저자: 미상 · 외국인
요약 보기
버크셔 해서웨이가 아마존 지분을 소량 매수했다는 소식을 계기로, 버핏·멍거의 가치투자 철학과 아마존 투자 판단을 논한다. 두 사람은 모든 투자는 결국 가치투자이며 아마존 매수자들도 가치투자 원칙을 따른다고 강조한다. 구글 광고 수익성을 간파하지 못한 것을 실수로 인정하고, 아이비엠(IBM)과 애플 투자 판단의 차이를 설명한다. 제프 베이조스가 소매와 클라우드 두 산업을 동시에 키운 점을 높이 평가하며, 버크셔는 아마존 지분을 보유한 적이 없다고 말한다.
다듬은 글
With the full understanding that Warren had no input on the Amazon purchase and that relative to Bergkshire, it's likely a small stake, the investment still caught me off guard. I'm wondering if I should begin to think differently about Bergkshire looking out, say, 20 years. Might we be seeing a shift in investment philosophy away from value investing principles that the current management has practiced for 70 years?
Amazon is a great company, yet it would seem its heady shares 10 years into a bull market appear to conflict with being fearful when others are greedy. Considering this and other recent investments like Stoneco, should we be preparing for a change in the price versus value decisions that built Birkshire?
Yeah, it's interesting that the term value investing came up because I can assure you that both managers who and one of them bought some Amazon stock in the last quarter which will get reported in another week or 10 days. He is a value investor. the idea that value is somehow connected to book value or low price earnings ratios or anything.
As Charlie has said, all investing is value investing. I mean, you you're you're putting out some money now to get more later on. And you're making a calculation as to the probabilities of getting that money and when you'll get it and what interest rates will be in between. All the same calculation goes into it.
Whether you're buying some bank at 70% of book value or you're buying Amazon at some very high multiple of reported earnings, Amazon, the people making the decision on Amazon are absolutely much value investors as I was when I was looking around for all these things selling below working capital years ago.
So that has not changed. the two people that one of whom made the investment in Amazon, they are looking at many hundreds of securities and they can look at more than I can because they're managing less money and their their universe possible universe is is is greater but they are looking for things that they feel they understand what will be developed by that business between now and judgment day and cash and and it's not sales current sales can make some difference.
Current profit margins can make some difference. Tangible assets, excess cash, excess debt, all of those things go into making a calculation as to whether they should buy A versus B versus C. And they are got they are absolutely following val principles. They don't necessarily agree with each other or agree with me, but they are very smart.
They are totally committed to Bergkshire and they're very good human beings on top of it. So I don't uh second guess them on anything. Charlie doesn't second guess me on in 60 years. He's never second guessed me on investment. And uh uh the considerations are identical when you buy Amazon versus uh some say bank stock that's uh looks cheap statistically against book value or earnings or something of the sort.
uh in the end it all goes back uh to Esop who in 600 BC said you know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and when we buy Amazon we try and figure out whether or fellow that bought it tries to figure out whether there's three or four or five in the bush and how long it'll take to get to the bush how certain is that they're he's going to get to the bush you know and and who else is going to come and try and take the bush away and all of that sort of thing and we do the same thing and and uh it really it really Despite quite a lot of uh equations you'll learn in in in business school, the basic equation is that of of ESOP and the and your success in investing depends on how well you were able to figure out how certain that bush is, how far away it is, and what the worst case is.
Instead of two two birds being there, only one being there, the and the possibilities of four or five or 10 or 20 being there. And uh that will guide me that will guide my successors in investment management at Bergkshire and I think they'll be right more often than they're wrong shortly. Well, Warren and I are a little older than some people and yeah, near everybody and we're not the most flexible probably in the whole world.
And of course, if something as extreme as this internet development happens and you don't catch it, why other people are going to blow by you. And I don't mind not having caught Amazon early. The guy is kind of a miracle worker. It's very peculiar. I I give myself a pass on that, but I feel like a horse's ass for not identifying Google better.
I think Warren feels the same way. Yeah, we we screwed up. He's saying we blew it. Yeah. And we did have some insights into that because we were using them at Geico and we were seeing the results produced and we saw that we were paying $10 a click or whatever it might have been for something that at a marginal cost of them exactly zero.
And and uh we saw it was working for us. So, we can see in our own operations how well that Google advertising was working and we just sat there sucking our thumbs. So, we're ashamed. We We atone. We're trying to atone. Maybe Apple was atonement. When he says sucking our thumbs, I'm just glad he didn't use some other example.
Warren, for years, you stayed away from technology companies, saying they were too hard to predict and didn't have most. Then you seemed to change your view about technology when you invested in IBM and again when you recently invested in Apple but then on Friday you said IBM had not met your expectations and sold a third of our stake.
Do you view IBM and Apple differently? And what have you learned about investing in technology companies? Well, I do view them differently but you know obviously when I bought the IBM started buying it six years ago I thought it would do better in the six years that have elapsed than it has. and Apple I regard them as being quite different business.
I I think Apple was much more of a consumer products business in terms of the in terms of sort of analyzing uh modes around it and consumer behavior and all that sort of thing. It's obviously a a product with all kinds of tech built into it. But in terms of laying out what their prospective customers will do in the future as opposed to say IBM's customers, it's a different sort of analysis.
that doesn't mean it's correct and we'll find out over time. But they are two different types of decisions and and and uh I was wrong on the first one and we'll find out whether I'm right or wrong on the second, but I don't I do not regard them as apples and apples and I don't quite regard them as apples and oranges, but there it's somewhat in between on that.
Charlie. Well, we avoided the tech stocks because we felt we had no advantage there and other people did. And I think that's a good idea not to play where the other people are better. But, you know, if you ask me in retrospect, what was our worst mistake in the tech field? I think we were smart enough to figure out Google.
Those ads work so much better in the early days than anything else. So, I would say that we failed you there. And we were smart enough to do it and didn't do it. We do that all the time, too. Yeah, we were their customer very early on with with Geico, for example, and we saw I don't these figures are way out of date, but I as I remember, you know, we were paying them 10 or $11 a click or something like that.
And anytime you're paying somebody 10 or 11 bucks every time somebody just punches a little thing where you got no cost at all, you know that that's a good business unless somebody's going to take it away from you. And uh so we were close up uh seeing the impact of that. And incidentally, if any of you don't have anything to do in your hotel rooms tonight, just just keep punching progressive or something and don't really do that.
The thought just happened across my mind. But, you know, that is, you know, you've never seen a business almost never seen a business like it where and and I think for lasic surgery and things like that, I I think the figures were, you know, 60 or 70 bucks a click with no incremental no cost. So, and I knew the guys.
I mean, they actually designed their prospectus. They came to see me and they a little bit after the original one when they went public, a little bit after Bergkshire even. And so I I had plenty of ways to ask questions or anything of the sort, educate myself, but but I blew it. Uh and uh we blew we blew Walmart, too.
When when it was a total cinch, we were smart enough to figure that out and we didn't. Yeah. Figuring out execution is what counts. Well, anyway, well, and I could be making two mistakes on IBM. I mean, the the, you know, it's harder to predict in my view the winners in various items or how much price competition will enter in to something like cloud services and all that.
that I will I I made a statement the other day which it's really remarkable and I was asked Charlie whether he could think of a situation like it where one person has uh built an extraordinary economic machine in two really pretty different industries. you know almost simultaneously as has happened from a standing start at zero
from a standing start at zero with other with competitors with lots of capital and everything else to do it in retailing and to do it with the cloud like Jeff Bezos has done I mean I mean people like the melons invested in a lot of different industries and all of that but he has been in the [clears throat] in effect the CEO simultaneously of two businesses starting from scratch uh that if you know Andy Grove used to use at Intel used to say, you know, think about if you had a silver bullet and you could shoot it at and get rid of one of your competitors, who would it be?
Well, I think that both in the cloud and in retail, there are a lot of people that would aim that silver bullet at Jeff and he's done a it's a different sort of game, but he's, you know, at the Washington Post, he's played that hand as as well as anybody, I think, possibly could. So it's it's a remarkable business achievement where he's been involved actually in the execution, not just bankrolling it, of of two businesses that that are are probably as feared by their competitors almost and uh uh as any you can find.
It's Charlie, you got further thoughts? Well, we're sort of like the melons, old-fashioned people who've done all right and Jeff Bezos is a different species and we missed it entirely. Incidentally, we never owned a share of Amazon thing else to do it in retailing and to do it with the cloud like Jeff Bezos has done.
I mean I mean people like the melons invested in a lot of different industries and all of that but he has been in the in effect the CEO simultaneously of two businesses starting from scratch. Uh that if you know Andy Grove used to use at Intel used to say you know think about if you had a silver bullet and you could shoot it and get rid of one of your competitors who would it be?
Well, I think that both in the cloud and in retail, there are a lot of people that would aim that silver bullet at Jeff and he's done a it's a different sort of game, but he's, you know, at the Washington Post, he's played that hand as as well as anybody I think possibly could. So it's it's a remarkable business achievement where he's been involved actually in the execution, not just bankrolling it, of of two businesses that that are are probably as feared by their competitors almost and uh uh as any you can find.
It's Charlie, you got further thoughts? Well, we're sort of like the melons, old-fashioned people who've done all right, and Jeff Bezos is a different species. And we missed it entirely. Incidentally, we never owned a share of Amazon.
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