Business strategy with Hamilton Helmer (author of 7 Powers)

Hamilton Helmer: Warren Buffett famously said, in business.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：沃伦·巴菲特在商界有一句名言。

Audio: I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats.

音频：我寻找有坚不可摧的护城河保护的经济城堡。

Hamilton Helmer: Power requires a benefit and a barrier, so he's taking care of the benefit part by saying a castle, you have to have a pretty good understanding of why it's a castle and not a shack.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：权力需要利益和障碍，所以他通过说城堡来照顾利益部分，你必须很好地理解为什么它是一座城堡而不是一间小屋。

Lenny Rachitsky: So in a lot of decks it's like, "Oh, we have the most amazing team.

Lenny Rachitsky：所以在很多套牌中，就像是，“哦，我们拥有最出色的团队。

We move the fastest." You mention how rarely is that actually a power?

我们行动最快。”你提到这实际上是一种力量有多罕见？

Hamilton Helmer: You're on a treadmill and if you stop running on that treadmill, you get creamed, but it's not power.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：你在跑步机上，如果你停止在跑步机上跑步，你就会变得疲惫不堪，但这不是力量。

The things that drive operational excellence can be mimicked.

推动卓越运营的因素是可以模仿的。

Lenny Rachitsky: Let's actually talk about achieving these powers.

Lenny Rachitsky：让我们实际谈谈如何实现这些权力。

Hamilton Helmer: There's a thing called power progression.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：有一种东西叫做力量级数。

There are times when certain types of power are available.

有时可以使用某些类型的电源。

The path to power is where the rubber meets the road.

通向权力的道路就是橡胶与道路的交汇处。

Lenny Rachitsky: Today my guest is Hamilton Helmer.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：今天我的客人是汉密尔顿·赫尔默。

Hamilton is a legend in the world of strategy.

汉密尔顿是战略界的传奇人物。

He's the author of 7 Powers, which outlines a framework for identifying and developing sustainable competitive advantage.

他是《7 Powers》一书的作者，该书概述了识别和发展可持续竞争优势的框架。

It is widely considered to be the best book on strategy and people like Patrick Carlson, Peter Thiel, Reed Hastings, Daniel Eck, and so many more leaders credit the book and Hamilton's teachings for helping them build durable lasting companies.

它被广泛认为是关于战略的最佳书籍，帕特里克·卡尔森、彼得·蒂尔、里德·黑斯廷斯、丹尼尔·埃克等人以及更多的领导者都称赞这本书和汉密尔顿的教义帮助他们建立了持久的公司。

In our conversation, Hamilton shares what sources of power startups can start developing early, which types of power companies often think they have but they don't, how power relates to strategy and moats, when to start thinking about power as a startup and also what individual product managers and non-leaders can do about these insights about power.

在我们的对话中，汉密尔顿分享了初创公司可以尽早开始开发哪些权力来源，哪些类型的权力公司通常认为自己拥有但实际上没有，权力与战略和护城河的关系，何时开始考虑初创公司的权力，以及个人产品经理和非领导者可以对这些关于权力的见解做些什么。

Also, how Hamilton sees AI impacting various entry and the sources of power.

此外，汉密尔顿如何看待人工智能影响各种进入和权力来源。

He also gives a preview of his new book that he's working on currently and so much more.

他还预览了他目前正在写的新书以及更多其他内容。

Lenny Rachitsky: With that, I bring you Hamilton Helmer after a short word from our sponsors.

Lenny Rachitsky：在我们的赞助商简短发言后，我为您带来了 Hamilton Helmer。

And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

如果您喜欢这个播客，请不要忘记订阅并在您最喜欢的播客应用程序或 YouTube 中关注它。

It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.

这是避免错过未来剧集的最佳方式，并且对播客有很大帮助。

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS.

本集由 WorkOS 为您带来。

If you're building a SaaS app, at some point your customers will start asking for enterprise features like SAML authentication and SCIM provisioning.

如果您正在构建 SaaS 应用程序，那么您的客户有时会开始要求提供 SAML 身份验证和 SCIM 配置等企业功能。

That's where WorkOS comes in, making it fast and painless to add enterprise features to your app.

这就是 WorkOS 的用武之地，它可以快速、轻松地将企业功能添加到您的应用程序中。

Their APIs are easy to understand so that you can ship quickly and get back to building other features.

他们的 API 易于理解，因此您可以快速交付并继续构建其他功能。

Today, hundreds of companies are already powered by WorkOS, including ones you probably know like Vercel, Webflow and Loom.

如今，数百家公司已经由 WorkOS 提供支持，其中包括您可能知道的 Vercel、Webflow 和 Loom 等公司。

WorkOS also recently acquired Warrant, the fine-grained authorization service.

WorkOS 最近还收购了细粒度授权服务 Warrant。

Warrant's product is based on a groundbreaking authorization system called Zanzibar, which was originally designed for Google to power Google Docs and YouTube.

Warrant 的产品基于名为 Zanzibar 的突破性授权系统，该系统最初是为 Google 设计的，旨在为 Google Docs 和 YouTube 提供支持。

Lenny Rachitsky: This enables fast authorization checks at enormous scale while maintaining a flexible model that can be adapted to even the most complex use cases.

Lenny Rachitsky：这可以实现大规模的快速授权检查，同时保持灵活的模型，甚至可以适应最复杂的用例。

If you're currently looking to build role-based access control or other enterprise features like single sign-on, SCIM or user management, you should consider WorkOS.

如果您当前正在寻求构建基于角色的访问控制或其他企业功能（例如单点登录、SCIM 或用户管理），您应该考虑 WorkOS。

It's a drop-in replacement for Auth0 and supports up to 1 million monthly active users for free.

它是 Auth0 的直接替代品，免费支持多达 100 万月活跃用户。

Check it out at WorkOS.com to learn more.

请访问 WorkOS.com 了解更多信息。

That's WorkOS.com.

这就是 WorkOS.com。

Lenny Rachitsky: This episode is brought to you by Vanta.

Lenny Rachitsky：本集由 Vanta 为您带来。

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当谈到确保您的公司拥有一流的安全实践时，事情很快就会变得复杂。

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现在，您可以使用单一平台 Vanta 评估风险、确保客户信任并自动实现 SOC 2、ISO 27001、HIPAA 等合规性。

Vanta's market-leading trust management platform helps you continuously monitor compliance alongside reporting and tracking risks.

Vanta 市场领先的信任管理平台可帮助您持续监控合规性以及报告和跟踪风险。

Plus you can save hours by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI.

此外，您还可以通过 Vanta AI 完成安全调查问卷来节省时间。

Join thousands of global companies that use Vanta to automate evidence collection, unify risk management, and streamline security reviews.

加入数千家使用 Vanta 自动化证据收集、统一风险管理和简化安全审查的全球公司行列。

Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/Lenny.

访问vanta.com/Lenny，即可享受Vanta 1,000 美元优惠。

That's Vanta.com/Lenny.

这是 Vanta.com/Lenny。

Hamilton Helmer, thank you so much for being here.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默，非常感谢您来到这里。

Welcome to the podcast.

欢迎来到播客。

Hamilton Helmer: Hi Lenny, a pleasure to be here.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：嗨，莱尼，很高兴来到这里。

Lenny Rachitsky: It's even more my pleasure.

Lenny Rachitsky：这更是我的荣幸。

I want to start by talking about when power becomes important.

我想首先谈谈权力何时变得重要。

When do you recommend founders start thinking about power in terms of pre-product market fit, post-product market fit?

您建议创始人何时开始考虑产品前市场契合度和产品后市场契合度方面的权力？

Is it worth spending time thinking about power early?

是否值得尽早花时间考虑权力？

Obviously it's good to think about a little bit, but how much and how seriously should founders be thinking about it before they found something that people actually want?

显然，思考一下是件好事，但在找到人们真正想要的东西之前，创始人应该思考多少、思考多少？

Hamilton Helmer: One of the things that has really surprised me in the last five years has been that my understanding of the answer to that question has changed.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：过去五年中真正令我惊讶的事情之一是我对这个问题答案的理解发生了变化。

And before I thought it was you do product market fit and then you do strategy, and if you try and put strategy before product market fit, it is not much you can do with it.

在我之前，我认为先做产品市场适应，然后制定战略，如果你尝试将战略放在产品市场适应之前，你就无能为力。

That's wrong.

那是错误的。

Actually, I mentioned before one of the great pleasures for me in my work is being able to talk to company founders and one of the things that has surprised me is that conversations with them, even at an early stage about strategic matters have a richness and relevance to me that was unexpected.

事实上，我之前提到过，我工作中最大的乐趣之一就是能够与公司创始人交谈，而令我惊讶的一件事是，即使在早期阶段，与他们就战略问题进行的对话也对我来说具有意想不到的丰富性和相关性。

Hamilton Helmer: And founders are practical people.

Hamilton Helmer：创始人都是务实的人。

I mean it's very hard to do what they're doing and they have to be extremely focused and choose what's worthwhile spending time on.

我的意思是，做他们正在做的事情非常困难，他们必须非常专注并选择值得花时间的事情。

And so in observing their reactions and that dialogue, I could see that there was something going on that was meaningful to them.

因此，在观察他们的反应和对话时，我可以看到正在发生的事情对他们来说有意义。

And this second book we're working on, we'll tease out why that's so more, but the answer to your question is when should you thinking about this?

我们正在写的第二本书，我们将梳理为什么这么多，但你问题的答案是你什么时候应该考虑这个？

The answer is always.

答案是永远。

And that's an odd answer.

这是一个奇怪的答案。

And so even before you have product-market fit, it's worth thinking about strategy.

因此，即使在产品与市场契合之前，也值得考虑战略。

Now it's not strategy in the sense of this fully articulated strategic planning, we're going to do this, these are going to be the competitors, this is how we're going to answer them.

现在，这不是完全明确的战略规划意义上的战略，我们将这样做，这些将成为竞争对手，这就是我们将如何回答他们。

This is how we'll price.

这就是我们定价的方式。

Not like that at all.

根本不是那样的。

At the earlier stage, you can imagine wildly more degrees of freedom and the questions are of the business propositions that you're thinking of in trying to get to product-market fit, what are the underlying characteristics that might tilt them towards the availability of power or not?

在早期阶段，您可以想象更多的自由度，问题是您在尝试实现产品市场契合时所考虑的业务主张，哪些潜在特征可能使他们倾向于获得权力或不获得权力？

Hamilton Helmer: And those actually are meaningful conversations and certainly by no means certain.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这些实际上是有意义的对话，当然也绝不是确定的。

You're tilting probabilities, you're not creating a determinative things.

你正在倾斜概率，你并没有创造出决定性的事物。

And then later on, once you've already have product-market fit, then you have to understand your source of power to understand what competitive position is because then you have to establish that.

然后，一旦你已经适应了产品市场，那么你必须了解你的权力来源，以了解竞争地位是什么，因为你必须建立这一点。

And then later on in a more stable phase when you're in a stability phase of business, you have to know what your source of power is if you have one, because you have to know how to defend it.

然后在一个更稳定的阶段，当你处于业务的稳定阶段时，你必须知道你的权力来源是什么（如果你有的话），因为你必须知道如何捍卫它。

And then also it is also the foundational knowledge that you need for if there's another step.

如果还有其他步骤，这也是您需要的基础知识。

Because another thing that's quite surprising about iconic businesses is they often have a second act or a third act or fourth act.

因为标志性企业的另一件事非常令人惊讶，那就是它们经常有第二幕、第三幕或第四幕。

I mean think of AWS or Intel going into CPUs or Apple going into iPhones, all not the origin of business.

我的意思是，想想 AWS 或英特尔进入 CPU 领域，或者苹果进入 iPhone 领域，所有这些都不是业务的起源。

And that's actually common, not unusual, and that's starting the process all over again.

这实际上很常见，并不罕见，而且整个过程又要重新开始。

Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

You mentioned this word strategy.

你提到了策略这个词。

I want to set a little foundation here.

我想在这里打下一点基础。

How does strategy relate to power when people are thinking about these two concepts?

当人们思考这两个概念时，战略与权力有何关系？

And then do you have just a nice definition of what strategy is?

那么你对什么是战略有一个很好的定义吗？

Everyone's always just like, "What the heck do you mean when you're talking about the strategy?"

每个人总是会问，“当你谈论策略时，你到底是什么意思？”

Hamilton Helmer: As I said, I'm a concept person and so when you develop concepts, you have to be very highly constrained by their usefulness.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：正如我所说，我是一个概念人，所以当你开发概念时，你必须受到它们的实用性的高度限制。

I'm a great fan of the great mathematician, John von Neumann, and he had a view which really irritated a lot of mathematicians, which is that if mathematics wasn't guided by what was useful, it would become, I think the word he used was aesthetic to aesthetic.

我是伟大数学家约翰·冯·诺依曼的忠实粉丝，他的一个观点确实激怒了很多数学家，那就是如果数学不以有用的东西为指导，它就会变成，我认为他使用的词是审美对审美。

And so any concept developments like that, it needs to be guided by usefulness.

因此，任何类似的概念发展都需要以实用性为指导。

And so in dealing with strategy, the question is what domain of things do you want to include in that conversation?

因此，在处理战略时，问题是您希望在对话中包含哪些领域的内容？

Because the term is ubiquitous in business.

因为这个词在商业中无处不在。

I mean do a Google search sometime.

我的意思是找个时间用谷歌搜索一下。

I've done one recently on Google Scholar for the word strategy and you'll get a million, I'm not exaggerating, a million hits.

我最近在谷歌学术上做了一个关于“策略”这个词的研究，你会得到一百万，我并不夸张，一百万的点击率。

And so strategy for some people might mean everything that gets to the pile, it gets to the top of a pile in terms of what you have to do that year.

因此，对于某些人来说，战略可能意味着所有事情，就你当年必须做的事情而言，它是最重要的。

Hamilton Helmer: Everything is...

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：一切都是……

And that's a perfectly legitimate definition, but what I have found is that there is a very important narrowing that makes it much more useful.

这是一个完全合法的定义，但我发现有一个非常重要的缩小范围，使其更加有用。

So that's coming back to what I was saying makes it much more useful to the business.

回到我刚才所说的，它对业务更加有用。

So my view is that you want to focus, it's very useful for a business to focus on the fundamental determinants of business value and that's an arbitrary choice.

所以我的观点是，你想要专注，对于企业来说，专注于商业价值的基本决定因素非常有用，这是一个任意的选择。

It could be something else, but I can tell you from decades of business experience that that narrowing is very useful.

可能是别的东西，但我可以根据几十年的商业经验告诉你，这种缩小范围是非常有用的。

And then so once you make that...

然后一旦你做到了......

Once you reach that understanding, it tells you some important things.

一旦你达到这种理解，它就会告诉你一些重要的事情。

So if you understand what drives business value, I mean if you do the math of it right, it's NPV of cash flow, right?

因此，如果您了解推动商业价值的因素，我的意思是，如果您计算正确，那就是现金流的净现值，对吧？

Expected cash flow.

预期现金流量。

And what that tells you is that strategy is a long time concept.

这告诉你，战略是一个长期的概念。

You're looking far out in the future.

你把目光投向了遥远的未来。

Hamilton Helmer: So think of Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor for the Japanese was this enormous tactical success.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：想想珍珠港事件，珍珠港事件对于日本人来说是一次巨大的战术成功。

They just destroyed the US ability, naval ability in the Pacific Ocean and the worst possible strategic move because it completely solved Franklin Delano Roosevelt's problem of how he could get the US citizens on board to attacking Hitler.

他们只是摧毁了美国的能力，在太平洋的海军能力和最糟糕的战略举措，因为它彻底解决了富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福如何让美国公民加入攻击希特勒的问题。

The strategy of it was US's industrial might would eventually win the war and population.

它的战略是美国的工业实力最终将赢得战争和人口。

And the difference there is time constant, tactical short, strategy long.

区别在于时间常数，战术短，策略长。

And so if you focus on value that narrows what you think about and allows you to get rather concise and offer up advice to founders about what they need to pay attention to.

因此，如果你专注于价值，就会缩小你的思考范围，让你变得相当简洁，并向创始人提供他们需要关注的建议。

Lenny Rachitsky: So then how specifically is power informing strategies?

Lenny Rachitsky：那么权力具体是如何影响战略的呢？

Like the way you think about it, focus on your power and that will inform your strategy?

就像你的想法一样，专注于你的力量，这会影响你的策略吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Earlier I talked about these economic structures that provide durability of return in terms of refuge from withering arbitrage of everybody who wants to eat your lunch.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：早些时候我谈到了这些经济结构，它们提供了持久的回报，避免了每个想吃你午餐的人的套利。

And so that's what power is.

这就是权力。

So you have to understand what is an economics?

所以你必须了解什么是经济学？

You're asking me questions that get pretty deep into theory or I hope you don't, this is too conceptual.

你问我的问题非常深入理论，或者我希望你不要问我，这太概念化了。

But you have to say, you have to understand how competition takes place and say what is it that creates some kind of refuge?

但你必须说，你必须了解竞争是如何发生的，并说是什么创造了某种避难所？

And what it is is there's something in what you do that gives you either a cost or price advantage over others.

事实是，您所做的事情使您比其他人具有成本或价格优势。

So let's say you're lower cost and that's the benefit.

假设您的成本较低，这就是好处。

And the barrier side is that there's something that is durable about that that makes it over time that you can't, the competitors can't take away from you.

障碍的一面是，有一些东西是持久的，随着时间的推移，你无法、竞争对手无法从你手中夺走它。

So benefit and a barrier, we call it the to be or not to be test.

因此，利益和障碍，我们称之为“存在或不存在的测试”。

And if you have that, you can think of that immediately translating into a value because that will give you good margins out into the foreseeable future, which is what you're after.

如果你有这个，你可以认为它会立即转化为一个价值，因为这将为你在可预见的未来带来良好的利润，这就是你所追求的。

Hamilton Helmer: I don't know if that's...

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：我不知道那是不是……

We're getting into the weeds here, but that's what it's about.

我们正在深入讨论这里的杂草，但这就是它的意义。

And so power is those structures.

因此，权力就是这些结构。

Let me give you a quick example.

让我举一个简单的例子。

So one I use in the book.

所以我在书中使用了一个。

So Netflix with scale economies, they have more subscribers.

因此，Netflix 具有规模经济，他们拥有更多的订户。

The cost of their content is a very large fixed cost, about 50% of their cost structure every year.

他们的内容成本是一个非常大的固定成本，每年约占其成本结构的 50%。

They can take that fixed cost and spread it over more subscribers so their cost per subscriber is less versus somebody with fewer subscribers.

他们可以将固定成本分摊给更多的订阅者，这样他们的每个订阅者的成本就会比订阅者较少的人更低。

So if they face the same prices for subscriptions as their competitors, they will be more profitable.

因此，如果他们面临与竞争对手相同的订阅价格，他们将获得更多利润。

And that's a scale economy and that's an example of a type of power and a common one I'd say.

这就是规模经济，这是一种权力的例子，我想说的是一种常见的权力。

But these things are hard to achieve, right?

但这些东西很难实现，对吧？

Because there's the holy grail.

因为那里有圣杯。

Lenny Rachitsky: So let's actually talk about achieving these powers.

Lenny Rachitsky：那么让我们实际谈谈如何实现这些权力。

Essentially the argument here is your power informs everything you do because this is the thing that'll allow you to stay durable and competitive and last.

从本质上讲，这里的论点是你的力量决定了你所做的一切，因为这会让你保持持久、竞争力和持久。

There's seven powers.

有七种力量。

We're not going to talk about all of them.

我们不会谈论所有这些。

If you want to go understand each of them, go read the book.

如果你想了解它们中的每一个，就去读这本书。

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

Let's not.

咱们还是不要吧。

That conversation always goes too long.

谈话总是太长。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, exactly.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的，完全正确。

So what I'm wondering is, okay, so say you're looking at this list of seven powers and you're a specific type of startup, do you have a heuristic that tells you here's most likely the power and set of subsets that will most likely be an option for you?

所以我想知道的是，好吧，假设您正在查看这份七种权力的列表，并且您是特定类型的初创公司，您是否有启发式方法告诉您这里最有可能的权力和子集集最有可能成为您的选择？

Like B2B SaaS companies, is there a smaller subset?

与 B2B SaaS 公司一样，是否存在较小的子集？

Probably one of these has to be one of your options versus B2C.

与 B2C 相比，其中之一可能是您的选择之一。

Hamilton Helmer: That's a great question Lenny, because I think the path to power is where the rubber meets the road and it's very complicated and nuanced.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这是一个很好的问题，莱尼，因为我认为通向权力的道路是橡胶与道路的交汇处，它非常复杂和微妙。

But I'll give you a few thoughts along it and frankly our next book, the Second Invention, that's what it's about.

但我会给你一些想法，坦率地说，我们的下一本书《第二个发明》就是关于这个的。

It's about power, the entire book.

整本书都是关于权力的。

Lenny Rachitsky: [Inaudible 00:15:56] I'll try to read it.

Lenny Rachitsky：[听不清 00:15:56] 我会尝试阅读它。

Hamilton Helmer: So in a book there's a thing called power progression, which says there are...

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：在一本书里有一个叫做力量级数的东西，它说有......

It tells over the cycle of a business, there are times when certain types of power are available and the converse of that is times when they're not available.

它讲述了一个企业的周期，有时某些类型的电源可用，反之亦然，有时它们不可用。

And so there's some that only are really available in when you reach a stability phase of a business pretty far out there.

因此，有些只有当您的企业达到稳定阶段时才真正可用。

Hamilton Helmer: And so if you're starting a company, take those off the table.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：因此，如果您要创办一家公司，请将这些排除在外。

So those two are branding and process power.

这两个就是品牌和流程能力。

So often I find that there's a confusion about this because brand recognition for a startup may be incredibly important, but you can get brand recognition by buying an ad in the Super Bowl.

我经常发现对此感到困惑，因为品牌认知度对于初创公司来说可能非常重要，但你可以通过在超级碗中购买广告来获得品牌认知度。

That's not power, that you paid for it.

那不是权力，而是你付出了代价。

So take branding and process power and process power is really operational excellence on steroids and usually is imitable, so it's usually not.

因此，以品牌和流程能力为例，流程能力确实是卓越的运营能力，通常是可模仿的，所以通常不是。

Hamilton Helmer: So take those off the table and then a resource type of power, which is you have something that is of value that if you transferred it to somebody else it would be of value to them, but you own the rights.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：因此，将这些排除在外，然后是一种资源类型的权力，即你拥有有价值的东西，如果你将其转让给其他人，这对他们来说是有价值的，但你拥有权利。

So the barrier is law for example, or lack of knowledge from others.

因此，障碍是例如法律，或者缺乏其他人的知识。

And there are classes of businesses that are like that.

还有一些类似的企业类别。

So prescription pharmaceuticals, if you are the first person to come up with Viagra, that's worth a lot of money.

所以处方药，如果你是第一个发明伟哥的人，那就值很多钱了。

If you took that license and gave it to somebody else, it'd be worth a lot of money to them.

如果您拿走该许可证并将其交给其他人，那么对他们来说就值很多钱。

But that's a different class and it's usually not the types of things that I'm dealing with and it's obvious to everybody.

但这是一个不同的类别，通常不是我正在处理的事情类型，这对每个人来说都是显而易见的。

So the key challenge there is can you invent a pharmaceutical that's effective for a large market.

因此，关键的挑战是你能否发明一种对大市场有效的药物。

So you can take those three off the table and that then leaves counter positioning, scale economies, switching costs and network economies.

因此，你可以把这三个因素排除在外，然后剩下柜台定位、规模经济、转换成本和网络经济。

Hamilton Helmer: And the important thing to keep in mind there is that they're sequenced.

Hamilton Helmer：需要记住的重要一点是它们是排序的。

So almost every startup that you want to deal with starts with counter positioning because remember what product market fit is primarily is a substitution.

因此，几乎每个你想要处理的初创公司都是从反向定位开始的，因为记住适合市场的产品主要是替代品。

You are coming up with a way to satisfy a more or less existing need in a novel way that creates more value.

您正在想出一种方法，以一种创造更多价值的新颖方式来满足或多或少现有的需求。

Now sometimes you tap into entirely new needs, but it's not so often.

现在有时你会遇到全新的需求，但这种情况并不常见。

I mean Amazon was up against brick and mortar stores, Google was up against Yahoo and so on, and so you're usually substituting and that substitution, so your competition at that point is functional competition.

我的意思是，亚马逊面对的是实体店，谷歌面对的是雅虎等等，所以你通常会进行替代，所以你在这一点上的竞争是功能竞争。

Hamilton Helmer: And if you don't have counter positioning at that point you're pretty high risk from an incumbent who already has the capabilities necessary to do that.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：如果你当时没有反击定位，那么你将面临来自已经具备必要能力的现任者的很高风险。

They just have to extend their product or do this or that, but counter positioning is the refuge from that.

他们只需要扩展他们的产品或做这个或那个，但反向定位是避免这种情况的避难所。

And then you go into the other three types of power scale economies, switching costs and network economies, and those depend on your scale relative to competitors.

然后你进入其他三种类型的电力规模经济、转换成本和网络经济，这些取决于你相对于竞争对手的规模。

This is pretty cursory, but that's what I'd say.

这很粗略，但这就是我要说的。

I'll focus on those four and I would recommend that you think pretty hard about whether you think you have counter positioning to start.

我将重点关注这四个方面，并且我建议您认真思考是否认为自己可以开始反击。

Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

I actually want to double down on that thread, but just to summarize, I have the list here.

我实际上想在该主题上加倍努力，但总而言之，我在这里列出了列表。

Basically you're saying if you're an early stage startup, the four to really that are actually potential powers for you at least early on, counter positioning, which your point is you could just start with that.

基本上你是说，如果你是一个早期阶段的初创公司，那么这四个实际上是你至少在早期的潜在力量，反定位，你的观点是你可以从这个开始。

That's essentially positioning and business model design, which happens at the beginning and then you can start to think about network economy, scale economy, switching costs as powers.

这本质上是定位和商业模式设计，这是在一开始发生的，然后你可以开始将网络经济、规模经济、转换成本视为权力。

Hamilton Helmer: Right.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：对。

And you've done the right thing by not having me go through and define each of those.

你没有让我详细解释并定义其中的每一个，这是正确的做法。

But your listeners will need to go back to my book and see what those things are to get...

但你的听众需要回到我的书，看看这些东西会得到什么......

We're going through the shorthand as we should, but all of what we've said won't be completely obvious to them.

我们正在按照我们应该的方式进行速记，但我们所说的所有内容对他们来说并不完全显而易见。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, I think a simple Google search I find just gives you a very simple definition of these.

Lenny Rachitsky：是的，我认为一个简单的谷歌搜索就可以给你一个非常简单的定义。

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, that's right.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，没错。

There's some people who have done some really good summaries of this.

有些人对此做了一些非常好的总结。

Lenny Rachitsky: Or ChatGPT, even better in a lot of cases.

Lenny Rachitsky：或者 ChatGPT，在很多情况下甚至更好。

Hamilton Helmer: ChatGPT if they get it right sometimes I find they hallucinate.

Hamilton Helmer：ChatGPT 如果他们做对了，有时我会发现他们产生幻觉。

Lenny Rachitsky: Hallucinate an eighth power.

Lenny Rachitsky：产生八次方的幻觉。

You mentioned how some companies think they have a certain power or it's common to think you have a certain power.

您提到有些公司认为他们拥有某种权力，或者认为您拥有某种权力是很常见的。

If you look at every startup deck, there's always like, "Here's our moat, here's the way we're going to have barriers to entry." I'm guessing in almost every case they're delusional about the power that they actually have and the power they think they'll have.

如果你看一下每一个创业公司的平台，你总会发现，“这是我们的护城河，这是我们设置进入壁垒的方式。”我猜想，几乎在所有情况下，他们都对自己实际拥有的权力和他们认为自己将拥有的权力抱有妄想。

Do you also find that to be true that often founders are wrong about how much barrier they've actually created and is there a power you often find most wrong and mistaken?

您是否还发现，创始人对于他们实际制造的障碍的判断常常是错误的？您是否经常发现一种最错误的权力？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, so I agree with your observation, but I don't want to be unkind.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，所以我同意你的看法，但我不想不友善。

So I mean there are two things to keep in mind here in terms of making people feel better about that incorrect slide in the deck.

所以我的意思是，为了让人们对甲板上不正确的幻灯片感觉更好，这里有两件事需要记住。

One is that founders have to be optimistic.

一是创始人必须保持乐观。

I think it's an important quality that they maybe understate the risk a little bit, but they're so committed to I'm going to do this thing that they go through that and that may give them an advantage over a large corporation trying to do the same thing.

我认为这是一个重要的品质，他们可能稍微低估了风险，但他们非常致力于我要做这件事，以至于他们经历了这件事，这可能会让他们比试图做同样事情的大公司更有优势。

The other is that despite the name 7 Powers, which makes it sound like, oh, you can sort this out.

另一个是，尽管名称为 7 Powers，这听起来像是，哦，你可以解决这个问题。

Actually understanding whether or not there is a type of power in place is hard.

真正了解是否存在某种权力是很困难的。

I mean I did it with my colleagues here at Strategy Capital and we're looking at a well-known company, it might take us weeks to answer that question for a single company.

我的意思是，我和 Strategy Capital 的同事一起做了这件事，我们正在寻找一家知名公司，对于一家公司来说，我们可能需要几周的时间才能回答这个问题。

Hamilton Helmer: And it comes down to the hard part is industry economics is what really are the economic relationships and it's very hard.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：归根结底，最困难的部分是产业经济学才是真正的经济关系，这非常困难。

So with those caveats that...

因此，有了这些警告......

Give them some courtesy, I'll say some of the obvious ones are I mentioned before, people sometimes think they have branding power, but another one that I think I've heard you mention is people often think that they get scale economies through data.

给他们一些礼貌，我会说我之前提到过一些明显的问题，人们有时认为他们拥有品牌力量，但我想我听到你提到的另一件事是人们经常认为他们通过数据获得规模经济。

And I'd say that that's possible, but it's rare.

我想说这是可能的，但很少见。

And the reason it's rare is not because there aren't scale economies in data, but rather that the range of scale that the existing competitors have are often large enough to be able to put them in shouting distance of each so that the differences in their cost per unit is not that great.

这种情况之所以罕见，并不是因为数据上不存在规模经济，而是因为现有竞争对手的规模范围往往足够大，足以让他们相距甚远，因此单位成本的差异并不那么大。

Hamilton Helmer: The curve flattens in other words, which is typical of any, because the most common scale economy is you've got a big fixed cost and you prorate that.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：换句话说，曲线变平，这是任何曲线的典型特征，因为最常见的规模经济是你有很大的固定成本，然后你按比例分配。

And as you get more and more scale, the percentage cost advantage of a fixed cost advantage like that goes down and that often.

随着规模越来越大，固定成本优势的百分比成本优势会经常下降。

So that's a pretty frequent one that we see.

这是我们经常看到的情况。

We laugh whenever we hear somebody say they have a flywheel, which gives you the idea of network economies.

每当我们听到有人说他们有一个飞轮时，我们都会笑，这给了你网络经济的想法。

There are often flywheels, the ones that really are material, are rare.

经常有飞轮，真正有料的，很少见。

The key thing here is materiality, not whether the flywheel exists, but whether the effect is strong enough to really tilt returns.

这里的关键是物质性，不是飞轮是否存在，而是效果是否足够强到真正倾斜返回。

Lenny Rachitsky: I was actually going to ask about that one because in software and social consumer products, network effects is always the pitch.

Lenny Rachitsky：我实际上想问这个问题，因为在软件和社交消费产品中，网络效应始终是重点。

Once we get big enough, we create this huge barrier.

一旦我们变得足够大，我们就会创造这个巨大的障碍。

You mentioned just now you often find that's not actually true.

您刚才提到，您经常发现事实并非如此。

It's rarely something that'll become a barrier.

它很少会成为障碍。

Is there anything else you find with network?

您还通过网络找到其他东西吗？

And I know your power is called network economies, not network effect.

我知道你的力量被称为网络经济，而不是网络效应。

I guess just to be clear, are these the same thing in your mind with different words?

我想澄清一下，这些在你的脑海中是用不同的词表达的同一件事吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, kind of.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，有点。

I mean I have called it a type of power.

我的意思是我称其为一种力量。

So for me it's only those things which clear the significance barrier, hurdle rather that they're a large material.

所以对我来说，只有那些能够清除重要性障碍的东西，而不是它们是一个大的材料。

And so there are lots of things that I would say have network effects but not network economies.

因此，我想说有很多东西具有网络效应，但不是网络经济。

Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, interesting.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：哦，有趣。

Wait, can you speak to that?

等等，你能谈谈吗？

So there is a difference between these terms, network economies?

那么网络经济这些术语之间有区别吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

So for me the difference is materiality is that whether the value benefit is large enough to engender a price delta significant enough to give you materially different margins into the future.

因此，对我来说，区别在于重要性，即价值收益是否足够大，足以产生足够大的价格增量，从而为您在未来提供截然不同的利润。

Lenny Rachitsky: Basically, does that network effect have an actual impact on your business and your ability to price?

Lenny Rachitsky：基本上，网络效应对您的业务和定价能力有实际影响吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, it's not an impact, it's a material impact.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，这不是影响，而是物质影响。

So it could have...

所以它可能有...

If it's a penny to your bottom line, that's one thing if it's a billion dollars or something else.

如果这对你的底线来说只是一分钱，那么如果是十亿美元或其他什么，那是一回事。

Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, that's actually really interesting.

Lenny Rachitsky：哇，这真的很有趣。

Is there an example of a company that comes to mind, they had network effects but not network economies as a power?

是否有一家公司的例子，他们有网络效应，但没有网络经济作为力量？

Hamilton Helmer: I think you could turn almost anywhere and get some modest network effects and any platform business would probably likely have some modest network effects.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：我认为你几乎可以转向任何地方并获得一些适度的网络效应，任何平台业务都可能会产生一些适度的网络效应。

You asked me earlier and you sent me about Uber and Lyft, I'd say that they probably have network effects involved but not network economies.

你之前问过我，并向我发送了有关 Uber 和 Lyft 的信息，我想说它们可能涉及网络效应，但不涉及网络经济。

Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, that's interesting.

Lenny Rachitsky：哇，这很有趣。

And the reason you're saying they don't have network economies is because they're still so competitive they still have to spend so much money to stay ahead and so the network is not-

你之所以说他们没有网络经济，是因为他们的竞争力仍然很强，他们仍然需要花很多钱才能保持领先地位，所以网络不是——

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

Right.

正确的。

The advantage that they get, it's not material.

他们获得的优势并不是物质的。

Right.

正确的。

Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, that's so interesting.

Lenny Rachitsky：哇，这太有趣了。

Along those lines, it's so interesting to see Uber and Lyft these days.

沿着这些思路，最近看到 Uber 和 Lyft 真是太有趣了。

In theory they both had some sort of strong network effect.

理论上，它们都具有某种强大的网络效应。

I was just looking, so Lyft is 5% the market cap of Uber.

我只是在看，Lyft 的市值是 Uber 的 5%。

Is there a lesson from just what it is that allowed Uber to just win and kind of run away with the market essentially?

到底是什么让 Uber 赢得了胜利，并从本质上逃离了市场，有什么教训吗？

Hamilton Helmer: I'm not entirely sure, I'll take a guess, but take it as a unformed guess.

Hamilton Helmer：我不完全确定，我会进行猜测，但将其视为不成形的猜测。

I haven't really studied it carefully.

我还没有仔细研究过。

I think that over time there, if I had to guess, I'd say they're probably modest scale economies in the business.

我认为随着时间的推移，如果我不得不猜测的话，我会说他们可能是该行业的适度规模经济。

And over time Uber has just very successfully played a war of attrition.

随着时间的推移，Uber 非常成功地打了一场消耗战。

And that's both been in how they run their...

这就是他们如何运作他们的......

They made one initial misstep, which is they misdefined their business.

他们犯了一个最初的错误，那就是错误地定义了自己的业务。

They said it was international transportation and it's not.

他们说这是国际运输，但事实并非如此。

That business is extremely geographically specific.

该业务具有极其特定的地理位置。

Hamilton Helmer: If you have a great position in the Bay Area, it doesn't help you in London.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：如果你在湾区拥有很好的职位，那对你在伦敦没有帮助。

And so their forays into China and everything really didn't make, but they pulled back on that, focused down on understanding their source of power, which was a geographically specific scale economy.

因此，他们对中国的尝试并没有成功，但他们收回了这一点，专注于了解他们的权力来源，这是一个特定于地理的规模经济。

And then they've done interesting things like Uber Eats where they've tried to utilize the platform that they have to get other opportunities for the one side of their platform, the drivers.

然后他们做了一些有趣的事情，比如 Uber Eats，他们试图利用这个平台，为平台的一方（即司机）获得其他机会。

And so if I had to guess, I'd say it was a well-played war of attrition with modest scale economies.

因此，如果我不得不猜测的话，我会说这是一场规模经济适度的消耗战。

Lenny Rachitsky: And is that attrition coming from a source of power or is that just like a broader, more strict?

Lenny Rachitsky：这种消耗是来自权力来源还是只是一种更广泛、更严格的消耗？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, it only works because there are modest scale economies.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，它之所以有效，是因为存在适度的规模经济。

If there weren't any then if they did all this stuff, they'd still have a global and see.

如果没有的话，如果他们做了所有这些事情，他们仍然会有一个全局并看看。

Lenny Rachitsky: Got it.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：明白了。

Let me go in a slightly different direction.

让我朝稍微不同的方向走。

We've talked about power, we've talked about strategy.

我们谈论了权力，我们谈论了战略。

There's also, there's this word moat that comes up a lot.

还有，“护城河”这个词经常出现。

Everyone's always trying to build a moat.

每个人都在努力建造护城河。

In your mind, is a moat equivalent to a power?

在你心目中，护城河相当于权力吗？

Is there a difference when people talk about these two?

人们谈论这两者时有区别吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Power requires a benefit and a barrier, you have to have something that you do that gives you a better outcome than your competitors, lower cost or higher price, and then something that makes it impossible for somebody else to mimic that.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：权力需要利益和障碍，你必须做一些事情，让你比竞争对手获得更好的结果，降低成本或更高的价格，然后让其他人无法模仿。

So moat is the second.

所以护城河是第二个。

So it's not synonymous with power because you can have a moat around a very undesirable piece of property and wouldn't get you far.

所以它并不是权力的代名词，因为你可以在一块非常不受欢迎的财产周围有一条护城河，但不会让你走得太远。

But I think it is pretty synonymous with barrier.

但我认为它是障碍的同义词。

I think Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, I admire enormously.

我认为沃伦·巴菲特、查理·芒格是我非常钦佩的。

I think I get credit for popularizing those concepts and I think the way they think about it is good.

我认为我因普及这些概念而受到赞誉，而且我认为他们思考它的方式很好。

I'd say that 7 Powers is probably more systematic and comprehensive in saying that.

我想说《7 Powers》在这方面可能更系统、更全面。

I don't think.

我不认为。

This is wonderful.

这太棒了。

I don't know if you've read any of the Microsoft antitrust literature that came out of their-

我不知道你是否读过微软的反垄断文献——

Hamilton Helmer: ...lawsuit, but there was a communication between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett where Warren Buffett was saying why he couldn't invest in Microsoft.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：……诉讼，但比尔·盖茨和沃伦·巴菲特之间有过一次沟通，沃伦·巴菲特说为什么他不能投资微软。

He just didn't understand it.

他只是不明白。

And so that meant the idea of network economies and what the moat was there he didn't understand.

所以这意味着网络经济的想法以及他不明白的护城河是什么。

But I think the concept of a moat is a good one.

但我认为护城河的概念是一个很好的概念。

The idea that you have something that gives you a refuge from competing forces.

认为你拥有某种东西可以让你免受竞争的影响。

Lenny Rachitsky: In terms of Warren Buffett, I found the quote about moats.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：就沃伦·巴菲特而言，我找到了关于护城河的名言。

Warren Buffett famously said, "In business, I look for economic castles protected by unreachable moats."

沃伦·巴菲特有句名言：“在商界，我寻找被无法到达的护城河所保护的经济城堡。”

Hamilton Helmer: Right.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：对。

And so he's taking care of the benefit part by saying a castle.

所以他通过说一座城堡来照顾利益部分。

Hamilton Helmer: But one of the tricks to understanding power is you have to have a pretty good understanding of why it's a castle and not a shack.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：但是理解权力的技巧之一是你必须很好地理解为什么它是一座城堡而不是一间棚屋。

So I'll give you a Netflix example.

所以我会给你一个 Netflix 的例子。

So a company I admire a lot, and I think if some of the things that they had to do to develop their business were so important for their business that don't guarantee a castle.

所以这是一家我非常钦佩的公司，我认为如果他们为发展业务而必须做的一些事情对他们的业务如此重要，但并不能保证拥有一座城堡。

So for example, UI development, it's been an enormous amount of resources on trying to get just the very best UI, I mean a zillion AB tests, all kinds of things.

例如，UI 开发，为了获得最好的 UI，需要投入大量的资源，我的意思是无数的 AB 测试，各种各样的事情。

Their recommendation engine, everybody's knows the story about how that went, their interface with the content world and all this.

他们的推荐引擎，每个人都知道它是如何进行的，他们与内容世界的界面等等。

So those things are important.

所以这些事情很重要。

They're things they have to spend a lot of time and resources on, but they can largely be mimicked.

他们必须花费大量时间和资源才能完成这些事情，但它们在很大程度上可以被模仿。

Hamilton Helmer: So when Netflix in an earlier phase was fighting Blockbuster, when Blockbuster finally threw in the towel, said, "Well, we done.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：所以，当 Netflix 在早期阶段与百视达竞争时，当百视达最终认输时，他说：“好吧，我们完成了。

Well, better do a mail or a DVD business." If you look at the Blockbuster site, their UI site, you couldn't tell it different from Netflix.

好吧，最好还是做邮件或 DVD 生意。”如果您查看 Blockbuster 网站（他们的 UI 网站），您无法看出它与 Netflix 有何不同。

They just copied it.

他们只是复制了它。

And so all that thoughtfulness about which things you put first and how you structure it and all that to make this suitable was mimicable.

因此，所有关于你把哪些事情放在第一位、如何构建它以及所有使之合适的深思熟虑都是可以模仿的。

So that's an understanding of looking at the properties you have and trying to figure out if they're a castle or a shack.

因此，这是一种查看您拥有的房产并试图弄清楚它们是城堡还是小屋的理解。

Lenny Rachitsky: I love that.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：我喜欢这个。

This episode is brought to you by Paragon, the embedded integration platform for B2B SaaS product development teams.

本集由 Paragon 为您带来，Paragon 是面向 B2B SaaS 产品开发团队的嵌入式集成平台。

Are your users constantly requesting new integrations with other SaaS platforms that they use?

您的用户是否不断请求与他们使用的其他 SaaS 平台进行新的集成？

Unfortunately, native product integrations take months of engineering to build and the maintenance never ends.

不幸的是，本机产品集成需要数月的工程来构建，并且维护永远不会结束。

Paragon enables your engineering team to ship integrations seven times faster than building in-house by removing the complexities around authentication, messy third-party APIs and debugging integration errors.

Paragon 消除了身份验证、混乱的第三方 API 和调试集成错误方面的复杂性，使您的工程团队能够以比内部构建快七倍的速度交付集成。

Engineering teams at companies like CopyAI, Cinch, TLDB and over 100 other SaaS companies are using Paragon so they can focus their efforts on core product features, not integrations.

CopyAI、Cinch、TLDB 和其他 100 多家 SaaS 公司的工程团队正在使用 Paragon，这样他们就可以将精力集中在核心产品功能上，而不是集成上。

Lenny Rachitsky: The results, their shipping integrations on demand, which has led to higher product usage, better retention and more customer upsells.

Lenny Rachitsky：结果是，他们按需进行运输集成，这导致了更高的产品使用率、更好的保留率和更多的客户追加销售。

Visit useparagon.com/Lenny to see how Paragon can help you go to market faster with integrations today.

请访问 useparagon.com/Lenny，了解 Paragon 如何通过当今的集成帮助您更快地进入市场。

That's use paragon.com/Lenny.

请使用 paragon.com/Lenny。

So let's take this concept of 7 Powers.

让我们来看看 7 次幂的概念。

A lot of people listening to this are just like individual contributor product managers on teams building new products or iterating on products they already have.

很多听这个的人就像团队中构建新产品或迭代他们已有产品的个人贡献者产品经理一样。

What do you suggest they do with this knowledge of there exists these ways to build benefits and barriers?

您建议他们利用这些知识来做什么来建立利益和障碍？

I'm working on say a new product.

我正在研究一种新产品。

What do you recommend they do?

你建议他们做什么？

What's something they could do this week, next month to infuse these lessons into the products they're building?

他们本周、下个月可以做些什么来将这些经验教训融入到他们正在构建的产品中？

Hamilton Helmer: I'd say they're a few and it's a little bit different.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：我想说它们是少数，而且有点不同。

I'm not a great fan of the strategically driven organization because that idea, because it fuzzes over how this knowledge is useful at different stages in the business.

我不太喜欢战略驱动的组织，因为这个想法，因为它模糊了这些知识在业务的不同阶段如何发挥作用。

And so for somebody in that position, say a product manager in an existing successful business.

因此，对于处于该职位的人来说，现有成功企业的产品经理说。

So it is important in terms of just understanding their business to know what their source of power is because they...

因此，重要的是要了解他们的业务，了解他们的力量来源是什么，因为他们......

And that can inform them about what it is that they're working for.

这可以让他们了解自己正在为了什么而工作。

And also they may see things since they're down in the weeds, they may see things that are important to that that they need to bring to other people's attention.

而且他们可能会看到一些事情，因为他们在杂草丛中，他们可能会看到一些对他们来说很重要、需要引起其他人注意的事情。

Because they're the ones that really have the knowledge of what the heck's going on.

因为他们才是真正了解到底发生了什么的人。

There's another aspect I mentioned before, this idea of transforming, of starting up entirely new things.

我之前提到过另一个方面，即转变、开创全新事物的想法。

And usually...

而且通常...

I wouldn't say, usually I say it's not uncommon for ideas about that to bubble up from down below.

我不会说，通常我会说，从下面冒出来的想法并不罕见。

Hamilton Helmer: And so that's another source.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这是另一个来源。

So let's separate a business into three phases, origination, takeoff, and stability.

因此，让我们将企业分为三个阶段：起源、腾飞和稳定。

So the answers I've given are more in the stability phase.

所以我给出的答案更多是在稳定阶段。

In the takeoff phase, let's say you've launched a product, you've gotten customer traction, now you're in a phase where there's just very rapid growth, probably other entrants like you, what are you facing?

在起飞阶段，假设您推出了一款产品，已经吸引了客户，现在您正处于一个快速增长的阶段，可能还有像您这样的其他进入者，您面临着什么？

What you're facing is remember that underneath all of this is a change in technology.

你所面临的是记住，这一切的背后是技术的变化。

That's what made the product market fit possible in the first place.

这就是首先使产品市场适应成为可能的原因。

But that doesn't just stop.

但这还不止于此。

That if you're in a technology wave, often there are all kinds of offshoots both for you and the compliments to your business and everything else going on at the same time.

如果您处于技术浪潮中，通常会出现各种适合您的分支，以及对您的业务和其他所有事物的赞美，同时发生。

Hamilton Helmer: And to win at that stability phase, which is really a market share win, you have to be aware of those and understand, okay, we have to incorporate this new feature.

Hamilton Helmer：为了在稳定阶段获胜，这实际上是市场份额的胜利，你必须意识到这些并理解，好吧，我们必须纳入这个新功能。

Or maybe now things have gotten to the point where this new market segment is, our product is attractive before it wasn't.

或者也许现在事情已经发展到这个新的细分市场的地步，我们的产品以前就很有吸引力。

This is meat and potato stuff for somebody at that level and it may well be the decisive element in terms of whether you win that market share battle with the other contenders.

对于这个级别的人来说，这就是肉和土豆的东西，它很可能是你是否赢得与其他竞争者的市场份额争夺战的决定性因素。

And so you have a very, very important role at that point.

所以那时你扮演着非常非常重要的角色。

And so I'd say the first thing to do with your question is to make sure you think about the different phases of this and then ask what those responsibilities are.

所以我想说，解决你的问题的第一件事是确保你考虑到这个问题的不同阶段，然后问这些责任是什么。

Lenny Rachitsky: What about for people that are just trying to get better at being strategic, thinking strategically something every product leader is always encouraged to do, become a better strategic thinker, build as muscle of strategy, what do you often advise to people just get better at the stuff?

Lenny Rachitsky：对于那些只是想提高战略性、战略性地思考每一个产品领导者总是被鼓励做的事情、成为更好的战略思考者、增强战略力量的人来说，你经常建议人们做什么？

Obviously read your book.

显然读过你的书。

Hamilton Helmer: Read the book, and then have conversations with your colleagues about the topic because as you internalize what that means and how, have conversations with them about do we really have this kind of power?

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：读这本书，然后与你的同事就这个话题进行对话，因为当你内化这意味着什么以及如何与他们对话时，我们真的有这种力量吗？

What's going on here?

这是怎么回事？

What's important?

什么是重要的？

What isn't.

什么不是。

Those conversations tend to allow you to get a better grip on things.

这些对话往往能让你更好地掌握事情。

I mean in the case of Netflix, Reed actually had me come in and train the top a hundred people in Netflix and strategy.

我的意思是，就 Netflix 而言，里德实际上让我进来培训 Netflix 和战略方面的前 100 名员工。

We actually ran classes in the company, but that's unusual I'd say.

我们实际上在公司里开设了课程，但我想说这很不寻常。

And I didn't have the book yet.

而且我还没有这本书。

And so I think the book gets people pretty far down that path already.

所以我认为这本书已经让人们在这条道路上走得很远了。

Lenny Rachitsky: And you don't do that anymore, I imagine if someone wanted to do that today, not an option.

Lenny Rachitsky：你不会再这样做了，我想如果今天有人想这样做，那不是一个选择。

Hamilton Helmer: I sadly don't have the time.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：遗憾的是我没有时间。

I mean I do often do fireside chats at company meetings and that kind of thing, but not a full-blown course and I'm not teaching at Stanford anymore either.

我的意思是，我确实经常在公司会议上进行炉边聊天之类的事情，但不是一门成熟的课程，而且我也不再在斯坦福大学任教了。

And so I don't.

所以我不这样做。

I enjoyed that immensely wonderful people to work with.

我很喜欢和那些非常优秀的人一起工作。

But sadly I don't have the time.

但遗憾的是我没有时间。

Lenny Rachitsky: You're about to get a lot of requests for fireside chats.

Lenny Rachitsky：您将会收到很多炉边谈话的请求。

I hope you're ready.

我希望你准备好了。

You mentioned AI at some point in our chat.

您在我们的聊天中提到了人工智能。

I'm curious how you think AI is going to change your 7 Powers framework.

我很好奇你认为人工智能将如何改变你的 7 种权力框架。

Do you think defensibility goes down in general?

您认为防御性总体上下降了吗？

Will certain forms of power become more important or harder to achieve?

某些形式的权力会变得更加重要或更难实现吗？

How do you think about AI?

您如何看待人工智能？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, it's a great question.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，这是一个很好的问题。

I mean we're all in this phase of wondering exactly how generative AI is going to play out.

我的意思是，我们都处于这个阶段，想知道生成式人工智能将如何发挥作用。

My own view, currently I don't see any change in seven powers from it in terms of an eighth power or something.

我自己的观点是，目前我没有看到七次方在八次方或其他方面有任何变化。

But the issues that it brings up, like scale economies, I mean think of scale economies.

但它带来的问题，比如规模经济，我的意思是规模经济。

If you have a fixed cost of trying to develop a model of a billion dollars or something or network effects, will AI models develop so that they learn in a way that for one user's interaction helps another user's interaction?

如果你尝试开发一个 10 亿美元或其他东西或网络效应的模型的固定成本，人工智能模型是否会开发，以便它们以一种用户交互帮助另一个用户交互的方式学习？

That would be a powerful network economy.

那将是一个强大的网络经济。

Or if it learns, if you think of if it learns about you and becomes a better psychiatrist or something, then that's a switching cost.

或者如果它学习了，如果你想到它是否了解你并成为一名更好的精神科医生或其他什么，那么这就是转换成本。

So all these things are relevant to which business models will work and I find that useful.

因此，所有这些事情都与哪种商业模式可行有关，我发现这很有用。

Hamilton Helmer: But I think in general, the way I think about it is it's a standard form of potentially very powerful technology that is being introduced into the business world and just asking how that plays out.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：但我认为总的来说，我的想法是，它是一种潜在的非常强大的技术的标准形式，正在被引入商业世界，只是问它如何发挥作用。

I currently tend to think of that there's three types of plays.

我目前倾向于认为有三种类型的戏剧。

There's the company that's the technology play itself.

有一家公司本身就是技术游戏。

So if you think of microprocessors, it would be Intel.

因此，如果你想到微处理器，那一定是英特尔。

There's the companies that wouldn't exist without the technology.

如果没有技术，有些公司就不会存在。

So for semiconductors it would be Microsoft.

因此，对于半导体行业来说，应该是微软。

And then there are the companies that utilize the technology, but it had existed before and after.

还有一些公司利用了这项技术，但它之前和之后就已经存在了。

So for semiconductors it would be automobiles.

所以对于半导体来说就是汽车。

They used a ton of chips, but there were still cars before, after.

他们使用了大量的芯片，但前后仍然有汽车。

Hamilton Helmer: And so I'm of the view, I'm very much uncertain at this point that generative AI, its biggest impact will be that tertiary class.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：所以我的观点是，我目前非常不确定生成式人工智能，其最大的影响将是第三类。

It will be used in a lot of things that existed before and exist after, but are made better by it like semiconductors and automobiles.

它将用于许多以前存在和以后存在的事物，但会因它而变得更好，例如半导体和汽车。

And so it reminds me, if you think of really big technology shifts like this, it reminds me of electricity.

所以它提醒我，如果你想到像这样的真正重大技术转变，它会让我想起电力。

When electricity came, you could completely reconfigure a factory floor.

当电力到来时，你可以完全重新配置工厂车间。

You no longer had to have...

你不再需要...

You could have the power source essentially at the operating unit of an operator.

您基本上可以在操作员的操作单元上获得电源。

But that took a lot of redesign, incorporation, investment, learning, complements, all kinds of stuff.

但这需要大量的重新设计、合并、投资、学习、补充以及各种各样的东西。

I tend to think this will be more like that.

我倾向于认为这会更像那样。

There will be some pure cases.

会有一些纯粹的情况。

People will want to have them write their term paper with ChatGPT or something.

人们会希望他们用 ChatGPT 之类的东西来写学期论文。

But if you think of businesses, it's hard for me to think of a single functional area in a business that with redesign couldn't benefit.

但如果你想到企业，我很难想到企业中的任何一个功能领域都不能通过重新设计而受益。

So accounting, HR, R&D all have uses of this but requires incorporation, which is always troublesome.

所以会计、人力资源、研发都有这个用处，但是需要合并，这总是很麻烦。

Hamilton Helmer: And so that's my view.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这就是我的观点。

But there certainly will be businesses that couldn't exist without it.

但肯定会有一些企业没有它就无法存在。

And there's some that are coming up and some of those are in fact the businesses that empower the tertiary need, they're the ones that bring in.

还有一些即将出现，其中一些实际上是满足第三需求的企业，它们是引进的企业。

But if you go back, this will date me, but if you go back into business history, back in, I guess it was the 90s, there was this thing called business process re-engineering, the idea that you could take a computer sensibility into business processes, redesign them and get these monstrous cost savings.

但如果你回顾过去，这会和我过时的，但如果你回顾商业历史，我想那是 90 年代，有一种叫做业务流程重新设计的东西，这个想法是你可以将计算机敏感性带入业务流程，重新设计它们并节省巨大的成本。

And it was a gigantic consulting opportunity for people.

这对人们来说是一个巨大的咨询机会。

Whole companies got developed based on that and it feels more like that to me, but it's very interesting.

整个公司都是基于此发展起来的，对我来说感觉更像是这样，但它非常有趣。

I could be wrong, but it feels different than crypto.

我可能是错的，但感觉与加密不同。

It feels like there's more of a real ultimate use case.

感觉就像有更多真正的终极用例。

I mean, if it really is true what they say that a 50% improvement in programming efficacy is not uncommon, just that proposition alone is worth an awful lot of money if you think how many programmers are in the world.

我的意思是，如果他们所说的“编程效率提高 50% 并不罕见”这一说法是真的，那么如果你想想世界上有多少程序员，光是这个主张就值一大笔钱。

Lenny Rachitsky: No question.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：毫无疑问。

You mentioned eighth power.

你提到了八次方。

I just want to check, is there an emerging eighth power you wish you maybe would've included or maybe added in the future that's like, "Oh, maybe this is on the edge," or it's like, "Nope, we got these seven?"

我只是想检查一下，是否有一个新兴的第八次幂你希望你可能会包括或可能在未来添加，就像，“哦，也许这是在边缘，”或者就像，“不，我们有这七个？”

Hamilton Helmer: It's a great question.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这是一个很好的问题。

I'm always looking for it because if you find it it probably means it's so obscure there, it'll also be a great investment opportunity.

我一直在寻找它，因为如果你找到它，可能意味着它在那里很不起眼，这也将是一个很好的投资机会。

We're looking all the time, but so far, no. So far I'm pretty satisfied that seven is an exhaustive set, but never say never.

我们一直在寻找，但到目前为止，还没有。到目前为止，我很满意七是一个详尽的集合，但永远不要说永远。

That's an empirical seven, not a theoretical seven.

这是经验七，而不是理论七。

Lenny Rachitsky: If we start seeing you making incredible returns, you've clearly found an eighth power -

Lenny Rachitsky：如果我们开始看到您获得令人难以置信的回报，那么您显然已经找到了八次方 -

Lenny Rachitsky: I want to close one thread on a power that you mentioned that is often a pitfall, which is around process power and basically execution.

Lenny Rachitsky：我想关闭一个你提到的电源上的线程，这通常是一个陷阱，它围绕着进程电源和基本上的执行。

A lot of people think so in a lot of decks it's like, oh, we have the most amazing team, we move the fastest, we're earliest.

很多人都这么认为，在很多套牌中，就像，哦，我们拥有最出色的团队，我们行动最快，我们最早。

You mentioned how rarely is that actually a power actually being able to execute and create a process that is an actual barrier?

您提到，真正能够执行和创建作为实际障碍的流程的权力是多么罕见？

Can you just talk a bit more about that to help people understand okay, it's probably not our power?

您能否多谈谈这一点，以帮助人们理解，好吧，这可能不是我们的权力？

Hamilton Helmer: One of the great thinkers in strategy was this Harvard professor Michael Porter, and he in probably 40 years ago, made the very controversial statement that operational excellence is not strategy.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：哈佛大学教授迈克尔·波特（Michael Porter）是战略领域最伟大的思想家之一，他大约在 40 年前发表了非常有争议的声明：卓越运营不是战略。

He got a lot of people of the Harvard Business School faculty really mad at him because that's what their careers were about and it sounded like he was dissing them.

他让哈佛商学院的很多教员对他很生气，因为这就是他们职业生涯的意义，而他听起来像是在鄙视他们。

But the point he was making was when you get to this end state, if you already have power that things that drive operational excellence can be mimicked because you can hire a consulting firm who has best practices, knowledges that come in and get you up to snuff.

但他要表达的观点是，当你达到这种最终状态时，如果你已经有能力模仿推动卓越运营的事情，因为你可以聘请一家拥有最佳实践和知识的咨询公司，让你达到标准。

You can hire people from your competitors who know how to do it better.

您可以从竞争对手那里聘请知道如何做得更好的人。

And that's true, but it's also true in this takeoff phase in a business that we talked about before, when you're trying to attain competitive position, operational excellence is everything.

确实如此，但在我们之前讨论过的业务起飞阶段也是如此，当您试图获得竞争地位时，卓越运营就是一切。

Hamilton Helmer: And so if you think of strategy, not statically endpoints like Professor Porter was, but if you look at dynamically how you get there, operational excellence is essential for a strategy.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：因此，如果你考虑战略，而不是像波特教授那样静态地考虑终点，而是动态地考虑如何实现目标，那么卓越运营对于战略来说至关重要。

So think of those things I mentioned before about Netflix, about their UI and recommendation engine and so on, or international rollout, all those things.

所以想想我之前提到的关于 Netflix 的事情，关于他们的 UI 和推荐引擎等等，或者国际推广，所有这些事情。

They were in a battle to get more subscribers than other people and those were critical for that.

他们正在努力争取比其他人更多的订阅者，而这对此至关重要。

But in themselves, they're critical in attaining competitive position, but in themselves, they're not sources of power typically, unless there's some very tight considerations here or very demanding considerations for the...

但就其本身而言，它们对于获得竞争地位至关重要，但就其本身而言，它们通常不是权力来源，除非这里有一些非常严格的考虑因素或非常苛刻的考虑因素......

Unless if they have to be material, but they also have to be opaque or some way people can't easily imitate them.

除非它们必须是物质的，但它们也必须是不透明的，或者以某种方式人们无法轻易模仿它们。

Either they don't understand what's going on or they might be opaque.

他们要么不明白发生了什么，要么不透明。

So for example, think of TSMC.

例如，想想台积电。

So when they put up the latest fab and get that operational, are there a lot of steps in doing that?

那么，当他们建立最新的晶圆厂并投入运营时，需要采取很多步骤吗？

Hamilton Helmer: They know how to do with their staff is trained to do it, but it's not documented necessarily and you can't imitate it.

Hamilton Helmer：他们知道如何做，他们的员工经过培训可以做到这一点，但不一定有记录，你也无法模仿。

Then maybe they have it.

那么也许他们拥有它。

I don't know if they have process power or not, but it takes that level of complexity.

我不知道他们是否有处理能力，但它需要这种程度的复杂性。

In my book, I use the example of Toyota and a car manufacturing is complex enough that you can have this opacity in terms of material steps, but it's not common.

在我的书中，我使用了丰田的例子，汽车制造非常复杂，您可以在材料步骤方面出现这种不透明性，但这并不常见。

So if you're in a stability phase of business, you're stuck with this funny thing, which is most of your day is on those issues and it should be because if you don't do it, a competitor can and they can end up better than you.

因此，如果你正处于业务的稳定阶段，你就会陷入这个有趣的事情，你一天的大部分时间都在处理这些问题，这应该是因为如果你不这样做，竞争对手就会这样做，他们最终可能会比你更好。

And so you're on a treadmill and that's the way business is.

所以你就像在跑步机上一样，这就是生意的方式。

That's fine.

没关系。

And if you stop running that treadmill, you get creamed.

如果你停止跑步机，你就会变得很糟糕。

So you got to do it, it's most of your day, but it's not power.

所以你必须这么做，这是你一天的大部分时间，但这不是力量。

And there are those rare cases where it's so material and so inimitable that it can be power, but they're rare.

在极少数情况下，它是如此物质和独特，以至于它可以成为权力，但这种情况很少见。

Lenny Rachitsky: I like the heuristic that if you haven't written it down or you can't describe it, that might be a sign that maybe process power is a power of yours.

Lenny Rachitsky：我喜欢这样的启发：如果你没有写下来或者你无法描述它，这可能表明流程能力是你的能力。

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

And there isn't a consulting firm that offers to bring you up to speed on that.

而且没有一家咨询公司可以帮助您快速了解这方面的情况。

Lenny Rachitsky: They'll make you more like Amazon as a service.

Lenny Rachitsky：它们会让你更像亚马逊的服务。

Kind of along these same lines, you talk about how the only things that create value in a company are power, market size and operational excellence.

类似地，您谈到在公司中创造价值的唯一因素是权力、市场规模和卓越运营。

And I think hearing that will blow a lot of people's minds because they think there's so many things that contribute to the value of a company and you whittle it down to these three things.

我认为听到这个消息会让很多人大吃一惊，因为他们认为有很多东西可以为公司的价值做出贡献，而你可以将其缩减为这三件事。

What can you say about that insight?

对于这个见解你有什么想说的？

Hamilton Helmer: So I'd say they're right and I'm right.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：所以我想说他们是对的，我也是对的。

They're right because there are this incredible...

他们是对的，因为有这样令人难以置信的......

I mean business is really hard and there are just a multitude of things you have to pay attention for.

我的意思是，生意真的很难，有很多事情你必须注意。

I'm right because all those things fall into those three categories.

我是对的，因为所有这些事情都属于这三类。

So it's an exhaustive set and it simply comes out of the math.

所以这是一个详尽的集合，它只是从数学中得出的。

So we're both right I'd say.

所以我想说我们都是对的。

Lenny Rachitsky: Final question, the intent of a lot of your work is to empower founders.

Lenny Rachitsky：最后一个问题，你的很多工作的目的是赋予创始人权力。

I'm curious if you've noticed any broad economic trends or shifts that you think will make life easier or harder for founders in the coming years?

我很好奇您是否注意到任何您认为未来几年将使创始人的生活变得更轻松或更困难的广泛经济趋势或转变？

Hamilton Helmer: Personally, I am very, very concerned about the debt trajectory of the United States and of many countries around the world, but I'll pick on the United States, but it's a trend going on everywhere.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：就我个人而言，我非常非常担心美国和世界上许多国家的债务轨迹，但我会选择美国，但这是一个到处都在发生的趋势。

We're on a trajectory for this extremely high indebtedness.

我们正处于负债极高的轨道上。

And so if you think about the last 30 years, right?

那么如果你想想过去 30 年，对吗？

There's been a crisis about once every 10 years.

大约每十年就会发生一次危机。

So there's the dot-com bust, there's the financial crisis, there was COVID.

因此，出现了互联网泡沫破灭、金融危机和新冠疫情。

Nothing makes me think that the frequency will be a lot less.

没有什么让我觉得频率会少很多。

I don't know what, who knows?

我不知道什么，谁知道？

These are all uncertain events.

这些都是不确定事件。

But imagine if we got to one of those and we had no dry powder and dry powder for us is the ability to heavily deficit spend take on debt.

但想象一下，如果我们达到其中之一，而我们没有干粉，而干粉对我们来说就是有能力严重赤字支出并承担债务。

And fortunately our government did that in both the financial crisis and in COVID.

幸运的是，我们的政府在金融危机和新冠疫情期间都做到了这一点。

And because that people had jobs.

因为人们有工作。

My own view about the financial crisis is that if we hadn't done that, plus having Ben Bernanke as the head of the Fed, we would've gone into another great depression.

我个人对金融危机的看法是，如果我们不这样做，再加上本·伯南克担任美联储主席，我们就会陷入另一场大萧条。

Hamilton Helmer: It was that ugly.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：太丑了。

So this current debt trajectory, you don't know how long it will take exactly when, but eventually that will mean we will not have dry powder.

因此，目前的债务轨迹，你不知道具体需要多长时间，但最终这意味着我们不会有干粉。

People will not respect the credit worthiness of this country.

人们不会尊重这个国家的信誉。

So that worries me a lot.

所以这让我很担心。

And it utterly will affect the idea of company founding because if you get into a crisis like that, the capital markets lock up and it gets very difficult to do anything.

这完全会影响公司创立的想法，因为如果陷入这样的危机，资本市场就会锁定，做任何事情都会变得非常困难。

And to really stretch my credibility here, I'll opine on just how hard a problem this is to solve.

为了真正提高我的可信度，我将谈谈解决这个问题有多么困难。

The reason this is so difficult for this country to solve and other countries is that it is right at the crux of the delicate dance between capitalism and democracy.

对于这个国家和其他国家来说，这个问题之所以如此难以解决，是因为它正处于资本主义与民主之间微妙之舞的关键时刻。

So if you think about the problem, of course that's driving all this is entitlements.

因此，如果你考虑一下这个问题，当然，推动这一切的是权利。

There's discretionary spending, certain recovery programs and stuff, but those can go away.

有可自由支配的支出、某些恢复计划之类的东西，但这些都可以消失。

The underlying trend that people just can't get their arms around is entitlements.

人们无法拥抱的根本趋势是权利。

And anybody who looks at the numbers can see that.

任何看过这些数字的人都可以看到这一点。

Every economist knows that.

每个经济学家都知道这一点。

But that's not an easy fix.

但这并不是一个容易解决的问题。

Hamilton Helmer: And the reason it's not an easy fix is there are two opposing views of what's going on, and there's no way to resolve those two views.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：这不是一个容易解决的问题，因为对于正在发生的事情存在两种相反的观点，并且没有办法解决这两种观点。

One is that capitalism is rapacious and results in more and more inequality and the government has to do something about it.

一是资本主义是贪婪的，导致不平等越来越严重，政府必须对此采取行动。

And the other is that the government is on a path that is creeping socialism that will undermine our freedom and economic sufficiency.

另一个问题是，政府正在走一条社会主义之路，这将破坏我们的自由和经济自给自足。

And the poster child for the rapacious capitalism.

也是贪婪的资本主义的典型代表。

One is, I don't know if you've seen the recent analysis of inequality in the United States just came out, much more robust analysis.

一是，我不知道你是否看过最近刚刚发表的对美国不平等的分析，这是更加有力的分析。

And it said that basically inequality in the last 60 years of the United States is unchanged, but that's post-transfer, post-tax inequality, which basically says the amount of taxing and transferring going on was about right.

它说，美国过去60年的不平等基本上没有改变，但那是转移后、税后不平等，这基本上表明正在进行的税收和转移的数量是正确的。

So it says that the amount we're spending is about right from that perspective, that it compensates for the other inequities and we should be spending that much so we should tax more.

所以它说，从这个角度来看，我们支出的金额是正确的，它补偿了其他不平等，我们应该支出这么多，所以我们应该征收更多的税。

Hamilton Helmer: And the poster child for the other point of view of the dangers of government is the steadily increasing without interruption percentage of the economy that is government.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：关于政府危险的另一种观点的典型代表是政府在经济中不间断地稳步增长的比例。

And to levels that 75 years ago, people would've thought absolutely impossible.

而达到 75 年前人们认为绝对不可能的水平。

So there are these two views about what's going on.

所以对于正在发生的事情有这两种观点。

One is that we're compensating for the normal inequities of capitalism, and the other is that we're headed down a path to socialism and ruin.

一是我们正在补偿资本主义正常的不平等，二是我们正在走上社会主义和毁灭的道路。

And that leads to a deadlock, which is you don't tax anymore and you don't cut spending and that leaves deficits.

这会导致僵局，即不再征税，也不削减支出，从而留下赤字。

So anyway, a long, long rant, sorry but that trend is extremely politically difficult to deal with and extremely threatening and that concerns me immensely.

所以无论如何，很长很长的咆哮，抱歉，但这种趋势在政治上极其难以应对，而且极具威胁性，这让我非常担心。

Lenny Rachitsky: Not to leave listeners with a very sad state of affairs.

Lenny Rachitsky：不要让听众陷入非常悲伤的境地。

Lenny Rachitsky: No, no. I think this is important.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：不，不。我认为这很重要。

I think it's important people think about this and know these things.

我认为人们思考这个问题并了解这些事情很重要。

Is there anything that gives you hope?

有什么事情可以给你带来希望吗？

Is there anything that gets you excited about either for founders or anyone in general, just to leave folks with maybe on a happy?

有什么事情能让创始人或一般人感到兴奋，让人们感到高兴吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, I mean, I am an optimist really in a way, and I do.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，我的意思是，在某种程度上我确实是一个乐观主义者，而且确实如此。

There's a famous Austrian and eventually American economist named Joseph Schumpeter who wrote this wonderful book Theory of Economic Development way back when over a hundred years ago, where he took the unusual view of saying that the vitality of an economy depended on entrepreneurs.

有一位著名的奥地利经济学家，后来成为美国经济学家约瑟夫·熊彼特（Joseph Schumpeter），他在一百多年前写了这本精彩的书《经济发展理论》，他在书中采取了一种不同寻常的观点，认为经济的活力取决于企业家。

And I ascribe to that.

我将此归因于这一点。

I think that creativity and action are the ways society and people advance.

我认为创造力和行动是社会和人们进步的方式。

And I think the US's and a free society has huge advantages in that.

我认为美国和自由社会在这方面具有巨大的优势。

And I think that I feel very lucky to be in a place I'm in Silicon Valley, but to be in a place in a country where that is vital and active and I think that's ground zero for me.

我认为我很幸运能够来到硅谷这个地方，但身处一个充满活力和活跃的国家，我认为这对我来说是零基础。

And so I think you see that alive and well, I think.

所以我认为你看到了这一点，而且我认为。

And there are people that are very Enthusiastic about that as I am.

有些人和我一样对此非常热情。

Lenny Rachitsky: Beautiful way to close out our chat.

Lenny Rachitsky：结束我们聊天的好方法。

Is there anything else you want to share before we get to our very exciting lightning round?

在我们开始激动人心的闪电回合之前，您还有什么想分享的吗？

Is there anything you want to leave listeners with or any last tidbit of advice?

您有什么想留给听众的信息或者最后的建议吗？

Hamilton Helmer: I alluded to it before, but just that remember, action is the first principle of business.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：我之前提到过，但请记住，行动是商业的首要原则。

You do stuff and my book is very oriented towards that.

你做事，我的书就非常注重这一点。

The idea was not to tell you what to do, but to give you guideposts while you're on that journey.

我们的想法不是告诉您要做什么，而是在您踏上旅程时为您提供路标。

People that are enthused about it, I encourage you to do stuff.

对于对此充满热情的人们，我鼓励你们去做一些事情。

That's where it all starts and I can think about it and maybe help a little bit, but it's mostly doing stuff.

这就是一切开始的地方，我可以思考它，也许能提供一点帮助，但主要是做一些事情。

Lenny Rachitsky: I love that point so much.

Lenny Rachitsky：我非常喜欢这一点。

It was something I was going to touch on but I didn't get to is just there's so many people that just sit around and theorize about a strategy of their business, especially in their early stage.

这是我本来要谈的事情，但我没有谈到，因为有很多人只是坐着，对他们的业务策略进行理论化，尤其是在早期阶段。

Here's our grand master plan, here's an amazing strategy or just read about startup ideas and don't actually try it.

这是我们的总体规划，这是一个令人惊叹的策略，或者只是阅读有关创业想法，但不要实际尝试。

I love this final note of just try it.

我喜欢这最后的音符“试试吧”。

Just do it.

去做就对了。

Don't just sit there and-

不要只是坐在那里-

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, yeah, just do it.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，是的，就这么做吧。

And life is full of surprises.

生活充满了惊喜。

You'll end up in a place you didn't expect.

你最终会到达一个你意想不到的地方。

Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

Speaking of ending up in a place you didn't expect, it's time for our very exciting lightning round.

说到最终到达一个你意想不到的地方，是时候进行我们非常激动人心的闪电回合了。

Are you ready?

你准备好了吗？

Hamilton Helmer: Oh, sure.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：哦，当然。

I'll do my best here.

我会在这里尽力而为。

I'm not very good on lightning.

我不太擅长闪电。

Lenny Rachitsky: First question, what are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people?

Lenny Rachitsky：第一个问题，您向其他人推荐最多的两三本书是什么？

Hamilton Helmer: One book that is extremely wonky, and I can only take it in very small doses, but is magnificent, is one called The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose, who's this brilliant mathematician.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：一本非常古怪的书，我只能读很小的剂量，但却很精彩，这本书是罗杰·彭罗斯（Roger Penrose）写的《通往现实之路》，他是一位才华横溢的数学家。

And it will be very daunting for anybody unless you're a deep math person, but his brilliance in erudition just shines through in this thing.

这对任何人来说都是非常令人畏惧的，除非你是一个数学高深的人，但他的博学才华在这件事上熠熠生辉。

And it's an amazing book.

这是一本很棒的书。

I would say there's another book, boy, I wish I could remember the name.

我想说还有另一本书，孩子，我希望我能记住这个名字。

Maybe you can get the name of the author called Gene by this geneticist.

也许你能找到这位遗传学家的作者名字叫Gene。

And I think he's a Harvard Medical School professor that's about the history of genetics and he is an absolutely luminous writer.

我认为他是哈佛医学院的一位教授，研究遗传学的历史，而且他是一位绝对发光的作家。

I mean, it puts me to shame.

我的意思是，这让我感到羞耻。

I'm embarrassed when I read it because I think how pedestrian my writing is and incredibly knowledgeable about the history of genetics and I think that's such an important topic.

当我读到它时，我感到很尴尬，因为我认为我的写作是多么乏味，而且对遗传学的历史非常了解，我认为这是一个如此重要的话题。

So those are two that I would recommend highly, fairly wonky, but I like them both.

所以这两个是我强烈推荐的，相当奇怪，但我都喜欢。

Lenny Rachitsky: I love them.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：我爱他们。

The author, I just looked him up.

作者，我刚刚查了一下。

Siddhartha Mukherjee.

悉达多·慕克吉。

Hamilton Helmer: Yes.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

Just amazing.

太棒了。

You read it and you go, "How did he think of that phrasing?" I mean, it's just, he's amazing.

你读完之后会问：“他觉得这个措辞怎么样？”我的意思是，他太棒了。

Lenny Rachitsky: Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoyed?

Lenny Rachitsky：您最近有最喜欢的电影或电视节目吗？

Hamilton Helmer: I'm a huge movie fan and have been all my life, and I'm particularly keen on animated films.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：我是一个超级电影迷，而且一直都是，而且我特别热衷于动画电影。

But the movie that I've recently seen that I liked particularly it was American Fiction.

但我最近看的特别喜欢的电影是《美国小说》。

I thought that was...

我以为那是...

It didn't make any of the easy choices in a movie and as a result was just incredibly interesting and thoughtful I thought.

它没有做出电影中任何简单的选择，因此我认为它非常有趣且深思熟虑。

Lenny Rachitsky: Do you have a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love?

Lenny Rachitsky：您最近发现有一款您真正喜欢的最喜欢的产品吗？

Hamilton Helmer: In my office, just this last week, we actually put a Persian rug in our entry room, and this is what's called a Farahan Sarouk rug and it's 150 years old.

Hamilton Helmer：就在上周，在我的办公室里，我们实际上在入口房间里放了一块波斯地毯，这就是所谓的 Farahan Sarouk 地毯，它已经有 150 年的历史了。

And it had an effect in me that I didn't expect, which is it is a work of great beauty.

它对我产生了意想不到的效果，那就是它是一件非常美丽的作品。

And it was before, it was all hand-done before machines.

以前，在机器出现之前，都是手工完成的。

You get all this wonderful variation of the actual icons in the rug and the different dye colors.

您会得到地毯上实际图标和不同染料颜色的所有这些美妙变化。

And I find that every morning when I walk in, I go, "That's really beautiful," and it's uplifting and it shows you the importance of, or the value of the quality of art.

我发现每天早上当我走进去时，我都会说，“那真的很漂亮”，它令人振奋，它向你展示了艺术质量的重要性或价值。

I mean, just blows my mind actually.

我的意思是，实际上让我大吃一惊。

So that's probably not the usual product discussion that you get.

因此，这可能不是您常见的产品讨论。

Lenny Rachitsky: No, I love that answer.

Lenny Rachitsky：不，我喜欢这个答案。

Recently we've had some really unique choices.

最近我们有了一些非常独特的选择。

One is a very nice Mercedes and a Rivian and a minivan recently.

其中一辆是一辆非常漂亮的梅赛德斯、一辆 Rivian 和一辆最近的小型货车。

We've got a lot of very nice things.

我们有很多非常好的东西。

Hamilton Helmer: Oh, that's great.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：哦，那太好了。

I'm a car guy too, so I didn't answer on the car question.

我也是车迷，所以关于车的问题我就不回答了。

Lenny Rachitsky: Oh man, I love that.

Lenny Rachitsky：天啊，我喜欢这个。

We have Rory Sutherland coming on the podcast soon.

罗里·萨瑟兰 (Rory Sutherland) 很快就会出现在播客中。

He is one of the leaders of Ogilvy and he has a whole thing about how buying a home is the best value of art to buy art if you live in a home that makes you feel inspired and is beautiful.

他是奥美的领导者之一，他深知买房是艺术品的最佳价值，如果你住在一个能让你感到灵感和美丽的房子里，那么购买艺术品就是最好的选择。

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, I'm a big believer in that.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，我对此深信不疑。

I mean, I think that your place and how you connect to it has an important grounding effect.

我的意思是，我认为你的位置以及你与它的联系方式具有重要的基础效应。

And then before I talked earlier about creativity and I think surrounding yourself in an environment that stimulates that is really important.

在我之前谈到创造力之前，我认为让自己处于一个能够激发创造力的环境中非常重要。

And so I couldn't agree with him more.

所以我非常同意他的观点。

Lenny Rachitsky: Two more questions.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：还有两个问题。

Do you have a favorite life motto that you often think about, come back to share with friends or family?

您是否有一条最喜欢的人生格言，经常思考并回来与朋友或家人分享？

Hamilton Helmer: One is what Clint Eastwood's advice to actors, which is don't just do something, stand there.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：其中之一是克林特·伊斯特伍德对演员的建议，那就是不要只是做某事，要站在那里。

And so there are a lot of things that are long-termish with low signal to noise.

因此，有很多事情是长期的，信噪比较低。

And you can often just do a lot of stuff that you think makes a difference, but it really doesn't.

你通常可以做很多你认为会有所作为的事情，但事实并非如此。

And so that's one.

这就是其中之一。

The other one which is somewhat more profound I think was one that I had a famous Sri Lankan journalist was a mentor of mine and very dear friend, and he had a favorite expression that I adhere to all the time, which is everything is always about something else.

另一个我认为更深刻的一点是，我有一位著名的斯里兰卡记者，他是我的导师和非常亲爱的朋友，他有一句我一直坚持的最喜欢的表达方式，那就是一切总是关于其他事情。

Hamilton Helmer: And that's so true if you're dealing with this power stuff when if you really dig down, everything is always about something else.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默（Hamilton Helmer）：如果你正在处理这些权力问题，那么事实就是如此，如果你真正深入挖掘，一切总是与其他事情有关。

Lenny Rachitsky: Speaking of power, final question.

Lenny Rachitsky：说到权力，最后一个问题。

People that have a lot of power are leaders in the world.

拥有强大权力的人是世界的领导者。

I'm curious, do you have a favorite historical leader?

我很好奇，你有最喜欢的历史领袖吗？

Hamilton Helmer: So yeah.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的。

I have some that I admire a great deal.

我有一些我非常钦佩的东西。

I'm a tremendous fan of Winston Churchill's.

我是温斯顿·丘吉尔的超级粉丝。

Most really great people are quirky and he qualified.

大多数真正伟大的人都是古怪的，他符合资格。

There are things you could say about him that you might not have liked that so much, but he was a genius and had great fortitude, human sense.

你可以对他说一些话，但你可能不太喜欢他，但他是一个天才，并且具有极大的毅力和人情味。

He understood things long before other people.

他比其他人早明白一些事情。

I've give him high marks.

我给他高分。

Some of the great artists I admire enormously.

我非常钦佩一些伟大的艺术家。

I'm reading a book right now on the last 20 years of Michelangelo, which wonderful book actually, and which is a very interesting period because in his first 70 years he finished up all that, he wasn't going to do sculpture anymore.

我现在正在读一本关于米开朗基罗最后20年的书，这实际上是一本很棒的书，也是一个非常有趣的时期，因为在他的前70年里，他完成了这一切，他不再做雕塑了。

He just finished The Last Judgment, which was the wall of the Sistine Chapel.

他刚刚完成了《最后的审判》，这是西斯廷教堂的墙壁。

Hamilton Helmer: And I think the last major fresco he did.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：我认为他创作的最后一幅重要壁画。

And a lot of his friends at that time, he was exiled from Florence and living in Rome and he had this Roman community and a lot of his close friends that had recently died or had difficulties.

当时他的很多朋友，他被从佛罗伦萨流放，住在罗马，他有这个罗马社区，还有很多最近去世或遇到困难的亲密朋友。

So he's at this inflection point in his life at 70, which in those days was very old, and yet he went on to do some of the most remarkable architecture in the history of the world.

因此，70 岁的他正处于人生的转折点，在那个时代已经很老了，但他继续创作了一些世界历史上最非凡的建筑。

And so you've got to admire that.

所以你必须钦佩这一点。

I mean, just doing that, which is that rare second act.

我的意思是，就这么做，这是罕见的第二幕。

But I think for world leaders, Winston Churchill is very high.

但我认为对于世界领导人来说，温斯顿·丘吉尔的地位非常高。

I'm a fan of Teddy Roosevelt, I must say too, in this country.

我必须说，在这个国家，我也是泰迪·罗斯福的粉丝。

Lenny Rachitsky: I love that.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：我喜欢这个。

Hamilton, you are wonderful.

汉密尔顿，你太棒了。

I feel like we have helped a lot of people up-level their ability to think about strategy and moats and power.

我觉得我们已经帮助很多人提高了思考战略、护城河和权力的能力。

Thank you so much for being here.

非常感谢您来到这里。

Two final questions.

最后两个问题。

Where can folks find more online if they want to dig in further, and how can listeners be useful to you?

如果人们想进一步深入了解，可以在哪里找到更多在线信息，以及听众如何对您有用？

Hamilton Helmer: Yeah, so as I say, I'm an idea person and I'm about trying to empower company founders, and so only thing I can say is read the book, spread the ideas, start your own company.

汉密尔顿·赫尔默：是的，正如我所说，我是一个有想法的人，我致力于赋予公司创始人权力，所以我唯一能说的就是阅读这本书，传播想法，创办自己的公司。

Those are the things that would make me happy.

这些都是能让我快乐的事情。

Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

Hamilton, Thank you so much for being here.

汉密尔顿，非常感谢你来到这里。

Lenny Rachitsky: Bye everyone.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：大家再见。

Thank you so much for listening.

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 Lenny'sPodcasts.com.

您可以在 Lenny'sPodcasts.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。