本文是硅谷知名风投公司Greylock Partners的合伙人约瑟夫-安萨尼利就工作之余的生活、最崇拜的公司以及行业建议的一些真知灼见,不少建议很值得年轻人学一学。
What is the best advice you ever received?
你获得过的最好建议是什么?
My father would write notes and letters to me and often end with the phrase "Ad astra, per aspera," which translates as: "To the stars, through difficulty." That's the startup narrative in a nutshell.
我父亲会记笔记,给我写信,在信末附上“Ad astra, per aspera”这样的拉丁文箴言,意思是:“穿过苦难才能看见星空”。这是对创业企业的概括。
What would you say to a group of young people looking to enter the tough job market?
当前就业市场非常严峻,对于即将进入这个市场的年轻人,你想说些什么?
Figure out what you love to do, and find a way to get paid doing it. Even though it's tough, take chances, and don't get caught up in chasing other people's dreams or going after the latest shiny penny.
想明白自己喜欢做什么,找到干这个可以赚钱的方式。即便再难,抓住机会,别追错了梦想,或者捡了芝麻丢了西瓜。
What was the most important thing you learned in school?
你在学校学到的最重要的东西是什么?
Despite not getting good grades, what I did learn was how to think and reason through hard problems, and I learned the importance of people. I met some amazing people that I worked with on several startups, including my first startup, Trio Development, a software company that Apple (AAPL) acquired.
虽然没有获得好成绩,我还是学会了如何思考问题,解决问题,我懂得人的重要性。我遇到了一些非常出色的人,我们一起做了好几家创业公司,包括我的第一家创业公司Trio Development。这家软件公司已经被苹果公司(Apple)收购。
What has been your biggest failure?
你最大的失败是什么?
I've failed and learned from lots of things. The biggest commercial failure I've been involved with was Apple's Newton, which was pushing the bounds of many technologies, and one that did not work very well which was handwriting recognition.
我失败过,从很多事情中学习。我亲身经历过的最大一次商业失败是苹果公司的Newton,它突破了很多科技的边缘,但手写识别不佳。
Yet I had the good fortune to learn from amazing people during that failure. They include: Steve Capps, who co-developed the original Macintosh Finder and taught me about user interface design; Jony Ive, who today leads Apple's design team and taught me what makes for great industrial design; and Michael Tchao, who runs Apple's iPad product marketing and taught me creative and strategic marketing.
但在这次失败中,我有幸从很多出色的人那里学到很多东西。他们包括:Macintosh Finder的共同开发者史蒂夫-凯普斯,他教给我用户界面设计;如今领导苹果公司设计团队的乔尼-伊夫教给我什么成就伟大的工业设计;以及如今管理苹果公司iPad产品营销的迈克-特乔,他教给我什么是创意的战略营销。
And I believe that, despite the failure of Newton, it lit the spark that led us, 20 years later, to the current explosion of smartphones and tablets.
而且,我相信虽然Newton失败了,它的星光在20年后仍引领我们来到当今智能手机和平板电脑的爆炸式增长。
What is one characteristic that every leader should possess?
所有领导人都应具备的一项品质是什么?
Every great leader has different characteristics that lead to their success. Jeff Bezos is different from Steve Jobs, who is different from John Chambers, who is different from Bill Gates.
每位伟大的领导人都有不同的品质促成最终的成功。杰夫-贝佐斯和史蒂夫-乔布斯不同,史蒂夫-乔布斯和约翰-钱伯斯(小编注:思科公司总裁兼首席执行官)不同,约翰-钱伯斯又与比尔-盖茨不同。
What makes them similar, though, is that each of them figured out a way to attract and engage other great people. I believe one of their keys to success comes from communicating a compelling vision and giving people the confidence to follow them on the path to what may seem quite crazy at first, yet in hindsight shows true genius.
但让他们相似的是他们每个人都想出了一种方式,如何吸引和凝聚其他杰出的人才。我相信,促使他们最终成功的一个关键是,他们都善于描绘令人信服的远景,让人们有信心跟随他们走上一条最开始可能有些难以理解、但事后看来真的具有天才洞见的道路。