人，另一種是自以為什么都懂的人。”從某種程度上來說，這挺可悲的。

I urge you. We basically never borrow money. I never borrowed money even when I had $10,000 basically, what difference did it make. I was having fun as I went along it didn’t matter whether I had $10,000 or $100,000 or $1,000,000 unless I had a medical emergency come along.

我要告誡你們。我們基本上從不借錢。甚至在我只有大概一萬美元的時候，我也從不借錢，這又有什么關系呢。在人生的道路上我過得很開心，不管我擁有一萬美元、十萬美元還是一百萬美元都無所謂，除非遇到了突發的重大醫療狀況。

I was going to do the same things when I had a little bit of money as when I had a lot of money. If you think of the difference between me and you, we wear the same clothes basically (SunTrust gives me mine), we eat similar food—we all go to McDonald’s or better yet, Dairy Queen, and we live in a house that is warm in winter and cool in summer. We watch the Nebraska (football) game on big screen TV. You see it the same way I see it. We do everything the same—our lives are not that different. The only thing we do is we travel differently. What can I do that you can’t do?

當我錢不多的時候和當我有很多錢的時候，我打算做的事情是一樣的。如果你想想我和你們之間的差別，基本上我們穿的衣服是一樣的（太陽信托銀行會給我提供衣服），我們吃的食物也差不多——我們都會去麥當勞，或者更好一點，去冰雪皇后（Dairy Queen），而且我們都住在冬暖夏涼的房子里。我們會在大屏幕電視上看內布拉斯加州（橄欖球）比賽。你看到的和我看到的是一樣的。我們做的所有事情都一樣——我們的生活并沒有那么大的不同。唯一的區別就是我們出行的方式不同。有什么我能做而你們不能做的事情呢？

I get to work in a job that I love, but I have always worked at a job that I loved. I loved it just as much when I thought it was a big deal to make $1,000. I urge you to work in jobs that you love. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. I was with a fellow at Harvard the other day who was taking me over to talk. He was 28 and he was telling me all that he had done in life, which was terrific. And then I said, “What will you do next?” “Well,” he said, “Maybe after I get my MBA I will go to work for a consulting firm because it will look good on my resume.” I said, “Look, you are 28 and you have been doing all these things, you have a resume 10 times than anybody I have ever seen. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

我得以從事一份自己熱愛的工作，但其實我一直都在做自己喜歡的工作。當我覺得能掙到1000美元是件了不起的大事時，我就非常熱愛自己的工作了。我勸你們去從事自己熱愛的工作。要是你一直做著自己不喜歡的工作，僅僅是因為你覺得這在簡歷上會好看些，那我覺得你真是瘋了。前幾天我在哈佛和一個年輕人在一起，他當時帶我去聊天。他28歲，跟我講了他人生中做過的所有事情，都非常了不起。然后我問他：“那你接下來打算做什么呢？”他說：“嗯，也許等我拿到工商管理碩士學位后，我會去一家咨詢公司工作，因為這在我的簡歷上會很好看。”我說：“聽著，你才28歲，已經做了這么多事情，你的簡歷比我見過的任何人的都要豐富10倍。這難道不有點像把性生活都留到年老時才去享受嗎？ ”

There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. When I first got out of Columbia Business School, I wanted to go to work for Graham immediately for nothing. He thought I was over-priced. But I kept pestering him. I sold securities for three years and I kept writing him and finally I went to work for him for a couple of years. It was a great experience. But I always worked in a job that I loved doing. You really should take a job that if you were independently wealthy that would be the job you would take. You will learn something, you will be excited about, and you will jump out of bed. You can’t miss. You may try something else later on, but you will get way more out of it and I don’t care what the starting salary is.

總有那么一個時刻，你應該開始去做自己想做的事情。找一份你熱愛的工作。這樣你每天早上都會迫不及待地從床上跳起來。我剛從哥倫比亞商學院畢業的時候，就想立刻無償為格雷厄姆工作。他覺得我“要價”太高（能力與期望不匹配）。但我一直纏著他。我賣了三年證券，還一直給他寫信，最后終于去為他工作了幾年。那是一段很棒的經歷。但我一直都在做自己喜歡的工作。你真的應該找一份工作，一份即使你已經財富自由也依然會選擇去做的工作。你會學到東西，會對這份工作充滿熱情，而且每天都會迫不及待地起床。這樣做你不會有任何損失。你以后或許還會嘗試其他的事情，但你會從這份工作中收獲更多，而且我不在乎這份工作的起薪是多少。

When you get out of here take a job you love, not a job you think will look good on your resume. You ought to find something you like.

當你離開這里后，找一份你熱愛的工作，而不是一份你認為在簡歷上看起來會很不錯的工作。你應該找到自己喜歡的事情去做。

If you think you will be happier getting 2x instead of 1x, you are probably making a mistake. You will get in trouble if you think making 10x or 20x will make you happier because then you will borrow money when you shouldn’t or cut corners on things. It just doesn’t make sense and you won’t like it when you look back.

如果你認為得到兩倍（的財富等）會比得到一倍更幸福，那你很可能犯了一個錯誤。如果你覺得賺到十倍或二十倍的錢會讓你更幸福，那你就會陷入麻煩，因為那樣的話，你可能會在不該借錢的時候去借錢，或者在一些事情上走捷徑。這根本毫無道理，而且當你回首往事時，你不會喜歡自己當時的所作所為。

Question: What makes a company something that you like?

問題：是什么讓一家公司成為你喜歡的公司？

Buffett: I like businesses that I can understand. Let’s start with that. That narrows it down by 90%. There are all types of things I don’t understand, but fortunately, there is enough I do understand. You have this big wide world out there and almost every company is publicly owned. So you have all American business practically available to you. So it makes sense to go with things you can understand.

巴菲特：我喜歡那些我能夠理解的企業。咱們就從這一點說起。這就把范圍縮小了90%。有各種各樣我不理解的東西，但幸運的是，也有足夠多我能理解的東西。外面有廣闊的世界，而且幾乎每家公司都是公開上市的。所以實際上所有美國企業都在你的選擇范圍之內。因此，選擇那些你能夠理解的企業是有道理的。

I can understand this, anyone can understand this (Buffett holds up a bottle of CocaCola). Since 1886, it is a simple business, but it is not an easy business—I don’t want an easy business for competitors. I want a business with a moat around it. I want a very valuable castle in the middle and then I want the Duke who is in charge of that castle to be very honest and hard working and able. Then I want a moat around that castle. The moat can be various things: The moat around our auto insurance business, Geico, is low cost.

我能理解這個，任何人都能理解這個（巴菲特舉起一瓶可口可樂）。自1886年以來，這是一門簡單的生意，但它不是一門容易的生意——我可不希望對競爭對手來說這是一門容易的生意。我想要一家周圍有護城河的企業。我想要在中間有一座非常有價值的城堡，然后我希望掌管那座城堡的公爵非常誠實、勤奮且有能力。接著我還想要那座城堡周圍有一條護城河。這條護城河可以是各種各樣的東西：我們的汽車保險公司政府雇員保險公司（Geico）的護城河就是低成本。

People have to buy auto insurance so everyone is going to have one auto insurance policy per car basically. I can’t sell them 20, but they have to buy one. I can sell them 1. What are they going to buy it on? (based on what criteria?) They (customers) will buy based on service and cost. Most people will assume the service is identical among companies or close enough. So they will do it on cost. So I have to be a low cost producer--that is my moat. To the extent that my costs are further below the other guy, I have thrown a couple of sharks into the moat. All the time you have this wonderful castle, there are people out there who are going to attack it and try to take it away from you. I want a castle I can understand, but I want a castle with a moat around it.

人們必須購買汽車保險，所以基本上每個人每輛車都得買一份汽車保險保單。我沒法賣給他們20份，但他們必須買一份。我只能賣給他們一份。那他們會基于什么來購買呢？（依據什么標準呢？）他們（客戶）會基于服務和價格來購買。大多數人會認為各公司之間的服務是相同的，或者相差不大。所以他們會依據價格來做決定。因此，我必須成為低成本的供應商——這就是我的護城河。我的成本比其他公司低得越多，就相當于我往護城河里多扔了幾條鯊魚。你一直擁有這座很棒的城堡，而外面總有人會來攻打它，試圖把它從你手中奪走。我想要一座我能理解的城堡，但我更想要一座周圍有護城河環繞的城堡。

Kodak 柯達

30 years ago, Eastman Kodak’s moat was just as wide as Coca-Cola’s moat. I mean if you were going to take a picture of your six-month old baby and you want to look at that picture 20 years from now or 50 years from now. And you are never going to get a chance—you are not a professional photographer—so you can evaluate what is going to look good 20 or 50 years ago. What is in your mind about that photography company (Share of Mind) is what counts. Because they are promising you that the picture you take today is going to be terrific 20 to 50 years from now about something that is very important to you. Well, Kodak had that in spades 30 years ago, they owned that. They had what I call share of mind. Forget about share of market, share of mind. They had something—that little yellow box—that said Kodak is the best. That is priceless. They have lost some of that. They haven’t lost it all.

30年前，伊士曼柯達公司的護城河和可口可樂公司的護城河一樣寬廣。我的意思是，如果你要給六個月大的寶寶拍張照片，并且希望在20年后或者50年后還能看看這張照片。而你又絕不是專業攝影師，沒有機會去評判這張照片在20年或50年后看起來效果如何。在這種情況下，你對這家攝影公司的印象（心智占有率）才是關鍵所在。因為他們向你承諾，你今天拍攝的照片，在20年到50年后依然會很棒，而照片里記錄的是對你來說非常重要的東西。嗯，30年前的柯達在這方面優勢極為明顯，他們占據著這一領域。他們擁有我所說的心智占有率。先別提市場占有率，我說的是心智占有率。他們有那樣一個東西——那個黃色的小盒子——上面寫著“柯達是最棒的”。這是無價之寶。他們已經失去了一部分這樣的優勢，但還沒有完全喪失。

It is not due to George Fisher. George is doing a great job, but they let that moat narrow. They let Fuji come and start narrowing the moat in various ways. They let them get into the Olympics and take away that special aspect that only Kodak was fit to photograph the Olympics. So Fuji gets there and immediately in people’s minds, Fuji becomes more into parity with Kodak.

這并非喬治·費舍爾的過錯。喬治干得很出色，但他們讓柯達的護城河變窄了。他們任由富士公司進入市場，并開始以各種方式侵蝕這條護城河。他們讓富士獲得了奧運會的相關權益，失去了那種只有柯達才適合拍攝奧運會的特殊地位。于是富士進入了這個領域，而且很快在人們的認知里，富士在一定程度上與柯達平起平坐了。

You haven’t seen that with Coke; Coke’s moat is wider now than it was 30 years ago. You can’t see the moat day by day but every time the infrastructure that gets built in some country that isn’t yet profitable for Coke that will be 20 years from now. The moat is widening a little bit. Things are, all the time, changing a little in one direction or the other. Ten years from now, you will see the difference. Our managers of the businesses we run, I have one message to them, and we want to widen the moat. We want to throw crocs, sharks and gators—I guess—into the moat to keep away competitors. That comes about through service, through quality of product, it comes about through cost, some times through patents, and/or real estate location. So that is the business I am looking for.

這種情況在可口可樂身上可沒有出現；如今可口可樂的護城河比30年前更寬了。你不可能每天都察覺到這條護城河的變化，但每當在某個國家建設起那些目前對可口可樂來說還無法盈利、但20年后可能盈利的基礎設施時，可口可樂的護城河就在一點點變寬。事情總是在這樣或那樣地發生著細微的變化。十年之后，你就能看到其中的差異。對于我們所經營業務的管理者們，我只有一個要求，那就是我們要拓寬護城河。我們要往護城河里投放鱷魚、鯊魚，還有短吻鱷——我想是這些——來抵御競爭對手。這可以通過優質的服務、高質量的產品來實現，也可以通過控制成本來達成，有時候還可以依靠專利，或者是絕佳的地理位置。這就是我所追求的企業模式。

Now what kind of businesses am I going to find like that? Well, I am going to find them in simple products because I am not going to be able to figure what the moat is going to look like for Oracle, Lotus or Microsoft, ten years from now. Gates is the best businessman I have ever run into and they have a hell of a position, but I really don’t know what that business is going to look like ten years from now. I certainly don’t know what his competitors will look like ten years from now. I know what the chewing business will look like ten years from now. The Internet is not going to change how we chew gum and nothing much else is going to change how we chew gum. There will lots of new products. Is Spearmint or Juicy Fruit going to evaporate? It isn’t going to happen. You give me a billion dollars and tell me to go into the chewing gum business and try to make a real dent in Wrigley’s. I can’t do it. That is how I think about businesses. I say to myself, give me a billion dollars and how much can I hurt the guy? Give me $10 billion dollars and how much can I hurt Coca-Cola around the world? I can’t do it. Those are good businesses.

那么，我要到哪里去找到這樣的企業呢？嗯，我會在簡單產品領域去尋找，因為我無法想象十年之后，甲骨文、蓮花軟件公司或者微軟的護城河會是什么樣子。蓋茨是我見過的最出色的商人，他們的企業也占據著極其有利的地位，但我真的不知道十年后這些企業會發展成什么樣子。我當然無從知曉十年之后，他的競爭對手會是什么樣子，我也不知道。但我知道十年之后口香糖行業會是什么樣子。互聯網改變不了我們嚼口香糖的方式，其他東西也很難改變我們嚼口香糖的習慣。未來會有很多新產品出現。綠箭口香糖或者果味口香糖會消失嗎？那是不可能的。你給我十億美元，讓我進入口香糖行業，試著對箭牌公司造成實質性的沖擊，我做不到。我就是這樣思考企業的。我會對自己說，給我十億美元，我能對那個企業造成多大的傷害呢？給我一百億美元，我又能在全球范圍內對可口可樂造成多大的傷害呢？我做不到。這些都是優秀的企業。

Now give me some money and tell me to hurt somebody in some other fields, and I can figure out how to do it.

現在給我一些錢，然后讓我去在其他某些領域中打擊某個企業，那我就能想出該怎么做。

So I want a simple business, easy to understand, great economics now, honest and able management, and then I can see about in a general way where they will be ten (10) years from now. If I can’t see where they will be ten years from now, I don’t want to buy it. Basically, I don’t want to buy any stock where if they close the NYSE tomorrow for five years, I won’t be happy owning it. I buy a farm and I don’t get a quote on it for five years and I am happy if the farm does OK. I buy an apartment house and don’t get a quote on it for five years, I am happy if the apartment house produces the returns that I expect. People buy a stock and they look at the price next morning and they decide to see if they are doing well or not doing well. It is crazy. They are buying a piece of the business. That is what Graham—the most fundamental part of what he taught me.

所以我想要的是一家簡單的企業，易于理解，目前有著良好的經濟效益，擁有誠實且有能力的管理團隊，而且大體上我能預見它十年后的發展狀況。如果我無法預見它十年后的樣子，我就不會買入它。基本上來說，如果紐約證券交易所明天關閉五年，而我持有某只股票卻會因此不開心的話，我就不會去買這只股票。我買了一個農場，五年內都沒有它的報價，但如果這個農場經營狀況良好，我就會很高興。我買了一棟公寓樓，五年內沒有它的報價，但如果這棟公寓樓能帶來我預期的收益，我也會很開心。人們買了一只股票，第二天早上就盯著股價，然后據此判斷自己做得好不好。這太瘋狂了。他們買的可是企業的一部分啊。這就是格雷厄姆所教給我的最核心的內容。

You are not buying a stock, you are buying part ownership in a business. You will do well if the business does well, if you didn’t pay a totally silly price. That is what it is all about. You ought to buy businesses you understand. Just like if you buy farms, you ought to buy farms you understand. It is not complicated.

你買的不是股票，而是一家企業的部分所有權。如果這家企業經營得好，而且你當初買入的價格也并非愚蠢至極，那么你就會獲得不錯的收益。事情的本質就是如此。你應該買入那些你了解的企業。這就如同你購買農場一樣，你應該購買那些你了解的農場。這并不復雜。

Incidentally, by the way, in calling this Graham-Buffett, this is pure Graham. I was very fortunate. I picked up his book (The Intelligent Investor) when I was nineteen; I got interested in stocks when I was 6 or 7. I bought my first stock when I was eleven. But I was playing around with all this stuff—I had charts and volume and I was making all types of technical calculations and everything. Then I picked up a little book that said you are not just buying some little ticker symbol, that bounces around every day, you are buying part of a business. Soon as I started thinking about it that way, everything else followed. It is very simple. So we buy businesses we think we can understand. There is no one here who can’t understand Coke…………..

順便說一下，之所以把這稱為格雷厄姆-巴菲特投資理念，其實這完全源自格雷厄姆。我非常幸運。我19歲的時候讀到了他的書（《聰明的投資者》）；我六七歲的時候就對股票產生了興趣。我11歲時買了自己的第一支股票。但在那之前我一直是瞎折騰——我有股價走勢圖、成交量數據，還做著各種技術分析之類的事情。然后我讀到了一本小冊子，上面說你不只是在買一個每天上下波動的股票代碼，你買的是一家企業的一部分。一旦我開始從這個角度去思考，其他的一切也就順理成章了。這非常簡單。所以我們買入那些我們認為自己能夠理解的企業。在座的各位沒有人理解不了可口可樂公司……

If I was teaching a class at business school, on the final exam I would pass out the information on an Internet company and ask each student to value it. Anybody that gave me an answer, I’d flunk (Laughter).

如果我在商學院授課，在期末考試時，我會給學生們發放關于一家互聯網公司的資料，然后讓每個學生對它進行估值。要是有人給我一個（關于該公司估值的）答案，我就會讓他不及格。（笑聲）

I don’t know how to do it. But people do it all the time; it is more exciting. If you look at it like you are going to the races--that is a different thing--but if you are investing…. Investing is putting out money to be sure of getting more back later at an appropriate rate. And to do that you have to understand what you are doing at any time. You have to understand the business. You can understand some businesses but not all businesses.

我可不知道該如何去給互聯網公司估值。但人們卻總是在這么做，而且他們覺得這更刺激。如果你把這當成是去賽馬場賭馬——那就是另一回事了——但如果你是在做投資……投資是投入資金，目的是確保日后能以合適的回報率獲得更多的回報。要做到這一點，你在任何時候都必須清楚自己在做什么。你必須了解相關的企業。你能夠了解某些企業，但不可能了解所有的企業。

Question: You covered half of it which is trying to understand a business and buying a business. You also alluded to getting a return on the amount of capital invested in the business. How do you determine what is the proper price to pay for the business?

問題：你已經談到了其中的一半，即努力去了解一家企業并買入這家企業。你也間接提到了投入到企業中的資金要獲得回報。那么你如何確定為一家企業支付怎樣的價格才是合適的呢？

Buffett: It is a tough thing to decide but I don’t want to buy into any business I am not terribly sure of. So if I am terribly sure of it, it probably won’t offer incredible returns. Why should something that is essentially a cinch to do well, offer you 40% a year? We don’t have huge returns in mind, but we do have in mind not losing anything. We bought See’s Candy in 1972, See’s Candy was then selling 16 m. pounds of candy at a $1.95 a pound and it was making 2 bits a pound or $4 million pre-tax. We paid $25 million for it—6.25 x pretax or about 10x after tax. It took no capital to speak of. When we looked at that business—basically, my partner, Charlie, and I—we needed to decide if there was some untapped pricing power there. Where that $1.95 box of candy could sell for $2 to $2.25. If it could sell for $2.25 or another $0.30 per pound that was $4.8 on 16 million pounds. Which on a $25 million purchase price was fine. We never hired a consultant in our lives; our idea of consulting was to go out and buy a box of candy and eat it.

巴菲特：這是個很難做的決定，但我不想買入任何我沒有十足把握的企業。所以，如果我對某家企業有十足把握，它可能也不會帶來令人難以置信的高回報。為什么一件基本上肯定會經營得很好的事情，卻要給你每年40%的回報率呢？我們沒想過要獲得巨額回報，但我們確實想著不要有任何損失。我們在1972年收購了喜詩糖果公司。當時喜詩糖果每年銷售1600萬磅糖果，每磅售價1.95美元，每磅能賺20美分，也就是稅前利潤400萬美元。我們花了2500萬美元收購它，相當于稅前利潤的6.25倍，或者說稅后利潤的10倍左右。而且經營這家企業基本不需要投入什么資金。當我和我的合伙人查理審視這家企業時，我們需要判斷它是否存在尚未挖掘的定價能力。也就是那盒售價1.95美元的糖果能否賣到2美元到2.25美元。如果它能賣到2.25美元，也就是每磅再提高0.3美元，那么1600萬磅糖果就能多賺480萬美元。對于2500萬美元的收購價格來說，這是很不錯的。我們這輩子從來沒有雇用過顧問；我們所謂的咨詢方式就是出去買一盒糖果，然后把它吃掉。

What we did know was that they had share of mind in California. There was something special. Every person in Ca. has something in mind about See’s Candy and overwhelmingly it was favorable. They had taken a box on Valentine’s Day to some girl and she had kissed him. If she slapped him, we would have no business. As long as she kisses him, that is what we want in their minds. See’s Candy means getting kissed. If we can get that in the minds of people, we can raise prices. I bought it in 1972, and every year I have raised prices on Dec. 26th, the day after Christmas, because we sell a lot on Christmas. In fact, we will make $60 million this year. We will make $2 per pound on 30 million pounds. Same business, same formulas, same everything--$60 million bucks and it still doesn’t take any capital.

我們當時確實知道的是，喜詩糖果在加利福尼亞州擁有較高的心智占有率。它有著一些特別之處。加利福尼亞州的每個人對喜詩糖果都有一定的印象，而且絕大多數都是好印象。有人曾在情人節時送了一盒喜詩糖果給某個女孩，然后那個女孩吻了他。要是女孩扇了他一巴掌，那我們的生意可就沒戲了。只要女孩吻了他，這就是我們希望在人們心中留下的印象。喜詩糖果意味著會得到親吻。如果我們能讓人們有這樣的想法，我們就能提高價格。我在1972年收購了這家公司，從那以后每年的12月26日，也就是圣誕節后的第二天，我都會提高價格，因為我們在圣誕節期間的銷量很大。事實上，今年我們將盈利6000萬美元。我們銷售3000萬磅糖果，每磅能賺2美元。同樣的生意，同樣的配方，一切都沒變，卻能賺6000萬美元，而且依然不需要投入什么資金。

And we make more money 10 years from now. But of that $60 million, we make $55 million in the three weeks before Christmas. And our company song is: “What a friend we have in Jesus.” (Laughter). It is a good business. Think about it a little. Most people do not buy boxed chocolate to consume themselves, they buy them as gifts— somebody’s birthday or more likely it is a holiday. Valentine’s Day is the single biggest day of the year. Christmas is the biggest season by far. Women buy for Christmas and they plan ahead and buy over a two or three week period. Men buy on Valentine’s Day. They are driving home; we run ads on the Radio. Guilt, guilt, guilt—guys are veering off the highway right and left. They won’t dare go home without a box of Chocolates by the time we get through with them on our radio ads. So that Valentine’s Day is the biggest day.

而且十年后我們還能賺更多的錢。在這6000萬美元的利潤中，有5500萬美元是在圣誕節前的三周內賺來的。我們公司的歌是：“主耶穌是我們多么好的朋友。”（笑聲）這是一樁好生意。稍微思考一下就明白了。大多數人買盒裝巧克力并不是為了自己吃，而是買來當禮物——比如給別人過生日，或者更常見的是在節假日時送。情人節是一年中最重要的單個日子。而圣誕節則是到目前為止最重要的節日季。女性會為了過圣誕節買巧克力，她們會提前計劃，然后在兩三個星期的時間里購買。男性則在情人節買巧克力。他們在開車回家的路上，而我們在電臺播放廣告。負罪感，負罪感，滿滿的負罪感——男人們紛紛偏離高速公路（去買巧克力）。在我們電臺廣告的“攻勢”下，他們可不敢不帶上一盒巧克力就回家。所以情人節是最重要的日子。

Can you imagine going home on Valentine’s Day—our See’s Candy is now $11 a pound thanks to my brilliance. And let’s say there is candy available at $6 a pound. Do you really want to walk in on Valentine’s Day and hand—she has all these positive images of See’s Candy over the years—and say, “Honey, this year I took the low bid.” And hand her a box of candy. It just isn’t going to work. So in a sense, there is untapped pricing power—it is not price dependent.

你能想象在情人節那天回家的情景嗎？多虧了我的英明決策，我們的喜詩糖果現在每磅售價11美元。假設現在有每磅售價6美元的糖果。你真的想在情人節這天走進家門，要知道這么多年來她對喜詩糖果一直有著美好的印象，然后說：“親愛的，今年我選了個便宜的。”接著遞給她一盒糖果嗎？這根本行不通。所以從某種意義上說，喜詩糖果還有尚未挖掘的定價潛力——它并不依賴于價格（來吸引消費者購買）。

Think of Disney. Disney is selling Home Videos for $16.95 or $18.95 or whatever. All over the world—people, and we will speak particularly about Mothers in this case, have something in their mind about Disney. Everyone in this room, when you say Disney, has something in their mind about Disney. When I say Universal Pictures, if I say \(20th\) Century Fox, you don’t have anything special in your mind. Now if I say Disney, you have something special in your mind. That is true around the world.

想想迪士尼吧。迪士尼的家庭錄像帶售價為16.95美元、18.95美元或者其他價格。在全世界范圍內——就拿人們來說吧，在這種情況下我們尤其要說的是母親們，她們對迪士尼都有著一定的印象。在座的每一個人，當聽到“迪士尼”這個詞的時候，腦海中都會浮現出一些與迪士尼相關的東西。當我說環球影業，或者說20世紀福克斯的時候，你們的腦海中不會有什么特別的印象。但現在要是我說迪士尼，你們的腦海中就會有特別的想法。這在全世界都是如此。

Now picture yourself with a couple of young kids, whom you want to put away for a couple of hours every day and get some peace of mind. You know if you get one video, they will watch it twenty times. So you go to the video store or wherever to buy the video. Are you going to sit there and premier 10 different videos and watch them each for an hour and a half to decide which one your kid should watch? No. Let’s say there is one there for $16.95 and the Disney one for $17.95—you know if you take the Disney video that you are going to be OK. So you buy it. You don’t have to make a quality decision on something you don’t want to spend the time to do. So you can get a little bit more money if you are Disney and you will sell a lot more videos. It makes it a wonderful business. It makes it very tough for the other guy.

現在，想象一下你自己帶著幾個年幼的孩子，你每天都想讓他們自己待上幾個小時，好讓自己能清凈一會兒。你知道，如果你買了一盤錄像帶，孩子們會看上二十遍。于是你去音像店或者別的什么地方買錄像帶。你會坐在那兒先預覽十盤不同的錄像帶，每盤都看一個半小時，然后再決定讓你的孩子看哪一盤嗎？不會的。比如說，店里有一盤賣16.95美元，而迪士尼的那盤賣17.95美元——你知道要是買了迪士尼的那盤，就不會有問題。所以你就買了它。對于一件你不想花時間去仔細甄別的事情，你沒必要去做關于其質量的抉擇。所以，如果你是迪士尼，你就能多賣點兒錢，而且還能賣出更多的錄像帶。這就使得這成為了一樁很棒的生意。而這也讓其他同行很難與之競爭。

How would you try to create a brand—Dreamworks is trying—that competes with Disney around the world and replaces the concept that people have in their minds about Disney with something that says, Universal Pictures? So a mother is going to walk in and pick out a Universal Pictures video in preference to a Disney. It is not going to happen.

你要如何努力打造一個品牌呢——就像夢工廠正在嘗試的那樣——使其能在全球范圍內與迪士尼競爭，并把人們腦海中有關迪士尼的概念，替換為類似環球影業這樣的概念呢？這樣一來，一位母親走進商店時，會優先挑選環球影業的錄像帶，而不是迪士尼的。但這種情況是不會發生的。

Coca-Cola is associated with people being happy around the world. Everyplace – Disneyland, the World Cup, the Olympics—where people are happy. Happiness and Coke go together. Now you give me—I don’t care how much money—and tell me that I am going to do that with RC Cola around the world and have five billion people have a favorable image in their mind about RC Cola. You can’t get it done. You can fool around, you can do what you want to do. You can have price discounts on weekends. But you are not going to touch it. That is what you want to have in a business. That is the moat. You want that moat to widen.

在全世界范圍內，可口可樂都與人們的快樂聯系在一起。在每一個地方——迪士尼樂園、世界杯、奧運會——這些人們感到快樂的場合，快樂總是和可口可樂相伴相隨。現在，你給我錢——我不在乎有多少——然后讓我在全球范圍內對RC可樂（美國一種可樂品牌）也做到這一點，讓50億人心中都對RC可樂懷有好感。這是辦不到的。你可以折騰，可以為所欲為，你可以在周末搞價格優惠活動。但你就是無法做到和可口可樂一樣。這就是你希望一家企業所具備的特質。這就是護城河。你希望這條護城河不斷變寬。

If you are See’s Candy, you want to do everything in the world to make sure that the experience basically of giving that gift leads to a favorable reaction. It means what is in the box, it means the person who sells it to you, because all of our business is done when we are terribly busy. People come in during theose weeks before Chirstmas, Valentine’s Day and there are long lines. So at five o’clock in the afternoon some woman is selling someone the last box candy and that person has been waiting in line for maybe 20 or 30 customers. And if the salesperson smiles at that last customer, our moat has widened and if she snarls at ‘em, our moat has narrowed. We can’t see it, but it is going on everyday. But it is the key to it. It is the total part of the product delivery. It is having everything associated with it say, See’s Candy and something pleasant happening. That is what business is all about.

如果你是喜詩糖果公司，你就會想盡一切辦法，確保贈送這份禮物所帶來的體驗基本上能引發積極的反應。這涉及到盒子里裝的是什么，也關乎把糖果賣給你的那個人，因為我們所有的生意都在非常忙碌的時候進行。人們會在圣誕節前的那幾周以及情人節期間光顧，店里常常排著長隊。所以，在下午五點鐘的時候，有位女售貨員在把最后一盒糖果賣給某位顧客，而這位顧客可能已經等了前面二三十位顧客了。如果售貨員對最后這位顧客微笑，我們的護城河就變寬了；要是她對顧客兇巴巴的，我們的護城河就變窄了。我們看不到這種變化，但它每天都在發生。而這就是關鍵所在。這是產品交付過程中不可或缺的一部分。與喜詩糖果相關的一切都意味著，只要提到喜詩糖果，就會聯想到一些令人愉快的事情發生。這就是生意的真諦所在。

Question: If I have every bought a company where the numbers told me not to. How much is quantitative and how much is qualitative?

問題：我是否曾收購過一家數據顯示不該收購的公司？在決策過程中，定量因素和定性因素各占多大比重？

Buffett: The best buys have been when the numbers almost tell you not to. Because then you feel so strongly about the product. And not just the fact you are getting a used cigar butt cheap. Then it is compelling. I owned a windmill company at one time. Windmills are cigar butts, believe me. I bought it very cheap, I bought it at a third of working capital. And we made money out of it, but there is no repetitive money to be made on it. There is a one-time profit in something like that. And it is just not the thing to be doing. I went through that phase. I bought streetcar companies and all kinds of things. In terms of the qualitative, I probably understand the qualitative the moment I get the phone call. Almost every business we have bought has taken five or ten minutes in terms of analysis. We bought two businesses this year.

巴菲特：最劃算的收購往往是那種從數據上看幾乎不應該去做的收購。因為那時你會對該公司的產品有著強烈的信心。這可不只是因為你能廉價買到一個“雪茄煙蒂”（指那些看似廉價但價值有限、沒有發展潛力的公司）。那樣的收購才是有吸引力的。我曾經擁有過一家風車公司。相信我，風車公司就是“雪茄煙蒂”式的企業。我以很低的價格買下了它，價格只有其營運資金的三分之一。我們從這家公司賺了錢，但沒辦法持續從它身上賺錢。這類公司只能帶來一次性的利潤。這可不是值得去做的事情。我經歷過那個階段。我買過有軌電車公司以及各種各樣的公司。至于定性分析方面，可能在我接到電話的那一刻就對其定性有所了解了。幾乎我們收購的每一家公司，從分析的角度來說，都只花了五到十分鐘的時間。今年我們就收購了兩家公司。

General Re is a $18 billion deal. I have never been to their home office. I hope it is there. (Laughter) “There could be a few guys there saying what numbers should we send Buffett this month?” I could see them going once a month and saying we have $20 billion in the bank instead of $18 billion. I have never been there.

通用再保險公司（General Re）那筆交易涉及金額達180億美元。我從來沒去過他們的總部辦公室。我希望它確實在那兒。（笑聲）“說不定那兒有幾個人在商量這個月該給巴菲特送什么樣的數據呢？”我能想象他們每個月來這么一次，然后虛報說銀行里有200億美元，而不是實際的180億美元。可我從來就沒去過那兒。

Before I bought Executive Jet, which is fractional ownership of jets, before I bought it, I had never been there. I bought my family a quarter interest in the program three years earlier. And I have seen the service and it seems to develop well. And I got the numbers. But if you don’t know enough to know about the business instantly, you won’t know enough in a month or in two months. You have to have sort of the background of understanding and knowing what you do or don’t understand. That is the key. It is defining your circle of competence.

在我收購“行政噴氣機公司”（該公司提供飛機的部分產權服務）之前，我從沒去過那兒。三年前，我給家人在該公司的項目中買了四分之一的產權份額。我體驗過他們的服務，而且看起來發展得很不錯。我也拿到了相關數據。但如果你沒有足夠的能力立刻了解這家公司的業務，那么給你一個月或者兩個月的時間，你也還是了解不夠。你必須具備一定的背景知識，能明白自己理解什么、不理解什么。這才是關鍵所在。這就是界定你自己的能力圈。

Everybody has got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is, the important thing is the size of the circle; the important thing is staying inside the circle. And if that circle only has 30 companies in it out of 1000s on the big board, as long as you know which 30 they are, you will be OK. And you should know those businesses well enough so you don’t need to read lots of work. Now I did a lot of work in the earlier years just getting familiar with businesses and the way I would do that is use what Phil Fisher would call, the “Scuttlebutt Approach.” I would go out and talk to customers, suppliers, and maybe ex-employees in some cases. Everybody. Everytime I was interested in an industry, say it was coal, I would go around and see every coal company. I would ask every CEO, “If you could only buy stock in one coal company that was not your own, which one would it be and why? You piece those things together, you learn about the business after awhile.

每個人都有不同的能力圈。重要的不是能力圈有多大，重要的不是能力圈的規模大小；重要的是要待在能力圈之內。如果在證券交易所上市的數千家公司中，你的能力圈里只有30家公司，只要你清楚這30家公司是哪些，那你就沒問題。而且你應該對這些公司足夠了解，這樣你就不需要做大量的研究工作。在早年的時候，我確實做了大量的工作來熟悉各類公司，而我采用的方法就是菲利普·費雪所說的“閑聊調查法”。我會走出去，與客戶、供應商交談，在某些情況下，可能還會和前雇員交流。和所有相關的人交流。每當我對某個行業感興趣時，比如說煤炭行業，我就會四處走訪，去考察每一家煤炭公司。我會問每一位首席執行官：“如果你只能購買一家非自己公司的煤炭企業的股票，你會選哪一家，為什么？”你把這些信息拼湊起來，過一段時間后，你就會了解這個行業了。

Funny, you get very similar answers as long as you ask about competitors. If you had a silver bullet and you could put it through the head of one competitor, which competitor and why? You will find who the best guy is in the industry. So there are a lot of things you can learn about a business. I have done that in the past on the business I felt I could understand so I don’t have to do that anymore. The nice thing about investing is that you don’t have to learn anything new. You can do it if you want to, but if you learn Wrigley’s chewing gum forty years ago, you still understand Wrigley’s chewing gum. There are not a lot of great insights to get of the sort as you go along. So you do get a database in your head.

很有意思的是，只要你詢問有關競爭對手的問題，得到的答案往往非常相似。如果你有一顆“銀子彈”（殺手锏），可以用它來對付一個競爭對手，你會選哪個競爭對手，又為什么呢？通過這樣的問題，你就會發現這個行業里誰才是最厲害的角色。所以，有很多方法你可以了解一家企業。過去，對于那些我覺得自己能夠理解的企業，我就是這么做的，所以現在我不必再那樣做了。投資這件事的美妙之處在于，你不必去學習任何新東西。如果你想學習新東西，當然也可以去學，但如果你在四十年前就了解了箭牌口香糖公司，那么現在你依然了解箭牌口香糖公司。在這個過程中，你并不需要獲得很多那種高深莫測的見解。所以，你的腦海中確實會形成一個信息庫。

I had a guy, Frank Rooney, who ran Melville for many years; his father-in-law died and had owned H.H. Brown, a shoe company. And he put it up with Goldman Sachs. But he was playing golf with a friend of mine here in Florida and he mentioned it to this friend, so my friend said “Why don’t you call Warren?” He called me after the match and in five minutes I basically had a deal.

我認識一個人，弗蘭克·魯尼，他經營梅爾維爾公司很多年。他的岳父去世了，生前擁有一家名為H.H. 布朗的鞋業公司。他通過高盛公司準備出售這家公司。當時他在佛羅里達和我的一個朋友一起打高爾夫球，他跟我這個朋友提到了這件事，于是我的朋友就說：“你為什么不給沃倫打個電話呢？”打完球后他就給我打了電話，五分鐘內我基本上就敲定了一樁交易。

But I knew Frank, and I knew the business. I sort of knew the basic economics of the shoe business, so I could buy it. Quantitatively, I have to decide what the price is. But, you know, that is either yes or no. I don’t fool a lot around with negotiations. If they name a price that makes sense to me, I buy it. If they don’t, I was happy the day before, so I will be happy the day after without owning it.

但我了解弗蘭克，也了解這個行業。我大致清楚制鞋業的基本經濟狀況，所以我能買下這家公司。從定量分析的角度來看，我得確定價格是否合適。不過，你知道的，這無非就是買或者不買的問題。我不太喜歡在談判上過多糾纏。如果他們提出的價格我覺得合理，我就買下來。如果價格不合適，反正我在這之前的日子過得也很開心，那么即便不買下這家公司，之后的日子我也照樣開心。

Question: The Asian Crisis and how it affects a company like Coke that recently announced their earnings would be lower in the fourth quarter.

問題：亞洲金融危機以及它對像可口可樂這樣的公司有何影響，該公司最近宣布其第四季度收益將會下降。

Buffett: Well, basically I love it, but because the market for Coca-Cola products will grow far faster over the next twenty years internationally than it will in the United States. It will grow in the U.S. on a per capita basis. The fact that it will be a tough period for who knows—three months or three years—but it won’t be tough for twenty years. People will still be going to be working productively around the world and they are going to find this is a bargain product in terms of a portion of their working day that they have to give up in order to have one of these, better yet, five of them a day like I do.

巴菲特：嗯，基本上我對此持樂觀態度，因為在未來二十年里，可口可樂產品在國際市場的增長速度將遠遠超過在美國市場的增長速度。在美國，從人均角度來看，它也會有所增長。雖然誰也不知道會有一段艱難時期持續多久——可能是三個月，也可能是三年——但不會艱難二十年之久。世界各地的人們仍將高效地工作，而且他們會發現，就為了能喝上一瓶可口可樂（要是能像我一樣一天喝上五瓶就更好了）而需要付出的那部分工作時間而言，這是一種很劃算的商品。

This is a product that in 1936 when I first bought 6 of those for a quarter and sold them for a nickel each. It was in a 6.5 oz bottle and you paid a two cents deposit on the bottle. That was a 6.5 oz. bottle for a nickel at that time; it is now a 12 oz. can which if you buy it on Weekends or if you buy it in bigger quantities, so much money doesn’t go to packaging—you essentially can buy the 12 ozs. for not much more than 20 cents. So you are paying not much more than twice the per oz. price of 1936. This is a product that has gotten cheaper and cheaper relative to people’s earning power over the years. And which people love. And in 200 countries, you have the per capita consumption use going up every year for a product that is over 100 years old that dominates the market. That is...