导语：

感谢大家订阅皮埃罗·斯加鲁菲（Piero Scaruffi）的钛媒体72问.知识专栏《硅谷的秘密》。我是今天的提问者赵何娟。前面几课我们都学习了硅谷的教育体系里的故事，接下来我们都需要讲讲建立在硅谷教育基础上的一个重要文化，那就是“不怕失败”甚至“以失败为荣”，那我们来问问皮埃罗硅谷公司如何面对失败，这又对中国创业者有些什么启发？

正文：

We have many famous failures. The Global Corporation failed, the first computer made by Apple Newton failed. But these were all good ideas so it's important to see failure as learning. The best way to learn is to fail. I don't want you to die crossing a street but if you cross the street and a car almost kills you, you’ll learn. 

硅谷有很多失败的案例，苹果第一代产品牛顿就是失败案例。但产品都是很好的想法。最重要的是，我们要在失败中学习跟吸取教训。学习的最好方式就是经历失败。我不想你在过马路的时候，被车撞死；但是如果你过马路遭遇车祸，丢了半条命，那么你一定会吸取教训。

That's how you learn. If you are in a room and people tell you one thousand times how to cross the street you don't learn how to cross the street. The first time you cross it, you learn not to cross the street because a car comes really close and you learn you are not supposed to do that.

这是我们学习的方式。如果你在房间里学习过马路，无论人们告诉你多少次过马路的方法，你都学不会。你自己过一次马路，就会知道到底要怎么过。有车靠近你，你就会躲开，而且你也会看交通灯。

and you are supposed to be aware that there are in china that are crazy motorcycles everywhere right. So failure is very important for learning. So the first message is don't call it failure, call it learning. That's really how venture capitalists look at failure. If you failed, they want to see how do you fail. Failure doesn't say anything, if you created a unicorn, that a one-billion-dollar company and then you fail. That's probably really bad, that's really bad. That means that you were not learning anything. 

你们中国到处都有很多摩托车，对吧？所以过马路的时候，你也需要注意来往的摩托车。要在失败中学习，所以我给的第一个建议是不要把失败当作是失败，而是把它当作是学习的机会。这就是风险投资人看待失败的方式。如果你失败了，他们就会想知道你失败的原因。如果你创造出了一家超过十亿市值的公司，却失败了，那就非常糟糕了。这意味着你什么都学不到。

I mean how can you possibly waste so much money, then he looks really bad. But you were in the garage and you try to build something and you use two hundred thousand dollars and you failed. I think venture capitalist are interested in understanding what you learn. Maybe the technology was right, you know, it just that what you did in those six months wasn't the right thing. 

你怎么可以浪费那么多钱？如果你在车库里创业你用了二十万美金创业，最终失败了，那么风险投资人可能就会好奇你从中获得什么教训。也许你的技术是对的，也许你的想法也是正确的。

The technology maybe was right maybe the deal was right and maybe this venture capitalist will give money for the same idea in the same place. Because you learn something. The second time, it would work. Steve Jobs when he left Apple and tried to do Next there was a failure he wasn't making money out of that but he learned so that's a recurring theme you know sometimes you fail but the failure is exactly what you need to learn. So that's the first thing. 

如果你从中学习，那么你再做这件事情就可能会成功了。乔布斯被苹果炒鱿鱼，去创办Next时也很失败，因为他当时并没有盈利。这就是一个不断出现的主题。有时候你会面临失败，但是失败之后就要去学习。这就是我的第一个建议。

The second thing, of course, that you have to be in the right society I keep saying this society is important. In Europe even if you fail for a very good reason, people don't like you. The vast majority of failures that have seen were bad luck. 

第二个建议是你需要处于合适的社会环境中。我一直在强调社会环境。因为在欧洲，即便你的失败是情有可原的，人们都会讨厌你。但实际上，很多人只是败给运气。

And the vast majority of success stories that have seen was good luck that's when I especially when I talk to young people I asked them what is the number one factor for success and they go to the venture capital money, oh, marketing, oh the team and I tell them the number one factor for success is luck. Okay, a lot of these people were just lucky if you ask me. 

大众所看到的成功案例很多时候也只是运气好而已。我和年轻人讲话的时候，会询问他们成功的第一要素是什么？他们回答各不相同，有风险投资人的资金、市场营销、团队合作等。但我会告诉他们，决定成功的因素就是运气。很多人不过是幸运而已。

Google was the best searching in my opinion. I started using it before it was famous. But think Facebook there were other things doing the same thing, why Facebook became so popular? Luck, I think, just luck. 

谷歌是最好用的搜索引擎。早在谷歌成名以前，我就开始使用它进行检索了。社交媒体有很多，但为什么Facebook能够脱颖而出呢？ 这就是运气了。

There’s nothing particular that Zuckerberg or the other founders did, it was just luck. People started using it. Half of us just started using it in other places. And then Zuckerberg has the right connections and you know it so there's so many of these stories were just luck.

扎克伯格并没有比其他社交媒体的创始人多做什么，你们开始用Facebook使用这款产品也只是巧合。扎克伯格碰巧认识很棒的人。

Well the same is true also failure. Sometimes it just bad luck, you know, in some cases, it’s really so obvious. I mean a friend is great artificial intelligence scientists that invented some great machine learning techniques. Unfortunately as a really annoying disease it's not going to die but of course the disease means he has to stop all the time taking medicines it cannot leave the house because his immune system gets very weak. When it takes this medicine, it’s obvious that's bad luck. so in some cases so obvious that it's just bad luck. But even when you don't have any personal tragedy. 

同理，失败也是要看运气的。有些人只是运气不好，在有一些案例里面就可以明显看到。我一个朋友是工智能专家，他研究出了新的技术，但不巧的他突然患上了严重的疾病。这种疾病不会致死，但是他需要进行治疗，不能再进行研究。这很明显就是运气不好。

I mean hey me I had a start-up for search engine in nineteen ninety nine and in my open was better than Google and mine was using artificial intelligence so bad luck what was my bad luck number one artificial intelligence had a really bad name in the nineties. Not my fault I didn't do anything wrong but it had a bad name so every time I was talking to eventual capitalist first I had to convince them that a is not bad but in those days every venture capitalist thought that the eyes back, now you know why I don't like venture capitalist okay? 

我自己也是一个活生生的例子。我在1999年开发了一款搜索引擎。我自认为我那个产品比谷歌还要好用，而且我还使用的人工智能。但是我运气不好。在90年代，人工智能的名声非常糟糕，但这不是我的错，我什么都没有做错。但是当时的人不看好人工智能。我还需要说服风险投资人，人工智能并不坏。但在那个年代，所有的风险投资人都不看好人工智能。所以你现在明白为什么我不喜欢风险投资了吧？

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