Ramp联合创始人埃里克·格莱曼

他能走进像你现在这样的片场，完全知道Tyler会怎么安排。

He can, like, walk on a set that just like the one you're on right now that Tyler does.

在Mr. Beast看到什么或开口之前，Tyler就已经知道他要说什么了。

And before mister Beast, like, looks at something or opens his mouth, Tyler's like, already know what you're gonna say.

我这么安排是有原因的。

I did this reason for it.

那盏灯放在这儿是为了这个效果。

That light's over here for this.

这台摄像机其实应该放在这儿。

This camera's actually here.

你可能觉得它该放那边，但其实不放那边是因为——

You think it should be over there, but the reason it's not over there is because Yeah.

如果我把它放这儿，就能拍到那边的场景。

If I position it here, it lets me shoot into here.

这样一来，他就根本不用开口了。

And then he doesn't have to say anything.

他会说，要是我知道的话，我也会这么干。

Goes, that's exactly what I would have done if I knew that.

他还说，这事儿特别重要。

And he's he says, like, it's excessively important.

他说着说着，还冒出一句精彩的话。

He's like and then he had great line.

他说，你别指望一百个小时就能达到那个水平。

He's like, you don't get there in a hundred hours.

对。

Yeah.

这件事确实有点特别。

There is something special about this.

我曾经跟查理·芒格聊过。

Like, I I talked to Charlie Munger.

在他去世前，我还去过他家。

I went to Charlie Munger's house right before he died.

有趣的是，我们曾经问过其他几位创业者，你们现在多久和巴菲特聊一次？

And the the fascinating thing, we one of the questions that one of these other entrepreneurs we would ask him is, well, how often do you talk to Buffett these days?

他说，我们聊得太多了。

And he's like, we got we talked so much.

后来发展到根本不用打电话，彼此都心照不宣。

We got to the point where he we didn't have to call each other anymore.

对。

Yeah.

整个意思就是，我早就知道他会怎么说。

And this whole point was just like, I already know.

巴菲特以前经常跟我讨论，来理清自己的思路。

Buffett knows he used like, he used to organize his thoughts with me.

现在他一想，就知道我会怎么回应，所以干脆不用打电话，直接在脑子里跟查理对话就行了。

Now he knows what I'm gonna say, so he could be like, oh, I should pick up the phone and call Charlie and then have the conversation in his head without actually having the conversation.

我觉得，这反而让

It allows, I think,

这样更能纯粹地追求使命，因为你清楚彼此真正想要的是什么，这个使命到底意味着什么，成功后会产生怎样的影响；同时你也明白自己擅长什么，可以主动推进，而哪些事可以放心交给别人配合。

a much more pure pursuit of the mission because you understand why like, what each other are pursuing, what that mission actually means, what the impact is if you're successful, and you also know what you are excellent at and you can take and push forward and what you can rely on another person to do with you.

我觉得这会带来一些明显的效果——当一家公司文化特别强、信任度特别高时，人才水平未必就高出多少。

And I think it leads to these effects where you see some companies, when you have a really strong culture, you have really strong trust, it's not necessarily that the talent level is different.

真正不同的是，每一小时里，整个组织的产出效率都高出一大截。

It's that in every single hour, the amount of throughput that organization gets is radically higher.

所以我认为，我们追求的应该是这两者的结合。

And so I think some form of both is what we're trying to pursue.

最后，我觉得对一个组织来说，最伤人的事莫过于：有些人拿同样的薪水、拥有相似的股权，却根本不尽责。

And then last, look, I think one of the most damaging things you can do to an organization is if there are folks who are getting paid similarly, have similar ownership, and are just not pulling their weight.

这会让人忍不住问一个很现实的问题：我拼死拼活、放弃一切，全力以赴，而你却什么都没做，还让那些搭便车的人逍遥自在，又不坚持高标准，那我凭什么还要这么拼命？

Because I think it leads to this very tough question and fair one for folks of like, if I'm busting my ass and working super hard and giving up on all the things that I am, and you're not you know, there's all these folks free riding, and you're not enforcing high standards.

我们为什么要如此执着地追求更高的潜力？

Why why should we obsess so much over reaching our higher potential?

这家公司根本看不出对追求卓越的真正尊重，也容不下任何低于全力以赴的行为。

This organization doesn't doesn't seem to demonstrate a real respect for the pursuit of higher and higher standards and an intolerance for anything less than giving your best.

说到底，我是想赢的，但真正激励我和Ramp大多数人的，是我们相信每一天都能醒来变得更好一点，产生更大的影响，把我们做的事做得更精进。

Like, ultimately, I wanna win, but what motivates and drives me and most people at Ramp is this belief that every day we can wake up and actually get a little bit better, drive a little bit more impact, get better at the things that we do.

当一个组织里的人全都持有这样的信念时，就会互相促进，共同成长。

And I think when you have an organization filled with people who share those set of beliefs, iron sharpen iron.

这样就能更快地打造出更好的产品。

You build better products faster.

所以，说实话，我不觉得自己是Ramp最聪明的人，差得远呢，这点我很清楚。

And and so, you know, my whole job, like, I don't believe I'm the smartest person at Ramp, not even close, sadly, at this point.

我的工作就是创造条件，让大家能安心做自己真正想做的事业，这包括找到优秀的人才，让Ramp成为大家愿意来施展才华的地方。

My job is to try to create the conditions for people to do their lives work, and that involves finding great people, making Ramp the kind of place that people wanna come and do that great work.

等他们来了之后，我要确保他们能放手去做出色的工作，快速做决定，迅速验证对错，把产品尽快送到用户手上，不断推进。

And then once they're here, ensuring that they're able to do incredible work, make decisions quickly, see if they're right or wrong fast, and get products into people's hands and move.

我的职责就是扫清障碍，让其他人能顺利前进。

That's my job, to unblock these other people.

Deel让最优秀的创始人把全世界变成自己的人才库。

Deel is how the best founders turn the world into their talent pool.

我研究了历史上最杰出的创业者如何做事，已经十年了，他们有一个共同点：都明白，招到最顶尖的人才，是你最重要的任务。

I've been studying how history's greatest founders operate for a decade, and one thing they all have in common is they understand that recruiting and hiring the very best talent is your most important priority.

A级人才能认出其他A级人才，所以像Ramp、Shopify、Eleven Labs、Uber和DoorDash这样的顶尖公司，都在用Deel。

A players recognize other a players, which is why top companies like Ramp, Shopify, eleven Labs, Uber, and DoorDash all use Deel.

我认识的很多顶尖创业者，在亲自用过Deel之后，都自己掏钱投资了这家公司。

Many of the top founders I know have personally invested in Deel after using their product.

他们发现，Deel是全球在构建跨国招聘基础设施方面最出色的公司。

And what they discovered is that Deel is the best company in the world at building infrastructure for global hiring.

Deel能帮你在全球任何地方招聘、支付和管理员工，让你留住最优秀的人才，把其余的时间都专注在你最擅长的事上——为客户提供价值。

Deel will help your business hire, pay, and manage any worker anywhere in the world so you can retain the best talent anywhere and spend the rest of your time focusing on what you do best, delivering value to your customers.

Eleven Labs的创始人对Deel能给企业带来的价值，有一个特别贴切的描述。

The founder of Eleven Labs has a great description of the value Deel can give your company.

他说，我们创立Eleven Labs，就是为了打破语言和沟通的障碍；而有了Deel，我们能在任何地方招聘并支持顶尖人才，从而加速创新，让更多的声音、故事和想法传遍世界的每个角落。

He said, we built Eleven Labs to break down language and communication barriers With Deel enabling us to hire and support exceptional talent anywhere, we can accelerate our innovation and bring more voices, stories, and ideas to every corner of the world.

已有四万多家企业信赖Deel。

Deel is trusted by over 40,000 businesses.

现在就访问 deal.com/senra，了解他们如何助力您的企业。

Learn how they can help your business today by going to deal.com/senra.

网址是 deal.com/senra。

That is deal.com/senra.

Ramp 成立六年了，等等，现在是第七年了吧？

Ramp's six years old, seven how many years right now?

我知道你常说‘今天’，但到底多少年了？

I know you do the day thing, but how many years?

刚过七年，也就是两千六百二十天，如果你感兴趣的话。

It's just over seven years or two thousand six hundred twenty days in case you were curious.

这就对了。

There you go.

七年前，你们从第一天起就坚持做费用管理、企业卡和 B2B 服务，但你们特别注重设计的优雅，那种只有消费级产品才有的精致感，在当时 B2B 软件里根本看不到，直到今天大家还在讨论，也被很多公司模仿了。

So seven years ago, and you guys had this from day one, where, like, you know, you're doing expense management, corporate cards, B2B, but you guys had a, like, a love and insistence on, like, elegance of design, almost like a consumer level that you didn't see in B2B software, which is still talked about to this day and has been copied by many other companies.

没错。

Sure.

但伊娃，我觉得这恰恰说明了你的理念。

But, Eva, I think that just speaks to you.

意思是，如果我们追求卓越的标准，那我得第三次在播客里引用托比的话了，他说他特别讨厌那些该死的诺曼门。

It's like, well, if we're if we want to have excellent standards, I'm gonna quote Toby for the third fucking time in this podcast, but he even goes, I hate these goddamn Norman doors.

我当时听得不太清楚，他口音挺重的。

And I had to he has thick accents.

我心想：什么？

Was like, what?

那是什么东西？

What is that?

我根本不知道那指的是什么。

I didn't know what that was.

就是那种你分不清该推还是该拉的门。

And it's a door where you can't tell if you push or pull it.

没错。

Exactly.

所以他觉得，不能容忍这种糟糕的设计。

So he's like, I can't have shitty design things.

于是他把那些东西从 Shopify 的办公室里全撤了。

So he had them removed from the Shopify offices.

因为他认为，这种设计根本达不到我们追求的工程标准，我们必须坚持高标准。

Because he's like, that design falls below the engineering standards that I'm trying to get to, like, I want spread and, like, we have to adhere to.

我特别喜欢这个观点——你做事的方式，决定了你所有事情的做法。

And I love this idea of, like, the one the way you do one thing is the way you

都是这样。

do everything.

确实没错。

It's totally right.

而且挺有意思的。

And and it's funny.

前几天一群设计师聚在一起，我刚好参与了一场特别有意思的话题。

Like, a group of designers were were were hanging out the other day, and and I found myself in a very funny conversations.

你用过Breville的烤面包机吗？

Have you ever used a Breville toaster?

没有。

No.

如果你在意设计，又接触了这么多设计师，那就该买一台Breville的烤面包机。

If you care about design, you're meeting all these people, you should buy a Breville toaster.

企业级软件和很多B2B软件的一个大问题在于，一开始都挺简洁优雅的。

So one of the big problems, right, in enterprise software and a lot of B2B software is it starts out clean and elegant.

有不少公司特别喜欢这产品，后来客户多了，需求也多了，想法也多了。

There's a bunch of businesses who love the product and they start serving more customers and they have more requirements and they have more ideas.

不知不觉，就搞出一堆惨不忍睹的B2B软件，用起来得像读博士一样，还得请人专门维护数据库。

And before you know it, you end up with these like disaster of B2B softwares, which require like, you know, a PhD to learn how to use these tools, people who will maintain your database.

用起来特别别扭。

They're horrible to use.

结果就是，你根本不想登录，随便都能说出几个这样的软件名字。

And as a result, like you never want to go log in and you can kind of name what are the software is.

对销售、人事、财务这些岗位的人来说，这些软件都糟透了。

And for salespeople, for HR people, for finance people, you name it, they're horrible.

很多人形容B2B软件，就是这么个感觉。

That's, think, a lot of how people would describe B2B software.

咱们还是回头说说烤面包机吧。

Let's go back to toasting.

对吧？

Right?

如果你去问别人，他们想要什么样的烤面包机或者微波炉，可能会说：我喜欢吃烤面包，但有时候也想热一下披萨。

If you were to go ask people what do you want in a toaster or maybe in a microwave, they might say, well, I like toast, but sometimes I want to reheat pizza.

那就该有个专门热冷冻披萨的模式。

I should have like a reheat frozen pizza mode.

或者想做饭的时候，希望它能像烤箱一样，或者想爆点玉米花，结果发现这玩意儿是烤面包机兼微波炉，各种功能堆在一起。

Or maybe cooking stuff and you want it to be more like an oven or you wanna make popcorn and it's in, you know, a toaster slash microwave and all these kind of things.

等你反应过来，这些烤面包机早就塞满了按钮、旋钮、拨盘，乱得一塌糊涂。

Before you know it, you know what these toasters filled with buttons and buttons and buttons and knobs and dials, and it's super it's super crazy.

对吧？

Right?

我觉得这简直就是直接问客户，他们到底想要什么样的产品。

And I think that that is quite literally asking customers what do they want in building exactly that.

我发现Breville的烤面包机特别有意思。

The Breville toaster I find is very, very interesting.

我觉得那里有一位非常了不起的设计师，他思考问题的方式，有点像Toby为Normandors做的那样。

I think there was an incredible designer there who thought about things maybe like Toby did with the Normandors.

他开始观察人们是怎么烤面包的。

And what he started doing is try to observe people toasting things.

如果你仔细看人们烤面包，其实他们的行为就分两种情况。

And if you watch people toast things, what they actually are doing, it basically falls into two categories.

你按一下开始，要么面包烤得不够，得再烤一轮，要么烤过头了，只能重来，特别烦人。

You hit start and either you've undercooked the toast and you need to put it back in for another cycle, or you've overdone it and you need to start over and it's like horrible.

所以你看，其实根本用不了几个按钮，其中有一个按钮，叫‘再加一点’。

And so if you look at that, there really is only a few buttons, and one of the four buttons I think on there is a button called a bit more.

原因就在这儿，这其实是最重要的一个点，没人会主动跟你说‘再来一点’。

The reason goes back to that, that is actually one of the most dominant things, and no one would ask you, right, for a bit more.

他们只是想要恰到好处的烤面包，但很难把握，所以厂家就直接加了这个功能。

They just want the perfect level of toast and it's hard to kind of know that, so they built that in.

我觉得好的设计，就是建立在深刻理解之上的。

And I think that great design is following an understanding.

没人会跑到Ramp来说：‘我想买张信用卡’或者‘你们能做个更好的报销App吗？’

It is like no one is coming to Ramp saying like, I want to buy a credit card or can you build me a better expense app?

我觉得根本没必要搞什么报销单。

I don't think people should do expense reports.

这太荒唐了。

It's crazy.

所有数据本来就是数字化的。

All the data is digital in the first place.

你是个成年人，公司授权你替公司买东西。

You're an adult who's allowed to buy things on behalf of your company.

费用应该自动处理。

Expenses should do themselves.

如果我们生活在一个计算机能思考的世界，你的账目就该自动结清。

If we live in a world that computers can think, your books should close themselves.

所以我们当时想做的，不是被产品形式束缚住，而是要思考：我们到底想为客户提供什么。

And so a lot of what we were trying to do was not be stuck in the form factor of what is the product we're trying to sell, but like what are we trying to deliver for customers.

我们想打造一个更容易运营、更赚钱的企业，不会让你被工作中一堆琐事搞得心烦意乱。

We are trying to deliver a business that is easier to run, that is more profitable, that is not, I don't know, distracting you with like bullshit at work.

所以我很高兴看到，人们说Ramp用起来简单、直观。

And so I'm happy it's manifested in terms of people saying like, Ramp is easy to use intuitive.

但如果你真尊重别人的时间，关心他们正在做的事，你就必须问这些问题。

But like, I think if you actually respect people's time and care about what they're doing, like, you have to be asking these kind of questions.

你必须对这类产品真正感兴趣。

You have to be interested in these kind of products.

这让我想到另一个问题。

This leads me to another question.

你们怎么让客户的利益和你们的目标保持一致？

How do you align incentives with your customers?

创业史上我最喜欢的一句话，来自亨利·福特。

One of my favorite lines in the history of entrepreneurship comes from Henry Ford.

他说，钱会随着服务自然而来。

He says money comes naturally as a result of service.

所以在他的公司里，他们就专注做好服务，只要把客户的事办好，钱自然就来了。

So in his organization, he's like, we're gonna focus on serving the customers, and the money will take care of itself as long as you do that.

我和你上次参加一个活动的时候。

Me and you are at an event.

大概一个月前或者两个月前，我们俩在同一个活动上聊过。

We were talking at an event together, I don't know, like a month or two ago.

你坐在我右边。

You're sitting to my right.

我看到你穿着Ramp的周边，就拉了拉你的袖子，想看看上面印了什么。

I look at you're wearing, like, Ramp merch, and I grab your sleeve because I wanted to read what was on it.

上面写着：客户赢了，我们才算赢。

It says we win when our customers win.

我觉得这话一点不假。

So I believe that to be true.

那你怎么让公司的利益和客户的利益保持一致，确保这一点始终成立呢？

So how do you align the incentives of your company with your customers to make sure that stays true?

这是我们六大价值观之一，很多公司都想着要定一些价值观。

It's one of our six values, and a lot of companies have this idea that they want to have values.

连我小学都有价值观，对吧？

Everyone has My elementary school had values, right?

但我小时候不太喜欢那些价值观——要是有校方人员在听，不好意思啊。

And what I didn't like about values at my elementary school Sorry if any administrator is listening to it.

那时候一列二十条，我一条都记不住。

There was like 20 of them, and like I couldn't remember any of them.

对吧？

Right?

公司刚成立时，我们问自己：到底有哪几件事是大家真的一致认同的？

And what we tried to do at the very start of the company was ask, like, what are the thing the very few things that all of us really agree with?

如果我们不是都强烈认同，那就算不上真正的价值观，只是个不错的想法而已。

And if we don't all strongly feel this and agree this, like, it's a nice idea.

你可以去追求，但它不能算作我们的核心价值观。

You can go pursue it, but it's like not an actual value.

对吧？

Right?

所以公司起步时，我们定下了一个明确的目标，专门衡量我们推出的产品效果。

And so one of the top level things we wanted to do at the start of the company was set a goal that explicitly measured for the products that we put out there.

我们能统计出客户花了多少钱吗？

Could we measure how many dollars are our customers spending?

又有多少笔支出被我们拦下了？

And how many did we block?

我们帮客户阻止了多少资金外流？

How many dollars did we prevent from going out of their company?

他们花了多少小时在报销、结账、付账单或者转账以获取更高收益上？

How many hours did they spend doing expenses or closing their books or paying bills or moving funds to earn higher yield?

所以我们才会连接企业的财务软件，把它们当作真实数据的来源，以此来调度资金。

And so we both It's part of why we connect to a company's accounting software to have kind of a source of truth as part of the way we move funds.

然后我们明确地统计各项指标，比如我们拦截了多少金额，自动化了多少报销单，诸如此类。

And then we explicitly create measurements on how many like how many dollars did we block, how many expense reports did we automate, all that.

每个月我们都会看一眼成绩表，问自己：这个月我们总共为客户省下了多少钱？

And then all we do each and every month is look at the scoreboard and we ask, did we save in aggregate customers more money?

我们为客户节省了多少时间？

Did we save them more time?

对于单个客户来说，他们的使用体验是变好了还是变差了？

And for individual customers, did the experience get better or worse?

我们的任务就是确保所开发的产品最终都能回溯到这个目标上。

And our job is to make sure the products that we build ultimately ladder back to that goal.

比如，自动匹配商户信息，或者像现在大多数人看信用卡账单那样——那不过是一长串难以理解的文字。

For example, automating merchant matching or being able to go and take like often if you look at your credit card statement today for most people, it's like a string of text and it's inscrutable.

它会显示像UBR星478这样的代码，财务人员得花时间做数据透视表，才能告诉你：哦，这是优步，这个月我们在这儿花了五万美元。

It'll say like UBR star four seven eight, and you have finance people whose time is wasted running pivot tables to tell you, oh, that's Uber, and we spent $50,000 this month at Uber.

用Ramp之后，我们之所以这么做，是因为发现客户的财务团队总在手动做各种数据处理，就为了弄清楚：我们在优步花了多少钱。

With Ramp, part of why we built that was we discovered our end customers, their finance teams were just going and trying to do all these transformations to simply say, Oh, we spent money at Uber.

他们到底花了多少。

Here's what they spent.

所以我们后来在搞清楚了人们把时间都花在哪儿之后，就开发了软件来自动完成这些工作。

And so part of what we did was after measuring, right, where were people going to spend their time, we built software to go and automate that for people.

明白了。

Okay.

我们为他们省下了一个小时。

We've saved an hour here for them.

这一个小时，我们为两万家公司都省下了。

We've saved this hour for 20,000 other companies.

我们该怎么继续增加新功能，让这些节省不断累积？

How do we start adding more features and compounding?

现在你想象一下，七年过去了。

And so you flash forward to seven years.

今天，任何使用过Ramp的客户都会说，这东西帮我节省的时间远远超出了我的预期。

Today, any customer you talk to uses Ramp will tell you, like, this thing saved me way more hours than I expected it to.

它还帮我节省了原本没想到会花时间的那些地方。

It saved me time in areas I didn't expect.

我能直接拦截交易。

I was able to block transactions.

比如我取消了某个SaaS软件的订阅，只要在卡片上停用那个商户，费用就再也扣不成功。

So when I canceled my subscription to some SaaS software and I deactivated that merchant just on the card, it didn't go through.

我们公司一直在认真追踪这些情况，每个月都努力做得更好。

We are tracking those religiously across the company to try to go and get better at it each and every month.

尽管Ramp已经不错了，但我们绝不能觉得它已经够好了。

As good as as good as Ramp is, don't think it's good enough.

我觉得我们还能做更多，进一步消除浪费和无效操作。

I think we can do a lot more just to cut out waste and wasted motion.

有个问题关于计分板。

A question on the scoreboard.

他们提到‘计分板’这个词。

They use the term scoreboard.

你们是怎么向团队展示这个的？

How is this presented to your team?

对。

Yeah.

Ramp里面真有个计分板吗？

Is it an actual scoreboard inside of Ramp?

是的。

Yes.

没错。

Yeah.

任何时候你都可以随时查看，不管是登录我们内部的仪表盘，还是直接问我们的内部支持人员，想了解什么都可以。

Ever I mean, you can get it any any minute or or second of the day if you go on to our internal dashboards or you can query you know, ask one of our internal agents for AMP research any question you want.

我们为某个客户节省了多少钱和多少工时？

How many how many dollars and hours did we save a specific customer?

给我展示一下意大利语版本的所有内容，但本质上，它就是一个数据表格。

Show me all the ways in Italian, but effectively, it's a data table.

但这是在他们电脑的仪表盘里显示的吗？

But it's inside a dashboard on their computer?

是的。

Yes.

你有没有想过把它做成一个巨大的屏幕？

Have ever thought about putting it on the like, making a giant

它就在墙上展示着。

version It's on the it's it's it's on the wall.

它还会通过 Slack 上最主要的频道同步发布。

It's reported out in the the largest channels in Slack.

这些内容是我们每个月都会认真讨论的。

It's things that we talk about frankly every month.

这也是为什么，即使在第一张幻灯片上，当我们面对新的潜在客户时，我们不仅会讲有多少美元、多少客户在使用，或者带来了多少收入，更会强调我们帮多少组织节省了多少钱和多少工时。

And it's part of why even too, even on the first slide, if we're meeting with a new potential prospect, we talk not just about how many dollars, how many customers are using it, how many dollars are we moved, but how many fewer dollars and hours have we helped organizations spend?

没错。

Yeah.

我觉得把这类数据一直摆在眼前，不断提醒员工，非常重要。

I think putting that data in front constantly reminding and putting in front of your employees is super important.

我曾经做过一期关于凯恩·格里芬和城堡投资的节目。

There was this I did this episode on Ken Griffin from Citadel.

对。

Yeah.

他当时在耶鲁，或者可能是斯坦福做讲座，觉得这个点很有意思。

And he's I think he was giving this lecture at Yale or maybe at Stanford, and he thought it was interesting.

他这个想法其实是从沙特阿美借鉴来的。

He went to he actually got the idea from Saudi Aramco.

对。

Yeah.

他说，就像你讲的，如果变量有二十个，那就太多了。

And he's like, you know, there's a there's not like you said, if you have 20 variables, it's too many.

对。

Yeah.

五六個吧，不管具體是多少。

Six, five, whatever it is.

所以沙特阿美會把最重要的那幾項關鍵指標掛出來，比如當天鑽了多少油、運出了多少噸之類的。

So Saudi would put up, like, the handful of things that were so most important, like maybe how much oil they drilled that day or how many they shipped or whatever the case was.

他們總部裡還放了一塊超大的屏幕顯示這些數據。

And it was a giant fucking screen in their headquarters.

沒錯。

Yep.

那時候，我覺得肯正為風險問題煩惱，他就挑出了幾項必須盯緊的指標。

And at the time, I think Ken was having an issue with risk, he identified a handful of things that we need to monitor.

他說，僅僅靠設置這樣一個數據看板，就大幅降低了風險——當時凱雷特在芝加哥，那塊巨大的數據面板就像個比分牌一樣。

And he he said he drastically reduced their risk by just putting it, I think at the time, Citadel was in Chicago, between this giant dashboard, scoreboard Mhmm.

就在办公室里，谁都看得见。

In the office where everybody could see it.

时刻都在提醒你。

It's just constant reminders.

躲是躲不掉的。

You can't run from it.

就是这样。

That's it.

归根结底，人们就是喜欢新东西、新产品里的复杂感，世界本来就在变嘛。

And comes back to, like, at the end of the day, like, people love complexity in new things and new products, and the world is changing.

这本身没什么不对。

There's nothing wrong with that.

从某种角度说，公司其实就是一个虚构的概念。

Like, in some sense, a company is just a fiction.

你去填个文件，说今天成立一家公司，就算你俩就窝在沙发上，银行账户里也没几个钱。

You make some filing somewhere and you say, we're a corporation today, you know, even though we're just two people sitting here on a couch and we have a few dollars in a bank account.

对吧？

Right?

如果这些虚构的实体要发展成数百人、数千人甚至上万人的规模，那一定是因为大家有着共同的目标。

And if these fictions are intended to grow to hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of people, it should be because there is some common purpose.

所有人的努力汇聚在一起，应该能比任何一个人单独行动走得更远、更快。

There is something that in aggregate, the sum of the parts of all the people working together should be able to move something further faster than anyone alone could do.

所以我认为，领导者的部分职责就是去明确：我们该如何衡量自己？

And so I think part of the role of a leader, is to go and assert like how will we measure ourselves?

如果我们追求的是每天变得更好、做到最好，那我们该怎么思考这个问题？又该如何理解自己的进步？

If we are seeking to be your best and get better every day, how should we think about that, and how can we understand our forward progress?

什么样的衡量标准才是合适的？

What is the right scoreboard?

所以我们花在这件事上的时间真的非常多。

And so, yeah, we we spend an incredible amount of time on that.

归根结底，我不确定一百年后的工作形态会是什么样子，但我相信，就像一百年前一样，人们始终希望每一分钱、每一小时都能获得更大的回报。

And at the end the day, like, look, I don't know what ramp will look like exactly in a hundred years, but I I think just as it was true a hundred years ago, people always wanted more out of every dollar an hour.

我觉得一百年后，人们依然会想要这样的东西，不管它会变成什么形式。

I think people will absolutely want it in a hundred years in whatever form that may take.

所以。

And so

你是在说贝索斯的那个观点，就是说，确实如此。

You're speaking to this Bezos idea where it's like Yeah.

一家公司最聪明的做法之一，就是找出那些永远不会改变的事情。

The the one of the smartest things a company can do is, like, identify the things that don't change.

如果亚马逊刚起步时就能锁定三件这样的事，并且几十年如一日地大力投入，因为你清楚客户始终想要更低的价格、更丰富的选择和更快的配送。

And if you could he identified three at the beginning of Amazon, and if you could invest heavily in them decade after decade because you know the customer is going to want lower prices, more selection and faster delivery.

就是这样。

That's it.

就是这样。

That's it.

当然，世界在不断变化，我们也可以聊聊我们眼下最关注、最着迷的那些趋势和主题。

And look, there's so much that's changing about the world and we can talk about what we're focused on and obsessed in and some of the themes of this decade.

但我完全认同这个观点：如果你想打造一个持久的品牌，就应该专注于那些不变的东西。

But I totally subscribe to that notion of you should be focusing on the timeless if you're trying to build an enduring brand.

我希望这是我最后一份事业，这辈子就专心做这个了。

Like, I want this to be the last company I ever worked on and I want to work on this for the rest of my life.

我真的特别享受打造这个东西的过程。

Like, I love building this thing.

你明白我怎么回答这个问题的吧。

You know what I'm saying to that question.

我经常跟创业者聊天，他们总想跟我讲他们的公司。

Like, I talked to founders, and they wanna tell talk me we've talked about their company.

我最早被问到的问题之一就是：这是你最后一个创业项目吗？

Like, one of the first things I was asked is like, is this the last is this your last company?

是的。

Yeah.

我特别关心这个问题，因为生活中真正好的事情，都是复利积累出来的。

It's just like, that's the thing I'm super interested because then all the good things in life come in compounding.

前两天我参加个晚宴，碰巧遇到一个家伙的儿子，他爸就是我之前聊过一小时的那位，刚把公司卖了五十亿美元。

And like, I get I I was just at this dinner two nights ago and ran into the son of this guy I wound up being able to spend an hour with and just sold his company for, like, $50,000,000,000.

他应该有七十七岁左右吧。

I think he's, like, 77 or something like that.

这家公司是他一手创办的。

And he started that company.

他二十岁就开始干了，也就是说，他在同一家公司干了五十五年。

Was 20 So that means he's a fifty five years of experience in the same company.

对。

Yeah.

那种对话真是每分钟都干货满满，根本没法比。

And it's like those conversations are so full, like insight per minute, like you're not going to beat that at all.

没错。

That's it.

你能看到更深层的东西，特别有意思。

And you'll see things at deeper level of depth and it's fun.

你知道吗，你积累的那些经验、犯过的错误，其实都让你在行动时更加高效。

You know, you learn, you know, all the the scar tissue you have, the mistakes you made, I think, allow you to move with a lot more efficiency in in movement.

我对人类历史上总说‘这次不一样’这种说法非常怀疑。

I am very skeptical of the statement that humans repeat throughout history that this time is different.

通常来说，其实没什么不同。

Usually, it's not different.

前几天我多花点时间跟迈克尔·戴尔聊了聊，算下来他19岁就创业，现在都六十多岁了。

I just was spending more time with Michael Dell the other day, and I figured, okay, you started to come when you're 19, you're in your sixties.

他一路经历了这么多技术变革，还能持续成长。

He's had to manage and thrive through all these different technological revolutions and everything else.

我就问他，迈克尔，这次真不一样吗？

I go, Michael, is this time different?

他说，是的。

He goes, yes.

这次确实不一样。

It's actually different.

他们就这个问题聊得特别好。

They had a wonderful conversation about it.

我想再回过头说说AI，我觉得——以我对你的了解，这答案我大概都知道了——但AI肯定会改变你们公司的结构，对吧？

So I want to go back to AI has to I would imagine in your opinion, and I've spent enough time with you, I think I know the answer to this, but like, I think it's going to change the shape of your organization.

难道不是吗？

Is it not?

我觉得这是个特别深刻的话题。

I think this is a super deep topic.

要不我们从最顶层的问题开始：AI是不是把我们过去所有关于商业的基本原则和经验都推翻了？

And maybe to start at the highest level of like I think you'd ask of like, does AI throw out all the fundamentals and lessons we learned about business?

我这么说是因为，每个月我都会遇到一些工程师。

And I say this because I'll encounter engineers every month.

一方面，有些人特别害怕。

On one side, have people who are terrified.

他们觉得这是末日，会彻底颠覆我们所熟知的商业世界。

This is doom and it's going to be kind of the end of business as we know it.

另一些人则对这些实验室着迷，充满热情。

At the other, you see almost this obsession with the labs and deep love of them.

说实话，我觉得现在正发生着一场极其革命性的变化。

And look, I think there's something incredibly revolutionary going on.

我认为，有些实验室将来会成为有史以来最成功的企业之一。

I think that some of the labs are gonna be some of the best businesses created of all time.

但人工智能的潜力太大了，容易让人盲目，甚至开始怀疑：还有必要做别的事吗？

But the potential of AI is so great, it can blind people and ask, is is it worth working on anything else?

如果通用人工智能马上就要来了，我们还值得去创办公司吗？

Should we even build a company if AGI is almost here around the corner?

我觉得，历史在这方面能给我们一些非常有意思的启示。

And I I think history offers some pretty interesting lessons around this.

举个例子吧，我们来聊聊空调。

And maybe to use an example, let's talk about air conditioning.

外面气温高达三十五度。

It's 95 degrees outside.

我们可没在这儿讨论空调行业的那些大富豪家族，对吧？那些靠发明空调积累起巨额财富的家族。

We're not sitting here talking about the great robber baron families of the air conditioning industry, right, and these great family fortunes of people who created it.

同时，空调这东西，我出生在拉斯维加斯。

And at the same time, air conditioning, like, I was born in Las Vegas.

如果没有空调，这座城市根本不可能存在。

That city wouldn't exist if not for the air conditioner.

你住在迈阿密，对吧？

You live in Miami, Right?

那里整个生态系统都依赖它运转。

There's entire ecosystems.

想想看，由这些生态系统创造的价值，远远超过了发明这项技术的人所攫取的部分。

And think about the value that was created out of the ecosystems far exceeded the value that was captured by the people who invented this technology.

我觉得在人工智能这件事上，别搞错了，这绝对是咱们这一代人经历过的最革命性的变革之一。

And I think with artificial intelligence, don't be wrong, I think that this is gonna be one of the most one of the most revolutionary transformations in our life.

我认为，它的影响规模超越了工业革命——当年工业革命让商品变得丰富，而人工智能会让服务变得触手可及。

I think on on the scale beyond the industrial revolution, making goods plentiful, I think it'll make services plentiful.

我觉得，去研究创造一种面向世界的通用人工智能，这件事本身挺有意思的。

I think it is interesting to go work on creating a general intelligence that is artificial for the world.

但更值得思考的问题是：当智能变得无处不在、触手可及、成本低廉时，我们该去打造些什么？

But I think one of the more interesting questions to be asking is in a world in which intelligence is very plentiful, in which intelligence is accessible, in which intelligence is cheap, What should you build?

什么样的新生意现在才真正变得可能？

What kind of businesses are now possible?

就像空调这种看似普通的技术，曾经催生了全新的城市和生活方式，我相信，当智能变得普及之后，也会让我们能做许多以前根本不敢想的事。

Just as there were cities and things created that were not possible for maybe the air conditioner and something as dull as that, I think that there are entire things that we can go do when you have intelligence that this is accessible.

回头再跟我们说说。

Come back to us.

从某种角度讲，你和我，其实也是一种通用智能。

In some sense, like, you and I are a form of general intelligence.

对吧？

Right?

我们有进化出来的大脑，几千年来，人类这种通用智能是怎么做事的，我们其实已经看得挺清楚了。

We have kind of our evolved monkey brains, and we've kind of seen over the course of thousands of years how does a general intelligence like to do things.

结果发现，通用智能体喜欢为各种服务付费。

And it turns out that general intelligences like to pay for things.

它们会雇佣其他类型的智能体来完成这些任务。

They will hire other types of intelligences to go do this.

你可以把支付看作是一种分布式账本，用来协调资源和工作分配。

And you can think about payments almost as a form of like a distributed ledger to manage resources, work.

这里面有详细的记录，资源也会随之重新配置。

You know, there's records around this and there's a reallocation of these types of resources.

我觉得我们对支付如此感兴趣，是因为当智能变得前所未有的丰富和普及时，支付行为也会爆发式增长——无论是人类、代表人类的代理，还是纯粹的智能体，都会频繁进行消费。

And I think part of why we are so interested in payments in this kind of world is I think when you have an explosion of intelligence and it's more accessible than ever, I think you will have an explosion of payments, whether it's people or agents on behalf of people or even agents in general making purchases.

因此，你需要更底层的基础设施和更合适的形态，来追踪、控制每一分钱的使用效率，最大化它的价值。

And I think you'll need a better substrate and a form factor to go track and control and get more value out of every dollar an hour.

所以我们现在主要关注的是：如何为组织搭建一套系统，不仅管理他们花在人力和物资上的钱，还要追踪他们最终花在资源和代币上的每一笔支出。

And so a lot of what we're focused on right now is how do you build the scaffolding and the systems for organizations to manage not just the dollars they're spending on people and things, but the dollars they're ultimately spending towards resources, towards tokens.

说说你

Talk about what you

大家在怎么用代币消费。

guys are doing with token spend.

这真的很有趣。

This is very interesting.

我是说，我特别想

Like, I wanna

说清楚一点。

be clear.

这可不是什么玄乎的科幻话题。

Like, this is not just some esoteric science fiction topic.

对吧？

Right?

就拿这个现象来看，说实话，我也不太确定。

Like, just to observe it, like, I don't know.

我们拿Anthropic举例。

Let's take anthropic.

三年前，他们赚到了第一美元。

Three years ago, they made their first dollar.

我们录制这段话的时候，传言他们的年收入已经突破了五百亿美元。

While we're recording this, the rumor is the run rate revenue is over $50,000,000,000 a year.

如果你看看他们和OpenAI两家实验室目前的收入趋势，再推算一年后的情况，现在可以说，他们的年收入很可能会超过三万亿美元——这相当于美国全年GDP的1%都花在了令牌消耗上。

And if you play out what they and OpenAI, just the two labs, are on track to do in revenue and call it a year's time, I think it'd be reasonably conservative at this point to say they're going to pass more than $300,000,000,000 a year in revenue, which is like 1% of the entire gross domestic product of The United States is spent on token spend.

这种支出和传统的软件不同，它并不是没有边际成本的。

And this type of spend, unlike other types of software, does not have no marginal costs.

你每完成一项任务，都会产生相应的边际成本。

Every job you're doing has a marginal cost.

在过去，CFO只需要管好工资支出，再根据自己的理念决定花多少钱在人力上，这都没问题。

And I think in a world where before it was fine for a CFO to go and say, I'm just going to manage my payroll and I have a philosophy about how I'm going to decide how much to spend on that.

他们还要管理供应商。

I'm going to manage my vendors.

但现在，我认为会出现第三个庞大的类别，那就是如何管理那些由组织委托、通过令牌完成的知识型工作。

I think there's going to be a third mega category created around how do we manage knowledge work that will be done on behalf of organizations and done through these tokens.

我们如此关注这一点，部分原因在于我们的客户都是这一领域的超级早期采用者。

Part of why we're so focused on this is our customers are incredible early adopters of this.

Ramp每年收入翻倍，背后有多个原因。

There are many reasons why Ramp is doubling its revenue each year.

这正是其中之一。

This is one of them.

这些新兴领域的快速增长。

The growth of these categories.

但这些企业都在努力更有效地控制支出。

But these businesses are trying to better manage the spend.

比如我们的一个客户Uber，早在采用之前，他们的CTO就公开说过，有一段时间，他们一个季度的AI预算在几个月内就花光了。

Like one of our customers is Uber who, you know, is prior to going and adopting, but they they had mentioned that their CTO had said publicly that in a few months of the year, they had spent the entire budget they had allocated for AI spend in a quarter.

五年前，根本没人会专门设这样的预算，这一点我可以肯定。

No one has budget like, I can tell you five years ago, no company budgeted for this type of spend.

顺便说一句，很多这类支出回报率很高，但并不是所有开销都一样。

And by the way, like a lot of this is really high returning, but not all spend is created equal.

所以我们为客户提供的一项服务，就是帮他们理清钱花在了哪里。

And so part of what we're doing on behalf of our customers is helping them understand where did they spend on.

这笔开销是运营支出吗？

Was this OpEx spend?

还是研发支出？

Was this R and D spend?

是谁花的？

Who spent it?

这笔投入的回报怎么样？

What was the return on that?

我觉得现在特别有意思的一点是，大部分开销都集中在前沿模型上。

And I think the really interesting thing that's happening right now is, look, most of the spend is concentrated in frontier models.

对吧？

Right?

这些模型其实是业内对当前最先进、可商用的模型的一种说法，通常用来处理最复杂的问题。而真正有趣的是，这些实验室并不认同这些模型能被简化或压缩。

These are sort of a code word for the most advanced model that is commercially accessible and maybe use this for your most difficult types of And the really interesting thing going on, and as this is going on, too, you have this the labs don't like the notion that these labs can be distilled.

正如你注意到的，这并不是只有一个超级模型。

As you've noticed, it's not one supermodel.

你知道，一个很好的模型刚出来，几周后另一家公司就推出一个几乎一样的，或者某家公司针对某个任务推出了同样出色的模型，这种情况一直在不断变化。

You know, there's a great model and then a few weeks later, this company comes out with a model that's almost as good, or this company has a model that's as good as for this task or that, and it's constantly kind of moving.

我们观察到，最新最强大的模型发布大约六个月后，就会出现一个开源权重模型，性能不相上下，但使用成本可能只有原来的百分之一。

And what we've observed is about six months after the latest and greatest model comes out, you'll have an opens weight model that is just as good and maybe costs, right, one one hundredth to go and use it.

这就引出了一个问题：你可以用这种先进的智能来帮你修改邮件，但也许你完全可以把这些任务交给成本更低的模型来处理。

And so it begs the question of, you know, you can use this advanced alien intelligence to edit your email, but perhaps, you know, you could wrap these tasks to these lower cost models.

因此，我们和其他人正在专注提供类似令牌支出管理的服务，追踪具体请求了什么、输出了什么，以及有没有更高效的方式处理这类工作——因为现在这类需求已经不再局限于工程团队，而是扩展到了财务等普通部门。

And so part of what we and others are focused on is delivering services like token spend management, right, to go and observe what was requested, what was the output, and were there better ways to go route this type of work as it's moving outside of just engineering to general finances.

这确实是一个重点领域。

And so that's a major area.

还有代理型支出的问题。

There's agentic spend.

你可以这样理解：某种程度上，你和我都是公司里的有限代理。

One way of thinking about this is like you and I, in some sense, are limited agents of our companies, right?

如果我出差，我有权限订酒店、叫优步、吃顿饭，但不可能因为一时兴起就买一辆两百万美元的法拉利。

If I'm on business, I have the limited agency to book a hotel and take an Uber and go to dinner, but I can't just buy like a $2,000,000 Ferrari because I feel like it.

这种事我大概得找CFO，说不定还得经过董事会批准。

I would probably need the CFO and maybe the bar to sign off.

或者，要是你跟我一起工作，我们很幸运跟阿曼有合作，所以这次在纽约，我们住的是漂亮的阿曼酒店。

Or if I worked with you we're lucky enough to have this partnership with Amman, so this film here when we're in New York in the beautiful Amman.

如果你在Ramp工作，却自己订阿曼酒店，我想你也不会觉得这合适。

I don't think you would appreciate it if I worked at Ramp if I was booking the Amman Hotel.

确实不太合适。

Probably not.

你明白吧？

You know?

除非你谈成了大单子，那样的话我们再聊——我的意思是，我们为公司设计了一套机制，让不同部门能按类型授权开支，这正是产品核心所在。

Unless you close some great deals, in which case we can talk what what I'm getting at is like we built a structure for organizations to delegate authority to spend on certain types of things is like a core to how the product works.

现在已经有不少公司开始这么做了：你看，其实……

And already today, are organizations that are saying, you know what?

我们每年都会自动续订价值一千万美元的软件。

Like, we auto renew $10,000,000 of software every single year.

现在我的做法是，让某个部门的人去核查一下，看看我们是不是还需要这个软件。

And my process today is I ask somebody in like this department or that department to go review and say like, do we still need it?

他们得去问：我们付了1000个许可证的费用，到底谁在用？

And they need to go ask, it's like, hey, we're paying for 1,000 licenses.

到底有多少人真的登录过？

Who's logging in or not?

我觉得再过几年，其实现在就已经有公司这么做了——通过系统自动追踪这些数据。

And I will submit to you that in a few years, and frankly already we're seeing organizations do this, are tracking this programmatically.

他们会直接调取数据，看看：我们付了1000个席位的钱，

They'll go and pull the data and see, all right, we paid for a thousand seats.

实际有多少人登录了？

How many people actually logged in?

按我们现在这个使用率，每个席位可能要花100美元。

This rate that we're getting, maybe we're getting charged $100 per seat.

Ramp 可以让你看到，你的单人成本是高于还是低于市场平均水平。

Ramp can show them actually your price per seat is lower or higher than what the rest of the market is doing.

我觉得很快就会出现智能代理之间互相谈判、代表公司采购的情况，因为归根结底，大家只是在执行公司制定的支出规则，而这些规则未来会完全软件化。

And I think that very quickly you'll have agents negotiating with agents to buy things on behalf of companies because in some sense it's just your policies that people are applying to govern what you're going to spend on, and I think that's going to become software.

所以我们现在正在做的，一方面是管理支出，让你只为实际使用的计算资源付费，不管是什么类型的工作。

And so part of what we're working to do is on one side manage the spend where you are actually just paying for types of compute for all types of work.

另一方面，让智能系统帮你分配资源——不只是数字记录和帮你结账，而是慢慢构建一个操作系统，让企业真正把钱花在最有价值、回报最高的地方。

On the other side, allowing intelligence to allocate resources for you, not just digitally log and help you close the books, but over time, can you start to build an operating system that allows organizations to frankly make sure the most worthwhile cause and the highest return on the dollar gets the dollar.

我研究过的最优秀的企业，都明白同一个道理：你的团队有多强，取决于他们手头的信息有多好。

The best businesses I've studied all figured out the same thing Your team is only as good as the information they're working from.

而今天，这个团队既包括人，也包括智能代理。

And today, that team includes people and agents.

但大多数通用代理掌握的信息非常有限，根本不知道你业务中最关键的部分，比如客户的真实对话、销售历史、上个季度哪些有效哪些没用。

But most generic agents only have limited information and don't know the most important aspects of your business, like your actual customer conversations, your sales history, what worked last quarter and what didn't.

这正是 HubSpot 解决的问题。

This is what HubSpot fixes.

它把人工智能和你的真实客户数据连接起来。

It connects AI to your real customer data.

所以当你让AI写邮件时，它知道这位客户三周前问过价格，知道是哪个活动带来他的，也知道这位客户本月已经联系过两次客服。

So when you ask AI to write an email, it knows this customer asked about pricing three weeks ago, it knows what campaign brought them in, and it knows that customer already contacted support twice this month.

这对初创公司来说意味着完全不同的局面。

And that changes everything for a startup.

招聘时，新员工能直接看到你是怎么卖产品的。

When you're hiring, new team members can see how you actually sell.

融资时，你的数据干净又齐备，随时可用。

When you're fundraising, your data is clean and ready.

扩张时，你是在一个专为陪你成长而设计的平台上推进，而不是从头再来。

And when you're scaling, you're building on something designed to grow with you, not rebuilding from scratch.

这个平台正是超过300家估值突破十亿美元的初创公司曾经用来发展业务的同一个平台。

It's the same platform that more than 300 startups who have grown to over $1,000,000,000 in valuation grew their businesses on.

现在，HubSpot为初创企业推出专属服务，符合条件的公司最高可享受九折优惠。

And now HubSpot for Startups offers this service at up to a 90% discount exclusively for eligible startups.

前往 hubspot.com/startups 了解更多信息。

Visit hubspot.com/startups to learn more.

就是 hubspot.com/startups。

That is hubspot.com/startups.

我刚和贾里德·库什纳进行了一次特别有意思的对话，他谈到自己在斡旋和平协议时的做法。

I just had this fascinating conversation with Jared Kushner, and he talks about when he's doing these, like, he he, you know, he's negotiating trying to negotiate these peace agreements.

他从不会一上来就说：‘好吧，咱们先做点最小的事。’

He doesn't start with, like, okay.

他总是从最理想的状态出发，然后倒推回来。

Let's, like, do, like, the smallest thing the smallest thing we could do.

从最高目标开始，一步步倒着规划。

Let's start with the most ideal situation and work backwards from that.

没错。

Yeah.

他发现，与其让人只停掉一个小动作，不如大胆追求根本性突破，反而更容易成功。

And He finds that he actually has more success swinging for the fences than if like, hey, I just want you to stop doing this one little thing.

我的问题是，随着Ramp的发展和这些新技术的出现，你们是如何利用所有最新技术成果的？

My question to you is as Ramp evolves and these new technologies, you take advantage of all the new latest technology developments.

在你看来，现在还没有的东西，但理想的形态应该是什么样的？

In your mind then, like, what is it's not there now, but it's like, what is the ideal product?

会不会就是自动驾驶的钱？

Is it literally self driving money?

你不是在买座位，也不是在买软件。

It's like you're not buying seats, software.

你是在买成果。

It's you're buying work.

对你来说，这到底意味着什么？

What is it to you?

我觉得你说得特别到位。

I think that's really well said.

对吧？

Right?

我先说说我们现在的服务对象吧。

I'll start with like who we serve today.

对吧？

Right?

我们的很多客户都是企业主和财务机构。

A lot of our customers are business owners and finance organizations.

我记得以前认识不少学会计和金融的朋友。

And I think like I remember meeting a lot of friends, right, who were studying accounting and finance.

在大学的时候，我常听他们说，他们的梦想就是想坐到真正重要的决策桌旁。

And back in college, like I remember that the things you hear from them, the dreams they had is like, I want to go be at the table where it matters.

对吧？

Right?

我想把资源分配到真正重要的事情上。

I want to be allocating resources to causes that are important.

我想帮人们更好地理解企业，从而做出更明智的决定。

I want to help people understand businesses better so they can make better decisions.

我想打造出色的产品。

I want to create great products.

我想做真正有意义的事。

I want to do things that are really meaningful.

你去学习会计、金融这类技能和行当。

And you go study this kind of craft and trade of accounting, finance, whatever it may be.

结果你才真正意识到，不对，根本不是这么回事。

And then you are really awakened to the reality that's like, oh, no, no, you're not doing that.

你的工作就是处理费用。

Your job is you're going to do the expenses.

你得去收单据，然后一一处理。

You're going to go and take the bills and you're going to go process them.

你得反复重做上个月做过的流动性预测或财务分析，这一季度又得重来一遍，80%到90%的时间都耗在这些重复性事务上，因为系统实在太难用了。

You're going to go rerun this analysis that we ran last month for a liquidity roll forward or financial projection again for this quarter, and you're gonna spend like $80.90 percent of your time just on rote recurring tasks because the machinery is so hard to operate.

如今数据分散在这么多工具里，操作起来太麻烦了。

There's so much data split across all these tools today that is very difficult to operate.

我们做的其中一件事，就是大幅减少企业需要使用的工具数量，让监控变得更容易。

And part of what we're doing is one, just collapsing the number of tools that organizations need so it's easier to monitor.

更重要的是，当工具更强大时，不仅能自动处理付款，还能保留审计痕迹、了解公司政策，并与完整的财务数据打通，从而判断每一笔支出是创造了价值、中性消耗，还是浪费了钱。

But two, ultimately when you have better tools that are generating, moving the payments, but also like have the audit trail, know your policy, is connected to your full financial data so it can know this dollar, make did you money or was it neutral or did you waste money by spending on this?

这样一来，工作性质就开始转变了——从过去大部分时间都在回头看，到现在终于可以把主要精力放在真正重要的事情上。如果你是企业主，或者负责公司财务，你就能把大部分时间花在思考：我们的客户是谁？

Then suddenly, the job starts to change from most of your time is looking backwards and very little is actually on the interesting stuff to like finally, if you're a business owner or if you're leading the finances of an organization, you can actually spend most of your time on like who is our customer?

我们为他们开发了哪些出色的产品？

What are the great products that we're developing for them?

下一笔钱该投向哪里？未来又该如何合理分配资源？

Where should the next dollar actually be going and how do we actually allocate the resources going forward?

对我来说，这件事真正有意思的地方在于，你说得对，这确实是在卖东西。

And so I think for me where this turns into and where it gets interesting is your point is like, yes, like it is selling.

那些重复、低价值的工作，现在都帮你自动完成了。

Like this rote low value work is done for you.

没错，你只要开通Ramp这类工具，一切就都搞定了。

Yes, you can go and turn on Ramp and all of these things.

你可能是个小企业主，特别专注某件事，比如擅长做播客，但对记账、找最便宜的供应商付款、优化营运资金这些事完全没兴趣。

Maybe you're a small business owner and you have an obsession, maybe you know how to make a great podcast, but you don't care at all, right, as to like, I don't know how to keep books or pay vendors at the lowest cost or optimize my working capital.

你可以让Ramp帮你处理这些事，而且是和你一起协作。

And you can hire Ramp to do that for you and with you.

这正是我们努力的方向。

And that's what we're working towards.

我和像托比这样的人有很多共同理念，他们都希望让创业对更多人变得更容易。

Like I share a lot of common beliefs with folks like Toby who are trying to make entrepreneurship more accessible to people.

我觉得人们应该被赋予这样的条件：科技和工具能帮他们专注真正想做的事、实现梦想和使命，而不是被一堆琐碎事务拖垮——这些事如今几乎定义了大多数职场生活的本质。

I think people should be put in a position where technology and tools empower them to pursue their actual missions and dreams and purposes versus getting clogged with all the tedious work that tends to drag most people down and I think defines most of corporate life today.

所以我觉得，我们到目前为止聊的很多内容，其实都指向一个令人意外的事实：你真正的竞争对手，其实并不是外界通常认为的那些公司，或者别人习惯拿来跟你对比的那些品牌。

So I think a lot of what we've talked about so far ties to this fact, which is surprising, and I don't know if you or Karim have talked about this publicly, but who you actually look at as the competitors to ramp is not who the the typical people you know, other people on the outside kinda group you together sometimes or compare and contrast you with.

你真正对标的是那些实验室。

Your answer to that is the the labs.

对。

Yeah.

你能解释一下为什么吗？

Can you explain why?

对。

Yeah.

所以如果你

So if you

说到底，核心问题其实是：Ramp 到底卖的是什么？

get down to it, there's this question of like, what does Ramp sell?

一开始，我们常被归类到一堆金融服务公司里。

And I think early on, we were bunched in with a lot of financial service providers.

我明白这种类比表面上看是有道理的。

I understand that comparison kind of on the face of it.

我们确实处理资金流动。

We move funds.

而且我们在这方面非常在行。

We're quite good at it.

很多人之前用的都是老系统。

And people are often coming from legacy tools.

我觉得，从本质上讲，很多银行和从事资金流转的机构，卖给客户的其实都是钱。

And I think that these banks at the core, a lot of what financial institutions or folks engaged in the movement of money are selling to their end customers is money.

他们卖给你的是资金。

They're selling you money.

他们卖给你积分返利，购物时更高的回扣。

They are selling you rewards, a larger rebate on a purchase.

他们卖给你更多的营运资金。

They are selling you more working capital.

他们卖给你贷款，对吧？

They are selling you a loan, right?

他们还卖给你账户更高的利息，常常靠价格、品牌、服务来竞争，看谁能让你觉得拿回的钱或价值最多，同时还能保持合理的利润空间。

They are selling you a higher interest on your accounts and they compete often based off of price or brand or service or some form of who can convince you they're giving you the most money or value back and keep a reasonable margin.

而Ramp从一开始就很特别，我们真正想卖你的，其实是时间。

Ramp was very unusual in that from the get go, really what we were trying to sell you was time.

我们会帮你处理资金，但大家最头疼的是，填报销单简直浪费所有人的时间。

We would move your funds, but the pain that people had was like it was a waste of everyone's time to do expense reports.

每次对账、核对每一笔付款来结账，都太耗时间了。

It was a waste of time to go and have to tick and tie for every payment to close your books.

我们真正想做的，是把跟资金流动相关的那些繁琐工作自动化。

Really, what we're trying to go do is automate and do the work around the money movement.

我们致力于自动化那些知识型工作和业务流程，帮你释放更多价值。

It is all of the knowledge work and the business process that we are working to automate and help you get more value out of.

某种程度上，我们提供的是知识和智能服务，帮你把事情搞定。

In some sense, it is a form of knowledge, work and intelligence that we are serving and servicing for you.

我觉得，Labs 在这方面是最接近的竞品。

And I think that labs are in some sense the most comparable provider of this type of service.

这可能是体力劳动，但也可能是以不同方式完成的知识型工作。

I think in some sense it could be labor, but it also could be knowledge work done in different ways.

所以，我觉得这事儿特别有前景。

And so one, I think it's incredibly exciting.

我特别有干劲，因为有出色的竞争对手和优秀的公司可以较量。

I actually get very energized having, like, great competitors and having great organizations to compete with.

我觉得磨刀石能磨利刀子，竞争逼着大家去深入思考，别偷懒，每天都得拼尽全力去打造真正出色的东西。

I think iron sharpens iron, and think it forces people to ask deeper questions, to get off their ass and not be lazy, and to go build something great every single day and week.

所以我觉得，我现在可能是这辈子最开心的时候。

And so I think I'm having some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.

我们已经连续五个季度实现收入加速增长，业务规模翻了一倍，而且是在数十亿美元的体量上做到的。

Like, we've had five quarters in a row of accelerating revenue growth while doubling the business and doing it on a multibillion dollar scale.

这部分真的特别让人振奋。

And so that part of it has been incredibly energizing.

但另一方面，你也得认真思考这些公司到底意味着什么。

At the other side of it, you need to think really carefully of these organizations.

我觉得人类正处在指数级发展的拐点上。

And I think humanity is on the exponential.

就在几年前，大家还对AI能写出一段像样的话感到震惊。

Just a few years ago, we were all shocked when AI could generate a paragraph that sort of made sense.

当时可能有些拼写错误，或者表达有点怪，但整体感觉还挺像人写的。

It might have had some typos or things that weird, but it seemed sort of human.

才过了几年，现在大家就开始挑刺了，一份一百页的报告，只要有个脚注不对或者编造了内容，就全盘质疑。

Just a few years later, people quibble, you get a 100 page dossier and some footnote is off or hallucinated.

我觉得这股势头根本停不下来。

And I don't think there's any sign this stuff is slowing down.

如果你真正理解了这些机构的能力，就会开始思考：如果智能在某种意义上变得近乎免费，那什么才是独一无二的？我们又该如何确保自己提供的价值是持久且不可替代的？

If you really internalize of what are the capabilities of some of these organizations, I think it calls in a question of if you assume intelligence will be functionally free in some sense, what is unique and how do we make sure we're adding durable and differentiated value compared to these organizations?

所以，这真的让人无比兴奋。

And so look, it's super exciting.

它逼着我们深入下去，确保我们提供的是一种截然不同的价值。

I think it leads us to go really deep and ensure that we are providing a different sort of value.

我们为这些机构创造价值的一个关键方式，就是成为资金流动的实际枢纽。

I think a lot of how we do that for organizations is by being the layer where money movement is actually occurring.

在一些公司，你可能两个月后才发现钱被浪费了；而Ramp的做法是，我们构建了资金的循环系统和连接网络，让你能在钱花出去之前就拦住它。

I think in some orgs, maybe you can determine two months ago we wasted funds and with Ramp, we're building the circulation and connective tissue so you can stop dollars from leaving before they ever go out.

所以我觉得，它更像是一个操作系统，把资金流动连在一起。

So I think that it tends to feel much more like an operating system in connecting to the movement of funds.

但我认为，它们可能是我们见过的、对各类企业来说最令人兴奋的竞争对手了。

But I think they are some of the most exciting competitors for all types of businesses I think we've ever seen.

你对创业者描绘了一个非常乐观的图景。

I think you put forth a very optimistic case for entrepreneurs.

这真是太棒了。

This was awesome.

谢谢你抽出时间来做这次对话。

Thanks for taking the time to do it.

谢谢你，大卫。

Thanks a lot, David.

希望你喜欢这期节目。

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

别忘了在你听的平台订阅，并留下评价，也别忘了收听我的另一档播客《创始人》。

Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast founders.

近十年来，我狂热地读了四百多本历史上最伟大企业家的传记，只为找出一些你能在工作中直接用上的点子。

For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work.

你在这档节目里听到的大多数嘉宾，都是先通过《创始人》这个节目找到我的。

Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.