Were you surprised by your early career successes?
你对你职业生涯早期的成功感到惊讶吗？

Was I surprised? No, it wasn't like I opened the door and there was Ed McMahon. The day Rick Wagoner parted with $2.25 billion, I was blown away. But no, I was never surprised by the success. I just became more and more convinced of the process and realized what a competitive advantage it was. This management-driven philosophy allowed me to follow the most intelligent, successful and capable people in the world. It allowed me to be contrarian. It made me excited to work harder and expand the team.
我惊讶吗？不。这并不像是我一打开门，发现门口站着艾德•麦克马洪（著名脱口秀主持人——译注）。通用汽车前首席执行官开出22.5亿美金与菲亚特“分手”那天，我确实很吃惊。但我从未因为个人的成功感到惊讶，我只是在做事情的过程中越来越有信心，逐渐明白自己的竞争优势。我的这种管理导向型的投资哲学，使我能够跟随世界上最聪明、最成功和最有能力的人一同进步。它使我敢于进行逆向投资，使我一直具有努力工作、扩展团队的激情。

Tell me what differentiates Permian from other hedge funds.
Permian与其他对冲基金有何不同？

Most of our investments are a product of what we've learned from working with and investing behind really great management teams. We're very isolated. We'd rather spend our time learning from successful operators and investors. CEO's making strategic decisions every day -- they are essentially investors themselves -- allocating capital in the most shareholder-friendly way. This approach keeps us independent and it keeps our portfolio unique.
我们与许多非常出色的管理团队进行了合作，并且对他们进行了投资，我们在这个过程中学到了很多东西，并且Permian的大部分投资都是以此为基础的。我们非常独立，宁愿花时间向成功的经营者和投资人学习。企业的首席执行官们每天都要进行战略决策，从本质上讲，他们自己也是投资人，在以对股东最有利的方式进行资本的分配。这种方法使我们保持独立，并且使我们的投资组合始终保持了自己的特色。

We have a network and investor base that is totally different from most hedge funds. Our reference list is our management teams. People say, "can you give me your list of references?' And we send a list of CEO's. And they say, "No, we'd like to speak with your investors." We say, "Those are our investors."
我们的关系网和投资人群体与大多数对冲基金完全不同。我们的推荐人名单上列的就是公司的管理团队。有人会问：“你能给我一份你们的推荐人名单吗？”我们就会发给他们一份名单，上面列的都是首席执行官的名字。他们说：“这不是我要的，我们是想和你们的投资人谈谈。”我们就会说：“他们就是我们的投资人。”

What would you say is your competitive advantage?
你认为你的竞争优势是什么？

I can get a management team to articulate an idea that will cement an opportunity that other colleagues perhaps can't get. It's communication, but it's stylistic. I think it stems from meeting with hundreds of CEO's year after year and really listening to, and learning from them. And asking the right questions.
我可以让管理团队明确地表达出他们的想法，从而使我们抓住机会，而其他人可能无法做到这一点。这就是沟通的艺术，但我在沟通上有我自己的风格。我想这是因为我每年都和数百位首席执行官会面，并且认真倾听，认真向他们学习，并且提出正确的问题。

We recently met a Finnish guy who spent 18 years at P&G (PG, Fortune 500) selling laundry detergent and Sunny Delight. He's now running a sporting goods conglomerate in Finland -- with totally different products and different distribution challenges.
我们最近与一个芬兰人进行了会面，他为宝洁公司（P&G）效力了18年，主要负责销售洗衣粉和Sunny Delight牌的饮料。现在他正在芬兰运营一家大型的体育用品企业，这与他从前销售的产品完全不同，分销渠道也截然不同。

Instead of saying, "What the hell do you know about a sporting goods company?" We looked at it the other way. We asked, what did it take for him to step out of eighteen years at P&G, where he had $25 billion of revenue. What did he see?
我们并没有问他“你对体育用品公司到底知道多少？”而是从另一个角度来看这个问题。我们问的是，他为什么要离开效力18年的宝洁公司，要知道，他为宝洁带来的营业收入高达250亿美元。他是怎么考虑的？

I asked him, "How many opportunities did you turn down before you took this one?" The answer was over 20. But when I asked, "Why did you take this one?" It was totally obvious.
我问他：“你在接手这份工作前拒绝了多少家公司的邀请？”他说20多家。然后我问道：“你为什么要从事这份工作？”听了他的回答，道理就很明白了。

There were brands in this portfolio. Wilson for instance, with 2% market share. Not 20% like you might think. Wilson had tremendous market power that hadn't yet been realized. There's enormous brand equity there.
因为这个行业蕴藏着巨大的品牌价值潜力。以威尔逊（Wilson）为例，威尔逊的市场占有率只有2%，而不是许多人认为的20%。威尔逊有极大的市场潜力还没有被挖掘。因此这个行业的品牌价值潜力极大。

Our investment had nothing to do with the business, per se. We didn't even identify a market opportunity. We just knew enough to talk to a guy who left P&G after 18 years.
我们的投资在本质上与业务本身无关，我们甚至没有去寻找市场机会。与这位曾经为宝洁效力了18年的高管一番畅谈后，我们已经知道了这项业务是否值得投资。

译者：朴成奎