Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and Fixing Broken Infrastructure - Live at the Progress Conference (Ep. 261)
Hello, everyone.
大家好。
Welcome to yet another event at the Progress Conference.
欢迎参加进展会议的另一场活动。
I’m chatting with Blake Scholl.
我正在和布莱克·绍尔聊天。
Blake has done more than any other human to make civilian supersonic transport a reality.
布莱克在使民用超音速运输成为现实方面所做的工作比任何其他人都多。
His company, of course, is Boom in Colorado.
当然，他的公司是科罗拉多州的 Boom。
Blake, welcome.
布莱克，欢迎。
Good morning.
早上好。
Let’s convert some jet fuel into human progress.
让我们将一些喷气燃料转化为人类进步。
There’s plenty about Boom online and in your interviews, so I’d like to take some different tacks here.
网上和你们的采访中有很多关于 Boom 的内容，所以我想在这里采取一些不同的策略。
This general notion of having things move more quickly, I’m a big fan of that.
我非常喜欢这种让事情进展得更快的普遍理念。
Do you have a plan for how we could make moving through an airport happen more quickly?
您是否有计划如何让我们更快地通过机场？
You’re in charge.
你负责。
You’re the dictator.
你是独裁者。
You don’t have to worry about bureaucratic obstacles.
您不必担心官僚障碍。
You just do it.
你就这么做吧。
I think about this in the shower like every day.
我每天都会在洗澡时思考这个问题。
There is a much better airport design that, as best I can tell, has never been built.
据我所知，有一个更好的机场设计，但从未建成。
Here’s the idea: You should put the terminals underground.
想法是这样的：你应该把终端放在地下。
Airside is above ground.
空侧位于地面以上。
Terminals are below ground.
端子位于地面以下。
Imagine a design with two runways.
想象一下有两条跑道的设计。
There’s an arrival runway, departure runway.
有进港跑道、离港跑道。
Traffic flows from arrival runway to departure runway.
交通流从进场跑道流向离场跑道。
You don’t need tugs.
你不需要拖船。
You can delete a whole bunch of airport infrastructure.
您可以删除一大堆机场基础设施。
Imagine you pull into a gate.
想象一下你把车开进一扇门。
The jetway is actually an escalator that comes up from underneath the ground.
高速公路实际上是一个从地下升起的自动扶梯。
Then you pull forward, so you can delete a whole bunch of claptrap that is just unnecessary.
然后你向前拉，这样你就可以删除一大堆不必要的废话。
The terminal underground should have skylights so it can still be incredibly beautiful.
地下航站楼应该有天窗，这样它仍然可以非常美丽。
If you model fundamentally the thing on a crossbar switch, there are a whole bunch of insights for how to make it radically more efficient.
如果你从根本上对纵横交换机进行建模，就会有很多关于如何使其从根本上变得更加高效的见解。
Sorry.
对不起。
This is a blog post I want to write one day.
这是我有一天想写的一篇博客文章。
Actually, it’s an airport I want to build.
事实上，这是我想建的机场。
No one does this, right?
没有人这样做，对吗？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
What’s the main obstacle?
主要障碍是什么？
Common sense or lack of common sense?
常识还是缺乏常识？
No, lack of business model and alignment.
不，缺乏商业模式和一致性。
We’ve socialized airports, and we’ve limited their revenue to $5.60 per in-plane passenger.
我们已经将机场社会化，并将其收入限制在每位机上乘客 5.60 美元。
This is why airports trap people in shopping malls, because it’s the only way for them to make any money.
这就是机场将人们困在购物中心的原因，因为这是他们赚钱的唯一途径。
You have to privatize all of that infrastructure.
你必须将所有基础设施私有化。
You have to invent a new revenue model for airports.
你必须为机场发明一种新的收入模式。
I don’t actually know what that is, but it needs to be created.
我实际上不知道那是什么，但它需要被创建。
I think something like VTOL is probably a key enabler, because we need places to build airports that are actually accessible from population centers.
我认为像垂直起降这样的东西可能是一个关键的推动因素，因为我们需要建造可以从人口中心真正到达的机场的地方。
There’s a whole real estate problem to be solved here.
这里有一个完整的房地产问题需要解决。
I think the design aspects of this are the easy part.
我认为设计方面是最容易的部分。
The hard part is, how do we unlock building, and how do we create a revenue model around this when we’ve got this entrenched model that is limited by regulation of literally what you can charge?
困难的部分是，我们如何解锁建设，以及当我们已经有了这种根深蒂固的模式，并且受到严格收费监管的限制时，我们如何围绕这一点创建收入模式？
I think the thin edge of the wedge here is creating supersonic terminals.
我认为这里楔子的薄边正在创造超音速终端。
That’s something I actually hope to work on, is creating a specific terminal that will be around Overture that will allow you to fly through the terminal and optimize for getting to the plane quickly?
这是我真正希望做的事情，是围绕 Overture 创建一个特定的航站楼，让你可以飞过航站楼并优化快速到达飞机吗？
Imagine a guarantee if you’re there 15 minutes before the flight leaves, you’re actually going to make your flight.
想象一下，如果您在航班起飞前 15 分钟到达那里，就可以保证您确实能赶上航班。
Delete all this other buffer time.
删除所有其他缓冲时间。
On airport security
关于机场安检
When I move through security, that is not at supersonic speed.
当我通过安检时，并不是以超音速。
Precheck has gotten more crowded.
预检变得更加拥挤。
Clear won’t actually take my application, and that’s more crowded, too.
Clear实际上不会接受我的申请，而且那里也更拥挤。
How do we make that part of flying quicker?
我们如何使飞行的这一部分更快？
It’s all a farce.
这都是一场闹剧。
I think we know that.
我想我们知道这一点。
Personal story.
个人故事。
The first time I got married, I flew from San Francisco to Seattle, got married outside Seattle, then flew through Heathrow to Rome.
我第一次结婚时，从旧金山飞往西雅图，在西雅图郊外结婚，然后经希思罗飞往罗马。
We’re in Venice, and my wife says, like, “Hey, Blake, could you find the whatever in my purse?” I start rifling through her purse, and I find a box cutter.
我们在威尼斯，我的妻子说，“嘿，布莱克，你能找到我钱包里的东西吗？”我开始翻遍她的钱包，找到了一把美工刀。
The literal weapon used on 9/11 has been brought through SFO, Seattle, and London Heathrow with nobody catching it.
9/11 事件中使用的真正武器已被带到旧金山国际机场、西雅图和伦敦希思罗机场，但没有人抓住它。
We are not actually stopping terrorists.
我们实际上并没有阻止恐怖分子。
What we need is to solve the regulatory problem where nobody’s incentivized to do anything that’s risk on.
我们需要的是解决监管问题，让任何人都没有动力去做任何有风险的事情。
If you’re the bureaucrat that perpetuates a bit more security monstrosity, it’s totally fine.
如果你是一个让安全问题长期存在的官僚，那完全没问题。
If you’re the one that actually takes a bit more risk and then something happens, then that’s career-ending.
如果你确实承担了更多的风险，然后发生了一些事情，那么你的职业生涯就会结束。
I think that is a fundamental problem we need to solve.
我认为这是我们需要解决的一个根本问题。
There is a problem that regulations, particularly anything that’s got a tie to safety, tends to be a one-way door.
存在一个问题，即法规，尤其是与安全相关的任何法规，往往是一扇单向门。
Once it’s put in place, it’s very, very difficult to muster the political will to reverse it.
一旦实施，就很难鼓起政治意愿来扭转它。
That’s a problem we have to solve.
这是我们必须解决的问题。
If we can crack that one, then we can start rolling back a lot of this stuff that everybody knows does nothing.
如果我们能破解这个问题，那么我们就可以开始回滚很多人人都知道无济于事的东西。
You think we should return to the pre-9/11 regime?
您认为我们应该回到 9/11 之前的状态吗？
My friends can meet me at the gate.
我的朋友可以在门口迎接我。
They don’t need a boarding pass.
他们不需要登机牌。
There’s no scanner.
没有扫描仪。
Something like that.
类似的事情。
I think we are actually safer than we were on 9/11 in two important respects.
我认为我们实际上在两个重要方面比 9/11 时更安全。
One is reinforced cockpit doors.
一是加固驾驶舱门。
Those are a good idea.
这些是个好主意。
We should keep those.
我们应该保留那些。
Another is that the passengers know to fight back.
另一个是乘客知道反击。
This effect happened so quickly.
这种效应发生得太快了。
It is why the fourth airplane didn’t make it into the White House on September 11.
这就是为什么第四架飞机没有在 9 月 11 日进入白宫。
The passengers got the word that this was not just a money heist, that they were being converted into a missile.
乘客们得知这不仅仅是一场金钱抢劫，他们正在被改装成导弹。
They knew to fight back, and they won.
他们知道反击，他们赢了。
Those two things did make us meaningfully safer.
这两件事确实让我们变得更加安全。
Not filtering box cutters and preventing us from bringing bottles of water, none of that makes anything safer.
不过滤开箱刀并阻止我们携带瓶装水，这些都不会让任何事情变得更安全。
I think we should have a trusted traveler program.
我认为我们应该有一个值得信赖的旅行者计划。
Anybody who flies as much as I do and has never taken an airplane down should be trusted.
任何像我一样经常飞行并且从未击落过飞机的人都应该值得信任。
This is not complicated.
这并不复杂。
The complex, difficult parts here are about how you do the political transitions.
这里复杂、困难的部分是关于如何进行政治过渡。
That’s the unsolved problem, not airport security.
这是未解决的问题，而不是机场安全问题。
I’ve been to a lot of countries in the world.
我去过世界上很多国家。
I’m sure you have, too.
我相信你也有。
I’ve never seen a country that doesn’t in some way copy the US system.
我从未见过哪个国家不以某种方式复制美国的体系。
Why is there so much implicit regulatory cartelization?
为什么存在如此多的隐性监管卡特尔？
No one is willing to do anything very different.
没有人愿意做任何非常不同的事情。
Oh, it’s not implicit, it’s explicit.
噢，这不是隐含的，而是明确的。
There is international harmonization of security that basically results in the worst rules in any country metastasizing.
国际安全协调基本上导致任何国家转移的最糟糕的规则。
There’s actually a reason for it, which is to support transfer and connecting passengers without having need to reclear security.
这实际上是有原因的，那就是支持转机和转机乘客，而无需重新通过安检。
Whoever has the most obtuse security rules, they tend to spread globally so that passengers can connect and not get rescreened.
无论谁的安全规则最迟钝，它们都倾向于在全球范围内传播，以便乘客可以转机而不需要重新接受检查。
On fixing traffic
关于修复交通
I’m at the United desk.
我在联合航空柜台。
I have some kind of question.
我有一些问题。
There’s only two or three people in front of me, but it takes forever.
我面前只有两三个人，但这需要很长时间。
I notice they’re just talking back and forth to the assistant.
我注意到他们只是和助理来回交谈。
They’re discussing the weather or the future prospects for progress, total factor productivity.
他们正在讨论天气或未来进步的前景、全要素生产率。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I’m frustrated.
我很沮丧。
How can we make that process faster?
我们怎样才能使这个过程更快？
What’s going wrong there?
那里出了什么问题？
The thing I most don’t understand is why it requires so many keystrokes to check into a hotel room.
我最不明白的是为什么需要敲这么多次键盘才能入住酒店房间。
What are they writing?
他们在写什么？
I have the same question.
我有同样的问题。
You run a company which has internal operations, and you send your employees around to hotels.
您经营一家拥有内部运营的公司，并将员工派往酒店。
You must think about systems more generally, how to make them more efficient.
你必须更全面地思考系统，如何提高它们的效率。
What would you do to the rest of the world that maybe you’ve already done at Boom?
你会为世界其他地方做哪些你可能已经在 Boom 做过的事情？
I think there’s something here that is almost at a deeper cultural or almost spiritual level.
我认为这里有一些几乎是更深层次的文化或精神层面的东西。
We live in a world full of things that are radically improvable, and yet we’ve learned to live with most of the problems.
我们生活在一个充满了可以从根本上改进的事物的世界，但我们已经学会了面对大多数问题。
The one that drives me the craziest is actually traffic.
最让我抓狂的其实是交通。
We sit literally more than a working month per year, the average American has been sitting in traffic.
我们每年工作的时间实际上有一个多月，一般美国人都在交通堵塞中。
We all just accept it.
我们都只能接受它。
We don’t really build more roads because we give away road access for no variable cost.
我们并没有真正修建更多的道路，因为我们免费提供道路通道。
They’re always flooded.
他们总是被淹没。
The traffic engineers have this concept they call induced demand, which is basically like if we build more roads, people just drive more, so we guess we shouldn’t build more roads.
交通工程师有一个他们称之为诱导需求的概念，这基本上就像如果我们修建更多的道路，人们就会开车更多，所以我们认为我们不应该修建更多的道路。
I think this is ridiculous.
我认为这很荒谬。
The real problem is a lack of a price system.
真正的问题是缺乏价格体系。
I get flamed on Twitter for this view because I think every road should be a toll road, and then we could actually solve traffic.
我因为这个观点在推特上受到了攻击，因为我认为每条路都应该是收费公路，然后我们才能真正解决交通问题。
The meta point is we are surrounded by things that we’ve accepted that could actually be made way better.
要点是，我们周围都是我们已经接受的事物，而这些事物实际上可以做得更好。
That’s one of the things I hope that this movement can teach the culture is that we should not be satisfied with where we are today, that virtually everything can be made better, and that we should challenge it.
我希望这场运动能够教会文化的一件事是，我们不应该满足于今天的现状，几乎一切都可以变得更好，我们应该挑战它。
Say for traffic, and I agree with you, but the United States is not Singapore.
说到交通，我同意你的观点，但美国不是新加坡。
We have New Jersey.
我们有新泽西州。
There are all sorts of people who have cars with no electronic transponder or whatever device you want to hook to the car, the car is illegal, the car is not registered, the person is in the country illegally, whatever.
有各种各样的人，他们的汽车没有电子应答器或任何你想挂在汽车上的设备，汽车是非法的，汽车没有注册，这个人非法居留在这个国家，等等。
You pile on a bunch of things where there’s no accountability for actually getting the toll paid.
你堆积了一堆东西，却没有人负责实际支付通行费。
We just let those people through and tag who it is we can, or how’s it going to work?
我们只是让这些人通过并标记我们可以帮助的人，或者如何进行？
This seems like a very solvable problem.
这似乎是一个非常可以解决的问题。
You can read license plates, you can mail tickets.
您可以读取车牌，可以邮寄门票。
Like District of Columbia gives me tickets in the mail.
就像哥伦比亚特区通过邮件给我门票一样。
In fact, I pay them, but I don’t have to pay them.
事实上，我付钱给他们，但我不必付钱给他们。
Most people don’t.
大多数人都没有。
I’m going to start mailing tickets to people and see if I get checks.
我将开始向人们邮寄门票，看看是否能收到支票。
You will.
你会。
This is why some people don’t pay them.
这就是为什么有些人不付钱的原因。
If we go to this system, it will be such a massive percentage better that we can then deal with the cheaters.
如果我们使用这个系统，效果会好很多，这样我们就可以对付作弊者了。
I’m sure we can find some way to solve that problem.
我相信我们能找到解决这个问题的方法。
That’s the small part of this.
这只是其中的一小部分。
If I think of District of Columbia, when I get these tickets, there’s some zone that is marked as 25 and I’m driving what I think is a perfectly safe 37.
如果我想到哥伦比亚特区，当我拿到这些罚单时，有一些区域被标记为 25，而我驾驶的是我认为完全安全的 37。
I don’t even see that it’s 25.
我什至没有看到它是25。
I get this weird ticket in the mail and I’m baffled as to what happened.
我收到了这张奇怪的票，我对发生的事情感到困惑。
I just pay it.
我只是付钱而已。
Shouldn’t I have the same concern with tolls that I don’t trust the government in the District and they’re just going to screw me over because I’m from Virginia?
难道我不应该对通行费有同样的担忧吗？我不信任该地区的政府，他们只会因为我来自弗吉尼亚州而把我搞砸？
I don’t in any way vote there.
我无论如何都不会在那里投票。
Do I really want them to have tolling authority over me?
我真的希望他们对我拥有收费权吗？
The real thing is, imagine if we did with food what we’ve done with the roads.
真实的情况是，想象一下如果我们对食物所做的事情就像我们对道路所做的那样。
We pay for the grocery stores with taxes in various ways, and therefore, everybody feels entitled to show up at a grocery store whenever they want, take whatever they want.
我们以各种方式向杂货店缴税，因此，每个人都觉得自己有权随时出现在杂货店，拿走他们想要的任何东西。
There would be a line out the front door.
前门外面会排起长队。
You couldn’t possibly butcher enough cows.
你不可能屠宰足够多的牛。
There would be agricultural engineers and they would talk about induced demand.
会有农业工程师，他们会谈论诱导需求。
It’s like, it doesn’t matter to have more cows.
就像，拥有更多的牛并不重要。
People just keep eating the steak.
人们只是继续吃牛排。
Then we would have this conversation about, how could you possibly charge people for grocery stores?
然后我们会讨论，你怎么可能向人们收取杂货店的费用？
How would you figure out who took what?
你怎么知道谁拿走了什么？
We could sit here and talk about it abstractly, but we all know that’s absurd because there’s a thing called a cash register and pretty soon Amazon will figure out how to delete those and you can still get charged for what you take.
我们可以坐在这里抽象地讨论它，但我们都知道这是荒谬的，因为有一种叫做收银机的东西，很快亚马逊就会弄清楚如何删除它们，而你仍然可以为你拿走的东西付费。
I trust Amazon, and I don’t trust the District of Columbia.
我信任亚马逊，但不信任哥伦比亚特区。
I don’t even trust Maryland, frankly.
坦白说，我什至不信任马里兰州。
On fixing boarding and improving airplane interiors
关于修复登机和改善飞机内饰
How about boarding an airplane?
登机怎么样？
My sense is in Western Europe, people board an airplane more effectively, more quickly, with no loss of value.
我的感觉是，在西欧，人们更有效、更快地登机，而且不会造成任何价值损失。
How can we improve that in the United States?
我们如何在美国改善这一点？
It’s at the intersection of airport design and airplane design.
它处于机场设计和飞机设计的交叉点。
Fundamentally, airplanes need more doors.
从根本上来说，飞机需要更多的舱门。
That would help.
那会有帮助的。
The doors are generally in the wrong quantities and the wrong places.
门的数量和位置通常都是错误的。
The other thing that we need to do, and this is part of why it’s not a solved problem, is we need to fix checked baggage.
我们需要做的另一件事是我们需要修复托运行李，这也是问题尚未解决的部分原因。
Because baggage check is unreliable and slow, we have people carrying onto airplanes things they absolutely do not want to carry.
由于行李托运不可靠且缓慢，我们有人将他们绝对不想携带的东西带上飞机。
If we fix airports such that baggage check is fast and reliable, then we can stop having carry-ons, and we can get on and off airplanes much, much faster than we can today.
如果我们改进机场，使行李检查快速可靠，那么我们就可以不再携带随身行李，并且我们上下飞机的速度将比现在快得多。
That would actually be the biggest win.
这实际上将是最大的胜利。
Imagine an experience where you take your Uber to the airport.
想象一下您乘坐优步前往机场的体验。
The bag that today you would carry on is in your trunk.
今天您要随身携带的包在您的行李箱中。
You step out of the car, someone, maybe even a robot, grabs your bag from the trunk.
你下了车，有人，甚至可能是机器人，从后备箱里抓起你的包。
You don’t see it again.
你不会再看到它了。
After you land, you get a push notification on your phone that says your Uber’s in slot seven A, and by the time you get to your Uber, your bag is back in the trunk.
着陆后，您的手机上会收到一条推送通知，显示您的 Uber 位于 7 号插槽 A，当您到达 Uber 时，您的行李已回到后备箱。
The customer experience is your bag teleports from the trunk of your Uber at your origin to the trunk of your Uber at your destination.
客户体验是您的行李从出发地的 Uber 后备箱传送到目的地的 Uber 后备箱。
That’s how they should work.
这就是他们应该如何工作。
Then you don’t carry on all this stuff and it’s much faster to get on and off airplanes.
这样你就不用携带所有这些东西，上下飞机也会更快。
What else would you change, or maybe I should say, will you change about the interiors of airlines?
你还会改变什么，或者我应该说，你会改变航空公司的内饰吗？
Ooh, we’re cooking something on this that I can’t steal my own thunder on, but the meta insight is designing the interior and the airplane together.
哦，我们正在做一些我不能抢走自己风头的东西，但元洞察力是将内部和飞机一起设计。
I think you get the best results when you’ve got designers that think like engineers and engineers that think like designers, and then just hold a very high bar.
我认为，当设计师像工程师一样思考，工程师像设计师一样思考，然后保持很高的标准时，你会得到最好的结果。
Long before I started Boom, every time I got in an airplane, I would ask myself, “What would this be like if somebody who cared as much as Steve Jobs or Jony Ive had designed it?” It’s a very dangerous question to ask because it makes you start to notice things that you can’t unsee once you’ve seen them.
早在我开始 Boom 之前，每次我坐上飞机时，我都会问自己：“如果像史蒂夫·乔布斯或乔尼·艾维一样关心它的人来设计它，那会是什么样子？”这是一个非常危险的问题，因为它会让你开始注意到一些一旦你看到就无法忽视的东西。
Okay, here it goes.
好的，就这样吧。
If you look above the window seat on basically any airplane today, you will notice there’s a dark spot in the same place in every row.
如果您观察当今几乎所有飞机的靠窗座位上方，您会发现每一排的同一位置都有一个黑点。
This is from where people stand up and they bump their heads and their head schmutz ends up on the underside of the overhead bin — sorry, you can’t unsee that — and nobody ever cleans it.
这是人们站起来的地方，他们撞着头，他们的头脏乱差最终落在头顶行李箱的底部——“抱歉，你无法忽视这一点”——而且从来没有人清理过它。
It’s a one-way door.
这是一扇单向门。
If you care about this stuff, it’s all very solvable.
如果你关心这个问题，那么一切都是可以解决的。
I think there is something that we’ll reveal, I don’t know, maybe a year or two, that is a striking interior that is possible only when you design the airplane and the interior together.
我认为我们会透露一些东西，我不知道，也许一两年，那就是引人注目的内饰，只有当你一起设计飞机和内饰时才有可能实现。
How will your new interiors improve the quality of the food?
您的新内饰将如何提高食品质量？
It will make that possible too, right?
它也将使这成为可能，对吗？
Get there much, much faster.
更快地到达那里。
You can then go to any restaurant you want.
然后你可以去任何你想去的餐馆。
Still say it’s a two-hour flight, you might want a snack.
还是说这是两个小时的飞行，你可能想要吃点零食。
On Emirates, I want to eat the food.
在阿联酋航空，我想吃这里的食物。
It’s probably better than the restaurant I would have instead.
它可能比我去的餐厅更好。
I think this is an airline problem to solve, really.
我认为这确实是航空公司需要解决的问题。
One of the reasons it’s very hard to change the service model onsite airplanes is the service delivery models are actually written into union contracts.
很难改变现场飞机的服务模式的原因之一是服务交付模式实际上已写入工会合同中。
If you remember Virgin America, you could order snacks through the in-flight entertainment screens, and then when Alaska took them, that got undone, and this was because it required a different union contract.
如果你还记得维珍美国航空，你可以通过机上娱乐屏幕订购零食，然后当阿拉斯加拿走它们时，这一切就被取消了，这是因为它需要不同的工会合同。
That part has to be unwound or refigured somehow in order to be able to change the service delivery models, and then ultimately that impacts the passenger experience.
该部分必须以某种方式解开或重新调整，以便能够改变服务提供模式，最终影响乘客体验。
When we deboard planes, are Americans too polite?
当我们下飞机时，美国人太有礼貌了吗？
I much prefer the Italian method, however you would describe it, but you’re just trying to get off the plane.
我更喜欢意大利的方法，无论你如何描述它，但你只是想下飞机。
I think that de facto ends up being more polite.
我认为事实上最终会更加礼貌。
No comment.
没有意见。
On the contrasting cultures of Amazon and Groupon
论亚马逊和 Groupon 的文化差异
When you worked at Amazon with Jason Crawford, by the way, who’s the founder of Roots of Progress, what did you learn about speed?
顺便问一下，当您在亚马逊与 Jason Crawford（Roots of Progress 的创始人）一起工作时，您对速度有什么了解？
I never feel I’m waiting for my Amazon packages.
我从不觉得自己在等待亚马逊包裹。
It’s quite reliable.
这是相当可靠的。
You were there.
你当时就在那里。
What did you internalize from that?
你从中领悟到了什么？
Oh, boy, so much.
哦，孩子，这么多。
I worked at Amazon, and then years later, I worked at Groupon.
我在亚马逊工作，几年后，我在 Groupon 工作。
Both companies said a lot of the same things about vision and culture, but they were actually completely different.
两家公司在愿景和文化方面说了很多相同的话，但实际上却完全不同。
The study in contrast was really incredible.
相比之下，这项研究确实令人难以置信。
It was a study in long-term decision-making versus short-term decision-making.
这是一项关于长期决策与短期决策的研究。
I remember back in — oh, this will date me — it was early 2000s when CDs were still a thing, but they were starting to be on their way out.
我记得早在 2000 年代初，CD 仍然很流行，但它们已经开始过时了。
What would happen is at the end of every quarter, the record labels would panic and be like, “Oh, we’re going to miss the quarter.
会发生的情况是，在每个季度末，唱片公司都会惊慌失措，说：“哦，我们会错过这个季度的。
This is going to be terrible.
这将是非常可怕的。
Quick, let’s stuff the channel with lots of CDs at a discount.” Amazon would run the math, and they would do the discounted cash flow analysis and say, “Okay, great.
快点，让我们在频道里放很多打折的 CD。”亚马逊会进行数学计算，他们会进行贴现现金流分析，然后说：“好吧，太好了。
If we take a whole bunch of discounted CDs, we will actually be able to sell them.
如果我们拿一大堆打折的CD，我们实际上就能卖掉它们。
Our profits will go up.
我们的利润就会上升。
It will make our Q4 look terrible because we’ll have this glut of inventory, but our Q1 will look amazing.
这将使我们的第四季度看起来很糟糕，因为我们的库存过剩，但我们的第一季度看起来会很棒。
The long-term cash flows support this decision,” and so they would do it every time.
长期现金流支持这个决定，”所以他们每次都会这么做。
When I worked at Groupon — I’m looking at a couple of people I worked here at Groupon with that will know this story — the second half of my time there, I ran the email business.
当我在 Groupon 工作时，我正在寻找与我一起在 Groupon 工作过的几个人，他们都知道这个故事，在我工作的后半段时间里，我负责电子邮件业务。
This was the most uninspiring job you could have because I was running the world’s largest spam cannon.
这是你能做的最平淡的工作，因为我正在运行世界上最大的垃圾邮件大炮。
I’m so sorry.
我很抱歉。
I did quit.
我确实放弃了。
I would get a call from the CEO, and it would come every quarter.
我会接到首席执行官的电话，而且每个季度都会打来。
It was like, “The quarter is soft.
就像，“这个季度很软。
Send more email.” I was like, “Dude, that’s why this quarter is soft because we did that last quarter.” He’s like, “I don’t care.
发送更多电子邮件。”我当时想，“伙计，这就是为什么这个季度表现疲软，因为我们上个季度就是这么做的。”他就像是，“我不在乎。
Send the email.
发送电子邮件。
Fix it next quarter.”
下个季度修复它。”
We’d email the same customer three or four times a day.
我们每天会给同一个客户发送三到四次电子邮件。
Then the conversation would be like, “Why is everyone seeing the same deals over and over again?” It’s like, “Yes, because we send more email than we have deals.” It’s a case study in long-term versus short-term decision-making.
然后对话会是这样的：“为什么每个人都一遍又一遍地看到相同的交易？”就像，“是的，因为我们发送的电子邮件比我们的交易还要多。”这是长期与短期决策的案例研究。
The thing Amazon did very, very well is make long-term decisions while being incredibly short-term vigilant.
亚马逊做得非常非常好的一件事是在做出长期决策的同时对短期保持高度警惕。
There was operational excellence, moment-to-moment, day-to-day, while all major decisions were made with a view of the long term, and that is, I think, super important.
每一刻、每一天都有卓越的运营，而所有重大决策都是着眼于长期，我认为这是非常重要的。
How is it they kept that as the company grew much, much larger?
随着公司规模不断壮大，他们是如何保持这一点的呢？
I haven’t been there in 15 years, but it was baked very deeply — jeez, it’s been 20 years now.
我已经 15 年没去过那里了，但它烤得很深 —— 天啊，已经 20 年了。
It’s baked very deeply into the culture.
它已经深深地融入了文化中。
Customer-centricity was so much in the culture that any debate about any decision was resolved through like, “Okay, what’s actually best for customers?” It was the cultural trump card that was handed to every employee for how to win any debate in the company.
在这种文化中，以客户为中心是如此重要，以至于任何关于任何决策的争论都是通过这样的方式解决的：“好吧，什么实际上对客户来说是最好的？”这是交给每位员工的文化王牌，可以帮助他们赢得公司的任何争论。
Given that you worked on Groupon, surely in the shower, at least, you’ve thought about whether we can improve the quality of online reviews.
鉴于您曾在 Groupon 工作过，至少在洗澡时，您肯定考虑过我们是否可以提高在线评论的质量。
Is that hopeless at current margins?
以目前的利润率来看，这是没有希望的吗？
A long time ago, some of them were useful.
很久以前，其中一些是有用的。
Is there anything we can do there, or we just need to write it off?
我们可以在那里做些什么，或者我们只需将其注销即可？
It needs to be reinvented.
它需要重新发明。
I mean, everything is four and a half stars, right?
我的意思是，一切都是四星半，对吧？
I think percentile ranks would be a really useful thing to do.
我认为百分位排名将是一件非常有用的事情。
This is in the top 5%, this is in the bottom 5%, and you get away from the everything’s four and a half stars.
这是前 5% 的，这是后 5% 的，你远离一切的四星半。
Then there’s a very different problem, which is how you get good quality inputs.
然后还有一个非常不同的问题，那就是如何获得高质量的输入。
I don’t know the answer to that because there’s such a financial incentive to stuff the review ballot box.
我不知道这个问题的答案，因为有这样的经济动机来填充审查投票箱。
On the rise, fall, and return of supersonic flight
论超音速飞行的上升、下降和返回
Given that the British and the French did the Concorde SST to begin with, is there now in those places residual interest in supersonic civilian transport, or no, that’s just gone, that tradition?
鉴于英国和法国最初制造了协和式SST，那么现在这些地方对超音速民用运输是否还有剩余兴趣，或者不，这种传统已经消失了？
Oh, no, there’s tremendous latent interest.
哦，不，有巨大的潜在兴趣。
I sense it very strongly in the UK.
我在英国有很强烈的感觉。
Maybe it’s there in France too, but I don’t know because I don’t speak French.
也许法国也有，但我不知道，因为我不会说法语。
No, there is deep, deep British pride in Concorde, and there’s a latent frustration that it went away and didn’t go forward.
不，英国人对协和式飞机怀有深深的自豪感，但也有一种潜在的挫败感，因为它消失了，没有继续前进。
We’ve hosted a whole bunch of retired Concorde pilots at Boom.
我们在 Boom 接待了一大批退休的协和式飞机飞行员。
Actually, a poignant story: The first Concorde pilot to fly the Overture simulator was the guy who did the last commercial Concorde flight, and he flew the simulator with his daughter, who is also a pilot now.
事实上，这是一个令人心酸的故事：第一个驾驶 Overture 模拟器的协和飞机飞行员是最后一次商业协和飞机飞行的人，他和他的女儿一起驾驶模拟器，他的女儿现在也是一名飞行员。
There are a lot of people cheering for a renaissance here.
这里有很多人为复兴欢呼。
How is it they beat the Americans to begin with?
他们一开始是如何击败美国人的？
Because JFK said we’re going to do supersonic transport.
因为肯尼迪说我们要进行超音速运输。
Obviously, the moon thing worked out in some manner, but our SST did not.
显然，月球的事情以某种方式解决了，但我们的海面温度却没有。
I get shot at conferences like this because I think Concorde never should have been done, and Apollo never should have been done.
我在这样的会议上遭到枪击，因为我认为协和飞机根本不应该完成，阿波罗也不应该完成。
Still, we lost, right?
不过，我们还是输了，对吧？
There’s plenty of races that shouldn’t be done where we win.
有很多比赛不应该在我们获胜的地方进行。
I think we actually won that one because it was a dumb contest.
我认为我们实际上赢得了那场比赛，因为这是一场愚蠢的比赛。
Let me unpack this.
让我拆开这个。
In 1969, we landed on the moon, and we also flew Concorde for the first time.
1969年，我们登上了月球，也首次驾驶协和式飞机。
I think if you had wandered around the street, and you found the most pessimistic human anywhere on the planet, no one would have told you that in 2025, you won’t be able to fly a supersonic and you won’t be able to go to the moon.
我想，如果你在街上闲逛，发现地球上最悲观的人，没有人会告诉你，到 2025 年，你将无法驾驶超音速飞机，也无法登上月球。
These things didn’t actually work.
这些东西实际上并没有发挥作用。
What we did is we built really impressive tech demos, not products.
我们所做的是构建令人印象深刻的技术演示，而不是产品。
That’s what happens when you have government-speced innovation.
当政府指定创新时就会发生这种情况。
Concorde was a joint venture between the French and British governments.
协和飞机是法国和英国政府之间的合资企业。
Think about that.
想想看。
Usually, when there’s a joint venture between the French and British, it’s a war.
通常，当法国和英国之间建立合资企业时，就会发生战争。
It’s actually pretty remarkable that airplane ever worked.
飞机能够运转实际上是非常了不起的。
Nobody thought too hard about the economics.
没有人对经济学思考太多。
It pretended to be a commercial airliner, but let’s think about it.
它假装是一架商业客机，但我们想一想。
There are 100 seats on that airplane.
那架飞机上有 100 个座位。
They’re very uncomfortable seats.
它们是非常不舒服的座位。
We have a couple in our office.
我们办公室里有一对夫妇。
The one thing they have that our seats won’t have is an ashtray.
他们有但我们的座位没有的一件事是烟灰缸。
You could think they were out of the back of Ryanair.
你可能会认为他们是从瑞安航空的后面出来的。
Yet, adjusted for inflation, a Concorde fare is $20,000.
然而，根据通货膨胀调整后，协和式飞机的票价为 20,000 美元。
It’s the 1970s.
现在是 20 世纪 70 年代。
There is no large premium international travel market.
没有大型的高端国际旅游市场。
Across 27 years of flying, that thing flew 52% full, half empty, even on the most popular route, Newark to London.
在 27 年的飞行生涯中，即使是在最受欢迎的航线——纽瓦克飞往伦敦——上，这架飞机的载客率也达到了 52%，半空载率也达到了 52%。
That’s why only 14 airplanes ever entered service.
这就是为什么只有 14 架飞机投入使用。
It never made any economic sense.
它从来没有任何经济意义。
Supersonic should have started with a supersonic private jet that could take a handful of well-heeled people coast to coast, with a small airplane, limited range.
超音速应该从一架超音速私人飞机开始，这种飞机可以带着少数富有的人从一个海岸到另一个海岸，而且是一架小型飞机，航程有限。
That would have kicked off a whole S-curve of innovation that would have us all going Mach 5 by now, but we didn’t.
这本来会启动整个 S 型创新曲线，让我们现在都达到 5 马赫的速度，但我们没有。
Instead, what we did is convinced the world that supersonic flight was impractical.
相反，我们所做的让世界相信超音速飞行是不切实际的。
We made it a competition between nations, so we banned supersonic in the US.
我们把它变成了国家之间的竞争，所以我们在美国禁止超音速。
That ban persisted from 1973 to July 6 of this year.
该禁令从1973年一直持续到今年7月6日。
Thank God it’s gone now.
感谢上帝，现在它已经消失了。
Thank you.
谢谢。
We’ve had a half-century of no progress.
我们已经半个世纪没有任何进展了。
I think these things have to be done in a commercially led way such that you don’t create — I’ll dump an Apollo here for a second.
我认为这些事情必须以商业主导的方式完成，这样你就不会创造 —— 我暂时把阿波罗扔在这里。
Incredibly inspiring accomplishment.
令人难以置信的鼓舞人心的成就。
Let’s all acknowledge that.
让我们都承认这一点。
What a triumph of humanity.
这是人类多么伟大的胜利啊。
At the same time, we created a supply chain behind it that was cost-insensitive and a bureaucracy that wanted to perpetuate its own existence.
与此同时，我们在其背后创建了一条对成本不敏感的供应链和一个想要永久存在的官僚机构。
Then 50 years goes by before — thank Elon for realizing that we need to go tackle economics of space if we actually want there to be an enduring human presence in space.
然后 50 年过去了——感谢埃隆认识到，如果我们真的希望人类在太空中持久存在，我们就需要解决太空经济问题。
In 1980, they thought that a route — London — Bahrain — Singapore — was commercially viable.
1980年，他们认为“伦敦”—“巴林”—“新加坡”—“航线”在商业上是可行的。
How could they possibly have thought that?
他们怎么可能会这么想？
Even Singapore then is not extremely wealthy.
即使当时的新加坡也不是非常富裕。
Bahrain has hardly any people.
巴林几乎没有人口。
What was going on in their minds?
他们心里到底在想什么？
Maybe they were smoking something good.
也许他们抽的是好东西。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
National prestige goes a long way on these things.
国家威望在这些事情上有很大帮助。
This is the other thing that’s messed up in this industry is a lot of the airlines are state enterprises.
这是这个行业的另一件混乱的事情，因为很多航空公司都是国有企业。
They’re literally called flag carriers, and so things get done for show.
他们实际上被称为旗舰航空公司，所以做事都是为了做秀。
For show is a really, really bad motivation.
作秀是一个非常非常糟糕的动机。
You can sometimes get the tech demo, but it doesn’t lead to good places.
有时你可以获得技术演示，但它不会带来好的地方。
Now, I’ve read that testing and construction for the Concorde, that it only took a total of six years.
现在，我读到了协和式飞机的测试和建造过程，总共只花了六年时间。
That’s almost impossible to believe today.
这在今天几乎令人难以置信。
I think it was more like 12.
我认为更像是12。
Twelve, yes.
十二，是的。
That’s still a pretty good record.
这仍然是一个相当不错的记录。
Yes, we’ve gotten really slow.
是的，我们变得非常慢。
Think about the conversations around Apple today.
想想今天围绕苹果的对话。
This year’s iPhone is not that different from last year’s iPhone, and everyone’s unhappy.
今年的 iPhone 与去年的 iPhone 并没有什么不同，每个人都不满意。
Yet, does anybody know the year in which Boeing and Airbus last launched an all-new airplane program?
然而，有人知道波音和空客上次推出全新飞机计划是哪一年吗？
2004, 21 years ago.
2004年，21年前。
No new airplanes.
没有新飞机。
We can’t even do the modified ones successfully.
我们甚至无法成功地进行修改。
I think part of what’s happened here is it’s difficult to regulatorily certify an airplane, an all-new one.
我认为这里发生的部分情况是很难对一架全新的飞机进行监管认证。
I think Boeing goes to the doctor and is like, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” The doctor says, “Well, don’t do that anymore.” Boeing said, “Okay.”
我认为波音去看医生时会说：“医生，我这样做的时候会很痛。”医生说：“好吧，别再这样做了。”波音公司说：“好吧。”
Jim McNerney, who was the CEO in mid-2000s, literally said no more moonshots.
2000 年代中期担任首席执行官的吉姆·麦克纳尼 (Jim McNerney) 毫不夸张地说不再进行登月计划。
What he meant is no new products.
他的意思是没有新产品。
It’s unbelievable.
太难以置信了。
This is the company that used to be literally in the moonshot business.
这家公司曾经真正从事登月业务。
Instead, what we have to do is figure out how to make that innovation loop, that iteration loop, much easier to do.
相反，我们要做的是找出如何使创新循环、迭代循环更容易实现。
That’s what I tell my team every day: Don’t plan to certify once, plan to certify repeatedly.
这就是我每天告诉我的团队的话：不要计划认证一次，而是计划多次认证。
Plan to do it iteratively.
计划迭代地进行。
Let’s get with the regulators and figure out how we prove out airplanes much more efficiently than we do today so we can keep changing and innovating and moving much faster.
让我们与监管机构合作，弄清楚如何比现在更有效地证明飞机的性能，以便我们能够不断变革、创新并更快地前进。
What did Ayn Rand understand about supersonic transport that we have forgotten?
安·兰德对超音速运输有哪些我们已经忘记的了解？
Not you haven’t forgotten it, to be clear.
澄清一下，你并不是没有忘记它。
Supersonic is actually mentioned in Galt’s speech once.
超音速实际上在高尔特的演讲中曾经提到过一次。
That’s 1958, right?
那是 1958 年，对吗？
1957, I think.
我想是 1957 年。
’57, yes.
’57，是的。
Yes, 1957.
是的，1957 年。
Yes.
是的。
The passages about the moral conditions and motivation.
关于道德条件和动机的段落。
It basically says you can’t have a socialist create a supersonic airplane.
它基本上说你不能让社会主义者制造超音速飞机。
You need to have a capitalist with real motivation.
你需要有一个真正有动力的资本家。
It’s not literally what it says, but it’s effectively what it says.
这并不是字面意思，但实际上就是它所说的。
The moon program, if I wanted to defend it, I would say, to get the satellite belt up, we needed those advances from the government.
月球计划，如果我想捍卫它，我会说，为了建立卫星带，我们需要政府的这些进步。
You needed capital put up front.
你需要预先投入资金。
It did inspire people.
它确实激励了人们。
The internet, in turn, has relied heavily on the satellite belt.
反过来，互联网也严重依赖卫星带。
Would it really have been better if we hadn’t had a moon program?
如果我们没有登月计划，情况真的会更好吗？
We don’t get to see the counterfactual, right?
我们看不到反事实的情况，对吗？
There would have been more money spent on consumption, right?
花在消费上的钱就会更多吧？
More popcorn, lower taxes.
更多爆米花，更低的税收。
I think we have to look for our inspiration from the areas that developed not like that and understand those histories.
我认为我们必须从那些并非如此发展的领域中寻找灵感并理解那些历史。
From 1903, with the Wright Brothers’ first flight, all the way through the introduction of the 707, we had entrepreneurially driven, commercially driven innovation in aviation.
从 1903 年莱特兄弟的首次飞行开始，一直到 707 的推出，我们在航空领域进行了创业驱动、商业驱动的创新。
Every generation of new commercial airplane was faster than the one that came before it until we literally banned speed as a vector of innovation.
每一代新型商用飞机都比前一代飞机更快，直到我们真正禁止将速度作为创新的载体。
Every generation brought air travel safer to more people, too.
每一代人都为更多的人带来了更安全的航空旅行。
That was happening privately.
那是私下里发生的事情。
Imagine if that had gone differently and the 707 had been a state-led project and DARPA had been involved and blah, blah, blah.
想象一下，如果情况不同，707 是一个国家主导的项目，并且 DARPA 参与其中，等等，等等。
We’d be sitting here asking the same question about jets, except none of us would fly on them.
我们会坐在这里问关于喷气式飞机的同样问题，但我们没有人会乘坐它们。
Why isn’t Boom first building a private plane before the attempt at a commercial airliner?
为什么 Boom 在尝试商用客机之前不先建造一架私人飞机？
Effectively, that was banned, because in 1973, when we put the supersonic ban over land in place, we banned effectively a supersonic private jet because even on a high-end international range Gulfstream, 85% of business jet miles are over land.
实际上，这被禁止了，因为在 1973 年，当我们在陆地上实施超音速禁令时，我们实际上禁止了超音速私人飞机，因为即使在高端国际航线湾流上，85% 的公务机里程也都是在陆地上。
If you can’t fly faster than the 85% use case, there’s no market.
如果你的飞行速度不能超过 85% 的用例，那么就没有市场。
Effectively, we banned minimum viable product.
实际上，我们禁止了最低可行产品。
Our plan at Boom was to do this leap over what would normally be 1.0 and just start with 2.0 and do international flights where the regulatory issue is not an issue.
我们在 Boom 的计划是超越通常的 1.0，从 2.0 开始，并在监管问题不成问题的情况下开展国际航班。
I didn’t anticipate it would be as easy as it actually was to change that rule.
我没想到改变这条规则会像实际上那么容易。
Are you thinking of changing course and doing both or?
您是否正在考虑改变路线并两者兼而有之？
No, we’re pretty far down the path with the airliner.
不，我们距离客机的发展已经很远了。
I hope someone else will do the private jet.
我希望别人能开私人飞机。
If nobody does it, we’ll do it eventually.
如果没有人做，我们最终会做。
I hope somebody else does.
我希望其他人也这样做。
On the practical implications of commercial supersonic flight
商业超音速飞行的实际意义
Now, I live on the East Coast of the US.
现在，我住在美国东海岸。
For me, the worst flight is to go overnight to Reykjavik, Iceland, because it’s too short.
对我来说，最糟糕的航班是连夜飞往冰岛雷克雅未克，因为时间太短。
I’d actually rather fly to Istanbul.
我实际上宁愿飞往伊斯坦布尔。
I’d even rather fly to South Africa, which is an easy flight for me for sleeping.
我什至更愿意飞往南非，这对我来说是一个方便睡觉的航班。
As a customer, am I a problem for your business model?
作为客户，我对你们的商业模式有问题吗？
No, because your overnight flight to Reykjavik turns into actually quite nice daytime flight.
不会，因为飞往雷克雅未克的夜间航班实际上会变成相当不错的白天航班。
If you want to go from the US to Europe, instead of having a too short night of sleep, if you could even sleep on an airplane, you leave in the morning, you get there in the afternoon, and it’s a daytime flight with great WiFi.
如果你想从美国飞往欧洲，与其晚上睡得太短，不如在飞机上睡一觉，早上出发，下午到达，而且是白天的航班，WiFi 信号很好。
I think what will happen in the first wave of supersonic is that the North Atlantic, which today is red-eyes, turns into daytime flights instead, and you save an entire day.
我认为第一波超音速飞行中将会发生的事情是，今天红眼的北大西洋将改为白天飞行，这样你就可以节省一整天的时间。
If you look across the Pacific, you actually save two days on a round trip.
如果你眺望太平洋，实际上可以节省两天的往返时间。
Today, if I go to Tokyo for a Monday morning meeting, I have to leave midday Saturday.
今天，如果我去东京参加周一早上的会议，我就必须在周六中午离开。
I get there end of day Sunday.
我周日结束时到达那里。
Go to a hotel.
去酒店。
I try to sleep.
我试着睡觉。
My alarm goes off the next morning.
第二天早上我的闹钟响了。
I go to my meeting and try not to sleep in my meeting.
我去参加会议并尽量不在会议中睡觉。
Then I can fly back.
然后我就可以飞回来了。
By the way, we have a deal with Japan Airlines.
顺便说一句，我们与日本航空公司有协议。
I did this a bunch of times.
我这样做了很多次。
It takes three calendar days, and you better not make any decisions the rest of the week because the jet lag has really messed us up.
这需要三天的时间，而且你最好不要在本周剩下的时间里做出任何决定，因为时差确实让我们陷入了困境。
Supersonic is totally different.
超音速则完全不同。
You don’t leave Saturday.
星期六你不要离开。
You sleep Saturday night at home.
周六晚上你在家睡觉。
You leave Sunday morning.
你周日早上离开。
An 8:00 a.m.
上午 8:00
departure from SFO arrives at Tokyo 8:00 a.m.
上午 8:00 从 SFO 出发抵达东京
Monday morning Tokyo Time.
东京时间星期一早上。
That’s six hours later, so it’s Sunday afternoon to us, Monday morning in Tokyo, do a whole day of meetings, overnight flight back, sleep on the flight.
六个小时过去了，所以对我们来说这是周日下午，周一早上在东京，参加一整天的会议，连夜乘飞机返回，在飞机上睡觉。
You’re back in town 24 hours after you left, but there’s no jet lag because you never change time zones.
离开后 24 小时您就回到了城镇，但没有时差，因为您永远不会改变时区。
It’s much, much better.
好多了。
Should there be windows on commercial flights crossing the Pacific?
跨越太平洋的商业航班应该有窗户吗？
What are they good for?
它们有什么用？
The only thing good about being in a tube at 60,000 feet is you can look out.
在 60,000 英尺高空的管道中唯一的好处就是你可以向外看。
There’s nothing to see over the Pacific.
太平洋上空没什么可看的。
It’s actually going to be great because at 60,000 feet, you can tell whether the earth is curved.
这实际上会很棒，因为在 60,000 英尺的高度，你可以辨别地球是否是弯曲的。
We’re going to do a flight of flat-earthers, and we’ll be able to settle this.
我们将进行一次地平论飞行，我们将能够解决这个问题。
How is the training for supersonic pilots different?
超音速飞行员的训练有何不同？
Is it much harder?
是不是更难了？
Different at all?
完全不同吗？
It’s a little scary to think.
想想都有点后怕。
There is such a thing as a worst doctor and a worst lawyer, and a worst airline pilot.
有最糟糕的医生、最糟糕的律师和最糟糕的航空公司飞行员这样的事情。
We’re designing an Overture such that you don’t need extraordinary skill to fly this thing.
我们正在设计一款 Overture，这样您就不需要非凡的技能来驾驶它。
The Overture sim, which I’ve spent a bunch of time in, it’s like going from a Blackberry to an iPhone.
我在 Overture sim 上花了很多时间，就像从黑莓手机换到 iPhone 一样。
We’ve deleted all the knobs and switches and buttons and put hardware controls only for the things that are necessary.
我们删除了所有旋钮、开关和按钮，只为必要的部分添加硬件控制。
I think what will be seen as a breakthrough in safety, which is about the pilot-airplane interface, the key thing is how the airplane and the pilot talk to each other in a crisis.
我认为安全方面的突破，即飞行员与飞机的界面，关键是飞机和飞行员在危机中如何相互对话。
It’s very normal to get tunnel vision when alarms are going off, things are not right.
当警报响起时，视野狭窄是很正常的，事情不对劲。
The Overture has forced feedback side sticks.
序曲有强制反馈侧棒。
You get a whole extra sense of what the airplane is doing in addition to what you see and what you can hear.
除了您所看到的和您能听到的之外，您还可以对飞机正在做什么有一个完整的额外了解。
I think this is going to be a big deal.
我认为这将是一件大事。
Can you imagine flying with only one pilot rather than two?
您能想象只有一名飞行员而不是两名飞行员飞行吗？
I think that’s no. I guess I’d do it personally, but in a smaller airplane.
我认为那不是。我想我会亲自做，但是是在一架较小的飞机上。
I don’t think it’s a good idea for airliners.
我认为这对于航空公司来说不是一个好主意。
What happens when the one pilot has to pee?
当一名飞行员必须小便时会发生什么？
Well, the computer.
嗯，电脑。
Yes, but then what happens if that’s the moment something goes wrong?
是的，但是如果此时出现问题会发生什么？
I don’t think single pilot’s actually a good idea, and I don’t think it’ll be a viable transition path to autonomy.
我认为单人飞行员实际上并不是一个好主意，而且我认为这也不是一条可行的自主过渡路径。
On American manufacturing and defense procurement
关于美国制造业和国防采购
There’s so much debate these days about the manufacturing infrastructure of the United States.
如今，关于美国的制造基础设施存在很多争论。
Now, you work with it on a very, very regular basis.
现在，您非常非常定期地使用它。
You rely on it.
你依赖它。
What’s your general sense of where things stand and what we should do about whatever problems we might have?
您对目前的情况以及我们应该如何应对可能遇到的任何问题有何总体感觉？
We could probably talk for hours just about this.
就这个问题我们可能可以聊上几个小时。
It’s in pretty bad shape.
它的状况非常糟糕。
Aerospace and defense is one of the only industries that stayed in the US because it had to for national security reasons, and yet it’s really messed up.
航空航天和国防是唯一留在美国的行业之一，因为出于国家安全原因它不得不这样做，但它确实一团糟。
Here’s a story.
这是一个故事。
We start quoting out of the supply chain a turbine blade for our supersonic engine, and it’s a 3D-printed blade and with a little bit of post-processing on it.
我们开始从供应链中引用超音速发动机的涡轮叶片，它是 3D 打印的叶片，并经过一些后处理。
The quote is, “This is going to be a million dollars for one engine’s worth of blades, and it’s going to take six months to get them.” I was like, “Six months?
引言是：“一台发动机的叶片价值一百万美元，而且需要六个月的时间才能拿到。”我当时想，“六个月？
What’s going on for six months?” It’s like, “You have to wait your turn on the machine.
这六个月发生了什么？”就像，“你必须等待轮到你打开机器。
Then the machine goes.
然后机器就走。
Then that’s in one factory, and then there’s a different factory in a different state where one post-processing step happens, and then there’s another factory in another state where another step happens.”
然后是在一家工厂，然后在不同州的另一家工厂进行一个后处理步骤，然后在另一个州的另一家工厂进行另一步骤。”
It takes six months, and the part spends more time on a truck than on a machine.
这需要六个月的时间，而且零件在卡车上花费的时间比在机器上花费的时间还要多。
I was like, “This is insane.
我当时想，“这太疯狂了。
What does the machine cost?” “$2 million.” “Okay, how long does it really take to do these process steps if you just do them back-to-back?” “24 hours.” “How long does it take to take to get the machine?” “Two weeks.
这台机器要多少钱？” “200万美元。” “好吧，如果你连续执行这些流程步骤，实际上需要多长时间？” “24小时。” “需要多长时间才能拿到机器？” “两周。”
It’s in inventory.”
都在库存里了。”
How do we fix that?
我们该如何解决这个问题？
The most insane innovation in aerospace manufacturing is to do all the process steps under one roof.
航空航天制造领域最疯狂的创新是在同一屋檐下完成所有工艺步骤。
You don’t need any trucks.
你不需要任何卡车。
That’s literally what we’re doing.
这就是我们正在做的事情。
We’re building a factory in Denver that’s going to be raw materials in one side of the building and jet engines out the other side.
我们正在丹佛建造一家工厂，建筑的一侧将生产原材料，另一侧将生产喷气发动机。
The second-order effects of this are tremendous.
其二阶效应是巨大的。
If you tell an engineer to design a turbine blade, and if they get it wrong, it takes six months to get another iteration.
如果您告诉工程师设计涡轮叶片，如果他们出错，则需要六个月的时间才能进行另一次迭代。
They really wring their hands.
他们真的绞尽脑汁。
They move very slowly.
他们移动得很慢。
They’re very concerted.
他们非常一致。
They can’t take any risk.
他们不能冒任何风险。
If you say, “By the way, if you screw it up, you can get a new part in 24 hours,” now there’s a lot of design freedom.
如果你说，“顺便说一句，如果你搞砸了，你可以在 24 小时内得到一个新零件”，现在就有很大的设计自由度。
You can test more ideas, you can move much faster.
你可以测试更多的想法，你可以更快地行动。
You don’t need analysis paralysis.
你不需要分析瘫痪。
That’s what we’re doing.
这就是我们正在做的事情。
As I was going through this learning experience, I was like, “Why is it this way?
当我经历这次学习经历时，我想，“为什么会这样？
It just seems stupid.”
这看起来很愚蠢。”
A meta principle I’ve learned that I would suggest for everybody is when something seems stupid, ask yourself, “What would have to be the case for this action to be smart?” I found by asking that question, occasionally, things actually are dumb, but it’s the minority case.
我学到的一个元原则是，我会向每个人建议，当某件事看起来很愚蠢时，问问自己，“这个行动必须在什么情况下才算明智？”通过问这个问题，我发现有时事情实际上很愚蠢，但这是少数情况。
Usually, there’s something you can reverse engineer, but how the world works from asking that question.
通常，你可以对某些东西进行逆向工程，但是通过提出这个问题来了解世界是如何运转的。
Why would it make sense to have one factory for one process step spread out all over the country?
为什么在全国各地设立一家工厂进行一项工艺步骤是有意义的？
What would cause that?
什么会导致这样的情况呢？
Congress, right?
国会，对吗？
Congress.
国会。
Yes.
是的。
This is a congressionally optimized supply chain because the way you get a defense program to become a program of record is you maximize the number of votes.
这是国会优化的供应链，因为让国防计划成为记录计划的方式就是最大化选票数量。
You put one process step in every congressional district.
您在每个国会选区都设置了一个流程步骤。
By the way, this will be very, very terrible if we actually go to war.
顺便说一句，如果我们真的开战，那将是非常非常可怕的。
How do we fix that systemically?
我们如何系统地解决这个问题？
We’re going to have Congress, no matter what.
无论如何，我们都会有国会。
You and Jennifer Pahlka get together and come up with what kind of plan?
你和詹妮弗·帕尔卡聚在一起想出了什么样的计划？
Nobody wants to be the only one who cuts things in their home district.
没有人愿意成为唯一一个在自己的家乡砍伐东西的人。
I also think about this in the shower.
我也在洗澡的时候思考这个问题。
Maybe I shower too much.
也许是我洗澡太多了。
I think the Newt Gingrich playbook is underrated.
我认为纽特·金里奇的剧本被低估了。
Congress runs together on one platform, and they all agree to be in on something, I think might actually be really important.
国会在同一个平台上共同运作，他们都同意参与某件事，我认为这实际上可能非常重要。
It doesn’t necessarily have to be partisan.
它不一定必须有党派之争。
Imagine if we had a bipartisan campaign for the next Congress, and everyone agreed on a few things that are like, “Hey, we’re going to all be in this together.
想象一下，如果我们为下一届国会进行两党竞选，每个人都同意一些事情，比如，“嘿，我们将一起参与其中。
Maybe we’re going to balance the budget, and maybe we’re going to change defense procurement in some way that it doesn’t fix this effect.”
也许我们会平衡预算，也许我们会以某种无法解决这种影响的方式改变国防采购。”
I don’t know what the exact solution is.
我不知道确切的解决方案是什么。
I think a congressional team all in on the same agenda, because everybody could say, by the way, obviously, we can’t be porking every district.
我认为国会团队都在同一议程上，因为每个人都可以说，顺便说一句，显然，我们不能对每个选区都进行调查。
So long as that’s a district-by-district decision, it gets perpetuated.
只要这是一个逐区的决定，它就会永久存在。
I think there needs to be a team or a theme, and I think this actually could be sold to the public because at a certain level, it’s obvious that it needs to be fixed, and obviously good for America.
我认为需要有一个团队或一个主题，我认为这实际上可以向公众出售，因为在某种程度上，很明显它需要修复，这显然对美国有利。
On learning across domains and reducing the cost of change
关于跨领域学习和降低变革成本
Now, while you’ve been a private pilot since you were an undergraduate, you were not an aerospace person, per se.
现在，虽然您从本科生起就一直是一名私人飞行员，但您本身并不是航空航天人员。
What can you teach us about what you’ve learned for mastering technical subjects pretty quickly, but also reliably?
关于您为快速且可靠地掌握技术科目而学到的知识，您能告诉我们什么吗？
I think we tend to get taught that we go to school and we study something, and then we get a job, and we go deeper in that, and then the way you really win is to become an expert.
我认为我们倾向于被教导我们去学校，我们学习一些东西，然后我们找到一份工作，我们会更深入，然后你真正获胜的方式就是成为专家。
By the way, by the time you become an expert, you’re almost certainly useless because now you’re steeped in the status quo.
顺便说一句，当你成为专家时，你几乎肯定毫无用处，因为现在你沉浸在现状中。
I think there is a massive advantage in switching domains and doing so quickly because it forces a focus on first principles.
我认为快速切换领域有巨大的优势，因为它迫使人们关注首要原则。
If you’re passionate and if you have a good internal sense of when you’re clear versus confused, my experience has been I could actually learn a whole lot pretty quickly.
如果你充满热情，并且如果你对自己何时清晰或困惑有良好的内在感觉，我的经验是我实际上可以很快学到很多东西。
When I was in the first year of Boom, trying to figure out whether this made any sense, I kept a confusion list, and whenever I didn’t understand something, I would write it down.
当我在 Boom 的第一年，试图弄清楚这是否有意义时，我保留了一份混淆清单，每当我不明白的事情时，我都会把它写下来。
My goal was to take one thing off the confusion list every week.
我的目标是每周从混乱清单上删除一件事情。
What actually happened is that list grew without bound, but it was actually a really important skill because I learned how to tell in my own mind when I was clear and when I was confused.
实际发生的情况是，这个列表无限增长，但这实际上是一项非常重要的技能，因为我学会了如何在自己的头脑中分辨什么时候我是清晰的，什么时候我是困惑的。
I was confused a lot, but I could tell.
我很困惑，但我能看出来。
If something turned out it mattered, I could go study it, and I could study it until I actually got my head around it.
如果发现某件事很重要，我可以去研究它，我可以研究它，直到我真正理解它为止。
Then my favorite interview question as I was hiring was, “Teach me something.” You didn’t get hired in early Boom unless you could teach me something.
然后我在招聘时最喜欢的面试问题是“教我一些东西。”在繁荣初期，除非你能教我一些东西，否则你不会被录用。
How do you use LLMs in your current workflow?
您如何在当前的工作流程中使用法学硕士？
Ooh, so many ways, and we’re just starting to discover how powerful they really are.
哦，有很多方法，我们才刚刚开始发现它们到底有多强大。
One thing LLMs are very good at is filling out regulatory paperwork.
法学硕士非常擅长的一件事是填写监管文件。
We can smile and say, that’s great, but actually the second-order effects of this are really important.
我们可以微笑着说，这很好，但实际上它的二阶效应非常重要。
The way airplane certification works historically is you’d have to go produce a very long, say, test plan for how you’re going to prove that your airplane is safe in lightning.
历史上飞机认证的工作方式是，您必须制定一个很长的测试计划，例如，如何证明您的飞机在闪电中是安全的。
This document might stretch on for like 100 pages.
该文档可能长达 100 页左右。
It has to have all the regulatory citations in it.
它必须包含所有监管引文。
You have to hire an engineer who is very happy spending two months writing a 100-page document for lightning strike protection.
你必须聘请一位工程师，他非常乐意花两个月的时间编写一份 100 页的防雷文档。
Then, by the way, if you ever want to change anything, nobody wants to change anything because it means another two months of work writing this document.
然后，顺便说一句，如果您想更改任何内容，没有人愿意更改任何内容，因为这意味着编写此文档还需要两个月的时间。
It turns out, a small prompt and a RAG with all the federal regulatory guidance in it can produce this thing in a few minutes.
事实证明，一个小提示和一个包含所有联邦监管指导的 RAG 可以在几分钟内生成这个东西。
Then, a pretty creative engineer can edit it and fix the hallucinations quickly.
然后，一位非常有创意的工程师可以对其进行编辑并快速修复幻觉。
This is what we’re doing.
这就是我们正在做的事情。
What it allows us to do is go from large armies of turn-the-crank kind of talent to small teams of incredibly creative talent that are no longer change-averse because change is inexpensive.
它让我们能够从庞大的机动人才大军转变为由极具创造力的人才组成的小团队，这些人才不再因为变革成本低廉而厌恶变革。
This is a big deal.
这是一件大事。
Many, many things about what we’re doing at Boom and how we’re doing it are about reducing the cost of change, about reducing the cost and time required for iteration.
关于我们在 Boom 所做的事情以及我们如何做的很多很多事情都是为了降低变更成本，关于减少迭代所需的成本和时间。
LLMs are a really potent weapon for this, along with a few other things like vertical integration and embedding software engineers and hardware teams.
法学硕士是一个非常有力的武器，还有其他一些东西，比如垂直整合和嵌入软件工程师和硬件团队。
What is it you like about the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter?
您喜欢小提琴家安妮-索菲·穆特的哪一点？
She does a beautiful job playing some of my favorite classical music.
她演奏了一些我最喜欢的古典音乐，表现非常出色。
What’s that?
那是什么？
I love Brahms.
我爱勃拉姆斯。
The violin concerto, Beethoven violin concerto.
小提琴协奏曲，贝多芬小提琴协奏曲。
All good stuff.
都是好东西。
Don’t listen to it enough.
还不够听。
On future innovation
关于未来的创新
Last two questions.
最后两个问题。
First, this is October 2025.
首先，这是 2025 年 10 月。
Again, there’s plenty of you out there on YouTube.
再说一遍，YouTube 上有很多人。
If you could just give us an update, of the last six to nine months, what has changed for Boom and the prospects of supersonic commercial flight?
您能否给我们介绍一下过去六到九个月的最新情况，Boom 和超音速商业飞行的前景发生了哪些变化？
I think it’s blown wide open.
我认为它已经大开。
This feels like the year that everything started to work.
这感觉就像是一切开始运转的一年。
In January, we broke the sound barrier.
一月份，我们突破了音障。
February, we did it again.
二月，我们又这么做了。
That’s when we announced the Boomless Cruise.
就在那时，我们宣布了 Boomless Cruise。
That week, so it was February 10, we announced Boomless Cruise.
那一周，也就是 2 月 10 日，我们宣布了 Boomless Cruise。
I flew to DC that night.
那天晚上我飞往华盛顿。
By the time I landed, I had an invitation to the West Wing.
当我落地时，我收到了前往西翼的邀请。
Thursday of that week, the airplane model had made its way into the Oval Office.
那个星期的星期四，飞机模型进入了椭圆形办公室。
By the way, it’s still there, like living rent-free in the Oval Office.
顺便说一句，它仍然在那里，就像住在椭圆形办公室里一样免租。
It was 115 days to repealing the ban on supersonic flight over land via executive order on June 6.
距离6月6日通过行政命令废除陆地超音速飞行禁令已经过去了115天。
The barriers are all removed.
障碍全部消除。
The technology is there.
技术就在那里。
The regulatory environment is there.
监管环境已经有了。
It’s just throttles all the way forward, like let’s go.
它只是一路油门前进，就像我们走吧。
There’s lots of reason to be very optimistic.
我们有很多理由保持乐观。
Final question.
最后一个问题。
What is the next thing you will think about in the shower?
淋浴时您接下来会想到什么？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I think a lot about why problems that seem really obvious, that have in some ways solutions that seem really obvious, don’t get solved.
我想了很多关于为什么那些看起来非常明显的问题，以及在某些方面看起来非常明显的解决方案却没有得到解决。
I think if we could figure that out, we could maybe unlock a lot of innovation.
我认为如果我们能弄清楚这一点，我们也许可以释放很多创新。
I don’t know the answer.
我不知道答案。
Blake Scholl, thank you very much.
布莱克·绍尔，非常感谢你。
Thanks, Tyler.
谢谢，泰勒。
Photo Credit: Jeremi Rebecca
照片来源：杰里米丽贝卡