新媒体 vs 旧媒体：真实性与媒体培训的消亡

旧媒体的一条规则就是不要有趣。好像那是你能做的最糟糕的事。通过传统媒体，你再也无法得到任何你可能会喜欢的故事了。基本上就是不可能。旧媒体有非常受限的渠道和非常受限的格式。新媒体是无限格式、无限渠道，品牌现在就是个人。这方面的大师是 Alex Karp。如果你看他的采访，他从不谈论志愿服务。

One rule of old media is don't be interesting. Like that's the worst thing you can do. There is no way to get to anything resembling a story that you're going to like through the traditional media anymore. Like it's just basically not possible. Old media you had very restricted channels with very restricted formats. New media is unlimited formats on unlimited channels and the brand is now the person. The grand wizard of this is Alex Karp. If you watch his interviews, he never talks about volunteering.

每个人都自然而然地由内而外地思考，我和我的公司、我的产品，然后推向世界。不要那样想。要从世界上正在发生的最有趣的事情出发，然后思考这些事情如何与我们相关。

Everybody just naturally thinks inside out, me and my company and my product out into the world. Don't think that way. Think in terms of like what are the most interesting things happening in the world and then how do those things relate to us?

旧媒体是防御导向的。新媒体是进攻性的。

Old media is defense oriented. New media is offense.

再多谈谈为什么会这样。

Talk more about why that is.

人们仍然有一种焦虑，认为传统媒体在某种程度上是体面和声望所在。我不再相信这一点了，我认为让人们摆脱这种想法非常重要。

There's still this anxiety that people have which is legacy media somehow is like where the respectability is, the prestige is. I don't believe that anymore and I think it's very important for people to kind of get that out of their system.

首先我想说今天是 Gabby 的生日。你知道，我对接下来的五年感到非常兴奋，原因很多，但其中一个原因是 Ben 有第六场比赛的场边座位，今天没能来，所以我们很幸运能请到 Ben 在这里。还有，Mark 不是个狂热的篮球迷，但他确实发过推文，说 Jaylen Brunson 完全凭直觉而非内省行事，Mark 很欣赏这一点。

So first I would just want to say it's Gabby's birthday today. You know, I'm so excited for the next one in five for many reasons, but one is that Ben had floor seats to the game six and wasn't going to make it today and so we're so lucky that we get to have Ben here. And uh you know, Mark not a huge basketball guy, but he he did tweet about how Jaylen Brunson he had a comment where that he operates purely on instincts not on introspection and Mark appreciates that.

理查德·尼克松显然在运作。

Richard Nixon obviously working.

没错。很多人在各个行业都这么说。所以我觉得这很有意思，因为新媒体的规则之一——我们上周和增长投资组合的 CEO 讨论过——就是真实性，也就是能够在镜头前进行私下里同样的对话。你再多谈谈这个，以及为什么在找准自己的声音和建立存在感方面，这一点如此重要。因为很多创始人会犯错误，试图过于拘谨，过于接受媒体培训等等。当我们揭示新媒体的新规则时，你从哪里开始？

Exactly. Many people are saying you know, across across industries. And so I actually think that's a pretty interesting because one of the rules of of new media um Mark that we were talking about with the CEO last week in our growth portfolio is authenticity and sort of being able to have the same conversations on camera that you would have in person behind closed doors. Why don't you talk about that that a bit more and and why that's so important to to really nail in terms of nailing your voice and and how to build that presence. Because a lot of lot of mistakes that founders will make trying to be too buttoned up, trying to be too media trained, etc. As we uncover the new rules of new media, what what do you start there?

是的，我年轻时有过一次非常有塑造性的经历。在 90 年代，我和 Ben 都在成长。那时候，你知道，还没有博客，没有 YouTube，所有这些都还没有。所以那时候，如果你经营一家公司或做任何事情，100% 的假设是你必须通过既定媒体、传统媒体来运作。然后每个人当然都会接受媒体培训，学习如何做。

Yeah, so I had this really formative experience when I was younger. So in the '90s when I was coming up Ben and I were coming up. And so you know, in in in those days it you know, it's pre pre blogs, pre YouTube, all all this stuff. Um and so in those days you know, the assumption was 100% of what you did if you were running a company or doing anything was you you're going to have to work through you know, established media, legacy media. Um and so and then and then everybody would get you know, of course media you know, media trained in how to do it.

世界上最痛苦的经历。

Most painful experience in the world.

哦，是的，对于没有经历过媒体培训的人来说，这实际上……

Oh yeah, so for people who haven't been through media training it's actually...

在电视上看自己，那真是……

Watch yourself on TV it's a...

是的，好吧，媒体培训是这样的。我不知道他们是否还这么做，你们还这么做吗？好吧，好吧，对于没有经历过的人来说。是的，就像你被放在一个摄像机前……

Yeah, so okay, so here's how media training work. I I don't know if they still I don't know if they still do it but do they do they still do it? You guys still do it? Okay, okay, so for people who haven't been through it. Yeah, so it's like you get put in front of one of these camera...

……就在你面前，然后一个你以为是朋友的人，他们会像《60 分钟》那样对你进行完整采访。他们会进行大约一个小时。然后他们真的让你坐在那里看回放。

...in your face and then and then somebody like you know, who's supposed to who you think is your friend. Um you know, they do like the full 60 minutes interview with you. And and and you know, whatever and then they you know, they do it for like an hour. And then and then they literally make you sit there and watch it.

这简直是对一个人能做的最刻薄的事。

Which is just like the meanest thing you can do to somebody.

然后他们批评你，你看着自己，他们说：“你看到你那样做了吗？”然后你就像：“好吧，我现在真的很不舒服。我再也不上电视了。”

And and critique you and you're looking at yourself it up and they're going you see how you that up? And you're like well, I'm really uncomfortable now. I'm never going on TV.

没错。然后你说：“我们能快进吗？”不，你不能快进。我们要看完整段。然后可能再看一遍。所以这非常能揭示问题。顺便说一句，你会发现自己各种个人努力中的问题。你还会发现自己做的所有事情，所有多余的话。

Exactly. And you're like can we just fast No, you can't fast forward. We're going to watch the entire thing. Um and then and then maybe we'll watch it again. Um and so it is it is very revealing. And you discover all kinds of things about your personal effort by the way. Also you discover all the things you do, all the extra words.

你有多讨厌自己的声音。

How much you hate your voice.

是的，没错。你有多讨厌自己的长相。我的意思是，这太不可思议了。太不可思议了。所以如果你的自尊心能挺过这次打击，你就能走向成功的职业生涯。所以，那就是你做的。但结果总是很奇怪，因为结果总是让我觉得：哇，你看那些有重要事情要说的重要人物在电视上，他们看起来就像塑料人。他们看起来非常虚假和做作。顺便说一句，在过去，所有的主播或采访者都用那种主播腔。然后你让一个 CEO 上去，只说最无关痛痒的话。很多 CEO 在那些日子里——顺便说一句，现在仍然如此——他们衡量采访或演讲成功的标准是最小争议，对吧？所以他们下台后，我合作过很多 CEO，他们下台后非常自豪，因为他们没有制造任何新闻。对吧？所以差不多就是这样。

Yes, exactly. How much you hate how you look. I mean it's incredible. It's incredible. And so if your ego just survives the beating, you go on to a successful career. Um and so you know, that's what you did. And then and then but it was always so weird cuz it's like the result is just like I just always struck me as just like the result is like wow, you see like important people with important things to say on TV whatever they just seem like plastic people. They just seem like you know, it's all very you know, fake and staged. And then by the way, you know, this is like you know, in the old days it's like you know, cuz all the all the anchor people or interviewers are all like you know, using you know, anchorman voice. And then you get a CEO up there who just says like the most innocuous things possible. Um and a lot of CEOs in those days and by the way, still they they they they rank their success in in in doing an interview or giving a speech based on minimum minimum controversy, right? So, they come off stage. I I've worked with lots of CEOs like they come off stage and they're very proud of themselves cuz they didn't make any news. Right? Um so it's sort of like that.

是的，那是个关键。

Yeah, that is a key.

对。所以我经历了那次会议，然后……

Right. So, I go through the meeting and so...

所有新闻都是坏消息。

All news is bad news.

所以，我们当时雇佣了一家公司，被认为是当时最好的媒体培训师，那个人以前是《60 分钟》的制片人。你知道，

So, I I get we we hire at the time a company we hired, you know, at the time was considered the best media trainer uh who was a guy um uh who had uh previously been a producer at at 60 Minutes. You know,

Lee Les Elden。

Lee Les Elden.

我们请了 Lee Les Elden，他曾是制片人。他当时其实是个相当有名的人。他曾是 Lowell Bergman 的制片人，而 Lowell Bergman 后来……嗯，我是说，Mike Wallace 那个圈子。但他说：“我们不做任何经典的媒体培训。”他说：“我们要做的是每个人都低估的事情，那就是让你在公开场合基本上说出你如果和朋友一起吃午饭时会说的所有话。”对吧？我记得我当时脑子里像炸开了一样，因为就是“好吧”。然后你立刻想：“好吧，我们为什么要付钱给这个人？因为这是非常明显的建议，但其他人都不会给你这个建议。这到底是怎么回事？”他只是说：“听着。”他说了以下的话。

We Lee Les Elden who'd been a producer. He actually he was he was actually quite quite a well-known guy at the time. Um he had been uh Lowell Bergman's producer and Lowell Bergman became uh Lowell Bergman No, um well, there I mean, Mike Wallace it was that whole complex. But he's like he's like, "We're not doing any of the classic media training that we do." He said, "We're going to do the thing that everybody always under rates, which is we're going to get you to basically just say all the things in public that you would say if you were sitting having lunch with a friend." Right? And I remember like the back of my head like, you know, just like blew open cuz it's just like, "Okay." And then you know, and then and then immediately you're like, "Okay, why are we paying this guy that And it's like you know, cuz that's like very obvious advice and then it's like nobody else will give you that advice. What the what's going on?" He just said, "Look." He said He said He said the following.

他说：“如果你在台上或接受采访，谈论一个你并不完全了解的话题，那你到底在干什么？所以你唯一应该谈论的就是你深入了解的东西。如果你深入了解，你就能以一种生动有趣的方式谈论它，表达你对它的看法。你应该表现得像个非常有趣的人，因为你就像坐在桌子对面和朋友聊天一样。”所以他的训练百分之百是为了让你不做其他事情，基本上能够做到这一点。另一部分，既然你假设媒体是对抗性的，就是那个“转向”：你回答他们的问题，但你总是回答你自己的问题。

He said, 'If you are on stage or in an interview and you're talking about something you don't know inside out, what the hell are you doing there? So the only thing you should ever talk about is something you know intimately. If you know it intimately, you should be able to talk about it in a viscerally interesting way that relates your thoughts on the thing. And you ought to come across as a very interesting person because you're talking like you're sitting across the table talking to your friend.' So his training is 100% to get you to not do all the other stuff and basically be able to do that. The other part, since you assume the media is adversarial, was the pivot: you answer their questions, but you always answer your own questions.

顺便说一句，这会让它有点不自然，对吧？

Which by the way makes it a little unnatural, right?

确实如此。正是那种绝地武士的方式让整个方法奏效：你自然地说话。自然说话的一种方式就是拒绝回答坏问题，并用你的好问题来替代。总之，他讲完了整个过程。我们观察新媒体格局的演变已经 30 年了。如果你看 Palmer Luckey、Alex Karp、Elon 或者任何伟大的沟通者，他们就是这么做的。我最近会把 Jensen 也列入那个行列。这是长篇播客的兴起，三个小时的对话，以及有趣的人进行有趣对话的重新兴起，这在当时很激进，但现在很普遍。我认为这仍然是实际的建议。Eric，你的观点是，传达出来的是真实性：作为观众，我是否感觉自己在见一个真实的人？

It does. It's the Jedi knight thing that made that whole approach work: you're talking naturally. One way you talk naturally is you just refuse to answer the bad questions and substitute in your good question. Anyway, he went through the whole thing. We've been watching the evolution of the new media landscape for 30 years. If you watch what Palmer Luckey does, or Alex Karp, or Elon, or any of the great communicators, that's what they're doing. I'd put Jensen in that rank lately. This is the rise of the long-form podcast, the three-hour conversation, and the re-rise of interesting people having interesting conversations, which was radical at one point but is now common. I think that remains the actual advice. And Eric, your point is that what gets across is authenticity: as the viewer, do I feel like I'm meeting a real person?

是的，非常好的观点。

Yeah. Very good points.

相关地，我们一直在讨论旧媒体是防御导向，新媒体是进攻导向。请多谈谈为什么是这样，以及那套策略是什么样的。我们讨论过的一点是从外到内的重要性，以及把你的故事放在外部环境的背景中。

Related, we've been talking about how old media is defense-oriented, new media is offense. Talk more about why that is and what that playbook looks like. One thing we discussed is the importance of outside-in and situating your story within the context of what's happening externally.

在我看来，媒体——当我这么说时记者们会愤怒，所以我知道我是对的——传统主流媒体定义自己有两个功能：一是公正、客观的新闻业，有时被称为“无源之声”，呈现事物的两面，假设每件事都有两面，而且不超过两面。这有点奇怪，但至少是展示问题、解释它、让不同发言人表达不同观点的想法。然后他们有第二个使命：向权力说真话。

The press, in my view, and reporters get furious when I say this, which is why I know I'm correct. The traditional legacy press defined itself as having two functions: impartial, objective journalism, sometimes called the voice from nowhere, presenting both sides of something, under the assumption everything has two sides, and not more. That's a bit weird, but at least the idea of showing an issue, explaining it, letting different spokespeople articulate different points of view. Then they had a second mission: speak truth to power.

那正是妨碍第一个使命的那个。

That was the one that got in the way of the first one.

正是妨碍第一个使命的那个。所以，向权力说真话变成了“折磨安逸者，安慰受苦者”。

The one that got in the way of the first one. So, speak truth to power became 'afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.'

是的。

Yeah.

没错。当然，现在我们知道那意味着什么。但它退化为“权力即真理”。所以这是媒体恐吓你不敢说出想法的方式。

Right. And of course, at this point we know what that means. But it devolved into power to truth. So it's the press's way of intimidating you into not saying what you thought.

是的，客观和激进之间有一条线，对吧？有议程的人。

Yeah, there's a line between objective and activist, right? Someone with an agenda.

我的观点是，随着时间的推移，第二个使命淹没了第一个，它就成了主流。结果，互动的本质改变了。我在 1994 年到 2017 年间做了大量传统媒体。偶尔会有攻击性文章或恶意报道，但 90% 的时候我觉得做这件事是个好主意，我得到了讲述自己故事的机会。在几乎整个时期，国内大多数人和媒体都认为初创公司很酷，科技很酷，很有趣，对美国有好处，产品用起来也很有趣。

My view is that over time, the second one swamped the first, and it just became the thing. As a consequence, the nature of the interaction changed. I did tons of traditional media between 1994 and 2017. Every once in a while there's a hit piece or bad faith thing, but 90% of the time I felt it had been a good idea to do it, and I'd been given a chance to tell my thing. For almost that entire run, most people in the country and in the press thought startups were cool, tech was cool, fun, good for America, and the products were fun to use.

我有点记得那些日子。

I kind of remember those days.

是的，在过去的迷雾中，一切都令人兴奋。然后很多记者和编辑真心认为需要向读者和观众解释这些。然后在 2017 年，事情变了。从那以后，第二种模式，即议程驱动的模式，真正占据了主导地位，我认为它永远不会消退。现实情况是，我们告诉创始人，通过传统媒体再也无法得到你喜欢的故事了。基本上不可能。

Yes, in the ancient mists of the past, everything was exciting. Then a lot of reporters and editors genuinely viewed it as needing to explain this to readers and viewers. Then in 2017, things changed. Since then, that second mode, the agenda-driven one, really took over, and I think it will never unwind. The practical reality is we tell founders there is no way to get a story you'll like through traditional media anymore. It's basically not possible.

你可以拿到一个故事，但无法运行一个策略。

You can land a story, but you can't run a strategy.

是的，有些人指出个别成功案例，但那是例外证明规则。还有 99 个不是那样的。所以需要一种新方法。

Yeah, some people point to individuals with success, but that's the exception that proves the rule. There are 99 others not like that. So there needs to be a new approach.

我认为新方法分为两部分。一部分是我们现在常说的“直接沟通”，即你越来越需要通过自己的渠道和盟友的渠道来讲述自己的故事。另一部分则是新声音和新媒体。由于传统媒体已经变得如此疯狂，这为创建新媒体打开了巨大的机会。这个房间里就有很多非常成功的例子。我认为，过去即使在媒体的黄金时代，比如查理·罗斯，如果你想看一个聪明人谈论某个话题一小时，那就是查理·罗斯。我小时候在 80 年代，是午夜时分的查理·罗斯，有个节目叫 CBS 夜间新闻。他就在午夜播出，在录像机出现之前，你得熬夜到午夜才能看一场智慧的对话。从那时到现在，播客和 Substack 世界的发展是令人难以置信的进步，而且进展得非常顺利。所以我认为新媒体世界质量极高，做得非常好。但人们仍然有一种焦虑，觉得传统媒体 somehow 拥有体面和声望。我不再相信这一点了，我认为让人们摆脱这种想法非常重要，因为世界已经变了。

Then I think the new approach comes in two parts. It comes in what we all call now 'go direct', which is you have to tell your own story increasingly through your own channels and through the channels of allies. And then the other thing is new voices and new media. Because the legacy press has gone so bananas, there's this massive opportunity opened up for the creation of new media. Many examples in this room are just spectacular. I think with what's happening, it used to be even in the golden age of media, like Charlie Rose, if you wanted to watch a smart person talk about something for an hour, it was Charlie Rose. When I was a kid in the '80s, it was Charlie Rose at midnight, something called CBS Overnight. He was literally on at midnight, and pre-VCR you'd stay up until midnight to watch a smart conversation. To go from that to what we have today in the podcast world and the Substack world is such an incredible advance. It's going incredibly well. So I think the new media world is supremely high quality, doing incredibly well. But there's still this anxiety that people have, that legacy media somehow has the respectability, the prestige. I don't believe that anymore, and I think it's very important for people to get that out of their system because the world has changed.

说到这一点，我们刚在华盛顿，和所有华盛顿的人、参议员等等在一起。我问他们华盛顿的人都读什么。答案是马克·哈尔珀林的新闻通讯，那是新媒体。所以我完全预料到 Axios、《华盛顿邮报》等等也会如此。因为公司里那些坚持旧媒体的人唯一的例外是华盛顿，他们全都读那些旧东西。但连这一点也不成立了。所以我认为马克说得对。

To your point, we were just in Washington with all the Washington people, senators and whatnot. I was asking them what everybody in Washington reads. It's the Mark Halperin newsletter, which is new media. So I fully expect Axios, the Washington Post, and so forth. Because the one holdout from people in the firm on old media is, well, except for Washington. They all read this old stuff. And not even that is true. So I think Mark's right.

是的。

Yeah.

马克，你提到了直接沟通。我们确实处于直接沟通的时代，这感觉像是创始人的基本要求。但我跟很多创始人聊过，他们觉得现在除了日常经营公司，还有第二份工作——做公司的代言人。你可以想象那些一生都在实验室或盯着电脑的创始人，这不是他们受过的训练。我很好奇你们对那些不感兴趣或不知从何入手的创始人有什么建议。他们必须擅长这个吗，还是有其他途径让公司获得应有的关注？

Mark, you mentioned going direct. We're certainly in the era of going direct. It feels like table stakes for founders. But I've talked to a lot of founders who feel they now have a second job of being the spokesperson for their company on top of running the business day-to-day. You can think of great founders who spent their lives in a lab or staring at a computer, and this is not what they've been trained in. I'm curious about your advice for founders who are uninterested or don't know where to start. Do they have to get good at it, or are there other paths to get their company the attention it deserves?

是的，我认为这很棘手。如果你看看旧媒体，再看看新媒体是怎么运作的。在旧媒体中，渠道非常有限，格式也非常有限，品牌就是公司本身。基本上就是这样。所以，是的，你可以和《纽约时报》或 CNN 交谈来传播消息，但你只能得到一个引语或非常简短的采访。然后你代表的是一个不是你自己的品牌。整个媒体策略就是让你的名字出现，同时不要玷污公司到无法挽回的地步。这导致了一种非常防御性的姿态，因为你永远无法收回任何话。这是旧媒体的一大规则。然后到了新媒体，情况完全相反：无限的格式、无限的渠道，品牌现在就是个人。当每个民主党人都出来对 SpaceX 发火时，他们不是对公司发火，而是对埃隆发火，因为他就是品牌。同样的事情：是 Palantir 还是 Alex？是 Anduril 还是 Palmer？这种情况一再发生。在营销上获胜的公司，品牌就是个人。如果你有另一位创始人或一个永久性的固定人物，而不是 CEO，你可以想象那个人成为品牌，但总得是个人。我认为没有别的办法。新媒体的规则是必须有趣，否则就会被淹没。所以你必须有一个个人，而且那个人必须有趣。这就是为什么旧媒体如此危险：旧媒体的一条规则就是不要有趣。那是最糟糕的事情；你会搞砸一切。我认为公司无法避免这一点。看看我们公司：技术上我是 CEO，但马克更像是品牌，因为他做的媒体工作比我多得多。这行得通，因为这是 Andreessen Horowitz，外界没人知道区别。你可以这样设置你的公司，让他们不必知道你的运作方式。但这个人必须永远与组织在一起。不能是只干三年的营销副总裁，然后就走人。那永远行不通。

Yeah. So, I think this is tricky. So, if you just go, okay, old media, and how did that work in new media? In old media, you had very restricted channels with very restricted formats, and the brands were the companies. That's basically the setup. So, yes, you could talk to the New York Times or CNN if you wanted to get the word out, but then you were forced into a quote or a very short interview. And then you were representing a brand that wasn't you. The whole media strategy was just get your name out there without tainting the company to the point where it could never recover. That led to a very defensive posture because you can never take back anything. That was a big rule in old media. Then you get to new media, which is the opposite: unlimited formats, unlimited channels, and the brand is now the person. When every Democrat came out and was mad about SpaceX, they weren't mad about the company; they were mad about Elon because he's the brand. Same thing: is it Palantir or is it Alex? And is it Anduril or is it Palmer? That happens over and over. The companies winning in marketing have the brand as the person. If you had another founder or a permanent fixture who is not the CEO, you could imagine that person becoming the brand, but it's going to be a person. I don't think there's a way around that. The rule of new media is it has to be interesting, otherwise it gets drowned out. So you have to have a person, and that person has to be interesting. That's why old media is so dangerous: the one rule of old media is don't be interesting. That's the worst thing you can do; you'll mess everything up. I don't think a company can get away without it. Look at us as a firm: technically I'm the CEO, but Mark is more the brand in terms of doing way more media than I do. That works because it's Andreessen Horowitz and nobody knows the difference on the outside. You can set up your company that way where they don't have to know how you're run. But it's got to be somebody who's there forever with the organization. It can't be the vice president of marketing who's here for a three-year run and then gone. That will never work.

安然是另一个例子。

Enron is another example.

是的。是的。我最喜欢的事情之一，大约每周一次，是有人祝贺我写了本的书。

Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite things that happens about once a week is when somebody congratulates me on writing Ben's book.

但他总是把功劳全揽到自己身上。

But he always takes full credit for it.

我确实如此。我确实如此。我只是说我为那本书倾注了所有的心血和汗水。我很高兴终于有人读了它。

I do. I do. I just said I really poured all my blood, sweat, and tears into that book. I'm just so glad somebody finally read it.

所以，我认为本所说的其实有一个技术上的解释，而且非常重要。基本上直到 1930 年代，公司都没有企业品牌。你有福特汽车公司，你有爱迪生电气公司。名字就在门上。我敢肯定亨利·福特从未想过给他的公司起别的名字，只能是福特汽车公司。

So, I think there's actually a technological explanation for what Ben said that is quite important. Up until basically the 1930s, companies didn't have corporate brands. You had the Ford Motor Company, you had the Edison Electric Company. It was literally the name on the door. I'm positive it never occurred to Henry Ford to name his company anything other than the Ford Motor Company.

嗯，他在福特汽车公司之前确实有过一家公司，对吧？

Well, he did have a company before the Ford Motor Company, right?

对对对。是哪家公司我记不清了，得有人查一下。我记得它后来变成了凯迪拉克之类的，或者就是一家持续经营的汽车公司。但他是首席技术官，不是首席执行官。而且他脾气火爆，亨利·福特，和首席执行官大吵一架，结果从自己的公司辞职了。

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was like I think I can't remember. Somebody's got to look it up. I think it became like Cadillac or something or like it was actually like a car company that lasted. But he got he was CTO. He wasn't CEO. And he got in such a furious fight because he was a hothead, Henry Ford. With the CEO that he quit his own company.

是啊。很多都是克莱斯勒那样的，克莱斯勒就是和其他人一起创办的。你知道，很多早期的汽车公司都是这样。

Yeah. A lot of those are Chrysler like Chrysler was with the other guys. You know, a lot of those early car companies.

哦，对，它们都是以创始人命名的。我觉得可能福特就是这样，他辞职后公司就改名了。有可能。对对对。

Oh, yeah, they're all named after themselves. And I think actually maybe it was like Ford and then when he quit they renamed it. That could be it. Yeah, yeah.

对，就是门上的名字。

Yeah, something else. So it was like name on the door.

对。这几乎是理所当然的，因为那是经营公司的人，就该这样。然后我认为，在 30、40 年代，开始出现像国际商业机器公司、通用电气、通用汽车这样的抽象名称。接着又有了消费品品牌，比如宝洁。于是就有了汰渍、高露洁、佳洁士牙膏等等。还有“漂亮五十”和集团企业时代。这导致了集团企业，基本上就是尽可能多地堆砌品牌。回顾过去，我认为这主要是因为集中式媒体的兴起。因为在 30 年代之前，媒体非常分散。每个小镇都有大约 15 家报纸，到处都是小型广播电台。然后从 30 或 40 年代开始，媒体高度集中。这在历史上是前所未有的，可能千年一遇。集中式媒体的特点就像通过一根极细的吸管喝水。因为如果只有三个电视网络，一天 24 小时，你能有多少时间？或者如果只有三大报纸的头版，你能有多少专栏英寸？所以任何公司的信息都必须压缩到最低限度，才能通过那些极细的吸管。我认为这就是企业品牌现象：把品牌压缩成一个原子单位，以便通过吸管。但后来每个人都相信世界就是这样运作的。但我认为这只有在集中式媒体世界才有意义。而现在我们看到集中式媒体世界正在瓦解和崩溃。我认为从机制上讲，这就是新方法奏效且必要的原因。因为在新世界里，有很多例子。比如，竞选总统的人必须上乔·罗根的节目吗？直到 2024 年，答案绝对是否定的。2024 年之后，答案是 100% 必须上。对吧？撇开政治不谈，2024 年民主党事后分析的一个重要部分就是卡玛拉没有上罗根的节目。现在那个圈子里 100% 的人都认为下一位候选人必须上罗根的节目。而上罗根的节目意味着你要在节目上待三个小时，谈论任何话题。所以想想这对候选人的标准意味着什么，无论哪个党派，这就是新标准。你必须能做到。你必须有趣，这又回到了你的问题。你必须成为能做到这一点的人。如果你做不到，那么……

Yeah. It was just kind of taken as a given because that's the guy running the company. That's what you do. And then I think what happened is in the '30s, '40s you started getting these, you know, International Business Machines, General Electric, General Motors. You started getting these abstract names. Then you got the consumer brand thing, you know, with like Procter & Gamble. So you had like Tide and Colgate and Crest toothpaste and all these things. The nifty 50 the conglomerate era. Which led to the conglomerates which were basically just piling up as many brands as you could. And I think what happened was in retrospect, I think that was because of the rise of centralized media specifically. Because before the 1930s media was very decentralized. Every town had like 15 newspapers. There were tiny little radio stations everywhere. And then starting in the '30s or '40s media centralized hard. In a way that was very unprecedented historically. It's probably once in a thousand year thing that happened. And then the thing with centralized media was just it's like drinking everything through an incredibly narrow straw. Because by definition if there's three TV networks and there's 24 hours in the day, there's just only ever like how much time are you ever going to get? Or if there's the front page of three big newspapers, how many column inches are you ever going to get? And so the message from any company had to get distilled down to the absolute minimum to be able to get through those very narrow straws. And I think that that was the corporate brand phenomenon which is to get the thing down to like an atomic unit of a brand to be able to get it through that straw. But then everybody became convinced that like that was just universally the way the world worked. But I think that only actually made sense in the centralized media world. And I think what we're seeing as the centralized media world is now unwinding and collapsing. I think mechanically that's why this new approach is working and is necessary. Because in the new world, I mean, you know, the many examples of this. But it's just like do people running for president have to go on Joe Rogan? Up until 2024 the answer was absolutely not. After 2024 the answer is 100% they have to. Right? Like a big part, for keeping politics out of it, a big part of all the democratic retrospectives of what happened in '24 was that Kamala didn't go on Rogan. 100% of the people who work in that world now think that the next person is going to have to go on Rogan. And to go on Rogan means you're going to have to be on Rogan for three hours. And you're going to have to talk about anything. So if you think about what that means for the bar, for the person who's going to run, for whatever party, like that's the new bar. You have to be able to do that. You have to be interesting, and then it goes right back to your question. You have to be the person who can do that. And if you're not the person who can do that, like...

嗯，这确实是一个巨大的营销劣势。就这么说吧。我认为这给你的整个机会设了一个上限。

Well, you got to it's a big marketing deficit. Let's just put it that way. Like you just put a ceiling on your whole opportunity, I think.

当然，我忍不住要引用《继承之战》里的台词。回答你的问题时，我不能不用希芙说的那句话：“如果你不能同时骑两头大象，你在马戏团干什么？”

The line from Succession, of course, I can't avoid that. I can't not use answering your question is Shiv said, "If you can't ride two elephants at the same time, what are you doing in the circus?"

是啊。

Yeah.

我很想听听你如何将这种想法应用到自己的工作中。你之前提到，你和马克花了很多时间讨论如何以及何时公开回应事情，以及何时保持沉默。所以，我很好奇你们之间的这些讨论是怎样的。你们如何决定何时反击、何时保持沉默？也许有没有一些时候你希望自己当时做得不一样？

I would love to hear how you apply this thinking to your own work. You mentioned earlier that you and Mark spend a lot of time discussing how and when to respond to things publicly and also when to not say anything. So, I'm curious what those discussions are like for you both. How do you decide when to fight back versus stay quiet? And maybe if there are times that you wish you did things differently.

嗯，这很有意思，因为每当有人对我们说负面的话，我们都想回应。但你必须判断这是否会改善你的处境，还是他们只是在给你下饵，让你去突出他们愚蠢的观点。

Yeah, so it's interesting with that because anytime somebody says something negative about us, we want to respond. But you have to determine whether that's going to improve your position or they're just feeding you bait to get you to basically highlight their stupid opinion.

反击总会改善你的处境。

It'll always improve your situation to fight back.

对，你总是 100%……你知道，你必须有一些自律，否则你一辈子都在回应。你越出名，攻击你的人就越多。所以，最糟糕的情况就是处理那些在推特（或者 X，抱歉）上评论的人。如果你开始回复那些只有 50 个粉丝的 X 回复，顺便说一句，我父亲总是这么做。那简直是巨大的时间浪费，而且你还在放大一个没有受众的人。你在干什么？那些人甚至不应该跟你说话。他们这辈子没做过什么值得跟你说话的事。但你却在跟他们说话，浪费你的时间。这就是最糟糕的情况。然而，如果有人发表了什么东西，而且很有影响力，是在针对你，那实际上是一个真正的机会，可以提升品牌，表达你自己的观点和立场。这可能是媒体上的东西，或者只是某人在新媒体上做的事情。那实际上会变成真正的机会。

Yeah, you always 100%... You know, you have to have some discipline, otherwise you just will spend your whole life responding. Like the bigger you get, the more people can at you. So, it's kind of like the degenerate version is dealing with the people who comment on Twitter. Or X, sorry. So, if you start answering the X replies of people who have 50 followers, by the way, my father always did that. Then it's just a colossal waste of time and you're amplifying somebody who has no audience. So what are you doing? And those people shouldn't even be talking to you. They didn't do anything in life to have the right to talk to you. But there you are talking to them and wasting your time. So that's the extreme degenerate case. However, if somebody comes out with something and it hits and it's going after you, that's actually a real opportunity to boost the brand to come across with your own point of view, your own position. And this could be something in the media or just something somebody does in new media. That actually turns into real opportunity.

很多人知道，我们建立的品牌很大一部分就是靠回应别人的攻击。我一直觉得每次发生这种事都很好，来吧。我写过最喜欢的东西之一是在 Instagram 上。我们和《纽约时报》发生了争执，有过冲突，随便吧。但后来我回应了，那是我当时写过的最火的帖子。大家都说，“没错，《纽约时报》”。所以它一下子就把我们从这里带到了那里，就因为大家都喜欢看热闹。所以，争斗对品牌建设有好处。但你得选对争斗，不能只是帮别人建品牌。

So a lot of you know, I would say a reasonable portion of the brand that we built was just responding to people attacking us. I always saw that as great. Let's go. One of my favorite things I ever wrote was on Instagram. We got into a kerfuffle with The New York Times. We had a conflict, whatever. But then I responded, and it was the biggest post I ever wrote at that time. Everybody was like, 'Yeah, The New York Times.' So it took us from here to here in one shot just because everybody loves a fight. So fights are good for brand building. But you just got to pick the right fight to not just build somebody else's brand.

说到这个，我刚加入时，会提起我们收到的负面推文，说，“嘿，这些匿名者在说我们的坏话。”而你们会说，“谁在乎？”这其实是我们成功的一部分。我们会有越来越多的人说负面的话。

Well, to that end, when I first joined, I would bring up negative tweets we were getting and say, 'Hey, these Anons are saying bad things about us.' And you guys would be like, 'Who cares?' This is in fact part of our success. We're going to have more and more people saying negative things.

具体来说，他们是在根据我们资助的项目说刻薄话。然后他们说，“整个模式都有缺陷。”

Well, specifically they were saying mean things based on the things we were funding. And then they were like, 'The whole model is flawed.'

所以你在制造垃圾。

So you're putting slop.

你在制造垃圾。但兄弟，我们资助项目是好事。就算你这么想，这个世界上还有什么比把财富从有钱人转移到有想法、想创业的人手里更好？就算我们全都错了，这对人类仍然是好事。所以闭嘴吧，黑子。

You're putting slop. And it's like, bro, it's great that we're funding things. Even if you think that, what is better in this world than the transfer of wealth from people who have a lot of money to people who have ideas and want to build something? Even if we're wrong about everything, that's still a good for humanity. So shut up, hater.

没错。白痴。黑子黑子。所以我的回应是，不，被这样批评是好事：我们在资助初创公司并支持它们。这太棒了。

Yes. Idiots. Hater hater. So my response was no, that's a great thing to get criticized for: we're funding startups and supporting those startups. That's fantastic.

这里面有一点也是新媒体中的一个重要变化：你确实希望有人恨你，也希望有人爱你，但你不希望被中立对待。你不希望不温不火，因为那样你就无趣了。你不可能既有趣又不让人又爱又恨。世界上有太多的嫉妒和仇恨。一旦你做大，事情就是这样。再也没有人会给鲁珀特·默多克或埃隆·马斯克写吹捧文章了。结束了。当你达到一定规模，人们就会恨你。这很好，因为这意味着你成功了。你做了重要的事。你在世界上留下了印记。人们关心你在做什么。你必须这样看待它。如果你觉得，“哦，我得停止这样做，好让人们喜欢我”，你就会毁了你的营销。

There's a kind of point within that that is also an important change in new media, which is you really want people to hate you and you want people to love you, but you don't want to be neutral. You don't want to be lukewarm, because then you're uninteresting. You can't be interesting and not have people both hate you and love you. There's too much jealousy and hatred in the world. As soon as you get big, that's what happens. Nobody writes a puff piece on Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk anymore. It's over. When you get to a certain size, people hate you. And that's good, because that means you did it. You did something important. You made a mark on the world. People care about what you're doing. You have to take it that way. If you take it like, 'Oh, I got to stop doing that so people like me,' you'll ruin your marketing.

马克，自从我说了这个词，你知道，他们有所有正确的敌人。所以，选对恨你的人，才能激励爱你的人。在新媒体时代，如何建立正确的营销和媒体团队？你们学到了什么，或者对 CEO 们有什么建议，以确保找到合适的人？你组建团队的原则是什么？

The Mark, since I've said the term, you know, they have all the right enemies. So it's picking the right people to hate you that galvanizes the people who love you. What about building the right marketing and media team in the age of new media? What have you guys learned or what advice do you have for CEOs in terms of making sure you get the right personality? What's the principle you think about building that team?

首要原则是，如果你受过传统媒体的训练，做新媒体会非常非常难。你必须是一个非常特别的人才能完成这种转变，因为那就像是相反的世界。如果你做了 10 年传统媒体，有物理定律、游戏规则、每次都要做的事情，从审查记者到粗鲁的问答。一切的一切都是相反的。所以很少有人能说，“好吧，我要离开相反的世界，进入新媒体的世界。”所以你要小心，不要为新媒体工作招聘太多非新媒体的经验。它看起来像营销，但不一样。这是一套全新的技能。这可能是最让我担心的事。然后，比如和埃里克，我们招你时看重的是新媒体最好的东西：你做过吗？你在某个东西上建立过品牌和受众吗？你知道如何建立受众吗？因为那是核心。如果你做不到，就算你有这个技能那个技能也没用。你必须能端到端地交付。

Well, the first principle is if you're trained in old media, it's very, very hard to do new media. You have to be a very exceptional person to make that transition because it's like opposite world. If you spent 10 years doing old media, there are laws of physics, rules of the game, things you do every time, from vetting reporters to rude Q&As. Everything about it is opposite. So there are very few people who can go, 'Okay, I'm getting out of opposite world and going into a new media world.' So you have to be careful about hiring too much experience in not new media for the new media side of what you're doing. It looks like marketing, but it's not the same. It's a completely new skill set. That's probably the thing I'd worry about the most. And then, with Eric, what we looked for when we brought you on, for example, is the best thing on new media: have you done it? Have you built some brand on something and some audience? Do you know how to build an audience? Because that's the core thing. If you can't do that, it doesn't matter if you've got this skill and that skill. You have to be able to deliver it end-to-end.

是的。至于我们招的人，比如亚历克斯·丹科、亨利或布伦特，他们是产品经理、创始人或投资者，但他们痴迷于讨论。他们听播客，自己写作。即使他们没在做那件事，你也能从他们的作品里看出来。

Yep. And in terms of people we've brought on, like Alex Danco or Henry or Brent, they are product managers or founders or investors, but they were obsessed with the discourse. They were listening to the podcast, they were writing themselves. You could tell in the proof of work even though they weren't doing the thing.

是的，所以在新媒体团队中讲故事，这点说得很好。亚历克斯之所以这么出色，是因为他是世界级的讲故事者。先别管营销。你能编出一个别人想读或想听的故事吗？那是真正的技能。精英水平远高于平均水平。做不到的人永远做不到。很多传统营销界的人没有这个技能，因为他们总是依赖负责人、CEO 或别人来提供故事。但如果你能组建一个拥有多个优秀讲故事者的团队，那将是一个巨大的力量提升。

Yeah, so storytelling on your new media team, that's such a good point. The reason why Alex is so good is he's a world-class storyteller. Forget marketing for a second. Can you put together a story that somebody wants to read or listen to? That's a real skill. The elite level of that is way higher than the average level. And the people who can't do it can never do it. Many people from the old marketing world don't have that skill because they always relied on the principal, the CEO, somebody for that story. But if you can build a team with multiple good storytellers, that's a huge power boost.

顺便说一句，这有一个很大的脱节，又回到了真实性的问题。媒体界的人对此的看法有很大的脱节。每个听到我们说话的记者都会想，“哦，只有两件事：新闻和宣传。”主流媒体做新闻。如果你做任何直接的事情，那就是宣传。那只是营销。只是想卖东西。而我要说，我们 100% 不同意这种区分。

By the way, there's a really big disconnect that goes back to the authenticity point. There's a really big disconnect in how people in the media sphere think about this. Every reporter listening to what we're saying would be like, 'Oh, there's only two things: journalism and propaganda.' The mainstream press does journalism. If you're doing any kind of direct anything, it's propaganda. It's just marketing. It's just trying to sell something. And I would say that's a distinction that we 100% don't agree with.

这其中有一个批判的方面，那就是我认为媒体已经不再做他们所谓的客观新闻报道了。但积极的一面是，这恰恰回到了你想要保持真实的原因之一：你希望人们理解你是谁、你做什么，以及你做事的背景。所以你想要解释自己和世界。说到讲故事，这并非虚构故事，而是以有趣的方式讲述实际发生的事情，有张力、有开头和结尾，让听众有兴趣从头听到尾。

There's a critique aspect of it, which is I don't think the press does much of what they would even describe as objective journalism anymore. But the positive side is it goes right back to one of the reasons you want to be authentic: you want people to understand who you are, what you do, and the context within which you're doing it. So you want to explain yourself and explain the world. When you talk about storytelling, it's not like a made-up story; it's storytelling of what's actually happening in an interesting way, with tension, a beginning and an end, so someone is interested in following the whole way.

是的，没错。

Yeah, that's right.

因此，我们非常看重这一点。当 Ben 和我收到来自外界的反馈时，人们总是告诉我们：‘哇，我看了播客、采访，读了你们公司的文章。’ 100% 的情况下他们会说：‘太棒了，我真的理解了那个话题。’ 这是对我们诚实、积极、正当行为的一种非常诚实、正当、积极且有价值的反应。我认为这不仅仅是人们应该做的事情，更是我们科技界人士的责任。当前科技领域正在发生深刻的变化，外界很难理解，而且非常复杂，噪音巨大。所以诚实地解释实际发生的情况至关重要。例如，我们今天发布了一篇关于 SpaceX 的文章。虽然署名是我，但我并没有参与撰写。我已经收到的反馈是，这是有史以来关于 SpaceX 写得最好的文章。我认为确实如此。它阐述了事实真相，我为此感到非常自豪。

As a consequence, we really look for this. When Ben and I get stuff from the street, we routinely get told, 'Wow, I watched the podcast, I saw this interview, I read that post from the firm.' And 100% of the time they say, 'Wow, that was great. I really understand what that topic is about.' That's a very honest, legitimate, positive, and worthwhile reaction to our honest, positive, legitimate action. I think this isn't just something people should do; it's a responsibility for people in our world and in tech now. The changes happening in tech right now are profound, really hard to understand from the outside, and really complicated. There's huge amounts of noise. So explaining honestly what's actually going on is crucial. For example, we put a SpaceX post up today. Although it has my name on it, I had nothing to do with writing it. The feedback I'm already getting is it's the best thing anybody's ever written on SpaceX. I think that's true. It lays out the actual truth, and I'm really proud of that.

我想最后给创始人一些关于直接沟通的建议。Gabi，从你开始。你看到 CEO 们常犯哪些错误？有什么需要避免的？

I want to close with some advice for founders on going direct. Gabi, I'll start with you. What are some mistakes that you see CEOs making and things to avoid?

我认为我常见到两个相关的错误。第一个是，这很容易陷入陷阱，因为时间线让人上瘾，但很多创始人在真正把信息搞对之前，过度关注分发和战术。分发只是信息的放大器。如果信息错了，你就放大了与业务无关、受众不需要听、或者最糟糕的是无趣的内容。现在你告诉所有你在乎的人，你并不有趣。实际上，很多创始人会来找我们问：‘我们怎么才能病毒式传播？’或者‘怎么上 Joe Rogan 的节目？’仔细想想，你上了 Joe Rogan 的节目，但没说对的话，这可能是最糟糕的事情。这不仅适用于传统媒体，也适用于新媒体。你可以上 Bloomberg 或 Fox 但说错话，在新媒体或直接沟通中也会犯同样的错误。所以第一个错误是没有花时间把信息搞对。这是杠杆最高、最重要的事情。接下来，第二个错误是弄清楚如何做到这一点。如果你过于关注输入而非输出或你想要达成的结果，你可能会把信息搞错。这有点矛盾，因为非常成功的公司在这方面最挣扎，因为你可以说很多关于公司的有趣事情。有那么多里程碑，使命非常引人注目，有很多不同的事情你想说，但根据你想要实现的目标，你想说的内容可能应该不同。仅仅因为一切都是真的，并不意味着它们都与你的业务相关或具有战略意义。所以不要从‘我们有这么多可以说的，现在全部说出来，希望人们记住我们觉得最有趣但还没确定的东西’开始，而是从结果开始。我们是想卖给某种企业客户？还是想雇佣某种相信我们和市场角色的工程师？然后你可以从那里倒推。我们知道这些人是谁，他们相信什么，他们可能相信或需要相信我们什么，以及在他们看来什么是紧迫、及时和个人化的。然后我们可以倒推，把信息搞对。回到第一点，你将其与强大的分发相结合，就拥有了一个制胜策略。

I would say there are two mistakes that I commonly saw working with them, and they're sort of related. The first one is it can be very easy to do this too. It's a trap to fall into because the timeline feels so addicting, but a lot of founders really over-index on distribution and tactics before actually getting the message right. Distribution is really just a multiplier on the message. So if the message is wrong, now you've amplified something that is either irrelevant for your business or not the thing that your audience needs to hear, or maybe worst of all, it's uninteresting. And now you've told everybody that you care about that you're not very interesting. In practice, a lot of founders would come to us and say, 'How do we go viral?' or 'How do we get on Joe Rogan?' If you actually think about it, you could get on Joe Rogan and then not say the right thing. This is maybe the worst thing ever. This applies not just to old media, but to new media. You could go on Bloomberg or Fox and get the message wrong, and you could also do the same thing with new media or going direct. So the first mistake is not actually spending the time to get the message right. That's the highest leverage, most important thing to get right. Then from there, the next mistake is actually figuring out how to do that. You can get the message wrong if you focus too much on the inputs as opposed to the outputs or the outcomes that you want to drive towards. This is paradoxical because the companies that are very successful struggle with this the most because there are a lot of interesting things you could say about your company. There are so many milestones, the mission is really compelling, there are a lot of different things you would want to say, but depending on what you're trying to achieve, the thing you want to say should probably be different. Just because everything is true doesn't mean it's all relevant or strategic for your business. So instead of starting with the inputs of 'here's this huge massive everything that we could say, let's just say it all right now and hope people remember potentially the thing that we think is most interesting, but we haven't identified that thing,' start with the outcome. Do we want to sell to a certain type of enterprise customer? Do we want to hire a certain type of engineer who believes a certain thing about us and our role in the market? So now you can work backwards from there. We know who these people are, we know what they believe, we know what they probably believe or need to believe about us, and we know what feels in the discourse urgent, timely, and personal to them. Then we can work backwards and get the message right. Going back to point one, you pair that with really powerful distribution, and then you have a really winning strategy.

顺便说一句，Gabi 说的一个非常重要的点是，这实际上决定了你如何组建团队。如果你组建了一个你无法与之对话、无法听取他们对你信息和说法的意见的团队，那么你就害了自己。你需要团队在行动之前帮助把故事讲好，因为很容易就说‘好吧，把这个空盒子推向市场’。也许有几个营销人员能做到，但这很难。所以你确实希望团队对信息有投入，那么你需要分发的所有变体都会非常出色且切中要点。但如果团队对信息没有意见，那就非常困难了。

By the way, a really important point in what Gabi said is that really determines how you have to put the team together. If you put together a team that you can't have a conversation with where you're listening on your message and what you're saying, then you've done yourself a disservice. You need the team to help make the story great before they go, because it's really easy to go 'Okay, market this empty box.' There are a few marketers who could probably do that, but it's hard. So you really want the team to be invested in the message, and then all the variations you need to distribute that message are going to be really good and on point. But if the team doesn't have an opinion on the message, that's very difficult.

马克，我们在几周前与那家成长型投资组合公司的会议上提到，我们欣赏像亚历克斯·卡普、帕尔默或埃隆这样的人的一点是，他们不仅专注于自己正在做的事情，还能从外部视角谈论世界上正在发生的事情，以及如何将自己的世界观、公司、产品等置于其中。你能谈谈这个原则，以及人们如何擅长这一点吗？

Mark, one of the things we said in that meeting with the growth portfolio company the other week was we admire about people like Alex Karp or Palmer or Elon or others is the ability to also not just focus on what they're doing, but also go outside in and talk about what's happening in the world and how do they situate their worldview, their company, their product, etc. Within that, would you talk a little bit about that principle and how do people get good at it?

是的，最常见的 VC 故事，也就是营销故事，是：“哦，我遇到了一个很棒的创始人，我们一起散了步，然后我给他打了八次电话，我觉得他很棒，最后我说服他接受了投资。”最常见的创业故事是：“哦，我们是一家全新的公司。我们充满激情。我们准备好了。一切都会很棒。我们有一个新产品，希望你能试试。”这些故事简直让人想戳自己的脖子。它们是世界上最无聊的故事。

Yeah, so the most common VC story, the marketing story, is, "Oh, I met this great founder, and we went on a walk, and then I called him eight times, and I thought he was great, and I eventually convinced him to take money." The most common startup story is, "Oh, we're a brand new company. We're all fired up. We're ready to go. It's going to be great. We have a new product, we hope you try it." And those stories just make you want to stab yourself in the neck. They are the lamest stories in the world.

顺便说一句，关键之一是好的故事讲述者拥有出色的细节。细节非常重要。马克的例子之所以糟糕，是因为它没有细节，只是 blah blah blah，我很棒。我和创始人聊过，他真的很喜欢我。你可能也会很喜欢我。谁在乎呢？

By the way, one of the keys is good storytellers have great details. Details matter a lot. Mark's example is so horrible because it has no details, just blah blah blah, I'm so great. I talked to the founder, he really liked me. You'll probably really like me too. Who cares?

而且这给人一种假谦虚的感觉。比如，“我深感荣幸……”这是世界上最假谦虚的话。你根本一点也不谦虚。这是虚假的吹嘘、无聊、以自我为中心、被动攻击，而且毫无区别。每个创业公司都这样。

And it comes across as fake humble. Like, "I'm humbled by..." That's the most fake humble thing in the world. You're not even remotely humble. It's fake bragging, boring, egocentric, passive-aggressive, and indistinguishable. Every single startup does it.

每个人都能自省。那不是有差异化的故事。

Everybody can gaze at their navel. That's not a differentiated story.

是的，这是人们陷入的默认叙事。做任何更大的事情似乎都很傲慢，好像我们是谁，敢讲更大的故事？人们不愿意把望远镜拉远。但我会告诉人们，恰恰相反。你和你的创业公司的故事本身并不有趣，但几乎肯定有一个有趣的故事涉及你的公司。秘诀是找到世界上其他非常有趣的事情，并且你的公司与之相关。

Yeah, that's the default narrative people fall into. It feels like doing anything bigger is arrogant, like who are we to tell a bigger story? And people are reluctant to expand the telescope out. But I would tell people the exact opposite is true. The story of you and your startup is not inherently interesting, but there is almost certainly an interesting story that involves your startup. The cheat code is to find something else in the world that is incredibly interesting and that your company relates to.

这方面的大师是亚历克斯·卡普。如果你看他的采访，他从不谈论 Palantir。他唯一提到的关于 Palantir 的词是本体论和编排，没人知道这两个词的意思。结果没人知道 Palantir 是做什么的，但这没关系，因为他谈论的是美国军队的未来、超级智能、神经多样性。无论什么有趣的话题，他都会开始谈论，而因为他是 Palantir 的创始人和 CEO，这就奏效了。这是正确的思路：找到你能将公司融入其中的最有趣的故事，然后讲那个故事。

And the grand wizard of this is Alex Karp. If you watch his interviews, he never talks about Palantir. The only thing he ever says about Palantir is ontology and orchestration, two words nobody knows. Nobody knows what Palantir does, but it doesn't matter because he talks about the future of the US military, super intelligence, neurodivergence. Whatever is interesting, he'll start talking about it, and because he's the founder and CEO of Palantir, it just works. That's the right idea: find the most interesting story you can plug your company into and tell that story.

是的，因为当世界上发生涉及美国军队、军事中的人工智能、地缘政治或中国的事情时，他是第一个被打电话的人。他就是那个一直在谈论这些事情的人。

Yeah, because when something happens in the world involving the US military, AI in the military, geopolitics, or China, he's the first phone call. He's the guy who's been out there talking about that.

瑞安·彼得森就在观众席中，他在这方面做得非常出色。谈论货运与谈论全球供应链在疫情期间完全崩溃、我们都将饿死之间的区别。然后他上了《60 分钟》节目，从直升机上解释说，是的，我们都快饿死了，看着那些永远无法靠岸的船只。“你的孩子们快要饿死了。来自 Flexport。”这效果非常好。你甚至不需要说“来自 Flexport”。它是隐含的。

Ryan Peterson is in the audience who's done a phenomenal job of that. The difference between talking about freight versus talking about the global supply chain completely collapsing during COVID and we're all going to starve to death. Then he's the guy who goes on 60 Minutes to explain that yes, we are about to starve to death from a helicopter, looking at all those ships that are never landing. "Your children are about to starve. By Flexport." It works incredibly well. And you don't even have to say "by Flexport." It's implicit.

对于企业销售来说，很大一部分在于你是否足够重要，能够与客户的 CEO 会面，与决策者同处一室，与战争部长会面，进入白宫，与财富 500 强 CEO 在一起。如果你有一个做有趣事情的小创业公司，但将自己与世界上正在发生的重大重要事件以及它们如何关联起来，那绝对是猫薄荷。每个人都想要这个。诀窍是：不要由内而外地思考，即我和我的公司以及我的产品走向世界。要由外而内地思考。

And for enterprise sales, a big part is whether you are important enough to meet with the CEO of your customer, to get in the room with the decision maker, to meet with the Secretary of War, to be in the White House, to be with Fortune 500 CEOs. If you have a little startup doing interesting things but you attach yourself to big important things happening in the world and how they relate, that's absolute catnip. Everybody wants that. The trick is: don't think inside-out, me and my company and my product out into the world. Think outside-in.

从这样的角度思考：世界上正在发生的最有趣的事情是什么，然后是什么，然后怎么做，然后这些事情与我们有什么关系？

Think in terms of like what are the most interesting things happening in the world and then what and then how and then and then how do those things relate to us?

顺便说一句，这就是 CEO 们偏离轨道的地方，因为他们过于专注于自己正在做的事情，只想讲自己的故事，甚至不关注世界上正在发生的事情，这可以理解，因为你正在努力构建一些东西，但要做好营销工作，投入精力去理解外部发生的事情至关重要。没有这一点，你做不到。

And by the way, this is where CEOs go off the rails because they're so focused on what they're doing that all they want to do is tell their story and they're not even paying attention to what's going on in the world, which is understandable because you're trying to build something, but to do the marketing exercise, investing in understanding what's happening out there is just critically important. You can't do it without that.

顺便说一句，这在投资者关系中也同样发生。所以每家公司，每家上市公司依法都要做这些 S1、K1、Q 之类的文件，他们花大量时间和精力，这些文件充分解释了公司所做的一切，并且有各种可能的免责声明和认错，还有对人员的精彩描述，但还有年度信函等等。Palantir 的投资者中有多少人读过 S1？大概 0.0001%。有多少人看过 Alex 在 YouTube 上做他的事情？100%。

This by the way happens also in investor relations. So every company, every public company by law does these S1, K1, Q whatever, they do all these things and they fully spend all this time and all this effort and these documents filing fully explain everything the company does and they have every possible hedge and mea culpa and incredible descriptions of people, but then there are the annual letters and all this stuff. What percentage of the investors in Palantir have read the S1? Like 0.0001%. What percentage have seen Alex on YouTube doing his thing? 100%.

是的，没错。

Yeah, exactly.

而花在那份文件上的时间很多。对吧。所以你就用那些时间去充分了解世界，从而讲出一个好故事。

And the amount of time that goes into that document. Right. And so you just take that time and just understand enough about the world to put together a good story.

就此而言，我们将以这个想法结束：技能集不仅是你与生俱来的，它还可以被开发、学习和培养。我是说 Mark，你前几天说，当你回顾 Alex Karp 的旧采访时，它们非常不同。所以当你看到 Alex、Palmer、Elon、Ryan 或之前来过的 Amjad，回顾他们过去的推文或旧采访，他们远不如现在。

On that note, we'll end with this idea that the skill set is not only something you're born with, it can be developed and learned and cultivated. I mean Mark, you were saying the other day that when you look back at Alex Karp's old interviews, they're very different. And so when you look at Alex or Palmer or Elon or Ryan or Amjad who came here earlier, you look back at their old tweets or their old interviews and they're nowhere close to where they were.

哦是的，这绝对是一种技能。你看，有些人有天赋，有些人则不那么擅长。如果你看 80 年代 Donald Trump 的采访，那是非常老派的媒体采访。他实际上很克制。然后他确实弄懂了新媒体，他总是非常有趣和吸引人，这可以说是他受欢迎的神奇之处。所以即使在那个层面，你也可以培养这种能力。

Oh yeah, it's a skill set for sure. And look, there are people who are gifted and then people are less good. If you look at Donald Trump's interviews in the 80s, they're very old media interviews. He's actually restrained. And then he did figure out new media and he's always super entertaining and interesting, which is kind of the magic of his popularity. So even at that level you can develop it.

是的。就此而言，这是一个很好的结束点。让我们为 Gabby、Ben 和 Mark 鼓掌。

Yeah. On that note, it's a great place to wrap. Let's do a round of applause for Gabby, Ben, and Mark.

谢谢。

Thank you.