저자: 워런버핏 · 외국인
요약 보기
한 줄 결론: 지속 가능한 경쟁우위는 산업마다 형성 기간이 다르며, 좋은 투자자는 타고나기보다 기질과 합리적 사고 훈련으로 만들어진다는 취지의 대담이다. 경쟁우위 형성 기간: 마이크로소프트처럼 빠르게 형성될 수도 있지만 See's Candies, 코카콜라처럼 수십 년이 걸리는 경우가 많다. 경쟁우위 상실 가능성: 아서 앤더슨처럼 평판 등 우위가 매우 빠르게 사라질 수 있으므로, 빠르게 얻은 우위는 빠르게 잃을 수 있다는 점을 경계해야 한다. 산업 변화기 주의: 산업이 변화하는 시기에는 자신이 살아남을 것이라 믿는 사람이 많지만 실제 결과는 다른 경우가 많다. 스니커즈 사례: 수십 년간 1위 캔디바를 유지한 이유는 소비자 습관이 쉽게 바뀌지 않기 때문이다. 투자자 자질: 버핏은 그레이엄과 필립 피셔의 책, 그리고 멍거의 영향을 받았다고 언급한다. 핵심은 주식을 사업의 일부로 보고 사업 특성과 자본 수익성을 분석하는 것이다. 지능과 성공: 높은 IQ가 필수는 아니며 IQ와 투자 성과의 상관관계는 크지 않다. 오히려 높은 IQ를 가졌음에도 실패하는 사람들의 공통 요인을 피하는 것이 중요하다. 멘탈 요건: 자신의 능력 범위를 정확히 정의하고, 탐욕을 통제하며, 군중의 의견과 무의미한 정보로부터 격리되어야 한다. 독서와 사고: 그레이엄, 피셔의 책과 연차보고서를 읽고, 이해 가능한 기업과 그렇지 않은 기업을 구분하라는 조언이다. 출연자 전망: 대상 자산에 대한 가격 방향 예측 발언은 없음.
다듬은 글
Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Jerry McLachlin. I'm from Sonteo, California. First, I just want to thank you for all the effort you put into the annual reports, the letters, and these conversations. I learned a lot, and they are great, which is why I am here, having traveled half the country.
You said that large companies are those that have economic leverage. And I understand this phrase as sustainable competitive advantage . Do companies start their journey with a sustainable competitive advantage, or do they need to develop it over a very long period of time? And on what fundamental principles, in your opinion, do companies successfully develop sustainable competitive advantages?
Of these, which do you think is the most durable and which is the least? Well, sometimes they can develop it very quickly. I mean, Microsoft, from an operating system perspective, it was a relatively quick development, but it was a rapidly growing industry, and things were changing very quickly. On the other hand, if you think back to See's Candies, which started in 1921, there was no way to build a sustainable competitive advantage that could be seen in less than a decade.
You opened one store at a time, at first no one had heard of you, and then some people found out. And a box of candy was something people might buy once or twice a year for holidays or other occasions. So you couldn't establish yourself in the minds of Californians in a year, two, or five just because you were making great boxes of candy.
So , it depends on how the industry itself develops. Walmart has done a fantastic, incredible job in a fairly short period of time. But even they developed in small towns, moving forward and improving their methods in the process. But I would say that in new industries there can be different things.
Let's say we have a sustainable competitive advantage at NetJets , and this is an industry that only started in 1986 when Rich Santulli had this idea, and it was in its infancy for many years after that . But what he has built, is building, and is strengthening—this is a sustainable competitive advantage .
However, this largely depends on the industry you work in. I mean Coca-Cola, 1886, Jacobs' Drugstore in Atlanta, Georgia. You know, John Pemberton invented this product. And did he have a sustainable competitive advantage that day? If he had, he lost it because he sold the business for $2,000. He was an amateur.
Well, that's how it was. It took decades and thousands of competitors during that time. And you know, they painted one barn at a time and designed one ad for the Saturday Evening Post, and everything in that vein. And, you know, during World War II, General Eisenhower turned to Mr. Woodruff and said, "I want every American soldier to have a Coke at arm's length." He said, "I want something that reminds them of home." And he built many bottling plants for Coke around the world.
And you know, it was a huge push , but it was about 60 years after the product was invented. So for certain types of products it takes a long time, but I can imagine regions of the world where a huge competitive advantage is built in a very short period. I would say that in the field of animated feature films, for example, Walt Disney succeeded.
And you know, after Snow White and a few subsequent films, it took him a while to start making money from it, but then it became Disney, and for a long time there was no one else in that space , and quite quickly. Charlie. Yes, there are many different models that create sustainable competitive advantage , and there are also models that can lose it very quickly.
Just ask Arthur Andersen— it was a very famous name in America not long ago. And I think it would be harder to lose the good reputation of Wrigley's Gum than the reputation of Arthur Andersen. I think there are some simply incredible competitive advantages that people have gained over time. And the big problem with the investment process is that they are so obvious that stocks are sold at very high prices.
Snickers has been the number one candy bar for probably 30 or 40 years. Yes. Yes. It turns out that everyone in Russia loves Snickers. Yes. How to actually suppress them? You know, I mean, we make candy. We would love to displace Snickers, but it's hard to think of ways to knock them out of the first place.
I mean, my guess is that they'll be number one in, you know, 10 years in the candy bar business. And this list doesn't change much in this industry, because if you think about the nature of how you make this choice, which bar to choose, if you chewed mint gum five years ago and you buy a pack of gum today, chances are it's going to be mint.
There are things you experiment with a lot , and there are things you shouldn't play with if you're already happy with them. And you can understand this by observing your own habits and the habits of the people around you. But there are others. Typically, if someone can gain a competitive advantage very quickly , you should be worried that they can lose it just as quickly.
When an industry is in a state of change, there are many people who consider themselves the ones who will survive or succeed, but in practice it turns out quite differently. I have come to the conclusion that great investors are made, not born. Do you and Mr. Munger agree with this conclusion? If so, why?
If not, why not? And if you agree, what would you advise someone who wants to become a great investor to do? Also, what mental qualities do you think a person should have if they want to become a great investor? Thank you very much. Yes, I largely agree with what you said. I would say I don't know how much...The ability to stand out from the crowd, for example.
I do n't know how much of this is an innate trait and how much is acquired, but it's a quality that you need. I completely agree with you that a high IQ is not mandatory. You don't have to be extremely smart to be successful as an investor. I would say you are 100% right that I learned from Graham to a very large extent, and I learned a little bit more from Phil Fisher, and I learned a lot from Charlie.
I. The proof is in my results; actually, from the age of 11 to 19 I read Garfield Drew, Edwards and McGee, and all sorts of...I mean, I read every book, Gerald Loeb, I read every investment book that existed, and I was not getting anything out of it, and I had no real investment philosophy. I tried a lot of things and I was really interested, but I wasn't making any money.
And I read Ben's book in 1949 when I was at the University of Nebraska, and it really changed my whole perspective on investing. And, essentially, it taught me to think of a stock as a share of a business. It seems so obvious now. You might say: why should this be considered the Rosetta Stone? But in a sense, this is the Rosetta Stone.
Once you learn that you are not looking at fluctuating charts or at the advice of people who write: "buy because it will go up next week," "there will be a split," or "the dividends will increase," but are buying a business—you are laying the foundation for rational investing. And there's no reason why it requires a high IQ.
And there is no reason why you should have any special natural gifts. I really think that certain temperament traits can be innate or can be acquired. They can be strengthened by experience, being partly innate, but later reinforced by various life circumstances. But this is extremely important. I mean, you have to be realistic.
You must accurately define your scope of competence. You must know what you don't know and not give in to temptation. You have to have an interest in money, I believe, or you won't be successful in investing. But if you are very greedy, it will be a disaster because greed will overcome rationality. But I think the same books I read shaped my thinking about business and investing.
I believe they remain relevant even now. I mean, I haven't seen anything better in the last 25 years. And I review most of the books that are published. I haven't seen anything that improves on Graham and Fisher's approach to investing: thinking of stocks as businesses and then analyzing what makes a business successful.
That's all you need to invest, plus have the safety margin that Ben and others talk about. It's a simple process, but it certainly requires discipline. It requires isolating oneself from conventional wisdom. You just, you just can't, you shouldn't pay any attention to it. It just doesn't mean anything.
So you can't ...the idea of listening to a bunch of people telling you things and all that. It's just a waste of time, and, you know, it would be better to just sit and think for a while. I mean, there haven't been any analytical reports on custom frame manufacturers. You know, it just doesn't make sense, and they would n't be useful anyway.
You just have to, you have to think, but think about them in terms of their business characteristics, what they can earn on the capital raised, and in that vein. Uh, I would just read, you know, I would read Graham and Phil Fisher's books, and then I would read a lot of annual reports. Think about businesses and try to figure out which ones you understand and which ones you don't.
And you don't have to understand them all. Just forget about the ones you don't understand. Charlie. Yes. At a deeper level of generalization. If you have a passionate interest in knowing why things happen, you are always trying to understand the world through the question "why does this happen" or " why doesn't this happen." Uh, this way of thinking, maintained over a long period of time, gradually improves your ability to cope with reality.
Uh, and if you don't have that mindset, I think you're probably doomed to failure, even if you have a pretty high IQ. Yes, I would say that we have seen relatively little correlation between investment performance and IQ. I mean, it's not like there are a lot of people with IQs of 80 who are doing amazing things, but there are all sorts of people with high IQs who are not achieving anything.
And it's probably more interesting to look at why people with high IQs don't succeed, and then try to rule out those factors. Try to get rid of them in yourself so that there is something left that will work, because as Charlie always says: "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I never have to go there." So yes, if you study people who went bankrupt financially, having a high IQ, and you ask yourself, "Why did they go bankrupt?" You will see certain characteristics that are present in most cases, and you just need to make sure that you either do not have them , or, if you do, you can get rid of them or somehow control them.
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