y combinator
Former Microsoft employee and current founder and CEO of web startup Blist Kevin Merritt has some advice for Microsoft: rather than throwing around billions to try to acquire Yahoo! or buying unproven search startups for reportedly twice their valuation, try throwing a little cash at young engineering talent with startup ideas. The results could be well worth your while.
微软前雇员，网络创业公司Blist的现任创始人兼首席执行官向微软提出了一些建议：与其投入数十亿美元试图收购Yahoo! 或以据说是其估值两倍的价格收购未经证实的搜索创业公司 ，请尝试向具有创业理念的年轻工程人才投入一点现金。 结果可能值得您花点时间。
Last October, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company planned to acquire 20 companies per year ranging from $50 million to $1 billion for the next five years. Merritt’s plan, which he outlined in a blog post yesterday, would cost significantly less than that.
去年10月，微软首席执行官史蒂夫·鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)表示，该公司计划在未来五年中每年收购 20家公司，金额从5000万美元到10亿美元不等。 他昨天在博客文章中概述了梅里特的计划，其成本将大大低于该计划。
According to Merritt, Microsoft could benefit from investing heavily in small startups at a fraction of the cost of acquiring established companies (but still with a larger investment than Y Combinator and most of its clones, which would make the Microsoft opportunity likely very attractive to startup founders). Here’s how Merritt envisions the Microsoft implementation of Y Combinator working:
根据梅里特(Merritt)的说法，微软可以从对小型初创公司的大量投资中受益，而收购成本仅为收购成熟公司的一小部分(但投资额仍比Y Combinator及其大多数克隆产品大，这将使微软的机会对初创公司非常有吸引力创始人)。 这是Merritt设想的Y Combinator的Microsoft实现工作方式：
A three person team comprised of Ray Ozzie, Don Dodge and Dare Obasanjo would be the investment committee.
由Ray Ozzie ， Don Dodge和Dare Obasanjo组成的三人团队将成为投资委员会。
- Anyone can submit a 10-slide business plan. No NDA protection, which is the norm in the VC industry. 任何人都可以提交10张幻灯片的商业计划。 没有NDA保护，这是VC行业中的常态。
- Plans are reviewed once a quarter. Those that make it through the screening are invited to a 90-minute in person demo and pitch. 计划每季度审核一次。 那些通过筛选获得成功的人将被邀请参加90分钟的现场演示和宣传。
- At the end of the 90-minute demo & pitch, the three-person Ozzie/Dodge/Obasanjo investment committee makes an immediate decision. It’s pass/fail. You’re in or you’re out. American Idol style. You’re going to Hollywood or you aren’t. 在90分钟的演示和演示结束时，由三人组成的Ozzie / Dodge / Obasanjo投资委员会立即做出决定。 通过/失败。 你在里面或你在外面。 美国偶像风格。 你要去好莱坞还是不去。
- If you pass, here’s what you get: an investment of $100,000 cash plus $25,000 per founder, but never more than $175,000; all the Microsoft software you need; unlimited, free use of Microsoft’s cloud computing infrastructure for 3 years; mandatory office space for up to 5 people for the first year in either the Redmond or Silicon Valley Campus; all the non-sense administrative support services that typically saps a startup, a collegial environment working with other Microsoft funded startups. 如果您通过了，这就是您所得到的：一笔100,000美元的现金投资，外加每位创始人25,000美元的投资，但不得超过175,000美元； 您需要的所有Microsoft软件； 免费使用Microsoft的云计算基础架构3年； 在雷德蒙德或硅谷校区，第一年的强制性办公空间最多可容纳5人； 所有通常会削弱初创公司的废话行政支持服务，这是与其他Microsoft资助的初创公司一起工作的大学环境。
- In exchange, Microsoft gets: 10% of the company in common stock with no special preferences or rights; your commitment to exclusively use Microsoft development software and operating systems for 3 years, other than with written exception by Microsoft; your commitment to deploy your software to Microsoft platforms first (i.e. if you build a mobile app, it has to run on Windows Mobile before iPhone). 作为交换，Microsoft获得了：10％的普通股，没有特别的优惠或权利； 您承诺三年内将独家使用Microsoft开发软件和操作系统，除非Microsoft书面同意，否则； 您承诺首先将软件部署到Microsoft平台的承诺(即，如果您构建移动应用程序，则它必须在iPhone之前的Windows Mobile上运行)。
How much will it cost? A lot less than the $45 billion Microsoft offered Yahoo!, and even less than the $100 million they reportedly spent on Powerset. “Let’s guess that they’ll take 100 companies through the program each year,” writes Merritt, doing some back of the envelope math. “That’s about $15M in cash plus office space and support for up to 500 people. Office space and support is about another $7M to $8M. Let’s just call it $25M all in. From the perspective of an R&D budget it’s nothing.”
它要花多少钱？ 比微软提供的450亿美元远低于Yahoo !，甚至比据说他们在Powerset上花费的1亿美元还要少。 “让我们猜想他们每年将吸引100家公司参加该计划，”梅里特写道。 “这大约是1500万美元的现金，加上办公空间和最多500人的支持。 办公空间和支持大约需要另外花费700万到800万美元。 让我们将其全部称为2500万美元。从研发预算的角度来看，这没什么。
Nevermind that Y Combinator has yet to have a truly spectacular success (it has had some successful exits — such as Reddit’s sale to Conde Nast or Parakey’s sale to Facebook — and has taken a number of startups through successful venture rounds, but it has never had an exit on the scale of say YouTube to Google or Zimbra to Yahoo!). Microsoft doesn’t need to fund the next Google — they’d be happy if it happened, but this program would be aiming in a different direction.
没关系，Y Combinator尚未取得真正惊人的成功(它已经取得了一些成功的退出，例如Reddit出售给Conde Nast或Parakey出售给了Facebook)，并通过成功的风险投资吸引了许多初创公司，但从未如此例如说YouTube对Google或Zimbra对Yahoo!的退出)。 微软不需要为下一个谷歌提供资金-如果发生的话他们会很高兴的，但是该计划的目标是一个不同的方向。
Microsoft knows that computing is slowly moving to the cloud, and they also know that much of that development and deployment is being done using tools that they don’t control — PHP, Ruby on Rails, Linux, Apache, Amazon’s Web Services, etc. — the Microsoft Y Combinator clone would ensure that a number of next gen web startups would be created using their tools and a new breed of developers would be introduced to those tools as well as a result.
微软知道计算正在缓慢地迁移到云中，他们也知道很多开发和部署都是使用他们无法控制的工具完成的，这些工具包括PHP，Ruby on Rails，Linux，Apache，Amazon的Web服务等。 — Microsoft Y Combinator克隆将确保使用他们的工具创建许多下一代Web初创公司，并因此向这些工具引入新一代开发人员。
Further, as Merritt points out, the failed investments that come out of this program could still result in a steady stream of potential Microsoft employees. “My bet is that Microsoft will flat out buy some of the companies during their year of incubation,” writes Merritt. “And if you assume each startup will have 3 to 5 people, even the ones that fail will produce a good stream of folks who could easily become employees.”
此外，正如Merritt所指出的那样，该计划中失败的投资仍可能导致源源不断的潜在Microsoft员工。 梅里特写道：“我敢打赌，微软将在孵化的那一年中平仓一些公司。” “而且，如果您假设每个初创公司将有3至5人，即使失败的初创公司也将产生大量可以轻易成为员工的人。”
And those who don’t succeed or become Microsoft employees? They go get jobs somewhere else and bring their knowledge of Microsoft development tools with them — also a win for Microsoft.
那些没有成功或成为Microsoft员工的人呢？ 他们可以在其他地方找到工作，并带上他们对Microsoft开发工具的知识，这对Microsoft也是一个胜利。
Merritt’s plan looks great on paper and essentially costs nothing for Microsoft to try. 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. Just yesterday Google announced their intent to set up a VC arm of their own, which provides even more incentive for Microsoft to try something like this.
梅里特的计划在纸面上看起来不错，并且微软可以免费尝试。 每年花费2500万美元-大约相当于Yahoo!的1/1800的费用 微软可以通过该程序推动几百个聪明的孩子。 就在昨天，Google 宣布了自己成立自己的VC部门的意图 ，这为Microsoft尝试类似的尝试提供了更多动力。
What are you thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
你有什么想法 让我们在评论中知道。
翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/advice-microsoft-should-invest-y-combinator-style/
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