CNBC：Warren Buffett - Keeping America Great（2）

阿瑟

CNBC：Warren Buffett -  Keeping America Great（2）
　　www.cnbc.com/id/33901003
　　BECKY:  OK.  [APPLAUSE]  Another question.
　　QUESTION:  Hi.  My name is Josh Porter.  I'm a first-year from North Reading, Massachusetts.  It's an honor to have you both here.  So we just went through the worst financial crisis of hopefully all of our lifetime.  And I know it keeps a lot of Americans up at night, you know, worrying about their future.  What, if anything, keeps either of you up at night?
　　BUFFETT:  I try to live my life so nothing keeps me up at night.  [APPLAUSE]  I don't like to sound, you know, like a mortician during an epidemic or anything, but last fall was really quite exciting for me.  [LAUGHTER]  I don't wish it on anybody, but there were things being offered.  There are opportunities for us to do things that didn't exist a year or two earlier.  So I really don't -- I don't want to be in a position where I am leveraged or something of the sort that does keep me up at night.  I did not worry about the ultimate survival of our economic system.  We were messed up.  Wasn't any question about that.  But the plants haven't gone away.  The cornfields haven't gone away.  The talent of the American people hasn't gone away.  The innovativeness of the next Bill Gates hasn't gone away.  This country was going to do fine.  I knew that.  We just had to get things straightened out.  And we're well on the way to having that happen.
　　BECKY:  Bill, you mentioned --  [APPLAUSE]  You mentioned before that you called Warren and he said, ‘Yeah, we should maybe be a little worried.’   Did you stay up late that night worrying about it?
　　GATES:  No.  The financial system, fortunately, good leadership has a lot of self-correction built into it.  I think there are a few things that could surprise us that are negative.  You know, big terrorist event sometime in the next 20 years, that would be a big negative.  And a pandemic, which we're actually having in terms of the rate of spread of a new flu, one right now.  And fortunately, its actual impact is very modest, way less than any such thing.  So you have to keep your eye out for a few outliers like that.  Those are the two that I would point to.  But overwhelmingly, the rest of the system, you know, there is self-correction built into it.  The long-term thing that I don't lose sleep over but I worry about is that we do have our education system, particularly the K through 12 part, not improving as much as we should.  And it's an important system for opportunity, it's an important system for the economic strength of the country, and since it hasn't improved that much, that's a bit scary and needs a lot more attention.
　　BUFFETT:  Becky, if you had a wonderful farm and you knew the next 50 years there would be five droughts but there would be 45 good years, I mean, you would not become paralyzed thinking about the five drought years.  You would recognize that you've got a system that works very well over time, and that's our American economic system.
　　BECKY:  Since we just had the drought year, does that make it less likely for the --
　　BUFFETT:  No.  If you study statistics at Columbia, you'd recognize that -- [APPLAUSE]
　　QUESTION:  I'm Peter Lawrence, first-year student from Columbia.  And, first of all, thank you both so much for coming here.  Mr. Buffett, the recent runup in the market has been historic.  And it seems that many people question the sustainability of the current price level.  Do you think the rally is for real?
　　BUFFETT:  What's going to happen tomorrow, huh?  [APPLAUSE]  Let me give you an illustration.  I bought my first stock in 1942.  I was 11.  I had been dillydallying up until then.  I got serious.  [LAUGHTER]  What do you think the best year for the market has been since 1942?  Best calendar year from 1942 to the present time.  Well, there's no reason for you to know the answer.  The answer is 1954.  In 1954, the Dow … dividends was up 50%.  Now if you look at 1954, we were in a recession a good bit of that time.  The recession started in July of '53.  Unemployment peaked in September of '54.  So until November of '54 you hadn't seen an uptick in the employment figure.  And the unemployment figure more than doubled during that period.  It was the best year there was for the market.  So it's a terrible mistake to look at what's going on in the economy today and then decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on it.  You should decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on how much you're getting for your money, long-term value you're getting for your money at any given time.  And next week doesn't make any difference because next week, next week is going to be a week further away.  And the important thing is to have the right long-term outlook, evaluate the businesses you are buying.  And then a terrible market or a terrible economy is your friend.  I don't care, in making a purchase of the Burlington Northern, I don't care whether next week, or next month or even next year there is a big revival in car loadings or any of that sort of thing.  A period like this gives me a chance to do things.  It's silly to wait.  I wrote an article.  If you wait until you see the robin, spring will be over.
　　BECKY:  But at the same time --  [APPLAUSE]  Warren, you have repeatedly said over the last year that investing in American areas is a bet on the future of America.  But you have also invested overseas, companies like BYD.  You both spent some time in China.  Are there more opportunities overseas or right here in America?
　　BUFFETT:  I see more opportunity in the United States.  We're the biggest economy and we're looking for big deals.  But I am delighted to find something, you know, whether it's in China or whether it's in Israel, like Iscar or whatever it may be.  There are more opportunities in the United States than anyplace else.
　　BECKY:  Bill, you agree with that?
　　GATES:  Well, yes.  The U.S. benefits as the globe benefits.  You're not going to have a case where the rest of the world does poorly and the U.S. does well.  Our fate is tied to open trade, innovation everywhere.  You know, even the Burlington, some of the stuff that's on those railroads might come from other countries.
　　BUFFETT:  I hope so.
　　GATES:  It's exciting to see what's going on in China.  It's great for us.  If we had a choice for all the people in China to be as rich as we are versus be as poor as they were back in 1979, we'd be way better off to say, you know, let's have them be consumers and inventors just like we are.  They are a long ways away from that.  But they are a large enough population that great things are happening there.  And, you know, many countries that we thought of as basket cases and we sent lots of aid to, like Brazil or Mexico or Thailand, are now big contributors.  So it's good for the world that it's not as dependent just on the U.S.  But the U.S. is where the energy revolution is likely to happen, the IT revolution will continue.  We are expected to lead the way.
　　BECKY:  All right.  We're going to be back with another question in just a moment.  [APPLAUSE]  And by the way, if you have the chance, how would you like to have Warren Buffett or Bill Gates as your career counselor?  Well, we're going to have that when we come right back.  [APPLAUSE]
　　BECKY:  Welcome back, everybody.  We have more questions for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.  And we are running through them, but let's keep them going.  Got a question right over here.
　　QUESTION:  My name is Erica Braley and I am a second-year student.  My question is for Mr. Gates.  What is the most important thing you do every day?
　　GATES:  Hmmm.  [LAUGHTER]  [APPLAUSE]  Well, I do a lot of variety.  I think reading a lot, you know, and continuing to learn.  I'm in a lot of new areas in the Foundation, education, health.  And I love reading a lot.  So I think, you know, arming myself with that knowledge and sitting down with people who live the topic and brainstorming with them, that's what helps me back the right people and make sure I know what's going on.  So I guess I'd say learning is what is the key thing.  [LAUGHTER]  [APPLAUSE]
　　BECKY:  What was that?  Let's get to another question.
　　QUESTION:  Mr. Buffett, Mr. Gates, thank you for being here today.  My name is Justin Heyman, I'm a second-year MBA, as I get ready to graduate, I was wondering, what's the one thing that your MBA didn't prepare you for when you got out into the real world?
　　BUFFETT:  Well, I was -- it prepared me very well, not the whole degree, but specific professors prepared me very well for what I wanted to go into.  I knew I was interested in investing, like I say, from the time I was six or seven years of age.  So I was lucky that I found what turned me on early on.  And I had these two marvelous professors here at Columbia that just being around -- I had read all the stuff they had written.  So it wasn't I was acquiring lots of incremental knowledge but I was getting inspired.  They were terrific for me.  They treated me like a son.  They would take me out to dinner.  Ben Graham did the same thing for me.  So it gave me confidence in myself.  It just propelled me into a field I already love with a terrific tailwind from these professors that believed in me. [APPLAUSE]  But let me add one point because -- to the MBA situation.  Right now, I would pay $100,000 for 10% of the future earnings of any of you.  So anybody that wants to see me after this is over -- [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]  If that's true, you are a million-dollar asset right now, right, if 10% of you is worth 100,000?  You could improve -- many of you, and I certainly could have when I got out, just in terms of learning communication skills.  You know, it's not something that is taught.  I actually went to a Dale Carnegie course later on in terms of public speaking.  But if you improve your value 50% by having better communication skills, that's another $500,000 in terms of capital value.  See me after the class and I'll pay you 150-thousand.  [APPLAUSE]
　　BECKY:  Warren, you bring up your time here.  I don't know if you can see the monitors back here, but we did take a look at your yearbook and steal your picture from 1951 year.
　　BUFFETT:  Uh-oh.
　　QUICK:  I think we have a picture in the back.  There you are.  [APPLAUSE]
　　BUFFETT:  I don't think I'd pay $100,000 for 10% of that guy.  [LAUGHTER]
　　BECKY:  Another question right here.
　　BUFFETT:  Hi.  My name is Oleg Cheesh.  I'm a second-year MBA student here.  My question is for Mr. Gates.  You obviously worked very hard to get to where you are.  Could you reflect on what role pure luck played in your success?
　　GATES:  Well, I was lucky in many ways.  I was lucky to be born with certain skills.  I was lucky to have parents that created an environment where they shared what they were working on and let me buy as many books as I wanted to.  And I was lucky in terms of the timing.  The invention of the microprocessor was something profound.  And it turned out only if you were kind of young and looking at that could you appreciate what it meant.  And then I had been obsessed with writing software.  It turned out that was the key missing thing that would allow the microprocessor to have this incredible impact.  So in timing and skill set, in some of the people I was lucky enough to meet, you know, meeting Warren and talking to him, learning from him, it is unusual to have so much luck in one life, I think.  But it's been a major factor in what I have been able to do.
　　BECKY:  All right.  Another question right here.
　　QUESTION:  Hello, my name is Ugin Quinn, I'm from Deerfield, Illinois.  And I'm a first-year student at Columbia Business School.  I'd like to direct my question to both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates.  In the context of both your professional relationship and unique friendship, what do you admire most about each other?
　　BECKY:  OK.  Who wants to take that one first? [LAUGHTER]
　　BUFFETT:  My athletic ability.  Say that. [APPLAUSE]  Well, I would say what I really most admire about Bill is the view he has about what he should do with the wealth he's accumulated.  I mean, as he said, he was very lucky.  He was born in the right country, at the right time, with the right wiring and all of that sort of thing.  In the end, he knows he's a beneficiary of a terrific society, and not everybody gets the long straws like he and I did.  So he is -- and he has this view that every human life worldwide is the equivalent of every other human life, and he's backing it up not only with money, but backing it up with his time.  And his wife, Melinda, is backing it up with her time.  And they are really going to spend, you know, the last half of their lives or so using both money, talent, energy, imagination, all improving the lives of 6.5 billion people around the world.  That's what I admire the most.  [APPLAUSE]
　　BECKY:  Bill.
　　GATES:  With Warren, there are a lot of things you could pick, you know, his integrity as an example for the world.  His sense of humor.  But I think I'd pick his desire to teach, his desire to teach things that are complex and put them in a simple form so that people can understand and get the benefit of all his experience, all his models of how the world works.  He loves to teach.  And he does it meeting with students.  He does it in his annual newsletter.  He does it when he's talking to me on the phone.  It's a real gift that I admire incredibly. [APPLAUSE]
　　QUESTION:  Mr. Buffett, Mr. Gates, thank you for being here tonight.  I am Ibrahim Dolly, first year here at Columbia.  I came from Portugal.  I have a question for both of you.  You both knew early in your careers what you wanted to do in your life.  What advice do you have for those of us who are a little bit unclear?
　　GATES:  Well, finding the thing that you are passionate about and that you are good at can sometimes take a period of years.  I think Warren and I were lucky we kind of ran into it.  I wasn't even sure it was software.  I was kind of obsessed with it but then it wasn't clear it could be a career.  When that happened, it was great.  I think most other people get into their 20s and have to try out some different experiences.  And some things will expose you to a lot of different businesses, a lot of different work opportunities.  And I think you can make your first few jobs optimized for getting that exposure.  And then when you want it, see the thing that you want to be fanatical about and just jump on to that.
　　BECKY:  All right.
　　BUFFETT:  First of all, I'd say marry the right person. [LAUGHTER]  And I'm serious about that.  [APPLAUSE]  It will make more difference in your life.  It will change your aspiration, all kind of things.  It's enormously important who you marry.  Beyond that, I would say that do what you would do if you were in my position, where the money means nothing to you.  At 79, ... I work every day.  And it's what I want to do more than anything else in the world.  The closer you can come to that early on in your life, you know the more fun you're going to have in life and really the better you're going to do.  So don't be driven where you think the last dollar is presently or anything of that sort.  And then also go to work, if possible, for an organization or an individual that you admire.  I mean I offered to go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more in the business than him.  I didn't care what he paid me.  When he finally did hire me in 1954, I moved from Omaha to New York and I didn't know what I was getting paid until I got my first paycheck.  But I knew I wanted to work for Ben Graham.  And I knew I would jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning.  Go to work at a job that turns you on and a person that turns you on and institution.  [APPLAUSE]
　　BECKY:  Stay right here.  We will be right back.
　　LJW