Welcome to the Insightful Investor podcast, a weekly series that seeks to share industry, investment, and market insights. Learn more about our show at insightfulinvestor.org. Today I'm joined by Chris Davis, Chairman and Portfolio Manager at Davis Advisors, an independent, employee-owned firm founded in 1969. The firm manages about $30 billion as of the end of March. Chris has nearly four decades of experience investing through multiple market cycles and he also serves on the board of Berkshire Hathaway. We'll talk about alpha, stewardship, patience, market cycles, and the enduring lessons and potentially the limits of the Buffett and Munger framework.
歡迎收聽《洞見投資人》播客，這是一個每週更新的系列節目，旨在分享產業、投資與市場的洞見。如欲了解更多關於本節目的資訊，請造訪 insightfulinvestor.org。今天與我對談的是 Chris Davis，他是 Davis Advisors 的董事長暨基金經理人，該公司是一家成立於 1969 年的獨立、員工持股企業。截至三月底，公司管理資產規模約 300 億美元。Chris 擁有近四十年、歷經多次市場循環的投資經驗，同時也是波克夏海瑟威的董事會成員。我們將探討超額報酬、盡職治理、耐心、市場循環，以及巴菲特與蒙格投資框架的歷久彌新教訓與其潛在侷限。
Chris, thank you for joining us. Oh, Alex, I'm so glad to be here. Let's start with a little bit of background. You grew up in a family deeply involved in investing. When did you realize that this was a path you actively wanted to pursue rather than something you were simply inheriting? My father, I give it enormous credit. I mean, he and his father were passionate about investing. They loved their jobs. They didn't get along particularly well.
克里斯，感謝你加入我們。喔，艾力克斯，我很高興能來到這裡。我們先從一些背景聊起吧。你在一個深度參與投資的家庭中長大。你是什麼時候意識到，這是你主動想追求的道路，而不僅僅是繼承的事業？我父親，我給他很大的肯定。我是說，他和我祖父都對投資充滿熱情。他們熱愛自己的工作。他們彼此相處得並不特別融洽。
That's a different story, but my father had six kids and his view was everybody should be financially literate. And that there's so much misleading information about investing. There's so much, there's so many people prepared to exploit ignorance that he just felt his fatherly duty was not necessarily to teach me how to change a tire or to repair a car, to do any home repairs or anything like that or to barbecue. But boy, he wanted all of his kids to understand investing. So I have a sister that's a small town physician. She understands the fundamentals of investing. So I think we grew up with this fundamental understanding that investing in stocks was really about businesses. It wasn't pieces of paper and prices gyrating around or charts or statistics. They were businesses and that businesses were essentially people and ideas and assets. It was this. And so that fundamental understanding from a very young age because wherever we were driving on a family vacation, we'd visit companies along the way and it was just his passion. So I think I grew up comfortable in this world, but it was not going to be for me. And in fact, I was going to be a veterinarian. I worked at the Bronx Zoo. I worked at the Animal Medical Center.
那是另一回事了，但我父親有六個孩子，他的觀念是每個人都應該具備財務素養。而且市面上關於投資的誤導資訊實在太多了，有太多人準備好要利用無知來牟利，以至於他覺得身為父親的責任，不一定是教我怎麼換輪胎、修車、做居家修繕或烤肉之類的。但天啊，他真心希望他所有的孩子都懂投資。所以我有個妹妹是小鎮醫師，她就懂得投資的基本原理。因此我想，我們從小就建立了這種根本的認知：投資股票其實就是在投資企業。它不是一張張紙，也不是上下波動的價格、圖表或統計數據。它們是企業，而企業本質上就是人、點子和資產。就是這麼一回事。所以從很小的時候，無論是家庭旅行開車到哪裡，我們都會沿途拜訪公司，這就是他的熱情所在。因此我想，我在這個領域中長大是感到自在的，但這條路本來不屬於我。事實上，我原本打算當獸醫，還在布朗克斯動物園工作過。 我曾在動物醫療中心工作。
I was a dog walker. I lived on a sheep farm. And then I became very interested in teaching when I was in college, teaching and working with young people. And ultimately, I went to seminary and I moved to Boston and I had worked maybe three or four summers for my dad or grandfather or internships in investing just as part of that being numerate. And I realized in particular, after I was turned down for a job at the CIA, that what I was really passionate about was research. I loved research. I loved teaching and the CIA, I didn't want to be a spy.
我當過遛狗員，也住過養羊的農場。後來在大學時期，我對教學產生濃厚興趣，喜歡教導年輕人並與他們共事。最終我進入神學院就讀，並搬到波士頓。期間我曾利用三、四個暑假為父親或祖父工作，或是在投資領域實習，這也算是發揮我對數字的敏感度。特別是在申請中央情報局（CIA）的工作被拒絕後，我才真正意識到自己熱衷的是研究工作。我熱愛研究，也熱愛教學，至於中情局，我並不想當間諜。
I wanted to be an analyst. And I came to realize that, of course, so much of investing was about that idea of trying to assemble, look at all of the things other people have looked at, but see what they don't see. But the trouble was, even though I understood these investing principles, I didn't have the grounding of an MBA or an accounting degree. I majored in philosophy and theology, done my master's in philosophy and theology. And so I managed to get work in a training program at State Street Bank and became a fund accountant, and it was just fabulous grounding. It was not a job I wanted long term, but I learned the language of investing, the language of business. So my father taught me the principles, State Street taught me the technical skills and the language, and then the hook was set. I've been in love with it ever since. And my grandfather used to say, "It's the best game in town," and boy, was he right. Did you just share the history of your grandfather and your father founding Davis advisors? Well, my grandfather, very much like me, didn't start out thinking investing was for him. He had done a PhD in international relations. By the way, as had his wife, they met in graduate school, both doing PhDs in 1928. I mean, it's sort of an incredible thing.
我原本想成為分析師。後來我逐漸明白，投資的精髓其實就在於試著拼湊線索，觀察那些別人也看過的東西，卻能看出他們沒看到的細節。但問題是，即使我理解這些投資原則，卻沒有 MBA 或會計學位的基礎。我大學主修哲學與神學，碩士也是念哲學與神學。後來我設法進入道富銀行的培訓計畫，成為基金會計師，這份工作為我打下絕佳的基礎。雖然這不是我長遠想做的職位，但我學會了投資的語言、商業的語言。所以說，父親教會我原則，道富銀行教會我技術與語言，從此我就深深著迷，再也離不開這行了。我祖父常說：「這是城裡最棒的遊戲。」天啊，他說得一點都沒錯。你剛才分享了祖父和父親創立戴維斯顧問公司的歷史嗎？嗯，我祖父跟我很像，起初並不認為投資適合自己。他拿的是國際關係博士學位。 順帶一提，就像他的妻子一樣，他們是在研究所認識的，1928 年時兩人都在攻讀博士學位。 我的意思是，這可以說是件不可思議的事。
They fell in love, both passionate about international relations, in the same way I was interested in intelligence. They were interested in global affairs. And he went to work thinking that maybe he could end up at the State Department. He was probably in his mid-20s, early 30s, and the war came and he became involved in the War Department. When Dewey ran for president against Harry Truman, my grandfather saw a great opening. He became an economic advisor and an international advisor to the Dewey campaign. He was a bright young man, passionate, had this global view, and he thought Dewey was a certain shoe-in to be the next president, as did everybody.
他們墜入愛河，兩人都對國際關係充滿熱情，就像我對情報工作感興趣一樣。他們關注的是全球事務。他開始工作時，想著或許最終能進入國務院任職。他當時大概二十五、六歲到三十出頭，然後戰爭爆發，他進入了戰爭部。當杜威競選總統對抗哈瑞·杜魯門時，我祖父看到了一個絕佳的機會。他成為了杜威競選團隊的經濟顧問和國際事務顧問。他是個聰明的年輕人，充滿熱情，擁有全球視野，而且他和所有人一樣，都認為杜威篤定會是下一任總統。
And the famous headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman," the newspapers had already printed it. And of course, Dewey lost, but he was still governor of New York. And so he felt, well, this bright young man backed my campaign and was so an advisor. And I loved to find him a job in state government. And he made my grandfather the deputy superintendent of insurance for the state of New York. Now, you can imagine a bigger come down thinking you're going to the State Department and ending up in the insurance department in Albany. But my grandfather immediately took to the responsibility. And you've got to realize this was 1948. So what was happening was all of the soldiers were coming home.
還有那則著名的頭條新聞，「杜威擊敗杜魯門」，報社都已經印好了。當然，杜威最後輸了，但他仍是紐約州州長。所以他心想，這位聰明的年輕人曾支持我的競選活動，還擔任過顧問，我很樂意在州政府為他找份工作。於是他任命我祖父為紐約州保險局副局長。現在，你可以想像這落差有多大，原本以為要去國務院，結果卻到了奧爾巴尼的保險部門。但我祖父立刻全心投入這份職責。你得了解，那是 1948 年，當時所有士兵正陸續返鄉。
The baby boom was underway. And life insurance was like biotech. It was this hyper growth industry, which is the first thing you did when you got married. You had no assets. You were starting your family, having kids. You bought life insurance. But the accounting for life insurance meant that when an insurance company sold a policy, they would pay the salesman a commission. And that commission was often as much as the first year premium. But remember that customer was agreeing to pay that premium for 30, 40, 50 years.
嬰兒潮正如火如荼地展開。而當時的人壽保險就像現在的生物科技一樣，是個超高速成長的產業。那是你結婚後做的第一件事，你沒有資產，正要建立家庭、養育小孩，你就會去買人壽保險。但人壽保險的會計處理方式，意味著當保險公司賣出一張保單時，他們必須支付業務員佣金。而這筆佣金往往相當於第一年的保費。但別忘了，那位客戶可是同意要持續繳交這筆保費長達三十、四十甚至五十年。
So there was an enormous present value being created, but there was a cash outflow. So Wall Street hated these companies and viewed them. They were losing money year after year. The faster they were growing, the more money they were losing. And my grandfather, who is a regulator, was looking at this and saying, that's crazy. They are creating huge value. And so he created this concept of owner earnings, where he said, if you owned the business, you wouldn't say it's losing money. You would say you're investing, but you're creating enormous value for every dollar you invest.
所以，雖然有巨大的現值被創造出來，但帳面上卻呈現現金流出。因此，華爾街討厭這些公司，並用這種眼光看待它們。它們年復一年地虧損，而且成長得越快，虧損就越多。我的祖父，他當時是監管官員，看到這種情況就說，這太瘋狂了，它們正在創造巨大的價值。於是，他創造了「業主盈餘」這個概念，他的說法是，如果你擁有這家企業，你不會說它在虧錢，你會說你正在投資，而且你投入的每一塊錢都在創造巨大的價值。
Because you have a longer term perspective. Exactly. And you're looking at the true economics of the business, not just at the accounting metrics. Now, in those days, there wasn't gap accounting for insurance, so that has now been normalized. So he looked at Wall Street at these stocks, and he looked at the value that he saw in the businesses, and he said, I'm going to go to work investing in these companies. And he was able to borrow $100,000, which was a lot of money back then, from his wife's family. And he started investing, he started a firm called Shelby called Davis & Company.
因為你擁有更長遠的眼光。正是如此。而且你關注的是企業的真實經濟價值，而不僅僅是會計數字。當時，保險業還沒有公認會計原則，現在這部分已經標準化了。所以他看著華爾街對這些股票的評價，再對比他眼中這些企業的價值，然後說，我要投入這些公司的投資。他從妻子娘家借了十萬美元，在當時可是一大筆錢，然後開始投資，創立了一家名為 Shelby Cullom Davis & Company 的公司。
And he turned that $100,000 into $800 million at his death, investing almost exclusively in financial stocks. And he gave 100% of that to charity. He didn't believe in inheritance, and he was an incredible philanthropist. But he also created an investment philosophy, and that shaped my father, who understood this idea of owner earnings, the idea that perception of a business can be different than the reality. And if you do the work, if you understand the business, there was enormous opportunity. And my grandfather branched way beyond financial stocks, and he started at the Bank of New York, which had a great investment department.
他把這 10 萬美元，在他過世時變成了 8 億美元，幾乎全部投資在金融股上。而且他把這筆錢 100%捐給了慈善機構。他不相信遺產繼承，是一位了不起的慈善家。但他也創立了一套投資哲學，這影響了我的父親，讓他理解了業主盈餘的概念，以及對一家企業的認知可能與現實有所出入。如果你願意下功夫，如果你了解這家企業，就會有巨大的機會。而我祖父的投資範圍遠遠超出了金融股，他最初是在紐約銀行起步，那裡有一個很棒的投資部門。
I don't know if you remember the name Barton Biggs, but Barton Biggs' father was the head of the investment department at Bank of New York, Bill Biggs, and he was my dad's boss. And my dad fell in love with investing, but he hated doing it at a bank, because the banks were so concerned about not about looking like they wanted to look like everybody else. And so he really valued independent thought and independent action. But that was not possible in the confines of a trust bank. So he decided to go out on his own and started Davis Advise then called Davis Palmer and Biggs, and then what became Davis Advisors. And then my grandfather's firm, they came together and sort of the rest is history. But they really built these fundamental tenants on each other.
不曉得你還記不記得巴頓．畢格斯這個名字，巴頓．畢格斯的父親比爾．畢格斯是紐約銀行投資部門的主管，也是我父親的老闆。我父親對投資充滿熱情，但他極度厭惡在銀行體系內從事這項工作，因為銀行業者最在意的不是績效，而是如何讓自己看起來跟其他同業一模一樣。因此他格外重視獨立思考與自主行動，但在信託銀行的框架下根本不可能實現。於是他決定自立門戶，創立了 Davis Advise，當時名為 Davis Palmer and Biggs，後來才演變為 Davis Advisors。接著我祖父的公司也加入，後續的發展就眾所皆知了。他們其實是奠基在彼此的核心原則上，逐步建立起這番事業。
My grandfather's on the value of owner earnings, looking through my father on the idea of applying independent thought, independent analysis, but across a range of industries and taking in client money versus my grandfather initially just managed his own capital or the capital of the firm. And so that was a long answer. I'll try to keep my future answer shorter, but I was so lucky to have them both as role models. And my grandfather lived well into his nineties and wanted to die at his desk. I mean, he loved the business. And so, you know, I got to learn from two people that it wasn't just that they were talented, it's that they were passionate and that it was so infectious. And the relationships that they built through business were just bedrock parts of their life and something that I aspired to. Yeah. And when you take passion and add tremendous success together, it can be a real draw. Oh, yeah. Yeah, although I have to say both my father and my grandfather were extremely frugal. So I would say that the value investors, right, their value investors and, you know, net worth might have been a way to keep score, but there was no planes and yachts and mansions, you know.
我祖父重視業主盈餘的價值，我父親則強調獨立思考與獨立分析，但應用範圍橫跨多個產業，並且開始管理客戶資金，不像我祖父最初只管理自己的資本或公司的資金。這回答有點長，我之後會盡量簡短些，但我真的很幸運能有他們兩位作為榜樣。我祖父活到九十多歲，而且希望在工作崗位上離世。我的意思是，他熱愛這份事業。所以，我有幸向這兩位學習，他們不僅才華出眾，更充滿熱情，而且這種熱情極具感染力。他們透過事業建立的人際關係，是他們人生中極為穩固的基石，也是我所嚮往的。是啊，當你把熱情和巨大的成功結合在一起時，確實會很有吸引力。沒錯，是啊，不過我得說，我父親和我祖父都極其節儉。所以我會說，價值投資人嘛，他們的價值投資理念，還有，你知道的，淨資產或許只是個記分方式，但他們並沒有私人飛機、遊艇或豪宅之類的。
It just wasn't their mindset. They lived with great integrity, with frugality, thoughtfulness, and sometimes it was extreme. I mean, you know, we love skiing as a family, but the rule was that you had to walk uphill for the first run in order to understand the value of the ticket, to share the lift ticket. I worked for my grandfather one summer just in his house, you know, and I was a kid, like, you know, cleaning and working in the kitchen and, you know, driving, I was probably 16, and the oven was rusted out on the inside, and my grandfather told me to paint it. I didn't know much, but I knew that was a bad idea. He just, his expression that he would always use was, "Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without."
這根本不是他們的心態。他們為人正直，生活節儉、深思熟慮，有時甚至到了極端的程度。我的意思是，你知道，我們一家人都熱愛滑雪，但家裡的規矩是，第一趟必須自己走上坡，才能體會纜車票的價值，才願意共用那張纜車票。有一個暑假，我在我祖父家為他工作，那時我還是個孩子，大概十六歲吧，負責打掃、在廚房幫忙，還有開車之類的。當時烤箱內部已經鏽蝕了，我祖父卻叫我把裡面漆一漆。我那時懂得不多，但我知道那是個餿主意。他總是掛在嘴邊的一句話就是：「用到盡，穿到爛，將就點用，不然就別用。」
And so it wasn't really the money. It was the idea that they, you know, as my dad said, I get to live in the future. And what a privilege that is to live in the future. I'm always trying to think about what the world could look like. How could this business evolve? How could, and that's an exciting way to live. It is, and, you know, it would be very, I would be very lousy at manufacturing chairs or something like that, you know, where I do it every day and just try to make the chair a little better or a little more cheaply, you know, to me, and that was something they really had.
所以這其實不完全是錢的問題。而是那種想法，就像我父親說的，我能活在未來。而能夠活在未來，是多麼難得的特權。我總是在思考這個世界可能會變成什麼樣子。這門生意會如何演變？這是一種令人興奮的生活方式。確實如此，而且，你知道嗎，如果要我去做製造椅子之類的工作，我大概會做得很糟，那種每天重複，只想著把椅子做得稍微好一點或成本再低一點的工作，對我來說，而這正是他們真正擁有的特質。
That was the infectious part. Yeah, it sounds like the focus is on value creation and doing it in a meaningful way, because it's hard work and when you're done, you want to make sure that it was all worthwhile, just like climbing the mountain to the top. Yes, and value creation is a lovely way to put it, Alex, because it was this idea of what makes a valuable life. And by the way, my father is very actively giving away 100% of his fortune. It is a, and, you know, I don't want to over, I mean, he set aside money for six kids, but, you know, it was set aside in the mode of Warren that said, you know, I want my kids to have enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.
這就是感染力十足的部分。沒錯，聽起來重點在於創造價值，而且要以有意義的方式進行，因為這是份苦差事，當你完成時，你會希望確保一切努力都是值得的，就像攀登到山頂一樣。是的，亞歷克斯，用「創造價值」來形容真是貼切，因為這關乎什麼樣的人生才算有價值。順帶一提，我父親正非常積極地將他百分之百的財富捐贈出去。這是一種……我不想過度強調，我是說，他為六個孩子都預留了一筆錢，但你知道，那是遵循華倫的模式，他說過，希望孩子們擁有的錢足以讓他們能做任何事，但又不至於多到讓他們可以無所事事。
And, you know, that remains sort of an ethos, but this idea of what it is to live a valuable life, to create value for your clients, to work hard to do that, to work with colleagues that you admire, that you respect, you know, spending yourself in a cause that you think is valuable, but also then to, you know, to make a difference in your community, to make a difference in your family. So, yeah, I mean, I really truly started on Birdbase. I mean, it was an amazing value system. It was an amazing model to be given. It was amazing content to be given, and it was a name I was proud to be given. So, I mean, you know, it would be, it would spin the wheel of life seven billion times.
而你知道，這仍然是一種精神理念，但這個概念關乎如何活出有價值的人生、為客戶創造價值、為此努力付出、與你敬佩和尊重的同事共事，將自己投入你認為有價值的事業，同時也要在社區中帶來改變，在家庭中帶來改變。所以，是的，我的意思是，我真的從 Birdbase 開始起步。這是一套了不起的價值體系，是一個被賦予的絕佳模式，是被賦予的精彩內容，也是一個讓我引以為傲的名字。所以，你知道，這就像轉動生命之輪七十億次一樣。
That's a hell of a place to start. And so, I was very, very lucky. So, you described a core investment tenet that goes back almost a hundred years. Did you feel like the firm has stayed true to its original principles, even though the markets and potentially competition have evolved through time? Absolutely. I mean, you know, the phrase that we use a lot is that we have to hold to unchanging principles and adapt to changing times. And you know, the principles, the idea of owner earnings, that stocks are ownership interests and businesses, that the leadership of those businesses matters enormously, that there is a difference between value and price, right? These tenants, the nature of stewardship, of being entrusted with somebody's savings, the sense of responsibility and accountability for that. These are sort of bedrock unchanging principles. But as an investor, where you found value in the '60s or the '50s, you know, life insurance, we started talking about life insurance and my grandfather, that, you know, that industry has changed dramatically. And so, if we viewed ourselves as insurance investors, you know, the opportunity set dried up. But, you know, the evolution of the economy, we have to sort of follow that evolution.
這真是個了不起的起點。所以說，我真的是非常、非常幸運。你剛才提到了一項可追溯至近百年前的核心投資原則。你是否覺得，即使市場和潛在競爭環境隨著時間演變，貴公司依然堅守了最初的信念？絕對是的。我的意思是，我們常說的一句話是，我們必須堅守不變的原則，同時適應變化的時代。你知道，這些原則，像是業主盈餘的概念、股票代表的是企業的擁有權、企業領導層至關重要、價值與價格之間存在差異，對吧？這些信條，還有受託管理他人儲蓄的盡職本質，以及隨之而來的責任感與問責制。這些都屬於基石般不變的原則。但作為投資者，你在六零年代或五零年代找到價值的地方，比如我們開始談到的人壽保險業，還有我祖父，你知道，那個產業已經發生了巨大的變化。因此，如果我們把自己定位為保險業投資者，那麼機會集合早就枯竭了。 但是，你知道的，經濟的演變，我們必須某種程度上跟隨這種演變。
And that's delicate because there can be fads and false starts and the new, new thing and the new era, especially in bull markets and bubbles, you know, people that holds on changing principles often look like dinosaurs. And I like to say, we're not dinosaurs, we're turtles, right? The dinosaurs went extinct, but turtles have persisted for millennia and have done so by being resilient and being relentless and those sorts of qualities. You know, we look for them in the businesses that we invest in, but we also want to embody them in our firm. Like, we have a fortress balance sheet, you know, our, my colleagues, our families, our partners, we've been together on average 20 years, some of us for 30 years.
而這需要拿捏得宜，因為可能會有一時的狂熱、錯誤的開端、新奇的事物和新時代的出現，特別是在牛市和泡沫中，你知道，那些堅守變動原則的人往往看起來像恐龍。我喜歡說，我們不是恐龍，我們是烏龜，對吧？恐龍滅絕了，但烏龜卻存活了數千年，靠的是堅韌不拔和堅持不懈這類特質。你知道，我們在投資的企業中尋找這些特質，但我們也希望在自己的公司中體現它們。就像我們擁有堡壘般的資產負債表，你知道，我的同事、我們的家人、我們的合作夥伴，我們平均共事了二十年，有些人甚至長達三十年。
We're the largest investors in our funds. Everything we offer to a client, we put our own money in and we've done it because we see it as an investment opportunity and we can be resilient. We can be out of fashion and we can be in this lasting game, but we're going to be on the other side. And I think over time, we will build value over the indexes, but we can accept periods of time where we will lag and usually we will lag when there is a momentum trade that is building and feeding back on itself because we will pull back and we won't pull back by going to cash, we'll pull back by going into what people aren't interested in. And sometimes that can be a stock that, like, think of Metta only four years ago, right?
我們是自家基金的最大投資人。我們提供給客戶的每一項產品，都投入了自己的資金，因為我們視之為投資機會，而且我們具有韌性。我們可以承受不被市場青睞的時期，也能在這場持久戰中堅持下去，但我們終將迎來轉機。我認為隨著時間推移，我們將創造超越指數的價值，但我們能接受在某些時期表現落後，通常這種情況發生在動能交易持續自我強化的階段，因為我們會選擇退場，但不是轉向現金，而是轉進那些乏人問津的標的。有時候這可能是某支股票，就像四年前的 Meta 那樣，對吧？
Down 60%, 70%. You know, that became our largest position. But it was at a time when there was this sort of mindset that we were out of sync and, you know, we had clients that said, "How can you own it? Don't you just read the paper, see what it's doing?" In the last 12 months, look at what happened to UnitedHealth, right? That's a company we probably owned 25 years ago. This is the third time we've owned it. And I don't want to give the impression we're traders. We dip in and out.
下跌 60%、70%。你知道嗎，那成了我們最大的持倉。但當時市場普遍認為我們與大勢脫節，還有客戶質問：「你怎麼能持有它？難道你沒看報紙，不知道它現在什麼狀況嗎？」看看過去 12 個月聯合健康集團的走勢吧。這家公司我們大概在 25 年前就持有過，這次是第三次買入。我不想給人一種我們是交易員、頻繁進出的印象。
But, you know, it's this idea. You can get massive mispricings in a sector, in a specific company. And so we need to be willing to be out of sync, the CEO of Sam Walton at Walmart once said, "You can't do what everybody else does and expect a different result." So we have a portfolio that looks nothing like the averages. And yet, you know, I mean, certainly if you were to look at things like the Russell 1000 value, I mean, we've outperformed it in all periods. But you know, even in this crazy market, we've been ahead of the S&P for the last three or almost four years with, you know, well less than half the MAG7 and all of that stuff with a big underweighting in technology.
但重點在於這個理念：特定產業、特定公司可能出現嚴重錯誤定價。所以我們必須甘願與市場不同步。沃爾瑪的山姆·沃爾頓曾說：「你不能做跟所有人一樣的事，卻期待不同結果。」我們的投資組合與市場平均水準截然不同。然而，若你觀察羅素 1000 價值指數這類基準，我們在所有期間都打敗它。即使在這個瘋狂的市場，過去三年、將近四年來，我們的表現也領先標普 500，而我們持有的 MAG7 部位遠不到一半，還大幅減碼科技股。
And so, you know, we're going to do it like the tortoise. We're going to grind it out and it's going to be about resilience and relentless progress. But it's not going to be about, you know, being the hare. It's interesting you mentioned, you know, the question about aren't you reading the papers and seeing what everybody else sees? You are reading the papers, but you're reading the one that's written two years from now, not the one that everybody else is reading today. Oh, what a wonderful way to say it. It is so true. We really do, we try to visualize, you know, when I talk about living in the future.
因此，你知道的，我們要像烏龜那樣去做。我們會腳踏實地慢慢來，重點在於韌性與持續不斷的進步。但這不會是關於，你知道的，去當那隻兔子。你提到的那個問題很有意思，就是關於難道你沒在看報紙，沒看到大家都看到的那些消息嗎？你確實有在看報紙，但你看的是兩年後寫的那份，而不是大家今天都在讀的那份。喔，這說法真是太棒了。說得一點都沒錯。我們確實是這樣，我們試著去想像，你知道的，當我談到活在未來的時候。
And by the way, we do it both on the bull case and the bear case. You know, we have a discipline that's called the pre-mortem instead of the post-mortem. You know, we spend a lot of time studying our mistakes, looking back at them. What did we learn? What are the transferable lessons? We actually frame them and, you know, we have them all on a wall in the center of the research department, the stock certificates of our biggest mistakes. By the way, some of those mistakes we made money on, some were mistakes of omission. They're things we didn't own that we should have owned. So it's not about buying a stock that goes down.
順帶一提，我們在做多頭和空頭情境分析時都會採用這種方法。我們有一套稱為「事前驗屍」而非「事後驗屍」的紀律。我們花很多時間研究自己的錯誤，回顧檢討。我們學到了什麼？有哪些可轉移的教訓？我們甚至會把它們裱框起來，在研究部門中央有一面牆，掛滿了我們最大錯誤的股票憑證。順帶一提，其中有些錯誤我們其實有賺到錢，有些則是疏忽之過，是那些我們本該持有卻沒持有的標的。所以重點不在於買到一支下跌的股票。
That's not a mistake. It's that we've misanalyzed the business. But we have advanced that thought to also try to project ourselves into the future to that paper five years from now. And the headline says, you know, this company dramatically underperformed over the last five years. What happened? Here's this story. We write it that way. We write it as if it is already done badly.
那不算錯誤。真正的錯誤是我們對這門生意分析錯誤。但我們已將這個思維進一步發展，試著將自己投射到未來，想像五年後的那份報告。標題寫著，這家公司在過去五年表現大幅落後。究竟發生了什麼事？故事是這樣寫的。我們就是這樣寫的，把它當作已經發生的壞結果來寫。
And because it helps us be more open to as if bad news unfolds and not be so wedded to a single investment thesis. So that's part of our process too. Not just looking at how far a wonderful company under a wonderful leader can go. I mean, think of Jamie Dimon going to bank one and everything that has unfolded since. I mean, JP Morgan was certainly second tier when it merged with bank one. It had really struggled in the wilderness for sort of a decade, little like maybe what city has gone through. I mean, it was a once great business that had lost its way, unintegrated mergers, unambiguous culture.
這有助於我們在壞消息出現時保持更開放的態度，不會過度執著於單一投資論點。所以這也是我們流程的一部分。不只是看一家優秀公司在卓越領導者帶領下能走多遠。想想傑米·戴蒙接手第一銀行，以及此後發生的一切。摩根大通在與第一銀行合併時，肯定只是二線角色，它在那之前大概有十年時間在荒野中掙扎，有點像花旗經歷過的那樣。它曾經是一家卓越的企業，但後來迷失了方向，合併整合不力，文化模糊不清。
Think of one person, the difference that that's made, right? That was not a winning hand. It was a hand that was turned into a winning hand. He wasn't dealt that. And so, you can put yourself in the future and think how far could one person or one business go? But you can also put yourself in the future and think about where could we be wildly wrong? And both of those are useful and exciting exercises. So after nearly four decades in markets, does it feel harder to generate excess returns today than it did earlier in your career?
想想看，就一個人，帶來了多大的改變，對吧？那原本不是一手好牌，是被扭轉成一手好牌。他拿到的並不是一手好牌。所以，你可以設身處地想像未來，思考一個人或一家企業能走多遠。但你也可以設身處地想像未來，思考我們可能在哪些地方犯下大錯。這兩種思考都是有用且令人振奮的練習。那麼，在市場將近四十年後，現在要創造超額回報，是否感覺比您職業生涯早期更困難？
I'm going to say no with a caveat. I think there's a wonderful saying in my grandfather's that you make most of your money in a bear market. You just don't realize it at the time. And similarly, in a bull market, you can be making enormous mistakes, but not realize it at the time because they're looking so good. So I believe that we are in a period of meaningful outperformance. And I'll give you just one number to think about. In the last five years, forget stocks, I'm not going to talk about the prices, but our businesses have grown their earnings 17% a year for the last five years.
我會說不，但附帶一個但書。我祖父有句很棒的格言：你大部分的錢都是在熊市賺到的，只是當下渾然不覺。同樣地，在牛市時，你可能犯下極其嚴重的錯誤，卻也因為一切看似風光而毫無所覺。因此，我相信我們正處於一段績效顯著優異的時期。我提供一個數字供你思考。過去五年，先不談股價，光看我們旗下企業的獲利，每年都以 17%的速度成長。
And yet today they trade at 14.5 times earnings. Now if I look at like, I'll use the Russell 1000 value just to start, you know, the Russell 1000 value over the last five years, the companies that make it up has generated growth of 12.5%. So versus almost 17. So huge, our companies have dramatically up for the Russell 1000 value currently trades at 20 times earnings and we trade at 14.5. And then if I look at the S&P, the S&P trades at 26 times earnings versus our 14.5 and has only grown earnings 18%. So ours are 17, S&P is 18. So our companies have grown about the same and yet we are sitting at 14.5 times earnings.
然而如今，它們的本益比僅有 14.5 倍。現在，如果我們先看看羅素 1000 價值型指數，過去五年來，該指數成分企業的獲利成長率為 12.5%，而我們的企業則接近 17%，差距相當懸殊。我們的企業表現明顯優於羅素 1000 價值型指數，但該指數目前的本益比高達 20 倍，而我們僅有 14.5 倍。再來看標普 500 指數，其本益比為 26 倍，相較之下我們只有 14.5 倍，而標普 500 的獲利成長率僅 18%。我們的企業是 17%，標普 500 是 18%，雙方的獲利成長幅度大致相當，但我們的本益比卻只有 14.5 倍。
So I would argue that we are in a period of real outperformance, but that it's not necessarily obvious yet. I mean, our results have been good in the last, I mean, certainly relative to the value index is the last three years, five years, so on. They've been good relative to the S&P in the last three years, but still I would say that I think we're in a stage where I believe that our relative results have been much better over the last 10 years than the reported results would indicate. Now that's an easy thing to convince yourself of. So I say it with a lot of recognition that there could be hubris and that, but the simple fact is over the last 15 years or so, the companies that we own have grown their earnings as a percentage of the S&P and yet their valuation as a percentage of the S&P has come down. And so we've been right on the businesses, wrong on the prices. That gap will come together. Now it can come together because the businesses end up having bleak futures, right? The old story of a 10-year-old resource has a great record, but it's not gonna win anymore. Or it can come together because our businesses get revalued relative to the market. That that 26 times earnings of the market comes down and ours stays the same. We will dramatically outperform or our 14 times earnings comes up and the market stays the same will dramatically outperform. But that's something that, to me, I like the position that we're in, certainly on a relative
因此，我認為我們正處於一個表現明顯優異的時期，但這未必已經顯而易見。我的意思是，我們的績效在過去——當然，相對於價值型指數來說，過去三年、五年等等，表現都相當不錯。過去三年相對於標普指數也表現良好，但我仍然要說，我認為我們正處於一個階段，我相信我們過去十年的相對績效，遠比帳面數字所顯示的要好得多。當然，這很容易說服自己。所以我這麼說時，也深知這可能是過度自信，但簡單的事實是，在過去大約十五年裡，我們持有的公司，其盈利佔標普指數的比重有所成長，然而其估值佔標普指數的比重卻下降了。因此，我們對企業的判斷是正確的，但對價格的判斷是錯誤的。這個差距終將趨於一致。而趨於一致的方式，可能是因為這些企業的前景最終變得黯淡，對吧？就像老故事說的，一位十年資歷的老將戰績輝煌，但未來再也無法取勝。或者，也可能是因為我們持有的企業，相對於整體市場獲得了重新估值。 如果市場的 26 倍本益比下降，而我們的保持不變，我們將大幅跑贏；或者我們的 14 倍本益比上升，而市場保持不變，也將大幅跑贏。 但對我來說，我喜歡我們目前所處的位置，尤其是在相對
basis. On an absolute basis, I think starting at 14 or 15 times earnings is fine. I always say invert that and you have a reasonable starting point for thinking about future returns. So at 14 times earnings, we're at a 7.5% earnings yield. At 26 times earnings, the market is at like a 3.8% earnings yield. That's not a bad starting point as you think about what returns could look like in the next decade. And that would bode very well for relative results and okay for absolute results. But I promise you, it will be lumpy. It won't be lumpy.
基礎上。就絕對基礎而言，我認為從 14 或 15 倍本益比開始是沒問題的。我常說，把它反過來看，你就有一個合理的出發點來思考未來的回報。所以在 14 倍本益比時，我們的盈餘收益率是 7.5%。在 26 倍本益比時，市場的盈餘收益率大約是 3.8%。當你思考未來十年的回報可能如何時，這不是一個糟糕的起點。這對相對結果來說是個好兆頭，對絕對結果來說也還可以。但我向你保證，過程會是顛簸的。不會是一帆風順的。
It's not gonna look like a smooth line, however it plays out. But what you did there is you separated the fundamentals of the business versus the price that the market attributes to that. Because the price is backward looking, but it's also forward looking into expectations of the future. And also, we talked about this earlier, psychology plays a big role in what that price is. And that part is harder to predict, whereas in underwrites, whereas the fundamentals of the business, they're all difficult, but that's probably easier to underwrite and predict. And so you focus on that. Well, yeah, Alex, I mean, imagine if you owned an apartment building in LA and you paid $10 million for the apartment building. And the apartment building reliably generated $750,000 a year of profits. You would say, "That's pretty good. I'm getting 7.5% on my money." Now if somebody comes along and says, "Hey, Alex, I'll buy your building for $8 million," you wouldn't think you had lost money. But if that was a stock, it would be down 20%. But you would be rattled if somebody offered you $800,000. If they said, "Alex, you got to sell that building today." And you said, "Well, I can't find anybody that'll pay me more than $7 million for it."
無論最終如何發展，這都不會是一條平滑的曲線。但你剛才做的是將企業的基本面與市場賦予的價格區分開來。因為價格既反映過去，也包含對未來的預期。此外，我們稍早也談過，心理因素對價格影響甚鉅，而這部分較難預測；相較之下，企業的基本面雖然同樣充滿挑戰，但或許更容易評估與預測。所以你會專注於此。嗯，沒錯，艾力克斯，試想你在洛杉磯擁有一棟公寓大樓，當初以一千萬美元購入，而這棟大樓每年穩定創造七十五萬美元的利潤。你會說：「這還不錯，我的資金報酬率有 7.5%。」現在如果有人跑來跟你說：「嘿，艾力克斯，我出八百萬美元買你那棟樓。」你並不會覺得自己虧了錢。但如果這是一檔股票，股價就等於下跌了 20%。然而，要是有人開價八十萬美元，你肯定會慌了手腳。如果他們說：「艾力克斯，你今天非得把那棟樓賣掉不可。」「我找不到任何人願意出超過 700 萬美元買下它。」"
You'd say, "But I'm not going to sell it because I'm making 7.5%. By the way, I think that $750,000, I'm going to raise rents next year. I put a new roof on. I think it's going to end up being at $1 million of earnings in two years." So why the hell would I sell it for $700,000? For $7 million, I'd be like, "I'm not going to sell it for $7 million for you." And you wouldn't feel so rattled. But with stocks, people feel very rattled. If we buy MGM at 40 and it goes to 33, I'm not uncomfortable with that. I know the business.
你會說：「但我不打算賣，因為我正在賺 7.5%的報酬率。順帶一提，那 75 萬美元，我明年還會調漲租金。我換了新屋頂，預計兩年後收益會達到 100 萬美元。」那我到底為什麼要用 70 萬美元賣掉它？如果有人出價 700 萬美元，我會說：「我不會為了你而用 700 萬美元賣掉。」你也不會感到如此焦慮。但面對股票，人們卻很容易心煩意亂。如果我們在 40 美元買入 MGM，它跌到 33 美元，我並不會因此感到不安。我了解這門生意。
I know the people. I know the assets. I don't particularly understand. I'll look with humility at, is the market seeing something we're missing? We will always revisit our assumptions. But very often, what the market is doing is they're miscategorizing a business. My grandfather coined the phrase about his favorite insurance companies that they were growth stocks in disguise. And we don't need them to be... The business will reveal the growth.
我了解那些人，也了解那些資產。我並非特別理解市場的變化。我會抱持謙遜的態度去審視，市場是否看到了我們忽略的東西？我們總是會重新檢視自己的假設。但很多時候，市場在做的是錯誤地歸類一門生意。我祖父曾用一句話來形容他鍾愛的保險公司，說它們是偽裝起來的成長股。而我們並不需要它們……生意本身會展現出成長性。
We don't need multiple expansion. We don't think about that as part of our investment approach. We may get it, but it's nowhere in our models. We think of our return just the way you would on that apartment building. We're getting 750,000 a year of after-tax rents and after-expense rent. And we think that's going to a million. And we think ultimately it's going to a million two and to a million five. We're very happy that we were very comfortable that we paid $10 million for that asset. And if we could sell it at five, we're not interested. Now, if somebody comes along and says, "I'll pay you 25," well, that's a trickier question.
我們不需要本益比擴張。我們從不將這點納入投資方法的考量。或許會遇到這種情況，但我們的模型裡完全沒有這個假設。我們看待報酬的方式，就像看待那棟公寓大樓一樣。我們每年有七十五萬美元的稅後租金收入，扣除費用後的淨租金。我們認為這個數字會成長到一百萬，最終會達到一百二十萬，甚至一百五十萬。我們很滿意當初用一千萬美元買下這項資產，也覺得很安心。如果有人出價五百萬，我們沒興趣。但要是有人跑來說：「我出兩千五百萬跟你買」，嗯，這問題就比較棘手了。
You know what's interesting about that example is it makes it clear the difference when you focus on what numbers are in front of you. So when you own the apartment, the value of it doesn't show up on your phone, it doesn't show up in a monthly statement that you see fluctuate. What the value that you see is the amount of income that's going into your account, whereas with a stock, the price goes up and down and you see you lost a million dollars today. You gained $2 million last year. That's what's in front of you, as opposed to the earnings of that company, you have to dig in a little bit to get that. So it is interesting how that plays into the psychology.
這個例子有趣的地方在於，它清楚說明了當你只關注眼前數字時的差異。當你擁有一間公寓時，它的價值不會顯示在你的手機上，也不會出現在每月波動的對帳單裡。你看到的價值是存入帳戶的租金收入；但持有股票時，股價上下起伏，你會看到今天虧了一百萬美元，去年賺了兩百萬美元。這些就是擺在你眼前的東西，至於那家公司的盈餘，你得稍微深入挖掘才能取得。所以，這如何影響心理層面，確實很有意思。
Hugely. I mean, the description that Ben Graham did of Mr. Market is so useful, right? It's this idea, if you owned that apartment building with a partner, so you each had put in $5 million and now you have this $10 million building, you own $50, your partner owns $50. And every day your partner comes to you and names a price. And at that price they will buy your interest or sell you their interest and you don't have to do anything. You know, if your partner comes and says, "Six," you're like, "I'm not interested." Now if your partner comes and says, "Twenty," you might say, "Okay, you can buy me out at that valuation."
非常有幫助。我的意思是，班傑明·葛拉漢對市場先生的描述實在太有用了，對吧？這個概念是這樣的：假設你和一位合夥人共同擁有一棟公寓大樓，你們各自投入了 500 萬美元，現在這棟大樓價值 1,000 萬美元，你持有 50%的權益，你的合夥人也持有 50%。而你的合夥人每天都來找你，報出一個價格。在這個價格下，他們要嘛買下你的權益，要嘛把他們的權益賣給你，而你什麼都不用做。你知道嗎，如果你的合夥人過來說：「600 萬」，你的反應會是：「我沒興趣。」但如果你的合夥人過來說：「2,000 萬」，你可能就會說：「好吧，你可以用這個估值把我手上的份額買走。」
And so Warren and Ben created this model of Mr. Market. Your partner is Mr. Market and Mr. Market names this price. And of course they went on and said, "What sort of personality would you like Mr. Market to have?" And you know, Warren's tonight answer was a heavy drinking manic depressive, right? That the more crazy Mr. Market is, the more money you're going to make because you focus on the value and Mr. Market focuses on the price. But you're right. People look at that price and they confuse it with value. Then you did, when you were saying, you know, they see the value has gone down, the value hasn't gone down, they see the price has gone down. And so that bedrock distinction, you know, that was one of those four legs on the stool or on the chair, you know, from my dad and grandfather was always separating price and value. But trying, you know, Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem, "If," you know, he says, you know, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, it goes on. But it has a wonderful thing where it says, if you can keep your head when all about you are doubting you, but make allowance for their doubts as well. And that's our job.
於是，華倫和班恩創造了市場先生這個模型。你的合夥人是市場先生，而市場先生會開出這個價格。當然，他們接著說：「你希望市場先生具備什麼樣的性格特質呢？」你知道，華倫當時給出的答案是重度酗酒的躁鬱症患者，對吧？市場先生愈瘋狂，你就賺得愈多，因為你專注於價值，而市場先生專注於價格。但你說的沒錯。人們看到那個價格，就把它跟價值搞混了。就像你剛才說的，你知道，他們看到價值下跌了，但價值根本沒跌，他們看到的是價格下跌了。所以那個根本的區別，你知道，那就像是我父親和祖父那張凳子或椅子上四隻腳的其中一隻，向來都是把價格和價值分開來看。但試著，你知道，吉卜林在他那首著名的詩〈如果〉裡，你知道，他說，如果你能在身邊所有人都失去理智並歸咎於你時，保持冷靜，諸如此類。但其中有段很棒的句子是這麼說的：如果你能在身邊所有人都懷疑你時，保持冷靜，但也體諒他們的懷疑。而那就是我們的工作。
We have to make allowance for their doubts. Are they seeing something that we're not? What is the short thesis? What is our pre-mortem? Where could we be wrong? And are we open and sensitive to looking for that data? Because we're in a world of probabilities and, you know, the story I like to tell about probabilities is, you know, if it came from Warren, I was asking him about a loss they had on an investment. And Warren said, "Well, I don't think that's a mistake and I'll tell you why.
我們必須體諒他們的疑慮。他們是否看到了我們沒察覺到的東西？做空論點是什麼？我們的事前檢討是什麼？我們可能在哪些地方出錯？我們是否保持開放和敏銳的態度去尋找這些數據？因為我們身處在一個充滿機率的世界，你知道，我喜歡講一個關於機率的故事，這故事來自華倫，當時我問他關於他們一項投資的虧損。華倫說：「嗯，我不認為那是個錯誤，我來告訴你為什麼。
Take out a coin from your pocket and I'll bet you a billion dollars on a coin toss if you give me two to one odds." And what that means is he was willing to take a 50% chance of losing 100% of that investment. And so he said, "I wouldn't bet you a 10 billion. I wouldn't bet you a 50 billion. But at two to one odds, a billion is about the right amount relative to the net worth that I have and so on." So, you know, recognizing that we can be right in our analysis of a company and still have something go terribly wrong in the business. And it doesn't mean we are wrong to buy it.
從你口袋裡掏出一枚硬幣，如果你給我二比一的賠率，我願意跟你賭十億美元猜硬幣正反面。」這意味著他願意承擔這項投資有 50% 的機率損失 100% 的風險。所以他說：「我不會跟你賭一百億，也不會賭五百億。但在二比一的賠率下，相對於我擁有的淨資產等等，十億美元差不多是合適的金額。」所以，要知道，我們對一家公司的分析可能是正確的，但業務上仍可能出現嚴重的問題。而這並不代表我們當初買入的決定是錯的。
The odds were in our favor, but we have to be open to seeing, well, but the thesis evolved this way and now we have another decision to make. And so it's a wonderfully dynamic process. So when you look back, are there any parts of the traditional value investing process that you feel have become less effective as they become more widely known and followed? Well, certainly the process of, you know, the meaningfulness of book value has been wildly distorted by changes in accounting and irrationalities in accounting, but also by the nature of how companies earn their money, the type of capital, intellectual capital, brands, and so on that don't show up. I think some of the parts analysis can be a little bit misleading or dangerous because people often don't think about what are the value of the underlying parts. They know what the price is, right? They say, "Oh, you know, you own this much of this public company," and I'll give you a famous example was I think it was Sears that owned Allstate and it also owned Compuserve. And there was a point at which people would say, "Well, if you buy Sears, you're getting the retailer for free because the value of the Allstate and the Compuserve are worth more than the market cap of the company." So that sounds like a great idea as a value investor to get something for free. But of course, it was only free because the Compuserve was so grossly overvalued and it collapsed.
我們的勝算很大，但我們必須保持開放心態，看到論點可能這樣演變，現在我們又有另一個決定要做。所以這是一個非常動態的過程。那麼回顧過去，你覺得傳統價值投資流程中，有哪些部分因為變得廣為人知且被廣泛遵循，而變得比較沒那麼有效了？嗯，當然，像是帳面價值的重要性，已經因為會計準則的變動和會計上的不合理之處，以及公司賺錢的方式、資本的類型、智慧資本、品牌等等這些不會顯示在帳面上的東西，而被嚴重扭曲了。我認為部分總和分析法有時候可能會有點誤導或危險，因為人們常常不去思考那些個別部分本身的價值是什麼。他們知道價格，對吧？他們會說：「喔，你知道嗎，你擁有這家上市公司這麼多的股份，」我舉個有名的例子，我想是 Sears，它擁有 Allstate，也擁有 Compuserve。 曾經有一段時間，人們會說：「如果你買下 Sears，就等於免費獲得零售業務，因為 Allstate 和 Compuserve 的價值加起來，已經超過這家公司的市值。」對價值投資人來說，這聽起來像是撿到免費好康的絕佳點子。但當然，這所謂的免費，只是因為 Compuserve 被嚴重高估，最後崩盤了。
And so you actually ended up losing even on a sum of the parts basis, like 40 or 50%, because the Compuserve was 80% of the NAV and it went down more than in half. Well, because the focus is on the price as opposed to the sum of the fair value. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, the nature and I think there are companies that can be very cheap on a book value, but the nature of the underlying business is that they are forced to invest at low returns. So if you have a crappy business that is trading at 80% of book, but the business is going to continue to invest capital at a 5% return on equity or a 4% return on equity, then buying it at 80% of book is not a great recipe. In other words, the biggest mistake I think value investors confuse is that value investors often say, "Well, I'm a value investor, so I'm a long-term investor." If you're a long-term investor, you need to be far more sensitive about the quality of the underlying business than if you're a short-term investor. The longer you own that business at 80% of book with a lousy return on equity, your return over time is going to approach the return on equity of the business no matter what your starting price is. Right? Isn't that amazing?
結果你實際上甚至以資產分拆計算也虧損了，大概虧了 40%或 50%，因為 Compuserve 佔了資產淨值的 80%，而它的價值跌了超過一半。嗯，因為重點是放在價格上，而不是各項資產的公允價值總和。沒錯，正是如此。所以，你知道，本質上——我認為有些公司以帳面價值來看可能非常便宜，但其基礎業務的本質是，它們被迫投資在低回報的項目上。所以，如果你有一家糟糕的企業，其股價是帳面價值的 80%，但這家企業未來仍將持續以 5%或 4%的股東權益報酬率來投入資本，那麼以帳面價值的 80%買入，並不是一個好方法。換句話說，我認為價值投資人最容易混淆的最大錯誤是，他們常說：「嗯，我是價值投資人，所以我是長期投資人。」如果你是長期投資人，你對基礎業務品質的敏感度，必須遠高於短線投資人。你持有那家以帳面價值 80%交易、股東權益報酬率又很差的企業越久，你的長期回報就會趨近於該企業的股東權益報酬率，無論你一開始的買入價格是多少。對吧？ 這不是很驚人嗎？
You could buy it at half a book, but if they are continuing to reinvest at 4%, over time, your return is going to approach 4%. Similarly, if you buy a business that is reinvesting 100% of its earnings at a 20% return on equity and you pay three times book for it, well, that sounds like that can't be a value, right? Three times book would be, in that case, you would, at a 20% return on equity, you'd be starting, well, let's say you paid four times book, let's make the math easy. That would be mean you're paying 20 times earnings and you're getting a 5% yield on your cost, right? If you bought it at book, you'd be making 20%, but you've paid four times book, so you're making five.
你可以用淨值一半的價格買下它，但如果它們持續以 4%的報酬率進行再投資，隨著時間推移，你的回報率就會趨近於 4%。同樣地，如果你買下一家將 100%盈餘以 20%股東權益報酬率進行再投資的企業，卻付出三倍淨值的價格，嗯，這聽起來不可能是價值投資，對吧？在這種情況下，三倍淨值，以 20%的股東權益報酬率來說，你一開始會...這麼說吧，假設你付出四倍淨值的價格，讓計算簡單一點。這意味著你付出 20 倍盈餘，而你的成本收益率是 5%，對吧？如果你用淨值買下它，你會賺 20%，但你付出了四倍淨值，所以你賺 5%。
But if that company is reinvesting at 20%, then the next year, you're going to make five plus 20% of five, right? So you're going to make six. And the next year, you're going to make 7.2, then you're going to make 8.5, right? Then you're going to make almost 10. So that business is going to be a compounding machine, even though it didn't look like a value in the beginning. And the longer you own it, the more you're going to make, the more your return will converge on that 20%. So value investors can get trapped in cigar butts, in value traps, by buying it at a cheap price, and then holding this lousy business year after year after year, and that becomes a value trap. And value investors can actually end up buying an amazing value, but they had to wait three or four years before it became obvious what a great value it was. Because you want to focus on the business first, right? Buy a great business at a good price. Exactly. As opposed to a bad business at a cheap price. Exactly. And the bad business at a cheap price is great if there's a catalyst, right?
但如果那家公司能以 20%的報酬率進行再投資，那麼隔年，你就會賺到 5 元再加上 5 元的 20%，對吧？所以你會賺到 6 元。再隔年，你會賺到 7.2 元，然後是 8.5 元，對吧？接著你會賺到將近 10 元。所以這門生意會成為一部複利機器，即使它一開始看起來不像是價值投資。而且你持有的時間越長，你賺得就越多，你的報酬率就會越趨近於那 20%。因此，價值投資者可能會陷入雪茄屁股的陷阱，也就是價值陷阱，他們用便宜的價格買進，然後年復一年地持有這家糟糕的企業，這就成了一個價值陷阱。而價值投資者最終也可能買到極具價值的標的，但他們得等上三、四年，這筆投資的絕佳價值才會變得顯而易見。因為你應該先專注在企業本身，對吧？用合理的價格買進一門好生意。正是如此。相對於用便宜的價格買進一門爛生意。一點沒錯。而用便宜價格買進的爛生意，如果有催化劑的話，那就很棒了，對吧？
If the company's going to liquidate or private equity or new management's going to come in and sort it out. I mean, there are lots of things that can make that bad business at a great price, a good investment. But they take something happening, right? It's like a vulture has to go out and kill something, so otherwise time is not your friend. Because it may be a bad business today, but you have visions of it becoming a good business. So you're effectively buying a future good business today. Yeah. Yes.
如果這家公司將要清算，或者私募股權或新的管理層會進駐整頓，我的意思是，有很多因素可以讓一門爛生意在夠便宜的價格下，變成一個好的投資標的。但這需要某些事件發生，對吧？這就像禿鷹必須出去獵殺一樣，否則時間就不是你的朋友。因為它今天可能是一門爛生意，但你預見它未來會變成一門好生意。所以你實際上是在今天買進一門未來的好生意。是的。沒錯。
But there needs to be a reason why that's going to happen. And that is, you know, it can't happen, and we've played a part in it happening sometimes. I mean, we're not known as activist investors, but we certainly actively engage with the companies that we're invested in. And sometimes that means being involved in proxy voting in a way that's hostile to management or talking to other owners and getting their opinion and their perspective and sharing ours. You touched on this a little bit earlier, but how do you think about stewardship when people are trusting you with their life's having rather than just capital on a spreadsheet? I think in my first year or two, I didn't quite understand how important that was. And for me personally, but even to the business that we are, it was really taught to me more than anything by Tom Gaynor, who is a man I admire greatly, and I don't know if you've ever spoken with him. I can't. He's the CEO of MarCal. When I met him, he was just a crank in the investment department at MarCal. We met in Omaha in the early '90s, maybe more than 30 years ago. We just happened to be sitting by each other and struck up a conversation. And that conversation changed the arc of my life, because I saw investing as a puzzle that we were always trying to solve. And all of the excitement that we talked about in the beginning, about the businesses and living in the future, and I love that. But I didn't see Wall Street as a high calling. Remember, I'd been in seminary, and so a lot of my friends who became priests would sort of tease me about that, like, "Oh, how are things in Wall Street?" And I felt a little sheepish about that. And in that very first conversation with Tom, Tom said, "How do you like the work?" And I said, "Well, the work's great, but it's not a high calling." And Tom stopped me, and he said, "You are wrong. Stewardship is a biblical calling. I mean, it is a noble profession, and a big responsibility.
但必須要有理由說明為什麼會發生這種情況。而且，你知道，這不可能憑空發生，我們有時也在其中扮演了推手。我的意思是，我們雖然不以積極投資人聞名，但我們確實會積極與所投資的公司互動。有時這意味著以對管理層不友善的方式參與委託書投票，或與其他股東交流，了解他們的意見和觀點，並分享我們的看法。你稍早稍微提到了這點，但當人們託付給你的不只是試算表上的資金，而是他們畢生的積蓄時，你如何看待受託人的責任？我記得在我入行的頭一兩年，我並不太明白這有多重要。對我個人而言，甚至對我們所從事的行業來說，這主要是 Tom Gaynor 教會我的，他是我非常敬佩的人，不知道你是否曾與他交談過。我沒辦法。他是 MarCal 的執行長。我認識他時，他只是 MarCal 投資部門的一個怪咖。我們在 90 年代初於奧馬哈相識，大概三十多年前了。我們剛好坐在彼此旁邊，就聊了起來。 那次的對話改變了我人生的軌跡，因為我將投資視為一道我們總在試圖解開的謎題。我們一開始談到的所有興奮感，關於企業、關於活在未來，這些我都熱愛。但我並不認為華爾街是一項崇高的志業。別忘了，我讀過神學院，所以很多成為神父的朋友都會拿這件事調侃我，像是：「喔，華爾街那邊怎麼樣啊？」我對此感到有點難為情。而在與湯姆的第一次對話中，湯姆問我：「你喜歡這份工作嗎？」我說：「嗯，工作本身很棒，但這不算是一項崇高的志業。」湯姆打斷我，他說：「你錯了。受託管理是一項源自聖經的志業。我的意思是，這是一份高尚的職業，也是一份重大的責任。」
You're not in the investing business. You're in the stewardship profession." And that is a huge... That shift was really fun, because as I said, my grandfather mostly managed his own money. My father was so dispositionally sort of an analyst and a portfolio manager that he didn't really think about that side of the business. It was... He had started as an institutional investor, and so he just... The clients were sort of something over here. And Tom saying that was...
你不是在從事投資業，而是在從事資產託管的專業。這個轉變真的很有意思，因為如我所說，我祖父主要管理自己的資金。我父親天性上比較像是分析師和投資組合經理人，他不太會去思考業務的這一面。他最初是從機構投資人做起，所以對他來說，客戶就像是另一回事。而湯姆說出那句話……
It was one of the three or four most important conversations in my professional life. And so, the stewardship really changed. We thought... Remember, in the early '90s, we had a lot of insider money. We were a small firm. And people would say, "Well, why don't you just convert to a hedge fund?" And you would make a lot more money, which is true. But I think our mindset was... And this is a little caddy, but I felt like making rich people richer didn't feel to me as motivating as the idea that we have a school teacher's life savings, and being able to send that kid to college really matters. And I felt like the way our firm has unfolded... And of course, we're built in partnership with financial advisors. And within that community, the financial advisors that we have sort of had the opportunity to work with for 30 years are really the advisors that have their clients, they have their clients' kids, they have their clients' grandkids. They haven't taken a shortcut. And of course, that's also a community where there are people trying to pump and dump and all of that. And so I think our culture has reinforced the type of advisors that choose to work with us, because the advisors that choose to work with us trust matters greatly. It matters more than the hot dot in your alpha in this period and chasing whatever is great. So we have selected in to a group of advisors that's especially, in my view, especially high quality, and that focus on stewardship has helped create an ecosystem that I'm proud to be associated with. We don't have salesmen out pumping whatever the hot product is. And one of the things we talk with advisors a lot about is the difference between a business and a profession. And in a business, you sell a product to a customer. And you gauge your success by profits.
那是我職業生涯中最重要的三四次對話之一。因此，管理方針真的改變了。我們當時想……記得在九○年代初期，我們有很多內部資金。我們是一家小公司。人們會說：「那你們為什麼不乾脆轉型成避險基金？」這樣可以賺更多錢，這確實沒錯。但我認為我們的心態是……這樣說可能有點刻薄，但我覺得讓有錢人變得更富有，對我來說，不如我們掌握一位學校老師的畢生積蓄，能夠送那個孩子上大學來得有意義。我覺得我們公司的發展方式……當然，我們是與財務顧問合作建立起來的。而在這個社群中，我們有幸合作了三十年的財務顧問，他們真的是那種擁有客戶、客戶的孩子、客戶的孫子，而且從不投機取巧的顧問。當然，這個圈子裡同樣也存在著試圖拉高出貨之類的人。 因此，我認為我們的文化強化了選擇與我們合作的顧問類型，因為選擇與我們合作的顧問極度重視信任。這比追逐某段時期的超額報酬或任何當紅標的更為重要。因此，我們篩選出了一群在我看來品質特別優異的顧問，而這種對受託人責任的專注，有助於創造出一個讓我引以為傲的生態系統。我們沒有業務員四處推銷當紅產品。我們經常與顧問討論的一件事，就是生意與專業的區別。在生意中，你是把產品賣給客戶，並以利潤來衡量成功。
And the number one rule of business is push the customer the way they want to go, right? In a profession, you provide a service to a client. And that sounds like semantics, except when you realize that the only way you can judge the quality of a professional versus a businessman is by referencing client outcomes. So if you want to know, Alex, who's the best doctor, you could say, well, show me their tax return. That's not going to do it, right? You have to say, let me see the patient outcomes, right? You want to know who's the best teacher. You'd say, well, is it the teacher that's paid the most, right?
商業的首要法則，就是順著顧客想要的方向去推動，對吧？而在專業領域中，你是為客戶提供服務。這聽起來像是文字遊戲，但關鍵在於，要判斷一位專業人士與商人之間的優劣，唯一的方法就是參考客戶的成果。所以，如果你想問，艾力克斯，誰是最好的醫生？你可以說，那給我看他們的報稅單。這根本行不通，對吧？你必須說，讓我看看病患的治療成果，對吧？你想知道誰是最好的老師，你會說，是薪水最高的那位老師嗎？
Or is it, I have to look at student outcomes. You know, what about the best lawyer, I need to look at a client outcome. And so the financial advisors, portfolio managers, we're in a profession. And we need to be judged on how the end client does. And that doesn't just mean our performance. It also means when they get in, when they get out. Do you have a good stretch and then market like crazy and get everybody in in a bad stretch? Do they hire high and fire low so you end up with terrible dollar weighted returns? And so a big part of our work with advisors is that idea of, well, I'll put it positively. How do we improve client behavior?
或者說，我必須看學生的成果。你知道，就像最優秀的律師，我需要看客戶的成果。所以財務顧問、投資組合經理，我們身處的是一個專業領域。我們需要根據終端客戶的表現來被評判。而這不單指我們的績效，還包括他們何時進場、何時出場。你是否在表現亮眼時大肆宣傳，然後在表現不佳時讓所有人進場？他們是否在高點買進、低點賣出，導致你最終得到糟糕的加權報酬率？因此，我們與顧問合作的很大一部分工作，就是這個概念，嗯，我正面一點說，我們該如何改善客戶行為？
How do we improve investor behavior? How do we save, you know, when I go to the doctor, the doctor doesn't say to me, you know what you should do? Drink as much as you want. He doesn't tell me what I want to hear, right? Tells me things I don't really want to hear, but they're good for me. And advisors, you know, in a sense are like doctors, but they also have play a big role in getting the person to exercise, getting the person to drink less. In other words, behavior modification is an enormous part of the value they can have. And so the partnership that we have with advisors is really built with that mindset.
我們該如何改善投資人的行為？我們該如何幫助他們，你知道，當我去看醫生時，醫生不會對我說，你知道你該怎麼做嗎？想喝多少就喝多少。他不會說我想聽的話，對吧？他會告訴我一些我其實不太想聽，但對我有益的事情。而理財顧問，你知道，某種程度上就像醫生一樣，但他們也扮演著重要角色，要讓那個人去運動，讓那個人少喝點酒。換句話說，行為修正正是他們所能提供的巨大價值所在。因此，我們與理財顧問之間的合作關係，其實就是建立在這種心態之上。
And so I don't know how many financial advisors are in the country, but we deal with a tiny sliver of them. And to me, it's a sliver of them for whom stewardship, trust, and client outcomes is the reason they go to work every day versus, you know, the type of car they drive or how much money they can extract from their clients. And so it makes it a lot more fun to come to work. So going all the way back to what you said about stewardship, it's ended up being a wonderful feedback loop rather than just a slogan. And it is an important mindset because it is a tremendous responsibility to manage other people's assets, and I think what that inserts into your disposition and your view of the world is focused on the downside and thinking about resilience through time, as opposed to momentum and chasing the hot dots and trying to maximize profits. It's looking for asymmetric opportunities, which is a very different area of focus. Absolutely. And, you know, it helps, and if I had one piece of advice for investors, we don't invest in a single company where the incentives of management aren't aligned with our incentives as owners or our goals as owners. And it is amazing to me how many strategies and portfolios are managed by people that don't have their own money invested alongside their clients. And, you know, that is a huge part of our ethos and our culture is that alignment because we know it matters when we look at the end companies we invest in. We want to invest in owner operators, right? Because if we don't, then what happens is if their incentives aren't aligned, then what they're interested in is getting the most compensation possible. That's an expense for us, right? We don't like that. But if their incentive is to create as much value as possible, then we're aligned. So we want to look through it. Are they owners of the business? Are they fellow owners?
所以我不確定國內有多少理財顧問，但我們只與其中極少數合作。對我來說，這群人是因為受託責任、信任和客戶成果而每天投入工作，而不是為了開什麼樣的車，或能從客戶身上榨取多少錢。這讓上班變得有趣多了。因此，回到你剛才提到的受託責任，它最終形成了一個美好的回饋循環，而不僅僅是一句口號。這是一種重要的心態，因為管理他人的資產是一項重大的責任，我認為這會融入你的性格和世界觀，讓你專注於下行風險，思考如何經得起時間考驗，而不是追逐動能、跟風熱門標的，試圖將利潤最大化。這是在尋找不對稱的機會，是一個截然不同的關注領域。完全正確。而且，你知道，這很有幫助，如果要給投資人一個建議，那就是我們絕不投資任何一家管理層的激勵誘因，與我們作為股東的激勵誘因或目標不一致的公司。 令我感到驚訝的是，有這麼多策略和投資組合的管理者，並未將自己的資金與客戶的資金一同投入。你知道，這正是我們核心理念與文化的重要一環——這種利益一致性。因為我們深知，當我們審視所投資的最終端公司時，這一點至關重要。我們希望投資於那些經營者即所有者的企業，對吧？因為若非如此，當他們的誘因與我們不一致時，他們所在意的就會是盡可能獲取最高薪酬。這對我們來說就是一筆開銷，對吧？我們不樂見這種情況。但如果他們的誘因是盡可能創造最大價值，那麼我們就利益一致了。所以我們希望看透這一點。他們是企業的所有者嗎？他們是與我們並肩的合夥所有者嗎？
Are they standing alongside us? And it's amazing in the investment profession how few people ask about that or talk about that or model that. We view that as a hugely important part of our commitment. When you look at today's concentration and the large tech companies, what parallels do you see with the late 1990s and is there anything that feels fundamentally different this time? I would say the similarities are bigger than the differences. You have a really exciting world-changing new technology in the form of AI as you did then in the internet. Amara's law is a wonderful way to conceptualize this part of a cycle.
他們是否與我們站在同一陣線？在投資這個行業，很少人會去問這個問題、討論這個問題，或將其納入模型考量，這點實在令人驚訝。我們認為這是我們承諾中極為重要的一環。當你看到現今的市場集中度與大型科技公司時，你認為與 1990 年代末期有何相似之處？這次是否有什麼根本上的不同？我會說相似之處大於相異之處。你現在有像人工智慧這樣令人興奮、足以改變世界的新技術，就如同當年的網際網路。阿瑪拉定律（Amara's law）是理解這類週期階段的一個絕佳概念。
Amara said that new technologies are often overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term. But we are in the overestimating phase and that's very powerfully similar to the late '90s. And the reason it's dangerous is everybody's spending all of their time trying to pick the winners. Who are the emerging winners? And in a fast-changing emerging technology, that is a really dangerous game. And if I was just to look back at that period and say there were three sure winners in the internet, that everybody knew them.
阿瑪拉說，新技術在短期內往往被高估，長期來看則被低估。但我們正處於高估的階段，這與 90 年代末期的情況極為相似。而這之所以危險，是因為每個人都在花費所有時間試圖挑選贏家。誰是正在崛起的贏家？在一個快速變化的新興技術領域，這真的是一場危險的遊戲。如果我只回顧那個時期，然後說網際網路有三個確定的贏家，而且當時每個人都知道它們。
They were called the three horsemen and it was Yahoo, AOL, and Cisco. And they were the dominant blue chip, absolute, the three horsemen of the internet. And so if you bought Amazon in '99, you were down 70, 80% by 2002. You still didn't find if you bought it in '99. But if you also had Yahoo, AOL, Cisco, you were killed. And so our view is that's the first point. All of the hype and attention is being spent trying to identify the emerging winners and driving them up to valuations where even good businesses have so much valuation risk built in. And the second part of it is in that period of hype, people lose track of everything else.
它們被稱為網路三騎士，分別是雅虎、美國線上與思科。它們是當時最具主導地位的藍籌股，絕對是網際網路的三騎士。因此，如果你在 1999 年買進亞馬遜，到了 2002 年會虧損 70%到 80%。即便在 1999 年買進，你依然無法確定能否回本。但如果你同時持有雅虎、美國線上與思科，那就真的血本無歸了。所以我們的看法是，這是第一點。所有的炒作與關注都耗費在試圖找出新興贏家，並將它們的估值推高到即使體質良好的企業，也內建了極大的估值風險。而第二點是，在那段炒作期間，人們會忽略其他所有事物。
So you get a narrower and narrower market. And of course in '99, if you predicted the bear market that was coming and went to cash, that was a mistake. Actually, I think in the year 2000, the market was down 9% or something like that. A lot of value managers, including us, were up like double digits. I mean, maybe you were up 9%. We had managers we admire, Oakmark, they were up 15%, 18%, 20%. And by the way, they had a great five-year stretch. So we had decent returns for that five years from March of 2000 for the next five years. Market had negative returns.
這樣一來，市場就會變得越來越集中。當然，在 1999 年，如果你預測到熊市即將來臨並轉為現金持有，那其實是個錯誤。事實上，我記得 2000 年市場下跌了大約 9%左右。許多價值型基金經理人，包括我們在內，報酬率都有兩位數的成長。我的意思是，或許你們的報酬率是 9%。我們有一些很欽佩的基金經理人，像是 Oakmark，他們的報酬率達到 15%、18%、20%。順帶一提，他們那五年期間表現非常出色。所以從 2000 年 3 月開始的接下來五年，我們獲得了不錯的報酬，而市場的報酬率則是負值。
And so that's the second element of a market like this is that it gets so narrow that there's a lot of good, durable businesses that are considered boring and are sort of overlooked. So avoiding the hype, then trying to look and see what's been overlooked. And the third thing is recognizing if the trend is real, which we believe absolutely it is. I mean, AI is a real powerful technology. Are there other ways to invest in it that will be beneficiaries of the technology without the risk? So instead of just focusing on the emerging winners, can you focus on the enablers? What are the companies that will enable this technology? Today you can think of things like applied materials or Taiwan semiconductor or Samsung or Texas Instruments. But you can also think of companies like natural gas companies or copper companies. These are the companies that will make a lot of money, whether or not the returns on the capital being spent are good or not. So they're enablers. Then they're users, the users of the technology. So in the internet, who were the users that were able to benefit from this enormously powerful new technology? Think of Netflix as a dramatic example, pivot their whole model to being able to deliver through the internet instead of sending DVDs everywhere.
因此，這類市場的第二個特點是，它會變得極為狹隘，以至於有許多體質良好、經得起考驗的企業，只因被認為無趣而遭到忽略。所以，要避開那些被過度炒作的標的，轉而去尋找那些被市場冷落的機會。第三點則是，要能辨識出趨勢是否為真，而我們深信 AI 趨勢確實不假。我的意思是，AI 確實是一項強大的技術。那麼，是否有其他投資這項技術的方式，既能成為技術的受益者，又無需承擔過高風險呢？與其只聚焦在新興的贏家身上，不如關注那些「賦能者」。哪些公司將使這項技術得以實現？現今你可以想到像應用材料、台積電、三星或德州儀器這類公司。但你也可以想到天然氣公司或銅礦公司。無論投入的資本回報是好是壞，這些公司都將賺進大把鈔票。所以它們是賦能者。接著是「使用者」，也就是技術的使用者。回顧網際網路的發展，哪些使用者能夠從這項極其強大的新技術中獲益？ 以 Netflix 為例，這是一個戲劇性的轉型案例，他們將整個商業模式轉向透過網路傳輸內容，而非四處寄送 DVD。
Now think about the users of AI. Who are the obvious winners? Well, it's going to be companies that have enormous data sets that have labor costs that easily lend themselves to providing better service at a lower price using AI, that have the appropriate tech stack, that have managements that are willing to cross that chasm. So an example that jumps to the top of our list is Capital One Financial. Capital One is in the top 10 companies of all companies in the world for AI patents and machine learning patents. By some measures, they're in the top five, which is amazing. It's hard to get a clear data on that, but they're certainly in the top 10.
現在想想 AI 的使用者。誰是顯而易見的贏家？嗯，將會是那些擁有龐大數據集、勞動成本結構使其易於利用 AI 以更低價格提供更優質服務、具備適當技術堆疊，且管理層願意跨越那道鴻溝的公司。因此，一個立刻躍上我們名單首位的例子就是第一資本金融公司（Capital One Financial）。第一資本在全球所有公司的 AI 專利和機器學習專利數量上，名列前十。根據某些衡量標準，他們甚至名列前五，這相當驚人。要取得這方面的明確數據並不容易，但他們肯定在前十名之內。
That is a data company, and AI is going to be fabulous for them. So they're the users of the technology. Then there's a category that mattered again with the internet, which was who are the indifferent or the insulated, who are the protected? And that's the famous Jeff Bezos question. People always ask me what's going to change. They ought to ask me what's not going to change. That's also a very important question, and Tyson Chicken, not going to change that much. AI, neither here nor there for their business, raising chickens, raising protein, I guess makes it sound a little more neutral.
那是一家數據公司，AI 對他們來說將會非常出色。所以他們是這項技術的使用者。接著還有一類，在網路時代也曾經很重要，那就是誰是無關緊要的、誰是絕緣的、誰是受到保護的？這就是傑夫·貝佐斯那個著名的問題。人們總是問我什麼會改變。他們應該問我什麼不會改變。這也是一個非常重要的問題，而泰森雞肉，不會有太大改變。AI 對他們的生意來說，既不好也不壞，養雞、生產蛋白質，我想這樣說聽起來稍微中立一點。
And then the last category in a time of change like this, that we can go back to the late '90s and think about are who are the walking dead, who's the Kodak of this era, who are the newspaper companies, where the new technology is just so much better. And this is where I think index investors are in for a tough surprise, because I think that indexes adapt more slowly, even then they did, but now that the indexes might be 50% to 70%, you're going to go down with the ship, and I'll give you a good example from back then. I mean, Kodak, I think 10 million, 10 million digital cameras had been sold when digital camera sales crossed film camera sales. So 10 million people knew that film was dead.
而在這種變革時代的最後一個類別，我們可以回溯到 90 年代末期來思考：誰是行屍走肉？誰是這個時代的柯達？誰是報業公司？新技術明顯優越得多。我認為這正是指數投資者將會大吃一驚的地方，因為指數的調整速度比以往更慢，但現在指數可能佔了 50%到 70%，你將會跟著沉船一起下沉。我舉個當時的好例子，柯達，我記得當數位相機銷量超越底片相機時，已經賣出了一千萬台數位相機。也就是說，有一千萬人知道底片已經玩完了。
Right? I'm a photographer. The first time you used digital camera, you knew you were never going back. In fact, it wasn't even close. It was so crazy to go and buy this canister of film and take 36 pictures and then put it back in the canister and drive to the store and drop it off and drive home. And then three days later, drive to the store and pick it up, and then you see your kids' eyes are closed. I got to hang it. And so if you were looking for a house or a car or a job, I got my job at State Street
對吧？我是個攝影師。當你第一次使用數位相機時，你就知道自己再也回不去了。事實上，根本沒得比。以前得去買一捲底片，拍完 36 張照片後，再把底片放回罐子裡，開車到沖印店送洗，然後開車回家。三天後，再開車去店裡取件，結果看到你家小孩眼睛閉起來了。我必須把它掛起來。所以，如果你正在找房子、車子或工作，我在道富銀行找到了我的工作。
Bank from the classified section of the Boston Globe, like going through circling jobs that I could apply for, and State Street was hiring into their accounting program. If you use that online search, you realized it was crazy, the old system of reading, dishwash or wanted, no, I'm trying to find the end or the zip code you're interested in or the type of car. But with 10 million digital cameras sold, Kodak was still in the top third of the S&P 500. And you knew it was sinking. You didn't know the rate. You knew they had a film business for movies that was pretty profitable. But you could just so the walking dead.
從《波士頓環球報》的分類廣告欄開始，就像圈選我能應徵的工作那樣，當時道富銀行正在招募會計專案的人員。如果你用那種線上搜尋，就會發現那套老系統有多瘋狂，讀著「洗碗工招聘」之類的內容，不，我是想找到感興趣的郵遞區號或車款類型。但即使數位相機已賣出一千萬台，柯達仍在標普 500 指數中名列前三分之一。你知道它正在沉淪，只是不清楚下沉的速度。你知道他們有為電影產業服務的底片業務，利潤相當可觀。但你也能看出，那不過是行屍走肉罷了。
And I think the indexes and momentum investors and illiquid strategies, those three are going to be the three horsemen of the apocalypse, I think, in the next five years. I think people have underestimated how valuable liquidity is. They've locked themselves up in private equity, private credit, all of these pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, and they can't change their mind at a time when the world is changing fast, they're locked up. So I think that's very dangerous. I think momentum strategies that are based on, this is what worked in the past, so it should keep working dividend strategies. This company's paid a dividend for 40 years, 50 years, I feel safe.
我認為指數型投資、動能投資者以及缺乏流動性的策略，這三者將成為未來五年的三大災難預兆。我認為人們低估了流動性的價值。他們將資金鎖定在私募股權、私募信貸，以及各種退休基金、主權財富基金中，在世界快速變遷的當下，他們無法改變主意，資金被牢牢套住。所以我認為這非常危險。我也認為那些基於「過去有效，所以未來也該持續有效」的動能策略，以及那些標榜「這家公司已經配發股息 40 年、50 年，讓我覺得很安心」的股息策略，都潛藏著風險。
Don't feel safe in times of change, right? Kodak had paid a dividend for 40 or 50 years. It can change fast. So those are all back in the index. These are backward-looking strategies and they're slow to adapt when the world changes. It's an area where fundamental analysis, going all the way back, Alex, to where we started with my grandfather, we're looking through at the business and can be a huge advantage. It's not an advantage when everything is driven by the momentum of the past. But when you get transition, then being anchored to the past can be very dangerous. So I think the dividend strategies, the illiquid strategies, the momentum strategies, the passive strategies, all could be very disadvantaged in the way we see the world unfolded in the next five years. Serving on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, what have you learned firsthand about Warren Buffett's and Charlie Munger's approach that you feel might be commonly misunderstood? Well, what I'd say is what's so dramatic about Berkshire has been the culture of transparency. And I've been going to Berkshire annual meetings since 1989 or '90. I've read every annual report and the partnership letters before that the answer is not much is different on the inside than the outside. Because they're so transparent. Yeah.
在變革時期不要感到安逸，對吧？柯達曾連續發放股利長達四、五十年，但變化可能來得很快。這些都已被納入指數之中。這些都是回顧型的策略，當世界發生變化時，它們的調適速度很慢。在這個領域，基本面分析——一路追溯到我們最初與我祖父開始的方式，亞歷克斯——我們深入審視企業本質，這能帶來巨大的優勢。當一切都被過去的動能驅動時，這種優勢並不明顯。但當你面臨轉型期，固守過去可能會非常危險。因此，我認為在我們預見未來五年世界發展的方式中，股利策略、非流動性策略、動能策略、被動策略，都可能處於相當不利的地位。在波克夏海瑟威董事會任職期間，關於華倫·巴菲特和查理·蒙格的處事方法，你親身學到了哪些可能常被誤解的地方？嗯，我想說的是，波克夏最引人注目之處在於其透明的文化。而我從 1989 或 1990 年就開始參加波克夏的年度股東會了。 我讀過每一份年報，以及在那之前的合夥人信函，答案是內部與外部並沒有太大不同。因為他們極度透明。沒錯。
The word integrity, it comes from the Latin, integrity, it's wholeness. It's wholeness. It's not one thing over here and one thing over here. There is enormous integrity in that organization. And so in that sense, I would have been shocked if I'd seen anything different on the inside. I would say a nuanced difference is the way in which that firm and it influences how we think. There are two pillars that are very central and one is the idea that people have their life savings invested there. That's been a part of Warren and Charlie's ethos from the beginning, that their friends
誠信這個詞，源自拉丁文 integritas，意思是完整性。就是完整性。不是這裡一套、那裡一套。那個組織具有極大的誠信。因此，就這個意義上來說，如果我在內部看到任何不同的東西，我才會感到震驚。我會說一個細微的差別，在於那間公司的運作方式，以及它如何影響我們的思考。有兩個非常核心的支柱，一個是「人們把畢生積蓄都投資在那裡」的觀念。這從一開始就是華倫和查理精神的一部分，他們的朋友
and neighbors trusted them, that Berkshire represents the lion's share of their net worth and their assets and they have a duty to be protective of that, far more so than the duty to outperform and index or whatever. That's job one. That goes back to stewardship. Yeah, and you feel that very much on the inside as well. And it relates to the second part, which is you can read every annual report, go to every annual meeting, and you will have an enormous sense of how Warren thinks about risk. I would say the only nuanced difference I would say from the inside is he really thinks about risk and he thinks about risk in ways he imagines things happening that are from a common perception point of view would be unthinkable. But of course, if you even just look back at our life, lots of unthinkable things have happened. Right? I mean, it's the norm. COVID, the financial crisis, the tech collapse, the oil embargo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Peach Benson, and I think everybody's so interested, I think everybody's been interested reading the book about 1929. But somehow when you're out of that moment of chaos, people forget it. That's what you said.
鄰居們信任他們，波克夏代表了他們絕大部分的淨資產與財富，他們有責任保護這一切，這份責任遠比超越指數或其他什麼的更重要。這才是首要任務。這又回到了受託人責任的核心。沒錯，你在內部也能深刻感受到這一點。這也連結到第二個部分，那就是你可以閱讀每一份年報、參加每一次股東會，你會深刻體會到華倫是如何思考風險的。我會說，從內部來看，唯一細微的差別在於，他確實非常認真思考風險，而且他會用一種從常人認知角度來看難以想像的方式去設想可能發生的事情。但當然，如果你回頭看看我們自己的人生，難以想像的事情發生過太多了。對吧？我的意思是，這幾乎是常態。新冠疫情、金融危機、科技泡沫破裂、石油禁運、古巴飛彈危機、越戰、桃芝颱風，我想每個人都對閱讀關於 1929 年的書很感興趣。但不知怎的，一旦脫離了那個混亂的當下，人們就忘了。這就是你說的。
People just somehow, it doesn't stick in their mind. And it really does with Warren. He really thinks about what if capital markets were closed for six months? What if we need to be able to make payroll? We need to make sure that we're on the other side. We need to be an asset to the country in a time like that. We can't be somebody that needs a bailout. And he thinks about that in a profoundly pervasive way. And I think I would have expected it, but I would say that's just a difference of nuance that I'm really just struck by.
人們不知怎的，就是記不住這點。但華倫確實銘記在心。他會認真思考：如果資本市場關閉六個月怎麼辦？如果我們必須支付薪資怎麼辦？我們必須確保自己能撐過去。在那種時刻，我們要成為國家的資產，而不是需要紓困的對象。他以一種極為深入透徹的方式思考這件事。我本以為自己會預料到這點，但我得說，這正是讓我深感震撼的細微差異之處。
So I know Charlie Munger was an important mentor to you. What lesson from him most deeply shaped how you think about investing? Well, actually, I'll do this. Let me see if I can turn this there. Just so you can see Charlie behind me. And he's there for a psychological reason. It's not just an homage. He had a bust of Ben Franklin in his office. And he said it's useful to have the people you wouldn't want to disappoint looking over your shoulder.
我知道查理·蒙格是你重要的導師。他教給你的哪一課，最深遠地塑造了你對投資的思考方式？嗯，其實，我來試試看能不能把這個轉過來，讓你看看我身後的查理。把他放在那裡是有心理層面的考量，不僅僅是致敬。他在辦公室裡放了一尊班傑明·富蘭克林的半身像，並說，讓那些你不願辜負的人在你身後注視著，是很有用的。
And the picture out there is my grandfather and the Navy. And there's sense and that's a useful thing. But well, I really can't-- to distill down Charlie is hard. I think all of the things we've talked about, stewardship and rationality, certainly, are a huge part. The idea of constant learning, the willingness to really take an unpopular stand. I think the ability to bring so many models to bear in your thinking about people and to just maintain this enormous equanimity. And I think one of the things maybe that is most interesting to me about Charlie is he really didn't care at all what anybody else thought.
外頭那張照片是我祖父和海軍的合照。這其中確實有某種意義，也是很有用的東西。不過呢，我實在沒辦法——要濃縮查理的精髓真的很難。我想我們談過的所有特質，像是當責與理性，當然都佔了很大一部分。還有那種持續學習的觀念，以及真正願意採取不受歡迎立場的勇氣。我認為他能夠在思考人的時候運用這麼多種思維模型，並且始終保持這種極大的沉著冷靜。而關於查理，我覺得或許最有趣的一點是，他真的完全不在乎別人怎麼想。
But he cared deeply about doing the right thing. And that meant that sometimes people thought he was rude, or sometimes people thought he was mean, or sometimes they thought he was stubborn. But he was his own most fierce critic. He was his own greater. And most people, if they take a self-graded exam score pretty well, not Charlie. And there's something so admirable about the center that he holds. I mentioned the arc of my life that changed with Tom Gaynor and Charlie was the other. There was two where a single conversation, my life would have gone very differently if I hadn't just had this chance opportunity to meet Charlie when I was young and I was trying to sell him a business, which he had no interest in. But at the end of that meeting, he said, "If you find yourself in Los Angeles, I'll make time to see you." And I just started these routine pilgrimages every month or two, just to spend time with them. You often emphasize patience, and we have today, did you see it as a competitive advantage in a world that seems to be built around immediate gratification? Oh, absolutely, absolutely, the quick feedback people. But it's dangerous, too, because it's given rise to a type of activist investor that is hugely destructive, value-destructive to long-term investing.
但他非常在意做正確的事。這意味著，有時候人們會覺得他粗魯，有時候覺得他刻薄，有時候覺得他固執。但他對自己最嚴厲，對自己要求最高。大多數人如果給自己打分都會打得不錯，但查理不會。他所堅守的核心價值，有種令人敬佩的特質。我提到過我人生的轉捩點，一個是湯姆·蓋納，另一個就是查理。有兩次，僅僅是一場對話，我的人生就可能截然不同——如果當年我沒有偶然遇見查理的話。那時我還年輕，想賣一門生意給他，但他完全沒興趣。不過會面結束時，他說：「如果你到洛杉磯，我會抽空見你。」於是，我開始了例行朝聖般的旅程，每隔一兩個月就去一趟，只為了跟他們相處。你經常強調耐心，而我們身處的世界似乎建立在即時滿足之上，你是否將耐心視為一種競爭優勢？哦，絕對是，絕對是，那些追求快速回饋的人。 但這也很危險，因為它催生了一種極具破壞力的激進投資者類型，對長期投資來說是毀滅價值的。
And I really resent it. The activist investor who gets involved who says this company, we talked about the low return on equity company that continues to pour money in, an activist investor that's involved in that situation and says, "We need to improve this business. We need to be more disciplined." Fabulous. That's great. But the ones that are there to get a quick sugar high at the expense of long-term investing, I've seen it over and over. If activists had been able to get into Amazon in 2002, they would have fired Jeff.
我對此非常反感。那種介入後說「這家公司，我們談到的那種持續投入資金的低股本回報率公司，有激進投資者介入並說：『我們需要改善這項業務。我們需要更有紀律。』」這很棒，非常好。但那些以犧牲長期投資為代價來追求快速亢奮感的激進投資者，我已經一再見識過了。如果激進投資者在 2002 年就能介入亞馬遜，他們早就把傑夫給開除了。
They would have kept the company focused only on books. If activist investors had gotten into Meta four years ago, they would have shut down all the work on wearables, they would have shut down the work on the Metaverse. They probably would have voted down the acquisition of Instagram, and yet that is a company where they are making investments for a decade or longer ahead, because that's how the owners think. I spent last week, I was down in Texas, and I visited with the now retired CEO of Texas Instruments, Rich Templeton. Texas Instruments became one of our largest positions in the early 2000s when Rich became the CEO, and we had known the company before.
如果當時有激進投資者介入，他們會讓公司只專注在書籍業務。要是激進投資者四年前進入 Meta，他們會關閉所有穿戴式裝置的研發，也會終止元宇宙的相關工作。他們大概還會投票否決收購 Instagram 的提案，然而這家公司正在進行的是長達十年甚至更久的投資布局，因為這就是創辦人的思維模式。上週我去了德州，拜訪了德州儀器已退休的執行長 Rich Templeton。德州儀器在 2000 年代初期 Rich 接任執行長時，成為我們持股比重最高的標的之一，而我們在此之前就對這家公司有所了解。
The company got really hyper-overvalued in the year 2000 as part of that internet wave. It went down seven years later, it was still below what it had traded for then. Seven years after Rich became head, Wall Street hated it, you'd gone nowhere for seven years. We had been buying year after year after year, because they were making enormous changes in their business that were going to create huge value. It wasn't clear in the earnings, because essentially what they were doing was getting out of the capital-intensive parts of manufacturing semiconductors and focusing on this business called the analog, but think of them as low-priced chips that are important to customers, but you need to make a lot of them, and they have a long life in the product. They go into toasters and phones and everything anyway.
該公司在 2000 年因網路浪潮而被極度過度高估。七年後股價下跌，仍低於當時的交易價格。Rich 接掌七年後，華爾街對它嗤之以鼻，七年來毫無進展。我們年復一年持續買進，因為他們正在對業務進行重大變革，這些變革將創造巨大價值。這在財報中並不明顯，因為他們本質上是在退出資本密集的半導體製造業務，轉而專注於所謂的類比晶片業務。你可以把這些晶片想成是對客戶很重要但價格低廉的晶片，需要大量生產，且產品生命週期長。它們被應用在烤麵包機、手機等各種產品中。
The company was still running a huge amount of depreciation from when they had all these expensive factories through their income statement, so it didn't look like they were earning a lot of money. They were walking away from revenue as they got out of those businesses, and yet the cash was pouring in because their capital spending had gone way down, and the core of the business was so good. Anyway, nothing for seven years. If an activist had gotten in there and screwed that up and said, "We're going to start building these big factories now, we're going to go back to chasing unprofitable revenue, we're going to go back to being in iPhones even though we don't make any money," and blah, blah, blah.
該公司當時仍在損益表中計提大量折舊，這些折舊來自他們曾經擁有的那些昂貴工廠，所以表面上看起來他們賺的錢並不多。隨著他們退出那些業務，營收也在縮減，但現金卻源源不絕地流入，因為資本支出大幅下降，而核心業務的體質又極其優異。總之，整整七年股價毫無動靜。如果當時有激進投資者介入攪局，說什麼「我們現在要開始蓋這些大工廠了，我們要回頭去追逐那些不賺錢的營收，我們要重新回去做 iPhone，即使根本賺不到錢」之類的鬼話，那後果不堪設想。
Instead, we got a triple in the stock in about 14 months because it took a long time. Now, I was with Rich recently, and in a way, they're investing for the next 10 years in the opposite way. He said everybody got so enamored of outsourcing manufacturing to Taiwan and everywhere else. He said, "I think we need to build our own factories." This was five years ago. We need to build chip factories, and we're going to build them in the US. We are also, at the same time, going to change our distribution from going through the channel to going direct to customers. That meant that a lot of the channel was going to keep punish them and kick them out.
結果我們反而在約 14 個月內，從這檔股票獲得了三倍報酬，因為這花了很長一段時間。最近我和 Rich 碰面，從某個角度來看，他們現在正以相反的方式為未來十年布局。他說，大家都過度迷戀將製造外包到台灣和其他地方。他說：「我認為我們需要建立自己的工廠。」這番話是五年前說的。我們需要建造晶片廠，而且要在美國本土建造。同時，我們也將改變經銷模式，從透過通路銷售轉為直接面對客戶。這意味著許多通路商將會持續抵制他們，甚至將他們踢出市場。
They were going to take enormous short-term pain. They were going to spend an enormous amount of capital building factories. Everybody said, "What are you doing, you idiots? You're supposed to be capital life, and you're giving up all this revenue." We knew Rich, and he's retired now, but I will bet a large—well, I am betting a large sum of money—that over the next 10 years, I don't know when it'll happen that all of these investments, say, will pay off, whereas if an activist came in and said, "In fact, an activist did come in there," and said, "Oh, you've got to stop this capital spending. You've got to go back to using the channel," and that is hugely destructive to long-term value.
他們願意承受巨大的短期痛苦，投入鉅額資金興建工廠。所有人都說：「你們這些傻瓜在幹什麼？你們應該要維持資本生命週期，卻放棄這麼多營收。」我們認識 Rich，他現在已經退休了，但我敢打賭一大筆——好吧，我確實押注了一大筆錢——在未來十年內，雖然不確定何時會發生，但這些投資終將獲得回報。反之，如果有激進投資者介入——事實上確實有激進投資者介入過——並說：「喔，你們必須停止這些資本支出，回去使用通路模式」，這對長期價值將造成極大的破壞。
I really hate what activist investing has become. It's become short-term. There were some activists got involved in Markel, we were talking about Tom Gaynor. It's insane what they were recommending to get a short-term fix, that they split up this incredible three engines they have that create enormous stability. They built up this wonderful portfolio of private companies, and they're like, "You should sell those companies to private equity because you could get a good price for them." It's like, "Well, if we could get a good price for them, it's because they're probably undervalued in here." We are judging those business because of the earnings they contribute, the stability they create with our insurance operations. This activist is trying to get them to split up. It's insane, and it would be hugely destructive, but there's no question if they announce they were going to split up, the stock would go up 20% for a short period of time, and long-term investors would be screwed over the long-term. That sugar high is a really poisonous part of capitalism that goes under the guise of activism but is actually undermining to long-term shareholder returns. Well, Chris, this has been a really fun conversation. I appreciate you sharing all your insights, your experience, and describing the way you view investing and being a steward for the assets.
我真的很厭惡股東行動主義變成的樣子。它已經變得短視近利。有些行動派投資人介入馬可爾集團，我們之前談到湯姆．蓋納。他們建議的短期解方簡直荒謬，竟然要拆散這三個能創造巨大穩定性的絕佳事業引擎。他們建立起這麼出色的私人公司投資組合，結果這些人卻說：「你應該把那些公司賣給私募股權，因為可以賣個好價錢。」這就好比說：「如果我們能賣到好價錢，那是因為這些公司在這裡可能被低估了。」我們評斷這些事業，是看它們貢獻的盈餘，以及它們為保險業務帶來的穩定性。這個行動派投資人卻試圖逼他們拆分。這太瘋狂了，而且會造成極大的破壞，但毫無疑問，如果他們宣布要拆分，股價短期內會上漲兩成，而長期投資人長期下來卻會吃大虧。這種短暫的快感，是資本主義中極具毒害的一部分，打著股東行動主義的幌子，實際上卻在侵蝕長期股東報酬。 克里斯，這次對談真的非常愉快。感謝你分享所有洞見、經驗，以及你對投資和作為資產守護者的看法。
I really appreciate that, and I really appreciate you joining us. Alex, thank you so much. It was an enormous pleasure to be with you.
非常感謝，也很感謝你加入我們。艾力克斯，非常謝謝你。能與你對談是我莫大的榮幸。
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感覺用DeepSeek翻譯Memo AI轉出英文時完全沒有重新翻譯，直接引用前次得道大腦轉出音檔的翻譯內容。
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