The Auto Investor: The Hidden Opportunity in Auto
发布时间 2023-10-31 17:00:34 来源
摘要
This episode is brought to you by: AutoFi - AutoFi empowers your team with digital retail technology that accelerates the sale.
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There's no doubt there are macroeconomic headwinds. And think about the way we look at the world you asked me about autonomy earlier. Does that have an effect later without adapt? Does this funkiness with EVs we've talked about? Is that gonna have an effect without a doubt? So is the dealer in uncharted territory? Yes. Much, much more so than any other time in my 20 years, 25 years in the sense.
毫无疑问，宏观经济面临一些不利因素。回想一下你之前问我关于自主性的问题，没有适应性会对未来产生影响吗？我们之前讨论的电动车的问题是否会毫无疑问地产生影响？所以，车商是否处于未知领域？是的，比我二十五年来的任何其他时候都要多得多。
What's up everyone, this is CarRe dealership guy. You're listening to the CarRe dealership guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Let's get into today's episode.
大家好，我是CarRe车场的人。你正在收听的是CarRe车场的播客节目，我将尽力为您提供对汽车市场最公正和透明的见解。让我们开始今天的节目吧。
Chase Frazier is the managing partner at FM Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in early to mid-stage transportation technology companies. In this conversation, we discussed the rise of rumored Carvana, the state of automotive tech and venture capital, the most notable trends that Chase is investing in, the unique opportunities with autonomous vehicles, his macroeconomic concerns for the car market, the state of AI in the auto sector and where the value will likely be created, and his biggest wins and conversely, most humbling moments as an investor.
Chase Frazier是FM Capital的管理合伙人，这是一家投资于早期到中期交通技术公司的风险投资公司。在这次对话中，我们讨论了传闻中Carvana的崛起，汽车技术和风险投资的现状，Chase正在投资的最显著趋势，自动驾驶汽车带来的独特机会，他对汽车市场的宏观经济担忧，汽车行业人工智能的现状以及可能创造价值的领域，以及他作为投资者取得的最大胜利和最令人印象深刻的时刻。
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We're just having a sidebar on the whole room, Carvana saga. I'm just curious, you're about to say something and I wanted to make sure we get it into the podcast. What are your thoughts on that whole thing in a big way? Yeah, we looked at Carvana early and I would tell you that's one I missed. I missed only because it would have been a huge, huge return. Right? If you had sold, right? Do I? If you had sold an IPO, I know, we didn't have going from and it's part of my best story and my worst story. We wrote it up, we looked at the stock, we compared it to Carvana, we saw that Delta, we hung on a little too long and sold it the wrong time. Now we made money, but it still worked out. Carvana's done well this year. It's been a good place to be. It feels like they're on a good track. But then we talked about a roller coaster ride with that whole space.
我们只是在整个房间的边栏上讨论Carvana的传奇故事。我只是好奇，你即将说什么，我想确保我们把它放到播客中。你对那整个事情有什么想法？是的，我们早早就关注过Carvana，我告诉你我错过了它。我错过了只因为它将会有巨大的回报。对吧？如果你卖掉了，你觉得呢？如果你在IPO时卖掉了，我知道，我们没有对它进行深入了解，这是我最好和最糟糕故事的一部分。我们写下了它，我们看过这支股票，我们将其与Carvana进行了比较，我们看到了Delta，我们持有的时间有点太长，以错误的时间卖出了。现在我们赚了钱，但事情仍然进展顺利。Carvana今年表现不错，是一个好的地方。感觉他们走在正确的轨道上。但之后我们谈论了整个领域的过山车之旅。
Yeah, it's been a hell of a journey. I've just chatted with some of those people there internally. And I would say they've come much further than many people even thought they could or would. If you look at their inventory mix now, one of a CDG follower, a guy named Joe Pistel actually used to work at cars. He posted an interesting graph on LinkedIn and he showed that Carvana's assortment of vehicles today is tens of percentages cheaper than the new car dealer counterparts, which pretty much just alludes to the fact that there's an affordability squeeze in the market and Carvana is very much a skiering their inventory mix to cheaper, more affordable in order to put these cars on the road. It's a very challenging market. It's amazing, really early days of both of those companies. You're sending a 22 year old kid into the auction and saying, hey, go buy a vehicle. And the other guys there are like, oh, we love this, right? And it was such a catastrophe. Now, but I got to give them credit, they're buying much, much better now. And it feels like they've given a little bit more dialing.
是啊，这真是一段艰辛的旅程。我刚刚与一些内部人员进行了交谈。我要说的是，他们的进展远远超过了许多人的预期。如果你看一下他们现在的库存组合，一位名叫乔·皮斯特尔的CDG追随者实际上曾在汽车行业工作。他在LinkedIn上发了一个有趣的图表，显示Carvana今天的车辆种类比新车经销商的车辆要便宜很多，这几乎就暗示了市场上的价格压力，Carvana正在非常努力地调整他们的库存组合，以生产更便宜、更经济的车辆。这是一个非常具有挑战性的市场。真是令人惊叹，这两家公司都处在早期阶段。你把一个22岁的孩子送到拍卖场，让他去买辆车，其他人会说，哦，我们喜欢这个，对吧？结果是一场灾难。但我必须承认，他们现在购买的车辆要好得多。感觉他们对购买有了更多的把握。
Yeah, I'm curious, why do you say that? Like where's that insight? What does that root it in? You know, it's dealers that are telling me that actually. And I feel like that's the best litmus test right of, you know, their paying attention. And so it's not so much my opinion as it's a lot of my dealer buddies. Yeah, that's a, you got the primary source right there.
是的，我很好奇，为什么你这样说？你的观点根植在哪里？你知道，这是车商告诉我的事实。我感觉这是一个最好的检验，就是他们是否在关注事态。因此，这不仅仅是我的意见，而是很多与我关系密切的车商朋友的观点。是的，你可以说他们是原始信息的主要来源。
So, so Chase, you know, when I was doing some research on you on FM Capital or your firm, I've been curious, you know, just starting very high level, right? Like how your VC, your Boulder, Colorado, just not something that I would not somewhere I would expect, you know, VC to be headquartered in giving kind of where the tech hubs are. Can you give us some background? Like how did you get into the space? Why Boulder, what's it been like?
所以，Chase，当我在FM Capital或你们公司上做一些研究时，我很好奇，从非常基础的层面开始，对吧？就像你们的风险投资公司，在科技中心所在地以外的博尔德，科罗拉多州，这不是我预期的地方。你能给我们一些背景信息吗？你是怎么进入这个领域的？为什么选择了博尔德？这段时间感受如何？
Well, the why Boulder is just a great place to live. I wanted it spot to raise my family. And so this was, this was home and it, it's ended up being phenomenal. Boulder's actually got a very vibrant VC, tech stars was started here. You know that name and I'm tech stars as a worldwide brand at this point. I got in David Cohen started that here and it's still, I still hear it. And then Brad failed. I don't know if you know that name Brad's with Foundry. He's got an enormous following. He's here. And so it's just kind of quiet little town that's got a lot going on from a venture standpoint.
嗯，为什么博尔德是一个很棒的居住地。我想要一个适合养家的地方。所以这里成了我的家，结果非常棒。博尔德实际上拥有一个非常活跃的风险投资界，tech stars就是在这里开始的。你可能听说过这个名字，现在tech stars已成为了一个全球品牌。David Cohen在这里创办了它，我还时常听到这个名字。还有Brad Faild，我不知道你是否知道他，他与Foundry合作，拥有一大批追随者，他就在这里。所以这个安静的小城市在风险投资方面可谓有很多动态活动。
The Valley, the Valley is where it is for sure. I mean, there's no doubt that there's more VCs out there. I think I read an article the other day that there's 1200 VCs in the Valley alone. But if you think about what we're doing and a lot of your audience is focused on dealer tech, it's not in the Valley. You know, some companies are out there that most aren't. And so I'm on a plane two days a week for 40 weeks a year. So I'm just road wear, right? And have been for decades and I love it honestly. It sounds terrible, but I actually really enjoy that. We need to go to the deals. And our business is not about sitting on a Zoom and having a call. If you have to touch it and feel it, you have to go have dinner with the entrepreneur. You've got to feel good about what you're about to put money in. And so it's just the nature. We work a ton, but I love it. And there's nothing else I want to be doing.
山谷，山谷肯定是存在的地方。我的意思是，毫无疑问那里有更多的风险投资者。我记得前几天看了一篇文章，说仅在山谷就有1200个风投公司。但如果你考虑我们正在做的事情，还有很多你的受众关注的是经销商科技，这些都不在山谷。你知道，有些公司在那里，但大多数不在。所以我每周乘坐飞机两天，一年40周。所以我已经是豁出去了，不是吗？几十年来一直如此，但老实说，我很喜欢。听起来很糟糕，但我实际上非常喜欢。我们需要去找交易。我们的业务不是坐在Zoom上打电话。如果你必须亲自体验并感受它，你必须和创业者一起共进晚餐。你必须对自己即将投资的项目感到满意。所以这就是本性。我们工作得很辛苦，但我喜欢。我没有想做其他事情。
It's, I feel like it's such a competitive venture market. You know, I've done quite a few investments myself into space. People reach out to me all the time and, you know, just angel investor in there. But my question to you is like, why specialize just in automotive and transportation? Right? Like it's already such a competitive market. Doesn't that just like narrow kind of your aperture and make it even more difficult to bring the returns to your investors?
我感觉这个风投市场非常竞争激烈。你知道的，我自己在太空行业做了很多投资。人们一直在找我，我只是一个天使投资人而已。但我想问你的是，为什么专注于汽车和交通领域呢？对吧？这个市场已经很具竞争力了。这样做难道不会限制你的选择范围，让你更难为投资者带来回报吗？
Yeah, right now we're raising money for our fourth fund. So I'm talking to a lot of people about this topic and they're asking, well, why specialize? It's really hard to be a generalist right now. There are so many generalists out there. And if you look at the universe, there's three or four VCs that do what I do. And we don't even really run into each other in the space. We'll see 800 deals this year. And so when I started this, we were seeing 100. And we'll end up investing in college five or six a year. So we'll end up doing less than 1% so it's not a deal flow problem. And the specialization works 2 2 thirds of our investors are automotive entities. So it's either dealers, it's OEMs, it's distributors, it's gigantic software vendors that you're dying sure of who they are. That room helps us be better. So I feel like it gives us an edge. Some of our best deal flow is coming from that group.
是的，现在我们正在为我们的第四个基金筹集资金。所以我正在与很多人讨论这个话题，他们问，为什么要专攻？现在成为全才很困难。现在有这么多全才。而且如果你看看这个领域，有三四家风险投资公司和我做同样的事情。而且我们在这个领域里很少碰面。今年我们会看到800个交易机会。而当我开始时，我们只看到100个。然后我们最终会每年投资不到1%的项目。所以这不是数据流的问题。专攻让我们的投资更有优势。我们的投资者中有2/3是汽车相关企业。所以不管是经销商、原始设备制造商、分销商，还是那些你肯定知道他们是谁的巨大软件供应商，他们都帮助我们变得更好。所以我觉得这给了我们一个优势。我们最好的投资机会有很大一部分都来自这个群体。
That was going to be my next question. How do you get your deal flow? What is that secret sauce for you? I don't know if it's secret sauce, I think. I mean, you've been in the industry a long time and the best stuff comes from friends, from industry friends. Hey Chase, I just saw this deal. This guy's got 50 stores. It's a really cool tool. You need to go talk to this guy. Oh great, please introduce me. Or it's from an LP who's gigantic. He was like, hey, we really like this. We may want to buy this at some point. I can't buy it now. If we buy it now, we're going to crush it. It's just too small. Go take a look at this Chase and see if we can move it from 200 dealers to 2,000 dealers or 1,500 dealers.
那将是我的下一个问题了。你是如何获取你的交易流量的？对你来说，有什么秘密武器吗？我不知道是否有秘密武器，但我觉得，我是说，你在这个行业已经有很长时间了，最好的机会都来自朋友，来自行业朋友。嘿 Chase，我刚看到了这个机会。这个人有50家门店。这是一个非常酷的工具。你需要去找这个人谈谈。哦，太好了，请向我介绍一下。或者是来自一个巨大的有限合伙人。他说，嘿，我们真的很喜欢这个项目。可能在某个时候我们会想要购买它。我现在不能买，如果我们现在买了，我们会把它搞垮的。它只是太小了。去看看这个 Chase，看看我们是否能把它从200个经销商变成2000个经销商或1500个经销商。
Tell us a little bit about some recent investments. What are your areas of focus? And where have you invested recently? When it comes to auto tech, what are the movers and shakers? Where's your head at?
告诉我们一些最近的投资情况。你关注的领域是什么？最近你投资在哪里？当谈到汽车技术时，有哪些主导者和重要人物？你的关注重点在哪里？
Yeah, it's the ACEs theme if you've seen that. So our first one is really, we call it this automotive category, but it's dealer tech. It's the things you and I know. It's what helps dealers sell and service, and OEMs sell and service more vehicles. So just think about the NADA floor. You're walking the NADA floor. Who's in that room? Who's got the latest greatest and who's the money you want to talk to?
是的，如果你看过那个主题的话，这就是ACEs主题。所以我们的第一个主题是，我们把它叫做汽车类别，但实际上它是经销商技术。它是你我所了解的东西。它有助于经销商销售和维修，以及原始设备制造商销售和维修更多的车辆。所以只要想象一下在NADA展厅里走动。谁在那个房间里？谁拥有最新最伟大的产品，谁是你想要交谈的人？
Autonomy is interesting. We don't love B2C autonomy. Google and Cruz and these other folks are going to win that game, but B2B autonomy is interesting. There's some really cool today use cases. We've got a company called Gatic, where we're delivering product from a Walmart distribution center to a Walmart with no drop. 24, 7, 365 days a year. And that's always live. That's happening today. It's live. So we like B2B applications for autonomy. It's fixed route, takes lots of right turns to get there, can run at three o'clock in the morning, versus that rubber taxi that's going to pick you up in front of your office today. That's tough. That's a really, really hard math problem. I'll let Google win that. Just the amount of money that you've got to spend to figure that out. There's really interesting use cases in B2B.
自主技术很有趣。我们并不喜欢B2C的自主技术。谷歌、Cruz以及其他公司将会在这个领域获胜，但是B2B的自主技术就很有意思。有一些非常棒的今天应用案例。我们有一个叫Gatic的公司，在沃尔玛分销中心和沃尔玛之间进行产品交付，没有任何途中下车。每天24小时，7天，365天。而且这种情况一直在发生。就是现在就有。所以我们喜欢自主技术在B2B领域的应用。它是固定路线，需要右转很多次才能到达目的地，可以在凌晨三点运行，而不是今天会在办公室门口接你的橡皮的出租车。那太难了。那是一个非常非常难的数学问题。我让谷歌来解决它吧。只是你需要花费大量的金钱来弄清楚这个问题。在B2B领域有一些非常有意思的案例。
Do you think dealers should be concerned about autonomy? Or do you view that entire world? Or do you, like you said, do you think it's going to be a B-type of thing? And the consumer adoption and just how realistic that is, it's way out in the future. It's just not something to think about today. Long term, it's going to be a challenge because the Googles and the apples and the manufacturers are going to get in the fleet leasing business. And they're going to have a lot of vehicles running around and instead of you owning those two vehicles in your garage, I think you may want one of them, theoretically. The other one, you pay $500 a month and you get usage rights to an autonomous vehicle. So who bought that vehicle? I don't think long term that's sold for the dealership. So what happens then? In your view, like in your thesis, what happens to the dealership? How does it evolve in like five, 10 years? What does that look like?
你认为经销商是否应该关注自主性？还是你认为整个世界都应该关注？或者，如你所说，你认为它将是一种B类的东西吗？消费者接受度以及这个概念的可实现性仍然遥远。现在并不是考虑这个问题的时候。从长远看，这将是个挑战，因为谷歌、苹果和制造商将进入车队租赁业务。他们将拥有很多车辆在道路上运行，而你可能只想要其中一个车辆，理论上而言。对于另外一辆车，你每个月支付500美元，以获得使用自主驾驶车的权利。那么谁购买了这辆车呢？我认为从长远来看，这辆车不会由经销商销售。那么之后会发生什么？根据你的观点和论点，经销商会发生什么变化？在五到十年内会是怎样的情况？
Yeah, I mean, just a macro comment. I am such a huge fan of dealers having been around them for about 20 plus years. They're my favorite entrepreneurs in America because they're scrappy and they just know how to make money. And they know how to make money because they know how to sell. And so if the world changes for a dealer, they're always going to figure out a way to sell something. I think ultimately, dealers are going to get really, really good at service. I think this whole fear around the average RO price dropping because of EV. You may have less volume, but I'm not so sure that the average RO doesn't actually increase. And I'm not so sure dealers don't get really, really, really good fixed-offs. So instead of having 30 bays, they have 70 bays. I think the guy who ultimately gets hurt in all that is Joe's garage, the independent. The guy that's just out there trying to make it happen, he doesn't have the toolkit to actually repair some of these vehicles. So it's going to be a problem for the independence in my mind. The dealer's going to be fine, but it's going to look much different.
是的，我的意思只是一句宏观评论。作为一个长期与他们打交道的粉丝，我非常喜欢车商，已经有20多年了。他们是我在美国最喜欢的企业家，因为他们勇于创新，并且知道如何赚钱。而他们之所以能赚钱，是因为他们知道如何销售。所以，如果世界对车商来说发生了变化，他们总会找到一种方式来销售产品。我认为最终，车商们会变得非常擅长服务。我觉得人们对由于电动车导致平均RO价格下降而感到恐慌的问题有些过度了。也许销售量会减少，但我不确定平均RO价格是否真的会增加。而且我也不确定车商是否会取得非常好的固定回报。所以，他们可能会将拥有30个工位的车库扩大到70个工位。我认为在这一切中最终受害的是像乔的修车店这样的独立店。这些店主不具备修理这些车辆所需的工具和技能。所以，这对独立店来说将是一个问题。车商们会没问题，但形式将会大不相同。
Yeah. I would agree with that. I think I've been pretty vocal about just being a franchise dealer nowadays versus an independent. We sort of had this decade of independent tailwinds for the independent dealer, declining interest rate, floor plans were cheaper. You had a rise of independent dealers and suddenly in the last 12 months, I mean, indies are disappearing, left and right. Or at least many are, the ones that don't have kind of fortified balance sheets, been pretty, just crazy how it's all happened so quickly. I would agree with you though that the future of the franchise dealer, like that fleet servicing management, just service in general, for service in general fixed-offs, that is, I agree that that's the area or that is the future. Not to say that, use parts and all that isn't, but it's much more susceptible to OEMs kind of coming in and trying to, the agency model quote unquote, or doing some direct to consumer, however that goes. So just an interesting side now, we've got investors from all over the world. And one of my investors is out of Australia. And he's got the agency model working. And it was interesting to get him in a room. We've got this advisory board where all of my biggest investors get together and talk shop. And generally, the dealers in the room are pretty nervous about agency because one, it's different into what's going to happen to me. Can you explain how that actually works to agency model for anyone listening that's not familiar with the term?
是的。我同意这一点。我认为我在现在与成为一个独立经销商的品牌经销商方面非常积极。在过去的十年里，独立经销商一直受益于利率下降和库存计划更便宜的东风。你会发现独立经销商的数量上升，但突然在过去的12个月里，独立经销商正在消失，左右递减。至少有很多经销商是这样，那些没有巩固资产负债表的经销商-真是太疯狂了，事情发生得如此之快。不过我同意你所说的未来的面向是品牌经销商，即针对车队服务和整体服务，以及固定偏离量修复。我同意这是未来的方向。这并不意味着使用零部件等都不重要，但更容易受到原始设备制造商的干预，或者试图进行一些所谓的代理模式或直接面向消费者销售。所以这只是一个有趣的侧面，我们现在来自世界各地的投资者。我其中一位投资者是来自澳大利亚的。他的代理模式正在运作。让他参加这个咨询委员会的会议真是有趣。我们有一个咨询委员会，我的最大的投资者们聚在一起交流。通常情况下，房间里的经销商们对代理模式持有紧张态度，因为这是一种不同的模式，他们担心自己会发生什么变化。然后你可以解释一下代理模式是什么，以及它对那些不熟悉这个术语的人的影响吗？
Yeah, you're, you're, you're, we're a franchise today, but you're even more of a franchise in the future, meaning you're, you're, the big, expansive floor plan. You don't actually own those vehicles that are on your, your lot. And, and that was a big positive for him in, in Australia. And so he actually shared in this, this data is nine months old. We haven't shuddered about it since, but his actually net margins are the same. Now it's, it's early days in, in that process. But thus far, he felt pretty good about, about what was going on. Now I didn't ask him a lot of hard questions in the room because we had a lot of other folks in the room. So I don't actually know. I didn't, I didn't see the female, but he just said, you know what, I was worried about this and it's, it's been okay. Thus far. So he is pretty much selling these vehicles that are not on his balance sheet and then are they, are they being delivered directly fundamentally? In fact, sure. Or do they first come to the dealership and then he does fulfillment? What does that look like?
是的，今天我们是一个加盟店，但在未来，你将成为更大规模的加盟店，意思是你会有更宽敞的店面计划。实际上，你并不拥有停放在你车场的那些车辆。而且，在澳大利亚，这对他来说是一个很大的优势。所以他实际上分享了这些数据，虽然这些数据已经是9个月前的了，但我们从来没有因此感到担忧，而且他的净利润率实际上是一样的。现在在这个过程中是早期阶段，但到目前为止，他对正在发生的事情感到非常满意。在房间里，我没有向他提出很多困难的问题，因为我们有很多其他人在场。所以我实际上不知道。我没有看到那位女士，但他只是说：“你知道吗，我对此感到担心，但事实证明还好，到目前为止。”所以他实际上主要是销售那些不在他的资产负债表上的车辆，那么它们是直接送达的吗？从根本上说，或者它们首先会被送到经销商那里，然后他进行履约？这是什么情况？
Yeah, it's, the model still looks very similar to where he's still delivering at, at the dealership. I think ultimately though, the future of the agency is where you've got very few vehicles on the lot. And so it's going back to what's the future of the dealership look like. If the agency model happens, it's a showroom and a delivery room. So you got your showroom of four cars. You've got your delivery room of six cars. You've got the person doing the walkthrough and then you've got a gigantic fixed ops area. You've got lots and lots of bass back there for repair. What I just said, I'm not sure that's going to happen, but it is a trend that can potentially help.
是的，模型看起来仍然非常类似于他在经销商那里的交付方式。不过，我认为代理商的未来是在展厅上拥有很少的车辆。所以，回到经销商的未来是什么样的问题。如果采用代理商模式，那就是一个展厅和一个交付室。所以你有四辆车的展厅，有六辆车的交付室。你有人负责步行游览，然后你有一个巨大的固定运营区域。后面有很多车辆维修的基地。我刚才说的话，不确定会发生，但这是一个有潜力的趋势。
Talk to me about just the tightening parameters on venture capital. It's with specific with respect to auto tech, right? Like what has happened in the last two years? And all this craziness of evaluations up down. And how has that impacted our industry specifically with respect to auto tech?
跟我谈谈关于风险投资的收紧参数，主要是针对汽车科技对吧？就像在过去两年中发生的情况一样？而且这种评估上下波动的疯狂现象又如何影响了我们的行业，特别是在汽车科技方面？
Yeah, if you and I were doing this two years ago, I would have been a little nervous and I was nervous because these unicorns were just nuts. I'd have a conversation with a guy and based on revenue multiples, maybe this business was worth $200 million. There's something about the B, the B and a billion. And I know I'm worth a billion dollars, like everybody wanted to be wanted to be a unicorn. And that was scary. It was scary for us in the industry because our business is about one aspect. It's about buying, right? Like I've got to be able to buy the product, right? And if I can't, in that example, 200 versus a billion, it's going to take me seven years to catch up to that valuation, if I believe it. So I just can't do that. Right? And so we largely stayed away from the unicorns. I guess I did techie on it and then everybody on this call or a lot of folks in the call know techie on and that was a unicorn, right? From a valuation standpoint, that one's different though. That one's got a trajectory that's I think a little different than just Joe below unicorn out there. But just directly answer your question. I'm really positive about valuations right now because I don't want them to rebound. I want them to. This is rational. I'm having these conversations with entrepreneurs and it feels good. We can set it at a table and I'll be like, okay, I think you're worth that. So you think you're worth a while. Let's meet in the middle of them. Let's make an investment. That was not happening two years ago and that that imbalance isn't healthy for the industry.
是的，如果两年前你和我做这件事的话，我会有点紧张，因为那时的独角兽公司实在是太疯狂了。我会与一位商人对话，根据收入倍数来评估这个企业的价值，也许这个企业值2亿美元。有一种关于“B”的感觉，B代表十亿。我知道我值十亿美元，就像每个人都想成为一个独角兽一样。这让人感到害怕。对于我们行业来说，这很可怕，因为我们的业务只涉及一个方面，就是采购。我必须能够买得到产品，对吗？如果我在那个例子中选择了2亿而不是10亿，那么如果我相信这个估值，我需要七年时间才能迎头赶上。所以我不能那样做。所以我们大多数时候都不接触独角兽公司。我猜我在这方面有些技术性做法，与在场的大家都知道的那家技术公司是一个独角兽，对吗？从估值的角度来看，那是个不同的情况。那家公司的发展轨迹与其他普通的独角兽有所不同。但是直接回答你的问题，我对目前的估值非常积极，因为我不希望它们反弹。我希望这是合理的。我正在与创业家们进行这些对话，感觉很好。我们可以坐下来商讨，我会说：“好吧，我认为你值这个价。”而你认为你值这个价。让我们在中间地带相遇，进行投资。这在两年前是不可能的，而这种失衡对整个行业并不健康。
And are you looking right now when you're looking at auto tech, are you looking for, are you putting more focus on cash flow positivity? Are you still early stage, just revenue, revenue kind of top line? That's what's most important. Are you optimizing more for one or the other? That's basically my question.
在你考虑汽车技术时，你是否现在正在寻找更多的现金流正向性？你目前处于早期阶段，只有收入，收入为主？这是最重要的。你是否更加偏向于优化其中一方面？基本上这就是我的问题。
Yeah, we use the term a lot path to profitability and back even when thing when people weren't talking about that, that's a big deal to us. How are these businesses going to get to profitability? So it's still a very important thing for us.
是的，即使在人们并不谈论这个问题时，我们仍经常使用"盈利之路"这个词。对我们而言，这是一件大事。这些企业如何实现盈利？因此，对我们来说，这仍然是一件非常重要的事情。
This whole term burn. I mean, I use it just because that's what we talk about in the industry. I can't stand the word, right? Burning money. Like I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and just that term just seems a little crazy, like burn money. Can we come up with a better way to talk about that? I wish we could.
整个术语“burn”实在让我难以忍受。我只是在行业中使用它，因为这是我们谈论的内容。但是实在受不了这个词，对吧？烧钱。就像我在一个创业家庭长大，这个词听起来有点疯狂，像烧钱一样。我们能不能想出一个更好的方式来描述这种情况呢？我真希望能做到。
But I'll tell you, the burn rate, you get a business that two years ago was burning a million to a million bucks a year. You can't do that. I mean, I'm not. And there are a lot of companies that were burning a million to me a box a month. That doesn't work today. I don't think anything over. 500 is problematic, but it's also a function of what are your cash reserves. If you're burning 500 and you've got 60 million bucks in the bank, that's a different now.
但是我告诉你，资金燃烧速度，你得到的是一个两年前每年燃烧一百万到一百万美元的企业。你不能这么做。我的意思是，我不会这样做。而且有很多公司每个月燃烧一百万甚至更多。这样的模式在今天行不通了。我认为超过500是有问题的，但这也取决于你的现金储备。如果你每月燃烧500，而银行账户有6000万美元，那种情况就不同了。
Said definitely, we want our companies to have 18 months of run long. Because we feel like 18 months is a nice safety net through any kind of economic situation. And a vast majority of our companies are in 18 plus.
据说，我们希望我们的公司能持续运营18个月。因为我们感觉18个月的运营时间是一个良好的安全保障，能够应对各种经济情况。并且我们大部分的公司都有至少18个月的运营期。
What do you think about the current state of AI? There's been lots of chatter in the broader tech industry, but then specifically within dealerships, you know, people have asked me, like, what am I seeing? How do you think just number one, what is the state of AI? And then I would have built on top of that, you know, how is it going to change the buying experience for consumers, management experience at a dealership? Can you kind of walk us through that?
你对当前人工智能的发展状态有什么看法？整个科技行业都有很多关于这个话题的讨论，尤其是在经销商机构内部，人们问我，我是怎么看待这个问题的？首先，你认为人工智能的发展现状如何？然后，我会进一步提问，它将如何改变消费者的购买体验和经销商的管理经验？你能给我们做个简单的介绍吗？
Yeah, I mean, a macro comment, I think open AI, open AI will actually have a place in history books in a paragraph in our kids history books in 900 years. And it's, I think it's both good and bad, right? And we could, this podcast isn't about the negatives around what AI could do. But I think it's enormous game changer. Now talking about our industry, and I'll keep referring to this in ADA floor because it makes sense to a lot of your listeners. There are really good salespeople on that floor, phenomenal salespeople. I think the tech in general is just okay. I've given a B, right? So the tech's decent.
是的，我是说，宏观评论，我认为Open AI，Open AI将在我们孩子的900年历史书中占据一段篇幅。这既是好也是坏，对吧？我们不会在这个播客中讨论AI可能带来的负面影响。但我认为这是一个巨大的游戏变革者。现在让我们谈谈我们的行业，我会一直提到ADA Floor，因为这对你们很多听众来说是有意义的。那个楼层上有非常出色的销售人员，非常了不起的销售人员。我认为技术整体上只是一般般。我给了个B，也就是说技术还可以。
What's going to end up happening, I think, is there's going to be four or five big corporations that have the really, really good AI. And it's, well, you can guess who they're going to be. I mean, we reread about it, but it's going to be a likely three or four. And then there's just going to be APIs into that. And then what ends up happening is you just build products off of that. So you and I walk in the ADA floor in 10 years and we're looking around. I think everybody has an API into one of those three or four, but they don't own that IP.
我认为最终会发生的是，将会有四到五家大公司拥有非常好的人工智能技术。你可以猜一下是哪几家公司。我是说，我们已经看过相关报道，但可能会是三到四家公司。然后，其他公司就可以通过这些公司提供的API来构建产品。所以，十年后当你和我走进ADA大厦时，我们会看到每个人都与这三到四家公司之一有关联的API，但他们并不拥有那些知识产权。
And so the way my mind's thinking is, okay, how do I then value this company in the future? Who's capturing the value? Right. And what kind of, what are these license and agreements look like with one of those big four? And then how much tech have you built on top of that that I can value? And so there's going to be some kind of social games going on, I think, in the future where entrepreneurs are going to say, hey, I've got this thing and it does this. And I'm like, okay, well, let me look underneath the categories. Oh, no, 90% of this is not you. 90% of this is Microsoft. Could you make a similar case, though, that like 90% of anything that Internet is not right? Like this podcast we're recording right now is not me. It's it's Amazon Web Services in the background and stuff like that. So like, how do you think about the distinction there? Do you just think that with AI, the value gets accrued more to the kind of parent code, and then, you know, all these startups and companies that are out there kind of building AI tools for dealers, they're just not going to capture as much of the value that's available.
所以，我的思维方式是，好吧，那么我如何评估这家公司的未来价值呢？谁能获得这份价值呢？对。那么这些许可和协议与这四大巨头之一是什么样子的呢？然后，你们在上面构建了多少技术，我可以给予价值呢？所以我认为未来将会出现一些社交游戏，在这些游戏中，企业家们会说，嘿，我有这个东西，可以做这个。然后我会去看这些类别的底层。哦，不，这个东西90%并不是你的。90%是微软的。你能不能提出一个类似的论点，互联网上的任何东西90%都不是属于某个人的呢？比如，我们现在录制的这个播客不是我做的。它是亚马逊云服务及其他背后提供支持的。所以你如何看待这种区别呢？你认为使用人工智能，价值更多地积累在“母代码”上，然后这些为经销商构建AI工具的创业公司和企业，它们将无法获得可获得的价值的那么大一部分。
A good litmus test of our patents, right? And how much IP protection does a company have? If I go into a deal, even today, and we look at it and it generally has no IP protection, I get a little nervous. And so it's a little bit of I like the lawyers to figure out the differentiation. And if you see some tech and they've got, you know, 50 total patents or 47 pending three that have been awarded. And then I look at how broad those three are. That changes my view of my ex. I mean, think about the way I think about a business. I'm always thinking about the exit. What is this business going to look like in five years? And when I'm talking to somebody about buying it, do I have enough intellectual property and do I have moats around what I do? And if I have moats around what I do, I'm more likely to want to do that.
这是对我们专利的一个很好的试金石，对吧？一家公司有多少知识产权保护呢？即使是在今天，如果我参与一笔交易，我们检查后发现该公司基本上没有知识产权保护，我会有点紧张。所以这有点像我喜欢让律师们弄清楚区别所在。如果你看到一些技术，他们有50个专利总数，或者47个待决和3个已颁发专利。然后我会看看这三个专利的广度如何。这会改变我对我的退出的看法。我的意思是，想想我对一个企业的思考方式。我总是在思考五年后的这个企业会是什么样子？当我与某人谈论购买它时，我是否拥有足够的知识产权，并且我是否有围绕我所做的事情的护城河？如果我有护城河，我更有可能愿意这样做。
There's a slide that we have out there. There are dealer tech deals that I just know are going to sell because I understand dealers. And there's not a lot of IP protection. We'll do those deals just because I know Reynolds or CDK or Cox, one of the usual suspects likely could like this business.
我们有一个幻灯片在那里。我知道有一些经销商技术交易肯定会卖出去，因为我了解经销商。这些交易并没有太多的知识产权保护。我们会做这些交易，只是因为我知道雷诺公司、CDK公司或科克斯公司，这些通常的嫌疑人很可能会喜欢这个业务。
So tell me like, practically speaking, you know, how do you envision AI actually looking into dealership? What is this? You know, lots of deals like, you know, what is all this hype? Like, I'm selling a car, there's a proven way to do it. Like, how is this actually going to impact the dealership? In your opinion, of course.
所以告诉我实际上，你知道，你是如何设想AI真正进入汽车经销商行业的？这是什么？你知道，有很多交易，这一切炒作是什么意思？比如，我在卖一辆车，这有一种被证实的方法。实际上，这将如何影响汽车经销商呢？当然，这是你的观点。
I'm an accident, actually, you're asking your opinion as well about the deal of the world. But this is more of a macro comment. I still feel like dealers are a little bit behind, and maybe a lot behind the curve on just customer experience. It's still in some way is a broken retail experience. Now is it way better than it was two years ago? Yes. Is it going to be much, much better over the next 10? Yes. The dealership, the retail, the franchise dealer is progressing. But it goes down to just the human interaction. And what does the consumer want?
我是一个意外，实际上，你也在询问你对世界交易的意见。但这更多是宏观评论。我仍然觉得经销商在顾客体验方面有些落后，甚至可能远远落后于潮流。从某种程度上说，这仍然是一种有缺陷的零售体验。现在与两年前相比，它是否好很多？是的。在接下来的十年里，它会变得更好得多吗？是的。经销商、零售商和特许经销商正在进步。但最终关键在于人际互动。消费者想要什么呢？
And so I don't know that I think so much in specific use cases in a dealer. Oh, there's this AI camera. And when I drove up, I saw you in a regular license plate and I had a guy walk up who knew to upsell you on the transmission flush. I mean, all of that stuff is going to happen. I'm more concerned about the macro experience for the consumer.
所以我并不在意在销售员中考虑那么多具体的使用案例。哦，有这个AI相机。当我开车过去时，我看到你配备了普通的车牌，有个人过来向你推销变速器冲洗。我的意思是，所有这些事情都会发生。我更关心的是消费者的总体体验。
Said differently, you're going to have, you know, you're going to go to dinner with another couple this weekend in your talkie. You interview them about the dealership experience. 99% of them are going to go, I am. That's not a great experience. What I think happens with tech, and it's not once over bullet, it's a lot of different tech and specifically AI. Hopefully you have that conversation in 10 years. And I'm like, wow, that's a much better experience now.
换句话说，你要去与另一对夫妇共进晚餐，他们将谈论他们在购车过程中的经历。99%的人都会说，我也是这么认为。这并不是一个很好的经历。我认为科技会发生变化，不是一蹴而就，而是通过不同的技术，尤其是人工智能。希望在10年后你再次进行这样的对话时，会有更好的体验。
Yeah, look, I think that the way I view it, you point to like a specific solution potentially or you're alluding to a couple of things that could happen. I think that if you just put the entire car buying process from like the moment someone has a desire to purchase a vehicle to the moment, you know, they're three months with their car and they're driving in happily ever after. I think that entire process just needs to be simplified short and it's many, many small minor touch points. I think that we're still operating kind of many disparate systems that don't talk to each other very well. Maybe the handoff is not great. And I don't think, and I think there's a good reason why we've gotten to this point, right? Like why do you go to dealer's website and you know, you have that pop up and then you have like, you know, five call to actions and then you have this little widget to go get your financing terms. All these are different tools that are not necessarily talking to each other. And it's because it is, you know, the car, you know, this car purchase is built up of so many elements. You have financing, you have, of course, the actual inventory, merchandising, yada, yada, yada. So I think the more we can get those things to communicate together, I think that's, you know, the companies that are going to kind of accrue a lot of this value in the industry because they're going to be able to just deliver a better customer experience because all the systems are actually talking to each other and the customer experience is just a seamless handoff. I don't have to go from working with the widget to working with the lead provider to going to the CRM that, you know, maybe doesn't parse to information correctly because, you know, yada, yada, yada. That's how I think about it.
嗯，你看，我认为从我的角度来看，你可能指向一个具体的解决方案，或者你在暗示可能发生的一些事情。我认为，如果你将整个购车流程从一个人产生购车欲望的那一刻，到他们购车三个月后满怀愉快地驾驶，都简化成一个过程，只涉及很多细微的接触点。我认为我们仍然在使用很多不相互很好交流的系统。也许交接不是很好。我认为之所以出现这种情况，是有很好的原因的，对吧？为什么你要去经销商的网站，然后看到弹出窗口，然后有五个呼叫动作，然后有这个小小的小部件去获取你的融资条款。所有这些都是不相互交流的不同工具。这是因为车购买涉及很多因素。你有融资，当然还有实际库存，商品推广，等等。所以我认为，我们越能让这些事物相互交流，我认为那些能够在行业中积累大量价值的公司将能够提供更好的客户体验，因为所有系统实际上都在相互交流，客户体验就会无缝过渡。我不需要从与小部件一起使用中转到与潜在客户提供商一起使用，然后再转到可能无法正确解析信息的客户关系管理系统，因为，等等。这就是我对此的看法。
I agree completely and just to like pull on that thread a bit. Which one of the four DMSs or which two or three of the four DMSs we're going to figure that out? I think it's a race to get there and I think if anybody is going to aggregate, disparate software ad hoc software programs within a dealership, it's probably those guys. So what does that look like? And I won't even venture to guess how it's all going to shake out. I'm, by the way, I'm very close with all four of them and have been for decades. So they're all friends. And that's not a politically correct answer. It's, I am friends with them. I don't know who's, how this is all going to shake out, but you're right.
我完全同意，并且只是稍微延伸这个话题。我们会确定这四个DMS中的哪一个，或者确定其中两个或三个，对于那些我们将要采取的措施？我认为这是一个竞赛，谁能最早实现目标，而且我觉得如果有人要在经销商中聚合、整合零散的软件、临时性的软件程序，那可能就是那些人。那么这会是什么样子呢？我甚至不敢猜测这将如何发展。顺便说一下，我与他们四个人关系密切，这样已经持续了几十年。所以他们都是我的朋友。这并不是为了政治正确而说的，而是因为我真的和他们是朋友。我不知道这一切会如何发展，但你说得对。
So I want to, I want to shift topics for a second from AI. Talk to me about EVs and your involvement in the space. You know, there's tons of chatter on it right now. You know, we're seeing some weakened demand across the board for just general EVs, not necessarily Tesla, although they've also been slashing our prices in order to buoy that demand. And to be clear, like, this is not a not going to Tesla at all. I think Tesla's a phenomenal company and I think they have a phenomenal product. But I also think that there have been some very, very high expectations for where EVs are going to go. And I think we're starting to sort of, you know, get closer to kind of reality here with weakened demand, slower sales across most major brands.
所以，我想说，我想转个话题，不谈人工智能了。跟我谈谈你在电动车领域的参与吧。你知道，目前关于电动车的议论纷纷。我们看到整个电动车市场的需求都在下降，不仅仅是特斯拉，虽然他们也一直在削价以提振需求。需要明确一点，我并不是说特斯拉不好。我认为特斯拉是一家非常好的公司，他们的产品也非常优秀。但我也认为人们对电动车市场未来的预期过高了。我认为我们现在开始逐渐接近现实，电动车的需求下降，各大主要品牌的销量也放缓。
What is your take on kind of the current state of EVs and, you know, what's to come next?
你对目前电动汽车的发展状况有什么看法？你认为接下来会有什么发展趋势？
Yeah, I'm going to look backwards to answer that question because we've been watching this while I've been in VC and had a lot of comments around all of this. So what are we, and buddies? And you know, you'd have a beer with one of these guys and off the record and you'd talk about Elon, this was the early days. And they'd be like, no way can that guy do this. There's many manufacturing vehicles really, really hard. It's never going to work. He's never going to make it right. And this wasn't one person, this was virtually everybody I talked to, right?
是的，为了回答这个问题，我要回顾一下因为我们一直在观察这个问题，当我在虚拟会议中有很多评论时。那么我们是什么呢，是伙伴吗？你知道，你会和这些家伙之一一起喝啤酒，私下里谈论埃隆，这是早期的日子。他们会说，这个家伙不可能做到这一点。制造车辆非常非常困难，它永远行不通。他永远不会做对。而这不是一个人说的，几乎是每个我谈过的人都这么说。
So fast forward and you're in a board room and your stock's 15 bucks and his is 250, he became human nature to say, hey, we need to be more like that. And it was, it was around just returns for investors. And so you had this huge push from all of the OEM boards. We need to be doing this, right? And so I, this number's definitely bigger now, but six months ago, the number was the OEMs have spent $100 billion in CapEx to get the EV train going. There's no going back. So it's a little shocking to me. It's like, whoa, like this is serious money and not only that, they can't make money on these cars. That's the can, but most of the others can't and it's going to be a while, I think, before you see like really good profit margins on these EVs. The OEMs are in a really funky, dangerous spot in my opinion.
转到现在，你在会议室里，你的股票价值15美元，而他的价值250美元，人们自然而然地说，嘿，我们需要更像他。而且，这完全是为了投资者的回报。所以，所有OEM董事会都在积极推动这一点，我们应该这样做，对吗？六个月前，OEM已经投入了1000亿美元的资本支出来推动电动汽车的发展。这是不可逆转的。所以这对我来说有点震惊，这是一笔巨额资金，而且不仅如此，他们无法从这些车辆中赚钱。有人可以，但大多数人不行，而且我认为，在这些电动汽车上实现真正的利润率还需要一段时间。在我看来，OEM处于非常棘手、危险的境地。
So then shifting gears, this whole day is an inventory. Again, my data is a month old, but it was like 42 days for an ICB engine, a combustion engine. So I had two days for an EV. So then I asked my investors, what's going on? And they're like, they're just not moving. And so then I asked myself, okay, was this an early adopters problem? Did everybody who wanted to buy an EV have they already bought them, right? Like the, the early adopters in tech, right? Or is it a version one problem of software? Like I can tell you right now I'm driving the, the Rivian SUV. It's, it's flipping phenomenal. But I'm driving to a meeting. My vehicle tells me that I've got 300 miles of range. It's 200 by the way. And I just coast back into the office at exactly zero percent. So this product itself is so early innings, right? Just the, and I'm not talking about Rivian. I'm talking about just EVs in general.
对于这一天的调查，我的数据是一个月前的，但对于内燃机来说，ICB发动机约为42天。而对于电动汽车来说，需要两天。所以我询问了我的投资者，发生了什么事？他们说车子根本不动。于是我问自己，这是不是早期采用者的问题？所有想要购买电动汽车的人都已经购买了吗？就像科技行业的早期采用者一样。或者这是软件的第一版问题吗？我可以告诉你，我现在正在开着Rivian SUV，真是太棒了。但我正在开车去开会，我的车上显示还有300英里的续航里程，实际上只有200英里。最后我在刚好用尽电量的时候回到了办公室。所以说这个产品还处于早期阶段，我指的不是Rivian，而是所有的电动汽车。
For us, the magic number is 500 miles of range and seven minute charge. The seven minute charge is the time it takes you to, to fill up your vehicle. That's what I was saying. Yeah. Right. And the 500 miles is obvious. It's a tank of gas, right? plus your miles. That's where we need to go. So you, you think we get to parity like that? You think the industry, you get a lot more consumer adoption?
对我们来说，魔法数字是500英里的续航里程和7分钟的充电时间。7分钟充电是为了让你的车辆充满电所需的时间。这就是我说的。是的，没错。而且500英里的续航里程是显而易见的。这相当于一箱汽油，对吧？再加上你的里程。这是我们需要达到的目标。你认为以此为基准，我们能实现平价吗？你觉得这样能让更多消费者接受电动汽车吗？
I think there will be more consumer adoption for sure. I mean, I also think the, there's mixed messages. You're, you're one of the OEMs that's been pumping out, not for, you know, the lightning. Are they doing a good job marketing that vehicle? I don't, I don't know. Maybe not. This, it goes back to ask your buddies, hey, what do you think about this product? Well, I don't really understand it. Right. Tesla's pretty, pretty pure about what they are. Hey, tell me about Tesla. You asked that same buddy, they'd like to give you a pretty fine-eyed answer of what that is. Hey, tell me about the Chevy Bolt. Well, I don't really, I don't really understand the, the product. So I think ultimately we get there, but I think there's, it's going to be really messy. I think it's going to be the messiest thing we've seen in our industry in the last 20 years, short term. I think long term it kind of susses itself out.
我认为肯定会有更多的消费者采纳。我的意思是，我也认为，有些信息是混乱的。你是其中一家一直生产不是为了闪电的原始设备制造商(OEMs)。他们在宣传这款车方面做得好吗？我不知道，也许不是。这就回到了问问你的朋友们，“你对这款产品有什么看法？”嗯，我不太明白它。没错，特斯拉对自己是相当纯粹的。“告诉我关于特斯拉的事。”你问这个朋友同样的问题，他会给你一个相当详细的回答。告诉我关于雪佛兰Bolt的事。嗯，我不太懂这个产品。“所以我认为最终我们会实现，但我认为这会非常混乱。我认为这将是我们行业在过去20年中最混乱的事情，短期内。长远来看，我认为会自我调整。
If one more point, I'm sorry, I'm getting passionate about this. This whole rare earth mineral thing that it's, it's making news, but I just, I don't think the average consumer is really getting their pet around. Lithian, cobalt, manganese, we don't have enough of that. And it's a very big geopolitical, geopolitical problem and it's going to get bigger. And there's a, there is a situation.
如果再多说一点，对不起，我开始对这个问题变得充满热情了。这整个稀土矿物问题，它正在成为新闻，但我觉得普通消费者并没有真正理解其中的重要性。锂、钴、锰，我们没有足够的供应。这是一个非常重要的地缘政治问题，而且它的影响会越来越大。现在正面临一种情况。
I'm a huge, huge fan of Toyota. I just think they really, really do it right. And they've been totally thrown under the bus with, in regards to EV and, you know, they didn't talk about it, didn't talk about it because they like hybrid. And they've always liked hybrid and just are really, really good at that, at that system. And so I think what we may see is a move back to the middle, you know, the, the, the, the oil and gas lobby is so unbelievably strong that they're just not going to go away. It's just not the way our democracy is set up. So and the hybrid is, is from our studies a good option. It's a, it's a good environmental option and I won't, we don't have to go into that, that part of the discussion, but it's, it's real. And so does hybrid make a comeback? I think it has to make a comeback because I don't think we have enough rarer of metals. So you think that's going to be the problem actually production or long term. That's a problem.
我是丰田的超级超级粉丝。我认为他们真实地做得很好。与电动汽车有关的问题上他们被完全冷落了。你知道的，他们从来没有谈论过，因为他们喜欢混合动力。他们一直钟爱混合动力，并且在这个系统上真的很擅长。因此，我认为我们可能会看到一个回归中立的趋势。石油和天然气游说团体实力非常强大，他们不会轻易消失。这并不符合我们民主制度的安排方式。所以混合动力从我们的研究来看是一个很好的选择。这是一个环境友好的选择，我不想详细讨论这个问题，但它是真实存在的。那么混合动力会再次兴起吗？我认为它必须再次兴起，因为我认为我们没有足够的稀有金属供应。所以你认为实际上是生产或者长期问题是主要问题吗？那是一个问题。
I have, you may have seen like my post on, to on Twitter X or, and LinkedIn and stuff, but I have a lot of dealers that just reach out to me and like, just, you know, tell me stuff, which by the way, also like a tangent. That's kind of funny. I've kind of, I've kind of fell into this area, arena, the world, or I don't know how this happened. I never considered myself to be, you know, I don't even want to say that say this is not even the right word, but independent journalist apparently. But needless to say, dealers send me all these, you know, just info and data. And it's really interesting to see how the, the state of you can, you can get really close to the pulse of what's actually happening on the ground floor, just like what you just said earlier, right? Talking to the dealers, but people from different, you know, brands, different franchises, you know, I spoke with a Hyundai dealer the other day, she's telling me, he's like, these things are not moving. I can't get them off my lot and I'm losing tons of money on them. I spoke with a couple four dealers that, you know, are having issues selling the light ninks and they're saying that's slowed down, you know, tremendously. And now, you know, that Ford was sending some trainers on site to try to help them work on talk tracks. But again, like that's not the solution here. So I, you know, I don't have a crystal ball, but what I can tell is that it seems as if though the pendulum swung a bit too quick and, and you know, it's, it's just not, it's maybe not the smartest move to kind of force one type of vehicle versus another down every consumer's throat rather, you know, really follow what the consumer wants and demands and, you know, backfill production, you know, to meet those needs. So that's sort of my very pragmatic view on kind of the state of our industry when it comes to EVs and hybrid. Yeah, I agree with that.
我有一个问题，你可能在推特、领英或其他平台上看到过我发布的帖子。但是，我有很多经销商会直接联系我，告诉我一些事情。顺便说一句，这有点有趣。我不知道为什么会发生这样的事情。我从来没有想过自己会是一个独立的记者，但显然事实如此。不过，不管怎样，经销商们向我发送了很多信息和数据。看到这些数据真的很有趣，你可以非常接近了解实际情况，就像你之前说的一样，通过与经销商交谈，了解市场的真实情况。来自不同品牌、不同加盟商的人都找我谈过话。前几天我和一个现代汽车经销商谈过话，他告诉我说：这些车销不动，我无法把它们从我的车场上去掉，而且我在它们上面损失了大量的钱。我和一些福特经销商谈过话，他们说慢动作已经放慢了很多。福特现在派一些培训师去现场帮助他们改进销售技巧，但这也不是解决问题的办法。所以，虽然我没有水晶球，但我能感觉到情况好像变化得有点太快了，或许迫使消费者强制接受某种类型的车辆，而不是真正关注消费者的需求，根据需求进行生产。这是我对我们行业在电动汽车和混合动力方面的非常实际的看法。是的，我同意这一点。
There's a really interesting chart. It's a map of the US and it shows EV growth per state. And it's very kind of, it's not exactly, but it's a little blue state red state. I think California's vehicle sales last month, I think the number was 23% EV. You'll go to other states that are 2%. Right. And so like we, we talked about this average of it was six. Now it's, it was seven and now it's eight and change. So it's moving up, but there are places in the country that you just flat out can't sell any. And so I have to, I have to wear that filter a little bit when I'm talking to someone my dealers because I have to think about it. Okay, where are you?
有一张非常有趣的图表。它是美国的地图，显示了每个州的电动车增长情况。它有点类似于红蓝州的分布，但并不完全一样。我认为加利福尼亚上个月的车辆销售中，电动车的比例是23%。而在其他州，这个比例可能只有2%。所以我们之前讨论的平均值是6%，现在已经增加到7%了，而且还在不断提高。但是在美国的某些地方，你根本无法销售任何电动车。所以当我和我的经销商交谈时，我必须带着这种考量，要考虑到他们所在的地理位置。
Yeah, it's a good point. And how does, how does that affect what I'm hearing you talk about?
是的，这是一个很好的观点。那么这个观点会对我听到的你所谈论的事情产生什么影响呢？
Have you made any meaningful investments into space? Yeah, we've got a solid state battery company called Factorial. There's, there's a problem with the existing chemistry and batteries. I don't want to bore your listeners, but there needs to be a, a, a leap in what goes on with the way the batteries are constructed and it's, it's getting rid of the liquid. The liquid is flammable and the liquid's the problem that you hear about these fires. So moving to a different kind of tech. I'm not to bore your listeners, but that, that's a good place to invest.
你在太空领域做过任何有意义的投资吗？是的，我们有一个名为Factorial的固态电池公司。现有的化学成分和电池存在问题。我不想让你的听众感到无聊，但电池的构造方式需要有一个飞跃，就是摒弃液态电解液。液态电解液具有易燃性，也是我们听到这些火灾问题的根源。因此，转向一种不同的技术是一个值得投资的好方向。
And what's interesting is because those OEMs I talked about are over $100 billion into this, they can't make a mistake. And so what's nice for us is we've got four OEM sitting beside us in this investment, which is, which is great. It's nice to have that validation.
有趣的是，因为我谈到的这些原始设备制造商已经投入了超过1000亿美元，所以他们不会犯错。因此对我们来说，很好的一点是我们有四家原始设备制造商与我们一起进行投资，这非常棒。拥有这样的认可感觉很好。
Other areas, I think, you know, my, my worry about this, not enough rare earth minerals, battery recycling is going to be a thing long term. The problem today is there's not enough feed stock. And so one is not enough EVs on the road. And so there's not enough degraded batteries. But when that flips, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be a really good place to be. It's a diesel build like operating leverage and scale and it'll be a real viable business, right? That's right. That you've got to be something with, with those batteries and you can't, obviously, you can't put them in landfills.
在其他领域，我认为，就是我对此担心的地方，罕见的稀土矿物不够，电池回收会是一个长期存在的问题。目前的问题是没有足够的原料。因此，道路上的电动汽车数量不够。因此，废旧电池数量不足。但是一旦情况发生变化，将会非常棒。这将是一个真正有竞争力的业务，它将带来操作杠杆和规模经济。没错。你必须对这些电池做些处理，显然不能把它们填埋。
Do you have a slight tangent, but do you have a lot of investors, like your investors, your limited partners are a lot of them dealers? Yeah, we've got a lot. I actually 33. So it's a, it's a big part of what we do. And it's, it's a lot of the big gas.
你有一小部分倾向性，但你同时也有很多投资者，比如你的投资者，你的有限合伙人中很多是交易商吗？是的，我们有很多。实际上有33个。这对我们来说很重要，也是我们工作的重要组成部分。同时也是我们的主要收入来源。
What's their motivation? Obviously, you know, make money. Great. But you know, there's plenty of ways to make money. What's their motivation, you know, when they, when they invest with you, you know, what are they looking for? Are they looking to get closer to the pulse of like innovation or what is it? Yeah, I've got a two ways to answer this. One is on a personal level. These guys have been doing it for like ever and they will be in their minds like, yeah, I put the other track in my 40 stores and I didn't get a piece of that. Yeah, I put been solutions in my 20 stores and I didn't get a piece of that. So on their minds a little bit, it's like, I'm helping her other business. Why wouldn't I participate in some of that upside, right? Which I get that. It completely makes sense. And I love that because it's, that's like the trend in everything you're seeing now. You're seeing it look at Messi, right? Messi, it's soccer player. Got brought to the US, you know, got like a affiliate deal or something with like Apple, right? Because their streaming service blew up. I mean, I think in general, the value creators have really woken up and, and by the way, this also impacts, you know, people like myself, actual internet creators, they just realized just, you know, they're waking up to equity, which is, you know, something that too many people as a bizarre phenomenon or they don't think about it as much. But that's, that makes a ton of sense. You know, just kind of getting a piece of something where it doesn't always work out. But when it does, you know, it can work out very well in certain cases.
他们的动机是什么？显然，你知道，是为了赚钱。很好。但你知道，有很多赚钱的方法。他们的动机是什么，你知道，当他们与你投资时，他们在寻找什么？他们是在寻找与创新的脉搏接近还是其他什么？是的，我有两种回答方式。首先是从个人层面上来说。这些人已经做这个事情很久了，他们心里可能会觉得，我在我的40家店铺中推销了其他的产品，却没有得到其中的一部分利益。是的，我在我的20家店铺中推销了这些解决方案，但我也没有得到其中的一部分利益。所以在他们的心中，有一点是，我在帮助别人的生意，为什么我不能参与其中的一些上涨，对吧？我理解这一点。完全有道理。我喜欢这一点，因为这正是你现在看到的一切趋势。你看梅西，对吧？梅西是一名足球运动员。他来到美国，与苹果签订了一份联合协议，因为他们的流媒体服务大受欢迎。我认为，价值创造者们真的觉醒了。顺便说一句，这也影响到像我这样的实际的互联网创作者，他们只是意识到了权益，这对很多人来说，或者说他们并没有太多思考这个问题，看起来是一种奇怪的现象，但这是非常有道理的。你知道，只有在特定情况下，这种情况可能并不总是起作用，但当它起作用时，它可能会起到非常好的效果。
The other thing is these dealers like more practically, these dealers businesses have kind of just been on a trajectory that's very predictable. It's not predictable anymore. And so if you think about it, it's a, it's a pretty small investment to make in order to see potentially something that could disrupt your store. Oh, I didn't know that was happening. I've got to, it's, it's protective, right? I need to do something about that. Or I really like that. I'm going to go co-invest with FM capital and I want to set beside them in that deal because that's something I want to get behind. That's what the progressive dealers should be doing.
另外一件事是这些经销商更实际一些，这些经销商的生意一直以来都是非常可预测的。但现在已经不可预测了。所以如果你仔细想想，投资一点钱来见证可能会打破你店铺的事情是非常值得的。哦，我不知道这正在发生。我必须采取保护措施，对吧？我需要做些什么。或者我真的喜欢那个。我想与FM Capital共同投资，我想在他们的交易中参与，因为我想支持那件事。这就是进步的经销商应该做的。
Yeah. And what would you say dealers are most interested in? Like are they looking at deep tech or are they looking at, hey, make me, make my service operations, you know, smoother. So I make more money. Like what is that? Is there any kind of bias towards one thing or another? Yeah. You know what has not changed and this is, which is a funny, good question you ask is somebody will pitch me on something that saves them money or somebody will pitch me on something that's, that's educational tool that's going to train their employees. You can sell those two things. It's a much, much harder sell to a dealer. They want to move metal. It's the way their brains are wired. Sell me technology that helps me sell or service more vehicles. The disc test does it sell cars. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic, but it is just so true. But it goes back to what I love about a dealer. They are so resilient because they know how to sell. They're always going to know how to sell. It's the beauty of our industry.
是的。你会说经销商最感兴趣的是什么？比如他们是在寻找深度技术，还是在寻找能让他们的服务运营更顺畅，从而让他们赚更多钱的东西。对某些事物有偏向吗？嗯，你知道有一件事情从未改变，这个问题很有趣。有些人会向我推销一些能为他们省钱的东西，有些人会向我推销一些教育工具，用来培训他们的员工。你可以推销这两种东西，但对经销商来说，这是非常非常难推销的。他们想要促进销售。这是他们思维的方式。卖给我能帮助我销售或提供更多车辆服务的技术。Disc测试是否能够卖车。我知道这听起来非常简单，但它就是如此真实。但这也说明了我对经销商的喜爱之处。他们非常有弹性，因为他们知道如何销售。他们永远都会知道如何销售。这就是我们行业的美妙之处。
So it contains the way I look. It deals a little bit because I know what the dealer is going to want. Now I will tell you the saving money piece. It just had matters because dealers have killed it like ridiculously killed it recently. When things turn, which they have to, right, from a cycle standpoint, they will be more cost conscious and will we do better with companies that are wired that way? Yes. I've got a company called WarCloud that I love. It's automating the warranty claims process. Super boring, super mundane. Who cares? The dealer cares because that's a huge pain point for them. They're going to care more when they're looking at expenses. Two years from now. Three years from now. I've heard of them, great company. What do you think about the regional dealership consolidation? Are we a moving. If anyone's listening to this has one store, maybe two stores, maybe even three, right? Is the world increasingly going to be more difficult for them? Is this a game of bigger players where there's no more mom and pop dealers? Or does it just get a lot more difficult, margins compress? You survive, but you don't really thrive. How do you think about that?
所以它包含了我的外表方式。我稍微处理了一下，因为我知道经销商想要什么。现在我会告诉你关于节约钱的部分。这很重要，因为近来经销商已经把它搞得很过分了。当情况改变时，从一个周期的角度来看，他们会更加注重成本，那么我们与具备这种思维方式的公司会做得更好吗？是的。我有一家叫做WarCloud的公司，我非常喜欢它。它正在自动化保修索赔流程，非常无聊，非常平凡。谁在乎呢？经销商在乎，因为这对他们来说是一个巨大的痛点。当他们看到支出时，他们会更加在乎。现在是两年后，三年后。我听说过他们，很棒的公司。你对区域经销商整合有什么看法？我们正在移动。如果有人听到这个有一家店，或许两家店，甚至三家店，对他们来说，这个世界会变得越来越困难吗？这是一个大公司的游戏，不再存在小铺吗？还是只会变得更加困难，利润空间压缩？你能维持生存，但不能真正繁荣。你如何思考这个问题？
Yes, maybe it's a bit controversial. I think the OEMs, 130 fewer dealers, and although the party line is we support everybody, they really are getting behind the big guys. In a lot of cases, the big guys are getting the new points. I'm not. This isn't conspiracy theory. It's just a function of the way business in our industry is working. I think the small guy gets less attention over the next decade, for sure. I think margins get squeezed for the small guy. What's interesting about the big guys, and I'm tech-minded because that's what I do, right? They just have bigger budgets, so they can do a couple of things. They can experiment with every thing, which is really valuable. Then, two, they can just spend more money with tech. It hasn't really mattered in the past because this is an old-school sales engine. Here comes it up. We're going to close this guy. We throw him in a CRM, and in the old days, we're waiting to see our own, but today, and we close it. Tech's going to change a lot of that, and the small guys are going to have a bigger uphill battle.
是的，也许这有点争议性。我认为原始设备制造商、少了130家经销商，尽管说我们支持每个人，但他们实际上是在支持大公司。在很多情况下，大公司正在得到新的收益点，而我没有。这不是阴谋论，而是我们行业运作方式的一个结果。我认为在未来十年里，小公司会受到更少的关注。我认为小公司的利润空间会被挤压。关于大公司有趣的是，我是一个喜欢技术的人，因为那是我的工作，对吧？他们的预算更大，所以他们可以做几件事。他们可以尝试每一件事情，这真的很有价值。然后，他们可以花更多的钱在技术上。过去这并不重要，因为这是一个老派的销售引擎。我们将关闭这个交易，将它放进客户关系管理系统，过去我们要等到我们亲自见到他，但今天我们就能直接关闭交易。技术将改变很多这样的情况，而小公司将面临更大的困难。
They're some really good ones. There's going to be some guy in the middle of nowhere, Des Moines, Iowa, who his customers are so loyal, and he's been there for 100 years. He's not going anywhere, but there's going to be some other dealers that will have some challenges. Does the current state of the car market and the economy, and is that concerning you? As you're looking at these deals, you're observing trends, does the current state of what's happening with delinquencies rising with subprime borrowers, the price of cars, kind of lack of affordability? How do you think about that? Does that concern you?
这些都是真的好例子。在爱荷华州得梅因这样一个偏远的地方，会有一些非常忠诚的顾客为那里的一个商人提供支持，他已经在那里经营了100年。他不会离开，但是其他一些经销商可能会面临一些挑战。目前的汽车市场和经济状况是否让你担心？在你观察这些交易时，是否注意到延期付款上升、次贷借款人的价格以及汽车的可负担性等趋势？你如何考虑这些问题？你是否担心？
Yes. In short, yes. The OEMs have a plan of dangerous game. I mean, EV is a very dangerous profitability game for them, but what they've also done is they put so much tech into vehicles. The average cost of a vehicle is gotten into a silly area, and the stimulus money obviously really helped bolster things.
是的。简而言之，是的。汽车制造商们玩着一场危险的游戏。我的意思是，对他们而言，电动汽车是一场非常危险的盈利游戏，但他们也在车辆中搭载了太多的科技。车辆的平均成本已经达到了荒谬的水平，而经济刺激资金显然对提振行业起到了很大帮助。
Now that stimulus money is largely run through our economy, you're going to see in interest rates, right? This is an interest rate thing is a real problem for vehicle financing, obviously. So you've got this funky little perfect storm of increased vehicle price. This interest rate issue, yes.
现在刺激资金大部分运转在我们的经济中，你将会看到利率上升，对吗？显然，这个利率问题对车辆融资来说是一个真正的问题。所以，你将面临着车辆价格上涨的恶劣情况。同时，还有这个利率问题，是的。
Now I'm an optimistic guy, and I think what ends up happening is there's a shift and they've either vehicles have got to get cheaper, so whatever it is, the manufacturer's putting out there, it's not the king ranch F-150. It's another version that's affordable, right? So there'll be ebbs and flows, but short term, those should be a little bit.
现在，我是一个乐观的人，我认为最终会出现转变，要么车辆价格降低，所以无论制造商发布什么车型，都不会是金牌 牧场 F-150。它将是另一个经济实惠的版本，对吧？所以会有起伏，但短期来看，这些起伏应该是小的。
What do you think that net impact is going to be on the industry? I mean, do you think just volume declines for five years, or do you think there's like, you know, just like a secular change to the industry, to buying behavior? You're talking about just units sold, sir?
你认为这个行业的净影响会是什么？我的意思是，你是否认为仅仅是五年的销量下降，还是你认为这个行业会发生像宗教般的变革，影响购买行为？先生，你在说的只是销售单位吗？
Yeah, I think I'm very concerned about, you know, I see these numbers and this data and I post about it regularly, and I'm talking to dealers, like I did a post other day, I did a post that I just said, hey, dealers temperature check. I've never done this before, by the way. I just said dealers temperature check, you know, what are we seeing right now on the ground floor?
是的，我觉得我非常关心，你知道的，我看到了这些数据和数字，并定期发布文章，我和经销商们交谈，就像前几天我发布的一篇文章，我只是说，嘿，经销商们，请告诉我们当前实际情况如何？
（注：ground floor可能是指市场情况的底层，也可引申为基层或实质的现状）
And I've never seen this before, where almost every single dealer is telling me they're having a terrible month, or their worst month, or maybe like only cash buyers. Again, there's some exceptions, like some dealers are doing fine, but overwhelmingly, I mean, you can look through this thread, there's like 400 responses, most of the dealers telling me that, you know, they're not doing well.
我从未见过这样的情况，几乎每一个经销商都告诉我他们这个月都过得很糟糕，或者是他们最糟糕的一个月，或者只有现金买家。当然也有例外，有些经销商做得不错，但总体来说，我是指大部分经销商在回复中都表示自己的生意不好。你可以看看这个帖子，有大约400个回复，大多数经销商都说他们的经营情况不好。
And I'm just sitting here saying like, what the heck, like this is happening quickly. Is this like a blip, is this just like you for shenanigans, you know, pre holidays or like what is going on?
我坐在这里想着，完全不知道怎么回事，这一切发生得太快了。这是一时冲动吗？这只是你为了开玩笑吗？我说的是，到底发生了什么？
Yeah, I, that's an interesting comment I did the same with, with my dealers. Is it a blimp in time? And I look at human nature, what I find about dealers is they think in terms of 30-day rates, right? How many vehicles did I sell this month? And what's my fixed, what's my fixed absorption look like on the back end? And a lot of ways are very simple, simple model.
是的，我也同样带着我的经销商做出了一个有趣的评论。
这是一个时间上的错开吗？
而我观察人性时，发现经销商们从30天的销售率来思考。他们会问自己这个月我卖出了多少辆车？我的固定吸纳率在后端是多少？在很多方面，这是一个非常简单的模型。
What I sometimes ask is, okay, well, what does your P&L look like today versus what it looks like five years ago? And this whole doubling of net profit for dealers over the last two or three years, they've all got used to that kind of number. And so you've got this dealer group that's making $50 million a year, and they were making 20, 25. It's a paradigm shift, right? Okay, are you going to go back to making 25 a year like you did when this funky little profit blimp wasn't there with inventory? I think there's a lot of that.
我有时会问的是，好吧，你们的损益表今天和五年前相比是什么样子？在过去两三年里，经销商的净利润翻了一番，他们都习惯了这种数字。所以你有这样一群每年赚5000万美元的经销商，而他们以前只能赚到2000万到2500万。这是一个范式转变，对吧？好了，你们是不是要回到以前每年只赚2500万美元的水平，就像当时没有存货时那样？我认为有很多人面临这个问题。
So it's a little bit of like reading between the lines with human nature with dealers. What's really going on from a macro standpoint? Now there's no doubt there are macroeconomic headwinds. And think about the way we look at the world you asked me about autonomy earlier. Does that have an effect later without adapt? Does this funkiness with EVs we've talked about? Is that going to have an effect without a doubt? So is the dealer in uncharted territory? Yes. Much, much more so than any other time in my 20 years, 25 years in this industry.
所以这有点像在读懂人性与经销商之间的紧密联系。从宏观角度来看，真正发生了什么呢？现在毫无疑问，存在宏观经济风险。现在考虑我们看待世界的方式，你之前问我关于自主性的问题。如果没有适应性，这会产生什么影响？我们之前提到的电动汽车的复杂情况，这无疑会产生影响吗？所以经销商是否处于未知的领域？是的。在我在这个行业中的20年、25年里，比以往任何时候都要多得多。
So as some of that, you're observing tons of companies that are impacting just daily operations of the dealer and of course you work with lots of dealers. What would you say? What would be your piece of advice for any dealers listening to this based on your knowledge? What would you say?
所以，作为其中一部分，你正在观察到许多影响经销商日常运营的公司，当然你也与很多经销商合作。根据你的经验，你有什么建议可以给那些正在听此访的经销商呢？你会说些什么呢？
Get really good and fixed ops. I think people have gotten maybe a little lazy with that and you need to kind of return to the thing that's covering a lot of costs. So be good on the back end. I also find that dealers are admitting that their salespeople have gotten a little lazy in the sales process because there was a two year period-ish. You didn't need to sell a car. Yeah. You didn't need to sell a car.
把售后服务做得非常好，我认为人们可能在这方面有点懒散，你需要回到能够覆盖很多成本的事情上。所以在后端要做得出色。我还发现，经销商承认他们的销售人员在销售过程中有些懒散，因为有大约两年的时间。你不需要销售汽车。是的，你不需要销售汽车。
Oh, I don't have that. It's not built in a relationship and it's not in all cases. But in a lot of cases, so I think there could be a little angst around self-training and getting back to your roads and actually having to sell dealers. I mean, good consumers.
哦，我没有那个。这不是建立在一段关系中的，并且并非在所有情况下都适用。但在许多情况下，我认为自我培训和重新寻找自己的职业道路以及实际上需要销售的经销商可能会引起一些不安。我的意思是，对于优秀的消费者来说。
You think about the functional profit centers in a dealership. Are they maximizing what's going on in F&I? Right? Like your profit per copy? What does that look like? I'm a big fan of the parts department. I think it's totally underutilized. Why though? I always thought that was very, really commoditized.
你考虑一下经销商中的功能性利润中心。它们是否最大化了财务和保险部门的运作？对吧？比如每份利润？那是什么样的情况？我非常喜欢零部件部门，我觉得它完全没有充分利用起来。为什么会这样呢？我一直以为零部件部门是非常普通化的。
Yeah, we've got an interesting business called Revolution Parts where we're putting a Amazon-like experience into the parts department. The parts guys selling the warranty and the occasional job that comes in that buys that oil filter. There's a big market. We've got dealers on this platform that are absolutely slaying it in gross profit. I think at some point the lab bulb's going to go off with dealers and be like, okay, I need to figure out a way to sell parts outside of my market. I love how for every topic we discuss. You have a company you've invested in. It's great.
是的，我们有一个有趣的业务叫做Revolution Parts，我们将一个类似亚马逊的购物体验引入了配件部门。配件销售员销售保修服务和偶尔需要更换机油滤清器的任务。这是一个很大的市场。我们在这个平台上有一些经销商的毛利润非常可观。我认为在某个时刻，经销商们会恍然大悟，意识到他们需要找到一种方式在市场之外销售配件。我喜欢我们讨论的每一个主题。你每次都有投资的公司，太棒了。
That's not how I mean, well, it's a purpose and sense that we try to be pretty broad. But the other thing is we don't want to duplicate. It's hard having two in the stable that compete because they don't like it at all. So you're the anti-soft bank. You're not investing in competitors. We are for sure the anti-soft bank for a lot of other reasons. Maybe a bad example.
这不是我的意思，嗯，我们试图变得相当广泛是有目的和意义的。但另一个原因是我们不想重复投资。因为有两个相互竞争的项目很困难，他们根本不喜欢这种情况。所以你是反软银的。你不会投资竞争对手。出于很多其他原因，我们确实是反软银。也许这个比喻不太合适。
That's great. I mean, for anyone that doesn't get that analogy, do a quick Google search. You'll understand. I love it. I love it. Chase, this has been awesome. Before we wrap up, just give us some juicy quick ones. I mean, what's your biggest VC win?
太棒了。我的意思是，如果有人不明白这个类比，快速在谷歌搜索一下吧。你会明白的。我喜欢它。我喜欢它。Chase，太棒了。在我们结束之前，告诉我们一些精彩的快速案例。我是说，你最大的风投成功是什么？
You know, we talked about a room a little bit earlier and that one's in my mind only because it's not every VC wants an IPO and we take it public and we watch it in and on paper worth a gajillion dollars. Right? And then we watch it go down. And so it was tough. It was a great lesson for me. And if you got a profit on the table, you need to take it. And especially if you've got crazy profit on the table, you got to take it. And there's that siren song of, oh, yeah, but I could just get a little bit more. Right? And that's a problem. Right? And so I say a problem. We made money and it was great, but that's one that it was a big lesson for me.
你知道的，我们之前谈到了一个房间，它一直在我脑海中，因为并不是每个风险投资家都想要一家公司上市，然后我们关注它，电子数据显示价值达到数不清的巨额美元。对吧？然后我们看着它一路下跌。所以这很困难。对我来说是一堂重要的课程。如果你确实获得了利润，请及时收手。尤其是如果你获得了疯狂的利润，那你更应该收手。而那种诱人的声音总是在回荡，哦，对，我只需要再赚一点点。对吧？这是个问题。所以我说是问题。我们赚钱了，很棒，但这是一个给我的重要教训。
Yeah. Any tough losses or you don't even have to name specifically if you don't want to do anything when it comes to kind of recovering from a loss, you know, humbling yourself. Maybe you had a wrong thesis like talking to us about that.
是的。无论是遭受了何种艰难的损失，亦或你不想具体指明，当涉及到从损失中恢复过来、谦逊自己时，你都可以不做任何事情。也许你有一个错误的论点，可以与我们谈谈这个。
The greatest lesson I've had in venture is when I first got into it, I would fall in love with the idea because you meet this person and they're so excited and it's just like this. It's what's great about America. It's like it's the bedrock of capitalism. It's the bedrock of what we are as a society. Like it's beautiful, like it's the idea and bringing that idea into the marketplace. So I kind of fall in love with the person. And the problem is I've gotten a little hardened. I'm a 51 year old like hardened old guy now. The idea is important to me, but it's flipped. It's teeny, right? So where it used to be 80% idea, it's 80% teen now.
我在创业中得到的最重要的教训是，当我开始进入这个行业时，我会爱上一个想法，因为你遇到一个人，他们非常兴奋，就像这样。这就是美国的伟大之处，它是资本主义的基石，也是我们作为社会的基石。就像它很美丽，是一个想法，将这个想法带入市场。所以我有点爱上这个人。问题是我变得有点冷漠。我现在已经是一个51岁的、变得冷漠的老人了。对我来说，想法仍然很重要，但角度已经变了。它现在很微小，对于以前而言，想法占据了80%，现在占据了80%的角度。
Have you had it? Have you had an exit? Do you have personal money in this deal where you're sitting beside me? What are you going to do when your business fails? Because all of them fail. And I know that's a bit of a shock to say fail in the sense that they all have the dark out of the soul many times, usually three or four times. And so how are you going to react when you've got that dark out of the soul? Are you going to be able to climb out of that and say, okay, tomorrow here's what we're going to do and go own it, or are you going to crawl into a shell and just give up? It is hugely important in my space. It may be the most important thing.
你明白吗？你体验过失败吗？在我们这里坐着的时候，你参与的这笔交易有你自己的个人利益吗？当你的生意失败时，你会怎么办？因为所有的生意都会失败。我知道这听起来有些震惊，因为它们都会使人感到绝望，通常会发生三到四次。那么，当你感到绝望时，你将如何应对？你能够振作起来说，好吧，明天我们要做什么，并且全力以赴，还是会退缩放弃呢？在我的领域中，这非常重要，甚至可能是最重要的事情。
I think that's very well stated having that resilience. And like you said, every single day, with anything kind of going through these micro failures, but you got to just keep going and find a solution, be creative and keep building, pivoting, doing whatever you have to do. So I think that's very, very well stated.
我认为这种坚韧的态度表达得非常好。就像你说的，每一天都会遇到各种小小的失败，但你必须继续前进，寻找解决方案，发挥创造力，继续建设，适应变化，无论需要做什么。所以我认为这非常非常好地表达了这种态度。
I will tell you, I really feel like I'm the luckiest guy in America because I get to do this. I get to be around those people and I get to see what I really think America's all about. I'll leave you with a story. We've got some Japanese investors and we've gotten close to them. They told me once over Saki in Tokyo, they said, you know, we can't do what you do. We're very linear and we're not very creative. And so do you realize this is him talking? Do you realize the whole world turns to America? Because you guys are the ones they create. And I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. And if we look around the world and we do investments around the world, this is still the place. This is still the place for tech innovation. And I hope I don't sound like the ugly American talking. I'm someone who really believes in what we've got here. I love this country. I love America. And you know, there's, I guess, there's definitely some things that are hard to watch happening right now with politics or government and the markets and all that. But, you know, I think that we're a resilient nation and, you know, I hope and pray that we'll get out of it and that we'll come out stronger.
我要告诉你，我真的觉得自己是美国最幸运的人，因为我可以做这件事情。我可以和那些人在一起，我可以看到我认为美国的真正本质。我给你讲一个故事吧。我们有一些日本投资者，我们和他们关系很好。他们曾经在东京的酒宴上告诉我，你知道，我们做不了你们做的事情。我们很直线思维，没有创造力。所以你知道全世界都向美国看齐吗？因为你们是那些创造者。我当时觉得很有意思。如果我们看看世界其他地方，进行投资，这里仍然是最好的地方，是科技创新的天地。我希望我说话的时候不像一个丑陋的美国人。我是一个真正相信我们这里所拥有的东西的人。我热爱这个国家，我热爱美国。当然，眼下的政治、政府和市场的情况确实有些难以观看。但是，我坚信我们是一个充满韧性的国家，我希望并祈祷我们会走出困境，变得更加强大。
So I think it's very, very well stated. And, you know, I'm, I think you're a fool if you're not long America because of innovation. And you know, what we bring to the table, just a, just spirit of the entrepreneur. What a way to, what a way to end a great conversation.
所以我觉得这个说得非常非常好。而且你知道的，我认为如果你不看好美国的创新能力，那你就是个傻瓜。你知道的，我们所带来的东西，就是创业精神。这真是一次美妙的对话结束方式。
Chase, before we wrap up, if any founders are listening, if any, if any other people are listening that would like to get in touch with you, what's the best way to get in contact with you?
在我们结束之前，如果有任何创始人在听，请问有没有其他人希望与您取得联系？如果有的话，最好的联系方式是什么？
Yeah, just on that, we're raising this fund. I think, I think I mentioned it earlier. So it's our fourth fund, we've got 300 million under assets and our management right now in total. This next fund is going to be a good size. So if, if, if you're interested in hearing more, please ping us on our website, FMCAT.com. And just, just hit the contact us and we'll, we'll get in touch with you.
是的，就是关于那个问题，我们正在筹集这笔基金。我想，我之前提到过这个问题。这是我们的第四个基金，目前我们已经管理的资产总额达到了3亿美元。下一个基金规模会相当可观。所以，如果你对听更多的信息感兴趣，请在我们的网站FMCAT.com上联系我们。只需点击联系我们，我们会与你取得联系。
Yeah, we'll, we'll throw it up in the show notes as well. Chase, thanks so much for coming on. This has been awesome. It was fun.
是的，我们会在节目注释中提供链接。Chase，非常感谢你的加入。这太棒了，很有趣。
All right, hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating, consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you guys next time.
好的，希望你喜欢这一集。请给这个播客打个评分，考虑订阅节目，并查看节目备注中有关我们讨论的链接。感谢你的收听，下次再见！