Schumpeter
Charlie Munger was a lot more than Warren Buffett’s sidekick
In business, he was a paragon of common sense
Nov 29th 2023
熊彼特
查理·芒格不仅仅是沃伦·巴菲特的助手
在商界，他是常识的典范
Every May tens of thousands of the faithful flock to Omaha, Nebraska, hometown of Berkshire Hathaway, to bask in the presence of the investment firm’s two leaders: Warren Buffett, known for his folksy genius, and Charlie Munger, for his killer zingers. But for the truly hard core, for many years a more cloistered gathering took place near Schumpeter’s current abode in Pasadena, a lush city on the edge of Los Angeles. At the Pasadena Convention Centre, Mr Munger alone would hold forth, his dry wit in full flow. Recording devices were not allowed, but notetakers scribbled furiously as they tried to keep up.
每年五月，成千上万的忠实投资者涌向内布拉斯加州的奥马哈市，这里是伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的故乡，他们争相一窥这家投资公司两位领袖的风采：以其接地气的天才而闻名的沃伦·巴菲特，以及以其锐利的俏皮话而出名的查理·芒格。然而，对于真正的铁杆粉丝来说，多年来在舒姆彼得目前居住的帕萨迪纳市举行了一个更为私密的聚会，这是洛杉矶郊外的一座郁郁葱葱的城市。在帕萨迪纳会展中心，芒格先生独自一个人发表演讲，他的幽默机智完全展现出来。现场不允许录音，但是参会者们却忙碌地记录，试图跟上他的步伐。
The last one took place in 2011, when Mr Munger, who died in an la hospital on November 28th aged 99, was a sprightly 87-year-old. It was his last shareholder meeting as head of Wesco, a financial conglomerate about to be wholly swallowed up by Berkshire, and hence the end of his one-man show. He spoke for three hours. As usual, he poked gentle fun at the audience, telling them, “You folks need to find a new cult hero.” Yet he clearly enjoyed delivering what one scribe called his sermon from the “Church of Rationality”. He beamed when they gave him a standing ovation.
最后一次聚会发生在2011年，当时芒格先生在洛杉矶的一家医院去世，享年99岁，那时他还是一个精神矍铄的87岁老人。那是作为Wesco——即将被伯克希尔全盘吸收的金融集团——的负责人，他举行的最后一次股东大会，也就是他的独角戏快结束时的情形。他连续讲了三个小时。像往常一样，他轻松调侃听众，告诉他们，“你们需要找一个新的崇拜英雄。”然而他显然很喜欢传达一位抄写员所称的来自“理性教堂”的布道。当观众为他起立鼓掌时，他显得非常高兴。
Looking back through notes of that meeting, the themes he dwelt on seem random. He discussed what he felt was his inadequate legacy, though he took pride in attributes such as basic morality, self-discipline and objectivity. He advised rich parents how to look after their children (don’t try to motivate them with artificial hardships, he said, because they will inevitably hate you for it). He discussed the importance of being rational amid mistaken biases (which he called the “Lollapalooza effect”). He even put in a good word for The Economist, describing it, according to one notetaker, as his favourite “adult magazine”.
回顾那次会议的笔记，他关注的主题似乎很随机。他讨论了自己所感到不足的遗产，尽管他为自己的基本道德、自律和客观感到骄傲。他向富有的父母们提出了如何照看他们的孩子的建议（他说，不要试图用人为的艰苦来激励他们，因为他们最终一定会因此讨厌你）。他讨论了在错误的偏见中保持理性的重要性（他称之为“洛拉帕祖效应”）。他甚至对《经济学人》说了几句好话，根据一位记录者的说法，他描述它是他最喜欢的“成人杂志”。
And yet those were not scattershot thoughts. They echoed a carefully thought out worldview on life, investment and business culture that he expounded on extensively in writings and speaking engagements whenever he was not in the spotlight as the Sage of Omaha’s curmudgeonly sidekick. As Mr Buffett put it, Mr Munger influenced Berkshire’s entire investment philosophy by introducing the wisdom that it is “better to buy a good business at a fair price than a fair business at a good price”. In other words, he deserves a big share of the credit for turning the financial conglomerate into the $785bn powerhouse that it has become.
然而那些并不是散漫无序的想法。它们呼应了他在生活、投资和商业文化上深思熟虑的世界观，在他不作为奥马哈圣人的暴躁小伙伴出场时，在他的写作和演讲中广泛地阐述。正如巴菲特先生所言，芒格先生通过引入“以公道的价格买入一家好公司胜过以好价格买入一家一般公司”的智慧，影响了伯克希尔的整个投资哲学。换句话说，他功不可没，他为将这个金融集团转变为如今的7850亿美元的商业巨头，贡献了巨大的功劳。
Though the two men bore an uncanny physical resemblance (Munger, at least later in life, was more portly), intellectually they had different strengths. Mr Buffett is a master of the plain and simple; Mr Munger was a complex thinker (“Charlie does the talking, I just move my lips,” Mr Buffett once quipped). Like the best duos—think Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris at the New York Yankees, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney in The Beatles—their strengths complemented each other, producing something almost magical. In the case of Messrs Buffett and Munger the magic lasted for 60 years. During that time they famously never had a row.
尽管这两个人在外表上有着惊人的相似性（芒格至少在晚年更为魁梧），但在智力方面他们各有所长。巴菲特先生擅长简单明了；芒格先生则是一个复杂的思考者（“查理负责说话，我只是动动嘴唇，”巴菲特曾经开玩笑说）。就像最佳搭档一样——想想微软的比尔·盖茨和保罗·艾伦，纽约洋基队的米奇·曼托尔和罗杰·马里斯，披头士乐队的约翰·列侬和保罗·麦卡特尼——他们的长处相互补充，创造出了几乎是魔术般的东西。在巴菲特和芒格的情况下，这种魔力持续了60年。在此期间，他们出名地从未有过争吵。
As with many successful partnerships, they shared common roots. Like Mr Buffett, Mr Munger grew up in Omaha. As teenagers both worked in the Buffett family store at different times. They met in Omaha in 1959, not long after Mr Buffett, then owner of a fledgling investment firm, had been told by a potential client that he resembled the erudite Mr Munger, who was six years his senior. Mr Munger came to replace Benjamin Graham, a legendary “value“ investor, as Mr Buffett’s sounding board, with four qualities that Janet Lowe, his biographer, said resembled Graham’s. He was honest, realistic, profoundly curious and unfettered by conventional thinking. Those are as good traits as any to summarise his approach to business.
与许多成功的合作关系一样，他们有共同的起点。和巴菲特一样，芒格在奥马哈长大。少年时代的他们在不同的时间都曾在巴菲特家族的商店工作。他们于1959年在奥马哈相见，那时巴菲特刚成为一家初创投资公司的老板，不久后被一位潜在客户告知他长得像多学识的芒格，芒格比他大六岁。芒格取代了传奇的“价值”投资者本杰明·格雷厄姆，成为巴菲特的智囊团，他的传记作家珍妮特·洛威说芒格有四个品质与格雷厄姆相似。他诚实、现实、好奇心强烈，不受传统思维的束缚。这些品质足以概括他对商业的方法。
In terms of honesty, he put the trustworthiness of business leaders, and the soundness of their accounts, above all else. He hated gimmickry (the accounting term ebitda, he said, should be substituted with “bullshit earnings”). He was openly scornful of the “megalomania” of some investment bankers, whom he blamed for the financial crisis of 2007-09. In a deft parody penned in 2011 he described the perpetrators as Wantmore, Tweakmore, Totalscum and Countwrong. America was Boneheadia.
在诚实方面，他把商业领袖的信誉和他们账目的准确性置于首位。他讨厌噱头（他说，会计术语EBITDA应该被替换为“胡说八道的盈利”）。他公开鄙视某些投资银行家的“妄想狂”，他指责他们是2007-09年金融危机的罪魁祸首。他在2011年巧妙地讽刺中描述了这些肇事者为Wantmore（想要更多），Tweakmore（调整更多），Totalscum（完全骗子）和Countwrong（统计错误）。美国成了Boneheadia（愚蠢国）。
As for realism, he was no softy when it came to business. He believed in “moats” that safeguarded firms’ brand value, pricing power and scale. Take Wrigley’s Chewing Gum versus a cheaper competitor, for instance. “Am I going to take something I don’t know and put it in my mouth—which is a pretty personal place, after all—for a lousy dime?” Handle new technologies with care, he preached. Know your “circle of competence”. Don’t rush into new ventures you don’t understand.
在现实主义方面，当涉及到商业时，他绝不软弱。他相信维护公司品牌价值、定价权和规模的“护城河”。以箭牌口香糖对比一个更便宜的竞争对手为例。“我会把一个完全不认识的东西放进我嘴里吗？毕竟嘴巴是很私人的地方——为了区区十分钱？”他传道，要谨慎对待新技术。了解你的“能力圈”。不要急于进入你不了解的新企业。
For him, curiosity was a lifelong project, and he believed that business people should constantly refresh their knowledge, challenging their assumptions and learning from mistakes more than successes. As he said on the first page of “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”, a compilation of his writings and speeches: “Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behaviour accordingly. If your new behaviour gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group…then to hell with them.”
对他来说，好奇心是一生的事业，他相信商人应该不断更新他们的知识，挑战他们的假设，从错误中学习，超越成功。正如他在他的著作和演讲合集《穷查理宝典》第一页所说：“获取世俗的智慧并相应地调整你的行为。如果你的新行为使你在同龄人群中有一点暂时的不受欢迎……那他们见鬼去吧。”
Invert, always invert
Finally, think unconventionally. Don’t follow the herd. He loved Confucius and boldly encouraged America to “get along with China” despite the current tensions. Apple, he said, was an example of how engaging with China was both good for business and good for China. Everything that worked in the opposite direction, he said earlier this year, was “stupid, stupid, stupid”. Even by Mr Munger’s standards, that was blunt; he normally expressed himself with humour, not exasperation. But it summed up what was probably his greatest contribution to business thinking. He was a paragon of that old-style virtue—common sense.
“反过来思考，总是反过来思考”
最后，要有非传统的思维。不要随波逐流。他热爱孔子，并大胆鼓励美国“与中国和睦相处”，尽管当前局势紧张。他说，苹果公司就是一个例子，它展示了与中国接触对商业和中国都有好处。他在今年早些时候说，所有背道而驰的行为都是“愚蠢，愚蠢，愚蠢”。即使按照芒格先生的标准，这也是直白的；他通常用幽默而不是懊恼来表达自己。但这概括了他对商业思维可能最伟大的贡献。他是那种古老美德的典型——常识。■
英语知识点：
1. sidekick [ˈsaɪd.kɪk]：副手，亦称搭挡，指的是帮助另一位主角的角色。
2. paragon [ˈpær.ə.ɡɑːn]：模范。在此，指 Charlie Munger 以其常识在商界堪称模范。
3. zingers ['ziŋərz]：嘲笑或讽刺的言论。在这篇文章中，是指 Munger 的犀利言论。
4. cloistered ['klɔɪstərd]：闭门不出的，像在修道院中的。这里用来形容那个私密的集会。
5. conglomerate [kənˈɡlɑː.mər.ət]：企业集团。在这里，是指 Wesco，一个即将完全被 Berkshire 购买的金融集团。
6. Lollapalooza effect [lɑː.lə.pəˈluː.zəɪˈfekt]：“震撼效应”，可能指在许多人认为不可能发生的事情发生时所产生的强烈共鸣。
7. curmudgeonly ['kəːmʌdʒ(ə)nli]：孤僻的，捉摸不定的。指 Charlie Munger 作为Warren Buffett 的“阴沉老伙伴”。
8. erudite ['ɜːrədaɪt]：博学的。在这里，是赞美 Munger 的。
9. megalomania [ˌmeɡ.ə.loʊˈmeɪ.ni.ə]：自大狂，指对权力或重要性的夸大的幻想或欲望。
10. deft [dɛft]：灵巧的。在这里，形容 Munger 独特且巧妙的讽刺方式。
11. moat [moʊt]：护城河，这里指保卫公司品牌价值、定价权力和规模的策略。
12. scornful ['skɔːnfl]：轻蔑的。此处形容 Munger 对某些投资银行家的态度。
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