Transcript: Berkshire’s 2024 annual shareholder meeting

《伯克希尔 2024 年年度股东大会记录》

Morning Session 上午场

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Don’t wear out all your clapping on Charlie. I mean, we’ve got, in addition, well, we have, first of all, Greg Abel, a director, and Ajit Jain. Then, in the back of this first section…沃伦·巴菲特：是的。别把所有的掌声都用在查理身上。我的意思是，我们还有，此外，我们首先有格雷格·阿贝尔，一位董事，还有阿吉特·贾因。然后，在这第一部分的后面……

(Introduces the directors: Howard Buffet, Susan Buffett, Steve Burke, Ken Chenault, Chris Davis, Sue Decker, Charlotte Guyman, Tom Murphy Jr., Ron Olson, Wally Weitz, and Merrill Whitmer.)（介绍董事：霍华德·巴菲特、苏珊·巴菲特、史蒂夫·伯克、肯·陈沃尔特、克里斯·戴维斯、苏·德克尔、夏洛特·盖曼、汤姆·墨菲小、罗恩·奥尔森、沃尔利·韦茨和梅里尔·惠特默。）

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay, there are two people I would like to thank, and then we’ll get on to a brief description of the results of the first quarter.沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我想感谢两个人，然后我们将会简要介绍第一季度结果的概述。

First of all, I’d like to thank Melissa Shapiro, who put this whole event together. You can’t imagine the work that goes into it.首先，我想感谢梅丽莎·沙皮罗，她组织了整个活动。你无法想象其中的工作量。

She just reported to me that we set a new record for See’s Candy. I think they brought along six tons, and they will sell out. And one thing I do want to mention, we have only one book at the bookstore of The Bookworm this year. Normally we have about 25, but we have Poor Charlie’s Almanack, fourth edition, and I think we sold about 2,400 of them yesterday. And that will be the only book next year.她刚刚向我报告说，我们为 See's Candy 创下了一项新纪录。我想他们带来了六吨，将会全部售罄。还有一件事我想提一下，今年我们在 The Bookworm 书店只有一本书。通常我们有大约 25 本书，但我们只有《查理·芒格的智慧箴言录》第四版，我想昨天我们卖出了大约 2,400 本。明年这将是我们唯一的一本书。

We’ll go back to having our usual selection, but we thought we would just turn it over to Charlie this year. And then I would like to introduce one further person, and that’s the person who put that movie together. And you can’t imagine the amount of work it is because, for example, on those scenes that we’ve used from the past, if they involve Hollywood stars or various people, we needed to get permission all over again to show it because we told them originally we would only show it within the confines of our auditorium here. And, of course, it went out on CNBC. And you just can’t imagine how much effort.我们将恢复往常的节目，但今年我们决定将舞台交给查理。接下来，我想介绍另一位人物，那就是制作这部电影的人。你无法想象其中的工作量，因为例如，我们使用过去的场景中，如果涉及好莱坞明星或其他人，我们需要再次获得许可才能展示，因为我们最初告诉他们只会在我们这里的礼堂内播放。当然，它也在 CNBC 上播出。你简直无法想象付出的努力。

But also, the great cooperation we got from all those Desperate Housewives and Jamie Lee Curtis. And with the Desperate Housewives, we had to get Disney’s okay, and that was easy to get. But running down five Desperate Housewives, that one came in toward the end. But the job of putting this together has been handled by the same fellow that handles us. Been doing these for years and years and years and years.此外，我们还得到了《绝望的主妇》和杰米·李·柯蒂斯等人的大力合作。对于《绝望的主妇》，我们得到了迪士尼的许可，这很容易获得。但拍摄五集《绝望的主妇》，那集在后期才完成。但这项工作的负责人一直是我们熟悉的那位，多年来一直负责这些工作。

And I just would appreciate it if you could just put the spotlight on Brad Underwood for just a minute.我非常感谢你们能将聚光灯对准布拉德·安德伍德一分钟。

(Spotlight on Brad Underwood.)（聚光灯对准布拉德·安德伍德。）

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay. We put out some results for the first quarter this morning at 7:00 our time. And some few sharp-eyed analysts and press people already picked up one or two items from it, which I’m sure we’ll get some questions on later. But if we could start out with slide number one, which should be showing now, you’ll see that in the first quarter…沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我们今天早上 7 点（当地时间）公布了一季度的一些业绩。一些敏锐的分析师和媒体人士已经从中发现了一两个要点，我确信我们稍后会有一些问题。但如果我们从第一张幻灯片开始，现在应该显示出来了，你会看到在一季度……

(Continues to discuss the first quarter results.)（继续讨论一季度业绩。）

(Becky Quick takes over for Q&A.)（贝基·奎克接管问答环节。）

BECKY QUICK: Thanks, Warren. Let’s start. Just given what you mentioned, there was some news that came out in the 10-Q this morning.贝琪·奎克：谢谢，沃伦。我们开始吧。正如你提到的，今天上午的 10-Q 报告中有一些新消息。

It shows that Berkshire sold another 115 million shares of Apple in this last quarter. That’s Berkshire’s largest holding. And I think in that vein, we’ll start with a question from Sherman Lamb. He is a 27-year-old Berkshire Hathaway Class B shareholder from Malaysia. And he asks, last year you mentioned Coca-Cola and American Express being Berkshire’s two long-duration partial ownership positions, and you spent some time talking about the virtues of both these wonderful businesses.它显示，伯克希尔在这个季度又出售了 1.15 亿股苹果股票。这是伯克希尔的最大持股。我想，在这个背景下，我们将从谢尔曼·兰布的问题开始。他是一位来自马来西亚的 27 岁伯克希尔哈撒韦 B 类股东。他问道，去年你提到可口可乐和美运通是伯克希尔的两个长期部分持股，你花了一些时间谈论这两家优秀企业的优势。

And your recent shareholder letter, I noticed that you have excluded Apple from this group of businesses. Have you or your investment managers’ views of the economics of Apple’s business or its attractiveness as an investment changed since Berkshire first invested in 2016?在您最近的股东信中，我注意到您将苹果公司排除在这组业务之外。自伯克希尔在 2016 年首次投资以来，您或您的投资经理对苹果公司业务的经济学观点或其作为投资的吸引力是否发生了变化？

WARREN BUFFETT: No, I would… But we have sold shares, and I would say that at the end of the year, I would think it extremely likely that Apple is the largest common stock holding we have now. One interesting thing is that Charlie and I look at common stocks or marketable equities as businesses.沃伦·巴菲特：不，我本……但我们已经卖掉了股票，我认为到年底，苹果公司极有可能成为我们目前最大的普通股持股。一件有趣的事情是，查理和我把普通股或可交易股票看作是生意。

And so when we own a Dairy Queen or we own whatever it may be, we look at that as a business. And when we own Coca-Cola or American Express, we look at that as a business. Now, we can buy really wonderful companies in the market as businesses. We can’t buy all of them, I mean, all of their shares. We can’t buy 90% or 80% or anything like that. But when we look at Coca-Cola and American Express and Apple, we look at them as businesses.因此，当我们拥有 Dairy Queen 或其他任何企业时，我们会将其视为一个商业。当我们拥有可口可乐或美国运通时，我们同样将其视为商业。现在，我们可以在市场上购买真正优秀的企业，将其视为商业。我们无法购买所有这些企业的全部股份，我的意思是，全部的股票。我们无法购买 90%或 80%或任何类似的份额。但当我们看待可口可乐、美国运通和苹果时，我们将其视为商业。

Now, there are differences in taxes, factors, there’s a difference in managerial responsibility, a whole bunch of things. But in terms of deploying your money, we always look at every stock as a business, and we don’t… We have no way, no attempt is made to predict markets. We have no attempt made to pick stocks. I went through many, many years doing the wrong thing. I got interested in stocks very early, and I was fascinated by them.现在，税收、因素等方面存在差异，管理责任也存在差异，诸如此类。但在部署资金方面，我们始终将每一支股票视为商业，我们不会……我们没有任何方法，也没有试图预测市场。我们没有任何试图挑选股票。我在做了很多年错误的事情之后，很早就对股票产生了兴趣，并且被它们深深吸引。

I wasn’t wasting my time, because I was reading every book possible and everything else. But finally, I picked up a copy of The Intelligent Investor in Lincoln, and there were a few sentences in there that said, much more eloquently than I can say it, if you look at stocks as a business and treat the market as something that doesn’t tell you, isn’t there to instruct you, but it’s there to serve you, you’ll do a lot better over time than if you try to take charts and listen to people talk about moving averages and look at the pronouncements and all of that sort of thing. And so that made a lot of sense to me then, the way I’ve been allowed to deploy it. Charlie and I talked about this, of course, constantly.我没有浪费时间，因为我阅读了所有能找到的书籍以及其他一切。但最终，我在林肯找到了一本《聪明的投资者》，书中有一段话，比我更能表达我的意思：如果你把股票看作是生意，把市场当作不会告诉你、也不是为了指导你，而是为了服务你的东西，那么随着时间的推移，你会比试图解读图表、听人们谈论移动平均线、关注所有这类声明的人做得更好。这让我当时觉得很有道理，也正是我后来被允许运用这种方式。当然，我和查理一直不断讨论这个问题。

It’s changed over the years, the amount of capital we have has changed and all that. But the basic principle was laid out by Ben Graham in that book, which I picked up for a couple of dollars, and which basically said to me, “You’ve been wasting your time now, but maybe you can use what you’ve learned or been reading about and put it to better use.” And then Charlie came along and told me how to put it to even better use. And that’s sort of the story of why we own American Express, which is a wonderful business. We own Coca-Cola, which is a wonderful business, and we own Apple, which is an even better business.多年来，我们拥有的资本数量发生了变化，等等。但基本原则是由本·格雷厄姆在那本书中阐述的，那本书我花了几美元买来，基本上告诉我：“你现在一直在浪费时间，但也许你可以利用你所学到的或阅读的内容，更好地加以利用。”然后查理来了，他告诉我如何更好地利用这些知识。这就是我们拥有美国运通公司、可口可乐公司以及苹果公司的故事，这些都是非常棒的企业。

And we will own, unless something really extraordinary happens, we will own Apple and American Express and Coca-Cola when Greg takes over this place. And it’s such a simple approach that it’s almost deceptive. Most things, if you keep working harder and harder at it, you learn a little more math or you learn a little more physics, but investments, you don’t really have to do that. You really have to have your mindset properly. So, we will end up, if something dramatically happens that really changes our capital allocation strategy, we will have Apple as our largest investment, but I don’t mind at all, under current conditions, building the cash position. I think when I look at the alternative of what’s available, the equity markets, and I look at the composition of what’s going on in the world, we find it quite attractive.除非发生真正非同寻常的事情，否则当我们格雷格接手这里时，我们将持有苹果、美国运通和可口可乐。这种方法如此简单，几乎令人难以置信。大多数事情，如果你持续更加努力地去做，你会学多一点数学或物理学，但投资，你真的不必那样做。你真的需要正确地调整你的心态。所以，如果发生戏剧性的事件，真正改变了我们的资本配置策略，我们将持有苹果作为我们最大的投资，但我一点也不介意，在当前条件下，建立现金头寸。我认为，当我审视可用的替代方案，即股票市场，并审视世界正在发生的事情的构成时，我们发现它非常有吸引力。

And one thing that may surprise you, but we… Almost everybody I know pays a lot more attention to not paying taxes, and I think they should. We don’t mind paying taxes at Berkshire, and we are paying a 21% federal rate on the gains we’re taking in Apple. And that rate was 35% not that long ago, and it’s been 52% in the past when I’ve been operating. And the government owns… The federal government owns a part of the earnings of the business we make. They don’t own the assets, but they own a percentage of the earnings, and they can change that percentage any year.还有一点可能会让你惊讶，但我们……几乎我所认识的人都更加关注如何不交税，我认为他们应该这样做。伯克希尔并不介意交税，我们在苹果公司的收益上支付着 21%的联邦税率。而就在不久前，这个税率还是 35%，在我经营期间，它曾经高达 52%。政府……联邦政府拥有我们公司部分收益的所有权。他们不拥有资产，但拥有收益的一部分，并且他们可以每年改变这个比例。

And the percentage that they’ve decreed currently is 21%. And I would say, with the present fiscal policies, I think that something has to give, and I think that higher taxes are quite likely, and if the government wants to take a greater share of your income, or mine or Berkshire’s, they can do it. And they may decide that someday they don’t want the fiscal deficit to be this large, because that has some important consequences, and they may not want to decrease spending a lot, and they may decide they’ll take a larger percentage of what we earn, and we’ll pay it.他们目前规定的比例是 21%。我认为，在现有的财政政策下，情况必须有所改变，我认为更高的税收很有可能会出现。如果政府想要从你的收入、我的收入或伯克希尔公司的收入中获取更大的份额，他们完全可以做到。他们可能会决定有一天他们不再希望财政赤字如此之大，因为那会带来一些重要的影响，他们可能不希望大幅削减开支，他们可能会决定拿走我们收入的更大比例，然后我们会支付这笔钱。

We always hope, at Berkshire, to pay substantial federal income taxes. We think it’s appropriate that a company, a country that’s been as generous to our owners… It’s been the place… I was lucky. Berkshire was lucky, was here. And if we… If we send in a check like we did last year, we sent in over $5 billion to the US federal government. And if 800 other companies had done the same thing, no other person in the United States would have had to pay a dime of federal taxes, whether income taxes, no Social Security taxes, no estate taxes. It’s open down the line now. That’s…我们始终希望伯克希尔能够缴纳巨额联邦所得税。我们认为，一家公司、一个像我们股东这样慷慨的国家，这是恰当的……这里……我很幸运。伯克希尔也很幸运，在这里。如果我们……如果我们像去年一样提交一张支票，我们向美国政府提交了超过 500 亿美元。如果还有 800 家公司也这样做，那么美国其他任何个人都不需要缴纳一分钱的联邦税，无论是所得税，没有社会保障税，没有遗产税。现在情况已经开放了。那是……

I would like to… I hope things develop well enough with Berkshire that we say we’re in the 800 club and maybe even move up a few notches. It doesn’t bother me in the least to write that check. I would really hope, with all America has done for all of you, it shouldn’t bother you that we do it. And if I’m doing it at 21% this year and we’re doing it at a higher percentage later on, I don’t think you’ll actually mind the fact that we sold a little Apple this year.我希望……我希望伯克希尔能够发展得足够好，以至于我们能够自称是“800 俱乐部”成员，甚至可能再上一个台阶。我完全不在乎开出那张支票。我真心希望，考虑到美国为你们所做的一切，你们不会介意我们这样做。而且，如果今年我以 21%的比例这样做，而以后我们以更高的比例这样做，我想你们实际上不会介意今年我们卖掉一些苹果股票的事实。

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay, let’s go to section one.沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们来看第一部分。

MATTHEW LAI: Hi, Mr. Buffett, this is Matthew Lai from China, Hong Kong. I’m running my listed company called FW, and we are so grateful to have learned from you, and you really inspire us. My question is, besides the electric car company, BYD, under what circumstances would you reinvest or reconsider investing in a Hong Kong or China company? Thank you.莱恩·马修：您好，巴菲特先生，我是来自中国香港的莱恩·马修。我经营着一家上市公司 FW 公司，我们非常感激从您身上学到的东西，您真的激励了我们。我的问题是，除了电动汽车公司比亚迪之外，在什么情况下您会重新投资或考虑投资一家香港或中国公司？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, our primary investments will always be in the United States. We do think it… The companies we invest in the United States, American Express does business around the world. And no company hardly does business around the world like Coca-Cola. I mean, they are the preferred soft drink. You know, something like maybe 170 or 180 out of 200 countries. Those are rough approximations from a few years back, probably, but that degree of acceptance worldwide is, I think, almost unmatched.沃伦·巴菲特：我们的主要投资始终将放在美国。我们确实认为……我们在美国投资的公司，美国运通的业务遍及全球。而几乎没有哪家公司像可口可乐一样在全球范围内开展业务。我的意思是，它们是首选的软饮料。你知道，大概有 170 或 180 个国家。这些数据是几年前的大致估算，但全球范围内的这种接受程度，我认为几乎无人能及。

I can’t really think of any company that has it. American Express has a position in the credit card deal, which I think is extremely strong. And part of the reason for that is one of the directors we introduced a few minutes ago, Ken Chenault. But it has strengthened dramatically over the last 20 years for a lot of reasons. So we will…我实在想不出哪家公司能做到这一点。美国运通公司在信用卡业务上有一个非常强的地位，我认为这是其中一个原因。部分原因是我们几分钟前介绍的一位董事肯·陈纳德。但它在过去 20 年里由于多种原因发生了巨大的变化。所以我们将……

The BYD investment was a… Well, we made the commitment in Japan, which I did five years ago, and that was just overwhelmingly, it was compelling. It was extraordinarily compelling. And we bought it as fast as we could, and we spent a year, and we got a few percent of our assets in five very big companies. But that’s the problem of being our size. But you won’t find us making a lot of investments outside the United States, although we’re participating through these other companies in the world economy.比亚迪的投资是……嗯，我们在日本做出的承诺，那是我五年前做的决定，那确实非常令人信服，极其令人信服。我们尽可能快地买下了它，花了一年时间，我们用几个百分点就获得了几家非常大的公司的资产。但这正是我们规模带来的问题。但你会发现，我们不会在美国以外进行大量投资，尽管我们通过这些其他公司参与世界经济。

But I understand the United States’ rules, weaknesses, strengths, whatever it may be. I don’t have the same feeling for economies generally around the world. I don’t pick up on other cultures extremely well. And the lucky thing is, I don’t have to, because I don’t live in some tiny little country that just doesn’t have a big economy. I’m in an economy already that is, after starting out with half a percent of the world’s population, has ended up with well over 20% of the world’s output in an amazingly short period of time. So we will be American-oriented.但我了解美国的规则、弱点、优势，无论是什么。我对世界上其他经济体的感觉并不一样。我也不太擅长理解其他文化。幸运的是，我不用去理解，因为我并没有生活在某个经济规模很小的小国家。我身处一个经济体，这个经济体在最初只有世界人口的百分之零点五，却在短短的时间内，经济总量已经超过了世界总量的百分之二十以上。所以，我们会以美国为中心。

I mean, if we do something really big, it’s extremely likely to be in the United States. Charlie, in all those years, there are only two times he’s told me that this one is really… He would always go along with me and say, well, when I was suggesting something, he’d say, well, this is really not that great, but it’s probably the best you’ll come up with. So I’ll go along with the idea. But Charlie twice pounded the table with me and just said, you know, “Buy, buy, buy.” And BYD was one of them, and Costco was the other. And we bought a certain amount of Costco, and we bought quite a bit of BYD.我的意思是，如果我们做一件真正的大事，极有可能是在美国。查理，在这么多年里，他只对我讲过两次，这件事真的……他总是附和我，说，嗯，我提的建议，他会说，嗯，这其实没那么好，但大概是你能想到的最好的了。所以我就会附和这个想法。但是查理两次拍着桌子对我说，就只是说，“买，买，买。”比亚迪就是其中之一，而好市多是另一个。我们买了一定数量的好市多，也买了相当多的比亚迪。

But looking back, he already was aggressive. But I should have been more aggressive in Costco. It wasn’t fatal that we weren’t. But he was right big time on both companies.但回顾起来，他当时已经相当积极。但我本应在 Costco 方面更加积极。我们当时没有采取行动并非致命错误。但在这两家公司上，他确实把握得非常准确。

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m aware of what goes on in most markets, but I think it’s unlikely that we’ll make any large commitments in almost any country you can name, although we don’t rule it out entirely. And I feel extremely good about our Japanese position, and we’ll have that… I don’t know how many years. Greg will be sitting with that at some point, and we couldn’t be happier with that. But you really have to… We really have a different outlook in looking at… Well, we look at your money, which we couldn’t bear to lose, and we feel that we’re far less likely to make any truly major mistakes in the United States than in many other countries.沃伦·巴菲特：我了解大多数市场的运作情况，但我想，无论你提到哪个国家，我们都不太可能在那里做出任何大规模的投资，尽管我们并不完全排除这种可能性。我对我们的日本投资情况感觉非常好，我们将继续持有……我不知道能持有多久。格雷格总有一天会接手这项投资，我们对这一点感到非常满意。但是，你真的必须……我们看待……嗯，我们关注的是你的钱，我们无法承受损失，并且我们觉得，在美国犯下真正重大错误的可能性远低于在许多其他国家。

Okay, Becky, this next question comes from Stanley Holmes, who is a Berkshire shareholder from Salt Lake City. He asks: In his 2024 annual letter to shareholders, Chairman Buffett noted the severe earnings disappointment experienced at Berkshire Hathaway Energy last year and expressed concern about earnings and asset values in the utility industry. Recognizing that investors are worried about climate-change-related expenses and that new uncertainties cloud the regulatory environment, the chairman suggested that some jurisdictions may adopt the public power model. There are now signs that policymakers in Utah, citing state sovereignty, may already be poised to move in that direction.好的，贝基，下一个问题来自盐湖城的伯克希尔股东斯坦利·霍尔斯。他问道：在 2024 年的股东年度信中，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司董事长巴菲特提到了伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司去年经历的严重盈利失望，并表达了对公用事业行业盈利和资产价值的担忧。认识到投资者担心与气候变化相关的费用，以及新的不确定性笼罩着监管环境，董事长建议一些地区可能会采用公共电力模式。目前已有迹象表明，犹他州的决策者以州主权为由，可能已经准备好朝这个方向发展。

The Utah legislature recently mandated the state’s right to serve as the sole purchaser of energy from an in-state power plant and, under some circumstances, purchase the power plant before it can be retired. The state utility regulator will be legally bound to prioritize public purchases of power and facilities that could include assets owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s specific utility, Rocky Mountain Power. Will Berkshire, through BHE, continue to invest resources in jurisdictions where corporate assets may be subject to confiscatory state policies and actions? And how is Berkshire Energy working with officials in Utah to minimize potential corporate losses if and when state control is asserted over its electrical utility sector?犹他州议会近期强制规定，该州有权成为州内发电厂的唯一购买者，并在特定情况下，在发电厂退役前购买其。州公用事业监管机构将依法被要求优先购买电力和设施，这些设施可能包括伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司旗下特定公用事业——落基山电力公司的资产。伯克希尔将通过 BHE，是否仍会在企业资产可能受到没收性州政策的司法管辖区继续投入资源？当州控制其电力行业时，伯克希尔能源如何与犹他州官员合作，以最大程度地减少潜在的企业损失？

WARREN BUFFETT: I will let Greg join me in answering this, but I would say our feeling is that Utah is actually very likely to treat us fairly. Whether the action is in granting appropriate rates that give us the return we expect, generally expected in terms of our own properties, or if they decide, for some reason, to go to public power, I think they would compensate us fairly. In the 1930s, George Norris, a senator from Nebraska, just turned Nebraska into a public power state. And our experience in Iowa would indicate that free enterprise has its role and that we can run a privately owned utility company that will be more efficient for society than, at least in most states, people can do with public power.沃伦·巴菲特：我会让格雷格和我一起回答这个问题，但我想说，我们觉得犹他州实际上很有可能公平对待我们。无论是通过给予适当的费率来让我们获得预期的回报，还是他们出于某种原因决定转为公共电力，我认为他们会公平地补偿我们。20 世纪 30 年代，内布拉斯加州参议员乔治·诺里斯刚刚将内布拉斯加州转变为一个公共电力州。而我们在爱荷华州的经验表明，自由企业有其作用，我们可以运营一家私营电力公司，其效率将比至少大多数州的公共电力更有效率。

But what has happened is that there are going to be enormous amounts of money, enormous amounts of money spent on power. And if you’re going to do it with private owners, there’s nobody better situated than Berkshire to satisfy a large portion of the needs of the country. And we will do it at a rate of return that is not, you know, it’s not designed to make us rich or anything like that. It’s a sensible rate of return, but we won’t do it if we think we’re not going to get any return. It would be kind of crazy. And we’ve seen actions in a few states where some of the costs associated with climate change, they’re not being regarded as costs the utility shouldn’t incur. Well, believe me, if it was publicly owned, they would have incurred it too.但是，目前的情况是，将会有巨额资金投入到电力领域。如果你打算由私人业主来运营，那么伯克希尔公司无疑是最适合满足国家大部分需求的。我们将以一个合理的回报率进行投资，这并非为了让我们变得富有，而是出于理性的考量。但如果我们认为无法获得任何回报，就不会进行投资，那将是愚蠢的。我们观察到，在一些州，与气候变化相关的部分成本并未被视为电力公司不应承担的责任。但请相信，如果这些电力公司是公有的，它们也必须承担这些成本。

But we’ll do what society tells us, and we have the money and the knowledge to participate in something that is enormously important for the country. But we’re not going to throw good money after bad in the field. I don’t worry about… my understanding is, and Greg can elaborate on this now immediately, but I don’t regard Utah as being unfriendly to the idea of utilities being treated fairly. Charlie?但我们会听从社会的指示，我们拥有参与对国家极为重要的事情的资金和知识。但我们不会在某个领域浪费好的资金。我不担心……我的理解是，格雷格现在可以立即详细说明这一点，但我并不认为犹他州对公平对待公用事业公司的想法不友好。查理？

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie, I’m so used to that. I had actually checked myself a couple of times already, but I’ll slip again.沃伦·巴菲特：查理，我已经习惯了。我其实已经检查过自己几次了，但还是会再次疏忽。

GREG ABEL: That’s a great honor. Yeah. When we touched on it initially in your letter relative to the challenges in the industry, and then you’ve just alluded to the significant investment that has to go into the energy industry, the utility sector, for many years to come. And I think if we start there, if I think of our different utilities, it will definitely come to Utah and PacificCorp.格雷格·阿贝尔：这是莫大的荣誉。是的。当我们在您的信中最初谈到行业挑战时，以及您刚刚提到未来多年能源行业、公用事业部门必须投入的巨额投资。我认为如果我们从那里开始，如果我想起我们的不同公用事业公司，它肯定会提到犹他州和太平洋公司。

But if you look at the underlying demand that is building in each of those utilities and the amount of dollars that are going to have to go in to meet that demand, it’s absolutely incredible. So when you raised it in your letter, it’s a really important issue. We have to have a regulatory compact that works between, if it’s a public utility, it has to work in concert with the state, Utah being an example, or it ultimately becomes potentially a public power. So just to set the frame a little bit, if I think of Iowa, which you mentioned, and the underlying… we’ve made substantial investments there, it’s been very consistent with both the public policy that the state and legislators wanted, and they enacted very specific laws to encourage that. But that utility is more than 100 years old right now.但是，如果你看看这些公用事业公司中正在形成的潜在需求以及满足这些需求所需的资金量，那真是令人难以置信。所以当你在信中提出这一点时，这是一个非常重要的问题。如果我们是公用事业公司，就必须与州政府合作，犹他州就是一个例子，否则最终可能会成为公共电力。为了稍微设定一下框架，如果你提到的爱荷华州，其潜在……我们在那里进行了大量投资，这与州政府和立法者想要的公共政策非常一致，他们还制定了非常具体的法律来鼓励这一点。但这家公用事业公司目前已有 100 多年历史。

And if we look at the demand that’s in place for MidAmerican (Iowa utility) over the next, say, into the mid-2030s associated with AI and the data centers, that demand doubles in that short period of time, and it took 100 years plus to get where we are today, and now it’s going to double. And that will require substantial amounts of capital from MidAmerican and its shareholders. And how that will function is if we have a proper regulatory compact in place, which you’ve highlighted, if we then go to, say, Nevada, where we own two utilities there and cover the lion’s share in Nevada, if you go over a similar timeframe and you look at the underlying demand in that utility and say, go into the later 2030s, it triples the underlying demand and billions and billions of dollars have to be put in. Our rate base will literally go from, it’s not a modest level now, but you’re talking probably an incremental six to 10 billion at least of rate base going into that type of entity, which requires, again, alignment with the state and their policies and a proper recovery of our underlying both capital and a return on capital. So when we come to the wildfires, that’s been a substantial challenge because it’s the first time there’s been a lot of discussion around one of our utilities.如果我们看看中美国际（爱荷华州公用事业公司）未来，比如到 2030 年代中期的需求，与人工智能和数据中心相关，那么在这段短时间内需求会翻倍。而我们今天所处的位置，花费了 100 多年时间才达到，现在需求将翻倍。这将需要中美国际及其股东大量资本。其运作方式是，如果我们建立适当的监管协议，正如你强调的那样，如果我们然后前往内华达州，我们在那里拥有两家公用事业公司，并在内华达州占据主导地位，如果你考虑相似的时间段，并查看该公用事业公司的潜在需求，并进入 2030 年代后期，潜在需求将增加三倍，数十亿、数十亿美元必须投入。我们的费率基数将真正从现在不是适度的水平，但你谈论的可能至少增加六到十亿美元的增量费率基数进入那种类型的实体，这需要再次与州及其政策保持一致，并适当回收我们潜在的资金和资本回报。 因此，当谈到野火时，这确实是一个重大挑战，因为这是我们首次围绕某项公用事业展开大量讨论。

One experienced significant losses associated with the wildfires. What portion of those costs will be recovered? And that’s really the dialogue we’re in. And does that properly work? When I think of the wildfires, there have been many claims, and a recent additional claim last week for $30 billion. We don’t take that lightly, but it is an incremental claim to an already existing lawsuit that’s in place.一家公司因野火遭受了重大损失。这些成本中有多少将被收回？这正是我们正在讨论的问题。这种方式是否有效？当我想到野火时，已经有许多索赔，上周又有一项 30 亿美元的索赔。我们对此并不轻视，但这只是针对已存在的诉讼的增量索赔。

And when I think of PacifiCorp, we’re in a place where, first and foremost, all the litigation will be challenged because the basis for it, at least we believe, is in places unfounded, and we will continue to challenge it. And it will take many years to be resolved, as Warren highlighted in the letter. But if you think of PacifiCorp and the litigation there, number one, how we think and operate those assets has to change. Change because we have worked with the states across all our states for many years with the fundamental goal to be to keep the power on. And our teams and our employees worked incredibly hard to keep the power on, day in, day out, through storms.每当我想起 PacifiCorp 时，我们正面临一个情况：首先，所有诉讼都将受到挑战，因为其依据至少在我们看来，在某些方面缺乏根据，我们将继续挑战它。正如沃伦在信中所强调的，解决这些问题将需要许多年。但如果你考虑到 PacifiCorp 及其诉讼，第一，我们必须改变对那些资产的想法和运营方式。改变是因为多年来，我们在所有州与各州合作，其根本目标始终是保持电力供应。我们的团队和员工通过风暴，日复一日地付出了巨大的努力来确保电力供应。

Unfortunately, through the 2020 fires, the instincts were not to turn off the power. The instinct was to keep the power on, to keep hospitals, fire stations responding. It’s not in their mind, or at least culturally, it wasn’t in our minds to de-energize. So the first thing we had to do was step back and say, “We’ve got to fundamentally change the culture, not just at PacifiCorp, but across all our utilities.”不幸的是，在 2020 年的火灾中，人们的本能并不是切断电源。本能是保持电力供应，确保医院和消防站能够正常运作。这在他们的思维中，或者至少在文化上，并不是我们的想法，我们没有考虑过要断电。因此，我们首先要做的是退一步说：“我们必须从根本上改变文化，不仅仅是太平洋电力公司，而是我们所有的公用事业公司。”

The first thing we have to recognize is that there are now going to be situations where we prioritize de-energizing the assets, and that’s completely different than we’ve operated those assets, as I’ve highlighted, for 100-plus years. So we start with the culture. We had to change that. The second thing is we’ve now changed our operating systems so that we can turn off the power very quickly. If there’s a fire that’s increasing, approaching, we will turn off our systems now, and the minute the conditions are safe again, we’ll re-energize it.我们必须认识到，现在会出现优先对资产进行去能化的情况，这与我们过去 100 多年来的运营方式完全不同。因此，我们从文化入手，必须改变这一点。第二，我们改变了操作系统，以便能够快速切断电源。如果火灾加剧、逼近，我们将立即关闭系统，一旦条件安全，我们将重新供电。

But we’ve had to do that. And then the third thing is continuing to invest in a way that allows us to try to minimize the risk of fire. But when you get back to Utah and PacifiCorp, the challenge we do have is within PacifiCorp, as we go through both litigation and through continuing to operate that entity, it generates a certain amount of capital and profits that will remain in that entity and be reinvested back into that business.但我们必须这样做。第三，我们继续投资，以尽量减少火灾风险。但当你回到犹他州和太平洋电力公司时，我们面临的挑战在于太平洋电力公司内部，随着我们进行诉讼并继续运营该实体，它会产生一定数量的资本和利润，这些资本和利润将留在该实体中，并重新投资于该业务。

But fundamentally, as we go forward, we need both legislative and regulatory reform across the PacifiCorp states if we’re going to deploy incremental capital, make incremental contributions into that business. As Warren said, we don’t want to throw good capital after bad capital, so we’ll be very disciplined there. But the reality is there are opportunities to both solve the legislative and regulatory solutions. And the best example we actually have, and I think it’s the gold standard across the country, is Utah.但根本而言，如果我们希望部署增量资本，为该业务做出增量贡献，那么在 PacifiCorp 各州，我们需要进行立法和监管改革。正如沃伦所说，我们不想将好资本投入到坏资本中，因此我们会非常自律。但现实情况是，存在解决立法和监管问题的机会。而实际上我们最好的例子，我认为也是全国的金标准，就是犹他州。

So, as Warren touched on, it’s a state we’re happy we’re investing in. It is part of PacifiCorp, so there’s a certain amount of balance there as to how we do it. But in the last legislative session that existed, Utah actually passed a bill that does a couple of very important things.因此，正如沃伦所提到的，我们很高兴投资于这个领域。这是帕克福公司的一部分，所以在如何进行这方面存在一定的平衡。但在上一个立法会期，犹他州实际上通过了一项法案，该法案做了几件非常重要的事情。

One, it caps non-economic damages on wildfire claims. So, if you go back to the wildfires we have in Oregon and the claims you’re hearing filed for, there’s economic damages associated with them, and those harms should receive the economic damages associated with that. But unfortunately, and even though there’s legislature and case law in Oregon that says wildfire non-economic damages should not be awarded, there are very substantial non-economic damages being awarded there. Utah took a very proactive position to say, “We will cap those non-economic damages,” and it creates an environment… Again, it’s back to that: Is there an environment where you want to invest in? Yes. And then incrementally, they’ve created a very substantial fund. It’s literally called the Wildfire Fund for fires in Utah that will help facilitate both liquidity and the ability to resolve the situation.第一，它对野火索赔中的非经济损失赔偿设定了上限。因此，如果你回顾俄勒冈州的野火以及你听到的相关索赔，其中涉及经济损失赔偿，这些损害理应获得相应的经济损失赔偿。但不幸的是，尽管俄勒冈州有立法和判例法规定野火非经济损失赔偿不应被授予，但那里却授予了非常巨额的非经济损失赔偿。犹他州采取了非常积极的立场，表示“我们将对非经济损失赔偿设定上限”，并创造了一个环境……再次回到那个问题：你希望在什么样的环境中投资？是的。然后逐步，他们创建了一个非常庞大的基金。这个基金确实被称为“犹他州野火基金”，将帮助促进流动性并解决该问题。

So Utah, we believe, including the legislation, that a lot of other things came out of it, is the actual gold standard as we go forward. So, very important issue for Berkshire Hathaway Energy, but at the same time, it is a PacifiCorp issue. The risk of regulatory compacts not being respected is a much broader one that we will always evaluate, and be careful how we deploy our capital. But both PacifiCorp will manage through it. And I see other very good and significant opportunities in PacifiCorp.因此，我们认为，包括立法在内，许多其他事项的出台，实际上是我们在未来前行的黄金标准。所以，这对伯克希尔哈撒韦能源来说是一个非常重大的问题，但同时，这也是太平洋电力公司的问题。监管协议不被尊重的风险是一个更广泛的问题，我们将始终评估，并谨慎地部署我们的资本。但太平洋电力公司会处理好这个问题。我看到太平洋电力公司还有其他非常良好和重大的机遇。

I mean, in Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the return on equity investment that’s been promulgated and been achieved over the years has been, particularly in recent years, well below the return on equity that has been achieved by American industry generally. And so whether you earn x or x plus a half a percent or x minus a half a percent, that differs by state, and some states are more attractive than others. But whether you earn x or go broke is not an equation that works. And, you know, we won’t put our shareholders’ money… They didn’t give it to us to lose it all, and they might like it if it’s better when it’s plus a half a percent than minus a half a percent. But the electric utility industry will never be as good as, I mean, just remotely as good as, you know, the kind of businesses we own in other arenas. I mean, you look at the return on tangible equity at Coca-Cola or American Express or, to really top it off, Apple. It’s just, it’s, you know, it’s just a whole different game.我的意思是，在伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司，多年来公布并实现的净资产收益率，尤其是近年来，远低于美国工业整体实现的净资产收益率。因此，无论你赚取 x%还是 x plus a half a percent 或 x minus a half a percent，这因州而异，有些州比其他州更具吸引力。但无论你赚取 x%还是破产，这都不是一个有效的等式。而且，你知道，我们不会把股东的金钱……他们把钱给我们不是为了让我们全部损失，如果收益率是 plus a half a percent 比 minus a half a percent 更好，他们可能会喜欢。但电力公用事业行业永远不会像，我的意思是，仅仅是稍微像，你知道，我们在其他领域拥有的那种企业那么好。我的意思是，你看看可口可乐、美国运通的实体净资产收益率，或者，真的要登峰造极的话，苹果。这简直，你知道，这完全是另一回事。

But in utilities, the trade has been, the compact has been that you get a modest return. And climate change comes along, and it causes way more fires. That’s just the cost of doing business. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t do things to mitigate fires in the future. And you can make different policies on when you turn off the lights, but somebody’s going to do, somebody’s going to put up many, many hundreds of billions, maybe in the trillions, and climate change enters into that, and it can be done through public power or it can be done through private enterprise to quite a degree. And we would be certainly good for 100 billion or more, but we’re not going to throw good money after bad.但在公用事业领域，传统做法是获得适度回报。而气候变化带来了更多火灾，这只是经营成本。但这并不意味着我们不能在未来采取措施来减少火灾。你可以制定不同的政策来决定何时关闭灯光，但总有人会投入数百亿甚至数千亿美元，气候变化也参与其中，这可以通过公共电力或私营企业来实现。我们当然可以投入 100 亿美元或更多，但我们不会将好钱投入到坏事情上。

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay, let’s do station four.沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我们来第四站。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Joe, visiting from San Francisco. How do you think about the role of technological advances, especially generative AI, on more traditional industries? Thank you.观众：嗨，乔，我是来自旧金山的。你认为技术进步，尤其是生成式人工智能，对传统产业的作用如何？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I made a mistake in calling on four, but I’ll get back to two later on. I don’t know anything about AI, but I do have… that doesn’t mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort. And last year I said that we let a genie out of the bottle when we, when we developed nuclear weapons, and that genie has been doing some terrible things lately. And the power of that genie is what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And then I don’t know any way to get the genie back in the bottle.沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我在预测四个方面时犯了个错误，但稍后我会回到两个方面上。我对人工智能一无所知，但我确实有……但这并不意味着我否认它的存在或重要性，或任何其他类似的事情。去年我说，当我们开发核武器时，我们释放了瓶中的精灵，而这个精灵最近一直在做一些可怕的事情。而这个精灵的力量是什么，你知道，让我感到非常害怕。然后我不知道任何方法能让这个精灵重新回到瓶子里。

And AI is somewhat similar. It’s partway out of the bottle, and it’s enormously important, and it’s going to be [used] by somebody. We may wish we’d never seen that genie, or it may do wonderful things, and I’m certainly not the person that can evaluate that, and I probably wouldn’t have been the person that could have evaluated it during World War II, whether we [should have] tested a 20,000-ton bomb that we felt was absolutely necessary for the United States, and would actually save lives in the long run. But where we also had [J. Robert] Oppenheimer, I think it was, who was on a parallel with Einstein in terms of saying, you may, with this test, ignite the atmosphere in such a way that civilization doesn’t continue. And we decided to let the genie out of the bottle, and it accomplished the immediate objective. But whether, whether it’s going to change the future of society, we will find out later.人工智能也有几分相似。它已经部分地被释放出来，极其重要，而且终将被某个人使用。我们或许希望从未见过这只精灵，或者它可能会带来美好的事物，而我当然不是能评价这一点的人，而且我可能也不会在第二次世界大战期间评价它，是否应该测试我们感到绝对必要对美国、从长远来看能拯救生命的两万吨炸弹。但我们也有像罗伯特·奥本海默这样的科学家，我认为，他与爱因斯坦一样，在说，通过这次试验，你可能会以某种方式点燃大气层，使文明无法继续。我们决定释放这只精灵，它达成了眼前的目标。但无论它是否会改变社会的未来，我们以后会知道。

Now, AI, I had one experience that does make me a little nervous, and I’ll just explain it. That very, very recently, fairly recently, I saw an image in front of my eyes on the screen, and it was me, and it was my voice. And [I was] wearing the kind of clothes I wear, and my wife or my daughter wouldn’t have been able to detect any difference. And it was delivering a message that [in] no way came from me. So it… When you think of the potential for scamming people, if you can reproduce images that I can’t even tell [aren’t me and say], “I need money, you know, it’s your daughter, I’ve just had a car crash. I need $50,000 wired.” I mean, scamming has always been part of the American scene, but this would make me, if I was interested in investing in scamming, [think] it’s going to be the growth industry of all time, and it’s enabled in a way… Obviously, AI has potential for good things, too, but I don’t know how you… Based on the one I saw recently, I practically would [have] send money to myself over some crazy [scheme].现在，AI，我确实有过一次让我感到有些不安的经历，我来简单解释一下。就在最近，我亲眼在屏幕上看到了一个图像，那是我的影像，也是我的声音。我穿着平时穿的衣服，我的妻子或女儿都看不出任何差别。但它传递的信息与我毫无关系。所以……当你想到诈骗人们的可能性时，如果有人能制作出连我都无法分辨是否是我本人的图像，并说：“我需要钱，你知道，这是你的女儿，我刚出了车祸，需要 5 万美元转账。” 我的意思是，诈骗一直都是美国社会的一部分，但这种情况如果我对投资诈骗感兴趣，我会认为这是有史以来最具增长潜力的行业，而且它以某种方式……显然，AI 也有用于好事的潜力，但我不知道你们……根据我最近看到的那个案例，我几乎会通过某种疯狂的（计划）把钱转给自己。

So I don’t have any advice on how the world handles it because I don’t think we know how to handle what we did with the nuclear genie. But I do think, as someone who doesn’t understand a damn thing about it, that it has enormous potential for good, [and] enormous potential for harm. And I just don’t know how that plays out.所以我对于世界如何应对这个问题没有任何建议，因为我并不认为我们知道如何处理我们与核武器 genie 之间的事情。但我确实认为，作为一个对此一窍不通的人，它具有巨大的潜在利益，也具有巨大的潜在危害。而我只是不知道最终会如何发展。

WARREN BUFFETT: I’d like to mention to Becky that Ajit will not be participating in the afternoon session, so if you could focus on any, if there are insurance questions you want to ask, that’d be a good one?沃伦·巴菲特：我想告诉贝基，艾吉特不会参加下午的会议，所以如果你有任何问题想要提问，保险方面的问题会是一个不错的选择？

***\*BECKY QUICK\: Yeah. This next question is for both Warren and Ajit. It’s from Ben Noll, who’s a Minneapolis shareholder who’s been a shareholder since 1995. And he says, in an interview this past year, Todd Combs said that in [his] first meeting [with] you in 2010, he told you GEICO is better at marketing and branding, Progressive is a data company, and data is going to win in the long run. But it appears you did not prioritize data analytics at GEICO until a decade later, when you made Todd CEO. As business units like GEICO age and need new strategic direction, I wonder if Berkshire’s hands-off management approach is a source of vulnerability. Will you please review your thinking on changes made at GEICO and explain how Berkshire is structured to react if the Berkshire CEO sees that a business unit is strategically off track? And Ajit, I hope you will continue to update us on yours and Todd’s progress at remedying the data analytics shortcomings at GEICO.贝基·奎克：是的。下一个问题是向沃伦和艾吉特提出的。这是来自明尼苏达股东本·诺尔的问题，他自 1995 年以来一直是股东。他在今年的一次采访中说，托德·科姆斯表示，在 2010 年与他第一次见面时，他告诉巴菲特，GEICO 在营销和品牌方面做得更好，Progressive 是一家数据公司，数据将在长期内获胜。但看来直到十年后你任命托德为 CEO 时，你才没有优先考虑 GEICO 的数据分析。随着像 GEICO 这样的业务单元逐渐成熟并需要新的战略方向，我想知道伯克希尔放任自流的管理方式是否是一个潜在的风险。请你回顾 GEICO 所做改变的思考，并解释伯克希尔是如何构建的，以便如果伯克希尔的 CEO 发现一个业务单元在战略上偏离轨道，伯克希尔会如何应对？艾吉特，我希望你能继续向我们更新你和托德在弥补 GEICO 数据分析不足方面的进展。

AJIT JAIN: As Warren has pointed out in the past, one of the drawbacks that GEICO is faced with, it hasn’t been doing as good a job as matching rate with risk and segmenting and pricing product based on the risk characteristics. This has been a disadvantage at GEICO for a few years now. We are trying to still play catch up. Technology is something that is, unfortunately, a bottleneck. But there again, we are making progress. And equally importantly, we have hired people who are much better than what they inherited in terms of data analytics and pricing and slicing data. So, yes, I recognize we are still behind. We’re taking steps to bridge the gap, and hopefully by the, certainly by the end of ’25, we should be able to be along with the best of players when it comes to data analytics, whether it’s pricing, whether it’s claims, or any other factor that drives the economics of the insurance business.阿吉特·贾因：正如沃伦过去所指出的那样，GEICO 面临的一个缺点是，在根据风险特征匹配费率、细分和定价产品方面，其工作做得并不如预期。这已经给 GEICO 带来劣势好几年了。我们仍在努力追赶。技术不幸是一个瓶颈，但我们在取得进展。同样重要的是，我们在数据分析、定价和数据处理方面聘请了比他们继承的人员更优秀的人才。因此，是的，我承认我们仍然落后。我们正在采取措施弥补差距，并且希望到 2025 年底，我们在数据分析方面应该能够与行业最佳企业看齐，无论是定价、理赔还是其他驱动保险业务经济因素。

WARREN BUFFETT: I would add, equating rate with risk obviously is important in every line of insurance business. I mean, that’s what you’re involved with, is deciding whether a given rate offers us the chance or the probability that we will make a little [bit] of money on it, and that sometimes we’re only risking losing a little and sometimes we’re risking losing huge amounts. But GEICO and Progressive has done a better job [at] that recently. But our fundamental advantage at GEICO, of course, is that we have lower costs than virtually anybody. And that cost advantage has been dramatic. We’ve driven our underwriting expense ratio below 10%, and there’s just very, very, very few companies that can compete with us.沃伦·巴菲特：我还要补充一点，将利率与风险等同显然是保险业务中每一条线都重要的事情。我的意思是，你们所涉及的就是决定某个利率是否为我们提供了赚钱的机会或概率，有时我们只承担损失一点的风险，有时我们承担损失巨额的风险。但最近通用汽车保险公司和进步保险公司在这方面做得更好。当然，通用汽车保险公司的基本优势在于，我们的成本低于几乎所有人。这种成本优势非常显著。我们将承保费用率降至 10%以下，而能与我们竞争的公司非常非常非常少。

So it isn’t, it’s not in the least a survival question, and it isn’t even exactly a profitability thing. But, you know, we would rather have x percent of the market than a half of x percent. But we roughly, I think in the month of March, we, we were just, we didn’t lose policyholders, and we got 16 million or whatever it is, of them, and we’ve got the lowest cost operations. So it’s not a threat. It’s not remotely a threat to survival, it’s not a threat to even profitability. But on the other hand, we would like to be growing with something that is the best model around in the insurance business of delivering at a low cost. And we now have a recognition that we didn’t have back when Leo Goodwin started in 1936.所以并非如此，这根本不是生存问题，甚至也不是盈利问题。但是，你知道，我们宁愿拥有市场中的百分之 x，也不愿只有百分之 x 的一半。但我想，在三月那个月，我们，我们并没有失去保单持有人，我们获得了 160 万或多少个保单持有人，而且我们拥有成本最低的运营模式。所以这不是威胁。这根本不是生存的威胁，甚至也不是盈利的威胁。但另一方面，我们希望与保险业务中提供低成本服务的最佳模式一起成长。而现在，我们意识到了这一点，这是在 1936 年 Leo Goodwin 开始时我们所没有的。

short little movie and we’ll just have a little explanation of something that I think will be of interest, certainly of interest to me, but it. So I would like to. We will break promptly at twelve, and I would like everybody to really make an attempt to be in their seat and quiet at 01:00 and if you can’t do that, if you’ll wait a few minutes and watch in the halls and all that.我们将播放一段简短的电影，并稍作解释，我想这会很有趣，至少对我来说是这样。所以我想。我们将准时在十二点休息，我希望每个人都能努力在一点整坐在自己的座位上保持安静。如果你做不到，如果你愿意等几分钟，可以在走廊和其他地方观看。

You know, now we have. We’re getting over $2,000. Well, all the advances in technology and everything like that, if we had been wedded this formula, what we did with $40, we’d have had a terrible business. But in effect, by making the cars much safer, they’ve also made it much more expensive to repair. And a whole bunch of things have happened, including inflation.你知道，我们现在有了。我们正超过 2000 美元。嗯，所有技术进步和诸如此类的东西，如果我们一直坚守这个公式，用 40 美元所做的事情，我们会有一家糟糕的业务。但实际上，通过使汽车更加安全，他们也使得维修成本更加高昂。发生了很多事情，包括通货膨胀。

So now we have a $40 billion business from something that was 7 million back when I called on it. So if we’d operated in a non inflationary world, Geico would not be a $40 billion company.现在我们从一个当初只有 700 万美元的业务发展到了 400 亿美元。如果我们生活在一个非通货膨胀的世界里，Geico 就不会成为一家 400 亿美元的公司。

Okay, we’re now finally coordinated towards station three. Believe.好的，我们现在终于协调到了第三站。相信。

Hello. Hey, everyone. I warren. I’m Liam. I’m 27, from Newmark, Ontario, Canada.你好。嘿，大家。我是沃伦。我是利亚姆。我 27 岁，来自加拿大安大略省纽马克。

I got invested in Berkshire, thanks to my dad, who brought me down to this meeting. I’m so excited to be here. Most 27 year olds had idols who are rappers, but instead, my idols are Warren, Charlie, who will miss forever, and also your cousin Jimmy, who unfortunately had to go this year, too. It’s been a tough year as a Canadian. Similar with Greg, I always wonder about our canadian economy and what you think about the canadian economy.我投资了伯克希尔，感谢我的父亲带我参加了这次会议。我很兴奋能来到这里。大多数 27 岁的人都有说唱歌手作为偶像，但我的偶像是沃伦、查理，他们永远会被人怀念，还有你的表哥吉米，他不幸今年也去世了。对加拿大人来说，这一年很艰难。和格雷格一样，我总是思考加拿大的经济，想知道你对加拿大经济的看法。

We got some beat down bank stocks right now, and I don’t know what your opinions are on these. And I also wonder at, in their nineties, if the rumors are true and you’re still able to eat McDonald’s. I like fast food myself, but I always wonder at 93, he’s still able to eat those and enjoy the Coca Cola. Thanks, Warren. Okay, well, we’ve got a Canadian here, so we’ll let him answer the first part.我们目前有一些银行股遭受重挫，我不知道您对这些有何看法。我还想问，他们九十多岁了，如果传言属实，您是否还能吃麦当劳。我个人喜欢快餐，但总想知道 93 岁高龄的他，是否还能吃这些东西并享受可口可乐。谢谢，沃伦。好吧，我们这里有一位加拿大人，所以先让他回答第一个问题。

And if you watch me, you’ll see what I like to eat. Go to it, Greg. Okay. Yeah. Well, we are fortunate to have a number of operations up in Canada.如果你观察我，你会看到我喜欢吃什么。去吧，格雷格。好的。是的。嗯，我们很幸运在加拿大拥有许多业务。

It goes across many of our operating entities. And then, as Warren touched on, all the businesses that we have, a piece of that we’re invested in are up in Canada. So the presence is significant where we’re always looking at making incremental investments there, because it’s an environment we’re very comfortable with. Warren touched on understanding the US environment, business environment, and I would put Canada equally in that bucket that we understand it and would be comfortable. And I would say the economy moves very closely to the US.这涉及到我们许多运营实体。然后，正如沃伦提到的，我们所有的业务中，我们投资的一部分都在加拿大。所以我们的存在是显著的，我们总是在寻找在那里进行渐进式投资，因为这是一个我们非常熟悉的环境。沃伦提到了了解美国环境、商业环境，我会把加拿大同样放在那个我们了解并且感到舒适的篮子里。我会说，经济与美国非常接近。

So the results we’re seeing out of our various businesses that report both the US and canadian operations aren’t drastically different. And there’s a few that we’re on the energy side. For example, we make very substantial investments up there in Alberta. But again, it’s very consistent with how that economy is growing, and I would see it being very consistent with what we see here. Warren, anything to.所以，我们正在看到我们各个业务报告的美国和加拿大运营的结果并没有显著差异。在能源方面有几个。例如，我们在阿尔伯塔省有非常重大的投资。但再次，这与该经济的增长方式非常一致，我会认为这与我们在这里的所见非常一致。沃伦，有什么要说的吗。

Yeah, no, obviously there aren’t as many big companies up there as there are in the United States. But when we get. I got one from Canada just the other day that I sent over to Greg, too. When we see anything that’s suggesting an idea that’s of a size that would interstere and meets other requirements, we don’t have any hesitancy about political. Putting big money in Canada.是的，显然那里的跨国公司没有美国那么多。但当我们看到任何可能引起我们兴趣且符合其他要求的大公司时，我们在加拿大投资巨资没有任何犹豫。前几天我收到一家加拿大的公司，也转给了格雷。

And there are things we actually can do fairly well that where Canada could benefit from Berkshire’s participation. We did it some years ago, not that many years ago, but there was a financial institution up there. They had a problem and they did, as I remember, 30 plus various other people that were kicking it around. And meanwhile, the place was getting close to the edge for not a fundamental problem. And Ted Weschler from our office went up there.而且，我们实际上能做得很不错的事情，加拿大可以从伯克希尔的投资中受益。我们几年前就做过这样的事情，不是很多年前，当时那里有一家金融机构。他们遇到了问题，我记得他们当时有 30 多位其他人在讨论这个问题。与此同时，这家机构几乎要陷入危机，虽然不是根本性问题。然后我们办公室的泰德·韦斯勒去了那里。

I heard about it on a Monday or something. Ted Wesler went up there and we offered a solution in a couple of days to something that was getting close to the brink. So we do not feel uncomfortable in any way, shape or form putting our money into Canada. In fact, we’re actually looking at one thing now. But, you know, they still have to meet our standards in terms of what we get for our money.我听说这件事是在一个星期一或者什么时间。泰德·韦斯勒去了那里，我们在几天内就提供了一个解决方案，解决了几乎要陷入危机的问题。所以，我们无论如何都不会觉得将资金投入加拿大有任何不适。事实上，我们现在正在考虑一件事情。但是，你知道，他们仍然必须达到我们的标准，确保我们的资金能够得到应有的回报。

But they don’t have a, they don’t have a mental, we don’t have any mental blocks about that country. And of course, there’s a lot of countries we don’t understand at all. So Canada, it’s terrific. When you’ve got a major economy, not the size of the US, but a major economy that you absolutely give them, you feel confident about operating there. Okay, Becky, Warren, you just said that you’d rather have a jeet running risk assessment at the insurance operations than any other thousand insurance adjusters in the world.但他们没有，他们没有心理上的障碍，我们对那个国家没有任何心理障碍。当然，有很多国家我们完全不理解。所以加拿大，这太棒了。当你有一个主要经济体，虽然不是美国那样规模，但一个主要经济体，你完全给予他们，你对他们在那里运营有信心。好的，贝基，沃伦，你们刚才说，你们宁愿让一个杰特进行风险评估，而不是世界上任何一千名保险理赔员。

So I’d like to follow up with a question that came in from Mark Blackley in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He said, warren, for years you have spoken about the incredible impact Ajeet has had on Berkshire. Often joked, if you and Ajit are in a sinking boat and we can only save one of you, swim to Ajit. While we often discuss plans for the next CEO of Berkshire, little is mentioned on who will one day replace Ajit. How should we think about the future of the Berkshire insurance operations, given how challenging it may be to find another Ajit?所以我想就马克·布莱克利从俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨发来的问题进行追问。他说，沃伦，多年来你一直谈论阿杰特对伯克希尔产生的巨大影响。经常开玩笑说，如果你和阿杰特在一条沉船中，我们只能救一个人，就游向阿杰特。虽然我们经常讨论伯克希尔下一任 CEO 的计划，但很少提到谁有一天会取代阿杰特。考虑到可能很难找到另一个阿杰特，我们应该如何思考伯克希尔保险业务的未来？

And I’d like to hear Ajit’s thoughts on this as well. Well, I would say we won’t find another Ajit, but fortunately, he’s a good bit younger than I am, so I hope you have to worry a little bit about me first before I start working by the jeep.我也想听听 Ajit 对此的看法。嗯，我认为我们不会再遇到另一个 Ajit 了，但幸运的是，他比我年轻得多，所以我希望你们在我开始在那辆吉普车旁工作之前，先稍微担心一下我。

We won’t find another jeep, but we have an operation that he has created and that at least part of it. There are certain parts of it that are almost impossible for competitors to imitate, and if I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t try and imitate them. And so we’ve institutionalized some of our advantages, but Ajit is. Well, his presence allowed us to do it and he did it. But now we’ve created a structure that didn’t exist when he came in 1986.我们不会再遇到那辆吉普车了，但我们拥有他创建并至少部分拥有的业务。其中某些部分几乎不可能被竞争对手模仿，如果我是他们，我不会试图模仿它们。因此，我们已经将我们的部分优势制度化，但 Ajit。嗯，他的存在使我们能够做到这一点，并且他做到了。但现在我们已经创建了一个结构，在他 1986 年加入时并不存在。

Nothing close to it existed with us or with anybody else. And insurance is the most important business at Berkshire.我们或任何其他人都几乎没有什么接近它。保险是我们伯克希尔最重要的业务。

Marketable securities are important, but they’re not in the class exactly as our insurance business. And Ajit.可交易证券很重要，但它们并不完全属于我们保险业务的类别。Ajit。

We won’t have the same business if Ajit isn’t running it, but we’ll have a very good business. And again, that’s thanks to Ajit. I’d been in the business when he came in 1986.如果 Ajit 不再掌舵，我们的业务将不会一样，但我们会拥有一家非常出色的企业。而且，这再次要归功于 Ajit。我在 1986 年他加入时就在这个行业了。

I first went to Geico in 1950. We first bought national indemnity in 1957, and it was something that we’d made quite a bit of money in the stocks of insurance companies, but we needed an Ajit, unfortunately, he came into the office on a Saturday and he was tired of working at something where he really didn’t.我 1950 年首次加入 Geico。我们 1957 年首次购买国家赔偿，这是我们通过投资保险公司股票赚了很多钱的事情，但不幸的是，我们需要一个 Ajit，他星期六来到办公室，对真正不感兴趣的工作感到厌倦。

It just challenges his intellect. And I said, well, we got a lot of challenges. Nobody’s perfect. So you’ve never seen an insurance policy or owned an insurance stock, but here are the keys, and that’s worked out very well.这挑战了他的智慧。我说，我们面临很多挑战。没有人是完美的。所以你从未见过保险单或拥有过保险股票，但这里的关键是，这已经运作得非常好。

Thank you very much, Warren. Thank you very much, everyone. But the fact of the matter is, nobody is irreplaceable. And we have Tim Cook here in the audience, I believe, who has proved that and has set an example for a lot of people who follow.非常感谢，沃伦。非常感谢，大家。但事实上，没有人是不可替代的。我们在这里的观众中有蒂姆·库克，我相信他已经证明了这一点，并为许多跟随他的人树立了榜样。

That’s a great observation. Now, having said that, I will also add that our board is conscious of the succession issue, not only at Warren’s level, but also at my level. And every year they have me sitting in front of them answering questions and having me share my ideas with them in terms of what would happen to the operations if I get hit by a truck.这是一个很好的观察。现在，话虽如此，我还要补充一点，我们的董事会已经意识到了继任问题，不仅是在沃伦的层面，也包括在我这个层面。每年他们都会让我坐在他们面前回答问题，并分享我的想法，即如果我被卡车撞了，公司的运营将会如何。

We go through the various operations we have. I review with them a short list of people I think ought to be candidates for replacing me. And in addition to that, I go a step further and identify a particular individual as the person I would hand over the keys to if something were to happen to me. Obviously that would be subject to change. But we take this issue fairly seriously.我们回顾了各项业务运营情况。我与他们一起审阅了一份我认为适合接替我的人选名单。除此之外，我还更进一步，确定了一个特定的人选，如果我发生意外，会将权力交接给他。显然，这可能会发生变化。但我们对此问题非常重视。

And I think at the end of the day, as Tim Cook has proved to us, it will be the biggest non issue of the day. The earth will still keep revolving around the axis.我认为，最终，正如蒂姆·库克已经向我们证明的那样，这将是最重要的非问题。地球仍将围绕轴旋转。

Okay, we know what we will do. We know it’s a good answer, but we know it isn’t. It isn’t. We won’t have another agenda. Station five.好的，我们知道我们会做什么。我们知道这是一个好答案，但我们知道它不是。它不是。我们不会有另一个议程。五号站点。

Hi, my name is Ange. Andrew Nickes and I’m wondering, if you. Had one more day with Charlie, what would you do with him?你好，我叫安吉。安德鲁·尼克斯和我都在想，如果你还有一天时间与查理相处，你会做什么？

Well, it’s kind of interesting because, in effect, I did have one more day. I mean, it wasn’t a full day or anything, but he.嗯，这有点意思，因为实际上我确实还有一天时间。我的意思是，那不是完整的一天，但查理。

We always lived, in a way where we were happy with what we were doing every day. I mean, Charlie. Charlie liked learning. He liked, as I mentioned in the movie, he liked a wide variety of things. So he was much broader than I was.我们总是以一种我们每天都很满意的方式生活。我的意思是，查理。查理喜欢学习。正如我在电影中提到的，他喜欢各种各样的事物。所以他比我广泛得多。

But I didn’t have any great desire to be as broad as he was. And he didn’t have any great desire to be as narrow as I. But we had a lot of fun doing anything. And, you know, we played golf together, we played tennis together, we did everything together. And this you may find kind of interesting.但我并没有特别想要变得像他那样广泛，他也没有特别想要变得像我这般狭窄。但我们做任何事情都玩得很开心。你知道，我们一起打高尔夫，一起打网球，一起做所有的事情。这一点，你可能会觉得有点有趣。

We had as much fun, perhaps even more to some extent, with things that failed, because then we really had to work and work our way out of them. And in a sense, there’s more fun having somebody that’s your partner in digging your way out of a foxhole than there is just sitting there and watching an idea that you got ten years ago just continually produce more and more profits. So it wasn’t, you know, he really fooled me, though. He went to 99.9 years. I mean, if you pick two guys, you know, he never publicly said he never did a day of exercise except where it was required when he was in the army.我们在那些失败的事情上，或许甚至更有趣，因为我们真的需要努力工作，才能从中脱身。从某种意义上说，与合作伙伴一起从困境中挖掘出路，比只是坐在那里看着十年前的一个想法不断产生更多利润更有趣。所以，他并没有真正骗到我，尽管他提到了 99.9 年。我的意思是，如果你选两个人，他从未公开说过除了在军队服役时要求外，他一天都没有锻炼过。

He never did a day of voluntary exercise. He never thought about what he ate. You know, we started every day, and Charlie had. He was interested in more things than I was, but we never had any doubts about the other person, period. And so if I’d had another day with him, we’d probably have done the same thing we were doing the earlier days and we wouldn’t have wanted another.他从未做过一天自愿锻炼。他从未考虑过自己吃什么。你知道，我们每天都开始，查理也是。他对很多事情比我感兴趣，但我们从未对彼此有过任何怀疑，就这样。所以如果我还有一天和他在一起，我们很可能就会做我们之前几天做的事情，而且我们也不想再做别的。

We only had one day. There’s a great advantage in not knowing where you’re going, what day you’re going to die. And Charlie always said that, just tell me where I going to die, so I’ll never go there. Well, the truth is he went everywhere with his mind, and therefore he was not only interested in the world at 99, but the world was interested in him. It’s remarkable, you know, they, he.我们只有一天时间。不知道自己要去哪里，什么时候会死，这其实是一个很大的优势。查理一直说，只要告诉我我什么时候会死，我就永远不会去那里。但事实上，他的思想去了 everywhere，因此他不仅对 99 岁的世界感兴趣，世界也对他的兴趣。这真的了不起，你知道，他们，他。

I would, I told him toward that. In the last few years, I’d never seen anybody that was peaking, you know, in 99 and where the world wanted to come and see him. I mean, they actually wanted to go out to 351 North Yune street. And whether it was, well, I could name a whole bunch of names, but just. I’ll start with Elon Musker, but go down the list.我告诉他，这几年我从未见过像 99 年那样巅峰状态的人，你知道，全世界都想来看他。我意思是，他们真的想去 351 北云街。不管是，嗯，我可以列举一大堆名字，但就。我从埃隆·马斯克开始，然后往下数。

And they all wanted to meet Charlie, and Charlie was happy to talk with them. And the only person I could think of otherwise was the Dalai Lama. I don’t know that they had a lot else in common, but it was, he lived his life the way he wanted to, and he got to say what he wanted to say. He like, I loved having a podium again. I can’t remember any time that he was mad at me or I was mad at him.他们都想见查理，查理也很乐意与他们交谈。除此之外，我唯一能想到的就是达赖喇嘛。我不知道他们之间还有多少共同点，但他活得想怎样就怎样，他说了想说的话。他喜欢，我再次有了讲台。我记不清什么时候他生过我的气，或者我生过他的气。

It just didn’t happen.就是没发生。

And calling him was fun back when long distance rates were high and we didn’t talk as often as the years in recent years, as we used to be on daily for long periods. And we did keep learning and we liked learning together, but, you know, we tended to be a little smarter because as the years went by, because we had mistakes and we had other things where we learned something. And the fact that he and I were on the same wavelength in that respect meant that the world was still a very interesting place to us when he got to be 99 and I got to be 93. So I don’t have a perfect answer for you there, but I can tell you the ingredients that would go into. Sometimes people would say to me or Charlie at one of these meetings, you know, if you had only have lunch with one person that lived over the last 2000 or so years, you know, who would you want to have it with?那时候打电话很有趣，因为长途电话费很贵，而且我们不像近几年那样经常通话，以前我们每天都会长时间通话。我们确实一直在学习和一起学习，但你知道，我们变得越来越聪明，因为随着时间的推移，我们犯过错误，也从其他事情中学到了东西。他和我在这一点上志同道合，这意味着当他还剩下 99 岁，我还有 93 岁时，世界对他来说仍然是一个充满趣味的地方。所以我在那方面没有完美的答案，但我可以告诉你那些成分。有时候人们会问我或查理在会议上说，你知道，如果你只能和过去 2000 多年里的一位人共进午餐，你会选择和谁一起？

Charlie says, I’ve already met all of them. You know, because he read all the books. I mean, he, and he eliminated all the trouble of going to restaurants to meet him or anything like that. He just went through a book and he met Ben Franklin. And he really, he was remarkable.查理说，他已经见过他们所有人了。你知道，因为他读了所有那些书。我的意思是，他和他们，他消除了去餐馆见他或诸如此类麻烦。他只是读了一本书，他就见到了本·富兰克林。真的，他非常了不起。

He said he really had no one else to meet because he’d read all their stuff and he liked Ben Franklin’s stuff better than he liked mine. But with Ben Franklin, he just had to read about it. He didn’t have to go have lunch with him or anything of the sort. But it’s an interesting question. What you should probably ask yourself is that who do you feel that you’d want to start spending the last day of your life with?他说他真的没有其他人可以见面了，因为他已经读遍了他们所有的作品，而且他更喜欢本·富兰克林的著作，而不是我的。但对于本·富兰克林，他只需要读读关于他的书就可以了。他不必和他一起吃午饭或做任何类似的事情。但这确实是一个有趣的问题。你或许应该问自己的是，你觉得自己最想和谁一起度过生命的最后一天？

And then figure out a way to start meeting them, or tomorrow, and meet them as often as you can, because why wait a little last day and don’t bother with the others?然后想办法开始和他们见面，或者明天见面，尽可能多地和他们见面，因为为什么要等到最后一点时间，却不去理会其他人呢？

Okay, Becky, this question comes from Carol de Gend in Switzerland, in Europe, and this is for both Mister Buffett and Mister Jain. As political instability in the world is growing with a rise in the number of armed conflicts and trade tension, there is also increasing risk of cyberattacks. What are your views on cybersecurity insurance? Asking this question in general, for retail, small businesses and large companies, including critical key infrastructure such as power plants, harbors, airports, nuclear plants, etcetera, do you see a potential for profit making in cybersecurity insurances, and what are the key challenges?好的，贝基，这个问题来自瑞士的卡罗尔·德·让。这是针对巴菲特先生和贾因先生的问题。随着全球政治不稳定加剧，武装冲突数量增加以及贸易紧张局势升级，网络攻击的风险也在增加。您对网络安全保险有何看法？总的来说，对于零售商、中小企业和大型企业，包括电力厂、港口、机场、核电站等关键基础设施，您认为网络安全保险是否有盈利潜力，以及主要挑战是什么？

Okay, let me start. Cyber secure. Cyber insurance has become a very fashionable product these days over these last few years. It is at least a $10 billion market right now globally, and profitability has also been fairly high. I think profitability is at least 20% of the total premium has ended up as profit in the pockets of the insurance bearers.好的，让我开始。网络安全。网络安全保险近年来已成为一个非常热门的产品。目前全球市场规模至少有 100 亿美元，盈利能力也相当高。我认为盈利能力至少有 20%的保费最终以利润的形式落入了保险公司的口袋。

Now, having said that, we at Berkshire tend to be very, very careful when it comes to taking on cyber insurance liabilities for the part of. Actually for two reasons. One is it’s very difficult to know what is the quantum of losses that can be subject to a single occurrence, and the aggregation potential of cyber losses, especially if some cloud operation comes to a standstill. That aggregation potential can be huge, and not being able to have a worst case gap on it is what scares us. Secondly, it’s also very difficult to have some sense of what we call loss cost, or the cost of goods sold could potentially be.现在，话说回来，我们在伯克希尔公司处理网络保险责任时通常非常非常谨慎。实际上，有两个原因。一是很难知道可能因单次事件而遭受的损失量，以及网络损失的累积潜力，特别是如果某些云操作停止运行。这种累积潜力可能非常巨大，而无法掌握最坏情况下的缺口，这就是让我们感到担忧的地方。其次，也很难对我们所说的损失成本，或销售成本可能达到的程度有一个概念。

It’s not just for a single loss, but for losses across over time, they have been fairly well contained out of 100 cents of the dollar. The premium losses over the last four or five years, I think, have not been beyond forty cents of the dollar, leaving a decent profit margin. But having said that, there’s not enough data to be able to hang your hat on and say what your true loss cost is. So in our insurance operations, I have told the people running the operations is I’ve discouraged them from writing cyber insurance to the extent they need to write it so as to satisfy certain client needs. I have told them, no matter how much you charge, you should tell yourself that each time you write a cyber insurance policy, you’re losing money.这不仅仅是为了单一损失，而是为了跨越时间的损失，它们已经相当好地控制在每 100 美元的范围内。过去四五年来的保费损失，我认为并没有超过每美元 40 美分，留下了不错的利润空间。但话说回来，目前还没有足够的数据能够支撑我们断言真正的损失成本是多少。因此，在我们的保险业务中，我已告知负责运营的人员，我已劝阻他们撰写网络保险，以免为了满足某些客户需求而过度撰写。我已告诉他们，无论你收取多少费用，每次撰写网络保险单时，你都应该告诉自己你在亏钱。

We can argue about how much money you’re losing, but the mindset should be you’re not making money on it, you’re losing money. And then we should go from there. So it is good. It’s projected to be a huge business. My guess is at some point it might, it might become a huge business, but it might be associated with huge losses.我们可以争论你损失了多少钱，但心态应该是你并没有赚钱，而是在亏钱。然后我们再从那里开始。所以这是好的。预计这将是一个巨大的生意。我的猜测是，在某个时刻它可能会，可能会成为一个巨大的生意，但它也可能伴随着巨大的损失。

And our approach is to sort of stay away from it right now until we can have access to some meaningful data and hang our hat on data. Well, you’ve just made, you’ve just heard why Ageita is invaluable. Because when you insure something, you really want to think of what, how much can you lose? And the question, I remember the first time it was happened, I think in the 1968 when there were the riots in various cities, because I think it was the Bobby Kennedy death that set it off for the Martin Luther King death. I’m not sure which one.我们的策略是暂时避开它，直到我们能够获得一些有意义的数据，并以此为依据。好吧，你刚刚听到了为什么 Ageita 是无价之宝。因为当你为某物投保时，你真正想要考虑的是，你能损失多少？我记得第一次发生这件事时，我想是 1968 年，当时各城市发生了骚乱，因为我想是罗伯特·肯尼迪的去世引发了马丁·路德·金的去世。我不确定是哪一个。

But in any event, when you write a policy, you have a limit in that policy. But the question is, what is one event? So if somebody is assassinated in some town and that causes losses at thousands of businesses all over the country, if you’ve written all those thousands of policies, you have one event, nor do you have a thousand events. And there’s no place where that kind of a dilemma enters into more than cyber. Because if you think about it, if, you know, let’s say you’re writing $10 million of limit per risk, and that’s fine, if you lose 10 million for some event, you can take it.但无论如何，当你制定一项政策时，该政策都有其限制。但问题在于，什么是“一个事件”？比如，如果某人在某个城镇被暗杀，并导致全国数千家企业遭受损失，如果你已经为这些数千家企业制定了政策，那么这算是一个事件，而不是一千个事件。而这种情况在网络安全领域最为突出。因为如果你仔细想想，假设你为每项风险制定了 1000 万美元的赔偿限额，这很好，如果某个事件导致你损失了 1000 万美元，你可以承受。

But the problem is if that one event turns out to affect 1000 policies and somehow they’re all linked together in some way and the courts decide that way.但问题在于，如果这个事件最终影响到一千项政策，并且它们以某种方式相互关联，而法院也做出了这样的裁决。

You’ve written something that in no way we’re getting the proper price for and could break the company. And I will tell you that most people want to be in anything that’s fashionable when they write insurance. And Cyber’s an easy issue. You can write a lot of it. The agents like it.你写的东西根本不是我们应有的合理价格，甚至可能破坏公司。我会告诉你，大多数人写保险时都希望参与时尚的事物。网络保险是个简单的问题，你可以写很多。代理人喜欢它。

You know, they’re getting the commission on every policy they write. And you’ve got to have somebody in charge of things that understands that you may get an aggregation of risks that you never dreamt of and maybe worse as, and some earthquake happening someplace just because you have a whole bunch of policies with a million dollar limit. And I would say that human nature is such that most insurance companies will get very excited and their agents will get very excited, and it’s very fashionable and it’s kind of interesting, and as Charlie would say, it may be rat poison.你知道，他们每写一份保单都能拿到佣金。你必须要有负责人理解，你可能会遇到从未梦想过的风险聚合，甚至更糟，比如某个地方发生地震，仅仅因为你有一大批保单，每份保单的限额是一百万美元。我会说人性就是这样，大多数保险公司都会非常兴奋，他们的代理人也会非常兴奋，这非常时尚，有点意思，就像查理所说，这可能是毒药。

Okay, well, that cheerful view. We’ll go to station six.好的，那么这个乐观的看法。我们将前往第六站。

Good morning. This question is for Warren Buffet and Greg Abel. My name is Maria Preenas. I am a retiree from Las Vegas, Nevada. I am here today as a member of ChiC Spike Nevada, a group of developed latin leaders for the environment of justices.早上好。这个问题是问沃伦·巴菲特和格雷格·阿布尔的。我叫玛丽亚·普雷纳斯，来自内华达州的拉斯维加斯，是一名退休人员。今天我以 ChiC Spike Nevada 成员的身份来到这里，这是一个由拉丁裔环境正义领导者组成的组织。

I am almost here representing Maryland families in Nevada who are struggling to pay their utility bills and want access to affordable, clean electricity. I want to add today, why is NV Energy, which is owned by the Berkshire Hathaway, building new gas plants instead of investing in solar energy? With Nevada one and the sunniest state in the country, can I expect to see future leadership take dangerous investments in the fossils levels more seriously? Thank you. And thank you, Maria.我几乎代表内华达州的马里兰家庭发言，这些家庭正为支付水电费而苦苦挣扎，并希望获得负担得起、清洁的电力。我想今天补充一点，为什么伯克希尔·哈撒韦拥有的 NV 能源公司要建设新的燃气电厂，而不是投资太阳能能源？在内华达州——这个国家阳光最充足的状态——我能否期待未来的领导者对化石能源的危险投资更加重视？谢谢。谢谢玛丽亚。

Greg, you want them? Sure. Thank you. So, as we touched on with Nv energy even earlier, there’s a lot going on there. When I think of.格雷格，您想要它们吗？当然。谢谢。那么，正如我们更早之前讨论的 Nv 能源，那里有很多事情发生。当我想到。

There’s no question solar is a great opportunity for nv energy, and we’ll continue to utilize that as a resource and continue to invest in it in that utility and the other utility we have in Nevada. We’re also in a point where, when you think of a transition that’s going on within the energy sector, we are transitioning from carbon resources to renewable resources, as was noted, but it will not occur overnight. That transition will take many years. And as we use, be it renewable resources such as solar or wind, they are intermittent, and we do try to combine it with batteries. But at this point in time, time, we cannot transition completely away from the carbon resources.毫无疑问，太阳能是 Nv 能源的绝佳机遇，我们将继续将其作为资源加以利用，并持续投资于内华达州的这家公用事业公司以及我们在内华达州的另一家公用事业公司。我们正处于能源行业正在发生转型的阶段，正如所提到的，我们正从碳资源向可再生能源转型，但这不会一蹴而就。这一转型将需要许多年。随着我们使用太阳能或风能等可再生能源，它们是间歇性的，我们确实尝试将其与电池结合。但就目前而言，我们尚不能完全摆脱碳资源。

So if I think of Nevada in the, in the next two years, our last two coal units are. Well, actually, in the next year, our last two coal units will retire, but we are replacing them with a new gas unit, which is truly needed to make sure that system remains reliable and available to, to our customers. And that’s done in conjunction with our, with the state representatives and our regulatory agencies to make sure we can serve those customers every day and every minute. We have great examples in Iowa where at times, 100% of our energy comes from wind. And we’re thrilled with that.那么，如果我想一下未来两年内内华达的情况，我们最后两个燃煤机组。实际上，在接下来的一年里，我们最后两个燃煤机组将退役，但我们将用一个新的燃气机组来替代它们，这确实需要确保该系统能够保持可靠并持续向我们的客户提供电力。这是在我们与州代表和监管机构的共同努力下完成的，以确保我们能够每天每分钟都为这些客户提供服务。我们在爱荷华州就有很好的例子，有时我们的 100%能源都来自风能。我们对这一点感到非常兴奋。

And I believe we hit that example on earth day. We had enough wind that we could meet the demand of that state. But the next day, if the wind’s not blowing, we need our gas resources, our gas plants, to fill that gap. And really, that’s the situation we still have in Nevada. So we’ll continue the transition to renewable resources, be it solar in Nevada.我相信我们在地球日就达到了那个例子。我们有了足够的风，可以满足那个州的能源需求。但第二天，如果风不吹，我们需要我们的天然气资源、天然气发电厂来填补这个缺口。实际上，那正是内华达州目前的情况。所以我们将继续向可再生能源转型，无论是内华达州的太阳能。

And wind and other areas combined with batteries. But for the foreseeable future, we do see gas being a very important resource to help maintain reliability and meet our customer needs. And to meet it in an affordable way is also an important piece of that. So thank you for your comments. Yeah, we’ve got the capital to do whatever makes the most sense in a place like Nevada and the Nevada, I don’t know.风和其他领域的结合，再加上电池。但在可预见的未来，我们确实认为天然气是一个非常重要的资源，以帮助保持可靠性并满足我们的客户需求。并以一种负担得起的方式满足需求，这也是其中重要的一部分。所以感谢您的评论。是的，我们拥有足够的资本在内华达州这样的地方做任何最合理的事情，内华达州，我不知道。

Each state calls their ruling commission something different, but they probably call it the public service commission or something like that. And they’re making the decision as to what they think can and should be done in terms of getting from where a vastly complicated utility business moves towards something different without messing things up in the meantime and having the lights go off. And they, I think they would probably agree with you very much, Maria, that they what they where they want to get, but they can’t do it tomorrow because of the intermittent problems. And their job is to make sure the lights stay on. And their job is also to move toward better sources.每个州称他们的监管委员会为不同的名称，但可能称之为公共服务委员会或类似的东西。他们正在决定他们认为可以和应该做的事情，从一个非常复杂的公用事业业务转向其他东西，而不会在过程中出问题，并且让灯熄灭。而且他们，我想他们会非常同意你的观点，玛丽亚，那就是他们想要达到的目标，但他们不能明天就做到，因为存在间歇性问题。他们的工作是确保灯一直亮着。他们的工作也是转向更好的能源。

But solar will never be the only source of electricity because, well, Greg may know more about this, but I’m barring some real breakthroughs in storage and that sort of thing. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Generally a battery right now to do it in an economical way is a four hour battery.但太阳能永远不会是唯一的电力来源，因为，嗯，格雷格可能更了解这方面，但我预计在储能等领域不会有什么真正的突破。对吗？是的。是的。目前，如果想要经济地实现这一点，需要使用一个四小时的电池。

And when you think of the time without the sun being available, that’s a challenge. Now there’s a lot of technology advancements and that’s stretching out and you throw dollars, a lot of things, you can accomplish things, but the reality is that there’s a careful balance of the reliability and also balancing. As it was noted, the rates do matter and how much customers are paying. So delicate balance of both delivering reliability but doing it in an affordable way. My friend Bill Gates, he’s working on shortening up that, lengthening the time the battery works on.当考虑到没有阳光可用的时间，那将是一个挑战。如今，有许多技术进步，正在不断拓展，你投入资金，很多事情都能完成，但现实是，可靠性与平衡需要谨慎处理。正如所提到的，利率确实重要，以及客户支付多少。因此，需要在提供可靠性同时，以经济的方式实现。我的朋友比尔·盖茨，他正在努力缩短时间，延长电池的工作时间。

And so you got some very smart people working on it, but it isn’t something that you actually do overnight. And I can understand why people want it done overnight, but it is going to take a lot of money. It’s going to take a lot of good ideas and smart people like Bill and Greg, not me. I don’t understand why the damn lights go on when I even turn the switch, but those, those fellas really do. And there’s plenty of them working on it and we got plenty of money to implement it.因此，有一些非常聪明的人在处理这件事，但这并不是一夜之间就能完成的事情。我能理解人们为什么希望一夜之间完成，但这需要大量的资金。它需要许多像比尔和格雷格这样的好点子和聪明人，而不是我。我不明白为什么我一拨开关，灯就亮了，但他们确实做到了。而且有很多人在处理这件事，我们也有足够的资金来实施它。

But there are certain things that just take a certain amount of time. My daughter hates it when I use this example, but it’s really true that you can’t create a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. I mean, you may want a baby, so there are certain laws of nature that you have to work with. Okay, Becky, this question comes from Rich. McCloskey in Dunedin, Florida.但是有些事情确实需要一定的时间。我女儿不喜欢我举这个例子，但事实是，你不能通过让九个女人怀孕来一个月内创造一个婴儿。我的意思是，你可能想要一个婴儿，所以你必须遵循某些自然规律。好吧，贝基，这个问题来自佛罗里达州邓迪德的里奇·麦科尔斯基。

He says, Warren and Ajit, would you let us know what you think about the car and property insurance situation in Florida as a resident? Both seem out of control since the Florida market seems to be so mismanaged. Is this an opportunity for Berkshire?他说，沃伦和艾吉特，你们能否告诉我们，作为佛罗里达州的居民，你们对佛罗里达的车险和财产保险情况有何看法？这两个领域似乎都失控了，因为佛罗里达市场似乎管理不善。这是伯克希尔的机会吗？

Yeah. The Florida market, both for auto insurance and for homeowners insurance, has had a few tough years. The two problems we face in Florida and all the risk bearers face in Florida, one is the lawyers and the amount of corruption that takes place place in the Florida market keeps skyrocketing, making it difficult for us to price the product and make a profit. And secondly, the amount of activity in terms of storms, both the frequency and the severity, is also so severe that the losses in Florida tend to make it very difficult for a risk bearer to make money. Having said that, we’ve had a, we fortunately had a very good run at Florida last year.是的。佛罗里达市场的汽车保险和房屋保险业务已经经历了几个艰难的年头。佛罗里达面临的问题以及所有风险承担者所面临的问题有两个：一是律师数量和佛罗里达市场中的腐败行为不断激增，这使得我们难以定价产品并获取利润。二是风暴活动频繁且严重，导致佛罗里达的损失往往使风险承担者难以盈利。尽管如此，我们去年在佛罗里达的业绩非常出色，我们很幸运。

We increased our exposure in Florida as we talked about last year, and fortunately nothing bad happened. So a lot of our premiums that were in the top line flew straight to the bottom line. Florida is a large market. Florida is the market that’s subsidized by the rest of the country. I don’t think those that’s going to stand the test of time.我们在佛罗里达州的敞口增加了，正如我们去年讨论的那样，幸运的是没有发生坏事。因此，我们很多保费从收入顶端直接飞到了利润底线。佛罗里达是一个大市场。佛罗里达是其他地区补贴的市场。我不认为这种状况能够经受住时间的考验。

The Florida market, the legislators are trying to improve it. They have passed law that is bringing down the amount of fraud that takes place in Florida. And I hope Florida will be a fairly buoyant insurance market because at the end of the day, they do believe in the free market more than some of the other states that have an insurance crisis, like California and New York. So, yes, Florida has a problem. Prices will go up fairly substantially, but at the end of the day, I think we’ll achieve a degree of balance so that the risk bearers can make a decent profit and will be deploying capital out there.佛罗里达市场，立法者正试图改善它。他们已经通过了一项法律，减少了佛罗里达州发生的欺诈金额。我希望佛罗里达将成为一个相对活跃的保险市场，因为归根结底，他们比加利福尼亚州和纽约州等面临保险危机的其他州更相信自由市场。是的，佛罗里达有问题。价格将大幅上涨，但归根结底，我认为我们将达到某种平衡，使风险承担者能够获得合理的利润，并将在那里部署资本。

Okay. Station seven, please.好的。七号站台，请。

Hi, Warren. My name is Christine Hone Garcia and I’m from Agora Hills, California. Thank you for being an excellent teacher and imparting your wisdom to us throughout the years. What advice would you like to share today that you believe everyone needs to hear?你好，沃伦。我叫克里斯廷·霍内·加西亚，来自加利福尼亚州的阿格拉山脉。感谢你多年来作为一位杰出的老师，传授给我们你的智慧。今天，你想分享什么建议，你认为每个人都需要听到的？

Well, too bad you didn’t add that. What the rest of us would like to hear.唉，你真没加上那一点。我们其他人想听到的。

I would say that if I had one piece of advice, I would try to. Well, and you’re lucky to live in this country just to start with, because you’ve got opportunities here that wouldn’t exist in much of the world.如果说我只有一条建议，我会建议尝试。嗯，而且你很幸运能生活在这个国家，因为这里的机会在世界上的其他地方几乎不存在。

But I would like. I would. I would like to really sort of use Charlie’s advice of the thinking how you like your obituary to read, and then start selecting the educational past, the social pass, whatever. Maybe that your particular situation in terms of associating, and perhaps certainly in my day, it would have been marrying the person that would best help you do that. Well, Charlie would say you were offering some similar benefit to the partner and.但是，我希望。我希望。我希望能够真正运用查理的建议，思考你希望你的讣告如何写，然后开始选择你的教育经历、社会经历，无论什么。也许在人际关系方面，你的具体情况，以及在我那个时代，可能就是与最适合帮助你实现这一目标的人结婚。查理会说，你也在为伴侣提供一些类似的好处。

But the opportunity in this country is basically limitless. When you think of going back not that many centuries, if you were going to be a shepherd or something like that, 100 years from now, your grandson was a granddaughter, was going to be a shepherd, nothing really happened. And what has happened in the last 200 years with the combination of the industrial revolution, whether it’s science or education or health, you name it. We are so lucky to be born when we were the people in this room, and many of us were lucky enough to be born in the United States as well, that you.但这个国家的机遇基本上是无限的。回想几个世纪前，如果你是牧羊人或者类似职业，100 年后，你的孙子或孙女还是牧羊人，几乎没什么变化。而过去 200 年里，工业革命、科学、教育、健康等方面的进步，发生了翻天覆地的变化。我们非常幸运能出生在这个时代，尤其是我们中的许多人有幸出生在美国，能坐在这里。

You’re entering the best world that’s ever existed, and you want to find the people to share it with and the activities to participate in that fit you. And if you get lucky, like Charlie and I did, you find things that interest you young. But if you don’t find them right away, you keep looking. And I always tell students to take the job. I mean, find the job that you would like to have if you didn’t need a job.你正步入有史以来最美好的世界，你想要找到适合与你分享的人，以及适合你的活动。如果你足够幸运，就像我和查理一样，你会在年轻时就找到令你感兴趣的事物。但如果一开始没找到，就继续寻找。我总是告诉学生们要找工作。我的意思是，找到你即使不需要工作也愿意从事的工作。

And sometimes you can find that very early, and sometimes you go through various experiences, but don’t forget what you actually are trying to do, and there’s no place to do it like this country. Find the person that you like to share your life with in many cases. And, you know, sometimes you get lucky into that early, and sometimes you make mistakes.有时你可以在很早的时候找到它，有时你需要经历各种事情，但不要忘记你实际上想要做什么，没有像这个国家这样适合做的地方。在很多情况下，找到你想要与之一生分享生活的人。而且，你知道，有时你很幸运地早早找到了，有时你会犯错误。

But I would try to, in a very, very general way, I would try to figure out how you’d want to look back on your life and think about yourself and start today to go on the path that leads to that goal and expect some difficulties along the way. But if you’re thinking that way, you’re more likely to get there.但我将尝试，以一种非常、非常笼统的方式，尝试弄清楚您希望如何回顾您的生活、思考自己，并从今天开始走上通往那个目标的道路，并预期在这个过程中会遇到一些困难。但如果您以这种方式思考，您更有可能到达那里。

Becky. This question comes from Axel Mayerseek in Hamburg, Germany. What has changed for Berkshire’s operating CEO’s since Greg Abel and Ajit Jain became vice chairman, for example? Can and do the operating CEO’s still reach out to Warren Buffet directly?贝基。这个问题来自德国汉堡的阿克塞尔·迈耶 Seek。自从格雷格·阿贝尔和阿吉特·贾因成为副董事长以来，伯克希尔经营首席执行官发生了哪些变化，例如？经营首席执行官仍然可以直接联系沃伦·巴菲特吗？

Well, that’s the answer. Might surprise you, but they overwhelmingly, the operating executives, well, they prefer to talk to Gregor, to Ajit. And that didn’t. And that’s understandable because I don’t really do much and I don’t operate at the same level of efficiency than I would have 30 years ago or 40 years ago. I don’t know the managers as well as I would have when we were smaller and when I could get more accomplished in a day than I can now.嗯，这就是答案。可能会让您惊讶，但他们绝大多数，经营高管们，嗯，他们更愿意与格雷戈尔、与阿吉特交谈。而且那并没有。这是可以理解的，因为我并没有做太多事情，而且我的工作效率也不像 30 年前或 40 年前那样高。我不了解管理者，不像我们规模较小时那样了解，那时我一天能完成更多的事情，而现在则不能。

And you’ve got. When you’ve got somebody like Greg in Ajit, why settle for me, basically? So it’s worked out extremely well.而且你有。当你有像格雷格和阿吉特这样的人时，为什么还要选择我，基本上？所以结果非常成功。

And I almost can’t imagine anything working better because Greg in a year accomplishes. I mean, he sees more of them, understands more about their problems, you know, can give them suggestions. He’s got incredible amounts of energy and nobody has more wisdom than Ajit about insurance. And they’ve got access and insurance to him now. They had it before we stuck some of those titles on insurance.我几乎无法想象还有什么能比这做得更好，因为格雷格一年就能取得如此成就。他的确接触了更多的人，更了解他们的困境，你知道，能够给他们提供建议。他拥有惊人的精力，而关于保险，阿吉特比任何人都更有智慧。现在他们可以接触到阿吉特，获得保险方面的帮助。在我们为保险加上一些头衔之前，他们就已经有了这样的机会。

Whereas with Greg, he much expanded things when he became the vice chairman in charge of really everything except insurance. So he is. If you polled our managers that fall under his jurisdiction, which would be a lot of them, they would much prefer, unless like a few, they weren’t paying as much attention to their business and I wouldn’t do anything about it, but Greg would. And they still like it when he does it. He can deliver news very well to people who.而格雷格在担任负责除保险之外所有事务的副董事长后，极大地扩展了工作范围。所以他就是这样。如果你调查他管辖下的管理人员——他们中有很多人——他们大多会表示更喜欢格雷格这样做，除非像少数几个人那样，他们不太关注自己的业务，而我会对此无动于衷，但格雷格会采取行动。而且他们仍然喜欢他这样做。他能够很好地向人们传递消息。

There will be some people. If you have. If you have 20 children and you’re very rich, you’ll have some that will be go getters anyway, and you’ll have some that won’t. And we are a very, very rich company and we don’t.有些人会这样。如果你有。如果你有 20 个孩子而且你非常富有，你会有一些会积极进取的，也有些不会。而我们是一家非常、非常富有的公司，我们也不。

We haven’t had a history of being very tough on people that coasted. And we’ve had some that would do that. And Greg will do something about it. And Charlie and I wouldn’t have. Not because we didn’t know it should be done, but because we were doing so well ourselves.我们过去对那些游手好闲的人并不严厉，而且确实有一些人就是这样。格雷格会对此采取行动，而查理和我则不会。不是因为我们不知道应该这样做，而是因为我们自己做得很好。

It just wasn’t. We wouldn’t make the effort. We didn’t want to change our lives that way. Plus, we slowed down in various ways, ways physically and everything. So I would say that the number of calls I get from managers is essentially awfully close to zero.事实就是这样。我们不会费那个劲。我们不想那样改变我们的生活。此外，我们在各种方面都放慢了速度，包括身体上和各个方面。所以我会说，我收到的来自管理人员的电话数量几乎为零。

And Greg is handling those. I don’t know quite how he does it, but we’ve got the right person, I can tell you that. And with the jeep, he does less physical moving and the insurance people are more used to working with the jeep, obviously, over the years. So I wouldn’t say that changing the title really changed as much there because he was in charge of insurance. Anyway, you can go to a business school and they can give you way better answers than I’ve just given you, but that’s the way we do it at Berkshire.格雷格正在处理这些事情。我不知道他是怎么做到的，但我们找到了合适的人选，我可以告诉你。至于吉普车，他移动的次数减少了，而且保险公司在过去几年里显然更习惯于使用吉普车。所以我认为，更换头衔并没有在那里带来太大的变化，因为他负责保险。无论如何，你可以去商学院，他们可以给你提供比我刚才给出的更好的答案，但这就是我们在伯克希尔的方式。

Yeah. If I can add a comment. From my perspective, the transition has worked out very, very well, but I think the credit really goes to how Warren has handled the situation. And what I mean by that is, after the transition was announced, and a lot of the operating managers used to be. They were used to calling Warren directly on some issue or the other.是的。如果我能加一个评论的话。从我的角度来看，这次转型非常非常成功，但我认为真正的功劳应该归功于沃伦处理情况的方式。我所说的意思是，在转型宣布之后，很多以前的运营经理们习惯于直接给沃伦打电话讨论某些问题。

After the transition, when they would continue to do so, Warren would very skillfully, in his manner, handle them such that he would not answer what they were looking for, but at the same time made them feel good and told them that he sort of enjoyed hearing from them and talking to them. So as a result of which, you know, the transition took place, people got the message. They got the message and were very responsive to it. And it’s a non issue as far as today is concerned. I would probably add.在转型之后，当他们继续这样做时，沃伦非常巧妙地、以他的方式处理他们，以至于他不会回答他们想要的问题，但同时让他们感觉良好，并告诉他们他似乎很享受听到他们的声音和与他们交谈。因此，结果就是，你知道，转型顺利进行，人们收到了信息。他们收到了信息并对它做出了积极的回应。就目前而言，这已经不是一个问题了。我可能会补充这一点。

Yeah, the only thing I would add is we do have an exceptional set of managers across both the non insurance and insurance. And, yes, Warren made it incredibly easy, but so did they. It was a very easy transition because they cared deeply about Berkshire, they cared deeply about the culture, and they very much wanted it to be a success it. And we’re fortunate to have those managers in insurance and non insurance. So.是的，我只想补充一点，我们在非保险和保险领域都拥有一支卓越的管理团队。是的，沃伦使这一切变得非常容易，但他们也是一样。过渡非常顺利，因为他们非常关心伯克希尔，非常关心企业文化，并且非常希望它取得成功。我们很幸运能够在保险和非保险领域拥有这些管理者。所以。

Thank you. Yeah. What Greg is talking about is they really wanted more direction in some cases than I gave them. You know, I mean, I just sat there reading the Wall Street Journal or whatever, and Greg is. I don’t, you know, one way or another, there are more than 24 hours in his day, and I just don’t know how he covers the ground.谢谢。是的。格雷格所说的，是他们中的一些人希望得到更多的指导，而我并没有给予。你知道，我意思是，我当时只是坐在那里看《华尔街日报》之类的，而格雷格。我不知道，你知道，不管怎样，他一天超过 24 小时，我只是不知道他是如何覆盖这些领域的。

He does, but he knows more about the people.他确实如此，但他更了解这些人。

We got the same feeling in terms of judging the attractiveness of businesses and making capital decisions and that sort of thing. He’s willing to work. I mean, I, you know, I, you know, and I couldn’t get as much done anyway. You know, what I could do in a couple of hours, you know, may take 8 hours now. I just don’t read as fast and everything said, but it’s working very well.我们在判断企业吸引力和做出资本决策等方面有同样的感受。他愿意工作。我的意思是，我，你知道，我，你知道，而且我无论如何也做不完那么多事。你知道，我几个小时能做的事，现在可能要花 8 个小时。我阅读速度没那么快，但一切都挺好的。

And this place, if anything happened to me, it would be working extremely well the next day. I don’t get any phone calls. You can actually. We can. We can rig something up so we got some answering machine that people think I’m still around, you know, or something.如果发生什么事，这个地方会运作得非常好。我根本不会接到电话。实际上。我们。我们可以。我们可以设置一个留言机，让人们认为我还在，你知道，或者什么。

So, anyway, that’s. That’s much, much less than you’d learn in business school, but that’s the way we do it at Berkshire. Okay. Station eight.所以，总之，那。那比在商学院学到的东西少得多，但这就是伯克希尔的方式。好的。第八站。

Dear Warren, Greg n Ajit, thank you for having us. Your teachings have not only made us better investors, but more importantly, better people. Thank you for that. My name is Rajiv Agarwal, and I am from New Jersey. I run an India focused fund called Do Darshi India Fund.尊敬的沃伦、格雷格和艾吉特，感谢你们的邀请。你们的教诲不仅使我们成为更好的投资者，更重要的是，使我们成为更好的人。谢谢你们。我叫拉吉夫·阿格拉瓦尔，来自新泽西。我管理一只专注于印度的基金，名为 Do Darshi India Fund。

My question is related to India. Indian economy and indian equities have done quite well in the last 510 20 years. It is the fifth largest economy and will be the third largest in the next few years. My question is, is Berkshire actively looking for opportunities in the indian equity market and what will allow you to buy anything meaningful there? Thank you.我的问题与印度有关。过去 50 到 20 年间，印度经济和印度股票表现相当出色。它是第五大经济体，并在未来几年将成为第三大经济体。我的问题是，伯克希尔是否在积极寻找印度股票市场的机会，以及什么因素将使你们能够在那里购买有意义的资产？谢谢。

Yeah. Well, that’s a very good question. And obviously India, you know, I’m sure there are loads of opportunities in a place like India. And the question is, do we have any advantage in either insights into those businesses or contexts, it will make possible some transaction that might what the parties in India would particularly want us to participate.是的。这是一个非常好的问题。显然，印度这样一个地方肯定有很多机会。问题是，我们在了解这些企业或背景方面是否有任何优势，这将可能促成一些交易，而印度各方特别希望我们参与。

I would say that that’s something that a more energetic management at Berkshire could pursue, because we do have the reputation. Now, Berkshire is known, not like it’s known in the United States, but it’s known around the world. And, you know, our japanese experience has been fascinating in that respect. So there may be an unexplored or unattended to opportunity in that area. I’m not the one to do it, but that may be something that in the future, it might be opportunities.我认为，这是更富有活力的伯克希尔管理层可以追求的事情，因为我们确实拥有这样的声誉。现在，伯克希尔虽然不像在美国那样知名，但它在全球范围内都享有盛誉。而且，你知道，我们在日本的经验在这方面非常引人入胜。因此，在这个领域可能存在尚未开发或未被关注的机会。我并非执行者，但这或许是在未来可能出现的机会。

There are opportunities. The question is, does Berkshire have some kind of advantage in actually pursuing those opportunities against, particularly against people that are using other people’s money, that where they get paid based on asset met, on assets managed or something of this sort. I mean, there are plenty of people in the game who are buying and running businesses that do not really have our philosophy. I mean, they’re going to get rich no matter what happens, and their payment may be based on how much they buy rather than what they buy. So we’ll see how the next management plays the game out at Berkshire.存在机遇。问题在于，伯克希尔在追求这些机遇时，是否比那些使用他人资金、根据资产管理规模或类似方式获得报酬的人更有优势。我的意思是，市场上有很多经营企业的人，他们的理念并不符合我们的哲学。无论发生什么，他们都会变得富有，而他们的报酬可能更多地取决于他们收购了多少，而不是收购了什么。我们将看看下一届管理层如何在伯克希尔演绎这场游戏。

Fortunately, you don’t have too long to wait on that. Generally, I feel fine, but I know a little bit about actuarial tables, and I just. Well, I would say this. I shouldn’t be taking on any four year employment contracts like several people doing in this world in an age where you can’t be quite that sure where you’re going to be in four years. Okay.幸运的是，你不用等太久。通常我感觉还好，但我对精算表略知一二，我就……嗯，我应该说，在这个你无法完全确定四年后会在哪里的时候，我不应该像世界上某些人那样签订任何四年的雇佣合同。好吧。

But you’re absolutely right about, if you were energetic, had some way to be become a buyer or a party that people particularly wanted to do business with.但你完全正确，如果你精力充沛，有某种方式成为买家或人们特别想与之做生意的一方。

Japan was great, and India could be great, but India and Japan aren’t the same. I mean, I don’t adapt myself terribly well to different cultures, and some people are really good at it, and almost anybody’s better than I am. But I stumbled into one or two, but that could happen in act two of Berkshire Hathaway. Becky, this is a question from Rafael DePino from Spain. Maine.日本很棒，印度也可以很棒，但印度和日本并不相同。我的意思是，我不太适应不同的文化，有些人在这方面非常擅长，几乎任何人都比我强。但我偶然遇到了一两个，但这可能发生在伯克希尔哈撒韦的“第二幕”。贝基，这是一个来自西班牙的拉斐尔·德皮诺的问题。缅因州。

Berkshire has grown tremendously thanks to, and among other things, its architect, Mister Munger, and you, its general contractor, were all tremendously thankful to you for taking us along the way. We are aware that both of you and many others have spent an enormous amount of time ensuring Berkshire’s culture provides a solid footing on which to grow the building. You also currently have a very talented bench of what we may label as subcontractors. Mister Abel, Mister Jain, Mister Combs, and Mister Weschler. However, for a long time, you’ve had the advantage that talented subcontractors have wanted to work with a once in a generation architect and general contractor.伯克希尔哈撒韦的巨大增长得益于其建筑师芒格先生，以及你这位总包，我们都非常感谢你带我们一路前行。我们意识到，你和许多其他人已经花费了大量的时间，确保伯克希尔的文化为其建筑提供坚实的基础。你目前拥有一支非常优秀的团队，我们可以称之为分包商。阿贝尔先生、贾因先生、科姆斯先生和韦斯勒先生。然而，长期以来，你一直拥有一个优势，那就是有才华的分包商都希望与一代奇才的建筑师和总包合作。

How do you envision Berkshire will overcome the loss of said advantage when the contractor bench needs to be renewed again? And what are potential renovation works in this great building that may necessitate a new architect? Yeah, well, that’s a great question, which Charlie and I obviously talked a lot about over time. And of course, we will not be sure to the extent it remains the sort of entity that it is, will not need to attract people very often. It would be absolutely crazy for anybody, for our board of directors to ever pick anybody to run this business that thought, you should retire at 65.您如何看待伯克希尔在承包商团队需要再次更新时，如何克服这种优势的丧失？此外，这座宏伟建筑中可能需要新建筑师的潜在翻新工作有哪些？是的，这是一个很好的问题，查理和我显然在一段时间内讨论了很多。当然，我们不会确定它是否仍然保持其某种实体，将不再需要经常吸引人才。如果任何人，包括我们的董事会，选择来运营这家企业，认为应该在 65 岁退休，那将是绝对疯狂的。

It may be that they should retire the next day when you learn what they’re really like managing something, or it may turn that you want to keep them around till they. They really start being affected by old age, which hits different people at different times, but it hits everybody eventually. And so we. It’s very likely that if it’s. If the directors, and it’s very tough, because they will be acting against conventional wisdom, which is always difficult.他们可能应该在你了解他们真正管理事物的方式后第二天就退休，或者他们可能想要让他们待到他们真正受到年龄影响的程度，而年龄影响每个人是在不同的时候，但它最终会影响到每个人。所以，我们。如果它是的话，董事会的可能性非常大，而且非常艰难，因为他们将反对传统智慧，这总是很困难的。

But I think we’ve got the group on that, and they will not have to make a decision very often. If they pick the right CEO, that’s 99% of the job of the directors. And if they. The other 1% is, do you have a good method to correct it if you’ve made a wrong decision? And that’s extremely hard to do in our present system.但我认为我们已经让这个团队明确了方向，他们不必经常做决策。如果他们选对了 CEO，那董事会的 99%工作就完成了。剩下的 1%是，如果你做出了错误决策，你是否有好的方法来纠正？而这一点在我们目前的制度下极其难以做到。

It’s not impossible, but it’s just not something that happens. It’s too good a job to be a director, to try and throw over somebody, particularly if you can use the money from directorships and you want to be on other boards and everything. We do not have a perfect system in terms of boards or directors at all. And it’s. It doesn’t operate at all.这并非不可能，但这种情况并不会发生。当董事职位如此出色，以至于想要取代他人时，这并非易事，尤其是当你可以利用董事职位的收入，并希望加入其他董事会等。我们在董事会或董事方面的制度并不完美。而且，它根本就不起作用。

Well, I shouldn’t say at all, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t operate as people may think. It generally operates. So we will.嗯，我应该说并非完全不起作用，但它确实不起作用。它并不像人们所想的那样运作。它通常是这样运作的。所以我们会。

We’ve really got the problem solved for the next 20 years unless something untoward happens. And if something untoward happens, then. Then the directors need to find, probably within our own organization, somebody that they’ve got confidence in to maintain the special advantages we have over another 20 years period. There’s various things that are low probabilities, but you still have to think about them, and we are in that position now. Now, if you asked me whether.我们真正解决了未来 20 年的问题，除非发生什么不寻常的事情。如果发生什么不寻常的事情，那么董事们需要在我们自己的组织内部找到他们有信心的人来维持我们未来 20 年拥有的特殊优势。有各种低概率的事情，但你仍然必须考虑它们，我们现在就处于这种地位。现在，如果你问我是否。

If something happened to Greg today, everybody says, don’t travel on the same plane. The thing to do is not travel in the same auto. Planes don’t go down that often. Autos crash all the time. I’ve seen all these corporate policies on that, which are kind of crazy when you think about the real risk.如果格雷格今天出了什么事，每个人都说，不要乘坐同一架飞机。应该做的是不要乘坐同一辆汽车。飞机坠毁的频率并不高。汽车却时常发生事故。我见过所有这些公司政策，当你考虑实际风险时，这些政策有点疯狂。

But in any event, Greg is going to have to tell the directors about what if something happened tomorrow. He has to tell the directors about what should be done if anything happens to him. And that’s not an easy thing to do, and I don’t have.但无论如何，格雷格都必须告诉董事们，如果明天发生什么事该怎么办。他必须告诉董事们，如果他出了什么事应该怎么做。这不是一件容易的事，而我也没有做到。

Well, it will be his decision, and then the director’s really to decide whether he’s made the right one, but he will make the right one. And what you really have to hope is that you get lucky on how long managers stick around. I mean, you might need three in the century, and you might need six or seven, but the answer is you need a little luck, and you need some break in the mortality tables. But we’ve got an entity that if you really aspire to be a certain kind of manager, of a really large entity, there’s nothing like it in the world. So we’ve got something to offer the person who we want to have.那么，这是他的决定，然后董事们真的要决定他是否做出了正确的选择，但他会做出正确的选择。真正需要希望的是，你能在管理者停留多久上获得好运。我的意思是，你可能需要这个世纪的三个，也可能需要六七个，但答案是你需要一点运气，需要一些在死亡率表中的突破。但我们有一个实体，如果你真的渴望成为某种类型的经理，一个真正庞大的实体，世界上没有比它更好的了。所以我们对那些我们想要拥有的人有东西可以提供。

It’s sort of like Charlie said about marrying the best person that will have you. Well, we’ve got something that the right person would want to marry, basically, in terms of Berkshire. And if we get the wrong person, then the directors have to do something about it, and that probably won’t happen. But it’s always a contingency, a possibility, I should say, Greg, having been put on the spot like that, you don’t have to name anybody now, but I’m sure the crowd would love it and make news. Well, the only thing I would add, Warren, is, and it’s really how the comment started, was around culture, the culture we have at Berkshire and that being our shareholders, being our partners and our managers of our business, having that ownership mentality, that’s never going to change and that will attract the right managers at every level.这有点像查理所说的，要嫁给最适合你的人。好吧，就伯克希尔而言，我们有什么是合适的人想要嫁的。如果我们找到了不合适的人，那么董事们就必须采取行动，而且这很可能不会发生。但总是一个备选方案，我应该说，格雷格，像那样被置于困境中，你不必现在点名任何人，但我确信人群会喜欢并制造新闻。好吧，我唯一要补充的，沃伦，而且这确实是评论开始的方式，是关于文化，伯克希尔的文化，以及我们的股东，作为我们的合作伙伴和我们的企业管理者，拥有那种拥有权心态，这永远不会改变，而且会吸引各个级别的合适管理者。

So I think, as Warren said, we have a very special company in Berkshire, but it’s that culture that makes it special, and that’s not going to change.所以我认为，正如沃伦所说，我们在伯克希尔拥有一家非常特别的公司，但正是那种文化让它变得特别，而且这不会改变。

Okay, station nine. 好的，九号台。

I’m never sure where nine is. Hi, I’m Sherman Lam, a Berkshire shareholder, and I work for family office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Just really happy to see you, Warren and the team. And where I come from, you’re a hero. And both you and Charlie have positively transformed mine and many, many other Malaysians and Southeast Asians lives, not only financially, but also in how we navigate our lives and relationships.我始终不确定九在哪里。大家好，我是谢尔曼·林，伯克希尔股东，我在马来西亚吉隆坡的一家家族办公室工作。非常高兴见到你们，沃伦和团队。在我家乡，你们是英雄。你们和查理不仅在经济上，而且在我们的生活和人际关系上，都极大地改变了我和许多许多其他马来西亚人和东南亚人的生活。

Thank you very, very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. That makes us feel good.非常非常非常感谢。谢谢。谢谢。这让我们感觉很好。

Question is, what have your team’s greatest learnings been on business? Capital allocation, stock picking and portfolio allocation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period over the last five years? And, Warren, appreciate it if you can get your views, as well as your representations on TeD and Todd, as well as directly from Greg and Ajit, too, on their respective businesses. Thank you. Yeah, I don’t think I want to give individual appraisals, but really what you’re doing is in terms of capital allocation, which is my job, I don’t go out and sell insurance policies or anything sort.问题是，在过去五年中，你们的团队在商业上最大的学习是什么？资本配置、股票选择和投资组合分配，特别是在新冠疫情期间？沃伦，如果你们能分享你们的观点，以及你们对 TED 和 Todd 的看法，以及直接从格雷格和阿吉特那里听到他们各自业务的看法，那就太好了。谢谢。是的，我认为我不想给出个别评价，但你们真正在做的是资本配置，这是我的工作，我不会出去卖保险或其他东西。

And you represent a group of shareholders like we do represent. We are totally clear on our mission. And, you know, it may be that other people don’t agree with them, but I would say that in a great many places, you know, I just don’t agree with our mission.你们代表了一群股东，就像我们代表的那样。我们对我们的使命非常清楚。而且，你知道，可能其他人不同意，但我要说的是，在许多地方，我根本不同意我们的使命。

I would say that, for example, that anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire. They might get retired the next day if they were the wrong person. But there’s just certain things we don’t want, and the were well fixed now, and that the odds are very good, but far from certainty that that takes care of the next 20 years. Now, the but you have to provide for the contingency. And there are several people on the board that know what I would do on that, but it’s up to Greg.我认为，例如，任何希望在 65 岁退休的人都可能被取消成为伯克希尔 CEO 的资格。如果他们不是合适的人选，他们可能第二天就会被退休。但我们就是不想要某些东西，现在这些已经固定下来了，而且成功的几率很大，但远非确定性，能够确保未来 20 年的发展。现在，但是你必须为意外情况做好准备。董事会上有几个人知道我会在那种情况下做什么，但这取决于格雷格。

But if Greg and I go at the same time, then you’ll move into making another decision.但如果格雷格和我同时去，你就会面临另一个决策。

There are a few people who know my thoughts on that, but the job of the director is then to come up with the right CEO, and the right CEO can’t make a terrible business great. Tom Murphy, who was the best, he was the best business manager I’ve ever known. And Tom Murphy, you know, he said the real key was buying the right business. And now Murph brought a million other attributes to it after that. But, you know, Charlie said, what was this?有几个人知道我对这件事的想法，但董事会的职责是找到合适的 CEO，而合适的 CEO 无法将糟糕的业务变得优秀。汤姆·墨菲是最好的，他是我所知道的最优秀的企业管理者。汤姆·墨菲，你知道，他说真正的关键在于购买合适的企业。而后来墨菲又带来了其他一百万种特质。但是，你知道，查理问，这是什么？

He had a saying on that. But basically, we could have brought in Tom Murphy and told him his job was to run the textile business, and it would have done a little bit better, but it still would have failed. And one of the reasons I stuck with the textile business as long as I did was that I liked Ken Chase so much, and I thought he was a terrific guy, and he was a very good manager. If he’d been a jerk, you know, we’d have quit the textile business much faster, and we’d have been better off. But.他对此说过一句话。但基本上，我们可以请来汤姆·墨菲，告诉他负责运营纺织业务，这可能会好一点，但它仍然会失败。我坚持纺织业务这么久的一个原因是，我非常喜欢肯·切斯，我认为他是个很棒的人，他是个非常优秀的管理者。如果他是个混蛋，你知道，我们会更快地放弃纺织业务，我们会过得更好。但是。

So the answer was for him to get in the tv business, like Murph had done and ad supported. You know, Murph figured that out early, and he started with a pathetic operation, which was a VHF in Albany, New York, competing against GE and everything. And he was operating out of a home for retired nuns, and he only painted the side that faced the street. He had one car dashing around town, and he called it news truck number six. But from that, he built an incredible company, and he built it because he was the best manager I’ve ever met.所以答案是让他进入电视行业，就像 Murph 那样做，依靠广告支持。你知道，Murph 很早就意识到了这一点，他开始时是一个可怜的经营，在纽约阿尔巴尼经营一个 VHF 频道，与 GE 和其他竞争对手竞争。他当时在一个退休修女的家里办公，只粉刷了面向街道的那一面。他有一辆车在城里四处奔波，称之为新闻车六号。但正是从这个起点，他建立了一个令人难以置信的公司，因为他是我遇到过的最优秀的经理。

But beyond that, he was in a good business. And the key will be to have Tom Murphy and then hand them a bunch of good businesses, and he or she will know what to do with it.但除此之外，他从事的是一个良好的行业。关键在于拥有 Tom Murphy，然后交给他一些好的企业，他或她就会知道如何处理。

Now, that’s not as precise as you would get in most companies, but you really can’t get more precise than that. I mean, you can have committees and management consultants and everybody. But it wasn’t a management consultant that hired Tom Murphy. And I forget whether he was doing. His sales volume was a couple thousand a week at first.现在，这不像大多数公司那样精确，但你真的无法比这更精确了。我的意思是，你可以有委员会和管理顾问，但聘请 Tom Murphy 的并不是管理顾问。我忘了他当时是否在做。他的销售量最初每周只有几千。

And then as soon as he hit, that was his goal. It got to 2000, he says. Now my goal is 3000. He kept doing that, surpassed all these people, like CB’s and ABC, that only had the world by the tail. And it was just a wonderful lesson in life to get.一击即中，便是他的目标。他说，到了 2000 分，现在我的目标是 3000 分。他一直这样坚持，超越了像 CB 和 ABC 这样只有微弱优势的人。这真是一个宝贵的人生教训。

Just to be able to view something like that. I learned an awful lot from what he said to me, but I just learned by watching somebody like him operate. I mean, it’s like watching a great golfer, a great tennis player, then you ought to learn something about the kind of swing you’re trying to develop or something of sort. So that’s not a great answer for you. But so far, it’s worked, and I think it works.能够见证这样的场景。我从他说的话中学到了很多，但我更多的是通过观察像他这样的人如何行动来学习。意思是，就像观看一位伟大的高尔夫球手或网球选手，你应该能学到一些关于你正在发展的挥杆方式或其他类似的东西。所以那并不是一个很好的回答。但到目前为止，它奏效了，我认为它也有效。

I’m very sure it works with Greg, and it’s up to people in the future when, you know, I’m underground or wherever they put me, to really make a decision every 20 years or something like that. On average, it’s the right decision, but correct it if it turns out to be the wrong decision. That’s what a board of directors is for. And we’ve got the people on the board that really understand that responsibility. They take it seriously, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and so therefore, they don’t.我非常确定它对格雷格有效，而未来，当我知道我在地下或他们把我放在哪里时，由未来的人每 20 年或类似的时间做出真正决定。平均而言，这是正确的决定，但如果结果证明是错误的，就纠正它。这就是董事会的职责。而我们拥有真正理解这种责任的人董事会成员。他们认真对待，但并不过于严肃对待自己，因此，他们也不会。

They don’t wanna. They don’t necessarily wanna do a lot of things just to look busy. And they aren’t using us as a stepping stone to get on other boards, but we’ve got people that really believe in what we’re doing, and they’re the ones that are going to have to make this place work. And if they got lucky on Greg’s mortality, they can do just what Revan would go to sleep for 20 years or so and then make another decision. And Berkshire has every tool in the world available to be what it is now and continue to be what it is now.他们不想这样。他们没有必要做很多事情来显得很忙。他们也没有把我们当作进入其他董事会的跳板，但我们有真正相信我们所做事情的人，他们才是那些必须让这个地方运转起来的人。如果他们在格雷格的去世上走运了，他们就可以做就像瑞文会为之睡上 20 年或更长时间然后做出另一次决定的事情。伯克希尔拥有世界上所有的工具，可以成为它现在的样子，并继续成为它现在的样子。

I mean, we’ve gotten from 20 million of net worth to 570 billion. And, you know, we. There aren’t as many things to do, but we can do a few big things better than anybody else can do. And there will be occasional times when we’re the only one willing to act. And at those times, we want to be sure that the US government thinks we’re an asset to the situation and not liability or a supplicant, as the banks were.我意思是，我们的净资产从 2 亿美元增长到了 5700 亿美元。你知道，我们做的事情已经没有那么多，但我们能做几件大事，而且比别人做得更好。有时候，我们愿意行动，而那时，我们希望美国政府认为我们是局势的资产，而不是负担或像银行那样的附庸。

We’ll say in 2008 and nine, they were all tarred with the same brush. But we want to be sure that the brush that determines our future is not tarred. And I think we’re in the. I don’t think anybody’s got a better position to do it than Berkshire.我们可以说在 2008 年和 2009 年，它们都被用同一把刷子抹黑。但我们希望决定我们未来的那把刷子没有被抹黑。我认为没有比伯克希尔更好的位置来做这件事。

Becky? This question’s from Johan Halen, who writes, you’re sitting on $168 billion of cash, which he told us today is now more than $182 billion. His questions are, one, what is Buffett waiting for? And two, why not at least deploy some of it? Well, I think that’s pretty easy to answer.贝琪？这个问题来自约翰·哈伦，他告诉我们，你手头有 1680 亿美元的现金，他今天告诉我们现在超过 1820 亿美元。他的问题是，一，巴菲特在等什么？二，为什么不用至少一部分？嗯，我认为这很容易回答。

I don’t think anybody sitting at this table has any idea of how to use it effectively. And therefore, we don’t use it. And we don’t use it now at 5.4%. But we wouldn’t use it if it was. If it was at 1%.我认为在座的任何人都不知道如何有效地使用这些钱。因此，我们不用它。现在我们也不用它，比例是 5.4%。但如果比例是 1%，我们也不会用它。

Don’t tell the Federal Reserve that, but prefer it. But the.不要告诉美联储，但更倾向于这样。但就是。

We don’t. We only swing at pitches we like. And if anybody tried to swing at every pitch, or felt that because they hadn’t swung at a pitch for the last two pitches, they ought to swing at the third one or something like that. It’s just.我们不。我们只打我们喜欢的球。如果有人试图打每一个球，或者觉得因为他们在前两个球中没有击球，就应该在第三个球上击球或者类似的情况。就是。

There are times, and obviously. But I would say this, I would not like to be running 10 billion now. 10 million. I think we could. I think Charlie or I could earn high returns on, because I think there are just a few things that happen on a very, very small scale.有时是这样的，显然。但我会说，我不希望现在管理 100 亿美元。1 亿美元。我认为我们可以。我认为查理或我可以获得高回报，因为我认为只有少数事情在小规模上发生。

But if we had 10 billion, I wouldn’t basically see many more opportunities than we found now. It’s true that something like Japan, we could have done, if the company had had a 30 or 40 billion, and we’d make. We’d have had great returns on equity. But if I saw one of those now, I’d do it for Berkshire. It isn’t like I’ve got a hunger strike or something like that going on.但如果我们有 100 亿美元，我基本上不会比我们现在发现的机会多。确实，像日本这样的情况，如果我们公司有 300 亿或 400 亿美元，我们可以做到，我们会获得。我们会获得很高的股本回报。但如果我现在看到这样的情况，我会为伯克希尔做。我不像正在经历什么绝食或类似的情况。

It’s just that things aren’t attractive, and there’s certain ways that can change, and we’ll see whether they do.只是目前情况并不吸引人，而且有某些方式可以改变，我们将看看是否会发生改变。

Okay. Station ten. 好的。十号台。

Mister Buffett, this is an incredible meeting that you host every year. My name is Sean Cawley. I am a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Arizona and California. My mother, Cindy, my brother, and my two sisters all sell real estate with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services for many years. We love being a part of the Berkshire family, and along with the 70,000 other agents that sell real estate for the company, Mister Buffett Home Services of America recently settled our class action lawsuit.先生巴菲特，您每年举办的这次会议真是令人难以置信。我叫肖恩·考利，是伯克希尔哈撒韦家庭服务公司在亚利桑那州和加利福尼亚州的房地产经纪人。我的母亲辛迪、我的兄弟和我的两个姐妹都在伯克希尔哈撒韦家庭服务公司从事房地产销售多年。我们很荣幸成为伯克希尔大家庭的一员，与公司另外 7 万名房地产销售代理一起，伯克希尔哈撒韦美国家庭服务公司最近解决了我们的集体诉讼。

Regarding commissions for $250 million last week. This dollar amounts about 100 million more than Keller Williams. 166.5 million more than anywhere. Real estate, which is better homes and gardens in Coldwell. Banker as a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway home services in multiple markets, and a shareholder who’s been coming to this meeting for 15 straight years.关于上周 2.5 亿美元的佣金。这个金额比 Keller Williams 多 1 亿美元，比任何其他房地产公司多 1.665 亿美元，作为冷井银行家的房地产经纪人，在伯克希尔哈撒韦家庭服务在多个市场的股东，已经连续 15 年参加这次会议。

That’s one of the reasons I got involved with real estate, is because of this meeting. What are your thoughts on buying and. Selling a home in light of this recent settlement? And maybe ask the note to Greg and Ajit, too. Would you consider a Berkshire agent when.我参与房地产的原因之一就是这次会议。鉴于最近的和解，您对买卖房屋有何看法？或许也可以问问格雷格和阿吉特。您会考虑伯克希尔代理吗。

Buying your next home?购买您的下一处房产？

I don’t buy them that often, as some people have noted.我不常买，正如有些人所提到的。

I certainly would consider him but I say the probability of that happening is low. And I really appreciate the fact you’ve joined up with us, but I’m going to. In terms of the settlement, I mean, Craig kept me informed, but I turned it over 100% to him. So, Greg, you want to talk about it? Sure.我当然会考虑他，但我认为这种情况发生的可能性很低。我真的很欣赏你已经加入我们，但我将。关于和解，我的意思是，克雷格一直向我通报情况，但我将 100%的事情交给了他。那么，格雷格，你想谈谈吗？当然。

So, thank you for you and your family for being an agent and working for our. For our company, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. I think there’s a few questions in there. One, there’s no question the industry will go through some transitions because of that settlement. Ours and the every other major player in the industry settled.因此，感谢您和您的家人作为代理并为我们工作。对于我们公司，伯克希尔·哈撒韦家庭服务公司而言。我认为其中有一些问题。第一，毫无疑问，由于那项和解，行业将经历一些转型。我们和其他所有主要参与者都达成了和解。

The National Association, association of Realtors settled for more than 400 million. So effectively everybody was swept up in that settlement, and it did set the grounds for both home services and for the industry to move forward. There’s a lot of changes that happen in, or are being proposed associated with that settlement. The one thing that I think you hopefully would absolutely agree with, the real estate agent, is still an important part of these transactions. It’s the one time in our lives where we make these massive investments, and having that counseling guidance is critical.国家房地产经纪人协会达成了超过 4 亿美元的和解协议。实际上，每个人都受到了这次和解的影响，它为房地产服务和整个行业的发展奠定了基础。与这次和解相关的变化有很多，正在发生或被提议发生。有一件事，我认为你绝对会同意，房地产经纪人仍然是这些交易的重要组成部分。这是我们生活中做出重大投资的时候，而获得咨询指导至关重要。

And that’s really what our business and those other businesses rely on, how the commission structures change and how it’s negative negotiated, which is really what the settlement was. It was no longer that a buyer would automatically pay a commission agent to the. To the selling agent. That now has to be negotiated. That’ll impact things, but I think the realtors will continue to be a very important part of that.这正是我们业务和其他业务所依赖的，佣金结构的变化以及如何进行负面谈判，这才是真正的和解。不再是一个买家会自动支付佣金代理给销售代理。现在必须进行谈判。这将产生影响，但我认为房地产经纪人将继续是其中非常重要的部分。

And I think home services and the industry will remain very relevant. And then the only thing I would share with our shareholders on a broader basis is that obligation resides with home services and can be met by home services. And that was an important condition because they were also pursuing Berkshire and Berkshire Hathaway Energy. And we said, you can pursue us separately, but that settlement will reside with home services and be an obligation of that. And they decided the ultimate settlement.我认为家庭服务和行业将保持高度相关性。然后，我只想就更广泛的问题与我们的股东分享的是，责任在于家庭服务，并且可以由家庭服务来履行。这是一个重要的条件，因为他们也在追求伯克希尔和伯克希尔哈撒韦能源。我们说，你们可以单独追求我们，但和解将属于家庭服务，并成为其责任。他们最终决定了解决方案。

And. We’Ll go forward from there. So, Warren, any other comments? Well, yeah, I’ve sold two houses in the last. Well, the last 93 refraction years, and I’ve bought one that I still have, but I obviously bought the other two, and I have not negotiated down the commission, even though the last one sold for 7 million or something like that.而且。我们将从这里继续前进。那么，沃伦，还有其他评论吗？嗯，是的，在过去 93 年里，我卖了两栋房子，其中一栋我仍然持有，但我显然卖掉了另外两栋，而且我没有降低佣金，即使最后一栋卖出了 700 万或者类似的价格。

People do negotiate down commissions to some extent, but I can tell you, I’ve looked at the figures and I think the system has really worked out very well. When I got out of school, they had what they called Fizzbowl for sale by owner and so I’ve been involved to some degree in watching the whole system operate, and I know what our average agent makes. I know how long they work on things sometimes that don’t materialize.人们确实在一定程度上协商降低佣金，但我可以告诉你，我查看了相关数据，我认为这个系统真的运行得非常好。我毕业时，他们有所谓的“Fizzbowl”个人销售项目，所以我多少程度上参与了观察整个系统的运作，我知道我们普通代理人的平均收入。我知道他们有时会在一些最终未能实现的事情上花费多长时间。

I don’t think we’ll end up with a better system, but it’s up to Greg and the people at home services we work through here. But I like our agency group, and we’ve got a very large number of real estate agents, and I’ve encouraged the expansion we’ve done in the real estate brokerage business. It was just one or two operations when we bought Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and we really built up quite a company. And I think it’s a very fundamental business. You need help.我不认为我们会得到一个更好的系统，但这取决于格雷格和我们在本地合作的家政服务团队。但我喜欢我们的代理集团，我们拥有大量房地产经纪人，并且我鼓励我们在房地产经纪业务上的扩张。在我们收购伯克希尔能源公司时，这还只是零星的一两个业务，但我们真的将其发展成了一个相当大的公司。我认为这是一个非常基础的业务。你需要帮助。

90% of the people need help in buying a home or selling one. And I’ve watched it operate all my life and been involved with lots of people who have been in the business. But there was a decision in court, and I told Greg to handle it, whatever seemed best to him. And I’m quite. I’m perfectly happy with the way we’ve handled.90%的人购房或售房时都需要帮助。我一生都在观察其运作，并接触了许多从事该行业的人。但法院做出了裁决，我让格雷格处理，无论他认为什么最好。我很满意我们处理的方式。

I think I’m surprised at the decision, but we get surprised indecisions in the insurance business lots of times. I mean, just think of the various things we faced, and when 911 came along, we never thought something like that could happen, but it happened, and then we didn’t know what was one event or more events. If they closed down the New York Stock Exchange, a bunch of brokers. Well, all kinds of people lose their jobs or lose their income for a while. Is that one event or multiple events?我觉得这个决定让我感到惊讶，但在保险业，我们经常遇到这种令人意外的决定。我的意思是，想想我们所面临的各种情况，911 事件发生时，我们从未想过会发生这样的事情，但它确实发生了，然后我们不知道这是一次事件还是多次事件。如果纽约证券交易所关闭，许多经纪人。好吧，各种各样的人会暂时失业或失去收入。这是单次事件还是多次事件？

There’s all kinds of things come up in business, and we just play the ball wherever we find it. And I was surprised by the decision. Was it in Missouri? Missouri, yes. Yeah.商业中会出现各种各样的事情，我们就 wherever we find it。我对这个决定感到惊讶。是在密苏里州？密苏里州，是的。是的。

But we’ve gotten surprised by some other decisions, and we’ll keep doing sensible things as we move forward. Greg, do you want to. No, I think the only thing I would add back, maybe to how the model has changed. And he asked one. Yes, we’ll always, I can’t speak for jeep, but we’ll always use home services agents.但我们也被其他一些决定所惊讶，我们将继续向前做明智的事情。格雷格，你想。不，我认为我唯一要补充的是，可能关于模型的改变。他问了一个。是的，我们始终，我不能为吉普说话，但我们始终使用家庭服务代理人。

But it’s interesting. I have bought a home abroad. I lived over in the United Kingdom, in Newcastle, running our utility over there. And it is a completely different experience to buy a home outside of the US. Our agents take great responsibility for the whole transaction.但很有趣。我在国外买过房子。我住在英国纽卡斯尔，在那里经营我们的公用事业。在美国以外购买房产是完全不同的体验。我们的代理商对整个交易负有极大的责任。

In the US, they put, as Warren said, time and capital at risk to ensure the transaction closes. And when you do close, they make sure what you bought, you actually what you thought you were purchasing, you end up with, and that’s not the way it is always around the world. And there are more affordable models, but it’s the old saying, you get what you pay for. So I think our real estate agents still provide incredible value within our business, and as Warren touched on it, it’ll survive. The form may be a little bit different, but there’s no question it’ll continue to thrive.在美国，他们投入时间和资本，正如沃伦所说，以确保交易完成。而当你完成交易时，他们会确保你购买的，就是你实际想要购买的，最终你得到的，而这并不是世界各地都这样。而且有更经济实惠的型号，但这是老话，一分钱一分货。所以我认为我们的房地产中介仍然在我们业务中提供巨大的价值，正如沃伦所提到的，它将生存下来。形式可能会有点不同，但毫无疑问它将继续繁荣。

Yeah, we still will want to buy real estate brokerages at the right price, and I hope we’re bigger in the industry ten years from now and 20 years from now than we are currently. And I did sell a house for 7 million. I did not negotiate the 6% down, and I feel I got my money’s worth and then some. And I’m cheap by nature, so it isn’t. I’m careless about it.是的，我们仍然想在合适的价格购买房地产中介公司，我希望十年后和二十年后的我们比现在在行业中更大。我确实卖了一栋价值 700 万的房子。我没有协商 6%的降价，我觉得我得到了物超所值。我天性节俭，所以这不是问题。我不太在意。

I just. I got my money’s worth. And so let’s move on to becky. This question’s for Warren and Ajit. It’s from Jeff Oyster.我就值了。那么让我们继续贝琪。这个问题是问沃伦和艾吉特的。这是杰夫·奥斯特问的。

As a Berkshire and Tesla shareholder, I would like to hear your thoughts on the potential financial effects to Geico, assuming Elon Musk delivers on his fully autonomous driving goal. On Tesla’s most recent earnings call, Elon said, if you’ve got, at scale, a statistically significant amount of data that shows conclusively that the autonomous car has, let’s say, half the accident rate of a human driven car, I think that’s difficult to ignore. Assuming Elon succeeds in reducing accidents by 50% versus human drivers, wouldn’t auto insurance rates fall to reflect the reduced underwriting risks, thereby adversely impacting GEIco’s revenues and float and perhaps margins, too? Well, yeah.作为一名伯克希尔和特斯拉的股东，我想听听你对 Geico 潜在财务影响的想法，假设埃隆·马斯克实现了他的完全自动驾驶驾驶目标。在特斯拉最近的财报电话会议上，埃隆说，如果你有，在规模上，一个统计上显著的、能够明确证明自动驾驶汽车的事故率是人类驾驶汽车的二分之一的数据，我认为那很难被忽视。假设埃隆成功地将事故率相对于人类驾驶员降低了 50%，那么汽车保险费率是否会下降以反映降低的承保风险，从而对 GEIco 的收入和资金储备产生不利影响，甚至可能对利润率也有影响？嗯，是的。

Well, let’s just take the extreme example. Let’s say there are only going to be three accidents in the United States next year for some crazy reason that anything that reduces accidents is going to reduce costs. But that’s been harder to do than people have done before. But obviously. But if it really happens, the figures will show it, and our data will show it, and the prices will come down.好吧，让我们以极端的例子来说明。假设由于某种疯狂的原因，美国明年只会发生三起事故，而任何减少事故的措施都会降低成本。但这比以前更难实现。但显然。如果真的发生了，数据会显示出来，我们的数据会显示出来，价格也会下降。

There have been a lot of people talk about doing that in the past. I mean, General Motors used to be very big in the insurance business, and when Uber first started, they. They used some firm, which now is, I think a Jeetl confirmed they’re close to bankruptcy now, aren’t they? Because of taking things on at the wrong prices. Is that true?过去很多人都在谈论做这件事。我的意思是，通用汽车以前在保险业务方面规模很大，当优步刚开始运营时，他们。他们使用了一家公司，现在我想杰特尔已经确认他们接近破产了，对吧？因为定价不当。这是真的吗？

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Insurance always looks easier than it is, and it’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, you know, and then you find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on. But it’s a very tempting business when somebody hands you money and you hand them a little piece of paper, but really knowing whether you’re.是的。是的。是的。保险看起来总是比实际情况简单，而且非常有意思，因为你在开始时就能拿到钱，你知道，然后你发现后来是否做了愚蠢的事情。但当有人给你钱，你给他们一张小纸条时，这是一个非常有吸引力的业务，但真正知道你是否...

I mean, if accidents get reduced 50%, it’s going to be good for society and it’s going to be bad for insurance companies. Volume. But, you know, but for society is what we’re looking for so far you might find kind of interesting. I mean, the number of people killed per 100 million passenger miles driven. I think it actually, when I was young, it was like 15, but even post world war two, it only fell like seven or thereabouts.我的意思是，如果事故减少 50%，这对社会将是好的，而对保险公司将是坏的。数量。但是，你知道，我们目前所追求的是对社会的影响，你可能会发现有些有趣。我的意思是，每行驶 1 亿英里乘客死亡人数。我认为，在我年轻时，这个数字是 15，但即使在二战后，它也只下降到大约 7 左右。

And Ralph Nader probably has done more for the american consumer than just about anybody in history because that seven or six has now come down to under two. And I don’t think it would have come down that way without him. There have been some kind of fluke figures of what people did during the pandemic, which are quite interesting because they, they didn’t drive immediately, they didn’t drive as many miles, but they drove more dangerously, didn’t they? Is that right, Ajit? Yeah.拉尔夫·纳德对美国消费者的贡献可能比历史上任何人都大，因为那七或六已经下降到不到两。而且我认为如果没有他，情况可能不会这样。疫情期间，人们的一些行为数据很特别，这很有趣，因为他们没有立即开车，开的车里程也不多，但他们开车更危险，对吧？阿吉，是这样吗？是的。

Yeah. So the point I want to make in terms of Tesla and the fact that they feel that because of their technology, the number of accidents do come down, and that is certainly provable. But I think what needs to be factored in as well is the repair cost of each one of these accidents has skyrocketed. So if you multiply the number of accidents times the cost of each accident, I’m not sure that total number has come down as much as Tesla would like us to believe. Tesla has been toying with the idea of writing insurance directly or indirectly.是的。所以我想说的是，关于特斯拉，他们觉得因为自己的技术，事故数量确实减少了，这一点是可以证明的。但我认为还需要考虑的是，每一起事故的维修成本已经飙升。所以如果你把事故数量乘以每起事故的成本，我不确定这个总数下降的幅度是否像特斯拉希望我们相信的那样大。特斯拉一直在考虑直接或间接地写保险。

And so far it hasn’t really sort of been much of a success. Time will tell. But I think, you know, automation just shifts a lot of the expense from the operator to the equipment provider.到目前为止，这并没有真正取得多大成功。时间会证明一切。但我认为，你知道，自动化只是将很多费用从操作者转移到了设备提供者。

We’ll get in their seats and be ready at 1:00 when we reconvene, because we will have another very [important presentation]. But we do not want to be seating people and have people milling [around] here at 1:00, just like a play in New York or something. It’ll take a few minutes, and only a few minutes, to cover what we’re going to [do] at 1:00, but we don’t want to be seating people during that period.我们将回到座位，在重新开始时准备就绪，因为我们将有另一个非常重要的演示。但我们不想在 1 点时安排座位，让人们在这里四处走动，就像纽约的一场戏剧一样。我们只需要几分钟，只有几分钟，就能涵盖我们在 1 点将要做的事情，但我们不希望在那个时间段安排座位。

But now let’s… We’ll go on till 12:00, and then we’ll have a break until 1:00, and we will go to station [number one].但现在让我们继续……我们将继续到 12 点，然后休息到 1 点，然后我们将去第一站。

HUMPHREY LIU: My name is Humphrey Liu, and I am from Charlottesville, Virginia. I asked the question last year and wish to pose it again. It can be considered a follow-up. There is something to be said for traditions. It is the same question, but it is a changing and different world we are in. Looking at global trends, it increasingly does seem that zero-emission vehicles may have finally reached the cusp of massive adoption. Do you see any opportunities in this space, either in specific vehicle manufacturers or in related technologies?刘 Humphrey：我叫刘 Humphrey，来自弗吉尼亚州的夏洛茨维尔。我去年问过这个问题，希望再次提出。可以认为这是一个后续问题。传统有其可取之处。问题相同，但我们所处的世界正在变化。从全球趋势来看，零排放汽车似乎终于达到了大规模采用的边缘。您在这个领域看到任何机会吗？无论是在特定的汽车制造商还是相关技术方面？

As an addendum, I will note that Berkshire has very relevant interests in energy, Pilot Flying J, and BYD. Thank you.作为补充，我要指出，伯克希尔在能源、Pilot Flying J 和比亚迪方面有非常相关的利益。谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, we will. I hope you’re right [about massive adoption]. And massive adoption has been sort of a moving target so far, but I hope we get there. But Berkshire would not be… I don’t think that we bring any special talent to that field. You’ve got vehicle manufacturers, and I would certainly not know how to pick the winners in an industry like that. But I’ll be delighted if there are some winners.沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们会。我希望您是对的 [关于大规模采用]。大规模采用到目前为止一直是一个移动的目标，但我希望我们能实现。但伯克希尔不会……我不认为我们在那个领域有任何特殊才能。您有汽车制造商，我当然不知道如何在一个这样的行业中选择赢家。但如果有些赢家，我会很高兴。

But don’t count on us foreseeing who the winners will be, and don’t count on us for predicting when something will happen. It obviously has been a moving target so far, and it is an incredible problem that society faces, and it may be that governments are not very good at solving it for a while.但不要指望我们能预见谁将是赢家，也不要指望我们能预测某事何时会发生。到目前为止，这显然是一个不断变化的目标，而社会面临的问题是惊人的，政府可能暂时无法很好地解决这个问题。

All of climate change… it’s got a terrible problem just in the fact that the United States, particularly, has been the one that’s caused the problem the most. And then we’re asking poorer societies to say, “Well, you’ve got to change the way you live because we lived the way we did.” But that really hasn’t been settled yet.所有气候变化……美国，尤其是，一直是造成这个问题的主要国家。然后我们要求较贫穷的社会说：“好吧，你必须改变你的生活方式，因为我们曾经那样生活。”但这真的还没有得到解决。

It’s a fascinating problem to me, but I don’t have anything to add to how you really slice through the world [population]. When I was born in 1930, there were just essentially 2 billion people in the world. Now there are 8 billion. Now, if you’d asked anybody in 1930, if you take the 50 smartest people in the world and you said, “What’s the optimum population for the world when you’re 93 years old?”, they would have not said 8 billion. There wouldn’t be anybody close to it. But we did it. Now we’re reaping some of the consequences of having done that, and we got the benefits in the United States. I’m exaggerating here to some extent, but the developed world basically got it. And then we’re telling a whole bunch of other people that we want them to change the way they live because of the way we lived.对我而言，这是一个引人入胜的问题，但我对如何真正划分世界[人口]没有更多可补充的。1930 年我出生时，世界上的人口基本上只有 20 亿。现在有 80 亿。如果你在 1930 年问任何一个人，如果你把世界上最聪明的 50 个人拿出来，你说，当你们 93 岁时，世界的最佳人口是多少？他们不会说 80 亿。不会有任何人接近这个数字。但我们做到了。现在我们正在收获我们所做的一些后果，而美国得到了这些好处。我在某种程度上有些夸张，但发达国家基本上已经解决了这个问题。然后我们告诉很多人，我们希望他们改变生活方式，因为我们曾经这样生活过。

So we will see what happens with it. But that’s a problem that is very, very, very hard to solve, [to be] solved among a couple of hundred countries. And I really don’t have anything to contribute on it.所以我们将会看到会发生什么。但这是一个非常、非常、非常难以解决的问题，在两百多个国家中解决这个问题。我真的没有什么可以贡献的。

And now I’ve got instructions from the monitor in front of me. I would like to introduce one person here that [you all know] because she’s been here so many times, but my friend Carol Loomis, who is now… well, she’s going to be 95 on June 25. You can send [cards] to her care of our office. And Carol has edited the [Berkshire] annual report since 1977.现在我收到了面前主席团的指示。我想介绍一位大家都很熟悉的人，因为她来过很多次，是我的朋友卡罗尔·卢米斯，她现在……嗯，她在 6 月 25 日就要 95 岁了。您可以寄卡片到我们办公室转交给她。卡罗尔自 1977 年起一直负责编辑伯克希尔年度报告。

(Applause) （掌声）

WARREN BUFFETT: There we are. And there are two points I’d like to mention. Every year, I give Carol a little item for a bracelet that is a replica of the front page of the report that year, and they’re different colors and all of that sort of thing. And so she now has, what, since 1977, what, 47 of them? I think she’s put ten on each one. But I’ve always wondered if she put them all on one arm, whether one arm would now be four or five inches longer than the other. But I’m sure she foresaw that.沃伦·巴菲特：我们到了。我想提两点。每年，我都给卡罗尔一个小物件，用来做手链，是当年报告首页的复制品，颜色和样式都各不相同。所以她现在有多少个呢？从 1977 年开始，一共有 47 个？我想她每个都串了十个。但我一直想，如果她把所有这些都戴在一支手臂上，这支手臂会不会比另一支长四或五英寸。但我确信她预见到这一点。

But I want to reveal one other… Well, I want to ask one more question while Carol was here, because I’m sure most everybody in this audience grew up like I did, knowing that Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting average was .367. I mean, he’s the leader among everyone, and it may be that that record is never broken. And Ty Cobb, .367 is immortal. But Carol has a distinction that probably most of you don’t know, but she dated Ty Cobb.但我还想透露一点……嗯，趁卡罗尔在这里，我想再问一个问题，因为我想在座的各位大多数人和我一样，从小就知道泰·柯布的终身打击率是.367。他的确是所有人的领袖，也许这个纪录永远不会被打破。泰·柯布，.367 是永恒的。但卡罗尔有一个你们大多数人可能不知道的特别之处，她曾和泰·柯布约会。

And Carol was officed at 6th Avenue and 50th Street in the Time Life building. And NBC was right across the street in, in Rockefeller Center. And the quiz shows became the head of TV. And Carol, being the kind of person she is, walked across the street at lunchtime and went on the quiz show [in] the late 1950s. And they gave her the… they gave her the questions regarding baseball. And Carol answered them all correctly, of course. She was encyclopedic on all kinds of things. So she knew all the answers. And she proceeded… And she was single at the time. And she proceeded back to her office at Fortune.卡罗尔当时在第六大道 50 号街的《时代生活》大楼里办公。NBC 就在街对面，位于洛克菲勒中心。当时问答节目成为电视节目的头牌。卡罗尔凭借她的个性，在 1950 年代末的午餐时间穿过街道参加了其中一个问答节目。节目组给她出了关于棒球的问题。当然，卡罗尔全部答对了。她对各种事物都如百科全书般了解，所以答案当然都了如指掌。她接着……当时她还是单身。之后她回到了《福布斯》杂志的办公室。

And at some point, she got a phone call from… [It] sounded like a fairly young man in Georgia. And he said, “My uncle is Ty Cobb, and he would like to take you to lunch at ’21.'” And so Carol went to lunch with Ty Cobb at ’21.’ And I think he subsequently had one more lunch [with her]. And then she decided to call it off.后来，她接到了一个电话，听起来像是一个来自佐治亚州的年轻人。他说：“我的叔叔是泰·柯布，他想请你到‘21 号餐厅’吃午饭。”于是，卡罗尔和泰·柯布在“21 号餐厅”吃午饭。我想他后来又和她吃过一次午饭。然后，她决定终止这次约会。

But those of you who follow baseball may have noticed that in the 1990s, they found that the statistics had been faulty when Ty Cobb played. And that he actually only batted .366, that there were a couple of bad at-bats they didn’t count. So the real question I want to know from Carol, and I think she should maybe tell us, is that would she have dated Ty Cobb if she [had known]? I mean, I know she wouldn’t have… I know she wouldn’t have dated Ty Cobb if his batting average had been .300 or something like that. But where was the cutoff point at which she would have told Ty Cobb to stay in Atlanta and forget about coming up to New York?但是，那些关注棒球的人可能已经注意到，在 20 世纪 90 年代，人们发现泰·柯布时代的统计数据是有问题的。实际上，他击球的平均数只有.366，有些糟糕的击球没有被计算在内。所以，我想从卡罗尔那里知道的是，如果她[知道]的话，她会不会和泰·柯布约会？我的意思是，我知道她不会……我知道，如果他的击球平均数是.300 或者类似水平，她也不会和泰·柯布约会。但是，在她告诉泰·柯布留在亚特兰大，别想着来纽约的那个临界点在哪里？

And if Carol would… If anybody has a microphone, Carol would care to express herself on that question. It’s the unanswered question that I’ve had and all inquiring minds have had, and only she knows the answer. And she’s with her daughter. She married a wonderful guy, John Loomis. And Barbara’s… Barbara’s with her. I’m sure Barbara’s been always wanting to ask this question, but it’s kind of tough when you’re in the family. But I’m sort of a non-anxious guy… older, in front of a lot of people. Carol. Carol. Or are we going to have Barbara as [our] guest? Either one will… She would have been happy to go either way, right?如果卡罗尔愿意……如果有人有麦克风，卡罗尔是否愿意就那个问题表达自己。这是我长久以来未解的问题，所有求知者都有过同样的问题，只有她知道答案。她和她女儿在一起。她嫁给了一个很棒的人，约翰·卢米斯。芭芭拉……芭芭拉和她在一起。我确信芭芭拉一直想问这个问题，但在家族中问起来有点困难。但我有点不紧张……年纪大了，在很多人面前。卡罗尔。卡罗尔。还是我们要邀请芭芭拉作为[我们的]客人？无论哪一个……她都会很高兴以任何方式参加，对吧？

(Laughter) （笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you, Carol.沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢，卡罗尔。

Carol is the best business writer. She comes from a town of [Kahoka], Missouri. I don’t know, around a thousand [people], probably. She never took an accounting course and ended up becoming the best business writer in the United States.卡罗尔是最佳商业作家。她来自密苏里州的[卡霍卡]小镇。我不知道，大约一千人，可能。她从未学过会计课程，最终成为美国最佳商业作家。

And we… You know, she didn’t want to be an editor, actually. I mean, she could have done other things at Fortune, but she just plain liked writing business stories. And like I say, nobody came close to her. And she started from scratch.我们……你知道，她其实不想当编辑。我的意思是，她可以在《福布斯》杂志做其他事情，但她就是喜欢写商业故事。就像我说的，没有人能接近她的水平。她是从零开始。

But in 1977, I asked her to edit my report, and she turned out to be just [as good of] an editor [as] she was a writer. And all the way through this year, including this year, Carol has edited the Berkshire report. And to the extent anybody enjoys reading them, let’s give a hand to Carol.但在 1977 年，我请她编辑我的报告，结果她不仅是一位优秀的作家，也是一位出色的编辑。今年到目前为止，包括今年，卡罗尔一直在编辑伯克希尔报告。如果有人喜欢阅读它们，让我们为卡罗尔鼓掌。

(Applause) （掌声）

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay. And I’ve been told to show a video right before you go to lunch, because it’s only 30 some seconds, and then we’ll talk a little bit more about it when we come [back]. So if we’ll dim the lights, we will have [a video] showing what a Berkshire shareholder did when she sold us a billion dollars worth of stock the other day. And you’ll meet somebody that I hope is… I know she is the prototype. She may have more zeroes, but she’s the prototype of a good many Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. It’ll be the first thing we talk about when we come back. But some of you may have noticed, whenever it was a few weeks back, when Ruth Gottesman gave $1 billion to Albert Einstein [College of Medicine] to take care of all of us, and Ruth doesn’t like a lot of attention drawn to herself. But here’s how they felt at Albert Einstein when they announced that Ruth Gottesman had just made a decision to take care of all of the costs of education at Albert Einstein, and it’s going to be in perpetuity. So let’s just show the film.沃伦·巴菲特：好的。他们告诉我，在你们去吃午饭之前，要播放一段视频，因为只有 30 多秒，然后我们回来的时候再稍微多谈一点。所以如果我们将灯光调暗，我们将播放一段视频，展示一位伯克希尔股东前几天向我们出售了价值 10 亿美元的股票时做了什么。你们将遇到一个人，我希望……我知道她是典型。她可能拥有更多的零，但她是一个很好的伯克希尔·哈撒韦股东的代表。这是我们回来后要讨论的第一件事。但你们中的一些人可能已经注意到，几周前，当露丝·戈特斯曼向阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院捐赠了 10 亿美元来照顾我们所有人时，露丝不喜欢太多关注被吸引到她身上。但在阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院，当他们宣布露丝刚刚做出决定，将永久承担阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院所有教育费用时，他们感到非常激动。那么，就让我们播放这部电影吧。

I’m happy to share with you that starting in August of this year, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition-free.我很高兴地与大家分享，从今年 8 月开始，爱因斯坦医学院将实行免费教育。

WARREN BUFFETT: And that’s why Charlie and I have had such fun running Berkshire. She transferred a billion dollars to other people. She happened to do it with Berkshire stock, and, you know, they offered [to] rename the school after [her] and everything like that. But she said, “Albert Einstein. That’s a pretty good name to start with.” So there’s no ego involved in it, no nothing. She just decided that she’d rather have 100 plus, closer to 150 eventually, of students be able to start out debt-free and proceed in life. And she did it happily, and she did it without somebody asking, you know, [to] name it, you know, put my name on [it] for all four sides of neon lights, and I salute her.沃伦·巴菲特：这就是为什么查理和我经营伯克希尔这么开心。她将一亿美元转移给其他人。她恰好是用伯克希尔股票来做的，你知道，他们提出要以她的名义命名学校，以及诸如此类的事情。但她说：“阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦。这个名字开始得相当不错。”所以这其中没有涉及任何自负，什么都没有。她只是决定宁愿有 100 多名，最终接近 150 名学生能够无债一身轻地开始人生，并继续前行。她高兴地做了这件事，而且她做这件事的时候没有人要求，你知道，以她的名义命名，你知道，在四个面的霓虹灯上放上我的名字，我向她致敬。

So let’s all have lunch, and we’ll come back and talk a little bit more about that. Thanks.那么我们大家一起吃午饭吧，然后我们再回来稍微多谈一点这个话题。谢谢。

Afternoon Session 下午场

WARREN BUFFETT: So please take your seats. We’re going to finish at three, so the sooner we start, the sooner [we have] more chance we’ll have to talk about various questions you may have. I just like to follow on, however, with that film we showed just before we left for lunch because it says something about Berkshire.沃伦·巴菲特：请就座。我们将在三点结束，所以越早开始，我们就有更多机会讨论你们可能有的各种问题。不过，我想接着我们午餐前播放的那部电影继续，因为它反映了伯克希尔的一些情况。

There are all kinds of public companies and wealthy public companies throughout America, and there are certainly cases where, in one family, somebody has made a very large amount of money and is devoting it to philanthropy, or much of it to philanthropy, such as the Walton family would be the number one [example] in Walmart. And certainly, Bill did the same thing, Bill Gates did the same thing at Microsoft.美国各地有各种各样的上市公司和富裕的上市公司，当然也有一些案例，在一个家庭中，有人赚了大笔钱，并将其用于慈善事业，或将其中的大部分用于慈善事业，例如沃尔顿家族就是沃尔玛的顶级例子。当然，比尔·盖茨在微软也做了同样的事情。

But what is unusual about Berkshire is that a very significant number of Berkshire shareholders located all over the United States, not just in Omaha, but [in] many different [places], Berkshire holders who have contributed $100 million or more to their local charities, usually with people not knowing about it. I think it’s many multiples of any other public company in the country. It’s not more [than] multiples [of what] those [who] put a whole lot into philanthropy, and I don’t know the details of the family, but clearly there’s a huge sum of money that the Walmart family, I’m sure, has done all kinds of things philanthropically and will continue to do it.但伯克希尔的不同之处在于，其股东遍布全美各地，而不仅仅是在奥马哈，许多不同地方的伯克希尔股东，他们向当地慈善机构捐赠了 1 亿美元或更多，而且通常人们并不知情。我认为这比国内任何其他上市公司都要多得多。它并不是比那些投入大量慈善事业的人要多，我不知道这个家庭的详细情况，但显然沃尔玛家族已经做了各种各样的慈善事业，并且会继续这样做。

But I don’t think you’ll find any company where a group of shareholders who aren’t related to each other… So many of them have done something along the lines of what Ruth did a few weeks ago, just to exchange a little piece of paper that they’ve held for five decades, and they’ve lived well themselves. They haven’t denied their family anything, but they don’t feel that they have to create a dynasty or anything, and they give it back to society. And a great many do it anonymously. They do it in many states. To some extent, we see some concentration of it in Nebraska, because generally, when you’re giving away a lot of money, they call it, in the philanthropic world, they call it “absorption capacity.” And the truth is, it’s very hard to give away a billion dollars to $10 at a time to people who are needy or something of the sort. And so large institutions have this absorption capacity, which tends to be universities or colleges or that sort of thing. And some philanthropies are much more imaginative than others.但我认为你不会在任何一家公司找到一群彼此没有关联的股东……他们中有许多人做了类似露丝几周前所做的事情，仅仅是为了交换他们已持有半个世纪的纸片，而他们自己也过得很好。他们没有亏待家人，但他们并不觉得必须创建一个王朝或类似的东西，而是将其回馈给社会。许多人这样做都是匿名的。他们在许多州这样做。在某种程度上，我们看到它在内布拉斯加州有某种集中，因为通常当你捐赠大量资金时，在慈善界，他们称之为“吸收能力”。事实上，将十亿美元分批捐赠给需要帮助的人或其他类似情况是非常困难的。因此，大型机构具有这种吸收能力，这往往倾向于大学或学院或类似的东西。而且，有些慈善机构比其他机构更有想象力。

But the one thing I’ve never… Well, most of them want to do it anonymously, so I can’t tell their specific stories. But I have to say one thing that was astounding is that the same day we bought a billion dollars worth of Berkshire Class A stock from Ruth… So that… And I guess we were actually buying it from the school at that point because she’d just given [it to] them. And then… So the transaction was with them. But Mark Millard in our office bought a billion dollars from them, but he also bought $500 million worth of stock from somebody else that nobody will ever have heard of, and in a different state. And I won’t elaborate beyond that, but we have had a very significant number of people, and there’s more to come. And obviously, they had to be people that came in early, or their parents did, or their grandparents did, but they’ve all lived good lives. They haven’t denied themselves anything. You know, they have second homes, and they… But they generally… In fact, I would say almost universally, they… People knew them in the community, [and] everything. But they’ve used what they accomplished, what they saved… They denied themselves consumption themselves. That’s what savings are, is consumption deferred. And they’ve given… They’ve financed everything all over the country. And usually, they like to do it anonymously.但是有一件事我从未……嗯，他们大多数人都想匿名，所以我无法讲述他们的具体故事。但我要说一件令人惊叹的事情：就在同一天，我们从 Ruth 那里买入了价值 10 亿美元的伯克希尔 A 类股票……所以……我想我们当时实际上是从学校那里购买的，因为她刚刚把[股票]给了他们。然后……所以交易是与他们进行的。但我们在办公室的马克·米勒德从他们那里购买了 10 亿美元，但他还从另一个州的一个无人知晓的人那里购买了 5 亿美元股票。我不会再详述，但我们已经有很多这样的人，而且还有更多。显然，他们必须是早期加入的人，或者他们的父母或祖父母是，但他们都过着美好的生活。他们没有亏待自己。你知道，他们有第二居所，而且……但他们通常……事实上，我可以说几乎普遍地，他们……在社区里，人们都认识他们，[而且]所有的一切。但他们利用他们所成就的一切，他们所储蓄的……他们自己拒绝消费。 这就是储蓄的意义，是消费的延迟。他们已经为全国各地的项目提供了资金……而且他们通常喜欢匿名进行。

I outed my sister when I wrote about her in the annual report, but Bertie’s here today. I told her she should wear a T-shirt or something, [that] said, “No solicitors allowed” or something, but they just do it. And it’s really both, Charlie… I [have] felt it’s really fun to work for a group of people like that rather than for index funds or for hedge funds or whatever it may be. I mean, you’re just seeing what people actually… It sort of restores your faith in humanity, that people defer their own consumption within a family for decades and decades, and then they could do something like [that]. And they will. I think it may end up being 150 people to pursue different lives and [who are] talented people and diverse people [and who have] the dream of being a doctor and not [having] to incur incredible debt to do it, or whatever may be the case. There’s a million different examples.我在年报中写到了我的姐姐，但伯特 ie 今天在这里。我告诉她应该穿一件 T 恤或者类似的东西，上面写着“禁止推销”之类的话，但他们还是那样做了。这真的是两方面的，查理……我感到为这样一群人工作真的很有趣，而不是为指数基金或对冲基金或其他什么。我的意思是，你只是看到了人们实际上……这让你重新相信人性，即人们在一个家庭中延迟了几十年的消费，然后他们就能做一些像[那样]的事情。他们会这样做的。我认为最终可能会有 150 个人追求不同的生活，他们是才华横溢的人，是多元化的人，他们梦想成为医生，而不必承担巨大的债务去做这件事，或者无论情况如何。有无数个例子。

And I want you to know that… That you’re very… You’re a unique, actually, group of shareholders among public companies, as far as I know, in terms of the way you’ve deferred your own consumption while living fine to help other people. And it takes a lot of years, but it can really amount to something very substantial. And what Ruth did was [at] roughly my age. She looked at a little piece of paper, which actually was a claim check on the output of others in the future. And she said, instead of the output being for her, that the output would be for a continuing stream of people, for decades and decades and decades to come, that were having a different life in the pursuit of becoming doctors than they otherwise would have.我希望你们知道……你们是非常……实际上，在上市公司中，你们是一群独特的股东，就你们在生活优渥的同时推迟自身消费以帮助他人的方式而言。这需要很多年，但它真的可以积累成非常可观的东西。而露丝所做的事情，大约在我这个年纪时。她看了一张小纸片，实际上是一张未来他人产出的债权凭证。她说，产出不再是为了她，而是为了一个持续不断的人流，为了未来几十年、几十年、几十年里，那些在追求成为医生的过程中拥有不同生活的人，而不是他们原本会有的生活。

And Berkshire has been… Of course, her husband Sandy contributed substantially to Berkshire’s record. Sandy was a wonderful partner to have. So it was both input by him, and then there was deferred consumption by his family. And then there was ultimately this final gift to Albert Einstein [College of Medicine]. And like I say, the same day, there’s only 500 million [dollars that] will go to [another cause] in a different way. But it’s happening all over, and I don’t think any, any companies [are] like that.伯克希尔一直……当然，她的丈夫桑迪对伯克希尔创纪录的成绩贡献巨大。桑迪是一位非常棒的伙伴。所以这是他的投入，还有他家人的延迟消费。然后最终是这份最终赠与爱因斯坦医学院的礼物。就像我说的，同一天，只有 5 亿美元将以不同的方式捐给另一个项目。但这正在发生，而且我认为没有哪家公司像伯克希尔这样。

So I just want to tell you that it’s inspiring to work for a group of shareholders [like you].我想告诉你们，为像你们这样的一群股东工作是多么鼓舞人心。

BECKY QUICK: And Becky, go to it.贝琪·奎克：贝琪，开始吧。

BECKY QUICK: All right, the next question comes from Slavin Vucelbrot. As CEO, will Mr. Abel be in charge of the portfolio of common stocks that Mr. Buffett has been managing, or will this function be exercised by Mr. Combs and Mr. Weschler? As investing could be defined as the discipline of relative selection, can major capital allocation decisions, such as large acquisitions, be separated from the common stock selection process?贝琪·奎克：好的，下一个问题来自斯拉文·武切尔布罗特。作为 CEO，阿贝尔先生将负责管理沃伦·巴菲特一直管理的普通股投资组合，还是这项职能将由科姆斯先生和韦斯勒先生来执行？由于投资可以定义为相对选择的原则，那么重大资本配置决策，如大型收购，能否与普通股选择过程分开？

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I would say that decision actually will be made when I’m not around, and I may try and come back and haunt them if they do it differently. But I’m not sure the Ouija board will get that job done. So that job, I’ll never know the answer on whether it [will] get covered, but I feel very comfortable about the fact that it will be made by a board, that they’ve got loads of brainpower, they’ve got a dedication to an unusual institution, and they will figure things out.沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我认为这个决定实际上是在我离开之后才会做出，如果他们做出不同的选择，我可能会回来“纠缠”他们。但我不确定通灵板能完成这个任务。所以，关于这个工作是否会被覆盖，我永远不知道答案，但我对这样一个事实感到非常放心，那就是这个决定将由董事会做出，他们拥有强大的智慧，他们对这一独特的机构有着坚定的承诺，他们会想出办法。

But I would say that if I were on that board and were making the decision, I would probably, knowing Greg, I would just leave… I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. And he understands businesses extremely well. And if you understand businesses, you understand… you understand common stocks. I mean, if you really know how business works, you are, you are an investment manager. How much you manage, maybe just your own funds or maybe other people’s [funds]. And if you really are primarily interested in getting assets under management, which is where the money is, you know, you don’t really have to understand that sort of thing.但我要说的是，如果我在那个董事会并做出这个决定，我可能会，了解格雷格后，就直接离开……我把资本配置交给格雷格。他非常了解企业。如果你了解企业，你就了解……你就了解普通股。我的意思是，如果你真正了解商业运作方式，你就是，你就是一位投资经理。你管理多少资金，可能是你自己的资金，也可能是其他人的资金。如果你真正主要感兴趣的是管理资产，也就是钱所在的地方，你知道，你真的不需要了解那种事情。

But that’s not the case with Ted or Todd, obviously. But I think the responsibility ought to be entirely with Greg. The responsibility has been with me, and I farmed out some of it. And I used to think differently about how that would be handled, but I think the responsibility should be that of the CEO. And whatever that CEO decides may be helpful in effectuating that responsibility. That’s up to [him or her] to decide at the time they’re running the money.但显然，泰德或托德的情况并非如此。但我认为责任完全应该由格雷格承担。责任一直在我这里，我只是将其中一部分外包了。我过去曾对如何处理这件事有不同的想法，但我认为责任应该是 CEO 的。无论 CEO 做出什么决定，都可能有助于履行这一责任。这取决于他们在管理资金时的决定。

So I would say that my thinking on that has developed to some extent as the sums have grown so large at Berkshire, and we do not want to try and have 200 people around that are managing a billion each. [It] just doesn’t work. And I think that when you’re handling the sums that we will have, you’ve got to think very strategically about how to do very big things, and I think Greg [is] capable of doing that. I think I’ve missed a lot of stuff in the past, so I’m actually wiser about doing that now. But I, you know, I would do it better this time around in 2008 and 2009 if something akin to that happened. But it won’t be exactly like 2008 or [2009], you can be sure of that. But you also can say that there will be times when having huge sums available extremely quickly… Maybe it will be once every five years, probably [more like] once every ten years or something. But as the world gets more sophisticated, complicated, and intertwined, more can go wrong. And there’s no sense going through here exploring the possibilities of the different things that could happen.因此，我认为随着伯克希尔规模的不断扩大，我对这一问题的看法也在一定程度上有所发展。我们并不想试图让 200 个人各自管理 100 亿美元。这根本行不通。我认为，当你处理我们这样的巨额资金时，你必须从战略高度思考如何做大规模的事情，而我认为格雷格（Greg）能够做到这一点。我认为我过去错过了很多东西，所以现在我在这方面实际上更加明智了。但你知道，如果 2008 年和 2009 年发生类似的事情，我会做得更好。但可以肯定的是，那不会和 2008 年或 2009 年完全一样。但你也可以说，总会有巨额资金在极短时间内到位的时候……也许每五年一次，更可能是每十年一次。但随着世界变得越来越复杂和相互交织，可能会出错的事情就越多。在这里探讨可能发生的事情的各种可能性是没有意义的。

But you do want to be able to act when [something] happens. And I think the chief executive should be somebody that can weigh buying businesses, buying stocks, doing all kinds of things that might come up at a time when nobody else is willing to move. It wasn’t that people didn’t have money in 2008. It’s that they were paralyzed. And we did have the advantage of having some capital and eagerness to act, and a government that, in effect, looked at us as an asset instead of a liability.但是你确实希望能够在[某事]发生时采取行动。我认为首席执行官应该是能够权衡收购企业、购买股票、处理各种在其他人都不愿行动时可能出现的事情的人。2008 年并不是因为人们没有钱，而是他们陷入了僵局。我们确实有一些资本和行动的意愿，并且政府实际上把我们视为资产而不是负债。

And I think that all of those qualities will be even more important as our capital pile grows. So I think Greg may have even more fun than I had in a period when extraordinary things were happening, and we were the logical place to go. You never know whether it’ll be next week, next year, [or the] next decade, but you [know], it won’t be a century from now, that is for sure. [The more] intertwined and sophisticated the world financial situation gets, the more vulnerable it gets in a certain sense. It solves a lot of small problems, but it leaves [the system] more vulnerable to large problems.我认为，随着我们资本的积累，这些品质将变得更加重要。因此，我认为格雷格在一个非凡事件发生、我们成为合理目标的时期，可能会比我更有趣。你永远不知道是下周、明年，还是下个十年，但可以肯定的是，不会是百年之后。世界金融形势越是相互交织和复杂，从某种意义上说就越脆弱。它解决了很多小问题，但同时也让系统更容易受到大问题的冲击。

GREG ABEL: Without directly answering the question?格雷格·阿贝尔：没有直接回答这个问题？

WARREN BUFFETT: Greg, does that bother you at all or not?沃伦·巴菲特：格雷格，这让你困扰吗？

GREG ABEL: I think there’s one important thing, [and that] is I think as we go through any transition, it’s important to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire lives by today will continue to survive. Warren and I think that’s the thing I’d want to communicate. We have our operating businesses, insurance, [and] non-insurance, [and] we’re going to [support] that. We’ll provide them the capital necessary to be successful and grow, if it’s appropriate. At the same time, we’re expecting [a] return of capital from them when they have excess cash.格雷格·阿贝尔：我认为有一点非常重要，那就是我认为在经历任何转型时，伯克希尔今天所遵循的资本配置原则将继续存在。沃伦和我认为，这就是我想传达的事情。我们拥有我们的经营业务、保险和非保险业务，我们将支持这些业务。如果合适，我们将提供必要的资本，使它们成功并发展。同时，当它们有闲置现金时，我们期待它们回报资本。

And then, as we’ve discussed, or you’ve touched on, always looking at potentially new businesses as a whole or in a piece, and as you’ve always highlighted, and I fully agree, it’s… we’ll always look at equities as [if] we’re investing in a business, either 1% or 100%, but we’re looking at the business, we’re looking at the economic prospects of that business, how sustainable it is, and what it will look like ten years from now. And is our capital… the capital we originally put in at exponential risk, or where’s that risk? Set that profile. And then, of course, and then we’ll obviously continue to always put excess cash in the safest investment there is in US Treasuries, knowing we want to maintain that fortress of a balance sheet for two reasons. One, to act, but also to always protect our shareholders if we have a… We want to maintain the position Berkshire is in now, realistically for the… To ensure it, to ensure it endures.然后，正如我们所讨论的，或者您所提及的，始终将潜在的新业务作为一个整体或部分来审视，正如您一直强调的，我完全同意，我们始终将股票视为[如果]我们投资于一家企业，无论是 1%还是 100%，但我们关注的是这家企业，我们关注的是其经济前景，它的可持续性，以及十年后它将是什么样子。我们的资本……我们最初投入的资本是否面临指数级风险，风险在哪里？设定这个轮廓。然后，当然，我们会继续将多余的资金投入到美国国债这一最安全的投资中，因为我们希望保持这张堡垒般的资产负债表，有两个原因。第一，为了行动，同时也要始终保护我们的股东，如果我们有……我们希望保持伯克希尔目前所处的位置，现实地……为了确保它，确保它能持久。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, when he says that, it makes me wish I’d stayed around to be number two instead of number one in this process over the years. It’s, you know, it doesn’t get more fun than what we’re doing, and we’re better positioned than ever before. We’re not positioned, though, however, to earn extraordinary returns versus what American business generally earns. I would hope we could be slightly better, but nobody’s going to be dramatically better [than anyone else] over the next century. It gets very hard. It gets very hard to predict who the winner will be. If you look back, as we did a few meetings ago, at the top 20 companies in the world at ten-year intervals, you realize the game isn’t quite as easy as it looks. Getting a decent result actually is reasonably… should be reasonably easy if you just don’t get talked out of doing what has worked in the past, and don’t get carried away with fads, and don’t listen to people who have different interests in mind than the interests of our shareholders.沃伦·巴菲特：他说这话，让我真希望自己能一直留在过程中当第二名，而不是第一名。你知道，我们正在做的事情已经够有趣了，而且我们现在的地位比以往任何时候都更好。不过，我们目前的定位，并不能让我们获得远超美国一般企业水平的超额回报。我希望我们能稍微好一点，但未来一百年里，没有人会变得比其他人好得多。预测谁将成为赢家变得非常困难。如果你回顾一下，就像我们上次会议那样，看看过去十年间全球排名前 20 的公司，你会发现这个游戏并不像看起来那么简单。只要你不被说服放弃过去行之有效的方法，不沉迷于潮流，也不听那些利益与股东不一致的人的话，取得不错的成绩实际上是相当容易的……

Okay, we’ll go to station number one.好的，我们将前往第一站。

TOMO DRGE: Hello, Mr. Buffett, my name is Tomo Drge. I’m from Düsseldorf, Germany. This is my first time out here in Omaha, so thank you for having us here today. So my question is directed to you, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel.TOMO DRGE：您好，巴菲特先生，我叫 Tomo Drge。我是德国杜塞尔多夫人。这是我第一次来到奥马哈，非常感谢今天邀请我们。我的问题是想问您，巴菲特先生和亚伯先生。

In 2019, you reportedly made a bid for the IT distribution business, Tech Data, and commented that you understand its role as a middleman. I wonder if you could kindly elaborate on the criteria you look at when evaluating IT distribution businesses like Tech Data and their competitive position. Thank you.2019 年，据报道您对 IT 分销业务 Tech Data 提出了收购，并评论说您理解其作为中间商的作用。我想请问您能否详细说明在评估像 Tech Data 这样的 IT 分销业务及其竞争地位时，您看重的标准是什么？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we had some experience with distribution businesses, and we know their potential to a degree and their limitations. And, Greg, you were involved in that more than I was. I mean, that was a case where there had been a bid made, and there was a go-shop provision, and I think the management probably would have preferred that we buy it. And when we went in with a better bid, the original party raised their bid, and we never make the same offer twice, so… Greg, tell [us about it].沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们在分销业务方面有一些经验，对它们的潜力和局限性有一定的了解。格雷格，你比我参与得多。我的意思是，那是一个已经有人提出收购，并且有“寻找其他买家”条款的案例，我认为管理层可能更希望我们收购。当我们提出更好的报价时，原收购方提高了报价，而我们从不重复同样的报价，所以……格雷格，你给我们讲讲吧。

GREG ABEL: Yeah, so, absolutely. In 2019, we saw Tech Data as a unique opportunity. When we saw the other bid and the underlying value of that distribution business, we did… Warren, Warren and I were talking, [and] others made the conclusion we should talk to management. We talked to the team. They were very interested in Berkshire being their long-term owner, and we still saw good value in the opportunity. And we had a good understanding of distribution businesses.格雷格·阿贝尔：是的，绝对如此。2019 年，我们看到 Tech Data 是一个独特的机会。当看到其他竞标和该分销业务的潜在价值时，我们做了……沃伦，我和沃伦谈论，[其他人]得出结论我们应该与管理层接触。我们接触了团队。他们对伯克希尔成为他们的长期所有者非常感兴趣，而且我们仍然认为这个机会具有良好的价值。我们对分销业务有很好的了解。

We have TTI. It’s not exactly identical to Tech Data in that they’re very specific to who their customers are and who they serve and supply and who they purchase from. Because on the distribution side, it’s important to have that input coming in from folks who want their product. And, you know, it’s needed on the other side that there’s demand for it. And they had an excellent model, if you think of TTI, for example, that Warren’s talked about Paul Andrews many times, [who was] the person who founded this business.我们有 TTI。它与 Tech Data 并不完全相同，因为它们非常具体于其客户是谁，他们服务、供应和购买的对象。因为在分销方面，重要的是要有那些希望购买其产品的人的输入。你知道，在另一边也需要有需求。如果考虑到 TTI，例如，沃伦多次谈论过保罗·安德鲁斯[他是这家企业的创始人]，他们有一个极好的模式。

But it’s a unique business in that our revenues on that business are approximately $10 billion. The average part they sell is a little over nine cents. Ninety-five billion parts go through their warehouse every year. But it’s a model that, if you have the right people on both sides of the equation and you understand that, well, there’s, there’s a unique opportunity there. And, and that is something we saw in Tech Data.但这是一家独特的公司，因为我们在这项业务上的收入约为 100 亿美元。他们平均销售的产品价格略高于九美分。每年有 950 亿件产品通过他们的仓库。但这是一个模式，如果你在等式两边都有合适的人，并且你理解这一点，那么，那里有一个独特的机遇。而，而我们在 Tech Data 看到了这一点。

And as Warren highlighted, we made our bid. Unfortunately, it was then topped by the original bidder, and we moved on. But we thought very highly of it. We’ve probably seen at least five of them in aggregate over the last three or four, five years. It’s not a business that you can dream about because it’s a decent business.正如沃伦所强调的，我们提出了报价。不幸的是，它被最初的出价者超过了，我们便转移了目标。但我们非常看重它。在过去三到五年中，我们大概已经看到了至少五起类似的情况。这不是一个你可以梦想的业务，因为它是一个相当不错的业务。

But, for example, many of the items that the manufacturer just… they don’t want to tie up their capital [in inventory]. If you have, you know, a million-plus SKUs (stock-keeping units), it’s like selling jelly beans or something like that. And you do… You’re serving a purpose to a degree, but you don’t… You don’t really… It isn’t your product, in effect. I mean, you’re just a good system for the producer of the equipment to get it to the end user without tying up a lot of capital, being in a business they don’t want to be in. We understand, but there’s no magic to it.但是，例如，许多制造商并不希望将资本……[沉淀在库存中]。如果你有，你知道，一百万个以上的 SKU（库存单位），那就好比卖糖果或者类似的东西。你确实……在一定程度上，你在提供服务，但你并不……你并不真正……实际上，那并不是你的产品。我的意思是，你只是一个好的系统，让设备制造商能够将其送达最终用户，而无需大量资本沉淀在它们不希望参与的生意中。我们理解，但这并没有什么神奇之处。

With TTI, you had a marvelous man running things, and when you get a marvelous person running something, to some extent, that’s [a] deluxe [situation]. [They attract] better people underneath. Greg and I went to Paul Andrews’ funeral a few years ago, and there were 300 people or so there, and there wasn’t one person that had to say something particularly nice, but [everyone] stretched a little bit about the deceased. I mean, everybody… Paul Andrews was the real McCoy, and he was an amazing man. He behaved wonderfully with Berkshire. I mean, he wanted to do more for Berkshire than Berkshire would do for him. I mean, it was very simple.有了 TTI，你就有了一位出色的管理者在掌舵，当你得到一位出色的人来管理某事时，在某种程度上，这就是一种优越的情况。[他们吸引]了更优秀的人才。我和格雷格几年前去了保罗·安德鲁斯的葬礼，大约有 300 人到场，没有一个人需要特别说些好话，但[每个人都]对逝者表示了敬意。我的意思是，每个人都……保罗·安德鲁斯就是真正的佼佼者，他是一位了不起的人。他对伯克希尔表现得非常出色。我的意思是，他希望为伯克希尔做比伯克希尔为他做的更多。我的意思是，这非常简单。

And you run into those people, as I say, you run into people that bend over backward for us, and then some bend over forwards. But that’s just the way it is in this world, and we’ve had quite a few that have been [bending] over backward for us.而且，正如我所说，你会遇到那些为我们鞠躬尽瘁的人，有些人甚至向前弯腰。但这就是世界的样子，我们遇到过许多为我们鞠躬尽瘁的人。

The distribution business is not a wonderful business, but it is a business. And if it’s big enough, it’s one we would look at and we would buy [more of], and TTI makes some smaller acquisitions on its own all the time. I don’t even hear about them until I read the quarterly reports. And so we… We want to build up… We want to build our businesses in every area that we operate, and we’ve got unlimited capital to do it. So we’re willing to have small acquisitions take place if they fit in with something we already have. But we’re not in the business of going out after small acquisitions, and if we did, we [wouldn’t be successful]. We just don’t have the people for it, and it wouldn’t move the needle anyway. At Berkshire, we may or we would have been happy doing the deal [that] the questioner asked about.分销业务并非什么好生意，但它就是生意。如果规模足够大，我们会考虑并购买更多，而 TTI 会自行进行一些小型收购。我甚至不知道它们，直到我在季度报告中读到。所以我们……我们想要……我们希望在运营的每个领域发展我们的业务，我们拥有无限的资本来做这件事。因此，如果小型收购符合我们已有的业务，我们愿意进行。但我们不从事追逐小型收购的业务，如果我们那样做，[我们不会成功]。我们根本没有这方面的人才，而且无论如何都不会产生重大影响。在伯克希尔，我们可能或我们会很高兴完成提问者提到的交易。

But if we don’t do it, you know, it just doesn’t make that much difference. We [only] want to do it if we [can] do it well. We’ll do it right. They’ll make the right decision. If they don’t, you know, we will find something else to do with the money in the end. And we can always buy a little more of TTI for you, the shareholders, by just buying in our stock, too.但我们如果不做，你知道，那差别并不大。我们[只]希望在[能]做好时才做。我们会正确地做。他们会做出正确的决定。如果他们不这样做，你知道，我们最终会找到用这笔钱做其他事情的方法。而且我们可以通过购买我们自己的股票，为股东们购买更多 TTI。

GREG ABEL: Exactly. 格雷格·阿贝尔：正是如此。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Okay. Let’s see. We need Becky next, don’t we?沃伦·巴菲特：是的。好吧。我们看看。我们需要贝琪，对吧？

BECKY QUICK: Yeah, Becky. All right, Warren, earlier you talked about selling some of the Apple shares in order to build up your cash supply. And I think it’s had a lot of people wondering where you see opportunities or what might be coming or [about] market valuations. So I’ll ask this question from Foster Taylor. At the 1999 annual meeting, you mentioned that if you owned all of America’s 500 businesses, you would be making $334 billion while paying $10.5 trillion. You emphasized that this was not a good return on investment. Today, by my math, the S&P 500 has a market capitalization of around $44 trillion, with profits of around $1.45 trillion. This is a very similar return on investment to the 1999 levels. Do you see similarities in the market today and the 1999 levels?贝琪·奎克：是的，贝琪。好的，沃伦，你之前提到要卖掉一些苹果股票来增加你的现金储备。我想这让很多人想知道你看到了哪些机会，或者可能会发生什么，或者关于市场估值。所以我会问一个来自福斯特·泰勒的问题。在 1999 年的年度会议上，你提到如果你拥有美国所有的 500 家企业，你会赚到 3340 亿美元，同时支付 1.05 万亿美元。你强调这并不是一个好的投资回报率。今天，根据我的计算，标普 500 的市值为约 4.4 万亿美元，利润约为 1450 亿美元。这是一个与 1999 年水平非常相似的投资回报率。你今天看到的市场与 1999 年水平有哪些相似之处？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, one thing has changed dramatically from… Well, from 1990… I misunderstood [the question] on the 1999 [meeting], but there have been times in my life that I’ve been awash in so many opportunities that I could have invested everything by nightfall. And then there are other times when the year goes… Well, not in the early days, but now we just… We haven’t seen anything that makes sense that moves the needle. Now, we’ve made small acquisitions during the year. Our companies have made acquisitions. And we… You know, Greg and I may talk about something that involves a $300 million purchase or something like that. And, you know, if it fits well enough, we do it.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，有一件事从……从 1990 年起发生了巨大变化……嗯，我在 1999 年的会议上误解了那个问题，但在我的生活中，有时我面对太多机会，到晚上就能把所有资金都投出去。而其他时候，一年过去了……嗯，不是在早期，但现在我们……我们还没看到任何有意义的、能推动局势发展的投资机会。今年我们进行了一些小型收购。我们的公司也进行了收购。而且……你知道，格雷格和我可能会谈论一笔涉及 3 亿美元收购或类似的事情。嗯，如果它足够契合，我们就做。

But… And if our managers see things that fit them, we want to look at them because our managers do not have necessarily the same equations in mind that we do. But there are some managers [to] which we would have just say, you know, whatever you decide to do. And then there are other managers that would not know how to allocate capital, particularly, and that they don’t have to be able to be great capital allocators. If they happen to be great at serving customers and understand their own industry and all of that, they can be great managers. A good many of them are capital allocators, and others aren’t.但是……如果我们的管理者看到了符合他们利益的情况，我们希望审视它们，因为我们的管理者未必有与我们相同的考量。但也有一些管理者，我们只需说，你知道，无论你决定做什么。然后还有其他管理者，他们不知道如何分配资本，尤其是，而且他们不必成为伟大的资本分配者。如果他们擅长服务客户，了解自己的行业等等，他们可以成为伟大的管理者。其中许多人都是资本分配者，其他人则不是。

But this is not a time when the phone is going to be ringing often. But there are times for that, and Greg will know how to handle them as well or better than I have. Over time, Charlie and I, we missed a lot of things, and what we really regretted was missing something that [should have been] very big. We never worried about missing something that we didn’t understand. Why should we be able to predict the future of every business any more than we can predict what wheat yields are likely to be in Illinois next year? Well, not Wheaton, Illinois, [but] Wheaton, Kansas, but [maybe] Cornyn, Illinois.但这并不是一个电话会频繁响起的时刻。但也会有那样的时刻，格雷格处理这些事情的能力将和我一样甚至更好。随着时间的推移，查理和我错过了很多事情，而真正让我们后悔的是错失了本应非常重大的事情。我们从未担心错过那些我们不理解的事情。我们怎么能预测每家企业的未来，就像我们预测明年伊利诺伊州的小麦产量一样？嗯，不是威顿，伊利诺伊州，而是威顿，堪萨斯州，但也许是科尼恩，伊利诺伊州。

So I don’t really think of whether it’s similar to 1999 because I’m not that good on chronology anyway. Unless something really dramatic happened at the time. I mean, I remember things from 2008 and [2009] much better than I remember whether something happened in 2015 or… Or 1987 or… Well, 1987 I remember because of October 19. But I just don’t think… I don’t think that way. I just look at what I can do every day. Greg.所以我不太在意它是否与 1999 年相似，因为我对年代顺序也不太擅长。除非当时发生了真正戏剧性的事情。我的意思是，我比记住 2015 年或……或 1987 年是否发生了某事记得更清楚 2008 年和[2009 年]的事情。嗯，1987 年我记得是因为 10 月 19 日。但我只是不这么认为……我不这么想。我只是看看我每天能做什么。格雷格。

GREG ABEL: I’m gonna have to [pass on that]. Nothing. Sorry. Nothing to add.格雷格·阿贝尔：我不得不[婉拒]。什么也没有。抱歉。没什么可补充的。

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay, well, we’ll go to station two. I mean, it’s nice to know what lines you can get.沃伦·巴菲特：好的，那么我们去第二个站点。意思是，知道你能得到哪些行业是件好事。

(Applause for session two.)（第二场次的掌声。）

STEFAN WUERNBACHER: Hello. My name is Stefan Wuernbacher. I am a shareholder from Hamburg, Germany. I’ve been coming to Omaha since 2007, and I’m deeply grateful for all the things I could learn here, both about investing and about life, in particular, creating circumstances that will enable me to lead a productive life during my entire healthy lifespan. So thank you for that.斯蒂芬·温纳巴赫：大家好。我叫斯蒂芬·温纳巴赫。我是来自德国汉堡的股东。自 2007 年以来我一直来奥马哈，我非常感激在这里学到的所有东西，无论是关于投资还是关于生活，特别是创造条件，使我能够在整个健康寿命期间过上富有成效的生活。所以谢谢你们。

My question to Warren, your favorite holding period is forever, holding American Express or Coca-Cola for decades. Berkshire recently went in and out of Markel, and you, I believe, sold and later bought Oxy, which I think happens to everyone all the time. But can you maybe [explain] to us [your] thought process when you exit positions? Thank you.我想问沃伦一个问题，你最喜欢的持有期是永远，持有美国运通或可口可乐几十年。伯克希尔最近在马克尔进出，而你，我相信，卖掉了后来又买入了西方石油，我认为这种情况对每个人来说都时常发生。但你能不能向我们解释一下你退出头寸时的思考过程？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there are various reasons for exiting positions. One is if you need the money, but that doesn’t happen very often with us. But it used to happen on every decision I made when I started when I was 20 years old, which I consider the post-Graham variant, although I actually started in 1942, if you just talk about buying stocks. But in any event, the decision process is really quite interesting in certain ways because we made… Charlie and I made decisions extremely fast. But in effect, after years of thinking about the parameters that would enable us to make the quick decision when it presented itself.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，退出仓位的原因有很多。一个是如果你需要钱，但这在我们这里很少发生。但在我 20 岁刚开始做决定时，这几乎每次都会发生，我认为这是格雷厄姆之后的变种，尽管我实际上从 1942 年开始买股票。但无论如何，决策过程在某些方面确实非常有趣，因为我们……我和查理做决策非常快。但实际上，经过多年思考，我们才确定了在出现这种情况时能够快速决策的参数。

People have speculated on how I’ve decided to really put a lot of money into Apple, and for a reason I can’t… One thing that Charlie and I both learned a lot about was consumer behavior. That didn’t mean we thought we could run a furniture store or anything else. But we did learn a lot when we bought a furniture chain in Baltimore. And we quickly realized that it was a mistake.人们一直在猜测我为什么决定将大量资金投入苹果，原因是我无法……查理和我都学到了很多关于消费者行为的东西。但这并不意味着我们认为我们可以经营家具店或其他任何东西。但在我们买下巴尔的摩的家具连锁店后，我们确实学到了很多，并且很快意识到这是一个错误。

But having made that mistake, [it] made us smarter about actually thinking through what the capital allocation process would be and how people were likely to behave in the future with department stores and all kinds of things that we wouldn’t have really focused on. So we learned something about consumer behavior from that. We didn’t learn how to run a department store. Now, the next one was See’s Candy. And See’s Candy was also a study of consumer behavior.但是，犯了这个错误之后，我们变得更加聪明，开始认真思考资本配置过程以及未来人们可能会如何行为，特别是在百货商店和各种我们之前并未真正关注的事物上。因此，我们从中学到了一些关于消费者行为的知识。我们并没有学到如何经营百货商店。接下来是 See’s Candy。See’s Candy 也是一个关于消费者行为的研究。

We didn’t know how to make candy. There were all kinds of things we didn’t know. But we’ve learned more about consumer behavior as we go along. And that sort of background, in a very general way, led up to [our] study of consumer behavior in terms of Apple’s products.我们不知道如何制作糖果。有各种各样的事情我们不知道。但是，随着我们的不断探索，我们学到了更多关于消费者行为的知识。这种背景，在非常普遍的方式上，促使我们研究苹果产品的消费者行为。

And in that case, while I watched what was happening at the furniture mart, in terms of people leaving the store, even though we were selling Apple products at a price where we weren’t even making any money, [they] were just so popular that if we didn’t have it, people left the store and went to Best Buy or someplace. And if you know the Blumkins, they can’t stand anybody leaving the store, so they behave accordingly. But then you learned that [customers] had [an] interest in the brand, and then you had a million different inputs. But I think the psychologists call this apperceptive mass. But there is something that comes along that takes a whole bunch of observations that you’ve made and knowledge you have and then crystallizes your thinking into action.在这种情况下，我观察到家具商场的情况，虽然我们销售苹果产品的价格连成本都不够，但它们非常受欢迎，如果没有这些产品，人们就会离开商店去百思买或其他地方。如果你了解布鲁姆金人，他们无法忍受有人离开商店，所以他们表现得相应地。但当你了解到顾客对品牌的兴趣时，你就会有无数不同的输入。但我想心理学家称之为感知大众。但总会有一些事情出现，将你观察到的所有现象和知识结晶成行动。

[This led to] big action in the case of Apple. And there actually is something, which I don’t mean to be mysterious, but I really can’t talk about, but it was perfectly legal, I’m sure, you know, that. It just happened to be something that entered the picture that took all the other observations. And I guess my mind reached what they call apperceptive mass, which I really don’t know anything about, but I know the phenomenon when I experience it. And that is, we saw something that I felt was, well, enormously [important to the] enterprise.[这导致了] 苹果公司的情况发生了重大变化。实际上确实存在一些事情，我并非有意神秘化，但我真的不能谈论，但我知道这是完全合法的，我确信，你知道，就是这样。只是恰好出现了一些事情，掩盖了所有其他观察结果。我想我的思维达到了他们所说的感知质量，我真的不知道这是什么，但我知道当我体验这种现象时的感受。那就是，我们看到了一些我认为对企业来说极其重要的事情。

Maybe I’ve used this example before, but if you talk to most people, if they have an iPhone and they have a second car, the second car cost them 30 or $35,000, and they were told that they never could have the iPhone again, or they could never have the second car again, they would give up the second car. But the second car cost them 20 times [more than the iPhone]. Now, people don’t think about their purchases that way, but I think about their behavior. And so we just decide without knowing.也许我之前用过这个例子，但如果你和大多数人交谈，如果他们有 iPhone 并且有第二辆车，第二辆车的成本是 3 万或 3.5 万美元，并且他们被告知永远不能再拥有 iPhone，或者永远不能再拥有第二辆车，他们会放弃第二辆车。但第二辆车的成本是 iPhone 的 20 倍。现在，人们不会以这种方式考虑他们的购买行为，但我关注的是他们的行为。所以我们不知不觉地做出了决定。

I don’t know. There may be some little guy inside the iPhone or something. I have no idea how it works. But I also know what it means. I know what it means to people, and I know how they use it.我不知道。iPhone 里面可能有一些小东西。我不知道它是怎么工作的。但我也知道它的意义。我知道它对人们意味着什么，也知道他们如何使用它。

And I think I know enough about consumer behavior to know that it’s one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time. And the value it offers is incredible. And I think it has, and Tim Cook, I think it has somebody that, in his own way, is the equivalent of a partner, [a] partner with Steve Jobs that could do one thing extraordinarily well and more than one application, but one thing. And Tim was the perfect partner to serve sequentially with him. So it’s, you sort of know it when you see it.而且我认为我对消费者行为了解得足够多，知道它是伟大的产品之一，也许是史上最伟大的产品。它所提供的价值是难以置信的。我认为它有，而且蒂姆·库克，我认为它有一个人，以他自己的方式，是史蒂夫·乔布斯的合作伙伴，一个能做一件事做得非常出色，而且不止一个应用，但只有一个。蒂姆是他完美的合作伙伴，按顺序与他合作。所以，当你看到它的时候，你就能知道它。

I actually saw it with GEICO when I, I went there in 1950. I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing, but Lorimer Davidson on a Saturday, in 4 hours, taught me enough about… what I understood what auto insurance was, and I knew what a car was, and I knew what people [were thinking]. I knew they didn’t like to buy it, but I knew they couldn’t drive without it. So that was pretty interesting. And then, but he filled in all the blanks in my mind as I sat there on that Saturday afternoon.我实际上在 1950 年去 GEICO 的时候看到了这一点。我当时不知道我看到了什么，但洛里默·大卫森在一个星期六，4 个小时内，教了我足够多关于……我理解了汽车保险是什么，我知道汽车是什么，我知道人们在想什么。我知道他们不喜欢购买，但我知道没有它他们不能开车。所以那非常有趣。然后，但在那个星期六下午，他填补了我脑海中的所有空白。

And, you know, every now and then it happens. You know, why do you [choose] this [one] person you met? You know, there are all these different potential spouses in the room, and then something happens that you decide that this is the one for you. You know, I think Rodgers and Hammerstein, [in] “Some Enchanted Evening,” wrote about that. Well, our idea of an enchanted evening is to come up with a business, Charlie and me, and there is an aspect of knowing a whole lot and having a whole lot of experiences and then seeing something that turns on the light bulb.而且，你知道，时不时就会发生这样的事情。你知道，为什么你要选择你遇到的那个人？你知道，房间里全是各种潜在配偶，然后发生了一些事情，你决定这就是你要找的人。你知道，我想罗杰斯和哈默斯坦，在《有些迷人的夜晚》中写到了这一点。好吧，我们所谓的迷人夜晚是，查理和我一起想出一个生意，然后了解很多，有很多经验，然后看到一些事情，让灯泡亮起来。

And that will continue to happen. And I hope it happens a few times to you, but you can’t make it happen tomorrow, but you can prepare yourself for it happening tomorrow, and it will happen sometimes.这种情况会继续发生。我希望它会在你身上发生几次，但你不能让它明天就发生，但你可以为你明天可能发生的事情做好准备，它有时会发生。

BECKY QUICK: Hey, Warren, he mentioned Oxy, which I think is a great example where you made the original decision basically on a weekend with some thought. But as [you learned] more about Oxy and the, the asset position, they had their ability to operate in an exceptional manner, and then a strong CEO around capital allocation. I think your confidence, which was reflected in continuing to acquire more shares, is sort of that type of process.贝琪·奎克：嘿，沃伦，他提到了牛津，我认为这是一个很好的例子，你最初的决定基本上是在一个周末做的，并且进行了一些思考。但随着你对牛津以及资产状况的了解越来越多，他们有能力以卓越的方式运营，并且有一个在资本配置方面非常强大的 CEO。我认为你的信心，体现在继续收购更多股票上，是那种类型的过程。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, it’s exactly to the point. I mean, I just learned more as I went along. I learned enough. You know, I’d never, I’d heard of Occidental Petroleum. Occidental Petroleum happens to [have] been a descendant, not a descendant, but it’s a continuation of Cities Service, which was the first stock I bought. And, of course, I knew a lot about the oil and gas business, but I didn’t know anything about geology, so I knew the economics of it. I had a lot of various things stored in my mind about the business, but I never heard of Vicki Hollub until, I guess, it was a Friday or Saturday, and we met on Sunday morning. We made a deal, but that was one sort of deal. And then as time passed, all [kinds] of different events happened. You know, Icon came in. I mean, there are a million things you couldn’t predict at the start, and I formed certain opinions as I went along, but then, I learned more as I went along. And then at a point when I heard an investor call, it put things together for me in a way… It didn’t mean I knew I had a sure thing or anything like that. I don’t know what the price of oil was going to be next year, but I knew that it was something to act on. So we did, and we’re very happy we did, and we still don’t know what the price of oil is going to be next year.沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这很切题。我一路走来学到了更多。学够了。你知道，我以前听说过西方石油公司。西方石油公司实际上是城市服务公司的延续，而城市服务公司是我买的第一支股票。当然，我对石油和天然气行业很了解，但我对地质学一无所知，所以我了解它的经济性。我在脑海里储存了很多关于这门生意的各种信息，但直到某个周五或周六，我们在周日早上相遇之前，我从未听说过维姬·霍卢布。我们达成了交易，但这只是一类交易。然后随着时间的推移，发生了各种各样的事情。你知道，艾肯公司进来了。我的意思是，一开始有无数的事情是无法预料的，我逐渐形成了一些看法，但随后，我继续学到了更多。然后在我听到一个投资者打电话给我的时候，事情在我脑海中串联起来了……这并不意味着我知道我有一个稳赚不赔的买卖，或者诸如此类。我不知道明年的油价会是什么，但我知道那是一个可以采取行动的事情。 所以我们做了，而且我们很高兴我们做了，但我们仍然不知道明年的油价会是什么。

I don’t know what [Vicki] does, but I think the odds are very good that it was, but not a cinch, that it was a good decision, and we’ve got options to buy more stock, and when we get through with it, it could be a worthwhile investment for Berkshire. We’re in it, and we’re in it for keeps. There are other things that we own that we aren’t in for keeps.我不知道 [Vicki] 做了什么，但我认为它有很大的可能性是正确的，但不是绝对的，这是一个好的决定，而且我们还有购买更多股票的选项，当我们完成它时，这可能对伯克希尔来说是一项值得的投资。我们参与了，而且我们打算长期持有。我们还有其他拥有的东西，但我们并不打算长期持有。

Oh, incidentally, I should just throw this out, since there’s been speculation on it. We’ve sold [our stake in] Paramount. I was 100% responsible for the Paramount decision. I [have] read speculation that either Ted or Todd had some involvement in that. No, it was 100% my decision, and we sold it all, and we lost quite a bit of money, and that happens in this business, too. But actually owning Paramount made me think even further… I like to think deeper, but I certainly thought harder even about the whole question of what people do with their leisure time and what the governing principles are of running an entertainment business of any sort, whether it’s sports or movies or whatever it might be. And I think I’m smarter now than I was a couple of years ago. But I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did. But I just want to be very clear that, a, we lost money on Paramount, and, b, and I did it all by myself, folks.哦，顺便提一下，既然已经有关于此事的猜测，我干脆就公开吧。我们已经卖掉了派拉蒙的股份。派拉蒙的决策我负全部责任。我读到过一些猜测，说泰德或托德也参与其中。不，这是 100%我的决定，我们卖掉了所有股份，而且亏损了不少钱，这种事在这个行业里也会发生。但实际拥有派拉蒙让我思考得更加深入……我喜欢深入思考，但即使是关于人们如何利用休闲时间，以及经营任何形式娱乐业务（无论是体育还是电影等）的治理原则，我也思考得更加深入。我认为我现在比几年前聪明多了。但我同时也认为我更穷了，因为我以那样的方式获得了知识。但我想非常明确地指出，第一，我们在派拉蒙上亏损了钱，第二，我完全是独自一人完成的，各位。

I don’t know whether I’ve anticipated one of Becky’s questions now, but we will find out. Let’s see now.我不知道是否已经预料到了贝基的一个问题，但我们会知道的。现在让我们看看吧。

BECKY QUICK: Yes, you did anticipate one of the questions. Let’s go to another one. This question comes from Vincent James in Munich, Germany. In the chairman’s letter, Warren points out that the profit margins for BNSF have slipped relative to all five other railroads. However, Warren comments in the letter, “BNSF carries more freight and spends more on capital expenditures than any of the other five major railroads, and has a vast service territory second to none.” Given the comments from Warren about the clear strengths of BNSF, what explains the decline in revenue and profit, and in particular, the profit margins relative to the other five railroads? What are the issues relative to the other railroads, and what is being done to address them? Please be specific.贝琪·奎克：是的，你确实预料到了一个问题。我们来看下一个问题。这个问题来自德国慕尼黑的文森特·詹姆斯。在董事长信中，沃伦指出 BNSF 的利润率相对于其他五家铁路公司有所下滑。然而，沃伦在信中评论道，“BNSF 承运的货物比其他五家主要铁路公司更多，资本支出也更高，其服务区域广阔，无出其右。”鉴于沃伦对 BNSF 明显优势的评论，是什么解释了收入和利润的下降，特别是相对于其他五家铁路公司的利润率下降？与其他铁路公司相比，存在哪些问题，又采取了哪些措施来解决这些问题？请具体说明。

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay. And I will… Well, how specific we get depends on what Greg wants to say. But Greg, it’s… It’s Greg’s responsibility. It’s my responsibility for the purchase and for the operation up till Greg took over. But I think I’ll let Greg answer that.沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我们具体讨论到什么程度取决于格雷格想说什么。但格雷格，这是……这是格雷格的责任。购买和运营的责任，直到格雷格接手之前，都是我的责任。但我认为我会让格雷格来回答这个问题。

GREG ABEL: Sure. Yeah, [what] Warren touched on… And the comments from the… As reflected there are very accurate. If you look at this quarter’s results or our last year’s results, they were both… They’re disappointing as shareholders and disappointing… relative to the other Class I railroads. And as highlighted in the question, there are five other Class I railroads. So it’s pretty easy to understand how you’re performing versus the others.格雷格·阿贝尔：当然。是的，沃伦提到的内容……以及从中反映出的评论都非常准确。如果你看一下本季度的业绩或我们去年的业绩，它们都……对股东来说都是令人失望的，相对于其他一级铁路公司也是如此。正如问题中强调的那样，还有其他五家一级铁路公司。所以很容易理解你的表现与其他公司相比如何。

And there’s a lot of other variables, but there’s some very simple things to look at. When we look at where we’ve been with, associated with Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), I would… I would just back up a little bit because if you go back to 2021, the BNSF team and management team and the group, we’re making excellent progress on a lot of fronts when it comes to our operating [costs], and both being… Being efficient and effective in how we’re operating the railroad. And I remember very specific comments from myself in 2022, where I commented that that was the year there were all the supply chain issues, a lot going on in the West Coast ports. Our trains were backed up in a variety of places, and we called that a reset year. And I think we did need a reset year on the operational side. But as we moved into ’23, the business cost level, cost structure, we didn’t reset it to the underlying demand we were seeing. We anticipated more demand, and we did not reset our cost structure. And the team’s working very hard as we speak, to both reset the cost structure and allocate the cost resources where they need to be.还有许多其他变量，但也有一些非常简单的事情需要关注。当我们回顾与伯灵顿北圣菲铁路公司（BNSF）相关的情况时，我会……我会稍微倒退一下时间，因为如果你回到 2021 年，BNSF 团队、管理层和整个集团，在运营成本方面取得了卓越的进展，在铁路运营的效率和效果上都非常出色。我记得在 2022 年，我非常具体地提到，那一年是供应链问题频发的年份，西海岸港口发生了许多事情。我们的列车在各个地方积压，我们将那一年称为“重置年”。我认为我们在运营方面确实需要一个重置年。但当我们进入 2023 年，业务成本水平、成本结构，我们没有根据我们看到的基本需求进行重置。我们预计需求会增加，但我们没有调整成本结构。目前，团队正在非常努力地工作，既要调整成本结构，也要将成本资源分配到需要的地方。

And when you go through something like that, what we’ve recognized as an organization… yes, the demand of the rail will drive a certain amount of the cost, but the reality is that the rail industry, if you go back many, many years, it’s flat. There’s not a lot of growth in the industry. There are opportunities [to] become more efficient, effective, and our margins can go up. But the reality is the demand is going to be flat. But it does move within different sectors of the rail. It can be in the consumer products, it can be [in] industrial, it can be [in] ag[riculture]. But overall, it’s generally going to be relatively flat. So we need to get our cost structure right, and we need to get it right, both for the coming year, but for the long term. And that means it’s going to be a continuous exercise. We can’t stop. We can’t say we, we’ve gotten far enough because our competitors, and we compete with the other rails, but we also do compete with the truck industry. We have to have a cost structure [that] allows us to compete both within our rail industry and within the transportation sector as a whole.当您经历这样的事情时，我们所认识到的是……是的，铁路的需求将推动一部分成本，但现实是，铁路行业，如果您回顾很多很多年，它一直很平稳。这个行业没有太多增长。有提高效率、有效性的机会，我们的利润率可以提高。但现实是需求将保持平稳。但它会在铁路的不同领域内波动。它可以是消费品领域，也可以是工业领域，也可以是农业领域。但总体来说，它将相对平稳。因此，我们需要调整好成本结构，并且需要正确处理，既要为来年，也要为长期。这意味着这将是一个持续的过程。我们不能停止。我们不能说我们已经做得足够好了，因为我们的竞争对手，我们在与铁路行业竞争，但我们也在与卡车行业竞争。我们必须拥有一个能够让我们在铁路行业和整个交通运输领域内竞争的成本结构。

So the team at Burlington is working very hard to address the cost structure, just like we have in the past. I think one thing we do recognize, when the other railroads have implemented precision scheduled railroading, there are other metrics that we have to continue to pay attention to and challenge ourselves. If we’re not at their level, what are the things that are driving it? So we’re gonna… When they ask for specifics, I’ll give you a few. We have to look at our rail yards and understand how we’re managing that. We have to look at our locomotive fleet, both the size and how we’re utilizing that, and challenge ourselves. And we have to then go back to how we’re using our employee resources and allocating them across the business.所以，伯灵顿的团队正在非常努力地解决成本结构问题，就像我们过去所做的那样。我认为我们确实认识到，当其他铁路公司实施精准时刻表铁路运输时，我们必须继续关注并挑战自己。如果我们没有达到他们的水平，那么是什么在推动这种差距？所以我们要……当他们要求具体细节时，我会给你几个例子。我们必须审视我们的铁路场站，了解我们是如何管理的。我们必须审视我们的机车车队，包括规模和如何利用这些资源，并挑战自己。然后我们必须回到如何使用我们的员工资源，并在整个业务中分配它们。

So there’s a lot to be done there. Our team’s 100% committed to driving to the right cost structure that’s going [to be] consistent with the underlying demand in the business, and then we can’t stop there, is the answer. So, a lot to be done, but we have a team that’s absolutely engaged and committed to it, and we’re going to make good progress in this current year.所以那里有很多工作要做。我们的团队 100%致力于推动与业务基础需求相一致的正确成本结构，然后我们不能止步于此。所以有很多工作要做，但我们有一个绝对投入并致力于此事的团队，我们将在今年取得良好的进展。

WARREN BUFFETT: At Berkshire, we want everybody to have the idea that there’s a lot to be done with every business, you know? So, I mean, it is… We built a remarkable, remarkable company, and [the] Omaha building company, [was] really remarkable. And there’s this question, after everything they did, that was something that was done particularly well, you know, digging a tunnel under the East River or something, [he] said it couldn’t be done. He would say he would be… He was pleased, but not satisfied. And that is exactly the way we want the attitude to be at Berkshire forever.沃伦·巴菲特：在伯克希尔，我们希望每个人都能有这样一个想法，那就是每家业务都有很多可以做的事情，你知道？所以，我的意思是，我们建立了一家卓越的公司，而奥马哈建筑公司，确实非常卓越。他们做了这么多事情之后，有一个问题，他们做得特别出色，你知道，比如在东河下挖隧道之类的，他说这不可能做到。他会说他会……他很高兴，但不满意。这正是我们希望在伯克希尔永远保持的态度。

Omaha is a railroad town. If President Lincoln, in 1862, I think it was, had decided to pick St. Joe or Plattsmouth or anyplace else to build the transcontinental railroad, Omaha would probably [be] a little town of 20,000 or something on the banks of the Missouri. But [because of] Lincoln’s desire to make this the eastern connection and make a transcontinental railroad, Omaha just took off. So it’s been… It’s been railroading at its base. The… You know… And anybody that was interested in financial matters had to think about railroads. Plus, they had a certain glamour to them anyway.奥马哈是一个铁路之城。如果林肯总统在 1862 年，我想是那一年，决定选择圣约瑟夫或普拉特斯莫或任何其他地方来修建横贯大陆铁路，奥马哈可能只是一个位于密苏里河畔的 2 万人口的小镇。但因为林肯希望将这里作为东部连接点，修建横贯大陆铁路，奥马哈就此起飞。所以它一直是……它一直是铁路的基础。你知道……而且任何对金融感兴趣的人都必须考虑铁路。而且它们本身也有一定的魅力。

But the interesting thing is that UP, which is our main competitor, fell way behind 20 or 25 years ago. Before Jim Young came in, in 2000, whenever it was, eight or so, I started buying three railroad stocks: Union Pacific, BNSF, and Norfolk Western, I believe. I don’t know why I wasn’t buying C&O, but in any event, Jim Young had done a marvelous job with being with Union Pacific. So we were on all three stocks. But what we did in 2009 is we were able… Well, we already owned 22% of it, but overall, it was $35 billion, which was a significant part of our capital. We were able to put it to work in a business we liked. And there are certain tax advantages that come in terms of making money in something that’s more than 80% owned. We call it 100% owned, in this case, versus making it through stocks. So it has a net benefit to us from making the same amount of money owning one of the other railroads, by owning all of the railroad, and we got $35 billion out during a recessionary period.但有趣的是，我们主要竞争对手 UP，早在 20 或 25 年前就已远远落后。在吉姆·扬于 2000 年（具体时间我不记得了）到来之前，我大约开始购买三家铁路股票：联合太平洋、BNSF 和诺福克西部铁路，我相信是这样。我不知道为什么当时没有购买 C&O，但无论如何，吉姆·扬与联合太平洋合作干得非常出色。所以我们持有这三家公司的股票。但我们在 2009 年做的是，我们能够……嗯，我们当时已经持有其 22%的股份，但整体价值为 350 亿美元，这是我们资本的重要组成部分。我们能够将其投入到我们喜欢的业务中。而且，在持有超过 80%股份的公司中赚钱有一定的税收优势。在这种情况下，我们称之为 100%控股，而不是通过股票来实现。因此，通过控股整个铁路公司，相比于持有其他铁路公司的股份来赚取相同数量的钱，对我们来说有净收益。我们在经济衰退时期获得了 350 亿美元。

I think that was the worst quarter, the third quarter of 2009, maybe [that] the rails had had for a long time. So it’s worked out. Actually, it’s worked out very well, but it’s because we were putting out capital in 2008 and [2009], and if we put money in anything, we’d have made a lot of money. But it’s more satisfying, and it’s actually better in certain ways, tax-wise, to make it from something that’s 100% owned [than from] a bunch of 5% or 10% owned businesses.我认为那是最糟糕的季度，2009 年的第三季度，也许是铁路很长时间以来都处于低谷。所以结果还不错。实际上，结果非常好，但这是因为我们在 2008 年和 2009 年投入了资本，如果我们把钱投入到任何地方，都会赚很多钱。但更重要的是，从某种意义上说，从 100%拥有的企业中获利比从拥有 5%或 10%的企业中获利更令人满意，而且在税务方面也更好。

As I mentioned in the annual report, railroads are absolutely essential to the country. That doesn’t mean they’re on the cutting edge of everything. They’re just essential to the country. And that’s why the government, I think they took them over one time, and they negotiate what our labor settlements will be and everything. And if you shut down the railroads of the country, it would be incredible, the effects, but… And they would be impossible to construct now. I mean, look at what’s happening in California when they’re trying to build a [high-speed rail] line. I mean, you know, everybody’s worried about the environmental effect of every mile, and, you know, and what will happen to the various species of birds. Can you imagine the rail system of the United States being built? It would take decades, unless [there] was a war on and the government took over things and just ordered them. You can’t create it.正如我在年报中所说，铁路对国家而言绝对至关重要。但这并不意味着它们在所有领域都处于最前沿。它们只是对国家至关重要。这也是为什么政府，我认为他们曾经接管过铁路，并协商我们的劳工协议等事宜。如果关闭国家的铁路，其影响将是难以想象的……而且现在也不可能修建。我的意思是，看看加利福尼亚正在尝试修建[高铁]线路时发生的事情。你知道，每个人都担心每英里的环境影响，以及各种鸟类物种将发生什么。你能想象美国的铁路系统被修建起来吗？如果没有战争爆发，政府接管事务并下令，否则这将需要数十年时间。你无法创造它。

So we love owning a business like that. It’s going to be around 100 years from now, [it] won’t be the best growth business in the world at all during that period, but it will be essential. And what it earns in relation to its replacement value is a pittance. But we’ll do fine in terms of what we paid for it. And we’ll distribute substantial amounts in relation to what we paid to Berkshire in a very tax-efficient way.所以我们喜欢拥有这样的企业。到那时，大约 100 年后，[它]在那段时期内将不会是世界最佳增长型业务，但它将是不可或缺的。它所赚取的与其重置价值相比只是微不足道。但就我们所付出的代价而言，我们会做得很好。并且我们将以非常高效的方式，就我们所付出的代价向伯克希尔分配大量资金。

So [the answer to] the question is, what are the issues relative to the other railroads? It wouldn’t have been the end of the world at all if we bought the Union Pacific, and Jim Young had stayed alive to run it for us. That would have been great, too. But we had the opportunity to buy BNSF, and it’s been good for them, and it’s been good for us. And we think it’s been a very important asset to the country. And I just hope we can find something in other industries that makes as much sense as that, where we can put a whole bunch of money to work at an advantageous time.所以，[问题的答案]是，与其他铁路公司相关的问题是什么？如果我们收购了联合太平洋铁路公司，而且吉姆·杨也活着为我们运营它，那也根本不会是世界末日。那也会很棒。但我们有机会收购 BNSF，这对他们和我们都很好。我们认为这对国家来说是一个非常重要的资产。我只希望我们能在其他行业找到像这样有意义的投资，让我们能在有利时机投入大量资金。

So, let’s go on to station three. Is that correct or not? Yeah. Okay. Kia ora, good afternoon. Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel.那么，我们继续到第三站。这是正确的吗？是的。好的。你好，下午好。巴菲特先生，阿贝尔先生。

SIRAPOB WU: My name is Sirapob Wu. [I am] a resident of New Zealand but originally from Thailand. This is my first time in America and [my] first time attending the meeting. The journey was rough, but it was all worth it because I can now personally thank you, Mr. Buffett—and the late Charlie Munger, were he still with us—for organizing such a wonderful event and, most importantly, for being such exceptional role models and sharing your wisdom with us all these years. So, thank you.SIRAPOB WU：我叫 Sirapob Wu。我是新西兰居民，但原籍泰国。这是我第一次来美国，也是我第一次参加这次会议。旅途虽然艰难，但这一切都是值得的，因为我现在可以亲自感谢你，巴菲特先生——以及已故的查理·芒格，如果他还在我们身边的话——组织了这样一场精彩的活动，最重要的是，作为如此杰出的榜样，多年来与我们一起分享你们的智慧。所以，谢谢。

Here’s my question for you, Mr. Buffett. Towards the end of 2018, you mentioned that you guarantee you could make a 50% annual return if you had to start again with under $1 million. The question is: if tomorrow you woke up in the body of a 20-year-old American, your name was now Warren À la carte, and you had some money to invest on a full-time basis, what method or methods would you use to achieve that return? Would it involve flipping through 20,000 pages of Moody’s Manual and similar publications to find cigar butts? Or would it be hunting for great companies at a fair price, as Mr. Munger would? Or would it be a combination of both, with opportunity cost serving as the final arbiter of which method to use, given that your investing universe had now broadened significantly? Thank you. Kob khun krab.这是我对您的提问，巴菲特先生。2018 年底，您提到如果要从头开始且资金不足 100 万美元，您保证可以实现 50%的年回报率。问题是：如果明天您醒来时身处一个 20 岁的美国人身体里，您的名字现在是沃伦·À la carte，并且您有资金可以全职投资，您会使用什么方法或方法来实现这一回报率？是会翻阅 2 万页的穆迪手册和其他类似出版物来寻找雪茄屁股吗？还是会像芒格先生那样，以合理价格寻找伟大的公司？还是会结合两者，以机会成本作为最终决定使用哪种方法的仲裁者，考虑到您的投资领域现在已大大拓宽？谢谢。Kob khun krab。

WARREN BUFFETT: Good question. I’m glad you came. The answer would be, in my particular case, it would be going through the 20,000 pages. And since we were talking about railroads, you know, I went through the Moody’s Transportation Manual a couple of times. That was 1,500 or 2,000 pages, or probably 1,500 pages.沃伦·巴菲特：好问题。我很高兴您来了。就我个人的情况而言，我会去翻阅那 2 万页。因为我们之前在谈论铁路，您知道，我翻阅了几次穆迪交通运输手册。那有 1,500 页或 2,000 页，或者可能是 1,500 页。

And I found all kinds of interesting things when I was [20] or 21. And I don’t imagine there’s anybody here that knows about the Green Bay and Western Railroad Company, but there were hundreds and hundreds of railroad companies, and I [liked] to read about every one of them. The Green Bay and Western… In those days, everybody had a nickname for railroads. I mean, that was just what [the] Northern Pacific was, the Nipper. And, you know, Phoebe Snow was one of them in the east that used to go up to Cornell, and the Green Bay and Western was known as “grab baggage and walk,” GB&W. And they had a… They had a bond that was actually the common stock, and they had a common stock that was actually a bond. And, you know, that that could lead to unusual things, but they wouldn’t lead to unusual things that would work for you with many millions of dollars, but if you collected a whole bunch of those, which I set out to do… And actually, that’s what impressed Charlie when I first met him because I knew all the details of all these little companies on the West Coast that he thought I would never have heard of, but I knew about the Los Angeles Athletic Club, or whatever it might be, and he thought he was the only one that knew about that.在我 20 岁或 21 岁的时候，我发现了很多有趣的事情。我不知道在座的各位中是否有人知道 Green Bay and Western Railroad Company，但当时有成百上千家铁路公司，我喜欢阅读每一家的资料。Green Bay and Western……在那些日子里，每个人都给铁路公司起了绰号。我的意思是，Northern Pacific 就是 Nipper。你知道，Phoebe Snow 是东部一家曾经去 Cornell 的铁路公司之一，而 Green Bay and Western 则被称为“抓行李就走”，GB&W。他们有一……他们有一张债券实际上是普通股，他们还有一张普通股实际上是债券。 而且，你知道，这可能会导致一些不寻常的事情，但它们不会导致那些能用数百万美元为你带来不寻常收益的事情，但如果你收集了一大堆这些东西，这正是我试图做到的……实际上，这也是我第一次见到查理时给他留下深刻印象的原因，因为我了解西海岸所有这些小公司的所有细节，而他认为我永远不会听说过，但我了解洛杉矶体育俱乐部，或者别的什么，而他以为只有他知道。

And that became an instant point of connection. So to answer your question, I don’t know what the equivalent of Moody’s Manuals or anything would be now, but I would try and know everything about everything small, and I would find something. And with a million dollars, you could earn 50% a year. But you have to be in love with the subject. You can’t just be in love with the money. You really [have] got to just find it like a true… you know, essentially, like, you know, people find other things in other fields because they just love looking for it. A biologist looks for something because they want to find something, and it’s built into… I don’t know how the human brain works that much, and I don’t think anybody understands too well how the human brain works. But there are different people that just find it exciting to expand their knowledge in a given area.这立刻成为了一个连接点。所以，要回答你的问题，我不知道现在穆迪手册或其他类似的东西相当于什么，但我会努力了解所有关于小的事情，我会找到答案。有了 100 万美元，你可以每年赚取 50%。但你必须爱上这个主题。你不能只爱上钱。你真的必须像真正的……你知道，本质上，比如，你知道，人们在其他领域找到其他事物，因为他们只是热爱寻找它。生物学家寻找某物，因为他们想要找到某物，这是构建在……我不知道人类大脑是如何工作的，我也不认为任何人太了解人类大脑是如何工作的。但有些人只是觉得在特定领域扩展知识是令人兴奋的。

I know great bridge players, I know great chess players. Actually, [Garry] Kasparov came to… Oh, [he] met Mrs. B. I’ve had the luck of meeting a lot of people that are unbelievably smart in their own arena and do some unbelievably dumb things in other areas. So all I know is the human brain is complicated, but it does its best when you find out what your brain is really suited for, and then you just pound the hell out of it from that point.我知道很多桥牌高手，也知道很多国际象棋高手。实际上，[加里] 卡斯帕罗夫来到……哦，[他] 遇到了 B 夫人。我有幸遇到了很多在自己领域不可思議地聪明，但在其他领域却做出不可思議地愚蠢事情的人。所以我所知道的是，人脑很复杂，但当你发现你的大脑真正适合什么时，它就会做得最好，然后你只需从那时起拼命地钻研它。

And that’s what I would be doing if I had a small amount of money and I wanted to make 50% a year, but I also wanted to just play the game. And you can’t do it if you really, if you don’t find the game of interest, whether it’s bridge, or whether, you know, whatever it may be, chess, or in this case, finding securities that are undervalued. But it sounds to me like you’re on the right track. I mean, anybody that’ll come all the way to this annual meeting has got something in their mind other than bridge or chess. So I’m glad you came, and come again next year.这就是如果我有一小笔钱，并且想每年赚 50%，同时还想玩这个游戏的话，我会做的事情。但如果你真的没有找到让你感兴趣的游戏，无论是桥牌，还是你知道的，无论是什么，国际象棋，或者在这个案例中，找到被低估的证券，你就无法做到。但听起来你走在了正确的轨道上。我的意思是，任何来到这次年度会议的人，除了桥牌或国际象棋，他们心中一定还有其他事情。所以我很高兴你来了，明年再见。

And now we move to Becky.现在我们转向贝琪。

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Denny Poland, a shareholder from Pittsburgh. When describing the principal-agent problem, Mr. Munger said that capitalism often works best when the people managing the property also own the property. In recent years, agents of pension funds and asset management firms who do not have significant personal ownership stakes in Berkshire have forwarded proposals that were not in the economic interest of shareholders. What can be done to limit the negative influence of these agents in the decades after you’re no longer able to cast significant votes against them?贝琪·奎克：这个问题来自匹兹堡的股东丹尼·波兰。在描述委托代理问题时，芒格先生表示，资本主义往往在管理财产的人同时也是财产所有者时运作得最好。近年来，那些在伯克希尔没有重大个人持股的养老金基金和资产管理公司代理人提出的提案，并不符合股东的经济利益。在您不再能投出重大选票反对他们后的几十年里，可以做些什么来限制这些代理人的负面影响？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a very perceptive question, and it’s been answered in a temporary manner, but who knows how the situation will develop in the future? All I know is that you have a wonderful hand at Berkshire Hathaway, but you have to be able to think your way [through it]. I mean, obviously, you have to think your way through political realities. You have to think your way [through] what will cause… You want to be on… You want to be regarded as an asset to the country because you’ll find more solutions if you are an asset. You owe [it] to the country anyway. But beyond that, you’ll find more solutions than if you’re regarded as evil or something, and worse yet, if you deserve it.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是一个非常敏锐的问题，目前已经有临时性的回答，但谁知道未来情况会如何发展呢？我所知道的是，你们在伯克希尔·哈撒韦手中掌握着一张好牌，但你们必须能够通过思考来应对[局面]。我的意思是，显然，你们必须通过思考来应对政治现实。你们必须思考将会导致……你们想要……你们想要被视为国家的资产，因为如果你们是国家的资产，你们就能找到更多解决方案。无论如何，你们都欠国家一份情。但除此之外，如果你们被视为邪恶或别的什么，你们将找到更多解决方案，更不用说，如果你们值得被这样对待。

So it’s something that’s constantly in our mind, and it needs to be in the mind of the directors, and they need to think for themselves on this rather than bow to conventional wisdom, which, you know, in a sense, you don’t want to become a cynic about life, but almost everybody that approaches you, if you have tons of resources, [has] got some interest in figuring out how to use your resources to their advantage, and that’s true whether they’re in politics or whether they’re in investment banking or whether they’re selling you… Well, whatever it may be that they’re selling, I don’t want to do any injury to anybody, but life insurance agents see the advantage of buying life insurance, and investment managers who get paid based on assets managed [are] interested in selling you their services.所以这是时刻在我们脑海中的事情，董事们也需要时刻牢记，他们需要独立思考，而不是盲目听从传统观念。你知道，某种程度上，你不想对生活变得愤世嫉俗，但几乎每个接近你的人，如果你拥有大量资源，[他们]都有些兴趣于想办法如何利用你的资源来为自己谋利，无论他们从事政治、投资银行还是向你销售……嗯，无论他们销售的是什么，我不想伤害任何人，但人寿保险代理人看到了购买人寿保险的优势，而资产管理经理们，他们的薪酬基于所管理的资产，[对]销售他们的服务很感兴趣。

Imagine if everybody in this room were following the investment advice of somebody that said, “You know, for 1% a year, I’ll tell you how to invest your money.” And in 1950, when we started, in 1965, they would have said, “Well, buy Berkshire Hathaway,” and if they were around now and they saw the 1% deal, they’d be collecting $8 billion a year from people who aren’t getting any dividends from us. So they would have a different interest in the kind of contract they worked out with you than you would have. And [the] best thing to do was just pay them a commission one time and own the stock.想象一下，如果在这个房间里每个人都听从某个人的投资建议，这个人会说：“你知道，每年 1%的费率，我会告诉你如何投资你的钱。” 1950 年，当我们开始时，到了 1965 年，他们就会说：“好吧，买伯克希尔·哈撒韦的股票。” 如果他们现在还在，看到了 1%的协议，他们就会从那些没有得到我们股息的人那里每年收取 80 亿美元。所以，他们对于与你达成的合同类型会有不同的兴趣，而不是你。最好的做法就是一次性支付他们佣金，然后持有股票。

But you have to be alert to how what human nature does to both other people and to you. And then, you know, if you think it through well and actually listen to what Charlie has told you, you’ll have a big head start on most people.但是你必须警惕人性对他人以及对你产生的影响。而且，如果你能深入思考并真正倾听查理所说的内容，你将比大多数人拥有巨大的领先优势。

There’s one thing that I should mention that really is terribly interesting about Charlie. Charlie knew the importance of psychology and human behavior and incentives and all of that. He figured that out very early. And, of course, he gave some talks, even on 25 or so ways, whatever it happened to be… I don’t remember the exact number of different ways that one person could take advantage of another by understanding how humans behave. And then after doing a magnificent job of explaining it… He believed in understanding what others would do, but he thought it was beneath him to actually use those methods to manipulate people.有一件事我必须提及，关于查理的确实非常有趣。查理很早就认识到心理学、人类行为、激励机制等的重要性。他早早地意识到了这一点。当然，他还进行过一些演讲，比如关于 25 种或更多方法，不管具体是多少……我不记得一个人可以通过理解人类行为来利用另一个人的确切方法数量。然后，在出色地解释完这些方法之后……他相信理解他人会做什么，但他认为实际使用这些方法来操纵人是可鄙的。

[He’s a] really interesting human being that thinks through the psychology of human behavior and figures out, you know, how you become a great insurance salesman or manager on Wall Street, or [how you] accumulate assets under management or whatever it may be. And you get very rich by understanding the weaknesses of others to some extent, and then [you] decide that it’s very important for you to recognize these [weaknesses] when they occur. It’s very important for you to know them better than the person that actually is using them, but not [to use them yourself]. And Charlie told me that in his lifetime after he figured this out, there were a couple of times when he used them. He wasn’t proud of it, but he also never lied to me. So he explained to me that there were a couple of times when he used some of these techniques, but he didn’t plan on using them anymore. [He] also wanted me to know that if I ever did something like that, I wasn’t really behaving terribly, that he allowed for the fact that humans may misbehave.他是一位真正有趣的人，通过思考人类行为的心理学，弄清楚如何成为一名出色的保险销售员或华尔街经理，或者如何积累管理资产，等等。通过了解他人的弱点，在一定程度上你可以变得非常富有，然后你决定当这些弱点出现时，对你来说非常重要去识别它们。对你来说，比实际使用它们的人更了解它们非常重要，但你自己不能使用它们。查理告诉我，在他意识到这一点后，他一生中有几次使用了这些弱点。他对此并不自豪，但他也从未对我撒谎。所以他解释说，他确实有几次使用了这些技巧，但他不再打算使用它们了。[他还]想让我知道，如果我做了类似的事情，我并没有表现得非常糟糕，他允许人类可能会犯错。

So I’m sure that I behaved somewhat better before my marriage than I did afterwards in my enthusiasm for different activities, like dancing or something. And he said, “We all do it, but don’t do it again.” So that’s part of acquiring human wisdom. And speaking of human wisdom, we’ve just got that one book out there by Charlie, I mean, Poor Charlie’s Almanack, and that’s worth reading three or four times. I think I read Ben Graham’s book about five or six times. And each time I read it, I realized that I just needed to think a little more deeply about certain things. They weren’t complicated or anything. But, you know, it’s better to… If you’ve got some great instruction, like you get with Charlie, it’s better to read it several times than to just figure you’ll just read every book once [that]’s in the library.所以，我确信在结婚前，我在跳舞或其他活动上的热情比婚后表现得更好一些。他说：“我们都会这样，但不要再这样了。”这就是获取人类智慧的一部分。说到人类智慧，我们正好有查理的那本书，就是《穷查理宝典》，值得一读三到四遍。我想我读过本·格雷厄姆的书五到六遍。每次阅读时，我都意识到自己在某些事情上需要更深入地思考。它们并不复杂。但是，你知道，最好是……如果你能得到像查理那样的伟大指导，读它几次比只是认为图书馆里的每一本书都只读一次要好。

Okay, let’s go to section four.好的，让我们进入第四部分。

JEFF RABELIER: Jeff Rabelier from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I’m thinking of Dr. Graham, Mr. Munger, [and] your father. And my question is, for all of us, but it’s probably especially for the younger people in the room, [about] the importance of picking the right heroes in life [and] choosing friends wisely, and maybe tell us a story, if you could, about each of those folks. Thank you, sir.杰夫·拉贝里：来自俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的杰夫·拉贝里。我在想格雷厄姆博士、芒格先生，还有你的父亲。我的问题是，对于我们所有人来说，但可能特别是对房间里年轻的各位来说，选择正确的人生楷模和谨慎选择朋友的重要性。如果你能，也许可以给我们讲一个关于每个人的故事。谢谢你，先生。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there’s no question you’re 100% right in terms of having the right heroes. And, you know, you’re lucky if you get them. I mean, Charlie had Charlie Adams, I… [Charlie] had… And the interesting thing, my sister is here today, my younger sister, [one of] the two survivors. And we both experienced having the same hero, even though as we grew older, we saw that we didn’t agree with plenty of his ideas, but we did agree with his values and motivation. And that’s, that’s a better lesson than having somebody that [is] reading to you from a catechism, that has got a lot of rules in it, which are pretty good rules, but… but there’s a special, special place for somebody that is going to continue loving you even if you break some of the rules. And that’s what Charlie had in his life, [and] what Bernie and I had in our life.沃伦·巴菲特：当然，在选对榜样这方面，你 100%是正确的。而且，你知道，能遇到他们本身就是一种幸运。查理有查理·亚当斯，我……[查理]也有……有趣的是，我今天妹妹也来了，我妹妹，也是两位幸存者之一。我们俩都曾拥有同一个榜样，尽管随着年龄增长，我们发现并不认同他很多观点，但我们认同他的价值观和动力。这比有人拿着教义读给你听要好得多，那里面有很多规则，规则都相当不错，但……但有一个特殊的位置是留给那些即使你违反了一些规则，仍然会继续爱你的人。这就是查理生活中的，也是伯尼和我生活中的。

So I would just repeat what you said. I don’t need to give you a bunch of… well, when I ran away from home, I’ll give you a specific example with me. When I ran away from home and went… we hitchhiked up to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and got picked up by the state police and everything. And I talked these other two guys into it, and we lied like crazy to the state police, you know, saying we had our parents’ permission. Some kid at the place where we stayed had tipped them off that we’d run away from home.所以我会重复你所说的话。我无需给你一堆……好吧，当我离家出走时，我会给你一个具体的例子。当我离家出走并……我们搭便车到了宾夕法尼亚州的赫西，并被州警察搭便车，等等。我劝了另外两个家伙一起做，我们向州警察疯狂撒谎，你知道，说我们得到了父母的许可。我们住的地方的一个孩子向他们举报说我们离家出走了。

And we started, like I said, [the] state police picked us up. We decided two things. You know, we decided to tell them a bunch of lies about the fact [that] we had our parents’ permission. And we decided we better get out of [Hershey] because these cops were going to find out sooner or later. And so anyway, we end up back in Washington after a couple of days. And when I walked in the door, well, one of the boys’ mothers… and this other kid was [the son of] Congressman Roger Bell. And his mother was in the hospital over this whole thing. He’d taken out his cash and his savings bonds. And so she was sick. And Judge Bell, her husband, was all concerned and everything. And I walked in the door in Washington, and my mother said, “How come he came back so soon?” And my father said, he said, “I know you can do better.”我们开始，就像我说的，州警察把我们带走了。我们决定了两件事。你知道，我们决定编造很多关于我们得到了父母许可的谎言。我们还决定最好离开赫西，因为这些警察迟早会发现。所以无论如何，我们几天后回到了华盛顿。当我走进家门时，嗯，其中一个男孩的母亲……还有那个其他孩子是众议员罗杰·贝尔的儿子。他的母亲因为整个事件住院了。他取出了他的现金和储蓄债券。所以她病了。贝尔法官，她的丈夫，对此非常关心。我走进华盛顿的家门时，我母亲说：“他怎么回来这么快？”我父亲说，他说：“我知道你做得更好。”

And I just paid more attention to my father than [to] my mother. So you want to have the right heroes, and you don’t have to have them. It’s not [about] the heroes based on what they’ve accomplished. It’s the people that you want to be [like] yourself. And if you copy the right people, you’re off to a great start. And I don’t mean [a] great start about making money. I mean a great start about living your life. So you can check with my sister Birdie, who’s here, and see if I’ve told the story correctly.%% 我更加关注我的父亲而不是我的母亲。所以你需要有正确的英雄，但你不必有。这不是基于他们所成就的英雄。而是你想成为像自己一样的人。如果你模仿了正确的人，你就迈出了成功的第一步。我说的不是赚钱的良好开端，而是生活的良好开端。你可以询问在场的我的妹妹 Birdie，看看我是否讲述了正确的故事。

She ran away from home, too, incidentally, but she didn’t get as far as I got. She was running away to go over to my grandfather’s house, which was about 2 miles away.她离家出走，顺便说一下，但她没走像我那么远。她是要跑到我祖父家，那大约有 2 英里远。

But I don’t want to denigrate her runaway attempt, at least, because she was much more accomplished than I am in all kinds of other things. But when it comes to running away, I definitely outclassed her.但我不想贬低她的出走尝试，至少，因为她在其他很多方面比我更有成就。但当谈到离家出走时，我确实比她强。

Okay, let’s go to Becky.好的，让我们转向贝琪。

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Vedant Sharma in India. Warren, you and Charlie have often said that you were able to identify the people you want to go into business with and have had an exceptional record in that.贝琪·奎克：这个问题来自印度的维丹特·夏尔马。沃伦，你和查理经常说你们能够识别出想要与之合作的人，并且在这方面有着出色的记录。

However, in the case of Pilot, we noticed that the final stake purchase ended up in a dispute and had a sense of smart accounting, to put it one way, to squeeze a little more out from the deal than was deserved by the seller. Knowing well that this has been said, settled out of court, and needs due confidentiality, I would like your views on some of the lessons learned that may be beneficial for future deals to watch for and for coming leadership to look out for as well. Well, I’ll make two comments on that. A couple of the directors had their doubts about going in, and in any event, pilot is working out well for us. And my friend Sam Butler one time said to me that, and he was talking in general about certain kinds of situations, but he said, well, Warren, he said, all is well that ends, and that’s where we are.然而，在 Pilot 公司的案例中，我们注意到最终的股权购买最终引发了争议，并且有一种精明的会计手段，换句话说，就是从交易中榨取了卖方本不应得到的更多利益。了解这些已经通过庭外和解解决，并且需要保持适当的保密性，我想听听你们对于未来交易中可能需要关注的教训，以及对于即将到来的领导层需要警惕的事项的看法。好吧，我就这一点做两点评论。几位董事对参与其中曾有过疑虑，无论如何，Pilot 公司对我们来说进展得很好。我的朋友萨姆·巴特勒有一次对我说，他当时是在谈论某些一般情况，但他说，沃伦，他说，善终即是圆满，而我们现在就处于这个状态。

So we’ll go to station five.那么我们将转到第五站。

Well, while we’re getting to station five, I’ll tell you a little bit more about the fellow that is now running pilot. I knew you may have met here that Greg had known for a long, long time. And he grew up in Omaha and came from a poor family and was raised by his mother. Right. And went to the same high school, public high school that my wife went to, North High.嗯，在到达第五站之前，我多告诉你们一些现在负责飞行员培训的这位同事的情况。我知道你们可能在这里已经见过格雷格，他和格雷格认识很久了。他成长于奥马哈，来自一个贫困家庭，由母亲抚养长大。是的。他和我的妻子就读于同一所公立高中，北高中。

Went to University of Omaha, set an all time record in russian yardage playing there. He was a bouncer, yes. Drafted by the New York Giants, as I remember. Exactly. Yeah.他去了奥马哈大学，在那里创造了俄式短跑的校纪录。他是一名保安，是的。我记得他后来被纽约巨人队选中。完全正确。是的。

And. But then injured, actually, in spring training, I remember, in some way. And so he ended up being an intern. Not an intern, but a trainee, you might say, for mid American before I was there. And.然后。但实际上，他在春季训练中受伤了，我记得，以某种方式。所以最终他成为了一名实习生。不是实习生，更像是我在那里之前为美中航空的见习生。而且。

And now here he is, still relatively young, and he’s running a huge company, and we’ve got incredible confidence in what he will do. And we like very, very, very much the business that was created by Big Jim Haslam. And it really is almost an only in an american type story, but it does show you with somebody with some real stuff and with a mother that believes in them and with bad breaks along the way. I mean, imagine how you’d feel if you were drafted by the New York giants and then you suffered some injury in spring training or something. I mean, you spend your life, it just, it hurts, but it’s not an experience I would have ever had.现在他还在相对年轻的年纪，就经营着一家大公司，我们对他的未来充满信心。我们非常喜欢 Big Jim Haslam 所创造的企业。这几乎是一个典型的美国式故事，但它确实展示了一个人拥有真正的实力，以及一个相信他的母亲，并在过程中遭遇挫折。我意思是，如果你被纽约巨人队选中，然后在春季训练中受伤，你会是什么感觉。我意思是，你花了一辈子，这真的很痛苦，但这不是我经历过的经历。

That was the last guy chosen. But to see that he’s running a company depends on the price of deal, but it’s a huge company.那是最后被选中的人。但看到他在经营一家公司，这取决于交易的价格，但这是一家大公司。

What does he have, 2020, 5000 or something?他有什么，2020 年，5000 还是什么？

And he’s got many, many, many years to go. So I couldn’t be more pleased about not only the acquisition of Pilot, but just what it tells you about America. You can, what do you have to look up to? Read about them in Google or an interview with Adam? Yeah, I try and think if it’s.他还有很长时间要走。所以我对 Pilot 的收购不仅感到非常满意，而且它还告诉我们关于美国的一切。你有什么可以仰望的？在 Google 上搜索他们，或者阅读亚当的采访？是的，我试图思考这是否是。

A podcast, yeah, he’s got a podcast. Podcast that will just blow you away. And if you don’t think this is a great country, it has a lot of great people. All you got to do is read that podcast. So.一个播客，是的，他有一个播客。这个播客会让你大开眼界。如果你不认为这是一个伟大的国家，它有很多伟大的人。你只需要读读那个播客。所以。

But we do have a great set of assets. Oh, yeah. You know, if you look at Pilot, we have 800, more than 800 stations, travel stations, centers, and just so everybody knows, I mean, the beauty of that, and there’s a question regarding this morning around fuel choices at Pilot. And the exciting thing is, in the end, pilot’s going to serve whatever fuel our customers need. It can be electric, it can be renewable diesel, it can be diesel or any of the various sustainable fuels.但我们确实拥有一套伟大的资产。哦，是的。你知道，如果你看看 Pilot，我们有 800 多个，超过 800 个站点，旅行站点，中心，而且为了让每个人都知道，我的意思是，那美丽的地方，而且今天早上关于 Pilot 燃料选择的问题。令人兴奋的是，最终 Pilot 将满足我们客户需要的任何燃料。可以是电动的，可以是可再生柴油，可以是柴油或任何其他可持续燃料。

But the point is, it has exceptional locations that are on the interstate highways. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of them. And we bought an incredible franchise and now we have a great leadership team in both Adam and his team that’s around him. So we’re pleased where that opportunity will go.但重点是，它拥有位于州际公路的绝佳位置。成百上千个。成百上千个。我们购买了一个令人难以置信的特许经营权，现在我们在亚当和他的团队周围拥有一个伟大的领导团队。所以我们很高兴看到这个机会将走向何方。

Yeah, we’ve got probably the average one might be ten or twelve acres or something like that zone commercial on interstates throughout the whole United States. Who knows? But what was created there is amazing, too. You had a fellow that played at University of Tnsylvania, I mean, University of Tennessee, and undefeated and came away from this football team and you think, well, another football player, you know, maybe he goes out and, and there may be some intermediate parts in the story a little bit, but he buys a gas station and he turns it into something that is huge. So we’re really delighted with it.是的，我们大概有平均每块地十到十二英亩左右的商业区，遍布全美国的州际公路。谁知道呢？但那里创造出来的东西太令人惊叹了。有个家伙在田纳西大学踢球，我指的是田纳西大学，他是这支无败球队的成员，你可能会想，又一个足球运动员，你知道，他可能会出去，故事中间可能有些曲折，但他买下了一个加油站，把它变成了一个巨大的企业。所以我们对此非常高兴。

And it’s another kind of only an american story.这也是另一种只有美国才有的故事。

You know, how many of us can become an all american, number one ranked team, let alone start a business that goes on these sort of heights. So we feel very good about it. Becky? No, I think they’re ready for five now. Oh, I see.你们知道，我们中有多少人能成为全美第一的球队，更不用说创办一家能达到这种高度的企业。所以我们对此感觉非常好。贝基？不，我认为他们现在准备好五块地了。哦，我明白了。

He’s up there now, ready to go. Okay, go do it. Hello, Miss Buffett. My name is Zhang Yabo. I came from micro City, Hainan, China.他现在准备好了，可以开始了。好的，去行动吧。你好，巴菲特女士。我叫张亚波，来自中国海南省的微城市。

So I want to express my sincere gratitude for you, for the extraordinary value you generated for shareholders and the positive influences you’ve had on younger generation of investors like us. And my question relates to the concept of maximizing the duration of compounding. As individuals age, the quality of compounding inevitably diminishes. What are your secrets in maintaining your sharp man? Extraordinary judgment and great physical condition.因此，我想对您表达诚挚的感谢，感谢您为股东创造了非凡的价值，以及您对我们这一代年轻投资者产生的积极影响。我的问题与最大化复利持续时间有关。随着年龄的增长，复利的质量不可避免地会下降。您保持敏锐头脑的秘密是什么？非凡的判断力和极佳的身体状况。

We wish you well. Thank you. Well, you don’t know me well, but that’s. I like. Just keep talking.祝您一切顺利。谢谢。嗯，你不太了解我，但这没关系。我喜欢。就继续说吧。

Well, I. You know, you have to be just plain lucky. I mean, there’s no question about it that there’s 100 or a thousand. You know, multiply a number of times that some drunk could have pulled out of the car and broadsided me, or, you know, just the bad luck you can have in life. And I can say my great skill has been avoiding bad luck, but that isn’t a skill.嗯，我。你知道，你必须纯粹是幸运。我的意思是，毫无疑问，有 100 次或 1000 次。你知道，有些醉汉从车里冲出来，差点撞到我，或者，你知道，生活中可能遇到的坏运气。我可以说我的一大技能是避开坏运气，但这并不是一种技能。

That’s luck or bad activities. And then to get to be. I would not have been if you’d taken my high school class. And you say a couple of you are going to live to be 90. Men are going to live to be 93, maybe I’ve got.那是运气或坏行为。然后才能达到。如果你没有上过我的高中课程，我就不会成为现在的我。你说你们中有几个人能活到 90 岁。男人能活到 93 岁，也许我也有。

You know, I wouldn’t. I would not have been a heavy favorite, I can tell you that. And I wouldn’t have bet on myself. But you just. Now, you should make the most of your luck when you get it.你知道，我不会。我告诉你，我本来也不是热门人选。而且我也不会押注我自己。但现在，你应该在你运气来的时候充分利用它。

And sometimes I’ve done that and sometimes I haven’t.有时候我确实这样做了，有时候却没有。

I mean, it is absolutely true that if I had to do over again, there’d be a lot of different choices I would make, whether they would have ended up working out as well as things that worked out. It’s hard to imagine how they could have worked out any better. So. So. But it is interesting how many mistakes you can make if you just keep going.我的意思是，如果我要重做一遍，我会做出很多不同的选择，至于这些选择是否会有同样好的结果，很难想象会有更好的结果。所以。所以。但如果你一直坚持下去，你会发现你可以犯很多错误。

And Charlie, you know, when he used to talk about that, that you just soldier through, you just keep going, and. But you still need luck, you know, you don’t want to. Anybody that says I did it all myself is just kidding. I mean, it’s just. They’re delusional and, you know, actually living a country with a life expectancy is pretty darn good, you know, so that alone is a huge plus.还有查理，你知道，当他谈论那件事时，他总是说你要像士兵一样坚持，你只是继续前进，和。但你仍然需要运气，你知道，你不想。任何说我都是自己做到的人只是在开玩笑。我的意思是，这真的。他们陷入了幻想，你知道，实际上在一个预期寿命很高的国家生活是非常好的，所以这本身就是巨大的优势。

I was born… if I’d been born… my sister’s here, and she was born female, and she’s just as smart as I was and everything. But even my own family, who really did well, particularly my dad, [loved] us all equally in a terrific manner. But he still told me that… Well, [my sister] was born ten years after the 19th Amendment was passed, but he basically told my sisters to marry young [because] “you still have your looks.” And he told me that the world… that [the] power [was] in [my hands] and [I] really could do anything. Well, I found there were a lot of things I couldn’t do, but the message given to females and males was incredibly different by the most well-meaning and loving of parents.我出生……如果我能出生……我的姐姐在这里，她出生时是女性，她和我的聪明程度一样，而且所有的一切都一样。但即使是我自己的家庭，他们真的做得很好，尤其是我的父亲，他以一种极好的方式平等地爱着我们所有人。但他仍然告诉我……嗯，[我的姐姐]出生时，第十九条修正案已经通过十年了，但他基本上告诉我的姐姐们要年轻结婚，因为“你还有你的容貌。”他告诉我，世界……[权力]在我手中，我真的可以做到任何事情。嗯，我发现有很多事情我做不到，但父母给予女性和男性的信息，由最有善意和最慈爱的父母传递，却截然不同。

You know, like I say, in 1930… I mean, it’s been that way for millions of years. It’s changed quite dramatically, but obviously not completely, but during my lifetime… but it’s been during the latter half of my lifetime. If you take my sisters, if they’d been born even five or ten years later, they still would have been getting instructions when they went away to college, to be sure, and get married while [they were] young, [or get] arranged so that you’re going to be married while you’re in school, because after you get out, all the good ones are taken. Birdie was telling me that was a message that [had] basically been imparted to a lot of the women she had met, obviously.您知道，就像我说的，1930 年……我的意思是，这种情况已经持续了数百万年。它发生了相当大的变化，但显然并不完全，但在我的有生之年……但这是在我生命后期。如果您看看我的姐妹们，如果她们晚出生五到十年，她们仍然会在去上大学时接受指导，当然，而且会在年轻时结婚，或者被安排在上学时结婚，因为一旦毕业，所有的好对象都被取走了。比蒂告诉我，她遇到的大多数女性都基本上接受了这样的信息，显然。

So it really… It’s extraordinary how much progress we’ve made, but it’s unbelievable how long it took to get it made. I mean, it really does make you wonder about, you know, we’ve got all these heroes from American history and all the wonderful things they did, but how could they say, “All men are created equal” and then write a Constitution that… you know, allowed women not to be able to own property, [it] depend[ed] on the state. I mean, just terrible conditions.所以……我们取得的进步真的非常……但取得这些进步所花费的时间简直难以置信。我的意思是，这确实让人不禁思考，您知道，我们拥有来自美国历史的所有英雄和他们所做的一切美好事情，但他们怎么能说“人人生而平等”，然后写出一部宪法……您知道，允许女性不能拥有财产，取决于各州。我的意思是，条件简直太糟糕了。

But anyway, that’s how you learn about what humans can do. And I feel, and you’ve got to feel, better about the future for your kids than you would have felt 100 years ago, no matter what the situation is.但无论如何，这就是你了解人类能做什么的方式。我感觉，你必须感觉到，无论情况如何，你对孩子的未来感觉会比 100 年前好。

Anyway, we’ll move to Becky.无论如何，我们将转到贝琪。

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Linda Frazier in Westport, Connecticut. Dear Mr. Buffett, in the past, you’ve specified that 90% of your wife’s inheritance be invested in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and 10% in short-term government bonds. But the market cap of the “magnificent seven” tech stocks now represents more than one-quarter of the market-cap-weighted S&P 500 index, which seems like a big bet on the tech sector. I was wondering if you would now recommend investing some portion of the funds in a low-cost, equal-weight S&P 500 index fund, rather than having all of the equity exposure in a tech-heavy market-cap-weighted fund.贝琪·奎克：这个问题来自康涅狄格州韦斯特波特地区的琳达·弗雷泽。亲爱的巴菲特先生，过去，您曾指定将 90%的妻子的遗产投资于低成本标准普尔 500 指数基金，10%投资于短期政府债券。但现在，“七巨头”科技股的市值已超过标准普尔 500 指数市值的四分之一，这似乎是对科技行业的一个大赌注。我想知道您是否现在建议将部分资金投资于低成本、等权重的标准普尔 500 指数基金，而不是将所有股票敞口都投资于市值权重较高的科技市场基金。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s an interesting question. And I will tell you that I revise my will about every three years or so, and I get little thoughts from time to time, and then you don’t change it. Every time you do it, you [change] a tiny thing. But the one section I haven’t changed is that, that with my wife, [she] got left a huge amount of money by practically anybody’s measurement, except [a] pittance compared to what I’ve accumulated in total. And it won’t make one bit of difference to her in life whether she beats the S&P or anything else. All I want to leave is plenty of money to take care of [her] way beyond anything she’ll ever spend, and at the same time, give her as much peace of mind as possible and really make sure that the trustee who administers it doesn’t really have to worry about whether… it just doesn’t make any difference whether she beats the S&P or not. And the main thing is that she feels that… She feels that she’s in a financial position, which, of course, she will be, that she doesn’t even need to think about it. And the trustee doesn’t have to worry about getting sued or anything else.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是一个有趣的问题。我会告诉你们，我大约每三年修改一次遗嘱，偶尔会有一些新的想法，但通常不会做大的改动。但有一个部分我始终没有修改，那就是我妻子将继承巨额财产，几乎以任何标准衡量，与我所积累的总财富相比都只是九牛一毛。无论她是否击败标普指数，这对她的生活都不会有任何影响。我只想留下足够的钱来照顾她，确保她能远远超出她可能花费的任何数额，同时尽可能给她带来内心的平静，并确保管理这笔财产的受托人真的不用担心……她击败标普指数与否根本无关紧要。最重要的是，她要感觉到……她要感觉到自己处于一个财务状况，当然她会的，以至于她甚至不需要考虑这个问题。受托人也不必担心被起诉或其他任何事情。

So it’s simply not an economic [decision]. Now, obviously, with 99% plus of what I have going to philanthropy, and I’ve got my three children… The one good thing is that at the age of 70, 69, and 65, they have matured remarkably, probably more than their father.所以这根本不是一个经济[决策]。显然，我所拥有的 99%以上都将用于慈善事业，而且我有三个孩子……值得庆幸的是，他们分别在 70 岁、69 岁和 65 岁，已经相当成熟，甚至可能比他们的父亲还要成熟。

But at the same time, they’ve got less time to work with the money than they would have if they were 50 or something like that. So you do the best you can in accomplishing your objectives in your will, and in the end, you know, you can’t… you don’t know what’s going to happen after you die, but you make sure that, to the extent that you leave, you have a lot of money to leave. You [want to] take… Obviously, you want to say thanks to a lot of people, and [to] quite a few people in terms of specific requests, you want to take care of your family.但同时，他们与 50 岁或类似年龄相比，用于管理这笔钱的时间更少。所以你尽你所能，在遗嘱中实现你的目标，最终，你知道，你无法……你不知道死后会发生什么，但你必须确保，在你留下的遗产中，你留下了大量的钱。你[想要]……显然，你想感谢很多人，在具体请求方面，你想要照顾你的家人。

But in my case, that requires practically no money and a fair amount for taxes. But I have, and my children are in charge of what happens to the funds that are left. But like I say, the problem is when you live as long as I have, and the kids get older, who knows what happens with mortality tables? And they’re the ones that I really want to see handle the distributions. And they will, and they’ll be very good about it. But if we’re all alive three years from now, they’ll be three years older. So everything… you can’t solve everything in life. You do the best you can with it.但就我而言，这几乎不需要什么钱，但需要相当一部分税款。但我已经准备好了，我的孩子们负责处理剩余资金的去向。但正如我所说，问题在于，如果你活得像我这么久，孩子们也长大了，谁又能知道死亡率表会发生什么变化呢？他们才是我真正希望来处理分配的人。他们会的，而且他们会做得很好。但如果三年后我们所有人都在世，他们就会再长大三岁。所以一切……生活中总有些事情无法解决。你只能尽力而为。

People do interesting things. I’ve been around probably as many rich people as almost anybody, and [for] a fair number of [them], I know what they’re doing or have done with their funds. And the idea that you can have a huge amount of money and leave everybody very rich and have people liking each other less when it all happens… Humans are really… they are interesting to watch. Some of them handle it beautifully, and others [do] terribly. The one thing lawyers will always tell you is don’t use codicils. In other words, you know, when you change your mind on a will, just write a new one, but tear up the old one. Don’t do it by just adding codicils.人们会做出有趣的事情。我认识的人中，富人可能比任何人都多，而且对于相当一部分人，我知道他们是如何使用或已经使用他们的资金的。而那种拥有巨额财富，让所有人都变得非常富有，但在这一切发生时，人们彼此之间的好感减少……人类真的……他们很有趣，值得观察。有些人处理得非常漂亮，而其他人则处理得很糟糕。律师们总会告诉你的事情是，不要使用补充遗嘱。换句话说，你知道，当你改变遗嘱时，只需写一份新的，但把旧的撕掉。不要通过添加补充遗嘱来做这件事。

But I believe I’m correct… [I’ve] certainly read it… That Paul Getty, who was the richest man in the world, presumably at one point in the 1950s or 1960s, and [he] was a very interesting guy to read about, and he had five wives, and he’s the one whose grandson was kidnapped, and they sent Paul Getty an ear of the child and everything. I mean, it’s not a happy life when you get through it. But the one, one thing he did that was kind of interesting, he actually liked to use codicils because I think he had like 25 of them. And it was kind of his way of writing, “Well, I’m taking you out of the will because…” you know, and so he sort of delighted in explaining through his will how he felt about all these people.但我相信我是正确的……我确实读过……世界上最富有的人保罗·盖蒂，大概在 20 世纪 50 年代或 60 年代某个时候，他是个非常有趣的人，读他的传记很有意思，他有五个妻子，他的孙子被绑架了，绑匪们给保罗·盖蒂送去了孩子的一只耳朵，等等。我意思是，当你经历这一切后，生活并不快乐。但有一件事，一件有点有意思的事，他实际上喜欢使用公证遗嘱，我想他有大约 25 份。这有点像他的方式，写“好吧，我把我从遗嘱中除名，因为……”你知道，所以他似乎很乐意通过他的遗嘱解释他对所有这些人的感受。

I mean, you really get some strange things revealed in a will. I just read about a will of a fellow that made a whole lot of money and was leaving it to his… I don’t know whether it was children, grandchildren, whatever it may have been, but in any event, his opening line in his will is, and this was done some years ago, but I know something about the family. His opening line, in effect, said, “I’m writing this will while I am [riding] in the economy section of Eastern Airlines, number such and such.” I mean, he believed in getting right to the point [about] what the people who were recipients, how they should live, and he was going to be judging them.我的意思是，遗嘱中确实会揭示一些奇怪的事情。我刚刚读了一份遗嘱，其中一位富豪赚了很多钱，打算将其留给他的……我不知道是留给子女、孙辈还是其他什么人，但无论如何，他在遗嘱的开头写道，这是几年前的事情了，但我对这家人有所了解。他的开头，实际上写道：“我正在东方航空经济舱里写这份遗嘱，编号是……” 我的意思是，他相信直接点明遗嘱接收者应该如何生活，并且他打算评判他们。

It’s just so darned interesting to watch people’s wills. But one guy left a lot of money to his wife on the condition that she remarry, so that at least one man would mourn his passing.观察人们的遗嘱真是件非常有趣的事情。但有一位先生留下了一大笔钱给他的妻子，条件是她必须再婚，这样至少有一个男人会为他的去世而哀悼。

Well, I’m not giving legal advice here, as I always say, but I feel very, very, very good about how things have turned out. And I wish I could figure out ways better to use the really vast resources I’ve got [to address] some of the really important questions of the world, but I haven’t been able to do that. [I had] goals when I was 30 or 40, and [I] may have written them in [my] will then, in terms of what the world needed [to be] done and how the money could be used. And unfortunately, I decided that they weren’t feasible to accomplish. And of course, I was setting out to accomplish things that were important [that] nobody’s solved yet, so you [have] got to expect that… why should I be able to solve them?当然，我这里并非提供法律建议，正如我常说的那样，但我对事情的结果感到非常、非常、非常好。我希望能找到更好的方式来利用我所拥有的巨大资源[解决]一些世界上真正重要的问题，但我一直未能做到。在我 30 岁或 40 岁的时候，我确实设定了目标，或许当时我已经在我的遗嘱中写下了世界需要完成的事情以及如何使用这些钱。但不幸的是，我决定这些目标并不可行。当然，我试图完成的是那些重要且尚未被解决的问题，所以你不得不期待……我怎么能解决它们呢？

But nevertheless, it’s an interesting… And the one thing about it is everybody here, I don’t know about the ones who’ve come from other countries, but you should have a will because if you don’t have a will, you still have a will, and it’ll be whatever the state says. And it’s amazing. Four American presidents died intestate, without wills. Four, you know, we’ve only had 45. And imagine becoming president of the United States and not having a will. But you can look up somebody recently, I think, Lincoln, I’m certain Lincoln was one of the four. And here’s a man, I mean, I don’t know what you can always say… Well, he didn’t get around to it, but that’s hard to imagine why Abraham Lincoln would have died intestate. I’m sure we’ve got some Lincoln scholars out there that will write me after this and explain why, and I’ll be interested to receive their letters.但无论如何，这确实很有趣……其中一点是，在场的各位，我不知道那些来自其他国家的朋友是否了解，但你们应该立遗嘱，因为如果你们没有立遗嘱，实际上你们仍然有遗嘱，而最终将由国家来决定。这真是令人惊讶。四位美国总统都未立遗嘱去世。四位，你们知道，我们至今只有 45 位总统。想象一下成为美国总统却未立遗嘱，这太不可思议了。但你们可以查查最近的情况，我想是林肯，我确信林肯是其中之一。这位男士，我不知道总能说什么……嗯，他只是没来得及立遗嘱，但这很难想象亚伯拉罕·林肯会未立遗嘱去世。我确信我们这里有些林肯学者会给我写信解释原因，我会很期待收到他们的来信。

But human beings are human beings, and we all have weaknesses and peculiarities and everything else. And don’t be too hard on yourself, because you have some of those. But don’t be totally forgiving either. You can change the future. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future.但是人就是人，我们都有弱点和怪癖等等。不要对自己太苛刻，因为你也有这些。但也不可完全原谅自己。你可以改变未来。你无法改变过去，但可以改变未来。

Okay? Station six. 好的？第六站。

CAROLINE: Good afternoon. My name is Caroline, and I’m a lawyer in San Diego. Please don’t hold that against me.卡罗琳：下午好。我叫卡罗琳，是圣地亚哥的一名律师。请不要因此对我有意见。

(Laughter) （笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: Remember, Mr. Munger was once an attorney, too, right?沃伦·巴菲特：记得吗，芒格先生也曾是一名律师，对吧？

CAROLINE: First, I’d like to sincerely thank you, Mr. Buffett, for your business integrity, tireless leadership, and generous contribution to philanthropy. My question for the distinguished panel of two is, now that the AI genie is out of the bottle, as someone astutely put it earlier today, what business in Berkshire Hathaway may be most at risk with AI?卡罗琳：首先，我想衷心感谢巴菲特先生，感谢您的商业诚信、不懈领导以及慷慨的慈善贡献。我的问题是，针对我们这个杰出的两人小组，正如今天早些时候有位睿智人士所说，人工智能的“精灵”已经出瓶，那么伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司中哪个业务可能最容易受到人工智能的影响？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a wonderful question. The problem is I really don’t know anything about AI, obviously. [It will affect] anything that’s labor-intensive and that it can create an enormous amount of leisure time. Now, what the world does with leisure time is another question, whether more leisure time… I know an awful lot of people think when they go to work at first, what they want is leisure time. And what I like is actually having more problems to solve.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是一个好问题。问题在于，我对人工智能一无所知，这很明显。[它将影响]任何劳动密集型且能创造大量休闲时间的行业。现在，世界将如何利用休闲时间又是另一个问题，无论是更多的休闲时间……我知道很多人一开始去工作时，想要的是休闲时间。而我喜欢的是实际上有更多问题需要解决。

But AI is profound. That’s what makes it… Makes it a genie. [The question] is what [is] going to happen? I could tell a few genie jokes about [it], but… I guess… When we probably, I don’t know what, you know, in terms of our businesses, they’ll figure things out. I mean, we’ve got smart people. It’s obviously, if it’s used in a pro-social way, it’s got terrific benefits to society.但人工智能非常深刻。这就是它……让它成为了一个精灵。[问题]是会发生什么？我可以讲几个关于精灵的笑话，但……我猜……当我们可能，我不知道什么，你知道，在业务方面，他们会想出办法。我的意思是，我们有很多聪明人。显然，如果它以促进社会的方式使用，它对社会有巨大的好处。

But I don’t know how you make sure that that’s what happens any more than I know how to be sure that when you use two atomic bombs in World War II that you knew that you hadn’t created something that could destroy the world later on.但我不知道如何确保那就是会发生的事情，就像我不知道如何确保在第二次世界大战中使用两颗原子弹时，你知道你没有创造出后来可以毁灭世界的东西。

GREG ABEL: Yeah, I think when we think of AI at a lot of the business units, I mean, we’re truly [in the] early [stages], trying to think how does it make us more efficient, more effective? I mean, it results in more idle time. And we’re probably not thinking of the iterative AI where we’re looking at very specific processes where our people can implement it. And either at times it displaces the labor, but then hopefully there’s other opportunities [for them] within the business.格雷格·阿贝尔：是的，我认为当我们考虑许多业务部门的人工智能时，我的意思是，我们确实处于早期阶段，试图思考它如何让我们更有效率、更有效？我的意思是，它导致更多的闲置时间。而且我们可能没有考虑到迭代式人工智能，我们在看非常具体的流程，我们的员工可以实施它。有时它取代了劳动力，但希望他们能在业务中找到其他机会。

But I think when you think of all our businesses, I mean, we do have a heavy labor workforce [in] a lot of them, but I think at the stage we’re at as a company and maybe where [AI] is at right now, it’s really around how do we do things more effectively, more efficiently, [and] more safely, if it involves dangerous processes? So we’re [in the] early innings.但是，我认为当您考虑到我们所有的业务时，我的意思是，我们确实在许多业务中拥有大量的劳动力，但我想在我们公司目前的阶段，以及也许人工智能目前所处的阶段，真正重要的是如何更有效地、更高效地、更安全地开展工作，如果涉及危险流程的话？所以，我们仍处于早期阶段。

WARREN BUFFETT: John Maynard Keynes was just wonderful to read [and had an] incredible mind. But in around the time I was born, he wrote a book about what could happen. I don’t know whether it was in the next hundred years or whatever. And he predicted correctly that that output per capita would grow at this incredible rate that it has. But in terms of speculating as [to] what people would do with that, I mean, this guy was unbelievably smart, but it hasn’t developed exactly the way he predicted. He was right about what was going to go into the equation, but he didn’t have it figured out exactly what the result would be. So it is really… well, we didn’t know when we were developing the bomb that there would probably be, very soon, nine countries, three of whom we should worry about plenty, that will have what they have, but we didn’t really have any choice.沃伦·巴菲特：约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯是一位非常棒的思想家，他的思想令人惊叹。但在我出生的时期左右，他写了一本书，探讨了未来可能发生的事情。我不知道这是否是在未来一百年内，或者是其他时间。他准确地预测了人均产出将以这种惊人的速度增长。但在预测人们将如何使用这些产出方面，我意思是，这位先生非常聪明，但事情的发展并没有完全按照他的预测进行。他正确地指出了方程式中的关键因素，但他并没有完全搞清楚结果会是什么。所以，这确实……嗯，当我们正在发展原子弹时，我们并不知道，很快就会有九个国家，其中三个我们非常需要担心，将拥有他们所拥有的东西，但我们真的没有其他选择。

And you could have had all kinds of papers written on [the subject] and everything else, but we were going to do it anyway. We needed to do it. And if you haven’t read it, it’s fascinating to go to Google and read the letter by Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt, written about a month before, almost exactly a month before Germany [moved] into Poland. And it laid out… well, Leo Szilard knew what was going to happen or had a good hunch of what was going to happen in terms of nuclear bomb development. And he couldn’t get through to Roosevelt.而且，你本可以拿到关于[这个主题]的各种文件和其他一切，但我们无论如何都要做。我们必须做。如果你还没读过，去谷歌上读一下列奥·西拉德和阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦写给罗斯福总统的信，那封信写于德国[入侵]波兰前一个月左右，几乎正好是一个月前。它阐述了……嗯，列奥·西拉德知道将要发生什么，或者对核弹发展将要发生什么有很好的预感。但他无法说服罗斯福。

But he knew that a letter signed by Albert Einstein would [get his attention]. So it’s probably the most important letter ever written, and you can read it, which is just fascinating to me, but that started the Manhattan Project. That started it. Just everything flowed out of it.但他知道，一封由阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦签名的信会[引起他的注意]。所以这可能是写过的最重要的一封信，你可以读到它，这对我来说非常迷人，但这启动了曼哈顿计划。就是它。一切由此展开。

And I’ll bet anything that Roosevelt didn’t understand it, but he understood that Albert Einstein [had] sent [him] a letter, and he probably knew what he was talking about, and he better get… he better start the Manhattan Project. It is just unbelievable what happens in this world.我敢打赌罗斯福不懂其中的内容，但他明白阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦[给他]写了一封信，他可能知道信中谈论的内容，他最好……他最好开始曼哈顿计划。这个世界发生的事情真是难以置信。

BECKY QUICK: Anyway, let’s move on to Becky, I guess, is next, right?贝琪·奎克：无论如何，我们接下来要谈谈贝琪，我猜，对吧？

WARREN BUFFETT: Yep. Randy Jeffs from Irvine, California.沃伦·巴菲特：是的。来自加利福尼亚州欧文市的兰迪·杰夫斯。

RANDY JEFFS: The March 25, 2024, Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury market is about sixfold larger than before the 2008-2009 crisis. Do you think that at some point in time, the world market will no longer be able to absorb all of the US debt being offered?兰迪·杰夫斯：2024 年 3 月 25 日的《华尔街日报》报道，国债市场比 2008-2009 年危机前大约大了六倍。您认为，在某个时刻，全球市场将无法吸收所有美国提供的债务吗？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say the answer, of course, I don’t know, but my best speculation is that US debt will be acceptable for a very long time because there’s not much alternative. But it won’t be the quantity. The national debt was nothing to speak of for a long, long time. It won’t be the quantity. It will be whether in any way inflation would get let loose in a way that really threatened the whole world economic situation. And there really isn’t any alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency. And you get a lot of people who give you a lot of speeches on that, but that really is the answer.沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，关于这个问题，当然，我不知道，但我最好的猜测是美国债务将在很长一段时间内都是可以接受的，因为几乎没有其他选择。但这不在于数量。国家债务在很长一段时间内都无关紧要。它不在于数量。关键在于，无论以何种方式，通货膨胀是否会失控，从而真正威胁到全球经济形势。美元作为储备货币真的没有替代品。虽然很多人会就这个问题发表很多演讲，但这确实就是答案。

And Paul Volcker worried about that back in 19… before 1980, but he had threats on his life. And I happened to have a little contact with him at that time. He was an amazing, amazing fellow that, in effect, decided that he had to act, or [else] the financial system would fall apart in some way that he couldn’t predict. And he did it, and he had people threatening his life and [doing] all kinds of things, but he was the man for that crisis. But it wasn’t the quantity of US debt that was being offered that threatened the system then. It was the fact that inflation and the future value of the dollar, the “cash is trash” type thinking that… that was setting up something that could really affect the future of the world in terms of its economic system. And Paul Volcker took it on, and he was [as good as] it could be.保罗·沃克尔在 20 世纪 70 年代就曾为此担忧，但在 1980 年之前，他一直受到生命威胁。那时我有幸与他有过一些接触。他是一位令人惊叹的非凡人物，实际上他认为必须采取行动，否则金融体系将以一种他无法预测的方式崩溃。他确实这样做了，有人威胁他的生命，做了各种事情，但他正是那个危机中的人。但当时威胁体系的是美国债务的数量，而不是通货膨胀和美元未来的价值，那种“现金是垃圾”的思维方式……那正在酝酿着可能真正影响世界经济体系未来的事情。保罗·沃克尔接手了这件事，他做得再好不过了。

And if you haven’t read a book or two about him or the one he last wrote, you really ought to take a look at it. But it is… I don’t worry about the quantity, I worry about the fiscal deficit, but I’m not a worrier just generally. I mean, I think about it, but I don’t sit [around and] get up, work myself into a stew about it in the least. But I, but I can’t help thinking about it, and that’s… we’ve got a… we’ve got a great [deal of] attention… It’s interesting, I think [the] media enters into this and the focusing that focuses on the Fed, and they, you know, they just love it because things are always happening, and economists are always saying what’s going to happen with the Fed and everything else. But the fiscal deficit is what should be focused on. And Jay Powell is not only a great human being, but he’s, he’s a very, very wise man, but he doesn’t control fiscal policy.如果你还没读过一两本关于他的书，或者他最近写的书，你真的应该看看。但是……我不担心数量，我担心财政赤字，但我通常不是个爱担心的人。我的意思是，我会考虑这件事，但根本不会坐[着]起来，为此而焦虑不安。但是，我忍不住会思考这个问题，那就是……我们……我们得到了……我们得到了极大的关注……这很有趣，我认为[媒体]介入其中，关注点集中在美联储，他们，你知道，他们非常喜欢这样，因为事情总是在发生，经济学家们总是在说美联储会发生什么以及其他一切。但财政赤字才是应该被关注的重点。而杰伊·鲍威尔不仅是一个伟大的人，他还是一个非常、非常睿智的人，但他并不控制财政政策。

And every now and then he sends out a kind of a disguised plea [to] please pay attention to this because that’s where the trouble will be if we have it. As one of the comics used to say, there was a stand-up comic [who] used to say, “Who have I forgotten to offend after this talk?” And I always feel like that after these meetings. But we’ve got time for at least one question and maybe two. But let’s go to station seven.他时不时地发出一种伪装的请求，请大家关注这一点，因为如果我们有这个问题，麻烦就会出现在这里。正如一位喜剧演员曾经说过的那样，他是一位单口喜剧演员，经常说：“在我这次谈话之后，我忘记了冒犯谁？”每次开完这些会议后，我总感觉像是这样。但我们至少还有时间回答一个问题，也许两个。但让我们转到第七站。

DENNIS: Hello, my name is Dennis from Gifhorn, Germany. [This is] my first time here. I’m here with my friend who would, by the way, love to invite you to dinner. You talked about the importance of heroes, and we are very happy and thankful that we have you as our hero with great values, and thank you for that. First of all, my question is, it is clear that you [have] achieved great success in life. Earlier you talked about every investment having [an] opportunity cost. From what I’ve learned in life, that does not only apply to investing your money, but also to investing your time. Every hour you spend in your office is an hour you cannot spend with your spouse or children. With the life experience you have now, if you had the possibility to start all over again, would you set your priorities any different? If yes, how and why? And what’s the best way to invite you to dinner?丹尼斯：您好，我叫丹尼斯，来自德国基夫霍恩。这是我来这里的第一次。我和我的朋友一起来，他顺便想邀请您共进晚餐。您谈到了英雄的重要性，我们非常高兴和感激能有您这样一位具有伟大价值观的英雄，谢谢您。首先，我的问题是，很明显您在生活中取得了巨大的成功。您之前提到过每一项投资都有机会成本。根据我的人生经验，这不仅适用于投资金钱，也适用于投资时间。您在办公室的每一小时，都是不能陪伴配偶或孩子的时光。凭借您现在的人生经验，如果您有机会重新开始，您会改变您的优先事项吗？如果会，如何改变，为什么？以及邀请您共进晚餐的最佳方式是什么？

(Laughter) （笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: That definitely won’t be one of my priorities if I figure out how to do that. But don’t take it personally, because you can figure [it] out [in] the maximum longer period I’ve got.沃伦·巴菲特：如果我能想出如何做到这一点，那这绝对不会是我的优先事项之一。但请不要介意，因为您可以在我最长的时间里想出这一点。

I don’t think… I mean, I can figure out all kinds of things that should have been done differently, but so what, you know? I mean, I’m not perfect. I don’t believe in [a] lot of self-criticism or being unrealistic about either what you are or what you’ve accomplished or what you’d like to do. You do the… you know, you do a lot of things, and who knows whether somewhat different trade-offs… You know, you just can’t… you can’t… You don’t know what the paths would have led.我不认为……我的意思是，我能想出各种本可以做得不同的地方，但那又怎样，你知道？我的意思是，我不完美。我不相信过多的自我批评或对自己、所成就的事或想要做的事抱有不切实际的幻想。你做了……你知道，你做了很多事情，谁知道是否有些不同的权衡……你知道，你根本不能……你不能……你不知道那些不同的道路会通向何方。

I feel… I don’t think there’s any… any room in beating up [on] yourself over what’s happened in the past. It’s happened, and you get to live the rest of [your] life, and you don’t know how long it’s going to be. And you keep trying to do the things that are important to you. If I was a doctor or if I was [in] all kinds of different professions, I might do different things, but I really enjoy managing money for people who trust me. I don’t have any reason to do it for financial reasons. I’m not running a hedge fund or getting an override [or] anything, but I just like the feeling of being trusted. Charlie felt the same way. You know, that’s a good way to feel in life, and it continues to be a good feeling.我感觉……我不认为过去发生过的事情有任何理由让自己责备自己。事情已经发生，你还有余生可过，你不知道会持续多久。你继续努力做对你重要的事。如果我是个医生或从事各种不同的职业，我可能会做不同的事，但我真的很享受为那些信任我的人管理金钱。我没有理由从金钱角度去做这件事。我不是在经营对冲基金或获得什么额外收益，但我喜欢被信任的感觉。查理也是这样感觉的。你知道，这是一种很好的生活感受，而且这种感觉持续存在。

So I’m not really looking to change much. And, you know, if I’m very lucky, I get to play it off for six or seven years, and it could end tomorrow. But that’s… That’s true of everybody. Although the equation isn’t exactly the same. But I don’t believe in beating yourself up over anything you’ve done in the past. And I don’t believe in… well, I believe in trying to find what you’re good at, what you enjoy. And then I think the one thing that you can aspire to be, because this can be done by anybody and it’s amazing… [it] doesn’t have anything to do with money… but you can be kind. You can be kind if you’re… And then the world’s better off. I’m not sure that the world will be better off if I’m richer, but there’s no question that… I mean, you know, kind people… and in the end, aspire to be more… Or I’m sure many of you are [kind] yourself, but just aspire to be more.所以，我其实并没有打算改变太多。而且，你知道，如果我很幸运的话，我可以这样持续六七年，但明天就可能会结束。但这……这适用于每个人。尽管这个方程式并不完全相同。但我并不相信因为过去所做的一切而责备自己。而且，我不相信……嗯，我相信去寻找自己擅长什么，自己喜欢什么。然后我认为，你可以追求成为那样的人，因为这是任何人都可以做到的，而且非常……[它]与金钱无关……但你可以是善良的。如果你是……那么世界就会变得更好。我不确定如果我更富有，世界会变得更好，但毫无疑问……我的意思是，你知道，善良的人……最终，追求成为更……或者我确信你们中的许多人本身就是[善良的]，但只是追求成为更多。

So… And I guess we can take one more question from Becky, and then we’ll wind up.所以……我想我们可以再回答贝基一个问题，然后结束。

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Devon Spurgeon. On March 4th, Charlie’s will was filed with the County of Los Angeles. The first codicil contained an unusual provision. It reads, “Averaged out, my long life has been a favored one, made better by duty, imposed by family tradition, requiring righteousness and service. Therefore, I follow an old practice that I wish was more common. Now, inserting an ethical bequest that gives priority not to property, but to [the] transmission of duty.” If you were to make an ethical bequest to Berkshire shareholders, what duties would you impose and why?贝琪·奎克：这个问题来自德文·斯普林根。3 月 4 日，查理的遗嘱已提交给洛杉矶县。第一份附录包含了一项不寻常的条款。它写道：“平均来看，我漫长的人生是一个受眷顾的人生，它因责任而更美好，责任由家族传统所赋予，要求正直和奉献。因此，我遵循一种古老的习俗，我希望它能更普遍。现在，插入一项道德遗赠，优先考虑的不是财产，而是责任的传承。”如果你要对伯克希尔股东做出一项道德遗赠，你会施加哪些责任，为什么？

WARREN BUFFETT: I’d probably say, “Read Charlie.” I mean, he’s expressed it well, and I would… Well, I would say that if they’re not financially well-off, if you’re being kind, you’re doing something that most of the rich people don’t do, even when they give away money. But that’s on the question of whether you’re rich or poor. And I would say, if you’re lucky in life, make sure a bunch of other people are lucky, too.沃伦·巴菲特：我可能会说，“读查理的文章。”我的意思是，他表达得很清楚，我会……嗯，我会说，如果他们经济上不宽裕，如果你善良，你正在做大多数富人即使捐赠金钱也不会做的事情。但这取决于你是否富有。而且我会说，如果你在生活中很幸运，确保其他人也能幸运。

Okay. Just in case… You know what my advice to myself would be [and] has been during this period. So we only got 33 questions, or whatever it is. But thank you very, very much for coming, and I not only hope that you come next year, but I hope I come next year.好的。万一……你知道在我这个时期，我对自己给出的建议[以及]一直以来的建议是什么。所以我们只收到了 33 个问题，或者是什么。但非常感谢你们来，我不但希望你们明年再来，我还希望我自己明年再来。