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成為沃倫·巴菲特其人

本期導讀

巴菲特被譽為華爾街的「股神」，他的一舉一動影響著全球市場的走勢。人們往往只津津樂道於「股神」的成功，殊不知「股神」並不擅長社交，拙於處理私人情感問題，童年時期也經歷過家庭的「情傷」。

正文

本文選自紐約客

譯者：楊婧嫻

校對：李煦

筆記&策劃：王瑞

Currency

"Becoming Warren Buffett," the Man, Not the Investor

成為沃倫·巴菲特其人，而非投資者巴菲特

By James Surowiecki

January 31, 2017

「Becoming WarrenBuffett,」 a new HBO documentary, examines its subject』s complicatedrelationships with the people he loved most. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HBO

一檔HBO新推出的紀錄片《成為沃倫·巴菲特》，審視了主人公和最愛之人彼此間的複雜感情

Over the endcredits of the new HBO documentary 「Becoming Warren Buffett,」 we hear the incongruous sound of Buffett singing 「Somewhere Over theRainbow,」 in a cracking voice. It』s a nod to a moment, earlier in the film,when Buffett』s daughter, Susie, says that she has a sweet spot for the songbecause her father used to sing it to her when she was a little girl. And,while it might seem like an odd way to end a film about the world』s most famousinvestor, it』s actually surprisingly fitting. The documentary, which was madewith the co?peration of Buffett and his family, deals with Buffett the businessman and investor, but it』s Buffett the man and his complicated, and often difficult, relationships with the people he loved most that are thefilm』s real subject.

隨著HBO的新紀錄片《成為沃倫·巴菲特》正片結束，演職員表開始滾動，巴菲特用與平時不一樣的沙啞嗓音唱起了「飛越彩虹」。與此遙相呼應的是之前在影片中，巴菲特的女兒蘇茜曾說道這首歌令她感到幸福，因為兒時父親常常唱這首歌給她聽。對於這部有關世界最具盛名的投資者的電影而言，這樣的結局看似古怪，實際上卻是恰如其分。這部關於商人兼投資者巴菲特的紀錄片，得到了巴菲特及其家庭成員的配合，但這部影片真正的主題，卻是巴菲特其人，和他與最愛之人彼此間複雜而又棘手的感情。

We are stilltreated to the greatest hits of Buffett』s business career. We hear about hisearly entrepreneurial endeavors—selling soda and gum door to door, deliveringfive hundred papers a day—as well as about his love of numbers and hisinterest, from a very young age, in the stock market. Buffett describes hisdiscovery of Ben Graham, one of the fathers of value investing, from whom helearned the idea of buying 「cigar butts」—companies that are on their last legsbut are nonetheless so undervalued by the stock market that you can still makemoney off them (as you can get one last puff from a discarded cigar butt). Andwe get a picture of his partnership with Charlie Munger, who was instrumentalin moving Buffett from buying bad businesses at cheap prices to buying greatbusinesses—most famously, Coca-Cola—for reasonable prices, a move that was thefoundation of his immense fortune.

觀眾仍有幸看到巴菲特投資事業的巔峰時刻。他早年打拚的血汗故事家喻戶曉——挨家挨戶上門推銷蘇打水和口香糖，一天之內派送五百份報紙——以及他對數字的喜愛，和自幼對股票市場的興趣。巴菲特講述自己如何發掘價值投資之父之一的本·格雷厄姆，從後者身上他學到了買「煙蒂」的點子——「煙蒂」，是苟延殘喘，然而卻被股票市場嚴重低估，仍有利可圖的公司（就像被丟棄的煙蒂還可以抽一口一樣）, 我們也看到了他和查理·孟格的合作，後者在推動巴菲特從購買「煙蒂」轉變成投資優秀公司方面發揮了巨大作用-最為人所知的是可口可樂公司這一案例，此舉為巨鱷起家奠定了基礎。

But what makes「Becoming Warren Buffett」 far more interesting than a simple hagiography is theexploration of Buffett』s personal life, and, in particular, his relationshipwith his first wife, Susan, who died in 2004. Personal relationships were notsomething that Buffett navigated naturally. At one point in the movie, he says,「I don』t have a mind that relates to the physical universe very well,」 and thesame seems to have been true of the emotional universe. Buffett, by his owndescription, was socially awkward as a kid (he attributes much of his latersuccess to taking a Dale Carnegie public-speaking course as a young man), andthe film is a portrait of a person for whom financial questions 「are easy,」 asBuffett says. 「It』s the human problems that are the tough ones.」

但是讓《成為沃倫·巴菲特》比簡簡單單一部偉人傳記更有意思的是它深入巴菲特的個人生活，尤其是他和2004年去世的首任妻子蘇珊的感情。巴菲特並不擅長處理私人情感。在影片中，他說，「我的精神世界和周圍環境格格不入」，對感情亦如是。巴菲特自言有如孩童般拙於社交（他將自己後期的練達大部分歸功於年輕時所上的戴爾·卡耐基公共演講課程），對於這部影片描繪的巴菲特而言，金融問題「不在話下」，他說「真正的難題是與人相處」。

In some ways,Buffett was the archetypal absent-minded professor, so locked inside his ownhead that he wasn』t always aware of what was going on around him. (He says hedoesn』t recall the color of the walls of his bedroom or his living room.) Thiscould be hard on the people around him. 「Physical proximity with Warren doesn』talways mean he』s there with you,」 Susan says, in an old 「Charlie Rose」interview. His children reiterate this sentiment. His son, Howard, says thatit』s difficult to connect with Buffett on an emotional level, 「because that』snot his basic mode of operation.」 Susie, his daughter, says that you had tospeak to him in sound bites, because if you went on for too long you would「lose him to whatever giant thought he has in his head at the time.」

某種程度而言，巴菲特屬於典型的「心不在焉」，沉溺自我，無心周身人事（他說不記得卧室或客廳牆體的顏色）。這讓身邊人很頭疼。「和沃倫靠的再近，他也可能是心不在焉」，蘇珊過去在一檔訪談節目《查理·羅斯》上說道。他的子女也翻開這本舊賬。他的兒子，霍華德說，很難走進巴菲特的心門，「因為溫情本就不是他運行的基本設定」。他的女兒，蘇茜說，同他講話必須簡明扼要，因為一旦開始長篇大論，「他就會遊離到他腦海中正構建的的什麼宏偉藍圖中去」。

To some degree,Buffett』s cerebral, inward nature seems to have been there from the start. Butthe film also suggests, gently, that it may have been amplified by his familylife when he was a boy. Buffett』s father—whose portrait still hangs on the wallof his son』s office at Berkshire Hathaway—was, by his account, a great dad,affectionate and inspirational. 「The best gift I was ever given was to have thefather I had when I was born,」 Buffett says. But his mother, who was brilliantand ambitious, was another story. She was plagued with chronic headaches, and,Buffett says, 「You didn』t want to be around her when she was having theheadaches. She would lash out.」 Buffett』s sister Doris is more blunt, sayingthat she remembers 「being terrified」 of her mother. 「When I』d wake up in themorning, I』d listen to hear her voice. I could tell by her voice if it wasgoing to be a terrible day or not.」 It hardly seems like a stretch to speculatethat Buffett』s emotional reserve might have been, in part, a reaction to theturmoil at home.

從某方面而言，巴菲特理智而又內向的的天性似乎是與生俱來的，但是這部影片也隱晦地暗示出家庭生活在其少年時代推波助瀾的作用。巴菲特父親的肖像至今仍懸掛在他伯克希爾哈撒韋公司的牆上，他說自己有位偉大的慈父，對他循循善誘。「我收到過最好的禮物，就是此生能有他這樣一位父親，」巴菲特說。但他才華橫溢卻又野心勃勃的母親卻截然不同。她有慢性頭痛纏身，巴菲特說「她頭痛起來，你都不會想在她左右，她會遷怒於你。」巴菲特的妹妹多麗絲則更加直接，說她記得自己曾被母親「嚇壞了」。「我早上起床時，都會側耳尋聲，這一天或好或糟，聽她聲音就知道。」巴菲特出於對糟心家事的應對，才在情感上有所保留，這種推測也不算牽強。

But Buffett has,over the years, pushed back against that reserve, and the movie examines him asa man trying, haltingly but successfully, to open himself up to the world andlet more of it in. Buffett attributes this effort almost entirely to his firstwife: 「I was a lopsided person. She put me together.」 Susan moved away fromOmaha (where Buffett has lived for more than sixty years) in 1977, but the twoof them remained close (and never divorced), and she helped to orchestrate hisrelationship with Astrid Menks, whom he married after she died. Susan—who isin some senses the real star of the documentary—seems tohave been the driving force behind Buffett』s evolution as a person. She』s theone who got him interested in civil rights and feminism, who pushed him tobecome more of a public figure and to give more of his money away before duringhis lifetime. (Buffett, with his love of compound interest, wanted to pile itup and then donate it after he died.) The paradox of the movie』s title is that,in order to become 「Warren Buffett,」 the avuncular, modest figure who』s theanti-Trump, Buffett needed in many ways to stop being himself, or at least tostop being the self that came most naturally.

但多年來，他從未向這種情感保留屈服，這部影片表現了他躊躇著，成功敞開心胸，悅納世界。巴菲特說這幾乎完全是第一任妻子的功勞：「我是一個失衡的人，她讓我完整。」1977年，蘇珊從巴菲特住了60多年的奧馬哈搬走，但是他倆一直很親密，並未離婚。巴菲特和阿斯特里德·孟克斯就是由她牽線的，兩人在她去世後結為眷侶。某種意義上，蘇珊才是這部紀錄片里真正的明星——她讓巴菲特成為一個完整的人。是她讓巴菲特對民權和婦女運動產生興趣，在她的鞭策下，巴菲特更像是一位公眾人物，在有生之年捐贈家財。（巴菲特之意在於複利，他原打算自己百年後再捐出積蓄的財產。）影片名字的一大悖論在於，要想成為反特朗普、慈愛又謙遜的巴菲特，他需要在很多方面不再做自己，或至少是要摒棄與生俱來的自我。

There』s anotherparadox the film hints at, too: the qualities that made it challenging forBuffett to deal with people are the very qualities that made him such abrilliant investor. This is more subtle than just the fact that Buffett lovednumbers so much. In fact, his true genius isn』t just his ability to identifyundervalued companies; it』s his ability to buy and hold onto those companiesthrough the inevitable fluctuations that all markets experience. That』s notjust about insight. It』s also about an ability to divorce yourself fromemotion, to be rational at a time when other people are acting irrationally,and to be calm when others are fearful.

影片暗示的另一悖論在於：問鼎投資，成也性格；難於相處，敗也性格。這比巴菲特對數字的痴迷更加微妙。實際上，他真正的天分不在於慧眼識得價值被低估的公司，而是能在所有市場不可避免地浮浮沉沉時，買進和持有那些公司。那不僅是一種洞察，而且也是一種抽離情緒的能力，在別人被不理智支配時保持冷靜，別人望而卻步時保持清醒。

On the walls of theBerskhire offices, framed front pages from days of market panic, like the 1929financial crash, serve as a reminder not to succumb to the passions of themoment. That』s something that all investors know they』re supposed to do. Butactually being able to do it, being able to buy when everyone else isscreaming, 「Sell,」 and not to buy when everyone is telling you to do so, is avery hard thing for most of us. For Buffett, it seems to have been as naturalas breathing. But it』s not difficult to see how that hyperrationality, thatability to divorce yourself from what』s going on around you, might also make itdifficult truly to connect with the events of everyday life, which happen,after all, in the moment. Buffett was born to be great at investing. He had towork really hard to be good at living.

在伯克希爾公司的牆上，1929年金融危機那樣市場恐慌時期的頭版被裝裱起，以示勿向一時狂熱折腰。所有投資者都知道自己要這麼做，但能在所有人瘋狂喊「賣」時買，在所有人讓你買時逆其道行之，對我們絕大多數人來說確實很難。對於巴菲特而言，這就和呼吸一樣自然。然而，這樣的高度理性，超然事外的能力，可能會讓人難於真正觸及當下的每日生活。巴菲特生來擅長投資，卻需要花一番功夫才能擅長生活。

外媒簡介

《紐約客》（The New Yorker），也譯作《紐約人》，是一份美國知識、文藝類的綜合雜誌，內容覆蓋新聞報道、文藝評論、散文、漫畫、詩歌、小說，以及紐約文化生活動向等。《紐約客》現由康得納斯出版公司出版。《紐約客》不是完全的新聞雜誌，然而它對美國和國際政治、社會重大事件的深度報道是其特色之一。他一方面保持了輕鬆幽默的主題風格，另一方面它也很快成為嚴肅新聞報道和文學創作的一處顯要出版窗口。

學習筆記

① incongruous

adj. strange, and not suitable in a particular situation 不合適的，不相稱的

eg: Such traditional methods seem incongruous in our technical age.

此類傳統方法似乎同我們今天的科技時代格格不入。

② puff

n. an act of breathing in sth such as smoke from a cigarette, or drugs 吸，抽（把氣體經口和鼻引到體內的動作）

eg: He had a few puffs at the cigar.

他吸了幾口雪茄。

③ hagiography

n. a book about the life of a person that praises them too much 吹捧性的傳記

eg: He writes a hagiography for himself.

他為自己寫了一本吹捧性的傳記。

④ archetypal

adj. having all the important qualities that make sb/sth a typical example of a particular kind of person or thing 典型的

eg: The Beatles were the archetypal pop group.

披頭士樂隊是典型的流行音樂樂隊。

⑤ reiterate

v. to repeat sth that you have already said, especialy to emphasize it 重申

eg: Let me reiterate that we are fully committed to this policy.

我再說一遍，我們完全擁護這項政策。

⑥ lash out

v. to criticize sb in an angry way 怒斥，嚴厲斥責

eg: In a bitter artical he lashed out at his critics.

他寫了一篇尖刻的文章，猛烈抨擊批評他的人。

⑦ lopsided

adj. unequal or uneven, especially in an unfair way 不平等的，不公正的

eg: a lopsided 8-0 victory

8比0一邊倒的勝利

⑧ avuncular

adj. behaving in a kind and nice way to someone who is younger, rather like an uncle 叔伯般地；慈愛的

eg: an avuncular pat on the shoulder

慈愛的拍拍肩膀

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