新闻资讯网站怎么做,吴忠市住房和城乡建设厅网站,做网站需求报告,中英文网站模板Paul Graham#xff1a;撼动硅谷的人#xff08;译文#xff09; 作者#xff1a; 阮一峰 日期#xff1a; 2010年12月19日 为《黑客与画家》写译者序#xff0c;遇到一个棘手的问题。 应该如何介绍Paul Graham#xff0c;才能让中国读者了解#xf… Paul Graham撼动硅谷的人译文 作者 阮一峰 日期 2010年12月19日 为《黑客与画家》写译者序遇到一个棘手的问题。 应该如何介绍Paul Graham才能让中国读者了解这是一个在美国互联网界如日中天的教父级人物 正在发愁的时候老天帮忙让我看到了上个月《福布斯》杂志有一篇Paul Graham长篇专访写得非常棒是迄今最佳的关于他的介绍。 这么难得的材料怎么能错过呢我把全文翻译了出来打算跟出版社沟通收入《黑客与画家》的中译本。 Paul Graham撼动硅谷的人 The Disruptor In The Valley 作者Christopher Steiner 译者阮一峰 原载2010年11月8日的《Forbes》杂志 Justin Kan and Emmett Shear watched their first startup, an online calendar called Kiko, implode when Google decided to do the same thing in 2006. They sold Kikos scraps on eBay for $258,000 and wondered what to do with their lives. So the pair did the only thing they could think of: They went to see Paul Graham at his house in Cambridge, Mass., near Harvard Square. Graham sat them down and helped bang out a plan to create Justin.tv, now the Webs biggest portal for live video, with 31 million users a month and staked with $7.2 million of venture capital. Justin Kan和Emmett Shear的第一个创业项目Kiko是一个在线日历。2006年Google也推出了同样的产品他们就知道自己的项目完了。于是他们把Kiko拿到eBay上拍卖卖出了25.8万美元。他们拿着这笔钱不知道下一步做什么。想来想去他们觉得最好的办法还是去马萨诸塞州的剑桥市找Paul Graham。在哈佛广场旁边Paul Graham的家里他们见到了他。Paul Graham让他们坐下来帮忙一起想出了一个新的创业项目Justin.tv。如今Justin.tv成了全世界最大的视频直播门户网站拿到了720万美元的风险投资一个月的用户人数高达3100万。 Justin.tv is hardly the first, nor the last, company Graham has sent sprinting. Graham is the father of Y Combinator, a startup-rearing juggernaut thats part incubator, part drill sergeant and part liaison to the investor class. Y Combinator--a computer term for a program that runs other programs--has fired up 200 companies since 2005, jarred the balance of power between entrepreneurs and Silicon Valleys elite money, and chiseled a new paradigm for launching technology companies. Grahams formula: Get up and running (bugs and all), gather feedback, tweak and grow. 在Paul Graham推动的创业公司之中Justin.tv不是第一个更不是最后一个。他创办了Y Combinator把扶植创业公司当成自己的使命。Y Combinator简称YC是一个孵化器也是一个教导员还是一个与投资人联系的中介。这个名字来自一个计算机术语意思是启动其他程序的程序。自从2005至今YC已经帮助建立了多达200家创业公司改写了创业家和硅谷投资者之间的旧秩序塑造了创建技术公司的新范式。Paul Graham的创业公式就是搭建原型、上线运营别管bug、收集反馈、调整产品、成长壮大。 YCs three-month boot camp for startups, run twice a year in Mountain View, Calif., attracts 1,000 applicants for roughly 40 spots. Graduates are expected to emerge with a working product, customers and revenue. They also get a crack at pitching their ideas to investors on Demo Day, an event that lures venture capitals Sand Hill Road crowd and every prominent angel investor in the Valley. YC为创业公司举办为期三个月的训练营每年在加州的山景城办两次每次吸引大约1000个申请者从中挑出40个入选者。正常情况下训练营结束时学员会拿出一个能够运行的产品有自己的客户和收入。他们还能在展示日 Demo Day上向投资者推销自己的产品。那一天沙丘路注硅谷的一条公路以风险投资公司聚集闻名上的风险投资家和所有著名的硅谷天使投资人都会蜂拥而至。 YC puts up $11,000, plus $3,000 per founder, for each company in return for a piece of pure equity of around 5%. That equity could be worth real money should the companies take off. A high price for founders, perhaps, until you see scores of venture capitalists and angel investors jousting to pay handsome premiums for companies bearing the YC stamp. Of the 36 startups in YCs recent class, ended in August, 30 have raised fresh capital, many of them over $1 million. YC向每一个入选项目提供1.1万美元的启动资金外加每个项目成员3000美元的津贴交换条件是项目5%左右的股份。如果项目成功5%的股份会非常值钱。那些YC入选项目的创始人可能现在还意识不到直到一批批风险投资家和天使投资人竞相提供诱人的入股请求他们才会醒悟5%的股份是很高的代价。今年8月YC最新孵化出的36家创业公司有30家得到了风险投资很多都超过了100万美元。 We didnt mean to invent this new model, says Graham, who at 45 has sandy hair and a youthful earnestness. It all happened by accident. 我们本来并没有打算发明这种新模式Paul Graham说。他今年45岁长着一头浅棕色的头发声音听上去充满了年轻人的真诚这一切完全出于偶然。 The accident was a summer program Graham started in 2005 for college students who were tinkering with business ideas. Instead of working a boring internship at a big company, Grahams pitch went, win $5,000 to work on your startup in Cambridge with guidance from Graham and his friend, MIT professor Robert Morris--two guys who launched Viaweb, a maker of software that built storefronts online, and sold it to Yahoo for $50 million in 1998. 这个偶然指的是2005年Paul Graham旨在帮助那些有创业念头的大学生的一个暑期项目。他劝说他们不要去大公司当枯燥的实习生而是在剑桥市创办自己的公司他们会从他和他的朋友----麻省理工学院计算机教授Robert Morris----那里得到5000美元资助和悉心指导。Paul Graham和Robert Morris曾经一起创办了Viaweb那是一个帮助人们搭建网上商店的互联网软件1998年被Yahoo以5000万美元的价格收购。 It was supposed to be a throwaway project for these students, recalls Graham. By the end of the summer we were like,Whoa, weve got something here! 那个暑期的校园项目只是一次性的安排并没有长远打算Paul Graham回忆道。可是等到结束的时候我们的感受就像是哇不可思议我们找到宝了 Graham received 400 applications for the summer program. Of the 8 he accepted, 4 had blossomed into serious ventures by the end of the summer: Loopt, a social-mapping ser vice, now with 4 million users; Reddit, a user-aggregated news site acquired by Condé Nast in 2006; TextPayMe, a mobile payment service bought by Amazon in 2006; and Kiko, thwarted by Google. 那年暑假Paul Graham收到了400份申请表。他挑了8个到了暑假结束时其中有4个已经做得非常像样了。社会化地理服务网站Loopt目前有400万用户用户聚合的新闻网站Reddit2006年被大型出版集团Condé Nast收购移动支付服务网站TextPayMe2006年被Amazon收购在线日历网站Kiko在本文开头已经提到了由于Google推出同类产品而半途夭折。 Y Combinators influence in Silicon Valley has burgeoned ever since. Some refer to its growing network of graduates as the YC mafia. They protect their own, collaborate and, to a person, regard Graham as their sensei. Some go on to be investors and mentors in their own right. 从那时起Y Combinator在硅谷的影响力迅速发展。有人将不断壮大的YC毕业生关系网称为YC匪帮。这些经过Paul Graham培训的年轻人迅速成长互相合作将他视为自己的导师。其中一些人进而也成为有着自己风格的投资者和导师。 The right advice has always been more important than money, says Greg McAdoo, a partner at Sequoia Capital, which has invested in Google, Yahoo, PayPal and YouTube. But nobody has been able to do it on this kind of scale before. 正确的建议永远比金钱更重要Sequoia投资公司的合伙人Greg McAdoo说。Sequoia投资公司的投资对象包括Google、Yahoo、PayPal和YouTube。但是以前从没有人做到像YC那样大的规模。 Jealous types claim Graham runs a fund to pick off YCs best as soon as they leave the womb. YC has raised two pools of funding from outsiders--$2 million in 2009 and $8 million in 2010, from the likes of Sequoia Capital and prominent angel investors Paul Buchheit and Aydin Senkut--but that money is only for YCs small initial equity investments. Graham concedes that individual YC partners have invested in a few startups that hadnt been able to attract much outside funding. But, he insists, YC startups have no obligation to accept additional capital from anybody. 嫉妒者声称Paul Graham自己有一个基金专门挑选YC最优秀的学员等到他们一毕业就抢先资助。迄今为止YC确实收到过两笔投资一笔是2009年的200万美元另一笔是2010年的800万美元。这些钱来自Sequoia这样的投资公司以及Paul Buchheit、Aydin Senkut等著名的天使投资人。但是YC只把它们用作初始的小额股权投资。Paul Graham承认YC合伙人用个人资金投资了一些创业公司不过那只是在它们没有吸引到太多外部资金的情况下。他一再声明YC扶植的创业公司没有义务接受任何人的强行入股。 Graham grew up outside of Pittsburgh, where his father, a physicist, designed nuclear reactors and his mother raised Graham and his sister. He started writing computer code in high school; one program predicted the flight paths of model rockets. Graham would eventually earn a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, where he intended to concentrate on artificial intelligence. Paul Graham在匹兹堡的郊区长大。他的父亲是一个设计核反应堆的物理学家他的母亲在家照看他和他的妹妹。他从高中就开始编程其中有一个程序是预测实验火箭的飞行路线。后来他在哈佛大学拿到了计算机博士学位那时他的主攻方向是人工智能。 Disenchanted by the prospects of ever building a truly intelligent machine, Graham moved on to painting, attending the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence and the Rhode Island School of Design. He jammed into a tiny New York apartment to start his art career and was often broke. I decided to go out and solve my money problem for good, he recalls. 因为对于开发一个真正具有智能的机器感到灰心丧气Paul Graham毕业后就改行当了画家。他先到佛罗伦萨美术学院Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze学习后来又去了罗德岛设计学院Rhode Island School of Design。他栖身于纽约一间极小的公寓开始了自己的艺术家生涯生活过得非常窘迫常常入不敷出。我决定不当画家了首先要彻底解决自己的收入问题他回忆道。 Viaweb did that. Free and flush after the sale, Graham found a creative outlet writing essays and posting them to his Web page. He opined on esoteric programming issues and more accessible topics, such as Why Nerds Are Un popular. One of his essays, Beating the Averages, which praised Lisp, a programming language that helped Graham build Viaweb, snared 50,000 page views. All of the sudden, I was writing for a lot of people, and that made me want to write more, he remembers. Viaweb帮他实现了这一点。Yahoo收购Viaweb以后Paul Graham变得既自由又富有于是他把创造力用来写文章并把它们贴在自己的个人网站上。他既写一些难懂的编程问题也写一些比较大众化的题目比如《为什么书呆子不受欢迎》。他的文章《拒绝平庸》吸引了5万人次的浏览量内容是对Lisp语言的赞美那种语言帮助他开发出了Viaweb。突然之间我有了一大批读者这促进我写出更多的文章他回忆道。 Another essay, How to Start a Startup, based on a talk he gave at Harvard, got him thinking seriously about angel investing and eventually inspired YCs formation. 他的另一篇文章《如何成立创业公司》来源于他在哈佛大学的一次演讲。那次演讲使得他对天使投资进行了严肃的思考最终导致了YC的成立。 Grahams three fellow founders--Morris, Jessica Livingston and Trevor Blackwell--were close confidants. Graham met Morris, an authority on the Unix computer language, at Harvard. When Bell Labs, where Unix was developed, wanted to integrate Web programming standards into Unix, it called Morris, then age 17. Livingston wrote the book Founders at Work, a collection of profiles of marquee technology entrepreneurs. (Graham was dating Livingston when YC began; theyre now married.) Blackwell, another Harvard Ph.D., worked at Viaweb and later launched Anybots, which made the first walking robot that dynamically adjusts its weight distribution, like a human, as it moves across changing surfaces. The partners recently added Harjeet Taggar, who sold his startup after being part of YCs winter 2007 class. Paul Graham还有三个伙伴Robert Morris、Jessica Livingston和Trevor Blackwell。他们之间的关系非常亲密。Paul Graham在哈佛大学读书时结识了Robert Morris后者是Unix系统编程专家。当Unix的开发者贝尔实验室希望在Unix中加入Web编程标准他们就打电话给Robert Morris那时他只有17岁。Jessica Livingston是《Founders at Work》一书的作者那本书收录了许多卓越的技术创业者的故事。YC成立后Paul Graham与Jessica Livingston开始约会现在他们已经结婚了。Trevor Blackwell也是哈佛博士起初在Viaweb工作后来创立了Anybots制造出了世界上第一个可以在行进中动态调整自身重量分布的机器人它就像真人一样能够穿越不同的地表。最近Harjeet Taggar加入成为YC新的合伙人他是2007届YC冬季班的学员后来把自己的创业公司卖掉了。 Graham reckons the next crop of applications, due in late October, could hit 1,500. About 80 will earn the right to a nerve-racking interview with the founders in Mountain View. Many of the best applications come from accomplished programmers who have working product demos but lack gilt-edged Valley Rolodexes. But Graham and company arent just looking for nifty concepts. We realized early on that the founders matter more than the idea, Graham says. Paul Graham估计下一期YC训练营的申请项目可能达到1500个到今年10月底截止其中80个项目的创始人会来到山景城进行紧张的面试。很多最优秀的申请项目来自那些高级程序员他们已经做出了产品的雏形但是苦于在硅谷中谁也不认识。不过Paul Graham和他的公司看重的不仅仅是那些令人叫好的创意。我们从一开始就认识到创始人本身比他的创意更至关重要他说。 YCs vetting process plays a big role in attracting investors. Youre getting prescreened deal flow, says Ron Conway, a prominent Valley angel who invested in Google, PayPal and Twitter. Conway has put capital into 20 YC companies, including 7 from the latest class. Investors are also enticed by the $200 billion of cash piled up on the balance sheets of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Oracle, Intel and Qualcomm. With any luck, some YC grads may soon get snapped up. YC的评估过程对吸引投资者起到很大作用。你看到的项目都经过了严格筛选Ron Conway说。他是硅谷很著名的一个天使投资人曾经投资过Google、Paypal和Twitter。他在20家YC创业公司有投资包括最新一届的7家。诱惑投资者的还有目前有利的市场形势苹果、微软、Google、思科、甲骨文和高通手头共有2000亿美元的现金随时可以用于收购。运气好的话某些YC学员一毕业就会遭到哄抢。 For startups the YC experience revolves around Thursdays. During the afternoon entrepreneurs meet for scheduled office hours with Graham or one of the other partners. They report their progress and brainstorm how to solve nagging problems. Scribbling bullet points on a white board, Graham recently implored Francis Duong and Edmond Yue of TapZilla, which offers one discounted iPhone app at a time, to get a new deal up daily. The pair had, at that point, put up 10 apps in the span of a month, selling 10,000 in all. Graham wants TapZilla to become a site where app hounds feel compelled to check in every day. 对于创业公司来说YC的经历大部分发生在星期四。那天下午学员们按照约定的时间与Paul Graham或者其他某个YC合伙人见面。他们报告项目的进展然后一起讨论如何解决一些棘手的难题。最新的一个例子是Paul Graham在白板上列出几个关键点劝说Francis Duong和Edmond Yue做出改变。他们是网站TapZilla的创始人这个网站每次以折扣价出售一个iPhone应用程序。Paul Graham希望提高该网站的更新频率每天推出一个新的交易品种。在他们谈话的那个时候TapZilla一个月推出10个应用程序总销售量为10000件。Paul Graham要求TapZilla变成一个iPhone应用程序爱好者每天都觉得有必要查看一下的网站。 YC recruits say Graham has a knack for cutting straight to an ideas weakness or for amplifying its unique strengths. His brain is a giant warehouse of startup failures and successes, says Rudy Adler, cofounder of 1000Memories, a website where people can celebrate deceased friends and family members. 根据YC新学员的说法Paul Graham有本事一眼看出一个创意的不足之处或者设法放大这个创意最独特的优点。他的大脑就是一个巨型仓库无数创业公司失败和成功的案例他都知道得清清楚楚Rudy Adler说。他是网站1000Memories的创始人之一这个网站供人们悼念逝去的亲友。 Adlers first idea involved a city-mapping site that tagged friends favorite places. Graham was leery, having seen failed startups go down a similar path. Still, he let Adler and his mates give it a shot for a few weeks before refocusing them on 1000Memories, their auxiliary plan. Rudy Adler本来想做一个都市地理服务网站为年轻人最喜欢去的地方打上标签。Paul Graham对这个创意持怀疑态度他见过好几个提供类似服务的创业公司最后都失败了。不过他还是让Rudy Adler和他的伙伴先试着做上几个星期然后再集中精力去做他们的备选项目1000Memories。 Startups who continually lose their way can lose Graham, too. With Paul, youre either in or youre out, says one YC graduate. You dont want to be out. 那些总是找不对方向的创业公司最后也会被Paul Graham放弃。对于他来说你要么有前途要么没前途一个YC毕业生说。你可不想变得没前途。 A home-cooked meal follows office hours. A recent dinner featured 60 pounds of chili, made in seven Crock-Pots, served over rice. Cookies followed. A guest speaker--often plucked from technologys A-list, such as Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Groupon founder Andrew Mason--spins tales as people eat. 面谈结束后是聚餐时间大家一起吃家常饭。最近的一次聚餐煮了七锅的香辣肉酱浇在米饭上然后还有小甜饼。吃饭的时候还有特邀嘉宾出场与大家见面聊天。那些嘉宾往往是技术行业的顶尖名人比如Facebook的Mark Zuckerberg和Groupon的创始人Andrew Mason。 The avalanching interest in YC is on full display during its Demo Day. YCs warehouse space, corrugated with three rows of tables made from plywood and white melamine, overflows with angels and venture capitalists. (The space can accommodate only 150 investors at a time, so there are now three Demo Days per class.) Each startup gets two and a half minutes to make their case, show their product and leave a good impression. 业界对YC毕业生无以复加的热情在展示日当天表现得一览无遗。YC的库房里塞进了三排胶合板质地、白色三聚氰胺面板的简易桌子四周坐满了天使投资人和风险投资家。这个库房最多只能容纳150个投资者所以每一届学员的展示日不得不延长成3天。每家YC创业公司有两分半钟的自我介绍时间用来展示产品力求给投资者留下美好印象。 The event is invitation only, but Graham says he allows in any investor who asks. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who has invested in several YC companies, showed up for the most recent gathering in August. Kutcher is just one of a growing group of 32,000 U.S. angel investors (so-called accredited individuals with more than $1 million in assets) who last year wrote checks totaling $12.4 billion, says Scott Shane, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University. 只有收到邀请的人才能参加这个活动但是Paul Graham说任何提出申请的投资者都能得到邀请。好莱坞明星黛米•摩尔和她的丈夫艾什顿•库奇在几家YC创业公司有投资他们也出现在今年八月份的展示日上。他们只是美国32000名天使投资人中的一员这个团体正在日益壮大。只要你的资产超过100万美元就有资格当天使投资人。根据凯斯西储大学经济学教授Scott Shane的说法美国的天使投资人在2009年总共拿出了124亿美元。 Its all about hype, says Laurence Albukerk, managing director of EB Financial Group, a Valley firm that facilitates trading stock in young companies. The more hype you get, the higher your valuation. 这都是炒作惹的祸EB金融集团的常务董事Laurence Albukerk说。这家集团的主要业务是在硅谷地区帮助交易新兴公司的股票。市场炒作得越厉害你对它们的估值就越高。 Plenty of Valley insiders could do without all that hype, especially when the result is having to pay more for stakes in YCs offspring. You show up and a lot of other VCs are there and everybody has good pitches, so things can get bid up, says Richard Heitzman, managing partner at FirstMark Capital, which put capital into StubHub, Netgear and TheStreet.com. But in the end people are going to pay what theyre going to pay. I dont begrudge them that value creation. 许多硅谷老手对这种炒作不满尤其是当他们不得不因此付出更高的价格换取YC创业公司股权的时候。你到了现场其他许多风险投资家也都在场大家的眼光都不差价格就这样被哄抬上去了Richard Heitzman说。他是FirstMark Capital投资公司的执行合伙人这家公司在StubHub、Netgear和TheStreet.com有投资。但是最终来看你应该付的钱总是要付的我不会对这部分新增加的价值感到舍不得。 The real winners are rising stars like Jessica Mah. The competition this created for us was amazing, says Mah, a 20-year-old summer YC grad and founder of Indinero, a cloud-based accounting application for small businesses. (Mah graduated from Berkeley with a degree in computer science at age 19.) Indinero just raised $1.2 million in fresh capital at an undisclosed valuation. Mah says it was three times as much as Graham figured it would be. 真正的赢家是那些像Jessica Mah那样冉冉上升的新人。这就是为我们创造出来的比赛真让人着迷Jessica Mah说。她今年20岁YC夏季班的学员Indinero网站创始人那是一个云端的小企业财务服务网站。Jessica Mah从加州大学伯克利分校计算机系毕业时只有19岁。Indinero刚刚完成了初始融资120万美元它的估值还不得而知。Jessica Mah说这个金额是Paul Graham估计的三倍。 Indinero is Grahams archetype. Mah had a working prototype when she applied to join YC for the summer. Graham pushed her to add features, polish the site and incorporate the changes quickly. Put it out there and let users decide, he says. At the end of August Mah had 2,500 customers; two months later she was up to 6,000. Critics piped up quickly, convincing Mah to make the interface more intuitive. Watching somebodys blood pressure rise as they try to use your product can be enlightening, she says. Indinero是Paul Graham推崇的典型模式。Jessica Mah在申请YC训练营时就已经完成了可以正常运行的项目原型。Paul Graham帮助她加入新功能打磨网站快速应变。把你的项目放出去让用户决定下一步该做什么Paul Graham说。到了8月底Jessica Mah已经有了2500个客户再过了两个月客户数量上升到了6000。对网站的批评声音逐渐增多这使得Jessica Mah确信必须让用户界面更符合直觉。别人使用你的产品你看着他们因此血压升高这肯定会触动你她说。 Being able to prove a business concept in a hurry, even if the product isnt perfect, is especially attractive to investors, says Peter Bell, general partner with Highland Capital Partners, a venture firm in Lexington, Mass. that staked Digg, Mapquest and Ask Jeeves. The power has always been with the entrepreneur if they have a good team and a good product, he says. 快速地证实你的构想在商业上可行即使你的产品还不完善也会对投资者产生特别大的吸引力Peter Bell如是说。他是Highland Capital Partners投资公司的普通合伙人那是一家位于马萨诸塞州列克星敦市的风险投资公司在Digg、Mapquest和Ask Jeeves有投资。如果你有一个好的团队和一个好的产品你肯定会因此拥有很大的主动权他说。 Other investors arent so sanguine. Michael Arrington, editor of the influential blog TechCrunch, tipped the pot on a simmering controversy in September when he accused a prominent group of angel investors (whom he calls super angels) of colluding to keep competitors out of deals and hold valuations down, partly in response to Grahams newly empowered students. Arrington crashed a dinner at Bin 38, a haute San Francisco eatery where he says the group of investors was hatching its plan. Mike is wrong--he wasnt there, says Dave McClure, an established Valley investor and one of the angels at the meeting. (Others who were present deny the allegations as well.) McClure does acknowledge YCs effect, however. Paul has done a great job coaching his guys on the investment side of things, and there is a lot more competition for these deals now, he adds. 另一些投资者则不太喜欢现在的局面。著名网志TechCrunch 的编辑Michael Arrington揭露了一场发生在今年9月份的非公开讨论。他指称一群显赫的天使投资人他把他们称为超级天使密谋如何压制竞价企图把创业公司的估值降下来这场讨论的部分起因就是他们看到Paul Graham的那些学员的主动权正在变得越来越大。Michael Arrington闯进了旧金山Bin大街38号的一家高级餐馆据他说那些投资人就在那里密谋。Michael Arrington一派胡言他那天不在现场Dave McClure说他是硅谷的著名人物也是那天在场的天使投资人之一。其他在场的人也否认对他们的指控。但是Dave McClure承认YC效应不容忽视。指导年轻人如何获得投资Paul Graham成绩显著。现在投资人要想拿到好的项目竞争比以前激烈多了他补充道。 Graham remains suspicious of the group but finds the whole dustup beside the point, given the overall size of the investor pool. They couldnt have ever achieved anything, so the whole thing is really kind of comical, he says. Arrington disagrees: Deals rarely get done without a few of these guys being involved, he says. In laymans terms, what they were doing can definitely be considered collusion. Paul Graham本人对这件事持怀疑态度觉得外界对这件事的关注有点不正常。考虑到投资者人数的总体规模是那样庞大单单几个人就试图控制价格似乎是不可能的。他们不可能取得任何成果所以整件事真的是有点滑稽他说。Michael Arrington不同意他的看法那天在场的都是重要人物没有他们的介入几乎什么交易也做不成他说。用通俗的话讲他们那天的所作所为绝对可以被称为串谋。 For his part, Graham is always pushing better financing terms for entrepreneurs. One useful tool: convertible notes that turn into equity upon a startups next valuation. The notes often come with valuation caps to protect early investors from being diluted should a company hit it big. 对于Paul Graham来说他的立场总是设法为创业者争取更有利的风险投资条款。转换券convertible note就是一个很有用的工具它的作用是在创业公司下一次估值时自动转换成股份。它经常附有估值上限valuation cap防止一旦创业公司做大早期投资人的股份被稀释。 Say a convertible note worth $1 million was equal to 50% of a startups estimated worth at the time the note was written. Now say the company takes off and the next time it raises money it is valued at $100 million. The $1 million of debt becomes $1 million of equity, but that stake is worth just 1% of the company. However, if the note came with a valuation cap of $10 million, that means it would be worth 10%--or $1 million divided by $10 million--of that $100 million company. The caps give entrepreneurs more flexibility, allowing them to pit investors against each other by offering early backers lower valuation caps. Convertible notes mean investors can no longer drag their heels, says Graham. 举例来说有一张转换券价值100万美元相当于转换券签发时创业公司估值的50%。现在假定这家创业公司飞黄腾达下一次融资时它的估值变成了1亿美元。那么1百万美元的转换券转换成股份只占总股本的1%。但是如果这张转换券带有1千万美元的估值上限就意味着它相当于总股本1亿美元的10%这个比例的计算方法是1百万美元的面值占1千万美元的10%。估值上限使得创业者有了更多的灵活性通过向早期投资人提供较低的估值上限使得投资人之间可以互相竞争。转换券意味着投资人没法再扯后腿了Paul Graham说。 Like any good business, Grahams is drawing competition. David Cohen, chief executive of TechStars, an incubator based in Boulder, Colo. with satellites in Boston, Seattle and New York, says 100 similar outfits, mostly small, now exist across the U.S. TechStars accepts ten startups per year in each of its four markets. Those that make the cut stay for three months; 60% of its first 40 graduates have each raised more than $600,000 after leaving the program. 就像其他的生意一样Paul Graham也开始有竞争了。根据David Cohen的说法目前美国类似YC的团队有100家左右但是大部分规模都很小。他是TechStars的首席执行官那是一家位于科罗拉多州Boulder市的孵化器公司在波士顿、西雅图和纽约还有分支机构。TechStars在这四个地方每年各接受10家创业公司。这些经过挑选的创业公司会在孵化器里待三个月。它的第一批40个毕业生离开孵化器后有60%得到了超过60万美元的投资。 After Cohens group theres a clear dropoff. But more big players are ramping up their own versions of YC. Chicagoan Eric Lefkofsky, the cofounder of Groupon whos flirting with billionaire status, is planning something in his city soon. 除了David Cohen的团队其他团队离YC的差距目前还比较大。但是不少大玩家正在酝酿他们自己版本的YC。Groupon创始人之一的Eric Lefkofsky计划不久后在他的家乡芝加哥有所动作他的身价高达10亿美元。 Graham welcomes the competition. Its better for entrepreneurs, he says. If we make a mistake and dont fund somebody great, they still have a chance. Paul Graham对竞争表示欢迎。这对创业者有好处他说。如果我们犯错了没有资助优秀的人那么这些人在其他地方还有机会。 完 转载于:https://www.cnblogs.com/sqlite3/archive/2011/04/20/2566868.html
