How to Hustle Like VC Legend Bill Gurley | The Circuit with Emily Chang
发布时间 2023-07-21 00:32:30 来源
摘要
On this week’s episode of The Circuit, Emily Chang travels to Austin, Texas, to sit down with Benchmark General Partner Bill Gurley and discuss his journey from computer engineer to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Gurley reflects on the level of hustle needed to make it as a venture capitalist investing in tech startups. Over some classic Texas barbecue, Chang and Gurley discuss whether the Bay Area will continue to be the center of gravity for entrepreneurs and the tech industry.
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It's the live music capital of the world. Home to pulsing festivals, dangerously delicious barbecue, and an emerging tech hub, Bill doesn't escape from the high taxes and lofty ideals of Silicon Valley. It's now also home to one venture capitalist who always stood above the crowd. Bill Girly is famous for his tech investing, betting his reputation on one of the industry's most controversial unicorns yet. Uber. I'm the guy they call. That's how this works.
它是世界上现场音乐之都。这里举办着充满活力的音乐节,有着美味危险的烤肉,还是一个新兴的科技中心,但是比尔没能逃脱硅谷高税收和崇高理想的影响。而现在,这里也是一个备受瞩目的风险投资家的故乡。比尔·吉利以他的科技投资而闻名,将声誉压在了业界最具争议的独角兽之一——Uber上。我就是那个人,他们叫我如此。这就是这样运作的。
The real Bill Girly recently relocated. Hey, how are you? Not to escape anything, per se, but to come home. I'm here to find out if this consummate insider has a fresh perspective from the outside looking in. Are you live here now? I do. I do. I moved here about a year ago. How's Austin City living? It's good. It's a lot different from Northern California. A lot different from Silicon Valley. Normally we're sitting when we do interviews and you're like quite tall. I am. Six foot eight. Six foot eight. All right. And I got my cowboy boots on so no heels. Well, you have a hookup here. This is like one of the coolest spots in Austin. Yeah, this is where they film Austin City limits. It's a famous television show on PBS. Some of the best artists in the world have come and played here and continue to do so. Do you play music or are you just a fan? I took up guitar during the pandemic, but I wouldn't suggest that I'm very good. I'm just a massive fan of the of the artistry of others. And I think trying to play actually gives me more perspective on that. It's become one of those venues. There's like a handful of them in the country where people want to play there. The iconic scene you see is the Austin skyline. This is Johnny Cash, obviously.
真正的比尔·吉利最近搬迁了。嘿,你好吗?并不是为了逃避什么,而是回家。我来这里是想看看这个胸有成竹的内部人士对外界的看法是否有新的角度。你现在住在这里吗?是的。是的。我大约一年前搬到这里来的。奥斯汀的生活怎么样?很好。和北加州非常不同。和硅谷非常不同。通常我们在做采访时都是坐着的,而你显得非常高大。是的。六英尺八英寸。六英尺八英寸。好的。我穿着我的牛仔靴所以没有穿高跟鞋。嗯,你在这里有熟人。这是奥斯汀最酷的地方之一。是的,这就是他们录制《奥斯汀城限制区》的地方。这是一档在公共广播电视台播出的著名电视节目。世界上一些最好的艺术家在这里演出过,而且现在仍然如此。你会音乐吗,还是只是一个粉丝?我在疫情期间学了吉他,但我不认为我弹得很好。我只是对他人的艺术才华非常欣赏。尝试弹奏让我更加明白这一点。它已经成为那种人们渴望在那里演出的场地之一了。你看到的标志性场景就是奥斯汀的天际线。这是约翰尼·卡什,显而易见的。
Is there something that you think super successful musicians and super successful entrepreneurs have in common? I do think there's some of that. So I think they're natural students and what they do. They learn to navigate different format shifts like these people hustle, like harder than anyone that you can possibly imagine. All right. Well, we're going to talk about hustling. Okay. What it takes. How much you have to hustle to be a legendary VC. So thank you. Thanks for hustling on down here.
你认为非常成功的音乐家和非常成功的企业家有什么共同点吗?我确实认为有一些共同点。所以我认为他们都是天生的学习者,他们会学习如何应对不同的形式转变,就像这些人那样拼命努力,比你能想象到的任何人都要拼命。好的,那么我们将要谈论努力。谈论需要做多少努力成为传奇的风险投资者。所以谢谢你。谢谢你拼命赶过来。
You are one of the most prolific investors in Silicon Valley history. You worked at Benchmark for a couple of decades. You invested in everything from Zillow to Stitch Fix to Uber. And now you've made this big life change. You're living in Texas, came back to your home state. Truth be told, my wife had kind of made it a part of the marriage acceptance. When we empty nested one day, we'd come home. Her family's here, my family's here. So it's actually been planned for a long time.
你是硅谷历史上最多产的投资者之一。你在Benchmark工作了几十年。你曾投资过从Zillow到Stitch Fix再到Uber的所有项目。现在你做出了这个重大的人生改变。你搬到了德克萨斯州,回到了你的家乡。说实话,事实上,这是我妻子在婚姻接受中的一个条件。当我们的孩子都离家出走的那一天,我们会回到家乡。她的家人在这里,我的家人也在这里。所以这实际上是早就计划好的。
You started investing in the dot com boom, saw the carnage of the dot com bust. How is 2023 going to go down in Silicon Valley history? It feels very similar. I mean, we could go through what's similar and what's different because there's some of both. But I had a very, very, like almost an awakening understanding of just how cyclical this venture business is.
你在互联网泡沫时期开始进行投资,目睹了互联网泡沫破灭的惨况。在硅谷历史上,2023年会是怎样一段时期?它感觉非常相似。我的意思是,我们可以探讨一下相似之处和不同之处,因为两者都存在一些。但我对创投业务的周期性有了一种非常非常清醒的认识。
The way that the limited partners commit to funds that used to be 10 years and now are 15 and the very low barriers to entry. So when things boom, everyone starts a venture firm, right? And in this past boom, in addition to everyone starting a venture firm, every venture firm started multiple venture firms and growth firm. And all that money gets piled up and you're slowly taking on risk and you don't realize it. It's like the roller coaster goes, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, and you're taking more and more risk and you don't know it because everyone around you is taking the same amount of risk and maybe FTX is the perfect pinnacle of this past one. We're a bunch of legendary investors just ignore risk, you know, and they wouldn't have done that in 2009. They had to do it after going off that roller coaster.
有限合伙人对过去为期10年、现在为期15年的基金承诺方式以及进入门槛很低。所以当一切繁荣时,每个人都开始成立风投公司,对吗?在这过去的繁荣时期,除了每个人都开始成立风投公司,每个风投公司还开始了多个风投公司和成长型公司。所有的资金堆积起来,你慢慢地承担风险而自己却没有意识到。就像过山车那样,一点一点地增加风险,而你并不知道,因为你周围的人也都在承担同样数量的风险,也许FTX是过去这种情况的完美体现。一群传奇投资者忽略了风险,你知道的,他们在2009年是不会这样做的。他们必须在经历了那次过山车之后才能这样做。
And unfortunately, because the money flows come in so easily, they're hard to go out. They're committed for 15 years. When that when that bubble finally burst, it's usually ugly. Risk on is slow. Risk off this fast. Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 24 hours. Yeah. Right. This is the bank to thousands of startups, thousands of firms, thousands of funds. How did we get here?
不幸的是,由于资金流入如此轻松,它们很难流出。它们已经承诺了15年。当泡沫最终破灭时,通常情况非常糟糕。风险的增加是缓慢的,而风险的减少则是迅速的。硅谷银行在24小时内崩溃了。是的,没错。这是数千家初创公司、数千家企业和数千个基金的银行。我们是如何走到这一步的呢?
So on March 8th, the stock was trading at $260 a share. So there are people that want to put this on risk taking in Silicon Valley, but Wall Street got it wrong too, right? So the world believed that this bank was okay. I think that it's unquestionably a black swan event that relates to interest rate movements that and you know, just a combination of variables that haven't been in this place before. There's a lot of questions about whether VC should have been calm and supportive versus, you know, and I can see both sides of the story, but maybe because of social media and ability to communicate instantly, the run on the bank can happen a lot more severe, a lot more quickly than it ever could have before.
所以在3月8日,该股票的交易价格是每股260美元。所以有些人想要在硅谷进行这种风险投资,但华尔街也搞错了,对吧?所以世界都认为这家银行没问题。我认为这无疑是一次与利率变动相关的黑天鹅事件,并且你知道,这只是一系列以前从未出现过的变量的组合。对于风险投资者是否应该保持平静和支持,有很多问题,我可以理解两方的观点,但也许是因为社交媒体和即时通讯的能力,银行的挤兑可能会比以往更加严重、更加迅速地发生。
What did benchmark do? Did you take your money out? Did you tell founders to take money out? We did not and we did not kind of run for the doors either. You had some VCs giving out personal cash to help companies make payroll. Do you think if anything this crisis will show founders who to trust?
Benchmark做了什么?你把钱取出来了吗?你告诉创始人们把钱取出来了吗?我们没有这样做,也没有逃离。你有一些风险投资家提供个人现金来帮助公司支付工资。你认为这场危机会让创始人看清谁是可信的吗?
Every venture capitalist when they open their mouth in front of a microphone, which I guess I'm doing right now, is talking to the entrepreneur they haven't met yet. There is so much important criticality in getting in front of the right pitches that everyone wants to look like the best actor. The problem is that's the exact same type of behavior that leads to the FTX situation because you take yourself out of a governance role completely because you just become the founder, cheerleader. So it's tricky. It's super tricky. So now that you can say whatever you want, when the dust settles, how bad does this get?
每一个风险投资家当他们在麦克风前开口说话时,我想我现在就是在做着这样一件事,他们都正在与尚未见面的企业家交谈。在接触到合适项目的过程中,有太多的重要性和关键性,每个人都希望表现得像最好的演员一样。问题是,这种行为正是导致FTX情况发生的行为,因为你完全脱离了治理角色,只成为了创始人的啦啦队。所以这很棘手。非常棘手。那么现在你可以说任何你想说的话,当一切平息下来后,情况会有多糟糕?
Let's say that the Fed hadn't stepped up and Silicon Valley Bank failed and like a whole bunch of startups lost their venture dollars. That would have been an event that I think would have been way worse than 01. That would have been catastrophic. In 99, every single major Wall Street firm opened an office on Sandhill Road. Everyone was in on 01.02.03. They left. They just kind of moved on and they focused on other things and it got super quiet. I actually love that environment. That's a great environment to work on. I hate the manic stuff.
假设美联储没有出手,硅谷银行破产了,很多初创公司失去了风险资金。我认为,那将是比2001年更糟糕的事件。那将是灾难性的。在1999年,每一家华尔街的主要公司都在桑德希尔路开设了办事处。每个人都参与了2001、2002、2003年的投资。然后,他们转身离开了,转而关注其他事情,整个环境变得非常安静。我实际上喜欢那种环境。那是一个很适合工作的环境。我讨厌那种疯狂的氛围。
But we're not there yet and this one's going to be slower because of the amount of money that's out there. Could we be in for a slow spiral or a slow bubble? I think you could be on a slow bursting, right? Like where things like company bankruptcy or shut downs or sales for nothing happened slowly over the next three years rather than all at once. You still may see people just decide that Silicon Valley is a place that's too risky and it gets back to this crazy manic cyclicality that we go through. That's the exact opposite of where everyone was three years ago. Where I was being called a chicken littler with a...
不过我们还没有到那个程度,这一次会更慢,因为涌入了大量的资金。我们可能会陷入一个缓慢的螺旋或慢慢膨胀的泡沫吗?我认为可能会发生慢慢的崩溃,对吧?就像公司破产、关门或低价出售这样的情况,在未来三年内缓慢发生,而不是一次性发生。你可能还会看到人们决定硅谷是一个太冒险的地方,回到我们经历的这种疯狂的、狂热的周期性。这完全与三年前的情况相反。那时候我被称为无谓的恐慌者,担忧着...
People thought you were like the boy who cried wolf. Right. I was six years too early but I didn't pull my chips off the table but I was worried. But this is what happens. It's really unfortunate. I'd love to think about a way to preventing it from happening because I think the industry would be better off if it were more stable because in these moments people start asking questions like should you be more regulated? Should you behave in a different way? And I don't think that's helpful to the fundamental premise which is let's invest money behind great entrepreneurs and create lots of amazing things.
人们认为你像那个喊狼来了的男孩。对的。我比预期的提前了六年,但我没有退出市场,只是担心而已。但事情就是这样发生的。这真的很不幸。我愿意想一种防止这种事情发生的方法,因为我认为如果行业更稳定,就会更好,因为在这些时刻,人们开始问一些问题,比如你是否应该更受监管?你是否应该采取不同的行为方式?我认为这对于基本前提并不有益,即我们应该在优秀创业者身后投入资金,创造很多了不起的事情。
When you think back do you think you were too conservative or do you feel vindicated right now? Unfortunately and this ties into the cyclicality thing there's a saying which is the best way to protect yourself against the downside is to enjoy every last bit of the upside. Venture capital as an asset category is something you can't measure in a small window. You got to look at it over 20 to 40 years which is really bizarre because most firms don't have employees that long but the vast majority of the returns are in these periods at the top of these bubbles and so I can remember back in 99.95, 96 a couple of firms saying this is too manic. We're getting off the field and then you missed the best performance possible. So no matter what I'm saying about what I'm worried about or my psychosis is dripping out of my mouth you got to keep executing because the returns at that window are too valuable for the category.
当你回忆起来,你认为自己过于保守,还是现在觉得自己已经得到了证明?不幸的是,这与周期性的事物有关,有一句话说,保护自己免受不利影响的最好方法就是充分享受每一点利润。作为一种资产类别,风险投资是无法在短期内衡量的。你必须从20到40年的角度来看待它,这实在很奇怪,因为大多数公司的员工并没有那么长时间,但绝大部分回报都集中在这些泡沫的高峰时期,所以我还记得在1995年、1996年,有几家公司说这太疯狂了,我们要退出市场,然后你错过了最好的表现。所以无论我说什么,无论我担心什么,无论我口中流露出什么病态,你都必须继续执行,因为那个时间窗口的回报对于这个类别来说太有价值了。
Do you think this is going to impact innovation? More uncertainty, tighter funding? I don't see any reason that it will impact innovation. At the end of my career one thing that I'm remarkably aware of is just how rare success is and we tend to fantasize that every startup can be the next Facebook but we know down deep that's not true and actually the odds are much more likely you're going to fail. The road to unicorn land is littered with startups that sparkle brightly for a moment than faded. For more than a decade I covered countless companies some of which no longer exist. Maybe they were heralded as the next big social network or ride sharing competitor or they were part of hype cycles that are lately looking lavishly oversold.
你认为这会对创新产生影响吗?是否会增加不确定性,加紧资金压力?我认为没有任何理由认为它会对创新产生影响。在我职业生涯的最后,一个引起我极大关注的事实是成功非常罕见,而我们往往幻想每个创业公司都能成为下一个Facebook,但我们内心深处都知道这不是真的,而且失败的可能性更大。通向"独角兽乐园"的道路上布满了一闪而逝的创业公司。在过去十多年里,我报道了无数家公司,其中一些已经不存在了。也许他们曾被誉为下一个重要社交网络或共享经济竞争对手,或者他们曾参与过最近被大肆炒作的热潮周期。
Moving fast and breaking things was possible in the era of easy money but will it be the strategy now? Venture capitalists are always looking for founders with the right stuff, a great idea and the drive to make it happen but this is a whole new world. What's your advice to startups? My advice is pretty simple which is that thing we lived through the last three or four years that was the fantasy. Sometimes I hear an option to go well as soon as things go back to the way they were that's a catastrophically disastrous mindset. Assume this is normal and so unfortunately there are a lot of people that mark themselves to market in their brain at the top of the bubble but it's gone. Even if something like that happens again it's 15 years in the future so you're not going to wait around for it. You've got to recognize what the reality is today what your company really might be worth today.
在易钱时代,快速行动并且打破常规是可能的,但现在这是否还是一个合适的策略呢?风险投资家总是在寻找有潜力、有伟大想法和推动力的创业者,但这是一个全新的世界。对于初创企业,你有什么建议呢?我的建议非常简单,那就是我们在过去三四年经历的那些美好都只是幻想。有时我听到有人提议,在一切回到过去时,一切会好起来,这种想法是灾难性的。接受当前的情况是正常的,不幸的是,有很多人在泡沫的巅峰时期将自己置于市场中,但那已经过去了。即使再次发生类似的情况,也要等上15年,所以你不能等待这个。你必须认清今天的现实,你的公司在今天到底有多少价值。
Well you did have a lot of success navigating the ups and downs. What are the keys to your winning strategy? To be great at it requires a level of hustle that's really hard to explain and the reason is you're trying to maximize the optionality that you get in front of a home run pitch and to do that you have to look under every rock you possibly can and so if you're not studying some new business model or new platform you know AI like if you're not just in every meeting then you're lowering the chance that you're going to be successful. It's an exhausting game and there's some amazing people at other firms doing the exact same thing.
你在应对起伏时确实取得了很多成功。你的成功策略的关键是什么?要在这方面变得出色需要一种难以解释的奋斗精神,而原因是你试图在大机会出现时最大化你所拥有的选择权,为了做到这一点,你必须尽可能地寻找每一个机会,所以如果你不研究一些新的商业模式或新的平台,你就会降低你成功的机会。这是一场令人筋疲力尽的游戏,其他公司也有一些令人惊叹的人物在做同样的事情。
You covered Amazon as an analyst in the 90s before Amazon was you know barely more than a bookstore. You saw Jeff Bezos up close what sticks with you from those days? Because he came from D. Shaw and because he came from Wall Street he understood how to talk to shareholders in a way that no one else did. So if you reread his S1 where he writes a letter it's titled To Our Share Owners and he talks a lot about them. All the entrepreneurs that followed Jeff that wrote that letter were kind of like screw you Wall Street I'm going to run it my own way and it's not actually what Jeff says and he says I'm going to run it for the long term but he says I'm doing that for you which is very different whereas the other people kind of wrote we're going to run it our way and not for you and so he was special like you you you and dear yourself to a community when you talk to them in a respectful way.
在上世纪九十年代,你以分析师的身份研究过亚马逊,当时的亚马逊仅仅是一家书店而已。那时你近距离接触了杰夫·贝佐斯,这段经历给你留下了什么印象呢?因为他从D. Shaw公司和华尔街出身,他知道如何与股东进行沟通,这是其他人所不具备的。因此,如果你重新阅读他的S1文件,在他的信中,标题是“给我们的股东”,他谈论了很多关于股东的内容。所有跟随杰夫的企业家们都像说:“见鬼了,华尔街,我要按照我自己的方式来经营”,而杰夫贝佐斯的说法并不是这样,他说:“我要为了长远的发展来经营”,但他同时说:“我这么做是为了你们”,这是非常不同的。其他人往往是以他们自己的方式来经营,而不是为了你们,所以他是特别的,就像你,当你用一种尊重的方式与他们交流时,你会赢得他们的喜爱和亲近。
So how much is it about the individual versus the team versus the moment? I know it all matters it all matters it all matters about timing and getting the product exactly right. Yeah. That the founder has to want to learn to be a great CEO and that part's hard why in the world would a 22. year old founder be good at managing 10,000 people? So let's talk about that your investment in Uber is legend in part because you made a lot of money and also all the drama.
个体与团队与时刻之间的关系在多大程度上起作用?我知道这些都很重要,都取决于时机和确保产品完美无缺。是的,创始人必须渴望学习成为一位伟大的CEO,而这部分很难。为什么一个22岁的创始人能擅长管理10,000人呢?那让我们来谈谈关于这个问题,你在Uber上的投资成为了传奇,一部分原因是你赚了很多钱,还有所有那些戏剧性的事情。
Well Uber the ride-sharing giant world's most valuable startup has been in the news a lot this week. I lost $97,000 because of you. I banked because of you. Well I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect and neither is this company. There've been so many controversies one after another it's hard to remember what actually led to this but it was a blog post by a former Uber engineer who accused a manager at Uber of sexual harassment. Uber's chief executive Travis Kalenick has resigned five of Uber's major investors including benchmark capital demanded that he resigned yesterday. Gurley who was on the board until very recently lets his two partners fly to Chicago meet Travis at the Ritz and hand deliver him this letter that says we and other investors want you to reside. And Gurley was responsible for getting all of these other investors on board correct.
优步,这家共乘巨头,全球最有价值的初创公司,本周在新闻中频繁出现。因为你,我损失了97,000美元。因为你,我笑不出来了。好吧,我首先承认,我不完美,这家公司也不完美。有太多争议接连不断,很难记得是什么导致了这一切,但是一位前优步工程师在一篇博客中指责优步的一位经理有性骚扰行为。优步的首席执行官特拉维斯·卡兰尼克已经辞职,包括benchmark capital在内的五家主要投资者要求他昨天辞职。古利曾是董事会成员,最近才让他的两位合作伙伴飞到芝加哥,在丽思卡尔顿酒店亲自递交这封信,信上写着我们和其他投资者要求你辞职。古利负责让其他所有投资者加入,请确认。
When you look back on that how do you reflect? In a perfectly executed world that doesn't happen like we help the the founder and the team you know navigate their way to a successful company. I won't name any names but I think there are plenty of entrepreneurs from previous generations that are not perfect humans and matured along the way right and became different people and different leaders and you'd like to make that happen. It's not from a lack of effort there were lots and lots of tries but it didn't work out like like whether it was adding board members or the type of governance or all that like we didn't quite get it there and things started to spiral. I think all the stakeholders employees customers drivers it was all at risk.
当你回顾过去的时候,你如何反思呢?在一个完美执行的世界中,我们帮助创始人和团队顺利走向成功公司。我不会点名,但我认为之前的几代企业家并不是完美的人,他们在成长过程中变得不同,成为了不同的领导者,而你希望能够实现这一点。这并不是缺乏努力,有很多次尝试,但它没有像我们预期的那样成功,无论是增加董事会成员还是治理方式,我们并没有完全做到,事情开始失控。我认为所有的利益相关者,员工,客户,司机,他们都面临着风险。
It caught Hollywood's attention and my mom is so excited we're talking because she loves the bill Gurley that's played by a Kyle Chandler.
这引起了好莱坞的注意,我妈妈非常兴奋我们正在谈论这件事,因为她非常喜欢由凯尔·钱德勒扮演的比尔·格利。
We need to build companies that change the world the key to being a great coach is you got to love your guys right he has to take this guy in earth wings he has to love this guy those two together knew this was something that's going to hit and boy were they right.
我们需要建立能改变世界的公司,做一位优秀教练的关键是你必须真心热爱你的团队,他必须接纳这个人在地球上翱翔的样子,他必须爱上这个人。这两个人一起知道这是一件会成功的事情,他们是如此正确。
Did you watch it like what did you think of his portrayal this hope has done sound bad every single female that I know came up to me and said exactly what your mom said so they said wow you're so lucky to be playing by Kyle but none of them said and he looks a lot like you.
你看了吗?你对他的表演有什么看法?这个角色的塑造听起来很糟糕,我认识的每个女性都跟我说了和你妈妈一样的话,说你真幸运能和凯尔合作,但她们没有一个人说他长得很像你。
I was initially nervous about watching it but there was so much that there were a lot of things that weren't true like that were just kind of embellished and that made it easier to watch because it wasn't it wasn't like reliving the whole thing benchmark kind of got an anti-founder narrative out of that first it was uber then it was Adam Newman it we were right and I but when we were working with these four other venture firms and made a decision to try and arrest the situation at uber everyone knew what the consequences of that was we weren't like blind if we do this some class of humans are going to use this against us and point it out and put us in that bucket and this is sounding overly dramatic but you know the thing we told ourselves as we we headed out the door was you know history will be on our side and you know no matter what the cost was if I went back in time I'd do the exact same thing.
我最初对观看这部影片感到紧张,因为有很多事情并不是真实的,只是有点夸张,这使得观看变得更容易,因为它不是在重新体验整个过程。benchmark对此产生了一种反创始人的叙事,开始是针对Uber,然后是Adam Newman,我们是对的,但是当我们与其他四家风险投资公司合作并决定试图解决Uber的情况时,每个人都知道这样做的后果是什么。我们并不是盲目的,如果我们这样做,一些人类群体将会利用这一点来反对我们,将我们归类到那个框里。这听起来可能过于夸张,但我们告诉自己的是,无论代价是什么,历史将站在我们这一边,如果我能回到过去,我还会做同样的事情。
the soft bank money there's tiger global there's big money coming from Saudi Arabia all of this money not necessarily smart how do you think this is going to play out I mean there's a lot of great things that I could use at this moment in time I'll just pick one it's like they say there's a fool in every market if you don't know who it is it's probably you I mean the markets have a way of separating very risk-seeking individuals from their capital it may not happen overnight but it always happens eventually like there's no easy money.
软银这里有虎哥和沙特阿拉伯的大笔投资,但并非所有这些资金都是聪明的。你认为这将如何发展呢?我是说,此刻有很多我可以利用的绝佳机会,我只想选一个。就像他们说的,每个市场都有傻瓜,如果你不知道是谁,那可能就是你。市场有办法将那些极度冒险的人与他们的资本分离,这可能不会一蹴而就,但最终总会发生,就像没有轻松获取的钱一样。
I love the FTX story not because I want to pick on anybody but to make the decision to give money to somebody that has no board and it has a side business that's commingled who tells you it's not comming oh then turns out it was comming like what are you doing what why did so many people fall for FTX and Sam Bagman free we're talking about legitimate legendary venture turnover the numbers were really really big so those are seductive the individual is unique and capable of narrative and FOMO if you're missing out drives a lot of behavior in Silicon Valley a lot and it's classic now I mean that's all I like talking about it because until you get to that moment you don't get the correction like you need excessive risk taking and then you get excessive arbitrage which a lot of crypto writ large may have been just excessive arbitrage taking money from people that want to separate themselves from it and then you get a correction this is classic it's not new.
我喜欢FTX的故事,并不是因为我想挑刺谁,而是为了决定把钱给一个没有董事会的人,他们还有一个混合经营的副业,告诉你它没有混合,然后结果却是混合的,你在做什么,为什么这么多人会相信FTX和Sam Bagman free,我们在谈论合法的传奇风投交易额非常非常大,所以说这些是诱人的。个人是独特且有叙述能力的,FOMO(恐错过)驱动着许多硅谷的行为,这是经典的,现在它已经成为了一种传统。我之所以喜欢谈论这个问题,是因为在你达到那一刻之前,你不会得到纠正,你需要过度的风险承担,然后你会得到过度的套利,很大一部分加密资产本质上可能只是从那些想要与之区别开来的人那里获取资金,然后你会得到一次纠正,这是经典的,不是新鲜事。
After all that talk about the fate of venture capital, it's time to dig into another classic Texas barbecue. This place is amazing. I'm so excited. You ever been here before?
在那么多关于风险投资命运的谈论之后,现在是时候展开另一场经典的德克萨斯烧烤之旅了。这个地方太棒了,我太兴奋了。你以前来过这里吗?
All right, I'm ready for my big Austin barbecue. Oh look at this, oh my god, oh my god, this looks amazing. Oh wow, you're gonna eat all this? It's for you. Thank you so much. Let's taste this brisket.
好了,我准备好享受奥斯汀的大型烧烤了。看看这个,哦天啊,哦天啊,看起来太棒了。哇,你要把这些都吃完吗?这些都是给你的。非常感谢。让我们尝一下这块腌牛肉。
Okay, where would you move if you were going to start a company today? Place can be very impactful and so if I were like a 22-year-old founder starting something, I'd go to Silicon Valley just because it's going to increase your odds of success.
好的,如果你今天要创办一家公司,你会选择搬到哪个地方?地点可以产生很大的影响,所以如果我是一个刚刚开始创业的22岁创始人,我会选择去硅谷,因为这样会增加你成功的几率。
What about like Miami, LA, and Boston? And I think many cities, whether it's Austin or Miami, they have a problem that sounds ironic, but they're a lot of fun. And so I think there's a question as to whether you attract the very most determined founders. Oh, that's a little controversial, which may explain why Seattle's done so, not that it's not a wonderful place, but for two-thirds of the year it's dark out. Exactly.
那像迈阿密、洛杉矶和波士顿这样的城市呢?我认为很多城市,不论是奥斯汀还是迈阿密,都存在着一种让人感到具有讽刺意味的问题,但它们都非常有趣。所以我认为有一个问题,就是你是否能吸引最有决心的创业者。噢,这可能会有点争议,这也可能解释为什么西雅图如此成功,不是说它不是一个美妙的地方,但是有三分之二的一年时间天黑了。确切地说。
I do think there are a lot of contagious qualities to successful startups, constantly around other people that are all in the same game. Yep, it's super helpful.
我认为成功的创业公司有许多传染性品质,不断与其他志同道合的人接触,这真的非常有帮助。
So you stepped back from an active role at Benchmark a few years ago. How much are you still investing? What I really did was stop making new investments, so I'm still on 10 boards. The shift in the markets and the bubble bursting kind of increased the workload and the end of time frames. And I think other VCs have hung around past their point of relevance. I don't want to be that person.
那么,您几年前放弃了Benchmark中活跃的角色。您现在还在投资吗?实际上,我停止了进行新的投资,所以我目前还担任着10个董事会的职务。市场的变化和泡沫破裂增加了工作量和时间框架的压力。而且我觉得其他风险投资家已经超出了他们的相关性点继续活动下去。我不想成为那样的人。
You mentioned earlier Benchmark has always stayed super small and lean. Other venture firms like Andreessen Faraway, it's gotten big. And you're often pitched against Mark Andreessen as sort of an opposite. Whose model do you think is going to stand the test of time? How do you think about that?
你之前提到Benchmark一直保持着小而精干的规模。而其他风投公司,比如安德烈森远方,却已经变得庞大。经常有人将你与马克·安德烈森对比,认为你们代表了两种截然不同的模式。你认为哪种模式经得起时间的考验?你是如何思考这个问题的?
Well, I do think that there are numerous successful models in venture. I mean, it's not an industry where you can run the table. I think the one reason that Andreessen created some animosity in the valley was when they came in, they made these bold statements like we're going to change everything, we're going to take over. But it doesn't bend to taking over. It's just not structured everywhere. There are a number of VCs that seem to be sort of indulging in the politics of anti-wokism and getting into these various debates. And yeah, it happens on the other side of the aisle too.
哦,我确实认为在风险投资领域存在许多成功的模式。我的意思是,这不是一个你可以独霸的行业。我认为Andreessen在硅谷引起争议的一个原因是,当他们进入时,他们发表了这些大胆的声明,比如说我们要改变一切,我们要统治。但实际上并不是到处都适用这种方式。有一些风险投资公司似乎沉迷于反工作主义的政治,并参与了各种争论。是的,这种情况也发生在另一方面。
You know, what do you think of that trend? I think I understand some of the issues that caused them to adopt that mindset. In the past five years, there have been objective functions injected into startups that aren't solely how well is the company doing or how well is the company stock doing, but it becomes hard to succeed if the employees aren't showing up and saying let's all march in the same direction.
你知道吗,你对这个趋势有什么看法?我认为我理解了一些导致他们采取这种心态的问题。在过去的五年里,创业公司注入了一些客观的目标,它们不仅仅是公司的表现或股票表现如何,而是如果员工不齐心协力、向同一个方向前进,那么很难取得成功。
As I understand things at Google, there's just quite a bit of tension between the employee base and the executives there, and it's hard. It makes the job harder to execute the company well. And I wonder what happens to the cultural tension in Silicon Valley when the money's gone, right? The party's over. The money prints are no longer. Goes for or whatever it is. How do you think that's going to change things?
据我了解,谷歌员工和高管之间存在相当大的紧张关系,这让工作变得困难。这使得公司的运营变得更加艰难。我想知道,当资金流失、派对结束时,硅谷的文化紧张会发生什么变化呢?金钱的印刷机不再存在,或者变得不再重要。您认为这将如何改变事情?
I mean, if it is, it's a good thing given obviously the environment that we're moving into. Like you saw Amazon up close. Where is the next Google or Facebook or Amazon or Apple going to come from? There's always someone that's going to come. You think Jeff Bezos will ever come back with full Steve Jobs? I don't think so. I don't think it's very much fun being a public CEO, especially one of those top five. They invite you to Washington and yell at you in front of people. Yeah, where's Larry Page been the past 10 years? You seen him? I haven't seen him. I did see him once. I did. I haven't seen him. I saw him once, but yes, he must be perfectly happy doing something else.
我是说,如果是这样的话,显然是一个好事,考虑到我们正在进入的环境。你亲眼看到了亚马逊的情况。下一个谷歌、脸书、亚马逊或苹果会从哪里出现呢?总会有人会出现的。你认为杰夫·贝佐斯会像史蒂夫·乔布斯那样完全卷土重来吗?我不这样认为。我不认为成为一名公开的首席执行官特别有趣,尤其是那些排名前五的。他们会邀请你去华盛顿,在大家面前责骂你。是的,过去的十年里拉里·佩奇在哪里呢?你见过他吗?我还没有见过他。我见过他一次。我见过他一次,但是是的,他一定在做其他的事情很开心。
All right, well maybe we should invite Jeff Bezos and Larry Page to have some barbecue in Austin because this was fun, right? Yeah, good.
好的,也许我们应该邀请杰夫·贝索斯和拉里·佩奇在奥斯汀一起烧烤,因为这挺有趣的,对吧?是的,不错。