How to Earn a Billion Dollars

June 2026 (This is based on a talk I gave at the Oxford Union.) Since this is apparently the future prime ministers' club, I'm going to tell you about something it would be good if more politicians understood: I'm going to tell you how people become billionaires.

2026 年 6 月（这是基于我在牛津联盟的一次演讲。）由于这显然是未来的首相俱乐部，我将告诉你一些如果更多政治家理解的话会很好的事情：我将告诉你人们如何成为亿万富翁。

I hope this will be useful to you even if you don't plan to go into politics.

即使您不打算从政，我也希望这对您有用。

Those of you who don't become prime minister can become billionaires instead.

那些没有成为总理的人也可以成为亿万富翁。

The reason I know about this topic is that 21 years ago Jessica and I started something called Y Combinator.

我知道这个话题的原因是 21 年前，杰西卡和我创办了一个名为 Y Combinator 的项目。

If you haven't heard of Y Combinator, it's a cross between an investment firm and a school for startup founders.

如果您还没有听说过 Y Combinator，它是一家投资公司和初创公司创始人学校的结合体。

Since we started it in 2005 we've funded about 6500 companies.

自 2005 年启动以来，我们已资助了约 6500 家公司。

Starting a successful startup is the most common way to become a billionaire, so in effect I've spent the last 21 years training

创办一家成功的初创公司是成为亿万富翁的最常见方式，所以实际上我在过去 21 年里一直在进行培训

people to become billionaires.

人们成为亿万富翁。

So far about 30 of them have, but there are many more in the pipeline.

到目前为止，大约有 30 个项目已经完成，但还有更多项目正在筹备中。

So you can imagine how astonished I was last month when an American politician said that it was impossible to earn a billion dollars.

所以你可以想象，上个月，当一位美国政客说赚十亿美元是不可能的时，我是多么惊讶。

I felt like a skating coach hearing someone say that it's impossible to do a triple axel.

我感觉就像一个滑冰教练听到有人说不可能完成三周半跳。

Of course it's possible.

当然有可能。

It's hard , but it's possible.

这很难，但有可能。

She wasn't saying, of course, that it's impossible to become a

当然，她并不是说不可能成为一名

billionaire.

亿万富翁。

Obviously that's possible.

显然这是可能的。

Nor was she talking about the distinction between income and capital gains.

她也没有谈论收入和资本收益之间的区别。

She wasn't making a point about accounting.

她并不是在谈论会计问题。

What she meant was that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way.

她的意思是，如果不做坏事——不以某种方式作弊，就不可能变得那么富有。

A couple days later I was talking to the founder of a startup I'd funded.

几天后，我与我资助的一家初创公司的创始人交谈。

I began by asking, as I usually do when I meet a founder,

我首先问，就像我见到创始人时通常会做的那样，

what her growth rate was.

她的增长率是多少。

93% last month, she said.

她说，上个月是 93%。

I pointed out that this meant her net worth was also growing at 93% a month.

我指出这意味着她的净资产每月也以 93% 的速度增长。

She was getting richer at a stupendously rapid rate.

她以惊人的速度变得富有。

And yet she hadn't been doing anything bad.

但她并没有做什么坏事。

The reason her startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built.

她的初创公司发展如此之快的原因很简单，就是用户喜欢她所创造的东西。

So she could feel from her own experience how wrong that politician was.

所以她能从自己的经历中感受到那个政客是多么错误。

She wasn't exploiting anyone.

她没有剥削任何人。

Exactly the opposite in fact.

事实上恰恰相反。

The reason her

原因是她

startup was growing so fast was that she and her cofounder had been working their asses off to make their users happy, and as a result the users had been telling their friends.

初创公司发展如此之快，是因为她和她的联合创始人一直在竭尽全力让用户满意，结果用户一直告诉他们的朋友。

And that gets you exponential growth.

这会让你呈指数级增长。

Later that day I was talking about her case online, and someone replied that having a few million and growing at 93% a month was radically different from being a billionaire.

那天晚些时候，我在网上谈论她的案例，有人回答说，拥有几百万，每月增长93％，这与成为亿万富翁根本不同。

I suspect many people would agree with this statement.

我想很多人都会同意这个说法。

But it turns

但事实却变成了

out not merely to be false, but false in a very illuminating way.

不仅是错误的，而且是以一种非常有启发性的方式错误的。

So I would like you all to do me a favor please.

所以我希望大家帮我一个忙。

I would like you to take out your phones and calculate a number.

我想让你拿出你的手机来计算一个数字。

I know this may seem contrived, but I promise it will be useful for you.

我知道这可能看起来有些做作，但我保证它会对您有用。

I'm going to have you do the most common kind of calculation I do as an investor, and the experience will bring home to you what startups are all about.

我会让你做我作为投资者所做的最常见的计算，这个经验会让你了解初创公司的全部内容。

If we interpret his statement in the most conservative way and assume that a few means 2, her company has to grow 500x for her to become a billionaire.

如果我们以最保守的方式解释他的说法，并假设几个等于 2，那么她的公司必须增长 500 倍，她才能成为亿万富翁。

So we are going to calculate how many months of 93% growth it takes for something to grow 500x.

因此，我们要计算某个东西增长 500 倍需要多少个月的 93% 增长。

To do this we want to calculate the log base 1.93 of 500.

为此，我们要计算 500 的对数底数 1.93。

The easiest way to do that is to go to Google search, which lets you do calculations right in the search box.

最简单的方法是访问 Google 搜索，它可以让您直接在搜索框中进行计算。

So go to Google search and

所以去谷歌搜索并

type log(500, 1.93).

输入 log(500, 1.93)。

If you typed that right, the answer you get is about 9.45.

如果您输入正确，您得到的答案约为 9.45。

That is how many months of 93% growth it takes to become a billionaire, starting from 2 million.

这就是从200万起成为亿万富翁需要多少个月的93%的增长。

A couple million and 93% growth are not, in fact, radically different from a billion.

事实上，几百万和 93% 的增长与十亿并没有根本不同。

They're nine and a half months apart.

两人相差九个半月。

Now you see why, when I meet a founder, the first thing I ask about is their growth rate.

现在你明白为什么当我遇到创始人时，我首先问的是他们的增长率。

But I don't want anyone to accuse me of using unrealistic numbers,

但我不想让任何人指责我使用了不切实际的数字，

so let's take a more conservative growth rate.

所以让我们采取更保守的增长率。

Let's see what happens at 15% a month.

让我们看看每月 15% 会发生什么。

That's not rare at all.

这一点也不罕见。

I constantly encounter startups growing at 15% a month.

我经常遇到每月增长 15% 的初创公司。

If your revenues grow at 15% a month, how much more will you be making 5 years from now?

如果您的收入每月增长 15%，那么 5 年后您的收入会增加多少？

To calculate that, we need to find 1.15 to the 60th power (since 5 years is 60 months).

为了计算这个值，我们需要找到 1.15 的 60 次方（因为 5 年是 60 个月）。

So go to Google again and this time type 1.15^60.

因此，再次访问 Google，这次输入 1.15^60。

The answer should be about 4384.

答案应该是4384左右。

Meaning in 5 years your startup will be making 4384 times as much.

这意味着 5 年后，您的初创公司的收入将是原来的 4384 倍。

If you're currently making ten thousand a month, in five years you'll be making about 44 million a month, or 526 million a year.

如果您目前每月赚取一万美元，那么五年后您每月将赚取约 4400 万美元，即每年 5.26 亿美元。

And at that point, if you own as much of the company as founders typically do, you will be a billionaire.

到那时，如果你像创始人通常拥有的那样多的公司股份，你将成为亿万富翁。

In the real world, growth rates tend to slow down a bit.

在现实世界中，增长率往往会稍微放缓。

A very successful startup will probably be growing faster than 15% a month

一家非常成功的初创公司每月的增长速度可能会超过 15%

in year 1 and slower than 15% a month in year 5.

第 1 年每月增速低于 15%，第 5 年增速低于 15%。

But you end up in about the same place.

但你最终会到达几乎同一个地方。

If you start a startup in your early twenties, it's definitely possible to be a billionaire by the time you're thirty.

如果你在二十岁出头就开始创业，那么到三十岁的时候绝对有可能成为亿万富翁。

Hard, but possible.

很难，但有可能。

I wanted you to feel this by doing the calculation yourselves, because now you understand one of the reasons people start startups.

我希望你们通过自己的计算来感受这一点，因为现在你们明白了人们创业的原因之一。

Exponential growth is like magic.

指数增长就像魔法一样。

It generates outcomes that seem

它产生的结果看起来

impossible.

不可能的。

And that's why some politicians distrust it.

这就是为什么一些政客不信任它。

They don't understand the math of exponential growth, so when they see people becoming what seems to them impossibly rich, they assume they must have cheated.

他们不明白指数增长的数学原理，所以当他们看到人们变得在他们看来不可思议的富有时，他们认为他们一定是作弊了。

But now you at least understand, from having done the math yourselves, that you don't have to cheat to become a billionaire.

但现在你至少通过自己的计算了解到，你不必作弊才能成为亿万富翁。

You've seen for yourselves that there are only two numbers in the calculation,

你亲眼所见，计算中只有两个数字，

the growth rate and how long it continues.

增长率及其持续时间。

If it's impossible to make a billion dollars without cheating, which of those two numbers is impossible?

如果不作弊就不可能赚十亿美元，那么这两个数字中哪一个是不可能的？

It's certainly not impossible to grow at 15% a month without cheating.

在不作弊的情况下每月增长 15% 当然不是不可能的。

Startups do that all the time.

初创公司一直这样做。

And how long you can continue to grow at that rate depends on the size of the market.

以这种速度继续增长多久取决于市场的规模。

Obviously for you to grow 4000x, there has to be at least 4000x more demand.

显然，要增长 4000 倍，就必须有至少 4000 倍的需求。

But that's all you need.

但这就是您所需要的。

And how could you possibly

你怎么可能

cheat to increase the market size?

作弊以扩大市场规模？

If you're only planning to become prime minister, you can stop paying attention now.

如果你只想当首相，现在就可以不再关注了。

We've proved that it is in fact possible to earn a billion dollars, because it only depends on two numbers, one of which startups routinely hit without cheating, and another that cheating couldn't possibly affect.

我们已经证明，赚取 10 亿美元实际上是可能的，因为它只取决于两个数字，其中一个是初创公司通常在不作弊的情况下达到的数字，另一个是作弊不可能影响的数字。

But if you actually want to become a billionaire, we should go into

但如果你真的想成为亿万富翁，我们应该进入

more detail.

更多细节。

Especially about that first number, the growth rate.

尤其是第一个数字，即增长率。

To grow at a consistent rate every month, you have to make something so good that people tell their friends about it.

为了每个月以稳定的速度增长，你必须做出一些好东西，让人们告诉他们的朋友。

And in fact that's the other reason I always begin by asking founders their growth rate.

事实上，这就是我总是首先询问创始人增长率的另一个原因。

It shows whether they've built the right thing.

它表明他们是否构建了正确的东西。

So how, exactly, do you make something people like so much that they tell their friends about it?

那么，究竟如何才能制作出人们非常喜欢的东西，并告诉他们的朋友呢？

The problem with market economies,

市场经济的问题，

and also the great thing about market economies, is that it's hard to make something customers want that they don't already have.

市场经济的伟大之处在于，很难生产出客户想要但他们还没有的东西。

As soon as a new, satisfiable need is discovered, people rush to satisfy it.

一旦发现新的、可满足的需求，人们就会急于去满足它。

So you're going to have to discover a need that no one else knows about yet.

所以你必须发现一种其他人还不知道的需求。

How do you do that?

你是怎么做到的？

By feeling the need yourself.

通过自己感觉需要。

You're young, and usually young founders should make something that

你很年轻，通常年轻的创始人应该做出一些东西

they themselves want.

他们自己想要。

You don't have enough experience yet to know what other people need.

您还没有足够的经验来了解其他人需要什么。

But at the same time your own needs are uniquely valuable, because your needs predict future demand.

但与此同时，您自己的需求具有独特的价值，因为您的需求可以预测未来的需求。

You're the age when people start using new things.

你正处于人们开始使用新事物的年龄。

Whatever you and your friends start using now, everyone is going to be using in ten years.

无论您和您的朋友现在开始使用什么，十年后每个人都会使用。

Since your intuitions about other people's needs are usually a crap

因为你对其他人需求的直觉通常都是垃圾

signal, and your own needs are an especially valuable one, you should usually listen to the second signal; you should make something you and your friends want.

信号，而你自己的需求是特别有价值的，你通常应该听第二个信号；你应该做一些你和你的朋友想要的东西。

Making something you and your friends want doesn't mean you have to build a consumer product.

制造您和您的朋友想要的东西并不意味着您必须制造消费品。

Maybe you and your friends are molecular biologists, and there's something cool that could be done now to DNA that everyone else has overlooked.

也许你和你的朋友是分子生物学家，现在可以对 DNA 做一些其他人都忽视的很酷的事情。

Maybe you and your friends

也许你和你的朋友

are into drones.

正在研究无人机。

The idea doesn't have to have a wide appeal.

这个想法不必具有广泛的吸引力。

It literally just has to appeal to you and your friends.

它实际上只需要吸引您和您的朋友即可。

Don't worry about the second number, the market size.

不要担心第二个数字，即市场规模。

Since you predict future demand, the market will grow.

由于您预测未来的需求，市场将会增长。

And it's always possible to expand into adjacent markets.

而且总是可以扩展到邻近市场。

All you need is a beachhead in the territory of unsatisfied need that you can expand from.

您所需要的只是在未满足的需求领域建立一个滩头阵地，以便您可以从中扩展。

How do you get an idea like that?

你怎么会有这样的想法？

The answer is one of the most

答案是最多的之一

counterintuitive things about startups — which is saying something, because there are a lot of counterintuitive things about startups.

关于初创公司的违反直觉的事情——这很说明问题，因为关于初创公司有很多违反直觉的事情。

But the way to get the very best startup ideas is not to look for startup ideas.

但获得最佳创业创意的方法并不是去寻找创业创意。

If you're consciously looking for startup ideas, it will make you too conservative.

如果你有意识地寻找创业想法，那会让你变得过于保守。

You'll lop off the outliers.

你会去掉异常值。

Because the very best startup ideas tend to sound so lame, at first, that

因为最好的创业想法一开始听起来都很蹩脚，

you'd reject them if you were consciously looking for startup ideas.

如果你有意识地寻找创业想法，你就会拒绝它们。

That's what has prevented them from being discovered.

这就是阻止他们被发现的原因。

Imagine what a bad idea Apple or Facebook or Airbnb seemed at first.

想象一下，苹果、Facebook 或 Airbnb 乍一看是多么糟糕的主意。

How many people are going to want their own computers?

有多少人想要拥有自己的电脑？

How is a company going to make money from undergrads stalking one another online?

一家公司如何从本科生在网上相互跟踪中赚钱呢？

Who's going to pay to sleep on an airbed on someone's floor?

谁会花钱睡在别人地板上的气垫床上？

We know how these ideas turned out, so it's easy to rewrite history,

我们知道这些想法是如何产生的，所以很容易重写历史，

but I remember very well how bad Facebook and Airbnb sounded at first.

但我清楚地记得 Facebook 和 Airbnb 起初听起来有多么糟糕。

We funded Airbnb, and we thought the idea was bad.

我们资助了 Airbnb，但我们认为这个想法很糟糕。

The reason we funded them was just that we liked the founders .

我们资助他们的原因只是因为我们喜欢创始人。

So how do you find startup ideas without looking for them?

那么，如何在不亲自寻找的情况下找到创业想法呢？

By working on projects with your friends.

通过与你的朋友一起完成项目。

That's where the very best startups come from.

这就是最好的初创公司的出处。

Initially they're not even meant to be companies.

最初他们甚至不打算成为公司。

They're just something people built because they thought it would be cool.

它们只是人们建造的东西，因为他们认为这很酷。

That's how Apple and Google and Facebook all started.

苹果、谷歌和 Facebook 就是这样开始的。

None of them were meant to be companies at first.

它们最初都不是公司。

The reason this works is what I told you earlier: you predict future demand.

这有效的原因就是我之前告诉你的：你预测未来的需求。

So if you just build random stuff you think would be cool, the things you build will actually be far from random.

因此，如果你只是随机构建你认为很酷的东西，那么你构建的东西实际上远不是随机的。

This is one of those cases where your unconscious mind knows more than your conscious mind does.

这是你的潜意识比你的意识知道更多的情况之一。

Anything that genuinely seems to you

任何对你来说真实的东西

like it would be a cool thing to build has a high probability of leading to a good startup idea, no matter how preposterous it sounds.

不管听起来多么荒谬，构建起来都是一件很酷的事情，很有可能产生一个好的创业想法。

Whatever you build couldn't possibly sound more preposterous than a startup we funded in 2006 called Justin.TV.

无论你创建什么，听起来都不可能比我们在 2006 年资助的一家名为 Justin.TV 的初创公司更荒谬。

It consisted of one guy, Justin Kan, walking around with a camera on the side of his head, live streaming everything that happened to him.

视频中，贾斯汀·坎 (Justin Kan) 头戴摄像机走来走去，直播发生在他身上的一切。

But this company ended up doing quite well.

但这家公司最终表现得相当不错。

In fact you've probably heard

事实上你可能听说过

of it, but under its new name, Twitch.

它的新名称是 Twitch。

The key to starting a successful startup is to understand some group of users so well that you can make exactly what they want.

成功创业的关键是充分了解某些用户群体，以便您可以准确地制作他们想要的产品。

If you're young you can, and should, use the hack of making something for yourself.

如果你还年轻，你可以而且应该利用为自己做点东西的技巧。

You understand yourself.

你了解你自己。

But this is just an instance of the more general rule.

但这只是更一般规则的一个例子。

Only by understanding users very deeply can you make something they love so much that they tell their friends

只有非常深入地了解用户，你才能做出他们非常喜欢的东西，并告诉他们的朋友

about it, and only that can get you the exponential growth you need to make a startup really successful.

只有这样，你才能获得指数级增长，让初创公司真正成功。

There are other ways to get rich than by starting startups.

除了创办初创公司之外，还有其他致富方式。

Some of those do require you to exploit people.

其中一些确实需要你剥削别人。

But startups are the most common way to become really rich, and if you want to start a successful startup, the key is not exploitation but empathy.

但创业是真正致富的最常见方式，如果你想成功创业，关键不是剥削，而是同理心。

What do users really want?

用户真正想要什么？

What could you do for them that would make

你能为他们做些什么，让他们

their lives dramatically better?

他们的生活显着改善了吗？

That kind of empathy is what we look for in founders, and what we cultivate in the ones we accept.

这种同理心是我们在创始人身上寻找的，也是我们在我们接受的创始人身上培养的。

How people become rich in your society is one of the most important things to understand about it.

人们如何在社会中致富是了解社会的最重要的事情之一。

You can't let your beliefs about this be determined by ideology, or movies, or historical examples that are centuries old.

你不能让你对此的信念被意识形态、电影或几个世纪前的历史例子所决定。

You must look at the world around you and see how

你必须看看你周围的世界，看看如何

it's actually done.

它实际上已经完成了。

If you want to do it yourself, obviously you'll be forced to understand how it's done.

如果你想自己做，显然你将被迫了解它是如何完成的。

So I don't worry too much about you.

所以我不太担心你。

The ones I worry about are the future prime ministers.

我担心的是未来的首相。

You need to remember this talk.

你需要记住这个演讲。

So for you I'm going to summarize the key ideas.

因此，我将为您总结关键思想。

There are two numbers that determine how big a startup gets, and thus how rich its founders become: the growth rate and how long it

有两个数字决定了一家初创公司的规模，以及其创始人的财富：增长率和持续时间。

continues.

继续。

You get the first by making something users like so much they tell their friends.

通过制作用户非常喜欢并告诉他们的朋友的东西，你可以获得第一。

You get the second by being in a big market.

通过进入一个大市场，你可以获得第二个。

If you grow exponentially into a big market, your startup will become valuable, and you, as a shareholder, will become rich.

如果你成倍增长到一个大市场，你的初创公司就会变得有价值，而你作为股东也会变得富有。

You not only don't have to cheat to make this happen, it will happen automatically if you just keep making customers happy.

您不仅不必作弊来实现这一点，而且如果您不断让客户满意，它就会自动实现。

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jared Friedman,

感谢特雷弗·布莱克威尔、贾里德·弗里德曼，

Jessica Livingston, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this, and to Arwa Elrayess and the Oxford Union for hosting me.

感谢 Jessica Livingston 和 Garry Tan 阅读了本文的草稿，感谢 Arwa Elrayess 和牛津联盟接待了我。