How He Raised Billions with Simple Ideas | Howard Marks

If you think about the role of randomness in the world, there's so much that's not within your control. One thing within your control is the quality of your output. Amen. You should have a simple goal to put out a product, which is the highest quality you can. And if you have done that, you can relax. How do you take complicated ideas and make them so simple that people are begging to give you their money?

如果你考虑世界上的随机性，会发现有很多事情不在你的掌控之中。但你可以控制的是你输出的质量。可以这么说，你应该有一个简单的目标，那就是尽可能地提供高质量的产品。一旦你做到了这一点，你就可以放松了。如何将复杂的想法变得如此简单，以至于人们迫不及待地想要给你钱呢？

Our guest today, Howard Marks, is a master at that, a master at clarity and distillation. He's been writing memos for the last three and a half decades. In 1990, he had basically no readers. And now he has more than 300,000 people. And he now manages more than $190 billion in assets. So how does he do it? How does he write so clearly, so concisely, what does he do to distill ideas and make them simple? Well, that's the topic of this conversation with Howard Marks.

今天我们的嘉宾是霍华德·马克斯，他是一位在清晰表达和提炼信息方面的大师。过去三十多年，他一直在撰写备忘录。1990年时，他几乎没有读者，但现在他的读者超过了30万。他管理的资产超过1900亿美元。那么，他是如何做到这一点的呢？他是如何写得如此清晰简洁，又是怎样把复杂的想法进行提炼使之简单化的呢？这正是我们与霍华德·马克斯对话的主题。

Hey, Howard. Hey, David, how you doing? Thanks for doing this. Good to be here. So the first place I want to begin is you have a line in the introduction to your first book, where you say heaven for me would be seven little words. I never thought of it that way. Why that? Well, if I'm writing a book and it squares with people's expectations and degrees with what they already know, then I'm not contributing much. Am I? And of course, the human brain has a strong confirmation bias. It wants to hear support for what it already plays, but it doesn't really count much. So if I get a reader who says, you know, I never thought of it that way, then that means I've told them something they didn't know. And I've made them think about and maybe question the things they already thought they knew. Well, that's a positive step.

嗨，Howard。嗨，David，你好吗？谢谢你来参加这个活动。很高兴来到这里。我想先从你第一本书的引言中的一句话说起，你提到对我来说，最好的境界就是听到这七个字：“我从没这样想过。”为什么呢？嗯，如果我写的书完全符合人们的期望，并同他们已经知道的观点一致，那我就没什么贡献，对吧？当然，人类大脑有很强的确认偏误，它总希望听到对已有观点的支持，但这样的信息其实不算有多大价值。所以，如果有读者说：“你知道吗，我从没这样想过。”这就意味着我告诉了他们一些他们之前不知道的东西，并促使他们思考，甚至质疑他们自认为了解的事情。这是一个积极的步骤。

There's such a simplicity in your writing that I think makes it stand out. I get a lot of response nowadays. My favorite one, well, there's two. One says you changed my life because I now think this or that way. And the other one is you make complex things simple. The most flattering one I ever got, I'm not sure about the comparison, said that Einstein said, there are four levels of intelligence is bright, brilliant, genius, simple. And, you know, the person wrote me the inference is that my writing is simple. And that makes me very happy. I've been doing a lot of visits and speaking this week and I had two occasions when people said, when you hear Howard, you'll hear that he makes sophisticated concepts clear. And that makes me very happy.

你的文字里有一种简单明了的特点，我认为这让它与众不同。我最近收到很多反馈。其中我最喜欢的有两个。一个是有人说「你改变了我的生活，因为现在我以这样或那样的方式思考。」另一个是「你让我理解复杂问题变得简单。」我收到过的最令人感动的评价之一是对比爱因斯坦的一句话：智力有四个等级，聪明、卓越、天才、简单。写信的人告诉我，他认为我写作的风格是简单，这让我非常开心。这周我参加了很多访问和演讲，有两次有人提到，当他们听到霍华德时，觉得他把复杂的概念解释得很清楚。这让我非常高兴。

I've been thinking about why or how. And my conclusion is that, you know, my brain operates largely on the left side, literal, logical. But I think being a logical person lets you break down a process in an orderly fashion that you can then explain to people. Obviously the output is very simple. How do the ideas get into that simple, orderly shape? First of all, I have the great advantage that I don't have a requirement to write. You know, I know people who write every day. I can't imagine how you do that. Or who require themselves to write every week or every month. I don't require any regularity of myself. I write when I feel like it.

我一直在思考这件事为什么会这样，或者是如何发生的。我的结论是，我的大脑主要依赖左脑思考，以字面和逻辑为主。但是我认为，成为一个逻辑性强的人，可以让你以有序的方式分解一个过程，然后能够向他人解释。显然，最终的结果是非常简单的。那么这些想法是如何变得如此简单、有序的呢？首先，我有一个很大的优势，就是我没有写作的硬性要求。我认识一些每天都写作的人。我无法想象他们是如何做到的，还有一些人要求自己每周或每月写作。我对自己没有这样的规律性要求。我只在有灵感的时候写。

Now, having said that, I try to write no less than quarterly. And I put in one of my memos that if I don't write for three months, I tend to get emails saying, oh, you're dead. But other than that, there is no regularity. And so I don't feel any pressure. I write when I have an idea. And usually it's, you know, it's kind of a matter of cleaning. And I think a lot of it is serendipity. You come across this, then you come across this. Now, the way my mind works, I make connections. So I tend to make connections among ostensibly unconnected things, which produce inspirations.

现在，说到这点，我尽量每季度至少写一次。我在某一篇备忘录中提到，如果我三个月没有写作，我往往会收到邮件说“哦，你去世了”。除此之外，我的写作没有固定规律，所以我不感到有压力。当我有想法时，我就写作。通常这就像是在整理思绪，我认为很多时候这是偶然的。从这里看到一些东西，然后又从那里看到一些东西。而我的思维方式是，我会把看似不相关的事情联系起来，从中获得灵感。

So I might read an article here and cut it out, and then an article from another source on a somewhat different topic that I think is connected and put it on a pile. And then an article from here and a video from here and that thought from here, which I write down and put it on the pile. And when the pile is substantial in terms of content, not height, you know, I might write a memo. Well, I think a good example of this is how you wrote your getting lucky memo, right? There was a confluence of ideas that all came together. You saw that tweet and you said, hey, now I got a write about this piece. Exactly. Yeah.

我可能会在这里阅读一篇文章，把它剪下来，然后从另一个来源找一篇主题稍有不同但我认为有联系的文章，也把它放在一个堆里。再加上几篇文章、一段视频，还有我在这里写下来的想法，全都放在那个堆上。当这个堆在内容上积累到一定程度（不是指高度的时候），我可能就会写一份备忘录。一个很好的例子就是你如何写那份"获取好运"的备忘录，对吧？当时有很多想法汇聚到了一起。你看到那个推文，然后心想，嘿，现在我该写这篇文章了。没错。是这样的。

You know, I believe in luck. Well, maybe a more erudite way to say that is, I believe in randomness. And I believe I've been incredibly lucky in my life. I can't believe it. And so I was in my hotel room in Riyadh, and I picked up the Four Seasons magazine, and there was an article on luck. And it led off with a quote from Jack Dorsey from Twitter. And he said, something like, success is never accidental. You make your own luck. So that caused me to write the memo. And I wrote, I couldn't disagree more. There are happy accidents. There are unhappy accidents. There are unhappy accidents. Now, you know, people say luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. My point is that sometimes preparation does not meet opportunity. That person is unlucky. And, you know, most of us know people who are able, well-intentioned, hard-working, and don't get lucky. Many of us know people who are none of those things, but they got lucky. Opportunity, if that's a word you want to use or luck, is not evenly distributed. Yeah. So help me as an outsider. I'm going to totally straw-man this, but I think it'll lead to an interesting answer. Why in the world would you give away your investing secrets in the form of clear memos? Why would you consider doing that? That's your edge? Well, I really believe that I can tell people what's important, but most of them are still not going to be able to do it. So I'm not putting myself at risk because some people are going to say, well, that's what he says, I'm not into that. Some people will say I'm into it, but they won't be able to do it. And the secret to success in these areas is not knowing these concepts, but it's being able to implement them. And a lot of people who say, yeah, that's good. I'm going to try to do that. They're just not going to get there. So the benefits of writing, in my opinion, in this case, outweigh that risk. I'm not giving that much away. And I get so much out of it.

你知道吗，我相信运气。呃，也许用更博学的方式来说，我相信随机性。我相信我这一生非常幸运，简直不敢相信。所以，当我在利雅得的酒店房间里，我拿起《四季》杂志，看到一篇关于运气的文章。文章开头引用了推特的杰克·多尔西的一句话，他说类似这样的话：成功绝非偶然，你得自己创造运气。这促使我写了一份备忘录，我写道，我完全不同意这种说法。有快乐的意外，也有不快乐的意外。人们常说，运气是当准备遇到机会时出现的。我想说的是，有时候准备并未遇上机会，那个人就是不走运。而我们大多数人都认识一些有能力、有好意并且勤奋工作的人，但他们却没有好运。我们很多人也认识一些没有这些特质的人，但他们走了运。机会，或者说运气，并不是均匀分布的。 作为一个旁观者，请帮帮我。我可能在制造个伪命题，但我想这会引发一个有趣的回答。你为什么要把你的投资秘诀以清晰备忘录的形式分享出去呢？为什么你会这样做？这是你的优势所在吗？ 我真的相信我可以告诉人们什么是重要的，但大多数人仍然无法做到。所以我并不觉得自己有风险，因为有些人可能会说，“哦，这就是他说的，我对这些不感兴趣。”有些人会说他们对此感兴趣，但他们做不到。而在这些领域成功的秘诀不是知晓这些概念，而是能够实施这些概念。许多说“这很好，我要试试”的人，其实并不能做到。因此，在我看来，写作带来的好处大于这个风险。我并没有泄露太多，而我从中获益良多。

You know, people say, well, when do you write? I said, well, if you look at the record of the last 35 years, you'll see there's invariably a memo in September and one in January. What does that mean? It means I wrote over the summer and I wrote over Christmas. It's my recreation. You know, it's one of the things I like to do the most and I find it relaxing. Since I'm not under the pressure to publish, it's relaxing to do it and it's creative to do it. And I believe that it's desirable to have a creative outlet. That's mine. So tell me about that summer incubation period. How does a memo come together? Do you write things down, draw things out? Do you just sort of work through paragraphs to start with an outline, move towards prose? What does that process look like for you? I really start with a pile of scraps of paper. I don't usually, I mean, I have a list of topics, a list of thoughts. I don't have what you would call an outline. You know, Roman I, this ABC, Roman II, blah, blah, blah. I just have a bunch of ideas. They start off on piles of paper. They come up here. And usually what happens is I think about it for a long time. And then having thought about it and come to some more ideas about organization, I just write them down. Do you do a lot of editing? Yeah. Yeah. I love the editing part. You know, you do a rapid first draft. You think it's good. Then you read it, then you read it over again and you make changes. You move a couple of paragraphs around. You connect a couple sentences with a connector. And, you know, I might do that five times, let's say. Each time it gets a little better, but we have something called the law of diminishing returns. I mean, it's the first time you do it, you make it 20% better. The second time you do it, you make it 10% better than that. And the third time five and two and then one. And then you can't really make it any better. But the word I use for that process is polishing. And hopefully it's a good thing that you enjoy having written and you enjoy writing it, but then you enjoy making it better. And you take two sentences and you reverse them and you ask, that's much better. So it's a source of satisfaction.

你知道，有人会问我什么时候写作。我会说，看看我过去35年的记录吧，你会发现我总是在九月和一月写备忘录。这意味着我在夏天和圣诞节期间写作。这是我的娱乐方式之一，是我最喜欢做的事情之一，我觉得很放松。因为我写作时并不需要赶着发表，所以它是放松的，又具有创造性。我相信，拥有一个创造性的出口是很有必要的，而这就是我的选择。那么，谈谈那个夏天的酝酿期吧。一个备忘录是怎么写出来的？你会把东西记下来，用图画来表达，还是先写段落，从一个大纲开始，逐步写成文章？对我来说，这个过程是怎样的？我通常从一堆纸片开始。我会有一个主题列表，一个思考列表，但并没有你所说的那种提纲，比如罗马数字一，下面有ABC，再到罗马数字二之类的。我只是有一堆想法，它们先在纸片上出现。通常，我会想很长一段时间，然后在理清思路并有了一些组织的想法后，我就把它们写下来。你会做很多编辑吗？是的，我非常喜欢编辑的部分。你先快速写个初稿，觉得还不错，然后再读一遍，再读几遍并做出修改，调整几个段落的位置，连接几个句子。我可能会这样做五次。每次都有点进步，但我们有一个叫做收益递减的原理。第一次修改后，它会好20%，第二次会再好10%，第三次是5%、2%，然后是1%，最后你基本上无法再提升了。我把这个过程称为打磨。希望这是你写完后会感到满意的过程，你不光享受写作，还享受之后让它更好的过程。你可能会把两句话对调位置，然后觉得这样好多了。这就是一种满足感的来源。

When I get it to the point where I think it's as good as I can make it, then I have a few people I show it to. One of whom, you know, I have one person who finds six things wrong, a person who has four things wrong, one's finds ten things wrong, and I have one person who finds 200 nits, you know, like I used a long hyphen when I should use the short hyphen. I put my comments or this kind of comments where they should have been, and I'm not going to find a comment. And so now what I do is I let him read it first, and he makes his 200 changes on an incorporate, and the rest is clearer sailing. But, you know, William Sapphire, who used to write a column in the Sunday's New York Times magazine section called On Language. So he used to have an expression. He said, I ran it by my irregulars. Now, and the regulars, I believe, was the term for a ragtag army, you know, out of uniform, you know, what we might call gorillas today. But, you know, and I'm talking about 250 years ago. So he said he had his irregulars who were his ragtag bunch of readers who gave him comments. And so these four or five people are my support group, and they, you know, obviously the goal is to get it from a B to an A, and then from an A to an A plus.

当我把作品修改到自己认为已经做到最好时，我会给几个人看。其中有一个人发现了六个问题，一个人发现了四个问题，还有一个人发现了十个问题，还有一个人发现了200个小错误，比如我用了长破折号，其实应该用短破折号。我把评论放在了它们应该出现的地方，而我不会发现。现在，我让这个人先阅读，他会指出200个需要修改的地方，我会进行修改，然后剩下的过程就会顺利很多。威廉·萨菲尔曾在《纽约时报》周日杂志上写过名为《语言》的专栏。他有一句话，说“我让我的‘不规则军’来看看”。“不规则军”这个词来源于过去指未经正式编制、没有穿制服的部队，大概可以称为“游击队”。大约250年前，这些人被称作“不规则军”。他说他有一群‘不规则军’，即一批给他反馈意见的读者。所以，我的这四五个人就是我的支持小组，目标显然是让作品从B提高到A，再从A提高到A+。

What you're so good at is the distillation, the ability to explain things in one paragraph, and one phrase. So does it begin with the one phrase, or does it end with the one phrase? I find it hard to generalize. I just have this idea. As I say, I think clearly, and then if that's true, then the goal is merely to get the thought onto the page, you know? And of course that's the hard part for most people. I don't find it that hard. It just takes a little time. You've got to work at it. But I don't find it highly challenging. And I think that having the phrases which clarify and simplify are integral to the process.

你非常擅长的是提炼信息，能够用一段话甚至一句话解释事物。那么你是从一句话开始，还是以一句话结束呢？我觉得很难一概而论。我只是有这样的想法。就像我常说的，我思路清晰，如果真是这样，那么目标只是把想法表达出来。对大多数人来说，这当然是最难的部分。但我不觉得太困难，只是需要一点时间和努力。我不认为这非常具有挑战性。把那些能澄清和简化的短句融入整个过程，我认为这是不可或缺的。

So maybe the answer is I don't write much until I have the phrases. One of the most important things that I point out to people about my writing is that it is essentially my goal to write the way I speak. I don't want to do any different. You know, my speaking hopefully is clear. Hopefully my writing is clear. And hopefully it's the same. So I use contractions. I use hopefully common language. I can think of authors who seem to have the goal. I can think of one in particular who seems to have the goal that I'm going to say things that my reader doesn't understand. Sure. And I'm going to show them how smart I am and how erudite.

所以，也许答案是，在我想好句子之前，我不会写很多东西。我经常跟人们说，我的写作目标就是像我说话一样。我不想有任何不同。你知道，我说话时希望能清晰，希望我的写作也同样清晰，并且希望两者是一致的。所以我使用缩写和常见的语言。我想得到一些作家，他们似乎有个目标，就是说出读者不理解的话，当然，他们想藉此展示自己的聪明才智和博学。

My goal is not to do that. I don't want to create a barrier or a level difference between myself and my writers. My goal is to say I'm a person. You're a person with both people. I know about some stuff you don't know about them. I'd like to share it with you. You see this all the time in financial writing. I mean, my average time looking at some random white papers, maybe a second and a half, because I just scroll and I get out of it. And your writing has that simplicity. So if you've been successful doing that, if Buffet's been successful doing that, why does the industry still operate in these landmines of jargon?

我的目标不是那样做。我不想在我和我的作者之间建立隔阂或层次差异。我的目标是表明我也是一个普通人，你也是一个普通人，我们都是普通人。我知道一些你不太了解的事情，我希望与你分享。在金融写作中，你会经常看到这种现象。比如说，我看一些白皮书的平均时间可能只有一秒半，因为我只是快速浏览然后退出。而你的写作就是这样简单。如果你通过这样的方式取得了成功，如果巴菲特也通过这样的方法取得了成功，那么为什么这个行业还依然充满了这些术语的地雷呢？

I think it was Mark Twain who's defined a profession as a conspiracy against the layety. A lot of professions have a jargon which certain professionals maybe want to say, insecure professionals want to stay with that jargon to reinforce the barrier between themselves and the common man who is not a member of the profession. I'm not interested in that. I'd rather tell a story that people find interesting and accessible. And as I say, that's why. My goal is to have a written product that reads like speech.

我想是马克·吐温定义了职业为一种对外行的阴谋。很多职业都有自己特有的术语，有些专业人士可能因为不安全感，喜欢使用这些术语，以此来加强自己与非专业人士之间的隔阂。我对此不感兴趣。我更愿意讲一个让人觉得有趣且易于理解的故事。就像我常说的那样，这就是我的原因。我的目标是写出如同口语般易读的作品。

How in the world did you stick with it for so many years when no one was reading your stuff? You've mentioned that, hey, I just really enjoyed this, but you're literally licking the envelope on memos in 1990, 1991. No one's reading it. Well, of course, now remember that that was pre-internet. So what you would do in those days, and it was a largely pre-computer, so you would write it out, run it off on the Xerox machine, fold it, stick it in an envelope, address the envelopes. And in those days, I started in, I guess, October of 1990. They only went to my clients, and maybe there were a hundred. So it was laborious, and I always say that it's as if I wrote it out, ran it off, folded it up, put it in the envelope, addressed it, put a stamp on it, and threw them in the sewer. Because I never heard back.

你是怎么坚持了这么多年，即使没有人阅读你的作品？你提到过，你真的很享受这个过程，但你在1990年或1991年还在给信封舔封口，没有人看你的东西。当然，要记住那是互联网出现之前的年代，也是电脑不那么普及的时候。那时候，你需要亲手写下来，用复印机打印出来，折叠，放进信封，写上地址。在那些日子里，我大概是从1990年10月开始的，这些信只寄给我的客户，可能也就一百人，因此过程非常繁琐。我总是说，那就像我写好，打印，折叠，放进信封，写地址，贴上邮票然后扔进了下水道，因为我从未收到反馈。

But I did it for fun. I did it because I enjoyed it. I wrote the first one because I thought I had an interesting story to tell, that I wanted to share. By the way, I never said, if I write them, I'm going to get more business, or make more money, or anything like that. But then, of course, in 1995, we started Oak Creek, and so I had my own firm. That's when we started to distribute it electronically, in addition to in writing. And I'll never forget the time in the late 90s when I put out a memo, and within an hour or two, I had a response back from somebody in Russia. Oh, that must have been exciting. It was. I didn't know anybody in Russia. I didn't send it to anybody in Russia, but it got passed around. I always say, like Playboy magazine, when we were in camp. And so I heard. And so then I said, oh, that's what they call going viral. And that was cool. So, you know, from probably a hundred or so in 1990, I think now we're up to 300,000. 300,000 subscribers, and hopefully they pass it around. And so it's a lot of fun now. And I get great responses, and I enjoy it. And it's just a pleasure. And how did you get into this? You would mention college. That's when it really begins, huh? You know, I went to Warden. I went to public high school in New York. One day, one of my buddies said, hey, they're giving a course in accounting. We should take that. So I took that course and I loved it. And that made me decide to be an accountant, which is what my dad was. And to apply to Warden, which previously I didn't know what existed, and I was lucky.

但我这都是出于兴趣。我做这些是因为我喜欢。我写第一篇的时候，是因为我觉得自己有一个有趣的故事想要分享。顺便说一下，我从来没有说过写这些是为了获得更多业务或赚钱之类的。不过，当然，在1995年我们创立了Oak Creek，所以我有了自己的公司。那时候，我们开始除了书面传播外，还通过电子方式分发。我永远不会忘记90年代末的某次经历，那时我发出一份备忘录，没过一两个小时，就收到了一个来自俄罗斯的回复。哦，那一定很激动。是的。我不认识俄罗斯的任何人，也没有发给那里任何人，但它被传递了出去。我总是说，就像我们在营地时的《花花公子》杂志那样传阅，我也是听说的。然后我就会心一笑，哦，这就是所谓的“病毒传播”。那真的很酷。所以，你知道，大概从1990年起有一百名订阅者，到现在我们大约有三十万订阅者。希望他们也会继续传阅。所以现在一切都很有趣。我得到很多积极的反馈，我很享受，这是一个乐趣。而你是如何开始这种经历的呢？你提到了大学，真正的起点在那，对吧？我上了沃顿商学院。我在纽约上了一所公立高中。有一天，我的一个朋友说，嘿，他们在开设会计课程，我们应该去学。所以我就选了那门课，我很喜欢。那让我决定成为一名会计师，和我爸爸一样。也让我申请了沃顿商学院，在此之前我都不知道这个学校的存在，我很幸运。

I got into Warden. My guidance counselor said I wouldn't. My grades were indifferent. But luckily I got in. And that changed my life, obviously. Now, when I got to Warden, Warden had two requirements that I would describe as enlightened. You had to have one semester of the literature of a foreign country in English, and you had to have a non-business minor. Now, the geeks for their non-business minor took econ or stat or polycye. But for my language, literature, I took Japanese. No idea why, except that I think the exoticism appealed to me. I loved it so much that I took five courses at the graduate level in Japanese studies, and I made it my non-business minor. And what distinguishes Japanese literature? Do you think about it? How is it different? It's highly stylized. And the imagery is highly descriptive, but also very elegant. Everything that Japanese have done has always been elegant in its word choice, in its imagery, et cetera. And importantly, the five courses I took forward were taught by the same professor, a guy named Edale Saunders. And he was like in a state. He was like an Oxford Don. He was a very demanding of writing.

我考进了瓦登（Warden）。我的升学顾问说我不可能进的，我的成绩并不出色。但幸运的是，我被录取了，这显然改变了我的人生。当我到瓦登的时候，他们有两个我觉得非常开明的要求。你必须选一个学期的外国语文课程（用英语授课），还要选一个非商业类的辅修课。很多学霸在选非商业类辅修时会选择经济学、统计学或者政治学，但我选择了日本文学。不知道为什么，可能是因为对异国风情的吸引。我非常喜欢它，以至于我在研究生阶段选了五门关于日本研究的课程，并把它当作我的非商业辅修。 你觉得日本文学有什么独特之处？它风格高度独特，画面感细腻又优雅。日本人在文字选择和图像表现方面总是极其优雅。重要的是，我选的五门课程都由同一个教授Edale Saunders授课。他就像牛津的教授，非常严格地要求写作能力。

And by the way, remember that as a warden freshman or sophomore, you're taking econ courses with 200 students in an auditorium. These graduate level courses in Japanese studies were eight people at a table or in a room. And so you would send them in a paper and he would send it back. And in the margin, in this really picking little writing in the margin, he would say ww, wrong word, or repetative, or re-d, redontin. And if you wrote something good, he would write a-h-h-a. And if you got an a, you really felt rewarded. So I would say that Professor Saunders really, first of all, these courses turned me, I had just turned 17 when I was just a kid. Boys developed slowly anyway. And these courses turned me from an indifferent student into a serious student. It's the first time other than my accounting course that I was excited about what I was learning. But he really helped me to raise my writing. And that was 1965. And the first memo came out in 1990. I was like, I'll be a while to do anything about it.

顺便提一下，作为大一或大二的学生，你在大礼堂里跟200名学生一起上经济学课程。而这些研究生水平的日本研究课程只有八个人围坐在一张桌子旁或在一个房间里。你把论文交上去，他会给你批改并退回。在论文的空白处，他会用极小的字写上“错误的词”、“重复”或者“重写”。如果你写得好，他会写“啊哈”。如果你得了“A”，你会感到非常有成就感。所以我想说桑德斯教授对我的影响很大。这些课程把我从一个不太关心学习的学生变成了一个严肃认真的学生。当时我刚满17岁，还只是个孩子，男孩子本来就成熟得慢。除了会计课，这些课程是我第一次对学习的内容感到兴奋。他还帮助我提高了写作水平。那是1965年的事，直到1990年我才正式发表了第一份备忘录，花了很长时间才做到这点。

And when I went to work in the business in 1969, from then to 1990, I always tried to turn out a well-written product. But it wasn't a standalone product in its own right. And let me, as a segue, just point out that when my son was preparing to come into the business, and when I speak to other people who want to go into business, or careers in general, one of the things I say to them, which I think is important, is that if you think about the role of randomness in the world, there's so much that's not within your control. You try to be an investor or an entrepreneur or a podcast creator. There's a lot that's not in your control. One thing that's within your control is the quality of your output. Amen. And so you should have a simple goal, which is to put out a product, which is the highest quality you can. And if you have done that, by definition, it's the best you can do. You can't do better than the best you can do, but even if you've done that, you can relax.

当我在1969年开始进入这个行业工作，从那时到1990年，我一直努力制作出写得好的产品。但其本身并不是一个独立的产品。让我借此机会说明一下，当我的儿子准备加入这个行业时，我对他以及其他想进入商业或其他职业的人说了一些我认为很重要的话。那就是，如果你考虑到世上随机性的角色，有很多事情是不在你控制范围内的。无论你希望成为投资者、企业家或播客创作者，都会有很多无法掌控的事情。有一件可以控制的事就是你所产出的质量。对此，我只能说:是的! 因此，你应该设定一个简单的目标，即尽可能地输出最高质量的产品。如果你已经做到这一点，那就是你能做到的最好。你不可能比自己做到的最好还要好，即便如此，你也可以放心。

And so I really think that there's, and the other thing I told my son when he went off to college in 05, was that with Internet and emojis, and you are a great person, everybody else is dumbing it down. If you maintain a high standard, when they dumb it down, you'll shine. You'll be distinguished. And so I think this is, writing is a better way than ever to distinguish yourself for the better. So if I'm, I've just raised half a million, or half a billion dollars, and I'm now running a fund and I want to write memos or an annual letter and I come to you and I say, Mr. Marks, I would like to adopt the strategy that you adopted, and I'm all in on quality. What parameters should I be thinking about as I write them? What makes a good memo or annual letter? What I would say is, I appreciate your interest in writing memos. Let's hope you're a good writer, but don't waste your time until you have something to say.

我真正认为，在互联网和表情符号盛行的时代，我告诉我儿子在2005年上大学时，你是一个很出色的人，而其他人可能在降低标准。如果你能保持高标准，当其他人降低标准时，你就会脱颖而出，成为与众不同的人。我认为，通过写作比以往任何时候都更能让你卓越。如果我刚筹集了五千万或五亿美元，现在要管理一个基金，并想写备忘录或年度信，我会向你请教，Marks先生，我想采用你的策略，完全专注于质量。那么，在写这些内容时我应该考虑哪些要素？好的备忘录或年度信应该具备哪些特质？我的建议是，我很欣赏你对写备忘录的兴趣，但你必须先有实质性的内容可写，否则不要浪费时间。

So a guy who's a year out of grad school, or three years, or x years, has nothing to say other than to discuss his or her level of ignorance. And that might be endearing, or it might signal that he or she is on some quest. But you don't have wisdom to impart. But I'm trying to do, remember, I started in 1990, I'd already been working 21 years, and hopefully I had something to say. So before that, I would say don't waste your time, right, for practice, right, to communicate with your clients, but don't expect anybody to read your memo for sage advice when you're 28.

所以，一个刚刚从研究生院毕业一年的年轻人，或者是已经毕业三年、几年的人，除了讨论自己知道的有限内容以外，没有太多可以说的。这种行为可能会让人觉得可爱，或者显示他们在寻求某种目标。但是，他们没有可以传授的智慧。回想一下，我在1990年开始时，已经工作了21年，希望能有一些值得分享的东西。因此，在那之前，我会建议不要浪费时间，仅仅为了练习而与客户交流，不要指望在你28岁的时候，别人会把你的备忘录当作智慧的建议来看待。

And then once I am ready, I've been working the business for 20, 30, 40 years. What do I, what should I focus on? Well, what I would say is think hard before you start about your point of view. What do you believe in? What is your, the word I use is creed. What is your investment philosophy? What do you believe in? What do you think will work? What will not work? What will you do? What will you refuse to do? What are the rules or principles that govern your activity and try to speak from a principle-based voice. You know, so many people say, well, you know, this happened yesterday in Washington and this happened in New York and this is what the Fed said and this is what I think is going to happen tomorrow and this is what will happen, I think will happen on Thursday.

然后，当我准备就绪时，我已经在商业领域工作了20、30、40年。那么我该关注些什么呢？我会说，在开始之前，你需要认真思考自己的立场。你相信什么？我用的词是"信条"。你的投资理念是什么？你相信什么会奏效？什么不会奏效？你会做些什么？你拒绝做些什么？有哪些规则或原则指导你的行为？尝试用基于原则的观点来表达自己的想法。很多人喜欢谈论昨天华盛顿发生了什么，纽约发生了什么，美联储说了什么，以及他们认为明天或星期四会发生什么。但你最好建立一个基于信念的基础来分享你的看法。

That stuff is unimportant and unlikely to make for a very good output. Try to think of something significant, lasting principles, important lessons, morals, if you will, to the story. Most of the people who write every day talk about what happened yesterday and what they think is going to happen tomorrow. And if they ever kept a scorecard on the things that they wrote about what's going to happen tomorrow, they would see that on average they get it right half the time, which is not very helpful. These are fleeting and these are insubstantial. So I would say try to think of things that have substance.

这些东西并不重要，也不太可能产生好的结果。试着考虑一些有意义的、持久的原则、重要的教训或道德故事。大多数每天写作的人都谈论昨天发生了什么以及他们认为明天会发生什么。如果他们曾经对自己写的关于明天的事情进行评分，他们会发现平均来说，他们只有一半是对的，这并不太有用。这些都是短暂而不牢靠的。因此，我建议尝试思考一些有实质内容的东西。

I like how you phrase it, you say forming a life philosophy has four parts. Many ideas from a variety of sources formed over a long period of time that you distill into life lessons. So you have to be eclectic in your subject matter and eclectic in your sources so that you can be interesting and have some variety. We have an investment philosophy, I have a philosophy, which is highly formed. Today you step out of school and you start work, you don't have an investment philosophy, you may have some ideas from your school, but you have no reason to believe which ones work or that any of them will work. And you have some of the things you learned in school, you should consider and reject.

我喜欢你这样的表达：你认为形成一个生活哲学包括四个部分。许多来自不同来源的想法经过长时间的沉淀，最终被提炼成生活的经验教训。因此，你需要在主题和来源上都要多样化，这样才能使自己的思想有趣而富有变化。我们有一套投资哲学，而我的哲学已经很成熟。如今，当你从学校走向职场时，你可能还没有形成自己的投资哲学，虽然从学校学到了一些想法，但你没有理由确信哪些想法有效，甚至不知道它们是否会有效。此外，你还应该审视并摒弃一些从学校学到的东西。

And you should figure out what's real and what's just theory. Yogi Berra said, in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. And so just a regurgitation of what you learned in school doesn't do you any good. You say I was told this and it really works and I was told this and I think that's cool. That's when you get valuable observations that you can turn into a written product which is valuable somebody else. I like how you say eyes wide open, that sense of awareness. One of the reasons that I got into Wharton when the odds were against was that I had SATs. And one of the things I did best in the SATs was the section called the analogies. I've always been good at analogies and I see connections. I see connections every decade I've written a memo about the connection between sports and investing. And in most decades one about the connection between gambling and investing. And just writing a memo about investing not to interest. A memo about the connection between poker or backgammon and investing I think can be quite interesting.

你需要弄清楚什么是真实的，什么只是理论。优吉·贝拉曾说，理论上理论和实践没有区别，但在实践中是有区别的。所以，仅仅重复在学校学到的东西对你没有什么帮助。你会说，“我被告知这个真的有效，我被告知那个很酷。”这时你就能得到宝贵的观察，然后将其转化为一个对别人有价值的书面成果。我喜欢你说的“睁大眼睛”，那种意识的感觉。我能进入沃顿商学院，尽管概率很低，其中一个原因是我的SAT成绩。在SAT考试中，我最擅长的是类比部分。我一直擅长类比并能发现联系。我看到每个十年里，我都会写一份关于体育和投资之间联系的备忘录。在大多数十年里，还有一份关于赌博和投资之间联系的备忘录。单单写一份关于投资的备忘录并不有趣。但写一份关于扑克或西洋双陆棋与投资之间联系的备忘录，我觉得会相当有趣。

So if you go through life as I naturally do seeing a lot of things in natural intellectual curiosity and thinking how they relate to your prime subject was investing I think you can get some interesting stuff. Two things for on the topic of reasoning by analogy. The first thing is how often in your interviews you say you got to be careful about reasoning by analogy. So it's funny how often you preface your analogies with that. And my favorite analogy that you have is to me such a visual one. It's so vivid of the economy like a ball and then there's water spewing up under it. And that is one of the benefits of reasoning by analogy is that all of a sudden an abstract concept can be vivid and you can see it. And then it becomes alive in a way it wasn't before. Yeah well I think visually and graphically and I think of these images which help me to distill my thoughts. And then I think they're very helpful in explaining it to people.

所以，如果你像我一样，生活中始终对周围很多事情充满自然的好奇心，并思考它们与自己的主要研究领域（比如投资）的关联，我认为你会发现一些有趣的东西。在类比推理这一话题上，有两点值得注意。首先是你在采访中常说要谨慎使用类比推理。所以有趣的是，你常在类比之前提醒这一点。而我最喜欢的你的一个类比，对我来说是一个非常形象的比喻。它把经济比作一个球，下面有水喷涌而出。类比推理的一个好处就是，抽象的概念可以因此变得生动，你能够看见它。于是，它就以一种全新的方式变得充满活力了。是的，我习惯以视觉和图像的方式进行思考，这些画面帮助我理清思路。而我认为，它们在向别人解释时也非常有用。

So in the ocean there's a water spout and it's holding a ball up. And the water spout is a stimulative policy from the Fed. And the ball is only going to stay loft as long as the Fed stimulates. So it's not permanent. Another thing is you have somebody who for some reason or other is buying a certain stock and that lifts the price. And people say I'm going to get in on that. But you have to realize that when the person stops buying the stock is going to subside. So when the water spout stops and it helps you think about influences that are temporal versus permanent. So it's just a picture. But I mean I think in graphs I draw a lot of graphs when I was writing the mastering the market cycle.

在海洋中，有一个水柱正在托举着一个球。这个水柱代表了美联储的刺激政策，球只有在美联储持续刺激的情况下才能保持高位，所以这种情况并不是永久的。另一个例子是，有人因为某种原因在购买某只股票，这会推高它的价格。人们可能会因此也想参与进来，但需要意识到，一旦这个人停止购买，该股价就会回落。所以当水柱消失时，这有助于我们思考哪些影响是暂时的，哪些是永久的。这只是一个比喻。我在写《掌握市场周期》这本书时，经常绘制这样的图表来帮助理解。

There's a discussion in there about the fact that I was lying in bed in Jaipur India. And something made me think back to a discussion that I had in Shanghai a year or two earlier. And when I'm meeting with clients I like to have a whiteboard there and I drew things on the whiteboard. And this time I was 21st century enough to actually take a picture. And I had the picture on my phone and pulled out my phone, looked at it. And that became a chapter or at least an idea in mastering the market cycle. I was meeting yesterday with somebody who had to be a friend of the person I was meeting with in Shanghai six years ago. And I whipped it out and I showed her the pictures of the charts I put on the wall in Shanghai in 2016.

有一段描述我躺在印度斋浦尔床上的故事。那时，有件事让我回想起一两年前在上海进行的一次讨论。在与客户会面时，我喜欢使用白板来画图。这一次，我赶上了21世纪的潮流，拍了一张白板的照片，保存到了手机里。后来我找出手机上的这张照片，把它当作一本书中关于掌握市场周期的一个章节或者至少是一个想法的灵感。昨天我见到一个朋友，她碰巧是我六年前在上海会见的那个人的朋友。我迅速找出了那些照片，展示给她看，这是我在2016年上海会面时画在墙上的图表。

So, but you know there's an old saying by the way the old saying's don't get to be old saying for nothing. And there's an old saying which says that one picture tells a thousand words. It's really true. And I tend to think in pictures and graphical relationships which makes life easy. And I think it makes it easy for people to understand what I'm saying. What does Buffett do in his writing that you admire and struggle to emulate? I admire and strive to emulate his turn of phrase. You know things like you know back in 2009 when the wheels were coming off the economy and the financial sector in the global financial crisis.

所以，你知道有一句老话，老话之所以流传下来是有原因的。那就是“一幅画胜过千言万语。” 这确实是真的。我倾向于用图像和图示来思考，这使得生活更简单。我觉得这也让人们更容易理解我在说什么。巴菲特在写作中做了哪些你欣赏并努力模仿的事情？我钦佩并努力模仿他遣词造句的能力。比如在2009年全球金融危机时，当经济和金融部门陷入困境时，他的表达方式。

I think that's when he said it for the first time. He said it's only when the tide goes out that we find out who's been swimming naked. What a great image. In other words there are lots of people. This goes back to the luck thing. There are lots of people who appear to have been skillful. But until they're tested by adverse circumstances we don't know if it was really skill or just a bunch of good luck. But look how many words it takes me to say that and he said it in 15. And the other thing is he's funny. And I like to be funny. I like to make people laugh. You know my dad told a lot of jokes when I was little and it's a habit I got into.

我想那是他第一次说这句话的时候。他说，只有潮水退去，我们才知道谁在裸泳。这句话的比喻太棒了。换句话说，有很多人表面上看似很有本事，但只有在遇到逆境时，我们才能判断那究竟是真本事还是仅凭好运。但是看看我用了多少字才表达出来，而他只用了短短15个字。再者，他的话风趣幽默。我也喜欢幽默，我喜欢让人发笑。我小时候，我爸爸经常跟我讲笑话，所以我也养成了这个习惯。

So, I like to be funny. And I think that his writing is folksy and accessible. And I try to make mine accessible rather than stand offish. And that's why I'll take it. I'll use a simple word instead of a sophisticated word if I can without diminishing the communication value. And especially I'll use conjunctions. One of the things I like about your letters, Buffets, Bezos is these little lessons that are crystallized. Like there's a great one from I want to say it's 2017 through 2019 in Bezos' letter where he talks about handstands. And how if you're going to learn how to do a handstand you have to just commit to doing it for multiple months. You can't expect that you're going to learn how to do it in 48 hours.

所以，我喜欢幽默。我觉得他的写作风格亲切平易近人。我也尽量让自己的风格更易于理解，而不是让人觉得高高在上。因此，在不影响交流效果的情况下，我会选择使用简单的词汇，而不是复杂的词汇。尤其是，我喜欢使用连词。我喜欢你写给巴菲特和贝索斯的信中那些小故事，它们都非常精炼。比如，贝索斯在2017年至2019年的一封信中谈到倒立：如果你想学会倒立，就必须长期坚持，不能指望在48小时内学会。

And that's a really good analogy for building a business, for how we're thinking about things at Amazon. You know sometimes it's just going to take some time and you've got to sign up at the beginning and say I'm going to be patient here. And those lessons I think really inspire a lot of the credibility, a lot of the connection that readers have. Yeah well I mean if your real goal is to do something for your readers then the test of what you have, whether you've accomplished your goal, is what you've helped them with. And clearly they're going to be more helped if what you say embodies sophisticated concepts delivered to them in an accessible way. How do you feel that your writing has improved over the years? It has improved by getting better. I mean I can't be more specific than that you know. I think I'm clearer about what I want to do but you know if I go back and read the first memo in 1990 I'm okay with it. I may think I could have done better. By the way I think it was only a page and a half. It was. Yeah and now you know now they're consistently about 12 pages. By the way I don't aim for a certain length. They all seem to come out 12, 13, 14 pages. Beyond that I think they become laborious and I don't think you can deliver much much shorter than that.

这真是一个很好的比喻，就像在建立一家公司，就像我们在亚马逊思考问题的方式一样。有时候事情需要时间，你必须在一开始就做好准备，告诉自己要有耐心。我认为这些经验教训确实为读者建立了很多的信任和联系。是的，我的意思是，如果你的真正目标是为读者做些什么，那么你所做的是否达到了目标，就看你帮助了他们多少。显然，如果你能将复杂的概念以易于理解的方式传达给他们，他们会得到更多的帮助。你觉得你的写作水平这些年来有怎样的提高呢？我认为它变得更好了。我说不出更具体的，你知道的。我觉得自己对想要做的事情更清楚了，但如果我回过头去看1990年的第一份备忘录，我对它还是满意的。虽然我可能会觉得自己能做得更好。顺便说一下，那时候它只有一页半。是的，现在呢，现在的备忘录通常有12页。不过，我没有刻意追求特定的长度。它们似乎总是有12、13、14页。超过这个长度就会变得很繁琐，而短于这个长度我觉得又不能充分表达。

You know what your first sentence was in your first annual letter? I think it's interesting how you've been exploring this sentence I think for the last 24 years. We all seek investment performance which is above average but how to achieve it remains a major question. And that's one of the things that having gone through your archives there is such a consistency in the questions that you're asking. You're in and you're out. You're in and you're out. And I've really come to appreciate the depth with which you can explore such a simple question about risk. What does it mean to have something to miss priced under priced? You're in and you're out that these questions are actually endless once you get into them. Thank you.

你知道你第一封年度信件的第一句话是什么吗？我觉得很有趣的是，在过去的24年里，你一直在探讨这个问题。我们都希望投资表现能够高于平均水平，但如何实现这一目标仍是一个重要的问题。这是我在翻阅你的档案时发现的一个一致性，即你不断在问同样的问题。你不断地重复探索这个问题，并且我开始真正欣赏到你能够深入探索关于风险的如此简单的问题。什么是定价错误或者低估？当你深入研究这些问题时，你会发现其实这些问题是无穷无尽的。谢谢。

You know I'm going to show this podcast to my wife who says she says they're all the same. But you know I'm really pleased sometimes I'll go back and read an old one not just for entertainment because I have a reason to research something. And I'm really pleased to say you know this is the idea I have today. I had it 25 years ago, 30 years ago. And what that convinces me is that it's solid. If you had an idea 30 years ago but then you never wrote about it again and you wrote something different and 25 and 20 and you would say well this is something that comes and goes. But I think that I think I've thought these things out in depth and I think that they stand in the test of time. And one of the tests of time is that I forget about having written them and I write them again. Because I still believe them and because they still hold up.

你知道我要把这个播客给我老婆看，她总说这些内容都一样。不过，你知道吗，我有时会回过头去阅读以前的节目，不仅是为了娱乐，而是因为我需要研究一些东西。我很高兴能说，我今天想到的这个想法，其实在25年前甚至30年前就已经有了。这让我相信这个想法是有坚实基础的。如果你30年前有了一个想法，但之后从未再次写过它，而在25年和20年前又写了不同的东西，那么这就说明这个想法时有时无。但我认为我已经深入思考了这些事情，并且它们经得起时间的考验。时间考验的一个标志就是我已经忘记曾写过它们，却又再次写下，因为我依然相信它们，并且它们依然成立。

And the beautiest thing about writing as opposed to speaking is that in writing you can't be asked. Because the reader is going to go back and read it again and say hold it wait a minute. And then it's going to read. Oh that sounds good. Oh I'm going to read that again. Then he reads through it. No. That doesn't follow. Rigger. Rigger. The foundation has not been laid or the foundation isn't solid. And that's where the logic comes in. What I do is not creative writing. It's not final literature. I'm trying to convey a point and for have somebody say yeah that makes sense. It has to hook up. It has to connect. And the logic has to be established. The foundation has to be solid. And the explanation has to be clear. There's a line from Oliver Wendell Holmes the Supreme Court Justice early 20th century. He says for the simplicity on this side of complexity I wouldn't give you a fig. For the simplicity on the far side of complexity I'd give you the entire world. Well you know I think that makes a lot of sense.

写作与口语不同，写作的美妙之处在于你不会被打断提问。读者可以回过头来再读一遍，可能会反应，“等一下，这是什么意思”。然后继续阅读，可能会感叹“哦，这听起来不错，我要再读一遍。”随着反复阅读，可能会发现“不，这不合逻辑。”此时，会觉得基础不够扎实。这就是逻辑的重要性。我所做的不是创意写作，也不是最终的文学作品。我是在传达一个观点，希望让人觉得“是的，这很有道理。”这样的话内容必须有内在联系，逻辑必须明确，基础必须牢固，解释必须清晰。早期20世纪的美国最高法院法官奥利弗·温德尔·霍姆斯曾说过一句话：“我对简单的肤浅不屑一顾，但对于穿越复杂后的简单，我甘愿给予整个世界。”我认为这句话很有道理。

And you know that's one of these topics that a lot has been written about because it deserves to be written. And if you can make things clear I think you've done something good and I think the reader will get something out of it. It's not just the depth of your production but also the depth of your consumption. You know with the most important thing a lot of your memos I see so many patterns repeat in terms of who, what writers. You're really coming to deeply understand. To lead with the influence of randomness. Gabbrith with the futility of forecasting. Ellis better to avoid losers than try for winners. Milk and hold survivors but avoid defaults and bond investing. And that's the other thing it's just plumbing the depths of a good idea. And almost the power law of ideas themselves and when you find one that's worthy of pursuing to really study it and to let that idea become a part of you in a way that you don't come to appreciate if you're just skipping between books and different writers.

这是一个广泛讨论的话题，因为它值得被深入探讨。如果你能把事情讲清楚，我认为你做了一件好事，读者也能从中受益。这不仅关乎你创作的深度，也关乎你吸收的深度。我在你的许多备忘录中发现许多相似的模式，真正让你对某些作家、话题有深入的理解。像是受随机性的影响，嘉布里斯对于预测无用的看法，艾利斯认为避免失败比追求成功更好，米尔肯主张持有幸存者但避免债券违约。这正是深入探索一个好想法的意义所在。就像是创意本身的幂次法则，当你发现一个值得追求的想法时，真的要深入研究它，让这个想法成为你的一部分。如此一来，你才能真正理解，而不是在不同书籍和作者之间匆匆跳跃时感受不到的领悟。

Well you know look it's an unacceptable conceit to think that nobody who went before you knew it better. And quotes and adages and books wouldn't remain popular over time if they weren't substantial. And so you know I use a lot of quotes and adages and stories and that kind of thing. You know because there were smarter people than me in the past who said things more in a more substantial or maybe a clearer way than I can. So why reinvent the wheel in an inferior way? Why not just go with the grades? You know one of the ones that you don't mention perhaps my greatest hero in terms of investment philosophy. And I consider him to have been an investment philosopher was Peter Bernstein. Not a well known person not a household name but a really smart person. A much older than me. Against the gods? Against the gods. Against the gods was a really great book on the history of probability. He wrote other books. But for a long time long time he wrote his own memos. He was really profound. Extremely well read. A little more erudite than me. But you know I have a great story. And as you mentioned that I returned to certain themes over time.

你知道，看，认为没有人比你更懂得某件事，这是无法接受的自负。如果名言、格言和书籍本身没有实质性内容，它们就不会随着时间的推移而保持流行。所以我会引用很多名言、格言和故事之类的东西，因为过去有比我更聪明的人，他们用更实质性或更清晰的方式表达过一些观点。我为什么要用较差的方式去重新发明轮子呢？为什么不直接学习大师的智慧呢？你知道，有一个可能是我在投资理念方面最崇拜的人是彼得·伯恩斯坦。他并不是一个众所周知的名字，但确实是一个非常聪明的人，比我年长许多。他写了一本关于概率历史的非常好的书，叫作《与神对赌》。他写了很多书，而且很长一段时间都在写自己的备忘录，非常有见地，学识比我更加渊博。不过，我有一个很好的故事。正如你提到的，我不断回到某些主题。

So in 06 I wrote a memo called risk. And I think risk is the most important thing. There are three chapters on risk in the most important thing. At the beginning too. At the beginning. And I wanted to write down everything I thought about risk. I think that the writing of the memo in 06 was really occasioned by the way I developed of thinking about risk which was different from the conventional way of thinking about risk that I had learned at Chicago back in the 60s. I finally cracked the puzzle in 06 about what was wrong with what I had learned and how to improve upon it. You recall there's a graph in here of my approach. I won't go to describe it. I'll let people buy the book. So I wrote this memo risk. And then by 2014 I had some more thoughts and I wrote a memo called risk revisited.

在2006年，我写了一份名为《风险》的备忘录。我认为风险是最重要的事情。在《最重要的事情》这本书中，有三个章节专门讨论风险。而且是在开头部分。我想把自己对风险的所有看法都记录下来。写下这份备忘录的原因是因为我对风险的思考方式发生了变化，这种方式不同于我60年代在芝加哥学到的传统风险观念。2006年，我终于破解了困扰已久的问题，找到了传统观念的问题所在，并想出改进的方法。你可能记得书中有一个关于我方法的图表。我就不详细描述了，还是让大家自己去买书看吧。于是我写下了这份关于风险的备忘录。到了2014年，我有了更多想法，于是又写了一份名为《风险再探》的备忘录。

And now I said now this includes everything that I know about risk. And then one day in my office I got down finally to the bottom of a stack of papers which I rarely do. And there at the bottom was a memo from Peter Bernstein. And the title was can we reduce risk to a number? Because the idea of quantifying risk and using it as a numerical input to a formula which people like to do because they like to get answers to questions I don't think you can do. He didn't think you could do. And so he's got this whole memo about the nature of risk which A is brilliant and B agrees with me. Those are the two important criteria. So I put out another memo. This was now 15 or 16 entitled risk revisited again. And this was the first time I had ever done this but I wrote it in the preface I think. I said in betting on horses they have something called past posting which means trying to get a bet down after the race is over.

现在我要谈的是我对风险的所有了解。有一天，我终于在办公室里处理完了一堆我通常很少理会的文件。在那堆文件的底部，我发现了一份彼得·伯恩斯坦写的备忘录。标题是“我们能否把风险减少为一个数字？” 因为人们喜欢把风险量化并作为公式中的数字输入，来寻找问题的答案，但我认为这并不可行。而他也不认为这样可行。所以他在备忘录中详细讨论了风险的本质，A, 非常高明；B, 观点与我一致。这两个是非常重要的标准。所以我又写了一份备忘录，这已经是我第15或16篇，标题是“再次重新审视风险”。这是我第一次这样做，在序言中我提到：在赛马中，有一种叫做“结果之后下注”的行为，就是在比赛结束后才试图下注。

Past posting. I said so I'm not going to try to do that in a hidden way. I'm going to reissue risk revisited. I'm going to add stuff from Peter Bernstein's memo and other sources but I'm going to put him in eye cat legs so you know which is the new content. And I added a lot of stuff from Bernstein anyway. It's brilliant stuff. And he really had a great influence on my thinking because risk. Everybody knows what it means to make money. Most people can do it. It's not that hard to do. It's especially easy to make money when the market goes up and the market goes up roughly eight years out of ten. So it's not a miracle. To me the real accomplishment is making money with the risk under control. And that's what thinking about risk I think helps you do. So Bernstein's writing is very important. Now in October November I was thinking about a Peter Bernstein quote which I use in presentations sometime and all my important papers are at home in East Hampton, New York.

过去的发布。我说过，我不会以隐秘的方式去做。我打算重新发布关于风险的讨论。我会添加彼得·伯恩斯坦备忘录中的内容和其他来源的材料，但会用不同的格式标出新内容。无论如何，我已经加入了很多伯恩斯坦的东西。这些都是很精彩的内容。他对我的思考产生了很大的影响，因为风险——大家都知道赚钱意味着什么。大多数人能做到这点，这并不难。当市场上升时，这尤其容易，而市场大约十年里有八年是上涨的。所以这不是奇迹。对我来说，真正的成就是在控制风险的情况下赚钱。思考风险正是帮助你做到这点的方法。所以伯恩斯坦的作品非常重要。在十月和十一月的时候，我在思考彼得·伯恩斯坦的一句引言，这句话我有时会在演讲中使用，而我所有重要的文件都在我纽约东汉普顿的家中。

So I had to wait until I got there to look for the source. I get there on Thanksgiving. I run to the boxes full of papers. I find the memo can be used to be reduced. It's not there. I was crestfallen all night. I got up the next morning. I thought it was in more places to look. There it was. And it was not from a memo. It was from a video that he did for McKinsey where I wrote out some of the key concepts and stuck it in that box. And then I looked a little further in the box and I found another memo on risk from 01. And so this is a gradual accretion of wisdom by somebody that I've learned a great deal from and he wrote beautifully. I always say that conversations are like an algorithm for randomness. They get you out of the maze of your mind. Yeah, but I think it's desirable to record what you said. You know, now some people probably go around with videographers recording everything they say. That's going a little too far. Sorry, Jeff. But if your mind is engaged and you have the benefit of experience and I got a great education from the combination of Wharton and Chicago and then, you know, 55 years of experience, maybe the things you say include valuable elements that you never said before or thought of before. And it's great to memorialize those and use them when the time comes. I get so many questions about what should I write about? What should I write about? People think it is so complicated. And one way that I see it in your work is actually incredibly simple. That is trying to reconcile what you learned at Wharton. That is qualitative. And then what you've learned at University of Chicago, which is quantitative. And actually it's just in the reconciliation of two things that don't perfectly align. You're then trying to apply a kind of the Yogi Berra quote that you were saying earlier. And actually it's just when you find one in congruency amongst two things, trying to work that out, go like that. Yeah. That's so much of what writing can be. Well, writing about things that naturally go together is not that interesting. Reconciling two things that seem to be at odds that exist in the same marketplace. That's really challenging. But if you can do it in a satisfactory way that adds to the knowledge, that's really rewarding.

所以我必须等到到了那里才能找寻源头。我在感恩节那天到达。我冲向装满文件的箱子，寻找可用来缩减的备忘录。但没找到。整晚我都垂头丧气。第二天早上起来，我想着还有更多地方可以找。果然找到了。但它不是来自备忘录，而是他为麦肯锡录制的视频中提到的一些关键概念，我曾经写下来放进了那个箱子里。我在箱子里继续查看，还发现了一份关于01年风险的备忘录。所以这是从我学到很多的人那里逐渐积累的智慧，而他写文章很出色。 我总说，谈话就像一种随机算法。它让你跳出自己的思维迷宫。我觉得记录所说过的话是很重要的。现在有些人可能随身带着摄影师录下他们说的一切，那就有点过了。抱歉，Jeff。但如果你的头脑活跃，并且结合了丰富的经验，比如我从沃顿和芝加哥大学的学习和55年的经验中获得的良好教育，可能你说的话中包含了以前没说或没想过的有价值的元素。记录并在合适的时候使用这些想法是很有意义的。很多人问我该写些什么，他们觉得很复杂。而我从你的作品中看到的一种方法其实很简单，就是试图调和你在沃顿学到的定性知识，以及在芝加哥大学学到的定量知识。其实就是在不完全对齐的两者之间找到不一致的地方，并努力解决它。写作很多时候就是这样。写一些自然相关的东西并不很有趣。把看似矛盾却存在于同一市场的两件事调和，才是真正的挑战。如果你能以一种让知识更丰富的方式做到这一点，那是很值得的。

Why do you think that you're the guy who figured this out? Who figured out how to write these memos that really went viral? I mean, there's a lot of people who tried to do this. Why did you succeed so much? Why you? Well, first of all, I had a great education. And as you say, you know, if you read outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, you learn about demographic luck, right time, right place. So I went to Wharton from 63 to 67. And at the time Wharton was practical and qualitative. And then I went from straight from there to University of Chicago for an MBA. The so-called Chicago School of Investment Thought had been created mostly in the period 62 to 64 or published then, which means I was among the very first classes to be exposed to it. And this was entirely quantitative and theoretical.

你为什么觉得自己是那个破解这个难题的人，成功把这些备忘录写得如此受欢迎？很多人尝试过，为什么你如此成功？为什么是你？首先，我受过良好的教育。正如你提到的，如果你读过马尔科姆·格拉德威尔的《异类》，你就会了解到所谓的人口统计上的运气，即正确的时间和地点。我在1963年到1967年间就读于沃顿商学院，当时的沃顿注重实用性和定性分析。然后我直接去了芝加哥大学攻读MBA。在1962到1964年间或那时出版的作品中，“芝加哥投资思想学派”基本上刚刚形成，这意味着我是最早接触到这一学派课程的学生之一，而且该学派完全是定量和理论性的。

And how do you reconcile the two? And then, of course, to quote Yogi, how do you reconcile both of those with practice? Right. Very few people were exposed to both at the same, at the time I was. And not, maybe not too many. I'm thought about the juxtaposition. They said, I just want to go out and get a job and start making money. I don't care about that thought crap, you know. But I'm attracted to intellectual puzzles. I have intellectual curiosity.

你如何调和这两者呢？当然，再引用尤吉的话，你怎样通过实践来调和二者呢？对。当时很少有人同时接触到这两种事物，可能也没多少人考虑过这种并置关系。他们说，我只想出去找份工作开始赚钱，我不在乎那些思想上的东西。但是，我对智力谜题很感兴趣，我有强烈的求知欲。

And I can't, you know, if Wharton says that the way you make money is by thinking about something and deciding whether to buy it, and then it goes up. And Chicago says, you can't beat the market because everybody already knows everything you know and it's already reflected in the prices of security. So there's no such thing as finding a bargain. And then there are, you know, 100,000 people working in the investment management business trying to make money for themselves, hopefully by making money for their clients. How do you reconcile those three things? And only the challenging reconciliations are interesting.

如果沃顿商学院认为赚钱的方法是通过思考某个投资机会，然后决定是否买入，然后获利。而芝加哥大学认为你无法战胜市场，因为你知道的一切信息市场上的每个人都已经知道，并且这些信息已经反映在证券的价格中，所以不存在找到便宜货这种说法。同时，还有十多万人在投资管理行业工作，希望通过为客户赚钱来为自己盈利。你如何调和这三种观点呢？只有那些具有挑战性的调和方式才是有趣的。

The easy reconciliations are not interesting. And so, you know, I give a presentation called the human side of investing. The difference between theory and practice based on Yogis Quot, which I introduced with the Yogis Quot. But the question is, you learn ABC in school and you get out in the real world and you find that what's important as DNA. Does that mean ABC is irrelevant? Does that mean only DNA counts? How do you connect the two? One comment then, last question. I think that you've presented a great writing prompt, which is, what doesn't make sense? What just doesn't make sense? And how do you reconcile two opposing worldviews that both on their own seem like they're coherent in total? How do you square the two of those?

简单的和解并不有趣。因此，我做了一个名为《投资中的人性》的演讲，探讨理论与实践的区别，这基于一个瑜伽士的名言。我用这句名言来引入话题。问题是，你在学校学习了ABC，进入真实世界后却发现重要的是DNA。这是否意味着ABC无关紧要？是否意味着只有DNA才算数？你如何将两者联系起来？一个评论，然后是最后一个问题。我认为你提出了一个很好的写作提示，那就是——什么不合逻辑？哪些事情就是不合逻辑的？以及如何调和两种看似对立但各自都合乎逻辑的世界观？你如何将这两者统一起来？

Well, I think that all of your viewers who are interested in writing should realize that if they write what everybody always already knows, they're not going to have much of a career. If they reconcile things that are easily reconciled, it's not going to be that interesting. If it's dolls and humanists and high-flown in terms of as verbiage, it's not going to be fun to read. So you have to make it interesting. But as you know, writing is incredibly rewarding. And you don't need sophisticated equipment. You don't. There are an expensive entry fees. I've been doing this for 35 years. I've been working for 55 years. I still think of new things. And I say to myself, I never thought of that before. And to me, that's what it's all about. And you can stay young and alive if you're still growing. But if you say, you know what, I know everything there is to be known. You'll ask if I, and you won't be that interesting.

好吧，我觉得所有对写作感兴趣的观众都应该意识到，如果他们只写大家早已知道的东西，他们的职业生涯不会有多大进展。如果他们把很容易解决的事情再去调和，就不会很有趣。如果写作只是堆砌华丽辞藻，那看起来也不怎么好玩。所以，你必须让它变得有趣。不过你知道，写作是极其有成就感的。你不需要复杂的设备，也没有昂贵的入门费用。我干这行已经35年了，总共工作了55年。我仍然有新的想法，有时我会对自己说，这个我以前从没想过。对我来说，这就是写作的意义所在。如果你不断成长，你就能保持年轻和活力。但如果你说，我已经知道一切，那么你就会变得无趣。

My final question. I'm pretending I'm the chancellor at Wharton, and I say, Howard, here's a, I'd like for you to teach a writing class, and it's going to be called the most important thing. What is the most important thing about writing? It's like the book. The book has, is called the most important thing. It has 21 chapters, and each chapter says the most important thing is, and it's a different thing. There's no one important thing, right? You know, and, and the reason I wrote the book and gave it that title is that I would find myself sitting in a client's office, and I would say the most important thing is to control risk.

这是我最后一个问题。我假装自己是沃顿商学院的院长，然后我说，Howard，我希望你能开设一门写作课，课程名为"最重要的事"。写作中最重要的事情是什么呢？这就像一本书，这本书叫做"最重要的事"，它有21章，每一章都说最重要的事情是不同的事情。实际上并没有唯一的重要的事情，对吧？我写这本书并给它起这个名字的原因是，我常常发现自己坐在客户的办公室里，然后说最重要的事情是控制风险。

And then 10 minutes later, I would say the most important thing is to not lose money. And then I would say the most important thing is to know something that not everybody else knows. So what's that for writing? What are the chapter titles? Clarity. Humor. Interesting topics. Challenging the reader to learn something they didn't think of before. Because if, if somebody reads a book, not a novel, but a, a, a nonfiction book, and at the end says, well, that was well written and convincing, but I knew all that stuff before I started. Or that, that, that really agrees with everything I already thought. Now, this is how we started the interview.

然后，10分钟后，我会说最重要的事情就是不要亏钱。接着，我会说最重要的是知道一些别人不知道的东西。那么，这对写作有什么启示呢？章节标题有哪些？清晰。幽默。有趣的话题。挑战读者去学习他们之前没有想到的东西。因为如果有人读了一本书，不是小说，而是一本非小说类书籍，最后却说，这本书写得很好，也很有说服力，但我在开始之前就知道所有这些东西，或者说，这本书完全符合我之前的想法。那么，这就是我们这次访谈的开场。

Then they're not going to buy your next one. And you, you haven't accomplished anything. So, what is your goal? What are your means to accomplish it? And I think those chapter headings, and I'm sure I could think of some others, those are the means to successful writing.

如果这样的话，他们就不会去买你的下一本书。而你也没有取得任何成就。那么，你的目标是什么？你用什么方法去实现它？我认为这些章节标题，当然我也可以想到其他一些，这些都是成功写作的方法。

Well, thanks for doing this. I really admire the career that you've built, the writing that you've done, and really cool to meet you today.

感谢你做这一切。我非常钦佩你所建立的职业生涯和所写的作品，今天见到你真的很高兴。

The only thing I can tell you is it's been fun. Good. Thank you.

我只能告诉你，这一直很有趣。很好。谢谢。