点评：在投资中的首选是好的行业中的优秀企业，其次才是选人，因为优秀的管理者在衰败的行业中仅仅是延缓了企业的失败，巴菲特举例伯克希尔的纺织业务，他认为即使当时汤姆·墨菲上阵也不会成功。可能巴菲特、芒格先生唯一经历的例外就是比亚迪，因为王传福的传奇经历，超越了行业周期律，在造车上取得了成功，年销售额超过人民币6000亿元，为此卖出70%左右的股票已经收获了270亿港元，而2008年投资总成本才18亿港元，世界总有些意外，这次是意外的惊喜。
提问者：大家好，我是伯克希尔股东 Sherman Lam，我在马来西亚吉隆坡的家族办公室工作。真的很高兴见到你、沃伦和团队。在我的家乡，你是一位英雄。你和查理都积极地改变了我以及许多其他马来西亚人和东南亚人的生活，不仅在经济上，而且在我们处理生活和人际关系的方式上。非常非常非常感谢。
沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。谢谢。这让我们感觉很好。
提问者：问题是，在过去五年的 COVID-19 疫情期间，您的团队在业务、资本配置、股票选择和投资组合配置方面最大的收获是什么？沃伦，如果能听取您的观点，以及您对泰德和托德的陈述，以及直接从格雷格和阿吉特那里了解他们各自的业务，我们将不胜感激。
沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。是的，我不想对个人做出评价，但你所做的其实是资本配置，这是我的工作，我不会出去推销保险单或任何类似的东西。你代表的是我们这样的股东群体。我们对我们的使命非常清楚。你知道，也许其他人不同意他们的观点，但我想说，在很多地方，我就是不能同意他们的使命。比如，任何想在 65 岁退休的人都没有资格担任伯克希尔的首席执行官。如果他们不适合担任首席执行官，他们可能会在第二天就退休。但有些事情是我们不想要的，我们现在已经做好了准备。虽然可能性很大，但远不能确定这是否能解决未来 20 年的问题。但你必须为意外情况做好准备。董事会中有几个人知道我会怎么做，但这取决于格雷格。但如果格雷格和我同时离开，那么你就需要做出另一个决定。有几个人知道我的想法，但董事的工作是找到合适的首席执行官，而合适的首席执行官无法让糟糕的企业变得伟大。汤姆·墨菲是最好的，他是我认识的最好的业务经理。汤姆·墨菲说，真正的关键是购买正确的业务。现在，墨菲在那之后为它带来了无数其他的特质。但你知道，查理说，这是什么？他对此有一句话。但基本上，我们可以把汤姆·墨菲请来，告诉他他的工作是经营纺织业务，这样会做得更好一点，但仍然会失败。我坚持纺织业务这么久的原因之一是我非常喜欢肯·蔡斯，我认为他是个了不起的人，也是一位非常优秀的经理。如果他是个混蛋，你知道，我们早就退出纺织业了，我们的情况会更好。所以答案是让他进入电视行业，就像 Murph 所做的和他支持的一样。你知道，Murph 很早就明白了这一点，他从一个可怜的运营开始，那就是纽约奥尔巴尼的 VHF，与通用电气等公司竞争。他在一家退休修女之家经营，只粉刷面向街道的一侧。他有一辆车在城里飞驰，他把它叫做六号新闻车。但从那以后，他建立了一家令人难以置信的公司，他之所以能做到这一点，是因为他是我见过的最好的经理。但除此之外，他从事的是一项很好的业务。关键是要找到另一个 Tom Murphy，然后把一些好的业务交给他们，他或她会知道该怎么做。现在，这并不像大多数公司那样精确，但你真的不可能比这更精确了。我的意思是，你可以有委员会、管理顾问和所有人。但雇佣汤姆·墨菲的不是管理顾问。我忘了他当时是否在做这件事。起初，他的销售量每周只有几千。然后，他一达到目标，就实现了。他说，他做到了 2000。现在我的目标是 3000。他一直这样做，超越了所有这些人，比如 CBS 和 ABC，他们只是在世界末日时才这么做。这真是人生中一次很棒的教训。能够看到这样的事情。我从他对我说的话中学到了很多，但我只是通过观察像他这样的人来学习。我的意思是，这就像观察一位伟大的高尔夫球手、一位伟大的网球运动员，然后你应该学到一些关于你想要发展的挥杆方式之类的东西。所以这对你来说不是一个很好的答案。但到目前为止，它很有效，我认为它有效。我非常确定这对格雷格很有效，而这取决于未来的人，你知道，当我在地下或无论他们把我放在哪里时，每 20 年左右做出一次决定。平均而言，这是正确的决定，但如果事实证明是错误的决定，就必须纠正它。这就是董事会的作用。我们的董事会成员真正理解这一责任。他们认真对待，但不会太严肃地对待自己，因此，他们不一定想做很多事情只是为了显得忙碌。他们不会把我们当作进入其他董事会的垫脚石，但我们有真正相信我们所做的事情的人，他们必须让这个地方正常运转。如果他们在格雷格的死亡问题上很幸运，他们可以像其他人一样，沉睡 20 年左右，然后再做出另一个决定。伯克希尔拥有世界上所有可用的工具，可以成为现在的样子，并继续保持现在的样子。我的意思是，我们的净资产从 2000 万美元增加到了 5700 亿美元。你知道，我们。虽然没有那么多事情要做，但我们可以做一些比别人做得更好的大事。偶尔我们也会是唯一
Questioner: Hi, I’m Sherman Lam, a Berkshire shareholder, and I work for family office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Just really happy to see you, Warren and the team. And where I come from, you’re a hero. And both you and Charlie have positively transformed mine and many, many other Malaysians and Southeast Asians lives, not only financially, but also in how we navigate our lives and relationships. Thank you very, very, very much.
Warren Buffett: Thank you. Thank you. That makes us feel good.
Questioner: Question is, what have your team’s greatest learnings been on business, capital allocation, stock picking and portfolio allocation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period over the last five years? And, Warren, appreciate it if you can get your views, as well as your representations on Ted and Todd, as well as directly from Greg and Ajit, too, on their respective businesses.
Warren Buffett: Thank you. Yeah, I don’t think I want to give individual appraisals, but really what you’re doing is in terms of capital allocation, which is my job, I don’t go out and sell insurance policies or anything of the sort. And you represent a group of shareholders like we do represent. We are totally clear on our mission. And, you know, it may be that other people don’t agree with them, but I would say that in a great many places, you know, I just don’t agree with their mission. I would say that, for example, that anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire. They might get retired the next day if they were the wrong person. But there’s just certain things we don’t want, and we’re well fixed now. And that the odds are very good, but far from certainty that that takes care of the next 20 years. But you have to provide for the contingency. And there are several people on the board that know what I would do on that, but it’s up to Greg. But if Greg and I go at the same time, then you’ll move into making another decision. There are a few people who know my thoughts on that, but the job of the director is then to come up with the right CEO, and the right CEO can’t make a terrible business great. Tom Murphy, who was the best, he was the best business manager I’ve ever known. And Tom Murphy, you know, he said the real key was buying the right business. And now Murph brought a million other attributes to it after that. But, you know, Charlie said, what was this? He had a saying on that. But basically, we could have brought in Tom Murphy and told him his job was to run the textile business, and it would have done a little bit better, but it still would have failed. And one of the reasons I stuck with the textile business as long as I did was that I liked Ken Chase so much, and I thought he was a terrific guy, and he was a very good manager. If he’d been a jerk, you know, we’d have quit the textile business much faster, and we’d have been better off. So the answer was for him to get in the TV business, like Murph had done and had supported. You know, Murph figured that out early, and he started with a pathetic operation, which was a VHF in Albany, New York, competing against GE and everything. And he was operating out of a home for retired nuns, and he only painted the side that faced the street. He had one car dashing around town, and he called it news truck number six. But from that, he built an incredible company, and he built it because he was the best manager I’ve ever met. But beyond that, he was in a good business. And the key will be to find another Tom Murphy and then hand them a bunch of good businesses, and he or she will know what to do with it. Now, that’s not as precise as you would get in most companies, but you really can’t get more precise than that. I mean, you can have committees and management consultants and everybody. But it wasn’t a management consultant that hired Tom Murphy. And I forget whether he was doing. His sales volume was a couple thous and a week at first. And then as soon as he hit, that was his goal. It got to 2000, he says. Now my goal is 3000. He kept doing that, surpassed all these people, like CBS and ABC, that only had the world by the tail. And it was just a wonderful lesson in life to get. Just to be able to view something like that. I learned an awful lot from what he said to me, but I just learned by watching somebody like him operate. I mean, it’s like watching a great golfer, a great tennis player, then you ought to learn something about the kind of swing you’re trying to develop or something of sort. So that’s not a great answer for you. But so far, it’s worked, and I think it works. I’m very sure it works with Greg, and it’s up to people in the future when, you know, I’m underground or wherever they put me, to really make a decision every 20 years or something like that. On average, it’s the right decision, but correct it if it turns out to be the wrong decision. That’s what a board of directors is for. Andwe’ve got the people on the board that really understand that responsibility. They take it seriously, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and so therefore, they don’t necessarily wanna do a lot of things just to look busy. And they aren’t using us as a stepping stone to get on other boards, but we’ve got people that really believe in what we’re doing, and they’re the ones that are going to have to make this place work. And if they got lucky on Greg’s mortality, they can do just what everyone else did and go to sleep for 20 years or so and then make another decision. And Berkshire has every tool in the world available to be what it is now and continue to be what it is now. I mean, we’ve gotten from 20 million of net worth to 570 billion. And, you know, we. There aren’t as many things to do, but we can do a few big things better than anybody else can do. And there will be occasional times when we’re the only one willing to act. And at those times, we want to be sure that the US government thinks we’re an asset to the situation and not a liability or a supplicant, as the banks were in say in 2008 and ‘9, they were all tarred with the same brush. But we want to be sure that the brush that determines our future is not tarred. And I think we’re in the. I don’t think anybody’s got a better position to do it than Berkshire. Becky?