????身價億萬的投資家沃倫?巴菲特被人稱作無知，這種情況可不常見。

????不過這確實是風險投資家馬克?安德森上周在虛擬貨幣會議上所說的話。針對沃倫?巴菲特讓投資者遠離比特幣的建議，他說：“一直以來，這些白人老頭對自己不了解的新技術發表的言論全部都是瞎說。”安德森對巴菲特在美國全國廣播公司（CNBC）上提出的觀點做出了回應。當時，巴菲特說：

????“離遠點。比特幣是海市蜃樓。這是一種轉移資金的手段。它是一種有效的轉移途徑，而且可以通過匿名實現這個過程，還有諸如此類的一些特色。不過支票也是一種轉移金錢的手段。就因為支票可以轉移金錢，所以它就價值連城嗎？郵政匯票呢？大家也可以通過郵政匯款轉移錢。人們也是這么做的。我希望比特幣能成為更好的轉移金錢的手段，但你可以用許多方法創造出類似的貨幣，將來也的確會出現這種情況。在我看來，認為比特幣擁有某種巨大內在價值的想法非常可笑。”

????昨天，商業新聞網戰Business Insider的亨利?布拉吉也加入了論戰，他為巴菲特對比特幣的懷疑態度進行了辯護，表示巴菲特并不是像安德森所說，是由于對技術的無知，而是一種對所有新技術的合理的質疑。為了支撐自己的觀點，布拉吉詳盡地引用了由巴菲特執筆，登載于1999年《財富》雜志上的一篇文章。文章撰寫于網絡狂熱的高峰期，巴菲特在文中解釋了自己為什么不在當時沖擊市場的新技術的騷動中跟風投資。巴菲特當時寫道：

????“投資的關鍵不在于評估這個產業將對社會產生多大影響，或是它將發展到多大規模，而在于判定目標公司有多少競爭優勢。最重要的是，那種優勢能維持多久。”

????換句話說，并不是巴菲特不了解技術。只是他明白，要確切知道哪種投資能夠從技術的廣泛普及中受益不太可能，哪怕你足夠有先見之明，預見到哪種技術將徹底改變世界，以及通過何種方式改變。巴菲特舉了汽車和航空業的例子。許多人看出了這些發明具有革命性的潛力，但如果投資者沒有選對汽車公司，那這種先見之明就毫無價值。航空業也是一樣——盡管它對社會起到了革命性的作用，但從這個行業獲利的難度也是眾所周知。

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????It's not often that billionaire investor Warren Buffett gets called out for being clueless.

????But that's essentially what venture capitalist Marc Andreessen did this week at a virtual currency conference when he said, in reference to Warren Buffet's advice that investors stay away from Bitcoin, that "The historical track record of old white men crapping on new technology they don't understand is at, I think, 100%." Andreessen was responding to an appearance on CNBC where Buffett opined:

????"Stay away. Bitcoin is a mirage. It's a method of transmitting money. It's a very effective way of transmitting money, and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view."

????And yesterday Business Insider's Henry Blodget entered the fray, defending Buffett's skepticism of Bitcoin, saying it wasn't based on ignorance of the technology as Andreessen asserts, but a healthy skepticism of all new technologies. To back up his argument, Blodget quoted at length from a Buffett-penned article, which appeared in Fortune in 1999. The article was written during the height of dotcom mania, as Buffett explained why he avoided investing in the flurry of new technologies that were then hitting the market. Wrote Buffett:

????"The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage."

????In other words, it's not that Buffett is ignorant about technology. It's just that he understands that it's impossible to know which specific investments will benefit from a technology's widespread adoption, even if you are prescient enough to know what technologies will revolutionize the world and how they will do so. Buffett chooses the examples of the car and aviation industries. Many people saw the revolutionary potential of these inventions, but such clairvoyance would be worthless to an investor if he chose the wrong car company. The same goes for aviation -- which has notoriously been a difficult industry to profit from, despite its revolutionary effect on society.