Building Wealth
积累财富

Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn.
赚钱并非某种具体行为，而是一项需要学习的技能。

Understand How Wealth Is Created
了解财富创造的方式

I like to think that if I lost all my money and you dropped me on a random street in any English-speaking country, within five or ten years I’d be wealthy again because it’s just a skillset I’ve developed that anyone can develop. [78]
我常想，要是我身无分文，被随意丢在某个英语国家的街头，不出五到十年，我就能再度致富。因为这不过是我练就的一套本事，谁都能学会。[78]

It’s not really about hard work. You can work in a restaurant eighty hours a week, and you’re not going to get rich. Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work. Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way.
致富并非单纯靠努力工作。即便你每周在餐厅劳作八十小时，也不见得能发财。致富的关键在于明确做什么、与谁共事以及何时行动。相比一味埋头苦干，理解其中的门道更为重要。当然，努力不可或缺，绝不能敷衍了事，但努力得找准方向。

If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on.
要是你还不清楚该做什么工作，当务之急就是把这事搞明白。在明确方向之前，别盲目地埋头苦干。

I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth.
我在十三四岁这样年纪尚小的时候，就给自己总结出了下面这条推文风暴中的原则。三十年来，这些原则一直铭记于心，我也始终践行着。随着时间流逝（不知这算好事还是坏事），我真正擅长的事，是研究企业，找到创造财富并获取部分所创财富的最大杠杆点。

This is exactly what I did my famous tweetstorm about. Of course, every one of these tweets can be extrapolated into an hour’s worth of conversation. The tweetstorm below is a good starting point. The tweetstorm tries to be information-dense, very concise, high-impact, and timeless. It has all the information and principles, so if you absorb these and you work hard over ten years, you’ll get what you want. [77]
这正是我那条引发热议的系列推文所讲的内容。当然，其中每一条推文都能衍生出长达一小时的讨论。下面的系列推文是个不错的切入点。这些推文力求信息丰富、简洁凝练、影响力大且历久弥新。它们涵盖了所有的信息与原则，所以只要你领悟了这些，并在十年间努力践行，就能得偿所愿。[77]

How to Get Rich (Without Getting Lucky):
如何实现致富（不靠运气）：

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Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
要追求财富，而非金钱或地位。财富指的是拥有那些即便你在睡觉也能产生收益的资产。金钱是我们用来转移时间与财富的媒介。地位则是你在社会等级结构中的排位。

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Understand ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.
要明白，以合乎道德的方式创造财富是可行的。若你暗自鄙夷财富，财富便会与你无缘。

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Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.
别理会那些热衷于追逐地位的人。他们靠打压致力于创造财富的人来提升自己的地位。

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You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom.
靠出卖自己的时间，你永远无法实现财富自由。你必须持有股权，也就是成为企业的股东，才能获得财务自由。

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You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.
你若能大规模地提供社会所需，却又不知如何获取之物，就能实现财富自由。

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Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people.
选择一个行业，在其中你能与志同道合之人开展长期合作。

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The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.
互联网极大拓展了职业选择的空间，大多数人尚未意识到这一点。

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Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.
参与重复博弈。生活中，无论是财富积累、人际关系拓展还是知识增长，所有回报皆源自复利。

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Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity.
挑选商业伙伴时，要选那些智商高、精力足，且重中之重是为人正直的人。

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Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.
别跟愤世嫉俗和悲观消极的人合作，他们的想法往往会自我应验。

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Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
学会销售，学会打造产品。若二者兼备，你将无往不胜。

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Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.
用独特知识、担当精神和杠杆能力武装自己。

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Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you.
独特知识是无法通过培训获取的知识。要是社会能培训你掌握这种知识，那它也能培训别人，进而取代你。

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Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.
要获得专业知识，应追随内心真正的好奇与热爱，而非追逐当下的热点。

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Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.
积累特定知识，对你而言如同玩乐，在他人眼中却似工作。

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When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools.
传授专门知识靠的是学徒制，而非学校教育。

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Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated.
独特知识通常极具专业性或创造性，无法外包或实现自动化。

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Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.
勇于承担责任，以个人名义承担商业风险。社会会赋予你更多职责、股权和影响力作为回报。

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“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”
“给我一根足够长的杠杆，再给我一个支点，我就能撬动地球。”

—Archimedes
——阿基米德

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Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media).
财富的积累需要借助杠杆。商业领域的杠杆源自资本、人力，以及复制边际成本为零的产品，如代码和媒体。

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Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge with accountability and show resulting good judgment.
资本即资金。若要筹集资金，需运用自身独特知识，勇于担当，并展现出良好的判断力。

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Labor means people working for you. It’s the oldest and most fought-over form of leverage. Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it.
劳动力指的是为你工作的人。这是最古老、竞争最激烈的一种杠杆形式。劳动力杠杆或许能让父母对你刮目相看，但别为了它虚度一生。

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Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you.
资本与劳动力属于需获许可才能动用的杠杆。人人都在追逐资本，可总得有人愿意给你投资。人人都想成为领导者，可也得有人愿意追随你。

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Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.
代码与媒体是无需授权即可使用的杠杆，是造就新富人群的背后力量。你可以开发软件、创作媒体内容，让它们在你安睡时仍为你效力。

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An army of robots is freely available—it’s just packed in data centers for heat and space efficiency. Use it.
有一支可免费使用的机器人“大军”，只是出于散热和空间利用的考虑，它们被集中安置在数据中心里。好好利用它们。

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If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.
要是你不会编程，那就去写书、写博客，录制视频和音频节目。

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Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment.
杠杆能成倍提升你的判断力。

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Judgment requires experience but can be built faster by learning foundational skills.
判断需要经验，但通过学习基础技能能够更快地培养起来。

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There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes.
根本不存在“商业”这门技能。别去看商业杂志，也别去上商业课程。

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Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.
学习微观经济学、博弈论、心理学、说服术、伦理学、数学以及计算机知识。

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Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching.
阅读的速度比听快。实干的速度比看快。

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You should be too busy to “do coffee” while still keeping an uncluttered calendar.
你应该忙得无暇“喝咖啡”，但日程安排仍需有条不紊。

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Set and enforce an aspirational personal hourly rate. If fixing a problem will save less than your hourly rate, ignore it. If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it.
设定并执行一个理想的个人时薪标准。若解决某个问题节省的费用低于你的时薪，那就别管它。要是外包某项任务的成本低于你的时薪，就把它外包出去。

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Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.
尽你所能努力工作。虽说和谁共事、做什么工作，比工作努力程度更重要。

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Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.
成为所在领域的全球顶尖。不断重新界定自己的工作，直至达成这一目标。

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There are no get-rich-quick schemes. Those are just someone else getting rich off you.
世上没有一夜暴富的门道。所谓的捷径，不过是别人借你发财罢了。

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Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve.
运用独特知识，借助杠杆效应，最终你会收获应得的成果。

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When you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. But that is for another day. [11]
当你终于富有时，你会发觉这并非自己最初的追求。不过，这是后话了。[11]

Summary: Productize Yourself
总结：实现个人产品化

Your summary says “Productize yourself”—what does that mean?
你在总结里说“把自己打造成产品”，这是什么意思？

“Productize” and “yourself.” “Yourself” has uniqueness. “Productize” has leverage. “Yourself” has accountability. “Productize” has specific knowledge. “Yourself” also has specific knowledge in there. So all of these pieces, you can combine them into these two words.
“产品化”与“自我”。“自我”具有独特性，“产品化”具备杠杆效应。“自我”意味着承担责任，“产品化”则依托特定知识，“自我”同样也蕴含特定知识。因此，所有这些要素都能归结到这两个词上。

If you’re looking toward the long-term goal of getting wealthy, you should ask yourself, “Is this authentic to me? Is it myself that I am projecting?” And then, “Am I productizing it? Am I scaling it? Am I scaling with labor or with capital or with code or with media?” So it’s a very handy, simple mnemonic. [78]
要是你把目光投向致富这一长远目标，那就该问问自己：“这对我而言真实吗？我所展现的是真实的自己吗？” 接着再问：“我有没有将其转化为产品？有没有进行规模化运作？我是借助劳动力、资本、代码，还是媒体来实现规模化的呢？” 所以，这是个十分实用又简单的记忆窍门。[78]

This is hard. This is why I say it takes decades—I’m not saying it takes decades to execute, but the better part of a decade may be figuring out what you can uniquely provide. [10]
这并非易事。所以我说这得花上几十年——我不是指执行过程需要几十年，而是可能得花近十年的时间，才能弄清楚自己究竟能提供什么独特价值。[10]

What’s the difference between wealth and money?
财富与金钱有何区别？

Money is how we transfer wealth. Money is social credits. It is the ability to have credits and debits of other people’s time.
金钱是我们转移财富的手段。金钱是社会信用，它代表着能够支配他人时间的能力。

If I do my job right, if I create value for society, society says, “Oh, thank you. We owe you something in the future for the work you did in the past. Here’s a little IOU. Let’s call that money.” [78]
如果我工作出色，为社会创造了价值，社会就会说：“哦，感谢你。鉴于你过去的付出，未来我们会有所回报。这是一张小额欠条，我们称之为货币。” [78]

Wealth is the thing you want. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep. Wealth is the factory, the robots, cranking out things. Wealth is the computer program that’s running at night, serving other customers. Wealth is even money in the bank that is being reinvested into other assets, and into other businesses.
财富是你梦寐以求之物。财富是让你躺着就能赚钱的资产，比如不停生产的工厂和机器人，又比如夜里仍在运行、服务其他客户的计算机程序。甚至存在银行里，被用于再投资其他资产和企业的资金，也算财富。

Even a house can be a form of wealth, because you can rent it out, although that’s probably a lower productivity use of land than some commercial enterprise.
即便一所房子，也能成为一种财富，因为你可以将其出租。不过，相较于某些商业项目，这种对土地的利用方式，产出效率可能较低。

So, my definition of wealth is much more businesses and assets that can earn while you sleep. [78]
所以，我对财富的定义是拥有更多能在你睡梦中也持续盈利的企业和资产。[78]

Technology democratizes consumption but consolidates production. The best person in the world at anything gets to do it for everyone.
技术让消费变得大众化，却让生产趋于集中化。在任何领域，全球最顶尖的那个人，能为所有人提供相关产品或服务。

Society will pay you for creating things it wants. But society doesn’t yet know how to create those things, because if it did, they wouldn’t need you. They would already be stamped out.
社会会为你创造其所需之物而给予回报。但社会尚不知如何创造这些东西，因为倘若知晓，便无需你出手，这些东西早就大量制造出来了。

Almost everything in your house, in your workplace, and on the street used to be technology at one point in time. There was a time when oil was a technology that made J.D. Rockefeller rich. There was a time when cars were technology that made Henry Ford rich.
你家里、工作场所和大街上的几乎所有东西，在某个时期都曾是技术。曾几何时，石油是让约翰·D·洛克菲勒发家的技术。也曾有那么一段时期，汽车是让亨利·福特致富的技术。

So, technology is the set of things, as Alan Kay said, that don’t quite work yet [correction: Danny Hillis]. Once something works, it’s no longer technology. Society always wants new things. And if you want to be wealthy, you want to figure out which one of those things you can provide for society that it does not yet know how to get but it will want and providing it is natural to you, within your skill set, and within your capabilities.
所以，正如丹尼·希利斯（Danny Hillis）所说（注：原表述有误，非艾伦·凯所言），技术是那些还不太成熟的事物。一旦某事物成熟可用，它就不再属于技术范畴。社会始终追求新事物。若想致富，你得找出社会渴望却不知如何获取的事物，且你能凭借自身技能与能力，自然而然地提供该事物。

Then, you have to figure out how to scale it because if you only build one, that’s not enough. You’ve got to build thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, or billions of them so everybody can have one. Steve Jobs (and his team, of course) figured out society would want smartphones. A computer in their pocket that had all the phone capability times one hundred and was easy to use. So, they figured out how to build it, and then they figured out how to scale it. [78]
接着，你得琢磨如何实现规模化生产，毕竟只造一个远远不够。你得造出成千上万、几十万、几百万乃至几十亿个，这样才能让人人都能拥有。史蒂夫·乔布斯（当然，还有他的团队）察觉到社会对智能手机有需求。也就是一种能放进口袋的电脑，电话功能强大百倍且操作便捷。于是，他们研究出了制造方法，随后又琢磨出了规模化生产的办法。[78]

Find and Build Specific Knowledge
探寻并建立特定知识

Sales skills are a form of specific knowledge.
销售技能属于一种特定知识。

There’s such a thing as “a natural” in sales. You run into them all the time in startups and venture capital. When you meet someone who is a natural at sales, you just know they’re amazing. They’re really good at what they do. That is a form of specific knowledge.
销售中有“天生的销售高手”这回事。在创业公司和风险投资行业，你总能碰到这样的人。一旦遇到天生会做销售的人，你马上就会意识到他们很厉害。他们对自己的工作得心应手。这就是一种独特的知识。

Obviously they learned somewhere, but they didn’t learn it in a classroom setting. They learned probably in their childhood in the school yard, or they learned negotiating with their parents. Maybe some is a genetic component in the DNA.
显然，他们是在某个地方学到了这些，但并非在课堂上学到的。他们可能是在童年时的校园里，或者通过与父母讨价还价学到的。也许基因里也有一些相关因素。

But you can improve sales skills. You can read Robert Cialdini, you can go to a sales training seminar, you can do door-to-door sales. It is brutal but will train you very quickly. You can definitely improve your sales skills.
但你能够提升销售技能。你可以研读罗伯特·西奥迪尼的作品，参加销售培训研习会，或者尝试上门推销。这过程很艰辛，但能让你迅速成长。你肯定能够提升自己的销售技能。

Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned.
具体知识无法传授，只能自行学习。

When I talk about specific knowledge, I mean figure out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know.
当我说到专门知识时，我指的是回想一下你在孩童或青少年时期，那些几乎不费吹灰之力就能做到的事。有些事你自己都没觉得算是什么技能，但身边的人却留意到了。你的母亲，或者从小一起长大的挚友，会知道这些事。

Examples of what your specific knowledge could be:
你的专业知识可能体现在这些方面：

• Sales skills
  销售技巧
• Musical talents, with the ability to pick up any instrument
  拥有音乐天赋，能学会任何乐器
• An obsessive personality: you dive into things and remember them quickly
  痴迷特质：全身心投入，过目不忘
• Love for science fiction: you were into reading sci-fi, which means you absorb a lot of knowledge very quickly
  热爱科幻小说：你沉迷于阅读科幻作品，这表明你吸收知识的速度极快
• Playing a lot of games, you understand game theory pretty well
  玩过大量游戏后，你会对博弈论有相当深入的理解
• Gossiping, digging into your friend network. That might make you into a very interesting journalist.
  热衷于八卦，对自己的朋友圈子刨根问底。这或许能让你成为一名相当有意思的记者。

The specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It’s almost baked into your personality and your identity. Then you can hone it.
具体知识，是你独特的基因特质、成长经历以及你对这些经历的反应，三者奇妙结合的产物。它几乎深植于你的个性与身份之中。之后，你可以对其加以磨炼。

No one can compete with you on being you.
没有人能比你更像你自己。

Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.
人生的大部分时光，都在寻觅那些最需要你的人和事。

For example, I love to read, and I love technology. I learn very quickly, and I get bored fast. If I had gone into a profession where I was required to tunnel down for twenty years into the same topic, it wouldn’t have worked. I’m in venture investing, which requires me to come up to speed very, very quickly on new technologies (and I’m rewarded for getting bored because new technologies come along). It matches up pretty well with my specific knowledge and skill sets. [10]
比如说，我热爱阅读，也钟情于科技。我学东西很快，但也极易感到乏味。要是我投身于那种需要在同一课题上深耕二十年的职业，肯定是干不下去的。我现在做风险投资，这就要求我能极其迅速地熟悉新技术（而且由于新技术层出不穷，我容易厌倦这一点反倒成了优势）。这和我所具备的特定知识与技能相当契合。[10]

I wanted to be a scientist. That is where a lot of my moral hierarchy comes from. I view scientists as being at the top of the production chain for humanity. The group of scientists who have made real breakthroughs and contributions probably added more to human society, I think, than any single other class of human beings. Not to take away anything from art or politics or engineering or business, but without science, we’d still be scrambling in the dirt fighting with sticks and trying to start fires.
我曾经想成为一名科学家。这也是我诸多道德层级观念的根源所在。我认为，科学家处于人类生产链的顶端。我觉得，那些取得真正突破并做出贡献的科学家群体，对人类社会的贡献或许比其他任何一类人都要大。这并非是要贬低艺术、政治、工程或商业领域，毕竟要是没有科学，我们恐怕还在尘土中摸爬滚打，拿着棍棒相互争斗，费劲地生火呢。

Society, business, & money are downstream of technology, which is itself downstream of science. Science applied is the engine of humanity.
社会、商业与金钱受技术的影响，而技术又受科学的影响。应用科学是推动人类发展的引擎。

Corollary: Applied Scientists are the most powerful people in the world. This will be more obvious in the coming years.
推论：应用科学家是世界上最具影响力的人。这一点在未来几年会愈发明显。

My whole value system was built around scientists, and I wanted to be a great scientist. But when I actually look back at what I was uniquely good at and what I ended up spending my time doing, it was more around making money, tinkering with technology, and selling people on things. Explaining things and talking to people.
我整个价值体系的构建都以科学家为核心，我曾一心想成为一名杰出的科学家。然而，当我回首审视自己真正擅长且实际投入时间去做的事，更多是赚钱、捣鼓技术，以及向他人推销产品，还有讲解事物、与人交流。

I have some sales skills, which is a form of specific knowledge. I have some analytical skills on how to make money. And I have this ability to absorb data, obsess about it, and break it down—that is a specific skill that I have. I also love tinkering with technology. And all of this stuff feels like play to me, but it looks like work to others.
我掌握了一些销售技巧，这属于特定知识范畴。同时，我还具备分析赚钱之道的能力。此外，我擅长收集数据、深入研究并剖析数据，这是我的一项专长。我还热衷于摆弄各种技术。对我而言，做这些事就像玩乐，但在旁人眼中，这都是工作。

There are other people to whom these things would be hard, and they say, “Well, how do I get good at being pithy and selling ideas?” Well, if you’re not already good at it or if you’re not really into it, maybe it’s not your thing—focus on the thing that you are really into.
还有些人觉得这些事做起来很难，他们会问：“那我要怎么才能擅长简洁表达并推销自己的想法呢？”其实，要是你并不擅长，或者对此并不感兴趣，那或许这并不适合你——不妨专注于自己真正感兴趣的事。

The first person to actually point out my real specific knowledge was my mother. She did it as an aside, talking from the kitchen, and she said it when I was fifteen or sixteen years old. I was telling a friend of mine that I want to be an astrophysicist, and she said, “No, you’re going to go into business.” I was like, “What, my mom’s telling me I’m going to be in business? I’m going to be an astrophysicist. Mom doesn’t know she’s talking about.” But Mom knew exactly what she was talking about. [78]
第一个真正点出我独特专长的人是我母亲。当时我十五六岁，她在厨房，不经意间说了这番话。那时我正跟朋友说自己想成为天体物理学家，她却说道：“不，你以后会从商。”我心里想：“什么？我妈居然说我以后会从商？我可是要当天体物理学家的。老妈根本不懂她在说什么。”但其实妈妈心里有数。[78]

Specific knowledge is found much more by pursuing your innate talents, your genuine curiosity, and your passion. It’s not by going to school for whatever is the hottest job; it’s not by going into whatever field investors say is the hottest.
要获取具体知识，更多地要靠挖掘自身天赋、激发真正的好奇心以及投入热情。不是去学校学习当下最热门的职业技能，也不是投身于投资者口中最热门的领域。

Very often, specific knowledge is at the edge of knowledge. It’s also stuff that’s only now being figured out or is really hard to figure out. If you’re not 100 percent into it, somebody else who is 100 percent into it will outperform you. And they won’t just outperform you by a little bit—they’ll outperform you by a lot because now we’re operating the domain of ideas, compound interest really applies and leverage really applies. [78]
通常，独特知识处于知识的前沿，属于那些刚被探明或极难探明的内容。要是你没有全身心投入，那些全身心投入的人就会远超于你。而且，他们对你的超越可不是一星半点，而是大幅度的超越。因为在思想领域，复利和杠杆效应会切实发挥作用。[78]

The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.
互联网极大拓展了职业选择的空间，大多数人尚未意识到这一点。

You can go on the internet, and you can find your audience. And you can build a business, and create a product, and build wealth, and make people happy just uniquely expressing yourself through the internet. [78]
你可以借助互联网，找到自己的受众群体。你还能借此创业、打造产品、积累财富，通过在网上展现独特的自我，给人们带来快乐。[78]

The internet enables any niche interest, as long as you’re the best person at it to scale out. And the great news is because every human is different, everyone is the best at something—being themselves.
互联网让任何小众爱好都有机会发展壮大，前提是你在这个领域做到出类拔萃。好消息是，人各有别，每个人在做自己这件事上，都是最棒的。

Another tweet I had that is worth weaving in, but didn’t go into the “How to Get Rich” tweetstorm, was very simple: “Escape competition through authenticity.” Basically, when you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy. [78]
我还有一条推文，虽未纳入“如何致富”系列推文，但值得一提，内容很简单：“保持真实，跳出竞争。” 本质上，你与人竞争，是因为在模仿他们，试图做相同的事。然而，每个人都独一无二，不要模仿。[78]

If you are fundamentally building and marketing something that is an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you on that. Who’s going to compete with Joe Rogan or Scott Adams? It’s impossible. Is somebody else going to come along and write a better Dilbert? No. Is someone going to compete with Bill Watterson and create a better Calvin and Hobbes? No. They’re being authentic. [78]
如果你所打造和推广的东西，本质上是你自身特质的延伸，那就没人能在这方面与你竞争。谁能和乔·罗根或者斯科特·亚当斯竞争呢？根本不可能。会有其他人写出比《呆伯特》更好的作品吗？不会。会有人与比尔·沃特森竞争，创作出比《卡尔文与霍布斯》更出色的漫画吗？也不会。他们都做到了真实展现自我。[78]

The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.
最好的工作，既非按部就班，也无需学位加持。它们是自由市场中终身学习者的创造性展现。

The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy.
想要致富，最重要的技能就是成为一名终身学习者。你得知道如何去学习任何你想学的东西。过去的赚钱模式是，先读四年书拿到学位，再以专业人士的身份工作三十年。但如今情况瞬息万变，现在你得在九个月内精通一门新职业，可四年后它就会过时。不过，在这富有成效的三年里，你就能赚得盆满钵满。

It’s much more important today to be able to become an expert in a brand-new field in nine to twelve months than to have studied the “right” thing a long time ago. You really care about having studied the foundations, so you’re not scared of any book. If you go to the library and there’s a book you cannot understand, you have to dig down and say, “What is the foundation required for me to learn this?” Foundations are super important. [74]
如今，相比起很久以前学过 “正确的” 知识，能在 9 到 12 个月内成为全新领域的专家要重要得多。你真正在意的是学习基础知识，所以面对任何书籍都无所畏惧。要是你在图书馆遇到看不懂的书，就得深入探究，问问自己：“要读懂这本书，我需要哪些基础知识？” 基础知识至关重要。[74]

Basic arithmetic and numeracy are way more important in life than doing calculus. Similarly, being able to convey yourself simply using ordinary English words is far more important than being able to write poetry, having an extensive vocabulary, or speaking seven different foreign languages.
在生活里，基础算术和数学能力远比微积分重要。同样，能用平实的英语词汇清晰表达自己，远比会写诗、词汇量丰富或能说七门外语重要得多。

Knowing how to be persuasive when speaking is far more important than being an expert digital marketer or click optimizer. Foundations are key. It’s much better to be at 9/10 or 10/10 on foundations than to try and get super deep into things.
懂得在表达时如何说服他人，远比成为专业的数字营销专家或点击优化师重要得多。根基至关重要。打好扎实的基础，达到九分或十分的水平，远胜于一味钻研细枝末节。

You do need to be deep in something because otherwise you’ll be a mile wide and an inch deep and you won’t get what you want out of life. You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed about. [74]
你的确得在某些事情上深耕，不然就会流于宽泛而浮浅，难以实现人生目标。人往往只能精通一两件事，而这些事通常是自己痴迷的。[74]

Play Long-Term Games with Long-Term People
和眼光长远的人一起进行长期博弈

You said, “All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.” How does one know if they’re earning compound interest?
你曾说：“生活中所有的回报，无论是财富、人际关系还是知识，都源自复利。” 那一个人要如何知道自己是否正在获得复利呢？

Compound interest is a very powerful concept. Compound interest applies to more than just compounding capital. Compounding capital is just the beginning.
复利是一个极为强大的概念。复利的应用范围远不止资本复利，资本复利仅仅是个开端。

Compounding in business relationships is very important. Look at some of the top roles in society, like why someone is a CEO of a public company or managing billions of dollars. It’s because people trust them. They are trusted because the relationships they’ve built and the work they’ve done has compounded. They’ve stuck with the business and shown themselves (in a visible and accountable way) to be high-integrity people.
在商业关系中，复利效应至关重要。看看社会上的一些高层职位，比如为何有人能成为上市公司的首席执行官，或是掌管着巨额资金。这是因为人们信任他们。他们获得信任，是由于他们所建立的人脉关系以及所做的工作形成了复利积累。他们始终投身于企业，以切实且负责的方式展现出自己是正直诚信之人。

Compound interest also happens in your reputation. If you have a sterling reputation and you keep building it for decades upon decades, people will notice. Your reputation will literally end up being thousands or tens of thousands of times more valuable than somebody else who was very talented but is not keeping the compound interest in reputation going.
声誉也存在复利效应。要是你声誉极佳，且数十年持续积累，人们定会有所察觉。最终，你的声誉价值，会比那些天赋出众却未让声誉实现复利增长的人，高出数千乃至数万倍。

This is also true when you’re working with individual people. If you’ve worked with somebody for five or ten years and you still enjoy working with them, obviously you trust them, and the little foibles are gone. All the normal negotiations in business relationships can work very simply because you trust each other—you know it will work out.
当你与他人单独合作时，情况也是如此。要是你和某人共事了五到十年，还乐意继续合作，那显然你信任对方，而且也不再计较那些小毛病了。在商业合作关系里，所有常见的协商都能轻松搞定，因为你们彼此信任，相信事情总会圆满解决。

For example, there’s another Angel in Silicon Valley named Elad Gil who I like to do deals with.
比如说，硅谷还有一位叫埃拉德·吉尔的天使投资人，我挺乐意跟他一起做交易。

I love working with Elad because I know when the deal is being done, he will bend over backward to give me extra. He will always round off in my favor if there’s an extra dollar being delivered here or there. If there’s some cost to pay, he will pay it out of his own pocket, and he won’t even mention it to me. Because he goes so far out of his way to treat me so well, I send him every deal I have—I try to include him in everything. Then, I go out of my way to try and pay for him. Compounding in those relationships is very valuable. [10]
我喜欢和伊拉德共事，因为我知道，谈成交易时，他定会竭尽全力额外照顾我。要是有额外的小钱，他总会算在我头上。要是有费用得付，他会自己掏钱，提都不会跟我提。他对我这么尽心尽力，所以我手头有什么业务，都会交给他，凡事都尽量带上他。然后，我也会想尽办法为他付出。这种关系中的互利互惠，价值非凡。[10]

Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.
意图无关紧要，行动才是关键。这就是为何坚守道德并非易事。

When you find the right thing to do, when you find the right people to work with, invest deeply. Sticking with it for decades is really how you make the big returns in your relationships and in your money. So, compound interest is very important. [10]
当你找到值得做的事，找到合拍的共事之人，就要全身心投入。数十年如一日地坚持，这才是在人际关系与财富上获得丰厚回报的秘诀。因此，复利至关重要。[10]

99% of effort is wasted.
99%的努力都是白费。

Obviously, nothing is ever completely wasted because it’s all a learning moment. You can learn from anything. But for example, when you go back to school, 99 percent of the term papers you did, books you read, exercises you did, things you learned, they don’t really apply. You might have read geography and history you never reuse. You might have studied a language you don’t speak anymore. You might have studied a branch of mathematics you completely forgot.
显然，没有什么会被彻底浪费，因为一切都是学习契机。你能从任何事物中学到东西。比如说，回顾学生时代，你写过的 99%的学期论文、读过的书、做过的习题、学过的知识，实际上都用不上。你可能学过地理和历史，却再也不会用到。你可能学过一门语言，如今已不再使用。你可能学过某个数学分支，现在也全忘了。

Of course, these are learning experiences. You did learn. You learned the value of hard work; you might have learned something that went deep into your psyche and became a piece of what you’re doing now. But at least when it comes to the goal-oriented life, only about 1 percent of the efforts you made paid off.
当然，这些都是学习经历。你确实有所收获，明白了努力奋斗的价值，或许还领悟到了一些深入内心的道理，融入到当下的行事风格中。但至少在追求目标的人生里，你付出的努力仅有约 1% 有所成效。

Another example is all the people you dated until you met your husband or wife. It was wasted time in the goal sense. Not wasted in the exponential sense, not wasted in the learning sense, but definitely wasted in the goal sense.
另一个例子是，在遇到你的丈夫或妻子之前，你交往过的那些人。从达成目标的角度来说，这是浪费时间。但从成长积累和学习的角度看，并非如此，不过从目标达成的角度讲，确实是浪费了时间。

The reason I say this is not to make some glib comment about how 99 percent of your life is wasted and only 1 percent is useful. I say this because you should be very thoughtful and realize in most things (relationships, work, even in learning) what you’re trying to do is find the thing you can go all-in on to earn compound interest.
我这么说，并非要故作轻松地讲，你人生 99%都虚度了，只有 1%有价值。我这么讲，是希望你认真思考，明白在大多数事情上（比如人际关系、工作，乃至学习），你要努力找到一件值得全身心投入的事，从而收获复利。

When you’re dating, the instant you know this relationship is not going to be the one that leads to marriage, you should probably move on. When you’re studying something, like a geography or history class, and you realize you are never going to use the information, drop the class. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of your brain energy.
约会的时候，一旦意识到这段感情不会走向婚姻，或许就该另作打算了。学习地理、历史这类课程时，要是发现所学知识根本用不上，那就别学了，纯粹是浪费时间和精力。

I’m not saying don’t do the 99 percent, because it’s very hard to identify what the 1 percent is. What I’m saying is: when you find the 1 percent of your discipline which will not be wasted, which you’ll be able to invest in for the rest of your life and has meaning to you—go all-in and forget about the rest. [10]
我不是说别去做那 99%的事，因为很难界定那 1%究竟是什么。我想说的是：一旦你在自己的专业领域里找到了那 1%值得你投入毕生精力且意义非凡、不会徒劳无功的事，那就全身心投入，别再理会其他。[10]

Take on Accountability
勇于承担责任

Embrace accountability and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.
勇于承担责任，以个人名义承担商业风险。社会会赋予你职责、股权与影响力作为回报。

To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines.
想要致富，就得借助杠杆。杠杆的来源包括劳动力、资本，也可以是代码或媒体。不过，像劳动力和资本这类，大多都需要他人提供。就劳动力而言，得有人愿意追随你；就资本来说，得有人给你资金、资产供你打理，或者提供机器设备。

So to get these things, you have to build credibility, and you have to do it under your own name as much as possible, which is risky. So, accountability is a double-edged thing. It allows you to take credit when things go well and to bear the brunt of the failure when things go badly. [78]
所以，要获得这些，你得树立信誉，而且要尽可能以自己的名义去做，这有风险。所以，责任承担是把双刃剑。事情顺利时，你能因此得到认可；事情糟糕时，你就得首当其冲承受失败。[78]

Clear accountability is important. Without accountability, you don’t have incentives. Without accountability, you can’t build credibility. But you take risks. You risk failure. You risk humiliation. You risk failure under your own name.
明确的问责至关重要。缺乏问责，就没有激励；没有问责，便无法树立信誉。然而，你得承担风险，可能会遭遇失败，可能会蒙羞，甚至可能以个人名义背负失败的后果。

Luckily, in modern society, there’s no more debtors’ prison and people aren’t imprisoned or executed for losing other people’s money, but we’re still socially hardwired to not fail in public under our own names. The people who have the ability to fail in public under their own names actually gain a lot of power.
幸运的是，在现代社会，不再设有债务人监狱，人们也不会因弄丢他人钱财而遭监禁或处决。然而，从社交本能来讲，我们依然不愿以个人名义在公众面前失败。而那些敢于以个人名义在公众面前坦然面对失败的人，实际上获得了巨大的力量。

I’ll give a personal anecdote. Up until about 2013, 2014, my public persona was entirely around startups and investing. Only around 2014, 2015 did I start talking about philosophy and psychological things and broader things. It made me a little nervous because I was doing it under my own name. There were definitely people in the industry who sent me messages through the backchannel like, “What are you doing? You’re ending your career. This is stupid.”
我讲一件亲身经历的事。大概在 2013、2014 年之前，我在公众面前一直都是围绕创业和投资的形象。差不多到 2014、2015 年，我才开始谈论哲学、心理学以及更宽泛的话题。这让我有点忐忑，毕竟我是用自己的本名在做这件事。业内肯定有人私下给我发消息，说：“你在干嘛？你这是在毁掉自己的职业生涯。太傻了。”

I kind of just went with it. I took a risk. Same with crypto. Early on, I took a risk. But when you put your name out there, you take a risk with certain things. You also get to reap the rewards. You get the benefits. [78]
我差不多就这么做了，冒了次险。加密货币这事也是一样，一开始我就冒险尝试了。但要是你公开自己的身份，在某些事情上就得承担风险。不过，你也能从中收获回报，获得好处。[78]

In the old days, the captain was expected to go down with the ship. If the ship was sinking, then literally the last person to get off was the captain. Accountability does come with real risks, but we’re talking about a business context.
在过去，人们认为船长理应与船共沉。要是船在下沉，那最后一个离船的必定是船长。虽说问责制确实存在实际风险，但我们这里说的是商业场景。

The risk here would be you would probably be the last one to get your capital back out. You’d be the last one to get paid for your time. The time that you put in, the capital you put into the company, these are at risk. [78]
此处的风险在于，你很可能是最后一个拿回本金的人，也是最后一个因付出时间而获得报酬的人。你投入的时间以及投入公司的资金，都面临风险。[78]

Realize that in modern society, the downside risk is not that large. Even personal bankruptcy can wipe the debts clean in good ecosystems. I’m most familiar with Silicon Valley, but generally, people will forgive failures as long as you were honest and made a high-integrity effort.
要明白，在现代社会，下行风险没那么大。就算个人破产，在良好的环境下也能结清债务。我对硅谷最为了解，不过通常来讲，只要你为人诚实、尽心尽力，人们就会包容失败。

There’s not really that much to fear in terms of failure, and so people should take on a lot more accountability than they do. [78]
就失败而言，其实没什么可怕的，所以人们理应承担起更多责任。[78]

Build or Buy Equity in a Business
在企业中创建或购入股权

If you don’t own a piece of a business, you don’t have a path towards financial freedom.
若你未持有企业股份，便没有实现财务自由的途径。

Why is owning equity in a business important to becoming rich?
为什么持有企业股权对致富至关重要？

It’s ownership versus wage work. If you are paid for renting out your time, even lawyers and doctors, you can make some money, but you’re not going to make the money that gives you financial freedom. You’re not going to have passive income where a business is earning for you while you are on vacation. [10]
这关乎所有权与打工的差异。倘若你靠出卖自己的时间换取报酬，哪怕身为律师或医生，虽能有所收入，却无法挣到足以实现财务自由的财富。你不会拥有被动收入，也就是那种即便你在度假，企业仍能为你盈利的收入。[10]

This is probably one of the most important points. People seem to think you can create wealth—make money through work. It’s probably not going to work. There are many reasons for that.
这或许是最为关键的要点之一。人们往往觉得能够通过工作创造财富、赚到钱。然而，这恐怕难以实现，其中缘由众多。

Without ownership, your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs. In almost any salaried job, even one paying a lot per hour like a lawyer or a doctor, you’re still putting in the hours, and every hour you get paid.
若没有所有权，你的投入与产出便紧密相关。几乎在所有领薪工作中，哪怕是律师或医生这类时薪颇高的工作，你仍需投入时间，且工作每一小时就会获得相应报酬。

Without ownership, when you’re sleeping, you’re not earning. When you’re retired, you’re not earning. When you’re on vacation, you’re not earning. And you can’t earn nonlinearly.
若没有所有权，你睡觉时就没有收入，退休后也没有收入，度假时同样没有收入。并且，你无法实现非线性创收。

If you look at even doctors who get rich (like really rich), it’s because they open a business. They open a private practice. The private practice builds a brand, and the brand attracts people. Or they build some kind of a medical device, a procedure, or a process with an intellectual property.
就算是那些赚了大钱（真的非常富有）的医生，也是因为他们从事商业活动。他们开办私人诊所，通过打造品牌来吸引患者。又或者，他们研发出某种医疗器械、医疗程序，或者拥有知识产权的流程。

Essentially, you’re working for somebody else, and that person is taking on the risk and has the accountability, the intellectual property, and the brand. They’re not going to pay you enough. They’re going to pay you the bare minimum they have to, to get you to do their job. That can be a high bare minimum, but it’s still not going to be true wealth where you’re retired but still earning. [78]
本质上，你是在为他人打工，承担风险、拥有知识产权与品牌并负有责任的是那个人。他们不会给你足够多的报酬，只会支付让你为其工作所需的最低薪资。这一最低薪资或许不低，但仍算不上真正意义上的财富，无法让你退休后还能有收入。[78]

Owning equity in a company basically means you own the upside. When you own debt, you own guaranteed revenue streams and you own the downside. You want to own equity. If you don’t own equity in a business, your odds of making money are very slim.
持有一家公司的股权，基本上意味着你能享受其发展带来的收益。而持有债权，你虽然拥有稳定的收益，但也要承担其经营不善的风险。你应该选择持有股权。如果在一家企业中没有股权，你赚钱的机会就微乎其微。

You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important. [10]
你得努力奋斗，直至能够持有企业股权。你既可以通过购买股票，成为小股东而持股；也可以作为公司创始人，以所有者身份持股。股权至关重要。[10]

Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.
每个真正赚到钱的人，在某个阶段都会拥有产品、企业或某些知识产权的一部分。要是你在科技公司上班，就可以通过股票期权来实现。这是个不错的起步方式。

But usually, the real wealth is created by starting your own companies or even by investing. In an investment firm, they’re buying equity. These are the routes to wealth. It doesn’t come through the hours. [78]
但通常，真正的财富源自创办自己的公司，甚至是通过投资来创造。在投资公司，人们购买的是股权。这些便是通往财富的路径。财富并非靠工作时长积累而来。[78]

Find a Position of Leverage
寻找一个有影响力的职位

We live in an age of infinite leverage, and the economic rewards for genuine intellectual curiosity have never been higher. [11] Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now. [11]
我们生活在一个杠杆无穷的时代，对真正的求知欲给予的经济回报之高，前所未有。[11] 基于真正的求知欲来规划职业生涯，比跟风当下的赚钱门道，是更好的选择。[11]

Knowledge only you know or only a small set of people knows is going to come out of your passions and your hobbies, oddly enough. If you have hobbies around your intellectual curiosity, you’re more likely to develop these passions. [1]
说来奇怪，只有你自己或少数人知晓的知识，往往源自你的热爱与兴趣。若你基于求知欲培养兴趣爱好，便更有可能激发这些热爱。[1]

If it entertains you now but will bore you someday, it’s a distraction. Keep looking.
如果某事物当下能博你一乐，日后却会令你心生厌倦，那它就是个干扰因素。继续寻觅吧。

I only really want to do things for their own sake. That is one definition of art. Whether it’s business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever, I think the meaning of life is to do things for their own sake. Ironically, when you do things for their own sake, you create your best work. Even if you’re just trying to make money, you will actually be the most successful.
我只想纯粹为了事情本身去做这些事。这是对艺术的一种定义。无论是商业活动、锻炼身体、谈情说爱、结交朋友，还是别的什么，我觉得人生的意义就在于为了事情本身而为之。说来也怪，当你纯粹为了事情本身去做时，反而能做出最出色的成果。哪怕你只是想赚钱，最终也会最为成功。

The year I generated the most wealth for myself was actually the year I worked the least hard and cared the least about the future. I was mostly doing things for the sheer fun of it. I was basically telling people, “I’m retired, I’m not working.” Then, I had the time for whatever was my highest valued project in front of me. By doing things for their own sake, I did them at their best. [74]
我为自己创造财富最多的那一年，其实是我工作最轻松、对未来最不上心的一年。那时我做事大多只是为了纯粹的乐趣。我基本上是在跟别人说：“我退休了，不工作啦。” 这样一来，我就有时间去做眼前最有价值的事。因为我做事只为事情本身，所以我把它们都做到了极致。[74]

The less you want something, the less you’re thinking about it, the less you’re obsessing over it, the more you’re going to do it in a natural way. The more you’re going to do it for yourself. You’re going to do it in a way you’re good at, and you’re going to stick with it. The people around you will see the quality of your work is higher. [1]
你对一件事的渴望越少，想得越少，不那么痴迷，就越会自然而然地去做。你会更多地为自己去做这件事，以自己擅长的方式去做，并坚持下去。周围的人会看到，你工作的质量更高。[1]

Follow your intellectual curiosity more than whatever is “hot” right now. If your curiosity ever leads you to a place where society eventually wants to go, you’ll get paid extremely well. [3]
多追随自己的求知欲，而非当下的 “热门” 事物。要是你的好奇心最终将你引至社会未来的发展方向，你会收获极为丰厚的回报。[3]

You’re more likely to have skills society does not yet know how to train other people to do. If someone can train other people how to do something, then they can replace you. If they can replace you, then they don’t have to pay you a lot. You want to know how to do something other people don’t know how to do at the time period when those skills are in demand. [1]
你更有可能掌握一些技能，这些技能是社会目前还不知道如何传授给他人的。要是有人能教会别人做某件事，那他们就能替代你。既然能替代你，就不会给你很高的报酬。你得学会在技能需求旺盛的时候，去做别人还不会做的事。[1]

If they can train you to do it, then eventually they will train a computer to do it.
要是他们能训练你做这事，那最终也能训练计算机来做。

You get rewarded by society for giving it what it wants and doesn’t know how to get elsewhere. A lot of people think you can go to school and study for how to make money, but the reality is, there’s no skill called “business.” [1]
你给予社会它想要却不知从其他地方获取的东西，就会得到社会的回报。很多人觉得可以通过上学来学习如何赚钱，但实际上，并不存在“商业”这门技能。[1]

Think about what product or service society wants but does not yet know how to get. You want to become the person who delivers it and delivers it at scale. That is really the challenge of how to make money.
想想社会渴望得到，但还不知如何获取的产品或服务是什么。你要成为那个提供此类产品或服务，并实现规模化供应的人。这才是赚钱的真正挑战所在。

Now, the problem is becoming good at whatever “it” is. It moves around from generation to generation, but a lot of it happens to be in technology.
如今，关键在于要擅长做任何“那件事”。其具体内容会随时代更迭而变化，但其中不少恰好都与科技相关。

You are waiting for your moment when something emerges in the world, they need a skill set, and you’re uniquely qualified. You build your brand in the meantime on Twitter, on YouTube, and by giving away free work. You make a name for yourself, and you take some risk in the process. When it is time to move on the opportunity, you can do so with leverage—the maximum leverage possible. [1]
你在等待属于自己的时机，当世上出现某种需求，需要特定技能，而你恰好独具资质。在此期间，你通过在推特、YouTube 上打造个人品牌，还提供免费作品。你让自己声名鹊起，这一过程中也承担了一些风险。当抓住机遇的时刻来临，你就能借助杠杆——尽可能大的杠杆——采取行动。[1]

There are three broad classes of leverage:
杠杆主要分为三大类：

One form of leverage is labor—other humans working for you. It is the oldest form of leverage, and actually not a great one in the modern world. [1] I would argue this is the worst form of leverage that you could possibly use. Managing other people is incredibly messy. It requires tremendous leadership skills. You’re one short hop from a mutiny or getting eaten or torn apart by the mob. [78]
一种杠杆形式是劳动力，也就是让他人为你工作。这是最古老的杠杆形式，实际上在现代社会并非理想之选。[1] 我觉得这或许是你所能采用的最糟糕的杠杆形式。管理他人极为棘手，需要具备出色的领导能力。稍有差池，就可能引发叛乱，或者被众人围攻。[78]

Money is good as a form of leverage. It means every time you make a decision, you multiply it with money. [1] Capital is a trickier form of leverage to use. It’s more modern. It’s the one that people have used to get fabulously wealthy in the last century. It’s probably been the dominant form of leverage in the last century.
金钱作为一种杠杆手段很有用。这意味着每次做决策时，金钱都能放大决策的影响。[1] 资本作为一种杠杆手段，运用起来更具挑战性。它是一种更为现代的方式。在上个世纪，人们借助资本实现了巨额财富增长，它或许一直是上个世纪占主导地位的杠杆形式。

You can see this by looking for the richest people. It’s bankers, politicians in corrupt countries who print money, essentially people who move large amounts of money around. If you look at the top of very large companies, outside of technology companies, in many, many large old companies, the CEO job is really a financial job.
你看看那些最富有的人就知道了。他们是银行家，还有在腐败国家印钞的政客，本质上就是那些大量经手资金的人。看看大型公司的高层，除了科技公司，在众多大型老牌公司里，首席执行官的工作实际上就是财务工作。

It scales very, very well. If you get good at managing capital, you can manage more and more capital much more easily than you can manage more and more people. [78]
它的扩展性极强。要是你擅长资本管理，那么相较于管理越来越多的人员，管理越来越多的资本可要轻松得多。[78]

The final form of leverage is brand new—the most democratic form. It is: “products with no marginal cost of replication.” This includes books, media, movies, and code. Code is probably the most powerful form of permissionless leverage. All you need is a computer—you don’t need anyone’s permission. [1]
最后一种杠杆形式十分新颖，也是最具普惠性的形式。即：“复制边际成本为零的产品”。这其中包括书籍、媒体、电影以及代码。代码或许是最强大的无需许可的杠杆形式。你只需一台电脑，无需获得任何人的许可。[1]

Forget rich versus poor, white-collar versus blue. It’s now leveraged versus un-leveraged.
别再纠结贫富之分、白领蓝领之别了。如今的差异在于有无杠杆。

The most interesting and the most important form of leverage is the idea of products that have no marginal cost of replication. This is the new form of leverage. This was only invented in the last few hundred years. It started with the printing press. It accelerated with broadcast media, and now it’s really blown up with the internet and with coding. Now, you can multiply your efforts without involving other humans and without needing money from other humans.
最有意思且最为关键的杠杆形式，是复制边际成本为零的产品理念。这是一种全新的杠杆形式，直到过去几百年才出现。它始于印刷机，借由广播媒体加速发展，如今随着互联网和编程实现了爆发式增长。现在，你无需借助他人，也无需从他人处获取资金，就能让自己的努力事半功倍。

This book is a form of leverage. Long ago, I would have had to sit in a lecture hall and lecture each of you personally. I would have maybe reached a few hundred people, and that would have been that. [78]
这本书是一种杠杆。要是在过去，我就得在演讲厅里，亲自给你们每个人授课，大概也就只能讲到几百人，仅此而已。[78]

This newest form of leverage is where all the new fortunes are made, all the new billionaires. For the last generation, fortunes were made by capital. The people who made fortunes were the Warren Buffetts of the world.
这种最新的杠杆形式，造就了所有新财富与新晋亿万富翁。在上一代人中，财富靠资本创造，创造财富的是沃伦·巴菲特这类人。

But the new generation’s fortunes are all made through code or media. Joe Rogan making $50 million to $100 million a year from his podcast. You’re going to have PewDiePie. I don’t know how much money he’s rolling in, but he’s bigger than the news. And of course, there’s Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Their wealth is all code-based leverage. [78]
但新一代人的财富都是通过代码或媒体获取的。乔·罗根靠他的播客，每年能赚 5000 万到 1 亿美元。还有 PewDiePie，虽说我不知道他赚了多少，但他的影响力比新闻媒体还大。当然，像杰夫·贝索斯、马克·扎克伯格、拉里·佩奇、谢尔盖·布林、比尔·盖茨和史蒂夫·乔布斯，他们的财富都源于代码带来的杠杆效应。[78]

Probably the most interesting thing to keep in mind about new forms of leverage is they are permissionless. They don’t require somebody else’s permission for you to use them or succeed. For labor leverage, somebody has to decide to follow you. For capital leverage, somebody has to give you money to invest or to turn into a product.
关于新型杠杆，或许最值得记住的一点是，它们无需他人许可。你使用这些杠杆或借此取得成功，都无需经过他人同意。就劳动力杠杆而言，必须有人愿意追随你才行。而对于资本杠杆，得有人愿意给你资金用于投资或生产产品。

Coding, writing books, recording podcasts, tweeting, YouTubing—these kinds of things are permissionless. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do them, and that’s why they are very egalitarian. They’re great equalizers of leverage. [78] Every great software developer, for example, now has an army of robots working for him at nighttime while he or she sleeps, after they’ve written the code, and it’s cranking away. [78]
编程、写书、录制播客、发推文、制作 YouTube 视频，这类事情无需他人许可就能做。正因为如此，它们极为公平，是平衡影响力的利器。比如说，每位出色的软件开发人员写完代码后，夜里睡觉时，都有一批 “机器人” 在为其工作，代码持续运行着。

You’re never going to get rich renting out your time.
靠出卖自己的时间，你永远无法致富。

Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay. If you have independence and you’re accountable on your output, as opposed to your input—that’s the dream. [10]
在生活中，只要有机会，就应优先追求独立，而非仅仅关注薪酬。若你既能保持独立，又能对自己的产出负责，而非仅仅对投入负责，那便是梦寐以求的状态。[10]

Humans evolved in societies where there was no leverage. If I was chopping wood or carrying water for you, you knew eight hours put in would be equal to about eight hours of output. Now we’ve invented leverage—through capital, cooperation, technology, productivity, all these means. We live in an age of leverage. As a worker, you want to be as leveraged as possible so you have a huge impact without as much time or physical effort.
人类在没有杠杆的社会环境中进化。要是我为你砍柴或担水，你清楚投入八小时的劳作，产出大概也相当于八小时的成果。如今，我们借助资本、合作、技术、生产力等方式发明了杠杆。我们身处一个杠杆时代。身为劳动者，你会希望尽可能多地运用杠杆，如此一来，无需投入过多时间与体力，就能产生巨大影响力。

A leveraged worker can out-produce a non-leveraged worker by a factor of one thousand or ten thousand. With a leveraged worker, judgment is far more important than how much time they put in or how hard they work.
一个借助杠杆的工作者，产出可能比未借助杠杆的工作者高出千倍甚至万倍。对借助杠杆的工作者而言，判断力远比投入的时间或工作的努力程度重要得多。

Forget 10x programmers. 1,000x programmers really exist, we just don’t fully acknowledge it. See @ID_AA_Carmack, @notch, Satoshi Nakomoto, etc.
别再提 10 倍效率的程序员了。实际上，1000 倍效率的程序员是真实存在的，只是我们尚未充分意识到这一点。比如@ID_AA_Carmack、@notch、中本聪等人。

For example, a good software engineer, just by writing the right little piece of code and creating the right little application, can literally create half a billion dollars’ worth of value for a company. But ten engineers working ten times as hard, just because they choose the wrong model, the wrong product, wrote it the wrong way, or put in the wrong viral loop, have basically wasted their time. Inputs don’t match outputs, especially for leveraged workers.
例如，一名优秀的软件工程师，只需编写一小段恰当的代码，开发出一款合适的小应用程序，就能实实在在地为公司创造出价值 5 亿美元的价值。然而，10 名工程师即便付出 10 倍的努力，要是选错了模式、产品，代码编写方式不当，或者设置了错误的病毒式传播路径，那基本上就是在浪费时间。投入与产出并不对等，对于借助杠杆工作的人来说尤其如此。

What you want in life is to be in control of your time. You want to get into a leveraged job where you control your own time and you’re tracked on the outputs. If you do something incredible to move the needle on the business, they have to pay you. Especially if they don’t know how you did it because it’s innate to your obsession or your skill or your innate abilities, they’re going to have to keep paying you to do it.
生活中，你想要的是能够掌控自己的时间。你得找一份能发挥杠杆作用的工作，在其中你可以自主支配时间，而且是以工作成果来衡量绩效。要是你做出了对业务有重大推动的惊人之举，他们就得给你报酬。尤其是当他们不清楚你是怎么做到的，毕竟这得益于你的热爱、技能或天赋，那他们就只能一直花钱请你做这件事。

If you have specific knowledge, you have accountability and you have leverage; they have to pay you what you’re worth. If they pay you what you’re worth, then you can get your time back—you can be hyper-efficient. You’re not doing meetings for meetings’ sake, you’re not trying to impress other people, you’re not writing things down to make it look like you did work. All you care about is the actual work itself.
要是你具备专业知识，就会有责任感，也能获得影响力；他们得按你的价值付酬。要是他们按你的价值付酬，你就能把时间省下来——做事就能极为高效。你开会不是为了走形式，也不是为了给别人留下好印象，更不是为了显得自己做了工作而记录些东西。你只在乎实实在在的工作。

When you do just the actual work itself, you’ll be far more productive, far more efficient. You’ll work when you feel like it—when you’re high-energy—and you won’t be trying to struggle through when you’re low energy. You’ll gain your time back.
当你只做实际工作时，你的效率会大幅提升，工作起来也更加高效。你可以在精力充沛、想工作的时候去做，而不必在精力不济时硬撑。如此一来，你就能夺回属于自己的时间。

Forty hour work weeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes—train and sprint, then rest and reassess.
每周工作四十小时是工业时代的遗留做法。知识工作者如同运动员，训练、冲刺，而后休息、重新评估。

Sales is an example—especially very high-end sales. If you’re a real estate agent out there selling houses, it’s not a great job, necessarily. It’s very crowded. But if you’re a top-tier real estate agent, you know how to market yourself and you know how to sell houses, it’s possible you could sell $5 million mansions in one tenth of the time while somebody else is struggling to sell $100,000 apartments or condos. Real estate agent is a job with input and output disconnected.
销售就是个例子，特别是高端销售领域。假设你是一名房产经纪人，从事房屋销售工作，这份工作未必就好。这一行竞争相当激烈。但要是你属于顶尖的房产经纪人，懂得自我营销，也知道如何卖房，那么别人还在为卖掉一套 10 万美元的公寓或共管公寓发愁时，你说不定能用十分之一的时间就卖掉价值 500 万美元的豪宅。房产经纪人这份工作，投入和产出并不对等。

Building any product and selling any product fits this description. And fundamentally, what else is there? Where you don’t necessarily want to be is a support role, like customer service. In customer service, unfortunately, inputs and outputs relate relatively close to each other, and the hours you put in matter. [10]
打造并销售任何产品都符合这一描述。从根本上讲，除此之外还能做什么呢？你可能不太想从事诸如客户服务这类支持性工作。遗憾的是，在客户服务领域，投入与产出的关联较为紧密，投入的时间至关重要。[10]

Tools and leverage create this disconnection between inputs and outputs. The higher the creativity component of a profession, the more likely it is to have disconnected inputs and outputs. If you’re looking at professions where your inputs and your outputs are highly connected, it’s going to be very hard to create wealth and make wealth for yourself in that process. [78]
工具和杠杆使得投入与产出之间产生了这种脱节。一个职业的创造性越强，投入与产出就越容易脱节。要是你从事的职业，投入和产出紧密相关，那么在这个过程中，你很难为自己创造并积累财富。[78]

If you want to be part of a great tech company, then you need to be able to SELL or BUILD. If you don’t do either, learn.
若想跻身伟大的科技公司，你得会销售或者搞研发。要是都不会，那就学起来。

Learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
学会销售，学会打造产品。如果两者皆能，你将无往不胜。

These are two very broad categories. One is building the product. This is hard, and it’s multivariate. It can include design; it can include development; it can include manufacturing, logistics, procurement; and it can even be designing and operating a service. It has many, many definitions.
这是两个非常宽泛的范畴。一类是产品打造。这并非易事，而且涉及多个变量。它可能涵盖设计、开发、制造、物流、采购，甚至还可能包括服务的设计与运营。其定义多种多样。

But in every industry, there is a definition of the builder. In our tech industry, it’s the CTO, it’s the programmer, it’s the software engineer or hardware engineer. But even in the laundry business, it could be the person who’s building the laundry service, who is making the trains run on time, who’s making sure all the clothes end up in the right place at the right time, and so on.
但每个行业都有对建设者的定义。在科技行业，建设者指的是首席技术官、程序员、软件工程师或硬件工程师。即便在洗衣行业，建设者也可能是构建洗衣服务体系的人，是保障各项事务顺利运转的人，是确保所有衣物都能按时准确送达的人，诸如此类。

The other side of it is sales. Again, selling has a very broad definition. Selling doesn’t necessarily just mean selling to individual customers, but it can mean marketing, it can mean communicating, it can mean recruiting, it can mean raising money, it can mean inspiring people, it could mean doing PR. It’s a broad umbrella category. [78]
另一方面是销售。同样，销售的定义极为宽泛。销售并非仅指向个体客户售卖产品，还涵盖营销、沟通、招聘、募资、鼓舞人心，甚至公关等诸多方面。这是一个广义的范畴。[78]

Earn with your mind, not your time.
靠头脑挣钱，而非靠时间。

Let’s talk more about the real estate business. The worst kind of job is someone who’s doing labor to repair a house. Maybe you get paid ten dollars or twenty dollars an hour. You go to people’s houses, your boss demands you’re there at 8:00 a.m., and you repair your piece of the house. Here, you have zero leverage. You have some accountability, but not really, because your accountability is to your boss, not to the client. You don’t have any real specific knowledge, since what you’re doing is labor lots of people can do. You’re not going to get paid a lot. You’re getting paid minimum wage plus a little bit for your skill and your time.
咱们多聊聊房地产生意。最糟糕的工作，莫过于从事房屋维修的体力活。可能你每小时也就挣个 10 美元或 20 美元。你得去别人家，老板要求你早上 8 点就得赶到，然后就开始修房子的某个部分。这种情况下，你毫无议价能力。虽说你有点责任，但也不算真正负责，毕竟你是对老板负责，而非对客户负责。你也没什么特别的技能，因为你干的体力活很多人都能干。所以你拿不到高薪，挣的只是最低工资，再加上点因技能和工时多给的钱。

The next level up might be the general contractor working on the house for the owner. They may be getting paid $50,000 to do the whole project, then they’re paying the labor fifteen dollars an hour and they’re keeping the difference.
再往上一个层级，可能是为房屋业主进行施工的总承包商。他们承接整个项目，报酬可能是 5 万美元，然后以每小时 15 美元的价格支付给劳工工资，从中赚取差价。

A general contractor is obviously a better place to be. But how do we measure it? How do we know it’s better? Well, we know it’s better because this person has some accountability. They’re responsible for the outcome, they have to sweat at night if things aren’t working. Contractors have leverage through laborers working for them. They also have little bit more specific knowledge: how to organize a team, make them show up on time, and how to deal with city regulations.
显然，做总承包商更有优势。但我们该如何衡量呢？又怎么知道它更好呢？其实，我们知道它更好，是因为总承包商要承担一定的责任。他们要对结果负责，如果事情进展不顺，晚上都得操心。承包商手下有劳工为其工作，因而有一定影响力。此外，他们还掌握一些更具体的知识，比如如何组建团队、让成员按时出勤，以及如何应对城市法规。

The next level up might be a real estate developer. A developer is someone who’s going to buy a property, hire a bunch of contractors, and transform it into something higher value. They probably have to take out a loan to buy a house or go to investors to raise money. They buy the old house, tear it down, rebuild it, and sell it. Instead of $50,000 like the general contractor, or fifteen dollars an hour like the laborer, the developer might be able to make a million dollars or half a million dollars in profit when they sell the house for more than they bought it for, including the expenses of construction. But now, notice what is required from the developer: a very high level of accountability.
再往上一个层级，可能就是房地产开发商了。开发商会购置一处房产，雇上一群承包商，把它改造成更具价值的东西。他们可能得贷款买房，或者找投资者募资。他们买下旧房，推倒重建后再卖掉。总承包商可能赚 5 万美元，工人每小时能挣 15 美元，而开发商在卖掉房子时，扣除购房成本和建筑费用后，也许能净赚 100 万或 50 万美元。不过，现在请注意，开发商得具备极高的责任感。

The developer takes on more risk, more accountability, has more leverage, and needs to have more specific knowledge. They need to understand fundraising, city regulations, where the real estate market is headed, and whether they should take the risk or not. It is more difficult.
开发者要承担更多风险和责任，拥有更大影响力，还需具备更专业的知识。他们得了解融资、城市法规、房地产市场走向，以及是否该冒险。这难度更大。

The next level up might be someone who’s managing money in a real estate fund. They have an enormous amount of capital leverage. They’re dealing with lots and lots of developers, and they’re buying huge amounts of housing inventory. [74]
再往上一个层级，可能是在房地产基金负责资金管理的人。他们手握巨额资本杠杆，与众多开发商有业务往来，还大量购置住房库存。[74]

One level beyond that might be somebody who says, “Actually, I want to bring the maximum leverage to bear in this market and the maximum specific knowledge.” That person would say, “Well, I understand real estate, and I understand everything from basic housing construction, to building properties and selling them, to how real estate markets move and thrive, and I also understand the technology business. I understand how to recruit developers, how to write code, and how to build a good product, and I understand how to raise money from venture capitalists, how to return it, and how all of that works.”
更进一步，可能有人会说：“实际上，我想在这个市场中充分发挥杠杆作用，运用最多的专业知识。”此人会说：“嗯，我懂房地产，从基础房屋建造、房产开发与销售，到房地产市场的运行和繁荣，我都十分熟悉。我还了解科技行业，知道如何招聘开发人员、编写代码以及打造优质产品。我也清楚如何从风险投资家那里筹集资金、如何回报，以及这一切的运作方式。”

Obviously, not a single person may know this. You may pull a team together to do it where each have different skill sets, but that combined entity would have specific knowledge in technology and in real estate. It would have massive accountability because that company’s name would be a very high-risk, high-reward effort attached to the whole thing, and people would devote their lives to it and take on significant risk. It would have leverage in code with lots of developers. It would have capital with investors putting money in and the founder’s own capital. It would have some of the highest-quality labor you can find, which is high-quality engineers, designers, and marketers who are working on the company.
显然，可能没人知道此事。你可以组建一个团队来做，团队成员各有所长，整合起来后，这个团队在技术和房地产领域会具备专业知识。这将肩负重大责任，因为公司的名号与整个项目紧密相关，是一项高风险高回报的事业，人们会为之全力以赴，承担巨大风险。在代码方面，公司会因众多开发者而具备影响力。资金方面，既有投资者注资，也有创始人自有资金。此外，公司还能网罗到最优质的劳动力，比如高素质的工程师、设计师和营销人员。

Then, you may end up with a Trulia, Redfin, or Zillow company, and then the upside could potentially be in the billions of dollars, or the hundreds of millions of dollars. [78]
然后，你可能会打造出像 Trulia、Redfin 或 Zillow 这样的公司，届时潜在收益可能高达数十亿美元，甚至数亿美元。[78]

Each level has increasing leverage, increasing accountability, increasingly specific knowledge. You’re adding in money-based leverage on top of labor-based leverage. Adding in code-based leverage on top of money and labor allows you to actually create something bigger and bigger and get closer and closer to owning all the upside, not just being paid a salary.
每个层级都有更强的影响力、更大的责任以及更专业的知识。在以劳动力为基础的影响力之上，你又增加了以金钱为基础的影响力。而在金钱和劳动力的基础上，再加上以代码为基础的影响力，就能真正创造出越来越宏大的事物，越来越接近独占所有收益，而不只是挣一份工资。

You start as a salaried employee. But you want to work your way up to try and get higher leverage, more accountability, and specific knowledge. The combination of those over a long period of time with the magic of compound interest will make you wealthy. [74]
一开始，你是一名拿固定薪水的员工。但你想努力向上发展，尝试获得更大的影响力、更多的责任以及专业知识。假以时日，再加上复利的神奇力量，你就能实现财富自由。[74]

The one thing you have to avoid is the risk of ruin.
你务必规避的一点，就是破产风险。

Avoiding ruin means stay out of jail. So, don’t do anything illegal. It’s never worth it to wear an orange jumpsuit. Stay out of total catastrophic loss. Avoiding ruin could also mean you stay out of things that could be physically dangerous or hurt your body. You have to watch your health.
避免身败名裂，意味着不能锒铛入狱。所以，千万别做违法之事，穿上囚服可就太不值当了。同时，要避免遭受毁灭性的损失。此外，还得远离可能危及人身安全或损害身体健康的事情，务必关注自身健康状况。

Stay out of things that could cause you to lose all of your capital, all of your savings. Don’t gamble everything on one go. Instead, take rationally optimistic bets with big upsides. [78]
远离可能让你血本无归、耗尽所有积蓄的事。切勿孤注一掷，而应理性乐观地押注，追求丰厚回报。[78]

Get Paid for Your Judgment
靠你的判断力挣钱

Choosing what kinds of jobs, careers, or fields you get into and what sort of deals you’re willing to take from your employer will give you much more free time. Then, you don’t have to worry as much about time management. I would love to be paid purely for my judgment, not for any work. I want a robot, capital, or computer to do the work, but I want to be paid for my judgment. [1]
选择从事何种工作、职业或领域，以及愿意接受雇主提供的何种待遇，这会让你拥有更多自由时间。如此一来，你就无需过于担忧时间管理。我渴望仅凭自己的判断力获得报酬，而非因工作本身。我希望由机器人、资金或计算机来承担工作，而我则因判断力得到回报。[1]

I think every human should aspire to being knowledgeable about certain things and being paid for our unique knowledge. We have as much leverage as is possible in our business, whether it’s through robots or computers or what have you. Then, we can be masters of our own time because we are just being tracked on outputs and not inputs.
我觉得每个人都应追求对特定事物有所专长，并凭借自身独特的知识获取报酬。在工作中，我们要尽可能借助机器人、计算机等工具来提升影响力。如此一来，我们便能主宰自己的时间，因为人们只看重成果，而非过程。

Imagine someone comes along who demonstrably has slightly better judgment. They’re right 85 percent of the time instead of 75 percent. You will pay them $50 million, $100 million, $200 million, whatever it takes, because 10 percent better judgment steering a $100 billion ship is very valuable. CEOs are highly paid because of their leverage. Small differences in judgment and capability really get amplified. [2]
设想一下，要是出现一个判断力明显更胜一筹的人，他的判断正确率能达到 85%，而非 75%。你会不惜代价，给他 5000 万、1 亿、2 亿美元，因为在掌控一艘价值 1000 亿美元的大船时，10%的判断力提升价值非凡。首席执行官们之所以薪酬高昂，正是源于他们的影响力。判断力与能力上的细微差别，确实会被放大。[2]

Demonstrated judgment—credibility around the judgment—is so critical. Warren Buffett wins here because he has massive credibility. He’s been highly accountable. He’s been right over and over in the public domain. He’s built a reputation for very high integrity, so you can trust him. People will throw infinite leverage behind him because of his judgment. Nobody asks him how hard he works. Nobody asks him when he wakes up or when he goes to sleep. They’re like, “Warren, just do your thing.”
经证实的判断力，也就是围绕判断力所建立起的可信度，至关重要。沃伦·巴菲特在这方面表现出色，因为他极具可信度。他责任心极强，且多次在公众面前做出正确决策，凭借极高的诚信度树立起良好声誉，因此值得信赖。正因为他的判断力，人们会毫无保留地支持他。没人会去问他工作有多拼命，也没人会关心他何时起床、何时入睡。大家只会说：“沃伦，你就按自己的方式来。”

Judgment—especially demonstrated judgment, with high accountability and a clear track record—is critical. [78]
判断，尤其是有明确记录、高度负责且经实践验证的判断，至关重要。[78]

We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.
我们总是将时间耗费在短视思维与繁杂琐事上。沃伦·巴菲特往往花一年时间做决策，却只用一天时间去行动。但这一行动，却能持续数十年之久。

Just from being marginally better, like running a quarter mile a fraction of a second faster, some people get paid a lot more—orders of magnitude more. Leverage magnifies those differences even more. Being at the extreme in your art is very important in the age of leverage. [2]
仅仅是略微出色一点，比如跑四分之一英里时快了那么零点几秒，有些人就能获得高得多的报酬，甚至能高出几个数量级。而杠杆作用会让这种差距进一步放大。在这个充满杠杆的时代，在自己的专业领域做到极致是至关重要的。[2]

Prioritize and Focus
确定优先级并专注

I’ve encountered plenty of bad luck along the way. The first little fortune I made I instantly lost in the stock market. The second little fortune I made, or should have made, I basically got cheated out of by my business partners. It’s only the third time around that has been a charm.
一路走来，我碰到了不少倒霉事。头一回赚的一点钱，很快就在股市里赔光了。第二笔赚到手，或者说本应赚到手的钱，基本上被生意伙伴骗走了。直到第三次，才总算顺顺利利。

Even then, it has been a slow and steady struggle. I haven’t made money in my life in one giant payout. It has always been a whole bunch of small things piling up. It’s more about consistently creating wealth by creating businesses, creating opportunities, and creating investments. It hasn’t been a giant one-off thing. My personal wealth has not been generated by one big year. It just stacks up a little bit, a few chips at a time: more options, more businesses, more investments, more things I can do.
即便如此，这也是一场稳扎稳打的奋斗历程。我这辈子从未有过一笔巨额进账，财富一直都是由一件件小事慢慢积累起来的。关键在于通过创办企业、创造机遇、进行投资，持续不断地创造财富，并非一蹴而就。我的个人财富并非某一年大赚一笔所得，而是像每次积攒几个筹码那样，一点点积累起来的：更多选择、更多企业、更多投资，以及更多可为之事。

Thanks to the internet, opportunities are massively abundant. In fact, I have too many ways to make money. I don’t have enough time. I literally have opportunities pouring out of my ears, and I keep running out of time. There are so many ways to create wealth, to create products, to create businesses, and to get paid by society as a byproduct. I just can’t handle them all. [78]
得益于互联网，机会可谓俯拾皆是。实际上，我赚钱的门道太多，时间却远远不够。机会多得简直要从耳朵里冒出来，可时间总是不够用。创造财富、打造产品、创立企业，以及由此从社会获得回报的方式数不胜数，我根本应接不暇。[78]

Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.
以小时为单位估算你的时间价值，然后不惜代价地花钱来节省时间。你永远不会超出自己认知的价值范畴。

No one is going to value you more than you value yourself. You just have to set a very high personal hourly rate and you have to stick to it. Even when I was young, I just decided I was worth a lot more than the market thought I was worth, and I started treating myself that way.
没人会比你自己更珍视你。你只需给自己设定一个极高的时薪标准，并始终坚守。即便我年轻时，就觉得自己的价值远超市场所认为的，并且也开始以这样的标准来对待自己。

Always factor your time into every decision. How much time does it take? It’s going to take you an hour to get across town to get something. If you value yourself at one hundred dollars an hour, that’s basically throwing one hundred dollars out of your pocket. Are you going to do that? [78]
做任何决策时，都要把时间成本考虑进去。这得花多长时间呢？要是你得花一个小时穿过市区去取个东西，而你觉得自己一小时能赚一百美元，那这差不多就相当于白白扔掉一百美元。你会这么干吗？[78]

Fast-forward to your wealthy self and pick some intermediate hourly rate. For me, believe it or not, back when you could have hired me…Which now obviously you can’t, but back when you could have hired me…this was true a decade ago or even two decades ago, before I had any real money. My hourly rate, I used to say to myself over and over, is $5,000 an hour. Today when I look back, really it was about $1,000 an hour.
畅想一下你实现财富自由后的状态，然后设定一个阶段性的时薪目标。信不信由你，在过去，也就是大概十年甚至二十年前，我还没什么积蓄的时候，那时你还能请得动我（当然现在肯定不行了），我就经常暗自给自己定一个时薪：5000 美元。现在回头看，当时实际的时薪大概也就 1000 美元。

Of course, I still ended up doing stupid things like arguing with the electrician or returning the broken speaker, but I shouldn’t have, and I did a lot less than any of my friends would. I would make a theatrical show out of throwing something in the trash pile or giving it to Salvation Army rather than trying to return it or handing something to people rather than trying to fix it.
当然，我还是会做些蠢事，比如和电工争执，或是退换坏掉的音箱，但其实没必要，而且我做这些事的频率比朋友们都低。我会大张旗鼓地把东西扔到垃圾堆，或是捐给救世军，而不是想着退换；又或者直接把东西送人，而不是想着修理。

I would argue with my girlfriends, and even today it’s my wife, “I don’t do that. That’s not a problem that I solve.” I still argue that with my mother when she hands me little to-do’s. I just don’t do that. I would rather hire you an assistant. This was true even when I didn’t have money. [78]
我会跟我的女朋友们，甚至如今是跟我妻子争论：“我不会做那个。那不是我要处理的问题。” 母亲给我安排些小活儿的时候，我也还是会这么跟她争。我就是不做。我宁愿给你雇个助手。哪怕在我没钱的时候，也是这样。[78]

Another way of thinking about something is, if you can outsource something or not do something for less than your hourly rate, outsource it or don’t do it. If you can hire someone to do it for less than your hourly rate, hire them. That even includes things like cooking. You may want to eat your healthy home cooked meals, but if you can outsource it, do that instead. [78]
另一种思考方式是，如果某件事你能以低于自己时薪的成本外包出去，或者干脆不做，那就这么做。要是你能以低于自己时薪的价格雇人来做，那就雇人做。这甚至包括做饭这类事情。你或许想吃健康的家常饭菜，但如果能外包出去，那就选择外包。[78]

Set a very high hourly aspirational rate for yourself and stick to it. It should seem and feel absurdly high. If it doesn’t, it’s not high enough. Whatever you picked, my advice to you would be to raise it. Like I said, for myself, even before I had money, for the longest time I used $5,000 an hour. And if you extrapolate that out into what it looks like as an annual salary, it’s multiple millions of dollars per year.
为自己设定一个极高的时薪目标，并始终坚守。这个目标得高到看似离谱、感觉不切实际才行。要是没这种感觉，那就还不够高。不管你定的是多少，我都建议你再提高些。就像我之前说的，即便在我还没什么钱的时候，很长一段时间里，我给自己定的时薪都是 5000 美元。要是换算成年薪，那可是好几百万美元。

Ironically, I actually think I’ve beaten it. I’m not the hardest working person—I’m actually a lazy person. I work through bursts of energy where I’m really motivated with something. If I actually look at how much I’ve earned per actual hour that I’ve put in, it’s probably quite a bit higher than that. [78]
说来讽刺，我觉得自己其实已经克服了这个问题。我并非最勤奋之人，实际上我挺懒的。我会在精力充沛、对某事充满干劲时工作。要是真去算算我每实际投入一小时所挣的钱，那可能比想象中要多得多。[78]

Can you expand on your statement, “If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you”?
你能详细说说你讲的“若你暗自鄙夷财富，财富便会与你擦肩而过”这句话吗？

If you get into a relative mindset, you’re always going to hate people who do better than you, you’re always going to be jealous or envious of them. They’ll sense those feelings when you try and do business with them. When you try and do business with somebody, if you have any bad thoughts or any judgments about them, they will feel it. Humans are wired to feel what the other person deep down inside feels. You have to get out of a relative mindset. [10]
要是陷入了攀比心态，你就总会讨厌那些比你强的人，对他们心生嫉妒。当你尝试和他们谈生意时，他们能察觉到这种情绪。与人谈生意，要是你心里对对方有任何负面想法或看法，对方都能感觉到。人天生就能感知到对方内心的真实感受。你得摒弃这种攀比心态。[10]

Literally, being anti-wealth will prevent you from becoming wealthy, because you will not have the right mindset for it, you won’t have the right spirit, and you won’t be dealing with people on the right level. Be optimistic, be positive. It’s important. Optimists actually do better in the long run. [10]
从实际意义上讲，抵触财富会让你难以致富，因为你缺乏正确的心态和精神，与人交往也不得要领。保持乐观积极很重要，从长远看，乐观的人往往更有成就。[10]

The business world has many people playing zero sum games and a few playing positive sum games searching for each other in the crowd.
在商业世界里，很多人都在玩零和游戏，只有少数人在玩正和游戏，这些人在人群中彼此寻觅。

There are fundamentally two huge games in life that people play. One is the money game. Because money is not going to solve all of your problems, but it’s going to solve all of your money problems. People realize that, so they want to make money.
生活中，人们主要参与两大游戏。其一为金钱游戏。虽说金钱无法解决你所有的问题，但能解决你所有的金钱问题。人们明白这一点，所以都想赚钱。

But at the same time, many of them, deep down, believe they can’t make money. They don’t want any wealth creation to happen. So, they attack the whole enterprise by saying, “Well, making money is evil. You shouldn’t do it.”
但与此同时，他们当中很多人打心底觉得自己赚不了钱。他们不希望看到有人创造财富，于是便大放厥词：“赚钱是不道德的，不应该这么做。”以此来抨击整个商业行为。

But they’re actually playing the other game, which is the status game. They’re trying to be high status in the eyes of other people watching by saying, “Well, I don’t need money. We don’t want money.” Status is your ranking in the social hierarchy. [78]
但实际上，他们玩的是另一种游戏——地位游戏。他们试图通过宣称“我不需要钱，我们不想要钱”，在旁人眼中提升自己的地位。地位就是你在社会等级体系中的排名。[78]

Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status.
财富创造是一种在进化历程中相对较新的正和博弈。而地位争夺则是由来已久的零和博弈。那些抨击财富创造的人，往往只是在追逐地位。

Status is a zero-sum game. It’s a very old game. We’ve been playing it since monkey tribes. It’s hierarchical. Who’s number one? Who’s number two? Who’s number three? And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot. So, status is a zero-sum game.
地位是一种零和游戏。这是个由来已久的游戏，从猴群时期我们就在玩了。它具有等级性，谁排第一？谁排第二？谁排第三？第三名要上升到第二名，第二名就得让出位置。所以说，地位是一种零和游戏。

Politics is an example of a status game. Even sports are an example of a status game. To be the winner, there must be a loser. I don’t fundamentally love status games. They play an important role in our society, so we can figure out who’s in charge. But fundamentally, you play them because they’re a necessary evil. [78]
政治就是一种地位博弈，甚至体育赛事也不例外。有赢家就必然有输家。我本质上并不热衷于这类地位博弈。虽然它们在社会中扮演着重要角色，能让我们明确谁处于主导地位，但说到底，参与这类博弈不过是两害相权取其轻罢了。[78]

The problem is, to win at a status game, you have to put somebody else down. That’s why you should avoid status games in your life—they make you into an angry, combative person. You’re always fighting to put other people down, to put yourself and the people you like up.
问题在于，要想在争地位的游戏中胜出，就必须打压他人。所以，生活中你应尽量避免这类游戏，因为它们会让你变得易怒好斗。你会一直想着打压别人，抬高自己和自己喜欢的人。

Status games are always going to exist. There’s no way around it, but realize most of the time, when you’re trying to create wealth and you’re getting attacked by someone else, they’re trying to increase their own status at your expense. They’re playing a different game. And it’s a worse game. It’s a zero-sum game instead of a positive-sum game. [78]
地位博弈永远存在，无法回避。但要明白，多数情况下，当你努力创造财富却遭人攻击时，他们是在牺牲你的利益以提升自身地位。他们玩的是另一套游戏，而且更糟糕。这是零和博弈，而非正和博弈。[78]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
玩傻游戏，得傻回报。

What is the most important thing to do for younger people starting out?
对于初入社会的年轻人而言，最重要的事是什么？

Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.
多花些时间做重大抉择。在人生早期，你基本上会面临三个重大抉择：生活的城市、相伴的人，以及从事的工作。

We spend very little time deciding which relationship to get into. We spend so much time in a job, but we spend so little time deciding which job to get into. Choosing what city to live in can almost completely determine the trajectory of your life, but we spend so little time trying to figure out what city to live in.
我们在决定建立何种人际关系上所花的时间极少。我们在工作上投入了大量时间，然而在择业时却没花多少时间。选择在哪个城市生活，几乎能彻底决定人生走向，可我们却没怎么花时间去考虑该住在哪座城市。

Advice to a young engineer considering moving to San Francisco: “Do you want to leave your friends behind? Or be the one left behind?”
给考虑搬去旧金山的年轻工程师的建议：“你是想抛下朋友？还是想被朋友抛下？”

If you’re going to live in a city for ten years, if you’re going to be in a job for five years, if you’re in a relationship for a decade, you should be spending one to two years deciding these things. These are highly dominating decisions. Those three decisions really matter.
要是你打算在一座城市生活十年，从事一份工作五年，维持一段感情十年，那你应该花一到两年时间来做这些决定。这些决定至关重要，这三个抉择真的意义重大。

You have to say no to everything and free up your time so you can solve the important problems. Those three are probably the three biggest ones. [1]
你得对所有事说“不”，腾出时间，以便能解决关键问题。这三点或许是最为关键的。[1]

What are one or two steps you’d take to surround yourself with successful people?
要让自己身边围绕着成功人士，你会采取一两个什么步骤？

Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure—your patience will run out if you count. [7]
弄明白自己的专长，然后用它去帮助他人。主动付出，传递善意。因果循环自有其理，因为人性具有一贯性。假以时日，你散发出去的东西，终会回到自己身上。但别去算计，要是斤斤计较，你很快就会失去耐心。[7]

An old boss once warned: “You’ll never be rich since you’re obviously smart, and someone will always offer you a job that’s just good enough.”
一位老上司曾告诫：“你永远富不起来，因为你这么聪明，总有人给你一份勉强凑合的工作。”

How did you decide to start your first company?
你当初是如何决定创办第一家公司的？

I was working at this tech company called @Home Network, and I told everybody around me—my boss, coworkers, my friends, “In Silicon Valley, all of these other people are starting companies. It looks like they can do it. I’m going to start a company. I’m just here temporarily. I’m an entrepreneur.”
我当时在一家名为@Home Network 的科技公司工作，我跟周围的人，包括老板、同事还有朋友都说：“在硅谷，其他人都在创业。看起来他们能行，我也要创业。我只是暂时在这儿，我是个创业者。”

…I didn’t actually mean to trick myself into it. It wasn’t a deliberate, calculated thing.
……其实我不是故意哄骗自己去做的，这不是有意为之、精心算计的事。

I was just venting, talking out loud, being overly honest. But I didn’t actually start a company. This was in 1996, it was a much scarier, more difficult proposition to start a company then. Sure enough, everyone started saying “What are you still doing here? I thought you were leaving to start a company?” and “Wow, you’re still here…” I was literally embarrassed into starting my own company. [5]
我当时不过是发发牢骚，随口说说，太过实在了。其实我并没有真的去创办公司。那是 1996 年，在那个时候创业，可要吓人得多，也艰难得多。果不其然，大家都开始问：“你咋还在这儿呢？我还以为你要辞职去创业了呢？” 还有人说：“哟，你居然还没走……” 被他们这么一说，我实在不好意思，就真的去创业了。[5]

Yes, I know some people aren’t necessarily ready to be entrepreneurs, but long-term, where did we come up with this idea the correct logical thing to do is for everybody to work for somebody else? It is a very hierarchical model. [14]
没错，我知道有些人未必准备好当企业家。但从长远看，我们怎么会觉得，对所有人来说，给别人打工才是正确且合理的选择呢？这是一种等级森严的模式。[14]

Find Work That Feels Like Play
找到一份如同玩耍般的工作

Humans evolved as hunters and gatherers where we all worked for ourselves. It’s only at the beginning of agriculture we became more hierarchical. The Industrial Revolution and factories made us extremely hierarchical because one individual couldn’t necessarily own or build a factory, but now, thanks to the internet, we’re going back to an age where more and more people can work for themselves. I would rather be a failed entrepreneur than someone who never tried. Because even a failed entrepreneur has the skill set to make it on their own. [14]
人类进化为狩猎采集者时，人人都为自己劳作。直到农业时代初期，等级制度才逐渐形成。工业革命和工厂的出现，使得等级制度变得极为森严，因为个人往往无法独自拥有或建造一座工厂。但如今，得益于互联网，我们正回归到一个越来越多人能够为自己工作的时代。我宁愿成为一名失败的创业者，也不愿从未尝试。因为即便创业失败，也能掌握独立生存的技能。[14]

There are almost 7 billion people on this planet. Someday, I hope, there will be almost 7 billion companies.
地球上约有 70 亿人口。我期望，终有一日，公司数量也能达到近 70 亿。

I learned how to make money because it was a necessity. After it stopped being a necessity, I stopped caring about it. At least for me, work was a means to an end. Making money was a means to an end. I’m much more interested in solving problems than I am in making money.
我之所以学会赚钱，是因为生活所需。当赚钱不再是生活必需时，我便不再在意。至少对我而言，工作只是达成目的的手段，赚钱也是。相比赚钱，我对解决问题更感兴趣。

Any end goal will just lead to another goal, lead to another goal. We just play games in life. When you grow up, you’re playing the school game, or you’re playing the social game. Then you’re playing the money game, and then you’re playing the status game. These games just have longer and longer and longer-lived horizons. At some point, at least I believe, these are all just games. These are games where the outcome really stops mattering once you see through the game.
任何一个终极目标，只会引出下一个目标，接着又是下一个目标。我们在生活中不过是在玩游戏罢了。长大后，你要么玩校园游戏，要么玩社交游戏，之后又开始玩金钱游戏，再后来就是地位游戏。这些游戏的跨度越来越大。至少我觉得，到了某个阶段，这一切都只是游戏而已。一旦你看透了游戏的本质，结果也就无关紧要了。

Then you just get tired of games. I would say I’m at the stage where I’m just tired of games. I don’t think there is any end goal or purpose. I’m just living life as I want to. I’m literally just doing it moment to moment.
后来，你就厌倦了各种游戏。我觉得自己现在就处于这种厌倦状态。我不觉得有什么终极目标或意义，只是随心所欲地生活，实实在在地过好当下的每一刻。

I want to be off the hedonic treadmill. [1]
我想摆脱享乐跑步机。[1]

What you really want is freedom. You want freedom from your money problems, right? I think that’s okay. Once you can solve your money problems, either by lowering your lifestyle or by making enough money, you want to retire. Not retirement at sixty-five years old, sitting in a nursing home collecting a check retirement—it’s a different definition.
你真正渴望的其实是自由。你渴望摆脱金钱困扰，对吧？我觉得这无可厚非。一旦你能解决金钱问题，无论是降低生活标准，还是赚够足够的钱，你就会想要退休。但这里说的退休，可不是指 65 岁时在养老院靠领取养老金度日，它有着不同的含义。

What is your definition of retirement?
你对退休的定义是什么？

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
退休，意味着你不再为虚幻的明天牺牲当下。当你觉得当下已然圆满，你便已处于退休状态。

How do you get there?
你要怎么到那里呢？

Well, one way is to have so much money saved that your passive income (without you lifting a finger) covers your burn rate.
嗯，一种办法是存下足够多的钱，让你的被动收入（无需你费一丝力气）就能抵消你的开支。

A second is you just drive your burn rate down to zero—you become a monk.
第二种方法是将自己的消耗降至零，过起苦行僧般的生活。

A third is you’re doing something you love. You enjoy it so much, it’s not about the money. So there are multiple ways to retirement.
第三，你在做自己热爱的事。你乐在其中，无关金钱。所以，实现退休的方式多种多样。

The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, to find the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you. If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants. Apply some leverage and put your name on it. You take the risks, but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you’re doing, and just crank it up. [77]
摆脱竞争陷阱的办法是保持本真，找到你自认比任何人都更擅长之事。你之所以更擅长，是因为热爱，无人能与你竞争。若你热爱此事，那就保持本真，接着思考如何将其与社会的实际需求相结合。借助一些手段，并打出自己的名号。你承担风险，但也收获回报，在所做之事中拥有所有权和权益，然后全力以赴。[77]

Did your motivation to earn money drop after you become financially independent?
你实现财务独立后，赚钱的动力有没有下降？

Yes and no. It did in the sense the desperation was gone.
既是又不是。从绝望感消失这个角度来说，确实有变化。

But if anything, creating businesses and making money are now more of an “art.” [74]
但如果非要说的话，如今创办企业和赚钱更像是一门“艺术”。[74]

Whether in commerce, science, or politics—history remembers the artists.
无论是在商业、科学还是政治领域，被历史铭记的都是艺术家。

Art is creativity. Art is anything done for its own sake. What are the things that are done for their own sake, and there’s nothing behind them? Loving somebody, creating something, playing. To me, creating businesses is play. I create businesses because it’s fun, because I’m into the product. [77]
艺术就是创造力。艺术是纯粹为了自身而做的事。哪些事是单纯为了其本身，背后没有别的意图呢？爱一个人、创造东西、玩耍。对我而言，创业就像玩耍。我创业是因为觉得有趣，因为我对产品感兴趣。[77]

I can create a new business within three months: raise the money, assemble a team, and launch it. It’s fun for me. It’s really cool to see what can I put together. It makes money almost as a side effect. Creating businesses is the game I became good at. It’s just my motivation has shifted from being goal-oriented to being artistic. Ironically, I think I’m much better at it now. [74]
我能在三个月内创立一家新公司：筹集资金、组建团队然后推出产品。这对我来说很有意思。看看自己能整合出什么成果，真的很棒。赚钱几乎算是个副产品。创办公司是我擅长做的事。只不过，我现在的动力已经从目标导向转变为艺术导向。说来也怪，我觉得自己现在做得反而更好了。[74]

Even when I invest, it’s because I like the people involved, I like hanging out with them, I learn from them, I think the product is really cool. These days, I will pass on great investments because I don’t find the products interesting.
即便我做投资，也是因为我欣赏参与其中的人，乐于与他们交往，能从他们身上有所收获，还觉得产品着实不错。现在，要是觉得产品无趣，哪怕投资前景再好，我也会放弃。

These are not 100 percent-or-nothing things. You can start moving more and more toward that goal in your life. It’s a goal. When I was younger, I used to be so desperate to make money that I would have done anything. If you’d shown up and said, “Hey, I’ve got a sewage trucking business, want to go into that?” I would have said, “Great, I want to make money!” Thank God no one gave me that opportunity. I’m glad I went down the road of technology and science, which I genuinely enjoy. I got to combine my vocation and my avocation.
这些事并非非黑即白，不是要么做到极致，要么干脆不做。在生活中，你可以一步步朝着那个目标靠近。这是个奋斗目标。我年轻那会儿，一心只想赚钱，什么事都愿意干。要是有人来找我说：“嘿，我有个污水运输的生意，你想不想入伙？”我肯定会说：“好啊，我要赚钱！”还好没人给我这个机会。我很庆幸自己选择了科技领域，我是真的热爱这个行业。我把工作和爱好结合在了一起。

I’m always “working.” It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it. Because I’m just playing, for sixteen hours a day. If others want to compete with me, they’re going to work, and they’re going to lose because they’re not going to do it for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. [77]
我时刻都在“工作”。在旁人眼中，这是工作，但对我而言，却如同玩乐。正因如此，我深知无人能在这方面与我抗衡。因为我只是在尽情玩乐，一天玩上 16 个小时。要是有人想和我竞争，他们就得埋头工作，可最终还是会败下阵来，毕竟没人能做到一周七天、每天 16 小时不间断地工作。[77]

What was your figure where you thought you were financially safe?
你觉得自己财务安全时对应的金额是多少？

Money is not the root of all evil; there’s nothing evil about it. But the lust for money is bad. The lust for money is not bad in a social sense. It’s not bad in the sense of “you’re a bad person for lusting for money.” It’s bad for you.
金钱并非万恶之源，其本身并无邪恶之处。然而，对金钱的贪欲却并非好事。这种贪欲并非从社会层面而言有害，也并非意味着 “贪恋金钱你就是坏人”，而是对你自身有害。

Lusting for money is bad for us because it is a bottomless pit. It will always occupy your mind. If you love money, and you make it, there’s never enough. There is never enough because the desire is turned on and doesn’t turn off at some number. It’s a fallacy to think it turns off at some number.
贪图钱财对我们有害，因为这是个无底洞，会一直萦绕在你心头。要是你贪恋钱财，即便挣到了钱，也永远不会满足。之所以永远无法满足，是因为欲望一旦燃起，就不会因某个具体数额而熄灭。认为达到某个数额就能知足，这是一种谬见。

The punishment for the love of money is delivered at the same time as the money. As you make money, you just want even more, and you become paranoid and fearful of losing what you do have. There’s no free lunch.
对贪恋钱财的惩罚，会与钱财一同降临。你一旦开始赚钱，就会欲壑难填，还会变得疑神疑鬼，生怕失去已有的财富。世上没有不劳而获的好事。

You make money to solve your money and material problems. I think the best way to stay away from this constant love of money is to not upgrade your lifestyle as you make money. It’s very easy to keep upgrading your lifestyle as you make money. But if you can hold your lifestyle fixed and hopefully make your money in giant lump sums as opposed to a trickle at a time, you won’t have time to upgrade your lifestyle. You may get so far ahead you actually become financially free.
你赚钱是为了解决金钱与物质方面的问题。我觉得，要摆脱这种对金钱的执着，最好的办法就是在赚钱时不提升自己的生活水平。随着收入增长，提升生活水平轻而易举。然而，要是你能维持现有的生活水平，并且争取一次性获得大笔收入，而非一点点地积累，你就无暇提升生活水平。如此一来，你或许会取得巨大进展，最终实现财务自由。

Another thing that helps: I value freedom above everything else. All kinds of freedom: freedom to do what I want, freedom from things I don’t want to do, freedom from my own emotions or things that may disturb my peace. For me, freedom is my number one value.
还有一点很重要：我把自由看得高于一切。包括各种自由：做自己想做之事的自由，不做不想做之事的自由，不受自身情绪或扰乱内心平静的事物影响的自由。对我而言，自由是第一要务。

To the extent money buys freedom, it’s great. But to the extent it makes me less free, which it definitely does at some level as well, I don’t like it. [74]
从金钱能换来自由的角度看，它很不错。但从它会在一定程度上限制我的自由这个角度（这确实存在），我不喜欢它。[74]

The winners of any game are the people who are so addicted they continue playing even as the marginal utility from winning declines.
任何游戏的获胜者，都是那些极度痴迷的人，即便获胜带来的边际效益递减，他们也会继续玩下去。

Do I have to start a company to be successful?
我非得创办一家公司才能成功吗？

The most successful class of people in Silicon Valley on a consistent basis are either the venture capitalists (because they are diversified and control what used to be a scarce resource) or people who are very good at identifying companies that have just hit product/market fit. Those people have the background, expertise, and references those companies really want to help them scale. Then, they go into the latest Dropbox or the latest Airbnb.
在硅谷，始终最为成功的人群，一类是风险投资家（因其投资分散，且掌控着曾经稀缺的资源），另一类则是十分擅长发掘刚实现产品与市场适配的公司的人。这些人具备那些公司实现规模扩张真正所需的背景、专业知识与人脉。随后，他们便会投身于类似最新的 Dropbox 或 Airbnb 这类公司。

The people who were at Google, then joined Facebook when it was one hundred people, and then joined Stripe when it was one hundred people?
那些曾就职于谷歌，之后在脸书规模仅有一百人时加入，继而又在 Stripe 规模为一百人时加入的人是怎样的呢？

When Zuckerberg was just starting to scale his company and panicked, he was like, “I don’t know how to do this.” And he called Jim Breyer [venture capitalist and founder of Accel Partners]. And Jim Breyer said, “Well, I have this really great head of product at this other company, and you need this person.” Those people tend to do the best, risk-adjusted over a long period of time, other than the venture investors themselves. [30]
扎克伯格刚开始扩大公司规模时，心里直发慌，他说：“我不知道该怎么办。” 于是，他打电话给吉姆·布雷耶（风险投资家，Accel Partners 的创始人）。吉姆·布雷耶回应道：“嗯，我认识另一家公司有个超厉害的产品负责人，你需要这样的人才。” 除了风险投资者自身，从长远且经风险调整的角度看，这类人往往表现最为出色。[30]

Some of the most successful people I’ve seen in Silicon Valley had breakouts very early in their careers. They got promoted to VP, director, or CEO, or started a company that did well fairly early. If you’re not getting promoted through the ranks, it gets a lot harder to catch up later in life. It’s good to be in a smaller company early because there’s less of an infrastructure to prevent early promotion. [76]
我在硅谷见过的一些极为成功之人，在职业生涯早期便实现了突破。他们早早晋升为副总裁、总监或首席执行官，又或者创办了一家颇为成功的公司。倘若你未能在职位上获得晋升，往后便很难迎头赶上。早点加入小公司不失为明智之举，因为小公司中阻碍早期晋升的体制因素较少。[76]

For someone who is early in their career (and maybe even later), the single most important thing about a company is the alumni network you’re going to build. Think about who you will work with and what those people are going on to do. [76]
对于职业生涯尚处早期（甚至后期）的人而言，一家公司最关键之处在于你将构建的校友人脉。思考一下你会与哪些人共事，以及这些人未来的发展方向。[76]

How to Get Lucky
如何变得幸运

Why do you say, “Get rich without getting lucky”?
你为何说“无需运气也能致富”？

In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them. You don’t want to be wealthy in the fifty of them where you got lucky, so we want to factor luck out of it.
在一千个平行宇宙里，你会希望在其中九百九十九个宇宙中实现富有。你不会希望仅仅是靠运气在其中五十个宇宙里变得富有，所以我们要把运气因素排除掉。

But getting lucky would help, right?
但要是能交上好运，那就更好了，对吧？

Just recently, Babak Nivi, my co-founder, and I were talking on Twitter about how one gets lucky, and there are really four kinds of luck we were talking about.
就在最近，我和联合创始人巴巴克·尼维（Babak Nivi）在推特上聊到，人是怎么交上好运的，实际上有四种类型的运气。

The first kind of luck is blind luck where one just gets lucky because something completely out of their control happened. This includes fortune, fate, etc.
第一种运气是纯粹的运气，即某人只因发生了完全不受其掌控的事而交了好运。这包括财富、命运等。

Then, there’s luck through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. This is when you’re running around creating opportunities. You’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot to stir things up. It’s almost like mixing a petri dish or mixing a bunch of reagents and seeing what combines. You’re just generating enough force, hustle, and energy for luck to find you.
其次，还有凭借坚持、勤奋、进取与行动而获得的运气。此时，你四处奔忙，创造机遇。你活力满满，积极行事，试图有所作为。这就如同搅拌培养皿或混合多种试剂，看看会产生什么反应。你只需鼓足干劲、活力满满，运气自会找上门来。

A third way is you become very good at spotting luck. If you are very skilled in a field, you will notice when a lucky break happens in your field, and other people who aren’t attuned to it won’t notice. So, you become sensitive to luck.
第三种方法是，你要变得十分擅长察觉运气。如果你在某一领域造诣颇深，当该领域出现运气契机时，你便能注意到，而其他人由于对此缺乏敏锐度，就会浑然不觉。如此一来，你对运气就会变得敏感。

The last kind of luck is the weirdest, hardest kind, where you build a unique character, a unique brand, a unique mindset, which causes luck to find you.
最后一种运气最为奇特，也最难获得。你需要塑造独特的性格、打造独特的个人品牌、培养独特的思维方式，如此一来，运气便会主动找上门来。

For example, let’s say you’re the best person in the world at deep-sea diving. You’re known to take on deep-sea dives nobody else will even dare to attempt. By sheer luck, somebody finds a sunken treasure ship off the coast they can’t get to. Well, their luck just became your luck, because they’re going to come to you to get to the treasure, and you’re going to get paid for it.
比如说，假设你是世界上最顶尖的深海潜水高手，敢于挑战那些无人敢尝试的深海潜水任务。碰巧有人在近海发现一艘沉没的宝藏船，却无法靠近。这下，他们的运气就成了你的运气，因为他们会来找你帮忙打捞宝藏，而你也能从中获得报酬。

This is an extreme example, but it shows how one person had blind luck finding the treasure. Them coming to you to extract it and give you half is not blind luck. You created your own luck. You put yourself in a position to capitalize on luck or to attract luck when nobody else created the opportunity for themselves. To get rich without getting lucky, we want to be deterministic. We don’t want to leave it to chance. [78]
这是个极端例子，但它说明了一个人是如何凭瞎碰运气找到宝藏的。而他们来找你一起挖掘并分给你一半，这可不是瞎碰运气。你创造了自己的运气。当其他人都没给自己创造机会时，你让自己处在了能利用运气或者吸引运气的境地。想要不凭运气致富，我们就得让事情具有确定性，不能听天由命。[78]

Ways to get lucky:
获得好运的方法：

• Hope luck finds you.
• 希望你好运连连。

• Hustle until you stumble into it.
• 不断拼搏，直至有所斩获。

• Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss.
• 做好心理准备，留意他人错过的机遇。

• Become the best at what you do. Refine what you do until this is true. Opportunity will seek you out. Luck becomes your destiny.
• 成为所在领域的顶尖人才。不断打磨自身技艺，直至达成这一目标。届时，机遇自会降临，好运也将常伴左右。

It starts becoming so deterministic, it stops being luck. The definition starts fading from luck to destiny. To summarize the fourth type: build your character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.
事情开始变得极具确定性，这就不再是运气了。其概念也开始从运气向命运转变。总结第四种类型：以特定方式塑造自身性格，如此一来，性格便成了命运。

One of the things I think is important to make money is having a reputation that makes people do deals through you. Remember the example of being a great diver where treasure hunters will come and give you a piece of the treasure for your diving skills.
我觉得，要想赚钱，重要的一点是树立良好声誉，让大家乐意通过你达成交易。还记得那个出色潜水员的例子吗？寻宝者会因你的潜水本领找上门来，分你一份宝藏。

If you are a trusted, reliable, high-integrity, long-term-thinking dealmaker, when other people want to do deals but don’t know how to do them in a trustworthy manner with strangers, they will literally approach you and give you a cut of the deal just because of the integrity and reputation you’ve built up.
要是你值得信赖、可靠、正直，且看问题有长远眼光，是个擅长促成交易的人，当其他人想做交易，却不知如何诚信地与陌生人打交道时，他们就会主动来找你，只因你为人正直、声誉良好，愿意分给你一部分交易收益。

Warren Buffett gets offered deals to buy companies, buy warrants, bail out banks, and do things other people can’t do because of his reputation. Of course, he has accountability on the line, and he has a strong brand on the line.
沃伦·巴菲特会收到收购公司、购买认股权证、救助银行等交易邀约，还能做一些其他人因声誉所限而无法做的事。当然，他得承担相应责任，其强大的品牌形象也会受到影响。

Your character and your reputation are things you can build, which will let you take advantage of opportunities other people may characterize as lucky, but you know it wasn’t luck. [78] My co-founder Nivi said, “In a long-term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich. And in a short-term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.”
你的品格与声誉是可以打造的，凭借这些，你能抓住那些别人眼中靠运气的机遇，而你心里清楚，这并非运气使然。[78] 我的联合创始人尼维曾说：“从长远来看，似乎人人都在相互成就、共同致富；而短期来看，似乎人人都只为自己谋利。”

I think that is a brilliant formulation. In a long-term game, it’s positive sum. We’re all baking the pie together. We’re trying to make it as big as possible. And in a short-term game, we’re cutting up the pie. [78]
我觉得这个说法非常精妙。从长远来看，这是一场正和博弈，大家齐心协力把蛋糕做大。而短期来看，我们则是在分蛋糕。[78]

How important is networking?
人脉有多重要？

I think business networking is a complete waste of time. And I know there are people and companies popularizing this concept because it serves them and their business model well, but the reality is if you’re building something interesting, you will always have more people who will want to know you. Trying to build business relationships well in advance of doing business is a complete waste of time. I have a much more comfortable philosophy: “Be a maker who makes something interesting people want. Show your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you.” [14]
我觉得拓展商业人脉纯粹是浪费时间。我知道有些人和公司在鼓吹这个概念，因为这对他们和他们的商业模式极为有利。但实际情况是，要是你在做有意思的东西，自然会有更多人想结识你。在开展业务之前就忙着搭建商业关系，纯粹是白费功夫。我有个更踏实的理念：“做个创造者，做出人们感兴趣的东西。展示你的手艺，精进你的手艺，自然会有志同道合的人找上门来。”[14]

And once you’ve met someone, how do you determine if you can trust someone? What signals do you pay attention to?
一旦你结识了某个人，你如何判断能否信任他？你会留意哪些迹象呢？

If someone is talking a lot about how honest they are, they’re probably dishonest. That is just a little telltale indicator I’ve learned. When someone spends too much time talking about their own values or they’re talking themselves up, they’re covering for something. [4]
如果有人老是强调自己多么诚实，那这人很可能不老实。这是我发现的一个小诀窍。要是有人花大量时间谈论自己的价值观，或者自我吹嘘，那他们肯定有所隐瞒。[4]

Sharks eat well but live a life surrounded by sharks.
鲨鱼吃得不错，却生活在群鲨环伺之中。

I have great people in my life who are extremely successful, very desirable (like everybody wants to be their friend), very smart. Yet, I’ve seen them do one or two things slightly not great to other people. The first time, I’ll say, “Hey, I don’t think you should do this to that other person. Not because you won’t get away with it. You will get away with it, but because it will hurt you in the end.”
我身边有一些极为出色的人，他们极为成功，魅力非凡（人人都想与他们结交为友），而且聪慧过人。不过，我曾目睹他们对他人做过一两件不尽如人意之事。初次遇到这种情况时，我会说：“嘿，我认为你不该对那个人做这种事。倒不是你会因此受到惩罚，你可能不会被追究，但这么做最终会对你自己不利。”

Not in some cosmic, karma kind of way, but I believe deep down we all know who we are. You cannot hide anything from yourself. Your own failures are written within your psyche, and they are obvious to you. If you have too many of these moral shortcomings, you will not respect yourself. The worst outcome in this world is not having self-esteem. If you don’t love yourself, who will?
并非从什么宇宙、因果报应的层面而言，而是我深信，在内心深处，我们都明白自己究竟是谁。人无法对自己隐瞒任何事。自身的失败烙印在心灵深处，自己心里一清二楚。要是道德上的缺陷太多，你就会自我轻视。世上最糟糕的事莫过于没有自尊。连自己都不爱的话，又有谁会爱你呢？

I think you just have to be very careful about doing things you are fundamentally not going to be proud of, because they will damage you. The first time someone acts this way, I will warn them. By the way, nobody changes. Then I just distance myself from them. I cut them out of my life. I just have this saying inside my head: “The closer you want to get to me, the better your values have to be.” [4]
我觉得，对于那些根本不会让自己感到自豪的事，一定要格外谨慎，因为这些事会对你造成伤害。要是有人第一次这么做，我会提醒他们。话说回来，人是不会改变的。之后我就会疏远他们，把他们从我的生活中剔除。我心里一直有这么个说法：“你想跟我走得越近，你的价值观就得越好。” [4]

Be Patient
耐心点

One thing I figured out later in life is generally (at least in the tech business in Silicon Valley), great people have great outcomes. You just have to be patient. Every person I met at the beginning of my career twenty years ago, where I looked at them and said, “Wow, that guy or gal is super capable—so smart and dedicated”…all of them, almost without exception, became extremely successful. You just had to give them a long enough timescale. It never happens in the timescale you want, or they want, but it does happen. [4]
我在后来的人生中领悟到，通常（至少在硅谷的科技行业是如此），优秀之人往往能收获非凡成就。你只需耐心等待。二十年前我初入职场，遇到的每一个让我不禁赞叹“这人能力超强，既聪慧又专注”的人，几乎无一例外，后来都取得了巨大成功。你只需给他们足够的时间。成功的到来，往往不会契合你或他们预期的节奏，但它总会降临。[4]

Apply specific knowledge with leverage and eventually, you will get what you deserve.
运用具备杠杆作用的特定知识，最终你会收获应得之物。

It takes time—even once you have all of these pieces in place, there is an indeterminate amount of time you have to put in. If you’re counting, you’ll run out of patience before success actually arrives.
这需要时间——即便你已将所有要素准备妥当，仍需投入一段不确定的时间。要是你总在掐着时间等，那还没等成功来临，你就先没了耐心。

Everybody wants to get rich immediately, but the world is an efficient place; immediate doesn’t work. You do have to put in the time. You do have to put in the hours, and so I think you have to put yourself in the position with the specific knowledge, with accountability, with leverage, with the authentic skill set you have, to be the best in the world at what you do.
人人都想一夜暴富，但世界运转高效，一蹴而就并不现实。你得投入时间和精力，因此我觉得你得让自己掌握特定知识，勇于担当，善用杠杆，发挥自身真实技能，力求在所从事的领域做到全球顶尖。

You have to enjoy it and keep doing it, keep doing it, and keep doing it. Don’t keep track, and don’t keep count because if you do, you will run out of time. [78]
你得享受这件事，然后坚持做下去，一直做，一直做。别去记录，也别去计数，不然时间就不够用了。[78]

The most common bad advice I hear is: “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older. The only way to truly learn something is by doing it. Yes, listen to guidance. But don’t wait. [3]
我听到最常见的错误建议就是：“你太年轻了。”历史上大部分成就其实都是年轻人取得的，只不过他们年纪大些后才获得认可。真正学到东西的唯一途径就是付诸行动。没错，要听取他人的指导，但别一味等待。[3]

People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve.
人总是出奇地始终如一。所谓因果报应，不过是你不断重复自身的行为模式、优点与缺点，直至最终得到应有的结果。

Always pay it forward. And don’t keep count.
始终传递善意，不要计较得失。

This is not to say it’s easy. It’s not easy. It’s actually really freaking hard. It is the hardest thing you will do. But it’s also rewarding. Look at the kids who are born rich—they have no meaning to their lives.
这并不是说这件事轻而易举，实际上它困难重重，堪称你所做之事中最难的。不过，它也会带来回报。想想那些含着金汤匙出生的孩子，他们的人生毫无意义。

Your real résumé is just a catalog of all your suffering. If I ask you to describe your real life to yourself, and you look back from your deathbed at the interesting things you’ve done, it’s all going to be around the sacrifices you made, the hard things you did.
你真正的履历，其实就是你所有苦难的记录。倘若我让你向自己描述真实的人生，当你在弥留之际回顾自己做过的那些趣事，你想到的都会是你做出的牺牲，以及你经历的艰难困苦。

However, anything you’re given doesn’t matter. You have your four limbs, your brain, your head, your skin—that’s all for granted. You have to do hard things anyway to create your own meaning in life. Making money is a fine thing to choose. Go struggle. It is hard. I’m not going to say it’s easy. It’s really hard, but the tools are all available. It’s all out there. [77]
然而，别人给你的任何东西都不重要。你有四肢、大脑、脑袋和皮肤，这些都是自然而然拥有的。无论如何，你都得去做难事，才能在生活中创造属于自己的意义。选择赚钱是件不错的事。去奋斗吧。这很难。我不会说这轻松。这真的很难，但所需工具都有。一切都摆在眼前。[77]

Money buys you freedom in the material world. It’s not going to make you happy, it’s not going to solve your health problems, it’s not going to make your family great, it’s not going to make you fit, it’s not going to make you calm. But it will solve a lot of external problems. It’s a reasonable step to go ahead and make money. [10]
金钱能让你在物质世界中获得自由。它不会给你带来快乐，无法解决你的健康问题，不能让你的家庭美满，也不会让你拥有好身材或内心安宁。但它能解决很多外在问题。所以，努力赚钱是合理之举。[10]

What making money will do is solve your money problems. It will remove a set of things that could get in the way of being happy, but it is not going to make you happy. I know many very wealthy people who are unhappy. Most of the time, the person you have to become to make money is a high-anxiety, high-stress, hard-working, competitive person. When you have done that for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, and you suddenly make money, you can’t turn it off. You’ve trained yourself to be a high-anxiety person. Then, you have to learn how to be happy. [11]
赚钱能解决的是金钱方面的问题。它能排除一些可能妨碍你获得幸福的因素，但并不能让你幸福。我认识不少富豪，他们并不快乐。多数情况下，为了赚钱，你得变成一个高度焦虑、压力山大、勤奋努力且争强好胜的人。当你这样过了二三十年、四五十年，突然赚了钱，却没法停下这种状态。你已经把自己训练成了一个高度焦虑的人。之后，你还得学习如何获得幸福。[11]

Let’s get you rich first. I’m very practical about it because, you know, Buddha was a prince. He started off really rich, then he got to go off in the woods.
咱们先聊聊怎么让你发财。我谈这个可实在了，毕竟，要知道，佛陀原本是个王子。起初他富得流油，后来才跑到林子里去修行。

In the old days, if you wanted to be peaceful inside, you would become a monk. You would give up everything, renounce sex, children, money, politics, science, technology, everything, and you would go out in the woods by yourself. You had to give everything up to be free inside.
在过去，若想内心安宁，人们会选择出家为僧。那时，人们会舍弃一切，包括情欲、子女、财富、政治、科学、技术等等，而后独自遁入山林。为了求得内心的自由，必须放下所有。

Today, with this wonderful invention called money, you can store it in a bank account. You can you work really hard, do great things for society, and society will give you money for things it wants but doesn’t know how to get. You can save money, you can live a little below your means, and you can find a certain freedom.
如今，有了金钱这项了不起的发明，你可以把钱存进银行账户。你若努力工作，为社会做出卓越贡献，社会就会为它所需却不知如何获取之物向你付酬。你可以存钱，适度节俭，进而获得一定的自由。

That will give you the time and the energy to pursue your own internal peace and happiness. I believe the solution to making everybody happy is to give them what they want.
这会让你有时间和精力去追寻内心的安宁与幸福。我认为，让每个人都开心的办法，就是满足他们的需求。

Let’s get them all rich.
咱们让他们都富起来。

Let’s get them all fit and healthy.
让我们让他们都变得健康、身材好。

Then, let’s get them all happy. [77]
那么，咱们让他们都开心起来。[77]

Amazing how many people confuse wealth and wisdom.
居然有这么多人把财富和智慧混为一谈，真是令人惊讶。