I funded Coinbase in 2012. Making 6000x on my best startup investment yet - YouTube

Eight years ago, I met a founder and invested $300,000 into his company. Those shares are now worth over $2.4 billion. That company was Coinbase, which investors have now valued at more than $100 billion. It's the best investment I've ever made. You might have heard of my $200 million mistake. I said no to being a co-founding engineer at a $40 billion company. Don't feel too bad for me. I did say yes to being one of the first checks in a $100 billion startup. Silicon Valley is crazy. This is my story of my $2 billion success. Let's get into it.

八年前，我遇到了一位创业者，并向他的公司投资了30万美元。那些股票现在价值超过24亿美元。那家公司就是Coinbase，投资者目前对其估值超过1000亿美元。这是我做过的最好的投资。你可能听说过我曾经犯下的2亿美元的错误。我拒绝了成为一家市值400亿美元公司的联合创始工程师的机会。不过，不用为我感到太难过。我确实在一家估值达1000亿美元的初创公司中成为了早期投资者。硅谷真是个疯狂的地方。这是我的20亿美元成功故事。让我们开始吧。

Coinbase is now worth a reported $100 billion or more on the secondary markets. By the time you're watching this, who knows where the price will be? In March of 2012, Brian Armstrong sent me 0.05 Bitcoin using his new startup called BitBank. His idea was pretty simple. Make a clean, well-lit place for people to buy and hold Bitcoin. While a lot of startups pivot, the idea stayed the same this whole time for them. The only thing that really changed was BitBank ended up changing their name to Coinbase. When I got that 0.05 Bitcoin in 2012, Bitcoin's total market cap was under a billion dollars. Today, Bitcoin's market cap is over a trillion dollars. That fraction of a Bitcoin was worth about two cents then. Today, it's worth about $2,500.

Coinbase现在在二级市场上的估值是1000亿美元或更多。当你看到这个视频时，谁知道价格会在哪个位置呢？2012年3月，Brian Armstrong使用他的新创业公司BitBank给我发送了0.05比特币。他的想法非常简单，创建一个干净、明亮的地方让人们买卖和持有比特币。虽然很多初创公司会进行方向调整，但他们的想法从始至终都没变。唯一真正改变的就是BitBank最终更名为Coinbase。2012年我收到那0.05比特币时，比特币的总市值不到十亿美元。今天，比特币的市值已经超过一万亿美元。那时这部分比特币大约值两美分。今天，它的价值约为2500美元。

A moment later, right after I got that 0.05 Bitcoin, I got an email from Brian. He had built this prototype and got it online. He'd been coding like crazy the past few weeks. He asked, do you have any tips on finding co-founders and do you know anyone from your community who might be interested? It's funny to think back on that because anyone who would have joined back then would be a multi-billionaire today. Here's what I wrote back. The hardest part about finding co-founders is you probably already know the right people, but they might be doing other things. You've got to show these people why this could be or already is much bigger than anything that they're doing right now. It's about transferring your belief in this market and this product to others. You already know your future co-founder, but you both just don't know it yet.

过了一会儿，在我刚收到那0.05比特币后，我收到了布莱恩的邮件。他已经完成了一个原型并上线了，最近几个星期他一直在疯狂写代码。他问我有没有寻找联合创始人的建议，还问我是否认识社区里有兴趣的人。回想起来很有趣，因为当时任何一个加入这个项目的人现在都可能是个多亿万富翁。以下是我回复他的内容：找到联合创始人最难的部分是你可能已经认识合适的人了，但他们可能正在做其他的事情。你需要向这些人展示为什么这个项目可能会或已经比他们现在做的任何事情都要更大。这关乎于将你对这个市场和产品的信念传递给他人。你已经认识了你未来的联合创始人，只是你们都还不知情。

And right about that time, I was reading thousands of YC applications for the summer 2012 badge. I remember Brian and I had voted infinity in the application review system, Paul Graham built that click of a mouse guaranteed an interview at Y Combinator for them. Honestly, I'm really thankful that I was a really small part of something that was a pivotal moment for Coinbase and honestly Y Combinator, even if Brian didn't have a co-founder just yet. You've got to remember, even in 2012 Bitcoin was a very fringe idea still. Brian was a solo founder building on something brand new. At the time basically no one, I mean no one, believed in Bitcoin. I found out about Bitcoin originally on Hacker News. Here is the very first mention of it on that website in 2009. If you read those comments, they sum up how most people thought of it, not likely, cool, maybe it's useful, or I just don't get it. That is what made Brian so impressive. Today it feels like Bitcoin is much more well known, but at that moment, very few people had any understanding of it, let alone believe that it could be useful to society.

就在那个时候，我正在阅读成千上万份申请参加2012年夏季YC的申请表。我记得布莱恩和我在申请审核系统中投了无限的票，保罗·格雷厄姆建立的这个投票系统，只要点击一下鼠标，就能保证他们获得Y Combinator的面试机会。说实话，我真的很感谢我在这个对Coinbase和Y Combinator来说都是关键时刻的小小参与，尽管当时布莱恩还没有合伙人。你要记住，即使在2012年，比特币仍然是一个非常边缘的想法，布莱恩是一个独自做出了这个新事物的创始人。当时基本上没有人，相信我，没有人相信比特币。我最初是在Hacker News上了解到比特币的。这是2009年在那个网站上对比特币的第一次提及。如果你读那些评论，你会发现它们大致总结了大多数人的看法，不太可能，有点酷，可能有用，或者我根本不懂。这就是布莱恩如此令人印象深刻的地方。今天，人们觉得比特币已经被更多人了解，但在那个时刻，了解它的人非常少，更不用说认为它对社会有用。

As hard as it was for a founder to believe, it was even harder for investors to believe. Most people said no, but I didn't. This investment is likely to be one of the best calls I've ever made and maybe ever will make. Here are the reasons why I said yes when most people said no. First I was primed for the problem. I knew how hard and terrible the experience was to buy Bitcoin already. After I read about it on Hacker News, I tried to buy it on the first website you probably could buy it on, which was Mt. Gox. It was a terrible experience, and while Bitcoin had captured my attention, it was that bad design and horrible user experience that felt so wrong, and I knew that that couldn't be the thing that brought Bitcoin all the way.

尽管对一个创始人来说已经难以置信，但对于投资者来说更是难上加难。大多数人都选择了拒绝，但我没有。这个投资可能是我做过的最明智的决定之一，甚至可能是将来最明智的。以下是我在大多数人说“不”的时候选择说“是”的原因。 首先，我对这个问题有很深的了解。我已经知道买比特币的过程是多么困难和糟糕。在Hacker News上读到相关信息之后，我尝试在最早可以购买比特币的网站Mt. Gox上进行购买。这是一次糟糕的体验，尽管比特币引起了我的注意，但那个糟糕的设计和可怕的用户体验让我感觉非常不对劲，我知道这样是无法让比特币成功的。

Next, I was primed for the idea. I believed that fiat currencies might fail. Because in 2005, I had also been an engineer working on software for Peter Thiel's hedge fund Claryum Capital Management. One of the books they made us all read to train up for the role was The Dollar Crisis by Richard Duncan. That book had primed me for the madness that happened in 1971. That was the year that Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. You can no longer trade your dollars for gold at that time. Dollars which were already the reserve currency of all other central banks suddenly became a fiat currency. Printable at will. 25% of all dollars in circulation today were printed just in the last year in 2020. Thus, Bitcoin. As Louis Pasteur once said, Kant's only favors the prepared mind. I feel very lucky to have been prepared for this idea when it came.

接下来，我的思想被预先准备好了。我相信法定货币可能会失败。这是因为在2005年，我还是一名工程师，为彼得·蒂尔的对冲基金Claryum Capital Management开发软件。当时，为了让我们更好地适应这个角色，他们让我们都读了一本书，叫做《美元危机》，作者是理查德·邓肯。这本书让我对1971年发生的疯狂事件有了一定的认识。那一年，理查德·尼克松让美国脱离了金本位制。你再也不能用美元兑换黄金了。当时，美元已经是所有其他央行的储备货币，突然间变成了一种可以随意印刷的法定货币。如今，流通的美元中有25%是在去年的2020年才印刷出来的。于是，比特币应运而生。正如路易·巴斯德曾经所说，机会只青睐有准备的头脑。我感到非常幸运，能在这个理念出现时已经做好了准备。

Finally, Brian was a builder, and personally, I love funding builders. It was very powerful for Brian to be able to build that first version of Coinbase and secure it himself. With physical banks, you protect physical money with physical bullets, but with internet money, you protect it with great software engineering and secure systems. We knew Brian was an engineer and head of anti-fraud at Airbnb, which itself had just reached billion dollar startup status. And we knew anti-fraud at Airbnb was actually like being part of the special forces. I just knew that Brian had been put through the paces by hackers daily. It takes that kind of builder to walk away from that kind of opportunity to show you what the real future will be. That's what Brian did for me. Here are the key lessons for you from the Coinbase story.

最终，布赖恩是个建筑师，而我个人非常喜欢资助建筑师。布赖恩能够亲自构建Coinbase的第一版并确保其安全，这对他来说非常重要。对于实体银行来说，你用实弹保护现金，但对于互联网货币，你需要用优秀的软件工程和安全系统来保护。我们知道布赖恩是工程师，也是Airbnb的反欺诈主管，而Airbnb那时刚刚成为一家市值十亿美元的初创企业。我们知道在Airbnb的反欺诈工作就像是加入特种部队，我知道布赖恩每天都在与黑客较量。只有这样的建筑师才能放弃这种机会，向你展示真正的未来。这就是布赖恩为我所做的。以下是Coinbase故事带给你的重要教训。

First, be contrarian and right. Can you find something that is fringe but ultimately right? Is there something from history or psychology or first principles bottom up thinking that can help you justify your crazy idea and why it's going to take the world by storm? Sooner or later, every crazy idea will have its day, but only if it has a truly compelling pitch. Second, be a builder. The more you can do, the less you leave the chance and the more people will want to fund you, join you, or use your product or service. Do those things yourself to the extent you can. I made a whole video about this called Roll Your Way to a Startup Unicorn. Think in the description to check that out.

首先，要具备反向思维并且正确。你能找到一些现在看起来边缘但最终是正确的东西吗？是否有历史、心理学或从基本原理推演出来的思考可以帮助你证明你的“疯狂”想法，并说明它将如何席卷世界？迟早，每一个疯狂的想法都会有它的一天，但前提是它有一个真正引人瞩目的卖点。 其次，要成为一个建设者。你能做的事情越多，成功的几率就越大，越多的人会愿意资助你、加入你或者使用你的产品或服务。尽量亲自去做那些事情。我专门做了一个视频，叫《一步步打造你的创业独角兽》。视频的链接在描述中可以找到。

Finally, it's clear how powerful and useful it is for founders to be able to send a super compelling email. Remember, when Brian sent me .05 bitcoin, it was worth only 23 cents, but he literally sent me free money. It got my attention and it showed me Brian was serious about building something genuinely useful that I could use. In the end, I was incredibly lucky that I got that email, I got to meet Brian, and that I had the chance of funding this company. For that, I am so thankful. I'm also really thankful for all of you watching right now. There are so many businesses that need to be created and the reason why I'm putting these videos together is to help make that happen. I hope these videos are helpful to you and I hope you'll take a moment to click subscribe and hit the bell icon to get notifications for whenever I post.

最后，我们可以清楚地看到，创始人能够发送一封非常有吸引力的邮件是多么强大和有用。记得，当布莱恩给我发了0.05比特币时，它只值23美分，但他实际上送了我一笔免费的钱。这引起了我的注意，也向我展示了布莱恩认真在做一件我可以用的、有价值的事情。最终，我非常幸运地收到了那封邮件，见到了布莱恩，并有机会为这家公司提供了资金。对此，我非常感激。我也非常感谢现在观看视频的你们。有许多新的企业需要被创建，我制作这些视频的原因就是为了帮助实现这一目标。我希望这些视频对你有帮助，也希望你能花点时间点击订阅，并按下小铃铛来接收我发布视频的通知。

Be well and I'll see you next week.

保重，我们下周见。