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我是本·吉尔伯特，西雅图创业工作室兼风险投资公司Pioneer Square Labs的联合创始人。
I'm Ben Gilbert and I am the co founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle.
哦，那是我。
Oh, that's me.
大卫。
David.
我是大卫·罗森塔尔。
And I'm David Rosenthal.
欢迎收听本期特别节目《Acquired》，这是一档关于伟大科技公司及其背后故事与运作模式的播客。
Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.
我是本·吉尔伯特，西雅图创业工作室兼风险投资公司Pioneer Square Labs的联合创始人。
I'm Ben Gilbert, and I'm the cofounder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle.
我是大卫·罗森塔尔，旧金山天使投资人。
And I'm David Rosenthal, and I am an angel investor based in San Francisco.
我们是本期节目主持人。
And we are your hosts.
红杉资本几乎无需介绍。
Sequoia Capital needs almost no introduction.
当我们制作关于其历史的两集深度专题时，曾提到他们早期投资的公司总市值已超过3.3万亿美元。
When we did the comprehensive two part series on their history, we noted that they had invested early in companies that went on to be worth over $3,300,000,000,000.
当时纳斯达克整体市值约10万亿美元。
At the time, the market cap of the entire Nasdaq was about $10,000,000,000,000.
在我们2021年1月录制时，这两个数字肯定又大幅增长了。
I'm sure both of these numbers are dramatically higher right now as we record this in January 2021.
去年年底，我们见证了红杉资本在DoorDash和Airbnb这两家巨头IPO中的双响炮。
At the end of last year, we saw a Sequoia doubleheader in the two enormous IPOs of DoorDash and Airbnb.
红杉资本合伙人林君睿不仅担任其中一家公司的董事，而是同时坐镇这两家企业的董事会。
Alfred Lin, a partner at Sequoia, sits on not one, but both of these boards.
正如Axios的丹·普里马克所指出的，这是他加入红杉十年后首次参与的两起IPO项目。
And as pointed out by Dan Primak at Axios, these were his first two IPOs after his decade at Sequoia.
耐心确实会有回报。
It certainly pays to be patient.
因此事后我们忍不住联系了林君睿，邀请他再次做客《Acquired》节目解答疑问。
So after that, we couldn't help ourselves but reach out to Alfred to have him back on Acquired and ask the questions.
红杉资本是如何识别这些投资机会的？
How does Sequoia identify these investment opportunities?
他们内部是如何通过著名的'有准备头脑'方法论来评估这些机遇的？
What is the internal playbook for creating their famous prepared mind to evaluate such opportunities when they come along?
今天我们将深入探讨红杉资本的实际运作机制，并汲取他们49年来寻找和培育伟大公司所积累的经验。
And today, we dive into what this all means in practice at Sequoia, and we take a few lessons from what they've learned in over forty nine years of finding and building great companies.
大卫，能介绍一下林君睿是谁吗？
So David, who is Alfred?
四十九年啊。
Forty nine years.
这太不可思议了。
It's incredible.
林君睿，就像我们在Zappos那期节目中提到过的，他先后担任过Link Exchange和Tell Me Networks的CFO，与谢家华共同创立Venture Frogs，并最终以Zappos首席运营官兼董事长的身份带领公司被亚马逊收购。
So Alfred, as we covered with you on our Zappos episode, Alfred you are the CFO of Link Exchange and Tell Me Networks, the co founder of Venture Frogs with Tony Hsieh and then of course the COO and chairman of Zappos until its sale to Amazon.
如今阿尔弗雷德是红杉资本的合伙人，负责美国早期业务，并担任爱彼迎、DoorDash、Fare、Houzz、Instacart、Reddit、Zipline等公司的董事会成员。
Today Alfred is partner at Sequoia where he manages the early stage business in The US and sits on the boards of Airbnb, DoorDash, Fare, Houzz, Instacart, Reddit, Zipline, and more.
当然，我知道阿尔弗雷德你会对此不以为意，引用你钟爱的罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森名言'用播下的种子而非收获的果实来衡量每一天'——但我们必须祝贺你上个月主导的两起IPO，DoorDash和爱彼迎。
And of course, I know Alfred you're gonna shrug this off and use the Robert Louis Stevenson quote that you love about judging each day by the seeds you plant not the harvest you reap, but we have to congratulate you on those two IPOs, DoorDash and Airbnb last month.
确实令人惊叹。
Truly amazing.
非常感谢，也感谢邀请我参加节目。
Well, thank you and thank you for having me on the show.
我想指出这是团队协作的成果。
I would point out that this is a team effort.
我们合作的许多公司虽然由我代表红杉出任董事，但正是整个合伙体系凝聚红杉的力量，助力这些企业成为传奇。
Many of the companies that we work with, I may represent Sequoia on the board, but it is the whole partnership that brings the weight of Sequoia to the table and helps those companies become legendary companies.
若没有那些杰出创始人的努力，我们不可能取得这些成就。
And we couldn't have done that without the spectacular founders that we partner with.
因此荣誉属于他们——那些有勇气创立公司并立志改变世界的创业者。
So the kudos goes to them for having the courage to start those companies and wanting to put a ding in the universe.
说得好。
Love it.
这就是我们今天要讨论的全部内容。
Well, that is everything that we are gonna talk about here today.
好了，听众朋友们。
Okay, listeners.
现在隆重介绍节目新朋友——想必大家都不陌生的克劳德。
Now is a great time to introduce a new friend of the show who many of you will be familiar with, Claude.
Claude是由Anthropic打造的人工智能助手，它迅速成为我们在创作过程中不可或缺的工具，并成为全球数百万用户和企业的首选AI。
Claude is an AI assistant built by Anthropic, and it's quickly become an essential tool for us in creating acquired and the go to AI for millions of people and businesses around the world.
没错。
Yep.
我们很高兴能与他们合作，因为Claude正代表着我们Acquired最热衷报道的那种突破性技术变革。
We're excited to be partnering with them because Claude represents exactly the kind of step change technology that we love covering here at Acquired.
这是一个从根本上改变人们工作方式的强大工具。
It's a powerful tool that fundamentally changes how people work.
本，我知道你最近在Acquired的工作中已经用上了Claude。
I know, Ben, you have used Claude for some Acquired work recently.
是的。
Yes.
听众朋友们，过去我总要在录制前一天花四个多小时，把原始笔记里的所有日期整理成表格放在脚本开头。
So listeners, I used to take four plus hours the day before recording to take all the dates from my raw notes and put them in a table at the top of my script for recording day.
在制作劳力士专题时，我直接把原始笔记喂给Claude，让它帮我完成这项工作——效果简直惊人。
On the Rolex episode, I actually fed my raw notes into Claude and asked it if it could do that for me, which was amazing.
我只用了二十秒就整理出了这期节目最重要的100个日期。
I just got my most important 100 dates for the episode done in, like, twenty seconds.
你给我发短信说
You texted me
把这些数据做成表格。
to this table.
这太棒了。
It was awesome.
是啊。
Yeah.
这样我就多出了半天时间，专门用来讲解机械表的工作原理——我真的很庆幸能把时间花在这上面，而不是去做那张桌子。
That freed up an extra half day that I used instead to focus on explaining how a mechanical watch works, which I'm so glad I got to spend the time doing that instead of making the table.
完全同意。
Totally.
太酷了。
So cool.
其实我刚才还在和Claude聊天，为今年夏天晚些时候你我合作的一个大项目头脑风暴，它的帮助简直不可思议。
I was actually just chatting with Claude to brainstorm ideas for something big that you and I are working on for later this summer, and it was insanely helpful.
听众朋友们，请持续关注后续详情。
Listeners, stay tuned to hear all about that.
没错。
Yes.
所以听众们，无论是作为个人还是商业AI助手使用Claude，你都将与顶尖企业为伍。
So listeners, by using Claude as your personal or business AI assistant, you'll be in great company.
像Salesforce、Figma、GitLab、Intercom和Coinbase这些机构都在他们的产品中使用Claude。
Organizations like Salesforce, Figma, GitLab, Intercom, and Coinbase all use Claude in their products.
所以无论你是独自头脑风暴，还是与数千人的团队协作，Claude都能提供帮助。
So whether you are brainstorming alone or you're building with a team of thousands, Claude is here to help.
如果你个人、公司或投资组合公司想使用Claude，请访问claude.com。
And if you, your company, or your portfolio companies wanna use Claude, head on over to claude.com.
网址是claude.com，或者点击节目说明中的链接。
That's claude.com, or click the link in show notes.
大卫，带我们进入正题。
David, take us in.
阿尔弗雷德，作为开场，你能给我们讲讲红杉资本这个理念的历史吗？就是关于在进入市场、进行投资和接触团队时保持有准备的头脑这个想法是怎么形成的？
So Alfred to kick things off, can you give us a little bit of the sort of history of how this idea at Sequoia of wanting to have a prepared mind going into markets and investments and meeting teams came to be?
嗯，我认为这一切始于唐对市场的思考。
Well, think it all started with Don thinking about the market.
我认为我们寻找的是两者的结合：一个优秀的创始团队和一个巨大的市场。
I think the thing that we look for is a combination, a great founding team and a great market.
优秀的创始团队要么能找到巨大的市场，要么能找到进入市场的切入点，要么能发现市场存在的问题，然后他们意识到这个世界对某个问题的认知是错误的，并想去解决这个问题。
And great founding teams find great markets or they find a wedge into that market or they find what's wrong with the market and then they discover that there's a problem that the world has gotten wrong and they want to go fix that problem.
我们总是需要倾听创始人的想法，因为他们往往是从解决自身痛点出发的。
And we've always had to sort of listen to founders because they come from the problem of solving their own pain.
他们可能并不直接考虑市场本身，而是专注于自己面临的问题。
And they may not be thinking about the market per se, they're thinking about the problem that they have.
因此，要与这些优秀的创始人合作，我们必须提前做好准备，思考市场现状及其发展潜力。因为没有人会突然某天醒来就明白：哦，原来很多人愿意和陌生人共享卧室或沙发。
And so to pair up and to work with and partner with these great founders, we had to come prepared thinking about the market and thinking about what the market can become because nobody is going to sort of wake up one day and suddenly know, oh yeah, lots of people are going to share their bedrooms or their couches with a total stranger.
也没有人会想到，在郊区人口密度不足的情况下，配送服务居然能运作起来。
Nobody is going to think that if you don't have density in the suburbs that you can actually make a delivery service work.
但你确实需要从准备充分的角度来思考，既要考虑市场现状，也要考虑市场增长和变化的能力。
But you do have to sort of think about this from a sort of perspective of being prepared and thinking about both the market and the ability of the market to grow and change.
我们经常谈论'有准备的头脑'，因为正如路易斯·巴斯德所说，机会总是眷顾有准备的人。
We often talk a lot about prepared mind because chance favors the prepared mind as Louis Pasteur would say.
当吉姆加入红杉时，他已经确定了许多有趣的投资领域。
And when Jim gets joined Sequoia, he had identified a lot of interesting areas to invest in.
他率先引领了我们对于景观的思考，并为移动互联网时代的景观做好了心理准备，迎接开发者的崛起。
And he pioneered some of our thinking of having landscapes and having a prepared mind for the mobile landscape, for the rise of the developer.
他会不断尝试去理解可能性的边界。
And he would work and try to understand the landscape of what was possible.
空白领域在哪里？
Where were the white spaces?
哪些地方可以真正建立公司，因为那些老牌企业、昔日的传奇公司并不太关注这些领域。
Where were the places that you can actually build a company because the incumbents, the legendary companies of the past, were not so much focused on those areas.
以爱彼迎为例，格雷格·麦卡杜长期思考分时度假和假日租赁，因为酒店业正逐渐被整合到全球在线旅游平台，但分时度假和假日租赁却未达到同等程度的整合，这显得很反常。
If you wanted to sort of think about in Airbnb's case, Greg McAdew had been thinking about timeshares and vacation rentals for a long time because it was kind of weird that hotels were slowly being aggregated and they were sort of being aggregated onto global online travel platforms, but that wasn't quite true with timeshares and vacation rentals to the same extent.
这并未直接促成投资，但让我们意识到本地化房源平台尚未真正出现——像BRBO和HomeAway这类平台，其收入主要来自广告而非预订交易本身。
And it didn't lead necessarily immediately to an investment, but it gave us a sort of prepared mind on localized listings didn't really exist, BRBOs and HomeAway, which made most of its revenue was from advertising rather than booking and the transaction itself.
所以当我们看到爱彼迎时，它代表着完全不同的发展方向和商业模式。
So when we saw Airbnb, it's like a completely different vector and a different way of thinking about the business.
说到DoorDash的情况，在2011至2013年间，随着按需经济的兴起，我们实际上评估了这个领域的多个投资机会。
And in DoorDash's case, since you asked about DoorDash, between 2011 and 2013, with the rise of the on demand economy, we actually evaluated a variety of investments opportunities in this space.
我们接触过Grubhub、Caviar和Postmates。
And we met with Grubhub, we met with Caviar, we met with Postmates.
每次我们都选择放弃，并非因为对市场规模存疑，而是发现这需要极其擅长运营的创始人。
And each time we passed, not because we were uncertain about the market size, were actually, we noticed that this required a very, very operational founder.
这个行业既要靠差异化策略制胜，更需要极其专注运营的团队。
This business is gonna be won by both having a differentiated strategy, but also a person and a team that was gonna be very, very focused on operations.
当我们遇见托尼时，我们看到了这种特质的完美结合。
And when we met Tony, that was the combination we saw.
他采取了差异化的策略，其核心在于专注于郊区商户。
He had a differentiated approach, and the differentiation for him was the strategy of focusing on the merchants and in the suburbs.
他还带来了对运营的敏锐洞察力。
And the thing that he also brought was his keen eye for operations.
很遗憾我们当时决定放弃这个种子项目，这是我的过错。
And so we unfortunately decided to pass on the seed, and then that's my fault.
我们花了一些时间才意识到托尼是个与众不同的人物。
It took time for us to sort of understand that Tony was a different character.
他兼具战略思维和运营能力，完美契合了我们眼中的创始人市场匹配标准。我们在A轮及后续每轮融资中都进行了投资。
He had both the strategy side as well as the operational side that brought what we consider founder market fit And we invested in their Series A and in every single round after that.
当你回顾之前对食品配送市场的看法，以及格雷格对分时租赁市场的思考及其弊端整合时，红杉内部是如何从个人兴趣发展为主动研究，最终在接触项目时做好充分准备的？
And as you think about the way that you had previously thought about this food delivery market, the way that Greg had been thinking about the timeshare market and all that was wrong with it and aggregating it, How does something bubble up within Sequoia from someone's sort of personal fascination with something to doing proactive work to come with a prepared mind when you do start to see pitches?
是的。
Yeah.
我认为简单来说就是没有固定模式。我们通过大量阅读来识别趋势，从而让某些想法自然浮现。
So I think the answer the simple answer is there's no straight formula for any of I think the way that it has bubbled up has come through because we identify a trend through just reading.
我们对度假租赁充满好奇。
We're curious about vacation rentals.
开始大量阅读相关资料。
We start reading about it.
深入挖掘后可能短期内没有收获，但之后会变得更重要。
We start digging into it and nothing may come out of it for that particular point in time, and then later on it becomes more important.
最终可以绘制完整的行业图谱，并撰写详细说明当前市场格局的备忘录。
It can be a full blown landscape that you sort of plot out and write up a memo about exactly what's going on in the landscape.
参与者有哪些人？
Who are the players?
发生什么事了？
What's going on?
我们在哪里能看到空白区域？
Where do we see white space.
它可能出现在任何中间位置。
And it could be anywhere in between.
向你的合作伙伴提及此事。
Mention it to your partners.
你觉得这个想法怎么样？
What do you think about this idea?
你觉得那个想法如何？
What do you think about that idea?
我们每个季度都会举行'蓝天会议'，尝试放飞想象。
We have blue sky sessions every quarter where we sort of just try to dream.
这个事业既需要汗水，也同样需要灵感。
This business is about inspiration just as much as about perspiration.
我们既要埋头苦干，同时也要保持思考，从世界中获得启发。
We need to both hustle, but at the same time, we need to be able to sort of think and be inspired about the world.
部分灵感来自阅读，部分则来自与创业者的交流。
And some of it comes from reading and some of it comes from just talking to founders.
有些新领域就是因为我们遇到拥有有趣想法的创业者而开启的。
Other landscapes have started because we met an interesting founder with an interesting idea.
他们实际上仍在和我们一起探讨这个想法，我们不仅与他们深入交流，也与该领域的其他创始人深入合作，试图理清现状。
They're actually still riffing on the idea with us and we go deep with them as well as go deep with other founders who are in that space trying to sort of make sense of what's going on.
因此我认为，这件事的发展方式是从完全的随机性和偶然性，逐渐转变为非常、非常有条理的思考。
And so I think the sort of the ways that this has come about has come from complete randomness and serendipity to very, very structured thinking.
红杉资本的伟大之处在于我们有一个合作伙伴关系，我们有喜欢主动出击、结构化思考的人，也有喜欢深入生态系统、结识许多人、以富有想象力的方式与众人碰撞想法、共同构思创意的合伙人。
The great part about Sequoia is we have a partnership and we have people who love to be proactive and think structurally and we have partners who love to be in the ecosystems meeting lots of people and riffing ideas with lots of people in an imaginary way and dream up ideas with others.
所以这是一项既能与内向者也能与外向者合作得很好的业务。
So this is a business that you can do well with both someone who's an introvert as well as someone who's an extrovert.
当你进入行业调研阶段时，无论是作为公司团队的一员考察某个领域，还是在评估具体投资项目并进行尽职调查，你需要理解的关键点是什么？
When you get to the landscape stage, know, whether that's as you're looking at a space as part of a team at the firm or maybe you're looking at a specific investment and you're doing diligence on that investment, What are the key things you're trying to understand?
我的意思是，你知道的，比如唐和其他老一辈人，就像在GSB的演讲以及他的口述历史中提到的，他强调需要理解市场上正在发生的变化，需要公司解决一个非常具体的问题，还需要时机恰到好处。
I mean, you know, Don and some of the old, like the talk at GSB and, the oral history with him, you know, he talks about needing to understand what the change is that's occurring in the market, needing to have a very specific problem that the company is solving, needing the timing to be right.
你们重点关注的关键特性有哪些？
What are these key features that you guys are focused on?
这些都是你以前听过的简单问题。
The simple questions are you you've heard before.
为什么是现在？
That is why now?
其中许多想法过去都有人想到过。
What many of these ideas have people have thought of in the past.
这已经不是第一次有人决定我们应该做食品配送了。
It's not the first time that someone has decided that we should deliver food.
1999年，纽约有家叫Cosmo的公司开业。
In 1999, there was a company called Cosmo that opened up in New York.
所以那没有成功。
So that didn't work.
为什么Instacart现在的情况比Webvan起步时好得多，而Webvan却失败了？
Why is Instacart in a much better position today than they were when Webvan started and Webvan didn't work?
我认为有些特定的好理由能解释为何有时存在'为何是现在'的时机，而有时则没有。
I think there are specific good reasons for why now and then there are times when there's not a good why now.
就Instacart或DoorDash而言，'为何是现在'很大程度上与移动技术和按需经济有关。
And in Instacart's case or in DoorDash's case, the why now has a lot to do with mobile and the on demand economy.
人们一直渴望即时满足，但在1999年时无法获得按需劳动力，因为那时并非人人都携带手机。
People have always wanted instant gratification, but the ability to get a sort of a on demand workforce was not available in 1999 because not everybody was carrying a mobile phone.
因此存在某些情境下，特定公司会拥有良好的'为何是现在'的起飞时机。
So there are sort of situations where you have good why nows for a particular company to be able to sort of take off.
我们经常问的另一个问题是：十年后，谁还会在意这家公司？
The other question we ask all the time is in ten years, who cares about this company?
唐过去常问：谁在乎？
Don used to ask, who cares?
这不仅适用于现在谁在乎，也因为我们投资早、合作早——我们在创意阶段、种子轮和A轮融资时就建立合作。
And it applies to who cares today but it also because we're investing early and we partner early, we partner at the idea stage, at the seed stage, and the venture stage at the series A.
这家公司必须在十年后成为重要的企业。
The company has to be an important company ten years from now.
那么十年后谁会在乎？
So who cares ten years from now?
这家公司十年后会变成什么样子？
And what does this company become ten years from now?
因此，想象那种情景以及一切顺利时的局面确实非常重要。
So imagination about that and what happens when everything goes right is really important.
不过，我们确实要问：如果一切顺利，这家公司会变成什么样子？
Though, so we do ask if everything goes right, what does this company become?
在早期阶段，很容易发现公司可能失败的原因。
In the early stages, it's easy to spot why the company may fail.
嗯。
Mhmm.
撰写一家公司的‘事前验尸’报告其实相当容易。
That it's quite easy to write the pre mortem of a company.
哪些环节会出问题？
What will go wrong?
主要风险有哪些？
What are the major risks?
有时候，真正描述这家公司能成为什么样子非常困难。
It's sometimes it's very hard to really write about what this company can become.
你觉得创始人在种子阶段就明白这点吗？
Do you find that founders know this at the seed stage?
我的意思是，大卫和我通过与非常早期的创始人会面了解到，在动态市场中未来十年会有太多变化。
I mean, David and I know this from meeting with very early stage founders that so much is gonna change in the dynamic market over the next ten years.
优秀的创始人能预见到顺利发展时的图景吗？
Do great founders know what could go right picture looks like?
今天的布莱恩·切斯基们，他们能充分阐明自己将超越酒店业吗？
Does the Brian Chesky of today, are they able to fully articulate that they'll overtake hotels?
我觉得现在回头看很容易觉得当时很明显。
I think it's easy to sort of look back from now and it was obvious.
但在当时并不总是那么明显。
At the time it was not always obvious.
我认为他们会明确表示人们应该这样做。
And I think what they will articulate is that people should do this this way.
我对未来的看法是一个更加优越的未来。
The way I view the future is a far superior future.
我认为这是你必须能够即兴发挥的梦想，如果这就是未来，你能建立一个真正的大公司吗？
And I think that that's the dream that you have to be able to riff on and whether if that's the future, can you build a really large company?
在某些情况下更明显，因为市场非常大。
And in some cases it's more obvious because the market is so large.
即使只获得一小部分市场份额，你也会处于有利地位。
If you get just even a slice of the market, you'll be in good position.
其他情况下则不那么容易，因为你实际上要梦想市场会变大，你要改变行为方式，你要改变人们做事的习惯。
In other cases it's less easy because you actually have to dream that the market gets bigger, that you're going to change behavior, you're going to take away from a different way that people used to do something.
两种情况都可能发生，我们通常更喜欢那些不太明显但有顺风的市场，这些市场开始时可能很小，但会随着时间的推移而增长。
And both can happen and we generally like the more non obvious markets where there are good tailwinds and the markets could be small at the beginning and it can grow over time.
大家都知道大市场在哪里，进入这些市场通常是一场血战。
Everybody knows where all the large markets are and it's generally a bloodbath when you enter those markets.
所以，我不是说任何公司都不会遇到竞争，每家公司都会遇到，如果你害怕竞争，就应该退出，因为只要你稍有成就，就会有人来追赶你。
And so, I'm not saying that competition is not going to happen in any company, like in every company, if you're afraid of competition, you should just get out because if you're at all successful, someone's gonna come after you.
但我认为对于初创企业来说，初期需要一些掩护。
But I think for a startup, you kind of want some air cover at the beginning.
你不想进入一个竞争激烈的市场，第一天就与大公司正面交锋，因为他们会直接碾压你。
You don't wanna go into a competitive market and go head on with a large competitor on day one because they'll just crush you.
所以你需要找到市场空白领域。
And so you need areas of white space.
你需要一个市场进入策略，让人们觉得‘哦，那家小公司’。
You need a market entry strategy where people think, you know, that's that little company.
哦，哇。
Oh, wow.
你知道的，那还挺可爱的。
You know, that's kinda cute.
继续吧。
Go ahead.
你可以拿下那块市场。
You can take that.
在《创新者的窘境》里，他们讨论的都是低利润业务。
You know, in Innovator's Dilemma, they talk about all the low margin stuff.
大公司总是把低利润业务丢给初创公司，因为初创公司...你懂的。
They always the big companies always give the low margin stuff to the start ups because the start ups yeah.
谁在乎呢？
Who cares?
那里面本来就没多少利润空间。
They're not a lot of margin in that.
他们在那块做得非常非常出色，因为找到了低利润赚钱的方法，然后逐步向高利润市场进军，最终颠覆整个行业。
They get really, really good at that because they figured out how to make money with low margin and they go up market to the higher margin stuff and then eventually they overtake the industry.
这显然是进入市场的一种方式。
That is one way obviously of entering a market.
还有其他方式可以凭借卓越的产品进入市场，这样就会有越来越多人讨论你。如果产品比竞品好上10倍或20倍，所有人都会谈论你，用户就会向你迁移。
There are other ways of entering the market just with a superior product, so you get more and more people to sort of talk about you and if it's 10 times or 20 times better product, then everybody's gonna talk about you and we'll migrate to you.
还有通过完全不同的策略进入市场的方式。
There are other ways by having a completely different strategy.
如果你认为所有人都觉得这是未来，那可能恰恰是别人的陷阱。
If you think that everybody thinks this is the future, it may be someone else's bug.
并非所有人都一样。
Not everybody is the same.
在旅游这样庞大的市场中，你不可能占据100%的份额。
You're not going to capture 100% of the market in something as big as travel.
但有时正是这种与当前趋势区分开来的能力，让你获得成功。
But it's the ability to differentiate yourself from a current trend sometimes that makes you successful.
我认为Airbnb和DoorDash的案例正是如此。
And I think in both Airbnb's case and DoorDash's case, is exactly what happened.
我超级好奇，相信现在所有听众也都一样。
I'm super curious and I'm sure everybody listening is too right now.
当你们在红杉内部辩论这个问题时，布莱恩是对的吗？
When you're debating that question within Sequoia, is Brian right?
比如这个业务会超越充气床垫吗？
That like the is this gonna move beyond air beds?
当传统观点认为这不过是小打小闹时，你们在争论的是——这会不止于此吗？
Like when every when the conventional wisdom is this is cute and you're debating, is this gonna be more than cute?
公司在内部是什么样的情况？
What does that look like inside the firm?
这与赞助商有很大关系，比如Airbnb案例中的Greg，DoorDash案例中则是我在描绘世界图景，并展示为何坚信事情会如此发展的信念。
It has a lot to do with the sponsor in Airbnb's case, Greg and in DoorDash's case, me sort of painting a picture of the world that and showing the conviction of why you believe that this is going to be the case.
这种情况会反复发生，对吧？
And it happens over and over again, right?
就像你可能像我们投资Airbnb时那样是种子轮投资者，到了A轮时，你仍然需要重新描绘蓝图，或许规模更大了？
Like if you might be an investor in the seed like we were in Airbnb, and then in the A, you still have to sort of paint the picture again and maybe, is it bigger?
有时这些公司很容易让人与之共同梦想，因为他们在发展道路上的每个节点都超出了所有人的预期。
Sometimes these companies, it's easy to dream with them because they, every single point along the way, they've out stripped everybody's expectations.
不仅是因为用户量或收入增长，而是世界对这家公司的反应方式简直不可思议。
Not just because there's more usage or more revenue, but the sort of the way the world has reacted to the company is just phenomenal.
你知道，我们Doug Leone常说不要逆势而为，有时证据就在趋势中——他们持续成长，表现优异，吸引顶尖人才，用户热爱服务，并不断拓宽视野。
You know, just, we Doug Leone used to always say don't fight the tape and sometimes the evidence is just in the tape where they just keep growing, they keep doing well, they attract great talent, people love the service and they continue to sort of broaden their vision.
这些公司每一家都经历过挑战。
Every single one of these companies had challenges.
Airbnb曾因EJ事件遭遇公关危机。
Airbnb had a PR crisis with EJ.
他们还经历过一场危机，在欧洲人们与他们激烈对抗，甚至复制他们网站的每个像素。
They also had a crisis where people were fighting tooth and nail with them and copying every single pixel of their website in Europe.
他们决定要赢得欧洲市场，要么可能收购Wimdoo，要么与之合并，要么就得打一场代价高昂的地面战。
And they decided that they wanted to win Europe and they were either going to potentially buy Wimdoo or merge with them or have to go down the path of a pretty expensive ground war.
他们选择了这条道路并最终获胜。
They decided to do that and won.
这些事情的关键在于既要机敏，又要明智地把握如何取胜并脱颖而出。
And so like some of these things have to do with just being crafty and being smart about exactly how you go about winning and coming out on top.
我对此很感兴趣，想深入了解一下。
I'm curious to dive in on that a little bit.
所以他们决定与Wimdoo展开一场耗资巨大的地面战。
So they decided to do the very expensive ground war with Wimdoo.
其中部分资金来源于你。
And part of that financing came from you.
作为红杉资本，你是如何评估这笔资金使用是否合理，而不是将这笔边际资金投向其他地方的？
How did you think about evaluating whether that was a good use of capital versus any other place that you could place that marginal dollar as Sequoia?
事后诸葛亮总是容易的，大家都会这么说。但当时显而易见的是旅游业具有全球网络效应——虽然疫情期间可能更本地化，但我们终将战胜疫情，接种疫苗，人们会重新开始旅行。
It's always easy to say in retrospect that it was obvious and everybody talks about that, but what's obvious at the time is that travel is a global network effects business and maybe not today during the pandemic, it's more localized, but we're going to get past the pandemic, we're all going to get vaccinated, people will go back to traveling.
旅行不会像从前一样，但我们依然热爱探索世界的不同角落。
Traveling won't be the same as before, but we all love visiting different parts of the world.
事实是，比起本地游，人们更渴望去世界各地旅行。
And what is true is that you want to travel to different parts of the world more than you do locally.
如果你能赢得供应端，就很可能获得全部需求。
And if you win that, if you win the supply, you will most likely get all the demand.
这就是为什么我们有信心在后续轮次追加投资。
And that was the reason why we had conviction on investing more in later rounds.
有道理。
Makes sense.
我对Airbnb这个具体案例很好奇，毕竟我们在节目中已经多次讨论过它，包括Airbnb专题和其他相关内容。
I'm curious in that specific case with Airbnb, you know, of course, we've covered it so many times on the show, the Airbnb episode, many others.
这种全球网络效应太强大了。
That global network effect is so powerful.
你知道，Airbnb能够多年来在汉密尔顿·赫尔默的理论框架下积累如此强大的力量，其中一个原因就在于此。
You know, one of the reasons why Airbnb has, you know, been able to build so much power in the Hamilton Helmer sense over the years.
你们红杉资本是什么时候意识到这点的？
When did you guys realize that at Sequoia?
就像最初的投资论点中是否包含这一点——如果项目成功，如果我们能在全球范围内建立起供需网络，这里就有机会形成全球网络效应？还是说这是随着时间的推移，正如你所说逐渐显现出来的？
Like was that part of the thesis going in like, if this works, if we can build up supply and demand globally, like there is an opportunity for a global network effect here or is that something that revealed itself over time as as you were saying?
我认为梦想的一部分就在于你能够创造它。
I think part of dreaming is that you can create one.
并不是说...并不是在我们第一轮种子投资时就实现了这个效应。
It's not that we it's not that it it got realized on the first on our seed investment.
在种子轮投资时，他们有一个房源列表服务。
At the seed investment, they had a listing service.
对吧？
Right?
当时他们有大约2000条房源信息，完成了几笔交易，那时肯定还不是一个具有网络效应的业务，但你必须梦想着如果获取足够多的供应端，它应该能成为网络效应业务。
They they had 2,000 or so listings, they had a few transactions, it was definitely not a network effects business at that time, but you have to dream that if you get enough of the supply it should be a network effects business.
这就是保持思维准备的一部分。
That's part of having a prepared mind.
市场平台的概念已经存在一段时间了，最初由eBay在互联网上开创，但它并不是唯一的市场平台。
Sort of concept of a marketplace has been around for a while, pioneered by eBay on the Internet, but it wasn't the only marketplace.
我们还有其他市场平台，证券交易所就是一种市场平台。
We've had other marketplaces and a stock exchange is a marketplace.
因此，拥有一个准备好的头脑能让你从概念上思考未来，即便在你进行投资的那天可能并不明显。
And so having a prepared mind allows you to think about these conceptually into the future, even though it may not ring true the day you make the investment.
太好了。
That's great.
现在正是感谢我们节目的好朋友ServiceNow的好时机。
Now is a great time to thank good friend of the show, ServiceNow.
我们曾向听众讲述过ServiceNow惊人的创业故事，以及他们如何成为过去十年表现最佳的公司之一，但我们也收到一些听众关于ServiceNow实际业务的疑问。
We have talked to listeners about ServiceNow's amazing origin story and how they've been one of the best performing companies the last decade, but we've gotten some questions from listeners about what ServiceNow actually does.
所以今天，我们就来回答这个问题。
So today, we are gonna answer that question.
首先，最近媒体经常引用的一句话是：ServiceNow是企业的'AI操作系统'。
Well, to start, a phrase that has been used often here recently in the press is that ServiceNow is the, quote, unquote, AI operating system for the enterprise.
但具体来说，ServiceNow二十二年前创立时只专注于自动化。
But to make that more concrete, ServiceNow started twenty two years ago focused simply on automation.
他们最初将实体文书工作转化为软件流程，服务于企业内部的IT部门。
They turned physical paperwork into software workflows initially for the IT department within enterprises.
仅此而已。
That was it.
随着时间的推移，他们在这个平台上构建了更强大、更复杂的任务。
And over time, they built on this platform going to more powerful and complex tasks.
他们的服务范围从IT扩展到人力资源、财务、客户服务、现场运营等部门。
They were expanding from serving just IT to other departments like HR, finance, customer service, field operations, and more.
在过去二十年的发展过程中，ServiceNow已经完成了连接企业各个角落所需的所有繁琐基础工作，使自动化得以实现。
And in the process over the last two decades, ServiceNow has laid all the tedious groundwork necessary to connect every corner of the enterprise and enable automation to happen.
当AI技术兴起时，从本质上讲，AI本身就是一种高度复杂的任务自动化。
So when AI arrived well, AI kinda just by definition is massively sophisticated task automation.
那么是谁早已构建了平台，并搭建了与企业间的连接纽带来实现这种自动化呢？
And who had already built the platform and the connective tissue with enterprises to enable that automation?
ServiceNow。
ServiceNow.
要回答'ServiceNow如今做什么'这个问题，
So to answer the question, what does ServiceNow do today?
他们所说的'连接并赋能每个部门'是认真的。
We mean it when they say they connect and power every department.
IT和人力资源部门用它来管理全公司的人员、设备和软件许可证。
IT and HR use it to manage people, devices, software licenses across the company.
客户服务部门使用ServiceNow处理诸如检测支付失败，并将其内部路由到正确的团队或流程来解决。
Customer service uses ServiceNow for things like detecting payment failures and routing to the right team or process internally to solve it.
供应链组织则用它进行产能规划，整合其他部门的数据和计划，确保所有人步调一致。
Or the supply chain org uses it for capacity planning, integrating with data and plans from other departments to ensure that everybody's on the same page.
无需再在不同应用间来回切换，重复输入相同数据。
No more swivel chairing between apps to enter the same data multiple times in different places.
就在最近，ServiceNow推出了AI代理，任何岗位的员工都能快速部署AI代理处理繁琐事务，让人力专注于更高层次的工作。
And just recently, ServiceNow launched AI agents so that anyone working in any job can spin up an AI agent to handle the tedious stuff, freeing up humans for bigger picture work.
ServiceNow去年入选《财富》全球最受赞赏公司榜单和《快公司》最佳创新者职场，正是源于这一愿景。
ServiceNow was named to Fortune's world's most admired companies list last year and Fast Company's best workplace for innovators last year, and it's because of this vision.
若您想在业务各个环节充分利用ServiceNow的规模与速度优势，请访问servicenow.com/acquired，只需告知是Ben和David推荐即可。
If you wanna take advantage of the scale and speed of ServiceNow in every corner of your business, go to servicenow.com/acquired and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.
谢谢ServiceNow。
Thanks, ServiceNow.
我想稍微转换一下话题，谈谈市场规模。对于那些正在小市场中奋斗但怀揣梦想的早期创业者来说——正如你所说的阿尔弗雷德——这个市场未来可能会变得很大。
I wanna switch gears a little bit here and talk about market size, which for any early stage entrepreneurs listening who are currently in a small market but are dreaming as is the way you put it Alfred, could be a big market.
他们经历过碰壁的痛苦，因为不断收到风投的拒绝邮件，理由都是'市场太小、市场太小、市场太小'。
They've encountered the experience of banging their head against a wall because they keep getting these pass emails from venture capitalists to say market's too small, market's too small, market's too small.
作为一位优秀的投资者，你如何判断当前的小市场是会持续狭小，还是在五到十年后可能变得巨大？
How do you think about as a great investor whether the market is small today and will stay small or whether the market five, ten years from now could be enormous?
你如何将这种判断融入投资决策？
And how do you work that into your investment decision?
这是个很好的问题。我认为很多投资因市场规模被拒的原因在于，正如沃伦·巴菲特那句名言：'当以聪明著称的管理层接手以糟糕经济著称的企业时，保持不变的是企业的名声。'
That's a great question and I think the reason why there's a lot of passes on market size is Warren Buffett famously said when a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
这是很好的建议，但我很少与创始人讨论这点，因为早期阶段的不同之处在于：你们瞄准的是非显性市场。
It is good advice and it's not advice that I often talk about with founders because I think the one thing that is a little different at the early stages is that you are going after non obvious markets.
就像我们讨论过的，如果你进入一个显而易见的庞大市场，就会面临激烈竞争——正因为其显而易见。
So if you go after an obvious market, as we talked about, and it's a very large market, there is intense competition because it's obvious.
同样，如果你选择了一个明显狭小的市场，这也不是好主意。
And then if you go after a small market and it's obviously a small market, that's also a bad idea.
关键在于：你是否真正身处一个当前看似很小，但未来会成为大市场的领域？
The question is, are you actually in a small market that looks small today but it's actually going to be a big market in the future?
这就是我希望与创始人展开对话的角度。
And that's how I kind of would like to have that conversation with the founder.
为什么你认为这个市场未来会变大？
Why is this market going to be large in the future?
创始人会做一些工作，投资人也会做一些工作，而我们红杉当然也有自己的工作。
And there's a bit of the founder doing some work, there's a bit of the investor doing some work, and we certainly do our own work at Sequoia.
然后我们会与创始人一起思考这个问题。
And then we work with the founders to sort of think about it.
其中部分原因与推动你业务发展的趋势有关。
And some of it has to do with what are the trends that are carrying you in this business.
当年移动互联网成为大趋势时不难预见，但移动领域也经历过起伏。
It's not hard to know that mobile is going to be a big trend back when mobile was a big thing, but mobile had some fits and starts as well.
我们曾以为仅靠StarTek手机就能发展移动业务，但用户体验并不理想。
We thought we could build mobile just on a StarTek phone, but the user experience wasn't great.
因此移动业务真正腾飞是在智能手机普及后，因为它已成为功能完整的计算机。
And so mobile really started to take off because the smartphone started to take off and it was a full functioning computer.
正是这种模式支撑移动业务发展了很多很多年。
That that sort of was what carried mobile through for many, many years.
向SaaS的转型其实在当前浪潮前就被预见了，因为当人们开始将机架搬入托管空间时，就能看出越来越多软件将被编写并部署到云端。
The move to SaaS was actually identified way before this current wave because as soon as you saw people moving racks into colocation spaces, you could kinda see that more and more software is gonna be written and put in the cloud.
直到AWS出现，开发者首次直接在别人的服务器上构建应用，而不是自己的，这时人们才意识到：这将持续很长时间，因为你知道为什么吗？
You know, it took AWS coming around where developers are starting to build for the first time right straight into someone else's racks, not your own, that you're like, okay, well this is gonna carry for a long period of time because it you know what?
它降低了创业成本。
It lowered the cost of starting a company.
开发者Jim Getz谈到要具备'准备好的头脑'，他描述了开发者群体的崛起，因为他们不再需要自己搭建服务器机架了。
A developer Jim Getz, who talked about having a prepared mind, he talked about the rise of the developer as a landscape because developers didn't have to rack their own racks anymore.
他们不必筹集大量资金购买服务器并部署在自己的托管机房了。
They didn't have to sort of go raise a bunch of money to buy the servers and put it in their own colo.
他们需要的只是能有一张信用卡，开始编程，然后把代码部署到AWS上。
What they needed was just be able to have a credit card and start coding and put it on AWS.
所以你能看出这将成为一段时期内的趋势。
And so you could see that that was gonna be a trend for some period of time.
就像我们在Airbnb那集里谈到的那个精彩时刻——在YC创业学校，贝索斯向初创公司推出AWS的那次，正是Brian、Nate和Joe参加YC前参加的创业学校。
There's that amazing moment that we talked about in the Airbnb episode where the YC startup school where Bezos sort of launched AWS to startups was the startup school that Brian, Nate and Joe went and attended before they did YC.
是啊。
Yeah.
这再次说明，你知道，这类事情发生时，你会意识到它将引发一场爆发——否则Brian、Joe和Nate就得自己架设服务器了，对吧？
And it it again, like, you know, those are the type of things that, you know, these these little things happen and then you realize it's gonna unlock an explosion because otherwise Brian, Joe and Nate would have had to rack their own servers, right?
对他们来说这可不有趣，因为他们是两个设计师和一个写代码的人。
Like that's for them, that's no fun because they're two designers and someone who wrote code.
我觉得Brian或Joe可能不愿意去机房摆弄机架，Nate也许还行，但Brian和Joe肯定特别不乐意干这个。
And I don't think Brian or Joe, maybe Nate would be okay with going into Colo and racking racks, but I don't think Brian or Joe are pretty particularly happy doing that.
想梦想一下
Wanna dream about what
没错，如果真得那么做的话，公司可能直接就黄了。
Right, but yeah, the company might've been like DOA if they had to do that.
对，正是如此。
Yeah, exactly.
这些推动你的趋势相当重要。
Those trends that carry you are quite important.
我常说要做好路演需要三个要素，有些创始人三项都做得好，但多数创始人只擅长第一项，就是：你对世界的愿景是什么？
I often talk about there are three components of a pitch and some founders do all three well and most founders do the first one well, which is like, what's your vision of the world?
因此，一开始你要描绘出你希望世界变成的样子。
And so the beginning is you paint this picture of what you want the world to become.
你亲身经历过痛苦，知道这不是正确的方法。
You've experienced personal pain that this is not the right way to do this.
你展现出了自己的热情。
You show how passionate you are.
你对未来有愿景，知道世界将如何改变。
You have a vision of the future, of how the world's gonna be different.
然后你要面对当下的现实。
Then you have the realities of today.
描绘现状图景，说明问题所在、如何修复、以及你认为能获得多少客户——因为他们正经历与你相同的痛苦。
Paint the pictures of what's going on and why this is broken, how you can fix it, how many customers you think you can get because they face the same pain that you do.
接着要连接这两个世界的节点，你不需要描绘完整路径，但必须展示如何从当前Airbnb几千个房源发展到更大规模的具体方案。
And then to connect the dots between those two worlds, you kind of have to sort of, you won't have to paint the whole picture, the whole path of how you get from where you are today into the future, but you do have to sort of show us like how exactly you're gonna get from a few thousand listings at Airbnb to more than that.
你需要讨论：如果不聚焦于高流量高密度的城市，
You do have to sort of talk about, okay, well, if you're not gonna focus on the cities where all the volume is and all the density is.
如何在郊区取胜？
How do you win in the suburbs?
如果你想让我们相信郊区战略，如何赢得郊区市场？
If you want us to believe in the suburb strategy, how do you win the suburbs?
在这两种情况下，他们都给出了很好的答案。
And in both cases they had very good answers to these questions.
当时的观念认为这个模式在纽约之外行不通，因为纽约的成功仅源于人口密度——这是个错误假设。
The sort of notion was it didn't work outside of New York City because the only reason it worked in New York City was because of the density, and that was a false assumption.
事实上并没有得到支持，而托尼非常擅长推动这一点。
It was not backed up in fact, and Tony was very, very good at pushing on that.
这就像是，它只在纽约市有效，还是在其他地方也有效？
It's like, does it only really work in New York City or does it work elsewhere?
那么它如何在其他地方发挥作用呢？
And how can it work elsewhere?
对。
Right.
有趣的是，我们已经从这个关于市场规模的想法和问题，跳转到了单位经济效益的话题——它在特定市场能行得通吗？
Well, funny, we've danced from this idea, this question around market size to this topic in unit economics of, will it work in a given market?
唐在红杉早期就说过，评估机会时最重要的因素就是市场规模——因为没人能在小市场里做出大生意——以及实现高毛利空间的潜力。
And Don, among only a few other factors early Sequoia days would say that the very important things in evaluating an opportunity are the market size, because no one ever started a huge business in a small market and the potential for large gross margins.
我很好奇，当你带着这种主动姿态和充分准备的心态与创业者会面时，如何将这种思维应用到单位经济效益分析中？
And I'm curious as you come with this proactive stance and a prepared mind when you're meeting with entrepreneurs, how do you apply that thinking in unit economics?
在你看来，如今创办一个具备高毛利能力的生意仍然重要吗？
And is it still important today to be able to start a business with high gross margin ability in sort of your eyes?
答案是微妙的。
The answer is nuance.
我认为高毛利率，就像贝索斯说的，关键不是利润率，而是利润绝对值。
I think high gross margin, as Bezos would say, it's not about margin percent, it's about margin dollars.
只要利润绝对值足够大，即使毛利率不高也是可以接受的。
If you have large margin dollars that can be okay even though the gross margin percent is not as high.
如果你要进入低毛利率的行业，就必须追求巨大的业务量。
If you're going after a low gross margin percent business, you just need a ton of volume.
所以你需要高重复性。
So you need high repeatability.
毛利率这个概念其实很微妙。
And the notion of gross margin is a strange thing.
如果从GMV的角度看DoorDash，他们的毛利率确实很低。
If you look at DoorDash from a GMV standpoint, then their gross margin is really low.
但如果只看他们的抽成，扣除其他所有费用后，他们的利润率其实还不错。
But if you just look at their take, if you net out everything else, then their margins are decent.
Airbnb的情况也是如此。
And the same is true with Airbnb.
人们很少思考这一点，但没人会用Airbnb的GMV来计算其利润率。
People don't think about this, but nobody measures Airbnb's margins off of their GMV.
他们都是用抽成率来计算的。
They measure it off of their take rate.
所以这些事情比表面看起来要更复杂些。
And so some of this stuff is a little more nuanced than that.
软件业务中，你支付的只是软件本身。
Software businesses, you're paying for just the software.
你不会去计算软件上发生的所有交易。
You're not looking at all the sort of transactions that happen on the software.
单位经济效益之所以重要，是因为最终这必须成为一门生意。
The reason why unit economics is important is because eventually this has to be a business.
要想获得高估值，最终还是要基于你的利润和利润倍数来估值。
To be able to be valued highly eventually you'll be valued off of your profits and a multiple off of your profits.
我认为困惑之处在于资本的可得性。
And the confusion I think is the availability of capital.
过去几年里，很多人都抱怨系统里的资本太多了。
In the last few years a lot of people have complained there's too much capital in the system.
系统里的资本一直都太多。
There's always been too much capital in the system.
十年前我刚入行时就因为系统资本过剩感到沮丧。
When I started ten years ago I was frustrated there was too much capital in the system.
我记得当时坐在迈克·莫里茨旁边说，风投生态系统的钱实在太多了。
I remember sitting, my desk was right next to Mike Moritz's and I said hey there's just too much money in the venture ecosystem.
他回答说：是啊，谢谢你的观察。
He was like, Yeah, thanks for observing that.
回去工作吧，你的职责就是解决这个问题。
Go back to work and your job is to figure that out.
我当时觉得：这回答真让人不爽。
And I was like, That's not a satisfying answer.
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他又说：系统里的资本确实太多了。
And he's like, Well, there's too much capital in the system.
我同意你的看法。
I agree with you.
不过你知道吗？
Well, you know what?
在你入行前十年前，资本就已经过剩了。
Ten years before you, there was too much capital.
在你之前的二十年里，当我刚进入风险投资行业时，系统中就有过多的资金。
And twenty years before you, when I started in the venture business, there was too much money in the system.
系统中永远都会有过多资金。
There'll always be too much money in the system.
我们随着时间学到的经验是，赢家会获得不成比例的市场份额。
And the thing that we've learned over time is that the winners get a disproportionate amount of the market cap.
如果这是真的，那么按照简单逻辑，投资者自然想投资赢家。
And if that's true, then they also will, just simple logic, investors then wanna invest in the winners.
因此赢家会获得越来越多的资本。
And so the winners get more and more of the capital.
如果今天系统中有更多资金，赢家将获得更多钱。
And if there's more money in the system today, the winners will get more money.
这让他们能够采取略有不同的策略。
And that allows them to do things slightly differently.
我举个电商案例：在Zappos时，我们必须确保客户获取成本能在首单就回本。
And I use the sort of case where in e commerce when I was at Zappos, we needed to make sure that the payback on the CAC was on the first order.
但如今我认为没有哪家电商公司还在这样做。
Well, I don't think any company today in ecommerce does that.
如果你有更多资金，且确认首单就能盈利，那么追加资金后，或许可以把回报周期延长到7天、1个月、半年甚至一年。
If you have more capital if you know it works on the first order, then if I give you a little bit more capital, maybe you can extend it to seven days or a month or six months or a year.
但我认为这种传递性并不总是成立。
I do think that this transitive property doesn't always work.
并不是说零资金时可行的模式，就一定能延续到一年、两年、三年或四年。
It's not like if it works with zero cap, you can do it for a year, two years, three years, four years.
在某个临界点它会崩溃，因为你终究无法筹集足够的资金来维持运营。
At some point it breaks because at some point you won't be able to raise enough capital to keep you afloat.
但我确实认为，如果市场规模足够大，人们会更愿意接受单位经济在更长时间内实现回报。
But I do think there is more willingness to see unit economics pay back over a longer period of time if the market is large.
是的，这完全说得通。
Yeah that makes total sense.
你知道，与红杉早期不同，现在你有多个投资切入点可以选择——无论是种子阶段与创业者共同构想梦想，还是成长期与已解决部分问题的较成熟企业合作。
So you know unlike the early days of Sequoia for sure you have different entry points where you can partner with companies now whether it's dreaming with the entrepreneur at a seed stage or partnering at the growth stage with more established companies that have already answered some of these questions.
当你们评估某个市场时，如何确定那个将占据大部分市值的赢家（如你提到的）的胜率？
As you're thinking about a given market how do you decide what the rate is that winner that you mentioned that's gonna get the lion's share of the market cap in a space?
你们如何判断是该投资现有成长阶段企业，还是种子阶段仍有新进入者的机会？
How do you decide if it already exists and you should go invest at the growth stage or there's still an opportunity for a new entrant at the seed stage?
我认为最简单的答案是：我们红杉希望尽早识别出未来最重要的公司。
I think the simple answer is that we at Sequoia wanna identify the most important companies of tomorrow as early as possible.
因此我们确实希望在种子阶段就与其合作，从构想到IPO乃至更长远阶段全程陪伴。
So we do want to partner with them at the seed stage and be there for them from idea to IPO and beyond.
需要指出的是，世界正在发生巨变，创新层出不穷，我们不可能在种子阶段触及所有优秀公司。
I would point out that there's so much going on in the world, there's so much innovation that we're not going to get to every great company at the seed stage.
所以必然会有我们错过种子轮但在A轮投资的企业，
And so there are going to be companies that we miss at the seed that we'll do at the A.
也会有错过A轮但希望在B轮投资的公司，以及错过B轮但能在成长轮接手的项目。
There are companies that we miss at the A that hopefully we do at the B and companies that we miss at the B that hopefully we pick up at a growth round.
某种意义上我们可以多阶段介入，但种子阶段的潜力公司与A轮或成长轮企业的评估标准截然不同。
So in some sense we we can enter at many different levels, but also what's an interesting company at the seed is gonna look very different than a company at the a or the company at a growth round.
你知道，就是一个简单的想法，比如种子阶段发生了什么，识别新市场。
You know, just a simple sort of idea, like, what's happening at the seed, identifying new markets.
你的观点是几年后市场会非常非常不同，这与增长轮次不同。
You have this view that the market will be very, very different a few years from now, is different than a growth round.
你可能在寻找一个持续增长的发展中市场，但在增长轮次投资时，它已经有一定基础，即使尚未完全成熟。
You may be looking for a developing market that continues to grow, but it is somewhat established, if not already developed, when you make an investment at the growth round.
这完全说得通。
That makes total sense.
这也引出了我一直想问你们的问题。
That also brings up a question I've been trying to ask you guys.
红杉这些年来改变的另一个维度不仅是投资阶段，还有地域。
The other dimension that's changed over the years at Sequoia is not just stage at which you invest, but geography too.
显然你们在中国和印度有非常成熟的业务，现在又在欧洲布局，遍布全球。
And obviously you have a very robust practice in China and India and now you're building one in Europe, everywhere around the globe.
这些不同地域的见解和经验如何影响你们在美国的决策以及彼此之间的影响？
How do insights and learnings from each of those geographies influence your thinking back here in The US and each other?
我认为事实是，你几乎可以在世界任何地方创办公司，人才分布是均匀的，而机会并非如此——这是很多人说过的一句话。
Well I think the fact of the matter is you can start a company almost anywhere in the world and talent is evenly distributed and opportunity is not as is a quote that lots of peep has said.
我们正在全球范围内扩展，因为我们想成为全球合作伙伴，我们确实互相学习。
We're doing this we're we're sort of expanding around the world because we wanna be a global partnership and we do learn from each other.
他们在世界各地的观察发现人们其实非常相似。
And so their observations around the world are that people are pretty similar.
由于文化原因或成长环境不同，他们做事方式会略有差异。
They do things slightly differently because of cultural reasons or how they grow up.
但我们某种程度上追求相似的东西。
But we kind of want similar things.
从消费者角度来看，如果某个模式在一个地区行得通，那么即使形式不完全相同，也很可能在另一个地区适用，反之亦然。
From a consumer standpoint, if something works in one geo, it's likely to work maybe not the same exact sort of formation, but it's likely to work somewhere else and vice versa.
如果你在企业端想出了一种高效且有趣的运营方式，那么该地区的其他部分很可能也会需要它。
And if you come up with a great, interesting, sort of efficient way of doing things on the enterprise side, it's probably gonna be wanted in different parts of the region.
就以DoorDash为例，我们是中国美团的投资者，双方有很多经验可以互相借鉴——哪些模式可行、哪些不可行、需要获取多少市场份额、规模扩大后单位经济效益如何变化等等。
And just as an example with DoorDash, we are investors in Meituan in China, and there are a lot of learnings back and forth about what works, what doesn't, how much market share you need to get, how much the unit economics changes when you get to scale, etcetera.
因此，增长路径和业务可行性这些方面，全球的经验都可以相互学习。
So so the growth path, the sort of viability of the business, those things can be learned across the world.
而与疫情相关的经验，我认为也有很多值得借鉴之处。
And then the other thing related to the pandemic, I think there was a lot of learning.
中国最先遭遇这种病毒，所以托尼联系了全球面临同样问题的人们，并意识到最重要的是保持餐厅营业。
China faced this virus first, and so Tony called up people around the world that were facing the same issues, and Tony realized the most important thing was to keep the restaurants open.
世界上有些地区的餐厅是关闭的。
There are parts of the world where the restaurants are closed.
只要保持餐厅营业，就能解决其他一些问题。
So long as you keep the restaurant open, then you can fix some of the other issues.
所以他们尽可能多地让餐厅入驻平台。
So they onboarded restaurants as much as they could.
完成这一步后，接下来需要解决与骑手相关的问题。
Once you did that, then you needed to solve the issue related to drivers.
我们会为他们提供口罩和防护装备，并推行无接触配送服务。
We'll provide them with masks and PPE and also worked on contactless deliveries.
如果你做到了这一点，并且将食物安全送达顾客手中，顾客显然会愿意下单。
And if you did that and you got the food safely to the customer, the customers obviously wanted to order.
是的，我很好奇。
Yeah, I'm curious.
你提出了这个想法，让我们保持联系并在全球范围内互相学习。
You brought up this idea that we keep in touch and we learn from each other around the world.
随着红杉资本从几位合伙人发展到在全球办事处组成更大规模的合伙体系，显然管理成本也随之增加。
As Sequoia grew from a few partners to several pieces of a larger partnership in these global offices, obviously you increase the overhead.
你可能把所有时间都花在相互沟通上。
You could spend all your time communicating with each other.
这是一个拥有类似其他大型组织沟通网络的大型机构。
It's a large organization with sort of communication networks like any other.
那么你如何找到那个平衡点呢？
So how do you find that fine line?
比如我很好奇，你们是否有固定的会议节奏之类的安排，既能互相学习，又不会把所有时间都花在沟通上。
Like, I'm curious if you have a meeting cadence or anything like that where you do get to learn from each other, but you're not spending all your time communicating with each other.
没有。
No.
我们的机制非常轻量级。
We it's very lightweight.
红杉资本的组织结构非常分散。
Sequoia is structured in a very decentralized way.
每个小组都自主做出投资决策。
Each group makes their own investment decisions.
每个地区自主做出投资决策。
Each geo makes their own investment decisions.
我们这样做是有意为之，因为实地情况远比全球主题和趋势重要得多。
And we do that on purpose because what's on the ground is way more important than the global themes and the global trends.
你可以按季度思考全球主题和趋势，但每天都要在本地采取行动。
You you can think about the global themes and the global trends on a quarterly basis, but you're acting locally every single day.
所以我们努力做到全球思考，本地行动。
So we try to think globally, but act locally.
这就是红杉内部秉持的理念。
And that's the mantra that we have inside of Sequoia.
能否介绍一下不同运营团队的规模，让大家有个概念？
What do the different operating teams sort of look like just so people get a sense of scale?
我是说这些团队规模都不大对吧？
I mean they're not very large right?
比如美国早期投资团队有多大？
Like how big is The US early stage practice?
早期团队大约有15人。
The early stage team is about 15 people.
团队规模虽小，但我们的理念是：虽然机会很多，但每人每年只会进行一两笔种子投资或风险投资。
It's just not a big team but you know the way we think about it is while there's a lot of opportunity, each one of us are only gonna make one or two seed investments or one or two venture investments a year.
我们保持小规模的原因是，我们最享受的是尽早与创始人合作，帮助他们实现公司全部潜力。
And the reason we keep it small is because what we enjoy is to partner with the founders as early as possible and help them and their companies reach their full potential.
这是项艰巨的工作，但我们对此的热情不亚于结识新创始人和思考未来。
And that is an enormous amount of work, and we enjoy that part just as much as meeting new founders and thinking about the future.
但一旦我们做出投资，我们就希望让未来成为现实。
But once we make an investment, we wanna bring the future to fruition.
这不仅仅是关于进行投资。
It's not just about making the investment.
我们并不真正考虑低价买入高价卖出。
We don't really think about buying low and selling high.
我们考虑的是帮助创始人充分发挥他们的潜力，将他们设想的未来变为现实。
We think about helping founders reach their full potential, bring the future that they envision to reality.
接下来我想问的是，在很多方面，红杉的历史让我在过去一年里思考了很多，关于我们多次报道过的苹果投资，你知道，那是一个早期的例子，我认为低价买入高价卖出从长远来看可能并没有给红杉带来应有的最大收益。
The next thing I wanted to ask, in many ways, Sequoia's history that has sparked me thinking a lot about this over the past year and the Apple investment that we've covered so many times of, you know, that was an early example of I think buying low and selling high that in the long run probably served Sequoia not nearly as well as it could have.
我想你们在苹果IPO前的早期投资中获得了600万美元的净利润。
I think you guys made $6,000,000 in net profit on the on the early pre IPO Apple investment.
你们是如何考虑时间跨度的？
How do you guys think about time horizon?
显然，如你所说需要很长的时间跨度，这是资本复利的方式。
Like, obviously, you need a long time horizon as you're talking about and that's the way to compound capital.
同时，你们是一个基金结构，一系列基金。
At the same time, you are a fund structure, a series of funds.
你们有有限合伙人。
You have limited partners.
他们最终会希望获得分配。
They want distributions at some point.
你们认为什么时候是开始分配投资回报的合适时机？
When do you guys think about the right time to start to distribute out your investments?
我们思考的是公司未来的前景是否比现在更加光明。
We think about whether the company has brighter prospects in the future than they do today.
如果确实如此，那么我们就会继续持有。
And if that's the case, then we continue to hold.
我们不会从IRR或资金回报的角度主动考虑分配问题。
We don't actively think about distributions from a IRR or money on money perspective.
是的，显然我们是一家基金，会以这种方式被衡量，但我们很自豪的是，我们持有的倍数高于我们分配股票的净倍数。
Yes, obviously we are a fund and we get measured that way but we're very proud of the fact that our as held multiples are higher than our net multiples of the stock that we distribute.
这是一种深思熟虑的战略选择。
It's a deliberate strategy that that's the case.
之所以如此，是因为我们既选择了那些希望建立持久企业的正确创始人，又帮助他们专注于业务的持久性。
And so the reason that that is is because we both pick the right founders who want to build long lasting companies and we help them focus on what's enduring about their business.
要知道，专注于长期发展远比关注市场上短期的涨跌要好得多。
You know, you're just a lot better off focusing on the long run than on any short run swings up or down in the market.
因此当我们进行分配时，虽然可能意味着基金生命周期结束，但更重要的是，即使在分配时，我们也希望公司的发展前景远超我们将股份交给有限合伙人的那一天。
And so when we distribute, it's yes, it's because it's maybe the end of the life of a fund, but it's more about even when we distribute, we hope that the company has much longer prospects than when we the day we sort of send the shares to our LPs.
我们分配股份，让有限合伙人自行决定是否出售。
We distribute shares and let our LPs decide whether they want to sell or not.
我们通常不会出售股票。
We generally don't sell the stock.
有趣的是，说我们注重长期而非短期固然好听，但在我们所处的行业里，从字面和数学角度看，这确实是好得多的策略——毕竟复利回报业务曲线下的大部分面积都出现在后期年份。
It's funny, it's a nice thing to say, you know, we're long run focused over short term focused, but in the business that we're in, it's quite literally and mathematically just a much, much better strategy given how much of the area under the curve of a compounding returns business shows up in those later years.
我最近听到一个数据：亚马逊在上市第21年赚的钱，比上市前20年加起来还要多。
I mean, I think I heard a stat recently that was Amazon made as or more money in its twenty first year after IPO than in the entirety of the 20¢ IPO.
想想我们从事的这些业务就觉得很有趣，比如投资机会确实出现得很早，但真正的回报要等到很久很久以后。
And so it's it's just funny to think about these businesses that we're in, like the opportunity to invest where you're investing does come early, but the real returns do come much, much, much later.
这就是复利效应的证明。
It's a testament to compounding.
人们常犯的错误是难以理解复利，因为作为人类，我们更喜欢线性预测而非指数预测。
The thing that people don't get right, and it's hard for us to understand compounding because we're human and we like linear projections as opposed to exponential projections.
我们一开始和最后都会搞错。
We get it wrong in the beginning and in the end.
我认为初期容易犯的错误是它看起来是线性的，其实不是，看不出复利效应。
I think the things you get wrong at the beginning is it looks linear, it's not, it doesn't look like it's compounding.
其实复利效应的最初几年看起来确实很线性。
Well, actually early years of compounding look very linear.
事实上，在任何时间点，复利效应在你所处的位置看起来都是线性的。
And in fact, at any single point in time, at any point, compounding it still looks linear exactly where you are.
它的切线看起来非常线性，与线性相差无几，或者是你画错了线。
Tangent of it looks very linear and it's not that far off from being linear or you draw the line wrong.
往往事后才会明显意识到自己处于复利效应中。
It's almost always more obvious after the fact that you're in a compounding situation.
希望人们通过疫情能更理解这点，因为疫情也是指数增长型情况。我们总是措手不及，事后才采取压制措施，但即使人们长期保持警惕，病例仍会持续出现，因为复利效应具有持续性，很难逆转。
I hope that people understand that more given what's happened with the pandemic because that is also an exponential growth sort of situation and we always get surprised and then we clamp down after the fact and we still continue to see cases after people take more precautions over a longer period of time because compounding sticks, it's a hard thing to reverse.
这个观点太精辟了。
That's such a good point.
好了，各位听众。
All right, listeners.
现在正是感谢我们节目的老朋友Vanta的好时机，它是领先的自动化信任平台，帮助您实现合规自动化并管理风险。
This is a great time to thank our longtime friend of the show, Vanta, the leading agentic trust platform that helps you automate compliance and manage risk.
大卫，我和克里斯蒂娜以及Vanta团队取得了联系，获取了最新消息。
David, I, caught up with Christina and the Vanta team to get the latest.
哦，不错。
Oh, nice.
听众们可能知道Vanta最初专注于合规自动化领域。
So listeners probably know Vanta started by focusing on compliance automation.
帮助公司获得SOC2、ISO27001、GDPR和HIPAA等认证。
So helping companies to get their SOC two, ISO twenty seven zero zero one, GDPR, and HIPAA.
关键洞见是建立一个能持续监控所有合规与风险的系统，而非仅在年度审计时检查，让您能时刻对安全状况保持信心。
The big insight was to build a system that could monitor all of your compliance and risk continuously, not just once a year for your audit, so you could feel confident in your security posture all the time.
但现在他们意识到，真正的业务是让您更容易赢得客户信任。
But now they have realized that the business that they're really in is making it easier for you to earn the trust of your customers.
没错。
Yep.
有道理。
Makes sense.
当您开始扩展业务时，会面临更多合规安全要求和工具，这可能导致混乱。
So when you start scaling, you end up with more compliance and security requirements and more tools, which can get very chaotic.
Vanta已成为随您业务扩展的24/7AI安全专家。
Vanta has become the always on AI powered security expert that scales with you.
正如Vanta所说，他们是您永远无需招聘的最佳安全人才。
And as Vanta puts it, they are the best security hire you'll never have to make.
当然，全球增长最快的公司如Cursor、Snowflake、Replit、Linear和Ramp都使用Vanta来确保其安全方案始终保持领先，真正成为业务增长的驱动力。
And, of course, the fastest growing companies in the world like Cursor, Snowflake, Replit, Linear, and Ramp all use Vanta to make sure that their security programs are always a step ahead and function as a real driver of growth for the business.
完全合理。
Makes total sense.
真有意思。
It's funny.
大约五年前我们刚开始与Vanta合作时，我记得是Yep。
When we first started working with Vanta almost five years ago, I think it was Yep.
我们当时想，这又是一个优秀的'收购宇宙'产品，能让你只专注于产品差异化，把其他非核心业务外包出去。
We thought, oh, this is one of those great acquired universe products that lets you focus only on what differentiates your product and outsource the things that don't.
但过去几年间，他们的产品进步神速，已经不仅仅是帮你完成那些工作了。
But over the last couple years, their product has advanced so much that it's not just does that for you.
现在实际上是Vanta做得更好。
It's now actually Vanta does that better.
没有实时监控系统，你根本无法给供应商和客户提供这种级别的信心与信任。
Without a real time monitoring system, there's just no way that you could give your vendors and customers this level of confidence and trust.
没错。
Yep.
如果贵公司准备重新专注于改善啤酒口感，把合规审查和安评工作交给Vanta的AI自动化系统，欢迎加入他们遍布全球的12000家客户行列。
So if your company is ready to go back to making your beer taste better and leave the compliance and security reviews to Vanta's AI powered automation, join their now 12,000 customers around the globe.
只需访问vanta.com/acquired，告诉他们是Ben和David推荐你的，就能获得1000美元免费额度。
You can just head on over to vanta.com/acquired and tell them that Ben and David sent you, and you'll earn a thousand dollars of free credit.
网址是vanta.com/acquired。
That's vanta.com/acquired.
在我们这期节目接近尾声前，我还有一个结构性的问题。
Well, I've I've one more sort of structural question here before we start to wind toward the end of our episode.
许多正在创建公司或建立持久机构的人，都将红杉资本视为榜样——四十九年来几乎在每个阶段都表现出色，从一个小团队发展成为运作如润滑良好的机器般的全球分布团队，至少外界看来如此。
So a lot of people who are building firms or building enduring institutions of any type look to Sequoia as an example of forty nine years high performance at almost every, if not every stage along the journey, building from a small group of people into a globally distributed team that runs like a well oiled machine, at least perception from the outside.
我很好奇，有哪些实践帮助你们不断学习、进步，最终成为这样一个持久机构，而非中途夭折？
And I'm curious, what are some of the practices that have contributed to allowing you to learn and get better and become that enduring institution instead of something that flames out at some point?
我在想，你们是否进行事后分析？
And I'm thinking, you know, do you do postmortems?
你们如何从错误中学习，又如何从成功中汲取经验？
How do you think about learning from your mistakes, learning from your successes?
这一切是如何实现的？
How does that all happen?
这听起来可能有些老套，但关键在于唐最初将其命名为红杉资本而非瓦伦丁资本。
Well, this is gonna sound trite, but it had to do with Don starting out and calling it Sequoia Capital instead of Valentine Capital.
他从一开始就奠定了正确的文化基调。
He had set the culture right at the beginning.
这是一个以人为本的行业。
And this is a people business.
我们聘请合伙人，由他们与创始人对接。
We hire partners that then interface with our founders.
这个行业几乎没有所谓的秘方，简单的事实是：他将其命名为红杉资本，因为他想在风险投资领域培育最高的树——这本身就是一种宣言。
There's very little secret sauce in this business, and the simple fact of basically calling it Sequoia Capital because he wanted to build the tallest tree inside of venture capital makes a statement.
这也表明公司不属于他个人，他创立公司后就会将其交给迈克和道格。
It also makes a statement that the firm is not his, that he's around to start the firm and then he's going to hand it over to Mike and Doug.
他们的职责就是让红杉资本持续运转下去。
And it's their job to sort of keep Sequoia going.
到了某个时刻，他们会离开并将接力棒交给下一代，再下一代。
And at some point they're going to go and they're gonna hand it off to the next generation and the next generation after that.
你指出他并未对管理公司赋予过高价值，因为它已经足够成功可以传承给下一代。
And you're pointing out that he didn't put some high value on the management company because it had been so successful to sell to the next generation.
他原话就是：'现在管理公司归你们了，对吧？'
He literally just said, you now own the management company, right?
是的。
Yeah.
而且在红杉，没有人真正拥有管理公司。
And nobody owns a management company at Sequoia.
普通合伙人某种程度上是管理公司的运营者，但我们并不视其为所有权。
The GPs sort of manage the management company and we don't view it as owning it.
我们认为这是从上代继承的遗产，我们的责任是确保以更好的状态交给下一代。
We view it as we inherited it from the last generation, and it's our job to make sure that we pass it on to the next generation in better hands.
我们每个人加入红杉时都站在巨人的肩膀上，我们希望确保这个地方能为下一代变得更好。
All of us come to Sequoia being able to stand on the shoulder of giants, and we want to make sure that this place is better off for the next generation.
仅凭这一点，就已经具备了巨大的发展基础。
And just coming off of that is a huge base to be able to build upon.
就持续学习而言，这个行业需要三个关键要素——我之前说过：你需要高智商、高情商和高行动力，然后恰当地运用它们。
In terms of constant learning, this business, you need three key ingredients, and I think I've said this before, which is you need, you know, you need high IQ, high EQ, and high hustle, and then you need to apply it appropriately.
如果你只是超级聪明，但无法影响创始人或让他们影响管理团队做出正确决策，那么即便你能指出公司问题也无济于事。
If you're just super smart, but you can't influence your founders or have them influence their management team to do the right things, that's not really gonna work just because you can identify something wrong with the company.
这是一门影响力的生意。
This is a business of influence.
你必须影响那些接受你资金的人，因为你的钱和其他人的一样有价值。
You got to influence people that take your money because your money is just as green as everybody else's.
但更重要的是，在你进行投资并与创始人成为合作伙伴后，必须影响他们去做一系列他们可能不喜欢的事情，因为大多数创始人既有优势也有弱点，他们在某些领域非常出色，而你需要影响他们全面发展，建立一家公司，而不仅仅是一个产品或功能。
But more importantly, after you make the investments and you become partners with the founders, have to influence them to do a bunch of things that they may not like because most founders that have strengths and have weaknesses and they're really good at certain areas and then you have to influence them to sort of round out and build a company and not just a product or a feature.
这个行业需要极高的拼搏精神。
And this business is high hustle.
你每天都要全力以赴地追逐一个主题或趋势。
You hustle every single day going after a theme or a trend.
我该如何思考这个问题，并将其转化为对整个行业格局的理解，然后选择正确的创始人作为合作伙伴，在该领域建立一家公司。
How do I think about that and turn it into understanding the whole landscape of what's going on and then picking the right founder to partner with to build a company in that space.
这些事情需要付出巨大的努力和时间。
Those things require enormous amount of effort and time.
它要求对可能出现的问题持怀疑态度。
It requires being both a skeptic about what's going to go wrong.
同时也需要对可能顺利的事情有丰富的想象力。
It also requires a lot of imagination for what can go right.
回到没有秘诀这一点——如果你想在这个行业做得好，就必须成为一台持续学习的机器。
And back to there's no secret sauce is if you want to be good at this business, you have to be a constant learning machine.
你必须每天思考第二天能改进什么。
You got to think about every single day what you can improve for the next day.
就复利而言，如果你能每天进步一点点，这可能是最重要的事情。
In terms of compounding, that's probably the most important thing if you can just improve a little bit every single day.
想让明天不那么糟糕就是方法，可以这么理解。
You want to suck less tomorrow is the way, sort of one way to think about it.
这是个让人谦逊的行业。
And this is a humbling business.
我刚入行时，记得迈克说过一句震撼的话：这是个让人谦逊的行业，因为即使投资理论错了也能赚钱，而理论对了也可能亏钱。
When I joined, remember Mike saying a line which was like jarring, that this is a humbling business because you can make money even if you got the investment thesis wrong and you can lose money even though if you got the investment thesis right.
如果听到这个观点不感到认知失调，那你应该既为此兴奋，又明白自己不可能每天都做对。
If you don't get cognitive dissonance hearing that, you have to be both excited by that and also know that you're not going to get things right every single day.
这就是为什么长期从事这行的人依然热爱它。
And this is why people who are in this business for a long time continue to love it.
与创业者会面时，即使不认同他们，听他们讲述也极具感染力，因为他们描绘的世界未来与众不同。
There's the element of meeting founders that they just, even if you don't agree with them, it's infectious to hear them speak because they're painting a future of the world that's just different.
还有那种感觉：天啊我错了这个，哎呀那个也错了，咦这个赚了钱但其实大部分判断都错了。
And then there's the element of like, gosh, I got that wrong, gosh, I got this wrong, gosh, I made money on this, but I still got most of everything wrong.
我到底是真有本事还是单纯运气好？
Was I actually good or was I just lucky?
我常对想进入风投的人说：我会先劝退你，等听完所有不该入行的理由后你还坚持，我再详谈。
I always tell people if they want to join venture capital, like, I'm going to try to convince you not to join and then after all of the reasons why you shouldn't join, you still want to join, I'll tell you more about it.
因为要花十年甚至更久才能判断你是否适合这行。
Because it will take a decade or longer for you to figure out whether you're good at this business or not.
可能很快会发现你不适合——接触不到好机会，缺乏想象力。
Maybe you'll find out you're bad at it because you can't get in front of interesting opportunities, you don't dream enough.
这些缺点能较快显现，但要确认自己擅长这行却需要很长时间。
You can find that out relatively quickly, but you won't know that you're good at this for a long time.
你现在处于一个需要大量招聘的职位，我猜是在红杉资本，就像你知道的唐在GSP高层讲座中举着你的简历那样，直到你加入红杉的那天。
You're now in a position where you're doing a lot of hiring I assume at Sequoia in a way that you know Don famously in the GSP view from the top lecture he held up your resume then the day you joined Sequoia.
当你评估加入公司的人选时，你会关注哪些特质来初步判断他们可能适合这份工作？
When you're evaluating people to join the firm, what qualities do you look for that give you an inkling that they might be good at this?
高智商、高情商，还有
High IQ, high EQ, and
高干劲。
high hustle.
大卫，你刚才完全没在听吗？
David, weren't you listening at all?
显然没有。
Obviously not.
这份工作其实没什么硬性要求对吧？
There are no real requirements for this job, right?
就像你可以随便放谁的简历上去，他们都能成为优秀的风险投资人。
Like you can put anybody's resume up and they can become a great venture capitalist.
这其中既有天赋要素，也有渴望和坚持的因素——坚持从事这种需要长期投入才能获得回报的行业。
There's an element of those raw ingredients and then there's an element of desire and sticking to a sort of business that pays you to be in it for the long run.
你不会在第一天就获得最大收益。
You're not going to get your biggest gains on day one.
你会在职业生涯早期经历所有亏损，而收益需要很长时间才能显现。
You're going to see all your losses earlier in your career and your gains take a long time to develop.
所以也许另一个要素就是专注于持久性，这是我们的信条之一。
So maybe the other element is just the focus on the enduring, which is one of our tenets.
好吧，阿尔弗雷德，我想不出比这更好的地方来结束这个话题了。
Well, Alfred, I can't think of a better place than that to leave it.
我想把发言权交给你，如果有创始人想联系你，他们应该找谁以及如何联系？
I do want to give you the floor and say if founders are thinking about reaching out to you, who should reach out and how can they get in touch?
是的，直接发邮件给我就行。
Yeah, just simply email me.
我的邮箱是lin，l-i-n，sequoiacap.com，如果他们想联系我的话。
I'm at lin, l I n, sequoiacap dot com if they want to reach out to me.
再给创始人们一句鼓励的话：你们做得很好，要继续坚持下去。
Another word of encouragement for founders, you're doing good work and sort of keep at it.
每天都要思考如何建立一个可持续发展的企业，因为你的商业模式和商业计划就是战略武器。
Keep thinking about every single day about how you can build a sustainable business because your your business model and your business plan is the strategic weapon.
我们提供资本作为燃料，但你需要先有战略性的商业计划，才能有效利用这些燃料。
We provide capital, which is fuel, but you need the strategic business plan first before you can do anything with that fuel.
我很喜欢这个比喻。
I love it.
好的，阿尔弗雷德，非常感谢你参加我们的节目。
Well, Alfred, thank you so much for joining us.
好的。
All right.
谢谢。
Thank you.
好了，听众朋友们。
Alright, listeners.
是时候谈谈我们另一家喜爱的公司——Statsig了。
It's time to talk about another one of our favorite companies, Statsig.
自从我们上次提及Statsig以来，他们有了一个非常激动人心的新进展。
Since you last heard from us about Statsig, they have a very exciting update.
他们完成了C轮融资，估值达到11亿美元。
They raised their series c, valuing them at $1,100,000,000.
是啊。
Yeah.
重大里程碑。
Huge milestone.
祝贺团队。
Congrats to the team.
时机很有意思，因为实验领域现在真的越来越火热了。
And timing is interesting because the experimentation space is, really heating up.
没错。
Yes.
那么为什么投资者对STAT SEG的估值超过十亿美元？
So why do investors value STAT SEG at over a billion dollars?
因为实验已成为全球顶尖产品团队产品架构中的关键部分。
It's because experimentation has become a critical part of the product stack for the world's best product teams.
是的。
Yep.
这一趋势始于Web 2.0时代的公司，如Facebook、Netflix和Airbnb。
This trend started with Web two dot o companies like Facebook and Netflix and Airbnb.
那些公司遇到了一个问题。
Those companies faced a problem.
如何在员工规模扩大到数千人的同时，保持快速、去中心化的产品和工程文化？
How do you maintain a fast, decentralized product and engineering culture while also scaling up to thousands of employees?
实验系统是这个答案的重要组成部分。
Experimentation systems were a huge part of that answer.
这些系统让这些公司的每个人都能访问一套全球产品指标，从页面浏览量到观看时长再到性能表现。
These systems gave everyone at those companies access to a global set of product metrics, from page views to watch time to performance.
每当团队发布新功能或产品时，他们都能衡量该功能对这些指标的影响。
And then every time a team released a new feature or product, they could measure the impact of that feature on those metrics.
所以Facebook可以设定一个公司范围内的目标，比如增加应用内停留时间，然后让各个团队自行想办法实现。
So Facebook could set a company wide goal like increasing time in app and let individual teams go and figure out how to achieve it.
将这种方法扩展到数千名工程师和产品经理身上，就能实现指数级增长。
Multiply this across thousands of engineers and PMs and boom, you get exponential growth.
难怪实验现在被视为关键基础设施。
It's no wonder that experimentation is now seen as essential infrastructure.
是的。
Yep.
如今最优秀的产品团队如Notion、OpenAI、Rippling和Figma同样依赖实验。
Today's best product teams like Notion, OpenAI, Rippling, and Figma are equally reliant on experimentation.
但他们不再自建系统，而是直接使用Statsig。
But instead of building it in house, they just use Statsig.
而且他们不仅用Statsig做实验。
And they don't just use Statsig for experimentation.
过去几年间，Statsig已为快速产品团队配备了所需的全套工具，包括功能开关、产品分析、会话回放等。
Over the last few years, Statsig has added all the tools that fast product teams need, like feature flags, product analytics, session replays, and more.
因此，若您希望帮助团队的工程师和产品经理掌握快速构建与明智决策的方法，请访问statsig.com/acquired，或点击节目说明中的链接。
So if you would like to help your team's engineers and PMs figure out how to build faster and make smarter decisions, go to statsig.com/acquired, or click the link in the show notes.
他们提供极其慷慨的免费套餐、5万美元的初创企业计划，以及面向大公司的实惠企业合约。
They have a super generous free tier, a $50,000 startup program, and affordable enterprise contracts for large companies.
只需告诉他们是本和大卫推荐您来的。
Just tell them that Ben and David sent you.
听众朋友们，感谢收听本期节目。
Listeners, thank you for joining us.
对于新听众，我们已开始将每期节目的实战手册整理成文字要点——这期与红杉合作的节目自然也不例外。我们会在每期节目发布后通过邮件发送这些要点，非常适合偏好快速阅读文字内容的听众。
For folks who don't know, we have started codifying the playbook from each episode in some written bullet points, which no doubt we will do for this playbook episode with Sequoia, And we email those out after we post each episode, which is really great if you like consuming content in sort of that quick, easy way in written form.
若您对此感兴趣，可前往acquire.fm注册接收实战手册。
So if this is something that you want, you can sign up to receive the playbooks at acquire.fm.
若您加入我们的Slack社区（acquired.fm/slack），系统将自动为您注册接收实战手册。
And if you join our community Slack at acquired.fm/slack, you will automatically also be signed up to receive the playbooks.
一如既往，如果您热爱《Acquired》节目并想更深入参与我和大卫的工作，欢迎成为我们的有限合伙人。
As always, if you love Acquired and you wanna be a deeper part of what David and I do here, you should become a limited partner.
您将获得50多期公司建设主题访谈与深度解析（持续更新中）、月度Zoom会议权限，以及最新福利：实时收听重大事件录制、紧急特别节目，还有与作者的书友会讨论。
You'll get access to our library of over 50 interviews and deep dives on company building topics with more to come in the future, our monthly Zoom calls, and this is new, live access to listen in while we record big events and emergency pods, and our book club discussions with authors.
若您尚未成为有限合伙人，可点击节目说明中的链接或访问acquired.fm/lp。
So if you aren't already an LP, you can click the link in the show notes or go to acquired.fm/lp.
期待在社区里与您相见。
We can't wait to see you in there.
最后，如果你还没订阅且喜欢这期节目，真的应该点击订阅。
And lastly, if you are not subscribed and you liked this episode, you totally should click subscribe.
你可以在你选择的播客播放器里完成订阅。
You can do that in the podcast player of your choice.
还有，如果你喜欢这期节目，而且有朋友可能也喜欢，不妨亲自分享给他们，或者在你最爱的社交媒体平台上广而告之。
And, if you like this episode and you have a friend that you think would like it too, you should share it with them personally or just shout it from your favorite local social media hilltop.
说到这里，非常感谢大家的收听，我们下次再见。
With that, thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time.
我们下次见。
We'll see you next time.
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