20VC：Applovin：市值1600亿美元，营收54.8亿美元，人均EBITDA达1000万美元｜为何顶尖者无需导师｜为何创始人不应进行天使投资｜为何商业中的善意会拖慢你的步伐——与亚当·福鲁吉对话

维持这种文化真的很难。

It's very hard to maintain that.

直到我们经历裁员、开始精简之后，才真正做到了。

We didn't until we ran through the layoffs and started leaning up.

真正让我醒悟的是现在担任CTO的吉奥瓦尼，他刚来的时候。

And really, really, the catalyst for me was this guy who's now the CTO, Giovanni, came in.

他一来就四处打量，不断问：我们为啥要留这些人？

And he started looking around the organization and kept saying, why do we have these people?

我们为啥要保留这些流程？

Why do we have these processes?

这让我意识到，商业中最关键的问题就是‘为什么’。

And it reminded me that the most important question to ask in business is why?

他启发了我去反思：都十年了，我们跟这么多人一起做事，积累了这么多流程，可这些到底为啥存在？

And so he's inspired me to go, it's you been ten years, we're working with all these people, we have all these processes that we built over ten years, why do we have these things?

为什么我会让一个头衔响亮、实则毫无作用的人占着位置？

Why is it that I have this person who has this title who means nothing?

我们重新梳理了整个公司，回到创业初期的根基，想重新找回那种实干的文化。

And went through the whole organization and we just went back to the founding roots and tried to go back to that culture of doers.

‘为什么’这个问题在其中起了关键作用，最后我们终于做到了一切围绕实干者来运转，那些我根本不认可的职位和层级，全都被砍掉了。

And the question why played a huge role in that, and we were able to get to a place where everything was leaned up to doers, so we no longer have a role or a layer that I don't appreciate.

我是个CEO，听着你的分享，我也想打造你们这样的实干文化和执行力。

I'm a CEO listening, and I want to have a culture of doers and a culture of execution like you have.

但很多想搞实干文化的CEO，最后都搞不成，你觉得他们最大的误区是什么？

What are the biggest mistakes you see other CEOs make who want this culture but don't have it?

我觉得一旦火车开出去了，团队人多了、臃肿了，再想往回拉，真的太难了。

I think it's really, really hard if the train leaves the station and your team becomes bloated to go backwards.

我说这个是有原因的——现在做软件的，可不像说‘裁掉一半人’那么简单。

And the reason I say that, and this is a challenge in software today, it's not as simple as go lay off 50%, 60% of people.

如果团队已经臃肿，里面混着A、B、C档的人，那真正顶尖的A档，早就不在了，留下的基本是A-到B+，再往下就更差了。

If the team is bloated and there's a mixture of As, Bs, and Cs, your As are probably already long gone, and what's left is like A minuses to B pluses and then go down from there.

留下来的人，往往都是喜欢大公司那种流程化、按部就班工作方式的。

But it's people who like working in a process oriented bigger company that are sticking around.

如果你一下子裁掉一半人，但文化和团队本身就很平庸，那剩下的也只是一半的平庸。

If you go fire 50% of people and the culture and the team is mediocre, you're left with half mediocrity.

你根本达不到我们如今这种状态——一群真正做事的人。

And you're not gonna get to where we hopefully are at, which is just a bunch of a a players who are doers.

要改变这种文化，唯一的办法就是裁掉99%的人，从头再来。

The only way to fix a culture like that is to go and fire 99% of people and just rebuild it from the ground up.

这事儿真不是一般人能干得来的。

It's exceptionally hard to do.

没几个人懂怎么操作，因为他们根本不知道自己要找的是啥。

Not a lot of people understand how to do that because they don't know what they're looking for.

作为一家上市公司，想这么干简直难上加难。

And it's very, very hard to do that as a public company.

所以我觉得，这事儿确实挺棘手的。

So I think it's challenging.

人们听说这是打造公司的正确方式，创始人也总怀念当年：五十个人挤在一间屋子里，埋头猛干，事情飞快推进的日子。

People hear that this is the way to build things, and founders remember the days, the glory days of 50 people in a room just building stuff and things moving incredibly quickly.

要把一家已经膨胀、层级繁多、高管成堆的大公司重新瘦身，根本不是件容易的事。

It's not particularly easy to take a company that's gotten large scale with a bunch of layers, big exec suite, and then take it back down.

那我们看到的这些裁员，难道不会让那些CEO们如愿以偿吗？

Will the layoffs that we are seeing not result in the desired improvements from the CEOs who are making them then?

如果他们真清楚自己在干嘛，也记得公司刚起步时那种高效的样子，那还有可能重回初心。

If they really know what they're doing and they understand how the company looked when it was highly efficient, when it was founded, then it's plausible that it can get back to the roots.

但如果公司已经臃肿到平庸了，光靠砍一半人、再把岗位自动化，那大概率是达不到大家期待的效果的。

But if it's a company that's gotten bloated to the point of mediocrity and it's just, let's fire half and try to automate roles, it's it's probably not gonna get to the place that people think it should.

我们现在看到的股权激励规模，简直史无前例，我敢说在企业史上都没见过这么夸张的。

We are seeing a deluge of SBC stock based compensation at a level that we almost have never seen before, I don't think, in corporate history.

你对这种现象怎么看？

How do you feel and think about that?

我们每年发的股票总数，其实一直保持得挺稳的。

So we've given roughly the same amount of stock every year in terms of absolute amount.

大概就是三亿美元左右。

It's roughly $300,000,000.

如果我们看市值的话，我觉得我们现在的市值大概是1500亿美元。

And so if you think about our market cap, I think our market cap is about a $150,000,000,000.

我们在股票薪酬上的支出其实非常非常低。

Our burn on stock based comp is very, very low.

所以你可以用现金流减去股票薪酬来看我们，我觉得这才是评判一家公司的正确方式。

And so you can judge us on cash flow minus SBC, which I generally think is the right way to to judge companies.

但科技行业现在有个误区，大家觉得公司就该给很高的股票薪酬，尤其是最近软件公司股价涨得厉害，结果就形成了一种恶性循环——本来每年拿股权激励占总股本3%的公司，股价一跌66%，股权激励占比就直接飙升到百分之几了。

What's happened in tech though is that there's been an expectation the stock based comp will be high at companies, and as stock prices have gone especially in software companies of late, you have a downward spiral that's formed where all of a sudden, a company that was burning 3% of their cap table every single year to pay out equity to the team falls 66%, and now you're at percent.

这种稀释程度太严重了，想翻身真的很难。

And you're at a level of dilution that's incredibly hard to come out from underneath.

所以当一家公司这么疯狂地稀释股权时，你很难再相信它能行。

And so it makes it hard to bet on those companies when they're burning that much equity.

我在2022年公司股价大跌时发现，有些员工其实已经拿够了，根本不在乎股票波动，没必要再赌股价。

What I found and what we did implemented in 'twenty two when we fell a lot is that certain people have enough compensation to not take risk on the stock if the stock's going to be volatile.

以前我们总觉得，公司每个人都该有股权。

And we used to believe that every single person should have equity granted by the company.

所以我们改了策略，只给公司前10%到15%的人发股权，其他人就不给了。

Instead, we went to a place where we said the top 10% to 15% of the company will get equity and the rest won't.

他们有权自己买股票，公司也有员工持股计划，想买的话可以打折入手。

They'll have the right to buy equity and there's ESPP programs that let employees buy equity at a discount if they so choose.

不然的话，就只拿现金工资。

Otherwise, they'll just be paid on cash.

我记得刚入行的时候，我根本不敢冒这个险。

And I remember when I first started my career, I couldn't have taken risks.

那时候我完全是月光族，对吧？

Like, I was basically going paycheck to paycheck, right?

要是你工资的25%拿的是股票，涨了当然开心，

Like, if you got 25% of your pay in stock and it went up, great, you feel great.

可要是跌了92%，你就傻眼了——房租都交不起了。

But if it falls 92%, you're like, damn, I can't pay my rent.

这真是个大问题，对吧？

That's a real problem, right?

所以我们做到让那些有能力承担风险的人去拿股权收益。

Like, so we took it to a point where people who had the luxury of being able to take upside got upside.

其他人就拿现金报酬。

Everyone else got cash comp.

他们自己做选择，而我们控制住了开支。

They had the decision themselves, and we controlled this burn.

这样一来，对公司来说就完全不会造成负担。

And so we got into the position where it just wasn't burdensome to our business.

我觉得很多公司太随意、太广泛地发股票，根本没搞清楚谁才是真正能推动公司价值的人，还以为投资人会容忍那么高的烧钱速度。

And I think companies tend to give away their stock too cheaply and too broadly, not understanding who actually can drive the value of the equity, and also believing that the investors are gonna be accepting really high burn rates.

你为什么觉得现金流减去股票薪酬才是衡量公司的正确方式？

Why do you believe cash flow minus SBC is the right way to value companies?

我觉得现金才是王道。

I think cash is king.

因为它简单明了。

I like it's simple.

我是说，我看会计准则，看EBITDA数字，琢磨什么才是真正的EBITDA，什么不是。

I I mean, I look at accounting practices, and I look at, like, EBITDA numbers and, like, what's clean EBITDA versus not.

说到底，净利润、现金，这些才是干净的指标。

End of the day, like, net income, cash, these are clean things.

如果一家公司赚了十亿美元现金，却发了十亿美元的股票，还说‘我们用十亿美元回购股票’，那它根本没创造任何真实现金。

If a company generates a billion dollars of cash but gives out a billion dollars of equity and says, just gonna buy my equity at a billion dollars, they're not generating any cash.

那这家公司的实际价值到底在哪？

So, like, what's what's the real value of that business?

要么你稀释了股权，他们把赚的所有现金都拿去回购股票来对冲稀释；要么他们攒了一大笔现金，正好抵消了稀释的影响。

Either you're diluting and they're paying all of the cash they generate to buy the equity back to offset the dilution, or they're building up a cash balance that just offsets the dilution.

那在这种情况下，还信什么现金流是真实的，有什么意义呢？

So, like, what's the point of believing that the cash flow is real in that case?

所以对我来说，最直接的就是把企业简化成一个指标：现金流减去股票薪酬。

So I think for me, it's just distill businesses down to the simplest metric, which is cash flow minus SBC.

我们之前聊过AI带来的那些创造性变化，还有它对产出的影响。

We mentioned the creative changes that are happening with AI and how that impacts output.

工程这块你提过好几次了。

Engineering is one that you mentioned several times.

过去一两年，你觉得AI对工程效率有什么影响？

How have you seen engineering productivity change with AI in the last year or two?

Databricks 昨天刚发布，说他们50%的代码都是AI生成的。

Databricks, I think, released yesterday that 50% of their code is generated by AI.

对。

Yeah.

我们这边比例更高，不过这得看你怎么算——你们那边大概多少？

I mean, ours is a higher percentage than that, but it depends on, like How much would you say yours is?

对。

Yeah.

我觉得我们大概有90%，但这么算其实只看数量，不看质量。

I mean, 90% probably, but, like, that discounts quality over quantity.

所以啊，如果你光盯着消耗的token数量，搞不好最后堆的全是垃圾代码。

So, like, I think what's important is if you just shoot off for a percentage of your tokens consumed, you could get to a place where you're just creating slop.

如果你鼓励的是低质产出，那作为一家公司，你根本走不了多远。

If you're incentivizing slop, like, you're not gonna get very far as a business.

你可能会花大笔钱付给大语言模型公司，但业务上还是难有进展。

You're gonna have massive fees to go pay the large language model businesses, but you're not gonna get further as a business.

关键在于，你的工程师有没有能力用这些技术，加速真正为公司创造价值的工作？

What's important is, are your engineers good enough to use these technologies to accelerate what creates value for the company?

你能衡量这一点吗？

And can you measure that?

部署一堆智能代理替你干活，听起来是挺棒的。

And it's great to deploy an army of agents to go, go do my work for me.

但如果连交付物是什么都不清楚，也不知道它到底能不能推动业务增长，那纯粹就是浪费。

But if it's unclear what the deliverable is, and it's unclear that that deliverable is aligned with actual growth in the business, then it's just waste.

说代码生成比例高很容易，毕竟你要是让智能代理去写代码，它们产出的代码量肯定比人多得多。

And so it's easy to say, like, percentage of code is is high because truly, if you set off the agents to start writing code, they're going to contribute more code than humans.

但它们创造的价值真的存在吗？

But is their value created?

所以我们做LeanTeam的一切，都是为了创造真实价值。

And so everything we do with LeanTeam is try to go to value creation.

如果你瞄准这个目标，就能最大化利用AI代理，而不被那些表面指标误导——关键是要看：你花在token上的投入，有没有通过代码带来的收入给赚回来？

And if you optimize to that, you get the most out of the agents without looking at the superficial metrics, more so trying to distill it to, was your investment in tokens covered by the amount of revenue that you created from the code contributed?

什么叫转向价值创造？

What does it mean to move to value creation?

你具体怎么做到这一点呢？

How do you do that in

你得搞清楚公司的关键指标，才能真正推动业务发展。

You have to understand the KPIs of the business to drive the business.

我们公司从结构上就很适合这个时代的玩法。

And so ours, our organization was built pretty nicely for this, for the era that we're in.

第一，我们根本没有独立的产品部门。

One, we don't have a product organization.

我们的工程师，本身就是产品经理。

Our engineers are meant to be product managers.

想想现在AI原生工程师在做什么，他们必须特别有创造力。

And if you think about what's happening with AI native or engineers today, they have to be really imaginative.

他们得像个产品经理一样思考。

They have to be product people.

不一定非得会写代码，但得能审查代码——毕竟，你不可能在复杂系统里随便打几句话，就能直接拿到一个完好的成果就完事了。

They don't have to know how to write code, but they have to be able to audit code because, frankly, you can't just go type out what you need in a complex system and get a deliverable and it's done.

他们还是得审代码，确保提交的内容既安全又高质量。

They still need to be able to review the code and make sure what they're checking in is safe and high quality.

但最重要的是，他们得清楚业务需要什么，也知道怎么衡量它。

But first and foremost, they need to know what the business needs and they need to know how to measure it.

所以我们在LeanTeam的做法是，每次推送模型优化，都能明确看到它在模型准确率和业务收入上的直接体现。

And so our business with the lean team and one where when you push a model improvement, it is with certainty that it's easy to see it reflected in accuracy numbers in the model and also revenue growth in the business.

团队很清楚自己在优化哪些关键指标。

The team knows what the KPIs are that they're optimizing to.

正因为他们清楚这些，才能知道该让AI代理，或者一群代理做什么，才能最大化我们投入的回报。

And because they know that, they can then align with what an agent is going to, or an army of agents is going to do on their behalf and try to get to that point of get the most value out from the investment that we're making.

在很多公司里，想搞清楚我们到底该优化哪些关键指标，真的特别难。

I think it's very hard in a lot of businesses to understand exactly what are the KPIs that we're optimizing to.

所以他们就干脆先堆一堆功能，看看哪个能行。

So they just go, let's just write a bunch of things and see what sticks.

这么干，迟早会滑向危险的深渊。

Then you're walking on a slippery slope.

你的token开销可能涨得没边儿，结果收入却根本追不上成本。

You may have so much cost ballooning from token usage that you don't actually get the type of revenue growth you need to cover it.

你能不能聊聊，有没有过优化错了指标的经历？后来学到了什么？

Can you talk to me about when you optimized for a KPI that turned out to be wrong and what you learned from that?

说实话，我们业务挺简单的，还真没干过优化错目标的事——因为我们一直盯着同一个目标。

I mean, our business is pretty simple, so I don't know that that we ever optimized to something that turned out to be wrong, because we've always optimized to the the same thing.

驱动我们业务的，就两件事。

There are two things that drive our business.

只要模型预测得更准，客户和广告主的收益就会超过他们的投放成本，而这一切，我们的系统都能量化。

If the model is more accurately predictive, it's going to drive more revenue for the customer, the advertiser, than their media costs spent, and everything is measurable in our system.

如果这个逻辑成立，收入自然也会跟着增长。

And if that function holds true, revenue should grow as well alongside it.

因为所有数据都是实时追踪的，而且我们的商业模式一直很稳定——我们不卖‘感觉有效’，只卖‘确实有效’，每一件事都能量化，所以我们恰好站在了一个有利的位置，能很好地利用今天这些新兴技术。

And so, because everything is real time tracked, and because we've always had a very consistent business model, where we don't sell the belief that something worked, we sell the actual fact that something worked, and we can measure everything, we ended up in a lucky spot where the business was built really well to be able to go utilize the types of technologies that we're seeing out there today.

你多次提到，用大语言模型很容易让开销暴增，结果只是白白浪费了AI的算力。

You said multiple times about it's very easy to have massive spend on the LLMs and just blunt the AI slot being created.

你们是怎么考虑该自己训练模型，像Harvey和Cursor那样，还是直接用现有的前沿模型的？这事儿还没定，咱们走着瞧。

How did you think about the decision whether to invest in your own model as Harvey did, as Cursor did, TBD on how that goes, we'll see, versus use existing frontier models.

是的。

Yeah.

说实话，我们不是在大语言模型上面加个界面就完事的。

Mean, look, we're we're not an interface on top of large language models.

公司里确实会用大语言模型来提升效率。

There there's usage of large language models in the company for productivity.

我们的核心业务里，也有用到大语言模型。

There's some usage of large language models in our core business as well.

但推荐系统模型是决定你在社交平台上看到什么内容的关键。

But a recommendation system model is something that drives engagement, what you see on content on a social network.

它驱动着当今世界上绝大多数广告产品——Facebook的广告系统、TikTok的广告系统，还有我们的。

It's something that drives most advertising products in the world today, Facebook's ad system, TikTok's ad system, ours.

这个机器学习领域大约十年前开始真正起飞，最近几年更是因为大语言模型领域的一些研究而加速发展。

And so this is a space of machine learning that really hit its stride about a decade ago, and I would say really accelerated with some of the research that we've seen come out of the large language model space lately.

但你不能简单地丢给大语言模型一句：‘根据你对这个用户和我手头数据的了解，该推哪个广告？’就完事了。

But it's a space where you can't just go defer to the large language model and say, Hey, based on what you know about this user and the data I have available, what's the next ad to see?

这种事还得靠专门为此打造的定制模型才做得好。

That wouldn't work as well as a custom model built for this purpose.

如果你现在做的生意是基于大语言模型，或者只是在它们上面搭个界面，那你得赶紧筑起护城河——毕竟像Anthropic这样的公司，推出产品的能力实在太强了。

In a world where you get to a place where you're in a category where you're utilizing the large language model or you're building an interface on top, you better build a moat really, really fast, given how exceptionally talented companies like Anthropic are about releasing product on top of their own models.

你觉得现在市面上大多数创意型公司，最终都会被Anthropic、OpenAI这些大模型公司吃掉吗？

Do you think the majority of companies we see creative today will be commoditized, eaten by Anthropic and OpenAI and Frontier models?

如果我是靠在这些公司之上做界面来创业的，我肯定会特别特别担心。

I would be very, very nervous if I was building a business as an interface on top of those companies.

你们团队平时开发都用什么工具？

What does your team use internally engineering wise?

用Cursor还是Cloud Code？

Cursor or Cloud Code?

大部分人用的是Cloud Code。

Most people are on Cloud Code.

Codex也会用，但Cursor用得少一些。

Codex is utilized as well, and Cursor less of these.

就这几天的事。

Days.

你们现在有895号人了。

You have 895 people today.

五年后Applovin会有多少人？

How many people will Applovin have in five years?

这个真不好说。

So it's tough to say.

我的意思是，核心业务现在就四百人。

I mean, again, it's 400 people in the core business.

我们一直精简运作。

We run lean.

核心业务会涨到八百人吗？

Is it gonna be 800 on the core business?

我觉得可能性极低。

I highly doubt it.

核心业务会缩到五十人吗？

Is it gonna be 50 on the core business?

要是能那样就太好了，但我也觉得不太可能。

I'd love it, but I highly doubt it too.

所以我觉得，以我们现在的业务规模，这个人数刚刚好。

So I I think we're sort of in a in a range of a good level for what we need for what we're doing today.

不过，如果我们未来押注的某些项目成功了，可能还得在其他业务上多招些人。

Now, if some of the things that we'll take bets on over time work, we'll need more people around other businesses.

但如果我们只是专心做好核心业务，基本没必要再招很多人。

But if we're just executing on our core business, it's very likely we don't need to to go hire a whole lot more.

你刚才提到执行团队要靠实干的人。

You said about kind of execution team of doers.

听着是不错，但真要做到太难了。

It sounds great, but it's very, very hard to do.

你得有特别厉害的人才行，天哪。

And you need great oh god.

我这话听着像标准大公司做派，但关键是协同一致。

I I sound like a real corporate, but alignment.

可你又不做单独一对一会谈。

But you don't do one to one meetings.

那没有单独面谈，也没有传统公司那些层级框架，你怎么打造执行文化？

How do you do the culture of execution without one on one meetings and without the traditional corporate scaffolding?

对。

Yeah.

这其实挺有意思的。

So it's really interesting.

那我稍微把话题扯远一点。

So I'll broaden this out a little bit.

我一向觉得，真正优秀的人自己就能找到路。

One of my beliefs is that really good people figure out a way.

他们根本不需要太多指导。

They don't need a whole lot of mentorship.

所以，如果是我团队里直接向我汇报的人，我从不安排一对一会议，也不做绩效评估。

So if people on my team if they directly report to me, I never do one on ones, I don't do reviews.

要是我不满意他们做的事，我会立刻在聊天里跟他们说。

If I don't like something they're doing, they know about it in real time via chat.

要是我欣赏他们做得好，那根本不用特意告诉他们。

If I like what they're doing, they don't need to know.

他们知道我信任他们，这就足够了。

They know that I respect them and and they're good to go.

真正优秀的人不需要这种事无巨细的照顾。

Good people don't need that type of hand holding.

结果就是，那些特别需要辅导的人，根本不是我想招进这支A级团队的人。

And what ends up happening is people who need a lot of development too, those people aren't the people that I want on this team of A players.

所以我们通常会避开很多传统的管理方式。

And so we tend to shy away from a lot of traditional management techniques.

再比如学习与发展这块，也是这样。

Another example of this is something like learning and development.

很多公司会把入职培训和学习发展搞得特别系统化，好像你一来就得按部就班学怎么干这行。

A lot of companies try to structure all the onboarding and learning and development processes in a company to say, you're new at my company, here's how you should learn the business.

但我上学的时候，最讨厌那种死板的课程。

While I remember in school, I hated classes that were structured.

我根本学不进去。

I didn't learn anything.

你得能真正记住才行。

You can retain it.

我想边做边学。

I wanted to learn as I went.

刚毕业那会儿，我干的前几份工作，就是带着好奇心进去，自己摸索着把事情搞明白。

And I my first couple jobs out of school, I came in and I was just curious, and I figured stuff out.

我发现，我们最棒的员工都是这样：一进来就问问题，自己把各种事理清楚。

I've seen a pattern that our best people come in, they ask questions, they figure things out.

所以我们根本没有正式的培训体系，跟一般公司完全不一样。

And so we don't really have formal learning and development, and it's completely disconnected from what you would expect at a company.

我们不想把人框死在固定模式里。

But we don't want to structure people.

我们想要的是那些好奇心爆棚、敢说敢问、能自己搞懂东西的人。

We want to get really curious minds who come in, who are loud enough to get what they need to get and who can learn.

现在，我要把这一点跟当下AI原生的世界联系起来。

And now, I'm going to tie it to the AI native world today.

不搞那种一对一的、死板的流程，反而能让你把所有东西都记录在Slack里，或者录成视频通话。

The benefit of not doing things in these one on one silos and very structured is you can document everything in Slacks or transcripted video calls.

如果你这么做，任何新人进来都能说：‘嘿，Claude，帮我总结一下亚当上个季度最关心什么。’

If you do that, any new person can come in and go, Hey, Claude, summarize for me what Adam cares about over the last quarter.

然后给我写一本关于他所有重点的指南。

And write me a book of everything that matters to him.

再把销售表现最好的那个人的通话记录汇总一下，告诉我他到底怎么做的，让我知道这份工作关键在哪。

And take the person who's running the best sales calls and summarize what he does or she does for those calls and tell me what I should know on this job.

一旦你开始问这类问题，输出就会越来越棒，因为所有信息都喂给了Claude，最终你得到的是一个能靠好奇心和模型输出自我成长的人。

And then, like, you start asking these types of questions, you start getting really good output because all of the information is available to Claude, and you end up getting a person who can actually develop themselves through curiosity and output out of the models.

这种人，比那些只被丢给一份‘你必须知道的东西’清单的员工强多了。

And that is a much more capable future employee than someone who was just told, here's what you need to know.

你刚才提到，录播视频的字幕里藏着大量高质量数据，可以被总结利用，对吧？

You said about transcribed video calls having a lot of quality data that can be used, summarized.

这太棒了。

That's great.

但我还是特别看重面对面交流。

I believe in in person strongly.

你怎么看面对面交流和远程交流的价值差异？

How do you think about in person versus remote and the value derived?

是的。

Yeah.

我们公司本质上是做销售的，主要跟广告主打交道。

I mean, we're, of the day, we're a sales business talking to advertisers.

我觉得面对面建立关系确实很有价值。

So I do believe there's a lot of value to building relationships in person.

但问题是，那些面对面的互动很难被记录下来，也没法让模型捕捉到这些信息，其他同事也就看不到你做了什么。

I think you do have a loss in ability to feed that information in the model and show other people what you're doing in those in person.

所以我们通常认为，绝大多数沟通都得靠文字或者视频会议来完成。

So what we tend to do is believe the vast, vast majority of communication needs to be written or through a video call.

只有在需要跟重要客户建立关系的时候，才会亲自上门，带他们出去走走。

When you need to build a relationship with key clients, you go in person and you take them out.

要是约出去吃饭聚会，事后可以把聊天记录整理好，发到客户相关的对话里，这样就把面对面的交流也变成可追溯的历史了。

And if you take them out in a social gathering, you can send notes into a chat around that client and have that as your history on the the in person meeting.

但线下交流是没法替代的。

But you can't replace in person.

我觉得作为人类，现在机器人要替我们做越来越多的事，反而让面对面的互动更有价值。

I think as human beings, because we go to this world where bots are gonna do more for us, in person is even more valuable.

我和你一样，特别看重执行力，但别人也常跟我说，不是每件事都得有产出。

I'm similar to you in terms of a focus on execution, and I get told that not everything has to be productive.

有时候，故意‘不高效’反而是一种效率，比如团队聚餐。

And sometimes being deliberately unproductive is almost productivity, a la team drinks.

我才不想周五下午五点半去参加团队聚餐呢。

I don't wanna do team drinks on a Friday at 05:30.

我们非得靠喝一杯才能建立感情吗？就不能一起对着白板，认真聊聊项目吗？

Like, can we not bond over a whiteboard and, like, a project that we and I'm being serious.

就是我们正在做的、大家都特别热爱的那个项目，不行吗？

Like, in a project that we're working we all love what we're doing.

真的，就不能这样吗？

Like, can we not do that?

咱们非得跑去酒吧坐着喝酒吗？

Why do we have to go and sit and and drink in a pub?

但我总被说，这叫培养积极的团队文化。

But I'm told that that's productive culture building.

我发现，和最棒的团队成员最有成效的时刻，往往是吵得面红耳赤、拍桌子对吼的时候。

What I found is in the most productive moments with your best people, you get in heated debates, yelling matches.

如果你跟人吵得特别激烈，然后立马又回到‘赶紧干活’的状态，就少了那种一起吃饭、喝点小酒、真正放松 bonding 的机会，人情味儿就淡了。

And if you get really heated with someone and you go right back to Let's Just Crank, there's not moments where you go out to dinner, you have drinks, you get to bond, you sometimes lose the human side of things.

久而久之，怨气容易积累，事情反而就做不下去了。

And you sometimes get in a place where resentment can build and then things can become unproductive.

当你想起，咱们不过就是一屋子聪明人，一起琢磨怎么把事儿搞定，这种感觉只有在吃饭、喝酒的时候才最真切。

When you remember that you're just a bunch of smart people in a room trying to figure shit out, you really remember that at something like a dinner, at something like drinks.

我觉得，真正的效率，恰恰是从这些时刻里长出来的。

You end up creating, I think, productivity out of those moments.

我还发现，咱们一出去喝酒、瞎聊，反而能冒出特别棒的点子。

The other thing I've found is when we go out and we drink and we start shooting the shit, really good ideas can come of that too.

我们出去可不是为了跟同事聊棒球那种事。

It's not that we're going out, I mean, with a bunch of coworkers and talking about baseball.

我们是跟同事一块儿喝醉了，顺便聊聊职业机会。

We're going out with a bunch of coworkers and and getting drunk together and talking about work opportunities.

有时候，最好的点子恰恰就从这些时候冒出来的。

And sometimes, your best ideas come out of those moments.

你也不参加行业会议吧？

You also don't attend conferences.

那你为啥从不参加会议？

Why don't you attend conferences?

你怎么看这事儿？

How do you think about that?

那会儿是这样，但现在不一样了。

That that's that's not true anymore.

我现在其实也能去参加那些会议了。

I could do go to conferences now.

2022年我们股价暴跌的时候，投关团队做了一件事——股价跌了92%，根本没人买，我们就想，干脆自己买回股票，干脆把投关部门关了，反正也没啥意义。

So when we fell in 2022, one of the things we did on the investor relations side, you fall 92%, no one's buying your We said, we're gonna buy our own shares, and we're gonna shut down investor relations because what's the point?

我干嘛还要跑去参加大会，跟那些一直在抛我股票的人说‘快来买啊’？

Why do I need to go to a conference to explain to everyone who's selling my shares to buy my shares?

人家天天看到你股价往下掉，你再怎么讲也没用，他们根本不会信。

You're not gonna convince someone to buy your shares when they're convinced every day you're going down.

所以我决定，把时间花在内部事务和长期发展上才更值，去参加那些大会纯粹是浪费时间。

And so I just said a better use of my time is focusing internal and focusing on the long term, and it's a bad use of my time to go to conferences.

作为上市公司的CEO，按理说你本来就该去参加这些大会。

And as a public company CEO, you are supposed to go to conferences.

你也该去见见投资人，跟他们聊聊。

You're supposed to meet with investors.

所以那两年，2022到2023年，我们干脆把所有这些事都停了。

So for a period of a couple years there, '22 and '23, we basically just shut all that down.

后来股价慢慢回升，市值也恢复了，我才意识到，这些事儿其实都是CEO职责里关键的一环。

Eventually, when the stock started gaining traction and the market cap was really recovering, I realized those were key parts of the role.

我喜欢挑战自己，哪怕事情让我觉得不舒服，也要尽力做好。

And I I like to challenge myself and do things well even if they're uncomfortable to me.

我们现在坐在这儿，聊着天，以后这对话还会播出去。

And so, I mean, here we're sitting and we're having a one on one conversation that'll eventually air.

这会儿挺放松的，但要是去参加大会，站在几百人面前讲话，我一向怕公开演讲，性格内向，真不想把自己推到台前。

This is relaxed, but, like, going to a conference, speaking in front of a couple 100 people, I've always had a fear of public speaking, and so I'm an introverted person that didn't want to put myself out there.

但后来我明白了，现在咱们玩的是更高阶的游戏，公司越来越大，我们得走出去。

But what I realized is now that we're playing at higher stakes tables, the company's getting bigger, we need to be out there.

得让大家明白我们到底是干什么的，理解我们的商业模式和前景。

We need to be conveying what is it that we do so that people can understand the business model and can understand the prospects of the business model.

所以过去几年，我开始越来越多地参加各种大会。

And so I started doing more conferences over the last couple years.

我觉得挺值得的，因为这逼着我去面对自己最不擅长的事。

I I think they've been rewarding because it's challenged me to do something among that's naturally uncomfortable for me.

除了公开演讲，还有哪些事是你明明觉得不舒服，却还得硬着头皮去做的？

What else other than public speaking, I'm just intrigued, remains uncomfortable, but you have to do it all the same?

是的。

Yeah.

所以我觉得，眼下能想到的另一件事就是，我花了很长时间才学会如何授权，其实这也是我在2022年那个艰难年份里下定决心要改变的一件事。

So I I'd say maybe the only other thing that comes to mind right now is it took me a long to learn how to delegate, and this is something that I actually committed to in the dark year of '22 as well.

我曾经是个特别爱事必躬亲、控制欲很强的CEO，时间可不短。

I was a very controlling, hands on CEO for a very long time.

那时候，公司里所有事儿都得绕到我这儿来。

It was almost like all roads of the company went up to me.

当我们跌了跟头后，我才意识到，我自己做的决策并不总是对的，而且别人在某些领域比我懂多了。

When we we fell and I realized I'm not making great decisions for the business, I also realized other people are smarter than other aspects of the business than I am.

那我为啥不听他们的呢？

And so why am I not deferring to them?

我为啥不放手呢？

Why am I not delegating?

所以我开始一点点卸下自己的职责，说真的，这根本不是我在‘交出去’什么，而是……

And so where I got to was I started stripping away my own roles, and actually, it was almost not that I was handing things off.

是团队其他成员主动说：‘我们来接手这些事吧。’

It was that the rest of the team said, I'm gonna come in and just take these things away.

比如Giovanni，我再举个例子，他直接接手了我过去十年一直亲自管的产品工作。

Like, and and again, this this Giovanni, I'll I'll give another example is, he just started taking the product role that I had run and owned for a decade at the company.

他把这活儿从我手里接过去了。

He took it away from me.

这事儿特别棒，现在我就当个旁观者就行。

And it was great because now I can ride sidecar.

我能看着团队怎么干，但不用再陷在细节里了。

I can see what the team does, but I don't have to be in the weeds.

这样一来，我就有空去想公司长远的战略了。

And so it freed me up to do more strategic thought for the business long term.

我也能腾出手来多搞搞投资人的关系。

It freed me up to do more investor relations.

但对那种创始人控制欲强的公司来说，真要让创始人放手，太难了。

But it's very, very hard as a controlling founder led type business to have the founder go, I'm gonna hand things off.

所以，这两点——一个内部的，一个外部的——对我来说特别重要，让我看清了自己的问题，也促使我不断成长和改进。

And so those two things, I think, internal, one external, were were important for me to really see as flaws and try to grow and develop through.

我觉得现在有一种普遍趋势，就是反授权，比如保罗·格雷厄姆说的‘创始人模式’，强调创始人必须亲自深入处理很多过去本来该交给别人的事。

I think we've seen this prevailing trend of anti delegation now, which is, you know, Paul Graham's founder mode and the importance of being in the weeds on certainly a number of things that traditionally would be delegated.

在创始人模式越来越流行、大家都被劝‘回去亲力亲为’的今天，你怎么看授权的力量和它的重要性？

How do you think about the power of delegation, that importance of delegation with the rise of founder mode and founders being told, go back?

‘创始人模式’这个说法，其实是对过去十年硅谷公司普遍过度臃肿的一种极端反弹。

The the whole notion of founder mode is an extreme reaction to extreme bloat that got created in most Silicon Valley companies over the last decade.

如果你所在的公司层级一堆、流程繁琐，那你怎么扭转局面？

So, like, if you're in a company with a bunch of layers and a bunch of process, how do you reverse it?

我们之前也聊过，一个平庸的团队，是很难重新变成高效能团队的。

I mean, we talked earlier about how, know, a team of mediocrity, that you can't reverse back to a team of high output.

所以很大程度上，唯一能扭转局面的办法，就是让创始人重新把权力拿回来。

And so in large part, the only way to reverse is to have a founder that takes control back.

但一旦你带出了一个精干、顶尖的团队，如果你还事事亲力亲为、不肯放手，那你到底在干嘛？

But once you get to that lean team of highly exceptional doers, if you're then controlling and not delegating, then what are you doing?

你身边有一群特别优秀的人，他们在各自负责的领域，专业程度肯定超过你这个老板一个人。

You have a whole bunch of exceptional talent around you who, in theory, on their own roles in the business, is gonna be more of a subject matter expert than one individual who runs the business can be.

这种情况下，放手授权就特别关键。

In in that case, delegation is very powerful.

我得问一下。

I have to ask.

有天股价跌了23%，下面那行字写的是‘空头大战’。

There was a day where the stock fell 23%, and it was the the caption here is the short seller war.

我真的很感兴趣。

I'm just really intrigued.

空头已经好几次盯上你们了。

Short sellers have come after you, like, multiple times now.

你们怎么应对？

What do you do?

市场里头，有没有一个底？

Is there, like, a floor in the mechanics of the market?

是的

Yeah.

我的意思是，你想想，一年内股价跌了92%，你自然就学会忍耐了。

I mean, look, first of all, like, when you go down 92% in a year, you you sort of learn to take your beatings.

所以我现在觉得，上市后立刻经历这一遭，反而是个天大的福气。

And so I I've gotten to a point, like, that was a massive blessing, go public and immediately take that beating.

你这才明白，公开市场就是这么波动无常。

You realize that the public markets are volatile.

很多事根本不是你能控制的。

There's things outside your control.

空头一再攻击我，其实我一点都不意外——我们股价从每股9美元一路冲到750美元，就用了两年半。

The short seller attacks were not particularly surprising to me because we went from a low point of $9 a share to a high point of $750 a share in two, two and a half years.

公司市值从不到40亿美元，暴涨到2500亿美元。

That kind of a run up from under $4,000,000,000 market cap to around $250,000,000,000 market cap.

我真不知道历史上有没有哪家公司，在这么短的时间内创造过这么惊人的价值。

I don't know if anything any other company has ever seen that kind of value creation in that short amount of time in history.

然后你看看那些和我们市值差不多的公司，全是大名鼎鼎的品牌，再看看我们这个怪名字的Applovin。

And then you looked at the companies that were at our market cap, all names that people would recognize, and then goofy named Applovin.

根本没人懂广告公司是干嘛的，更别说这么个怪名字了。

Nobody knows what advertising businesses do, let alone the goofy name.

所以我们早有心理准备，毕竟我们从不主动宣传自己。

And so we sort of expected it because we weren't out there promoting ourselves.

我们只是埋头把业务做好。

We were just executing the business.

我觉得因为我们增长实在太快了——收入、利润、股价全都在往上冲，结果就没主动讲好我们的故事，这就等于敞开门让别人来造谣、抹黑，故意把股价往下压。

And I think because we grew so quickly, both revenue, profit, and stock price, we sort of failed to put our story out there proactively, and then therefore, we were sitting ducks for people that wanted to create manipulation or narrative to cause the stock to go down.

现在我不喜欢的是，按现在的市场机制，空头可以先建仓，大量押注看跌期权，再把研究报告卖给对冲基金，让他们也跟着砸盘，还发一些耸人听闻的文章吓唬投资人抛售股票。

Now, the thing I don't like about short sellers in the way the market's constructed today is they can take a position, take a large bet on puts or sell their research to hedge funds who take a large bet on puts and put overly dramatic articles out there to try to spook investors to sell off a stock.

他们的做空报告开头通常会写：等你看到这份报告的时候，我们大概已经平仓了。

And at the beginning of their short report, they'll say, we've most likely covered our short position by the time you're reading this report.

所以这些人不仅有巨大利益驱动，把报告写得比实际情况夸张十倍，而且根本不用为他们发的内容承担任何后果。

And so there is not only this massive financial incentive to make the post much more dramatic than necessary or real, there's also not really any downside or protection against what they post.

他们根本不用说真话，因为压根不用公开自己干了啥。

They don't have to be accurate because they go disclose everything they do.

但另一方面，像我这样的上市公司高管，得在SEC的框架里做事。

Now, on the other side, we, myself, a public company executive, we operate within boundaries of the SEC.

我们说的每一句话都必须准确无误。

We have to be accurate in everything we say.

我们绝对不能说任何误导性的话。

We cannot go out and be misleading in any statements.

所以，当你被捆住手脚，没法回应这些指控，却还得面对那些毫无风险、还靠抹黑你这种冷门公司赚钱的人，真的特别憋屈。

And so, it's very, very difficult to be in that position, unable to address these types of reports, and get attacked by people that don't have any sort of downside to what they're posting and have quite a bit of financial gain to come from attacking companies that people know less about.

这事儿给我们带来了两个影响。

What it did for us were two things.

首先，我们团队早就习惯了股价的剧烈波动。

I mean, one, our team understands volatility.

我之前说过，刚上市那年，股价跌得比我们预想的还狠。

Like I said, you go down by much as we did in the first year post IPO.

留下来的那个团队根本不怕波动，他们大概对我们的商业模式和未来方向特别有信心。

The team that's still there doesn't have a problem with volatility, and most likely they have a lot of conviction in the business model and the path to the future.

有点好笑的是，我们有些高管居然主动发帖回应——通常你都不希望别人这么干。他们说，那些做空的人真有意思，因为我们做得太好了，模型太扎实了，他们除了说我们作弊，根本找不出别的毛病。

So some of the team was funny, because you don't usually want people posting responses, but some of our leaders were posting, you know, it's funny that the short sellers, because we're so good at what we do and the model that we built, they can't come up with anything other than we're cheating.

团队里头那种自豪感，真的特别明显，都是冲着我们自己打造的东西来的。

So, like, there was a lot of pride in what we built coming out from the team.

所以我心里有底，团队很稳，再大的攻击我们都能扛过来。

So I knew that the team was sound and we were going to be able to recover from any sort of attack.

第二点，这件事逼着我们不得不主动走出去，跟投资人和市场沟通，加大宣传力度，把业务讲清楚。

The second piece it did as a forcing function was it required us to go out to investors and the market and do more things about marketing the company and explaining the business.

说白了，这就像猛地把创可贴撕下来一样，我们终于开始正视营销这回事了。

And so, in a way, it was like a rip off the band aid moment for us when it comes to marketing.

我们得让自己更开放，得能清清楚楚地说出我们到底是干什么的。

We had to make ourselves more available, and we had to be able to articulate what it is that we do in a clear way.

之前没在品牌宣传和知名度上投入，是不是个错误？

Was it a mistake to not invest in brand marketing, brand awareness before that?

现在回头看，确实可能是个失误，但说起来容易。

Like, it's easy to say in hindsight, it could have been a mistake.

我们当时增长得太快了。

We grew really fast.

我说过，那时候埋头苦干，公司又精简，根本没空顾别的。

Like I said, when you're going your head's down, you're working in a lean organization.

第一年、第二年、第三年的收入增长大概是个什么水平？

What was the revenue growth year one, year two, year three, kinda kinda ballpark?

说实话，具体数字我记不清了，但每年都是接近三位数的增长。

You know, honestly, I I don't remember exacts, but, like, near triple digits each year.

就说上个季度，我们的40法则指标都快到150了。

I mean, our rule of 40 in the last quarter, think, was, like, a 150.

我们不仅在增长，而且同比还涨了70%左右。

So, like, not only are we growing, we grew, like, 70% year over year.

我们的EBITDA利润率大概在80%到84%之间。

We have 80, I think, 4% EBITDA margins.

自从推出Axon两个模型以来，我们的收入增长简直惊人。

The revenue growth since we launched Axon two model has been astounding.

这生意的盈利能力太离谱了。

The profitability profile of the business is crazy.

业务在不断扩大，但人手一点都没增加。

The business is expanding without adding heads.

我们的财务状况特别古怪。

We have a very odd financial profile.

你一看就纳闷：怎么可能有公司EBITDA利润率高达84%？

Because when you look at it, like, you go, how can a business have 84% EBITDA margins?

全世界都找不到第二个类似的案例。

There's not another comp in the world that looks like it.

所以我们做成的这些事，别人根本没法理解。

And so a lot of the things that we've been able to accomplish just don't make sense to people.

在大家都觉得不可思议的世界里，别人就会觉得你在耍手段。

And in a world where things don't make sense, people think you're cheating.

大家却没意识到，你们打造了世界上最有意思的技术之一。

Instead of realizing you built one of the cooler technologies the world's ever seen.

作为团队，作为这家公司的CEO，我有责任出去把这生意说清楚。

And then you go, as a team, and me as the CEO of the business, it's my responsibility to go out and explain the business.

我欠我团队一个交代，他们做出了这么酷的技术；我也欠行业伙伴一个解释，因为当别人攻击我们时，另一边可是那些按效果付费的广告主。

I owe it to my team who's built this really cool technology to go explain the business, and we owe it to our partners in the industry because when people take shots on us, on the other side, you've got advertisers who are buying on a performance basis.

他们每年花的钱都是以十亿计的。

They're spending billions of dollars a year.

一年前我们就公布过，我们在平台上的年化投资规模已经达到110亿美元。

We put out that a year ago, the scale of investment on our platform was $11,000,000,000 run rate.

从那以后我们又涨了不少，那会儿才刚过一年。

We've grown a ton since then, so that was a little over a year ago.

所以现在，每年在我们平台上按效果付费的投入，早就远超100亿美元了。

So you're talking well over $10,000,000,000 a year of dollars spent on a performance basis.

所以，攻击我们，本质上就是在说那些砸这么大钱的广告主都是傻子。

So shot on us is effectively calling all these advertisers that are spending at that large scale a bunch of morons.

所以我不仅对我的团队有责任，对我们的客户也有责任，得出去讲清楚我们的业务，解释为什么世界上最好的营销人员都在那边投放广告。

So not only did I owe it to my team, I owed it to our clients to go out and explain our business and explain why some of the world's best marketers are buying on the other side.

世界上一些最优秀的企业正在那边快速增长、盈利，而我们的工程师也打造了极其出色的技术。

Some of the world's best businesses are growing really quickly and profitably on the other side, and our engineers have built really exceptional technology.

有两点。

Two things.

你说话这么有底气。

You speak with such confidence.

你说‘别人攻击你’……

You said shots on you.

别人怎么看你，你真在乎吗？

Do you give a shit what other people think about you?

很久以前我就明白了，这事你控制不了，孙娜。

A long time ago, I realized you can't control that, Sunna.

你有没有怀疑过自己？

Do you ever doubt yourself?

你说起话来特别自信，整个人都稳得很。

You speak with such confidence and such assuredness.

兄弟，我真想跟着你干！

Dude, I wanna fucking follow you.

我没开玩笑。

No.

真的，我说真的。

I'm being serious.

我想问个事，这种情况其实挺少见的，但有没有那么一刻，就你和老婆在厨房里，你整个人崩溃地用手撑着头的时候？

I'm like, what and this is very rare, but there are moments when you're just you and your wife in the kitchen and your head is in your hands open.

你到底会不会怀疑自己？

Do you ever doubt or not?

说真的，创业那段时间，几乎每天早上一醒来我就会想，得赶紧查下数据，确认公司还能正常运转，不会今天就倒闭了吧？

You know, I'll say, like, building the business, almost every morning I'd wake up thinking, I gotta check stats, make sure we're still operating, or are we gonna go bankrupt today?

所以从某种程度来说，我一直都在怀疑这份事业能不能长久，怀疑我们做的事情能不能真的做成大气候。

So in a way, I've always had this doubt that this is real, that what we're building is gonna last, that what we're building is gonna be really big.

说白了，那种怕崩盘的恐惧，反而是我最大的动力之一。

And in essence, like, that fear of blow up is one of my big motivators.

所以我一直都有这种怀疑，从没真正放下心来。

And so I feel like I always have that doubt.

我从来觉得我们还没成功。

I don't ever feel like we've made it.

正因如此，我们才一直逼着自己往前冲，毕竟这行太难了。

And that pushes a lot of us to want to keep pushing forward because we are in a very, very tough space.

广告行业竞争太激烈了。

Advertising is very competitive.

技术确实在飞速进步，我们的效果投放系统也得跟着升级，但这也逼着我们不断创新，不然分分钟就被同行甩在后面。

Obviously, there's a lot of technology that's improving in terms of technology capability for our performance stack, but also, that forces us to continue to be innovative, otherwise we'd fall behind peers.

一旦我们松懈，几乎就等于在等死。

And so, if we ever get complacent, we're almost certain to lose.

我经常跟投资人和团队说：如果哪天我讲话听起来没底气了，整个人都慌了，那你们真该怀疑我们了。

And I always tell investors or team, if at any moment I sound like I don't have conviction in our future path, we're sort of reeling, that would be a moment to doubt us.

但我不是这么想的，因为我干这行很久了，加上我身边这支团队，负责这些技术、产品和平台，还有眼前这么多机会，我从来都坚信，未来一定会比过去更好。

But I don't feel that way because I've been doing this a very, very long time, and with the team that I've got working on these technologies, this product, this platform, and the opportunities in front of us, I've always had conviction that the future was gonna be better than the past.

正因如此，我才能一直对咱们做的事充满信心，说出来也理直气壮。

And that has kept me in a position where I can voice confidence in what we're doing.

我有个特别要好的朋友，投了字节跳动五十亿美元，就是TikTok的母公司，他说其中一个原因是他觉得对方拥有全球最顶尖的推荐引擎。

One of my very dear friends has built up a half $1,000,000,000 position in Byte ByteDance, obviously TikTok's parent company, and he said one of the reasons is because he they have the most advanced targeting engine in the world.

你觉得呢？

Would you agree?

要说互动这块儿，能让一个社交平台根本不需要人与人互动，就能不断给你推送超棒的内容，TikTok的推荐算法确实厉害到没话说。

I I I would say when it comes to engagement, creating the ability for a social network to not need any social interaction and still be able to deliver you fantastic content, the TikTok recommendation algo is quite phenomenal.

你想想，我们现在的推荐系统，到底处在什么样的世界里？

And if you think about recommendation systems, like, what's the world we operate in?

一方面，你在Instagram上看到的内容，还有在TikTok上刷到的东西，全都精准贴合你的兴趣。

Well, on the one hand, the content you see on Instagram, the content you see on TikTok is very dialed in to what you're interested in.

这就像个永不停歇的循环，特别有意思。

It is a constant loop, it's very interesting.

广告系统也是，你在Instagram上看到的广告现在已经跟内容没啥区别了，特别精准。

The advertising systems too, the ads you see on Instagram have become very much like content, they're highly relevant.

我们现在能推给用户的广告越来越相关，而且真的能促成转化。

The ads that we're able to show consumers now are getting very relevant and they drive action.

随着技术、推荐算法，还有整个AI模型的进步，即使对用户了解得没那么深，也能把更相关、更精准的广告推给他们，现在广告甚至能帮用户发现他们真正想要的产品。

As the technology and recommendation system models and just generally in AI models has gotten better, the capacity to serve more relevant, more targeted ads to the consumer, even knowing less about the person, has gotten so good that people are really able to use advertising to discover the products that they want.

我们刚才提到了TikTok，也提到了Meta。

We mentioned TikTok and we mentioned Meta there.

Applovin目前的市值大概在1500亿美元左右，具体数字不重要，差不多就是这个量级。

For Applovin, currently valued circa a 150,000,000,000 market cap, whatever it is precisely, but give or take.

要是想让Applovin变成一家万亿美金的公司，它非得变成一个社交平台不可吗？

For Applovin to be a trillion dollar company, do you have to be a social network as well?

不用。

No.

你要想什么才能造就一家万亿美金的公司，我之前说过，现金流减去股票薪酬是个特别关键的指标。

If you think about, like, what creates a trillion dollar business, and I sort of said cash flow minus SBC before is a real real important metric.

对吧？

Right?

要是我们真能每年赚三万零三百五十亿美元，那肯定就是一家万亿美金的公司了。

Like, if we ever got to generating $3,035,000,000,000 dollars of cash a year, it would probably be a trillion dollar business.

对吧？

Right?

所以你得想想，怎么才能达到那个目标。

So you think about what can get us to that point.

其实有几条路能带我们走到那儿。

And so there there's a couple things that can get us there.

第一条，就是继续在我们当前的领域里好好干。

One is continued execution in the domain that we're in.

我们觉得，只要把游戏用户的变现做得更到位，业务还能大很多。

We think we can get much bigger just to better monetizing the gaming audience.

现在玩这些游戏的日活跃用户已经超过十亿了。

It's a billion plus daily active users who play these games.

主要是成年观众，很多是一家之主。

Adult audience, a lot of heads of household.

接下来你要想的是，怎么把现有的业务扩大？

The next thing you think about is how do you expand what you have?

以前我提过，连接电视是广告领域的一个终极目标。

So in the past, I've talked about connected TV as one of the holy grails of advertising.

广告。

Advertising.

如果你能把我们在移动端做的效果广告搬到电视上，让中小商家也能用，而且全部按效果付费，那就能打开一个巨大的市场。

If If you you can can port port the performance ad we serve on mobile to the television and allow small and medium sized businesses to serve there and make it all performance based, that's a really big unlock.

所以我们一直很重视这件事。

So it's something we still we still take seriously.

然后你还会想，这项技术还能用在哪些其他地方？

Then you think about what are other applications of the technology.

我们在广告模式上特别拿手。

We're really good at advertising model.

我们还没机会让团队去尝试一个互动模式。

We have yet to have a chance to have our our team work on an engagement model.

对我们来说，做社交网络并不是赚到一万亿的必要条件。

So a social network for us is not a requirement to get to a trillion dollars.

搞社交网络倒是个挺有意思的招数，能吸引人才，还能持续打磨我们的技术和模型。

It's an interesting play to recruit talent and continue to tune our skills and modeling.

你想想那些搞研究的实验室，任何在做模型的公司，都得有能吸引新研究员来搞新技术应用的东西。

And as you think about the the research labs and any company that's building models, they better have things that are interesting for new researchers to come in to work on new applications of technology.

所以对我们来说，这些布局其实也是为了吸引全球顶尖人才。

And so for us, a lot of these bets will also be means to go hire into some of the best people in the world.

如果我们真能做成，当然很好，但不是非做不可。

And if we can execute on it, obviously, but not a requirement.

埃利·吉尔刚刚发推说，算力是未来的货币，顶尖人才选公司时，算力会是决定性因素之一。

Eli Gill just tweeted actually, computers currency of the future and that compute will be of the defining factors that the best talent looks for when deciding which company to join.

你认同这个说法吗？你怎么看？

Do you agree with that, and how do you think about that?

这得看具体领域。

Depends on the space.

大型语言模型显然能随着算力提升而扩展，所以那些愿意在算力上大手笔投入的公司，对研究人员特别有吸引力。

So large language models obviously have the ability to scale with more compute, and therefore, it is attractive researchers to join companies that can invest a lot in compute.

但说实话，就目前来看，Anthropic 在大型语言模型领域发布模型和产品的表现确实是最出色的。

But if you look at right now, I mean, we can all say, probably, Anthropic is doing the best in terms of releasing models and and product in the large language model space as of this moment.

不过 Anthropic 可能并不是在算力上投入最多的那家。

Anthropic probably does not invest the most in compute.

对吧？

Yes?

那你想想，他们是怎么吸引到顶尖人才，做出这么棒的产品的？

So, like, if you think about that, how did they actually get really good researchers creating the best product output?

因为他们文化好，团队强，而且目标特别明确，打磨得特别到位。

Well, they have really good culture, and they have really good people, and they really tuned what they were going after.

推荐系统这个领域不需要太多算力就能做出成功的产品，所以完全不一样。

Recommendation system space does not need as much compute to create the output that's necessary to succeed, so it's quite different.

你在找那些依然想解决大问题、数学功底扎实的人，但建模领域其实分很多方向。

You're looking for people that still want to solve really big problems and are very mathematically inclined, but there's different spaces in modeling.

有视觉模型，有大语言模型，有推荐系统，还有别的各种类型。

And there's vision models, there's the LLMs, there's recommendation system, there's others.

说白了，一个人如果对某个产品方向感兴趣，就会去相应的公司——有人就爱搞推荐系统模型，他们根本不在乎算力多少。

Like, so depending on the product that someone is interested in, they'll go to a different company, and you've got people that like working on recommendation system models, and they're not bound by compute.

他们在乎的是好奇心，是怎么把技术用好，做出更棒的结果。

They're bound by curiosity and application of techniques to create a better output.

你提到2022年那次股票回购，那时候股价低得吓人，对吧？

You mentioned the buyback that you did in 2022, I think it was, when the stock was very, very low.

现在一波接一波的回购，像Wix、ServiceNow，还有Salesforce这些公司都跟上了。

We've seen a wave of buybacks, whether it's Wix or ServiceNow, among many other Salesforce Yeah.

规模可真不小。

Huge.

我们该怎么理解这些回购行为？

How should we read these buybacks?

这是内部信心的体现吗？

A sign of internal confidence?

你知道吗，股票回购这事儿挺有意思的，看看历史就知道，这事儿通常没啥好结果。

You know, buybacks are interesting because if you look at history, the concept of a buyback doesn't usually pan out.

从财务角度看，一般不是个明智的选择。

It's not usually a good financial bet.

就像搭了个桥，但桥底下空荡荡的。

And Like a bridge around.

这事儿真挺难的。

It's it's tough.

我来告诉你为啥难。

So here's why it's tough.

在公司内部，你总觉得股价被低估了，但市场怎么定价，你说了不算，到底低到什么程度才算真便宜，根本说不准。

It's easy when you're inside a company to think you're cheap, but you sort of trade where you deserve to trade, and it's really hard to know when is it cheap enough.

我们那次回购特别成功，是因为我们上市时赶上疫情，根本没拉到多少一线大机构投资者。

The reason why our our buyback was very, very successful is when we went public during COVID, we didn't build a really big roster of blue chip investors.

所以我们当时的股权结构特别松散。

So we had a very flimsy cap table.

结果股价跌得远比应该的还要惨。

And then this led to to the stock collapsing much more than it should have.

我们2021年上市的时候，EBITDA已经有7亿美元了。

When we went public in '21, we had $700,000,000 of EBITDA.

280亿美元IPO，公司估值冲到400亿美元。

$28,000,000,000 IPO, company goes to 40,000,000,000.

到了2022年，我们的EBITDA直接突破了10亿美元。

In '22, we cleared a billion dollars of EBITDA.

所以2022年我们大概增长了40%左右。

So we grew 40% ish in '22.

但就像我说的，股价居然跌了92%。

Yet, like I said, the stock fell 92%.

最后我们的估值连EBITDA的四倍都不到。

We we got to under four times EBITDA.

那这到底是怎么回事？

So why did that happen?

我们上市的时候，新冠根本没吸引到那些顶级机构投资者。

Well, we went public and COVID didn't attract blue chip investors.

所以我们的股东结构，其实就是一堆急着套现的私人股东。

So our cap table was basically the private market cap table that needed to sell.

这问题可太严重了。

That's a real big problem.

大多数私营公司，股东里大概有一半都是打算卖股票的。

Most companies that are private probably have half their cap table that's sellers.

所以我们做股票回购的时候，根本没说：‘咱们去市场上把流通股都买回来，每个股东都买一点。’

And so when we went and did our buyback, we didn't say, hey, we're just gonna go to the market and take float out, like take a share back from every shareholder.

那意思不就是连我的一部分股份也被回购了嘛？

That would imply that even partially part of my shares are getting bought back, right?

所以我们实际的做法是：如果你是打算卖的，那就跟我们合作，把股票卖回公司。

And so, what we instead did was go and say, if you are a seller, please work with us to sell back to the business.

所以我们把赚到的每一分钱都投了进去，还借了点债，多拿点钱回来，把那些未来几个月肯定会涌进公开市场的股份都回购了。

And so we went and deployed every dollar that we made, and including, we raised some debt to deploy even more, and took back a lot of the shares on the cap table that we're going to inevitably sell into the public markets over the coming months.

这样一来，公司员工、投资人、前联合创始人，还有其他股东，需要现金的都拿到了流动性。

By doing that, we were able to get liquidity to company folks, investors, and old ex cofounders and other folks on the cap table that needed liquidity.

我们成功让他们都套现了。

We were able to get them liquid.

这事儿办得挺顺的。

No problem.

我们很乐意做这笔交易。

We're happy to do the trade.

这些人愿意配合我们，主动把卖压收回去，这简直是天赐之助。

And we were able to take out that selling pressure with these folks being the fact that they were willing to work with us was a gift.

他们愿意配合，所以我们才能把卖压给化解掉。

They were willing to work with us, so we were able to take out the selling pressure.

等业务开始加速，卖压一消，市场负担一轻，自然就能吸引到真正对的投资者了。

And then as the business started accelerating, you remove the selling pressure and overhang, then you're set up in a position where you can now go attract the right investors.

大概吧。

Give or take.

那次股票回购给你们带来了多少收益？

How much money did that buyback make you?

这么说吧，以我们现在的股价来看，这次回购差不多占了公司总价值的三分之一。

So probably, I'd say, like, based on where we're trading today, roughly a third of the company's value came from that buyback.

你刚才说大约一千五百亿，那我们就按五千亿美元算吧。

So you said a 150,000,000,000 roughly, so let's call it 50,000,000,000 around.

干得漂亮。

Well done.

是的。

Yeah.

这波回购做得真不错。

Was a good buyback.

现在单纯从市场上买回自己的股票，只是把流通股买回来，通常并不是个好主意，因为

Now now just buying out of the market, just buying your float back, not a good bet usually because it

我懂。

I know.

Wix这家公司，我真的特别喜欢他们的团队。

Wix, it really I really like the Wix team.

他们人特别棒，也特别好。

They're great and lovely people.

天哪。

Gosh.

你刚搞了个大手笔回购，结果一周内股价就跌了25%。

You only do a buyback, a big ass buyback, and then down, like, 25% in a week.

问题就在这儿——你开始回购的时候，要是没踩准点，时机没把握好，咱们这些搞实业的，谁也不是做日内交易的料。

And that's the problem is you start doing the buyback, and if you're not right, you don't time it well, and we're not none of us are day traders when we're running businesses.

你辛辛苦苦赚来的资本，转眼就能烧光，到时候处境更糟。

You can burn the capital that you made really quickly, and then you're in a much worse spot.

你说过，很多时候，股价涨到哪儿，其实反映了公司该在哪儿。

You said people trade where they deserve to trade in a lot of cases.

那所谓的SaaS末日，公平吗？

Is the SaaS pocalypse fair then?

作为投资人，如果我是的话，一旦看到未来充满不确定性，卖公司简直太容易了。

As an investor, if I was one, when you get into an unpredictable outcome in the future, it's very easy to sell businesses.

大语言模型领域产品迭代太快了，很多传统企业级SaaS公司，未来几年根本没法押注。

And the rapid rate of product delivery in the large language model space makes a lot of traditional enterprise SaaS companies hard to bet on years into the future.

那接下来会怎样？

So what happens?

说白了，公司的终值变得很不确定了。

Well, terminal value is dicier.

估值压低，赶紧撤退。

So you value the company less, you get out.

他们以前股权激励比例是高，但占总价值的比例还能接受。

Their stock based comp was high, but it was an acceptable percentage of total value.

股价一崩，股权激励就彻底失控了。

Stock tanks, stock based comp becomes too extreme.

现在他们不仅可能丢掉饭碗，还面临巨大的竞争压力。

Now, they're in a position where not only are they gonna lose their heads, they're also competitively challenged.

所以你这就掉进了一个恶性循环，特别糟糕。

So you're in a really bad downward spiral.

从某种角度说，我觉得这公平，毕竟风险摆在那里，但我还不确定这场洗牌是不是已经结束了。

So in a way, I would say not only is it fair because of the risks that exist, I'm not sure it's actually done yet.

再说一遍，我不是做企业买卖的，但我相信未来几年，整个市场，尤其是企业级SaaS领域，一定会经历巨大的变革。

Know, again, I'm not a trader of businesses, but I do think we're going to go through material changes in the market, especially when it comes to enterprise SaaS over the coming years.

这不意味着我们现在那些SaaS龙头公司就会彻底被干掉，我觉得不会到那一步。

It may not be that these companies that we have today as some of the SaaS leaders are completely going to wipe out, because I don't think that happens.

企业一旦用上了某款软件，通常很难再换。

Companies, once they're embedded with utilizing a certain software, usually don't change.

但问题是，这些公司未来的增长空间可能已经所剩无几了。

But it may be that a lot of the growth opportunities are gone for these businesses.

一旦把增长预期拿掉，你就明白了——我们当年股价跌到EBITDA不到四倍，就是因为投资人根本不信我们还有未来增长的可能。

And you strip out growth opportunities in businesses, I mean, reason we went and traded down to under four times EBITDA is because investors did not believe in our future growth prospects.

作为公开市场的投资者，你只愿意押注那些你确信未来前景远超现在的公司。

And when you're a public market investor, you only like to bet on companies where you have sound belief that their future is gonna be a lot roadier than the present.

现在要相信传统企业SaaS会有光明未来，真的很难，尤其是当这些大型语言模型和前沿模型还在不断变得越来越强大。

It is very hard to believe that right now in traditional enterprise SaaS when these large language model businesses, the models, the frontier models continue to get so much more powerful.

你觉得那些重大的变化会是什么？

What do you imagine the material changes there.

你觉得未来几年最重大的变化会是什么？

What do you think the most material changes will be in the next few years?

过去几个月技术进步的速度简直惊人。

The rate of advancement is astounding over the last few months.

你看看每天推出的新产品，简直天天都有新东西。

You see, like, the amount of products that are rolling out, it's like every day there's something new.

我觉得眼下最酷的一点是，对懂怎么用的人而言，能轻松部署一大群智能代理来完成各种任务。

So I think the the coolest thing that we're seeing right now is for people who know how to utilize it, the ability to just launch an army of agents to do certain tasks.

当然，目前最明显的应用场景还是编程。

And obviously, coding is the the most obvious utilization today.

所以如果你现在看到这种情况，相信这些智能代理已经能以递归的方式持续改进现有的代码和产品，那技术、研发和我们想象力转化为产品的速度只会越来越快。

So if you see that today and believe we're already at a point where the army of agents can continue to start improving the code that's available to them and the products that are available to them in a recursive way, the rate of acceleration of technology and R and D and our imaginations becoming products is only gonna get faster.

这会把我们带到哪儿去呢？

Where does that lead us to?

我也不知道。

I don't know.

但我觉得，未来的生产力一定会比现在高得多。

But I think it's gonna be a much more productive future than the present.

我们又提到工程团队了。

We mentioned engineering again.

你说你们其实没有传统意义上的产品团队，是吧？

You said you don't have like a product team, so to speak.

你现在的组织架构是怎样的？以后会怎么变？

How do you think about the org chart today and how that changes over time?

产品职能会不会慢慢消失？

Do we lose product as a function?

我们之所以没设这个岗位，是因为我们想招的是真正懂产品的顶尖工程师。

I mean, we chose not to have it because we wanted to have exceptional engineers that understood the product.

我们的想法是，只要工程师亲手做产品，就能直接带来收入。

The belief was if our engineering team is writing the product, it delivers revenue.

销售团队和其他所有团队，本质上都是在给工程师团队加油打气，确保他们啥都不缺，等产品做出来了，再去卖。但前提是，产品得够好，才能卖得出去。

Our sales team and all other teams are effectively cheerleading for the engineering team, making sure they have what they need, and then eventually going out and selling their product, but we can only sell the product if it's good enough to be sold.

如果工程师真够牛，那他们必须得深刻理解自己要做的产品，才能把它造出来。

The engineers, if exceptional, better be good enough at understanding the product that they need to build to go build it.

所以我觉得，随着时间推移，‘产品’这个角色最终会演变成我们公司现在的样子——要么产品的人变成工程师，要么工程师变成产品人，但没必要两者都留。

And so I do think the role of product should end up looking a lot like it does at our company over time, is that either your product people become engineers or your engineers become product people, but you don't need both.

通常来说，谁要是能真正拥抱AI，会用这些工具，谁就能成为那种效率翻十倍、百倍的高手，知道怎么靠工具做出惊人的成果。

And so what usually happens, whoever becomes AI native and knows how to utilize these tools will become those powerful 10x, 100x output folks who know how to use tools to create that kind of output.

不过在可预见的未来，还是得靠工程师亲自写代码，确保代码安全、没漏洞，够格合并到主干里。

I do think for some time still, though, you're gonna need an engineer doing the work and still making sure that the code is up to security standards, the code's not swapped, the code is good enough to contribute to your main code base.

所以说，传统工程背景带来的那些能力，在今天依然特别有价值。

So, like, there's a lot that still comes from having a traditional engineering background that's valuable in today's world.