Herbert Allen
The CEO Effect For a long-term investor--the only kind of investing I do at Allen & Co.--the CEO is
absolutely the key to the whole thing. He's much more important to me than the business itself.
I base my evaluations on personal contact. I believe that if you come to the right conclusions
about a CEO's character, intelligence, and expertise, you will make the right investment
choices. Why? Because a company is almost the exact inverse of a democracy, and whereas a
democracy's strength comes from its breadth and depth, a corporation's strength is driven from
the top down. Every company comes to mirror its CEO over time. Whatever the CEO cares about will
be reflected throughout the organization--from the headquarters in Atlanta, say, to the plant in
Singapore. In all of the companies I've had a significant financial interest in, the CEO's have
been at the company for a long time-- Microsoft, Intel, Coca-Cola. And you know what? Great
CEO's are rare-- which makes sense. How many great piano players are there? How many great
baseball players? Business isn't any different. And I don't think there is anything more
valuable than a great CEO.
哈伯特.艾倫
CEO 的作用
對于一個長期投資者——我現在的投資僅在Allen & Co公司——在整個投資過程中，CEO起著非常重要的
作用，他甚至比公司的生意本身更為重要。當然這只是我個人的經歷和感受。我相信如果你對一名CEO的個性、
智能和專長有了透徹而準確的了解，那么你的投資選擇就一定會是正確的。為什么呢？這是因為一家公司幾
乎可以說是民主政治的對立者，而民主政治的實力都來自于它的廣度和深度，一家企業的實力是來自于嚴密的
組織和管理的。每家公司的運營情況都會反映出它的CEO過去所做的決策是否是正確的。CEO關注的事情都將會
在整個組織中表現出來——可以說既能在亞特蘭大的總部中反映出來，也會在新加坡的工廠反映出來。在所有
令我感興趣的公司當中，CEO在該公司都是工作了很長一段時間的——這些公司包括美國微軟公司、因特爾公
司和可口可樂公司等等。出色的CEO是不多的——這一點我們必須承認。但是在所有的鋼琴手和棒球手當中，
又有多少人能成為著名的鋼琴家和棒球手呢？在這一點上，做生意并沒有什么不同，我認為在所有的因素當中，
沒有任何比擁有一名出色的CEO更加重要和有價值的了。
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