Matt Levine Live at Bloomberg HQ (Ep. 34)
I thought we would start with Matt Levine’s greatest hits.
我想我们应该从马特·莱文 (Matt Levine) 的热门歌曲开始。
Then with Matt, having been a classics major, we’d move on to the Latin classics and maybe tie the two together a bit.
然后,马特(Matt)主修古典文学,我们将继续学习拉丁古典文学,也许将两者联系在一起。
On derivatives markets and CryptoKitties
关于衍生品市场和加密猫
Think about derivatives markets — you’ve worked in that sector.
想想衍生品市场 —— 你曾在该领域工作过。
By some measures derivatives are over a quadrillion in value outstanding, but there’s another way you can measure the net positions and turn it into zero.
从某些衡量标准来看,衍生品的流通价值已超过千万亿,但还有另一种方法可以衡量净头寸并将其变成零。
So what’s the right way to think about how large derivatives markets are, and what’s the risk associated with that size?
那么,思考衍生品市场有多大的正确方法是什么,以及与该规模相关的风险是什么?
The right way to think about it, in the way that you would do it if you’re actually working in the derivatives market, is to think about the risk exposures of it.
正确的思考方式,就像你实际上在衍生品市场工作一样,是考虑它的风险敞口。
If you have an interest rate swap, the right way to think about it is the DV01, or the right way to think about an equity swap is the delta of it.
如果您有利率互换,那么正确的考虑方式是 DV01,或者考虑股权互换的正确方式是其 Delta。
Often, you see these quadrillion dollar numbers.
通常,您会看到这些万亿美元的数字。
They’re a quadrillion dollar notional of short-term interest rate swaps, where the idea that you could lose a quadrillion dollars on it is quite low.
它们是价值 1000 亿美元的短期利率掉期,因此您可能会损失 1000 亿美元的想法是相当低的。
The risk of that is quite low.
这样做的风险相当低。
The systemic question, I don’t know the answer to.
这个系统性问题,我不知道答案。
How risky are derivatives in general is .
衍生品的总体风险有多大。
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There was a time when it was, “Derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.” Obviously, there’s a sense in which that came true, but I worked in equity derivatives, and total return swaps didn’t blow up the world.
曾经有一段时间,“衍生品是大规模杀伤性武器”。显然,从某种意义上说,这已经成为现实,但我从事股票衍生品工作,总回报掉期并没有炸毁世界。
A specific set of exposures to specific risks were bad and were perhaps magnified by the ability to make zero-sum bets on them, but the idea that a notional of derivatives is somehow itself a risk factor was never super compelling to me.
特定风险的特定暴露是糟糕的,并且可能会因对它们进行零和押注的能力而被放大,但衍生品的概念本身在某种程度上本身就是一个风险因素的想法对我来说从来都不是非常令人信服。
There’s a certain centralization of risk with derivatives, so you put a lot of risk into a clearinghouse.
衍生品存在一定的风险集中度,因此您将大量风险放入清算所。
Maybe you can bail out the clearinghouse — if you have to — more efficiently than individual investors, but that also increases moral hazard.
也许你可以比个人投资者更有效地救助票据交换所————如果必须的话————但这也增加了道德风险。
At the margin, do you think we’ve centralized derivatives risk too much or too little?
在边际上,您认为我们集中的衍生品风险过多还是过少?
We’re a little bit in early phases of doing it.
我们还处于这样做的早期阶段。
I’m among those who are a little skeptical of the notion of centralizing derivatives risk into clearinghouse.
我是对将衍生品风险集中到清算所的想法持怀疑态度的人之一。
Seems to me that a clearinghouse has more moral hazard than a bank.
在我看来,票据交换所的道德风险比银行更大。
A clearinghouse is often a member association, where you’re ultimately relying on the members for your capitalization and for your protection against blowing up.
票据交换所通常是一个会员协会,您最终要依靠会员来实现资本化并防止破产。
Whereas a bank, if you’re on a desk, obviously banks have a lot of moral hazard.
而银行,如果你坐在办公桌前,显然银行存在很多道德风险。
Those notions that banks have moral hazard is a lesson that has been learned and probably overlearned from the financial crisis.
那些认为银行存在道德风险的观念是我们从金融危机中吸取的教训,而且可能是过度吸取的教训。
If you’re on a desk, you don’t want to lose a lot of money.
如果您坐在办公桌前,您不想损失很多钱。
If you’re a clearinghouse, your concerns about losing a lot of money are a little more attenuated, I think.
我认为,如果你是清算所,那么你对损失大量资金的担忧会稍微减弱一些。
Does your experience with derivatives make you feel better or worse about CryptoKitties being priced at 117,000K per pop?
您在衍生品方面的经验是否让您对 CryptoKitties 的单价 117,000K 感觉更好还是更坏?
Were they just a derivative?
它们只是衍生品吗?
CryptoKitties, I don’t really understand.
加密猫,我不太明白。
Isn’t CryptoKitty a derivative on Ether?
CryptoKitty 不是以太坊的衍生品吗?
Is there a fact of the matter?
事情有事实真相吗?
Yeah, sure.
是的,当然。
In the naive sense of did it come from Ether?
从天真的意义上来说,它来自以太吗?
Sure.
当然。
All those markets are so immature.
所有这些市场都非常不成熟。
I think of derivatives markets as being a mark of maturity and of the ability to understand what exposures exist in some instrument or in some economic reality.
我认为衍生品市场是成熟的标志,也是了解某些工具或某些经济现实中存在哪些风险敞口的能力的标志。
Then say, “We’re going to pick of these exposures and hedge them out, and we’re going to pick these exposures and magnify them.
然后说,“我们将选择这些风险敞口并对其进行对冲,我们将选择这些风险敞口并放大它们。
We’re going to have the ability to fine-tune all of our exposures because we’ve been doing this for a long time.
我们将有能力微调所有的风险敞口,因为我们已经这样做了很长时间。
We’ve been trading currencies or equities or whatever for a long time.”
我们长期以来一直在交易货币或股票或其他任何东西。”
There’s the beginning of a thing that you could call a derivatives market in cryptocurrency, but it’s not that.
你可以称之为加密货币衍生品市场的事情已经开始,但事实并非如此。
It’s the opposite of that.
事实恰恰相反。
No one knows what Ether is, in a sense.
从某种意义上说,没有人知道以太是什么。
The idea that you’re fine-tuning your exposures to it is just not .
微调你对它的暴露的想法是不正确的。
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CryptoKitties are the opposite of that.
加密猫则与此相反。
They’re like making your exposures weirder and more complicated.
它们就像让你的曝光变得更奇怪、更复杂。
On Bitcoin and cryptoassets
关于比特币和加密资产
We have a good idea of how to price most futures and options.
我们很清楚如何为大多数期货和期权定价。
But when it comes to pricing, say, Bitcoin or other cryptoassets, what do you think is the best model we have — however bad they may all be — for thinking about what that value should be?
但是,当涉及到比特币或其他加密资产的定价时,您认为我们拥有的最佳模型是什么 —— 无论它们可能都很糟糕 —— 用于思考该价值应该是多少?
I actually think you’ve said it, which is there’s a pool of world financial wealth.
我实际上认为你已经说过了,世界上有一个金融财富池。
Then you pick a random small number and you say, “That percentage of world financial wealth should be Bitcoin.”
然后你随机选择一个小数字,然后说:“世界金融财富的比例应该是比特币。”
I was persuaded by the notion that you could use a currency model and say, “The amount of transactions that you do with Bitcoin is this, and the velocity of it is that, and so this is what the total value of Bitcoin there should be.”
我被这样的想法说服了,你可以使用货币模型并说:“你用比特币进行的交易量是这样的,它的流通速度是这样的,所以这就是比特币的总价值。”
I’m no longer persuaded by that because I don’t think that people’s claims for Bitcoin now are that it’s a currency, right?
我不再相信这一点,因为我不认为人们现在对比特币的主张是它是一种货币,对吗?
It’s that it’s their store of value.
这是他们的价值储存手段。
It’s a store of value that isn’t tethered to anything else.
它是一种不依赖于其他任何东西的价值储存手段。
Some percentage of people’s wealth is in gold.
人们的财富中有一部分是黄金。
If they shifted half of that to Bitcoin, Bitcoin would be worth X.
如果他们将其中的一半转移到比特币,那么比特币的价值将是X。
That is the bad but best available model.
这是一个糟糕但最好的可用模型。
There are other cryptocurrencies.
还有其他加密货币。
You could imagine a currency model where you say, “How big is the file storage market?” and then, “What would the velocity of a file coin be?” But I’m not sure that you could answer that because I think that the intuitions that you’d have around velocity of money are not necessarily the right intuitions for velocity of a token that you use to spend on files.
您可以想象一个货币模型,其中您会说“文件存储市场有多大?”然后,“文件硬币的流通速度是多少?”但我不确定你能回答这个问题,因为我认为你对货币流通速度的直觉不一定是对你用来购买文件的代币流通速度的正确直觉。
How well Bitcoin does as a hedge or store of value relative to gold .
相对于黄金,比特币作为对冲或保值手段的表现如何。
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what variables do you think of when you try to figure that out?
当你试图弄清楚这个问题时,你会想到哪些变量?
You’re trying to project 10, 20 years in the future, cryptoassets competing against gold, or maybe even stores of fine art that’s held in warehouses.
你试图预测未来 10 年、20 年,加密资产将与黄金竞争,甚至可能是仓库里的艺术品商店。
What does that depend upon?
这取决于什么?
Is it transactions uses?
是交易用途吗?
Do they matter at all any more?
它们还重要吗?
Will the dominant cryptoasset be one that people also use to buy things, or are those two functions totally separate?
占主导地位的加密资产是否会成为人们用来购买东西的一种,或者这两种功能是完全独立的?
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I was talking to someone today who argued that if Bitcoin hadn’t been invented, or if the whitepaper had been out there but if people hadn’t started using Bitcoin, what would have made more sense to happen first would be the utility tokens would come first.
今天我和一个人交谈,他认为如果比特币没有被发明,或者如果白皮书已经存在但人们还没有开始使用比特币,那么首先发生的事情更有意义的是实用代币会先出现。
Because you can explain you use file coin to buy file storage, or you use whatever to buy whatever, whereas with Bitcoin, you can use it to buy anything, but there’s no tethered store of value to it.
因为你可以解释你使用文件币来购买文件存储,或者你使用任何东西来购买任何东西,而使用比特币,你可以用它来购买任何东西,但它没有附加的价值存储。
You could imagine a world where all the ICOs work and where all of the coins that you use to buy useful things work, and then Bitcoin, because it doesn’t have an obvious utility value, it loses value.
你可以想象这样一个世界:所有 ICO 都可以运行,你用来购买有用东西的所有硬币都可以运行,然后比特币,因为它没有明显的实用价值,所以它失去了价值。
But I don’t buy that.
但我不买这个。
I think that people’s desire to use 100 different currencies to do 100 different activities is probably overrated by the crypto community.
我认为加密社区可能高估了人们使用 100 种不同货币进行 100 种不同活动的愿望。
Bitcoin’s first-mover advantage and its fame has the potential to entrench it.
比特币的先发优势及其名气有可能巩固它。
To answer your first question, I have no idea what valuables you look at, but I think it’s if Bitcoin stays above X thousand dollars for a year, then that increases its likelihood of staying above X thousand dollars for another year.
回答你的第一个问题,我不知道你看重什么贵重物品,但我认为如果比特币在一年内保持在 X 千美元以上,那么它在一年内保持在 X 千美元以上的可能性就增加了。
Eventually it, by force of repetition, becomes a store of value.
最终,通过重复的力量,它成为一种价值储存手段。
Since almost every store issues gift certificates, and this seems to be a profitable activity, can we not imagine a future where almost every business issues cryptocurrency in some form?
由于几乎每家商店都会发行礼券,而且这似乎是一项有利可图的活动,我们是否不能想象未来几乎每家企业都以某种形式发行加密货币?
Maybe the velocity or volume will be low, but there’ll be a cryptocurrency for every business and an ICO, just like now we have gift certificates, and this is perfectly fine.
也许速度或数量会很低,但每个企业和 ICO 都会有一种加密货币,就像现在我们有礼券一样,这完全没问题。
We shouldn’t think it’s weird.
我们不应该认为这很奇怪。
The real question is why not more CryptoKitties?
真正的问题是为什么不再有更多加密猫呢?
I’ve never heard of a CryptoDoggy.
我从未听说过 CryptoDoggy。
I’ve never heard of a CryptoTurtle.
我从未听说过 CryptoTurtle。
Yes, no?
是的,不是?
Do you want a CryptoDoggy?
你想要一只加密狗吗?
No store quintuples its market value by issuing gift certificates.
没有一家商店能够通过发行礼券将其市场价值增加五倍。
The crypto frenzy is not .
加密货币狂热并非如此。
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If this were a story of gift certificates, it would be a lot less interesting.
如果这是一个礼券的故事,那就没那么有趣了。
If you say, “Look, it’s true that people don’t want a hundred currencies, but they use gift certificates,” I don’t know how much people use those gift certificates every day.
如果你说,“你看,人们确实不想要一百种货币,但他们使用礼券”,我不知道有多少人每天使用这些礼券。
If that’s the story, then I suppose it’s true, but that’s a sad outcome for the thousand cryptocurrencies if it’s just Starbucks accepts Starbucks tokens.
如果这是这个故事,那么我认为这是真的,但如果只是星巴克接受星巴克代币,这对于数千种加密货币来说是一个可悲的结果。
Would you rather I give you a PonziCoin or a BananaCoin, a BananaCoin being connected to an organic bananas blockchain, drawing upon banana supply in Laos?
你愿意我给你庞氏币还是香蕉币,香蕉币连接到有机香蕉区块链,利用老挝的香蕉供应?
I’m tempted to say I’d take the PonziCoin because I suspect that they’re probably equally connected to a viable blockchain in Laos, and at least the PonziCoin says it on the tin.
我很想说我会选择庞氏币,因为我怀疑它们可能与老挝的可行区块链有同样的联系,至少庞氏币是这么说的。
I want to be careful with that because the reason I’d take either of them is to resell them.
我想对此保持谨慎,因为我接受其中任何一个的原因都是为了转售它们。
Clearly, the frenzy of saying that you have a utility, saying that there’s a blockchain somewhere probably does increase the resell value in the extremely short term in which I’d be holding these coins.
显然,疯狂地说你有一个实用程序,说某处有一个区块链可能确实会在极短期内增加我持有这些硬币的转售价值。
On the future of Uber
关于 Uber 的未来
We’re in New York.
我们在纽约。
We have Uber.
我们有优步。
We have taxis.
我们有出租车。
They compete against each other.
他们互相竞争。
There at least appears to be a long history of the taxi sector being somewhat of a natural monopoly.
出租车行业至少有很长一段历史,在一定程度上是自然垄断的。
What’s the final equilibrium in New York City and elsewhere?
纽约市和其他地方的最终均衡是什么?
And does the company Uber have positive value, given that right now it’s losing money per ride?
鉴于目前优步每次乘车都在亏损,该公司是否具有积极的价值?
Chinese investors are subsidizing us at the margin.
中国投资者正在为我们提供边际补贴。
If the price goes up, I would prefer to shift back to taxis.
如果价格上涨,我宁愿转回出租车。
How do you think about that market?
您如何看待这个市场?
As a consumer, I really like Uber.
作为一名消费者,我非常喜欢 Uber。
I think that Uber addressed some technological failing in terms of being able to hail Ubers without going out on the street and waiting for them, and being able to hail them around the world.
我认为 Uber 解决了一些技术缺陷,即能够在无需上街等待的情况下叫车,并且能够在世界各地叫车。
Hailing taxis in New York is nice, but it’s nice to have an app on your phone where you can do it wherever you go.
在纽约叫出租车固然不错,但如果你的手机上有一个应用程序,无论你走到哪里,都可以打车。
So as a consumer, I’m a big fan of Uber.
因此,作为一名消费者,我是 Uber 的忠实粉丝。
Are taxis a natural monopoly?
出租车是自然垄断吗?
They’re certainly a seeker of regulatory rents in New York.
他们当然是纽约监管租金的寻求者。
By Uber’s rhetoric about breaking down .
Uber关于崩溃的言论。
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There’s clearly some taxi-protective regulation that is not pro-consumer.
显然有一些不利于消费者的出租车保护法规。
To the extent Uber is fighting against that, they make a good case for their flagrant disregard for the law.
就 Uber 反对这一点而言,他们为公然无视法律提供了充分的理由。
The big question is, they continue to be subsidized by investors.
最大的问题是,它们继续受到投资者的补贴。
What is the long-term outcome of that?
这样做的长期结果是什么?
And I don’t know.
我不知道。
Their bet is that the long-term outcome of that is self-driving cars, and that they have some sort of advantage in being the provider of the self-driving car app, which I’m not sure if that is super compelling because it seems to me it’s hard to build a self-driving car.
他们的赌注是,其长期结果是自动驾驶汽车,并且他们在成为自动驾驶汽车应用程序的提供商方面拥有某种优势,我不确定这是否非常引人注目,因为在我看来,制造自动驾驶汽车很难。
It’s relatively easy to build a routing app to send the self-driving car to you.
构建一个路由应用程序来将自动驾驶汽车发送给您相对容易。
If Tesla or Apple or whoever built the best self-driving car, I’ll download Tesla’s app.
如果特斯拉或苹果或任何制造出最好的自动驾驶汽车的人,我会下载特斯拉的应用程序。
So it’s a risk for Uber.
所以这对 Uber 来说是一个风险。
As a strategy, bootstrapping by getting a $70 billion market cap and then spending a lot of money to be the leader in self-driving cars is not a crazy strategy.
作为一种策略,通过获得 700 亿美元的市值来引导,然后花费大量资金成为自动驾驶汽车的领导者并不是一个疯狂的策略。
They built from an app to being a $70 billion company.
他们从一个应用程序发展成为一家价值 700 亿美元的公司。
Uber’s bet is that the long-term outcome of that is self-driving cars, and that they have some sort of advantage in being the provider of the self-driving car app, which I’m not sure if that is super compelling because it seems to me it’s hard to build a self-driving car.
Uber 的赌注是,其长期结果是自动驾驶汽车,并且他们在成为自动驾驶汽车应用程序的提供商方面具有某种优势,我不确定这是否非常引人注目,因为在我看来,制造自动驾驶汽车很难。
It’s relatively easy to build a routing app to send the self-driving car to you.
构建一个路由应用程序来将自动驾驶汽车发送给您相对容易。
The so-called moat for the company — it starts with the app, but over time it shifts to owning a fleet of self-driving cars?
公司所谓的护城河——从应用程序开始,但随着时间的推移,它转变为拥有一支自动驾驶汽车车队?
Maybe.
或许。
It doesn’t seem like a routing app is that great a moat.
看起来路由应用程序并不是那么伟大的护城河。
It’s not bad because it’s a network effect around the world, but it’s not a .
这还不错,因为它是世界各地的网络效应,但它不是。
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But the network of drivers, they’ll work for Lyft and Uber.
但司机网络,他们将为 Lyft 和 Uber 工作。
That doesn’t seem like much of a moat.
这看起来不像是一条护城河。
Consumers will stick with Uber insofar as they’re happy, but they’re probably not intrinsically that loyal to Uber.
只要消费者满意,他们就会继续使用 Uber,但他们本质上可能并不那么忠诚于 Uber。
You need someone else to get significant name recognition.
您需要其他人来获得显着的知名度。
If Apple builds a self-driving car, and Apple builds a ride-hailing app, then it can take on Uber pretty quickly.
如果苹果制造出自动驾驶汽车,并且苹果制造出叫车应用程序,那么它可以很快与 Uber 抗衡。
If some random interloper comes, it’s harder.
如果有随机闯入者到来,那就更难了。
On not being worried enough
担心不够
Let me ask you a very Matt Levine question.
让我问你一个非常马特·莱文的问题。
Are you worried that people aren’t worried enough?
您是否担心人们担心得不够?
If we look at mortgages and security prices, there are plenty of signs that volatility has been quite low.
如果我们观察抵押贷款和证券价格,就会发现很多迹象表明波动性相当低。
By some measures it hasn’t been this low for 50 years [NB: this conversation was held in January before recent market volatility].
从某些方面来看,它已经 50 年来从未达到过如此低的水平了 [注意:这次谈话是在近期市场波动之前的 1 月份进行的]。
The world seems slightly unusual.
这个世界似乎有些不寻常。
Not only the CryptoKitties — there are other strange features of our country and world.
不仅仅是加密猫 ——我们的国家和世界还有其他奇怪的特征。
This decline in volatility, is it driven by investors getting smarter, by more ETFs, fewer shares out there to trade, by more indexing, foreign investors with nowhere else to go?
波动性的下降,是否是由于投资者变得更加聪明、ETF增多、可供交易的股票减少、指数化增加、外国投资者无处可去?
What’s your best hypothesis?
你最好的假设是什么?
The general background answer to that .
一般背景答案。
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in my personal life, I’m such an efficient markets guy.
在我的个人生活中,我是一个非常高效的市场人士。
The answer to the question — “Are you worried that people aren’t worried enough about anything?” — is I’m not because I assume that there’s a giant pool of people who are smarter than I am, and they’re coming to a reasonable conclusion.
问题的答案 —— “你是否担心人们对任何事情都没有足够的担心?” ——我不是因为我认为有一大群人比我聪明,而且他们得出了合理的结论。
They’re reading you, of course, and thinking, “What does Matt Levine say?”
当然,他们在读你的文章时会想,“马特·莱文说了什么?”
In general, if people are like, “Are stock prices too high?
一般来说,如果人们会问:“股价是否太高了?
Is the VIX too low?” I’m like, “If it was too high it’d be lower.”
VIX 是否太低?我想,“如果太高了,那就更低了。”
The volatility thing — it’s a thing that I find incredibly weird because, like you, I find the world right now incredibly weird, and one wants to explain it.
波动性的事情 ——这是一件我觉得非常奇怪的事情,因为像你一样,我发现现在的世界非常奇怪,人们想要解释它。
I don’t know the right explanation.
我不知道正确的解释。
The explanation that I like is that the prices of financial assets have somewhat decoupled from human emotion about the world that is not financial assets.
我喜欢的解释是,金融资产的价格在某种程度上与人类对非金融资产世界的情感脱钩。
Why would that be?
为什么会这样呢?
I would love it to be a story — and there’s probably some argument for it to be a story — of markets have become more technological.
我希望它是一个市场已经变得更加技术化的故事——而且可能有一些争论认为它是一个故事。
Famously, stock prices overreacted to news, as measured by subsequent dividend changes forever.
众所周知,股价对新闻反应过度,这可以通过随后的股息永远变化来衡量。
Eventually that’s an anomaly that someone will exploit.
最终,这是一个被人利用的异常现象。
Eventually you’ll build the thing that reacts correctly to news.
最终你将构建出对新闻做出正确反应的东西。
I don’t think that’s a wholly compelling case.
我认为这不是一个完全令人信服的案例。
What I’d like the story to be is that financial markets have gotten smarter and they reacted less to news.
我希望这个故事是这样的:金融市场变得更加聪明,对新闻的反应也越来越少。
So even though the news is noisier, they react less to that noisy news because it turns out not to affect asset prices in as noisy a way as you’d think by watching TV.
因此,即使新闻噪音更大,他们对噪音的反应也较小,因为事实证明,它不会像你在电视上想象的那样影响资产价格。
I think that there is something compelling to that because we actually have seen smart people build smart things that do a good job of making investing decisions.
我认为这是有说服力的,因为我们实际上已经看到聪明的人建造了可以很好地做出投资决策的聪明的东西。
So you’d expect over time, as people build more rational investing tools, investing would become more rational.
所以你会期望随着时间的推移,随着人们建立更理性的投资工具,投资将变得更加理性。
The good counterargument to that is that investing is not a technological problem in the world that can be solved.
对此的一个很好的反驳是,投资并不是世界上可以解决的技术问题。
It’s an interpersonal fight.
这是一场人际斗争。
Trading, in particular, is an attempt to be better than someone else.
尤其是交易,是一种比别人更好的尝试。
You can never make trading more rational because as you get better, someone else gets better.
你永远无法让交易变得更加理性,因为当你变得更好时,其他人也会变得更好。
The residue will ultimately still be your human biases.
残留物最终仍然是你的人类偏见。
I’m biased towards the view that we have gotten smarter at decoupling our emotional reactions to the news from financial asset prices.
我偏向于这样一种观点,即我们已经变得更加聪明,能够将我们对新闻的情绪反应与金融资产价格脱钩。
Part of that is — whether or not that’s true globally — there’s a local sense in which the first day of Trump’s election everyone panicked.
部分原因是“无论全球是否如此”,当地有一种感觉,特朗普当选的第一天每个人都感到恐慌。
Then he said another crazy thing, and then he said another.
然后他又说了一句疯狂的话,然后他又说了一句。
Eventually you tune it out.
最终你把它调出来。
That’s a form of this thing of financial assets reacting less to human reactions to the news.
这是金融资产对人类对新闻反应的反应较少的一种形式。
There are three sets of market prices that bug me.
有三组市场价格让我烦恼。
One is Bitcoin and other cryptoassets.
一是比特币和其他加密资产。
Another is all the negative real yields on government securities, and sometimes even negative nominal yields.
另一个是政府证券的实际收益率全部为负,有时甚至名义收益率为负。
Then there’s blue chip stocks being so high.
然后就是蓝筹股的价格如此之高。
Could it be those three are part of the same general phenomenon, namely that good stores of value are relatively scarce compared to growing global wealth, and that money flows to each of those — it has nowhere else to go?
这三者是否属于同一普遍现象的一部分,即与不断增长的全球财富相比,良好的价值储存手段相对稀缺,而资金流向其中每一个——它无处可去?
They all look high.
他们看起来都很高。
They’re going to stay high.
他们将保持高位。
It’s a sign of our paucity of insurance markets and other ways of protecting wealth, and in some ways it’s a pessimistic sign.
这是我们缺乏保险市场和其他保护财富的方式的迹象,从某些方面来说,这是一个悲观的迹象。
So the price can be permanently high, and we should be worried about our own inability to deal with risk.
所以价格可能会永远居高不下,我们应该担心自己无法应对风险。
Yes or no?
是还是不是?
Sure, it’s a transmuted story of the financial crisis.
当然,这是一个金融危机的转变故事。
The supply of low-risk assets was insufficient to meet the demand, and so people built things that were low-risk financial assets that turned out to be risky.
低风险资产的供应不足以满足需求,因此人们建造了低风险金融资产,但结果却是有风险的。
Now it’s Bitcoin can replace CDOs maybe.
现在比特币也许可以取代 CDO。
There’s a lot of money-chasing assets that are good stores of value.
有很多追逐金钱的资产是很好的价值储存手段。
Investors who index.
指数投资者。
Again, a Matt Levine question.
又是马特·莱文的问题。
First, how worried are you about the spread of indexing?
首先,您对索引的传播有多担心?
Also, if you think of indexing as somewhat endogenous .
另外,如果您认为索引有点内生。
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so if more market research is needed, you would expect fewer people to index because there’s a high return to learning something.
因此,如果需要更多的市场研究,您会期望更少的人进行索引,因为学习某些东西会带来很高的回报。
The flow of funds in and out of indexing — how rational or efficient a process do you think that is at the end of the day?
资金流入和流出指数 ——您认为最终这个过程有多合理或高效?
And as we move more and more to indexing, how will this affect securities markets?
随着我们越来越多地转向指数化,这将如何影响证券市场?
Please address any combination of those you care to.
请对您关心的对象进行任意组合。
The thing that I like is that US public markets .
我喜欢的是美国公开市场。
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there are fewer companies, they’re older, they’re bigger, they’re more profitable.
公司数量更少,历史更悠久,规模更大,利润更高。
That’s an interesting fact about the composition of markets.
这是关于市场构成的一个有趣的事实。
One straightforward thing to take away from that is that, in a world like that, it makes sense to index more.
从中可以得出的一个直接的结论是,在这样的世界中,建立更多索引是有意义的。
In a world where you can’t find the next Facebook in public markets, in a world where all companies are the same — they’re established, they’re profitable, the spread between companies is narrower — the returns to the stock picking are going to be a little lower, and it’s more rational to index.
在一个你在公开市场上找不到下一个 Facebook 的世界里,在一个所有公司都是一样的世界里——它们已经成立,它们是盈利的,公司之间的价差更窄——选股的回报会稍微低一些,指数化也更加理性。
The next question is which side of it is causal.
下一个问题是哪一方是因果关系。
I think that there’s probably some story you could tell about the rise of indexing, and the focus on cost and investing generally, leading to a real focus on scale in investing.
我认为你可能可以讲述一些关于指数化兴起的故事,以及对成本和投资的普遍关注,从而导致对投资规模的真正关注。
When investment funds are trying to operate at enormous scale, the attractiveness of a $100 million IPO is lower.
当投资基金试图大规模运营时,1亿美元IPO的吸引力就会降低。
The attractiveness of a weird company that doesn’t fit into the index is lower.
不符合该指数的奇怪公司的吸引力较低。
You have the rise of indexing driving the phenomenon of there being fewer, larger, and more profitable public companies.
指数化的兴起推动了上市公司数量更少、规模更大、利润更高的现象。
You have a feedback loop in that sense.
从这个意义上说,你有一个反馈循环。
I feel like I’ve trailed away a little from your question.
我觉得我对你的问题有点偏离了。
On what makes an activity “nerdy”
论是什么让一项活动变得“书呆子”
Some activities are what we might call nerdy and others are not.
有些活动我们可以称之为书呆子,而另一些活动则不然。
Country and western music is not very nerdy.
乡村音乐和西部音乐并不是很书呆子气。
There are plenty of bars, say, in Lower Manhattan that are not very nerdy.
比如说,曼哈顿下城有很多酒吧都不是很书呆子气。
Finance has become pretty nerdy.
金融已经变得相当书呆子气了。
What makes an activity nerdy?
是什么让一项活动变得书呆子气?
Has finance become pretty nerdy?
金融已经变得相当书呆子了吗?
What makes an activity nerdy, there are two clusters of factors.
是什么让一项活动变得书呆子气,有两类因素。
One is having some sort of academic barrier, where you have to be smart to do it, or you have to learn something to do it.
一是存在某种学术障碍,你必须聪明才能做到这一点,或者你必须学习一些东西才能做到这一点。
The other, traditionally, is unpopularity, right?
另一个传统上是不受欢迎,对吗?
You’re a nerd because you’re not cool.
你是个书呆子,因为你不酷。
What’s happened with finance .
金融发生了什么事。
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finance in the last 10 years has become nerdier in the academic sense.
过去十年里,金融在学术意义上变得更加呆板。
The threshold to be hired on a trading floor in the days of Liar’s Poker was you needed to be a fun guy to hang out with, and maybe you’ve gone to high school.
在《说谎者扑克》时代,在交易大厅受聘的门槛是,你需要成为一个有趣的人,可以一起出去玩,而且也许你已经上过高中。
Now it’s like you need a PhD in physics.
现在就像你需要物理学博士学位一样。
So in that sense it’s become nerdier.
所以从这个意义上说,它变得更加书呆子了。
Computer programming when I was a kid was quite nerdy because it was academic, but also people were like, “Why are you doing that?
当我还是个孩子的时候,计算机编程非常书呆子,因为它是学术性的,但人们也会说,“你为什么这么做?
Go play sports.” Whereas now you see enough Mark Zuckerberg stories, and it’s like computer programming is the way to become a billionaire who has not just power, but controls the world’s social relationships.
去运动吧。”而现在你看到了足够多的马克·扎克伯格的故事,就好像计算机编程是成为亿万富翁的方式,他不仅拥有权力,而且控制着世界的社会关系。
Finance is at that weird point where in New York, if you go out to the club, there are a lot of finance people there.
金融界处于一个奇怪的阶段,在纽约,如果你去俱乐部,那里有很多金融界人士。
It doesn’t have quite that, the pure nerdiness component.
它并不具有纯粹的书呆子成分。
Has finance become less unpopular because of passage of time since the crisis?
金融危机以来,随着时间的推移,金融是否变得不那么不受欢迎了?
Or is it, in part, because tech is now so unpopular with the media and some intellectuals that it’s taken over that pride of place?
或者,部分是因为科技现在如此不受媒体和一些知识分子的欢迎,以至于它取代了这一引以为豪的地位?
Finance is pushed to the side, and we can be ignored a bit, maybe like highly skilled carpenters but nerdier?
金融被推到一边,我们可以被忽视一点,也许像技术高超的木匠,但更书呆子?
There is some of that.
有一些这样的。
I was taking a broader view of your question.
我对你的问题采取了更广泛的看法。
Finance was unpopular in the sense of niche.
从利基意义上来说,金融并不受欢迎。
Then it became extremely central to the world in like 2005, and then it became extremely unpopular.
然后它在 2005 年左右变得非常中心,然后又变得非常不受欢迎。
Extremely unpopular is almost as good as popular, in terms of not being nerdy.
就不书呆子而言,极不受欢迎几乎和受欢迎一样好。
If you’re a villain, you’re not a nerd.
如果你是一个恶棍,你就不是一个书呆子。
No, there is some of that.
不,有一些。
They say memories are short in finance, but it’s actually been 10 years since the crisis.
人们说金融界的记忆是短暂的,但实际上危机已经过去十年了。
There’s some reason for the world to have found new things to be interested in.
世界对新事物感兴趣是有原因的。
On the next financial crisis
关于下一次金融危机
Here’s a question from a reader.
这是一位读者的提问。
I quote, “Are there huge bets being made on Wall Street now that could end in something like the CDO-MBS financial crisis debacle?”
我引述道:“现在华尔街上下的巨额赌注是否会导致像 CDO-MBS 金融危机那样的崩溃?”
Maybe that I don’t know about.
也许我不知道。
My general impression is that the reform of financial regulations since the financial crisis has had a lot of its intended effects.
我的总体印象是,金融危机以来的金融监管改革收到了很多预期的效果。
One of those is that systemically important financial institutions, by some reasonable definition, probably aren’t making huge directional bets on things — like huge, levered, directional bets on things that aren’t traditional banking products, anyway.
其中之一是,根据某种合理的定义,具有系统重要性的金融机构可能不会对某些事物进行大规模的定向押注,比如对非传统银行产品的事物进行大规模的、杠杆式的定向押注。
You never know what someone’s getting up to, but I’d be surprised if there are huge, levered, directional bets existing at regulated financial institutions.
你永远不知道某人在做什么,但如果受监管的金融机构存在巨额的、杠杆的、定向的押注,我会感到惊讶。
Do you have a single biggest worry, however tiny, tiny, tiny it may be?
您是否有一个最大的担忧,无论它多么微小?
I don’t think I do.
我不这么认为。
I don’t think I do.
我不这么认为。
The thing that I find weirdest is the lack of volatility in the face of a very strange and volatile world, but I’ve reconciled myself to that.
我觉得最奇怪的事情是面对一个非常奇怪和不稳定的世界时缺乏波动性,但我已经接受了这一点。
This is my efficient markets optimism, where I assume that if something bad is happening, it would happen.
这是我的有效市场乐观主义,我认为如果发生不好的事情,它就会发生。
But efficient markets is also a pessimism, right?
但有效市场也是一种悲观主义,对吗?
It’s harder to make the world better than it already is because you can’t see past what others are seeing very easily.
让世界变得比现在更美好更加困难,因为你无法轻易看到别人看到的东西。
Sure, it’s an efficient markets conservatism or something.
当然,这是一种有效市场保守主义之类的。
If you were running the division of enforcement at the SEC right now, what would you be telling your people to concentrate on?
如果您现在负责 SEC 的执法部门,您会告诉您的员工要集中精力做什么?
ICO frauds is the simple thing.
ICO 欺诈很简单。
They’re all informed investors, right?
他们都是消息灵通的投资者,对吗?
Grandmas in this country are not buying ICOs so much.
这个国家的奶奶们并不那么热衷于购买 ICO。
Let them lose their money to each other, or not?
让他们互相赔钱,还是不?
I have an aesthetic objection to ICO frauds.
我对 ICO 欺诈有审美上的反对。
If you’re the division of enforcement at the SEC, very high on your list is protecting uninformed retail investors from fraud.
如果你是美国证券交易委员会的执法部门,你的首要任务就是保护不知情的散户投资者免受欺诈。
Also, pretty high on your list is protecting dumb retail investors from egregious frauds that make you look bad.
此外,你的首要任务是保护愚蠢的散户投资者免受严重欺诈,这些欺诈行为会让你看起来很糟糕。
You don’t really want to be the country where people are committing fraud, running pump-and-dump groups, talking about it, having articles written about it, and high-fiving each other.
你真的不想成为一个人们进行欺诈、经营拉高抛售团体、谈论它、撰写有关它的文章、互相击掌的国家。
It doesn’t seem to encourage confidence in the markets.
这似乎并没有增强人们对市场的信心。
The other thing, as the SEC division of enforcement, you might consider is larger, more systemic things than retail fraud.
另一件事,作为 SEC 的执法部门,您可能会考虑比零售欺诈更大、更系统的事情。
I’ve gone back and forth on this.
我在这个问题上反复讨论过。
I think that the grandmas losing their pensions to boiler room operators in Florida is a very clear harm.
我认为,佛罗里达州锅炉房运营商的奶奶们失去养老金是一个非常明显的伤害。
There’s a lot of interest among regulators in the people lying to their customers about large structured credit trades because those are bigger trades, and you can get bigger penalties because you’re defrauding a bank.
监管机构对那些就大型结构性信贷交易向客户撒谎的人非常感兴趣,因为这些交易规模更大,而且你可能会因为欺骗银行而受到更大的处罚。
You have to weigh the bigness of the potential harm and the overall size of the transaction with how morally and aesthetically abhorrent the transactions are.
你必须权衡潜在危害的严重程度、交易的总体规模以及交易在道德和审美上的令人厌恶的程度。
The person defrauding the grandma in the boiler room is very clearly doing something wrong.
在锅炉房里骗奶奶的人,显然是做错了事。
There’s a lot of gray-area behavior in institutional bond markets that has gotten a lot of focus because it is gray area, so it’s more interesting to bring a case if you’re a prosecutor or an enforcer.
机构债券市场存在很多灰色区域行为,这些行为之所以受到广泛关注,是因为它是灰色区域,因此,如果您是检察官或执法者,提起诉讼会更有趣。
And it’s institutional, so it’s a sexier thing to deal with than retail fraud in Florida.
而且它是制度性的,所以它比佛罗里达州的零售欺诈更容易处理。
In some ways, it’s less bang for your buck because you are tweaking the rules in a market that is essentially among informed investors who can take care of themselves.
在某些方面,这对你来说不太划算,因为你正在调整市场规则,而这个市场本质上是由能够照顾自己的知情投资者组成的。
On price discovery and IPOs
关于价格发现和首次公开募股
Like you, I’m mostly an efficient markets guy, but when I look at initial public offerings I’m very baffled because investment banks take such a huge cut.
和你一样,我主要是一个高效市场人士,但当我看到首次公开募股时,我感到非常困惑,因为投资银行收取如此之大的佣金。
If you needed to argue, “Well, they need the cut because they talk up the security, and in the absence of their efforts, no one would be interested, and it’s worth it,” maybe that argument works.
如果你需要争论,“嗯,他们需要削减,因为他们谈论安全性,如果没有他们的努力,没有人会感兴趣,这是值得的,”也许这个论点有效。
But it seems somewhat to stand in tension with an efficient markets hypothesis, which suggests the thing will find its appropriate level without any particular investor having to talk it up.
但这似乎与有效市场假说有些矛盾,有效市场假说表明,无需任何特定投资者的谈论,市场就会找到适当的水平。
Furthermore, attempts to get around the current mainstream system of IPOs have not always been successful.
此外,绕过当前主流首次公开募股制度的尝试并不总是成功。
Auctions have been tried.
已经尝试过拍卖。
Israel has tried other methods.
以色列还尝试了其他方法。
Spotify is giving it a go.
Spotify 正在尝试。
We’ll get further data, but they’re not obviously doing better.
我们将获得更多数据,但他们显然并没有做得更好。
How do you reconcile IPOs in their current form continuing, the investment banks taking such a huge cut, and some version of efficient markets hypothesis actually making sense?
您如何协调当前形式的首次公开募股(IPO)、投资银行大幅削减资金以及某些版本的有效市场假说实际上有意义?
Do you see what I’m asking?
你明白我在问什么吗?
How do I reconcile?
我该如何调和?
One version of efficient markets is that, in the absence of news, the price yesterday is going to be the price today, or whatever.
有效市场的一种版本是,在没有新闻的情况下,昨天的价格将是今天的价格,或者其他什么。
There’s some sort of continuity of prices.
价格存在某种连续性。
The IPO is a huge discontinuity.
此次IPO是一个巨大的中断。
You don’t have a price and then you have a price.
你没有价格,然后你就有了价格。
If your notion of efficient markets is a straight line of the price not moving very much or of the price instantly incorporating information, it’s not unintuitive that you’d have a big squiggle at the start, that you wouldn’t really know what the price is for three days, and then you would.
如果你对有效市场的概念是一条价格变动不大的直线,或者是价格立即包含信息的直线,那么一开始你就会有一个很大的曲线,你不会真正知道三天的价格,然后你就会知道,这并不是不合直觉的。
I don’t think it’s unusual that the first trade of a stock would not be the price that it settles to in a week, but then, the second week would be pretty close to the first week.
我认为股票的第一笔交易不是一周内确定的价格,但第二周将非常接近第一周,这并不罕见。
The direction is so predictable, though.
不过,方向是可以预测的。
That’s odd.
这很奇怪。
The pop, right?
流行音乐,对吧?
One thing that’s happening is that the banks are doing the work they’re getting paid for, which is going out to a bunch of buyers and talking about the stock and trying to generate a price.
正在发生的一件事是,银行正在做他们获得报酬的工作,即与一群买家讨论股票并试图产生价格。
That work is non–efficient markets work.
这项工作是非有效市场工作。
It’s M&A work.
这是并购工作。
There’s no visible price and you’re negotiating one-off with big investors.
没有明显的价格,你正在与大投资者进行一次性谈判。
Then, once they have that price, they sell it for less.
然后,一旦他们有了这个价格,他们就会以更低的价格出售。
Well, that’s not really true, but that’s kind of intuitively what’s happening, is that once they have that price, they sell it for less for a variety of reasons.
嗯,这不是真的,但直观上发生的事情是,一旦他们有了这个价格,他们就会因为各种原因以更低的价格出售。
The stories for it are, I think, somewhat compelling.
我认为它的故事有些引人注目。
You want a pop because you want the early investors to be rewarded for taking a leap of faith in the company.
你想要流行,因为你希望早期投资者因对公司的信心飞跃而得到回报。
That’s, maybe, a little silly on a giant IPO, but it’s not that silly on a tiny IPO, where there’s some hair on it, and where it’s a small company, and you have to give someone some expectation of returns to get interested.
对于大型 IPO 来说,这也许有点愚蠢,但对于小型 IPO 来说就没那么愚蠢了,因为它是一家小公司,有一些毛发,你必须给某人一些回报预期才能引起兴趣。
The other thing is, that work before the pop, figuring out what the thing is worth and selling it to investors and doing research and everything, that’s what the banks are getting paid for.
另一件事是,在流行之前就开始工作,弄清楚该东西的价值并将其出售给投资者并进行研究等等,这就是银行获得报酬的原因。
The pop is not the same thing as the bank’s fee.
流行音乐与银行费用不同。
The bank is doing work to try to get to a reasonable price, and then they’re selling it for 15 percent less than that price.
银行正在努力争取一个合理的价格,然后他们会以比该价格低 15% 的价格出售。
The other thing about the pop is that investors in the IPO have an interest in the stock going up.
关于这种流行的另一件事是,首次公开募股的投资者对股票上涨感兴趣。
The sellers in the IPO have no interest in the stock going down.
首次公开募股的卖家对股票下跌没有兴趣。
It’s bad for them.
这对他们不利。
It’s bad for them for a variety of reasons, the main one being that they are keeping most of the stock, and they don’t want the stock to go down.
出于多种原因,这对他们来说是不利的,主要原因是他们保留了大部分股票,并且他们不希望股票下跌。
When you have that set of dynamics, no one is sad when the stock goes up.
当你有这样的动力时,当股票上涨时,没有人会感到悲伤。
Everyone is sad if the stock goes down.
如果股价下跌,每个人都会感到难过。
Why would you overprice it?
你为什么要高估它的价格?
On the classics
论经典
Now, Matt speaks Latin, and he was a classics major as an undergraduate at Harvard.
现在,马特会说拉丁语,他是哈佛大学的一名本科生,主修古典学。
I don’t really speak Latin.
我真的不会说拉丁语。
COWEN: You once told me that law was easier than classics.
考恩:你曾经告诉我,法律比经典更容易。
What did you mean by that?
你这是什么意思?
I mean that the activity that you do in your academic job as an undergraduate or a law student is sitting around, analyzing dense texts, but in law, they’re mostly in English.
我的意思是,作为一名本科生或法学院学生,你在学术工作中所做的活动是坐下来分析密集的文本,但在法律领域,它们大多是英语的。
It’s very straightforward.
这非常简单。
If you’re not raised speaking ancient Greek, it is much easier to read even a 19th century legal decision than to read Thucydides.
如果你不是从小就说古希腊语,那么阅读 19 世纪的法律判决比阅读修昔底德要容易得多。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Law is so embedded in our society.
法律深深植根于我们的社会。
You grow up watching Law and Order or whatever.
你是看着《法律与秩序》或者其他什么东西长大的。
It is very much a part of the fabric of how we live.
它在很大程度上是我们生活方式的一部分。
Whereas reading Greek poetry when I was in college was an extremely niche activity and required a little bit more investment to come up to any familiarity with it.
而我在大学时阅读希腊诗歌是一项极其小众的活动,需要更多的投入才能熟悉它。
Now, I brought my copy of Horace’s Epistles for this conversation.
现在,我带来了贺拉斯书信来进行这次谈话。
It’s been terrifying me all day.
一整天都让我害怕。
I actually think of a lot of your Bloomberg writings as being a kind of modernized Horace.
事实上,我认为你在彭博社的很多著作都是一种现代化的贺拉斯。
You read Horace, there’s a preoccupation with wealth, with law.
你读过贺拉斯的著作,里面有对财富和法律的关注。
There’s a humor in it, the way he segues from one topic to another.
他从一个话题转到另一个话题的方式充满了幽默感。
There are even mixed feelings on how the pursuit of wealth would translate into happiness.
对于追求财富如何转化为幸福,人们甚至有着复杂的感受。
The length of a lot of Horace’s letters is actually, I bet, the same as the length of some of your Bloomberg columns.
我敢打赌,霍勒斯的很多信件的长度实际上与彭博社一些专栏的长度相同。
So this little quiz here .
所以这里有这个小测验。
.
。
.
。
I’m going to read a few sentences, and you need to tell me, were they written by Horace or were they written by Matt Levine?
我要读几句话,你需要告诉我,它们是霍勒斯写的还是马特·莱文写的?
This had better be easy.
这最好是简单的。
Are you going to read them in Latin?
你要读拉丁文版吗?
In English.
用英语。
Here’s the first one.
这是第一个。
Quote, “I store up and organize material so that I may be able to draw upon it before long.” Horace or Matt?
引用:“我储存并整理材料,以便不久之后我就可以利用它。”霍拉斯还是马特?
I’ll say Horace.
我会说霍拉斯。
That’s Horace.
那是贺拉斯。
Very good.
非常好。
From the Ars Poetica.
出自《诗学艺术》。
And he’s trying to tell you he doesn’t speak Latin.
他试图告诉你他不会说拉丁语。
That was in English.
那是英文的。
That was in English.
那是英文的。
“What is to prevent one from telling the truth as he laughs?”
“什么可以阻止一个人笑着说实话呢?”
Horace?
贺拉斯?
Horace.
贺拉斯。
OK, very good.
好的,非常好。
Two for two.
两个对两个。
Here’s another quote.
这是另一句话。
“Football player derivatives are the best derivatives.”
“足球运动员衍生品是最好的衍生品。”
Horace?
贺拉斯?
Three for three.
三对三。
Finally, quote, “In laboring to be concise, I become obscure.”
最后,引用一句:“在努力简洁的过程中,我变得晦涩难懂。”
Wow.
哇。
Horace.
贺拉斯。
Thumbs up, Horace.
竖起大拇指,霍拉斯。
Thumbs up, Horace.
竖起大拇指,霍拉斯。
When you’re an undergraduate classics major, you read Horace and Catullus, which are paired with each other.
当你是一名古典学专业的本科生时,你会阅读贺拉斯和卡图卢斯的作品,这两本书是相互配对的。
Catullus is the hotheaded young romantic who wrote quasi-pornographic love poems, and Horace is the older, wiser, backed away from the world.
卡图卢斯是一个头脑发热的年轻浪漫主义者,写了一些准色情的爱情诗,而贺拉斯则更年长、更聪明、远离尘世。
The famous Horace love poems are more cynical and better removed from the world.
著名的贺拉斯爱情诗更加愤世嫉俗,更加远离尘世。
That’s something I also admire and attempt to emulate in my own work.
这也是我所钦佩的,并试图在自己的工作中效仿。
I tell people I’m an opinion columnist and I don’t have any opinions.
我告诉人们我是一名意见专栏作家,我没有任何意见。
I try to be a little more removed from the passionate engagement.
我试着远离热情的参与。
As is often the case in some of the Latin classics.
正如一些拉丁经典中经常出现的情况。
What’s the best thing you’ve read or reread in Latin in the last five years?
过去五年里您读过或重读过的最好的拉丁语内容是什么?
I don’t read a lot of Latin in the last five years.
过去五年我读的拉丁文不多。
The answer honestly is, because I don’t read a lot, is Horace Odes, 1.5, the famous “Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa.” It’s the most famous world-weary, renunciatory Horatian love poem.
老实说,答案是,因为我读的不多,是Horace Odes,1.5,著名的“Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa”。这是霍拉蒂安最著名的厌世、放弃的爱情诗。
It’s good stuff.
这是好东西。
What do Latin speakers and readers get about ancient Rome that non-Latin speakers miss?
关于古罗马,讲拉丁语的人和读者有哪些是非拉丁语人士所怀念的?
I don’t have a substantive answer.
我没有实质性的答案。
What I took from my classical education is this sense of direct engagement with humans who lived 2,000 years ago.
我从古典教育中学到的是这种与 2000 年前的人类直接接触的感觉。
Cicero’s letters are a classic piece of Latin literature because Cicero is this famous, stern orator who wrote these very serious law court speeches.
西塞罗的信件是拉丁文学的经典之作,因为西塞罗是这位著名、严厉的演说家,他写下了这些非常严肃的法庭演讲。
But he also has a lot of letters that have come down to us.
但他也有很多信留给我们。
Some of them are for publicity, and some of them are much more personal, but they’re all, at least ostensibly, personal.
其中有些是为了宣传,有些则更加个人化,但至少表面上来说,它们都是个人的。
You get this sense of this actual human who’s this famous figure and this famous lawmaker.
你会感受到这个真实的人,他是这位著名的人物和这位著名的立法者。
You experience his consciousness more directly in his language.
你用他的语言更直接地体验他的意识。
That, to me, was the weird and interesting part of being a classics major, being able to sit with people from 2,000 years ago and see how many of their concerns are similar and see how many of their concerns are so different and so weird, in a pretty direct way.
对我来说,这是作为一名古典学专业的奇怪而有趣的部分,能够以一种非常直接的方式与 2000 年前的人们坐在一起,看看他们有多少担忧是相似的,看看他们有多少担忧如此不同和如此奇怪。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
Now, as you, Matt, know, in every conversation with Tyler, there’s a middle segment called “underrated versus overrated.” I toss something out.
现在,马特,你知道,在与泰勒的每次谈话中,都有一个中间部分,称为“被低估与被高估”。我扔掉一些东西。
You tell me if it’s underrated or overrated.
你告诉我它是否被低估或高估了。
You’re always free to pass, of course.
当然,你总是可以自由通过。
The first one is writing in legalese.
第一个是用法律术语写作。
Underrated or overrated?
被低估还是被高估?
It’s not great but underrated, I would say.
我想说,这不是很好,但被低估了。
I don’t know what that means, but in general, people are too quick to criticize jargon and legalese and all these things.
我不知道这意味着什么,但总的来说,人们太容易批评行话和法律术语以及所有这些东西。
There’s often a set of technical meanings that are just easier and more efficient to use when you’re using the jargon of a field.
当您使用某个领域的术语时,通常会有一组技术含义更容易、更有效地使用。
I think aesthetic criticisms of legalese are often overblown.
我认为对法律术语的美学批评常常被夸大了。
That said, I’ve read some really bad legal writing .
也就是说,我读过一些非常糟糕的法律著作。
.
。
.
。
some mixed feelings, but I’d say under.
有些复杂的感觉,但我会说下。
Legal realism, overrated or underrated?
法律现实主义,被高估还是被低估?
It feels like it’s gone from the academy.
感觉就像从学院里消失了一样。
It’s not something that people talk about in their daily life.
这不是人们在日常生活中谈论的事情。
To me, it explains everything, so I’d say under.
对我来说,它解释了一切,所以我会说下面。
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
吸血鬼杀手巴菲。
Oh, my god, underrated.
天哪,被低估了。
Well, highly rated but comparative .
嗯,评价很高,但比较。
.
。
.
。
among the most important American cultural products and not rated that way.
是美国最重要的文化产品之一,但并未被这样评价。
What makes it special?
它有何特别之处?
Part of it is, you go back and watch it, and it’s not as good as you think because it has had such an influence on later things that its shockingness has been attenuated.
有一部分是,你回去看,它并没有你想象的那么好,因为它对后来的事情影响太大了,它的震撼性被削弱了。
Part of it is its influence on subsequent television.
部分原因是它对后来的电视节目的影响。
It’s a perfect example of dealing very intelligently with serious themes in a way that, on its surface, and particularly in its title, is silly and is not presented as serious, which I think is, obviously, something that I often aspire to do.
这是一个非常聪明地处理严肃主题的完美例子,从表面上看,特别是在标题上,它很愚蠢,而且并不显得严肃,我认为这显然是我经常渴望做的事情。
I also think it’s something that the internet aspires to do.
我也认为这是互联网渴望做的事情。
I think a lot of modern internet culture has that vein of using colloquial language and being casual but attempting to address more serious issues.
我认为很多现代互联网文化都具有使用口语和随意但试图解决更严重问题的风格。
Buffy didn’t invent that, but Buffy is a cultural touchstone for some of that approach.
巴菲并没有发明这一点,但巴菲是这种方法的文化试金石。
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a perfect example of dealing very intelligently with serious themes in a way that, on its surface, and particularly in its title, is silly and is not presented as serious, which I think is, obviously, something that I often aspire to do.
《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》是一个完美的例子,它以一种非常聪明的方式处理严肃的主题,从表面上看,特别是在它的标题中,它是愚蠢的,并且没有表现得严肃,我认为这显然是我经常渴望做的事情。
Hearkening back to the Romans, Virgil’s magnum opus, the Aeneid.
回想起罗马人,维吉尔的代表作《埃涅阿斯纪》。
Overrated?
被高估了?
Yeah, sure.
是的,当然。
Overrated.
被高估了。
I told you when I was in college, I did a summer program in Rome run by Father Reginald Foster, who was the Latin secretary to the pope.
我告诉过你,当我上大学时,我在罗马参加了一个暑期项目,由雷金纳德·福斯特神父主持,他是教皇的拉丁语秘书。
He was a Carmelite friar from Wisconsin.
他是一位来自威斯康星州的加尔默罗会修道士。
He would have a program for whoever wants to come would come and read and speak Latin.
他会有一个计划,让任何想来的人都可以来阅读和说拉丁语。
We read some gorgeous passages of Ovid, and he concluded, he said, “Isn’t that nice?
我们读了奥维德的一些精彩段落,他总结道:“这不是很好吗?
Isn’t that better than Virgil?
这不是比维吉尔更好吗?
Virgil is gray and wicked.”
维吉尔是灰色的、邪恶的。”
I was always biased against Virgil after that.
从那以后我一直对维吉尔抱有偏见。
It’s not true, but he’s a propagandist.
这不是真的,但他是一名宣传员。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
He’s overrated.
他被高估了。
What’s the most underrated neighborhood of New York City?
纽约市最被低估的社区是哪个?
I was going to say, I don’t have an answer to that because I’ve only lived in extremely highly rated neighborhoods.
我想说,我没有答案,因为我只住在评价极高的社区。
I live in Park Slope now, which some magazine, a few years ago, declared the best neighborhood in America, which it would be hard to argue .
我现在住在公园坡,几年前,一些杂志宣称这里是美国最好的社区,这是很难争辩的。
.
。
.
。
It may be better yet.
情况可能会更好。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Park Slope has adjacent .
公园坡有毗邻。
.
。
.
。
Gowanus.
高瓦努斯。
Maybe I’d say Gowanus is underrated.
也许我会说高瓦努斯被低估了。
It’s a great food destination.
这是一个很棒的美食目的地。
It’s got great industrial chic architecture.
它有很棒的工业别致建筑。
Sure, Gowanus.
当然,高瓦努斯。
Footnotes, overrated or underrated?
脚注,高估还是低估?
I feel like they’re underrated but fairly rated now.
我觉得他们被低估了,但现在评价还不错。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
People have come around on footnotes.
人们已经开始关注脚注。
COWEN: A lot of footnotes started in medieval times as commentary on the Latin classics, of course, including Horace.
考恩:很多脚注始于中世纪,作为对拉丁经典的评论,当然包括贺拉斯。
Sure.
当然。
The notion of an intertextuality, like having multiple lines of the text, having a main line and having asides, is a valuable notion and one that, I think, has been valorized by internet writing in a way.
互文性的概念,就像多行文本、主线和旁白一样,是一个有价值的概念,我认为,在某种程度上,它已经被网络写作所重视。
You have links.
你有链接。
The notion of having a single narrative with no distractions and having that be the highest achievement of writing is, I think, a little diminished by the internet.
我认为,没有干扰的单一叙述以及将其作为写作的最高成就的概念被互联网削弱了一些。
Therefore, footnotes have become more appropriately valued.
因此,脚注变得更加受重视。
On the weird world of banks
银行的奇异世界
What financial stories or issues do you think are not getting enough coverage and why?
您认为哪些金融故事或问题没有得到足够的报道?为什么?
It’s hard for me to answer questions like that because I am such a creature of coverage.
我很难回答这样的问题,因为我是一个喜欢报道的人。
I wake up and I read the news and I write about it.
我醒来后读了新闻并写下了它。
I rarely take a step back.
我很少后退一步。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
The thing that I would like to read and hear more about is .
我想阅读和听到更多的是。
.
。
.
。
I came to this from a bank.
我是从一家银行来到这里的。
I think banks are interesting objects.
我认为银行是有趣的对象。
Banks and hedge funds are not perfect substitutes for each other.
银行和对冲基金并不是彼此的完美替代品。
Banks do something interesting.
银行做了一些有趣的事情。
There’s a lot about it, but I’d be interested in seeing more because I don’t feel like I have a good answer on what will happen to banks.
有很多内容,但我有兴趣看到更多,因为我觉得我对银行将发生什么没有一个很好的答案。
We’re in the early days of, seems to be pretty wholesale financial deregulation.
我们正处于大规模金融放松管制的早期阶段。
Obviously, banks in 2006 were different places from what they are now.
显然,2006 年的银行与现在不同。
One possibility is they’ll go back to doing exactly what they did in 2006.
一种可能性是他们会回到 2006 年那样做。
Another possibility is they’ll go back to doing something precisely analogous to that but in totally different instruments and ways but will be similarly freewheeling, fascinating, dangerous places.
另一种可能性是,他们会回去做一些与此完全相似的事情,但采用完全不同的手段和方式,但同样会是随心所欲、令人着迷、危险的地方。
Another possibility is a switch has been effectively flipped within the culture, and they won’t go back.
另一种可能性是文化内部的转变已经被有效地翻转,他们不会再回去了。
I just don’t know.
我只是不知道。
I think that banks have become very boring.
我认为银行已经变得很无聊了。
I think the coverage of what banks are doing to be more interesting.
我认为对银行正在做的事情的报道更有趣。
Things have moved on to more interesting places.
事情已经转移到了更有趣的地方。
There’s a million articles about Bitcoin.
关于比特币的文章有一百万篇。
It’s possible that banks will be becoming more interesting, and I don’t have a handle on the ways in which they’re doing that.
银行可能会变得更加有趣,但我不知道他们是如何做到这一点的。
Bloomberg aside, who would you say is underfollowed as a writer, not counting our colleagues?
抛开彭博社不谈,除了我们的同事之外,你认为谁作为作家没有受到关注?
I always want to pass on these.
我一直想把这些传承下去。
I just forget people.
我只是忘记了人。
On Iliad and Nabokov’s Pnin
论《伊利亚特》和纳博科夫的《普宁》
Ovid once wrote, “In our leisure, we reveal what kind of people we are.” Do you agree?
奥维德曾经写道:“在闲暇时,我们会暴露自己是什么样的人。”你同意?
I guess.
我猜。
Yeah, sure.
是的,当然。
In my leisure, I read the internet and do crossword puzzles.
闲暇时,我会上网、做填字游戏。
Hang out with my daughter.
和我女儿一起出去玩。
I’m pretty boring in my leisure, which is probably accurate.
我闲暇时很无聊,这可能是准确的。
You once wrote — I think this was a speculation rather than a definitive pronouncement.
你曾经写道 —— 我认为这是一种猜测,而不是一个明确的声明。
Everything is.
一切都是。
COWEN: But you wrote, “I think more and more about how all of Western culture is a footnote to Iliad, Book 9.
考恩:但你写道,“我越来越多地思考所有西方文化如何成为《伊利亚特》第九卷的脚注。
What did you mean?
你什么意思?
I have an idiosyncratic take on Book 9 of the Iliad.
我对《伊利亚特》第九卷有一种独特的看法。
The Iliad is the story of Achilles is the great warrior on the Greek side in the Trojan War.
《伊利亚特》讲述了特洛伊战争中希腊一方伟大战士阿喀琉斯的故事。
He gets mad at some slight, and he goes back to his tent to sulk, and the Greeks start losing.
他因为一些小事而生气,然后回到帐篷生闷气,希腊人开始失败。
So then they send emissaries to his tent to say, “Please come back.” And he says, “No.” Then, the Greeks start losing some more.
于是他们派使者到他的帐篷去说:“请回来。”他说:“不。”然后,希腊人开始失去更多。
Eventually, he comes back, and he gets killed.
最终,他回来了,却被杀了。
That’s basically the story of the Iliad.
这基本上就是《伊利亚特》的故事。
Book 9 is where they send the emissaries to say, “Please come back,” and he says, “No.”
在第九卷中,他们派使者说:“请回来,”他说:“不。”
He gives this speech, this response that is weird, where he says, effectively, “The prophecy is that if I go back to fight here, I will die here.
他发表了这次演讲,这种反应很奇怪,他有效地说,“预言是,如果我回去这里战斗,我会死在这里。
My name will be immortal.
我的名字将永垂不朽。
If I don’t go back to fight, I’ll go home and live a long life and will be forgotten.” He chooses to go back and be forgotten.
如果我不回去战斗,我就会回家,过上很长的生活,然后就会被遗忘。”他选择回去并被遗忘。
Then, later, he changes his mind because his friend gets killed.
后来,他改变了主意,因为他的朋友被杀了。
I think the existential examination of this Greek warrior and this heroic culture that clearly valorizes heroism and deathless fame and everything, and who is, canonically, the most famous heroic warrior and the one with the most deathless fame, he’s the one who says, “Nah, I’d rather go back and live a long life on my farm.”
我认为,对这位希腊战士和这种英雄文化的存在主义审视,这种文化明显推崇英雄主义和不朽的名声以及一切,而且他是典型的最著名的英雄战士和最不朽名声的人,他是那个说:“不,我宁愿回去在我的农场里过上长寿的人。”
The forcing of that choice is the central point of the highest work of Greek art, sort of prefigures a lot of existentialist thought in the future, I think.
我认为,强迫这种选择是希腊艺术最高作品的中心点,在某种程度上预示着未来的许多存在主义思想。
What makes Nabokov’s Pnin an interesting novel?
纳博科夫的《普宁》为何成为一部有趣的小说?
You’ve been reading my secret Tumblr.
你一直在阅读我的秘密 Tumblr。
Which I’m not going to link up to.
我不会链接到哪个。
It’s just very Nabokovian.
这非常纳博科夫式的。
He’s just this great esthete of almost pointless pleasure in writing.
他就是一位伟大的审美家,在写作中享受着几乎毫无意义的乐趣。
There’s this scene that I love where Pnin, the absentminded professor character, is heartbroken after a run-in with his ex-wife.
我喜欢这个场景,普宁,一个心不在焉的教授角色,在与前妻发生争执后伤心欲绝。
He’s dejectedly walking through the park on the way home, and he’s pondering the meaning of life.
回家的路上他垂头丧气地走过公园,思考着人生的意义。
Nabokov says something like he’s almost come upon a solution to one of the great mysteries of life.
纳博科夫说,他几乎找到了生命中最大谜团之一的答案。
Then he’s interrupted by a squirrel who runs up on a water fountain and demands that he help the squirrel drink from the water fountain.
然后他被一只松鼠打断,松鼠跑到饮水机上,要求他帮助松鼠喝饮水机里的水。
So he helps the squirrel, and then he moves on.
于是他帮助了松鼠,然后继续前进。
It’s just this random interlude of gorgeous writing and bizarre scenery and just random pileup of weird delightfulness with no point that I find very appealing.
这只是华丽的写作和奇异的风景的随机插曲,以及奇怪的愉悦的随机堆积,没有任何一点让我觉得非常吸引人。
Nabokov’s Pnin has this random interlude of gorgeous writing and bizarre scenery and just random pileup of weird delightfulness with no point that I find very appealing.
纳博科夫的《普宁》有华丽的写作和奇异的风景的随机插曲,以及随机堆积的奇怪的愉悦,没有任何一点我觉得很吸引人。
If we think about mergers and acquisitions, one of the standard results in the empirical finance literature is that acquiring firms do fairly poorly.
如果我们考虑并购,实证金融文献中的标准结果之一就是收购公司的表现相当糟糕。
That is, acquisitions don’t seem to pay off.
也就是说,收购似乎没有回报。
Yet, of course, acquisitions persist.
然而,当然,收购仍然存在。
You’ve done M&A work in your life.
您一生中从事过并购工作。
How do you think about this process?
您如何看待这个过程?
If it doesn’t pay off, is it about empire building?
如果没有回报,是为了建立帝国吗?
Is it about winner’s curse?
是关于胜利者的诅咒吗?
Do you somehow not trust the data?
您是否不相信这些数据?
You would challenge the interpretation of the result?
您会质疑对结果的解释吗?
Or how good are acquisitions for the acquiring firm?
或者收购公司的收购效果如何?
And what goes wrong?
出了什么问题?
I wouldn’t challenge the data.
我不会质疑这些数据。
It’s a similar story to active management in some ways.
在某些方面,这与主动管理类似。
The fact that M&A is bad doesn’t mean that your merger will be bad, right?
并购不好并不意味着你的合并就会不好,对吧?
LEVINE: One, there’s obviously a bias towards empire building.
莱文:第一,人们显然对建立帝国有偏见。
Two, you don’t say that.
二、你不这么说。
You’re not like, “Well, I’d like to have a bigger company to run.” What you say is, “This merger will be good.” And you believe it.
你不会说,“好吧,我想要经营一家更大的公司。”你说的是,“这次合并会很好。”你相信它。
The data is not overwhelming that all mergers are bad.
数据并不表明所有合并都是糟糕的。
The data is like, on average, they’re a little bad.
平均而言,这些数据有点糟糕。
So you say, “Here are the reasons why we are better.” Everyone can say that, and 49 percent of them will be right.
所以你会说:“这就是我们做得更好的原因。”每个人都可以这么说,而且 49% 的人是对的。
You throw in some empire building, and it’s a .
你再加上一些帝国建筑,它就是一个。
.
。
.
。
People want to do stuff.
人们想做事。
It’s very similar to the active management story.
这与主动管理的故事非常相似。
You want to do stuff.
你想做点事。
You see an active manager who seems smart, has a good reading.
你会看到一位活跃的经理,他看起来很聪明,读书也很好。
You see a charismatic banker or charismatic corporate development guy or whatever, and you want to do some stuff, and then you can persuade yourself that you’re in the 49 percent.
你看到一个有魅力的银行家或有魅力的企业发展人员或其他什么人,你想做一些事情,然后你可以说服自己你是 49% 的人。
The Shad-Johnson agreement.
沙德-约翰逊协议。
Should the SEC and CFTC be independent agencies, or should they be combined into one?
SEC 和 CFTC 应该是独立机构,还是应该合并为一个机构?
I don’t have a strong view on that.
我对此没有强烈的看法。
I don’t see a compelling difference among them.
我认为它们之间没有明显的区别。
If you combine them, there’d be departments for commodities and departments for equities.
如果把它们结合起来,就会有商品部门和股票部门。
If you split off the SEC into equities and the bond department tomorrow, I’m not sure what the institutional dynamics are that matter very much.
如果你明天将 SEC 分为股票部门和债券部门,我不确定哪些机构动态非常重要。
I suspect that most of the time, the agencies are roughly on board with each other in a broadly “how much regulation should there be” perspective.
我怀疑大多数时候,这些机构大致上是从“应该有多少监管”的角度来相互配合的。
Obviously, there are times that they aren’t.
显然,有时情况并非如此。
The CFTC fighting against derivatives in the early 2000s is a famous example of that.
CFTC 在 2000 年代初打击衍生品就是一个著名的例子。
In general, I’m not sure what the dynamics are where it matters that much one way or the other.
总的来说,我不确定其中的动态是什么,无论从哪一方面都如此重要。
Is American financial regulation too federalistic and too fragmented or not?
美国的金融监管是否过于联邦化和过于分散?
In my experience, the existence of state financial regulation was only a weird footnote.
根据我的经验,国家金融监管的存在只是一个奇怪的脚注。
But I think, in general, it is almost certainly too federalistic and fragmented.
但我认为,总的来说,它几乎肯定过于联邦化和碎片化。
The example that was not core to my experience as a person in finance is insurance regulation.
作为一个金融从业者,保险监管并不是我的核心经验的例子。
It’s very clearly too state-based and fragmented and gameable, and I think that there are probably some securities cases that are similar.
很明显,这太以国家为基础、过于分散和可博弈,而且我认为可能存在一些类似的证券案例。
But insurance regulation is kind of the big one.
但保险监管是一项重大监管。
Then you could argue that corporate law should be federalized.
那么你可能会争辩说公司法应该联邦化。
I don’t think that there’s a huge case for that, just because in practice, corporate law is a creature of Delaware.
我认为这没有什么大道理,只是因为在实践中,公司法是特拉华州的产物。
It’s essentially there’s only one corporate law anyway.
无论如何,本质上只有一部公司法。
What’s the most overrated neighborhood in New York City?
纽约市最被高估的社区是哪个?
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Pass.
经过。
Why is William Gaddis an interesting writer?
为什么威廉·加迪斯是一位有趣的作家?
Why is William Gaddis an interesting writer?
为什么威廉·加迪斯是一位有趣的作家?
Because he’s part of that .
因为他是其中的一部分。
.
。
.
。
I don’t know, there’s a period of interesting modernist experimentation that’s .
我不知道,有一段时期是有趣的现代主义实验。
.
。
.
。
I feel like the peak of it was from Joyce through mid-’50s or something, and I think Gaddis is the most contemporary weird writer.
我觉得它的顶峰是从乔伊斯到五十年代中期左右,我认为加迪斯是当代最奇怪的作家。
Like weird midcentury, esoteric, yeah.
就像奇怪的中世纪、深奥的,是的。
On the Matt Levine production function
关于马特·莱文生产函数
I sometimes like to say, “Matt Levine, only you can do what you do.” So my final question is about what I call the Matt Levine production function.
我有时喜欢说:“马特·莱文,只有你能做你所做的事。”所以我的最后一个问题是关于我所说的马特·莱文生产函数。
So many days in the week, early in the morning typically, you have produced something that is perfectly clear and lucid and witty and informative and original.
一周中的很多天,通常是在清晨,你已经写出了一些非常清晰、清晰、诙谐、内容丰富且原创的东西。
So many days over the course of a year — more than anyone else I know — spanning law, economics, finance, history, other things.
一年中这么多天——“比我认识的任何人都多”——涵盖法律、经济、金融、历史和其他事物。
There are many facets of your day in your work routines, but if you had to explain to someone what is the Matt Levine production function, what is it you would draw our attention to?
您的日常工作涉及很多方面,但如果您必须向某人解释什么是马特·莱文生产函数,您会引起我们注意的是什么?
I think, like a lot of people, a lot of it is panic.
我认为,像很多人一样,很多都是恐慌。
I tell you what, I at various points thought of being a law professor.
我告诉你,我曾多次想过成为一名法学教授。
I thought of being a classics professor, and I never could write papers.
我想成为一名古典学教授,但我一直写不出论文。
I turned in my final paper in law school two weeks after graduation.
毕业两周后,我提交了法学院的期末论文。
When I thought about leaving my job as a banker to become a blogger, my girlfriend — now wife — was like, “Remember how you didn’t write your papers in law school?
当我考虑辞去银行家的工作,成为一名博主时,我的女朋友 ——现在的妻子 ——就像是,“还记得你在法学院时没有写论文吗?
Are you sure you want to do this?”
你确定要这样做吗?
What I think is, people have their proper metabolism for producing stuff.
我认为,人们有适当的新陈代谢来生产东西。
For me, I wouldn’t say it’s easy.
对我来说,我不会说这很容易。
It’s incredibly difficult, but it is reliable that I can produce something in a panic every day.
虽然很难,但是每天都能慌慌张张地产出点东西是可靠的。
Whereas, I think if I had to produce something every week — and I have some experience with this — if I have to produce something every week, I do it about every three weeks.
然而,我认为如果我必须每周生产一些东西 ——并且我在这方面有一些经验—— 如果我必须每周生产一些东西,我大约每三周就会做一次。
That’s one thing, is just the drive of panic.
这是一回事,只是恐慌的驱动力。
What I think is, people have their proper metabolism for producing stuff.
我认为,人们有适当的新陈代谢来生产东西。
For me…it is reliable that I can produce something in a panic every day.
对我来说……每天都能慌慌张张地产出点东西是可靠的。
Whereas, I think if I had to produce something every week, I do it about every three weeks.
然而,我认为如果我必须每周制作一些东西,我大约每三周制作一次。
The other thing is, I try to be pretty ruthlessly focused on places where I have an advantage or where I can add value.
另一件事是,我尝试无情地专注于我有优势或可以增加价值的地方。
One nice thing about working at Bloomberg is that if I don’t write about something, someone else will write about it.
在彭博社工作的一大好处是,如果我不写某件事,其他人就会写。
I don’t ever write about things because someone needs to write about it.
我从来不会写一些事情,因为有人需要写它。
If I write about it, it’s because I have something to say about it.
如果我写它,那是因为我有话要说。
That, I think, is a rare and valuable flexibility to have.
我认为,这是一种罕见且有价值的灵活性。
My beat, I’m not doing things because I have to do them.
我的节拍,我做事不是因为我必须做。
Those are main things.
这些是主要的事情。
The other thing that I have is, I worked on this weird derivatives desk at a bank where I was an investment banker, so I covered corporate clients.
我的另一件事是,我在一家银行的奇怪衍生品柜台工作,当时我是一名投资银行家,所以我负责企业客户。
I went to meet with corporate clients with coverage bankers who did M&A.
我去会见了从事并购业务的银行家和企业客户。
I was also selling them equity derivative products, which were booked against our trading desk and where we were acting as a principal.
我还向他们出售股票衍生产品,这些产品是在我们的交易柜台登记的,我们是委托人。
I was also underwriting convertible bonds.
我还承销了可转换债券。
I was seeing a lot of different sides of a bank and exposed to a lot of different ways of being in finance.
我看到了银行的许多不同方面,并接触到了许多不同的金融方式。
The life of an investment banker is very different from the life of a VAL trader.
投资银行家的生活与 VAL 交易员的生活有很大不同。
I was, to some extent, bridging those lives, which was helpful.
在某种程度上,我正在弥合这些生活,这很有帮助。
The other thing I was doing is, I was explaining fairly complicated products to smart people who did not know anything about them.
我正在做的另一件事是,我向对产品一无所知的聪明人解释相当复杂的产品。
You’d go to a CFO and be like, “What you want to do is an uncapped collared ASB with variable maturity.” They’d be like .
你会去找首席财务官说,“你想要做的是一个成熟度可变的无上限、有领子的 ASB。”他们会像。
.
。
.
。
Then you’d have to explain to them, not what the thing was — because they don’t care what the set of legal documents are — but what the economic intuitions behind it are.
然后你必须向他们解释,而不是解释这件事是什么——因为他们不关心那套法律文件是什么——而是解释其背后的经济直觉是什么。
That explaining economic intuitions to a smart person about a thing that is complicated is, I think, valuable in my current job.
我认为,向聪明人解释复杂事物的经济直觉对于我目前的工作很有价值。
The other thing that was valuable about that is that the economic intuitions I was explaining to the CFO were not necessarily the economic intuitions that we had.
另一件有价值的事情是,我向首席财务官解释的经济直觉不一定是我们拥有的经济直觉。
We were doing the trade for something, for some exposure that we wanted or some set of payoffs that we got.
我们进行交易是为了某些东西,为了我们想要的一些曝光或者我们得到的一些回报。
They were doing the trading for some other set of payoffs, and it wasn’t like we were betting against them.
他们进行交易是为了获得其他一些回报,我们并不是在与他们做空。
It was like we had two overlapping sets of interests in the trade.
就好像我们在这个行业有两套重叠的利益。
Having some awareness of that is useful in looking at complicated financial things, that different people can be getting something different and complicated out of a trade that is not necessarily described in the public documents for that trade.
认识到这一点对于看待复杂的金融事物是有用的,不同的人可以从交易中获得不同且复杂的东西,而这些东西不一定在该交易的公共文件中描述。
Matt Levine, only you can do what you do.
马特·莱文,只有你才能做你所做的事。
Thank you for the conversation.
谢谢你的谈话。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Q&A
问答
Hey, thanks a lot.
嘿,非常感谢。
On the topic of efficient markets and cryptoassets, I wonder if you think it’s possible that the prices of many of these assets are far too high now and if that might be because the risks of buying and the risks of selling are very different.
关于有效市场和加密资产的话题,我想知道您是否认为现在许多这些资产的价格可能太高了,这是否可能是因为购买的风险和出售的风险非常不同。
In particular, whether there’s other assets like, say, binary options or something that might result in more accurate, lower prices?
特别是,是否还有其他资产,例如二元期权或可能导致更准确、更低价格的资产?
I’ll preface by saying, in general, I’m an efficient markets believer.
我首先要说的是,总的来说,我是有效市场的信徒。
I never want to be like, “All these cryptos are too highly valued, and they’re all going to crash to zero.” Because what do I know?
我从来不想说,“所有这些加密货币的价值都太高了,它们都会崩溃到零。”因为我知道什么?
That said, do I think that there are some, let’s say, technical reasons that a lot of cryptoassets are too highly valued?
也就是说,我是否认为有一些技术原因导致许多加密资产估值过高?
I do think that there are some obvious limits to arbitrage.
我确实认为套利存在一些明显的限制。
One is that there’s a perception that it’s hard to short a lot of cryptoassets.
一是人们认为做空大量加密资产很困难。
Some people tell me that’s not true and you can borrow Bitcoin, no problem.
有些人告诉我这不是真的,你可以借用比特币,没问题。
But there is a perception that it’s hard to short them.
但有人认为很难做空它们。
Even if it’s easy to borrow them, it’s always more dangerous to short something super volatile than to long something super volatile.
即使借用它们很容易,做空超波动性的东西总是比做多超波动性的东西更危险。
The other thing that I don’t really understand about Bitcoin is exchange withdrawal limits that make it seem like there are a lot of places where you can buy bitcoin and then not sell them, never mind shorting.
我对比特币不太了解的另一件事是交易所提现限制,这使得看起来有很多地方你可以购买比特币,然后不能出售它们,更不用说做空了。
Where it is very easy to put as much money as you want into an exchange to buy as many bitcoins as you want, but selling those bitcoins and taking your cash out is a more complicated and lengthier process.
在交易所中投入尽可能多的钱来购买尽可能多的比特币是很容易的,但出售这些比特币并取出现金是一个更加复杂和漫长的过程。
I don’t know that that’s true at all exchanges, but it’s clearly true at some exchanges.
我不知道所有交易所都是如此,但在某些交易所显然是这样。
So yeah, there are some technical factors that probably lead to Bitcoin overvaluation.
所以,是的,有一些技术因素可能导致比特币估值过高。
Can technical things solve that?
技术上的东西能解决这个问题吗?
Maybe.
或许。
The spread between futures and cash has converged, which suggests that there is some price discovery going on in the futures market, and maybe it is being helpful in Bitcoin.
期货和现金之间的价差已经趋同,这表明期货市场正在发生一些价格发现,也许这对比特币有帮助。
I’ve never heard an argument that binary options make pricing more efficient in any asset class, but who knows?
我从未听说过二元期权可以使任何资产类别的定价更加有效的论点,但谁知道呢?
Next question is here in the front, if you could bring the mic.
下一个问题就在前面,你是否可以带麦克风。
My question for you, Matt, is, how do you avoid writing on political topics when it feels like that’s what the whole rest of the world is talking about, or does an editor strike the paragraphs right before posting?
马特,我要问你的问题是,当你感觉全世界都在谈论政治话题时,你如何避免写政治话题,或者编辑在发帖前删除了这些段落?
No, quite the opposite.
不,恰恰相反。
Sometimes I strike the paragraphs right before posting, but not often.
有时我会在发帖前删除这些段落,但这种情况并不常见。
It’s actually pretty easy to avoid writing what everyone else is writing about.
实际上很容易避免写其他人正在写的内容。
As I said to Tyler, my interest is in places where I have an advantage.
正如我对泰勒所说,我的兴趣在于我有优势的地方。
It seems to me that even if I write a really good take on Trump, it will only be the 50th best take on Trump of the 12,000 written that morning, whereas if I write about KodakCoin, I’ll be only 1 of 20 people writing about Kodak.
在我看来,即使我写了一篇关于特朗普的非常好的文章,它也只能是那天早上写的 12,000 篇关于特朗普的最佳文章中的第 50 位,而如果我写关于柯达币的文章,我也只是写关于柯达的 20 个人中的一个。
If I write about gaming of FIRC regulations, I might be the only one.
如果我写关于 FIRC 法规博弈的文章,我可能是唯一的一个。
You don’t want to only write about total esoterica, but it’s really easy to figure that people are full up on Trump news and want something else.
你不想只写深奥的内容,但很容易发现人们已经对特朗普新闻了如指掌,想要一些其他的东西。
That’s empirically true because when I do occasionally write about political news, people email me.
这在经验上是正确的,因为当我偶尔写一些政治新闻时,人们会给我发电子邮件。
They’re like, “Man, your newsletter is such a nice relief from political news.
他们会说,“伙计,你的时事通讯让我们从政治新闻中解脱出来。
I’m so mad that you wrote about Trump today.”
我很生气你今天写了关于特朗普的文章。”
Front row there’s a question.
前排有个问题。
We’re in Midtown, where there’s an extreme clustering of the finance industry, an industry where rarely do we actually need to meet each other.
我们在中城,金融业极度聚集,而我们实际上很少需要在这个行业见面。
Do you think that will grow, continue, decay?
您认为这种情况会增长、持续还是衰退?
For me to restate that, why is there such extreme clustering in the finance industry, an industry where it seems we don’t need to meet each other so much?
我再说一遍,为什么金融行业会出现如此极端的集群现象,这个行业看起来我们并不需要如此频繁地见面?
Do you think that will grow or decay?
你认为它会增长还是衰退?
I guess it’ll decay.
我猜它会腐烂。
I worked as an investment banker.
我曾担任投资银行家。
There is something in high-dollar sales about .
高额销售额是有道理的。
.
。
.
。
people really believe in in-person meetings.
人们确实相信面对面的会议。
I experienced it where I’d go to a meeting where a colleague would dial in, and you could tell how much better my experience was in the room than her experience was on the phone.
我经历过这样的情况:我去参加一个会议,一位同事拨入电话,你可以看出我在房间里的体验比她在电话里的体验好得多。
On the one hand, to the extent that trading consists of computers trading with each other, it does seem somewhat unnecessary that we all sit within 10 blocks of each other.
一方面,就交易由计算机之间的交易组成而言,我们似乎没有必要坐在彼此相距 10 个街区的范围内。
On the other hand, to the extent that finance is the business of M&A and of very high-dollar sales businesses, I’m not sure that it’s as amenable to fragmentation as you might think.
另一方面,就金融是并购业务和高额销售业务而言,我不确定它是否像您想象的那样容易出现碎片化。
Three rows back, this question in the middle.
后三排,这个问题在中间。
If you could pass the mic.
如果你能把麦克风递过去就好了。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Apologies for another crypto question.
对另一个加密问题表示歉意。
To me, the fact that Bitcoin took off — some would say because it has a fixed supply — has made me question even how much low and stable inflation has political costs.
对我来说,比特币腾飞的事实——“有些人会说因为它有固定的供应量”——让我质疑低而稳定的通胀会带来多少政治成本。
My question would be, how has the rise of crypto changed your mind about some of your beliefs around finance and economics?
我的问题是,加密货币的兴起如何改变了您对金融和经济信念的看法?
How has the rise of crypto changed your mind about some of your beliefs on economics and finance?
加密货币的兴起如何改变了您对经济和金融的一些信念的看法?
It’s hard.
这很难。
It has probably, at the margin, weakened my general view of myself as an efficient market fundamentalist.
它可能在一定程度上削弱了我对自己作为有效市场原教旨主义者的总体看法。
It feels so weird.
感觉很奇怪。
It feels so weird.
感觉很奇怪。
When you say that you believe in efficient markets, one aspect of that is believing that markets incorporate fundamental information in some way.
当你说你相信有效市场时,一方面是相信市场以某种方式包含基本信息。
Whatever Bitcoin is doing, it’s not that.
无论比特币在做什么,它都不是那样的。
It is just weird on that basis.
在此基础上这很奇怪。
Beyond that, I don’t know.
除此之外,我不知道。
This is not a good answer, but I’m used to believing in a financial system where it’s not just a series of actors, but where there is a sociological set of connections between the banks do this, and the prime brokers do this, and the hedge funds do this, and the retail investors do that.
这不是一个好的答案,但我习惯于相信一个金融体系,它不仅仅是一系列参与者,而是银行之间存在着一系列社会学联系,银行这样做,主要经纪人这样做,对冲基金这样做,散户投资者这样做。
There’s this very structured system.
有一个非常结构化的系统。
Bitcoin really is a spike that is totally unrelated to that system and that has, nonetheless, had pretty big impact and also had pretty big impact on that system, where all the actors in that system are recalibrating themselves.
比特币确实是一个与该系统完全无关的峰值,尽管如此,它却产生了相当大的影响,并且对该系统也产生了相当大的影响,该系统中的所有参与者都在重新调整自己。
If you had said, “Can some fintech new entrant disrupt banking?” or whatever, I’d have been like, “It’s really hard.
如果你问:“一些金融科技新进入者会颠覆银行业吗?”或者无论如何,我会说,“这真的很难。
There are a lot of relationships already.” Bitcoin is a pretty good argument that something big can disrupt the financial system.
已经有很多关系了。”比特币是一个很好的论据,证明大的东西可以扰乱金融体系。
Next question, yes, here.
下一个问题,是的,在这里。
Thank you.
谢谢。
If we were to look at the most frequent words used on this stage, I’m guessing that weird would be probably one of the most popular.
如果我们看一下这个舞台上最常用的词,我猜“奇怪”可能是最流行的词之一。
So what’s your framework for deciding whether something is weird?
那么你判断某件事是否奇怪的框架是什么?
What’s your framework for deciding whether something is weird?
你判断某件事是否奇怪的框架是什么?
I don’t know that I have one.
我不知道我有一个。
It’s if it matches with my prior intuitions.
如果它符合我之前的直觉。
I like weird, so when I use weird it’s often just a synonym for interesting.
我喜欢怪异,所以当我使用怪异时,它通常只是有趣的同义词。
I wouldn’t say I have a framework.
我不会说我有一个框架。
What I would say is that whatever set of biases I have to find things interesting and weird and funny and quirky, I just write about it.
我想说的是,无论我有什么样的偏见,我都会发现有趣、奇怪、有趣和古怪的事情,我只是写下来。
That seems to have resonated with some audience.
这似乎引起了一些观众的共鸣。
I’m not sure that I can articulate what that framework is.
我不确定我能否清楚地阐明该框架是什么。
Next question.
下一个问题。
Yes, here, second row.
是的,这里,第二排。
Hi.
你好。
What’s a rule that should be amended or repealed?
哪些规则应该修改或废除?
What’s a rule that should be amended or appealed?
应该修改或上诉的规则是什么?
What’s a rule that should be amended or appealed?
应该修改或上诉的规则是什么?
I should always be prepared for these things.
我应该时刻为这些事情做好准备。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
What’s a rule that should be amended?
有什么规则需要修改?
Let me give a weird one.
让我举一个奇怪的。
This is not an answer to your question.
这不是您问题的答案。
But I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Regulation FD, which is the rule that says that companies can’t disclose material nonpublic information to one investor unless they’ve simultaneously disclosed it to all of their investors.
但我最近对 FD 法规进行了很多思考,该规则规定,公司不能向一名投资者披露重大非公开信息,除非他们同时向所有投资者披露该信息。
Seems like a very straightforward fairness rule.
看起来这是一个非常简单的公平规则。
The weird aspect of it is that companies meet constantly with their investors, and their investors are very excited to meet with them and want research analysts to set up these meetings.
奇怪的是,公司不断地与投资者会面,而他们的投资者非常高兴与他们会面,并希望研究分析师安排这些会议。
There’s a whole economy of these meetings, and yet they’re never disclosing material nonpublic information.
这些会议非常经济,但他们从未披露重大非公开信息。
Then the investors leave those meetings and go trade.
然后投资者离开这些会议并开始交易。
It’s like, “Well, they didn’t learn anything in those meetings.” It’s a striking set of facts.
就像,“好吧,他们在那些会议中没有学到任何东西。”这是一组惊人的事实。
What I think is striking about it is that it’s clearly how the world should work, that companies should talk to the people who own them.
我认为令人震惊的是,世界显然应该如何运转,公司应该与拥有它们的人交谈。
And those people should be able to ask questions and propose and say, “Hey, you should really be doing this,” and then watch the executives’ reactions.
这些人应该能够提出问题并提出建议并说:“嘿,你真的应该这样做”,然后观察高管的反应。
Yet at the same time, the law says you can’t do it.
但与此同时,法律规定你不能这样做。
I don’t know how I would amend it.
我不知道我该如何修改它。
But I think that there is a tension between the existence of this rule that on its face you would think would prohibit substantive meetings between companies and their investors, and the lived practice of finance in which companies meet with their investors, and have investor relations departments, and are owned by those investors, and have fiduciary duties to those investors.
但我认为,这条规则的存在,从表面上看,你可能会认为会禁止公司与其投资者之间进行实质性会议,但与公司与投资者会面、设立投资者关系部门、由这些投资者拥有、对这些投资者负有信托责任的金融实践之间存在着紧张关系。
It’d be strange if they never met with them.
如果他们从未见过他们,那就奇怪了。
But it’s also strange that they do meet with them because this rule exists that you would think would cast a shadow on those meetings.
但奇怪的是,他们确实会见了他们,因为这条规则的存在,你会认为会给这些会议蒙上阴影。
Next question.
下一个问题。
Yes, all the way in the back, next to last row on this side.
是的,一直在后面,靠近这一侧最后一排。
You write pretty frequently on information security and hacks.
您经常撰写有关信息安全和黑客的文章。
Are we as worried as we should be about that?
我们对此是否有应有的担心?
Non sequitur, have we reached peak beard?
不合逻辑的是,我们的胡须达到顶峰了吗?
I was noticing when we were backstage that Shipley and we both have beards.
当我们在后台时,我注意到希普利和我们都有胡子。
My beard is cyclical.
我的胡子是周期性的。
My beard runs from end of December through like, spring, so I suppose we’re at the peak of my beard cycle.
我的胡须从十二月底一直持续到春天,所以我想我们正处于胡须周期的高峰期。
I have no expertise in information security.
我没有信息安全方面的专业知识。
It seems overwhelmingly likely to me that we’re not worried enough about hacks.
在我看来,我们极有可能对黑客攻击还不够担心。
Because when I occasionally read people who are experts, they’re like, “The world will end, and you will die horribly because you don’t change your password.”
因为当我偶尔读到专家的文章时,他们会说,“世界将会终结,你会因为不更改密码而死得很惨。”
They’re probably telling the truth, and I don’t change my password.
他们可能说的是实话,而且我不会更改密码。
So I’m certain that the answer to your question is we’re not sufficiently ready for hacks.
所以我确信你的问题的答案是我们还没有为黑客做好充分的准备。
There was a story that I just saw the headline that someone conducted a successful jackpot attack on a US ATM, which means that you do the thing where you somehow get the ATM to give you all the money that was in the ATM.
有一个故事,我刚刚看到标题,有人对美国 ATM 机进行了一次成功的头奖攻击,这意味着你做了这样的事情,你以某种方式获得了 ATM 机,从而将 ATM 机中的所有钱都给了你。
It seems like a good hack.
这似乎是一个很好的技巧。
I always read about bank hacks, and they’re like, “They hacked this bank, and they got some email addresses.
我总是读到有关银行黑客攻击的文章,他们会说,“他们黑客攻击了这家银行,并获得了一些电子邮件地址。
Now they’re sending them spam.” I’m like, “That doesn’t seem like a very good hack.”
现在他们向他们发送垃圾邮件。”我想,“这看起来不是一个很好的技巧。”
In some time frame, they’ll get the money.
在一段时间内,他们会拿到钱。
Then that’ll be really bad.
那么情况就非常糟糕了。
Not just because they’ll take money from a bank, but that our whole world exists on a series of computers.
不仅因为他们会从银行拿钱,还因为我们的整个世界存在于一系列计算机上。
If you hack one of those computers that is central to the world and our identity and our financial lives, then that’s really bad.
如果你破解了其中一台对世界、我们的身份和我们的财务生活至关重要的计算机,那就真的很糟糕了。
They’re stealing the email addresses.
他们正在窃取电子邮件地址。
They’re hacking the ATMs.
他们正在入侵 ATM 机。
Well, I don’t know.
好吧,我不知道。
Last question.
最后一个问题。
Over here.
在这里。
Thanks very much.
非常感谢。
In Democracy in America, Tocqueville called lawyers America’s priests of Egypt because both professions are the only interpreters of an occult science, which I take to mean that they’re both responsible for explaining enough of their systems that people retain their faith in them, but not so much that people lose their faith or they put themselves out of a job.
在《美国的民主》中,托克维尔将律师称为美国的埃及牧师,因为这两种职业都是神秘科学的唯一解释者,我认为这意味着他们都有责任解释足够多的系统,使人们保持对他们的信仰,但又不至于让人们失去信仰或让自己失业。
I’m wondering if you could put that same mantle on financiers or on financial journalists, and if you think the sector as a whole has achieved an efficient sweet spot in the extent to which it’s understood, its mysteries are understood by the American public?
我想知道你是否可以为金融家或财经记者赋予同样的职责,并且你是否认为整个行业已经达到了有效的最佳点,即美国公众对它的理解及其奥秘的理解程度?
Softball question.
垒球问题。
I think sure, yeah.
我想当然,是的。
I think that’s true of a lot of sectors, actually.
我认为实际上很多行业都是如此。
I think we just live in a specialized economy, where if you ask “are financiers like a priesthood because they explain just enough to maintain a mystery,” yeah, but Facebook way more so.
我认为我们只是生活在一个专业化的经济体中,如果你问“金融家就像神职人员吗,因为他们的解释足以保持神秘感”,是的,但 Facebook 更是如此。
I think that we live in a specialized economy, and everyone is angling for that notion that what they do is complicated and mysterious and important.
我认为我们生活在一个专业化的经济中,每个人都在追求这样一种观念,即他们所做的事情是复杂、神秘和重要的。
You can get a glimpse of it, but I need to maintain the secrets.
你可以看一眼,但我需要保守秘密。
I do think finance is high up in the sweet spot, where people think it’s very complicated, and they need to defer to a priesthood.
我确实认为金融处于最佳位置,人们认为它非常复杂,他们需要服从神职人员。
But I also think that finance has come down a bit, where now people think, “It’s complicated.
但我也认为金融业已经有所下滑,现在人们认为,“这很复杂。
We need to ban it.” Or “It’s complicated.
我们需要禁止它。”或者“这很复杂。
We need to radically simplify and get rid of leverage rules, simplify leverage rules,” and all these things that suggest the general public does not believe the mystique.
我们需要从根本上简化并废除杠杆规则,简化杠杆规则,”所有这些都表明公众并不相信这种神秘性。
They find it confusing, but not in an awe-inspiring way.
他们觉得这很令人困惑,但并不令人敬畏。
It’s true of lawyers, too.
对于律师来说也是如此。
Matt Levine, thank you very much.
马特·莱文,非常感谢你。
You all should subscribe to Conversations with Tyler.
你们都应该订阅《与泰勒对话》。
There are also chats with Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Pinker, Cliff Asness, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
还有与马尔科姆·格拉德威尔、史蒂文·平克、克里夫·阿斯内斯、卡里姆·阿卜杜勒-贾巴尔的聊天。
Martina Navratilova to come, David Brooks to come.
玛蒂娜·纳芙拉蒂洛娃 (Martina Navratilova) 会来,大卫·布鲁克斯 (David Brooks) 也会来。
Thank you all again, and Matt, great job.
再次感谢大家,马特,干得好。
Thank you.
谢谢。