#576：摩根·豪塞尔——金钱心理学、选择正确的游戏，以及那位身价600万美元的看门人

这让我想到，每当你想描绘或想象你的孩子将来会成为什么样的人时，你根本无法预料他们会成长为怎样的人。

And that just makes me think, like, whenever you wanna picture or imagine who your kids might be someday, it's like you have no clue what they're gonna grow up to be.

直觉上我们会认为，我的孩子会像我和我妻子一样，因为我一定会把我和妻子重视的价值观传递给他们，但他们彼此之间差异如此显著，而我和我的兄弟姐妹也截然不同。

It's intuitive to think that my kids will grow up similar to my wife and I because I'm gonna instill in them the values that my wife and I value, but they're so starkly different from one another and I'm so different from my brother and sister.

我们在生活中追求的目标如此完全不同，以至于在孩子年幼时，当你根本无法预知他们未来会走向何方时，很难给他们任何建议。

We want so completely different ways in life that it's it's so hard to give your kids advice when they're young, when you have no clue where they're gonna end up.

因此，有人根据那篇文章问我：现在你会教他们什么？或者，既然我儿子已经大到可以理解一些基本概念了，你是怎么教他关于金钱的知识的？

So people have asked me this question going off of that article, what would I teach them now or how am I teaching my my son about money now that he's old enough to start to get the basics of it?

事实上，我并没有在教他，因为我真的不知道。

And the truth is I'm really not, because I don't know.

也许当他成年后，他想成为高盛的合伙人。

Maybe when he's a young adult, he wants to be a partner at Goldman Sachs.

也许他想为绿色和平组织工作。

Maybe he wants to work for Greenpeace.

谁知道他会成为什么样的人呢？

Like, who knows what he's gonna be?

因此，我无法给他或任何人提供普遍的财务建议，说这就是你应该做的，这就是你应该重视的，这就是你应该去的地方，因为我们在目标、天赋和抱负上都如此不同。

And therefore, I can't give him or anyone universal financial advice and say this is what you should do, and this is what you should value, this is where you should go, because we're all so incredibly different in our goals and our talents and our aspirations.

难道就没有一些特质或特征，可以以某种中立的方式去培养吗？我知道这项研究——如果你甚至愿意称它为研究的话——已经受到一些质疑，比如棉花糖实验。

Are there not traits or characteristics that you could cultivate that would be somewhat agnostic in the sense that I know this is a study that's come under some scrutiny if you wanna even call it a study, but the marshmallow test.

对吧？

Right?

所以，有没有可能不直接提升他们的财务智商或投资智商，而是培养某些可能有帮助的特质呢？

So are there not ways of not necessarily improving their financial IQ or investment IQ, but cultivating certain characteristics that may be helpful.

对吧？

Right?

我正在看一篇杰森·茨威格的文章。

And I'm looking at a piece by Jason Zweig.

我这样发音对吗？

Am I pronouncing that correctly?

对。

Yep.

出色的作家。

Fantastic writer.

这实际上是一位记者，他写了一篇关于你这本书的精彩文章。

This is a actually, journalist, and this is a a great piece discussing your book.

你知道富有和富裕之间的区别吗？

Do you know the difference between being rich and being wealthy?

我在这篇文章中喜欢的一句话是：投资不是智商测试，而是品格的考验。

And one of the lines that I like in this is investing isn't an IQ test, it's a test of character.

你能谈谈这一点吗？

So could you speak to that?

我认为，如果金钱有一个普遍的特质，虽然不是100%的人，但大约90%的人都是如此，那就是人们真正想要的是独立和自主。

I think if there is a universal trait of money that's true for not a 100% of people, but let's say 90% of people, is that what people really want in life is independence and autonomy.

我认为，无论你来自哪里、从事什么工作、有什么抱负，这都是一个共同点：人们只是希望每天早上醒来，都能按照自己的意愿做事。无论他们今天是否能做到，或者这只是一个目标，我认为这正是人类普遍的特质——那就是独立和自主。

I think no matter where you're from, what you do, what your aspirations are, that's a common denominator, that people just want to wake up every morning and do what they want to do on their own terms, and whether they're able to do that, whether that they can actually do that today or that's a goal, I think that's a that's a universal trait among people, it's just independence and autonomy.

因此，如果我们能利用金钱获得这种独立和自主，我认为这就是金钱最接近普遍渴望的用途了。

And so to the extent that we can use money to gain that, to gain independence and autonomy, that is, I think, as close as it comes to a universal want and thing that we can use money for.

对我来说，有趣的是，大量受过教育的人、金融专业人士，他们认为钱的用途就是买东西。

The interesting thing to me is that huge numbers of people, educated people, financial professionals, the purpose of money is to buy stuff.

钱就是为了积累更多东西——更大的房子、更好的车，不管是什么，这都没问题。

It's to it's to accumulate more stuff, bigger house, nicer car, whatever it might be, which is great.

我也很喜欢这些东西。

I love all that stuff too.

但在我看来，金钱最强大的作用以及它能带给我们的最普遍的好处，却一直被系统性地忽视了。

But to me, the most powerful thing that money can do and the most universal benefit that it can bring us is systematically overlooked.

比如，用钱来获得独立和自主权，这一点被严重忽略了。

Like, using it for independence and autonomy is so overlooked.

这对我来说一直是一件令人遗憾的事：我们如此习惯于、专注于用自己拥有的任何金钱或储蓄去购买更多东西，而本可以用它们换取自由和自主权。

That to me has always been kind of a a sad thing that we are so accustomed and attuned to just wanting to use our money, whatever money that we have, whatever savings that we have to go out and buy more stuff when we could be using it for freedom and autonomy.

当你进入像2020年3月和4月，或2008年10月这样的时期，当数百万人失去工作时，你会看到在新冠初期，有多少人正处在破产的边缘。

And then when you come to a period like in March and April 2020 or October 2008, when millions of people lose their jobs, and you see during those periods like the early day of COVID, how many people are just on the razor's edge of insolvency.

对他们来说，只需一两周的失业，就会陷入严重的财务困境。

And it does not take them much, one or two weeks of unemployment, to be in a really bad financial spot.

无论是对个人还是小企业来说，他们只需一点意外就会被推入绝境。

Whether that's for an individual or a small business, it does not take them much to be thrown over the edge.

你会意识到，许多人多么依赖他们的工作、薪水以及客户，而且这种依赖在短时间内就显现出来。

And you realize how dependent so many people are on their jobs, their salaries, their their customers in in a short period of time.

在世界大部分地区，几乎没有容错的空间。

And there's just not a lot of room for error throughout most of the world.

我认为，对于绝大多数人来说——不是所有人，但大多数人——他们本可以拥有更多。

And I think for the huge majority of people, not everyone, but for the majority of people, there could be a lot more.

他们不愿多储蓄的原因是，他们的第一反应是：为什么我要把钱放在银行里，甚至投资呢？

And the reason that they don't wanna have more savings is because to them, the knee jerk reaction is why would I just keep my money in the bank or even invest it?

钱的用途不就是拿出去买更多东西，享受生活吗？

Like, the purpose of money is to go out and buy more stuff to enjoy my life.

我理解这一点。

I get that.

我明白。

I understand it.

但人们通常每五到十年才会意识到独立和自主的重要性。

But it's usually once every five or ten years that people realize how important independence and autonomy is.

拥有那些未曾花掉的财富，那些只是闲置着无所作为的钱，在它们让你掌控自己的时间、每天早上醒来时能说‘今天我想做什么就做什么’的时候，就成了世界上最有价值的东西。

And having that wealth that you have not spent, having the money that you haven't spent that was just laying around doing nothing becomes the most valuable thing in the world when it lets you gain control of your time and just wake up every morning and say, I can do whatever the hell I want today.

我认为，蒂姆，这几乎就是一条普适的财务法则。

I think that's as close as it gets, Tim, to, like, a universal financial law.

好的。

Alright.

我们可能会再谈孩子的事，但这次我先不提孩子了，转而聊聊你的父母。

We may come back to the kids, but I'm gonna leave the kids alone, and I'm gonna go to your parents instead.

你的父母是做什么职业的？

What did your parents do professionally?

回答你的问题，我爸爸是急诊科医生，我妈妈是急诊科护士。

To answer the question, my dad was an ER doctor, my mom was an ER nurse.

他们现在都退休了，但他们的职业道路非常有趣。

They're both retired now, but they got to it in a really interesting way.

我父母在20世纪70年代的田纳西州一个嬉皮士公社相识，我父亲30岁时才开始上大学，那时他已经有了三个孩子。

My parents met on a hippie commune in the nineteen seventies in Tennessee, and my dad started his undergraduate college when he was 30 and had three kids.

他大约43岁才成为医生，而那时他已经有了三个青少年子女。

And he became a doctor when he was, like, 43 or something like that and had three teenagers.

所以他在三十多岁开始上大学之后才有了孩子？

So he had kids after he began his undergrad in his thirties?

我是三个孩子里最小的，我认为他是在我出生后的一个月就开始上大学的。

Well, I'm the youngest of three, and I think he started undergraduate the month after I was born.

他就是那时候开始上大学的，然后在我12岁左右成为医生，那时我哥哥已经18岁了。

That's when he started undergrad, and then he became a doctor when I was 12 or something like that, and my brother would have been 18 at that point.

所以他起步非常晚，当他开始时，从他父母到教授们，大概都想知道：你到底想干什么？

So he got a very late start, which is a very like, when he started everyone, I think from his parents to the professors were like, what are you trying to do?

你要当医生？

You're gonna become a doc.

什么？

Like, what?

你疯了。

You're out of your mind.

但他确实做到了。

But he did.

他坚持了下来，并完成了。

He ground through it and did it.

关于这个经济故事，有趣的是，我们长大后，我和我的整个家庭。

And what's interesting about that financial story is that we grew up, me we'd be my my whole family.

当我还是个小孩子的时候，非常非常穷。

When I was a young kid, very, very poor.

我的父母还是学生。

My parents were students.

我们靠助学金和低收入住房生活。

We were living off of grants and, like, low income houses.

我们真的很穷。

Like, we were poor.

我们有一个美好的童年，但非常贫穷。

We had a great childhood, but we were very poor.

然后在我和兄弟姐妹刚进入青春期时，我爸爸成了医生，从此我们过上了舒适的中上层生活。

And then my dad became a doctor when we were in our early teenage years and then had a comfortable upper middle class life from there.

但父母在贫穷时被迫养成的节俭习惯一直保留了下来。

But the frugality that was forced upon my parents when they were poor stuck around.

所以我的父母储蓄率非常高。

So my parents had a very high savings rate.

我们过着非常好的生活。

We lived a we lived a great life.

我们住着不错的房子，开的是不错的车，也去了一些很棒的度假地。

We had a nice house, drove fine cars, we went on some cool vacations.

这完全不是过穷日子，但我的父母储蓄率非常高。

It was not living poor at all, but my parents had a very high savings rate.

他们生活远低于自己的收入水平，因为几十年来他们一直被迫这样生活。

They lived well below their means because that's how they it was forced upon them for decades of living like that.

然后，如果把时间快进到最近十年，我父亲在急诊室工作了二十到二十五年，这可能是医学领域中最压力巨大的工作之一，因为每天都有人真真切切地死在你怀里。

And then when this is like now if we fast forward to the last ten years, my dad, after working in the ER for twenty or twenty five years, which is probably one of the most stressful fields of medicine you can go into because people are literally, literally dying in your arms every day.

这是一份非常非常有压力的职业。

It's a very it's a very stressful profession.

所以工作二十年后，他实在受不了了。

So after twenty years, he just kinda had enough.

由于他有很高的储蓄率，一旦他决定不再干了，就可以立刻离开。

And since he had a high savings rate, he could as soon as he got to the day where he decided he had enough, he just left.

他辞职了。

He quit.

他能按照自己的意愿，在想走的时候就走，而他那些同事多年来过着比他好得多的生活——更大的房子、更好的车、送孩子去更好的学校，等等，他们也想辞职，却做不到。

And he could do it on his own terms when he wanted to, and he had all these colleagues who for years had been living a much better life than him, bigger houses, nicer cars, sending their kids to better schools, all that, and they wanted to quit and they couldn't.

他们同样精疲力尽，却还得再干十年。

They were just as burned out, but they needed to put in another ten years of doing it.

我认为，看着我父亲达到这样一个阶段：他说，我不想再干了，明天就走。

And I think watching that, watching my dad just getting to a point where he said, I don't wanna do this anymore, so I'm gonna leave tomorrow.

那一刻，我恍然大悟。

It was like, ah, that clicked with me.

原来你小时候那么抠门就是这个原因，我年轻时还瞧不起你，总问：为什么不多花点钱？

Like, that's why you were so cheap growing up, which I looked down upon you for when I was young saying, why don't we spend more money?

但现在我明白了。

But now I get it.

他拥有纯粹的独立与自主权。

You have he has pure independence and autonomy.

他和我妈妈从这种生活里获得的幸福感，远超过他年轻时开保时捷、住更大房子所能带来的快乐，简直是百倍之多。

And the happiness that he and my mom got from that, I think, the happiness that he would have gotten from driving a Porsche or living in a bigger house a hundredfold, literally a hundredfold.

过去十年里，他一直过得很幸福，做自己想做的事，尤其是随着年龄增长、身心逐渐放缓时，他能随心所欲地生活。

He's been so happy over the last decade just doing what he wants to do, particularly retiring as he slows down, as his body and mind slow down as he aged, just to be able to do what he wants.

我真心觉得，比起年轻时过上更富足的物质生活，他的幸福感提升了百倍。

I literally think it's a 100 times happier than he would have been if he lived a better material life when he was young.

所以，看着这一切，我得到了一个极其深刻的启示。

So that was a really profound takeaway for me watching that.

他们在田纳西州相遇的那个嬉皮士公社叫什么类型？

What type of hippie commune did they meet on in Tennessee?

它叫‘农场’。

It's called the farm.

它至今仍然存在。

It's still in existence.

它现在只剩下原来规模的极小一部分，但在20世纪70年代，这个叫‘农场’的嬉皮士公社规模庞大。

It's a tiny tiny fraction of what it used to be, but back in the nineteen seventies, it's a hippie commune called called the farm and it was huge.

那里有成千上万人，确实是一个真正的公社。

It was like thousands of people and it was truly was a commune.

你不被允许拥有自己的经济资产。

You were not allowed to have your own financial assets.

你不能拥有自己的银行账户。

You couldn't have your own bank.

当你加入农场时，一到那里就必须交出你所有的财产、所有金钱和资产，全部捐给农场，大家共同劳动。

When you joined the farm, when you got there, you had to forfeit all your your possessions, all of your money, all of your assets had to be donated to the farm and everyone worked together.

他们都是农民。

They were farmers.

我爸爸，他开过农用喷洒飞机。

My dad, like, my dad flew a crop dusting plane.

他搬到农场之前是个飞行员，大家都一起工作。

He was a pilot before he moved to the farm and everyone worked together.

当然，这里的笑点是，它最终失败了，正如你所料，它彻底瓦解了，但我的父母——我上周刚聊起这件事——对那段经历只有美好的回忆。

Now of course, the punchline here is it failed, it totally it fell apart eventually as you would imagine, but my parents I was talking about it just last week, they have nothing but incredible memories from it.

他们当时二十出头，到中年二十多岁，至今最好的朋友还是在农场认识的。

They were in their early and mid twenties when they were doing it and their best friends still to this day are from there.

即使整个公社最终解散了，他们对那段经历依然只有美好的回忆。

They have nothing but great experiences from it even if the whole thing fell apart.

七十年代，当然是婴儿潮一代的巅峰时期。

The seventies, of course, was like peak baby boomer.

在七十年代住在这样一个嬉皮士公社里，真是一件很酷的事。

It was a really cool thing to do, to live on this hippie comian back in the nineteen seventies.

所以你爸爸在做了大约二十五年的急诊科医生后，决定辞职，直接退休。

So your dad after, let's call it twenty, twenty five years of working as an ER doc, decides to walk, just call it quits, retire.

正如你所指出的，他能这么做是出于多种原因。

He's able to do that, as you pointed out, for a number of reasons.

我发现并观察到，自由和自主权往往伴随着很大的责任。

Freedom and autonomy, I have found and observed, not perhaps surprisingly, carries with it a lot of responsibility.

似乎有些人长期非常节俭，一旦退休，就很难为自己花钱来提升生活质量或生活体验。

And it seems that sometimes people who are frugal for a very, very long time then have extreme difficulty spending money on themselves to sort of improve their quality of life or experience of life post, let's just say, retirement in this case.

你的父母，或者你爸爸，是如何利用这种自由和自主权的呢？

How have have your parents how or how has your dad used this freedom and autonomy?

对吧？

Right?

因为这需要面对大量的

Because it's a it's a lot of

一天中的时间。

hours in the day.

这种情况发展得怎么样？

How has that panned out?

首先，我觉得他们现在是这辈子最开心的，过去几年里从未这么开心过。

First, I'd say they're the happiest that I've ever seen them now in in the last couple years.

他们在加利福尼亚北部的海岸买了一块地，现在成了小规模的农民。

They bought a piece of land on the coast in Northern California, and they are just, like, small time farmers.

他们是素食主义者。

They're vegetarians.

他们已经做了四十五年的素食者，自己种的食物占了他们食用量的三分之二。

They've been vegetarians for forty five years, and they grow, like, two thirds of the food that they eat.

他们整天都在自己的小农场里忙活，而且非常享受这个过程。

So they spend all of their day in their little personal farm doing it and they love it.

他们其实并不需要这么做，但他们就是无比热爱这件事。

They don't need to do that, but they absolutely love it.

他们有一台拖拉机，还有好多酷炫的工具，简直爱死了这些活计。

They have a tractor and they got all these cool tools and they'd absolutely love doing it.

一切都是按照他们自己的方式。

And it's all in their own terms.

他们每天都会小憩，沿着海岸骑自行车，过得很开心。

They and they they take naps every day, they go for bike rides along the coast, like they have a lot of fun doing it.

这太棒了。

That's amazing.

从农场到农场，听起来他们似乎兜了个圈。

So they've come full circle in a sense from the farm to the farm, it sounds like.

包括在父亲当医生的那些年，他看起来像个专业人士，而现在他又回到了全然的嬉皮士模样，留着长长的灰白马尾辫。

Including, you know, during the doctor's years, my dad looked like a a professional, and now he's back to full hippie, long gray ponytail.

一切都会回到原点，一切都会循环回来。

It all goes full circle, it all comes back.

好的。

Alright.

那我们再深入聊聊你父亲的职业决定吧，比如他30岁才上大学，然后去学医。

So we might dig further into your dad's career decision to go to undergrad at, let's say, 30 and then pursue medicine.

但我还想聊聊你的发展轨迹，因为你对这部分应该更有细节和见解。

But I wanna talk about your trajectory since you'll have presumably more detail and and insight there.

而且我也应该给予应有的认可。

You also and I should give credit where credit is due.

为了做这些背景调查，我听了谢恩·帕里斯在《知识项目》中对你做的访谈，我想是那一次。

For some of this due diligence, I listened to Shane Parrish's interview with you on the knowledge project, I believe it

是的。

is.

没错。

Yep.

所以这些内容都是我从那里获取的。

So that's where I'm pulling this from.

但你辉煌的职业生涯始于Denny's餐厅的迎宾员工作。

But so your illustrious career began as a greeter at Denny's.

但这份工作并不适合你，结果证明它不是你的志业。

That did not pan out, was not your vocation, it turned out.

所以我当时很受打击，是的。

So I was crushed, but yes.

我深受打击。

I was crushed.

所以Denny's干不下去了，接下来你当上了停车场服务员，对吧？

So Denny's out, enter stage left, valet as I understand it, and that Yep.

持续了八九年左右，大概是这样。

Continued for eight or nine years, something like that.

所以，是的。

So it's yes.

对。

Yeah.

差不多就是那样的经历。

Something along those lines.

我在上大学期间以及之前一直做这份工作。

I did it all throughout college before and before

之后。

after.

嗯。

Yeah.

你的专业是经济学吗？

And your major was econ?

你的专业是那个吗？

Is that was that your major?

好的。

Okay.

专业是经济学。

Major's econ.

然后你去尝试投资银行，如果你周六不来上班，就别周日来了。

Then you try investment banking, and the if you don't come into work on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday.

wink wink。

Wink wink.

不是在开玩笑。

Not really joking.

那种极度竞争、残酷的环境并不适合你。

Sort of hypercompetitive cutthroat environment was not for you.

对。

Right.

你转到了私募股权，而你确实很喜欢这份工作。

You moved to private equity, which you did enjoy.

是的。

Yes.

你对公司的收购进行了深入研究， presumably 在某个时候也会出售整个公司，类似这样的事情。

And you did this sort of deep dive study of companies buying and presumably at some point selling entire companies, things like this.

但那大约是2007年，如果我没记错时间的话，或者说它在2007年结束了，因为

But that was roughly 2007, if I'm getting the timing right, or I guess it came to its end in 2007 where

没错。

Yep.

分手时的对话是：你没有被解雇，但你不能再在这里工作了。

The parting conversation was you're not fired, but you can't work here anymore.

这确实是原话。

That's that's that's a verbatim statement.

我记得坐在那里想，我敢肯定你刚刚解雇了我，但谢谢你这么有礼貌。

I remember sitting there thinking, I'm I'm I'm pretty sure you just fired me, but thank you for being polite about it.

所以我非常好奇，我必须问一下：这是不是一种巧妙的规避遣散费的方式，还是只是以一种奇怪的方式解雇你，然后又给你遣散费？

So I'm very curious to know, I had to I have to ask, like, was that a very clever way of trying to circumvent severance, or was it just a weird way of firing you and then giving you severance?

结果怎么样？

How did that pan out?

2007年的时候，大多数私募股权公司都知道自己深陷困境。

Most private equity firms in the 2007 knew they were in deep shit.

当你借入大量资金来杠杆收购那些质量低下的企业时，那真是一个艰难的时期。

It was a really tough time for people when you're borrowing a ton of money to lever these low quality businesses up, like that was a tough time.

他们看到了苗头，我认为他们只是想尽可能快地缩减规模。

They saw the writing on the wall and I think they were just trying to scale back as quickly as I could.

当时的想法是，我那时还是个暑期实习生，计划是大学毕业后留下来全职工作，也就是那年秋天开始。

The idea was so I was a summer intern at the time and the idea was I was gonna stick around full time after college and become a full time employee, which would have been that fall.

所以这就是我的计划。

So that was the plan.

一切都已经大致规划好了，比如我接下来要做什么。

It was kinda all sketched out, like, here's what I'm gonna do.

我会留下来。

I'm gonna stick around.

就在我要正式全职上班之前，他们告诉我：这里没有你的职位了。

And then just before I was gonna start full time is when they said, hey, there's not gonna be a spot here for you.

所以我相信他们的措辞并非有意为之，但那种说法——‘你没被解雇，但不能再在这里工作了’——

So I'm sure their wording was not was not intentional, but that that wording of you're not fired, but you can't work here anymore

真是挺可笑的

was was was a funny

我记得走出去时心想：那我明天还来吗？

I remember I remember walking out and being like, so what so do I come back tomorrow?

我不知道。

I don't I don't know.

这到底是怎么运作的？

How does this work?

嗯。

Yeah.

这种表达方式太让人困惑了。

Very confusing delivery.

我不知道。

I don't know.

这是《道德经》吗？

Is this the Tao Te Ching?

你是不是在想，我们到底在这干嘛啊，各位？

You're like, what are we what are we doing here, people?

所以，我的问题是，根据我的记忆——我希望我没记错，因为我几个小时前刚听过你和谢恩的这期节目——你后来和一位朋友聊了聊，我记得当时他正在《The Motley Fool》工作，问你有没有兴趣去试试写点东西。

So my question to you then, after that as if my memory is serving me, which I hope it does because I listened to this episode with Shane a few hours ago, you ended up having a conversation with a friend who I believe was writing at Motley Fool at the time and asked you if you'd be interested in sort of kicking the tires and writing for a bit.

你本身并没有写作背景，尽管我猜你确实写过一些东西。

You did not have a background as a writer per se, although I imagine you did some writing.

我们稍后会回到所谓的高中教育，可以深入探讨一下。

We're gonna come back to the high school education in quotation marks, which we can explore.

但你最终尝试了，以为这只是一个短期实验，结果却坚持了下来。

But you ended up trying that, thinking it was going to be a short experiment, and then you stuck with it.

到现在，你已经写了——我想大概是四千多篇，或者三千多篇，没错。

Now you've written, I would have to imagine at this point, what, 4,000 plus articles or 3,000 plus Yeah.

没错。

Yeah.

我的问题是，投行、私募股权，这本应是那些渴望成为金融界精英之人所走的曲折路径，但你却走了另一条路。

And my question for you is, iBanking, private equity, that that is the the meandering not meandering, but, like, the kind of winding path of of one who might aspire to be one of the masters of the universe.

对吧？

Right?

没错。

Yep.

然后你选择了写作，并坚持了下来，这与金融职业路径的经济回报截然不同。

And then you choose writing, and you stick with writing, which has a very different financial payoff profile than the finance track.

你为什么能安心这么做？

Why were you comfortable doing that?

你是如何做出这个决定的？

Or how did you make that decision?

我不敢说我很安心。

I wouldn't say I was comfortable.

我甚至不认为这是一个决定。

I wouldn't even say it was a decision.

这真的发生在2007年。

It really was in the 2007.

我2008年毕业。

So I graduated in 2008.

当一切崩塌时，我原本想成为一名投资银行家，但后来我发现，那种文化并不适合我。

So as everything fell apart, I thought I wanted to be an investment banker, and then I realized I don't as the culture of it was not for me.

然后我想，太好了。

And then I thought, great.

所以我要去私募股权领域。

So I'll go into private equity.

但那些职位在我眼前一个个消失了。

And then all those positions just disintegrated before my eyes.

我只是需要做点什么。

I just needed something to do.

我只是需要一份工作。

I just needed a job.

就像你说的，我有个朋友在《The Motley Fool》当作家，他说：摩根，你应该去申请。

And like you said, I had a friend who was a writer at the Motley Fool who said, Morgan, you should apply.

你说了，你对投资感兴趣，去申请吧。

You're like, you're interested in investing, just apply.

我想，嘿，他们不会雇我的。

And I thought, hey, they're not gonna hire me.

即使他们录用了我，我可能也只是干六个月，然后再找另一份私募股权的工作。

And even if they do, maybe I'll do it for six months before I find another private equity job.

所以，我成为作家纯粹是出于绝望。

So it was really just out of desperation that I became a writer.

用这个词来形容再合适不过了。

That's the right word for it.

这根本不是什么计划。

It was not a plan.

我甚至都不喜欢它。

I didn't even enjoy it.

我对它也没有任何热情。

I wasn't excited about it.

我只是觉得，我需要一份薪水。

It was just like, how I I need a paycheck.

而且，那第一年也一点都不有趣，因为我根本没有任何写作背景。

And then I would say the first year of that too was not very much fun because I really had no writing background at all.

我在大学主修经济学，那是一个非常注重数学的领域，所以根本不需要多少写作。

I was an econ major in college where it's heavily math based, so it's not you know, there's not much writing.

只要你能在试卷顶部写上自己的名字，那就够了。

Like as long as you can write your name at the top of the test, that's all that's required of you.

所以我完全没有写作背景，第一年特别艰难，因为我在投资方面完全不懂自己在说什么，写作方面也是一窍不通。

And so I had no writing background, and then so the first year was really hard because I had no idea what I was doing, both on the investing front, like I had no idea what I was talking about, and on the writing front.

我根本不知道该怎么写出一个好段落，这特别困难，尤其是任何从事网络写作或社交媒体的人都知道。

I just didn't know how to write a good paragraph, and it was tough, particularly as anyone in online writing or even social media knows.

如果你在网上说错了什么，人们会毫不客气地指出来。

If you say something wrong online, people will tell you about it in no uncertain terms.

所以作为我工作的一部分，我每天都被批得体无完肤。

So I was just you know, as part of my job, I was just getting torn to shreds day after day.

这根本一点都不有趣。

It just wasn't any fun.

但大概一年或两年后，我觉得自己终于开始上手了。

But after I would say a year or maybe two years, I felt like I started to get the hang of it.

我开始意识到，我对投资的理解更深了，我觉得自己可以讲一些人们会喜欢的故事，而不仅仅是一个纯粹的资本J记者，只是把数字堆在页面上然后发布。也许我可以讲一个能引起共鸣的故事，如果我这样调整措辞，用这种方式幽默一下，用这种方式讲述一个故事，我就能在竞争激烈的金融媒体圈中脱颖而出，因为有太多人也在写我所关注的同一些股票，如果我能讲好故事，就会更有趣，也更能吸引人们的注意。

And I started to be like, I understand investing better and I feel like, oh, I can start telling a little bit of a story that people might enjoy and rather than just being a capital j journalist and just like throwing numbers on the page and hitting publish, maybe I can tell a story that will resonate with people And if I twist the phrases this way, and if I try to be funny in this way and tell a tale in this way, then I can stick out in this financial media world that is so competitive, and there's so many other people who are writing about the same stocks that I do, that if I can tell a story, it's more fun and it catches people's attention.

即使到了那之后，我们现在大概已经到了2009年、2010年。

And even after that so now we're in, like, 2009, 2010.

我想直到2014年或2015年左右，我才真正开始找到节奏，觉得我渐渐明白了自己在做什么，我好像摸到了写好金融文章的诀窍。

I would say it wasn't until probably 2014 or '15 that I felt like I really started hitting a stride of, oh, I can kind of figure out what I'm doing here and I I I kind of feel like I've cracked the formula of what works in a finance article.

所以这真的花了五到七年的时间，我才慢慢摸索着把各种碎片拼凑起来，弄清楚这一切，之后我才真正开始享受这个过程，并觉得自己在这方面有了一些天赋。

And so it was really, you know, five to seven years of just kind of hacking my way through trying to put the pieces together to figure it out before I really started, a, enjoying it and felt like I had some aptitude of doing a good job at it.

只是

Just

感谢我们的赞助商之一，马上回来继续节目。

a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show.

本集由Athletic Greens赞助播出。

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

我经常被问到，如果只能选一种补充剂，我会选哪个。

I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement.

答案毫无疑问是Athletic Greens的G1产品。

The answer is invariably a g one by Athletic Greens.

无论你是在旅行、忙碌，还是不确定自己的饮食是否均衡，它都能全面覆盖你的营养需求。

If you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases.

它含有约75种维生素、矿物质和全食物来源成分，市场上很难找到比它营养密度更高的配方。

With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients, you'll be hard pressed to find a more nutrient dense formula on the market.

它包含复合维生素、复合矿物质、绿蔬复合物、益生菌和益生元，支持肠道健康与免疫力，还有消化酶和适应原。

It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula, digestive enzymes, and adaptogens.

你明白我的意思了。

You get the idea.

目前，Athletic Greens为我的听众提供了一项特别优惠：在他们的全能配方基础上，首次订阅即可免费获得维生素D补充剂和五份旅行装。

Right now, Athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all in one formula, which is a free vitamin d supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase.

我们许多人其实都缺乏维生素D。

Many of us are deficient in vitamin d.

我自己也发现确实如此，而维生素D通常是我们通过日晒在体内合成的。

I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure.

因此，将维生素D补充剂加入你的日常习惯是增强免疫力的好选择。

So adding a vitamin d supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support.

通过访问 athleticgreens.com/tim 来支持你的免疫力、肠道健康和能量水平。

Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com/tim.

订阅后，你将获得长达一年的维生素D供应量以及五个免费的旅行装。

You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin d and five free travel packs with your subscription.

再次提醒，网址是 athleticgreens.com/tim。

Again, that's athleticgreens.com/tim.

就职业规划而言，无论是出于自愿、绝望还是偶然。

In the vein of sort of career crafting, whether by of your own volition or via desperation or chance.

假设在某种程度上，我们所有人都是这几种因素的结合体。

Suppose we're all a combination of probably those things on some level.

你曾为多家不同媒体撰稿。

You've written for a number of different outlets.

你是如何成为协作基金（Collaborative Fund）的合伙人——这是一家风险投资公司——以及如何成为马克尔公司（Markel Corporation）董事会成员的？我想了解这两点。

How did you end up, and I'd like to know both of these, a partner at Collaborative Fund, which is a venture capital firm, and how did you end up on the board of directors of Markel Corporation?

你也应该解释一下马克尔公司是什么以及他们做什么。

And you should also probably explain what Markel Corporation is and what they do.

这可不是一家小公司。

This is not a small company.

所以我真的很想知道这两个问题的答案。

So I wanna know I I would love to know the answers to both of those.

好的。

Okay.

我们先从协作基金说起。

Let's start with collaborative fun.

当时，我在富达基金，让我们回到2015年。

At the time, I was at The Motley Fool, at the time being about let's go back to 2015.

我当时在富达基金，原本计划在富达基金工作一辈子，我和妻子甚至在弗吉尼亚州富达基金总部半英里处买了一栋房子。

I was at The Motley Fool, and my plan was I was gonna stay at The Motley Fool for life, including my wife and I bought a house half a mile from Motley Fool headquarters in in Virginia.

我们的计划是永远住在那里。

The plan was we're gonna stay there forever.

有一天，一个叫克雷格·夏皮罗的人给我发了邮件，说：嘿，我是克雷格。

One day, a guy named Craig Shapiro emailed me and said, hey, I'm Craig.

我经营一家名为‘协作乐趣’的小型风险投资公司。

I run this tiny venture capital firm called Collaborative Fun.

我读过你的东西。

I'd read your stuff.

咱们一起吃顿午饭吧。

Let's grab lunch.

通常情况下，如果有人给我发这样的邮件，我会直接删除，根本不会回复。

And normally, if if someone sent me that email, I would just delete wouldn't even respond to it.

我 literally 就会直接删掉它。

I would literally just delete it.

这是我性格上的一个缺点，我对这类事情都是这样回应的。

That's a personality flaw of mine, that's how I respond to those kind of things.

但那天我在纽约，而克雷格就住在那儿，刚好有人取消了一个会议，我空出了些时间。

But I was in New York that day where Craig is from and someone had just canceled a meeting, I had some free time.

所以我收到一封来自纽约 guy 的邮件，他说：嘿，我们见个面吧，我说：太好了，我就在两条街外，我们现在就见面吧。

So I get this email from a guy in New York who says, hey, let's meet and I said, great, I'm two blocks away, let's meet right now.

于是我见到了 Craig Shapiro，结果他就是那种人——我说这话是真心的，并不是因为他是我老板才恭维他，我一见到他就觉得：啊，这人和我看待世界的方式完全一致。

So I met Craig Shapiro and he just turned out to be he's one of those people, and I'm really being sincere when I say this, I'm not just blowing smoke because he's my boss, he was one of those people who right away I was like, ah, this guy, like he and I see eye to eye on how the world works.

我们偶尔会有分歧，但在如何过好生活、投资如何运作、经济走向这些大方向上，我和 Craig 的看法高度一致，这一点从一开始就很明显。

We disagree here and there, but in the broad strokes of how to live a good life and how investing works and where the economy is going, Craig and I really see eye to eye on the big picture stuff, and that was clear right away.

大概一年后，他跟我说：嘿，你应该加入 Collaborative Fund，继续写你一直在写的东西。

So it was it was probably about a year after that that he said, hey, you should join collaborative fund and just keep writing about the things that you do.

我说：Craig，谢谢你，但不用了。

And I said, Craig, thanks, but no.

我在 The Motley Fool 非常开心。

I'm really happy at The Motley Fool.

我打算在这里待一辈子。

I'm gonna stay here forever.

我对这个不感兴趣。

Not interested in it.

他一直不断努力说服我，我花了很长时间才意识到，我真的理解并认同他想要打造的愿景，而且我很喜欢。

And he just kinda kept chipping away and it it took me a long time to figure out that, like, I I really see the vision of what he's trying to build and I like it.

我喜欢这个品牌。

I like the brand.

我个人也很喜欢他。

I like him personally.

他是个很棒的人，而且我知道他会给我完全的自主权，让我想写什么就写什么，想什么时候写就什么时候写，把博客变成我自由发挥的画布。

He's he's a great guy and I also knew that he was gonna give me complete autonomy to write about whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and just make the blog my own little canvas that I could paint on.

这对我来说非常重要，而且我很清楚他会让我这么做。

That was really important to me, and it was clear that he was gonna let me do that.

于是我加入了协作基金，这是一家风险投资公司，如今也涉足多种资产类别。

So then I I joined Collaborative Fund, which is a venture capital firm, private equity firm, kinda invest in lots of different asset classes now.

我的全部工作就是写作和演讲，甚至不写风险投资，也不写我们的投资组合，而是写我看到的世界走向、我认为对投资、投资历史和投资行为重要的事情。

And my whole job is to write and speak and not even write about venture capital or not even to write about our portfolio, just write about things that I see where the world's going, things that I think are important for investing, investing history and investing behavior.

在一家风险投资公司雇佣一位像我这样的写手，其核心理念是：如果你是风险投资人，资金是可替代的。

The idea for it, the idea for having a writer like that at a venture capital firm, by and large is, look, if you are a venture capitalist, money is fungible.

所以，如果你的公司唯一的资产就是能开一张支票，那你根本没有任何独特之处。

So if your only asset as a firm is we can write a check, you do not stand apart at all.

很多人都能开一张支票。

A lot of people can write a check.

在私人投资领域，你要脱颖而出，就必须拥有与众不同的价值观和世界观，而这些价值观和观点，如果没人知道，就毫无意义。

You stand apart in the private investing world by having values and a view of the world that is differentiated in in some way, and those values, that view do not matter at all unless people know about them.

所以你需要主动走出去，向世界展示你的思维方式、你的想法、你是谁，尽情表达自己。

So you need to be kinda going out there, showing the world how you think, what you think, who you are, waving your arms.

聘请像我这样的人当作家，目的就在于此。

That's the purpose of hiring someone like me to be a writer.

如果你愿意，可以称之为营销，但我写的任何内容都不会说‘我们有多棒，你们为什么应该选择我们’。

You can call it marketing if you want, although nothing I write about is saying here's why we're great and here's why we should do this.

我故意这样做，因为我希望它听起来不像营销，即使它本质上就是。

I do that intentionally because I don't want it to sound like marketing even if it is.

没有人每天早上醒来会想：‘我想读一篇营销文章。’

No one wakes up every morning and says I wanna read a marketing article.

他们只想读一些有趣且能激发思考的内容，然后分享给朋友。所以我就是这样做的，过去六年我一直如此，不断写下我认为有趣的各种事情，大量阅读、思考，与朋友交流，努力学习，然后与世界分享。

They just wanna read something that's interesting and and thought stimulating that they can share with their friends, So that's what I do, and that's what I've done for the last six years is just writing about all the different things that I think are interesting and, trying to do a bunch of reading and thinking and talking to friends, trying to learn something and then sharing it with the world.

这就是我当初加入克拉维丰的原因。

That's how I got started at Claviphone.

是的。

Yeah.

向克雷格致敬。

Kudos to Craig.

我们稍后会再回到马克尔的话题。

We're gonna come back to Markel in a moment.

他在持续招聘、说服你加入这件事上，下了一步非常有远见的棋。

He was very prescient in that chess move of his with the persistent recruiting, to get you on board.

而且我们已经看到了——我的意思是，这个词让我有点不舒服，但我实在想不出更好的词了，因为这确实是多媒体形式的。

And you we've seen I mean, certainly, this word bothers me, but I I can't think of a better term because it's it's multimedia.

但在风险投资公司中，通过内容实现差异化，我们已经看到第一轮资本在这方面做得相当不错，现在也有其他公司开始这样做了。

But the the sort of content aspect of differentiation by venture firms, we've seen First Round Capital do a pretty good job of this, I think, and there are others now.

但你所描述的时间线表明，克雷格和协作基金在很早的时候就介入了，很早就赶上了这波浪潮。

But the timeline that you're laying out would have placed Craig and Collaborative Fund very early, right, paddling for the right wave early in that respect.

你是怎么考虑放弃主编头衔的呢？

How did you think about giving up the masthead, so to speak?

我的意思是， presumably，那个报价本身也是一个不错的提议。

I mean, presumably, the offer was also a good offer.

对吧？

Right?

我是说，实际的薪酬和交易条件。

The the actual sort of compensation and deal as it were.

我们不需要深入讨论这些细节。

We don't need to get into the specifics of that.

但我问这个问题部分是因为我曾思考过如何支付记者的报酬，我确实和尼克·汤普森聊过这个话题，当时他做客我的播客。

But I'm asking in part because I've thought about paying journalists, and I spoke with actually Nick Thompson about this when I had him on the podcast.

我为我的博客提供非常非常高的、极具竞争力的按字计酬，来撰写长篇深度文章。

Very, very, super competitive per word rates to do long form pieces on my blog.

对吧？

Right?

但蒂姆·费里斯博客的问题在于，它可能不像所谓的‘权威报纸’或其他媒体那样具有同样的声望。

But the problem with the Tim Ferriss blog is that Tim Ferriss blog does not carry the same cachet perhaps as, you know, the newspaper of record, self described, or other outlets.

对吧？

Right?

那么，你是如何考虑这种更换媒体品牌方式可能带来的长期职业影响的呢？

So how did you think about the, if any, kind of long term career consequences of swapping the masthead in that way?

当时我很担心，因为我已经在‘富达投机’工作了十年，我觉得自己在那里建立起了受众，但我不知道他们是否会跟随我一起走。

It worried me at the time because I was I had been at The Motley Fool for ten years and I felt like I built up an audience there, and I had no idea if any of them would travel with me.

如果我去别的地方，是不是得从零开始，重新建立自己？

And if I went somewhere else, would do it, like, did I have to start at square one and build myself up from zero?

这太可怕了。

That was terrifying.

还是说，我的受众在一定程度上是可以迁移的？

Or was that audience gonna be somewhat portable?

我认为答案介于两者之间，但我觉得这样感觉还不错，因为现在这很明显了，但五年前或十年前，人们不一定读《纽约时报》这一点并不明显。

And I think the answer is, like, somewhere in the middle, but I think it it felt okay to me because I think this is obvious now, many but it wasn't obvious, you know, five or ten years ago that people don't necessarily read the New York Times.

他们大体上读的是《纽约时报》的某些作者。

They read by and large certain writers at the New York Times.

我不读《大西洋月刊》，我读德里克·汤普森。

I don't read the Atlantic, I read Derek Thompson.

我不读《华尔街日报》，我读杰森·茨维格。

I don't read the Wall Street Journal, I read Jason Zweig.

关键在于这些作者本身。

It's all about those people.

不过这里面也有一些细微差别，比如《经济学人》这样的媒体就没有署名。

Now there's some nuance to that, like, there's some places like the economists that have no bylines.

你读的就像是同一种声音。

It's just like you you're reading one voice.

但我认为总体而言，人们更想读特定的作者。

But I think by and large, people want to read certain writers.

他们希望内容更个人化。

They wanna make it personal.

这一点的一个例子是，大多数企业推特账号表现都不佳。

One example of this is most corporate Twitter accounts do not do very well.

它们得不到任何互动。

They don't get any engagement.

它们表现不好，但像你这样的个人推特账号却能做得很好，因为人们不想与公司互动。

They don't do very well, but personal Twitter accounts people like yourself can do very well because people don't wanna interact with a company.

他们想与真人互动。

They wanna interact with a person.

我认为，离开编辑署名表，这么说吧，这其实并没有让我太困扰，因为我并不想成为《华尔街日报》的作家，甚至也不想成为富达基金的作家。

And I think so leaving the masthead, so to speak, that actually didn't bother me that much because I I didn't wanna be a Wall Street Journal writer or even a Motley Ford writer.

我想成为摩根·豪塞尔。

I wanted to be Morgan Housel.

我只是想成为我自己的品牌，我想建立自己的名声。

I I just wanted to be I I wanted to build the name.

这很自私，但我认为这是真的。

That's very selfish, but I think it's true.

我认为这对很多人来说都是真的。

And I think it's true for a lot of people.

你的博客网址是 tim.blog。

The URL of your blog is tim.blog.

你看，你的名字就直接在那里。

Like, it's your name right there.

我认为，在当今的内容创作中，以自己命名并明确这一点是正确的做法，因为人们想与真人互动。

I think branding it after yourself and being kind of explicit about that is the right way to go in content these days because people wanna interact with a person.

所以这并没有让我困扰。

So that that didn't bother me.

如果你是为了长远目标，也就是你的一生而投入其中，那就很好。

It's good if you're in it for the ultra long haul, I e to the end of your life.

如果你是为了出售而建立媒体品牌，那么以你的名字命名可能会有问题，或者至少会带来复杂性。

If you're building a media brand to sell, it's problematic to have it named after you or it can be complicating certainly.

但这不是我的计划，对我来说也不是个问题。

But that's not my plan, it's not a not a concern for me.

所以暂时还是叫 tim.blog 吧。

So tim.blog it is for the time being.

马克尔，马克尔是怎么回事？

Markel, how did Markel happen?

我肯定有些听众不知道马克尔是什么。

I'm sure there's listeners who don't know what Markel is.

描述马克尔最简单的方式是，它是一家迷你版的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司，因为它是一家保险公司，用保险业务的利润收购整个企业——通常是打算永久持有的工业类企业，这正是伯克希尔·哈撒韦的模式，而马克尔也是如此。

The easiest way to describe Markel is a mini Berkshire Hathaway in the sense that it is an insurance company that uses the profits from the insurance company to buy whole businesses, industrial businesses that it plans on holding forever, which is exactly what the Berkshire Hathaway model was, and that's really what Markel was as well.

马克尔成立于二十世纪三十年代，最初只是一家保险公司，并且多年以来一直如此。

Markel started in the nineteen thirties as an insurance company, and it was that for many years.

现在，全球每一家保险公司都会进行投资，因为你会用保险费的收入来进行投资。

Now every insurance company in the world does investments because you use the proceeds from your insurance premiums to invest.

但大多数保险公司只会投资于债券，或许再加上一些指数基金，非常平淡无奇。

Most insurance companies will just do that in bonds, maybe some index funds, pretty boring.

直到你拥有像伯克希尔这样的公司，才会意识到：嘿，我们有这么多资金闲置着。

And it's not until you have a company like Berkshire that's like, hey, we got all this money laying around.

让我们去收购一些卓越的企业吧。

Let's go buy some amazing businesses.

正是这样，伯克希尔 Hathaway 和沃伦·巴菲特才成为了今天的模样。

That's how Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett became what they are.

马克尔公司大约从20世纪90年代开始这样做，当时他们意识到，如果你不仅仅是一家优秀的保险公司，而是一家卓越的企业，那将至关重要。

And Markel started doing that really around the nineteen nineties when they realized that you could become a great business and a great incredible company if you are not just a good insurer, that's really important.

但如果你既能成为一名优秀的保险公司，又能用保险资金成为一名出色的投资人，你就能成为一家非凡的公司。

But if you can be a good insurer and a great investor with those insurance proceeds at the same time, you can be an incredible company.

所以，如果把时间推到今天，马克尔是一家市值170亿美元、拥有两万名员工的公司。

So now if you fast forward today, Markel is a $17,000,000,000 company with 20,000 employees.

他们拥有大约十几家规模不一的工业企业，这是一家非常了不起的公司。

They own, you know, about a dozen industrial businesses of various sizes, and it's a really cool company.

这是一家我钦佩了很长时间的公司。

It's a company that I've admired for a very long period of time.

我给你讲个有趣的小故事。

I'll tell you a little quirky story here.

当你加入富达基金成为员工时，他们会给你一小笔钱，让你投资任何你感兴趣的股票。

When you join the Motley Fool as an employee, they give you a small sum of money to invest in any stock that you want.

他们只是希望每个员工都能成为投资者。

They just want every employee to be an investor.

2007年我成为员工时，拿到了我的那一笔资金，当时我把所有钱都投给了马克尔公司。

When I became an employee in 2007, I got my little allocation and I invested every penny in Markel at the time.

这是真的。

True story.

因为我非常钦佩他们所做的事情。

Because I really admired what they were doing.

那位联合首席执行官汤姆·盖纳经营着这家公司，我认为他是我们这个时代最伟大的投资者之一。

The guy who who is co CEO runs a place, Tom Gaynor, I really think is one of the great investors of our time.

所以我长期以来一直很钦佩这家公司，大约一年前，我接到公司电话，问我是否愿意加入董事会，我答应了。

And so I've admired it for a long time, and then about a year ago, I got a call from the company and this asked if I would be interested in joining the board of directors, and I said, yeah.

是的。

Yes.

我非常钦佩他们，当然。

I admire them so much, of course.

等等。

Wait.

那么他们到底说了什么？

So so what the hell what the hell did they say?

我只是很好奇，这种事情是怎么发生的？

I'm just so curious, like, how does that happen?

因为我看了网站，心想：让我看看董事会是不是有75个人。

Because I looked at the website, I was like, well, let let me see if there are, 75 people on the board of directors.

并没有75个人。

There are not 75 people.

人数相当少，所以请说明一下

It's reasonably small, so please fill in

这里的空缺。

the gaps here.

我真的希望这个故事更有趣一些，但事实就是这样。

I really wish the story was more interesting, but that's really it.

他们给我打了电话。

They called me up.

我以前从未和他们说过话。

I had never spoken with them before at all.

没有任何沟通。

No communication.

他们说：‘你愿意加入董事会吗？’

And they said, would you like to join the board?

那次电话结束后，开启了一年的时间，我与每个人见面、讨论所有事项，飞过去见他们，然后他们飞到西雅图见我，整个过程漫长，正如你所预期的任何大公司都会有的那样。

Once that phone call ended, began a year of meeting everyone, discussing everything, flying out to meet them, then flying to Seattle to meet me, a long process as you would expect any big corporation would have.

我认为这与克雷格、汤姆·盖纳非常相似，他是联席CEO，我和他一样，用相似的视角看待世界：一家投资公司或投资型商店要实现长期成功，需要什么？

I think very similar to Craig, Tom Gaynor, who's a co CEO, and I see the world through a very similar lens of just like, what what does an investing company or an invest store need for long term success?

仅仅在这些宏观价值观上达成一致，我认为是非常重要的。

Having just those big macro values aligned, I think, was really important.

所以对我来说，这是一个显而易见的选择，而过去十二个月里逐渐了解董事会其他成员也十分有趣。

So it was an obvious answer for me and then getting to know the rest of the board over the last twelve months has been really interesting.

董事会成员背景非常多元，涵盖性别、种族，以及不同的经历背景。

It's a very diverse board, diverse in terms of gender, race, and also just background.

因此，董事会内部有着非常多元的观点和意见，而我大约六周前刚刚加入董事会。

So it's like it's a really diverse set of views and set of opinions within the boardroom, and then I joined the boardroom just about six weeks ago.

哦，这非常新。

Oh, it's very new.

相当新。

Fairly new

在这方面。

at this.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我

So I

我不得不想象，有成千上万的人会声称自己拥有与马克尔董事会成员相似的宏观观点或世界观。

have to imagine that there are thousands of people who would claim to have similar macro views or world views to people who are on the board of Markel.

然而，他们却没有收到加入董事会的邀请。

Nonetheless, they're not getting the invitation to join the board.

那么，他们是如何解释希望你贡献什么的呢？

So how did they explain what they hope you to contribute?

有一件事很有趣，我认为人们对董事会成员的职责存在一些误解。

One thing that's that's interesting, I I I do think this there is some misconception about what a board member does.

重要的是要说明董事会成员不做什么，那就是不管理公司。

And the important thing is explaining what a board member does not do, which is run the company.

董事会成员的职责不是微观管理公司，甚至也不是制定公司的宏大战略。

And a board member's job is not to micromanage the company, or it's not even to set, like, the the grand strategy for the company.

而是真正作为公司的监督者，成为高管团队的上司。

It's really to be an overseer of the company and to kinda be the boss of the executive team.

招聘首席执行官，解雇首席执行官，支付首席执行官的薪酬。

To hire the CEO, fire the CEO, and pay the CEO.

这是董事会最重要的职责。

That's the biggest job of the board.

这些是巨大的责任。

Those are huge responsibilities.

这些是巨大的责任。

They're huge responsibilities.

劳伦斯·坎宁安说过一句很棒的话：担任大型公司的董事是美国企业界的最高荣誉，也是最沉重的负担。

There's a great quote from a guy named Lawrence Cunningham who says that being on the board of a large company is corporate America's highest honor and heaviest burden.

人们更容易只关注前半部分，而忽略后半部分。

It's easier just to focus on the first part and ignore the the latter part.

但没错，确实如此。

But, yeah, it's right.

这些是巨大的负担。

Those are huge burdens.

但我想说，再次强调，我这里只有六周的经验。

But I I think and again, I'm speaking with six weeks of experience here.

我不会假装自己有很多关于这方面的实战故事可以分享，因为我确实没有。

I'm not gonna pretend like I have lots of war stories to share with you about this because I don't.

但我认为，在公司发展方向和所需举措等宏观问题上达成共识，以及我自己作为投资者、风险思考者所积累的经验——我整个职业生涯都在做这件事——是很重要的。

But I think seeing eye to eye on the big picture of where the company is going and what it needs to do it right and just having experience for myself as an investor, as someone who thinks about risk, and I've done that for my entire career, is important.

我没有运营保险公司或管理一家拥有19000名员工公司的经验。

What I do not have is experience running an insurance company, experience running a company with 19,000 employees.

这些是我所不具备的，但我认为我确实带来了代际多样性。如果你看看所有上市公司的董事会，你会发现平均年龄大约在七十五岁左右。

Those are things that I do not have, but I think I do bring to the table both a generational diversity of a like, if you look at the boards of all public companies, I mean, you're you're looking at an average age of something like in the mid seventies, something like that.

董事会成员通常是一群在相似时代成长起来的年长者，他们看待世界的方式也相似，但这种视角未必最清晰地反映世界的未来走向。

It tends to be an older group that came of age during a similar time and I think sees the world through a similar lens that is not exactly the clearest lens of where of where the world is going next.

因此，我认为代际多样性非常重要。

So I think having a generational diversity has has been important.

这一点是有人向我解释过的。

That was explained to me.

我认为，拥有对风险和投资中什么重要的看法，就是这样。

I think just having a view about risk and about what matters in investing as well, that's really it.

这对我来说是一段有趣的经历，我从未想过会得到这份工作，但我知道这是一份责任重大的工作。

It's been an interesting experience for me, it was not a job that I thought was gonna be coming my way, but it's a cool job to have that I know has a very heavy burden.

在简历上写上它、跟朋友聊起它，确实很酷，但我觉得像很多事一样，杰夫·伊梅尔特说过一句很好的话：当你不是那个亲力亲为的人时，任何工作看起来都很简单。

It's cool to put it on your resume and talk to your friends about it, but I think like a lot of things there's a great quote from Jeff Immelt, who's a former CEO of General Electric who says, every job looks easy when you're not the one doing it.

我认为这句话适用于很多事情，对于担任董事会成员也是如此。

I think that's a great quote that applies to a lot of things, and I think that's true for sitting on a board as well.

它看起来像是一个很棒、很轻松的职位。

It seems like a great position and a fun kinda cushy position.

在很多方面，确实如此。

In many ways, it is.

但你从第一天起就会意识到，第一次会议时，你肩负着做出正确决策的巨大压力。

But you realize even from day one, my first meeting, the burden that is on you for making the right decisions.

如果事情出了差错，你会意识到聚光灯会打在你身上，而你确实该承受这一切。

And if things go wrong, realizing that the spotlight's gonna be on you, and you deserve that.

恭喜你。

Well, congratulations.

我得说，责任和做出错误决定或被归咎于错误决定的潜在负担是存在的，但在我看来，这对你来说只有潜在的好处。

I have to say, I mean, there's there's responsibility and there's the potential burden of making a poor decision or being blamed for a poor decision, but it strikes me as nothing but upside potential for you.

这看起来像是一个非常棒的实验，所以恭喜你。

I mean, it's it seems like a pretty fantastic experiment, so congratulations.

谢谢。

Thanks.

正如我所说，我六周前被任命的。

I do think like I said, I was appointed six weeks ago.

我只参加过一次会议。

I've been to one meeting.

但即使在这一次会议上，我也想说，蒂姆，从一开始就能明显感受到你所肩负的负担和责任。

But even in that one meeting, I would say, Tim, it's obvious from the get go the burden and responsibility that you have.

而且，我认为对于任何身处这个位置的人来说，都会有一点‘天哪’的瞬间，意识到需要做出的决策。

And there is a little bit I I think this would be true for anyone in this position, a little bit like of an oh shit moment of like, I realize the decisions that need to be made.

我有一个好朋友叫布伦特·贝肖尔，他说，每个成功的商业都是一场松散运转的灾难。

There's a good friend of mine named Brent Beshore who says, every successful business is a loosely functioning disaster.

世界上每一个最成功、达到巅峰的企业，都是一场松散运转的灾难。

Every single successful business in the world that's as good as you can get, that's the highest peak, is a loosely functioning disaster.

每个企业都只是个性、情感和不完整信息的混合体，你只是在努力维持局面，尽自己所能，当你身处任何一家真实存在的公司内部时，这一点就显而易见。

Every business is just a mix of personalities and emotions and imperfect information, and you're just trying to hold the thing together and do the best that you can, and you really see that when you're on the inside of any company that exists in the world, so that's always apparent.

对我来说，无论是作为外部投资者观察任何公司，还是作为内部人员，所有企业都充满挑战，你需要做出艰难的、不完美的决策才能取得进展。

For me, just as an outside investor looking at any company or on the inside as well, all businesses are tough and challenging, and you need to make tough decisions and imperfect decisions to get ahead.

当你提到风险，并以类似或相同的方式看待风险时，你是如何理解风险的？

When you say risk, viewing risk in a similar or the same way, how do you view risk?

或者，如果你要向学生解释你如何看待投资中的风险，你会如何定义它，或者如何开始探讨它，以及人们对此的误解？

Or if you were to explain it to a class with respect to how you view risk in investing, let's say, how would you define that or begin to explore it or misconceptions thereof?

让我从上周我和一位朋友的对话开始讲一个小故事，他是《大西洋月刊》的德里克·汤普森。

Let me start with a a a short story that I was talking with a friend of mine last week, Derek Thompson of The Atlantic.

我和他一起做了一期播客，他问我是否认为通胀是暂时的，这是现在很多人经常问的一个问题。

He and I did a a podcast together, and he asked me if I thought inflation would be transitory, which is a very common question that a lot of people are talking about right now.

我说：那么，‘暂时的’到底是什么意思？

And I said, well, what does transitory mean?

你说‘暂时的’，是指它一周内就会消失吗？

By transitory, do you mean it's gonna be gone in a week?

还是说它会持续十年？

Do you mean it's gonna stick around for ten years?

这些像‘模棱两可’一样的词根本没有公认的定义，你很容易因此陷入麻烦，因为我以为通胀是暂时的，但我的意思是它大概不会持续五年。

All these, like, little weasel words that don't have any agreed upon definition, you can really get into a lot of trouble there because I think inflation is transitory, but by that, I mean it's probably not gonna stick around for five years.

如果你认为‘暂时的’意味着它下周就会消失，那就不，我不觉得它是暂时的。

If your definition of transitory means it's gonna be gone next week, then no, I don't think it's transitory.

我提到这一点，是因为我觉得风险也是如此。

And I bring that up because I think that's the same with risk.

很多人对风险的定义大不相同，主要依据的是时间跨度。

And there are a lot of people that will define risk differently by and large based off of the time horizon.

所以，如果我问你，股市下跌20%并持续三年，这算是一种风险吗？

So if you were to ask me if the stock market fell 20% and stayed there for three years, is that a risk?

很多人会说，是的，这风险太大了。

A lot of people would say, yeah, that's a huge risk.

这是巨大的、灾难性的风险。

That's an enormous, like, catastrophic risk.

我个人认为这根本不算风险。

I personally would say that's not a risk at all.

原因是我目标是五十年后的事。

And the reason is because my goals lie fifty years in the future.

那么未来三年会发生什么？

So what's gonna happen in the next three years?

我根本不在乎。

I could I could honestly care less.

这就是我的思维方式。

That's really how I think.

但如果我是一个靠固定收入生活的90岁退休寡妇，我的回答就不会这样了。

But that would not be my answer if I was a 90 year old retired widow on a fixed income.

那我会给你一个完全不同的答案。

Then I'd have a very different answer for you.

所以，总结一下，风险就是某些事情阻碍你实现目标的概率。

So I think summing all that up, risk is just the odds that something will prevent you from achieving your goals.

但关键在于，每个人的目标、抱负和时间跨度都大不相同，因此每个人对风险的看法也不同。

But the nuance is that everyone has very different goals and aspirations and time horizons, so everyone thinks about risk differently.

由此得出的结论是，大多数投资争论中，人们彼此争执的问题。

The takeaway from that is most investing debates where people are arguing with each other.

这是风险吗？

Is this a risk?

那是风险吗？

Is that a risk?

我该买这只股票吗？

Should I buy this stock?

市场下周会上涨吗？

Is the market gonna go up next week?

总的来说，这些争论实际上并不是真正的争论。

By and large, those debates are not actually debates.

这只是拥有不同风险承受能力和不同时间期限的人们在互相打断、彼此重叠地说话。

It's people with different risk tolerances and different time horizons talking over each other, talking over one another.

因此，我认为关于风险最重要的一点是，每个人的定义都不同。

And that's why so I think that to me, the most important part about risk is that the definition is different for everyone.

我的定义会和你的不同，而你的又和任何其他听众的不同，这并不是因为我们彼此意见相左。

My definition is gonna be different from yours, which is different from anyone else who's listening, and it's not because we disagree with each other.

而只是因为我们是不同的人，有着不同的目标、不同的年龄和不同的家庭状况等等。

It's just because we're different people with different goals and different ages and different family situations, etcetera etcetera.

因此，风险对每个人来说都是一种非常个性化的计算，无论是在投资中还是在生活的其他方面。

So risk is a very personalized calculation for everyone, whether that's in investing or other areas of your life.

我非常喜欢你书中一个例子，我觉得你用了谷歌作为例子。

One of the illustrations I enjoyed for your book, I think you used Google as an example.

这是一个有点随意的例子，但你强调了如果你基于不同的时间期限考虑购买谷歌股票时，可能会提出的不同问题或考量。

I was an somewhat arbitrary example, but you highlighted the different questions or considerations you might have if you were considering buying Google based on different time horizons.

对吧？

Right?

十年、两年、六个月、日内交易，类似这样的。

Ten years, two years, six months, day trader, something like that.

没错。

Yep.

这是一个非常有帮助的练习，可以回顾一下：你选择玩的游戏决定了我们经常随意使用的许多术语——比如风险——的定义或参数。

And it was it's a very helpful exercise to kind of review how the game you choose to play determines the definitions or the parameters for a lot of these terms that we throw around very loosely, like risk.

对吧？

Right?

那我们来谈谈游戏吧。

So let's talk about games.

我刚和一位非常优秀的投资者朋友发短信。

I was texting with a friend of mine who's a very good investor.

我暂时不提他的名字，但我问他有没有什么问题想问你。

I'll leave his name out of it for now, but I I asked him if he had any questions for you.

所以，他看待现实的视角——我这里是在转述——是一名以撰写与投资相关的有趣内容为生的记者兼历史学家。

So he his map of reality, I'm paraphrasing here, is as a journalist slash historian being paid to write interesting things related to investing.

因此，他提出的问题更多是关于在这个新技术世界中如何成为一名优秀的创作者。

So the questions that he has are are more related to being a skilled content creator in this new tech world.

这里有一个问题，这与你非常活跃于推特这一观察有关。

So here's one question, and this is related to observing that you are very active on Twitter.

那么，从宏观角度看，你正在玩的这个FinTwit游戏是什么？它的规则又是什么？

So zooming out, what is this FinTwit game that you're playing, and what are the rules?

关于内容，无论是在推特上、写文章还是写书，我的看法是这样的。

Here's how I think about content in general, whether this is Twitter or writing writing an article, writing a book.

我把这称为‘自私的写作’。

I call this selfish writing.

我写作的对象只有一个，那就是我自己。

I'm writing for an audience of one, and that is me.

我所写的每一条推文、每一篇文章、每一本书，都只是基于一个标准：我个人觉得这有趣吗？

The only thing that I write, the only thing that I tweet, the only thing the articles that I write, the books that I write, I just write through the lens of do I personally think this is interesting?