点评：对继任接班人的问题一直持续了好多年，巴菲特白手起家和芒格共同创造了伯克希尔商业帝国，不靠资源、高科技跻身于世界市值前十。如果知道一些正态分布，钟形曲线的中点是普遍的常态，进入21世纪后伯克希尔只是抓住了两次机会，第一次是2008年的次贷危机，巴菲特在本次回答时说本应做得更好，那就是更多、更快地投入资金。第二次机会是投入360亿美元购买苹果。现在的问题是伯克希尔规模太庞大了，很难获得速度上的优势，最简单的例子就是近5年没有跑赢标普500指数。即使新的领导人和巴菲特能力相同，也无法获得巴菲特的优势，因为巴菲特在70年的投资生涯中已经创立了个人品牌，这就像古代的镖师行业，镖师赚钱最主要还是靠名声，只要把自己的旗号高高挂起，土匪强盗就会乖乖放过，因为大家都不想和强者过着，总是想着找软柿子捏。巴菲特只要等待收购、求助的电话铃声响起，在合适的机会出手就行了，所以普通投资学习价值投资的机会也逐渐少了。
巴菲特不想退休的根本原因是喜欢这个工作，跳着踢踏舞去上班，笔者的观点是还是尽早辞去CEO为好，保留董事长职位就可以了，合适的时机分拆旗下保险、能源、铁路公司上市，企业周期也符合历史周期率，不过巴菲特不退休也有个客观的好处，那就是一直在思考，会更加长寿。
Becky Quick：好的，下一个问题来自 Slavin Vucelbrot。作为首席执行官，Abel 先生将负责管理巴菲特先生管理的普通股投资组合，还是由 Combs 先生和 Weschler 先生行使这一职能？由于投资可以定义为相对选择的学科，那么重大资本配置决策（例如大型收购）是否可以与普通股选择过程分开？
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我会说这个决定实际上是在我不在的时候做出的，如果他们做不同的决定，我可能会试图回来纠缠他们。但我不确定通灵板能否完成这项工作。因此，这项工作，我永远不知道它是否得到解决，但我很放心，它将由董事会做出，他们拥有大量的智慧，他们对一个不同寻常的机构有着奉献精神，他们会想出办法。但我想说，如果我是那个董事会的一员，并做出决定，我可能会离开，因为我了解 Greg。我会把资本分配交给格雷格。他非常了解企业。如果你了解企业，你就会了解普通股。我的意思是，如果你真的知道企业是如何运作的，你就是一个投资经理。你管理多少，可能只是你自己的基金，也可能是其他人的基金。如果你真的主要对管理资产感兴趣，也就是钱在哪里，你知道，你真的不必了解这类事情。但显然，泰德或托德不是这样。但我认为责任应该完全由格雷格承担。
责任一直在我身上，我把一部分外包出去了。我过去对如何处理这个问题有不同的看法，但我认为责任应该由首席执行官承担。首席执行官做出的任何决定都可能有助于履行这一责任。这取决于他或她在管理资金时做出的决定。所以我想说，随着伯克希尔的资金规模越来越大，我对此的想法已经有所发展，我们不想让 200 个人管理 10 亿美元，这根本行不通。我认为，当你处理我们即将拥有的资金时，你必须非常有策略地思考如何做大事，我认为格雷格有能力做到这一点。我认为我过去错过了很多东西，所以现在我在这方面做得更明智了。但你知道，如果 2008 年和 2009 年发生类似的事情，我会做得更好。但可以肯定的是，它不会完全像 2008 年或 2009 年那样。但你也可以说，有时可以非常迅速地获得巨额资金。
也许每五年一次，可能更像每十年一次。但随着世界变得越来越复杂、越来越相互交织，出错的可能性也越来越大。在这里探讨可能发生的各种事情的可能性是没有意义的。但你确实希望能够在事情发生时采取行动。我认为首席执行官应该是能够权衡购买企业、购买股票以及在其他人都不愿意采取行动的时候可能出现的各种事情的人。2008 年，人们不是没有钱，而是他们无能为力。我们确实拥有一些资本，甚至愿意和渴望采取行动，政府实际上把我们视为资产而不是负债，这是我们的优势。我认为，随着我们资本的增长，所有这些品质将变得更加重要。所以我认为格雷格可能比我更开心，因为当时发生了非凡的事情，我们是合乎逻辑的选择。你永远不知道它会是下周、明年还是下个十年，但你不会，你知道，它不会是一个世纪以后，这是肯定的，而且会更加交织在一起。这是复杂的。从某种意义上说，世界金融形势变得越来越脆弱。它解决了很多小问题，但却让它更容易受到大问题的困扰。格雷格，这是否困扰着你？
Greg Abel：不直接回答这个问题，我认为有一件重要的事情，那就是我认为在我们经历任何转型时，重要的是要知道伯克希尔今天所遵循的资本配置原则将继续存在，沃伦。我想这就是我想要传达的信息，我们有自己的运营业务，保险，非保险，我们将限制这些业务。如果合适，我们将为他们提供成功和成长所需的资本。同时，当他们有剩余现金时，我们期待从他们那里获得资本回报。然后，正如我们讨论过的，或者你提到过的，总是将潜在的新业务作为一个整体或部分来看待，正如你一直强调的，我完全同意，我们在投资一家企业时总是会考虑股票，无论是 1% 还是 100%，但我们关注的是这家企业，我们关注的是这家企业的经济前景，它的可持续性如何，以及十年后它会是什么样子。我们最初投入的资本是否面临指数级风险，或者说风险设定在哪里，这种状况如何。
当然，我们显然会继续将多余的现金投入美国国债这种最安全的投资，因为我们知道我们想要维持资产负债表的堡垒有两个原因。一是采取行动，同时也要始终保护我们的股东。我们希望保持伯克希尔现在的地位，确保它能够持续下去。
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，当他这么说的时候，我真希望多年来我一直是第二名，而不是第一名。你知道，没有什么比我们现在做的事情更有趣了，我们比以往任何时候都处于更有利的位置。然而，我们并没有能力获得与美国企业普遍赚取的收益相比非凡的回报。我希望我们能稍微好一点，但下个世纪没有人会比我们好得多。这变得非常困难。很难预测谁会是赢家。如果你回顾一下，就像我们在几次会议前所做的那样，作为十年间全球排名前 20 的公司，你会发现游戏并不像看起来那么简单。获得一个不错的结果其实是相当容易的，只要你不被说服放弃过去行之有效的做法，不被潮流所迷惑，不听从那些与股东利益不同的人的意见。
好的，我们去第一站。
Becky Quick: All right, the next question comes from Slavin Vucelbrot. As CEO, will Mr Abel be in charge of the portfolio of common stocks that Mr Buffett has been managing, or will this function be exercised by Mr Combs and Mr Weschler? As investing could be defined as the discipline of relative selection, can major capital allocation decisions, such as large acquisitions, be separated from the common stock selection process?
Warren Buffett: Yeah, I would say that decision actually will be made when I’m not around, and I may try and come back and haunt them if they do it differently. But I’m not sure the Ouija board will get that job done. So that job, I’ll never know the answer on whether it get covered, but I feel very comfortable about the fact that it will be made by a board, that they’ve got loads of brainpower, they’ve got a dedication to an unusual institution, and they will figure things out. But I would say that if I were on that board and were making the decision, I would probably, knowing Greg, I would just leave. I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. And he understands businesses extremely well. And if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks. I mean, if you really know how business works, you are an investment manager. How much you manage, maybe just your own funds or maybe other people. And if you really are primarily interested in getting assets under management, which is where the money is, you know, you don’t really have to understand that sort of thing. But that’s not the case with Ted or Todd, obviously. But I think the responsibility ought to be entirely with Greg.
The responsibility has been with me, and I farmed out some of it. And I used to think differently about how that would be handled, but I think the responsibility should be that of the CEO. And whatever that CEO decides may be helpful in effectuating that responsibility. That’s up to him or her to decide at the time they’re runningthe money. So I would say that my thinking on that has developed to some extent as the sums have grown so large at Berkshire, and we do not want to try and have 200 people around that are managing a billion each of just doesn’t work. And I think that when you’re handling the sums that we will have, you’ve got to think very strategically about how to do very big things, and I think Greg is capable of doing that. I think I’ve missed a lot of stuff in the past, so I’m actually wiser about doing that now. But I, you know, I would do it better this time around in 2008 and ‘9, if something akin to that happened. But it won’t be exactly like 2008 or ‘9, you can be sure of that. But you also can say that there will be times when having huge sums available extremely quickly.
Maybe it will be once every five years, probably be more like once every ten years or something. But as the world gets more sophisticated, complicated, and intertwined, more can go wrong. And there’s no sense going through here exploring the possibilities of the different things that could happen. But you do want to be able to act when it happens. And I think the chief executive should be somebody that can weigh buying businesses, buying stocks, doing all kinds of things that might come up at a time when nobody else is willing to move. It wasn’t that people didn’t have money in 2008. It’s that they were paralyzed. And we did have the advantage of having some capital and a willingness and eagerness,even, to act, and a government that, in effect, looked at us as an asset instead of a liability. And I think that all of those qualities will be even more important as our capital pile grows. So I think Greg may have even more fun than I had in a period when extraordinary things were happening and we were the logical place to go. You never know whether it’ll be next week, next year, next decade, but you won’t be, you know, it won’t be a century from now, that is for sure, and be more intertwined. It’s sophisticated. The world financial situation gets the more vulnerable it gets in a certain sense. It solves a lot of small problems, but it leaves it more vulnerable to large problems. Greg, does that bother you at all or not?
Greg Abel: Without directly answering the question, I think there’s one important thing, is I think as we go through any transition, it’s important to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire lives by today will continue to survive, Warren. And I think that’s the thing I’d want to communicate, that we have our operating businesses, insurance, non insurance, we’re going to cap that. We’ll provide them the capital necessary to be successful and grow, if it’s appropriate. At the same time, we’re expecting return of capital from them when they have excess cash. And then, as we’ve discussed, or you’ve touched on always looking at potentially new businesses as a whole or in a piece, and as you’ve always highlighted, and I fully agree, it’s, we’ll always look at equities as we’re investing in a business, either 1% or 100%, but we’re looking at the business, we’re looking at the economic prospects of that business, how sustainable it is, and what it will look like ten years from now. And is our, the capital we originally put in at exponential risk, or where’s that risk set, that profile.
And then, of course, and then we’ll obviously continue to always put excess cash in the safest investment there is in us treasuries, knowing we want to maintain that fortress of a balance sheet for two reasons. One, to act, but also to always protect our shareholders. We want to maintain the position Berkshire is in now, realistically for to ensure it endures.
Warren Buffett: Well, when he says that, it makes me wish I’d stayed around to be number two instead of number one in this process over the years. It’s, you know, it doesn’t get more fun than what we’re doing, and we’re better positioned than ever before. We’re not positioned though, however, to earn extraordinary returns versus what american business generally earns. I would hope we could be slightly better, but nobody’s going to be dramatically better over the next century. It gets very hard. It gets very hard to predict who the winner will be. If you look back, as we did a few meetings ago, as the top 20 companies in the world at ten year intervals, you realize the game isn’t quite as easy as it looks. Getting a decent result actually is reasonably, should be reasonably easy if you just don’t get talked out of doing what has works in the past, and don’t get carried awaywith fads, and don’t listen to people who have different interests in mind than the interests of our shareholders.
Okay, we’ll go to station number one.