Wall Street Legend

Buffett Sr.'s remarks hit the nail on the head.

In fact, in the mid-1990s, a bubble appeared in the Nasdaq market. Many start-up companies were desperately burning money and promoting themselves, but they ignored the core thing of a company-how to make money.

Without solid performance support, no matter how high the market value is, it is just a mirror image. The bankruptcy of countless Internet companies in the past two years has vividly demonstrated the correctness of this argument.

The carnival of the past few years has ended, leaving chicken feathers everywhere. Ye Dongqing easily spent thousands of dollars a month to recruit programmers who originally earned a monthly salary of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. dollars. There were too many unemployed people, and they found If he didn't have a job, he would rather go all the way from Silicon Valley on the West Coast to New York to make a living.

Looking at traditional companies at this time, the market value is generally more than ten or twenty times the annual profit, with little fluctuation. The price-to-earnings ratio of high-risk companies is only five to ten, which is stable and safe, and is determined by profits.

This is what Buffett focuses on when investing. You can easily buy the old man’s investment secrets, but not everyone can learn the essence. Whenever hot money pours into the stock market and pushes up the stock price, it often means that There are too many bubbles and the risk of stock market crash increases. Unfortunately, many investors are too blind to understand this truth.

Every time I chase a height, it's like dancing on the edge of a cliff. No one knows when I will fall.

Ye Dongqing understands that if he wants to attract Buffett's attention, he must come up with something real. It is much harder to fool ordinary investors than ordinary investors. Even if he pays a high interest rate of 50% per year, there is no guarantee. It's hard to impress him under any circumstances. After all, at this level of worth, the things he cares about have already exceeded money itself. When he gets older, what he wants is satisfaction and achievement, not money.

It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Buffett already has everything he wants, fame and fortune, and is at the top of his game.

then.

Ye Dongqing smiled at this moment: "Now they have paid the price for their greed. There are still a bunch of junk companies in the Nasdaq Internet sector, but after more than two years of decline, gold has also been exposed on the beach. , I need someone to give me money to buy equipment, and then enter the gold mining industry.

Now there are several great companies in front of me, but I still lack the capital to invest in them. I hope you can cooperate with me. You will provide the money and I will provide the brains. After the money is made, we will share it equally. If it turns out that I Your vision is wrong. I will return all the principal to you according to the highest interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds. You have been so successful in other fields. Don’t you, sir, hope to be called a technology giant one day in the future? Those are great companies that are changing the world and changing the habits of human society. "

Next to him, Buffett's old secretary was just laughing, thinking he was another arrogant young man.

The old man sitting opposite Ye Dongqing was laughing. He told him: "We have a relatively consistent view on the Nasdaq index bottoming out. The question is why should I believe your vision? If you can come up with something With a large amount of bonds or stocks like Coca-Cola as collateral, I would be happy to give you money to invest, but it seems like you don’t have that much money, otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to get investment from me, right?”

Nodding in agreement with this statement, Ye Dongqing asked Old Buffett: "How much money do you think I had three months ago?"

The other party didn't answer, which made him a little embarrassed, so he took the initiative to continue: "After the money was stolen, I only had more than a hundred US dollars, and now I have tens of millions of US dollars. The reason why I say this in front of you is because I want to Let me tell you that I am a capable and visionary person. When you first started, your growth rate was definitely not as fast as mine."

"That's right, it took me many years to make my first $10 million."

"I want you to believe me once. Invest me 50 million US dollars in the initial stage. You can add more after the company becomes profitable. If the return rate within five years is less than 200%, then I will not invest a cent." Take, half for each of us above that number.”

Ye Dongqing is still trying.

If he can't get the money now, he will only miss many opportunities in vain, but if he gets it, he will still have at least half of the income. This money can be regarded as extra profit, extra money earned.

Even if he didn't persuade the old man to invest in himself, besides the gas money back and forth, it was just a waste of time and there was no loss.

Buffett listened very carefully. Usually many people come to him to try to obtain investment, entrepreneurial funds, etc. However, there are not many young people with such a big appetite. They open their mouths to talk about $50 million. Overconfidence is like arrogance.

Feeling interesting, he hesitated for a moment and then changed the subject: "Last night you said you were investing in crude oil futures recently. What was the purchase price and what is the expected interest rate?"

"The average purchase price is twenty-five US dollars and eighty-nine cents. I hope to obtain a profit of about 15% within three months. Once this expectation is reached, the delivery will be made immediately. If it exceeds 10%, you can start to consider and judge the situation. Make a decision.”

“What’s the leverage?”

"A four percent deposit, and an additional ten million US dollars as a supplementary deposit, otherwise no middleman would dare to take this job."

Ye Dongqing said it easily, and Old Buffett suddenly looked at him with a strange look and said: "It seems that you are more courageous than I thought. I have never used such high leverage in my life. You are so Being a gambler has both advantages and disadvantages. It is easy to lose too much capital at once. Although I am also bullish on crude oil futures recently, I have no plans to invest.

In fact, I am very interested in your suggestion, but I want to wait until you make some gains in the crude oil futures market. I must first know whether your vision is really what you said. good. "

"But by then, I guess I won't be short of money. If I weren't more optimistic about the long-term interests of the warrants, my company would be able to afford the $50 million, so there's no need to bother you."

To tell the truth, Ye Dongqing felt that he was probably going to fail. The reason was that Mr. Buffett's character was more stable than he imagined. He was not moved at all under the premise of his promise to save capital, but instead showed that he was avoiding it. mean.

It is indeed a stable character, which makes Berkshire Hathaway miss many great opportunities to make money while being safe.

Don't look at the giants on Wall Street who talk about how much money they lost during the collapse of the Internet bubble all day long, but they calculate it based on the value of the stock market at its peak. Some brokers bought Microsoft when it went public in the 1980s. A few million dollars bought a few percent of the shares, and they had already made a lot of money during this period. The real losses were the group of retail investors and investment institutions who entered the market later. All those who could withdraw before that time withdrew.

The old Buffett did not get a share of the cake in this process. This may be because he is old and pursues safety as much as possible. He does not have the energy of young people.