早期挑战与Ben的忠告

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. I was like, maybe they're right. Maybe we should just sell. And I remember having that conversation with Ben, which is he said, "Hey, you can do whatever you want. You can sell. You're going to make a lot of money and you'll be super successful in life, but you know, if you're like me, you're going to look back the rest of your life thinking, you know, I missed that one shot. That was the one thing I should have taken it all the way. Now I'll never know how far I could have taken it."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 我当时想，也许他们是对的。也许我们应该直接卖掉公司。我记得和 Ben 谈过这件事，他说：“嘿，你想做什么都行。你可以卖掉公司，你会赚很多钱，人生也会非常成功。但是，如果你像我一样，你会在余生回顾时想，我错过了那一次机会。那是我本该坚持到底的一件事。现在我永远不知道我能把它带到多远。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: So, do you want to live with that or do you want to just have the money? You know, I'll support whatever you want to do. I really couldn't care less.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 那么，你是想带着遗憾生活，还是只想拥有金钱？你知道，我支持你做任何决定。我真的无所谓。

Databricks的转折点

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Excited to bring back Boss Talk. This was a series that you guys did a few years ago on Clubhouse that was a big hit.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 很高兴能再次带来“老板访谈”。这是你们几年前在 Clubhouse 上做的一个系列节目，当时非常受欢迎。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, we had fun. It was Ben's idea.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，我们玩得很开心。那是 Ben 的主意。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah. Excited to bring it back. So, in the spirit of boss talk, let's talk about the first time that you became a boss in terms of running Databricks. Let's talk about the moment in 2016 when Databricks was not, things weren't as smooth as perhaps they should have been and we were looking for a new CEO and Ben you recommended Ali. First of all, like kudos to Yan for building the company originally and Ben investing and believing in us and then also I kind of couldn't have done the CEO job. Ben basically babysat me the first couple years.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。很高兴能再次带来这个节目。那么，本着“老板访谈”的精神，我们来谈谈你第一次作为老板运营 Databricks (Databricks: 一家提供数据湖屋平台的软件公司) 的经历。我们来谈谈2016年的那个时刻，当时 Databricks 的情况并不像预期那样顺利，我们正在寻找一位新的 CEO (Chief Executive Officer: 首席执行官)，而 Ben 推荐了 Ali。首先，要赞扬 Yan 最初创立了公司，以及 Ben 对我们的投资和信任。而且，我当时也无法胜任 CEO 的工作。Ben 在最初几年基本上是手把手地指导我。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But I did know what was kind of wrong with the company because I had been there for two, three years and I had seen from inside what we should change and what the issues were. But we had an open source project that actually became very successful thanks to those first two, three years.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但我确实知道公司出了什么问题，因为我已经在那里待了两三年，我从内部看到了我们应该改变什么以及存在哪些问题。但我们有一个开源项目，多亏了最初的两三年，它变得非常成功。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Apache Spark became a worldwide sensation and we could pride ourselves on the number of downloads of the software.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: Apache Spark (Apache Spark: 一个用于大规模数据处理的开源统一分析引擎) 成为了全球轰动的产品，我们可以为软件的下载量感到自豪。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Well, and the Spark conference.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 嗯，还有 Spark 大会。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah. Spark conference.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。Spark 大会。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Now the Data and AI conference.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 现在是数据与人工智能大会。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But the problem was that, as it is often with open source, everyone's just downloading the open source version. Actually, your biggest enemy is your open source project. The main thing you have to fight in the market is, hey, why can't I just download the open source version? Amazon is offering it, the cloud vendors are just offering it. I'm just going to use that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但问题是，就像开源项目常有的情况一样，每个人都只是下载开源版本。实际上，你最大的敌人就是你的开源项目。你在市场上必须对抗的主要问题是，嘿，我为什么不能直接下载开源版本呢？亚马逊在提供，云供应商也在提供，我直接用那个就行了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So this was the biggest challenge that Databricks had at the time, and we needed to do very serious, aggressive pivots internally, which were going to be very, very painful to lots of people, like to the whole ethos of the company internally. So I kind of knew that for almost a year. So when I got the shot, that's what we started doing.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以这是 Databricks 当时面临的最大挑战，我们需要在内部进行非常严肃、激进的转型，这对很多人来说，对公司内部的整个精神来说，都将是非常非常痛苦的。所以我差不多有一年的时间都清楚这一点。所以当我得到机会时，这就是我们开始做的事情。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: The strategy was to make Spark the biggest open source thing. I can remember it on all the slides now, and then Databricks would have the best Spark. But Databricks never had, we didn't do a lot to make it the best Spark or not differentiated enough, and that was kind of the first thing Ali did on the product side. And then he hired Ron Gabrisco, which was transformational because that kind of dragged the company into the world.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 策略是让 Spark 成为最大的开源项目。我现在还能回忆起所有幻灯片上的内容，然后 Databricks 会拥有最好的 Spark。但 Databricks 从未真正做到，我们没有做太多来使其成为最好的 Spark，或者说差异化不够，这是 Ali 在产品方面做的第一件事。然后他聘请了 Ron Gabrisco，这具有变革性意义，因为这把公司带入了世界。

CEO的超能力：技术、市场与果断

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: So obviously that was the right decision and paid off. Maybe zooming out, Ben, you've worked with and you know all the great CEOs of our time and worked with them. Where does Ali spike in? Where are his superpowers as a CEO, as a boss, that have helped contribute to the impact?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 显然那是一个正确的决定，并且得到了回报。也许从更宏观的角度来看，Ben，你曾与我们时代所有伟大的 CEO 合作过，也了解他们。Ali 在哪些方面表现突出？作为一名 CEO，一名老板，他的超能力在哪里，这些超能力是如何帮助公司产生影响的？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: I mean, Ali's really good. So like I always rate CEOs. So it's like, okay, if I was running that company, would I do a better job or a worse job? And with Databricks, I'd do a way worse job. So, so he's good on many, many dimensions. So, I'd say first of all, he is a real technologist, not a pseudo technologist like his competitors, I'm sorry. So he really knows the product. He understands the product strategy in detail. He also ran engineering before he was CEO. Mostly what I worked with him on in the early days was just go-to-market and BD. And he's really good at both of those. That's where we had to catch up. Snowflake had an amazing go-to-market. And then we needed a big deal with big partners. And every time I got him a little BD tutor, John O'Farrell, who did a nice job, came in and kind of taught Ali about how you structure a deal, how you do things. But he learned everything so fast.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 我的意思是，Ali 真的很棒。我总是这样评价 CEO：如果我来经营那家公司，我会做得更好还是更差？对于 Databricks，我会做得糟得多。所以，他在很多很多方面都很出色。首先，他是一个真正的技术专家，而不是像他的竞争对手那样，抱歉，一个伪技术专家。所以他非常了解产品。他详细理解产品策略。在成为 CEO 之前，他还管理过工程部门。在早期，我主要和他一起做的就是 市场进入策略 (Go-to-market: 公司将产品推向市场的计划) 和 业务拓展 (BD - Business Development: 旨在识别、培养和获取新业务机会的活动)。他在这两方面都非常擅长。那是我们需要迎头赶上的地方。Snowflake 有一个出色的市场进入策略。然后我们需要与大合作伙伴达成大交易。每次我给他找来一位业务拓展导师 John O'Farrell，他做得很好，他会教 Ali 如何构建交易，如何处理事务。但他学得非常快。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And then probably the thing that he does that is I wish I could get all our CEOs to do is he doesn't hesitate. He trusts his eye. He'll see something and he doesn't know if it's right. And so if you look at the strategy changes Databricks has had, one big one was building a data warehouse. That is a pretty big swing and a seemingly quixotic, insane idea given where they were. But he both knew, he's paranoid enough that he knew that that could be an issue, and then he trusted himself enough to go get deep enough to decide whether to do it or not as opposed to ignore it like, these guys are trying to kill me. I don't want to see it, which is what a lot of CEOs do.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 然后，他所做的一件事，我希望我们所有的 CEO 都能做到，那就是他从不犹豫。他相信自己的判断。他会看到一些东西，即使不确定是否正确。如果你看看 Databricks 经历的战略变化，其中一个重大变化是构建 数据仓库 (Data Warehouse: 存储和管理大量历史数据的系统，用于分析和报告)。考虑到他们当时所处的位置，这是一个相当大的转变，一个看似异想天开、疯狂的想法。但他既知道，他足够多疑，知道那可能是一个问题，然后他足够信任自己，深入研究以决定是否去做，而不是像很多 CEO 那样选择忽视，觉得“这些人想搞垮我，我不想看到它”。

从学术到商业的转型

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Ali, talk about more about the journey about evolving from an academic, a technologist to someone commercial. It's a journey our CEOs go through. Talk about what it was like for you in the context of what others can learn from it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: Ali，多谈谈你从学者、技术专家转型为商业人士的历程。这是我们很多 CEO 都会经历的旅程。结合你的经历，谈谈别人能从中学习到什么。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, I mean, so we were in academia, so we were scientists. And then I led engineering and product, so you got to learn how to build a product and get product-market fit. And then I became CEO afterwards. Each of these has different sorts of challenges. I think that in all of them, the thing that is in common is that you really have to understand and be extremely good at the task at hand. And so number one, admit that you don't actually know everything about the job. So like first step of anonymous alcoholics, admit you have a problem. Okay. And then number two, be a student and learn everything you can about it. Go all the way down to the details and try to learn from the best. And then work your butt off, like you know nothing, you're zero, right? It's like you know nothing about writing reliable software.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，我们当时在学术界，所以我们是科学家。然后我领导了工程和产品部门，所以你必须学习如何构建产品并实现产品与市场的契合。之后我才成为 CEO。这些阶段都有不同的挑战。我认为所有这些阶段的共同点是，你必须真正理解并极其擅长手头的任务。所以第一点，承认你并不真正了解这份工作的一切。就像匿名戒酒会的第一个步骤，承认你有问题。好的。然后第二点，做一个学生，学习所有你能学到的东西。深入到细节，努力向最优秀的人学习。然后拼命工作，就像你一无所知，你是个零，对吧？就像你对编写可靠的软件一无所知一样。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So I would say that was the same thing I tried to learn. I tried to network with the best heads of engineering, with the best heads of products. I tried to read every book. I got as much as I could out of Ben and Mark. I read all of their blogs, all of their books, everybody else's. But then you do search and you start, search firms are really great at getting you to meet who's the number one product manager by reputation in the market right now. Can you get 30 minutes with that person? Just sit down. They're not going to join you because your company is too crappy and too small. Can you get 30 minutes with them? Can you get a dinner with them? Can you get a breakfast with them? And then just ask them lots and lots and lots of dumb questions and they'll tell you. They'll happily just tell you like, "Hey, here's how I run. Here's how I do it. The other guys are wrong." And then they'll give you a playbook and you can go compare it. You can go to the next person and say, "Hey, this is the playbook I heard from like, no, no, that's totally wrong. You don't do it that way. Here's how I do it." And then very soon you learn enough.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以我想说，我也是这样努力学习的。我努力与最优秀的工程主管、产品主管建立联系。我努力阅读每一本书。我从 Ben 和 Mark 那里学到了尽可能多的东西。我读了他们所有的博客、所有的书，以及其他所有人的。但随后你会进行搜索，你会开始，猎头公司非常擅长让你见到目前市场上声誉最好的产品经理。你能和那个人聊 30 分钟吗？就坐下来。他们不会加入你的公司，因为你的公司太烂太小了。你能和他们聊 30 分钟吗？你能和他们共进晚餐吗？你能和他们共进早餐吗？然后就问他们很多很多愚蠢的问题，他们会告诉你。他们会很乐意告诉你，比如“嘿，我是这样做的。我是这样做的。其他人都是错的。”然后他们会给你一个行动指南，你可以去比较。你可以去找下一个人说，“嘿，这是我听到的行动指南，他们会说，不不，那完全错了。你不能那样做。我是这样做的。”然后很快你就能学到足够多的东西。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And if you really have grit and you work hard, you're going to be able to do great things. That's about you yourself. But also, if you hire a great team, because as a leader, you alone can't do much. So can you hire the best people out there? So that's also part of that. Do you know what great looks like? Have you interviewed all the best people? And then can you now sell them and get the best people to come work for you? Once you start assembling a team of excellent people, then they will uplift you.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 如果你真的有毅力并且努力工作，你就能做出伟大的事情。这是关于你自己。但同时，如果你能组建一支优秀的团队，因为作为领导者，你一个人做不了太多。那么，你能否聘请到最优秀的人才？这也是其中的一部分。你知道什么是优秀吗？你面试过所有最优秀的人吗？然后你现在能说服他们，让最优秀的人来为你工作吗？一旦你开始组建一支由优秀人才组成的团队，他们就会提升你。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: This is a managerial leverage that I learned from Ben, which is from High Output Management by Andy Grove. But it's basically, are they so great that you're learning from them? It's like Ali was a great head of engineering, but actually he was a great head of engineering because the people that worked underneath me were doing amazing things, and that was I was just standing on their shoulders. So you just have to do that and you have to instill everybody else to do that recursively so that you end up with a just amazing killer team and you got to continue doing that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 这是一种我从 Ben 那里学到的 管理杠杆 (Managerial Leverage: 通过有效管理提升团队整体产出) 理念，它源自安迪·格鲁夫的《高产出管理 (High Output Management: 安迪·格鲁夫的经典管理著作)》。但它基本上是说，他们是否优秀到让你能从他们身上学习？就像 Ali 曾是一位出色的工程主管，但实际上他之所以出色，是因为在我手下工作的人都在做着了不起的事情，我只是站在他们的肩膀上。所以你必须这样做，并且必须递归地灌输给其他人也这样做，这样你最终会拥有一支令人惊叹的、极具杀伤力的团队，而且你必须继续这样做。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Now you have to, okay, for engineering it wasn't actually that hard because I had written a lot of software, but now you're CEO, so now you have to do that for marketing, you have to do that for sales, where they were super helpful because they had done it with LoudCloud and Opsware, so they knew how to build a B2B machine, how the game was played. But you have to do it again, but now you're doing it in a field where you're really clueless and also probably all of your instincts are wrong and your intuition is completely wrong. So can you be clairvoyant and see the truth or do you want to lie to yourself? And that's where I think a lot of founders make mistakes. Like they'll do well in their own archetype. When they have to step outside of their own archetype, they make a mistake. They hire people that are like their own archetype in other roles where that could be lethal.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 现在你必须，好的，对于工程方面，这其实并不难，因为我写过很多软件，但现在你是 CEO，所以你必须为市场营销、为销售部门做同样的事情，在这方面他们非常有帮助，因为他们在 LoudCloud 和 Opsware 已经做过，所以他们知道如何构建一个 企业对企业 (B2B - Business-to-Business: 指企业之间进行的商业活动) 机器，知道游戏规则。但你必须再次这样做，而现在你是在一个你完全不了解的领域，而且你所有的直觉和判断可能都是错的。那么，你能否有预见性地看到真相，还是想欺骗自己？我认为很多创始人都在这里犯错。他们会在自己的领域做得很好。当他们不得不走出自己的领域时，他们就会犯错。他们会在其他角色中聘用与自己类型相似的人，而这可能是致命的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: By the way, that's how we started Databricks. I think everybody was a PhD in computer science who was running anything.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 顺便说一句，我们 Databricks 就是这样开始的。我想当时每个负责任何事情的人都是计算机科学博士。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. Like including sales.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。包括销售。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. That's probably the number one mistake is you just go, okay, well, like I'm an engineer, so I want a sales guy who can talk to me and understands engineering. And that's like, well, that's not a really good criteria for sales. One thing that I'm good at is rather than telling somebody, you know, that's stupid and hurting their feelings or so forth, I'll ask them a really uncomfortable question. Actually, I did it in a board meeting. I said, "Well, like could you help me with the math on this?" Cause I don't understand the math.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。这可能是头号错误，你只是说，好吧，我是一名工程师，所以我想要一个能和我交流并理解工程的销售人员。而这就像，嗯，这不是一个很好的销售标准。我擅长的一件事是，与其告诉别人“那很蠢”并伤害他们的感情等等，我不如问他们一个非常令人不舒服的问题。实际上，我在一次董事会议上就这么做了。我说：“嗯，你能帮我算算这个吗？”因为我不懂数学。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Actually, it was worse. I said, "Help me with the, I'm just trying to understand basic math. You have all these numbers on the slide."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 实际上，情况更糟。我说：“帮我，我只是想理解基本的数学。你的幻灯片上有很多数字。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And if you said that your conversion ratio is 5%. But I can't divide any of those two numbers to get 5%. And then the person freaked out and said, "No, no, don't freak out. Just tell me which of the two numbers do I divide to get 5%." Because I've divided all of them and none of them is 5%.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 如果你说你的转化率是5%。但我无法用这两个数字中的任何一个相除得到5%。然后那个人吓坏了，我说：“不不，别慌。告诉我，我应该用哪两个数字相除才能得到5%？”因为我把它们都除了一遍，没有一个结果是5%。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Like, am I going to be fired? So he does a much better version of that, which is he'll, if somebody's really, really screwed something up or messing, he'll go, "How do you think it's going?" And I was like, since he told me that, I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's a better way to do it. That's even better."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 就像，我会被解雇吗？所以他做得更好，如果有人真的搞砸了什么或者弄错了，他会说：“你觉得进展如何？”自从他告诉我之后，我就想：“哦，是的，那是个更好的做法。那甚至更好。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: So, yeah. Yeah, he's a very good student.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 所以，是的。是的，他是一个非常好的学生。

高效反馈与人才管理

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Can I reframe that? So I think that's a, there's this book called Radical Candor, and I think people take it too far and they misunderstand it and so on. But I think the essence of that book is that if feedback, if you know, are you criticizing me?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我能重新阐述一下吗？我认为，有一本书叫做《坦诚相待 (Radical Candor: 一种强调直接、真诚反馈的管理理念)》，我认为人们把它理解得过于极端，或者误解了等等。但我认为那本书的精髓是，如果反馈，如果你知道，你是在批评我吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Are you saying I'm stupid? I can't do the vision because my point is not about the 5%. I was trying to make a different point and now you're just, this is a cheap shot and now I'm hurt and I think by the way, I think you're wrong. It's not 5%. I said 6.5%.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 你是说我笨吗？我无法实现这个愿景，因为我的重点不是那5%。我当时想表达的是另一个观点，而你现在只是，这是个卑鄙的攻击，我现在很受伤，顺便说一句，我认为你错了。不是5%。我说的是6.5%。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So are you criticizing me or is it like, no, no, I'm here to help you. I can, not help you, but if you beg me for help, maybe I'll help you. So, which of the two modes? So, if you can get people into the mode of like, "Oh, wow. I'm being helped, like they're helping me and I'm going to get further ahead in my career and I'll be more successful." Please, no, no, no, please don't leave. Come back and tell me more. I'm taking notes here. So, if you can flip to that, and I think a lot of feedback can be recast into, you know, I'm just here to help you, but feel free to completely ignore this advice. But, you know, if you want to be really successful, if you want to get that job or if you want to get that project next time, if you did it this way, you probably would have had a higher probability of getting that. But, you know, I don't care. You do whatever you want. And then people are much more receptive. They're like, "No, no, no, please. I want to know more."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以你是在批评我，还是说，不不，我来这里是为了帮助你。我不能，不是帮助你，但如果你求我帮忙，也许我会帮你。那么，这两种模式中是哪一种？所以，如果你能让人们进入这样一种模式，比如，“哦，哇。我正在得到帮助，他们正在帮助我，我的职业生涯会更进一步，我会更成功。”请，不不不，请不要走。回来告诉我更多，我正在这里做笔记。所以，如果你能转向那种模式，我认为很多反馈都可以重新定义为，你知道，我只是来帮助你的，但你可以完全忽略这个建议。但是，你知道，如果你想真正成功，如果你想下次得到那份工作或者那个项目，如果你这样做，你成功的可能性可能会更高。但是，你知道，我不在乎。你想怎么做就怎么做。然后人们会更乐于接受。他们会说：“不不不，请告诉我更多。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. Well, and then just the frequency of it, I think, helps a lot, too, where if I see you once a year at your review and I tell you what's wrong with you, you're going to be offended. No matter what it is, no matter how wrong it is, no matter how correct I am, it's going to be offensive. But if every day if I see you doing something I don't like, I go, "No, don't do it that way. Do it this way." Then you get desensitized to it. And so I think the mistake a lot of particular engineers make is they just don't say what they think when they think it because they're afraid of hurting someone's feelings. But that's how you save their feelings because they're used to you. You're always doing that and you're doing with everybody. They see it. They're like, "Oh yeah, Ben's an ass. He's always doing this, but that's how he is and that's how we work and it's no problem."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。而且我认为，反馈的频率也有很大帮助，如果你一年只在绩效评估时见到你一次，然后告诉你你有什么问题，你肯定会觉得被冒犯。无论是什么问题，无论它多么错误，无论我多么正确，都会让人觉得被冒犯。但如果我每天都看到你做一些我不喜欢的事情，我就会说：“不，不要那样做。这样做。”那么你就会对此脱敏。所以我认为很多工程师犯的错误是，他们只是在想到的时候不说出自己的想法，因为他们害怕伤害别人的感情。但那正是你保护他们感情的方式，因为他们已经习惯了你。你总是那样做，你对每个人都那样做。他们看到了。他们会想：“哦，是的，Ben 就是个混蛋。他总是这样，但这就是他的为人，这就是我们的工作方式，没问题。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: As opposed to the hammer and you try and put in a feedback sandwich. Oh, you do this really well, but this is all messed up and this is good. And people are like, well, so like now in my written review, you're telling me that for the first time this is all messed up. Like, screw you. This is very common and you can see this in the industry that people, it's like,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而不是像用锤子敲打，或者试图夹带一个“反馈三明治”——“哦，你这方面做得很好，但这里一团糟，不过这方面又很好。”人们会想，好吧，现在在我的书面评估中，你第一次告诉我这一切都搞砸了。去你的。这在行业中非常普遍，你会看到人们，就像，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: The extreme version of it is like they get fired, right?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 极端情况就是他们被解雇了，对吧？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And then head of HR talks to them and they're like, do you know, do you see this coming? It was obvious, right? You knew this. No, I had no idea. Like, wait, you didn't get any feedback on this? No, I only got thumbs up all along for like a whole year. So I'm in shock. This is super common, right?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 然后人力资源主管和他们谈话，他们会说，你知道吗，你预料到会这样吗？这很明显，对吧？你早就知道了。不，我完全不知道。就像，等等，你没有收到任何关于这方面的反馈吗？不，我一整年都只收到赞扬。所以我很震惊。这非常普遍，对吧？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: So maybe on the topic of managing talent, you have this incredibly high intensity culture at Databricks. And there was this thread recently in our CEO thread where they asked everyone, but you had a great response on, hey, we have 50 people. How do we scale? We have this culture of 996 (996 Work Schedule: 一种在中国科技公司常见的，早上9点到晚上9点，每周工作6天的工作制度), right? You work 99 six days a week. How have you scaled that intensity well into 10,000 employees?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 那么，也许关于人才管理的话题，Databricks 有着令人难以置信的高强度文化。最近在我们的 CEO 讨论串中，他们问了所有人，但你有一个很棒的回答，关于“嘿，我们有50个人。我们如何扩展？我们有 996工作制 (996 Work Schedule: 一种在中国科技公司常见的，早上9点到晚上9点，每周工作6天的工作制度) 的文化，对吧？你每周工作99个小时，六天。你是如何将这种强度很好地扩展到10,000名员工的？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: I think, start with setting the tone at the top. If you're the hardest working person, everything will take care of itself from there on. If you're not working hard, it's very hard. I mean, it's if you have, it's a double standard. Ben has a whole book about that, which is, you know, it's basically, what you do is who you are is the whole title of the book, right? So it's like if you are working extremely, extremely hard, the rest of the organization is also as well. Are you calling people at 9:00 p.m., 10 p.m.? Are you working weekends? Do they expect you, not that you expect them and you're going to be angry and yell at them if they're not dropping everything for you, not that, but the fact that they just know that Ali is working 24/7 and he's working 7 days a week and he's working at 11 p.m. or 2 a.m. or whatever it is. I think that gets a lot of it done.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我认为，首先要从高层定下基调。如果你是工作最努力的人，那么从那时起，一切都会水到渠成。如果你不努力工作，那就会非常困难。我的意思是，如果你有，那是一种双重标准。Ben 有一整本书都在讲这个，基本上，书名就是“你做什么，你就是谁”，对吧？所以，如果你工作极其努力，组织的其他人也会如此。你会在晚上9点、10点打电话给别人吗？你会在周末工作吗？他们是否期望你，不是你期望他们，如果他们不为你放下一切，你就会生气并对他们大喊大叫，不是那样，而是他们知道 Ali 24/7 都在工作，他每周工作7天，他在晚上11点或凌晨2点或任何时候都在工作。我认为这能完成很多事情。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: The second thing I would say is, you can vet for this when you hire people.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我要说的第二件事是，你在招聘员工时可以对此进行考察。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And the easiest way to vet for it, because, well, you got to be careful with it because the people who say they're going to work the hardest are not the ones who work the hardest.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而最简单的考察方法，因为，嗯，你必须小心，因为那些说自己会最努力工作的人，往往不是真正最努力工作的人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So don't, so don't.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以不要，所以不要。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: It's the opposite.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 恰恰相反。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. 100% true, right? So, the best way to vet for this is to do 背景调查 (Backdoor Reference Checks: 通过非正式渠道了解候选人过往表现的背景调查). You know, ask people if I ask someone, you know, hey, how was Sarah? Like, did you, did you like, was she great? They're always going to say, yeah, she was great.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。百分之百正确，对吧？所以，考察这一点的最好方法是做 背景调查 (Backdoor Reference Checks: 通过非正式渠道了解候选人过往表现的背景调查)。你知道，如果你问别人，“嘿，Sarah 怎么样？你喜欢她吗？她很棒吗？”他们总是会说，是的，她很棒。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: But they're going to be much more honest if you ask them like, "Hey, how much does she grind the midnight oil? Is she like..." and they'll tell you right away. It's like, oh my god, she works like crazy. It's like, um, you know, she's, I mean, I think she has a good balance. You know, you can sus that out very easily from backdoor references. You can, people will remember the people and they'll just offer it up and say, "Oh, that person was like nuts. They were like working 24/7."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 但如果你问他们：“嘿，她有多努力工作？她是不是那种……”他们会立刻告诉你。就像，天哪，她工作起来像疯了一样。或者，嗯，你知道，她，我的意思是，我认为她有一个很好的平衡。你知道，你可以很容易地通过非正式的背景调查来发现这些。人们会记住那些人，他们会主动说出来：“哦，那个人简直疯了。他们简直是24/7都在工作。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So, I think that way you can get people that are hardworking. By the way, I don't want to overemphasize. I don't think everything is just work harder. You have to also work smarter. And I think that you want to make sure that it's sustainable. I can work insanely hard. I'm motivated. Everybody has a different threshold for how hard they can work. I don't think you want a culture where people are burning out. I think you really should avoid that. In fact, at Databricks, I'm very often going in and saying, "Hey, this team, your scores are really bad on work-life balance. What are you doing about it?" Or you guys should take several days off or you should do some offsites or do something. We actually go in and if we see that there's some groups and other groups at Databricks, their work-life balance scores are like 100%. They're like, you know, slacking off. So then it's kind of the opposite.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以，我认为通过这种方式，你可以找到那些勤奋工作的人。顺便说一句，我不想过分强调。我并不认为所有事情都只是更努力工作。你还必须更聪明地工作。而且我认为，你希望确保它是可持续的。我可以疯狂地努力工作。我有动力。每个人对他们能工作多努力都有不同的承受阈值。我认为你不会想要一种让人们精疲力尽的文化。我认为你真的应该避免那样。事实上，在 Databricks，我经常会去说：“嘿，这个团队，你们的工作与生活平衡得分真的很差。你们打算怎么做？”或者你们应该休息几天，或者你们应该做一些团建活动，或者做些什么。我们实际上会去，如果我们看到 Databricks 的某些团队，他们的工作与生活平衡得分是100%。他们就像，你知道，在偷懒。所以那时情况就有点相反了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But I do think that you can kind of vet for that. And I think that also setting the expectation. I would say, one of my competitors, Frank Slutman, wrote a book called Amp It Up. It's a great book on how you get execution into a company, like getting a high-performance culture where everybody's always trying to excel and do better and better. Sort of that kind of culture into a company. That's a good book if you want to just study and he's doing it at scale at bigger companies. So I think that's highly recommended reading as well.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但我确实认为你可以对此进行考察。而且我认为，也要设定好期望。我想说，我的一个竞争对手 Frank Slutman 写了一本书叫《Amp It Up》。这是一本关于如何让公司执行力强的好书，比如如何建立一种高绩效文化，让每个人都不断努力超越自我，做得越来越好。将那种文化融入公司。如果你想学习，那是一本好书，而且他正在更大的公司大规模地实践。所以我认为那也是非常值得推荐的读物。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And I think a lot of it at his scale ends up being things like organizational design and are people feeling like they're having an impact? If people are feeling like they're having an impact and they're good, then they'll work very hard. But if you're in some kind of weird three-legged race that the CEO has constructed where everybody's got dependencies on everybody else, it just doesn't matter. You'll just have a lot of people go like, I know if I work hard, it's not going to make a difference. So, like why would I do that? And you can't overcome that with lead by example or anything else. That's just fundamental to how it is. And you see in like, look in any company of any scale, even at our scale, there are some groups who really can have impact and work extremely hard, and then groups who have lesser impact will work less hard, and you just see that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。我认为在他那种规模的公司里，很多事情最终都归结为组织设计，以及人们是否觉得自己的工作有影响力？如果人们觉得自己的工作有影响力，而且他们做得很好，那么他们就会非常努力地工作。但如果你身处 CEO 构建的某种奇怪的“三人四足跑”中，每个人都依赖于其他人，那根本就无关紧要了。你会有很多人觉得，我知道即使我努力工作，也无济于事。那么，我为什么要那样做呢？你无法通过以身作则或其他任何方式来克服这一点。这只是其运作方式的基础。你可以在任何规模的公司中看到这一点，即使在我们这种规模的公司，也有一些团队确实能产生影响并极其努力地工作，而那些影响力较小的团队则会工作得不那么努力，你就是能看到这一点。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: You know, people who are motivated and they feel excited about work and they don't see the impact that they're having, they're going to work way, way, way harder versus if you're demoralized and you feel like it's not going well, I'm not having impact, I don't have any autonomy, then you're not going to, you just don't want, even you're kind of depressed sitting down working. I do think there's one thing here where leaders can really help, which is to make your team feel like they're winning and that they're doing a great job. Like you can ask more from people, but if I feel like, hey, I'm losing and everything we're doing is wrong,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 你知道，那些有动力、对工作充满热情但看不到自己产生影响的人，他们会比那些士气低落、觉得事情进展不顺利、没有影响力、没有自主权的人，工作得更努力、更努力、更努力。如果你士气低落，你甚至不想工作，你坐下来工作时会感到沮丧。我确实认为领导者在这里可以真正提供帮助的一点是，让你的团队感觉他们正在赢，他们做得很好。你可以向人们提出更高的要求，但如果我觉得，嘿，我正在输，我们所做的一切都是错的，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And I'm putting in all these hours and it's stupid, what's the point of this? Then people don't want to work. So I think it's like feeling like we're winning, like we're the winning team. We're winning, and wow, they're expecting more from me. So then I think you can get, you need that motivation in people.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 而且我投入了所有这些时间，这很愚蠢，这有什么意义？那么人们就不想工作了。所以我认为这就像感觉我们正在赢，我们是赢家团队。我们正在赢，而且哇，他们对我期望更高。所以那时我认为你可以获得，你需要人们拥有那种动力。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. Which is why, by the way, the hard job is when you aren't winning.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。顺便说一句，这就是为什么当你没有赢的时候，工作会变得很艰难。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. To get the output, particularly in 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名), because you're battling attrition this and that and to get things on the right track, that takes a whole different kind of level of technique and storytelling.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。要获得产出，尤其是在 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名)，因为你要对抗人员流失等等，要让事情走上正轨，这需要完全不同水平的技术和讲故事的能力。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And show you how you could be winning and all that kind of stuff that gets very, very complicated.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 并且向你展示你如何才能获胜，所有这些事情都变得非常非常复杂。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: We've both done that, right?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 我们都做过，对吧？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. There's been phases in our company's lives where we weren't winning.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。在我们公司的生命周期中，有过我们没有赢的阶段。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. I mean, especially the story you had in The Hard Thing About Hard Things, which is probably the best business book I've read, which I read, by the way, before starting Databricks and influenced us a lot. Those are super important. That's the difficult, that's such an important point because even if you're winning, people got to feel like that, but if you're not winning, getting them to feel like you're winning is we have a path to winning.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。我的意思是，特别是你在《创业维艰 (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Ben Horowitz 所著，探讨创业公司面临的挑战和管理之道)》中讲的故事，那可能是我读过的最好的商业书，顺便说一句，我在创办 Databricks 之前就读过，它对我们影响很大。那些非常重要。那很困难，那是一个如此重要的观点，因为即使你正在赢，人们也必须有那种感觉，但如果你没有赢，让他们感觉你正在赢，就是我们有一条通往胜利的道路。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, we have a path.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，我们有一条路。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: We have a, you know, and it's like rock solid, it's going to work, but it demands sacrifice from all of us.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我们有一个，你知道，它坚如磐石，它会奏效，但它需要我们所有人的牺牲。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And there is no feeling as good as when you're not winning and then you get it to winning.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而且没有什么感觉比你没有赢，然后你把它带向胜利更好了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: That's the best feeling. You can't replicate that once you're super successful. You never can quite get that feeling again.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 那是最好的感觉。一旦你非常成功，你就无法复制那种感觉了。你再也无法完全找回那种感觉。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, that's true.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，那是真的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But you also never feel that horrible pain again.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但你也不会再感受到那种可怕的痛苦了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Well, it's easier to be the underdog in some ways, right? You have nothing to lose.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 嗯，在某些方面，作为弱者更容易，对吧？你没有什么可失去的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: In some ways. In most ways, not.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 在某些方面是。在大多数方面则不是。

领导力：高瞻远瞩与深入细节

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Well, I want to explore this leading from the top because that was kind of the first thing you started with. We actually hired an ex-Databricks employee to A16Z. So, we have some inside scoop on your leadership style. And one of the things he said was, you have this, and Ben sort of touched on this too, but you have this amazing ability to be strategic, help your team focus, but you're also very in the weeds. Like, you're giving product feedback, you respond to emails super quickly, and product launch emails, no matter how small they are, you'll respond congrats, which he found it hugely motivating. How do you do all that? And where do you fly high, where do you fly low?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 嗯，我想探讨一下这种自上而下的领导方式，因为那是你最初开始谈论的事情。我们实际上聘请了一位前 Databricks 员工到 A16Z。所以，我们对你的领导风格有一些内部消息。他说的其中一件事是，你拥有这种，Ben 也提到过，但你拥有这种惊人的能力，既能制定战略，帮助团队聚焦，但你也非常深入细节。比如，你会提供产品反馈，你回复邮件超级快，而且产品发布邮件，无论多小，你都会回复“恭喜”，他觉得这极大地激励了他。你是如何做到这一切的？你什么时候高瞻远瞩，什么时候深入细节？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. By the way, I respond even to progress reports on all those products and I follow them in detail, every one of them. I try to respond to every product.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。顺便说一句，我甚至会回复所有这些产品的进度报告，并且详细跟踪每一个。我努力回复每一个产品。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Insane.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 太疯狂了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But look, I think this is if you're just going to fly high and give high-level inspirational speeches and then we'll trust and we'll delegate to people. It's not going to work. So my way is you got to get in the weeds. You got to understand this is back to what I said at the very beginning, like how do you become great at head of engineering? How do you hire a great head of marketing? The only way you can do that is by being really excellent at it. So I try to stay tuned to all of these things.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但是，你看，我认为如果你只是高高在上，发表一些高层次的励志演讲，然后我们就会信任并授权给人们，那是不行的。所以我的方式是，你必须深入细节。你必须理解，这又回到了我一开始说的，比如你如何成为一名优秀的工程主管？你如何招聘一名优秀的市场主管？你唯一能做到这一点的方法就是真正擅长它。所以我努力关注所有这些事情。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: There's this quote, if you do everything, you will win.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 有句话说，如果你做所有事情，你就会赢。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: And then the question is, have you done everything?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 那么问题是，你做完了所有事情吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, so you just, it takes a lot of effort. You need to learn all your keyboard shortcuts. But I think that's, you know, people feel motivated that hey, I have like direct relationship. We used to say, we used to have one of the culture principles used to be, hey, be a co-founder. And we don't want to have any employees at Databricks, we just want co-founders. So, and the key point was like, hey, you're kind of the owner of this company. You're not just a renter. Come here and yeah, we can talk about it and you can suggest an idea. You might have just joined and you're straight out of school. You might have a great idea for a product. Tell me about it. I'm happy to push it. And so, it's making people feel like they have an impact and they're inspired. Back to Ben's point, then it's going to be much more exciting for them than following some bureaucracy. So, I don't follow the bureaucracy basically. I go talk to anyone I like, I try to go to the person that is actually the closest to the work that's being done at any given time.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 完全正确。完全正确。完全正确。所以，是的，这需要付出很多努力。你需要学习所有的键盘快捷键。但我认为，你知道，人们会感到有动力，因为他们有直接的关系。我们过去常说，我们有一个文化原则是，嘿，要做一个联合创始人。我们不希望 Databricks 有任何员工，我们只想要联合创始人。所以，关键点是，嘿，你有点像这家公司的所有者。你不仅仅是一个租客。来这里，是的，我们可以谈谈，你可以提出一个想法。你可能刚加入，刚毕业。你可能有一个很棒的产品想法。告诉我吧。我很乐意推动它。所以，这让人们觉得他们有影响力，他们受到启发。回到 Ben 的观点，那么对他们来说，这会比遵循一些官僚程序更令人兴奋。所以，我基本上不遵循官僚程序。我喜欢和任何人交谈，我努力去找在任何特定时间实际离工作最近的人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: But there are some tricks and rules around how you do that without breaking the whole organization. So you can't just willingly talk to anyone. But yeah, that's part of it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 但关于如何做到这一点而不破坏整个组织，有一些技巧和规则。所以你不能随意和任何人交谈。但是的，那是其中的一部分。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, you listening and giving direction is very different on that. If you give direction, you can cause a lot of chaos. But if you go talk to people, you listen to understand the problem and then send it back down the chain of command, it tends to work very, very well. But look, generally, if you're a CEO and you don't fly low and fast, it's going to be a mess because you never get the truth because the truth never makes it to you through your people. If I go talk to Ali's executive staff about what's going on in their organization or anybody's, first of all, they're gonna spin it. Second of all, they don't actually know. And so you can't, you need to help them debug their organizations because they've got a million things going on. They're also kind of going to the problem, going to the bottleneck, trying to figure out what's happening. And so that it's just a very unreliable source of information. All the knowledge in a company is with the individual contributors that are doing the work and the customers. There's no knowledge with the people who are talking to you as CEO who are on your staff. That's not the way information moves.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，你倾听和给出指示在这方面有很大不同。如果你给出指示，可能会造成很多混乱。但如果你去和人们交谈，你倾听以理解问题，然后将其反馈给指挥链，这往往会非常非常有效。但是，你看，一般来说，如果你是一名 CEO，而且你不深入快速地了解情况，那就会一团糟，因为你永远得不到真相，因为真相永远不会通过你的下属传达到你那里。如果我去和 Ali 的高管团队谈论他们组织中发生的事情，或者任何人的，首先，他们会进行一番修饰。其次，他们实际上并不完全了解。所以你不能，你需要帮助他们调试他们的组织，因为他们有上百万的事情要处理。他们也在努力解决问题，解决瓶颈，试图弄清楚发生了什么。所以那只是一个非常不可靠的信息来源。公司所有的知识都在那些正在做工作的个体贡献者和客户那里。那些作为 CEO 与你交谈的员工，他们那里没有知识。信息不是那样传递的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And so you got to be, now he's super fast, which enables him to go super low. But in any given time, the way to think about it as a CEO is it's not like you're spending the exact amount of attention to HR as you are to the key engineering project as you are to the key sales competitive deals. You don't address everything evenly. You can never do that. It's just a bad idea. Now, you'll probably get to everything eventually, but you're not spending the same amount of time on every single department. The org chart is not the way that company works.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 所以你必须，现在他速度超快，这使他能够深入了解情况。但在任何特定时间，作为 CEO 的思考方式是，你不会对人力资源投入与关键工程项目或关键销售竞争性交易完全相同的关注度。你不会平均地处理所有事情。你永远无法做到这一点。那只是个坏主意。现在，你最终可能会处理所有事情，但你不会在每个部门都花费相同的时间。组织结构图并不是公司运作的方式。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: It's just a communication architecture.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 它只是一种沟通架构。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. I think the best way I would say it is like it's kind of like a T, and you want to be broad, and then you have the leg that goes down and goes really, really deep. But you want to do that anchoring. And the key thing is to have a really good priority order of what's most important and kind of drop everything else. Like you drop that T and go really, really low. Like it might be HR, I might be deep diving all the way down to HR, looking at our HR handbook, our policy, everything. Like who was this person, what happened, why is this happening in that group, what's going on in that group, what's the culture in that group, what happened here? Like you might want to do that. It might be existential for your company, as we've seen some companies went under because of HR problems, right? Or ethical issues that were going on. So I think having a really good priority order is really important.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。我想最好的说法是，它有点像一个“T”字形，你希望广度够宽，然后有一个向下延伸的“腿”，深入到非常非常深。但你希望做到这种锚定。关键是要有一个非常好的优先级顺序，知道什么最重要，然后放下其他一切。就像你放下那个“T”，然后深入到非常非常低。比如可能是人力资源，我可能会深入到人力资源的各个层面，查看我们的人力资源手册、政策、所有一切。比如这个人是谁，发生了什么，为什么这个团队会发生这种情况，那个团队正在发生什么，那个团队的文化是什么，这里发生了什么？你可能会想这样做。这可能对你的公司来说是生死攸关的，正如我们所见，有些公司因为人力资源问题而倒闭，对吧？或者正在发生的道德问题。所以我认为有一个非常好的优先级顺序真的非常重要。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: I think some execs, they just want to have perfect ducks in a row. I have my weekly one-on-ones, I have my weekly staff meeting, I have my weekly this, and then I do this, and then we follow the rules and we do all of this. And then that's like just like the top part of the T, and then there's nothing that goes deep, and that's the issue I think.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我认为有些高管，他们只是想把所有事情都安排得井井有条。我有每周一对一会议，我有每周员工会议，我有每周这个，然后我做这个，然后我们遵循规则，我们做所有这些。然后那就像“T”字的顶部，然后就没有深入的东西了，我认为这就是问题所在。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. Over systematizing or making it like symmetrical. You don't even, you don't have to have one-on-ones with the same frequency of all your staff or like some of them, you know, like you can meet very seldom. Everything is different. Every part of the company is different. You may need to meet with somebody every day.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。过度系统化或使其对称。你甚至不必与所有员工以相同的频率进行一对一会议，或者其中一些人，你知道，你可以很少见面。一切都不同。公司的每个部分都不同。你可能需要每天与某人见面。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And then other people, you can meet once a quarter for now because it's just not that serious. And you can't get caught up in making everything fair and symmetric. Particularly like your staff, they got to be able to deal.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 然后其他人，你现在可以每季度见一次面，因为它没那么紧急。你不能陷入让所有事情都公平对称的困境。特别是你的员工，他们必须能够应对。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. And this is actually the biggest conversation that I had with Ali early on is like, if they can't do it, they can't do it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。这实际上是我早期和 Ali 最大的一个对话，就是如果他们做不到，他们就是做不到。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: That's it. It's a wrap. Don't try and fix them. They can't be fixed. It's not going to happen.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 就这样了。结束了。别想去修补他们。他们无法被修补。那不会发生的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And you know, it's a sad lesson, but important lesson.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 而且你知道，这是一个悲伤的教训，但也是一个重要的教训。

与微软的里程碑式合作

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: I want to turn the conversation to an area that Ben was saying you had to catch up on at least in the beginning, which is the BD dealmaking stuff, which is interesting to me just because I think of you as like a consummate dealmaker now. I feel like you're playing chess, everyone else is playing checkers. I want to go back to 2017 with maybe one of the first game-changing deals that you guys did, and that was the deal with Microsoft. Can you guys talk a little bit more about how that deal came about? Anything you do differently? And by the way, founders still to this day ask us about it because it's sort of a model for how they'd like to do deals.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 我想把话题转向 Ben 曾说你至少在初期需要迎头赶上的一个领域，那就是业务拓展的交易促成方面，这对我来说很有趣，因为我现在觉得你是一位经验丰富的交易促成者。我感觉你在下棋，而其他人只是在玩跳棋。我想回到2017年，谈谈你们做的第一批改变游戏规则的交易之一，那就是与微软的合作。你们能多谈谈那笔交易是如何达成的吗？有没有什么你们会做得不同的地方？顺便说一句，直到今天，创始人仍然会向我们询问那笔交易，因为它有点像他们希望达成交易的典范。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, maybe I should start by saying that we had tried to get close to Microsoft for a long while. I think Ben had told us, you need to, that's an important partner because they have the biggest distribution channel. Today they have 60,000 sellers. If you can unlock that in any small way, it's going to be a game changer for you. And I had been, and I had been CEO for a year. So, I'd been trying hard to get in there and many, many people offered me, you know, hey, so here's, I actually know Satya, so I'm going to get you introduced. And I got multiple introductions to Satya. He just either never responded or just CCed his EA and it went into EA, you know, like we're still trying to find time. He's been so busy this last six months.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，也许我应该先说，我们很长一段时间以来一直试图与微软建立密切关系。我想 Ben 曾告诉我们，你需要，那是一个重要的合作伙伴，因为他们拥有最大的分销渠道。今天他们有60,000名销售人员。如果你能以任何小方式解锁这一点，那将对你来说是改变游戏规则的。我当时已经担任 CEO 一年了。所以，我一直在努力进入那里，很多人都向我提议，你知道，嘿，我认识 Satya，所以我可以帮你引荐。我得到了多次引荐给 Satya。他要么从未回复，要么只是抄送了他的执行助理，然后就转到了执行助理那里，你知道，就像我们还在努力找时间。他过去六个月一直很忙。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: But then he had a meeting with Ben and I think he was here actually at A16Z and they actually just talked and I was not actually in the loop and then he called me up and said, "Hey, I talked to Satya and I think this is he's excited. He wants to do this."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 但后来他与 Ben 有一次会面，我想他当时实际上就在 A16Z，他们只是聊了聊，我当时并不知情，然后他给我打电话说：“嘿，我跟 Satya 谈过了，我想他很兴奋。他想做这件事。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And I saved the email. So Ben introduced me to Satya and this was I think 3 or 4 AM. I was in New York and the email went to Satya and then Satya added four or five people to the email thread and then they added four or five people. So within an hour I had 25 emails in my inbox and suddenly all these people that were not responding to my emails from Microsoft, right after Satya CCed the next person, they were all like, hey, I'm clearing my calendar, would love to meet you, do you have any time in the next two days or three days or you know. But really kind of the original pitch of what's the give and get was Ben and Satya at A16Z and they kind of figured it out and I was not actually even there.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 我保存了那封邮件。Ben 把我介绍给了 Satya，当时我想是凌晨三四点。我在纽约，邮件发给了 Satya，然后 Satya 在邮件线程中又加了四五个人，然后他们又加了四五个人。所以在一个小时内，我的收件箱里就有25封邮件，突然之间，所有那些之前不回复我邮件的微软员工，在 Satya 抄送了下一个人之后，他们都说：“嘿，我正在清理我的日程，很想见你，你未来两三天有空吗？”但实际上，最初关于“付出与获得”的提议是 Ben 和 Satya 在 A16Z 达成的，他们基本上搞定了，我甚至不在场。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: So we had some luck and then Ali did a couple of things that were, or quite a few things that were very, very effective. So the luck was, at the time, deal with big companies, there's always a timing element, and there was a company called Hortonworks that had a deal with Microsoft to provide some similar kind of functionality. And they were basically putting a gun to Microsoft's head saying like, you pay us more money or we're going to pull our product.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 所以我们有一些运气，然后 Ali 做了一些事情，或者说相当多的事情，都非常非常有效。所以运气在于，当时与大公司打交道，总有一个时机因素，当时有一家名为 Hortonworks 的公司与微软达成协议，提供一些类似的功能。他们基本上是在用枪指着微软的头，说要么给我们更多钱，要么我们就撤回产品。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And they were on-prem and they were in cloud, so it was like a big mismatch also.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 而且他们既有本地部署也有云端服务，所以也存在很大的不匹配。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. So it was a real, so Microsoft was super pissed at them and wanted to stick it to them. And so that was, you know, so you have Satya going like, I think this company's interesting, and then this ground-level thing going like, we want to screw these guys, and that kind of opened enough of a door to get it going. But there were so, like one of the most important things in the deal, which John O'Farrell really emphasized this for both of us, was look, you got to get them to put enough, they're such a big company that they're going to lose interest many times. So, if you don't have them write you such a big check that somebody in there is going to get fired if it doesn't go well, it doesn't matter if you get the deal, you're going to lose the deal.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。所以这真的是，微软对他们非常恼火，想给他们点颜色看看。所以，你知道，Satya 觉得这家公司很有趣，然后基层又想搞垮这些人，这为交易打开了足够的门。但其中有，比如交易中最重要的事情之一，John O'Farrell 对我们俩都强调了这一点，那就是，你看，你必须让他们投入足够的资金，他们是如此大的公司，他们会多次失去兴趣。所以，如果你不让他们开出一张足够大的支票，以至于如果进展不顺利，里面会有人被解雇，那么你即使达成了交易也无关紧要，你最终还是会失去这笔交易。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And so, what we did is we're like, and the technique that we had was, okay, give us a forecast. We're a little company. We can't afford to do this deal. We can only afford to have one partner. So, give us a forecast of what you'll do.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 所以，我们所做的，以及我们采用的策略是，好吧，给我们一个预测。我们是一家小公司。我们负担不起这笔交易。我们只能有一个合作伙伴。所以，给我们一个你们会做什么的预测。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. Because our engineers are busy. They're going to do this integration that wipes out 12 months of our roadmap. We don't, we don't have anything else. You guys have many thousands of engineers. So this is we only have one of these we can.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。因为我们的工程师很忙。他们将进行这次整合，这将耗费我们12个月的路线图。我们没有，我们没有其他任何东西。你们有成千上万的工程师。所以我们只有这一个机会。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. So we, you know, whoever can sell the, we think you can sell the most, but we don't know, like what's your, so you know, like kind of challenged their manhood a little bit. And so they come out with this big ass forecast and we're like, okay, great, just give us a little portion of that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。所以我们，你知道，谁能卖出，我们认为你们能卖出最多，但我们不知道，比如你们的，所以你知道，有点挑战了他们的男子气概。所以他们拿出了这个巨大的预测，我们说，好的，太棒了，只要给我们其中一小部分就行了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: It was a huge deal. It was a lot of it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 那是一笔巨大的交易。其中有很多。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And then Ali said, "Look, when we got all the way down to the deal, he was like, "If I don't get this number, Ben's going to fire me."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。然后 Ali 说：“你看，当我们谈到交易的最后阶段时，他说：‘如果我拿不到这个数字，Ben 就会解雇我。’”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And so, can you help me out?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以，你能帮我一下吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: It was very interesting. Bad cop.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 这很有趣。扮黑脸。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: It was a very interesting dynamic. So, you know, John O'Farrell had strategized with us and told us that, you know, they have to do a big pre-commit because then they have skin in the game, otherwise they're just going to forget. They'll do the PR, but then they'll forget about you. But then when we were trying to get that from Microsoft, I remember I was talking to Takeshi Moto, who is one of the main brains at Microsoft, like one of the key strategists there.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 那是一种非常有趣的动态。所以，你知道，John O'Farrell 曾与我们一起制定策略，并告诉我们，他们必须做出一个大的预先承诺，因为这样他们才有切身利益，否则他们就会忘记。他们会做公关，但之后就会把你抛诸脑后。但当我们试图从微软那里获得这一点时，我记得我当时正在和 Takeshi Moto 谈话，他是微软的主要智囊之一，也是那里的关键战略家之一。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And his thing was, I don't want to give you a big commit because you're such a small company. I'm worried you take this money and you get drunk off of it and you're not going to do anything afterwards.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 他的观点是，我不想给你一个大的承诺，因为你们是如此小的公司。我担心你们拿了这笔钱会得意忘形，之后什么都不做。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And so I had to really convince him that no, I'm extremely hungry. There's no way I will continue to have crazy appetites. Don't worry about it. So both sides were kind of worried about different things. But yeah, the give and get was important that you said in the beginning, which was they had a gap in the product portfolio.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以我必须真的说服他，不，我非常渴望成功。我不可能停止这种疯狂的渴望。别担心。所以双方都担心不同的事情。但是，是的，你一开始说的“付出与获得”很重要，那就是他们的产品组合存在空白。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Right? They were competing with AWS. They had a gap at the time and we had a great product. They have amazing distribution channel. So in these BD deals, there always has to be a give and get that actually is kind of commensurate. And this is why most of these deals fall apart and they don't work.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 对吧？他们当时正在与 AWS 竞争。他们当时有一个空白，而我们有一个很棒的产品。他们拥有惊人的分销渠道。所以在这类业务拓展交易中，总是需要有一个实际相称的“付出与获得”。这就是为什么大多数这类交易会破裂，无法成功。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: There has to be something that you as a small player can give that they don't have. And usually you don't have anything to give them. Usually I find all these small companies show up and they come for instance to Databricks now and say, oh, we'd love for you to partner with us, but what, what am I getting out of it, right? You don't report to me, I don't report to you. So the moment we've closed the deal, if it's not good for me, neither of us will just do our side of the bargain. So there has to be something in the deal dynamics, in the construct that inherently is extremely beneficial both sides. There has to be a trade that makes sense. Microsoft really wanted that product. We really wanted their distribution channel.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 作为一个小公司，你必须能提供他们所没有的东西。而通常你没有什么可以给他们的。我通常发现所有这些小公司出现，比如现在他们来到 Databricks 说，哦，我们很乐意与你们合作，但对我来说有什么好处呢，对吧？你不向我汇报，我也不向你汇报。所以一旦我们达成交易，如果对我没有好处，我们双方都不会履行各自的承诺。所以交易的动态，其结构中必须有某种内在的、对双方都极其有利的东西。必须有一个有意义的交换。微软确实想要那个产品。我们确实想要他们的分销渠道。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And then the other thing that I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand is any big deal of that size, you lose at least three times before you win it. And we lost that deal 10 times.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 然后，我认为很多企业家不理解的另一件事是，任何如此规模的大交易，在你赢得它之前，你至少会输三次。而我们那笔交易输了10次。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: 10 times. And including like the day before we were supposed to launch it. The antibodies came out of the company and Ali had to fly up to Redfin and sit there.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 10次。包括在我们原定发布的前一天。公司的“抗体”出现了，Ali 不得不飞到 Redfin 坐在那里。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: There was one engineer that just said not doing this. This is not going to go. He just, he was, they actually put a guy in place at Microsoft who was actually super, you had a great reputation, but he was a builder. So he just had huge problems with this. It's like this is not a product I built.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 有一位工程师就是说不干了。这行不通。他就是，他们实际上在微软安排了一个人，他声誉很好，但他是一个构建者。所以他对这个有很大的问题。他觉得这不是他构建的产品。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Why would we, why would I make this successful? So yeah, there's usually many times. So if you don't have grit, those deals will die because this deal died multiple times as Ben said. It was completely over, like it was completely blocked by some exec that said absolutely not. I'm blocking it. It's veto, it's over. And no one wanted to overrule him. So you have to go in there and work. You have to, and the only way we did, I like they call it the nerd bird. I would take the SF Seattle flight up there. I was up there so much. I knew all the buildings, all the rooms, everything. So you just have to spend time on the ground and talk to as many people as possible and sort of influence that organization from within.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我们为什么要，我为什么要让它成功？所以，是的，通常有很多次。所以如果你没有毅力，这些交易就会夭折，因为正如 Ben 所说，这笔交易多次夭折。它完全结束了，就像被某个高管完全阻止了，他说绝对不行。我阻止它。这是否决，结束了。没有人想推翻他。所以你必须进去工作。你必须，我们唯一的方法，我喜欢他们称之为“书呆子航班”。我会乘坐旧金山到西雅图的航班去那里。我去了太多次。我认识所有的建筑，所有的房间，所有的一切。所以你只需要花时间在当地，与尽可能多的人交谈，并从内部影响那个组织。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And I will say look, with all the difficulty of the deal and Microsoft being Microsoft, they've been as good a partner as not only we've had at Databricks, but in the entire portfolio. They've really lived up and delivered what they said they would do, which is I think you have to give such a huge credit because in the whole Gates and Ballmer era, they were never that good a partner to anybody and he's really turned that around. And they've been fantastic with us. This was around the time where Satya had taken over and he was giving to everyone at Microsoft the book Growth Mindset or Mindset, which is about growth mindset. So there was this kind of aura in the air that, you know, we should, we should try, let's try to make things happen. Let's have a 成长型思维 (Growth Mindset: 一种相信能力可以通过努力和奉献发展起来的信念) here. Let's see is there a way we can partner. So this would have been impossible five years earlier. So kudos to Satya and they put us on the map and he's been a great partner ever since. Whenever there's been issues, they always resolve it. So we are very thankful. We wouldn't be where we are without them.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我要说，你看，尽管交易困难重重，而且微软就是微软，但他们一直是最好的合作伙伴，不仅对 Databricks 如此，对整个投资组合也是如此。他们真正兑现并交付了他们所说会做的事情，我认为你必须给予极大的赞扬，因为在盖茨和鲍尔默的整个时代，他们从未对任何人如此好的合作伙伴，而他真正扭转了局面。他们对我们一直非常棒。这大约是 Satya 接任的时候，他当时给微软的每个人都发了《成长型思维》这本书，或者说关于 成长型思维 (Growth Mindset: 一种相信能力可以通过努力和奉献发展起来的信念) 的书。所以当时空气中弥漫着一种氛围，你知道，我们应该尝试，让我们努力让事情发生。让我们在这里拥有 成长型思维 (Growth Mindset: 一种相信能力可以通过努力和奉献发展起来的信念)。让我们看看有没有办法合作。所以这在五年前是不可能发生的。所以要赞扬 Satya，他们让我们崭露头角，从那时起他一直是一个很棒的合作伙伴。每当有问题出现时，他们总是会解决。所以我们非常感激。没有他们，我们不会有今天的成就。

收购策略：以人为本

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah. No just amazing, amazing really. I want to open up the conversation to deal more broadly now that you're not a small company anymore and you're a big company making acquisitions, Tabular, Neon, Mosaic just to name a few. What is your sort of your approach in terms of when to build versus when to buy slash how do you think about acquisitions more broadly?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。真是太棒了，真的。我想把话题更广泛地转向交易，现在你们不再是一家小公司，而是一家进行收购的大公司，比如 Tabular、Neon、Mosaic 等等。你们在“自建”与“收购”之间是如何权衡的，或者说你们更广泛地如何看待并购？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, I mean, what we try to not do, so let's start with a simple thing, is a lot of companies, especially at scale, they'll buy revenue. So they'll look at a company, they say, hey, this company is this size, we'll just buy that company, we'll put more sales people on it, then we can accelerate the revenue, we're buying that revenue, and that's how they're doing it. We're not doing that. What we're really doing is number one, we spend a lot of time with the team and the founders. So we're trying to see, hey, can we build together? Like you come here and you build together, that's very different from that buying revenue model. The buying revenue model often times you part ways from the CEO from day one. You can see the big companies, they literally have a plan. I have some execs that come from these big companies, they say, hey, our plan usually is to part ways with the CEO. You make a deal and the CEO can leave. And then but also the key people in those companies quickly leave all of them, like the top management, and then you keep promoting the people from below that couldn't get promoted before, and then eventually you bring in your own people to take over the company and then the company is dead. There's nothing left of it and there's no integration between that asset that you bought and the platform that you have.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，我的意思是，我们尽量不做的是，让我们从一个简单的事情开始，很多公司，特别是达到一定规模的公司，他们会购买营收。所以他们会看一家公司，他们说，嘿，这家公司有这么大，我们直接收购这家公司，我们会投入更多的销售人员，然后我们就可以加速营收，我们正在购买那个营收，他们就是这样做的。我们不这样做。我们真正做的是，第一，我们花很多时间与团队和创始人在一起。所以我们试图看看，嘿，我们能一起构建吗？就像你来这里，我们一起构建，这与那种购买营收的模式非常不同。购买营收的模式通常是你从第一天起就与 CEO 分道扬镳。你可以看到那些大公司，他们真的有计划。我有一些来自这些大公司的高管，他们说，嘿，我们的计划通常是与 CEO 分道扬镳。你达成交易，CEO 就可以离开。但那些公司的关键人物也很快都会离开，比如高层管理人员，然后你不断提拔那些以前无法获得晋升的下层人员，最终你再引入自己的人来接管公司，然后公司就死了。什么都不剩，你购买的资产和你拥有的平台之间也没有整合。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So to avoid all of those, can you get people that really feel like they're your co-founders? So, we spent just enormous amount of time with who we're like the company you're buying, who are the founders, how do they work, are we culturally the same? Spend time with them. Do we get along? Do we see the world the same way? You know, are we going to click? Are we going to do this together? Are we going to be able to build in the next five years? So, that's where we spend number one. Number two, we spend a lot of time on the product. You know, what's the product experience? How would we integrate this? What would it look like? How much can we, can we rewrite most of it? Can we not rewrite it? What's the, what programming? Like I always ask this and people like why that's such a dumb question. I ask what language would you write it in? Like why do you want to do that? What is, what does that matter? No, because we're going to integrate the code bases, right? It's like the build systems won't work. It's not going to even compile.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以为了避免所有这些，你能找到那些真正觉得自己是你的联合创始人的人吗？所以，我们花了大量的时间与我们想要收购的公司，他们的创始人，他们如何工作，我们的文化是否相同？与他们共度时光。我们相处得好吗？我们看待世界的方式一样吗？你知道，我们会不会一拍即合？我们会不会一起做这件事？我们能在未来五年内有所建树吗？所以，这是我们投入时间的第一点。第二点，我们在产品上投入了大量时间。你知道，产品体验是什么？我们如何整合它？它会是什么样子？我们能重写多少？我们不能重写吗？编程语言是什么？我总是问这个问题，人们会觉得为什么这是个愚蠢的问题。我问你会用什么语言来写它？为什么你想这样做？这有什么关系？不，因为我们要整合代码库，对吧？就像构建系统将无法工作。它甚至无法编译。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So a product is something we spend a huge amount of time and talking to customers, understanding what the excitement around that product looks like and how the integration would look like. The last thing we do is we look at the financials, you know, what's the revenue multiple and how much can we grow it and what's the three-year plan, five-year plan and so on. And I feel like big companies' corporate departments do it exactly in the reverse order of this. They start with hey, the revenue is this, but we could accelerate it and the multiple is so low and like, you know, in this, in my Excel sheet here, this makes perfect sense. And then second they go to like, hey, is this a good product? And then lastly, like, hey, how do we convince these knuckleheads? I mean, we probably don't want to have them here, but we got to pay them off somehow. So I think thinking about it that way, you get more longevity out of it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以产品是我们投入大量时间的事情，我们与客户交流，了解他们对该产品的热情，以及整合后的样子。我们做的最后一件事是查看财务状况，你知道，营收倍数是多少，我们能增长多少，三年计划、五年计划等等。我感觉大公司的企业部门完全是按照相反的顺序来做的。他们首先看，嘿，营收是这么多，但我们可以加速增长，而且倍数很低，你知道，在我的 Excel 表格里，这完全说得通。然后他们才去看，嘿，这是个好产品吗？最后才想，嘿，我们怎么说服这些笨蛋？我的意思是，我们可能不希望他们留在这里，但我们总得想办法把他们打发走。所以我认为，这样思考问题，你会从中获得更长的生命力。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And this really comes, it sounds like he's talking like a product guy, but this is really the thing that people get wrong on the go-to-market because what happens is if you've got multiple product architectures, that's going to mean multiple sales engineering forces, multiple post-sales things, and your entire sales efficiency is going to go through the floor. And because they have a keen eye on that, everything they buy ends up looking like a Databricks product. And that work is going in. They're not just selling some crap to get some money to go on a corporate development thing. And I would say so many, like when you bring in a professional CEO, this is what they screw up because they don't understand that. Engineering goes, "Yeah, yeah, we can take it on. There's another set of engineers. We don't care if they work on that." Blah, blah, blah. And engineering gets less efficient too, but it wrecks the field and that's, and then the customers hate it because it, yeah. Like, okay, I've got to learn another access control model. I got to do this. I got, you know, these are not things anybody wants to be part of.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。这听起来他像是在谈论产品，但这实际上是人们在市场进入策略上犯错的地方，因为如果你的产品架构多样化，那将意味着多支销售工程团队，多个售后服务环节，你的整体销售效率将会一落千丈。而因为他们对此有敏锐的洞察力，他们收购的一切最终都看起来像 Databricks 的产品。而且这项工作正在进行中。他们不仅仅是为了赚点钱去搞企业发展而销售一些垃圾。我想说，很多时候，当你请来一位专业的 CEO 时，他们就会搞砸这一点，因为他们不理解。工程部门会说：“是啊，是啊，我们可以接手。还有另一批工程师。我们不在乎他们是否从事那方面的工作。”等等等等。工程效率也会降低，但这会破坏市场，然后客户会讨厌它，因为它，是的。就像，好吧，我必须学习另一种访问控制模型。我必须做这个。我必须，你知道，这些都不是任何人想参与的事情。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. This is, it's the go-to-market side that you're worried about, that, you know, that experience that those customers will have. You know, they're going to come back immediately and say, "Hey, we were so, we were already upset about these things before the acquisition. Maybe you can fix them now." It's like, no, actually, you know, several of those people actually quit and now we're going to just work on integration and that thing now got pushed out another two years. So you don't want to be in that situation.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，百分之百。是的。这是你担心的是市场进入策略方面，你知道，那些客户将有的体验。你知道，他们会立即回来抱怨说：“嘿，我们之前对这些事情就已经很不满了，也许你们现在可以解决它们。”但实际上，你知道，其中一些人已经辞职了，现在我们只专注于整合，而那件事又被推迟了两年。所以你不想陷入那种境地。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So there's a lot of companies that do that and by the way, what they're doing works revenue-wise. They are getting the revenue, they are getting the stock swap works. If they're multiple of the,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以有很多公司这样做，顺便说一句，他们所做的事情在营收方面是有效的。他们确实获得了营收，他们的股票互换也有效。如果他们是多个，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: It's a creative deal temporarily.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 这暂时是一笔有创意的交易。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, it works and then the first year you get the bump in the revenue, you get a second-year boost in revenue growth as well. So the financial engineering actually works great for those companies. It's just long term. It ends up being like a bag of crap that doesn't work together.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，它奏效了，然后第一年你会看到营收的增长，第二年营收增长也会得到提振。所以这种金融工程对那些公司来说效果很好。只是从长远来看。它最终会变成一堆无法协同工作的垃圾。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And it affects a brand. You know, one of the things is one of the reasons Databricks is so powerful is all their customers want to buy all their products because they're like, we know that's the best software we buy. And as soon as you start chipping away at that with these financial strategies, you can't get it back because the reputation is every customer's experience. There is no marketing through that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而且它会影响品牌。你知道，其中一个原因是 Databricks 如此强大，是因为他们的所有客户都想购买他们的所有产品，因为他们觉得，我们知道那是我们购买的最好的软件。一旦你开始用这些金融策略来削弱这一点，你就无法挽回，因为声誉就是每个客户的体验。通过这种方式是无法进行营销的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: It's the best software because it was written by the engineers and built by those that were the best.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 它是最好的软件，因为它是由最优秀的工程师编写和构建的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Including the acquisitions that we got. They were phenomenal people that came in and they continue and since we gelled, they continued building it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 包括我们收购的公司。他们都是杰出的人才，他们加入了，并且自从我们融合之后，他们继续构建着它。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So that's why it's great. It's like, you know, so we pay a lot of attention. That's like back to the, you know, who are you getting into your company?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以这就是它很棒的原因。就像，你知道，所以我们非常关注。这又回到了，你知道，你让谁进入你的公司？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. That's the other thing, right? Like you can buy something that's got a lot of sales where you're downgrading your whole company. Ross Perot actually wrote about in Citizen Perot his biggest fear, which definitely came true, was he built this elite thing at EDS (Electronic Data Systems: 罗斯·佩罗创立的IT服务公司)，and then they would actually acquire IT departments and he was like, they're going to absorb us, not vice versa, and that does happen.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。那是另一回事，对吧？你可能会收购一个销售额很高的公司，但却会降低你整个公司的水平。罗斯·佩罗在《公民佩罗》中写到了他最大的恐惧，而这个恐惧确实成真了，那就是他在 EDS (Electronic Data Systems: 罗斯·佩罗创立的IT服务公司) 建立了一个精英团队，然后他们会收购其他公司的 IT 部门，他当时想，他们会吸收我们，而不是我们吸收他们，而这种情况确实发生了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, there is one really good company that, well, one really successful company that we never acquired, and I always vetoed it whenever it came up because I just think that the quality of their employee base is not great, and I didn't want it to dilute Databricks. Otherwise, from every other angle, that deal always made sense, and I always vetoed it because I felt that, you know, it's just they're all going to quit or be super unhappy. Let's just not do it. It's also why like merger of equals are because,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，有一家非常好的公司，嗯，一家非常成功的公司，我们从未收购过，每当它被提出来时，我总是否决它，因为我只是觉得他们的员工基础质量不高，我不想让它稀释 Databricks。否则，从其他所有角度来看，那笔交易总是很有意义的，而我总是否决它，因为我觉得，你知道，他们都会辞职或者非常不开心。我们还是别做了。这也是为什么像对等合并会失败的原因，因为，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. Because the cultures aren't equal. The people aren't equal.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。因为文化不平等。人不平等。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: And what made you feel that way? You just spent time with them and they just didn't exude sort of Databricks culture.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是什么让你有那种感觉？你只是和他们相处了一段时间，他们并没有散发出 Databricks 的那种文化吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Well, I mean, it's look, it's like with everything else, it's like when we were grading students at the university, it's like, okay, the rock stars are super easy to find out. So they're like there, and then the people that are really, really bad, that's like, it's not hard. And then there are people in the middle, that's in the gray zone. This was a company that was, you know, I feel like the talent is not phenomenal, and you don't need to be a genius to know that. And then there's some startups, you know, immediately like, okay, these guys are Olympia winners and they're phenomenal and they're executing like crazy and they have a track record.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 嗯，我的意思是，你看，就像其他所有事情一样，就像我们在大学里给学生打分时一样，那些明星学生很容易就能发现。他们就在那里，然后那些非常非常差的学生，也很容易辨认。然后还有一些处于中间地带的人，那是在灰色区域。这家公司，你知道，我觉得人才并不出色，你不需要是天才也能知道。然后还有一些初创公司，你知道，立刻就会觉得，好吧，这些人是奥运冠军，他们非常出色，他们执行力超强，而且他们有良好的记录。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So I don't think those are that hard, and we try to hire these, and this is the one that I vetoed. The hard part is what do you do with the ones in the middle?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以我认为那些并不难，我们努力招聘这些人，而这就是我否决的那个。难的部分是你如何处理那些处于中间的人？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: That's always where you spend all of your energy trying to sus out like, you know, okay, they're not stellar, stellar, but maybe they are. Maybe they just didn't have the go-to-market, they didn't have the funding, they didn't have the support that they needed and so on. Maybe they could if we give them a chance or maybe they're just mediocre. And that's where you spend a lot of your time. But you got to spend time with them. You have to interview all the people. You have to have your people interview all the people. Can't just be this can't be an Excel sheet exercise.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 那总是你花费所有精力去摸索的地方，比如，你知道，好吧，他们不是顶尖的，但也许他们是。也许他们只是没有市场进入策略，他们没有资金，他们没有他们需要的支持等等。也许如果我们给他们一个机会，他们就能成功，或者也许他们只是平庸。而那正是你花费大量时间的地方。但你必须花时间与他们相处。你必须面试所有的人。你必须让你的员工面试所有的人。这不能只是一张 Excel 表格的练习。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名) has a lot of lopsided companies. So, you know, you'll have a great engineering team and a bad company because it's like, you know, bad leadership, bad go-to-market. You also can have like guys who can sell anything with a ridiculously poor engineering team and they can just sell it and you know, you got to be very, very careful about that. Actually, our 首席营收官 (CRO - Chief Revenue Officer: 负责公司所有营收生成过程的高管) at Databricks is, you know, he came from a company that he, he sell anything.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。而且 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名) 有很多不平衡的公司。所以，你知道，你可能会有一个很棒的工程团队，但公司却很糟糕，因为，你知道，领导力差，市场进入策略差。你也可以有一些人，他们可以销售任何东西，即使工程团队糟糕透顶，他们也能卖出去，你知道，你必须非常非常小心。实际上，我们 Databricks 的 首席营收官 (CRO - Chief Revenue Officer: 负责公司所有营收生成过程的高管)，你知道，他来自一家他什么都能卖的公司。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, he was, he was, he was, he was selling 安全文件传输协议 (SFTP - Secure File Transfer Protocol: 一种用于在网络上安全传输文件的协议), which is free. And he was selling it for a while. He was selling it for a lot. He was making a lot of money. We're saying, you know, the electronic medical health records, you know, how important are they? If they got dropped, you know, how much of a risk is it to your business? Well, this is secure FTP.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，他当时在销售 安全文件传输协议 (SFTP - Secure File Transfer Protocol: 一种用于在网络上安全传输文件的协议)，那是免费的。他卖了一段时间。他卖得很贵。他赚了很多钱。我们说，你知道，电子病历，你知道，它们有多重要？如果它们丢失了，你知道，对你的业务有多大风险？嗯，这是安全的 FTP。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: You need it to be secure on somebody grabbing that file. He's good.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 你需要它在有人抓取那个文件时是安全的。他很棒。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah. The only thing I'd add too is this strategy is probably making you more attractive to the people you want to acquire, too. They don't want to sell if they're going to get fired right away.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。我还要补充一点，这种策略可能也让你们对那些你们想收购的人更具吸引力。如果他们会被立即解雇，他们就不想卖。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, for sure. It's very competitive.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，当然。竞争非常激烈。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, there's also a reputation, right? People know, they'll look back and say, "Okay, what happened to your previous acquisitions?"

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，百分之百。我的意思是，你知道，还有声誉问题，对吧？人们会知道，他们会回顾并说：“好吧，你们之前的收购怎么样了？”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: You know, was there a huge fight and everybody's quitting left and right or, you know, did they work out? How are you taking care of those people? What roles do they have? Do they have influential roles in your company? That's also important. So, you're setting a precedent. You're setting a precedent in many, many ways with acquisitions, M&A, deal dynamics, the price, when you go through the lawyers come back and that you're spending all those 20, 30 days doing the definitive agreement. Every little thing you agree to there is a precedent for the next deal.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 你知道，是不是发生了巨大的争吵，每个人都纷纷辞职，或者，你知道，他们成功了吗？你是如何照顾那些人的？他们担任什么角色？他们在你的公司中是否有影响力？那也很重要。所以，你正在开创一个先例。你在很多很多方面都在开创先例，包括收购、并购 (M&A - Mergers and Acquisitions: 公司合并与收购)、交易动态、价格，当你通过律师回来，你花费所有那些20、30天来制定最终协议。你在那里同意的每一件小事，都将成为下一笔交易的先例。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yep. Totally.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。完全正确。

超越F.A.N.G.：宏大愿景的驱动

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Maybe actually just to turn so we're talking about Databricks as an acquirer. If we go back in time again to maybe a moment where you thought about selling and maybe that you didn't actually seriously consider that, but I wanted to actually just sort of quote this infamous email sort of circulating our firm that Ben sent to.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 也许实际上只是转个话题，我们正在谈论 Databricks 作为收购方。如果我们再次回到过去，也许是你考虑出售的某个时刻，也许你并没有真正认真考虑过，但我想引用 Ben 发给我们公司内部流传的这封臭名昭著的邮件。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, Ali brought it. I had forgotten about it. You brought it up at a board meeting.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，Ali 提到了它。我都忘了。你在董事会上提到了它。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Brought it to the bed. But actually this wasn't, and this was not pertaining to selling the company, but it was I think selling a candidate, right? And you talk about, hey, Ben, can you sell this candidate on the fact that we'll be worth $10 billion?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 提到了它。但实际上这并不是，这与出售公司无关，我想是关于说服一位候选人，对吧？你谈到，嘿，Ben，你能说服这位候选人，让他相信我们公司将价值100亿美元吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: The candidate was worried about the company getting. He wanted to have a 双重触发机制 (Double Trigger: 一种股权归属条款，通常在公司被收购且员工被解雇时触发，以保护员工利益) because if Databricks sells, am I and they fire me as a salesperson, what equity am I going to get? So give me double trigger so I'm protected if we get bought and I get fired, I vest all my equity immediately.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 这位候选人担心公司被收购。他想要一个 双重触发机制 (Double Trigger: 一种股权归属条款，通常在公司被收购且员工被解雇时触发，以保护员工利益)，因为如果 Databricks 被出售，如果我作为销售人员被解雇，我能得到多少股权？所以给我双重触发机制，这样如果公司被收购而我被解雇，我的所有股权就能立即归属，我就受到保护。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yep. Exactly. And so, in response to this, Ben, and I'm going to paraphrase this a little bit, but he writes back to you, I'm like thinking about Ben's tone in this, you are severely underselling the opportunity. We are Oracle in the cloud, and we will be worth 10x what Oracle is. But what was your reaction when you when you saw that? And did that give you more fortitude to not sell the company?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。没错。所以，作为回应，Ben，我稍微转述一下，但他回复你，我当时在想 Ben 的语气，你严重低估了这个机会。我们是云端的 Oracle，我们的价值将是 Oracle 的10倍。但当你看到这个时，你的反应是什么？这是否给了你更大的勇气不卖掉公司？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, Ben's crazy. I think the first thought was exactly Ben's crazy. But no, I think both Ben and Mark always kind of pushed us to think bigger.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，Ben 疯了。我想第一个想法就是 Ben 疯了。但不是，我想 Ben 和 Mark 总是推动我们思考更大的格局。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: I remember we did the pitch at A16Z for I think our Series D, which would have been around 2017 or so, and the question was asked, what's your biggest bottleneck? And I said biggest bottleneck is hiring. He said, okay, well, who are you losing to? And I said, "Well, it's Google, it's the FANGs."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我记得我们在 A16Z 为我们的 D 轮融资进行了路演，大概是在2017年左右，当时被问到，你们最大的瓶颈是什么？我说是招聘。他说，好吧，你们输给了谁？我说：“嗯，是谷歌，是 FANG (FANG: 指Facebook、Apple、Netflix、Google这四家科技巨头)。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And the response I got back was, "Well, you need to just add Databricks to FANG. It needs to be FANG DB with a straight face." And it was like, and I was like, and my reaction was I laughed. I literally said, "Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is not serious." Like it's like, "Yeah, that's the problem." Like, "Huh?" It's like, "No, I'm serious. You need to add Databricks to FANG." And then there was like a pause and there was like this, and I think it's doable. And so then I actually went back and thought about it a lot and I was like, is it doable? Am I the crazy one or are they the crazy one? Who's the crazy one here? And that kind of pushed us to think about how do we change our compensation philosophy?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我得到的回复是：“嗯，你只需要把 Databricks 加入 FANG。它需要是 FANG DB，而且要一本正经地说。”我当时就笑了。我真的说：“是啊，是啊。我的意思是，这不严肃。”就像，“是啊，这就是问题。”就像，“哈？”他就像，“不，我是认真的。你需要把 Databricks 加入 FANG。”然后就停顿了一下，然后就是这样，我认为这是可以做到的。所以后来我真的回去认真思考了很多，我想，这可行吗？我是疯子还是他们是疯子？这里谁是疯子？那促使我们思考如何改变我们的薪酬理念？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: How do we, if we wanted to go and get the best of the best out of Google? What does it require? And we developed a new model, but we're like, okay, actually the way to think about it is your 市值 (Market Cap: 公司所有流通股的总价值) divided by number of employees. That's how much money you can give away in terms of 股权稀释 (Dilution: 现有股东所持股份比例因新股发行而下降)。And actually we did calculated the number at that time and we're like, wait, we're actually richer than Google in terms of how much dilution we can afford per engineer because they were at that time, this was like, you know, before the Twitter downsizing, so all the companies were oversized. So we did the calculations, it turned out that we actually can probably pay 第95百分位 (P95th Percentile: 统计学概念，指某个数据集中95%的值都低于或等于该值，在此语境中指薪酬水平处于市场前5%的水平). We did the math on P95th percentile for engineering and it was like, yeah, this actually the math works out. We moved all the comp bands and we told them and we told the employees about it, it's like, okay, we're paying you P95th, and we can afford it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 如果我们想从谷歌挖走最优秀的人才，需要什么？我们开发了一个新模型，但我们想，好吧，实际上思考它的方式是你的 市值 (Market Cap: 公司所有流通股的总价值) 除以员工人数。这就是你在 股权稀释 (Dilution: 现有股东所持股份比例因新股发行而下降) 方面可以付出的金额。实际上我们当时计算了这个数字，我们想，等等，我们在每个工程师可以承受的股权稀释方面实际上比谷歌更富有，因为他们当时，你知道，这是在推特裁员之前，所以所有公司都超员了。所以我们进行了计算，结果表明我们实际上可能可以支付 第95百分位 (P95th Percentile: 统计学概念，指某个数据集中95%的值都低于或等于该值，在此语境中指薪酬水平处于市场前5%的水平) 的薪酬。我们对工程部门的第95百分位薪酬进行了计算，结果是，是的，这个数学计算是成立的。我们调整了所有的薪酬区间，并告诉了他们，也告诉了员工，就像，好吧，我们支付你们第95百分位的薪酬，而且我们负担得起。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So was that came out of that simple, you know, so these simple, you know, your trillion dollars, just add your acronym to the to FANG and so on. They're silly and they're kind of crazy, but they do push you. And you go back and think about, hey, what is the fundamental reason from first principles that we couldn't do something like that? Why couldn't we be a trillion? What's the bottleneck from being a trillion or being part of FANG? And then you think about it and you start zooming in on like, can we unblock that? So it has helped us and has been a driving force even though it's, you know, it's a little annoying, you know, it's like, you know, hey, you know, hey, mom, dad, I got the A+ it's like, yeah, but we ranked I was number two in the class so was someone better than you?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以这些简单的，你知道，你的万亿美元，只需将你的缩写添加到 FANG 等等。它们很愚蠢，也有点疯狂，但它们确实会推动你。然后你回过头来思考，嘿，从第一性原理来看，我们为什么不能做那样的事情？我们为什么不能达到万亿美元市值？成为万亿美元公司或成为 FANG 的一部分的瓶颈是什么？然后你思考它，你开始聚焦于，我们能否解除这个瓶颈？所以它帮助了我们，并且一直是一个驱动力，尽管它，你知道，有点烦人，你知道，就像，嘿，你知道，嘿，爸爸妈妈，我得了 A+，就像，是啊，但我们排名，我是班上第二名，所以有人比你更好吗？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah. For what it's worth, when I joined the firm in 2019, the Series F of Databricks was the first deal I worked on, and I think the valuation was $6 billion.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的。就我所知，当我2019年加入公司时，Databricks 的 F 轮融资是我经手的第一个项目，当时估值是60亿美元。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Ben says to us, oh, well, it's going to be a hundred billion dollar company. And we were like, "Yeah, yeah, sure, Ben." Lo and behold, they're doing all this work. I'm like, "What are you doing?" Like, six billion, seven billion, doesn't matter.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: Ben 对我们说，哦，嗯，它将成为一家千亿美元市值的公司。我们当时想：“是啊，是啊，当然了，Ben。”结果呢，他们正在做所有这些工作。我当时想：“你们在做什么？”就像，六十亿，七十亿，都无所谓。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: I was right.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我是对的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: He was right. Yeah. That one you have proven to be right. Still have ways to go for two trillion. But,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 他是对的。是的。那一点你已经证明是对的。离两万亿还有很长的路要走。但是，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: The thing that you almost never get, and Ali and I had this conversation the one time we did have a real acquisition offer on the company is you just don't get this good a market opportunity with this good an entrepreneur like that. That's the rarest of rare things. We see great entrepreneurs, but their market opportunity is limited. And then we see companies that have a great market opportunity, but the entrepreneur is not big enough to fulfill that. But this was a case where we have both.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 你几乎从未得到的东西，Ali 和我曾就此进行过一次对话，那就是我们公司确实收到过一次真正的收购要约，但你就是不会遇到像这样好的市场机会，同时又拥有这样优秀的创业者。这是极其罕见的事情。我们看到过伟大的创业者，但他们的市场机会有限。然后我们也看到过拥有巨大市场机会的公司，但创业者却不足以实现这一目标。但这次我们两者兼备。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, I remember actually the conversation that kind of flipped me. The acquisition offer was on the table. It was six times bigger than the valuation we had at the time. And I had done the mistake of telling my co-founders.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，我记得那次谈话真的让我改变了想法。收购要约摆在桌面上。它比我们当时的估值高出六倍。而我犯了一个错误，告诉了我的联合创始人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, they were like, "Let's go."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，他们当时说：“我们走吧。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: They were like, "We're done." So, everyone's like, "Stop the work. Stop working. Take your hands off the keyboard. Nobody work anymore. We're done here." And let's count my money. How much money do I have? What would you buy for that amount of money? So they were completely not doing anything. And there's just this crazy gossip going around. And then it was like they had told some of the exec and then they were calling each other every day like, hey, what Ali think? You think he's, he looked in a bad mood today, you think he's going to say no, no, it's like what did he say? He said this thing, he said this once. So there's just a lot of politicking going around and nobody was doing any work anymore.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 他们当时说：“我们完蛋了。”所以，每个人都说：“停止工作。停止工作。把手从键盘上拿开。没人再工作了。我们到此为止了。”然后让我们数我的钱。我有多少钱？你会用那笔钱买什么？所以他们完全什么都不做。然后就传出了各种疯狂的八卦。然后就像他们告诉了一些高管，然后他们每天互相打电话，问，嘿，Ali 怎么想？你觉得他今天心情不好，你觉得他会说不吗？就像他说了什么？他说了这个，他只说了一次。所以当时有很多政治斗争，没有人再工作了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And I was like, you know, maybe they're right, maybe we should just sell. And I remember having that conversation with Ben, and I think we were in a car, both of us. And he says that he drops the f-bombs and he pisses people off and so on and they don't take the feedback, but actually he did exactly the radical candor thing with me, which is he said, hey, you can do whatever you want. I'll support you either case. And actually if you sell for this number, it's really great for me, me being Ben. We make a lot of money at A16Z. I'll pay the investors back many times over. So honestly, if it's for me personally, that's probably the better option. But I'm just thinking back, I was CEO LoudCloud, Opsware, and just the cards I were given, that company wasn't the company you have. And when I look back, how often do you in life get a chance to even have a company like LoudCloud or Opsware, let alone a Databricks. And this is just such a freaking big market. You can sell, you're going to make a lot of money, and you'll be super successful in life. But, you know, if you're like me, you're going to look back the rest of your life thinking, you know, I missed that one shot. That was the one thing. I should have taken it all the way. And now I'll never know how far I could have taken it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我当时想，你知道，也许他们是对的，也许我们应该直接卖掉。我记得和 Ben 谈过那次对话，我想我们俩当时都在车里。他说他会爆粗口，会惹恼别人等等，他们不接受反馈，但实际上他对我做了完全坦诚相待的事情，他说，嘿，你想做什么都行。我两种情况都会支持你。而且实际上，如果你以这个数字出售，对我来说真的很好，对我 Ben 来说。我们在 A16Z 赚了很多钱。我会多次回报投资者。所以老实说，如果对我个人而言，那可能是更好的选择。但我只是回想一下，我曾是 LoudCloud、Opsware 的 CEO，我当时所处的环境，那家公司并不是你现在拥有的公司。当我回首时，人生中有多少次机会能拥有一家像 LoudCloud 或 Opsware 这样的公司，更不用说 Databricks 了。而这只是一个如此巨大的市场。你可以出售，你会赚很多钱，你的人生会非常成功。但是，你知道，如果你像我一样，你会在余生回顾时想，你知道，我错过了那一次机会。那是唯一的一件事。我本该坚持到底。现在我永远不知道我能把它带到多远。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: So, do you want to live with that or do you want to just have the money? You know, I'll support whatever you want to do. I really couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less. And I was like, "Okay, thanks. Hang up. We're never doing this. We're done. This is not happening."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 那么，你是想带着遗憾生活，还是只想拥有金钱？你知道，我支持你做任何决定。我真的无所谓。我真的无所谓。我当时想：“好的，谢谢。挂断电话。我们永远不会这样做。我们完了。这不会发生。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: What a pep talk.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 多么鼓舞人心的一番话。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. So that's how we did it. So it was excellent.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。我们就是这样做的。所以它很棒。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: I think I also said, "I guarantee you you'll never have an idea this good again as long as you live."

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 我想我还说过：“我向你保证，你这辈子再也不会有这么好的主意了。”

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: This is the best idea you're ever going to have.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 这是你这辈子能想到的最好的主意。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. Well, an idea that also takes off and works, right?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。嗯，一个也能成功并奏效的想法，对吧？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。

AI时代的人才战与领导力

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: So I want to tie one thing that you said in all of that is you were company building. But then also just sort of the calculus that founders but also your employees are making and that's around comp. So in the early days you could afford to pay 95th percentile, right? Today there's crazy AI talent wars going on. We've talked about this a bunch throughout the summer. And we know that you can bring the best talent in the house to Databricks. How do you keep them with all of this craziness going on? Because now 95th percentile, I don't even know what that means. Is that like you pay a billion dollars?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 所以我想把你在所有这些话中提到的一件事联系起来，那就是你正在建设公司。但同时，创始人以及你的员工也在进行一种计算，那就是关于薪酬。所以在早期，你们可以支付第95百分位的薪酬，对吧？今天，正在发生疯狂的 AI 人才战。我们整个夏天都谈论过很多次。我们知道你们可以将最优秀的人才带到 Databricks。在所有这些疯狂的情况下，你们如何留住他们？因为现在第95百分位，我甚至不知道那意味着什么。那是不是说你们要支付10亿美元？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. Exactly. The joke is which company says we're P50th? We pay P50th. Like who does that? There's no company that does that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。没错。笑话说，哪家公司会说我们是第50百分位？我们支付第50百分位。谁会那样做？没有公司会那样做。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: There is. Yeah. The 75th percentile is the single biggest lie in 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名). It's like a complete fabrication.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 有的。是的。第75百分位是 硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 美国加州北部的一个地区，以高科技创新和创业公司闻名) 最大的谎言。那完全是捏造的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Probably. So, but I think that the it is a crazy time with AI and I do think I feel bad. I did actually an exit interview with someone this morning. I feel bad for the kids right now because there's like too much pressure on them like they feel like oh they have to start companies and they have to and I've never actually had anything like this because every year I talk to the interns and you know I get questions about how do we build our own company, how do we succeed at Databricks and so on. The last two years have just been crazy. All the kids are like when should I become a CEO, when should I start my own company, what's a good valuation? Am I missing out if I do like an internship here for three months at Databricks? Will I have wasted my opportunity in life? And this is like the time for 通用人工智能 (Artificial General Intelligence: 指机器能够像人类一样理解、学习和应用智能来解决任何问题的能力). And I could have been one of the guys that does super intelligence and like, you know, how would you time that? How was it for you? How old were you when you were 22? What did you do? And so I do think it's kind of crazy times and I do think it's also exaggerated. I don't think anyone's getting hundred million dollar offers. I mean, yes, there's like one Character AI and so on, but I don't think it's actually true and it's also in the interest of CEOs, you should know, to say that hey, people try to poach data people from Databricks for a billion dollars and they said no. It's in our interest to say that, right? Because that kind of sets the bar at a billion and then any employee that cannot for half of it's going to feel really insulted. It's like why don't I get a billion dollar offer? I heard on the news that the other people are getting a billion.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 也许吧。但是，嗯，你知道，我认为现在是 AI 的疯狂时代，我确实觉得很难过。我今天早上确实和一个人进行了离职面谈。我现在为这些年轻人感到难过，因为他们承受了太大的压力，他们觉得哦，他们必须创业，他们必须，我以前从未遇到过这样的情况，因为每年我都会和实习生交谈，你知道，我会被问到我们如何建立自己的公司，我们如何在 Databricks 取得成功等等。过去两年简直是疯狂。所有的孩子都在问我什么时候应该成为 CEO，什么时候应该创办自己的公司，什么是好的估值？如果我在 Databricks 实习三个月，我会不会错失良机？我的人生机会会不会被浪费？而现在是 通用人工智能 (Artificial General Intelligence: 指机器能够像人类一样理解、学习和应用智能来解决任何问题的能力) 的时代。我本可以成为那些创造超级智能的人之一，你知道，你会如何把握时机？你当时是什么情况？你22岁时多大？你做了什么？所以我确实认为现在是有点疯狂的时代，而且我认为它也被夸大了。我不认为有人能拿到1亿美元的报价。我的意思是，是的，确实有像 Character AI 这样的公司等等，但我不认为这是真的，而且你也应该知道，CEO 们说，嘿，有人试图以10亿美元的价格从 Databricks 挖走数据人才，但他们拒绝了，这符合我们的利益。对吧？因为这会把门槛设定在10亿美元，然后任何拿不到一半薪水的员工都会感到非常受侮辱。他们会想，为什么我没有拿到10亿美元的报价？我听说新闻上说其他人拿到了10亿美元。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: By the way, Sam used that in reverse on Meta. He's like, oh yeah, they offered all our guys hundred million dollars into the next guy who got the 50.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 顺便说一句，Sam 在 Meta 上反向利用了这一点。他会说，哦，是的，他们给我们的所有人都提供了1亿美元，下一个拿到5000万美元的人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Now I have to pay 100 at least. That's like the smart move. But I would say that look, and not all startups have the valuation of their we 100 billion and you know, with 10,000 employees, we actually can afford to actually pay significant and we do pay significant for the right talent. But you know, if what do you do when you're smaller, like we were smaller at some point, well then it's talk about how big you are going to get and what the opportunity is and what you could do together and what it would worth together. But I think most people earlier in the career they really want to learn and they want to really feel that they can have impact. So if you can really bring them in and you can sort of mentor them, you can stay close to them and as a CEO, you have huge power if you can just spend two minutes with a kid out of school. It's immense to them and you say, hey, I'll even mentor you. I'll help you like what what do you want to do in five years? I'm thinking about starting my own company actually in six months, but I'll work at Databricks for 10 years, but in six months I would love to be a CEO. So then you can say, hey, I can coach you to, I know how the fundraising, I know the early days and so on and you can actually mentor a lot of them and that's actually worth a lot to them as well. But in general, like help them be successful and help them build their careers and also if you've done it before like we have, you can kind of calm them down a little bit and say, hey, you have like few decades, don't worry about it. It's the 错失恐惧症 (FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out: 一种害怕错过社交活动、新体验或投资机会的焦虑情绪) and the pressure has to be kind of reduced and I think that's also calming they feel good about it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 现在我至少要付100美元。那就像是明智之举。但我想说，你看，并不是所有初创公司都有我们这样1000亿美元的估值，你知道，拥有10,000名员工，我们实际上可以负担得起为合适的人才支付高额薪酬，而且我们确实也这么做了。但是，你知道，如果你规模较小，就像我们曾经规模较小的时候，那么你就要谈论你未来会变得多大，机会是什么，你们可以一起做什么，以及它共同的价值。但我认为大多数职业生涯早期的人，他们真的想学习，他们真的想感受到自己能产生影响。所以如果你能真正把他们带进来，你能指导他们，你能和他们保持密切联系，作为 CEO，如果你能花两分钟时间和一个刚毕业的孩子交流，你拥有巨大的力量。这对他们来说意义重大，你会说，嘿，我甚至会指导你。我会帮助你，比如你五年后想做什么？我实际上正在考虑六个月后创办自己的公司，但我会在 Databricks 工作10年，但六个月后我很想成为一名 CEO。所以那时你就可以说，嘿，我可以指导你，我知道如何融资，我知道早期阶段等等，你实际上可以指导他们很多人，这对他们来说也很有价值。但总的来说，就是帮助他们成功，帮助他们发展他们的职业生涯，而且如果你像我们一样以前做过，你就可以稍微安抚他们一下，说，嘿，你还有几十年的时间，别担心。这是 错失恐惧症 (FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out: 一种害怕错过社交活动、新体验或投资机会的焦虑情绪) 和压力，必须得到缓解，我认为这也能让他们感到平静，他们会对此感觉良好。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. I always say the best cure for starting your own company fever is to start your own company and that'll teach you.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。我总是说，治疗创业热的最佳方法就是自己去创业，那会给你上一课。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: It's not that easy. By the way, they come back after start companies, often times they come back to Databricks and they're much more thankful and you understand. Actually, I didn't mention this earlier when you asked about acquisitions. My favorite acquisition because I said they start with the people, right? And then the product. And with the people, I love to hire people who have seen great at a big company, or I don't know if it's great, but they've seen process scale big company, they've been at a Google, they've been at Amazon, they understand the processes so that I understand how to navigate a bureaucracy and work with it and they're not going to just be inundated by it. But then they've gone on and done their own startup and that's really, really hard, right? It's like it's extremely hard trying to do everything yourself and you don't have any help and you know you're trying to do this in this crazy market and you're trying to compete with hundred million dollar offers when you have like nothing. So that takes a certain amount of grit and it's really humbling. So I love the people that have done both of those. They end up being actually the perfect employees at Databricks because they come in and they're really thankful. They're like, "Hey, what these guys have done at Databricks is actually really, really hard. I tried it and I'm really good. I was like one of the best at Google or somewhere and then I did my own startup and we absolutely failed and so hey, show some respect here. These guys know what they're talking about." So those are great employees actually. So, you know, I think keep a great relationship with people who leave your company because they can boomerang back in a couple years.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 没那么容易。顺便说一句，他们创业后会回来，很多时候他们会回到 Databricks，他们会更加感激，你也会理解。实际上，你之前问到收购时我没有提到这一点。我最喜欢的收购，因为我说他们从人开始，对吧？然后是产品。对于人，我喜欢招聘那些在大公司见过世面的人，或者我不知道是不是很棒，但他们见过大型公司的流程规模，他们在谷歌待过，他们在亚马逊待过，他们理解这些流程，这样我就知道如何驾驭官僚体系并与之合作，他们不会被它淹没。但随后他们又去创办了自己的初创公司，那真的非常非常困难，对吧？就像自己做所有事情极其困难，你没有任何帮助，你知道你在这个疯狂的市场中试图做这件事，当你一无所有时，你却试图与数亿美元的报价竞争。所以那需要一定的毅力，而且真的让人谦卑。所以我喜欢那些两者都做过的人。他们最终实际上成为了 Databricks 最完美的员工，因为他们进来后真的非常感激。他们会说：“嘿，这些人在 Databricks 所做的事情实际上真的非常非常困难。我尝试过，我真的很棒。我曾是谷歌或其他地方最优秀的人之一，然后我创办了自己的初创公司，我们彻底失败了，所以嘿，这里请表现出一些尊重。这些人知道他们在说什么。”所以那些实际上是很棒的员工。所以，你知道，我认为要与离开你公司的人保持良好的关系，因为他们几年后可能会回流。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And look, it's very hard to make these things work.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。而且你看，要让这些事情奏效非常困难。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And it also requires a lot of luck. I mean, I think one of the things people don't realize is a lot of things have to go right that should never go right.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而且它也需要很多运气。我的意思是，我认为人们没有意识到的一件事是，很多本不该顺利的事情，却必须顺利。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And a lot of things will go wrong, but if you can grab your lucky moments, that's a rare, that's a rare thing.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而且很多事情都会出错，但如果你能抓住你的幸运时刻，那是非常罕见的事情。

创业的艰辛与时机

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. One way to prove that is if Databricks started in 2013, if we had started in 2012, that rocky year, that difficult year 2015 would have then happened in 2014.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。一个证明方法是，如果 Databricks 在2013年成立，如果我们早一年在2012年成立，那么那个艰难的2015年就会在2014年发生。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Right? To start the funds, are we not, we don't have the revenue, but we were a cloud AI open source company. Those things didn't take off in 2014. So, you know, even if like if we had to do the CEO change and all of that and I had become CEO a year earlier, it just we were too early in the market. The cloud hadn't taken off, AI was not, nobody, that was not even a phrase. AI meant robotics. People use machine learning as the phrase. And so company would have failed. We wouldn't have had enough momentum. There's not enough cloud, 总潜在市场 (TAM - Total Addressable Market: 指一个产品或服务在理想情况下可以达到的最大市场规模) there to be had.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 对吧？要启动资金，我们没有，我们没有营收，但我们是一家云端 AI 开源公司。这些东西在2014年并没有起飞。所以，你知道，即使我们不得不进行 CEO 更替等等，而且我早一年成为 CEO，那也只是我们进入市场太早了。云计算还没有起飞，AI 根本就没有，没有人，那甚至不是一个词。AI 意味着机器人技术。人们用机器学习这个词。所以公司会失败。我们不会有足够的势头。当时没有足够的云端 总潜在市场 (TAM - Total Addressable Market: 指一个产品或服务在理想情况下可以达到的最大市场规模)。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: If we started the company in 2014, a year later instead, so a year later than we actually did, then we would have had our difficult year in 2016. But by 2016, the cloud was starting to happen, AI was starting to happen. So we would have done the fixes in 2017 and it would have been too late to the party and probably the 超大规模云服务商 (Hyperscalers: 指提供大规模云计算服务的公司，如亚马逊AWS、微软Azure和谷歌云) would have taken it away. Our competitors were taking it away and we were just wouldn't have get enough momentum to be able to succeed and that's timing of when we started. So, how did we clock it so well? We had to wait for Mate to finish his PhD thesis. That's it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 如果我们是在2014年成立公司，也就是比我们实际成立晚一年，那么我们会在2016年经历艰难的一年。但到了2016年，云计算已经开始兴起，人工智能也开始发展。所以我们会在2017年进行修补，但那时就太晚了，很可能 超大规模云服务商 (Hyperscalers: 指提供大规模云计算服务的公司，如亚马逊AWS、微软Azure和谷歌云) 会把市场抢走。我们的竞争对手正在抢占市场，我们根本无法获得足够的势头来成功，这就是我们创业的时机。那么，我们是如何把握得如此之好的呢？我们不得不等 Mate 完成他的博士论文。就是这样。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, that, you know, that that was the whole thing.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，你知道，那就是全部。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So, there's a lot of randomness. And you got to get lucky. And it was so on the edge as it was that on the Series C, Yan had a handshake with Redpoint and Redpoint just stopped returning his calls to the point where the Series C was led by us who also led the Series A and NEA who led the Series B. We co-led the Series C because nobody else would do it. It was that, it was that.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以，有很多随机性。你必须走运。而且当时情况非常危急，C 轮融资时，Yan 和 Redpoint 已经握手，但 Redpoint 后来就不再回他的电话了，以至于 C 轮融资最终由我们（也主导了 A 轮）和 NEA（主导了 B 轮）共同领投。我们共同领投了 C 轮，因为没有人愿意做。情况就是那么，就是那么。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Close to going under and most companies weren't even right, that would be it.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 差点倒闭，而且大多数公司甚至都不对劲，就是这样了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, it was very close because we couldn't get funding for anyone. It's just funding freezed up and nobody wanted to invest anymore. So it was really a lifeline from A&Z.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，非常接近，因为我们无法从任何人那里获得资金。资金冻结了，没有人再想投资了。所以这真的是 A&Z 提供的生命线。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. We were just, you know, burning a lot of cash. We weren't generating much revenue other than Spark Summit.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。我们当时只是，你知道，烧了很多钱。除了 Spark Summit，我们没有产生多少营收。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: We had a lot of downloads. We had a lot of downloads.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 我们有很多下载量。我们有很多下载量。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: A lot of downloads.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 很多下载量。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And recurring conference revenue.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 还有经常性的会议收入。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. And recurring.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。而且是经常性的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: How confident were you in that time when things were at their level?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 当时情况如此艰难，你有多大的信心？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Oh, I mean, I seriously considered taking the professor job at Berkeley because I seriously thought this was going to be very, very hard to pull off. I think the sentiment at Databricks was or at least my sentiment was, look, you win some things, you lose some things in life. We created Apache Spark and we made it a worldwide sensation. Everybody's downloading, the downloads are through the roof. We have this greatest conference, thousands of people come to our conference. It's awesome. Let's go back. Let's do it again. Let's publish another paper and do those kind of things. We're just not business guys. We just don't understand business. That's okay. We don't want to be business guys. So that's kind of how I felt about it, right? But what I knew was that, hey,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 哦，我的意思是，我当时认真考虑过去伯克利大学当教授，因为我真的觉得这会非常非常难以实现。我认为 Databricks 的普遍情绪，或者至少我的情绪是，你看，人生有得有失。我们创造了 Apache Spark，并使其轰动全球。每个人都在下载，下载量飙升。我们有这个最棒的会议，成千上万的人来参加我们的会议。太棒了。让我们回去吧。让我们再做一次。让我们再发表一篇论文，做那些事情。我们只是不擅长商业。我们只是不懂商业。没关系。我们不想成为商业人士。所以当时我就是这么想的，对吧？但我知道的是，嘿，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: By the way, Mate went back and became a professor. All this stuff happened.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 顺便说一句，Mate 回去当了教授。所有这些事情都发生了。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. Yan went back. But in 2015, we knew that we had tried everything. And by the way, 产品驱动增长 (PLG - Product-Led Growth: 一种商业模式，通过产品本身吸引、激活和留住客户，而非依赖销售或营销团队) is something that we had tried very hard and it didn't work for us.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。Yan 回去了。但在2015年，我们知道我们已经尝试了所有方法。顺便说一句，产品驱动增长 (PLG - Product-Led Growth: 一种商业模式，通过产品本身吸引、激活和留住客户，而非依赖销售或营销团队) 是我们非常努力尝试过但对我们无效的东西。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Like, actually one of our biggest failures was PLG at Databricks. Everybody kept telling us PLG, PLG, PLG. And we're like, okay, product growth and Amazon didn't just swipe their credit cards. We don't need sales people. But so in 2015, I had kind of like,

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 实际上，我们在 Databricks 最大的失败之一就是产品驱动增长。每个人都一直告诉我们产品驱动增长，产品驱动增长，产品驱动增长。我们当时想，好吧，产品增长和亚马逊并没有直接刷信用卡。我们不需要销售人员。但在2015年，我有点像，

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Except Cranny.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 除了 Cranny。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Exactly. Yes, that is true. Kudos to Mark. So that year we had formed some hypothesis that we have nothing to lose. What if we just pivoted these things? What if we went all in into B2B enterprise sales? Because certainly PLG is not working. At $3 million 年度经常性收入 (Annual Recurring Revenue: 订阅型业务在一年内预期产生的可重复收入), that's not going to take you anywhere. And they're just taking our open source software, so we have to have proprietary code around it. And yeah, the execs team are all PhDs. So what if we bring in someone that doesn't have a PhD and see how it goes?

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 没错。是的，那是真的。赞扬 Mark。所以那一年我们形成了一些假设，认为我们没有什么可失去的。如果我们只是转变这些东西会怎样？如果我们全力投入 企业对企业销售 (B2B Enterprise Sales: 面向大型企业客户的销售模式) 会怎样？因为显然产品驱动增长不起作用。在300万美元的 年度经常性收入 (Annual Recurring Revenue: 订阅型业务在一年内预期产生的可重复收入) 下，那不会带你到任何地方。而且他们只是拿走了我们的开源软件，所以我们必须围绕它拥有专有代码。而且，是的，高管团队都是博士。那么如果我们引入一个没有博士学位的人，看看会怎么样呢？

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: I never forget Arcelon going, "We made the number." And I was like, "You made a ridiculous number." Like, you made the number. If you keep making that number, you're going to go bankrupt. You didn't make the number. You made a number that you set that was way too low. We haven't figured it out.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 我永远不会忘记 Arcelon 说：“我们达到了目标。”我当时想：“你达到了一个荒谬的数字。”就像，你达到了目标。如果你继续达到那个数字，你就会破产。你没有达到目标。你设定的数字太低了。我们还没有弄清楚。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Ben was very nice and complimentary in our board meetings that year, 2015.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: Ben 在2015年那年的董事会上非常友善和赞扬。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: We were in a bit of trouble.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 我们当时有点麻烦。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Let's say it was very truthful. But yeah, so we had nothing to lose. So we didn't know that we were going to succeed, but we had nothing to lose to make those big changes and we made them in 2016. And it turned out those were the bottlenecks. Giving away your software for free. Not having execs that have seen the movie before like Ron who came in. Just the PLG motion is not going to cut it. So maybe we should just try. We weren't certain that B2B would work, but we knew that PLG is not working for sure.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 姑且说是非常真实吧。但是，是的，所以我们没有什么可失去的。所以我们不知道我们是否会成功，但我们没有什么可失去的，可以做出那些重大改变，我们在2016年做出了这些改变。结果发现那些就是瓶颈。免费提供你的软件。没有像 Ron 这样见过世面的高管加入。仅仅是产品驱动增长的模式是不够的。所以也许我们应该尝试一下。我们不确定 B2B 是否会奏效，但我们知道产品驱动增长肯定不行。

关键人才与文化融合

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. Well, another, I mean, we got Ron. I mean, the fact that the first sales guy we hired was a sales savant, like a genius. Shock. I mean, that never happens. And he was a guy we didn't know. Our talent team found him from some company we never heard of.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。嗯，另一个，我的意思是，我们找到了 Ron。我的意思是，我们雇用的第一个销售人员竟然是一位销售奇才，就像个天才一样。震惊。我的意思是，这从未发生过。而且他是一个我们不认识的人。我们的招聘团队从一家我们从未听说过的公司找到了他。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. French company. And the only, really the only reason we hired him was because he was the only guy Cranny ever liked. In all the sales guys he ever interviewed, he was like this is the guy.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。一家法国公司。我们雇用他的唯一真正原因是因为他是 Cranny 唯一喜欢的人。在他面试过的所有销售人员中，他都说就是这个人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Wow.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 哇。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: And yeah, he is a new generation more, but we just stumbled into him. Unbelievable.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，他更像是新一代，但我们只是偶然遇到了他。令人难以置信。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And without Ron, very hard to see us, this company getting to where it got to.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 如果没有 Ron，很难想象我们这家公司能走到今天。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: So there's some luck involved in us even finding him. But then that he was phenomenal and also kudos to Yan who actually led the search in 2015. But yeah, Ron was game changing for us. But Ron was a very uncomfortable hire.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 所以我们能找到他也有一些运气成分。但他确实非常出色，也要赞扬 Yan，他实际上在2015年主导了这次招聘。但是，是的，Ron 对我们来说是改变游戏规则的人物。但 Ron 是一个非常令人不安的招聘。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Because he did not have a PhD.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 因为他没有博士学位。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: And he did have an engineering degree. Yeah, he does have an engineering degree from Stanford that helped a little bit, but he's a sales, true and true sales guy. He's not one of these, he's a classic sales person, who grew up in sales, even though he has an engineering degree. So, the comfortable thing would have been to pick someone and we had some candidates in the mix who were super technical, using the product, giving us feedback, but they probably would not, and that would have been much more comfortable for us.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 而且他确实有工程学学位。是的，他确实有斯坦福大学的工程学学位，这有点帮助，但他是一个地地道道的销售人员。他不是那种，他是一个经典的销售人员，在销售行业成长起来的，尽管他有工程学学位。所以，更舒服的做法是选择一个，我们当时有一些候选人，他们技术超强，使用产品，给我们反馈，但他们可能不会，那对我们来说会舒服得多。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah, Ron was uncomfortable. He was a very uncomfortable hire, and he made it very uncomfortable for us for many years, and he still does.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的，Ron 让人感到不舒服。他是一个非常令人不安的招聘，他在很多年里都让我们感到非常不舒服，现在仍然如此。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: But that's a lot of the key to the company.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 但那也是公司成功的关键之一。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Is it forces, it forces a customer focus that would be impossible to have without somebody that smart and crafty about getting his way. Unbelievable.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 它迫使，它迫使公司以客户为中心，如果没有这样聪明狡猾、善于达成目标的人，这是不可能实现的。令人难以置信。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: If you can keep also the original team together, that's important. We were, you know, seven co-founders still. Many of the co-founders, you said data warehousing was a big push for us. My co-founder Reynold was really the one that kind of pushed this.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 如果你也能让最初的团队保持在一起，那也很重要。我们当时仍然是七位联合创始人。很多联合创始人，你提到数据仓库对我们来说是一个很大的推动力。我的联合创始人 Reynold 才是真正推动这件事的人。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah. The contribution level from a large number of co-founders is unique in the industry. You've got Patrick, you have Rainald, you have Mate, you have Arcelon. It's crazy how much the original team contributes.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的。如此多的联合创始人的贡献水平在行业中是独一无二的。你有 Patrick，你有 Rainald，你有 Mate，你有 Arcelon。最初团队的贡献之大令人难以置信。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: Yeah. So the PhDs all contribute like Arcelon really made the go-to-market work. And he really made the sort of Ron work with the rest of the company. That was super critical. Mate continued doing lots of innovations over the years. Patrick led all of engineering in big chunks of it and so on. And we've had other people, we've been lucky to get such folks. So hiring is critical and keeping the original talent, I think those were some of the things.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 是的。所以所有的博士都做出了贡献，比如 Arcelon 真正让市场进入策略奏效了。他真正让 Ron 与公司其他部门合作。那至关重要。Mate 多年来持续进行大量创新。Patrick 领导了大部分工程部门等等。我们还有其他人，我们很幸运能得到这样的人。所以招聘至关重要，留住最初的人才，我认为这些都是一些关键因素。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ben: Yeah, usually founders, usually only one of the co-founders contributes long term. And so to have, to have that going and Yan's still on the board and Scott's still on the board. I mean, it's very unusual.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ben: 是的，通常创始人，通常只有一位联合创始人会长期贡献。所以能有这样的情况，而且 Yan 仍在董事会，Scott 仍在董事会。我的意思是，这非常不寻常。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Host: Yeah, we have a lot more we can get into, but we're at time, so we'll leave it for future episodes of Boss Talk, but this is a great first episode.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 主持人: 是的，我们还有很多可以深入探讨的话题，但时间到了，所以我们留到未来的“老板访谈”节目中再聊，但这真是一个很棒的第一集。

Original English sentence(s) from the transcript. Ali: All right, that was fun. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, guys.

这里是对应的、高质量的中文翻译。 Ali: 好的，这很有趣。非常感谢。非常感谢大家。