Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups | Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator, Airbnb)
Gustaf Alströmer: If I drill down what makes companies fail, it's quite simple.
Gustaf Alströmer：如果我深入探究公司失败的原因，就会发现其实很简单。
It's just like they don't talk to users, which means they don't find product market fit.
就像他们不与用户交谈一样，这意味着他们找不到适合市场的产品。
And if they don't find product market fit, nothing else really matters.
如果他们找不到适合市场的产品，那么其他一切都不重要。
What mistakes do people make is like it is all about that.
人们所犯的错误似乎都是如此。
It's all about talking to customers and learning that you're building something that's actually useful.
这一切都是为了与客户交谈并了解您正在构建真正有用的东西。
YC Slack headline is make things people want, and it's still true and it's always going to be true.
YC Slack 的标题是创造人们想要的东西，这仍然是正确的，而且永远都是正确的。
Lenny: Welcome to Lenny's Podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard one experiences building and growing today's most successful products.
莱尼：欢迎来到莱尼的播客，我在这里采访了世界一流的产品领导者和增长专家，从他们构建和发展当今最成功产品的艰辛经验中学习。
Today my guest is Gustaf Alstromer.
今天我的嘉宾是古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默。
Gustaf is a group partner at Y Combinator where he's been for almost six years.
Gustaf 是 Y Combinator 的集团合伙人，他已在该公司工作了近六年。
Prior to that, Gustaf was at Airbnb for over four years where he started the original Airbnb growth team and where I was very lucky to get to work alongside him for a number of years.
在此之前，古斯塔夫在 Airbnb 工作了四年多，他组建了最初的 Airbnb 增长团队，我很幸运能够与他一起工作多年。
Gustaf is also at the heart of YC's increased focus on climate tech, and in my opinion is one of a handful of people who've had an incredible impact on the increasing amount of investment and people flowing into climate tech.
古斯塔夫也是 YC 对气候技术日益关注的核心人物，在我看来，古斯塔夫是对不断增加的投资和人们流入气候技术产生令人难以置信的影响的少数人之一。
Lenny: We chat in depth about what's happening in climate tech, why things have shifted so much recently, what's new and exciting, and how to think about the space if you're hoping to make the jump.
莱尼：我们深入讨论了气候技术领域正在发生的事情，为什么最近事情发生了如此大的变化，有哪些新的和令人兴奋的事情，以及如果你希望实现跨越，如何考虑这个领域。
We also get deep into Gustaf's experience working with over 600 startups over his time at YC.
我们还深入了解了 Gustaf 在 YC 期间与 600 多家初创公司合作的经验。
We talk about what are the most common mistakes that early stage startups and founders make, what advice YC partners give founders most often, the most common attributes of successful founders, the importance of having a technical co-founder and why that's the case, so much more.
我们讨论早期初创公司和创始人最常犯的错误是什么、YC 合作伙伴最常给创始人提供哪些建议、成功创始人最常见的特质、拥有技术联合创始人的重要性以及为什么会出现这种情况等等。
I guarantee you will leave this episode smarter and more inspired and I can't wait for you to hear it.
我保证您在听完这一集后会更加聪明、更有灵感，我迫不及待地想让您听到它。
With that, I bring you Gustaf Alstromer after a short word from our wonderful sponsors.
在我们精彩的赞助商简短发言之后，我为您带来了古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默 (Gustaf Alstromer)。
Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Linear.
Lenny：这一集是由 Linear 为您带来的。
Let's be honest, the issue tracker that you're using today isn't very helpful.
老实说，您今天使用的问题跟踪器并不是很有帮助。
Why is it that always seems to be working against you instead of working for you?
为什么它似乎总是对你不利而不是为你工作？
What does it feel like such a chore to use?
使用起来这么麻烦是什么感觉？
Well, Linear is different.
那么，线性则不同。
It's incredibly fast, beautifully designed, and it comes with powerful workflows that streamline your entire product development process from issue tracking all the way to managing product roadmaps.
它的速度令人难以置信，设计精美，并且具有强大的工作流程，可以简化从问题跟踪一直到管理产品路线图的整个产品开发流程。
Linear is designed for the way modern software teams work.
Linear 专为现代软件团队的工作方式而设计。
What users love about Linear are the powerful keyboard shortcuts, efficient GitHub integrations, cycles that actually create progress, and built-in project updates that keep everyone in sync.
用户喜欢 Linear 的原因是强大的键盘快捷键、高效的 GitHub 集成、真正创造进步的循环，以及让每个人保持同步的内置项目更新。
In short, it just works.
简而言之，它就是有效的。
Linear is the default tool of choice among startups and it powers a wide range of large established companies such as Vercel, Retool and Cash App.
Linear 是初创公司选择的默认工具，它为 Vercel、Retool 和 Cash App 等众多大型老牌公司提供支持。
See for yourself why product teams describe using Linear as magical visit linear.app/lenny to try Linear for free with your team and get 25% off when you upgrade.
亲自了解为什么产品团队将使用 Linear 形容为神奇的，请访问 Linear.app/lenny 与您的团队免费试用 Linear，并在升级时享受 25% 的折扣。
That's linear.app/lenny.
那是 Linear.app/lenny。
Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Eppo.
Lenny：这一集是 Eppo 为您带来的。
Eppo is a next generation A/B testing platform built by Airbnb alums for modern growth teams.
Eppo 是 Airbnb 校友为现代增长团队打造的下一代 A/B 测试平台。
Companies like Netlify, Contentful, and Cameo rely on Eppo to power their experiments.
Netlify、Contentful 和 Cameo 等公司依靠 Eppo 来支持他们的实验。
Wherever you work, running experiments is increasingly essential, but there are no commercial tools that integrate with a modern grow team stack.
无论您在哪里工作，运行实验都变得越来越重要，但是没有可以与现代种植团队堆栈集成的商业工具。
This leads to wasted time building internal tools while trying to run your experiments through a clunky marketing tool.
这会导致在尝试通过笨重的营销工具运行实验时浪费时间构建内部工具。
When I was at Airbnb, one of the things that I loved about our experimentation platform was being able to easily slice results by device, by country, and by user stage.
当我在 Airbnb 工作时，我喜欢我们的实验平台的一件事是能够轻松地按设备、国家和用户阶段划分结果。
Eppo does all that and more, delivering results quickly, avoiding annoying prolonged analytics cycles, and helping you easily get to the root cause of any issue you discover.
Eppo 做到了这一切，甚至更多，快速提供结果，避免恼人的长时间分析周期，并帮助您轻松找到所发现问题的根本原因。
Eppo lets you go beyond basic clickthrough metrics and instead you turn north star metrics like activation, retention, subscriptions, and payments.
Eppo 可以让您超越基本的点击率指标，而是转向北极星指标，例如激活、保留、订阅和付款。
Eppo supports test on the front end, the back end, email marketing and even machine learning clients.
Eppo支持前端、后端、电子邮件营销甚至机器学习客户端的测试。
Check out Eppo at getepo.com.
请访问 getepo.com 查看 Eppo。
Get, E-P-P-O.com, and 10X your experiment velocity.
获取 E-P-P-O.com，将您的实验速度提高 10 倍。
Lenny: Gustaf, welcome to the podcast.
莱尼：古斯塔夫，欢迎来到播客。
Gustaf Alströmer: Thank you, Lenny.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：谢谢你，莱尼。
Honestly, it's so great to see you.
老实说，很高兴见到你。
I'm excited to be talking to you.
我很高兴能和你说话。
Lenny: I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while ever since we booked this.
莱尼：自从我们预订了这家酒店以来，我一直期待着这次谈话。
We worked together at Airbnb for many years.
我们在 Airbnb 共事多年。
I was really lucky to get to work with you before you moved on to bigger and better things at YC.
在您在 YC 从事更大更好的事情之前，我非常幸运能够与您一起工作。
Speaking of Airbnb, you once tweeted about how special an experience that was for you, and I think even more interestingly, how many of the people that have left Airbnb can't find another place that's as special that just like that bar has been set too high.
说到 Airbnb，您曾经在推特上表示，这对您来说是一次多么特别的体验，我认为更有趣的是，有多少离开 Airbnb 的人找不到另一个像标准设置得太高一样特别的地方。
And so my first question is just like, what do you think it was that made Airbnb so special?
所以我的第一个问题是，您认为是什么让 Airbnb 如此特别？
Why was it such an important experience for you and other people?
为什么这对你和其他人来说是一次如此重要的经历？
And even more importantly, just what is it that you take from that experience that you bring to startups that you work with now?
更重要的是，您从为现在合作的初创公司带来的经验中学到了什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, it's funny.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：是的，这很有趣。
I think this year in a couple of months it'll be 10 years ago since you and me started Airbnb.
我想今年再过几个月，你和我创办 Airbnb 就已经是 10 年前的事了。
Gustaf Alströmer: It was 2012.
Gustaf Alströmer：那是 2012 年。
The reason I treated that was I asked everyone that I'd met after Airbnb, because I had this experience of like, this was the highlight of my career up until then, at least being in the team like that and I asked everyone, "Have you found anything better?" Besides maybe one or two people, I haven't heard anybody say that they found something better.
我这样做的原因是，我问了在 Airbnb 之后遇到的每个人，因为我有过这样的经历，这是我职业生涯迄今为止的亮点，至少在这样的团队中，我问每个人，“你们有找到更好的吗？”除了一两个人之外，我没有听到任何人说他们找到了更好的东西。
And they all missed that dearly.
他们都非常怀念这一点。
I thought a lot about why that was the case, but I would say Airbnb did not feel like a normal job.
我想了很多为什么会这样，但我想说 Airbnb 感觉不像一份正常的工作。
It felt like more like a group of friends trying to just do something together and we were friends.
感觉更像是一群朋友试图一起做某事，我们是朋友。
At least in the beginning it did not feel like this was a job.
至少一开始我并不觉得这是一份工作。
It was sort of like an ongoing project and an assembly of amazing people.
这有点像一个正在进行的项目和一群了不起的人。
I think in the end we managed to build two things, like a really successful company, thanks to Joe and Nate and Brian just for starting this.
我认为最终我们成功建立了两件事，就像一家真正成功的公司，感谢乔、内特和布莱恩的启动。
Without them there would be nothing to build.
没有他们，就没有什么可以建造的。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think people don't like to use the word family, but I feel like that way because when I go and meet with Airbnb alumnis from that team.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为人们不喜欢使用“家庭”这个词，但我有这样的感觉，因为当我去见 Airbnb 团队的校友时。
We have a very special bond that reminds me of close social connections more than anything else.
我们之间有一种非常特殊的联系，这比其他任何事情都更让我想起密切的社会关系。
It does not remind me of coworkers.
它没有让我想起同事。
I asked myself why this was the case.
我问自己为什么会这样。
The best answer I have is probably we brought in a special type of people.
我最好的答案可能是我们引进了特殊类型的人。
We had very diverse backgrounds.
我们有非常不同的背景。
A lot of us was former founders.
我们很多人都是前创始人。
Not many of us were career people from the technology industry of the early days, not many of us.
我们中没有多少人是早期科技行业的职业人士，没有多少人。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think that bar that we set, the first, I believe when I joined there was probably five or seven PMs and there was 30 engineers or something and you joined a little bit before me, those people set the bar or set the standard of what we were looking for afterwards.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为我们设定的第一个标准，我相信当我加入时，可能有五到七个产品经理，还有 30 名工程师什么的，你比我先加入一点，这些人设定了标准，或者设定了我们后来寻找的标准。
I think it took a long time to change that narrative.
我认为改变这种说法花了很长时间。
I mean, eventually you have to hire people that only had big corporation careers, but I don't remember we did that for a long time.
我的意思是，最终你必须雇用那些只在大公司工作过的人，但我不记得我们这样做了很长时间。
When I actually read my goodbye note recently, my words there still means a lot to me and it means sort of like you're trying to reflect on exactly these things on like, building a great company that became successful and being part of this sort of family of really close friends.
当我最近读到我的告别信时，我的话对我来说仍然意义重大，这意味着你正在尝试反思这些事情，建立一家成功的伟大公司，并成为这种由非常亲密的朋友组成的家庭的一部分。
Lenny: So it sounds like if you had to boil down what Airbnb did, it sounds like hiring was the main piece that impacted the way it turned out just like the founders being very specific about the type of people they were hiring.
莱尼：所以听起来如果你必须归结为 Airbnb 所做的事情，听起来招聘是影响其结果的主要部分，就像创始人对他们所招聘的人员类型非常具体一样。
Lenny: Is there anything that's like, I don't know, a take away there of just what you recommend to founders, like hiring.
莱尼：我不知道有没有什么类似于您向创始人推荐的内容，比如招聘。
People know, be very careful who you hire.
人们都知道，雇用谁要非常小心。
The first, I don't know, 10 people will impact the culture long term.
第一个，我不知道，10 个人会对文化产生长期影响。
But I don't know.
但我不知道。
Is there anything just abstracting away there of just what to look for in that first batch of hires?
是否有什么东西只是抽象了在第一批员工中寻找什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: It's a tricky one because I would like to say that all the things that we did were the cost of the outcome of this, but that's not really how the world works.
Gustaf Alströmer：这是一个棘手的问题，因为我想说，我们所做的所有事情都是这一结果的成本，但这并不是世界真正运作的方式。
Some of the things we did work, some of the things that we did did not work.
我们所做的一些事情起作用了，而我们所做的一些事情却没有起作用。
It's hard for us to actually disentangle what those things are, but I think we can talk about the things that we did.
我们很难真正理清这些事情是什么，但我认为我们可以谈论我们所做的事情。
First of all, we made sure we hired people that were really excited to be there, right?
首先，我们确保我们雇用的人都对在那里感到非常兴奋，对吧？
They wanted to build Airbnb and they were really excited to work on Airbnb.
他们想要打造 Airbnb，并且对在 Airbnb 上工作感到非常兴奋。
That was the most important thing.
这是最重要的事情。
Of course people had other offers, but I think you can figure out from those offers are you excited to be here or not.
当然，人们还有其他的邀请，但我认为你可以从这些邀请中看出你是否对来到这里感到兴奋。
So that was probably the first thing.
所以这可能是第一件事。
Gustaf Alströmer: The second thing I think is trying to understand the true motivations of the people that were there, like lower, "Why are you here?" We did something we call culture interviews that I think the founders have written about or there's probably content online about this.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为的第二件事是尝试了解那里的人的真正动机，比如“你为什么在这里？”我们做了一些我们称之为文化访谈的事情，我认为创始人已经写过，或者网上可能有关于这方面的内容。
We did a lot of culture interviews early on to try to figure out we got the people that were there that mapped our core values and were really excited to work on Airbnb.
我们很早就进行了大量的文化访谈，试图弄清楚我们的员工是否认同我们的核心价值观，并且对在 Airbnb 工作感到非常兴奋。
I think finally, I don't know how this happened, we did pick people from diverse backgrounds.
我想最后，我不知道这是怎么发生的，我们确实挑选了来自不同背景的人。
Most startups don't have most of the PMs being former founders, but I believe that was the case for the first 10 or 12 or 15 PMs at Airbnb.
大多数初创公司的大部分 PM 并不是前创始人，但我相信 Airbnb 的前 10、12 或 15 位 PM 就是这种情况。
A lot of us were former founders.
我们很多人都是前创始人。
I think that that made a big difference for how you make decisions and how you get started on things.
我认为这对你如何做出决定以及如何开始做事有很大的影响。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think I actually see this a lot in the Airbnb founders.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想我在 Airbnb 创始人身上经常看到这一点。
They really care about the time at YC and they tried to recreate YC inside Airbnb a couple of times with demo day and with so new products completely isolated from the rest, starting with doing things that don't scale and talking to customers.
他们真的很关心在 YC 的时光，他们尝试在 Airbnb 内通过演示日重现 YC 几次，并将新产品与其他产品完全隔离，从做一些无法扩展的事情和与客户交谈开始。
So I think that that experience had made a big impact on them, but it's hard to say just these two things go and apply these things.
所以我认为那段经历对他们产生了很大的影响，但很难说仅仅这两件事就去应用这些东西。
It's actually kind of hard to say, "Well that will work at it as Airbnb." I think that's a really tricky question to answer.
事实上，很难说“好吧，这对于 Airbnb 来说是可行的”。我认为这是一个非常棘手的问题。
Gustaf Alströmer: The last thing I would say is Airbnb had an incredible business model, an incredible business from early on and it was hard to fail.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想说的最后一件事是，Airbnb 拥有令人难以置信的商业模式，从一开始就是一项令人难以置信的业务，而且很难失败。
What I mean by that is it's hard to fail with a company.
我的意思是，一家公司很难失败。
You can fail with individual things inside the company, but a company was still going to succeed.
公司内部的个别事情可能会失败，但公司仍然会成功。
I think we all felt that.
我想我们都感受到了这一点。
A lot of companies don't have the ability to take risks like Airbnb did early on because they don't have something that's so obviously great.
很多公司没有能力像 Airbnb 早期那样承担风险，因为他们没有明显出色的东西。
Lenny: That's a really interesting point on the last piece that you may have the most amazing culture and hire incredibly well, but if the company doesn't work out, it's not going to be looked back as like, "Wow, that was an amazing experience, but we failed."
莱尼：上一篇文章中的一个非常有趣的观点是，你可能拥有最令人惊叹的文化，并且招聘得非常好，但如果公司没有成功，人们不会回头看，“哇，那是一次很棒的经历，但我们失败了。”
Lenny: Yeah, that's interesting.
莱尼：是的，这很有趣。
So you mentioned YC and this kind of is a good segue to where I want to focus most of our time.
所以你提到了 YC，这是我大部分时间想要关注的地方的一个很好的延续。
You mentioned that you've worked with over 600 companies at this point, which is absurd.
您提到您目前已与 600 多家公司合作，这是荒谬的。
It feels like it's you get some statistical significance on takeaways at this point of what works and doesn't work.
感觉就像你在这一点上得到了一些外卖的统计意义，什么有效，什么无效。
So I have just a bunch of questions about your experience working at YC and with all these companies.
我有很多关于您在 YC 以及所有这些公司工作的经历的问题。
The first is I think about this quote that Elad Gill tweeted once and he wrote, I think, a post about it.
首先，我想到了埃拉德·吉尔（Elad Gill）曾经在推特上发表过的这句话，我认为他写了一篇关于这句话的帖子。
Elad Gill is a legendary angel investor.
埃拉德·吉尔（Elad Gill）是一位传奇的天使投资人。
He said that starting a company is an act of desperation.
他说，创办公司是一种绝望的行为。
You're either desperate to change the trajectory of your career or you're desperate to make a bunch of money, you're desperate to achieve some kind of mission or build a specific product that you're just like, "I need this to exist." I'm curious if you agree with that sentiment and then I have a follow-up question around that.
你要么不顾一切地想要改变你的职业轨迹，要么你不顾一切地想赚一大笔钱，你不顾一切地想要实现某种使命，或者构建一个你喜欢的特定产品，“我需要这个存在。”我很好奇您是否同意这种观点，然后我对此有一个后续问题。
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, actually I haven't heard it before, but you know me, I'm an optimistic person.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，实际上我以前没有听说过，但你知道我，我是一个乐观的人。
I think it probably reflects on my view of this question, but I would say desperation sounds like a negative place that you're starting at.
我认为这可能反映了我对这个问题的看法，但我想说绝望听起来像是你开始的一个消极的地方。
I actually think that most people to start companies start from a positive place.
事实上，我认为大多数人创办公司都是从积极的角度开始的。
But the motivations, I agree with what he said, can be very diverse for successful founders, right?
但我同意他所说的，对于成功的创始人来说，动机可能是多种多样的，对吧？
Gustaf Alströmer: So we actually asked this in one of the early Group Office Hours sessions.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以我们实际上在早期的一次小组办公时间会议中提出了这个问题。
We asked them, "Why are you doing this?" And we don't want to hear an answer like, "I found this niche of the market.' That's not the why.
我们问他们：“你们为什么要这样做？”我们不想听到这样的答案：“我找到了这个市场的利基市场。”这不是原因。
The why is like, "Why will you come in and work late after four years when you have no money left and everything's going to shit?", right?
原因就像是，“四年后你已经没有钱了，一切都会一团糟，为什么你还要进来工作到很晚？”，对吗？
Then the niche market is not the answer.
那么利基市场并不是答案。
There's something deeper than that.
还有比这更深层次的东西。
We've learned that it varies a lot for people's motivations to start companies.
我们了解到，人们创办公司的动机差异很大。
Some of them just want to solve some technical problem that they feel are passionate about solving.
他们中的一些人只是想解决一些他们认为热衷于解决的技术问题。
Some of them want to prove themselves in front of others or prove themselves towards themselves.
他们中的一些人想在别人面前证明自己，或者向自己证明自己。
Some have grand really important motivations to change the world and they will say things like, "I want to give everyone water or I want to solve climate change or I want to democratize publishing." You can imagine any number of large ideas.
有些人有着改变世界的宏伟、非常重要的动机，他们会说这样的话，“我想给每个人提供水，或者我想解决气候变化，或者我想让出版民主化。”你可以想象任意数量的大创意。
Some people just want to start a big company and just want to be successful.
有些人只是想创办一家大公司，只是想获得成功。
Gustaf Alströmer: It doesn't matter, in my experience, what your motivation is.
Gustaf Alströmer：根据我的经验，你的动机是什么并不重要。
I don't think either of these motivations.
我认为这两个动机都不是。
It sounds like some of them will be better than others.
听起来他们中的一些人会比其他人更好。
In my experience, it's not the case.
根据我的经验，情况并非如此。
The motivation will change over time to just running this thing, right?
随着时间的推移，动机会变成仅仅运行这个东西，对吗？
Like once something becomes big, it's hard to think every day about exactly why you got started because the motivation is just like it can be fun and work on boring things because it's fun to build something big.
就像一旦某件事变得很大，你就很难每天思考到底为什么要开始，因为动机就像它可以很有趣并致力于无聊的事情，因为构建大东西很有趣。
Everything doesn't have to be shiny and big and grandiose because there are many ideas that are "boring," but just the idea of running the company becomes the motivation eventually.
一切不一定都是闪亮的、宏大的、浮夸的，因为有很多想法是“无聊的”，但经营公司的想法最终会成为动力。
Lenny: That is really interesting that one of the main things you look for, it sounds like when you're interviewing, is how strong and durable is that drive to build this company.
莱尼：这真的很有趣，你在面试时寻找的主要内容之一就是建立这家公司的动力有多强大和持久。
Is that what you're saying?
你是这么说的吗？
Gustaf Alströmer: It's actually kind of hard for screen for motivation, I would say, in interviews because the purpose of this kind of Office Hour question is to highlight why someone is there and highlight the diversity of reasons people are there and sometimes even highlight from one founder to another co-founder why they are doing this.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想说，在面试中筛选动机实际上有点困难，因为这种“办公时间”问题的目的是强调为什么有人在那里，并强调人们在那里的原因的多样性，有时甚至从一位创始人向另一位联合创始人强调他们这样做的原因。
They might have never talked about this.
他们可能从来没有谈论过这个。
Actually, surprisingly, often founders have not talked about why they're doing this.
事实上，令人惊讶的是，创始人常常没有谈论他们为什么这样做。
And just knowing why someone is here really helps with conflict resolution for example, really helps with understanding why someone is there on a certain day or something like that.
例如，仅仅知道为什么某人在这里确实有助于解决冲突，确实有助于理解为什么某人在某一天或类似的事情在那里。
So it's not something we screen for as much as I think we try to help founders discover this among themself and really know this about themself.
因此，这不是我们筛选的东西，我认为我们会尽力帮助创始人在他们自己中发现这一点，并真正了解他们自己。
I've just accepted that the motivations to start companies is widely diverse.
我刚刚承认创办公司的动机是多种多样的。
Lenny: Do you ever discourage founders from starting a company when you see that maybe it won't be a durable kind of lasting motivation or whatever other reasons just knowing how hard starting a company ends up being?
莱尼：当你发现创办一家公司可能不会成为一种持久的动力，或者任何其他原因，只是知道创办一家公司最终有多困难时，你是否曾阻止创始人创办一家公司？
Gustaf Alströmer: It's a good question.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：这是一个很好的问题。
I would say sometimes if someone doesn't have a motivation or don't know why they're doing this, they're doing this because they read that it would be a natural career step.
我想说，有时如果有人没有动力或者不知道为什么要这样做，他们这样做是因为他们读到这将是一个自然的职业步骤。
So a good reason to not start a company is if you think of starting a company as a career step.
因此，不创办公司的一个很好的理由是，如果您认为创办公司是职业生涯的一个步骤。
Well, it is not.
嗯，事实并非如此。
Because if it's successful, it'll be your entire career.
因为如果它成功了，这将是你的整个职业生涯。
It'll be 10 years most likely.
最有可能的是10年。
And if it's not successful, then it's not something that people generally aspire to start.
如果它不成功，那么它就不是人们普遍渴望开始的事情。
So non-successful startups.
所以创业并不成功。
So I think people will start companies because this is sort of something they want to put on their resume.
所以我认为人们会创办公司，因为这是他们想写在简历上的东西。
They have not understood what startups are or why you should do them.
他们不明白什么是初创公司，也不明白为什么要创业。
Gustaf Alströmer: Sometimes you can screen and kind of figure this out, but sometimes people don't even know why they're starting a company when they get started and it kind of gets figured out along the way.
Gustaf Alströmer：有时你可以筛选并弄清楚这一点，但有时人们在开始时甚至不知道他们为什么要创办一家公司，但在这个过程中它就被弄清楚了。
And that's okay.
没关系。
I don't want to discourage people who don't know exactly why they're starting this company just to start a company.
我不想让那些不知道为什么要创办这家公司只是为了创办一家公司的人感到沮丧。
They might figure out along the way and find the true motivation after doing this for a little bit or finding that it's really fun.
他们可能会一路摸索，并在做了一点或发现这真的很有趣后找到真正的动机。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think I discourage people to start startups if they have so many other things that are important than their life that are more important than the startup.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为，如果人们有很多比他们的生活更重要的事情，而且比创业公司更重要，那么我就不鼓励他们创业。
So if there are financial constraints or family constraints or relationship constraints and they are going to trump this, then yeah, you should think a second time perhaps because startups are hard.
因此，如果存在财务限制、家庭限制或关系限制，并且它们将胜过这一点，那么是的，您应该再考虑一下，也许因为初创公司很难。
They're much harder than a normal job.
他们比正常的工作要困难得多。
Equally hard if they're successful or failure, right?
无论成功还是失败都同样困难，对吗？
There's no middle way, we're like, "Oh, my company is doing great so I can chill." That doesn't work that way either.
没有中间道路，我们会说，“哦，我的公司做得很好，所以我可以放松一下。”那也不行。
So I don't really discourage or encourage people, I just want them to have all the information.
所以我并不是真的劝阻或鼓励人们，我只是希望他们了解所有信息。
Lenny: You mentioned YC Office Hours and I had a question around this.
Lenny：您提到了 YC 办公时间，我对此有一个问题。
I'm working on this piece where I'm interviewing a bunch of B2B founders of companies that are doing super well and I asked them a few questions like, "How'd you come up with the idea?
我正在写这篇文章，采访了一群做得非常好的 B2B 公司创始人，我问了他们几个问题，比如“你是怎么想出这个主意的？
How'd you find your first few customers?" it's shocking how many of them bring up a conversation in YC Office Hours as the most pivotal point that set them on the trajectory that they're on now.
你是如何找到最初的几位客户的？”令人震惊的是，他们中的许多人都将 YC 办公时间中的一次对话视为让他们走上现在轨道的最关键点。
I'm curious what happens in these Office Hours?
我很好奇这些办公时间内会发生什么？
What are the most common pieces of advice that you give or maybe most surprising pieces of advice that you give in these Office Hours so that people can get maybe a glimpse into these conversations you have?
您在办公时间内提供的最常见的建议是什么，或者您提供的最令人惊讶的建议是什么，以便人们可以一睹您的这些对话？
Gustaf Alströmer: So at YC we have two type of Office Hours, two of the common ones.
Gustaf Alströmer：在 YC，我们有两种办公时间，其中两种是常见的。
We have regular Office Hours, which is usually a one-on-one or basically the founders talking to me, or me plus another partner.
我们有定期的办公时间，通常是一对一的，或者基本上是创始人与我或我加上另一位合作伙伴交谈。
They happen every week or every other week throughout the entire program.
在整个计划中，它们每周或每隔一周发生一次。
And they happen years after the program on the regular basis.
而且它们会在项目结束后数年定期发生。
Then we have Group Office Hours, which is you and six or seven other startups talking to us.
然后我们有小组办公时间，您和其他六七个初创公司与我们交谈。
They have a little bit different purpose.
他们的目的略有不同。
So the goal of the regular Office Hour, I always ask the question, "What's holding you back from moving faster?
因此，在常规办公时间的目标中，我总是会问这样的问题：“是什么阻碍了你加快步伐？
We don't want to hear updates, we don't want to hear strategy questions.
我们不想听到更新，我们不想听到策略问题。
We want to understand what's slowing you down or what's holding you back from moving even faster.
我们想要了解是什么让您放慢速度或是什么阻碍您更快地前进。
You generally have a specific goal."
你通常有一个特定的目标。”
Gustaf Alströmer: And I think that question of what's slowing you down or were holding you back crystallizes the priorities.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为是什么让你放慢脚步或阻碍你的问题明确了优先事项。
There are only so many things you can do as a startup and there are only so many things that matters at that stage.
作为一家初创公司，你能做的事情有限，而且在那个阶段重要的事情也有限。
And by asking that question, we can start digging into, "Okay, what's the goal?
通过问这个问题，我们可以开始深入研究，“好吧，目标是什么？
What are the things that drives towards that goal?
推动这一目标的因素有哪些？
What are the things that's slowing you down towards that goal?" Usually, the founders don't know what's slowing it down, so the conversation and us probing questions actually leads to us or them discovering what it is just slowing them down.
是什么因素阻碍了你实现这一目标？”通常，创始人不知道是什么阻碍了目标的实现，因此谈话和我们探究的问题实际上会让我们或他们发现是什么阻碍了他们的进程。
Gustaf Alströmer: In the Group Office Hour, it's a little bit different.
Gustaf Alströmer：在小组办公时间，情况有点不同。
The Group Office Hour holds a couple of different purposes.
小组办公时间有几个不同的目的。
One of them is if I think back on Paul and Jessica's motivation to start YC, this is a surprise to them, but starting a company is incredibly lonely.
其中之一是，如果我回想 Paul 和 Jessica 创办 YC 的动机，这对他们来说是一个惊喜，但创办一家公司是非常孤独的。
You can't really lean on your employees and say, "Hey, I'm feeling really shitty as a founder today.
你不能真正依靠你的员工说：“嘿，作为创始人，我今天感觉很糟糕。
Everything is going to shit." Employees isn't going to take that well.
一切都会变得糟糕。”员工们不会接受这样的情况。
So you lean on perhaps your investors, but they're not really available.
所以你可能会依赖你的投资者，但他们并不真正可用。
But what you can lean on is other founders because they're all in the same situation.
但你可以依靠的是其他创始人，因为他们都处于同样的情况。
It's sort of like when you ask a founder the question, "How are things going?", it's so emotional for them to answer that question because it's never going well, right?
这有点像当你问创始人这个问题时，“事情进展如何？”，他们回答这个问题非常情绪化，因为事情从来都不顺利，对吧？
It's never like, "Oh, everything is going fantastic." They might say that, but everybody knows all founders, when they look each other's eyes, then no, that's not the answer.
它从来不会像，“哦，一切都进展顺利。”他们可能会这么说，但每个人都认识所有的创始人，当他们看着对方的眼睛时，就会发现，不，这不是答案。
Gustaf Alströmer: So founders have infinite number of problems that they're thinking about all the time, which is why they're allergic to the question, "How are things going?" But when YC started, we put all the founders in a group together in a room and they started learning that all founders, all companies are broken in some way, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：所以创始人一直在思考无数的问题，这就是为什么他们对“事情进展如何？”这个问题过敏。但是当 YC 开始的时候，我们把所有的创始人聚集在一个房间里，他们开始了解到所有的创始人、所有的公司都在某种程度上被打破了，对吗？
They're all having these massive problems and they're all feeling that anxiety when they hear the question, "How are things going?" And just hearing other founders explain their problems, perhaps solving their problems, is a really good way for yourself to both feel motivated to do it yourself and see how problems get solved when other companies are having similar problems.
他们都面临着这些巨大的问题，当他们听到“事情进展如何？”这个问题时，他们都会感到焦虑。仅仅听到其他创始人解释他们的问题，也许解决他们的问题，对你来说是一个很好的方法，既可以让你自己有动力去做，也可以看看当其他公司遇到类似问题时问题是如何解决的。
Nowadays because of the scale at YC, we group companies together that have the same problems or the same area that they're operating in.
如今，由于 YC 的规模，我们将具有相同问题或经营所在领域相同的公司分组在一起。
Gustaf Alströmer: The second thing that Group Office Hours do well is accountability, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：小组办公时间做得好的第二件事是问责制，对吧？
We ask you, "What were your goals?
我们问你：“你的目标是什么？
What were your goals for the last two weeks?
过去两周你的目标是什么？
Did you hit them?" And then that gives founders accountability because founders are competitive.
你打他们了吗？”然后，这赋予了创始人责任，因为创始人具有竞争力。
They don't want to look bad.
他们不想看起来很糟糕。
They don't want to come back after two weeks and say "Nothing worked," or at least like, "We didn't learn anything." They want to learn something and make progress whether it's positive or negative.
他们不想在两周后回来说“没有任何效果”，或者至少是“我们没有学到任何东西”。他们想要学习一些东西并取得进步，无论是积极的还是消极的。
Gustaf Alströmer: Group Office Hours to me is the most magical moment because it really creates this very intense three or four month period.
Gustaf Alströmer：对我来说，小组办公时间是最神奇的时刻，因为它确实创造了这个非常紧张的三四个月的时期。
Founders often come back to us afterwards and say, "Hey, we want to do that again.
创始人经常会在事后回来对我们说：“嘿，我们想再做一次。
We don't have this really intense, really productive period.
我们没有这段非常紧张、富有成效的时期。
We don't have a program exactly.
我们没有具体的计划。
We have other programs, but we don't have anything exactly that mimics that experience." But we do encourage founders to continue with Group Office Hours after YC.
我们还有其他项目，但我们没有任何完全模仿这种体验的项目。”但我们确实鼓励创始人在 YC 之后继续参加小组办公时间。
Many of them do and many of them, ad hoc, continue to meet for years in this group setting where they ask the same kind of questions to each other, to hold themselves accountable, to learn from each other, and to just have someone else to lean on.
他们中的许多人都这么做了，而且他们中的许多人，特别是，在这个小组环境中持续多年，他们互相问同样的问题，对自己负责，互相学习，并有其他人可以依靠。
I think this was unknown and somehow the world didn't know before that starting company is super lonely and you have all these anxiety.
我认为这是未知的，不知何故，世界之前并不知道初创公司是非常孤独的，你有所有这些焦虑。
By just talking to other people who have the same problems, it's just one of the best thing you can do.
通过与其他有同样问题的人交谈，这是你能做的最好的事情之一。
Lenny: There's so many things that come up when you talk about this.
莱尼：当你谈论这个问题时，会想到很多事情。
One is I had a startup at one point and we worked in the coworking space.
一是我曾经创办过一家初创公司，我们在联合办公空间工作。
We joined the coworking space because we're like, "Oh, we'll meet other founders.
我们加入联合办公空间是因为我们想，“哦，我们会见到其他创始人。
It'll be social, we won't be alone." But it turns out everyone's just heads down, headphones on, "I don't have time for anything.
这将是社交性的，我们不会孤单。”但事实证明每个人都低着头，戴着耳机，“我没有时间做任何事情。
I just need to work." It's like a microcosm of that experience that even if you're surrounded by founders, no one has time to do anything.
我只需要工作。”这就像这种经历的一个缩影，即使你周围都是创始人，也没有人有时间做任何事情。
They're just working.
他们只是在工作。
Gustaf Alströmer: You got to schedule it and force it and put the laptops on the floor and the phones on the floor and you just sit there with pen and paper.
Gustaf Alströmer：你必须安排它并强制它，将笔记本电脑放在地板上，将手机放在地板上，然后你只需拿着笔和纸坐在那里。
That's how you have to do it.
这就是你必须这样做的方式。
We tried to mimic that as much as we could over Zoom.
我们试图通过 Zoom 尽可能地模仿这一点。
But honestly the best experience of this was in person, in a ring, in mountain view with no computers and everyone just paying attention to everyone.
但老实说，最好的体验是亲身体验，在一个环里，在山景中，没有电脑，每个人都在关注每个人。
That was the best experience.
那是最好的经历。
Yeah, that's what I remember is one of the most meaningful parts of YC.
是的，这就是我记得的YC最有意义的部分之一。
I didn't have it myself when I did YC, but now everyone has it.
我自己做YC的时候没有，但是现在大家都有了。
Lenny: The other thing that's made me think about is someone tweeted once, "Don't ever ask a founder how they're doing or how it's going.
莱尼：另一件让我思考的事情是有人发过一条推文，“永远不要问创始人他们在做什么或进展如何。
It just creates all this anxiety because nothing's ever going great."
它只会造成所有这些焦虑，因为没有什么事情会进展顺利。”
Gustaf Alströmer: Don't do it.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：别这样做。
Everybody looks at each other's eyes and they know that they're allergic to that question.
每个人都看着对方的眼睛，他们知道自己对这个问题过敏。
Lenny: That's hilarious.
莱尼：这太搞笑了。
So just to summarize the questions you said you asked, the one is in the individual Office Hours, is what's holding you back.
因此，总结一下您所说的问题，就是在个人办公时间内提出的问题，这就是阻碍您的原因。
And then in the group setting, what was the question again that you asked?
然后在小组中，你又问了一个什么问题？
Gustaf Alströmer: What are your goals for next two weeks and what were your goals for the last two weeks and did you hit the goals?
Gustaf Alströmer：您接下来两周的目标是什么，过去两周的目标是什么？您实现了目标吗？
And if you didn't hit them, what came in the way of hitting the goals?
如果你没有击中目标，那么是什么阻碍了你达到目标呢？
It's very simple.
这很简单。
That can uncover lots of problems that other founders are having exactly in the same way.
这可以揭示其他创始人以完全相同的方式遇到的许多问题。
Just by talking about the things that held you back or the things that allowed you to hit your goals, uncover something material for the other seven companies doing that in the ring.
只需谈论那些阻碍你或让你实现目标的事情，就可以为其他七家在圈子里这样做的公司揭示一些重要的东西。
Lenny: If you kind of zoomed out a little bit and thought about the startups you've worked with, what would you say are the most common mistakes that early stage startups make broadly?
Lenny：如果你稍微放远一点，想想你曾经合作过的初创公司，你会说早期初创公司最常犯的错误是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: There's so many.
Gustaf Alströmer：有很多。
I mean, this is how I initially learned about startups, by searching for that on Google and landing on Paul Graham's articles because he kept-
我的意思是，这就是我最初了解初创公司的方式，通过在谷歌上搜索并找到保罗·格雷厄姆的文章，因为他一直——
Gustaf Alströmer: I think I've written many articles about this topic because it is so common.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想我已经写了很多关于这个主题的文章，因为它很常见。
So this topic can go on forever.
所以这个话题可以一直持续下去。
But if I take the most recent experience I've had in YC, I would say startups fail, one, because they don't talk to customers.
但如果以我最近在 YC 的经历为例，我会说初创公司失败了，一是因为他们不与客户交谈。
And if you don't talk to customers or users, you don't actually know what's important.
如果您不与客户或用户交谈，您实际上并不知道什么是重要的。
If you don't know what's important, it doesn't matter what you build, it doesn't matter kind of what ideas you have in your head if you don't actually know what it is that you need to build and you don't validate with customers.
如果你不知道什么是重要的，那么你构建什么并不重要，如果你实际上不知道你需要构建什么并且你不向客户进行验证，那么你脑子里有什么想法也无关紧要。
That's where a lot of the failure stems from.
这就是很多失败的根源。
A lot of early YC for us or early part of the program is us pushing and probing founders to be like, "Tell us about the conversations you've had with the customers.
对于我们来说，很多早期的 YC 或项目的早期部分都是我们推动和探索创始人，“告诉我们你与客户的对话。
What did you learn?
你学到了什么？
Can you show us the organizations?" Or like all these questions, like, "What are the software they're using?
你能向我们展示一下组织吗？”或者就像所有这些问题一样，“他们使用的软件是什么？
What are they paying for?
他们付出什么代价？
What problems do they have?
他们有什么问题？
How are they describing the intensity of that problem?" So that's what we spent a lot of time early at YC.
他们如何描述这个问题的严重性？”这就是我们早期在 YC 花费了大量时间的内容。
Gustaf Alströmer: After that, I would say one of the commons mistakes in...
Gustaf Alströmer：在那之后，我想说的是……中的一个常见错误。
I'm not talking about generally startups here, I'm talking inside YC.
我这里说的不是一般的初创公司，而是 YC 内部。
The second most common thing I see in YC is people are just afraid to talk to customers.
我在 YC 看到的第二个最常见的事情是人们害怕与客户交谈。
They're just not trying hard enough to get in front of customers.
他们只是没有足够努力地展现在客户面前。
I think this comes from, technical people tend to think that software is just sort of solution to everything.
我认为这是因为，技术人员倾向于认为软件只是解决一切问题的方法。
But really what you should need to do is to talk to someone over Zoom or over phone or in person, even better.
但实际上你应该做的是通过 Zoom、通过电话或亲自与某人交谈，甚至更好。
People are just afraid of doing that and they're afraid of being rejected.
人们只是害怕这样做，他们害怕被拒绝。
These are common, people that want to build good products are just really afraid of people saying no.
这些都很常见，想要打造好产品的人只是真的害怕人们说不。
Gustaf Alströmer: The problem is, which anyone who hasn't done sales before that joined YC, they realize this, is that if you take the average customer group in the world, 90% are not early adopters.
Gustaf Alströmer：问题是，任何在加入 YC 之前没有做过销售的人都会意识到，如果你考虑世界上的平均客户群，90% 都不是早期采用者。
It doesn't matter if you have something new and cool, they're just not interested.
如果你有一些新的、很酷的东西并不重要，他们只是不感兴趣。
They are not incentivized to take risks in their job to try something new.
他们没有动力在工作中冒险尝试新事物。
They're just incentivized to not take risks and just continue what they're doing.
他们只是受到激励而不去冒险，只是继续他们正在做的事情。
Those 10 percents are the early adopters.
这 10% 是早期采用者。
They're The ones that you actually want to reach.
他们是您真正想要接触的人。
But that means you have to reach 10 to find one.
但这意味着你必须达到 10 才能找到一个。
And then you convince that one person to get on the phone or a video call with you.
然后你说服那个人与你通电话或进行视频通话。
And that takes work and it takes a lot of work.
这需要工作，而且需要大量的工作。
I think people don't really think of this.
我认为人们并没有真正想到这一点。
This is common knowledge, basic stuff for salespeople, but founders should never done sales before just get surprised by the percentages and the sort of what it means to do this.
这是常识，是销售人员的基本知识，但创始人永远不应该在对百分比和这样做的含义感到惊讶之前进行销售。
Gustaf Alströmer: If I think of more generally outside of YC, so these are two kind of things I experience within YC, but I think generally outside of YC, I would say the two most common problems the same one is not talking to customers, the other one is not being technical and not knowing what it takes to build successful technology company.
Gustaf Alströmer：如果我更普遍地考虑 YC 之外的情况，那么这是我在 YC 内部经历的两件事，但我认为一般来说在 YC 之外，我会说两个最常见的问题，一个是不与客户交谈，另一个是不具备技术能力，不知道如何建立成功的技术公司。
It means having technical founders and it means being able to build the first prototype.
这意味着拥有技术创始人，也意味着能够构建第一个原型。
This is something we screen for when we interview people in YC and we aren't accepting a whole lot of team that don't know how to build or get their first prototype built themselves because we know it is a super common value pattern.
这是我们在采访 YC 人员时筛选的内容，我们不会接受大量不知道如何构建或自己构建第一个原型的团队，因为我们知道这是一种超级常见的价值模式。
Gustaf Alströmer: I can go on and on and on and on for this one, but honestly if I drill down what makes companies fail, it's quite simple.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默（Gustaf Alströmer）：对于这个问题，我可以一直说下去，但说实话，如果我深入探究公司失败的原因，就会发现原因很简单。
It's just like they don't talk to users, which means they don't find product market fit.
就像他们不与用户交谈一样，这意味着他们找不到适合市场的产品。
And if they don't find product market fit, nothing else really matters.
如果他们找不到适合市场的产品，那么其他一切都不重要。
What mistakes do people make is it is all about that.
人们犯什么错误都是如此。
It's all about talking to customers and learning that you're building something that's actually useful.
这一切都是为了与客户交谈并了解您正在构建真正有用的东西。
YC Slack headline is make things people want, and it's still true and it's always going to be true.
YC Slack 的标题是创造人们想要的东西，这仍然是正确的，而且永远都是正确的。
Lenny: This is really interesting and good advice.
莱尼：这确实是有趣且很好的建议。
It's interesting that...
有趣的是...
Like, "Talk to customers," people hear that all the time.
就像“与客户交谈”一样，人们总是听到这样的话。
They're like, "Of course we're going to talk to customers.
他们会说，“我们当然要和客户谈谈。
We're going to do that of course." And your experience is they know this but they just don't do it probably because they're afraid.
我们当然会这么做。”你的经验是他们知道这一点，但他们只是不这样做，可能是因为他们害怕。
Maybe also because they think they already know what they need to build and it's like, "Yeah, we're good."
也许还因为他们认为自己已经知道需要构建什么，并且会说“是的，我们很好。”
Gustaf Alströmer: And you have all these validators, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：你们拥有所有这些验证器，对吧？
So the people are validating that even if you don't talk to customers, why has he accepted you?
因此，人们正在验证即使你不与客户交谈，他为什么会接受你？
This investor invested in you.
这位投资者投资了你。
This investor said you were great, like blah blah blah.
这位投资者说你很棒，诸如此类。
All these different validations that you confuse with product market fit, right?
您将所有这些不同的验证与产品市场契合度混淆了，对吗？
We have to remind everyone on the first day in YC, "None of you have product market fit because you probably don't," right?
我们必须在 YC 的第一天提醒大家，“你们都没有适合市场的产品，因为你们可能不适合，”对吧？
Almost nobody has.
几乎没有人有过。
Because people confuse this external validation with the thing that matters the most, which is talking to customers and learning what matters.
因为人们将这种外部验证与最重要的事情混淆了，即与客户交谈并了解重要的事情。
It's just like a thing that just keeps coming back.
这就像一件不断回来的事情。
Some get really good at it.
有些人真的很擅长。
And that is the source of successful startups, is when you really get good at this.
当你真正擅长这一点时，这就是成功创业的源泉。
Lenny: It reminds me coming back to Airbnb, one of the most important moments in Airbnb history was Paul Graham telling the founders of Airbnb, "Where are your customers?" And they're like, "Oh, they're in New York" and he's like, "Why are you talking to me and not in New York right now talking to them?" And they talk about that all the time.
莱尼：这让我想起了 Airbnb，Airbnb 历史上最重要的时刻之一是保罗·格雷厄姆 (Paul Graham) 告诉 Airbnb 的创始人，“你们的客户在哪里？”他们就像，“哦，他们在纽约”，他就像，“为什么你要和我说话，而不是现在在纽约和他们说话？”他们一直在谈论这个。
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, it's absolutely true.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，这绝对是真的。
I think he wrote the article Do Things That Don't Scale as a learning....
我认为他写了这篇文章“Do Things That Dont Scale”作为一种学习......
The learning there was the Airbnb founders doing the trips to New York and learning about how to build Airbnb, which is a very counterintuitive idea, which is when you have to spend the most amount of time with your customers.
Airbnb 创始人前往纽约学习如何建立 Airbnb，这是一个非常违反直觉的想法，而此时你必须花最多的时间与客户相处。
I think Airbnb is sort of one of the best stories inside YC of doing this well.
我认为 Airbnb 是 YC 内部做得最好的故事之一。
Lenny: This also reminds me, I've been talking to a bunch of founders recently.
Lenny：这也提醒了我，我最近一直在和一些创始人交谈。
I asked them, "How many customers have you talked to help figure out this idea?" So just the other day it was 150 financial CROs that they talked to before they actually started raising this round.
我问他们：“你们与多少位客户交谈过以帮助弄清楚这个想法？”就在前几天，他们在真正开始这一轮融资之前与 150 名金融 CRO 进行了交谈。
Another company, actually two Airbnb guys that started, they actually ran ads I think on LinkedIn to find specific people to talk to and that specific role.
另一家公司，实际上是由 Airbnb 的两个人创办的，他们实际上在 LinkedIn 上投放了广告，以找到可以交谈的特定人员和特定角色。
And they talked to probably at least 100, maybe 200.
他们可能与至少 100 人、也许 200 人进行了交谈。
So there's a strong correlation there.
所以那里有很强的相关性。
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, I think that's the volumes that people don't expect.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，我认为这是人们没有预料到的数量。
They think they might have to talk to five, but I think you have to talk to 25 to 50.
他们认为可能需要与 5 个人交谈，但我认为必须与 25 到 50 个人交谈。
That means you have to reach out to a lot more to be able to get to people that are potentially early adopters.
这意味着您必须接触更多的人才能接触到潜在的早期采用者。
Those ones you talk to are also the ones that become your customers.
那些与您交谈的人也将成为您的客户。
So you are already doing most of the sales by just doing this work anyway.
所以无论如何，你只要做这项工作就已经完成了大部分销售。
Lenny: Do you have maybe one tactical tip you could share of just either getting over your fear of talking to customers or just holding yourself accountable to actually doing it?
莱尼：您是否有一个可以分享的战术技巧，要么克服与客户交谈的恐惧，要么让自己对实际做这件事负责？
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, I tell this story, I actually told this story yesterday.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，我讲这个故事，我昨天实际上讲了这个故事。
So remember when you sign up first service that's a cool service and you hear about in TechCrunch or something like that and then you realize you already signed up a year ago, right?
所以请记住，当您注册第一个服务时，这是一项很酷的服务，并且您在 TechCrunch 或类似的网站上听说过，然后您意识到自己一年前就已经注册了，对吗？
And then from the founder's perspective, you sign up to something you never used it.
然后从创始人的角度来看，你注册了一些你从未使用过的东西。
So the founders who build those services, their inclination to think is that "Everybody hates me because they sign up and they never use me." They never use the service.
因此，构建这些服务的创始人倾向于认为“每个人都讨厌我，因为他们注册了但从不使用我。”他们从不使用该服务。
The fear of that is that basically the fear of rejection.
对此的恐惧基本上就是害怕被拒绝。
So if I put my thing out there and most people won't use it and they will tell all their friends how shitty this thing is, you should never even sign up for it, that's the fear people have, but the truth is that people sign up for it and be like, "Oh, I'm busy.
因此，如果我把我的东西放在那里，大多数人不会使用它，他们会告诉所有朋友这东西有多糟糕，你甚至不应该注册它，这就是人们的恐惧，但事实是，人们注册它并说，“哦，我很忙。
I got something else to do." And they actually don't remember or care.
我还有别的事要做。”他们实际上不记得也不关心。
Gustaf Alströmer: So whenever you sign for something that you signed up a year ago, think of yourself that that is the common customer experience, which is that you just sign up for a lot of stuff you don't even remember you.
Gustaf Alströmer：因此，每当您签署一年前签署的东西时，请想象一下，这是常见的客户体验，即您只是签署了很多您甚至不记得自己的东西。
You never have this, "I hate this thing' reaction.
你永远不会有“我讨厌这个东西”的反应。
You always have this like, "I'm indifferent to this thing.
你总是这样说：“我对这件事漠不关心。
I don't actually care to even complete the sign up flow or try it out," right?
我实际上并不关心完成注册流程或尝试一下，”对吗？
I think that's the thing that people need to remember, is that the worst thing that can happen to startup is not that people hate what you're doing, it's that they're completely indifferent to what you're doing.
我认为人们需要记住这一点，初创公司可能发生的最糟糕的事情不是人们讨厌你正在做的事情，而是他们对你正在做的事情完全漠不关心。
It's not the worst thing, but the most common thing that happens is people just is indifferent.
这不是最糟糕的事情，但最常见的事情是人们漠不关心。
But it doesn't give you a second chance.
但这不会给你第二次机会。
Let's say, it always gives you a second chance and you really need to internalize that people have busy lives and if people don't actually use what you're building, that's fine.
比方说，它总是给你第二次机会，你真的需要认识到人们的生活很忙碌，如果人们没有真正使用你正在构建的东西，那也没关系。
You can reach out to them a year from now or six months from now or two weeks from now and they probably will if you make some improvements.
您可以在一年后、六个月后或两周后与他们联系，如果您做出一些改进，他们可能会这样做。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think people just have this fear that, "If I get a lot of rejection, that means everything is bad." But the rejection should be put in context to the early adopter idea and that most people who don't care are not early adopters, who don't want to dig into new things.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：我认为人们只是有这样的恐惧：“如果我遭到很多拒绝，那就意味着一切都很糟糕。”但拒绝应该放在早期采用者想法的背景下，大多数不关心的人都不是早期采用者，他们不想挖掘新事物。
And that the more narrow of a solution you have to a specific problem, the fewer people actually want to dig in.
针对特定问题的解决方案越狭窄，真正想要深入研究的人就越少。
But that's where you have to start because you cannot build the whole thing right up front and make everybody loves you.
但这就是你必须开始的地方，因为你无法预先构建整个事情并让每个人都爱你。
That doesn't really work that way.
事实并非如此。
Gustaf Alströmer: Even Airbnb was like air mattresses or staying in someone's homes when they're home.
Gustaf Alströmer：即使是 Airbnb 也就像充气床垫，或者当某人在家时住在他们的家里。
That was not the complete solution of Airbnb.
这并不是 Airbnb 的完整解决方案。
But there were early adopters who dug in and be like, "Yep, I like that.
但也有一些早期采用者深入研究并表示：“是的，我喜欢这样。
I like those two things.
我喜欢这两件事。
I want to have people stay in my living room in my mattress." But that's not what Airbnb is about today, and a lot of those things were unknown at the time.
我想让人们住在我的客厅里的床垫上。”但这并不是 Airbnb 今天的目标，而且很多事情在当时都是未知的。
But I think people are just afraid of rejection and you just need to overcome that fear and just learn that there's nothing that's really that bad that can happen when people don't use the service or sign up and don't care.
但我认为人们只是害怕被拒绝，你只需要克服这种恐惧，并了解当人们不使用该服务或注册且不在乎时，不会发生真正那么糟糕的事情。
It's not really that bad.
其实并没有那么糟糕。
Lenny: It reminds me of a quote that I always love for Mark Andreessen, that everyone's time is already allocated.
莱尼：这让我想起马克·安德森（Mark Andreessen）我一直喜欢的一句话，每个人的时间都已经分配好了。
They don't have space for your product right now.
他们现在没有空间存放您的产品。
They already have plans for their day.
他们已经为这一天做好了计划。
Lenny: And it takes a lot to convince someone to pay attention to anything.
莱尼：说服某人注意任何事情都需要付出很大的努力。
I guess that just comes back to why it's so important that your product is solving a real pain and not just a nice little toy that is better than what's out there, but not so much better that you're like, "I need this right now." So maybe just along those lines, do you have any thoughts on just the importance of that pain and just how critical that is?
我想这又回到了为什么你的产品解决真正的痛苦如此重要，而不仅仅是一个比现有产品更好的漂亮小玩具，但又没有好到你会说“我现在需要这个”。那么，也许沿着这些思路，您对这种痛苦的重要性以及它的严重程度有什么想法吗？
Gustaf Alströmer: I actually recorded...
Gustaf Alströmer：我实际上录制了......
I'm happy of these videos, but I've recorded two videos on YouTube as part of YC Startup School last fall.
我对这些视频很满意，但去年秋天，作为 YC 创业学校的一部分，我在 YouTube 上录制了两个视频。
You can go watch them on YouTube right now.
您现在就可以在 YouTube 上观看它们。
One of them is how to talk to users and the other one is how you sell or how you use sales.
其中之一是如何与用户交谈，另一个是如何销售或如何使用销售。
The one about talking to users, I think there's a difference in asking someone, "Do you have a problem with X, Y, Z?
关于与用户交谈，我认为询问某人“你对 X、Y、Z 有疑问吗？”是有区别的。
Is this podcasting setup working for you?" And people say, "Yeah, it's kind of working." But if you are a podcasting setup experts and you watch people use some other thing that's really shitty, they might also think that it's pretty good.
这个播客设置对你有用吗？”人们会说，“是的，这有点管用。”但是如果你是播客设置专家，并且你看到人们使用其他一些非常糟糕的东西，他们也可能会认为它非常好。
But you have to watch them do it.
但你必须看着他们这样做。
And the best way for you to figure out what is the intensity of the problem is not to ask them but to watch them or to watch them solve the thing that they do.
要弄清楚问题的严重程度，最好的方法不是问他们，而是观察他们或看着他们解决他们所做的事情。
Gustaf Alströmer: You know how a lot of non-technical people don't know how to automate things?
Gustaf Alströmer：您知道很多非技术人员不知道如何实现自动化吗？
So they will do the same thing in Excel like a million times by just tapping because that's the only thing that they know and they're not technical enough to write some kind of script to do it, and you just have to watch those people to just feel the pain.
因此，他们只需点击即可在 Excel 中执行相同的操作一百万次，因为这是他们唯一知道的事情，而且他们的技术水平不足以编写某种脚本来完成此操作，而你只需要看着那些人就能感受到痛苦。
You can't actually ask them how difficult is it to do X, y, z because they won't even know that it's that difficult to them.
你实际上不能问他们做 X、y、z 有多困难，因为他们甚至不知道这对他们来说有多困难。
So the best thing I've learned about how to discover the pain is to watch people, have them screen share, have them walk you through their daily workflow about the area where you're doing some discovery.
因此，关于如何发现痛苦，我学到的最好的事情就是观察人们，让他们共享屏幕，让他们引导你完成关于你正在做一些发现的领域的日常工作流程。
That is the best thing.
这是最好的事情。
Gustaf Alströmer: I'll give you another example.
Gustaf Alströmer：我再举一个例子。
So there's a bunch of waste companies that are doing EV charging for electric cars and they're like, "What are the problems in EV charging?" And I was like, "Just rent an EV and go and charge at all the non Tesla chargers and see what they say, see what you experience." And the truth is that it's just like garbage.
因此，有很多垃圾公司正在为电动汽车进行电动汽车充电，他们会问，“电动汽车充电存在哪些问题？”我当时想，“只要租一辆电动汽车，去所有非特斯拉充电器充电，看看他们怎么说，看看你的体验如何。”事实是，它就像垃圾一样。
A lot of EV charting systems are just so shitty and the apps are terrible.
很多 EV 图表系统都很糟糕，而且应用程序也很糟糕。
You just have to just use them yourself to know how bad it is.
你只要亲自使用它们就知道它有多糟糕。
Lenny: It's cool how often it just comes back to, "Just go do the thing.
莱尼：很酷的是，它经常会回来，“去做吧。
Do things that don't scale." Classic YC advice.
做一些无法规模化的事情。”YC 的经典建议。
I want to come back to something you mentioned that I want to pull a thread on as the technical co-founder, being technical early on, just to cover that.
我想回到你提到的一些事情，我想作为技术联合创始人，尽早从事技术工作，只是为了涵盖这一点。
So I know YC looks to...
所以我知道 YC 希望...
Having a technical founder is an important variable in you're deciding to accept a company.
拥有一位技术创始人是你决定接受一家公司的一个重要变量。
Say someone doesn't have a technical co-founder, do you have any advice for what they could do, like what often can work?
假设某人没有技术联合创始人，您对他们可以做什么有什么建议吗？比如什么通常可行？
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, I think the first thing is to understand the value of technical co-founder.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，我认为首先要了解技术联合创始人的价值。
So some people who are in this situation where they have an idea of something they want to build and they don't have anyone to help build them in building it, I had a friend Paul who gave this incredible quote, he said, "I have an idea for a song, I just need a musician to help me make it," right?
因此，有些人处于这种情况，他们有自己想要构建的东西的想法，但没有人帮助他们构建它，我有一个朋友保罗，他给出了这句令人难以置信的引言，他说，“我有一个关于一首歌的想法，我只需要一个音乐家来帮助我制作它，”对吗？
That's kind of similar to how it is with engineering.
这有点类似于工程。
If you view output of engineering as like, "I just have an idea for a song, I just need someone to actually make it for me" and then you're not valuing software engineering or mechanical engineering or any engineering skill set deep enough, right?
如果您将工程输出视为“我只是对一首歌有一个想法，我只需要有人为我实际制作它”，那么您就没有足够深入地重视软件工程或机械工程或任何工程技能，对吗？
Gustaf Alströmer: The truth is that the engineering part is the really hard part.
Gustaf Alströmer：事实是，工程部分是真正困难的部分。
The first thing I would say is you need to learn how to value the engineering piece.
我要说的第一件事是你需要学习如何评估工程部件的价值。
Let me give you an example of how you don't do that.
让我举个例子来说明你如何不这样做。
You applied to YC and you have 90% for yourself and 10% for the engineer.
你申请了YC，你自己有90%，工程师有10%。
You're basically saying that like, "Oh, the engineering part of this company is only worth 1/10th of me.
你基本上是在说，“哦，这家公司的工程部分只值我的 1/10。
I'm the non-technical person." So that to me is a signal that you're not really valuing engineering.
我是非技术人员。”所以对我来说，这是一个信号，表明你并没有真正重视工程。
Gustaf Alströmer: Okay, so how do you go out about and find someone?
Gustaf Alströmer：好的，那么你如何出去寻找某人呢？
Well, the truth is that there are a lot of technical co-founders.
事实上，有很多技术联合创始人。
The technical people, they also want to find business co-founders.
技术人员，他们也想找到商业联合创始人。
They don't want to do other part.
他们不想做其他部分。
They don't want to do sales and they actually don't really care that much about fundraising.
他们不想做销售，实际上也不太关心筹款。
They just want to solve the problem.
他们只是想解决问题。
And that's fine.
那很好。
We built something called co-founder matching where those funders can meet, but if you don't participate in that, you can just start by asking the best technical people that you know.
我们建立了一种称为联合创始人匹配的机制，让这些资助者可以见面，但如果你不参与其中，你可以先询问你认识的最优秀的技术人员。
"Are you interested in starting a company with me?" Same thing with rejection.
“你有兴趣和我一起开一家公司吗？”拒绝也是一样。
Many of them will just say, "No, I have a great job, I'm really happy." But some of them will have thought about starting a company for a while and was hoping that someone would come and ask them to do that.
他们中的许多人只会说：“不，我有一份很棒的工作，我真的很高兴。”但他们中的一些人可能已经考虑过创办一家公司一段时间了，并希望有人会来邀请他们这样做。
So you have to remove your fears and go and ask the best people.
所以你必须消除恐惧，去询问最优秀的人。
Gustaf Alströmer: The reason you want to have a technical co-founder and not a hired engineer or not a hired contracting team is because so many of the decisions you're going to make are technical and so many of the iterations you're going to make relies on engineering.
Gustaf Alströmer：您之所以希望拥有一位技术联合创始人，而不是聘请工程师或聘请承包团队，是因为您要做的许多决策都是技术性的，而您要做的许多迭代都依赖于工程。
And if you don't understand that, you won't actually make the right decisions anyway.
如果你不明白这一点，你实际上就不会做出正确的决定。
It's not like service.
这不像服务。
You have an idea for a product, you build a product and you're done.
你有了一个产品的想法，你构建了一个产品，然后就完成了。
There's infinite number of iterations in that process.
该过程中有无数次迭代。
Gustaf Alströmer: And then finally, I would say a lot of people learn how to code themselves, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：最后，我想说很多人学习如何自己编码，对吗？
So there are a lot of places online that you can learn the skillset that takes to build a prototype.
因此，网上有很多地方可以让您学习构建原型所需的技能。
You might not be the best engineers.
你可能不是最好的工程师。
So there are many successful startup founders who are not the best engineers because they stop coding when they hire three or four engineers, that's fine.
因此，有许多成功的初创公司创始人并不是最好的工程师，因为他们在雇用三到四名工程师时就停止编码，这很好。
But you need to be sufficiently good that you understand the value of engineering and that you understand that the best way to solve most of the problem is with software.
但您需要足够优秀，才能了解工程的价值，并且了解解决大部分问题的最佳方法是使用软件。
There are a lot of founders who just, for whatever reason, study something else that doesn't have to be a conscious or very precise reason that you had when you were 18 or 19 and then you're 25, you're like, "Oh, I wish I know how to code" and then just learn to code and they learn how to code.
有很多创始人，无论出于什么原因，都在研究其他东西，这些东西不一定是你 18 或 19 岁时有意识或非常精确的原因，然后你到了 25 岁，你会说，“哦，我希望我知道如何编码”，然后只是学习编码，他们也学习如何编码。
It's not that more difficult than that.
并没有比这更困难。
Lenny: Have you ever seen a startup work out if they had a contracting firm, like engineering firm build a product?
莱尼：你见过一家初创公司通过承包公司（例如工程公司来制造产品）而成功的吗？
Does that ever work or were you just like, "No, do not ever do this"?
这有用吗？或者你只是想，“不，永远不要这样做”？
Gustaf Alströmer: Basically, I can't recall any specific ones where people have a contracting firm but I've recalled founders where let's say you had two non-technical founders, but they valued engineering and they had an ability to build a team of great people that were not co-founders and they gave them equity and they become successful.
Gustaf Alströmer：基本上，我不记得人们拥有一家承包公司的具体情况，但我记得创始人，假设有两个非技术创始人，但他们重视工程，并且有能力建立一支由非联合创始人的优秀人才组成的团队，他们给了他们股权，他们就取得了成功。
There are many examples of that I would say, but I don't remember any specific examples where you had a contracting team building the whole thing.
我想说的例子有很多，但我不记得有任何具体的例子，其中有一个承包团队来构建整个系统。
I think the reason for that is it takes more than just sort of riding a spec to build a product.
我认为原因是构建产品需要的不仅仅是遵循规范。
You can't actually spec yourself to a great product.
你实际上无法将自己指定为一款出色的产品。
You have to just be part of the iterations yourself.
您必须亲自参与迭代。
That's why I think someone being the engineer, having the idea of what iteration looks like and just doing it is how you do things.
这就是为什么我认为作为工程师的人，知道迭代是什么样子，然后去做就是你做事的方式。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think that the cases where I've seen non-technical founders make this work is that they have really good engineering teams who feel like they're founding team.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为我见过的非技术创始人做出这项工作的案例是，他们拥有非常优秀的工程团队，感觉就像是创始团队。
It might not be co-founders per YC-7 definition of having 10%, but they feel like they're the bonding team.
根据 YC-7 定义的 10% 的定义，联合创始人可能不是这样的，但他们感觉自己是一个团结的团队。
Lenny: This reminds me of a story of just the recent podcast interview I did with the CPO of Calendly.
Lenny：这让我想起最近我对 Calendly 的 CPO 进行的播客采访的一个故事。
She talked about how when Calendly started, they actually had a Ukrainian dev team built the first product.
她谈到了当 Calendly 开始时，他们实际上有一个乌克兰开发团队如何构建第一个产品。
Not only did they help them build the first product, they actually ended up driving all the growth initially because they saw Calendly and started using it within their firm.
他们不仅帮助他们构建了第一个产品，而且实际上最终推动了所有的增长，因为他们看到了 Calendly 并开始在公司内使用它。
Lenny: And then everyone that they knew started using it and spread within Ukraine and they actually continue to work with that firm.
莱尼：然后他们认识的每个人都开始使用它并在乌克兰传播，他们实际上继续与该公司合作。
They're still the team for Calendly or some part of it.
他们仍然是 Calendly 的团队或其中的一部分。
Gustaf Alströmer: I mean, I would say it's certainly the case that in some countries people have other jobs while they start the startups, so like the engineers.
Gustaf Alströmer：我的意思是，我想说，在某些国家，人们在创办初创公司时肯定会从事其他工作，就像工程师一样。
In Ukraine for example or in Eastern Europe, it's very common that if they start their own startup, they actually have a full-time job as a contractor while they're starting the startup because that's how you pay the bill because often you can't raise money.
例如在乌克兰或东欧，很常见的是，如果他们自己创业，他们在创业时实际上有一份全职承包商的工作，因为这就是你支付账单的方式，因为通常你无法筹集资金。
And that's fine too.
那也很好。
Amazing.
惊人的。
That's some hustle.: This episode is brought to you by Pando, the always on employee performance platform.
这有点忙。：本集由 Pando（始终在线的员工绩效平台）为您带来。
How much do you love the performance review process?
您有多喜欢绩效评估流程？
Yeah, it's time-consuming, subjective, biased, and there's rarely any transparency.
是的，这很耗时、主观、有偏见，而且很少有透明度。
With the rapid shift to distributed work, it's a struggle to create the structure and transparency that you want to help your employees have the highest impact and growth in their careers.
随着分布式工作的迅速转变，创建您希望帮助员工在职业生涯中发挥最大影响力和成长的结构和透明度是一项艰巨的任务。
Pando is disrupting the old paradigm of performance management, including a continuous employee-centric approach so employees stay engaged, see their progression in real time, and know exactly when and how they can level up.
Pando 正在颠覆绩效管理的旧模式，包括持续以员工为中心的方法，使员工保持敬业度，实时查看自己的进展，并准确知道何时以及如何升级。
With Pando, managers can leverage competency-based frameworks to effectively coach and develop their teams and align on consistent growth standards resulting in higher quality feedback and higher performing teams.
借助 Pando，管理者可以利用基于能力的框架来有效地指导和发展他们的团队，并遵循一致的增长标准，从而获得更高质量的反馈和更高绩效的团队。
Visit pando.com/lenny for more info and get a special discount when you sign up and reference this podcast.
请访问 pando.com/lenny 了解更多信息，并在注册并引用此播客时获得特别折扣。
That's pando.com/lenny.
那是 pando.com/lenny。
Amazing.
惊人的。
That's some hustle.: I want to zoom out a little bit and ask another big question and see what answer you have for this.
这有点忙。：我想缩小一点，问另一个大问题，看看你对此有什么答案。
If you just think about the most successful startups in YC or even just the companies you worked with, if you had to pick just one or two attributes of what's most common across successful companies, what would that be?
如果你只考虑 YC 中最成功的初创公司，甚至只是你合作过的公司，如果你必须选择成功公司中最常见的一两个属性，那会是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: I would say the most common reason that I've seen founders succeed or companies succeed, it comes down to the founders and characteristics of those individuals.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想说，我看到创始人成功或公司成功的最常见原因是创始人和这些人的特征。
The most important characteristics of those individuals are they're really determined to win and they don't give up when things are hard and they have an internal motivation that's just really infectious to people around them, which is how they end up building really good teams around them.
这些人最重要的特征是，他们真正决心获胜，当事情困难时他们不会放弃，他们有一种真正感染周围人的内在动力，这就是他们最终围绕自己建立真正优秀团队的方式。
People are actually going to want to go and work for them.
人们实际上会想去为他们工作。
I have numerous examples of people like this where the CEO or one of the founders are just really inspirational people.
我有很多这样的例子，其中首席执行官或创始人之一都是非常鼓舞人心的人。
Gustaf Alströmer: The second thing I would say is they are technical.
Gustaf Alströmer：我要说的第二件事是它们是技术性的。
So that's kind of like they're technical enough.
所以这有点像他们技术足够。
If I would grade companies on a scale of technical to less technical, more technical founders are more likely to succeed, I would say.
如果我按照技术程度到技术程度较低的程度对公司进行评级，我会说技术含量较高的创始人更有可能成功。
And then I would say they figure out how to talk to users and move fast early on so they don't wait for permission from their investors or from YC or from someone else to make progress.
然后我会说，他们想出如何与用户交谈并尽早采取行动，这样他们就不必等待投资者、YC 或其他人的许可来取得进展。
They're like, every day or every week there's continuous progress.
他们就像是，每天或每周都有持续的进步。
They're not doing this for someone else, they're doing this for the customers.
他们不是为别人做这件事，而是为顾客做这件事。
They're not doing this for the investors, that's for sure.
可以肯定的是，他们这样做不是为了投资者。
The investors are sort of in the way more or less.
投资者或多或少都会受到影响。
And they're just naturally focusing on the customers.
他们很自然地关注客户。
Gustaf Alströmer: Finally, what I would say is the skill that's really attributed to great founders is excellent communication skills.
Gustaf Alströmer：最后，我想说的是，真正归功于伟大创始人的技能是出色的沟通技巧。
So the ability to communicate really complicated ideas clearly, to enjoy the communication part, right?
因此，能够清晰地传达非常复杂的想法，并享受沟通的部分，对吗？
Enjoying communication is often kind of correlated with enjoying doing fundraising, which is an important part of some companies' success.
享受沟通通常与享受融资有关，这是一些公司成功的重要组成部分。
Not all of them, but for some of them.
不是全部，而是其中一些。
I would say communication or storytelling is part of the same arc, right?
我想说沟通或讲故事是同一弧线的一部分，对吧？
And those are part of the same thing that actually motivates people around you.
这些都是真正激励你周围的人的同一件事的一部分。
If you can communicate why you're building, what you're building and why it's important to the world, tell a story about that, that can motivate people around you to just want to follow you.
如果您能够传达您正在构建的原因、正在构建的内容以及为什么它对世界很重要，请讲述一个相关的故事，这可以激励您周围的人想要追随您。
I think it's rare that I've seen founders succeed where the founder isn't in some way an inspirational person or someone that is a good communicator.
我认为我很少看到创始人在某种程度上不是一个鼓舞人心的人或一个善于沟通的人而取得成功的。
Most of the time, you at least have respect or you somewhere know that they're going to succeed, right?
大多数时候，你至少有尊重，或者你在某个地方知道他们会成功，对吧？
And that is what inspires you to be around them or be on their team.
这就是激励你与他们在一起或加入他们团队的原因。
Lenny: That is a really cool list.
莱尼：这是一个非常酷的清单。
So just to summarize, one, they have the strong will to win, and with that they're inspirational.
总结一下，第一，他们有强烈的获胜意愿，因此他们很鼓舞人心。
They kind of pull people along and get people really excited.
他们会带动人们一起前进，让人们感到非常兴奋。
Two is they're more likely to succeed if they're technical and can build a thing.
第二，如果他们有技术并且可以建造东西，他们就更有可能成功。
Three, they figure out how to talk to customers, don't wait, just start doing it.
第三，他们弄清楚如何与客户交谈，不要等待，就开始做吧。
And they're just obsessed with that versus what investors want them to do and they don't want to talk to the investors to make time for the customers.
他们只是沉迷于这一点，而不是投资者希望他们做的事情，他们不想与投资者交谈，为客户腾出时间。
And then excellent communication skills, which comes back to the first.
然后是出色的沟通技巧，这又回到了第一点。
They're able to story tell and get people excited.
他们能够讲故事并让人们兴奋。
Is that right?
是这样吗？
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, I would say those are the attributes of successful things.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，我想说这些是成功事物的属性。
To be a super successful company, there's something else that have to happen.
要成为一家超级成功的公司，还必须发生其他事情。
Those things are not things you can put on a list because they are the outliers, right?
这些事情不是你可以列入清单的事情，因为它们是异常值，对吗？
If you look at startups on a typical YC batch, there'd be a couple billion companies.
如果你看一下典型的 YC 批次的初创公司，就会发现有数十亿家公司。
Those are the outliers.
这些都是异常值。
They'll almost certainly have all the things that we've talked about.
他们几乎肯定会拥有我们谈论过的所有东西。
Many other companies in the batch will have that too, but then what makes someone a true outlier is something that is unknown.
这批公司中的许多其他公司也会有这种情况，但是什么让某人成为真正的异常者，却是未知的。
That's why so many investors said no to Airbnb when they were not trying to raise money because that was an outlier idea.
这就是为什么很多投资者在 Airbnb 不打算融资时就对他们说“不”，因为这是一个离奇的想法。
It was an idea that was not logical and did not make sense to most people.
这是一个不合逻辑的想法，对大多数人来说没有意义。
Those kind of ideas, the ones that end up succeeding often don't make sense to people.
那些最终成功的想法往往对人们来说没有意义。
There's some reason that no one has done this before because they're just not natural next step of the world.
之前没有人这样做是有原因的，因为他们不是世界的下一步。
Lenny: That's a great segue to a question I've been meaning to ask, which is, how good are you at predicting in a batch which startups are going to be the monster hits?
莱尼：这很好地解决了我一直想问的一个问题，即你在批量预测哪些初创公司将成为大热门方面的能力如何？
So maybe like you and then just generally YC, how good are you all at knowing what's going to work out, is going to be the next Airbnb or Dropbox?
所以，也许就像您一样，YC 也一样，你们知道什么会成功，是否会成为下一个 Airbnb 或 Dropbox？
Gustaf Alströmer: I think the truth is that we're not very good at knowing what's going to succeed.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为事实是我们不太擅长知道什么会成功。
Certainly we cannot figure out who's going to be the really successful company in the batch.
当然，我们无法弄清楚谁将成为这批公司中真正成功的公司。
That's not possible.
那是不可能的。
What we're good at is knowing what failure looks like.
我们擅长的是知道失败是什么样子。
What we sometimes like to tell founders at the beginning of the batch is like, "If you fail, please do it in some new exciting way.
有时我们喜欢在批次开始时告诉创始人，“如果你失败了，请以某种令人兴奋的新方式来做。
Not one that we've seen 100 times." Because we have seen people fail for a large number of reasons.
没有一个我们见过 100 遍的。”因为我们看到人们因多种原因而失败。
The best way for us to sort of not predict, but the best way for us to make more companies succeed is to tell them how they might fail, right?
对我们来说，最好的方法是不去预测，但对我们来说，让更多公司成功的最好方法是告诉他们他们可能会失败，对吗？
Be very direct and honest with them and say, "You doing these three things, these things are likely going to lead that you won't succeed." And if we do our job well, most people get that feedback and they're on the track for succeeding.
非常直接和诚实地对他们说：“你做这三件事，这些事情很可能会导致你不会成功。”如果我们做好工作，大多数人都会得到反馈，他们就会走上成功的轨道。
Gustaf Alströmer: Now, which of those companies end up becoming the best?
Gustaf Alströmer：现在，哪些公司最终成为最好的？
There are so many things that are uncorrelated to being the best, and it's the things that people don't like.
有很多事情与成为最好无关，而且是人们不喜欢的事情。
I'm in a hot industry, I was writing up on TechCrunch like, this investor started talking to me.
我身处一个热门行业，我正在 TechCrunch 上撰写文章，这位投资者开始与我交谈。
You'd be surprised how many of the things I just mentioned are uncorrelated to outlier success, right?
您可能会感到惊讶，我刚才提到的许多事情与异常成功无关，对吧？
That's why it's so hard to actually do this.
这就是为什么真正做到这一点如此困难。
I think people really want these questions to be answered.
我认为人们真的希望这些问题得到解答。
People really want to believe that you can pick really great companies at the seed stage, but everything I've learned from the plus 600 companies that I've worked with is that it's just not that easy and it's maybe not even possible and certainly not possible when you talk about finding the outlier companies.
人们确实愿意相信，你可以在种子阶段挑选出真正优秀的公司，但我从与我合作过的 600 多家公司中学到的一切是，这并不那么容易，甚至可能不可能，当你谈论寻找异常公司时，当然也不可能。
I don't think it's that easy.
我认为这并不容易。
And if it was easy, then we would accept a lot fewer companies.
如果这很容易，那么我们接受的公司就会少得多。
We just accept those ones, but it's just not that easy.
我们只是接受这些，但这并不那么容易。
Lenny: Do you have a sense of which ones are likely to work out better than others?
莱尼：你知道哪些人可能比其他人效果更好吗？
Or is it just like, "We have 150 really unclear, but one of these, hopefully."
或者就像是，“我们确实有 150 个不清楚，但希望其中有一个。”
Gustaf Alströmer: One good indicator is if each new Office Hour there is really exciting new stuff, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：一个很好的指标是每个新的办公时间是否真的有令人兴奋的新东西，对吧？
We're not talking about the same thing we talked about two weeks ago or four weeks ago.
我们谈论的不是两周前或四个星期前谈论的同一件事。
They've already done that stuff, right?
他们已经做过那些事了，对吧？
Like, "Oh, I was trying to sell to these three customers.
就像，“哦，我试图向这三个客户销售产品。
Well, they already bought it.
嗯，他们已经买了。
I'm not actually talking to seven others." And now we are talking about a different price and different product because they're like, they want more of what we're doing.
我实际上并不是在和另外七个人说话。”现在我们正在谈论不同的价格和不同的产品，因为他们想要更多我们正在做的事情。
If I'm experiencing that, and that's like a consistent trend, then when people draw this revenue graph of this 10% weekly growth rate kind of situation, those are the companies that we attribute that to.
如果我正在经历这种情况，并且这就像一个一致的趋势，那么当人们绘制这种每周增长率为 10% 的情况的收入图表时，这些就是我们将其归因于的公司。
It's like if you're able to make that progress on that short amount of timescale, you are on track to do something well.
就好像如果你能够在这么短的时间内取得进展，你就有望做好某件事。
Gustaf Alströmer: Now, a lot of other things have to go well for you to ultimately be able to succeed, but progress on this weekly or biweekly timescale is a really good indicator of someone who'll succeed.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：现在，很多其他事情都必须顺利进行，你才能最终取得成功，但每周或每两周的时间尺度上的进展确实是一个人会成功的很好的指标。
To me, much better indicator than I am in this market or I'm talking to this investor or something like that.
对我来说，这个指标比我在这个市场上的指标或者我正在与这位投资者或类似的人交谈的指标要好得多。
But those are much worse indicators of someone succeeding than I'm making progress and it's pretty fast clip.
但这些是一个人成功的指标，比我取得的进步要糟糕得多，而且进展速度相当快。
Lenny: Interesting.
莱尼：有趣。
And so what I'm hearing is at the beginning of a batch, we're just in a bet on a bunch of companies that have a lot of potential founders, technical maybe, they have the strong will to win and all these things.
所以我听到的是在一批开始时，我们只是押注于一群拥有很多潜在创始人的公司，也许是技术上的，他们有强烈的获胜意愿以及所有这些东西。
Through the batch, you're looking at the companies that are exceeding your expectations week to week in terms of progress that they're making.
在这批批次中，您会看到哪些公司的进展每周都超出您的预期。
Gustaf Alströmer: I mean, sometimes it could be different reasons that people are not making progress.
Gustaf Alströmer：我的意思是，有时人们没有取得进步可能有不同的原因。
But if you are making continuous progress, and I think Paul and Jessica said this, this was true early days in YC, if you are hitting your goals and you're making progress continuously, if that continues, that's a really strong correlation to some success.
但如果你不断取得进步，我想 Paul 和 Jessica 说过，这在 YC 的早期确实如此，如果你正在实现你的目标并且不断取得进步，如果这种情况持续下去，那么这与成功有很强的相关性。
But again, going back to the question, can we predict who's going to be the best ones?
但再次回到这个问题，我们可以预测谁会是最好的吗？
No. And that's why we really focus on trying to meet people not to fail.
不。这就是为什么我们真正专注于努力结识人们，以免失败。
Especially good teams can't fail.
特别好的团队是不会失败的。
If you have a really talented team who's really technical in how to build a product but they make some other basic mistakes, like not talking to customers or something like that or trying to build everything all at once, I feel like it's our responsibility to make sure they don't make the basics mistakes that we've seen many times.
如果你有一个非常有才华的团队，他们在如何构建产品方面非常有技术，但他们犯了一些其他基本错误，比如不与客户交谈或类似的事情，或者试图一次性构建所有东西，我觉得我们有责任确保他们不会犯我们多次看到的基本错误。
We need to help them at least make some spectacular mistake that we haven't seen before.
我们至少需要帮助他们犯一些我们以前从未见过的重大错误。
Then that's a high potential team.
那么这就是一支高潜力的团队。
If someone's on a good track for a decent idea but they're still early, that's a really good potential.
如果有人正在寻找一个不错的想法，但他们还处于早期阶段，那么这确实是一个很好的潜力。
Lenny: I have kind of a fun question that I wanted to try, which is kind of connected to this idea around attributes of successful founders and companies.
莱尼：我有一个有趣的问题想尝试一下，这与成功创始人和公司的属性这一想法有关。
So I had this founder friend named Flow, and he was asking me recently, "If you had to think about the most successful founders, which attributes do they have?" And he kind of gave me this list and it's kind of like two ends of a spectrum.
我有一位名叫 Flow 的创始人朋友，他最近问我：“如果你必须考虑最成功的创始人，他们具有哪些特质？”他给了我这个清单，有点像光谱的两端。
So I thought it'd be fun to just go through this list and see, in your experience, which end of the spectrum, if any, are associated and correlated with the most successful founders.
因此，我认为浏览一下这个列表并根据您的经验看看哪一端（如果有的话）与最成功的创始人相关联是很有趣的。
Does that sound good?
听起来不错吗？
Lenny: Okay.
莱尼：好的。
So the first is speed versus quality.
因此，首先是速度与质量。
Is there end of the spectrum where you find that most successful founders are either speed-focused or quality-focused?
您是否发现最成功的创始人要么注重速度，要么注重质量？
Gustaf Alströmer: Sometimes founders ask us this question, "What should I focus on?
Gustaf Alströmer：有时创始人会问我们这个问题：“我应该关注什么？
Growth or retention?" And the answer is, they're asking us for permission to not do one or the other.
增长还是保留？”答案是，他们请求我们允许不做其中之一。
The truth is, to succeed, you have to do both.
事实是，要成功，你必须两者兼而有之。
I would argue that speed versus quality, there's different level of speed and different level of quality at different stage of the company.
我认为速度与质量，在公司的不同阶段有不同水平的速度和不同水平的质量。
But the truth is that you always have to move fast and you have to understand what the meaning of quality is, right?
但事实是，您始终必须快速行动，并且必须了解质量的含义，对吧？
Gustaf Alströmer: So I think I actually don't see that as a spectrum, but I would say if you move fast with talking to customers, you'll build something that have potential having quality because you know a lot about the problem.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以我认为我实际上并不认为这是一个范围，但我想说，如果你快速与客户交谈，你就会构建出具有质量潜力的东西，因为你对问题了解很多。
I think when people think about quality, they often think about, "What is my personal definition of quality?" I have a bar of quality, but quality to me of a good product idea, a good startup idea, has more to do with the customer think is valuable.
我认为当人们考虑质量时，他们经常会想，“我个人对质量的定义是什么？”我有一个质量标准，但对我来说，一个好的产品创意、一个好的创业创意的质量，更多地与客户认为有价值有关。
And if you move fast by talking to customers and having customer learnings and know the problems, then you will actually come up with something that's high quality.
如果您通过与客户交谈、了解客户情况并了解问题来快速行动，那么您实际上会提出高质量的产品。
So they're not at a spectrum to me.
所以他们不属于我的范围。
Lenny: All right.
莱尼：好吧。
Let's try another one.
让我们尝试另一个。
Confidence versus humility as a founder?
作为创始人的自信与谦逊？
Gustaf Alströmer: I don't think that they're on a spectrum.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为他们不在一个范围内。
I think that learning to predict confidence as a founder is critical going back to this communication piece of motivating people around you, right?
我认为，作为创始人，学习预测信心至关重要，回到激励周围人的沟通部分，对吧？
I wouldn't want to join a company where the founder's completely not confident in their own idea, right?
我不想加入一家创始人对自己的想法完全没有信心的公司，对吗？
Because that is going to shine through.
因为那将会闪耀。
An investor isn't going to want to invest in someone who's completely not confident in that idea.
投资者不会愿意投资于对这个想法完全没有信心的人。
So learning to first build your own confidence for what you're working on and then predicting that confidence to the people around you I think is critical.
因此，学习首先对自己正在做的事情建立信心，然后向周围的人预测这种信心，我认为至关重要。
A lot of people will have doubt around you.
周围很多人都会对你产生怀疑。
And if you're not predicting that confidence, it's not clear that anybody else will if you're the founder.
如果你没有预测到这种信心，那么如果你是创始人，就不清楚其他人会不会有这种信心。
You're the one who's have to do it.
你是必须这么做的人。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think that you can predict that confidence while having a strong sense of humility towards the people around you.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为你可以预测这种自信，同时对周围的人抱有强烈的谦逊感。
But I think when it comes to startups, learning to have that confidence is an important piece of the early days, right?
但我认为对于初创公司来说，学会拥有这种信心是早期的重要组成部分，对吗？
And especially if you're building something that's very difficult, that takes a lot of work and a lot of money, protecting the confidence that you will succeed is critical for everybody that's doubting you.
特别是如果你正在构建非常困难的东西，需要大量的工作和大量的资金，那么保护你将成功的信心对于每个怀疑你的人来说都是至关重要的。
And those doubting you is a lot of people around you, right?
而那些怀疑你的人，在你身边也有很多吧？
And you just need to have an unnatural amount of confidence to prove them wrong.
你只需要拥有超乎寻常的自信来证明他们是错的。
I think, again, this is not on the spectrum with humility.
我再次认为，这不属于谦虚的范畴。
In fact, the most successful founders are often the most...
事实上，最成功的创始人往往是最...
You cannot inspire people around you if you don't have a strong sense of humility.
如果你没有强烈的谦卑感，你就无法激励周围的人。
People don't actually want to spend time with you, which means they don't want to work for you or invest in you.
人们实际上不想花时间和你在一起，这意味着他们不想为你工作或投资于你。
Again, you need both, but they serve different purposes when you get started.
同样，您两者都需要，但是当您开始时它们有不同的用途。
Lenny: Tough gig this founder life.
莱尼：这位创始人的生活很艰难。
You got to got to be everything.
你必须成为一切。
Let's see if there's a big difference in this next one.
让我们看看下一篇是否有很大的不同。
Execution and tactics versus focusing on strategy and kind of higher level stuff.
执行和战术与专注于战略和更高层次的东西。
How deep do founders go that you find that are most successful?
您发现最成功的创始人有多深？
Gustaf Alströmer: So this one actually I have a strong opinion about.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以实际上我对此有强烈的看法。
I think that the reason that we talk about strategy a lot is because it goes back to business school.
我认为我们之所以经常谈论战略是因为它可以追溯到商学院。
The origin of business school was to teach people to join the corporate world.
商学院的起源是教导人们加入企业界。
And in the corporate world, strategy matters, right?
在企业界，战略很重要，对吗？
So when you join a big company, you're employee number 2,010 or something, then you probably might have a business school job where thinking about corporate strategy is an important thing.
因此，当你加入一家大公司时，你的员工编号是 2,010 号之类的，那么你可能会在商学院工作，在该工作中，思考公司战略是很重要的事情。
When you are a small startup, strategy does not matter because there's not that much a strategy as about.
当你是一家小型初创公司时，战略并不重要，因为没有那么多的战略。
Maybe later on you might be fruitful to think about strategy, but strategy kind of assumes that you can do multiple things at the same time, which small startups cannot.
也许稍后你考虑战略可能会富有成效，但战略有点假设你可以同时做多件事，而小型初创公司则不能。
They can just do one thing at the same time.
他们只能同时做一件事。
So execution is the thing that matters for companies.
所以执行力对于公司来说是最重要的。
Gustaf Alströmer: Whenever someone wants to have a strategy conversation, it assumes that they don't understand their priorities.
Gustaf Alströmer：每当有人想要进行战略对话时，就假设他们不了解自己的优先事项。
The priorities is always a list from top to bottom where there's one thing that's more important than the others.
优先级始终是一个从上到下的列表，其中一件事比其他事情更重要。
You can't really have a strategy session about the other things because there's only one thing to work on.
你不可能真正就其他事情进行战略会议，因为只有一件事需要处理。
So to me, a clear answer here is the good founders are execution-oriented and they just continually have one priority of what they're trying to go for.
所以对我来说，一个明确的答案是优秀的创始人都是以执行为导向的，他们只是不断地优先考虑他们想要追求的目标。
And then they're just hitting that priority all the time and then new priorities will come up and you don't really have time to have a discussion about company strategy.
然后他们一直在强调这个优先事项，然后新的优先事项就会出现，而你真的没有时间讨论公司战略。
Company strategy also assumes that you have product market fit because you already have something that's working.
公司战略还假设您的产品适合市场，因为您已经拥有有效的产品。
If you don't have that, then getting to people wanting your product, that is your strategy.
如果你没有这个能力，那么吸引那些想要你的产品的人，这就是你的策略。
You don't have any other strategy.
你没有任何其他策略。
Lenny: Awesome.
莱尼：太棒了。
Okay.
好的。
We found one that's quite different one on the spectrum or the other.
我们发现一个在频谱上或另一个上完全不同的一个。
How about autocratic and kind of like, I don't know, I think of Steve Jobs-like versus kind of consensus, collaborative driven, if this is a spectrum at all.
专制和类似的怎么样，我不知道，我认为史蒂夫·乔布斯式的与共识，协作驱动的，如果这是一个范围的话。
And then where do you find founders might fit that are most successful?
那么你会发现最成功的创始人可能适合哪里？
Gustaf Alströmer: I don't know if I have an answer to that question because I think when you work at early stage, you might look different than when you work at late stage.
Gustaf Alströmer：我不知道这个问题是否有答案，因为我认为当你在早期阶段工作时，你可能看起来与后期工作时有所不同。
I don't spend a lot of time with founders that have thousands of employees and hearing how they are in the...
我不会花很多时间与拥有数千名员工的创始人打交道，听听他们的情况……
When I talk to those founders, I talk to them one-one-one and I only hear from their perspective.
当我与这些创始人交谈时，我是一对一地与他们交谈，我只听到他们的观点。
So I don't actually know how they're peering in a large corporate setting.
所以我实际上不知道他们在大型企业环境中是如何看待的。
But when you're a small company, you're three people or five people or 10 people, you cannot be an autocratic decision maker.
但当你是一家小公司时，你只有三个人、五个人或十个人，你就不能成为独裁的决策者。
The founding team have a founding team decision making dynamic that could look different.
创始团队的决策动态可能看起来有所不同。
Sometimes it's like everybody decides together on everything and sometimes you say, "I have my area of expertise and you have yours.
有时，就像每个人都共同决定所有事情，有时你会说：“我有我的专业领域，你有你的。
We split it up, the decision making." Either of those things are fine.
我们分开做决定。”这些事情中的任何一个都很好。
I think you just have to have a process so you don't rehash every decision after you made them a million times.
我认为你只需要有一个流程，这样你就不会在做出一百万次之后重复每一个决定。
Gustaf Alströmer: I would say the thing that matters the most at that point is to be willing to adhere to the process that you and your founding team have come up with.
Gustaf Alströmer：我想说，此时最重要的是愿意遵守您和您的创始团队提出的流程。
Your individual nature could be different in a different role in a different company.
在不同的公司担任不同的角色，您的个性可能会有所不同。
But for a startup to work out, you have to have a specific process on how you make decisions.
但对于一家想要成功的初创公司来说，你必须有一个具体的决策流程。
Those are on a very short sprints, like weekly or biweekly.
这些都是非常短的冲刺，比如每周或每两周一次。
And everyone needs to feel good about decisions after the fact.
每个人都需要在事后对决定感到满意。
At least they feel good about the process.
至少他们对这个过程感觉良好。
I don't think that you can just decide...
我不认为你可以决定...
You can't also be fully collaborative, everyone gets decided about everything.
你也不可能完全协作，每个人都会决定一切。
So small startups agree on how they decide together.
因此，小型初创公司就如何共同做出决定达成一致。
So after that, everyone just follow the process.
那么接下来大家就按照流程走就可以了。
That's usually how things work out.
事情通常就是这样进行的。
Lenny: Okay, I got one more.
莱尼：好的，我还有一张。
Cares more about the product or cares more about the distribution and growth strategy?
更关心产品还是更关心分销和增长策略？
Gustaf Alströmer: Well, there's a lot of assumptions built into that, I would say, because caring about the product to me is caring about the customers.
Gustaf Alströmer：嗯，我想说，这里面有很多假设，因为对我来说关心产品就是关心客户。
Sometimes if I would say something like, "Oh, great founders care about the product," a lot of founders misinterpret that as in my personal perception of the product or my ideas of what the product is.
有时，如果我说“哦，伟大的创始人关心产品”，很多创始人会误解我对产品的个人看法或我对产品的想法。
And that's wrong.
那是错误的。
The right perception there is the expectations or the use of the product from the customers.
正确的认知是客户对产品的期望或使用。
So if you are meaning focus on the product or cares about the product in that sense that your customers care about, then absolutely, I think that's a really, really critical, important thing to have early on, like talking to users, doing things you don't scale.
因此，如果你的意思是专注于产品或关心客户所关心的产品，那么绝对，我认为这是早期真正非常重要的事情，就像与用户交谈，做你无法扩展的事情。
Once you get big, if you don't figure out a scalable distribution strategy, you won't succeed.
一旦你做大了，如果你不找出可扩展的分销策略，你就不会成功。
And those are different for different companies, but they're not doing anything that don't scale.
对于不同的公司来说，这些是不同的，但他们并没有做任何无法扩展的事情。
Gustaf Alströmer: Doing things that don't scale is not a scalable strategy.
Gustaf Alströmer：做无法扩展的事情并不是一个可扩展的策略。
Eventually, something specific will be the things that work for you.
最终，一些特定的东西将成为对你有用的东西。
If you're lucky, people will talk about your product and you'll have organic growth.
如果你幸运的话，人们会谈论你的产品，你就会实现有机增长。
But in many cases, that sales, that is some kind of consumer distribution strategy.
但在很多情况下，销售是某种消费者分销策略。
You can't start with that.
你不能从那开始。
I've seen a lot, and this is when I had to reset my thinking coming from a growth team joining YC, is you can't start a startup ethic with a growth team mindset because that is just scalable things all the time.
我已经看到了很多，此时我不得不重新调整我对加入 YC 的增长团队的想法，即你不能以增长团队的心态开始创业道德，因为这只是可扩展的事情。
And really what you need to go back to is doing things that don't scale and unscale your way of thinking about customers.
事实上，你需要回到的是做那些不会扩大和改变你对客户的思考方式的事情。
But it's really useful to have the growth mindset once something is working, right?
但一旦事情发生了，拥有成长心态真的很有用，对吧？
Once you have thousands of people signing up everything every day, well how do you get to 2,000?
一旦每天有数千人注册所有内容，那么如何才能达到 2,000 人呢？
Well, that's probably something that looks more like this thing that the growth team would do or distribution team would do.
嗯，这可能看起来更像是增长团队或发行团队会做的事情。
Gustaf Alströmer: I would say everyone has different experiences of this based on their prior experience, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：我想说，根据之前的经验，每个人对此都有不同的经历，对吗？
So if you work for a company that was infinitely successful, then you won't care so much about this.
所以如果你在一家无限成功的公司工作，那么你就不会那么在乎这个。
If you work for Google, you'll never even think about this because distribution is just the website.
如果你在谷歌工作，你永远不会想到这一点，因为分发只是网站。
But if you work for a really small shitty product, then you think a lot about distribution because that's natural to you on how you succeed.
但如果你为一个非常小的、糟糕的产品工作，那么你就会对分销进行很多思考，因为这对你来说是成功的自然因素。
So I think at the end of the day, talking to customers matters the most.
所以我认为归根结底，与客户交谈是最重要的。
That is what it means to care about a product to me.
这就是对我来说关心产品的意义。
And then distribution is something that you will definitely invest a lot in once something is working.
一旦有东西发挥作用，你肯定会在分销上投入大量资金。
Lenny: Awesome.
莱尼：太棒了。
All right.
好的。
I have probably a hundred other questions I want to ask along these lines, but I want to make sure we get to another topic which I know is near and dear to your heart, which is climate tech.
沿着这些思路，我可能还有一百个其他问题想问，但我想确保我们讨论另一个我知道您很关心的话题，那就是气候技术。
So my understanding is you're instrumental in pushing YC to focus on climate tech as a focus area.
所以我的理解是，你在推动 YC 将气候技术作为重点领域方面发挥了重要作用。
I believe you led the charge on their initial request for startups I think is the term where you all put out like, "Here's who we want to fund." I think you've mentioned you funded a couple dozen climate tech companies and the last few batches, is that all generally correct?
我相信你们在他们最初对初创公司的要求中带头负责，我认为你们都提出了这样的术语：“这就是我们想要资助的人。”我想你提到过你资助了几十家气候技术公司和最后几批，这通常都是正确的吗？
Gustaf Alströmer: First, request for startup was actually Sam Altman and a few other folks that was kind of that one who drove that.
Gustaf Alströmer：首先，启动请求实际上是 Sam Altman 和其他一些人推动的。
The second one that we wrote into our actual request for startup, I wrote that one, was carbon removal specifically focused on.
我们在实际启动请求中写入的第二个，我写的，是特别关注的碳去除。
And then naturally the people that apply with climate tech ideas get in my reading queue of applications and I read them and I interview them.
然后自然而然地，那些提出气候技术想法的人就会进入我的申请阅读队列，我会阅读他们并采访他们。
Not all of them, but many of them.
不是全部，而是很多。
I think today we funded over 130 plus companies that are focused on climate tech in some way or another.
我想今天我们资助了 130 多家以某种方式专注于气候技术的公司。
Gustaf Alströmer: The trend line is that really ambitious people who want to start companies in this area.
Gustaf Alströmer：趋势是那些真正雄心勃勃的人想要在这个领域创办公司。
Some of them want to start the companies because the climate tech is the number one problem, but they don't view this as a nonprofit.
他们中的一些人想创办公司，因为气候技术是头号问题，但他们并不认为这是非营利组织。
Now I want to really make this as a distinction.
现在我想真正将其作为一种区别。
People somehow think that starting a climate tech company is doing good for the world, but it probably doesn't have a lot more than that.
人们不知何故认为创办一家气候科技公司对世界有好处，但它的作用可能仅此而已。
The truth is that the world have decided.
事实是世界已经决定了。
Because climate is one of the biggest problems that we're facing, if not the biggest, we've decided that we are going to stop doing the things that we're doing and we're going to change our entire energy system and change all the things that we do that emits carbon.
因为气候是我们面临的最大问题之一，即使不是最大的问题，我们也决定停止我们正在做的事情，我们将改变我们的整个能源系统，改变我们所做的所有排放碳的事情。
And we have just decided, governments have decided this.
我们刚刚决定，政府也已经决定了。
The question is how it's going to happen, but this decision has been made.
问题是这将如何发生，但这个决定已经做出了。
Gustaf Alströmer: In that transition, we're talking about trillions of dollars of money moving from things that cause climate change to things that don't.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：在这一转变中，我们谈论的是数万亿美元的资金从导致气候变化的事物转移到不会导致气候变化的事物。
The scale of this transition is not something we've seen recently.
这种转变的规模是我们最近从未见过的。
Like software is not that big in comparison.
相比之下，类似的软件并没有那么大。
It actually is much smaller than this transition.
它实际上比这个转变要小得多。
So I think if you look at something like Tesla, which now has, I don't know, $600, $700 billion market cap, that's just one company that currently provides a couple percent of all the cars in the United States, new cars sold.
所以我认为，如果你看看像特斯拉这样的公司，我不知道它现在的市值是 600 美元还是 7000 亿美元，那只是一家目前提供美国所有新车销量的百分之几的公司。
And that is already one of the biggest companies in the world and has now the biggest, richest person in the world.
这已经是世界上最大的公司之一，现在拥有世界上最大、最富有的人。
We've only seen the beginning of this.
我们只看到了这一切的开始。
The economical motivation be behind the decisions that people are making are just as strong as I want to fix climate change because this is just a really good business.
人们做出的决定背后的经济动机与我想要解决气候变化的愿望一样强烈，因为这是一项非常好的生意。
This change have attracted a large set of software founders that you and me know that listen to this podcast that said, "My skills is relevant here.
这一变化吸引了一大批你我都知道的软件创始人，他们听这个播客说：“我的技能在这里是相关的。
There are a lot of things that I can do.
我能做的事情有很多。
And if not, I can learn those things."
如果没有，我可以学习这些东西。”
Gustaf Alströmer: But most importantly, the skills of working for startups is really, really critical to join this transition.
Gustaf Alströmer：但最重要的是，为初创公司工作的技能对于加入这一转型确实非常关键。
A lot of them have started companies or joining companies.
他们中的许多人已经创办了公司或加入了公司。
I still get an email every week from some accomplished software engineer who asked me "Which software companies should I work for to fix climate change?" And I've gotten those emails for two or three years now.
我仍然每周都会收到一些有成就的软件工程师发来的电子邮件，他们问我“我应该为哪些软件公司工作来解决气候变化？”我收到这些电子邮件已有两三年了。
This thing just attracts really, really ambitious people.
这件事只会吸引非常非常有野心的人。
It's not stopping.
它没有停止。
It's accelerating.
它正在加速。
I feel lucky to work with so many of these great founders because they are uniquely interesting people.
我很幸运能与这么多伟大的创始人一起工作，因为他们都是非常有趣的人。
Lenny: I've noticed exactly the same thing of just how many smart, driven, amazing people are like, "I just want to move to a climate tech company.
莱尼：我注意到有很多聪明、有动力、了不起的人都喜欢同样的事情，“我只是想搬到一家气候科技公司。
That's all I'm looking for now." Just to give you credit, I feel like you are ahead of the curve on the shift that's started to happen and pushed YC to focus on this really early.
这就是我现在正在寻找的一切。”只是为了表扬一下你，我觉得你在已经开始发生的转变方面处于领先地位，并促使 YC 很早就关注这一点。
I always think like, "Man, I know Gustaf and I feel like Gustaf has made such a massive impact on the investment and focus in startups on climate." And so I just want to give you huge props for doing that and being so at the forefront of a lot of this.
我总是这样想，“伙计，我认识古斯塔夫，我觉得古斯塔夫对气候初创公司的投资和关注产生了巨大的影响。”因此，我只想为你们提供巨大的支持，让你们能够做到这一点，并在这方面处于最前沿。
Gustaf Alströmer: Thank you.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：谢谢。
I mean, sometimes I'd say that it matters to someone who has the credibility of YC to start accepting these companies.
我的意思是，有时我会说，对于具有 YC 信誉的人来说，开始接受这些公司很重要。
It does matter.
这确实很重要。
I remember when I spoke to Diego from Pachama in 2018 when he was starting Pachama, we were whiteboarding in YC.
我记得 2018 年，当我与来自 Pachama 的迭戈交谈时，当时他正在创建 Pachama，当时我们正在 YC 中使用白板。
He was a YC alumni starting a different company.
他是 YC 校友，创办了另一家公司。
The word climate tech did not exist.
气候技术这个词并不存在。
People were unsure if investors would fund companies like these.
人们不确定投资者是否会资助这样的公司。
Pachama's raised $60 million to have, I don't know, lots of big customers, lots of employees and it's clearly doing really well.
Pachama 筹集了 6000 万美元，我不知道，它拥有很多大客户、很多员工，而且它显然做得非常好。
But I think at the time of 2018 it was kind of unknown.
但我认为在 2018 年，这还是一个未知数。
One of the reasons it was unknown is we had this previous bubble, clean tech bubble, in 2008, 2009, 2010 that didn't work out because of a number of specific reasons and investors were just afraid of funding things because they had some scar tissue or scars from this previous thing that happened.
未知的原因之一是我们在 2008 年、2009 年、2010 年曾经历过清洁科技泡沫，但由于一些具体原因而没有成功，投资者只是害怕为事情提供资金，因为他们有一些疤痕组织或因之前发生的事情而留下的疤痕。
Gustaf Alströmer: Now that turned out upside down.
Gustaf Alströmer：现在情况完全颠倒了。
The number of new investors that are investing in climate tech is as big of a trend as any other trend we've seen in the last decade or two decades.
投资气候技术的新投资者数量与我们在过去十年或二十年看到的任何其他趋势一样大。
There's just an enormous focus on the investing side.
人们非常关注投资方面。
Most recently, me and another guy, David Rusenko, wrote this request for startup, a new updated, very detailed list of...
最近，我和另一个人 David Rusenko 写了这个启动请求，这是一个新更新的、非常详细的列表……
I hope we can post it in the show notes, a very detailed list of ideas or areas where we think it might be worth looking If you want to start a company.
我希望我们可以将其发布在展会笔记中，这是一份非常详细的想法或领域列表，如果您想创办一家公司，我们认为可能值得一看。
Gustaf Alströmer: Now, we don't know what good ideas look like.
Gustaf Alströmer：现在，我们不知道好想法是什么样的。
We don't know.
我们不知道。
But we can tell you where all the areas of opportunity exist.
但我们可以告诉您所有机会领域都存在于哪里。
We should go and look for good ideas.
我们应该去寻找好的想法。
We wrote this because in response to all these people that come to us and say, "I want to work on climate tech.
我们写这篇文章是为了回应所有那些来找我们说：“我想从事气候技术工作的人。
I don't have a good idea because I don't have any specific experience in this stuff." And then we're just like, "Don't work on these three things but go and work on any of these 25 directions." It already has generate a good response.
我没有什么好主意，因为我在这方面没有任何具体经验。”然后我们就会说，“不要在这三件事上努力，而是在这 25 个方向中的任何一个方向上努力。”它已经产生了良好的反响。
I think it'll generate more response.
我认为这会产生更多的反应。
But I think it's important for YC to tell the world that we look and fund these things.
但我认为，对于 YC 来说，告诉世界我们正在寻找并资助这些事情是很重要的。
And that's always been the reasons we had requests for startups, is to let people know that these are things that we actually want to fund.
这一直是我们向初创公司提出要求的原因，就是让人们知道这些是我们真正想要资助的事情。
Lenny: I actually moderated a panel a couple weeks ago.
莱尼：实际上几周前我主持了一个小组讨论。
This organization called the Climate Draft put together PMs that are in climate tech.
这个名为“气候草案”的组织汇集了气候技术领域的总理。
A lot of the questions were just like, "What kind of background do I need to move into climate tech startup to start a climate tech company?" It's interesting, every single one again and again just said like, "Your actual regular PM skills is all we need." There's a lot of people already at the company that are experts in the science and that's okay if you have no experience.
很多问题都是这样的，“我需要什么样的背景才能进入气候科技初创公司来创办一家气候科技公司？”有趣的是，每个人都一遍又一遍地说，“我们只需要你真正的常规 PM 技能。”公司里已经有很多人都是科学专家，如果你没有经验也没关系。
They just need the business experience, how to operate, how to execute, standard stuff that PMs learn.
他们只需要 PM 学习的业务经验、如何运营、如何执行以及标准的东西。
And so would you agree with that that you don't need to have this deep background in science and climate to move into the space?
那么您是否同意您不需要拥有深厚的科学和气候背景就可以进入太空？
Gustaf Alströmer: Yeah, I would say if you were working on a software company and even some of the hardware companies, that's probably generally true.
Gustaf Alströmer：是的，我想说，如果您在一家软件公司甚至一些硬件公司工作，那么这通常是正确的。
Absolutely.
绝对地。
It's much more valuable to have that background than to have this specific domain expertise background.
拥有这种背景比拥有特定领域的专业知识背景更有价值。
Those are complimentary.
这些都是免费的。
But as a PM, having the solid PM background is the more valuable piece I would say.
但作为一名 PM，我认为拥有扎实的 PM 背景是更有价值的。
Being a competitive PM, coming from a really good culture of product management, knowing what good looks like, that's invaluable to some of these companies because in the past they weren't able to hire these people.
作为一名有竞争力的产品经理，来自真正良好的产品管理文化，知道什么是好的，这对其中一些公司来说是无价的，因为过去他们无法雇用这些人。
So I agree with that 100%.
所以我100%同意这一点。
Gustaf Alströmer: In terms of founders, I've seen everything, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：就创始人而言，我已经看到了一切，对吧？
I've seen people having some domain expertise starting a company and really succeeding.
我见过一些拥有一定领域专业知识的人创办了一家公司并取得了真正的成功。
I've seen people who had no domain expertise and learned everything they need to know.
我见过一些没有领域专业知识的人，却学到了他们需要知道的一切。
Maybe they partnered up with someone who had a domain expertise and then succeeded.
也许他们与拥有该领域专业知识的人合作，然后取得了成功。
I've seen all of it and I actually think that you can succeed in either of these categories.
我已经看到了所有这些，而且我实际上认为您可以在这些类别中的任何一个类别中取得成功。
You don't need the deep expertise.
您不需要深厚的专业知识。
It depends really on all the area you're in.
这实际上取决于您所在的所有区域。
But someone like Pachama, Diego and Tomas did not have expertise in forests besides the personal experience.
但像帕查马、迭戈和托马斯这样的人除了个人经验外并没有森林方面的专业知识。
They just had a willingness to solve the problem and it really worked out for them.
他们只是愿意解决问题，而且这对他们来说确实有效。
Lenny: You mentioned you have this list of areas you're excited about.
莱尼：您提到您列出了令您感到兴奋的领域。
I know we'll share in the show notes, but is there any you want to highlight, just like here's areas you're most excited about and want to fund and/or are there companies you want to mention that are super interesting and super cool in the space that people should know about?
我知道我们会在展会笔记中分享，但有没有您想强调的，就像您最兴奋并希望资助的领域和/或您想提及的公司在人们应该了解的领域中非常有趣和超级酷？
Gustaf Alströmer: We wrote the list and we are highlighting companies in each of the categories.
Gustaf Alströmer：我们编写了这份名单，并重点介绍了每个类别中的公司。
I don't know if I want to highlight any specific categories, but I can talk about some of the things that we've funded in the past that has real legs.
我不知道我是否想强调任何特定类别，但我可以谈谈我们过去资助的一些具有实际意义的项目。
So here's how I generally think about climate tech.
以下是我对气候技术的总体看法。
So we have to decarbonize all the things we do that emits emissions.
因此，我们必须使我们所做的所有排放行为脱碳。
That means we have to change a bunch of things in the world, change transportation, change energy, change homes, all of these things, or change how we heat homes for example.
这意味着我们必须改变世界上的很多事情，改变交通，改变能源，改变房屋，所有这些事情，或者改变我们给房屋供暖的方式。
Gustaf Alströmer: And then there is carbon removal.
Gustaf Alströmer：然后是碳去除。
Carbon removal is sort of like, well even if we do all of this stuff really well, it's probably not going to be enough.
碳去除有点像，即使我们把所有这些事情都做得很好，也可能还不够。
And because there's an opportunity and there's some evidence to suggests that we can actually remove carbon from atmosphere in some way or another, a lot of companies are also working on this at the same time.
因为这是一个机会，并且有一些证据表明我们实际上可以通过某种方式从大气中去除碳，所以许多公司也在同时致力于此。
I would say we need to do both and they're not in conflict.
我想说我们需要两者都做，而且它们并不冲突。
We probably are going to need to do both.
我们可能需要两者都做。
Well, we certainly need to do the first one.
好吧，我们当然需要做第一个。
Gustaf Alströmer: On the decarbonization side, there's infinite number of categories of our society where we met a lot of carbon, right?
Gustaf Alströmer：在脱碳方面，我们社会的无数类别都遇到了大量的碳，对吗？
So I'll give you an example.
所以我给你举个例子。
Shipping is a really big deal.
运输确实是一件大事。
A lot of carbon emissions come from freight ships around the world.
大量碳排放来自世界各地的货船。
That's not obvious solution how you would solve that because the kind of oil that they run on is really cheap and it's a very low margin business and they don't have a whole lot of incentives to change besides what is coming down regulatory.
这不是一个显而易见的解决方案，因为他们使用的石油非常便宜，而且这是一项利润率非常低的业务，除了监管之外，他们没有太多的动力去改变。
So it's not a national solution where someone to be a cool, someone will build a test off ships and it just work out.
因此，这不是一个全国性的解决方案，有人变得很酷，有人在船上进行测试，然后就成功了。
But the two companies to be funded in that area, one of them is Seabound who is building carbon capture and removal for ships.
但该领域将有两家公司获得资助，其中一家是 Seabound，该公司正在为船舶建造碳捕获和清除设施。
Gustaf Alströmer: The other one is Fleetzero who build electrical ships.
Gustaf Alströmer：另一位是建造电动船的 Fleetzero。
Electrification is on and again and again and again and again and whenever it's being applied, turn out to be a more efficient way of doing whatever thing that you were previous doing with the combustion industry.
电气化不断出现，无论何时应用，它都会成为一种更有效的方式来完成您之前在燃烧工业中所做的任何事情。
It is almost no maintenance.
几乎不需要维护。
It's cheaper to build.
建造起来更便宜。
The batteries are more expensive, it's cleaner and it fits the carbon coal you have.
电池更昂贵，更清洁，并且适合您拥有的碳煤。
There's just a bunch of benefits there, but there has limitations.
那里有很多好处，但也有局限性。
Usually the limitations on electrification has to do with batteries.
通常，电气化的限制与电池有关。
It's like how far can you go?
就像你能走多远？
Now that category is what I call the...
现在这个类别就是我所说的......
Which is a very important kind of critical one, which is the carbon accounting and sort of the recommendation systems that help big company account for the carbon that they have and they are giving some recommendations of what you do.
这是一种非常重要的关键，这是碳核算和某种推荐系统，可以帮助大公司核算他们所拥有的碳，并且他们对你所做的事情给出一些建议。
Gustaf Alströmer: So I'll give you three examples.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以我给你举三个例子。
We funded Unravel Carbon, which is carbon counting software in Singapore, focusing on Asia, probably the leading one there.
我们资助了 Unravel Carbon，这是新加坡的碳计数软件，专注于亚洲，可能是那里的领先软件。
There's company called Carbon Chain, which is focused specifically on supply chain and shipping and raw materials, stuff like that out of UK.
有一家名为 Carbon Chain 的公司，专门专注于供应链、运输和原材料，比如英国以外的公司。
And then there's ANAI here in the Bay area.
还有湾区的 ANAI。
Who knows how this market is going to play out, but this market has carbon accounting customer demand right now, right?
谁知道这个市场将如何发展，但这个市场现在有碳会计客户需求，对吗？
So all the large companies of the world have other either promised the government, promised their shareholders or promised the public, or maybe even the employees, they go into decarbonize.
因此，世界上所有的大公司都向政府、股东或公众甚至员工承诺，他们会进行脱碳。
They don't always have an idea how to do it.
他们并不总是知道如何去做。
These software platforms is like the plug and play "This is how you do it."
这些软件平台就像即插即用的“这就是你要做的”。
Gustaf Alströmer: And then I'll give you two examples of things you can go into if you don't have any specific domain expertise and just a good software engineer.
Gustaf Alströmer：然后我会给你举两个例子，如果你没有任何特定领域的专业知识，而只是一名优秀的软件工程师，你可以参与其中。
There's a company called Enode.
有一家公司叫Enode。
They are basically building Plaid for EV chargers and Plaid for home energy system.
他们基本上正在构建用于电动汽车充电器的格子和用于家庭能源系统的格子。
So if we imagine that the future of all homes or future of all charging of EVs is going to be a bunch of energy appliances that are run by small computers, they're all wifi connected, you can connect to them and do things, tell them to turn on, turn off, turn on when it's cheap, turn off when it's whatever, all these different things that are valuable for the energy grid.
因此，如果我们想象所有家庭的未来或所有电动汽车充电的未来将是一堆由小型计算机运行的能源设备，它们都是连接wifi的，你可以连接到它们并做一些事情，告诉它们打开，关闭，在便宜的时候打开，在任何时候关闭，所有这些对能源网有价值的不同东西。
Then you need a software platform to connect with all of them.
然后您需要一个软件平台来连接所有这些。
And that's what Enode has been building.
这就是 Enode 一直在构建的东西。
Gustaf Alströmer: Another related company is called Static.
Gustaf Alströmer：另一家相关公司名为 Static。
Static is the Airbnb for EV charging in India.
Static 是印度电动汽车充电的 Airbnb。
The reason that you need something like that is you don't have Tesla charging.
你需要这样的东西的原因是你没有特斯拉充电。
You don't really have public charting in general.
一般来说，您并没有真正的公共图表。
People don't have outlets in their garage and they don't have garages.
人们的车库里没有插座，他们也没有车库。
So you need to build a new bottom up EV charging system or platform, and that's what Static has been doing.
因此，您需要构建一个新的自下而上的电动汽车充电系统或平台，而这正是 Static 一直在做的事情。
They're actually building out public charging infrastructure as well, but they have their own app.
他们实际上也在建设公共充电基础设施，但他们有自己的应用程序。
So if you use a Static app, they'll direct you to all the Static chargers.
因此，如果您使用静态应用程序，它们会引导您找到所有静态充电器。
I believe that they're the biggest or the fastest growing EV charging network in India, which is the second-biggest country, if not the biggest country in the world right now.
我相信它们是印度最大或增长最快的电动汽车充电网络，印度是第二大国家，即使不是目前世界上最大的国家。
Gustaf Alströmer: So the potential of these ideas, even that they're doing well now is just infinite, such an enormous market.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以这些想法的潜力，即使它们现在做得很好，也是无限的，这是一个巨大的市场。
If you succeed in one of these things, I don't think we are going to have as many gas stations as we have today and different networks.
如果你在其中一件事情上取得成功，我认为我们不会拥有像今天一样多的加油站和不同的网络。
We're not going to have the same in EV charging.
我们在电动汽车充电方面不会有同样的情况。
It's going to be a lot more consolidated around the use experience of the end user and the app they open to do this stuff.
最终用户的使用体验以及他们打开的应用程序将会更加整合。
So I'm pretty convinced that there's real big opportunities for software entrepreneurs to figure this out.
所以我非常确信软件企业家确实有很大的机会来解决这个问题。
There's some companies in the current batch that are focused on this too.
当前批次中的一些公司也专注于此。
Gustaf Alströmer: The final one I would mention is Heart Aerospace.
Gustaf Alströmer：我要提到的最后一个是 Heart Aerospace。
We have a Heart Aerospace and the Right Electric and a few others focused on aviation.
我们有 Heart Aerospace 和 Right Electric 以及其他一些专注于航空的公司。
Aviation is another big difficult to decarbonize.
航空业是脱碳的另一大难点。
Heart and Right are focusing on battery electric planes.
Heart 和 Right 专注于电池电动飞机。
So they're basically making commercial airplanes that fly on batteries and flying electric motors and it's incredible to see.
所以他们基本上是在制造依靠电池和飞行电动机飞行的商用飞机，这是令人难以置信的。
Lenny: What a killer list.
莱尼：真是一份杀手名单啊。
We're definitely going to include links to all these companies in the show notes.
我们肯定会在展会笔记中包含所有这些公司的链接。
Something I was thinking about is, so one narrative violation you mentioned is that there's actually money to be made in climate tech.
我在想的是，你提到的一个叙述违规行为是，气候技术实际上是可以赚钱的。
It's not impact-oriented market anymore.
它不再是以影响力为导向的市场。
It might be worth chatting about why that happened, but the question I want to get to is also things are going well.
也许值得讨论一下为什么会发生这种情况，但我想问的问题是事情进展顺利。
A lot of progress is being made.
正在取得很大进展。
People see climate change and it's like we're dead, it's game over.
人们看到气候变化，就好像我们死了，游戏结束了。
But it feels like battery prices are coming down, solar's coming down, wind powers ramping up, all these startups are investing.
但感觉电池价格正在下降，太阳能价格正在下降，风力发电正在增加，所有这些初创公司都在投资。
So it'd be fun to just hear what's going well and maybe what is there to be optimistic about, but then also, "Okay, yeah, things are going well, but there's still things that are not going so great and where we need to double down."
因此，听到进展顺利以及可能有什么值得乐观的事情会很有趣，但同时，“好吧，是的，事情进展顺利，但仍然有一些事情进展不那么顺利，我们需要加倍努力。”
Gustaf Alströmer: Two specific things that went well in the last say 12 or 24 months.
Gustaf Alströmer：过去 12 或 24 个月内有两件具体的事情进展顺利。
First one was politics.
第一个是政治。
So in the United States we got the IRA, which is like it's called the Inflation Reduction Act.
所以在美国，我们有爱尔兰共和军（IRA），就像所谓的《通货膨胀减少法案》一样。
It makes sense because shift into greener energy is going to actually reduce inflation because it reduces energy costs.
这是有道理的，因为转向绿色能源实际上会降低通货膨胀，因为它降低了能源成本。
But it's really a climate bill, right?
但这确实是一项气候法案，对吧？
It really is a bill that is focusing on onshoring, a lot of supply chain for the green economy and incentivizing a lot of this change that we just talked about.
这确实是一项侧重于本土化、绿色经济的大量供应链并激励我们刚才谈到的许多变革的法案。
Whether it's carbon removal or home energy or home heating, whatever it might be, this bill addresses all of it and is massive.
无论是碳清除、家庭能源还是家庭供暖，无论是什么，这项法案都解决了所有问题，而且规模庞大。
So that's one really good news.
这确实是一个好消息。
Politics didn't have a lot of good news in the US for a long time on this.
长期以来，美国政界在这方面并没有太多好消息。
Maybe not ever actually.
也许实际上从来没有。
Gustaf Alströmer: The second good news, and it's such a good news that Europe is now trying to conquer.
Gustaf Alströmer：第二个好消息，这是一个欧洲现在正在努力征服的好消息。
They're not trying to counter the IRA with their bill because they're seeing some of the battery companies saying, "Well, I'll actually going to build the next factor in US, not Europe anymore.
他们并没有试图用法案来对抗爱尔兰共和军，因为他们看到一些电池公司说：“好吧，我实际上将在美国而不是欧洲建立下一个工厂。
I changed my mind."
我改变了主意。”
Gustaf Alströmer: So Europe now has to counter with their incentives as well.
Gustaf Alströmer：所以欧洲现在也必须反击他们的激励措施。
The second good news is corporations are now customers.
第二个好消息是企业现在是客户。
So maybe three or four years ago you went to a Fortune 100 company and you're like, "Hey, do you want to buy my XYZ decarbonation solution?" What it's like?
因此，也许三四年前，您去了一家财富 100 强公司，然后您会说：“嘿，您想购买我的 XYZ 脱碳解决方案吗？”它是什么样的？
The software platform or EVs or whatever it might be.
软件平台或电动汽车或其他任何东西。
They're like, "Well, talk to this person on this floor.
他们会说，“好吧，和这层楼的这个人谈谈。
Maybe they can help you." And this person was not really empowered to make decisions.
也许他们可以帮助你。”而且这个人并没有真正的权力来做决定。
That has changed.
现在情况已经改变了。
Now they're like, "Actually, we promised our shareholders to reduce emissions by 2% every year and we also promised the government and we promised whatever publicly to do that.
现在他们会说，“实际上，我们向股东承诺每年减少 2% 的排放量，我们也向政府承诺，我们公开承诺做到这一点。
So we got to do that." They're like, "Where do we start?
所以我们必须这样做。”他们就像是，“我们从哪里开始？
What's the first 2% that we got to decarbonize?
我们首先要脱碳的 2% 是多少？
Maybe that starts with energy.
也许这要从能量开始。
Oh, we'll change our energy providers." But they are now showing up as customers, not just with LOIs but paying actual for contracts, right?
哦，我们会改变我们的能源供应商。”但他们现在以客户的身份出现，不仅持有意向书，还实际支付合同费用，对吗？
Doing investments in these companies because they've all see the future and they don't want to be behind.
对这些公司进行投资是因为他们都看到了未来并且不想落后。
Gustaf Alströmer: There's financials motivations for this.
Gustaf Alströmer：这样做有财务动机。
They want to get access to capital that has some strings attached to some of these things, but they don't want to fall behind.
他们想要获得对其中一些事情附加条件的资本，但他们不想落后。
And then they don't want to be the Toyota to Tesla, where Toyota said, "We are not going to do battery electric." It's just like they're still saying that sometimes and everybody else is like, "Tesla is the one we got to copy because that's the one that's winning." All these corporations are really afraid of being the Toyota.
然后他们不想成为特斯拉的丰田，丰田说，“我们不会做电池电动。”就像他们仍然在说，有时其他人都会说，“特斯拉是我们必须效仿的，因为它才是赢家。”所有这些公司都非常害怕成为丰田。
They're really afraid of being the last one who's not changing and then the world will move past them and then they're going to die.
他们真的害怕成为最后一个不改变的人，然后世界就会超越他们，然后他们就会死去。
So I think the motivation here is intrinsically survival and it's really about sort of adopting this because this is where the world is going.
所以我认为这里的动机本质上是生存，这实际上是为了采用这一点，因为这就是世界的发展方向。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think these are the two best news.
Gustaf Alströmer：我认为这是两个最好的消息。
The thing that I think what...
我认为的事情...
We also wrote about this in the request for startups.
我们也在初创公司的要求中写到了这一点。
This is not a thing where you can convince everybody to just agree with you.
这不是你可以说服每个人都同意你的事情。
And even if you did, people wouldn't know what to do.
即使你这样做了，人们也不知道该怎么做。
So you have to view this as an economical opportunity and say...
所以你必须将此视为一个经济机会并说......
We can't convince everybody that this is going to be the thing that's going to happen.
我们无法让每个人都相信这将会发生。
It doesn't actually matter if you convince everybody.
如果你说服了所有人，其实并不重要。
What matters is that sufficient amount of corporations are convinced that they change their habits.
重要的是有足够多的公司相信他们会改变自己的习惯。
And then you can sell the things you're building to them.
然后你可以把你正在建造的东西卖给他们。
Gustaf Alströmer: As sort of founder, just focus on your customers and focus on B2B.
Gustaf Alströmer：作为创始人，只需关注您的客户并专注于 B2B。
That's what most people I recommend to do here because that's where most of the change is going to happen.
这就是我建议大多数人在这里做的事情，因为这是大部分变化将发生的地方。
That's why I'm really optimistic about these startups and these founders.
这就是为什么我对这些初创公司和创始人非常乐观。
What they're doing is, in my opinion, more impactful than someone running a campaign trying to convince some other people that this is a big problem.
在我看来，他们所做的比那些试图说服其他人这是一个大问题的人开展的活动更有影响力。
Even when people know that climate change is problem, they don't know exactly what to do about it.
即使人们知道气候变化是一个问题，他们也不知道到底该怎么办。
But the startup founders, they know.
但初创公司的创始人们知道。
Lenny: You touched on this, but it feels like one of the biggest shifts is capitalism is kicked in and is now leaning into climate tech startups and that's-
莱尼：你谈到了这一点，但感觉最大的转变之一是资本主义的启动，现在正在向气候技术初创公司倾斜，那就是——
Lenny: ...
莱尼：……
making a big dent.
造成很大的影响。
Well, with that, we've reached the final part of our chat, which is the very exciting lightning round.
好了，我们的聊天就到了最后一部分，这是非常令人兴奋的闪电回合。
I've got six questions for you.
我有六个问题要问你。
Are you ready?
你准备好了吗？
Lenny: What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people?
莱尼：您最向其他人推荐的两三本书是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: The first one I recommend, I think I have it here.
Gustaf Alströmer：我推荐的第一个，我想我这里有。
Yeah, this one.
是的，就是这个。
It's called The 100% Solution.
这被称为“100% 解决方案”。
It's written by Solomon Goldstein-Rose.
它的作者是所罗门·戈德斯坦-罗斯。
It's for people who think climate change is a problem but don't know what to do about it, or they're just kind of in despair or think they're like, "Ah, everyone are going to die," right?
它适合那些认为气候变化是一个问题但不知道该怎么办的人，或者他们只是有点绝望，或者认为他们就像，“啊，每个人都会死，”对吗？
There are some books written where the outcome of the book is like, "We're all going to die," but the truth is that we're not all going to die.
有些书的结局是“我们都会死”，但事实是我们不会都会死。
This book is trying to cover the 100% of all the solutions in detail, kind of much more detailed version of the request of Sharp that we wrote.
本书试图详细涵盖所有解决方案的 100%，这是我们编写的夏普要求的更详细版本。
It gets you freely optimistic.
它让你自由乐观。
And I give that to anybody who's cared about climate change because it really lays out this from a very optimistic way of looking at the world.
我把它送给所有关心气候变化的人，因为它确实以一种非常乐观的方式看待世界，阐述了这一点。
And that's why I recommend that book more than almost anything else.
这就是为什么我最推荐这本书的原因。
That's probably my number one book.
这可能是我的第一本书。
Lenny: Amazing.
莱尼：太棒了。
I love that if just a one book, here's the book you got to read.
我喜欢如果只是一本书，这就是你必须读的书。
I like that approach.
我喜欢这种方法。
What's a favorite recent movie or TV show that you've really enjoyed?
您最近最喜欢的电影或电视节目是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: Oh, I watched so much.
Gustaf Alströmer：哦，我看了很多。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I love Emily in Paris on Netflix.
我喜欢 Netflix 上的《艾米丽在巴黎》。
I think I have TV serves different purpose for me these days.
我想这些天电视对我来说有不同的用途。
It's just like entertainment.
这就像娱乐一样。
Gustaf Alströmer: But what else movie do I watch?
Gustaf Alströmer：但是我还看什么电影呢？
We watch the Everything All at Once.
我们同时观看所有内容。
I thought that was a really good movie.
我认为那是一部非常好的电影。
That was-
那是——
Lenny: Yeah, it might win Best Picture.
莱尼：是的，它可能会赢得最佳影片奖。
Lenny: We have a drinking game here.
莱尼：我们这里有一个喝酒游戏。
People say White Lotus, we drink.
人们说白莲花，我们喝。
And so you did not, that's probably for the best.
所以你没有这样做，这可能是最好的。
Favorite interview question that you like to ask YC founders when you're interviewing them?
当你面试 YC 创始人时，你最喜欢问他们的面试问题是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: What have you done since you applied to YC on your product?
Gustaf Alströmer：自从您在产品上申请 YC 以来，您做了什么？
What are specific things that you've accomplished since you applied?
自从申请以来，您已经完成了哪些具体的事情？
Because that usually is a month or two month months ago.
因为那通常是一个月或两个月前。
Lenny: That's awesome.
莱尼：那太棒了。
It connects so much with what you said earlier.
它与你之前所说的有很多联系。
Gustaf Alströmer: I hope the answer is like, "Here are all the things that we did."
Gustaf Alströmer：我希望答案是这样的：“这是我们所做的所有事情。”
Lenny: Versus we just prepared for this interview.
Lenny：我们刚刚准备了这次采访。
Lenny: Most out there wild startup you have funded?
莱尼：您资助过的最疯狂的初创公司是？
Gustaf Alströmer: I think I would say when I stepped onto the hangar floor of Heart Aerospace.
Gustaf Alströmer：当我踏上 Heart Aerospace 的机库地板时，我想我会这么说。
I can send you a photo.
我可以给你发一张照片。
Literally, I am looking at an airplane that's being made and I'm like there's no SaaS company's office you can walk into and you just open your mouth and you're like, "What the hell is this?" There are a few of those companies that are space companies or airspace companies or something like that where it's just a different feeling that you fund them and you can touch it.
从字面上看，我正在看着一架正在制造的飞机，我就像没有 SaaS 公司的办公室你可以走进去，你只要张开嘴，你就会想，“这到底是什么？”其中有一些公司是航天公司或空域公司或类似的公司，你为他们提供资金并且可以触摸它，这只是一种不同的感觉。
I have a lot of appreciation for things like that now because they're much harder to do, but when you succeed, they're much more tangible and you can be like, "I have a tiny little piece in this space rocket or this airplane that we funded or this satellite above us." I really think that that's in some way a strong legacy compared to some other things that exist and just replace other softwares.
我现在非常欣赏这样的事情，因为它们更难做到，但当你成功时，它们就更加有形，你可以说，“我在这艘太空火箭或我们资助的这架飞机或我们上方的这颗卫星中拥有一小部分。”我真的认为，与其他一些现有的、只是取代其他软件的东西相比，这在某种程度上是一个强大的遗产。
And all these are better businesses, but there are strong legacies.
所有这些都是更好的业务，但都有强大的遗产。
Lenny: What's a pro tip for applying to YC?
Lenny：申请 YC 的专业建议是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: Pro tip.
Gustaf Alströmer：专业提示。
Number one thing is go to YouTube and type in like...
第一件事是访问 YouTube 并输入类似...
I think there's a video that we've recorded which is about how you succeed with your application .
我想我们录制了一段视频，讲述您如何成功申请。
It's an hour long video that gives you all the pro tips on how to do it.
这是一个长达一小时的视频，为您提供了有关如何操作的所有专业提示。
We told people in advance, "Once you've watched that video, then see if you know anybody who've done YC and then reach out to them and maybe ask them if YC is right for you, but also ask them what's important for you to, as you kind of approaching applying to YC, writing the application, during the interview, what were the things that matter?" Those are probably the two things I would do.
我们提前告诉人们，“一旦你看过那个视频，然后看看你是否认识任何做过 YC 的人，然后联系他们，也许问他们 YC 是否适合你，但也要问他们什么对你来说是重要的，当你接近申请 YC 时，在面试期间写申请，什么是重要的事情？”这可能是我会做的两件事。
Lenny: Final question, what's one pro tip for visiting Sweden?
莱尼：最后一个问题，访问瑞典的专业建议是什么？
Gustaf Alströmer: First of all, you should visit in the summer.
Gustaf Alströmer：首先，您应该在夏天来访。
It's a really good time to be there.
这真是一个去那里的好时机。
It's a very different country in the winter.
冬天的这个国家是一个非常不同的国家。
Try to go outside the cities into the nature and then prepare yourself for Swedes not all being Americans.
尝试走出城市，走进大自然，然后为瑞典人并不都是美国人做好准备。
They're a little bit more colder and have a little bit more distance to you and they don't randomly talk to you like I've learned to do here in America.
他们更冷一点，离你更远一点，而且他们不会像我在美国学到的那样随意和你说话。
I think you just have to go along with a little bit different of a vibe than you have here in the US.
我认为你只需要适应与美国有所不同的氛围即可。
Most people actually love it.
大多数人实际上都喜欢它。
Most people who have just been, they love it, but most of them go in the summer.
大多数刚去过的人都喜欢这里，但大多数都是夏天去的。
Lenny: This reminds me, I wanted to close it, but there's a tweet once about how in Sweden when you go to someone's house, they don't feed you.
莱尼：这提醒了我，我想关掉它，但是曾经有一条推文说，在瑞典，当你去别人家时，他们不会给你食物。
It's not expected that you will have food.
预计您不会有食物。
You have to bring your own food.
你必须自带食物。
Is that true?
这是真的吗？
And what's that about?
那是关于什么的？
Gustaf Alströmer: It's absolutely true.
Gustaf Alströmer：这绝对是真的。
I actually gave an unconference talk about this topic.
我实际上在会议外发表了关于这个话题的演讲。
The unconference talk was all of the strange things to Swedish people do and why.
非正式会议的谈话内容是瑞典人所做的所有奇怪的事情以及原因。
If i would summarize it, yes, we do that.
如果我总结一下，是的，我们就是这样做的。
I actually experienced that.
我确实经历过这一点。
I went to a friend's house and they had dinner and I waited in my friend's room while they had dinner.
我去了一个朋友家，他们吃晚饭，他们吃晚饭时我在朋友的房间里等着。
That was just normal.
这很正常。
And why did that happen?
为什么会发生这种情况？
I think there's a strong sense of individual responsibility in Sweden, which kind of reaches over to unfriendliness, from an American or foreign lens because this is so crazy.
我认为瑞典有一种强烈的个人责任感，从美国或外国的角度来看，这种责任感甚至达到了不友好的程度，因为这太疯狂了。
But in Sweden it's just like, "Well, you take care of your kids.
但在瑞典，情况就像是，“好吧，你照顾好你的孩子。
I'll take care of my kids." And it's not really a question.
我会照顾我的孩子。”这并不是一个真正的问题。
Gustaf Alströmer: I think that a lot of the motivations of why Swedes are strange, one of them is we don't want to be indebted to someone else.
古斯塔夫·阿尔斯特罗默：我认为瑞典人很奇怪的很多动机，其中之一就是我们不想欠别人的债。
So we never want to feel like...
所以我们永远不想感觉...
Which is why you wouldn't...
这就是为什么你不会...
For example, if you go to a bar in Sweden, you don't buy a round, you buy your own beer because maybe you have to figure out the money at the end of the day, things like that.
例如，如果你去瑞典的一家酒吧，你不会买一杯啤酒，而是自己买啤酒，因为也许你必须在一天结束时算出钱，诸如此类的事情。
I think it's just actually quite individualistic society, but it's individualistic with heart I would say.
我认为这实际上是一个相当个人主义的社会，但我想说的是，这是内心的个人主义。
There's a warmth to it, but it will definitely be appeared strange to people who don't really understand this.
有一种温暖的感觉，但对于不了解这一点的人来说，肯定会显得很奇怪。
They think people are cold and they're just like they don't understand that there's actually a heart behind this stuff.
他们认为人们很冷酷，他们就像不明白这些东西背后实际上有一颗心。
Lenny: That sounds really smart, to be honest, the system.
莱尼：说实话，这个系统听起来真的很聪明。
I would be into it, but I can see how people are very confused.
我会很感兴趣，但我可以看到人们非常困惑。
Gustaf, I can't thank you enough for doing this.
古斯塔夫，我对你所做的一切感激不尽。
This was incredible.
这太不可思议了。
I know that people listening to this are going to leave informed, inspired, motivated, hopefully motivated to move faster and make more progress.
我知道听完这篇文章的人会在离开时获得信息、受到启发、受到激励，并希望能够受到激励，从而更快地采取行动并取得更大的进步。
Two final questions.
最后两个问题。
Where can folks find you online if they want to learn more or ask you may be follow up questions?
如果人们想了解更多信息或询问您可能的后续问题，可以在哪里找到您？
And two, how can listeners be useful to you?
第二，听众如何对你有用？
Gustaf Alströmer: I tweet sometimes on twitter.com/gustaf.
Gustaf Alströmer：我有时会在 twitter.com/gustaf 上发推文。
The most useful things that I put out is probably on the YC's YouTube channel.
我发布的最有用的东西可能是在 YC 的 YouTube 频道上。
So I record a couple videos on growth, on sales, on how to talk to customers.
所以我录制了一些关于增长、销售以及如何与客户交谈的视频。
I actually send them to people all day long because the Start School videos that we made are a lot of preparation went into it and it answers most of the questions that people have.
事实上，我整天都把它们发送给人们，因为我们制作的“开始学校”视频做了很多准备，它回答了人们的大部分问题。
So watch those first, I would say.
所以我想说，先看这些。
But yeah, sometimes I tweet other stuff that people can follow.
但是，是的，有时我会发布其他人们可以关注的内容。
That's fine.
没关系。
How can people be useful to me?
人们怎样才能对我有用？
I love hearing feedback from founders, what they're working on.
我喜欢听到创始人的反馈以及他们正在做什么。
I want to hear kind of questions they have about their companies.
我想听听他们对自己公司的一些问题。
But I want to also really emphasize that to apply to YC, you don't need to know any of us.
但我还想真正强调的是，要申请 YC，你不需要认识我们任何人。
You don't need to reach out to us.
您无需联系我们。
It doesn't make any specific difference.
它没有任何具体的区别。
Gustaf Alströmer: The principles in YC is that you should be able to become an insider in YC in Silicon Valley without knowing anybody.
Gustaf Alströmer：YC 的原则是你应该能够在不认识任何人的情况下成为硅谷 YC 的内部人士。
That's kind of what the application process is about.
这就是申请流程的内容。
So feel free to reach out to us if you have questions, but don't feel like that's required to be a good YC applicant.
因此，如果您有任何疑问，请随时联系我们，但您并不认为这是成为优秀 YC 申请人的必要条件。
It's actually the opposite in that we read and treat all the applications equally.
实际上恰恰相反，我们平等地阅读和对待所有申请。
Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.
非常感谢您收听这个播客。
I mean, it made me happy you made all the way to the end.
我的意思是，你一路走到最后让我很高兴。
Lenny: Yeah, extra credit for listening to the end.
莱尼：是的，听完结尾的额外加分。
I also just want to say while you're saying that, it feels like YC is such a good force for the world.
我也只是想说，当你这么说的时候，感觉 YC 对世界来说是一股很好的力量。
It just enables so much innovation and progress.
它只会带来如此多的创新和进步。
And if technology is what drives the world forward, IC is so at the center of a lot of that.
如果技术是推动世界前进的动力，那么 IC 就是其中的核心。
So just huge props to what YC is doing and what you're doing, Gustaf.
因此，古斯塔夫，对 YC 正在做的事情以及你正在做的事情表示极大的支持。
Gustaf Alströmer: We feel a lot of responsibility towards that.
Gustaf Alströmer：我们对此感到责任重大。
That's for sure.
这是肯定的。
Lenny: All right, I'll let you go.
莱尼：好吧，我让你走。
Again, Gustaf, thank you for doing this.
古斯塔夫，再次感谢你所做的一切。
Lenny: Thank you so much for listening.
莱尼：非常感谢您的聆听。
If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.
如果您发现这很有价值，您可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或您最喜欢的播客应用程序上订阅该节目。
Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.
另外，请考虑给我们评分或留下评论，因为这确实有助于其他听众找到播客。
You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com.
您可以在 lennyspodcast.com 上找到所有过去的剧集或了解有关该节目的更多信息。
See you in the next episode.
下一集见。