The Future of Web Startups
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获得 Y Combinator 的资助。
</td > October 2007 (This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007.) There's something interesting happening right now.
</td> 2007 年 10 月（本文摘自 2007 年 10 月 FOWA 的主题演讲。）现在发生了一些有趣的事情。
Startups are undergoing the same transformation that technology does when it becomes cheaper.
初创公司正在经历与技术变得更便宜时所经历的同样的转变。
It's a pattern we see over and over in technology.
这是我们在技术领域一次又一次看到的模式。
Initially
最初
there's some device that's very expensive and made in small quantities.
有一些设备非常昂贵并且产量很少。
Then someone discovers how to make them cheaply; many more get built; and as a result they can be used in new ways.
然后有人发现如何廉价地制造它们；还有更多的建筑被建造；因此，它们可以以新的方式使用。
Computers are a familiar example.
计算机是一个熟悉的例子。
When I was a kid, computers were big, expensive machines built one at a time.
当我还是个孩子的时候，计算机是一次建造一台又大又昂贵的机器。
Now they're a commodity.
现在它们是一种商品。
Now we can stick computers in everything.
现在我们可以将计算机融入到一切事物中。
This pattern is very old.
这种模式很古老。
Most of the turning
大部分都是转弯的
points in economic history are instances of it.
经济史上的一些点就是这样的例子。
It happened to steel in the 1850s, and to power in the 1780s.
1850 年代的钢铁行业发生了这种情况，1780 年代的电力行业也发生了这种情况。
It happened to cloth manufacture in the thirteenth century, generating the wealth that later brought about the Renaissance.
十三世纪的布料制造也发生了这种情况，创造了后来带来文艺复兴的财富。
Agriculture itself was an instance of this pattern.
农业本身就是这种模式的一个例子。
Now as well as being produced by startups, this pattern is happening to startups.
现在，这种模式不仅是由初创公司生产的，而且也发生在初创公司身上。
It's so cheap to start web startups
创办网络初创公司是如此便宜
that orders of magnitudes more will be started.
将启动更多数量级的项目。
If the pattern holds true, that should cause dramatic changes.
如果这种模式成立，那应该会引起巨大的变化。
1.
1.
Lots of Startups So my first prediction about the future of web startups is pretty straightforward: there will be a lot of them.
很多初创公司 因此，我对网络初创公司未来的第一个预测非常简单：将会有很多这样的初创公司。
When starting a startup was expensive, you had to get the permission of investors to do it.
当创办一家初创公司的成本很高时，你必须获得投资者的许可才能这样做。
Now the only threshold is courage.
现在唯一的门槛就是勇气。
Even that threshold is getting lower, as people watch others take
即使这个门槛也越来越低，因为人们看着别人拿走
the plunge and survive.
暴跌并生存。
In the last batch of startups we funded, we had several founders who said they'd thought of applying before, but weren't sure and got jobs instead.
在我们资助的最后一批初创公司中，有几位创始人表示他们之前曾考虑过申请，但不确定，最终找到了工作。
It was only after hearing reports of friends who'd done it that they decided to try it themselves.
直到听到朋友做过的报告后，他们才决定自己尝试一下。
Starting a startup is hard, but having a 9 to 5 job is hard too, and in some ways a worse kind of hard.
创办一家初创公司很困难，但朝九晚五的工作也很困难，在某些方面甚至更困难。
In a startup you have lots
在初创公司你有很多
of worries, but you don't have that feeling that your life is flying by like you do in a big company.
担心，但你不会像在大公司那样感觉生活飞逝。
Plus in a startup you could make much more money.
另外，在初创公司你可以赚更多的钱。
As word spreads that startups work, the number may grow to a point that would now seem surprising.
随着初创公司运作的消息传播开来，这个数字可能会增长到现在看来令人惊讶的程度。
We now think of it as normal to have a job at a company, but this is the thinnest of historical veneers.
我们现在认为在公司工作很正常，但这只是历史上最薄弱的一件事。
Just two or three lifetimes ago, most people in what are now called industrialized
就在两三辈子之前，大多数人还生活在现在所谓的工业化国家
countries lived by farming.
国家以农业为生。
So while it may seem surprising to propose that large numbers of people will change the way they make a living, it would be more surprising if they didn't.
因此，虽然提出大量人将改变他们的谋生方式似乎令人惊讶，但如果他们不这样做，那就更令人惊讶了。
2.
2.
Standardization When technology makes something dramatically cheaper, standardization always follows.
标准化 当技术使某种东西变得更加便宜时，标准化总是随之而来。
When you make things in large volumes you tend to standardize everything that doesn't need to change.
当你大量生产产品时，你倾向于标准化所有不需要改变的东西。
At Y Combinator we still only have four people, so we try to
在 Y Combinator，我们仍然只有四个人，所以我们尝试
standardize everything.
标准化一切。
We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing.
我们可以雇用员工，但我们希望被迫弄清楚如何扩大投资规模。
We often tell startups to release a minimal version one quickly, then let the needs of the users determine what to do next.
我们经常告诉初创公司快速发布一个最小版本，然后让用户的需求决定下一步做什么。
In essence, let the market design the product.
本质上，让市场来设计产品。
We've done the same thing ourselves.
我们自己也做过同样的事情。
We think of the techniques we're developing for dealing with large numbers of startups as like
我们认为我们正在开发的用于处理大量初创公司的技术就像
software.
软件。
Sometimes it literally is software, like Hacker News and our application system.
有时它实际上是软件，例如《黑客新闻》和我们的应用程序系统。
One of the most important things we've been working on standardizing are investment terms.
我们一直致力于标准化的最重要的事情之一是投资术语。
Till now investment terms have been individually negotiated.
到目前为止，投资条款已经单独谈判。
This is a problem for founders, because it makes raising money take longer and cost more in legal fees.
这对创始人来说是一个问题，因为这使得筹集资金需要更长的时间，而且律师费也更高。
So as well as using the same paperwork for every deal we do, we've commissioned generic
因此，除了对我们所做的每笔交易使用相同的文书工作外，我们还委托了通用的
angel paperwork that all the startups we fund can use for future rounds.
我们资助的所有初创公司都可以在未来的融资中使用天使文件。
Some investors will still want to cook up their own deal terms.
一些投资者仍希望制定自己的交易条款。
Series A rounds, where you raise a million dollars or more, will be custom deals for the foreseeable future.
在可预见的未来，筹集 100 万美元或更多美元的 A 轮融资将是定制交易。
But I think angel rounds will start to be done mostly with standardized agreements.
但我认为天使轮将开始主要通过标准化协议来完成。
An angel who wants to insert a bunch of complicated terms into the agreement
想要在协议中插入一堆复杂条款的天使
is probably not one you want anyway.
无论如何，这可能不是您想要的。
3.
3.
New Attitude to Acquisition Another thing I see starting to get standardized is acquisitions.
收购的新态度 我认为开始标准化的另一件事是收购。
As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone.
随着初创公司数量的增加，大公司将开始制定标准化程序，使收购比雇用某人更容易。
Google is the leader here, as in so many areas of technology.
正如在许多技术领域一样，谷歌是这方面的领导者。
They buy a lot of startups — more than most people realize, because they
他们购买了很多初创公司——比大多数人意识到的还要多，因为他们
only announce a fraction of them.
只公布其中的一小部分。
And being Google, they're figuring out how to do it efficiently.
作为谷歌，他们正在研究如何有效地做到这一点。
One problem they've solved is how to think about acquisitions.
他们解决的问题之一是如何考虑收购。
For most companies, acquisitions still carry some stigma of inadequacy.
对于大多数公司来说，收购仍然带有一些不足的耻辱。
Companies do them because they have to, but there's usually some feeling they shouldn't have to — that their own programmers should be able to build everything they need.
公司这样做是因为他们必须这样做，但通常有人觉得他们不应该这样做——他们自己的程序员应该能够构建他们需要的一切。
Google's example should cure the rest of the world of this idea.
谷歌的例子应该可以治愈世界其他地方的这个想法。
Google has by far the best programmers of any public technology company.
谷歌拥有迄今为止所有上市科技公司中最好的程序员。
If they don't have a problem doing acquisitions, the others should have even less problem.
如果他们在收购方面没有问题，那么其他人的问题应该更小。
However many Google does, Microsoft should do ten times as many.
无论谷歌做了多少，微软都应该做十倍。
One reason Google doesn't have a problem with acquisitions is that they know first-hand the quality of the people they can get
谷歌在收购方面不存在问题的一个原因是，他们直接了解他们可以获得的人才的素质
that way.
那样。
Larry and Sergey only started Google after making the rounds of the search engines trying to sell their idea and finding no takers.
拉里（Larry）和谢尔盖（Sergey）在搜索引擎上四处搜寻，试图推销他们的想法但没有找到接受者后，才创办了谷歌。
They've been the guys coming in to visit the big company, so they know who might be sitting across that conference table from them.
他们是来参观大公司的人，所以他们知道谁可能坐在他们对面的会议桌上。
4.
4.
Riskier Strategies are Possible Risk is always proportionate to reward.
更高风险的策略是可能的 风险总是与回报成正比。
The way to get really big returns is to do things that seem crazy, like starting a new search
获得真正丰厚回报的方法是做一些看似疯狂的事情，比如开始新的搜索
engine in 1998, or turning down a billion dollar acquisition offer.
1998 年，他拒绝了 10 亿美元的收购要约。
This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.
这一直是风险投资中的一个问题。
Founders and investors have different attitudes to risk.
创始人和投资者对风险的态度不同。
Knowing that risk is on average proportionate to reward, investors like risky strategies, while founders, who don't have a big enough sample size to care what's true on average, tend to be more conservative.
投资者知道风险平均与回报成正比，因此喜欢冒险的策略，而创始人由于没有足够大的样本量来关心平均情况，因此往往更加保守。
If startups are easy to start, this conflict goes away, because
如果初创公司很容易启动，这种冲突就会消失，因为
founders can start them younger, when it's rational to take more risk, and can start more startups total in their careers.
创始人可以在更年轻的时候开始创业，在合理的时候承担更多的风险，并且可以在他们的职业生涯中创办更多的初创公司。
When founders can do lots of startups, they can start to look at the world in the same portfolio-optimizing way as investors.
当创始人能够创办很多初创公司时，他们就可以开始以与投资者相同的投资组合优化方式来看待世界。
And that means the overall amount of wealth created can be greater, because strategies can be riskier.
这意味着创造的财富总量可能会更大，因为策略的风险可能更大。
5.
5.
Younger, Nerdier Founders If startups become a cheap commodity, more people will be able to
更年轻、更书呆子的创始人 如果初创公司成为一种廉价商品，更多的人将能够
have them, just as more people could have computers once microprocessors made them cheap.
拥有它们，就像一旦微处理器使计算机变得便宜，更多的人就可以拥有计算机一样。
And in particular, younger and more technical founders will be able to start startups than could before.
特别是，更年轻、技术含量更高的创始人将能够比以前创办初创公司。
Back when it cost a lot to start a startup, you had to convince investors to let you do it.
过去创办一家初创公司需要花费很多钱，你必须说服投资者让你这么做。
And that required very different skills from actually doing the startup.
这需要与实际创业截然不同的技能。
If investors were perfect judges, the two would require exactly the same skills.
如果投资者是完美的法官，那么两者将需要完全相同的技能。
But unfortunately
但不幸的是
most investors are terrible judges.
大多数投资者都是糟糕的法官。
I know because I see behind the scenes what an enormous amount of work it takes to raise money, and the amount of selling required in an industry is always inversely proportional to the judgement of the buyers.
我知道，因为我在幕后看到筹集资金需要付出多么巨大的工作量，而一个行业所需的销售量总是与买家的判断成反比。
Fortunately, if startups get cheaper to start, there's another way to convince investors.
幸运的是，如果初创公司的启动成本变得更便宜，那么还有另一种方法可以说服投资者。
Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business plan and trying to convince them to fund it, you
您不必带着商业计划去找风险投资家并试图说服他们为其提供资金，而是
can get a product launched on a few tens of thousands of dollars of seed money from us or your uncle, and approach them with a working company instead of a plan for one.
可以从我们或你叔叔那里获得几万美元的种子资金来推出一款产品，并与一家正在运营的公司联系，而不是制定一个计划。
Then instead of having to seem smooth and confident, you can just point them to Alexa.
然后，您可以将他们指向 Alexa，而不必显得流畅和自信。
This way of convincing investors is better suited to hackers, who often went into technology in part because they felt uncomfortable with the amount of fakeness required in other fields.
这种说服投资者的方式更适合黑客，他们经常进入技术领域，部分原因是他们对其他领域所需的大量虚假信息感到不舒服。
6.
6.
Startup Hubs Will Persist It might seem that if startups get cheap to start, it will mean the end of startup hubs like Silicon Valley.
创业中心将持续存在 如果初创公司的起步成本较低，这似乎意味着硅谷等创业中心的终结。
If all you need to start a startup is rent money, you should be able to do it anywhere.
如果你创业所需的只是租金，那么你应该可以在任何地方创业。
This is kind of true and kind of false.
这有点真实，又有点虚假。
It's true that you can now start a startup anywhere.
确实，您现在可以在任何地方创业。
But you have to do more with a startup than just start it.
但你必须对一家初创公司做更多的事情，而不仅仅是启动它。
You have to make it succeed.
你必须让它成功。
And that
还有那个
is more likely to happen in a startup hub.
更有可能发生在创业中心。
I've thought a lot about this question, and it seems to me the increasing cheapness of web startups will if anything increase the importance of startup hubs.
我对这个问题思考了很多，在我看来，网络初创公司的成本不断增加，将会增加启动中心的重要性。
The value of startup hubs, like centers for any kind of business, lies in something very old-fashioned: face to face meetings.
与任何类型的企业中心一样，创业中心的价值在于非常老式的东西：面对面的会议。
No technology in the immediate future will replace walking down University Ave and running into a friend who
在不久的将来，没有任何技术可以取代走在大学大街上遇到一位朋友
tells you how to fix a bug that's been bothering you all weekend, or visiting a friend's startup down the street and ending up in a conversation with one of their investors.
告诉你如何修复整个周末困扰你的错误，或者拜访朋友在街上的初创公司并最终与他们的一位投资者进行对话。
The question of whether to be in a startup hub is like the question of whether to take outside investment.
是否进入创业中心的问题就像是否接受外部投资的问题一样。
The question is not whether you need it, but whether it brings any advantage at all.
问题不在于你是否需要它，而在于它是否能带来任何好处。
Because anything that brings an advantage will give your competitors
因为任何带来优势的事物都会给你的竞争对手带来优势
an advantage over you if they do it and you don't.
如果他们这样做而你不这样做，那就比你有优势。
So if you hear someone saying "we don't need to be in Silicon Valley," that use of the word "need" is a sign they're not even thinking about the question right.
因此，如果你听到有人说“我们不需要在硅谷”，那么使用“需要”这个词就表明他们甚至没有正确思考这个问题。
And while startup hubs are as powerful magnets as ever, the increasing cheapness of starting a startup means the particles they're attracting are getting lighter.
尽管创业中心一如既往地具有强大的吸引力，但创业成本的不断增加意味着它们吸引的粒子变得越来越轻。
A startup now can be just a pair of 22 year
一家初创公司现在只需一对 22 岁的人
old guys.
老家伙们。
A company like that can move much more easily than one with 10 people, half of whom have kids.
这样的公司比拥有 10 名员工（其中一半员工有孩子）的公司更容易迁移。
We know because we make people move for Y Combinator, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.
我们知道这一点，因为我们让人们转向 Y Combinator，而且这似乎不是问题。
The advantage of being able to work together face to face for three months outweighs the inconvenience of moving.
能够面对面一起工作三个月的好处超过了搬家的不便。
Ask anyone who's done it.
问问做过的人。
The mobility of seed-stage startups means that seed funding is a
种子阶段初创公司的流动性意味着种子资金是一种
national business.
国家事业。
One of the most common emails we get is from people asking if we can help them set up a local clone of Y Combinator.
我们收到的最常见的电子邮件之一是人们询问我们是否可以帮助他们建立 Y Combinator 的本地克隆。
But this just wouldn't work.
但这是行不通的。
Seed funding isn't regional, just as big research universities aren't.
种子资金不是区域性的，就像大型研究型大学不是区域性的一样。
Is seed funding not merely national, but international?
种子资金不仅是国内的，而且是国际的？
Interesting question.
有趣的问题。
There are signs it may be.
有迹象表明可能是这样。
We've had an ongoing stream of founders from outside the US, and they tend to do
我们有源源不断的来自美国以外的创始人，他们往往会这样做
particularly well, because they're all people who were so determined to succeed that they were willing to move to another country to do it.
特别好，因为他们都是那些决心要成功的人，他们愿意搬到另一个国家去实现这一目标。
The more mobile startups get, the harder it would be to start new silicon valleys.
移动初创公司越多，创建新的硅谷就越困难。
If startups are mobile, the best local talent will go to the real Silicon Valley, and all they'll get at the local one will be the people who didn't have the energy to move.
如果初创公司是流动的，那么最优秀的本地人才将前往真正的硅谷，而他们在当地得到的将是那些没有精力流动的人。
This is not a nationalistic idea, incidentally.
顺便说一句，这不是一个民族主义的想法。
It's cities that
正是这些城市
compete, not countries.
竞争，而不是国家。
Atlanta is just as hosed as Munich.
亚特兰大和慕尼黑一样热闹。
7.
7.
Better Judgement Needed If the number of startups increases dramatically, then the people whose job is to judge them are going to have to get better at it.
需要更好的判断力如果初创公司的数量急剧增加，那么负责评判它们的人就必须提高判断力。
I'm thinking particularly of investors and acquirers.
我特别想到的是投资者和收购者。
We now get on the order of 1000 applications a year.
现在我们每年收到大约 1000 份申请。
What are we going to do if we get 10,000?
如果我们得到一万，我们要做什么？
That's actually an alarming idea.
这实际上是一个令人担忧的想法。
But we'll figure out some kind
但我们会想出某种办法
of answer.
的答案。
We'll have to.
我们必须这样做。
It will probably involve writing some software, but fortunately we can do that.
它可能会涉及编写一些软件，但幸运的是我们可以做到这一点。
Acquirers will also have to get better at picking winners.
收购者还必须更好地挑选赢家。
They generally do better than investors, because they pick later, when there's more performance to measure.
他们通常比投资者做得更好，因为他们会在有更多业绩需要衡量时才进行选择。
But even at the most advanced acquirers, identifying companies to buy is extremely ad hoc, and completing the acquisition often
但即使是最先进的收购方，确定要收购的公司也是非常临时的，并且经常完成收购
involves a great deal of unnecessary friction.
涉及大量不必要的摩擦。
I think acquirers may eventually have chief acquisition officers who will both identify good acquisitions and make the deals happen.
我认为收购方最终可能会拥有首席收购官，他们既能识别好的收购，又能促成交易。
At the moment those two functions are separate.
目前这两个功能是分开的。
Promising new startups are often discovered by developers.
有前途的新初创公司经常被开发人员发现。
If someone powerful enough wants to buy them, the deal is handed over to corp dev guys to negotiate.
如果有足够强大的人想要购买它们，交易就会交给公司开发人员进行谈判。
It would be better if both were combined in
如果两者结合起来就更好了
one group, headed by someone with a technical background and some vision of what they wanted to accomplish.
一个小组，由具有技术背景并对他们想要实现的目标有一定愿景的人领导。
Maybe in the future big companies will have both a VP of Engineering responsible for technology developed in-house, and a CAO responsible for bringing technology in from outside.
也许未来的大公司会同时有一名工程副总裁负责内部技术开发，也会有一名首席审计官负责从外部引入技术。
At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could
目前，大公司内部没有人会因为花 2 亿美元收购一家初创公司而陷入麻烦。
have bought earlier for $20 million.
早些时候以2000万美元的价格购买了。
There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for that.
应该有人会因此而陷入麻烦。
8.
8.
College Will Change If the best hackers start their own companies after college instead of getting jobs, that will change what happens in college.
大学将会改变如果最优秀的黑客在大学毕业后创办自己的公司而不是找工作，那将改变大学里发生的事情。
Most of these changes will be for the better.
大多数这些变化都会变得更好。
I think the experience of college is warped in a bad way by the expectation that afterward you'll be judged by potential employers.
我认为大学的经历被一种糟糕的方式扭曲了，因为你期望大学后你会受到潜在雇主的评判。
One change will be in the meaning of "after college," which will switch from when one graduates from college to when one leaves it.
其中一项变化在于“大学毕业后”的含义，即从大学毕业时转变为离开大学时。
If you're starting your own company, why do you need a degree?
如果您要创办自己的公司，为什么需要学位？
We don't encourage people to start startups during college, but the best founders are certainly capable of it.
我们不鼓励人们在大学期间创业，但最好的创始人肯定有能力做到这一点。
Some of the most successful companies we've funded were started by undergrads.
我们资助的一些最成功的公司都是由本科生创办的。
I grew up in a time where college degrees seemed really important,
在我成长的时代，大学学位似乎非常重要，
so I'm alarmed to be saying things like this, but there's nothing magical about a degree.
所以我很惊讶地说出这样的话，但学位并没有什么神奇之处。
There's nothing that magically changes after you take that last exam.
参加最后一次考试后，没有什么会神奇地改变。
The importance of degrees is due solely to the administrative needs of large organizations.
学位的重要性完全取决于大型组织的管理需求。
These can certainly affect your life — it's hard to get into grad school, or to get a work visa in the US, without an undergraduate degree — but tests like this will matter less and
这些肯定会影响你的生活——没有本科学位，很难进入研究生院，或者在美国获得工作签证——但像这样的测试就不那么重要了，
less.
更少。
As well as mattering less whether students get degrees, it will also start to matter less where they go to college.
除了学生是否获得学位不再那么重要之外，他们在哪里上大学也开始变得不那么重要。
In a startup you're judged by users, and they don't care where you went to college.
在初创公司中，你是由用户来评判的，他们并不关心你在哪里上的大学。
So in a world of startups, elite universities will play less of a role as gatekeepers.
因此，在初创企业的世界里，精英大学将不再扮演看门人的角色。
In the US it's a national scandal how easily children of rich parents game college admissions.
在美国，有钱父母的孩子轻易地在大学录取中耍花招，这是一个全国性的丑闻。
But the way this problem ultimately gets solved may not be by
但这个问题最终解决的方式可能不是通过
reforming the universities but by going around them.
改革大学，但要绕开大学。
We in the technology world are used to that sort of solution: you don't beat the incumbents; you redefine the problem to make them irrelevant.
我们身处技术世界，已经习惯了这种解决方案：你不能打败现任者；你只能打败现有者。你重新定义问题，使它们变得无关紧要。
The greatest value of universities is not the brand name or perhaps even the classes so much as the people you meet.
大学的最大价值不在于品牌名称，甚至不在于课程，而在于你遇到的人。
If it becomes common to start a startup after college, students may start trying to maximize this.
如果大学毕业后创业变得普遍，学生可能会开始尝试最大化这一点。
Instead of focusing on getting
而不是专注于获得
internships at companies they want to work for, they may start to focus on working with other students they want as cofounders.
在他们想要工作的公司实习时，他们可能会开始专注于与他们想要作为联合创始人的其他学生一起工作。
What students do in their classes will change too.
学生在课堂上所做的事情也会发生变化。
Instead of trying to get good grades to impress future employers, students will try to learn things.
学生不会试图取得好成绩来给未来的雇主留下深刻印象，而是会尝试学习东西。
We're talking about some pretty dramatic changes here.
我们在这里谈论一些相当戏剧性的变化。
9.
9.
Lots of Competitors If it gets easier to start a startup, it's easier for competitors too.
很多竞争对手 如果创业变得更容易，那么竞争对手也会更容易。
That doesn't erase the advantage of increased cheapness, however.
然而，这并没有消除价格上涨的优势。
You're not all playing a zero-sum game.
你们并不是都在玩零和游戏。
There's not some fixed number of startups that can succeed, regardless of how many are started.
无论有多少家初创公司能够成功，都不存在固定数量的初创公司。
In fact, I don't think there's any limit to the number of startups that could succeed.
事实上，我认为能够成功的初创公司数量没有任何限制。
Startups succeed by creating wealth, which is the satisfaction of people's desires.
初创企业通过创造财富而成功，财富就是人们欲望的满足。
And people's desires seem to be effectively infinite, at least in the short term.
人们的欲望似乎实际上是无限的，至少在短期内是这样。
What the increasing number of startups does mean is that you won't be able to sit on a good idea.
初创公司数量的增加确实意味着你将无法坐拥一个好主意。
Other people have your idea, and they'll be increasingly likely to do something about it.
其他人有你的想法，他们将越来越有可能采取行动。
10.
10.
Faster Advances There's a good side to that, at least for consumers of technology.
更快的进步 至少对于技术消费者来说，这有好的一面。
If people get right to work implementing ideas instead of sitting on them, technology will evolve faster.
如果人们能够立即实施想法而不是坐视它们，技术就会发展得更快。
Some kinds of innovations happen a company at a time, like the
有些创新是一家公司一次发生的，比如
punctuated equilibrium model of evolution.
间断平衡进化模型。
There are some kinds of ideas that are so threatening that it's hard for big companies even to think of them.
有些想法极具威胁性，大公司甚至很难想到它们。
Look at what a hard time Microsoft is having discovering web apps.
看看微软在发现网络应用程序时遇到的困难吧。
They're like a character in a movie that everyone in the audience can see something bad is about to happen to, but who can't see it himself.
他们就像电影中的一个角色，观众中的每个人都可以看到不好的事情即将发生，但谁自己却看不到。
The big innovations that happen a company at a time will obviously happen faster if
一家公司一次发生的重大创新显然会发生得更快，如果
the rate of new companies increases.
新公司成立率增加。
But in fact there will be a double speed increase.
但实际上会有双倍的速度提升。
People won't wait as long to act on new ideas, but also those ideas will increasingly be developed within startups rather than big companies.
人们不会等太久才采取新想法，但这些想法将越来越多地在初创公司而不是大公司内开发。
Which means technology will evolve faster per company as well.
这意味着每个公司的技术也将发展得更快。
Big companies are just not a good place to make things happen fast.
大公司并不是让事情快速发生的好地方。
I talked recently to a founder whose startup had been acquired by
我最近和一位创始人交谈过，他的初创公司被收购了
a big company.
一家大公司。
He was a precise sort of guy, so he'd measured their productivity before and after.
他是一个严谨的人，所以他在前后衡量了他们的生产力。
He counted lines of code, which can be a dubious measure, but in this case was meaningful because it was the same group of programmers.
他计算了代码行数，这可能是一个可疑的衡量标准，但在本例中是有意义的，因为它是同一组程序员。
He found they were one thirteenth as productive after the acquisition.
他发现收购后他们的生产力降低了十分之一。
The company that bought them was not a particularly stupid one.
购买它们的公司并不是一家特别愚蠢的公司。
I think what he was measuring was mostly the cost of bigness.
我认为他衡量的主要是规模扩大的成本。
I
我
experienced this myself, and his number sounds about right.
我自己也经历过这一点，他的数字听起来不错。
There's something about big companies that just sucks the energy out of you.
大公司有些东西只会耗尽你的精力。
Imagine what all that energy could do if it were put to use.
想象一下，如果这些能量得到利用，会产生什么样的效果。
There is an enormous latent capacity in the world's hackers that most people don't even realize is there.
世界上的黑客拥有巨大的潜在能力，但大多数人甚至没有意识到这一点。
That's the main reason we do Y Combinator: to let loose all this energy by making it easy for hackers to start their own startups.
这就是我们做 Y Combinator 的主要原因：通过让黑客轻松创办自己的初创公司来释放所有这些能量。
A Series of Tubes The process of starting startups is currently like the plumbing in an old house.
一系列管道目前，创办初创企业的过程就像老房子里的管道一样。
The pipes are narrow and twisty, and there are leaks in every joint.
管道又窄又弯，每个接头处都有漏水的地方。
In the future this mess will gradually be replaced by a single, huge pipe.
将来，这个混乱的地方将逐渐被一根巨大的管道所取代。
The water will still have to get from A to B, but it will get there faster and without the risk of spraying out through some random leak.
水仍然必须从 A 流到 B，但它会更快地到达那里，而且不会有因随机泄漏而喷出的风险。
This will change a lot of things for the better.
这将使很多事情变得更好。
In a big, straight
在一个又大又直的地方
pipe like that, the force of being measured by one's performance will propagate back through the whole system.
像这样的管道，通过一个人的表现来衡量的力量将通过整个系统传播回来。
Performance is always the ultimate test, but there are so many kinks in the plumbing now that most people are insulated from it most of the time.
性能始终是最终的考验，但现在管道中存在太多的问题，以至于大多数人在大多数时候都与它绝缘。
So you end up with a world in which high school students think they need to get good grades to get into elite colleges, and college students think they need to get good grades to impress employers, within
因此，你最终会面临这样一个世界：高中生认为他们需要取得好成绩才能进入精英大学，而大学生则认为他们需要取得好成绩才能给雇主留下好印象。
which the employees waste most of their time in political battles, and from which consumers have to buy anyway because there are so few choices.
员工将大部分时间浪费在政治斗争上，而消费者无论如何都必须购买，因为选择太少了。
Imagine if that sequence became a big, straight pipe.
想象一下，如果这个序列变成一个大的直管。
Then the effects of being measured by performance would propagate all the way back to high school, flushing out all the arbitrary stuff people are measured by now.
然后，通过表现来衡量的影响将一直传播到高中，清除人们现在所衡量的所有随意的东西。
That is the future of web startups.
这就是网络初创公司的未来。
Thanks to Brian Oberkirch and Simon Willison for inviting me to
感谢 Brian Oberkirch 和 Simon Willison 邀请我参加
speak, and the crew at Carson Systems for making everything run smoothly.
请发言，还有卡森系统公司的工作人员让一切顺利进行。