巴菲特：过去的错误，我不会为它们烦恼

时间：2005年9月30日

地点：University Of Nebraska

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嗨，我是 Marisa Pont，我是高级管理专业的学生。 显然，作为公众，我们听到的最多的你们成功的投资（指巴菲特）或您开发的新产品（指比尔·盖茨）。 我只是想知道你认为你做过的最糟糕的投资是什么？（译者注：巴菲特和比尔盖茨都在现场）

Hi, I’m Marisa Pont I’m a senior management major. Obviously as a public what we hear most about are your successful investing adventures or the new products that you develop that work out. I was just wondering what is what would you consider to be the worst investment you’ve ever made?

沃伦巴菲特：我做过的最糟糕的投资？ 你有多久时间？ [笑声] 好吧，我做了一些非常糟糕的事情，但这并没有真正困扰我。 这可能会困扰我的股东，但这是另一个问题了。 你知道你会在生活中犯错。 但是毫无疑问你不想在重大决定上出错，比如和谁结婚，诸如此类的。

Warren Buffett: The worst investment I ever made? How long do you have? [Laughter] well I’ve made some very bad ones but that doesn’t really bother me. It may bother the shareholders but that’s another question. you know you’re going to make mistakes in life. There’s no question about it. You don’t want to make them on the big decisions. You know who you marry and some things like that.

但是我不可能在不犯错误的情况下做出很多商业和投资决策。 我可能会尽量减少它们，但是我根本不会在错误上纠结。 我不沉溺过去。

There’s no way I’m going to make a lot of business and investment decisions without making some mistakes. I may try to minimize them I don’t dwell on them at all. I don’t look back.

最大的错误是那些实际上没有被公开的错误。 它们是疏忽导致的，而不是执行导致的错误。 我们从来没有在任何一项投资上损失过那么多钱，但重大错误是那些我知道的足以去做但我没有做的事情。 在我知道要做的事情上，我没有行动，导致我们错失了多达 100 亿美元的利润。 我没有投资微软并不是一个错过的机会，因为我没有足够的见解来做出那个决定。 但是还有其他投资，我确实知道足以做出决定，但是出于某种原因，我要么根本不做，要么投资的规模很小。 我本该在写支票的时候却在吮吸拇指。

The biggest mistakes are the ones that actually don’t show up. They’re the mistakes of omission rather than commission. we’ve never lost that much money on any one investment, but it’s the things that I knew enough to do that I didn’t do. We have missed profits of as much as maybe 10 billion dollars in things that I knew enough to do. And I didn’t do. Now the fact that I didn’t buy Microsoft way back is not a foregone opportunity because I didn’t know enough to make that decision. But there have been other investments where I did know enough to make the decision and for one reason or another I either didn’t do it at all or I did it on a small scale. I was sucking my thumb when I should have been writing checks

这些错误没有公开过。 没有任何地方会显示我们的错失机会清单。 但我是错过了一些很有价值的机会。 生活中的胜利部分是胜利，因为你知道你不会在每一件事上都能做对。 我永远不会太沉迷于错误。 我认识很多人，他们真的为过去的错误而苦恼。 这不值得。 明天又是一天，你继续前进，然后继续下一件事情。

Those don’t show up. There’s no place where it shows “missed opportunities”. But I’ve missed some big ones. The triumphs in life are partly triumphs because you know that everything isn’t going to be a triumph. I would never get too hung up on mistakes. I know a lot of people that really agonize over them. It just isn’t worth it. Tomorrow is another day, and you live it forward and just go on to the next thing.