索拉2号内幕、AI领域的快钱、费米美国IPO、Outdoor Voices新系列 | 2025年10月2日

欢迎各位收看《信息科技电视》。我是阿卡什·佩斯里察。今天是10月2日星期四。我们为您准备了精彩的节目内容。今天我们将深入解析OpenAI Sora二代与贝恩资本风投的联合发布。

Welcome everyone to the Informations TI TV. My name is Akash Pesritcha. It is Thursday, October 2. We have got a great show planned for you today. We are unpacking the launch of OpenAI Sora two with Bain Capital Ventures.

我们还将讨论本周上市的最疯狂的数据中心公司之一，并单独探讨那些收入一夜暴涨的AI初创企业可能面临的市场现实检验。随后，苏利文克伦威尔律所的顶级并购律师将与我们探讨当前科技领域的交易现状。最后，我们的节目老友泰·哈尼将介绍户外品牌Outdoor Voice今日上线的新产品线。在开始前，我想重点推荐今晨《信息报》发布的关于Meta超级智能实验室（MSL）的深度报道，该文揭示了MSL研究团队内部日益滋生的不满情绪。

We are also talking about one of the craziest data center companies that went public this week, and separately, about some of the reality checks that may come for AI startups whose revenues have skyrocketed overnight. We've then got one of Sullivan and Cromwell's top M and A lawyers joining us to talk about the current state of deals in technology. And finally, Ty Haney, a friend of the show, is going to come on to tell us more about Outdoor Voice's new product line launching today. Before we get going, I want to highlight for you a story that we just published this morning at The Information about Meta's Superintelligence Labs, also known as MSL. The story is a deep dive into some of the frustrations that have been brewing on the research team within MSL.

关键细节在于，研究人员对一项新政策感到沮丧——他们的成果在发表前需经过额外审查。我们将在节目备注中附上报道链接，强烈推荐您阅读。现在有请首位嘉宾：本周OpenAI发布的Sora二代视频生成模型已成为全城热议话题。

And a key detail here is that researchers have become frustrated about a new policy that says that their work will need to go through additional reviews before they can publish it. We will link that story in the show notes. I highly suggest you check it out. And with that, let's get to our first guest. This week, OpenAI launched Sora two, its new video model that has been the talk of the town.

这周我收到许多朋友发来的AI生成视频，其中不少令人印象深刻。但Sora发布在社交媒体引发的现象级传播同样引人入胜，为此我特邀相关评论文章作者——贝恩资本风投合伙人索尼娅·奥雅，这是她首次做客本节目。

I've had many friends sending me AI videos that they have generated all week. Many of them have been quite impressive. But the social media angle of the Sora release is equally captivating people right now, and I wanna bring on someone who wrote a good piece on that. Sonya Oja is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures. It is her first time on the show.

索尼娅，欢迎来到《信息科技电视》，非常高兴你能来。

Sonya, welcome to TI TV. It's great to have you.

阿卡什，很荣幸受邀。我是节目老观众了，但首次参与录制，已经迫不及待要开始讨论了。

Akash, lovely to be here. Longtime watcher, first time on here. So excited to get into it.

那以后不仅要当老观众，还要常来当嘉宾，怎么样？我特别期待这次对话。简单说说，这周你用Sora生成什么有趣的内容了吗？

We'll have to make it longtime watcher and many time guests. How about that? I'm really excited for this conversation. Very quickly, Sora, what have you been generating with it this week? Anything?

你知道，我主要是在浏览，但这和我使用其他社交媒体也没太大区别。我很警觉。不过我得说，我看得很开心。

You know, I have been mostly perusing, but that is not too different from my use of other social media. I'm alert. But I have been very entertained, I will say.

很好，很好。我们有很多要聊的。你写了一篇关于Sora二代的精彩文章，特别是关于它的发布策略。跟我聊聊真正让你印象深刻的地方，不仅是模型本身，还有他们实际推出这款产品的方式。

Great. Great. Well, there's a lot to get to. You wrote a great piece about Sora two, and particularly about the launch strategy. Talk to me about what really stood out to you, not just about the model, but the way that they actually rolled out this product.

是的，当然。这很有趣。我感觉我们讨论AI原生社交已经有一段时间了。一直有传言说OpenAI会发布类似的东西。所以我觉得世界已经准备好了。

Yeah, absolutely. So it is interesting. I feel like for a while now, we've been talking about what is AI native social. There have been rumors about OpenAI releasing something like this. So, I feel like the world was prepared.

但令人着迷的是他们在这次发布中表现出的决断力，以及他们在推出方式上展现了多少独到见解。首先，显然你已经提到了。昨天所有人都在疯狂索要邀请码。这真是个绝妙的主意，原因有二。

But what was fascinating is how decisive they were with this launch and how many opinionated takes they had in how they rolled things out. So the first thing, obviously, you mentioned it already. Everyone was hankering for these invite codes yesterday. Right. It's just a stroke of brilliance for two reasons.

其一，这个策略在硅谷历史悠久。Gmail最初就是用邀请码开始的。不知道你还记不记得，他们当时...

One, this playbook is as old as a valley. Gmail started off with these invite codes. Don't know if you remember. You know, they used

对我来说总是Superhuman。那是我反复尝试的邀请码。

to It was always superhuman for me. That was the invite code I was trying again.

这很合理。不管具体是什么，病毒式传播来自于FOMO（害怕错过），来自于稀缺性。我们熟悉这套策略。但这次有趣的是，它同时还起到了遏制混乱的作用。因为当你向世界推出像Sora这样强大的生成视频模型时，必然会出现深度伪造内容。

That makes sense. You know, whatever it is, the virality comes from the FOMO, comes from the scarcity. We know this playbook. But what was interesting in this situation was that it doubled up as a throttle on chaos. Because when you're putting out a generative video model into the world that's as good as Sora, there's gonna be deepfakes.

平台肯定会被滥用。人们会尝试用上千种方式破坏它。没错。通过这种做法，他们能够逐步减少自身面临的信息洪流，并在过程中建立标准。所以我认为这在两个层面上都非常明智。

There's gonna be abuse of the platform. There's gonna be a thousand different ways people will try to break it. Right. Doing it like this, they were able to, you know, reduce the flood on themselves as they sort of waded through it and set standards as they went along. So I thought that was really smart on both levels.

没错。他们采取的同样举措——默认选择加入的版权立场——引发了大量争议和不安，我认为这事还没完。娱乐律师、各大制片厂肯定会集体发声。耐人寻味的是，这事发生在媒体界Dilly Norwood闹剧之后不久，现在演员工会已发表声明抗议，称人类才应是创作的主体。

Right. The same thing they did, which raised a lot of eyebrows, caused a lot of consternation, and I don't think we've heard the end of it, is their stance on copyright. Opt in by default is bold. You can expect to hear a lot from entertainment lawyers, all the production houses. What is fascinating is that this is coming so soon after the Dilly Norwood fiasco that happened in the media, and you're seeing people get up in arms, know, Actors Guilds issuing statements about how this is not the way forward and creativity should be the domain of humans.

关于这个选择加入机制，我想具体说明下。你说选择加入，对演艺界人士而言实际操作是怎样的？

And for for for those of it's just I wanna sort of translate the opt in part of this. When you say opt in, what does this actually tactically look like for for actors and people in entertainment industry?

是的。这意味着除非权利人主动选择退出，否则OpenAI和Sora可以使用网络上所有知识产权内容进行生成。你拥有的角色、电影、歌曲都可能被使用，除非你发送退出通知。

Yeah. It means every piece of IP that is online can be used by OpenAI and Sora as a part of the generation unless the entity actively opts out. So you have a character, a movie, a song, that's fair game unless you send them an opt out notice.

也就是说，按这个逻辑，YouTube上的内容一旦发布就自动成为可使用的素材？

So conceivably, right here, I mean, as soon as those are posted on YouTube, this is fair game is what they're saying.

对，听起来是这样。我确信未来会面临法律挑战。但另一个引发争议的是不能批量下架——迪士尼不能直接说'禁用我们所有作品'。

Yeah. That's what it sounds like. And I'm sure this will get battle tested in the days to come. But the other one that's raising eyebrows is that you can't do a blanket takedown. So Disney can't come in and say, hey.

他们必须逐个处理，针对每项知识产权单独声明'不能使用这部电影或角色'，重复上千次。这就像用顶针舀沉船里的水，千刀万剐式的折磨。

Don't use anything that we've ever done. They have to do piece by piece. They have to go, you know, IP by IP and say, you can't use this specific movie or character, and they have to do it a thousand times over. So it's essentially like you're draining the water from a sinking ship using, like, a thimble. Just keep going, death by a thousand cuts.

没错。这很合理，因为从某个角度看，它具有可扩展性。选择退出机制不具备扩展性——你得挨个征求人们同意。而选择加入机制，就成了其他人的问题。

Right. And it makes sense because from one perspective, it scales. Opt out does not scale. You have to go hanging to people asking for permission. Opt in, it's everyone else's problem.

所以我不确定这能否经受住法律层面的挑战，我们拭目以待。如果真能通过法律考验，他们将为此行业树立先例。当案件在法庭悬而未决时，他们实际上也在塑造消费者行为和对此类事件的预期标准。我很想看看这个模式能否经得起时间检验。

So I don't know how this is going to withstand legal pushback, but we'll see. If it does withstand legal pushback, they're going to set a precedent for this industry. And as it languishes in the courts, they're going to sort of set a precedent for consumer behavior and expectations around what goes on in this. So I'm curious to see how this stands the test of time.

那么你认为这对世界有益吗？你通讯稿后半部分令我深思——你在探讨这究竟对互联网和世界是否利大于弊。我想引述一段：'当现实分裂成无数虚拟版本时，我们不仅失去共同立场，更丧失了争论的基础。'

So do you think that this is good for the world? Because I was struck by sort of the bottom half of your newsletter, which was really, you know, it was your take on whether or not this is a net good for the Internet and for the world. And I just want to read a passage. You said, When reality fragments into infinite simulations, we don't just lose common ground. We lose the ability to argue over it.

如果每个人都获得专属定制内容，我们就不再共享文化了。对此你怎么看？这真的是好事吗？

If everyone gets a custom show tailored for just them, we're not sharing culture anymore. So what's your take on that? Was this good?

是的。我认为这是必然趋势。就目前形态而言——虽然我不是消费领域投资者——我看不出它如何规模化，因为当新鲜感消退后，没人会想整天看朋友骑龙的幻象。人们更想了解他们晚餐吃什么、在做什么，或者被其他人类逗笑——比如看有人在TikTok踩香蕉皮滑倒之类。

Yeah. I think it was inevitable. I think in its current form, I'm not a consumer investor, but I don't see how this is gonna scale because I think once the novelty wears off, you don't wanna see your friends riding dragons. You kinda wanna see what they had for dinner and what they're doing, or you wanna laugh at other human beings. Maybe they've slipped on a banana peel on TikTok, stuff like that.

确实。

Right.

我确信它会随着消费者需求变化而进化，但我坚持观点。这终将演变成非常个人化的体验，所以我想知道大众感受。对我而言，内容最重要的价值在于分享——上Reddit看网友讨论，彼此交流观点。而AI原生的社交媒体发展方向，现在用户用AI生成内容，那何时会变成AI直接回应你呢？

I do that it's going to adapt and it's going to change with how consumer demand is changing, but I stand by it. I do think it's gonna be a very personal take, so I'm curious how the rest of the world feels. But I think the biggest part of content for me is the ability to share it, to go on Reddit, see what people are saying, you know, talk to each other about it. So the way I see this heading, the AI native, you know, social media, right now users are generating it using AI. What stops AI just responding to you?

因为它会比任何人都更了解你。所以现在你对面空无一人。你拥有的是高度个性化的、专为你多巴胺受体设计的药物，这些药物

Because it's going to know you better than anyone else. So now you have no one on the other end. You have hyper personalized, basically, drugs that are built for your dopamine receptors that are

是的。人们可以随心所欲地创作内容。我是说，现在的门槛太低了。所以，我理解你的观点。某种程度上有点可怕，但正如你所说，这一切中的社交媒体角度才是真正有趣的部分。

Yeah. People can build whatever content they want. I mean, the barrier is just so low now. So, I I take your point. A little bit scary in some ways, but, you know, like you say, the social media angle to all this is really what is interesting.

Sonya，非常感谢你能来参加节目。未来几周我们还有更多新闻要讨论。显然我们正密切关注着周一举行的Dev Day，我猜大家都迫不及待想看看他们还会公布什么。非常感谢你来到节目。这位是Bain Capital Ventures的合伙人Sonya Oja。

Sonya, thank you so much for coming on. We have so much more news to discuss in the weeks to come. We obviously have opening eyes to Dev Day coming up on Monday, and I think we are eagerly waiting to see what else they unveil. Thank you so much for coming on the show. That is Sonya Oja, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures.

好的。本周，由前能源部长Rick Perry联合创立的公司上市了。公司名为Fermi America，它正在德克萨斯州阿马里洛建设可能成为有史以来最大的数据中心综合体。其股票在昨日首日交易中大涨，但这家公司才成立一年且尚无收入。现在请AI与金融记者Miles Krupa为我们带来更多分析。

Okay. Well, this week, a company co founded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry went public. It is called Fermi America, and it's building what could become the largest data center complex ever in Amarillo, Texas. Shares jumped in its debut yesterday, but the company is only a year old and has no revenue yet. Joining us now for more analysis is AI and finance reporter, Miles Krupa.

Miles，欢迎回到节目。很高兴你能来。

Miles, welcome back to the show. It is great to have you.

谢谢，Akash。我必须立刻纠正你一下——作为德州人，正确的发音是阿马里洛（Amarillo）。

Thanks, Akash. And I I had to correct you off the bat really quickly. As a Texan, it's pronounced Amarillo.

能听出我从没去过德州吗？我不知道。不，我去过德州。是的，我没有任何借口。

Can you tell that I've never been I don't know. No. I have been to Texas. Yeah. I have no excuse.

我确实从未去过阿马里洛。

I certainly have never been to Amarillo.

嗯，这是个有趣的地方。德克萨斯是个幅员极其辽阔的州。

Well, it's it's a it's an interesting place. Texas is a vast, vast state.

好吧。说实话，迈尔斯，这个故事太疯狂了。我完全没想到你会从这里讲起，因为故事本身有太多精彩的切入点。我们先确认下——我至少把'费米'的发音念对了吧？

Okay. You know, I gotta be honest, Miles. This story was so crazy. That is not where I thought you were gonna start here because the story itself has has so many colorful angles to it. Let's just start by but did I pronounce Fermi right at least?

这个名字是...对。费米。没错。好的。

Is that the Yes. Name of the correct. Fermi. All right. Okay.

那么费米公司的预期商业模式是什么？他们究竟打算做什么？

So so what is Fermi's prospective business model? What is it that they're they're to do here?

是的。费米本质上从事的是为数据中心获取土地和电力资源的业务。目前这个领域非常热门，因为大型科技公司正在全力建设数据中心，而美国电网容量非常紧张。所以他们四处寻找那些便于获取天然气、适合核能开发的土地。费米就是在试图满足这种需求。

Yeah. Fermi is basically in the business of procuring land into power for data centers. This is a really hot area right now because the big tech companies, they're building data centers as fast as they can, and The US grid is very constrained. And so they're looking everywhere they can for land that has ready access to natural gas that could be good for nuclear development. So Fermi is basically trying to satisfy that demand.

明白了。所以这有点像房地产计划。我们听说过很多房地产公司涉足数据中心领域。这家公司的经营者是谁？

Okay. And so this is kind of like a real estate plan. And we've we've heard about so many real estate companies getting into the data center space. Who is this company run by?

是的。如你所提到的，公司由里克·佩里共同创立并担任董事，首席执行官是一位名叫托比·诺伊格鲍尔的人。希望我没念错这个名字，这是个德裔波兰姓氏。

Yeah. So it's run by Rick Perry, as you mentioned, is the co founder director. And then the CEO is a man named Toby Neugebauer. I hope I pronounced that right. It's a German Polish name.

托比·诺伊格鲍尔是位资深私募股权高管，此前创办过名为Glorify的公司，计划开发面向保守派群体的银行类应用，自称'反觉醒主义'。该公司在2023年因未能通过SPAC上市而破产，所以这算是他的下一个商业尝试。

And Toby Neugebauer is a longtime private equity executive, And he previously started a company called Glorify that was going to be a sort of banking app aimed at conservatives. It called itself anti woke. It actually went bankrupt in 2023 after it failed to go public through a SPAC. So this is sort of his next business venture.

明白了。现在说说这家公司，成立还不到一年。你提到的信息中有一点来自佛罗里达大学杰伊·里特的数据，他指出这是自2017年以来首家上市的房地产投资信托基金，至少根据他的数据是这样。

Got it. Now talk to me about the company. It is less than a year old. One of the things you mentioned, and this was from data from our friend Jay Ritter over at the University of Florida. He mentioned that it is the first REIT to go public since 2017, or at least that was according to his data.

这是2017年后首家零收入却成功上市的REIT，而且股价昨天还暴涨了。我们该怎么理解这种现象？

The first REIT to go public since 2017 that has no revenue, and yet shares popped yesterday. So what are we to make of this?

没错。当前公开市场对任何试图建造数据中心的企业都是个有趣时刻。你可以看到模因股交易员们特别追捧这个逻辑——由于电力资源紧张，任何掌握土地和电力资源的公司就像生物科技赌注，这些企业或许尚未具备实质内容，但若最终成功，潜在收益巨大。

Yeah. It's an interesting moment in the public markets for any company that is trying to build data centers. You can just see sort of the meme stock traders really latching on to this thesis that because we're so power constrained, anybody with any sort of access to land and power is it's almost like a biotech bet. It's like these companies might not have the goods quite yet, but, there's potentially a lot of upside if they do have the goods eventually.

这有点...他们目前有任何签约客户吗？

That's kind of Do they do they have any any customers lined up at all yet?

他们有一份意向书，某客户有意入驻阿马里洛数据中心。但关键这只是无约束力的意向书，理论上客户随时可以退出而不必承担严重后果。

They have, a letter of intent with one customer that's interested in being a tenant at a data center at the Amarillo site. But, you know, crucially, it's only a letter of intent, which means it's nonbinding. So that customer could theoretically walk away at any time without many repercussions.

没错。这些意向书目前在人工智能领域确实引起了不小的轰动。你报道称该公司计划建设一个名为唐纳德·J·特朗普发电厂的设施。

Right. Well, these these letters of intent are are making a lot of noise these days in in AI. That's for sure. You reported that the company is planning a facility called the Donald J. Trump generating plant.

我猜这意味着该公司与特朗普政府之间显然有些历史渊源。请为我们详细讲讲。

I assume this means there is is obviously some history with the company and the Trump administration. Talk about that for us.

是的。里克·佩里确实有他的政府人脉。这家公司正与美国核监管机构密切合作，试图通过快速通道获得核能项目批准。众所周知，这个过程通常需要很多年且时间线极不确定。费米公司想加快进度，而他们似乎至少部分在靠奉承手段来实现目标。

Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly, you know, Rick Perry has his government connections. You know, the company is working closely with The US nuclear nuclear regulator on sort of a fast track way to get nuclear approved. You know, this is infamously something that takes many, many years and is sort of a very uncertain timeline. So Fermi is trying to do this faster, and it seems that they may be leaning at least partially on flattery to get that done.

正确。最后一个问题。你在《信息报》报道债务问题的方式是我们过去多年都未曾见过的。说说今年的债务情况吧——他们必须去筹集这笔债务。

Correct. And last question for you. I mean, you have covered debt for us here at The Information in ways that we haven't actually seen that much of in years past. Tell us about the debt angle this year. They have to go out and raise this debt.

你认为以他们现有的商业模式真能实现这个目标吗？

Do you actually think they're going to be able to do that with the business model they have?

是的。他们IPO合作的银行向潜在投资者展示的预测显示，未来两年需要筹集约90亿美元债务。关键在于要把客户意向书转化为具有法律约束力的合同。多数数据中心贷款方都要求看到能预测现金流的约束性合同才肯放贷。所以在至少签下一个客户前，我认为他们将面临异常艰难的局面。

Yeah. So, you know, the banks that they worked with on the IPO, they shared projections with potential investors showing they'll need to raise about $9,000,000,000 of debt over the next two years. The crucial thing there will be basically turning that customer LOI into an actual binding contract. You know, most lenders to data centers want to see a binding contract where they can project out the cash flows before they actually lend money against the projects. So until they, you know, secure at least one customer, I think it's going to be a really tough uphill battle for them.

很好。现在这家公司已经上市，意味着我们可以通过股市追踪他们的每个里程碑。迈尔斯，感谢你的分享。这是个非常有趣的故事，在当前环境下，数据中心与债务的结合显然不容小觑。

Great. Well, beauty is the company is now public. So it means we can we can follow each and every one of their milestones out in the stock market. So thank you, Miles, for coming on. It's a very interesting story, and a combination of data centers and debt is obviously not one to take lightly in this climate.

这位是The Information负责报道人工智能与金融领域的Miles Krupa。每周我们都会听闻新的AI公司实现重大营收里程碑，有些公司似乎一夜之间就能从零收入增长至1亿美元的年度经常性收入。但这并不总意味着这些公司拥有持久的业务。

That is Miles Krupa, who covers AI and finance here at The Information. Okay. Well, every week we hear of new companies, new AI companies hitting big revenue milestones. Companies can grow from no revenue to $100,000,000 in annual recurring revenue seemingly overnight. But that doesn't always mean that those companies have enduring businesses.

为此我想请Altimeter Capital合伙人Jamin Ball加入讨论，他就此话题撰写过精彩分析。Jamin，欢迎回到节目，很高兴再次见到你。

And to talk about that, I want to bring on Jamin Ball, a partner at Altimeter Capital, who has done some great writing on exactly this topic. Jamin, welcome back to the show. It's great to see you again.

谢谢邀请，很期待今天的对话。

Thanks for having me. Excited to chat today.

是啊，让我们深入探讨这些近期走势各异的指标吧。虽然我们看到众多公司快速增长，但从你写的文章中我感觉到，你现在似乎有些担忧。你提到自己审视某些公司时感到焦虑——尽管当前形势看起来如此乐观。

Yeah, let's nerd out about all these metrics that are, you know, going in all different directions these days. Look, we've had all these companies growing quickly, and yet the gist that I got from the post that you wrote was that you are kind of nervous right now. You mentioned it. You said, you're a little bit anxious looking at some of these companies. Mean, things are so fun right now.

为什么Jamin Ball现在会感到不安？

Why is Jamming Ball nervous right now?

首先必须指出，我们正见证着私营软件公司有史以来最惊人的增长轨迹。这源于几个因素：许多AI产品（无论是营销、销售还是财务AI代理）都能快速展现投资回报率。采购方迫切希望将AI应用于提升业务效率，在这个飞速发展的世界里，等待观望的风险太大，必须立即采购这些产品。

Yeah, look, I mean, think it's important to call out first that what we are seeing is some of the most historic growth trajectories that we've ever seen in any private software company. And it's for a few reasons. It's it's because with a lot of these AI products, whether it's an AI marketing agent, an AI sales agent, an AI finance agent, they're able to demonstrate ROI very quickly. You have a buyer who is very interested in applying AI inefficiencies to their own business, and a world that's just moving so fast that you can't risk to wait and stay on the sidelines. You have to go procure these things.

否则竞争对手就会抢先，你将落后于人。更重要的是，这些都是全新市场——许多AI解决方案并非替代现有产品，而是完全创新的存在。

Otherwise, your competition will, and you'll be left behind. Right. Wrap on top of that, these are greenfield markets. A lot of these AI solutions aren't replacing anything. They're they're net new.

有时它们可能是在补充或替代某种形式的劳动力，但这是全新的领域。话虽如此，我上周写的文章标题叫《来得容易去得快》。我之前可能写过类似的版本，即ARR（年经常性收入）对比ARR，ARR是非常稳固的、实验性的跑道收入。但没错，我认为我们可以详细聊聊。这些历史性的增长曲线和增长率绝对有利有弊。

Sometimes they may be augmenting or replacing some form of labor, but it's greenfield. Now with that being said, the topic of the post I wrote last week was called Easy Come, Easy Go. I've maybe written a prior iteration of that, which is ARR versus ARR, the ARR being annual recurring revenue, very sticky, experimental runway revenue. But yes, I think there's and we can chat all about it. There's definitely pros and cons to these historic ramps and growth rates.

那么，你基本上谈到的一点是，为什么这些公司最初收入激增可能不如那些需要几年时间才能产生的收入那么稳固。所以谈谈这里的一些原因。你提到了实施时间、销售周期等。你最大的担忧或应该警惕的信号是什么？

Well, so one of the things you basically talked about is basically some of the reasons why this initial surge in revenue for these companies may not be as sticky as other revenue that may have taken, you know, maybe a couple of years to generate. And so talk about some of the reasons here. Mean, you talked about implementation time, sales cycles. Yeah. What are some of the biggest concerns that you have, or flags that should be raised?

是的，看，我会说这既是优点也是诅咒，有些事情很好，但也可能有负面影响，对吧？我总结了大概三点：一是实施周期。甚至在开始之前就要注意。很多AI产品的销售周期极短。

Yeah, look, I would say it's a beauty and a curse, and there's things that are very good, but may also have a negative, right? And there's really kind of like three I came up with, right? One was the implementation cycles. Watch them even start before that. The sales cycles are extremely short for a lot of these AI product purchases.

这主要归因于我早前列举的几个因素。价值实现时间非常明确直观。买家动机强烈，但总的来说，销售周期非常快。除此之外，实施周期也非常快。很多这类产品可以采用产品驱动增长（PLG）模式。

And that's generally because of the few things I listed earlier. The time to value is very clear and obvious. You have a buyer who's very motivated, but in general, you have very fast sales cycles. On top of that, you have very fast implementation cycles. A lot of these products can be PLG'd.

而且有一个决策者在快速做决定。再次强调，听我说这些可能让人觉得，这听起来很棒啊。哪家公司不想缩短销售周期？哪家公司不想减少实施上线时间？为什么这些会是坏事呢？

And you have a champion that is making a very fast decision. Again, I think it's very easy to hear me say those things and say, well, that sounds amazing. Isn't every company trying to lower their sales cycles? Isn't every company trying to lower the time it takes to go live on the implementation? Why are those bad things?

我的看法是：它们不一定是坏事，但可能被视为理所当然。当销售周期非常短时，这可能意味着什么？很可能意味着买家没有将你与其他四五个解决方案进行比较。这可能意味着你的支持者并没有完全投入。

Here's what I would say. They're not necessarily bad, but I think they can be taken for granted. When you have a very fast sales cycle, well, what does that probably mean? It probably means that the buyer didn't evaluate you against four or five other solutions. They It moved really might mean that your champion really wasn't fully bought in.

他们做出了情绪化的决定，因为老板在催促‘我们必须快速行动’，而他们对解决方案本身并不那么认可。你只是他们当下燃眉之急的临时解决方案。

They made an emotional decision because their boss was telling them, We have to move fast, and they weren't as bought into the solution. You were just a solution to an immediate hair on fire problem they had right now.

而且，是的，我是说，提到过这一点。我的意思是，在某些情况下，你说他们可能是唯一被评估的供应商，这在我看来太疯狂了。软件行业通常不是这样运作的，对吧？

And, yeah, mean, mentioned that. I mean, in some cases, you mentioned they could have been the only vendor that was evaluated, which is crazy to me. That's not the way software has typically worked, right?

确实不是。但我想说的是，高层、高管们从未像现在这样迫切要求快速行动并采用人工智能。当这种压力自上而下传导，当员工群体热衷于采用这些解决方案和工具，自动化处理日常工作中许多繁琐的部分时，你就遇到了这种快速推进的完美风暴。此外，通常还有非常快速的实施周期。

It hasn't. But I would say there's never been the pressure from higher ups, from execs, to move quickly and adopt AI. Right. And when you have the pressure coming down from the top, when you have an employee base who's excited to adopt a lot of these solutions and tools, and automate away a lot of the mundane parts of their day to day, you do have this perfect storm of just moving really quickly. And then there's also, generally, very fast implementation cycles.

归根结底，如果没有一定程度的快速实施周期，你不可能在一两年内从零做到一百。如果耗时过长，你可能根本无法实现如此快速增长。但这同时也意味着——为什么实施周期会很长？因为你必须与众多解决方案集成，必须与许多其他工作流程对接。

At the end of the day, you can't go zero to 100 in a year or two years without some level of fast implementation cycles. If it took a long time, you just probably couldn't grow that quickly. But that also probably means you're not necessarily well, why are implementation cycles long? Because you have to integrate with a lot of solutions. You have to integrate with a lot of other workflows.

你需要设置不同的角色、访问控制等等所有这些事项。虽然人们希望缩短这个时间，但更长实施周期、更多集成、更复杂工作流程的美妙之处在于——我称之为Salesforce效应或Atlassian效应。你会发现很少有人会说'我爱Salesforce'或'我爱Atlassian'，但他们无法剥离这些系统，因为这些产品的触角已深入上百个工作流程，移除一个解决方案实际上意味着重写与之关联的100个工作流程。这就是长实施周期的优势——你能真正将触角延伸至组织各个角落的工作流程中。

You have to get different roles and access controls and all of all of that stuff, which, again, it's people want to bring that time down, but the beauty of longer implementations, more integrations, kind of more workflows is it's what I call the Salesforce effect or the Atlassian effect. These are products that you don't really find a lot of people saying, I love Salesforce. I love Atlassian. But they can't rip them out because they just have their tentacles in a 100 different workflows, and removing one solution actually means rewriting the 100 workflows that touched it. And so that is the beauty of a long implementation cycle, is you're gonna really push your tentacles into workflows in all different other parts of the org.

反之，如果没有这种深度整合，系统可能更容易被替换。所以这既是短实施周期和短销售周期的优势，也是其诅咒所在。

And so absent that, it might be easier to rip out and replace. And so again, it's kind of like the beauty and the curse here of shorter implementation cycles and shorter sales cycles.

让我问问什么才是正确的衡量标准。因为你提到了年度经常性收入（ARR）与你所说的实验性收入运行率之间的区别。实验性...

Let me ask you about what the right metric is here. Because you talked about ARR versus what you sort of call experimental revenue run rate. Experimental

运行率收入。

run rate revenue.

运行率收入。我的意思是，你已经掌握了收入指标，对吧？另一个我们经常听到的指标当然是净美元留存率，这是一种随时间衡量并观察有多少客户实际留下来甚至在某些情况下升级的方式。我一直在思考，并想请教你的看法，就是对于许多这些公司来说，即使有收入，指标是否变得不那么重要了？定性因素是否真的围绕着‘嘿，客户是谁？’

Run rate revenue. So, I mean, you've got the revenue metrics, right? Other metric we've heard so much about is net dollar retention, of course, which is a way to sort of measure this over time and see how many customers are actually sticking around or even upgrading in some cases. The thought that I've had, and I'm asking you this, one of your thoughts here, is I mean, are metrics sort of becoming less important for many of these companies, even if they have revenue? Are the qualitative factors really around, Hey, who is the customer?

客户的画像是什么？在当前环境下，你是否真的需要专注于这一点，依赖于你对这些公司销售对象的定性判断？

What is the profile of the customer? Is that really what you have to focus on in this climate, is leaning on your qualitative judgment of who these companies are selling to?

我认为是的。看，我觉得这肯定是其中的一部分。我认为这些天我更倾向于依赖的其他指标更像是总留存率。我的意思是，观察留存群体，因为这确实能很好地讲述这些客户的趋势。因为，再次强调，我并不是说所有这些客户都是来也匆匆去也匆匆。

I think yeah. Look, I think that's certainly part of it. I think the other metrics that I will lean a lot more on these days are kind of like gross retention. I mean, looking at retention cohorts because that does tell a good story on how these customers are trending. Because, again, I'm not saying that all of these customers are kind of like easy come, easy go.

肯定会有一些公司，我们看到它们成长为数十亿、数百亿美元的大型上市公司，它们起步时的画像可能让人觉得来也匆匆去也匆匆，但它们却持续腾飞。我们看到的许多这些公司的执行速度比以往任何时候都快。但我会看其他指标。不过是的，我认为这几乎像是交易对手风险。这是客户风险。

There will certainly be a number of companies that, we see grow to be multibillion dollar, tens of billion dollar, large public companies that started off maybe with a profile that could have let easy come, easy go, but just continued their liftoff. The execution rate we're seeing of a lot of these companies is faster than ever. But I'll look at other metrics. But yes, I think it's almost like counterparty risk. It's customer risk.

这是，嘿，我们去和那个客户谈谈。有时候你可能会听到的是，嘿，我们买了这个产品是因为我们想开发这个功能。我们不知道这个功能的确切投资回报率会是多少，但我们有一个假设。我们认为它会带来更高的转化率。我们认为它会带来更高的平均售价。

It's, hey, let's go talk to that customer. And what you might hear sometimes is, hey, we built we bought this product because we wanted to build this feature. We don't know what the exact ROI of that feature will be, but we have a hypothesis. We think it will drive higher conversions. We think it will drive a higher ASP.

我们认为它会带来更高的客户满意度。

We think it will lead to better customer satisfaction.

没错。

Right.

但归根结底，如果效果不佳，他们可能会直接关停不再使用。但他们不得不尝试，因此投入了大量实验。虽然许多尝试会被终止，但同样会有许多项目获得加倍、三倍甚至四倍的资源投入。

But at the end of the day, if it doesn't, maybe they'll just turn it off and stop using it. But they can't afford not to try it. And so they're trying a lot. They're experimenting a lot. And, again, a lot of those experiments will be shut off, but also a lot of those experiments will be double, triple, quadruple down on.

我们将见证一批具有历史意义的新兴企业崛起。

And we'll we'll see kind of a new crop of historic companies built.

这正是我们本周AI议程直播会议的重要议题——企业们纷纷表示：试点项目就是试点，不要因其轻易增减预算，保持节奏持续观察即可。杰明，非常感谢您做客节目解读《Clouded Judgment》这份出色的通讯。

Well, I mean, that that was a big point that came up in our in our AI agenda live conference this week was, you know, companies saying, hey. The pilots are what they are. Don't stop or start spending based on the pilot. Just, you know, keep chugging along and seeing how they go. Jemin, thank you so much for coming on the show explaining Of it to It's a great newsletter.

再次介绍，他是《Clouded Judgment》通讯的作者，来自Altimeter Capital的杰明·鲍尔。说到AI议程直播会议，我仍沉浸在本周纽约活动的余韵中。我们邀请了多位杰出演讲者，包括Conviction的莎拉·郭，以及Reflection.ai、Weka和One X的高管。

Again, he is the author of the Clouded Judgment newsletter. That is Jemin Ball from Altimeter Capital. Okay. Well, speaking of our AI Agenda Live conference, I am still on a high from the event earlier this week in New York City. We had a number of great speakers, including Sarah Guo from Conviction and executives from Reflection dot ai, Weka, and One X.

我们准备了活动精彩瞬间的短视频，一起来回顾下。人工智能可是热门话题，现场氛围是不是很热烈？

We've got a quick video of some of the highlights. Let's take a look. It's AI. It's like the topic. Did you or everyone get excited?

我是罗伯特机器人。什么？

I'm a name you Robert the Robot. What?

我认为未来十年内，每个人都将拥有个人机器人。地球上至少会有80亿人形机器人，它们将成为我们的朋友和伙伴。

I think we will all have our own personal robot in the next decade. There'll be at least 8,000,000,000 humanoids on the planet. And they'll be our friend. They'll be our companion.

他们将全程参与其中

They'll be there throughout

我们的一生，协助我们完成每件事。我认为这其中蕴含着巨大的魔力。英伟达是个绝佳的合作伙伴。我认识黄仁勋时——用另一个玩笑话说——大约是四万亿美元市值之前的事了。那时他们还是家普通公司，他也是个普通人。

our lives, helping us with everything we do. And I think there's a lot of magic to that. NVIDIA is a great partner. They I've I've known Jensen as another joke goes, like, $4,000,000,000,000 ago. When they were a normal company, he was a normal person.

作为投资者，我们关注的是创始人独特的优势、独到的见解、独有的数据资源、独特的数据飞轮效应，以及需要构建的实际工作流程。因为这些都需要——我得找个更好的说法——我称之为'埋头苦干'。你必须付出艰辛努力才能真正打造出这些卓越的企业。任何能在周末靠氛围编程完成的东西，都不值得投资。

For us as investors, we look at sort of what is the what is the unique spike of the founder, what's the unique insight, what is the unique data, what is the unique data flywheel, what is the actual workflow that needs to be built. Because all of these things, you know, I I need to find a better phrase for this, but I call it elbow grease. You gotta put in the elbow grease in the grit to actually make some of these amazing businesses. Anything that can be vibe coded in the weekend is not a valuable thing to to invest in.

好的。我们希望拥有AI数学家，超级智能推理者来与数学家合作，让应用科学家们探索如何在现有市场中扩展形式化推理，进而开拓新市场和新应用场景。

K. We wanna have AI mathematicians, super intelligent reasoners to collaborate with mathematicians, apply scientists to figure out how to scale formal reasoning in existing markets and then to expand new markets and new use cases.

AI领域被低估的一点是：直到2022年，这还是个相对小众的行业，研究者群体规模有限，投入资金也较少。因此我认为从现在开始进步会更艰难，但我坚信我们将见证更多能力的突破。

One of the things that's undervalued in AI is like, is a relatively small industry and set of researchers and small dollars put toward it, like as recently as 2022. Right? And so I I do think it is harder to make progress from here, but I absolutely believe that we're gonna see more capability.

感谢各位今天的参与。见到大家非常愉快。祝各位晚安。以上是本周早些时候在纽约举行的AI议程直播会议精选内容。好的。

Thank you everyone for joining us today. It is a pleasure to see you all. Have a good night. That was the highlights from our AI Agenda Live conference here in New York City earlier this week. Okay.

如今，我们看到越来越多科技巨头吞并小型初创企业。就在今天，HR软件公司Gusto以6亿美元收购了Arrival。昨天我们刚听说Vercel计划延续其收购势头。还有Atlassian这样的大型上市公司，一直在收购像浏览器公司这样的知名企业。我想请来沙利文克伦威尔律所顶级并购律师弗朗西斯·阿奎拉，谈谈他对当前交易环境的观察。弗朗西斯，很高兴见到你。

Well, more and more, we are seeing big tech companies gobbling up smaller startups. Just today, we saw HR software company Gusto buy Arrival for $600,000,000 We heard just yesterday from Vercel about how it has plans to continue its acquisition streak. And then we also have big public companies like Atlassian that has been buying well known companies like the browser company. I wanna bring on Francis Aquila, one of Sullivan and Cromwell's top M and A lawyers, to talk about what he's seeing in the current deal making environment. Francis, it's so good to see you.

欢迎来到TI TV。

Welcome to TI TV.

嗨，你好吗？谢谢邀请我。

Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.

所以我很期待和你聊聊你在市场上观察到的情况。从我们这边看，并购活动似乎在增加。我想知道从你的角度看，数据是否也反映了这一点？我是说，跟我们分享一下你在实践中看到的情况。

So I'm really excited to chat with you about what you're seeing in the market. Look, from our end, it feels like M and A is up. And I wonder from your end, is that what you're seeing in the data? I mean, talk to us about what you're seeing in your practice.

我们看到的是，首先，我要回溯到年初。我认为并购领域的每个人都预期会有大量的并购活动。我们预计科技领域，尤其是AI领域，但非AI领域也会因AI带来的变革而推动大量并购交易。但今年前三四个月确实停滞了。不过过去几个月我们看到了活动的爆发。

What we're seeing is Well, first of all, I'll go back to the beginning of the year. I think everyone in the M and A world anticipated a tremendous amount of M and A activity. We anticipated that tech, particularly the AI space, but also non AI, in effect, driven by the changes that AI is bringing about, creating a lot of m and a activity. That stalled really in the first three, four months of the year. But what we've seen in the last few months is really a burst of activity.

所以虽然交易量下降，估值却大幅上升，这是因为那些50亿、100亿美元以上的超级交易正以非常迅猛的速度涌现。EEA交易——我认为这是今年最大的交易之一，无疑是科技领域最大的交易——象征着我们正在看到的交易类型。

So while deal volume is down, the valuation is way up, and that's because the mega deals, those $5.10 plus billion dollar transactions are are coming at us, you know, very, very fast and furious here. And the EEA deal, which is really, I think, you know, one of the biggest deals of the year, certainly the biggest tech deal of the year, is symbolic of the type of transactions that we're we're seeing.

对。当你说交易类型时，我是说...新闻里都有报道，但我试图在这里区分财务买家和战略买家。你认为我们会看到更多私募股权式的收购，还是大型科技公司会进行战略性的大规模收购？

Right. And when when you when you say type of transaction, I mean I mean, you know, is it are you seeing more I mean, it's all in the news, but I'm I'm sort of trying to draw a line here between the financial buyers and strategic buyers. I mean, do you think we're going see more of the private equity style buyouts, or are the big tech companies going to make large strategic acquisitions?

我认为两者都会出现。首先关于私募股权，他们会将某些上市公司私有化，用来搭建平台，最终这些公司可能被出售或再次上市，这方面会有很多活动。但你提到的重点——我们上段讨论的——是那些感觉自己落后或需要更多人手的成熟科技公司会进行收购。我们正看到大量这类案例。

So I think we're going to see both. First of all, with respect to private equity, I think that they will take certain public companies private. They will use them to build out a platform that will eventually the company will even be sold or go public again, but we're gonna see a lot of activity there. But what I think you were pointing to, and in in the last segment, we're pointing to, was the fact that established tech companies who feel that they are behind or just need, you know, more people to work for them will be doing acquisitions. And we're seeing a lot of that.

尤其是科技和非科技公司，它们感到需要将AI经验和知识纳入其业务组合，以应对所在行业正在经历的颠覆性变革。

And, you know, particularly tech and nontech companies that feel they need the AI experience and knowledge that they're going to add to their portfolio as their particular sector gets disrupted.

对，对。我想把成熟的科技公司暂时分成两类。一方面，我们有所谓的'七大巨头'公司，这些公司在历史上因其交易行为受到政府更严格的审查。另一方面，则是规模稍小的公司，那些上市时间较短的企业。

Right. Right. So I want to sort of split the established tech companies into sort of two buckets for a minute here. You know, on one hand, we've got sort of the mag seven companies, the companies that we've seen, you know, get a lot more scrutiny from the government historically from the deals that they do. And then on the other hand, you have sort of slightly smaller companies, companies that have been public for a little while.

我们先聚焦讨论'七大巨头'集团——我很好奇，随着政府监管或至少审查力度有所放松，你是否注意到这个群体对并购交易表现出更强烈的兴趣？

Let's focus on the Mag-seven Group for just a minute here, and then we'll come to the With smaller the Mag-seven Group, I mean, I'm curious, with the way that government regulations or government scrutiny, at least, sort of loosened a bit, are you seeing more interest from that group in particular in making acquisitions?

是的。他们认为当前可能进入了一个新阶段：虽然审查仍存在（包括美国境外，即使纯国内交易也需通过欧盟等地审批），但由于行业变革和经济形态转变，监管机构会理解行业整合已成为必然需求。

Yes. I think they recognize that we may be in for a period here where certainly, there'll be scrutiny, and there'll be scrutiny outside of The US. Just remember, even if it's a US domestic deal, it has to clear in the EU and in other places. So there will be scrutiny. But I think there's an understanding that because of the changes in the sector, because of the changes in the economy that's being brought about, that consolidation is going to be a requirement, and government regulators will accept that.

明白了。那么除了行业整合，是否也存在被压抑的需求？比如三四年前就想进行但未能实现的收购？

Right. So you've got consolidation. Do you also have some of this pent up demand? Maybe these are acquisitions they would have wanted to make three, four years ago?

哦，事实上他们现在收购的某些公司三四年前根本还不存在。

Oh, well, some of these companies that they're acquiring didn't exist three or four years.

确实。嗯，这倒是实话。

Yeah. Well, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

但是，尽管如此，你说得对，确实存在这种被压抑的需求，我认为主要是过去18个月里，部分原因是2024年FTC确实拖慢了流程，否决了很多交易。而今年上半年，前四个月由于关税、贸易战和监管的不确定性，人们暂时搁置了一些计划。但现在我看到很少有人再踩刹车了，大家显然都在积极推进交易。

But but, nevertheless, you're right that there is this pent up demand, I would say, really over the last eighteen months, in part because of in 2024, you had the FTC, which really was slowing down the processes, rejecting deals. And then in the first half of this year, the first four months of this year, because of the uncertainty that we had with respect to tariffs and trade wars and regulation, that people sort of put the brakes on some things. But I'm not seeing a lot of people putting a lot of brakes on things at this point. I think people are definitely moving forward and wanting to do deals.

现在我们来谈谈规模较小的公司——当然所谓'小'也是指市值数千亿的企业。比如Atlassian近期收购动作频繁，Workday也刚完成一笔交易。

And so now let's talk about some of the smaller companies. I say smaller. I mean, we're still talking about companies that are hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap. But, you know, I point to deals like Atlassian has been on buying streak. Workday has just done a deal recently.

这些公司的动机很明显是想重振增长势头，它们正在押注AI赛道。根据你与客户的交流，这类收购会持续增加吗？本质上都是为了寻求增长吧？

You know, those companies, I sort of see the story here as they're trying to really reinvigorate their growth. You know, they're obviously buying into the AI story. Are you expecting more in that category too from the clients that you're talking to? I mean, is it really just trying to find growth?

既是为了增长，也是为了实现某些能力的跨越式发展。刚才我也提到，有些收购纯粹是为了获取人才。要知道顶尖人才供给有限，而收购雇佣这些人才的公司是最直接的获取方式。

It's trying to find growth. It's trying to leapfrog in terms of certain capabilities. Also, I alluded to this a minute ago, companies acquiring other companies because they need the people. And, you know, there's a limited supply of these really talented individuals. And one way to get them is to buy a company that is employing a bunch of them.

明白了。那么你认为当前市场环境更偏向买方市场还是卖方市场？

Right. So when you look at the current environment, would you characterize it as a buyer's market or a seller's market right now?

我认为是卖方市场。当然买卖双方永远存在博弈——毕竟可收购对象不止一家，而有充足现金进行交易的大公司数量有限。但总体而言，由于大企业清楚必须通过收购获取特定人才和技术，而供给源就那么几个，所以明显更偏向卖方市场。

I think it's a seller's market. Obviously, it's always a little bit of buyer versus seller because let's face it. Know, you're not the only company out there to be acquired. And, you know, there's a relatively small number of, you know, big companies that have the cash to do the transaction. So, you know, there's always a bit of tension there, but I would say it is definitely, you know, more of a seller's market because the big companies know they need to acquire certain talent and certain, and they're only going to get it from a few places.

我想请教你对'人才并购'（acquihire）现象的看法。普遍认为这种交易能规避监管审查（尽管现在也开始受到关注），你认为这会成为科技巨头的主流收购模式吗？还是说传统实质性收购会在秋季回归？

I do want to get your temperature on these sort of acquihire deals that we've seen more and more of. I think the understanding amongst a lot of people is that it's an easier route to go certainly from trying to avoid scrutiny from regulators, although there are still now people looking into those types of deals. But I just want to take your temperature on, do you I mean, is that the new type of acquisition for these big tech companies? Are we just going to see more of these acquihire type deals? Or do you think actual real acquisitions will will sort of come back into the fall?

我这里说的是战略买家，而不是金融买家。

And I'm talking here about the strategic buyers here, not so much the the financial buyers.

战略买家。我认为我们会看到两者并存。但H1B签证问题的一个担忧是，你可能无法像以前那样从全球引进那么多人才。所以如果一家公司已经拥有十、十五、二十甚至上百名员工，那本身就是一项宝贵资产——即便你能单独雇佣人才，这些人也未必能立即投入你想要的工作，更不用说形成团队协作。

Strategic buyers. You know, I think we're gonna see, you know, both. But I I think one of the, you know, concerns with the h one b visa situation is that, you know, you're not gonna be able to necessarily bring in as many talented people from around the world. So if there's a company that already, you know, has ten, fifteen, 20, a 100 people working for them, that that is valuable asset that even if you could hire people individually, they're not already sort of doing the work that you want them to be doing. They're not working as a team.

因此引进这样的现成团队，确实能加速进程并提升这些人才的生产力。

And so bringing in those sort of teams, you know, really speeds up the process and speeds up the productivity of those hires.

为了确认我理解正确，你是说签证政策的变化会促使企业更倾向于直接收购整家公司？

And so just to make sure I understand your point here, you're saying that that situation with the visas, that will make it more likely for companies to actually acquire companies outright.

毫无疑问。因为人才库有限，你无法确定能从国外引进多少人，或者能留住多少在美求学的国际人才。所以雇佣那些已是公民、绿卡持有者或已有签证，并且正在从事相关工作的现成团队，就变得极具吸引力。

For sure. Because, you know, you have a limited pool of people. You know, you don't know how many people you can bring from outside The US or people who are studying here who you might be able to, you know, keep in the country. So, you know, you know, hiring people who already are either citizens, green card holders, visa holders, and already doing the work is a very attractive proposition.

没错。弗兰克，非常感谢你参加节目。你的见解总是极具价值，我们期待下次这些巨型交易发生时再次邀请你——正如你所说，这类交易正以越来越快的频率出现。以上是苏利文克伦威尔律师事务所顶级合伙人弗兰克·阿奎拉的观点。

Right. Well, Frank, we really appreciate you coming on the show. Your your insights are are are always valued, and look look forward to having you back on when we see one of these mega deals happen again, because like you say, I think they're coming faster and more furious as the weeks go on. That is Frank Aquila, a top partner at Sullivan and Cromwell. Okay.

进入最后环节：几周前我们曾邀请泰·哈尼讨论她的Web3公司Try Your Best。但大众最初认识她是因为2013年创立的运动服饰品牌Outdoor Voices。经过长期沉寂后，她重掌公司大权。今天该公司即将发布全新产品线，我们有请泰来聊聊这次新品发布，以及她这次打算如何以不同方式重塑公司。

Well, for our final segment, a few weeks ago, we had Ty Haney on the show to talk about her work at her Web3 company, Try Your Best. But the company that most people know her originally for is Outdoor Voices, the apparel company she started back in 2013. After a long hiatus, she is back in the driver's seat. And today, the company is announcing their newest line of products. I want to bring on Ty to talk about the new launch and also how she's thinking about building the company differently this time around.

泰，欢迎回到节目。很高兴你能来。

Ty, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you.

嗨，阿卡什。今天是徒步的好天气。我们今早刚发布了徒步系列。我穿得严严实实的。好的。

Hi, Akash. It's a beautiful day for hiking. We just launched our hike collection this morning. I'm bundled up. Okay.

给。

Here.

那么，请告诉我们这条产品线背后的愿景是什么？

Well, so tell us about what's the vision behind this line?

没错，100%。对于Outdoor Voices来说，核心是激励人们活动身体、走向户外、接触自然等等。我们有一套'做事哲学'，它的成功之处在于颠覆了传统耐克那种不惜一切代价追求高强度竞技和表现的理念，转而将娱乐和活动本身的乐趣放在首位。这个特别系列就是专为徒步打造的。我现在在科罗拉多的博尔德，我的家乡，平顶山就在眼前。

Yeah, 100%. So with Outdoor Voices, it's all about inspiring people to move their bodies, get outdoors, touch grass, etcetera. We have a philosophy of doing things, and it's really been successful in that it flips kind of the traditional Nike positioning around intense athletics and performance at all costs on its head and prioritizes recreation and activity for the fun of it. And so this is a specific castle that leans into hiking. I'm here in Boulder, Colorado, where I grew up, and the Flatirons are right here.

从很多方面来说，这些专业产品是在向伊冯·乔纳德和巴塔哥尼亚这样的伟大品牌致敬。我认为必须强调的是，这些装备是为真实在山野间活动的普通人设计的。

And in a lot of ways, the technical products pay homage to kind of the greats with Yvonne Chanard and Patagonia. I think really important just to call out, it's made for real people doing real things out there in the mountains and beyond.

说真的，我现在恨不得立刻去徒步——虽然我们纽约也有'平顶山'（笑），好吧就那一座...开个玩笑。言归正传，我想聊聊Outdoor Voices这次的战略布局。

Well, I feel like I have to you know, you I mean, gosh, I I I would much rather be hiking right now, but we we're we also have our flat irons here here in New York City. It's it's just the one, but Right. I'm I'm just I'm just making a joke here. So look. I wanna talk about the strategy for Outdoor Voices, you you know, this time around.

你打算如何以不同的方式构建公司？记得上次你在节目中提到，愿景依旧不变。我完全支持你对公司的期望。但相信在你离开的这段时间里，你对企业经营学到了很多。那么现在的策略手册有哪些微调？你准备如何实施？

How are you thinking about building the company differently? Know last time you were on the show, you said, look, the vision is the same. And I'm with you in terms of what you hope for the company to be. But I'm sure you've learned a ton about operating a business in the time that you were away. So how is the playbook slightly different here and how you're going to do that?

确实如此。我认为我们参与的第一阶段DTC（直接面向消费者）模式本质上存在缺陷。真正能崛起、融资成功并最终退出的公司案例并不多见。

Yeah, 100%. I think the first era of direct to consumer of which we were part of ultimately was a model that was flawed. I don't think there's all that many examples of companies that came up, raised a lot of capital, and then ended up exiting.

缺陷在哪？为什么说是缺陷？

Flawed why? Why do you say it's flawed?

问题在于我们花费过多资金在Instagram和Facebook上获取难以留存的客户。客户获取成本因此飙升，迫使我们不断融资。对实体库存企业而言，高速增长往往意味着失控风险剧增，代价极其高昂。

Yeah, flawed in that we spend too much money on Instagram and Facebook to acquire customers who don't stick with us. And so customer acquisition costs have exploded. We were required to raise all of this capital. And then for physical inventory companies, growing at breakneck speed ultimately means there's high chances for the wheels to come off. And so it costs a lot.

对许多创始人和早期团队而言，这并非成功模式。所以在第二章——我称之为社群商务模式中，过去三年我实际构建了当初渴望拥有的工具，关于我们的声音，

And for many founders and kind of initial teams around these companies, it hasn't been a successful model. And so with this chapter two, and I'm calling it the community commerce model. And over the last three years, I went and essentially built the tool that I wished I had in that first chapter about our voices,

即

which

Try Your Best平台。它能让品牌直接激励最有价值的客户——那些超级粉丝，

is Try Your Best. And so it allows the brands to directly incentivize their most valuable customers, the super fans, those

那个

that

已经对他们着迷，然后激励他们去帮助其成长并推动收入增长。因此这一直是我们这次回归策略的核心。我们在八月份推出了新版的Outdoor Voices，从商业角度看最终效果相当不错。我们看到TYB会员的长期收入比非会员每月高出30%。所以我们——

are already obsessed with them, and then motivate them to go help them grow and drive revenue. And so that's been core to our approach with this comeback. We launched the new Outdoor Voices at the August, and it's pretty cool to see ultimately from a business standpoint what's turning on. We've seen 30% growth in long term revenue for people who are part of our membership on TYB versus non members on a monthly basis. And so we're-

让我翻译一下，你是说既是Outdoor Voices顾客又是TYB会员的群体，其消费额增长了30%。

So just to translate here, you're saying the Outdoor Voices customers that are also members of your other business TYB, the revenue that that group has been spending has grown 30%.

环比增长30%，

30% month over month,

环比增长，明白了。

Month over month, okay.

而且当你比较会员与非会员的总消费时，差距正在快速扩大。目前已经超过两倍。关键点在于：大多数消费品牌都拥有这些超级粉丝——这座未被充分激活的金矿。而TYB本质上就是帮我们实现这一点。好的。

And as you look at the comparison in terms of total spend from non members to members, it's accelerating rapidly. It's already more than double. So the headline is most consumer brands have these super fans, this gold mine of super fans and people obsessed that they are not activating properly. And that's essentially what TYB is allowing us to do. Okay.

很高兴能通过自有品牌Outdoor Voices以多种方式实际验证产品效果。

Cool to have our own brand here with Outdoor Voices to really dog food the product in a lot of ways.

我想回到社区这个概念，因为你提到最初在社交媒体广告上投入过多。究竟该如何真正构建社区？我们听说过网红策略，就是寄产品给网红希望他们发布内容。也听说过要在评论区活跃，必须让品牌在线上保持存在感。

And I mean, I just want to go back to the idea of community because you said the first time around you spent too much on ads, essentially, on social media. How do you actually build that community? I mean, is this we've heard about the influencer strategy, right, of just shipping things out to influencers, hoping they post content. You know, we've also heard of, you know, you got to be in the comments, right? You have to be an active brand online.

你打算如何构建这个社区？

How are you thinking about building that community?

对我来说，这关乎客户经济。借鉴许多品牌在创作者领域取得成功的工具和策略——虽然现在成本已很高——并将其应用于实际购买产品的客户。通过2IB，我基本可以系统化早期打造亿美元级品牌Doctor.Voices的有效方法，如果感兴趣我可以详细说明。

Yeah, to me, I think about it as the customer economy, and almost taking the tools and the focus that a lot of brands have found success within the creator world, that that's getting very expensive and applying that to the customers, people who actually purchase from you. With 2IB, I've been able to essentially playbook and kind of productize what did work early innings in terms of building a $100,000,000 business with Doctor. Voices in my first chapter. And I can go through those specifics if it's interesting.

时间有限，请快速概括要点。

Yeah. I mean, we don't have as much time, but give us the specifics very quickly.

清晰的使命与存在意义，让人们热爱的事物，线上线下持续激活的仪式感。比如Outdoor Voices通过遛狗、远足等活动实现。

Yeah. Clear mission and purpose, reason for being, what are people falling in love with, rituals for activation on a continuous basis, both in online and IRL. In Outdoor Voices version, that's activating through dog walks, hiking, etcetera.

明白。

Okay.

第三是建立粉丝互动连接的枢纽，让社区形成良性循环。最后是激励体系。如果把Instagram点赞视为社区，我认为未来品牌建设的关键是共同创造和激励机制。

The third being having a hub or place for fans to spark bonds and connect with one another. That really allows the community to become this flywheel. And then the last is incentivization. And so if you think about a fan liking on Instagram and that being community, my view of really kind of the future of brand building is two part: co creation and incentivization.

好的。跟我讲讲遛狗的事。说说那些日常仪式。

Okay. Tell me about the dog walking. Tell me about the rituals.

没错，百分之百。我们的目标是让世界动起来。通过群体活动让人们与朋友一起快乐运动，正是我们为这一使命构建日常仪式的方式。说起来挺有趣的，早期和Doctor合作时——

Yeah, 100%. I mean, our ambition is to get the world moving. So activity that gets people moving in groups for fun with friends is ultimately how we build rituals in support of that mission. And so it's kind of funny. Early innings with Doctor.

在OB遛狗系列中，我们推出了一条产品线。Reddit上炸开了锅，因为这并非耐克传统专注的运动类型。但OB通过这些更小众、活动特定的胶囊系列取得了巨大成功。我们刚在远足前发布了Ovia马术系列。

Voices, we merchandised a line in OB dog walking. And Reddit had a conniption because it wasn't this traditional Nike type sports that we were focused on. But OB's been we found a ton of success with these more niche kind of activity specific capsules. We just launched prior to hike the Ovia Equestrian collection.

明白了。而且它

Got it. And it's

已经全部售罄。

completely sold out.

懂了。当然，你们用加密货币激励的'尽力而为'角度非常有意思。这是个迷人的商业模式。泰，非常感谢你参加节目，祝贺新品发布。

Got it. And of course, the, you know, the try your best angle with the incentivization, obviously, with crypto. It's a fascinating business model. Ty, thank you so much for coming on the show. Congrats on the launch.

而且，根据你透露的信息，我觉得这类产品会越来越频繁地出现。下次有新品要展示时，记得回来上节目告诉我们。这位是泰·哈尼，她重掌Outdoor Voices的舵轮。好的。

And, you know, I think these are going to be coming a lot more frequently from what you're telling us. So next time you have something to show us, come back on the show and tell us. That is Ty Haney. She is back in the driver's seat at Outdoor Voices. Okay.

好了，今天的节目就到这里。提醒一下，本节目每周一至周五太平洋时间上午10点、东部时间下午1点播出。我要感谢亚马逊网络服务对本节目的赞助支持。同时也感谢各位的收听，我们真心感激每一位观众的支持。

Well, that does it for today's show. A reminder that this show airs Monday through Friday at 10AM Pacific, 1PM Eastern. I want to thank Amazon Web Services, who is our presenting sponsor for this production. And I want to thank you for tuning in. We really do appreciate your viewership.

我已经开始期待明天的节目了。那么，我们下次再见，拜拜。

I'm already excited for our next show tomorrow. And so until then, bye bye for now.