采访者： 我们以内布拉斯加州奥马哈市的沃伦·巴菲特为例。如果你在1965年向他的公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦投资1万美元，那么今天你将拥有100万美元。沃伦是我1972年出版的《超级金钱》(Super Money)一书中的一个章节人物。所以我认识他很久了。他在哥伦比亚大学师从证券分析学开山鼻祖本·格雷厄姆学习这门技艺。我认为在这次采访之前，沃伦从未上过电视，他也确实从不追求公众关注，但最近他在首都城市公司（Capital Cities）收购美国广播公司（ABC）的交易中成为关键人物，从而获得了大量曝光。沃伦将成为新公司的最大股东，他个人的净资产如今已远超5亿美元。但去年秋天当我在他奥马哈的办公室与他交谈时，他非常典型地使他的投资风格听起来极其简单。
沃伦·巴菲特： 投资的第一条规则是不要赔钱。投资的第二条规则是不要忘记第一条规则。这就是所有的规则了。我的意思是，如果你以远低于其价值的价格买入东西，并且买入的是一组这样的东西，你基本上就不会亏钱。
采访者： 沃伦，你认为投资经理最重要的品质是什么？
沃伦·巴菲特： 那是一种性格品质，而不是智力品质。在这个行业里，你不需要很高的智商。我是说，你的智商必须足够让你从这里走到奥马哈市中心，但是，呃，但是呃，你不需要会下三维象棋，也不需要成为桥牌顶级高手之类的人物。你需要一个稳定的性格。你需要一种性情，它既不会因为随大流而感到极大快乐，也不会因为逆大流而感到快乐。因为这行不是靠投票做决定的生意，而是需要思考的生意。本·格雷厄姆会说，你正确与否，并不取决于有一千人同意你；你正确与否，也不取决于有一千人反对你。你正确，是因为你的论据和推理是正确的。
采访者： 沃伦，你做的事情与市场上90%的基金经理有什么不同？
沃伦·巴菲特： 当然，大多数专业投资者关注的是股票在未来一两年内可能会怎样，他们有各种各样、各种各样的晦涩的方法来研究这个。但是呃，他们并没有真正把自己看作是在拥有一家企业的一部分。检验你是否从价值角度进行投资的真正标准是，呃，你是否在意股票市场明天是否开市。如果你在一只证券上做的是好的投资，那么即使股票市场关闭五年，也不应该困扰你。股票行情机告诉我的只是价格。我可以偶尔看看价格，看看价格是低得离谱还是高得离谱。但是，但是价格并不能告诉我任何关于企业本身的信息。企业、呃，企业自身的财务数据能告诉我一些关于企业的信息，但股票价格并不能告诉我任何关于企业的事情。我宁愿先评估一只股票或一家企业的价值，甚至不知道价格，这样我在确定估值时就不会受到价格的影响。然后再去看价格，看看它是否与我所评估的价值严重偏离。
采访者： 所以巴菲特选择留在这个地方，内布拉斯加州的奥马哈，这里玉米地近在咫尺。奥马哈是个好地方，但没人说它是世界金融中心。在这里，唯一的“雷鸣般的牛群”实际上是四条腿的（指真正的牛群）。你不觉得奥马哈对于投资世界来说有点偏僻吗？
沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，信不信由你，呃，我们在这里能收到邮件，呃，能收到期刊，我们能获得做决策所需的所有事实。而且不像在华尔街，你会注意到，没有50个人跑到我们耳边低声细语，说我们今天下午应该做这个或那个。
采访者： 你欣赏这里缺乏刺激的环境？
沃伦·巴菲特： 我喜欢，我喜欢这种缺乏刺激的环境。我们在这里获取的是事实，而不是刺激。
采访者： 那太棒了。你怎么能远离华尔街呢？
沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，如果我人在华尔街，我可能会穷得多。在华尔街，呃，呃，你会受到过度刺激。而且呃，呃，你会听到很多消息，然后你可能会、可能会缩短你的关注点。而短视不利于呃、不利于长期盈利。而在这里，我可以只专注于企业本身的价值。我不需要人在华盛顿才能弄清楚《华盛顿邮报》的价值，我也不需要人在纽约才能弄清楚其他公司的价值。这只是一个理性思考的过程。而这个智力思考过程中干扰越少，呃，干扰越少，你实际上就越好。
采访者： 这个智力思考过程是什么？
沃伦·巴菲特： 这个智力思考过程就是定义你的能力范围，定义你在评估企业价值方面的能力圈。然后在这个能力圈内，找出那些相对于其价值而言售价最便宜的标的。有很多东西是我没有能力评估的。
采访者： 但也有一些是我有能力评估的。你买过科技公司吗？
沃伦·巴菲特： 没有，真的没买过。
采访者： 投资30年，一次都没有？
沃伦·巴菲特： 我对它们（科技公司）一个都不懂。
采访者： 所以你从未持有过，比如说IBM？它可是家伟大的公司...
沃伦·巴菲特： 从未持有过IBM。了不起的公司。我是说，一家极好的公司，但我没持有过IBM。
采访者： 那么现在这场技术革命正在进行，而你却不打算参与其中。
沃伦·巴菲特： 它就那样从我身边溜走了。
采访者： 你觉得这没关系吗？
沃伦·巴菲特： 我没关系。
采访者： 那有没有...
沃伦·巴菲特： 我不必、我不必在每一场游戏中都赚钱。我的意思是，我不知道可可豆价格会怎么走。我不知道，你知道，有很多事情我都不了解。这也许很遗憾，但呃，你知道，我为什么要全懂呢？我没有花那么大力气去研究它们。
沃伦·巴菲特： 在证券行业，你每天确实能看到数千家美国主要公司以某个价格向你报价，而且这个价格每天都在变。而你不需要做任何决定。没有任何事情是强加于你的。所以，在这个行业里没有“被判好球”一说（棒球术语，指投手投出好球，击球手未挥棒被判一好球）。投手只是站在那里，把球扔向你。呃，如果你打的是真正的棒球，球在膝盖和肩膀之间，你如果不挥棒，就会被判一个好球。如果你被判太多好球，你就出局了。在证券行业，你坐在那里，他们以25美元的价格把美国钢铁公司（US Steel）扔给你，以60美元的价格把通用汽车（General Motors）扔给你，你不需要对其中任何一个挥棒（买入）。它们可能是非常好的投球（投资机会），值得挥棒，但如果你了解得不够多，你就不必挥棒。你可以一直坐在那里，看着成千上万个投球，直到最后等到一个正中你下怀的球（机会），一个你理解的东西，然后你再挥棒（买入），呃...
采访者： 所以你可能会六个月都不挥棒（买入）？
沃伦·巴菲特： 可能两年都不挥棒（买入）。
采访者： 那不是太无聊了吗？
沃伦·巴菲特： 这会让大多数人感到无聊，而且当然，无聊确实是呃、是呃、是大多数专业基金经理面临的问题。如果他们如果试图坐等一两个回合（不行动），他们不仅会有些坐立不安，而且他们的客户会开始喊叫，他们会开始在看台上喊叫，“挥棒啊，你这笨蛋”，你知道的。这对人们来说很难做到。
采访者： 沃伦，你的方法看起来如此简单。为什么不是每个人都这样做呢？
沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我认为部分原因是它太简单了，以至于呃，比如说，学术界（的学者们）专注于呃、嗯、各种各样的变量，部分原因是...
采访者： 你说的学术界，是指金融学教授们...
沃伦·巴菲特： 对，是的，数据就摆在那里。
采访者： ...在商学院的那些？
沃伦·巴菲特： 当然，而且数据就在那里。所以他们专注于研究，如果你在周二买股票周五卖出，是否更赚钱；或者在选举年买入其他年份卖出，是否更赚钱；或者买入小公司是否更好。因为有数据，就有所有这些变量。而且他们已经学会了如何操纵数据。正如我的一位朋友所说，对于一个拿着锤子的人来说，所有东西看起来都像钉子。一旦你掌握了这些技能，你就迫不及待地想找个机会用上它们，但它们并不重要。呃，如果有人邀请我参与一个商业机会，我是在周二还是周六买入，是在选举年还是其他年份买入，这对我来说有什么区别吗？这不是一个商人在购买企业时会考虑的事情。那么为什么在购买股票时就要考虑这些呢？因为股票只是企业的一部分。
原文 Interviewer: Let's take Warren Buffett of Omaha, Nebraska. If you had put $10,000 in 1965 into his company, Berkshire Hathaway, you would have $1 million today. Warren was a chapter in my 1972 book, Super Money. So I've known him a long time. He learned his trade with Ben Graham, the original dean of security analysis at Columbia University. I don't think Warren has ever been on television until this interview, and he has certainly never courted publicity, but recently he got a lot of it when he emerged as the key figure in the takeover of ABC by Capital Cities. Warren will be the largest shareholder of the new company, and his own net worth is now far in excess of $500 million. But when I spoke with him last fall in his office in Omaha, he very characteristically made his investment style seem so perfectly simple.
Warren Buffett: The first rule on investment is don't lose. And the second rule on investment is don't forget the first rule. And that's all the rules there are. I mean that if you buy things for far below what they're worth and you buy a group of them, you basically don't lose money.
Interviewer: Warren, what do you consider the most important quality for an investment manager?
Warren Buffett: It's a temperamental quality, not an intellectual quality. You don't need tons of IQ in this business. I mean, you have to have enough IQ to get from here to downtown Omaha, but uh, but uh, you do not have to be able to play three-dimensional chess or uh be in the top leagues in terms of bridge playing or something of the sort. You need a stable personality. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd. Because this is not a business where you take polls, it's a business where you think. And Ben Graham would say that you're not right or wrong because a thousand people agree with you. And you're not right or wrong because a thousand people disagree with you. You're right because your facts and your reasoning are right.
Interviewer: Warren, what do you do that's different than 90% of the money managers who are in the market?
Warren Buffett: Certainly most of the professional investors focus on what the stock is likely to do in the next year or two, and they have all kinds of, all kinds of uh, uh, arcane uh, uh, methods of, of, of approaching that. But uh, they do not really think of themselves as owning a piece of a business. The real test of whether you're investing from a value standpoint or not is whether uh you care whether the stock market is open tomorrow. If you're making a good investment in a security, it shouldn't bother you if they closed down the stock market for five years. All the ticker tells me is the price. And I can look at the price occasionally to see whether the price is outrageously cheap or outrageously high. But, but prices don't tell me anything about a business. Business, uh, business figures themselves tell me something about a business, but the price of a stock doesn't tell me anything about a business. I would rather value a stock or a business first and not even know the price, so that I'm not influenced by the price in establishing my valuation. And then look at the price later to see whether it's way out of line with what my value is.
Interviewer: So Buffett chose to stay in this world, Omaha, Nebraska, where corn grows just minutes from downtown. Now, Omaha is a nice town, but nobody claims it's a world financial center. Here, the only thundering herd is actually on four feet. Don't you find Omaha a little bit off the beaten track for the investment world?
Warren Buffett: Well, believe it or not, uh, we get mail here and uh, we get periodicals and we get all the facts needed to make decisions and unlike Wall Street, you'll notice we don't have 50 people coming up and whispering in our ear that we should be doing this or that this afternoon.
Interviewer: You appreciate the lack of stimulation here?
Warren Buffett: I like the, I like the lack of stimulation. We get facts, not stimulation here.
Interviewer: That's terrific. How can you stay away from Wall Street?
Warren Buffett: Well, if I were in Wall Street, I'd probably be a lot poorer. It uh, uh, you get overstimulated in Wall Street. And uh, uh, you hear lots of things and, and you, you may, you may shorten your focus. And a short focus is not conducive to uh to long profits. And uh, here I can just focus on what businesses are worth. And I don't need to be in Washington to figure out what the Washington Post uh newspaper is worth, and I don't need to be in New York to figure out what some other company is worth. It's it's it's simply it's an intellectual process. And and the less, the less static there is in that intellectual process, really the better off you are.
Interviewer: What is the intellectual process?
Warren Buffett: The intellectual process is is defining your level, defining your area of competence in valuing businesses. And then within that area of competence, finding whatever sells at uh at at the cheapest price in relation to value. And there are all kinds of things I'm not competent to value.
Interviewer: But there are a few that I am competent to value. Have you ever bought a technology company?
Warren Buffett: No, I really haven't.
Interviewer: In 30 years of investing, not one?
Warren Buffett: I haven't understood any of them.
Interviewer: So you haven't ever owned, for example, IBM, which would be a great...
Warren Buffett: Never owned IBM. Marvelous company. I mean, a sensational company, but I haven't owned IBM.
Interviewer: And so here is this technological revolution going on and you're not going to be a participant.
Warren Buffett: It's gone right past me.
Interviewer: Is that all right with you?
Warren Buffett: It's okay with me.
Interviewer: Are there...
Warren Buffett: I don't have to I don't have to make money in every game. I mean, I don't know what cocoa beans are going to do. I don't, you know, there are all kinds of things I don't know about. And that may be too bad, but uh, you know, why should I know all about them? I haven't worked that hard on them.
Warren Buffett: In the securities business, you literally every day have thousands of the major American corporations offered to you uh at a price and a price that changes daily. And you don't have to make any decisions. You have to make nothing is forced upon you. So you, there are no called strikes in the business. The pitcher just stands there and throws balls at you. And uh if you're playing real baseball and it's between the knees and the shoulders, you either swing or you got a strike called on you. If you get too many called on you, you're out. In the securities business, you sit there and they throw uh US Steel at 25 and they throw General Motors at 60 and you don't have to swing at any of them. They may be wonderful pitches to swing at, but if you don't know enough, you don't have to swing. And you can sit there and watch thousands of pitches and finally you get one right there where you want it, something that you understand, and then you swing and uh
Interviewer: So you might not swing for six months?
Warren Buffett: You might not swing for two years.
Interviewer: Isn't that boring?
Warren Buffett: It would it would bore most people and and certainly boredom is uh is uh is a problem with most professional money managers. If they if they if they try to sit out an inning or two, not only do they get somewhat antsy, but their clients will start yelling, they'll start yelling, swing you bum, you know, from the from the stands, and that's very tough for people to do.
Interviewer: Warren, your your approach seems so simple. Why doesn't everybody do it?
Warren Buffett: Well, I think partly because it is so simple that uh the academics, for example, focus on on uh um all kinds of variables, partly because
Interviewer: By academics, you mean professors of finance...
Warren Buffett: Right, yeah, the data is there.
Interviewer: ...in business school?
Warren Buffett: Sure, and the data is there. So they focus on whether if you buy stocks on Tuesday and sell them on Friday, you're better off, or if you buy them in election years uh and sell them in other years, you're better off, or if you buy small companies. There are all these variables because the data are there. And and they've learned how to manipulate data. And as a friend of mine says, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And once you have these skills, you just are are are dying to uh uh to utilize them in some way, but they aren't important. Uh, if I were being asked to participate in a business opportunity, would it make any difference to me whether I bought it on a Tuesday or a Saturday or an election year or something? It's not what a businessman thinks about in buying businesses. So why think about it when buying stocks? Because stocks are just pieces of businesses.