原文信息：
- 标题：Acquired Interviews - Charlie Munger
- 作者：Acquired
- 发表时间：2023-10-29
- 链接：Acquired FM
- 翻译：Ponge
- 修订：Eason、何
We sit down with the legendary Charlie Munger in the only dedicated longform podcast interview that he has done in his 99 years on Earth. We’ve gotten to have some special conversations on Acquired over the years, but this one truly takes the cake. Over dinner at his Los Angeles home, Charlie reflected with us on his own career and his nearly 50-year partnership at Berkshire Hathaway with Warren Buffett. He offered lessons and advice for investors today, and of course he shared his speech on the virtues of Costco once again (among other favorite investments). We’re so glad that we got the opportunity to record and share this with you all — break out your notebooks, tune in, and enjoy the singular wit and wisdom of Charlie Munger.
我们与传奇人物查理·芒格（Charlie Munger）坐在一起，这是他在世 99 年中接受的唯一一次专门的长篇播客访谈。多年来，我们在《Acquired》节目中进行过一些特别的对话，但这次真的是独一无二的。在他洛杉矶的家中共进晚餐时，查理与我们回顾了他自己的职业生涯，以及他与沃伦·巴菲特在伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司近 50 年的合作经历。他为今天的投资者分享了自己的经验教训并提出了建议，当然，他也再次分享了他对开市客（Costco）等最喜欢的投资的见解。我们很高兴有机会录制并与大家分享——请拿出你们的笔记本，收听本播客，享受查理·芒格的独特风趣和智慧。
Sponsor:
- Special thanks to Tiny for being the exclusive sponsor of this episode. You can get in touch with them here (just tell them Ben & David sent you), and order your very own bronze Charlie bust here.
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Transcript: (disclaimer: may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate and/or amusing transcription errors)
（免责声明：可能无意中包含令人困惑、不准确和/或令人啼笑皆非的转录错误）
David: Ben, when we teased this episode in the email about the Jensen episode that we just released, the guesses that we were getting from folks were amazing.
大卫·罗森塔尔（David Rosenthal，以下简称大卫）：本，当我们在上一期播客（采访黄仁勋）的电子邮件中预告本集嘉宾时，观众的猜测真的太神奇了。
Ben: People were like, it's Charlie, it's Warren, or it's Taylor Swift. A lot of people were right.
本·吉尔伯特（Ben Gilbert，以下简称本）：有人猜是查理，有人猜是沃伦，还有人猜是泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）。很多人猜对了。
David: Hey, Taylor, you know where to find us, acquiredfm@gmail.com.
大卫：嘿，泰勒，你知道我们的联系方式：acquiredfm@gmail.com。
Ben: If you are looking to get more publicity, we're open.
本：如果你想获得更多宣传，我们随时欢迎。
David: Have Travis get in touch.
大卫：让特拉维斯（Travis）联系我们吧。（译者注：特拉维斯是泰勒的男友，橄榄球运动员）
Ben: All right, let's do it. Welcome to this episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.
本：好的，我们开始吧。欢迎来到《Acquired》这一集，这是一档关于伟大科技公司及其背后故事和策略的播客。我是本·吉尔伯特（Ben Gilbert）。
David: I'm David Rosenthal.
大卫：我是大卫 · 罗森塔尔（David Rosenthal）。
Ben: And we are your hosts. This episode is a very unique one for David and I. Good friend of the show, Andrew Marks, organized a little dinner for us with Charlie Munger and a few other folks at Charlie's home in Los Angeles. You can hear Andrew a few times in the background asking Charlie questions. We are pretty sure that this is the only podcast that Charlie has ever done.
本：我们是本节目的主持人。我们节目的好朋友安德鲁·马克斯（Andrew Marks，以下简称安德鲁）（译者注：应该是霍华德·马克斯的儿子，他们父子的对谈可以看这里）在查理·芒格位于洛杉矶的家中为我们组织了一次小型晚宴，查理·芒格和其他几位朋友也参加了晚宴。你可以在背景中听到安德鲁几次向查理提问。我们非常确定，这是查理上过的唯一一期播客。
Charlie, aside from being one of the most prolific investors of all time alongside his partner Warren Buffett, is 99 years old. He will turn 100 on January 1st. Of course, our conversation was interesting because he's freaking Charlie Munger, but also because it was interesting to get the perspective of someone who has seen the last 99 years of human history.
查理与他的合作伙伴沃伦·巴菲特一起成为有史以来投资业绩最突出的投资者之一。除此之外，他已经 99 高龄了，并将于明年 1 月 1 日迎来 100 岁生日。当然，我们与他的交谈之所以有趣，一方面是因为他可是查理·芒格，另一方面是因为能听到一个见证了过去 99 年人类历史的人的观点是非常有趣的。
We talked with Charlie, of course, about Costco, his history investing in retailers over the last 50 years. We also got to hear his views on what it takes to build a great partnership, what's gone wrong in the global securities markets these days, the concept of investing versus gambling, and where investment opportunities remain in the world today.
当然，我们与查理谈到了开市客，以及他在过去 50 年里对零售商进行投资的历史。我们还听到了他对其他一些问题的看法，比如建立一个伟大的合作关系所需要的要素、当今全球证券市场出现了什么问题、投资与赌博的概念以及当今世界上仍存在哪些投资机会等等。
David: Ben, this was such a special life experience for you and me. You and me together to do this, and the fact that we got to record it and now share it with the world for posterity, just icing on the cake, and the whole thing was unbelievable.
大卫：本，这对你和我来说真是一次特别的人生经历。你和我一起做到这一点，而且我们有机会录制下来并与世界分享（当然这只是锦上添花），整个过程令人难以置信。
Ben: Listeners, we knew we were going to have dinner. We were not sure whether we were going to be able to record it. Now we get to share it with all of you.
本：听众朋友们，当时我们知道要和芒格共进晚餐，但我们不确定能否录制，最终我们还是做到了。现在我们将这段对话和大家分享。
With that, join the Slack. There is an awesome discussion of every episode and the news of the day at acquired.fm/slack. If you sign up for acquired emails, you will get episode corrections and follow-up from previous episodes, plus hints at what the next episode will be, that's acquired.fm/email. We have only one sponsor for this interview.
欢迎加入 Slack 频道，在上面有关于每期节目和当天新闻的精彩讨论。如果您注册了 acquired 电子邮件，您将收到单集勘误通知和后续内容，以及下一集的提示，请登录网站上的 email 栏目查看。本期访谈只有一个赞助商。
David: A special conversation deserves a special sponsorship. Longtime listeners will know that there's only one company in the Acquired universe that is truly appropriate, because everything they do is modeled after Charlie and Warren, and that's Tiny.
大卫：特别的对话需要特别的赞助。长期收听《Acquired》的听众都知道，在《Acquired》的世界里，只有一家公司是真正合适的，因为他们所做的一切都是以查理和沃伦为蓝本，那就是 Tiny。
Ben: Tiny is the Berkshire Hathaway of the Internet. Literally, they are such huge fans that they started a company that makes bronze busts of Buffett and Munger themselves, but more on that in a minute.
本：Tiny 是互联网界的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司。事实上，他们是伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的超级粉丝，以至于他们创办了一家公司，制作了巴菲特和芒格的青铜半身像，稍后我们会再提到。
David: Berkshire, as we know, started as a textile mill in Massachusetts nearly 200 years ago. Almost 20 years ago, Tiny founders, Andrew Wilkinson and his partner Chris, took their version of an internet textile mill, the premier design agency MetaLab, which designed the UIs for Slack, Uber, Tinder, Headspace, Coinbase, and others. They asked themselves, what would Charlie and Warren do if they were us?
大卫：我们知道，伯克希尔最初是在马萨诸塞州开办的一家纺织厂，有将近 200 年的历史。将近 20 年前，Tiny 的创始人安德鲁·威尔金森（Andrew Wilkinson）和他的合作伙伴克里斯（Chris），将他们互联网版的伯克希尔——首屈一指的设计机构 MetaLab——带到了这个世界。MetaLab 曾为 Slack、Uber、Tinder、Headspace、Coinbase 等公司设计用户界面。他们问自己，如果查理和沃伦是我们，他们会怎么做？
That led to the realization that just like Berkshire discovered in the physical world, the Internet also has wonderful niche businesses with great cash flows. In fact, they tend to be even better than the old days of See's Candies and Blue Chip Stamps because they require zero capital reinvestment, have software margins, and can build global brands much faster than the 50 some years it took See's to expand around the world.
这让他们意识到，就像伯克希尔在实体世界中发现的那样，互联网上也有能够创造巨大现金流的奇妙利基业务。事实上，它们往往比过去的喜诗糖果和蓝筹印花还要好，因为它们不需要资本再投资，有软件行业具备的高毛利特征，并且可以比喜诗等更快地建立全球品牌（喜诗糖果在全球扩张花费了 50 多年）。
Ben: Andrew and Chris took the extra cash flow from MetaLab and their other businesses, and created Tiny, the world's first and best permanent holding company for wonderful internet businesses, and boy did it work.
本：安德鲁和克里斯从 MetaLab 和他们的其它业务中获得了额外的现金流，并创建了 Tiny 公司，这是世界上第一家也是最好的一家为出色的互联网业务提供永久控股的公司，小伙子们做到了。
David: Fast forward to today, and thanks to Tiny's success, this opportunity is no longer a secret. Many people have caught on to the idea that this can really work. But just like Berkshire itself, no one else has the combination of experience, temperament, access to capital, and frankly, reputation that Andrew and Chris have built over the past two decades.
大卫：时至今日，由于 Tiny 的成功，这个机会已不再是秘密。很多人已经意识到这确实可行。但是，就像伯克希尔公司本身一样，没有其他人能像安德鲁和克里斯一样，在过去二十年里积累了丰富的经验、心态、资金渠道，坦率地说，还建立了良好的声誉。
We're investors in Tiny ourselves alongside Bill Ackman and Howard Marks. Just like the two of them, Tiny is really the long-term buyer of choice in their niche. Anyone who's looking for a permanent home for their profitable internet business or who needs a capital partner for a co-founder or VC cap table buyout, would be lucky to work with Tiny.
我们与比尔·阿克曼（Bill Ackman）和霍华德·马克斯（Howard Marks）都是 Tiny 的投资者。就像他们两人一样，Tiny 确实是他们细分市场的长期买家首选。任何人如果想为自己盈利的互联网业务寻找一个永久的归宿，或者需要一个资本伙伴作为联合创始人，或者帮忙承接 VC 退出资金，与 Tiny 合作将是非常幸运的。
Ben: For instance, they just bought the premier social network for film buffs, Letterboxd, which has been the founder's baby for 12 years and will stay so within Tiny. This really reflects Tiny's whole ethos—work with only the best internet businesses, commit to simple diligence 30 day deals, and leave the business alone, either for you to operate or bring in new long-term oriented management. Up to you.
本：例如，他们刚刚收购了电影爱好者的主要社交网络 Letterboxd，该网站是创始人 12 年的心血结晶，并将继续留在 Tiny。这真正反映了Tiny的整个理念——只与最好的互联网企业合作，致力于 30 天的简单尽职调查，不干涉企业，要么由你经营，要么引入新的长期导向管理。随便你。
David: Thanks to Tiny. This is the only sponsor, as Ben said, that you'll hear on this episode, and just like Berkshire, it'll be here in perpetuity. Tiny just became a public company earlier this year, and they can now do deals ranging anywhere from $1 million all the way up to $250 million. If you want to get in touch, just shoot them a note at hi@tiny.com and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.
大卫：感谢 Tiny。正如本所说，这是本集唯一的赞助商，就像伯克希尔公司一样，它将永远存在。Tiny 今年早些时候刚刚成为一家上市公司，他们现在关注 100 万美元到 2.5 亿美元不等的收购交易。如果你想联系他们，请发邮件到 hi@tiny.com，告诉他们是本和大卫让你来的。
Ben: Oh, and one more thing. The Bronze Charlie Busts, the perfect daily reminder in your workspace to ask what would Charlie do? Just head on over to berkshirenerds.store to buy your own. They also have plenty of some guy named Warren, too.
本：哦，还有一件事。查理青铜半身像，它是你工作空间中的完美日常提醒，让你问问查理会怎么做？请登录 berkshirenerds.store 购买。他们还有很多沃伦·巴菲特的青铜半身像。
Okay, now without further ado, this is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss, and this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only and on to Charlie Munger.
好了，最后说一句，这不是投资建议。大卫和我可能在我们讨论的公司中有投资，本节目仅供参考和娱乐之用，敬请关注查理·芒格。
Ben: Charlie, I was watching the NFL games last weekend and it seems like every advertisement now is a sports betting advertisement. Is this good for America?
本：查理，上周末我看了 NFL（国家橄榄球联盟）的比赛，似乎现在每个广告都是体育博彩广告。这对美国有好处吗？
Charlie: No, of course not. Are the dog tracks, racetracks of America, the casinos, good for America? Of course not. They're just very popular.
查理：当然没有。美国的赛狗场、赛马场、赌场，对美国有好处吗？当然没有。它们只是很受欢迎而已。
David: That's how Warren got his start though, right? At the racetrack?
大卫：不过，沃伦是从赛马场起家的，对吧？
Charlie: But Warren never gambled. He was only a patron of them. Warren wants the odds in his favor, not somebody else. It's just so simple if you're Warren. You want to be the house, not the punter.
查理：但沃伦从不赌博，他只是那些赌场的常客之一（译者注：据说，巴菲特小的时候去捡别人扔掉的马票，以及自己出版并贩售马报《精选稳赢》）。沃伦想要自己占据优势，而不是别人。对于沃伦来说，这很简单。他想成为赌马场，而不是赌马人。
Ben: Listeners, the next topic that came up was retail stock trading and the idea that for many Americans, this is akin to gambling.
本：听众们，下一个话题是散户股票交易。对许多美国人来说，股票交易和赌博也没差多少。
Charlie: It’s the way it's organized. They don't really know anything about the companies or anything. They just gamble on going up and down the price. If I were running the world, I would have a tax on short-term gains with no offset for losses on anything. I would just driving this whole crowd of people out of business.
查理：这是散户做交易的方式。他们并不真正了解公司或类似的东西，他们只是赌价格的涨跌。如果由我来管理这个金融市场，我会对短期资本利得征税，而且不允许任何亏损抵扣。我会让这些人对这个生意丧失兴趣。
Andrew: What do you think about the algorithms like Renaissance and stuff like that?
安德鲁：你对文艺复兴科技之类的量化对冲基金有什么看法？
Charlie: Well, of course, Renaissance, the first algorithm was so simple. They sifted all this data for the past and what did they decide? Up, up, which were two closing prices, and down, down were more common than down, up, or up, down.
查理：当然，文艺复兴科技的首要算法非常简单。他们筛选了过去所有的数据，然后发现了什么？按收盘价看，连续两天上涨或下跌，比下跌次日上涨或上涨次日下跌更常见。
Once they realized that's the way it was for various reasons deeper than the psychology of man, man is a natural trend follower, he's been gambling short-term, and they just program the computers to automatically buy on one thing on the first up day and sell before the end of the second day. It did it day after day after day. Every day the central clearing agent would say, your check today is $8,500,000. Your check tomorrow is $9,400,000.
他们之前意识到这是由于比人类心理更深层的原因造成的，人类是天生的趋势追随者，而且一直愿意进行短期赌博。基金做的事情，只是给计算机编程，让它在第一个上涨日自动买入一件东西，并在第二天结束前卖出。就这样日复一日地进行着。中央结算机构每天都会告诉他们，今天你赚了 8,500,000 美元，明天你赚了 9,400,000 美元。
What happens is that the easiest trade is to front run, but you know what the average is that the index funds have to buy, and you know what it is exactly. They all know that. The way they get their returns year after year is by taking the leverage, that midday leverage, up higher and higher and higher and higher. They're making smaller and smaller profits off more and more volume, which gives them this big peak leverage risk, which I would not run myself. That's the only way they make these big returns, is to have this huge leverage. It would make you crazy if you were already rich.
对冲基金最容易做的交易是抢先交易（front run）。当你知道指数基金必须买多少股票，也知道具体买哪些股票，你就可以提前买入。但其他人也都知道这一点。他们年复一年获得回报的方式是通过不断提高杠杆，不断获得更高的利润。他们从越来越多的交易量中赚取越来越少的利润，这给他们带来了巨大的杠杆风险，而我不会采取这种方式。他们之所以能获得如此巨大的回报，就是因为拥有巨大的杠杆。如果你已经很有钱了，这么作死是有大病的。
Ben: I had the good fortune of speaking with someone you know well, Richard Galanti at Costco, and spending a few hours.
本：我有幸在开市客与你熟悉的理查德·加兰蒂（Richard Galanti）（译者注：担任首席财务官）交谈了几个小时。
Charlie: He knows a lot about it. He's been there all his life.
查理：他对开市客很了解。他一辈子都在那里。
Ben: It's crazy. It seems like that's everyone on the executive team.
本：太疯狂了。好像高管团队里的每个人都是这样。
David: They've all been there all their lives.
大卫：他们这些高管都是这样，一辈子都在那里。
Charlie: Yeah, I know.
查理：是的，我知道。
Ben: I'm curious, how did you first come across Costco or Price Club at the time?
本：我很好奇，当时你是怎么第一次接触到开市客或普莱斯俱乐部（Price Club）的？
Charlie: Rod Hills somehow knew Sol Price and knew what he was doing. He said, you have to go down and meet him. I drove down and went through his store and talked with Sol. Of course Sol was a very intelligent man. Sol was an ordinary lawyer until he was 39 years of age. Then he went out and formed a government employees discount company.
查理：罗德·希尔斯（Rod Hills）（译者注：1962 年和芒格合伙开了 Munger, Tolles, Hills, and Rickershauser 律师交易所，1975-1977 年担任美国证券交易委员会主席）不知怎么认识了索尔·普莱斯（Sol Price）并知道他在做什么。他对我说，你必须去见普莱斯。我开车去了索尔的店铺，和他交谈。当然，索尔是个非常聪明的人。索尔在 39 岁之前只是一名普通的律师，然后他成立了一家政府雇员折扣公司。
David: Was this in the Fedco days?
大卫：这是发生在费德科公司（Fedco）火爆的那个时候吗？
Charlie: He was no longer with Fedco. He sold Fedco to the Germans.
查理：他后来已经不在 Fedco 了，他把 Fedco 卖给了德国人。
Ben: FedMart to Hugo Mann.
本：应该是 FedMart（译者注：Fedco 是另外一家公司，索尔看到了 Fedco 的成功创办了 FedMart）， 后来卖给了雨果·曼（Hugo Mann）。
Charlie: Yeah.
查理： 是的。
Ben: Did you get to invest in Price Club before it merged with Costco?
本：在普莱斯俱乐部与开市客合并之前，你就投资普莱斯俱乐部了吗？
Charlie: Yes, I did. But I just bought my stock from the market. I wasn't getting any favor from anybody.
查理：是的，我投资了。但我的股票都是从市场上买的，不是谁送我的。
Ben: How did you eventually meet Jim Sinegal?
本：你是怎么认识詹姆斯·辛尼格（Jim Sinegal）的（译者注：曾在普莱斯俱乐部工作，后模仿其模式创办了开市客）？
Charlie: Sinegal asked Warren to become a director of Costco. He was looking for somebody with a financial reputation.
查理：当时辛尼格想邀请沃伦担任好市多的董事。他想找一个在财务方面有名望的人。
Ben: As an independent?
本：担任独立董事吗？
Charlie: Yes, and Warren wouldn't do it. He said, why don't you get Charlie to do it? I want shorter plane rides to director's meetings and so forth. That's how that happened.
查理：是的，沃伦不愿意。他说，为什么不让查理来做呢？我不想花那么长时间坐飞机去参加董事会会议或其他类似的事情。然后我就去了，并认识了辛尼格。
Ben: Did Berkshire ever try to become a shareholder or acquire Costco?
本：伯克希尔有没有试图成为开市客的股东或收购开市客？
Charlie: They tried to get Warren to buy out the French when they left (Carrefour) and Warren wouldn't do it. Warren doesn't like retailing.
查理：当法国人离开（家乐福）时，他们曾试图让沃伦收购，但沃伦不愿意。沃伦不喜欢零售业。
David: Was it just that he doesn't like retail? Or what was the big objection?
大卫：他不喜欢零售业只是因为他不喜欢吗？还是还有其他的原因？
Charlie: Practically everything that was once mighty in retail is gone. Sears Roebuck is gone, the big department stores are gone. It's just too damn difficult as far as he's concerned.
查理：实际上，在零售业，再璀璨的明星公司也会陨落。西尔斯·罗巴克百货公司（Sears Roebuck）倒闭了，这样的大型百货公司也不复存在了（译者注：西尔斯百货在 1980 年代之前都是美国最大的零售商，后被沃尔玛超越，2018 年破产）。在他看来，这太难了。
Andrew: You had a bad experience with Diversified retail, right?
安德鲁：你们在多元零售公司（Diversified Retailing）有过不愉快的经历，对吗？
Charlie: No, we made nothing but money that Diversified. We didn't exactly make it in retailing, but we made a lot of money.
查理：是的，我们在多元零售公司除了赚到了点钱以外毫无建树。我们赚到了钱，但也不是靠零售业赚到的。
Ben: Wow, and with Diversified, most of the money was not on the retailing operation. You made a lot of that money through…?
本：哇，这样吗？在多元零售公司，大部分钱都不是靠零售业务赚的？你们通过什么赚了很多钱？
Charlie: What happened was very simple. We bought this little pissant department store chain in Baltimore. Big mistake. Too competitive. As the ink dried on the closing papers, we realized we made a terrible mistake. So we decided just to reverse it and take the hits to look foolish rather than go broke. He just told [name] get us out of this.
查理：事情很简单。我们在巴尔的摩买了一家小百货连锁店（译者注：就是霍希尔德·科恩公司（Hochschild-Kohn），多元零售公司就是成立用来收购霍希尔德·科恩公司的）。后来发现大错特错，因为竞争太激烈了。当收购协议上的墨水干了以后，我们意识到我们犯了一个可怕的错误。所以我们决定卖掉它，宁愿让自己看起来很蠢，也不想破产。巴菲特将其卖给了[通用超市]，才让我们摆脱困境。
By that time we already financed half of it in covenant-free debt, and so forth. They had all this extra cash and our own stocks got down to selling enormous... we just, in the middle of one of those recessions, we just bought, bought, bought, and bought. All that money went right into those stocks. Of course, we tripled it just sitting on our ass.
当时，我们已经用无担保债务等方式融到了一半的资金用于收购。最终，卖家拿到了这些额外的现金。而我们自己的股票开始被大量抛售……在经济衰退的时候，我们只是买、买、买、再买。所有的钱都投进了那些股票。当然，我们就这么坐着就翻了三倍。
Ben: That led to Blue Chip?
本：后面这个说的是蓝筹印花？
Charlie: Yeah, it was part of the early success of Blue Chip.
查理：是的，这是蓝筹印花早期成功的一部分。
Ben: Wow. You mentioned Warren doesn't like retailers.
本：哇。你刚才提到沃伦不喜欢零售商。
Charlie: Blue Chip did something else you both don’t know about. We bought a little pissant savings and loan company for maybe $20 million. When we left that thing, we had taken out of our little $20 million investment over $2 billion in marketable securities, which went into Nebraska insurance companies as part of their bedrock capital. We had some wonderful early years, and that's what everybody needs, those wonderful early years.
查理：蓝筹印花公司还做了一件你们俩都不知道的事。我们用 2000 万美元买下了一家小小的农民储贷公司。当我们卖掉那家公司的时候，我们已经从 2000 万美元的投资中拿到了 20 多亿美元的有价证券，这些有价证券进入了内布拉斯加州的保险公司（译者注：猜测可能是指国民赔偿保险），成为了他们基石资本的一部分。我们度过了美好的早年时光，而这正是每个人都需要的，美好的早年时光。
Ben: Wow.
本：哇。
David: In our Costco episode, we started with the joke. At one of the Berkshire meetings probably 10 years ago, Warren told the joke about you were on a plane being hijacked, and the hijackers gave you one final request, and you said you'd like to give your speech on the virtues.
大卫：在我们播客《开市客》那一集中，我们是从一个笑话开始的。大概 10 年前的一次伯克希尔股东大会上，沃伦讲了一个笑话，说如果你在一架被劫持的飞机上，劫机者给你最后一个提要求的机会，你会说想再谈论一下开市客的优点。
Charlie: Warren got tired of me reminding him.
查理：沃伦厌倦了我的念叨。
David: Yeah, and he said shoot me first. We were hoping you could give us your speech on the virtues of Costco.
大卫：是的，沃伦说他自己的愿望是（在芒格演讲前）先毙了他。但我们希望你能展开讲讲开市客的优点。
Charlie: Warren was kidding me for being so repetitive on the subject. There aren't many times in a lifetime when you know you're right and you know you have one that's really going to work wonderfully. Maybe five or six times in a lifetime you get a chance to do it. People who do it two or three times early, all go broke because they think it's easy. In fact, it's very hard and rare.
查理：沃伦总是笑话我，不停地念叨开市客有多好。在人的一生中，你知道自己是对的，知道自己有一个真正能发挥奇效的方法的时候并不多。一生中也许有五六次这样的机会。人们往往在早年会有两三次成功的经验，然后会觉得这很容易，然后就破产了。事实上，这种机会是很难把握的，也很罕见。
Ben: What was it about Costco that made you realize this is one of those few moments in a lifetime?
本：是开市客的什么让你意识到这是一生中为数不多的机会之一？
Charlie: They really did sell cheaper than anybody else in America and they did it in big, efficient stores. The parking spaces were 10 feet wide instead of eight or nine feet or whatever they normally are. They did it all right and they had a lot of parking spaces. They kept out of their stores. All these people didn't do big volumes, and they gave special benefits to the people who did come to the stores in the way of reward points.
查理：他们确实比美国其他任何商场都卖得便宜，而且他们的店面很大，坪效很高。停车位宽 3 米，而不是通常的 2.5 米或 2.7 米。他们做得很好，有很多停车位。他们将不进行大量采购的顾客留在了他们的商店外面，他们给来店里消费的人以积分奖励的方式提供特别优惠。
Ben: The executive membership?
本：高级会员资格？
Charlie: Yeah. It all worked.
查理：是的，这一切都奏效了。
Ben: The capital-light business model, I mean, when we were studying it, the difference between price—
本：当我们过去研究轻资产商业模式的时候，我们发现价格和……
Charlie: They have no investment in inventory. They make the suppliers wait until they've been paid and then they're scheduled to pay only after they're scheduled to sell.
查理：他们不需要在库存上垫款。他们收到会员费后才让供应商备货，只有在预定销售后才给供应商付款。
Ben: They've got 900 warehouses around the world full of high-quality merchandise, none of which they have sitting on their books.
本：他们在全世界有 900 个仓库，里面装满了高品质的商品，而这些商品都不在他们的账上。
Charlie: That's correct.
查理：没错。
David: Our understanding is that Price Club went public initially before the merger, they just listed. They didn't raise any capital. They didn't need any capital.
大卫：我们的理解是，普莱斯俱乐部在被并购之前就已经上市了，但他们只是挂牌而已。他们没有筹集任何资金，因为他们不需要任何资本。
Charlie: Who knows?
查理：或许吧。
Sol liked it. He was a financier. He liked deals. He liked this miscellaneous real estate. But that didn’t made sense! You got an enterprise as big as Costco, you don't want to screw around with your parking lot, get other people clog up your parking lot permanently and stuff. it's not going to pay you very much.
索尔喜欢这样。他是个金融家，他喜欢收购，他喜欢这些杂七杂八的不动产。但这没道理！如果你有一个像开市客这么大的企业，你不会想把你的停车场搞得一团糟，让其他人长期堵塞你的停车场什么的。投资这些乱七八糟的不会有太多收益。
Ben: Right.
本：是的。
Charlie: You don't want them is the answer.
查理：答案是你不会想要那些乱七八糟的东西。
Ben: Have you ever seen another business that takes advantage of the virtue of the low SKU count the way that Costco does?
本：你有没有见过另一个像开市客这样充分利用低 SKU 优势的企业？
Charlie: There are lots of them. That little grocery store chain here in Los Angeles, Gelson Brothers. They wanted the high turnovers and low capital costs, and they never made the least effort to earn any money. They didn’t want to share their parking lot with anybody.
查理：有很多。洛杉矶这里有一家小型连锁杂货店，盖尔森兄弟公司（Gelson Brothers）。他们想要高周转和低资本成本，他们从来没有松懈，努力赚钱。他们不想把自己的客户拱手让人。
Ben: As you reflect back on one of these few great companies in a lifetime that you should bet big on, what advice would you have for David and I as young partners looking for a few of these in our lifetime? Things to look out for?
本：当你说起一生中投资的这几个伟大公司时，你说你会倾向于大胆地押注。对于大卫和我这样年轻的合伙人，想在我们的一生中找寻一些这样的投资机会，您有什么建议给我们吗？有哪些需要注意的事项？
Charlie: You may find it five years after you bought it. These things may work into it or your own understanding may get better. But when you know you have an edge, you should bet heavily. When you know you're right. Most people don't teach that in business school. It's insane. Of course you got to bet heavily on your best bets.
查理：你可能在买入五年后才发现这是一个很好的投资机会。很多竞争优势在公司的发展中不断起作用，也可能是你自己的理解在变得更深入。但是当你知道自己有优势时，当你知道自己是对的时候，你应该大胆下注。但是大多数商学院都不教这个，太不可思议了。大胆地押注在你最有把握的赌注上，这是毫无疑问的。
Ben: How do you develop that level of conviction to know?
本：你是如何培养这种信念的？
Charlie: You work at it. You do a lot of reading, thinking, and visiting.
查理：在实践中培养。同时，你要做大量的阅读、思考，并拜访很多人。
David: I'm curious, we wanted to ask you, you've had this beautiful partnership with Warren for half a century, we're a decade into our partnership.
大卫：我很好奇，我们想问你，你和沃伦的合作已经有半个世纪了，我们的合作也有十年了。
Charlie: There was a lot of low hanging fruit in the early days of our operation. You don't have any low hanging fruit that's easy to recognize.
查理：在我们经营的早期，有很多低垂的果实。你们现在没有任何容易识别的低垂果实。
Ben: You mean in investment opportunities?
本：你是指投资机会吗？
Charlie: Yeah, that's right.
查理：是的，没错。（译者注：这两句芒格应该还是在回答上面的问题，即如何发现巨大的投资机会。）
David: But your relationship with Warren?
大卫：那你和沃伦的关系呢？
Charlie: We were both somewhat similar. We both wanted to keep our families safe and take a good job for our investors and so on. We had similar attitudes.
查理：我们有些相似之处。我们都想保证家人的安全，为我们的投资者做好本职工作等等。我们有相似的人生态度。
David: Did it change over the decades?
大卫：这几十年来有什么变化吗？
Charlie: No. Warren still cares more about the safety of his Berkshire shareholders than he cares about anything else. If we used a little bit more leverage throughout, we'd have three times as much now, and it wouldn't have been that much more risk either. We never wanted to give them the least a chance of screwing up our basic shelter position.
查理：没有变化。沃伦仍然更关心伯克希尔股东的安全，比他关心任何其他事情都要多。如果我们在整个过程中使用了更多的杠杆，我们现在会有三倍的财富，而风险也不会多太多。但我们不想因为任何小概率事件导致我们的资产根基遭到破坏。
Ben: If you had used more leverage, do you think there's some chance of that?
本：如果使用了更多的杠杆，你觉得有可能做得更好吗？
Charlie: We would have done a little better, sure.
查理：我们会做得更好，当然。（译者注：我理解从这里开始，主持人和芒格聊岔了，芒格说的杠杆是经营杠杆，主持人说的是债务杠杆。）
Ben: Do you think there's some chance that it wouldn't exist at all? That it would have cost you the franchise?
本：有没有可能这是个伪命题？更高的杠杆可能会让你们因此失去特许经营权？
Charlie: No, I think it would have worked fine.
查理：不，我觉得杠杆更高不会出现问题。
David: Does Warren think that?
大卫：沃伦也这么认为吗？
Charlie: If the situation lends itself to, if you were intelligent, just milking it out.
查理：有的时候，如果你聪明的话，杠杆是自己加上去的，你自然赚得更多。
David: When you leverage, I'm so curious after we did our--
大卫：我很好奇，在你使用杠杆时，在我们……
Charlie: It's automatically leveraged! If you open a new store with no capital, of course it's leveraged. Who wouldn't want a business with no inventories?
查理：这种杠杆是自己加上的。如果你开一家新店，却不需要投入资本，这当然是杠杆。谁不想做没有库存的生意呢？
Ben: Right, that's a good point. By the virtue of you owe a whole bunch of people money on day one for these goods.
本：对，这个观点很好。你运营伊始就因为这些东西欠了一大堆人钱。
Charlie: Which turnover so rapidly.
查理：而且这些东西的周转率非常快。
David: Right. It's interesting, I mean, that leverage, it's not debt leverage. What do you think about debt?
大卫：没错。不过，这种杠杆并不是债务杠杆。你对债务有什么看法呢？
Charlie: A lot of people do it now. A lot of people who manufacture something, they're just terribly strong and they're just forcing the suppliers to carry all the inventory. It isn't like we're the only ones that do it.
查理：现在很多人都这么做。很多生产商都非常强势，他们迫使供应商携带所有库存。并不是只有我们这么做。
Ben: Back to the point on partnership, David and I are coming up on 10 years as partners in this podcast we do together. Different from the investing business, but a compounding one nonetheless. After a 50-year partnership with Warren, what advice would you have for us interpersonally to make for an enduring partnership?
本：回到合伙关系这一点上，大卫和我作为合伙人一起做这个播客已经快 10 年了。播客与投资业务不同，但也是一种累进增长型业务。在与沃伦合作 50 年之后，您在人际交往方面有什么建议给我们吗？能够让我们保持持久的合伙关系。
Charlie: Well, it helps if you like one another and enjoy working together.
查理：嗯，如果你们彼此欣赏，并享受在一起工作的乐趣，那会很有帮助。
David: We do.
大卫：我们确实如此。
Charlie: Yeah, but I don't use any one formula. A lot of partnerships that work well for a long time happen because one's good at one thing and one's good at another. They just naturally divide it. Each one likes what he's doing.
查理：不错，但我不预先设定任何一种定式。很多长期合作的伙伴关系都是因为一个人擅长一件事，另一个人擅长另一件事。他们只是自然而然地分工。每个人都喜欢自己做的事情。
Now in Costco's case, they had Jeff Brotman, who's very smart but not a retailer, and Jim Sinegal. They divided it up and they had originally agreed that Brotman would be the chairman and CEO because he founded the whole thing. But Sinegal decided, no, I have to be the CEO. It was a big unfortunate board meeting, a big internal struggle, and Brotman moved aside.
在开市客的案例中，他们有杰夫·布罗特曼（Jeff Brotman）和詹姆斯·辛尼格，杰夫·布罗特曼非常聪明，但不是零售商背景。他们进行了分工，原本商定由布罗特曼担任董事长兼首席执行官，因为这是他一手创办的。但辛尼格决定，不，我必须担任首席执行官。那是一次非常不幸的董事会会议，一场激烈的内部斗争，然后布罗特曼靠边站了。
David: Was that after you joined the board?
大卫：那是在你加入董事会之后吗？
Charlie: No, before.
查理：不，是之前。
David: Do you think you and Warren not living in the same city helped your partnership last so long?
大卫：你认为你和沃伦不住在同一个城市，是否有助于你们的合作关系持续这么久？
Charlie: Well, it may have helped, but Warren has very close relations with all those people. They have lunch every Saturday at Berkshire headquarters. It isn't like he doesn't have a little quarter of people there who are pals from the ground up.
查理：嗯，这可能有帮助，但沃伦与公司总部所有人都有密切的关系。他们每个星期六在伯克希尔总部共进午餐。并不是说他在那里没有一群非常亲密的朋友。
Ben: Do you think it helps that when you do spend the time together, it's special rather than being common?
本：你觉得你们聚少离多的相处方式有助于这段合伙关系吗？
Charlie: Of course we used to spend a lot of time together when we were young because we didn't have that much to do. Now we've got more to do but then it's just the other minutiae of life so it's different.
查理：我们年轻时其实经常在一起，因为我们没有太多事情可做。现在我们各自有更多事情要做，但这是人生不同阶段导致的。现在和以前不一样了。
Ben: Yeah.
本：是啊。
David: It's funny. I feel like we have a lot to do now.
大卫：这很有趣。我反而觉得我们现在有很多事要做。
Charlie: Of course, you do. It's very difficult to invest money well. I think it's all but impossible to do time after time after time in venture capital.
查理：当然，当然。要把钱投好是非常困难的。我认为在风险投资中一次又一次地做到这一点几乎是不可能的。
David: We really wanted to ask your thoughts on venture capital.
大卫：我们真的很想问问你对风险投资的看法。
Charlie: Some of the deals get so hot and you have to decide so quickly. You're all just sort of gambling.
查理：有些收购太火热了，投资者必须迅速做出决定。投资者们可以说都只是在赌博。
Ben: Do you think the role of venture capital is being properly accomplished in society?
本：你认为风险投资在社会中的作用是否得到了应有的发挥？
Charlie: No, I think it's very poorly done.
查理：没有，我认为它在这方面做得很糟糕。
David: Charlie elaborated on this point with a few things that we can't air, but the topic did turn to Bitcoin.
大卫：查理就这一点进行了一些我们不能公开的阐述，然后话题转向了比特币。
Ben: I've heard many comments you've made on Bitcoin. I'm curious if you have a thought on this particular angle. An easy way to transfer money between countries, especially when those countries don't have a stable store of value within that country. Is it good to have an independent store of value that is not pegged to a nation state?
本：我听过你对比特币的很多评论。我很好奇你对这个特定角度有什么看法：比特币是一种在国家间转移资金的便捷方式，尤其是当这些国家的本币币值不稳时。拥有一种不与民族国家或挂钩的独立的价值贮藏手段难道不是好事吗？
Charlie: Of course, it's good to the world as a whole to have a way of having some currency. The way that was solved is for a long time, the British pound was the national currency of the investment world. Then it shifted to the dollar, and it's still a dollar. People like China have these enormous reserves of dollars, the money we make. Think of the money people give us where we always just print up these pieces of paper.
查理：当然，有办法让整个世界都拥有某种特定货币是好事。但这件事已经发生了。在很长的一段时间里，英镑都是投资界的「国家货币」。然后，「国家货币」变成了美元，现在仍然是美元。像中国这样的国家拥有大量的美元储备，也就是我们印制的钱。想想看，我们只需要印出这些纸片，就可以换来别人的产品和服务（译者注：原句直译为「想想人们给我们的钱，我们却总是打印出这些纸片」，但语义不通顺，根据上下文作了调整）。
Ben: What about the common person in some of these less fortunate countries who don't have access to US dollars?
本：在一些不那么幸运的国家，普通人无法获得美元，怎么办？
Charlie: Oh, they do if they ever get any money. The dollar is very fungible, you can always buy one anywhere.
查理：哦，如果他们有钱的话，肯定有办法获得美元的。美元非常好换，在任何地方都能买到。
Ben: I'm curious, back to this point of the role of venture capital in a society, if you could design a perfect system to fund innovation.
本：我很好奇，回到风险投资在社会中的作用这一点上，如果你能设计一个完美的系统来资助创新，你会怎么做？
Charlie: I think it's a very legitimate business if you do it right, if you want to give the right people the power, nurture them, and help them. You know a lot about the tricks of the game, so you can help them run their business, yet not interfere with them so much they hate you.
查理：如果你本分地做这个工作，给予正确的人权力，培养他们，帮助他们，风险投资是一个非常正当合理的业务。只要你对这个行业的诀窍了如指掌，你就可以帮助他们经营业务。不过，不要过多干预，以至于他们讨厌你。
By and large, having bumped into a lot of people in the businesses with venture capital financing, I would say the ordinary rule is that people in the business doing the work, more often than not they hate the venture capitalists. They don't feel they are a partner trying to help the company, they’re taking care of themselves and so on and so on. They don't like them.
总的来说，在接触了很多风险投资被投企业里面的人后，我可以说，普遍规律是，从事业务工作的人往往讨厌风险投资家。他们觉得风投并不是一个试图帮助公司的合作伙伴，而是只关注自身利益的机构。企业里面的人不喜欢风险投资机构。
Ben: How could it work differently?
本：怎么做才能不这样？
Charlie: That’s not true at Berkshire. Our people know we're not trying to discard them to the highest bid. See if some investment banker offers us 20 times earnings or some lousy business, we don't sell. If it's a problem in a business we've never been able to fix, we'll sell it. But if it's a halfway decent business, we never sell anything. That gives us this reputation of staying with things, which helps us.
查理：在伯克希尔就不是这样。我们的员工知道，我们并不是要把他们扔给出价最高的人。即使有投资银行家出价 20 倍的市盈率想收购一些我们差劲的业务，我们也不会卖。如果是公司存在一些我们一直无法解决的问题，我们会卖掉它。但如果是只是表现得不尽如人意，我们绝不会出售。这给了我们与被收购公司共进退的声誉，这对我们很有帮助。
Ben: Do you think that buy and hold, not only mentality, but demonstration is the key thing that aligns investors with managers?
本：你是否认为「买入并持有」不仅是一种心态，而且是一种示范，这是投资者与基金管理人共进退的关键所在？
Charlie: Well, it's rare, you see. Everybody else has a standard way of doing things and the lawyers have their standard forms. Everybody just has the same standard form and they get the same standard results subject to the vicissitudes of investment life. You don't want to make money by screwing your investors and that's what a lot of venture capitals do.
查理：嗯，你知道的，这种做法很罕见。其他行业的人都有一种职业规范，律师们也有他们的职业规范。在变幻莫测的投资生涯中，每个人也应该有他们的职业规范，并在这种规范下收获正常所得。你不想通过诈骗你的投资者来赚钱，但很多风险投资公司就是这样做的。
The world is full of ex-Goldman Sachs partners that formed a private fund and they manage a billion dollars or something like that. They charge two points off the top, plus the […] and that enables them to make very handsome living for themselves, but the endowments are not getting a good return.
这个世界充斥着从高盛辞职的合伙人组建的私募基金，他们管理着十亿美元左右的资金。他们从前端收取 2% 的管理费，加上（后端业绩报酬），这使他们能够为自己赚取非常可观的收入，但捐赠基金（译者注：指客户）却没有得到良好的回报。
David: Do you think it's specifically the fee aspect of fund structures?
大卫：你认为这主要是基金费用结构方面的问题吗？
Charlie: It's just the nature of the wedges, it's the way it works. Of course, you really shouldn't be in the business of charging extra unless you really are going to achieve very unusual results. Of course, it's easier to pretend that you can get good results than it is to actually get them.
查理：对冲基金行业的本质就是这样，这就是它的运作机制（译者注：英文 wedges 疑似应该是 hedges）。当然了，除非你确实能够取得非常不寻常的成果，否则你真的不应该在业务中额外收费。不过，假装取得好成绩比实际取得好成绩要容易得多。
It attracts the wrong people. People with investment capital turn up mine and the people who make the most money out of venture capital are a lot like investment bankers deciding which hot new area they're going to get in. They're not great investors or great at anything.
这个行业吸引了错误的人。有投资资金的人会涌入这个行业寻找机会，但真正决定资金投向的却是投资银行家们，他们决定了这些资金要进入哪个热门的新领域，但他们并不是出色的投资者，也不擅长任何事情。事实上，投资银行家们才是从风险投资中赚到最多钱的人。
David: What do you think endowments and large pools of capital should do then?
大卫：那你认为捐赠基金和大型资产管理机构应该怎么做？
Charlie: Well, they're starting to do it. The endowments have started to say to all these people that charge 3 and 30 or whatever they charge. They said, we'll pay you 3 and 30. We're going to put in twice as much money. Then the next half, you'll get nothing on it. We're just going to ride pari passu on some of your investments.
查理：嗯，他们开始有所行动了。捐赠基金会已经开始对那些收取 3-30 或类似费用的机构说出自己的要求。他们说，我们会按要求支付这一期 3-30 的费用。我们第二期的规模会翻倍，但多出来的那部分资金，我们不会再支付费用，我们希望这部分资金能够和对冲基金自有资金按出资比例共享盈亏。
The fees go down by 50%, that'll take a lot of the fun out of it. Fees down 50% and that's happening all over America. They feel had, misled, and irritated. They've looked foolish to their own trustees.
这相当于费用下降了 50%，这让对冲基金行业的乐趣一下子少了一大半。费用下降 50% 这种事，在全美都正在发生。基金管理人们很恼火，感觉被耍了。过去，资金委托人在管理人眼里都是傻子，现在不是了。
David: One of the issues I think in investing right now, you mentioned it about venture capital, but I think it's true everywhere, is that there's just so much capital and so much competition. We're so far removed from the cigar bud era. We're in the opposite of the cigar bud era these days. Are there opportunities out there?
大卫：我认为现在投资的一个问题是，资本太多，竞争太激烈。之前我们提到了风险投资行业有这样的问题，但事实上其他投资行业也是如此。我们已经远离了烟蒂股时代。如今我们正处在与烟蒂股时代相反的另一个极端。现在还有机会吗？
Charlie: Somebody will find a few things, but it gets harder and harder. I would argue one of the easiest ones was when they decided on a little group around Home Depot. They would copy the Costco model and home improvements and that was basically a good idea. Think of the money they made doing it.
查理：有人会发现一些好的投资机会，但越来越难了。我认为其中最容易的一个是聚焦特定用户，比如家得宝（Home Depot）。他们模仿开市客的模式，进军家居装修领域，这大概率是一个好主意。想想他们做这个赚了多少钱。（译者注：这里直译并不通顺，根据译者自己理解进行了翻译。）
David: Yeah, Bernie Marcus.
大卫：是的，伯尼·马库斯（Bernie Marcus）。
Charlie: Yeah. That was a direct copy of Costco.
查理：是的。那是对开市客的直接模仿。
Ben: Do you think there are more opportunities to copy Costco?
本：你认为模仿开市客的机会还多吗？
Charlie: Well, there was another one at Costco. Floor & Decor is the current imitator. It's in wood imitating vinyl flooring. They're running a Costco model and they keep adding miscellaneous stuff to it too.
查理：类似开市客的还有一家。地板装饰（Floor & Decor）是目前的模仿者。它经营销售的是仿木塑胶地板。他们的经营模式是开市客式的，不过他们一直在店里增加各式各样的杂项品类。
Ben: It's the miscellaneous stuff that'll eventually kill you, though.
本：不过那些杂七杂八的东西最终会要了你的命。
Charlie: Well, it'll be simpler if it was all floor.
查理：嗯，如果全是地板就简单多了。
David: Home Depot worked so well, but I don't know that it was totally obvious. Part of the appeal of Costco was it was horizontal. It was everything. Consumers could come. They could make a trip, bring their big wagon, and bring their big truck.
大卫：家得宝运作得很好，但我不知道这是否显而易见。开市客的吸引力，一部分来自于它的全品类，它无所不包。消费者会来到这里，他们可以开着大货车、大卡车专程来一趟。
Charlie: Home Depot was the same. They copied everything.
查理：家得宝也是一样。他们复制了一切。
David: And famously Bernie Marcus came out to visit Sol before he started.
大卫：而且伯尼·马库斯在创立家得宝之前来拜访了索尔，这是出了名的。
Charlie: Yeah, he copied everything.
查理：是的，他复制了所有的东西。
David: Sol was happy to share the playbook with everybody. How do you feel about that?
大卫：索尔很乐意与所有人分享他的操作手册。你对此有何感受？
Charlie: Sol was another crazy person. He was domineering and so on, but he was also very intelligent. But there aren't many opportunities like Home Depot and Costco. There aren't very many.
查理：索尔也是一个狂人。他控制欲很强，但也很聪明。像家得宝和开市客这样的机会并不多，非常不多。
Ben: Why do you think Walmart hasn't been successful once they saw Costco in competing?
本：沃尔玛感受到开市客的竞争后，却没能成功反击。你觉得是为什么？
Charlie: They were too weathered by the ideas they already had. That’s everybody’s trouble. They just can’t accept a new idea because the space is occupied by the old idea. They got into the habit of getting real estate for practically nothing, because they went into towns where nothing is valuable. So their occupancy cost are like zero. And they knew how to make big efficient stores. That was their formula.
查理：他们被自己已有的想法束缚住了。这是每个人都会遇到的问题。他们无法接受新的想法，因为旧的想法已经占据了空间。他们养成了以几乎不花钱的方式获得房地产的习惯，因为他们进入的城镇什么都不值钱。因此，他们的占用成本几乎为零。他们知道如何打造高效的大型商店。那是他们的成功秘诀。
So it offended them to go against the rich suburbs and having to pay for the good locations. Costco just specializes in the good locations, where the rich people lived. And Walmart just let them do it year after year. It was just a terrible mistake.
因此，让他们放弃广袤的郊区，还要为了好地段付费，这与他们的文化不符。开市客专门选择好的地理位置，因为那里住着富人。而沃尔玛每年都放任他们这么做，这是一个可怕的错误。
David: Did you know Sam Walton?
大卫：你认识山姆·沃尔顿（Sam Walton）（译者注：沃尔玛创始人）吗？
Charlie: No, never met him. I knew one of the sons. They divided it up about six parts very early.
查理：不认识，从没见过他。我认识他的一个儿子。他们很早就把公司分成了六个部分。
David: Yeah, Walton Enterprise.
大卫：是的，沃尔顿企业（Walton Enterprise）。（译者注：沃尔顿企业是全球著名的家族办公室之一。）
Charlie: They never paid much gift tax.
查理：他们从未缴纳过很多赠与税。
Ben: The topic then turned into the automakers and the future of the car industry.
本：随后话题转向汽车制造商和汽车行业的未来。
Charlie: How hard would it be to go into the auto business, to have some big killing? Who's going to win? Who knows? The whole thing has been thrown way up in the air by all these electric cars, all these big, new capital requirements, different ways of selling cars. Plus they got these tough unions. See I just don’t even look at the auto industry!
查理：想进入汽车行业狠狠赚上一笔有多难？天知道谁会赢呢？大量的因素处于悬而未决的状态：电动汽车的发展、巨额新增的资金缺口、不同销售方式的竞争……还没考虑这些强大的工会力量。所以，我基本上不关注汽车行业。
Ben: Do you think it's more investible today than it was 50 years ago because of the disruptive innovation of electric?
本：你是否认为，由于电动汽车的颠覆性创新，今天的电动汽车比 50 年前更具投资价值？
Charlie: Well maybe for one or two electric cars that are really good, maybe, but certainly nobody else. It's too tough. BYD was a miracle. That guy worked 70 hours a week and has a very high IQ. He can do the things you can't do. You can look at somebody else's auto part and you can figure out how to make the goddamned thing. You can't do that, you see.
查理：可能最终真的有一两个很好的电动车企业，但肯定大部分的车企不行，这太难了。比亚迪是个奇迹。王传福每周工作 70 个小时，智商非常高。他能做到你做不到的事情。你能看着别人的汽车零件，然后想出该如何制造那该死的东西吗？你做不到这一点的（但是他可以）。
Person: Charlie, you invest in a Hyundai.
某人：查理，你投资了现代汽车。
Charlie: Yes, but they're clever too.
查理：是的，但他们也很聪明。
Person: How was that investment for you?
某人：那个投资对你来说怎么样？
Charlie: I lost money, not much because I was stubborn, I held out until I got back to almost what I paid for when I sold.
查理：我亏了钱，不算太多，因为我很固执，我一直熬到了它涨回接近我成本价的位置时我才卖出。
Andrew: There's been a lot of discussion about Berkshire's investments in the Japanese trading houses.
安德鲁：关于伯克希尔在日本商社的投资有很多讨论。
Charlie: That is a no-brainer. Something like that, if you're as smart as Warren Buffett, maybe two to three times the century, you had an idea like that. The interest rates in Japan were half a percent per year for 10 years. These trading companies were really entrenched old companies. They had all these cheap copper mines and rubber plantations.
查理：这是显而易见的投资机会。即使你像沃伦·巴菲特一样聪明，在一个世纪内可能也只会碰上两到三次这样显而易见的投资机会。日本的利率在 10 年里每年只有 0.5%，这些商社都是根深蒂固的老公司。他们拥有廉价的铜矿和橡胶种植园。
You could borrow for ten years ahead. Probably about a year you could buy the stocks and it's likely at 5% dividends. A huge flow of cash with no investment, no thought, no anything. How often do you do that? You'll be lucky if you get one or two a century. We could do that, nobody else could.
你可以借十年期的钱。大概一年后，你就可以买股票，而且可能有 5% 的股息。无需再投资，无需思考，什么都不用做，就能获得巨大的现金流。你多长时间能碰上这样的事呢？一个世纪能有一两次就不错了。但只有我们能做到，别人做不到。
It looked attractive for half a percent, but you couldn't get it. But Berkshire with its credit could, and the only way you could get it was be very patient, just pick away little pieces of the time. It took him forever to get $10 billion invested. It was like God just opening a chest and just pouring money. It's awfully easy money.
0.5% 的利率看起来很诱人，但你拿不到。不过，伯克希尔公司凭借其信贷能力可以获得，而唯一的方法就是非常耐心地一点一点借出来。我们花了很长时间才拿到 100 亿美元的贷款去投资。这种投资就像我们打开了一个箱子，上帝直接把钱倒了进去。这钱来得太容易了。
Ben: It's interesting that it's paradoxical. You need Berkshire's credit. But at Berkshire scale, it's actually hard to put enough money to work.
本：有趣的是，这很矛盾。你需要伯克希尔的信用。但以伯克希尔的规模，想要带来实质性的收益率提升，也是很有难度的。
Charlie: That's true, but why shouldn’t it be hard to make money? Why should it be easy?
查理：没错，但为什么赚钱不难呢？为什么应该很容易呢？
David: Japanese trading companies remind me. We studied another company recently, Nike. That is surprising to me. Have you ever looked at it?
大卫：日本商社的主题提醒了我。我们最近研究了另一家公司，耐克。这家公司让我很惊讶。你研究过它吗？
Charlie: That's a very different company. That's a style company. Of course, I've looked at it, but I don't like style companies.
查理：那是一家非常与众不同的公司，是一家时尚品牌（style company）。当然，我研究过它，但我不喜欢时尚品牌。
Ben: Too fad-driven?
本：太流行了？
Charlie: I suppose if you offered me Hermes at a cheap enough price, and I'd buy it. But short of that, I’m not going to buy any style company
查理：我想，如果你以足够便宜的价格给我爱马仕（Hermes），我会买的。但除此之外，我不会买任何时尚品牌公司。
Ben: That's a good pick.
本：这是个不错的选择。
Andrew: To the style point, another one that they covered was LVMH. What Arnault has done has been amazing. What do you make of that company?
安德鲁：就时尚品牌而言，他们报道的另一个品牌是路威酩轩集团（LVMH）。阿尔诺（Arnault）的成就令人惊叹。你怎么看这家公司？
Charlie: Well, if you're as good as they are at what they've done, you have a lifetime to do it in. Without a lifetime, three or four lifetimes to do it in. You can create another, but it's not easy.
查理：即使你像他们一样出色，你也得用一辈子的时间来追赶他们。如果一辈子的时间追不上，可能要花三到四辈子的时间才行。你可以再创造一个类似的品牌，但并不容易。
David: Hermes is on the eighth generation, I think, now of the family running it.
大卫：爱马仕现在好像已经传到第八代了，家族的第八代传人在经营着。
Charlie: It's not a bit easy. They have meetings every day and make policy decisions, and they choose the locations one at a time. It's work.
查理：这并不容易。他们每天都要开会，制定政策，一个一个地选店址。这就是工作。
Ben: It's definitely work. What do you think the durable value is in these, as you say, style companies, of the very best one in the world, the Hermes or the LVMH? What makes them enduring?
本：这绝对是工作。你认为这些如你所说的时尚品牌公司，世界上最好的公司，爱马仕或 LVMH 的持久价值是什么？是什么让它们经久不衰？
Charlie: They just got a brand people trust so much. It took them a century to do it.
查理：它们拥有一个人们非常信赖的品牌。他们花了一个世纪才做到这一点。
Ben: Our conversation then turned to comparing Kirkland Signature as a brand to Hermes.
本：我们的话题转到不同品牌的比较上，比如科克兰（Kirkland Signature）（译者注：开市客自有品牌）和爱马仕。
Charlie: Kirkland is a brand the way Tide is a brand. And Hermes is a… different kind of a brand.
查理：科克兰和汰渍（Tide）是一种类型的品牌，爱马仕则是另外一种类型的品牌。
Ben: Yeah, Ferrari doesn't make detergent.
本：是啊，法拉利（Ferrari）可不生产洗衣液。
Charlie: No.
查理：是的。
David: We've spent a lot of time studying these brands. How do you look at the value of a brand?
大卫：我们花了很多时间研究这些品牌。你们如何看待品牌的价值？
Charlie: It's hard for us not to love brands, since we were lucky enough to buy See’s candy for $20 million as our first acquisition. We found out fairly quickly that we could raise the price every year 10%, and nobody cared. We didn't make the volumes go up or anything like that. Just made the profits go up. We've been raising the price by 10% a year for all these 40 years or so. It's been a very satisfactory company.
查理：我们很难不喜欢品牌公司，因为我们非常幸运，第一次收购就以 2000 万美元买下了喜诗糖果。我们很快就发现，我们可以每年提价 10%，而且没人在乎。我们并没有让销量之类的上升，但利润就这样上升了。这 40 多年来，我们每年提价 10%。这是一家非常令人满意的公司。
It didn't require any new capital. That’s what was good about it: very little new capital. It had two big kitchens and a bunch of rental stores when we bought it, and now it's got two big kitchens and a bunch of rental stores.
它不需要任何新资本投入，这就是它的好处：只需要很少的外部资金。我们买下它的时候，它有两个大厨房和一堆租赁店面，现在它还是有两个大厨房和一堆租赁店面。
Charlie See was a playboy, and his brother ran the company, his older brother, and dominated it completely. And when he died, Charlie made his brother as executor, and now he needs a lot of money to pay death taxes. He doesn't have it. It's due eight months or something later. They really wanted to sell it so they can pay the death taxes. See, it was only making $4 million pre tax when we bought it.
查理·西（Charlie See）是个花花公子，他的哥哥运营着公司并完全主宰了公司（译者注：据了解，喜诗糖果应该是他们的爸爸查尔斯·西二世创建的，这里的查理·西，应该指的是查尔斯·西二世的小儿子，查尔斯·博森·西（Charles Burson See）。查尔斯二世 1949 年去世后，喜诗糖果交由大儿子劳伦斯·亚历山大·西（Laurance Alexander See）管理，劳伦斯 1969 年去世，这位查理·西当了总裁）。他哥哥死后，查理作为他哥哥的遗产继承人，需要一大笔钱来交遗产税。他没有钱，但八个月后就要交税了。他们真的很想卖了它，这样他们就可以支付遗产税拿到遗产。我们买的时候，喜诗糖果税前利润只有 400 万美元。
Ben: So that buying opportunity only came about because the family needed liquidity to pay the death taxes?
本：这么说，这个购买机会的出现只是因为这个家庭需要流动资金来支付遗产税？
Charlie: Yes, that's right. We only found out about it because Charlie See was on this cruise to Hawaii or something with this guy who was a client… the investment council also worked for Blue Chip Stamps, which is the company that bought it. Anyway, that's how we found out about it. We paid that guy a finder's fee even, we've never paid one since.
查理：是的，没错。我们之所以知道这件事，是因为查理·西在夏威夷的游轮上，和一个朋友说起这个事。这个朋友恰好是蓝筹印花投资委员会的成员，同时在蓝筹印花公司工作，于是蓝筹印花就收购了喜诗糖果。简而言之，我们就是这么发现的。我们甚至给了那家伙一笔居间费，从那以后我们再也没付过居间费。
Andrew: It was worth it!
安德鲁：这笔钱付得值！
Charlie: Of course, but you don't want a bad reputation for paying a finder's fee. Everybody in the world will be bothering you all day long.
查理：确实。不过即便如此，你也不想被人称为「永远会给中间人钱」的那个人吧，那样的话，全世界的人会整天找你麻烦。
Andrew: So, there are categories like See’s or Hermes, where brands lead to pricing power….
安德鲁：那么，有些品类，比如喜诗糖果或爱马仕，品牌会具备定价权....
Charlie: I think your chances of buying one of them are so low, I wouldn't even look. I only believe in looking at things that I might find. You're not going to get a chance to buy them.
查理：我觉得你能买到这种公司的几率很低，我甚至都不会去找。我只看我可能找到的东西。你不会有机会买到这种公司的。
Ben: No curiosity without a return!
本：知道没有结果就没有好奇心了。
Andrew: Why do you think there are extremely well-known brands in other categories, maybe packaged food or something?
安德鲁：在其他类别中也有非常知名的品牌，比如包装食品或其他类别，你怎么看呢？
Charlie: There are a lot of professional investors who buy nothing but branded goods. They usually start with this Nestle, and […]. They’ve done two or three points better than average, but it's not a bonanza.
查理：有很多专业投资者只买品牌商品公司。他们通常从雀巢、[…] 开始。他们的业绩比平均水平高出两三个百分点，但这并不是大丰收。
David: After that, our conversation turned to Kraft Heinz and why Heinz is able to have pricing power while Kraft is not.
大卫：之后，我们的话题转向了卡夫亨氏，为什么亨氏能够拥有定价权，而卡夫却没有？
Charlie: It is very interesting. There’s something about the flavor of ketchup on a goddamned fried potato… that you are really willing to change brands over. They want Heinz! And so, you can raise the price of Heinz pretty much. If you try and raise the price of Kraft cheese, everybody’s goes into rebellion, including the final customer, the housewife. They don't care that much about whether cheese is Kraft or not.
查理：这非常有趣。在炸薯条上抹上番茄酱的口感太棒了，人们不愿意换品牌（译者注：根据意思翻译，英文貌似有误）。人们想要亨氏番茄酱！所以，你可以大幅提高亨氏的价格。但卡夫奶酪则不然，如果你试图提高卡夫奶酪的价格，每个人都会离你而去，包括最终的顾客，家庭主妇。她们并不太在乎奶酪是不是卡夫的。
Ben: Why do you think that is?
本：你认为这是为什么？
Charlie: Something about the sauce flavor. It’s happened elsewhere. In Korea, one guy, a Chinese guy, controls all the sauces. Every single major sauce, he controls at least 95% of them.
查理：和酱汁的味道有关。其他地方也有这种情况。在韩国，一个中国人控制了所有的酱料。每一种主要酱料，他至少控制了 95%。（译者注：个人猜测，说的是是宗家府。）
Ben: And it's because sauces have such a particular flavor that no one can imitate the trade secret?
本：那是因为调味汁的味道很特别，没有人能模仿这种商业秘密？
Charlie: Yeah.
查理：是的。
Ben: And that gives pricing power?
本：这是有定价权的原因？
Charlie: They get used to it, and they like it.
查理：人们习惯了，而且喜欢。
Person: Is that Coca-Cola as well?
某人： 可口可乐也是这样吗？
Charlie: Yeah, sure.
查理：是的，当然。
Ben: Charlie, I'm curious. At age 99, what is something that you believe today that 70-year-old Charlie would have disagreed with?
本：查理，我很好奇。在你 99 岁的时候，你认为有什么事情是现在你觉得正确，但 70 岁的查理是不会同意的？
Charlie: I knew when I was 70 that it was hard. It's just so hard. I know how hard it is now. Always, people who are getting this 2 and 20, or 3 and 30, or whatever, they all talk because oh, it was easy. And they get to believing their own bullshit. And of course, it's not very easy. It's very hard.
查理：我 70 岁时就知道投资很难。但现在想来，这实在太难了，我真切地懂了投资有多难。那些靠着 2-20、3-30 或者类似收费机制的投资人总是说，投资很容易。慢慢地，他们开始相信自己的鬼话。事实上，投资并不是很容易，它非常难。
David: If you were back 30 or 40 years old again today, would you decide to go into the investment business again?
大卫：如果你今天又回到三四十岁，你会再次选择进入投资行业吗？
Charlie: Well, probably because it suits my nature. But I didn't really enjoy the 3 and 30 business. Once I had enough money on my own, I'd rather just operate with my own money. That is a much better way of doing it than being forced to sell, being forced to deal with investment bankers, being forced to deal with investment consultants, being forced to deal with venture capital. To hell with them. Who wants it? You don't need other people. The point of getting rich is so you don't have to need other people, so you don’t have to get along with other people.
查理：嗯，可能会吧，因为这符合我的天性。不过我并不喜欢 3-30 的生意。一旦我自己有了足够的钱，我宁愿用自己的钱来做投资。这比被迫卖出、被迫与投资银行家打交道、被迫与投资顾问打交道、被迫与风险投资打交道要好得多。让他们见鬼去吧。谁想要那种生活？你不需要其他人。变得富有的意义就在于你可以不再和那些人打交道，不需要和那些人相处。
Person: Charlie, if you started with Warren today and you were both 30 years old, do you think you guys would build anything close to what Berkshire is today?
某人： 查理，如果今天你和沃伦一起创业，而你们都是30岁，你认为你们能创造出接近今天伯克希尔的成就吗？
Charlie: The answer to that is no, we wouldn’t. We had… everybody that had unusually good results… almost everything has three things: They're very intelligent, they worked very hard, and they were very lucky. It takes all three to get them on this list of the super successful. How can you arrange to have just […] good luck? The answer is you can start early and keep trying for a long time, and maybe you'll get one or two.
查理：答案是不能。包括我们在内，每个拥有非常好的成绩的人，几乎都要同时具备三个要素：他们非常聪明，他们非常努力，他们非常幸运。这三者缺一不可，才能让他们登上超级成功人士的榜单。如何才能拥有 [......] 好运气呢？答案是，你可以尽早开始，长期努力，也许会有一两个成功的投资案例。
Andrew: If you were starting again today, do you think insurance would still be the vehicle?
安德鲁：如果你今天重新开始，你认为保险还会是你的根基业务吗？
Charlie: It depends on your temperament! Insurance would be ideal for a certain kind of a temperament. It takes a very patient person to get rich in insurance. It takes forever to get anything, and it takes forever to push anybody aside. It's very hard to make money.
查理：这取决于你的性格！保险对于某种性格的人来说是最理想的。要在保险行业致富，需要非常有耐心。要等很久才能有所收获，也要花很长时间才能挤掉其他人。保险行业赚钱非常困难。
Ben: I've heard you say, as soon as you're wealthy enough to self-insure, you should.
本：我听你说过，只要你足够富有，能够自我保险，你就不应该购买或考虑任何保险产品。
Charlie: That's [the answer for] practically everything. Think of all the crumbums of the world that drink too much and file a claim to the insurance company, gets on fire or something. Why would you want to pay for your share of their stupidity?
查理：自给自足几乎是所有事情的 [答案]。想想世界上那些喝多了向保险公司索赔的乞丐吧，他们可能会纵火或做其他事情。你为什么要为他们的愚蠢买单？
Ben: Not to mention the overhead. Of course, the insurance company needs to pay all the people that work there.
本：更不用说经营费用了。当然，保险公司还得支付所有员工的工资。
Charlie: Yeah. It's crazy.
查理：是啊，太疯狂了。
Ben: Is there any insurance that you carry today?
本：你现在还投了什么保险吗？
Charlie: I carry no fire insurance anywhere.
查理：火灾保险我都没有投。
Ben: Do you carry auto insurance?
本：汽车保险你有投吗？
Charlie: Yeah, I have to.
查理：投了，车险是强制买的。
Ben: I don't know, Charlie could…
本：我以为查理你可以......
Charlie: No, I have to and I do.
查理：不，我也得买，而且我也买了。
Andrew: Since these guys are very tech-focused, I'm curious about not being a tech person. What did you think about the Apple investment? And what gave you the conviction to be so big?
安德鲁：因为现在很多投资人都非常关注科技领域，我很好奇你不是技术出身，对于一些问题的看法。你怎么看苹果的投资？是什么让你们有信心买那么多？
Charlie: What everybody has learned is that everybody needs some significant participation in the 12 companies that do better than everybody else. You need two or three of them, at least. If you have that mindset, Apple was the logical candidate to be on the list of which you’re going to select your companies. It's not very hard to come up with an idea that it may be okay.
查理：大家都意识到，每个人都需要在美国 12 家比别人做得好的大公司中拥有相当大的仓位。你至少需要其中的两三家。如果你有这样的打算，苹果公司就顺理成章地进入你选择公司的候选名单。想出一个可能还不错的主意并不难。
Ben: Making the list doesn't sound too hard. In fact, there are these acronyms FAANG, MAAMA, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, but selecting the one and putting tens of billions to create hundreds of billions of value… that to me sounds hard to pick the one! How did you guys pick the one?
本：制定名单听起来并不难。事实上，FAANG（Facebook、Amazon、Apple、Netflix、Google）、MAAMA（Meta、Apple、Amazon、Microsoft、Alphabet）这些缩写词都有，但选择一家，投入数百亿美元创造数千亿美元的价值......这对我来说听起来很难！你们是如何选出苹果公司的？
Charlie: We're good at anything else.
查理：我们擅长别的。
David: Was it valuation?
大卫：是估值吗？
Charlie: Yeah, it got cheap. It got to about 10 times earnings when Warren bought in.
查理：是的，太便宜了。沃伦买入时，市盈率约为 10 倍。
Ben: 2015, I believe, was the first.
本：我记得第一次买入是在 2015 年。
It's fascinating to me, this concept of if you look at distressed debt, or you look at (I think) Warren in the last Berkshire letter pointed out, it's been a handful of really good decisions…. Or you look at venture capital that's classically power law–distributed. Any of these asset classes comes down to a few really good decisions with high conviction over an entire career.
就像沃伦在最新一封伯克希尔信中指出的，「我们令人满意的业绩来自于十几个真正好的决策」，这个概念非常吸引我。看看不良债务投资，看看风险投资，投资回报都呈现出经典的幂律分布。无论投资什么类型的资产，归根结底，就是要在整个职业生涯中，有几个非常正确、信念坚定的决定。
Charlie: Yeah, that's exactly what worked.
查理：是的，这正是成功的关键。
Ben: It's not smoothed. There's no asset class where you can repeatedly just do okay.
本：投资收益不是平滑的。没有任何资产类别可以让你反复赚到差强人意的利润。
Charlie: The low-hanging fruit for the idiot is… it’s not gone, but it's very small.
查理：那种对白痴来说也是唾手可得的投资机会……虽然不能说完全没有了，但已经很少了。
Ben: You mentioned this idea when we were talking about Apple, that there are a few companies that it's just really important to be in. Do you think these big tech companies being the winners, where all of the pensions, Berkshire, university endowments, and everyone's 401(k) is being concentrated in these companies, do you think that was the natural outcome? Do we have to end up this way?
本：在谈到苹果公司时，你提到了这个观点，有几家公司是非常重要的，每个人都应该配置。你认为这些大型科技公司会持续成为赢家（所有的养老金、伯克希尔公司、大学捐赠基金以及每个人的 401(k) 最终都会集中在这些公司上）吗？你认为这是自然的结果吗？我们的终局必定是这样吗？
Charlie: Yeah, it was natural. That's why it happened.
查理：是的，这是自然发生的。所以它发生了。
Ben: What causes that?
本：那是什么原因造成的？
Charlie: Human nature and competition, that's what causes it.
查理：人性和竞争，这就是原因。
Ben: Will we eventually have one?
本：我们最终会集中到某一家公司上吗？
Charlie: Eventually, this craziness in venture capital, when they’re all gone stupid, that's a natural outcome.
查理：最终，当风险投资家们变得愚蠢，这个行业变得疯狂，集中度进一步提高是自然的结局。
Ben: Will we have one $20 trillion company and then the next biggest company is—?
本：我们会不会有一家 20 万亿美元的公司，然后下一个最大的公司是？
Charlie: I don’t know how the world is gonna. I think… I didn’t know we were gonna have as much as we did. They just happened.
查理：我不知道这个世界会怎样。我想......我不知道我们会赚这么多。它们就这样发生了。
Person: Would you continue investing in China? What's your position on that?
某人： 你会继续在中国投资吗？你对此持什么立场？
Charlie: My position in China has been that: (1) the Chinese economy has better future prospects over the next 20 years than almost any other big economy. That’s number one. (2) The leading companies of China are stronger and better than practically any other leading companies anywhere, and they're available at a much cheaper price.
查理：我对中国的立场是：（1）中国经济在未来 20 年的前景几乎比其他任何大经济体都要好。这是第一点。（2）中国的龙头企业比其他任何地方的龙头企业都更强更优秀，而且价格更便宜。
So naturally, I'm willing to have some China risk in the Munger portfolio. How much China risk? Well that's not a scientific subject, but I don't mind whatever it is, 18% or something. Whatever its worked out in the Munger family, it's okay with me.
因此，我自然愿意在芒格家族的投资组合中买入一些中国公司。中国公司占比有多大？这不是一个科学问题，我觉得不管是 18%还是多少，我都可以。不管芒格家族的投资结果如何，我都可以接受。
Ben: What about other geopolitical considerations? Would you hold TSMC at this point?
本：你会考虑其他涉及地缘政治的公司吗？你现在会持有台积电吗？
Charlie: Well I don't like that as well as I like something with a real consumer brand of its own like Apple.
查理：我不喜欢台积电，我喜欢像苹果这样有自己真正的消费者品牌的公司。
Andrew: I'm curious, what major companies that haven't been mentioned do you think people would do well to study the virtues of, like studying the virtues of Costco?
安德鲁：我很好奇，还有哪些大公司没有被提及？你是否认为人们应该好好研究开市客的优点？
Charlie: I only study two kinds of companies. I'm enough of a big Ben Graham follower… so if something is really cheap, even though it's a crappy company, I'm willing to consider buying it. For a while anyway. I do that occasionally. I've done it with great success of time or two, but unlike Howard Marks I’ve only done it once or twice in my lifetime for big gains, and that's it. It's not like I’ve done it a hundred times. It isn't a bit easy. A hundred times easy money is almost non-existent.
查理：我只研究两种公司。我是本·格雷厄姆（Ben Graham）的忠实追随者……所以，如果有什么东西真的很便宜，即使它是一家差劲的公司，我也愿意考虑买它。不管怎么说，买上一段时间。我偶尔会这么做。我有一两次做得很成功，但不像霍华德·马克斯，我这辈子只有一两次赚了很多钱，仅此而已。我没有在这个策略上屡试不爽，百发百中。这一点也不容易。有一百次轻松赚钱的机会几乎是不存在的。
David: One type of company is the cigar butt. What's the other type of company?
大卫：一类是烟蒂股。另一类公司是什么？
Andrew: The companies that people would do well to study the virtues of?
安德鲁：人们应该学习其优点的公司？
Charlie: Great brand companies, of course, are good. Getting the right price… the whole trick is getting them on a few rare occasions when they're really cheap. Buying Costco at its present price… it may work out all right but that’s… but again it's getting hard.
查理：当然是优秀的品牌公司。不过，需要有合适的价格……这类公司的全部诀窍就是在极少数非常便宜的时候买到它们。以开市客目前的价格购买……可能也还可以，但这……但这也越来越难了。
Andrew: Forgetting the prospects of the stock, how do you think about the next 10 years for the business?
安德鲁：抛开股票的前景不谈，你如何看待开市客未来 10 年的发展？
Charlie: I think it’ll do pretty well.
查理：我认为它会做得很好。
Ben: Charlie, one more question for you in this area. What is your favorite advice to give to young people?
本：查理，在这方面还有一个问题想问你。如果给年轻人提建议，你最想提什么建议？
Charlie: I don't give advice to just any young people. I give some, I pick my spots. I don't want to be more of a guru to young people than I already am. It's getting hard out there. There's all this bullshit and craziness. Of course, it's going to be hard.
查理：我不会给所有年轻人建议。我只给一些年轻人提建议，并且在合适的时机。我现在俨然已经成为年轻人眼中的大师了，我不想加深这种印象。外面的世界越来越难。到处都是胡言乱语和疯狂。当然会很难。
Ben: Where do the attractive opportunities hang out anymore? It sounds like everything in the whole world is overpriced. Could that be possible?
本：有吸引力的机会都去哪儿了？听起来好像全世界所有的东西都定价过高。你觉得是这样吗？
Charlie: Damn near. Of course, it could be possible. It's not only possible, it's likely that it actually happened.
查理：非常接近了。是的，当然有可能。不仅有可能，而且很可能真的发生了。
Ben: How did the world get so rich if we have all this capital for so few opportunities?
本：如果我们拥有这么多资本，却只有这么少的机会，这个世界是如何变得如此富有的？
Charlie: It's the nature of things. Look, biology produces a very advanced creature like us, consider I can talk intelligently on all these objects. But it does it by killing everybody off with brutal competition one with the other for… hundreds of thousands of years. In other words, the system that nature uses to get smart is kind of unpleasant for the people who are losing.
查理：这是自然界的本性。看，生物学产生了像我们这样非常先进的生物，想想看，我能够对所有这些对象进行有意识的交流。但它是通过残酷竞争相互淘汰几十万年来实现的。换句话说，自然界用来创造聪明人类的系统对于那些失败者来说有点不愉快。
Ben: So over the last 100 years, we've brutally shifted all this value from labor to capital, and now capital is all competing to get into a very small set of opportunities?
本：那么可以这么说吗？在过去的 100 年里，我们把所有的价值都从劳动力身上转移到了资本身上，现在资本都在争相进入一个非常小的机会市场？
Charlie: It wasn’t as if it was all that easy if you go back a long time. It just was a lot easier.
查理：如果你追溯很久以前，机会也不是那么容易找到。只是在过去一段时间内机会大一些。
Ben: And if it continues to get harder, the natural end is that you have...
本：如果它继续变得更难，自然的结局就是......
Charlie: An unpleasant blow up or some kind. God knows what happens after an unpleasant blow up with our modern democracy. You get to a level like Europe which is quite dysfunctional.
查理：不愉快的崩盘或其他什么。天知道在我们的现代民主制度下，不愉快的崩盘之后会发生什么。像欧洲这样的国家，功能已经相当失调了。
Ben: Is it too pessimistic of a view to say that the world seems to be out of good ideas to match the amount of capital out there looking for good ideas?
本：有人说，世界上好的想法已经不够匹配寻找好想法的资本了，这种看法是否过于悲观？
Charlie: It was never easy. It's thoroughly understood it was never easy, and it's harder now. Those are the two. But it takes time. And you pay attention that you're handling the people you deal with. You want a good reputation when you're all done, not a bad one.
查理：投资绝非易事。大家都明白，以前不容易，现在更难，只有难和更难的选项。好的投资需要时间。另外，要注意处理与你打交道的人的关系。当你完成所有工作时，你想要的是好名声，而不是坏名声。
Andrew: I don't think you're saying there are no opportunities whatsoever. I think you're just saying low expectations and fewer bonanzas.
安德鲁：我认为你不是说没有任何机会。我想你只是说期望值要低，机会要少。
Charlie: The beauty of it is: you only have to get rich once. You don't have to climb this mountain four times. You just have to do it once.
查理：它的美妙之处在于：你只需致富一次。你不必一座山爬四次。你只需要爬一次。
Andrew: Well that’s your philosophy on both sides, you got to be patient for the great opportunities. But you got to recognize them when they come and pounce.
安德鲁：这是你「硬币要看两面」的哲学。当机会没来时，你必须耐心等待大好机会。但当机会来临时，你也要认清它，然后扑上去。
David: We turned off the mics to have dinner and then recorded a little bit more later in the evening about Costco and some life advice from Charlie.
大卫：聊到这里，我们关掉了麦克风去吃晚饭，晚上又录了一点关于开市客的内容，以及查理的一些生活建议。
Ben: One Costco question that I've been wanting to ask you is: all the puzzle pieces of the low SKU count, the high inventory turnover… there are just so many things that fit together so beautifully…
本：我一直想问你的一个问题是：开市客的 SKU 数量少、库存周转率高......所有这些特质都非常完美地结合在一起......
Charlie: They're pretty obvious, though.
查理：尽管如此，这些特质相当显而易见。
Ben: But how come no one else can pull it off if they're so obvious?
本：但既然这么显而易见，为什么没有人能做到呢？
Charlie: Well, it takes a good execution to do it. You really have to set out to do it, and then do it with fanaticism, every day, every week, every year for 40 years. It's not so damn easy.
查理：这需要很好的执行力。你必须真正下定决心去做，然后狂热地去做，每天、每周、每年，持续 40 年。这并不容易。
Ben: So you think the success is the magic of the business model and culture?
本：所以你认为成功是商业模式和企业文化的神奇结合？
Charlie: Yes, culture plus model. Yes, absolutely. And very reliable, hard working, determined execution for 40 years.
查理：是的，企业文化加商业模式。是的，绝对是这样。还有 40 年来非常可靠、努力、坚定的执行力。
David: I mean, they talk about the story of the ketchup that you could increase the price of ketchup by 3% and nobody would notice, but that would destroy everything if you did that, right?
大卫：我记得他们谈到番茄酱的故事，说你可以把番茄酱的价格提高 3%，没有人会注意到，但如果在 Costco 你这样做，就会毁掉一切，对吗？
Charlie: I would say the central norm was: don't raise the market. Get it low and keep it there forever.
查理：我想说，开市客的核心准则是：不要抬高市场价格。把价格压低，然后永远保持下去。
David: Which brings us to the hotdogs. Is it true, the story that when Craig took over as CEO, he did try to raise the price of the hotdogs?
大卫：这让我们想到了开市客的热狗。克雷格（Craig）接任首席执行官后，确实试图提高热狗的价格，这是真的吗？（译者注：克雷格·耶利内克（Craig Jelinek）于 1984 年开始在开市客工作，2012 年起担任首席执行官，并在 2023 年年底卸任。）
Charlie: I don't know. I had no conversations on the subject.
查理：我不知道。我没有谈过这个话题。
David: And Jim forbade him.
大卫：詹姆斯阻止了他这样做。
Charlie: I'm sure Jim would have forbade it, absolutely.
查理：我相信詹姆斯绝对不会同意的。
David: There was no board-level discussion of the hotdog?
大卫：董事会没有讨论过热狗的问题？
Charlie: No. Those two would not have thought it was a board matter to discuss the price of the hotdog.
查理：没有。克雷格和詹姆斯不会认为讨论热狗价格是董事会的事。
Ben: One thing that fascinates me about Costco is they seem to only be able to grow 10% per year, because they're not capital-constrained. No amount of money, if they were to access it for free, could—
本：开市客让我着迷的一点是，他们似乎每年只能增长 10%，因为约束他们的并不是资金。即使他们可以免费获得资金，再多的钱也不能……
Charlie: I’ll tell you what is. It's hard to open too many stores a year. New store, new manager, new this, new politics. It's hard, plus a lot of stuff has to be learned, taught, and put in place. They didn't want to do more than they can comfortably handle.
查理：我来告诉你什么才是制约因素：一年很难开太多店。新店、新经理、新事物、新政治环境。这很难，而且还有很多东西需要学习、传授和落实。他们不想做超出自己能力范围，不能很好处理的事情。
David: To the store openings, you mentioned China earlier. Was it 20 years that Costco had the license to operate in China?
大卫：关于开店，你刚才提到了中国。开市客获得在中国的经营许可是 20 年前吗？
Charlie: The first store, they tried to open in China. The first store, somebody wanted a $30,000 bribe. Chinese culture. And they just wouldn’t pay it. That made such a bad impression on Jim Sinegal. He wouldn't even talk about going into China for about 30 years thereafter.
查理：那时候他们尝试在中国开第一家店。当时，有人想要 3 万美元的贿赂。这是中国文化，开市客就是不给钱。这给詹姆斯·辛格尔留下了很坏的印象。此后的 30 年里，他都没再提过进入中国的事。
David: So what changed? Why finally go in?
大卫：那么是什么改变了？为什么最终还是进入了中国？
Charlie: Finally, the board started making enough noises.
查理：最后，董事会开始发出足够的声音。
David: You started agitating?
大卫：你开始鼓动了？
Charlie: Yeah.
查理：是的。
Ben: Who on the board could be excited about the Chinese market…?
本：除了芒格，董事会里还有谁会对中国市场感到兴奋呢？
Charlie: Yeah. Who knows?
查理：是啊，可说呢。
David: That’s so great.
大卫：那太好了。
Ben: One thing I found fascinating about Costco was the fact that even though they're at the lowest possible prices, their audience skews is wealthy. Was that an accident that they figured out over time, or did they know that?
本：我发现开市客有一点很吸引人，那就是尽管他们的价格尽可能低，但他们的受众却偏向于富人。这是他们逐渐发现的一个意外，还是他们早就知道？
Charlie: No, Sol Price did. They had that figured out […].
查理：不，这是索尔·普莱斯发现的。他们早就知道了这件事。
Ben: All the way back in the Price Club days?
本：从普莱斯俱乐部时代就开始了？
Charlie: Yes. He always wanted the rich man trying to save money.
查理：是的。他总是想让富人省钱。
David: It's not just that they're the wealthiest customers, they're smart wealthy customers.
大卫：他们不仅仅是最富有的顾客，而且是聪明的富有顾客。
Charlie: They're picky.
查理：他们很挑剔。
David: Yeah, they're picky wealthy customers.
大卫：是的，他们是挑剔的富裕客户。
Ben: On some topics that are outside of Costco, you mentioned in The Daily Journal annual meeting this year that a young man knows the rules, and an old man knows the exceptions.
本：我们来聊聊关于开市客之外的一些话题。你在今年的《每日期刊（Daily Journal）》年会上提到，年轻人知道规则，而老年人知道例外。
Charlie: Yeah, that's an old saying of Peter's.
查理：是的，这是彼得的一句老话。
Ben: Was that of Peter Kaufman?
本：彼得是彼得·考夫曼（Peter Kaufman）吗？（译者注：《穷查理宝典》的编者。）
Charlie: Yeah.
查理：是的。
Ben: What are some of the exceptions that you found the most useful in life?
本：你觉得生活中最有用的例外是什么？
Charlie: Take those goddamned Costco hotdogs. That's an exception. Anybody else would have raised the price of hotdogs a long time ago. They just don't do it. You know how famous it is. You bring your kids, and they know they've got something going there that's worth extra money to them, and they just don’t destroy it.
查理：就拿那些开市客热狗来说吧，这就是个例外。换做别人，早就把热狗涨价了。他们就是不这么做。你知道热狗多受欢迎。你带着你的孩子去，（热狗是必选。）他们知道那里有值得涨价的东西，但他们就是维持现在的价格。
Ben: A thing that I've never fully understood: I know you're a big fan of the company, BYD, the Chinese company that makes batteries and electric vehicles.
本：有一件事我一直不明白：我知道你是比亚迪公司的忠实粉丝，这家中国公司生产电池和电动汽车。
Charlie: I may be a big fan, but I'm hanging out my hat while I lurch around the track. They make me nervous. Just so aggressive.
查理：我可能是他们的忠实粉丝，但当我在车道附近蹒跚而行时，我需要看管好我的帽子。他们让我紧张，公司显得太富有进取心了。
Ben: Is that dangerous in a company?
本：在公司里这样的情况危险吗？
Charlie: That's what makes me nervous. Of course it's dangerous.
查理：这就是让我紧张的原因。当然危险。
Ben: Do you think that companies should try to grow at a lower rate than they're capable of in order to be more durable?
本：你认为公司是否应该尝试以低于自身能力的速度发展，这样才能更持久？
Charlie: Of course you do that safer, and its easier, and so forth. But I would argue at Costco, where they've done some of these things that are extreme like the hotdog, it's smart to change their ways on one item or two.
查理：当然，这样做更安全，也更容易。但我认为，在开市客，他们也做了一些极端的事情，比如热狗。在一两件商品上激进一点是明智的。
Ben: It seems like there's a spectrum where on the one side there's Costco that is just not a fast-growing company, because it's very difficult to. On BYD, like you're saying, they grew like crazy! I mean, you turned--
本：这似乎是一个光谱，一边是开市客，发展速度一点也不快，也很难发展快。另外一边则是比亚迪，就像你说的，他们发展得非常快！我是说，你把……
Charlie: Well BYD, this year will sell at least two and a half million cars. Most of them are electric, that's unheard of. That's way more than Mercedes, for instance.
查理：比亚迪今年将至少销售 250 万辆汽车。其中大部分都是电动汽车，这是前所未闻的。比如说，这比梅赛德斯多得多。
David: More than Tesla, right?
大卫：比特斯拉还多，对吧？
Charlie: Yeah, more than anybody. Lots of troubles and losses. They ran into terrible trouble. They created the wrong kind… they made lots of mistakes. They were lucky to be on the cutting edge of this electric car business. It's way more acceleration than most people.
查理：是的，比任何人都多。在这个过程中，他们遇到了很多麻烦和损失。他们遇到了可怕的麻烦，甚至碰到了以往没有遇到过的问题……他们犯了很多错误。他们很幸运，能够站在电动汽车行业的最前沿。它比大多数人的加速度要高得多。
So you have a car with more oomf than most people need. So the young macho male has a real lively car. There are a lot of things, where electric cars really work in some ways that are better! At making a 90-degree turn. You can go right opposite a parallel parking space, you just move the wheels, it turns the wheels 90 degrees and goes in. Nobody's ever done that. If your car goes flat, you could run a hundred miles on three other wheels or something.
电动车比大多数人需要的加速装置更强劲。年轻的男孩子们有了一辆真正动力十足的汽车。在很多方面，电动汽车的性能都要好得多，比如在 90 度转弯时。你可以直接开到平行停车位的对面，你只要移动车轮，它就会90度转弯然后开进去，从来没有人这么做过。再比如，如果你的车爆胎了，你可以用另外三个轮子跑一百英里什么的。
Andrew: Do they have better economics, because they don't have nearly as many parts?
安德鲁：因为没有那么多零件，所以经济性更好吗？
Charlie: It's simpler.
查理：它们制造起来更简单。
Ben: Have you ever had an investment like that before? I think you've invested something like $270 million that's now worth something like $8 billion in BYD.
本：你以前有过这样的投资吗？我想你在比亚迪投资了大约 2.7 亿美元，现在价值大约 80 亿美元。
Charlie: Well, very few people have an investment […]. That's a venture capital–type investment. It happened to be a thinly-traded public company, and we bought it as a venture capital–type company. But it was a venture capital–type play, and they just put the foot right in the floorboard and played it hard.
查理：很少有人有这样的投资，这是一项风险投资。它碰巧是一家交易清淡的上市公司，我们把它作为风险投资型公司买了下来。但这只是风险资本型的投资，公司像是将油门踩到底，全力以赴。
By the way, both BYD and we tried to talk them out of going into the car business. They were gonna buy a bankrupt car business, and go into the car business. I said that's a graveyard for you, so why would you want to do that? And he paid no attention to us and went right ahead.
顺便说一句，我们都曾试图说服他们不要进入汽车行业。他们打算收购一家破产的汽车企业，然后进军汽车行业。我说，那是你们的坟墓，为什么要这么做？他根本没理我们，仍然继续行动。
Ben: Had you invested already when he told you this plan?
本：他告诉你这个计划时，你已经投资了吗？
Charlie: Yes, yes. And it worked fabulously well. After huge mistakes! They almost went broke with their early dealership building system, almost went broke.
查理：是的，是的。最终效果非常好，不过是在经历了巨大的失误之后！他们早期经销商体系出了问题，比亚迪当时差点破产。（译者注：猜测指的是 2010 年 4 月的「比亚迪退网门」）
David: What captivated you about it though?
大卫：是什么吸引了你？
Charlie: The guy was a genius. He had a PhD in engineering, and he look at some great part… [he could make that park look at the morning and look at it. I didn't know he could make it.] I've never seen anybody like that. He could do anything.
查理：王传福是个天才。他有一个工程学博士学位，他看到别人公司的零部件，然后在早上就可以把那部分做出来了。我不知道他能做到。我从未见过像他这样的人。他什么都能造。
He is a natural engineer and a get-it-done type production executive, and that's a big thing. It's a big lot of talent to happen in one place. It's very useful. He solved all his problems on these electric cars, the motors, the acceleration, the braking, and so on.
他是一位天生的工程师和能够快速解决问题的生产负责人，这是很重要的一点。他是各种天赋的集合体，这非常有用。他解决了自己在电动汽车上遇到的所有问题，包括电机、加速、刹车等等。
David: How would you compare him and BYD to Elon and Tesla?
大卫：王传福和比亚迪，马斯克和特斯拉，这两个你是怎么比较的？
Charlie: He's a fanatic that knows how to actually make things with his hands if he has to. He's closer to ground zero, in other words. The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is.
查理：马斯克是一个狂热的人，知道如何在必要时用自己的双手制造东西。换句话说，他更接近原点。王传福比伊隆更擅长实际制造东西。
Ben: Charlie, you turn 100, which is an unbelievable statement on January 1st of next year. Do you have any plans?
本：查理，明年 1 月 1 日你就 100 岁了，这是一个令人难以置信的数字。你有什么计划吗？
Charlie: I'm going to party.
查理：我要去参加派对。
David: Where's the party going to be?
大卫：派对在哪里举行？
Charlie: The California Club. But I've totally maxed out the room, I can’t squeeze another.
查理：加州俱乐部（The California Club）。但人数已经满了，不能再邀请新的人了。
Ben: What captivates you these days? What's fun?
本：最近什么让你着迷？有什么好玩的？
Charlie: Well practically, everything is. Even politics, as bad as it is, it's kind of interesting.
查理：实际上，一切都很有趣。即使是政治，虽然很糟糕，但也挺有趣的。
David: When you look back at you and Warren's time together, when did you have the most fun?
大卫：回顾你和沃伦在一起的时光，什么时候最开心？
Charlie: We had about the same amount of fun all the way through. We're having fun now.
查理：我们一路走来都很开心。我们现在也很开心。
Ben: Is there a particular era that you remember the most fondly that feels like the good old days?
本：有没有哪个年代让你记忆最深刻，感觉就像美好的旧时光？
Charlie: Well remember we were sweating blood on some of those good old days.
查理：嗯，记得我们在那些美好的旧时光里汗流浃背。
Ben: I mean, Salomon Brothers.
本：你是说，所罗门兄弟公司？
Charlie: Yeah, there were a lot of close misses. We got out with a big problem, but we could have had a big loss.
查理：是的，当时有很多千钧一发的时刻。我们在出了大问题的情况下脱身了，但我们也有可能会损失惨重。
David: You could have had more problems than just a loss with Salomon, right?
大卫：你可能会遇到更多的问题，而不仅仅是所罗门的损失，对吗？
Charlie: Yeah.
查理：是的。
Ben: Actually, when we examined Berkshire Hathaway on our podcast, our takeaway was that the whole franchise was at risk during Salomon Brothers, the entire Berkshire Hathaway name and future. Would you agree with that?
本：事实上，当我们在播客中研究伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司时，我们得出的结论是，在所罗门兄弟公司期间，整个伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的声誉和未来都面临风险。你同意这个观点吗？
Charlie: Not so much. We could have survived it.
查理：不太同意。即使出了问题，我们也可以挺过去的。
Ben: If you would let the whole investment in Salomon go to zero, it would have been fine?
本：如果你让所罗门兄弟公司的全部投资归零，会没事吗？
Charlie: If it all blown up and went to zero, we would have written it off and gone on. And done pretty well.
查理：如果全部亏损并归零，我们会把它减记，然后继续向前。事实上我们做得很好。
David: What do you consider to be your finest hour?
大卫：你认为你最辉煌的时刻是什么时候？
Charlie: Well, we like to remember the close misses that were nearly terrible problems. We had terrible problem with The Buffalo News.
查理：好吧，我们喜欢记住那些差一点酿成大祸的失误。我们与《布法罗新闻报（The Buffalo News）》就曾有过严重的问题。
Ben: The Buffalo News / Buffalo Evening News brawl?
本：《布法罗新闻报》（《布法罗晚报》）的斗殴吗？
Charlie: Yeah. There were two newspapers in that town. We started a Sunday edition. That started a holy war, and the other guy went broke. We could have had a lot of bad publicity over that.
查理：是的，当时镇上有两家报纸。我们创办了周日版。结果引发了一场圣战，另一家报社（译者注：即布法罗信使快报（Buffalo Courier-Express））破产了。我们可能会因此受到很大的负面影响。
Ben: You were both pretty young and enterprising at that point. You weren't the Warren and Charlie of...
本：那时候你们都很年轻，也很有进取心。你们还没......
Charlie: No. But I was very aggressive about wanting to have a good Sunday edition. I didn’t want to own the paper for 50 years with no Sunday editions and the other guy had one.
查理：不是，当时是我非常积极地想要出版周日版。我不想自己的报纸 50 年都没有周日版，而别人却有。
Ben: What made the newspaper business so attractive at that point in history?
本：在那个历史时期，是什么让报业如此有吸引力？
Charlie: It was a gold mine at that time, total gold mine.
查理：当时它是一座金矿，一座不折不扣的金矿。
Ben: That's attractive.
本：这很有吸引力。
David: The play in particular with The Buffalo Evening News and the Sunday edition was playing for the local monopoly to be the game in town. With newspapers, you could do that.
大卫：尤其是《布法罗晚报》和周日版那个冲突，其实是在争夺当地的垄断地位，看谁成为城里的唯一的主角。有了报纸，你就能做到这一点。
Charlie: Sure.
查理：当然。
David: Newspapers, for decades, had EBITDA margins in the 50%–60% range, right?
大卫：几十年来，报纸的 EBITDA（息税折旧摊销前利润）率都在 50%-60%之间，对吗？
Charlie: No, only the little ones.
查理：不，只有小报纸才有。
David: Only the little ones?
大卫：只有小报？
Charlie: Yeah, the big ones are less, 30%, 40%, or 25%.
查理：是的，大报纸的利润率更低，只有 30%、40%，或许更低，只有 25%。
David: I said EBITDA on your presence, I apologize. Cash flow margins.
大卫：抱歉我刚才说的是 EBITDA 率，应该是现金流利润率。
Ben: Actually, do you still feel that EBITDA is criminal the way that you've demonized it in the past?
本：实际上，你过去一直妖魔化 EBITDA。现在你还觉得这个指标是犯罪吗？
Charlie: Yeah, I do. You've got a big truck company and take the depreciation out of the truck’s earnings. You’re lying about the earnings.
查理：是的，我觉得是。你有一家大型卡车公司，却不考虑折旧费用来计算利润。你在利润上撒了谎。
Ben: You witnessed its rise with Malone, TCI, and Liberty when EBITDA was invented as a concept. What were you thinking?
本：当 EBITDA 这一概念被发明出来时，你见证了它的流行和马龙（Malone）、TCI 和自由媒体公司（Liberty）的崛起。你当时是怎么想的？
Charlie: I've never liked John Malone's extreme manipulations. I don't want to be known as the great manipulator like John Malone is. He paid less income taxes than anybody. He just pushed everything to the ideological extreme.
查理：我一直不喜欢约翰·马龙（John Malone）的极端操纵行为。我不想像约翰·马龙那样被称为伟大的操纵者。他缴纳的所得税比任何人都少。他把一切都推向了意识形态的极端。
Ben: In many ways, EBITDA was the community adjusted earnings of its era. Are you familiar with the community adjustment from WeWork?
本：在许多方面，EBITDA 就是那个时代的「社区调整后收益（community adjustment earnings）」。你了解 Wework 提出的「社区调整后收益」吗？（译者注：Wework 在 IPO 时创造性的发明了「社区调整后 EBITDA」这个会计指标，在 EBITDA 上进一步加回了管理费用等，声称其具备合理性。这么调整下，Wework 实现了盈利）
Charlie: No.
查理：不了解。
David: Final question to wrap up. What is the set of companies that you think are the greatest that you've ever seen, either that you've owned or that you've not owned?
大卫：最后一个问题作为总结。你认为你所见过的最伟大的公司，无论是你拥有的，还是你未曾拥有的，都有哪些？
Charlie: There are a lot of great companies. Hermes is a great company. In its heyday, General Motors was a great company. It just gradually went to hell one contract at the time.
查理：有很多伟大的公司。爱马仕就是一家伟大的公司。在全盛时期，通用汽车是一家伟大的公司。它只是在一个个合同中逐渐走向毁灭。
Andrew: What do you think about the predictability of… there were a number of companies back when you started where you could have said this business will be the same in 10 years? Do you think that number is the same today, or do you think it's much higher than that?
安德鲁：你对于 [很多公司业务的] 的可预测性有何看法？当你刚开始做投资的时候，有很多公司你可以说这个业务在 10 年以后还是一样的。现在呢？你认为这个数字是一样的吗？还是比那时更高？
Charlie: I think most places have a lot of change and threat in their future.
查理：我认为大多数地方的未来都会有很多变化和威胁。
Ben: Do you think most places had a lot of change and threat in their future even 50 years ago, and this story is over-blown?
本：即使 50 年以前，是不是大多数地方的未来也会有很多变化和威胁？你会不会觉得这个说法被夸大了？
Charlie: There’s a difference with some of what I call a specialized industrial company, and Berkshire has a lot of them. We have a lot of companies that are quite insulated from really tough competition, just because they've been so long, and they’re so good at what they do and have a good reputation, high value, and so on.
查理：有一些公司不会遇到这个问题，就是那些被称为专业化的工业公司，伯克希尔旗下有很多这样的公司。它们可以很好地抵御激烈的竞争，因为它们的历史太长了，它们擅长自己的业务，有很好的声誉，价值很高。
Andrew: What companies can you see today where you can confidently say, Berkshire aside, Costco aside, you can confidently say the business will be as good as it is today in 10 years?
安德鲁：除了伯克希尔和开市客之外，你认为今天有哪些公司可以让你自信地说，10 年后这些公司的业务会像今天一样好？
Charlie: I think a lot of companies are pretty good, but you can't confidently say what's going to happen. Because you may get some guy like Iger in that just wants to push everything and do the right public relations. So no matter how good the business is, it will be phony.
查理：我认为很多公司都很不错，但你不能自信地说未来会发生什么。因为你可能会遇到像艾格（Iger）这样的人（译者注：应该说的是迪斯尼的 CEO 罗伯特·艾格（Robert Iger）），他只想推动一切，做好公关。所以，不管业务有多好，都会是假的。
Ben: Charlie, I have a personal question for you. David has a two-year-old, and I'm going to have my first child in a month. What advice do you have for us about building families?
本：查理，我想问你一个私人问题。大卫有一个两岁的孩子，而我一个月后就要有第一个孩子了。关于建立家庭，你有什么建议？
Charlie: Of course, you’ve got to get along with everybody. You got to help them through their tough times, and they help you, and so forth. But I think it’s not as hard. Half of the marriages in America work pretty damn well. And they would have worked just as well if they were both married to somebody else, by the way.
查理：当然，你必须要与家里的每个人相处融洽。你要在他们艰难时给予帮助，他们也会回报你。但我认为这并不是那么困难。美国有一半的婚姻非常好。顺便说一下，如果良好婚姻中的两个人与其他人结婚，结果也会一样好。
David: You've said that the best way to have a great spouse is to deserve one. As long as both parties feel that way, then it's a recipe for success.
大卫：你说过，拥有一个好配偶的最好办法就是配得上。只要双方都有这样的感觉，那么这就是成功的秘诀。
Charlie: Of course it is. You got to have trust with your spouse on things like education of the children and so forth.
查理：当然是这样。在子女教育等问题上，你必须与配偶保持信任。
Benn: I love that. Charlie, thank you.
本：我喜欢这句话。查理，谢谢你。
David: Thank you, Charlie.
大卫：谢谢你，查理。
Charlie: Good luck to you.
查理：祝你们好运。
Andrew: A lot of people are going to benefit a lot from hearing this, and your wisdom, and they're going to learn so much.
安德鲁：很多人听了这番话都会受益匪浅，你的智慧也会让他们学到很多东西。
Charlie: Well you know if you stop and think about it, it's pretty hard. It doesn't look so damn easy just to go out... if you go to the ordinary person trying to promote himself as an investment advisor of some kind, he just thinks he knows everything about everything and how the Federal Reserve should be run and so on. We don't feel that way.
查理：如果你静下心来想一想，你就会知道投资很难。光是找到合适的投资顾问看起来就没那么容易了（译者注：这里原文内容不全，根据上下文进行了补全，可能与原意有出入）。如果你去找那些试图把自己宣传成投资顾问的普通人，他们会觉得自己对一切都了如指掌，知道联邦储备应该如何运作等等。但我们不这么认为。
David: I will say with the people we get to talk to you who've built great things, every single one of them says it was so hard. It's so hard, and you can't build something great without it being so hard.
大卫：我想说的是，与我们交谈过的那些创造了伟大成就的人，每个人都说这很难。这太难了，如果不这么难，你就不可能创造出伟大的东西。
Ben: Charlie, thanks so much for doing this with us.
本：查理，非常感谢你接受我们的采访。
Charlie: I'm glad to do it. It'll be an interesting life. You'll do pretty well at it, but it's not going to be that damn easy.
查理：我很高兴接受你们的采访。人生将会很有趣，你们会做得很好，但不会那么容易。
Ben: David, total life experience and complete boondoggle.
本：大卫，查理说的完全是人生经验之谈，内容非常丰富。
David: I can't believe we got to do this. I'm still pinching myself. It's now a couple of weeks after it actually happened.
大卫：真不敢相信我们采访到了查理。事情已经过去几个星期了，我还感觉在做梦。
Ben: I know, with autographed copies of Poor Charlie's Almanack to prove it.
本：我也是，好在有亲笔签名的《穷查理宝典》为证。
David: As if the podcast wasn't enough. Actually, for those of you who haven't listened back in 2021, two-ish years ago, we did a whole three-part series, just us, covering the whole history of Berkshire Hathaway. Part one is on Warren, part two is on Charlie, part three is on Berkshire and Ted and Todd all the way up through to today. I assume many of you have listened to that, but there probably are a bunch of folks who haven't. If you want another 9 or 10 hours of Acquired content on Berkshire—I really think it's some of, if not our best work—go check those out.
大卫：好像播客还不够似的。实际上，对于那些没有听过以前节目的人来说，早在 2021 年，也就是两年前，我们就做了一个由三部分组成的系列节目，就我们两个，涵盖了伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的整个历史。第一部分介绍沃伦，第二部分介绍查理，第三部分介绍伯克希尔公司，包括泰德（Ted）、托德（Todd），以及一直到今天的发展历程。我想你们很多人都听过了，但可能还有很多人没听过。如果你还想再听 9、10 个小时关于伯克希尔的 Acquired 播客内容，我真的认为这是我们最好的作品之一，去听听吧。
Ben: With that, listeners, our huge thank you to Tiny for being the sole presenting sponsor of this episode. If you have, or you know of a wonderful internet business, you should reach out, hi@tiny.com. Just tell them that Ben, David, and Charlie sent you.
本：在此，听众朋友们，我们再次衷心感谢 Tiny 成为本期节目的唯一赞助商。如果你有，或者你知道一个很棒的互联网企业，你应该联系他们，hi@tiny.com。请告诉他们是本、大卫和查理介绍你们来的。
You can sign up for notifications of new emails every time an episode drops. We'll be including little tidbits as we learn things after releasing episodes—corrections, updates, things like that—and teasing the next episode, acquire.fm/email.
您可以注册，以便在每期节目播出时收到新邮件通知。我们会在节目播出后发布一些小花絮——更正、更新等，并预告下一集的内容，请登录 acquire.fm 网站下的 email 栏目。
Listen to ACQ2. This is typically where we talk about more up-and-coming companies who are earlier in their journeys, or CEOs who are topic experts in important areas like AI. Search ACQ2 in any podcast player.
欢迎收听 ACQ2 节目，在这个节目中，我们通常谈论更多处于发展初期的新兴公司，或邀请人工智能等重要领域的首席执行官。请在任何播客平台搜索 ACQ2。
After you finish this, join the Slack, acquired.fm/slack and discuss with the whole Acquired community. If you want to get some of that sweet Acquired merch that everyone's talking about, go to acquired.fm/store. With that, listeners, we'll see you next time.
完成后，请加入 Slack（acquired.fm/slack），与整个 Acquired 社区一起讨论。如果你想获得一些大家都在谈论的 Acquired 精美商品，请访问 acquired.fm/store 。听众朋友们，我们下次再见。
David: We'll see you next time.
大卫：我们下次再见。
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
声明：Acquired 的主持人和嘉宾可能持有本集中讨论的资产。本播客不提供投资建议，仅供参考和娱乐。在考虑任何金融交易时，您应该自己进行研究并做出独立决定。