与志同道合者共谋长远之策

谈一谈你应该考虑从事哪些行业，适合什么样的工作，以及你可能想和谁共事。

Talk a little bit about what industries you should think about working in, what kind of job you should have, and who you might wanna work with.

你说过，人们应该选择一个能与长期伙伴一起玩长期游戏的行业。

So you said one should pick an industry where you can play long term games with long term people.

为什么？

Why?

是的。

Yeah.

这揭示了硅谷为何能成功，以及高信任社会为何能运转的原因。

This is an insight into what makes Silicon Valley work and what makes high trust societies work.

本质上，生活中所有的收益都来自复利，无论是人际关系、赚钱还是学习。

Essentially, all the benefits in life come from compound interests, whether it's in relationships or making money or in learning.

所以复利是一种奇妙的力量，你一开始拥有一定的基础，如果每年增长20%，持续三十年，这并不是简单地累加30年乘以20%。

So compound interest is a marvelous force where it's like, you know, you start out with one x what you have, and then if you increase 20% a year for thirty years, it's not that you got thirty years times 20% added on.

而是复利效应。

It was compounding.

所以它就这样不断增长，直到你突然获得了大量某种东西，无论是善意、爱、关系还是金钱。

So it just grew and grew and grew until you suddenly got a massive amount of whatever it is, whether it's goodwill or love or relationships or money.

所以我认为复利是一种非常重要的力量。

So I think compound interest is a very important force.

你必须能够进行长期博弈。

You have to be able to play a long term game.

长期博弈不仅有利于复利，也有利于建立信任。

And long term games are good not just for compound interest, they're also good for trust.

如果你看一下囚徒困境这类博弈，囚徒困境的解决方案是‘以牙还牙’，也就是我会像你上次对我那样对待你，但如果出现失误，也会留一些宽恕的空间。

If you look at prisoner's dilemma type games, the solution to prisoner's dilemma is tit for tat, which is I'm just gonna do to you what you did last time to me with some forgiveness in case there was a mistake made.

但这种策略只在重复的囚徒困境中才有效。

But that only works in an iterated prisoner's dilemma.

换句话说，我们会多次进行这个游戏。

In other words, we play the game multiple times.

所以，如果你身处一种情境中，比如硅谷，人们彼此做生意，互相认识、互相信任，那么他们就会善待彼此，因为他们知道这个人还会参与下一轮游戏。

So if you're in a situation, like, example, you're in Silicon Valley where people are doing business with each other and they know each other, they trust each other, then they do right by each other because they know this person will be around for the next game.

当然，这并不总是有效，因为在硅谷，你可能一次就赚到巨额财富。

Of Now, course, that doesn't always work because you can make so much money in one move in Silicon Valley.

有时候人们会彼此背叛，因为他们觉得：‘我只要从这次交易中赚够钱，就无所谓了。’

Sometimes people betray each other because they're just like, I'm gonna get rich enough of off this that I don't care.

所以这些情况总会有一些例外。

So there can be exceptions to all these circumstances.

但本质上，如果你想成功，就必须与他人合作，还要弄清楚谁能信任，谁能长期信任，这样你才能持续和他们一起玩这场游戏，让复利和高度信任使游戏更容易进行，并让你在周期末尾收获主要回报。

But, essentially, if you want to be successful, you have to work with other people, and you have to figure out who can you trust and who can you trust over a long, long period of time that you can just keep playing the game with them so that compound interest and high trust will make it easier to play the game and will let you collect the major rewards, which are usually at the end of the cycle.

例如，沃伦·巴菲特在美国股市投资中表现非常出色，但他能取得如此成就的最重要原因，是美国股市长期稳定，没有在糟糕的政府执政期间被国有化，也没有陷入战争。

So for example, Warren Buffett has done really well as an investor in The US Stock Market, but the biggest reason he could do that was because The US stock market has been stable and around and didn't get, for example, seized by the government during a bad administration or The US didn't plunge into some war.

底层的平台没有被摧毁。

The underlying platform didn't get destroyed.

因此，在他的案例中，他玩的是长期游戏，而信任来源于美国股市的稳定性。

So in his case, he was playing a long term game, and the trust came from The US stock market stability.

在硅谷，信任则来自于你逐渐在小地理区域内识别出哪些人可以合作、哪些人不可合作的人际网络。

In Silicon Valley, the trust comes from the network of people in the small geographic area that you figure out over time who you can work with and who you can't.

如果你不断更换地点，不断更换圈子，比如你最初进入木工行业，建立了自己的人脉网络并努力工作。

If you keep switching locations, you keep switching groups let's say you started out in the woodworking industry and you built up a network there and you're working hard.

你正在试图在木工行业打造一款产品。

You're trying to build a product in woodworking industry.

然后突然间，另一个相关但不同的行业出现了，而你根本不认识其中的任何人，却想跳进去赚钱。

And then suddenly another industry comes along that's adjacent but different, but you don't really know anybody in it and you wanna dive in and make money there.

如果你不断在各个行业之间跳来跳去，比如，我得开一家电动汽车充电站来为电动车补能。

If you keep hopping from industry to, you know, actually, I need to open a line of electric car stations for electric car refueling.

这可能说得通。

That might make sense.

这可能是最好的机会。

It might be the best opportunity.

但每次你重新开始，每次你离开自己建立人脉的领域，你都得从零开始。

But every time you reset, every time you wander out of where you built your network, you're gonna be starting from scratch.

你将不知道该信任谁。

You're not gonna know who to trust.

他们不会信任你。

They're not gonna trust you.

也有一些行业，人们从本质上就是流动的。

There are also industries in which people are transient by definition.

他们总是不断进来又离开。

They're always kinda coming in and going out.

政治就是一个例子。

Politics is an example of that.

对吧？

Right?

在政治中，新人不断当选。

In politics, new people are being elected.

你看到政治中，当有很多像参议员这样的老资格人物，他们长期任职，是职业政客。

You see in politics that when you have a lot of old timers like the senate, people who've been around for a long time, and they've been career politicians.

没错。

Yeah.

职业政客有很多弊端，比如腐败。

There's a lot of downside to career politicians, like corruption.

但也有好处，因为他们知道对方十年后仍会身处同一职位，未来还得继续打交道，所以他们实际上能达成协议。

But an upside is they actually get deals done with each other because they know the other person's gonna be in the same position ten years from now, and they're gonna have to keep dealing with them.

因此，他们不如学会如何合作。

So they might as well learn how to cooperate.

而每当有新一届众议院议员上任，比如每两年一次的大选浪潮，由于争斗激烈，往往什么事都做不成。

Whereas every time you get, like, a new incoming freshman class in the house of representatives, which turns over every two years, the big wave election, nothing gets done because there's a lot of fighting.

因为我刚来。

Because I just got here.

我不认识你。

I don't know you.

我不知道你是否会留下来。

I don't know if you're gonna be around.

我为什么要和你合作？

Why should I work with you?

而不是仅仅尝试做我认为正确的事情。

Rather than just try and do whatever I think is right.

因此，选择一个可以进行长期博弈、与长期伙伴合作的行业很重要。

So it's important to pick an industry where you can play long term games and with long term people.

所以这些人必须表明他们会长期存在，他们是道德的，并且他们的道德体现在行动中。

So those people have to signal that they're gonna be around for a long time, that they're ethical and their ethics are visible to their action.

在长期博弈中，似乎每个人都在让彼此变富。

In a long term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich.

而在短期博弈中，似乎每个人都在让自己变富。

And in a short term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.

我认为这是一个绝妙的表述。

I think that is a brilliant formulation.

是的。

Yeah.

在长期博弈中，这是一种正和游戏。

In a long term game, it's positive sum.

我们都在一起烤这个派。

We're all baking the pie together.

我们努力把它做得尽可能大。

We're trying to make it as big as possible.

在短期博弈中，我们是在切分这个派。

In a short term game, we're cutting up the pie.

但这并不是为社会主义者开脱。

Now this is not to excuse the socialists.

对吧？

Right?

社会主义者是一群不参与烤派、却在最后出现，说‘给我一块’或‘我要整个派’的人。

The socialists are the people who are not involved in baking the pie, who show up at the end and say, want a slice or I want the whole pie.

他们带着枪出现。

They show up at the guns.

但我认为一个好的领导者不会邀功。

But I think a good leader doesn't take credit.

一个好的领导者基本上会激励人们，让团队完成工作，然后根据公平原则和每个人的贡献程度，尽可能公平地分配成果，而不是让最后刀最锋利的人拿走一切。

A good leader basically tries to inspire people so the team gets the job done, and then things get divided up according to fairness and who contributed how much or as close to it as possible and took a risk as opposed to just whoever has the longest knife, the sharpest knives at the end.

接下来这两条推文讲的是重复博弈。

So these next two tweets are play iterated games.

生活中的所有回报，无论是财富、关系还是知识，都来自复利。

All returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.

是的。

Yeah.

当你和某人做生意、做朋友十年、二十年、三十年，关系会越来越好，因为彼此信任，摩擦越来越少。

When you've been doing business with somebody, you've been friends with somebody for ten years, twenty years, thirty years, it just gets better and better because you trust them so easy that the friction goes down.

你们可以一起做越来越大的事情。

You can do bigger and bigger things together.

比如，最简单的例子就是和一个人结婚、生子、抚养孩子。

For example, you know, the simplest one is getting married to someone, having kids, and raising children.

这其实就是复利。

Like, that's compound interest.

对吧？

Right?

投资于这些关系。

Investing in those relationships.

这些关系最终比更随意的关系更有价值。

Those relationships end up being invaluable compared to more casual relationships.

在健康和健身方面也是如此。

It's true in health and fitness.

你知道，你越健康，保持健康就越容易。

You know, the fitter you are, the easier it is to stay fit.

而你身体越退化，就越难恢复，重新回到基础水平。

Whereas the more you deteriorate your body, the harder it is to come back and claw your way back to a baseline.

这需要英雄般的努力。

It requires heroic acts.

关于复利，我想我之前看到你转推过一些内容。

Regarding compound interest, I think I saw you retweet something a while back.

可能是埃德·拉蒂莫尔发的。

Maybe it was from Ed Latimore.

大致意思是：先取得一些进展，站稳脚跟，然后别丢掉。

It went something along the lines of get some traction, get purchase, and don't lose it.

所以这个观点是：先获得一些初始进展，就永远不要倒退。

So the idea was to gain some initial traction and never fall back.

持续不断地逐步提升。

Just keep ratcheting up and up.

我不太记得原话了，但我觉得他说得对。

I don't remember it exactly, but I think that was right.

没错。

Yeah.

就是说：取得进展后别放手。

It was like, get traction and don't let go.

这是个不错的观点。

It was a good one.

嗯。

Yeah.