《大空头》作者给普林斯顿学子的寄言——别吃那块幸运饼干
但作为一个学金融的学生，我觉得今年好莱坞最有智慧的一部影片，是本届奥斯卡的遗珠《大空头》
《大空头》这部电影，改编自著名畅销作家迈克尔·刘易斯的同名小说，这本描述2007-08年从美国起始的全球经济危机是怎样产生的小说，不仅在金融圈里，也在普罗大众之中带来了非常客观的反响。
这本小说的作者迈克尔·刘易斯，是美国最著名的畅销书作家之一，特别擅长写关于华尔街，资本和金钱游戏题材的作品，他的作品《说谎者的扑克牌》《弱点》《点球成金》等都被改编成电影，其中好几部都是当年的奥奖热门。
虽然我们可能看不懂财经新闻里那些MBS,CDO之类的名词，但想看懂《大空头》这部书，或者那部电影，你需要明白的只有两个词，一个是贪婪，另一个是愚蠢。
是的，事实上，整个资本主义世界的历史，就是围绕着这两个词语搭建的。而迈克尔·刘易斯所做的，就是用最平实的语言，让即使对金融一窍不通的人也能了解，一群又贪婪又愚蠢的华尔街人，是怎么一步步地把全世界带进深渊里去的。
别吃那块“幸运饼干”-- 麦克·路易斯（Michael Lewis),
《说谎者的扑克牌》和《点球成金》等畅销书的作者
我（在普林斯顿上学的时候）从来没有上来到这里（演讲在普林斯顿学校教堂里举行）。谢谢，Tilghman校长。校董和朋友们，2012年毕业生的家长们，不论你们坐在哪里（有些家长在教室看现场直播），2012级的成员们，给你们自己一轮热烈的掌声吧！下一次再有那么多穿黑衣服的人在教堂里，这样做恐怕就没有那么自然了。但是现在可以，享受当下。
三十年前，我就坐在你们现在坐的位置。我也一定听过某位“老人”分享他的人生经验。但是我已经一个字都不记得了。我甚至都记不得演讲的是谁。估计你们到时候也不会记得。但是让我记忆犹新的是毕业本身。别人都说你应该激动兴奋，甚至应该感到些许释然，因为你终于从普林斯顿毕业出来了,也许你们是这种感受。但是我不是。我当时极度地愤慨。我来到这里赋予她我生命中最好的四年光阴，她就这样回报我，一脚将我踢出？
那个时刻，唯一我可以确定的其实也就一件事：我对校园以外的世界毫无任何经济价值。首先，我是主修艺术史的。哪怕是在那个年代，艺术史也被认为是只有疯子才会选的专业。在就业这方面，几乎可以肯定我比你们现在准备得都差。但是，我现在也还是做到了有钱，有名！相对而言。一会儿我会解释这是如何发生的。但我想在你从学校走出去开始职业生涯之前你能先认识到职业道路是非常难以预测的。
就这样我从普林斯顿毕业了，没有在任何地方发表过任何文章。我没有给《普林日报》写过稿，什么都没有。但是当我在普林斯顿学习艺术史时，我第一次真切地体会到了文学抱负给人带来的刺激。那是我在写本科毕业论文时。我的导师是一个非常具有天赋的考古学家，他叫William Childs。我和他一起写的论文探讨了意大利雕刻家Donatello如何融合了希腊和古罗马的作品。
这当然和今天的主题无关但是请包容我，因为我一直想把这个告诉大家。没人知道Childs教授当时是如何想的，但是他让我深深地投入了进去。应该说不仅是投入，可以说是完全痴迷了。当我完成论文时，我知道这就是我这辈子想做的事。我想一直写“毕业论文”。或者说：写书。随后我参加了答辩。就离这里不远，在McCormick Hall教学楼。我期待着Childs教授赞赏我的论文写得有多好，他没有。所以45分钟后，我终于忍不住问他：“那么，你觉得我写得如何啊？”“这么说吧”他说“你千万别以写作为生。”
后来，我确实也没有。我做了和所有（面临毕业又）不知道自己该做什么的人一样的选择，我去了研究院。我开始在晚上写作，但也没啥特别的效果。主要因为我对应该写些什么毫无头绪。
有一天晚上，我被邀请参加一个晚宴，我碰巧坐在了一个投资银行界大佬的夫人旁。那个投资银行是所罗门兄弟（Salomon Brothers）她几乎是以强迫的方式让她老公给了我一份工作。当时我对所罗门兄弟一无所知。然而，所罗门兄弟又处于正发生剧变的华尔街的风口浪尖，那个现在大家都十分了解和“热爱”的华尔街。
当我到了那里，我几乎是被随机地安排到了可以见证那段疯狂历史的最佳岗位。他们把我培养成了公司内部金融衍生品的专家。一年半后，所罗门兄弟开始付给我好几十万美金的工资来让我给职业投资人提供关于金融衍生品方面的指导。这下我就有了可以写的东西：所罗门兄弟当时的华尔街已经变得疯狂到付着可观的薪水，让那些刚从普林斯顿毕业的对钱毫无理解的学生假装自己是金融专家一般。我就这样幸运地找到了我的下一个“毕业论文”。
就在那个时刻，我打电话给我父亲。我告诉他我会辞掉这份会给我带来上百万美金收入的工作，去写一本只能得到4万美金预付款的书，只听见电话那头一阵很长的停顿“你可能可以再好好想想”他说。“为什么？”我问。“你可以在所罗门先工作10年，赚好第一桶金，然后再写你的书。”他说。但是我觉得没什么好多想的。我知道那种当你对某件事情产生热情时会有的感受，因为我在这里（普林斯顿）就感受到过。我渴望能再次得到这样的体验。
当时我26岁。如果我真的等到36岁时，我就不会再去那样做。我会已经忘记了那种感受。我会认为那样做太过于冒险。我写的这本书叫做《说谎者的扑克牌》。它一共卖了100多万本。而我那时刚28岁。我有了一个真正的职业，一点小名气，一笔钱，和一个新的人生轨道。
突然间所有人都说我是个天才作家。这多么荒谬。就连我自己都知道还有一个更加合理的解释，它的主题是“运气”。晚宴时坐在那个所罗门兄弟大佬夫人旁的概率是多少？进入最好的华尔街投行从而可以写这样一个具有时代意义的故事，这样的概率又有多少？尤其是被安排到了能观察当年风起云涌的最佳岗位？拥有没有要和我断绝关系而只是说“如果你一定要怎么做，那就去做吧”这样的父母的概率又有多少？能遇上激发我内心那种“必须去做”的热情的普林斯顿艺术史教授的概率又有多少？而最早能进入普林斯顿的概率又有多少？这不是“假谦卑”。这是讲道理的“假谦卑”。
我的经历就是对“成功都是后来解释出来的”这种说法的验证。人们都不希望听到用运气来解释成功。特别是成功人士。当人们逐步成长，取得成功时，往往会觉得成功是在所难免的。他们不愿意承认运气在他们生命中扮演的角色。其实这也有一定的道理：全世界都不希望承认这点。
关于这点，我还特意写了本书，叫《点球成金》。表面上是关于棒球，但事实上它另有寓意。在职业棒球联盟里，球队可以分为有钱的和没钱的。他们花费在球员上的钱可谓是天壤之别。在我写我那本书的时候，最有钱的球队纽约洋基，当时在25个球员身上的花费高达一亿两千万美元，最穷的球队是奥克兰运动家队。他们的花费只有三千万美金。然而奥克兰运动家队赢得的比赛一点不比纽约洋基少。而且比其他所有比他们更有钱的球队赢的都多。这本不该发生。
照道理，有钱的球队应该可以买到最好的球员，赢得所有的比赛。但是奥克兰运动家队掌握了别人都没有掌握的一点：有钱的球队并不真正了解哪些是最好的球员。球员的价值被错误地估算了。而导致这种错误估算的最大原因就是专家们对运气在棒球中扮演的角色没有足够的认识。有些球员得到的赞誉其实也依赖于其他球员的表现：投手的收入取决于球队是否赢球，击打者的收入取决于是否能送队友上垒。球员们因为那些完全不在他们控制范围之内的事件受到褒贬。比如，被打倒的那个球落在了场地的哪个方位。
且不说棒球，或者体育。就看看这些公司高层，拿着上百万美金的年薪，然后他们做的却是一百年来同行一直在做（未曾改变）的工作。在常人面前，他们每一个都认为自己是能“挑选出好球员”的专家。他们对在工作中的每一个决定都做过统计分析。然而他们仍然会估错价值。就因为大千世界没有认识到“运气”的存在。所以我想你应该问自己：如果一个年薪上百万美金的职业运动员也可能被错误估值，谁又不会呢？如果即便是在完全以成绩说话的职业体育界，人们都无法完全区分是“运气”还是“实力”，那么谁有可以呢？
《点球成金》的故事有现实的可操作的意义。如果你用更好的数据，那么你的估值可以更准确。市场总有失灵的地方可以得以利用，等等。但是，对我而言，它还传递了一个更广却不太可操作的信息。不要为生活的结果而欺骗。生活的结果，虽然不是完全随机的，却也蕴藏着很大的偶然因素。最重要的是要认识到如果你获得过成功，就一定受到过“幸运”的亲睐。伴随“幸运”的是“责任”。你不仅欠上帝对你的一份恩情，其实，你也欠那些不幸的人一份恩情。我突出这点的原因，是不想让它随着这次演讲被你轻松遗忘。我现在住在加州伯克利。
几年前，就在我家不远的地方，有两个伯克利大学心理系的研究人员设计了一个实验。他们抓了些像你们一样的学生来参与实验 然后他们把学生根据性别分组。三个男生一组，三个女生一组。随后他们把这些小组带入一个房间，随机地指认了一个小组成员作为组长。然后出了些复杂的伦理问题让他们解决：比如如何处理作弊，如何控制校园酗酒等。
就在30分钟后，研究人员会带着一盘饼干进入房间打断每个小组的讨论。一共四块饼干。 每个小组有三个成员，但是却有四块饼干。显然，每个小组成员都拿了一块，但这就剩下了第四块饼干，留在那里。这本该是件挺尴尬的事。但结果却不是。让人感到惊人的一致的是，无一例外被随机指认为小组长的人拿走了那第四块饼干并且吃了下去。不仅仅吃了下去，而且是“英姿飒爽”地吃了下去：嘴一张一合地咀嚼着，口水从嘴角直流。最终那块多余的饼干唯一剩下的只是留在小组长衣服上的饼干屑。
这个小组长没有承担任何特殊职责。他也没有任何特殊优点。他是在30分钟前随机选任的。他得到的身份只是由于运气。然而就是这样，他也觉得这多出来的第四块饼干就应该是他的。
这个实验可以用来解释华尔街和CEO的高薪现象，以及我想很多其他人类行为。但人们对“幸运”没有意识时，人们就是这样行为的。然而这和作为普林斯顿大学毕业生的你们也有关系。因为，从某种意义上说，你们也被指认为了领导者。当然也许并不是完全随机的。但是你现在应该能感到这里面是存在偶然成份的：你是那些少数的幸运者。
父母给你带来的幸运，国家给你带来的幸运，普林斯顿给你带来的幸运，因为是她的存在把幸运的人介绍给其他幸运的人，从而使彼此变得更幸运。为生活在这个世界上最富有的社会而感到幸运。为生活在一个不需要为兴趣而牺牲什么的时代而感到幸运，你们都被赋予了那多出的一块饼干。你们将来还会收到很多这样的饼干。有时候你们会发现自己拥有这块多出来的饼干是多么的天经地义。就我所知，你可能确实值得拥有它。但是如果你不这么想，哪怕你假装不那么像，你一定会快乐很多，你的生活也会美好很多。
所以永远不要忘记：为国家服务。为世界服务。
谢谢。
祝好运！
"Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie"
-- Michael Lewis
June 3, 2012 — As Prepared
I've never been up there.Thank you. President Tilghman.
Trustees and Friends. Parents of the Class of 2012, wherever they put you. Members of the Class of 2012. Why don't you give yourself a round of applause. So the next time you look around a church and see everyone dressed in black, it'll be awkward to do that.But enjoy the moment, Enjoy the moment.
Thirty years ago, I sat where you sat. I must have listened to some older person share his life experiences. But I don't remember a word. I couldn't even tell you who spoke. And you won't be able to, either. What I do remember, vividly, is graduation. I'm told you're meant to be excited, maybe even a little relieved that you are getting out of here. And maybe all of you are. I was not. I was totally outraged. Here I’d gone and given them four of the best years of my life and this is how they rewarded me by throwing me out. At that moment I was sure really of only one thing: I was of no possible economic value to the outside world. I'd majored in art history, for a start. Even then majoring in art history was regarded as an act of insanity. I was almost certainly less well prepared than you are for the marketplace. Yet somehow I've wound up rich and famous. sort of. I'm going to explain, briefly, how that happened. I want you to understand just how mysterious careers can be, before you go out and have one for yourself. So I graduated from Princeton without ever having published a word of anything, anywhere. I didn't write for the Prince, or for anyone else. But at Princeton, studying art history, I felt really the first twinge of literary ambition. It happened while I was working on my senior thesis. My adviser was a really gifted man, an archaeologist named William Childs. The thesis I wrote for him tried to explain how the Italian sculptor Donatelloused Greek and Roman sources, which is actually totally beside the point, but I've always wanted to tell someone. God knows what Professor Childs thought of it, but he helped me to become engrossed. Actually more than engrossed: totally obsessed. When I handed it in, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: I want to write senior theses. Or, to put it differently: to write books.Then I went to my thesis defense. It was just a few yards from here, over in McCormick Hall. I listened and waited for Professor Childs to tellhow well written my thesis was. He didn't. So after about 45 minutes I finally said, "So. What did you think of the writing?" "Put it this way" he said. "Never try to make a living at it." And I didn't — not really. I did what everyone does who has no idea what to do with themselves: I went to graduate school. I wrote at nights, without much effect, mainly because I hadn't the first clue what I should write about.
One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a big Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the Wall Street we have all come to know and love today. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in the place to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the in-house derivatives expert. A year and a half later, Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors. Now I had something to write about: Salomon Brothers. Wall Street had become so unhinged that it was paying recent Princeton graduates who knew nothing about money small fortunes to pretend they were experts about money. I'd stumbled into my next senior thesis. At that point, I called up my father. I told him I was gonna quit this job that promised me millions of dollars to write a book for an advance of 40 grand. There was this long pause on the other end of the line. "You might just want to think about that one," he said. "Why?" I asked. "You can stay at Salomon Brothers for 10 years, make your fortune, and then write your books," he said. But I didn't need to think about it. I knew what intellectual passion felt like — because I'd felt it here, at Princeton — and I wanted to feel it again. I was 26 years old. Had I waited until I was 36, I would never have done it. I would have forgotten the feeling. I would have felt it too risky. The book I wrote was called "Liar’s Poker". It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative.
All of a sudden people were telling me I was a born writer. This was absurd. Even I could see there was another, more true narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm to write the story of the age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business? Of having parents who didn't disinherit me but instead sighed and said "do it if you must" Of having had that sense of "must" kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton? Of having been let into Princeton in the first place? This isn't just false humility. It's false humility with a point. My case illustrates how success is always rationalized. People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck! especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don't want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world doesn't want to acknowledge it either. I actually wrote a book about this, called "Moneyball." It was ostensibly about baseball but was in fact about something else. There are poor teams and rich teams in professional baseball, and they spend radically different sums of money on their players. When I wrote my book the richest team,the New York Yankees, was then spending about $120 million on its 25 players. The poorest team was the Oakland A's. They were spending about $30 million. And yet the Oakland team was winning more games, or as many games as the New York Yankees. and more games than every other team, all of them were richer than they were. This isn't supposed to happen. In theory, the rich teams should buy the best players and win all the time. But the Oakland team had figured something out that no one else has figured out: the rich teams didn't really understand who the best baseball players were. The players were misvalued. And the biggest single reason they were misvalued was that the experts did not pay sufficient attention to the role of luck in baseball success. Players got given credit for things they did that depended on the performance of others: pitchers got paid for winning games, hitters got paid for knocking in runners on base. Players got blamed and credited for events totally beyond their control. Where balls that got hit happened to land on the field, for example. Forget baseball, forget the game of sports. Here you had these corporate employees, being paid millions of dollars a year. They were doing exactly the same job that people in their business had done for more than a century. In front of millions of people, each of them think they are an expert on what a good baseball player is. They had statistics attached to every move they made on their job. And yet they were misvalued! Because the wider world was blind to their luck. So I think you have to ask: if a professional athlete paid millions of dollars a year can be misvalued, who can't be? If the supposedly pure meritocracy of professional sports can't distinguish between the lucky and good, who can? The "Moneyball" story has practical implications. If you use better data, you can find better values; there are always market inefficiencies to exploit, and so on. But, to me, it has a broader and less practical message: don't be deceived by life's outcomes. Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck! And with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky. I make this point because along with this speech, it is something that will be easy for you to forget. I now live in Berkeley, California.
A few years ago, just a few blocks from my home, a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment. They began by grabbing students like you, to use as his lab rats. Then they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, on a team. Then they put these teams of three into a room, and arbitrarily assigned one member of the team to be the leader. Then they gave them some complicated moral problem to solve: say what should be done about academic cheating, or how to regulate drinking on campus. Exactly 30 minutes into the problem-solving the researchers interrupted each group. They entered the room bearing a plate of cookies. Four cookies. The team consisted of three people, but there were these four cookies. Every team member obviously got one cookie, but that left a fourth cookie, just sitting there. It should have been awkward. But it wasn't. With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it. Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool pooling at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were the crumbs on the leader's shirt. This leader had performed no special task. He had no special virtue. He'd been chosen at random, 30 minutes earlier. His status was nothing but luck. But it left him with a sense that this cookie, the 4th cookie, should be his. This experiment helps to explain Wall Street bonuses, CEO pay, and I'm sure lots of other human behavior. This is how people behave, when they are blind in their own luck. But it's also relevant to you, to new graduates of Princeton University. Because in a general sort of way, you have been appointed the leader of the group.Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense right now its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything. All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may deserve the extra cookie. But you'll be happier, and you will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.
So never forget: In the nation's service. In the service of all nations.
Thank you.
And good luck.
希望我们的同学能够都能像迈克尔·刘易斯所说的那样，年轻时假如你对某些事有哪怕一点点的热情，就一定要去试一下，因为你年轻的时候不冒险，以后也更不会冒险。最后就是几十年后，你在敬老院的院子里晒着太阳，絮絮叨叨地跟身边的老友嘟囔：“我年轻的时候，有一次差点......."
人生苦短，及时行乐。我们不要差点，我们要现在。