卢璐·程·梅瑟维：创始人沟通新法则（重播版）

大家好，欢迎来到《生成当下》。我是迈克尔·麦克纳诺，Lightspeed的合伙人。本周我们将重温我最喜欢的一次对话——与Rastra创始人兼CEO露露·张·马苏尔维的访谈。

Hey, everyone, and welcome to generative now. I am Michael Mcnano. I am a partner at Lightspeed. And this week, we're revisiting one of my favorite conversations. It's one with Lulu Chang Masurvi, founder and CEO of Rastra.

Rastra是硅谷创业者们的首选传播专家，服务对象包括Ramp、SSI、Scale、Androl和Suno等公司。露露用一个简单原则让创始人掌握叙事主动权：直接沟通。这是场精彩对话，希望你喜欢。嘿，露露。

Rastra is the go to communications expert for Silicon Valley founders of companies like Ramp, SSI, Scale, Androl, and Suno. Lulu puts founders in charge of controlling the narrative using one simple principle, go direct. This was a great conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Hey, Lulu.

嘿，你好。彼此彼此。感谢你抽空参与。

Hey. Hello. See it. You too. Thanks for doing this.

你是个大忙人。感觉你突然就成了这场AI狂潮的核心人物，而且这一切发生得极快。我想听听这过程是怎么发生的。

You are a busy person. I feel like you've become, like, this this central figure, in all of this AI insanity, and it's happened very, very quickly. I wanna hear how that happened.

我也不知道怎么发生的，但我觉得每个人都觉得自己比一般人忙。就像邓宁-克鲁格效应，我们都觉得自己忙得不得了，不过你可能比我更忙。说到AI，直接切入主题吧——AI面临的大问题其实不在技术层面，而在于社会接纳度和公众认可度。

I don't know how it happened, but, I think I think everybody feels that they are busier than average. There's like a Dunning Kruger effect where we all feel that we're magnificently busy, but you're probably busier than I am. I don't know. I will say that with AI, and we can just get right into it, one of the big problems with AI is actually not on the technical side. One of the big problems is societal adoption and societal acceptance.

即便你能开发出产品（这本身就很困难），也不意味着人们就会使用，或者监管者会允许使用。所以我认为对AI而言，公众认知和良性宣传比我能想到的任何技术都更重要——除了核技术。

So if you're able to build the thing, that's hard, and we gotta do it. But that doesn't necessarily mean people will use the thing or that the people who govern other people will let them use the thing. So I actually think that for AI, public perception, benevolent propaganda is more important than for any other technology I can think of right now, but other than maybe nuclear.

让我翻译一下：你的意思是说，相比前几波技术浪潮，现在更需要像你这样的人，因为如何传达信息实在太关键了。

Maybe for me to translate that, I think what you're saying is there's more demand for someone like you than there was maybe in a previous wave of technology because it's so important that we land the messaging.

这很重要。所以我同意你关于第二部分的观点。我们必须准确传达信息，这点至关重要。但我不同意答案的第一部分是我。我认为，有时答案可能是我，但更多时候答案并非是我。

It is important. So I I would agree with you on the second part. It's super important that we absolutely land and nail the messaging. I would disagree with you on on the first part of the answer being me. I I think, sometimes maybe the answer is me, but a lot of times the answer is not me, un me.

创始人应该亲力亲为。我主张直接行动并掌控叙事。在AI领域这尤为重要，因为技术过于深奥和专业，经过多人转达反而会误事——但这未必需要我参与。事实上我最近越来越常说：我只是一个人，我们团队也只有三人。

Founders just do it themselves. So what I preach is going direct and controlling the story. And it's really important in AI because it's so esoteric and so technical that filtering it down through a bunch of people isn't gonna get the job done, but it doesn't necessarily require me. In fact, one of the things that I've been saying more and more lately is I'm one person. Our shop is three people.

我们服务着十几家客户，没有扩张计划，大家也不该等待。其实这件事你完全可以自己去做。说实话，很多人没有我在场反而能做得更好。所以没错，我们应该行动起来。

We've got, like, a dozen clients. We're not planning to scale, and people shouldn't wait for it. In fact, this is something that you can just go and do yourself. And a lot of people would honestly do a better job than having me around. So, yes, we should do it.

无论是不是我参与，我都持开放态度。

Whether it's me or not me, I'm kind of agnostic.

但我想说的是，现在传达这些产品价值的重要性已不可同日而语。作为创始人更需要掌握这种能力，对吧？比如移动时代的产品几乎能自我营销，而现在...

But I guess I guess what I'm saying is, like, because it's so important to communicate the value of these products, maybe in a way that that that wasn't as important before. Like Yeah. There's just a greater need to understand as a founder how to do this. Right? Like like, products I would argue that products in a previous previous era, maybe in, like, the mobile era, like, almost more marketed themselves.

而我觉得你现在说的是，我们需要主动教会人们如何接受这些新技术，这在过去可能没那么必要。

Whereas I feel like now, I think I think what you're saying is, like, we need to we need to actually, like, tell people how to adopt this stuff. And we maybe didn't have to do that as much previously.

没错。如果你是创始人却没有用户接纳策略，没有争取公众和监管者支持的计划，这和没有产品战略一样糟糕——你只有半套策略。你或许能做出产品，但完全不能保证有人会用。另外AI的特殊性在于，人们根本不理解它。

Yeah. If you are a founder and you don't have a strategy for getting people to adopt this and for winning over the public and for winning over regulators eventually, it's as bad as not having a product strategy because you you have half of a strategy. You might you might make the thing, and there's no guarantee whatsoever that it'll ever get used. So absolutely. And then the other thing about AI is people don't understand it.

这很玄妙。其中大部分内容高度机密，不能公开分享，而且目前正受到监管机构的极度关注。因此，要让你的产品被广泛采用，必须跨越重重障碍。正如你所说，这与‘只需做出人们想要的东西，他们就能直接使用’的时代截然不同。

It's esoteric. A lot of it is super confidential where you can't share openly, and it's incredibly it's under incredible focus by regulators right now. So there's all of these hoops that you have to jump through in order for your thing to get widely adopted. So so as you say, it's very different from the era of, just make something people want, and then they they can just use it.

是的。我也认为，当前这批初创公司的创始人，与上一代相比确实有些不同。具体来说，现在许多正在打造最具价值初创公司的创始人都是工程师出身。

Yeah. I also think, like, founders the founders of the current crop of startups are, like, just a little bit different than the previous crop. Right? Just to get really specific. I mean, a lot of the founders that are building some of the most valuable startups right now, they're engineers.

他们是研究者。回想移动互联网时代，像Airbnb的布莱恩·切斯基、Uber的特拉维斯这类人，都是销售和市场驱动型的。他们天生擅长讲故事、登台演讲、让人为之倾倒。而我注意到，现在很多公司的创始人并不具备这种本能。

They're researchers. Yeah. You know, if you think back to, like, the mobile era, these are people like Brian Chesky and and Travis from Uber and these these people that are so sales and marketing driven. Like, they they inherently know how to, like, tell the story and get on the stage and, like, make everyone fall in love with it. I'm definitely noticing that a lot of these companies, like, that's not a natural instinct of a lot of these founders.

你也有同感吗？

Are are you seeing that as well?

我认为我们正处在技术型创始人的黄金时代，这很棒，我们也需要这样。但确实，就像许多人都有主导脑半球一样，现在很多创始人的强项不在于讲故事或人际沟通。我们有许多杰出的自闭症谱系人士在为社会构建伟大产品，只是解读场合和当众演讲需要额外努力——他们完全能做到，只是更费劲。就像我做技术工作也需要更多努力一样。

I think we are in a bit of a golden era for technical founders, and it's magnificent, and we need it. But, yes, to the extent that many people have a dominant half of the brain, we we do have a lot of founders now whose dominant half is not the one around storytelling and talking to people. I think we have a lot of really stellar autists building great things for society where it takes extra effort to be reading the room and talking to the room, and they can totally do it. It just takes more effort. Like, it takes me more effort to do the other side.

这是我们这个时代的独特之处：现在有一群人全天候致力于抵制AI、阻碍AI发展。整个机构、非营利组织都在阻止AI成功。上一代创始人虽然也有反对者和质疑者，但没人专门组建资金雄厚的复杂组织来阻挠某项特定技术发展。

And this is unusual about the era that we're in. There are people who are full time twenty four seven trying to take down AI or fight AI or hamper AI progress. There are entire institutes and nonprofits and organizations around getting AI to not succeed. So the the previous generation of founders, they had haters and doubters and all this normal stuff, but they didn't have, an enormously well funded complex of people fully vested, in in doing nothing but holding back their specific technology.

完全同意。你提到的这些组织，他们的本职工作就是沟通、游说、倡导——他们深谙公开演讲之道。

Yeah. Totally. And, like, these organizations that you're mentioning or that you're alluding to, like, this is actually their job. Their job is to to communicate, to lobby, to advocate. They know how to speak publicly.

他们懂得如何传达信息。所以我认为，回到最初的观点，这使得这类策略对当前这批创始人来说更加重要。不过，或许我们可以稍微回溯一下。你是怎么走到今天的？在此之前，你显然在动视暴雪、微软和Substack工作过。

They know how to land messages. And so I think, you know, I think to the original point, it just makes I think it makes this type of tactics so much more important for this crop of founders. But, like, maybe let's go even, like, a little bit back. How did how did you get even here? So before this, obviously, you were Activision Activision and Microsoft, Substack.

给我们简单讲讲这段经历吧。

Like, give us give us the quick the quick story.

是的。我常对人说我没什么传播经验，这既是实情也是种优势。比如，我完全不懂新闻稿应该怎么写——而且永远不想懂。我这辈子都乐意保持这种无知状态，事实证明效果还不错。

Yeah. So I I tell people I don't have a lot of experience in comms, which is a true admission and also somewhat of a benefit. Like, I'm unencumbered by knowing what a press release is supposed to do. I don't know, and I never wanna know. I will happily live my life not finding out, and I that's worked out pretty well.

所以我确实存在知识盲区，完全是在实践中学习。第一次接触传播工作大约是七八年前，当时我做过金融、科技、地缘政治风险评估等各种工作，就是没碰过传播。在为阿里巴巴IPO提供咨询时，负责该项目的那个家伙——我总说他'职业性拐跑了我'——我们合伙开了家传播公司。那时我对传播一窍不通，但确实想尝试些新鲜有趣的事。

So I I certainly have gaps, and I'm just learning on the job. But the first time I ever got exposure to comms was maybe eight years ago, seven years ago when I'd done it feels like everything except comms. I'd done finance, tech, geopolitical risk, and was advising on the Alibaba IPO. The guy who was running that IPO for Jack Ma, I I I usually say he professionally eloped with me, and we went off and started this comms firm. I'd never done comms a day in my life, but I I did wanna start something new and interesting.

作为这家传播公司的联合创始人，我甚至还在谷歌搜索'什么是公关'。干了一段时间后去了Substack主管传播工作，那正是过去几年言论自由论战最激烈的时期。我非常想参与其中，后来又在动视暴雪经历动荡期并推进微软收购案时加入了他们的董事会，最终成为他们的首席传播官兼企业事务主管。

And I was literally googling, you know, what is PR after being the cofounder of this comms firm. But did that for a while and then went to Substack to lead communications for them. This was in the real heat of the free speech battles of the past few years. And I really wanted a piece of that, so I went in there and then had joined Activision Blizzard's board when they were going through a period of turmoil and trying to get the Microsoft acquisition done. And then went in house full time as their CCO and head of corporate affairs.

合并完成后，我离开微软创办了自己的公司Rastra，与联合创始人Sergei等人共同经营，现在大概运营了六七个月。

Then after the merger was complete, I ended up leaving Microsoft and starting my own firm, is called Rastra, along with my cofounder, Sergei, and couple other people. That's now about six or seven months old.

其实如果你不介意，我很想深入了解Substack那段经历，那确实是非常有趣的时期，我记忆犹新。当时我在Spotify负责播客业务——没错，他们收购了我的公司Anchor之后。

I I actually if you're open to it, I would love to dig into the the substack part a little bit because I that's a that was a really interesting time. I remember it very, very well. Yes. I was leading the podcasting business at Spotify after Yeah. They acquired my company, Anchor.

而且，你知道，我认为我们当时正经历许多类似的困境，这确实是Spotify首次需要处理不仅仅是音乐和艺术性，还包括各种观点。对吧？而且这也是

And, you know, I think we were going through a lot of those same pains, and it was really the first time that that Spotify had been dealing with not just music and sort of artistry, but opinions. Right? And it was also

你指的是乔·罗根那件事吗？

Is that what you was it the Joe Rogan stuff?

嗯，确实涉及乔·罗根，但不仅仅是乔·罗根。要知道，我们平台上有数百万计的播客节目，都是过去几年间陆续上线的。那时候正值——我想想——对，是后疫情时期。当时有各种文化运动在兴起。

Well, it was Joe Rogan, but it was it was not just Joe Rogan. It was it was you know, we had millions and millions of podcasts on the platform that had gotten that had just gotten there over the past couple of years. And and it was during a time, I think, where yeah. This was, like, post COVID. You know, there were a lot of different cultural movements happening.

我觉得人们当时对很多事情都非常不满。科技公司如Substack、Spotify、Meta（尤其是Meta）都在摸索如何应对这种局面。一方面要努力平衡——既要打造安全的平台规避法律风险，又希望保持完全开放，因为开放除了关乎言论自由这项权利外，实际上对商业也有利——能催生更多内容，从而吸引更多用户。所以很难说。

I think people were very, yeah, unhappy with lots of different things. And I think companies, tech companies, Substack, Spotify, Meta was a big one. I think kind of, like, figuring out how to navigate this. And on one hand, like, trying to strike the balance of, you know, creating a a a safe platform, avoiding liability, but also wanting to be completely open because openness, you know, besides free speech and, like, a right and that it's it's actually good for business because it leads to more content, which leads to more, you know, more consumers. So I don't know.

我很想听听Substack那边的情况，对一家初创公司来说这段经历肯定很精彩——尤其是当它逐渐以'人人皆可发布'的平台形象闻名时。当时是什么情形？

I'd love to hear about some of that at Substack because it was probably fascinating for a start up to be going through that, a start up that was, like, becoming known for the place where anyone could sort of publish. What was that like?

这事本不该引发那么多争议。在一个地方，你写的东西能永久保留，可以自由创作而无人指手画脚——听起来如此简单。我明白平台上确实存在伤害他人感情、冒犯、恶劣、粗鲁甚至恶毒的内容。但由科技公司CEO来决定大众该阅读和思考什么——Substack的CEO克里斯·贝斯特拒绝这样做——这个原则本身是无比神圣的。

It shouldn't be as controversial as it was. You know, a place where if you write something, it gets to stay written, and you get to write what you want, and nobody tells you what to write. It sounds so simple. Like, I understand there were things on that platform and many others that hurt people's feelings that were offensive, nasty, rude, cruel, bad. But the principle of not having a tech CEO get to decide what the rest of us read and think, which Chris Best, as CEO of Substack, refused to do, is so sacred.

这对我们所有人都应如此。这是美国立国之本的一部分，至今仍应坚守。我加入Substack的部分原因，就是深深敬佩他们坚持的这一原则。作为公司发言人，有时我明知某些表态会像铅球般沉重落地，引发连日风波——记得有次我刚休完产假回来就遇到这种情况。

It it should be to all of us. It's part of the fabric of the founding of this country, and it still should remain so today. As part of the reason I went over there is I so admired and respected the the principal stance that they were taking. Inside the company, you know, there were times as the spokesperson of the company, I would step up and say something that I knew was just gonna land like a lead balloon and have days and days. I remember coming back from, at the time, coming back from a maternity leave.

有个晚上，宝宝其实睡得挺香，但我却醒着，因为不断收到愤怒的讯息轰炸，说'你手上沾满鲜血'、'你们怎么敢允许这种事发生'。这真的让人很不舒服、压力巨大。但如果你能保持团队内部的士气、集体精神，以及'我们在做正确的事，只是世界还没理解'的信念，你就能扛过几乎所有困难。这和安德罗尔早期与军方合作时的情况一样——当时在硅谷极其不受欢迎。但公司内部从没有过'我们做错了吗'这种焦虑。

There was one night where the baby was sleeping actually pretty well at that point, but I was up because I was just getting floods of angry messages about you have blood on your hands and how dare you people allow this thing and that thing. It's really unpleasant and stressful. But if you can maintain internal morale and esprit de corps and a sense of we're doing the right thing and the world doesn't understand it yet, you can withstand just about everything. And this is the same with Androl in the early days of, of working with the military being wildly unpopular in Silicon Valley. There was no angst inside the company about, are we doing the right thing?

我们来开个倾听会吧，需要把问题谈开。当时大家都清楚自己在做正确的事。事实上，知道外界还不理解反而提升了士气——我们就是要证明给他们看。这给每个人都添了股不服输的劲头。

And let's have a listening session. We need to talk it out. Like, people knew they were doing the right thing. And in fact, it it helped morale knowing that the world didn't understand it yet, and we're gonna show it to them. It it put a chip on everybody's shoulder.

Coinbase和其他许多公司都经历过同样的事。

Coinbase has been through the same thing many other companies.

是的，我觉得这个观点非常重要。我之前甚至没考虑到，你在其中扮演的角色肯定极其关键，既要协调内部沟通又要处理对外公关。作为前创业者，我一直认为企业必须要有使命——

Yeah. I think this is a really important point. And I hadn't even thought about, you know, your your role in this must have been really, really critical, probably helping navigate internal comms as well as external comms. I think it's really important. I've always felt this way as a former founder, like, to have a mission.

这个使命需要让全公司上下都为之凝聚团结，因为它不仅能指引你们度过像现在这样外界试图打压的时期，也能帮你们熬过业务指标不佳的阶段。就像你说的，当员工士气低落时，正是使命驱动着你去完成那些最艰难的事。在这个资本狂热、机遇遍地的时代——

Like, you need to have a mission that the entire company gets rallied around and aligned behind because that mission will will guide you not only through moments like these where, like, maybe people outside the company are trying to take you down, but also, like, the times where maybe the business metrics aren't looking so great. Right? Or, like, maybe like you said, employee morale is kind of low. You know, the the mission is kind of what drives you to do the the really, really hard things in my experience. And and I think, like, that is becoming like, at a time where there's such a frenzy, there's so much capital, there's so much opportunity on the table.

人们很容易跳过这个环节，只想着'哇，我们有赚取数十亿的绝佳机会'。你现在帮助企业的也包括这方面吗？比如帮他们梳理内部事务、内部沟通和使命定位？

I think it's easy to, like, skip over that part and just be like, oh, we have a huge opportunity to, you know, generate billions of dollars. Like, is that something you're helping companies with? Like, helping them think through internal stuff as well and internal comms and mission?

没错。内部沟通远比外部公关重要得多。

Yeah. Internal comms is way more important than external comms.

是的。

Yeah.

我经常说这一点：外部沟通固然重要，外部危机虽带来不便，但内部危机才是生死攸关的。企业分崩离析、CEO下台的根源往往在于内部危机而非外部。因此内部事务必须优先处理——即便不在危机中，日常的小型通告也该先告知员工再对外公布。他们值得这份尊重。

And I've I've said this a lot, which is external comms, it's important, and an external crisis is inconvenient, but an internal crisis is existential. When you see companies fall apart and unravel and CEOs get unseated, it's because of internal crises, not external. And so internal should always come first. Even if you're not in a crisis, just everyday kind of small announcements, tell your employees before you tell the world. They deserve it.

他们选择加入这场疯狂旅程时，放弃了谷歌的高薪待遇追随你。他们理应成为内部知情者，并得到相应对待。说到企业使命，很多公司都搞错了方向——他们反复宣称'我们以使命驱动'，

They're they've signed up to join you on this crazy ride. They've left whatever Google compensation package on the table to come with you. They deserve to be on the inside and and to treat them as such. I will say with with a mission, a lot of companies get mission wrong where they'll say, we're mission driven. We're mission driven.

结果使命却是'为世界带来欢乐'这类放之四海皆准的空话。首先这种表述毫无记忆点，更重要的是：使命的真正作用在于吸引对的人、筛掉错的人。若想避免员工叛乱或恐慌情绪蔓延——最好在萌芽前就扼杀——关键在于筛选机制。企业使命就是过滤器。

And then the mission is some generic universally popular problem, like we're gonna bring joy to the world and make it a better place. That's first of all, it's saying nothing, so it's not memorable. But the second thing is the purpose of a mission is to attract the right people and filter out the wrong people. And you wanna start an employee revolt or employee FUD bef you wanna stop it before it even starts, and that starts with the filtering process. Your mission is the filter.

如果你的使命是个人畜无害的空洞口号，过滤机制就会失效。届时公司内部将潜伏定时炸弹，终有一天这些人会幻灭并成为巨大麻烦。以Substack为例，员工能在高压时期保持凝聚力的原因之一在于他们本身优秀且真正认同使命——但更重要的是公司使命极其鲜明且已被实践验证。

And if your mission is a nothing that no one, would possibly disagree with, then the filter breaks down. And then you have people on the inside of the company who are taking time bombs where one day they'll become disenchanted and they'll become a huge pain in your ass. So so with Substack, for example, part of the reason that people held strong even during really stressful times, one is Substack employees are just based and amazing, and they're they're they are mission driven. But two is the company's mission was so strong, and they had, had proven it.

具体是什么？

What was it?

公司的使命是'解放思想'——本质上就是让你拥有言论自由和受众所有权，从而为世界带来更丰富的文化与表达。认同这个理念的人自然会加入，而那些认为内容审查不足'令人不适'的人从一开始就不会选择这里。

The company's mission is to it's it's to free your mind. So it's basically for you to own what you're able to say and own your audience. And, in doing so, bring more culture and more expression into the world. And people who went to go work there wanted that. And people who didn't like it or thought it was icky that you weren't censoring enough just would never go work there in the first place.

我不会选那个。对，对。还有哪些例子能区分好的使命、坏的使命和那些华而不实的空话？

Wouldn't go there. Yeah. Yeah. What what are some other like, what's another example of a good mission versus a bad one versus, like, a fluffy bullshit one?

一个糟糕的例子是WeWork，他们声称自己的使命是提升全世界的意识水平。

A bad one was when WeWork, said that their mission was to elevate the world's consciousness.

然后

And

我有个朋友当时在WeWork担任高管，有次我们带着孩子野餐时，她得知公司品牌重塑的消息后当场决定辞职。准确说是她读到新使命宣言时，立刻察觉危险信号，认为那是离职的时机。从战术层面分析，这个使命糟糕的原因在于：首先它与公司实际业务脱节，让人难以信服——一个共享办公空间的初创企业说要提升全世界的意识水平。

I have a I have a friend who, at the time, was pretty senior at WeWork, and we were having a picnic with our kids. And she found out about the rebrand and decided to resign, like, on the spot. Or she she read about the new mission, and a red flag went up, and she decided that was the time to leave. And and the reason that that was bad, just to dig into it, tactically, one is it's disconnected from what the company is actually doing, so you can't buy it. Like, it's a it's a shared office based startup, and it's gonna elevate the world's consciousness.

这首先就缺乏可信度且不合逻辑。其次，这个使命过于空泛宏大，毫无实质意义。说到好使命——我承认有偏爱——我认为Substack的使命就不错。Ramp的使命也非常好，因为它清晰明确，不伪装成别的样子。

So already, it's not believable and doesn't make sense. And then two, it's just so lofty and generic that it doesn't mean anything. A good mission I I'm biased. I think Substack has a good mission. Ramp's mission is very good because it's clear, and it's not trying to be something it's not.

为客户节省时间和金钱。这就是我们的工作。如果你也想做这件事，这里就是你的归属。

Save customers time and money. That's what we do. If you're into doing that, this is the place you should be.

快来加入这家公司吧。

Come join this company.

是的。他们本可以像WeWork那样宣称，通过提供更好的B2B SaaS服务来提升全球意识。但他们只是说，我们节省时间和金钱。这很重要，能促进创业生态系统发展。

Yeah. They they could have pulled a WeWork and said, you know, by providing better b to b SaaS, we're elevating the world's consciousness. But they're just like, we save time and money. It's important. It fosters the startup ecosystem.

它帮助小公司成长为大公司，提振经济。这才是它真正重要的地方，不是凭空捏造的东西。

It helps small companies grow into big companies. It lifts the economy. That's the way in which it matters. It's not some made up thing.

明白了。

Got it.

或者从规模角度说，就是要通过消除数据瓶颈来加速AI发展。非常明确。是的，加速AI是个崇高目标，但他们有具体的实现方式。他们不与英伟达竞争，也不与OpenAI或他们的客户竞争。

Or for scale, it is accelerate it's to accelerate AI by removing the bottleneck around data. Like, very clear. Like, yes, accelerating AI is very lofty, but there's a specific way that they're trying to do it. They're not competing with NVIDIA. They're not competing with OpenAI or their customers.

这就是他们的赛道。

Like, this is their lane.

是的。目标应该是可量化的、可衡量的，还是应该如此雄心勃勃以至于几乎无法达成，这样你就能一直...

Yeah. Should it be quantified or, like, measurable, or should it be so ambitious that, like, you can almost never reach it because then you're just you're just gonna keep

继续下去。对，就是继续前进。我们不会停下。

going. Yeah. You're just Yeah. Keep going. We're not gonna stop.

是的。我认为这是‘瞄准月亮，即使失败也会落在星星上’。你不想让自己的使命变得过时。所以它应该足够远大，即使实现了，仍有更多事情要做。比如SpaceX的目标是让人类成为多行星物种并登陆火星，我对此非常乐观。

Yeah. I I think it's a aim for the moon, land among the stars. You you don't want your mission to become outdated. So it should be aspirational enough that even if you achieve it, there's more to do. So, for example, SpaceX, to make humanity a multiplanetary species and to get to Mars, I am so bullish.

我认为我们很快就会登上火星。但即便如此，让我们作为物种在火星上生存还涉及其他事项。所以公司不会就此停摆，还有更多工作要做。

I think we will be on Mars quite soon. But even so, there's other stuff involved on making us viable, as a species on Mars. And so it's not like the company then shuts down. There's there's more to do.

这简直就是‘瞄准月亮’理念的完美范例。没错。

That is literally the perfect example of aim aim aim for the movement. Yeah.

正是如此。对，完全正确。

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

好的。那么回到Rastra的《Go Direct宣言》，谈谈最初的需求背景及其当前重要性。请告诉我们这份宣言的内容，你为何如此坚信这是正确道路——我们稍后也会讨论其他方式。我对为何不应采用某些方式有疑问，但我想先听听你的原话。

Okay. So so Rastra's Go Direct manifesto, going back to, you know, the sort of the original need for this and why it's so important now, Tell us about this this manifesto and why you believe it so strongly and why this is this is the way. And and we'll get into the other way as well. I I have questions about why we shouldn't do things a certain way, but I I I would love to just hear it in your own words.

没错。这是创始人领导公司的必经之路。如果公司不由原始创始人领导，我不确定这种方式是否适用。因此Rastra只与创始人及其领导的公司合作。虽然像微软这样由职业CEO领导也可能成功，但我不认为这是常态或默认模式。

Yeah. This is the way for founder led companies. If the company is not led by the original founder, I don't know if this is the way or if it'll work. So, that's the reason that Rastra only works with founders and only works with founder led companies. I think it's possible to succeed with a professional CEO like Microsoft is doing quite well, but I don't think that is the norm or the default.

而创始人领导的公司更愿意承担风险，更愿意押上个人声誉，更愿意为公司挡子弹。我曾问Dylan Field是否愿意为公司挡真子弹，他唯一犹豫的是考虑子弹该打在身体哪个部位——根本不存在拒绝的念头。

Whereas with a founder led company, they'll be more willing to take risks. They'll be more willing to put their own reputation on the line. They'll be more willing to take a bullet for the company. I asked Dylan Field once if he would take a literal bullet for the company, and the only reason he thought about it was to consider where on his body the bullet should go. Like, there's zero hesitation.

他环顾四周，然后说，嗯，大概是在这儿吧。但又不确定。我觉得他当时是字面意思。

He sort of looked around. He was like, yeah. Like, probably here. But, like no. And and I think he he was literal about it.

对于创始人领导的公司，你正在将世界上尚未存在的新事物带入现实。你掌握着此刻无人知晓的秘密知识，而将这些秘密知识具象化，正是你所构建企业的发展动力。要让世界——甚至不需要整个世界，只需你需要的那些部分——接受你的愿景，你必须找到目标人群，吸引他们追随你，围绕你想实现的变革发起一场运动。要做到这一点，你必须能用自己语言清晰表达你的信念、热情、洞见，以及你所拥有的特殊知识和独特想法。

So for founder led companies, you're bringing something new into the world that doesn't exist yet. So you have some secret knowledge that nobody else knows about right now. And the reification of that secret secret knowledge is going to be the growth of this enterprise that you're building. So in order for you to get the world on board, not even the whole world, just the parts of it that you need, that your people, you have to find them and track them to you and build a movement around this change that you wanna see. In order for that to happen, you have to be able to articulate in your own words the conviction you have, the passion you have, the insight you have, whatever special knowledge you have, whatever special idea you have.

不可避免地，会有人说你是白痴，说这毫无道理，说你疯了。你必须为此辩护。当你过度依赖第三方传达信息时，会发生两件事：一是你的信息会被平庸化，对吧？

And inevitably, people will say you're a moron, and it makes no sense, and you're insane. You're gonna have to defend that. And so the more you filter it through third parties, a couple things happen. One is your message regresses to the mean. Right?

当你把信息交给专职写新闻稿的人——他们可能已经写过八万份了——他们会用最近50篇新闻稿的模板，像填空游戏一样把你的内容套进去，结果你的声音听起来和他们合作过的前50家公司毫无区别。其次，这些人不可能拥有与你同等的信念、热情或洞察力，因此他们既无法在进攻时为你摇旗呐喊，也无法在防守时像你那样据理力争。第三，从原则上讲——别当懦夫。

You're you're you're telling it to someone whose job is to do press releases, and they've done 80,000 before. They're gonna use the their template from the last 50 press releases and plug your stuff into it like a Mad Libs, and you're gonna sound like the last 50 companies they worked with. And then secondly, the person is not going to have your level of conviction or passion or belief or insight. So they're not gonna be able to advocate for it on offense, and they're not gonna be able to defend it on defense the way that you can. And then thirdly, just on principle, don't be a coward.

你可能会遭遇尴尬，会招来黑粉，会被人当众羞辱。这些都是你为企业奋斗历程的一部分。如果你都不愿为企业押上自己的信誉，还能指望谁来做这件事？

You're going to potentially be embarrassed. You're going to get haters. You're going to get dunked on. That's part of this journey of you fighting for the company. Because if you're not going to lend your own credibility for the company, who else should do that?

所以我确实认为，作为创始人的一部分，就是愿意为企业挡子弹——无论是真实的子弹还是名誉的子弹，但愿只是名誉上的。

And so I I actually think that, part of being a founder is being willing to take the bullets, whether they're real or reputational, hopefully, just reputational for the company.

确实。这或许会——回到我们之前关于使命的讨论——当创始人真正挺身而出，挡下那些隐喻的子弹时，实际上可能会强化那个使命，对吧？团队其他成员看到后会想：哦，这个人是玩真的，我们确实在干一番事业。

Yeah. And it probably makes you know, going back to the conversation about the mission, like, it actually probably strengthens that mission, right, when the founder, like, does put themself out there and takes and takes the metaphorical bullet. You know, the rest of the team sees that, and they're like, oh, this person's for real. Like, we're actually doing this.

是的。最初阶段，根本没有团队可言，对吧？一开始，是你或你们对抗全世界，必须招募其他成员。而且你可能在某些时候既没有产品，也没有资金、客户或知名品牌。

Yeah. Well, at the beginning, there is no rest of the team. Right? At the beginning, it's it's you against the world or y'all against the world, and you have to recruit the rest of the team. And you've got potentially no product at some point, maybe no money, no customers, no well recognized brand.

再说，你是在邀请一个真正有才华的人放弃他们在FANG公司或思科等企业的工作机会来加入你。他们只能基于你的承诺和信念做出决定，必须直视你的眼睛并认为这个人能成功，然后押注于你——因为你没有任何实质证明。在'信任但要验证'的框架下，他们无从验证。所以作为创始人，如果你无法用能引起他人共鸣的方式表达那个想法，或者不能用寥寥数语跳出自我视角向他人解释清楚，你就无法组建团队。

And again, you're asking someone who's really talented to leave behind their job offers at a FANG company or Cisco or whatever and come join you instead. And they're going to have to do it on the strength of your word and your conviction. They're just gonna have to look you in the eyes and think this person can pull it off, and I'm gonna I'm gonna throw my lot in with them because you have nothing to prove. In in the in the trust but verify framework, they cannot verify because there's nothing to verify. So if you can't, as a founder, if you can't express what that idea is in a way that resonates with other people, and if you can't get outside of your own head to explain it to someone who's not you in very few words, then you're not gonna be able to build a team.

你将无法筹集资金，无法获得早期客户。在公司最初如原始汤般的阶段，创始人需要包揽一切时，你几乎无法胜任所有必须完成的工作。

You're not gonna be able to raise money. You're not gonna be able to get your early customers. And in that first kinda, primordial soup phase of a company when the founder's doing everything, you're not gonna be able to do almost every job that you have to do.

那么在这种策略中，传统媒体和公关还有作用吗？还是说我只需要通过个人推特账号、公司博客和播客来运作？传统渠道还需要使用吗？

Yeah. So in this in this strategy, like, is there even a role for traditional press and PR? Like or am I just doing everything from my ex account, you know, from my company's blog posts, going on podcasts? Like, do do do I utilize traditional channels at all?

当然有作用。具体取决于公司类型——比如面向政府销售的企业就更需要。但总体而言，顾问和外部协助始终有其价值。

Yeah. There's a role for it. I mean, it depends on the company. So if you're selling to government, for example, there's a bigger role. But I say, generally, there's a role for advisers and for help.

承担责任成为领导者并不意味着单打独斗。比如技术型创始人必须了解产品原理，可能亲自开发第一版，但如果要亲自修复每个漏洞、处理每个拉取请求或产品改动，公司就无法扩展。传播工作同样如此。

So taking accountability and being the leader doesn't mean you have to do it alone. Like, for example, a technical founder has to know how their product works, and maybe they build v one. But they're not going to be able to scale the company if they have to be fixing every bug personally or if they have to be doing every pull request personally or, like, making every change in the product. It's just not viable. And the same with comms.

随着事务增多——从说服某人加入的一对一交谈（这完全靠你），到处理大量对外产品传播和政策沟通时，你不可能亲力亲为。所以需要帮手和顾问。即便是直接沟通策略，我现在的工作方式也是让创始人不依赖我，而是传授知识——这样就算我遭遇意外，他们也能继续前行。

The as you have to do more, you know, you go from having one on one conversations to persuade someone to join the company, which is all you. But as you're dealing with more outbound and incoming product comms and, policy comms, you can't personally do all of it. So you should have people to help you, and you should have advisers. Even for going direct now I work in a way where we we don't want the founder to depend on me. I I'm I'm trying to impart and give knowledge so that if I get hit by a bus or whatever, then they can go on without me.

但确实存在一个地方，人们可以成为你观点的共鸣板，给予指导和支持。传统传播方式同理，媒体有其位置，但不能构成整个策略。比如，如果你的全部策略就是卑躬屈膝地乞求专业记者采纳你的故事，让他们按照自己的世界观解读，经过编辑审核，最终刊登在报纸合适的版面——那你根本没有真正意义上的故事。对吧？

But there's a place for people to be a sounding board for ideas and guide and support you. And then same same with traditional comms, by the way, as there's a place for media, but it can't be your whole strategy. Like, if your entire strategy is I'm going to be so much of a supplicant to professional reporters that I'll beg them enough to take my story and then refract it through their worldview and then run it by their editor and then put it into the section of their paper that makes sense. You don't have a story. Right?

你需要拥有自己未经过滤的原始版本。

You need to be able to have your own unfiltered version of it.

那么，为什么有人会试图在更传统的媒体渠道上发表报道呢？

So what what is a reason that somebody would try to get a story published in in a more traditional outlet?

倒推来看，所有传播的目的都是通过让人相信某些事实来说服他们采取行动。假设你是——随便举家公司名吧，我来举例说明。

So working backwards, the purpose of all comms is to persuade people to do things by convincing them that certain things are true. So if you are, let's take well, name a company, and I'll I'll I'll give you the example.

安卓尔。

Androl.

好的。假设你是安卓尔公司，正试图说服军方——比如空军购买你们的新产品。首先，你必须了解空军中是谁在做这个决策。然后你要明白，他们只有在相信以下事实时才会做出决定。传播策略的目标就是让这些人相信这些事。仅此而已。

Okay. So if you're ANDRWELL and you're, trying to persuade, the military, let's say, the air force to buy the the the new thing that you're making, then first, you have to understand who are the people in the air force who make that decision. And then you have to understand they will make that decision only if they believe the following things. Now the goal of the comm strategy is to get those people to believe those things. That's it.

除此之外的所有动作都是无用功、干扰项或适得其反。所以首要之事是明确聚焦点。这个案例中，整个传播策略就是让这10个人相信这三件事。要让任何人相信任何事，他们必须听到真实信息，且信息本身要有说服力。但关键在于，这些信息必须出现在他们实际获取资讯的地方。

Everything outside of that is wasted motion and a distraction or counter, counterproductive. So the first thing is just know what to focus on. The entire comm strategy in this case is get these 10 people to believe these three things. In order to get anyone to believe anything, they have to hear the actual message, and the message has to be good. But it has to show up in a place where they actually get their information.

我常用的一个例子是，人们可能本应面向Gwern的读者、Hacker News用户或Dwar Cash听众，却跑去上NPR播客。这简直和没做一样。虽然我很欣赏AI创业者，也乐意与你交流，所以我们做了这期播客。但假设换成某个听众规模比你大上千倍的随机播客，对我来说依然毫无意义——因为那些听众是谁呢？

So, a common example I use is people might be talking to readers of Gwern or users of Hacker News or listeners of Dwar Cash, but instead they're going on an NPR podcast. And you might as well have not done that at all. Now I love AI founders, and I like chatting with you. And so we're doing this podcast. But if it were, I don't know, say, some random podcast that had a thousand x more listeners than you have, it still would not be useful for me to go on that instead because who are those people?

这几千号人是谁？我根本不知道自己在触达谁。当你的目标受众是通过传统媒体获取信息时——比如空军采购官员更可能阅读《华盛顿邮报》，而非你想在硅谷招募的工程师——这种情况下，就该出现在《华盛顿邮报》上。

Who are these thousands of people? I I I don't know who I'm reaching. In the case where your audience is getting their news from press so, procurement officers in the Air Force, are much more likely to be reading Washington Post than engineers you're trying to recruit in Silicon Valley. In that case, show up in the Washington Post.

我最欣赏这个观点的地方在于：许多创始人把媒体视为营销策略和分发渠道。而你强调的是：不，要精准锁定需要说服的具体人群，将媒体仅仅视为说服这些人的工具之一。

What I what I really like about this is I think a lot of founders view, press as a marketing strategy and as an opportunity for distribution. What I like about what you're saying is, no. No. No. Pick out the exact specific people that you need to persuade and think of press as just one tool for persuading those people.

从这个角度看，正如你所说，创业者可能最终会选择受众极其垂直的博客或播客——只要它能触达你试图连接的那些特定人群，而非采取广撒网式的策略。说实话，我认为大多数初创公司采用这种媒体策略只是为了增长，但个人觉得这根本行不通，可能十年前就失效了。你提出的思路极具战略眼光。

And and and through this lens, you you might again, like, I think per your point, you might settle for, you know, a blog or a podcast that is a very, very, very tiny niche audience as long as it reaches those specific people you're trying to connect with rather than just sort of like this blast spray and pray approach, which, again, I think most startups do take with press simply to try to, like, grow, which which personally, like, I don't really I don't really think works. I don't think it's worked in a while, if ever, maybe like a decade ago. I really, really like that because it's very what you're saying is, like, very strategic.

你有没有遇到过这种情况：初创公司上了《纽约时报》这种大版面，却困惑于毫无效果？我就接触过这样的案例，他们上了...

Yeah. Do you ever do you ever, hear from startups where they'll get this big article in the New York Times or something, and then they're confused because it didn't do anything for them? Like, I I heard from startups where they'll go on

确实如此。

For sure.

比如《早安美国》这种超高收视率节目，结果网站流量纹丝不动。关键是要逆向思考：你需要反向设计路径，让关键决策者接收到能推动业务增长的观点。对Enderal来说，有时传统媒体确实很有价值。

Good morning, America, and there's this huge viewership. And then their website has no spike in traffic whatsoever. So it's really about working backwards. You are reverse engineering how to get the opinions into the heads of the people who are gonna take the actions that you need for your business to grow. So for Enderal, sometimes being in traditional press makes a ton of sense.

对于Anti Metal和Matt通过邮寄或亲自送披萨给人们来说，这实际上是一种更有效的方式，能够吸引风投、工程师以及那些收到披萨的人的注意。

For anti metal and Matt mailing pizzas to people or dropping off pizzas, that actually is a much more effective way to get the attention of the VCs and engineers and the people that he sent the pizzas to.

是的，完全有道理。你在你的ex账号上做的一件事我很喜欢，也听说其他人这么做，就是你会点评公司的沟通策略或他们在重大发布时采取的方式。你知道我在说什么。你给这些起了什么名字吗？

Yeah. Makes total sense. So one of the things that you've been doing on your ex account, which I really like and I've heard other people do as well, is you've been sort of critiquing, you know, comm strategies or, you know, the approach that a company will take when they have a big announcement. You know what I'm talking about. What what do you call these things?

你给这个起名字了吗？有没有品牌化？

Do you do have a name for this yet? Is there have you branded this?

在我心里，我称之为‘拆解’或‘事后分析报告’。

In my in my head, I call it a breakdown or a or an after action report.

好的。那么我很想在这里的播客上做一些现场Lulu拆解，Lulu事后分析报告，如果你愿意的话。

Okay. Alright. So I would love to do some live Lulu breakdowns, Lulu after action reports right here on the podcast if you're open to it.

我同意。

I'm I'm down.

好的。那我们聊聊特斯拉。特斯拉最近举办了一个大型活动，叫‘We Robot’，他们发布了新的Robocabs，或者叫robotaxis。他们还展示了一种新型的机器人巴士，以及他们人形机器人的下一个迭代版本。

Alright. So let's talk about Tesla. Tesla had a big event recently. It was called We Robot where they unveiled the new Robocabs, or I don't know what they're calling them, robotaxis. They unveiled like a bus, a new type of like Robo bus, and they unveiled sort of the next iteration of their humanoid robots.

我当时确实在现场。活动超级酷，非常非常壮观，就像大型表演一样。无人机在空中飞来飞去，进行灯光秀之类的表演。但网上很多讨论都集中在有些环节看起来像是事先安排好的。

I was actually at the event. It was super cool. Very very, like, huge spectacle. They had drones flying around doing, you know, light shows and stuff. But a lot of of the lot of the chatter on on the Internet was around how some of this stuff felt felt really staged.

作为亲历者，我得说确实如此。比如有些机器人看起来就像程序控制的，就像那些舞者机器人。我觉得它们就是在按程序跳舞。但像调酒师机器人这类，你能感觉到可能是有人在另一个房间远程操控——不过说真的，即便如此它们也很令人印象深刻。这在网上引发了各种不同的观点反应。

And and having been there, I can say, yeah, like, I think some of the robots looked like programs, like the dancers. I think that was just that was happening, and they were dancing. But then some other things like the bartenders, you know, you got a sense that maybe there was a person in another room controlling it, which, by the way, they were still impressive, to be clear. But this this created a very diverse reaction of opinions on the Internet. And so yeah.

露露，给我们做个活动后简报吧。

Lulu, hit us hit us with the after action report.

像这样的新品发布或重要时刻，你总是希望人们的兴奋度从这里提升到这里，而不是相反。特斯拉营销的巅峰之作就是Cybertruck那个广告：它和保时捷赛车，结果Cybertruck赢了。当它冲过终点线时，你发现它还拖着另一辆保时捷——整件事本来就够酷了，结果还变得更炸裂。

With an unveil or or a big moment like this, you always want to have people's excitement go from here to here and not the other way around. So peak Tesla marketing, when they did this really well, was the Cybertruck ad where it's racing it was a Porsche. It was racing a Porsche, and then the Cybertruck wins. And then as it's crossing the line, you see it's towing another Porsche, and it's still won. And that was like the whole thing is already freaking cool, and then it just gets even more rad.

它冲过终点线后，兴奋度直接飙升到这里。这才是正确的操作方式。我觉得这次活动很棒，我对这些技术非常看好，完成得确实出色。

And then it crosses the line, and then it goes up to here. And that that's exactly how you wanna do it. The event, I think it was awesome. I'm so bullish on this stuff. Really well done.

祝贺团队。不过他们把顺序搞反了——现场活动时热度有这么高，但随着细节披露，热度降到了这里。最后给人留下走下坡路的印象，股价走势也差不多是这样。

Congrats to the team. However, they they reversed the order where it was like, you're there, and the live event is happening, and there's this much hype. And then later, as the details come out, the hype drops to here. And then you leave people with the trajectory going in the wrong direction, and this was sort of the trajectory of the stock as well. Yeah.

他们本可以这样做：先展示机器人当前的状态，说明正在研发的内容，预告未来能达到的水平，然后让机器人在某些方面超越预期——

And what they could have done is previewed that the robots are in this state right now, and here's what we're working on, and here's what to expect from us in the future, and then have the robots in some way outperform what

哦，这很有趣。

Oh, that's interesting.

对吧？让机器人做些出乎意料的事。比如现在它们会说‘机器人即将为您提供饮品’，目前还需要人工参与。但一年后，您将看到完全无人介入的版本。这是让您预览其运动能力和稳定性的演示。

Right? And and have the robots do something unexpected. So for example, if they were to say, right now, the robots are gonna be serving you drinks, and at the moment, there's a person in the loop here. A year from now, you'll see it without the person in the loop. This is a preview for you to see the movement and the stability of it.

接着如果它们让机器人跳舞并说明‘这段表演完全由机器人自主完成’，您就会从‘还不错’升级到‘比想象中更惊艳’，从而扭转评价轨迹。我认为这会是活动最大的争议点。

And then if they were to bring out the robots dancing and say, by the way, that part was fully them, there's no person. Then you at least go from here to, oh, it's more impressive than I thought, and then reverse the trajectory. So I thought that would be the biggest critique of the event.

确实。这主意太棒了。必须说明的是，正如我所说，活动本身非常精彩，那些动作简直不可思议。我是说，你完全能想象这些家伙出现在你家里的样子，让人忍不住感叹。

Yeah. That's actually a really good idea. Because to be clear, and like I said, the event was awesome, and the movements were incredible. I mean, these things, like, you can definitely see one of these things being in your home. Like, you're like, oh, man.

它能洗碗，能吸尘。光是展示这些新动作和新物理能力就够震撼了。完全同意，简直不可思议。

That that could do my dishes. It could, you know, vacuum the floor. And so even just that, like, unveiling new movements and new, like, physical capabilities Yeah. Totally agree. Mind blowing.

没错。你可以引导人们用特定标准来评价。如果你宣称‘这就是未来，机器人时代已来临’，人们就会用完美机器人的标准来挑剔每个动作或功能的不足。但如果你说‘这是机器人技术的基准线，过去它们还笨手笨脚’

Right. You you can tell people by which metric to evaluate you. So if you're saying this is the future, the future's here, here's robots, then people are picturing, the most perfect robot possible, and then they're docking points for every movement or every action or every capability that your robot can't perform. Whereas if you tell them, here's the baseline for robots. Up until this point, they've been herky jerky.

它们过去不够灵巧，存在各种问题。而现在我们突破到这个水平——突然再给人们额外惊喜时，人们就会不断猜想它还能做到什么。

They haven't been dextrous. They whatever. And we're pushing it to here where now they're able to do these things. And then you give people a surprise on top of that. People are always left wondering what else could it possibly do.

你们正在改变衡量标准和基准线，从而表现出色。这实际上可以追溯到很久以前的阿里巴巴案例。在上市前，他们决定将GMV作为核心指标。要知道，评估企业成功的方式有很多种。而他们宣称：我们是一家电商公司。

You you're you're changing the metrics and the base baseline so that you're overperforming. Example of this actually is from Alibaba from a long time ago. Before they went public, they decided to make their metric GMV. Like, there's a lot of ways to evaluate the success of a company. And for them, they said, we're an e commerce company.

你们应该用GMV（平台商品交易总额）来衡量我们，这对我们而言是最佳指标。随后他们直接告诉外界该如何评估，而市场也的确照做了。甚至多年后，分析师仍用这个指标判断阿里巴巴的运营状况——这个标准是他们自己选定的。所以作为初创企业，你们在某种程度上能决定外界用什么标准来衡量，他们本可以把这点阐述得更清晰。

You're going to measure us on GMV, the value of the merchandise sold on the platform, this best metric for us. And then they just told people how to measure them, and then they did. Like, even years later, analysts would use that metric to see if Alibaba was doing well, and they got to choose that. So as a new startup, you, to some extent, get to choose what metrics people measure you by, and they could have laid that out more clearly.

我们在Anchor就采用了这种做法，效果很好。倒不是什么宏大战略，真希望当时认识你，效果可能会更好。具体来说，我们为Anchor确定的核心理念是：全球新增播客中使用Anchor平台的比例。我们不断向外界强调这点，让它成为重要指标。

We did this for Anchor, and it worked. Not not it wasn't like some grand strategy. And I wish I wish I knew you back then because it it probably would have been even more effective. But, this is what we did with Anchor. We said we decided that the important metric for us was was the percent of all new podcasts in the world powered by Anchor, and we told people that, and it made it important.

这个指标之所以重要是因为...这就是他们衡量进展的方式。只要这个数字持续增长，就说明他们在进步。这真的非常非常——

It made it important for the oh oh, that's how they're measuring progress. And as long as that number keeps going up, they're making progress. That's really that's really, really

有意思。太棒了。因为如果你们没明确这点，人们可能会盯着整体总量——

interesting. Great. Because if you hadn't said that, people might have looked at overall total

总量。没错。

Overall. Yeah.

把你们和行业巨头比较，然后说你们落后之类。但你们主动定义了衡量标准。我认为这对特斯拉至关重要。埃隆有太多反对者，最不该做的就是给他们递话柄，让他们说'看吧，我就说这人从不兑现承诺，他在欺骗你们'。

Compared you to the much larger players and say that you're behind or whatever, but you've given them the metric. And so I think that's a big thing for Tesla. Elon has so many haters and detractors that the last thing you need to be doing is giving them fuel to say, I told you so. This guy doesn't keep his promises. He's tricking you.

对他们而言，CEO的信任比许多其他公司更为重要，因为这极具抱负性，而且这位CEO如此知名又极具争议性，所以任何能向他们展示这些指标、设定基准并超越基准的做法，都是在帮你自己。

And with them, trust in the CEO is more important than it is for a lot of other companies because it's so aspirational and because this guy is so well known and so polarizing that anything you can do to tell them these are the metrics, here's the baseline, and then outperform that, you'll help yourself.

与之相反的例子是SpaceX的发射，这可能原本计划得不够周全——我知道这是目标，但我不认为他们预见到这个结果。对吧？而且没人料到第一次尝试就成功了，他们真的接住了火箭。正如你所说，大家的期望值就这样被不断推高，这是好事。

So the opposite of this, which maybe wasn't maybe wasn't planned well, I know it was the objective, but I don't think they realized this would happen, was the SpaceX launch. Right? And and nobody knew that that was actually gonna happen on the first try, and then it did. Then they caught the rocket. And I think to your point, everyone's expectations just keep getting get it were getting higher and higher in a good way.

你瞧，人们正将此事庆祝为人类最伟大的成就之一。

And lo and behold, people have people are celebrating this as, like, one of the most greatest accomplishments in humanity.

确实如此。我认为就是这样的。

It is. And I think is.

本来就是。

Which it is.

绝对是。之前还有视频里埃隆说：'我不知道这能不能成功，可能不会，这太疯狂了。'

Truly is. And there's there's there's previous videos of Elon saying, I don't know if this is gonna work. Yeah. You know, probably won't. This is insane.

但不管怎样，我们都要试试。结果成功后，第一，这让成就显得更加不可思议——它本来就是；第二，当你事后看那些视频时，才会真正明白这对整个团队而言是多么了不起的壮举。

Whatever. We're gonna try it anyway. Let's just try. And then when it does work, number one, it makes it look that much more incredible and then which it was. And then number two, in retrospect, when you look at those videos afterwards, you realize just how much of an accomplishment it was even for the team that was that was working.

这对我们来说不仅仅是意外。所以机器人出租车活动的版本应该是说，看好了。我们要让这个东西降落在带钩子的小筷子上。就像，等着看吧。我们认为它会成功。

It wasn't just a surprise for us. So the robotaxi event version of that would have been to say, watch. We're gonna land this thing on the the little chopsticks with the hook. Like, watch for it. We think it's gonna happen.

然后，嗯，这次确实成功了。是的。但如果没成功，人们就会说任务失败了，即使它达成了许多其他里程碑。

And then, well, in this case, it happened. Yeah. But but if it had not, then people would have said that the mission was a failure even if it hit so many other milestones.

是的。这真的非常酷。说得通。苹果呢？苹果是我最近在预期方面思考很多的一家公司。

Yeah. That's really, really cool. That makes sense. What about Apple? So Apple is one I've been thinking a lot about in terms of expectations.

我有新手机，16。你知道，他们早就宣布了。他们早就宣布了iOS 18。他们大力宣传苹果智能，你知道，他们自己的人工智能，自己的模型。这手机甚至还没有这些功能。

I have the new phone, the 16. You know, they announced this forever ago. They announced iOS 18 forever ago. They're really touting Apple intelligence, you know, their own their own AI, their own models. This phone doesn't even have it yet.

而且盒子上还写着'搭载苹果智能'。这感觉有点让人失望，对吧？

And literally on the box, it says featuring Apple intelligence. Like, that that feels like a letdown. Right?

是的。是的。上市公司情况有点不同，因为股东和机构投资者，来自各方的压力很大。所以特斯拉面临这种压力，SpaceX则有不必担心的自由。

Yeah. Yeah. It's a little different when you're a public company because your shareholders and the institutional investors, and there's just a a lot of pressure from different directions. So for for test for Tesla, there is that pressure for SpaceX. They have the liberty of not having to worry about it.

但对上市公司来说，压力巨大，比如'你们在AI上做了什么，下一个大动作什么时候来？'这可能会限制你的选择范围或迫使你采取行动。关于苹果，我要说的是我不太了解他们的策略。我从不低估他们。但我注意到很多小创业公司试图模仿苹果，苹果会搞大型发布会，苹果有媒体日。

But for a public company, there's tremendous pressure to be like, what are you doing with AI, and when's the next big thing? And that can, unfortunately, restrict your range of options or or force you into something. With Apple, one thing I'll say is I I don't know enough about their strategy there. I would never count them out. But one thing I have noticed is a lot of smaller startups try to LARP as Apple, where Apple does these big unveils, and Apple has these media days.

苹果公司总是把事情捂得严严实实，然后突然惊艳亮相，事先从不透露任何风声，我们也打算如法炮制。也许这对你们适用，也许不适用。但苹果的成功经验其实完全不能作为你们的参考标准。想想这些独立事件——苹果成功了，但你们能否成功与这个全球最具标志性的家喻户晓品牌是否成功毫无关联。

And Apple keeps things under wraps and then comes out all of a sudden with a bang and never says anything in advance of it, and we're gonna do the exact same thing. Well, maybe that works for you, maybe not. But the fact that it worked for Apple is actually not an indicator of whether it worked for you at all. Like, consider these uncorrelated events where it worked for Apple, and it may or may not work for you totally independent of whether it worked for one of the largest iconic brands in the world that's a household name.

没错。确实。我现在经常想到他们，因为大家似乎天然对苹果抱有超高期待，毕竟它是苹果嘛，对吧？

Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I am thinking a lot about them right now because it does feel like everyone naturally has such high expectations for Apple because they're Apple. Right?

但他们现在明显处于追赶状态，我们谁都不知道他们最终会达到我们惯常期待的水平，还是会让众人失望。所以从公关传播的角度来看，现在走这条钢丝真的非常非常困难。换作是我处在他们的位置，也不知道该怎么办。

But they're also clearly playing from behind right now, and none of us really know if they're going to meet the expectations we typically have for them or let us down. And so I just have to imagine from a comm standpoint, from a messaging standpoint, it's gonna be really, really hard right now, like, to walk that line. And and and I don't know what I would do if I were in their shoes.

是的。但对所有规模小于苹果的企业——也就是绝大多数公司来说，这反而是好事。因为你们有机会实现弯道超车，人们本来就偏爱逆袭故事。创始人能快速行动并亲自讲述公司动态，这正是规模较小的初创公司（当然比苹果小的公司太多了）应该充分利用的优势。

Yeah. But it's good for all of the companies that are smaller than Apple, which is the vast majority of companies because you get to outperform and you get to come from behind. Everybody loves an underdog story anyway. And so being able to just move with speed and have the founder out there talking about what you're doing is an advantage that smaller startups again, smaller than Apple, which is a lot of people, should be fully exploiting.

确实如此。说到机器人和自动化，你对Waymo引发的热潮怎么看？你坐过Waymo的自动驾驶车吗？实际体验和你在网上看到的宣传相符吗？

Yeah. For sure. How have you felt about all the excitement around you know, speaking of robotics and automation, around Waymo? Have you have you ridden in a Waymo? And, like, how how did you feel about that matched with everything you've seen online?

我上次坐Waymo时，和联合创始人Sergei被困住了。我们陷入了一个像是Waymo百慕大三角的区域，接着又有一辆Waymo开过来同样被困。我们就像一座被困Waymo组成的小岛，最后不得不下车步行。所以最近的体验不太美好。但总体而言，Waymo仍然被严重低估了。

My last Waymo ride, my cofounder Sergei and I got stuck. And then we got stuck we got stuck in this, like, Bermuda Triangle for Waymos because then another Waymo pulled up and also got stuck. And we were just a a little island of stuck Waymos, and we got out and had to walk. So the the recency buys isn't helping me. But, overall, I think Waymo is still way underrated.

要知道，他们拥有基本正常运行的自动驾驶出租车车队已经好几年了，但宣传力度比我预想的要小得多。不过有句话说得好：'先驱者中箭，定居者得地'。作为行业开拓者，你要承受监管机构最严格的审查——一次事故，甚至只是疑似事故，或是人类司机日常造成的那种小拥堵，对公众心理的影响会被放大100倍。数据也显示实际影响约达百倍。所以我完全理解他们选择低调发展的理由。

Like, they have had a fleet of working mostly, robotaxis for years now, and they haven't talked about it as much as I would think, frankly. But but the other thing too is, there's a saying that, pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land. And so if you're the first to do something, you can bear the brunt of the regulatory scrutiny where one accident or even perceived accident or even minor traffic jam, like the kind of thing that human drivers do every day all the time, is 100x. I I actually think the data says about 100x more impactful on our collective psyche. So I can also see the reasons for them to wanna be more under the radar as they grow.

是的，这有道理。我们来聊聊Meta。让我们深入了解Meta的情况。这里有很多话题可谈，Orion、Llama。

Yeah. That makes sense. Let's talk about meta. Let's get the Lulu breakdown on meta. There there are a bunch of things to talk about here, Orion, Llama.

但也许我们可以直接聊聊Zuck本人和他的形象转变。我是说，这似乎与公司许多新创新、股价变化同时发生。到底怎么回事？谁在负责这个策略？给我们分析一下。

But maybe we could just talk about based Zuck and the and the Zuck makeover. And, I mean, it does seem to be coinciding with a lot of new innovations from the company, stock price. What's going on here? Who's in charge of the strategy? And, like, break it down for us.

没错。首先，创始人和公司之间存在共生关系，当公司表现更好时，创始人更有影响力；而当创始人更有魅力和自信时，公司形象也会提升，更容易招揽人才。这就形成了良性循环。当然也可能形成恶性循环，当公司陷入危机时...

Yeah. Well, first, there's a symbiotic relationship between the founder and the company, right, where if the company is doing better, the founder has more mojo. And if the if the founder is more swaggy and confident, the company is seen in a better light, and it's easier to recruit. And it becomes this positive feedback loop. You can also get a positive feedback loop going in a bad direction, so a negative positive feedback loop, where the the company is under crisis.

于是创始人开始回避，地位下降，招聘变得困难，公司陷入低迷，团队流失人才。显然Meta过去几年处于极佳的良性循环中。我认为有几个原因：一是公司表现出色的强化效应；二是扎克伯格正在找到并信任自己的直觉和真实个性。

So the founder goes into hiding, and then the founder loses status and becomes harder to recruit, and the company goes into a funk because teams lose candidates. So Meta has clearly been on a fantastic positive feedback loop for past couple of years. And I think it's a couple of things. One is that that reinforcing effect of the company doing really well. Two is, I think Mark Zuckerberg is is finding his own instincts and learning to trust his own instincts and his real personality.

熟悉他的人说他一向如此，包括有时会调皮捣蛋惹人生气。但这就是他的个性，现在展现出来了，人们也接受了。虽然你绝不会故意这么做，但事实上他多年来扮演'企业机器人'的形象反而有帮助，因为那种形象太不讨喜，所以现在...

People who know him well say that he's always been this way, including being cheeky and pissing people off at times. But this is his personality, and it's coming out, and people are embracing it. It almost now you would never do this intentionally, but the fact that he was Corpobot 10,000 for many years actually helps because that was so unappealing to a lot of people that to see

降低了预期。

Lower expectations.

是的，降低了

Yes. Lower

预期。确实如此。

expectations. Exactly.

他起步于此，源于此处。倘若他从这里出发抵达这里，那就不算是惊人的进步了。第一点是他找到了自己的声音与个性，表达时更加自信。第二点是我认为他现在的团队确实比过去几年要好得多。

He started here. He came from here. Whereas if he had come from here to here, it'd be less of a a stunning improvement. And so one is just he's he's found his own voice and personality and become more confident in expressing that. Two is I I think he does have a better team around him now than he did in years past.

部分原因在于他自身的自信吸引了更合拍的人才。但他现有的团队——确实存在且值得肯定——远比前几年在Facebook走廊里游荡的那些保姆式监管者强得多。需要警惕的是，有时身边会聚集谄媚之徒或过度吹捧者，这时就很难判断自己是否做过头了。这有点像博主被读者绑架——比如写了篇‘政治正确太过火’的帖子，所有人都在附和‘没错，基础’。

Part of that is through his own confidence where he has attracted people who, are able to work with him better. But the team that he has around him right now, which there is a team and they do deserve some credit, is much better than the, I don't know, the nannies and hall monitors that seem to be roaming the halls of Facebook, in prior years. And the one thing I would watch out for is sometimes you can get sycophants around you or people just glazing you too much, and then it becomes really hard to know when you're overdoing it. It's it's a little bit like audience capture where a blogger writes a certain post. You know, wokeness has gone too far, and everyone's like, yes, base.

告诉他们。然后你就会觉得‘对，我要多写这类内容。太棒了’。就像戴一条项链人人都夸好看，

Tell them. And then you're like, yeah. I'm gonna do more posts like this. This is great. It's possible to wear one chain, and everyone loves the chain.

接着你换上更粗的链子，不知不觉就戴上了40英寸的大金链。

And then you get thicker chain, and before you know it, you have a 40 inch chain.

你看起来

You're looking

像T-Pain（说唱歌手）。是的。我认为我们尚未到那个地步，但创始人完全可能陷入这种境地，当周围无人提醒时很难察觉。所以需要保持警惕，我相信他的团队会注意这点。

like t pain. Yes. So so I I don't think that we've reached that point, but that is a thing that is totally liable to happen to founders, and it's just hard to know when you're hitting that point if people around you aren't telling you. So it's something just to watch out for. I'm sure his team is being mindful of it.

但是，没错，这是一个巨大的转变，很大程度上是由他个人推动的。

But, yes, big turnaround, and a lot of it is driven by him personally.

嗯，不过我确实认为这其中可能有一点风险。对吧？我是说，当这个人几乎变得比实际品牌和公司更具新闻价值时，这是否会成为问题。因为那样的话，你会觉得风险似乎都集中在了这个人类身上。而人类是不可预测的。

Well, I do think there's probably a little bit of a risk in that, though. Right? I mean, is it is it a problem when the person almost becomes, like, more newsworthy than the actual brand and company. Because then you're like I feel like then there's sort of consolidated risk in this human being. And, like, humans are unpredictable.

对吧？而且随着时间的推移，他们会变得不再酷。对吧？

Right? And they become uncool over time. Right?

是的，是的。但这也意味着收益集中。所以可以把它想象成投资单只股票与投资一篮子股票的区别。

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's also consolidated upside. So think of it as investing in a single stock versus a basket.

如果你投资单只股票，而这只股票恰好是特斯拉或是一只优质股票，那么你将大幅跑赢市场。如果是只糟糕的股票，你就会大幅跑输。而风险对冲策略就是投资标普500这样的指数。所以如果你是创始人领导的公司，就更像单只股票，创始人就是决定公司轨迹和声誉的那只股票投资。如果有个出色的创始人，他们真的能提振公司。

If you're investing in a single stock and that stock happens to be Tesla or it's a great stock, then you will way outperform the market. And if it's a bad stock, then you'll way underperform. And and the risk hedging strategy is to invest in, like, the S and P 500. So if if you're a founder led company, then you're more like the single stock where the founder is the single stock investment that determines the trajectory of the company and the reputation of the company. If you've got a great founder, they can really lift up the company.

举个例子，Stripe从Collison兄弟作为创始人那里获得了很大的阿尔法收益。如果你只是随便找几个非常聪明、专业且管理能力出色的商学院毕业生，那家公司就不会有如今这样的光环和招聘吸引力，真的，因为这两个人身上带着能让Stripe超越原本水平的阿尔法。Palmer对Anduril、Alex Wang对Scale也是如此，我们的朋友Mikey对Sunoh也是，随便换个人替代Mikey都不会有同样的效果。但显然也可能走向反面。所以我认为这真的取决于你是否有一个有原则、值得信赖、强大且有远见的优秀创始人。

So, for example, Stripe gets a lot of alpha from the Collisans being the founders. Like, if you just stuck in a couple random business school graduates who are very clever and professional and great managers, that company would not have the same a line and recruiting magnetism as it does today, truly, because of those two people carry within them alpha to outperform where Stripe would that would otherwise be. And and Palmer is the same way for Anderle, Alex Wang the same way for Scale, Our friend Mikey with Sunoh, like a random person replacing Mikey wouldn't have the same effect. But it can also obviously go the other way. So I think it really depends on if you have a great founder who is principled and trustworthy and strong and has a vision.

你会想押注那个人，实际上你希望那个人的声誉就是公司的声誉。

You wanna bet on that person, and you actually want that person's reputation to be the reputation of the company.

如果说投资个人就像投资股市，那么扎克伯格是否已经见顶了？是不是该从扎克伯格撤资，把品牌作为战略？Meta是否应该退出？他现在已经太过基础了。

So if if investing in an individual is like investing in the stock market, Has Zuck peaked? Like, is it time to divest from Zuck to brand as a strategy? Like, should Meta back away from that? He's, like, too he's, like, too based at this point.

风险在于如果你让他退出，就意味着你重新回到了专业顾问主导的模式。嗯。但这并不是个好模式。所以...

The the risk is if you get him to back away from it, that means you have reentered the professional adviser's driving the bus mode. Mhmm. And that's just not a good mode. So so

你必须继续前进。

You gotta keep going.

没错。创始人过度曝光、犯错、偶尔尴尬，仍然比一直保持安全平庸要好。人们会问我：你提倡直接沟通，但看看马斯克，他惹了那么多麻烦和争议，直接沟通有这么多弊端。

Yeah. Like, founder jumping the shark overkill, making mistakes, being occasionally cringe is still better than baseline safe and boring all the time. Like, people will ask me, hey. You advocate for going direct, but look at Elon. He gets into so much trouble and all this controversy, and there's all this downside of going direct.

但如果整体来看，马斯克虽然搞砸事情、引发争议、分散注意力还面临SEC调查，所有这些打包在一起，仍然比一个默默无闻的安全型创始人强太多。因为你只看到了弊端，却没看到优势——他拥有杠杆效应，能在需要时纠正舆论，招聘能力无人能及。特斯拉和SpaceX，整个马斯克系公司吸引人才的能力简直疯狂，就因为人们想为马斯克工作。

But if you look at it as a package, Elon, with the screw ups and with the controversy and all the distractions and the SEC investigation, all of that as a package is still so much better than an unknown safe behind the scenes founder. Because, you're looking at the downsides, but then the upsides, he has leverage. He has the ability to correct stories when he needs to. He has recruiting ability like none other. I mean, Tesla and SpaceX, the whole, like, Elon family of companies' ability to attract talent is insane, and it's because people wanna work for Elon.

安德鲁也是如此。人们想为帕尔默、布莱恩这些创始人工作。虽然他们现在也有很厉害的高管，但创始人才是吸引力核心。如果让他们沉默，确实能避免偶尔的失态和尴尬，但也会失去所有这些巨大优势。我绝不会做这种交易。

It's the same as Andrew. People wanna work for Palmer and for Brian and the founders. And and now they have really impressive executives too, but, like, those are the people that attract. And if you were to take that away and have them go quiet, yeah, you would save yourself the occasional gaffe and embarrassment, but you would also lose all of this enormous upside. I would never make that trade.

露露，这太棒了，和我预想的一样。非常感谢，我学到了很多，相信观众也是。真的太感谢了。

Lulu, this was awesome as I predicted it would be. Thank you so much. I learned a ton. I'm sure the audience did as well. Thank you so much.

谢谢。

Thank you.

非常感谢收听《Generative Now》。如果你喜欢我们的内容，请帮我们给播客评分并留下评论，这对我们真的很有帮助。当然，也请订阅以便在我们发布新节目时收到通知。如果你想了解更多，请在YouTube、X和LinkedIn上关注Lightspeed（账号：Lightspeed VP）。

Thanks so much for listening to Generative Now. If you liked what you heard, please do us a favor and rate and review the podcast. That really does help. And, of course, subscribe so you get notified every time we drop new episodes. If you wanna learn more, follow Lightspeed at Lightspeed VP on YouTube, X, and LinkedIn.

《Generative Now》由Lightspeed与Pod People联合制作。我是Michael McNano，我们下周再见。

Generative Now is produced by Lightspeed in partnership with Pod People. I am Michael McNano, and we will be back next week. See you then.