What the Bubble Got Right
September 2004 (This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004.) I had a front row seat for the Internet Bubble, because I worked at Yahoo during 1998 and 1999.
2004 年 9 月（本文摘自 ICFP 2004 的受邀演讲。）我在互联网泡沫中占据了前排位置，因为我在 1998 年和 1999 年期间在雅虎工作。
One day, when the stock was trading around $200, I sat down and calculated what I thought the price should be.
有一天，当股票交易价格在 200 美元左右时，我坐下来计算了我认为应该的价格。
The answer I got was $12.
我得到的答案是12美元。
I went to the next cubicle and told my friend Trevor.
我走到隔壁的隔间告诉了我的朋友特雷弗。
"Twelve!" he said.
“十二！”他说。
He tried to sound indignant, but he didn't quite manage it.
他试图让自己听起来很愤怒，但没能做到。
He
他
knew as well as I did that our valuation was crazy.
我和我一样清楚，我们的估值太疯狂了。
Yahoo was a special case.
雅虎是一个特例。
It was not just our price to earnings ratio that was bogus.
不仅仅是我们的市盈率是假的。
Half our earnings were too.
我们一半的收入也是如此。
Not in the Enron way, of course.
当然，不是以安然公司的方式。
The finance guys seemed scrupulous about reporting earnings.
财务人员似乎对报告收益非常谨慎。
What made our earnings bogus was that Yahoo was, in effect, the center of a Ponzi scheme.
我们的收益之所以被造假，是因为雅虎实际上是庞氏骗局的中心。
Investors looked at Yahoo's earnings and said to themselves, here is proof that Internet companies can make
投资者看着雅虎的财报，对自己说，这证明了互联网公司可以创造利润。
money.
钱。
So they invested in new startups that promised to be the next Yahoo.
因此，他们投资了有望成为下一个雅虎的新初创公司。
And as soon as these startups got the money, what did they do with it?
这些初创公司拿到钱后，他们用它做了什么？
Buy millions of dollars worth of advertising on Yahoo to promote their brand.
在雅虎上购买价值数百万美元的广告来宣传他们的品牌。
Result: a capital investment in a startup this quarter shows up as Yahoo earnings next quarter—stimulating another round of investments in startups.
结果：本季度对初创公司的资本投资将体现在雅虎下季度的盈利中——刺激了对初创公司的另一轮投资。
As in a Ponzi scheme, what seemed to be the returns of this system
就像庞氏骗局一样，这个系统的回报似乎是
were simply the latest round of investments in it.
只是最新一轮的投资。
What made it not a Ponzi scheme was that it was unintentional.
之所以不是庞氏骗局，是因为它是无意的。
At least, I think it was.
至少，我认为是的。
The venture capital business is pretty incestuous, and there were presumably people in a position, if not to create this situation, to realize what was happening and to milk it.
风险投资行业是相当乱伦的，而且想必有人能够（即使不是造成这种情况）意识到正在发生的事情并从中获利。
A year later the game was up.
一年后，比赛结束了。
Starting in January 2000, Yahoo's stock price began to crash, ultimately losing 95% of its
从2000年1月开始，雅虎股价开始暴跌，最终损失了95%的股份。
value.
值。
Notice, though, that even with all the fat trimmed off its market cap, Yahoo was still worth a lot.
但请注意，即使雅虎的市值被削减，雅虎的价值仍然很高。
Even at the morning-after valuations of March and April 2001, the people at Yahoo had managed to create a company worth about $8 billion in just six years.
即使按照 2001 年 3 月和 4 月的估值，雅虎的员工在短短六年内就成功创建了一家价值约 80 亿美元的公司。
The fact is, despite all the nonsense we heard during the Bubble about the "new economy," there was a core of truth.
事实是，尽管我们在泡沫时期听到了很多关于“新经济”的胡言乱语，但其中有一个核心事实。
You need that to get a really big bubble: you need to have something
你需要它才能产生一个真正大的泡沫：你需要有一些东西
solid at the center, so that even smart people are sucked in.
中心坚固，即使是聪明人也会被吸引进去。
(Isaac Newton and Jonathan Swift both lost money in the South Sea Bubble of 1720.) Now the pendulum has swung the other way.
（艾萨克·牛顿（Isaac Newton）和乔纳森·斯威夫特（Jonathan Swift）都在 1720 年的南海泡沫中赔了钱。）现在钟摆已经朝另一个方向摆动了。
Now anything that became fashionable during the Bubble is ipso facto unfashionable.
现在，任何在泡沫时期变得流行的东西事实上都不再流行了。
But that's a mistake—an even bigger mistake than believing what everyone was saying in 1999.
但这是一个错误，这个错误比相信 1999 年所有人所说的话还要大。
Over the long term, what the Bubble got right will be more important than what
从长远来看，泡沫的正确做法将比泡沫的正确做法更重要
it got wrong.
它出错了。
1.
1.
Retail VC After the excesses of the Bubble, it's now considered dubious to take companies public before they have earnings.
零售风险投资 在经历了过度的泡沫之后，现在人们认为在公司盈利之前将其上市是值得怀疑的。
But there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that idea.
但这个想法本质上并没有什么问题。
Taking a company public at an early stage is simply retail VC: instead of going to venture capital firms for the last round of funding, you go to the public markets.
在早期阶段让公司上市只是零售风险投资：你不用去风险投资公司进行最后一轮融资，而是去公开市场。
By the end of the Bubble, companies going public with no
到泡沫结束时，公司上市时没有
earnings were being derided as "concept stocks," as if it were inherently stupid to invest in them.
收益被嘲笑为“概念股”，好像投资它们本质上是愚蠢的。
But investing in concepts isn't stupid; it's what VCs do, and the best of them are far from stupid.
但投资于概念并不愚蠢；投资于概念并不愚蠢。这就是风险投资家所做的事情，而且其中最好的风险投资家绝不是愚蠢的。
The stock of a company that doesn't yet have earnings is worth something.
尚未盈利的公司的股票是有价值的。
It may take a while for the market to learn how to value such companies, just as it had to learn to value common stocks in the early 20th century.
市场可能需要一段时间才能学会如何对这些公司进行估值，就像 20 世纪初必须学会对普通股进行估值一样。
But markets
但市场
are good at solving that kind of problem.
擅长解决此类问题。
I wouldn't be surprised if the market ultimately did a better job than VCs do now.
如果市场最终比风险投资现在做得更好，我不会感到惊讶。
Going public early will not be the right plan for every company.
提早上市并不是对每家公司来说都是正确的计划。
And it can of course be disruptive—by distracting the management, or by making the early employees suddenly rich.
当然，它也可能具有破坏性——分散管理层的注意力，或者让早期员工突然变得富有。
But just as the market will learn how to value startups, startups will learn how to minimize the damage of going public.
但正如市场将学习如何评估初创企业一样，初创企业也将学习如何最大程度地减少上市的损害。
2.
2.
The Internet The Internet genuinely is a big deal.
互联网 互联网确实是一件大事。
That was one reason even smart people were fooled by the Bubble.
这就是即使是聪明人也会被泡沫愚弄的原因之一。
Obviously it was going to have a huge effect.
显然，这将会产生巨大的影响。
Enough of an effect to triple the value of Nasdaq companies in two years?
其影响足以让纳斯达克公司的价值在两年内增加两倍吗？
No, as it turned out.
不，事实证明。
But it was hard to say for certain at the time.
但当时很难确定。
[1] The same thing happened during the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles.
[1] 同样的事情也发生在密西西比河和南海泡沫时期。
What drove them was the invention of organized public finance
推动他们的是有组织的公共财政的发明
(the South Sea Company, despite its name, was really a competitor of the Bank of England).
（南海公司尽管名为南海公司，但实际上是英格兰银行的竞争对手）。
And that did turn out to be a big deal, in the long run.
从长远来看，这确实是一件大事。
Recognizing an important trend turns out to be easier than figuring out how to profit from it.
事实证明，认识到一个重要趋势比弄清楚如何从中获利更容易。
The mistake investors always seem to make is to take the trend too literally.
投资者似乎总是犯的错误是过于从字面上理解趋势。
Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more Internettish the company, the better.
由于互联网是一个重大的新事物，投资者认为公司越互联网化越好。
Hence
因此
such parodies as Pets.Com.
诸如 Pets.Com 之类的模仿作品。
In fact most of the money to be made from big trends is made indirectly.
事实上，从大趋势中赚到的大部分钱都是间接赚到的。
It was not the railroads themselves that made the most money during the railroad boom, but the companies on either side, like Carnegie's steelworks, which made the rails, and Standard Oil, which used railroads to get oil to the East Coast, where it could be shipped to Europe.
在铁路繁荣时期赚最多钱的不是铁路本身，而是两边的公司，比如制造铁路的卡内基钢铁厂和利用铁路将石油运往东海岸并运往欧洲的标准石油公司。
I think the Internet will have great effects,
我认为互联网将会产生巨大的影响，
and that what we've seen so far is nothing compared to what's coming.
与即将发生的事情相比，我们迄今为止所看到的一切都算不了什么。
But most of the winners will only indirectly be Internet companies; for every Google there will be ten JetBlues.
但大多数赢家只是间接的互联网公司；每有一个谷歌就有十个捷蓝航空。
3.
3.
Choices Why will the Internet have great effects?
选择 为什么互联网会产生巨大的影响？
The general argument is that new forms of communication always do.
普遍的观点是，新的沟通形式总是如此。
They happen rarely (till industrial times there were just speech, writing, and printing), but when they do, they always cause a big splash.
它们很少发生（直到工业时代只有语音、书写和印刷），但一旦发生，总是会引起巨大的轰动。
The specific argument, or one of them, is the Internet gives us more choices.
具体的论点，或者说其中之一，是互联网给了我们更多的选择。
In the "old" economy, the high cost of presenting information to people meant they had only a narrow range of options to choose from.
在“旧”经济中，向人们提供信息的高昂成本意味着他们只有很少的选择范围。
The tiny, expensive pipeline to consumers was tellingly named "the channel." Control the channel and you could feed them what you wanted, on your terms.
这条通往消费者的微小而昂贵的管道被形象地命名为“渠道”。控制频道，你就可以按照你的条件向他们提供你想要的东西。
And it was not just big corporations that depended
依赖的不仅仅是大公司
on this principle.
在此原则上。
So, in their way, did labor unions, the traditional news media, and the art and literary establishments.
工会、传统新闻媒体以及艺术和文学机构也以他们的方式做到了这一点。
Winning depended not on doing good work, but on gaining control of some bottleneck.
胜利不在于做得好，而在于控制一些瓶颈。
There are signs that this is changing.
有迹象表明这种情况正在改变。
Google has over 82 million unique users a month and annual revenues of about three billion dollars.
Google 每月拥有超过 8200 万独立用户，年收入约为 30 亿美元。
[2] And yet have you ever seen a Google ad?
[2] 但你见过谷歌广告吗？
Something is going on here.
这里正在发生一些事情。
Admittedly, Google is an extreme case.
诚然，谷歌是一个极端的例子。
It's very easy for people to switch to a new search engine.
人们很容易切换到新的搜索引擎。
It costs little effort and no money to try a new one, and it's easy to see if the results are better.
尝试新的方法只需花费很少的精力和金钱，而且很容易看到结果是否更好。
And so Google doesn't have to advertise.
因此谷歌不必做广告。
In a business like theirs, being the best is enough.
在他们这样的行业，成为最好的就足够了。
The exciting thing about the Internet is that it's shifting everything in that direction.
互联网的令人兴奋之处在于它正在朝这个方向改变一切。
The hard part, if you want to win by making the best stuff,
困难的部分是，如果你想通过制作最好的东西来获胜，
is the beginning.
是开始。
Eventually everyone will learn by word of mouth that you're the best, but how do you survive to that point?
最终每个人都会通过口口相传知道你是最棒的，但你如何生存到这一点呢？
And it is in this crucial stage that the Internet has the most effect.
而正是在这个关键阶段，互联网的作用最为显着。
First, the Internet lets anyone find you at almost zero cost.
首先，互联网让任何人都能以几乎零成本找到你。
Second, it dramatically speeds up the rate at which reputation spreads by word of mouth.
其次，它极大地加快了声誉通过口碑传播的速度。
Together these mean that in many fields the rule will be: Build it, and they will come.
这些共同意味着，在许多领域，规则将是：构建它，他们就会来。
Make something great and put it online.
创造一些伟大的东西并将其放在网上。
That is a big change from the recipe for winning in the past century.
与上个世纪的获胜秘诀相比，这是一个巨大的变化。
4.
4.
Youth The aspect of the Internet Bubble that the press seemed most taken with was the youth of some of the startup founders.
年轻化 媒体最关注的互联网泡沫方面是一些初创公司创始人的年轻化。
This too is a trend that will last.
这也是一个将会持续的趋势。
There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds.
26岁的人之间存在巨大的标准偏差。
Some are fit only for entry level jobs, but others are ready to rule the world if they can find someone to handle
有些人只适合入门级工作，但其他人如果能找到人来处理，就准备统治世界
the paperwork for them.
他们的文书工作。
A 26 year old may not be very good at managing people or dealing with the SEC.
26 岁的人可能不太擅长管理人员或与 SEC 打交道。
Those require experience.
这些都需要经验。
But those are also commodities, which can be handed off to some lieutenant.
但这些也是商品，可以交给某些中尉。
The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future.
CEO最重要的品质是他对公司未来的愿景。
What will they build next?
他们接下来会建造什么？
And in that department, there are 26 year olds who can compete with anyone.
在那个部门里，有26岁的人可以与任何人竞争。
In 1970 a company president meant someone in his fifties, at
1970 年，公司总裁是指五十多岁的人，
least.
至少。
If he had technologists working for him, they were treated like a racing stable: prized, but not powerful.
如果他有技术人员为他工作，他们就会被视为赛马场：很珍贵，但并不强大。
But as technology has grown more important, the power of nerds has grown to reflect it.
但随着技术变得越来越重要，书呆子的力量也越来越大，以反映它。
Now it's not enough for a CEO to have someone smart he can ask about technical matters.
现在，对于首席执行官来说，拥有一个可以询问技术问题的聪明人是不够的。
Increasingly, he has to be that person himself.
他越来越必须自己成为那个人。
As always, business has clung to old forms.
与往常一样，商业仍然坚持旧的形式。
VCs still seem to want to install a legitimate-looking
风险投资家似乎仍然想安装一个看起来合法的
talking head as the CEO.
作为首席执行官说话。
But increasingly the founders of the company are the real powers, and the grey-headed man installed by the VCs more like a music group's manager than a general.
但公司的创始人越来越成为真正的权力者，而风险投资公司任命的白发男子更像是音乐团体的经理，而不是将军。
5.
5.
Informality In New York, the Bubble had dramatic consequences: suits went out of fashion.
不拘一格 在纽约，泡沫产生了戏剧性的后果：西装不再流行。
They made one seem old.
他们让一个人看起来很老。
So in 1998 powerful New York types were suddenly wearing open-necked shirts and khakis and oval wire-rimmed glasses,
因此，在 1998 年，纽约强势人士突然开始穿着开领衬衫、卡其裤和椭圆形金属丝框眼镜，
just like guys in Santa Clara.
就像圣克拉拉的人一样。
The pendulum has swung back a bit, driven in part by a panicked reaction by the clothing industry.
钟摆已经向后摆动了一点，部分原因是服装行业的恐慌反应。
But I'm betting on the open-necked shirts.
但我赌的是开领衬衫。
And this is not as frivolous a question as it might seem.
这并不是一个看起来那么无聊的问题。
Clothes are important, as all nerds can sense, though they may not realize it consciously.
衣服很重要，这是所有书呆子都能感觉到的，尽管他们可能没有意识到这一点。
If you're a nerd, you can understand how important clothes are by asking yourself how you'd feel about a company
如果你是一个书呆子，你可以通过问问自己对一家公司的看法来了解衣服的重要性
that made you wear a suit and tie to work.
这让你穿西装打领带去上班。
The idea sounds horrible, doesn't it?
这个想法听起来很可怕，不是吗？
In fact, horrible far out of proportion to the mere discomfort of wearing such clothes.
事实上，可怕的程度远远与穿着这样的衣服带来的不适不成比例。
A company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it.
一家让程序员穿西装的公司肯定有很大的问题。
And what would be wrong would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the quality of one's ideas.
错误的是，一个人如何表现自己比一个人的想法的质量更重要。
That's the problem with formality.
这就是形式上的问题。
Dressing up is not so much bad in
穿衣打扮并没有那么糟糕
itself.
本身。
The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas.
问题在于它所结合的受体：着装不可避免地会取代好主意。
It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as "suits." Nerds don't just happen to dress informally.
技术上无能的业务类型被称为“西装”，这并非巧合。书呆子不仅仅是穿着随意。
They do it too consistently.
他们这样做太一贯了。
Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
不管有意识还是无意识，他们穿着非正式的衣服作为防止愚蠢的预防措施。
6.
6.
Nerds Clothing is only the most visible battleground in the war
书呆子服装只是战争中最明显的战场
against formality.
反对形式主义。
Nerds tend to eschew formality of any sort.
书呆子倾向于避开任何形式的形式。
They're not impressed by one's job title, for example, or any of the other appurtenances of authority.
例如，他们对一个人的职称或任何其他权威附属物并不感兴趣。
Indeed, that's practically the definition of a nerd.
事实上，这实际上就是书呆子的定义。
I found myself talking recently to someone from Hollywood who was planning a show about nerds.
我最近发现自己正在和一位来自好莱坞的人交谈，他正在计划一部关于书呆子的节目。
I thought it would be useful if I explained what a nerd was.
我认为如果我解释一下书呆子是什么，将会很有用。
What I came up with was: someone who
我想到的是：有人
doesn't expend any effort on marketing himself.
没有花费任何精力来营销自己。
A nerd, in other words, is someone who concentrates on substance.
换句话说，书呆子是专注于实质内容的人。
So what's the connection between nerds and technology?
那么书呆子和技术之间有什么联系呢？
Roughly that you can't fool mother nature.
粗略地说，你无法欺骗大自然。
In technical matters, you have to get the right answers.
在技术问题上，你必须得到正确的答案。
If your software miscalculates the path of a space probe, you can't finesse your way out of trouble by saying that your code is patriotic, or avant-garde,
如果你的软件错误地计算了太空探测器的路径，你就无法通过说你的代码是爱国的或前卫的来摆脱麻烦，
or any of the other dodges people use in nontechnical fields.
或人们在非技术领域使用的任何其他方法。
And as technology becomes increasingly important in the economy, nerd culture is rising with it.
随着技术在经济中变得越来越重要，书呆子文化也随之兴起。
Nerds are already a lot cooler than they were when I was a kid.
书呆子已经比我小时候酷多了。
When I was in college in the mid-1980s, "nerd" was still an insult.
20 世纪 80 年代中期，当我上大学时，“书呆子”仍然是一种侮辱。
People who majored in computer science generally tried to conceal it.
计算机科学专业的人一般都会试图隐瞒这一点。
Now women ask me where they can meet nerds.
现在，女人们问我在哪里可以认识书呆子。
(The answer that
（答案是
springs to mind is "Usenix," but that would be like drinking from a firehose.) I have no illusions about why nerd culture is becoming more accepted.
我想到的是“Usenix”，但这就像从消防水带里喝水一样。）我对为什么书呆子文化变得越来越被接受不抱任何幻想。
It's not because people are realizing that substance is more important than marketing.
这并不是因为人们意识到实质内容比营销更重要。
It's because the nerds are getting rich.
这是因为书呆子们变得富有了。
But that is not going to change.
但这不会改变。
7.
7.
Options What makes the nerds rich, usually, is stock options.
期权 通常，让书呆子致富的就是股票期权。
Now there are moves afoot to make it harder for companies to grant
现在正在采取一些措施，使公司更难授予
options.
选项。
To the extent there's some genuine accounting abuse going on, by all means correct it.
如果存在一些真正的会计滥用行为，请务必纠正它。
But don't kill the golden goose.
但不要杀死金鹅。
Equity is the fuel that drives technical innovation.
股权是推动技术创新的燃料。
Options are a good idea because (a) they're fair, and (b) they work.
期权是一个好主意，因为（a）它们是公平的，并且（b）它们有效。
Someone who goes to work for a company is (one hopes) adding to its value, and it's only fair to give them a share of it.
为公司工作的人（人们希望）会增加公司的价值，而让他们分享其中的一部分是公平的。
And as a purely practical measure, people work a lot
作为纯粹的实际衡量标准，人们工作很多
harder when they have options.
当他们有选择的时候就更难了。
I've seen that first hand.
我亲眼所见。
The fact that a few crooks during the Bubble robbed their companies by granting themselves options doesn't mean options are a bad idea.
泡沫时期的一些骗子通过授予自己期权来抢劫他们的公司，这一事实并不意味着期权是一个坏主意。
During the railroad boom, some executives enriched themselves by selling watered stock—by issuing more shares than they said were outstanding.
在铁路繁荣时期，一些高管通过出售掺水股票——发行比他们所说的已发行股票更多的股票——来致富。
But that doesn't make common stock a bad idea.
但这并不意味着普通股是一个坏主意。
Crooks just use whatever
骗子就随便用什么
means are available.
手段是可用的。
If there is a problem with options, it's that they reward slightly the wrong thing.
如果说选项有问题的话，那就是它们奖励的东西稍有错误。
Not surprisingly, people do what you pay them to.
毫不奇怪，人们会做你付给他们的钱。
If you pay them by the hour, they'll work a lot of hours.
如果你按小时付钱给他们，他们会工作很长时间。
If you pay them by the volume of work done, they'll get a lot of work done (but only as you defined work).
如果你按照完成的工作量付钱给他们，他们会完成很多工作（但仅限于你定义的工作）。
And if you pay them to raise the stock price, which is what options amount to, they'll raise
如果你付钱给他们来提高股价（这就是期权），他们就会提高股价
the stock price.
股票价格。
But that's not quite what you want.
但这并不完全是您想要的。
What you want is to increase the actual value of the company, not its market cap.
你想要的是增加公司的实际价值，而不是市值。
Over time the two inevitably meet, but not always as quickly as options vest.
随着时间的推移，两者不可避免地会相遇，但并不总是像期权归属那么快。
Which means options tempt employees, if only unconsciously, to "pump and dump"—to do things that will make the company seem valuable.
这意味着期权会诱使员工（即使只是无意识地）“拉高和抛售”——做一些能让公司看起来有价值的事情。
I found that when I was at Yahoo, I couldn't help thinking,
我发现当我在雅虎时，我不禁思考，
"how will this sound to investors?" when I should have been thinking "is this a good idea?" So maybe the standard option deal needs to be tweaked slightly.
“这对投资者来说听起来如何？”当我应该思考“这是一个好主意吗？”因此，也许标准期权交易需要稍微调整。
Maybe options should be replaced with something tied more directly to earnings.
也许期权应该被更直接与收益挂钩的东西所取代。
It's still early days.
现在还为时尚早。
8.
8.
Startups What made the options valuable, for the most part, is that they were options on the stock of startups .
初创公司 期权之所以有价值，很大程度上是因为它们是初创公司股票的期权。
Startups were not of course a creation of the Bubble, but they
初创企业当然不是泡沫的产物，但它们
were more visible during the Bubble than ever before.
在泡沫时期，这种现象比以往任何时候都更加明显。
One thing most people did learn about for the first time during the Bubble was the startup created with the intention of selling it.
大多数人在泡沫期间第一次了解到的一件事是，为了出售而创建的初创公司。
Originally a startup meant a small company that hoped to grow into a big one.
初创公司最初是指一家希望成长为大公司的小公司。
But increasingly startups are evolving into a vehicle for developing technology on spec.
但越来越多的初创公司正在发展成为按规范开发技术的工具。
As I wrote in Hackers & Painters , employees seem to be most
正如我在《黑客与画家》中所写，员工似乎是最重要的
productive when they're paid in proportion to the wealth they generate.
当他们的报酬与他们创造的财富成比例时，他们就会富有成效。
And the advantage of a startup—indeed, almost its raison d'etre—is that it offers something otherwise impossible to obtain: a way of measuring that.
初创公司的优势——事实上，这几乎是其存在的理由——是它提供了一些其他方式无法获得的东西：一种衡量它的方法。
In many businesses, it just makes more sense for companies to get technology by buying startups rather than developing it in house.
在许多企业中，公司通过收购初创公司来获取技术比自行开发技术更有意义。
You pay more, but there is less risk, and risk is what big companies don't want.
你付出的更多，但风险却更少，而风险正是大公司所不希望的。
It makes the
它使得
guys developing the technology more accountable, because they only get paid if they build the winner.
开发技术的人更加负责任，因为只有创造出胜利者，他们才能获得报酬。
And you end up with better technology, created faster, because things are made in the innovative atmosphere of startups instead of the bureaucratic atmosphere of big companies.
最终你会获得更好的技术、更快的创造速度，因为事物是在初创公司的创新氛围中而不是在大公司的官僚氛围中制造的。
Our startup, Viaweb, was built to be sold.
我们的初创公司 Viaweb 是为了出售而建立的。
We were open with investors about that from the start.
我们从一开始就对投资者持开放态度。
And we were careful to create something that could slot easily into a
我们小心翼翼地创造了一些可以轻松插入的东西
larger company.
更大的公司。
That is the pattern for the future.
这就是未来的模式。
9.
9.
California The Bubble was a California phenomenon.
加州 泡沫是加州的一种现象。
When I showed up in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900.
当我 1998 年出现在硅谷时，我感觉自己就像一个 1900 年从东欧来到美国的移民。
Everyone was so cheerful and healthy and rich.
每个人都是那么开朗、健康、富有。
It seemed a new and improved world.
这似乎是一个新的、改进的世界。
The press, ever eager to exaggerate small trends, now gives one the impression that Silicon Valley is a ghost town.
媒体一向热衷于夸大小趋势，现在却给人一种硅谷是一座鬼城的印象。
Not at all.
一点也不。
When I drive down 101 from the airport, I still feel a buzz of energy, as if there were a giant transformer nearby.
当我从机场开车下101时，我仍然感受到一股能量的嗡嗡声，就好像附近有一个巨大的变压器。
Real estate is still more expensive than just about anywhere else in the country.
房地产仍然比该国其他任何地方都贵。
The people still look healthy, and the weather is still fabulous.
人们看起来仍然很健康，天气仍然很好。
The future is there.
未来就在那里。
(I say "there" because I moved back to the East Coast after Yahoo.
（我说“那里”是因为我在雅虎之后搬回东海岸。
I still wonder if this was a smart idea.)
我仍然想知道这是否是一个聪明的主意。）
What makes the Bay Area superior is the attitude of the people.
湾区的优越之处在于人们的态度。
I notice that when I come home to Boston.
当我回到波士顿的家时，我注意到了这一点。
The first thing I see when I walk out of the airline terminal is the fat, grumpy guy in charge of the taxi line.
当我走出航站楼时，我首先看到的是负责出租车线路的胖子、脾气暴躁的家伙。
I brace myself for rudeness: remember, you're back on the East Coast now.
我做好了应对无礼行为的准备：记住，你现在回到了东海岸。
The atmosphere varies from city to city, and fragile organisms like startups are exceedingly sensitive to such variation.
各个城市的氛围各不相同，像初创企业这样的脆弱组织对这种变化极其敏感。
If it hadn't already been hijacked as a new euphemism for liberal, the word to describe the atmosphere in the Bay Area would be "progressive." People there are trying to build the future.
如果它不是已经被劫持为自由主义的新委婉说法，形容湾区氛围的词将是“进步”。那里的人们正在努力建设未来。
Boston has MIT and Harvard, but it also has a lot of truculent, unionized employees like the police who recently held the Democratic National Convention for ransom , and a lot of people trying to be Thurston Howell.
波士顿有麻省理工学院和哈佛大学，但它也有很多好斗的工会雇员，比如最近举行民主党全国代表大会以勒索赎金的警察，还有很多试图成为瑟斯顿·豪厄尔的人。
Two sides of an obsolete coin.
废弃硬币的两面。
Silicon Valley may not be the next Paris or London, but it is at least the next Chicago.
硅谷可能不是下一个巴黎或伦敦，但它至少是下一个芝加哥。
For the next fifty years, that's where new wealth will come from.
在接下来的五十年里，新的财富将来自于此。
10.
10.
Productivity During the Bubble, optimistic analysts used to justify high price to earnings ratios by saying that technology was going to increase productivity dramatically.
生产力 在泡沫时期，乐观的分析师常常通过说技术将大幅提高生产力来证明高市盈率是合理的。
They were wrong about the specific companies, but not so wrong about the underlying
他们对具体公司的看法是错误的，但对底层公司的看法却没有那么错误。
principle.
原则。
I think one of the big trends we'll see in the coming century is a huge increase in productivity.
我认为我们在下个世纪将看到的大趋势之一是生产力的大幅提高。
Or more precisely, a huge increase in variation in productivity.
或者更准确地说，生产力变化的巨大增加。
Technology is a lever.
技术是杠杆。
It doesn't add; it multiplies.
它不添加；它会倍增。
If the present range of productivity is 0 to 100, introducing a multiple of 10 increases the range from 0 to 1000.
如果当前的生产率范围是 0 到 100，则引入 10 的倍数会将范围从 0 增加到 1000。
One upshot of which is that the companies of the future may
其中的一个结果是，未来的公司可能
be surprisingly small.
小得惊人。
I sometimes daydream about how big you could grow a company (in revenues) without ever having more than ten people.
我有时会幻想，在员工人数不超过十人的情况下，你可以将一家公司（收入）发展到多大。
What would happen if you outsourced everything except product development?
如果您将除产品开发之外的所有事情都外包出去，会发生什么？
If you tried this experiment, I think you'd be surprised at how far you could get.
如果你尝试过这个实验，我想你会对自己能取得多大的进展感到惊讶。
As Fred Brooks pointed out, small groups are intrinsically more productive, because the internal friction in a group grows as the
正如弗雷德·布鲁克斯（Fred Brooks）指出的那样，小团体本质上更具生产力，因为团体中的内部摩擦随着成员的增加而增加。
square of its size.
其大小的平方。
Till quite recently, running a major company meant managing an army of workers.
直到最近，经营一家大公司就意味着管理一支工人队伍。
Our standards about how many employees a company should have are still influenced by old patterns.
我们关于公司应该拥有多少员工的标准仍然受到旧模式的影响。
Startups are perforce small, because they can't afford to hire a lot of people.
初创公司规模必然很小，因为它们无力雇用大量人员。
But I think it's a big mistake for companies to loosen their belts as revenues increase.
但我认为，随着收入的增加，公司放松腰带是一个很大的错误。
The question is not whether you can afford the extra salaries.
问题不在于你能否负担得起额外的工资。
Can you afford the loss in productivity that comes from making the company bigger?
您能承受因公司规模扩大而导致的生产力损失吗？
The prospect of technological leverage will of course raise the specter of unemployment.
技术杠杆的前景当然会引发失业的担忧。
I'm surprised people still worry about this.
我很惊讶人们仍然担心这个。
After centuries of supposedly job-killing innovations, the number of jobs is within ten percent of the number of people who want them.
经过几个世纪被认为会扼杀就业机会的创新之后，工作岗位的数量与需要它们的人数的百分之十以内。
This can't be a coincidence.
这不可能是巧合。
There must be some kind of balancing mechanism.
必须有某种平衡机制。
What's New When one looks over these trends, is there any overall theme?
新变化 当人们审视这些趋势时，有什么总体主题吗？
There does seem to be: that in the coming century, good ideas will count for more.
似乎确实有这样的情况：在下个世纪，好的想法将更加重要。
That 26 year olds with good ideas will increasingly have an edge over 50 year olds with powerful connections.
拥有好想法的 26 岁年轻人将比拥有强大关系网的 50 岁年轻人更具优势。
That doing good work will matter more than dressing up—or advertising, which is the same thing for companies.
做好工作比着装或广告更重要，这对公司来说是一样的。
That people will be rewarded a bit more in proportion to the value of what
人们将根据事物的价值获得更多的奖励
they create.
他们创造。
If so, this is good news indeed.
如果是这样，这确实是个好消息。
Good ideas always tend to win eventually.
好的想法最终总是会获胜。
The problem is, it can take a very long time.
问题是，这可能需要很长时间。
It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the greater part of a century to establish that central planning didn't work.
相对论花了几十年的时间才被接受，并且花了一个世纪的大部分时间才证明中央计划不起作用。
So even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change—big enough, probably, to justify a name like the "new economy."
因此，即使好创意获胜的速度小幅提高，也将是一个重大变化——大到可能足以证明“新经济”这样的名字是合理的。
Notes [1] Actually it's hard to say now.
注释 [1] 其实现在还很难说。
As Jeremy Siegel points out, if the value of a stock is its future earnings, you can't tell if it was overvalued till you see what the earnings turn out to be.
正如杰里米·西格尔（Jeremy Siegel）指出的那样，如果股票的价值就是其未来收益，那么在您看到收益结果之前，您无法判断它是否被高估。
While certain famous Internet stocks were almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it is still hard to say for sure whether, e.g., the Nasdaq index was.
虽然某些著名的互联网股票在 1999 年几乎肯定被高估，但仍然很难确定是否被高估，例如纳斯达克指数。
Siegel, Jeremy J.
西格尔，杰里米·J.
"What Is an Asset Price Bubble?
《什么是资产价格泡沫？
An
安
Operational Definition." European Financial Management, 9:1, 2003.
操作定义。”欧洲财务管理，9:1，2003 年。
[2] The number of users comes from a 6/03 Nielsen study quoted on Google's site.
[2] 用户数量来自 Google 网站上引用的尼尔森 6 月 3 日研究。
(You'd think they'd have something more recent.) The revenue estimate is based on revenues of $1.35 billion for the first half of 2004, as reported in their IPO filing.
（你可能会认为他们会有更新的东西。）收入估计是基于 2004 年上半年 13.5 亿美元的收入，如他们的 IPO 文件中所报告的。
Thanks to Chris Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.
感谢 Chris Anderson、Trevor Blackwell、Sarah Harlin、Jessica Livingston 和 Robert Morris 阅读本文的草稿。