What I Learned from My Dad 我从父亲那里学到的 （双语）/Peter Buffett 彼得·巴

屈联西

                  来源：参议消息
        One of my father`s often-quoted tenets is that a parent, if he has the means to do so, should give his children "enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing." A head start is fine; a free pass is often a crippling disservice. When I turned 19, I received my inheritance—proceeds from the sale of a farm, which my father converted into Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) stock. At the time I received them, the shares were worth roughly $90,000. It was understood that I should expect nothing more.

        So—what to do with the money? I was a student at Stanford University; there were no strings attached. Fortunately, I`d had the advantage of seeing my older siblings burn through most of their cash; I didn`t want to follow down that path. At the other extreme, I might have done absolutely nothing with that stock—just left it in an account and forgotten about it. If I`d picked that option, my shares would now be worth around $72 million. But I didn`t make that choice, and I don`t regret it for a second. People think I`m either lying or crazy when I say this, but it happens to be true, because I used my nest egg to buy something more valuable than money: I used it to buy time.

        My inheritance came to me around the time I was finally committing to the pursuit of a career in music. As a pragmatic Midwesterner with a very limited nest egg, I knew that I would have to find a way to turn my creative impulses into a livelihood. But how did one do that? How would I find an audience, or clients, or a way to sell what I`d written and produced? I didn`t have a clue, but it was becoming clear to me that I wasn`t going to figure it out by staying in a university.

        I decided to leave Stanford and use my inheritance to buy the time it would take to figure out if I could make a go of it in music.

        With help from my father, I worked out a budget that would allow me to conserve my capital as long as possible. I moved to San Francisco, where I lived very frugally—small apartment, funky car. My sole extravagance was in expanding my recording equipment. I played the piano, wrote tunes, experimented with electronic sounds. Then I put a classified ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, offering to record all comers in my studio.

        And I waited until a very important bit of good luck tracked me down one day in 1981, as I stood at a San Francisco curbside washing my crummy old car. A neighbor with whom I`d had nothing more than a nodding acquaintance happened by and asked what I did for a living. When I told him I was a struggling composer, he suggested I get in touch with his son-in-law, an animator who was always in need of music. I followed up, and the son-in-law did have work for me. He`d been commissioned to create 10-second "intersticials"—quick ads meant to flash a logo and establish a brand ID for a newly conceived cable channel.

        I took the work. And the cable channel more than launched; it rocketed to the moon. It was called MTV. Soon many TV outlets wanted to look and sound like MTV. I no longer had to take on unpaid work.

        My inheritance was relatively modest, but it was more than most young people receive to get a start in life. Having that money was a privilege, a gift I had not earned. If I`d faced the necessity of making a living from day one, I would not have been able to follow the path I chose.

        Would my father have helped me get started if I`d chosen a career on Wall Street? I`m sure he would have. Would he have given me a job at Berkshire Hathaway if I`d asked for one? I suppose so. But in either of those cases, the onus would have been on me to demonstrate that I felt a true vocation for those fields, rather than simply taking the course of least resistance. My father would not have served as an enabler of my taking the easy way out. That would not have been an exercise of privilege, but of diminishment.

        我父亲常常被引用的一个信条是：当父母的如果有能力，应该给孩子“足够的财富让他们想干什么就干什么，但不要给太多的财富以至于他们无所事事”。领先起跑很好，免费入场券却常常是帮倒忙。19岁时，我得到自己那份继承的财产：卖掉一座农场得来的钱，父亲把它变成伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的股票。我得到这些股票的时候，它们价值约9万美元。不言自明，我该得到的就这么多。

        好，这笔钱怎么用？我当时在斯坦福大学读书；遗产继承没有附加条件。幸运的是，看到哥哥姐姐们挥霍浪费掉自己的大部分现钱，我不想走那条路。我本来可以走另一个极端，干脆不管这只股票——把它留在账户里，不再理会。如果选择这种方式，我的股票现在将价值7200万美元。我没有作出这样的选择，而且一秒钟也没有后悔过。我这么说，人们以为我不是撒谎就是疯了，但这恰恰是真的，因为我用自己的储备金买下比钱更值钱的东西：时间。

        收到那笔遗产前后，我终于下决心要走音乐这条路。身为一个储备金很少的务实的中西部人，我知道自己必须想办法创造冲动变为谋生手段。但是，怎么做？我怎么才能找到听众，或者顾客，或者某种方式卖出自己创作或制作的东西？我毫无头绪，但情况已经越来越清楚：待在大学里是弄不明白的。

        我决定离开斯坦福，用我得到的遗产买时间，在这段时间里弄清楚自己能否在音乐上取得成功。

        在父亲的帮助下，我做好预算，尽量使资金细水长流。我搬到旧金山，过得很节俭：小公寓，破汽车，唯一的奢侈是扩展我的录音设备。我弹钢琴，写曲子，试验电子音乐。然后我在《圣佛郎西斯科纪事报》登分类广告：任何新人都可以来我的音乐室录音。

        我等待着，直到1981年的一天，一点儿非常重要的好运找上门来。当时我正站在旧金山的人行道边洗我那辆破车，一位只有点头之交的邻居路过，问我靠什么谋生。当我告诉他自己是个勉强糊口的作曲家时，他提出我可以和他的女婿联络，他是一位动画片制作人，总是需要音乐。我和他那位女婿联络了，他确实有工作给我。他受委托制作一条长10秒钟的“插播式广告”：这种广告很短，要闪出一个标识，为一个新创的有线频道建立品牌标志。

        我接下这份工作。而那个频道何止是起步，简直就是一飞冲天。它叫“音乐电视（MTV）”。不久，很多电视台都想学“音乐电视”的视听效果。我不必再做没有报酬的工作了。

        我的遗产不算多，但比多数年轻人得到的立业本钱都多。拥有这笔钱是一种优势，一项馈赠。如果一开始就自食其力，我恐怕走不了自己现在选择的音乐道路。

        如果我选择在华尔街做事，我爸爸会帮我吗？肯定会。如果我要求在伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司工作，他会给我一份差事吗？我猜他也会。但是，做出上述任何一种选择，我都必须证明自己确实得从事那些领域是我的天职，而不是单挑阻力最小的道路。父亲不会为我选择容易的出路提供条件。那不是给我优势，而是压抑我的发展。

        （赵菲菲译自美国《商业周刊》3月15日一期文章）

屈联西

People think I`m either lying or crazy when I say this, but it happens to be true, because I used my nest egg to buy something more valuable than money: I used it to buy time.
我这么说，人们以为我不是撒谎就是疯了，但这恰恰是真的，因为我用自己的储备金买下比钱更值钱的东西：时间。