Tyler and Daniel Gross Talk Talent (Ep. 150)

But most importantly for me, he is my very good friend and also co-author of our new and forthcoming book, called Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners around the World.

但对我来说最重要的是，他是我的好朋友，也是我们即将出版的新书《人才：如何识别世界各地的活力者、创意者和赢家》的合著者。

Daniel, welcome.

丹尼尔，欢迎。

What’s your hypothesis?

你的假设是什么？

There’s also something very not neurotic about getting too worried about, is aspartame good for you, bad for you.

还有一些非常不神经质的事情，就是过度担心，阿斯巴甜对你有好处，对你有害。

Regular Coke, Cherry Coke — just drink it and move on.

普通可乐、樱桃可乐 ——喝完就继续。

There’s a sturdiness there, and maybe, in fact, it is really bad for you, and the people who manage to be very productive while consuming it are spectacularly good.

那里有一种坚固性，事实上，也许这对你来说真的很糟糕，而那些在消耗它的同时设法保持高效的人是非常好的。

It’s like deadlifting on Jupiter — there’s extra gravity.

这就像在木星上硬拉一样——有额外的重力。

Yes, I think it’s an interesting question.

是的，我认为这是一个有趣的问题。

I do wonder how much of what we assume when we think about talent — how much of it is innate versus just environmental?

我确实想知道，当我们考虑人才时，我们的假设有多少是天生的，而不是环境造成的？

But all of that said, I think sometimes in interviews, and when you meet people in general, there’s just a sense of being asleep or awake.

但总而言之，我认为有时在采访中，当你遇到一般人时，只会有一种睡着或醒着的感觉。

Asleep is someone who doesn’t really even have the idea to think about the world as just like, maybe Diet Coke is something really good.

睡着的人甚至没有真正思考这个世界的想法，就像，也许健怡可乐真的是个好东西。

What actually drives that?

到底是什么推动了这一点？

Someone who’s awake has actually had that thought already.

清醒的人其实已经有过这样的想法了。

For me, the rejection of the question would really be the only bad answer, and I think that’s true in a lot of interviews in general.

对我来说，拒绝这个问题确实是唯一糟糕的答案，我认为在很多采访中都是如此。

Like this very conversation we’re having — you can tell if people are having fun with each other’s questions and whatnot, or whether it’s monotonous.

就像我们正在进行的这次对话一样，你可以判断人们是否对彼此的问题或诸如此类的问题感到高​​兴，或者是否单调。

And someone who locks up and freezes when you ask them if maybe Diet Coke is correlated to productivity — which is a bit of a silly question at the end of the day — just the fact that they’re not having fun with it, I think, is something to look for.

当你问他们健怡可乐是否与生产力相关时，他们会锁住并僵住——“归根结底，这是一个有点愚蠢的问题”——“我认为，他们并没有从中获得乐趣，这一事实值得寻找。

A really good one that we can’t do now because we just got started in this conversation, but about three-quarters of the way in, just asking the question “How do you think this conversation’s going?” is a bit off-putting.

这是一个非常好的问题，但我们现在无法做到，因为我们刚刚开始这次对话，但大约进行了四分之三，只是问“你认为这次对话进展如何？”有点令人反感。

It’s a bit funny, and it breaks the stress or the fixed nature of the conversation that isn’t fun.

这有点有趣，它打破了不有趣的谈话的压力或固定性质。

I always like having fun with that one.

我总是喜欢和那个人一起玩。

Another interesting one that I learned from a friend of mine is, do you have any good conspiracy theories that you’re liking lately?

我从一个朋友那里了解到的另一个有趣的事情是，你最近有什么喜欢的好的阴谋论吗？

Which is interesting because it’s unusual, and I find a lot of really good, really productive people are constantly exploring on the fringe and frontiers of all ideas, so you end up with people that have odd theories.

这很有趣，因为它很不寻常，我发现很多非常优秀、非常富有成效的人都在不断探索所有想法的边缘和前沿，所以你最终会遇到那些拥有奇怪理论的人。

Like, “Oh, Jack Ruby — he simply came along and killed Lee Harvey Oswald.” Now, maybe that’s true.

就像，“哦，杰克·鲁比——他只是出现并杀死了李·哈维·奥斯瓦尔德。”现在，也许这是真的。

I’m not an expert on this, but if you’re not irritated or pissed off by that event, I think there’s something wrong with you.

我不是这方面的专家，但如果你没有对那件事感到恼火或生气，我认为你有问题。

It’s a sign you’re taking too many things for granted.

这表明你认为太多事情是理所当然的。

Lee Harvey Oswald was, in some ways, apparently, not a very impressive man, but they let him go back, and they’re like, “Oh, you know .

从某些方面来看，李·哈维·奥斯瓦尔德显然不是一个令人印象深刻的人，但他们让他回去了，他们就像，“哦，你知道。

.

。

.” It’s like you let people try their start-up, and maybe you’ll never hear from them, and all of a sudden, they wake up one day, and it’s, “Oh, my goodness.” That’s a unicorn from the KGB point of view.

”。这就像你让人们尝试他们的初创公司，也许你永远不会收到他们的消息，突然间，他们有一天醒来，然后是，“哦，天哪。”从克格勃的角度来看，这是一只独角兽。

I think there’s a humbling lesson there that you could learn in the opposite direction about the JFK assassination.

我认为这是一个令人羞愧的教训，你可以从相反的方向学习肯尼迪遇刺事件。

You think Jack Ruby just strolled in one day and shot him?

你认为杰克·鲁比有一天走进来并射杀了他吗？

Or do you think there’s something deeper there?

或者你认为还有更深层次的东西？

Before Mark Zuckerberg came along, that phenotype of the hoodie sweatshirt and slightly aspie kid was not the common phenotype.

在马克·扎克伯格出现之前，连帽运动衫和略带阿斯皮孩子的表型并不是常见的表型。

Now, of course, there was a phase — 2013, 2014, 2015 — where everyone started looking for that.

当然，现在有一个阶段——2013年、2014年、2015年——每个人都开始寻找这一点。

But then it hit you again with a very weird-looking person, where Vitalik is of a completely different ilk than Zuck.

但随后你又看到了一个长相非常奇怪的人，Vitalik 与扎克完全不同。

One very much is Julius Caesar, and I think another one — I don’t exactly know how you’d bucket Vitalik — maybe like an early pope.

其中一个很像朱利叶斯·凯撒，我认为另一个是 —— 我不太清楚你会如何看待维塔利克 —— 也许就像早期的教皇一样。

You live in constant paranoia of some type of different market or some type of different person becoming really big and really important.

你生活在某种类型的不同市场或某种类型的不同人变得非常大和非常重要的持续偏执中。

In venture, of course, your errors are errors of omission, not commission.

当然，在冒险中，你的错误是疏忽的错误，而不是犯下的错误。

It’s a good old Warren Buffet phrase.

这是沃伦·巴菲特的一句古老名言。

You can’t miss.

你不能错过。

You’re deeply thinking about dark horses.

您正在深入思考黑马。

The entire reason I even have this idea to share with you about YC and whatnot and the selection and the group consensus mechanic there is because there’s deep paranoia.

我什至有这个想法与你们分享有关 YC 之类的东西以及选择和群体共识机制的全部原因是因为存在深深的偏执。

You have this reflexive effect, where now everyone’s looking for the dark horse.

你有这种反射效应，现在每个人都在寻找黑马。

Does the dark horse actually change?

黑马真的会变吗？

The system gets a bit dynamic in that way.

这样系统就变得有点动态了。

That’s, I think, the big innovation with venture, is that you’re constantly hunting for people that look different, and you’re rewarded to do so much more, I think, than in any other industry.

我认为，风险投资的重大创新在于，你不断地寻找看起来与众不同的人，而且我认为，你会比在任何其他行业做更多的事情，从而获得回报。

You end up learning to appreciate the humility in all of it.

你最终会学会欣赏这一切中的谦逊。

Although we are about to publish a book on this topic, and we think we have something to share with the world, I’m still deep in the Dunning-Kruger collapse in this topic.

尽管我们即将出版一本关于这个主题的书，并且我们认为我们有一些东西可以与世界分享，但我仍然深陷这个主题的邓宁-克鲁格崩溃之中。

I think the main idea in my mind about the book at a deep level of, I think, the impact it could hopefully have is, actually, to reduce and to bring everyone down into the Dunning-Kruger abyss, where we are now, and realize this is actually a much deeper topic than most people pay attention to.

我认为我对这本书的主要想法是，我认为它可能产生的深层影响实际上是减少并让每个人都陷入邓宁-克鲁格深渊，也就是我们现在所处的位置，并意识到这实际上是一个比大多数人关注的更深层次的话题。

You see this time and time again.

你一次又一次地看到这个。

Many Elon companies are this.

很多埃隆公司都是这样的。

He just manages to put the right people doing the right thing.

他只是设法让正确的人做正确的事。

If you were to try to really explain to a five-year-old at a very basic level, why aren’t there more SpaceX’s, I think it comes down to the right people don’t have the right jobs for human progress.

如果你试图从最基本的层面向一个五岁的孩子解释，为什么没有更多的 SpaceX，我认为这归根结底是因为正确的人没有为人类进步提供正确的工作。

Once you start viewing the world through this lens, it’s really hard to unsee it, at least for me.

一旦你开始通过这个镜头观察世界，就很难忽视它，至少对我来说是这样。

He did crazy optimizations — back in the day when this mattered — like writing data that you’re going to access a lot on the exterior side of the disc, so it was a bit easier to access.

他做了疯狂的优化 — 在这很重要的时候 — 就像在光盘的外侧写入您将要访问的大量数据，因此更容易访问。

Anyway, brilliant guy, still works at Google.

不管怎样，聪明的家伙，仍然在谷歌工作。

Amazing software engineer.

了不起的软件工程师。

He told me once, while he was just waiting for code to compile, he would just go through a stack of résumés that Google was hiring.

有一次他告诉我，当他在等待代码编译时，他会浏览一堆谷歌正在招聘的简历。

This was back when Google had maybe 10,000 people.

那是在 Google 大约有 10,000 名员工的时候。

He still had a pulse on the type of people they were bringing in.

他仍然对他们引进的人类型有把握。

You hear stories like this a lot, but very few organizations do it.

您经常听到这样的故事，但很少有组织这样做。

The best organizations tend to do it.

最好的组织往往会这样做。

It really matters.

这真的很重要。

It might matter more — especially in the current market that we’re in — it might matter more than capital, just allocating the right people to the right jobs.

它可能更重要——尤其是在我们所处的当前市场——它可能比资本更重要，只是将合适的人分配到合适的工作。

They might do fine in some jobs where they don’t have much responsibility, but they’re not going to build something for you.

他们可能在一些没有太多责任的工作中做得很好，但他们不会为你建造一些东西。

But if they can articulate some ambition and simply know what you mean when you ask them, I find it’s a very hard question for people to fake: that if they don’t actually have the ambition, their ability to articulate it with the requisite energy and detail and focus just isn’t there.

但如果他们能够表达出一些雄心壮志，并且在你问他们时简单地知道你的意思，我发现这是一个很难让人假装的问题：如果他们实际上没有雄心壮志，那么他们就没有能力以必要的精力、细节和专注来表达它。

Of course, the great problem one faces in an interview is that people can fake their answers to questions.

当然，在面试中面临的最大问题是人们可能会伪造问题的答案。

If you ask them, “Are you conscientious?” Well, you probably care about that, but they’re just going to say yes.

如果你问他们：“你有良心吗？”好吧，你可能关心这一点，但他们只会说“是”。

Who would say no?

谁会说不呢？

Does it mean they’re conscientious?

这是否意味着他们很认真？

Of course not.

当然不是。

One thing that is predictive of it is having a bank of similar experiences and people that you’ve worked with to fall back on.

预测这一点的一件事是拥有大量类似的经历和与你共事过的人可以依靠。

I think it’s pretty important.

我认为这非常重要。

Working with a large number of people that are very different is really helpful because, ultimately, in the interview, a lot of what you’re doing — what anyone’s doing subconsciously and consciously — is “What does this remind me of in good and bad ways?” It’s a very potent system in the brain that you just can’t and won’t turn off.

与大量截然不同的人一起工作确实很有帮助，因为最终，在面试中，你所做的很多事情 ——“任何人潜意识和有意识地做的事情”——都是“这让我想起了什么，无论是好的还是坏的？”这是大脑中一个非常强大的系统，你无法也不会关闭。

A rich bank of experience is important.

丰富的经验很重要。

Then, there’s a base sense of sensitivity people have to perceiving the small micro-expressions someone might have or the way they hold themselves.

然后，人们必须有一种基本的敏感性来感知某人可能有的微小的微表情或他们的举止方式。

I don’t know that everyone takes in reality at that level of resolution, but I think good talent spotters do, consciously or subconsciously.

我不知道每个人是否都能以这样的分辨率看待现实，但我认为优秀的人才发掘者会有意或无意地这样做。

They really see that, and that affords them a much wider canvas to pattern-match on when trying to figure out who that person will be in a particular environment or place.

他们确实看到了这一点，这为他们提供了更广阔的画布，以便在试图找出特定环境或地点的人时进行模式匹配。

Or talk to them about Moby-Dick or whatever movie they might have seen.

或者与他们谈论《白鲸》或任何他们可能看过的电影。

You need to find something that you share with the person and just ask them about it.

您需要找到与此人分享的内容，然后询问他们。

Give them a hypothesis and see what they come up with.

给他们一个假设，看看他们会得出什么结果。

So, for me, I use culture very often.

所以，对我来说，我经常使用文化。

But just get people talking about drama.

但只是让人们谈论戏剧。

I feel you learn a lot.

我感觉你学到了很多东西。

It’s not something they can prepare for.

这不是他们可以准备的。

They can’t really fake it.

他们无法真正伪造它。

If they don’t understand the topic, well, you can switch to something else.

如果他们不明白这个话题，那么，你可以换个话题。

But if you can’t find anything they can understand, you figure, well, maybe they don’t have that much depth or understanding of other people’s characters.

但如果你找不到他们能理解的任何东西，你就会想，好吧，也许他们对其他人的性格没有那么深入或理解。

Any given week in America — and globally, I actually find at this point — there are 10 shows that people are watching, so it does provide a fun common ground that I think is underused.

在美国——以及全球范围内，我实际上发现在这一点上——每周都有 10 个节目可供人们观看，因此它确实提供了一个有趣的共同点，但我认为该共同点尚未得到充分利用。

People come into the interview with all these scripted questions, like what are your greatest weaknesses?

人们在面试时会提出所有这些照本宣科的问题，比如你最大的弱点是什么？

But the idea that it might be better to ask someone about Squid Games, I think, is really underrated.

但我认为，向某人询问 Squid Games 可能会更好的想法确实被低估了。

Sometimes you have to really unpack that because people might not want to share, on first blush, what they want to hide, but confident people will.

有时你必须真正解开这一点，因为乍一看，人们可能不想分享他们想要隐藏的东西，但自信的人会。

You can learn a lot that way.

这样你可以学到很多东西。

Another question you can ask is, instead of trying to actually dig into the weak points of the résumé, just ask what the weak points in the résumé, in their opinion, are, because it really gives you a sense.

你可以问的另一个问题是，不要试图真正挖掘简历的弱点，而只是问他们认为简历中的弱点是什么，因为这确实能让你有一个感觉。

It’s the mirror that that person wants to have.

这是那个人想要拥有的镜子。

I think the actual content on the résumé may not be as interesting.

我认为简历上的实际内容可能没有那么有趣。

There are all sorts of things you can read between the lines.

你可以从字里行间读到各种各样的东西。

For example, a very common thing to look for is a person that has multiple jobs that don’t last long.

例如，一个很常见的事情是寻找一个拥有多份工作但持续时间不长的人。

Obviously there’s something going on there, so you want to hear a good story.

显然那里正在发生一些事情，所以你想听一个好故事。

But broadly, it’s that person’s perception of themselves.

但从广义上讲，这是那个人对自己的看法。

There’s a theory that .

有一个理论认为。

.

。

.

。

I think there’s a book about it that a friend enlightened me to — just the selection of the profile photo on online social media is predictive of some psychometric profiling method.

我想有一本关于这方面的书，一位朋友启发了我——仅仅在线社交媒体上选择个人资料照片就可以预测某种心理测量分析方法。

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the idea itself, I think, makes sense.

我不知道这是否属实，但我认为这个想法本身是有道理的。

There’s something pretty deep just about that alone.

仅就这一点而言，就有一些非常深刻的东西。

To me, that’s why the résumé is interesting.

对我来说，这就是简历有趣的原因。

It’s a self-portrait.

这是一幅自画像。

I think it’s extremely important and definitely in the mega success scenarios — if this was a kind of Gartner two-by-two, you would have high intellect and high power or energy or ambition, pick your word.

我认为这非常重要，而且绝对在巨大的成功场景中 ——如果这是一种 Gartner 的二对二，你就会拥有高智商、高权力、精力或野心，选择你的话。

But if you had to pick, you actually probably need energy because what you want is multiple shots on goal from the individual.

但如果你必须选择，你实际上可能需要能量，因为你想要的是个人多次射门。

It is really difficult, basically impossible .

这真的很难，基本上是不可能的。

.

。

.

。

I have not heard a story of someone never having to course-correct, and all their ideas were right from day one.

我还没有听说过有人永远不需要纠正路线的故事，他们所有的想法从第一天起都是正确的。

They just launched and got there.

他们刚刚发射并到达那里。

For the most part, you try a lot of things.

在大多数情况下，你会尝试很多事情。

You spend most of your day getting negative reinforcement from the system until something starts working.

你一天的大部分时间都在从系统中获得负面强化，直到某些事情开始发挥作用。

The reason most companies fail is, with enough negative reinforcement, the actor stops participating.

大多数公司失败的原因是，如果有足够的负面强化，演员就会停止参与。

What you actually want is someone who has a lot of energy, who’s just going to keep on going.

你真正想要的是一个充满活力、能够继续前进的人。

People, I think, tend to discount that in favor of intellect.

我认为，人们往往会忽视这一点而青睐智力。

But in your world, Tyler, is it any different?

但在你的世界里，泰勒，有什么不同吗？

I could make the case, actually, that in academia, maybe intellect matters much more.

事实上，我可以证明，在学术界，智力也许更重要。

You guys are solving real problems versus us just pounding away at keyboards, and you’re trying to make numbers get bigger.

你们正在解决真正的问题，而我们只是敲击键盘，你们正在努力让数字变得更大。

Doesn’t intellect matter a lot?

智力不是很重要吗？

Then here’s another thing I look for.

然后这是我寻找的另一件事。

I think it’s very important, especially in academia but in many spheres — does that person understand which are the correct hierarchies to be climbing?

我认为这非常重要，尤其是在学术界，但在许多领域 ——这个人是否明白哪些是正确的层次结构？

This may be influenced by my own background as a chess player when I was quite young.

这可能是受我自己年轻时棋手背景的影响。

I knew a lot of super-talented young chess players — just brilliant people — young kids, full of energy to play chess.

我认识很多才华横溢的年轻棋手 ——“都是才华横溢的人”—— 年轻的孩子，充满了下棋的能量。

But they always were just stuck on the notion that winning at chess was the game they should be playing.

但他们始终坚持这样的观念：在国际象棋中获胜才是他们应该玩的游戏。

For Magnus Carlsen, that’s true.

对于马格努斯·卡尔森来说，这是事实。

That’s the game he should have been playing, and he is, still.

这就是他应该玩的游戏，而且他仍然在玩。

But for most of those people, if they stayed in the chess game, their lives are miserable.

但对于大多数人来说，如果他们继续留在棋局中，他们的生活就会很悲惨。

They’re now old.

他们现在老了。

They don’t have health insurance.

他们没有健康保险。

They’re not top players anymore.

他们不再是顶级球员了。

Their lives are wrecked, so you can have durability and energy at the wrong thing.

他们的生活被毁了，所以你可以在错误的事情上保持耐心和精力。

The people who can understand this is the right path to get to some higher point where that higher point actually makes sense — I like to see if a person has that.

能理解这一点的人才是到达更高点的正确道路，而那个更高点实际上是有意义的 —— 我喜欢看看一个人是否有这样的能力。

Also getting them talking about drama, you get a sense of how they organize hierarchies of status or achievement in their minds.

通过让他们谈论戏剧，你可以了解他们如何在头脑中组织地位或成就的等级制度。

Those would be my top things.

这些将是我最重要的事情。

Along with smarts, energy durability, do they understand the hierarchies they should be climbing?

除了聪明、能源耐用之外，他们是否了解他们应该攀登的等级制度？

We’ve managed to create a collection of photons that we’re projecting from screens into people’s phobias, that manage to get them to ignore their most basic evolutionary instincts and just be in flow until they pass out.

我们成功地创建了一系列光子，将其从屏幕投射到人们的恐惧症中，成功地让他们忽视最基本的进化本能，只是继续流动，直到昏倒。

Obviously, that is bad, but they deserve a lot of respect.

显然，这很糟糕，但他们值得尊重。

I think a lot about this whole idea of gamification.

我对游戏化的整个想法思考了很多。

It sounds childish and silly, but if we take that as a given, that there are these pieces of software that people really yearn to use .

这听起来幼稚又愚蠢，但如果我们以此为前提的话，就会发现人们确实渴望使用这些软件。

.

。

.

。

If I told you, in abstract, I have this alien technology, and no drugs are required, but it’s just a thing on your computer, and people really want to use it, and when they’re not using it, they’re just thinking about using it.

如果我告诉你，抽象地说，我有这个外星技术，不需要药物，但它只是你电脑上的一个东西，人们真的想使用它，当他们不使用它时，他们只是想使用它。

You’d say, “Well, that’s impossible.

你会说：“嗯，那是不可能的。

You need a drug for that.” And I say, “No, it’s called video games.”

为此你需要一种药物。”我说：“不，这叫电子游戏。”

Can and how would you use that same type of thing in order to make yourself more productive, in order to make productivity software more fun?

您可以以及如何使用相同类型的东西来提高自己的工作效率，从而使生产力软件变得更有趣？

I think it’s very underutilized.

我认为它的利用率非常低。

It’s a thought everyone might have but no one really acts on, and it all comes back to talent at the end of the day.

这是每个人都可能有的想法，但没有人真正付诸行动，而这一切最终都会回到天赋上。

Ask, why isn’t Gmail more fun?

问一下，为什么 Gmail 不更有趣呢？

Why doesn’t Gmail help you accomplish your goals?

为什么 Gmail 不能帮助您实现目标？

Not the simple stupid goals you have for the afternoon of just clear out the inbox, but your actual goals in life.

不是你下午清空收件箱的简单愚蠢目标，而是你生活中的实际目标。

The things you actually want to do.

你真正想做的事情。

Write a book with Tyler, try to have a little bit more fun in every day.

和泰勒一起写一本书，尝试让每一天都多一点乐趣。

Why isn’t Gmail helping you do that?

为什么 Gmail 不帮助您做到这一点？

I think a lot about it.

我想了很多。

At the end of the day, you might think it comes down to, well, this, that, profit, incentive.

归根结底，你可能会认为这归结为，嗯，这个，那个，利润，激励。

A lot of it comes down to talent, and I think game designers are very underrated people in that sense.

这很大程度上取决于天赋，我认为从这个意义上说，游戏设计师是被非常低估的人。

By the way, a small sidebar here: software engineers from the gaming industry are extremely underrated, and there’s a nice thread on the internet the other day, about how, effectively, the entire Starlink team who’s building SpaceX’s internet network are gaming engineers.

顺便说一句，这里有一个小侧边栏：来自游戏行业的软件工程师被严重低估了，前几天互联网上有一个很好的帖子，关于如何有效地构建 SpaceX 互联网网络的整个 Starlink 团队都是游戏工程师。

I think that whole corner of the world is really overlooked by adults who view gaming as somewhat of a pejorative.

我认为世界的整个角落都被那些认为游戏带有贬义的成年人所忽视。

But it’s a very powerful sphere of human creativity, and I think more of it needs to be brought into day-to-day life.

但这是人类创造力的一个非常强大的领域，我认为需要将更多的它带入日常生活中。

By the way, just in general, when I think about gaming and fun, more of that needs to be brought into day-to-day life.

顺便说一句，总的来说，当我想到游戏和乐趣时，需要将更多的东西带入日常生活中。

There should be a Michelin guide for having fun.

应该有一份米其林指南才能玩得开心。

What are the best ways to have fun?

获得乐趣的最佳方式是什么？

Why do ad companies keep on making their products worse over time?

为什么广告公司随着时间的推移不断让他们的产品变得更糟？

Why that is the case, we’ll get to in a minute, but ad companies obviously end up focusing on revenue, which comes from engagement, which comes from eyeballs.

为什么会出现这种情况，我们稍后会解释，但广告公司显然最终会关注收入，收入来自参与度，来自眼球。

They optimize for eyeballs, and I think you’re asking the question, “Okay, why don’t they optimize for enjoyment and eyeballs in the long term over the short term?”

他们针对眼球进行优化，我想你是在问这个问题：“好吧，为什么他们不针对短期的长期享受和眼球进行优化呢？”

Companies just don’t know how to do that unless they’re founder-led.

除非由创始人领导，否则公司就不知道如何做到这一点。

We ask why, again, unpack that.

我们再次问为什么要拆开它。

I think it’s something about, actually, the founder might be the only person that has permission to focus on the long term, even while in the short term it might hurt metrics or revenue or whatnot.

我认为实际上，创始人可能是唯一有权专注于长期发展的人，即使在短期内这可能会损害指标或收入或其他什么。

And they end up hiring executives that just don’t feel they have permission to question the basics.

他们最终雇用的高管只是觉得自己无权质疑基本知识。

You end up with this result where it’s actually very good for start-ups that large companies end up becoming these autonomous planes that fly until they run out of fuel and slowly glide down and crash into the ocean, which is totally what is happening today with Google Search or Amazon search.

你最终会得到这样的结果，这对初创企业来说实际上是非常好的，因为大公司最终会成为这些自动驾驶飞机，它们会一直飞行，直到耗尽燃料，然后慢慢滑翔并坠入海洋，这完全是今天谷歌搜索或亚马逊搜索所发生的情况。

These products are impossible to use.

这些产品是无法使用的。

Everyone’s having the same thought, that they’re impossible to use.

每个人都有同样的想法，他们无法使用。

Try to buy an iPhone charger on Amazon.

尝试在亚马逊上购买 iPhone 充电器。

It’s like walking through a Shenzhen flea market, and everyone has the same thought that that’s crazy.

就像走在深圳的跳蚤市场一样，每个人都会有同样的想法：这太疯狂了。

Jeff Bezos stopped answering his emails because he’s focused on his Blue Origin mailbox.

杰夫·贝佐斯不再回复电子邮件，因为他的注意力集中在他的蓝色起源邮箱上。

So it’s just going to continue to get worse until some young start-up will get started and say, “We’re doing better products search.” And they’ll get created, and the cycle will restart, and the founder of that company will become super successful.

因此，情况只会继续变得更糟，直到一些年轻的初创公司开始说：“我们正在做更好的产品搜索。”他们将被创建，循环将重新开始，该公司的创始人将变得超级成功。

Then, 50 years from now, they’ll work on their space company, and that company will fail.

然后，50 年后，他们将致力于自己的太空公司，而该公司将会失败。

But anyway, we do these cycles over and over again.

但无论如何，我们会一遍又一遍地进行这些循环。

I don’t know if there’s any historical examples of this with the East India Trading Company, but companies without founders become like this.

我不知道历史上东印度贸易公司有没有这样的例子，但没有创始人的公司就会变成这样。

It’s like a toy for kids or something, and the battery pack is removed, and it’s slowly becoming more and more decrepit over time.

它就像一个小孩子的玩具什么的，电池组被拆掉了，随着时间的推移它会慢慢变得越来越破旧。

It’s a great question to ask, and I’m trying to think now, are there any examples of businesses in corporation history that have been reborn without the founder and have done something to really threaten their profits in the hope of long-term success?

这是一个很好的问题，我现在正在思考，公司历史上是否有一些企业在没有创始人的情况下重生的例子，并且为了长期成功而做了一些真正威胁其利润的事情？

Everyone talks about IBM, but I don’t know, maybe in its restructuring days.

每个人都在谈论IBM，但我不知道，也许在它重组的时候。

If there was a risky move ever endeavored by a non-founder CEO, that’d be a good question.

如果非创始人首席执行官曾经尝试过冒险的举动，那将是一个很好的问题。

The issue you have with crypto is that you still have those people, but they’re clouded by maybe two-orders-of-magnitude more people that are just in it for a quick buck.

加密货币面临的问题是，你仍然有这些人，但他们被可能多两个数量级的人所蒙蔽，这些人只是为了快速赚钱。

I don’t exactly understand why, but the human psyche, as far as I can tell, really gets confused and degraded when it comes to making money fast.

我不太明白为什么，但据我所知，当谈到快速赚钱时，人类的心理确实会变得混乱和堕落。

To some extent, I think this is why we regulate lotteries and gambling.

在某种程度上，我认为这就是我们监管彩票和赌博的原因。

It’s because the human brain of the average person gets really confused by this thing.

这是因为普通人的大脑对这个东西感到非常困惑。

Maybe a better way of saying it is, the average scammer is much more intelligent than the average customer in these dynamics.

也许更好的说法是，在这些动态中，普通诈骗者比普通客户聪明得多。

And so you end up with these odd effects where you get a lot of people that are just in it for a quick buck and that person .

因此，最终会出现这些奇怪的效果，很多人只是为了快速赚钱而加入其中。

.

。

.

。

By the way, a lot of people have this pejorative view of crypto, like it’s a bunch of people in it for a quick buck, backed by maybe a hundred Vitaliks — really brilliant engineers that are just trying to make something work.

顺便说一句，很多人对加密货币持有贬义的看法，就好像它是一群人为了快速赚钱而参与其中，并得到了大约一百个 Vitaliks  的支持——真正才华横溢的工程师，只是试图让某些东西发挥作用。

I take a different view, which is, I respect that energy.

我持不同的观点，那就是，我尊重这种能量。

It’s a mercantile energy someone can have of just effectively wanting to participate in a Ponzi scheme.

这是一种只要想参与庞氏骗局就可以拥有的商业能量。

It’s not a very productive use of their talent, but they have something deep there.

这并不是对他们的才能的有效利用，但他们有一些深厚的东西。

I’d say you still have the bedrock of curious people that you had, say, in the early internet days.

我想说的是，你仍然拥有早期互联网时代那样好奇的人们的基石。

But you have this giant icing layer, this molasses of hustlers — the people that were previously trying to flip homes during the 2008 housing boom.

但你会看到这个巨大的糖衣层，这些骗子的糖蜜——这些人之前在 2008 年房地产繁荣期间试图炒房。

In that sense, it is actually very different, and you can take your spoon and go all the way through the icing and just hit the core part of the cake, and it’d still be fine.

从这个意义上说，它实际上是非常不同的，你可以拿着你的勺子一路穿过糖衣，只碰到蛋糕的核心部分，仍然没问题。

But I think the icing part is full of air, as whipped cream usually is.

但我认为糖霜部分充满了空气，就像生奶油通常一样。

I will say this: One thing going on for America — and I don’t know how much of it is formed once you are in California drinking the whatever, lithium we have in our water; I don’t know how much of this is formed by the environment — but there is something special about the top American talent, in particular, that’s extremely rare to find anywhere else in the world, which is a sense of aesthetic and taste.

我会这样说：美国正在发生一件事——我不知道当你在加利福尼亚州饮用我们水中的锂时，会形成多少锂；我不知道这其中有多少是环境造成的——但是美国的顶尖人才有一种特殊的东西，尤其是在世界其他地方极为罕见的东西，那就是审美感和品味。

You could really meet the best software engineers in Moldova, in Ukraine, in Israel, in China, and they’re not going to have the same degree of taste and finesse that software engineers out here in California will have, or New York or whatnot.

你真的可以在摩尔多瓦、乌克兰、以色列、中国遇到最好的软件工程师，但他们不会拥有加州、纽约或其他地方的软件工程师那样的品味和技巧。

I would like to believe it’s a uniquely American thing that you get either by being born here or coming here.

我愿意相信这是美国独有的东西，无论是出生在这里还是来到这里。

And I think it exists in some other areas of science and might explain a little bit why all the breakthroughs and discoveries seem to happen predominantly in the United States, and a lot of the fast follows seem to happen in China.

我认为它存在于其他一些科学领域，并且可以解释为什么所有突破和发现似乎主要发生在美国，而许多快速跟进似乎发生在中国。

But there’s something about aesthetics, and I think, when looking at founders, actually, that matters quite a bit.

但美学是有一定道理的，我认为，在审视创始人时，实际上，这非常重要。

I learn a lot by the quality of the home page of a very early-stage start-up because that is signaling to me that that person understands that looking good is important and knows how to make something look good.

我从一家非常早期的初创公司的主页质量中学到了很多东西，因为这向我发出信号，表明该人明白看起来不错很重要，并且知道如何使某些东西看起来不错。

That’s a huge, huge difference.

这是一个巨大的差异。

The actual IQ — if you had to give me an algorithm, and you had to optimize it and whatnot, and you had people participate from every single country in the world — sure, you’d see some differences.

实际的智商 —— 如果你必须给我一个算法，你必须优化它等等，并且让世界上每个国家的人参与 —— 当然，你会看到一些差异。

Maybe some countries would be higher up, some lower, but I don’t think the bands would be that large.

也许有些国家的排名会更高，有些国家的排名会更低，但我认为范围不会那么大。

The difference on taste and design, the US would have a giant leapfrog.

品味和设计上的差异，美国将会有一个巨大的跨越。

You’re just getting information and synthesizing it.

你只是获取信息并综合它。

That was a lot of the process of writing this book with you.

这就是与您一起撰写本书的大部分过程。

It’s very easy to get access to you.

很容易联系到您。

I think it’s a great blessing for you that the internet exists.

我认为互联网的存在对你来说是莫大的祝福。

You are probably in the top decile of people taking advantage of the internet.

您可能属于利用互联网的前十分之一的人。

There was one study we talked about in the book.

我们在书中谈到了一项研究。

They looked at the CEOs of top Swedish companies.

他们考察了瑞典顶级公司的首席执行官。

Now, to be clear, these are not necessarily founders, but they’re CEOs.

现在，需要明确的是，这些人不一定是创始人，但他们是首席执行官。

Their IQs are at the 83rd percentile, which means ahead of 83 percent of the rest of the Swedish population, on average.

他们的智商达到 83%，这意味着平均领先于瑞典其他人口 83%。

Now, that’s pretty good.

现在，这很好。

That’s smarter than average — 50 percent would be average — but it’s not 99 percent.

这比平均水平更聪明——50% 就是平均水平——但不是 99%。

If you had asked me before the research, I would’ve said, “Well, I think that number is going to come in somewhere around 95 percent.

如果你在研究之前问我，我会说：“嗯，我认为这个数字会在 95% 左右。

They’re just going to be much smarter than other Swedes.” It’s 83 percent, and if you take smaller companies, the number gets lower yet.

他们只会比其他瑞典人聪明得多。”这个比例是 83%，如果你考虑规模较小的公司，这个数字还会更低。

That’s caused me to decrease the weight I put on IQ or smarts.

这导致我降低了对智商或智慧的重视。

Conscientiousness I view as a bit more of a mixed blessing.

我认为责任心是一种喜忧参半的东西。

Clearly, for many jobs — I suppose most jobs — you just outright want conscientiousness.

显然，对于许多工作 ——我想大多数工作 —— 你只是完全想要尽责性。

It’s positively correlated with wages.

与工资呈正相关。

But for people who are more creative achievers — like the Diet Coke habit, it’s not entirely conscientious.

但对于那些更有创造力的成功者——比如喝健怡可乐的人来说，这并不完全是尽责的。

Maybe you want that they still throw their cans away where they ought to go.

也许你希望他们仍然把罐头扔到他们应该去的地方。

But people can be conscientious about the wrong things.

但人们可能会认真对待错误的事情。

Like, “Oh, I can’t work late tonight.

就像，“哦，我今晚不能工作到很晚。

I have to get home and feed the cat.” Well, if you need to feed the cat, I get that, but it means you haven’t arranged things in a way we are understanding what are the correct hierarchies for applying your conscientiousness.

我得回家喂猫了。”好吧，如果你需要喂猫，我明白，但这意味着你没有以我们理解的正确的层次结构来安排事情，以发挥你的责任心。

That kind of insight I hadn’t really thought through well enough.

这种洞察力我还没有真正考虑清楚。

Those would be a few examples.

这些只是一些例子。

That said, for most jobs, you want it in some kind of check, but there’s a whole host of jobs where neuroticism is just a positive.

也就是说，对于大多数工作来说，你都希望它受到某种形式的检查，但也有很多工作中，神经质只是一种积极的因素。

Say you want someone who works in a nonprofit, and in essence, their job is to go out and complain about social injustice.

假设你想要一个在非营利组织工作的人，从本质上讲，他们的工作就是出去抱怨社会不公正。

They’re going to be underpaid.

他们的工资将会偏低。

That person’s probably going to be pretty neurotic.

那个人可能会非常神经质。

They probably need to be.

他们可能需要这样做。

They’re underpaid.

他们的工资过低。

They’re satisfying their neuroticism.

他们正在满足自己的神经质。

Let’s run with that, thinking about how the context matters, but don’t consider it an unalloyed negative, would be my key point there.

让我们继续讨论，思考背景如何重要，但不要将其视为纯粹的负面因素，这将是我的关键点。

It does seem like, at least now, from where we sit, the winds of COVID have slowed a little bit, but let’s assume remote work is here to stay.

至少现在，从我们所处的位置来看，新冠疫情的风确实已经放缓了一点，但我们假设远程工作将会持续下去。

Let’s buy that narrative for a moment.

让我们暂时接受这个叙述。

Does that change how you think of what to look for in interviews at all?

这是否会改变您对在面试中寻找什么的看法？

Just to think through, when you’ve discovered one of those people, maybe it’s a bit like being in confession with the priest, where you don’t see the priest and the priest doesn’t see you.

想一想，当你发现了其中一个人时，也许这有点像向牧师忏悔，你看不到牧师，牧师也看不到你。

Therapist’s couch — you don’t look the therapist straight in the eye in a lot of cases.

治疗师的沙发 ——在很多情况下，你不会直视治疗师的眼睛。

That sometimes fosters more openness.

这有时会促进更加开放。

To realize that the distance of the medium can be your friend.

意识到媒介的距离可以成为你的朋友。

You also learn just how much some people — and a lot of them are truly talented — but they rely so much on the physical presence of their body to generate charisma.

你还会了解到有多少人 ——其中很多人确实很有才华—— 但他们非常依赖自己身体的存在来产生魅力。

That is itself a valuable skill, but I’ve learned how much I used to confuse that skill with skill in general, and it’s quite different.

这本身就是一项有价值的技能，但我已经了解到我过去常常将该技能与一般技能混淆，这是完全不同的。

These people can’t do that over Zoom.

这些人无法通过 Zoom 做到这一点。

They just have to say something that’s pretty good, and they’re not all that great at it.

他们只需要说一些很好的话，但他们并不擅长。

That’s a big thing I’ve learned, how to think better about charisma.

这是我学到的一件大事，如何更好地思考魅力。

The approach I think you don’t like — and I agree with you on this — is when you read a book and it says, “To be charismatic, smile.

我认为你不喜欢的方法是当你读一本书时，它说：“要想有魅力，就要微笑。

Make eye contact.” The actual charismatic people I know often don’t do those things.

进行眼神交流。”我认识的真正有魅力的人通常不会做这些事情。

They have their own weird setup which defies description and indeed is weird.

他们有自己奇怪的设置，无法描述，而且确实很奇怪。

The weirdness makes them charismatic.

这种怪异使他们具有魅力。

Someone who tried to follow all those, I suspect, would only clock in at like a 6.5 on charisma.

我怀疑，如果有人试图遵循所有这些，他的魅力只能得到 6.5 分。

They’d be fine, but you wouldn’t actually be drawn to them if you had pretty fussy standards for charisma.

它们很好，但如果你对魅力有相当挑剔的标准，你实际上不会被它们吸引。

What do you think?

你怎么认为？

I think a lot of people — certainly my parents — viewed TV as a pejorative.

我认为很多人——当然是我的父母——都认为电视是一种贬义。

But to the extent that you can really grow up today on YouTube, watching the most charismatic people at all times — that’s got to have somewhat of a positive effect if you can intelligently osmose, not exactly copy, but emulate what they’re doing.

但如果你今天能在 YouTube 上真正成长，随时观看最具魅力的人，那么如果你能够明智地渗透，而不是完全复制，而是模仿他们所做的事情，那么这一定会产生一定的积极影响。

You could say, there are other numbers you could optimize for.

您可能会说，还有其他数字可以优化。

You could try to optimize for the number of hours you sleep.

您可以尝试优化睡眠时间。

The challenge with that is the effort involved in that.

挑战在于其中所涉及的努力。

If you really wanted to sleep perfectly every night, it’s not about difficulty in pushing through, which is what high achievers always want to do.

如果你真的想每晚睡个好觉，那么问题不在于难以克服，而这正是高成就者一直想做的事情。

It’s a bit more about relaxing and taking it easy.

更多的是放松和放松。

With running and cycling and swimming, you end up in these dynamics where you have these high achievers at the highest level, much higher than me.

通过跑步、骑自行车和游泳，你最终会处于这些动态中，这些高成就者处于最高水平，比我高得多。

The main thing coaches do to these people is slow them down, not accelerate them because they really get pleasure out of just persevering and pushing through.

教练对这些人所做的主要事情是放慢他们的速度，而不是加速他们的速度，因为他们真的能从坚持和坚持中获得乐趣。

I like that.

我喜欢这样。

For me and for a lot of other folks, there’s this idea — like your idea earlier that you can learn a lot about how to find good personalities by reading plays — you can learn a lot about mental fortitude by just putting yourself through a physically demanding experience and pushing through.

对于我和许多其他人来说，有这样一个想法 ——就像你之前的想法一样，你可以通过阅读戏剧学到很多关于如何找到良好性格的知识 ——你可以通过让自己经历对身体要求很高的经历并坚持下去，学到很多关于精神上的毅力。

I think it’s a very helpful thing to do.

我认为这是一件非常有帮助的事情。

The correct amount — a lot of athletes overtrain — but once a week, really putting yourself in a physically demanding situation seems to be physically, obviously, very healthy.

正确的量——“很多运动员过度训练”——“但每周一次，真正让自己处于对身体要求很高的环境中，显然是非常健康的。

But psychologically, it’s good to know that you can push through.

但从心理上来说，知道自己能够坚持下去是件好事。

You have this different emphasis, and it also relates to your interest in contests of endurance, which have a kind of competitive element to them.

你们有这种不同的侧重点，这也与您对耐力比赛的兴趣有关，这对他们来说有一种竞争的元素。

I have obsessive desires to collect all this information, but there’s not really a benchmark for it.

我非常渴望收集所有这些信息，但并没有真正的基准。

I have no idea how many books I’ve read.

我不知道自己读了多少本书。

It’s not really compared to how much some other person has read.

它并没有真正与其他人读过的内容进行比较。

It’s just this obsession.

只是这种痴迷。

This competitiveness-versus-obsessiveness distinction is one thing that strikes me, not quite a disagreement, but a difference in emphasis.

这种竞争性与强迫性的区别让我印象深刻，这并不是完全的分歧，而是侧重点的不同。

I think, given what you do — venture capital — you should have the emphasis you have, to be clear.

我认为，考虑到你所做的事情——风险投资——你应该明确自己的重点。

Here’s a question for you, maybe to find another way we disagree.

这是一个问题给你，也许是为了找到我们不同意的另一种方式。

If you have to fill the pie chart, if you have to award points in terms of, in talent, what matters most — you have three categories.

如果你必须填写饼图，如果你必须根据人才、最重要的方面来奖励分数 ——你有三个类别。

You have nature.

你有本性。

You have nurture, say, the first six years, seven years or so.

比如，你有前六年、前七年左右的培养时间。

Then you have environment, meaning not the way your parents treat you, but just the food you eat and the air that you breathe.

然后你就有了环境，不是指你父母对待你的方式，而是你吃的食物和你呼吸的空气。

Tell me how the pie chart looks between those three buckets.

告诉我这三个桶之间的饼图是什么样子的。

And I put a great deal of weight on how old you were when you first started to try to do something in some area.

我非常重视你第一次开始尝试在某个领域做某事时的年龄。

You don’t even have to have succeeded, but you tried at something.

你甚至不必成功，但你尝试过某件事。

If you tried at something at 14, to me, that’s a big plus.

如果你在 14 岁时尝试做某事，对我来说，这是一个很大的优势。

If you first tried at something later on, again, it would depend on the context, but at least, I want to start thinking about why it took the person so long.

如果你稍后再一次尝试某件事，这将取决于上下文，但至少，我想开始思考为什么这个人花了这么长时间。

What you’ve inherited, quality of parenting, but I don’t think it ends at six.

你继承了养育子女的品质，但我不认为它会在六点结束。

I think those years, 12 to 16, give or take, I really put a great deal of stress on.

我想那些年，12岁到16岁，无论给予还是接受，我真的承受了很大的压力。

I don’t know that we disagree on that, but that would be my answer.

我不知道我们在这一点上是否存在分歧，但这就是我的答案。

I really think, and this theory is definitely not mine — there are all sorts of researchers on Twitter that are expert at this — but I think a lot of what is driving American mood today or conversation today is a byproduct of lithium we put in the water or plastics we consumed from when we were children.

我真的认为，这个理论绝对不是我的——推特上有各种各样的研究人员是这方面的专家，但我认为今天美国人的情绪或今天的谈话的很多推动因素是我们在小时候喝的水或塑料中放入的锂的副产品。

I think that might be one aspect of it where we might swap, not that it really matters that much, but it is a difference.

我认为这可能是我们可以交换的一个方面，虽然这并不是那么重要，但这是一个区别。

Get your copy of Talent here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250275820/talent

在这里获取《Talent》的副本：https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250275820/talent