저자: 워런버핏 · 외국인
요약 보기
첫 줄 결론: 벤처캐피털 투자 열풍 속 대다수는 돈을 잃고, 자본이 거의 필요 없이 성장하는 고수익 사업이 최고의 사업이라는 주장. [사업 구조 변화] 과거 철강·철도·화학처럼 대규모 설비투자와 자본이 필요했던 자본집약 사업과 달리, 현재 시가총액 상위 기업들(구글·애플 등)은 자본 없이도 수조 원 가치를 창출한다고 설명. [벤처캐피털] 벤처투자 분야는 과열되어 많은 사람이 큰돈을 잃고 있으며, 크게 성공하는 사람은 소수라고 언급. [아마존 복기] 버핏은 제프 베이조스의 능력을 과소평가했다고 인정하며, 아마존 웹서비스(AWS)와 클라우드 가능성을 예상하지 못한 실수를 인정. 멍거도 놓친 투자를 언급하며 실수를 인정. [자사주 매입] 버크셔 주가가 저평가 구간에 들어가면 이사회가 자사주를 매입하는 것은 주주에게 불리하지 않다는 입장. 다만 과거 일부 기업이 정보 왜곡으로 주가를 낮춰 매입한 것은 비난받아야 한다고 언급. 버핏은 본인이 죽으면 주가가 오를 것이라는 전망도 밝힘. [시장 밸류에이션] 시가총액/GDP, 경기조정 PER 같은 단일 공식으로 시장 고평가·저평가를 판단할 수 없다고 주장. 장기 국채 금리가 중요한 변수라고 언급. 중국 시장에 대한 멍거의 낙관적 견해는 '물고기가 많은 곳에서 낚시하라'는 비유로 설명. [경영 교훈] 나쁜 사업을 일정 기간 겪어보는 경험이 사업 평가 능력을 키우지만, 권장할 만한 방법은 아니라는 견해. [리스크] 자본이 필요 없는 사업에 대한 기대가 과열되면 벤처 투자자 손실로 이어질 수 있다는 경고. [출연자 전망] 버핏: 자사주 매입 정책 및 버크셔 주가 상승 가능성에 낙관적. 멍거: 중국 시장에 긍정적.
다듬은 글
People in the venture capital field who are chasing this thing too much are now losing a lot of money. It's a great field , but not everyone will win big in it. Very few people will win big in this. Would shareholders have been better off if you had continued to invest in capital-based companies? We would love to find them.
I mean, there's no doubt that a high-return business that uses less capital and is growing is far better than a business that requires a lot of capital to grow. And it changes day by day , but I believe and I don't think it's appreciated enough. I believe probably the five largest market cap American companies and some days we are in that group and some days we are not.
Let's assume we are not in that group. On any given day, their market value is over $2.5 trillion, and that 2.5 trillion is a big number. I don't know what the total market cap of the American market is, but it's probably approaching 10% of the entire market cap of the United States. And if you take those five companies, you can actually run them without any equity capital.
Not at all. It's a very different world than when Andrew Carnegie was building a steel mill and then using the proceeds to build another steel mill , or the Rockefellers were building refineries. Typically, for a very long time in our capitalist system , making large amounts of money and growing required substantial capital reinvestment and large amounts of equity capital.
Railways are a good example of this. That world has really changed and I don't think people fully understand the difference. You do n't really need any money to run five companies that are collectively worth more than $2.5 trillion. They have surpassed many of the names that were familiar on the Fortune 500 list 30 or 40 years ago , whether it's Exxon or General Motors.
So we would like, I mean there's no doubt that a business that takes no capital and grows is the ideal business, and we have some businesses that earn extraordinary returns on capital but they don't grow. We still like them , but if they were in areas that could grow , rest assured, they would be at the top of our list.
We are not looking at what we can buy and what we understand well. But you are absolutely right that this is a much better way to invest money than buying capital-intensive businesses. Charlie. Yes. American chemical companies were once excellent investments. When DuPont sold for 20 times earnings and they kept building ever more complex plants and hiring more PhD chemists, it seemed like they had the whole world.
Now, most chemical products have become commodities in a way and it's a tough business to be a big chemical producer and other people like Apple and Google have come in and they're on top of the world. I think the questioner is fundamentally right that the world has changed a lot and the people who have made the right decisions and entered these new businesses are doing very well.
Yes. Andrew Mellon would be uh uh absolutely amazed to see today's high-capitalization companies. I mean the idea of creating billions in value quickly without any tangible assets. Quickly. Yes. But this is the world. I mean , when Google can sell you something where Gecko was paying $11 every time someone clicked.
This is very different from finding the right site and developing iron ore mines , which supply steel plants, and the railroads that transport the iron ore to the place where the steel is made. Our world was created and when we first looked at it, our American capitalist system was fundamentally built on tangible assets and reinvestment.
But it's much better if you're good at it. Being able to create a market value of billions without any capital. It's a completely different world from the old days and I think it's a world that will continue to exist. I mean I don't think the trend in that direction is going to end anytime soon. A lot of people who are now pursuing this kind of thing in the venture capital space are losing a lot of money.
It's a wonderful field, but not everyone will win big in it. Some people will win big in this. Amazon has been a huge game changer thanks to the genius of Jeff Bezos , whom Charlie previously called the business genius of our generation. What is your current view on Amazon and why has n't Berkshire invested in it?
Well, because I was so stupid that I didn't understand what was going to happen. Even though I admired Jeff , I had been a fan of his for a long time and had been watching what he was doing ; But I did n't think he would be able to succeed at this level , and I certainly had n't even considered the possibility of doing anything with Amazon Web Services or the cloud.
So if you had asked me if he would do anything to change the technology industry while he was building a retail business. You know, this was a very difficult task for me and I made a mistake in estimating. I actually underestimated the brilliance of his performance. I mean, it's one thing to dream of doing it all online , but it requires a lot of capability.
You can read his 1997 annual report , he had prepared a road map and he did it and did it very well. And if you haven't seen his interview with Charlie Rose three or four months ago , go to charlie.com and listen to it because you'll learn a lot. At least I learned. So I always thought it was expensive and I never thought it would get to where it is today.
I thought he was very smart , but when I looked at it three, five, eight or twelve years ago, I didn't think he would be where he is today. Charlie, how did you miss this ? It was very easy. What was done there was very difficult and it was not at all clear that it would all work so well. I do n't regret missing out on Amazon's achievements, but other things were easier and I think we messed up a bit.
We will not pursue that matter further. I meant Google. Well, we lost a lot of things. Yes, we lost a lot of things. And we will continue to do so. Yes. And luckily for us , we don't miss everything, Warren. This is our secret. We do n't lose them all. Okay, we should move on. I think they might start to be special.
Carol, the creator of this question , Atlanta's Jim Kefir, has even higher hopes for Warren's longevity than Charlie does. Mr. Buffett, we all hope that you will set the record for the oldest person in human history, but at some point you and our Charlie will be gone and selling pressure may come on Berkshire shares.
My question is, if Berkshire shares fall to a price where buying back shares is attractive , can we trust the board and top management to repurchase shares ? I asked this question because you said before that you do n't want to take advantage of shareholders and some parts in the owner's manual lead me to believe that this might be a situation where the board would not decide to buy back shares.
Can you clarify what action we can expect regarding share repurchases in the circumstances I mentioned ? Yes, as far as I'm concerned , if they buy the shares when they are undervalued , they are not taking advantage of the shareholders. They should only be purchased in that way. And, they should; But in doing so , there were some cases when Charlie and I were very young where very aggressive repurchases were done by people , and those repurchases made more sense then than they do today, but they were done by people who used different techniques to reduce shares.
And if you are trying to encourage your partners to sell at a lower price by using various techniques, including misinformation, I think that is reprehensible, but our board will not do that. I disagree with the first part , but I will definitely respond to the second. I think the stock has a high chance of going up.
If I die tonight, I think the stock will go up tomorrow. And there will be rumors about the company breaking up and other things like that. So, it would be a good Wall Street story that this guy was preventing something from falling apart , where some of the parts could sell for more than the whole.
They are not necessarily less valuable than the whole , but perhaps for a time they can and will sell for more than the whole. So, I would bet in this direction. But if for some reason it drops to a level that is attractive, I don't think the board is doing anything reprehensible by buying the stock at that time , no misinformation , nothing.
This means that the seller will get a slightly better price, they would get a lower price if the board were not buying , and the remaining shareholders will benefit. So, I think it's clear what they're going to do and I think it's clear that it's in the shareholders' best interest to do that and I think they're going to do it in the shareholders' best interest.
I mean, Charlie, we have such a board. Well, I think you or I could suddenly become stupid very quickly , but I don't think our board would have that problem. Well, I want to think about it. Earlier today, Mr. Munger commented on the assessment of the China vs. US market. My question to you is , are market cap to GDP and cyclically adjusted PE still valid ways to look at market valuation?
And how do they influence Berkshire's investment decisions ? Thank you. Charlie, I think you have reinforced Charlie's overall values in China very well. I would say that the two standards you mentioned are not at all the most important in our evaluation of securities. This, this is a little difficult.
People are always looking for a formula and there is an ultimate formula, but the problem is that you don't know what variables to put into it. And you know that the value of anything is the present value of all the cash it will ever distribute. That, that PE ratio, I mean, every number means something, sometimes more than others, but the valuation of a business, it, it's not limited to a formula where you can put in the variables exactly; And the two things you mentioned are very much in the discussion.
It's not that they are unimportant, but sometimes they are very important. Sometimes they can be almost completely unimportant. It's not as simple as having one or two formulas and then saying whether the market is undervalued or overvalued, or whether a company is undervalued or overvalued. The most important thing is future interest rates and you know people often put the current interest rate on it saying it's the best for them.
Ultimately, it reflects the market's decision. And you know, the 30-year bond should tell you that people who are willing to invest money for 30 years have no risk of dollar gain or loss at the end of 30 years. What better statistic can you find than this ? I do n't know if I can find a better figure , but that does n't mean I want to use the current figure.
So, I would say that I think Charlie's answer would be that he doesn't think about the China versus the US market based on the criteria that you mentioned. But, Charlie, you tell them. I just meant that I said earlier that the first rule of fishing is to fish where the fish are, that is, if fish means the stock market , then a good fisherman can find more fish in China.
That's all I meant. Yes. I'm going back to a happier hunting ground. It has no direct connection with this. I want to go back to a question that was mentioned earlier. I really think that if you want to be a good evaluator of businesses , as an investor , you really should find a way to run a bad business for a while without much personal loss.
I think you learn a lot more about business by struggling with a terrible business for a few years than by going into a very good business , where the business is so good you can't screw it up. I don't know if Charlie has any thoughts on this , but it was definitely a big part of the learning experience for us...
And I think that was a bigger part of getting involved in some bad businesses than just sticking with the good business, and seeing... how terrible it was, how terrible it is, and how little you can do about it, and how IQ does n't solve the problem, and so on. It's a useful experience , but I wouldn't recommend it highly.
What do you recommend ? So, Charlie, this was very useful for us here. There's nothing like personal painful experience if you want to learn and we've certainly experienced our share.
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