AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Michael Zenga from Danvers, Massachusetts. That’s a town whose band Mr. Buffett so generously sent to the Rose Bowl parade last year, so you’re a very popular guy in my town.Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger.Mr. Buffett, I wanted to ask you this question last week when I ran into you after Gillette’s annual meeting, but I choked. So now that there’s no pressure, here goes. (Laughter)In the years from — from my reading — in the years from 1956 through ’69, you achieved the best results of your career quantitatively. Twenty-nine percent annually against only 7 percent for the Dow.听众:据我了解,从 1956 开始到 1969 年,是你年复合投资回报率最高的一段时间,每年的回报率达到了 29%,远远超过了当时道指的回报率 7%。Your approach then was different than now. You looked for lots of undervalued stocks with less attention to comp
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. Mo Spence from Waterloo, Nebraska. You’ve often stated that value and growth are opposite sides of the same coin. 听众:早上好!你常说价值和成长是一个硬币的两面。 Would you care to elaborate on that? And do you prefer a growth company that is selling cheap or a value company with moderate or better growth prospects? 请问可以展开说说吗?你会更愿意以便宜的价格买入一家成长型公司,还是以合理价格买入一家价值型公司呢? WARREN BUFFETT: Well, actually I think you’re — you may be misquoting me. But I really said that growth and value, they’re indistinguishable. They’re part of the same equation. Or really, growth is part of the value equation. 巴菲特:或许你错误地理解了我说的话。我真正的意思是成长和价值是不可分割的,它们是同一个公式里的组成部分。或者换句话说,成长是价值公式里的一部分。 So, our position is that there is no such thing as growth stocks or value stocks, the way Wall Street generally portrays them
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, gentlemen, my name is Jay Parker. I’m from Washington State. And this question regards mistakes. So that being the case, it should probably be directed to Mr. Munger. 听众:两位早上好。我的问题是伯克希尔所犯过的错,所以我估计应该由芒格先生来回答。(之前回答问题时巴菲特调侃说,伯克希尔所有犯过的错都由芒格来回答会比较好) Mr. Munger, I know you’re fond of evoking humility to promote rational thought. So my question is, what’s the most recent business mistake that you’ve made, Mr. Munger, and why did it occur? (Laughter) 芒格先生,我知道你是理性思考的忠实支持者。我的问题是,最近你在商业上犯过什么错误吗?以及为什么会犯这个错误?(全场笑) WARREN BUFFETT: I’m going to take notes on this one. (Laughter) 巴菲特:在这个问题上,我应该做做笔记。(全场笑) CHARLIE MUNGER: The mistakes that have been most extreme in Berkshire’s history are mistakes of omission. They don’t show up in our figures. They show up in opportunity co
Drawings from AMY AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Grant Morgan (PH), I’m here from New York City. Earlier, you had acknowledged that it is a more difficult investment and business environment today than it was when you first started out. 股东:之前你说到,现在做投资比你们刚开始的那时候要难得多。 My question is, if you are starting out again today in your early 30s, what would you do differently or the same in today’s environment to replicate your success? In short, Mr. Buffett, how can I make $30 billion? (Laughter) 我想问,如果你们是从今天开始做投资,你们会做些什么去获得成功?简单而言,请问我要怎么做才能赚到300亿美元。 WARREN BUFFETT: Start young. (Laughter) 巴菲特:从年轻的时候开始(全场笑)。 Charlie’s always said that the big thing about it is we started building this little snowball on top of a very long hill. So we started at a very early a
Drawings from AMY WARREN BUFFETT: Now, let’s go back to your first question. Give it to me again. AUDIENCE MEMBER: The first part was, would you define — give us your definition of stock market risk and how it differs from the standard definition. 股东:能否说一下你对股票市场风险的定义,以及这跟传统定义之间的区别。 WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We don’t think in terms of — well, we think first in terms of business risk, you know. 巴菲特:我们通常只考虑公司的风险,而不考虑股票市场的风险。 We — the key to Benjamin Graham’s approach to investing is not thinking of stocks as stocks or part of a stock market. Stocks are part of a business. People in this room own a piece of a business. If the business does well, they’re going to do all right as long as they don’t pay way too much to join into that business. 我的导师本杰明格雷厄姆把投资看作买入公司,而不是买“股票”。就像所有这个房间里的人都拥有伯克希尔的一部分
Drawings from AMYWARREN BUFFETT: And why do people, very bright people, risk losing something that’s very important to them, to gain something that’s totally unimportant? The added money has no utility whatsoever.为什么会有一些人,一些非常聪明的人,愿意冒着风险可能会失去一些非常重要的东西,而去赚取一些对他们而言完全不重要的东西?这些赚来的额外的钱对他们的生活而言没有任何帮助。And the money that was lost had enormous utility. And on top of that, reputation is tarnished and all of that sort of thing.但如果他们失去了这些重要的东西,会对他们的生活造成重大的打击。而且更不用说其他的,名声和信誉都会扫地。So that the gain/loss ratio, in any real sense, is just incredible. I mean, it’s like playing Russian roulette.这个收益和损失比,说真的,完全没有道理可言,这就像是在玩俄罗斯转盘一样离谱。I mean, if you hand me a revolver with six bullets — or six chambers — and one bullet and you say, “Pull it once for a million dollars,” and I say, “No.” And then you say, “What is
每年5月份,初夏,在美国小镇奥马哈,沃伦巴菲特和查理芒格都会举行长达6小时的伯克希尔哈撒韦公司年会。年会上有个传统环节,由股东现场提问,巴菲特和芒格现场回答。这个环节占用了年会绝大部分时间,里面很多问题都非常有趣,包含了看待事物的方式、人生哲理、投资方法。 目前能搜罗到的伯克希尔年会问答实录,从1994到2023合共三十年,当时读的是中文翻译的版本。读完之后想再读,但我想既然再读为啥不直接读英文原版呢,于是找到了英文原版重读,同时这次做了一些精彩的摘录。当然了,其他部分也很精彩,只是我对这些摘录更有共鸣,你去读有共鸣的部分肯定是不一样的,所以推荐大家去读全文。这份问答录适合想在生活中和工作中获得长久的独立、充实、理性、愉悦的人。 人生中能找到一个品行卓越的老师,并且他还可以以某种方式深入地影响你,是一辈子最幸运的事情。沃伦巴菲特找到了本格雷厄姆,查理芒格找到了本杰明富兰克林。 以下以摘录的形式,把某个问题的原文原封不动摘录下来,然后某些段落后面加上我自己的感想。 ———— “We let .400 hitters swing the way they want to swing” WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 4? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Peter Borma (PH), Chicago. Every year, you have your operating companies send a check back to Omaha. What percentage do the heads of the operating companies keep as a bonus, and how do you set that figure? WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we have different bonus arrangeme