Building a Company that Builds Companies

普希金。

Pushkin.

这是iHeartPodcast。

This is an iHeartPodcast.

百分百真人制作。

Guaranteed Human.

很多职场建议听起来头头是道，可真用起来就全崩了。

A lot of work advice sounds good in theory, but falls apart when you actually try to use it.

我就是要改变这个现状。

I'm on a mission to change that.

我是莫莉·格雷厄姆，创业者，也是TED出品的《工作人生》节目的新主持人。

I'm Molly Graham, a company builder and the new host of Work Life, a podcast from TED.

我职业生涯都在高速成长的公司里打滚，我最确定的一点就是：工作从来就不是井井有条的。

I've spent my career inside fast growing companies, and one thing I know for sure is that work is messy.

这一季，我很期待和各位创始人、管理者和创意人聊聊，他们最光鲜的成功背后，那些没人敢在领英上发的真事儿。

In this new season, I'm excited to share my conversations with founders, operators, and creatives about the real story behind their shiniest successes, the lessons that no one ever posts on LinkedIn.

现在就去你常用的播客平台收听《Work Life》吧。

Listen now on Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.

现在全球最有趣、最重要的公司之一，就是莫德纳。

One of the most interesting, most important companies in the world right now is Moderna.

这家小小的生物科技公司，几年前几乎没人听说过。

This little biotech company that almost nobody had ever heard of until a couple years ago.

这家公司基于一个大胆的想法：制造mRNA，然后注入人体细胞。

This company built on the wild idea of making mRNA and putting it into people's cells.

这家公司突然间为数亿人提供了新冠疫苗——坦白说，也包括我本人。

This company has suddenly delivered COVID vaccines to hundreds of millions of people, including, full disclosure, to me.

但关于莫德纳的故事，最有趣的地方在于，它并不是从2010年公司成立开始的。

And maybe the most interesting thing about the story of Moderna is that it doesn't start with the founding of the company back in 2010.

它的起点要早十年，从另一家公司——Flagship Pioneering的创立说起。

It starts ten years earlier with the founding of another company, a company called Flagship Pioneering.

Flagship Pioneering这家公司，专门孵化新公司。

Flagship Pioneering is a company that makes companies.

Flagship已经创办了几十家公司，其中好几家都上市了。

Flagship has created dozens of companies, several of which have gone public.

这些公司几乎都跟生物学有关，而且个个都挺大胆的。

Pretty much all of them have something to do with biology, and they tend to be pretty out there.

比如用细菌当药的公司，研究农场怎么多吸收大气中二氧化碳的公司，当然还有探索RNA各种可能性的公司——像Moderna就是其中之一。

Companies using bacteria as medicine, companies trying to figure out how farms can do more to pull carbon dioxide out of atmosphere, and, of course, companies trying to figure out all the things you can do with RNA, companies like Moderna.

我是雅各布·戈德斯坦，欢迎收听《你的问题是什么？》

I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's Your Problem?

这档节目里，我会跟创业者和工程师聊聊，他们打算在解决几个问题之后，怎么改变世界。

The show where I talk to entrepreneurs and engineers about how they're going to change the world once they've solved a few problems.

今天请到的嘉宾是努巴尔·阿菲扬。

My guest today is Noubar Afeyan.

他是Flagship Pioneering的创始人，也是Moderna的联合创始人。

He is the founder of Flagship Pioneering and the cofounder of Moderna.

我想跟努巴尔聊的，是他创办Flagship最初想解决的那个问题。

And the problem I want to talk with Noubar about is the problem he started Flagship to solve.

你怎么把那些创业者胡乱摸索、毫无章法的创业方式，变成一套可复制、有系统的流程？

How do you turn the unstructured chaotic way that most entrepreneurs start companies into a repeatable, systematic process?

从Moderna的故事里，我们能学到些什么？

And what can we learn about that from the story of Moderna?

Flagship Pioneering——也就是创办Moderna的那家公司——它的起源，其实要追溯到Noubar创业生涯的起点。

The origins of Flagship Pioneering, Noubar's company, the company that started Moderna, they go back to the beginning of his career as an entrepreneur.

那时候他发现，风投机构对像他这样的创业者其实有不公平的优势，因为他们能同时看到无数家公司是怎么一步步建起来的。

He saw at the time that venture capitalists had a sort of unfair advantage over entrepreneurs like him because they got to see into so many different companies all getting built at the same time.

我对风投用的这套模式特别感兴趣。

I was interested in the model that venture capitalists used.

我刚入行的时候就发现，这些人个个都聪明得不得了。

And what I observed in the early phase of my career is just how smart all these people seemed.

但过了一阵子，我突然想通了：不可能所有人都这么聪明吧。

And then after a while, I realized, well, there's there are two they can't all be that smart.

后来我才明白，他们之所以看起来这么厉害，是因为他们见过太多尝试了——各种背景的人、不同组合的团队，有经验的、没经验的，科学路线、知识产权策略、市场方向，全都试过一遍。

And it occurred to me that they had seen so many attempts at this with so many different people of different backgrounds, compositions of teams that were only experienced, only inexperienced, the science, the IP strategy, the markets.

所以把这些都结合起来看，他们其实是以极快的速度在学习创业者本该掌握的一切，而这些通常是单打独斗的创业者一辈子都学不完的。

So when you take it all together, they were learning at a massive, massive rate that which entrepreneurs need to learn, but never can learn in one go go around.

于是我开始想，为什么不能把这种知识积累、不断实验、失败和学习的模式，也交给创业者呢？

And so I thought, why can't the knowledge assembly practice experimenting and failing and learning be available to an entrepreneur?

这些想法慢慢融合在一起，让我萌生了一个念头：如果能建立一个体系，让像我这样的创业者，把在某个项目里积累的经验，再同时拓展到多个方向并行学习，最终变得特别精通，那该多好。

So all of those things kinda combined in getting me interested in this notion that what if there was a structure where entrepreneurs such as myself could take experience they had gotten, let's say, in one in one instance, but then started diversifying it and learning in parallel and then got really good at it.

正是这些想法，促成了2000年Flagship的诞生。

And those are the things that led to the conception of Flagship in 2000.

搞一个专门孵化公司的公司，说真的，感觉有点像开挂。

Starting a company that starts companies almost seems like cheating in a weird way.

就像你抓到一个神灯精灵，许三个愿望，结果第一个愿望是‘再给我一个神灯精灵’。

Like, when you get the the genie in the bottle and you get three wishes, it's like wishing for more wishes.

对吧？

Right?

说实话，我从来没听过哪个故事是这么说的：精灵说‘你有三个愿望’，那人第一个愿望是‘给我另一个神灯精灵’。

You know, I I've never seen a story which starts with, you know, some a genie offered somebody three wishes, and the first wish was another genie bottle.

是的。

Yeah.

这简直就是个漏洞。

It's it's a loophole.

那倒是个聪明的回答。

That would have been a smart answer.

对。

Yeah.

没错。

Yeah.

那倒是个聪明的回答。

That would have been a smart answer.

所以，人们为什么不这么做，其实挺让人好奇的。

So it really is a kind of a curious thing as to why people don't do it.

我可以追溯到二十五年前，那时候创业这个领域还很年轻。

And I can trace it back, especially back in the twenty five years ago, to the fact that the field of entrepreneurship was a relatively young field.

一开始，这事儿简直像种神秘的玄学。

Early on, it was this kind of mystical activity.

那时候只有少数几种性格的人，才能拉到钱、带团队什么的。

And you had certain personalities that kind of were able to raise money and govern you know, create teams.

这背后有一整套神话体系。

There's a whole mythology.

对吧？

Right?

就像英雄之旅那样。

It's like the, like, hero's journey.

对吧？

Right?

总说有个人有远见，别人都不信，只有他能把公司做起来。

Where there's this one person who has a vision that nobody else believes in and only they can build the company.

我觉得你做的这些东西，恰恰是反着来的。

I mean, I feel like what you're building is sort of the antithesis of that.

没错，就是这样。

Well, exactly.

现在的创业跟以前比，其实没多大变化，本质上就是边干边摸索。

Entrepreneurship as an activity today is it today used to be and and and hasn't changed so much, is is very much improvisational.

这里面还带着点浪漫色彩。

There's a lot of kind of almost a a romantic side to it.

到处都是混乱，还得拼命活下去。

There is chaos and there is this struggle to survive.

这些事儿吧，就像炒菜的调料，挺提味儿的，但创业本身，就是那道菜。

And while all of those things are really good kind of spices in a meal, it is the meal in entrepreneurship.

除此之外，啥都没有。

There is nothing else.

你不能光说我们在做产品、解决未被满足的需求。

You don't point to, and we're developing products and we're solving unmet needs.

这些事反而成了故事里最无聊的部分，大家一听就只想快进过去。

Those things almost become kind of like the boring part of the story that people want to fast forward through that part of the episode.

所以我想到，如果要把这些环节标准化，其实每一部分都能通过更高效、更有效、更可预测、更有计划性来提升。

So, and it did occur to me in thinking of parallelizing this, that actually all those parts can benefit from being more efficient, more effective, more predictable, and more planful.

如果真有一种方法，能通过系统来创办公司，而且这套系统在某些情况下，比那种天才型创业者还管用，那意味着什么？

If there's this idea that you can build a system to create companies and that that the system maybe ultimately can work better, at least better in some settings, let's say, than the sort of visionary entrepreneur.

这不就说明你这个人挺特别的吗？

What does that say about you in particular?

你能打造出一个这么牛的系统，让自己都变得可有可无？

Like, can you build such a good system that you personally become replaceable?

当然了。

Oh, yeah.

这正是我的目标。

That's my goal.

所以……

So

诺布尔创办了Flagship Pioneering这家公司，就是为了破解创业这个难题。

Noubar set up this company, Flagship Pioneering, to solve the entrepreneurship problem.

但具体是怎么运作的？又是怎么催生了Moderna的呢？

But how does it actually work, and how did it lead to the creation of Moderna?

广告结束后我们接着讲。

That is after the break.

做生意的时候居然不考虑做播客？

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?

你再想想吧。

Think again.

听播客的美国人，比听Spotify和Pandora广告版流媒体音乐的还多。

More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

作为头号播客平台，iHeart的规模是第二名和第三名加起来的两倍。

And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.

不管你的客户听什么，你的信息都能传到他们耳朵里。

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

而且，只有iHeart能让你的信息覆盖到广播电台的听众。

Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

觉得播客能帮到你的生意？

Think podcasting can help your business?

那就选iHeart。

Think iHeart.

流媒体、广播，还有播客，全都有。

Streaming, radio, and podcasting.

拨打844844，马上开始。

Call 844844 to get started.

就是844844。

That's 844844

很多职场建议听着挺有道理，可真用起来就崩了。

A lot of work advice sounds good in theory, but falls apart when you actually try to use it.

我就是要改变这种状况。

I'm on a mission to change that.

我是莫莉·格雷厄姆，创业者，也是TED出品的《工作与生活》播客的新主持人。

I'm Molly Graham, a company builder and the new host of Work Life, a podcast from TED.

我职业生涯一直待在高速成长的公司里，我最确定的一点就是：工作本来就是一团乱麻。

I've spent my career inside fast growing companies, and one thing I know for sure is that work is messy.

这一季，我很期待和大家分享我与创始人、操盘手和创意人之间的对话，聊聊他们最光鲜的成功背后，那些没人会在领英上发的真实故事。

In this new season, I'm excited to share my conversations with founders, operators, and creatives about the real story behind their shiniest successes, the lessons that no one ever posts on LinkedIn.

现在就去你常用的播客平台收听《Work Life》吧。

Listen now on Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.

好了，我们回到节目本身。

Now we're going back to the show.

在对话的第一部分，我和努巴尔只是抽象地讨论了他想解决的这个问题。

So in the first part of the conversation, Noubar and I were talking abstractly about this problem he set out to solve.

你怎么把创业、创办公司的过程，从那种神话般的英雄之旅，变成一套可复制、有系统的流程？

How do you shift entrepreneurship starting companies from this mythological hero's journey into a repeatable systematic process?

在接下来的对话里，努巴尔给了我一个答案。

In the next part of the conversation, Noubar gave me an answer.

他给我讲了Moderna的故事，作为Flagship Pioneering——他公司——如何开始解决这个问题、如何建立一套孵化新公司的系统的案例。

He told me the story of Moderna as a case study for how Flagship Pioneering, his company, has started to solve this problem, has started to create a system for creating new companies.

Moderna的故事始于2010年，当时Noubar去见了一位哈佛的科学家，这位科学家正在研究mRNA。

The story of Moderna starts in 2010 when Noubar had a meeting with a Harvard scientist who was studying mRNA.

顺便说一下，mRNA是一种分子，它能告诉身体里的细胞该制造哪种蛋白质。

MRNA, by the way, is a molecule that basically tells cells in the body what protein to make.

到那时候，学术界已经拿mRNA做了不少实验，但一到想用在临床应用上，就总碰壁。

Academic researchers had been experimenting with mRNA for a while by this point, but they kept hitting problems when they tried to find clinical applications.

就在和这位哈佛科学家开会的时候，Noubar突然想到：如果我们能在实验室里合成mRNA，再注射进人体，效果可能会惊人。

And in the middle of this meeting with the Harvard scientist, Noubar thinks, if we could make mRNA in the lab and inject it into the body, the results could be incredible.

我们可以用mRNA来指挥病人的细胞，告诉它们该生产什么。

We could use mRNA to tell a patient's cells what to make.

会后我回来，跟团队一商量，就说：嘿，要不我们搞个探索项目吧。

So I come back from the meeting, and I talked to some of the team here, and we say, hey.

我们就启动了一个探索计划。

Let's launch an exploration.

这最初纯粹是一场想象力的迸发。

And it starts as an act of imagination.

这可不是靠理性能做到的。

It is not an act of reason.

其实呢，我有个想法，怎么说呢，不叫发牢骚吧，

And in fact, one of my side, I'd say, kind of, I won't call it a rant.

你就说它是发牢骚吧。

Go it a rant.

对。

Yeah.

我忍不住想说，我们的教育系统总是打压想象力，老是逼着人只靠分析和理性来推动进步，这太过了。

A side rant would be the degree to which our education systematically discourages the use of imagination in creating the world we want to create versus relying overly on analysis and reason as the only way to make progress.

你得有点儿不讲道理才行。

You want to try and be unreasonable to some extent.

只有先不讲道理，才能想出那些后来看起来理所当然的突破。

We need to be unreasonable in order to come up with leaps that eventually seem reasonable.

嗯，没错。

Uh-huh.

就拿后来成为莫德纳的这个项目来说，你有个特别不讲道理的想法。

In case of what will become Moderna, you have this this unreasonable idea.

咱们用mRNA让身体自己在体内生产药物。

Let's use mRNA to get the body to make drugs inside the body.

你第一步搞的这个东西，你叫它探索，那到底什么叫探索？

You start this first step, this thing you call an exploration, which means which means what?

你带个小团队，去研究前沿技术，到处找专家聊这个想法。

You have this small team studying the state of the art going out and talking to experts about this idea.

专家们对这个想法反应怎么样？

And what kind of reactions are you getting from the experts?

他们一听就说了：RNA十分钟内就会被身体代谢掉。

So the way they react is to say, the RNA will be washed out of the body in ten minutes.

那你咋可能让蛋白质持续产生几周？

How are you going to make proteins for weeks?

你咋能精准地让药物进入正确的细胞类型？

How are you going to get into the right cell types?

顺便说一句，你还会遇到各种其他的免疫反应要应对。

By the way, there's all sorts of other immune reactions you're going to have to deal with.

你打算怎么把它做出来？

How are you going to make it?

从来没人设计并制造过RNA。

Nobody ever designed and made RNA.

正因如此，这些压力迫使我们回头去想办法，突破当时技术条件下那些根深蒂固的质疑。

And so all those selection pressures causes you, causes us very specifically to go back and try to come up with ways to overcome those, let's say, dogmatic objections to based on the present state of the art.

你可能会问，为什么不直接忽略这些意见，进实验室干就完了？

And so because you might say, why don't you just ignore them and just go in the lab and do it?

但对我们来说，事实是这些最初的设想，得反复打磨、不断优化，我们才愿意砸钱去创办一家公司。

And the reason it turns out for us anyway, is that we find that these initial hypotheses become refined and refined and refined before we want to go in and spend the money building a company.

这真的特别重要。

So that's a really important thing.

我们可不是随便开个公司就完事了。

We don't build just any company.

我们只创办那些经过大量前期反复打磨的公司。

We build companies that have gone through a significant upfront set of iterative refinements.

这个过程大概要持续几个月。

That's a process of a couple of months.

就三四个人，花上几个月时间。

It's a handful of people, three, four people, and it's a couple of months.

我们内部不断迭代、迭代、再迭代，直到秋天时，我们终于可以说：嘿，我觉得行了。

And we iterate, iterate, iterate internally until we get to a point by the fall where we say, you know what?

我们决定干了，因为我们已经大概摸清了这件事成功所必需的那些关键条件。

We're going to make a go of this because we think we have a good sense of the range of things that have to be right for this to work.

这些条件我们都能验证，但不会直接成立公司，而是先搞一个我们叫‘原型公司’的东西。

We can test for them And we don't start the company, we actually start what we call a proto company.

明白了。

Okay.

这是第一阶段。

That's the first phase.

明白了。

Okay.

那什么叫原型公司？

What is a proto company?

原型公司就是公司的原型，就跟你们做任何产品之前都要做原型一样。

So a proto company is a prototype of a company, just like you make prototypes of every product that you make.

但奇怪的是，根本没人把公司当原型来搞。

But remarkably, there is no such thing as a prototype of a company.

大家都是直接开公司。

People just make companies.

而原型公司呢，就像做普通产品那样，你可以使劲折腾它，拼命想把它搞死。

And a prototype of a company is where, just like in a regular product, you get to beat it up and try to kill it.

这正是我们做的事。

And that's exactly what we do.

那它现在叫Moderna了吗？

And so is it called Moderna yet?

你有这个想法，就像是早期的Moderna？

You have this idea, and it's like proto Moderna?

不是。

No.

是LS18，那个才是早期的公司形态。

It's l s eighteen is the proto company.

再说一遍？

Say it again?

LS18，LS18。

L s eighteen l s eighteen.

就是后来注册成立的那个实体名字。

Name of the entity that got incorporated

哦，明白了。

Uh-huh.

如果一切顺利，它最终就变成了Moderna。

To become eventually, if things went forward, Moderna.

为什么叫LS18？

Why LS18?

哦，这是我们做的第十八个项目了。

Oh, it's the eighteenth such thing we did.

明白了。

Okay.

所以你们之前已经做过十八个原型公司了。

It's the eighteenth proto company you had ever made.

对，就是这样。

Exactly.

现在呢，我们已经做到第九十个了，举个例子。

And today, we're at number 90 as an example.

你们为什么要这么做？

Why do you do that?

为什么在那个阶段就只给个编号？

Why do you give it just a number at that stage?

哦，当你想建立一个机构时，而不是去培养某种行为，我在2000年刚启动这个项目的第一天就清楚地知道：人们会死死抓住自己的想法，情感上几乎像谈恋爱一样黏着它们，根本舍不得放弃。

Oh, when you're trying to create an institution, instead of behaviors, one of the things I knew literally on day one going into creating this whole thing in 2000 was that people hang on to their ideas and emotionally, almost romantically connect to them and they never can kill them.

所以我特意设计了一个安全空间，让大伙儿能问：‘哪个实验能证伪这个假设？’——这样我们才不会盲目推进。

And I wanted to create a safe zone during which the question was, what is the falsifying experiment that will kill the hypothesis so that we don't go forward?

你猜怎么着？

Well, guess what?

一旦你给它起了个名字，尤其是那种你特别喜欢的名字，比如你家狗狗的名字，或者希腊神的名字啥的，你就更下不了手了。

If you give something a name, worse yet, a name you really like, your pet dog's name, some, you know, Greek god's name, whatever, well, you try to kill it.

所以咱们不给它起名字，就用编号，这样放手就容易多了。

So you give it a number instead of a name to make it easier to kill.

说扔就扔，毫不心疼。

Disposable.

对极了。

Exactly.

顺便说一句，对我们来说，做产品公司就像是个周期六个月到一年、投入一百万到两百万美金的流程，上下浮动都正常。

By the way, I should say product companies for us are like a 1 to $2,000,000, six months to twelve months, plus or minus process.

明白了。

Okay.

这可不是让你放手去搞三年、烧一千万美金的许可证，这一点非常关键。

It is not a license to hunt for the next three years and $10,000,000 That's a very important discipline.

所以，关键是要先确定哪些实验最能帮你快速推翻这个假设。

So a key part of doing that is to decide what are the key experiments that you want to do first in order to try to kill it.

我们得先说服自己，真能做出东西来，在动物身上试一试，让它们产生目标蛋白。

We needed to convince ourselves that we can actually make things and try them in animals and have them make a protein.

现在大家动不动就说mRNA是生命的密码，往里一塞，想造什么蛋白就造什么蛋白。

You know, this notion that now we go around saying mRNA is the code of life and we can put it in and we can make any protein we want.

是啊，等我们砸了二十亿美金之后，才真能做到这一步。

Yeah, dollars 2,000,000,000 later, we could do that.

但那时候，根本没人证明过，能在动物模型里把蛋白做对、折叠对，更别说人了。

But on the early days, nobody had shown that you could actually make the correct protein, fold it the correct way in animal models, not humans yet.

所以我们必须自己先把这个关给过了。

And so we need to convince ourselves of that.

我们当时在小动物身上做了实验，比如小鼠。

We did work on that in small animals, mice.

然后我们得相信，这些玩意儿能被做成某种配方，让它们真正进入细胞。

And then we had to believe is that we could actually somehow formulate these things so they can get into cells.

大概花了九个月到一年的时间做实验，那会儿我们还在LS18项目里，后来几个月这项目改名叫Moderna了，我们刚起步。

A year or so, nine months year of experimental work that we engaged with within the context of LS18, which was renamed a couple of months later, Moderna, as we started getting ourselves up and running.

我先打断一下。

I just want to pause.

LS18，我记的数字没错吧？

So LS18, do I have the number right?

不好意思，这数字我有点记不清了。

Sorry to remember the number.

这不就是重点吗？

That's the point, right?

对。

Yep.

LS18后来变成了Moderna。

LS18 becomes Moderna.

但那时候，你们根本还没想到疫苗这回事，对吧？

But at that time, you're not even thinking of vaccines yet.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

让我这么跟你说吧。

Well, let me say it this way.

我们当时考虑过所有可能用得上各种分子的用途。

We thought of every possible use you could make of every kind of molecule.

所以疫苗当然也在我们能做的选项里。

So vaccines was definitely on tables of things we could do.

但我们的初步分析完全没建议我们应该做疫苗，更别说只做疫苗了。

But by no means did our preliminary analysis suggest that we should do vaccines, let alone only vaccines.

原因是我们当时的梦想和想象，是想在人体内制造任何蛋白质，而实际上能用于疫苗的蛋白质，只是体内所有蛋白质中的一小部分。

And the reason was because our dream, our imagination had us making any protein in the body and a relatively small subset of the proteins that are made in the body is actually for vaccines.

所以我们当时在做癌症，心里还幻想着心血管疾病。

And so we were working on cancer and we were dreaming of cardiovascular disease.

疫苗这块儿，其实是公司发展三四年之后才慢慢转向的。

So the vaccine part was a transition that started happening three, four years into the development of the company.

公司都发展好久了，才转到这一步。

A long time, a long time into the company.

那肯定的。

Oh, for sure.

那时候已经投了大概十亿美元了，真是惊人。

And probably a good billion dollars of capital having gone into it Wow.

回想起2013、2014年我们刚踏上这条路的时候，说实话，那会儿疫苗市场简直一塌糊涂——毕竟这行当就两三家大药厂垄断着。

Than Now back in 2014, 'thirteen, when we started going down this path, of course, it was a pretty crappy, for lack of a better word, marketplace, because vaccines were the domain of two or three pharma companies that had a complete monopoly over the space.

疫苗的研发和审批慢得要命，成本高得离谱。

The development and regulatory approval of them was extremely slow, very, very costly.

最后卖出去还赚不了几个钱。

And at the end, you couldn't charge much for them.

所以生物技术行业里，几乎找不到哪家公司做疫苗，原因就在这儿。

So the reason the biotech industry, I think it'd be hard pressed to find biotech companies that worked on vaccines, was that.

投资者和资金方根本不想碰这领域，大家都觉得这儿不可能有重大突破。

And so investors, capital providers simply didn't want to go there because it was generally written off as an area for major innovation.

但我们其实没太在意这些，我们只关心一件事：在人体上证明这事真能做成。

But we weren't, we didn't really care as much about that because all we wanted was the proof of principle in humans that this can even be done.

你就是想要一个能管用的方案，

You wanted something Yeah, that would

在人体上。

in humans.

所以2014年到2015年，我们启动了第一个临床试验，用了两种特别讽刺的流感毒株——到现在还没多少人意识到这一点——这两种病毒以前从来没在人类身上出现过，我们想开发一种预防性疫苗，以防哪天它们从鸟类或猪身上跳到人身上。

And so in 2014, going into 'fifteen, we entered our first clinical trial with two, quite ironic, people haven't quite realized this yet, ironic in what I would say, two strains of influenza that had not previously been in humans for which we wanted to make a prophylactic vaccine in case someday they jump from birds or swine into humans.

其实就是防着流感大流行，

In case there was a flu pandemic, basically,

一场可怕的流感大流行。

some terrible flu pandemic.

没错。

Bingo.

所以我们选了一条最稳妥的路，试了一把，结果第一回在人体上就成功产生了针对这两种病毒株的中和抗体。

So we just took a very safe road, tried it, and sure enough, we showed in the first instance that that first attempt in humans could make neutralizing antibodies to both of those strains.

那时候我们就觉得，好，至少我们知道能做出蛋白质，而且它们真能像我们说的那样起作用。

And we felt like, okay, at least we know we can make proteins and that they do what we say they do.

这时候已经过去了五年。

That's five years into it.

太棒了。

Great.

正因如此——因为你花了整整十年琢磨怎么打造一个能孵化公司的公司，之后又花了几年，把一个想法从LS18发展成Moderna，变成一家能做疫苗的企业。

So because of all of this, because of the decade you had spent figuring out how to build a company that builds companies, and then the years after that, turning an idea into LS18 into Moderna into a company that makes vaccines.

正是这整整二十年的积累，让你在2019年新病毒一出现时，能迅速做出新冠疫苗。

Because of that whole twenty year arc, you're ready essentially when this new virus emerges at the 2019 to very quickly make a COVID vaccine.

就是这么回事。

Exactly that.

我们花了好多年才把这个平台做出来。

We worked for many, many years to put this platform into existence.

接下来是快速问答环节，Noubar会分享他解决难题的秘诀，还有一个超实用的判断何时该关闭公司或初创项目的方法。

In a minute, the lightning round, including Noubar's tips for solving hard problems and one weird trick for knowing when to shut down a company or a proto company.

做生意还不考虑做播客？

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?

你再想想吧。

Think again.

听播客的美国人比听Spotify和Pandora广告版音乐的还多。

More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

作为头号播客平台，iHeart的规模是第二名和第三名加起来的两倍。

And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.

不管你的客户听什么，你的信息都能传到他们耳朵里。

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

而且，只有iHeart能让你的信息覆盖到广播电台的听众。

Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

觉得播客能帮到你的生意？

Think podcasting can help your business?

那就选iHeart。

Think iHeart.

流媒体、广播加播客，全都有。

Streaming, radio, and podcasting.

拨打844844，马上开始。

Call 844844 to get started.

就是844844。

That's 844844

很多职场建议听着挺有道理，可真用起来就崩了。

A lot of work advice sounds good in theory, but falls apart when you actually try to use it.

我就是要改变这种状况。

I'm on a mission to change that.

我是莫莉·格雷厄姆，创业者，也是TED出品的《工作生活》播客的新主持人。

I'm Molly Graham, a company builder and the new host of Work Life, a podcast from TED.

我这一辈子都在快速成长的公司里打滚，我最确定的一点就是：工作从来就不是井井有条的。

I've spent my career inside fast growing companies, and one thing I know for sure is that work is messy.

这一季，我很期待跟大家聊聊创始人、操盘手和创意人，分享他们最光鲜成就背后那些没人发在领英上的真实故事。

In this new season, I'm excited to share my conversations with founders, operators and creatives about the real story behind their shiniest successes, the lessons that no one ever posts on LinkedIn.

现在就去你常用的播客平台收听《Work Life》吧。

Listen now on Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.

明白。

Okay.

咱们继续听节目。

Let's get back to the show.

最后来个快问快答环节。

We're gonna close with the lightning round.

如果你正在啃一个特别难的问题，你会给对方什么建议？

What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who's working on a hard problem?

一方面，从当下出发，用你已知的东西去解决问题；另一方面，反过来想——想象问题已经解决了，然后倒着推，看看你是怎么走到这一步的。

Work both from the present forward, that is from what you know to solve something, and also work future backwards, which is imagine the problem already solved and see if you can backtrace how you got there.

不错。

Good.

行。

Okay.

还剩两个。

Two more.

你有没有什么判断什么时候该放弃一个项目的诀窍？

Do you have any rules of thumb for knowing when to shut down a project?

没有固定的标准，但我觉得你得让压力持续存在——就是让团队不断面对越来越复杂的借口，用越来越长的句子来证明项目还值得继续。

Not uniform rules, but I think that you have to keep the resistance up, resistance meaning pressure, in order for the team to conclude that they're going through more and more complicated rationalizations using longer and longer sentences to justify where they should stay alive.

句子长短倒是个不错的指标。

Sentence length is a good heuristic.

这个我喜欢。

I like that.

顺便说一句，创业圈里最被误解的一点就是：钱越多，公司就越成功。

And by the way, that's one of the biggest misunderstood things in the startup world is that more money leads to better companies.

钱少反而更容易让那些没感受到压力的公司继续拖着，结果变得更糟。

Lower money can just as easily lead to worse companies because it causes persistence of companies that don't feel that pressure.

所以我觉得关键在于融资带来的压力，还有那种被逼到墙角的紧张感。

And so I think one of the key things is the pressure that comes from raising capital, the pressure that comes from being challenging.

这些因素其实都特别特别重要，能帮你最终下定决心：别干了。

I think these are all really, really important to produce the end result of deciding not to go forward.

我得插一个问题，因为你刚才说钱是个问题。

I gotta add one question because you talked about money being a problem.

你刚融了几十亿，这事儿吧，先说声恭喜。

You just raised billions of dollars, which on the one hand, congratulations.

但反过来，这会不会让你做事情更难了？

On the other hand, is that gonna make it harder to do what you do?

我的意思是，规模上去了。

I mean, there's scale.

就像你说的，钱多了，反而更难保持那种紧迫感。

There's as you said, having more money can make it harder to keep the pressure on.

钱这么多，会不会很难受？

Is that hard, having all that money?

我们花了超长时间才积累起这么多资本，但流程、纪律、文化，都是在钱到位之前就建立好的。

Because it took us a long, long time to get to larger pools of capital, the process and the discipline, the culture proceeds the capital.

这些做法都是为了对抗资金充裕带来的松懈，继续保持压力。

And all of those are ways to defy the capital availability and keep the pressure on.

明白了。

Okay.

最后一个。

Last one.

如果一切顺利，十年后你们会去解决什么问题？

If everything goes well, what problem will you be working on in, say, ten years?

说实话，根本没法想象。

Honestly, unfathomable.

要是十年前有人问我现在在做什么，我倒能说清楚。

I could tell you what problem we'd be working on today, ten years ago.

我这么回答吧。

Let me answer it in this way.

我们不是从问题或解决方案开始的。

We don't start with either problem or solution.

我们试着一起发明它们，杜撰出来，然后再想办法把它们对上。

We try to invent both, make them up, and then we try to match them.

从这个角度看，未来能看得见的问题和能想象得出的解决方案，会决定我们该做什么。

In that regard, what problems will be visible even at the horizon and what solutions will be imaginable will dictate what we work on.

所以，你问十年后要解决什么问题？答案其实是——我们连问题都还没定下来，而这恰恰正是重点。

So really the answer to the what problem are you gonna be working on in ten years question is like, you don't even know the problem yet, and that's sort of the point.

说白了，我们的工作就是不断发现和提出新问题。

Like, on some level, your job is to add and discover problems.

完全对。

A 100%.

问题和能想象的解决方案，都要一起找。

Both problems and imaginable solutions.

诺巴·阿费扬是Flagship Pioneering的创始人兼CEO，也是Moderna的联合创始人。

Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and cofounder of Moderna.

本期节目由埃迪丝·鲁塞洛制作，罗伯特·史密斯剪辑，阿曼达·K负责技术制作。

Today's show was produced by Edith Russelow, edited by Robert Smith, and engineered by Amanda K.

王。

Wong.

我是雅各布·戈德斯坦。

I'm Jacob Goldstein.

下周我们还会带来《你的问题是什么？》的另一期节目。

We'll be back next week with another episode of What's Your Problem?

很多职场建议听起来头头是道，可真用起来就崩了。

A lot of work advice sounds good in theory, but falls apart when you actually try to use it.

我就是要改变这种状况。

I'm on a mission to change that.

我是莫莉·格雷厄姆，创业者，也是TED出品的《工作人生》节目的新主持人。

I'm Molly Graham, a company builder and the new host of Work Life, a podcast from TED.

我这一辈子都在快节奏成长的公司里打转，我最确定的一点就是：工作从来就不是井井有条的。

I've spent my career inside fast growing companies, and one thing I know for sure is that work is messy.

这一季，我很期待跟各位分享我跟创业者、操盘手和创意人之间的对话，聊聊他们最光鲜成就背后那些没人发在领英上的真实故事。

In this new season, I'm excited to share my conversations with founders, operators, and creatives about the real story behind their shiniest successes, the lessons that no one ever posts on LinkedIn.

现在就去你常用的播客平台收听《Work Life》吧。

Listen now on Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.

这是iHeartPodcast出品的《 Guaranteed Human》。

This is an iHeartPodcast, Guaranteed Human.