Lecture 13: How To Be A Great Founder 第十三讲：如何成为伟大的创始人

Lecture 13: How To Be A Great Founder

第十三讲：如何成为伟大的创始人

第13讲课程视频

讨论地址:http://www.huomen.com/topic-show-id-103.html

As I looked through the syllabus of this class and thought what would be useful skills, what I’ve been thinking about is how do you see yourself as a founder? How do you think about what the skill set is? And what are the things you should be thinking about in terms of: am I ready? How do I get ready? Is it the right thing for me? These sorts of things.
当我翻阅这门课的教学大纲，思考什么是有用的技能时，我一直在思考的是，作为一个创始人，你是如何看待自己的？你认为什么是技能？你应该考虑什么：我准备好了吗？我该怎么准备？这对我来说合适吗？诸如此类的事情。
So let’s start with the perception of what a great founder is. And classically this tends to be Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos. And it’s an image of founder as Superwoman, or Superman, who has this panopticon of skills. I can use the word panopticon because I am here at Stanford. It’s things like, I can do product market fit. I am great at product, I am great at strategy, I am great at management. I can fundraise. I can do all of these skills and the thing you are looking for in a great founder, in the idea of the founder as a super person, is I am looking for someone who is awesome at all these things. They are well rounded, they are diverse. They can bat on all skills.
那么，让我们从对什么是伟大创始人的认识开始。典型的是史蒂夫·乔布斯、比尔·盖茨、埃隆·马斯克、马克·扎克伯格、杰夫·贝佐斯。创始人的形象是女超人，或者超人，她拥有这种技能。我可以用panopticon这个词，因为我在斯坦福。就像，我可以做适合市场的产品。我擅长产品，策略，管理。我可以筹款。我能做所有这些技能，你在寻找一个伟大的创始人，在创始人的想法作为一个超级的人，是我在寻找一个谁是在所有这些事情上令人敬畏的人。他们很全面，他们是多样化的。他们能掌握所有技能。
And part of how I found this emphasized, in the beginning of my own entrepreneurial journey, I remember reading an article that said Bill Gates is smarter than Einstein. And you are like, Bill Gates is really smart and is very accomplished, but I am not sure smarter than Einstein is really a phrase that even Bill Gates wants to be next to. It’s partially because of this image of a founder as super person. Which is, a great founder can do anything. Jump over tall buildings in a single bound, all of these sort of things. And the reality is that a founder is someone who deals with all these different headaches and no one is universally powered.
我发现这一点的一部分原因是，在我创业之初，我记得读过一篇文章，说比尔盖茨比爱因斯坦聪明。你会说，比尔·盖茨真的很聪明，很有成就感，但我不确定“比爱因斯坦聪明”是不是一个连比尔·盖茨都想成为下一个的短语。这部分是因为创始人是一个超人的形象。也就是说，一个伟大的创始人可以做任何事情。一跃而过高楼，诸如此类。而现实是，创始人是处理所有这些不同头痛问题的人，没有人是万能的。
Generally speaking you hope to have a couple super powers. Some things that are a unique edge to you, some things that are unique to the problem you are trying to solve, some things that will help you get an edge. Because competitive differentiation and competitive edge is super important. But it’s not actually a function of genius.
一般来说，你希望有几个超能力。有些事情对你来说是独特的优势，有些事情对你试图解决的问题来说是独特的，有些事情会帮助你获得优势。因为竞争差异化和竞争优势是非常重要的。但这并不是天才的功用。
And frequently it’s very hard to tell the difference between madness and genius because usually it’s the results that play out. Sometimes when dealing with uncertain environments you may even be genius and later may be thought to be a mad person. Or you may be a mad person and turn out lucky, you may turn out genius. It’s actually a challenging set of how do you think about these sets of skills. And when us, mere mortals come into this sort of battle, what is the right way to think about it?
通常很难区分疯狂和天才，因为通常是结果。有时，在处理不确定的环境时，你甚至可能是天才，后来可能会被认为是疯子。或者你可能是一个疯子，变成幸运的人，你可能变成天才。这实际上是一个挑战，你如何看待这些技能。当我们这些凡人卷入这场战争时，有什么正确的方法来思考呢？
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So when I thought about this question, on how is one a great founder, these are all skills that are super important. These are all things that you say, okay, this is really really important to do and you must in fact do this well. And it begins to look like a superhuman task. And what I did was decide to take a superset of these and focus on the interesting things to think about. What is it that actually makes a great founder? Because it’s not actually that you score ten out of ten of these, you become the entrepreneurial olympian. You are actually the best at all these things.
所以当我想到这个问题，关于如何成为一个伟大的创始人，这些都是非常重要的技能。这些都是你所说的，好吧，这真的很重要，你必须把它做好。它开始看起来像一个超人的任务。我所做的是决定把这些的一个超集，集中在有趣的事情去思考。是什么造就了一个伟大的创始人？因为这并不是说你在其中的10分中得了10分，你就成了创业型的奥林匹克运动员。你在所有这些方面都是最棒的。
So let’s start with team. One way, I think, to explode the myth of super founder is usually it’s best to have two or three people on a team rather than a solo founder. It’s not to say that solo founders don’t actually play out and they can, successfully. But most often two or three people is much better. When I look at these things as an investor, and I say what is a good composition of a project and founders that are likely to succeed, it’s usually two or three of them. And the reasons are, we have already talked about that there’s this very broad set of skills. There is this whole set of questions on how you adapt your company or be successful. If you have two or three founders, you have different skills you can compensate. Because, by the way, everyone has weaknesses. You can compensate for each others weaknesses. In the diversity of problems you encounter as a founder, you can actually attack them.
让我们从团队开始。我认为，打破超级创始人神话的一种方法是，通常最好让两到三个人组成一个团队，而不是一个单独的创始人。这并不是说独创者实际上不会成功，他们可以成功。但大多数情况下，两三个人就好多了。当我作为一个投资者来看待这些事情，我说什么是一个项目的好组成部分，什么是有可能成功的创始人，通常是其中的两个或三个。原因是，我们已经讨论过，有一套非常广泛的技能。关于你如何适应公司或取得成功，有一整套问题。如果你有两到三个创始人，你就有不同的技能可以弥补。因为，顺便说一句，每个人都有弱点。你们可以互相弥补缺点。作为一个创始人，你会遇到各种各样的问题，实际上你可以攻击它们。
Other things I suggest when you look at, essentially, a founding team, is to have a real high preference for having co-founders, having a high degree of trust for those co-founders, because one other way on the whole entrepreneurial thing to die is you get a year down the road with your co-founders and then you are going through a messy divorce. That is not always but frequently fatal. And also the diversity of the tasks that you do. The next thing is location.
我建议的其他事情，当你看，基本上，一个创始团队，是有一个真正的高偏好的联合创始人，有一个高度信任这些联合创始人，因为在整个创业的事情上，另一种方式是你死了一年的路与你的联合创始人，然后你正在经历一个混乱的离婚。这并不总是致命的，但往往是致命的。以及你所做任务的多样性。接下来就是位置。
Frequently, I have had told to me, Oh Silicon Valley aggregates all this super talent, which it does. The reason why Silicon Valley startups are so successful is because all of these great people–immigration which is hugely important for talent and founders that immigrate here. Now if you think about it from basic math, even if you take something that Silicon Valley is super strong at, which is essentially software skills in the last two decades, not all the great software companies move here. Not all of them can move here. There are many of them in other various parts of the world. And so why do I put choice of location up there? It’s one of the things it comes down to in thinking whether or not you are a great founder. Well the reason is, because of what great founders do is seek the networks that will be essential to their task. And they realize it’s not just about, I am superman, I can do this anywhere. I can do this in Antarctica, etc, in order to be successful, I have to go to where the strongest networks are for the particular kind of thing that I am doing. And Silicon Valley, by the way, is super good at some kind of tasks, some places that you essentially try to solve certain types of problems. But it’s not good at all of them. Let me take two examples.
我经常告诉我，哦，硅谷聚集了所有这些超级人才，它确实如此。硅谷创业公司之所以如此成功，是因为所有这些伟大的人——移民，这对移民到这里的人才和创业者来说非常重要。现在，如果你从基础数学的角度来思考，即使你学习了硅谷非常擅长的东西，基本上是过去20年的软件技能，也不是所有伟大的软件公司都会搬到这里来。不是所有人都能搬到这里来。世界上其他地方也有很多这样的人。那我为什么要把地点的选择放在上面呢？归根结底，在思考你是否是一个伟大的创始人时，这是一件很重要的事情。原因是，因为伟大的创始人所做的就是寻找对他们的任务至关重要的人际网络。他们意识到这不仅仅是因为，我是超人，我可以在任何地方这样做。我可以在南极洲等地这样做，为了成功，我必须去最强大的网络所在的地方做我正在做的事情。顺便说一句，硅谷在某些任务上非常擅长，在某些地方，你基本上是想解决某些类型的问题。但不是所有的都好。我举两个例子。
One is Groupon, I don’t think Groupon could have ever been founded here. Even though it’s a software product, it even generates a network. Obviously a lot of the great networks are here and use internet technology as a mobile product and everything else. All of which we have a lot of great skill here in Silicon Valley and the networks are really good for this. One of the things that was central for Groupon for it’s early days, was having massive sales forces. And a massive sales forces, strengthens and weakens a workforce, tends to go together. Silicon Valley, tends to be pretty adverse to plans that involve, Oh we are going to rent a twenty-five story building and in twenty of those stories we are going to have floors of sales people. And thats how we are going to get our thing going. That kind of plan here tends to not get a lot of interest, tends to get a lot of criticism, tends to not have talent aggregate to it, tends to have financiers talk about things like cap efficiency, and network effects, and other kinds of things that are key here. And so it’s actually not a surprise that in fact, Groupon was required to be in Chicago, which is really good at this, as a way of getting going and showing that even software startups can be in other places. But even if you begin to think about it, you say what kind of other kinds of startups would someone be an idiot to move here to do.
一个是Groupon，我认为Groupon不可能在这里成立。即使它是一个软件产品，它甚至可以生成一个网络。很明显，很多伟大的网络都在这里，并将互联网技术作为移动产品和其他一切。所有这些我们在硅谷都有很多很好的技能，网络也很好。Groupon早期的核心之一就是拥有庞大的销售队伍。而庞大的销售队伍，加强和削弱了劳动力，往往走在一起。硅谷，往往是相当不利的计划，涉及，哦，我们要租一栋25层楼的大楼，在其中20层，我们将有销售人员楼层。这就是我们要如何让我们的事情继续下去。这种计划在这里往往得不到太多的兴趣，往往得到很多批评，往往没有人才聚集到它，往往有金融家谈论的事情，如上限效率，网络效应，以及其他类型的事情，在这里是关键的。所以事实上，Groupon被要求去芝加哥也就不足为奇了，因为芝加哥在这方面做得很好，这是一种前进的方式，表明即使是软件初创公司也可以去其他地方。但即使你开始思考，你也会说，如果有人搬到这里来做什么样的创业公司，会是个白痴。
Think of someone doing a fashion start up, not fashion a la Poshmark which is a mobile marketplace that are a bunch of things good here. But I’m designing a new fashion company. And I’m going to come to Silicon Valley to do it. That’s actually not a great idea. The fashion company might be a great idea but you want the networks that support what you are doing. So part of the reasons why, where should I locate my start up, is a test for thinking about am I great founder is because part of the thing that happens when you are founding a company is, I will go to where this is successful to do. The metaphor I often use for entrepreneurship is jumping off a cliff while assembling an airplane on the way down. And the reason I do is because it’s hard, it has a quasi mortal exit, which are default dead so you start taking every possible chance to actually win. So great founders will move to where the network is. This network is graphically Silicon Valley for tech startups, for mobile, for marketplaces this is a really good place to do it. For a bunch of other things, you should think about a different location.
想想有人做了一个时尚创业，而不是时尚拉波什马克，这是一个移动市场，是一堆好东西在这里。但我正在设计一家新的时装公司。我要去硅谷做这件事。这其实不是个好主意。时装公司也许是个好主意，但你需要支持你所做的事情的网络。所以，我应该把我的初创公司放在哪里，这是一个考验我是否是伟大的创始人的部分原因，是因为当你创建一家公司时，我会去成功的地方。我经常用创业的比喻，就是在下山的路上组装飞机时从悬崖上跳下来。我这么做的原因是因为这很难，它有一个准致命的出口，这是默认死亡，所以你开始采取一切可能的机会，真正赢得。所以伟大的创始人会搬到网络所在的地方。从图形上看，这个网络是硅谷，对于科技初创企业，对于移动设备，对于市场来说，这是一个非常好的地方。对于其他一些事情，你应该考虑一个不同的地点。
Now here is something that’s very en vogue. Very conventional to say you’re a contrarian these days. So let’s talk a little about what what a contrarian actually is. So it’s actually pretty easy to become contrarian. It’s hard to be contrarian and right. Particularly when you are thinking about, is my idea contrarian or contrarian enough. How does a smart person actually disagree with me? Because if you can’t think of a smart person who isn’t just ignorant or just crazy or anything else, but is a smart person that is somewhat of an expert may think that your idea has some serious challenges than it actually isn’t contrarian. Contrarian is relevant to an audience. So when you are thinking about contrarian in terms of a really good contrarian idea is like, say it’s consumer internet, okay what would other consumer internet people think is actually in fact not a good idea. And part of when you think about contrarian is to say, okay what do I know that others don’t know? Because it isn’t just, oh I’m brilliant and other people aren’t, it’s the reason my contrarian thing is right. It’s a very bad test, that happened to be true, of course lightening can strike you in the field. So think a lot about what is it that I know that other people don’t know. For example, in the very early days of LinkedIn, part of what I advise all founders to do is talk to every smart person who will talk to you and give you feedback. So with LinkedIn I walked around and said here’s my idea, what do you think?
现在有一种非常流行的东西。现在说你是个逆势者很传统。所以让我们来谈谈什么是反向投资者。所以实际上很容易变成逆势。很难逆势而对。特别是当你在想，我的想法是逆反还是逆反就够了。一个聪明的人怎么会不同意我呢？因为如果你想不出一个聪明的人，他不仅仅是无知的，疯狂的或者其他什么的，而是一个聪明的，有点像专家的人，你可能会认为你的想法有一些严重的挑战，而实际上不是相反的。逆势与受众有关。所以当你用一个非常好的逆向思维来思考逆向思维的时候，比如说它是消费互联网，好吧，其他消费互联网的人会认为什么实际上不是一个好主意。当你想到反向投资时，你会说，我知道什么别人不知道？因为这不仅仅是，哦，我很聪明而其他人不聪明，这也是我的逆向选择是正确的原因。这是一个非常糟糕的测试，碰巧是真的，当然闪电可以击中你的领域。所以好好想想我知道别人不知道的是什么。例如，在LinkedIn的早期，我建议所有创始人做的一部分就是和每个聪明人交谈，他们会和你交谈并给你反馈。所以我带着LinkedIn四处走走，说这是我的想法，你觉得怎么样？
Two thirds or more of my network, including some very smart people, all thought I was nuts. The reason why they thought I was nuts was because I said it’s a network product, it’s only valuable with a bunch of people in it. The first person has no value until they invite the second one. Second person, first person have no value in it they already know each other. When do you actually begin to deliver on your use case, which is 500K to a million people. And so you are never going to get to size. It’s never going to grow. Now what I knew was that the critics didn’t know was that I could think of a set of different way by which people would say hey look I believe in the vision of this. I think it’s interesting, or I think a product like this should exist, or I’m willing to play around with it. And I can level those sets of interest to grow the network to get to enough size that you can begin to deliver on the value propositions which Linkedin had. And that was the specific thing that I knew that the critics weren’t thinking about. So when you think about being contrarian, you have to think about how is it that smart people disagree with me, that disagree with me from a position of intelligence. And there is something that I know that they don’t know that will actually play out to be true. Now in this case, in general, as a founder it’s good to be contrarian in the real sense.
三分之二或更多的人，包括一些非常聪明的人，都认为我疯了。他们之所以认为我疯了，是因为我说这是一个网络产品，只有有一群人在里面才有价值。第一个人没有价值，除非他们邀请第二个人。第二个人，第一个人没有价值，他们已经认识对方了。你什么时候真正开始交付你的用例，50万到100万人。所以你永远都无法达到你的身材。它永远不会长大。现在我知道的是，评论家们不知道的是，我可以想出一套不同的方式，人们会说，嘿，看，我相信这个愿景。我觉得很有意思，或者我觉得这样的产品应该存在，或者我愿意玩玩。我可以通过调整这些兴趣来扩大人际网络，使之达到足够的规模，让你能够开始实现Linkedin所拥有的价值主张。而这正是我所知道的批评家们没有想到的。所以，当你想到逆向投资的时候，你必须想想为什么聪明的人不同意我的观点，他们从一个聪明的角度不同意我的观点。我知道有些事他们不知道，但事实上会证明是真的。现在在这种情况下，一般来说，作为一个创始人，在真正意义上的反向投资是很好的。
Now the last part on the contrariness is to think about, there are lots of different ways to be contrarian. For example, a frequent one will be, others think you have a good small idea, but actually that’s not small, it’s large. Or actually in fact you can assemble the talent or while most consumer cellular startups tend to be, another LinkedIn example, only successful with the rocketships, actually a compounding curve can be very very valuable. LinkedIn never had it’s rocketship moment, it was compounded year by year. But in consumer internet that becomes atypical in the pattern.
最后一部分是想一想，有很多不同的方法可以让你逆向。例如，一个经常出现的想法，别人会认为你有一个很好的小想法，但实际上这不是小的，而是大的。或者，事实上，你可以聚集人才，或者，尽管大多数消费者手机创业公司往往是，另一个LinkedIn的例子，只有成功的火箭飞船，实际上复合曲线可以是非常有价值的。LinkedIn从未有过它的火箭时刻，它一年比一年复杂。但在消费者互联网中，这种模式变得非典型。
So here you begin to get to a bunch of sorts of problems that essentially founders run into. Well should I be doing the work? Or should I be recruiting people and delegating the work? And classically the answer to this is, actually in fact you need to do both. In fact, not only do you need to do both, you need to sometimes do one at 100% and sometimes the other at 100% and even though this is not so good at math, both at 100%. And so what you will see, this is sometimes classic, when you start thinking about what makes you a great founder, is you navigate what are apparent paradoxes. Another one I frequently talk about is, you’ve got to be both flexible and persistent. And the reason for this is entrepreneurs are frequently given the advice to have a vision, stay firm against your adversity. Realize that you have this vision that is contrarian to what people think and just stay on track. Get through the difficult times and get there. The other piece of advice given with each equal vigor is listen to data, listen to customers. Pivot, be flexible. Part of the thing this comes out to be in terms of being a great founder is to say well, when should I be persistent and when should I be flexible. And the vehicle I most often use for this is you should have a project you are doing, like a company, an investment, a thesis that essentially says why you think, possibly contrarian, why you think it is potentially a good idea. It should include what you know you think other people don’t know.
所以在这里，你开始讨论一系列的问题，这些问题本质上是创始人遇到的。我应该做这项工作吗？或者我应该招募人员并委派工作？经典的答案是，事实上你需要两者兼备。事实上，你不仅需要两个都做，有时你需要做一个100%，有时做另一个100%，即使这不是很好的数学，都是100%。所以当你开始思考是什么让你成为一个伟大的创始人时，你会看到，这有时是经典的，你会发现什么是明显的悖论。我经常提到的另一个问题是，你必须既灵活又坚持。原因是创业者经常得到这样的建议：要有远见卓识，在逆境中保持坚定。要意识到你有一个与人们的想法相反的愿景，并保持在正轨上。渡过难关，到达目的地。另一个同样积极的建议是倾听数据，倾听客户。支点，要灵活。作为一个伟大的创始人，我要说的一点是，我什么时候应该坚持，什么时候应该灵活。我最常使用的工具是你应该有一个你正在做的项目，比如一个公司，一个投资，一个基本上说你为什么认为，可能是逆向的，为什么你认为这是一个潜在的好主意的论文。它应该包括你知道你认为其他人不知道的东西。
And then as you are going into the battlefield, you go am I in fact increasing confidence in my investment thesis? Or decreasing value in my investment thesis? Because if I am increasing confidence then I hope to stay on track. Be persistent and, by the way, sometimes even with adversity your confidence can increase. If it’s decreasing that doesn’t mean jump out. Paypal, LinkedIn, Airbnb, a whole bunch of startups I’ve been a part of have had months where you are like, Oh my god why did we ever think this was a good idea? It’s kind of a valley in the shadows moment. For example, at PayPal, it was August 2000, we were bringing in twelve million and the expense curve was exponentiating, we had no revenue, and a decrease in confidence. However we said, what do we do in order to fix that and that gives you your immediate action plan.
当你进入战场的时候，你会问，我是否真的对我的投资论文增加了信心？或者在我的投资论文中降低价值？因为如果我增加了信心，那么我希望能保持在正轨上。坚持下去，顺便说一句，有时即使遇到逆境，你的信心也会增强。如果它在下降并不意味着跳出。Paypal，LinkedIn，Airbnb，一大堆我参与过的初创公司，几个月来你都在想，天哪，为什么我们认为这是个好主意？有点像阴影中的山谷。例如，在贝宝，那是2000年8月，我们带来了1200万美元，费用曲线呈指数增长，我们没有收入，信心下降。然而，我们说，我们做什么，以解决这一点，这给你立即行动计划。
Another one is, should I have belief or should I have fear? Should you essentially go, well I have this vision of the way the world should be and I should ignore everything else and I should just go with that. Well again, part of what being a great founder is, is being both able to hold the belief, to think about where it is you want to be doing and want to be going, but also be smart enough that you are essentially listening to criticism, negative feedback, competitive entries. Where you are going, okay is this changing my investment thesis? Is this changing what I am planning on doing? It doesn’t mean you lose confidence, you have the confidence but you also essentially have the patience. Again in this kind of thing is how do you put these two things together. Should I focus internally? Should I build a product, ignore the world, ignore competitors? Or should I focus externally, should I be recruiting? Should I be meeting people? Should I be gathering network intelligence? Again the answer is both. And the reason why I’m focusing on these type of habits, it’s both rather than either or, is part of what makes a great founder is the ability to be flexible across these lines. To sometimes be 90% one way, sometimes be 80% the other way. Be executing the judgement on what does the current problem look like?
另一个问题是，我应该有信仰还是应该有恐惧？如果你真的走了，我对世界应该是什么样子有这样的看法，我应该忽略其他一切，我应该顺其自然。好吧，作为一个伟大的创始人的一部分，是既能坚持信念，思考你想做什么，想去哪里，又足够聪明，你基本上是在倾听批评，负面反馈，竞争的条目。你要去哪里，好吧，这是不是改变了我的投资理论？这改变了我的计划吗？这并不意味着你失去信心，你有信心，但你也基本上有耐心。在这种情况下，你是如何把这两样东西放在一起的。我应该关注内部吗？我应该建立一个产品，忽略世界，忽略竞争对手？或者我应该专注于外部，我应该招聘吗？我应该见人吗？我应该收集网络情报吗？答案同样是两者兼而有之。我之所以把注意力集中在这些习惯上，是因为两者都有，而不是两者都有，一个伟大的创始人的部分原因是能够灵活地跨越这些界限。有时一种方式是90%，有时另一种方式是80%。正在对当前的问题进行判断？
How is it that when I am trying to solve this that I should say this is what we should be doing and how should I be dividing the work? Part of when you think about these things is you say, this is another one that is classic, is people say well I am completely motivated by data its what customers say to user groups. I have a lot of entrepreneurial mythological, other kinds of things to talk about is gathering data, be guided on the data. Well actually in fact, data only exists in the framework of a vision that you are building, a hypothesis of where you are moving to. And the data can even be negative and you can think, well actually in fact this negative data means that I need to change or alter the way that I’m thinking about something. But I actually keep on a specific vision about what I’m doing. And by the way, sometimes when you have the specific vision you don’t necessarily actually ever end up at that big vision that you were thinking about.
当我试图解决这个问题的时候，我怎么会说这是我们应该做的，我该怎么分配工作呢？当你思考这些事情的时候，你会说，这是另一个经典的例子，人们会说，我完全受数据驱动，就像客户对用户群说的那样。我有很多创业神话，其他的事情要谈的就是收集数据，被数据引导。事实上，数据只存在于你正在构建的一个愿景的框架中，一个关于你要去哪里的假设。数据甚至可以是负的，你可以想，事实上，这个负的数据意味着我需要改变或者改变我思考的方式。但实际上我对自己的工作有一个明确的看法。顺便说一句，有时候当你有一个特定的愿景时，你不一定真的会在你所想的大愿景中结束。
So for example, you know at PayPal we distributed these tshirts that said the new global world currency. Well actually in fact, I know Peter has been here, one of the jokes I told Peter was actually we do have this new world currency, what we are trading is in dollars you may have heard of it, it existed for a while. Where essentially a mass merchant for that– now of course this is message is what’s happening with Bitcoin though thats a whole nother topic there. However, the key thing is that vision saying we’re creating a universal network that allows anyone to pay anyone to be a merchant to bring the electronics into the speed of commerce at any business that is being transacted. That vision kept a true north, but first we say well first we are going to have a banking model, then we think we are going to have a debt model, we are actually going to have a mass merchant model. How does that actually play out? So you are always combining the vision and the data, and data is within the framework of the vision. And sometimes the course of what you learn changes your vision.
举个例子，你知道我们在PayPal发行的T恤上写着新的全球货币。事实上，我知道彼得来过这里，我跟彼得讲的一个笑话是，我们确实有一种新的世界货币，我们交易的是美元，你可能听说过，它存在了一段时间。基本上，这是一个大规模的商家——当然，这是一个信息，是比特币正在发生的事情，尽管这是一个完全不同的话题。然而，最关键的是我们正在创造一个通用的网络，允许任何人支付任何人成为一个商人，使电子产品进入任何商业交易的速度。这一愿景保持了一个真实的北方，但首先我们说，首先我们将有一个银行模式，然后我们认为我们将有一个债务模式，我们实际上将有一个大众商人模式。这到底是怎么回事？所以你总是把愿景和数据结合起来，数据就在愿景的框架内。有时你所学的东西会改变你的视野。
Now this is actually one of the ones that I we save this special picture for one of the ones that I actually think is quite key.
这是我保存的一张照片，我认为这张照片很关键。
Normally entrepreneur founders are thought about as being the risk takers. Where everyone else cowers in fear at this notion of risk, they boldly go out. Now that’s true, you have to be a risk taker, you have to be thinking about how do I make a really coherent risk because in fact the only really big opportunities, the only contrarian opportunities smart people disagree with you on happen to be ones that have more risks associated with them. On the other hand, part of the skill set, that when you are beginning to apply how you think about risks as an entrepreneur is how do I take intelligent risks? How do I take a focused risk, but if I’m right about that one thing then a bunch of other things break my way. And once I start doing that I try to figure out how to make my own shot possibility as high as possible? How do I minimize other risks? How do I essentially take this risk in an intelligent way that doesn’t just go, oh yeah risk to the wind who cares but lets go. So this kind of combines that, this image is the best of the images that we found, is kind of the sense of that. Now back to what I was saying in terms of having an investment thesis.
通常，创业者创始人被认为是风险承担者。当其他人对这种风险概念感到恐惧时，他们大胆地走出去。现在这是真的，你必须是一个风险承担者，你必须思考我如何做出一个真正连贯的风险，因为事实上，唯一真正大的机会，唯一的逆势机会聪明的人不同意你的意见，恰好是那些与他们有更多的风险。另一方面，作为一个企业家，当你开始运用你对风险的看法时，我该如何承担明智的风险？我该如何集中精力去冒险，但如果我对某件事的看法是对的，那么其他的事情就会打断我的思路。一旦我开始这么做，我就会想办法让自己的投篮可能性尽可能高？如何将其他风险降至最低？我该如何以一种明智的方式去承担这个风险，而不是仅仅去冒险，哦，是的，去冒险，谁在乎，但放手。所以这种结合，这个图像是我们发现的最好的图像，是那种感觉。现在回到我说的关于投资论文的话题。
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Part of having a thesis is you chart it out as a list of bullets. For example with LinkedIn, everyone was going to be benefited by a public professional network, everyone will realize, including companies, that it’s better to have it play out this way. The initial setup adoption will come from essentially people who visualize the world, play with it, and eventually the mass market will come on as they begin having a network, that is already having a network, with value proposition to them. That’s what an investment thesis can look like and then you have economics, initially recruiting, and broadening those things.
写论文的一部分是把它列成一张子弹清单。比如LinkedIn，每个人都会从一个公共的专业网络中受益，每个人都会意识到，包括公司在内，这样做更好。最初的设置采用将主要来自那些将世界形象化、玩弄世界的人，最终大众市场将出现，因为他们开始拥有一个网络，已经拥有了一个网络，并向他们提出了价值主张。这就是一篇投资论文的样子，然后你就有了经济学，最初的招聘，以及拓展这些东西。
You have that investment thesis, and you say is my investment thesis increasing or decreasing confidence? Do I think that the data that I get from the market, when I talk to smart people, how does that change my confidence in it? This is how you minimize risks. For example, very early days in Paypal, part of what happened was they said they were going to do cash and mobile phones with cash on Palm Pilots because its really easy. We actually realized the cash from Palm Pilots wouldn’t work even before we launched the product. Basically what happened I went in and said to Max and Peter, I said here’s our challenge–this group probably doesn’t remember what Palm Pilots where, they were early PDA’s. And so we lived in what was Palm Pilot central and the whole use case was splitting the dinner tab and everyone at table would have a Palm Pilots budget tab. Zero to one in every single restaurant. So you could, even by just thinking through the direction you are on you are going to hit a mine field and you need to pivot. And thats when Max Legend came up with the idea saying action packed sent by email. We can have email payments as the backbone of this and we were like yeah thats a good idea. Of course that what the whole thing pivoted into. And that is part of thinking though minimizing the risks as you are executing.
你有那篇投资论文，你说我的投资论文是增加信心还是减少信心？我是否认为，当我与聪明人交谈时，从市场上获得的数据，如何改变我对它的信心？这就是降低风险的方法。例如，在Paypal的早期，部分原因是他们说他们要用掌上电脑做现金和手机，因为这很容易。实际上，在我们推出产品之前，我们就意识到Palm Pilots的现金根本无法使用。基本上发生了什么，我进去对Max和Peter说，我说这是我们的挑战——这群人可能不记得什么Palm Pilots在哪里，他们是早期的PDA。所以我们住在Palm Pilot central，整个用例是分开晚餐账单，每个人在桌上都会有Palm Pilots预算账单。每家餐厅都是零比一。因此，你可以，即使只是通过思考你的方向，你将击中一个地雷领域，你需要支点。就在那时，马克斯·莱gend想出了一个主意，说动作包是通过电子邮件发送的。我们可以把电子邮件支付作为这项工作的支柱，我们觉得是的，这是个好主意。当然，这就是整件事的出发点。这也是在执行过程中尽量降低风险的一部分。
Here’s another one that’s kind of classic which is, should I have this long term vision or should I be solving a local near term problem? Again the answer is both these paradoxes. And the question is, you should jump between them. You should always have a long term vision in mind because if you actually completely lose your directions eventually you will find yourself somewhere in field thats not a good path out of. But if you are not focused on solving the problem thats immediately in front of you you’re hosed. So part of the question about how to put these things together is you say, okay short term- what’s the thing I need to be doing today? Have I made progress today? have I made progress this week? But is it largely on path? So I will give you an example of how this plays out in terms of financing or in terms of strategy. People frequently think product strategy is fundamental to how startups- I have a product idea, thats a thing, I’m a founder. Actually the next level down on strategy is usually product distribution and whether its consumer internet or enterprise, or anything because actually in fact no matter how good your product is if it doesn’t get the customers you’re hosed.
这是另一个经典的例子，我应该有长远的眼光还是应该解决一个局部的近期问题？答案同样是这两个悖论。问题是，你应该在他们之间跳。你应该始终有一个长远的眼光，因为如果你真的完全失去了方向，最终你会发现自己在这个领域的某个地方，这不是一个好的出路。但如果你不专注于解决眼前的问题，你就会被套牢。所以关于如何把这些东西组合起来的部分问题是，好吧，短期来说，我今天需要做什么？我今天有进步吗？我这周有进步吗？但它在很大程度上走上正轨了吗？所以我会给你们举一个例子，从融资或者战略的角度来看。人们经常认为产品战略是创业的基础——我有一个产品理念，这是一件事，我是一个创始人。实际上，下一步的策略通常是产品分销，不管是消费者互联网还是企业，或者其他什么，因为事实上，不管你的产品有多好，如果它不能得到你的客户。
So usually you have to have product distribution. It is more fundamental than what the actual product is. And the one below it is financing. The reason it’s financing is because if you run out of money and the whole effort goes away, even if you have a really good idea, it doesn’t work. So frequently when you are executing on a good strategy you are actually in fact, when I am raising money, this fundraising, I’m thinking about the next fundraiser. I’m thinking about how I’m set up for it, I’m establishing relationships that would be key to that. And I’m not executing like, oh the only thing that matters is I get to the next fundraising. You have this business that you are building, but I’m thinking that as a core strategy in terms of how I’m executing frequently you are thinking how does my product distribution work such that the financing works well. And that’s kind of how you architect these things together.
所以通常你必须有产品分销。它比实际产品更基本。下面是融资。之所以是融资，是因为如果你的钱用完了，所有的努力都消失了，即使你有一个非常好的主意，也行不通。所以当你在执行一个好的策略时，你实际上是，当我筹款的时候，这个筹款，我在考虑下一个筹款人。我在想我是如何准备的，我正在建立关系，这将是关键。我不会像这样执行，哦，唯一重要的是我得到下一个筹款。你有这个业务，你正在建设，但我认为，作为一个核心战略，在我如何经常执行，你认为我的产品分销工作，使融资运作良好。你就是这样设计这些东西的。
So how do you know you might be a great founder? Well you should have some super powers. It’s generally speaking useful to be a good product person. It’s useful to have good skills about leadership, bringing networks in, persuading people, and it’s useful to be able to- and this is kind of fundamental, is recognized whether you are on track or not. To have that kind of belief but also paranoid about am I tracking against my investment thesis? And when you do that the right way and you are learning and you are assembling people and you are assembling that around you. That’s generally speaking how you end up being a great founder. Now classically, and I deliberately put up five white male pictures, is classically you have, these are the iconic founders. But in fact, founders can be very diverse. They can be extraordinarily talented at different areas because there’s different kinds of external companies. There’s different kinds of problems that they are trying to solve. And I don’t mean diversity in term of gender, race, etc. Diversity in age, diversity in experience. Jack Ma was a teacher before he got into this. That’s the kind of thing that you should think about.
那么你怎么知道你可能是一个伟大的创始人呢？你应该有超能力。一般来说，做一个好的产品开发人员是有用的。在领导能力、人际网络、说服他人方面拥有良好的技能是很有用的，而且能够做到这一点也是很有用的——这是一种基本的技能，无论你是否走上正轨都会得到认可。有这样的信念，但也偏执我跟踪我的投资论文？当你以正确的方式去做的时候，你正在学习，你正在聚集人们，你正在聚集他们在你周围。一般来说，这就是你如何成为一个伟大的创始人。现在经典的，我特意贴了五张白人男性的照片，就是经典的你，这些都是创始人的标志性作品。但事实上，创始人可能非常多元化。他们可以在不同的领域有非凡的才能，因为有不同类型的外部公司。他们正试图解决各种各样的问题。我指的不是性别、种族等方面的多样性。年龄上的多样性，经验上的多样性。马云在进入这个行业之前是一名教师。这是你应该考虑的事情。
So the question is how you cross uneven ground? How you assemble networks around you? How you get people to assemble? It’s a constantly changing problem to face when you are trying to found a company. So I think the thing I was trying to get people to think about was, this is to say, there is not one skill set, there is an ability to learn and adapt. And an ability to constantly have a vision that’s driving you but to be taking input from all sources and then to be creating networks all around you. And that’s essentially what makes a great founder. So your ability to do that while crossing uneven ground in the fog, which is kind of the way entrepreneurs, did you always know this was going to work? No, unless you are crazy. Although sometimes crazy works. So with that I will now go to a few questions. But it was kind of this mindset of founders which is kind of key. And if theres’ no questions, oh here.
所以问题是你如何穿越不平的地面？你如何在你周围建立人际网络？你是怎么让人们集合起来的？这是一个不断变化的问题，面对当你试图建立一个公司。所以我想我想让人们思考的是，这就是说，没有一套技能，而是一种学习和适应的能力。还有一种能力，不断有一个愿景驱动你，但要从所有来源的投入，然后在你周围建立网络。这就是一个伟大的创始人的本质所在。所以你在雾中穿越崎岖不平的地面时的能力，这是企业家的一种方式，你一直都知道这是可行的吗？不，除非你疯了。虽然有时疯狂的工作。所以我现在要问几个问题。但创业者的这种心态才是关键。如果没有问题的话，哦这里。
Q: I’m curious how you targeted, you selected a different strategy to strengthen your investment thesis and help it take off. It seems like every startup faces that same challenge.
Q： 我很好奇你的目标是什么，你选择了一个不同的战略来加强你的投资论文，并帮助它起飞。似乎每个初创公司都面临着同样的挑战。
A: So one really fundamental thing is to think about product distribution as key. And for LinkedIn we had a couple things going for us. One, the web was boring in 2003. Basically what happened was everyone thought that consumer net was over. So people were doing clean tack and enterprise software and everything else. It’s a much harder problem now. Because everyone thinks the internet and mobile is interesting. So breaking through the noise is really the key. So the strategy we used wouldn’t work. We just basically set up, sent out some invitations to a group of people, and then tuned the mechanism, did PR. One of the people, one of the decisions we made early that was right was to say should we only allow it as invite only or should we allow cold signups? The reason we should allow cold signups is because the people who are super enthusiastic about this weren’t necessarily the people we know said they would sign up and spread it. That sort of thing were all the kind of decisions we made. Now that challenge is much harder. The challenge when you think about product distribution is how are you competing for potential customers or potential members time? And what are they-what do they have to believe in? Back in 2003 was like oppression may not work that’s potentially a good idea. What the hell? I’ll play with it theres not a lot of other things for me to look at. Today theres tons of things. So your strategy today when you are looking at product distribution has to be what is my really decisive edge? What is the hack that I know that other people don’t?
A： 所以最基本的一点是把产品分销作为关键。对于LinkedIn，我们有一些事情要做。其一，2003年网络很无聊。基本上所有人都认为消费网络结束了。所以人们都在做清洁大头钉和企业软件和其他一切。现在这是一个更难的问题。因为每个人都认为互联网和手机很有趣。所以突破噪音才是关键。所以我们用的策略行不通。我们只是基本上建立了，向一群人发出了一些邀请，然后调整了机制，做了公关。其中一个人，我们早期做出的一个正确的决定是，我们应该只允许邀请，还是允许冷注册？我们应该允许冷注册的原因是，那些对此非常热情的人并不一定是那些我们认识的人说他们会注册并传播它。我们都是这样做的。现在，这一挑战更加艰巨。当你考虑产品分销的时候，你面临的挑战是，你是如何与潜在客户或潜在会员竞争的？他们要相信什么？早在2003年，压迫可能行不通，这可能是个好主意。我勒个去？我会玩的，没什么别的东西可以看。今天有很多事情。所以你今天的策略，当你在看产品分销时，我真正的决定性优势是什么？我知道别人不知道的黑客是什么？
Q: How do you know if someone is a good founder or not?
Q： 你怎么知道一个人是不是一个好的创始人？
A: I’m a huge believer in references. I only meet with someone when they come to me through a reference. So one of the things by the way is after this I have to run off because I have a meeting to get to. If you want to get time and attention with me, find a reference. That’s not a pitch to using LinkedIn, it’s a question of this is how you sort out time. Like Sam knows me, and so a reference to me is in fact the way I do this. So example, when I met with the AirBnB guys a part of the reason why I could interrupt them two minutes into their pitch and say, Im going to make you an offer to invest. I want to hear the rest of the pitch because I think what you are doing here is magical and awesome. Was because I had already had references on them. That was only two minutes, not thirty minutes. Because I had already knew about them before coming in. And by the way, by and large that is some version of what is true to most great investors. And its that network that’s really key.
A： 我非常相信推荐信。我只在有人通过推荐人找到我时才和他们见面。顺便说一句，在这之后我得走了，因为我有个会议要去。如果你想和我一起争取时间和注意力，找个推荐人。这不是使用LinkedIn的理由，问题在于你如何安排时间。就像山姆认识我一样，所以提到我其实就是我做这件事的方式。举个例子，当我和AirBnB的人见面的时候，我可以打断他们两分钟的发言，然后说，我会给你一个投资的机会。我想听听球场的其他部分，因为我认为你在这里所做的是神奇的和可怕的。是因为我已经有了他们的推荐信。那只是两分钟，不是三十分钟。因为我来之前已经知道了。顺便说一句，总的来说，这是大多数伟大投资者的真实看法。而网络才是关键。
欢迎到火门网讨论:huomen.com
Q: Do you believe destiny of insight to be a great signal for great founders?
Q： 你相信“洞察的命运”对伟大的创始人来说是一个伟大的信号吗？
A: I would definitely say that the ability to say coherently what you are targeting, to articulate something that isn’t trying to boil the ocean, or a swiss army knife approach. One focus, like you are right about this and it works. That is actually pretty important in being able to judge a founder. Because if you don’t have that level of clarity, you are not going to be able to assemble the network behind you. You are not going to be able to get investors, you are not going to be able to get employees, you have to be able to articulate a very clear mission about what you are doing. Insight is helpful although a little bit of this depends on the stage. I find myself attracted to founders who have analyzed the problem in a good way. But often times I have seen great founders who have not present good analysis but have an instinct about what they are doing. So you more chart what is going on around them.
A： 我可以肯定地说，有能力连贯地说出你的目标是什么，有能力清楚地说出一些不是想煮沸海洋的东西，或者瑞士军刀的方法。一个焦点，就像你是对的，它是有效的。这对于判断一个创始人来说是非常重要的。因为如果你没有那么清晰的层次，你就不可能在你身后建立起一个网络。你不可能得到投资者，你不可能得到员工，你必须能够清楚地表达你正在做的事情的一个非常明确的使命。洞察是有帮助的，尽管这一点取决于舞台。我发现自己被那些以良好方式分析问题的创始人所吸引。但我经常看到伟大的创始人，他们没有很好的分析能力，却对自己的所作所为有直觉。所以你可以更详细地描述他们周围发生的事情。
Q: How do you keep persistence when starting?
Q： 开始的时候你是如何坚持的？
A: Well LinkedIn went through, for those of you who remember we were treated as the little alternative to Friendster, then Myspace, then Facebook. We had a lot of the, we are the little tiny one next to these respected giants each at the time. Ultimately, for me when I was thinking LinkedIn, this gets back to the investment thesis as a mechanism. I continued to believe the right economic system designed for every individual’s life, and organizations life to have public professional profiles. But that world is the way the world should be. everyone is much better off with it. And we are getting closer to that than everyone else. It may be that it hasn’t taken off as fast as I would have liked it. It may be that the general world has gone, oh the social stuff is really interesting. We could only get in the news the summer of 2003 by saying we were Friendster but for business. It’s completely nonsensical once you begin to look at the thing. But it was like, okay we will cover you because you are Friendster but for business. But that was important to get people to begin to pay attention to us and so the confidence was, that world I still have confidence in, I still believe should exist and no one is getting closer to it than we. It’s taking us maybe longer than I hoped to get there but thats okay.
A： 好吧，LinkedIn成功了，对于那些记得我们被当作Friendster、Myspace、Facebook的替代品的人来说。我们有很多，我们是小的一个旁边的这些受人尊敬的巨人在每个时间。最终，当我想到LinkedIn的时候，我又回到了作为一种机制的投资理论。我仍然相信，为每个人的生活设计的正确的经济制度，以及组织的生活要有公共的职业形象。但这个世界就是这个世界应该的样子。每个人的生活都比这好得多。我们比其他人更接近这一点。可能是它没有像我希望的那样迅速发展起来。可能是整个世界都消失了，哦，社交活动真的很有趣。我们只能在2003年夏天的新闻里说我们是朋友，但不是为了生意。一旦你开始看这个东西，那就完全没有意义了。但就像，好吧，我们会保护你，因为你是朋友，但为了生意。但这对于让人们开始关注我们是很重要的，所以我的信心是，这个世界我仍然有信心，我仍然相信应该存在，没有人比我们更接近它。我们花的时间可能比我希望的要长，但没关系。
Q: What is it that gets you wrong about someone who is going to do the distance?
Q： 是什么让你误会了一个要跑完这段距离的人？
A: To some degree you can only fully cross these minefields by going and doing it. So you can be wrong about your hypothesis. The kinds of things that frequently get you wrong or you think a person— for example I frequently use in interaction is I push on the idea and what I’m looking for is both the flexibility and persistence. What I’m looking for is, I have conviction, and what I’m thinking I’m arguing it. But I am listening to what you are saying. And I am adapting to the concerns you have with that. Sometimes you will find someone that says, look I have learned to mimic that behavior so I have learned to say, for example I have learned to look like I am reasoning with you and I look like I am thinking about the challenges you bring up, but actually in fact I am ignoring you. Ignoring me might be fine. But ignoring the world in general is usually disaster.
A： 在某种程度上，你只能通过去做才能完全穿越这些雷区。所以你的假设可能是错的。那些经常让你犯错或者你认为是一个人的事情——比如我经常在互动中使用的是我推动的想法，我想要的是灵活性和持久性。我要找的是，我有信念，我想我在争论。但我在听你说什么。我正在适应你对此的担忧。有时你会发现有人说，看，我学会了模仿这种行为，所以我学会了说，例如，我学会了看起来像我在和你推理，我看起来像在思考你提出的挑战，但实际上我忽略了你。不理我也可以。但是忽视整个世界通常是灾难。
And so these are the kind of things that in the measurement essentially getting wrong. Most often the kind of reference questions asked about founders is adaptability, one of the phrases I look for is infinite learning curve. Because each entrepreneurial pattern is to some degree unique and new. And can you learn the new one? Does the learning break down or is there some skill set? is there an ego issue that gets in the way? Like everyone must adulate me and that will cause you to behave wrongly in adapting to the problem. I think I have one last question.
所以这些都是在测量中基本上出错的东西。最常见的关于创业者的参考问题是适应性，我寻找的短语之一是无限学习曲线。因为每一种创业模式在某种程度上都是独特的和新的。你能学新的吗？学习失败了还是有什么技能？有没有自我问题妨碍了你？就像每个人都必须奉承我一样，那会导致你在适应问题时行为不当。我想我还有最后一个问题。
Q: What makes a great co-founding team and what makes a good way to evaluate a co-founder?
Q： 是什么造就了一个伟大的联合创始人团队？是什么造就了一个评价联合创始人的好方法？
A: The first thing is, it’s super important to collaborate really well. That was the point I was making during the team. If in fact you don’t have serious trust– So the key thing is when you are thinking about founders is do you have a diversity of the necessary strengths across the board. Frequently you need one technical founder, at least. Frequently you need someone that is going to be dedicated to the business side for fundraising, these sort of things. A classically skill set and usually its some composition across them. Its kind of what you think of founders one, when you think about a founding team. When you get the next level deep, one of the things people classically tell you is don’t invest in a husband and wife team. And that adds a little extra freight to it and everything else because the is extra dynamics and all that.
A： 第一件事是，合作得非常好是非常重要的。这就是我在队里说的。如果事实上你没有真正的信任，那么关键是当你在考虑创始人时，你是否拥有各种各样的必要优势。通常你至少需要一个技术创始人。通常你需要一个专门为企业筹款的人，诸如此类的事情。一套经典的技能，通常是由一些组合而成。当你想到一个创始团队时，你对创始者的看法就是这样。当你深入到下一个层次时，人们通常告诉你的一件事就是不要投资于夫妻团队。这增加了一点额外的运费和其他一切，因为是额外的动力和所有。
I actually think what you are looking for is, do they collaborate well. Do they help each other get to truth? So for example, I am most part when I am talking to a team. I am looking for when they are reasoning to each other, not just all singing from the same thing. But did you think about this? Or what about this as a challenge? You are navigating the field of battle which is a bunch of risks. For example, one of the things that was pretty common in Paypal is, Max who invented the prod systems and everything else, would frequently come into Peter’s office, Peter Thiel, and say here are some things that are going to kill us and let me focus you on them. So it’s not like we are all saying oh yes we are all singing our Kumbayas but we are adjusting to what is truth and what is the problem we need to solve? And what’s the problem in short term and what’s the problem in long term? How are we tackling it? And that collective problem solving, that collective learning is the kind of thing that actually makes a great teams.
我觉得你要找的是，他们合作得好吗。他们能帮助彼此了解真相吗？举个例子，当我和一个团队交谈时，我是其中的一员。我要找的是当他们彼此在说理时，不只是从同一件事全部唱出来。但是你想过这个吗？或者这是一个挑战？你在战场上航行，这是一系列的风险。例如，在Paypal中很常见的一件事是，发明了prod系统和其他所有东西的Max经常会来到Peter的办公室，Peter Thiel，说这里有些东西会杀死我们，让我来关注一下。所以我们不是都在说哦，是的，我们都在唱我们的Kumbayas，但我们正在适应什么是真理，什么是我们需要解决的问题？短期和长期的问题是什么？我们如何应对？集体解决问题，集体学习是一种能让团队变得伟大的东西。
Q: So different founders, different areas. How do you identify them?
Q： 所以不同的创始人，不同的领域。你如何识别他们？
A: The talk was aimed at what is unique about the mindset I think of founders. There is great founder across all. All founders– there are differences. For example, in software speed to market, speed to learning is really key. In hardware if you screw it up you are dead. So accuracy really matters. If you build and ship the wrong thing you are hosed. So generally speaking as an investor, and this is part of the reason a lot of investors have a certain set of things they learn really well and reapply, is because they try to understand a domain really well to be able to identify which of the founders in this domain really matter and if we are investing in this domain how do we do that well? So there are attributes that are unique per domain. for example, one of the classic ones is, how good must you be at operational efficiencies in terms of margins, cost control, etc. You are dealing in the worlds of atoms including in commerce, you have to be really good at that. You are doing a digital game, like a Zing start up it doesn’t matter at all, right? So you look for that sort of fit somewhere. Part of the beginning of this is that it’s not in fact one person is good at at everything. One of the funniest conversations I had with a friend of mine who works for me at my first start up, Social Net. He looked at me and said, Reid I would never hire you to be a manager at McDonalds. I was, I wouldn’t either. I would be terrible at that. So its the skill set that fits but also the whole point of this is actually being able to navigate a set of things that look like paradoxes. Sometimes being heavy on one, sometimes being heavy on the other. And having the right judgement at the moment at what you are doing and thats what tends to be more universal.
A： 这次谈话的目的是探讨我认为创始人的独特心态。所有人都有伟大的创始人。所有的创始人都有不同之处。例如，在软件快速上市的过程中，学习的速度确实是关键。在硬件方面，如果你搞砸了，你就死定了。所以准确度很重要。如果你建造和运输错误的东西，你就被套住了。所以一般来说，作为一个投资者，这是很多投资者有一套他们学得很好并重新应用的东西的部分原因，是因为他们试图很好地理解一个领域，以便能够确定这个领域中哪一个创始人真的很重要，如果我们在这个领域投资，我们如何才能做到这一点？所以每个域都有唯一的属性。例如，其中一个经典的问题是，你必须在利润率、成本控制等方面有多高的运营效率。你在原子世界里打交道，包括在商业领域，你必须非常擅长这一点。你在做一个数字游戏，就像一个Zing初创公司，这一点都不重要，对吧？所以你想找个合适的地方。一开始的部分原因是，事实上并不是一个人什么都擅长。其中一个最有趣的对话，我与我的朋友谁为我工作，在我的第一次创业，社会网络。他看着我说，里德，我决不会雇你当麦当劳的经理。我是，我也不会。那样我就糟透了。因此，这是一套适合的技能，但也正是这一点，实际上是能够驾驭一系列看似矛盾的事情。有时一个沉重，有时另一个沉重。对你正在做的事情有正确的判断，这是更普遍的。

Q: How do you know when to pivot?
Q： 你怎么知道什么时候该转身？
A: Part of the reason why having an investment thesis and your confidence in the rest of the place and being pretty clear on that is generally speaking the answer I give to people is if your confidence is unmeasured for a fairly long time or is decreasing, because measured for a long period of time it should be decreasing, then its decreasing and you go into intense mode. We try to figure out what types of things you can do to increase your confidence and thats failing. Thats a seriously good time to think about pivoting. You might have a thesis on raising money, you may have a thesis on what’s the pattern on what the product distribution on growth or viral, or anything else will work. Well I tried these three things and this fourth thing doesn’t seem as good as the other three. The next two things seem even worse. That begins to decrease your confidence. And that is when you should think about pivoting. A frequent mistake when it comes to pivoting is waiting until you have been crashed into the wall and everything is dead. And you can’t maneuver any more. And thats you waited way too long. Now in times of personal career goals and so forth. One of the things I meant to talk to you during the slide, one of the classic questions is balance. I actually think founders have no balance. One of the funniest conversations I ever had was with the governor of Colorado, was like we are going to attract really great entrepreneurs here because we have this balanced lifestyle. Literally if i ever hear a founder talk about how I have a balanced life they are not committed to winning. So the really one great founders are, I am going to literally put everything into doing this. Now it may only be for a couple of years. I may do this for a while but hile I am doing this i am unbalanced. You are super focused on this. You work really hard and there are lots of ways to die.
A： 之所以有一个投资论文，你对其他地方的信心非常清楚，一般来说，我给人们的答案是，如果你的信心在相当长的一段时间内无法测量，或者正在下降，因为在很长一段时间内测量，它应该是下降的，那么它就会下降，然后下降你进入紧张状态。我们试着找出什么样的事情你可以做，以增加你的信心，这是失败的。这是一个认真考虑旋转的好时机。你可能会有一篇关于筹集资金的论文，你可能会有一篇关于什么样的模式的论文，关于什么样的产品分销，关于增长或病毒式传播，或者其他什么都会起作用。我试过这三件事，但第四件似乎不如其他三件好。接下来的两件事似乎更糟。你的信心开始下降。这时你应该考虑旋转。一个经常犯的错误，当谈到旋转是等待，直到你已经撞到墙上，一切都死了。你不能再机动了。你等得太久了。现在是个人职业目标等的时候。在幻灯片中，我想跟你说的一件事，一个经典的问题是平衡。我实际上认为创始人没有平衡。我和科罗拉多州州长的一次最有趣的谈话，就像我们要在这里吸引真正伟大的企业家，因为我们有这种平衡的生活方式。从字面上说，如果我听到一个创始人谈论我如何有一个平衡的生活，他们并不致力于赢得。所以真正伟大的创始人是，我要把一切都投入到这件事中去。现在可能只有几年了。我可能会这样做一段时间，但当我这样做，我是不平衡的。你太专注于这个了。你工作很努力，死的方法很多。