Garry Tan: New Rules for Founders

章节 1：2003 年的至暗时刻：追逐风口，错失所长

📝 本节摘要：

Garry Tan 回忆 2003 年从斯坦福毕业时的处境：互联网泡沫刚破裂，湾区几乎找不到工作，科技行业毫无光环。他放弃了自己积累多年的 Web 编程经验，转而追逐当时被看好的移动端，去了微软 Windows Mobile，错过了 Web 2.0 和社交浪潮。他由此提出「别 LARP」：创业者应保持真诚，相信亲身经验，不随大流，不追问什么最火，而要问自己真正感兴趣、独有了解的是什么。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: We may never achieve a utopia, but it is worthy and worth it to attempt. But everything that's awesome in my life is kind of a cult. We had to go over to the Windows team. They wouldn't reply to our emails. They wouldn't fix our bugs. And we had to go over there with a baseball bat.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 我们也许永远无法实现乌托邦，但去尝试本身就有价值，也值得。不过，我生命中所有很棒的东西，多少都有点像邪教。我们当时得亲自跑到 Windows 团队那边去。他们不回我们的邮件，也不修我们提的 bug。所以我们只好拎着棒球棍杀过去。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: An org like Microsoft can't.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 像微软这样的组织做不到。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Yes, but a startup can.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 对，但初创公司可以。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yes, and every startup must.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 没错，而且每家初创公司都必须这么做。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Garry, so good to have you, brother. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: Garry，兄弟，太高兴你能来了。非常感谢你今天参加我们的节目。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Thanks for having me.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 谢谢邀请。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Amazing, dude. Well, we're going to cover a bunch of the basics, then we're going to get into the advanced topics to make sure that we kind of match the curiosity and ambition of our audience.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 太棒了，老兄。我们先聊一些基础话题，然后再深入一些进阶话题，好配得上我们观众的好奇心和雄心。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: That sounds great.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 听起来很好。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Does that work? Awesome. Well, dude, maybe talk to me a bit about the beginning of your journey, 2003. You know, it feels like what's under-discussed is founder psychology and then sort of Silicon Valley culture and how the two are connected. What did it feel like when you first got in the game back in 2003, coming out of Stanford?

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 这样可以吗？太好了。那老兄，先跟我聊聊你起步的时候吧，2003 年。我觉得大家讨论得太少的，是创始人的心理，还有硅谷文化，以及这两者之间的关联。2003 年你从斯坦福毕业、刚入行的时候，是什么感觉？

[原文] [Garry Tan]: I guess I wanted to work at startups, but 2003 was funny in that, like, Web 1.0 had just ended. Like, you know, Nasdaq had just crashed and actually there were no jobs that I could even find in the Bay Area other than, you know, working at Gap IT. And so the two job offers I had were Microsoft for Windows Mobile, which I was pretty excited about, or Expedia.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 我想我当时是想去初创公司的，但 2003 年挺有意思，Web 1.0 时代刚刚结束。你知道，纳斯达克刚崩盘，我在湾区几乎找不到任何工作，除了去 Gap 做 IT。所以我手上的两个工作邀约，一个是微软的 Windows Mobile，我对这个挺兴奋的，另一个是 Expedia。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Okay.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 好的。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Yeah, I, you know, I had student loans and I, you know, while I wanted to start a company, I just, you know, felt like I needed to get a job, and then actually there were no jobs in the Bay. So it's, like, kind of hard to believe, actually, that moment was so bleak. And then right before Web 2.0,

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 是啊，我有学生贷款要还，虽然我想创业，但总觉得得先找份工作，可湾区偏偏又没有工作。所以说起来真挺难相信的，那个时候竟然那么惨淡。而那正好是 Web 2.0 到来之前，

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: it felt like it might have been the end of tech, huh?

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 感觉科技行业可能就要完蛋了，是吧？

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Right, a little bit. Yeah, that's what — that was the vibe. And then, you know, at the end of the day, like, that's the boom, that's the bust. Like, these things sort of happen over and over again.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 对，有点那个意思。是的，当时就是那种氛围。说到底，这就是繁荣和萧条，这种事总是一遍又一遍地上演。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: So, at the time, did it feel high-status to work in tech or on startups?

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 那在当时，在科技行业或者初创公司工作，算是很有面子的事吗？

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Not at all. I mean, you know, it's sort of lost to the sands of time, but I was still excited about tech, though. You know, I had done a lot of web programming, and then one of my regrets, actually, was I was sort of chasing what was hot instead of what was clearly the thing I knew. Mark Zuckerberg was probably doing Facemash around then, around 2003, and then Facebook didn't even exist yet, and I was getting out of web programming at exactly the wrong time.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 完全不是。这些事早已被时间湮没了，但我当时对科技还是很兴奋的。我之前做了大量 Web 编程，而我的一大遗憾其实是：我在追逐当时最火的东西，而不是我显然最懂的东西。差不多那个时候，2003 年前后，马克·扎克伯格大概正在做 Facemash，Facebook 甚至还没诞生，而我恰恰在最不该的时候离开了 Web 编程。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Because it felt like that was the smart thing to do.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 因为那时候感觉那才是明智的选择。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Yeah, it was smart, and, you know, I mean, this is true now. You know, in front of all these people at Startup School, you know, I sort of started this "don't LARP"

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 对，看起来很明智。我觉得这一点放到今天也成立。你知道，在创业学校（Startup School）上，当着那么多人的面，我算是发起了「别 LARP（别搞角色扮演、别装样子）」

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Right.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 对。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: meme.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 这个梗。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: I saw that.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 我看到了。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: But I think, like, that's — that's embedded in this idea that, like, you should just be earnest,

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 但我觉得，这背后的理念是：你就应该真诚，

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yeah.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 嗯。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: and then you shouldn't follow what the crowd is saying, right? Like, at that moment people said the web was dead, but that was sort of the perfect time to work on web and social and things like that. And, you know, I didn't do it. I ran off and said, like, "Oh, well, the next hot thing will be mobile." So I wanted to work at Windows Mobile, which was true, but why I give up, like, the thing that could have been the next thing?

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 而且不该随大流，对吧？那时候大家都说 Web 已死，但那恰恰是做 Web、做社交之类东西的绝佳时机。可我没去做。我跑去说：「嗯，下一个风口会是移动端。」所以我想去 Windows Mobile 工作，这话倒也没错，但我为什么要放弃那个本可能成为下一个大机会的东西呢？

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: What I love about what you're saying, though, is often when we hear "earnest," we think naive, but actually what it sounds like you're saying is there's, like — earnestness is a sort of result of maturity and courage.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 不过我很喜欢你说的这一点：我们听到「真诚」，往往会联想到「天真」，但听起来你的意思是，真诚其实是成熟和勇气的产物。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Courage is actually, I think, the right thing.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 我觉得「勇气」才是那个关键。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yes.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 是的。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: Like, if you know something that's sort of — if someone just, like, comes and contradicts you, or even if, like, a blog post or, like, someone on Twitter contradicts you,

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 比如，如果你清楚某件事，这时有人跑来反驳你，甚至是一篇博客文章或者推特上的某个人反驳你，

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yeah.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 嗯。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: you're like, well, I don't — I don't agree with that, because I believe my own direct experience.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 你会说：嗯，我不同意，因为我相信自己的亲身经验。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yes.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 对。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: I know that I'm not a time traveler, because if I was a time traveler, I would have — I would have sent a message back to myself and said, "Just stay on working on web stuff." Like, you literally have five years of experience on top of everyone else. Like, you could do an end run around everyone. Like, you could have built, like, any kind of social software.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 我知道自己不是时间旅行者，因为如果我是，我一定会给过去的自己捎个信：「就继续做 Web 吧。」你可是实打实比所有人多了五年经验，完全可以绕过所有人、抢先一步，想做什么样的社交软件都做得出来。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Yes.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 是的。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: But instead I was, you know, I was 22. So I was, like, being whipped around by whatever I could read in The Wall Street Journal. And, you know, the — the classic question I'm sure you get, that, you know, all investors get all the time, is, "What's hot and what should I work on?"

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 但实际上，我那时才 22 岁，被《华尔街日报》上读到的各种东西牵着鼻子走。而且我相信你也常被问到，所有投资人都总被问到的那个经典问题就是：「现在什么最火？我该做什么？」

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Right.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 没错。

[原文] [Garry Tan]: And that's the wrong question to ask. Like, the right question is, like, "What are you interested in? What do you know uniquely?" And so I was — that's, like, you know, one of a great many mistakes I made in my career. I feel like I'm a little bit doomed to be the first-principle storyteller of all the mistakes that I made.

[译文] [Garry Tan]: 这是个错误的问题。正确的问题应该是：「你对什么感兴趣？你有什么独到的了解？」所以，这算是我职业生涯里犯过的众多错误之一。我觉得自己有点注定要从第一性原理出发，去讲述我犯过的所有错误。

[原文] [Anish Acharya]: Well, I think that it's — it's very inspiring for founders to hear your own journey and your own mistakes, and then not feel so bad about the ones that we've all made along the way.

[译文] [Anish Acharya]: 我觉得，创始人们听你讲自己的经历和犯过的错，会很受鼓舞，也就不会对我们一路上都犯过的那些错误太过耿耿于怀了。