保罗·格雷厄姆：我们寻找创始人时看重的五种品质
Paul Graham 为 Forbes 撰文，总结 Y Combinator 筛选创始人时最看重的五种品质：决心、灵活性、想象力、顽皮和友谊。他指出，智慧虽重要，但超过某个阈值后，决心才是关键；创业需要灵活调整方向，而非死守梦想；最好的点子起初往往看似疯狂，想象力比解题速度更珍贵；最成功的创始人常带一丝“海盗般的狡黠”，喜欢打破无关紧要的规则。最后，他通过 Justin.tv 等案例强调，创始人之间牢固的友谊是抵御创业撕扯的基石。文章适合潜在创业者，或希望理解早期投资逻辑的读者。
(I wrote this for Forbes, who asked me to write something about the qualities we look for in founders. In print they had to cut the last item because they didn't have room.)
（这是我为《福布斯》写的文章，他们让我写一篇关于我们寻找创始人的哪些品质的文章。纸质版因为篇幅限制不得不删掉了最后一项。）
- Determination
This has turned out to be the most important quality in startup founders. We thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would be intelligence. That's the myth in the Valley. And certainly you don't want founders to be stupid. But as long as you're over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is determination. You're going to hit a lot of obstacles. You can't be the sort of person who gets demoralized easily.
Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman of WePay are a good example. They're doing a finance startup, which means endless negotiations with big, bureaucratic companies. When you're starting a startup that depends on deals with big companies to exist, it often feels like they're trying to ignore you out of existence. But when Bill Clerico starts calling you, you may as well do what he asks, because he is not going away.
- 决心
事实证明，这是创业公司创始人最重要的品质。我们创办Y Combinator时，曾以为最重要的品质是智力。那是硅谷的迷思。当然，你也不希望创始人愚蠢。但只要智力超过一定门槛，最重要的就是决心。你会遇到很多障碍。你不能是那种容易气馁的人。
WePay的Bill Clerico和Rich Aberman是个很好的例子。他们做的是金融创业公司，这意味着要与大型官僚公司进行无休止的谈判。当你创办一家依赖与大公司合作才能生存的初创公司时，常常感觉他们想通过忽视让你消失。但一旦Bill Clerico开始给你打电话，你最好照他说的做，因为他不会放弃。
- Flexibility
You do not however want the sort of determination implied by phrases like "don't give up on your dreams." The world of startups is so unpredictable that you need to be able to modify your dreams on the fly. The best metaphor I've found for the combination of determination and flexibility you need is a running back. He's determined to get downfield, but at any given moment he may need to go sideways or even backwards to get there.
The current record holder for flexibility may be Daniel Gross of Greplin. He applied to YC with some bad ecommerce idea. We told him we'd fund him if he did something else. He thought for a second, and said ok. He then went through two more ideas before settling on Greplin. He'd only been working on it for a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, but he got a lot of interest. He always seems to land on his feet.
- 灵活性
但你不想要那种“不要放弃你的梦想”所暗示的决心。创业世界如此不可预测，你需要能够随时调整你的梦想。对于你所需的决心与灵活性的结合，我找到的最佳比喻是橄榄球跑卫。他决心要冲到达阵区，但任何时刻他可能都需要横向甚至向后移动才能到达。
目前灵活性的纪录保持者可能是Greplin的Daniel Gross。他带着一个糟糕的电子商务创意申请了YC。我们告诉他，如果他换别的创意，我们就投资他。他想了一秒钟，然后说好。之后他又经历了两个创意，才最终确定了Greplin。在Demo Day向投资者展示时，他才只做了几天，但却引起了很大兴趣。他似乎总能化险为夷。
- Imagination
Intelligence does matter a lot of course. It seems like the type that matters most is imagination. It's not so important to be able to solve predefined problems quickly as to be able to come up with surprising new ideas. In the startup world, most good ideas seem bad initially. If they were obviously good, someone would already be doing them. So you need the kind of intelligence that produces ideas with just the right level of craziness.
Airbnb is that kind of idea. In fact, when we funded Airbnb, we thought it was too crazy. We couldn't believe large numbers of people would want to stay in other people's places. We funded them because we liked the founders so much. As soon as we heard they'd been supporting themselves by selling Obama and McCain branded breakfast cereal, they were in. And it turned out the idea was on the right side of crazy after all.
- 想象力
当然，智力确实很重要。但似乎最重要的类型是想象力。能够快速解决预定义问题不如能够提出令人惊讶的新想法重要。在创业世界里，大多数好点子一开始看起来都很糟糕。如果它们明显很好，早就有人去做了。所以你需要那种能产生恰好合适疯狂程度的点子的智力。
Airbnb就是那种点子。事实上，当我们投资Airbnb时，我们觉得它太疯狂了。我们不敢相信会有大量的人愿意住在别人家里。我们投资他们是因为非常喜欢这些创始人。一听说他们靠卖奥巴马和麦凯恩品牌的早餐麦片维持生计，我们就决定投资了。结果证明，这个点子正好处于疯狂的合理一侧。
- Naughtiness
Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.
Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications.
- 顽皮
虽然最成功的创始人通常是好人，但他们眼中往往闪烁着海盗般的光芒。他们不是那种循规蹈矩的好人。在道德上，他们关心的是大是大非，而不是拘泥于礼节。这就是为什么我用“顽皮”而不是“邪恶”。他们乐于打破规则，但不是那些重要的规则。不过，这个品质可能有点多余，它可能已经隐含在想象力中了。
Loopt的Sam Altman是最成功的校友之一，所以我们问他，在Y Combinator的申请中，我们放什么问题能帮助我们找到更多像他一样的人。他说，问他们曾经有过一次为了自己的利益而“hack”某样东西的经历——这里的“hack”是指智取系统，而不是入侵电脑。现在，这成了我们在评估申请时最关注的问题之一。
- Friendship
Empirically it seems to be hard to start a startup with just one founder. Most of the big successes have two or three. And the relationship between the founders has to be strong. They must genuinely like one another, and work well together. Startups do to the relationship between the founders what a dog does to a sock: if it can be pulled apart, it will be.
Emmett Shear and Justin Kan of Justin.tv are a good example of close friends who work well together. They've known each other since second grade. They can practically read one another's minds. I'm sure they argue, like all founders, but I have never once sensed any unresolved tension between them.
- 友谊
从经验来看，单独一人创办创业公司似乎很难。大多数巨大成功的公司都有两到三位创始人。而且创始人之间的关系必须牢固。他们必须真正喜欢彼此，并且合作良好。创业公司对创始人关系的作用，就像狗对袜子的作用：如果能被拆散，就一定会被拆散。
Justin.tv的Emmett Shear和Justin Kan就是合作默契的好朋友的好例子。他们从二年级就认识了。他们几乎能读懂彼此的心思。我肯定他们也会像所有创始人一样争吵，但我从未在他们之间感觉到任何未解决的紧张关系。
Thanks to Jessica Livingston and Chris Steiner for reading drafts of this.
感谢Jessica Livingston和Chris Steiner阅读本文的草稿。