AI成为一切界面
主持人: 当AI成为一切的界面时,我们拥有的每一个工具、使用的每一项技术,都将建立在这些模型之上。而这些模型并非客观的。它们有观点,它们在历史、文化、价值观等问题上有着强烈的观点。而这些观点因地域不同而大相径庭。
Original English
Host: When AI becomes the interface for everything, every tool we have, every technology we use is going to be built on these models. And the models are not objective. They have opinions. They have strong opinions on things like history, on culture, on values. And those are very different depending where you are.
嘉宾A: 威慑不再仅仅是军事实力的大小。它是对抗廉价软件技术时的创新速度——这些技术可能被对手使用,无论他们是国家、犯罪分子还是恐怖组织。而如今这些技术并非由政府建造,而是由私营部门建造。
Original English
Speaker A: Deterrence is no longer just the size of a military. It's the pace of innovation in reacting to cheap software-built tech that adversaries may be using whether they're a country, criminal, or a terrorist group. And those technologies today are not being built by governments. They're being built by the private sector.
嘉宾B: 产品和技术的传播速度比公司扩张的速度更快。在过去,初创公司通常要到收入达到几亿美元后才开始考虑国际化。现在,这些公司必须越来越早地走向国际。
Original English
Speaker B: Products and technology travel faster than companies can. So what happens is for startup companies, usually in olden days, you didn't care about going international until you had a few hundred million in revenue. Now these companies have to go sooner and sooner internationally.
主持人: 我们在访问不同国家时最常听到的问题是:如何在本土复制硅谷?
Original English
Host: The number one question we often get when we're visiting different countries is how do you recreate Silicon Valley locally?
嘉宾C: 我不认为这是真的。我认为那只是乐观的空谈。
Original English
Speaker C: I don't think that's true, by the way. I think that's a happy talk.
a16z的全球雄心
主持人: 我们今天要讨论国际化。公司发生了很多变化——对于一家历史上完全集中在门洛帕克、甚至不愿在旧金山开设办公室的公司来说,这是一个巨大的转变。Ben,请你介绍一下我们关于全球雄心的公告,以及全球事务、国际市场化、LP关系在全球合作伙伴层面是如何整合在一起的。
Original English
Host: We are here to talk international today. Lots of things going on at the firm for a firm that used to historically be all centered in Menlo Park and we didn't even want to open up a San Francisco office. This is a big change for us. So Ben, why don't you take us through this announcement around our global ambition and how all the pieces between global affairs, international go to market, LP relations on the global partnership level kind of fit in together.
Ben: 这一切实际上始于美国。我们坚信,如果你把一个人放到世界上任何一个国家,他们还没有文化、没有资金和资本资源,只有一个让世界变得更美好的想法,那么他们最好的机会就在美国。这是一件非常特别的事情。所以我们公司的一大使命就是努力保护美国这种特殊性。这意味着美国必须成为领导者——经济上的领导者、文化上的领导者、军事上的领导者。要做到这一点,我们必须成为技术上的领导者。这就是我们在生态系统和世界中的角色——帮助美国保持领导地位。
随着我们在这条使命上不断前进,我们意识到需要把我们的合作伙伴和盟友也纳入这个使命。这始于Jen的工作——世界各地的人都想参与美国的技术机遇,于是我们开始吸引来自全球的投资者。当我们去拜访这些投资者,询问如何成为更好的合作伙伴时,我们发现了一些有趣的事情。
第一,每个国家不仅希望从技术上获得经济利益,还希望直接受益于技术本身——你能把技术带给我们吗?我们能有机会使用它吗?在更高的政府政策层面,人们想知道:我们如何成为一个善于采用技术、善于创新的国家?如何像你们一样推动国家走向未来?
当我们思考如何抓住这个机会、成为好的合作伙伴时,我们意识到与国家伙伴的合作需要在三个层面建立关系:政府层面、投资者层面和采用层面。这就是这三个组成部分的由来。我们有全球事务部门,负责建立与各国政府的关系——从沙特阿拉伯到日本再到墨西哥。然后是投资层面,有时是政府直接出资,有时是管理政府资金的公司,比如养老金。最后,政府和商业机构都希望采用技术,这就是Ragu负责的市场化部分。
Original English
Ben: Yeah. Well, it really kind of starts with America, interestingly. It's been our strong belief that if you drop a person into any country in the world and they don't have the culture and they don't have money and capital resources yet, and they just have an idea of how to make the world a better place, their best shot is in America. And that's just a very special thing. And so a big mission of our firm is kind of trying to preserve that special thing that is America. And that means America has to be a leader. It has to be a leader economically. It has to be a leader culturally. It has to be a leader militarily. And to do that we have to be a leader technologically. We have to be a tech leader. And that's really our role in the ecosystem and in the world is to help America be a leader.
And then what we realized as we've gotten further along with this mission is that we need to bring in our partners, our allies into that mission. And it kind of started with the work that you're doing Jen with people from around the world wanting to participate in the US technological opportunity and that meant we started getting investors from around the world. And as we went out to see those investors and we said how can we be a better partner, we found some interesting things. So one is every country wants to not only economically benefit from the technology but they'd like to actually directly benefit from the technology. Can you bring it to us? Can we get a chance to use it? And then at the government policy level people wanted to know how can we be a great country for adopting technology, for innovating like you guys are, and for helping push our country into the future.
And as we looked at how do we step up and step into that opportunity and be a good partner, we realized with our country partners we needed relationships at the government level, at the investor level, at the adoption level. And that's what these three components become. So we've got global affairs which builds our relationships with governments from Saudi Arabia to Japan to Mexico. Then we have people who invest - sometimes those are the government, sometimes they're various companies in the government, sometimes they're companies who handle government money in the form of pensions. And then finally both the government and the businesses want to adopt the technology and that's where Ragu's effort comes in with the go-to-market component.
技术成为国家权力的核心舞台
主持人: 我想问你,你加入a16z的决定有多少是受到这个使命的驱动?还有那种责任感——帮助其他国家思考AI的采用,不希望它们被落下,就像Ben刚才提到的那样。
Original English
Host: How much of your decision to join a16z was motivated by this mission and also the sense of duty and helping other countries think about the adoption of AI and not wanting to get left behind in AI like Ben was alluding to very much so.
嘉宾A: 我在情报委员会和白宫工作的那些年里看到的是,技术从外交和国家权力的工具,变成了竞技场本身。芯片供应链不再只是一个技术问题,而是基础性的经济和国家安全问题。药品成分的供应链也是如此。当一个国家用它来约束或影响另一个国家时,它就变成了国家权力的工具。
Original English
Speaker A: You know what I saw happen in the years in the intelligence committee and then the White House is technology move from being a tool of diplomacy, of national power, to the arena of it where the supply chain for chips was not a technology issue as much as a foundational economic and national security issue. The supply chain for the components that go into drugs. When used by one country to constrain or have impact on another country, it becomes a tool of national power.
嘉宾C: 软件漏洞现在不再是一个IT问题。
Original English
Speaker C: A software vulnerability is now not an IT issue.
嘉宾A: 没错。
Original English
Speaker A: Yep.
嘉宾C: 它可以成为一种杠杆,特别是如果这个漏洞存在于你的电力系统或供水系统的关键部分。
Original English
Speaker C: It can be a source of leverage, particularly if that vulnerability is in key parts of your power systems or your water systems.
嘉宾A: 是的。所以我看到了这个转变——技术从IT问题或单纯的工具,变成了经济增长和国家权力的核心舞台。坦率地说,从威慑的角度来看——这是国家之间讨论的语言,关于威慑入侵、维持国际体系的稳定——威慑不再仅仅是军事实力的大小。正如我们在霍尔木兹海峡或红海所看到的,它是对抗廉价软件技术时的创新速度——这些技术可能被对手使用,无论他们是国家、犯罪分子还是恐怖组织。
而这些技术如今并非由政府建造,而是由私营部门建造。无论是AI系统、自主系统还是网络防御系统,它们都是在私营部门建造的。因此,从美国的角度来看,确保政府与私营部门之间建立关系,以便利用这些技术促进自身经济增长、在世界舞台上成为一股向善的力量,同时确保我们的盟友也能共同建设、共同战斗,确保我们都能从中受益——这一点至关重要。特别是当我们的技术也代表着我们的价值观时。
Original English
Speaker A: Yeah. So I saw that shift happen from tech being either an IT issue or just a tool to the central arena of both economic growth and national power. And quite frankly from a deterrence perspective which is the language we talk about between countries in terms of deterring an invasion of a country, maintaining an international system of stability. You know deterrence is no longer just the size of a military. I think as we see in the Strait of Hormuz or we saw in the Red Sea, it's the pace of innovation in reacting to cheap software-built tech that adversaries may be using whether they're a country, criminal or a terrorist group.
And those technologies today are not being built by governments. They're being built by the private sector. Whether that's AI systems, whether that's autonomous systems, whether that's cyber defense systems, they are being built in the private sector. So certainly from a US perspective ensuring that we have the relationships between government and private sector to leverage that for our own economic growth and as a force for good on the world stage but also that our allies as well we build together we fight together and to ensure that together we can both have the advantages of that and to the extent that our tech also represents our values.
主持人: 世界运行在美国和西方技术上,这一点很重要。是的,这实际上是一个关于价值观的好观点,因为Ben你之前说过,没有一个国家想在网络空间被殖民。
Original English
Host: It's important that the world run on America and on western tech. Yeah, actually that's a great point on the values point because Ben you've said before no country wants to get colonized in cyberspace.
嘉宾C: 特别是在AI现在只在旧金山六个街区半径内被建造的情况下。
Original English
Speaker C: Particularly because AI is now just getting built in the six block radius in San Francisco.
主持人: 请多谈谈这一点。
Original English
Host: Say a little bit more about that.
Ben: 当AI成为一切的界面时,我们拥有的每一个工具、使用的每一项技术、每一个系统——从你的汽车到你的冰箱到你的教育系统——都将建立在这些模型之上。而这些模型并非客观的。它们有观点,它们在历史、文化、伦理、价值观等问题上有着强烈的观点。而且这些观点因地域不同而大相径庭。战争的历史、一个国家的历史和法律、这个国家是好的行为者还是坏的行为者——所有这些都取决于你从哪里获取信息。
所以,如果你像我一样相信——尽管我们有种种缺陷——我们关于经济体系运作方式、法治等基本价值观和理念,为人类创造了世界上最好的机会,那么你就希望这些价值观被投射到世界上,而不是成为其他价值观的接受者。那些价值观也许在某个时代是好的,也许有一些优点,但总体上没有给人们真正的机会。
Original English
Ben: Well you know when AI becomes the interface for everything, so every tool we have, every technology we use, every kind of system we have from your car to your refrigerator to your education system is going to be built on these models and the models are not objective. They have opinions and they have strong opinions on things like history, on culture, on ethics, on values. And by the way, those are very different depending where you are. The history of wars and the history of a country and laws and whether that country was a good actor or a bad actor are all very different depending on where you're getting the information from.
And so if you believe that as I do that for all our flaws, our fundamental values and ideas about everything from the way our economic system works to the rule of law have resulted in basically the best opportunities for humans in the world, then you want those values to be projected onto the world more so than to be the recipients of some other values. Which maybe were good at a time or maybe have some merits but overall don't give people a real opportunity.
主持人: 给人们机会。这正是我们今年早些时候基金公告的初衷,以及将这种机会扩展到美国盟友的重要性。Ragu,我想请你谈谈这一点,因为投资组合公司越来越早地走向国际。它们在生命周期中更早地成为多国、多渠道、多产品的公司。这在多大程度上被AI的发展所加速?以及即时推送软件更新的能力?
Original English
Host: Giving people a chance. That's the premise of the original announcement we did for our fund announcement earlier this year and the importance of that and then particularly extending that chance to the allies of America as well. Ragu, I want to get you involved on this as well because portfolio companies are increasingly going international way sooner. They're multi-country, multi-channel, multi-product way sooner in the life cycle. How much of this is also accelerated by what's happening in AI and just the ability to push out software updates immediately?
Ragu: 现实是,产品和技术的传播速度比公司扩张的速度更快。因为如果你有一个好产品,全世界都会很快知道。你可以通过API随时随地访问它,可以在其基础上进行构建。所以对于初创公司来说,在过去,你通常要到收入达到几亿美元后才开始考虑国际化。现在,这些公司必须越来越早地走向国际。
同时,产品在国际上被发现的时机更早了,而且正如Ben之前提到的,借助AI,这些产品更容易适应本地市场。当AI成为本地化和国际化的界面时,这一切变得容易得多。
但是,要想大规模抓住机会,有些事情并没有改变。你仍然需要进入当地市场,了解你想要运营的地区的市场结构,理解合作伙伴关系,建立关系。很多其他国家的经济是基于关系的,而不是基于交易的。所以这是一个有趣的混合体——技术发展非常快,但做生意的方式并没有变化那么快。
Original English
Ragu: Yeah. I mean the reality is that products and technology travel faster than companies can. Right, because if you got a great product everybody learns about it very quickly, instantaneously you can access it through APIs wherever in the world you are, you can build on top of those things. So what happens is for startup companies, usually in the olden days you didn't care about going international until you had a few hundred million dollars in revenue etc. Now these companies have to go sooner and sooner internationally.
So while the products are being discovered internationally sooner, also to Ben's earlier point, it's easier to adapt these products for local markets much more easily thanks to AI. As AI becomes the interface to localize and internationalize these products, it's so much easier.
But in order to capitalize on the opportunity at scale, things don't change. I mean, you still have to be in region. You still have to understand the market structure of the region that you want to operate in. You have to understand partnerships, you have to build relationships. Lots of other countries have very relationship-based economies, not transaction-based economies. So it's this interesting blend where the technology moves really fast but the way you do business hasn't changed that fast.
墨西哥案例:AI赋能本地内容全球化
Ben: 实际上有一个很好的例子可以说明Ragu刚才说的。我们最近在墨西哥,与TelevisaUnivision的CEO Alonso Angua会面,他是公司的好朋友,也是我们的全球合作伙伴之一。我们问他面临什么挑战。他面临的一个挑战是来自全球流媒体平台如Netflix或迪士尼等的激烈竞争,这些平台拥有非常强大的美国技术。但他拥有令人难以置信的西班牙语内容。然而,这些内容很难在全球范围内播放,因为它是西班牙语的,而且是墨西哥西班牙语口音,这与阿根廷西班牙语或哥伦比亚西班牙语口音不同。
他说,我们该如何解决这个问题?我们说,我们有一家很棒的公司,11 Labs,他们可以帮助你。我们在几个月内就让他们对接上了。不久之后,他的内容就出现在了法国、波兰和世界各地——这项令人难以置信的技术让他的演员基本上以他们正常的方式表演,带着正确的语调、正确的笑声,但说的是不同的语言。最近,基于这一成功,他与Netflix达成了一笔大交易。
所以在这里,我们能够将我们的合作伙伴——拥有优秀产品、具有本地文化特色但非常有趣的内容——变成全球产品。不是与盟友竞争,而是与盟友合作。我认为这正是这个项目的意义所在。
Original English
Ben: Actually a really great example of what Ragu was talking about. When we were in Mexico recently we were meeting with the CEO of TelevisaUnivision, Alonso Angua, who is a great friend of the firm and one of our global partners. We were asking about what are his struggles. One of his challenges is he really faces heavy competition from some of the global streamers like Netflix or Disney or so forth, who have this US technology that's very powerful. But he has this unbelievable Spanish-speaking content. But it was hard for him to get to play on a global basis because it's in Spanish. It's a Mexican Spanish accent, which is different than an Argentinian Spanish or Colombian Spanish accent.
He was like, how should we solve this? And we're like, we've got this great company, 11 Labs. They can help you with it. We put them together in a couple of months. He was in France and Poland and all over the world with this incredible technology that had his actors basically acting exactly as they normally do with their right kind of intonations, their right laugh, everything but in different languages. And he recently based on that success got a big deal with Netflix.
So here we have something where we can bring our partners who have a great product that's culturally local but really really interesting and make it a global product by not competing with their allies but partnering with their allies. And I think that's a lot of what the program is about.
主持人: 我想把Ben刚才说的与价值观问题联系起来,因为人们经常问我们关于中国开源模型的问题,如何比较和对比?在这个案例中,他们不用担心当内容被配音成不同语言时,如果演讲者说了关于天安门广场的敏感内容,或者关于中国政府的敏感内容,使用美国模型会导致内容在翻译过程中被改变。他们知道内容会忠实于原话。这就是我们所说的美国价值观——不审查、不将政治意志注入模型运作方式。这与另一种模式形成对比。
当然,我们非常重视开源,因为归根结底,有各种不同类型的模型和不同的价格点。但这确实是一个很好的例子,说明了当我们说美国和西方价值观反映在我们部署在基础设施中的模型时,我们指的是什么。
Original English
Host: I want to tie what Ben said back to the values point because people often ask us about Chinese open source models, how do you compare and contrast? So in that case, they didn't have to worry that when the content was dubbed into different languages that if the speaker said something sensitive about Tiananmen Square or sensitive regarding the Chinese government that using an American model that content would be translated and changed along the way. They knew it would be true to what was said. And that's what we mean when we talk about American values of not censoring, not injecting political will into how these models operate in the way that one would contrast.
Now, open source is something we deeply value because at the end of the day, there's all different kinds of models and all different kinds of price points clearly. But that's really a good example of what we mean when we say American and western values reflected in the models that we deploy around our infrastructure.
嘉宾C: 当然,telenovelas本身已经够劲爆了。我不知道天安门广场需要在剧情中引入多少,但你永远不知道边界穿越之类的事情。
Original English
Speaker C: For sure the telenovelas are spicy enough. I don't know how much the introduction of Tiananmen Square needs to be introduced necessarily in the story line but you never know the border crossings etc.
主持人: 说得好。它们已经足够吸引观众了。
Original English
Host: Good point. They keep their audience well enough.
嘉宾A: 完全正确。但这实际上是一个核心部分。今年早些时候,当Py McCormack写了关于我们的文章时,他称我们为权力掮客,而权力是我们提供给创始人的一部分。对于很多公司来说,在墨西哥开设办公室可能不在他们前十位的优先事项中。但如果他们有一个我们可以带进去的交易,就能让他们在生命周期中更早地获得获胜的机会,他们可能会优先考虑这一点。
Original English
Speaker A: Exactly. But this actually is a core part. When Py McCormack wrote the article about us earlier this year he called us a power broker and power being part of an offering that we enable our founders to tap into. For a lot of companies, starting a Mexico office for example is probably not top 10 on their list. But if they have a deal that we're able to walk in and effectively enable them a shot at winning way earlier in the life cycle, they might prioritize that.
市场顶层集中与关系型经济
主持人: Ragu,Ben,请谈谈这对创始人来说意味着什么——当他们能够直接接触到买家,而不是从零开始摸索市场时,他们如何思考国际化。
Original English
Host: So maybe if you want to riff on that, Ragu, Ben, on particularly how that's changed for founders, they think about international when they have the benefit of being able to go right to the buyers in a much more adept way than figuring out a market from scratch.
Ragu: 很多市场都是顶层集中的。你拿任何成熟的企业来看,问它的收入有多少来自——即使是像英国这样的国家——很大一部分将来自最顶层的几家公司。现实是,无论你看哪个国家,都是五到十家公司最重要,当然政府也是一个重要的影响者和买家。所以你在墨西哥举的例子很好。墨西哥只有少数几家全球性公司,比如Ben提到的那家。在每个国家设立办事处、服务所有国家是不值得的。但如果你能进入墨西哥前五名的公司,那可能比在另一个国家建立完整的运营更有价值。所以正是这种顶层集中的性质和关系密集的性质,帮助了我们的投资组合公司。
Original English
Ragu: Yeah. I mean, a lot of markets are very top-heavy. So you take any mature business and you say how much of your revenue comes from - even countries like UK, a significant chunk is going to come from the very top companies in UK. So the reality is whichever country you look at it's five or 10 companies that matter and of course the government is a big influencer and buyer. So the example that you gave in Mexico is great. There are a few global companies in Mexico like the one that Ben talked about. It is not worthwhile setting up an office and serving all of the countries. But if you could get into the top five companies in Mexico that probably is worth a lot more than setting up a full operation in some other country. So it is the top-heavy nature and the relationship-heavy nature that helps our portfolio of companies.
Ben: 还有几个其他重要的方面。第一,你说得对,墨西哥可能不是大多数公司首先进入的前十个市场之一。顺便说一句,这是一个巨大的遗憾,因为墨西哥是我们的邻国。从国家安全的角度来看,拥有一个紧密连接的西半球供应链生态系统将是多么强大。所以我认为这对国家来说是不利的,它排在第十位。
第二,作为一个公司进入一个国家是一项巨大的开支。你需要设立实体、招聘团队、本地化产品。根据国家和你的投入程度,可能很容易就需要500万到1000万美元才能达成第一笔交易。这会在你的生命周期中推迟你走向国际的时间。
但是,如果你在设立实体或在该国开始运营之前,就有一个机会——一个大机会,一个500万美元或1000万美元的机会——那将使这笔投资更容易更早地进行。所以我们可以通过铺平道路来帮助我们的公司和盟友。
一个很好的例子是,没有人会首先去沙特阿拉伯。然而沙特阿拉伯正在蓬勃发展,那里有巨大的机会,他们非常需要我们的帮助来发展国家。他们正在现代化,这对世界的安全至关重要——沙特阿拉伯正在从一种部落式的社会转变为现代世界高度文明的参与者,成为美国的全面盟友,这个转型的成功非常重要。所以我们能够把像Flow这样的公司——Adam Newman的公司——带到沙特阿拉伯,介绍给政府中合适的人、商业中合适的人、投资者中合适的人。如果你是外籍人士,搬到利雅得是最佳选择,帮助发展经济。没有这样的努力,这是不可能实现的。
Original English
Ben: There's a couple of other aspects that are important. One is you're right that Mexico probably isn't a top 10 thing that most companies go into first. And by the way, that's a terrible shame because Mexico is our neighbor. From a national security standpoint, how powerful would it be to have a western hemisphere supply chain ecosystem that was really well connected. So I think it's kind of bad for the country that it is number 10.
Secondly, to open a country as a company is a very large expense. You have to set up an entity, you have to hire a team, you have to localize the product. Depending on the country and how committed you are to it, it could be easily five or ten million just to get to your first deal. And so that is going to delay in your life cycle when you can go international.
But what if, before you ever put up an entity or ever got started in that country, you had an opportunity, a big opportunity, a $5 million opportunity, a $10 million opportunity that makes that investment much easier to do earlier. And so we can really enable both our companies and our allies by paving the way for that kind of thing.
A great example is nobody's going to Saudi Arabia first. However Saudi Arabia is booming and there are great opportunities there and they really need our help in developing the country. They're modernizing which is incredibly important to the security of the world that Saudi Arabia is going from this kind of tribal society to a modern, highly civilized player in the modern world and full ally of the United States. That transition is really important that it succeeds. So we're able to take a company like Flow, Adam Neumann's company, bring them to Saudi Arabia, introduce them to the right people in the government, introduce them to the right people in business, introduce them to the right investors. It's the optimal place to live if you're an expat moving to Riyadh, help develop the economy. And it's something that just isn't really possible without an effort like this.
优先区域选择标准
主持人: 我们来谈谈我们优先考虑的地区。有日本、韩国、中东、墨西哥、加拿大。当我们考虑不同国家时,有没有一些主题让某些国家比其他国家更合理?
Original English
Host: Maybe let's talk about geos we're prioritizing because there's a handful. Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Mexico, Canada. Are there themes as we think about different countries that make more sense versus others?
Ben: 这个问题很及时,Ragu和我一直在讨论。从我们的角度来看,当他们是美国的强大盟友时,效果非常强大。我们与政府中的人有关系,与商业中的人有关系,与投资者有关系。因为这些不是分开的,它们相互影响。如果我们拥有这些,我们就可以真正加速他们和我们的机会。
Original English
Ben: This is timely, Ragu and I have been debating this. So from our standpoint, it's very powerful when they're a strong ally of the US. We've got a relationship with the people in government. We've got a relationship with the people in business. We've got a relationship with the investors. Because those things are not separate. They all interact with each other. And if we have that, then we can really accelerate the opportunities for them and for us.
嘉宾A: 我想在Ben的观点基础上补充一点,然后交给Ragu。正如我们刚才讨论的,在全球舞台上,无论是在供应链施压的背景下,还是在其他方面,世界上有些地区我们有密切的盟友,但他们现在处于越来越脆弱的地位。
以印太地区为例。中国大幅增加了军事实力,大幅增加了核能力,其造船能力比美国高出几个数量级。我们在该地区的盟友已经开始回应。日本改变了二战后神圣不可侵犯的政策,表示必须拥有有能力的军队。
Original English
Speaker A: I think what I would just say to that point building on Ben's point is what's changed so much as we talked about a moment ago is that on the global stage whether it's in the context of countries pressuring other countries via supply chains, there are parts of the world which we have close allies who are now in increasingly tenuous positions.
So if we look at the Indopacific region. China has vastly increased its military, vastly increased the number of nuclear capabilities that it has. Their ship building capability are orders of magnitude more than the United States. And our allies in the region have started responding. Japan has changed its really sacrosanct policy from the post-World War II period to say it must have a capable military.
嘉宾C: 是的。它想要建立能够打今天战争的军队,而不是昨天的战争。但它不一定拥有军工基础。这其实是双向的。正如我们从美国军队自身蹒跚的步伐中看到的,过去20年写的国防改革政策都说同样的事情:更少数量的精良平台,更多更便宜、数量更多的平台,再加上针对特定用例的非常精良的平台。
所以当日本考虑建立有能力的军队以威慑地区侵略时,它正在寻求与建造自主舰船、为集成战场构建AI的新公司合作。他们想和我们一起建造,而不仅仅是购买,因为他们希望在自己的国家拥有自己的能力,保护自己的供应链。
所以我认为一部分是要考虑世界上的这些地区。我谈到了印太地区,也包括澳大利亚。当然,中东长期以来一直是美国利益的区域。以色列是一个能力极强的盟友,拥有强大的军队和情报机构。阿联酋也是如此。沙特阿拉伯正在现代化,思考AI基础设施,如何建立创新和创业基础以在全球竞争。
当然,当我们考虑拉丁美洲时,当我们考虑芬太尼进入美国时,它是通过墨西哥进入的。所以公共安全、国家安全、自主舰船如何帮助墨西哥广阔的海岸线——这不仅对我们的盟友和拉丁美洲的稳定很重要,对我们也很重要。所以我认为这就是我们为一些合作伙伴关系带来的国家安全视角,无论是在美国活力还是在AI基础设施领域。
Original English
Speaker C: Yeah. It wants to build the military to fight today's wars, not yesterday's wars. It doesn't necessarily have the military-industrial base. Now, that cuts both ways. As we know from the own halting steps the United States military has been taken, the number of defense reform policies that have been written in the last 20 years, they all say the same thing. Fewer small numbers of exquisite platforms, more cheaper, larger numbers of platforms in addition to very exquisite platforms for certain specific use cases.
So as Japan thinks about building a capable military in order to deter aggression in the region, it is looking to partner with new firms building autonomous ships, building AI for an integrated battle space and they want to build with us. They don't want to just buy because they have their own capabilities they want in their own country, their own supply chains to protect.
So I think a part of that is thinking about those regions of the world. I talked about one in the Indopac region that covers Australia as well. Obviously, certainly the Middle East has been an area of American interest for a long time. Israel is an incredible capable ally with capable military and intelligence community. The UAE is as well. Saudi Arabia is modernizing and thinking about AI infra, how it builds an innovation, entrepreneurial innovation base in order to compete globally.
And then certainly when we think about Latin America, when we think about fentanyl coming into the United States, it comes in via Mexico. So public safety, national security, how autonomous ships can help a vast Mexican coastline are not only important to our ally and to the stability of Latin America, it's important to us as well. So I think that's at least the national security lens we bring to some of our partnerships in American dynamism or in the AI infra space.
Ragu: 是的,这就是Ben和我一直在辩论的原因——这个问题有很多方面,你必须把它们整合在一起。
首先,从Ann的观点来看,这必须从美国利益的角度来看非常合理。而这些国家都充分体现了这一点。这些政府都非常拥抱AI,正在推行非常以现代化为中心的政策,无论是在国防还是在整个经济领域。
第三,它们都是顶层集中的经济体。你去接触顶级的公司,实际上就拥有了全球影响力。例如,你提到的所有东北亚国家——日本、韩国、台湾——占全球2000强企业的15%到20%。
最后,对于我们的初创公司来说,在这些国家做生意的方式与英国或一些英语国家非常不同。所以我们能够为我们的初创公司和这些国家提供的附加值,远远高于其他地方。
所以当你把所有因素加起来打分时,这就是我们进入这些国家的原因。
Original English
Ragu: Yeah. I mean it's the reason Ben and I have been debating - there are so many sides to this that you got to bring it all together.
Firstly, to Ann's point, it has to make a lot of sense from America's interest point of view. And that is abundantly existing in all these countries. These governments are very AI forward and they're putting in policies that are very modernization-centric whether it's in defense or across the economy.
Thirdly, they are all top-heavy economies. I mean you go hit the top companies you are actually having global influence. For example all those North Asian countries that you talked about, I think 15-20% of the global 2000 are across Japan, Korea, Taiwan.
And then lastly for our startups, the way business is done in these countries is very different than let's say UK or some English-speaking country. So the value add that we can provide to our startups and the value add we can provide to these countries is so remarkably higher than in other places.
So when you put it all up and score it out, that's why we go into these countries.
主持人: 是的,其中一些国家也在跳跃式发展,它们不需要处理之前的技术遗留问题。
Original English
Host: Yeah. And some of these countries are also leapfrogging too where they didn't have to deal with the prior technology.
嘉宾C: 完全正确。比如沙特,你通过入境签证只需要30秒,这简直不可思议。而在这里,你很不幸地要排在很长的队伍后面,而且由于各种其他原因,队伍越来越长。但这是思考如何将技术融入日常生活的不同方式,而且这种分布并不均匀。所以如何在不同途径中加速这一点,也是很多国家看到的巨大机遇。
Original English
Speaker C: Exactly. Like technology like Saudi, you go through the visa entry and it takes 30 seconds, which is unbelievable. And you know here you get stuck behind unfortunately a very long line increasingly for a number of different other reasons. But it's a different kind of approach to how you think about incorporating technology in everyday life but it's not evenly distributed. So what are ways we can accelerate that in different avenues is also the opportunity that a lot of these countries are seeing as a huge leapfrog.
a16z的国际化方式与众不同
主持人: 当我们思考国际化优先顺序时,与其他VC公司相比,我们的方式非常不同。典型的VC做国际化的方式一直是投资驱动的,而不是真正考虑投资组合公司想在国际上做什么。请多谈谈这种对比,坦率地说,为什么在公司成立的头十年里,我们很少做美国以外甚至硅谷以外的国际交易?
Original English
Host: It's very different though when we think about international prioritization compared to maybe other VC firms because the typical VC firm's way of doing international has always been investment driven versus actually thinking about the portfolio companies and what they would like to do internationally. So maybe speak a little bit more about that contrast and quite frankly why for the first 10 years of the firm it was very rare we even did an international deal outside of not just the US but even outside of Silicon Valley.
Ben: 我们一直通过"我们能带来什么"的视角来看待投资。所以,如果你想想我们试图为公司做的事情——我们真正帮助他们建立网络,连接到合适的人才、合适的客户、合适的专业知识——这在多个地区是非常难做到的。即使在早期,在旧金山和门洛帕克之间,我们也是说,让我们先在这个地方有一个非常好的产品,然后再扩张。
而我认为其他VC更多地把产品看作是钱。如果产品就是钱,那么国际化策略就是:我们在英国找一个投资者团队,帮助他们筹集资金,然后从他们的收益中抽取一部分作为我们帮助他们获得产品的回报。在那个模式下,这是有道理的。但这对我们来说没有意义,因为我们的全部理念是如何帮助你建立更好的公司?如何加速你的机会或增长?
所以我们需要达到一定的规模和地位,才能让这在更多地区变得有意义。但现在我们达到了,这开始变得非常有意义。在我们的投资角色中,我们不把它看作是如何抢夺瑞典、日本、沙特或阿联酋的机会。我们把它看作是你的生态系统缺少什么——在资本和专业知识方面——以便走向全球?我们是否有机会介入?
我们不想取代他们的A轮和种子轮投资者。我们想说,如果你们有正在成为真正全球性公司的企业,那就是我们可以介入帮助的地方。如果我们已经在该国开展业务,已经了解他们和他们的创业者,那么我们就处于很好的位置来做这件事。但我们会直接做。我们不会为不属于我们公司、不属于我们文化、不属于我们使命的人筹集资金,然后让他们去执行。那不是我们。
而且,很多时候当你思考这些创业生态系统时,它们经常缺少的是成长资本。它们在早期阶段实际上有很好的人才基础,但缺少真正走向全球的那部分,于是它们成为本地化的成功,而不是真正思考全球雄心。
Original English
Ben: Well I think we've always looked at investing through the lens of what do we bring to the table. So as a result, if you think about what we try to do for a company, we really try to help them network to the right talent, to the right customers, to the right expertise. And that is very hard to do in multi-geographies. Even like San Francisco and Menlo Park in the early days we were like let's just have a really good product for this and then we'll expand from there.
Whereas I think other VCs think of the product much more as the money. And so if the product is the money then the international strategy is okay we'll find a team of investors in say the UK and we'll help them raise money and then we'll take a percentage of their winnings for helping get them their product. And that makes sense in that model. I think it doesn't make sense for us because our whole thing is how do we help you build a better company? How do we accelerate your opportunity or growth?
So we needed to get to a certain level of size and stature for that to make sense in more regions. But now that we are, it starts to make a lot of sense. In our role in investing, we don't look at it as how do we snatch up the opportunities in Sweden or Japan or Saudi or UAE. We look at it as what is your ecosystem missing in terms of capital and expertise to go global and is there an opportunity for us to plug in.
So we don't want to displace their A-round and seed investors necessarily. We want to say okay if you've got companies that are emerging as real global companies then that's where we can really step in and help. And if we're already in the country and we're already doing a lot of business and we're already understanding them and their entrepreneurs, then we're in great position to do that. But we would do that directly. We're not raising money for somebody who's not part of our firm, our culture, our mission and having them go run a play. That's just not us.
And also so much of the time when you think about these entrepreneurial ecosystems, what they're oftentimes missing is growth capital. They actually have a great talent base on the early stage side, but they're missing that component to actually go global and they become a localized success versus actually thinking about global ambitions.
主持人: Ragu,从你在VMware的经历出发,谈谈公司建设的演变。本地公司成为全球公司的雄心是如何随时间变化的?
Original English
Host: Maybe drawing from your experience at VMware, Ragu, about the evolution of company building. How's that particularly changed in the ambition for local companies to become global over time?
Ragu: 这大大增加了。以前,就像我之前说的,你甚至不会梦想走向全球,直到你非常成熟。现在,因为你的产品具有普遍的吸引力——如果你有一个好产品,无论是B2B还是B2C产品,它都具有普遍的吸引力——所以你应该更早地走向全球。
缺少的是支持性的生态系统,以及找到进入新国家的方法。这正是我们新产品的重点——帮助他们在这些地区快速起步。为此,你需要在当地,有关系,建立信任,建立信誉。所有这些都不会在一夜之间发生,而这正是我们可以提供的。
Original English
Ragu: That's dramatically increased. Previously, like I said earlier, you would not even dream of going global until you're really well advanced. And now because your product can be - there is such a universal appeal for you. If you've got a great product, it's such a universal appeal whether it's B2B or a B2C product, it behooves you to go earlier.
What is missing is the supporting ecosystem, and finding a way to plug into a new country. And that's where our new offering really focuses on. So it's really help them get the fast start in these regions. And for that you need to be in the region, to have the relationships, to build the trust, to build the credibility. All of those things don't happen overnight and that's where we can provide that.
Ben: 是的。通过在本地花时间,我们也能了解当地的生态系统,看到来自这些地区的优秀创业者,然后在合理的情况下,实际上投资他们,并利用我们的网络帮助他们走向国际。
Original English
Ben: Yeah. And then by spending time locally as well, we get to know the local ecosystem and then see the great entrepreneurs from those regions and then to the extent to which it makes sense actually fund those and then help them go international leveraging our network as well.
嘉宾C: 所以这些国家的企业更像是一个集体生态系统,而不是一个单独的公司进入并主导某个领域。
Original English
Speaker C: So businesses in these countries are so much a collective ecosystem rather than an individual company going in and dominating something there.
AI安全与开源之争
主持人: 请多谈谈之前的技术采用周期,特别是AI。Ann,这是一个很好的问题。围绕安全性和开源与闭源之争有很多细微差别。考虑到安全性的细微差别,是否有可能在不触犯规则的情况下进行构建?请谈谈你如何思考这个问题,以及如何就这种微妙的平衡向公司提供建议。
Original English
Host: Maybe speak a little bit more about the prior tech cycles of adoption and particularly with AI. Ann, this is a great question for you. There's so many nuances around security and even the debate between open versus closed that there are considerations of whether that's even viable to build without upsetting the apple cart on what is allowed with open source given the security nuances. Maybe speak a little bit more about how you've been thinking about that and advising companies on that delicate balance.
嘉宾A: 这是当前的热门话题,也是全世界关注的热点,因为从根本上说,像许多技术一样,AI是双重用途的。以网络为例,第一步,无论你是攻击者还是防御者,都是发现系统中的漏洞。如果你是防御者,你修补它们;如果你是攻击者,你利用它们。模型使得发现代码中的漏洞这一步变得容易得多。坦率地说,它也使得后续步骤——利用或防御——变得更容易。
网络防御的经济性在最新的AI模型出现之前就已经被打破了。我在白宫时看到,我的噩梦是针对美国农村医院的勒索软件攻击。那里两个街区外没有另一家医院。所以美国人获得医疗保健的机会被世界另一端的国家庇护的犯罪集团破坏了。基础设施非常脆弱,现实是模型对双方都有帮助。我个人认为——我专注于网络安全——模型在防御方面的帮助要大得多,因为防御要困难得多。你需要防御一个广阔的领域,而攻击者只需要找到一条路。
所以我认为我们目前处于一个困难的境地,因为攻击面如此广泛,有如此多的系统是脆弱的。但我认为我们将看到创造更安全空间的机会。当我和世界各地的政府或公司交谈时,他们都在努力解决这个问题。
从政府方面来说,大多数国家有两个使命:保卫国家以及维护海外利益。在这两个使命下,我们如何确保这些强大的能力不会落入对手手中,不会落入犯罪分子手中被用于邪恶目的?在传统的网络工具领域,我们一直在努力解决这个问题。当一个能力在U盘上时,出口管制就是个笑话。你实际上无法以那种方式控制它。
正如我们之前讨论的,世界运行在可信模型上,这其中有真正的力量。当人们使用美国模型时,他们不用担心有故意的后门。正如我们之前讨论的,他们不用担心聊天机器人的答案会被审查,以适应某个威权政府的特定政治叙事。
所以现在的问题是,我们如何在模型中建立足够的安全程度,使它们可以在需要这种安全的环境中使用?因为主要的模型是美国的,我们处于一个特殊的位置来思考和构建这一点。我认为这不是由政府单独完成的,也不是由私营部门单独完成的。真正需要的是来自私营部门的最了解模型的人,与政府方面正在思考如何促进创新和控制风险的人坐在一起,制定一套正确的政府政策,以促进使用,同时理解如何防范随之而来的风险。
Original English
Speaker A: So, it's a hot topic right now. As you know, it's a hot topic around the world because fundamentally as many technologies are, AI is dual use. So the first step - let's use cyber as an example - the first step whether you are an attacker or a defender is finding vulnerabilities in systems. And then if you're a defender you patch them, if you're an attacker you exploit them. So models make the step of finding vulnerabilities in code far easier. And quite frankly, it makes the next steps, exploit or defend, easier as well.
The economics of cyber defense were broken well before the latest AI models came out. I saw that in the White House where my nightmare was the ransomware attacks against rural hospitals in America. There wasn't another hospital two blocks down. So actual Americans' opportunity to access health care was disrupted by in some cases state harbored criminal groups halfway around the world. So infrastructure is very fragile and the reality is that the models help both.
I personally believe - I'm focused on cyber security for a moment - that they help far more in defense because defense is far harder. You have to be defending a broad expanse and an attacker has to find one way in. So as a result I actually think we are in a difficult space at this moment because there's such a broad attack surface, there's so many systems that are vulnerable. But I think we will see the opportunity for much more secure space.
When I talk with governments around the world or companies around the world, all are grappling with that question. Most countries have two missions: defending the country as well as maintaining its interest overseas. Given both, how do we ensure that these powerful capabilities don't fall into our adversaries' hands, don't fall into criminals' hands to be used for that purpose?
In the traditional cyber tools arena, we always grappled with this. When a capability is on a thumb drive, export controls are a joke. You can't actually control it in that way. And there is real power, as we talked about earlier, in the models that the world runs on being run on trusted models. When people are using an American model, they don't have to worry there's an intentional backdoor. As we talked about earlier, they don't have to worry that a chatbot's answers will be framed by censoring to fit a particular political story of an authoritarian government.
So the question for now is to say how do we build in the degree of safety in model so that they can be used in environments that need that safety. And that is somewhere where because the main models are American we're in a particular position to think through and build that out. I think this is not done by government, it's not done by the private sector. What it really needs is people who really understand the models best from the private sector at the table with folks on the government side who are thinking about how do we both promote innovation and control for these risks, and building out the right set of government policies to enable both the use as well as the understanding of how do you protect against the risks that come with it with the models as well.
主持人: 是的。正如我们的合伙人Mark常说的,技术是追上了公交车的狗。我们从未见过各国如此狂热地要求最新版本的模型,因为它们认识到这对它们的经济、人民和利益有多么关键。这正在开启各种新的范式,我们思考全球化的方式感觉与仅仅在国际上销售产品有着本质的不同。这希望也是我们许多创始人的机会。
Original English
Host: Yeah. As our partner Mark often says, technology is the dog that caught the bus. And we've never seen before that countries are feverishly demanding the latest versions of the model because they recognize how competitive it is to their economy, to their people, to their interests. And this now is unlocking all sorts of new paradigms as we think about globalization in a way that feels categorically different than just selling product internationally. And this is hopefully then an opportunity for many of our founders as well.
嘉宾C: 毫无疑问。尽管这很复杂。例如,从政府的角度,你可能会说,不要发布具有网络黑客能力的模型。但如果你这样做了,作为一家公司,你想发现自己代码中的漏洞并修补它们,你无法在不启用网络攻击的情况下做到这一点,因为一旦它能发现漏洞,猜猜会怎样?所以你处于这样一种情况:如果你锁定了理解漏洞的能力,那么唯一能够理解漏洞的人就是那些越狱系统的坏人。所以我们处于一个非常有趣的世界。
Original English
Speaker C: No doubt. Although it is complicated. Like for example from a government standpoint you'd like to say okay don't release your model with cyber hacking capabilities. But if you do, as a company, and you want to find the vulnerabilities in your own code and patch them, you can't do that without also enabling cyber attacks because as soon as it can find the vulnerabilities, guess what? And so you're kind of in this situation where if you lock that capability to understand vulnerabilities, then the only people who will be able to understand vulnerabilities are the bad actors who jailbreak the system. So we're in a very interesting world on that.
主持人: 是的,关于这一点,我们聚焦在网络方面,因为Anthropic的模型等引起了大量关注。我认为AI模型本质上做的是——正如Ben所说的——你想成为第一个入侵自己系统的人。因为我们经常使用"数字门把手"这个说法。现在它允许攻击者持续地、大规模地摇晃每一个门把手。所以你对网络的希望是首先使用这些模型找到你脆弱的地方,然后修复它。这在以前是一个难以处理的问题。
现在模型帮助你,特别是对于公开的代码库,特别是如果你依赖第三方代码或开源代码——这是最大的风险领域之一,或者存在对无人维护的代码的依赖。所以我们现在看到公司们聚集在一起,为此承担责任,因为我认为不处理不安全代码的成本上升了,而处理它的成本下降了。这是一个好的转变。
Original English
Host: Yeah. And I think to that point, we'll focus on the cyber aspect because that's gotten so much attention with Anthropic's model, etc. I think what AI models essentially do to Ben's point is you want to be the first to hack your systems because we often use the expression of digital doorknobs. It now allows attackers to jiggle every doorknob continuously and at scale. So your hope for your network is using those models first to find where you're vulnerable and frankly then be able to fix it. And that wasn't a tractable problem before.
And I think now the models help you particularly for code bases that were public, particularly if you're relying on third party code or open source code. And that's some of the biggest areas of risk or where there is dependencies on code that nobody was really maintaining. So I think we're now seeing companies coming together taking responsibility for that because now the cost of not addressing insecure code has gone up and the cost of addressing it has gone down. Which is a good shift from where we were before.
嘉宾C: 我们可能终于要构建安全的系统了。
Original English
Speaker C: We may finally build secure systems.
主持人: 完全正确。谢天谢地。更重要的是,构建新代码的过程也可以融入这些。
Original English
Host: Exactly. Please God. And more importantly, the process for building new code can incorporate these as well.
嘉宾A: 从行业角度来看,这非常棘手,因为最初网络黑客是破坏行为——我要搞乱你的电脑。然后随着互联网的出现,它变成了盗窃,现在它是战争。这种演变,我认为,悄悄地降临到了人们身上。我们看到,当它从破坏变成盗窃时,有趣的是,破坏公司微软是创造所有盗窃机会的公司之一,它把Windows放到了互联网上,而当时Windows还没有准备好上网,因为它不是为这种想法而构建的。还有ActiveX和所有那些让人们进入互联网并直接访问你机器的技术。
我认为我们正处于一个类似的时期,我们拥有所有这些在AI前时代构建的技术,它们对于AI世界来说远远不够安全。我们必须完成这个过渡。
Original English
Speaker A: And it's kind of very tricky from an industry standpoint because originally cyber hacking was vandalism. Like, okay, I'm going to mess up your PC. Then, with the internet, it became theft and now it's war. That evolution, I think, snuck up on people. And we've seen, the great thing when it went from vandalism to theft, the vandalism company, Microsoft, is one who created all the theft opportunities by putting Windows on the internet when it wasn't ready to be on the internet because it wasn't built for that kind of idea. And with ActiveX and all these kinds of technologies that let people come into the internet and get right to your machine.
And I think that we're kind of in a period like that where we've got all this technology that was built in the pre-AI era that's not nearly secure enough for the AI world. And we're going to have to make that transition.
主持人: 是的,有20年的遗留代码需要处理。
Original English
Host: Yeah. There's a 20 year legacy of code that has to be tackled.
嘉宾C: 是的。
Original English
Speaker C: Yeah.
嘉宾A: AI正在创造越来越多的机会。是的,很多机会。
Original English
Speaker A: That AI is creating many opportunities. Yes. Many opportunities.
硅谷不可复制的秘诀
主持人: 太好了。最后,Ben,我知道我们在访问不同国家时最常听到的问题是:如何在本土复制硅谷?他们想要成功的要素。硅谷的成功有几个组成部分,但也有一种说法:互联网本身就是硅谷,或者说实际的硅谷只是分布式的。
Original English
Host: Awesome. Well, maybe in closing, Ben, I know the number one question we often get when we're visiting different countries is how do you recreate Silicon Valley locally? They want the ingredients to it. And there's a few components to success that have enabled Silicon Valley, but there's also the proposition, what if the internet is actually Silicon Valley or the actual Silicon Valley just distributed.
Ben: 我不认为这是真的。我认为那是乐观的空谈。你去不同国家学到的一件事是,它们非常不同。法律不同,政策不同,治理不同。这就是为什么美国一直很特别。互联网已经存在了相当长的时间,但情况绝对不是这样。
那么到底是什么呢?顺便说一句,我希望我们能带一些我们自己的政策制定者去这些旅行,这样他们就能听到人们说"我们想要硅谷",然后他们就不会继续试图毁掉我们。不是所有政策制定者都这样,很多是杰出的,但有些人确实不喜欢我们拥有科技产业这个事实。
所以我认为,随着我们到处旅行,存在一种要素的组合,这些要素在一定程度上使硅谷特别,也使美国本身特别。
第一个要素是人才。人才最容易体现在是否有一所优秀的理工大学,培养出知道如何构建东西的人。很多国家都有这个,但没有硅谷。它们缺少的是另外两个组成部分。
第二个要素是,你是否有一套促进创业的法律和政策,本质上是对商业友好的?你能轻松地创办公司吗?你能轻松地招聘吗?你能轻松地解雇吗?是否有不繁重的税收激励结构?你能拥有——这是最近一个大问题,加州正在朝相反的方向发展——你能拥有有价值的非流动性资产吗?还是它会被没收?我认为挪威引入了未实现资本利得税,这实际上终结了那里的科技生态系统。所以这些政策非常重要。如果它们不对,没有人会承担创办公司的极端个人和财务风险,如果环境不利于创业的话。
第三个要素,我认为在某种程度上是前两者的结合,就是文化。最优秀的年轻人,愿意做出最大贡献的年轻人,他们是否获得社会地位奖励?创办或加入一家新公司是否很酷?很少有国家拥有这个。在美国,这非常好。顺便说一句,在中国也明显很好,尽管他们做了一些事情搞砸了。但在大多数国家,在很多方面,成功是被鄙视的。
你经常在政治言论中听到这种话:"你能赚十亿美元的唯一方式就是你是小偷。"这完全是荒谬的。你看看那些人,几乎没有人是小偷。你实际上偷不到十亿美元,这是事实。但这是一种有效的修辞,因为它是一种很好的酸葡萄心理——"他怎么得到那么多钱的?哦,他是小偷。好吧,我不是小偷,所以我现在感觉好多了。"
但这就是问题所在,这也是最难复制、最难建立、最容易摧毁的东西。所以我认为我们必须意识到这是多么特别和独特,然后我们可以尝试帮助其他人做到这一点,但我们也必须同样努力地不去毁掉它自己。
Original English
Ben: I don't think that's true, by the way. I think that's a happy talk. One thing you learn when you go to different countries is they're very different. The laws are different, the policies are different, the governance are different. And that's why America has continued to be special. We've had the internet now for quite a long time and that's absolutely not the case.
So what is going on? And by the way, I wish we could bring some of our own policy makers on those trips so they could hear people say we want Silicon Valley before they keep trying to wreck us. Not all of our policy makers, many are outstanding, but some really don't like the fact that we have a technology industry.
So I think as we've traveled around there's a combination of ingredients that make Silicon Valley special and America itself special. The first is you do need the talent. Talent is most easily seen in is there a great technical university that graduates people who know how to build things. That's an essential thing. And by the way many countries have that that don't have a Silicon Valley. What are they missing? They're missing the other two components.
The second is do you have a set of laws and policies that facilitate entrepreneurship, are essentially good for business? Can you create a company easily? Can you hire people easily? Can you fire people easily? Is there a tax incentive structure that's not onerous? Can you own - and this is a big one lately which California is moving against - can you own an illiquid asset that has value or will it get seized? Norway introduced an unrealized capital gains tax and that effectively ended the tech ecosystem there. So those kinds of policies are super important. If they're not right, nobody is going to take the extreme risk both personal and financial of starting a company if it's not an environment that's conducive to that.
And then the third one which is a combination of everything in a way is the culture. Do the most capable young people willing to make the biggest contribution get social status reward? Is it cool to either start or join a new company? Almost no countries have that. It's really good in the US. It's clearly good in China by the way, although they've done a few things to mess it up. But in most countries, in a lot of ways, success is frowned upon.
You hear a lot of this in the political rhetoric. "Oh the only way you could make a billion dollars is if you're a thief." Which is completely absurd. You look at the people, almost none of them are thieves. You can't steal a billion dollars, that's a real truth. But it's a rhetoric that works because it's a great sour grapes idea. "How did he get all that money? Oh, he's a thief. Okay, I'm not a thief. So I feel much better about myself now."
But that's a lot of the thing and that's the thing that's so hard to replicate and it's so hard to build and it's so easy to destroy. So it's something that I think we have to just be aware of how special that is and unique in the world. And then we can try and help other people do it but we also have to try equally hard not to wreck it ourselves.
主持人: 是的,确实如此。现在是世界杯赛季,有一条很棒的推文说:"我认为美国认为他们有可能赢得世界杯。"也许他们能,也许他们不能,但美国认为他们能这个事实本身就是一个特点,而不是一个缺陷。
Original English
Host: Yeah, for sure. It's World Cup season and there was a great tweet where someone was like, "I think America thinks they could potentially win the World Cup." And maybe they can, maybe they can't, but the fact that America thinks they can is a feature, not a bug.
嘉宾C: 是的。
Original English
Speaker C: Yes.
嘉宾A: 这是有原因的。
Original English
Speaker A: There's a reason.
主持人: 雄心是极好的。
Original English
Host: Ambition is fantastic.
嘉宾C: 我们给孩子读的《小火车做到了》——"我想我能,我想我能,我想我能。"这就是美国。你可以相信你能。
Original English
Speaker C: There's a reason we all read our kids "The Little Engine That Could." "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." That's in America. You can believe you can.
主持人: 没错。太棒了。这是一个很好的结尾。谢谢大家。
Original English
Host: That's right. That's right. Amazing. That's a good note to end on. Thank you all.