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In one of my venture capital classes at Stanford, we had one quite famous venture capitalist.
我在斯坦福上的一节风险投资课上，有一位相当有名的风险投资家。
And he was talking about one of his venture funds that he started back in 1999.
他当时正在谈论他1999年创立的一支风险基金。
And many, many years later, that fund was still going.
并且，许多、许多年以后，那项基金依然存在。
All of his companies but one failed from that fund.
他所有的公司，除了一家之外，都从那笔基金中失败了。
And when students asked that venture capitalist, “So that fund was unsuccessful, right?”
而当学生们问那位风险投资家：“那么那只基金是失败的，对吗？”
And his reply was, “Not at all, because there is still one company that actually is doing very, very well.”
他回答说：“一点也不，因为还有一家公司实际上做得非常非常好。”
And so that company might become a home run.
因此那家公司可能会取得巨大成功。
It’s easy to say, “Let’s embrace failure.”
“让我们拥抱失败。”这句话说起来很容易
It’s much more difficult to implement it in a practical way.
实施起来就会变得难了。
So we can think about specific, what we called playbook mechanisms, of how you can implement every single principle of the VC mindset, including how you can implement your approach to failure, so that indeed you concentrate on home runs, and you decide to let go of your strikeouts.
所以，我们可以具体思考一下我们称之为行动手册机制的东西，即如何贯彻风险投资思维模式的每一条原则，包括如何实施你对待失败的方法，这样你就可以专注于本垒打，并决定放弃三振出局。
Before we get into that playbook, let’s just talk about this game strategy first.
在我们进入那个剧本之前，让我们先谈谈这个游戏策略。
And that is that you’re swinging for the fences, to use the baseball analogy of hitting a home run.
那就是你正在全力以赴，用棒球比喻就是打出本垒打。
That’s an economic model that works, but is it wrong for companies to say, “Let’s try 10 things, and it’s okay if only five of them are moderately successful.”
这是一种有效的经济模式，但是如果公司说：“让我们尝试10件事，即使其中只有5件取得了一定的成功也没关系。”这样做是不是错了呢？
But they’re not.
但是并非如此。
None of them are big hits.
这些都不是大事。
The way to think about this principle of home runs met and strikeouts don’t, is not to think about each individual project or each individual experiment, but think about a portfolio of bets that you have.
思考本垒打原则的方式是，不要考虑每个单独的项目或实验，而是考虑你拥有的一揽子赌注。
I think when smart venture capitalists make decisions about how they’re going to allocate their budget, very often the most important decision is not about a specific startup, but the most important decision about the portfolio allocation.
我认为，当聪明的风险投资家决定如何分配预算时，通常最重要的决定不是关于某个特定的初创公司，而是关于投资组合分配的最重要决定。
My first reaction is let’s think about your strategy.
我的第一反应是，让我们考虑一下你的策略。
Maybe you don’t take enough risk.
也许你没有承担足够的风险。
So recently I worked with one venture fund that’s quite successful, or used to be quite successful.
所以最近我和一家风险投资基金合作，这家基金相当成功，或者说曾经相当成功。
And the fund increased, almost tripled in size, and almost tripled in terms of the number of partners.
而且该基金规模增加，几乎增加了两倍，合作伙伴的数量也几乎增加了两倍。
And the managing partner realized that well, we’re not as successful as we used to be.
而且，执行合伙人意识到，我们不像以前那么成功了。
So they invited me, and I looked at their data.
于是他们邀请了我，我查看了他们的数据。
And I quickly realized that their portfolio allocation strategy changed.
并且，我很快意识到，他们的投资组合配置策略发生了变化。
They no longer made a lot of risky bets.
他们不再进行大量的高风险押注。
Well, behind that was another principle of the venture mindset, which is agree to disagree.
嗯，在那背后是创业思维的另一个原则，那就是求同存异。
In that venture capital fund, they used to have three partners.
在那家风险投资基金中，他们过去有三个合伙人。
Now they had eight or nine partners.
现在他们有八九个合作伙伴。
And yet they continued exactly the same decision-making process they used to have 10, 15 years ago.
然而，他们继续沿用了他们10年、15年前使用的完全相同的决策过程。
And one of the important principles they had is that every single partner should be very enthusiastic about the deal.
并且 他们 所 拥有 的 重要 原则 之一 是 ，每一个 单个的 合作伙伴 都 应该 对 这笔 交易 非常 热情 。
And with let’s say nine partners, it no longer works.
而比如说有九个合作伙伴的话，那就不再可行了。
That means that all nine partners must now consent to invest in the deal.
这意味着所有九个合作伙伴现在必须同意投资该交易。
And one of the specific recommendations from me was, you have to change this consensus culture.
我的具体建议之一是，你们必须改变这种共识文化。
You have to agree to disagree.
你得求同存异。
By the way, there’s a specific playbook mechanism that I recommend, and not just for venture capitalists, but in fact for any organization.
顺便说一下，我推荐一种具体的策略机制，不仅适用于风险投资家，实际上也适用于任何组织。
And it is called Anti-portfolio.
而它被称为反向投资组合。
And anti-portfolio means look at the projects that you decided not to implement, and have a look at what happened to those projects.
反投资组合意味着看看你决定不实施的项目，看看这些项目发生了什么。
And if your anti-portfolio performs better than your portfolio, I think there’s a good reason to sit back and think what happened.
如果你的反投资组合表现优于你的投资组合，我认为有充分的理由坐下来思考发生了什么。
And in a large organization, it’s very similar.
在一个大型组织中，情况也很类似。
You have a lot of internal projects that you then decide maybe not to pursue.
你有很多内部项目，然后你决定停止了。
Well, have a look what happened to similar projects or similar ideas elsewhere.
那么，看看其他地方类似的项目或类似的想法发生了什么事情。
