点评：也许大家并不知道，巴菲特第一次通过谈判收购后亏掉了75%，在1965年致股东的信中（写于1966年）这样向股东汇报：
上半年，我们和两位持股 10% 的合伙人购买了巴尔的摩一家私营百货公司 Hochschild, Kohn & Co. 的全部股份。这是合伙企业历史上第一次通过谈判收购整个企业，
During the first half we, and two 10% partners, purchased all of the stock of Hochschild, Kohn & Co., a privately owned Baltimore department store. This is the first time in the history of the Partnership that an entire business has been purchased by negotiation.
这就是巴菲特回答中的巴尔的摩家具连锁店，人生的启程虽然不顺利，但是经过不断学习和实践，也就是回答中的统觉团（apperceptive mass），它是由德国哲学家和心理学家赫尔巴特发展的一种学习理论，就是不断把新知识融合到现有的知识系统，有一天就会豁然开朗，好像武侠小说的打通任通两脉。进化过程就是巴尔的摩家具连锁店Hochschild、See’s 糖果、吉列刀片、可口可乐、美国运通等，掌握了消费者的心理，投资iPhone时就知道它是具有粘性的商品，价格在15倍市盈率，是一个好的买入机会，现在苹果股价市盈率已经是33倍了，完成了戴维斯双击，基本收回了360亿美元投资，现在持有的苹果股票都是利润了。
提问者：您好。我叫 Stefan Wuernbacher。我是来自德国汉堡的股东。我从 2007 年起就来到奥马哈，我非常感激在这里学到的一切，无论是关于投资还是关于生活，尤其是创造环境，让我能够在整个健康生命周期中过上富有成效的生活。所以谢谢你。我的问题是沃伦，你最喜欢的持有期是永远。几十年来一直持有美国运通或可口可乐。伯克希尔最近买入并卖出 Markel，我相信你卖出并随后买入 Oxy，我想这一直发生在每个人身上。但你能给我们举个例子，说明你退出头寸时的想法吗？谢谢。
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，退出头寸有多种原因。一种是如果你需要钱，但这在我们这里并不常见。但我 20 岁开始创业时所做的每个决定都曾发生过这种情况，我认为那是格雷厄姆时代之后的时期，尽管我实际上是在 1942 年开始创业的，如果只说买股票的话。但无论如何，决策过程在某些方面确实非常有趣，因为我们——查理和我做决定的速度非常快。但实际上，经过多年思考，我们能够在决策出现时做出快速决定。
人们猜测我是如何决定向苹果公司投入大量资金的，原因我无法解释——查理和我都学到了很多东西，那就是消费者行为。这并不意味着我们认为我们可以经营一家家具店或其他任何东西。但我们在巴尔的摩收购一家家具连锁店时确实学到了很多东西。我们很快意识到这是一个错误。但犯了这个错误，让我们更聪明地思考资本配置过程是什么，以及人们未来在百货商店和各种我们不会真正关注的事情上可能会如何表现。
所以我们由此学到了一些关于消费者行为的知识。我们没有学会如何经营百货商店。下一个案例是 See’s 糖果。See’s 糖果也是一项消费者行为研究。我们不知道如何制作糖果。你知道，我们不知道。有很多我们不知道的事情。但是随着我们的发展，我们对消费者行为的了解越来越多。这种背景，以一种非常普遍的方式，导致了对苹果产品消费者行为的研究。在这种情况下，当我观察家具市场发生的事情时，人们离开商店，尽管我们以不赚钱的价格出售苹果产品，但它太受欢迎了，如果我们没有它，人们就会离开商店去百思买或其他地方。如果你了解 Blumkins 家族，他们无法忍受任何人离开商店，所以他们会采取相应的行动。
但后来你了解到人们对这个品牌感兴趣，然后你就有了上百万种不同的意见。但我认为心理学家称之为统觉质量。但有些东西会将你所做的大量观察和知识转化为行动。苹果公司就是个大动作。实际上，有些东西，我并不是想说得那么神秘，但我真的不能谈论，但我相信这是完全合法的，你知道的。它只是恰好进入了画面，吸收了所有其他观察。我想我的思维达到了他们所说的统觉质量，我真的不知道，但当我体验到它时，我知道这个现象。
也就是说，我们看到了一些东西，我觉得这是非常有进取心的。也许我以前用过这个例子，但如果你和大多数人交谈，如果他们有一部 iPhone 和一辆第二辆车，第二辆车花了他们 30,000 或 35,000 美元，他们被告知他们再也不能拥有 iPhone 了，或者他们再也不能拥有第二辆车了。他们会放弃第二辆车。但第二辆车的价格是他们的 20 倍。现在，人们不会这样考虑他们的购买行为，但我会考虑他们的行为。
所以我们只是在不知情的情况下做出决定。我不知道。iPhone 里面可能有一个小家伙。我不知道它是如何工作的。但我也知道它意味着什么。我知道它对人们意味着什么，我知道他们如何使用它。我认为我对消费者行为的了解足以让我知道它是伟大的产品之一，也许是有史以来最伟大的产品。它提供的价值令人难以置信。我认为它确实如此，而蒂姆·库克，我认为它有某个人，以他自己的方式，相当于史蒂夫·乔布斯的合作伙伴，他可以把一件事做得非常好，不止一个应用程序，但只有一件事。蒂姆是与他连续服务的完美合作伙伴。所以，当你看到它时，你就知道了。我在 1950 年去 GEICO 时确实看到了这一点。我不知道自己到底看到了什么，但 Lorimer Davidson 在星期六的 4 小时内就教会了我足够的知识，让我了解了汽车保险是什么，我知道了汽车是什么，我知道人们的想法。我知道他们不喜欢买它，但我知道没有它他们就不能开车。所以这很有趣。然后，他在那个星期六下午我坐在那里时填补了我脑子里的所有空白。你知道，这种情况时不时就会发生。你知道，你为什么会遇到这个人？你知道，房间里有这么多不同的潜在配偶，然后发生了一些事情，你决定这是你的那一个。你知道，我想 Rogers 和 Hammerstein 在某个迷人的夜晚写过这个。
好吧，我们对迷人夜晚的想法是想出一个生意，查理和我，这其中有一个方面是了解很多东西，拥有很多经验，然后看到一些让你眼前一亮的东西。这种情况会继续发生。我希望这种情况能发生在你身上几次，但你不能让它明天发生，但你可以为明天的发生做好准备，有时它会发生。
格雷格·阿贝尔：嗨，沃伦，他提到了 Oxy，我认为这是一个很好的例子，你最初是在周末经过深思熟虑后做出决定的。但随着你对 Oxy 和资产状况的了解越多，你就会发现他们有能力以卓越的方式运营，然后有一位强大的 CEO 负责资本配置。我认为你的信心反映在继续收购更多股份上，这就是那种过程。
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，正是如此。我的意思是，我一路走来学到了很多东西。我学到了足够多的东西。你知道，我从来没有听说过西方石油公司。西方石油公司恰好是它的后代，不是后代，但它是城市服务的延续，这是我买的第一只股票。当然，我对石油和天然气行业了解很多，但对地质学一无所知，所以我了解它的经济学。我脑子里储存了很多关于这个行业的各种东西，但我从来没有听说过 Vicki，直到，我想，那是周五或周六，我们在周日早上见面。我们达成了一项协议，但那只是一种协议。然后随着时间的推移，各种不同的事件发生了。你知道，我可以加入。我的意思是，一开始有无数的事情你无法预测，我在进行过程中形成了某些观点，但后来我随着时间的流逝学到了更多。然后，当我听到一个投资者的电话时，它为我把事情整理好了，但这并不意味着我知道我有一件万无一失的事情或诸如此类的事情。我不知道明年的油价会是多少，但我知道这是需要采取行动的事情。所以我们就这么做了，我们很高兴我们这么做了，但我们仍然不知道明年的油价会是多少。没人会这么想，但我认为很有可能这是个好决定，但也不是一定就是个好决定，我们有购买更多股票的选择权，当我们完成交易时，这对伯克希尔来说可能是一笔有价值的投资。我们参与其中，并且会一直参与下去。我们拥有的其他东西并不是永久的。
哦，顺便说一句，我应该把这个扔掉，因为有人猜测。我们已经卖掉了。我对派拉蒙的决定负有 100% 的责任。我读到有人猜测泰德或托德参与了这件事。不，这 100% 是我的决定，我们把所有东西都卖了，损失了不少钱，在这个行业里也会发生这种情况。但实际上拥有派拉蒙让我想得更远了。我喜欢更深入地思考，但我当然更认真地思考了整个问题：人们如何利用闲暇时间，经营任何类型的娱乐业务（无论是体育、电影还是其他什么）的指导原则是什么。我认为我现在比几年前更聪明了。但我也认为我更穷了，因为我以当时的方式获得了知识。但我只想非常清楚地说明，a，我们在派拉蒙上亏了钱，b，这一切都是我自己做的，伙计们，我不知道现在我是否已经预料到了贝基的某个问题，但我们会发现的。现在让我们拭目以待。是的，下一个轮到你了，贝基。
Questioner: Hello. My name is Stefan Wuernbacher. I am a shareholder from Hamburg, Germany. I’ve been coming to Omaha since 2007, and I’m deeply grateful for all the things I could learn here, both about investing and about life, in particular, creating circumstances that will enable me to lead a productive life during my entire healthy lifespan. So thank you for that. My question to Warren, your favorite holding period is forever. Holding American Express or Coca Cola for decades. Berkshire recently went in and out of Markel, and you, I believe, sold and later bought Oxy, which I think happens to everyone all the time. But can you maybe to us, give examples of your thoughts process when you exit positions? Thank you.
Warren Buffett: Well, there are various reasons for exiting positions. One is if you need the money, but that doesn’t happen very often with us. But it used to happen on every decision I made when I started when I was 20 years old, which I consider the post graham period, although I actually started in 1942, if you just talk about buying stocks. But in any event, the decision process is really quite interesting in certain ways because we made - charlie and I made decisions extremely fast. But in effect, after years of thinking about the parameters that would enable us to make the quick decision when it presented itself.
People have speculated on how I’ve decided to really put a lot of money into Apple, and for a reason I can’t -one thing that Charlie and I both learned a lot about was consumer behavior. That didn’t mean we thought we could run a furniture store or anything else. But we did learn a lot when we bought a furniture chain in Baltimore. And we quickly realized that it was a mistake. But having made that mistake, made us smarter about actually thinking through what the capital allocation process would be and how people were likely to behave in the future with department stores and all kinds of things that we wouldn’t have really focused on.
So we learned something about consumer behavior from that. We didn’t learn how to run a department store. Now, the next one was See’s candy. And See’s candy was also a study of consumer behavior. We didn’t know how to make candy. You know, we didn’t. There were all kinds of things we didn’t know. But we’ve learned more about consumer behavior as we go along. And that sort of background, in a very general way, led up to the study of consumer behavior in terms of Apple’s products. And in that case, while I watched what was happening at the furniture mart, in terms of people leaving the store, even though we were selling Apple at a price where we weren’t even making any money, but it was just so popular that if we didn’t have it, people left the store and went to best buy or someplace. And if you know the Blumkins, they can’t stand anybody leaving the store, so they behave accordingly.
But then you learned that had the interest in the brand, and then you had a million different inputs. But I think the psychologists call this apperceptive mass. But there is something that comes along that takes a whole bunch of observations that you’ve made and knowledge you have and then crystallizes your thinking into action. Big action in the case of Apple. And there actually is something, which I don’t mean to be mysterious, but I really can’t talk about, but it was perfectly legal, I’m sure, you know, that. It just happened to be something that entered the picture that took all the other observations. And I guess my mind reached what they call apperceptive mass, which I really don’t know anything about, but I know the phenomenon when I experience it.
And that is, we saw something that I felt was, well, enormously enterprise. Maybe I’ve used this example before, but if you talk to most people, if they have an iPhone and they have a second car, the second car cost them 30 or $35,000, and they were told that they never could have the iPhone again, or they could never have the second car again. They would give up the second car. But the second car cost them 20 times. Now, people don’t think about their purchases that way, but I think about their behavior.
And so we just decide without knowing. I don’t know. There may be some little guy inside the iPhone or something. I have no idea how it works. But I also know what it means. I know what it means to people, and I know how they use it. And I think I know enough about consumer behavior to know that it’s one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time. And the value it offers is incredible. And I think it has, and Tim Cook, I think it has somebody that, in his own way, is the equivalent of a partner, partner with Steve Jobs that could do one thing extraordinarily well and more than one application, but one thing. And Tim was the perfect partner to serve sequentially with him. So it’s, you sort of know it when you see it. I actually saw it with GEICO when I went there in 1950. I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing, but Lorimer Davidson on a Saturday, in 4 hours, taught me enough about what I understood what auto insurance was, and I knew what a car was, and I knew what went through people’s minds. I knew they didn’t like to buy it, but I knew they couldn’t drive without it. So that was pretty interesting. And then, but he filled in all the blanks in my mind as I sat there on that Saturday afternoon. And, you know, every now and then it happens. You know, why do you have this, the person you met? You know, there are all these different potential spouses in the room, and then something happens that you decide that this is the one for you. You know, I think Rogers and Hammerstein, that some enchanted evening, wrote about that.
Well, our idea of an enchanted evening is to come up with a business, Charlie and me, and there is an aspect of knowing a whole lot and having a whole lot of experiences and then seeing something that turns on the light bulb. And that will continue to happen. And I hope it happens a few times to you, but you can’t make it happen tomorrow, but you can prepare yourself for it happening tomorrow, and it will happen sometimes.
Greg Abel: Hey, Warren, he mentioned Oxy, which I think is a great example where you made the original decision basically on a weekend with some thought. But as the more you learned about Oxy and the asset position, they had their ability to operate in an exceptional manner, and then a strong CEO around capital allocation. I think your confidence, which was reflected in continuing to acquire more shares, is sort of that type of process.
Warren Buffett: Yeah, it’s exactly to the point. I mean, I just learned more as I went along. I learned enough. You know, I’d never, I’d heard of Occidental Petroleum. Occidental petroleum happens to have been a descendant, not a descendant, but it’s a continuation of city service, which was the first stock I bought. And, of course, I knew a lot about the oil and gas business, but I didn’t know anything about geology, so I knew the economics of it. I had a lot of various things stored in my mind about the business, but I never heard of Vicki until, I guess, it was a Friday or Saturday, and we met on Sunday morning. We made a deal, but that was one sort of deal. And then as time passed, all the kinds of different events happened. You know, I can came in. I mean, there are a million things you couldn’t predict at the start, and I formed certain opinions as I went along, but then I learned more as I went along. And then at a point when I heard an investor call that it put things together for me in a way it didn’t mean I knew I had a sure thing or anything like that. I don’t know what the price of oil was going to be next year, but I knew that it was something to act on. So we did, and we’re very happy we did, and we still don’t know what the price of oil is going to be next year. Nobody does, but I think the odds are very good that it was, but not a cinch that it was a good decision, and we’ve got options to buy more stock, and when we get through with it, it could be a worthwhile investment for Berkshire. We’re in it, and we’re in it for keeps. There are other things that we own that we aren’t in for keeps.
Oh, incidentally, I should just throw this out, since there’s been speculation on it. We’ve sold. A, I was 100% responsible for the paramount decision. I read speculation that either Ted or Todd had some involvement in that. No, it was 100% my decision, and we sold it all, and we lost quite a bit of money, and that happens in this business, too. But actually owning Paramount made me think even further. I like to think deeper, but I certainly thought harder even about the whole question of what people do with their leisure time and what the governing principles are of running an entertainment business of any sort, whether it’s sports or movies or whatever it might be. And I think I’m smarter now than I was a couple years ago. But I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did. But I just want to be very clear that, a, we lost money on Paramount, and, b, and I did it all by myself, folks, I don’t know whether I’ve anticipated one of Becky’s questions now, but we will find out. Let’s see now. Yeah, you’re next, Becky.