Lecture 18: Mechanics–Legal, Finance, HR, etc. 第18讲：机械学－法律、金融、人力资源等。

Lecture 18: Mechanics–Legal, Finance, HR, etc.

第18讲：机械学－法律、金融、人力资源等。

第18讲课程视频

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

Sam Altman: Kirsty and Carolynn are going to talk about Finance and Legal Mechanics for Startups. This is certainly not the most exciting of the classes, but if you get this right, this is probably the class that helps you avoid the most pain.
山姆：基斯提和卡罗林将讨论创业公司的财务和法律机制。这当然不是最令人兴奋的课程，但如果你理解正确，这可能是帮助你避免最痛的课程。
Thank you very much for coming.
非常感谢您的到来。
Carolynn: Like Sam said, this lecture is about the Mechanics of the Startup. Kirsty and I are going to be talking about the basic legal and accounting issues that your startup may face in the very beginning.
卡罗林：正如山姆所说，本次讲座是关于初创公司的机制。我和基斯提将要讨论的是创业初期可能面临的基本法律和会计问题。
I was watching Paul Graham’s video and at one point he says, “Founders don’t need to know the mechanics of starting a startup.” And I thought, “Oh no! That’s exactly what Sam titled this lecture.”
我当时正在看保罗.葛兰汉的视频，有一次他说，“创办人不需要知道创业的诀窍”，我想，“不！这正是山姆本次讲座的标题
What PG actually says is that founders don’t need to know the mechanics in detail. It’s very dangerous for founders to get bogged down in the details. That’s exactly right. Kirsty and I can’t give you the details in forty-five minutes anyway.
PG实际所说的是，创始人不需要详细了解机制。创办人陷入细节是非常危险的。完全正确。我和基斯提无论如何也不能在四十五分钟内给你详细资料。
Our goal here today is to make sure that you do know better than to form your startup as a Florida, LLC.
我们今天的目标是确保你对成立一佛罗里达州有限责任公司有所了解。
Kirsty: As Sam mentioned, we were also worrying that this was going to be pretty boring for you to listen to an Accountant and a Lawyer talking. You’ve had some really amazing founders talking about really interesting things. But like Sam said, if you know the basics, you can get yourself set up in the right way, avoid pain, stop worrying about it, and then concentrate on what you actually want to do, which is make your company a success.
正如山姆所提到的，我们也在担心这会让你听会计师和律师讲话感到非常无趣。你曾有一些非常出色的创办人在讨论非常有趣的事情。但正如山姆所说，如果你了解基本知识，你可以让自己以正确的方式建立起来，避免疼痛，不再为之担忧，然后专注于你真正想做的事情，这将使你的公司获得成功。
We refer to this term “startup” all the time. In the back of your head, you probably know a “startup” has to be a separate legal entity. We’re going to talk a bit more about how you actually set that up and what that means.
我们一直称之为「启动」。在你的脑后，你可能知道一家“初创公司”必须是一个独立的法人实体。我们将进一步讨论您是如何实际设置的以及这意味着什么。
You also probably know that a startup will have assets, IP, inventions, other things, and that the company needs to protect those. So we’ll talk a bit more about that and about raising money, hiring employees, and entering into contracts.
你可能也知道，一家初创公司将拥有资产、知识产权、发明等，而公司需要保护这些。因此，我们将进一步讨论这一点，以及筹集资金、招聘员工和签订合同。
There are a few other things that you need to talk about when setting up your company which ferret out a few issues amongst founders. Who’s going to be in charge? How much equity is everybody going to own?
在成立公司时，你还需要谈一些其他的事情，其中包括在创办人中找出一些问题。谁来负责？每个人将拥有多少股权？
Carolynn: The first thing we’re going to talk about is formation. Your startup is going to be a separate legal entity. You probably already know this but the primary purpose for forming a separate legal entity is to protect yourselves from personal liability. If your company ever gets sued, it’s not your money in your bank account that the person can take. It’s the corporation’s.
我们要讨论的第一件事是编队。贵公司将成为一个独立的法人实体。您可能已经了解这一点，但成立独立法人实体的主要目的是保护自己免受个人责任的影响。如果你的公司被起诉，被起诉的人不是你银行账户里的钱。是公司的。
Then the question is: where do you form one? Theoretically you have fifty choices, but the easiest place is Delaware. I’m sure you’re all familiar with that as well. Delaware is in the business of forming corporations. The law there is very clear and very settled. It’s the standard. The other thing is that investors are very comfortable with Delaware. They already invest in companies that are Delaware corporations. Most of their investments are probably Delaware corporations. So if you are also a Delaware corporation then everything becomes much simpler. There’s less diligence for the investor to do. You don’t have to have a conversation about whether or not to reincorporate your Washington into Delaware.
那么问题是：你在哪里形成一？理论上你有五十个选择，但最容易的地方是特拉华。我相信大家都很熟悉。特拉华州从事组建公司的业务。当地的法律非常明确和明确。这是标准。另一方面，投资者对特拉华州非常满意。他们已经投资于特拉华州的公司。他们的大部分投资可能来自特拉华州的公司。因此，如果你也是一家特拉华公司，那么一切都会变得简单得多。投资者的勤勉程度较低。你不必就是否将你的华盛顿重新纳入特拉华州展开讨论。欢迎到火门网讨论:huomen.com
We had a company at YC about two years ago that was originally formed as an LLC in, I’ll say Connecticut. The founders had lawyer friends there who said that this was right way to do it. When they came to YC we said, you need to convert to Delaware. The Lawyers in Connecticut did the conversion paperwork and unfortunately they didn’t do it right. They made a very simple mistake, but it was a very crucial mistake. The company was recently raising money, a lot of money, and this mistake was uncovered. The company thought it was a Delaware corporation for a couple of years but in fact it was still a Connecticut LLC. I’ll just say this: four different law firms were needed to figure that one out. Two in Delaware and one in Connecticut. One here in Silicon Valley. The bill right now is at five hundred thousand dollars for a conversion mistake.
我们大约二年前在YC有一家公司，最初是在康涅狄格州成立的有限责任公司。创始人有律师朋友，他们说这是正确的做法。当他们来到YC时，我们说，你需要改信特拉华州。康涅狄格州的律师做了转化文书工作，但不幸的是他们做得不对。他们犯了一个非常简单的错误，但这是一个非常重要的错误。该公司最近筹集了大量资金，这一错误被发现。该公司原以为是一家特拉华州的公司，但事实上它仍然是一家康涅狄格州的有限责任公司，我只想说：需要四家不同的律师事务所来计算出这一家。特拉华州二个，康涅狄格州一个。一个在硅谷。由于一次兑换错误，现在的账单是五十万美元。
What’s the take away here? Pretty simple. Keep it really simple and familiar for yourself. The reason we incorporate all companies the same way at Y Combinator is because it’s easy. Don`t get fancy. Save yourself time and money.
外卖是什么？很简单。保持简单和熟悉。我们在YCombotor以相同方式合并所有公司的原因是因为这很容易。别想入非非。节省自己的时间和金钱。
Kirsty: Once you decide that you’re going to be a Delaware corporation, how do you actually set that up? It requires a few different steps. The first one is really easy. You literally just fax two pieces of paper into Delaware saying we’re going to set up a corporation. All that does though is create a shell of a company. It doesn’t actually do anything within the company. After that, you then need to complete a set of documents that approve the by-laws of the company. It creates a board of directors. It creates officers of the company. Delaware requires that someone has the title of CEO, President, and Secretary.
一旦你决定要成为一家特拉华州的公司，你是如何设立的？这需要几个不同的步骤。第一真的很容易。你只要把二张纸传真到特拉华州，说我们要成立一家公司。然而，所做的只是创造一个一公司的外壳。它实际上在公司内部没有做任何事情。之后，您需要填写一套批准本公司章程的文件。它设立了一个董事会。其设立本公司的高级职员。特拉华州要求某人拥有首席执行官、总裁和秘书的头衔。
At this point, you also need to complete documents that assign any inventions or any code that you as an individual create so that the company actually owns that. Remember, at this point it’s a really good thing to think about, “Am I doing this as an individual, or am I doing this on behalf of the company, which is a separate entity.” You have to maintain that split in your mind.
在这一点上，你还需要完成文件，分配任何发明或任何代码，你作为个人创造，使公司实际拥有。请注意，在这一点上，考虑到“我是作为一个个人，还是代表公司（一个独立的实体）做这件事”是一件非常好的事情，你必须保持这种想法的分歧。
There are services that can help you get incorporated. You can use a law firm, but there are also other online services that help. The one that we often use with YC companies is called Clerky. They are set up so that all that standard basic documents are used and they get you set up in a very vanilla way so that you can move on and keep focusing on what you need to do.
有一些服务可以帮助你注册成立。您可以使用法律公司，但也有其他在线服务提供帮助。我们在YC公司经常使用的一种称为Clerky。它们的设置是为了使用所有标准的基本文档，并以一种非常普通的方式为您进行设置，以便您可以继续前进，并继续专注于您需要做的事情。
A note on paperwork. You’re creating documents. These are really important documents that are going to be setting what the company does and what the company is. It’s really important that you actually keep these signed documents in a safe place. It sounds so basic but we get so many founders saying, “Oh, these are just some documents.” They have no idea what they are or where there are. So really, really make sure that you keep them in a safe place. Let’s be honest, filing documents is not the glamorous part of running a startup. The times where this is crucial are going to be high stress times in the startup’s life. It’s likely when the company is raising a big Series A or if the company is being acquired. The company will have to go through due diligence and there will be lawyers asking for all this stuff. If you don’t have it and you don’t know where it is, you’re making a stressful situation even more stressful.
一份文书记录。您正在创建文档。这些都是非常重要的文件，将决定公司的行为和公司的性质。把这些签过字的文件放在安全的地方真的很重要。这听上去很基本，但我们有太多的创办人说，“这些只是一些文件”，他们不知道它们是什么，也不知道它们在哪里。所以，真的，真的要确保把它们放在安全的地方。说真的，归档文件不是经营一家初创公司的魅力所在。这一点至关重要的时期将是初创公司生活中的高压力时期。很可能是在本公司正在筹集一笔一大系列资金或本公司被收购时。该公司将不得不进行尽职调查，并将有律师要求所有这些东西。如果你没有它，你不知道它在哪里，你会使一个有压力的情况更加有压力。
The key thing here is keep those documents in a safe place. Keep them organized. It will make your life so much easier.
关键是把这些文件放在安全的地方。让他们有条理。这会让你的生活变得容易多了。
Carolynn: Now we’re going to talk about equity. We’re going to touch on a couple different things in this section. The first thing that we’re going to talk about is equity allocation. If your company stock is high, how to divide the pie. You have to talk about this with your co-founders. Why is this important? If you’re a solo-founder this isn’t important. If you are a team of two or more, then this issue is absolutely critical.
卡罗林：现在我们要谈股权。在本节中，我们将讨论几个不同的内容。我们要讨论的第一件事是股权分配。如果你的公司股票很高，该如何分派。你必须和你的共同创办人谈这个。这为何重要？如果你是个人创始人，这并不重要。如果你是一个二人或以上的团队，那么这个问题绝对至关重要。欢迎到火门网讨论:huomen.com
The first thing that you need to know is that execution has greater value than the idea. What do I mean by that? A lot of Founder Teams give way too much credit and therefore a lot of the company’s equity to the person who came up with the idea for the company. Ideas are obviously very important but they have zero value. Who’s ever heard of a billion dollar payment for just an idea? Value is created when the whole Founder team works together to execute on an idea. You need to resist the urge to give a disproportionate amount of stock to the Founder who is credited with coming up with the idea for the company.
你需要知道的第一件事是，执行比思想更有价值。我这是什么意思？许多创办人团队给了为公司构思的人太多的信任，因此公司的许多股权都给了他。想法显然非常重要，但价值为零。有谁听过一个点子就要支付十亿美元？价值是在整个创办人团队共同执行一个想法时创造的。你需要抵制将不相称数量的股票交给为公司构思的创始人的冲动。
The next thing you want to think about is if the stock should be allocated equally among the founders. From our perspective the simple answer is probably yes. Stock allocation doesn’t have to be exactly equal, but if it’s very disproportionate, that’s a huge read flag for us. We wonder what conversation is not happening among the Founder team when the ownership isn’t equal. For example, is one Founder secretly thinking that this whole startup thing is temporary? Has one Founder overinflated the work that he or she has already done on the company? Or overinflated his or her education or prior experience? Do the founders really trust each other? Have they been honest with each other about their exceptions for the startup and for the future? When ownership is disproportionate, we worry that the founders are not in sync with one another.
下一件事你要考虑的是，股票是否应该在创办人之间平均分配。从我们的观点来看，简单的回答可能是肯定的。股票配置不一定完全相等，但如果非常不相称，这对我们来说是一个巨大的阅读标记。我们想知道，当所有权不平等时，创办人团队之间不会发生什么对话。例如，一位创办人是否暗自认为整个创业过程都是暂时的？是否有一位创办人夸大了他或她在公司已经做的工作？或过度夸大自己的学历或经验？创办人真的相互信任？他们是否就创业和未来的例外情况彼此坦诚相待？当所有权不相称时，我们会担心创办人之间并不同步。
Thirdly, it’s really important to look forward in the startup. Said another way, all the founders have to be in it one hundred percent. Are they all in it for the long haul? If the expectation at your startup is that each Founder is in it one hundred percent, for the long haul, then everything that happened before the formation of the company shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who thought of the idea, who did the coding, who built the prototype, or which one has an MBA. It will feel better to the whole team if the allocation is equal because the whole team is necessary for execution. The take away on this point: in the top YC companies, which we call those with the highest valuations, there are zero instances where the founders have a significantly disproportionate equity split.
第三，在创业过程中向前看是非常重要的。换言之，所有创办人必须百分之百地参与其中。他们都是为了长远利益？如果创业时的期望是，从长远来看，每一位创办人都百分之百地参与其中，那么在公司成立之前发生的一切都不重要。不管是谁想的，是谁编写的代码，是谁构建的原型，还是哪一个拥有工商管理硕士学位。如果分配是平等的，会让整个团队感觉更好，因为整个团队都需要执行。值得注意的是：在YC顶级公司（我们称之为估值最高的公司）中，创办人有零个股权严重不相称的情况。
Kirsty: You’ve had the conversation about to split the equity but then what? We talk to many founders who are actually surprised that they have do something in order to own this stock. They think that talking about it is actually enough. This is another situation where you have to think about you as an individual versus you as a representative of the company. And if you equate this to a large company, if you worked at Google and were told that, as part of your compensation package, you would be receiving shares, you would expect to sign something to get those shares. If you didn’t, you would be thinking, “What’s going on here?” It’s the same thing with a small company.
柯士蒂：你曾有过关于分拆股权的对话，但后来又如何？我们与许多创办人进行了交流，他们对自己为拥有这只股票所做的事情感到非常意外。他们认为说出来就足够了。这是另一种情况，在这种情况下，你必须将自己视为个人，而不是公司的代表。如果你把这等同于一家大公司，如果你在谷歌工作，并被告知，作为你的薪酬方案的一部分，你将获得股份，你将期望签署一些东西以获得这些股份。如果你没有，你会想，“这是怎么了对一家小公司而言也是如此。
In this case the document that you’re signing is a stock purchase engagement. You as an individual buy the shares from the company. In any situation, if you’re buying something there’s a two way transaction. In this case you’re getting shares in return for either a cash payment or for contributing IP or inventions or code to the company so that the company actually owns everything that you’ve done in the past. We also refer to that stock as being restricted because it vests over time. We’re going to cover that next, in more detail. As a result of the stock being restricted and vesting, there’s one very crucial piece of paper that we talk about until we’re blue in the face to everybody because there’s actually no way to go back and fix this. This is one of the things that has blown up deals in the past. We’ve seen companies who haven’t filed what’s called an 83(b) Election, and deals have blown up. I’m not going to go into detail about the 83(b) election, but it affects your individual taxes and it affects the company’s taxes. It can have a big impact. The main things here are sign the paper work, sign the Stock Purchase Agreements, sign the 83(b) Election, and make sure that you actually have proof that you sent that in. If you don’t have the proof it just goes into a black hole at the IRS. Investors and acquirers will walk away from a deal if you can’t prove that.
在这种情况下，您签署的文件是一项股票购买业务。阁下作为个人向本公司购买股份。在任何情况下，如果你正在购买某样东西，有一个双向交易。在这种情况下，你获得股份的回报是支付现金或贡献知识产权或发明或代码给公司，使公司实际拥有你在过去所做的一切。我们也将该股票称为受限制股票，因为其投资随时间推移而受限制。我们下一步将更详细地讨论这个问题。由于股票受到限制和归属，我们有一张非常重要的纸要谈，直到我们对每个人都感到不安为止，因为实际上我们没有办法再回头解决这个问题。这是过去曾导致交易失败的原因之一。我们曾看到一些公司没有提交所谓的83（b）选举，交易也因此而告吹。我不打算详述83（b）选举，但这会影响到你的个人所得税，也会影响到公司的所得税。这会有很大的影响。这里的主要事项是签署书面工作，签署股票购买协议，签署83（b）选举，并确保你确实有证据证明你发送了。如果你没有证据，它就会进入美国国税局的一个黑洞。如果你不能证明这一点，投资者和收购方将退出交易。
Carolynn: The next thing we are going talk about is vesting. I imagine that many of you are familiar with vesting, but just in case, vesting means that you get full ownership of your stock over a specific period of time. We’re talking about the stock that Kirsty just said. You bought your stock of your company and you own it and you get to vote, but if you leave before this vesting period is over, then the company can get those unvested shares back. When your hear restricted stock, it means that the stock is subject to vesting. The IRS speak for this is, “Shares that are subject to forfeiture.”
我们接下来要讨论的是归属。我想在座的许多人都很熟悉归属，但以防万一，归属意味着在一段特定的时间内，你将拥有全部股份。我们是在讨论柯斯蒂刚说的股票。你购买了你公司的股票，并拥有了它，你有权投票，但如果你在这个归属期结束前离开，那么公司可以取回这些未归属的股份。当阁下持有受限制股份时，即表示该股份须归属。美国国税局称之为“可没收股份”欢迎到火门网讨论:huomen.com
What should a typical vesting period be? In Silicon Valley the so called standard vesting period is four years with a one year cliff. This means that after one year, the Founder vests in or fully owns twenty-five percent of the shares. Then the remaining shares vest monthly over the next three years. Here’s an example. Founder buys stock on Christmas day, let’s say, and then quits the company on the following Thanksgiving. So before the year has passed. In that case the Founder leaves with zero shares, because the cliff period hasn’t been met. If the Founder quits the day after the next Christmas, so a year and day later, he or she is vesting in twenty-five percent of the shares. In that case the one year cliff has been met.
典型的归属期应该是什么？在硅谷，所谓的标准授予期为四年，期限为一年。这意味着一年后，创始人将拥有或完全拥有百分之二十五的股份。剩余股份则在未来三年内按月归属。举个例子。比如，创始人在圣诞节买股票，然后在第二个感恩日离开公司。在这一年过去之前。在这种情况下，创办人将以零股的价格离开，因为还未达到临界期。如果创办人在下一个圣诞节后的第二天辞职，那么一年后，他或她将获得百分之二十五的股份。在这种情况下，一年山崖已经形成。
What happens to the shares when a Founder stops working at the company? The company can repurchase those shares. In the example I just gave where the Founder quit a year and a day after purchasing the shares, seventy-five percent of the shares are still invested and the company will repurchase that full seventy-five percent of the shares from the Founder. How? They just write the Founder a check. That’s how the Founder brought it. It’s the same price per share that the Founder paid, so it’s simply giving the Founder his or her money back.
当创办人停止在公司工作时，股份会发生什么变化？本公司可购回该等股份。在我刚举的例子中，创办人在购买股份后一年零一天退出，百分之七十五的股份仍被投资，而公司将从创办人回购全部百分之七十五的股份。怎样？他们只给创办人开了一张支票。创始人就是这样带来的。这与创办人支付的每股价格相同，所以这只是把钱还给创办人。
So why have vesting? Why would founders do this to themselves?They’re doing this to their own shares. The number one reason why vesting is important has to do with founders leaving the company. If you didn’t have vesting and a founder leaves, a huge chunk of the equity ownership leaves with or her. Obviously that is not fair to the founders left behind. We’re actually going to talk about this a little bit more when we get to the the “Founder Employment” slide. I will go into that in more detail.
那么，为何要进行归属？创办人为何会这样对自己？他们这样做是为了自己的股份。归属重要的一个原因与创始人离开公司有关。如果你没有归属权，而一位创办人离职，那么很大一部分股权归属于他或她。显然，这对留守的创始人不公平。当我们进入到“创始人雇佣”的滑梯时，我们实际上会多谈一点。我将更详细地讨论这个问题。
The other reason to have vesting is the concept of skin in the game, the idea that founders need to be incentivized to keep working on their startup. If the Founder can walk away with his or her full ownership at any point and time, then why would you stay and grind away? Startups are hard.
获得归属的另一个原因是游戏中的皮肤概念，即创办人需要被激励以继续为他们的创业工作。如果创办人可以在任何时候离开他或她完全拥有的公司，那么你为何留下来继续努力？创业难。
Do solo founders need vesting? They do and the reason is because the skin of the game concept applies to solo founders as well. Investors want to see all founders, even solo founders, incentivized to stay with at the company for a long time. The other reason that solo founders should put vesting on their shares is to set an example for employees. You can imagine it would be inappropriate for a Founder to tell an employee that he or she has to have four year vesting on his or her shares but the founder doesn’t think he or she needs any on their own shares. It’s a culture point. A founder who has vesting on his or her shares then sets the tone for the company by saying, “We’re all in it for the long hall. We are all vesting on our shares. We’re doing this together.”
个人创办人是否需要归属？是的，原因是游戏概念的皮肤也适用于个人创始人。投资者希望看到所有创办人，即使是个人创办人，都能被激励在公司长期任职。个人创始人将股份归属于个人的另一个原因是为员工树立榜样。你可以想像，一名创办人告诉雇员他或她必须拥有四年的股份归属权，但创办人认为他或她不需要任何自己的股份，这将是不适当的。这是一个文化点。一位已将股份归属于公司的创办人会对公司说：「我们都是为了长远利益。」。我们的股份都归我们所有。我们在一起做这件事,欢迎到火门网讨论:huomen.com
Vesting aligns incentives among the founders if they all have to stick it out and grow the company before they get any of that company. Investors don’t want put money in a company where the founders can quit whenever they feel like it and still have a big equity ownership stake in that company.
如果创办人在获得任何一家公司之前都必须坚持并发展该公司，则归属会在创办人之间调整激励措施。投资者不希望投资于一家创办人可以随时辞职并仍然持有该公司大量股权的公司。
Kirsty: Moving on. We’ve now got a beautifully formed corporation in Delaware. Everyone has their stock. It’s all in the plain vanilla standard paperwork. Then what? The next stage of a company’s life is to raise money. We know that you already heard a lot from a lot investors and from founders in this set of classes. They’ve been talking about the tactics of how to raise money but what about the paperwork? What about when somebody actually agrees to invest?
继续。我们现在在特拉华州有一家结构优美的公司。每个人都有自己的股票。都是普通的标准文件。那又如何？一公司的下一个阶段是筹集资金。我们知道，在这一系列课程中，您已经从许多投资者和创办人处获得了很多信息。他们一直在讨论如何筹集资金的策略，但文书工作如何？如果有人真的同意投资，情况会如何？
In terms of logistics, in very simple terms there are two ways to raise money. Either the price is set for the money that comes in or the price isn’t set. By price we mean the valuation of the company. Rounds can actually be called anything. People can name them whatever they want, but generally when you hear the term seed round, it mean that the price has not been set. Anything that’s a Series A or Series B is something where the price has been set.
在物流方面，有二种筹集资金的方法。不是为进店的钱定价就是不定价。我们所指的价格是指公司的估值。回合实际上可以称为任何东西。人们可以随心所欲地为其命名，但一般而言，当你听人提及种子一轮时，这意味着价格尚未确定。任何一系列一或系列B的产品都是已经定价的。
Not setting the price is the most straight forward, fast route to getting money. The way that this is done is through convertible notes or safes. Again, this is a two way transaction. It’s a piece of paper that says, for example, that an investor is paying one hundred thousand dollars now and in return has the right to receive stock at a future date when the price is set by investors in a priced round. It’s important to note that at the time that paperwork is set, that investor is not a shareholder and therefore doesn’t have any voting rights in the company. They will have other rights which Carolynn is going to talk about separately.
不定价是最直接、最快捷的获取金钱的途径。方法是通过可换股票据或保险箱。同样，这是一项双向交易。这是一张纸，上面写着，例如，一个投资者现在支付十万美元，作为回报，他有权在未来的某一天收到股票，而该日的价格由投资者在一轮定价中确定。需要注意的是，在设立文件时，投资者并非股东，因此在本公司并无任何投票权。他们将有其他权利，卡罗林将单独讨论。
Of course investors want something in return for putting in money at the earliest, riskiest stage of the company’s life. This is where the concept of a valuation cap comes in, which I’m sure many of you heard mentioned before. The documents for an unpriced round set a cap for the conversion into shares that’s not the current valuation of the company. It’s an upper bound on the valuation used in future to calculate how many shares that investor is going to get. For example, take an investor that invests one hundred thousand dollars on a safe with a five million dollar cap. If a year later the company raises a priced round with a valuation of twenty million dollars, then the early investor would have a much lower price per share. About a quarter. Therefore their hundred thousand dollars would buy them approximately four times more shares than an investor that was coming and putting in a hundred thousand in that Series A priced round. That’s where they get their reward for being in early.
当然，投资者希望在公司生命中最早、最具风险的阶段投入资金，从而获得回报。这就是估值上限概念的由来，我相信在座的许多人之前都听人提过。未定价回合的文件设定了转换为非本公司当前估值的股份的上限。这是未来用于计算投资者将获得多少股份的估值上限。例如，一个投资者投资十万美元于一个一美元上限的保险柜。如果一年后该公司以二千万美元的估值提高一轮定价，则早期投资者的每股价格将低得多。大约一刻钟。因此，他们的10万美元将购买他们约四倍的股份，比一个投资者来，并投入十万在一系列定价轮。这是他们因提早到达而获得奖励的地方。
Again, this is a situation where you need to make sure you have the signed documents. Services like Clerky can help with that. They have very standard documents that most of our YC companies use to raise money.
同样，在这种情况下，您需要确保拥有已签署的文件。像文员这样的服务可以帮助解决这个问题。他们有非常标准的文件，我们的大部分YC公司用以筹集资金。
A couple of other things to think about when you are raising money, um. Hopefully you got a really hot company that, that’s doing great and it’s really easy to raise money. But you should be aware that all these people throwing money at you does have some down sides. Um, so the first thing is to understand your future dilution. So, if you raise, let’s say two million dollars on safes with a valuation cap of six million dollars, then when those safes convert into equity, those early investors are going own about twenty-five percent of the company. And that’s going to be an addition to the investors that are coming in at that priced round who may want to own twenty percent of the company. So you’re already at that point given away forty-five percent of the company. So is this really what you want? And you know the answer might be yes. Um, remember that some money on a low valuation cap is infinitely better than no money at all. And if those term that you can get then, then take that money. Um, but it’s just something to be aware of and to follow through the whole process so that you can see where this is going to lead you down the road.
当你筹款的时候，还有几件事要考虑。希望你有一家非常火爆的公司，做得很好，而且非常容易筹集资金。但你应该注意，所有这些向你投钱的人都有一些不好的方面。恩，第一件事是了解你未来的贫化。所以，如果你筹得，比如说二百万美元的保险箱，估值上限为六百万美元，当这些保险箱转换成股票时，这些早期投资者将拥有公司约百分之二十五的股份。而这将是在这轮价格战中加入的投资者中的一员，他们可能希望拥有该公司百分之二十的股权。所以你已经放弃了公司百分之四十五的股份。这真的是你要的？你知道答案可能是肯定的。额，别忘了，一些低估值上限的钱远比没有钱好。如果你能得到这些条件，那就接受这些钱。恩，但这只是一件需要注意并贯穿整个过程的事情，以便你能看到这将把你带向何方。
The other thing to keep in mind is that investors should be sophisticated. They have enough money to be able to invest. They understand that investing in startups is a risky business. We see so many companies say, “Oh yeah. My uncle put money in or my neighbor put money in.” They’ve put in five or ten thousand dollars each. Often those are the investors that cause the most problems going forward because they don’t understand how this is a long term gain. They get to the point where they’re sitting thinking, “Hmm. I could actually do with that money back because I need a new kitchen.” Or, “This startup investing is not actually as exciting as all the TV shows and movies made it out to be.” That causes problems for the company. They’re asking for their money back. Be aware that you should be raising money from people who are sophisticated and know what they’re doing. The term that you’ll hear that refers to these people are that they are accredited investors.
另一件要注意的事是，投资者应该成熟。他们有足够的资金进行投资。他们明白投资创业公司是一项风险高的业务。我们看到很多公司都说，“是的。“叔叔投了钱，邻居们投了钱”，他们每人投了五、一万元。这些投资者往往是造成未来问题最多的投资者，因为他们不明白这是如何带来长期收益的。他们到了想“恩，我真的可以把钱用回，因为我需要一个新厨房”或“这项新的创业投资并没有所有电视节目和电影原来那么刺激”的时候，这为公司带来了问题。他们要求退款。要注意，你应该向有经验的人集资，并且知道他们在做什么。这些人被称为合格投资者。
The main point here is keep it simple. Raise your money using standard documents. Make sure that you have people who understand what they are getting into and understand what you’re getting into in terms of future dilution.
这里的重点是保持简单。使用标准文件筹集资金。确保你的员工了解他们正在进入的领域，并理解你在未来被稀释的情况下将进入的领域。
Carolynn: Ok. You’re raising money. You understand what you’re selling. You figured out the price. You got down the logistics that Kirsty just described. What you may find is that you don’t understand some of the terms and terminology that your investors are using. This is ok, but you do have a burden to go and figure it out. Don’t assume that just because you have agreed on the valuation of the price, that all the other stuff doesn’t matter. It does matter. You need to know how these terms are going to impact your company in the long run. At Y Combinator, Kirsty and I hear founders say all the time “I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know what I was signing. I didn’t know I agreed to that!” The burden is on you to figure this stuff out.
卡罗林：好的。你在筹款。你知道自己在卖什么。你已经知道价格了。你记下了柯尔斯泰刚描述的后勤工作。您可能会发现，您并不了解投资者使用的一些术语和术语。这是可以的，但你确实有一个负担去解决它。别以为就因为你已经同意了价格的估值，其他的都不重要。这很重要。你需要知道这些条款从长远来看将如何影响你的公司。在YCombitor，我和基斯提一直听创办人说“我不知道这是什么。我不知道我在签什么。我不知道我同意了你的责任是想办法解决这个问题。
We’re going to go over four common investor requests. The first one is a board seat. Some investors will ask for seat on your company’s board of directors. The investor usually wants to be a director either because he or she wants to keep tabs on their money or because he or she really thinks they can help you run your business. You have to be careful about adding an investor to your board. In most cases you want to say no. Otherwise make sure it’s a person who is really going to add value. Having money is very valuable but someone who helps with strategy and direction is priceless. So choose wisely.
我们将讨论四个常见的投资者请求。第一是一个董事会席位。一些投资者会要求加入贵公司的董事会。投资者通常希望成为董事，因为他或她希望密切关注他们的资金，或因为他或她真的认为他们可以帮助你经营业务。在加入董事会时，你必须谨慎行事。在大多数情况下，你想说不，否则要确保这是一个真正会增值的人。拥有金钱是非常有价值的，但帮助策略和方向的人是无价的。所以要明智地选择。
The other things is advisers. They are so many people who want to give advice to startups. Few people actually give good advice. Once an investor has given your company money, that person should be a de facto adviser but without any official title and more importantly without the company having to give anything extra in return for the advice.
另一方面是顾问。他们是那么多希望为创业公司提供建议的人。很少有人真正给出好建议。一旦投资者向贵公司提供资金，该人士应为事实上的顾问，但无任何官方头衔，更重要的是，贵公司无需付出任何额外代价以换取建议。
At Y Combinator, we’ve noticed that whenever a startup manages to garner a celebrity investor, the celebrity almost always asks to be an adviser. We have a company that provides on-demand bodyguard services. An NBA basketball player invested and asked to be an adviser and then asked to be given shares of common stock in exchange for adviser services. The service that this person had in mind was to introduce this company to other professional basketball players who might want to use an on-demand bodyguard. This celebrity just made a big investment, shouldn’t he want to help the company succeed? Why does he need something extra? All investors who can help should do so. Asking for additional shares is just an investor looking for a freebie.
在YCombitor，我们注意到，每当一家初创公司成功获得一位名人投资者，该名人几乎都会要求成为顾问。我们有一家公司提供按需保姆服务。一名NBA篮球运动员投资并要求成为顾问，然后要求获得普通股股份以换取顾问服务。该人士所考虑的服务是将该公司介绍给其他可能希望使用按需保姆的职业篮球运动员。这个名人刚做了一大笔投资，他不应该帮助公司成功么？他为何需要额外的东西？所有能提供帮助的投资者都应该提供帮助。要额外的股份只是一个投资者寻找免费的一。
Next we’re going to talk about pro-rata rights. Very simply, pro-rata rights are the right to maintain your percentage ownership in a company by buying more shares in the company in the future. Pro-rata rights are a way to avoid dilution. Dilution in this context means owning less and less of the company each time the company sells more stock to other investors.
下一步我们将讨论按比例的权利。很简单，按比例的权利是指在未来通过购买更多一公司的股份来维持你在该公司的所有权百分比的权利。按比例的权利是避免摊薄的一种方法。在这种情况下，稀释意味着每次公司向其他投资者出售更多股份时，所持公司股份越来越少。
This is a really basic example, but say an early investor buys shares of preferred stock and ends up owning three percent of the company once the financing has closed. The company raises another round of financing. The company will go to this investor who negotiated pro-rata rights and say, “Hey. We’re raising more money. You’re welcome to buy this many shares in the new round to keep your ownership at approximately three percent.”
这确实是一个基本的例子，但假设一个早期投资者购买优先股，并在融资结束后拥有公司百分之三的股权。该公司筹集另一轮融资。公司会找这个按比例协商权利的投资者，并说：「嗨。我们在筹集更多的资金。欢迎阁下在新一轮购买如此多的股份，以使阁下的持股比例维持在约百分之三。」
Pro-rata rights are a very common request from investors. They are not necessarily a bad thing, but as a founder you absolutely need to know how pro-rata rights work. Especially because the corollary to an investor having pro-rata rights to avoid dilution is that founders typically suffer greater dilution.
按比例的权利是投资者非常普遍的要求。这不一定是件坏事，但作为创始人，你绝对需要知道按比例的权利是如何运作的。尤其是由于投资者拥有避免摊薄的按比例权利的必然结果是创办人通常会遭受更大的摊薄。
The final thing is information rights. Investors almost always want contractual information rights to get certain information about your company. Giving periodic information and status updates is not a bad thing. At YC we encourage companies to give monthly updates to their investors because it’s a great opportunity to ask for help with introductions or help with hiring. That kind of thing. You have to be really careful about overreach. Any investor saying they want a monthly budget or weekly update, that’s not ok.
最后是信息权。投资者几乎都希望获得有关贵公司的特定信息的合同信息权。定期提供信息和状态更新并非坏事。在YC，我们鼓励公司每月向投资者提供最新信息，因为这是一个寻求介绍或招聘帮助的好机会。这种事。你真的要小心行事。任何投资者说他们希望每月预算或每周更新，这不好。
The takeaway here is that just because the type of financing and the valuation has been negotiated doesn’t mean that everything else is unimportant. You need to know everything about your financing.
值得注意的是，仅仅因为融资类型和估值已经协商，并不意味着其他一切都不重要。您需要了解有关融资的一切。
Kirsty: Moving on to after you’ve raised money. The company bank account probably has more zeros in it then you’ve ever seen in your life. Then what? This is where you actually start incurring business expenses. Business expenses are the cost of carrying out your business. Paying employees, paying rent for an office, hosting costs, the cost of acquiring customers, that kind of thing. Business expenses are important because they get deducted on the company’s tax return to offset any revenues that are made to lower the taxes that the company pays. On the flip side, if the company incurs a a non-business expense that is not deductible on the tax return, that can increase the profits of the company that have to pay tax on them.
在你筹集到资金后继续。公司的银行账户可能比你有生以来所见的有更多的零。那又如何？这是你实际开始产生业务开支的地方。业务开支是开展业务的成本。支付员工，支付办公室租金，托管费用，获取客户的费用，诸如此类。业务开支很重要，因为它们在公司的报税表中被扣除，以抵销为降低公司所付税款而产生的任何收入。另一方面，如果公司产生了不可在报税表中扣除的非营业费用，这可能会增加公司必须为其纳税的利润。
Again, this is a separation issue. The company will have its own bank account, out of which the company’s expenses should be paid. Um, again think about this from a, from a large company, if you were working at Google, you would not use a Google credit card to buy a tooth brush and tooth paste.
这又是一个分离的问题。本公司将拥有自己的银行账户，并从中支付本公司的费用。额，再考虑一下一，一家大公司，如果你在谷歌工作，你不会用谷歌信用卡购买一支牙刷和牙膏。
Remember that the investors gave you this money. They trusted you with a huge amount of money. They want you to use that money to make the company a success. It’s not your money for you to spend how you please. Believe me, we’ve had some horror stories of founders who’ve take that approach. We had one founder who took investor money and went to Vegas. By his Facebook photos, boy did he have a good time. Needless to say he’s no longer with the company. This is stealing from investors.
别忘了投资者给了你这些钱。他们相信你有一大笔钱。他们希望你用这些钱使公司成功。随心所欲地消费不是你的钱。相信我，我们曾有过创始人采用这种方法的恐怖故事。我们有一个创办人，他拿了投资者的钱去了Vegas。从脸谱网上的照片来看，这孩子玩得很开心。不用说他已经不在公司了。这是对投资者的窃取。
The concept of business expenses can get a little bit blurry, especially in the early days when you’re working in your apartment twenty four hours a day. The way to think about it is, “If an investor asked me what I’d spent their money on and I had to give them a line by line break down, would I be embarrassed about any of those lines?” If you would, it’s probably not a business expense.
商业开支的概念可能变得有点模糊，尤其是在你每天二十四小时在公寓工作的早期。这样想的方式是，“如果一个投资者问我把他们的钱都花在了什么上，而我不得不对他们逐行进行分析，我会不会为这些话感到难为情如果你愿意，这可能不是一笔业务开支。
The other thing to bear in mind is that you’re busy running your company at ninety miles an hour, so you don’t have to necessarily think about the book keeping and accounting at that point. However, it’s crucial to keep the receipts so when you do engage a book keeper or a CPA to prepare your tax returns, they can figure out what are business expenses and what aren’t business expenses. They’re going need your help as a founder to do this. The way make your involvement as small as possible is to keep those documents in a safe place, so you can easily refer to them.
另一件要注意的事是，你正忙于以每小时九十英里的速度经营你的公司，所以你不必在这一点上考虑记账和会计。然而，重要的是保留收据，因此当你聘请簿记员或注册会计师准备报税表时，他们可以计算出哪些是业务开支，哪些不是业务开支。他们需要你作为创始人的帮助。让你的参与尽可能小的方法是将这些文件保存在一个安全的地方，这样你就可以很容易地查阅它们。
If you remember nothing else, do not go to Vegas on investors’ money. Spend that money wisely.
如果你什么都不记得，就别拿投资者的钱去Vegas了。明智地使用这些钱。
Carolynn: In this section we’re going to hit a couple topics in this section. The first one is “Founder Employment.” Why are we talking about founder employment? As we said already, the company is separate legal entity. It exists completely separately from you as founders. As prestigious as we think the title founder is, you’re really just a company employee and founders have to be paid. Working for free is against the law and founders should not let their company take on this liability. You wouldn’t work for free anywhere else, so why is your startup an exception? Companies have to pay payroll taxes. We had a YC company that completely blocked their payroll taxes for three years. It was huge expensive disaster and in extreme cases, people can actually go to jail for that. Fortunately not in this case, but it’s bad. The moral of this story is set up a payroll service. This is something that is worth spending your money on. Don’t go overboard on lavish salaries. Minimum wage. This is still a startup and you have to run lean.
在本节中，我们将讨论两个主题。第一是“创办人就业”，我们为何要谈创办人就业？如前所述，本公司为独立法人。作为创办人，它完全独立于你。尽管我们认为创始人的头衔很有声望，但你实际上只是一名公司雇员，必须向创始人支付薪酬。为自由而工作是违法的，创办人不应该让他们的公司承担这种责任。你不会在其他地方免费工作，那你的创业公司为何例外？公司必须支付工资税。我们有一家YC公司，在三年内完全冻结了他们的工资税。这是一场耗资巨大的灾难，在极端情况下，人们会因此而坐牢。幸运的是在这种情况下不是，但这是坏的。这个故事的寓意是建立一个工资单服务。这是值得你花钱的事情。不要过分追求高薪。最低工资。这仍然是一个初创企业，你必须运行精益。
Now I am going to mention founder break ups. First, what is a founder break up? In this context, I’m talking about one founder on the team being asked to leave the company. founders are employees, so that means your co-founders are firing you. Why are we talking about break ups in founder compensation? At YC we have seen a ton of founder break ups and we know that the break ups get extra ugly when the founders haven’t paid themselves. Why? Unpaid wages become leverage for the fired founder to get something that he or she wants from the company. Typically that is vesting acceleration. The fired founder says, “Hey. My lawyer says you broke the law by not paying me. If you pay me and you give me some shares that I am actually not really entitled to, I’ll sign a release and make all this ugliness go away.” If you’re the remaining co-founders, you’re probably like, “Sounds like a good deal.” Now you have a disgruntled person who owns a piece of your company and, even worse, the remaining workers are working for that ex-founder. They are building all the value in the company and the ex-founder who got fired is sitting there with all their shares going, “That’s right. Make it valuable.”
现在我要提的是创始人的分居。第一，什么是一创始人的分拆？在这种情况下，我指的是团队中的一名创办人被要求离开公司。创办人是雇员，所以这意味着你的共同创办人要解雇你。我们为何要讨论创始人薪酬的分拆？在YC，我们看到了很多创办人的离异，我们知道当创办人没有支付自己的费用时，他们的离异会变得特别难看。为什么？未付工资成为被解雇创办人从公司获得所需的杠杆。这通常是行权加速。被解雇的创始人说，“嗨。我的律师说你不付我钱触犯了法律。如果你付我钱，给我一些我实际上无权获得的股份，我会签署一份解除令，让所有这些不光彩的事情消失。如果你是余下的共同创办人，你可能会说，“听上去是笔好交易”，现在你有一个心怀不满的人，他拥有你公司的一部分，更糟的是，其余的工人正在为他工作前创办人。他们正在建立公司的所有价值，而被解雇的前创办人正坐在那里，所有的股份都在进行，“是的。让它变得有价值
The take away here is avoid problems by paying yourself. Paying your payroll taxes and thinking of your co-founders wages like a marital pre-nup.
这里的外卖是自付费用来避免问题。支付你的工资税，并把你的共同创办人的工资当作婚前福利。
Kirsty: As the founders, you are going to need to hire employees. Much has been said in previous classes about how to find those people, about what makes a good fit, and about how to make them really productive employees. When you actually find somebody, how do you hire them? What’s involved? Employment is governed by a huge raft of laws. Therefore, it’s important to get this right. It’s again the nitty gritty stuff that, as long as you know the basics, you can probably keep yourself out of most situations. As soon as things get complicated, you need to get yourself involved with a specialist.
作为创始人，你需要雇佣员工。在以前的课程中，有很多关于如何找到这些人，如何让他们变得健康，以及如何让他们成为真正有生产力的雇员的内容。当你真正找到一个人，你怎么雇用他们？涉及到什么？雇佣受一系列法律的约束。因此，正确处理这个问题非常重要。这又是一个本质的东西，只要你知道基本的，你可能会把自己从大多数情况下。一旦事情变得复杂，你需要和一位专家联系。
the first thing you need to do is figure out if the person is an employee or a contractor. There are subtle differences to this classification. this is important to get right because the IRS takes a big interest in this. If they think you got it wrong they will come after you with fines.
你需要做的第一件事是弄清楚对方是雇员还是承包商。这种分类有细微的不同。这一点很重要，因为美国国税局对此很感兴趣。如果他们认为你做错了，他们会追你罚款。
Both an employee and a contractor will require documents that assign any IP that they create to the company. That’s obviously really important. The form of the document is very different for each type of person and the method of payments are very different. Generally a contractor will be able to set their own work hours and location and they will be given a project where there is an end result. How they actually get to that will not be set. They’ll be using their own equipment and they won’t really have any say in the day to day running of the company or the strategy going forward. A contractor will sign a consulting agreement. When the company pays them, the company doesn’t hold any taxes on their behalf. That responsibility is on the individual. At the end of the year, the company will provide what’s called a form 1099 to the individual and to the IRS, which they use to prepare their personal tax returns.
雇员和承包商均需要向本公司分配其创建的任何知识产权的文件。这显然非常重要。文件的形式对每种类型的人都非常不同，付款方式也非常不同。一般而言，承包商将能够自行设定工作时间和地点，并将获得一个有最终结果的项目。他们如何真正做到这一点将无法确定。他们将使用自己的设备，在公司的日常运营或未来的战略中，他们实际上没有任何发言权。承包商将签署一份咨询协议。当本公司支付时，本公司不会代其缴税。责任由个人承担。年底，本公司将向个人及美国国税局提供所谓的1,099号表格，供其编制个人报税表。
The opposite side of this is an employee. An employee will also sign some form of IP assignment agreement, but when the company pays them, the company will withhold taxes from their salary. The company is responsible for paying those taxes to the relevant state or federal authorities. At the end of the year the employee receives a W2 form, which will then be used to prepare their personal tax returns.
另一方面是雇员。员工也会签署一些形式的知识产权转让协议，但当公司支付给他们时，公司会从他们的工资中扣税。本公司负责向相关州或联邦当局缴纳该等税项。年底，雇员会收到一份W2表格，该表格将用于编制个人报税表。
The founders need to be paid. So do employees. It isn’t enough to just say, “Well, I am paying them in stock. That can be their compensation.” They need to be paid at least minimum wage. In San Francisco, which has a slightly higher minimum wage than California as a whole, that works out to about two thousand dollars a month. It’s not a huge amount but it can add up.
创始人需要报酬。员工也是。光说“好吧，我是以股票支付的”是不够的。这可以作为他们的补偿。在旧金山，最低工资比整个加利福尼亚略高，每月约二千美元。虽然数额不大，但可以加起来。
There’s are other things that you need to make sure you have if you have employees. The first thing is that you’re required to have workers compensation insurance, especially if you’re in New York. The New York authorities that look after this will send really threatening letters saying, “You owe fifty thousand dollars in fines because your one employee that’s being paid minimum wage has not paid the twenty dollars a month of workers compensation fees.” It is really important that you set that up. The other thing that is important is that you need to see proof that the employee is authorized to work in the US.
如果你有员工，还有其他事情需要确保。第一件事是，你必须有工人赔偿保险，特别是如果你在纽约。负责处理此事的纽约当局将会发出非常有威胁性的信件，内容是“你欠五万美元罚款，因为你的一名雇员没有支付每月二十美元的工人补偿费”，这一点非常重要。另一件重要的事是，你需要看到员工被授权在美国工作的证明。

Founders are not payroll experts and nobody expects you to be one. This is all about the basics. You absolutely must use a payroll service provider who will look after this for you. Services like Zen Payroll are focused on startups. They help you get this set up in the easiest way possible so you can go back and concentrate on what you do best. In the example that Carolyn gave just a few minutes ago, if that company had actually set themselves up with a payroll service provider, all of that heartache would have gone away because it would have been looked after for them. They were trying to save money by not doing it and look where it got them.
创办人不是薪酬专家，没有人期望你会是一岁。这些都是基本的。你绝对必须使用一个工资服务供应商谁将照顾你。Zen Payroll等服务专注于初创企业。他们帮助你以最简单的方式建立这个基础，这样你可以回到过去，专注于你做得最好的事情。在卡罗琳几分钟前举的例子中，如果该公司真的与一家工资服务供应商合作，所有的心痛都会消失，因为这会得到他们的照顾。他们试图通过不这样做来节省资金，并寻找资金的来源。
That’s the key thing. Use a payroll service provider and make sure that you understand the basics of employment.
这是关键。使用工资服务供应商，并确保您了解雇佣的基本知识。
Carolynn: Somebody at YC once said, “You’re not a real founder until you’ve had to fire somebody.” Why is that? Because firing people is really hard. It’s hard for a lot of reasons, including that founders tend to hire their friends. They tend to hire former co-workers or they get close to their employees because working at a startup is really intense. But in every company there’s going to be an employee that doesn’t work out and firing this employee makes a founder a real professional because he or she has to do what is right for the company instead of what is easy. Best practices for how to fire someone: number one, fire quickly. Don’t let a bad employee linger. It’s so easy to put off a difficult conversation but there is only downside to procrastination. If a toxic employee stays around too long, good employees may quit. If the employee is actually screwing up the job, you may lose business or users.
卡罗林：YC有人曾说：「除非你必须解雇某人，否则你不是真正的创始人。」这是为什么？因为解雇员工真的很难。这有很多原因，包括创始人倾向于雇用他们的朋友。他们倾向于雇用前同事或与雇员关系密切，因为在一家初创公司工作非常紧张。但在每一家公司，都会有一名不称职的员工，解雇这名员工会使创办人成为真正的专业人士，因为他或她必须做对公司有利的事情，而不是简单的事情。如何解雇某人的最佳实践：一、快速解雇。别让一个坏员工久拖不决。拖延一次困难的对话是很容易的，但拖延只会带来负面影响。如果一名有毒员工在附近逗留的时间太长，优秀员工可能会辞职。如果员工真的把工作搞坏了，你可能会失去业务或用户。
Number two , communicate effectively. Don’t rationalize. Don’t make excuses. Don’t equivocate about why you are firing the employee. Make clear direct statements. Don’t apologize. “We’re letting you go,” not, “I’m so sorry your sales didn’t take off this quarter, blah, blah, blah.” Fire the employee face to face and ideally with a third party present.
二，有效沟通。不要理顺。别找藉口。对于解雇员工的原因，不要含糊其辞。明确直接陈述。别道歉我们放了你，“不”，我很遗憾你的销售额本季度没有增长，等等，等等，等等。面对面解雇员工，最好有一在场。
Number three, pay all wages and accrued vacation immediately. This is a legal requirement that we don’t debate or negotiate.
第三，立即支付所有工资和应计假期。这是一项法律要求，我们不需要讨论或谈判。
Number four, cut off access to digital systems. Once an employee is out the door, cut off physical and digital access. Control information in the cloud. Change passwords. We had a situation at YC where one founder had access to the company’s GitHub account and held the password hostage when his co-founders try to fire him.
第四，切断数字系统的接入。一旦员工出了门，切断实体和数字连接。云中的控制信息。更改密码。我们在YC遇到一个情况，一名创办人进入公司的GitHub账户，并在其共同创办人试图解雇他时将密码作为人质。
Number five, if the terminated employee has any invested shares, the company should repurchase them right away. The takeaway here is that, surprising as this may sound, one of the hallmarks of a really effective founder is how well he or she handles employee terminations.
第五，如果被解聘员工有任何投资股份，公司应立即回购。值得一提的是，尽管这听上去可能令人感到意外，一个真正有效的创始人的标志之一是他或她处理员工离职的能力。
Kirsty: The basic tenant to all of this is keep it simple. Do all the standard stuff and keep it organized. Make sure you know what you’re doing. Equity ownership is really important, so make sure you are thinking about the future rather than the three months of the history of the company. Stock doesn’t buy itself, so make sure you do the paperwork.
基斯提：所有这些的基本承租人都很简单。做所有标准的事情，并保持有组织。确保你知道自己在做什么。股权拥有非常重要，所以要确保你考虑的是未来，而不是公司历史上的三个月。股票本身不买账，所以一定要做好准备。
Make sure you actually know about the financing documents that you’re signing. It’s not enough to just say, “I’ll take your hundred K.” You and the employees need to be paid. Everybody needs to assign IP to the company. If the company does not own that IP, there is no value in the company. If an employee must be fired, do it quickly and professionally.
确保你确实了解你正在签署的融资文件。光说“我要你的100千元”是不够的，你和员工都需要报酬。每个人都需要为公司分配知识产权。如果本公司不拥有该知识产权，则本公司并无任何价值。如果员工必须被解雇，快速且专业地解雇。
We didn’t mention knowing your key metrics. At any time you should know the cash position, you should know your burn rate, you should know when that cash is going to run out so you can talk to your investors. A lot of running a startup is following the rules and taking it seriously. It’s not all the glamorous bits that we see in movies and TV shows. You do have to take that seriously.
我们没有提到了解您的关键指标。在任何时候，你都应该知道现金状况，你应该知道你的燃烧率，你应该知道现金何时会耗尽，这样你才可以和你的投资者交流。经营一家初创公司需要遵循规则并认真对待。并不是我们在电影和电视节目中所看到的全部魅力。你必须认真对待。
Audience Member #1: How would you advise searching for an accountant and when in the process do you need one?
观众1：您对招聘会计师有何建议，以及在招聘过程中何时需要一名会计师？
Kirsty: There are two different things. There is a book keeper and there is a CPA, an accountant. Generally book keepers will categorize all your expenses and CPAs will prepare your tax returns. In the very early days it’s probably fine for the founders to just be able to see the bank statements and see those expenses coming out. Tax returns have to be prepared annually, so at some point in that first year of the company’s life, some service is going to need to be engaged to do that. It’s not worth the founders time to do it. There are services available like inDinero which try to make things as effortless as possible from the founders’s point of view. You do need to get a CPA at some point because you need to file your annual tax returns for the company.
有二件不同的事。有一名簿记员和一名注册会计师、会计师。一般而言，簿记员会将你所有的开支分类，而注册会计师会为你准备报税表。在最初的日子里，创办人能够看到银行结单并看到这些费用的出现可能是好的。报税表必须每年准备一次，因此在公司成立的第一年的某个时候，需要聘请一些服务人员来完成这项工作。这不值得创始人花时间去做。从创办人的角度来看，inDinero等服务可以使事情尽可能轻松。因为你需要为公司提交年度报税表，所以在某个时候你确实需要获得注册会计师。
Audience Member #1: How do you find one?
观众1：你怎么找到一个？
Kirsty: Finding one is tough. The best is through recommendations. With any kind of specialist, a CPA or an accountant or a lawyer, it’s always best to use people who are used to dealing with startups. Not your aunt who lives in Minnesota and doesn’t actually know how startups work.
要找到一个是很困难的。最好的办法是通过推荐。对于任何类型的专家，注册会计师或会计师或律师，最好用那些习惯于与创业公司打交道的人。不是你的阿姨，她生活在明尼苏达州，并不知道创业公司是如何运作的。
Audience Member #2: All things considered, what should be my budget for incorporating, for the lawyer, for getting the deal to buy for my effort seed rounds? And then for hiring the first employees. How much money should I set aside for that?
观众2：综合考虑，我的预算应该是多少，包括律师，为我的努力种子轮购买交易？然后再雇用第一名雇员。我应该为此预留多少钱？
Carolynn: In terms of incorporation, don’t spend a dime on that. You can do that online. Well, actually it does cost a little bit.
就公司注册而言，别在这上面花一毛钱。你可以在网上做。好吧，实际上要花一点钱。
Carolynn: Incorporating online using a service like Clerky is inexpensive. In the hundreds, not in the thousands. You don’t need a lawyer for that part. When you actually need to hire a lawyer depends on what business you are starting and how complicated it is. Do you have a lot of privacy policies, is HIPPA involved? You mentioned raising your seed round, how much money are you raising? Who are the investors? What kind of terms are in the term sheet? Sometimes that dictates whether or not you need to get legal counsel.
Carolynn:使用Clerky等服务在网上注册费用不高。以百计，而不是以千计。这方面你不需要律师。实际需要聘请律师的时间取决于所从事的业务及其复杂程度。你有很多隐私政策，是否涉及HIPPA？你提到要把种子种出来，你要筹多少钱？谁是投资者？条款清单中有哪些条款？有时这决定了你是否需要法律顾问。
Kirsty: Services like Clerky can help if you are using very standard documents for the fundraising. There are very basic fundraising documents you can use that cost less than a hundred dollars, which can save you some legal fees.
Kirsty:如果你使用非常标准的文件来筹款，像Clerky这样的服务会有所帮助。有非常基本的筹款文件，你可以使用的成本低于一百美元，这可以节省一些法律费用。
Audience Member #3: Do you have any advice or comments on the complexity that comes with working with cryptocurrencies or cryptoequities?
观众3：您对使用加密货币或加密股票的复杂性有何建议或意见？
Kirsty: Oh wow. That’s a tough question to end with. Yes, there are some issues. Often banks struggle to deal with companies that are working with cryptocurrencies because they haven’t quite figured out how to deal with that sort of thing yet. Generally a lot of it is very product specific.
柯斯蒂：哇。这是一个很难回答的问题。是的，有一些问题。银行通常难以与使用加密货币的公司进行交易，因为它们尚未完全了解如何处理此类交易。通常很多都是针对特定产品的。
Sam: Thank you very much!
山姆：非常感谢！
Carolynn: You’re welcome.
不客气。