看看世界上最有價(jià)值的科技公司，大家就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)一件有意思的事：沒有任何一家公司發(fā)明了它們所定義的那一類產(chǎn)品，而且它們的巨額利潤(rùn)中的絕大多數(shù)都來自并非由它們創(chuàng)造的市場(chǎng)。
Whether it’s Apple in smartphones, Google (GOOGL, +0.24%) in search, Microsoft(MSFT, +0.49%) in operating systems, Facebook (FB, +0.71%) in social networks or Amazon (AMZN, +0.24%) in ecommerce, when these companies launched, nobody could have predicted their eventual path to domination.
無論是蘋果之于智能手機(jī)，谷歌之于網(wǎng)絡(luò)搜索，微軟之于操作系統(tǒng)，F(xiàn)acebook之于社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)，還是亞馬遜之于電子商務(wù)，這些公司成立時(shí)，沒有任何人預(yù)見到它們腳下的道路最終通往何方。
What does that tell us? For one thing, you don’t have to be first to be number one. But you probably already knew that. Far more important is that every one of these companies’ founders chose a ridiculously improbable path that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.
這說明什么呢？比如，你不必成為第一個(gè)，不過這一點(diǎn)大家可能已經(jīng)知道了。遠(yuǎn)比這個(gè)重要的是，就傳統(tǒng)觀點(diǎn)而言，這些公司的創(chuàng)始人選擇的道路都荒謬得可笑。
"Trust your instincts even when everyone else says you’re crazy," is advice that’s easy to give and hard to follow. Challenging the almighty status quo to do what experts say can’t be done isn’t for the faint of heart. But that’s exactly what these founders did, ignoring the advice of the many and trusting their own focus group of one - or two.
“相信自己的直覺，就算所有人都說你瘋了�！边@條建議說起來容易，做起來很難。挑戰(zhàn)堪比磐石的現(xiàn)狀，去做那些專家說不可能的事可不適合膽小之輩。而這恰恰是那些公司創(chuàng)始人的所作所為——無視眾人建議，相信自己關(guān)注的那一件或兩件事。
The pundits thought Steve Jobs was absolutely insane to get into the dog-eat-dog cellphone business. In 2007, John Dvorak put into words what everyone was thinking: "Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone," he wrote, as "there is no likelihood" it would be successful. He later called the iPad tablet a “giant iPod Touch” that would have nominal market impact.
專家認(rèn)為，史蒂夫·喬布斯一定是瘋了才會(huì)進(jìn)入競(jìng)爭(zhēng)激烈的手機(jī)行業(yè)。2007年，約翰·德沃夏克寫出了人人心中所想：“蘋果應(yīng)該讓iPhone項(xiàng)目下馬，”原因是它成功的可能性“為零”。后來，德沃夏克又把iPad稱為市場(chǎng)影響將微乎其微的“巨型iPod Touch”。
Today, the iPhone is undoubtedly among the most successful products ever, generating more revenue than nearly every S&P 500 company. The iPad-dominated tablet market surpassed PCs in 2019, just five years after its introduction.
現(xiàn)在，iPhone無疑已經(jīng)成為歷史上最成功的產(chǎn)品之一，它創(chuàng)造的收入幾乎超過了所有標(biāo)普500指數(shù)企業(yè)。iPad主導(dǎo)的平板電腦市場(chǎng)在2019年超越了PC市場(chǎng)--此時(shí)距iPad誕生只有短短五年。
And let me tell you - everyone thought Apple was crazy when it opened its first retail stores in 2001.
我要告訴大家，2001年第一家蘋果零售店開張時(shí)，所有人都覺得蘋果瘋了。
Today, Apple stores are the most lucrative retail space in the U.S.
如今，蘋果零售店已經(jīng)成為美國(guó)最賺錢的零售業(yè)務(wù)。
In 1998, Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin shopped their search engine to just about every venture capitalist and Internet company that would listen. They were repeatedly met with the same response: The world doesn’t need a stand-alone Internet search company.
1998年，斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)生拉里·佩奇和謝爾蓋·布林把他們的搜索引擎推薦給了幾乎所有愿意聽一聽的風(fēng)投人士和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司，但他們得到的答復(fù)始終是：這個(gè)世界不需要一家只做互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索的公司。
Finally, one man, former Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, wrote a check for $100,000 and Google was born. But for a while, it looked like everyone was right;Google’s share of the search market was a dismal 7.8% in 1999.
最終，太陽(yáng)微系統(tǒng)聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人安迪·貝托謝姆拿出了10萬美元，谷歌就此誕生。但在一段時(shí)間里，其他人看起來好像是對(duì)的--谷歌在搜索市場(chǎng)中的份額很小，1999年時(shí)只有7·8%。
Then, in October of 2000, the Silicon Valley startup launched AdWords. Who knew that the combination of search engine and advertising platform could create a business model that practically mints cash - and turn Google into one of the most valuable and powerful companies on Earth?
然后到了2000年10月，谷歌推出了AdWords。當(dāng)時(shí)誰(shuí)能想到搜索引擎加廣告平臺(tái)的組合會(huì)帶來一種真的能賺錢的商業(yè)模式呢？而且這種商業(yè)模式會(huì)把谷歌變成世界上最有價(jià)值、最強(qiáng)大的公司之一呢？
Way back in the summer of 1980, some suits from IBM approached a young software developer named Bill Gates about an operating system for a personal computer. Since Gates’ specialty was programming languages, he referred them to someone else. When that didn’t work out, he finally agreed to do it using a modified version of QDOS, which he bought for $50,000.
1980年，一些西裝筆挺的IBM成員找到了一位名叫比爾·蓋茨的年輕程序員，請(qǐng)他為個(gè)人計(jì)算機(jī)開發(fā)一款操作系統(tǒng)。由于蓋茨的專長(zhǎng)是編程語(yǔ)言，他向這些人推薦了別人。但被推薦者沒做成這件事，蓋茨最終同意基于修改后的QDOS來開發(fā)這款操作系統(tǒng)。他買下QDOS時(shí)花了5萬美元。
But instead of simply selling it outright for a quick profit, Gates licensed DOS to IBM on a non-exclusive per-unit royalty basis. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said the innovative licensing model was his idea, but that’s neither here nor there. DOS became Windows and more than a billion PCs and countless apps would be built on top of that ubiquitous operating system.
不過，蓋茨并沒有簡(jiǎn)單地用這款操作系統(tǒng)換錢了事，相反，他把DOS以非獨(dú)家形式授權(quán)給了IBM，按銷量收取授權(quán)費(fèi)。微軟聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人保羅·艾倫說，這種新穎的授權(quán)模式是他的主意，但這并不重要。DOS變成了Windows，成了一款無處不在的操作系統(tǒng)，成了逾10億臺(tái)PC和無數(shù)應(yīng)用程序的基礎(chǔ)。
Of course, not every successful founder has a comparable story. But the select group of entrepreneurs who have built companies that truly change the way we live and work usually do, for one simple reason: The kind of vision required to disrupt markets on that scale is a rare thing. So rare that if these founders did not believe strongly in themselves, their companies would never have made it.
當(dāng)然，并非所有成功的企業(yè)創(chuàng)始人都有類似的故事。但有一部分創(chuàng)業(yè)者建立的公司確實(shí)改變了我們平常的生活和工作方式，原因很簡(jiǎn)單，那就是在那樣的級(jí)別上具備顛覆市場(chǎng)所需的眼光是一件罕見的事。而且它是如此的罕見，以至于如果不是有強(qiáng)烈的自信心，這些創(chuàng)業(yè)者的公司就絕不會(huì)成功。
Don’t get me wrong. It takes a lot more than perseverance in the face of conventional wisdom to turn a startup into a business powerhouse. And having the courage, self-confidence and tenacity to trust your own instincts when everyone around you says you’re nuts will not, in and of itself, make you the next Mark Zuckerberg. But if you’ve got the talent to back it up, it’s a damn good start.
可別理解錯(cuò)了。把初創(chuàng)公司變成強(qiáng)大企業(yè)所需要的可不僅僅是傳統(tǒng)觀點(diǎn)所認(rèn)為的韌性。在周圍的人都說你傻時(shí)，你的勇氣、自信和相信自己直覺的毅力本身并不會(huì)讓你成為下一個(gè)馬克·扎克伯格。不過，如果你的才能可以撐起這份勇氣、自信和毅力，那就絕對(duì)是個(gè)好的開始。
本文來自：逍遙右腦記憶 http://yy-art.cn/gaozhong/1244938.html
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