谢谢关注缓慢思考。
原文来自Benchamrk的合伙人Peter Fenton最近的问答。Peter 2015年在全球风险投资人Forbes Midas List上位列第二，他还是Twitter、Yelp、Zandesk等的投资人。本文是访谈的下篇，我最大的感受还是他对Bill Gurley的评价：在他那里，真理超越了自我。文章不短，翻译和阅读都很辛苦，enjoy！
5. What has being a venture capitalist taught you about people and business?
在人和商业方面，风险投资这个工作教给了你什么？
Doing this job for almost 20 years now has taught me far more about people than about business. So let me first answer what I've learned about business, and in this case I mean the business of investing in startups. I started out as someone who had all the conceptual overhead needed to sound intelligent in our world, Porter's 5 Forces, the Innovators Dillema, and Crossing the Chasm. I would, in my former firm's parlance, develop a “prepared mind” in a sector so I could see where the logical opportunities should exist. I became an expert on Storage, on Application Software, on SupplyChain. All of that, I came to realize, was useless without the alchemy of an entrepreneur who was playing around with explosive market forces. Yes we can look, and it helps to look with a lens, but the best ideas and companies aren't filling logical white spaces. They are touching nuclear reactor of some force that will yield, and yield quickly, to an entrepreneurial leader.
做这个工作近20年，教给了我更多的是关于人而不是商业方面的思考。所以让我首先回答我对商业的理解，我说的商业是创业投资。我开始的时候，是一个脑子里充满概念的人，这些概念让你在这个世界上听起来很聪明：波特五力模型、创新者窘境、跨越鸿沟。按照我以前的公司的说法，我会在一个某个方向上做到“有备而来”，这样我就可以看到逻辑上机会应该存在在什么地方。我成为了存储的专家，应用软件方面的专家，供应链的专家。但是，我开始意识到，所有这一切，其实都是没用的，如果没有创业家的炼金术遇上爆炸性的市场力量。是的，我们可以看到机会，镜头也有助于看到机会，但最好的想法和公司并不是逻辑上的空白填充。他们就像某种力量的核反应堆，只听命于创业领袖。
I also came to realize that at the beginning, no analysis can capture “what can go right” without sounding like you are clinically insane. Having seen the Series A pitch for Facebook, Uber, Snap, Twitter, VMware...$1B in revenue for any of those companies would have been nearly impossible to imagine. Yet in each of those cases, I vividly remember the meetings, the day, the setting...and this feeling that an exceptional entrepreneur had touched on something nobody else had understood at their level of depth and insight. Each in its own way felt limitless. I'll never forget meeting Evan Spiegel in 2012 at Sightglass in SF and leaving thinking, I know with all of my being that this person, this product, will give humanity back the playful joy of self expression, which had been stolen away by then current social networks. Sometimes it's obvious.
我也意识到，开始的时候，伟大的主意听上去很疯狂，没有什么分析可以捕捉“什么会是对的”。看过了Facebook，Uber，Snap，Twitter，VMware ...等公司的A轮融资陈述稿，能想象这些公司的收入能达到10亿美金几乎是不可能的。然而，上面的每一家公司，我都清晰的记住了会议、日期和当时的场景...以及那种感觉：一个杰出的创业家在他们的深度和洞察力水平上触及了其他人没有理解的东西。我永远不会忘记2012年在旧金山的Sightglass会见Evan Spiegel（ Snapchat创始人），离开的时候我在想：我知道这个人、这个产品将会给人类带回来被社交网络偷走的自我表达的乐趣。有时，这显而易见。
Some other off the top of my head business lessons.
其他一些我脑子里的的商业经验。
-I'd be a fraction of myself without my partners
—如果没有我的合伙人，我可能不会成为今天的自己
-Venture is a shoe-leather business, you can only be great if you are out looking engaging and hustling
—风投就像是一个制鞋的生意，只有投入和充满热情，才可能伟大
-Never turn down a company on valuation. It's a mental trap, and allows for weak thinking
—不要因为公司估值而拒绝公司。这是一个思维陷阱，并导致思维软弱
-Board's are responsible to ensure the integrity of the Strategy, Stucture, and Staff. If the strategy is clear, the structure of the org should be aligned to that strategy, and the staff should be aligned to that org model
—董事会负责确保战略，组织结构和员工的完整性。如果战略是明确的，组织结构应该与战略相一致，员工应该与组织模型保持一致
-Entrepreneurial culture and professional culture will be in constant tension and conflict, and the art of the CEO is to balance both, and most CEOs don't
— 创业文化和专业文化将始终处于紧张和冲突中，CEO的艺术是平衡两者，但大多数CEO不擅长
-Always, always pull the future forward on the organization you want
—永远推动公司向未来前进
-The only time to lose fierce optimism is when you're out of money, in all other scenarios greatness is on the horizon
—失去强烈乐观的唯一时候只能是钱花完了时候，在所有其他情况下，伟大就在地平线上
What I've learned about people....the biggest lesson is that, simply put, the magic of human connection is the reason to do this job forever. The joy of being a partner, in the fullest sense, to a leader on the heroic journey of a startup inspires everything I want to contribute to this world. In terms of specifics, I've learned that the one variable that defines a great relationship above all else is trust. I believe that comes from clarity of purpose, and shared-purpose. If there's a “hidden agenda” it's immediately obiovous to the subconscious mind, and it destroys trust. In a high trust relationship, I've found CEOs adapt and evolve at a higher positive rate. If there is one distinguishing trait in the best people I work with, they are learn-it-alls not know-it-alls. Another specific, I've also learned, as Peter Drucker said, where there are great peaks there are great valleys, and our job as a partner is to amplify the strengths and to recruit complements for the valleys. A final big lesson for me has been that motivation isn't a fixed constant. Everyone will go though periods, which can last for months at a time, when they have lost faith or confidence in the potential of the business, and in those situations it's essential as a partner to be a foundation of support and belief. It never ceases to amaze me how motivation can and almost always does return in full.
简单说，我所学到的关于人最大的经验是：人的连接的魔力是我永远做这个工作的原因。从最大意义上说，在英勇的创业之旅上陪伴创业家的喜悦激发了我想为这个世界贡献的一切。具体方面，我发现，定义一个伟大的关系的一个变量是信任。这种信任来自清晰的目标和共同的目的。如果有一个“隐藏的议程”，潜意识上很容易发现，它会破坏了信任。在高度的信任关系中，我发现CEO们以更高的正向速度来适应和发展。如果在我合作的最好的人当中有一个突出的的特点的话，它就是是学习一切，而不是知道一切。我学到的另一个具体的经验是，如彼得·德鲁克所说，哪里有伟大的山峰就有伟大的山谷。作为合作伙伴，我们的工作是放大优势，并帮助填充山谷。对我来说，最后一个经验是，动力不是一个固定不变的常量。每个人都会经历一段时间，这可能持续几个月的时间，当他们对业务的潜力失去信心，在这些情况下，作为一个合作伙伴，成为支持和信念的基础至关重要。动力总是会回来，而且全血恢复，这从未停止让我感到惊喜。
6. What are some of the most important life lessons you're trying to teach, as a father?
作为父亲，你想教会最重要的人生经验是什么？
I'm lucky enough to be the son of parents who created the background conditions for me to live my dream life. We didn't always get along, conflict was the norm, but they allowed me to take my own path. They never once asked me what I as going to do when I grew up. As a recklessly curious philosophy major they must have wondered. But they encouraged effort, and instilled in me a belief that if you're giving all of your energy to something, really anything at all is possible. My dad, in particular, taught me humility. I'll never forget one day as a boy I had told someone that he was a CEO, and he pulled me aside and said “I'm just like everyone else, and when you talk about me being more than that you diminish us.”
我很幸运成为我父母的儿子，他为我创造了按照我梦想生活的条件。我们并不总是和平相处，冲突是常态，但他们允许我选择自己的路径。他们从来没有问过我长大后我会做什么。他们肯定想知道，一个充满好奇的哲学专业的毕业生会干什么。但他们鼓励努力，并灌输我一个信念：如果你为某事倾注所有的精力，真的一切都是可能的。我的父亲，还特别教会我谦卑。我永远不会忘记那一天，我告诉一个人我父亲是一个CEO，他把我拉到一边，说：“我和其他人是一样的普通人，如果你试图突出我比别人强，我们会因此蒙羞。”
More recently since my kids are at a formative stage (3, 5, 7), I've been trying to teach at least the older ones to be aware of in-group and out-group bias. It weighs on me when I reflect on my luck that I stumbled into the conditions of my life, I didn't pick them. Malcom Galdlwell's revisionist history really puts a spotlight on this. For people with a higher socioeconomic status, we get second chances. We get third chances. In a recent conversation with a Stanford trustee, when we were lamenting the unacceptably low representation of lower SES students, we agreed that for “good luck” there is a correlary, not bad-luck, but a person who didn't get that good luck. My kids go to public school in france, which is refreshingly diverse in SES, and I'm encouraging as much as I can that they be the kids who bridge the divide into the out-groups, of being the one with the courage to challenge the cliques. The power of inclusion has been a huge part of my professional life, and I want them to experience first hand how it elevates your whole self.
最近，由于我的孩子处于人格形成阶段（3岁，5岁，7岁），我一直试图教导年纪大一些的孩子理解内群体和外群体偏见。当我反思我步入人生遇到的种种运气，这点是最重要的，我没有选择他们。Galdlwell的修正主义历史真正地关注到了这一点。对于社会经济地位较高的人，我们总有第二次机会和第三次机会。在最近与斯坦福大学受托人的一次对话中，当我们对低社会地位学生群体的低代表性感到失望时，我们同意好运气而不是坏运气是有相关性的，但是问题是一个人可能得不到好运气。我的孩子们在法国上公立学校，学校在社会地位上非常的多元化，我尽可能的鼓励他们成为跨越不同团体分界线的桥梁，成为勇敢挑战小派系的人。包容的力量是我职业生涯的一个巨大部分，我希望他们亲身体验如何提升整个自我。
So as a dad I try to transfer what I benefited from, to instill radical belief in yourself with humility, a passion for learning and intense effort, deep empathy for others, and the freedom and autonomy to go wherever your curiosity takes you...but to really go there, to dive in completely. There are so many good books on this, especially Mindset by Carol Dweck, a must must read.
所以，作为一个爸爸，我试图转授我受益的那些品格，把谦卑、热爱学习和全力投入、同理心、以及自由和自主去跟随好奇心真正成为他们的信念。真的去那里，彻底的投入进去。关于这方面有很多好的书，特别是Carol Dweck写的Mindset，必须阅读。
Maybe the best lesson I am tying to teach them, and I'm aspiring towards, is how to be a great dad.
也许我想教给他们的最好的经验，和我自己最渴望成为的，是如何成为一个伟大的爸爸。
7. What companies outside of your portfolio are you most bullish on?
你没有投资的公司中，哪些是你最看好的？
As an early stage, mostly Silicon Valley focused investors, my partners at Benchmark and I ask this question every day, “what have we missed”. It's easy to point to Stripe, Airbnb, Slack, to name a few, but obvious....the operative question is, “what less than 30 person company should we have invested in?”
作为一个专注在硅谷的早期投资者，我和我在Benchmark合伙人每天都问这个问题，“我们错过了什么”。很容易列出了一些：Stripe，Airbnb，Slack，但显而易见...更实际的的问题是：“我们应该投资什么公司，在其人数还不到30个的时候？”
Today that answer for me is Houseparty. Or at least for the last month it has been. I think Sketch is really interesting. I have a list of 3 others that if I shared my partners would shoot me....
今天对我言，回答是Houseparty。或者至少上个月是这样。。我认为Sketch真的很有趣。我有一个其他三个公司的名单，但是如果我说出来的话，我的合伙人会杀了我。。。
8. Apart from funding, advice & introductions, what kind of value-adds does Benchmark offer its portfolio companies?
除了资金，建议和资源介绍，Benchmark为其投资公司提供什么样的增值服务？
I'd hope that we amplify the ambition and sense of the possible, bringing confidence that you're on a path of greatness and combining that with understanding and empathy for how challenging it can be at times
我希望我们能放大野心和成功的可能性，给创业者带来信心，让他们相信自己正走在一个伟大的道路上，同时对这条路上充满的挑战给予理解和同情。
9. What do you know to be true about Bill Gurley that would surprise most people to learn?
你很了解Bill Gurley，他有什么特点让我们会感到惊奇的吗？
The degree to which truth comes ahead of ego or self for him.
在他那里，真理超越了自我。
Just how out of this world great he is as a partner — always there for you, big hearted and concerned about helping reach full potential
有这么一位合伙人是件了不起的事情—他永远在那里，为帮你实现所有的潜力不遗余力。
愉悦资本是新一代VC基金，由刘二海、李潇、戴汨创立。我们是创始人也是投资经理返回搜狐，查看更多