Sam Altman on Loving Community, Hating Coworking, and the Hunt for Talent (Ep. 61 - Live in SF)
Sam needs no introduction.
萨姆不需要介绍。
If we read the tech press and listen to other people’s podcasts —
如果我们阅读科技媒体并收听其他人的播客 -
Oh no.
哦不。
—what’s the single most likely misconception about venture capital they’re going to have?
——他们对风险投资最可能存在的误解是什么？
That venture capitalists are, on the whole, smart visionaries who know exactly what’s going to happen in the world.
总体而言，风险投资家都是聪明的梦想家，他们确切地知道世界上会发生什么。
I think the way you become really great at venture capital is to accept that the only way to figure out the future of the world is to identify incredibly talented, smart, creative, original thinkers and back those people.
我认为，要真正成为风险投资的佼佼者，就必须接受这一点：弄清楚世界未来的唯一方法是识别出极其有才华、聪明、有创造力、原创性的思想家，并支持这些人。
You have to trust that that will work out over time.
你必须相信随着时间的推移这会奏效。
You can’t just be the smartest person all the time.
你不可能一直都是最聪明的人。
If I’m trying to place your view in contrast with others — your view on how to spot and identify and mobilize talent compared to Marc Andreessen — is there any difference?
如果我试图将您的观点与其他人进行对比—— 与马克·安德森（Marc Andreessen）相比，您对如何发现、识别和动员人才的看法 ——有什么不同吗？
How would I place you two?
我该如何安排你们两个呢？
I do have strong views about where the world is going to go and what’s important to support.
对于世界的发展方向以及支持什么是重要的，我确实有强烈的看法。
I think it is important to have strong views about the world, and it’s a shame that most people don’t.
我认为对世界有强烈的看法很重要，但遗憾的是大多数人没有。
I have — at least at the stage of venture capital we operate at — I have become so convinced that the only thing I have to do, that my firm has to do, is find the smartest, most talented people in the world, discover those people, and enable them.
我——至少在我们经营的风险投资阶段——我非常确信，我唯一要做的事情，我的公司必须做的，就是找到世界上最聪明、最有才华的人，发现这些人，并为他们提供帮助。
Make bets on them as people and trust that they will figure out, over time, they will drift towards the right ideas and the right kind of businesses.
把赌注押在他们身上，相信他们会发现，随着时间的推移，他们会转向正确的想法和正确的业务。
On spotting talent
关于发现人才
If you’re trying to spot that talent, you must have methods you use or ways of thinking about talent that’s different from the other venture capitalists.
如果你想发现人才，你必须使用与其他风险投资家不同的方法或思考人才的方式。
Otherwise you would be interchangeable with them.
否则你就会和他们互换。
How would you place yourself relative to them?
相对于他们，你会如何定位自己？
What do you put more stress on?
你对哪些方面的压力更大？
I think our greatest differentiator is not how we identify talent, although I will answer that question, but the fact that we treat our own business — we run Y Combinator in the way that we tell our startups to run as a successful startup, which almost no venture capital firm does.
我认为我们最大的区别不是我们如何识别人才，尽管我会回答这个问题，而是我们对待自己的业务的事实 ——我们以我们告诉初创公司作为成功初创公司的方式运营Y Combinator，而几乎没有风险投资公司这样做。
Almost every venture capital firm gives advice they never follow themselves.
几乎每家风险投资公司都会给出他们自己从未遵循的建议。
They don’t build differentiated products.
他们不生产差异化产品。
They are not network-affected businesses.
他们不是受网络影响的企业。
They don’t try to build a brand and a community.
他们不会尝试建立品牌和社区。
And they don’t try to make something that gets better the bigger it gets and have the scale effects that anyone would tell you they want in a business.
他们不会试图让东西变得越大越好，也不会产生任何人都会告诉你的他们想要的规模效应。
Almost every venture capital firm gives advice they never follow themselves.
几乎每家风险投资公司都会给出他们自己从未遵循的建议。
They don’t build differentiated products.
他们不生产差异化产品。
They are not network-affected businesses.
他们不是受网络影响的企业。
They don’t try to build a brand and a community.
他们不会尝试建立品牌和社区。
And they don’t try to make something that gets better the bigger it gets and have the scale effects that anyone would tell you they want in a business.
他们不会试图让东西变得越大越好，也不会产生任何人都会告诉你的他们想要的规模效应。
We at Y Combinator always say we want to get a lot bigger because this is a network effect, this is a network that matters.
我们 Y Combinator 总是说我们想要变得更大，因为这是一种网络效应，这是一个重要的网络。
Most venture capital firms will say out of one side of their mouth, “Oh no, smaller is better,” because they don’t want to work more.
大多数风险投资公司都会从嘴里说，“哦不，越小越好”，因为他们不想工作更多。
Then they’ll tell all their businesses, “The network effect is the only thing that matters.”
然后他们会告诉所有企业，“网络效应是唯一重要的事情。”
Many people are as smart as we are, think about the world in similar ways.
许多人和我们一样聪明，以相似的方式思考世界。
But I think we have internalized that we run our firm the same way we tell our startups to operate, and we view the most important thing that we do is to build a network and a network effect.
但我认为我们已经内化到我们经营公司的方式与我们告诉初创公司经营的方式相同，我们认为我们所做的最重要的事情是建立一个网络和网络效应。
I will answer —
我来回答——
What’s the most binding constraint on your ability to scale, if that’s the difference?
如果这就是差异的话，对你的扩展能力最具约束力的限制是什么？
Greater interest in scaling your own activity?
对扩大自己的活动更有兴趣吗？
I think we have scaled to an incredible degree already, and we will, over time, figure out how to get another 10x and then another 10x after that.
我认为我们已经扩展到了令人难以置信的程度，随着时间的推移，我们将找出如何再实现 10 倍，然后再实现 10 倍。
Someday we will fund all the companies in the world, all the good ones at least.
有一天，我们将资助世界上所有的公司，至少是所有优秀的公司。
But it’s unclear where the scaling limits are.
但目前还不清楚规模限制在哪里。
I come from a software background, and one of the things that I learned is, you can always scale systems more than you think, and you can never predict ahead of time where the choke points are going to be.
我有软件背景，我学到的一件事是，你总是可以比你想象的更多地扩展系统，而且你永远无法提前预测瓶颈在哪里。
You profile the code and figure out where you need to optimize, and you optimize that.
您分析代码并找出需要优化的地方，然后进行优化。
That’s the continual evolution of Y Combinator.
这就是 Y Combinator 的不断发展。
This is from Wikipedia, and I quote: “In functional programming, the Y combinator can be used to formally define recursive functions in a programming language that does not support recursion.” Why did you name the company Y Combinator?
这是来自维基百科，我引用：“在函数式编程中，Y 组合器可用于在不支持递归的编程语言中正式定义递归函数。”为什么将公司命名为 Y Combinator？
I didn’t name it that.
我没有这么命名。
My predecessor, Paul Graham, named it that, but I think it’s a very brilliant name because really what that is is a function that starts other functions.
我的前任 Paul Graham 给它起了这个名字，但我认为这是一个非常出色的名字，因为它实际上是一个启动其他函数的函数。
We are a company that starts other companies.
我们是一家创办其他公司的公司。
The thing that is the coolest about Y Combinator and that is different about us spiritually than most venture firms — or at least some venture firms — is we like to start companies that, if we didn’t fund them, wouldn’t happen.
Y Combinator 最酷的一点是，我们在精神上与大多数风险投资公司（或者至少是一些风险投资公司）不同，那就是我们喜欢创办如果我们不资助它们就不会成立的公司。
Most venture capital firms — and me, in my own personal investing when I’m not doing Y Combinator — are looking for .
大多数风险投资公司 ——还有我，当我不做 Y Combinator 时，在我自己的个人投资中—— 都在寻找。
.
。
.
。
you want to be a really great stock picker.
你想成为一名真正出色的选股者。
You want to find a company that will be successful, whether or not you do anything, and get them to take your money.
你想找到一家会成功的公司，无论你是否做任何事情，并让他们拿走你的钱。
The thing that I think is so much fun about Y Combinator is, we make companies happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
我认为 Y Combinator 非常有趣的一点是，我们让公司得以发展，否则这些公司不会发展。
That’s the name.
就是这个名字。
Let me play venture capital skeptic, and you can talk me back into optimism.
让我扮演风险投资怀疑论者，你可以让我恢复乐观。
I might not.
我可能不会。
Let’s say I say, tech has had a stream of big hits: personal computer, internet, cell phone, mobile.
假设我说，科技已经取得了一系列的巨大成功：个人电脑、互联网、手机、移动设备。
You’ve had a lot of rapidly scalable innovations become possible in a short period of time.
许多快速可扩展的创新在短时间内成为可能。
We’re now in a slight lull.
我们现在正处于轻微的平静期。
We’re not sure what the next big thing is or when it will come.
我们不确定下一件大事是什么或者什么时候会发生。
Without that next big thing, won’t the current equilibrium require a higher rate of picking the right talent than venture capitalists are, in fact, able to do?
如果没有下一件大事，当前的均衡是否需要比风险资本家实际上能够做到的更高的速度来挑选合适的人才？
I will talk you out of that one, happily.
我会很高兴地说服你放弃那个。
The most expensive investing mistake in the world to make is to be a pessimist, and it’s a common one.
世界上最昂贵的投资错误就是成为悲观主义者，而且这是一个常见的错误。
I think that’s actually the most common mistake to make in life.
我认为这实际上是生活中最常犯的错误。
It is true that we are in a lull right now, but it is absolutely, categorically false that — unless the world gets destroyed in a very short term — that we will not have a bigger technological wave then we’ve ever had before.
确实，我们现在正处于平静期，但“除非世界在很短的时间内被摧毁”，否则我们不会出现比以往任何时候都更大的技术浪潮，这是绝对错误的。
Why can’t I be an optimist but not an optimist about VC?
为什么我不能乐观，但对VC却不乐观？
I think new ideas will come through established companies.
我认为新的想法将来自老牌公司。
They’ll be funded by private equity.
他们将由私募股权投资。
They’ll happen in China.
它们将发生在中国。
But the exact formula where you can afford to make so many mistakes because the hits are so big — to what extent does VC rely on that kind of rapid scalability that may not come back?
但是，由于点击量如此之大，你可以承受犯这么多错误的确切公式——风险投资在多大程度上依赖于这种可能无法恢复的快速可扩展性？
It does rely on that, and that’s why the industry came about, really, truly, at a time when software happened.
它确实依赖于这一点，这就是为什么这个行业确实是在软件出现的时候出现的。
Software is very unlike any other good because the marginal cost is zero and networks are so powerful.
软件与任何其他商品都非常不同，因为边际成本为零，而且网络非常强大。
It’s always tempting to say that the big companies in any industry — you’re never going to compete with them.
人们总是很容易说，任何行业的大公司 ——你永远无法与他们竞争。
They will be the big ones forever.
他们将永远是大人物。
It is also possible that the next set of companies, the next set of $100 billion startups are all going to be synthetic bio companies, or nuclear fusion companies, or whatever.
下一批公司、下一批价值 1000 亿美元的初创公司也有可能都是合成生物公司、核聚变公司或其他什么公司。
But the big companies in any moment always look like behemoths that you will never be able to compete with, and 10 years later, it always looks so obvious about how they got beaten — or 20 years later or whatever it is.
但任何时候的大公司总是看起来像你永远无法与之竞争的庞然大物，而且 10 年后，它们是如何被击败的，或者 20 年后，或者无论是什么，它总是看起来那么明显。
It does even feel to me, myself, this current generation of tech hyper caps, I’m almost willing to say this time it’s different, but I know in my heart that there will be technological change that will happen at a rate that the companies can’t do or require a level of risk they can’t take.
我什至觉得，对于当前这一代科技超级巨头来说，我几乎愿意说这次有所不同，但我心里知道，技术变革将会以公司无法做到的速度发生，或者需要他们无法承担的风险水平。
It has been a bad bet to bet against new companies for centuries, and I think that will keep happening.
几个世纪以来，做空新公司一直是一个糟糕的选择，而且我认为这种情况将会继续发生。
Your conceptual model of venture capital — what do you take to be its origins?
您的风险投资概念模型 ——您认为其起源是什么？
Is it the early voyages of discovery, finding the New World?
这是早期的发现之旅，寻找新大陆吗？
Is it whaling ships?
是捕鲸船吗？
Is it Silicon Valley in the last 50 years?
过去50年是硅谷吗？
Is it Hollywood movies?
是好莱坞电影吗？
Where does it start for you?
对你来说从哪里开始？
When I studied the Industrial Revolution as a kid, it was all about technology and that you had this great idea, you invent this great thing, and now you can make this new thing.
当我小时候研究工业革命时，一切都与技术有关，你有一个伟大的想法，你发明了这个伟大的东西，现在你可以制造这个新东西。
The way I would have explained the Industrial Revolution as a kid was there was this handful of inventions, and they were really important, and the world changed in a short period of time.
我小时候对工业革命的解释是，有一些发明，它们非常重要，世界在短时间内发生了变化。
When I went back and studied it again as an adult, with the benefit of hindsight in my career, it was very clear to me that the most important invention of the entire Industrial Revolution was the joint stock corporation.
当我成年后再次回过头来研究它时，得益于我职业生涯的事后诸葛亮，我非常清楚整个工业革命最重要的发明就是股份公司。
You had governments say, “You know what?
政府会说：“你知道吗？
We have a second-order mini sovereignty, and although the world has historically been limited to family businesses and small groups of businesses and small groups of trust, now we’re going to allow big groups of people to coordinate.
我们拥有二阶迷你主权，尽管世界历史上仅限于家族企业、小型企业团体和小型信任团体，但现在我们将允许大型团体进行协调。
We’re going to figure out how to align their incentives for capital providers and risk takers and labor and everything else.
我们将弄清楚如何调整他们对资本提供者、风险承担者、劳动力和其他一切的激励措施。
We’re going to let these big groups of people work towards a common goal and a common vision with all the elements you need to make that work, and we, the government, are going to enforce that and protect that and let that happen.”
我们将让这些大群体朝着共同的目标和共同的愿景努力，并提供实现这一目标所需的所有要素，而我们政府将强制执行并保护这一目标并让其实现。”
That, I think, was the fundamental root.
我认为这就是根本原因。
You once said, “Growth masks all problems.” Are there exceptions to that?
您曾经说过，“增长掩盖了所有问题。”有例外吗？
Cancer?
癌症？
I mean, clearly, yes.
我的意思是，很明显，是的。
I don’t mean that so flippantly.
我的意思并不是那么轻率。
There is —
有——
There’s an article in the Jerusalem Post today: someone credible claiming that cancer has been cured.
今天《耶路撒冷邮报》上有一篇文章：有人可信地声称癌症已被治愈。
I don’t know if you saw that.
我不知道你是否看到了。
I didn’t see that, but I do — having talked to many biologists working in the field, I will say there is a surprising amount of optimism that we are within a decade or two of that being true.
我没有看到这一点，但我确实看到了——在与许多在该领域工作的生物学家交谈后，我会说，人们非常乐观地认为，我们在一两年内就能实现这一点。
It’s not an area where I feel anywhere near expert enough to comment on the validity of that statement, and I think it’s always dangerous to just trust what other smart people say, especially when they have an incentive to hawk their own book, but it does seem like a lot of people believe that.
我觉得这不是一个足够专业的领域，无法评论该声明的有效性，而且我认为仅仅相信其他聪明人所说的话总是很危险的，尤其是当他们有动机兜售自己的书时，但似乎很多人确实相信这一点。
Growth is bad in plenty of times, but it does mask a lot of problems.
增长在很多时候都是糟糕的，但它确实掩盖了很多问题。
A statement that I wouldn’t make is that growth is always an inherent good, although I do think — I think you’ve said something like this, too — that sustainable economic growth is almost always a moral good.
我不会说的一句话是，增长总是一种内在的善，尽管我确实认为 ——我认为你也说过这样的话——可持续的经济增长几乎总是一种道德善。
Something that I think a lot of the current problems in the country can be traced to is the decline in that.
我认为该国当前的许多问题都可以追溯到这一点的下降。
And part of what motivates me to work on Y Combinator and OpenAI is getting back to that, getting back to sustainable economic growth, getting back to a world where most people’s lives get better every year and that we feel the shared spirit of success is really important.
促使我从事 Y Combinator 和 OpenAI 工作的部分原因是回到这一点，回到可持续的经济增长，回到大多数人的生活每年都变得更好的世界，我们认为共同的成功精神非常重要。
And growth feels good.
成长的感觉很好。
It does mask a lot of problems, but there definitely are individual instances where you’d be better off with slower growth for whatever reason.
它确实掩盖了很多问题，但肯定存在个别情况，无论出于何种原因，放慢增长速度会更好。
Why is being quick and decisive such an important personality trait in a founder?
为什么快速果断是创始人如此重要的性格特征？
That is a great question.
这是一个很好的问题。
I have thought a lot about this because the correlation is clear, that one of the most fun things about YC is that, I think, we have more data points on what successful founders and bad founders look like than any other organization has had in the history of the world.
我对此思考了很多，因为相关性很明显，我认为 YC 最有趣的事情之一是，我们拥有比世界历史上任何其他组织更多的关于成功创始人和糟糕创始人的数据点。
We have that all in our heads, and that’s great.
我们脑子里已经有了这一切，那就太好了。
So I can say, with a high degree of confidence, that this correlation is true.
所以我可以非常有信心地说这种相关性是真实的。
Being a fast mover and being decisive — it is very hard to be successful and not have those traits as a founder.
作为一名创始人，如果不具备这些特质，就很难取得成功。
Why that is, I’m not perfectly clear on, but I think it is something .
为什么会这样，我不太清楚，但我认为这是有原因的。
.
。
.
。
about the only advantage that startups have or the biggest advantage that startups have over large companies is agility, speed, willing to make nonconsensus, concentrated bets, incredible focus.
初创公司相对于大公司的唯一优势或最大优势是敏捷性、速度、愿意做出非共识、集中赌注、令人难以置信的专注。
That’s really how you get to beat a big company.
这确实是你击败大公司的方法。
How quickly should someone answer your email to count as quick and decisive?
人们应该多快回复您的电子邮件才能算快速而果断？
You know, years ago I wrote a little program to look at this, like how quickly our best founders — the founders that run billion-plus companies — answer my emails versus our bad founders.
你知道，几年前我写了一个小程序来研究这个问题，比如我们最好的创始人 ——运营着数十亿多家公司的创始人 ——与我们糟糕的创始人相比，回复我的电子邮件的速度有多快。
I don’t remember the exact data, but it was mind-blowingly different.
我不记得确切的数据，但这是令人震惊的不同。
It was a difference of minutes versus days on average response times.
平均响应时间与天数相差几分钟。
On being a founder and CEO
关于成为创始人兼首席执行官
I come from northern Virginia, the Washington, DC, area.
我来自弗吉尼亚州北部的华盛顿特区。
We have very few geniuses.
我们的天才很少。
The few that we have tend to be crazy and sometimes destructive.
我们所拥有的少数人往往是疯狂的，有时甚至是具有破坏性的。
We have what I would call —
我们有我所说的——
They’re very stable, though.
不过，它们非常稳定。
—a lot of upper-middle-class intellectual talent.
——大量中上层智力人才。
People who are pretty smart and good at something.
非常聪明并且擅长某事的人。
When it comes to spotting good upper-middle-class intellectual talent, do you think you have the same competitive edge as with spotting geniuses who will make rapidly scalable tech companies?
当谈到寻找优秀的中上阶层智力人才时，你认为你是否具有与寻找能够创建快速扩张的科技公司的天才相同的竞争优势？
I think that’s how I’d characterize myself: upper middle class, pretty smart, not a super genius by any means.
我想这就是我对自己的描述：中上层阶级，相当聪明，无论如何都不是超级天才。
It turns out I’ve met many people smarter than me, but I would say I’ve only ever met a handful of people that are obviously more curious than me.
事实证明，我遇到过很多比我聪明的人，但我想说，我只遇到过少数明显比我更好奇的人。
I don’t think raw IQ is my biggest strength — pretty good, to be clear, but the chances of me winning a Nobel Prize in physics are low.
我不认为原始智商是我最大的优势——需要明确的是，相当不错，但我获得诺贝尔物理学奖的机会很低。
I think physics is a bad field at this point, unfortunately.
不幸的是，我认为目前物理学是一个糟糕的领域。
What we spot — you do have to be pretty smart to be a successful founder, but that is not where I look for people to be true outliers.
我们发现 —— 你必须非常聪明才能成为一名成功的创始人，但这并不是我寻找真正的异常值的人的地方。
Given that self-description — assuming that I accept it, and I’m not sure I do — do you think you’re as good at spotting upper-middle-class intellectual talent as superstar founders?
鉴于这样的自我描述——“假设我接受它，但我不确定我是否接受”——你认为你和超级明星创始人一样擅长发现中上阶层的智力人才吗？
Let’s say we put you in charge —
假设我们让你负责 —
There’s a statement here that’s just bad about the world, but I think if you look at most successful founders, they are pretty smart, upper-middle-class people.
这里有一种说法对世界很不好，但我认为如果你看看大多数成功的创始人，他们都是非常聪明的中上阶层人士。
They are very rarely the children of super successful people.
他们很少是超级成功人士的孩子。
They are very rarely born in real poverty.
他们很少出生在真正的贫困中。
They are very rarely the absolute smartest people who otherwise would win a Fields Medal.
他们很少是绝对最聪明的人，否则他们会赢得菲尔兹奖。
They are never dumb, but upper-middle-class, pretty smart people that have grit and drive and creativity and vision and edge and a different way of thinking about the world.
他们绝不是愚蠢的人，而是中上层阶级，非常聪明的人，有勇气、干劲、创造力、远见和优势，以及以不同的方式思考世界。
That is what I think I’m good at spotting, and that is what I think are good founders.
这就是我认为我擅长发现的东西，这就是我认为好的创始人的东西。
There’s a whole bunch of reasons why that’s a sad statement about the world, but there it is.
有很多原因可以解释为什么这是一个关于世界的悲伤声明，但事实就是如此。
If you look at most successful founders, they are pretty smart, upper-middle-class people.
如果你看看大多数成功的创始人，他们都是非常聪明的中上阶层人士。
They are very rarely the children of super successful people.
他们很少是超级成功人士的孩子。
They are very rarely born in real poverty.
他们很少出生在真正的贫困中。
They are very rarely the absolute smartest people who otherwise would win a Fields Medal.
他们很少是绝对最聪明的人，否则他们会赢得菲尔兹奖。
They are never dumb, but upper-middle-class, pretty smart people that have grit and drive and creativity and vision and edge and a different way of thinking about the world.
他们绝不是愚蠢的人，而是中上层阶级，非常聪明的人，有勇气、干劲、创造力、远见和优势，以及以不同的方式思考世界。
That is what I think I’m good at spotting, and that is what I think are good founders.
这就是我认为我擅长发现的东西，这就是我认为好的创始人的东西。
So someone else has to find the geniuses.
所以必须有人去寻找天才。
Again, I don’t want to go for false modesty here.
再说一次，我不想在这里表现出虚假的谦虚。
I think I’m a smart person.
我认为我是一个聪明的人。
The founders we fund are smart people.
我们资助的创始人都是聪明人。
I would have maybe said 10 years ago that raw IQ is the thing that matters most for founders.
十年前我可能会说原始智商对于创始人来说是最重要的。
I’ve updated my view on that.
我已经更新了对此的看法。
How useful is personality psychology, in the classic five-factor sense, for judging potential founders?
从经典的五因素意义上来说，人格心理学对于判断潜在创始人有多大用处？
I’ve heard the five factors.
我听说过五个因素。
I could pick them out of a list, but I can’t sit here and name them.
我可以从列表中挑选它们，但我不能坐在这里说出它们的名字。
Paul Graham, who started my company, used to talk about people being relentlessly resourceful.
我公司的创始人保罗·格雷厄姆（Paul Graham）曾经说过，人们要足智多谋。
It became this mantra of ours, and it’s one of the most important traits in a founder.
它成为我们的座右铭，也是创始人最重要的品质之一。
I think a vision that someone feels compelled to make happen in the world is probably the most important of a super successful founder.
我认为，对于一个超级成功的创始人来说，最重要的可能是一个人觉得有必要在世界上实现的愿景。
Then this idea of relentless resourcefulness: “That thing is so important to me that I’m going to figure out how to get it done, whatever it takes.
然后是不懈地足智多谋的想法：“那件事对我来说非常重要，我会想办法完成它，无论付出什么代价。
Whatever I need to learn.
我需要学什么就学什么。
Whoever I need to convince.” That’s really important.
无论我需要说服谁。”这真的很重要。
You need to be a great communicator, which I think is a very underappreciated skill, because you have to convince so many people to join you on this quest.
你需要成为一名出色的沟通者，我认为这是一项非常被低估的技能，因为你必须说服这么多人加入你的追求。
Your job as a founder ends up as sort of a chief evangelist for the company, and most people aren’t good at that.
作为创始人，你的工作最终会成为公司的首席传播者，而大多数人并不擅长这一点。
It’s not something that we teach in school.
这不是我们在学校教的东西。
We don’t teach vision either.
我们也不教视觉。
Actually, none of these skills we teach, but those are the kind of things we look for.
事实上，我们并没有教授这些技能，但这些正是我们所寻找的东西。
Do you think of yourself — in terms of personality — as more of a CEO type or more of a founder type?
您认为自己 ——“就个性而言”——更像是首席执行官类型还是创始人类型？
I’ve done both.
我都做过。
I think of myself more as a founder type.
我认为自己更像是创始人类型。
The way that I would say it is, most people who run organizations at a certain scale are either good managers or good leaders.
我想说的是，大多数经营一定规模组织的人要么是优秀的管理者，要么是优秀的领导者。
I would put myself squarely in the good-leader, weaker-manager category.
我会把自己直接归为优秀领导者、较弱管理者的类别。
That, I think, correlates more often with founders.
我认为，这通常与创始人相关。
People who perform extreme physical events — climbing or physical strength or running or marathons — as personality types, how do they differ from founders, if at all?
从事极限体能活动的人——“攀岩、体力、跑步或马拉松”——作为人格类型，他们与创始人有何不同（如果有的话）？
Not so much.
没那么多。
That’s something that I’ve learned to look for.
这是我学会寻找的东西。
What do you think is the difference?
您认为有什么区别？
Because they’re not founders, and the founders are not out —
因为他们不是创始人，而且创始人也没有出局——
A surprising number of YC’s best founders are also into some sort of extreme physical something.
数量惊人的 YC 最佳创始人也热衷于某种极限运动。
Why do you see that correlation?
为什么你会看到这种相关性？
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
Something about focus and determination and drive to win and perform at your highest level.
关于专注、决心和动力去赢得胜利并发挥出最高水平。
I think one thing that is a really important thing to strive for is being internally driven, being driven to compete with yourself, not with other people.
我认为值得努力的一件非常重要的事情是内在驱动，被驱动与自己竞争，而不是与他人竞争。
If you compete with other people, you end up in this mimetic trap, and you sort of play this tournament, and if you win, you lose.
如果你与其他人竞争，你最终会陷入这个模仿陷阱，并且你参加了这场锦标赛，如果你赢了，你就会输。
I think one thing that is a really important thing to strive for is being internally driven, being driven to compete with yourself, not with other people.
我认为值得努力的一件非常重要的事情是内在驱动，被驱动与自己竞争，而不是与他人竞争。
If you compete with other people, you end up in this mimetic trap, and you sort of play this tournament, and if you win, you lose.
如果你与其他人竞争，你最终会陷入这个模仿陷阱，并且你参加了这场锦标赛，如果你赢了，你就输了。
But if you’re competing with yourself, and all you’re trying to do is — for the own self-satisfaction and for also the impact you have on the world and the duty you feel to do that — be the best possible version you can, there is no limit to how far that can drive someone to perform.
但是，如果你在与自己竞争，而你想做的只是 —— 为了自己的自我满足，也为了你对世界的影响，以及你觉得这样做的责任 —— 成为尽可能最好的版本，那么驱使某人去表现的程度是没有限制的。
And I think that is something you see — even though it looks like athletes are competing with each other — when you talk to a really great, absolute top-of-the-field athlete, it’s their own time they’re going against.
我认为这就是你所看到的 —— 尽管看起来运动员们在互相竞争 —— 当你与一位真正伟大的、绝对顶尖的运动员交谈时，他们正在对抗的是他们自己的时间。
On funding people, fictional and real
关于资助虚构和真实的人
I’d like to try a little exercise.
我想尝试一点运动。
I’ll throw out a few names from popular culture and you imagine —
我会抛出一些流行文化中的名字，你想象一下——
I am unlikely to know these, but we can try it.
我不太可能知道这些，但我们可以尝试一下。
—imagine they show up at Y Combinator.
——想象一下他们出现在 Y Combinator 上。
How would you assess them?
你会如何评价他们？
Spider-Man, Peter Parker?
蜘蛛侠、彼得帕克？
I watched one Spider-Man movie, but all I can think of is him going like that through the buildings.
我看过一部蜘蛛侠电影，但我能想到的就是他像那样穿过建筑物。
So you wouldn’t be that impressed?
那么你不会印象深刻吗？
I might be.
我可能是。
I’d have to .
我必须这样做。
.
。
.
。
Let’s keep going to someone else I might know more about.
让我们继续去找其他我可能更了解的人。
Luke Skywalker?
卢克·天行者？
Oh, Luke Skywalker I’d be impressed by.
哦，卢克·天行者会给我留下深刻的印象。
Why?
为什么？
Isn’t he indecisive?
他不是优柔寡断吗？
He focuses on the short term, he doesn’t have the big-picture vision?
他只关注短期，没有大局观？
No, he turns away without .
不，他没有转身就走。
.
。
.
。
when he leaves Yoda and says, “I’m going to go do this thing,” which his guru is telling him, “You need more training.” And he goes off and does the right thing on instinct and then comes back.
当他离开尤达并说：“我要做这件事”时，他的导师告诉他，“你需要更多的训练。”他离开并本能地做了正确的事，然后回来。
And Yoda says, “No further training, you’ve got it.” That’s the sign of a great founder.
尤达说：“无需进一步培训，你就可以了。”这是伟大创始人的标志。
You go off before the world thinks you’re ready, and you do it anyway.
在全世界认为你已经准备好之前你就出发了，但无论如何你还是这么做了。
Let’s say Hyman Rickover shows up at Y Combinator.
假设 Hyman Rickover 出现在 Y Combinator。
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
I think building the Nuclear Navy is among the most impressive operational engineering accomplishments of human history, so we would definitely fund him.
我认为建设核海军是人类历史上最令人印象深刻的作战工程成就之一，所以我们肯定会资助他。
Good.
好的。
James Bond?
詹姆斯·邦德？
Paul Graham used to say that the prototype for a good founder was James Bond.
保罗·格雷厄姆曾经说过，优秀创始人的原型是詹姆斯·邦德。
There’s lots of reasons the analogy doesn’t work, but this idea that a lot of things go wrong, you are unflappable, you never lose your cool, you know how to react.
这个类比不起作用的原因有很多，但这个想法是，很多事情都会出错，你镇定自若，你永远不会失去冷静，你知道如何反应。
Bad things are happening to you left and right, and you are a survivor, and you always figure it out with whatever resource is in front of you.
糟糕的事情不断地发生在你身上，而你是一个幸存者，你总是能利用你面前的任何资源来解决这个问题。
That part is the spirit of a great founder.
这就是伟大创始人的精神。
What about Q?
Q呢？
The guy in the lab who shows James Bond the gadgets.
实验室里向詹姆斯·邦德展示这些小玩意的人。
His explanations are so to the point.
他的解释很中肯。
Would that impress you?
这会让你印象深刻吗？
Yes, with a good cofounder.
是的，有一个好的联合创始人。
Austin Powers?
奥斯汀·鲍尔斯？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
Harry Potter?
哈利·波特？
Hmm, that was not one I was expecting.
嗯，这不是我所期待的。
Yes.
是的。
We would fund Harry Potter.
我们会资助哈利·波特。
Let’s try a single teen mother, Aretha Franklin?
让我们试试一位单身青少年母亲艾瑞莎·富兰克林？
Yes, on the spirit of this idea that grit and determination is the most important quality in a founder.
是的，本着这个理念的精神，即毅力和决心是创始人最重要的品质。
I think being a single teen mother and coming through to the other side of that successfully is probably one of the hardest things that anyone can do in the world.
我认为，作为一名单身青少年母亲并成功地度过难关可能是世界上任何人都能做的最困难的事情之一。
Say filters we have set up to identify her as a single teen mother before she’s successful — what is it we should be looking for in Aretha Franklin?
假设我们设置了过滤器，以便在她成功之前将她识别为单身青少年母亲——“我们应该在艾瑞莎·富兰克林身上寻找什么？
This gets to the question .
这就说到了问题所在。
.
。
.
。
the most common question I get about Y Combinator is how can you make a decision in a 10-minute interview about who to fund?
关于 Y Combinator，我最常见的问题是如何在 10 分钟的采访中决定资助谁？
Where we might miss her is the upper filters of our application process.
我们可能会想念她的地方是我们申请流程的上层过滤器。
We have far more qualified people that want to do YC each year than we can fund, but by the time we get someone in the room, by the time we can sit across the table and spend 10 minutes with somebody, as far as I know, we have never made a big mistake at that stage of the process.
每年我们想要做 YC 的合格人员远远多于我们所能提供的资金，但是当我们让某人进入房间时，当我们可以坐在桌子对面与某人一起度过 10 分钟时，据我所知，我们在流程的那个阶段从未犯过重大错误。
We’ve looked at tens of thousands — well, in person we’ve maybe looked at 10,000 companies.
我们已经考察了数万家公司——好吧，我们亲自考察过的公司可能有 10,000 家。
These personality traits of determination and communication and the ability to articulate a vision for the world and explain how you’re going to get that done — I used to think that that was so hard to assess in 10 minutes, it was maybe impossible to try, and YC interviews used to be like an hour.
这些性格特征包括决心和沟通，以及阐明世界愿景并解释如何实现这一目标的能力 — 我曾经认为这很难在 10 分钟内评估，甚至不可能尝试，而 YC 面试过去大约需要一个小时。
I now think that most of the time, we could get it right in five minutes.
我现在认为，大多数时候，我们可以在五分钟内完成它。
When you have enough data points, when you meet enough people and get to watch what they go on to do — because the one thing that’s hard in a 10-minute interview and the most important thing about evaluating someone is their rate of improvement.
当你有足够的数据点时，当你遇到足够多的人并观察他们继续做什么时 ——因为在 10 分钟的采访中最困难的一件事是评估某人的进步率。
It’s a little bit hard when you only get a single sample.
当你只得到一个样本时，这有点困难。
But when you do this enough times, and you get to learn what to look for, it is incredible how good you can get at that.
但是，当你这样做足够多的次数，并且你开始了解要寻找什么时，你会在这方面取得如此出色的成绩，这是令人难以置信的。
We will make some mistakes, but on the whole, I think one way that I’d like to see Y Combinator scale is .
我们会犯一些错误，但总的来说，我认为我希望看到 Y Combinator 规模的一种方式是。
.
。
.
。
right now, we have maybe, let’s say 25,000 companies per year apply.
现在，假设每年有 25,000 家公司提出申请。
We only get to meet, say, 2,000 in person.
我们只能亲自会见 2,000 人。
I’m sure we’re making a lot of mistakes there.
我确信我们在那里犯了很多错误。
One thing I’d love to do is to figure out how to meet all 25,000 in person for 10 minutes.
我想做的一件事就是弄清楚如何在 10 分钟内与所有 25,000 人面对面见面。
I believe our error rate would go down, incredibly low.
我相信我们的错误率会下降，低得令人难以置信。
Young Napoleon shows up.
年轻的拿破仑出现了。
What do you think after 5 minutes?
5分钟后你觉得怎么样？
How young?
多年轻？
Like 18-year-old Napoleon or 5-year-old?
像18岁的拿破仑还是5岁的拿破仑？
Before he’s famous, 21-year-old Napoleon.
成名之前，21岁的拿破仑。
From everything I’ve read that would be a definite yes.
从我读到的所有内容来看，答案肯定是肯定的。
In fact, the best book I read last year is called The Mind of Napoleon, which is a book of quotes about his views on everything.
事实上，我去年读过的最好的书是《拿破仑的思想》，这是一本引用他对一切事物的看法的书。
Just that thick on Napoleon quotes.
拿破仑名言就那么厚。
Obviously deeply flawed human, but man, impressive.
人类显然有深深的缺陷，但人类，令人印象深刻。
What kinds of insights did he have?
他有哪些见解？
The thing that stuck with me the most — and this is a trait we see among many of our good founders — was not his operational excellence.
最让我印象深刻的是——“这是我们在许多优秀创始人身上看到的一个特质”——并不是他的卓越运营能力。
It was not his vision.
这不是他的愿景。
It was not any of the things that he is well known for, that are all necessary if you want to do what he did in such a short period of time.
如果你想在这么短的时间内完成他所做的事情，那么他所出名的事情并不是所有这些都是必要的。
But it was his incredible understanding of human psychology.
但这是他对人类心理学令人难以置信的理解。
That is something we see among our best founders.
这是我们在最好的创始人身上看到的。
There was one quote there, and it felt quite applicable to the US in 2019.
里面有一句话，感觉很适合2019年的美国。
The French motto is something like “Freedom, brotherhood, and liberty.” He said he had thought about that for a while.
法国的座右铭是“自由、兄弟情谊和自由”。他说他已经考虑这个问题有一段时间了。
“Liberty, equality, and brotherhood.” He realized that the French people actually didn’t care at all — although they said it, and that was what it was — they didn’t care at all about liberty, and they cared even less about brotherhood.
“自由、平等、兄弟情谊。”他意识到法国人民实际上根本不在乎——尽管他们这么说，事实就是如此——他们根本不在乎自由，更不在乎兄弟情谊。
It was really just about equality, but it was tied up with this weird French ideal of status and differentiation as well.
这实际上只是关于平等，但它也与法国这种奇怪的地位和差异理想联系在一起。
So he talked about how you build a system — given that people say this one thing but feel this other — how you build a system where you can control the people.
所以他谈到了如何建立一个系统——“鉴于人们说的是一回事，但感觉又是另一回事”——“你如何建立一个可以控制人们的系统。”
I was like, “Wow.
我当时想，“哇。
I’m glad he does not run the United States because that is a dude who understands something deep that I did not and clearly was able to use it for power.”
我很高兴他没有统治美国，因为这个家伙了解我所不了解的深刻事物，并且显然能够利用它来获取权力。”
What’s the most interesting or surprising thing you’ve learned or changed your mind about in the last three months?
在过去的三个月里，您了解到或改变主意的最有趣或最令人惊讶的事情是什么？
A lot of things, but one I had been thinking a lot about in the last three weeks is how, watching the US political system react from this cultural war on the right, and sort of this anti-otherness from a culture perspective, to this economic to this economic war on the left.
很多事情，但在过去三周里我一直在思考的是，观察美国政治体系如何从这场右翼文化战争以及从文化角度的这种反他者性到这场左翼经济战争做出反应。
I’ve studied this so many times in history, and I didn’t think it was actually going to happen.
我在历史上多次研究过这个问题，但我认为这实际上不会发生。
I think when you get those two forces together, fighting each other, it’s so bad.
我认为当这两种力量聚集在一起并互相争斗时，那就太糟糕了。
And I’ve updated myself to thinking, now, that things can actually get much worse in the US much more quickly than I thought.
现在，我已经更新了自己的想法，美国的情况实际上会比我想象的更快地变得更糟。
What does that process look like if it continues for 5, 10 years?
如果这个过程持续5年、10年，会是什么样子？
Pick your example.
选择你的例子。
We can talk about some of the pre–World War II stuff, but I don’t think it ends well.
我们可以谈论一些二战前的事情，但我认为结局并不好。
Before we move on to OpenAI, I think you should fund Peter Parker.
在我们转向 OpenAI 之前，我认为你应该资助 Peter Parker。
Tell me about him.
告诉我关于他的事。
Maybe we should.
也许我们应该。
I don’t know enough to say.
我不知道该说什么。
Of course, he’s Spider-Man, but the impressive thing is, he has these little devices on his wrists that shoot out web, and those are not Spider-Man powers at all.
当然，他是蜘蛛侠，但令人印象深刻的是，他手腕上有这些可以射出网的小装置，而这些根本不是蜘蛛侠的能力。
That’s a technological device that he implemented.
这是他实施的一项技术设备。
The first time he actually tried it, he couldn’t have really known for sure that it worked.
当他第一次真正尝试时，他并不能确定它是否有效。
So I would give a big thumbs up to Peter Parker.
所以我会对彼得·帕克竖起大拇指。
Look, that’s a good sign.
看，这是一个好兆头。
And he has superpowers on top of that.
除此之外，他还拥有超能力。
In some sense, the superhero I would most want to fund would be Batman because he doesn’t have superpowers, and he’s just a resourceful, driven dude to do the right thing.
从某种意义上说，我最想资助的超级英雄是蝙蝠侠，因为他没有超能力，他只是一个足智多谋、有动力做正确事情的家伙。
I like that better than people who just got lucky with superpowers, but if Peter Parker fits in that category, okay, we’ll fund him.
我比那些幸运地拥有超能力的人更喜欢这一点，但如果彼得·帕克符合这个类别，好吧，我们会资助他。
His superpower comes from a kind of nuclear fusion, right?
他的超能力来自于一种核聚变，对吧？
Even better.
甚至更好。
Is that true?
这是真的吗？
Radioactive spider venom.
放射性蜘蛛毒液。
Okay, deal.
好吧，成交。
Yeah, deal.
是的，成交。
Okay, make him a partner.
好吧，让他成为合伙人吧。
On AI
论人工智能
Okay, OpenAI — you have both a funding and a leadership role in OpenAI.
好的，OpenAI — 您在 OpenAI 中既担任资助角色，又担任领导角色。
Given the odd sort of event it’s directed at preventing, how do you measure whether your money and time there are well spent?
考虑到它旨在预防的奇怪事件，您如何衡量您的金钱和时间是否花得值呢？
First of all, we’re not directed at preventing an event.
首先，我们的目的不是要阻止事件发生。
We’re directed at making a good event happen more than we are at preventing a negative event.
我们的目标是让好事发生，而不是阻止坏事发生。
It is where I spend most of my time now.
这是我现在度过大部分时间的地方。
I think building true, superhuman artificial intelligence and figuring out how we, as a collective humanity, decide what the world is going to look like on the other side of that and making sure that it is safe, that we retain autonomy and a governance system we like, and that the benefits of that are equitably distributed in the world is the most important thing to work on.
我认为，建立真正的、超人的人工智能，弄清楚我们作为一个集体人类如何决定世界的另一面会是什么样子，并确保它是安全的，我们保留自主权和我们喜欢的治理体系，并且其好处在世界上公平分配，这是最重要的工作。
I think that there are parts of it that are scary.
我认为其中有些部分令人恐惧。
There are parts of it that are potential downsides.
其中有些部分存在潜在的缺点。
But the upside of this is unbelievable.
但这的好处是令人难以置信的。
We talked about sustainable economic growth is a moral good.
我们谈到可持续的经济增长是一种道德善。
I believe at this point, real economic sustainable growth comes from technology, and this technology is going to generate more of it than the sum total that has ever been generated by technology in human history.
我相信，在这一点上，真正的经济可持续增长来自于技术，而这种技术所产生的经济增长将比人类历史上技术产生的总和还要多。
I think that’s going to be really great.
我认为那会非常棒。
Will cyborgs outcompete AI?
赛博格会战胜人工智能吗？
If the flesh and blood is the hard part, why not tack on devices to people?
如果血肉是最难的部分，为什么不给人们加上设备呢？
Common in movies but also in the real world.
在电影中很常见，但在现实世界中也很常见。
I’m wearing eyeglasses.
我戴着眼镜。
There are hearing aids.
有助听器。
You can imagine much more.
你还可以想象更多。
Isn’t that an easier way to get the work done?
这不是更容易完成工作的方法吗？
You know, when AI started beating humans in chess, there was a short period of time where the very best thing of all was a human and an AI playing chess together.
你知道，当人工智能开始在国际象棋中击败人类时，有一段很短的时间，最好的事情就是人类和人工智能一起下棋。
The AI would say, “Here’s six moves.” The human would pick the best one of those, and that was better.
人工智能会说：“这里有六个动作。”人类会选择其中最好的一个，那就更好了。
That could beat an unassisted .
这可能会击败无人协助的人。
.
。
.
。
that merged version — it’s not really a merge — that teamed-up version could beat an unassisted AI.
那个合并版本 — 这并不是真正的合并 — 那个团队版本可以击败独立的人工智能。
I don’t know exactly how long that stayed true for, and people loved that fact, but it didn’t stay true for long.
我不知道这种情况到底持续了多久，人们喜欢这个事实，但它并没有持续多久。
The humans started making the AI worse than the AI was playing alone as it got smarter.
随着人工智能变得越来越聪明，人类开始让人工智能变得比单独玩的人工智能更糟糕。
I think we will learn that we’re just not that smart.
我想我们会发现我们只是没那么聪明。
The size of a human brain has all of these biological limitations, but you can make a really big computer with very fast interconnects between the chips.
人脑的大小具有所有这些生物学限制，但你可以制造一台非常大的计算机，芯片之间的互连速度非常快。
I suspect we will find that many versions of that merge you talk about are still not better.
我怀疑我们会发现你所说的合并的许多版本仍然没有更好。
There may be other things that some people may choose to do.
有些人可能会选择做其他事情。
Like maybe you upload your entire brain, and then you can add a bunch of stuff to it in the computer.
就像你可能上传你的整个大脑，然后你可以在计算机中添加一堆东西。
But I think going in the other direction, biology will be more of a limitation.
但我认为从另一个方向来看，生物学将成为更多的限制。
That’s what we have to make a decision about — the kind of future we want.
这就是我们必须做出的决定——我们想要什么样的未来。
Let’s say we institute a universal basic income.
假设我们实行全民基本收入。
Since it seems from the data that citizens often hate the idea of immigrants just getting money for free and forever, isn’t there a risk that a UBI would lead to a choking off of immigration in this and other countries, and that we would not, on net, end up helping humanity?
从数据来看，公民往往讨厌移民永远免费获得金钱的想法，那么全民基本收入是否会导致这个国家和其他国家的移民受到阻碍，而我们最终不会帮助人类呢？
The argument against a universal basic income that I am most sympathetic to is that it is a good reason to lower immigration, and I think increasing immigration — particularly high-skill immigration — into the US is one of the most important policy things we can do.
我最同情的反对全民基本收入的论点是，这是减少移民的一个很好的理由，而且我认为增加移民——尤其是高技能移民——进入美国是我们可以做的最重要的政策之一。
I agree that is a negative, but I think the positives of UBI are so high that I would take the trade, although I’d work as hard as I can, at a minimum, to increase the level of high-skill immigration.
我同意这是一个负面影响，但我认为全民基本收入的积极作用是如此之大，以至于我会接受这项交易，尽管我会尽我所能，至少提高高技能移民的水平。
If you believe talent is equally distributed around the world, which I certainly do, 5 percent of the founders we want are in the US.
如果你相信人才在世界各地分布均匀（我当然也这么认为），那么我们想要的创始人中有 5% 来自美国。
Speaking in our own self-interest as the US here — not as what’s best for the globe for a minute — I’d like all the other 95 percent here.
就我们美国自身利益而言 ——“暂时不是为了全球最好”—— 我希望其他 95% 的人都在这里。
Potential founders in other countries — I agree that talent is equally distributed around the world, but cultural background is not.
其他国家的潜在创始人 — 我同意世界各地的人才是平等分布的，但文化背景却不然。
For sure.
一定。
If people from other places, including from within this country, don’t from early ages get the conceptual frameworks and positive reaffirmations from their parents, what is it the less developed parts of the world need to actually be contributing the proportionate share of founders, given that they do have the talent?
如果来自其他地方的人，包括来自这个国家的人，从小就没有从父母那里得到概念框架和积极的重申，那么考虑到世界上欠发达地区确实有才华，他们实际上需要为创始人做出相应的贡献吗？
Nothing at all.
什么都没有。
They already are.
他们已经是了。
If you look at the successful tech companies in the United States, the percentage of them founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant —
如果你看看美国成功的科技公司，其中由第一代或第二代移民创立的百分比——
But they have very common backgrounds, even though they’re from different places.
但他们有非常共同的背景，尽管他们来自不同的地方。
They’re from parents who treated them a certain way when they were young —
他们的父母在他们年轻时就以某种方式对待他们——
Oh, I thought the question was specifically about immigrants.
哦，我以为这个问题专门针对移民。
Someone like Vitalik, who was not born in this country — he nonetheless has the perfect background for being a founder, and most people in the world do not.
像维塔利克这样的人，虽然不是出生在这个国家，但他却拥有成为创始人的完美背景，而世界上大多数人都没有。
The most important thing you can get to be a founder is to pick your parents well.
作为一名创始人，最重要的就是选择好你的父母。
That’s a really sad statement about the world.
对于这个世界来说，这是一个非常悲伤的说法。
If I weren’t working in OpenAI, that is a problem I would like to work on.
如果我不在 OpenAI 工作，这就是我想要解决的问题。
I suspect the answer is education, but that’s only part of it.
我怀疑答案是教育，但这只是其中的一部分。
I do think the two great gifts I got in my life were the love of my parents and a great education.
我确实认为我一生中得到的两件伟大的礼物是父母的爱和良好的教育。
I’d like to figure out how a lot more people get that.
我想知道有多少人能做到这一点。
That’s actually one benefit of a UBI.
这实际上是全民基本收入的好处之一。
I think it would be transformative to the amount of human potential unlocked in the world, and just from a social-justice perspective, it’s so obviously the right thing to do.
我认为这将对世界上释放的人类潜力产生变革，而且仅从社会正义的角度来看，这显然是正确的做法。
You grew up in St. Louis, right?
你在圣路易斯长大，对吧？
Yes.
是的。
I asked Larry Summers this exact same question: If you had, say, $200 million to distribute, you could do with it whatever you wanted to help St. Louis — just St. Louis, not the world — what would you do to help St. Louis?
我问了拉里·萨默斯同样的问题：如果你有 2 亿美元可以分配，你可以用它做任何你想帮助圣路易斯的事情——“只是圣路易斯，而不是全世界”——你会做什么来帮助圣路易斯？
This is very specific to St. Louis, but I think it may be true of other cities in the Midwest that were once growing and prosperous and now are less so.
这是圣路易斯特有的情况，但我认为中西部的其他城市可能也是如此，这些城市曾经成长和繁荣，但现在不那么繁荣了。
I’m such a believer that momentum is, at all levels of organization — an individual’s life, a company, a city, a country — is so important, even though cities seem eternal and indestructible in a way that not many things — maybe religions also are.
我坚信，动力在组织的各个层面——“个人的生活、公司、城市、国家”——都非常重要，尽管城市看起来是永恒的、坚不可摧的，而没有多少东西是这样的——“也许宗教也是如此。”
St. Louis has lost momentum, and there has been the talent drain that you would expect from that.
圣路易斯已经失去了动力，并且出现了你所期望的人才流失。
So I would spend all of the money trying to get a few really interesting, high-growth startups that I was confident in to go move to the city of St. Louis and build enough of an ecosystem around them to make them successful and let that regenerate the talent pool in much of the city.
因此，我会花所有的钱试图让一些我有信心的真正有趣、高增长的初创公司搬到圣路易斯市，并围绕它们建立足够的生态系统，使它们取得成功，并让该市大部分地区的人才库得到再生。
What exactly is the check written for?
这张支票到底是用来做什么的？
There’s a bonus for companies?
公司有奖金吗？
The thing that people normally do, which is predictably awful, is cities will open these coworking spaces and say, “Hey, startups, we’ve got this really cool coworking space.
人们通常做的事情（可以预见是可怕的）是城市会开放这些联合办公空间并说：“嘿，初创公司，我们有这个非常酷的联合办公空间。
There’s free espresso and colorful couches.
有免费的浓缩咖啡和色彩缤纷的沙发。
Come.” You get the people you deserve when you do that.
来吧。”当你这样做时，你就会得到你应得的人。
I’m very anti-coworking spaces, but I’ll save that rant for another time.
我非常反对联合办公空间，但我会下次再说这个咆哮。
No, literally what I would do is make a venture capital fund, get really good GPs to do the advice, and fund the companies to come be in St. Louis.
不，从字面上看，我要做的是建立一个风险投资基金，聘请真正优秀的全科医生提供建议，并为来到圣路易斯的公司提供资金。
You would give them special treatment?
你会给他们特殊待遇吗？
Or you would make them jump through all the same hoops as in any other context?
或者你会让他们像在任何其他情况下一样跳过所有相同的障碍？
I’d give them a higher valuation or something, but no, I would like to make them be really great companies.
我会给他们更高的估值或者其他什么，但不，我想让他们成为真正伟大的公司。
I would just invest in them on the condition they move to St. Louis.
我只会投资他们，条件是他们搬到圣路易斯。
We talked earlier about the importance of a network effect.
我们之前讨论过网络效应的重要性。
Rather than do this for one or two companies at a time, I would do it for enough at once, get them all in one part of the city to form something like what Y Combinator has done here.
我不会一次为一两家公司做这件事，而是一次做足够多的事情，把它们全部集中在城市的一个地方，形成像 Y Combinator 在这里所做的那样。
Why is nuclear energy so unpopular in many parts of the world?
为什么核能在世界许多地方如此不受欢迎？
I think it is because most people are very bad at intuiting risk.
我认为这是因为大多数人对风险的直觉很差。
They will happily breathe in coal smoke all day and then someday die of cancer and not connect that together.
他们会高兴地整天呼吸煤烟，然后有一天死于癌症，却不会把这联系在一起。
But if there’s a nuclear meltdown and three people die, they will march against nuclear energy forever.
但如果发生核泄漏并导致三人死亡，他们将永远反对核能。
Nuclear energy is, by far, the safest form of energy humanity has ever created, much safer than solar panels because people don’t die when they fall off the roof when they’re installing them, for example.
迄今为止，核能是人类创造的最安全的能源形式，比太阳能电池板安全得多，因为例如，在安装太阳能电池板时，人们从屋顶上掉下来不会死亡。
But the way the world was introduced to nuclear power is an image that no one will ever forget, of a mushroom cloud over Japan.
但世界进入核能的方式是一幅无人能忘记的画面：日本上空的蘑菇云。
It feels to some people .
有些人有这种感觉。
.
。
.
。
I’ve thought a lot about why the world turned against science, and one answer of many that I am willing to believe is that image, and that we learned that maybe some technology is too powerful for people to have.
我思考了很多关于世界为何反对科学的问题，我愿意相信的许多答案之一就是这一形象，并且我们了解到，也许某些技术对于人们来说太强大了。
People are more convinced by imagery than facts.
人们更相信图像而不是事实。
That’s the other side of nuclear energy.
这是核能的另一面。
Nuclear fusion has had a number of false starts, as you know.
如你所知，核聚变有过多次错误的开始。
If it really starts to work — and I believe you’re optimistic about that — what will it look like?
如果它真的开始起作用 —— 我相信你对此很乐观 —— 它会是什么样子？
And how will we know?
我们怎么知道？
How will we distinguish it from the previous false starts?
我们如何将其与之前的错误启动区分开来？
Well, we’ll just get out more electrons than we put in.
好吧，我们放出的电子会比放入的电子多。
I believe we will get net-gain nuclear fusion working in the next decade.
我相信我们将在未来十年实现净增益核聚变。
Is this hot or cold?
这是热还是冷？
Hot.
热的。
It may not turn out to be economical.
结果可能并不经济。
We’re still at the point where there’s errors in the exponents, and that’s always hard.
我们仍然处于指数存在错误的地步，这总是很困难。
It may turn out, to just debug the engineering takes so long, it doesn’t matter.
事实可能是，仅仅调试工程就需要很长时间，但这并不重要。
It could be the kind of thing where we get fusion working in 2022, and the first commercial system isn’t deployed until 2032 or longer.
我们可能会在 2022 年实现聚变，而第一个商业系统要到 2032 年或更长时间才会部署。
These are going to be complicated — not complicated like a fission reactor, but still complicated systems.
这些将会很复杂——不像裂变反应堆那样复杂，但仍然是复杂的系统。
But I believe we will get net gain to work, and I believe there is a good chance that the engineering won’t be as hard as we think, and that the regulatory framework would be much easier than we think, and the economics will be great.
但我相信我们会获得净收益，而且我相信工程很有可能不会像我们想象的那么困难，而且监管框架会比我们想象的容易得多，而且经济效益也会很好。
At any given moment in history, there is one cheapest source of energy, and whatever that is, in a small number of decades, it usually takes over a significant part of the generating capacity of the world.
在历史上的任何特定时刻，都有一种最便宜的能源，无论它是什么，在短短几十年内，它通常会占据世界发电能力的很大一部分。
Will China do it first?
中国会首先这样做吗？
Whoever does it first I’ll be happy with.
谁先做，我就很高兴。
They don’t tell me as much about the Chinese projects, so I don’t know, but I’d be delighted if they did.
他们没有告诉我太多有关中国项目的信息，所以我不知道，但如果他们知道的话我会很高兴。
If we, in some basic fundamental way, hacked biology through tech, how am I, as a customer or patient, most likely to notice this first?
如果我们以某种基本的方式通过技术侵入生物学，作为客户或患者，我如何最有可能首先注意到这一点？
What’s the New York Times headline going to say?
《纽约时报》的标题会说什么？
What will my doctor give me?
我的医生会给我什么？
Well, I think we’ve hacked biology already to an incredible degree.
嗯，我认为我们对生物学的破解已经达到了令人难以置信的程度。
Life expectancy is just rising at a constant rate, right?
预期寿命正在以恒定的速度增长，对吗？
It’s even gone down for a few years in the US.
在美国甚至已经下降了几年。
That’s not totally encouraging.
这并不完全令人鼓舞。
It’s not the fault of tech, but tech —
这不是科技的错，而是科技的错——
Healthcare has been a catastrophic mess.
医疗保健陷入了灾难性的混乱。
I meant our ability to make GMOs and .
我的意思是我们生产转基因生物的能力。
.
。
.
。
We can do a lot with synthetic biology today.
今天我们可以利用合成生物学做很多事情。
One thing, I was meeting with a company today that is looking at — and NYC had put out a request for more of this — about how you genetically modify bacteria in the ocean to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and stop climate change.
有一件事，我今天会见了一家公司，该公司正在研究如何对海洋中的细菌进行基因改造，以从大气中吸收碳并阻止气候变化，而纽约市已提出了更多此类要求。
That wouldn’t have been something that anyone would have seriously talked about 10 years ago.
十年前，这不会是任何人都会认真谈论的事情。
The fact that we can even have that conversation now, I think is awesome.
我认为我们现在甚至可以进行这样的对话，这真是太棒了。
We may decide not to do it for good reasons, but .
我们可能会出于充分的理由决定不这样做，但是。
.
。
.
。
We talked about growing up in St. Louis.
我们谈论了在圣路易斯长大的事情。
One thing that my dad was really into when I was a kid was the Human Genome Project.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我父亲真正感兴趣的一件事就是人类基因组计划。
Wash U, which we lived near, was one of the centers.
我们住的附近的华盛顿大学是其中之一。
They sequenced a human for a billion dollars.
他们花费十亿美元对人类进行测序。
It was this huge deal.
这是一件大事。
I was a kid; it wasn’t that long ago.
我还是个孩子；那是不久前的事了。
You can sequence a human now for a hundred bucks.
现在只需一百美元就可以对人类进行测序。
You can take a sample of your blood, and you can sequence every piece of DNA and RNA in there.
你可以抽取你的血液样本，然后对其中的每一段 DNA 和 RNA 进行测序。
Any bacteria or virus in your body, we have a perfect diagnostics for.
您体内的任何细菌或病毒，我们都有完美的诊断。
If you have an infectious disease, I guess unless it’s a prion, we can just sequence everything.
如果你患有传染病，我想除非是朊病毒，否则我们可以对所有东西进行测序。
We have a perfect diagnostic.
我们有完美的诊断。
That’s amazing.
太棒了。
Why has the tech world found education so hard to crack?
为什么科技界发现教育如此难以破解？
Why can the tech world not convince parents to love and prioritize their children?
为什么科技世界不能说服父母爱孩子并优先考虑他们的孩子？
Say a little more.
多说一点。
There’s a lot of things technology can’t do.
有很多事情是科技无法做到的。
There are a lot of things that require human connection.
有很多事情需要人与人之间的联系。
There are a lot of things that require people.
有很多事情需要人来做。
Technology can do some things, but I don’t think the biggest problem with our educational system is a technology one.
技术可以做一些事情，但我不认为我们教育系统的最大问题是技术问题。
It’s the human one?
这是人类的吗？
For sure.
一定。
What is the biggest —
最大的是什么——
By the way, one thing that I’m excited about is, if AI really does disemploy 80 percent of the world, maybe we get a great teacher —
顺便说一句，令我兴奋的一件事是，如果人工智能真的让世界上 80% 的人失业，也许我们会得到一位伟大的老师——
Tutor.
导师。
Yeah, for every child in the world.
是的，为了世界上的每一个孩子。
Not just a teacher, but someone to just care about and love and make that kid the best they can be.
不仅仅是一位老师，而是一位关心和爱护孩子并让孩子成为最好的人。
What is the biggest problem in the US financial system that you think can be fixed or ameliorated by a tech company or tech revolution?
您认为美国金融体系中最大的问题是什么，可以通过科技公司或技术革命来解决或改善？
Well, we all come at this with our own bias, but in terms of where I’m choosing to spend my own time, a lot more economic growth by funding a lot more great startups, building AGI and figuring out how to distribute that fairly among citizens of the world, and nuclear fusion.
好吧，我们都有自己的偏见，但就我选择把自己的时间花在哪里而言，通过资助更多伟大的初创公司、建立通用人工智能并弄清楚如何在世界公民之间公平分配以及核聚变来实现更多的经济增长。
I would take any of those.
我会接受其中任何一个。
But the financial system — banking, payments.
但金融体系——银行、支付。
Oh, that, literally that.
哦，那个，字面上的意思。
I thought you meant the economic system.
我以为你指的是经济体系。
It’s amazing to me, just studying history, how much the cost of energy correlates with the quality of life.
让我惊讶的是，只要研究历史，能源成本与生活质量有多大的相关性。
Yes.
是的。
For the economic system, that would be a huge one.
对于经济体系来说，这将是一个巨大的数字。
For the banking system, I don’t know.
对于银行系统，我不知道。
It’s not Bitcoin, I’ll say that.
我会这么说，这不是比特币。
I don’t feel uniquely or particularly well qualified to answer this, but I suspect it is doing something along the lines of providing fair financial infrastructure for poor people.
我觉得自己不是唯一或特别有资格回答这个问题，但我怀疑它正在做一些类似于为穷人提供公平金融基础设施的事情。
So cheaper loans, more responsible lending practices.
因此，更便宜的贷款，更负责任的贷款行为。
Something like that is what I would guess, but I haven’t studied this.
我猜是这样的，但我还没有研究过。
What’s the best-case scenario for crypto?
加密货币的最佳情况是什么？
I’m not suggesting you’re predicting it, but how might it go best?
我并不是建议你去预测它，但它如何才能最好地进行呢？
I’m excited about universal basic income.
我对全民基本收入感到兴奋。
I don’t think countries are going to implement that anytime soon.
我认为各国不会很快实施这一举措。
I can imagine a crypto system where you see something that is more powerful than any government on Earth, where you actually figure out a way to give every person on Earth a coin, and then you make this gigantic network that everyone believes in, and you can do redistribution outside the control of any government.
我可以想象一个加密系统，你会看到比地球上任何政府都更强大的东西，你实际上找到了一种方法给地球上的每个人一枚硬币，然后你建立了这个每个人都相信的巨大网络，你可以在任何政府的控制之外进行重新分配。
We talked a bunch of times tonight about network effects.
今晚我们多次讨论了网络效应。
That would be the most powerful network effect the world has ever seen economically, and I think that would be cool.
这将是世界上有史以来最强大的经济网络效应，我认为这会很酷。
If much of economic and social activity ever moves into virtual reality, will we use crypto and virtual reality or just trade dollars?
如果大部分经济和社会活动进入虚拟现实，我们会使用加密货币和虚拟现实还是只交易美元？
I’m only laughing because whenever people put two buzzwords together, I’ve learned from YC interviews to really get skeptical.
我只是笑，因为每当人们将两个流行词放在一起时，我从 YC 采访中了解到，我真的会感到怀疑。
Good ideas should have one big thing that really works, right?
好的想法应该有一件真正有效的大事，对吧？
One big thing, one big thing.
一件大事，一件大事。
Yes.
是的。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I think we could still use dollars.
我认为我们仍然可以使用美元。
What are we going to do with all the empty big-box stores?
我们要如何处理所有空荡荡的大型商店？
I’ve been thinking about that.
我一直在考虑这个问题。
It’s an interesting question.
这是一个有趣的问题。
I don’t have an answer.
我没有答案。
Community centers?
社区中心？
All these tutors who are put out of work by AI — they meet up with children there?
所有这些被人工智能失业的导师——他们在那里与孩子们见面？
I would take really cheap housing.
我会选择非常便宜的住房。
If we could fill them all up with really cheap housing, I’d be pretty happy.
如果我们能为他们提供非常便宜的住房，我会很高兴。
I think one of the things that’s gone badly wrong in the United States is, we have now pursued for a long time a policy where we want housing to be an investment, not a consumption asset, and thus grow faster than the rate of inflation.
我认为美国犯下的严重错误之一是，我们长期以来一直奉行一项政策，希望住房成为一种投资，而不是消费资产，从而使其增长速度快于通货膨胀率。
After you let those curves compound out for many decades, you get the predictable disaster we’re in now, where you basically steal the future from young people.
当你让这些曲线复合几十年后，你就会遇到我们现在所处的可预见的灾难，你基本上从年轻人那里偷走了未来。
If you could pick one national policy that would help, I think, with redistributing economic opportunity, the cost of housing near high-quality jobs — that would be a great thing to do.
我认为，如果你能选择一项有助于重新分配经济机会、靠近高质量就业机会的住房成本的国家政策，那将是一件伟大的事情。
If you could pick one national policy that would help, I think, with redistributing economic opportunity, the cost of housing near high-quality jobs — that would be a great thing to do.
我认为，如果你能选择一项有助于重新分配经济机会、靠近高质量就业岗位的住房成本的国家政策，那将是一件很棒的事情。
How optimistic are you about the prospects in the Bay Area of having greater freedom to build in a way that would, say, lower prices by 20 percent, compared to baseline?
您对湾区拥有更大的建设自由度（例如与基准线相比价格降低 20%）的前景有多乐观？
Well, I will caveat this by saying if you believe what I believe about the timeline to AGI and the effect it will have on the world, it is hard to spend a lot of mental cycles thinking about anything else.
好吧，我要警告一下，如果你相信我对通用人工智能的时间表及其对世界的影响的看法，那么你就很难花很多时间思考其他事情。
So I have not thought deeply about what it would take to solve, really, any other problem in the last few years.
因此，在过去的几年里，我并没有深入思考如何才能真正解决任何其他问题。
But I don’t feel optimistic, given prior performance, that the Bay Area is really going to do the right thing on housing policy.
但考虑到之前的表现，我并不乐观地认为湾区真的会在住房政策上采取正确的做法。
On the country as a whole, do you think the Bay Area is especially unlikely?
就全国而言，你认为湾区的可能性特别大吗？
Will Atlanta become a new land of NIMBY and, in turn, Houston, Dallas, someday Chattanooga?
亚特兰大是否会成为“邻避”的新土地，进而成为休斯顿、达拉斯和查塔努加的新土地？
Or how do you see this evolving?
或者您如何看待这种演变？
At some point — actually, I think it may be close — the network effects that have made the Bay Area so powerful for technology startups — the costs will overcome that.
在某个时刻——“实际上，我认为可能会接近”——“网络效应使湾区对科技初创企业如此强大”——“成本将克服这一点。”
That will be a real opportunity for other cities.
这对其他城市来说将是一个真正的机会。
Other than the Bay Area of course, Israel, which is connected to VC networks here, but what’s the undervalued geographic center for VC in the next generation that people should be talking about more?
当然，除了湾区之外，还有以色列，这里与风险投资网络相连，但人们应该更多谈论的下一代风险投资的被低估的地理中心是什么？
My current belief about that is that it’s not — now that the world has kind of woken up to this — it’s not going to be one center.
我目前对此的看法是，“现在世界已经意识到这一点”，“它不会是一个中心”。
It’s going to be more diffuse everywhere.
到处都会更加分散。
But here, there’s so much clustering, and the land prices reflect it.
但这里的集群非常多，土地价格也反映了这一点。
You want to be near other people.
你想靠近其他人。
You’re on boards of companies, you want the company to be with you.
你是公司董事会成员，你希望公司与你同在。
Venture capitalists often induce the company to move next to them.
风险投资家经常诱导公司向他们迁移。
For sure.
一定。
What will change that?
什么会改变这一点？
What I meant more is, instead of one new center or two new centers, there will be 30, and there will be clusters in different places that don’t quite get to the density of the Bay Area but get beyond critical mass.
我的意思更多的是，不再是一个或两个新中心，而是30个，并且在不同地方会有集群，这些集群虽然达不到湾区的密度，但超出了临界质量。
I think we’ll just see that diffused throughout the world.
我想我们会看到它传播到世界各地。
Let’s say you visit a city abroad.
假设您访问国外的一个城市。
You’ve either never been, or you haven’t been much.
你要么从来没有去过，要么你去过的不多。
You have two, three days to look around — is this a promising center for a venture capital?
你有两三天的时间四处看看 ——这是一个有前途的风险投资中心吗？
What is it you look for?
你在寻找什么？
I have a funny metric on that.
我对此有一个有趣的衡量标准。
It probably doesn’t work for most people, but it is the number of times I get stopped on the street for a selfie.
它可能对大多数人不起作用，但它是我在街上被拦住自拍的次数。
It’s a good metric, and it correlates positively.
这是一个很好的指标，并且呈正相关。
At least with startup energy in that city, yeah.
至少在那个城市有启动能量，是的。
Yeah.
是的。
Charter cities — is that a potential venture capital idea or is that just something different?
特许城市 ——这是一个潜在的风险投资想法还是只是不同的东西？
Yeah, yeah, that’s cool.
是啊，是啊，那很酷。
There is this desperate need for a better, more affordable way to live in better-functioning cities.
在运转良好的城市中，迫切需要一种更好、更实惠的生活方式。
Cities are so important in the current world to economic opportunity, and they denied so many people now that people are really willing to try something new.
城市在当今世界对于经济机会非常重要，它们现在拒绝了很多人，以至于人们真的愿意尝试新事物。
I think there’s enough customer demand there that there will be economic support for it.
我认为那里有足够的客户需求，因此会有经济支持。
As our final segment, let me ask you a few questions about what I call the Sam Altman production function.
作为我们的最后一部分，让我问你几个关于我所说的山姆·奥尔特曼生产函数的问题。
Are you game?
你是游戏吗？
Sure.
当然。
What did you learn from Loopt?
你从洛普特那里学到了什么？
You cannot create a market that does not want organically to exist.
你无法创建一个不想有机存在的市场。
What did you do wrong as a 19-year-old?
19岁的你做错了什么？
Whoo!
呼！
We only have a few more minutes.
我们只剩几分钟了。
I didn’t spend enough time thinking about what to work on.
我没有花足够的时间思考该做什么。
I just let myself get pulled along.
我只是让自己被拉着走。
I was probably pretty obnoxious and a little bit of a jerk.
我可能非常令人讨厌并且有点混蛋。
I think I corrected for that quickly, but I wish I had done it faster.
我想我很快就纠正了这一点，但我希望我做得更快。
In the world of tech startups, venture capital, what is weight lifting correlated with?
在科技初创企业、风险投资领域，举重与什么相关？
Weight lifting?
举重？
Weight lifting.
举重。
Taleb tells us, in New York City, weight lifting is correlated with supporting Trump, but I doubt if that’s true in —
塔勒布告诉我们，在纽约市，举重与支持特朗普相关，但我怀疑这在以下情况是否属实：
It’s not true here.
这里不是这样的。
Yes.
是的。
I think it’s correlated with successful founders.
我认为这与成功的创始人有关。
It’s fun to have numbers that go up and to the right.
数字向上和向右移动是很有趣的。
The most fun thing for me about weight lifting is .
对我来说举重最有趣的事情是。
.
。
.
。
I’m basically financially illiterate.
我基本上是个财务文盲。
I can’t build an Excel model for anything.
我无法为任何东西建立 Excel 模型。
I can’t read a balance sheet.
我看不懂资产负债表。
But my Excel model for weight lifting is beautiful because they’re numbers that go up and to the right, and it’s really fun to play around with that.
但我的举重 Excel 模型很漂亮，因为它们是向上和向右的数字，并且使用它真的很有趣。
What makes you a good poker player?
是什么让你成为一名优秀的扑克玩家？
I played a lot of poker in college, and I think I learned more about life and business from that than I learned in college.
我在大学里玩了很多扑克，我认为我从中学到的关于生活和商业的知识比在大学里学到的更多。
I would not say I’m a great poker player, but I’m pretty good.
我不会说我是一名出色的扑克玩家，但我相当不错。
The thing that makes me, I think, good about that is getting good at quickly evaluating risk.
我认为，让我擅长的是快速评估风险。
I’m from the Northeast.
我来自东北。
When I watch racing cars, I see a bunch of little things on TV go around and around the track, and I’m totally bored.
当我看赛车时，我会在电视上看到一堆小东西在赛道上转来转去，我感到非常无聊。
What am I missing?
我缺少什么？
It’s not that fun to watch, but it’s very fun to drive.
观看起来并不那么有趣，但驾驶起来却很有趣。
Fun to drive.
驾驶乐趣。
There are very few activities that are high enough adrenaline to totally stop thinking about work, and racing cars is certainly one of them.
很少有活动能让肾上腺素高到让人完全停止思考工作，赛车无疑是其中之一。
But watching it is not that fun.
但看它并不那么有趣。
Is regret rational?
后悔是理性的吗？
Yes, I think it is rational, both to live your life aiming to never regret anything .
是的，我认为这是理性的，既要过着不后悔的生活。
.
。
.
。
If I ever am making a decision, and I feel like I’m going to regret not doing something, or I have regretted not doing something, I try to go do that thing right then.
如果我正在做决定，并且我觉得我会后悔没有做某事，或者我已经后悔没有做某事，那么我会尝试立即去做那件事。
But on the other hand, if you can’t change it, if it’s done, it is maybe not that productive to regret.
但另一方面，如果你无法改变它，即使它已经完成了，后悔也许也没有那么有效。
But it is a deeply human thing and, I think, sometimes helpful.
但这是一件深具人性的事情，我认为有时是有帮助的。
What is a source of beauty or potential beauty in your life that you would like to have more of or plan on having more of soon?
您希望拥有更多或计划很快拥有更多的生活中美丽或潜在美丽的来源是什么？
For the first time since I was a kid, I have really been able, in the last few years, to take more time to (A) just do nothing with people that I love, and (B) marvel at everything in life and figure out how to look at things for the first time again.
自从我还是个孩子以来，在过去的几年里，我第一次真正能够花更多的时间（A）和我爱的人一起什么也不做，（B）对生活中的一切感到惊叹，并弄清楚如何再次第一次看待事物。
That has been a source of great beauty.
这一直是伟大美丽的源泉。
What’s the binding constraint for those of us who want to do more of that?
对于我们这些想要做更多事情的人来说，有什么约束力？
Is it that we need to devote more time or somehow open our minds?
我们是否需要投入更多时间或以某种方式开放我们的思想？
What’s the path to get there?
到达那里的路径是什么？
Is it a free lunch?
这是免费的午餐吗？
For me, it was finding someone to really explain that to me, and getting to a point in my life where I was ready to do it.
对我来说，就是找到一个人真正向我解释这一点，并在我生命中达到一个我准备好这样做的时刻。
So, like, beauty mentors.
所以，就像美容导师一样。
Sort of.
有点像。
One of your greatest achievements, you said, was reinventing Y Combinator after you took it over.
您说，您最伟大的成就之一是在您接管 Y Combinator 后重新发明了它。
When the point comes, how will you do this again, once it’s needed?
当关键时刻到来时，一旦需要，您将如何再次执行此操作？
How does the next person reinvent my company, or how do I re-reinvent it?
下一个人如何重塑我的公司，或者我如何重新重塑它？
Whoever it will be.
不管是谁。
The key to doing that for any organization — I think it is actually harder to reinvent an organization than it is to do it the first time.
对于任何组织来说，做到这一点的关键是 —— 我认为重塑一个组织实际上比第一次更难。
The hardest thing in business is an organization that produces repeated innovation and success because loss aversion is so high.
商业中最困难的事情是一个组织不断地创新和成功，因为损失厌恶是如此之高。
Resistance to change is so high when you have something that’s working.
当你有一些可行的东西时，变革的阻力就会很大。
Putting the risk to make it work better is not a bet that ever feels comfortable.
为了让它更好地运作而冒风险并不是一个让人感觉舒服的赌注。
I think internalizing, truly, deeply internalizing that most things in life are not as risky as they seem, most things in life are two-way doors — you can come back — and that even if people that you work with or in the press or whatever call you idiots and say, “Oh!” — that doesn’t mean you have to listen to them.
我认为，真正地、深刻地内化生活中的大多数事情并不像看起来那么危险，生活中的大多数事情都是双向门 - 你可以回来 - 即使与你一起工作的人、媒体或其他人称你为白痴并说，“哦！” — 这并不意味着你必须听他们的。
Can you ever appease your critics?
你能安抚批评你的人吗？
When people call you idiots?
当人们称你为白痴时？
I try not to think about them.
我尽量不去想他们。
Try not to think about them.
尽量不要去想它们。
Last question —
最后一个问题——
Well, that’s actually not true.
嗯，这实际上不是真的。
I try to listen to every piece of criticism, assuming that it is true and assuming that I’m in the wrong.
我试着倾听每一条批评，假设它是真的，并假设我错了。
But once I have reflected on it and decided that I’m right and this person is just engaging in bad faith, then I try to put it out of my mind entirely.
但一旦我反思并确定我是对的，这个人只是在恶意行事，那么我就会尝试将其完全抛在脑后。
I put no effort into trying to appease them.
我没有花力气去安抚他们。
Last question: Let’s say a very smart and credible 19-year-old comes up to you and says, “I would like to be the Sam Altman of the next generation.
最后一个问题：假设一个非常聪明、可信的 19 岁年轻人走到你面前说：“我想成为下一代的山姆·奥特曼。
Not an exact copy of what you’ve done but the 2.0 version.” What advice would you give to that 19-year-old?
这不是你所做的事情的精确副本，而是 2.0 版本。”你会给那个 19 岁的年轻人什么建议？
I don’t know what the Sam Altman of my generation is going to look like yet.
我还不知道我们这一代的山姆·奥特曼会是什么样子。
I hope I’m not done here.
我希望我还没说完。
Other than move to St. Louis.
除了搬到圣路易斯。
I think the mimetic stuff is always super dangerous, but I don’t think you should ever try to be somebody else, or I don’t think you should ever even try to take too much inspiration from someone else’s life path.
我认为模仿的东西总是超级危险的，但我认为你不应该尝试成为别人，或者我认为你不应该试图从别人的人生道路上获取太多灵感。
I still hope that the most important work I have to do, by far, is in front of me.
我仍然希望到目前为止我要做的最重要的工作就在我面前。
I hope that’s the case until the day I stop working.
我希望直到我停止工作的那一天都是如此。
That’s what I would encourage people to do is, don’t shoot for something that somebody else has already done.
这就是我鼓励人们做的事情，不要追求别人已经做过的事情。
Shoot for something that no one has done yet.
为尚未有人做过的事情而努力。
Sam Altman, thank you very much.
萨姆·奥尔特曼，非常感谢你。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Q&A
问答
We now have some time for questions at the two mics.
现在我们有时间对两个麦克风提问。
Please keep in mind, these are not speeches from you.
请记住，这些不是您的演讲。
We are here to hear Sam.
我们来这里是为了听山姆的讲话。
A speech or a long-winded statement, I will simply cut off.
一次演讲或者一段冗长的声明，我都会干脆打断。
We will start with the microphone over here.
我们将从这里的麦克风开始。
Please, first question.
请，第一个问题。
In terms of narratives in the country, I think we’re seeing a lot of fear and a lot of people going to simpler narratives because it makes them feel more safe.
就这个国家的叙述而言，我认为我们看到了很多恐惧，很多人都选择了更简单的叙述，因为这让他们感到更安全。
I think you talked, maybe last year or the year before, at a Disrupt, and you talked about a startup that was looking to take over the role of a church in the community.
我想你可能在去年或前年的一次 Disrupt 会议上谈到了一家初创公司正在寻求接管社区中教会的角色。
I was going to ask you if you had thought more about that kind of interaction between simpler narratives, and maybe what they were trying to do, and maybe where that might go in the future.
我想问你是否更多地考虑过简单叙述之间的这种互动，也许他们想做什么，也许将来会走向何方。
I think the thing that has gone wrong in the tech industry, and maybe the country as a whole, is we — this area of the world — has failed to present a vision of the future where everyone gets to win and that everyone is excited about.
我认为科技行业乃至整个国家的问题在于，我们——世界的这个地区——未能展现出每个人都能获胜、每个人都感到兴奋的未来愿景。
We’re unlikely to get good at that fast enough, so I’m actually excited for the tech industry to figure out how to collaborate with Hollywood or other industries that are good at narrative and paint a vision of the future that is optimistic because pessimism is always easier than optimism.
我们不太可能足够快地做到这一点，所以我实际上很高兴科技行业能够弄清楚如何与好莱坞或其他擅长叙事的行业合作，并描绘出乐观的未来愿景，因为悲观总是比乐观更容易。
Demagogues always have an easier time winning elections with pessimism than optimism.
煽动者总是比乐观更容易赢得选举。
I think people can kind of sense, whether they like it or not, tech is going to have a lot of influence over their lives, and it’s up to us to paint that positive narrative.
我认为人们可以感觉到，无论他们喜欢与否，科技将对他们的生活产生很大的影响，而我们有责任描绘这种积极的叙述。
In fact, a lot of what I hope OpenAI does in the next couple of years is figure out how to tell the positive AI story, not the negative one.
事实上，我希望 OpenAI 在未来几年里做的很多事情都是弄清楚如何讲述积极的人工智能故事，而不是消极的故事。
Next question.
下一个问题。
I heard you speak a little bit about physicists tonight.
我今晚听到你讲了一些关于物理学家的话题。
I myself am a physics PhD student.
我本人是一名物理学博士生。
I’m an aspiring physicist, to be clear.
需要明确的是，我是一名有抱负的物理学家。
All right, that makes two of us.
好吧，这就是我们两个人。
When I get back to Berkeley tomorrow and I tell everybody that you might not think physics is the place to be, what should I tell all the physicists to do?
当我明天回到伯克利时，我告诉大家，你们可能不认为物理学是一个适合的地方，我应该告诉所有物理学家做什么？
They’re smart people, they’re hardworking, but maybe they’re doing the wrong thing.
他们是聪明人，他们很努力，但也许他们做错了事。
I actually think there is plenty of fertile ground in the field of physics.
事实上，我认为物理学领域有很多肥沃的土壤。
Most people aren’t working on it.
大多数人都没有为此努力。
Everyone wants to solve the grand unified theory, somehow or other.
每个人都想以某种方式解决大统一理论。
That is every physicist that I’ve ever met’s dream.
这是我见过的每个物理学家的梦想。
Maybe that’s the wrong problem to be going after.
也许这是一个错误的问题。
Maybe more physicists should be working on a better plasma physics model so we can get nuclear fusion sooner.
也许更多的物理学家应该研究更好的等离子体物理模型，这样我们就可以更快地实现核聚变。
Or maybe more physicists should come work at OpenAI because physicists are usually the smartest people.
或者也许更多的物理学家应该来 OpenAI 工作，因为物理学家通常是最聪明的人。
Many people in the field have gotten trapped in various dead ends, and one problem with being really smart is that really smart people tend to be super mimetic, so most physicists I’ve met have the same aspiration, work on the same problem.
该领域的许多人都陷入了各种死胡同，而真正聪明的一个问题是，真正聪明的人往往具有超级模仿能力，所以我遇到的大多数物理学家都有同样的愿望，致力于解决同样的问题。
Maybe it’s just too hard, and there are all these other problems.
也许这太难了，而且还有其他所有问题。
My advice to all the physicists at Berkeley would be, spend less time thinking about the problem you’re working on today that you’re not making progress on and more time thinking about what problem no other physicist is working on that would be really important to the world and that maybe you can solve.
我对伯克利分校所有物理学家的建议是，少花点时间思考你今天正在研究的、没有取得进展的问题，多花点时间思考其他物理学家正在研究的哪些问题对世界来说非常重要，而且也许你可以解决。
A question from the iPad: Please give us your anti-coworking spaces rant.
来自 iPad 的问题：请告诉我们您反对联合办公空间的咆哮。
Ohh.
哦。
All right, I will.
好吧，我会的。
I used to say there are 3,000 YC clones in the world.
我以前说过，世界上有3000个YC克隆人。
I have since learned that there’s 8,000 in China alone.
后来我了解到，仅在中国就有 8,000 个。
So let’s say the whole number in the world is 16,000.
假设全世界的总数是 16,000。
Every time someone decides they’re going to build the next Y Combinator, the idea is always the following: “It’s going to be just like Y Combinator, except we’re going to provide free coworking space.” I always want to say to people, “Did you ever think that maybe we thought about that, and it’s a feature, not a bug, that we don’t have it?”
每当有人决定要构建下一个 Y Combinator 时，想法总是这样的：“它会像 Y Combinator 一样，只不过我们将提供免费的联合办公空间。”我总是想对人们说，“你有没有想过，也许我们考虑过这一点，而且这是一个功能，而不是一个错误，我们没有它？”
I think the single thing that has differentiated YC more than any other decision we’ve made is that we do not have a coworking space.
我认为，与我们做出的任何其他决定相比，YC 的独特之处在于我们没有联合办公空间。
We bring the companies together once a week, but that’s it.
我们每周将这些公司召集一次，但仅此而已。
It’s enough for a community, but it is enough to build your own identity.
对于一个社区来说这已经足够了，但对于建立你自己的身份也足够了。
Coworking spaces have two big classes of problems.
联合办公空间存在两大类问题。
Number one, they are a band-pass filter.
第一，它们是带通滤波器。
Good ideas — actually, no, great ideas are fragile.
好主意 ——事实上，不，好主意是脆弱的。
Great ideas are easy to kill.
伟大的想法很容易被扼杀。
An idea in its larval stage — all the best ideas when I first heard them sound bad.
处于萌芽阶段的想法——当我第一次听到所有最好的想法时，它们听起来都很糟糕。
And all of us, myself included, are much more affected by what other people think of us and our ideas than we like to admit.
我们所有人，包括我自己，受到别人对我们和我们想法的看法的影响比我们愿意承认的要大得多。
If you are just four people in your own door, and you have an idea that sounds bad but is great, you can keep that self-delusion going.
如果你家只有四个人，而你有一个听起来很糟糕但却很棒的想法，你就可以继续这种自我欺骗。
If you’re in a coworking space, people laugh at you, and no one wants to be the kid picked last at recess.
如果你在联合办公空间，人们会嘲笑你，没有人愿意成为课间休息时最后被选中的孩子。
So you change your idea to something that sounds plausible but is never going to matter.
所以你把你的想法变成了一些听起来似乎有道理但永远不会重要的东西。
It’s true that coworking spaces do kill off the very worst ideas, but a band-pass filter for startups is a terrible thing because they kill off the best ideas, too.
确实，联合办公空间确实会扼杀最糟糕的想法，但对于初创公司来说，带通滤波器是一件可怕的事情，因为它们也会扼杀最好的想法。
The other thing is the average level of ambition and willingness to work hard at a coworking space is incredibly low.
另一件事是，在联合办公空间努力工作的平均雄心和意愿非常低。
There’s this reversion to the mean that is not what you want in your life.
这种回归均值的情况并不是你想要的生活。
Next question.
下一个问题。
I know you played “will you fund or not,” but you didn’t play “overrated or underrated.” Can we do that?
我知道你玩的是“你是否资助”，但你没有玩“高估或低估”。我们可以这样做吗？
Toss one out.
扔一个出去。
I’m really bad at this.
我真的很不擅长这个。
Antarctica, overrated or underrated?
南极洲，被高估还是被低估？
Underrated.
被低估了。
I went there for Christmas.
我去那里过圣诞节。
It was awesome.
太棒了。
What was great about it?
它有什么了不起的？
It felt like being on another planet.
感觉就像在另一个星球上。
I think as you get older, it gets harder and harder to truly have new perspective on things.
我认为随着年龄的增长，真正对事物有新的看法会变得越来越难。
Let me tell you, having no internet, no other humans around, slash plants or animals, being extremely cold, and having nothing to look at but white and rock.
让我告诉你，没有网络，周围没有其他人类，砍伐植物或动物，非常寒冷，除了白色和岩石之外没有什么可看的。
Man, was that a mental reset.
伙计，这是一种精神重置吗？
That was really cool.
那真是太酷了。
Another question from this side.
这方面还有一个问题。
As AI gets better — you were talking about in chess, I think.
随着人工智能变得更好 ——我想你正在谈论国际象棋。
You said biology becomes a liability as AI gets better at thinking than we are.
你说过，随着人工智能比我们更善于思考，生物学就成为了一种负担。
So what becomes the most important work of humans?
那么人类最重要的工作是什么？
Love, creativity, how we treat each other.
爱、创造力、我们如何对待彼此。
We’re going to find out.
我们会找出答案。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I was talking to someone recently about all the different ways this can go.
我最近和某人谈论了这一切可以采取的不同方式。
There are versions — a lot of people, a lot of techno-utopianists love them — where we all just merge with AI, and there’s no opt-out.
有一些版本 ——很多人、很多技术乌托邦主义者都喜欢它们—— 我们都只是与人工智能融合，没有选择退出。
Either you merge with AI or you become irrelevant.
要么你与人工智能融合，要么你变得无关紧要。
That sounds cool, probably, to a lot of people in this room and terrifying to 99 percent of people on Earth.
对于在座的很多人来说，这可能听起来很酷，但对于地球上 99% 的人来说，这听起来很可怕。
We talked about the need for positive stories.
我们讨论了积极故事的必要性。
I don’t think that’s the story that most people want to hear.
我认为这不是大多数人想听的故事。
I don’t think that’s exciting.
我认为这并不令人兴奋。
I don’t think that’s a future that most people are excited about.
我不认为这是大多数人都感到兴奋的未来。
But the thing that is really interesting about this is, sure, we’re going to build this thing that’s smarter than humans in every way, but we get to make a lot of decisions about how to build it.
但真正有趣的是，当然，我们将建造这个在各方面都比人类更聪明的东西，但我们需要就如何建造它做出很多决定。
You only get to make them once, when the von Neumann probes launch from Earth, and eventually you never get to communicate again because of the speed of light.
当冯·诺依曼探测器从地球发射时，你只能制造一次，最终由于光速的原因，你再也无法进行通信了。
You better have gotten it right, but we do get to make them.
你最好做对了，但我们确实要做。
I don’t know what the answer is.
我不知道答案是什么。
I do know I should not get to make it by myself.
我确实知道我不应该自己做。
But maybe we as humans, as a whole, decide the deal we want with AI, like humans get Earth and a 100-light-year radius, and AI gets the rest of the universe, but we get to live our lives as we want, and maybe that’s OK.
但也许我们作为人类，作为一个整体，决定我们想要与人工智能达成的协议，就像人类得到地球和100光年半径，人工智能得到宇宙的其余部分，但我们可以按照自己的意愿生活，也许这没关系。
The option space is big, but we won’t be smarter.
选择空间很大，但我们不会变得更聪明。
An iPad question: You mentioned some of the qualities of good and bad founders.
一个 iPad 问题：您提到了好创始人和坏创始人的一些品质。
Of the qualities of bad founders, which do you think are the most curable?
在糟糕的创始人的品质中，您认为哪些是最可以治愈的？
Arrogance.
傲慢。
You want to be confident but not arrogant.
你想要自信但不傲慢。
They look, superficially, to an outside observer very similar.
从表面上看，它们在外部观察者看来非常相似。
If a founder is intellectually honest and wants to be better — to my surprise, this is something I’ve changed my mind on — arrogance can often be cured if someone is otherwise well motivated.
如果创始人在理智上是诚实的，并且想要变得更好——令我惊讶的是，这是我改变主意的事情，如果某人在其他方面有良好的积极性，那么傲慢往往可以得到治愈。
What cures arrogance, other than you?
除了你之外，还有什么可以治愈傲慢呢？
Getting beaten up by the market sometimes does it, but just teaching people that you can operate this way if you want, and you will be unhappy, and people won’t want to help you.
被市场打败有时确实可以，但只是告诉人们，如果你愿意，你可以这样操作，你会不高兴，人们也不会愿意帮助你。
Or you can make a slight tweak to the way you interact with people, and the way you treat people, and the way you treat your team, and the way you listen to feedback, and get this very different result.
或者，你可以稍微调整一下与人互动的方式、对待他人的方式、对待团队的方式以及听取反馈的方式，并得到截然不同的结果。
My experience is, if someone is genuinely intellectually curious, you only need to show them that one time.
我的经验是，如果有人真正有求知欲，你只需要向他们展示一次。
Question over here.
问题就在这里。
How will YC do better to support the 90 or 95 or 99 percent of talented people that is maybe missing or isn’t supported at the moment?
YC 如何更好地支持目前可能缺失或得不到支持的 90%、95% 或 99% 的人才？
I think the most important thing we can do is grow, but that will take some time.
我认为我们能做的最重要的事情就是成长，但这需要一些时间。
It’s always easy to look back at decisions and be like, “I knew that thing was going to work and be really important.” It’s almost always bullshit when people say that.
人们很容易回顾自己的决定，然后说：“我知道那件事会成功，而且非常重要。”当人们这么说时，几乎总是胡说八道。
But the thing that I did personally that surprised me the most for that was in 2014, I think.
但我认为，我个人做的最令我惊讶的事情是在 2014 年。
I taught this class at Stanford, but also, which I, without their permission — they were very against it — put online, called How to Start a Startup.
我在斯坦福大学教授了这门课程，但未经他们的许可，我也将其放在网上，名为“如何创业”。
I still get dozens of emails per week from people around the world who watched these videos and wrote and said, “Hey, I never knew about this.
我仍然每周收到来自世界各地的数十封电子邮件，他们观看了这些视频并写道：“嘿，我从来不知道这个。
I never knew this was an option, and this changed my life.
我从来不知道这是一个选择，这改变了我的生活。
Thank you.” What did you say?
谢谢你。”你说什么？
Alan Kay.
艾伦·凯.
He did the second version of the class, yes.
是的，他做了第二个版本的课程。
We did it again in 2017, and he talked.
2017 年我们又做了一次，他也说了。
That taught me — I’ve done a bunch of things since — that even if we can’t fund every startup, we can put the information out there for every startup.
这教会了我——“从那以后我做了很多事情”——即使我们不能为每家初创公司提供资金，我们也可以将每家初创公司的信息放在那里。
We have tried to open-source everything we know about startups and at least make that part widely available.
我们试图开源我们所知道的有关初创公司的所有内容，并至少使这部分内容广泛可用。
We tried to create more communities outside of just the founders we fund.
我们试图在我们资助的创始人之外创建更多社区。
We’re going to try to launch another one tomorrow.
明天我们将尝试推出另一款产品。
We have things like Hacker News.
我们有像黑客新闻这样的东西。
We try to make a bunch of groups online.
我们尝试在网上建立一些群组。
But we will continue to put as much knowledge out there and create as many communities as we can.
但我们将继续提供尽可能多的知识并创建尽可能多的社区。
From Horshida on iPad: What are some systematic problems in Silicon Valley that prevent certain particular problems from even being noticed?
iPad 上的 Horshida：硅谷有哪些系统性问题导致某些特定问题未被注意到？
That’s a bit of my paraphrase.
这是我的一点转述。
I think one thing is people don’t get out of Silicon Valley enough.
我认为一件事是人们离开硅谷的时间还不够。
I don’t do this as much anymore as I used to, but I used to make it a point — I would try to travel 12, 16 weeks a year, and I would try to meet people in other contexts or just observe the world way outside the US.
我不再像以前那样频繁地这样做，但我曾经说过这样一个观点： —— 我会尝试每年旅行 12、16 周，我会尝试结识其他环境中的人，或者只是观察美国以外的世界。
That gave me a broadness of perspective that was super valuable, and it’s something most people don’t do.
这给了我非常有价值的广阔视野，而这是大多数人做不到的。
Question over here.
问题就在这里。
Regarding the experiment on UBI in Finland, could you comment on the results of that?
关于芬兰全民基本收入的实验，你能否评价一下实验结果？
Didn’t they pull that experiment?
他们没有进行那个实验吗？
The Finnish — I thought they stopped that experiment?
芬兰人 — 我以为他们停止了那个实验？
So I don’t know how to comment on the results, but I would have loved it if there were results to discuss.
所以我不知道如何评论结果，但如果有结果可以讨论，我会很高兴。
From the iPad: If pessimism is indeed the biggest handicap, what do you do to actively cultivate optimism?
来自iPad：如果悲观确实是最大的障碍，那么你会如何积极培养乐观情绪？
One of the most important questions that I would like an answer to is, is optimism versus pessimism nature or nurture?
我想要回答的最重要的问题之一是，乐观与悲观是天生的还是后天的？
If it is nature, can we fix that with CRISPR?
如果这是自然现象，我们可以用 CRISPR 来修复吗？
Because it is such a bad thing to have.
因为拥有它是一件很糟糕的事情。
I hope it’s a personality trait.
我希望这是一种人格特质。
I hope it’s something that can be improved with deliberate practice.
我希望这是可以通过刻意练习来改进的。
I believe in my heart that it is, but I try so hard to avoid pessimistic people in my life that I don’t feel like I have enough of a dataset to answer that with any confidence.
我心里相信确实如此，但我努力避免生活中出现悲观的人，以至于我觉得自己没有足够的数据集来自信地回答这个问题。
What’s the optimal percentage of pessimistic people in your social circle?
你的社交圈中悲观人士的最佳比例是多少？
You do want some, and I have plenty.
你确实想要一些，而我有很多。
But it’s like 1 in 10, 1 in 50.
但这大约是十分之一、五十分之一。
Something like that.
类似的事情。
Next question.
下一个问题。
I believe you said that the best way to create wealth is to start a startup.
我相信你说过，创造财富的最好方法是创业。
On the other hand, you are the successor to running Y Combinator.
另一方面，您是运行 Y Combinator 的继任者。
You were almost an apprentice-seeming figure before you took over, which seems almost like the least founderly thing to do.
在你接任之前，你几乎就像一个学徒，这似乎是最不靠谱的事情。
What should we learn from this?
我们应该从中学到什么？
Should we start a startup unless we have the option to run Y Combinator?
除非我们可以选择运行 Y Combinator，否则我们是否应该开始创业？
Or what?
或者什么？
Look, if you have the option to run Y Combinator, I think that’s a pretty good thing to do.
看，如果你可以选择运行 Y Combinator，我认为这是一件非常好的事情。
The way that Y Combinator generates wealth is still by startups getting started.
Y Combinator 创造财富的方式仍然是由初创公司起步。
As the fundamental mechanism, sure, I don’t start them, but I do think I build something that helps them do better.
当然，作为基本机制，我不会启动它们，但我确实认为我构建了一些可以帮助他们做得更好的东西。
And what I meant more by that statement, you don’t have to start it yourself.
我这句话的更多意思是，你不必自己开始。
You can join as an early employee; you can be an investor.
您可以作为早期员工加入；你可以成为一名投资者。
A more precise version of that would be, “The best way to generate wealth is to own a significant piece of the startup.”
更准确的说法是，“创造财富的最佳方式是拥有初创公司的重要股份。”
There are many ways to do that.
有很多方法可以做到这一点。
You can choose to be an investor; you can choose to be an early employee.
您可以选择成为投资者；你可以选择成为一名早期员工。
You don’t have to be a founder.
你不必是创始人。
In fact, that’s one thing I think Silicon Valley gets wrong, is either you’re a founder or you suck.
事实上，我认为硅谷犯了一个错误，要么你是创始人，要么你很糟糕。
That is clearly not the case.
事实显然并非如此。
But I do think startups are the best way to generate huge amounts of wealth quickly.
但我确实认为初创公司是快速创造巨额财富的最佳途径。
Next question.
下一个问题。
There’s a famous book which came out in the year 2000 called Bowling Alone, which documents the decline of social capital in America.
2000年出版了一本著名的书，名叫《独自打保龄球》，记录了美国社会资本的衰落。
Do you think that decline has continued through to the present day?
您认为这种下降趋势会一直持续到今天吗？
And if so, what solutions do you think there are to solve it, technological or otherwise?
如果是这样，您认为有哪些解决方案可以解决这个问题，无论是技术还是其他？
I’m not familiar with the book.
我对这本书不熟悉。
Could you explain social capital in this context?
您能解释一下这种情况下的社会资本吗？
Social capital refers to a broad set of factors — including shared norms, values, cultural understandings — that serve as a lubricant in a society or group to be able to function more effectively.
社会资本指的是一系列广泛的因素——包括共同的规范、价值观、文化理解——这些因素可以作为社会或群体更有效运作的润滑剂。
Got it.
知道了。
Great question.
很好的问题。
There’s all this data that the things that make people happy are, most of all, this sense of community and belonging and frequent community celebrations and things like that.
所有这些数据表明，最能让人们快乐的事情是这种社区感和归属感以及频繁的社区庆祝活动等等。
That has declined for sure, badly.
这肯定已经严重下降了。
I feel like, even in my own life, I’ve watched that decline in the last 30 years.
我觉得，即使在我自己的生活中，我也见证了过去 30 年的衰退。
Even moving from .
甚至从.
.
。
.
。
San Francisco is an awful city for a sense of community.
旧金山是一座缺乏社区意识的城市。
Why is that?
这是为什么？
I could answer that, but it will take — do you want a full answer on that?
我可以回答这个问题，但是需要 — 你想要完整的答案吗？
It’s a long one.
这是一篇很长的文章。
Sure, yeah.
当然，是的。
I think in cities that become dominated by a single industry and cities that have a reward, cities that reward generation of wealth and financial success over a sense of shared humanity and community, have a very hard time preserving that fabric of social capital, community — whatever you want to call it.
I think in cities that become dominated by a single industry and cities that have a reward, cities that reward generation of wealth and financial success over a sense of shared humanity and community, have a very hard time preserving that fabric of social capital, community — whatever you want to call it.
Where I grew up, no one would ever walk by a person collapsed on the side of the street on their way to work and not do something about it.
在我长大的地方，没有人会在上班途中路过倒在路边的人而不采取行动。
I hope I never get used to the fact that that happens in San Francisco.
我希望我永远不会习惯这种事发生在旧金山的事实。
I do blame the tech industry for a lot of things that have gone wrong with the city, but not all of them.
我确实将这座城市的很多问题归咎于科技行业，但并非全部。
But we have, over time, had this unbelievable wealth generation in this small geographic space, in this small period of time, and I think not been particularly thoughtful about the effects of that on the community as a whole.
但随着时间的推移，我们在这么小的地理空间、这么短的时间内创造了令人难以置信的财富，而且我认为我们并没有特别考虑到这对整个社区的影响。
Because those problems are so hard and so hard to think about, most people just choose not to, and they just accept this.
因为这些问题是如此的困难和难以思考，大多数人只是选择不去思考，他们只是接受了这一点。
I think we also have fairly incompetent city government and city management.
我认为我们的市政府和城市管理也相当无能。
We have people that are unwilling to stand up to, certainly, the greatest housing crisis I hope I ever see, and a drug one as well.
当然，我们有些人不愿意面对我希望看到的最严重的住房危机，还有毒品危机。
But we have a city government that has been unwilling, for the entire time I’ve lived here, to make hard decisions that are unpopular with vocal minorities of the voting base.
但在我住在这里的整个时间里，我们的市政府一直不愿意做出不受选民中敢言的少数派欢迎的艰难决定。
So we have unaffordable housing, we have a homelessness epidemic, we have streets that are — again, there’s many things that I love about the city, but the fact that, if I take my trash out late at night when it’s dark and don’t put on shoes, I have to look for hypodermic needles outside my house — it’s like, really?
所以我们有负担不起的住房，我们有无家可归的现象，我们的街道是 —— 再说一次，我喜欢这座城市的很多东西，但事实是，如果我在深夜天黑的时候把垃圾拿出去，而且不穿鞋，我就必须在屋外寻找皮下注射针头 —— 这就像，真的吗？
That’s what we want to do here?
这就是我们想要在这里做的？
You need strong, powerful community leaders in a way that the city hasn’t had, and you need people who are willing to embrace change.
您需要城市所没有的强大社区领导者，并且您需要愿意拥抱变革的人们。
You can’t keep the city the way it was.
你无法让这座城市保持原来的样子。
That’s not going to happen.
那不会发生。
That ship has sailed.
那艘船已经起航了。
Right now, you have people who, in their unwillingness to make any changes, are just letting everything be awful.
现在，有些人不愿意做出任何改变，只是让一切变得糟糕。
The only thing that I think will work is say, “Okay, the game has changed.
我认为唯一有效的就是说：“好吧，游戏已经改变了。
The city has to change in big ways.” You need a leader empowered to do that.
这座城市必须做出重大改变。”你需要一个有能力做到这一点的领导者。
It’s going to make some people unhappy, but the complete lack of humanity and civic connection we have — yeah, I’ll never get used to people not saying hi to each other on the streets.
It’s going to make some people unhappy, but the complete lack of humanity and civic connection we have — yeah, I’ll never get used to people not saying hi to each other on the streets.
I’ll never get used to ignoring people, not even stopping to call an ambulance for people.
我永远不会习惯忽视别人，甚至不会停下来帮别人叫救护车。
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
我想我永远不会习惯。
Last question is from me.
最后一个问题是我提出来的。
The American Midwest — underrated or overrated?
美国中西部 — 被低估还是高估？
Underrated.
被低估了。
Why?
为什么？
You know, as a kid, it was an idyllic place to grow up.
你知道，作为一个孩子，那是一个田园诗般的成长之地。
As a teenager, I did get kind of bored.
作为一个青少年，我确实感到有点无聊。
And as an adult, I feel such a strong pull back.
作为一个成年人，我感到一种强烈的退缩。
People are nice to each other.
人们彼此都很好。
There are seasons.
有季节。
One thing that I think is surprisingly awful about San Francisco and the social fabric of this city is, it’s never warm at night, or it only is four nights a year.
One thing that I think is surprisingly awful about San Francisco and the social fabric of this city is, it’s never warm at night, or it only is four nights a year.
It sounds like this very minor thing, but what it means is, you have no sense of life on the streets, and you have no people sitting outside for dinner, happy and talking to each other as they pass.
It sounds like this very minor thing, but what it means is, you have no sense of life on the streets, and you have no people sitting outside for dinner, happy and talking to each other as they pass.
When you go outside in San Francisco in the evenings, you’re guarded against the world because you are cold all the time.
当你晚上在旧金山外出时，你会对这个世界保持警惕，因为你一直很冷。
There’s not this life on the streets of the city.
城市的街道上没有这种生活。
I think it has this huge effect on the social fabric.
我认为它对社会结构产生了巨大的影响。
Sam Altman, thank you very much.
萨姆·奥尔特曼，非常感谢你。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Photos by Drew Bird Photo
德鲁·伯德 (Drew Bird) 拍摄的照片