人生應該像石灰，越潑冷水越沸騰

作為一名風險投資人，Ben Horowitz在潑冷水的同時，也提醒畢業生要學會獨立思考。

今天我們為大家推薦的是矽谷投資人Ben Horowitz在哥倫比亞大學做的演講。推薦的原因是這個視頻有別於眾多明星大佬在畢業季的演講——Ben Horowitz就像是給畢業生和聽眾潑了一盆冷水一般，告訴大家「Don』t follow your passion.」

作為一名風險投資人，Ben Horowitz在潑冷水的同時，也提醒畢業生要學會獨立思考。

So first of all, thank you, Class of 2015, for inviting me to speak. It』s such a great honor and when I got the invitation I started thinking back to when I was in Columbia and I remember getting to Columbia and I was immediately stressed out, because I realized that I now had to figure out, at some point, what I was going to do with my life. That was super scary. Some of you might be going through that now a little bit, (but not to bring that up or anything.)

首先感謝你們的邀請。獲邀請那刻，我覺得這是如此偉大的一個榮耀，但很快就覺得壓力巨大，因為我馬上意識到：這場演講，某種程度，實際上將指出我人生經歷的一些關鍵「節點」。這種感覺真是超級嚇人。

I remember when I got the first clue of what I might do, I was taking a class over in the Mudd Building, which somebody was telling me today is a great building if you like prisons and Catholic school. I was in this class and they were talking about this guy, Alan Turing and they were talking about how he had proven that if you built a machine, that he called a Turing Machine, it was theoretically impossible to build a machine that was computationally more powerful. It just melted my mind when I heard it, because I couldn』t even imagine what he was talking about, because it was 1984 and you have to remember 1984 computers weren』t even really a thing.

我在哥大獲得我這一生可能幹點什麼的第一個「線索」。當時，我在一個課堂，聽到他們討論一個人，這個人叫阿蘭.圖靈。那時我第一次聽到「一台能幹任何事的機器」，這是在 1984 年，而 1984 年時計算機甚至都不能稱作是一個東西。

So the idea of a machine that could do anything was just so farfetched, because all of our machines were just special-purpose machines, like for doing math. Your parents will remember it』s called a calculator. And then we had one machine for word processing called a typewriter and we even had one for video called a television set. And so the idea of, okay, now you』re gonna have the machine that can do absolutely anything and this guy had figured that out 40 years previously — I didn』t even know it was possible. I had no idea, it was like this secret to the universe in which they were saying, 「Oh, here, there is a machine that』s limitless and you can do anything on it.」 And I was just thought: 「No way.」 Translate, español, no way Jose. For the parents, that』s a Kanye West reference.

That point in my life was like, for those of you who are Phineas and Ferb fans, it was like that time when Phineas goes, 「I know what I』m gonna do today. 」 I』m gonna major in computer science. And so I ran over to (Carmen) and I was just so excited to tell my friends. I was, like, man, they』re gonna be just like so fired up for me, I figured it out. I』m not gonna be stressed anymore: 「Guys, I』m gonna major in computer science.」 And one of my friends said, 「Wow, that』s the stupidest thing I』ve ever heard.」 And said: 「Why?」 He said, 「Look, you』re at Columbia University. That』s like a trade. You could learn that at DeVry. They』ll teach you how to build computers, fix them, program them. Here you should major in something real.」 And I was just thinking to myself: 「I』m talking about a limitless machine. You』re talking about a washing machine.」 I was completely frustrated, I couldn』t really explain to him why, but it was at that point, at my height of frustration that I learned the most valuable lesson that I learned at Columbia, which is: Don』t listen to your friends. Think for yourself.

然後，我知道自己要做什麼了：選擇「計算機科學」作為專業。當時，我高興地把想法告訴朋友們，但他們全認為我蠢。這讓我非常沮喪，而後來我遇到的這個挫折，它形成的高度，事實上成為我在哥大學到的最有價值的一課。我明白了一點，那就是：不要聽朋友的，而是要聽自己的。

Thinking for yourself sounds both simple and trivial, but in reality it』s extremely difficult and it』s profound and here is why. As human beings, we want to be liked. It』s anthropological. If people didn』t like you in caveman days, they would just eat you. So you really have a natural built in instinct to want to be liked and the easiest way to be liked is to tell people what they want to hear.

我想獨立思考這件事之所以這麼難，原因在於：作為人類，我們都希望被人喜歡。這幾乎是種可以叫做「人類學」的東西：在野人時期，如果別人不喜歡你，他們就能把你吃掉，所以，你幾乎是在「本能性」地希望別人喜歡你。

And you know what everybody wants to hear? What they already believe to be true. And so the last thing they want to hear is an original idea that contradicts their belief system. So it』s very hard to even bring that kind of stuff up. But those are the things; those are the only things — things that YOU believe, that everybody around you doesn』t believe — that when you』re right that create real value in the world. Everything else people already know. There is no value created. It』s just business as usual. So it』s so important to think for yourself.

而要讓別人喜歡，最簡單方法就是：說別人想聽的話。那麼，你知道每個人都想聽什麼嗎？

我來告訴你，每個人想聽的是：他們已相信是「真實/正確」的東西，所以他們最不想聽到的，也就是與他們認知系統相違背的獨到觀點，先不說僅僅是提供這種獨到想法，本身就極其困難。

所有任何其他人已相信的東西，這其中，實際上都沒有任何價值可以被創造。商業世界中一切都是如此，這也是為什麼我說一個人獨立思考是如此重要的原因。

I see this in my business every day. My business is that I fund people who have companies. Some of you probably have company ideas and you might come to me and say, 「I』ve got an idea.」 The biggest thing that I』ll look for when you come to with an idea is, have you thought for yourself? Is it something that you know that nobody else knows? Or is it something that everybody knows?

我幾乎每天都能在生意場上看到這種情況。

我的工作是投資，很多人會跑到我身邊，和我說：「我有個想法。」這時，通常我最想知道的是：你有從自己角度想過這件事嗎？這是個只有你知道、別人都不知道的獨特性想法嗎？還是人人都知道的東西？

Let me give you an example. Let』s say you come to me and say, 「Hey, I』ve got an idea to make batteries and cell phones last longer.」 I would react, 「Well, that』s a pretty good idea, but I』m not gonna fund it, because everybody thinks that』s a good idea.」 And because everybody think that』s a good idea, companies like Google and Apple and Samsung with tons of resources will just build that. So it』s not really a new value creation for a new person.

讓我來舉個例子。假如你找到我：「嘿，我有辦法延長電池和手機使用時間。」我會回答：「嗯，這是個好想法，但我是不會投資的，因為每個人都覺得它是個好想法。」

而正因為每個人都認為這是好想法，所以谷歌、蘋果和三星，這種擁有成噸資源的公司，就會在這個領域實現，所以這不算是在為新的人創造的新的價值。

Contrast that with an idea that came to me about five years ago. A young man by the name of Brian Chesky came up to me and had this idea that he was going to have an air mattress in his apartment that he rented to people. It would be an air bed and breakfast and I immediately thought: wow, that』s a horrible, horrible idea. Who would want to rent an air mattress out to somebody』s apartment like probably a serial killer?

而我大約是在五年前，才突然意識到這裡的這種對比性的。

五年前，一個叫 Brian Chesky 的年輕人找到我，說他有個在自己公寓把「空氣床墊」出租給別人的想法。我當時想：哎呦，真是糟糕透頂，誰會像「連環殺手」一樣想在別人公寓租空氣床墊啊？

But Brian had a secret and his secret: and that was he had run the experiment. He had actually tried his idea and a whole lot of people wanted to rent that air mattress and they weren』t serial killers. Beyond that, he went and he studied the history of hotel chains and he found out hotel chains were a relatively new concept. That before hotel chains, people stayed at inns and bed and breakfasts. And that the problem with inns and bed and breakfast were, they were like a box of chocolates. You had no idea what you were going to get — one day you might have something good and the other day you might have marzipan cherry or some weird stuff.

但 Brian 有個秘密，這個秘密是：他已做過實驗，有非常多人想租那個空氣床墊，而且這些人不是什麼「連環殺手」。同時超越這些實驗之上，Brain 還學習了連鎖酒店發展史，他發現：已成功的連鎖酒店，有一些與他想法相關性的新概念。

連鎖酒店出現前，人們呆在 Inn（美國一種小旅館）和 Bed andbreadfast（美國為客人提供早餐的一種過夜住宿，由私人房或家庭房提供給商業用途，房間一般不超過10個），而這兩者，都有一個問題，即：都像一盒朱古力。

這個意思是說：你永遠不知盒子里的朱古力是什麼，某一天，你可能得到很好的東西，但另一天，你可能會有杏仁蛋白櫻桃或什麼奇怪東西。

So, he though, with the internet, we can make every one of those little chocolates in the box transparent and you can know what you』re getting. And then you』d get all the greatness of the bed and breakfast and all the goodness of the hotel chain all in one. And he had figured out that secret and it was an interesting secret, because it wasn』t something everybody knew. Or it was something that probably everybody in the world knew at one point, but they had all forgotten. Everybody had forgot why we had hotels. And today? I think they rent more nights every night in New York than Hilton Hotel. Just five years ago and it was all based on him believing something that nobody else believed.

所以Brian就想：如果利用互聯網，就可以把朱古力放在一個「透明」盒子，然後就能知道你會得到什麼。而接下來，就可以將 Bed andBreakfast 和連鎖酒店優勢，都集中一起。

他解決了這個秘密，而這個秘密如此有趣，因為它不是誰都知道，或者說它是世界上每個人都知道，但卻都把它忘了的東西，我們都忘了：我們為什麼要有一個旅店。

而現在呢？這個年輕人造出Airbnb，人們已開始更多地想住在紐約人的家，而不是希爾頓大酒店，但五年前，這還僅僅是個只建立在Brain 個人信念上的東西，別人都不信。

So in that spirit, what I』d like to give is a few unconventional graduation thoughts and I』m titling them, 「Do Not Follow Your Passion and the World is Not Going to Hell in a Handbasket and the Class of 2015 is Not Required to Save it.」 I told you it wasn』t going to be conventional. Don』t follow your passion.

Airbnb 是有關獨立思考的一個例子，現在來講一講個人激情。談到精神理念，我想在大家畢業典禮上，給出一些非傳統性思想，我將其稱之為：「不要盲從你的激情，世界沒有陷入地獄，也沒什麼人要求你們這些 2015 畢業生去拯救世界。」

我告訴你們的這個東西可能不會成為常規，但是真的，不要去盲從激情。

Now, you』re probably thinking, 「That』s a really dumb idea.」 Because if you poll 1,000 people who are successful they』ll all say that they love what they do. And so the broad conclusion of the world is that if you do what you love, then you』ll be successful. But we』re engineers and we know that that might be true. But it also might be the case that if you』re successful, you love what you do. You just love being successful and everybody loves you. It』s awesome.

你可能認為我蠢，因為如果給1000個成功人士做民意測驗，幾乎所有人都會說：喜歡自己做的事。這樣一來，這個結論就成了：如果你做自己喜歡的事，你就會成功。但這個結論也可能是這樣的：如果你很成功，你就會喜歡自己做的事，你只是喜歡成功本身，然後每個人都喜歡你。

So which one is it?

所以，這裡到底哪個結論是正確的呢？

Well, I think to figure it out, you have to go back in time. You have to back off when you were successful to right now when you』re graduating as the Class of 2015. And the first tricky thing about passions are they』re hard to prioritize. Which passion is it? Are you more passionate about math or engineering? Are you more passionate about history or literature? Are you more passionate about video games or K-pop? These are tough decisions. How do you even know? On the other hand, what are you good at? Are you better at math or writing? That』s a much easier thing to figure out.

我覺得要弄清這點，你們必須回到過去，必須在成功時回到現在你們作為2015 屆畢業生畢業站在這裡的這個時間。

我覺得有關激情的第一個真正棘手地方在於：我們其實很難把它們進行優先排序。到底最關鍵的是哪種熱情呢？你是對數學還是工程學更有熱情？是對歷史還是文學更有熱情？是對電子遊戲還是K-pop 更有熱情？

這些都非常難選擇。你怎麼知道呢？而另一方面，你擅長什麼？你更擅長數學，還是寫作？這或許更容易弄清。

The second thing that』s tricky if you』re going forward in time with this follow your passion idea is that what you』re passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you』re gonna be passionate about at 40. Now, this is true for boyfriends as well as career choices.

第二件棘手事是：如果遵從激情並向前邁進，你會發現：你在21歲時很有熱情乾的事，也許不是你40歲時還有熱情乾的。這個道理，男朋友和職業選擇都適用。

The third issue with following your passion is you』re not necessarily good at your passion. Has anybody ever watched American Idol? You know what I』m talking about. Just because you love singing doesn』t mean you should be a professional singer.

而第三個棘手事：你有熱情乾的事，可能不是你擅長的。有人看過「美國偶像」嗎？你們知道我在說啥，你熱愛唱歌，但這不意味你能成為一個職業歌手。

Finally and most importantly, following your passion is a very 「me」-centered view of the world. When you go through life, what you』ll find is what you take out of the world over time — be it money, cars, stuff, accolades — is much less important than what you』ve put into the world. So my recommendation would be follow your contribution. Find the thing that you』re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better and that is the thing to follow.

關於激情，最後也是最重要一點：遵從激情，其實也是件非常「以自我為中心」的世界觀。而當你經歷一生，你會發現：歷經時間，你從世間得到的所有東西，無論錢、車子、物質或是讚美，都遠遠沒有你饋贈給這個世界的東西重要。

所以有關個人「激情」，我的建議是：找到你所擅長的東西，然後將其贈與世界，饋贈他人，幫世界變得更好，這才是你應該遵從的激情。

Now, speaking of the world, this is generally the point in a graduation speech where I should say, 「The Class of 2015 faces unprecedented challenges. There is ISIS. There is global warming. It sucks.」 Don』t get me started on congressional gridlock. And I think all those are true, but what』s remarkable from a historical standpoint about this time in the world, to me, are not the unprecedented challenges; it』s the unprecedented opportunities.

既然說到世界，現在我來說一說我通常在畢業演講會說到的點。現在到處都是這樣的說法：「2015畢業生將面臨史無前例的挑戰：ISIS、全球變暖。這些讓人噁心的東西！」所有這些挑戰的確存在，但對於我，從歷史的角度看，現今世界更值得注意的，並不是史無前例的挑戰，而是史無前例的機遇。

Let me talk quickly about the state of the world.

我來快速說說世界現狀：

The number of people living in extreme poverty today is the lowest in the history of the world and one-fifth of what it was in 1900. Child labor is in steep decline and fell one-third between 2000 and 2012. Compared to the late 19th Century, the number of hours that one has to work has fallen roughly in half. The percent of income spent on food has fallen in half since 1960. Life expectancy has increased six years between 1990 and 2012. Child mortality has fallen in half since 1990. People are getting taller, which is a measure of nutrition. People have grown more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000. Speaking of ISIS, worldwide battlefield deaths are down twentyfold since the 40s. The homicide rate in the U.S. is down half since the late 70s, violent crime is one-third of what it was in 1976. The global supply of nuclear weapons is down nearly fivefold since 1990 and in 2014 was the first year in 40 that carbon emissions were flat.

世界上極其貧困人口為歷史最低，僅為1900年時的 1/5；童工大幅減少，2000-2012年間下降 1/3；與 19世紀後期比，每人必須工作小時數大幅降至一半；從1960年起，食物支出占收入的比例下降至一半；1990-2012 年，平均壽命上漲6年；從1990年起兒童死亡率降至一半；人們變得更高，身高是一種度量營養方式（說明營養攝入更充分）。過去100年，人類成長比之前2000年都多；說到 ISIS，從40年代開始，世界範圍內戰爭死亡數下降20倍；從70年代後期開始，美國謀殺率降至一半，暴力犯罪是1976年的 1/3；1990年始，全球範圍內核武器供應下降5倍，2014年是40年來第一次碳排放量持平「沒有增長」的一年。

So it』s not that bad.

所以，情況還不算太壞。

But the biggest opportunity is one that we』ve only begun to measure and to explain this, I』d like to go back to when your parents and I were in college, because when we were in college, and they may have told you this, and it may have scared you, we didn』t have the internet. There was no internet. And so if we had an idea Brian Chesky had an idea, and we wanted to find out about it, we couldn』t Google it.

但有關最大機遇，卻是我們現在才開始去測量和解釋，我願把時光倒回到你們父母，和我上大學這段時間，來向你們重申這種機遇。

我們上大學時是沒互聯網的，你們父母可能告訴過你，而你已經被嚇到。是，那時沒互聯網，所以如果當時我們有個像Brian Chesky 這樣的想法，然後想查點什麼，我們甚至都沒辦法谷歌。

But we did have a search engine. It was a different kind of technology. It was called a library and it kind of sucked. There is actually an old search engine behind me; I』m looking at it there. But it kind of sucked because, one, you couldn』t access it from your dorm room, because it wasn』t even in cyberspace. It was in, well, actual space. And you had to walk over there and then, and you had to bring your credentials or they wouldn』t even let you in. There was no logged out user experience.

當時的搜索引擎是種叫「圖書館」的東西，它不能在寢室用，甚至是個物理存在，不存在於網路空間，你必須得走過去，還得帶著你的信息材料，否則他們不讓你進。而且，你都無法退出用戶界面。

And it was based on this really weird tech that was invented a long time ago called the Dewey Decimal System. And this tech was so old, Dewey was named after the guy Dewey who invented it. But to make it seem high tech, they said it』s a decimal system: 「This is so high tech, we』re using numbers, dude.」 And not just integers, the decimal system! The user interface to it was so bad, it was called a card catalog, they had to train you to use it. You couldn』t just go in and use it. You needed hours and hours of classroom training. The net result of this was that looking stuff up was very discouraging, because you couldn』t look it up in milliseconds, it took hours, and that』s if you were a Columbia student, right? Even if you had a good library like Butler, it would take you hours to look things up, so it was very discouraging.

與此同時，查找東西的過程還讓人非常不爽，因為你無法在幾秒內就能查到，通常你得化花幾小時。對吧？即使你有個像Butler 一樣的好圖書館，你還是得花幾小時來查。

Maybe if Brian Chesky was born then he would just have said, 「Forget this, I』m going to Taco Bell. I』m not figuring out where hotels came from.」 But think about it, that』s for a Columbia student. Even worse for like a student who didn』t go to Columbia and didn』t have access to as good a library and, you might not even have that book in the library.

Brian Chesky 如果在那時也許會說：「算了，我不想再搞清連鎖旅店是怎麼來的了。」但想一想：這還是一個哥大學生情況。事實上，對一個沒去過哥倫比亞大學，也沒好圖書館的學生，情況可能更糟，可能圖書館里壓根都沒那本書。

Or even more so, imagine if you grew up in Bangladesh or Sudan and you had all kinds of great ideas, you had no access, no search engine at all, no way to contribute your original ideas to the world.

甚至更糟的情況，想象一下：如果你是在孟加拉或蘇丹長大，你有很多很多好想法，但你根本就沒途徑或搜索引擎，你根本無法將自己獨特觀點貢獻給這個世界。

But then we fast forward to where we are now and everybody who has a smart phone, which is pretty soon going to be everybody in the world has the Library of Congress in their pocket. That means a girl growing up in Bangladesh now has a better library than a student at Columbia or Harvard had 20 years ago.

然後……我們很快地被推進到了：每個人都有一個智能手機，而且很快，手機會變成世上每個人口袋裡的美國國會圖書館。這就意味：現在在孟加拉長大的女孩，她擁有的圖書館，比二十年前哥倫比亞或哈佛大學學生所有的還要更好。

What might her idea be? What might she contribute?

那麼她可能會有什麼想法？可能會貢獻什麼呢？

Well, I think that』s going be a lot up to you, because the world still isn』t flat. There are issues. There are issues with power and issues with water and issues with food and issues with equal rights. But if you contribute, if you put your contribution into the world, if you think for yourself, then I believe that you will be the greatest generation. Because when we look back 50 years from now, 100 years from now, 500 years from now, you will be the generation that unlocked human potential.

這個答案，我覺得很一大部分將完全取決於你們，因為世界依舊不是「平」的，還有很多問題：能源問題、水資源問題、糧食問題、平等權利問題等等。而如果你對世界有所貢獻，如果你獨立思考，那麼我相信：你們會是最棒的一代，因為如果我們回首過去的50年、100年、500年，你們將是（唯一）人類潛力客觀上沒有被做任何限制的一代。

So congratulations Columbia Class of 2015 and thank you for inviting me.

感謝邀請，並祝賀所有哥倫比亞2015屆的畢業生！