Meet The Billionaire that Works a Normal Job

章节 1：蓝领创业如何做到六亿美元规模

📝 本节摘要：

本章介绍蓝领亿万富翁拉里·詹尼斯基的创业经历与经营理念：他17岁开始建房，从年收入1.8万美元起步，逐步发展出年营收约6.5亿美元的地下室维修及相关业务。他强调技术并非致富唯一途径，重视双手劳动、员工价值与高薪回报。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: What's the range of revenue all this does?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 这些业务的营收规模大概是多少？

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: Over $600 million a year. Yeah. Basements.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 每年超过6亿美元。没错，主要是地下室业务。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: Meet Larry Janesky, the blue-collar billionaire. He has built one of the largest and most successful basement repair companies in America. He's invented revolutionary products that millions use across their homes. He has a portfolio of blue-collar businesses making $650 million a year. And he's achieved this all while working less than the average CEO. If you have to work 70 hours a week, you're doing it wrong. So, today we're finding out what it takes to build a billion-dollar blue-collar empire.

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 认识一下蓝领亿万富翁拉里·詹尼斯基。他创办了美国规模最大、最成功的地下室维修公司之一，还发明了革命性的产品，数百万家庭都在使用。他旗下拥有一系列蓝领企业，年营收达到6.5亿美元。而这一切成就，都是在他的工作时间少于普通CEO的情况下取得的。如果你每周必须工作70个小时，那就说明你的做法有问题。所以今天，我们要了解，究竟要怎样才能打造一个价值十亿美元的蓝领商业帝国。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: You've been running this for 40 years.

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 你经营这项业务已经40年了。

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: Well, I started when I was 17.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 我17岁就开始了。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: And how much did you make your first year?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 那你第一年赚了多少钱？

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: I made, you know, $18,000, maybe. I don't know. I got a call when I was 18 years old. You know, “Can you build a house for me?” Yeah, but I'm 18 years old, so if that's a problem, let me know. In six weeks, me, my friend who was 17 years old, and my younger brother who was 14 years old on summer vacation—the three of us, you can't make this up—we built the house. And then when we were done, the guy next door comes over and says, “Can you build mine?” And then we built his, and the guy on the other side comes over, “Can you build mine?” And that's it. I was off to the races.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 大概赚了1.8万美元吧，我也不确定。我18岁那年接到一个电话。对方问：“你能帮我盖一栋房子吗？”我说：“可以，不过我只有18岁，如果你介意的话，请告诉我。”六周之内，我、一个17岁的朋友，还有暑假期间来帮忙的14岁弟弟——就我们三个人，简直像编出来的故事一样——把房子盖好了。完工后，隔壁那家的主人走过来问：“你能帮我盖一栋吗？”于是我们又给他盖了一栋。另一边那家的人也过来问：“你能帮我盖一栋吗？”事情就这样开始了，我的事业一路飞速发展。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: How does it feel when I say the phrase “blue-collar billionaire”?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 当我说“蓝领亿万富翁”这个词时，你有什么感觉？

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: You know, it might be surprising to you, but, hello, before, you know, whatever, 1990, we didn't have computers, and there were people that did well before then. Okay? So tech isn't the only way to make money. Okay? You go to the store, you buy groceries, you go to a mall, and you have all this retail. But, you know, the cool thing about working with your hands is that you can never be replaced by AI. Amazon's not going to take over. Your job is not going to be offshored to India or anywhere else, right? Nobody can go into a homeowner's basement and fix it from Amazon or from India, and no robot is ever going to fix a crawl space. It's just not going to happen.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 你可能会觉得惊讶，但在1990年以前——那时候我们甚至还没有电脑——已经有人取得了很大的成功。所以，科技并不是赚钱的唯一途径。你去商店买杂货，去商场购物，那里有各种零售业。但用双手工作的酷之处在于，你永远不会被人工智能取代。亚马逊不会接管你的工作，你的工作也不会被外包到印度或其他地方，对吧？没人能通过亚马逊或从印度远程进入房主的地下室并把它修好，也没有机器人能修理爬行空间。这种事就是不可能发生。

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: Right? We need guys who are willing to get dirty. They know what to do and why they're there. And that's what we do. These guys are real men. Okay? You would see what these guys do. You would not believe it. You would not believe what these guys do.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 对吧？我们需要那些愿意弄脏自己的人。他们知道该做什么，也知道自己为什么在那里。这就是我们做的事。这些人是真正的硬汉。你要是亲眼看看他们的工作，绝对会难以置信。你根本想象不到他们做的事情有多惊人。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: What do you mean?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 你是什么意思？

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: The work that they do, how hard the work is. Crawl-space work. We go into crawl spaces that are this high, and they've got dead mice and snake skins and bugs, and it's all mud under there. And they crawl in there. When they leave at the end of the day, the customer could crawl in there in their pajamas and slide around. And these guys go into these very difficult environments every single day, and they make an incredibly, almost impossible job look easy, and we pay them very, very well.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 我是说他们所做的工作，以及这份工作有多辛苦。比如爬行空间作业。我们要钻进只有这么高的空间，里面有死老鼠、蛇蜕和各种虫子，下面全是泥。他们就这样爬进去。等他们一天工作结束离开后，客户甚至可以穿着睡衣爬进去，在里面来回滑行。这些人每天都要进入如此恶劣的环境，却能把一项极其艰难、几乎不可能完成的工作做得看起来很轻松，而我们给他们的报酬也非常高。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: What's the range of salary?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 他们的薪资大概是多少？

[原文] [Larry Janesky]: These guys make over $100,000 a year because they earn it. It's hard to see this here, but he who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an artist.

[译文] [Larry Janesky]: 这些人年收入超过10万美元，因为这是他们应得的。这里可能不太容易看清，但有人说过：只用双手工作的人是劳动者；用双手和头脑工作的人是工匠；用双手、头脑和心工作的人是艺术家。

[原文] [Noah Kagan]: From making $18,000 building homes to owning a $600 million-a-year business, I had to find out what Larry's secret is. That's a big jump from here to $600 million a year. Like, did you just start, “Hey, I'm just going to do basements,” and the demand was there?

[译文] [Noah Kagan]: 从盖房子赚1.8万美元，到拥有一家年营收6亿美元的企业，我一定要弄清楚拉里的秘诀是什么。从起步阶段到年营收6亿美元，这可是巨大的跨越。你当时是不是只是想着：“好吧，我就做地下室业务”，然后市场需求就出现了？