Relentlessly Resourceful
In this short essay, Paul Graham distills the essence of a great startup founder into two words: relentlessly resourceful. Unlike the hapless who passively accept circumstances, good founders are both determined and flexible, adapting to novel difficulties by constantly trying new approaches. Graham argues this trait can be taught — especially to those who have been under authority — and serves as a practical self-test for founders and cofounder selection. Though non-technical, it offers a clear, memorable framework for anyone navigating startup challenges.
March 2009
A couple days ago I finally got being a good startup founder down to two words: relentlessly resourceful.
Till then the best I'd managed was to get the opposite quality down to one: hapless. Most dictionaries say hapless means unlucky. But the dictionaries are not doing a very good job. A team that outplays its opponents but loses because of a bad decision by the referee could be called unlucky, but not hapless. Hapless implies passivity. To be hapless is to be battered by circumstances — to let the world have its way with you, instead of having your way with the world.
Unfortunately there's no antonym of hapless, which makes it difficult to tell founders what to aim for. "Don't be hapless" is not much of a rallying cry.
It's not hard to express the quality we're looking for in metaphors. The best is probably a running back. A good running back is not merely determined, but flexible as well. They want to get downfield, but they adapt their plans on the fly.
Unfortunately this is just a metaphor, and not a useful one to most people outside the US. "Be like a running back" is no better than "Don't be hapless."
But finally I've figured out how to express this quality directly. I was writing a talk for investors, and I had to explain what to look for in founders. What would someone who was the opposite of hapless be like? They'd be relentlessly resourceful. Not merely relentless. That's not enough to make things go your way except in a few mostly uninteresting domains. In any interesting domain, the difficulties will be novel. Which means you can't simply plow through them, because you don't know initially how hard they are; you don't know whether you're about to plow through a block of foam or granite. So you have to be resourceful. You have to keep trying new things.
Be relentlessly resourceful.
2009年3月
几天前，我终于把优秀创业者的特质浓缩成了两个词：永不枯竭的机变（relentlessly resourceful）。
在那之前，我最多只能用一个词描述其反面：倒霉蛋（hapless）。大多数词典说hapless意为“不幸”，但它们解释得并不准确。一个表现出色却因裁判误判输球的团队可以称为“不幸”，而非“倒霉”。Hapless隐含被动。所谓倒霉，就是被环境反复捶打——让世界对你为所欲为，而不是你掌控世界。
不幸的是，hapless没有反义词，这让我们很难告诉创始人应该追求什么。“别当倒霉蛋”实在算不上什么鼓舞人心的口号。
用比喻来表达这种品质并不难。最好的比喻大概是橄榄球的跑卫。优秀的跑卫不仅意志坚定，而且随机应变。他们想向前推进，但会随时调整计划。
可惜这只是个比喻，而且对大多数非美国民众没什么帮助。“像跑卫一样”并不比“别当倒霉蛋”好多少。
但我终于找到了直接表达这种品质的方法。当时我正为投资者准备演讲，需要解释如何识别创始人。一个不倒霉的人是什么样的？他们就是永不枯竭的机变者。不仅是“永不枯竭”，那在少数无趣的领域或许能让事情按你的意愿发展。在任何有趣的领域里，困难都是全新的。这意味着你不能硬冲，因为你一开始并不知道困难有多大，不知道你是在冲泡沫还是花岗岩。所以你必须机变，必须不断尝试新方法。
做到永不枯竭的机变。
That sounds right, but is it simply a description of how to be successful in general? I don't think so. This isn't the recipe for success in writing or painting, for example. In that kind of work the recipe is more to be actively curious. Resourceful implies the obstacles are external, which they generally are in startups. But in writing and painting they're mostly internal; the obstacle is your own obtuseness.
听起来很有道理，但这是否只是对成功的一般性描述？我不这么认为。例如，这并非写作或绘画成功的配方。在那类工作中，配方更像是主动保持好奇心。机变暗示障碍来自外部，而创业中的障碍通常就是外部的。但在写作和绘画中，障碍主要是内部的，是你的愚钝本身。
There probably are other fields where "relentlessly resourceful" is the recipe for success. But though other fields may share it, I think this is the best short description we'll find of what makes a good startup founder. I doubt it could be made more precise.
可能还有其他领域也将“永不枯竭的机变”作为成功的配方。但即便其他领域共享这一点，我认为这仍是描述优秀创业者的最佳简短总结。我怀疑能否找到更精确的表述。
Now that we know what we're looking for, that leads to other questions. For example, can this quality be taught? After four years of trying to teach it to people, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can. Not to everyone, but to many people.
既然我们知道了要找什么，就会引发其他问题。例如，这种品质能教吗？经过四年尝试教导他人，我得说，出乎意料地，很多时候是可以教的。不是对所有人，但对很多人可以。
Some people are just constitutionally passive, but others have a latent ability to be relentlessly resourceful that only needs to be brought out.
This is particularly true of young people who have till now always been under the thumb of some kind of authority. Being relentlessly resourceful is definitely not the recipe for success in big companies, or in most schools. I don't even want to think what the recipe is in big companies, but it is certainly longer and messier, involving some combination of resourcefulness, obedience, and building alliances.
有些人天生被动，但另一些人拥有潜在的不竭机变能力，只需要被激发出来。
这对那些一直受制于某种权威的年轻人尤其如此。在大型公司或大多数学校里，永不枯竭的机变绝不是成功的配方。我甚至不想去想大公司的配方是什么，但它肯定更长更乱，涉及机变、服从和建立联盟的组合。
Identifying this quality also brings us closer to answering a question people often wonder about: how many startups there could be. There is not, as some people seem to think, any economic upper bound on this number. There's no reason to believe there is any limit on the amount of newly created wealth consumers can absorb, any more than there is a limit on the number of theorems that can be proven. So probably the limiting factor on the number of startups is the pool of potential founders. Some people would make good founders, and others wouldn't. And now that we can say what makes a good founder, we know how to put an upper bound on the size of the pool.
明确这一品质也让我们更接近回答一个人们常问的问题：到底能有多少创业公司？这个数字并没有像有些人认为的那种经济上限。没有理由相信消费者能吸收的新创造财富有上限，就像可证明的定理没有上限一样。因此，创业公司数量的限制因素很可能是潜在创始人的储备池。有些人会成为好创始人，有些人则不会。既然我们知道了什么造就了好创始人，我们就知道如何给这个池子的大小设定上限。
This test is also useful to individuals. If you want to know whether you're the right sort of person to start a startup, ask yourself whether you're relentlessly resourceful. And if you want to know whether to recruit someone as a cofounder, ask if they are.
You can even use it tactically. If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there.
这个测试对个人也很有用。如果你想知道自己是否适合创业，问问自己是否做到了永不枯竭的机变。如果你想知道是否该邀请某人做联合创始人，也问问他们是否如此。
你甚至可以用它来指导行动。如果我在运营一家创业公司，我会把这句话贴在镜子上。“做出人们想要的东西”是目的地，而“永不枯竭的机变”是抵达那里的方法。
Notes
[1] I think the reason the dictionaries are wrong is that the meaning of the word has shifted. No one writing a dictionary from scratch today would say that hapless meant unlucky. But a couple hundred years ago they might have. People were more at the mercy of circumstances in the past, and as a result a lot of the words we use for good and bad outcomes have origins in words about luck.
When I was living in Italy, I was once trying to tell someone that I hadn't had much success in doing something, but I couldn't think of the Italian word for success. I spent some time trying to describe the word I meant. Finally she said "Ah! Fortuna!"
注释
[1] 我认为词典出错的原因是词义发生了变化。今天从头编写词典的人不会说hapless意为不幸。但几百年前他们可能会。过去人们更多地受制于环境，因此我们用于描述好坏结果的许多词都源于与运气相关的词汇。
在意大利生活时，我曾想告诉某人我做事不太成功，但想不起意大利语中“成功”这个词。我花了一些时间试图描述我想到的词。最后她说：“啊！Fortuna！”
[2] There are aspects of startups where the recipe is to be actively curious. There can be times when what you're doing is almost pure discovery. Unfortunately these times are a small proportion of the whole. On the other hand, they are in research too.
[2] 创业的某些方面，配方是主动保持好奇心。有时你做的事情几乎是纯粹的发现。可惜这些时刻只占很小一部分。另一方面，科研中也是如此。
[3] I'd almost say to most people, but I realize (a) I have no idea what most people are like, and (b) I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to change.
[3] 我几乎要说“对大多数人”，但我意识到（a）我不知道大多数人是什么样，（b）我对人的改变能力有病态的乐观。