拒绝平庸 保罗格雷厄姆_保罗·格雷厄姆（Paul Graham）：微软无法处理Y组合器

拒绝平庸 保罗格雷厄姆

Earlier this month we wrote about a plan put forth by former Microsoft employee and current founder of Seattle-based startup Blist Kevin Merritt for Microsoft to invest in young startup teams using a Y Combinator-style blueprint. Merritt estimated that they could take 100 companies through the program each year investing about $175,000 in each team for a total cost of no more than $25 million. That’s a far cry less than the billions they were prepared to throw at Yahoo! and has a number of potential benefits:

本月初，我们写了一个由前微软雇员和西雅图初创公司Blist Kevin Merritt的现任创始人提出的一项计划，该计划旨在使Microsoft使用Y Combinator风格的蓝图投资年轻的创业团队 。 梅里特估计，他们每年可以吸引100家公司参与该计划，每个团队的投资额约为17.5万美元，总成本不超过2500万美元。 这与他们准备向Yahoo!投掷数十亿美元相比，相差甚远。 并具有许多潜在的好处：

• Any one of the startups could become the next great web company.
  任何一家初创公司都可以成为下一个伟大的网络公司。
• Any one of the startups could create technologies that might be valuable to Microsoft’s core businesses, and Microsoft would be first in line to acquire them.
  任何一家初创公司都可以创造可能对微软的核心业务有价值的技术，而微软将率先收购它们。
• Failed startups could still yield great engineering talent for Microsoft.
  失败的创业公司仍然可以为微软带来巨大的工程人才。
• Anyone who went through the program, which would require participants to use Microsoft tools (furnished at no cost by Microsoft), would bring knowledge of Microsoft development tools to future employers.
  参加该计划的任何人都要求参与者使用Microsoft工具(由Microsoft免费提供)，它将使Microsoft开发工具的知识带给未来的雇主。

“Merritt’s plan looks great on paper and essentially costs nothing for Microsoft to try,” we wrote. “For $25 million per year — or about the cost of of 1/1800th of a Yahoo! — Microsoft could push a few hundred smart kids through this program.”

我们写道：“梅里特的计划在纸面上看起来不错，而且微软几乎不花钱去尝试。” “每年的费用为2500万美元，大约相当于Yahoo!的1/1800的费用。 微软可以通过该计划推动几百个聪明的孩子。”

But not everyone agrees. Paul Graham, who having founded Y Combinator arguably knows a thing or two about what it takes to run a startup incubator in the YC mold, doesn’t think Microsoft’s corporate culture could nurture startups properly.

但并非所有人都同意。 创立了Y Combinator的保罗·格雷厄姆(Paul Graham)可以说对在YC模式下运行初创企业孵化器所需的知识只有一两件事，他认为微软的企业文化不能适当地培养初创企业。

“It would be good for Microsoft if they were able to engage startups more. One way to do it would be by investing in them. I don’t think they could or should do it in the same format as Y Combinator, though. It’s too messy this early. If they were going to invest in startups they should do it in the next stage,” he told Xconomy Boston. “At YC’s stage, investing is a lot more involved than just supplying money, and a big company wouldn’t be good at the kind of things you have to do. Plus the failure rate is very high.”

“如果微软能够让更多的初创公司参与进来，那将对微软有利。 一种方法是对它们进行投资。 不过，我认为他们不能或不应该采用与Y Combinator相同的格式。 这太早了 如果他们打算向初创公司投资，则应该在下一阶段进行。”他告诉波士顿Xconomy 。 “在YC的阶段，投资不仅仅是投入资金，而且还涉及很多，而且大公司不会擅长于您要做的事情。 加上失败率很高。”

Xconomy’s Robert Berdi agrees. “The culture of a Y Combinator would be virtually impossible to replicate by any big company — and even if it were theoretically feasible, the people like Graham who would be needed to run such an incubator would either never sign up to do so — or if they did, they wouldn’t last long,” he wrote.

Xconomy的Robert Berdi表示同意。 “ Y Combinator的文化实际上是任何大公司都无法复制的-即使理论上可行，需要像Graham这样的孵化器的人也永远不会签约-或他们做到了，不会持续很长时间，”他写道。

But I disagree with their assessment. We can toss out Graham’s concern about the high failure rate, because we’ve already said that failures can still be beneficial to Microsoft in two ways (potential employees and workers indoctrinated with Microsoft tools). Microsoft would also be capable of investing in a much larger number of companies if they wanted to (Merritt estimated 100 — say 25 every 3 months) so even at a high failure rate, they might end up with more successes.

但是我不同意他们的评估。 我们可以放弃格雷厄姆对高失败率的担忧，因为我们已经说过，失败仍然可以通过两种方式(对潜在的员工和使用Microsoft工具灌输的工人)对Microsoft有利。 如果微软愿意的话，微软也将有能力投资更多的公司(Merritt估计有100家，例如每3个月25家)，因此即使失败率很高，他们也可能会获得更大的成功。

The real point that Berdi and Graham make is their belief that a big corporation can’t possibly create the sort of supportive environment needed to nurture seed-stage startups. I call bunk on that as well. The evidence to the contrary exists at Yahoo!, and it’s called Brickhouse.

Berdi和Graham提出的真正观点是他们相信，大公司不可能创造出培育种子阶段初创公司所需的那种支持环境。 我也称其为双层。 相反的证据存在于Yahoo!上，称为Brickhouse 。

Yahoo!’s 13,000 employees may not stack up to Microsoft’s 90,000, but they’re still a large, publicly traded corporation, so the comparison has merit. A little under two years ago Yahoo! created Brickhouse, a semi-autonomous idea incubator that operates with the backing of the company but mostly separate from it.

雅虎的13,000名员工可能与微软的90,000名员工相去甚远，但他们仍然是一家大型的上市公司，因此进行比较很有意义。 不到两年前Yahoo! 创建了Brickhouse，这是一个半自主的创意孵化器，在公司的支持下运作，但大多与其分开。

According to Business Week, Brickhouse is kept purposely separate from its parent in order to give it breathing room and allow its “VC-worthy” ideas to flourish without getting bogged down in corporate red tape.

根据《商业周刊》的报道 ，Brickhouse与其母公司故意分开，以便给它喘息的空间，并使其“具有VC价值”的想法得以发扬光大，而不会陷入公司的繁文tape节。

Brickhouse marks a dramatic break from the old ways of doing things at Yahoo. It’s designed to feel completely different from its established — and yes, older — online parent. The 14,000-square-foot offices are located in the hip South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, 40 miles away from Yahoo headquarters in strip-mall-laden Sunnyvale. The facility is bereft of Yahoo logos. Purple, the company’s signature color, is noticeably absent. — Business Week

Brickhouse标志着与Yahoo过去的做事方式截然不同。 它的设计与已建立的在线父母(完全是年长的)完全不同。 占地14,000平方英尺的办公室位于旧金山Market街区南部，距Yahoo总部位于繁华地带的Sunnyvale的公司40英里。 该设施不包括Yahoo徽标。 公司的标志色紫色明显缺失。 - 工作周

“Brickhouse was born out of the notion that Yahoo’s employees come up with ideas for new ventures, but they haven’t had an effective way to execute them,” wrote Business Week in its February 2007 profile. So far, it seems to be working. By my count, the Brickhouse team has pushed out at least 18 products over the past year and a half, most notably Pipes. Whether or not any of these products ever become major bread winners for Yahoo!, it is proof that a large company can run what is essentially a small-scale startup incubator successfully within its walls.

《商业周刊》在2007年2月的《商业周刊》上写道：“砖瓦房的诞生是因为雅虎的员工提出了关于新企业的想法，但是他们没有有效的方法来执行它们。” 到目前为止，它似乎正在工作。 据我估计，Brickhouse团队在过去一年半中推出了至少18种产品，其中最著名的是Pipes 。 无论这些产品中的任何一种是否曾经成为Yahoo!的主要面包赢家，都证明了一家大公司可以成功地在其内部成功运行本质上为小型初创企业的孵化器。

Yahoo! Brickhouse tells me that Microsoft could definitely run a seed stage investment program if they put the right people in charge. (Aside: I’m not sure what Berdi meant when he said no one would last long running such a program — it sounds like a dream job to me!)

雅虎！ 布里克豪斯(Brickhouse)告诉我，如果让合适的人负责，微软肯定可以运行一个种子期投资计划。 (此外：我不确定Berdi说没有人会持续运行这样一个程序时的意思-对我来说这听起来像是一份理想的工作！)

Actually, Microsoft is already running Brickhouse-like idea incubators on a smaller scale. We wrote about Microsoft’s Community Projects just last week.

实际上，微软已经在以较小的规模运行类似Brickhouse的创意孵化器。 上周，我们撰写了有关Microsoft社区项目的文章 。

Would Microsoft ever try something like this? Who knows. But Merritt did mention that after his initial post he received emails from Ray Ozzie and others at Microsoft, so we’ll have to wait and see.

微软会尝试这样的事情吗？ 谁知道。 但是Merritt确实提到，在他的第一篇文章之后，他收到了Ray Ozzie和Microsoft其他人员的电子邮件 ，因此我们必须拭目以待。

翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/paul-graham-microsoft-couldnt-handle-y-combinator/

拒绝平庸 保罗格雷厄姆