私募股权的投资经理们眼睁睁看着 Claude Cowork 在几分钟内就搭建出一个 LBO 模型，心里明白自己的工作可能很快就要危险了 Private equity associates watching Claude Cowork build an LBO model in the span of a few minutes knowing that their job might be in danger soon
Boring_Businessnobody asks about your external rate of return
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观点原文
私募股权的投资经理们眼睁睁看着 Claude Cowork 在几分钟内就搭建出一个 LBO 模型，心里明白自己的工作可能很快就要危险了
Private equity associates watching Claude Cowork build an LBO model in the span of a few minutes knowing that their job might be in danger soon
ABAB AI 解读
这句话其实不是玩笑。
它在讲一个正在发生的结构性变化
“Private equity associates watching Claude Cowork build an LBO model in the span of a few minutes knowing that their job might be in danger soon”
表面意思：PE 投资经理看到 AI 几分钟做完 LBO，开始焦虑
本质意思：金融行业的“执行层”正在被压缩
我从五个层面给你拆
一、LBO 曾经是金融精英的入场门槛
在私募股权世界里：
- LBO建模
- 三表联动
- 现金流敏感性分析
- 是分析师的核心技能
一个人能否做出干净、快速、逻辑严谨的模型，决定他是否能进入PE
LBO 过去代表：技术壁垒
现在如果 AI 几分钟完成，那说明：技术壁垒正在商品化
二、金融行业的真实分层
PE 行业本质上分三层：
1️⃣ 执行层（建模、数据处理）
2️⃣ 判断层（投资逻辑、风险评估）
3️⃣ 资本层（资金来源、关系网络）
AI 最先替代的是第一层，不会立即替代第二层，更不会替代第三层
所以焦虑的，是 Associate，而不是 Partner
三、执行能力正在变廉价
过去：
- 模型速度决定效率
- Excel 技术决定价值
未来：
- AI 自动生成
- 自动校验
- 自动跑情景分析
- 执行变成默认能力
这就像：
- 会打字不再是优势
- 会建模将不再是优势
四、真正会被淘汰的是什么人？
不是所有 Associate，而是：只会执行、不参与判断的人
如果你只负责：
- 搭模型
- 整理数据
- 做PPT
那风险极高
但如果你参与：
- 行业研究
- 创始人沟通
- 谈判结构设计
- 资本安排
AI 很难替代
五、PE 行业真正的核心能力是什么？
不是建模，而是：
- Deal sourcing（项目来源）
- Pattern recognition（模式识别）
- Governance（治理能力）
- Capital allocation（资本配置）
模型只是工具，投资是判断
判断来自经验与情境理解
六、历史类比
2000年，Bloomberg 让数据查询自动化
- 没有消灭投行
- Excel 没消灭会计师
- 自动化提高了行业门槛
AI 也一样，它会：
- 淘汰底层重复性岗位
- 提高行业整体效率
- 让决策层更重要
七、真正的威胁是什么？
真正的威胁不是“AI 会做 LBO”，而是：AI 让资金更高效流动
当交易分析成本下降，竞争者数量增加，回报率会下降
这才是PE真正要担心的
八、最高维度总结
这句话揭示的是：执行能力不再稀缺
未来金融精英的护城河将是：
- 人脉
- 信任
- 结构设计
- 复杂谈判
而不是 Excel 技巧，如果你在金融行业，应该问自己：“如果建模变成 5 分钟的事，我还能提供什么价值？”
这才是核心问题
一句话总结：AI 不会消灭私募股权，但会消灭“只会建模型”的私募股权分析师。
Investment
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I will be posting lessons from all of his letters going through 2025 with subsequent posts, similar to this one 1977 Letter to Shareholders EPS as a poor measure for investment decisions "Most companies define “record” earnings as a new high in EPS. Since businesses customarily add from year to year to their equity base, we find nothing particularly noteworthy in a management performance combining, say, a 10% increase in equity capital and a 5% increase in earnings per share. After all, a totally dormant savings account will produce steadily rising interest earnings each year because of compounding. Except for special cases (for example, companies with unusual debt-equity ratios or those with important assets carried at unrealistic balance sheet values), we believe a more appropriate measure of managerial economic performance to be Return on equity capital." Merits of being in a good business "It is comforting to be in a business [insurance] where some mistakes can be made and yet a quite satisfactory overall performance can be achieved. In a sense, this is the opposite case from our textile business, where even very good management probably can average only modest results. One of the lessons your management has learned—and, unfortunately, sometimes re-learned – is the importance of being in businesses where tailwinds prevail rather than headwinds." Focusing on Earnings rather than Stock Price "Most of our large stock positions are going to be held for many years and the scorecard of our investment decisions will be provided by business results over that period, not by prices on any given day. Just as it would be foolish to focus unduly on short term prospects when acquiring an entire company, we think it equally unsound to become mesmerized by prospective near term earnings or recent trends in earnings when purchasing small pieces of a company (i.e. marketable common stocks)" Stock Picking Criteria "We select our marketable equity securities in much the same way we would evaluate a business for acquisition in its entirety. We want the business to be: (1) one that we can understand, (2) with favorable long-term prospects, (3) operated by honest and competent people, and (4) available at a very attractive price. We ordinarily make no attempt to buy equities for anticipated favorable stock price behavior in the short term. In fact, if their business experience continues to satisfy us, we welcome lower market prices of stocks we own as an opportunity to acquire even more of a good" On Inefficient Markets "Our experience has been that pro-rata portions of truly outstanding businesses sometimes sell in the securities markets at very large discounts from the prices they would command in negotiated transactions involving entire companies Consequently, bargains in business ownership, which simply are not available directly through corporate acquisition, can be obtained indirectly through stock ownership. When prices are appropriate, we are willing to take very large positions in selected companies, not with any intention of taking control and not foreseeing sell-out or merger, but with expectation that excellent business results by corporate will translate over the long term into correspondingly excellent market value and dividend results for owners, minority as well as majority" Being a minority vs majority shareholder: "To purchase, directly, properties [businesses] would cost in the area of twice our cost of purchase via the stock market, and direct ownership would offer no important advantages to us. While control would give us the opportunity—and the responsibility—to manage operations and corporate resources, we would not be able to provide management in either of those respects equal to that now in place. In effect, we can obtain a better management result through non-control than control. This is an unorthodox view, but one we believe to be sound." 1978 Letter to Shareholders On Predicting Stock Prices "We make no attempt to predict how security markets will behave; successful forecasting short term stock price movements is something we think neither we nor anyone else can do. In the longer run, however, we feel that many of our major equity holdings are going to be worth considerably more money than we paid, and that investment gains will add significantly to the operating returns" Factors that lead to low ROIC "Slow capital turnover, coupled with low profit margins on sales, inevitably produces inadequate returns on capital. Obvious approaches to improved profit margins involve differentiation of product, lowered manufacturing costs through more efficient equipment or better utilization of people, etc. Our management is diligent in pursuing such objectives. The problem, of course, is that our competitors are just as diligently doing the same thing." Undifferentiated Goods in Capital-Intensive Businesses "The textile industry illustrates in textbook style how producers of relatively undifferentiated goods in capital intensive businesses must earn inadequate returns except under conditions of tight supply or real shortage. As long as excess productive capacity exists, prices tend to reflect direct operating costs rather than capital employed Such a supply-excess condition appears likely to prevail most of the time in the textile industry, and our expectations are for profits of relatively modest amounts in relation to capital. We hope we don’t get into too many more businesses with such tough economic characteristics." On M&A "This program of acquisition of small fractions of businesses (common stocks) at bargain prices, for which little enthusiasm exists, contrasts sharply with general corporate acquisition activity, for which much enthusiasm exists. It seems quite clear to us that either corporations are making very significant mistakes in purchasing entire businesses at prices prevailing in negotiated transactions and takeover bids, or that we eventually are going to make considerable sums of money buying small portions of such businesses at the greatly discounted valuations prevailing in the stock market." On Being a Long-Term Buyer with Concentration "We are not concerned with whether the market quickly revalues upward securities that we believe are selling at bargain prices. In fact, we prefer just the opposite since, in most years, we expect to have funds available to be a net buyer of securities. And consistent attractive purchasing is likely to prove to be of more eventual benefit to us than any selling opportunities provided by a short-term run-up in stock prices to levels at which we are unwilling to continue buying. Our policy is to concentrate holdings. We try to avoid buying a little of this or that when we are only lukewarm about the business or its price. When we are convinced as to attractiveness, we believe in buying worthwhile amounts." When Companies Should Retain Capital vs Pay Dividends "We are not at all unhappy when our wholly-owned businesses retain all of their earnings if they can utilize internally those funds at attractive rates. \Why should we feel differently about retention of earnings by companies in which we hold small equity interests, but where the record indicates even better prospects for profitable employment of capital? (This proposition cuts the other way, of course, in industries with low capital requirements, or if management has a record of plowing capital into projects of low profitability; then earnings should be paid out or used to repurchase shares - often by far the most attractive option for capital utilization.)" 1979 Letter to Shareholders Testing Managerial Economic Performance "The primary test of managerial economic performance is the achievement of a high earnings rate on equity capital employed (without undue leverage, accounting gimmickry, etc.) and not the achievement of consistent gains in earnings per share. In our view, many businesses would be better understood by their shareholder owners, as well as the general public, if managements and financial analysts modified the primary emphasis they place upon earnings per share, and upon yearly changes in that figure" Impact of Inflation on Investment Returns (Investor Misery Index) "That combination - the inflation rate plus the percentage of capital that must be paid by the owner to transfer into his own pocket the annual earnings achieved by the business (i.e., ordinary income tax on dividends and capital gains tax on retained earnings) - can be thought of as an “investor’s misery index”. When this index exceeds the rate of return earned on equity by the business, the investor’s purchasing power (real capital) shrinks even though he consumes nothing at all. We have no corporate solution to this problem; high inflation rates will not help us earn higher rates of return on equity." Impact of High ROIC on Business Multiples "In some businesses - a network TV station, for example - it is virtually impossible to avoid earning extraordinary returns on tangible capital employed in the business. And assets in such businesses sell at equally extraordinary prices, one thousand cents or more on the dollar, a valuation reflecting the splendid, almost unavoidable, economic results obtainable. Despite a fancy price tag, the “easy” business may be the better route to go. We can speak from experience, having tried the other route." Avoiding Turnaround Businesses as Investments "Both our operating and investment experience cause us to conclude that “turnarounds” seldom turn, and that the same energies and talent are much better employed in a good business purchased at a fair price than in a poor business purchased at a bargain price" Investing in Bonds in a High-Inflation Environment "We have severe doubts as to whether a very long-term fixed-interest bond, denominated in dollars, remains an appropriate business contract in a world where the value of dollars seems almost certain to shrink by the day. Those dollars, as well as paper creations of other governments, simply may have too many structural weaknesses to appropriately serve as a unit of long term commercial reference. If so, really long bonds may turn out to be obsolete instruments and insurers who have bought those maturities of 2010 or 2020 could have major and continuing problems on their hands. We, likewise, will be unhappy with our fifteen-year bonds and will annually pay a price in terms of earning power that reflects that mistake. Some of our convertible bonds appear exceptionally attractive to us, and have the same sort of earnings retention factor (applicable to the stock into which they may be converted) that prevails in our conventional equity portfolio. We expect to make money in these bonds (we already have, in a few cases) and have hopes that our profits in this area may offset losses in straight bonds. And, of course, there is the possibility that our present analysis is much too negative. The chances for very low rates of inflation are not nil. Inflation is man-made; perhaps it can be man-mastered. Furthermore, present interest rates incorporate much higher inflation projections than those of a year or two ago. Such rates may prove adequate or more than adequate to protect bond buyers. We even may miss large profits from a major rebound in bond prices. However, our unwillingness to fix a price now for a pound of See’s candy or a yard of Berkshire cloth to be delivered in 2010 or 2020 makes us equally unwilling to buy bonds which set a price on money now for use in those years. Overall, we opt for Polonius (slightly restated): “Neither a short-term borrower nor a long-term lender be.” Philosophy on Communication with Shareholders "When you do receive a communication from us, it will come from the fellow you are paying to run the business. Your Chairman has a firm belief that owners are entitled to hear directly from the CEO as to what is going on and how he evaluates the business, currently and prospectively. You would demand that in a private company; you should expect no less in a public company. A once-a-year report of stewardship should not be turned over to a staff specialist or public relations consultant who is unlikely to be in a position to talk frankly on a manager-to-owner basis. We feel that you, as owners, are entitled to the same sort of reporting by your manager as we feel is owed to us at Berkshire Hathaway by managers of our business units. Obviously, the degree of detail must be different, particularly where information would be useful to a business competitor or the like. But the general scope, balance, and level of candor should be similar. We don’t expect a public relations document when our operating managers tell us what is going on, and we don’t feel you should receive such a document." You Get the Shareholders You Deserve "Companies obtain the shareholder constituency that they seek and deserve. If they focus their thinking and communications on short-term results or short-term stock market consequences they will, in large part, attract shareholders who focus on the same factors And if they are cynical in their treatment of investors, eventually that cynicism is highly likely to be returned by the investment community. Phil Fisher, a respected investor and author, once likened the policies of the corporation in attracting shareholders to those of a restaurant attracting potential customers. A restaurant could seek a given clientele - patrons of fast foods, elegant dining, Oriental food, etc. - and eventually obtain an appropriate group of devotees. If the job were expertly done, that clientele, pleased with the service, menu, and price level offered, would return consistently. But the restaurant could not change its character constantly and end up with a happy and stable clientele. If the business vacillated between French cuisine and take-out chicken, the result would be a revolving door of confused and dissatisfied customers. So it is with corporations and the shareholder constituency they seek. You can’t be all things to all men, simultaneously seeking different owners whose primary interests run from high current yield to long-term capital growth to stock market pyrotechnics, etc." On Creating a Long Term Shareholder Base for Your Company "The reasoning of managements that seek large trading activity in their shares puzzles us. In effect, such managements are saying that they want a good many of the existing clientele continually to desert them in favor of new ones - because you can’t add lots of new owners (with new expectations) without losing lots of former owners. We much prefer owners who like our service and menu and who return year after year. It would be hard to find a better group to sit in the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder “seats” than those already occupying them. So we hope to continue to have a very low turnover among our owners, reflecting a constituency that understands our operation, approves of our policies, and shares our expectations." Management Principles of Berkshire "Company [Berkshire] is run on the principle of centralization of financial decisions at the top (the very top, it might be added), and rather extreme delegation of operating authority to a number of key managers at the individual company or business unit level. We could just field a basketball team with our corporate headquarters group (which utilizes only about 1500 square feet of space). This approach produces an occasional major mistake that might have been eliminated or minimized through closer operating controls. But it also eliminates large layers of costs and dramatically speeds decision-making. Because everyone has a great deal to do, a very great deal gets done. Most important of all, it enables us to attract and retain some extraordinarily talented individuals - people who simply can’t be hired in the normal course of events - who find working for Berkshire to be almost identical to running their own show" 1980 Letter to Shareholders On Share Buybacks "One usage of retained earnings we often greet with special enthusiasm when practiced by companies in which we have an investment interest is repurchase of their own shares. The reasoning is simple: if a fine business is selling in the market place for far less than intrinsic value, what more certain or more profitable utilization of capital can there be than significant enlargement of the interests of all owners at that bargain price? The competitive nature of corporate acquisition activity almost guarantees the payment of a full - frequently more than full price when a company buys the entire ownership of another enterprise. But the auction nature of security markets often allows finely-run companies the opportunity to purchase portions of their own businesses at a price under 50% of that needed to acquire the same earning power through the negotiated acquisition of another enterprise" Inflation as a Form of Taxation for Investors "High rates of inflation create a tax on capital that makes much corporate investment unwise - at least if measured by the criterion of a positive real investment return to owners. This “hurdle rate” the return on equity that must be achieved by a corporation in order to produce any real return for its individual owners - has increased dramatically in recent years. The average tax-paying investor is now running up a down escalator whose pace has accelerated to the point where his upward progress is nil. For example, in a world of 12% inflation a business earning 20% on equity (which very few manage consistently to do) and distributing it all to individuals in the 50% bracket is chewing up their real capital, not enhancing it. (Half of the 20% will go for income tax; the remaining 10% leaves the owners of the business with only 98% of the purchasing power they possessed at the start of the year - even though they have not spent a penny of their “earnings”). The investors in this bracket would actually be better off with a combination of stable prices and corporate earnings on equity capital of only a few per cent. Explicit income taxes alone, unaccompanied by any implicit inflation tax, never can turn a positive corporate return into a negative owner return. (Even if there were 90% personal income tax rates on both dividends and capital gains, some real income would be left for the owner at a zero inflation rate.) But the inflation tax is not limited by reported income. Inflation rates not far from those recently experienced can turn the level of positive returns achieved by a majority of corporations into negative returns for all owners, including those not required to pay explicit taxes. (For example, if inflation reached 16%, owners of the 60% plus of corporate America earning less than this rate of return would be realizing a negative real return - even if income taxes on dividends and capital gains were eliminated.). Of course, the two forms of taxation co-exist and interact since explicit taxes are levied on nominal, not real, income. Thus you pay income taxes on what would be deficits if returns to stockholders were measured in constant dollars. At present inflation rates, we believe individual owners in medium or high tax brackets (as distinguished from tax-free entities such as pension funds, eleemosynary institutions, etc.) should expect no real long-term return from the average American corporation, even though these individuals reinvest the entire after-tax proceeds from all dividends they receive. The average return on equity of corporations is fully offset by the combination of the implicit tax on capital levied by inflation and the explicit taxes levied both on dividends and gains in value produced by retained earnings." How Equities Can Outpace Inflation through High ROIC "Of course, earnings and dividends per share usually will rise if significant earnings are “saved” by a corporation; i.e., reinvested instead of paid as dividends. But that would be true without inflation. A thrifty wage earner, likewise, could achieve regular annual increases in his total income without ever getting a pay increase - if he were willing to take only half of his paycheck in cash (his wage “dividend”) and consistently add the other half (his “retained earnings”) to a savings account. Neither this high-saving wage earner nor the stockholder in a high-saving corporation whose annual dividend rate increases while its rate of return on equity remains flat is truly indexed. For capital to be truly indexed, return on equity must rise, i.e., business earnings consistently must increase in proportion to the increase in the price level without any need for the business to add to capital - including working capital employed. (Increased earnings produced by increased investment don’t count.) Only a few businesses come close to exhibiting this ability" Good Management In a Bad Business "We have written in past reports about the disappointments that usually result from purchase and operation of “turnaround” businesses. Literally hundreds of turnaround possibilities in dozens of industries have been described to us over the years and, either as participants or as observers, we have tracked performance against expectations. Our conclusion is that, with few exceptions, when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." Acquisition Criteria for Businesses "Our acquisition preferences run toward businesses that generate cash, not those that consume it. As inflation intensifies, more and more companies find that they must spend all funds they generate internally just to maintain their existing physical volume of business. There is a certain mirage-like quality to such operations. However attractive the earnings numbers, we remain leery of businesses that never seem able to convert such pretty numbers into no-strings-attached cash. Businesses meeting our standards are not easy to find. (Each year we read of hundreds of corporate acquisitions; only a handful would have been of interest to us.) And logical expansion of our present operations is not easy to implement. But we’ll continue to utilize both avenues in our attempts to further Berkshire’s growth. Under all circumstances we plan to operate with plenty of liquidity, with debt that is moderate in size and properly structured, and with an abundance of capital strength. Our return on equity is penalized somewhat by this conservative approach, but it is the only one with which we feel comfortable"Boring_Business · 2026/01/19
- “妈妈，我们是怎么变得这么有钱的？” “你爸爸对那些由他自己定价的资产，收了 2% 管理费 + 20% 业绩提成。” “Mom how did we get so rich?” “Your dad charged 2 and 20 on assets that he made up marks for himself”Boring_Business · 2026/01/17