1997年股东大会 · 巴芒：什么是企业的智力资本？为何它对成功的投资如此重要？ — 文稿

M10:00

我叫 Bob Costa，来自 Indiana 的 Evansville。

My name is Bob Costa from Evansville, Indiana.

我当股东已经四年了。

I've been a shareholder for 4 years.

这是我第一次来 Omaha，我去了 Nebraska Furniture Mart，而且我还真在那儿买了点东西，我试着用 American Express 卡付款。

This is my first visit to Omaha, and I went to the Nebraska Furniture Mart, and I actually bought something there, and I tried to pay for it with an American Express card.

M20:15

嗯哼。

Uh-huh.

M10:16

结果他们跟广告里说的一样，告诉我，你在这儿不能用它。

And they told me, just like the ad, you can't use it here.

我希望你们两位都能评论一下这件事，或者至少你们其中一位说说。

I hope you'd both comment on that, or at least one of you.

不过我真正的问题是，我最近偶然接触到了 intellectual capital 这个概念，还有它在给一家企业估值时可能有什么用。

But my real question is that I just stumbled across the idea of intellectual capital and, and how that might be useful in valuing a business.

我想请你们二位或者其中一位帮我解释一下，这个东西对我们投资者来说是不是有用，还是说它只是另一个学术理论，我们最好别太当回事。

And I was hoping that one or both of you could clarify that for me and whether that's useful to us as investors or, or just another academic theory that we'd be better off ignoring.

M30:47

对，Harvey Golub，也就是现在负责 American Express、而且干得非常出色的人，也给我写过信，提到过 Furniture Mart，也提到过 See's。

Yeah, Harvey Golub, who runs American Express and has done a terrific job of running it, has written me about the Furniture Mart as well as about See's.

我们的基本做法是让经理人各自经营他们自己的业务。

And we basically let our managers run their own businesses.

所以每一家实体的负责人——Borsheim's 接受 American Express，我们其他一些业务也接受——我们都会让每一位经理自己做决定。

So the people at each entity—Borsheim's takes American Express, others of our businesses do too—we let every manager make his decisions.

一旦我开始告诉这些经理人，比如说，他们应该接受 American Express，或者不接受 Visa，不管是什么吧，你知道，到那个时候，他们对自己业务运营所承担的责任就会少一些，甚至在某种程度上，连经营企业带来的那种自豪感也会减少。

As soon as I start telling the managers that they ought to, say, take American Express or not take Visa or whatever it may be, you know, at that point, they've lost some of the responsibility for their operations and perhaps to an extent even, you know, some of the pride that comes from running them.

我们大多数经理人其实都不需要靠工作谋生。

Most of our managers do not need to work for a living.

他们经营自己的企业，原因和 Charlie 跟我经营 Berkshire 是一样的。

They run their businesses for the same reason Charlie and I run Berkshire.

他们就是热爱这件事。

They love doing it.

他们早上一下床就很有劲头，因为做这个事情本身就很让人兴奋。

They jump out of bed in the morning because it's exciting to do.

而唯一会让我们俩不想继续管 Berkshire、或者把我们俩逼走的事，就是如果我们老是被人事后指点，或者总有人告诉我们什么时候该挥棒、什么时候不该挥棒。

And the one thing that would keep the two of us or drive the two of us away from Berkshire is if we were getting second-guessed all the time or somebody else was telling us when to swing or not to swing.

那我们就一点兴趣都没有继续经营它了，到时候我们会去做——我们会去做别的事。

We would have no interest in running it, but we'd go run—we'd do something else then.

也许我们的其他经理人在这方面没有我们这么极端，不过我们觉得，他们已经打造出了成功的企业。

And maybe our other managers aren't as extreme as we are in that respect, but we, we feel they've built successful businesses.

他们知道该怎么做。

They know how to do it.

他们创造出来的多余资本，确实是由我们来分配，但除此之外，我们基本上就是让他们自己做决定。

We do allocate the excess capital they generate, but aside from that, we, we really let them make their own decisions.

所以我们几乎没有什么全公司的统一政策，至少我能想到的唯一一条就是，把钱送到 Omaha 来。

So we have no company-wide policy on virtually anything that I can think of except send money to Omaha.

不过，当然，你知道，我们也很高兴 American Express 去告诉 Furniture Mart，为什么使用 American Express 会让 Furniture Mart 更受益。

But, and, you know, we're delighted to have American Express give the Furniture Mart the reasons why the Furniture Mart will be better off using American Express.

我猜他们肯定有一些很充分的理由。

And my guess is they have some very good reasons.

不过，他们还是得自己把这套理由推销给对方。

And, but they're going to have to sell them on that.

这就跟任何供应商卖任何东西一样，都得去说服每一个具体业务部门；我们不会告诉 See's 的人该向谁买这些坚果，或者该向谁买包装容器，或者诸如此类的事，比如店面该怎么设计，不管是什么都一样。

And just like any vendor of anything has to sell each operation, we wouldn't, we wouldn't tell the people at See's who to buy these nuts from, or who to buy the containers from, or anything of the sort, how to design the stores, or whatever it may be.

这就是 Berkshire 在这件事上的理念。

And that's just, that's just the Berkshire philosophy on that.

Charlie，你想评论一下吗？

Charlie, you want to comment?

M22:55

好，我来说说 intellectual capital。

Yeah, let me shift to intellectual capital.

Berkshire 拥有很多 intellectual capital，体现在旗下各个业务里那些非常能干的高管身上。

Berkshire has a lot of intellectual capital in these very able executives in the various businesses.

我们也希望，在总部那几百平方英尺的地方，我们多少也有点 intellectual capital。

And we hope we've got some intellectual capital in the few hundred square feet at headquarters.

但我们的业务，不是那种要靠一大群工程师去设计炼油厂，或者靠大批人马在全世界做复杂会计工作、开发 software 的生意。

But we are not in the business of designing oil refineries with armies of engineers or developing software with armies doing complicated accounting work all over the world.

我们只是一直没有慢慢漂到那一类生意里去。

We just haven't drifted into that kind of a, of a business.

而且 intellectual capital 之所以变成一个新的流行词，也是因为现在我们发展出了像 Microsoft 这样的大型企业，而这种规模的企业，在并不算太久以前其实还不存在。

And intellectual capital has gotten to be a new buzzword because we've now developed huge businesses like Microsoft, which really didn't exist on that scale not so very long ago.

所以人们突然意识到，天哪，当一群非常聪明的人朝着同一个方向工作的时候，聚合效应和动量效应里面，真的能赚到很多钱。

And so people have suddenly realized, my God, there's really a lot of money in, in aggregation effects and momentum effects when you get a bunch of really bright people working in the same direction.

这也就是为什么这个概念一下子变得这么时髦。

And that's what's made the concept so fashionable.

总的来说，我们一直在避开这个领域。

By and large, we've avoided the field.

还是那句话，这对我们来说很难理解。

Again, it's hard for us to understand.

M34:15

对，我们找合作的人时，一直看重的是脑子、精力，还有正直。

Yeah, we've looked for brains and energy and integrity in people that we work with.

如果你找到了这种组合，而且你又是在一个还不错的生意里，那你基本上就能拥有整个世界。

And if you get that combination and you're in a decent business, you know, you're going to own the world.

至于你把它叫 intellectual capital 还是什么，名字嘛，你爱怎么贴都行。

You know, whether you call it intellectual capital or anything, you know, well, you can stick the names on it.

而这就是我们想要结交、合作的那种人。

And that's who we try to associate with.

我是说，这可比你什么都自己来要容易多了。

I mean, it's a lot easier than doing it yourself.

而当我们看自己旗下那些企业的时候，你们在影片最后看到的那一群人，

And when we get in our own businesses, you saw that group there at the end of the movie.

我是说，那对 Berkshire 来说是巨大的资产。

I mean, that's a huge asset to Berkshire.

有人还说要把这个放进会计里去核算。

They talk about getting into accounting for it.

在我看来，那是胡说八道。

That's nonsense in my view.

我的意思是，你没必要那么做，但你应该为它付钱；作为股东，你该为它付钱；作为经理人，你也该为它付钱。

I mean, you don't need to do that, but you should pay for it, and you should pay for it as shareholders, you should pay for it as managers.

当我们拥有像 Tom Murphy、或者 Gillette 的 Al Zeien、或者 Roberto Goizueta、或者 Michael Eisner 这样的人时，我是说，这些人创造了几十亿美元的价值。

When we get people, you know, whether it's Tom Murphy or Al Zeien at Gillette or Roberto Goizueta or Michael Eisner, I mean, those people have added billions of dollars of value.

而且很简单，你知道，这就是我们想要合作的人；我们不想跟平庸的经理人绑在一起，因为这里面的差别实在太大了。

And it's just, you know, that's who we want to be associated with, and we don't want to be associated with the mediocre managers because the difference is just huge.

不过我们不会搞一套很复杂的流程。

But we don't go through an elaborate exercise.

我们只是去识别那些具备这些——我们认为自己是在努力识别那些具备这些特质的人。

We just recognize the people that have got those—we think we try to recognize the people that have got those qualities.

然后如果他们所在的是个好生意，又具备这些特质，那我们就想大举下注。

And then if they're in a good business and they've got those qualities, we want to take a big bite.

M25:36

不过说到 intellectual capital，

But take intellectual capital.

人们会想到 patents，也会想到 copyrights。

People think patents, they think copyrights.

现在 patents 和 copyrights 已经变得更有价值得多了。

Patents and copyrights have gotten to be way more valuable.

从它们占全球投资资产的比例来看，确实高了很多。

As a percentage of the investment assets of the world.

所以人们现在对 intellectual capital 的兴趣大多了。

And so people are very much more interested in intellectual capital.

想想那些伟大的制药公司，二十年前它们的规模还那么小，而它们拥有的一切，基本上都是 intellectual capital。

Think of the great drug companies and how small they were 20 years ago, and how everything they have is basically intellectual capital.

真正值钱的，就是那少数几个真正有效、而且拿到了 patents 的产品。

It's the few products that have—that really work that have the patents.

不是，我——不过总的来说，我们不投药企。

No, I— but by and large, we're not in drug companies.

M36:17

对，不过就是这个意思。

No, but that's it.

它有不同的表现形式。

There are different forms of it.

就像 Charlie 说的，有些企业你会觉得，它们整个存在本身就是 intellectual capital。

As Charlie said, there's businesses you sort of think of that way, as their whole being being intellectual capital.

但我要说的是，十五年前 Roberto Goizueta 看到了怎么去塑造 Coke 的未来——产品还是同样的产品——而且基本上还是同样的体系，当然也需要一些调整；但他看到了，怎么通过在很长一段时间里做大量的小事，而且持续一致地去做，始终不偏离重点，让它的未来变得价值大得多。

But I would argue that when Roberto Goizueta 15 years ago saw how to make the future of Coke—same product—dramatic and basically the same system, although it required some changes, but saw how to make that dramatically more valuable by doing a lot of little things over a long period of time and doing them consistently and not getting his eye off the ball.

Michael Eisner 做的也是同样的事。

Michael Eisner did the same thing.

你知道，在 Walt 去世后的大概十五年里，Disney 基本上没什么发展。

Disney hadn't gone anyplace, you know, in the 15 years or so after Walt died.

现在，你知道，我们都知道 Mickey Mouse 是谁，诸如此类的，但 Michael 真的看清了未来应该是什么样子。

Now, you know, we all knew who Mickey Mouse was and everything, but Michael really saw what the future should be.

而且他现在依然看得很清楚。

And he still does.

你知道，事情结束以后你会说，这很容易看出来；可问题是，在当时到底有多少人在真正去做点什么呢？

You know, and how— you say it's easy when it's all over, but how many people were doing something about it at the time?

大概十五年前，那个地方基本上是在走下坡路。

The place was languishing, basically, 15 years ago.

他们本来就有那些资产。

They had the assets.

在我看来，这个呢，跟 Bill Gates 做的事，或者 Andy Grove 做的事，不一样；但这也是我们所说的一种 intellectual capital，而且是我们更容易理解的一种。

And to me, that's, you know, it's different than what Bill Gates does or Andy Grove does, but it's our form of intellectual capital, and it's one we can understand better.

M27:33

Zone——

Zone—.

M37:33

我们到哪儿了？

What do we have?

三。