有“股神”之称的沃伦·巴菲特和被誉为“坐在世界巅峰的人”的比尔·盖茨受邀与来自美国内布拉斯加大学工商管理学院的学生进行对话。尽管这两位富豪的经历大不相同,但他们俩却是莫逆之交,正可谓是英雄相惜;他们的成功之路大相径庭,然而他们对许多问题的见解却有着极大的默契。他们的幽默、睿智和正义感为他们赢得了一次又一次的掌声,也为我们上了一堂免费的人生哲理课。
发音：美式发音 语速：170词/分钟 使用方法：精听+跟读
Kim: Hello…my name’s Kim Martin. I’m a senior finance major here at the university. My question is how do you 1)instill 2)ethical leadership throughout your organization? And to begin with, how do you know that the management one level below you is making decisions that would 3)parallel your own?
Buffett: We have all the money we need, you know, we’d like to have more, but we can afford to lose money, but we can’t afford to lose 4)reputation—not a 5)shred of reputation—and therefore I ask the managers, I ask them to judge every action they take not just by legal standards, although obviously that’s the first test, but also by the test—what I call the newspaper test—how would they feel about any given action if they knew it was to be written up the next day in their local paper to be read by their family, by their friends, by their neighbours, written by a smart but kind of unfriendly reporter? And if it passes that test, it’s okay. And I tell them if anything is close to the lines, it’s out. And they can always call me if they wanted to check something, but if they call me there’s something wrong with it probably anyway, so…and that’s about it.
Nicole: Hi, my name is Nicole Baracroft and I am a senior business 6)administration major here at the university, and I was just wondering what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given and how has it 7)impacted your personal or professional lives?
金:大家好。我叫金·马丁,是这里金融系四年级学生。请问你们如何在你们的机构中实行合乎道德标准的领导模式?首先,你们怎么知道你们下一级的管理层作出的决定跟自己的决策不相悖?
巴菲特:我们已经有足够的资金,你知道,当然我们还想赚更多,但是金钱上的些许损失我们承受得起,但是我们输不起声誉——一丁点名誉上的损失都是不允许的。因此,我要求管理人员在权衡他们所作的每一个决定时不仅要检验其是否合法,尽管合法性很显然是第一准则,此外还得遵循一个我称之为“报章测试”的准则,就是他们在作某项决策时,先假设自己所采取的这些做法将经由一名精明但并不友善的记者在翌日的当地报章报导,他们的亲友邻居都会读到相关信息,在这种情况下,他们会作何感想。如果能通过这一测验就说明没问题。我告诉他们只要是稍微不通过的就得放弃。他们随时都可以打电话咨询我的意见。而通常他们打电话给我大多就是某方面出问题了,就是这样。
妮可:大家好。我是工商管理系四年级生妮可·巴拉可芙特。我想问的是你们所得到的最佳忠告是什么?它给你们的生活和事业带来怎样的影响?
Buffett: (To Gates) What did I tell you that 8)impressed you the most?
Gates: Actually I can answer that. When first I met Warren we were talking about getting together and doing something again. He pulled out his calendar and the pages were so blank, and I said, “Wow, you know, you’ve managed to avoid getting tied in to a lot of kind of meaningless activity” and, you know, Warren said, “Yeah, you have to be good at saying no and picking the things that really make the difference”. And that’s one of many things I’ve learned from Warren, but that’s one of my favorites, and so I can blame it on him whenever I’m turning things down.
Buffett: Yeah, well, actually I told him that was...the truth is I don’t get invited any place. I think that, you know, I got an 9)awful lot of good advice from my dad, and he didn’t, he didn’t lay it on me, I mean he just, you know, you picked it up from him but there was never any of this, you know, “do this, do that” type of thing at all. But, but I think he really taught me that it’s more important in terms of what’s on your inner 10)scorecard than your outer scorecard, I mean some people get in a position where they…they’re thinking all of the time of what…what the world’s gonna think of this or that instead of what they themselves think about it. If your inner scorecard, if you’re comfortable with that, I think you’re gonna have…gonna have a pretty happy life. And I think the people that 11)strive too much for the outer scorecard sometimes find that it’s a little 12)hollow when they get all through ’em.
Dan: Hello, I’m Dan O’Deloreno from Reno, Nevada. My question is, our society or our generation, generation Y, we face a lot of issues. What do you think are some of the most important or most challenging societal issues that we face, and what can we do as future leaders to ensure that we create a better society in the future?
Gates: I think the issues of 13)equity that we have, whether it’s between countries or even within our country, are pretty serious issues, and if you get too far 14)out of whack on that, then you get a divide and you don’t get the 15)fluidity and the sense of opportunity that this country has stood for, so I think, you know, we’ve really gotta renew our 16)commitment to the ideals around equality, and I think there are, there’s a lot of actions that suggests we should be taking to invest in the long term that certainly, at this stage, we’re not taking right now.
Paul: Hello, my name is Paul Ternis. I’m a senior business administration and music major, from North Dakota originally. I was wondering what is your 17)definition of success and what has been your largest non-business success in life?
巴菲特:(对盖茨说)我说过的话中哪句最让你印象深刻?
盖茨:事实上这个问题我可以回答。我跟沃伦初次会面那次,我们打算再找个时间聚一聚。他拿出了他的日程表,上面一片空白。我就说“哇,你成功地避开了许多毫无意义的活动。”当时沃伦就说“没错,你得擅长说‘不’和甄别真正有意义的事情。”这是我从沃伦身上学到的东西之一,也是我最喜欢的,现在当我拒绝某事时,我可以把责任推到他身上。
巴菲特:没错,不过,我也跟他说……这是因为我很少被邀请。我想,你知道,我是从我父亲那得到了许多有用的忠告。他没有,没有对我进行说教,我是说他只是言传身教,让我在潜移默化中学习,他不会强行要求我必须这样做必须那样做。但他使我明白内在评价比外在评价更重要。有些人成天就想着外界会怎么评价,而不去考虑自身的想法。如果你对自己的评价,你自己感到满意,那么我想你会过得很愉快。而那些很看重外界评价的人在成功获得外界较高评价时,则不时会感到空虚来袭。
丹:大家好。我叫丹·狄罗内图,四年级生,来自内华达州里诺。我的问题是,我们的社会,或者说我们这一代,Y一代要面临很多社会问题,你们认为我们所面临的社会问题中什么是最主要,或是最具挑战性的?而作为未来领导者的我们该做些什么才能创造更加美好的未来?
Gates: I’ll tell you my case. My…my goal for success out…outside of work is…is definitely raising a family—just getting started with that—and I think there’s some 18)unique challenges of when a parent is very visible and has money and things like that. It’s not easy in any case to raise kids the right way, but I’d say, you know, I hope, hope to be successful at that. So far I haven’t caused…caused them any damage. They seem to be doing okay.
Buffettt: We get a lot of people that want us to adopt them. I mean…he’s working on his children, I’m working on my great grandchildren, but otherwise we got the same 19)approach. I would say this in terms of success—this will surprise you—but I would say I’ve never known anybody, that got to my age or close to my age, that had lots of people that loved them that felt anything other than a success. I mean you have lived a successful life if, as you get older, the people that you hope love you do. And that includes your family, your business associates, all kinds of people. And I…and the 20)converse of that is that I know people, enormously wealthy, you know, they get schools named after them, and they get…they get, you know, they get dinners in their honour, all that sort of thing, and the truth is that nobody thinks a thing of them. And I gotta…I have to believe they know that and that everything gets quite hollow in their life at that point, and they’ve got all these markers—and there’s people on the 21)Forbes 400, you know, that are in that category, and I won’t name names, but it’s… I really…I can’t think of anyone I’ve known, and I’ve known some…, you know, a lot of people by this point in my life, I’ve seen them in very ordinary jobs, all kinds of situations, that the people around them love ’em. They feel very successful.
21）Forbes
《福布斯》，美国最早的大型商业杂志。其创制的“富豪排行榜”每年都能吸引全球的目光，是全球最权威的财富榜。
盖茨:我认为是公平问题,不管是在国际社会或是在国内,这个问题都颇为严重。如果放任这种情况持续严重下去,那么社会将会出现紊乱,我们将会失去我们国家一直所标榜着的流动性和机会均等性。所以我认为我们必须重新履行有关公平理想的承诺,而有许多就长远来说该采取的行动我们目前并没有做到。
保罗:大家好。我是保罗·德尼斯,主修工商管理和音乐,来自北达科他州。请问你们怎么界定成功,你们所取得的最大的非商业性成功是什么?
盖茨:我来说说我的情况。在工作以外,我的目标当然是养家糊口,在这方面我才刚刚开始,而具有名气和财富的父母得面临许多不寻常的挑战,在任何情况下想要正确教导子女都不是件易事,但我想说,你知道,我希望在这方面能成功。到目前为止我还没给他们造成过伤害,他们都过得不错。
巴菲特:许多人要求我们收养他们。我的意思是……他把时间花在子女身上,我则花在我的曾孙们身上,但除此以外,我们的做法是相同的。说到怎么界定成功,我的答案会使你感到意外。在我所认识的活到我这把年纪的人中还没有人认为成功莫过于能感受到有许多人疼爱。我的意思是,当你年纪渐大,如果你希望爱你的人是真的爱你,那么你就是成功的,他可以是你的家人、同事,各式人等。我……相反的,我认识一些非常富有的人,有学校以他们命名,人们为其举行晚宴等等,但事实上没有人真的关心他们,而且我相信他们自己也知道。在那一刻,外在的一切对于他们来说都是虚无的,他们有各种各样的标签,有的还名列福布斯400,我不会说出他们的名字,而且我还真的记不起他们的名字来。而在我认识的另一些跟我年纪相仿的人中,虽然他们从事普通的工作,各种处境都有,但得到了他们身边的人的爱,他们也觉得自己是成功的。