从Chase中心现场直播（与Daniel Ek、Emily Chang、黄仁勋和马克·扎克伯格共同呈现）

你知道，我们一直以来的信念是，没人愿意坐在那里看我们在演播室里像两个话匣子一样喋喋不休。

You know, we've just always sort of been of the belief of, like, nobody wants to sit and watch us in our studios as talking heads going yak yak yak.

但我们开始思考这样一个问题：对于我们报道的某些公司，是否存在一种丰富的视觉叙事，能够达到我们试图创造的音频叙事那样的水准？

And but we've started to ask the question of, like, is there for certain companies we cover, is there a rich visual tapestry that we could do at the same level that we try and create an audio tapestry?

我们花了四个小时讲述爱马仕跨越数百年的整个历史，却只有音频，这简直是种罪过。

It's an absolute crime that we did four hours on the entire multi hundred year history of Hermes, and it was just audio.

嗯。

Mhmm.

不过，那确实是一场非常精彩的演出。

Like But but it was an amazing show, though.

对吧？

Right?

谢谢。

Thank you.

但音频就是这样一种神奇的东西，我们最终会做更多视频内容，但我会一路拖拖拉拉、不情不愿地去做，因为我深信不疑，在座各位都是非常优秀的人，你们的生活中充满了各种繁忙的事务，而你们之所以愿意花这么多时间与我们相处，正是因为我们没有占用你们全部的、毫无分心的注意力。

But audio is this, like, magic thing where I'm gonna drag my we're gonna end up doing more video, but I'm gonna drag my feet kicking and screaming all the way there because I feel very passionately that the reason that the caliber of person in this room with all the busy things that you have in your life, the reason that you're open to spending all this time with us is because we don't take your full undivided attention.

你可以跑步、割草、开车，或者做任何人在听《Acquired》时会做的事，我仍然不相信我们能做成一个四小时的视频节目。

You can run, you can mow the lawn, you can drive, you can, you know, everything that everyone does while they listen to Acquired, I like, I remain unconvinced that we would work as a four hour video product.

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，你看。

I mean, look.

说实话，我不确定。

I I don't know, to be honest.

我认为最让我惊讶的是，这个世界一直在不断变化。

I think this is probably the biggest thing that surprised me is that the the world just keeps evolving constantly.

你提到了视频，还有在Spotify上，这已经成为一个巨大的增长点。

So you talked about video and and, you know, on Spotify, it's been a huge growth thing.

我本来也会跟你说，人们为什么想看任何视频呢？

I would have said to you as well, people probably mostly, why would you wanna watch any video?

但我认为，尤其是年轻消费者，他们根本分不清区别。

But I think younger consumers especially, they don't know what the difference is.

他们只是想更贴近那个人的感觉。

They just wanna feel closer presence to the person.

而且，我们已经从花絮中看到了这一点。

And I mean, we saw it already with the bloopers.

对吧？

Right?

这很有趣。

It's like, this is fun.

你们在做的事情，人们也和你们建立了关系。

You what you guys are doing and people have a relationship to you guys too.

这就是为什么今晚有这么多人来这里。

Hence why so many people are showing up here tonight.

我认为视频只是一种表达方式，无论他们是否完整观看四个小时，还是在特定片段中来回切换。

And I think video is just a way to express that whether or not they're watching the full four hours or whether they're diving in and out over a particular type of segment.

我认为，给消费者选择权本身就是一件重要的事。

I think just giving the consumer the choice is sort of one of the big things.

而这也正是我们正在努力的方向，即让创作者和消费者以更新颖的方式直接互动。

And that's kind of what we're leaning into as well is just allowing the creator and the consumer to more directly interact in more in novel ways.

这挺有趣的。

It's funny.

你知道，你之前问的是Acquired接下来会做什么。

There's you you know, your question was what's next for Acquired.

在今晚之后，我们会做一个正常的节目。

We we're gonna do a normal episode after this, after tonight.

这个正常节目可能会聚焦一家位于门洛帕克的科技公司。

That normal episode probably will focus on a Menlo Park based technology company.

而我们已经开始学到的一个教训是

And one of the lessons that we're already starting to

学习剧透。

learn Spoilers.

你

What do you

我们不能

we can't

现在不能收回了。

take that back now.

这是直播。

This is live.

这是直播。

This is live.

不要过于固守当前的状态和你对未来的设想。

It's just not not holding the current state of things and vision of what you are too tightly.

而且，你知道，我们想聊聊你这些年从马克身上学到的东西。

And, you know, we wanna talk about you've learned a lot from Mark over the years.

你们一直非常亲密。

You you all have been very close.

Spotify 是在 Facebook 上起步的。

Spotify started on Facebook.

而你现在是全球最大的播客平台，所以你并没有过于固守那个愿景。

And here you are, you're the biggest podcasting platform in the world, so you didn't hold on to that vision too tightly.

对。

Right.

是的。

Yeah.

那我可以把这个变成一个问题吗？

So can I turn that into a question?

请说。

Please.

我本来打算在我们提问之前给你留一些空间。

I was actually gonna I wanted to leave you some space before we ask

这个问题。

the question.

这才是卓越合作关系的真谛。

That's what a great partnership is all about.

是的。

Yeah.

你还记得吗，大卫和我有一种增长方式，就是制作一集好内容，然后希望听众告诉他们的朋友。

Do you remember so David and I have one way of growing, which is make a good episode and hope people tell their friends.

你还记得Spotify早期的时候，你们发现Facebook会成为我们一个不可思议的渠道吗？

Do you remember in the early days of Spotify when you figured out, oh, Facebook is going to be this unbelievable channel for us?

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，这就像许多其他事情一样，一开始是这样的。

I mean, it's it's I I think it starts like so many other things.

我认为我和马克之间建立了某种友谊，我们开始聊起一些事情。有个小故事我记得是，如果我没记错的话，马克在Facebook之前就已经在尝试做音乐创业了。

I think Mark and I, we just struck this sort of friendship, and we started talking about you know, the the the little told story is, if I remember this correctly, I think Mark even pre Facebook was trying to do a music startup.

哦，是的。

Oh, yeah.

然后他就说，对。

And and then he was like, yeah.

这感觉是个难题。

This feels like a difficult thing.

铁钩。

Wire hook.

铁钩。

Wire hook.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

Exactly.

所以我认为，硅谷几乎每一位杰出的创业者都曾试图做音乐创业项目。

And and so I think he's like I think pretty much every great entrepreneur in the valley tried to do a music startup.

所以他对此确实充满热情。

And so he was definitely passionate about it.

然后他的想法显然是一个社交音乐产品。

And then his idea obviously was a social music product.

他和我开始讨论这个想法。

And he and I, we started talking about it.

一开始他说，他主要希望Spotify能变得更社交化。

Said in the beginning, he started like he wanted mostly Spotify to be more social.

我有点说，我不确定是否真的如此

I kinda said, well, I don't know that

你知道你是怎么认识他的吗？

that's Do you remember how you got introduced?

因为当时的Spotify和今天的样子不一样。

Because Spotify was not like Spotify the way it what it is today.

是的。

Yeah.

世界的支柱。

A pillar of the world.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，我是通过肖恩·帕克认识马克的。

Well, I I got introduced to Mark through Sean Parker.

于是肖恩就跟扎克伯格说，嘿。

And so Sean kind of said to to Zuck, like, hey.

你得认识一下这位来自瑞典的创业者。

You gotta meet this entrepreneur from Sweden.

我记得当时扎克伯格住在一个很小的房子里，我们去他家参加了烧烤。

And I remember, like, Zuck at the time was living in a very small house, and we went for a barbecue at his house.

这大概是2008年或者2009年的事吧，类似那个时候。

This is probably, I don't know, 2,008 or '9, like, one of those things.

后来我们逐渐成了朋友，开始一起探讨如何让音乐变得更社交化。

And then we kind of struck a friendship, and we started jamming on various ideas around how to make music more social.

我想你那时候还没搬到美国吧？

And you weren't even live in The US yet, I don't think.

或者你当时只是我们

Or you were just We

肯定还没住在美国。

definitely weren't live.

所以Spotify的秘密之一是我们逐个账号地投放，让一群有影响力的人喜欢上它。

So this sort of secret of Spotify was we sort of seeded one account at a time to get a bunch of influencers to kind of like it.

我认为肖恩尤其把它当作一种社交货币。

And I think Sean in particular, he kinda used it as a social currency.

所以每个人都来找他，试图获得

So everyone came to him to kind of try to get

是的。

Oh, yeah.

所有邀请码。

All the invites.

天啊。

Oh, man.

Spotify邀请码的货币价值。

The currency of the the Spotify invites.

是的。

Yeah.

在我们正式发布前的几年里，这是一件非常重要的事，它是一种秘密：你是否在那个圈子里，或者不在。

It was a big, big thing for for quite a few years before we launched where it was kind of the secret thing if you were in the club or if you weren't.

总之，他让马克加入了，我觉得马克发了一条状态更新，说Spotify太棒了，然后大家都问：你怎么弄到的？

And, anyway, he got Mark on it and I think Mark kind of wrote this status update like Spotify is so good and then everyone's like, how did you get this?

这当时是主要的事情。

This was kind of the main thing.

我什么时候能拿到？

When can I get it?

我该怎么才能得到？

How can I do it?

然后我们开始探讨，一个社交音乐产品应该是什么样子，我们有了这样一个想法：就像当时ICQ那样，用户有状态更新，如果能查看朋友正在听什么，会不会很酷？

And yeah, then we started jamming around like what a social music product ought to be and we had this sort of idea, wouldn't it be cool sort of like with, you know, ICQ at the time where you had these status updates, like wouldn't it be cool to be able to check out what your friends were listening to?

然后我们就一起合作，开发了那个产品，并让它与Spotify在美国的发布同步进行。

And we kind of got to work together, built that product, and coincided it with the Spotify US launch.

那时候信息流功能还非常新，对吧？

And this was when newsfeed was really young, right?

所以就像这样，你在浏览信息流时，它会直接推送来自Spotify的好友正在收听的状态更新。

So there was like, you'd be scrolling through your newsfeed and it would be giving you these status updates of what your friends were listening to piped in directly from Spotify.

完全正确。

Exactly right.

这样你就能看到你所有的朋友。

So you could see all your friends.

这个功能其实在Spotify的桌面端产品里依然存在。

It actually still exists in Spotify product on desktop.

所以你可以实时看到你的朋友们正在听什么。

So you can kind of see what your friends are listening to real time.

这是我们比较受欢迎的一个遗留功能，到现在已经存在了大概十三年了。

It's one of our more popular legacy features that's been around now for, like, thirteen years

左右。

or so.

右侧边栏，但我感觉有一阵子没见到了。

The right sidebar, but I feel like I haven't seen it in a while.

也许我只是

Maybe I just

它还在。

It's still there.

它依然

It's still

在。

there.

所以

So

但这恰恰说明了，社交听音乐是你当初的核心洞察。

But this gets at the point of like social music listening was this core insight that you had.

马克同意一起参与构建，并让你使用——我的意思是，他也从中获益良多，但让你用Facebook来分发它。

Mark was on board to kind of build it together and and and let you, you know, use the I mean, he got a lot out of it too, but let you use Facebook to distribute it.

是的。

Yep.

然而，今天每一位Spotify用户，当我想到Spotify时，我会觉得，哦，这是获取音乐、播客，现在还有有声读物的便捷方式。

And yet everyone here who's a Spotify customer today, when I think Spotify, I think, oh, that's like the easy way to access music, podcasts, and now audiobooks.

但我不会觉得，哦，这是一个社交听音乐的平台。

But I don't think like, oh, it's a social listening.

对。

Right.

那么，你是在什么时候逐渐放下这个宝贵的想法，认为社交功能虽然重要，但没那么关键呢？

So at what point did you kind of like let go of that precious idea and say, maybe the social is like important, not that important?

嗯，我仍然认为社交功能极其重要。

Well, I I I still think social is hugely important.

例如，我们现在有一个名为Jam的产品，它让你能和朋友一起实时调整正在听的内容，目前这款产品在全球范围内增长得非常迅速。

And for instance, we have we have a product now called Jam, which allows you to be with your friends and actually alter what you're listening to at the same time and it's growing incredibly rapidly right now all over the world.

所以，我认为这本质上是一款社交产品，尽管我依然认为音乐具有很强的社交属性，但我们在产品设计上的误区在于，仅仅展示朋友们正在听什么，并不一定就是正确的社交方式。

So it's something that, you know, I think very much is a social product, but while I still think music is very social, I think what we got wrong in the product was this sort of notion that just seeing sort of what all of your friends are listening to may not be the sort of right social product.

但如果你换一种思路，比如：我想和朋友们一起协作，无论我们是否身处同一地点，都能共享听歌体验，这反而会带来非常棒的体验。

But if you instead sort of say like, I want to work together with my friends and I wanna have a shared listening, whether we're in the same place or not, that turns out to be a pretty amazing thing.

你会看到人们在派对上直接加入别人的‘Jam’，大家能一起排队点歌，而不用各自拿出自己的手机。

So you see people do it at parties where you can lit literally join someone's jam and you can sort of all queue up songs together instead of taking my phone or your phone.

我们可以共同协作完成一件事。

We could all be sort of working together on something.

但在疫情期间，也就是‘Jam’功能开始兴起的时候，我们发现人们还用它来保持联系——通过这种持续的、共同的音乐聆听体验，即使身处不同地方，我们也在同时听同样的音乐。

But what we saw during the pandemic, and that's like where Jam sort of started, was we started seeing that people were using this to stay connected as well by having sort of this shared, you know, consistent music listening where we're all listening to the same thing at the same time even though we were sort of apart.

这就像

It's like the

把线性电视的最佳体验带到了音乐领域。

best of linear TV brought to music.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我认为我们仍在不断探索这些社交概念，努力将其完善。

So I think we're still sort of, you know, definitely playing with the social concepts and and trying to get that right.

但我认为，Facebook 已经逐渐放弃了这种基于在线状态的社交方式。

But I think, you know, Facebook kinda moved off of this sort of presence based social aspect for all things.

这并不仅仅局限于音乐。

So it wasn't just music, actually.

当时人们也在游戏中使用类似的方式。

People were doing it for games back then too.

所以当时就是这样。

So it was like Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

你知道，我创建了另一个《农场小镇》。

You know, I've I've created another FarmVille

哦，是的。

Oh, yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

我们记得那个时代。

We remember that era.

是的。

Yeah.

那是什么？

What was it?

在Zynga上市时，其收入占Facebook总收入的百分之十以上。

It was, like, north of 10% of Facebook's revenue at IPO was from

是Zynga。

Was Zynga.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，这些都是有趣的往事。

What I mean, this is all fun history.

不过我很好奇，我们今晚就要采访马克了。

I'm curious though, you know, we're gonna talk to Mark later tonight.

你是在现场做研究吗？

Are you doing research live on stage?

是的。

Yeah.

哦，当然。

Oh, yeah.

definitely。

Definitely.

你知道，你和他有着长达十五年以上的密切关系

You know, you you you've had a relationship, a pretty close relationship for fifteen plus years

是的。

Yeah.

作为并肩作战的创始人。

As fellow founders in the trenches.

你从他那里学到了什么？

What do you what have

你从他身上吸取了哪些经验，并将其应用到Spotify的公司运营中？

you taken from him that you've brought into Spotify and how you run the company?

很多方面。

Many things.

我从他以及Meta的其他团队成员身上学到了很多。

And I've learned so much from him and and the rest of the team at Meta as well.

但我认为，特别是从他身上，他可能是我见过的最出色的学习者。

But I think specifically from him, you know, he's the probably the best learner I've ever seen.

你可以和他就某个话题展开对话。

You know, you can you can have a conversation with him about a topic.

他可能对那个话题了解不多。

He may not know very much about it.

但下一次，他对这个主题的了解就会超过，我想说，大多数专家了。

And then the next time, he would know more than, I would say, most experts about the subject.

他那种对学习坚持不懈、对事物保持好奇的态度，真的非常了不起。

And it's really remarkable just how tenacious he is sort of about learning and staying curious about things.

所以这对我来说绝对是一件超级鼓舞人心的事情。

So that's definitely been a super inspiring thing for me.

而且我认为，他运营公司的方式也体现了这一点。

And I think that this sort of shines through with how he runs the company too.

他有一个非常清晰的理念，但同时，他也非常乐于接受反馈，并在此基础上不断迭代。

He has a very sort of clear idea, but he also, you know, takes a lot of feedback and sort of iterates on that.

而且，你知道吗，对我来说，最酷的事情之一就是观察他如何主持会议。

And, you know, it's everything from one one of the cool things for me has been seeing how he runs meetings.

你明白吗？

You know?

例如，我比较喜欢和人数较少的人开会。

For instance, I kind of like having relatively small meetings with people.

马克，他通常的会议人数大约是15到20人。

Mark, the average meeting he has is, like, 15 to 20 people in the room.

你怎么才能在有十五到二十人的情况下，让产品评审或讨论依然高效，并确保每个人都能被听到呢？

And how you make, you know, a product review or discussion productive with fifteen and twenty people, still get people to be heard.

他在这方面非常非常擅长，这些只是我学到的少数几件事，但也帮助我成长为一名领导者。

Like, he he's he's very, very good at that stuff, and that's just a few of the things that I've learned, which has helped me as a leader as well.

我可以问个更直接一点的问题吗？

Can I ask maybe this is a little bit more pointed?

你是个很善良的人。

You are a a kind person.

你说话温和，但却是个激烈的竞争者。

You are a soft spoken person, but you are a fierce competitor.

没关系。

It's okay.

所以我们还没告诉过你这件事。

So we we haven't told you this.

当我们十八、二十四个月前在斯德哥尔摩面试你的时候，我从来没去过瑞典。

When when we interviewed you, what, eighteen, twenty four months ish ago in Stockholm, I'd never been to Sweden before.

我想你也没去过。

Don't think you had either.

我们离开的时候，心想，真是个可爱的国家，真是一群可爱的人。

And we left, we thought just like, what a lovely country, what lovely people.

丹尼尔是我们能想象到的最慷慨的人。

Daniel is, like, the, you know, most generous person we could imagine.

你今晚在这里，而那个人是个激烈的竞争者。

You're here tonight, and that guy is a fierce competitor.

他之所以能打造出Spotify，是有原因的。

And there is a reason why he has built Spotify.

是的。

Yeah.

而且非常有战略眼光。

And and very strategic.

我觉得你能看到整个棋盘。

Like, I think you're you you see the chessboard.

马克也是这样的。

Mark is like that too.

你觉得你们的关系是互相促进的吗？

Do you feel like your relationship do you amplify each other?

我的原则是，我从不跟马克竞争，因为我知道这最终会对双方都不利。

Well, I mean, the the rule I have with Mark is I don't try to go into a competition with him because I know it'll end badly for both of us.

你知道，马克喜欢运动。

So, you know, as you know, Mark likes sports.

所以我从不跟马克一起运动，正是出于这个原因。

So one of the things I don't do with Mark is play sport for exactly this reason.

你知道的？

You know?

他上次撕裂前交叉韧带是什么时候？当时有人你知道的，但他没有放弃。

When was the last time he sort of tore his ACL when someone you know, rather than giving up?

所以我觉得结果挺糟糕的。

So I I feel like it it ended pretty badly.

所以我知道自己会赢的时候才喜欢玩，我觉得不这么做其实挺好的。

So I I I like playing when I know I'll win, so I think it's a pretty good thing to not do that.

是的。

Yeah.

你看，如果我要概括Spotify成功的原因，我觉得它体现了非凡的毅力，以及愿意去挑战很多其他人尝试过却失败过的问题的决心。

You see I mean, if I were to characterize, like, why Spotify worked, it feels like there's an incredible amount of tenacity and a willingness to run at a problem that, like, a lot of people had tried and failed at before.

但同时，你也会耐心等待时机，等到机会出现，然后找到一个你确信能赢的游戏，再果断执行。

But there is also this, like, you kinda bide your time, you kinda wait for the opening, and then you figure out a game you know that you can win, and then you go execute in that game.

对。

Yeah.

说实话，这简直精准极了。

That that's that's pretty much spot on, to be honest.

这是我们经常谈论的事情之一，但我自己很少说，而Gustav，也就是在这里后台的我们的产品负责人兼CTO，我们常说空谈无用。

That's that's one one of the things we talk about a lot that I don't say that much, but Gustav, who's backstage here, who's our product officer and CTO, we say talk is cheap.

大多数人谈论的是执行、执行的速度，让我们行动起来，赶紧干。

Most people talk about execution, speed of execution, let's move, Let's go.

实际上，我们花了很多时间只是讨论和交流。

We actually spend a lot of time just discussing and talking.

所以斯波蒂菲内部的说法是‘空谈无用’，因为我们希望对我们要做什么以及如何做保持非常谨慎的态度。

So the internal saying that Spotify's talk is cheap because we wanna be really deliberate about what it is we're doing and how we're You doing mean that as

这是一种美德。

a virtue.

比如，空谈无用，所以我们多谈一点，因为浪费这些资源的成本很低。

Like, talk is cheap, so let's talk a lot because it's inexpensive to waste those resources.

完全正确。

Exactly right.

实际建造的成本比大多数人想象的要高得多。

It's more expensive to build than most people think.

所以我们实际上花了大量时间进行讨论，当人们刚进入我们的文化时，他们常常会感到非常困惑。

And so we actually spend a lot of time discussing, and and people get really confused when they sort of enter our culture.

他们会想，为什么我们不直接行动呢？

They're like, but why don't we just execute?

而我们却还在坐着辩论，进行某种博弈推演，预测事情会如何发展，并确保所有环节都以某种方式运作。

And we we're still sitting and debating and sort of game theorizing how this will play out and getting all the things working in a certain way.

我们现在已经有了一套在全公司范围内规范化的独特工作方式，我认为这在目前是相当独特的。

And we have our sort of ways of doing that now that we've sort of codified across the company, which I think is pretty unique at this point.

但其中一部分原因也是为了设定基调，因为我们不得不这样做。

But a part of that is also because so to set the stage is because we had to.

因为要记住，与许多其他产品不同，当你建立一家公司时，你可以某种程度上进行迭代和尝试。

Because remember, everything, unlike many other products when you're building a company, you can kind of sort of iterate and do stuff.

我们必须让整个行业都站在我们这边。

We had to get the entire industry with us.

所以如果我们想做某件事，就必须说服一群人相信这是正确的做法。

So if we wanted to do something, we had to convince a bunch of people that it was the right thing to do.

在许多情况下，即使是相对简单的更改，我们也需要一到两年的时间才能获得许可。

And many in many cases, even making relatively simple changes could take one or two years for us to get licensed.

所以你在做决定时必须确保自己是对的。

So you better be sure that you're right when you're doing it.

现在，这种方式已经成了我们做事的风格：我们可能不会像‘快速行动并打破常规’那样最快，但我们一定会非常谨慎，而且在真正行动时，我们更有可能做对。

And this has kind of now become a thing in how we're doing stuff is we're probably not gonna be the fastest as in, you know, moving fast and breaking things, but we are going to be very deliberate, and we're probably going to be more right when we actually do something.

你们简直就是‘反快速失败’、‘反快速行动并打破常规’、‘反发布后迭代’的代表。

You're like the anti fail fast, the anti move fast and break things, the anti ship and iterate.

就像

Like

不过，我还是希望我们也能发布并迭代。

Well, I like to hope we can also ship and iterate.

但是

But

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

但我们现在不会是最快的。

But but we won't be the fastest now.

这很有趣，回到播客的话题上。

Which is funny coming back to podcasting.

你直到2019年才进入这个行业。

You didn't enter the business until 2019.

我猜你在那之后已经考虑很久了。

I assume you were thinking about it for a long time after that.

我相信你很清楚。

And when I'm sure you know.

你是什么时候成为播客领域的市场领导者？

When did you become the market leader in podcasting?

哦，哇。

Oh, wow.

我想这在一定程度上取决于你关注的是哪些市场。

I I think it sort of depends on which markets you're kinda looking at it.

但早在2020年和2021年，我们就已经在许多市场开始崛起。

But we were pretty much it started happening in in quite a few markets already 2020 and 2021.

到了2022年，我们在全球大多数市场都已成为市场领导者。

And in 2022, we were pretty much the market leader in most markets around the world.

所以三年？

So three years?

是的。

Yeah.

从上线开始算？

From launch?

为什么？

Why?

是的。

Yeah.

为什么？

Why?

这才是关键问题。

That's that's the question.

而且，考虑到你们之前如此谨慎、花了很长时间才推出，你们有没有预料到会这么快？

And and did you expect that it would be that fast given that you were so methodical and working so long to launch it?

我们并不总是能预知速度会有多快，但我认为我们对如何逐步迭代和改进已经有了相当清晰的判断。

We we don't always know how fast this will be, but I I think we had a pretty good sense that we could sort of iterate and improve our way.

所以，就像是从我们最初看到初步反响时所处的山腰，一步步向上攀登。

So sort of health climb from the mountain we were on when we saw the sort of initial traction.

但我觉得，我们当时与许多其他人不同的反主流做法是：在推出时，人们普遍认为每件事都需要一个独立的应用程序。

But I think the the contrarian that we did unlike many others did was, you know, at the time when we launched, was sort of viewed that you needed to have a different app for everything.

对吧？

Right?

比如你得有一个单独的播客应用，播客和音乐是完全不同的。

Like you had to have a separate podcasting app and podcasting music were very different.

对我们来说，就只是听。

And for us, it's just listening.

我们意识到，应该利用当时已有数亿用户、如今远超五亿的用户基础，为他们提供更多的内容。结果发现，我们一直看到的情况是，我们的音乐听众其实也在听播客。

And what we realized is we should use this base of what was then several 100,000,000 people and today's way north of half a billion people and just serve them more stuff and it turns out that like what we saw all the time, it wasn't like our music listeners weren't listening to podcasts.

那为什么不利用这种体验，也向他们推荐其他优质内容呢？

So why not use this experience and also recommend them great other stuff?

从那以后，我们又在一年前增加了有声读物，因为这被证明是另一种能增加用户收听时长的方式，而且他们本来就在花时间做这件事。

And we went from there and then a year ago, we also added audiobooks because that turned out to be another way to increase people's listening and that they were also spending time doing.

但说到你提到的缓慢而有条理这一点，好吧。

But but to your point on being, like, slow and methodical, okay.

你有渠道触达用户。

You had channel to people.

好吧。

Okay.

他们知道你是用来听东西的。

They knew you for listening.

但如果你往那个渠道里塞他们不想要的东西，那就会毁掉你的核心业务。

But if you're stuffing stuff in that channel that is not the thing that they want, then that blows up your core.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我认为，至少我的理解是，你找到了一种方法，确保人们愿意接受你提供这个新功能。

And so I think, like, my takeaway at least is though you you figured out a way to do it where you made sure that people were gonna be open to using you for this new Yeah.

当然，当然。

Of of course.

你说得对。

You're right.

显然，仅仅拥有分发优势并不意味着就能成功。

Obviously, just because you have the distribution advantage doesn't mean it'll work.

但我想回到这一点，这个平台最令人惊叹的地方在于，每当我们试图以一种刻意的、自上而下的方式去做某事时，往往会失败。

But I think going back to it, what's so amazing with the platform is every time we try to do something with deliberate sort of top down, it's sort of fail.

而大多数时候，我们看到的其实是平台上已经存在的某种雏形，然后从中逐渐发展起来。

And most of the time actually what we see is the inklings of something already existing on the platform and then growing from there.

所以我一开始提到过，德国对我们来说在播客和图书方面都是一个早期的信号。

So I mentioned this at the beginning, but Germany was sort of an early indicator for a lot of things for us, both in podcasting and in books.

甚至在我们推出图书功能之前，我就意识到，大约在2018年，我们开始看到图书出现在德国最受欢迎的音乐播放列表中，对吧？

And what I realized even before we launched Books, for instance, was around 2018, we started seeing Books showing up on the top list in Germany of the most sort of, you know, listen to music tracks, right?

那其实不是音乐，而是明显是图书，但它们居然一路冲上了排行榜榜首，不久之后我们就成了该国最大的图书分发平台，而我们当时根本没刻意去做这件事，而且在Spotify上听图书的体验其实相当糟糕。

It wasn't music, it was clearly books but it sort of made it all the way up to the top list and shortly thereafter we started showing up as the biggest book distributor in the country, but we weren't even trying and it was actually a pretty horrible experience to listen to books on Spotify.

所以当你的产品即使体验很差，用户依然在使用它时，你就知道你抓住了什么。

So when your product is being used in spite of it actually being a pretty terrible experience, you kind of know you've got something.

因此，这就是我们后来能够构建并扩展的起点。

So that was the sort of genesis for how we then were able to build and sort of expand.

太棒了。

It's awesome.

好了，这一部分就到这里。

Well, that's it for this segment.

你会留下来观看剩下的节目吗？

Are you gonna stick around and watch the rest of

今晚的节目？

the night?

是的。

Yeah.

当然。

For sure.

我太兴奋了。

I'm so excited.

太棒了。

Awesome.

好的，丹尼尔，谢谢你。

Well, Daniel, thank you.

非常感谢你，好的，感谢你的参与

Thank you so much Okay, for being

听众们。

listeners.

现在是一个绝佳的机会，向大家介绍我们节目的一位新朋友——WorkOS，我们非常兴奋。

Now is a great time to tell you about a new friend of the show we are very excited about, WorkOS.

是的。

Yes.

WorkOS 是一个面向企业的平台，被 OpenAI、Cursor、Perplexity、Vercel、Plaid 以及数百家其他成功公司所使用。

WorkOS is the enterprise ready platform used by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Vercel, Plaid, and literally hundreds of other winning companies.

那么，这些公司都在用 WorkOS 做什么？

So what are all these companies using WorkOS for?

想象一下，你是一家快速成长的初创公司。

Imagine you're a fast growing startup.

你已经找到了产品与市场的契合点，并且收到了来自大型企业客户的主动关注。

You've got product market fit, and you're getting inbound interest from big enterprise customers.

非常令人兴奋。

Very exciting.

但接着他们发给你一份安全问卷。

But then they send you their security questionnaire.

是的。

Yep.

问卷长达47页，里面的要求看起来像一堆字母缩写。

And it's like 47 pages long with requirements that kinda sound like alphabet soup.

你们支持SAML 2.0吗？

Do you support saml two .o?

你们能集成我们的Okta吗？

Can you integrate with our Okta?

你们有SCIM配置吗？S-C-I-M。

Do you have SCIM provisioning, s c I m?

那RBAC呢？R-B-A-C？

What about RBAC, r b a c?

你心里想：这些缩写到底是什么意思？我根本不知道该怎么实现。

And you're thinking, I have no idea what these acronyms even mean, let alone how to implement them.

事情是这样的。

So here's the thing.

这些不是锦上添花的功能。

These are not nice to haves.

这些是交易的阻碍因素。

These are deal blockers.

如果没有单点登录，没有SCIM，没有RBAC，没有审计日志，你根本不可能签下企业级客户，别无选择。

Without SSO, without SCIM, without RBAC, without audit logs, you simply cannot close enterprise deals, period.

但这些功能并没有让你们的核心产品变得更好。

But none of these features make your core product better.

它们不会让你们的啤酒更好喝，用我们在Acquired节目中最爱的比喻来说。

They don't make your beer taste better, to use our favorite analogy here on Acquired.

所以，如果你在开发一个设计工具，花六个月时间构建SAML认证，并不会让你的设计工具更强大。

So if you're building like a design tool, spending six months building SAML authentication doesn't make your design tool more powerful.

这就是WorkOS的用武之地。

So this is where WorkOS comes in.

他们为企业的功能打造了 Stripe。

They've built Stripe for enterprise features.

WorkOS 将企业身份验证需求转化为即插即用的 API，尽可能抽象掉不必要的复杂性。

WorkOS turns enterprise authentication requirements into drop in APIs, abstracting away as much unnecessary complexity as possible.

因此，你的团队不必花几个月时间阅读 SAML 规范，几分钟内就能实现企业单点登录。

So instead of your team spending months reading SAML specs, you can implement enterprise SSO in minutes.

WorkOS 负责用户开通、权限管理、审计日志——所有企业 IT 部门要求的必备功能。

WorkOS handles user provisioning, permissions, audit logs, all the checkbox items that enterprise IT requires.

无论你是正在争取首个企业客户的种子阶段公司，还是已经规模庞大并全球扩张，WorkOS 都是让你快速达到企业级标准的最快途径。

So whether you are a seed stage company trying to land your first enterprise customer or already big and expanding globally, WorkOS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready.

只需访问 workos.com 或直接给他们 Slack 支持团队发消息。

Just visit workos.com or just message their Slack support.

他们那里有真正的工程师，会快速回复你的问题。

They have real engineers in there who answer questions fast.

当你联系他们时，记得说 Ben 和 David 推荐的。

And when you get in touch, just tell them Ben and David sent you.

嗯，

Well,

在马克到来之前，我们还有点时间，还准备了几个惊喜。

we've got a little more time before Mark comes on, and we have a couple more surprises planned.

我想是时候谈谈下一个了。

I think it's time to talk about the next one.

第二幕。

Act two.

第二幕。

Act two.

所以戴夫和我正坐在一起。

So Dave and I are sitting around.

我们在计划今晚的安排。

We're planning tonight.

我们在想，既然有这么多热爱《Acquired》的人在场，该做点什么好呢？

We're like, what's the thing to do when we've got all these great folks in the room who who love Acquired?

我们想，与其问他们，嘿。

And we're like, rather than ask them, hey.

今晚我们该做什么？

What should we do tonight?

我们直接查看邮件，看看人们实际上在我们没问的时候就已经想要什么了。

We just check our email and see, like, what do people actually already want when we're not even asking.

剧集建议。

Episode requests.

剧集建议。

Episode requests.

是的。

Yep.

你翻翻Acquired的收件箱，里面有很多剧集建议。

You go through the Acquired inbox, lot of episode requests.

第二大请求是，嘿。

The second biggest request is, hey.

你做过这个节目。

You did this episode.

你错了。

You were wrong.

你需要修正它。

You need to fix it.

或者你做过这个节目，但自那以后发生了许多变化，你需要做一个后续更新。

Or you did this episode, and, like, a lot has happened since, and you need to do a follow-up on it.

所以我们想，如果我们挑出三四个这样的请求，让Acquired的观众一起快速完成所有这些内容，会怎么样？

And so we thought, what if we pick, like, three or four of those and we speed run all of them with the acquired audience present?

对。

Yep.

更新Acquired的正史，我们想，可以和谁一起做这件事？

Add it update the acquired canon, and we thought, who could we do this with?

巧合的是，最适合质询我们所有错误和需要更新内容的人，就在这里

And it just so happens that the perfect person to grill us on everything we got wrong and everything we need to update lives right here

在旧

in San

金山。

Francisco.

有请来自彭博社和Circuit的艾米莉·张。

Please welcome from Bloomberg and the Circuit, Emily Chang.

嗨。

Hi.

你好。

Hello.

嗨。

Hi.

嗨，赫克斯。

Hi, Hux.

艾米莉。

Emily.

恭喜。

Congratulations.

非常感谢。

Thank you so much.

恭喜。

Congratulations.

谢谢。

Thank you.

谢谢你们成为我们的团队，这

Thank you You for being our guys, This

很

is pretty

棒。

awesome.

致我们的录音室。

To our recording studio.

欢迎来到我们的聚会。

Welcome to our yeah.

谢谢。

Thank you.

很高兴能来这里。

I'm glad to be here.

我需要跟你确认一下一些研究内容。

I I need to, like, mind you for some research.

我知道我们接下来的十九分钟要做的事情，但你和马克一起去玩了浪板冲浪。

I know we have, a thing that we're doing here over the next nineteen minutes, but you went wake surfing with Mark.

今晚的主题就是研究。

Like, theme of tonight is researching.

我试过了。

I've tried.

他的独立日视频里，他穿着燕尾服，拿着美国国旗，喝着啤酒站在那里。

His fourth of July video, he is standing there in a tuxedo with an American flag drinking a beer.

每个人都看过。

Everybody's seen it.

每个人都看过这个。

Everybody's seen this.

而且西装是干的。

And the tuxedo's dry.

我其实玩过几次滑水。

Like, I've wake surfed a couple times.

我一开始在水里，然后被拉起来。

I start, you know, in the water and you get pulled up.

我想知道，从船上下来在操作上是怎么做到的？

I would not so how logistically can you, like, step off the boat?

正如你可能从这集里看出来的，我不是滑水爱好者，但我试过，马克很擅长。

As you could probably tell from the episode, I'm not a wake surfer but I tried and Mark is pretty good.

我之前没意识到的是，如果你技术足够好，可以做干式起步，直接从船上滑上板子，于是就有了西装滑水的视频。

And what I did not realize is that you can do a dry start where you if you're so good, you can just ride the board right off the boat and voila, tuxedo surfing video.

我个人可以作证，我确实看到他做了一次干式起滑，而且他能……我是说，我觉得那是真的吗？

And I can personally attest that I did see him do a dry start and he can I mean, I think it's real?

我觉得是。

I think.

要么就是他船上准备了很多套燕尾服，以便进行多次尝试。

That or he had like a lot of tuxedos on that boat to get multiple trial runs.

顺便说一句，普莉希拉也很棒。

By the way, Priscilla's pretty awesome too.

他们俩都能玩得很溜。

They can both shred.

只需要

Just have to

说出来。

say that.

为什么？

Why?

她今晚也在。

She's here tonight too.

是的。

Yeah.

好的，艾米丽。

Alright, Emily.

让我们来谈谈索

Take us So

现在，我以及你们各位进行自我反思，我们将重新回顾你们的一些过往节目。

right now, and I A plus you guys for self reflection, we're gonna revisit some of your past episodes.

我们挑选了一些可能有些争议的节目。

And we decided on some episodes that maybe were a little controversial.

在早期，你们会对所报道的每家公司进行评分，你们做出了一些正确的判断，但有时也有些 questionable 的判断。

In the early days, you would grade every company that you covered and you made some good calls but also some some questionable calls sometimes.

所以我想我们不妨走一趟回忆之旅，从YouTube开始，大卫，你在2016年给了YouTube一个C。

So I thought we would go down, do a little memory lane and start with YouTube, which David, you gave YouTube a c in 2016.

这是谷歌收购YouTube的事件。

This is the acquisition of YouTube by Google.

对。

Right.

而你，本，你说这可能糟糕到C减的程度。

And you you, Ben, said it could be as as bad as a C minus.

我只是...我只是...我只是有点质疑这个说法。

I I just I just I have to I just question that a little bit.

我们当时太年轻了。

We were young.

那是2016年。

It was 2016.

我们当时不知道自己在

We didn't know what we

做什么。

were doing.

我们当时被误导了。

We were misguided.

但让我们再进一步刺激一下，因为这里有一些引述。

But let's just twist the knife a little because we have some quotes here.

本，你说过，你对YouTube有点看空，主要是因为它不是一个目的地。

Ben, you said, I'm a little bit bearish on YouTube primarily because it's not a destination.

大卫也说，谁会去YouTube上发现新东西呢？

And David said, like, who goes to YouTube and discovers something?

令人难过的是，我们确实说过这些话，还决定重新审视这个问题。

The sad part is that we actually said that and and decided to revisit this.

所以我不确定。

So I don't know.

也许确实还没有形成很大的行为模式。

It it may actually be the case that that wasn't a huge behavior yet.

比如，算法还没变得——我知道我这是在为自己辩护。

Like the algorithm hadn't become I know I'm being defensive here.

就像

Like

本，这是我们自己认错。

Ben, this is we fall on our sword.

YouTube 当时就像是一个工具，你把视频上传上去，然后可以嵌入到你的网站上。

YouTube was like the utility that you uploaded a video to and then you could embed it on your site.

我并不是那种会从 YouTube 开始一天的人，也许我有点奇怪，但我完全无法想象，我会一早打开 youtube.com，随便看它推荐给我的内容——而如今，通过 App 做到这一点变得非常容易。

It's not like I would like start my day by maybe I was weird but, like, I I couldn't imagine starting my day and going to youtube.com and just watching whatever it served me the way that now, like, it's very easy to do that in the app.

好吧，我认为。

Well, I think okay.

对我来说，关于 YouTube，我们有很多地方判断错了。

So for me, there's a lot to talk about with YouTube that we got wrong.

这是我们后来发现的最重要的事：当时我们录这期节目时，AI 和社交媒体信息流推荐系统正处在起步阶段，即将引发今天所发生的一切。

This is the biggest thing that we've discovered since is I think, literally, we were making that episode, AI and social media feed recommenders were happening in that moment, and it was about to lead to everything that is happening today.

嗯。

Mhmm.

哦，是的。

Oh, yeah.

YouTube当时是谷歌的一部分，而Meta（Facebook）则在购买GPU、构建AI，将信息流推荐系统变成了终极内容目的地。

And it was YouTube within Google and Meta then Facebook, buying GPUs, and building AI that turned feed recommenders into, you know, the ultimate destination site.

我们完全没意识到这一切正在发生。

And we just completely had no idea that that was happening.

没错。

Right.

人工智能十年前就曾迎来过它的高光时刻。

AI had its moment a decade ago.

我们现在对AI都充满热情，但当时，推荐下一个你该消费的内容这种应用场景，已经是AI的杀手级用例了。

We're all excited about it now, but, like, the use case of recommending you something that should be the next item that you should consume was a killer use case for AI Yeah.

即使在那时也是如此。

Even then.

我们错过了这一点。

We missed that.

如今，有分析师表示，如果把YouTube从谷歌剥离出来，它的估值将达到5000亿美元，几乎是Netflix市值的两倍。

Well, today, you have analysts saying if you pulled YouTube out of Google, it would be worth half $1,000,000,000,000, which is almost double where Netflix is.

YouTube TV正朝着成为美国最大的有线电视提供商迈进。

It's on track YouTube TV to be the largest cable provider cable provider in The United States.

你们给我发了一张票？

You guys send me a ticket?

因为，你知道，我家里有一屋子孩子。

Because, you know, I have a house full of kids in my house.

这是第一和第二屏幕，因为我们有YouTube TV。

It's the first and the second screen because we have YouTube TV.

所以问题是，他们真的能成为所有人的一切吗？

So the question is, can they really be everything to everyone?

对吧？

Right?

没错。

Right.

所以，我认为这是我们最合理的辩护。

So here is here is I think our most legitimate defense.

谷歌并不公布YouTube的盈利能力。

Google does not report YouTube profitability.

他们只公布YouTube的收入。

They report YouTube revenue.

所以当我们做这期节目时，YouTube的年收入约为50亿美元。

So when we did the episode, YouTube was doing about $5,000,000,000 run rate revenue.

现在它的年收入已经达到了350亿到400亿美元。

It is now like 35 to 40,000,000,000 annual revenue run rate.

那时候，它亏损得非常严重。

When it and back then, was way losing money.

简直就是个无底洞。

Like, it was a money pit.

是的。

Yes.

那时候它亏了很多钱。

And it was losing a lot of money back then.

谷歌现在不公布数据，但YouTube与其他所有平台的独特之处在于，他们将长视频收入的55%和短视频收入的45%直接分给创作者。

Google does not report today, but here is what is unique about YouTube versus every other platform is they pay out 55% of revenue on long form and 45% on shorts directly to creators.

这对创作者来说当然很好，但这是一个很难经营的生意。

Which, you know, is great for creators, but that's a tough business to run.

是的。

Yeah.

当你每收入一美元，就要支出超过一半时，你知道，

When every dollar you're getting in, you're getting more than half out, you know,

这是一种直接的可变成本。

And it's a direct variable cost.

过去三年向创作者支付了700亿美元，这再次超过了奈飞在内容上的支出。

$70,000,000,000 to creators over the last three years which again is more than Netflix spends on content.

所以我要明确表态。

So so I'll go on record.

YouTube是一项A+级别的收购

YouTube was an A plus acquisition

是的。

Yes.

因为它的战略价值。

Because of the strategic value.

我的意思是，它是第二大搜索引擎，仅次于谷歌，或者说是第二大社交媒体平台，从战略角度看，拥有它非常棒，更不用说还能进入AI训练数据领域了。

I mean, it's the second largest search engine, second to Google, or the second largest social media property, you know, strategically very great thing to own, not to mention going into the land of AI training data.

但作为一项业务，我不清楚YouTube是否盈利。

But like as a business it is not clear to me that YouTube makes money.

而且，我的消息来源也说，如果他们真的盈利了，那也是微乎其微。

Well and, I mean, my source is also I I if they're making money, it's little to no money.

但他们显然可以调整支付给创作者的金额。

But they could they could obviously change how much they're paying out to creators.

他们可以随时开关这个水龙头。

They can, you know, turn the spigot on and off.

他们正在建立的持久性以及创作者的认同感。

With the and the durability that they're building and the affinity from creators.

我们稍后会讨论平台上的创作者。

We'll talk about creators on the platform in a minute.

是的。

Yes.

有这么多创作者希望转向YouTube，这背后是有原因的。

It's it's there is a reason why so many creators want to graduate to YouTube Yeah.

这就是原因。

And this is it.

我的节目也在YouTube上。

Well, your your my show's on YouTube.

你的节目在YouTube上。

Your show's on YouTube.

作为创作者，你对YouTube有什么看法？

How do you feel about YouTube as creators?

非常强烈。

Strongly.

对于所有听众，感谢你们收听这个播客频道，我们与你们之间有着直接的关系，不受算法中介影响。

For everyone listening, thank you for listening to the podcast feed where we have a direct relationship with you that is not intermediated, by an algorithm.

但说实话，看到这些YouTuber建立了庞大的粉丝群体，数千万，有时甚至数亿的订阅者，而订阅数和观看次数却毫无关联，这真是最不可思议的事情。

But, like, honestly, it is the craziest thing to see these YouTubers who have built mass followings, tens of millions, you know, hundreds of millions sometimes of of subscribers, where subscribers and views are uncorrelated.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

今天成绩如何？

Grade today?

今天成绩如何？

Grade today.

哦，A+。

Oh, a plus.

还是A+。

Still an a plus.

是的。

Yeah.

好的。

Okay.

好的。

Okay.

好吧，我还有另一件事没提到。

Well, I I so here's the other thing we didn't mention.

我觉得那时候也是这样。

And I think this was true back then too.

YouTube既是全球第二大社交媒体平台，也是全球第二大搜索引擎。

YouTube is both the second largest social media property in the world and the second largest search engine in the world.

嗯哼。

Uh-huh.

所以，是的，A+。

So yeah, yeah, a plus.

你应该这样看待YouTube：不要去计算YouTube作为一家独立企业的折现现金流，如果你考虑他们的，你知道的，嗯。

The way that you should look at YouTube is not what is the discounted cash flow of YouTube as an independent business if you look at their, you know Mhmm.

今天的盈利能力。

Profitability today.

而是如果不拥有YouTube，而YouTube在Google之外发展壮大，这对Google来说会带来什么样的生存风险？

It's what was the existential risk to Google of not owning YouTube if YouTube became a thing somewhere outside of Google?

而这一点值很多钱。

And that is worth paying a lot for.

巨大。

Huge.

好的。

Alright.

继续。

Moving on.