Bill Ackman: Getting Back Up | The Knowledge Project Podcast #82
发布时间 2022-07-21 15:42:16 来源
So I've always had this view that success is not a straight line up and if you read the stories of successful people, almost every successful person has had to deal with some degree of hardship. And I've always had the view that how successful you are is really a function of how you deal with failure. And if you deal with failure well and you persist, you have a high probability of being successful. So I've always kind of had that view and then I've had to apply it to myself, you know, certainly a few times.
所以我一直认为，成功不是一条直线上升的道路。如果你读过成功人士的故事，你会发现几乎每个成功的人都不得不面对某种程度的困难。我一直认为，一个人有多成功，实际上取决于他如何应对失败。如果你能很好地应对失败并坚持下去，你就有很大的成功概率。所以我一直抱有这样的看法，而且确实在自己身上应用过几次。
Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish and you're listening to The Knowledge Project, a podcast dedicated to mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. This podcast and our website, FS.blog, help you better understand yourself and the world around you by exploring the methods, ideas and mental models from some of the most incredible people in the world.
你好，欢迎收听。我是谢恩·帕里什，你现在收听的是《知识计划》播客，这是一个致力于掌握他人已经弄明白的最佳知识的平台。通过这个播客和我们的网站FS.blog，我们帮助你更好地理解自己和周围的世界，探讨一些世界上最了不起的人使用的方法、理念和思维模式。
Before we get to today's show, a disclaimer. You'll see why the disclaimer is necessary after the disclaimer. Shane Parrish is the CEO of Burnham Street Media. All opinions expressed by me and podcasts guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Burnham Street Media or its parent company or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions or anything else.
在我们开始今天的节目之前，先声明一下。声明完后你会明白为什么需要声明。Shane Parrish是Burnham Street Media的首席执行官。我和节目嘉宾表达的所有观点仅代表我们个人意见，并不反映Burnham Street Media或其母公司及关联公司的立场。本播客仅用于信息分享，不能作为投资决策或其他任何决策的依据。
Shane, Burnham Street or Friends of Shane may maintain positions and securities discussed in this podcast, neither Burnham Street nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant completeness or accuracy of the opinions expressed herein and they should not be relied upon as such. Okay, so why is all that necessary? Well, today I'm talking with legendary investor, Bill Ackman. Bill is an investor and fund manager as well as the CEO of Burnham Square, Capital Management.
Shane、Burnham Street 或 Friends of Shane 可能持有在本播客中讨论的相关头寸和证券，Burnham Street 及其关联公司或子公司不保证这里表达的观点的完整性或准确性，因此不应依赖这些观点。好的，那么为什么这些声明是必要的呢？今天我将和传奇投资人 Bill Ackman 进行对话。Bill 是一位投资者和基金经理，同时也是 Burnham Square Capital Management 的 CEO。
In this in-depth interview, we're going to talk about what drives him, the lessons he's learned from his parents coming back from failure more than once, information consumption and idea sourcing, the role of ETFs facing criticism, nutrition, COVID, the lessons he tries to teach his kids and of course, stocks. It's time to listen and learn. Bill, I'm so glad to have you on the show.
在这次深入采访中，我们将讨论是什么驱使他前进，他从父母多次失败后东山再起中学到的教训，信息获取和创意来源，面对批评的ETF（交易所交易基金）的角色，营养，COVID（新冠病毒），他试图教给孩子的经验，当然还有股票。现在是倾听和学习的时候了。比尔，我很高兴你能参加这个节目。
Well, thanks for having me. What are some of the lessons you learned from your parents? It was interesting to speak about my parents because I've been living with them now for I think about six weeks and haven't done that for a good 30 years. So it is an interesting time to talk about lessons learned from parents. But my father is, I like to describe myself as the most persistent person in America, but actually my father is the most persistent person in America. So I certainly live in a home where you learn never to give up on pretty much anything. And so I think that's a big takeaway. And mom and dad, hardworking, motivated, educated people, high ambitions for their kids, always talked about setting an example.
好的，谢谢你邀请我参加。你从父母那里学到了哪些教训？谈论我的父母很有趣，因为我现在和他们住在一起，大概已经六个星期了，而在过去的三十年里我都没有这样做过。所以，这是一个很好的时机来聊聊从父母那里学到的教训。我父亲，我喜欢说我是美国最有毅力的人，但实际上，我父亲才是美国最有毅力的人。因此，在我们家里，你一定会学到永不放弃任何事情。我觉得这是一个很重要的收获。而且，我的父母都是勤劳、有动力、有文化的人，对孩子充满了高期望，总是强调要树立榜样。
There are a lot of things from my parents. I've learned about philanthropy. I think of philanthropy as something that is not genetic, it is learned and it's something that my dad reinforced pretty much from the time I was a kid. How do you think about the role of giving back? I think the easiest way to think about it, one of the more influential classes at college, I read John Rawls theory of justice and he talked about how should the world be organized? Well, his argument is you should organize the world, not from your perspective, but from the perspective of not knowing where you end up in the genetic lottery and in the geographic lottery. Are you born in New York City to well-educated parents in an upper middle-class home or are you born in Sub-Saharan Africa? And you don't get to decide where you end up. And in that sort of world, you should design the world from that position, the perspective of not knowing where you're going and I always expected to be successful and I had sort of a business plan.
我从父母那里学到了很多东西，尤其是慈善。我认为慈善并不是天生的，而是后天学到的，这是我爸爸从我小时候就不断强调的。你是怎么考虑回馈社会的呢？要理解这个问题，我觉得最简单的方法是回顾我大学时读的一门影响较大的课程，当时我学习了约翰·罗尔斯的《正义论》。罗尔斯讨论了世界应该如何被组织。他的观点是，我们不应该从自己的角度来组织世界，而是从一个不确定自己在基因和地理位置上会处于什么位置的角度来考虑。 你可能出生在纽约市一个受过良好教育的中上阶层家庭，也可能出生在撒哈拉以南非洲，而你并不能决定你会在哪里。这种情况下，你应该从这种不确定的位置来设计世界。我一直期望自己会取得成功，并且为此制定了一个商业计划。
And I said to myself that if I'm very successful, then I'm going to make sure to return the favor. And that's what I've tried to do. That's Rawls, the veil of ignorance, right? Yes. And you have been incredibly successful. What drives you? So I think one of my biggest drivers from the time I was a kid was independence. As much as I love my parents, I did not want to be reliant upon them. So everything from financial independence to the independence to say what I think, the independence to live the life I wanted to live. And so that's been a huge driver. You've come back from failure or at least the brink of disaster twice in your career. You've had to shut down your first fund and after valuing, you lost a lot of assets.
然后我对自己说，如果我非常成功，我一定会回报别人。我一直在努力做到这一点。这是劳尔斯的无知之幕，对吧？是的，你真的非常成功了。是什么驱使着你？我觉得，从小到大，我最大的动力之一就是独立。尽管我非常爱我的父母，但我不想依赖他们。从经济独立，到表达我想法的独立，再到过我想过的生活的独立，这些都是我的巨大动力。在你的职业生涯中，你曾两次从失败或至少是灾难的边缘回归。你不得不关闭了第一个基金，并在估值后失去了很多资产。
But it doesn't seem to phase you at all. How does this affect you personally? So I've always had this view that success is not a straight line up. And if you read the stories of successful people, almost every successful person has had to deal with some degree of hardship, whether that hardship is personal hardship, health related hardship, or a business issue. And I've always had the view that how successful you are is really a function of how you deal with failure. And if you deal with failure well and you persist, you have a high probability of being successful. So I've always had that view. And then I've had to apply it to myself certainly a few times.
但这似乎完全没有影响到你。你个人是怎么应对的呢？我一直认为，成功并不是一条直线上升的路。如果你读过成功人士的故事，你会发现几乎每个成功人士都必须面对某种程度的困难，这些困难可能是个人的，也可能是健康方面的，或是商业问题。我一直认为，你的成功程度实际上取决于你如何应对失败。如果你能妥善应对失败，并且坚持不懈，那么你就有很高的可能性获得成功。所以我一直持这种观点，当然也不得不在自己身上多次应用。
And I always like to say that experience is making mistakes and learning from them. And I've had the benefit of having made a lot of mistakes. What are some of the lessons that you've drawn from those experiences? You know, it's interesting. In my first fund, I had a partner who remains a very good friend. And the stress of the ending was enough for him that he just didn't want to continue and do it again, where I was excited to kind of rebuild and go forward. And my business plan was just to make a little progress every day. And if you make a little progress every day, eventually that compounded progress will dig you out of the hole.
我总是喜欢说，经验就是不断犯错误并从中学习。而我有幸犯过很多错误。从这些经历中，你有什么收获吗？你知道，这很有趣。在我第一个基金的时候，我有一个合伙人，我们现在还是非常好的朋友。最后的压力对他来说实在太大了，所以他不想继续再干，而我则对重建并继续前进感到非常兴奋。我的商业计划就是每天取得一点进步。如果你每天都取得一点进步，最终这种积累的进步会把你从困境中拉出来。
And what is difficult is you find yourself in a hole, whether it's an investment hole or in your personal life or otherwise. It seems incredibly daunting to get back to, you know, if you will, where you were. And you're looking up at this peak where you were before. And it's just you're never going to get there. But if you don't focus on the peak and just focus on, you know, one step at a time, you know, making progress, eventually, you know, as the weeks go by, just make a series of smart, thoughtful decisions, use good judgment, stay healthy. Eventually you climb your way out of the hole.
如果你发现自己陷入困境，不管是投资上的困境，还是个人生活中的困境，感觉要回到原来的状态非常艰难。你会仰望曾经的位置，觉得自己永远无法重新达到那个高度。但如果你不去盯着高峰，而是专注于脚踏实地一步一步前进，随着时间的推移，几周几周地过去，做出一系列明智的决策，坚持正确的判断，保持健康，最终你会慢慢走出困境。
Most people look at that peak and then they make, I would say, more emotional or irrational decisions in order to get back. Like how do you ground yourself in the moment of the day to day and just getting incrementally better? I think having good friends, being in a loving relationship, having a supportive family, and staying healthy, you know, huge believer in exercise, good nutrition, sleep, as a way to deal with stress. My first business reversal, if you will, was the most difficult because I hadn't had to experience that before.
大多数人看到那座山峰，然后他们会做出更多情绪化或非理性的决定，以图迅速回到顶峰。那你怎么在日常生活中保持冷静，逐步变得更好呢？我认为有好朋友、处在有爱的关系中、拥有支持你的家庭以及保持健康非常重要。我坚信锻炼、良好的饮食和睡眠是应对压力的有效方法。我的第一次商业逆境是最困难的，因为之前从未经历过那样的情况。
I mean, it's sort of the speech I give when I go to speak at, you know, business schools, you go to speak at Harvard Business School, and you're in front of an audience of students and they've done, you know, top of their class in high school and they went to a great college and they've done great summer jobs and they have great recommendations from their teachers and they've never failed. They go to Harvard Business School and then they're about to go out into the real world and the problem with that approach is the single most important thing you need to understand is how to deal with failure and the vast majority of people who got to Harvard Business School or pick your favorite, you know, top business or law school has not had to deal with failure and that is the determined, I think, of success. You know, look at Elon Musk. He's been on the brink of failure however many times and it's, I think, why he's beloved by many, hated perhaps by some, but I really admire the guy in terms of how he's dealt with, you know, near catastrophe and I just think there are many, many examples of people. You know, what does success means? Success means you have a very good ability to deal with inevitable failure mistakes and, you know, life issues that emerge over time.
我想说，这有点像是我在商业学校演讲时常用的发言稿。比如说，当我去哈佛商学院演讲时，面对的是一群学生，他们在高中时都是班里的尖子生，进入了一所很棒的大学，有出色的暑期工作经历，得到了老师们的高度推荐，从未经历过失败。他们进入哈佛商学院，然后准备踏入现实世界。然而，这种方式的最大问题是，你需要理解的最重要的事情是如何应对失败。而绝大多数进入哈佛商学院或者其他顶尖商业或法学院的人，都没有经历过失败。这关系到我认为的成功。你看看Elon Musk，他经历过无数次濒临失败的时刻，但这也是为什么他被许多人喜爱，或许也被一些人讨厌。我非常钦佩他应对几近灾难的能力。我认为有很多类似的例子。成功意味着你具有很强的能力来应对不可避免的失败、错误，以及随着时间出现的人生问题。
What lessons would you give people on how to deal with failure? I mean, it's got to be more complicated than sort of like, how do you learn from it? Like, do you reflect? Is there a process that you go through? How do you reset yourself and go forward? You know, for me, it is literally just a bit of a plotting one step at a time. You know, we had, you know, my sort of life trajectory was, you know, did well in high school, went to, you know, good college from there. Good work experience. Harvard Business School started my own hedge fund with a partner. We had five years of really incredible success and then, you know, some challenges and then success and then challenges and it's just sort of the rhythm of being a concentrated investor certainly and also the rhythm of life. And I just think you just have to stay sane and stay balanced.
你会给人们哪些应对失败的建议？我的意思是，这肯定比“如何从中学习”更复杂吧。比如，你会反思吗？你有没有一个过程来处理失败？你如何重振自己并继续前进？对我来说，真的是需要一步一步地走。你看，我的人生轨迹是：高中表现不错，之后上了一个很好大学，积累了良好的工作经验，考上哈佛商学院，然后和一个合伙人一起创建了自己的对冲基金。我们有五年非常成功的经历，随后遇到一些挑战，然后又取得了成功，再然后又有新的挑战，这大概就是一个专注投资者的节奏，也是人生的节奏。我觉得你必须保持理智和平衡。
People have always told me, Bill, you deal with stress incredibly well. And I think it's really about being, you know, healthy, going to the gym, playing sports, you know, having the perspective that comes from spending time with, you know, people that you love. And, you know, going for a walk during my first most challenging business reversal, I used to go for a walk every night with a good friend, you know, around Manhattan. We'd go walk to the Hudson River. We talk and it was just nice knowing, you know, a supportive friend was looking out for me and wanted me to succeed. And nothing as dramatic happened the second time around because, you know, I'm very fortunate in being in a wonderful marriage and relationship, which I think helps enormously and also surrounded by work colleagues that I, you know, like and respect and, you know, enjoying what I do. And also, the kind of reversal we're talking about here is very, very different than the kind of reversal someone experiences for, you know, may lose their job, lose their job and have no form of economic support, or they have a, you know, a very, very serious illness that threatens their, you know, existence.
人们总是对我说，"比尔，你应对压力的能力非常强。" 我认为这其实归结于保持健康，去健身房，参加体育活动，以及与自己所爱的人共度时光所带来的视角。在我经历第一次艰难的商业挫折时，我每晚都会和一个好朋友在曼哈顿附近散步。我们会走到哈德逊河边聊天。知道有一个支持我的朋友在关心我并希望我成功，这种感觉真是太好了。
第二次经历类似挫折时，没有那么戏剧化，因为我很幸运，有一个美满的婚姻和关系，这对我帮助很大。而且我身边的工作同事都是我喜欢和敬重的人，我也享受我的工作。此外，这种挫折和失去工作、没有经济支持，或患有严重威胁生命的疾病所相比，性质非常不同。不管怎么样，我认为正是这些因素帮助我更好地应对压力。
So in my case, you know, I've done very well, my family is well taken care of, very nice roof over my head, so to speak. So I don't really view this as anything like the kind of challenges that people deal with when they get cancer, for example, or they have, you know, they lose a job that they need for their, you know, to support their family to pay for health care for their kids, you know, that kind of thing. So I just try to keep perspective. You did go through a divorce though, right? Yes, I mean, the most challenging moment from a business standpoint was not the most recent challenges, you know, losing money on a big investment is, you know, disappointing. But it happened, it was co-terminus with challenges in my, and perhaps correlated with challenges in my personal life. It is, it can be very distracting to be contemplating whether one should stay married while running a business that requires, you know, a lot of, you know, judgment and clarity of thinking.
所以，对我来说，你知道，我已经做得很好了，我的家人也得到了很好的照顾，住在一个非常舒适的房子里，可以这么说。因此，我并不觉得这类似于那些人遇到的挑战，比如得了癌症，或者失去了养家糊口、支付孩子医疗费用的工作。这类事情。所以我尽量保持一种平衡的视角。你确实经历过离婚，对吧？是的，我是说，从商业角度来看，最具挑战性的时刻并不是最近的那些挑战。你知道，在一次大投资中失利虽然令人失望，但它发生在我个人生活的挑战时期，可能也与之相关。当你在经营一个需要大量判断力和清晰思维的生意时，同时还要考虑是否应该继续婚姻，这确实会非常分心。
And, you know, I ultimately made some, you know, failures of judgment in my business. And I'm quite sure that the personal challenges I was facing at the same time made things worse. And then I had to deal with the business challenges at the same time I was in the midst of, you know, the normal challenges of divorce and resolving things with the former spouse and kids and, you know, so it was a, it was a challenge period. You mentioned sleep, exercise and nutrition are really important to you. Can you go into a little bit about your routine and sort of like how you view those things? Sure. So on the sleep side, I've always been a good sleeper. So that, that helps. I do think it is related to, you know, taking care of yourself generally. So I, you know, I work out pretty intensely. You know, I really, I play tennis, just in addition to workout, it allows your mind to, it's almost a form of meditation for me. And that, it completely takes me out of whatever work related issues are on my mind.
我在生意上，做出了一些判断失误。同时，我确信自己当时所面临的个人挑战让情况变得更糟。我不得不在经历离婚、处理与前配偶和孩子的关系这些常见挑战的同时，还要应对商业上的问题，那真是一个充满挑战的时期。
你提到睡眠、锻炼和营养对你来说非常重要，能讲讲你的日常安排以及你如何看待这些事情吗？
当然。在睡眠方面，我一直睡得很好，这很有帮助。我确实认为这和总体上照顾好自己有关系。所以，我平时锻炼强度很大。我打网球，除了锻炼之外，它还能让我的大脑得到放松，对我来说，这几乎是一种冥想。这完全让我从所有与工作有关的问题中解脱出来。
And then I've learned a lot about nutrition over the last decade or so that's, I think helped maybe 10 to 15 years. And I had a completely, I thought, wrong idea of nutrition, I would say until more recently. Now walk me through that. What do you, what do you think now? What I think now is one, we start with, I think sugar is poison. So, you know, minimizing your sugar consumption, I think helps tremendously. I also think for me personally, otherwise, I think everyone has different genetic makeup and how they respond to various things. I think, you know, I'm better off with kind of a higher fat, higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet, you know, eating real foods as opposed to foods that come out, you know, anything that comes out of a package or is processed, I generally avoid. So real food, kind of higher fat, you know, avocados, nuts, things like that. But I eat, you know, meat and fish and I've really done my best to cut back on sugar consumption and carbohydrates.
在过去的十年左右，我学到了很多关于营养的知识，我认为这可能帮助了我在过去10到15年里取得了一些健康上的进步。而之前，我对营养的理解可以说是完全错误的。现在让我详细解释一下。我现在认为，首先，糖就像是毒药。所以，尽量减少糖的摄入对健康有很大帮助。我还认为，对于我个人来说，大家的基因组成不同，身体对各种食物的反应也不同。我发现，我更适合高脂肪、高蛋白质、低碳水化合物的饮食，尽量吃天然食物而不是加工食品或包装食品。因此，我通常选择吃真正的食物，比如鳄梨、坚果之类的高脂肪食物。我也吃肉和鱼，并且一直尽力减少糖和碳水化合物的摄入。
And that served me, you know, sort of well, I feel better. I think better, also able to manage my weight much more effectively. You know, I come from a family where managing your weight has not been an easy thing, you know, for my father's side of the family, let's say. And I feel like I finally, I finally figured out what the issue is and just, you know, at least our genetics, we have a super high sensitivity to sugar intake or carbohydrates. Are you three meals a day kind of guy or you snack all day or? I've become a bit of an interim faster, you know, so I generally don't eat before noon. And I usually finish dinner by around eight. I'll have nuts for snacks occasionally, but not, you know, that's about it. And do you have a normal bedtime routine or is it like you go to bed whenever or are you like you start winding down at a certain time? Like what does that look like? You know, read a lot in the evening, spend a lot of time with Nary in the evenings, you know, occasionally we watch a movie, occasionally we'll stay up and watch something interesting, but you know, no formal routine. What's the last movie you watched that you loved? I watched a series on Netflix, a four part series called unorthodox, just in the last couple of nights. And I don't watch many Netflix series. I thought it was excellent. It was a very sort of in depth look at life in the kind of ultra orthodox Jewish community. But very well acted and very real. I'm curious as to you mentioned reading sort of a lot at night. I'm curious as to what your information intake looks like, like what publications do you read regularly, books, blogs, specific authors, memos, or does that look like? Sure. So, you know, I read a lot of traditional media sources, you know, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Economist, Fortune Forbes, a grants interest rate observer. And beginning sort of as I got deeper into coronavirus, I started using Twitter actually as a news feed and found it to be very, very helpful and interesting, almost having the experience of reading the news a couple days before you read the news and the rest of the media, Bloomberg, Bloomberg News, of course. And then I just, you know, I go where the, you know, the facts sort of take me. And then, you know, I don't regularly listen to read blogs.
这对我来说，还算不错，我感觉好了很多。我思考的更清晰了，也能够更有效地管理我的体重。你知道，我的家族中，特别是我父亲那边的家族，体重管理一直不是件容易的事。而我觉得，我终于弄清楚问题所在了，我们家族的基因对糖分或碳水化合物极其敏感。
你是一日三餐的人，还是整天不断吃零食？我现在有点像间歇性禁食者，通常在正午前不吃东西，晚餐一般在八点左右吃完。我偶尔会吃坚果作为零食，仅此而已。
你有固定的就寝习惯吗？还是随心所欲什么时候睡？还是你会在某个时间点开始放松？大概是什么样子？晚上我会读很多书，花很多时间和Nary在一起，偶尔我们会看电影，有时我们会熬夜看一些有趣的东西，但没有固定的习惯。
你最后看的一部你很喜欢的电影是什么？最近几晚我在Netflix上看了一部四集的系列剧《异教徒（Unorthodox）》。我通常不怎么看Netflix剧，但我觉得这部剧非常出色。它深入展示了极端正统犹太社区的生活，非常真实，演技也很好。
你提到晚上读很多书，我很好奇你的信息来源有哪些常读的刊物、书籍、博客、特定作者、备忘录等等，是什么样的？当然，我读很多传统媒体，比如《华尔街日报》、《金融时报》、《纽约时报》、《经济学人》、《财富》、《福布斯》，还有《Grant's Interest Rate Observer》。随着我对新冠疫情了解的深入，我开始将推特作为新闻源，发现它非常有用且有趣，几乎可以提前几天获取新闻，还有彭博新闻。当然，然后我会根据事实走向来阅读，但我不经常阅读博客。
And though I'm starting to understand the benefits. So I'm a late, but sort of recent adopter of finding more interesting curated news sources. Is there information you avoid, like information that everybody else has? Not really. I think it's helpful to have kind of the conventional perspective. And, you know, I don't think we have, I'm, you know, have some particular access to, you know, some inside secretive news source that's valuable. You know, there are people that I talk to, that I talk to for perspective on things like the economy and business, just people, and business leader type people that I respect and compare notes with, you know, what's really going on in China, that kind of thing. That can actually be quite, quite helpful. But, you know, I get a lot of, you know, reading basic media, financial times, economists, Atlantic, New Yorker.
虽然我开始理解其中的好处了。我发现了更有趣的精选新闻来源，不过这方面我是个晚，但算是最近才适应的人。你有什么信息是会刻意避免的吗，比如大家都在看的信息？其实没有。我认为了解常规观点是有用的。并且，我不认为我们有什么特别途径能接触到一些有价值的内部秘密新闻。我会和一些人谈话，获取经济和商业方面的见解，这些人包括我尊重的企业领袖，和他们交换意见，比如中国的实际情况。这实际上非常有帮助。不过，我还是会阅读很多基本的媒体，比如《金融时报》、《经济学人》、《大西洋月刊》和《纽约客》。
How do you source your investment ideas? Like, where do the, where do the ideas come from? Like, how does that process work? Is it you? Is it your team of analysts? Is it? Sure. So I would say the early days of Pershing, I would generate the ideas and the team would help me analyze them. And as the business has matured, and I really think it's a credit to the team and the maturity of the business, many ideas are sourced by members of the team. And my role over time has become one, you know, setting the sort of framework for things that are likely to be interesting, you know, whether, and whether something fits within the framework or not. And then I'm usually the 20% person on every idea. So 80% of the work is work led by a two person subset of the investment team. And 20% of the work, you know, the reading public filings, conference call transcripts, work that I do, the 80% work, a lot of that will involve conversations with experts to understand natures of businesses. And that's work that's largely done by other members of the team.
你们如何寻找投资点子呢？就是说，这些点子从哪里来？这个过程是怎么进行的？是你负责吗？还是你的分析团队？
是这样的，我可以说在 Pershing 早期，我会提出投资点子，然后团队帮我分析。随着业务的成熟，我认为这真的要归功于团队和公司业务的成熟，现在很多点子都是团队成员提出来的。随着时间推移，我的角色更多是制定一个框架，来确定哪些东西可能有趣，以及是否符合这个框架。然后在每个点子上，我通常会投入20%的工作量，余下的80%工作是由投资团队中的两人小组负责。我的20%工作量通常包括阅读公开文件、电话会议记录等，而80%工作则涉及与专家交流，了解业务性质，这部分大多是由团队其他成员完成的。
And then the team overall discusses whether something, merits inclusion in the portfolio. So some combination of a couple of people work very, very hard and voted a lot at the last, you know, perhaps a couple of months looking at an idea. One person myself that's spent not nearly as much time, but knows enough to be dangerous. And then, you know, another call it the four members of the team that have not done real work on the idea, but are economically incentivized to make sure that, you know, we make the right decision. And that's sort of the composition of how we get to an idea that makes sense traditionally. You said that you guys do more work on any investments than anybody else. And you know it better than often the people that are running the company. Is there a point where, or at what point does that become self reinforcing? Like you've done so much work that you it's hard to walk away from this. Like how do you build it that into your process? Yeah, I don't know if I've ever said that I don't know for a certain degree, we don't do more work than anyone else. So I wouldn't say that. But because we manage a very concentrated portfolio, we have the benefit of going very, very deep on something.
接着，整个团队会讨论某个项目是否值得纳入投资组合。一般来说，团队内有几个人会非常非常努力地花费大量时间——也许是过去几个月——对某个想法进行投票研究。像我这样的个别人员虽然没有花费那么多时间，但知道一些关键点。而其他四个团队成员虽然没有实际参与这个想法的工作，但为了经济利益，他们也有动力确保我们做出正确的决定。这就是我们通常如何筛选出有意义的投资想法的过程组成。
你说过你们团队对任何投资都会比其他人做更多的研究，甚至比公司管理层还了解情况。这是否会在某个点形成自我强化？比如说，你们已经投入了太多时间和精力，以至于很难放弃这个项目？你们是如何在流程中处理这种情况的？
我不知道我是否曾说过我们做的工作比任何人都多，我不确定。但由于我们管理的是一个非常集中的投资组合，我们有机会在某个项目上深入研究。
And we don't need to make a decision. There's no time pressure generally to make a decision. So in the benefits of concentration, the benefits of being a long-term company is there isn't, you know, we might add one or two new ideas a year, which means we can have, we have the luxury, if you will, of doing more work than many, many other investors. But we only want to do the work that is necessary to determine that an investment makes sense in the portfolio. We don't have some view that we have to exhaustively spend six months in order to make a decision. In fact, if you have to spend a large amount of time, and it's not obvious, it's probably not a good investment. And we have made investments in some of our most successful investments.
我们不需要立刻做决定，通常也没有时间压力去做决定。作为一家注重长期发展的公司，我们有一个优势，就是我们每年可能只增加一两个新项目。这意味着我们可以比许多其他投资者进行更多的研究。但我们只愿意做那些必要的工作，以确认某项投资是否适合纳入我们的投资组合。我们并不认为必须花费六个月的时间来做决定。事实上，如果需要花很长时间才能看出是否值得投资，那很可能不是一个好的投资。而我们过去确实投资了一些非常成功的项目。
The amount of work that was done was in the hours, as opposed to even in the days or weeks or months. I mean, the just most recently, our heads that we put on to protect the portfolio, I guess, I wasn't specifically doing work on that investment at all. But I was thinking about the ramifications, for example, the coronavirus, and then came to a conclusion, this was something we wanted to hedge, and that it was really an hour discussion among the team before we decided to implement the hedge in that form. In a way, one of our more successful investments, if you look at the risk versus the reward, the amount of time spent was minimal.
完成这项工作的时间是以小时计算的，而不是以天、周或月来算。我是说，就拿最近来说，我们给投资组合上了保护措施，我个人其实没有具体进行相关的工作。但我在思考冠状病毒的影响，得出结论认为我们需要对冲这个风险，于是团队用了大约一小时讨论，决定实施这个对冲。从某种意义上讲，这是我们相对成功的投资之一，如果考虑风险与回报比，我们花的时间非常少。
Can you take me behind the scenes on an investment decision that you've made and sold? So nothing currently in your portfolio. What does that process look like to Bill Ackman? How do you think about it? How do you walk through it? So it starts with the framework of what we're looking for. So the most important thing for us is that the business quality is extremely high. By business quality, I mean, we've number one, we want it to be both high quality business and one that we can predict with a very high degree of confidence. So it's got to be what we call a simple predictable free cash flow generative business. And the reason for that methodology is the value of a financial asset is the present value of the cash that you can take out of it over its life. And particularly in a low-interest rate environment, you need to be able to predict the cash flows for many, many years in order to figure out approximately what the business is worth. And for many companies, we have no idea because the complexity of the business means we don't know what the cash flows will be three years out, let alone years four through 50, which matter in terms of determining what the business is worth.
你能否讲述一下你曾经做过并已卖出的投资决定的幕后过程？也就是说，不是你目前持有的投资。这个过程在比尔·阿克曼的眼中是怎样的？你是如何思考并一步步完成这个过程的？
首先，我们的框架是确定我们在寻找什么。对我们来说，最重要的是业务质量必须非常高。所谓业务质量高，我的意思是，首先，我们希望这是一个高质量的企业，并且我们能有非常高的信心去预测它的发展。因此，它必须是我们所谓的简单、可预测、能产生自由现金流的企业。
采用这种方法的原因是，一个金融资产的价值是你可以在其生命周期内提取的现金的现值。特别是在低利率环境下，你需要能够预测多年的现金流，以大致估算出企业的价值。而对于许多公司来说，我们根本无法预测，因为业务的复杂性意味着我们不知道三年后的现金流，更不用说未来从第四年到第五十年的现金流了，而这些都是决定企业价值的重要因素。
So we look for sort of simplicity, sort of, and then durability and predictability. So it's got to fit that screen and talk about Starbucks, for example. So we made an investment in Starbucks a couple of years ago, not quite a couple of years ago. And what we saw was a simple predictable free cash flow business, free cash flow generative business that we could understand. And so it met the first screen. You know, we think about coffee, you know, people have their coffee habit. Starbucks has built a, we can argue a very durable franchise. They earn very high returns on every store that they build. And it's a habit that people don't like to break. So we had confidence in the durability and the benefit of the call at the restaurant business is once you understand the economics of one box, and then you have a company that's built thousands of boxes over time, it becomes more predictable and easier to understand what that business will look like over a very long period of time. And so Starbucks met the business quality threshold.
我们寻求的是简化、耐久性和可预见性。以星巴克为例。大约两年前，我们对星巴克进行了投资。当时我们看到的是一个简单可预测的自由现金流业务，我们能够理解这种模式。因此，它满足了我们第一个筛选标准。大家都知道，咖啡是人们的一种习惯，而星巴克已经建立了非常持久的品牌。他们每开一家店都能获得非常高的回报，而且这种习惯不容易被打破，所以我们对其业务的持久性充满信心。在餐饮行业，一旦你了解了单个店面的经济状况，并且公司已经在长时间内建立了数千家门店，那么预测这个业务在未来长时间内的表现就变得更加容易。因此，星巴克达到了我们对业务质量的要求。
And then the next most relevant consideration is price. And price, what matters here is that there's a wide gap between price and value. And so once we understood the business and we could model the business, we could look at where it was trading and compare those two. And at the time of our investment, there was uncertainty because the recent same-store sales had flattened. And this was a company that had delivered consistent sort of mid-single same-store sales over a very long period of time. And our analysis, the kind of crux the analysis was, is this a blip? Is this an indication of things about to go awry? And that's really where we spent our time.
然后，下一个最相关的考虑因素是价格。这里，价格的重要之处在于价格与价值之间存在很大的差异。因此，一旦我们理解了这个业务并且能够对其进行建模，我们就可以看看它的交易情况并进行比较。在我们投资的时候，存在一些不确定性，因为最近的同店销售额已经趋于平稳。而这家公司曾经在很长一段时间内保持了稳定的中等数额的同店销售额增长。我们的分析的关键问题是，这只是一个小插曲，还是真的是公司即将出问题的预兆？这就是我们花时间进行研究的地方。
So you're looking at Starbucks, and then, but there's millions of people looking at Starbucks. Where does that edge come from? I think a big part of the edge comes from, we're not going to do a better job predicting next quarter's earnings than people who focus on that. And we just don't focus on that at all. What we focus on is, what is this business worth over its life? And the markets generally overreact to short-term information and noise, because many stocks are traded on the basis of the marginal buyer and seller is a short-term investor trying to predict where the stocks are going to go up or down on the quarter. And we don't spend any time trying to figure that out. And that kind of activity, whether it's driven by quantitative traders or computers or fast money, so to speak, moves securities around occasionally to crazy prices. And Starbucks was trading as if the business had fundamentally changed. And our view is it hadn't. And that the company was taking all the right steps to address some of the performance related issues that they had, both in the US, and that they had a lot of opportunity for growth.
那么，你在看星巴克，但同时也有数百万人在看星巴克。那我们的优势来自哪里呢？我认为很大一部分优势在于，我们不会比那些专注于预测下季度收益的人做得更好。而我们根本不关注这些。我们关注的是，这个生意在其整个生命周期内的价值是多少。而市场通常会对短期信息和噪音过度反应，因为很多股票的买卖都是基于短期投资者，他们试图预测股票在下一季度是会上涨还是下跌。而我们从不花时间弄清这个。这种活动，无论是由量化交易员、电脑还是所谓的快钱驱动，有时会把证券价格推动到不合理的水平。而星巴克的交易价格就好像这个生意发生了根本性的变化一样。我们的看法是，并没有这样的变化，公司在美国采取了所有正确的措施来解决一些与业绩相关的问题，他们还有很多增长机会。
And they were becoming a more focused, better company. They were actually taking, normally, we look for a great business that had lost its way. We try to figure out what they had done wrong, and then we'd recommend serious changes after buying a stake in the company. That's sort of our core business. But in the case of Starbucks, they were already doing all the things that we would have recommended that they do to fix the problem. And so it was a bit of an activist investment where the management had already become activists in their own company. And so we thought, I think a big part of our advantage is we didn't have to think about next quarter's earnings. A big part of our competitive advantage today comes from the fact that our capital structure compared to a typical investment firm is very different. 85% of our capital comes from a public company. And as a result, we have very, very long duration money. And we don't need to worry about this quarter or this year in making decisions. And that, I think, is a huge advantage.
他们变得更加专注，更加优秀。通常情况下，我们会寻找那些曾经辉煌但是走偏了的公司。我们先搞清楚他们的问题所在，然后在购入股份后提出重大改进建议。这算是我们的核心业务模式。但是在星巴克的案例中，他们已经在自发地做我们建议的那些改进措施。所以这次有点像是一种积极投资，但管理层已经在他们自己的公司内成为了积极变革者。我们认为，我们最大的优势之一在于不需要考虑下一个季度的收益。我们今天能够占据竞争优势，很大一部分原因在于我们的资本结构与典型的投资公司截然不同。我们85%的资金来自于一家上市公司，因此我们的资金有非常长的时间跨度。我们在做决策时不需要担心这个季度或这一年的表现。我认为，这是一项巨大的优势。
In a world in which most other investors have, they give their investors either daily or monthly or quarterly liquidity, having permanency to a very large percentage of our capital base allows us to make very long-term decisions. And that time arbitrage is a big part of our advantage. Time arbitrage is a hard one to go away because there's always going to be the short-term pressure. And so I like the structural approach to addressing that problem. How do you see the role of ETFs in index fund investing? And how does it impact our effect investors like yourself? So the impact on investors who care about governance, in particular, sort of activist investors, is over time as index funds effectively come to control corporate America, their vote can be the deciding factor in a contest. And so that's one way that index funds play a major role. The other side of that is index funds are also because of their growing influence under a fair amount of pressure from their shareholders to oversee the businesses that they own.
在一个大多数其他投资者给他们投资者提供每日、每月或季度流动性的世界里，我们的资本基础中有很大一部分是长期性，使我们能够做出非常长期的决策。这种时间套利是我们优势的重要部分。时间套利很难消失，因为总是会有短期压力存在。因此，我喜欢用结构性的方法来解决这个问题。你如何看待ETF在指数基金投资中的角色? 它对像你这样的投资者有何影响？
对于那些关注公司治理，尤其是激进投资者来说，随着指数基金逐渐掌控美国企业，他们的投票在争议中可能成为决定性因素，这是指数基金发挥重要作用的一种方式。另一方面，由于指数基金影响力的增长，它们也面临着来自其股东的一定压力，要求监督它们所持有的企业。
People thought about the index fund investment business as a business almost without governance, where governance was not a focus at all. And then their increasing ownership of corporate America, global securities puts more pressure on them to be thoughtful. Now they don't have the resources to lead an activist campaign. I think that requires a more entrepreneurial type investor. So in a way, there has to be a partnership between activist investors and index funds to make sure that we're governing companies correctly. And seeing a number of the top terms over time take these issues much more seriously. And we've had a good experience working with most of these major owners. The problem with the index fund business is it's really a commodity business. If you run an S&P 500 index fund, the only way that you can compete with other S&P 500 index funds is by lowering your pricing. And the pricing is now in the few basis points. In fact, there are index funds today that charge no fees.
人们曾经认为指数基金投资业务基本上不需要管理，治理并非重点。然而，随着他们在美国公司和全球证券中的持有量不断增加，要求他们更加慎重的压力也在增大。现在，他们没有资源来主导激进的行动。我认为，这需要更具创业精神的投资者。因此，激进投资者和指数基金之间需要有伙伴关系，以确保我们正确地管理公司。长期以来，一些顶尖公司对这些问题越来越重视。我们与这些主要持有者中的大多数合作经历良好。指数基金业务的问题在于它本质上是一个商品化的业务。如果你管理一个标普500指数基金，唯一能与其他标普500指数基金竞争的方式就是降低价格。现在的价格已经降到了几个基点，实际上，现在有些指数基金甚至不收取费用。
And it's hard for them to scale up to have the governance resources necessary to make thoughtful decisions about running businesses. If you think about it, if you manage ETFs and index funds, you have to vote, call it 10, 15, 20,000 proxies right around the same time most annual meetings are called in the May timeframe. So by February, imagine BlackRock gets tens of thousands of proxies in the mail, and they have to make a decision on each of them, which directors to vote for, which initiative to support, which not to support, it's almost an impossible hurdle for them, particularly as their revenues asymptotically or the fees they charge asymptotically go to zero. So that is a problem that needs to be addressed.
他们很难扩展到拥有足够的治理资源来做出关于经营业务的深思熟虑的决策。你想想，如果你管理ETF和指数基金，你必须在大多数年度会议召开的五月同时处理大约一万到两万份投票授权书。所以可以想象，到了二月，像贝莱德（BlackRock）这样的公司会收到成千上万份代理投票邮件，他们必须对每一份做出决定，选哪个董事，支持哪个提案，不支持哪个提案，这几乎是一个不可能完成的任务，特别是当他们的收入或收费趋近于零的时候。所以这是一个需要解决的问题。
Actually, I made a small investment in a company called Say, which is a business that wants to put the vote back into the hands of the owner. And one of the opportunities for a BlackRock to differentiate themselves from, for example, a fidelity or for Vanguard is to transfer back the right to vote to the underlying holder. And this company says, has a technology that enables that to take place. Now, you wouldn't want a person investing in an investment to 500 index fund, who's got a $1,000 investment broken up in $2 pieces to have to think through 500 different proxies. There you still have a problem. But they may have certain principles that they operate under that they would want BlackRock to vote on for them. And this company would enable that to take place and perhaps there are a few high profile elections, proxy contest, etc. with the underlying shoulder would like to vote. So that's an interesting potential change in governance.
实际上，我对一家名为Say的公司进行了小额投资。这家公司致力于将投票权归还给股东。BlackRock可以通过将投票权转移回给持股人，从而与Fidelity或Vanguard等公司区分开来。而Say公司拥有实现这一目标的技术。
当然，你肯定不愿意让一个投了1000美元进500指数基金的人，处理分成500个部分的不同投票问题，这会很麻烦。不过，他们可能有一些原则想要让BlackRock代表他们投票。Say公司的技术可以实现这个目标，比如一些重要的选举或者代理争议，持股人也许会更愿意亲自投票。
这是公司治理中一个有趣的潜在变化。
Yeah, that sounds like pretty cool technology. Do you think that we end up with bigger swings as a result of more and more people being invested in index funds? Do you think the highs are higher and the lows are lower? Or do you think it really has no impact? Like I imagine a lot of people right now are getting their merch statement in the mail and looking at that going, what just happened to generally ignore the market?
这听起来真是挺酷的技术啊。你觉得随着越来越多的人投资指数基金，我们会经历更大幅度的波动吗？你觉得高点会更高，而低点会更低吗？还是你认为这根本不会有什么影响？我想，很多人现在收到他们的对账单时，可能会一脸疑惑地问：“刚刚发生了什么？”通常他们是忽略市场动态的。
Yeah, I think the premise of your question is correct. I think if you think about index funds and constant inflows of money with each paycheck when people take a portion, I think investing in 401k, that's been a major support for the stock market. And index funds really in a way they take more and more of the float out of a security. So the marginal trader can move a stock more because there's less float, if that makes sense. It's almost like having index funds as major holders of securities in stable market conditions actually reduces the liquidity of companies. And it means that hedge funds and more active investors who are making day-to-day buy and sell decisions actually push securities around more. Some of the volatility that you've seen I think can be, is somewhat due to the fact that there is limited less liquidity in securities today because of the greater percentage of shares that are held by index funds. Now, if that were to reverse, if index fund performance underperforms active management for a meaningful period of time, you could see instead of constant additions to the index fund, you could see constant reductions of capital which would be a big overhang on the securities that are held by index funds. But that trend has continued to be interesting to see what the impact of recent events have on it. Who are some of your investing heroes? Or actually, who are some of your heroes, not investing heroes, but who just generally are some of your heroes?
是的，我认为你的问题的前提是正确的。如果你考虑到指数基金和每次发工资时人们将一部分资金投入的持续资金流，我认为把钱投资到401k账户，这是对股市的一个重要支持。指数基金实际上在某种程度上把更多的流通股从市场上移除。所以边际交易者可以更容易地推动股票价格的波动，因为市场上的流通股变少了，如果这样说你能理解的话。在稳定的市场条件下，作为主要持有者的指数基金实际上减少了公司的流动性。这意味着那些做日常买卖决策的对冲基金和更活跃的投资者实际上会使证券价格波动更大。我认为你看到的一些波动部分是因为今天证券的流动性由于指数基金所持有的股份比例增加而有限。如果这种情况逆转，如果指数基金的表现持续落后于主动管理基金，你可能会看到资金不断减少，而不是不断增加，这将对指数基金所持有的证券形成巨大的压力。但这一趋势一直很有趣，看看最近事件对其有什么影响。你有哪些投资方面的英雄？其实，不只是投资方面的英雄，总体来说，你有哪些英雄？
Sure. So, briefly on the investment side, I got into this business because someone tipped me off about Warren Buffett early on. So, he's certainly, obviously, a hero. Two investors I learned a ton from over the course of my career were supportive of me early on. My name is Joe Steinberg, who likes being out of the headlines. His partner Ian Cumming ran a company called Lucadia National Corporation, a very interesting investment firm. I learned a ton over time. But I admire people like Elon Musk. I admire people who take on unbelievable challenges and succeed. The notion of building a car company to compete with the big car companies is something that, on its own, I think it's fairly remarkable. And if you do that at a time when you're building a company to launch rockets into space, I think it's even more remarkable. So, he's someone I have enormous respect for. The world needs more people like Elon. Do you feel those people are better served in private roles as CEOs or as public company CEOs? I don't know that Elon Musk has been the ideal public company CEO. I think he had a challenging period there with his tweets.
当然，简要地说说投资方面吧，我进入这个行业是因为早期有人告诉我关于沃伦·巴菲特的事情。他显然是我的英雄。在我的职业生涯中，我从两位投资者那里学到了很多，他们在早期就支持我。其中一位是乔·斯坦伯格，他喜欢保持低调。他的合作伙伴伊恩·卡明经营着一家名为卢卡迪亚国家公司的公司，这是一个非常有趣的投资公司。随着时间的推移，我学到了很多东西。不过，我也非常钦佩像埃隆·马斯克这样的人。我佩服那些面对不可思议的挑战并成功的人。打造一家能够与大型汽车公司竞争的汽车公司本身就是一件相当了不起的事情。而如果你在打造一家同时能向太空发射火箭的公司，那我觉得更是非凡。所以，埃隆·马斯克是我非常尊敬的一个人。世界需要更多像埃隆这样的人。你觉得这些人更适合担任私人公司的首席执行官，还是上市公司的首席执行官？我不确定埃隆·马斯克是否是一个理想的上市公司首席执行官，我觉得他在处理推特上的言论时经历了一段困难时期。
I guess that's why my team worries a little bit as I've used Twitter a little bit more than the last month or two. But I don't know that. Look, I think a lot of companies have stayed private too long. And so, I'm actually a fan of the public markets, and a fan of public company governance versus the kind of governance that you've seen certainly in many of the venture-backed companies we work being, perhaps the most public egregious example. But the governance structures of private companies, venture-backed businesses, their capital structures, all these funky preferreds with liquidation preferences. And I would not rely on the market values of many of these venture-backed companies. And I think the soft thanks of the world that have allowed them to stay private, I don't think have done them a service. Can you elaborate a little longer or a little more on why they've stayed private too long and what effect or impact that has on capital markets or the company itself?
我想这就是为什么我的团队有点担心，因为我在过去的一两个月里用Twitter用得多了一些。不过我不太确定原因。其实，我认为很多公司留在私有状态的时间太长了。所以我其实是公开市场的支持者，也是上市公司治理的支持者，相比之下，你可以看到很多我们合作的风投支持的公司，它们的治理结构可能是最显著的负面例子。但是，私有公司的治理结构、风投支持企业的资本结构，包括那些带有清算优先权的奇怪优先股，我认为这些都不可靠。我不会依赖于这些风投支持公司的市场估值。我认为，让他们保持私有状态的那些软性措施其实并没有帮到他们。你能详细说明一下为什么这些公司保持私有状态太久了吗？以及这对资本市场或公司本身有何影响？
Sure. So, there is a certain discipline that comes from being a public company. Today, public companies have to report on a quarterly basis. The SEC does a pretty good job in various requirements of the disclosures you need to make. Most companies have adopted a quarterly conference call format where you can ask questions of management. And I think there's a lot of just inherent transparency in that process. And whether you own one share or millions of shares, everyone gets the same information.
当然，成为上市公司需要遵守一定的规章制度。如今，上市公司必须每季度报告财务状况。美国证券交易委员会（SEC）对各项披露要求都规定得相当清楚。大多数公司都采取季度电话会议的形式，让投资者可以向管理层提问。我认为这个过程本身就有很大程度的透明度。不论你持有一股还是数百万股，所有人获得的信息都是相同的。
In the private venture-backed markets, and I'm a relatively small investor in startups, and I do it for fun. I do it because occasionally I make a good investment. And also, it helps me see the future in terms of what potential threats are coming that might disrupt either a business we own or a business we're looking at. So, I do find it to be an interesting thing. But the quality of the information you get, the lack of disclosure, how these boards operate is far from ideal, particularly when you compare them with their public company equivalents.
在私人风险投资市场中，我是初创企业的一名相对小的投资者，我这样做是出于兴趣。有时我也会做出一些不错的投资。而且，这也帮助我预测未来可能出现的潜在威胁，这些威胁可能会干扰我们拥有的业务或我们正在关注的业务。因此，我确实觉得这很有趣。但你获得的信息质量不高，披露的内容也很有限，这些董事会的运作方式也远不如上市公司理想。
I mean, we work, I just think, with the first opportunity for people to really see what's been going on. But I don't think we work as atypical of many venture-backed companies where the founders become almost god-like figures who are handed control by the venture partners. And they may be talented entrepreneurs, and they may have been the right person to start and build a company from scratch. But the business may now be at a stage where it needs more professional management, and it can't happen, or it's difficult for that to take place in a private context.
我的意思是，我们的工作重点是让人们真正看到项目的进展情况。但我不认为我们像许多由风险投资支持的公司那样运作，在这些公司里，创始人几乎被视为神一般的人物，由风险投资伙伴授予控制权。这些创始人可能是有才华的企业家，他们可能也是从零开始建立公司的合适人选。但是，业务现在可能处于一个需要更专业管理的阶段，这种情况下，继续私营运作可能行不通，或者实现起来很困难。
And so, a self-bank injecting $100 billion in marking up the value of companies and giving them capital that they could use to postpone going public. I think it's fundamentally been a disservice to the capital markets and probably to those businesses. You cannot public companies, shareholders, are being too short-term, but there are real benefits that come from the disclosure and the input that shareholders can bring to a public enterprise. Do you think that these mark to investment valuations that seem to translate into some form of a public market are realistic, or do you think it's just a game almost?
因此，一家自我筹集资金的银行注入了1000亿美元，通过提高公司估值并给它们提供资金，让它们能够推迟上市。我认为这从根本上对资本市场和这些企业都是一种伤害。你不能说上市公司的股东太过于短视，但公开披露信息以及股东对上市企业的意见确实有实际的好处。你认为这些看似转化为某种形式的公开市场的投资估值真实吗，还是只是一场游戏而已？
Yeah, so the problem with many venture funds is because of the life expectancy of many companies. You won't know whether a venture capital firm does well for a decade. And venture capital funds, particularly startup venture funds, tend to be small. The founder really can't make a living until their first fund starts to generate some realization events, and that can be yours out. And so the incentive on the part of many of these sort of earlier stage funds is to have markups in the portfolio because it's a way of showing to your investors that you're making business progress.
对，很多风险投资基金面临的问题在于许多公司的寿命周期。你在十年内都难以知道一个风险投资公司是否表现良好。而且，风险投资基金，特别是初创的风险基金，规模往往较小。基金创始人在第一个基金开始产生收益之前，实际上难以谋生，而这可能需要好几年。因此，许多早期基金的动机是提高其投资组合的估值，因为这是向投资者展示业务进展的一种方法。
And I think it does encourage certain kinds of behavior that's not ideal. And a lot of this dynamic between the desire for the early venture fund investors to show a markup to their underlying investors and the desire for a new investor to come in at the lowest possible valuation, and the way those issues are generally solved by creating these sort of funky securities that give the later investors preferential rights over the earlier investors. And I think a lot of times those features are not accurately considered and valuing different round A versus round C or D. And so I think there are games that are played that are not ideal. And you can't really short them.
我认为这确实会激励某些不太理想的行为。早期创业基金的投资者希望向他们的背后投资者展示投资升值，而新投资者则希望以尽可能低的估值进入，这样的动力之间存在着一种动态。这些问题通常通过创造一些给后期投资者优先权的特殊证券来解决。我认为很多时候，这些特性并没有在评估不同轮次（如A轮与C轮或D轮）时被准确考虑。所以，我觉得其中有一些不太理想的博弈行为。而且，也无法真正对它们做空。
So talk to me about the role of short selling. Is that good for the world? Is it bad for the world? Is there a line where it becomes you've gone too far? Or how do you see that? Sure. So I think short selling is a essential and generally positive function for markets. I give a lot of credit to the folks at Money Waters who have unearthed a meaningful number of fraudulent companies. And I've yet to find an example of a regulator finding a fraudulent company. It's either a journalist often being fed by a short seller or a short seller that is the one to identify fraud because they have a huge economic incentive to define bad companies or certainly fraudulent businesses.
那就来谈谈做空的角色吧。做空对世界是好事还是坏事？是否有个界限，一旦越过就算是过分了呢？还是你怎么看？
当然可以谈一谈。首先，我认为做空是市场中一项必不可少且通常带来积极影响的功能。我要特别赞扬马泥水公司（Money Waters）的人，他们揭露了许多欺诈公司。我还没有发现过一个监管机构能发现欺诈公司的例子。通常是一个记者，往往是得到做空者的消息，或者做空者自己发现了欺诈行为，因为他们有巨大的经济动力去识别不良公司，尤其是欺诈企业。
So I think that function is a great function for the capital markets. And I think if I were running the SEC, I would make sure that my enforcement division was talking closely with the best short sellers hearing their favorite ideas. And that would be the best way for the SEC to uncover fraud. So I think that is a very effective and good thing. Where it's a negative is the problem with being a short seller. If you all you do is short stocks, you want your companies to fail no matter what. And some short sellers will take steps to actually cause harm to a business as a goal in order to make their short successful.
所以我认为这个功能对于资本市场来说是一个很好的功能。如果我是证券交易委员会（SEC）的负责人，我会确保我的执法部门与最优秀的做空者密切交流，听取他们的最佳想法。这会是SEC揭露欺诈行为的最佳方式。所以我认为这是一个非常有效和好的做法。
但是，做空者的负面影响在于，如果你只做空股票，你希望这些公司无论如何都会失败。为了让他们的做空成功，有些做空者会采取措施故意对企业造成伤害。
And that's where it crosses the line. And I sort of followed the whole again, never been in the best during Tesla, longer short. But you do see example, again, companies that complain about short sellers, I usually look at those management teams skeptically. But in the case of Tesla, I do think some of the short sellers went beyond the role of identifying overvaluation in their attempts to actually harm a company. And that's where I think it goes beyond the pale.
这就是问题的关键所在。我一直密切关注整个情况，但我从未在特斯拉上做过多空投机。然而，当公司开始抱怨空头卖家的时候，我通常会对这些管理团队持怀疑态度。但在特斯拉的例子中，我确实认为某些空头卖家超出了找出高估值的角色，试图实际伤害公司。这就是我认为他们过分的地方。
I want to come back to the Twitter comment about Elon and you, you're both, I don't think it's a surprise, you're pretty polarizing. When you make comments, they make news. How do you judge that before going on Twitter? You know, I wasn't particularly controversial, I don't think. And the media was generally pretty supportive until I went publicly short Herbalife. And then Herbalife, using their PR machine, has done everything they possibly can or did everything they possibly could to try to discredit me, you know, in the press.
我想回到关于你和埃隆的Twitter评论。我认为毫不奇怪的是，你们俩都非常具有争议性。当你们发表评论时，总会成为新闻。在上Twitter之前，你是如何判断这些事情的？
你知道吗，我以前并不觉得自己有什么特别具有争议性。而且媒体普遍对我也挺支持的，直到我公开做空康宝莱（Herbalife）。然后，康宝莱用他们的公关机器尽其所能地在媒体上尝试抹黑我。
And what's fascinating to me, actually, if you were to Google now, we have not been short Herbalife very long time. Herbalife is still running a negative campaign about me personally, which I find fairly remarkable. The way you can see this is if you Google my name, I don't know if you want to do this right now, what will pop up is an advertisement. And the advertisement is paid for by Herbalife. And it talks about find out how, you know, billionaire, you know, funded this movie called betting on zero. Yeah, it's the first link. Yeah, what does it say? What's the subtext? Paid for by a billionaire hedge fund manager. Okay, that is entirely false. Okay, another way my picture comes up. So you see this paid for by a billionaire hedge fund manager, then you see a picture of me. And any reasonable person would assume that I paid for this movie betting on zero.
其实，令我感到非常有趣的是，如果你现在去谷歌搜索，我已经很长时间没有做空康宝莱了。康宝莱仍然在对我进行负面宣传，这让我觉得相当不可思议。你可以通过以下方式看到这一点：如果你在网上搜索我的名字，我不知道你现在是否愿意去做，你会看到一个广告。这个广告是康宝莱付费制作的，内容讲的是“看看亿万富翁是如何资助了这部叫《赌零》的电影”。对，就是第一个链接。它写的是什么？“由亿万富翁对冲基金经理资助”。好，这完全是假的。换句话说，我的照片会出现。你看到这个“由亿万富翁对冲基金经理资助”的字样，然后看到我的照片，任何一个理性的人都会认为是我资助了这部电影《赌零》。
The facts are that a documentarian I never heard of called me up one day and said, finding this whole Herbalife thing fascinating, we'd love to follow you around. And I met with them and liked them, decided I would trust him. And I thought it would be helpful on getting the story out of the company. And I participated in the film by agreeing to be interviewed a number of times and he followed me around a number of times. The film was financed by actually a hedge fund manager, not me. His name is escaping me for a moment. But it's if you Google it, you can find out his name. But I played no role whatsoever in financing funding, directing. Literally, all I did was appear in the film because he videotaped me at various presentations.
事实是，有一天一个我从未听说过的纪录片制片人打电话给我，说他觉得这整个关于Herbalife的事情非常有趣，他们想跟拍我。我和他们见了面，觉得他们不错，决定相信他。我认为这有助于将这家公司的故事传播出去。于是我同意接受多次采访，并让他多次跟拍我。这部影片其实是由一个对冲基金经理资助的，不是我。我记不得他的名字了，但如果你在谷歌上搜索一下，应该可以找到他的名字。不过无论如何，我在这部影片的资助、资金筹集、和导演工作上完全没有任何参与。我唯一做的就是出现在影片中，因为他在不同的演讲中拍摄了我的视频。
But the fact that a public company, SEC registered company continues to put out completely false information about me personally tells you tells you something. So the this Herbalife thing was very, very polarizing. People felt that we were way too aggressive in our or some people at least did in our sharing our views. But ever since then, I think I've become even if you will, even more polarizing. But it doesn't affect my thinking in terms of what I say publicly or right publicly or what I say in the letter.
但事实是，一家公开上市公司，受SEC监管的公司，继续散布关于我个人的完全虚假信息，这告诉了你一些事情。这个Herbalife事件非常非常具有争议性。一些人，至少一些人认为我们在表达观点时过于激进。但从那时起，我认为我变得更加具有争议性了。不过，这并不会影响我在公开场合的发言、写作或在信中所说的话。
Unfortunately, particularly today, the more visible your profile, the more lovers and haters you're going to have. It's just the nature of the beast. But walk me through that a little bit because you're you know, you seem way more in touch with your emotions than most people. And yet you're putting yourself out there in a way that people love or hate. There doesn't seem to be a lot in the middle. How do you how do you deal with that? Do you just ignore it? Do you even look at it? Do you? Does it affect you at all? You know, I just and myself, you know, recently, I was becoming more and more concerned that our government was not taking the coronavirus seriously. You know, I was gravely concerned a few months ago and you know, took steps both to protect you know, my father who's in compromised my family, the firm, our investors with the hedge, et cetera. And then I, you know, by, you know, call it mid-March, I said, well, there's just this really straightforward, simple answer. We just need to shut down the country. And once we do that, we can reopen carefully and go back to rebuilding an economy and rebuilding a country.
不幸的是，特别是现在，你的个人形象越显眼，喜欢你和讨厌你的人就会越多。这就是事情的本质。但和我详细说说吧，因为你看起来比大多数人更能接触到自己的情感。然而，你却以一种让人爱也让人恨的方式展示自己。中间地带似乎很少。你是怎么应对的？你只是忽略它吗？你会去关注这些吗？它对你有任何影响吗？你知道吗，最近我自己也是越来越担心我们的政府没有认真对待新冠病毒。几个月前，我非常担忧，并采取了一些措施来保护我的父亲（他免疫力受损）、我的家人、公司、以及我们的投资者。到了今年三月中旬，我觉得答案其实很简单明了：我们只需关闭国家。一旦我们这样做了，就可以小心地重新开放，并开始重建经济和国家。
And I kept waiting for the president to go on TV and make me say, okay, guys, we're shutting them a country and it wasn't happening. So I figured, okay, that's when I went back to Twitter for the first time and I wrote a tweet saying, look, here's the simple answer. And it went pretty viral. And I got a call from CNBC and said, would you come on? And I had, I had forced more going on TV, you know, for a couple of years. But I thought this issue was important enough that I should make a public case for a country-wide shutdown, which I did. And unfortunately, I had a whole bunch of people right after I went on, make the case that I was doing this for some market manipulative reason or to benefit me personally. And so it's frustrating, it's disappointing. But I still thought it was important to make my case. And I was very happy the next day when California, you know, the first stage shut down and the following day when New York State shut down. And then here we are, you know, we didn't get there the way I expected. I was expecting the president to basically order a country-wide shutdown. But, you know, living in a federal system where the states make these decisions, you know, I'm happy we finally got there. Although it took longer than I would have liked.
我一直在等总统上电视宣布全国封锁，但这并没有发生。于是，我决定重回推特，发了一条推文，说：“看，这就是简单的解决办法。”这条推文很快就火了，随后我接到了CNBC的电话，他们邀请我上节目。虽然我已经好几年没上过电视了，但我认为这个问题足够重要，值得我公开主张全国封锁。上了节目之后，不幸的事情发生了，有一大堆人指责我这样做是为了操纵市场或者个人利益。这让我既沮丧又失望，但我仍然认为提出我的主张是重要的。让我感到高兴的是，第二天加州率先实施了封锁，紧接着第三天纽约州也封锁了。尽管这个过程并不像我预期的那样，我原本以为总统会下令全国封锁，但在我们这个联邦制国家，州政府来做这些决定，最终我们还是达到了目的，尽管花的时间比我预期的要长。
Let's keep going on this COVID theme. You disclosed publicly, I don't know what day it was, but it was like March 4th that you had done this through your website that you had put this hedge on. And yeah, that surprised me because nobody noticed. It seemed like everybody was caught up with all this other media. And then you could see through the weeks, because you release your weekly nav on Wednesdays, right? And you could see through the weeks that your asset value was going up while the market was going down. So clearly they were asymmetric in nature. And then you went on, you had sold them. What was the timing around that? Like, I don't quite know what happened, but you went on CNBC and you sort of like said, we need to do more. And you were, you were, walking me through that.
让我们继续讲讲这个新冠疫情的话题。你曾在某天——我记不清具体是哪天了，但好像是3月4日——通过你的网站公开披露了你做了这个对冲。当时这真让我感到意外，因为没有人注意到。那段时间人们似乎被其他媒体内容吸引住了。然后你可以看到每周三发布的净资产值，几周下来，你的资产价值在上涨，而市场却在下跌。所以显然这些对冲是非对称性的。后来你卖掉了它们。具体是何时完成的我不太清楚，但你上了CNBC（财经新闻网络），大概说我们需要做更多的努力。你当时是在给我解释这些事情。
Sure. Yeah. So basically we put the hedge on in maybe the third week in February. And by March 12th, the hedge had gone from being worth nothing to being worth, you know, $2.7 billion. And the markets had dropped, I don't know, 25% or so at that point in time. And we said, you know what, we've got this massive position on the hedge, which maybe has the potential to double if the credit spreads widened to where they were during the financial crisis. But if they don't and the government takes the right steps, you know, this hedge could be worth zero and the stock market can go right back up to where it was.
当然。是这样的。基本上我们在二月第三周的时候设置了对冲。到了3月12日，这个对冲从一开始几乎一文不值变成了价值27亿美元。市场在那时也下跌了大约25%左右。我们说，你看，我们现在这个巨大的对冲头寸，如果信用利差扩至金融危机时的水平，可能还有翻倍的潜力。但如果情况不是这样，政府采取了正确措施，这个对冲可能会变成一文不值，股市也可能会回到原来的水平。
So we made a decision to exit the hedge. And so we started selling the hedge and we started aggressively buying stocks on the 12th. I went on CNBC at 1230 on the 18th. And the reason why I know these details is because, you know, I wanted to respond to some of my detractors. We've invested $2 billion, $50 million between March 12th and March 18th at 1230 in the stock market buying, you know, additions adding to our portfolio, buying, repurchasing Starbucks. We had sold half the hedge for a billion, 300, a little more than half the hedge for a billion, 300 million.
我们决定退出对冲操作。从12号开始我们就开始卖出对冲，并积极购买股票。我在18号的12点30分上了CNBC电视台。我之所以记得这么详细，是因为我想回应一些批评者。我们在3月12日至18日的12点30分之间在股市投资了20亿5000万美元，增加我们的投资组合，重新购买了星巴克股票。我们卖掉了一半以上的对冲操作，从中获得了13亿美元。
And so we were $3 billion, you know, $350 million more long stocks, if you will, than we were on March 11th. And bear in mind, this was a firm with total assets, you know, total equity of about seven, seven and a half billion dollars. So adding $3 billion of risk, you know, we were much longer than we were even before we had the hedge on. So we were, and we had no short positions. That's when I went on TV.
因此，我们总共持有30亿美元的股票，比3月11日多出了3.5亿美元。请注意，这是一家总资产大约在7到7.5亿美元的公司。所以增加30亿美元的风险后，我们比之前还要持有更多的股票，而且我们没有任何做空头寸。这就是我上电视的原因。
So I went on TV to give a very bullish message, which was, you know, look, I think markets are going to soar. We just need to stop the virus is a really simple solution stopping the virus. It's locked down the country for 30 days. You kill off the virus, you open carefully, continue to practice social distancing. But, you know, the stock market's a discounting machine. It will look forward. And as soon as we do this, the markets will recover. And that's why we're buying stocks. And that's why we're buying stocks. We've been buying stocks over the last, you know, week and we're buying stocks today and hear the stocks I'm buying.
于是，我上了电视发表了一个非常乐观的信息，也就是说，我认为市场将会飙升。我们只需要解决病毒的问题，这是一个非常简单的解决方案：封锁整个国家30天，消灭病毒，然后小心地重开，继续保持社交距离。但是你知道，股票市场是一个具有前瞻性的机器。只要我们这样做，市场就会复苏。这就是为什么我们在买股票的原因。我们在过去的一周一直在买股票，今天也在买股票，而且这些是我正在买的股票。
So it's rare that someone goes on TV and makes their case and explains which securities are actually purchasing, which we did. And after I got off, I noticed other commentators coming on. And also on Twitter, people saying, oh, Bill drove down the market. Now, what they forgot was the stock market was already down almost 7% by the time I went on 30. And, you know, an hour later was down more. So simply because the market went down after I spoke didn't mean I caused the market to go down. I mean, if the market had gone up, was I would the cause for the market going up? The answer is, no, but an hour and a half later, I put out a tweet basically saying, look, making sure people understand my message.
很少有人上电视表达自己的观点并解释他们实际购买了哪些证券，而我们做到了。在我下节目后，我注意到其他评论员也开始发表意见。同时在推特上，有人说比尔导致了市场下跌。但他们忘了，在我上电视前，股市已经下跌了近7%。一个小时后，市场确实跌得更多了，但这并不意味着市场下跌是我引起的。就像如果市场上涨了，也不能说是我导致的。大约一个半小时后，我发了一条推特，基本上是为了确保大家理解我的意思。
Yes, if the government ignores the virus and just allows it to continue to propagate and we don't shut down the country, we're going to end up in a very, very dark place. However, if we shut the country down for 30 days, which is what I expect to happen, we'll kill the virus, mark us, work over. And that's why we're buying securities. So it was a bullish message delivered with there is a fork on the road. I know we're going to take the right fork and that's the bet that we're making. But if we don't, it could be bad. But I believe it strongly enough that we've invested $3 billion in the last week, buying stocks.
是的，如果政府忽视病毒，任其传播，并且我们不封锁国家，我们就会陷入一个非常非常糟糕的境地。然而，如果我们封锁国家30天，这就是我预计会发生的，我们就能消灭病毒，然后恢复正常工作。这就是为什么我们在购买证券。这是一个表达乐观的信息，但也有一个分叉的道路。我知道我们会走正确的路，这是我们正在下注的地方。但如果我们不这样做，情况可能会变得很糟。不过我对此非常有信心，以至于我们在上周投资了30亿美元购买股票。
So many questions I have here. I just want to, for the context of listeners, date this interview. It's April 13th. Just so whenever it comes out, people have an idea of when we were recording, why didn't you sell everything instead of the hedge? Why the hedge? So we are a long-term investor. We get to know our companies and their management teams well. We often play a role in putting the CEO in the seat. So we're in Chipotle. We put four directors on the board. We were four of eight directors when we joined the company and we helped to recruit Brian Nickel to become CEO of the business. And we've been a supportive shareholder of the company. so we still have a director representative of the firm that sits on that board. So one, it's not a very supportive thing in the midst of a crisis, too, if you will, abandoned companies that you've supported and helped build. And that's really true for many of the companies we own.
我这里有很多问题。为了让听众有个背景概念，我想标注一下这是在4月13日进行的采访。这样无论何时发布，人们都知道这是在什么时候录制的。为什么你们选择对冲而不是卖掉所有资产？为什么选择对冲呢？
我们是长期投资者，与我们的公司及其管理团队非常熟悉。我们经常参与推选公司CEO的过程。例如，我们在Chipotle公司中安插了四位董事，当我们加入公司时，他们是八位董事中的四位，并且我们协助招募了Brian Nickel成为公司的CEO。我们一直是这家公司的支持性股东，现在我们公司仍有一名董事会代表。所以首先，在危机中抛弃你支持和帮助建立的公司是不太支持性的行为。这对我们所拥有的许多公司来说都是如此。
One, I don't love doing that. The second thing is, our view was, if you looked at what was going on in China, there is a straightforward solution to how to deal with a pandemic. China did it. They've been able to manage their cases and deaths. And again, you have to question some of the data out of China, but I don't think the data is materially different from what they've described. Our assumption was, as the virus has made its way to West, Italy, Spain, everyone's adopting a shutdown approach. I'm sure America is going to get there. And if we do, markets are going to recover. And we own big, somewhat of liquid positions in the companies that we are shareholders of because of our degree of concentration.
第一，我并不喜欢做那件事。第二，我们的看法是，如果你看看中国的情况，就会发现有一个简单的方法来应对疫情。中国做到了，他们成功控制了病例和死亡人数。当然，我们需要质疑一些来自中国的数据，但我认为数据整体上与他们所描述的大致相同。我们的假设是，当病毒传播到西方国家时，意大利、西班牙等国家采取了封锁措施。我相信美国也会采取类似措施。如果我们这么做，市场就会复苏。我们持有的大部分公司股份由于我们的集中投资策略，流动性较强。
So, we could sell everything and then wave from the markets to go down, buy everything back. There's a lot of frictional costs associated with that. What if the stock market doesn't decline as much as we think it might? And what if it declines very briefly and we don't have an opportunity to rebuild stakes in these great businesses we own, we incur a huge amount of tax liabilities because we have big, embedded gains in the companies that we own. So there are a number of reasons why we just didn't like the idea of selling. And the hedging is kind of elegant because if nothing happened, we would have lost very little money. But if what we expected to happen happened, the hedge would become very, very valuable. We could cash it in.
所以，我们可以卖掉所有资产，然后等到市场下跌，再把所有东西买回来。然而，这样操作的摩擦成本很高。如果股市没有像我们预期的那样大幅下跌怎么办？如果它只是短暂下跌，我们没有机会重新投资到我们拥有的这些优秀企业中，这样我们还会因为持有这些公司产生的大量嵌入式收益而承担巨额税款。因此，有很多理由让我们不喜欢卖出的想法。而对冲的方法则比较巧妙，因为如果什么都没发生，我们损失也很小；但如果我们预期的情况发生了，对冲会变得非常有价值，我们可以把它兑现。
The more the market went down, the more valuable the hedge becomes. We could cash it in, hopefully, at the bottom or as close to the bottom and redeploy the money buying companies that we'd like. That's what we chose to do. We would have had better results in the short term. You look at these funds that are dedicated so-called Black Swan funds that all they do is put on these kind of hedges waiting for disaster. And some of them are up 1,000%. Some of the smaller ones are up 1,000% in the last month or so. We would have had extraordinary short-term results, but we would have impaired our relationships with companies and management teams. And I think our results, again, over time, even over the course of the next year or two, may be better than it would have been had we tried the alternative approach. So those were some of the thoughts that we had.
市场越下跌，对冲的价值就越高。希望在市场接近谷底时，将对冲兑现，把钱重新投资到我们看好的公司中。我们选择了这样做。如果这么做，我们短期内的业绩会更好。你看看那些所谓的“黑天鹅基金”，它们专门做这种灾难对冲，有些基金在过去一个月内涨了1000%。一些规模较小的基金在过去一个月的涨幅也是1000%。虽然我们本可以取得非常出色的短期成绩，但这会影响我们与公司和管理团队的关系。我认为，从长远来看，甚至在接下来一两年的时间里，我们的结果可能会比采纳其他方法更好。这是我们的一些想法。
I appreciate you going into such detail. How did your staff react when you put the hedge on? So actually, the way it came down is I had been getting more and more concerned about the coronavirus and the, interestingly, the organization started to think I was losing it. Even some of my friends thought I was overreacting. And that, of course, may be more concerned because when people I really respect and think I'm being extreme and I think I'm not, every day that goes by without an effect shutting down the firm, I felt taking more and more risk, that may be that much more concerned. One Sunday night, I think it was maybe the third week in February, I called an investment team conference call, which I very rarely do.
谢谢你如此详细地说明情况。你给公司增加对冲时，你的员工们有什么反应？实际上，当时我是越来越担心新冠病毒的爆发，而有趣的是，整个公司开始觉得我是不是过于紧张了。甚至有些朋友也认为我反应过度了。这反而让我更加担心，因为当那些我非常尊敬的人觉得我反应过度，而我自己却不这么认为时，每过一天而公司还在继续运作，我就觉得是在冒越来越大的风险。这使我更加忧虑。大概在二月的第三个星期的某个星期天晚上，我召开了一次投资团队的电话会议，这种情况是非常罕见的。
And I talked through the economic implications of the virus, which I felt very few people were focused on. We fairly quickly, with the conversation, the team agreed that this was a reasonable probability of the case that I laid out for what would happen. And then we spent the time talking about how we would hedge this. And we kind of came to a group decision that it happens to be a really interesting time in which to hedge credit risk, because credit is sort of the tightest or sort of, the pricing of credit is at the lowest it's almost ever been. And so it became a relatively easy decision to put on a large hedge because the inherent asymmetry was about the most attractive it's ever been. And that if we were completely wrong about the economic implications of the virus, it would be of no moment. Very limited downside compared to assets.
我讨论了病毒的经济影响，我感觉很少有人关注这个问题。通过讨论，我们的团队很快就同意我提出的预期情况是相当有可能的。随后我们讨论了如何对冲这一风险。我们达成了共识，现在是对冲信用风险的一个非常有趣的时机，因为信用的紧缩程度或者说信用定价几乎是历史最低。所以，我们决定进行大规模对冲，这个决定相对容易做出，因为对冲的风险和收益极不对称，吸引力前所未有。如果我们对病毒的经济影响完全错误，也无所谓，因为相比资产，潜在的损失非常有限。
I think you only had 21 million or 26 million in total invested. Yes, although that really understates it. Credit default swaps are not like options. So a CDS contract is a commitment to make payments over time. And we at the peak had 70 billion, actually 71 billion of notional insurance that cost about an average of 70 basis points per annum. So about $500 million, we committed to make $500 million a year in payments for five years. So that's two and a half billion dollar commitment. Again, for a seven half billion dollar enterprise, that's not a small number. And that's why it's something that an individual really can't do. Thanks, Will. Do CDS contracts, generally with individuals. But the way we thought about the risk is there are two forms of risk. One form of risk is just the premium you're committing to pay. And the moment you unwind the contract, you stop paying the premium.
我认为你总共只投资了2100万或2600万美元。是的，虽然这确实低估了情况。信用违约掉期（CDS）不像期权。CDS合同是一种承诺，需要在一段时间内进行付款。在峰值时，我们实际上有710亿美元的名义保险，这每年大约需要付出70个基点的成本。也就是说，每年大约需要支付5亿美元，我们承诺在五年内每年支付5亿美元。所以这是一个25亿美元的承诺。对于一个75亿美元的企业来说，这不是一个小数目。这就是为什么个人很难做到这一点的原因。谢谢你，Will。通常，CDS合同是不会和个人签订的。但我们考虑风险的方式有两种风险。一种风险就是你承诺支付的保费。一旦你终止合同，你就不再支付保费。
And this was one of the few cases in my life where I had a very negative view where the stock market would go. And I also had a very good sense of the timing. I had a very bearish view back in 07 and before of where things were headed in terms of I thought we could be headed for a credit crisis. I just didn't have a good sense of timing. Here, I thought the timing was weeks away. And so that made the commitment to make premium payments a much lower risk commitment. We were going to have this thing on for five years, let alone one year.
这次是我人生中少有的几次对股市极为悲观看法的情况之一。我对时间点也有很好的把握。在2007年及之前，我对经济的前景非常看空，认为我们可能会面临信贷危机。但当时我对时间点并没有准确的判断。在这次情况下，我认为时间点只剩下几周了，所以对我来说，支付保费的风险要低得多。本来我们准备持有这个投资五年，更不用说只持有一年了。
I thought it was worst case we'd be taking it off in 90 days. So I thought about that as not a 500 million a year risk, but rather we're going to spend $125 million. Right. Because it would play out, you would know if you were right in the next 90 days. That's right. And so I viewed as $125 million in the context of 7.5 billion. It's not even 2% of assets. So that seemed not to be an unreasonable risk.
我原本以为最坏的情况是在90天内收回。所以我考虑时，并不是把它当作每年5亿的风险，而是会花费1.25亿。因为在接下来的90天里你会知道自己是否正确。我认为在75亿的背景下，这1.25亿甚至不到资产的2%。所以这看起来并不是一个不合理的风险。
The other risk was that credit spreads tightened. Because when you go to unwind, credit spreads go from an average of 70. Again, it was a mix of both investment grade where we paid around 50 basis points and a high yield CDS where we paid about 300 and 30 basis points. But the blended average was around 70 basis points. If it went from 70 to 50, we could lose about 100 basis points times the notional amount of the contracts. We could lose a big number. Theoretically, we could lose, call $700 million, which is almost, you know, call it 9% or show over assets.
另一种风险是信用利差收窄。因为当你去清算时，信用利差可能会从平均70个基点变化。再说明一下，这包括投资级别的信用利差，我们支付了大约50个基点，以及高收益信用违约互换，我们支付了大约330个基点。但是混合平均值大约是70个基点。如果利差从70个基点减小到50个基点，我们可能会损失大约100个基点乘以合约的名义金额，损失可能非常大。理论上，我们可能会损失大约7亿美元，这几乎是资产的9%左右。
But my view was the probability of credit spreads tightening. And again, you have to look at it easiest to look at it by splitting between, by blending the cost of high yield and investment grade, it really is misleading. So the investment grade CDS was trading around 50. The previous all-time tightest levels were just under 40 basis points. So a 10 basis point tightening. And I could not see a scenario in which the coronavirus would lead to a tightening of credit spreads. And the all-time tight levels were achieved at a time that there were artificial subsidies that caused credit to be very tight. There were these things called synthetic CDOs. And bond insurers were writing synthetic CDOs, creating this huge supply of cheap, you know, very inexpensive spreads. And that had really gone away during the credit crisis.
但我的观点是信用利差收紧的可能性。再说一遍，你必须看最简单的方式，通过拆分和混合高收益债券和投资级债券的成本来理解，这实际上是误导的。所以，投资级信用违约掉期（CDS）的交易价大约在50个基点，而之前的历史最低点在40个基点以下，也就是10个基点的收紧。我看不出有任何情况是在冠状病毒的影响下还能导致信用利差收紧的情况。而历史上那些极其收紧的利差是在有人工补贴的情况下实现的，这些补贴导致信用非常紧缩。有些东西叫做合成的信用违约掉期（CDO），债券保险公司在写这些合成CDO，造成了大量廉价的利差供应。在信贷危机期间，这种情况基本上已经消失了。
So I just, it was really a one-way bet. And the biggest risk was how long we'd have it on. And we ended up spending 27 million on premium because we built a 70 billion dollar CDS position beginning in the third week of February. You probably had it completely on by the early, you know, first few days of March. And we started taking it off March 12th when it hit, you know, about 2.6 billion dollars in value. And it took us, no call it 10 days to unwind the whole thing, just because of the size of the position. But so the average light of the position is very small.
所以，我当时真的觉得这笔投资胜算很大。最大的风险在于我们会持有多久。最终我们花了2700万美元在这上面，因为从2月的第三周开始，我们建立了一个700亿美元的信用违约掉期（CDS）头寸。大概在3月的头几天，我们就完全建仓了。然后在3月12日，当这个头寸的价值达到大约26亿美元时，我们开始逐步清仓。因为头寸的规模太大，我们花了大概10天的时间才完全退出。因此，平均下来我们持有这个头寸的时间其实很短。
So we ended up spending very, very little. But it's a little unfair to say we invested 27 to make 2.5 billion to once explode. This is just the headline numbers. I'm glad you explained that behind the scenes. That's really insightful. Thank you. Walk me through some of the economic implications you see today. Like we can't do this for 18 months. Are we going to enter a depression? Like, how do you handicap that? How do you see the risk? Sure.
所以我们最后花费其实非常非常少。说我们投资了27然后赚了25亿有点不公平。这只是表面数字。我很高兴你解释了背后的细节，这真的很有见地。谢谢。能不能和我讲讲你现在看到的一些经济影响？比如说，我们不能这样持续18个月。我们会陷入经济大萧条吗？你怎么评估这个风险？你怎么看这个风险？没问题。
So my concern about the virus, I was less concerned about the health implications because I thought it would affect relatively small percentages of people. And for the most part, people who were already sick, obviously every life is an important life, particularly to the close friends and family. But the economic implications, I thought, could be much more harmful than even in the health implications.
所以我对病毒的担忧，我比较少担心健康方面的影响，因为我认为只有相对较少的人会受到影响。而且大多数已经生病的人会受到影响。显然，每个生命对他们的亲朋好友来说都非常重要。但我认为经济方面的影响可能比健康方面的影响更严重。
And that's because the only way to stop a virus is to shut down the economy. And I had never in my lifetime seen what an intended shutdown of an economy looked like. And as that rolls around the globe, what are the implications? But I think the difference between a depression and a intended but short term shutdown, if it's managed correctly, the economic implications are nothing like the Great Depression. So I am not concerned about a Great Depression-like event taking place, really for a couple reasons. One, this is sort of an intended, somewhat artificial temporary shutdown, not driven by economic reasons, but driven by health-related reasons, just to stop the spread of the virus. So that's a very important distinction.
这是因为唯一能够阻止病毒传播的方法是关闭经济。在我的一生中，我从未见过有意关闭经济是怎样的情景。当这种情况在全球范围内发生时，会有哪些影响呢？但我认为，经济大萧条与有意的但短期的停摆之间有区别，如果管理得当，其经济影响不会像大萧条那样严重。所以，我并不担心会出现类似大萧条的事件，主要有几个原因。首先，这是一次有意的、带有一定人为性质的临时停摆，不是由经济原因引发的，而是因为健康原因，为了阻止病毒传播。这是一个非常重要的区别。
The other thing is that governments around the world have taken this incredibly seriously, not just the health implications, but the economic implications. And the government is basically stepping in to provide economic support to everything from a low-wage or unemployed worker to businesses as a bridge to get us through the crisis. And the bridge doesn't need to last 18 months, because the entire globe is basically in shutdown. So I think we can start reopening this country, beginning June-type timeframe. And the other thing that's going on is you have the entire world working on solutions to the problem. Just yesterday, I read a piece saying there's 70 different vaccine-related and therapeutic trials that are underway as we speak. And so you have the world's best global biotechnology pharma companies looking for solutions.
另一件事是，世界各地的政府都非常重视这一问题，不仅是健康方面的影响，还有经济方面的影响。政府基本上是在介入提供经济支持，从低工资或失业工人到企业，作为渡过危机的桥梁。这座桥不需要持续18个月，因为整个地球基本上都处于停摆状态。所以我认为我们可以在六月左右开始重新开放这个国家。还有一个正在进行的事情是，全世界都在努力寻找解决办法。就在昨天，我读到一篇文章，说有70项与疫苗相关和治疗相关的试验正在进行中。所以，全球最好的生物技术制药公司都在寻找解决方案。
And so I think that increases the probability that there's a therapeutic that is available sooner and later, in that there's a safe vaccine within a reasonable period of time. So that makes the economic disruption a shorter period of time. The negative, however, is that small businesses that certainly can get destroyed in a several month shutdown, and it takes time for them to rebuild, think the small restaurants, the small corner store. And there is a lot of friction and disruption. But I do think that governments are going to do everything they can and communities are going to do everything they can to help rebuild.
因此，我认为这增加了尽快、尽早提供有效治疗方法和安全疫苗的可能性，从而使经济受干扰的时间更短。但负面影响是，小型企业可能在几个月的停业中倒闭，需要时间恢复，比如街角的小餐馆、小商店。这种情况下会有很多摩擦和混乱。不过，我相信政府和社区会尽其所能帮助这些小企业重建。
If you think about New York City, I think the moment that people can go out to eat again, going out to eat in New York City is sort of part of what it means to live in New York, restaurants are going to be reopening. I actually had an idea. Maybe we start a venture or private equity fund to back the reopening of restaurants in New York, and you can see that happening in cities around the country. And it could be one, a good investment and two good for the community. And so I think you're going to see a lot of some combination of for-profit and philanthropic related investment to help restart a lot of small businesses.
如果你想到纽约市，我认为当人人们可以再次外出就餐的那一刻，外出就餐成为了身为纽约市居民的一部分，餐馆也将重新开业。我其实有个主意。也许我们可以启动一个项目或私募基金，支持纽约餐馆的重新开业，这种情况你也可以在全国的其他城市看到。这不仅可能是一个不错的投资，而且对社区也有利。因此，我认为你会看到很多结合盈利和慈善性质的投资来帮助重启许多小企业。
So I don't think it's a, as I say, a V-shaped recovery. I think it's a little bit slower kind of coming out of this. But there is an end date where we're back to normal, I think, within a reasonable period of time. And back to normal could be a year. It could be 18 months, but there is an end date, whereas a depression, you go back to the 1930s, it's sort of unending. How does this affect real estate? Because a lot of people aren't paying rent right now, commercial property values are probably affected. Walk me through how you think of that.
所以我认为这不是所谓的V型复苏。我认为恢复速度会稍微慢一些，但最终我们会在合理的时间内恢复正常。恢复正常可能需要一年，也可能需要18个月，但终究会有一个终点。而经济大萧条，你可以回想一下1930年代，那几乎是无止境的。这种情况会如何影响房地产市场呢？因为现在很多人没有支付房租，商业地产的价值可能会受到影响。能不能跟我说说你对此的看法？
Sure. So again, it's a very similar kind of analysis. If you own a street retail in New York City, you're probably not getting rent today. But as soon as your tenant's going to be open and operating, they'll start paying rent again. I talked to a friend at one of the major real estate private equity firms. And what they're doing is in cases of hardship, they're giving tenants a, up to a several month holiday, or kind of a rent holiday where it's really, they're deferring the rent. And my guess is they'll end up spreading it out over time to kind of recover what they've what they didn't collect, at least for commercial tenants. And maybe they'll give sort of someone lost their job, for example. Maybe they'll give that person a little bit more of a break. Again, it's a temporary business disruption. And then we grow out of it, as opposed to a permanent impairment for the vast majority of the economy.
好的，再次强调，这是一种非常相似的分析。如果你在纽约市拥有一间街头零售店，今天可能收不到租金。但一旦你的租户重新开业和运营，他们就会开始再次支付租金。我和一家大型房地产私募股权公司的朋友聊过，他们在遇到困难的情况下，会给租户提供几个月的租金减免，或者实质上是延迟支付租金。我的猜测是，他们最终会将这些未收的租金分摊在以后的时间里，至少对于商业租户来说可能是这样。比如，如果有人失业了，他们可能会给这个人更多的宽限。总的来说，这只是一个暂时的业务中断，随着时间推移我们会慢慢走出困境，而不是对整个经济造成永久性的损害。
What would cause you to change your mind on that view? What's permanent? What's permanent is we're adding a lot of debt to sovereigns, governments. And that's a burden that will exist for a long time. So that's a negative. And that that will hold back somewhat the global economy. I guess what would cause me to change that view would be we can't beat back the virus. And we're constantly shutting down the globe. And I think the way we solve that issue is really just testing. And there are a lot of testing, you know, companies and just yesterday I learned about this pregnancy-like test that's in sort of a emergency authorization mode where you can prick your finger and in five minutes find out whether you have antibodies or not. And I think once you have something like that, we'll be able to see where the virus is and people can start going back to work. So I just think technology is going to help a lot here. You know, the Google Apple sort of app that you have on your phone, you know, that combined with testing, you know, hopefully we can start going back to a more normal life.
导致你改变这个观点的原因是什么？什么是永久的？永久的是我们在不断给主权国家、政府增加大量债务。而这是一个长期存在的负担，这是一个负面因素，会在一定程度上阻碍全球经济的发展。我想让我改变这个观点的原因大概是我们无法战胜病毒，并且持续地在全球范围内封锁。而我认为解决这个问题的办法实际上是检测。目前有很多检测公司，昨天我刚了解到一种类似怀孕测试的检测正在紧急授权阶段，通过扎手指在五分钟内就可以知道你是否有抗体。我认为一旦有了这样的检测，我们就能知道病毒在哪里，人们就可以开始重新工作。所以我认为技术将在这方面帮助很大。像谷歌和苹果开发的手机应用程序，结合检测，希望我们能够开始回归更正常的生活。
The inspiring, I guess, silver lining in this is for the first time ever we're probably all faced with the same problem. It doesn't matter what country you're in or what race you are, what socioeconomic status you are, the best and the brightest people are gravitating towards working on this. Yeah, I mean, just the economic motives to coming up with the solution, but I would say more importantly, the reputational benefits, a neuro to the person who comes up with the person or company who comes up with the drug that saves us all or the vaccine that saves us all. And so I think, you know, I talk a lot to scientists as part of my philanthropic work we're doing and we had a call with 35 heads of major institutions and scientific researchers who normally focus on cancer research.
鼓舞人心的是，我认为，这次我们可能首次面临同样的问题。不论你身处哪个国家，不论你的种族或社会经济地位如何，最优秀的人才都在致力于解决这个问题。是的，我的意思是，找到解决方案有经济动机，但更重要的是，对于找到能拯救我们的药物或疫苗的个人或公司来说，声誉上的好处更为显著。因此，我和科学家们进行很多交流，作为我们慈善工作的部分内容，我们召开了一次电话会议，参与者包括35位主要机构的负责人和通常专注于癌症研究的科学研究人员。
And basically, all of them have redirected their work to coronavirus. And so you've had this huge migration of talent focused on a global problem. And I'm sure the same thing's true in every country. What industries do you think are going to come out stronger or benefit from this? Amazon. Amazon, we don't own Amazon. But I do think that, you know, obviously they're going to have the greatest several months in their history. But I do think they're going to change a lot of behavior of people who used to shop in a normal fashion. Obviously, you know, some of these video technology companies, cloud based software companies will be beneficiaries of this, you know, long term. Although I will say that pretty much everyone I speak to is completely sick of video conferencing. And really would like to get and actually this whole work from home thing is not so great.
基本上，他们所有人都把工作重心转向了新冠病毒。因此，才华横溢的专业人士纷纷投身于这一全球性问题的解决。不用说，我相信每个国家都是如此。你认为哪些行业会因此变得更强或者受益？
亚马逊。我们没有持有亚马逊的股票。但我确实认为他们将迎来史上最好的几个月。他们还会改变很多以前习惯于正常购物的人的行为。当然，一些视频技术公司、基于云的软件公司会在长期内受益。不过，我必须说，我认识的几乎每个人都对视频会议感到厌倦，实际上，居家办公也没有那么好。
Because, you know, here I'm talking to you from the den, you know, I'm hearing, you know, quite beautiful, but her, my wife and baby in the kitchen, mom and dad are constantly walking in and out of the room. And there is no break. You know, one of the nice things psychologically about going to an office is that you go, you focus. And then when you come home, it's easier to leave it behind. And it's much harder to do that when your office phone is in the TV room. So. I definitely relate to that. How would you handle the bailouts? Like, is there who would get what? And is there a way that you can think of realistically to direct capital, to capable hands and away from just prolonging economic failure? Or is that not the way that you would handle this or walk me through that? Sure.
因为，你知道，现在我在书房和你说话，听到的这些声音都很美妙，但是我的妻子和宝宝在厨房，爸妈也一直在房间里进进出出。这种状况没有任何间歇。你知道，心理上一件好事情是去办公室上班，因为你可以集中注意力。而当你回家时，较容易把工作抛在脑后。而当你的办公室电话在电视房时，这种情况就很难实现。所以我确实对这种情况感同身受。你会如何处理经济纾困呢？比如，谁应得到哪些帮助？有没有办法现实地把资金引导到有能力的人手中，而不是仅仅延长经济失败的时间？或者这不是你会处理这种情况的方法？请详细说说。好的。
Look, I think there are businesses that prior the coronavirus were structurally challenged. You know, think department stores. So the notion that you'd want to save these businesses, I don't think makes a huge amount of sense to me that you, it makes sense to take taxpayer money and try to save a otherwise dying business. So think about businesses that are in structural decline. This would, you know, likely put them out of business, but I wouldn't spend any of taxpayer resources on them. You know, the way that, you know, big companies, the only thing that happens when a big company goes through a disruption like this is that the owners, and there isn't quote unquote a government bailout, if you will, is that the owners change, right? If you're an airline and you run out of cash, what happens is, you know, the bondholders end up becoming, you know, converting into equity, you know, through some kind of either prepackaged or other restructuring process, the end of being the owners. And, you know, I am receptive to this notion that you have airlines that have spent billions of dollars buying back stock.
看，我觉得有些企业在新冠病毒疫情爆发前就已经面临结构性挑战。比如说，百货公司。想要拯救这些企业的概念对我来说并不太合理，用纳税人的钱去试图挽救一个已经在走下坡路的企业并不明智。
想想那些处于结构性衰退中的企业，这次危机会很可能让它们倒闭，但我不会花任何纳税人的资源在它们身上。比如大公司，通常当一个大公司经历这种破坏时，如果没有所谓的政府援助，唯一的事情就是所有者的变化。比如说，如果一家航空公司耗尽了现金，这时候债券持有人可能会通过某种预打包或其他重组过程，将债券转换为股权，最终成为公司的所有者。
再者，我能理解这类观点，即有些航空公司花费数十亿美元回购了股票。
You know, why should taxpayers come in and affect support the shareholders that were beneficiaries of buybacks and had they retained that capital for any day, they wouldn't need a government bailout. So that, that concept to me makes a lot of sense. And it, you know, airplanes are not going to stop flying because airlines go bankrupt. What will happen is, you know, the owners of the planes, the less source of the plans and or the bondholders will end up, you know, controlling airlines. So, you know, if I were making these decisions, I wouldn't, we have scarce resources, I would save the money, you know, for, well, let's put it this way, any capital that was injected into an airline or another business, the government should earn an adequate return on that capital and get equity upside the business recovers. You know, I just think that, you know, Boeing needs to be saved. You know, Boeing had issues prior to this. Boeing spent many, many tens of billions of dollars on cherry purchases. I do think, you know, if Buffett doesn't want to, the government shouldn't come in on terms that are more favorable than where Warren Buffett would provide the company with capital. I guess this, I guess is my point. And I respect the CEO, recent CEO of Boeing saying he's not going to take money from the government. And I don't think he should. So, I don't think the government should be bailing out companies unless it's done on our arms length economic terms. It shouldn't be free money by any means. And we shouldn't be afraid to let companies that are over levered pre-crisis, you know, file for a pre-pre-precaged reorganization where the creditors end up owning the equity. That's how the process is supposed to work. I think it was Munger, Charlie Munger, who said capitalism without failure is religion without hell. He's better with words than I, but do you think we'll end up going in just the Amazon comment for a second? Do you think we'll end up going back to malls or malls effectively just dead now?
你知道，为什么要纳税人来支持那些通过股票回购受益的股东呢？如果他们保留了这些资本，应对任何困难时期，他们就不需要政府的救助了。这是有道理的。另外，航空公司破产并不会导致飞机停飞。实际情况是，这些飞机的所有者、出租方或者债券持有人最终会掌控航空公司。因此，如果让我来决定，我不会动用稀缺资源来救助这些公司。政府注入航空公司或其他企业的任何资本都应该获得合理回报，并在企业复苏时拥有股份收益。我认为波音公司确实需要拯救，因为它在这次危机前就已经有很多问题。波音公司花了数百亿美元在股票回购上。如果巴菲特不愿意出资，政府也不应该以比巴菲特提供更优惠的条件来介入公司进行融资。这是我的观点。我尊重波音最近的CEO的决定，他表示不会接受政府的资金援助，我认为他做得对。所以，政府不应该在不附带任何条件的情况下救助公司，除非是按经济条件来进行的救助。对于那些在危机前就负债过多的公司，我们也不应该害怕让他们进行破产重组，由债权人来持有公司的股权。这就是制度本来的运作方式。正如查理·芒格所说，没有失败的资本主义就像没有地狱的宗教。他比我更擅长表达，但是你觉得我们会重新回到购物中心吗？还是购物中心现在基本上已经没有希望了？
I actually think that people will be that much more desperate for human connection after this experience than they were before. And the issue with malls, you know, malls are located at the intersection of, you know, very highly trafficked roads. They've got big parking lots. They're big physical pieces of real estate. The problem is that the tenants have not innovated as quickly as the markets have changed. And the result is you have old-line department stores that have been around for 100 years that haven't sufficiently innovated to attract customers. And I do think that malls for many communities are public gathering places. And they just have to have tenants that are interesting enough to inspire people to come together and either shop or be entertained. And I do think that innovation is happening. It's just not happened as quickly as the kind of legacy tenants are dying. And so that's why malls are challenged. But I do think that for every community, having a place where people can come and gather and have fun and bring their kids, I think is important. And so I think the real estate long-term is probably fine. The problem is the capital cost to take an old-line, old-fashioned shopping mall with, you know, Sears and a JC Penney and a Macy's and make it into something that's going to be exciting for the next generation is, you know, wasn't contemplated when they put a mortgage on it. And that was equal to 80% of its value, you know, five years ago. And so again, you'll see restructurings where the lender to the mall ends up with the asset. Someone entrepreneurial decides, you know what, we don't need this much retail. We'll make half of it a hospital medical facility, office apartments. And then they'll do this great, you know, food court, restaurant, entertainment, movie theater, you know, type of thing. But I do think people will desperately want to go out to have a drink, go to a cafe, go to a restaurant, go to a movie, be entertained. And they'll be desperate to do it as soon as it's safe to do so. I think one of the byproducts of this is like we feel less like we're part of something that we used to before, right? We're less attached. We're more attached to our family, but less attached to our community, less attached to our sort of city, less attached to our state or country.
其实，我认为人们在经历这段疫情之后，会比以前更加渴望人际交往。但购物中心的问题在于，它们虽然坐落在交通便利的路口，拥有大型停车场和广阔的实体地产，但其租户的创新速度远远跟不上市场的变化。结果就是一些百年老字号的百货商店未能足够创新以吸引顾客。我确实认为，对于许多社区来说，购物中心是公共聚集地。它们需要有足够有趣的租户来吸引人们前来购物或娱乐。我相信创新正在发生，但速度不及老一代租户的衰落。正因如此，购物中心面临挑战。但对于每个社区来说，拥有一个让人们可以聚集、娱乐和带孩子去玩的地方是很重要的。所以我认为从长远来看，购物中心的地产还是有前途的。问题在于，将过去以西尔斯、JC Penney和梅西百货为主打的老式购物中心转变为能吸引下一代的场所，需要大量的资本投入。而这些资本成本在它们五年前以80%资产价值抵押贷款时并未被考虑到。所以，你会看到一些商场的贷款方最终接手了资产，然后一些有创业精神的人会决定减少零售面积，把一部分改造为医疗设施、办公室或公寓，再配上一个很棒的美食广场、餐厅、娱乐设施和电影院等。我真的相信，只要安全，人们会迫不及待地出去喝一杯、去咖啡馆、餐厅或看电影，享受娱乐活动。这次疫情的一个副产品是，我们感到自己比以前更缺乏归属感。我们对家庭的依赖更多，但对社区、城市、州或国家的归属感却减少了。
And some ways, even though we're all going through this, we're feeling very isolated. Do you think we come out of this on the other side, being more prudent financially with leverage? Yes, I do think this is a depression era moment, in the sense, psychologically, the same way that the generation of people that went through the depression thought very differently about financial leverage than the generations that came after them. I think the same thing would be true here. And I think it would be true for corporate America. You know, because shareholders are diversified, they generally put pressure on companies to quote unquote optimize their balance sheets. But optimization is generally designed for the short term shareholder who has a diversified portfolio of other such companies. It's not designed for the portfolio of one, i.e. the board and the management that oversee that company for the benefit of the employees and the other stakeholders. And I think it does lead to an over leveraging of corporate America. And I think every business has to have capital put aside, if you will, for the rainy day. And the companies that live on edge to kind of maximize their return on equity and then die. The businesses that will be shareholders, we heard the most from this period, will be the companies that just were too aggressive in a way they financed themselves going into the crisis. And I think that will cause boards to rethink, you know, super aggressive capital structures. This is like a dream-like opportunity for them in some ways, you could say with all that cash and print leverage and sort of the ability to take on multiple big elephants, if you will. Exactly. Yeah.
在某些方面，尽管我们都在经历这一切，但我们感到非常孤立。你认为等我们渡过这一难关后，会在财务杠杆方面变得更加谨慎吗？是的，我确实认为这是一个类似于大萧条时代的时刻，从心理上来看，就像经历过大萧条那代人对财务杠杆的看法与之后几代人不同一样，我认为现在也是如此。而且我认为这对于美国企业界也适用。因为股东的投资是多元化的，他们通常会给公司施压，要求所谓的优化其资产负债表。但这种优化通常是为了短期股东的利益而设计的，这些短期股东持有的是多家公司组成的多元化投资组合。它并不是为了只有一个投资组合的人设计的，即董事会和管理层，他们监督公司是为了员工和其他利益相关者的利益。我认为这会导致美国企业过度杠杆化。每个企业都应该为“雨天”存有资本，而那些为了最大化股本回报而把自己逼到极限的公司最终会失败。在这一时期，我们听到股东对那些融资方式过于激进的公司拥有最多的抱怨。我认为这将促使董事会重新考虑那些超级激进的资本结构。某种意义上说，这对他们来说像是一个梦幻般的机会，因为有大量现金和贷款，并且有能力承担多个“大象”，如果你愿意这样说的话。没错。
So I think I think Berkshire, I'm surprised they haven't done anything yet that's visible. But my guess is they've been buying stocks a lot. And actually, the big opportunity for Berkshire is Berkshire itself prior to the coronavirus crisis was a cheap stock in the low 200s. In the 180s, it's a real bargain. And so I would expect Buffett to have, I hope, that he's purchased a lot of his own shares. And I hope he's deployed capital in other companies as well. Walk me through how you see Berkshire out the way. Like without hitting price targets or anything, just walk me through how you see the structure of the company, like how you view it. Sure.
所以，我认为伯克希尔公司，我很惊讶他们还没有做出任何明显的举动。但我猜他们一直在大量购买股票。实际上，伯克希尔的一个重大机会是伯克希尔本身。在冠状病毒危机之前，它的股价在200美元出头时已经很便宜了，而在180美元的时候真的是一个大大的便宜。所以我预计巴菲特已经——我希望他购买了大量自家公司的股票。我也希望他在其他公司上动用了资金。跟我讲讲你是怎么看待伯克希尔的。不用提具体的目标价，只是跟我讲讲你怎么看这家公司的结构，好吗？当然。
Berkshire is really principally insurance company. But half of the, call it, the intrinsic value of the business is an insurance company that was built beginning with a company called National Endemining many, many years ago. I don't know if that was the first, I think it was the first insurance company he bought for whatever, $18 million or something like that in the 1960s. And then over time, you know, we built the most profitable, best capitalized, unique business. And if, you know, for certain kinds of insurance, Berkshire is the only place you can call. And so it's a, you know, I don't like to use the word monopoly, but it's a very unique, very profitable business. And he structured it in a way, both legislatively, you know, being a Omaha based insurer, where he has the flux and lighted the diversified nature of the overall company that unlike many insurance companies that have to keep their assets in something very close to risk free or, you know, very highly rated corporate bonds, he deploys kind of the flow from the insurance business and he's allowed to invest in equities.
伯克希尔实际上主要是一家保险公司。业务的内在价值有一半来自保险公司，而这家保险公司是从很多年前的一家公司名为National Indemity开始建立的。我不确定这是不是第一家，但我认为这是他在1960年代以大约1800万美元购买的第一家保险公司。随着时间推移，我们建立了一家盈利最丰厚、资本最充足、独一无二的业务。对于某些类型的保险，伯克希尔是唯一可以联系的地方。因此，我不喜欢用“垄断”这个词，但它确实是一个非常特殊、非常盈利的业务。他还通过立法架构了这个公司，作为一个总部在奥马哈的保险公司，他灵活地利用了整个公司多样化的性质，不像许多必须将资产保存在近乎无风险或高度评级企业债券中的保险公司，他可以利用保险业务的现金流来投资股票。
And that's a, you know, generally an enormous advantage, but in this interest rate environment, an even greater advantage. So you have the, obviously the most advantaged insurance company in the world that has grown its insurance float over time at a nice, you know, higher single digit, nothing, something like an 8% compounded rate over time. And the cost of that insurance float has been, has been negative, meaning the most insurance companies lose money on insurance and make money in float in this interest rate environment. They, you know, they lose money on insurance and they can't earn any money on the investing. Right. And Buffett is really making money on both sides. So that's where someone should really spend a lot of their time if they want to understand the company. And then in the asset side of the insurance company, really the, you know, the equities that you read about, you know, Apple and so on.
这通常是一个巨大的优势，但在当前的利率环境下，更是如此。因此，你拥有世界上最有优势的保险公司，它的保险浮存金随着时间以大约8%的复合增长率稳步增加。而且，这些保险浮存金的成本是负的，意思是大多数保险公司在保险业务上赔钱，但通过浮存金赚钱，而在当前的利率环境下，它们在保险业务上赔钱并且投资也没有回报。而巴菲特在这两方面都赚钱。因此，如果有人真的想了解这家公司，应该花很多时间在这上面。然后，在这家保险公司的资产方面，主要是你听说过的股票，比如苹果等。
The rest of Berkshire is a collection of sort of wholly owned or 80% on subsidiaries, you know, like the Burlington or the railroad precision cast parts, businesses that Buffett has collected over time for their, you know, durability and quality. And it's a mixed bag. The biggest ones generally are the highest quality businesses offering a lot of stability. You have to think the utility energy utility part of his operation, the railroad, very durable, big profitable businesses. And then businesses he's just collected and held on to over many, many years, some of which have have been great and remain great businesses like C's, Kennedy.
伯克希尔的其余部分是一些完全拥有或持股80%的子公司，比如伯灵顿铁路公司、精密铸件公司等，这些都是巴菲特因为其耐久性和质量而收购的企业。这些企业情况各异，最大的一些通常是高质量的企业，提供了很大的稳定性。像他的能源公用事业部分、铁路业务，都是非常稳健、盈利丰厚的企业。还有一些是他多年来收集并持有的企业，其中有些一直表现卓越，诸如C's糖果公司、Kennedy公司等。
Others, you know, to go back and read the Berkshire, half of annual reports, you know, he was glowing about the world book in Cyclopedia and, you know, other such businesses that have disappeared. You know, Dexter shoe, he was, you know, skipping into work thinking about, you know, the Dexter shoe company, the worst investment probably he ever made. So even Mr. Buffett makes mistakes, which is instructive in of itself. The good news is when you buy things as opposed to short things, your mistakes become smaller.
你知道的，回头看看伯克希尔的一些年度报告，巴菲特曾对《世界百科全书》等一些已经消失的业务赞不绝口。还有Dexter鞋业，他曾兴冲冲地想着这家公司去上班，但这可能是他最糟糕的一次投资。所以，即使是巴菲特先生也会犯错，这本身就是一种教训。好消息是，当你买入而不是卖空时，你的错误会变得更小。
It's really some part, you know, decent chunk of the businesses, industrial company, you know, small pieces in retail and other, you know, smaller manufacturing and other diversified businesses. And the large majority is kind of unique and extremely profitable insurance business. And do you see this as like a long term holding or is it proxy for cash or how do you think about that? Yeah, you know, I don't, I think it's a really cheap, interesting stock, you know, run by the best investor in the world.
这真的是个不错的部分，你知道，相当大的一部分业务，工业公司，还有一些零售业和其他小规模制造业以及其他多样化的业务。而大多数部分是独特且极其盈利的保险业务。你认为这是一个长期持有的投资，还是把它当作现金的替代品？你是怎么想的？对，我觉得这个股票非常便宜且有趣，由世界上最优秀的投资者管理。
We think, you know, Buffett's taken an approach toward really all of his businesses that's extremely hands off. And that's worked very well for many of those companies, but other parts of the portfolio, you know, in our view, underperform the competition in terms of their profitability or growth, etc. And I think the as the generational change happens at Berkshire, it appears to us the next generation is going to be much more focused on, you know, extracting the term from the businesses, Berkshire owns, I mean, just looking at the Burlington Northern Railroad, you know, a lot about railroads by virtue of our experience at Canadian Pacific.
我们认为，巴菲特对旗下所有业务采取的方针非常放手。这种做法对许多公司来说效果很好，但在我们看来，投资组合中的其他部分在盈利或增长等方面表现不如竞争对手。而且，我认为随着伯克希尔的代际更替，下一代似乎会更加专注于从伯克希尔拥有的企业中提取价值。以伯灵顿北方铁路为例，通过我们在加拿大太平洋铁路公司的经验，我们对铁路业务有很多了解。
It's the largest, you know, it should be the most profitable, highest margin railroad in the world. It's not. And I think a bit of that is, it's Warren's very, you know, kind of his reluctance to get too actively involved with businesses that he owns. But I do think that over time that gets up. So you have this very well-capitalized company controlled by, you know, great investor CEO and a portfolio of businesses, many of which have opportunities for improvement. And, you know, I think that's interesting. I don't know how long we're going to own it.
这是最大的铁路公司，按理说应该是全球最赚钱、利润最高的铁路公司，但实际上并不是。我认为其中一部分原因在于沃伦（巴菲特）对于他所持有的企业，不愿意过度参与其中的经营。不过我相信，随着时间的推移，这种情况会有所改善。所以你拥有了一家资金雄厚的公司，由一位伟大的投资者CEO掌控，并且有一系列业务，很多都有改进的机会。我觉得这样很有意思，但我们还不知道会持有它多久。
You know, we always retain the right if we find something better to do with our money to sell something we own. But in the meantime, we think we bought more at lower prices in the last few weeks. What are some of the lessons that you've learned over the years from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger? So a big part of my education as an investor came from reading everything Buffett's written, you know, watching, watching from speak, it came to Harvard Business School. And I was a student there. One of the most influential things he said to me, and I say to me, because it was me and the other 300 people in the audience, was, you know, if you want to be successful, all you need to do is look around the room and think about the classmate or classmates you most admire and what qualities they have and just decide to adopt those qualities.
你知道，如果我们找到更好的投资机会，我们总是有权利出售现有的资产。但是与此同时，我们认为过去几周里我们在更低的价格买入了更多的资产。你在这些年中从沃伦·巴菲特和查理·芒格那里学到了哪些经验教训？我的投资教育很大一部分来源于阅读巴菲特的所有著作，观看他的演讲。他曾来到哈佛商学院，当时我还是那里的学生。他对我说过最有影响力的一句话，其实是对包括我在内的300人说的，你知道吗，如果你想成功，只需要环顾一下周围，想想你最钦佩的同学或同学们，他们具备哪些品质，然后决定去学习那些品质。
And if you do that, your chances of being successful go up enormously. And it was incredible advice. And his basic point was, you know, if you want to play the violin, you know, and you're not yo-yo-ma and you haven't practiced your entire life, it's going to be hard to pick up the violin tomorrow or in the cello tomorrow and be a virtuoso. But character and the qualities that enable you to be successful in business, you know, hard work, discipline, returning phone calls promptly after you receive them, showing up at meetings on time, being, you know, honest and straightforward, fair-mindedness. These are all things you can have to, if you don't already have them, you can have them tomorrow, but just deciding that you're going to adopt these characteristics.
如果你这样做了，你成功的机会就会大大增加。这确实是很棒的建议。他的基本观点是，如果你想拉小提琴，但你不是马友友，而且也没有一生都在练习，那你明天去学小提琴或者大提琴，很难成为大师。但是决定成就你在商业上成功的品质，比如努力工作、纪律严明、及时回电话、准时参加会议、诚实直率、公正等，这些都是你可以拥有的。如果你现在没有这些品质，只要你决定去养成，明天就可以开始拥有。
I thought that was a very powerful thing to say. That was one. And then, you know, just how to think about investing in the stock market and, you know, all of the Ben Graham-isms that he's reinterpreted and presented, all that stuff super helpful.
我觉得他说的那句话非常有力。这是一方面。然后，他关于如何考虑投资股市的观点，以及他对本·格雷厄姆的投资理念的重新解读和呈现，都非常有帮助。
And just thinking, you know, even the way he built his business over time, you know, Buffett started out in the mid-1950s as an activist hedge fund manager, right? He had a partnership, he charged a 25 percent incentive fee over a 6 percent return, and he was quite active. He would buy stakes in businesses, he would push for liquidations of companies that had large security portfolios relative to the market value of their business. He was really an activist investor.
你知道，仔细想想，他在建立自己的生意的过程中，巴菲特其实在1950年代中期是作为一个激进的对冲基金经理起步的，对吧？他当时组建了一个合伙企业，对于超过6%回报部分，他收取25%的激励费，并且他非常活跃。他会购买公司的股份，推动那些拥有大量证券投资组合而市场价值却相对低廉的公司进行清算。他确实是一个激进的投资者。
And then, 15 years in, he had a hundred million under management. I think 25 million of it was his. And he wrote his investors a letter and said, okay, you can have all your money back, or you can have stock in this crappy textile company. And I'm going to take stock in the textile company, but I'm going to be a little less motivated than what's in the past.
然后，在经营了15年后，他管理的资金达到了1亿。其中2500万是他自己的。他写了一封信给投资者，说：“好吧，你们可以全部收回投资，或者选择拥有这家糟糕的纺织公司的股票。而我会选择那家纺织公司的股票，但我的动力可能会比过去少一些。”
I made a lot of money. Markets aren't that attractive. I can't promise anything, but happy to have you if you want to go along, take your money if you want your money back. And, you know, as I like to say, some number of people, he Larry Tish apparently withdrew $400,000 back then from the partnership, which today would be oh man, you know, $400 million, probably more, probably $4 billion. And some people, you know, rolled their capital.
我赚了很多钱。市场没有那么吸引人了。我不能保证什么，但如果你想加入，我很乐意接受你。如果你想取回你的钱，可以随时拿回。你知道的，就像我常说的，有些人，比如Larry Tish，曾经从合作伙伴中提取了40万美元，放到今天可能价值4亿美元，甚至可能更多，可能达到40亿美元。同时，也有一些人选择继续投资。
And what's interesting is Buffett gave up the 25 percent share of the profits for the right to run what he called a crappy textile company with a $40 million market cap for $100,000 salary. But what he got was stability, permanency of capital. That was not lost on me. And so, you know, we've basically, you know, our business plan was basically to do the same thing over time. And we're, you know, largely there today.
有意思的是，巴菲特放弃了25%的利润份额，来换取了运营一家他认为是“烂”纺织公司的权利。这家公司的市值只有4000万美元，而他的年薪是10万美元。但他获得了资本的稳定性和永久性。这点我铭记在心。所以，我们的商业计划基本上也是在逐步实现同样的目标。今天，我们基本上做到了这一点。
So I mean, you're going to wave your face? I'm not going to wave the face. No current plans to do that. You know, unlike Buffett who, you know, runs Reddit, really a one person operation and, you know, has an accountant and a couple of assistants, you know, the way we've built our business is, you know, I've hired a lot of super talented, highly compensated people.
所以，你是打算在大家面前露面吗？我可不打算这么做，目前没有这个计划。你知道，和经营Reddit的巴菲特不一样，那其实是一个人运营，有一个会计和几个助手。而我们公司的运营模式是，我雇用了很多才华横溢、高薪酬的人才。
So, you know, what actually charging fees enables me to incentivize and pay the people I work with. But yes, Buffett is a better bargain than we are because we do charge shoes. Oh, wait. I want to get to that in a second. But where do you think Pershing Square will be in 10 years? I think in 10 years, you know, we now have a pretty clear path, right? The vast majority of our capital today is 85% in overtime.
所以，你知道的，实际上收取费用让我能够激励并支付我合作的人的报酬。不过，没错，巴菲特确实比我们更划算，因为我们收取费用。哦，等等，我稍后再说这个问题。那么你认为十年后的潘兴广场会是什么样子？我认为在十年后，我们现在有一个相当明确的路径了。我们今天的大部分资本，有85%是长期资本。
That will be 90 or 95 or eventually 100% of our capital will be in a public enterprise that we're the largest shareholder of. We own 22% of our, our public company, Pershing Square Holdings today. And our goal is to compound Pershing Square Holdings at a high rate over a long period of time by investing in, you know, the kind of businesses we invest in today and overtime will become bigger shareholders of these kinds of companies will be a very long duration holder.
这意味着，最终我们90%、95%甚至100%的资本将会投入到一个我们是最大股东的上市企业中。我们目前持有我们的上市公司Pershing Square Holdings 22%的股份。我们的目标是通过投资于我们目前在投的那类企业，以高回报率在长时间内增长Pershing Square Holdings的价值。随着时间的推移，我们会成为这些类型公司更大的股东，并且会长期持有这些股份。
I think we'll do similar things to the things that we do now and hopefully we'll do them better. But I think, you know, I'd love to have, you know, in terms of ambition, you know, the goal is to have one of the best investment records ever, you know, Buffett's got a 55 year or 16 year advantage. And, you know, Pershing's been in business for 16 years. So we've got a lot of work to do.
我认为我们将会继续做类似于现在正在做的事情，并且希望能做得更好。但是我认为，从抱负的角度来看，我希望能拥有史上最好的投资记录之一。你知道，巴菲特有55年的优势，而Pershing公司只成立了16年。所以我们还有很多工作要做。
How do you, do you think you'll ever get into buying complete companies? Yes, I think that's possible. Or at least controlling interests in companies. Bill, what would you do differently if you were running the SEC in detail? I would lean on short sellers to be sources to help me determine where my, I think the SEC's generally got a very, very good job and they have a very difficult job and they have limited resources.
你认为你会有一天会购买整个公司吗？是的，我认为这是有可能的。或者至少控股一些公司。Bill，如果你在详细管理证券交易委员会（SEC），你会做什么不同的事情呢？我会依靠卖空者作为信息来源，以帮助我确定工作方向。我认为SEC总体上做得非常好，他们的工作非常艰难，而且他们的资源有限。
So let's start there. My one area of disappointment with the SEC having been on very rare occasion, a short seller, is that how slow it takes the SEC to you know, come to conclusions about companies operating illegally or responsibly or fraudulently. I'd like to fix that.
那么让我们从这里开始。我对美国证券交易委员会(SEC)唯一感到失望的是，作为一个极少做空的投资者，我觉得SEC对那些非法、不负责任或欺诈操作的公司下结论的速度太慢了。我希望能改进这一点。
You know, getting back to my Herbalife example before, we went public and said among other things about Herbalife that they were operating in China illegally because China does not allow multi-level marketing companies to operate and they were using, but they were using the same compensation schemes, the same methodology, but they were doing it in a sort of hidden misguided way and they inaccurately described how they were doing this in their public funds.
你知道，回到我之前提到的康宝莱的例子，我们公开表示，康宝莱在中国的经营是违法的，因为中国不允许多层次直销公司运营。然而，他们却在用同样的薪酬体系和方法，只不过是以一种隐藏且误导的方式进行操作，并且他们在公开的财务报告中对这一行为进行了不准确的描述。
And we made a two-hour public presentation about this, I don't know, four years ago, something like that. The company comes out and says, you know, Pershing again is materially misleading investors, accuses us of all kinds of market manipulation, etc. In the last six months, and you can Google it, Herbalife paid settled with the SEC for $20 million for misleadingly describing their China business and their public violence because it actually the compensation scheme is precisely the same as, and the business models the same as their core business in the United States. Exactly what we said years ago about the company. And my disappointments are one, it took the SEC however many years to come to the same conclusion that we had identified and they slapped them on the risk of the $20 million fine that investors could ignore. And so I have been disappointed by, you know, Herbalife by the way is a pyramid scheme, okay, it's continuing to operate and cause enormous harm.
我们大概在四年前做了一场长达两小时的公开演讲，介绍了这个问题。公司出来回应说，Pershing又一次严重误导投资者，指责我们进行各种市场操纵等等。在过去的六个月里，你可以在网上搜到，Herbalife（康宝莱）因在公开资料中误导性描述其中国业务，向美国证券交易委员会（SEC）支付了2000万美元的和解金，因为它的补偿制度和核心业务模式与其在美国的完全相同，这正是我们多年前对该公司的指控。让我失望的是，SEC花了这么多年才得出我们早已指出的结论，而对公司仅仅处以2000万美元的罚款，投资者可以对此视而不见。因此，我对Herbalife感到失望，顺便说一下，Herbalife是一个金字塔骗局，仍在继续运作并造成巨大的损害。
The stock's actually not that much from the price we shorted it, we shorted it at a split adjusted $23 a share and today it's probably 30 or something like that. So it's not been a great investment for anyone if they had bought the stock and we made our presentation. But I do think it's a company that's causing enormous harm and the government, the FTC launched an investigation shortly after our presentation, it took them a couple years and they settled with the company with two for $200 million and let them continue to operate. And now the SEC has slapped them on the risk again and it does seem like if you're a well capitalized company backed by a very large shareholder and you got a lot of good lawyers, you can out with the SEC and cause harm. And so that is my biggest frustration with the SEC. What would I do differently? I would pay much more careful attention to short sellers and I would work more quickly and be more aggressive companies that are causing harm. I like that there's people in you in the world that do this, but I also simultaneously question why you do it.
这只股票从我们做空时的价格变化并不大，我们当时以拆股调整后的每股23美元的价格做空，而现在大概是30美元左右。所以，如果有人在我们做出报告时买入这只股票，那他们的投资回报并不好。但我确实认为这家公司造成了巨大的危害，政府和FTC（联邦贸易委员会）在我们做出报告后不久就开始了调查，虽然花了他们几年时间，最终以2亿美元与公司达成了和解，允许他们继续运营。现在，SEC（证券交易委员会）也再次对他们进行了处罚，似乎只要你是有雄厚资本、背后有大股东支持的公司，还有一群优秀的律师，你就能和SEC博弈并继续造成危害。这是我对SEC最感到沮丧的地方。我会怎么做不同的事情？我会更加重视做空者，更快、更积极地处理对社会有害的公司。我欣赏有这样的人在世界上做这些事，但我同时也质疑他们为什么要这样做。
Like the return on brain power or energy expended for you is so small. Yeah, so I'm short selling, I've foresworn short selling for the reason you describe it. The calculus, I think I invented this phrase that you seem to be adopting, but I called it return on invested brain damage. There you go. The return on invested brain damage for short selling is quite challenging and public short selling is the worst because unfortunately if you go public and say a company is violating the law, everyone hates you. The shareholders hate you, the management hates you, the employees hate you, you have no friends. And that's why I view it as a kind of a noble pursuit and I admire the muddy waters and the gym chainuses when they come out with detailed work about problematic businesses.
就像你说的，投入的脑力或精力回报非常小。所以我不再做空头交易了，你说的理由正是我放弃的原因。我称之为“投入脑力损耗的回报”，我认为这个说法是我发明的，看来你也在使用它。做空头交易的投入脑力损耗回报非常具有挑战性，公开做空更是糟糕。因为不幸的是，如果你公开指出某家公司违法行为，大家都会讨厌你。股东讨厌你，管理层讨厌你，员工也讨厌你，你没有任何朋友。这也是为什么我认为这是一种高尚的追求，我很钦佩像浑水（Muddy Waters）和Jim Chanos这样的人，当他们发布详细分析有问题企业的报告时，我很佩服他们。
I'm less interested in companies that are overvalued. That I don't think does so much service to the world to point out whether you believe a company is overvalued or not. It's just systemically like this shouldn't exist. Yeah, but identifying fraud is a very important thing for markets and short sellers provide a very valuable service. And generally when there are markets that you can't short, prices get to extremes and investors lose lots of money. The housing market was a market that you could not short until the invention of synthetic CDOs. And it was really the John Paul Sintrain if you will, was he was just going short, the housing market.
我对那些估值过高的公司不太感兴趣。我认为指出一个公司是否被高估对社会帮助不大。这种系统性的问题不应该存在。不过，识别欺诈对市场来说非常重要，做空者提供了非常宝贵的服务。通常在无法做空的市场中，价格会走向极端，投资者会损失大量资金。房市就是这样一个市场，在合成CDO（债务担保证券）发明之前，你是没法做空的。而John Paulson的“著名之举”就是做空房市。
Housing market was allowed to get to extremes because there were no short sellers and there were no one had any incentive to blow the whistle on overvaluation. The market you can't short today is basically, or difficult to short today is the venture back market. And that's why you're going to see that's why the we works in the world are allowed to happen and billions of dollars money is wasted. So I do think short sellers perform a very valuable service now that I'm I don't know 53 and I just had a baby and in the life's too short kind of point of view, we're done with public short selling. It's just not our thing anymore. But I'm pleased to see other people doing it. I do think it is a public good.
由于没有短期卖家，而且也没有人有动力去揭露高估现象，导致房地产市场走向极端。今天无法进行或难以进行短期交易的市场基本上就是风险投资市场。这也是为什么像WeWork这样的公司能够存在，数十亿美元的资金被浪费的原因。因此，我认为短期卖家提供了非常有价值的服务。现在，我已经53岁了，刚刚有了一个孩子，从“人生苦短”的角度看，我们已经不再做公开的短期交易了，那不再是我们的事情。但我很高兴看到其他人继续这样做，我确实认为这是一种公共服务。
Do you think that there's a problem with just large institutions? Like did the CDC and the WHO fail us in this current pandemic? And then the problem is the institutions and not the people or how do you think about that? You know, the what's interesting about this period is it's really been an education in in the what's good about living in a, you know, democracy and what's bad.
你认为问题仅仅在于大型机构吗？比如，美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）和世界卫生组织（WHO）在这次疫情中辜负了我们吗？那么问题出在这些机构而不是人吗？你怎么看这个问题？这段时间有趣的是，它实际上让我们学到了很多关于生活在民主社会中的好与坏。
So you look at how China, now the negatives of China is they, you know, the government officials, the local government officials were too afraid to go public with what was going on or when they did they got, you know, whether you were a doctor or a public official, you got, you know, shut down by the the system. You know, that that allowed the virus to propagate to have became a serious issue in China. The good news is the dictatorship allowed them to very aggressively, you know, shut down the virus.
所以你看看中国，现在中国的负面情况是，当地政府官员太害怕公开发生的事情，或者当他们公布时，无论是医生还是公务员，都被系统打压。这让病毒得以传播，成为中国一个严重的问题。好消息是，独裁体制让他们能够非常积极地遏制病毒传播。
You've watched, you know, I made my public case for a country-wide shutdown and the president instead sort of allowed the states to take the lead in governor by governor one by one. We got to almost to the place where we should have and it took instead of 24 hours, it's taken, you know, 30 days or 45 days, you know, had we entered shut down, you know, March one for 30 days, the outcome would have been, you know, meaningfully different than, you know, starting on March 19th and rolling out over, you know, 30 days and we're not even, you know, we're still not in a country wide shutdown and the degrees are shut down in different different places. So I do think it's, it shows that, you know, the wonderful things about a democracy and that, you know, people are generally not afraid to come public with issues and we have a very well functioning media that's not afraid to surface problems.
你们知道，我曾公开主张全国范围的封锁措施，但总统却让各州州长分别决定。我们几乎到达了应有的状态，但这花费了30天甚至45天，而不是24小时。如果我们从3月1日封锁30天，结果会有显著不同，而不是从3月19日开始并逐步扩大范围。即便现在，我们仍未实现全国范围的统一封锁，各地的封锁程度也不尽相同。我认为这反映了我们民主制度的优点——人们一般不害怕公开讨论问题，我们有一个功能良好的媒体体系，敢于揭露问题。
You know, the downside is we could not, we did not take the extreme measures that China took as quickly as they did and I wish we had. So, you know, that's sort of the up-down of it. But, you know, the CDC, I think, you know, I would have thought they would have taken a much more forward-leaning public approach here and it's just not clear what role the CDC has played. You know, you see the coronavirus team led by the vice president, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, etc., you know, they seem like capable people. But, you know, the CDC has not been these particularly visible as far as I've seen in making recommendations. You know, where was the CDC in terms of recommending a national shutdown, etc. I didn't, unless I missed it, I didn't see it. Yeah, I think like the post hoc on this is going to be super interesting in terms of how they look at it.
你知道，我们的不足之处在于我们没有，没能像中国那样迅速采取极端措施，我希望我们当时能做到。所以，这就是事情的好坏之一。但是，你知道，疾控中心（CDC），我原以为他们会在这方面采取更加积极的公共行动，但目前还不清楚疾控中心在其中扮演了什么角色。你看，由副总统、福奇博士、伯克斯博士等领导的冠状病毒小组，他们看起来是有能力的人。但是，至少在我看来，疾控中心在提供建议方面并没有特别显眼。比如，疾控中心有没有建议进行全国性的封锁等。我没看到，除非我错过了。我觉得事后回顾这件事会非常有趣，看看他们是怎么应对的。
You mentioned you have four kids, I think, right? And you're you're 53. What are the lessons that you and you have quite the age range, right? So, you go from one to how old's the oldest? Twenty-two. Twenty-two. What lessons do you try to teach your kids or instill in your kids? So, you know, it's a lot of the obvious ones. You know, hard work pays off. Education is really important. Treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself. You know, basic, perhaps somewhat biblical type type things. You know, persistence, you know, that we started the interview asking what I learned from my parents and both mom and dad are super persistent.
你提到你有四个孩子，对吗？而且你已经53岁了。你的孩子们年龄差距很大，对吗？最小的一个多大了？最大的22岁。你想教给孩子们哪些道理呢？其实很多都是显而易见的道理，比如努力工作会有回报，教育非常重要，要用你希望别人对待你的方式去对待别人，这些也许有点类似圣经中的教导。另外还包括坚持，我们在访谈一开始问到我从父母那里学到了什么，他们都是非常有毅力的人。
And you recognize the wonderful qualities of persistence. And then when you live with your parents for six weeks, you there are sometimes negative associated with those qualities. But you try to teach your kids about that. Try to teach your kids about the value of money and, you know, saving and, you know, minimizing waste. And then also, you know, what more difficult topic is, you know, trying to teach kids about nutrition. That's a very high risk subject to talk.
你也知道坚持不懈的美好品质。当你和父母一起生活六个星期时，你会发现这些品质有时也会带来一些负面的影响。但你还是想教孩子们这些道理。比如教他们钱的重要性，如何储蓄，以及减少浪费。另外，还有一个更难的话题，就是教孩子们关于营养的知识。这真的是一个风险很高的话题。
What's your guilty pleasure? Do you have chocolate in the house? Yeah, I am a big dark chocolate fan. I like this one. It's called endangered species 88%. And it's amazing. 88% just seems too good to be true of this. It's sort of very, very good. So I, that's definitely on my list. It was my weakness to you.
你的罪恶快乐是什么？你家里有巧克力吗？有啊，我特别喜欢黑巧克力。我喜欢一种叫“濒危物种 88%”的黑巧克力，它非常棒。88%听起来简直好得不真实。这种巧克力真的非常非常好，所以它绝对在我的必备清单上。这也是我的软肋。
I'm going to run out and get some of that. Bill, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing. Yeah, enjoyed it. I really appreciate it. You can find show notes on this episode, as well as every other episode at fs.blog slash podcast. If you find this episode valuable, share it on social media and leave a review to support the podcast, go to fs.blog slash membership and join our learning community. You'll get hand edited transcripts of all the podcasts and so much more. Thank you for listening.
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