Transcript: Berkshire’s 2025 annual shareholder meeting

会议记录：伯克希尔哈撒韦公司2025年度股东大会

Thomas Chua

May 4, 2025

Reading Time: 106 mins read

作者： Thomas Chua 2025 年 5 月 4 日文字记录阅读时间：106 分钟

I’m compiling my top takeaways from Berkshire Hathaway’s 2025 AGM—CEO transition, Buffett’s $347B cash pile, GEICO’s turnaround, trade war warnings, thoughts on DOGE and more.我正在整理伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司 2025 年股东大会的几个主要要点——CEO 更迭、巴菲特 3470 亿美元的现金储备、GEICO 的扭亏为盈、贸易战警告、对狗狗币的看法等等。

Full Transcript 完整文字稿

Morning Session Transcript 上午会议记录

Opening Remarks 开幕致辞

Warren Buffett: If everyone will please take their seats. This is my 60th annual meeting, and it’s the biggest and I think it’ll be the best yet. Before I start, I’d like to give you a few figures from yesterday because we set all kinds of records.沃伦·巴菲特： 请各位入座。这是我的第 60 届年度股东大会，也是规模最大、我认为也是最好的一届。在正式开始之前，我想先给大家介绍一下昨天的一些数据，因为我们创下了多项纪录。

Yesterday we had 19,700 people join us in the afternoon between noon and 5:00, up from 16,200 which was the previous record the year before. In every aspect we set records. See’s Candy did $317,000 against $283,000 the year before, and most of these were limited by capacity. There were lines throughout the entire day. Brooks did $310,000 – an all-time record sales day for them. I think they have close to 3,000 runners lined up for Sunday, which is a lot of people. We’ve had 2,200 or 2,400 before, but 3,000 – and that doesn’t count me, and it won’t count me.昨天下午 12 点到 5 点之间，共有 19700 人参加了我们的活动，比去年的 16200 人增加了不少，创下了去年的最高纪录。我们在各个方面都打破了纪录。See's Candy 的销售额达到了 31.7 万美元，而去年同期为 28.3 万美元，而且大部分商品都受到容量限制。全天都有人排队。Brooks 的销售额达到了 31 万美元，创下了他们有史以来的最高单日销售额纪录。我想他们周日应该会有近 3000 名跑者排队，这可真是个大数字。我们之前也接待过 2200 或 2400 人，但 3000 人——这还不包括我，以后也不会把我算进去。

I could go up and down the line. Jazz wares did around $250,000, double the previous years. They just sell as fast as they can sell. Most every place had people lined up at the cash register, sometimes for a longer wait than we’d wish. But we’ll learn the game eventually. Every company set records.我可以沿着队伍来回走动。爵士乐用品的销售额约为25万美元，是前几年的两倍。它们卖得非常火爆。几乎每个摊位前都排着长队，有时等待的时间比我们预想的要长。但我们最终会掌握诀窍的。每家公司都创下了销售记录。

There’s no way of knowing how many people we have here today. We have people listening in around the world, but I think we’ll probably set records in a great variety of ways.我们无法知道今天现场有多少人。虽然世界各地都有人收听，但我认为我们可能会在很多方面创造纪录。

I would like to first introduce our directors. I’m Warren Buffett, and I was born and raised here in Omaha. We have Greg Abel – he was born and raised in Canada, and we have Ajit Jain who was born and raised in India. So we have a very diverse group.首先，我想介绍一下我们的董事。我是沃伦·巴菲特，我在奥马哈出生长大。还有格雷格·阿贝尔，他在加拿大出生长大；以及阿吉特·贾恩，他在印度出生长大。所以我们的团队成员背景非常多元化。

I will introduce our directors alphabetically, and if they’ll stand as I introduce them – withhold your applause till the end so we can get through the list:我将按字母顺序介绍我们的董事，如果他们愿意在我介绍时起立——请不要鼓掌，直到最后，以便我们能介绍完所有人：

Howard Buffett 霍华德·巴菲特Susan Buffett 苏珊·巴菲特Steve Burke 史蒂夫·伯克Ken Chenault 肯·切诺特Chris Davis 克里斯·戴维斯Sue Decker, who’s our lead director苏·德克尔，她是我们的首席导演Charlotte Guyman 夏洛特·盖曼Tom Murphy Jr. 小汤姆·墨菲Ron Olson – and I’ll have a few more things to say about him罗恩·奥尔森——关于他，我还有几点要说。Wally Scott 沃利·斯科特Meryl Witmer 梅丽尔·维特默

And with that, you’ve got our all-star cast. Ron, if you don’t mind standing, I would like to point out that Ron has reached our director age limit at Berkshire. I think we had five directors over 90 not so long ago, but we have the highest age limit of any company Sue has checked. Ron has been on the board for 28 years and has been associated with Charlie Munger at Munger Tolles for many years beyond that. He has been around at various times of crisis, joy, disappointments, and surprises at Berkshire and has been of invaluable help to us. So I’d like to give a special hand to Ron Olson.至此，我们的全明星阵容就齐了。罗恩，如果您不介意站起来，我想指出，罗恩已经达到了伯克希尔公司董事的年龄上限。我记得不久前我们还有五位超过90岁的董事，但我们是苏所了解的所有公司中年龄上限最高的。罗恩担任董事已有28年，在此之前，他与查理·芒格在芒格·托勒斯公司共事多年。他见证了伯克希尔公司经历的各种危机、喜悦、失望和惊喜，并为我们提供了宝贵的帮助。因此，我想特别向罗恩·奥尔森致以敬意。

I think I’ll do something else that isn’t usually done at annual meetings. I listened to Apple’s quarterly call on Thursday afternoon – it’s the only investment quarterly call that I listen to. I understand Tim Cook is here, and it’ll be tough for me to see him from up here, but there he is. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more money than I’ve ever made Berkshire Hathaway.我想我会做一件在年会上通常不会做的事。我周四下午听了苹果公司的季度电话会议——这是我唯一会听的投资公司季度电话会议。我知道蒂姆·库克也来了，从我这儿看他有点困难，但他确实来了。说实话，我有点不好意思承认，蒂姆·库克为伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司赚的钱比我为伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司赚的钱多得多。

I knew Steve Jobs briefly, and Steve of course did things that nobody else could have done in developing Apple. Steve picked Tim to succeed him, and he really made the right decision. Steve died young as you know, and nobody but Steve could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim could have developed it as he has. So on behalf of all of Berkshire, thank you Tim.我曾与史蒂夫·乔布斯有过短暂的交集，当然，在苹果公司的发展过程中，他做出了许多其他人无法做到的事情。乔布斯选择蒂姆作为他的继任者，这的确是一个正确的决定。众所周知，乔布斯英年早逝，除了他，没有人能够创立苹果公司；但除了蒂姆，也没有人能够像他一样将苹果发展得如此出色。因此，我谨代表伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的全体员工，向蒂姆致以衷心的感谢。

There are a couple other people I’d like to thank. I don’t do any work in terms of the show or anything else around Berkshire, but what you see today is the product of a lot of people at Berkshire. The people of Berkshire put on this show every year – our chief financial officer and just everybody pitches in. It’s a remarkable organization that way. But it’s led this year and in the last few years by Melissa Shapiro, and she’s made this whole thing work.还有几个人我也想感谢。我本人并不参与节目制作或伯克希尔的其他任何工作，但今天大家看到的演出是伯克希尔众多员工共同努力的成果。伯克希尔的员工每年都倾力打造这场演出——我们的首席财务官和所有员工都贡献了自己的力量。伯克希尔在这方面确实非常出色。但今年以及过去几年，演出都是由梅丽莎·夏皮罗领导的，正是她让这一切得以成功举办。

We also had an idea a while back… maybe 65 years ago, I met Carrie Sa’s grandfather and his wife. They had nine children, and Susie and I joined a playhouse group. I don’t look like the kind of guy that would join a playhouse group, but it turned out to be a great move in many ways. I enjoyed the plays, but beyond that I met not only Carrie’s grandfather, who ran an insurance company in Omaha – Bill Kaiser – but I also met the Kiewit boys’ parents, Louis and Francis.大约65年前，我认识了凯莉·萨的祖父和他的妻子。他们有九个孩子，我和苏西加入了一个剧团。我看起来不像会加入剧团的那种人，但事实证明，这在很多方面都是一个明智之举。我很喜欢看戏，更重要的是，我不仅认识了凯莉的祖父——比尔·凯泽，他在奥马哈经营一家保险公司——还认识了基维特家男孩的父母，路易斯和弗朗西斯。

In connection with Carrie, her father ran a company called Central States, and later on we bought that company and her father ran it. Her sister went to work for Berkshire some years ago and then left to have a family with four kids. Carrie moved right in and had amazing talents. About 10 or 11 years ago, I asked Carrie to do a 50th anniversary book about Berkshire and just use her imagination. She’d never edited a book, never published a book, never dealt with printers before, but she put together the 50th anniversary book.卡莉的父亲经营着一家名为“中央州”的公司，后来我们收购了这家公司，由她父亲继续经营。几年前，她的姐姐加入了伯克希尔公司，之后为了组建家庭（育有四个孩子）而离职。卡莉搬来后，立刻展现出惊人的才华。大约十年前或十一年前，我邀请卡莉为伯克希尔公司撰写一本五十周年纪念册，让她自由发挥想象力。她之前从未编辑过书籍，从未出版过书籍，也从未与印刷厂打过交道，但她最终完成了这本五十周年纪念册的编撰工作。

Then Carrie got married and had three kids, so she had to leave us. We go to a baseball game once a year and invite some of our distinguished alumni like Carrie to join us. Even though she was raising three children, she volunteered to create a 60th anniversary book. She kept doing things with her kids and every now and then I’d ask how it was going. She got it done about a week before the meeting because I gave her the assignment very late.后来凯莉结婚生了三个孩子，不得不离开我们。我们每年都会去看一次棒球比赛，并邀请一些像凯莉这样杰出的校友一起参加。尽管她要抚养三个孩子，她还是主动提出要参与制作一本60周年纪念册。她一直忙着照顾孩子，我时不时会问问她进展如何。因为我交任务很晚，所以她在会议召开前一周左右才完成。

Yesterday we sold about 4,400 books. We printed 8,000 – we intended to print 5,000 – so we have roughly 3,600 left for today. It’s kind of whimsical but accurate, and she came out with just the book I hoped she would. Carrie wouldn’t take a dime, but I did get her to name her favorite charity – the Stephen Center, which takes care of homeless people and does many other things. It’s located about five or six miles south of here and has been doing wonderful work. Her grandfather helped form it, and her husband has now joined the board.昨天我们卖出了大约4400本书。我们印了8000本——原本计划印5000本——所以今天大概还剩下3600本。这本书有点异想天开，但很贴切，她写出来的正是我希望她写的那种书。凯莉一分钱也不肯收，但我还是让她说出了她最喜欢的慈善机构——斯蒂芬中心。这个中心照顾无家可归的人，也做了很多其他的事情。它位于我们这里以南五六英里处，一直以来都做得非常出色。她的祖父参与创建了这个中心，现在她的丈夫也加入了董事会。

We are selling 20 special copies of the book. We sold 10 prior to the meeting and raised a few hundred thousand doing that – I think we sold one for $100,000. The only difference between these and the $25 version is that Carrie and I signed them. The six we sold yesterday brought $148,000, which is about $25,000 per book. We saved four more, and this afternoon when we disband at 1:00, the area behind us with the bookstore will sell the final four. When we’re all through, I’ll match whatever we’ve raised from the 20 books, and we’ll give the Stephen Center a boost both financially and in awareness.我们正在出售20本特别版书籍。会议前我们卖出了10本，筹集了几十万美元——我记得其中一本卖了10万美元。这些特别版和25美元的普通版唯一的区别就是我和凯莉在上面签了名。昨天我们卖出的6本共筹得14.8万美元，平均每本约2.5万美元。我们还留了4本，今天下午1点会议结束后，我们会在后面的书店区域出售剩下的4本。全部售完后，我会把这20本书的筹款总额全部捐出去，这样就能在资金和公众认知度上都为斯蒂芬中心提供助力。

When you look at that book, Carrie really did the whole thing. There’s a lot of information in there, and she dug through it all. She came by a couple times to check a fact or two, but she got material from the Munger family – she just did a wonderful job. I couldn’t get her to take a penny for it, so I’m going to ask her to do a lot of other things in the future.你看那本书，就知道凯莉真的全程参与了。里面有很多资料，她都仔细查阅过了。她来过几次核实一些事实，但她是从芒格家族那里收集到的资料——她做得太棒了。我怎么也说服不了她收一分钱，所以我打算以后请她做更多的事情。

With that, I think we’ve covered all the business. We will move to questions, alternating between Becky with questions she’s received from around the country and from our audience which we have organized by zones.至此，我想我们已经讨论完了所有正事。接下来是问答环节，贝基会轮流回答来自全国各地和我们按区域划分的观众提出的问题。

Q&A Session 问答环节

Becky Quick: Thanks Warren. This first question comes from Bill Mitchell. I received more questions about this than any other question. He writes, “Warren, in a 2003 Fortune article, you argued for import certificates to limit trade deficits and said these import certificates basically amounted to a tariff, but recently you called tariffs an act of economic war. Has your view on trade barriers changed or do you see import certificates as somehow distinct from tariffs?”贝基·奎克： 谢谢沃伦。第一个问题来自比尔·米切尔。我收到的关于这个问题的提问比其他任何问题都多。他写道：“沃伦，您在 2003 年《财富》杂志的一篇文章中主张使用进口证书来限制贸易逆差，并表示这些进口证书实际上相当于关税，但您最近却称关税是一种经济战行为。您对贸易壁垒的看法是否有所改变？或者您认为进口证书与关税有某种区别？”

Warren Buffett: Well, the import certificates were distinct, but their goal was to balance imports against exports so that the trade deficit would not grow in an enormous way. It had various provisions to help third world countries catch up a little bit. They were designed to balance trade, and I think you can make very good arguments that balanced trade is good for the world.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，进口许可证制度虽然有所不同，但其目标都是平衡进出口，防止贸易逆差大幅扩大。它包含多项条款，旨在帮助第三世界国家迎头赶上。这些措施旨在平衡贸易，我认为完全可以论证贸易平衡对世界有益。

It makes sense for cocoa to be raised in Ghana and coffee in Colombia and a few other things. Over time, America has gone from being an agricultural country – this was nothing but an agricultural country 250 years ago – to a very industrial country. We did not want to run greater and greater deficits building up greater and greater debts against the country.可可产地选在加纳，咖啡产地选在哥伦比亚，以及其他一些地方，这都是合理的。随着时间的推移，美国已经从一个农业国——250年前，美国的确是一个纯粹的农业国——转型成为一个高度工业化的国家。我们不想让赤字不断扩大，让国家背负越来越沉重的债务。

So I designed this import certificate plan, which Charlie thought was a little too much like Rube Goldberg – it’s gimmicky, but it’s certainly better than what we’re talking about now. There’s no question that trade can be an act of war, and I think it’s led to bad things like the attitudes it’s brought out in the United States. We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.所以我设计了这个进口证书方案，查理觉得这有点像鲁布·戈德堡机械——花里胡哨的，但肯定比我们现在讨论的要好。毫无疑问，贸易可能成为战争行为，我认为它导致了一些不良后果，比如它在美国引发的这种态度。我们应该寻求与世界其他国家进行贸易。我们应该发挥我们的优势，他们也应该发挥他们的优势。

With eight countries possessing nuclear weapons, including a few I would call quite unstable, I don’t think it’s a great idea to design a world where a few countries say, “Haha, we’ve won” while other countries are envious.目前有八个国家拥有核武器，其中一些国家我认为相当不稳定，因此，设计一个少数国家说“哈哈，我们赢了”而其他国家羡慕不已的世界，我认为不是一个好主意。

My import certificate idea went nowhere. The main thing is that trade should not be a weapon. The United States has become an incredibly important country starting from nothing 250 years ago – there’s never been anything like it. And it’s a big mistake when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well and you have 300 million people crowing about how well they’ve done.我的进口证书方案最终不了了之。最重要的是，贸易不应该成为武器。美国在250年前从一无所有发展成为如今举足轻重的国家——历史上从未有过这样的先例。而当75亿人对你抱有敌意，同时又有3亿人沾沾自喜地吹嘘自己取得了多么辉煌的成就时，这无疑是一个巨大的错误。

I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise. The more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won’t be at our expense – the more prosperous we’ll become and the safer we’ll feel and your children will feel someday. But don’t expect my import certificate idea to go down in history with Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.我认为这既不正确也不明智。世界其他地区越繁荣，不会以牺牲我们为代价——我们也会越繁荣，我们会感到越安全，你们的子孙后代将来也会感到安全。但别指望我的进口证书提案能像亚当·斯密的《国富论》那样载入史册。

Audience Member (Zone 1): Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel, and Mr. Jain. Good morning. I’m St. J. from Hong Kong. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger did a very good and successful investment in Japan in the past five or six years. The recent CPI in Japan is currently above 3%, not far away from its 2% target. Bank of Japan seems very determined in raising rates while Fed, ECB, and other central banks are considering cutting them. Do you think BOJ makes sense to proceed with the rate hike? Will its planned rate hike deter you from further investing in the Japanese stock market or even considering realizing your current profits? Thank you very much for arranging this greatest event every year. Finally, I wish you health always and to keep holding this shareholder meeting.观众席（1 区）： 巴菲特先生、阿贝尔先生、贾恩先生，早上好。我是来自香港的圣 J。巴菲特先生和芒格先生在过去五六年里对日本的投资非常成功。日本最近的 CPI 已超过 3%，距离 2%的目标并不遥远。日本央行似乎决心加息，而美联储、欧洲央行和其他央行都在考虑降息。您认为日本央行加息的做法合理吗？其计划中的加息是否会阻止您继续投资日本股市，甚至阻止您考虑实现目前的收益？非常感谢您每年举办如此盛会。最后，祝您身体健康，并希望您继续举办股东大会。

Warren Buffett: Well, I’m going to extend the same goodwill to Japan that you’ve just extended to me. I’ll let the people of Japan determine their best course of action in terms of economics. It’s an incredible story.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我也会像你们刚才对我一样，对日本抱有同样的善意。我会让日本人民自己决定他们在经济方面最好的行动方案。这真是一个不可思议的故事。

It’s been about six years now since our Japanese investments. I was just going through a little handbook that probably had two or three thousand Japanese companies in it. One problem I have is that I can’t read that handbook anymore – the print’s too small. But there were these five trading companies selling at ridiculously low prices. So I spent about a year acquiring them. And then we got to know the people better, and everything that Greg and I saw, we liked better as we went along.我们投资日本公司已经六年了。我最近在翻阅一本小册子，里面大概收录了两三千家日本公司。现在的问题是，我看不清那本小册子了——字太小了。不过，里面有五家贸易公司，售价低得离谱。所以我花了一年左右的时间把它们收购了。之后，我们和这些公司的负责人越来越熟，我和格雷格也越来越喜欢他们。

So we got fairly close to the 10% limit that we told the companies we would never exceed without their permission. We did ask them whether that limit could be relaxed, and it’s in the process of being relaxed somewhat. I would say that – I’ll speak for Greg beyond me – in the next 50 years, we won’t give a thought to selling those positions.因此，我们持股比例已经非常接近10%的上限，而我们之前告诉过各公司，未经许可我们绝不会超过这个上限。我们确实询问过他们是否可以放宽这个上限，目前他们正在逐步放宽。我想说——我也可以代表格雷格发言——在未来50年里，我们绝不会考虑出售这些股份。

Japan’s record has been extraordinary. My guess is that Tim Cook would tell you that iPhone sales there are about as great as any country outside the United States. American Express would tell you that they sell their product very well in Japan. Coca-Cola, another big investment of ours, does extraordinarily well in Japan. They have a number of habits and a civilization that operates differently than ours. Japan is by far the biggest market for Coca-Cola’s soft drink containers.日本的业绩堪称卓越。我猜蒂姆·库克会告诉你，iPhone 在日本的销量几乎可以媲美除美国以外的任何国家。美国运通也会告诉你，他们的产品在日本销售非常成功。可口可乐——我们另一项重要的投资——在日本也取得了非凡的成绩。日本人的生活习惯和文化与我们截然不同。日本是可口可乐软饮料包装的最大市场。

We have been treated extremely well by the five companies. They talk primarily with Greg. I went over there a year or two ago, but Greg’s more cosmopolitan than I am.这五家公司对我们都非常友好。他们主要和格雷格沟通。我一两年前去过那里，但格雷格比我见多识广得多。

Greg Abel: When you think of the five companies, there’s definitely a couple meetings a year, Warren. The thing we’re building with the five companies is, one, it’s been a very good investment, but we really envision holding the investment for 50 years or forever. We also are building relationships to do incremental things with each of those companies. We really hope to do big things with them globally. They bring different perspectives and different opportunities, and that’s why we’re building that long-term relationship with them.格雷格·阿贝尔： 沃伦，说到这五家公司，我们每年肯定要开几次会。我们与这五家公司合作的目标首先是，这是一项非常不错的投资，但我们真正设想的是长期持有这项投资，甚至长达 50 年。同时，我们也在与每家公司建立长期合作关系，以便逐步推进各项业务。我们真心希望与他们携手在全球范围内成就一番大事业。他们带来了不同的视角和机遇，这正是我们与他们建立长期合作关系的原因。

They have different customs, different approaches to business – that’s true around the world. We don’t have any intention of trying to change what they’ve done because they do it very successfully. Our main activity is just to cheer and clap, and I can still do that at 94.他们的风俗习惯不同，经商方式也不同——世界各地都是如此。我们无意改变他们的做法，因为他们做得非常成功。我们的主要任务就是欢呼鼓掌，而我94岁高龄依然可以做到。

We will not be selling any stock. That will not happen in decades, if then. My guess is that they will find things – they cover the world pretty much – and we will find opportunities that may be very large for any individual company there. They may be assisted by some help we bring to the situation, but that will be an expanding relationship.我们不会出售任何股票。即使将来几十年内也不会，甚至更久。我估计他们会发现一些机会——他们的业务几乎覆盖全球——而我们也会发现一些对任何一家公司来说都可能非常巨大的机会。我们或许能为他们提供一些帮助，但这将会是一个不断发展的合作关系。

It’s too bad that Berkshire has gotten as big as it is because we love that position and I’d like it to be a lot larger. Even with the five companies being very large in Japan, we’ve got at market in the range of $20 billion invested, but I’d rather have $100 billion than $20 billion. That’s how I feel about several other investments we have. But size is an enemy of performance at Berkshire, and I don’t know any good way to solve that problem.伯克希尔规模如此庞大实在令人惋惜，因为我们非常看好目前的投资，而且我希望规模能更大。即便我们在日本投资的五家公司规模都非常庞大，总投资额也只有200亿美元左右，但我宁愿投资1000亿美元，而不是200亿美元。我对我们其他几项投资也有同样的看法。然而，规模过大对伯克希尔的业绩不利，我也不知道有什么好办法解决这个问题。

Charlie always told me that having a few problems was good for me. The Japan investment has just been right up our alley.查理总是跟我说，遇到一些问题对我有好处。在日本的投资正合我们心意。

Greg Abel: I absolutely agree, Warren. I do believe we’ll see some very large opportunities long term, and that’s just been a great plus of that relationship.格雷格·阿贝尔： 我完全同意，沃伦。我相信从长远来看，我们将看到一些非常大的机遇，而这正是我们这段关系的一大优势。

Warren Buffett: I would say they want to present us with opportunities, and we would like to receive them. We’ve got the money. We get along very well with each other. They have some different customs than we have. They drink Georgia coffee as their number one Coca-Cola product. I haven’t converted them to Cherry Coke, and they’re not going to convert me to Georgia Coffee. But it’s a perfect relationship. I just wish we could get more like it.沃伦·巴菲特： 我想说，他们想给我们提供机会，而我们也乐于接受。我们有钱，我们相处得也很好。他们的习俗和我们有些不同。他们把乔治亚咖啡当作他们最爱的可口可乐产品。我没能让他们改喝樱桃可乐，他们也不可能让我改喝乔治亚咖啡。但我们的关系非常融洽。我真希望我们能有更多这样的合作关系。

I never dreamt of that when I picked up that handbook. It’s amazing what you can find when you just turn the page. We showed a movie last year about “turn every page,” and I would say that turning every page is one important ingredient to bring to the investment field. Very few people do turn every page, and the ones who turn every page aren’t going to tell you what they’re finding. So you’ve got to do a little of it yourself.我拿起那本手册的时候，做梦也没想到会有今天。你只要翻开一页，就能发现很多意想不到的东西。去年我们放映了一部关于“翻阅每一页”的电影，我认为“翻阅每一页”是投资领域一项重要的技能。很少有人会真的翻阅每一页，而那些真的会翻阅的人也不会告诉你他们发现了什么。所以，你也得自己动手做一些。

Becky Quick: This next question comes from Advate Prasad in New York. He writes, “Today, Berkshire holds over $300 billion in cash and short-term investments, representing about 27% of total assets, a historically high figure compared to the 13% average over the last 25 years. This has also led Berkshire to effectively own nearly 5% of the entire US Treasury market. Beyond the need for liquidity to meet insurance obligations, is the decision to raise cash primarily a de-risking strategy in response to high market valuations? Or is it also a deliberate effort to position Berkshire’s balance sheet for a smoother leadership transition, providing Greg Abel with maximum flexibility and a clean slate for future capital allocation decisions?” And I will add one line from another shareholder, Mike Conway, who asks, “Are you encouraged you may see some fat pitches coming your way?”贝基·奎克： 下一个问题来自纽约的普拉萨德律师。他写道：“如今，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司持有超过 3000 亿美元的现金和短期投资，约占其总资产的 27%，这一数字远高于过去 25 年 13%的平均水平。这也使得伯克希尔哈撒韦公司实际上持有近 5%的美国国债。除了满足保险义务所需的流动性之外，此次增发现金的决定主要是为了应对高市场估值而采取的降低风险策略吗？或者，这也是为了使伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的资产负债表能够更平稳地完成领导层交接，从而为格雷格·阿贝尔提供最大的灵活性，并为他未来的资本配置决策创造一个全新的起点？” 我还想补充另一位股东迈克·康威的提问：“您是否对即将收到的一些高额投资提案感到鼓舞？”

Warren Buffett: Well, I wouldn’t do anything nearly so noble as to withhold investing myself just so that Greg could look good later on. If he gets any edge of what I leave behind, I’ll resent it.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我可不会为了让格雷格以后看起来不错而放弃自己的投资，这种做法实在太高尚了。如果他从我留下的遗产中分得一杯羹，我会非常不满。

The amount of cash we have – we would spend $100 billion if something is offered that makes sense to us, that we understand, offers good value, and where we don’t worry about losing money. The problem with the investment business is that things don’t come along in an orderly fashion, and they never will.我们手头有1000亿美元的现金，如果遇到我们觉得合理、能够理解、物有所值，而且不用担心亏损的项目，我们愿意投资。投资行业的弊端在于，机会从来都不是按部就班出现的，而且永远也不会是。

I’ve had about 16,000 trading days in my career. It would be nice if every day you got four opportunities or something like that with equal attractiveness. If I was running a numbers racket, every day would have the same expectancy that I would keep 40% of whatever the handle was, and the only question would be how much we transacted. But we’re not running that kind of business.我职业生涯至今大约有16000个交易日。如果每天都能有四五个同样有吸引力的交易机会，那就太好了。如果我经营的是那种靠数字赚钱的生意，那么每天的预期收益都是一样的：我能拿到交易额的40%，唯一的问题就是我们最终成交了多少。但我们做的不是那种生意。

We’re running a business which is very opportunistic. Charlie always thought I did too many things. He thought if we did about five things in our lifetime, we would end up doing better than if we did 50, and that we never concentrated enough.我们经营的是一家非常注重机会主义的公司。查理一直觉得我做的事情太多了。他认为，如果我们一生只做五件事，最终的成果会比做五十件要好，而且他觉得我们从来没有足够专注过。

We would rather have conditions develop where we would have like $50 billion in cash rather than $335 billion in treasuries. But that’s just not the way the business works. We have made a lot of money by not wanting to be fully invested at all times.我们宁愿持有500亿美元现金，而不是3350亿美元的国债。但商业运作并非如此。我们之所以能赚到这么多钱，正是因为我们不想始终保持满仓状态。

We don’t think it’s improper for passive investors to make a few simple investments and sit with them for life. But we’ve made the decision to be in the business, so we think we can do a little better by behaving in a very irregular manner.我们认为被动投资者进行几项简单的投资并长期持有并没有什么不妥。但既然我们决定投身投资行业，我们就认为通过一些非常规的操作方式，我们可以做得更好。

If you told me that I had to invest $50 billion every year until we got down to $50 billion in cash, that would be the dumbest thing in the world. Things get extraordinarily attractive very occasionally. The long-term trend is up. But nobody knows – Greg doesn’t know, Ajit doesn’t know, nobody knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, or next month. Nobody knows what business is going to do tomorrow, next week, or next month. But they spend all their time talking about it because it’s easy to talk about, though it has no value.如果你告诉我，我必须每年投资500亿美元，直到我们只剩下500亿美元的现金，那简直是世界上最愚蠢的事情。机会偶尔会异常诱人。长期趋势是上升的。但没人知道——格雷格不知道，阿吉特不知道，没人知道市场明天、下周或下个月会怎么走。也没人知道企业明天、下周或下个月会如何发展。但他们却把所有时间都花在谈论这些上，因为谈论这些很容易，尽管这些谈论毫无价值。

The process of leafing through things like that big Japanese book I can’t read anymore – that’s a treasure hunt. Every now and then you find something. Occasionally, very occasionally – but it’ll happen again, I don’t know when – it could be next week, it could be 5 years off, but it won’t be 50 years off – we will be bombarded with offerings that we’ll be glad we have the cash for.翻阅那些我再也看不懂的大部头日文书——就像寻宝一样。时不时地，你会发现一些东西。偶尔，非常偶尔——但它还会再次发生，我不知道什么时候——可能是下周，也可能是五年后，但肯定不会是五十年后——我们会收到大量选择，而我们会庆幸自己有钱购买。

It would be a lot more fun if it would happen tomorrow, but it’s very unlikely to happen tomorrow. It’s not unlikely to happen in five years, and the probabilities get higher as you go along. It’s kind of like death – if you’re 10 years old, the chances that you’re going to die the next day are low. If you get to be 115, it’s almost a certainty, particularly if you’re a male, as all the longevity records are held by females. I tried to get Charlie to have a sex change so he could test out whether it would extend his life. He did pretty well for being a male, I’ll put it that way.如果明天就发生，那当然更有意思，但明天发生的可能性很小。五年后发生的可能性就不小了，而且随着时间的推移，概率会越来越高。这有点像死亡——如果你10岁，第二天就死的概率很低。如果你活到115岁，那几乎是必然的，尤其如果你是男性，因为所有长寿记录都由女性保持。我曾试图让查理去做变性手术，看看是否能延长寿命。这么说吧，作为一个男性，他活得相当不错。

Audience Member (Zone 2): Good morning, Warren, Greg and Ajit. My name is Jackie Han. I’m from China and now work in Toronto, Canada. This is my eighth Berkshire Hathaway meeting. At this point, I’ve probably spent more time with you than most people spend on Netflix. As you might guess, coming from a Chinese family, we always had a soft spot for real estate. So the question isn’t why don’t you own a house, it’s why are you still buying stocks instead of more property? So here is my question: With today’s high interest rates and global uncertainty, do you still believe in being greedy when others are fearful, or is value investing facing new challenges in today’s environment? Thank you.观众（2 区）： 早上好，沃伦、格雷格和阿吉特。我叫韩杰基，来自中国，现在在加拿大多伦多工作。这是我第八次参加伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的股东大会。到目前为止，我和你们在一起的时间可能比大多数人看 Netflix 的时间都长。正如你们可能猜到的，我来自一个中国家庭，我们一直对房地产情有独钟。所以问题不是你们为什么不买房，而是你们为什么还在买股票而不是买更多的房产？我的问题是：在当今高利率和全球不确定性的背景下，你们是否仍然相信在别人恐惧时应该贪婪，或者价值投资在当今环境下是否面临着新的挑战？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, in respect to real estate, it’s so much harder than stocks in terms of negotiation of deals, time spent, and the involvement of multiple parties in the ownership. Usually when real estate gets in trouble, you find out you’re dealing with more than just the equity holder.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，就房地产而言，它在交易谈判、耗时以及涉及多方所有权等方面都比股票难得多。通常情况下，当房地产出现问题时，你会发现你要面对的不仅仅是股权持有人。

There have been times when large amounts of real estate have changed hands at bargain prices, but usually stocks were cheaper and they were a lot easier to do. Charlie did more real estate. Charlie enjoyed real estate transactions, and he actually did a fair number of them in the last 5 years of his life. But he was playing a game that was interesting to him.历史上也曾出现过大量房地产以低价易手的时期，但通常股票价格更低，交易也更容易。查理更多地涉足房地产。他喜欢房地产交易，事实上，在他生命的最后五年里，他确实完成了相当多的交易。但他只是在玩一场他感兴趣的游戏。

I think if you’d asked him to make a choice when he was 21 – either be in stocks exclusively for the rest of his life or real estate for the rest of his life – he would have chosen stocks. There’s just so much more opportunity, at least in the United States, that presents itself in the security market than in real estate.我认为，如果在他21岁的时候让他做选择——要么一辈子只投资股票，要么一辈子只投资房地产——他肯定会选择股票。至少在美国，证券市场的机会远比房地产市场多得多。

In real estate, you’re usually dealing with a single owner or a family that owns a large property they’ve had a long time. Maybe they’ve borrowed too much money against it. Maybe the population trends are against them. But to them, it’s an enormous decision.在房地产领域，你通常面对的是拥有大片房产的单个业主或家族，他们可能已经拥有这处房产很长时间了。也许他们背负了过多的抵押贷款。也许人口趋势对他们不利。但对他们来说，这是一个极其重大的决定。

When you walk down to the New York Stock Exchange, you can do billions of dollars worth of business, totally anonymous, and you can do it in 5 minutes. The trades are complete when they’re complete. In real estate, when you make a deal with a distressed lender, when you sign the deal, that’s just the beginning. Then people start negotiating more things, and it’s a whole different game with a different type of person who enjoys the game.当你走进纽约证券交易所，你可以在五分钟内完成价值数十亿美元的交易，完全匿名。交易完成即告完成。但在房地产领域，当你与陷入困境的贷款机构达成协议，签署合同时，这仅仅是个开始。之后人们会开始协商更多细节，这完全是另一回事，参与其中的人也截然不同。

We did a few real estate deals that came our way in 2008 and 2009, but the amount of time they would take compared to doing something intelligent and probably better in securities – there was just no comparison. In a real estate deal, every sentence is important to the person. In stocks, if somebody needs to sell 20,000 shares of Berkshire and they call us and the price is right, it’s done in 5 seconds and it closes right away.2008年和2009年，我们接手了一些房地产交易，但与在证券领域做一些更明智的、可能更有效的事情相比，房地产交易耗时太长，根本无法相提并论。在房地产交易中，对交易者来说，每一句话都至关重要。而在股票交易中，如果有人需要出售2万股伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的股票，他们打电话给我们，价格合适，5秒钟之内就能完成交易，立即成交。

The completion rate for working on anything in stocks, assuming you’ve got a meeting of the minds on price, is essentially 100%. In real estate, the negotiation just begins when you agree on deals, and then they take forever. For a 94-year-old, it’s not the most interesting thing to get involved in something where the negotiations could take years.在股票交易中，只要双方就价格达成一致，交易完成率几乎是100%。但在房地产领域，一旦达成交易协议，谈判才刚刚开始，而且往往旷日持久。对于一位94岁的老人来说，参与一项可能耗时数年的谈判实在没什么吸引力。

We have seen some huge failures in real estate. If you go all the way back to Zeckendorf in the 1960s, he was going to change the world, and Century City in California is a product of his vision. If you go to Reichmann with the Canary Wharf buildings in London, he was sitting on top of the world, but people tend to get in trouble in that business.我们目睹过房地产领域一些巨大的失败案例。追溯到上世纪60年代的泽肯多夫，他曾雄心勃勃地想要改变世界，加州的世纪城就是他远见卓识的结晶。再看看莱希曼在伦敦金丝雀码头的大厦，他当时可谓是如日中天，但在这个行业里，人们往往会遭遇各种麻烦。

The banks usually don’t want to recognize problems, but it takes a long time to go through the bank processes. They just got through redoing the Musk loan that he made when he was buying Twitter three years ago. Real estate transactions have parties on both sides that aren’t ready to act. We find it much better when people are ready to pick up the phone and you can do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business in a day. I’ve been spoiled, but I like being spoiled, so we’ll keep it that way.银行通常不愿承认问题，但走完银行流程需要很长时间。他们刚刚才重新处理了马斯克三年前收购推特时申请的贷款。房地产交易中，双方都可能迟迟不愿行动。我们发现，如果人们都愿意拿起电话沟通，一天就能完成数亿美元的交易，效率会高得多。我一直很享受这种便利，但我喜欢这种便利，所以我们会继续保持下去。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Sam England in San Francisco and it’s for Warren and Ajit. As AI systems become more capable and harder to interpret, how do you see that affecting the insurance industry’s ability to assess, price, and transfer risk? Are there parallels to past disruptions Berkshire has navigated in underwriting or capital allocation?贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自旧金山的萨姆·英格兰，是问沃伦和阿吉特的。随着人工智能系统功能越来越强大，也越来越难以解读，您认为这会对保险业评估、定价和转移风险的能力产生怎样的影响？伯克希尔在承保或资本配置方面过去遇到的挑战，是否与现在的情况有相似之处？

Ajit Jain: There is no question in my mind that AI is going to be a real game-changer. It’s going to change the way we assess risk, we price risk, we sell risk, and then the way we end up paying claims.阿吉特·贾恩： 我毫不怀疑人工智能将彻底改变游戏规则。它将改变我们评估风险、为风险定价、出售风险以及最终支付索赔的方式。

Having said that, I certainly also feel that people end up spending enormous amounts of money trying to chase the next fashionable thing. We are not very good at being the fastest or the first mover. Our approach is more to wait and see until the opportunity crystallizes and we have a better point of view in terms of risk of failure, upside, and downside.话虽如此，我也确实觉得人们最终会花费大量金钱去追逐下一个潮流。我们并不擅长成为速度最快的人或第一个行动者。我们的做法是静观其变，直到机会真正明朗，我们对失败的风险、潜在收益和潜在损失都有了更清晰的认识。

Right now the individual insurance operations do dabble in AI and try to figure out the best way to exploit it. But we have not yet made a conscious big-time effort in terms of pouring a lot of money into this opportunity. My guess is we will be in a state of readiness, and should that opportunity pop up, we’ll jump in promptly.目前，各保险公司都在尝试应用人工智能，探索如何更好地利用它。但我们还没有真正投入大量资金来把握这个机遇。我估计我们会保持随时待命的状态，一旦机会出现，我们会立即抓住它。

Warren Buffett: I wouldn’t trade everything that’s developed in AI in the next 10 years for Ajit. If you gave me a choice of having a hundred billion dollars available to participate in the property casualty insurance business for the next 10 years and a choice of getting the top AI product from whoever’s developing it or having Ajit making the decisions, I would take Ajit anytime – and I’m not kidding about that.沃伦·巴菲特： 我不会用未来十年人工智能领域的所有成果去换取 Ajit。如果让我选择，在未来十年里，我可以拥有 1000 亿美元来参与财产意外险业务，并且可以选择购买目前市面上最顶尖的人工智能产品，还是让 Ajit 来做决策，我肯定会选择 Ajit——我可不是在开玩笑。

Audience Member (Zone 3): Hello, I’m Sean Seagull from Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for investing your time and to you and the executive committee for putting on this meeting and for bringing together a diverse group of people in attendance under one roof. Out of all the companies that Berkshire Hathaway owns, there was one that you acquired – the Chicago-based company Portillo’s Hot Dogs. How did you know that this would be a good fit for the overall company’s portfolio?观众席（3 区）： 您好，我是来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥的肖恩·西格尔。感谢您抽出时间，也感谢您和执行委员会组织这次会议，并将来自不同背景的与会者聚集在一起。在伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司旗下的所有公司中，您收购了一家——总部位于芝加哥的波蒂略热狗公司。您是如何判断这家公司适合公司的整体投资组合的呢？

Warren Buffett: Well, I’ll have to ask Greg about that because I don’t know anything about it. So, maybe he bought it when I was looking the other way. But I think I got to call a friend on this one. I like to think I know most of our companies, but I really don’t know a thing about it. I’m sorry, but that may be a good thing. I do know something about hot dogs, though. And we do have a lot of companies in Chicago.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我得问问格雷格，因为我对此一无所知。所以，也许他是在我没注意的时候买的。不过我觉得我得给朋友打个电话问问。我喜欢自认为了解我们公司的大部分业务，但实际上我对这方面一窍不通。抱歉，但这或许是件好事。不过，我对热狗倒是略知一二。而且我们在芝加哥确实有很多公司。

Greg Abel: Through Marmon, that’s been a great opportunity where we’ve accumulated a variety of excellent companies under that portfolio, but I don’t believe Portillo’s falls under that.格雷格·阿贝尔： 通过马蒙公司，我们获得了一个很好的机会，在该投资组合下积累了各种优秀的公司，但我认为波蒂略餐厅不属于其中之一。

Warren Buffett: I look at the financial statements of about 50 or 60 of our companies every month. But in the case of Marmon, for example, Marmon itself owns over 100 companies. It was created by Jay Pritzker and his brother Bob, and it was a remarkable company when we bought it, but it was highly diversified already and then we’ve diversified it further. So it is something of a Berkshire within Berkshire.沃伦·巴菲特： 我每个月都会查看我们旗下大约 50 到 60 家公司的财务报表。但以马蒙集团为例，它本身就拥有超过 100 家公司。马蒙集团由杰伊·普利兹克和他的兄弟鲍勃创立，我们收购它时，它已经是一家非常优秀的公司，而且当时它的业务已经高度多元化，之后我们又进一步拓展了它的业务。所以，它有点像伯克希尔哈撒韦公司旗下的伯克希尔哈撒韦公司。

We found that’s working very well as an arrangement. Jay Pritzker was a remarkable manager, and there are various branches of the Pritzker family. In 1954, they changed the federal tax code very dramatically in the United States – quite a blow to me because I’d been at Columbia reading a J.K. Lasser book about the tax code, and then they went and changed the whole thing. But 1954 was a big year of change, and those years come every now and then, like 1986, and you may see a big one one of these days.我们发现这种安排非常有效。杰伊·普利兹克是一位杰出的经理人，普利兹克家族也有很多分支。1954 年，美国联邦税法进行了大刀阔斧的改革——这对我来说是个不小的打击，因为我当时正在哥伦比亚大学读 J·K·拉塞尔关于税法的书，结果他们就把整个税法都改了。但 1954 年确实是变革的一年，这样的年份时不时就会出现，比如 1986 年，说不定哪天你就会遇到一个变革的年份。

There was a company called Rockwood Chocolates in Brooklyn, and they made Rockwood Chocolate Bits, which we used to sell at the Buffett grocery store for people to make chocolate chip cookies. It turned out that cocoa, which lately has had a big run, was 5 cents a pound in 1941 when LIFO was first allowed for tax purposes. The Rockwood chocolate company went on the LIFO method, so they owned about 30 million pounds of cocoa.布鲁克林有一家叫洛克伍德巧克力（Rockwood Chocolates）的公司，他们生产洛克伍德巧克力碎（Rockwood Chocolate Bits），我们以前在巴菲特杂货店卖这种巧克力碎，供顾客做巧克力曲奇。后来才知道，可可豆（最近价格飙升）在 1941 年每磅只要 5 美分，而那一年后进先出法（LIFO）首次被允许用于税务计算。洛克伍德巧克力公司采用了后进先出法，所以他们拥有大约 3000 万磅的可可豆。

Then cocoa took a run in 1955. I had just moved to New York. There was a provision in the new tax code that if you were in two or more businesses and did certain things and had been in them for 5 years and got out of one of them, there would be no capital gains tax on LIFO inventory gains. Tax rates were around 48% or 52%, so there was this huge profit because cocoa had gone up in price, but that made it terrible for them selling Rockwood chocolate bits because the retail price of the chocolate bits did not match what was going on at wholesale. Something almost identical has been happening in the chocolate business recently – Hershey just reported they’re going to have a bad quarter as we’re paying $4.50 a pound for chocolate because of events in West Africa.1955 年可可价格飙升。我当时刚搬到纽约。新的税法中有一项规定：如果你同时经营两家或两家以上企业，并且从事某些特定业务，经营满五年后退出其中一家，那么采用后进先出法（LIFO）计算的存货收益无需缴纳资本利得税。当时的税率在 48%到 52%之间，可可价格上涨带来了巨额利润，但这却给 Rockwood 巧克力碎的销售带来了沉重打击，因为巧克力碎的零售价与批发价完全不符。最近，巧克力行业也出现了几乎相同的情况——好时公司刚刚宣布，由于西非局势的影响，巧克力价格高达每磅 4.5 美元，预计他们本季度业绩将十分糟糕。

In any event, Jay Pritzker bought control of Rockwood. I was 24 or 25 years old, and they called a meeting to split off one of the chocolate businesses in a way that would enable them to recognize the gain on these cocoa beans without paying 50% federal taxes. So I went to the meeting in Brooklyn, and nobody was there except one guy – I was 24 and he was 29, and it was Jay Pritzker.总之，杰伊·普利兹克收购了洛克伍德公司。当时我大概24、25岁，他们召开了一次会议，打算分拆出其中一家巧克力公司，这样他们就能在不缴纳50%联邦税的情况下确认可可豆的收益。于是我去参加了在布鲁克林举行的会议，结果除了一个人之外空无一人——我当时24岁，他29岁，那个人就是杰伊·普利兹克。

Jay gave me a lecture or really a lesson on the tax code. I could have gone to graduate school for years and never learned as much as he taught me that day. Later we actually bought the Marmon Company, which after some other transformations grew from what was once Rockwood.杰伊给我上了一堂关于税法的课，或者说是一堂生动的课。就算我读研究生好几年，也学到不了那天他教给我的东西。后来我们收购了马蒙公司，这家公司经过几番转型，从之前的罗克伍德发展壮大而来。

Marmon, among other things, developed the car that won the first Indianapolis Speedway race and invented the rear view mirror. At the Indianapolis 500, they used to have two people in the car – one to look back and see what the other racers were doing and one to drive. When our guy got sick, they invented the rear view mirror. So if you want to see what’s going on in the laboratories of Berkshire Hathaway, we’ve got people working on things like the rear view mirror.马蒙的成就远不止于此，他还研发了赢得首届印第安纳波利斯赛道比赛的赛车，并发明了后视镜。在印第安纳波利斯500英里大赛上，赛车里通常有两个人——一个负责回头观察其他赛车的动向，另一个负责驾驶。后来，马蒙生病了，于是他们发明了后视镜。所以，如果你想看看伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的实验室里都在忙些什么，我们这里有人在研究像后视镜这样的东西。

Greg Abel: A friend did call. Peter Eastwood, who runs one of our Berkshire subsidiaries and does a great job, tracked down that Portillo’s is owned by a private equity firm called Berkshire Partners. So that was the basis of the question, but it’s not associated with Berkshire Hathaway. So, we got to the bottom of that one.格雷格·阿贝尔： 一位朋友打来了电话。彼得·伊斯特伍德负责我们伯克希尔的一家子公司，他工作非常出色，查到波蒂略餐厅的所有者是一家名为伯克希尔合伙公司的私募股权公司。这就是问题的根源，但它与伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司没有任何关联。所以，我们最终弄清了这件事。

Warren Buffett: That’s just a sample of the way we operate around here.沃伦·巴菲特： 这只是我们这里运作方式的一个例子。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Jessica Pune who says, “You’ve long been a strong believer in the American tailwind and the resilience of the United States, and history has proven you correct. Today, the US appears to be undergoing significant and potentially revolutionary changes. Some investors are now questioning the concept of American exceptionalism. In your view, are investors being overly pessimistic about the US economy or is the country indeed entering a period of fundamental change that requires a reassessment from a new perspective?”贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自杰西卡·普恩，她说：“您一直以来都坚信美国经济的顺风效应和韧性，历史也证明了您的观点是正确的。如今，美国似乎正在经历重大且可能具有革命性的变革。一些投资者开始质疑美国例外论。您认为，投资者对美国经济是否过于悲观？或者，美国是否真的正在进入一个需要从全新视角重新评估的根本性变革时期？”

Warren Buffett: Well, I would say that Jessica, who I believe is the step-granddaughter of one of our managers that I mentioned in the annual report, asks a good question. America has been undergoing significant and revolutionary change ever since it was developed. I mentioned that we started out as an agricultural society with high promises that we didn’t deliver on very well. We said all men were created equal, and then we wrote a constitution that counted blacks as three-fifths of a person. In Article 2, you’ll find male pronouns used 20 times and no female pronouns. So it took until 1920, with the 19th amendment, to finally give women the vote that we had promised back in 1776.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我想说，杰西卡（我相信她是我们在年报中提到的那位经理的继孙女）提出了一个很好的问题。自建国以来，美国一直在经历着意义深远的革命性变革。我之前提到过，我们最初是一个农业社会，曾许下许多美好的承诺，但我们并没有很好地兑现这些承诺。我们曾宣称人人生而平等，但后来我们制定的宪法却将黑人视为五分之三个人。在第二条中，你会发现使用了 20 次男性代词，却没有使用任何女性代词。直到 1920 年，随着第十九修正案的通过，我们才最终赋予女性投票权，而这早在 1776 年就已承诺过。

We’re always in the process of change, and we’ll always find all kinds of things to criticize in the country. But the luckiest day in my life is the day I was born, because I was born in the United States. At that time, about 3% of all births in the world were taking place in the United States. I was just lucky, and I was lucky to be born white, among other things.我们总是在不断变化，也总会找到各种各样的理由来批评这个国家。但我一生中最幸运的一天就是我出生的那天，因为我出生在美国。当时，全世界大约只有3%的新生儿出生在美国。我很幸运，而且幸运的是，我生来就是白人，等等。

If you don’t think the United States has changed since I was born in 1930, you’re not paying attention. We’ve gone through all kinds of things – great recessions, world wars, the development of the atomic bomb that we never dreamt of when I was born. So I would not get discouraged about the fact that we haven’t solved every problem that’s come along.如果你认为美国自1930年我出生以来就没发生过变化，那你真是太不了解情况了。我们经历了各种各样的事情——经济大萧条、世界大战，还有原子弹的研发，这些都是我出生时我们做梦都想不到的。所以，我不会因为我们还没有解决所有问题而感到沮丧。

If I were being born today, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said I could be in the United States. We’re all pretty lucky. We’ve got two non-United States guys here who now live in the US.如果我今天出生，我会在娘胎里就一直争取，直到他们同意我来美国为止。我们都很幸运。我们这里有两个非美国公民，现在都住在美国。

Audience Member (Zone 4): Hi, Mr. Buffett. My name is Daniel and I’m from Tenafly, New Jersey. First of all, I just want to say how grateful I am for getting the opportunity to ask you a question. When it comes to your principles of investing, you often talk about how important it is to be patient. Has there ever been a situation in your investing career where breaking that principle and acting fast has benefited you? Thank you.观众（4 区）： 巴菲特先生，您好。我叫丹尼尔，来自新泽西州特纳弗莱。首先，我非常荣幸能有机会向您提问。谈到您的投资原则，您经常强调耐心有多么重要。在您的投资生涯中，是否曾有过打破耐心原则、迅速行动反而让您获益的情况？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: That’s a good question. There are times when you have to act fast. In fact, we’ve made a great deal of money because we’re willing to act faster than anybody around.沃伦·巴菲特： 问得好。有些时候你必须迅速行动。事实上，我们之所以赚到这么多钱，正是因为我们比任何人都行动得更快。

Jessica Pune is the step-granddaughter of Ben Rosner, a manager of ours. In 1966, I got a call from a fellow named Phil Steinberg in New York. He said, “I represent Mrs. Anenberg. We have a business we’d like to sell you.” So I called Charlie up, got a few details, and it sounded very interesting.杰西卡·普恩是我们经理本·罗斯纳的继孙女。1966年，我接到一个名叫菲尔·斯坦伯格的人从纽约打来的电话。他说：“我是安嫩伯格夫人的代理人。我们有一家公司想卖给你。”于是我给查理打了电话，了解了一些细节，听起来很有意思。

Charlie and I went to Will Steinberg’s office in New York – he was a marvelous guy. He was handling things for Mrs. Anenberg, whose husband had been the partner of Ben Rosner, but he had died, and Ben got kind of tense about working with her.查理和我去了威尔·斯坦伯格在纽约的办公室——他真是个了不起的人。他当时在帮安嫩伯格太太处理一些事情，安嫩伯格太太的丈夫曾是本·罗斯纳的合伙人，但他去世了，所以本不太愿意和她一起工作。

So he offered us this business at a bargain price – $6 million. It had $2 million of cash, a $2 million piece of property on Market Street in Philadelphia, and it was making $2 million a year pre-tax.所以他以极低的价格——600万美元——把这家公司卖给了我们。公司有200万美元现金，在费城市场街有一处价值200万美元的房产，税前年利润为200万美元。

Ben Rosner was there, and he was upset about doing business with his partner’s widow. She was extremely wealthy. He said to me and Charlie, “I’ll run this business for you until December 31st, and then I’m out of here.” Charlie and I went out in the hallway, and I said, “If this guy quits at the end of the year, you can throw away every book on psychology I’ve ever read.”本·罗斯纳也在场，他很不情愿和合伙人的遗孀做生意。她非常富有。他对我和查理说：“我会帮你们经营这家公司到12月31日，然后我就走人。”我和查理走到走廊，我说：“如果这家伙年底就辞职，你们就把我读过的所有心理学书籍都扔掉吧。”

That began a wonderful relationship. We bought the company and had a great partnership. People in the East had a stereotype in their mind of what people from the Midwest were like. Ben had been married first to a woman from Iowa, and he just figured that anybody from the Midwest was okay.那开启了一段美好的合作关系。我们收购了这家公司，并建立了良好的合作关系。东部的人们对中西部人有一种刻板印象。本的第一任妻子来自爱荷华州，所以他觉得中西部人应该都还不错。

The trick when you get in business with somebody who wants to sell you something for $6 million that’s got $2 million of cash, a couple million of real estate, and is making $2 million a year, is you don’t want to be patient at that moment. You want to be patient in waiting to get the occasional call. My phone will ring sometime with something that wakes me up. You just never know when it’ll happen.当你和一个想以600万美元的价格卖给你东西的人做生意时，关键在于，你现在不能太耐心。这个人有200万美元的现金，几百万美元的房产，而且年收入200万美元。你要耐心等待偶尔的电话。我的手机总有一天会响起，把我吵醒。你永远不知道它什么时候会发生。

That’s what makes it fun. So patience is a combination of patience and a willingness to do something that afternoon if it comes to you. You don’t want to be patient about acting on deals that make sense, and you don’t want to be very patient with people talking to you about things that will never happen.这就是乐趣所在。所以，耐心是耐心和行动力的结合，即如果机会来了，你愿意当天下午就去做。你不需要对那些合理的交易抱有太多的耐心，也不需要对那些永远不会发生的事情抱有太多的耐心。

Greg Abel: As you’re being patient, I happen to know – and I think that goes for Ajit also and all our managers – while we’re looking at opportunities and as you touched on, we want to act quickly, but never underestimate the amount of reading and work that’s being done to be prepared to act quickly. We know that when the opportunity presents itself, whether it be equities or private companies, we’re ready to act, and that’s a large part of being patient – using the time to be prepared.格雷格·阿贝尔： 既然您保持耐心，我恰好知道——我想阿吉特和我们所有的经理也一样——正如您所提到的，我们在寻找机会的同时，也希望迅速行动，但绝不能低估为了做好快速行动准备而进行的阅读和工作量。我们知道，当机会来临时，无论是股票还是非上市公司，我们都已做好行动准备，而这正是保持耐心的重要意义所在——利用时间做好准备。

Warren Buffett: And of course it doesn’t come in anything like an even flow. It’s the most uneven sort of activity you could get into. The main thing is you have to be willing to hang up after 5 seconds and you have to be willing to say yes after 5 seconds. You can’t be filled with self-doubt in this business.沃伦·巴菲特： 当然，这绝不是什么一帆风顺的事情。这是你能从事的最不稳定的活动。关键是，你必须愿意在 5 秒钟后挂断电话，也必须愿意在 5 秒钟后说“是”。在这个行业里，你不能充满自我怀疑。

One of the great pleasures – it is the great pleasure actually in this business – is having people trust you. That’s really why I work at 94 when I’ve got more money than anybody could count. It means nothing in terms of how I’m going to live or how my children are going to live or anything else.在这个行业里，最大的乐趣之一——实际上也是最大的乐趣——就是得到人们的信任。这正是我94岁高龄，身家数不清的时候仍然工作的原因。但这与我未来的生活方式、我的孩子未来的生活，或者其他任何事情都无关。

But both Charlie and I just enjoyed the fact that people trusted us. They trusted us 60 or 70 years ago in partnerships we had. We never sought out professional investors to join our partnerships. Among all my partners, I never had a single institution – I never wanted an institution. I wanted people. I didn’t want people who were sitting around having presentations every three months and being told what they wanted to hear. That’s what we got, and that’s why we’ve got this group here today.但我和查理都很高兴人们信任我们。早在六七十年前，在我们建立的合伙关系中，人们就信任我们了。我们从未主动邀请专业投资者加入我们的合伙关系。我的所有合伙人中，没有一家是机构——我从来没想过要和机构合作。我想要的是人。我不想要那些每三个月就聚在一起听报告、听他们想听的话的人。我们得到的就是这样，也正因如此，今天我们才有了今天的这个团队。

It’s all worked out. But you don’t want to be patient when the time comes to act – you want to get it done that day.一切都安排好了。但到了行动的时候，你不能再耐心等待——你想当天就把事情办成。

Becky Quick: This question is from Flavio Montenegro, a shareholder from Guatemala. A couple of years ago in this meeting, Mr. Jain outlined the significant challenges GEICO faced in modernizing and integrating its IT systems. It was also mentioned that competitors were ahead in their pricing strategies because of the use of telematics. Today, Geico’s turnaround is evident through strong pricing and operational improvements. Could you provide more details on the specific actions taken under Todd’s leadership and how those changes will help sustain a long-term competitive advantage in the coming years?贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自危地马拉的股东弗拉维奥·蒙特内格罗。几年前的会议上，贾恩先生概述了 GEICO 在 IT 系统现代化和整合方面面临的重大挑战。他还提到，由于采用了远程信息处理技术，竞争对手在定价策略上领先一步。如今，GEICO 的扭亏为盈已通过强劲的价格和运营改进得以体现。您能否详细介绍一下在托德的领导下采取的具体措施，以及这些变革将如何帮助公司在未来几年保持长期竞争优势？

Ajit Jain: Todd has done a great job in turning around the operations. When he took over, there were two major issues that GEICO was behind its competitors on. First, the term we’ve been using is “matching rate to risk,” and second, telematics. We were at the bottom of the list in telematics about five or six years ago. Since then, we have made rapid strides. Telematics, which used to be a source of competitive disadvantage to us, is no longer so, and I would argue that our telematics at GEICO is about as good as anyone else’s today.阿吉特·贾恩： 托德在扭转公司运营颓势方面做得非常出色。他接手时，GEICO 在两大方面落后于竞争对手。首先，我们一直使用的术语是“风险匹配费率”，其次是车载信息系统。大约五六年前，我们在车载信息系统方面排名垫底。从那时起，我们取得了长足的进步。车载信息系统曾经是我们的竞争劣势，但现在已不再如此。我认为，如今 GEICO 的车载信息系统水平已经可以与任何其他公司媲美了。

In terms of matching rate to risk, there again, I think we have caught up with our competitors and we’re as good as anyone else in the field. All this, together with the cost reduction effort that Todd gets a lot of credit for – he has basically reduced the workforce by 20,000. Starting with around 50,000, he’s brought it down to 30,000, which translates to at least $2 billion per year in savings.就风险与收益率匹配而言，我认为我们已经赶上了竞争对手，在这个领域我们与其他任何公司一样出色。所有这些，再加上托德在成本削减方面做出的巨大努力——他基本上裁减了2万名员工。公司最初约有5万人，现在减少到3万人，这意味着每年至少节省20亿美元。

So all this has allowed GEICO to become a much more focused competitor. So much so that in the last seven quarters, GEICO has shown a combined ratio that has an eight in front of it. I never thought I’d live to see the day when anyone could have a combined ratio as low as it is right now. GEICO has done a great job – its 80 combined ratio translates to the largest profit anyone is making on the underwriting side in the personal automobile business.这一切使得 GEICO 成为一家更具竞争力的公司。事实上，在过去的七个季度里，GEICO 的综合比率一直保持在 8 以下。我从未想过有生之年能看到一家公司的综合比率能如此之低。GEICO 做得非常出色——其 80%的综合比率意味着在个人汽车保险承保方面，GEICO 的利润率是所有公司中最高的。

We’ve achieved a lot, but I don’t want to be so arrogant as to say “mission accomplished.” We’ve achieved a lot, but I still think we need to do a lot more in technology. AI is going to be a big force, and we need to be in a state of readiness.我们取得了许多成就，但我不想自大到说“任务完成”。我们确实取得了许多成就，但我仍然认为我们在技术方面还有很多工作要做。人工智能将会成为一股强大的力量，我们需要做好准备。

Warren Buffett: It’s a fascinating case study, and that’s what’s so interesting about the whole game of business – each one is a little different. They all have challenges of certain sorts, but they also have opportunities.沃伦·巴菲特： 这是一个引人入胜的案例研究，而这正是商业游戏的魅力所在——每个案例都略有不同。它们都面临着各自的挑战，但也蕴藏着机遇。

We paid $50 million for half of GEICO in 1976. We now own 100%, and $50% of the $2 billion that we earned in the first quarter is $1 billion, which on a $50 million investment is 20-to-1 in a quarter. That takes years to develop, but the interesting thing is that the auto insurance policy, which didn’t even exist 120 years ago, is by far the largest item in the property casualty insurance business. It’s huge.1976 年，我们以 5000 万美元的价格收购了 GEICO 一半的股份。现在我们拥有 100%的股份，而我们第一季度盈利的 20 亿美元中，50%就是 10 亿美元，这意味着 5000 万美元的投资在一个季度内就能获得 20 倍的回报。这需要数年时间才能实现，但有趣的是，汽车保险——120 年前甚至还不存在——如今已成为财产意外险业务中规模最大的项目。它真的非常庞大。

Ajit Jain: The only thing I’d like to add is that in addition to the underwriting profit, GEICO provides $29 billion of float.阿吉特·贾恩： 我唯一想补充的是，除了承保利润外，GEICO 还提供 290 亿美元的浮动资金。

Warren Buffett: Yes, and that’s not unimportant when you paid $50 million to get a business that’s giving you $29 billion to work with for nothing and on top of that gives you a billion dollars of profit in a quarter.沃伦·巴菲特： 是的，当你花了 5000 万美元买下一家能让你免费使用 290 亿美元的公司，并且还能在一个季度内为你带来 10 亿美元的利润时，这一点就非常重要了。

The interesting thing about auto insurance is that we’re selling the same product as in 1936 when the company was started. We’re just being more sophisticated about pricing it. The founder, who came from USAA, made the judgment that government employees (the name GEICO stands for Government Employees Insurance Company) were better drivers than average. He wasn’t an actuary, but he made that observation, left USAA, and started GEICO with a few hundred thousand dollars. He made money from underwriting the first year and the second year.汽车保险的有趣之处在于，我们销售的产品与公司 1936 年创立之初的产品并无二致。我们只是在定价方面更加精明。创始人曾就职于美国联合服务汽车协会（USAA），他认为政府雇员（GEICO 的名称即为“政府雇员保险公司”）的驾驶技术通常优于普通驾驶员。他并非精算师，但他做出了这一判断，随后离开 USAA，用几十万美元创立了 GEICO。公司成立的第一年和第二年，他都通过承保业务实现了盈利。

This isn’t a public offering type deal with phony accounting for 10 years – he just priced it to make money, and that’s exactly what’s been done since 1936. The policy really looks a lot like the one from back then. This huge field has sprung up around us and it’s still growing. Nobody likes to buy insurance, but they sure like to drive.这并非那种需要十年虚假会计处理的公开募股交易——他只是为了赚钱而定价，而这自1936年以来一直都是这么做的。这份保单看起来和当年的保单非常相似。我们周围涌现出一片巨大的田野，而且还在不断扩张。没人喜欢买保险，但他们肯定喜欢开车。

GEICO is a fascinating story. About three times over the years, the company has gotten sidetracked one way or another and then gotten back to basics. It’s a wonderful business.GEICO 的故事引人入胜。多年来，这家公司大约三次偏离正轨，但最终都回归了初心。这真是一家了不起的企业。

We showed at this annual meeting one time a message from Lorimer Davidson. In January 1951, he was the only person in the building when I’d gone down on a Saturday to visit. It turned out they didn’t work on Saturdays in Washington, and I pounded on the door until finally a janitor let me in. I said to the janitor, “Is there anybody I can talk to here except you?” and he didn’t take it personally. He said, “Well, there’s one guy up on the sixth floor,” and a fellow named Lorimer Davidson did wonderful things for me.我们在当年的年会上展示过洛里默·戴维森的一封信。1951年1月的一个星期六，我去拜访他，当时他是大楼里唯一的人。原来华盛顿的人星期六都不上班，我敲了好久的门，最后才有一个清洁工给我开了门。我对清洁工说：“除了您，这里还有其他人可以跟我谈谈吗？”他并没有介意。他说：“嗯，六楼有一个人，”一个名叫洛里默·戴维森的人帮了我很多忙。

You get a few breaks in life in terms of people you meet who just change your life dramatically. If you’ve had a handful of those, you treasure them. We’ve had them on this board of Berkshire – Tom Murphy, Sandy Gottesman, Walter Scott, Bill Scott – we’ve made lifelong assets out of people that are the right sort, with incredible talent, who are lots of fun to work with, always doing more than their share. To get a chance to talk to Lorimer Davidson on a Saturday afternoon, you just listen carefully. That comes in the category of “turn every page.” You just get lucky in life, and you want to take advantage of your luck.人生中，你会遇到一些能彻底改变你人生的人，这样的机会难得。如果你遇到过几个这样的人，你会格外珍惜。伯克希尔哈撒韦的董事会就曾有这样的人——汤姆·墨菲、桑迪·戈特斯曼、沃尔特·斯科特、比尔·斯科特——我们把这些才华横溢、性格开朗、总是尽心尽力的人培养成了终身财富。如果你有机会在周六下午和洛里默·戴维森交谈，你只需要认真倾听。这就像是“翻开每一页”一样难得。人生难免会遇到一些幸运，而你当然要好好把握这些机会。

Audience Member (Zone 5): My name is Benjamin Graham Sanderson from Pasadena, California. Warren, thank you for all you’ve taught us over the years. Earlier, you said nobody but Steve Jobs could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim Cook could have developed it like he has. Warren, nobody but you could have created Berkshire. And I presume you view Greg as an outlier among outliers, but he seems so normal. Sorry, Greg. So, I was hoping you could share what specifically about Greg makes him your preferred successor. And Greg, we’re excited to get to know you more over the next few decades. Thank you.观众（5 区）： 我叫本杰明·格雷厄姆·桑德森，来自加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳。沃伦，感谢您这些年来教给我们的一切。您之前说过，除了史蒂夫·乔布斯，没人能创立苹果公司；但除了蒂姆·库克，也没人能像他那样把苹果发展壮大。沃伦，除了您，也没人能创立伯克希尔哈撒韦公司。我猜您认为格雷格是特立独行中的特立独行，但他看起来却如此平易近人。抱歉，格雷格。所以，我希望您能具体说说，您为什么认为格雷格是您心目中理想的继任者。格雷格，我们期待在未来几十年里更多地了解您。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: You’ve hit on the most important question in terms of the business. We’ve got a wonderful group of businesses. We’ve got an ability to do things that nobody else can do, which is hard to get in a capitalistic system that’s been developed as fully as the United States has been. I mean, imagine being able to create something in a very big playing field – it would be very hard to develop anything like it. I don’t think you could develop the people around it, let alone the capital position, history, and everything else.沃伦·巴菲特： 你问到了业务方面最重要的问题。我们拥有一系列优秀的业务。我们有能力做别人做不到的事情，这在像美国这样高度发达的资本主义体系中是很难获得的。我的意思是，想象一下，在一个如此广阔的竞争环境中创造出一些东西——这几乎是不可能的。我认为你很难培养出与之相伴的人才，更不用说资本实力、历史底蕴以及其他一切了。

It takes a long long time and it takes getting around you a small cadre of people which then spreads out somewhat. Where you’ve got mutual trust, where people do more than their share. I’ve been around a lot of businesses over the years, and by nature I’m somewhat critical of everything. I’m looking for what’s wrong in things because that’s part of investing – looking at what you’re missing.这需要很长时间，也需要先在你身边建立起一小群核心成员，然后再逐步扩展。在这样的团队里，彼此信任，每个人都尽心尽力。这些年来，我接触过很多企业，天生就对一切都有些挑剔。我总是寻找事物中的不足之处，因为投资的一部分就是发现你错失的机会。

But we have people that, if they’re asked to put on a show like this instead of doing their regular job, they participate. I went around the groups of people who were exhibiting yesterday for an hour and a half, and these are people thanking me and totally enthused about coming and doing a lot of work for which they don’t get paid anything extra. They work hard and they enjoy their work.但有些人，如果被邀请来参加这样的活动而不是做他们日常的工作，他们也会欣然接受。昨天我花了一个半小时在参展人员之间走动，他们都在感谢我，并且对来这里做这么多工作充满热情，而这些工作他们并没有额外的报酬。他们工作努力，也乐在其中。

You really want to work at something you enjoy. I’ve had five bosses in life and I liked every one of them – they were all interesting. I still decided that I’d rather work for myself than anybody else. But if you find people that are wonderful to work with, that’s the place to go. I’ve told my kids basically that you don’t get lucky like I did when I found what interested me at seven or eight years of age. It could have taken a lot longer, but you want to find what you love.你肯定想做自己喜欢的工作。我这辈子有过五个老板，每个我都喜欢——他们都很有趣。但我最终还是决定，我宁愿自己给自己工作，也不愿为别人打工。不过，如果你能遇到很棒的同事，那就去那里吧。我跟孩子们说过，你们不像我那么幸运，七八岁就找到了自己感兴趣的事情。也许需要更长时间，但你一定要找到自己热爱的事业。

There’s a movie called “The Glenn Miller Story,” and Glenn Miller went from having a broken-down band for 15 years to turning out the first gold record. He “found the sound” and created the first gold record – the Chattanooga Choo Choo in 1941. He turned around from being a nothing with a band to finding the sound.有一部电影叫《格伦·米勒的故事》，讲述了格伦·米勒从一个乐队解散15年，到最终发行第一张金唱片的故事。他“找到了自己的音乐风格”，并于1941年创作了第一张金唱片——《查塔努加火车》。他从一个一无所有、只有一支乐队的人，到最终找到了属于自己的音乐风格。

I’ve always told my kids that their sound isn’t my sound, but you don’t necessarily find it on the first job you take. But if you get lucky like I did, you find it when you’re very young and then you just keep doing it. Don’t worry too much about starting salaries and be very careful who you work for because you will take on the habits of the people around you. There are certain jobs you shouldn’t take.我一直跟孩子们说，他们的音乐风格不是我的风格，但你未必能在第一份工作中找到它。不过，如果你像我一样幸运，很年轻的时候就找到了，然后就一直坚持下去。别太在意起薪，而且要非常谨慎地选择你的老板，因为你会不自觉地养成周围人的习惯。有些工作你最好不要接。

You’ve got the greatest country in the world and the greatest time in the world. You can’t even dream all the dreams you could have about a place like Berkshire. But the big thing you have to do is always be sure you can play the next day. In terms of financial activities on a meaningful scale, you don’t want to do anything that risks what’s been created.你拥有世界上最棒的国家，也拥有世界上最棒的时代。你甚至无法想象伯克希尔这样的地方会带给你多少美好。但你必须做的最重要的事情是，始终确保自己能够把握住明天的机会。就规模较大的金融活动而言，你不想做任何可能危及已有成果的事情。

If very stupid things are happening around you, you do not want to participate. If people are making more money because they’re borrowing money or participating in securities that are pieces of junk but they hope to find a bigger sucker later on, you have to forget that. That’ll bite you at some point. The basic game is so good, and you’ve been so lucky to be born now.如果周围发生很多愚蠢的事情，你最好不要参与。如果有人通过借钱或投资垃圾证券来赚钱，指望以后找到更大的冤大头，那你最好别碰这些。迟早你会为此付出代价。游戏的基本规则已经很好了，你很幸运能生在当下。

If I’d been born in 1700, I’d say, “I want to go back in the womb. What the hell with this? It’s too hard.” But now I’ve come along to do something where I can just play around all day with things I enjoy doing. It’s a pretty wonderful life.如果我生在1700年，我会说：“我想回到娘胎里。这算什么？太难了。”但现在我来到这个世界，可以整天做自己喜欢的事情，真是太棒了。

Greg Abel: I couldn’t be more humbled and honored to be in this role, but to have actually been part of Berkshire for 25+ years, to have had the opportunity to work with you and Ajit and our board and many other people in our company – as you touched on, when you find something like Berkshire that’s so special, you fall in love with it and it becomes what you want to do every day. It’s just an incredible opportunity. So, thank you.格雷格·阿贝尔： 能够担任这个职务，我感到无比荣幸和谦卑。事实上，我已在伯克希尔工作超过 25 年，有机会与您、阿吉特、董事会以及公司其他许多同事共事——正如您所说，当你遇到像伯克希尔这样特别的地方，你会深深爱上它，并把它变成你每天都想做的事情。这真是一个难得的机会。所以，谢谢您。

Warren Buffett: And to the gentleman who asked the question, if you don’t find it immediately, don’t starve to death in the meantime, but you will find it. It’s somewhat like finding the right person in marriage – you may not marry the person you met on your first date. Sometimes it pays to wait.沃伦·巴菲特： 对于提问的那位先生，如果你一时找不到，也不要因此饿死，你终究会找到的。这有点像在婚姻中寻找合适的人——你可能不会和第一次约会就认识的人结婚。有时候，等待是值得的。

Becky Quick: This is a question from Mark Bonnke and Helen Friedrien in Rapid City, South Dakota. As the US dollar quickly loses value in relation to other foreign currencies in 2025, is Berkshire Hathaway taking steps to minimize this currency risk and its impact on quarterly and annual earnings? If so, please explain. And I’ll just add from Mary Chang, another shareholder: Berkshire currently borrows in Japanese yen to offset its currency risk and its Japanese stock investments. In the future, will you invest in foreign currency denominated assets unhedged?贝基·奎克： 这是来自南达科他州拉皮德城的马克·邦克和海伦·弗里德里恩提出的问题。鉴于美元在 2025 年对其他外币的快速贬值，伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司是否正在采取措施来降低这种汇率风险及其对季度和年度收益的影响？如果是，请解释一下。另外，我还要补充一位股东玛丽·张的问题：伯克希尔目前借入日元来对冲其汇率风险和日本股票投资。未来，你们是否会投资未进行对冲的以外币计价的资产？

Warren Buffett: Well, we always have – the Japanese situation is different because we intend to stay so long with that position and the funding situation is so cheap that we’ve attempted to some degree to match purchases against yen-denominated funding. But that’s not a policy of ours. In fact, that’s the first time we’ve done that. We’ve owned lots of securities in foreign currencies.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我们一直都是这么做的——日本的情况有所不同，因为我们打算长期持有这些仓位，而且融资成本非常低，所以我们尝试在一定程度上用日元融资来匹配购买。但这并非我们的既定策略。事实上，这是我们第一次这样做。我们持有大量以外币计价的证券。

We do nothing in terms of its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. We don’t do anything based on its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. There’s never been a board meeting I can remember where I’ve said, “If we do this, our annual earnings will be this, therefore we ought to do it.” The number will turn out to be what it’ll be. What counts is where we are five or 10 or 20 years from now.我们做任何事都不会考虑它对季度和年度收益的影响。我们做任何事都不会基于它对季度和年度收益的影响。我记忆中从未在任何一次董事会会议上说过：“如果我们这样做，我们的年度收益就会是这个数，所以我们应该这样做。”最终的数字会是多少，就让它保持现状吧。重要的是五年、十年甚至二十年后我们会发展到什么程度。

If you start focusing on what number you’re going to produce, you will quickly get tempted to play around with the numbers and sometimes seriously play around with the numbers. I’ve seen people I trust in all kinds of other ways, but they regard playing around with numbers as perfectly okay. That’s just not something we do – we just don’t think about that.如果你开始关注最终得出的数字，你很快就会忍不住去摆弄这些数字，有时甚至会认真地去操纵它们。我见过很多我在其他方面都很信任的人，但他们却觉得摆弄数字完全没问题。我们根本不会那样做——我们根本不会去想这些。

Actually, the yen relationship in the last quarter resulted in certain GAAP charges, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’ll change next month or next year. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to own anything in a currency that we thought was really going to hell.事实上，上个季度日元汇率的波动导致了一些 GAAP（美国通用会计准则）费用，但这无关紧要。情况下个月或明年就会改变。显然，我们不会持有任何我们认为会大幅贬值的货币的资产。

That’s the big thing we worry about with the United States currency. The tendency of a government to want to debase its currency over time – there’s no system that beats that. You can pick dictators, you can pick representatives, you can do anything, but there will be a push toward weaker currencies.这就是我们对美元最大的担忧。政府总有贬值本国货币的倾向——没有任何制度能够战胜这种倾向。你可以选择独裁者，你可以选择代表，你可以做任何事，但最终都会出现货币贬值的趋势。

I mentioned very briefly in the annual report that fiscal policy is what scares me in the United States because of the way it’s made, and all the motivations are toward doing things that can cause trouble with money. But that’s not limited to the United States – it’s all over the world, and in some places, it gets out of control regularly. They devalue at rates that are breathtaking, and that’s continued.我在年度报告中简要提到，美国的财政政策让我感到担忧，因为它的制定方式以及所有政策的动机都可能导致货币问题。但这并非美国独有——世界各地都存在这种情况，在某些地方，这种情况经常失控。货币贬值的速度令人瞠目结舌，而且这种情况还在持续。

People can study economics and you can have all kinds of arrangements, but in the end, if you’ve got people who control the currency, you can issue paper money or engage in clipping currencies like they used to centuries ago. There will always be people who, by the nature of their job – I’m not singling them out as particularly evil – but the natural course of government is to make the currency worthless over time. That’s got important consequences, and it’s very hard to build checks and balances into the system to keep that from happening.人们可以研究经济学，也可以制定各种各样的方案，但归根结底，如果货币由某些人掌控，他们要么发行纸币，要么像几个世纪前那样进行货币贬值。总会有人，由于其工作性质——我并非指责他们特别邪恶——而导致货币逐渐贬值，这几乎是政府运作的必然结果。这会带来严重的后果，而且很难在体制内建立制衡机制来阻止这种情况发生。

We’ve had a lot of fun here watching what happens when people try to make sure they aren’t running fiscal risks. That game isn’t over and never will be over in finality. If you look up the great inflations of post-World War II, it’s just a list that goes on forever, and the same names keep popping up.我们在这里饶有兴致地观察了人们为了规避财政风险而采取的各种措施。这场博弈远未结束，也永远不会彻底结束。如果你查阅二战后历次重大通货膨胀的记录，你会发现那份名单无穷无尽，而且总是那几个名字反复出现。

So currency value is a scary thing, and we don’t have any great system for beating that. We do in this particular Japanese position because we expect to hold it for 50 or 100 years or more, and we’ll be owning something denominated in yen and easily predictable. As long as the carry on it is right, we’ll attempt to issue Japanese-denominated liabilities, but that’s not because of anything we care about in terms of quarterly or annual earnings.所以汇率波动是个棘手的问题，我们目前还没有很好的应对策略。但我们之所以持有这笔日元头寸，是因为我们预计会持有50年、100年甚至更久，而且我们将持有以日元计价、易于预测的资产。只要收益合适，我们就会尝试发行日元计价的负债，但这并非出于对季度或年度收益的考量。

Greg Abel: Relative to the question, there’s no question we were fundamentally very comfortable with investing in the five Japanese companies and recognizing we’re investing in yen. The fact we could then borrow in yen was almost just a nice incremental opportunity. But we were very comfortable both with the Japanese companies and with the currency we would ultimately realize in yen.格雷格·阿贝尔： 关于这个问题，毫无疑问，我们从根本上来说非常乐意投资这五家日本公司，并且我们也清楚我们是在用日元进行投资。事实上，我们能够借入日元资金几乎只是一个锦上添花的机会。但我们对这些日本公司以及最终以日元计价的收益都非常有信心。

Warren Buffett: We only made one big currency play, which was connected a little bit with when I wrote that article for Fortune. We went long 12 other currencies – I remember only four or five of them are really big currencies. When I say we got long, that means we’re short the dollar. We held that position for a couple years and made several billion dollars on it, which was significant to us then and still is.沃伦·巴菲特： 我们只做过一次大规模的货币交易，这跟我当时为《财富》杂志写那篇文章有点关系。我们做多其他 12 种货币——我记得其中只有四五种是真正的大宗货币。我说做多，指的是我们做空美元。我们持有这个头寸几年，从中赚取了数十亿美元，这在当时对我们来说意义重大，现在依然如此。

Charlie always felt that if he had to pick an area outside of stocks in which to invest – and he knew a lot about bonds, real estate, and other things – he thought he could make a lot of money in foreign currency. But we’ve done it once. It’s not inconceivable we would do it again, but it’s unlikely.查理一直觉得，如果非要他选择股票以外的投资领域——他对债券、房地产和其他领域都颇有研究——他觉得外汇投资能让他赚大钱。不过我们已经试过一次了。虽然不排除再次投资的可能性，但可能性不大。

There could be things happen in the United States that would make us want to own a lot of other currencies. I suppose if we made some very large investment in a European country, there might be a situation where we would do a lot of financing in their currency. But it’s not a regular activity. It was something that was obvious to do in the Japanese situation where we had the ability to borrow at a very low carrying cost, and we felt very good about the income we’d be receiving from these securities.美国可能会发生一些事情，让我们想要持有大量其他货币。我想，如果我们对某个欧洲国家进行大规模投资，可能会出现需要用该国货币进行大量融资的情况。但这并非常规做法。在日本，这样做是理所当然的，因为我们能够以极低的持有成本借款，而且我们对这些证券的收益非常有信心。

If the present conditions, which they won’t – they never do – prevail for decades and decades, we would probably keep doing the same sort of thing. But things change in the world, so don’t take that as a prediction.如果现状持续几十年（当然不会，这种情况从来都不存在），我们可能还会继续做同样的事情。但世界瞬息万变，所以不要把这当成预测。

Audience Member (Zone 6): Good morning Warren, Greg, and Ajit. Thank you so much for hosting this event. Good to be here. My name is Dash Boyar and I’m from the great country of Mongolia. A little background about my country: Mongolia is an emerging market and landlocked country sandwiched between Russia and China. But we are rich in history and minerals and have full democracy and a growing economy.观众（6 区）： 早上好，沃伦、格雷格和阿吉特。非常感谢你们举办这次活动。很高兴来到这里。我叫达什·博亚尔，来自伟大的蒙古国。简单介绍一下我的国家：蒙古是一个新兴市场内陆国家，夹在俄罗斯和中国之间。但我们拥有丰富的历史和矿产资源，实行完全民主制度，经济也在蓬勃发展。

Last week, we hosted our second annual Mongolia investor conference in New York to attract investors like yourself. I know you meet and give advice informally to government leaders such as South Korea, China, and India. What advice would you give to government and business leaders of emerging markets like Mongolia to attract institutional investors like yourself? It’d be great if you have long-term plans for exposure to emerging markets as a hedge or an opportunistic investment. Lastly, I welcome all of you to Mongolia, and my country folks would be very happy if you can make it to our economic forum this July.上周，我们在纽约举办了第二届蒙古投资者年会，旨在吸引像您这样的投资者。我知道您经常与韩国、中国和印度等国的政府领导人进行非正式会面并提供建议。您会给像蒙古这样的新兴市场国家的政府和企业领导人提供哪些建议，以吸引像您这样的机构投资者？如果您有将新兴市场作为对冲或机会型投资的长期计划，那就太好了。最后，我欢迎各位来到蒙古，如果您能参加今年七月我们的经济论坛，我的同胞们将非常高兴。

Warren Buffett: I have trouble planning a trip to Council Bluffs, which is just a few miles from here. But thank you for the invitation.沃伦·巴菲特： 我很难安排去康瑟尔布拉夫斯的行程，虽然它离这里只有几英里远。不过，谢谢你的邀请。

I actually met a fellow here at the annual meeting about 20 years ago or more who did a lot in Mongolia. He did very well there and actually moved there for quite a while.大约20年前，我曾在这里的年会上认识了一位在蒙古做了很多事情的人。他在那里发展得非常成功，而且还在那里生活了相当长一段时间。

If you’re looking for advice to give the government over there, it’s to develop a reputation for having a solid currency over time. We don’t really want to go into any country where we think there’s a significant probability of runaway inflation. That’s too hard to figure. Other people have figured out ways to make money in hyperinflationary situations, but that’s not our game, and I don’t think I’d play it well. So that would be a factor for us.如果你想给那边政府提建议，那就是要建立起长期稳健货币的声誉。我们并不想进入任何我们认为极有可能出现恶性通货膨胀的国家。那太难预测了。其他人或许找到了在恶性通货膨胀的情况下赚钱的方法，但这并非我们的风格，而且我觉得我也玩不好。所以，这会是我们考虑的一个因素。

The chances are we won’t find anything in Mongolia that fits our size requirements aside from that. But like I say, I think my friend that I met here 20 years ago has done very well in Mongolia.除了那套房子，我们很可能在蒙古找不到其他符合我们尺寸要求的房子。不过就像我说的，我觉得我20年前在这里认识的那位朋友在蒙古过得很好。

If the country develops a reputation for being business-friendly and currency-conscious, that bodes very well for the residents of that country, particularly if it has some natural assets that it can build around. I don’t know that much about the minerals there or anything of the sort, but who would have bet on the United States in 1790?如果一个国家树立了对商业友好、注重货币政策的声誉，这对该国居民来说无疑是件好事，尤其如果它拥有一些可以依托发展的自然资源。我对那里的矿产资源之类的了解不多，但谁又会在1790年看好美国呢？

We didn’t have to have perfection. We just had to be better than the other guy for quite a while. We started out with nothing and ended up with close to 25% of the world’s GDP, faster growth rates, generally sounder currencies, and all kinds of things. So I wish you well.我们不必追求完美，只需要在相当长的一段时间内比对手更胜一筹。我们白手起家，最终却拥有了近 25%的世界 GDP、更快的增长率、更稳健的货币体系以及其他诸多优势。所以，祝你们一切顺利。

Becky Quick: This question is from Peter Shen in New Jersey. It’s for Mr. Buffett and Mr. Jain. In recent years, large private equity firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR have aggressively expanded into insurance, raising permanent capital, managing float, and aiming to replicate the model that Berkshire pioneered decades ago. Given that these firms are now directly competing for insurance assets, often using higher leverage and more aggressive investment strategies, how do you view their impact on Berkshire’s insurance operations and underwriting discipline? Do you believe that the private equity model poses risks to policyholders in the broad financial system, and has this competition made it more challenging for Berkshire to find and price insurance opportunities safely and profitably today?贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自新泽西州的彼得·申，是问巴菲特先生和贾恩先生的。近年来，像黑石、阿波罗和 KKR 这样的大型私募股权公司积极拓展保险业务，募集永久资本，管理浮存金，并试图复制伯克希尔哈撒韦几十年前开创的模式。鉴于这些公司现在直接争夺保险资产，而且通常采用更高的杠杆率和更激进的投资策略，您如何看待它们对伯克希尔哈撒韦的保险业务和承保纪律的影响？您认为私募股权模式是否会给整个金融体系中的保单持有人带来风险？这种竞争是否使伯克希尔哈撒韦如今更难安全、盈利地寻找和评估保险投资机会？

Ajit Jain: Part of the question is very easy. There’s no question the private equity firms have come into the space, and we are no longer competitive in the space. We used to do a fair amount in this space, but in the last 3-4 years, I don’t think we’ve done a single deal.阿吉特·贾恩： 这个问题的一部分很容易回答。毫无疑问，私募股权公司已经进入这个领域，我们在这个领域已经失去了竞争力。我们过去在这个领域做过不少事情，但在过去的 3-4 年里，我想我们一笔交易都没做成。

You should separate this whole segment into two parts: the property casualty end of the business and the life end of the business. The private equity firms you mentioned are all very active in the life end of the business, not the property casualty end.你应该把这部分业务分成两部分：财产险业务和寿险业务。你提到的那些私募股权公司都非常活跃于寿险业务，而不是财产险业务。

You are right in identifying the risks these private equity firms are taking on both in terms of leverage and credit risk. While the economy is doing great and credit spreads are low, these firms have taken the assets from very conservative investments to ones where they get a lot more return. As long as the economy is good and credit spreads are low, they will make money – they’ll make a lot of money because of leverage.您正确地指出了这些私募股权公司在杠杆和信用风险方面所承担的风险。虽然经济形势良好，信用利差也很低，但这些公司却将资产从非常保守的投资转向了回报率更高的项目。只要经济形势良好，信用利差保持低位，他们就能赚钱——而且由于杠杆作用，他们会赚很多钱。

However, there is always the danger that at some point the regulators might get cranky and say they’re taking too much risk on behalf of their policyholders, and that could end in tears. We do not like the risk-reward that these situations offer, and therefore we put up the white flag and said we can’t compete in this segment right now.然而，监管机构总有可能在某个时候变得不满，认为他们为投保人承担了过高的风险，而这可能会导致糟糕的后果。我们不喜欢这种情况带来的风险回报比，因此我们举白旗投降，表示目前无法在这个领域竞争。

Warren Buffett: I think there are people that want to copy Berkshire’s model, but usually they don’t want to copy it by also copying the model of the CEO having all of his money in the company forever. They have a different equation – they’re interested in something else. That’s capitalism, but they have a whole different situation and probably a somewhat different fiduciary feeling about what they’re doing.沃伦·巴菲特： 我认为有些人想效仿伯克希尔的模式，但他们通常不想照搬 CEO 将所有资金永远投入公司的模式。他们有不同的考量——他们关注的是其他方面。这同样是资本主义，但他们的处境截然不同，而且他们对自己所做的事情可能也有着不同的信托责任感。

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, they go on to other things. If what we do at Berkshire doesn’t work, I spend the end of my life regretting what I’ve created. So it’s just a whole different personal equation.有时候成功，有时候失败。如果失败了，他们就去做别的事。但如果我们在伯克希尔做的事情失败了，我余生都会后悔自己所做的一切。所以，这完全是另一种个人情况。

There is no property casualty company that can basically replicate Berkshire. That wasn’t the case at the start – at the start we just had National Indemnity a few miles from here, and anybody could have duplicated what we had. But that was before Ajit came with us in 1986, and at that point the other fellows should have given up.没有哪家财产保险公司能完全复制伯克希尔的模式。起初并非如此——当时我们只有离这里几英里远的国民赔偿保险公司，任何人都可以复制我们的模式。但那是1986年阿吉特加入我们之前的事了，那时其他人就应该放弃了。

Audience Member (Zone 7): Hi, my name is Marie. I’m from Melrose, Massachusetts. Thank you for the time today. As a young person interested in investing like myself, I would love to hear your insights, Mr. Buffett. What were some pivotal lessons you learned early in your career? And what advice do you have for young investors who are looking to develop their investment philosophy? Thank you.观众（7 区）： 您好，我叫玛丽，来自马萨诸塞州梅尔罗斯。感谢您今天抽出时间。我像巴菲特先生一样，是一位对投资感兴趣的年轻人，非常想听听您的见解。您在职业生涯早期学到了哪些关键经验？对于正在建立投资理念的年轻投资者，您有什么建议？谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Those are good questions. Who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.沃伦·巴菲特： 这些都是很好的问题。你与谁交往至关重要。不要指望你在这方面每个决定都正确，但你的人生发展总体上会朝着你共事的人、你欣赏的人、成为你朋友的人的方向发展。

I mentioned a few fellows that have died in the last couple years. All of those people were people that, if we were working together on something one-ten-thousandth the size of Berkshire, they’d be the kind of people you’d choose. They’re people that make you want to be better than you are. You want to hang out with people that are better than you are and that you feel are better than you are because you’re going to go in the direction of the people you associate with.我提到了几位近几年去世的朋友。这些人都是那种即使我们一起做的项目只有伯克希尔的万分之一大小，你也会毫不犹豫地选择他们。他们激励你不断进步。你会想要和比你优秀、你觉得比你优秀的人在一起，因为你会不由自主地朝着你所交往的人的方向发展。

That’s something you learn later in life – it’s hard to really appreciate how important some of those factors are until you get much older. But when you’ve got people around you like Tom Murphy and Sandy Gottesman and Walter Scott, you’re just going to live a better life than if you just go out and look at somebody that’s making a lot of money and decide you’re going to try and copy them.这是你年纪大了之后才会明白的——只有到了年纪很大的时候，你才能真正体会到某些因素的重要性。但是，如果你身边有像汤姆·墨菲、桑迪·戈特斯曼和沃尔特·斯科特这样的人，你的生活肯定会比你只是看看哪个赚了很多钱的人，然后就决定去模仿他们要好得多。

I would try to be associated with smart people too where I could learn a lot from them, and I would try to look for something that I would do if I didn’t need the money. What you’re really looking for in life is something where you’ve got a job that you’d hold if you didn’t need the money, and I’ve had that for a very long time.我也会努力结交聪明人，从他们身上学习，并且寻找一份即使不为生计奔波也愿意做的工作。人生真正追求的是一份即使不为生计奔波也愿意继续做下去的工作，而我一直以来都拥有这样一份工作。

All the fellows I named had it, and they also always did more than their share and never sought more than their share of the credit. They behaved the way you’d like anybody you work with to behave. When you find them, you treasure them, and when you don’t find them, you still keep doing whatever enables you to eat. But you don’t give up on looking around, and you will find people who do wonderful things for you.我提到的那些人都有这种品质，他们总是尽心尽力，从不居功自傲。他们的为人处事方式正是你希望与你共事的人应有的样子。当你遇到这样的人，你会倍加珍惜；当你找不到这样的人，你仍然会为了糊口而继续工作。但你不要放弃寻找，你终会找到那些为你做出卓越贡献的人。

I mentioned earlier going down to GEICO and knocking on the door when the door was locked. Who knows what was behind that door? But in 10 minutes, I found that I had a man that was going to be just wonderfully helpful to me. And of course, if somebody’s going to be helpful to you, you want to try to figure out ways to be helpful to them. So you get a compounding of good intentions and good behavior. Unfortunately, you can get the reverse of that in life, too.我之前提到过，我去 GEICO 保险公司，敲门的时候门锁着。谁知道门后是什么呢？但十分钟后，我发现遇到的这个人非常乐于助人。当然，如果有人愿意帮助你，你也会想办法回报他。这样一来，善意和善行就会相互促进。可惜的是，生活中也可能出现相反的情况。

I was lucky in having a good environment for living that kind of life, and other people have a whole different environmental situation they have to overcome. But don’t feel guilty about your good luck if you’ve got it. If you live in the United States, with 8 billion people in the world and 330 million in the United States, you’ve already won the game to a great degree. Just keep making the most of it.我很幸运，拥有一个适合这种生活方式的良好环境，而其他人则面临着截然不同的环境挑战。但如果你拥有这样的好运，不要为此感到愧疚。如果你生活在美国，这个世界上有80亿人口，而美国只有3.3亿人口，那么你已经在很大程度上赢得了这场游戏。好好珍惜你所拥有的一切吧。

You don’t want to associate with people or enterprises that ask you to do something that you shouldn’t be doing. Different professions select for different types of people. It’s interesting to me that in the investment business, so many people get out of it after they’ve made a pile of money. You really want something that you’ll stick around for whether you need the money or not.你肯定不想和那些要求你做不该做的事情的人或企业有任何瓜葛。不同的行业需要不同类型的人。我觉得很有意思的是，在投资行业，很多人赚到一大笔钱后就退出了。你真正想要的是那种无论是否需要钱，你都会坚持下去的事业。

Greg doesn’t need the money, Ajit doesn’t need the money – not remotely – but they enjoy what they do and they’re so damn good at it. I’ve had the advantage of seeing how that works over time.格雷格不缺钱，阿吉特也不缺钱——一点也不缺——但他们热爱自己的工作，而且做得非常出色。我有幸亲眼见证了这一切是如何运作的。

The best manager I ever knew – and there’s a lot of contention for who that would be – but actually was Tom Murphy Sr., who lived to almost 98. I’ve never seen anybody who could get the potential out of other people more than Murph. If you wanted to become a better person, you’d want to work for Tom Murphy. There are all kinds of successful people that don’t bring that to the party. I’m not saying that’s the only way to succeed, but I think it’s the most pleasant way to succeed for sure.我认识的最优秀的经理——关于谁是最佳经理人众说纷纭——但实际上是汤姆·墨菲（老墨菲），他活到了将近98岁。我从未见过比墨菲更能激发他人潜能的人。如果你想成为一个更好的人，就应该为汤姆·墨菲工作。很多成功人士并没有这种特质。我并不是说这是成功的唯一途径，但我认为这无疑是最令人愉悦的成功之道。

The Berkshire experience is pretty dramatic – to operate with Sandy Gottesman from 1963 until he died a couple years ago, Walter Scott for 30 years – you really can’t miss it. You’ll learn all the time, but you’ll not only learn how to be successful at business, you’ll learn how to be successful at life.在伯克希尔的经历非常精彩——从1963年到桑迪·戈特斯曼几年前去世，一直与他共事；与沃尔特·斯科特共事30年——你绝对不能错过。你会不断学习，不仅学会如何在商业上取得成功，更学会如何在生活中取得成功。

So that’s my recommendation. And for some reason, apparently you live longer too. It’s pretty amazing – these people I’m talking about, including myself. I think a happy person lives longer than somebody that’s doing things they don’t really admire that much in life.这就是我的建议。而且不知为何，这样做似乎还能延长寿命。这真是太神奇了——我说的这些人，包括我自己。我认为，快乐的人比那些做着自己并不真正热爱的事情的人活得更久。

Becky Quick: The first quarter ended March 31st and it did show that Berkshire’s cash pile expanded from the end of the last year. But the greatest market turmoil came in April. Martin Devine, a shareholder from Scotland who is attending the meeting today, wants to know: has the recent market volatility presented Berkshire with opportunities? And Martin just wrote in an addendum in the last 40 minutes or so, pointing out that you mentioned Berkshire almost invested $10 billion recently and wanting to know if you could talk more about that.贝基·奎克： 第一季度于 3 月 31 日结束，数据显示伯克希尔的现金储备较去年年底有所增加。但最大的市场动荡发生在 4 月份。来自苏格兰的股东马丁·德文今天也出席了会议，他想知道：近期的市场波动是否为伯克希尔带来了机遇？马丁在会议结束前大约 40 分钟提交了一份补充说明，指出您提到伯克希尔近期投资额接近 100 亿美元，并希望您能就此做进一步说明。

Warren Buffett: Well, I can give you a good answer to the second part, which is no. But $10 billion wouldn’t have done that much anyway.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，关于第二个问题，我可以给你一个很好的答案，那就是“不”。但即便如此，100 亿美元也做不了多少事。

What has happened in the last 30-45 days, 100 days, whatever this period has been, is really nothing. There have been three times since we acquired Berkshire that Berkshire has gone down 50% in a fairly short period of time – three different times. Nothing was fundamentally wrong with the company at any time. This is not a huge move.过去30-45天、100天，或者不管这段时间有多长，其实什么都没发生。自从我们收购伯克希尔以来，伯克希尔的股价在相对较短的时间内下跌了50%——而且是三次不同的下跌。公司本身在任何时候都没有出现任何根本性的问题。这并非什么重大举措。

The Dow Jones average was at 381 in September of 1929 and got down to 42. That’s going from 100 to 11. This has not been a dramatic bear market or anything of the sort. I’ve had about 17,000 or 18,000 trading days. There have been plenty of periods that are dramatically different than this.1929年9月，道琼斯指数曾高达381点，之后跌至42点。这相当于从100点跌至11点。这并非剧烈的熊市，或者类似的事情。我从事交易已有大约17000到18000个交易日。历史上有很多时期与现在截然不同。

When I was born on August 30, 1930, the Dow Jones was at 240. Between that and the low, it went from 240 to 41. So if people think there’s been a really major change, there hasn’t been. If it had gone up 15% instead of down 15%, people would take that with remarkable grace. But if it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy because the world is not going to adapt to you. You’re going to have to adapt to the world.我出生于1930年8月30日，当时道琼斯指数是240点。从那时到低点，它从240点跌到了41点。所以，如果有人认为这期间发生了翻天覆地的变化，那其实并没有。如果它上涨了15%而不是下跌了15%，人们会非常宽容地接受。但如果你真的在意股票下跌15%与否，那你需要转变一下投资理念，因为世界不会迁就你，你必须适应世界。

You will see a period in the next 20 years that will be a “hair curler” compared to anything you’ve seen before. That just happens periodically. The world makes big mistakes, and surprises happen in dramatic ways. The more sophisticated the system gets, the more the surprises can come out of left field.未来二十年，你将会看到一段前所未有的动荡时期。这种情况周期性地发生。世界会犯下重大错误，意外也会以戏剧性的方式出现。系统越复杂，就越容易出现意想不到的变故。

That’s part of the stock market, and that’s what makes it a good place to focus your efforts if you’ve got the proper temperament for it and a terrible place to get involved if you get frightened by markets that decline and get excited when stock markets go up. I don’t mean to sound particularly critical – I know people have emotions, but you’ve got to check them at the door when you invest.这就是股市的一部分，也正因如此，如果你具备合适的投资心态，股市就是一个很好的投资场所；但如果你害怕股市下跌，又在股市上涨时兴奋不已，那么股市就不是一个好的投资选择。我并非有意批评——我知道人都会有情绪，但投资时你必须把情绪放在一边。

Audience Member (Zone 8): Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Abel, and Mr. Jain. My name is Peter Chen. I’m from Shanghai, China. This is my first time attending this shareholders meeting. I would like to ask a question about the wisdom of life. Have you ever encountered any major setbacks or low points in your life, and how did you get through and overcome them? Thank you very much.观众（8 区）： 巴菲特先生、阿贝尔先生、贾恩先生，早上好。我叫彼得·陈，来自中国上海。这是我第一次参加股东大会。我想问一个关于人生智慧的问题。您的人生中是否遇到过重大挫折或低谷？您是如何克服困难、走出困境的？非常感谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, everybody gets setbacks. Some people have particularly bad luck in that respect, and others get through with fairly minor ones. Charlie had setbacks, I had setbacks – it’s part of life, and they’re not any fun.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，每个人都会遇到挫折。有些人在这方面运气特别差，而有些人则能挺过一些比较轻微的挫折。查理经历过挫折，我也经历过挫折——这是生活的一部分，而且挫折并不好受。

I don’t have any great advice about having the time of your life while you’re having some major setback, but it comes with life. You certainly have a setback when you die, and everybody’s got that one guaranteed. Some people get extraordinary bad luck, and other people get extraordinary good luck. Usually the people who get good luck don’t really think it was so much luck as themselves, but you’re just going to have setbacks.我没有什么妙招能让你在遭遇重大挫折时依然享受生活，但这都是人生的一部分。死亡本身就是一种挫折，每个人都无法避免。有些人运气极差，有些人运气极好。通常，那些运气好的人并不认为这是运气使然，而是他们自身的能力使然，但人生难免会遇到挫折。

I think you’re less likely to have setbacks now in terms of medical problems and various things in life. You were born at a good time. If you look all the way through the history of China, when would you rather have been born? 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or now? It’s just hands down – you’ve been lucky.我认为你现在在健康问题和生活各方面遇到挫折的可能性都比较小。你生逢其时。纵观中国历史，你更愿意出生在什么时候？100年前、500年前、1000年前，还是现在？毫无疑问——你很幸运。

If I came from 20 generations of shepherds, I think I’d get kind of tired of looking at sheep every day. Everything in life has been made so much better. You’ve got to figure that you drew a lucky straw by staying in the womb for a couple hundred thousand years and then emerging at the right time.如果我祖辈都是牧羊人，我想每天看羊都会腻。现在的生活真是美好太多了。想想看，能在母胎里待上几十万年，最后在合适的时机出生，简直就是走了狗屎运。

So I would focus on the things that have been good in your life rather than the bad things that happen, because bad things do happen. It can often be a wonderful life even with some bad breaks. So far that really hasn’t happened with me, but it’s happened with some of my friends.所以，我建议你把注意力放在生活中美好的事情上，而不是那些糟糕的事情上，因为糟糕的事情确实会发生。即使遭遇一些挫折，生活也常常可以很精彩。到目前为止，我还没有遇到过这种情况，但我的一些朋友经历过。

For 94 years I’ve been able to drink whatever I want to drink. They predict all kinds of terrible things for me, but it hasn’t happened yet. If you look at the lifespan of professional athletes after a while, you really decide that you’re better off if you weren’t the first one chosen to be on the baseball team or the basketball team.94年来，我一直想喝什么就喝什么。他们预言我会遭遇各种可怕的事情，但至今还没发生。如果你仔细观察职业运动员的寿命，过一段时间你就会明白，如果你不是第一个被选入棒球队或篮球队的人，反而会更好。

Charlie and I never really exercised that much or did anything – we were carefully preserving ourselves for these years.查理和我以前很少锻炼，也不怎么运动——我们一直在精心保存体力，为这些年做准备。

Look at the bright side of things to the extent that you can. You’re lucky enough to be here today, you’re healthy, you’ve come from a long distance, and you’re getting a chance to learn more about something that interests you. Compare that with the situation a couple hundred years ago that you would have been offered.尽可能地看到事情积极的一面。你今天能来到这里已经很幸运了，你身体健康，你远道而来，并且有机会学习更多你感兴趣的东西。想想几百年前你所面临的境遇吧。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Himanshu Bindal for Ajit and Warren. Autonomous vehicles are already driving across roads in American cities with no driver involvement. How do Warren and Ajit think about any disruption risk from these autonomous vehicles to GEICO’s auto insurance business, which is built around understanding and underwriting human drivers? Wouldn’t what we call auto insurance today just become product liability for autonomous vehicles and autonomous software companies?贝基·奎克： 这个问题是希曼舒·宾达尔代表阿吉特和沃伦提出的。自动驾驶汽车已经在美国城市道路上行驶，无需驾驶员干预。沃伦和阿吉特如何看待这些自动驾驶汽车对 GEICO 汽车保险业务的潜在冲击风险？GEICO 的汽车保险业务是建立在对人类驾驶员的了解和承保之上的。我们今天所说的汽车保险，会不会变成自动驾驶汽车和自动驾驶软件公司的产品责任险？

Ajit Jain: There’s no question that insurance for automobiles is going to change dramatically once self-driving cars become a reality. The big change will be what you identified. Most of the insurance that is sold and bought revolves around operator errors – how often they happen, how severe they are, and therefore what premium we ought to charge.阿吉特·贾恩： 毫无疑问，一旦自动驾驶汽车成为现实，汽车保险将会发生翻天覆地的变化。最大的变化正如你所指出的那样。目前大多数保险的销售和购买都围绕着人为失误展开——失误发生的频率、严重程度，以及因此我们应该收取多少保费。

To the extent these new self-driving cars are safer and involved in fewer accidents, that insurance will be less required. Instead, it’ll be substituted by product liability. So we at GEICO and elsewhere are certainly trying to get ready for that switch, where we move from providing insurance for operator errors to being more ready to provide protection for product errors and errors and omissions in the construction of these automobiles.如果这些新型自动驾驶汽车更安全、事故更少，那么对这类保险的需求就会降低。取而代之的是产品责任险。因此，我们 GEICO 和其他公司都在努力为这种转变做好准备，从为操作失误提供保险，转向为产品缺陷以及汽车制造过程中的错误和疏忽提供保障。

Warren Buffett: We expect change in all our businesses. If I’d settled for being in New England textiles – even though it worked well for 70 years or so prior – the world changes. If the game didn’t change, it really wouldn’t be very interesting. If every time you swung at a baseball you hit a home run, or every time you hit a golf ball you had a hole in one, it wouldn’t be interesting.沃伦·巴菲特： 我们预料到所有业务都会发生变化。如果我当初满足于只做新英格兰的纺织业——尽管过去 70 年左右它一直运作良好——世界瞬息万变。如果游戏规则一成不变，那就真的没什么意思了。如果每次挥棒都能打出本垒打，或者每次击球都能一杆进洞，那就太没意思了。

The fact that there will be things you have to think about all the time as you go along and you’ll make mistakes – that’s really part of the fun. Your brain would turn to mush if you didn’t have a few problems now and then.一路走来，你总会遇到需要思考的事情，也会犯错——这才是乐趣所在。如果没有时不时遇到一些问题，你的大脑早就变成一团浆糊了。

Auto insurance will change, although it’s remarkable how little it has changed in its relatively short history. Who knows what we’ll be doing in transportation 100 years from now? If you go back a couple hundred years ago, who could have predicted the United States would look like what it does and people would move like they do and enjoy themselves like they do?汽车保险终将改变，尽管在其相对短暂的历史中变化甚微，这着实令人惊讶。谁又能预知100年后交通运输领域会如何发展呢？回溯几百年前，谁又能预料到美国会变成如今这般模样，人们的出行方式和生活方式会如此呢？

It’s a dynamic world. The biggest thing we have to worry about, unfortunately, is that we’ve learned how to destroy the world too. We’ve got this wonderful world, but now we know there are eight countries – and probably a ninth coming – that can destroy it, and we don’t necessarily have the perfect people leading each of those countries.这是一个瞬息万变的世界。不幸的是，我们最担心的是，我们也学会了如何毁灭世界。我们拥有这个美好的世界，但现在我们知道有八个国家——或许第九个国家即将出现——有能力毁灭它，而且我们未必能在每个国家都找到完美的领导人。

When Einstein came up with E=mc² back in 1905, he didn’t dream that mass could be converted into energy in a way that would change the world. When I was born in 1930, they had known about Einstein’s law of physics for 25 years, but nobody had thought about what it could do to change warfare in the future.1905 年爱因斯坦提出 E=mc²时，他做梦也想不到质量可以以如此改变世界的方式转化为能量。我出生于 1930 年，那时人们已经了解爱因斯坦的物理定律 25 年了，但没有人想到它会在未来改变战争的格局。

Then in August 1939, Roosevelt got the most famous letter in history from Leo Szilard. Szilard couldn’t get his letter in front of Roosevelt because who had heard of Leo Szilard? But he got Einstein to sign it. Roosevelt probably understood about as much about physics as I do, but he understood that Einstein signed it. So he called in General Groves and said, “We should do something about this.” All we did was learn how to destroy the world.1939年8月，罗斯福收到了利奥·西拉德写给罗斯福的那封历史上最著名的信。西拉德当时根本没机会把信递给罗斯福，因为谁听说过西拉德这个人？但他设法让爱因斯坦签了名。罗斯福对物理学的了解大概跟我差不多，但他知道爱因斯坦签了名。于是他召见了格罗夫斯将军，说：“我们应该采取行动。”结果，我们最终却学会了如何毁灭世界。

We needed to do it – Germany had Heisenberg and he looked like he was ahead of us. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle. The world changes, and we’ve got wonderful things, but we also have a guy in North Korea with nuclear weapons. What does North Korea need nuclear weapons for? Can that be a good thing in the world? But they’re not going to go away.我们必须这么做——德国有海森堡，而且他看起来领先于我们。我们无法让潘多拉的魔盒重新装回去。世界在变化，我们拥有了美好的事物，但朝鲜也拥有核武器。朝鲜需要核武器做什么？这对世界来说是好事吗？但他们不会消失。

So it’s a world of change. We are enjoying incredible change that’s contributed to everybody in this room living so much better than people were living a couple hundred years ago. But we haven’t changed human beings very much so far. We’ve certainly changed weapons of mass destruction, but we haven’t made much progress with the human race. We’ll see what happens with that.所以，这是一个瞬息万变的世界。我们正在享受着翻天覆地的变化，这些变化使得在座各位的生活水平远胜于几百年前的人们。但到目前为止，我们并没有对人类本身做出多大的改变。我们当然改进了大规模杀伤性武器，但在人类本身方面却鲜有建树。让我们拭目以待吧。

But in the meantime, we’ll see changes in auto insurance and cars, and that will be easier for us to deal with than when we had to deal with the problems of turning out textiles in New England. You deal with the world as it develops, and like I say, everybody here is living in the luckiest period. Enjoy your luck and try to figure out the answers to what’s going to happen. We’ve done pretty well actually adapting to the changes.但与此同时，汽车保险和汽车行业将会发生一些变化，这比我们当年在新英格兰应对纺织品生产问题要容易得多。世界在不断发展，你要顺其自然，就像我说的，我们这里每个人都生活在最幸运的时代。好好享受这份幸运，努力去思考未来会发生什么。事实上，我们在适应这些变化方面做得相当不错。

Ajit Jain: I’d like to add that we talked about the shift to product liability and protection for accidents that take place because of an error in product design or supply. In addition to that shift, I think what we’ll see is a major shift where the number of accidents will drop dramatically because of automatic driving. But on the other hand, the cost per repair every time there’s an accident will go up very significantly because of the amount of technology in the car.阿吉特·贾恩： 我想补充一点，我们之前讨论过产品责任和事故保障的转变，这种保障涵盖因产品设计或供应缺陷造成的事故。除了这种转变之外，我认为我们还会看到一个重大变化，那就是由于自动驾驶技术的普及，事故数量将大幅下降。但另一方面，由于汽车中大量技术的运用，每次事故的维修成本将显著上升。

How those two variables interact with each other in terms of the total cost of providing insurance, I think, is still an open issue.我认为，这两个变量如何相互作用，最终影响保险的总成本，仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。

Warren Buffett: I’ll give you two interesting figures to ponder. When I walked into GEICO’s office in 1951, the average price of a policy was around $40 a year. Now it’s easy to get up to $2,000 depending on location and other factors. During that same time, the number of people killed in auto accidents has fallen from roughly six per 100 million miles driven to a little over one.沃伦·巴菲特： 我给大家举两个值得思考的数据。1951 年我走进 GEICO 的办公室时，一份保单的平均价格大约是每年 40 美元。现在，根据地区和其他因素，保费很容易高达 2000 美元。与此同时，车祸死亡人数从每行驶 1 亿英里约 6 人下降到略高于 1 人。

So the car has become incredibly safer, and it costs 50 times as much to buy an insurance policy. When people talk about developments in car driving, it’s a lot easier to look at the Buck Rogers aspect of it, but they don’t actually think about what really happens to the math of the business.所以汽车变得极其安全，但保险费用也上涨了50倍。人们谈论汽车驾驶技术的发展时，往往更容易关注其科幻色彩，却忽略了其对商业运作的实际影响。

The auto insurance industry has been a huge growth industry. Homeowners insurance prices in Nebraska have doubled in the last 10 years, adjusted for general inflation, and convective storms have just gone on a tear. It’s still unprofitable to write homeowners insurance in Nebraska after doubling in the last 10 years.汽车保险行业发展迅猛。内布拉斯加州的房屋保险价格在过去十年里翻了一番（已根据通货膨胀率调整），而且对流风暴也频发。尽管过去十年价格翻了一番，但在内布拉斯加州从事房屋保险业务仍然无利可图。

So it’s very hard to predict what these big changes mean. You just have to keep thinking all the time. But you don’t want to read some research report that says the world’s coming to an end or the world’s going to be wonderful because of this or that – there are about 50 other developments going on at the same time that you need to think about and keep observing as you go along.所以，很难预测这些重大变化意味着什么。你只能时刻保持思考。但你不想读一些研究报告，说世界末日要来了，或者因为这样那样的原因，世界将会变得美好——同时还有大约50项其他发展正在进行，你需要思考并持续观察它们。

You never reach a final answer in this business – you reach a point of action that you take. We try to get into high probability things and play the game in the same way. But it will be different than you think, and you should wake up every morning and think about that if you’re in the business of managing businesses.在这个行业里，你永远找不到最终答案——你只能找到一个需要采取的行动点。我们试图进入高概率领域，并以同样的方式参与竞争。但实际情况会与你想象的不同，如果你从事企业管理，就应该每天早上醒来都思考这个问题。

Greg Abel: Warren, as we approach the break, would you like to address the operating earnings?格雷格·阿贝尔： 沃伦，在我​​们即将休息之际，您能否谈谈运营收益？

Warren Buffett: Yes, let’s put up the information. We released our 10-Q this morning. We always try to do it on a Saturday so nobody gets a jump on other people.沃伦·巴菲特： 是的，我们来公布信息。我们今天早上发布了 10-Q 报告。我们总是尽量在周六发布，这样就不会有人抢先一步。

You’ll see that our insurance underwriting income was down dramatically for the first quarter. Last year was as good a year as you’ll see in insurance – everything broke our way. Prices are down this year, and risks are up this year. But we do have unusual advantages in the insurance business that can’t really be replicated by our competition.你会发现，我们第一季度的保险承保收入大幅下降。去年是保险业的黄金时期——一切都对我们有利。今年价格下降，风险上升。但我们在保险业务中拥有一些独特的优势，这是竞争对手难以复制的。

We just announced within the last 24 hours that we, Zurich, and Chubb have arranged a joint operation to be the writer of really large sums that very few people can do. Of course, we’ve got to write them at the right price in terms of liability, but we can do that sort of thing without blinking.就在过去24小时内，我们宣布苏黎世保险和丘博保险已达成一项联合协议，将承保极少数人能够承保的巨额贷款。当然，我们必须在责任风险方面控制在合适的范围内，但我们完全有能力胜任这类业务。

Our investment income did not change that much because we have a float that grows a little bit, which gives us more money for investment, and then we have retained earnings which grow. So we would expect in any year to have like $40 billion or more that we’ll build up unless we find things to do with it.我们的投资收益变化不大，因为我们的流通股略有增长，这为我们提供了更多投资资金，此外，我们的留存收益也在增长。因此，除非我们找到其他用途，否则我们预计每年都会积累400亿美元或更多的资金。

The interest rates on short-term bills are less than they were before, so you had that negative effect pulling investment income down, but not that much, and we had more money. So we came up with a little more in the way of earnings.短期票据的利率比以前低了，所以对投资收益产生了负面影响，但影响不大，而且我们手头的资金也更多了。因此，我们的收益反而略有增加。

The railroad is earning a little more than last year, but it’s not earning what it should be earning at the present time. But that’s solvable and is getting solved. It’s still an incredible asset for Berkshire.这家铁路公司目前的盈利比去年略有增长，但远未达到应有的水平。不过，这个问题是可以解决的，而且正在着手解决。它仍然是伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的一项宝贵资产。

The energy company last year was having particular problems, and those are absent this year. So those earnings are up. Then among our range of general businesses, they were pretty much a push.这家能源公司去年遇到了一些特殊问题，但今年这些问题都已消失。因此，该公司的盈利有所增长。至于我们其他几家综合性企业，它们的盈利情况基本持平。

Greg Abel: Of our 49 businesses that we measure closely, 21 were up and 28 were down. So you can tell it was really a mixed quarter when you go across the non-insurance operating businesses.格雷格·阿贝尔： 在我们密切关注的 49 家企业中，21 家业绩增长，28 家业绩下降。因此，从非保险业务来看，这确实是一个喜忧参半的季度。

Warren Buffett: Our financial condition continues to hold a lot more in cash and treasuries than I would like, but that’s simply a question of when opportunities occur. If you get real opportunities every five or six years, you have to be patient.沃伦·巴菲特： 我们目前的财务状况仍然持有大量现金和国债，远超我的预期，但这只是机会何时出现的问题。如果真正的机会每五六年才出现一次，你就必须耐心等待。

Charlie always pointed out that we made most of our money out of about eight or nine ideas over 50 years. We talked about it every day and read every report and did everything else. But if you think you can get an idea a day from listening to your broker or reading financial information, forget it. Every now and then you get extraordinary opportunities, and most of the time you don’t have much of an edge.查理总是指出，我们五十年来赚到的大部分钱都来自八九个想法。我们每天都讨论这些想法，阅读每一份报告，竭尽所能。但如果你以为每天听经纪人的话或者阅读财经信息就能获得投资灵感，那就别想了。你偶尔会遇到绝佳的机会，但大多数时候你并没有多大的优势。

We also have our float which continues to build. There’s no property casualty company that has our float.我们还有不断增长的浮动资金。没有哪家财产保险公司能像我们一样拥有如此雄厚的浮动资金。

Ajit Jain: Clearly we are heads and shoulders above anyone else.阿吉特·贾恩： 显然，我们比其他任何人都高出一筹。

Warren Buffett: That is money that, as long as we’re writing at an underwriting profit, is absolutely free money. We would expect that over a 50 or 100-year period that we would be able to say the same thing. But there will be years when you have a very bad underwriting record, and it’ll eat into the float earnings.沃伦·巴菲特： 只要我们承销业务盈利，这笔钱就是白送的。我们预计在 50 年或 100 年的时间里，情况依然如此。但总会有那么几年，承销业绩非常糟糕，这会侵蚀我们的浮动收益。

Ajit Jain: I think if you look at the entire range including life insurance, our cost of float is negative 2.2%. That means we’ve got the float plus somebody’s given us 2.2% of cash.阿吉特·贾恩： 我认为，如果把包括人寿保险在内的所有业务都考虑在内，我们的浮存金成本是负 2.2%。这意味着我们有浮存金，再加上有人给了我们 2.2%的现金。

Warren Buffett: It’s like running a bank where people leave their money with you and you pay a minus 2.2% and you don’t have any check clearing or anything else to do. We run our business with a different mindset than any other P&C company in the world, and I wouldn’t be talking about it if I thought they could duplicate it.沃伦·巴菲特： 这就像经营一家银行，人们把钱存在你那里，你支付-2.2%的手续费，而且你不用处理任何支票清算或其他事务。我们经营业务的理念与世界上任何其他财产保险公司都不同，如果我认为他们能够复制，我就不会在这里谈论它了。

The final page is on share repurchases. Clearly we haven’t made any share repurchases so far this year. If Berkshire buys Berkshire shares in repurchases, we now pay more than you will pay if you buy Berkshire shares.最后一页是关于股票回购的。显然，我们今年至今还没有进行任何股票回购。如果伯克希尔哈撒韦公司回购伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的股票，我们现在支付的价格会比您购买伯克希尔哈撒韦公司股票的价格更高。

I don’t think people generally know that, but there is a tax that was introduced a year or so ago where we pay 1%. That not only hurts us because we pay more for it than you do – it’s a better deal for you than for us – but it actually hurts some of our investee companies quite substantially.我认为大家普遍不知道，大约一年前引入了一项税收，我们需要缴纳1%的税。这不仅损害了我们的利益，因为我们为此支付的费用比你们多——这对你们来说比对我们来说更划算——而且实际上也对我们的一些投资公司造成了相当大的损害。

Tim Cook has done a wonderful job running Apple, but he spent about $100 billion in a year repurchasing shares, and there’s a 1% charge attached to that now. So that’s a billion dollars a year that he pays when he buys Apple stock compared to what you pay. It doesn’t sound like much, but there are people who want to increase that particular rate dramatically.蒂姆·库克在苹果公司的运营上做得非常出色，但他一年内斥资约1000亿美元回购股票，现在还要为此支付1%的费用。也就是说，他每年回购苹果股票要比你支付的价格多出10亿美元。这听起来似乎不多，但有人却想大幅提高这个费率。

We will only buy in our shares if we think that they are almost certainly underpriced as valued very conservatively. We get that opportunity occasionally, but the higher that charge goes that the federal government charges us for doing it, the less we will be able to do repurchases.只有当我们认为股票价格几乎肯定被低估（即使按照非常保守的估值方法），我们才会买入股票。我们偶尔会遇到这样的机会，但联邦政府收取的回购费用越高，我们能够进行的回购就越少。

So on that happy note, we will rejoin at 11:00, continue till 1:00, and in the meantime enjoy yourself. I think all our exhibit doors are still open. So bring your wallets to the cash registers.带着这份喜悦，我们将在11:00重新集合，一直持续到13:00，在此期间，请尽情享受。我想我们所有的展厅大门都还开着，所以请记得带上钱包去收银台。

Afternoon Session Transcript 下午会议记录

Warren Buffett: Okay, everyone. We’re ready to go. I’m going to lead off by actually recommending a movie. I know that’s why you came, but I would recommend to all of you that you go to Amazon Prime. I’ve got no financial interest in this. But go to Amazon Prime and click on a documentary called “Becoming Katherine Graham.” It’s an incredible story from 50 or so years ago. To some extent, I had the good luck to be kind of a viewer of some American history that I think is fascinating. If you feel that I misled you, you can write me a note, but I promise to report how many readers didn’t agree. But check out “Becoming Katherine Graham” and you’ll see a remarkable story of American history.沃伦·巴菲特： 好了，各位。我们准备开始了。首先，我要推荐一部电影。我知道你们是来看电影的，但我还是要推荐大家去亚马逊 Prime 上看。我跟这部电影没有任何利益关系。请去亚马逊 Prime 上看一部叫《成为凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆》的纪录片。这是一个大约 50 年前的精彩故事。某种程度上，我有幸见证了这段我认为非常引人入胜的美国历史。如果你觉得我误导了你，可以给我留言，但我保证会汇报有多少读者不同意我的观点。总之，请看看《成为凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆》，你会看到一个非凡的美国历史故事。

Audience Member (Zone 9): Hi Warren. My name is Robert and I’m a shareholder from Toronto, Canada. Three years ago Charlie Rose asked you a question to the effect of what you wanted to be remembered for and your reply was “he was a teacher.” So in that spirit, Greg, I’m curious to hear maybe a story of where you learned something very profound from Warren. And vice versa, if we have the time, Warren, what’s something that you maybe learned from Greg?观众（9 区）： 你好，沃伦。我叫罗伯特，是来自加拿大多伦多的股东。三年前，查理·罗斯问过你一个问题，大概意思是你想让人们记住你什么，你的回答是“他是一位老师”。所以，格雷格，本着这种精神，我很想听听你从沃伦身上学到的哪些深刻见解。反过来，沃伦，如果时间允许的话，你从格雷格身上学到了什么？

Greg Abel: Well, Warren is obviously a remarkable teacher and I benefit from that every day and for many years. I’m fortunate that if I had to be remembered as something right now, I’d want to be remembered as a great father, but equally a coach. And that goes to family, friends, and just being involved with the kids I coach in hockey or baseball or whatever it may be. I think we’ve got a great opportunity to give back to them at a very young age.格雷格·阿贝尔： 沃伦显然是一位杰出的老师，多年来我每天都从中受益匪浅。如果现在要人们记住我什么，我很幸运，我希望他们记住我是一位伟大的父亲，同时也是一位优秀的教练。这包括我的家人、朋友，以及我指导的孩子们，无论是冰球、棒球还是其他任何运动。我认为我们有机会在他们很小的时候就回馈他们。

I love thinking of Warren truly as a teacher and I get the opportunity to continue to learn every day. Warren and I have strong dialogue every week and we’re always talking around opportunities in Berkshire or things that are going on globally or in the US, and each one’s truly a learning moment.我非常喜欢把沃伦当作我的老师，这样我每天都能从他身上学到很多东西。我和沃伦每周都会进行深入的交流，我们总是讨论伯克希尔的各种机会，或者全球乃至美国正在发生的事情，每一次交流都是一次宝贵的学习机会。

I’ll maybe go back to the very first meeting with Warren because it still stands out in my mind. Warren was thinking about acquiring Mid-America Energy Holdings Company at that time, and we had the opportunity with my partners to go over there on a Saturday morning. We were discussing the business and Warren had the financial statements in front of him. Like anybody, I was sort of expecting a few questions on how the business was performing, but Warren locked in immediately to what was on the balance sheet and the fact we had some derivative contracts, the “weapons of mass destruction.”我或许应该回顾一下我和沃伦的第一次会面，因为那次会面至今仍让我记忆犹新。当时沃伦正考虑收购中西部能源控股公司，我和我的合伙人有机会在一个周六上午去拜访他。我们讨论了公司的业务，沃伦面前摆着财务报表。和所有人一样，我原本以为他会问一些关于公司经营状况的问题，但沃伦立刻就把注意力集中在了资产负债表上，以及我们持有的一些衍生品合约——他称之为“大规模杀伤性武器”。

In the utility business, we do have derivatives because they’re used to match certain positions. They’re never matched perfectly, but we have them and they’re required in the regulated business. I remember Warren going to it immediately and asking about the composition and what was the underlying risk, wanting to thoroughly understand. It wasn’t that big of a position, but it was absolutely one of the risks he was concerned about as he was acquiring Mid-America, especially in light of Enron and everything that had gone on.在公用事业行业，我们确实会使用衍生品，因为它们可以用来对冲某些头寸。虽然永远无法做到完美对冲，但我们确实会使用，而且在受监管的行业中，衍生品是必需的。我记得沃伦当时立刻就去了解了这笔交易，询问其构成以及潜在的风险，他想彻底弄明白。这笔头寸规模并不大，但考虑到安然事件及其后续发展，这绝对是他在收购中西部能源公司时非常关注的风险之一。

The followup to that was a year or 18 months later. There was an energy crisis in the US around electricity and natural gas, and various companies were making significant sums of money. Warren’s follow-up question to me was, “How much money are we making during this energy crisis? Are we making a lot? Do we have speculative positions in place?” The answer was we weren’t making any more than we would have been six months ago because all those derivatives were truly to support our business and weren’t speculative. That focus on understanding the business and the risks around it still stands out in my mind.这件事的后续发生在一年半之后。当时美国爆发了电力和天然气能源危机，许多公司从中获利颇丰。沃伦接着问我：“我们在这次能源危机中赚了多少钱？赚得多吗？我们是否有投机性头寸？”我的回答是，我们赚的钱和六个月前一样，因为所有衍生品都是为了支持我们的业务，并非投机性质。这种对业务及其风险的深入了解，至今仍让我记忆犹新。

Warren Buffett: It’s one thing we’ve really never talked about here, but I spend more time looking at balance sheets than I do income statements. Wall Street doesn’t pay much attention to balance sheets, but I like to look at balance sheets over an 8 or 10 year period before I even look at the income account because there are certain things it’s harder to hide or play games with on the balance sheet than with the income statement.沃伦·巴菲特： 这是我们之前从未真正讨论过的一点，但我花在研究资产负债表上的时间比研究损益表的时间要多。华尔街不太关注资产负债表，但我喜欢先查看过去 8 到 10 年的资产负债表，然后再去看损益表，因为有些事情在资产负债表上比在损益表上更难隐藏或操纵。

Neither one gives you the total answer on anything, but you should understand what the figures are saying and what they don’t say and what they can’t say and what the management would like them to say that the auditors wouldn’t like them to say. You learn more from balance sheets in my view than most people give them credit for.两者都不能提供任何问题的全部答案，但你应该明白这些数字说明了什么，它们没有说明什么，它们不能说明什么，以及管理层希望它们说明但审计师不希望它们说明什么。在我看来，你能从资产负债表中了解到的信息比大多数人认为的要多得多。

I’m not worried about being remembered. People don’t remember enough about Katherine Graham, for example, in terms of this story that shaped America in many ways.我并不担心会被人记住。例如，人们对凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆的了解就不够多，她的故事在很多方面都影响了美国。

Charlie was probably the best person you could imagine in what he learned. Charlie was never satisfied with just superficial things about any subject. He really wanted to understand it and he always would tell me that you shouldn’t take a position on anything until you can describe the arguments against it better than the person who is arguing with you – that you should be able to argue their case better than they can. He was a remarkable teacher. And so were those other fellows I mentioned. And of course my dad was an incredible teacher. Make the most of the people you meet that are going to make you a better person and probably forget about the rest to quite an extent.查理大概是我见过最博学的人了。他对任何事物都从不满足于浅尝辄止，总是渴望真正理解。他总是告诉我，在能够比辩论者更好地阐述反对意见之前，不要轻易表明立场——也就是说，你应该能够比对方更好地论证他们的观点。他是一位杰出的老师。我提到的其他几位也是如此。当然，我的父亲也是一位了不起的老师。要珍惜那些能让你成为更好的人，至于其他人，或许可以暂时忽略。

Becky Quick: This question comes from David Rubin, a shareholder from Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s a question for Greg. We’ve heard over the decades and are familiar with Warren and Charlie’s investment thesis and their circle of competence. During the first 10 years after taking over as CEO, Greg will be tasked with allocating more capital during that time than Berkshire has had to allocate in its history. Given this, I’d like to hear from Greg about his views on capital allocation, particularly into new businesses.贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔的股东大卫·鲁宾，是问格雷格的。几十年来，我们一直听说沃伦和查理的投资理念以及他们的“能力圈”。格雷格接任首席执行官后的前十年，将要承担比伯克希尔历史上任何时期都多的资本配置任务。鉴于此，我想听听格雷格对资本配置的看法，特别是对新业务的配置。

Greg Abel: This bar is not too high! We start from a great place at Berkshire. We’ve got a great culture within the business. We have values that we as a management team, as defined by Warren and Charlie and everybody associated with the business – we’ve got great values that really set Berkshire up well for the future.格雷格·阿贝尔： 这个标准并不算高！伯克希尔的起点很高。我们拥有优秀的企业文化。我们管理团队，包括沃伦、查理以及所有与公司相关的人员，都秉持着共同的价值观——这些价值观真正为伯克希尔的未来奠定了坚实的基础。

As we deploy capital and allocate capital, it’s critical to Berkshire going forward, and equally it’s around managing risk. When I think of our values, a couple are absolutely critical. One: we will maintain the reputation of Berkshire and that of our company. I view that in investing or how we operate things across each of our businesses. That will always be a priority and something we’ll ensure is in the forefront of our minds.在资本部署和配置方面，风险管理对伯克希尔的未来至关重要。谈到我们的价值观，有几点绝对至关重要。第一，我们将维护伯克希尔以及我们公司的声誉。我认为，无论是在投资方面，还是在我们所有业务的运营方面，这一点都至关重要。这始终是我们的首要任务，我们将确保始终牢记于心。

Looking at our balance sheet, as Warren commented, we will have a fortress of a balance sheet. I thought Sue Decker, our lead director, said it well yesterday. We’ve got a significant amount of cash right now, but it’s an enormous asset to have that and that will continue to be a philosophy. When we can deploy it, we’ll deploy it well. We recognize it as a strategic asset that allows us to weather difficult times and not be dependent on anybody.正如沃伦所说，从我们的资产负债表来看，我们将拥有一个坚如磐石的资产负债表。我认为我们的首席董事苏·德克尔昨天也表达得非常到位。我们目前拥有大量现金，但这笔现金本身就是一项巨大的资产，我们将继续秉持这一理念。一旦条件允许，我们就会充分利用它。我们将其视为一项战略资产，使我们能够渡过难关，并且不依赖任何人。

We will remain Berkshire and will never be dependent on a bank or some other party for Berkshire to be successful. With allocation of capital comes management of risk and understanding risk. That falls upon all our managers, insurance and non-insurance, but we’ll bring that across Berkshire.我们将继续保持伯克希尔的品牌，并且永远不会依赖银行或其他任何机构来实现伯克希尔的成功。资本配置离不开风险管理和风险理解。这需要我们所有经理的共同努力，无论他们负责保险业务还是非保险业务，但我们会将这些理念贯穿整个伯克希尔。

The other value I would touch on relates to where I’m going: ultimately we have a great set of operating companies that produce significant cash flows, be it in the insurance companies creating float or our various non-insurance companies producing significant cash flows on an annual basis. We intend to continue to ensure that’s a strength of Berkshire going forward.我想谈的另一点与我的发展方向有关：我们最终拥有一系列优秀的运营公司，它们都能产生可观的现金流，无论是保险公司创造的浮存金，还是我们旗下各家非保险公司每年都能产生可观的现金流。我们计划继续确保这成为伯克希尔哈撒韦公司未来的一项优势。

With those cash flows and with the float, and with significant resources already on our balance sheet, we’ll continue to move forward with a very similar philosophy. It’s an identical philosophy to what we’ve had currently and for the past 60 years.凭借这些现金流、浮动资金以及资产负债表上已有的雄厚资源，我们将继续秉持非常相似的理念向前迈进。这与我们过去60年来一直奉行的理念完全一致。

We’ll start by looking at opportunities within our business – are our insurance and non-insurance businesses properly capitalized and do they have the opportunity to manage their business? They’ll operate in an autonomous way, but Berkshire still manages the capital that will go into those businesses or what potentially will come out of them.我们将首先审视公司内部的机遇——我们的保险和非保险业务资本是否充足，它们是否有机会自主管理？它们将独立运营，但伯克希尔仍将管理投入这些业务的资本，以及它们可能产生的收益。

The next opportunity is to acquire businesses in their totality, 100%. There are great times when we can do that. Warren touched on the $10 billion acquisition in the last quarter. But the value relative to the risk have to be right. If it’s right, we want to own it. If it’s not the time, there’ll be another time to own assets like that.下一个机会是全面收购企业，100%控股。时机总是很合适的。沃伦上个季度就提到过一笔100亿美元的收购。但收购的价值必须与风险相匹配。如果时机合适，我们就想收购。如果现在不是时候，以后还有机会收购类似的资产。

Then there’s the opportunity to own pieces of companies through equity. But as Warren’s always highlighted, though we own a piece of a company, we own a piece of that cash flow, a piece of their balance sheet. It’s not just a share certificate. We’ll approach it with the thought that we’re going to own this company for the long term.此外，我们还有机会通过股权持有公司股份。但正如沃伦一直强调的那样，虽然我们持有公司股份，但我们也拥有公司现金流的一部分，以及资产负债表的一部分。这不仅仅是一张股票证书。我们会以长期持有这家公司为目标来看待股权投资。

We need to thoroughly understand what the economic prospects of those companies will look like – as Warren said earlier – 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. If we don’t have a view of that, we won’t be investing, be it 100% or 2% of a company through equities. We have to thoroughly understand what those prospects look like and the underlying risks of the businesses. It’s really the investment philosophy and how Warren and the team have allocated capital for the past 60 years. It will not change, and it’s the approach we’ll take going forward.我们需要彻底了解这些公司未来的经济前景——正如沃伦之前所说——五年后、十年后、二十年后。如果我们对此没有清晰的认识，我们就不会进行投资，无论是通过股权投资一家公司100%的股份还是2%的股份。我们必须彻底了解这些前景以及企业的潜在风险。这实际上是沃伦及其团队过去60年来的投资理念和资本配置方式。这一点不会改变，也是我们未来将继续采取的方法。

Warren Buffett: I don’t want to go on too long on this, but this is important. It’s very obvious that the country needs an incredible improvement, rethinking, redirection to some extent in the electric grid. We’ve outgrown what would be the model that America should have. In a sense, it’s a problem something akin to the interstate highway system where you needed the power of the government really to get things done because it doesn’t work so well when you get 48 or 50 jurisdictions that each has their own way of thinking about things.沃伦·巴菲特： 我不想在这个问题上赘述太多，但这很重要。很明显，美国的电网需要进行巨大的改进、重新思考，甚至​​在某种程度上需要重新调整方向。我们已经超越了美国应该采用的模式。从某种意义上说，这个问题类似于州际公路系统，你需要政府的强大力量才能把事情做好，因为当 48 到 50 个司法管辖区各自为政、各行其是时，系统就很难有效运作。

In World War II, we called in people at a dollar an hour. We knew we had to turn out ships like crazy. We knew that we had to convert Ford Motor from being a car manufacturer into an aircraft manufacturer in a matter of days, not weeks or months.二战期间，我们以每小时一美元的价格招人。我们知道必须疯狂地建造舰船。我们知道必须在几天之内，而不是几周或几个月之内，将福特汽车公司从一家汽车制造商转型为一家飞机制造商。

There are certain really major investment situations where we have capital like nobody else has in the private system. We have particular knowhow in the whole generation and transmission arena. The country is going to need it. But we have to figure out a way that makes sense from the standpoint of the government, from the standpoint of the public, and from the standpoint of Berkshire, and we haven’t figured that out yet.在某些重大投资项目中，我们拥有私营体系中其他公司无法比拟的雄厚资本。我们在发电和输电领域拥有独特的专业知识。国家需要这些知识。但我们必须找到一种对政府、公众和伯克希尔哈撒韦公司都合理的方案，而我们尚未找到。

It’s a clear and present use of hundreds of billions of dollars. You have people that set up funds and they’re getting paid for just assembling stuff, but that’s not the way to handle it. The way to handle it is to have some kind of government-private industry cooperation similar to what you do in a war. When they were doing the highway system, I don’t think the government set up its own guys that were going to pour cement, but you needed cooperation. We’re at that point in terms of energy, but I don’t think we’ve made any progress particularly.这是对数千亿美元的直接且实际的利用。有些人设立基金，仅仅为了筹集资金就拿钱，但这并非正确的处理方式。正确的做法是建立某种政府与私营企业合作机制，类似于战争时期的做法。当年修建高速公路系统时，政府并没有派人专门负责浇筑水泥，而是需要各方合作。我们在能源领域也处于这种阶段，但我认为我们并没有取得任何实质性的进展。

Greg Abel: These are very unique situations that reflect where we’re at. There will be very significant investment opportunities across a variety of industries. As Warren touched on, in the electric industry or energy space, we obviously know that well with our existing business. The capital required to meet the long-term needs of what’s currently projected as demand is enormous, and we as Berkshire will be in a good position to help address those needs. But the model around it and the risks that need to be addressed to deploy that type of capital will be different than they are today.格雷格·阿贝尔： 这些都是非常特殊的情况，反映了我们目前的处境。各行各业都将涌现出大量重要的投资机会。正如沃伦所提到的，在电力行业或能源领域，我们凭借现有业务对此非常了解。满足当前预测的长期需求所需的资金是巨大的，而伯克希尔哈撒韦公司将有能力帮助满足这些需求。但是，相关的模式以及部署此类资金需要应对的风险将与今天有所不同。

The muscle of the federal government will be needed. But the test of whether you can have 48 or 50 jurisdictions that are cooperating to do something that has opposition – there will be opposition in every single state. If they’d taken a vote during World War II or on the interstate highway system, it would have been slowed down to an incredible degree.联邦政府的力量必不可少。但能否让48到50个司法管辖区合作完成一项会遭到反对的事情，这才是真正的考验——每个州都会有反对的声音。如果是在二战期间或者修建州际公路系统时进行投票表决，工程进度肯定会被严重拖延。

So the question is how to use the strengths that this country has to actually turn it into what it should be capable of while still preserving a republic with 48 connected and a couple unconnected states. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. We do have capital and we actually have some knowledge that very few places have. We know what the game’s about, but putting together that energy with knowledge and with capital is just not easy.所以问题在于，如何利用这个国家的优势，使其真正发挥出应有的潜力，同时又能维持一个由48个相互联系的州和几个不相连的州组成的共和国。看看最终结果如何，将会很有意思。我们拥有资本，也掌握着一些其他地方鲜有的知识。我们知道游戏规则，但要将这些能量、知识和资本结合起来，绝非易事。

It should be something that we’re capable of in the country, but the country was not designed for having 48 different jurisdictions that could mess up anything that you were attempting to do. During wartime, it’s one thing to get agreement, but during peace time, it’s a different problem. That’s going to be one for the next generation.这本应是我们国家有能力做到的事情，但这个国家的设计初衷并非为了容纳48个不同的司法管辖区，以免任何行动都因此受阻。战时达成协议是一回事，和平时期则是另一回事。这恐怕要留给下一代去解决了。

Audience Member (Zone 10): Good morning Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel. I’m Darcus Tang. I’m 14 years old. My father brought me here for two consecutive years, and I promise I will come back every year. I queue up at 2 in the morning for every meeting you hold. My dad owned BRKA shares and he said I need to work hard to earn my piece of BRKB. We are both from China, Hong Kong, and I would like to ask what’s the essential element for a global teenager like me if we want to be part of Berkshire? What piece of knowledge should I learn so you hire me in the future?观众（10 区）： 巴菲特先生和阿贝尔先生，早上好。我是达库斯·唐，今年 14 岁。我父亲连续两年带我来这里，我保证以后每年都会来。每次你们开会，我都会凌晨两点就来排队。我父亲持有伯克希尔哈撒韦公司（BRKA）的股票，他说我需要努力工作才能获得伯克希尔哈撒韦公司（BRKB）的股份。我们都来自中国香港，我想请教一下，像我这样的国际青少年，如果想成为伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的一员，需要具备哪些关键素质？我应该学习哪些知识才能在未来被你们录用？

Finally, Mr. Buffett, I learned a lot from this meeting and of course I will come here every year. I wish you can attend as many as possible. You and Mr. Charlie Munger are the most respectful people who have inspired me and my father a lot. I wish you happy and healthy, and maybe one day in the future we can make the world more prosperous all together like you said.最后，巴菲特先生，我从这次会议中学到了很多，当然，我以后每年都会来。希望您也能尽可能多地参加。您和查理·芒格先生是我和我父亲最敬重的人，你们给了我很多启发。祝您幸福健康，也许有一天，我们能像您所说的那样，共同创造一个更加繁荣的世界。

Greg Abel: Well, I think your dad said it best. He highlighted that to become part of Berkshire, to own some Berkshire shares, you’re going to have to work hard. Hard work takes all of us a long way in life, and I would never diminish that. There’s a lot of things that matter in life, but if you start with a great work ethic and have that attitude that you want to contribute, you’re going to go a long way in life. You’ll find great enjoyment because, as Warren said, if you work hard, you’re going to find the things you love in life and it’ll lead to that. We truly look forward to the day you’re part of Berkshire.格雷格·阿贝尔： 嗯，我觉得你父亲说得最好。他强调，要想成为伯克希尔的一份子，持有伯克希尔的股票，就必须努力工作。努力工作对我们每个人的人生都至关重要，这一点我绝不会轻视。人生中有很多重要的事情，但如果你从一开始就拥有良好的职业道德，并抱有想要贡献力量的态度，你的人生将会走得很远。你会从中获得巨大的乐趣，因为正如沃伦所说，如果你努力工作，你就会找到你热爱的事物，并最终实现目标。我们真心期待你成为伯克希尔的一员。

Warren Buffett: Keep a lot of curiosity and read a lot, as Charlie would say.沃伦·巴菲特： 保持好奇心，多读书，就像查理会说的那样。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Matthew Teisac in Leighton, Utah. He said, “Please discuss your strategy on how to protect our company from future liabilities due to wildfires blamed on our electric utility companies out west.”贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自犹他州莱顿的马修·泰萨克。他说：“请谈谈贵公司如何保护我们公司免受未来因西部电力公司引发的野火而造成的损失。”

Warren Buffett: That’s a very good question. We made some mistakes in the past when we bought PacifiCorp in 2005. Walter Scott, David Sol, and myself – three guys who were capitalists at heart and dealing with our own money – we made a mistake by not carving it up into the seven states that we were buying. It came with an aggregation where it wasn’t state by state, and we kept the same structure. That was a big mistake.沃伦·巴菲特： 这是一个很好的问题。我们过去犯了一些错误，比如 2005 年收购 PacifiCorp 的时候。沃尔特·斯科特、大卫·索尔和我——我们三个骨子里都是资本家，而且都是在用自己的钱——犯了一个错误，那就是没有把公司按我们收购的七个州进行拆分。它原本是一个整体，没有按州划分，而我们保留了原有的结构。这是一个很大的错误。

Every part of the country is going to need electricity, and there are going to be places where privately held electric utilities would be very foolish to operate. How that gets resolved in a democracy, we will find out.全国各地都需要电力，但有些地方私营电力公司运营起来会非常不明智。在民主制度下，这个问题将如何解决，我们拭目以待。

Greg Abel: The reality is the risk around wildfires – do the wildfires occur – they’re not going away, and we know that. The risk probably goes up each year. But what we can do is reduce the risk of it impacting our system and our underlying assets, and unfortunately the liabilities that come with such events. We can’t eliminate the risk, but we can reduce it.格雷格·阿贝尔： 现实情况是，野火风险——野火是否会发生——不会消失，我们都知道这一点。风险可能逐年增加。但我们可以做的是降低野火对我们系统和基础资产造成影响的风险，以及由此产生的相关责任。我们无法消除风险，但我们可以降低风险。

Our teams in the west are addressing this across all our energy infrastructure because wildfires have now occurred in Texas and throughout the US. We’re all very focused on how we manage that risk. We start by addressing the actual assets, how we’re maintaining them and where we invest in them. We try to make sure that they’re either not causing the fire or potentially even hardening the system as to what they can withstand. It’s very much an operational focus.由于德克萨斯州和美国各地都发生了野火，我们西部的团队正在应对所有能源基础设施面临的风险。我们所有人都非常关注如何管理这种风险。首先，我们会关注实际资产，包括我们如何维护它们以及我们在哪些方面进行了投资。我们努力确保这些资产不会引发火灾，甚至可能加强系统，提高其抵御火灾的能力。这主要是一个运营层面的问题。

We then take it even further. The utilities started to recognize when we have these unusual weather events – and Warren touched on what’s been happening in Nebraska with storms – but they’re equally occurring out west. When we have those, we’ve gotten very good at saying we have to manage the system differently and potentially de-energize because there’s likely to be an event.我们更进一步。电力公司开始意识到何时会出现这些异常天气事件——沃伦提到了内布拉斯加州的风暴——但西部地区也同样如此。遇到这些情况时，我们已经非常擅长判断是否需要改变系统管理方式，甚至可能需要断电，因为很可能发生异常事件。

But the one thing we hadn’t tackled – this is very relevant to the significant event we had back in 2020 in PacifiCorp – is we didn’t de-energize the system as the fire was approaching. Our employees and the whole management team have been trained all their lives to keep the lights on, and the last thing they want to do is turn those lights off and have a system de-energized.但我们忽略了一件事——这与 2020 年 PacifiCorp 发生的重大事件密切相关——那就是在火灾逼近时，我们没有切断系统的电源。我们的员工和整个管理团队毕生接受的培训都是确保电力供应不中断，他们最不愿意做的就是关灯断电。

After those events and as we looked at how we’re going to move forward in managing the assets and reducing risk, we recognized as a team that we have to de-energize those assets. Now as we get fires encroaching at a certain number of miles, we de-energize because we do not want to contribute to the fire nor harm any of our consumers or contribute to a death. We had to take our team to managing a different risk now. It’s not around keeping the lights on, it’s around protecting the general public and ensuring the fire does not spread further.在那之后，当我们审视如何继续管理资产和降低风险时，我们团队一致认为必须切断这些资产的电源。现在，当火势逼近到一定距离时，我们会切断电源，因为我们不想助长火势，也不想伤害任何用户或造成人员伤亡。我们必须带领团队应对另一种风险。现在，重点不再是维持电力供应，而是保护公众安全，确保火势不再蔓延。

We’re probably the one utility or across our utilities that does that today, and we strongly believe in that approach.我们可能是目前唯一一家这样做的公用事业公司，或者说是我们所有公用事业公司中唯一一家这样做的，而且我们坚信这种做法。

Moderator (Becky): Doesn’t that open you up to other risk if you shut down your system, a hospital gets shut down, somebody dies?主持人（贝基）： 如果关闭系统，医院关闭，有人死亡，这难道不会带来其他风险吗？

Greg Abel: That’s something we do deal with a lot because we have power outages that occur by accident. When we look at critical infrastructure, that’s an excellent point and we’re constantly re-evaluating it. We do receive a lot of feedback from our customer groups as to how to manage that.格雷格·阿贝尔： 我们经常会遇到这种情况，因为有时会发生意外停电。谈到关键基础设施，这确实是一个非常重要的方面，我们也一直在重新评估。我们经常收到客户群体关于如何管理停电问题的反馈。

We spend a lot more time educating the consumers and our customer groups. We explain what will happen and need to understand their unusual situations and how we can best tackle that so we don’t take on another liability. There’s a lot around de-energization.我们投入大量时间对消费者和客户群体进行教育。我们会解释将会发生什么，需要了解他们的特殊情况，以及我们如何才能最好地应对，以免承担新的责任。其中有很多关于断电方面的内容。

To take it to the last step – and Warren touched on this in general on energy policy – we have to work with our states and our regulators to ensure they understand this was never a risk we took on or envisioned when we were investing in utilities, nor would any of the investors who’ve invested in other energy companies.要走到最后一步——沃伦在能源政策方面也大致谈到了这一点——我们必须与各州和监管机构合作，确保他们明白，这从来都不是我们在投资公用事业公司时所承担或设想的风险，投资其他能源公司的投资者也不会承担这样的风险。

You earn a very set return for taking on a very defined risk associated with that asset, and this has gone well beyond that. We don’t earn the type of returns nor can you earn a large enough return to take on these risks. So it’s not just solving the return side. We really have to solve the risk side, which means we work with our regulators and state legislators to get to the right answer. That’ll be an ongoing process. There are no silver bullets, but every day our teams across utilities are working hard to reduce that risk, recognizing the fundamental risk of the wildfires is not going away.您承担特定资产相关的明确风险后，通常会获得非常固定的回报，但目前的情况远远超出了这一范围。我们无法获得足以承担这些风险的回报，您也无法获得如此高的回报。因此，问题不仅仅在于回报方面，我们更需要解决风险方面的问题，这意味着我们需要与监管机构和州立法者合作，找到正确的解决方案。这将是一个持续的过程。虽然没有灵丹妙药，但我们公用事业部门的团队每天都在努力降低风险，因为我们认识到，野火的根本风险不会消失。

Warren Buffett: There’s some problems that can’t be solved, and we shouldn’t be in the business of taking investors’ money and tackling things that we don’t know the solution for. You can present the arguments, but it’s a political decision when you are dealing with states or the federal government.沃伦·巴菲特： 有些问题是无法解决的，我们不应该拿投资者的钱去处理我们不知道答案的事情。你可以提出论点，但当你和州政府或联邦政府打交道时，这终究是一个政治决定。

If you’re in something where you’re going to lose, the big thing to do is quit. You present your case as well as you can, but if you don’t hold the pen in the end, we don’t have any business taking your money and doing dumb things with it. We can do our best to explain what the intelligent things are, but it’s your money.如果你身处一场注定失败的境地，最好的办法就是退出。你可以尽力陈述你的理由，但如果你最终无法掌控局面，我们就没有理由拿你的钱去做蠢事。我们可以尽力解释哪些做法是明智的，但毕竟这是你的钱。

It’s very hard to tell how to handle politically determined decisions that are going to go to court in many cases. We know what we think a sensible system would be, and we ought to explain what we think it is and do the best to get our position because it’s pro-social to have the right solution. But there’s some problems that can’t be solved, and we are not in the business of trying to solve insolvable problems.如何处理那些出于政治动机、最终往往诉诸法庭的决策，实在令人头疼。我们知道我们认为合理的制度应该是什么样的，我们也应该解释我们的想法，并尽力维护我们的立场，因为找到正确的解决方案对社会有益。但有些问题是无法解决的，而我们的职责并非在于解决无解的问题。

The problem you have, of course, is that the people that work for you – that’s their job. So they want to have reasons to keep going. Those are tough choices if you’re managing, but that’s why they have managers.当然，你面临的问题是，你的员工——那是他们的工作——所以他们需要有继续工作的理由。如果你是管理者，这些都是艰难的选择，但这就是为什么他们需要管理者的原因。

Greg Abel: I was just going to add that effectively, for example with the utilities and the wildfires, we can’t just become the insurer of last resort that’s going to cover any cost and all costs irrespective of what occurred. That’s a little bit of the situation we’re in right now with our largest challenge, a 2020 wildfire.格雷格·阿贝尔： 我正要补充一点，例如在公用事业和野火方面，我们不能仅仅成为最后的保险人，承担所有费用，而不考虑具体发生了什么。这就是我们目前面临的最大挑战——2020 年的野火——的部分情况。

There were four fires occurring at a challenging time. One we’ve always asserted was a lightning strike that was not inside our service territory. The fire burnt into our service territory and we became responsible for that fire effectively through the courts. We continue to hold firm that we’re not responsible for that – we didn’t contribute to it, we didn’t initiate it, nor did we feel we ever contributed to it. But it’s getting to where if you look at the risk that’s there, we have to manage through things like that.在这样一个充满挑战的时期，发生了四起火灾。我们一直坚称其中一起是由闪电引起的，闪电击中了我们的服务区域。但火势蔓延到了我们的服务区域，最终我们通过法律途径承担了责任。我们始终坚持认为我们对此不负有责任——我们没有参与其中，也没有引发火灾，我们也不认为自己对此负有任何责任。但考虑到目前存在的风险，我们必须应对此类事件。

We’ll get through that litigation. We’re happy to report, for example, on that one, after 5 years, the Oregon Forestry Department has come out and said the other fires we did have that we were able to manage and extinguish did not contribute to that fire. And that fourth fire is the largest fire of the four – it’s 60% of the claims. We’re 5 years into effectively getting that information into the courts.我们会渡过那场诉讼。例如，我们很高兴地报告，在五年之后，俄勒冈州林业部门终于公开表示，我们之前控制并扑灭的其他火灾与这场火灾无关。而第四场火灾是四场火灾中规模最大的——占索赔总额的60%。五年来，我们一直在努力将这些信息有效地提交给法院。

That will outline our legal strategy going forward, but these are things we’re dealing with. We continue to learn from this as a utility industry. We’re working with each of the legislators to make sure we get clear definition of where liability falls, what the economic damages can be, but most importantly, what the non-economic damages can be. Again, with the thought we can’t be the insurer of last resort. We just can’t be responsible for everything that happens in a state.这将概述我们未来的法律策略，但这些都是我们正在处理的问题。作为公用事业行业，我们仍在不断从中吸取教训。我们正与每位立法者合作，确保明确责任归属、经济损失赔偿范围，以及最重要的非经济损失赔偿范围。再次强调，我们不能成为最终的保险人。我们不能对一个州内发生的所有事情都负责。

Warren Buffett: If we want to do it with our own money, we can do it, but we’re not going to do things with your money that we think are stupid. You ought to get rid of us if we do. It’s easier to do stupid things with other people’s money than it is with your own. That’s one of the problems government has generally – we don’t want to bring it to private enterprise.沃伦·巴菲特： 如果我们想用自己的钱去做，我们可以做，但我们不会用你们的钱去做我们认为愚蠢的事情。如果我们这么做了，你们就应该解雇我们。用别人的钱做蠢事比用自己的钱做蠢事容易得多。这正是政府普遍面临的问题之一——我们不想把这些事情交给私营企业。

But it is important that the United States have an intelligent energy policy, just as it was important during World War II that we learned how to make ships instead of cars extremely fast. We figured out the answer. We combined private enterprise with the power of government.但对美国而言，制定明智的能源政策至关重要，正如二战期间我们必须迅速学会如何制造船舶而非汽车一样。我们找到了答案：我们将私营企业与政府的力量结合起来。

But how feasible that is in a democracy – it was clearly obvious during World War II what needed to be done and we did it. But it’s not so clear when you get 330 million people all arguing their own self-interest and having the people often who are making the decisions reacting as they did 20 years earlier, when they don’t really bear the responsibility for the decision. But anyway, that’s management and we’ll do our best.但在民主制度下，这究竟有多可行？二战期间，需要做什么显而易见，我们也做到了。但当3.3亿人都在为自身利益争论不休，而那些真正掌握决策权的人却往往沿用20年前的做法时，情况就变得复杂起来，因为他们实际上并不承担决策的责任。不过，这就是管理之道，我们会尽力而为。

Audience Member (Zone 11): Hello, my name is Alitia Burk and I’m from Poland but I currently live in Chicago. This question is on behalf of an inspiring man that I know, Wid Ahmed, who’s here with us today.观众（11 区）： 大家好，我叫阿莉蒂亚·伯克，来自波兰，目前居住在芝加哥。这个问题是替我认识的一位很鼓舞人心的人——维德·艾哈迈德——提出的，他今天也来到了现场。

Mr. Buffett, nearly 74 years ago, on a cold Saturday in January 1951, you traveled 8 hours by train from New York to Washington. You went all the way on nothing but hope that someone might teach you more about the insurance industry. Arriving at GEICO’s office to find the doors locked, you persisted until a janitor let you inside. You credit that meeting with Lorimer Davidson for the insurance float that was the rocket fuel behind Berkshire’s success.巴菲特先生，大约 74 年前，1951 年 1 月一个寒冷的星期六，您从纽约乘火车 8 小时来到华盛顿。您此行的唯一目的，就是希望能有人教您更多关于保险行业的知识。抵达 GEICO 办公室时，您发现大门紧闭，但您坚持不懈，直到一位清洁工为您开门。您将与洛里默·戴维森的那次会面，视为伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司成功背后的保险浮存金的催化剂。

In 2011, when I was 15, I wrote to you with similar determination asking to meet. You kindly wrote back saying you had only 3,000 days left and more pressing priorities. Well, Mr. Buffett, it’s now been 5,000 days since you replied. And so inspired by your persistence in 1951 and the tenacity of Mrs. B, I humbly renew my request for just a quarter of the time Davey gave you – a single hour in your office.2011年，我15岁的时候，曾怀着同样的决心给您写信，请求与您见面。您和蔼地回信说，您只剩下3000天的时间，还有更紧迫的事情要处理。巴菲特先生，您上次回复至今已经5000天了。因此，我深受您1951年的坚持和巴菲特夫人的坚韧所鼓舞，再次恳请您抽出戴维当年给您的四分之一的时间——在您的办公室里待上一个小时。

You may wonder why must it be you? You have often shared an anecdote about a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz who said to you once, “Warren, I’m very slow to make friends because when I look at someone I ask myself, would they hide me?” You said that the number of people would hide you was the best test of a life well lived. Well, I believe that at this meeting you have not 40,000 shareholders but 40,000 people who would hide you. You are testament to a life extraordinarily well-lived.你或许会问，为什么偏偏是你？你曾多次讲述一个波兰犹太人的故事，这位犹太人从奥斯维辛集中营幸存下来，他曾对你说：“沃伦，我交朋友很慢，因为我看着别人时，总会问自己：他们会收留我吗？”你说过，有多少人愿意收留你，是衡量人生是否精彩的最佳标准。我相信，在这次会议上，你面对的不是四万名股东，而是四万名愿意收留你的人。你本身就是精彩人生的最好证明。

So respectfully I ask again Mr. Buffett, before father time wins, will you please grant Wid Ahmed an hour of your time or any time you can dedicate?因此，我再次恭敬地请求巴菲特先生，在时间耗尽之前，您能否抽出您宝贵的一个小时或任何您能抽出的时间来帮助维德·艾哈迈德？

Warren Buffett: I grant an hour to everybody of the 40,000 here. We’ll have an interesting time the rest of my life.沃伦·巴菲特： 我给在座的四万多人每人一个小时的时间。我余生都会过得很精彩。

But I will give you one tip. I found that when I was very young, I would drive around to various companies all over the country. Because I was very young and these were offbeat companies, they didn’t have investor relations departments then, almost every CEO would see me because they figured they’d never see me again. And they weren’t getting calls like that.但我可以给你一个建议。我发现，在我很小的时候，我会开车去全国各地拜访不同的公司。因为我当时年纪小，而且这些公司都比较另类，那时它们还没有投资者关系部门，所以几乎每个 CEO 都会见我，因为他们觉得以后可能再也见不到我了。而事实上，他们也确实没接到过类似的电话。

I would ask them two questions. I would explain to them – it’s not a bad idea, incidentally – if you’re going to walk into somebody’s office and you say you want 10 minutes of their time, take an hourglass and stick it on the desk of the person you’re talking to and turn it up so it’s going to go for 10 minutes. You say you’re going to leave in 10 minutes unless they ask you to stay. That sets the terms.我会问他们两个问题。我会向他们解释——顺便说一句，这主意不错——如果你要走进某人的办公室，说你想占用他们十分钟时间，那就拿个沙漏放在对方的桌子上，把时间调到十分钟。你就说十分钟后你就走，除非他们邀请你留下。这样就定好了规矩。

But once you have that, if they’re in the coal business, which happened to be one that I was interested in 70 years ago or so, you just ask them one question: if they were to be stuck on a desert island and they had to own only one of their competitors’ stock during the 10 years they were going to be on that island, which one would it be, and why? And then after they give you that answer, you ask the same thing if they were to short one of their competitors’ stock, which would it be and why?但一旦你掌握了这些信息，如果他们从事煤炭行业（恰好是我大约70年前感兴趣的行业），你只需问他们一个问题：如果他们被困在荒岛上，并且必须在岛上的10年里只持有一家竞争对手的股票，他们会选择哪一家，为什么？在他们给出答案后，你再问同样的问题：如果他们要做空一家竞争对手的股票，他们会选择哪一家，为什么？

Because every manager likes to talk about their competitors. They’re like little school kids when they get into talking about their competitors. I probably learned more about various industries by just making sure that they didn’t think I’d stay too long and that in the meantime they would have the floor and talk about their competitors. I kept my own mouth shut in those days. That’s a lesson I’ve lost somewhere along the line.因为每个经理都喜欢谈论竞争对手。他们一谈到竞争对手就跟小学生一样兴奋。我当时之所以能了解到这么多行业内幕，大概就是因为我得确保他们觉得我不会待太久，这样他们才能有机会畅所欲言地谈论竞争对手。那时候我总是闭口不言。可惜的是，我不知从何时起就忘了这个教训。

They’ve departmentalized investor relations in all companies of size frankly now. You’ve got 3,000 companies or whatever they have and they all have departments and each one of them has an investor relations department. Their job is to say this is the best thing you can do today is buy our stock. Well, that whole concept is total idiocy. But it’s a big business and it gets bigger and the investor relations department gets bigger. It’s what we have now.坦白说，现在所有规模稍大的公司都把投资者关系部门划分成不同的部门了。现在市面上大概有三千家公司，每家公司都有自己的部门，而每个部门都设有投资者关系部门。他们的工作就是告诉投资者：今天你能做的最好的事情就是买我们的股票。这整个概念简直愚蠢至极。但这是一个庞大的行业，而且规模越来越大，投资者关系部门的规模也越来越大。这就是我们现在看到的现状。

But do a little of your own work your own way. Berkshire Hathaway has got plenty of material out there for you to read. And when you get through reading it all, you’ll know way more than most the people that work at Berkshire. So, you don’t need a personal interview. If we take an hour times even the 40,000 people we may have here, plus Becky’s many listeners and viewers, it just doesn’t work. I admire your effort, but you’ll just have to settle for the admiration that you get.但你也应该自己做一些功课，用自己的方式。伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司有很多资料供你阅读。等你全部读完，你就会比伯克希尔的大多数员工懂得更多。所以，你不需要接受个人采访。就算我们这里可能有四万人，再加上贝基的众多听众和观众，一个小时的采访也根本不够。我很欣赏你的努力，但你只能接受别人的赞赏了。

Becky Quick: This is a question that you touched on in a lot of ways in the last answer, but I did get this question from a few different people, so I’d like to ask it.贝基·奎克： 你在上一个回答中已经多次提到过这个问题，但我确实从几个不同的人那里收到了这个问题，所以我想问一下。

Ricardo Bri, a longtime shareholder based in Panama, says that he was very happy to see Berkshire acquire 100% of BHE. It was done in two steps: one in late 2022 – 1% was purchased from Greg Abel for $870 million implying a valuation of BHE of $87 billion, and then in 2024 the remaining 8% was purchased from the family of Walter Scott Jr. for $3.9 billion implying a valuation of $48.8 billion for the enterprise. That second larger transaction represented a 44% reduction in valuation in just two years.长期持有伯克希尔哈撒韦公司股份、常驻巴拿马的股东里卡多·布里表示，他非常高兴看到伯克希尔哈撒韦公司收购了 BHE 公司 100%的股份。此次收购分两步完成：第一步是在 2022 年底，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司以 8.7 亿美元的价格从格雷格·阿贝尔手中收购了 1%的股份，这意味着 BHE 的估值为 870 亿美元；第二步是在 2024 年，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司以 39 亿美元的价格从沃尔特·斯科特家族手中收购了剩余的 8%股份，这意味着 BHE 的估值为 488 亿美元。这第二笔较大的交易意味着 BHE 的估值在短短两年内下降了 44%。

Ricardo writes that PacifiCorp liabilities seem too small to explain this. Therefore, what factors contributed to the difference in value for BHE between those two moments in time?里卡多认为，太平洋电力公司的负债规模似乎太小，不足以解释这一现象。那么，究竟是什么因素导致了 BHE 在这两个时间点之间的价值差异呢？

Warren Buffett: Well, we don’t know how much we’ll lose out of PacifiCorp and decisions that are made, but we also know that certain of the attitudes demonstrated by that particular example have analogues throughout the utility system. There are a lot of states that so far have been very good to operate in, and there are some now that are rat poison, as Charlie would say, to operate in.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我们不知道太平洋电力公司事件以及相关决策会给我们造成多大的损失，但我们也知道，这个特定案例所体现的某些态度在整个公用事业系统中都有类似的例子。到目前为止，很多州的运营环境都非常好，但正如查理所说，有些州现在简直就是“老鼠药”，根本不适合运营。

That knowledge was accentuated when we saw what happened in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s eventuated by what we’ve seen as to how utilities have been treated in certain other situations. So it wasn’t just a direct question of what was involved at PacifiCorp. It was an extrapolation of a societal trend.当我们目睹太平洋西北地区发生的事情时，这种认识更加深刻；而我们从其他一些案例中看到的公用事业公司所受到的待遇也印证了这一点。因此，这不仅仅是太平洋电力公司事件本身的问题，更是对一种社会趋势的推断。

Secondly, we also had a decision we didn’t expect at all in the real estate business. Those kind of things can change values, and courts can change values. It’s a lot easier to make those decisions when you just own marketable securities than when you own businesses. I’ve made plenty of those decisions as I’ve watched what has happened in various industries and companies over 70 years.其次，我们在房地产业务中也遇到了一个完全出乎意料的决定。这类事情会影响房产价值，法院的判决也会影响房产价值。持有证券比拥有企业更容易做出这类决定。在过去的70年里，我观察过各个行业和公司的发展，也做过很多类似的决定。

Greg made the decision, which was fine with us, to get out. He had no knowledge of what was going to be happening in either the real estate field or the utility field.格雷格决定退出，我们也同意。他对房地产和公用事业领域即将发生的事情一无所知。

We’re not in the mood to sell any business. But Berkshire Hathaway Energy is worth considerably less money than it was two years ago based on societal factors. And that happens in some of our businesses. It certainly happened to our textile business. The public utility business is not as good a business as it was a couple of years ago.我们目前没有出售任何业务的打算。但由于社会因素的影响，伯克希尔哈撒韦能源公司的价值已远低于两年前。这种情况在我们旗下的一些业务中也存在。纺织业务就是一个很好的例子。公用事业业务的经营状况也不如几年前了。

If anybody doesn’t believe that, they can look at Hawaiian Electric and look at Edison in the current wildfires situation in California. There are societal trends that are changing things.如果有人不相信，可以看看夏威夷电力公司和爱迪生公司在加州当前山火中的表现。社会趋势正在改变现状。

I just got a note here on my monitor that says the books are now sold out. So you’ll have to spend your money on other things.我的显示器上刚刚显示一条消息，说书已经售罄了。所以你得把钱花在其他地方了。

But that’s the explanation – values change and they don’t always change upward. When we made the deal with Greg, we would have been happy to buy out the Scott family at that price. And when we made a deal with the Scott company, we wouldn’t have been happy to pay Greg the price that he received.但这就是原因——价值会改变，而且价值并不总是向上变化的。当初我们和格雷格达成交易时，我们很乐意以那个价格收购斯科特家族的股份。而当我们和斯科特公司达成交易时，我们并不愿意支付给格雷格他最终得到的那个价格。

But that’s like Berkshire shares – we bought in stock at X and we buy in stock at less than X if conditions change. Over the years we pay more and more because it builds in value, but it doesn’t do it in a straight line.但这就像伯克希尔的股票——我们以 X 价格买入股票，如果情况发生变化，我们会以低于 X 的价格买入。多年来，我们支付的价格越来越高，因为它的价值在不断增长，但这并非直线增长。

I would say that our enthusiasm for buying public utility companies is different now than it would have been a couple years ago. That happens in other industries, too, but it’s pretty dramatic in public utilities. And it’s particularly dramatic in public utilities because they are going to need lots of money. So, if you’re going to need lots of money, you probably ought to behave in a way that encourages people to give you lots of money.我认为，我们现在对收购公用事业公司的热情与几年前有所不同。这种情况在其他行业也会发生，但在公用事业领域尤为显著。公用事业领域之所以如此，是因为它们需要大量资金。所以，如果你需要大量资金，那么你最好采取一些能够吸引投资者大量投资的策略。

We will see where we go. We’d like to see public utilities do well, but our responsibilities are to the shareholders of Berkshire.我们拭目以待。我们当然希望公用事业公司发展良好，但我们对伯克希尔的股东负有责任。

Audience Member (Zone 1): Dear Warren, dear Greg, dear fellow owners, it’s such a pleasure to be here. My name is Revy Paneida. I was born in communist Albania, but I’m now teaching economics in London, England. The wonderful writing of Warren and Charlie has significantly shaped my thinking and teaching. I thank you both very much for the many insights over the years.观众（1 区）： 亲爱的沃伦，亲爱的格雷格，亲爱的各位书友，很高兴来到这里。我叫雷维·帕内达，出生于共产主义时期的阿尔巴尼亚，现在在英国伦敦教经济学。沃伦和查理的精彩著作对我的思考和教学产生了深远的影响。非常感谢二位多年来给予我的诸多启发。

Warren has often written about the importance of Berkshire’s earning power to owners. My question is, what was in your estimate Berkshire’s earning power in the latest fiscal year? It would be great if you can comment on any significant items that either increased or decreased the earning power as compared to reported net income measures for Berkshire. Thank you.沃伦曾多次撰文强调伯克希尔的盈利能力对股东的重要性。我的问题是，您估计伯克希尔在最近一个财年的盈利能力如何？如果您能就影响伯克希尔盈利能力（与已公布的净利润相比）的任何重大因素进行评论，那就太好了。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: Well, I think our underlying earning power was affected negatively here a while back by what happened in the utility field. I think that our earning power was not enlarged by any large acquisitions that come along, but they come along periodically. We will see something at some point that could add to earning power. I mean, why else would we do it?沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我认为我们潜在的盈利能力在不久前受到了公用事业领域事件的负面影响。我认为，任何大型收购都无法提升我们的盈利能力，但收购机会总是会不时出现的。我们总有一天会看到一些能够提升盈利能力的机会。我的意思是，不然我们为什么要收购呢？

That’s very situational and of course it depends so much on what the general market is doing and what interest rates are doing and what psychology is doing. We will make our best deals when people are the most pessimistic. That’s been true ever since I was born in 1930. Things got much more attractive over the next two years, and apparently I didn’t do anything about it – I blew it by worrying about the kid in the next crib or something.这很大程度上取决于具体情况，当然也取决于整体市场走势、利率走势以及市场心理。人们越悲观，我们往往能达成最好的交易。自从我1930年出生以来，情况一直如此。接下来的两年里，情况变得更有吸引力，但我显然没有抓住机会——我却因为担心隔壁婴儿床里的孩子之类的事情而错失良机。

Over my lifetime I’ve had fabulous opportunities sometimes, and they happen because humans are human. I don’t get fearful by things that other people are afraid of in a financial way. The idea that if Berkshire went down 50% next week – I would regard that as a fantastic opportunity and it wouldn’t bother me in the least. Most people react differently.我一生中曾多次获得绝佳机会，而这些机会的出现正是因为人性的弱点。我不会像其他人那样，因为经济上的担忧而感到恐惧。比如，如果伯克希尔哈撒韦公司下周股价下跌50%，我会将其视为绝佳的机会，丝毫不会为此感到不安。但大多数人的反应却截然不同。

It’s not that I don’t have emotions, but I don’t have emotions about the prices of stocks. Those decisions get all the way to my brain, whereas emotions can get bogged down some other place.并非我没有情感，而是我对股票价格没有情感。那些决定会直接进入我的大脑，而情感却可能在其他地方被搁置。

Berkshire will increase its earning power over time as we retain money. We are making decisions every day. People are working. We’re retaining earnings. We will build the earning power, but it won’t be coming in any even stream. And it certainly won’t be matched dollar for dollar on either the upside or the downside in market prices. But that’s what makes it a good business – the investment business is that everything isn’t properly appraised, and the more fearful other people get, the better your opportunities get.随着我们不断留存资金，伯克希尔的盈利能力将持续提升。我们每天都在做出决策，员工们都在努力工作，我们也在不断积累收益。我们将不断增强盈利能力，但这并非一帆风顺。而且，无论市场价格上涨还是下跌，我们的收益都不可能与收益完全匹配。但这正是投资的魅力所在——投资的本质在于，并非所有资产都能被准确评估，而其他人越是恐慌，你的机会就越好。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Achie Patel and it’s about the big cap technology stocks. In the 2017 annual meeting, you said Warren, you really don’t need any money to run these companies and referred to them as ideal businesses, referring to the big tech companies – Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. With all of those companies now announcing massive capital investment endeavors around AI ambitions, have you rethought the above comment just in terms of them being asset light and what you think of them as a result?贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自阿奇·帕特尔，是关于大型科技股的。在 2017 年的年度股东大会上，您曾说过沃伦，运营这些公司其实不需要任何资金，并称它们为理想的企业，指的是苹果、Alphabet、微软和亚马逊这些大型科技公司。如今，这些公司都宣布了围绕人工智能的大规模资本投资计划，您是否重新思考过之前关于它们轻资产运营模式的评论，以及您对此有何看法？

Warren Buffett: Well, it’s always better to make a lot of money without putting up anything than it is to make a lot of money by putting up a lot of money.沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，不投入任何资金就赚很多钱，总比投入很多资金赚很多钱要好。

A business that takes no capital to speak of – Coca-Cola, the finished product which has gone through bottling companies takes a lot of capital, but in terms of selling the syrup or concentrate, that doesn’t take a lot of capital. So, one is a fabulous business and one depends where it is.有些生意几乎不需要什么资本投入——可口可乐，成品饮料经过装瓶公司加工后需要大量资本，但如果是销售糖浆或浓缩液，则不需要太多资本。所以，一种生意非常赚钱，另一种生意则取决于它的地理位置。

Coca-Cola is popular every place, but if you’re in the bottling business, it costs real money. You have real trucks out there and all kinds of machinery and capital expenditures coming up. We’ve got businesses that take very little capital that make really high returns on capital. The ones the politicians talk about as making high returns actually aren’t making high returns usually in terms of capital.可口可乐在世界各地都很受欢迎，但如果你从事装瓶业务，那可是要花一大笔钱的。你需要用到卡车，各种各样的机械设备，以及大量的资本支出。有些企业投入的资本很少，却能获得很高的资本回报率。而政客们口中那些所谓的高回报企业，实际上通常并没有带来很高的资本回报。

Property casualty insurance is kind of a rare business because you need capital as a guarantee fund that you will keep your promises, but you can use it to buy other low capital-intensive businesses. You can buy Apple and have it support that business. That can be a pretty good business and it’s one of the reasons we’ve done well over time.财产意外险业务比较特殊，因为你需要资本作为担保基金，以确保履行承诺，但你可以用这笔钱收购其他资本密集度低的企业。比如，你可以收购苹果公司，并用它来支持苹果的业务发展。这可能是一项非常不错的业务，也是我们长期以来业绩良好的原因之一。

It’ll be interesting to see how much capital intensity there is now with the Magnificent 7 compared to a few years ago. Basically, Apple has not really needed any capital over the years and it’s repurchased shares with a dramatic reduction. Whether that world is the same in the future or not is something yet to be seen.与几年前相比，如今“七巨头”的资本密集度究竟如何，这将非常有趣。基本上，苹果公司这些年来并不需要太多资金，而且其股票回购规模也大幅缩减。未来情况是否会如此，还有待观察。

Hollywood’s answer was always to get their money from other people to put up the capital. A lot of people have gotten very rich in the country by essentially figuring out how to get others to put up the capital. That’s what people do in the money management business – they get very rich because they get an override on other people’s capital.好莱坞的解决办法总是从别人那里筹集资金。很多人在这个国家发了财，本质上就是想方设法让别人出资。这就是理财行业的运作方式——他们通过从别人的资金中获利而变得非常富有。

Incidentally, if all of you were paying 1% for investment management fees at Berkshire last year, you would have paid $8 billion for managing, and you really wouldn’t have had to do it. Investment management is a very good game because other people put up the capital and you charge them for the capital whether they do well or not, and then you charge them a lot more if they do well. It’s a well-designed business for the people who practice it – and who can blame them? That is capitalism.顺便一提，如果去年你们所有人都要为伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的投资管理支付1%的费用，你们就得为管理这些投资支付80亿美元，而你们其实根本没必要这么做。投资管理是一门非常赚钱的生意，因为其他人投入资金，无论他们投资回报如何，你都要向他们收取资金费用；如果他们投资回报丰厚，你还要收取更高的费用。对于从事这行的人来说，这是一门精心设计的生意——谁又能责怪他们呢？这就是资本主义。

I saw that in operation when I was working at Salomon, but I didn’t need to see it. I knew what existed anyway. The trick in life is to get somebody else’s capital and get an override on it. Charlie and I decided it wasn’t too elegant a business after a while. We were not criticizing the efficacy of it – it just didn’t appeal to us after a while. I did it for 12 years though.我在 Salomon 工作的时候就见过这种运作模式，不过我并不需要亲眼见到。反正我早就知道它是什么样了。人生的诀窍在于利用别人的资金，然后从中牟利。过了一段时间，查理和我都觉得这门生意不太光彩。我们并不是质疑它的效率——只是时间长了，它不再吸引我们了。不过，我还是做了 12 年。

The one difference that Charlie and I did from other people is we put all our own money into it. So we really did share the losses with our own capital, but we got an override on other people’s capital. People have made advances where they get the override on other people’s capital without putting up any of their own capital to speak of. That’s a very good business, but it can lead to a lot of abuse.我和查理与其他人最大的不同之处在于，我们投入了全部的自有资金。因此，我们确实用自己的资金分担了损失，但我们也获得了其他人资金的超额收益。有些人通过类似的方式获得他人资金的超额收益，而自己几乎没投入任何资金。这在商业上非常有利可图，但也容易滋生各种滥用行为。

Warren Buffett: Capitalism in the United States has succeeded like nothing you’ve ever seen. But what it is is a combination of this magnificent cathedral which has produced an economy like nothing the world’s ever seen, and then it’s got this massive casino attached.沃伦·巴菲特： 美国的资本主义取得了前所未有的成功。但这其实是两方面因素的结合：一方面，它创造了一个世界前所未见的经济体，另一方面，它又附带了一个庞大的赌场。

In the casino, everybody’s having a good time and there’s lots of money changing hands, but the cathedral is what you’ve got to make sure gets fed too. The temptation is very high now to go over to the casino where people say we’ve got magic boxes and all kinds of things that’ll do wonderful things for you. That’s where people are happiest, where you get the most promises, where the most money is for the people that are pushing things.在赌场里，每个人都玩得很开心，钱也来来往往，但你还得确保教堂的资金也得到供给。现在去赌场的诱惑很大，那里的人说有魔法盒子，还有各种各样的神奇玩意儿，能为你带来好运。那里的人最快乐，承诺最多，那些推销产品的人赚的钱也最多。

The balance between the casino and the cathedral – it’s very important that the United States in the next hundred years make sure that the cathedral is not overtaken by the casino. People really like to go to casinos – it’s just so much more fun. They bring bells when you win, they bring you drinks and everything else. It’s designed to move money from one pocket to another.赌场与教堂之间的平衡——对于美国而言，未来一百年里确保教堂不被赌场吞噬至关重要。人们真的很喜欢去赌场——那里更有趣。赢钱时，他们会敲钟，还会提供酒水等等。赌场的设计目的就是为了让钱从一个人的口袋转移到另一个人的口袋。

In the cathedral, they’re designing things that will be producing goods and services for 300 and some million people like it’s never been done before in history. It’s an interesting system we developed, but it’s worked. It dispenses rewards in what seems like a terribly capricious manner. The idea that people get what they deserve in life – it’s hard to make that argument. But if you argue with it that any other system works better, the answer is we haven’t found one.在大教堂里，他们正在设计一些设备，这些设备将以前所未有的方式为三亿到一百万人提供商品和服务。我们开发了一套有趣的系统，而且它确实有效。它分配奖励的方式看似极其随意。人们在生活中得到应得的回报——这种说法很难站得住脚。但如果你反驳说有其他更好的系统，答案是我们还没有找到。

Audience Member (Zone 2): Hi, my name is Patrick Nester. I am 13 years old and from Tampa, Florida. I’m here with my brother John who’s 15 and my dad. Thank you for hosting this meeting. This is my first ever shareholder meeting. My question is, what high school class or activity helped influence you to who you are today as the greatest investor of all time?观众席成员（2 区）： 大家好，我叫帕特里克·内斯特，今年 13 岁，来自佛罗里达州坦帕市。​​我和我 15 岁的哥哥约翰以及我的父亲一起来的。感谢您举办这次会议。这是我第一次参加股东大会。我的问题是，您高中时期的哪门课程或哪项活动对您成为今天这样一位伟大的投资者产生了影响？

Warren Buffett: The teachers you get in your life have this incredible impression on you, and a lot of it are the formal teachers you have, but some are informal teachers too. I’ve learned from certain employers so much. You really hope you’re learning from everybody you find who’s well-intentioned and has had a lot of experience. I had a lot of good luck in that.沃伦·巴菲特： 你人生中遇到的老师会对你产生不可思议的影响，其中很多是正规的老师，但也包括一些非正式的老师。我从一些雇主身上学到了很多。你真心希望能够从每一个真心实意、经验丰富的人身上学到东西。在这方面，我很幸运。

I would say that where I was really lucky was my dad was in the investment business. So I would go down on Saturday and I’d wait for him to go to lunch, and I’d read the books that were around there that nobody else ever read. Numbers talk to me, and I could never get my fill of them.我觉得我最幸运的地方就是我父亲从事投资行业。所以每个星期六，我都会去他家，等他去吃午饭，然后读一些别人都没读过的书。我对数字很感兴趣，永远也读不够。

Then I discovered the public library and I read every book there was on investments, literally, in the Omaha public library. I enjoyed learning about that. Unlike Charlie – if Charlie was reading about electricity, he would want to have known everything that Thomas Edison knew and more, and go through the same thought processes and understand how everything worked. I didn’t care how it worked. I just cared whether it worked. That’s a limitation – I’m confessing here, I’m not bragging.后来我发现了公共图书馆，我把奥马哈公共图书馆里所有关于投资的书都读了一遍，真的。我很喜欢学习这方面的知识。不像查理——如果查理读的是电学方面的书，他肯定会想了解托马斯·爱迪生所知道的一切，甚至更多，并且会经历同样的思考过程，弄明白一切是如何运作的。我不在乎它是如何运作的，我只在乎它能不能用。这算是一个局限吧——我这是在坦白，不是在炫耀。

As Charlie would say, people would always ask, “If you could only have lunch with one person living or dead, who would it be?” And Charlie said, “I’ve already had lunch with all of them because I’ve read all their books.”正如查理常说的那样，人们总是会问：“如果你只能和一位在世或已故的人共进午餐，你会选择谁？”查理回答说：“我已经和他们所有人共进过午餐了，因为我读过他们所有的书。”

I think having curiosity and finding sympathetic teachers is very useful. I ran into a couple of teachers both in high school and college. In fact, I would say that I went to three different universities and I went to high school in Washington, and at each place I found about two or three really outstanding people. I just spent my time with them and didn’t pay much attention to the other classes.我认为保持好奇心并遇到善解人意的老师非常有用。我在高中和大学都遇到过几位这样的老师。事实上，我上过三所不同的大学，高中是在华盛顿上的，在每个地方我都遇到了两三个非常优秀的人。我把时间都花在和他们在一起，对其他课程不太上心。

I was lucky to find something that fit me very early on. If my ambition had been to become a ventriloquist or whatever it might have been, it wouldn’t have worked. I just spent hours and hours and hours on investing.我很幸运，很早就找到了适合自己的事业。如果我当初的目标是成为腹语表演者或其他什么职业，那肯定行不通。我当时只是把大量时间花在了投资上。

I don’t believe in that book that talked about spending 10,000 hours at something. I could spend 10,000 hours at tap dancing and you’d throw up if you watched me. But if I spent 10 hours reading Ben Graham, I would be damn smart when I got through.我不相信那本讲要花一万个小时才能精通某件事的书。就算我花一万个小时练踢踏舞，你看了也会吐。但如果我花十个小时读本杰明·格雷厄姆的书，读完之后我肯定会变得非常聪明。

Minds are really different. I watch great bridge players, great physicians – people have really different talents. I think you’re supposed to have 88 billion cells in your brain. I’m not sure that all of mine are flashing bright lights, but you are different than anybody else. That’s what my dad always used to tell me – that you’re something different. It may not be good at the moment, but you find your own path and you will find the people in schooling that want to talk to you.每个人的思维方式都截然不同。我观察过优秀的桥牌选手、杰出的医生——人们的才能千差万别。据说人的大脑里有880亿个细胞。我不确定我的大脑里是不是每个细胞都闪闪发光，但你的确与众不同。我父亲总是这样告诉我——你与众不同。也许现在情况并不乐观，但你会找到自己的道路，也会在学校里找到愿意和你交流的人。

People that teach, in general, love having a young student who’s actually really interested in the subject, and they’ll spend extra time with you. I ran into that. I had Graham and Dodd at Columbia. Dave Dodd treated me like a son basically. But I was interested in what they were saying and they found it kind of entertaining that I was so interested, so I would look around at what really fascinates you. I wouldn’t try and be somebody else.一般来说，老师们都喜欢真正对学科感兴趣的年轻学生，他们会花额外的时间指导你。我就遇到过这种情况。我在哥伦比亚大学的时候，师从格雷厄姆和多德。戴夫·多德基本上把我当儿子一样看待。我对他们讲的内容很感兴趣，他们觉得我这么感兴趣挺有意思的，所以我会观察周围，思考什么才是真正吸引我的。我不会试图成为别人。

You’ll find the teachers at a school, and you’ll find some outstanding people that are teachers. I’ve had at least 10 people that have had huge impacts on my life, and every one of them was positive because I got to select, in a sense. A number of people really like helping younger people. I found that in school, and it probably helps to look a little bit lost like you need help.你会在学校里遇到老师，也会遇到一些非常优秀的老师。至少有十个人对我的生活产生了巨大的影响，而且每一位都对我产生了积极的影响，因为从某种意义上说，这是我自己的选择。很多人都乐于帮助年轻人。我在学校里就发现了这一点，而且装作有点迷茫、需要帮助的样子可能也有助于他们理解你。

I would say my school experiences were good, but I attribute it much more to the individual than to the institutions.我认为我的求学经历很不错，但我认为这更多归功于个人而非学校。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Scott Williams in Portland, Oregon. He said, “Do you think the net benefit of DOGE will be positive or negative for the long-term health of the United States?”贝基·奎克： 这个问题来自俄勒冈州波特兰市的斯科特·威廉姆斯。他说：“您认为狗狗币对美国的长期健康带来的净收益是积极的还是消极的？”

Warren Buffett: I think that bureaucracy is something that is amazingly prevalent and contagious even in our capital system, and big corporations overwhelmingly most of them look like they could be run better. I’m sure Berkshire does in many respects. And government is the ultimate. It really doesn’t have any checks on it.沃伦·巴菲特： 我认为官僚主义非常普遍，而且极具传染性，即使在我们的资本体系中也是如此。绝大多数大型企业看起来都可以做得更好。我相信伯克希尔在很多方面也确实如此。而政府更是官僚主义的极致体现，它几乎不受任何制约。

That’s why it scares you to some extent about what the future of the currency will be, because they can print currency. If you have people that get elected by promising people things – that doesn’t mean that they aren’t sincere about all kinds of items, but there’s no politician that says to anybody that has money, “I really think you have bad breath and if you don’t mind, would you step away from me.” It just doesn’t happen.这就是为什么货币的未来在某种程度上会让人感到担忧，因为他们可以印钞。有些人靠着承诺当选——这并不意味着他们对各种承诺都不真诚，但没有哪个政客会对一个有钱人说：“我觉得你口臭，如果你不介意的话，能不能离我远点？”这种事根本不会发生。

I think the problem of how you control revenue and expenses in government is the one that is never fully solved and has really hurt dramatically many civilizations. I don’t think we’re immune from it, and we’ve come close to it.我认为政府如何控制收支是一个永远无法彻底解决的问题，而且已经对许多文明造成了巨大的伤害。我认为我们也无法幸免，而且我们已经非常接近这个问题了。

We’re operating at a fiscal deficit now that is unsustainable over a very long period of time. We don’t know whether that means two years or 20 years because there’s never been a country like the United States. But as Herbert Stein, the famous economist, said, “If something can’t go on forever, it will end.” We are doing something that is unsustainable, and it has the aspect to it that it gets uncontrollable to a certain point.我们目前的财政赤字是不可持续的，而且这种状况无法长期持续。我们不知道这意味着两年还是二十年，因为历史上从未出现过像美国这样的国家。但正如著名经济学家赫伯特·斯坦所说：“如果某件事不可能永远持续下去，它终将结束。” 我们正在做的事情是不可持续的，而且在某种程度上，它会变得难以控制。

Paul Volcker kept that from happening in the United States, but we came close. We’ve come close multiple times. We’ve still had very substantial inflation in the United States, but it’s never been runaway yet. That’s not something you want to try and experiment with because it feeds on itself.保罗·沃尔克阻止了这种情况在美国发生，但我们差点就失控了。我们好几次都差点失控。美国的通货膨胀仍然非常严重，但从未失控。这不是你想尝试的，因为它会自我强化。

I wouldn’t want the job of trying to correct what’s going on in revenue and expenditures of the United States with roughly a 7% gap when probably a 3% gap is sustainable. The further away you get from that, the more you get to where the uncontrollable begins. It’s a job I don’t want, but it’s a job I think should be done. And Congress does not seem good at doing it.我不想承担纠正美国收支失衡问题的重任，目前收支缺口高达7%左右，而3%的缺口或许才是更可持续的。缺口越大，就越容易失控。这不是我想要的工作，但我认为这项工作应该有人去做。而国会似乎并不擅长这项工作。

We’ve got a lot of problems always as a country, but this is one we bring on ourselves. We have a revenue stream, a capital-producing stream, a brains-producing machine like the world has never seen. And if you picked a way to screw it up, it would involve the currency. That’s happened a lot of places.我们国家一直问题重重，但这个问题完全是我们咎由自取。我们拥有源源不断的收入来源、资本来源，以及举世无双的人才生产机器。如果非要搞砸这一切，那肯定得靠货币。这种情况在很多地方都发生过。

In theory, you would make it so there was substantial downside for anybody that screwed things up, but there isn’t downside. There’s upside. It’s the problem of the most successful company in the history of the country, in the history of the world.理论上，你应该让任何搞砸事情的人都付出沉重的代价，但实际上并没有代价，反而有好处。这就是这家国家历史上、世界历史上最成功的公司所面临的问题。

Audience Member (Zone 3): Hello Mr. Buffett. My name is Saskia from Germany, and first of all I want to thank you because you made such a great impact in my life and the lives of people I love, and that’s priceless.观众（3 区）： 巴菲特先生，您好。我叫萨斯基亚，来自德国。首先，我想感谢您，因为您对我以及我所爱之人的生活产生了如此巨大的影响，这是无价的。

Mr. Buffett, imagine it’s 1776 and you’re sitting alongside Benjamin Franklin helping to shape the foundation of a new nation. What core economic principles would you advocate for building a fair, resilient, and opportunity-driven capitalist society – one that supports long-term prosperity for future generations?巴菲特先生，想象一下现在是1776年，您与本杰明·富兰克林并肩而坐，共同奠定一个新国家的基石。您会倡导哪些核心经济原则来构建一个公平、有韧性、充满机遇的资本主义社会——一个能够为子孙后代带来长期繁荣的社会？

Warren Buffett: That’s a good question, but I would probably say to Ben Franklin, “You just keep thinking and don’t talk to me because you’ll come up with some better ideas than I will.” He was an incredibly remarkable person. He was almost probably the last person to almost have a grasp of every aspect of activity in the country.沃伦·巴菲特： 问得好，但我可能会对本杰明·富兰克林说：“你只管继续思考，别跟我说话，因为你会想到比我更好的主意。”他是一位极其杰出的人物。他几乎可能是最后一个对国家方方面面都了如指掌的人。

He invented all kinds of things. Incidentally, we were talking about the power of compound interest – he left a will that left a sum of money to Philadelphia and another sum to Boston that would serve as an example for a couple hundred years of the power of compounding. He was so far ahead of his time that the best thing I could do if I was under that tree with him was to get out of his way and let him keep thinking.他发明了各种各样的东西。顺便一提，我们当时正在谈论复利的威力——他立了遗嘱，分别给费城和波士顿各留了一笔钱，这两笔钱在接下来的几百年里都成了复利威力的例证。他的思想远远超越了时代，如果我当时和他一起在那棵树下，我能做的最好的事情就是别打扰他，让他继续思考。

He saw the problems that success could bring to a society as well as other problems. The problems of how to take 8 billion people – because there’s no way we can separate ourselves from the rest of the world. We can be an example to the rest of the world, and I think it behooves us since we have had all this good fortune in this country and we do have a pretty good system.他看到了成功可能给社会带来的问题，以及其他一些问题。比如如何安置80亿人口——因为我们无法与世界其他地区隔绝。我们可以成为世界其他国家的榜样，我认为这对我们来说是理所应当的，因为我们国家拥有如此多的好运，而且我们的制度也相当完善。

I don’t think you get very far by lecturing the world on how you’re the one that should tell them what they should do with their lives. I think you get a certain amount of resentment when, just a few hundred years ago, a whole different group of countries were running the world, and now you start giving them advice. I think it’s a real mistake in communication or persuasion to lecture a bunch of people when you’ve just won the game.我认为，如果你对全世界指手画脚，告诉他们应该如何生活，那你不会有什么作为。几百年前，世界是由完全不同的国家集团主导的，而现在你却开始给他们提建议，这肯定会招致反感。当你刚刚赢得比赛的时候，对一群人指手画脚，我认为这在沟通或说服方面是一个真正的错误。

I would advise Ben to figure out how to win the game and keep a certain amount of humility at the same time. And I would tell him to try and design a system that doesn’t invent too many things that can destroy the planet – that become uncontrollable once you get them out there.我会建议本想办法赢得比赛，同时也要保持一定的谦逊。我还会告诉他，尽量设计一个不会发明太多可能毁灭地球的东西的系统——那种一旦投入使用就难以控制的系统。

There was no alternative to us developing the atom bomb, but the expansion of the number of people that have the ability from one to eight, and nine probably pretty soon with Iran – that’s a mistake that society just could not afford to make. Solving the problem with nine variables instead of simply one.我们别无选择，只能研制原子弹，但拥有这种能力的人数量从一人增加到八人，而且随着伊朗的加入，可能很快就会达到九人——这是社会根本无法承受的错误。解决问题需要用到九个变量，而不是仅仅一个。

It’s totally understandable – my dad was in Congress when the atom bomb was first used. It’s amazing how Sam Rayburn kept the House of Representatives uninformed because they were supposed to appropriate all the money. They had 435 congressmen there and they had no idea they were appropriating money for Los Alamos or what was going on in Chicago or Tennessee.这完全可以理解——我父亲在国会任职时，原子弹就被首次使用了。萨姆·雷伯恩竟然瞒着众议院，真是令人难以置信，因为拨款权完全掌握在他们手中。当时众议院有435名议员，他们却对拨款对象是洛斯阿拉莫斯实验室，或者芝加哥和田纳西州正在发生的事情一无所知。

We do have a society that is far beyond anything that Ben Franklin dreamt of. It’s moving in the right direction toward solving some problems where we made broad declarations about all men being created equal, etc. Then we did some of the things we did, but generally speaking we moved in the right direction.我们现在的社会远远超出了本杰明·富兰克林的梦想。它正朝着正确的方向发展，努力解决一些问题。我们曾发表过关于人人生而平等的广泛宣言等等。之后我们做了一些事情，但总的来说，我们朝着正确的方向前进。

But we face problems – I don’t know how Ben Franklin would attack the problem of what you do once you get weapons of mass destruction in many hands, and when you essentially look at the world as something where there are winners and losers, and the winners humiliate the losers and do all kinds of things.但我们面临着一些问题——我不知道本杰明·富兰克林会如何看待大规模杀伤性武器落入许多人手中后该如何应对，以及当你把世界看作一个有赢家和输家的世界，而赢家羞辱输家并做各种各样的事情时，你会怎么做。

I’ll let the people who are a lot younger figure out the answers on that. But it’s still the most wonderful – there’s never been anything you could dream like what has happened in the United States. So it’s the best place and the best time to be alive by miles in the street.这个问题就留给更年轻的人​​们去思考吧。但无论如何，这里依然是最棒的——美国发生的一切，你做梦都想不到。所以，毫无疑问，这里是世界上最好的地方，也是最棒的时代。

Just think of a couple hundred years ago and somebody yanking out a few of your teeth and pouring whiskey down you. The subsistence, and particularly in this Midwest – just imagine waiting till the Missouri froze over every year just to see whether you can get your wagon across, and maybe having a pregnant woman in the back. It’s just amazing what has happened of a positive nature during my lifetime.想想几百年前，有人会拔掉你几颗牙，然后往你身上灌威士忌。想想当时的生存状况，尤其是在中西部地区——想象一下，每年都要等到密苏里河结冰，才能把马车拉过去，车厢里可能还坐着个孕妇。在我有生之年，发生了这么多积极的事情，真是令人惊叹。

The question is how do you keep it and how do you improve it? I do think that fundamental to all of it is having a currency that does not get debased. What that does to the stability of a society where all the people that trust their government get screwed and all the people that figure out ways to profit off of it become rich or richer – I don’t think you want a society that operates in that manner.问题在于如何维持并改善这种状况？我认为，这一切的根本在于拥有一种不会贬值的货币。如果所有信任政府的人都遭受损失，而所有想方设法从中牟利的人都变得富有或更加富有，这对社会稳定会造成怎样的影响？我认为，我们不希望看到一个以这种方式运作的社会。

Becky Quick: This question is for you, Greg. It comes from a shareholder named Jay Milroy, who writes, “Mr. Buffett has a hands-off approach to managing the operating subsidiaries. How would you describe your approach?”贝基·奎克 ：格雷格，这个问题是问你的。它来自一位名叫杰伊·米尔罗伊的股东，他写道：“巴菲特先生对运营子公司的管理采取放任不管的态度。你会如何描述你的管理方式？”

Greg Abel: Well, we’ve got our managers over there and I would say going back to 2018, it’s been very fortunate to be in this role because one, I had to learn a lot of the businesses and there’s no question as Warren bought the businesses, he had that general knowledge.格雷格·阿贝尔 ：嗯，我们那边有我们的经理，我想说，回到 2018 年，能够担任这个职位非常幸运，因为首先，我必须学习很多业务知识，毫无疑问，沃伦收购这些业务时，他已经具备了这方面的常识。

I absolutely had to engage with each of them and they’ve been great in sharing their business models, their approach, their thoughts around where the risks and opportunities are. And I think as we went through that there’s no question I had questions and wanted to engage with them. Warren talks about curiosity being important as you go through things.我必须和他们每个人深入交流，他们也都非常棒，分享了他们的商业模式、方法以及对风险和机遇的看法。我认为，在交流的过程中，我当然有很多疑问，也想和他们探讨。沃伦说过，在做事情的过程中，保持好奇心非常重要。

That would be my style to have questions and comments around their business, their frameworks. At the same time, they have great businesses and they run them very autonomously and that remains in place. But if there’s opportunities to see where maybe I’ve seen something in another business or an opportunity I may see in their industry, we’re going to discuss it and see if that’s something we should pursue or if we are properly addressing the risk.我的风格是就他们的业务和框架提出问题和意见。同时，他们的业务非常出色，而且他们以高度自主的方式运营，这一点不会改变。但如果我发现一些机会，比如我在其他业务中看到的经验，或者我在他们的行业中发现的机会，我们会进行讨论，看看是否值得我们去尝试，或者我们是否已经妥善应对了风险。

And I found all our managers to be absolutely engaging on that and want to have those dialogues. And I’d say that’s a reflection of my approach. I’d also say that when you think of our managers, again, very autonomous. They run their businesses. They know it better than I ever will.我发现我们所有的经理都非常积极地参与其中，并且渴望进行这些对话。我认为这体现了我的管理方式。我还想说，我们的经理们都非常自主。他们管理着自己的业务。他们比我更了解自己的业务。

But if I see an opportunity that it’s well worth their time to talk to another one of our managers, if it’s Geico and they’ve gone through a technology transformation, they’re not by themselves that need to be thinking that way. We want to make sure the right folks are talking and figuring out how we can benefit from the prior experiences.但如果我发现某个机会值得他们花时间与我们其他经理交流，比如如果是 Geico 保险公司，他们已经经历过技术转型，那么他们并非孤军奋战。我们希望确保合适的人员参与讨论，共同探讨如何从以往的经验中获益。

So, I would say more active but hopefully in a very positive way, and we’ve got an exceptional group. So, it’s worked out exceptionally well as I’ve gone through that period of time.所以，我会说我们更加积极主动，但希望是以非常积极的方式，而且我们拥有一个非常优秀的团队。因此，在我经历的这段时间里，一切都进展得非常顺利。

Warren Buffett: It’s working way better with Greg than with me because I just didn’t want to work as hard as he worked and I could get away with it because we’ve got a basically good business, very good business and I wasn’t in danger of you firing me by virtue of both ownership and the fact that we would do pretty well.沃伦·巴菲特 ：和格雷格一起工作比和我一起工作要好得多，因为我不想像他那样努力工作，而且我可以这样做，因为我们拥有一个基本上不错的生意，非常好的生意，而且由于我是老板，加上我们生意做得相当不错，我不会面临被你解雇的风险。

But the fact that you can do pretty well doesn’t mean you couldn’t do better. And Greg can do better at many things. Many people want to be managed, need help in being managed. Some don’t. Some you just leave alone.但你做得不错并不意味着你不能做得更好。格雷格在很多方面都可以做得更好。很多人希望被管理，需要有人帮助他们管理。有些人则不需要。有些人你只需要放任不管就好。

We’ve had managers it would have been crazy to start giving instructions to because they just quit. And I wouldn’t blame them because I’d be the same type myself. But a lot of people really do welcome direction and help, particularly when they’re getting it from somebody like Greg that really lives the life himself and doesn’t just come down from on high and say “here’s what you do” while I do something else. A manager that behaves differently than what he’s asking the people beneath them to behave – it just doesn’t work over time.我们遇到过一些经理，如果让他们下指示，简直是疯了，因为他们会直接辞职。我不会责怪他们，因为我自己也会是那种人。但很多人确实很欢迎指导和帮助，尤其是当指导和帮助来自像格雷格这样真正践行这种生活方式的人时，而不是高高在上地指手画脚，自己却做着别的事。如果一个经理的行为和他要求下属的行为截然不同——长此以往，肯定行不通。

And people want a manager that they admire and they’re not going to admire them if those people profess to behave in one manner and behave in another manner. It’s easier – this is a sad thing, but it’s easier for an organization to see its quality move downward than it is upward.人们想要的是自己敬佩的管理者，如果管理者言行不一，人们自然不会敬佩他们。令人遗憾的是，对于一个组织来说，眼睁睁看着自身素质下降远比看着其提升更容易接受。

I mean, if the boss behaves badly, it causes everybody to behave badly. That is really catching. It’s not as catching on the way up in upper management. But if the manager is doing a lot of little things to grease his own situation, pretty soon, let’s say you’re running a retail establishment, pretty soon all the employees or a lot of the employees are telling their friends that they get a discount with the retail operation and if they want something they’ll put it on their account and then get the discount.我的意思是，如果老板行为不端，就会导致所有人行为不端。这种现象非常具有传染性。在高层管理中，这种传染性可能不那么明显。但如果经理做了很多小事来为自己谋取好处，那么很快，比如说你经营一家零售店，很快所有员工或很多员工就会告诉他们的朋友，他们在这里购物可以享受折扣，如果想买什么东西，就记在自己的账户上，然后享受折扣。

Once you start deviating downward, it is really contagious and it is hard to rebuild. So, you really need someone that behaves well on top and is not playing games for their own benefit. And we get a lot of managers that bend over backwards not to do that sort of thing. And then we get a few that bend over forwards. And if you get enough companies, you’re going to get a lot of different forms of behavior, and Greg does something about it and I’ve generally been lax in doing something about it, but he’s done a way better job at that than I have.一旦开始走下坡路，这种趋势就会迅速蔓延，而且很难挽回。所以，你真的需要一位行为端正、不为私利玩弄权术的领导者。我们有很多管理者竭尽全力避免这种情况发生。当然，也有一些管理者会极力维护这种利益。如果你接触足够多的公司，就会发现各种各样的行为模式。格雷格在这方面采取了行动，而我在这方面则比较懈怠，但他比我做得好得多。

Audience Member (Zone 4): Hello, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel. My name is Kansas Lomire. I am a junior at Elkhorn South High School and was born and raised in Omaha. My question is directed to Greg Abel.观众席（4 区） ：巴菲特先生和阿贝尔先生，您好。我叫堪萨斯·洛米尔，是埃尔克霍恩南高中的一名高二学生，在奥马哈出生长大。我的问题想问格雷格·阿贝尔。

Berkshire Hathaway is the second largest utility provider in the United States and a 2025 Reuters investigation found that its coal fleet is the dirtiest in the nation. There is currently no concrete plan to retire coal and fully transition to renewable energy. I’m 17 years old. Considering that, what do you have to say to young people like me who will live with the consequences of climate change caused by companies like Berkshire?伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司是美国第二大公用事业公司，路透社2025年的一项调查发现，其燃煤电厂是全美污染最严重的。目前，该公司还没有具体的计划来淘汰煤炭并全面过渡到可再生能源。我今年17岁。考虑到这一点，对于像我这样将要承受伯克希尔等公司造成的气候变化后果的年轻人，您有什么话要说？

Greg Abel: Thank you for both your question and your comments because it is important to understand Berkshire Hathaway Energy but also how they operate. Maybe using Iowa as a starting example because I think that was one of the states cited in the report.格雷格·阿贝尔 ：感谢您的提问和评论，因为了解伯克希尔·哈撒韦能源公司及其运营方式固然重要。或许可以以爱荷华州为例，因为我记得报告中提到了该州。

One of the important things that I’d say early in us acquiring our energy companies – I go back to when we acquired Mid American in 1999, Berkshire purchased Mid-American in 2000. One thing that became very clear to myself and our teams was that what we do within our utilities is really driven in two fronts. One, we absolutely have to meet the requirements and the law that’s laid out federally, but most importantly, we had to recognize we implement public policy across these states.我想说，在我们收购能源公司之初——我指的是 1999 年我们收购 Mid American 的时候，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司于 2000 年收购了 Mid American——有一点非常重要。我和我的团队都清楚地认识到，我们在公用事业领域的工作实际上是从两个方面展开的。首先，我们必须严格遵守联邦法律法规的要求；但更重要的是，我们必须认识到，我们在这些州执行的是公共政策。

And that was an interesting conversation when I go back to Iowa. Again, the report cited that as a significant problem. It was early in the 2000s when for the first time in Iowa we were going to as a utility be short of power. So, we didn’t have the energy and we entered into a significant discussion with our governor at the time and really sat down and said, “Where do you want us to go as Mid-American and what resources do you want as a state?”回到爱荷华州后，我们进行了一次很有意思的谈话。报告再次指出这是一个重大问题。那是2000年代初期，爱荷华州电力公司第一次面临电力短缺。当时我们能源不足，于是我们和当时的州长进行了一次重要的讨论，坐下来认真地问他：“作为中西部地区，您希望我们走向何方？作为州，您希望获得哪些资源？”

At that time, we were predominantly a coal based state. We recognize that obviously and fundamentally personally viewed it as a risk, but we needed to have that conversation with our state as to how we would manage that going forward. The interesting thing was that as we had that conversation in the early 2000s again with the leadership of our state, it was clearly decided we wanted to continue to be long power, i.e. not be short for our customers.当时，我们州主要依赖煤炭发电。我们当然也意识到这存在风险，从根本上来说，我们个人也认为这是一个风险，但我们需要与州政府讨论如何应对未来的挑战。有趣的是，在2000年代初期，当我们再次与州政府领导层进行类似的讨论时，他们明确决定我们希望继续保持电力充足，也就是说，不会让我们的客户面临电力短缺的问题。

We discussed the type of resource and I remember a very clear conversation around we wanted to stay balanced across a variety of energy sources. At that time it was really coal and natural gas, and at that time we made the decision to build the largest wind project in the US in Iowa.我们讨论了能源类型，我记得当时我们非常明确地谈到，我们希望在多种能源之间保持平衡。当时的主要能源是煤炭和天然气，我们也正是在那时决定在爱荷华州建设美国最大的风力发电项目。

So we undertook an effort to build three resources, a coal plant, a gas plant, and what was the first wind project we owned in Mid-American. Again, it was very consistent with what the state wanted. But we also laid some important groundwork there because we started to define the importance of renewable energy, non-carbon resources, but it has to be consistent with what the state wanted.因此，我们着手建设三项能源项目：一座燃煤电厂、一座燃气电厂，以及我们在中西部地区拥有的第一个风力发电项目。这与州政府的意愿完全一致。同时，我们也为此奠定了重要的基础，因为我们开始明确可再生能源（即非碳能源）的重要性，但这必须符合州政府的意愿。

And we’ve gone on over the since that period of time to deploy $16 billion into Iowa associated with renewable energy. Again, very consistent with what our state wanted us to do, i.e. the underlying policy. We don’t get to make that decision and just spend 16 billion. It’s done in conjunction with our governors, our legislators, our regulators.此后，我们又在爱荷华州的可再生能源领域投入了160亿美元。这与我们州政府的意愿，也就是我们制定的政策，完全一致。我们不能单方面决定投入160亿美元，这需要与州长、立法者和监管机构共同商议。

And at the same time, we’ve had the opportunity to retire five of the 10 coal units. Now, as the report highlighted, I understand people would like those other five coal units retired at this time, but to think we deployed 16 billion to retire five and it’s a very good outcome for our customers.与此同时，我们有机会退役了10台燃煤机组中的5台。正如报告所强调的，我理解大家希望现在也退役另外5台燃煤机组，但想想我们投入了160亿美元来退役这5台机组，这对我们的客户来说是一个非常好的结果。

We’ve been able to maintain our rates. They’re some of the lowest in the country. So, it’s been done very efficiently. But the reality is we still need those five coal units to keep the system stable. We cannot have a Spain Portugal situation.我们一直能够维持目前的电价，而且是全国最低的电价之一。所以，我们做得非常高效。但现实情况是，我们仍然需要那五台燃煤机组来维持系统的稳定。我们不能重蹈西班牙和葡萄牙的覆辙。

So we absolutely respect the input. We absolutely respect the process and will continue to work with each of our states to identify the path they would like to chart and we work hard to ensure there’s good balanced outcomes because we recognize the challenges associated with others’ desires. So, I think you’ll continue to see our utilities implement policy consistent with the needs of their stakeholders, their customers, and at the same time always respecting what’s required by any of the federal standards.因此，我们绝对尊重各方意见。我们绝对尊重整个流程，并将继续与各州合作，共同确定他们希望的发展路径。我们努力确保最终结果能够取得良好的平衡，因为我们深知各方诉求所带来的挑战。所以，我相信大家会看到，我们的公用事业公司将继续推行符合利益相关者和客户需求的政策，同时始终遵守各项联邦标准的要求。

Becky Quick: This question comes from Billy D. Ross. He writes, “Mr. Buffett, as a nurse from New York State, I’ve spent years struggling to secure good health insurance for myself, even while working on the front lines to save lives. In New York, accessing insurance means navigating a confusing state-run system that feels like it’s designed to overwhelm.”贝基·奎克 ：这个问题来自比利·D·罗斯。他写道：“巴菲特先生，作为一名来自纽约州的护士，我多年来一直在努力为自己争取到良好的医疗保险，即便是在一线救死扶伤的时候也是如此。在纽约，获得保险意味着要在一个令人困惑的州立系统中摸索前行，感觉这个系统就是为了让人不堪重负而设计的。”

“I’m curious what ultimately led to the end of your healthcare venture with JP Morgan and Amazon and given your commitment to value and long-term thinking, would you ever consider taking another look at health insurance reform in the US?”“我很好奇是什么最终导致您与摩根大通和亚马逊的医疗保健合资项目终止，鉴于您对价值和长期思考的承诺，您是否会考虑再次关注美国的医疗保险改革？”

Warren Buffett: We’re spending close – it’s hard to get the precise figure, but close to 20% of GDP on health. And if you go back to 1960, there were a number of countries that were each spending around 5%. And then the lines began to diverge dramatically. But the mathematical fact that there are only 100 percentage points in the equation didn’t change.沃伦·巴菲特 ：我们在医疗保健方面的支出接近——很难给出精确数字，但接近 GDP 的 20%。回顾 1960 年，当时许多国家的医疗保健支出约为 GDP 的 5%。之后，各国之间的差距开始显著扩大。但等式中只有 100 个百分点的数学事实并没有改变。

So we tried that experiment with JP Morgan and Amazon and we had three people that didn’t think they knew the answer, but thought that in my case I use the term that it was a tapeworm in the economy. We also found out that the tapeworm was alive in every part of the country. I mean the hospitals liked it. The hospitals had prominent people working with people. People generally like their doctor, didn’t like the system. I mean all kinds of things, but in the end, JP Morgan and Amazon and Berkshire were not going to have any effect on changing that 20%.所以我们用摩根大通和亚马逊做了个实验，有三个人觉得他们不知道答案，但他们觉得，就我而言，这就像经济中的绦虫一样。我们还发现，这种绦虫遍布全国各地。我的意思是，医院喜欢它。医院里有位高权重的人在和民众合作。人们普遍喜欢他们的医生，但不喜欢医疗体系。我的意思是，各种各样的因素都有，但最终，摩根大通、亚马逊和伯克希尔哈撒韦都无法改变那20%的现状。

Now that 20% – there are only 100 percentage points available and other countries spend six or 7% and perhaps use our system to their advantage which is also very true. That is an enormous percentage of an economy and we simply – it was too entrenched to really do much in the way of change.现在，这20%——总共只有100个百分点的可用资金，而其他国家只投入6%或7%，他们或许会利用我们的制度来谋取自身利益，这确实也是事实。这相当于经济中一个非常庞大的比例，而我们却——它根深蒂固，难以做出实质性的改变。

And we spent some money on it and we did some work and we learned a good bit about our own systems and we saw the degree to which the present system was ingrained in so many people’s lives, whether the health care providers or whether everybody. And these aren’t evil people. I mean, they’re just going about something and trying to save lives.我们为此投入了一些资金，做了一些工作，对我们自身的系统有了更深入的了解，也看到了现有系统在许多人的生活中根深蒂固的程度，无论是医护人员还是其他人。这些人并非坏人。我的意思是，他们只是在尽力做好本职工作，努力拯救生命。

But we found that whether it was in Canada or France or Britain or wherever it might be, that if you looked at our costs that they were just far higher and to some extent we were subsidizing the rest of the world. And people would come to the United States to do the really unusual or challenging aspects of health in terms of operations and that sort of thing.但我们发现，无论是在加拿大、法国、英国还是其他任何地方，我们的成本都高得惊人，在某种程度上，我们实际上是在补贴世界其他地区。因此，人们会来到美国，进行一些非常特殊或具有挑战性的医疗手术等等。

But we made no progress and there comes a point where the government – and I mean it’s so involved in the situation and health is so important to most to everybody, and we couldn’t – as I said to Jamie and Jeff, I said well the tapeworm won.但我们毫无进展，到了某个时候，政府——我的意思是，它如此积极地参与到这场疫情中，而健康对大多数人来说又如此重要，我们却无能为力——就像我对杰米和杰夫说的那样，我说，好吧，绦虫赢了。

There are problems of society when you get 20% of your GDP going into a given industry, the degree of enthusiasm for changing that industry, the political power that the industry will have, and that doesn’t mean they’re evil. It’s just everybody – they just end up there.当一个行业的 GDP 占到 20%时，社会就会出现一些问题，比如人们对改变这个行业的热情高涨，以及这个行业所拥有的政治影响力。但这并不意味着这些行业本身就是邪恶的。只是每个人都可能最终走到这一步而已。

So I don’t know – we came to the conclusion we didn’t know the answer, the three of us, and we had the money to do it and we didn’t know how to change how 330 million people felt about their doctor, felt about our healthcare, what they felt entitled to.所以，我也不知道——我们三个人最终得出结论，我们不知道答案，我们有钱去做这件事，但我们不知道如何改变 3.3 亿人对他们的医生、对医疗保健的看法，以及他们认为自己应得的东西。

It won’t change by itself and government is the only one that can change it and the only people in government that can change it are getting majority of 435 people and 100 people. And my dad lost one election in his life in 1948 and he was a very strong Republican and in 1950 he went back and beat the guy that beat him in 1948 and he got the doctors behind him. And they believe 100% in what they’re doing. They’re helping people every day.它不会自行改变，只有政府才能改变它，而政府中唯一能改变它的人，是那些拥有435个席位和100个席位的多数派。我父亲一生中只输过一次选举，那是在1948年，他是一位坚定的共和党人。1950年，他卷土重来，击败了1948年击败他的那个人，而且他得到了医生们的支持。他们百分之百相信自己所做的一切。他们每天都在帮助人们。

And during the pandemic, the sacrifices made by people to save other people – just incredible. Can you imagine working in something where they’re bringing in people that are going to die by the dozens and dozens and dozens and you try to somehow keep your own morale up and keep working with them. So, you can’t argue about the importance of it.疫情期间，人们为了拯救他人所做出的牺牲——简直令人难以置信。你能想象在这样的环境下工作吗？他们要接收几十个、几十个、几十个即将死去的人，而你还要努力保持士气，继续和他们一起工作。所以，你无法否认它的重要性。

But our costs are so different than any country in the world that it’s a huge element and we’re a very rich country. So we can do things other countries can’t do. And through our elected representatives and a whole variety of things over time, we’ve developed a system that is enormously resistant to any kind of major change and it’s important in every community that it’s in.但我们的成本与世界上任何其他国家都截然不同，这是一个非常重要的因素，而我们又是一个非常富裕的国家。所以我们能做到其他国家做不到的事情。通过我们选出的代表以及长期以来采取的各种措施，我们建立了一套极其不易受到任何重大变革影响的体系，这套体系在每个社区都至关重要。

So, I wish we had an answer for you, but I was somewhat pessimistic going in and I was a little more pessimistic when we came out. But I’m glad we did what we did and we learned something about our own failings in the process. So, Berkshire in effect got its money’s worth, but we didn’t kill the tapeworm.所以，我真希望我们能给你一个答案，但我一开始就有些悲观，出来之后更是如此。不过，我很高兴我们做了我们该做的，也在这个过程中认识到了自身的不足。所以，伯克希尔的投资实际上得到了回报，但我们并没有彻底根除这个祸根。

Trying to change things in government is an interesting proposition in the country because you get self-selection in terms of the people that go into government and continue in it. And to some extent they keep having to make decisions that they don’t like as they go along and they learn to accept them or rationalize them or whatever it may be.在这个国家，试图改变政府运作方式是一件很有意思的事情，因为进入政府并继续留任的人员具有一定的自我选择倾向。在某种程度上，他们不得不不断做出自己不喜欢的决定，并逐渐学会接受、合理化或其他方式来解释这些决定。

But it’s still – this country’s worked out better than any country in the world. So you can’t argue it was a failure, but you can’t argue that there are certain problems that are terribly tough to figure out ways to solve. And of course, one of them gets back to the fiscal problem I mentioned before because it’s easy to spend money and it’s hard to cut people’s receipts.但即便如此，这个国家的发展仍然比世界上任何其他国家都要好。所以你不能说它失败了，但你也不能否认，有些问题确实很难找到解决办法。当然，其中一个问题又回到了我之前提到的财政问题，因为花钱容易，削减人们的开支却难上加难。

And if you get elected, you’re going to say to yourself, well, I can do more good if I stay, and then if I really vote my conscience on this sort of thing. So, you give away a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit there and finally you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror anymore. And that’s – I grew up in a political family, but I watched how people behaved and they behave like human beings which is what you have to expect and I behave like human beings.如果你当选了，你就会对自己说，如果我留下来，我能做更多好事，如果我真的凭良心投票的话。所以，你一点一点地妥协，最后你甚至认不出镜子里的自己了。我成长在一个政治世家，但我观察人们的行为，他们表现得像普通人，这才是你应该期待的，而我的行为也像普通人。

We still manage to keep moving forward in dramatic way. It’s so much better to live here than it was 100 years ago or 200 years ago. It’s dramatic. So you can’t say the system’s a failure, but you can say that it is very difficult to make major changes in it.我们仍然能够以惊人的速度向前发展。现在的生活比100年前甚至200年前好太多了。变化之大令人难以置信。所以你不能说这个体制失败了，但可以说，要对它进行重大改革非常困难。

Audience Member (Zone 5): Hi Warren Greg. My name is Pig Huang Chen. I’m from Taiwan. This is my seventh time here. First of all, I want to thank you Warren for your generosity of sharing your wisdom and lesson. You changed my life and you are my role model and my hero. And my question is, Warren, you mentioned that Greg will be in charge of capital allocation in the future and I’d like to know your perspective on is it easier for business operator to be an investor or for investor to be a business operator. Thank you.观众（5 区） ：您好，沃伦·格雷格。我叫陈猪黄，来自台湾。这是我第七次来这里了。首先，我要感谢沃伦先生慷慨分享您的智慧和经验。您改变了我的人生，您是我的榜样，也是我的英雄。我的问题是，沃伦先生，您提到格雷格先生未来将负责资金配置，我想了解一下您认为企业经营者更容易成为投资者，还是投资者更容易成为企业经营者。谢谢。

Warren Buffett: No, that’s a good question. I see we call him Greg even. Thank you. And I’ll – you’ll take it and it’s a lot tougher to be an operator. I mean it is. It’s easier to sit in a room like I do and play around with money. It’s just an easier life. That doesn’t mean it’s a more admirable life. It doesn’t, but it’s actually been a pleasant life for me. So, I don’t complain in the least.沃伦·巴菲特 ：不，这是个好问题。我看到我们甚至都叫他格雷格。谢谢。我会——你会接受的，做一名实干家要难得多。我的意思是，确实如此。像我这样坐在房间里摆弄金钱要容易得多。那是一种更轻松的生活。但这并不意味着它是一种更令人钦佩的生活。并非如此，但对我来说，那确实是一种令人愉快的生活。所以，我一点也不抱怨。

And I’ve been able to choose my friends, which has made an enormous difference in my life. I’ve never had to work for anybody that I really didn’t admire. I mean, that’s a luxury in life. I had five different people I worked for and they were fantastic, whether it was the manager of the local Penneys which used to be located a couple miles from here, and newspaper managers, everything. I have never been really disappointed by any teacher I’ve had.而且我可以自由选择朋友，这对我的人生影响巨大。我从未被迫为我不敬佩的人工作过。这简直是人生一大幸事。我曾为五位不同的老板工作过，他们都很棒，无论是以前离这里几英里远的当地彭尼百货的经理，还是报社的经理，都一样。我从未对我的任何一位老师感到失望。

But I have to admit that I’ve been able to choose what I do with my day to an extraordinary degree compared to being a business operator. And in many cases, I wouldn’t like to compete to be a top-notch business operator in terms of some of the behavior that might be forced upon me.但我必须承认，与经营企业相比，我现在能够自主选择每天要做的事情，这方面我拥有极大的自主权。而且在很多情况下，我也不想为了成为顶尖企业主而被迫去做某些事情。

I am the master. I mean, I’ve found myself in this position where I can run the kind of company I want to run and that’s an extraordinary luxury.我就是主人。我的意思是，我发现自己身处这样的位置，可以经营我想经营的公司，这是一种莫大的奢侈。

Warren Buffett: I have a five-minute warning, so I would like to turn to a subject that I want to discuss with you for a few minutes.沃伦·巴菲特： 我还有五分钟时间，所以我想和大家讨论几分钟关于一个话题。

Tomorrow we’re having a board meeting of Berkshire and we have 11 directors. Two of the directors who are my children, Howie and Susie, know of what I’m going to talk about. The rest of them – this will come as news to them.明天伯克希尔公司将召开董事会，共有11位董事。其中两位董事是我的孩子，豪伊和苏西，他们知道我要讲的内容。至于其他董事，他们对此将一无所知。

I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year-end. I want to spring that on the directors effectively and then give that as my recommendation. Let them have the time to think about what questions or what structures or anything that they want, and then the meeting following that, which will come in a few months, we’ll take action on whatever the view is of the 11 directors. I think they’ll be unanimously in favor of it.我认为格雷格应该在年底接任公司首席执行官一职。我想提前向董事们提出这个建议，让他们有时间思考他们想要了解的问题、组织架构或其他任何方面。之后，在几个月后的下一次会议上，我们将根据11位董事的意见采取行动。我相信他们会一致赞成。

That would mean that at year-end Greg would be the chief executive officer of Berkshire. I would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases. But the final word would be what Greg said, in operations, in capital deployment, whatever it might be.这意味着年底格雷格将成为伯克希尔的首席执行官。我还会继续留任，或许在某些情况下还能帮上忙。但最终的决定权仍然在格雷格手中，无论是在运营方面、资本部署方面，还是其他任何方面。

I could be helpful, I believe, in certain respects if we ran into periods of great opportunity or anything. I think that Berkshire has a special reputation that when there are times of trouble for the government, we are an asset and not a liability, which is very hard to have because usually the public and government get very negative on business if there’s a time like that.我相信，如果遇到绝佳机遇或其他情况，我在某​​些方面可以提供帮助。我认为伯克希尔哈撒韦公司拥有特殊的声誉，那就是在政府面临困境时，我们是资产而不是负债。这一点非常难得，因为通常情况下，在这种时候，公众和政府都会对企业持非常负面的态度。

But Greg would have the tickets. Whether it’s acquisitions – I think the board would be more welcome to giving him more authority on large acquisitions probably if they knew I was around. But Greg would be the chief executive, period.但格雷格肯定有票。至于收购——我想如果董事会知道我在，他们可能更愿意赋予他更多大型收购的权力。但格雷格会是首席执行官，就这么简单。

The plan is – and Greg doesn’t know anything about this until what he’s hearing right now – that the board will be able to ask me questions tomorrow about more of the specifics of what they should be thinking about. They’ll digest it, and then at the next board meeting after that, if they act, then obviously we have something to announce to the world as a material change and we’ll go forward with that operation.计划是这样的——格雷格对此一无所知，直到现在才听到这些——董事会明天可以向我提问，了解他们应该考虑的更多具体细节。他们会仔细考虑，然后在下次董事会会议上，如果他们采取行动，那么显然我们将向外界宣布一项重大变更，并推进相关操作。

I will play with the ouija board or whatever comes out in terms of doing things. But I have no intention, zero, of selling one share of Berkshire Hathaway – it will get given away.我会玩玩通灵板之类的，或者做任何能让我做点什么的事情。但我绝对没有出售伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司任何股票的打算——我会把它们全部送人。

I would add this – the decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine. There may come a time when we get a chance to invest a lot of money, and if that time comes, I think it may be helpful with the Board that they know I’ve got all my money in the company and I think it’s smart. And I’ve seen what Greg has done. So that’s the news hook for the day. And thanks for coming.我还要补充一点——保留所有股份的决定是出于经济考量，因为我认为在格雷格的管理下，伯克希尔的前景会比我更好。或许将来我们会有机会进行大规模投资，如果真到了那一天，我认为让董事会知道我把所有资金都投入了公司，这对他们来说会很有帮助，而且我认为这是明智之举。我也亲眼见证了格雷格的成就。以上就是今天的新闻要点。感谢各位的到来。

The enthusiasm shown by the audience’s response can be interpreted in two ways. But I’ll take it as positive. Thank you.观众的热情反应可以有两种解读，但我倾向于将其视为积极的信号。谢谢。