伯克希爾·哈撒韋公司（Berkshire Hathaway）的首席執行官沃倫·巴菲特和微軟（Microsoft）的創始人比爾·蓋茨相識已有27年。他們喜歡一起玩橋牌，或是在伯克希爾·哈撒韋的年會上打打乒乓球。

不過兩位億萬富翁的友誼也有界限：巴菲特絕不會購買微軟的股票。

這位著名的選股者在5月初的伯克希爾·哈撒韋年會上表示：“伯克希爾購買微軟的股票會是個錯誤。”

眾所周知，巴菲特在投資生涯的大部分時間里都對科技股敬而遠之，盡管他在2016年購買了蘋果（Apple）的股票，讓股東們大吃一驚。如今它是伯克希爾·哈撒韋所持股票中最大的一部分。

不過，巴菲特對微軟的抗拒與其商業模式或行業無關。問題出在蓋茨身上，他在2004年加入了伯克希爾·哈撒韋的董事會，又在2014年以微軟董事長的身份退休。

巴菲特在奧馬哈的伯克希爾年會上表示：“如果一周或一個月后，（微軟）的收益超出預期或進行了并購——不管哪種——比爾和我都會錯誤地成為各種聯想和控訴的目標，甚至會有人認為他以某種方式告訴了我什么信息，反之亦然。”

換句話說，巴菲特在避免哪怕一點內線交易的嫌疑——無論那有多么離譜——或任何可能引發這種懷疑的行為。

巴菲特補充道：“我試圖遠離某些事情，完全是因為它們可能引發推測，認為我們可能有過交流，我可能和某人說了某些事情。如果在我們買了股票后立刻發生了一些好事，許多人就不會相信我們了。”

當然，巴菲特有很多機會在遠離內線交易嫌疑的情況下購買微軟股票。微軟在1986年上市，比巴菲特認識蓋茨還要早了五年多。為什么奧馬哈的先知當時沒有投資呢？

巴菲特承認：“早期沒有這樣做的原因很明顯，因為愚蠢。”

巴菲特表示，如今微軟是伯克希爾·哈撒韋公司出于倫理沖突而“不考慮投資的少數幾家公司”之一。（他沒有說出其他幾家公司的名字。）

他補充道：“不過，倫理沖突和我的愚蠢讓我們損失了很多錢。”

至少，這似乎沒有影響他與蓋茨的友誼。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正?

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have known each other 27 years, enjoy playing bridge together and rallying in ping pong at the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting.

But the billionaires’ friendship has its boundaries: Buffett will never buy Microsoft stock.

“It just would be a mistake for Berkshire to buy Microsoft,” the famous stock picker said at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting Saturday.

Buffett has been notoriously averse to tech stocks for most of his investing career, though in 2016 he stunned shareholders by buying Apple stock, which is now by far Berkshire Hathaway’s largest holding.

Yet Buffett’s resistance to Microsoft has nothing to do with its business model or industry. Rather, the problem lies with Gates, who joined the Berkshire Hathaway board in 2004, and retired as chairman of Microsoft in 2014.

“If something happened a week later, a month later, in terms of [Microsoft] having better earnings than expected or making an acquisition—anything—both Bill and I would, incorrectly, but would be a target of suggestions and accusations, perhaps even, that somehow he had told me something, or vice versa,” Buffett said at the Berkshire meeting in Omaha.

In other words, Buffett is concerned with avoiding even the slightest perception of insider trading—however false—or anything that could invite such suspicions.

“I try to stay away from a few things just totally because the inference would be drawn that we might have talked, I might have talked to somebody about something,” Buffett added. “There’d be a lot of people who wouldn’t believe us if something good immediately happened after we bought it.”

Of course, Buffett had plenty of opportunities to buy Microsoft stock without any remote appearance of insider trading. Microsoft went public in 1986—more than five years before Buffett even met Gates. So why didn’t the Oracle of Omaha invest back then?

“In the earlier years, it’s very clear—the answer is stupidity,” Buffett admitted.

Now, Microsoft is just one of “a few [companies] that are off the list” of what Berkshire Hathaway is willing to invest in because of ethical conflicts, Buffett said. (He did not name the others in this group.)

“But both that and my stupidity have cost us a lot of money,” he added.

At least it doesn’t seem to be getting in the way of his friendship with Gates.