原文信息：
- 标题：Visit to Warren Buffett by a group of MBA students from the Tuck School of Business
- 作者：Tuck School of Business
- 发表时间：2005
- 中文翻译：DeepL等
- 整理：Terrellchen、Ponge
- 校译：
2005 Tuck Trip
2005 年塔克之旅 Trip Agenda 行程安排
8:15-9:45am Nebraska Furniture Mart tour with Bob Batt, EVP
8:15-9:45am
与执行副总裁鲍勃·巴特 (Bob Batt) 一起参观内布拉斯加州家具市场
10am-11:30am Discussion with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.
11:45-2:15pm Lunch at Gorat’s Steakhouse with Warren Buffett
11:45-2:15 PM
在 Gorat’s Steakhouse 与沃伦·巴菲特共进午餐
Summary
摘要
For the 2nd consecutive year, 49 second-year Tuck students and Professor Robert Howell flew to Omaha, Nebraska for a two-hour Q&A session with legendary investor Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Buffett took us all to lunch at Gorat’s steakhouse after our meeting. Prior to our meeting we took a private tour of Berkshire-owned Nebraska Furniture Mart with EVP Bob Batt.
塔克商学院 49 名二年级学生和 Robert Howell 教授连续第二年飞往内布拉斯加州奥马哈，与传奇投资家、伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长沃伦·巴菲特进行了两小时的问答环节。会议结束后，巴菲特先生带我们大家去高拉特牛排馆吃午餐。在我们会面之前，我们与执行副总裁鲍勃·巴特 (Bob Batt) 一起私人参观了伯克希尔旗下的内布拉斯加州家具市场。
We had high expectations for the trip and Mr. Buffett exceeded them. Please find below transcribed notes from the events followed by some brief reflections on our experience.
我们对这次旅行抱有很高的期望，巴菲特先生超出了我们的期望。请参阅以下活动记录，以及对我们经验的一些简短反思。
Tour of Nebraska Furniture Mart
参观内布拉斯加州家具市场
Upon entering the enormous furniture superstore, Bob Batt, along with employees Jeff and Kristen, greeted us with a sign welcoming the “#1 Business School in America” fresh from the Wall Street Journal article earlier in the week. During the tour we picked up several pointers from Mr. Batt:
进入这家巨大的家具超市后，鲍勃·巴特 (Bob Batt) 与员工杰夫 (Jeff) 和克里斯汀 (Kristen) 一起向我们打招呼，举着本周早些时候《华尔街日报》文章中刚刚报道过的“美国第一商学院”的标语。在参观过程中，我们从巴特先生那里得到了几点建议：
- On being open on weekends/holidays: “gotta be there when the customers are there”
关于周末/节假日营业：“有顾客就在场营业”
- Sam Walton: “If you don’t care about your customers someone else will”
萨姆·沃尔顿：“如果你不在意你的顾客，其他人会在意他们”
- Furniture retailing in Omaha is now a global business, events in China and India will affect the bottom line.
奥马哈的家具零售现在是一项全球性业务，中国和印度的事件将影响利润。
- Continuous cleaning is very important, nobody buys from a dirty store.
持续清洁非常重要，没有人会从肮脏的商店购买东西。
- Target customers are women, they make the purchasing decisions.
目标客户是女性，她们做出购买决定。
- “How credible are you when you’re selling?”
“你卖东西的时候可信度如何？”
- Learned crowd control from Disneyland, keep people in line entertained.
从迪士尼乐园学到了人群控制，让排队的人乐在其中。
- There is no consignment, all inventory is owned: “cash is king” - furniture manufacturers will give discounts to customers paying cash
没有寄售，所有库存自有：“现金为王”——家具厂家会给支付现金的顾客折扣
- In 1975 NFM lost all stores in a tornado, they made a Red Cross contribution the next day.
1975年，NFM在龙卷风中失去了所有商店，第二天他们就向红十字会捐款。
- NFM does not have employment contracts, has never fired an employee in 61 years.
NFM
没有雇佣合同，61年来从未解雇过员工。
- When asked what market segment NFM targets, Mr. Batt replied “we want it all”.
当被问及 NFM 的目标市场是什么时，巴特先生回答说“我们都想要”。
- Television sales are highly correlated to Nebraska’s football schedule.
电视销售与内布拉斯加州的足球赛程高度相关。
- ‘Adjacencies’ are very important; having complementary items displayed near each other. For example, lamps and rugs near where chairs and couches sold.
“邻接”非常重要；将互补的物品彼此靠近展示。例如，出售椅子和沙发的地方附近摆放灯和地毯。
After about an hour many students were planning kitchens and living rooms for their future houses. The story of NFM’s founding was referenced multiple times, and was a recurring theme during our meeting with Mr. Buffett as well. Rose Blumkin, aka ‘Ms. B’, started NFM in 1937 with $500 of friends and family money in her basement. She couldn’t read or write and had never attended school at any level but built the largest furniture retailer in the region. NFM was sold to Mr. Buffett in 1983. After a difference of opinion with the current management team, Mrs. B started another furniture store at age 97. She sold this new furniture store to Berkshire a few years later, at which time Mr. Buffett wisely required her to sign a 10-year non-compete agreement. Her greatest asset was her passion, a pre-requisite for business success according to Mr. Buffett.
大约一个小时后，许多学生开始为他们未来的房子规划厨房和客厅。 多次提到了 NFM 的创建故事，也是我们与巴菲特先生会面时反复出现的主题。罗斯·布卢姆金，又名“ B 夫人”‘于 1937 年用朋友和家人的 500 美元在她的地下室创立了 NFM。她不识字，也从未上过学，但却创建了当地最大的家具零售商。 1983年，NFM被卖给了巴菲特先生。在与现任管理团队发生意见分歧后，B夫人在97岁时又开了一家家具店。几年后，她将这家新的家具店卖给了伯克希尔公司，当时巴菲特先生明智地要求她签署一份为期 10 年的竞业禁止协议。她最大的财富就是她的激情，巴菲特先生认为这是商业成功的先决条件
Bus ride from NFM to Berkshire headquarters
从 NFM 到伯克希尔总部的巴士行程
As we were riding through Omaha our driver got on the loudspeaker to let us know we were about to pass Mr. Buffett’s house. We couldn’t tell which one it was and our designated photographer snapped pictures of a few wrong houses before we got to Mr. Buffett’s. It was not the largest house on the block. More context for this observation became clear later in the day.
当我们开车穿过奥马哈时，司机打开扩音器告诉我们即将经过巴菲特先生的房子。我们无法辨别是哪一栋房子，在我们到达巴菲特先生家之前，我们指定的摄影师拍了几处错误的房子的照片。巴菲特先生的房子并不是这个街区最大的房子。当天晚些时候，我们对这一看法有了更多的了解。
Q&A Session with Buffett: One of the few rules for our meeting was no laptops, so all notes were taken using pen and paper. Below is what I was able to transcribe from scribbled notes and memory, they should not be read as direct quotes from Mr. Buffett.
Intro
介绍
“When you checked into your hotel they gave you a pamphlet that said ‘Things to do in Omaha…you’re doing it’. At Notre Dame they have a sign in their locker room that says Play Like a Champion, at Berkshire we’re putting one up that says Remember Your Helmet. Both are important for business. When the scientist Max Planck was touring Europe giving speeches about his theories, he gave the same lecture so many times that eventually his chauffer memorized the speech. For fun one day Max and his driver swapped clothes, and the driver delivered the speech flawlessly while Max looked on from the side of the stage in a chauffer’s uniform. To open the Q&A the driver received an extremely complicated technical question from an audience member, shook his head, and said replied in an exasperated tone: ‘that is such a simple question I’m going to let my chauffer answer it.’ on that note, please ask me anything you want, simple or complicated, anything except for what I’m investing in.” [Mr. Buffett also congratulated us on being named the #1 business school by WSJ.]
”
当你入住酒店时，他们会给你一本小册子，上面写着’在奥马哈要做的事…你正在做’。在圣母大学，他们的更衣室里挂着一个牌子，上面写着’像冠军一样比赛’，在伯克希尔，我们也挂了一个牌子，上面写着’安全第一’。这两点对企业都很重要。当科学家马克斯-普朗克（Max Planck）在欧洲巡回演讲他的理论时，他做了很多次同样的演讲，最终他的司机记住了他的演讲。有一天，为了好玩，马克斯和他的司机互换了衣服，司机完美无瑕地发表了演讲，而马克斯则穿着司机的制服在台下观看。在开场问答时，司机收到了一位观众提出的一个极其复杂的技术问题，他摇了摇头，用气呼呼的语气回答说：‘这个问题太简单了，我还是让我的司机来回答吧。关于这一点，请问我任何你想问的问题，简单或复杂的，除了我的投资以外的任何问题。” 巴菲特先生还祝贺我们被《华尔街日报》评为第一商学院。]
Q&A Session
问答环节
Q: In one of your letters to shareholders you reference Byron Trott grudgingly as “an investment banker who earns his fee”. What do you feel Wall St. does well and doesn’t do well?
问：在您给股东的一封信中，您不情愿地称拜伦·特洛特为“一位赚取佣金的投资银行家”。您认为华尔街哪些方面做得好，哪些方面做得不好？
A: Wall St. makes money well. Per incremental unit of energy and IQ, you will make more money on Wall St. than anywhere else. Wall St. is very good at selling things and at auctions, they’re good if you’re selling a business. on the other hand, there are so many products that Wall St. has created and not all of them are good. There’s a pervasive sense of ‘if you don’t do it someone else will’. There’s an HBO movie coming out in October called Last Best Chance, it’s about a nuclear crisis precipitated by a Russian soldier who is bribed by terrorists stealing a weapon. He almost didn’t go through with it but they told him ‘if you don’t do it someone else will, so you may as well be the one to get the money’. This type of thinking has gotten people into trouble, like CEOs managing earnings. In 1985 a Cleveland firm, Scott & Fetzer [a conglomerate that included World Book encyclopedias] was selling their business, First Boston was their advisor and they sent pitches to twenty buyers without anyone biting. Berkshire didn’t get a pitch, but I sent the seller, Mr. [Ralph] Schey, a letter saying we were interested and did the deal. Since First Boston was due a fee from any transaction, at a closing dinner they offered Charlie [Munger] their pitch book with pages of analysis, Charlie replied ‘no thanks’. We only buy companies where the seller cares about where the business goes.
**
答： 华尔街很会赚钱。每增加一个单位的精力和智商，你在华尔街比在其他任何地方都能赚到更多的钱。另一方面，华尔街创造了许多产品，但并非所有产品都是好产品。“你不做，别人也会做 “的感觉无处不在。HBO 有部电影将于 10 月份上映，名为《最后的机会》，讲述的是一名俄罗斯士兵被恐怖分子收买，偷窃武器，从而引发了一场核危机。他差点就不干了，但他们告诉他’如果你不干，别人也会干，所以还不如让你来拿钱’。这种想法让人们陷入困境，比如首席执行官管理收益。1985 年，克利夫兰的一家公司 Scott & Fetzer（一家包括世界图书百科全书在内的企业集团）要出售他们的业务，第一波士顿是他们的顾问，他们向 20 个买家发出了报价，但没有人上钩。伯克希尔公司没有收到报价，但我给卖方拉尔夫-谢伊先生发了一封信，说我们有兴趣，并做了这笔交易。由于第一波士顿公司要从任何交易中收取费用，在一次成交晚宴上，他们向查理提供了他们的投资分析书，查理回答说 “不，谢谢”。我们只买卖方关心业务去向的公司。**
Q: How will the expensing of stock options affect entrepreneurship and small business?
问：股票期权费用化对创业和小企业有何影响？
A: Not much at all. Berkshire has never used options as compensation in our companies. At The Pampered Chef [a Berkshire acquired cooking utensil company], our employees value travel awards as a kind of extra compensation. Often the recipients of stock options don’t place the same value on them as the giver does, or should. In the 90’s when we were involved with Salomon Brothers instead of granting stock options to employees I offered to sell them options at 80% of their present value. They turned it down.
答：没多大影响。伯克希尔从未在我们的公司使用期权作为补偿。在 The Pampered Chef（伯克希尔收购的一家烹饪用具公司），我们的员工非常重视旅行奖励，将其视为一种额外的补偿。通常情况下，股票期权的接受者并不像授予者那样看重期权，或者说不应该看重期权。上世纪 90 年代，当我们与所罗门兄弟公司（Salomon Brothers）合作时，我并没有向员工授予股票期权，而是提出以股票期权现值的 80% 出售给他们。他们拒绝了。
Q: Do you think oil is fairly priced given emerging market growth?
问：您认为考虑到新兴市场的增长，石油价格是否合理？
A: It’s fairly priced given today’s information. In 2004 when oil was at 27. Today the forward curve is flat, the market thinks these prices are here to stay. There are currently 500,000 oil producing wells in the U.S., there isn’t any more domestic oil left undiscovered. It takes about one hour of pumping out of a U.S. well to produce enough crude to make enough gasoline to fill the typical 20-gallon gas tank, which takes about a minute to fill up. [The format was one question per person. At this point a student prefaced his question by stating it was a two-part question, here is Mr. Buffett’s reply]
答：从目前的信息来看，这个价格是合理的。2004 年，石油价格为 35 美元/桶，2012 年的期货价格为 27 美元。如今，远期曲线是平的，市场认为这种价格会持续下去。美国目前有 50 万口产油井，国内已没有未被发现的石油。从美国的油井中抽出足够的原油大约需要一个小时，而生产出的汽油足够装满一个20加仑的油箱，而装满油箱大约需要一分钟。\每人一个问题。此时，一名学生在提问前说这是一个由两部分组成的问题，以下是巴菲特先生的回答。］
There was an older couple I knew, and they were what you would call romantically challenged. one night they sat down for an intimate dinner with candles and wine, and the wife felt stirrings she hadn’t felt in a long time. She suggested to her husband that they go upstairs and make love. He replied ‘I can do one or the other but not both.’ That’s sort of how I think about two-part questions.
我认识一对年长的夫妇，他们就是所谓的浪漫挑战者。一天晚上，他们坐下来享用了一顿亲密的晚餐，有蜡烛和葡萄酒，妻子感到了很长时间没有感受到的激动。她向丈夫建议他们上楼做爱。他回答说：“我可以选择其中之一，但不能两者都做。”这就是我思考两部分问题的方式。
Q: What is your view on the leverage in the economy?
问：您如何看待经济中的杠杆作用？
A: We are currently an enormous debtor to the rest of the world. The danger is that our children and their children will not want to pay this debt, or said another way, will reject the costs that servicing this debt will impose on society. Let’s say that during the Revolutionary War, the colonists were offered a choice: instead of fighting a bloody war that will cost thousands of lives, you can simply agree to pay King George 5% of total national income for perpetuity in exchange for full independence and political freedom. Now to the colonists this would have been a great deal, potentially having their lives spared and gaining freedom for only 5%/year. Decades later their children may not think it’s as good a deal but will still have heard stories from their parents and will probably pay the fee. But eventually, three or four generations down the line, enough Americans will forget the original rationale for the deal and will in some way demand a change in terms - possibly go to war with England again to halt the payments. The danger today is that future generations of Americans will be unwilling to continue paying for today’s spending and force political action with potentially negative consequences.
答：目前，我们是世界其他国家的巨额债务国。危险在于，我们的后代和他们的后代将不愿偿还这笔债务，或者换一种说法，他们将拒绝接受偿还这笔债务将给社会带来的成本。比方说，在独立战争期间，殖民者可以做出这样的选择：与其进行一场会付出成千上万人生命代价的血腥战争，不如同意永久向乔治王支付国民总收入的 5%，以换取完全独立和政治自由。现在，对于殖民者来说，这将是一笔巨大的交易，只需每年支付 5%，他们就有可能免于一死并获得自由。几十年后，他们的子女可能不认为这是一笔划算的交易，但仍然会从父母那里听到故事，并可能会支付这笔费用。但最终，三代或四代之后，会有足够多的美国人忘记这笔交易的初衷，并以某种方式要求改变条件—可能会再次与英国开战以停止支付。今天的危险在于，未来几代美国人将不愿意继续为今天的支出买单，并迫使采取可能产生负面后果的政治行动。
On housing, let’s pretend that Omaha passed a law saying that nobody could move in or out, that the birthrate exactly equaled the deathrate, and the only new housing construction allowed was to replace damaged or destroyed buildings. In other words, a completely stable real estate supply and demand. Now let’s say that, in order to increase wealth, someone came up with the idea that at the end of every year, everyone would simply sell the deed of his or her house to a neighbor, and every year the town would increase the price of every house by 20%. Residents could borrow money from outside of town to finance the transactions, and the increased paper wealth allowed them import more luxury goods from outside of Nebraska. As you can tell, no real value has been created in the Omaha economy.
关于住房问题，让我们假设奥马哈通过了一项法律，规定任何人不得迁入或迁出，出生率与死亡率完全相等，唯一允许新建的住房只能用于替换损坏或毁坏的建筑物。换句话说，房地产供求关系完全稳定。现在让我们假设，为了增加财富，有人想出了这样一个主意：在每年年底，每个人都可以将自己房子的地契卖给邻居，每年小镇都会将每栋房子的价格提高 20%。居民们可以从镇外借钱来进行交易，纸面财富的增加让他们可以从内布拉斯加州以外进口更多的奢侈品。可以看出，奥马哈的经济并没有创造出真正的价值。
Q: What is your career advice?
问：您有什么职业建议？
A: If you want to make a lot of money go to Wall Street. More importantly though, do what you would do for free, having passion for what you do is the most important thing. I love what I do; I’m not even that busy. I got a total of five phone calls all day yesterday and one of them was a wrong number. Ms. B from NFM had passion, that’s why she was successful. A few months ago I was talking to another MBA student, a very talented man, about 30 years old from a great school with a great resume. I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that’s like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense.
A：
如果你想赚大钱，就去华尔街吧。但更重要的是，做你愿意免费做的事，对自己的工作充满热情才是最重要的。我热爱我的工作；我甚至没那么忙。昨天一整天，我一共接了五个电话，其中一个还是打错的。NFM 的 B 女士很有激情，这就是她成功的原因。几个月前，我和另一位 MBA 学生聊天，他很有才华，大约 30 岁，来自一所名校，简历也很出色。我问他想从事什么职业，他回答说，他想进入某个领域，但觉得应该先在麦肯锡工作几年，为自己的简历增光添彩。在我看来，这就像把性生活留到晚年一样。这毫无意义。
Q: In many of your letters you speak about the importance of looking through the windshield and not the rearview mirror. What issues do you think people today are mistakenly looking at through the rearview mirror?
问：在您的许多信中，您都谈到了透过挡风玻璃而不是后视镜看问题的重要性。您认为当今人们通过后视镜错误地看待了哪些问题？
A: Investors are always looking for the holy grail, the next great idea that will carry performance and pension returns for the several years. Right now its ‘alternative investments’ - private equity, hedge funds, the assets that have outperformed public equities for the past five years since the tech bubble burst. There’s so much money chasing these ideas now that the returns in the future will probably not be as good. At some point, public equities will become good investments again and fewer people will be looking at them.
答：投资者总是在寻找圣杯，寻找下一个能在数年内带来业绩和养老金回报的好点子。现在，“另类投资”—私募股权投资、对冲基金，这些资产在科技泡沫破灭后的过去五年中表现优于普通股。现在有这么多资金在追逐这些理念，未来的回报可能不会那么好。到一定时候，普通股又会成为好的投资品种，关注它们的人会越来越少。
At Berkshire, we look at a lot of “super-cat” (super catastrophe) insurance business that few firms will write. The challenge is determining when there’s a paradigm shift, when the future will no longer look like the past. It’s probable that the next hundred years of hurricane activity will not look like the past hundred years. Another example, we write a lot of D and O insurance, Directors and Officers liability. Post Enron, I feel strongly that juries will award much harsher penalties to victims of corporate fraud, etc. than they would have five years ago before the average juror watched hours of news stories about all the scandals. There’s no model that can quantify that added risk, but it’s a risk that won’t be captured looking at historical data.
在伯克希尔，我们关注很多 “超级猫”（超级巨灾）保险业务，很少有公司会承保这些业务。我们面临的挑战是确定何时会发生模式转变，何时未来不再像过去一样。未来一百年的飓风活动很可能与过去一百年不同。另一个例子是，我们承保了很多 D and O 保险，即董事和高级职员责任险。安然事件后，我强烈地感觉到，与五年前相比，在普通陪审员观看了数小时关于所有丑闻的新闻报道之前，陪审团对公司欺诈等行为的受害者的处罚将更加严厉。目前还没有模型可以量化这种额外风险，但这种风险是历史数据无法反映的。
Q: What are your thoughts on what happened to Hank Greenberg?
问：您对汉克·格林伯格的遭遇有何看法？
A: Hank is a great person, he grew up in upstate New York, fought at Normandy, works tirelessly traveling the globe on behalf of AIG. Hank also resented it enormously if people thought AIG was less than perfect, which may have contributed to his problems. To him accusing AIG of any wrongdoing was like calling his daughter ugly, he couldn’t be objective about it.
答：汉克是个了不起的人，他在纽约州北部长大，参加过诺曼底战役，代表 AIG 在全球各地不知疲倦地工作。如果人们认为 AIG 不那么完美，汉克也会非常反感，这可能是导致他出现问题的原因之一。对他来说，指责 AIG 的任何不当行为就像说自己的女儿丑一样，他无法客观地看待这件事。
Q: In your letters you speak frequently of the importance of not over-complicating things. What are your secrets to keeping your life simple?
问：在您的信中，您经常谈到不要使事情过于复杂化的重要性。保持生活简单的秘诀是什么？
A: When making investments, pretend in life you have a punch-card with only 20 boxes, and every time you make an investment you punch a slot. It will discipline you to only make investments you have extreme confidence in. Big money is made by obvious things. If using a discount rate of 8% vs. 10% is going to make or break an investment idea, it’s probably not a good idea.
答：在进行投资时，就当你在生活中有一张打卡机，上面只有 20 个方格，每次进行投资时，你都要打卡。这会约束你只做自己非常有信心的投资。显而易见的事情才能赚大钱。如果使用 8%与 10%的贴现率会决定一个投资想法的成败，那么这可能不是一个好主意。
Back in 1951 Moody’s published thick handbooks by industry of every stock in circulation. I went through all of them, thousands of pages, motivated by the hope that a great idea was just on the next page. I found companies like National American Insurance and Western Insurance Securities Company that nobody was paying attention to that were trading for far less than their intrinsic values. Last year we found a steel company on the Korean Stock Exchange that had no analyst coverage, no research, but was the most profitable steel company in the world.
早在 1951 年，穆迪公司就按行业出版了厚厚的手册，涉及所有流通股。我翻阅了所有的手册，长达数千页，因为我希望下一页就会出现一个好主意。我发现像全美保险公司和西部保险证券公司这样无人关注的公司，其交易价格远远低于其内在价值。去年，我们在韩国证券交易所发现了一家钢铁公司，该公司没有分析师报道，没有研究，但却是世界上最赚钱的钢铁公司。
Q: How does one become a successful general manager?
问：如何成为一名成功的总经理？
A: The first thing is that you have to know how you are wired. You have to pick the right environment. I can’t imagine being responsible for hundreds of people and going to meetings all day, so I work with 17 other individuals. And, you have to have a passion for what you do.
答：首先，你必须了解自己的思维方式。你必须选择合适的环境。我无法想象要为数百人负责，还要整天去开会，所以我和另外 17 个人一起工作。而且，你必须对自己的工作充满热情。
Q: Do you feel global wealth is being transferred or created?
问：您认为全球财富正在转移还是正在创造？
A: Too much intelligence and energy is being devoted to scraping the crumbs off the table of capitalism instead of preparing the meal.
答：人们把太多的智慧和精力用于从资本主义的餐桌上拾取碎屑，而不是准备这顿饭。。
Q: How do you identify extraordinary business ability?
问：您如何识别非凡的业务能力？
A: Again, passion. When Ms. B’s son was fighting in World War II, they exchanged letters every day…about the furniture business. When Berkshire acquired a 90% stake in NFM in the 80’s, Ms. B and I shook hands and signed a two-page agreement. There was no audit of the books, no due diligence, I trusted her integrity. When Wal-Mart sold me one of their operating units, their CFO came to my office, I gave him a price, he called Bentonville [Arkansas - Wal-Mart headquarters], and that day the deal was done. I know how Wal-Mart conducts business [very well], and when we took over the division, it was exactly how they described it. So integrity is a requirement. one of Berkshire’s businesses is FlightSafety, the founder is dedicated to preventing deaths, he’s not motivated by the next quarter’s numbers.
答：还是激情。当 B 女士的儿子参加二战时，他们每天都有书信往来…谈论家具生意。上世纪 80 年代，伯克希尔公司收购了 NFM 公司 90% 的股份，我和 B 女士握手并签署了一份两页纸的协议。没有审计账目，没有尽职调查，我相信她的诚信。当沃尔玛把他们的一个经营单位卖给我时，他们的首席财务官来到我的办公室，我给了他一个价格，他给本顿维尔（阿肯色州-沃尔玛总部）打了电话，当天交易就完成了。我知道沃尔玛是怎么做生意的，当我们接手这个部门时，情况和他们描述的一模一样。伯克希尔的业务之一是 FlightSafety，创始人致力于防止死亡事故的发生，他并不为下一季度的数字所动。
Q: What is your view on education?
问：您对教育有何看法？
A: Bill Gates thinks we’re (America) falling behind. [Mr. Buffett speaks with Bill Gates frequently]. I had a great advantage when I went to public school compared with kids today. When I was in school there were very few career opportunities for women, so an enormous number of very talented women became teachers, and I benefited from their instruction. Today there are many more career opportunities, and as a result the pool of potential teachers has shrunk.
答：比尔-盖茨认为我们（美国）落后了 \（巴菲特先生与比尔-盖茨经常交谈） 与现在的孩子相比，我上公立学校时有一个很大的优势。在我上学的时候，女性的职业机会很少，所以很多非常有才华的女性成为了教师，我从她们的教导中受益匪浅。如今，职业机会越来越多，因此潜在的教师队伍缩小了。
Q: You’ve spoken about the importance of getting on the right train early in your career, how do you identify the right train?
问：您谈到了在职业生涯早期搭乘正确列车的重要性，您如何识别正确列车？
A: Don’t pay attention to beginning salaries. My first job with Benjamin Graham I accepted before I even knew what the salary was. Do what you’re passionate about.
答：不要关注起薪。在我还不知道薪水是多少之前，我就接受了本杰明·格雷厄姆的第一份工作。做你热爱的事情。
Q: How important are China and India to the US economy?
问：中国和印度对美国经济有多重要？
A: The odds for me to have been born in the US were 1 in 50. I won the ovarian lottery. If I had been born in Bangladesh, the chances are that I would not have had such great opportunity. As human beings, we should want China and India to succeed, although it will certainly create dislocation for many people in the US.
答：我在美国出生的几率是五十分之一。我中了卵巢彩票。如果我出生在孟加拉国，我很可能不会有这么好的机会。作为人类，我们应该希望中国和印度取得成功，尽管这肯定会给许多美国人民造成混乱。
Q: Do you have any regrets?
问：你有什么遗憾吗？
A: I’m so lucky. It would be a mistake to look back and say that I should have turned right or left. If you hit a hole in one on every hole, you wouldn’t play golf for very long. I believe that it pays to look forward.
答：我太幸运了。回首往事，如果说我当时应该向右或向左转，那就大错特错了。如果你在每个洞都能一杆进洞，那你就打不了多久高尔夫球了。我相信向前看是有好处的。
Gorat’s Steakhouse
高拉特牛排馆
After our session in his offices, Mr. Buffett treated us to lunch at Gorat’s steakhouse about 10 minutes away. Groups of students politely rotated to his table over the course of the meal. The drive over to the restaurant was when the lessons of the trip came together for me. Mr. Buffett took five of us with him in his car, three in the front, three in the back, he drove (no radio) and pointed out some Omaha businesses and landmarks on the way over. Mr. Buffett was so thoroughly disarming, friendly, and apologies for an overused cliché…‘down to earth’, that I had to remind myself who I was sitting next to. It felt like my friend’s dad was driving us home from soccer practice.
在巴菲特的办公室结束会议后，巴菲特先生请我们在距酒店约 10 分钟路程的 Gorat 牛排馆共进午餐。用餐过程中，一群群学生礼貌地轮流到他的餐桌旁。在开车去餐厅的路上，我总结了这次旅行的教训。巴菲特先生在他的车里带着我们五个人，三个在前面，三个在后面，他开车（没有开收音机），并在路上指出了一些奥马哈的企业和地标。巴菲特先生是如此彻底地解除了戒心、友善，并对过度使用的陈词滥调……“脚踏实地”表示歉意，以至于我不得不提醒自己，我旁边坐着的是谁。感觉就像是我朋友的爸爸开车送我们结束足球训练回家。
The major themes Mr. Buffett spoke about—do what you’re interested in, have passion, always act with integrity, don’t follow the crowd, respect your community, the best ideas are the obvious ones…all crystallized in the car ride. The binding ingredient was the credibility that Mr. Buffett carries. He isn’t living in a tower, surrounded by an entourage, dispensing advice on how a ‘regular’ person should conduct business and live life. Rather, during our session he was simply describing his own life, his experiences, what he’s observed works and doesn’t work in business and investing, and his concerns for the future. The effect on all of us was not merely admiration for Mr. Buffett, but renewed confidence and excitement in our own abilities to stay true to ourselves and define our personal visions of success. Perhaps the ability to inspire is Mr. Buffett’s most valuable quality.
巴菲特先生谈到的主要主题—做自己感兴趣的事、要有激情、始终正直行事、不要随波逐流、尊重你的社区、最好的想法是显而易见的…都在乘车途中得到了具体体现。而巴菲特先生身上所蕴含的公信力则是最重要的因素。他并不是住在高楼大厦里，在随从的簇拥下，就 “普通人 “应该如何开展业务和生活发表建议。相反，在我们的会议上，他只是简单地描述了他自己的生活、他的经历、他观察到的在商业和投资中行得通和行不通的东西，以及他对未来的担忧。这对我们所有人的影响不仅仅是对巴菲特先生的钦佩，而是对我们自己坚持自我、确定个人成功愿景的能力重新燃起了信心和激情。也许，激励能力是巴菲特先生最宝贵的品质。
2004 Tuck Trip
2004 年塔克之旅 Trip Agenda 行程安排
8:15-9:45am Nebraska Furniture Mart tour with Bob Batt, EVP
8:15-9:45am
与执行副总裁鲍勃·巴特 (Bob Batt) 一起参观内布拉斯加州家具市场
10am-11:30am Discussion with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.
11:45-2:15pm Lunch at Gorat’s Steakhouse with Warren Buffett
11:45-2:15 PM
在 Gorat’s Steakhouse 与沃伦·巴菲特共进午餐
2:30-3:30pm Borsheim’s tour with Susan Jacques, President and CEO
2:30-3:30pm Borsheim
与总裁兼首席执行官 Susan Jacques 一起参观
Complete Notes
完整注释
Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borsheim’s Visits:
内布拉斯加州家具市场和 Borsheim 的参观：
- “Sell cheap and tell the truth.” -Ruth Blumkin, “Mrs. B”, NFM Founder
”
卖便宜货，说真话”。露丝-布卢姆金，“B 夫人”，NFM 创始人
- “Take care of your customer, and they’ll take care of you.” -Ruth Blumkin, “Mrs. B”, NFMFounder
”
照顾好你的顾客，他们就会照顾好你”。露丝-布卢姆金，“B 夫人”，NFM 创始人
- “Successful business is about managing the moments of truth.” -Bob Batt, EVP of NFM
成功的企业在于把握关键时刻”。NFM 执行副总裁鲍勃-巴特
- “The key [in furniture retail] is not what you sell for, but what you buy for.” -Bob Batt, EVP of NFM
”[
家具零售]的关键不是你卖什么，而是你买什么。” -Bob Batt，NFM 执行副总裁
- ""Most business people forget the importance of being friendly and building a rapport with customers.” -Bob Batt, EVP of NFM
“
大多数商界人士忘记了与客户保持友好并建立融洽关系的重要性。”-Bob Batt，NFM 执行副总裁
- “Getting business advice from Warren Buffett is like getting physics lessons from Albert Einstein.” -Bob Batt, EVP of NFM
“
从沃伦·巴菲特那里获得商业建议就像从阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦那里学习物理课。” -Bob Batt，NFM 执行副总裁
- “Stay within your circle of competence.” -Warren Buffett
“在自己的能力范围内行事”。沃伦-巴菲特
- “Mr. Buffett likes businesses that are low-cost producers in industries where he believes there will be stable or growing demand into perpetuity. Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borsheim’s are two prime examples.” -Susan Jacques, President and CEO of Borsheim’s
“
巴菲特先生喜欢那些低成本生产企业，他相信这些行业的需求将永远稳定或不断增长。内布拉斯加家具城和博仙百货就是两个典型的例子。” -Susan Jacques，Borsheim’s 总裁兼首席执行官
Buffett’s Introductory Speech (paraphrased
) 巴菲特的开场演讲（转述）
If there’s one thing that you leave here with today, it should be this: And I’ll start with a question to get to my point. If you could pick 10% of one person in this room to own or ‘go long’ for the next 30 years, who would it be? It wouldn’t be the person with the highest IQ; it wouldn’t be the star athlete; you would look for certain other qualities… And if you had to pick one person to ‘short’ for the next 30 years, who would it be? Now ask yourself why you have made those selections. If you’ve considered these questions properly, the person you’ve gone long is probably someone who is honest, courageous, and dependable; the person you’ve shorted is probably someone who is egotistical and likes to take the credit. The point is that success is mostly dependent upon elective qualities, not anything with which you are born. You can choose to be dependable or not. And it’s not easy to change, so choose correctly now. Bertrand Russell once said, “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken.” So ask yourself, “Who do I want to be?” At the end of this process you should determine that the person you want to buy is yourself. You all are holding winning tickets.
如果说你们今天离开这里时有什么收获的话，那应该就是这个： 我先来问一个问题，以达到我的目的。如果你可以选择这个房间里的一个人的 10%，在未来 30 年里持有或 “做多”，你会选谁？不会是智商最高的人，不会是明星运动员，你会看重他的某些其他品质…如果你必须挑选一个人在未来 30 年 “做空”，那会是谁呢？现在问问你自己为什么会做出这些选择。如果你正确地考虑了这些问题，你选择的那个人可能是诚实、勇敢、可靠的人；你选择的那个人可能是自负、喜欢邀功的人。问题是，成功主要取决于选择性品质，而不是与生俱来的。你可以选择可靠或不可靠。要改变并不容易，所以现在就要正确选择。伯特兰-罗素曾说过：“习惯的枷锁，开始的时候，轻的难以察觉，到后来，却重的无法摆脱”。所以问问自己：“我想成为什么样的人？在这个过程的最后，你应该确定你想买的人就是你自己。你们都拿着中奖彩票。
Q&A Session with Buffett (paraphrased
) 问答环节（转述）
Q: What do you believe are the greatest successes and shortcomings of capitalism?
问：您认为资本主义最大的成功和缺点是什么？
A: Of the clear successes of capitalism, a greater abundance of things we want and need, and considerable improvements in the standard of living are good candidates. The standard of living in the U.S. has increased almost seven fold in the last century. one century is a speck on the greater timeline, and such an increase in productivity in the standard of living is surely unprecedented. Another noteworthy success of capitalism is that it is surely better than any alternative system at allocating resources and getting the best people to their most appropriate places. Consider this: in 1790, the first global census was conducted; there were 290m people in China, 100m in Europe, and 4m in what is now the U.S. Now the U.S. holds 4.5% of the world’s population but is responsible for 30% of global GDP. I believe the great American book is yet to be written and will be the one that manages to capture how spectacular this growth has been; again 214 years is just an instant. When we think about such growth, I don’t believe the causal factors are the people; it must be the system. The smartest people in Guam are as smart as the smartest people in Iceland are as smart as the smartest people in the U.S. Being born in the U.S. is more important to my success than anything that has happened since.
答：在资本主义取得的明显成功中，我们想要和需要的东西更加丰富以及生活水平大幅提高是很好的候选。上个世纪，美国的生活水平几乎提高了七倍。一个世纪在更大的时间轴上不过是一个小点，而生产力和生活水平的如此提高肯定是史无前例的。资本主义另一个值得注意的成功之处在于，它在分配资源和把最优秀的人安排到最合适的地方方面肯定优于任何其他制度。想想看：1790 年进行了第一次全球人口普查，当时中国有 2.9 亿人，欧洲有 1 亿人，现在的美国有 400 万人。现在美国拥有世界人口的4.5%，但GDP却占全球的30%。我相信，伟大的美国之书尚未写成，它将是一部能够记录这种增长是多么壮观的著作；同样，214 年只是一瞬间。当我们思考这样的增长时，我不认为致因是人，而一定是制度。关岛最聪明的人和冰岛最聪明的人一样聪明，而冰岛最聪明的人和美国最聪明的人一样聪明。在美国出生对我的成功比后来发生的任何事情都重要。
Q: Following up on the last question, what do you see as the shortcomings of capitalism?
问：接着最后一个问题，您认为资本主义的缺点是什么？
A: Capitalism, like any system, is imperfect, but it’s getting better and we’re getting closer to goals such as equality of opportunity and learning how to deal with those that are hurt by the system. But capitalism is surely a free marketplace, a dog-eat-dog marketplace in many ways. And a marketplace implies losers. Early in my career, I bought a textile mill in New Bedford and the vast majority of the mill workers were Portuguese and could not speak any English. Over time, textile mills in other parts of the world were able to operate more efficiently and we simply could not compete. I had to shut the plant down and fire everyone; the workers were casualties of the system. You can’t retrain or save those people; they’d had it. So the real challenge with capitalism is that you can’t throw sand in the gears of greater output but you also want to care for the casualties. If you look around, it’s clear that most people are burdened with real fear; fear is terrible and people shouldn’t have to live with it. We should want to reduce societal fear of the things that they should never have to worry about - fear of going hungry, fear of going without medical care. These are the problems you should be thinking about solving.
答：资本主义和任何制度一样，都是不完美的，但它正在变得更好，我们正在接近机会平等等目标，并学会如何处理那些受到制度伤害的人。但资本主义肯定是一个自由市场，在许多方面都是一个竞争激烈的市场。而市场意味着失败者。在我职业生涯的早期，我在新贝德福德收购了一家纺织厂，纺织厂的绝大多数工人都是葡萄牙人，不会说任何英语。随着时间的推移，世界其他地方的纺织厂能够更高效地运营，我们根本无法与之竞争。我不得不关闭工厂，解雇所有人；工人们都是体制的牺牲品。你无法重新培训或挽救这些人，他们已经受够了。因此，资本主义的真正挑战在于，你不能在更大产出的齿轮上扔沙子，但你也要照顾伤亡者。如果你环顾四周，就会发现大多数人都背负着真正的恐惧；恐惧是可怕的，人们不应该生活在恐惧之中。我们应该减少社会对那些他们永远不应该担心的事情的恐惧—对挨饿的恐惧，对没有医疗服务的恐惧。这些才是你们应该考虑解决的问题。
Q: In your opinion, how should we take care of those who are harmed by the system, like your former textile mill workers?
问：您认为我们应该如何照顾那些受到制度伤害的人，比如你们以前的纺织厂工人？
A: I would start with the tax system. It would not be easy to implement, but some form of a steeply progressive consumption tax for the wealthy makes a lot of sense to me. For instance, when I fly my private jet I use hundreds of gallons of jet fuel but I’m not taxed at a higher rate. Flying in a private jet is usually unnecessary, excessive consumption and I should be taxed appropriately via a higher consumption tax. Here’s another example: I could easily hire 20,000 people and pay them $50,000 per year to sit here and paint portraits of me all day in search of the perfect one. Not only would that be ridiculous, but it would pull 20,000 productive contributors out of system and I should pay highly for that. Other than figuring out ways of reallocating money to the ‘bottom 20%,’ we need to focus on finding ways to help people be useful and feel useful. This means finding people jobs, keeping them involved in society, and the like.
答：我会从税收制度入手。这并不容易实施，但对富人征收某种形式的大幅累进消费税对我来说很有意义。例如，当我驾驶私人飞机时，我使用了数百加仑的飞机燃油，但我并没有被征收更高的税率。乘坐私人飞机通常是不必要的、过度的消费，我应该被征收更高的消费税。这里还有一个例子： 我可以轻而易举地雇佣 2 万人，每年支付他们 5 万美元，让他们整天坐在这里为我画肖像，寻找最完美的肖像。这不仅荒唐，而且会使 2 万名有生产力的贡献者离开系统，我应该为此付出高昂的代价。除了想办法把钱重新分配给 “最底层的 20%“，我们还需要集中精力想办法帮助人们成为有用的人，让他们感到自己是有用的。这意味着为人们找到工作，让他们参与社会活动等等。
Q: I worked in the paper and packaging business this past summer and really enjoyed my experience. None of my classmates are interested in the paper business and the company I worked for has not had MBA interns in years. Clearly the paper business has its challenges, but do you see this as an opportunity or a roadblock?
问：去年夏天我在造纸和包装行业工作，非常享受我的经历。我的同学对造纸业都不感兴趣，而且我工作的公司也好几年没有 MBA 实习生了。显然，造纸业面临着挑战，但您认为这是机遇还是障碍？
A: Well, you’ve got it right that the paper business is challenged. High capital intensity, low margins, cyclical. It is a brutal business; no one cares who made the box their Dell computer came shipped in. In general, commodity businesses, even you’re the low-cost producer, are difficult. There are generally two recommendations I offer to college and business school graduates. The most important thing about where you work is that you admire/love it. So it sounds like you liked your experience, and that’s great. But we come to my second recommendation, which is to get on the right train; that is, moving in the right direction. There’s no course in business school called “Getting on the Right Train”, but it’s really important. You can be an average passenger but if you get on the right train it will carry you a long way. You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can. Managing your career is like investing - the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money and pain by getting on the right train.
答：你说得没错，造纸业面临挑战。资本密集、利润低、周期性强。这是一个残酷的行业；没有人会关心戴尔电脑的包装盒是谁制造的。一般来说，商品企业，即使你是低成本生产商，也很困难。我对大学和商学院毕业生通常有两个建议。关于你工作的地方，最重要的是你欣赏/热爱它。听起来你很喜欢你的工作经历，这很好。但我的第二个建议是搭上正确的列车，即朝着正确的方向前进。商学院里没有一门叫做 “搭上正确的列车 “的课程，但这真的很重要。你可以是一名普通乘客，但如果你搭上了正确的列车，它就会载你走很长的路。你想从经验中学习，但在可能的情况下，你也想从别人的经验中学习。管理自己的职业生涯就像投资一样，难易程度并不重要。因此，你可以搭上正确的列车，为自己省钱省力。
Q: With the recent changes in the global political economy and surges in terrorist activity, some would argue that uncertainty is increasing for all types of global markets. Where do you think things are heading and how should we deal with this heightened uncertainty?
问：随着近期全球政治经济的变化和恐怖活动的激增，一些人认为全球各类市场的不确定性正在增加。您认为事情的发展方向是什么？我们应该如何应对这种高度的不确定性？
A: Human beings don’t change very much over time. But until recently, most dangerous people had limited ability to harm others in scale…. I think the terrorism issue is one problem to which there is clearly no solution. I’m confident that we’ll solve everything else out - we making progress on cures for major diseases and all that - but terrorism, it seems to me, is impossible to solve because there will always be troubled people seeking to do harm to large masses of people. The intent is surely there. And knowledge of how to inflict terror is spreading. If you have intent and knowledge, the third aspect of terrorism is ‘materials and deliverability.’ This is harder to come by for the terrorists and what we should be working to prevent. If I knew we could devise a solution to terrorism, I would dedicate 100% of my foundation’s funds to this effort; but I’m just not sure there’s a solution.
答：人类不会随着时间的推移而发生很大的变化。但直到最近，大多数危险人物大规模伤害他人的能力都很有限，…。我认为恐怖主义问题显然是一个无解的问题。我相信我们会解决其他所有问题—我们在治疗重大疾病等方面取得了进展—但在我看来，恐怖主义问题是不可能解决的，因为总会有一些麻烦的人试图伤害大量的人。意图肯定是存在的。如何制造恐怖的知识也在传播。如果有了意图和知识，恐怖主义的第三个方面就是’材料和可交付性’。这对恐怖分子来说更难获得，也是我们应该努力防止的。如果我知道我们能找到解决恐怖主义的办法，我会将我基金会的资金百分之百地投入到这项工作中；但我不确定是否有解决办法。
Q: After all your accomplishments, what legacy do you want to leave behind?
问：在您取得了所有成就之后，您想留下什么遗产？
A: I think an example is the best thing you can leave behind. Obviously, you want to leave the right example. I mean, Wilt Chamberlain’s tombstone may say, “At last, I sleep alone,” and that’s probably not the example you want to leave. If what I’ve done with Berkshire Hathaway - running a unique and independent company in true pursuit of shareholder value - persists and people learn from it to improve the way they invest and run their companies, that would be a fine legacy to leave.
答：我认为榜样是你能留下的最好的东西。显然，你要留下正确的榜样。我的意思是，威尔特-张伯伦的墓碑上可能写着：“最后，我独自长眠”，而这可能不是你想留下的榜样。如果我在伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司所做的一切—在真正追求股东价值的过程中经营一家独特而独立的公司—能够持续下去，并且人们能够从中吸取教训，改进他们投资和经营公司的方式，那将是一笔很好的遗产。
Q: When you consider an acquisition, what are the first things you look for in a management team?
问：在考虑收购时，您首先会看重管理团队的哪些方面？
A: Well, what do you look for in a girl? Seriously, you look for the logical things - passion, an interest in running the business, honesty. Such as, do they love the business, or do they love the money? This is the first filter. I mean real passion; Mrs. B ran Nebraska Furniture Mart until she died at the age of 103 - that’s passion. If temperament is the most important personal asset in managing money, in business, it’s passion. Secondarily, if you’ve been doing it a while, you get to know how to do it. But obviously no management team is perfect, so you’re often stuck making a judgment call. You don’t want to wait forever to find the perfect team. Incidentally, a friend of mine spent twenty years looking for the perfect woman; unfortunately, when he found her he discovered that she was looking for the perfect man.
A：
那么，你在女孩身上寻找什么呢？说真的，你要找的是合乎逻辑的东西—激情、对经营业务的兴趣、诚实。比如，她们是热爱事业，还是热爱金钱？这是第一个筛选条件。我指的是真正的激情；B 夫人经营内布拉斯加家具市场直到 103 岁去世，这就是激情。如果说气质是管理金钱最重要的个人资产，那么在生意场上，那就是激情。其次，如果你做了一段时间，你就会知道如何去做。但很显然，没有一个管理团队是完美的，所以你往往只能做出判断。你不想永远等待找到完美的团队。顺便提一下，我的一个朋友花了二十年时间寻找完美女人；不幸的是，当他找到她时，却发现她正在寻找完美男人。
Q: I have worked in various technologies businesses, but I understand that you do not typically invest in the technology sector. Why is that? How do you view technology as an individual and as an investor?
问：我曾在各种科技企业工作过，但据我了解，你们通常不投资科技领域。这是为什么？作为个人和投资者，您如何看待技术？
A: Technology is clearly a boost to business productivity and a driver of better consumer products and the like, so as an individual I have a high appreciation for the power of technology. I have avoided technology sectors as an investor because in general I don’t have a solid grasp of what differentiates many technology companies. I don’t know how to spot durable competitive advantage in technology. To get rich, you find businesses with durable competitive advantage and you don’t overpay for them. Technology is based on change; and change is really the enemy of the investor. Change is more rapid and unpredictable in technology relative to the broader economy. To me, all technology sectors look like 7-foot hurdles.
答：技术显然可以提高企业生产力，推动更好的消费产品等，因此作为个人，我非常欣赏技术的力量。作为投资者，我避开了科技行业，因为总的来说，我对许多科技公司的独特之处并没有深入的了解。我不知道如何发现技术领域持久的竞争优势。为了致富，你会找到具有持久竞争优势的企业，而且你不会为它们付出过高的代价。技术基于变革；而变化确实是投资者的敌人。相对于更广泛的经济而言，技术的变化更加迅速且难以预测。对我来说，所有科技领域看起来都像是 7 英尺的栏杆。
Q: What do you think about all the money flowing into private equity and hedge funds? And do you see the future of buying businesses changing based on the considerable increase in private equity activity?
问：您如何看待流入私募股权和对冲基金的所有资金？在私募股权投资活动大幅增长的基础上，您认为购买企业的未来会发生变化吗？
A: I’ll tell you what I think of hedge funds. Hedge funds are a huge fad. You can pick any ten hedge funds and I’ll bet that on average they will underperform the S&P over the next ten years. You can’t create more money out of American business than the business itself creates; so most of these hedge funds will not be able to justify their outlandish fees over the long-term and they will disappear. on Wall Street, there are innovators, imitators, and total incompetents. I’m afraid that the majority of hedge funds around the globe now are run by the latter two categories of people.
答：我来告诉你我对对冲基金的看法。对冲基金是一种巨大的时尚。你可以随便挑十家对冲基金，我敢打赌，在未来十年里，它们的平均表现将低于标准普尔指数。你无法从美国企业中创造出比企业本身创造的更多的资金；因此，从长远来看，这些对冲基金中的大多数将无法证明其高昂的费用是合理的，它们将会消失。在华尔街，有创新者，有模仿者，也有完全无能的人。现在全球大多数对冲基金恐怕都是由后两类人经营的。
Brief Reflections on the Trip
行程简单感想
On the plane to Omaha, I reflected on a question that Jack Byrne had asked some classmates and me during a phone conversation the prior night. Mr. Byrne is the former Chairman and CEO of GEICO, a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company, and a close friend and colleague of Warren Buffett’s over the past twenty-five years. He had opened our conversation by asking, “What do you hope to get out of your visit to Omaha? What is your goal for the trip?” Mr. Byrne continued, offering excellent advice on what he thought were the most poignant topics to discuss with Mr. Buffett; the purpose of the call was to help us get the most out of our time with Mr. Buffett. Thanks to Mr. Byrne, we did. I continued to consider Mr. Byrne’s first question; what did I hope to get out of this chance to speak with Warren Buffett? It was clear to me that I was not traveling to Omaha for an autograph or to get a picture I could hang on my office wall; like many of my classmates, I had read a good deal of the Buffett literature and I was seeking a deeper understanding of Mr. Buffett’s investment process: how does he value potential acquisition candidates? How is his investment process different from average active investors? How has he learned from mistakes along the way? During the course of the day we spent in Omaha, it became clear that Mr. Buffett doesn’t have any “secret” answers to these questions. Looking back on it, it seems simplistic to think there might be secrets that would bring it all together or explain Buffett’s unparalleled success as an investor. Secrets aside, what the Tuck students came away with was considerably more valuable; we left with a better understanding of how one of history’s greatest business leaders and investors approaches the world, how he frames problems, and what he values. There were a few central themes that spun through our discussion with Mr. Buffett:
在飞往奥马哈的飞机上，我回想了杰克-伯恩（Jack Byrne）在前一天晚上的电话交谈中向我和一些同学提出的一个问题。伯恩先生是伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）旗下公司 GEICO 的前董事长兼首席执行官，也是巴菲特过去 25 年来的亲密朋友和同事。他在开始我们的谈话时问道：“您希望从奥马哈之行中得到什么？你此行的目标是什么？Byrne 先生继续就他认为最值得与巴菲特先生讨论的话题提供了很好的建议；这次通话的目的是帮助我们从与巴菲特先生的交谈中获得最大的收获。多亏了伯恩先生，我们做到了。我继续思考伯恩先生的第一个问题：我希望从这次与巴菲特对话的机会中得到什么？我很清楚，我去奥马哈不是为了签名，也不是为了得到一张可以挂在办公室墙上的照片；和我的许多同学一样，我已经阅读了大量巴菲特的文献，我想更深入地了解巴菲特先生的投资过程：他是如何评估潜在收购对象的？他的投资过程与一般的积极投资者有何不同？一路走来,他是如何从错误中吸取教训的？在奥马哈的一天里，我们清楚地认识到，巴菲特先生对这些问题并没有任何 “秘密 “答案。现在回想起来，如果认为有什么秘诀可以将这一切融会贯通，或者解释巴菲特作为投资者所取得的无与伦比的成功，那似乎太简单了。撇开秘诀不谈，塔克大学的学生们所获得的东西要有价值得多；我们对历史上最伟大的商业领袖和投资者之一是如何对待世界的、他如何看待问题以及他的价值观有了更好的了解。在我们与巴菲特先生的讨论中，有几个中心主题贯穿始终：
1. “Stay within your circle of competence.” Clearly much of Mr. Buffett’s success has stemmed from his disciplined focus on investing in businesses that he understands and avoiding those that he doesn’t. He counseled us to ask questions constantly and never assume that we have achieved “expert” status in anything.
1. “保持在你的能力范围内”。显然，巴菲特先生的成功很大程度上源于他严于律己，专注于投资他所了解的企业，避免投资他不了解的企业。他建议我们不断提问，永远不要认为自己在任何事情上都已经达到了 “专家 “的地位。
2. There’s still time for you to choose your own path; tell the truth and be independent. One of Mr. Buffett’s central messages was that success is dependent upon elective qualities, not something anyone is born with. He reminded us that we each get to choose whether or not we’re dependable, honest, and compassionate.
2. 你还有时间选择自己的道路；说真话，做独立的人。巴菲特先生的中心思想之一是，成功取决于可选择的品质，而不是与生俱来的。他提醒我们，我们每个人都可以选择自己是否可靠、诚实和富有同情心。
3. There’s no free lunch. With most things in life, those who work harder and think more clearly are ultimately rewarded. If you’re willing to roll the dice on a business or life decision, then you should be willing to accept a wider range of outcomes, including failure.
3. 天下没有免费的午餐。对于生活中的大多数事情来说，那些工作更努力、思考更清晰的人最终会得到回报。如果你愿意在商业或生活决策上掷骰子，那么你就应该愿意接受更多的结果，包括失败。
4. “The meaning of life is to do everything you can to make sure the people you care about love you back.” On the return flight to Hanover, I reflected on the day with some classmates. Many said it was the highlight of their Tuck experience and worth several credits of business school education. I was thankful for the opportunity to spend time with Mr. Buffett and his colleagues and to learn from their experiences. Alice Schroeder, a former Institutional Investor-ranked insurance analyst at Morgan Stanley turned journalist (and currently writing the “final” book on Warren Buffett), was in attendance for much of the day. Alice has attended several recent visits from MBA students, and specifically commented that the Tuck students were “by far” the most prepared of any MBA group that has visited Berkshire Hathaway in recent years.
4. ”
生命的意义在于尽你所能，确保你在乎的人也爱你” 在返回汉诺威的飞机上，我和一些同学回顾了这一天的经历。许多人说，这是他们塔克大学经历中的亮点，值得修几个商学院的学分。我很感谢能有机会与巴菲特先生和他的同事们共度时光，并学习他们的经验。爱丽丝-施罗德（Alice Schroeder）是摩根士丹利前《机构投资者》杂志的保险分析师，后转为记者（目前正在撰写关于沃伦-巴菲特的 “终极 “著作），当天大部分时间她都在现场。爱丽丝参加了最近几次 MBA 学生的访问，并特别评论说，塔克大学的学生是近年来访问伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的所有 MBA 团体中 “迄今为止 “准备最充分的。
Autor
奥托尔
Tuck School of Business
塔克商学院