1995年股东大会 · 巴菲特：你不可能和一个坏人谈成一笔好生意 — 文稿

M10:00

Berkshire 以及 Berkshire 旗下的公司，怎么保护自己不受那些动不动就喜欢打官司的律师的侵扰？美国企业有没有可能承担得起和律师打交道所耗费的金钱和时间？

How do Berkshire and Berkshire companies protect themselves against lawsuit-happy lawyers, and is it possible for American businesses to survive the financial and time-consuming costs of dealing with lawyers?

M20:13

这个问题问得很好。我们受到的诉讼，可能比美国任何一家市值二百五十亿美元的公司都少。

Well, it's a good question, and we've, we've probably had less litigation than any company that, you know, with a $25 billion market value in America.

呃，不过，这个嘛，我们以前在 Blue Chip Stamps 被告过一次。

Uh, but it's, uh, you know, and we were sued one time at Blue Chip Stamps.

那次是因为什么来着，Charlie？

What was it for, Charlie?

有几十亿美元吧，是某个家伙——

How many billion by some guy that—.

M30:36

多得很。

Lots.

M20:37

对。你没法完全防住诉讼，而且其中确实有很多是毫无根据的。

Yeah, it was, uh, you know, there, you, you cannot protect yourself against lawsuits, and there, there are, um, there's certainly a lot of frivolous ones.

就像我说的，到目前为止，这些事情没有耗费我们太多时间和金钱，尤其是时间。

We've, like I say, we have— it's not been a drain on our time or money, but particularly time to date.

我觉得，如果你碰上这种事，你该做的一件事就是不要赔钱，而且要让对方的日子也变得同样难过，尽量让他们承受和他们给你造成的麻烦相当的困难。

And I think one thing you'd have to do is that if you ran into anything of that sort, you would not pay and you would make life as— try to make life comparably difficult for the other party as they made it for you.

不过，到目前为止，我们还没有这样的经历。

But that has not been our experience so far.

Charlie？

Charlie?

M31:14

嗯，这事我可以讲一个 Omaha 的故事。

Yeah, well, I can tell an Omaha story on that one.

这个故事能说明 Berkshire Hathaway 用来减少诉讼的一套做法。

Which demonstrates the Berkshire Hathaway technique for minimizing lawsuits.

我小时候还很小的时候，曾经问我父亲。他当时是 Omaha 的一名执业律师。我问他：你为什么给 X 做那么多事？X 是个贪得无厌、又爱吹牛的人。可你为什么只给 Grant McFadden 做那么少的事？他可是个特别好的人。

When I was a very young boy, I said to my father, who was a practicing lawyer here in Omaha, why do you do so much work for X, who was an overreaching blowhard, and so little work for Grant McFadden, who was such a wonderful man?

我父亲看着我，仿佛觉得我脑子有点不太灵光，然后他说：Charlie，Grant McFadden 对员工好，对客户好，对所有人都好。

And my father looked at me as though I was slightly slow in the head, and he said, Charlie, he said, Grant McFadden treats his employees right, his customers right, everybody right.

他要是碰上了有点不正常的人，就会从办公桌前站起来，走到对方所在的地方，然后尽快脱身。

When he gets involved with somebody who's a little nuts, he gets up from his desk and walks to where they are and extricates himself as soon as he can.

他说：Charlie，像 Grant McFadden 这样的人，根本没有足够多的法律业务来供你读完书。

And he says, Charlie, a man like Grant McFadden doesn't have enough law business to keep you in school.

可是 X 呢，他说，X 就像一片会不断引发法律、法律纠纷的雷区。

Ah, but X, he said, he's a walking minefield of continuous legal, legal troubles.

对律师来说，他可是个非常好的客户。

And he's a wonderful client for a lawyer.

我父亲当时是在教我一个道理。我得说，这个教育效果非常好，因为我决定采用 Grant McFadden 的做法。

Now, my father was trying to teach me, and I must say it worked beautifully because I decided that I would adopt the Grant McFadden approach.

我还要说，Warren 很早很早就在独立地采取同样的做法了。

And I would argue that Warren independently reached the same approach very early in life.

天哪，这可真是给我们省掉了很多麻烦。

Boy, has that saved us a lot of trouble.

这确实是一套很好的做法。

That is a— it is a good system.

M22:41

你没法，基本上我们的态度就是：你不可能和一个坏人谈成一笔好生意。

You can't— we basically have the attitude that you can't make a good deal with a bad person.

所以，这意味着你只能直接算了，我们根本不去碰它。

And you can— and that means you just— we just forget about it.

我的意思是，我们不会试图靠合同来保护自己，也不会做各种各样的尽职调查，或者采取其他类似的办法。我们就是直接放弃这笔生意。

I mean, we don't try and protect ourselves by contracts or getting into all kinds of, you know, due diligence, or it just— we just forget about it.

只要和那些我们喜欢、敬重、信任的人打交道，假以时日，我们就能经营得很好。

We, we, we can do fine over, over time dealing with people that we like and admire and trust.

所以，我们从来不会那样做。很多人之所以会掉进去，是因为这种坏人往往会想方设法地诱惑你。

So, we, we have never. And a lot of people do get the idea because the bad actor will tend to try and tantalize you in one way or another.

但你赢不了。

And you won't win.

所以，最划算的做法就是躲开他们。

It just pays to avoid them.

我们一开始就是这种态度，而且，你知道，也许一两次经历让我们更加确信，做事就应该按这个方式来。

And I—we started out with that attitude and, you know, maybe one or two experiences have convinced us even more so that that's the way to play the game.

第二区域。

Zone 2.