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2008年股东大会 · 芒格:大多数企业的最终命运是变得平庸,然后消亡

47 段 · 3 位说话人 · 原片 3:34
F1
F10:00

Buffett 先生、Munger 先生,你们好。

Hello, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger.

我叫 Srinivas Ganediwal。

My name is Srinivas Ganediwal.

我来自 Florida 的 Fort Lauderdale。

I am from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

你们的每一封信和每一份年报,我都反复读了很多遍,而且每次读都会有不一样的收获。

I read all your letters and annual reports multiple times, and every time I get a different insight.

所以,谢谢你们愿意做这些。

So thanks for doing it.

我的问题是,怎么把一家成功的小企业发展成大型企业。

My question is about converting successful small businesses into large enterprises.

我有一家经营得不错、也挺成功的小公司。

I have a good and successful small business.

但过去这几年,我一直没法把它做上一个新台阶。

For the last few years, I'm unable to grow it to the next level.

而且看起来我好像缺了某些关键的东西,所以想听听你们的建议。

And it seems like there are some components I'm missing, so I wanted to take your advice on it.
M1
M10:36

嗯,Berkshire 以前也曾经是一家小企业。

Well, Berkshire was a small business at one time.

我的意思是,这就是需要时间。

I mean, it just takes time.

这本来就是复利的规律,而且你知道,不可能一天或者一个星期就把它建立起来。

I mean, it's the nature of compound interest, and, you know, you, you can't, you can't build it in one day or one week.

所以,Charlie 和我,你知道,我们从来没想过靠某一个神来之笔,一下子把 Berkshire 变成四倍那么大。

So, um, Charlie and I have, you know, we've never tried to do, in some master stroke, uh, convert Berkshire into something four times as large.

当然,商业上有些人偶尔会这么做;如果能把一大笔钱吸引到你某个很棒的点子里,然后你知道,几周之内就翻上好多倍,那当然很好。

People have done that sometimes in business, but it'd be nice to attract a whole bunch of money into some great idea you have and, you know, multiply it manyfold in a few weeks or something of the sort.

但那真的不是我们的做法。

But that has really not been our approach.

我们只是——总的来说,我们一直在做同一件事。

We've just—we have done, in a general way, we've done the same thing.

现在会有一些小变化,但这些年来我们一直都在做同样的事情,而且以后也还会继续这么做。

Now we do little variations of it, but we've kept doing the same thing for years, and, and we'll keep doing it.

你知道,几年以后,我们拥有的企业会比现在更多。

You know, we will have more businesses a few years from now than we have now.

而且,我们现在有的这些企业也都会还在。

And, and we'll have all the ones we have presently.

它们当中大多数会做得更好,有些不会,但我们还会再增加一些新的。

Most of them will do better, some won't, and we will have added something.

这是一套自然而然能让你不断前进的公式,但它不是那种能让你狂奔式前进的公式。

And that's an automatic formula for getting ahead, but it's not an automatic formula for galloping ahead.

不过,我们并不会因为自己不是在狂奔而感到不开心。

And, but we don't really feel—we're not unhappy because we're not galloping.

我们真正会不开心的是,如果我们完全没有在前进。

We're unhappy if we're not moving at all.

不过你知道,我们现在大概有七十六家左右——大多数情况下,都是非常非常棒的企业。

But, you know, we've got 76 or so, in most cases, pretty darn wonderful businesses.

而且就像我说的,随着时间往前走,我们还会有更多。

And like I say, we'll have more as we go along.

所以,这是一个非常简单的公式。

So it's a, it's a very simple formula.

Gypsy Rose Lee 曾经说过一句话,她说,我现在拥有的一切,跟五年前拥有的一样。

Gypsy Rose Lee said once, she said, I have everything I had five years ago.

只不过它们全都往下垂了两英寸,你知道。

It's all that it's two inches lower, you know.

而我们希望的是,五年之后,我们原来拥有的一大堆企业都比以前高了两英寸,另外再加上一些新的企业。

Well, what we want to have five years from now, a whole bunch of businesses we had before that are two inches higher, plus some more businesses.

这就是公式。

And that's the formula.
M2
M22:17

Charlie?

Charlie?

对,你得记住,大多数小企业天生就不可能变成大企业。

Yeah, you gotta remember that it's the nature of things that most small businesses will never be big businesses.

而且事情的规律也是这样:大多数大企业最后都会变得平庸,甚至更糟。

It's also in the nature of things that most small— most big businesses eventually fall into mediocrity or worse.

所以外面的竞争是很残酷的。

So it's a tough game out there.

另外,这个游戏里的玩家最后都得死。

In addition, the players of the game all have to die.

这就是——这就是游戏规则,你得学着接受。

And that is— those are just the rules of the game, and you have to get used to it.

据我所知,我们从零开始真正做出来、后来变成超级大业务的小企业,只有一个,那就是 reinsurance department。

We've only created from scratch one small business that became a huge business that I can think of, and that's the reinsurance department.

而在这件事上,Warren、Ajit 和其他一些人,真的是几乎白手起家,做出了一个非常出色、非常有价值的业务。

And there, Warren and Ajit and others have, have created a great and valuable business out of air.

但你想想看,这几十年里,我们还做成过别的什么大型业务吗?

But can you think of anything other that's large that we've done in all these decades?
M1
M13:12

没有,没有。

No, no.
M2
M23:13

我们就只成功过这么一次,所以我们也就是个只会一招的选手。

We've only done it once, so we're a one-trick pony.
M1
M13:16

对,而且那次我们也有运气成分。

Yeah, we were lucky on that one too.

对,顺便说一句,要是没有 Ajit,我们根本就做不成这件事。

Yeah, and incidentally, without Ajit, we wouldn't have done it at all.

所以,对,对。

So, right, right.

不是说是我们做成的,是 Ajit 做成的。

It isn't that we did it, Ajit did it.

我们只是坐在旁边给他喝彩。

We just sat there cheering.
M2
M23:27

以前有人问过我们,做过的最好的投资是什么,我的回答是:我们付给 executive recruiter 去找到 Ajit Jain 的那笔费用。

Somebody asked us once what was the best investment we ever made, and I answered, the fee we paid to the executive recruiter to find Ajit Jain.