开场与核心议题概览
我们建立了一项令人难以置信的 Service Cloud 业务。它现在的规模已接近 110 亿美元，而它的基石正是一笔收购。
英文原文
>> We have built an incredible service cloud business. It's now almost 11 billion and the foundation of it was an acquisition.你今天如何将 Salesforce 描述为一个平台？
英文原文
>> How do you describe Salesforce as a platform today?其核心在于为你所有的企业级应用提供值得信赖的基础。你可以通过 Slack 与它交互，也可以通过 Cloudforce 与它交互。软件开发的速度和成本效益达到了前所未有的水平。在这个软件时代，究竟什么才值得真正去收购？
英文原文
>> At its core, it's delivering trusted foundation for all of your enterprise applications. You can interact with it through Slack. You can interact with it through Claw Force. Software development is faster and more affordable than it's ever been. In this era of software, what is worth actually buying?清算终将来临。许多这类型公司的估值是不可持续的，它们将无法实现足以匹配该估值的增长。我们已经投资了超过 750 家公司，完成了 29 笔收购。所以这依然是一个相对较小的公司数量，但我认为如果我们看到真正令人兴奋的东西，我们希望与那家公司保持紧密联系。如果你今天创办一家公司并打算正面进攻 Salesforce，你认为有哪些切入机会？嗯……
英文原文
>> There will be a reckoning that happens. A lot of these companies have valuations that are not sustainable that they won't be able to grow into. We've invested in more than 750 companies. We've acquired 29. So, it's still a relatively small number of companies, but I think if we ever see something really exciting, we want to stay close to that company. If you were going to start a company today and it was going to attack Salesforce headon, what are the openings that you see fit? Um,与 Marc Benioff 共事与投资并购决策
John，今天非常高兴能和你在一起。
英文原文
>> John, it's great to be with you today.感谢你的邀请，非常高兴来到这里。
英文原文
>> Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be here.你在 Salesforce 已经工作超过 20 年了。Marc Benioff 是云软件领域拉什莫尔山（总统山）级别的人物。他领导了从本地部署（on-premise）向云端的转型，也是一位令人难以置信的营销大师。在今年的 Dreamforce 上，他与 Jensen、Dario 和 Sam 同台亮相。我很好奇，你和他共事了这么久，与他一起工作是什么样的体验？
英文原文
>> You've been at Salesforce now for over 20 years. Um, Mark uh Ben Penny off is a Mount Rushmore style figure for cloud software. You know, led the transition from on premise to cloud. Uh he is an incredible marketer. He uh you know at Dreamforce this year he uh frame mogged uh Jensen and Dario and Sam. Uh I'm curious. You've had a long career with him. What what uh what's it like to work with him?嗯，在这一点上我还会加上“富有远见”。Marc 非常有远见，我认为他确实能看清行业的走向，这就是他帮助公司实现自我转型的方式。当他思考业务增长时，他会同时考虑有机创新（organic innovation）和非有机创新（inorganic innovation），这正是我们发展公司并将两者结合的关键。因此，收购在其中扮演了巨大的角色。当 Marc 看到世界正朝着某个方向前进时，他会指派我和我的团队去弄清楚、找出该品类中最好的收购标的，并不停地提出那些构想。我认为 Marc 另一个非常独特的地方在于他的好奇心，以及他始终保持的“初心”（beginner's mind）。他也要求我们做到这一点。我认为这切实帮助了我们找到一些卓越的公司并引入 Salesforce，同时也带来了一些非常杰出的创业者。
英文原文
>> U well I would also add visionary to that that point as well. Mark is quite a visionary and he really I think can see where the industry is heading and so that's how he helps uh the company transform itself and when he thinks about growing the business he thinks about organic innovation but also inorganic innovation and that's really been the key to how we've grown the company and marrying the two together and so acquisitions play a huge role in that and uh when Mark sees that the world is moving in a certain direction, he will point me and my team to like go go figure out go find the best asset to buy in that category and um and come up with with those ideas uh all the time. Um I would say the other thing that's very unique about Mark is just his his level of curiosity and uh how he thinks about things with a beginnerous mind uh all the time. And so he asks that of us as well. And I think it's really helped us find some remarkable companies to bring into Salesforce uh and also some really exceptional entrepreneurs.顺着这个思路，我非常喜欢“初心”和好奇心这个理念。你们两个人是如何共同推进收购和投资构想的？
英文原文
>> With that in mind, I really like that idea of beginner's mind, the curiosity. Um how do how do the two of you approach uh you know acquisition and investment ideas together?[轻笑]
英文原文
>> [snorts]我认为 Salesforce 一直以来的一个标志就是我们非常倾听客户的声音。因此我们收到了大量反馈：客户想向我们购买什么？他们觉得我们的产品在哪些地方存在不足？差距在哪里？我们以此为依据与我们的产品团队合作，切实找出最好的机会。这当然是在收购方面。在投资方面，我的风险投资（Ventures）团队每年会见数千家公司，我认为我们能很好地感知牵引力在哪里、关注点在哪里、哪些技术领域的增长最快，我们可以把所有这些反馈和心得带回公司，我认为从而能做出更好的决策。
英文原文
>> Well, I I think that one of one of the things we that's always been a hallmark of Salesforce is we listen to our customers quite a bit. And so we get a ton of feedback around what do customers want to buy from us? Where do they feel like our products are missing? Where are the gaps? Uh and we take that and work with our product teams to really identify what are the best opportunities. Uh and that's certainly for the acquisition side. On the investment side, you know, my my ventures team meets with thousands of companies every year and I think we have a get a very good sense of where is the traction, where is the interest, what what areas of technology are really growing the fastest and we can bring all of that feedback and learnings back into the company and I think make better decisions as a result.并购评估框架与平台定位
你提到 Marc 是这样一位大梦想家，当然他确实是。你和你的团队如何考虑在 Marc 宏大的远见思维与战略及财务纪律之间取得平衡？或许有时你不得不对他的宏伟构想说“不”。我很好奇这是如何协同运作的。
英文原文
>> And you alluded to, you know, Mark as this, uh, you know, big visionary, uh, and of course he is. How do you, how do you and your team think about balancing Mark's like big vision mindset with, uh, strategic and financial discipline? Uh, maybe there's been times where you've had to tell Mark no on his big grand idea. I'm curious h how that all comes together.我们内部遵循一套框架，我们在执行上相当自律，主要考量三个要素：第一是战略契合度以及它能推动多少客户成功。第二是它能否加速业务？它是否能融入我们的技术栈？团队之间是否有良好的文化契合？我们看到的这批人才是否能很好地融入 Salesforce 开展工作？第三部分，在当今时代可能是最棘手的，那就是我们如何为股东和客户创造价值，价值增厚（value accretion）的时间线是怎样的，估值是否合理。最后一点在眼下可能是最困难的，因为所有标的都很昂贵。我们正处在一个非常独特的历史时刻，稍后我们应该花些时间聊聊这个话题。
英文原文
>> So what we uh what we have is a is an internal framework that we follow which um we are pretty disciplined about following and we look at sort of three elements. The first would be where is the strategic fit and how much customer success can it drive. I think the second would be can we accelerate the business? Will it fit into our technology stack? Will is there good cultural alignment with the team? do we see the the talent there is as people that will work well within Salesforce. Um and then the third part uh which is probably the trickiest in this day and age is how can we deliver value to our shareholders and to our customers and what is the you know what is the timeline for value accretion uh is the valuation reasonable and that's that last point is probably the hardest right now uh because everything is expensive. We're we're in a unique moment in time and we should use some time later to to chat on that.或许退一步来看，今天的 Salesforce 是一家非常庞大的公司，如今你们所涵盖的远不止 CRM。那么你今天会如何将 Salesforce 描述为一个平台？
英文原文
>> Maybe to take a step back. Uh Salesforce today really large company. You're much more than CRM today. Um how how do you describe Salesforce uh as a platform today?我认为它一直是一个客户可以去购买技术以帮助他们通过全新方式与自身客户进行互动的地方。这从一开始就具有奠基意义。但我们目前的理解是，我们的平台核心是为你所有的企业级应用提供值得信赖的基础，然后你可以从不同的界面（surfaces）与它交互。这就是为什么我们让 Salesforce 变成了无头（headless）架构，因此你可以通过 Slack 与它交互，可以通过 Cloudforce 交互，也可以通过其他渠道交互。我认为只要企业愿意去构建，它就可以非常广阔，成为一个真正能够创造巨大企业价值的地方。
英文原文
>> Well, I think it's it's always been uh a a place where customers can go to buy technology to help them interact with their customers in new ways. And uh and that's sort of been foundational from the beginning. But you know how we think about it is that we we have a platform that is at its core it's delivering trusted foundation for all of your enterprise applications and then you can interact with it from different surfaces whether it's uh and and that's that's why we made Salesforce headless and so you can interact with it through Slack you can inter interact with it through cloud force uh and through other other places and I think it's it's just as broad as a company wants to make it uh a place where you can really deliver a lot of enterprise value.AI 转型、基于结果的定价与案例
确实如此。我是说，看到你们在无头化转型方面引领潮流真的很酷。我很想知道，随着我们所有人进入这个充满 AI 的美丽新世界，出现了新的交互界面。你提到了 Claude，显然还有 ChatGPT，如今有很多此类产品，你可以通过它们访问 Salesforce。也许你们相当一部分客户期望在未来需要更少的席位，因为他们今天利用 AI 能完成比以往更多的工作。我很好奇在这种转型下，你们如何考虑 Salesforce 在这个新世界中捕获价值？
英文原文
>> Absolutely. I mean, I think uh it has been really cool to see you guys leading the charge on the headless transition. Um I'm curious as you uh as we all enter this brave new world with AI and there's new interfaces. Um you referenced Cloud, there's obviously chat GBT. Um there's a broad swath of them today. um you're able to access Salesforce via them. Um maybe uh a good portion of your customers are aspirational about uh requiring fewer seats in the future because they're able to accomplish more work today uh with AI than they previously needed to. I'm curious um under this transition like how do you think about Salesforce capturing value uh in this new world?首先，我认为我们有不同的产品定价方式，但最重要的是，用量消耗（consumption）是我们定价机制中很大的一部分，我们的许多产品都是基于消耗量计费的。例如 MuleSoft 一直是基于消耗计费的。所以我想说，我们所努力确保的是，首先我们必须提供客户真正认可并愿意持续付费的价值。无论他们按席位付费还是按用量付费，其实并不重要。关键在于确保他们感到满意并取得成功，愿意再次选择我们。技术行业发展的一个关键转变是更加倾向于基于结果的定价（outcome-based pricing），即为你解决的问题买单。例如，这正是 Finn 做得非常出色的地方。
英文原文
>> Well, first of all, I mean, I think we have different ways to price our products, but most importantly, uh, consumption is a big part of of how we price and so many of our products, they are consumptionbased. Like Mulesoft was always consumptionbased, for example. Uh, and so I would say, you know, what we what we try to do is make sure that as uh we're first of all, we want to be delivering value that our customers really appreciate and want to continue to pay for. and whether they pay on a perceipt basis or on a usage basis, it doesn't really matter. Um, but I think that the key thing is making sure that they're happy and successful and will come come back. And that's one of the critical pieces about where the technology industry has been uh moving is more towards outcomebased pricing where you're paying for resolutions. uh and this is what Finn does so well for example而不是仅仅为席位付费。
英文原文
>> and um and versus just paying for uh a seat我认为这绝对是我们正在全力支持的趋势，我们越来越多的产品将以这种方式交付。
英文原文
>> and I think that's that's definitely a trend that we are getting really behind and uh more and more of our products are going to be delivered that way.是的，Finn 当然是基于结果、更偏向基于解决方案解决率定价的早期先驱。
英文原文
>> Yeah, Finn was uh certainly an an early pioneer in in the outcomebased more resolutionbased pricing顺便提一句，他们之所以能做到这一点，是因为产生价值的时间非常短。在 Finn 上，平均只需 16 天即可上线运行，并能立即看到智能体（agents）接管处理越来越多的电话，而这些电话原本可能需要升级给人工处理。所以我们当时决定，不如在 Salesforce 内部试点运行 Finn，看看它能带来什么。我们发现实际上在 14 天内就把它部署上线了，在我们的 help.salesforce.com 网站上，它现在处理超过 40% 的流量。
英文原文
>> and the re and by the way the reason they can do that is because the time to value is so fast. So Finn, you can get up and run running on average in 16 days and immediately start seeing um the agents take handling more and more of the calls that humans might have otherwise been uh escalated to handle. And so we we actually decided okay well why don't we just pilot Finn internally and see what it does for Salesforce. And um we found that we had it up and running actually in 14 days and on our help.salesforce.com salesforce.com website. Um it's now handling over 40% of the traffic.哇。
英文原文
>> Oh wow.并且在无需人工介入的情况下实现了 65% 的解决率。所以其产生价值的时间极快，我认为这就是一笔优秀收购的典型标志。
英文原文
>> And it is um delivering 65% resolutions without going to a human. Uh so that is really quick time to value and that's kind of a hallmark of I think what a great acquisition looks like.是的。特别是在企业销售中，你在 Finn 这个例子中赢得了更大比例的人力预算份额。那可能是客户支持，也可能有一点销售性质。因此在更广泛的 Salesforce 场景中，这可以表现为我的 AI 团队在进行潜在客户开发、线索发现、线索资格审查、跟进以及促成交易，对吧？
英文原文
>> Yeah. And and in with enterprise sales in particular, you're earning a larger share of the labor budget in your Finn example. uh you know that that could be customer support, a little bit of sales. Um and so in a Salesforce context at large, that can be my AI team is uh prospecting, it's finding leads, it's qualifying leads, it's following up, it's closing deals, right?因此，随着你赢得更大份额的人力预算，虽然你的客户向你支付的费用可能比过去多得多，但他们的整体销售成本却下降了。Qualified 大概就是你刚才所说的一个绝佳例证。它基本上可以取代你的销售开发代表（SDR）团队，基本上就是接收所有通过网站进来的流量，并通过其 Piper 智能体回答问题。那是一种非常拟人化的体验，你是在和一个非常逼真的虚拟形象交谈，他们可以解释产品的功能，并帮助你安排会议，这一切都是全自动的，无需人工接触。
英文原文
>> And so as you're earning a greater share of that labor budget, sure your customers may be paying you quite a bit more than they did in the past, but their overall cost of selling has gone down. Absolutely. And qualified is probably one of the the great examples of what you just said. So that can replace your your sales development rep organization essentially where ba where basically it's taking all the traffic that's coming in through the website and answering questions with its Piper agent and it's a very human-like experience where you you're speaking to uh a very lifelike avatar and uh they can explain what uh what the products do uh and help set up meetings for you all autom automatically without touching a human.并购与合作：渠道赋能及创业者抉择
非常有道理。我们刚刚开始探讨你主导的几项收购。你有很长的收购历史，在你的任期内收购规模接近 1000 亿美元，过去一年就完成了 12 笔。确实令人惊叹。当你思考将并购作为战略时，早期有 Slack、MuleSoft、Informatica 这样的大手笔，而最近你们转向了 AI 原生公司，比如你提到的 Finn，还有 Listen Labs。关于你的收购框架，你提到财务是第三个要素，战略是第二个，第一个是客户在要求什么……
英文原文
>> Uh, m makes a ton of sense. Uh, I mean, we just started to touch on a number of your acquisitions. You have a long history of acquisitions. I think nearly a 100red billion of acquisitions over the course of your tenure, 12 over over the last year. Um, really amazing. uh as you think about M&A as your strategy um there were the large ones like Slack and Mulesoft Informatica and then uh more recently you've gone to the AI native companies you mentioned Finn uh listen labs is another uh your framework for acquisitions you touched on like financials is the third component the second strategic and then first was what are your customers asking for还有我们如何能够加速它们的发展。
英文原文
>> and also how can we accelerate them accelerate借助我们的分销渠道。要记住我们拥有 15000 名销售代表。如果你能把这类收购整合进去——以 Listen 为例，他们当时实际上只有少数几位销售代表——你突然将其开放给你的整个销售团队，这项业务就会实现增长。
英文原文
>> with our distribution. And I mean, remember we have 15,000 sales reps. And so if you can plug one of these acquisitions into that really in the case of listen, you know, only a handful of reps, you suddenly make it available to your entire sales team, you're going to grow that business.设想我坐在谈判桌的另一侧，我在 Alfred，在 Listen Labs，是一名非常有抱负的 AI 创始人。Salesforce 接触了我，我花时间与 Salesforce 沟通，与你们的 15000 名销售代表合作并通过你们的渠道推广听起来棒极了，我会很喜欢这样。那么，我该如何权衡与 Salesforce 合作与直接出售给 Salesforce？
英文原文
>> And so maybe like imagine I'm at the other side of the table uh and uh I am at Alfred, I'm at Listen Labs, I'm a really ambitious AI founder. Um, I get, you know, approached. I'm spending time with Salesforce and it sounds great to partner with your 15,000 sales reps and get me pushed through your channel. I would love that. Um, how do I think about partnering with Salesforce versus, you know, selling to Salesforce?我们以非常开放的方式对待合作伙伴关系。目前我们合作的独立软件供应商（ISV）伙伴大概超过 8000 家。顺便说一下，有时我们也会投资合作伙伴，这是 Salesforce Ventures 的职责之一。但我们希望构建一个开放的生态系统，为客户带来尽可能多的解决方案，由他们来做决定。他们可以购买合作伙伴的方案，也可以购买 Salesforce 的方案。我认为我们公司的标志就是确保拥有尽可能广泛的生态系统，因为你希望拥有尽可能丰富的产品来向外提供。因此，与我们合作绝对有多种途径，我们有多种类型的合作伙伴计划和一个负责该业务的优秀团队。
英文原文
>> Well, I think we um we approach partnerships in in a very open way. And so we we have probably more than 8,000 partners at this time that we work with. These are ISV partners. Um sometimes we invest in the partners by the way as well and that's part of the the role of Salesforce ventures. Um but we want to have an open ecosystem where we're bringing as many solutions as possible to our customers and they make the decision. They can buy a partner solution, they can buy a solution from Salesforce, but I think we I think the the hallmark of of our company is making sure that we have this as broad of an ecosystem as possible because you want to have as much to offer as you possibly can. So there are there are definitely ways to partner with us. We have multiple types of partner programs and a great organization that does that. Uh那么从一名有抱负的 AI 创始人的角度来看，为什么出售给 Salesforce 反而是更具抱负的选择？
英文原文
>> and so you know maybe like as I think about uh you know I'm an ambitious AI founder and uh selling to Salesforce. Why is that the like more ambitious choice for me?试想一下全靠你自己去建立那样的分销渠道需要付出什么：招聘销售、进行入职培训、赋能，让他们具备生产力，这需要花费多长时间。在规模化层面上建立这套体系需要非常非常长的时间。顺便说一句，你还必须覆盖小型企业、中型企业和大型企业；而且你还必须在全球范围内做到这一点。对于任何人来说，这都是一项极其沉重的任务。我认为创业者必须做出抉择：现在是卖掉公司并将我的技术接入一家已经具备这些条件的公司的好时机吗？还是我可以继续独自走下去，尝试自己去建立，并不断融资，股权被一次又一次地稀释？这是需要长达数年承担的重担，相比之下，另一种选择能让你的技术尽可能广泛、尽可能快速地交到客户手中，这就是你必须做出的权衡决定。
英文原文
>> Well imagine having to build that distribution channel on your own and how long that will take to hire the reps, ramp the reps, enable them uh and get them productive. It takes a very very long time to build that at scale. Oh, and by the way, you've got to do that across small business, medium-sized business, and enterprises. Oh, and you also have to do that globally. It's a heavy heavy task for anyone to take on. And I think that, you know, entrepreneurs have to like make that decision. Is is this the right time to sell and and plug uh my technology into a company that already has that? uh or can I continue and go it alone and try to build it on my own and continue to raise money and dilute yourself further and further and further and um it's just many years of undertaking versus uh getting your your technology in the hands of customers as widely as possible and as quickly as possible and that's the decision you have to make.人才整合与文化融合
说得合情合理。当你尝试将这些人融入你们的文化时，他们带来了一种创业精神和自己的思考方式。
英文原文
>> Fair enough. And uh as you try to integrate these folks into your culture um they bring a certain entrepreneurial spirit their own way thinking.确实。
英文原文
>> Yes.那么，你如何考虑将他们引入并进行恰当的整合，以便这种精神能够继续传播和蓬勃发展，同时成为更庞大平台的一部分？
英文原文
>> And h so how do you think about uh bringing them in and integrating them appropriately so that that spirit can continue to spread and thrive while being a part of the you know larger platform.我认为在我们收购一家公司时，最令人兴奋的事情之一就是引入这些杰出的人才来帮助推动公司转型，并在许多方面为我们带来全新活力，确保我们把这种创业精神带入公司，思考做事情的新方法。整合团队的一个关键重心是员工本身，确保他们顺利完成入职并了解 Salesforce 内部的运作机制，同时也帮助他们在公司内部实现职业发展。我们有许许多多这样的故事：有人加入进来，把公司卖给我们，随后一路晋升成为我们的首席产品官（CPO）。事实上这种情况已经发生过四次了。或者是在我们的销售组织中担任重要职务，或承担其他领导角色。因此我认为，通过引进新人才也是我们发展公司的重要组成部分。
英文原文
>> I think that's one of the most exciting things about what we do when we buy a company is is bring in uh this exceptional talent to help transform the company and and in many ways refresh us, you know, and make sure that like we're bringing in that entrepreneurial spirit into the company and thinking about new ways of doing doing things. um a key focal focal point of the integration team is on the people and making sure that they're successful in onboarding learning learning how things work within Salesforce um but also growing their careers internally. And we've had many many uh stories of people who have come in uh sold their companies to us and have risen to become our chief product officer. It's happened actually four times now. um and uh or people who have taken on big roles within our sales organization or other leadership roles. And so I think um I think it's been an important part of how we've grown the company too through bringing in new talent.你们拥有 80000 名员工。我可以想象，引入这些公司有助于推动某些领域的提速。是否有某个被收购公司的例子，是你会指出来认为对组织文化产生了重大影响的？
英文原文
>> Yeah. I mean you have 80,000 employees. I can imagine you bring in these companies, they they help like turbocharge certain areas. Is there an example of one of these acquired companies that uh you point to as having a a big impact on the culture of the organization?我脑海中浮现的一个例子是 David Schmaier 的公司 Vlocity。当时我们在 Salesforce 内部其实并没有太多的行业纵向（industries）倾向。然而，有许多重要的垂直行业构成了整个软件行业增长的关键部分。事实上我们现在拥有 13 个垂直行业。
英文原文
>> Well, I would say, you know, one one that that springs to mind is David Schmire's company, uh, Velocity. So, um, we didn't really have much of an industries bent within Salesforce. And yet, you know, so many, um, there's so many important verticals that are a key part of the growth of the entire software industry. And we now have 13 verticals actually.那种对特定行业的聚焦、对该行业具体用例的关注，都是通过那笔收购建立起来的。David 加入后带来了 Vlocity，带来了六个垂直行业，此后我们又增加了七个。他后来成为了首席产品官，现在是首席战略官。我认为他确实帮助我们以过去绝不可能采取的方式去思考针对那些行业垂直领域的销售。
英文原文
>> And um and that all really that sort of focus on the industries, focus on the specific use cases for that industry that came through that acquisition. And so David came on board, brought velocity in it, brought in six verticals. We've added another another seven since. And um and he went on to be chief product officer, now chief strategy officer. And I think he's definitely helped us think about uh selling to those industry verticals in ways we never would have otherwise.自研与收购之辩：Listen Labs 案例
这非常有趣。多年来 Salesforce 令人印象深刻的地方之一还在于，有一些建立在你们平台之上的大公司本身也专注于垂直行业，比如 Veeva 等等。
英文原文
>> Uh that that's very interesting. And like one of the one of the pieces that's also been impressive about Salesforce over the years is like there are large companies built on top of you that are just focused on verticals as well like Viva and the likenCino 可能是这方面的另一个例子。那是我们早期在 Ventures 计划中进行的一笔投资，他们纯粹立足于金融服务领域创立了一家极具影响力的公司。
英文原文
>> and CENO was probably another example of that and that was that was one of our our early investments uh in the ventures program and they they created an incredible um uh company just based in financial services.如今当你在思考自研还是收购时，可能经常会被告知“我们可以自己做”。软件开发的速度和成本效益达到了前所未有的高度，因此你的部分工作必定是去判断这在何时是成立的。我很想知道，在当下的软件时代，究竟什么才值得真正去收购？
英文原文
>> Um today as you're thinking about uh you know build versus buy uh you probably are told way more um that we can just build that. Uh software development is faster and more affordable than it's ever been. Uh and so a part of your job must be figuring out like when that's actually true. Um I'm curious like in this era of software um what is worth actually buying?[深吸气] 当我们考量是自建、收购还是合作时，我们会与产品团队就他们未来三年的路线图规划展开大量分析：他们是否真正拥有能够构建出所期望交付物的人才？他们内部是否有相应的专业知识？或者他们是否能够轻易从外部招聘？你知道目前招聘 AI 工程师有多困难，极其困难。所以在很多情况下，如果你能找到合适的标的并且能够快速整合，确实可以通过收购来大幅加速研发进程。这也是你必须考虑的事情之一，因为一笔典型的收购从产生想法到实际完成整合，端到端可能需要 6 到 9 个月的时间。那么你自己交付某些东西的速度能否比这快得多？这些都是我们衡量并试图思考的计算。但当合适的资产出现时，你是能够真切感知到的，你能有一种直觉。Alfred 和 Florian 来与 Marc 见面并向我们演示 Listen Labs 时就是这样。他们非常出色，我们不仅认为其技术出众，而且界面非常简便。它简单到我的团队在完全没有接受任何培训赋能的情况下就开始使用了。在 10 分钟内我们就发布了一份问卷并着手使用，操作再简单不过了。
英文原文
>> [gasps] Um well I you know when we think about the you know do we build by partner I mean we go through a lot of analysis with the product teams around what their roadmap should look like for the next three years and um do they truly have the people that can build what they're trying to deliver? um do they have the internal expertise for it for example um and uh and or can they go out and easily hire it and you know how hard hiring um like AI AI engineers right now very very hard and so uh in many cases you can really speed up uh the the development process through an acquisition if you can find the right one and if you can integrate it quickly and that's that's also you know one of the the things that you have to consider Because a typical acquisition end to end from the moment you start with the idea to when it's actually integrated could be 6 to9 months. And so could you deliver something on your own much faster than that? And so those are the types of of calculations we we make and try to try to think about. But when the right asset shows up, you know, you really know it. You you can have a sense. And that was, you know, the case when Alfred and Florian came came to meet with Mark and demoed Listen Labs to us. I mean, they were just brilliant. And I think we had we thought the not only was the technology outstanding, but the the interface was so easy. It was so easy that my team started using it with, you know, no enablement whatsoever. within 10 minutes we had um we had a survey out and and and started and it was it just could not have been easier.你们就是这样对 Listen 展开尽职调查的吗？
英文原文
>> Um is that how you diligence listens?这是我们当时做的一部分工作。
英文原文
>> It was part of what we did在 Listen Labs 上针对他们的客户发问卷。
英文原文
>> a survey on listen labs是的，事实上那极其有效。顺便提一下，我们的尽调流程相当严格，我们所开展的客户层面的工作、客户反馈，是真正判断产品有多优秀以及这些客户是否可能续约的最重要方法之一。
英文原文
>> to their customers. Yeah, actually uh that that was incredibly effective. Um but we do by the way our diligence process is pretty rigorous and uh the customer element the customer feedback that we do is uh is one of the most important uh ways of really judging how good the product is and you know are these customers likely to renew.服务云业务与收购 Finn、Slack 的协同
我们自己也是 Listen 的满意客户，并且也把它当作尽调工具来使用。非常酷。关于加速能力建设这部分，你早些时候谈到的另一笔收购是 Finn。你们在客户支持领域深耕已久。
英文原文
>> We're uh happy listens customers ourselves and use it as a diligence tool as well. Uh very cool. Um maybe on on this piece of like accelerating capabilities, uh another acquisition that that you were talking about earlier was Finn. Um you guys have long had a role in customer support.或许可以谈谈 Finn 为你们带来了哪些能力，以及那笔收购背后的故事。
英文原文
>> Maybe talk about what capabilities Finn brought to you all and maybe the story behind that acquisition.这又回到了我们之前谈到的 Marc 对保持“初心”的专注。我们打造了一项极其出色的 Service Cloud 业务，现在的年化订单价值（AOV）已接近 110 亿美元。而这项业务最初的基石是我们在 2008 年进行的一笔收购，那家公司叫 InStranet，是 Alex Dayon 的公司。他是另一位后来成为我们首席产品官的人，非常杰出，是法国最伟大的创业者之一。对我们来说非常明确的是，整个向原生 AI 应用演进的趋势，以及它们基于结果的定价模式和极快的见效时间——能以多快的速度部署上线并让满意的客户使用起来——这些是我们自己无法足够快构建出来的。我们与 Eoghan 保持着良好的关系，认识他很多年了。我们结识了他在爱尔兰的 AI 团队，他们简直太出色了，绝对是爱尔兰都柏林最优秀的 AI 人才。我们意识到，这可以极大地加速我们在 Service Cloud 上试图达成的目标。因此我们收购了这家公司。正如我之前所说，事实证明这对我们来说是一笔非常有价值的收购。
英文原文
>> Yeah, and I think I think it goes back to uh what we talked about earlier, Mark's focus on having a beginner's mind. And so we have built an incredible service cloud business. It's now almost 11 billion in in AOV. And um and the business actually the foundation of it was an acquisition that we made in 2008, a company called Inster, which was Alex Don's company. uh another person that went on to be our chief product officer like amazing he's exceptional he's you know has as one of the greatest entrepreneurs to come out of France um and uh I think that um what um what's was very clear to us is that the whole uh movement towards native AI applications and the way that they were priced based on outcomes and the very fast time to value, how quickly you could get it implemented and up and running and having happy customers using it. Um, it just wasn't something that we could build quickly enough. And so, um, we had a a wonderful relationship with Owen who we had known for years. We got to know his AI team in Ireland who were just outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. Some of the best AI talent actually in Dublin, Ireland. and we we realized like wow this could just turbocharge what we're trying to do with ServiceCloud and uh and so we were able to to buy the company and it's it's really as I said earlier it's it's proving um to be quite a a very valuable acquisition for us.从公司重生的角度来看，这也是一个令人惊叹的故事，从 Intercom 到 Finn 的转型，以及他作为创始人的回归……
英文原文
>> Yeah, I mean that that one's an amazing story from a rebirth of the company perspective too with you know the transition from intercom to Finn and uh you know him coming back as founder他在公司内部产生了重大影响。Eoghan 是一个很有发言权的人，他善于表达自己的观点，他确实在试图给我们带来震动，这也是引进这些人才的另一个好处。
英文原文
>> and he's having a big impact at the company like he is Owen is someone with a loud voice and he uh makes his views known and he's really and he's really trying to shake us up and that's that is another benefit to bringing these people in.太棒了。另一个我每天都在使用、当然你也使用的产品是 Slack。我很想知道，如果把时间倒拨回去，你们当初收购 Slack 有明确的理由。而如今 Slack 在 AI 中扮演的角色非常重要，可能与你们当时的预期有所不同。我很想了解，这些年来你对 Slack 的思考是如何演进的？
英文原文
>> Amazing. Amazing. Um, another product that, you know, I use every day, uh, certainly you do, is is Slack. Um, I'd be curious, uh, if you were to rewind the clock, like you had a rationale for acquiring Slack. Um, Slack's role today in AI is pretty important and different than maybe what you could have expected then. I'm curious like how you're thinking about Slack has evolved over the years.我认为我们收购 Slack 的核心逻辑在今天依然成立，但其意义甚至比我们大家当初想象的还要重大，因为它是 AI 完美的对话式交互界面。我们在 2020 年考虑收购它时——距今已有……
英文原文
>> I think the core thesis for why we bought Slack holds true today, but it's even bigger than I think we all imagined because it is the perfect conversational interface for AI. And when we thought about it back in so we bought the company in 2020, so it's now been外面有传言说 Marc 在收购前只和 Stewart 待了一个小时。我不知道这是否属实，但是……
英文原文
>> there's a there's a rumor out there that Mark only spent an hour with uh uh Stuart before the acquisition. And I don't know if that's typical, but远不止那个时间，绝对不止。我们当时非常仔细地审视了它。我们内部一直在使用 Slack，显然它在用户群体中是一款深受喜爱的产品，并且亟需扩大分销渠道。当时它在竞争中正输给 Teams，确实陷入了困境。我不知道你是否还记得 2020 年的情况，当时他们经历了一个糟糕的季度，股价大跌，这正是触发许多讨论的原因：我们如何能将两家公司结合在一起，把 Slack 塑造成它真正需要成为的样子——即属于每个人的用户界面，一个人与应用协同工作的协作工具。
英文原文
>> uh a lot more time than that. Definitely. Definitely. And and I think we um no, we looked at it very closely. We had been using Slack. It was clearly a beloved product in in uh among its users and um and something that needed more distribution like it was just really it was losing to teams and they were really they were stuck. I don't know if you remember back in 2020, but there was like one bad quarter, stock went down and uh and that's really what triggered a lot of the discussions is that, you know, how can we bring these two companies together and turn Slack into what it really needed to be, which was the user interface for everyone and the collaborative tool where humans and and um and apps would work together. Uh现在还包括智能体（agents）。
英文原文
>> and now agents.现在还包括智能体，是的。我们当时并不知道智能体会加入进来，那是后来发生的事，但你一眼就能看出它是适配智能体的完美界面。我们当时也清楚它将成为我们所有产品的交互界面。现在你可以通过 Slack 访问所有 Salesforce 的产品，这一直是我们最初的关键战略依据之一。从那时起，Slack 的营收目前相比我们收购时已经增长了将近三倍。它是我们增长最快的产品。所以在当今时代，它就像野火一样迅速发展，因为它对智能体来说实在太完美了。
英文原文
>> And now agents. Yes. And uh we didn't know the agent part that came later, but you can just see that it was the perfect interface for that. We also knew that it would be the the interface for all of our products. And so you can access all of Salesforce products now through Slack. And um and that was always uh you know one of the key strategic rationes that we had at the beginning. Um so since then uh Slack revenue uh is now almost three times from what where it was when we bought the company. Um and it is our fastest growing product. So it's it is taking off like wildfire fire in this day and age uh because it's just perfect for agents.非常有道理。在当下这个时代，我把 Slack 视作非官方的组织架构图。它知道谁向谁汇报，人们如何与其他人沟通，它拥有关于决策是如何做出的所有上下文。
英文原文
>> Makes a ton of sense. I think I think of Slack in this current era as the unofficial org chart. like it knows who reports to who, how people talk to other people. It has all the context on how decisions are made.因此它是用于 AI 的非常重要的语料库。是的。
英文原文
>> Um, and so it's a really important corpus for AI. Yeah.但正如你所提到的，它是一款界面产品。因此，随着其他产品变得更加无头化，它可以成为决策的核心仓库和核心阵地。
英文原文
>> Um, but it's an interface product as you alluded to. And so, um, as other products are more headless, it can be the central uh, you know, repository central uh, like ground for decision-m.没错。正因为它拥有来自你所有工作的全部上下文，如果你用过 Slackbot，你可以直接在界面中获得来自 AI 的极其丰富的回答。操作再简便不过了。我们对能够收购这家公司感到非常激动。我们拥有它大概已经五年零一个季度了，我认为它彻底改变了 Salesforce。
英文原文
>> Absolutely. And and because it has all the context from all of your work, if you use Slackbot ever, like you can just get the mo the richest answers that you've ever seen from AI uh right there within your interface. And so it uh it just couldn't be easier and uh we're we're thrilled that we were able to buy the company and you know f it's been like five years and a quarter since we've owned it and it's it's just I think transformed Salesforce.太不可思议了。正如你所说，在五年多一点的时间里增长了近三倍，在如此规模下这是非常强劲的增长。关于那段整合历程，相比其他收购，有哪些方面做得特别出色？
英文原文
>> Amazing. And maybe just to like hit on that, right? Like you said it's grown nearly 3x and you know a bit over 5 years. That's really strong growth at scale. What about that you know story that integration? What has gone so well with that one relative to you know other acquisitions?从一开始其实并不明确它会发展得这么好，特别是因为我们是在疫情期间收购的，我们基本上所有的交易谈判和尽职调查都是通过 Slack 完成的，在没有大量面对面会议的情况下完成了收购。随后整合工作确实花了一点时间才步入正轨，但一旦步入正轨就迅速爆发了。我认为这再次证明了伟大的技术亟需渠道分销支持。这也是我之前在 Listen Labs 案例中表达的观点，即创业者可以从优秀的收购伙伴那里获得的益处。
英文原文
>> Yeah. And I I think you know it was it wasn't clear that it was going to go so well from the beginning especially when we were buying it during the pandemic and we basically negotiated the deal did everything all the diligence through Slack you know buy the company without ever you know having a lot of face-toface meetings and and um and then uh you know it took a little bit of time for the integration to really hit its stride but once it did um it it has taken off And I think getting again it's like it's like great technology that was starved for distribution. And I think this is sort of the point I was making about in listen labs as well like this is the the benefit that an entrepreneur can get from uh a great acquisition partner.那些面对面的会议中有多少碰巧是在夏威夷举行的？
英文原文
>> Um how many of those uh face-to-face meetings happen to happen in Hawaii?实际上那是很久以后的事了。
英文原文
>> Uh not well it was it was a lot later actually.疫情期间那不是常见碰头地点吗？
英文原文
>> Was that was not the common ground in co times?当时不是，当时甚至去夏威夷旅行都有很多限制。但我想说夏威夷现在非常有用。以我们最近宣布收购的 Braze 为例，我认为两位 CEO 在夏威夷的会面对启动该进程、建立情谊以及确认协同契合起到了关键作用。夏威夷确实是个神奇的地方。
英文原文
>> Not no not not then. I mean there were so many restrictions on even travel to Hawaii then. But I would say um we Hawaii is very useful now. So you know I think about like Braze for example which is uh our most recently announced acquisition. Um, I think the the meeting that the two CEOs had in Hawaii was critical in terms of like jumpstarting that process and building the camaraderie and seeing the alignment and it just it Hawaii is a magical place.Salesforce Ventures 的投资版图与具身智能
美好的事物都始于夏威夷。我们花了很多时间讨论收购公司和与公司合作。你还有第三种选择，即投资公司并让它们独立运营。我过去常认为 Salesforce Ventures 是你们与自身生态系统、与紧密伙伴合作的手段。而如今看来你们的投资自由得多、广泛得多。当然 Anthropic、Mistral 是公司的紧密伙伴，而 Base Power 从战略契合度来看似乎就稍微偏远了一些。我很想听听这些年来这套战略是如何演变的。
英文原文
>> All good things start in Hawaii. Um, uh, so we we've spent a bunch of time talking about, uh, buying companies, uh, and partnering with companies. uh you have a third option which is investing in companies uh letting them run independently. I used to think of Salesforce ventures as you partnering with your ecosystem uh you know your close partners. Today it seems that you're investing much more freely much more broadly. So of course Anthropic Mistral close partners of the company uh fall um base power seems a little more you know out there from a you know strategic fit. curious to hear like how the um strategy has evolved over the years.这是个极好的问题，因为确实经历了一个演变过程。但贯穿其中的主线始终未变，那就是我们如何确保找到那些无论是在当下还是未来都能创造企业价值的公司。这一切始于 2009 年，当时我们投资了属于我们生态系统的公司，比如 DocuSign、nCino……
英文原文
>> Okay. Uh yeah, that's a great question because it really there's been an evolution for sure. Um but you know, when you think about it, the through line has always been the same, which is how can we uh make sure we're finding the companies that will be delivering enterprise value whether it's today or in the future. And so uh it started off in 2009 when we invested in companies like you know that were part of our ecosystem like docysine like Enino um and uh它们应该与你们的软件紧密契合。
英文原文
>> they should closely fit with your with your software.Twilio 是另一笔早期投资。
英文原文
>> Twilio was another early investment.完全合乎逻辑。
英文原文
>> Makes complete sense我们与他们进行了集成，并保持紧密合作。我们也进行了大量的服务类投资，以在区域层面建立起由服务合作伙伴构成的完整生态系统，那些投资非常成功。随后我们进一步涉足行业所朝向的新领域，比如 Snowflake，这是我们进行的一笔非常关键的投资，参与了数轮融资以及最后的 IPO 轮。我们也投资了网络安全领域，因为我们预见到那将成为行业的一个巨大挑战，我们需要紧跟前沿，Wiz 就是我们的投资之一。再后来，当 AI 显然成为行业的下一波浪潮时，我们希望在投资该领域的顶尖公司方面大展身手。我们在 2023 年初成立了 10 亿美元的 AI 基金。除了 Anthropic，我们还投资了 Mistral 和 Cohere，以及几家偏向基础设施层的公司。我们在语音领域投资了 ElevenLabs，在视频领域投资了 Runway。现在我们实际上也涉足具身智能（physical AI），我认为这是一个非常新颖有趣、令人兴奋的领域。随着机器人在灵活性和移动性方面的提升，你可以看到这将是行业巨大的未来，因此我们希望身在其中。
英文原文
>> and um and we integrated with them. We partnered closely with them. We also did a lot of services uh uh investments as well to build out our whole ecosystem of of services partners regionally and um and those were were very successful. We then um ventured more into uh new areas where the industry was heading like companies like Snowflake that was a very very critical uh investment that we made um uh several rounds and then the IPO round. Uh we also invested in cyber security because we could see uh how um that was going to become a massive problem for the industry and we needed to stay current. So whiz was one of our investments. Um and then uh you know I think when AI became so obvious as as the the next wave of the industry, we wanted to be very very big in investing in the best companies there. We created the billiond dollar AI fund at the beginning of 23. But uh but in addition to Anthropic, we also invested in Mistral and Coher. Uh in a in several companies that were more at the at the um infrastructure level. Um we've invested in voice with 11 Labs. We invested in video with Runway. Um and now we're actually venturing into physical AI too which I think is really a new fun and exciting area and very you you can see um with the improvements like with with in robotics with dexterity and mobility this is going to be a huge future for um for the industry and so we want to be there.完全合理。投资范围非常广泛，似乎涵盖了科技行业中所有存在增长的领域。你个人是如何分配时间的？
英文原文
>> Totally makes sense. I mean very broad mandate you know it seems to cover all of technology wherever there there is growth in in in the sector at large. How are you spending your time personally?我把时间分配在寻找新的收购标的、与整合团队合作确保收购取得成功，以及 Ventures 投资项目之间。所以我有很多兼顾的事情。就像我跟你说过的，我从未像现在这样忙碌。但这在某种程度上也反映了行业正在经历的飞速演变，以及如今技术创新的发生速度。你必须走得更快，无论你行动多快，甚至都跟不上它的变化。
英文原文
>> Um I I divide my time uh between uh finding new new companies to acquire uh the working with the integration team and making sure that the acquisitions are successful uh and then the ventures program. And so I'm I'm split uh a lot. I as I said to you, I've never been busier than I am now. But I think that's sort of a hallmark of how just the rapid evolution in the industry and how how quickly technology innovation is happening these days. You just have to move faster and and however fast you move, it's not even fast enough.在风投业务涵盖的所有这些领域中，你现在最兴奋的是什么？
英文原文
>> Um what uh in all these areas on on the venture side, what are you most excited about right now?就像我提到的，我认为机器人公司非常吸引人。我个人非常喜欢这个方向。我们在人形机器人公司 Figure AI 进行了投资，我们投资了 Physical Intelligence、Dina Robotics、Skild 等多家公司。我们还投资了从事无人机配送的 Zipline 等。所以我们正在涉足不单是软件的新领域，但很显然它们对整个行业将至关重要，我很享受这部分工作。此外，我们在全球各地都有投资，比如我们在日本看到了一些非常有趣的公司，我们在那里投资了一家名为 Mujin 的机器人公司，它在日本市场的物流领域规模非常大。我们在欧洲、以色列、亚洲其他地区以及澳大利亚等都有投资。见证技术的全球化对我来说是一个非常有趣的视角。
英文原文
>> Um well as I you know I think the robotics companies are are just fascinating to see like I I absolutely love that I have we have an investment in figure AI and humanoids. We've got investments in physical intelligence um uh Dina Robotics Skilled and uh and a variety of other companies. We have Zipline which does drone delivery for example. So we're we're venturing off. We love many of those companies. Yeah. and we're so we're doing um um things in new areas that aren't just about software um but it's very clear they're going to be really important to the industry and and so I'm I'm enjoying that. I would say I also um we have investments around the world and so we're seeing some really interesting companies in um Japan for example um we invested in a robotics company there called Mugen which is like really really big in logistics and um in the in the Japanese market and uh we have investments in um many in Europe in Israel um and uh and in other parts of Asia and Australia for example and so I I think seeing the the globalization of technology has been a real uh interesting vantage point for me关于机器人领域，我同意，我们确实开始看到机器人领域出现缩放定律（scaling laws）的早期迹象，这非常令人振奋。许多这类公司在市场开拓策略上更加垂直化，我们开始看到收入规模化增长，这真的很令人激动。当你思考你的投资范围时，你有多频繁会审视某些公司并思考“嘿，它们未来某天可能会与 Salesforce 竞争”？你会投资一家可能处于这种竞争位置的公司吗？
英文原文
>> for uh the robotic side. I I agree it is really we're we're starting to see you know the early signs of scaling laws within robotics which is really exciting and then uh a bunch of these companies have gone a bit more vertical on their go to market and so we're starting to see revenue start to scale up which is which is really exciting as you uh think about your investment aperture uh how often are you looking at companies and thinking hey potentially one day they could compete compete with Salesforce and would you invest in a company that that might take that position?我认为我们可能确实应该这么做，紧跟技术发展的方向是有好处的，或许那家公司未来某天会成为收购目标。提供一些数据：我们投资了 750 多家公司，完成了 29 笔收购。所以这依然是一个相对较小的被收购公司数量。但我认为如果我们看到真正令人兴奋的东西，也许它未来会成为收购目标，也许不会，也许它只是一个极好的合作伙伴，我们都希望能与那家公司保持紧密联系。
英文原文
>> I think actually we probably should like it's it's good to stay close to where uh the technology is going and maybe that company may turn into an acquisition target someday. So, you know, one of the things just to give you some numbers, we we've invested in more than 750 companies. We've acquired 29. So, it's still it's a relatively small number of companies, but I think if we ever see something really exciting that, you know, maybe it's an acquisition target in the future, maybe not. Maybe it's just a great partner, you know, we want to stay close to that company.这 750 家公司中有很大一部分分布在你不会称之为核心战略领域的方向。比如现在的机器人技术，在我看来并不属于 Salesforce 路线图上的下一个产品环节。
英文原文
>> Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned a good portion of those 750 are in areas that you wouldn't say are core strategic areas. like robotics today doesn't strike me as, you know, the next thing in line in the Salesforce roadmap. Um,但我们希望能与他们合作。
英文原文
>> but we want to be partnering with them,但你们希望能与他们建立伙伴关系。他们如何看待与 Salesforce Ventures 合作的价值主张？
英文原文
>> but you want to be partnering with them. How did how do they think about the value proposition of partnering with Salesforce ventures?我认为最大的增值可能在于我们如何帮助他们触达客户。我们拥有最广泛的有购买技术意向的企业级客户群体，因此我们帮助投资组合中的公司接触到这些客户。同时我们从运营角度提供大量实质性建议，涉及在特定领域开展业务的具体经验。经历过如此多的商业案例，我们确实能够帮助这些创业者发展他们的业务。
英文原文
>> I think the the biggest value ad is probably how we can help them access customers and you know we have we have the broadest set of enterprise customers that are interested in buying technology and so we help our portfolio companies get in front of these customers. Uh I think we also provide a lot of meaningful advice uh from an operational lens around what is it like to build a business in this particular area. um and uh having you know been been through so many uh stories we can really help these entrepreneurs uh grow their businesses.CRM 竞争与市场估值清算
如果你今天创办一家公司并打算正面进攻 Salesforce，你认为有哪些可行的切入点？
英文原文
>> If you were going to start a company today and it was going to attack Salesforce headon, what are the openings that you see fit?我想说的是，我不明白为什么现在还会不断有新的 CRM 公司涌现，这真的很有意思……
英文原文
>> What I what I would say is I don't know why there continue to be new CRM companies at this point like it just it is interesting like how为什么你会有这种感觉？现在有很多 AI 原生的 CRM，比如 Lightfield、Monaco。很好奇你的看法。
英文原文
>> and and why do you feel that way? There are a bunch of AI native CRM. There's Lightfield, Monaco. Curious your take.我只是觉得这非常困难。首先，市场上普遍已经有太多优秀的 CRM 技术，而我们也在不断改进自身的产品。在当下这个领域去构建某种特别专业化和小众的产品是极其困难的。因此，我目前还没有看到有任何足够新颖的东西能够在这个领域成长为一家价值数十亿美元的大型公司。
英文原文
>> I just think it's very hard to first of all, there's so much great CRM technology in general. Um, and we are continually improving our products. It's just very hard to build something that's particular particularly specialized and niche in that area right now. And so I'm not I I uh I have yet to see something that's so novel that it's going to turn into a large multi-billion dollar company in that space.我的看法是，相比你们传统的市场定位，更下沉的下层市场或许存在机会。我知道你们也涉足中小企业（SMB）市场，但在快速上手、自下而上推广方面……
英文原文
>> Yeah. I mean uh my perspective would be maybe there's an opportunity down market from where you're tradition I know that you guys play in SMB too but uh in terms of getting up and running quickly bottom也许是非常底层的下沉市场，是的。但那仍然是一个很小的市场。我们风投运作的方式是只投资大型机会，我认为大多数风险投资人也是这样看待的。因此，仅仅为了投资那些与现有成熟企业做法稍有不同的小众机会，我实在无法理解。
英文原文
>> maybe more very down market. Yes. Um there could be you know it's still but it's still a small a small area and like v you know venture and the way we approach it is we only invest in big opportunities and I think most VCs look at that and so just to invest in small niche opportunities that might be a little different than what the incumbents are doing I just don't get it.明白了。一个平行的故事可能是 Stripe 最初从小型公司切入，随着时间推移与其中很多公司一同成长起来，我想这些初创公司可能有类似的抱负。
英文原文
>> Fair enough. I uh I the parallel story might be you know Stripe started with you know small companies and was able to grow with a lot of them over time and I imagine that these startups might have similar aspirations.我只是觉得这类公司太多了，数量过多，流入它们的资金也太多了。我认为风险投资界应该聚焦于那些真正未被开拓过的全新重要领域。
英文原文
>> I I just think there too many of them there too many of them. There's too much funding going into them and uh and I think the VC community should focus on like really new important areas that haven't been done before.当你审视整个风投界时，我们正处于一个独特的融资历史时刻。我很想知道你对此怎么看，你如何理解如今的估值现象？
英文原文
>> And um as you think about the VC community at large, uh we're uh in a unique funding moment in time. I'm curious like what you make of it, how how you're making sense of uh valuations these days.我认为存在很多不负责任的现象。估值当然过高了，但更关键的是买家群体极其有限。在思考投资时，你需要考虑退出机会是什么，并非每家公司都能上市，事实上极少有公司能上市，比例可能在 1% 甚至更低。因此退出机会至关重要，你必须思考谁可能买下它。一旦估值超过 100 亿美元，潜在买家的范围就变得非常小。然而你看到市场上涌现出如此多百亿级估值的庞然大物，清算终将来临。我不知道会在何时发生，但这是不可避免的，因为很多公司的估值是不可持续的，它们无法实现匹配这种估值的增长，而且我认为这对它们的员工也是不利的。这就是为什么我认为这是不负责任的。遗憾的是，当你试图与创业者沟通这一点时，他们往往只想要尽可能高的估值，但这通常不是最佳决定。
英文原文
>> I think there's a lot of irresponsibility going on. I I think that um there is uh there's the valuations are of course way too high, but um but also just the the buyer universe is so small. the you know how when you think about investing you want to think about what are my exit opportunities and not every company is going to go public in fact very very few companies go public probably 1% or less and so it is um so the exit opportunity is critical you want to think about who could be buying it and once you get above $10 billion for example the buyer universe is so small and yet how you're seeing so many of these these enormous multi-billion dollar valued companies out there and there simply is going to be there will be a reckoning that happens. I don't know when, but it is um it it is inevitable because there a lot of these companies have valuations that are not sustainable that they won't live in they won't be able to grow into and are also I think going to be bad for their employees. And so this is this is why I say it's a it's irresponsible and uh and unfortunately uh you know you try to have this dialogue with entrepreneurs and they they have you know they just want the highest valuation that they can possibly get but that is not the best decision usually.你认为这很大程度上是因为幂次法则思维吗？比如 Anthropic 未来的退出估值很可能会超过 1 万亿美元，SpaceX 显然也达到了 2 万亿美元。这些公司在相对较短的时间内就达到了那样的估值规模，Anthropic 和 OpenAI 都是如此……
英文原文
>> And do do you think uh so much of it is a result of just like power law thinking like you know anthropic is likely to go out at a valuation north of a trillion. Let's just say obviously SpaceX at 2 trillion. Those companies grew to those valuations in you know certainly in Anthropic and then OpenAI's case in a relatively short period of time没错，但那些是时代级（generational）的公司，它们极其罕见。当你发现这样一家公司时，它们确实非同寻常，这也是我们参与了 Anthropic 六轮融资的原因，因为从我们与 Dario 和 Daniela 的第一次会面起就很明确：他们是非凡的人物，是我们见过的最聪明的人才之一，他们注定会打造出伟大的产品。从这个视角来看，持续投资是合理的。但这样的公司极其罕见。而在许多创业者及其构想中，我看到了大量平庸之作，它们根本不可能成为那种时代级的公司，本不应该获得百亿美元以上的估值，但他们依然拿到了。因此我认为在眼下需要更多的投资纪律。
英文原文
>> right and those are generational companies and they're very very rare and when you when you find one of those they're amazing and that's why we invested in six rounds of Anthropic um because it was clear it was clear from the first meeting we had with Dario and Daniela that these were special people. They were some of the most brilliant minds we'd ever met and they were going to build something great. And so from that vantage point, it made sense to keep investing. But those companies are rare. And I see a lot of sort of mediocrity in in um in entrepreneur entrepreneurs and their ideas that are not going to become those generational companies. Uh and they shouldn't be commanding the 10 billion plus valuations, but yet they get them. And so that's where I I feel like um a little bit more discipline is warranted right now.我同意在生态系统的某些特定环节确实存在这种现象。我想我的乐观部分来自于如今的前 1% 结果与十年前相比已大为不同。即便是并购层面，你之前提到了 Wiz，还有 Cursor 等。确实出现了一些推动整个生态系统回报的大型退出事件。
英文原文
>> I I a I agree that in certain pockets of the ecosystem uh that exists. Um I think part of my optimism comes from like what a top 1% outcome was 10 years from now. Uh 10 years ago is very different from what a top 1% outcome is today. Even on the M&A side, you mentioned whiz earlier, cursor. Um, so there have been these these larger outcomes that drive the returns for the ecosystem at large.毫无疑问。我也是个乐观主义者，如果我不是乐观主义者，我就无法胜任这份工作。但要知道，我每年看到成千上万家无法走下去的公司，因为它们都找上门来试图被收购。我们看到了行业中媒体不会报道的那一面，媒体不喜欢报道那些失败的故事。所以当创业者考虑融资、合理的估值以及发展这项业务的合适方式时，他们必须把所有这些因素都考虑在内。
英文原文
>> Definitely. And I, you know, and I'm an optimist. I could not do my job if I wasn't an optimist. But just know that I see the thousands of companies every year that don't make it because they all come to us to try to be acquired. And so we we see we see that um part of the industry that, you know, you don't read about in the press. The press doesn't like to cover those stories. And uh and so it's just an important fact when when when an entrepreneur is thinking about raising money, what's the right valuation, what's the appropriate way to build this business. Uh you know, they have to think about all of that.并购尽职调查的致命红线
你参与过企业级软件领域一些规模最大的交易。有时这些交易会陷入困境最终告吹。究竟是什么导致了交易的破裂？
英文原文
>> You've been involved in some of the largest enterprise software transactions. Um sometimes those deals go south and don't happen. What kills deals?当你进入尽职调查流程时，首先非常重要的一点是你要做好准备并且有条理，使数据流动顺畅，不要显得在调取数据上遇到困难。我们发现很多时候公司对自身的财务缺乏严格的把控，或者缺少客户合同方面的数据，他们没有真正理解客户流失率究竟意味着什么。我认为如今许多创始人所犯的一个错误是仅仅关注单一指标，那就是 ARR（年度经常性收入）。ARR 是一个很棒的指标，但它掩盖了客户流失。你必须深入思考并理解客户流失率，并采取相应行动。因为当你遇到一家流失率极高的公司时，通常意味着不仅有很多不满意的客户，而且很可能存在产品质量问题。这是我们排查的主要危险信号之一。另一个领域是数据隐私的处理方式，以及安全防护的处理。在所有尽调流程中，我们有 14 个职能部门参与协作，而安全是唯一一个可以举起红牌并说“我要叫停这笔交易”的职能部门。如果你构建的技术栈容易遭到黑客攻击，那对我们来说将是一个极其严重的问题。因此在进入尽调之前，你需要做好准备，对自己的技术栈进行红队演练并检验成效，因为我们会进行自己的渗透测试来发现问题，你必须在我们在发现漏洞之前自己先排查出来。当一家公司准备充分、所有数据随时可取、技术安全有保障时，尽调流程就会非常迅速、轻松且无痛地推进；而一旦做不到这些，往往就是交易流产的时刻。
英文原文
>> I think uh when when you go through the diligence process, first of all, it's really important that you're ready and you're organized so that the data is flowing and it doesn't look like you're having trouble getting access to data. I think one of the things that we found is um a lot of times customer uh companies don't um have strong controls over their financials or they don't have data on their customer contracts. They don't really understand what customer attrition really is. And I think one of the one of the mistakes that a lot of um founders are making these days is they focus on one metric alone which is ARR. And AR is a wonderful metric, but it masks um attrition. And you really it's really important that you think about what um what is the and that you understand the attrition of your customers and you do something about it. Um because that is when you have a when you meet with a company that has very high attrition, that usually means that there are a lot of not just unhappy customers, but there might be some product quality issues as well. And so it is um one of the big red flags that we look for. I think another area is how are you handling um your data privacy? Um how are you handling your security? So security is the one function uh in all you know we have 14 functions that we work with on all of our diligence processes and security is the one function that can hold hold up the red flag and say I'm killing this deal. And so if you have built your technology stack where it's easily um open to hacking uh that's going to be a real problem for us. And so what you also want to do and be prepared for is you know try you know red teaming your um your your technology stack and see what happens before you go into diligence because we're going to do our own penetration testing and find the problems and you definitely want to identify the vulnerab vulnerabilities before we do. Um but so you know nothing nothing goes better in a process when a company is totally buttoned up and when they have all their data accessible when their tech is secure um then the diligence process moves really really rapidly and we can get through it quickly and and painlessly but when they don't that's when you know deals can die.是否有在最后一刻交易告吹的案例？当然你不能提名字，但对你或创始人来说或许是一段刻骨铭心的经历。
英文原文
>> Is there a an example at the 11th hour of a deal not going through and can't of course you can't name names but like maybe a painstaking anecdote for you or for the founder.我认为通常不会发生在最后一刻，而是发生在协议条款清单（term sheet）达成一致、价格和主要交易条款都谈判完毕之后，进入深度尽调流程的阶段。我们确实发现过严重问题，举个例子，我们在进行渗透测试时，不仅能够访问他们的所有源代码，甚至能够侵入 CEO 的笔记本电脑，获取有关他们员工的信息。
英文原文
>> I think that it usually doesn't happen at the 11th hour, but it'll happen, you know, after after the term sheet is agreed and you've negotiated, you've negotiated price and and and ma the major terms of a deal, but then you get into the deep diligence process. you know, we we have um we have found problems where I'll one example was we were uh our p when we did the pen test uh we were able to not just access um all their source code but even get into the CEO's laptop and get information about their employees and so it was all当你把这些结果反馈给他们时……
英文原文
>> when you shared that back我们当然会反馈发现的结果，并试图帮助他们解决问题。但情况太糟糕了，是我们见过的最恶劣的情况之一，完全无法挽回。顺便说一下，我们也遇到过其他可以挽回的安全问题，你可以梳理出什么是 P0 级问题、P1 级、P2 级，并将解决某些问题作为交割条件，或者甚至作为签约条件——在这些问题修复之前我们不会签约，在其他问题解决之前我们不会完成交割。这完全取决于严重程度，但在经历这类流程时，你必须把内部梳理得井井有条。
英文原文
>> and we shared it back of course we always share back what we find and try to help them fix the problems But it was so bad, like some of the worst that we'd ever seen that it was unreoverable. We've had other, by the way, security incidents that are recoverable and you can identify sort of what are the P 0 problems, P1's, P2s, and have as a condition to close or maybe it's a condition of signing even that we won't sign until these are fixed. We won't close until these other others are fixed. And so, um, it all depends on how bad it is, but you've got to have your house in order when you go through one of these processes.家庭渊源与个人成长
这很合情理。网上有一张令人惊叹的照片，是你和你母亲在 2023 年代表你父亲代领费米奖（Fermi Award）。你的父亲是一位非凡的人物。他在大屠杀中幸存下来，逃离欧洲来到这里，在伯克利展开了辉煌的科研生涯。很想用你与父亲一起成长的经历来作为结尾，谈谈他对你职业生涯的看法，以及他是如何塑造你的。
英文原文
>> Makes sense. There's, uh, an amazing photo of you and your mother online, uh, representing your father in 2023, uh, for his, uh, Farmy Award. Um, your father was an extraordinary figure. He uh you know survived the Holocaust, fled Europe, uh you know came came here and uh had a incredible scientific career at Berkeley. Um would love to just close with uh your experience growing up with your father, what he thought of your career. Um you know h how he shaped you.明确地说，我父亲其实希望我成为一名化学家。他开创了……
英文原文
>> Um well my father wanted me to be a chemist to be clear. So he you know he founded你做的事情其实很接近了。他开创了一个化学领域。
英文原文
>> you came pretty close. He founded a field of chemistry.你可以说是并购在我们所做的事情中包含了很多“化学反应”。他开创了一个名为表面化学的化学领域，同时在催化领域投入了大量时间，获得过许多奖项。当他获得国家科学奖章时，我们全家受邀前往白宫。与这样一位长辈一起成长、接触他的同行，是极其不可思议的经历。世界上许多最杰出的大脑都曾来我们家共进晚餐，我母亲非常喜欢举办那些精彩的晚宴。这就是我们成长过程中的生活。在那种环境下，你被充分鼓励去保持好奇心并思考未来。那确实构成了我成长方式的一部分，塑造了今天的我。
英文原文
>> Well, you could you could argue M&A is a lot of chemistry in what we do. But um uh but yes, he founded a field of chemistry called surface chemistry and uh and also uh spent a lot of time in catalysis. Uh won many awards. We got to go to the White House when he won the National Medal of Science. It was very uh it's it was incredible to grow up with a man like that uh and and and meet with his colleagues too. And we had some of the most incredible uh minds in the world come to our house for dinner. My mother uh loved to host these incredible dinner parties. And so that was what life was like growing up. And it was um one where you were really um uh encouraged to be curious uh and also think about the future. And so that was um that was really part of of the way I grew up and I think it's really shaped who I am today.听起来这与你现在的工作有很多共通之处。或许那些晚宴以及与化学家相处的经历，与如今和 AI 研究人员交流有相通之处。
英文原文
>> Yeah, that I mean that does seem to have a lot of parallels to what you do and uh you know maybe those dinner parties and hanging out with the chemists had some similarity to hanging out with the AI researchers of today.绝对如此。而且我父亲非常热衷于随时传授知识，他会在餐桌上讲课，在乘车途中讲课，在开车送我上学的路上讲课，所以你时刻都沉浸在信息和知识的海洋中。他是一位非凡的人。
英文原文
>> That definitely and and I also you know had a father who loved to teach all the time and he would teach at the dinner table, he would teach in the car rides, he would teach when he was driving me to school and so it was uh you were just flooded with with information and knowledge all the time. So, it was he's he was a remarkable man.太精彩了。非常感谢你今天花时间与我们交流，聊得很开心。
英文原文
>> Amazing. Well, thank you so much for uh spending the time with us today. This was really fun.好的，谢谢你，Alex。