20VC：AI时代利润率还重要吗？| 防御性优势是否一去不复返？| 垂直SaaS在AI世界是否已死 | 哪些SaaS规则在AI时代纯属扯淡且不再适用 | 风险投资的未来：为何香奈儿与沃尔玛之争毫无意义——与Byron Deeter对话

现在的赌注比以往任何时候都要高得多。我以为我们已经理解了即将进入的下一阶段，以及它的规模会有多大。非常真诚地说，我们可能给所有事情都加了个零。我认为这将催生许多价值万亿美元的企业。游戏已经开始了。

The stakes are way higher than they've ever been. I thought we understood this next phase we're going into, how big this was gonna be. And very sincerely, we've probably added a zero to everything. I think there's gonna be a lot of trillion dollar businesses that are created from this. The game is on.

它正在到来，毫无疑问。

It's coming, definitely.

这里是《20 VC》，我是Harry Stebbings。今天，我们欢迎节目的老朋友Byron Dieter，过去十年中最优秀的SaaS和云投资专家之一。看看这些成就：他投资了19家独角兽企业，其中8家公司已经上市。

This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now today, we welcome an old friend of the show, Byron Dieter, one of the best SaaS and cloud investors of the last decade. Check this out. He's got 19 unicorn investments. Eight of his companies have gone public.

Procore、ServiceTitan、Twilio、Box、SendGrid，名单还在继续。Byron是SaaS云智慧领域的传奇人物。这次对话非常有趣，我们探讨了SaaS与当前AI浪潮的异同，以及他和Bessemer如何成为下一波AI投资浪潮的领跑者。但在深入今天的节目之前，我很高兴看到团队齐心协力让这期节目成为现实。

Procore, ServiceTitan, Twilio, Box, SendGrid. The list goes on. Byron is this incredible sage of SaaS cloud wisdom. This was so much fun to do reflecting on how SaaS is both different and similar to the AI wave today and how he and Bessemer think about really being a front runner in the next wave of AI investing. But before we dive into the show today, I love seeing the team come together to make this show happen.

我不喜欢的是试图跟踪我们跨数十个平台、产品和工具处理的所有信息、数据和项目。这就是我们使用Coda的原因，这个一体化协作工作空间已帮助全球50,000个团队达成共识。Coda结合了文档的灵活性和电子表格的结构，促进更深层次的团队合作和更快的创意实现。其开箱即用的AI解决方案——Coda Brain的智能，彻底改变了游戏规则。Powered by Coda正进入创新和扩展的新阶段，旨在重新定义AI时代的生产力。

What I don't love is trying to keep track of all the information, the data, and the projects that we're working on across dozens of platforms, products, and tools. That's why we use Coda, the all in one collaborative workspace that's helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page. Offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets, Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity. And their turnkey AI solution, the intelligence of Coda Brain, is a game changer. Powered by Coda is entering a new phase of innovation and expansion aiming to redefine productivity for the AI era.

无论您是希望保持敏捷同时管理混乱的初创公司，还是寻求更好协调的企业组织，Coda都能适应您的工作方式。其无缝工作空间可连接数百种您喜爱的工具，包括Salesforce、Jira、Asana和Figma，帮助团队改变工作习惯，更快完成更多任务。立即访问coda.i0/20vc，初创公司可免费获得团队计划六个月的优惠。就是coda.i0/20vc，免费获得团队计划六个月。coda.i0/20vc。

Whether you're a start up looking to organize the chaos while staying nimble or an enterprise organization looking for better alignment, Coda matches your working style. Its seamless workspace connects to hundreds of your favorite tools, including Salesforce, Jira, Asana, and Figma, helping your teams transform their rituals and do more faster. Head over to coda.i0/20vc right now and get six months off the team plan for startups for free. That's coda, c0da,.i0/20vc, and get six months off the team plan for free. Coda.i0/20vc.

虽然Coda让我们的团队更高效，但AngelList让我们的基金更出色。如果您在听《20 VC》，您知道我们有着极高的标准。AngelList是现代平台，被顶级风投基金使用，超过40%的顶尖捐赠基金和银行是其有限合伙人。他们的客户包括一家前五的风投公司——20VC，现在平台上管理的资产高达1,710亿美元。他们将一体化软件平台与专享服务团队结合，行动速度与您同步。

And while Coda keeps our team sharp, AngelList keeps our fund sharper. If you're listening to 20 v c, you know we have a freaking high bar. Well, AngelList is the modern platform used by the best in class venture funds, where over 40% of top endowments and banks are LPs. Their customers include a top five venture firm, 20VC, they now have, check this out, a $171,000,000,000 of assets on the platform. They combine an all in one software platform with a dedicated service team that moves as fast as you do.

一位管理者这样评价：‘AngelList感觉像是我基金的延伸。’另一位说：‘AngelList让我完全放心，他们对细节的关注、闪电般的响应时间，以及团队真正的责任感，正是我不再担心后台运营所需的一切。’所以，如果您要成立新基金，别犯傻，直接用AngelList。他们太棒了。

One manager said this awesome quote, AngelList feels like an extension of my fund. Another said AngelList gives me total peace of mind, the attention to detail, lightning fast response time, and just real sense of ownership from the team are exactly what I need to stop worrying about back office ops. So if you're starting a new fund, don't be a moron. Just use AngelList. They're incredible.

前往angellist.com/20vc了解更多信息。一旦您正确设立了基金，就该确保您的初创品牌同样出色。这是给所有科技创始人的。您终于为初创公司想出了完美的名字，然后检查.com域名，糟糕，它已被占用、闲置或价格高得像帕洛阿尔托的房租。于是您妥协，用额外的字母、奇怪的拼写，无论如何都要搞定。

Head over to angellist.com/20vc to learn more. And once you set up your fund the right way, it's time to make sure your startup's brand looks just as sharp. This one's for all you tech founders out there. You finally come up with the perfect name for your startup, then you check the.com and, damn, it's taken, parked, unused, or priced like rent in Palo Alto. So you settle with extra letters, weird spellings, whatever it takes.

但是，嘿，您不必妥协，因为现在终于有了适合像您这样的科技创始人的域名——.techdomains。在.tech上获得您真正想要的初创名称，无需妥协。更重要的是，当您使用.tech时，仅凭域名就能向客户和投资者传达您在构建科技产品。这难道不酷吗？

But, hey, you don't have to compromise because now there's finally a domain for tech founders like you, .techdomains. Get the startup name you actually want on .tech. No compromises. What's more, when you use .tech, you signal to your customers and investors that you're building tech with just your domain name. Isn't that cool?

所以如果你已想好名字，现在就可以在GoDaddy等可信平台上搜索.tech域名，或访问get.tech/20vc获取。你已抵达目的地。拜伦，知道吗？我特别感激那些本不必花时间在19岁懵懂少年身上的人，他们却如此友善支持——那个人就是你。感谢你在我稍长几岁却远不如当年聪慧时重返节目。

So if you've got a name in mind, search for it now with .tech on a trusted platform like GoDaddy or visit get.tech/20vc to grab it. You have now arrived at your destination. Byron, you know what, dude? I appreciate people who gave time when they really shouldn't have done to, like, 19 year olds who knew nothing and were so kind and supportive, and that was you. And so thank you for rejoining me when I am slightly older, but much less intelligent than I was.

老兄，你能回来真是太好了。

It's great to have you back, man.

哈里，你这魅力四射的家伙。回归感觉太棒了，见到你真开心。虽然久未联系，但看到这个项目发展成这样令人惊叹。恭喜你，今天能和你相聚我兴奋极了，兄弟。

Harry, you big stud. It is great to be back. It is awesome to see you. It has been too long, but it is amazing to see what this thing is built into. So congrats and thrilled to be with you today, my man.

知道吗？说实话我和大家一样惊讶。我想从这里开始聊——我们之前说可能几年后，但现在感觉完全不同且美妙。这份美好可没写在议程表上。

Do you know what? I'm as surprised as everyone else, to be honest. I do wanna start there. We were chatting before, and you said, you know, a couple of years, but now it feels different and it feels great. This was not in this beautiful agenda here.

我正想从这里切入：为何现在感觉不同又美好？是什么让你今天充满干劲地投入工作？

I wanted to start there. Why does it feel different and great now? And why are you optimistic bouncing into work today?

这波AI浪潮实在太震撼了。我骨子里是个技术宅。市场上涨时我们都显得更高大聪明，但这次不同——这将成为我们向孙辈讲述、被世代铭记的转折点。能参与其中绝对妙不可言。

I mean, this AI stuff is just awesome. I'm a tech geek at heart. We all look a little taller and sound a little smarter when there's an uptrend in the market, but this one's different. Like, this is this is going to be the type of thing that we tell our grandkids about and that generations talk about this transitional moment. It's absolutely awesome to be part of it.

伟大企业将诞生，财富将创造，但单从技术角度看，我们正经历的变革就酷毙了。再次看到颠覆性演示，参与未来可能性的讨论，见证几年前无法想象的事物——这感觉太爽了。2000年代后市场回调时，科技受质疑，董事会频现裁员，我们只能艰难求生。如今能重新主动出击实在太痛快了。

I think great businesses will be built and money will be made, but just from the technology side, what we're going through is so damn cool to see, and I'm just loving it. It's neat to see mind blowing demos again, and to be part of discussions of what can be, and things that you couldn't have conceived of a few years ago. So it was tough. It felt like a steady gut punch coming out of the 2000s, and with the market pullback, and people questioning tech and so many board meetings doing layoffs and just having to survive. And it's just awesome to be back on offense again.

很多方面我认同。但我的困扰在于这种'惊艳感'的转瞬即逝——三周前还惊叹某公司演示超群，转眼新公司的演示又让你觉得前作不过如此。

I agree in many respects. The challenge that I have, though, is the transience of wow, so to speak. And what I mean by that is, wow, that demo is amazing. This company is great. Three weeks later, new demo from new company, and, oh, wow, it really is quite average.

护城河似乎完全消失，所有东西都在同质化。这种情况下很难找准赛道。你如何看待必须保持进攻姿态与暂停观察局势之间的平衡？

It seems like the defensibility is completely gone. The commoditization is almost across everything. And so it's very difficult to know where to play. How do you think about just playing the game on the field, being aggressive because you have to, versus kind of pausing to see what shakes out?

我会换个说法：当前创新节奏空前紧凑。顶尖团队正以惊人速度迭代，平庸公司被淘汰的速度前所未有。随着底层技术持续突破，这种现象只会愈演愈烈。

So I would phrase it a little differently. I would just say that the pace of innovation is incredibly compressed right now. The best teams are using that for their advantage, iterating at mind boggling rates. The marginal companies are getting passed faster than ever. And we're going to keep seeing that because the tech and the enabling tech is so damn good.

我并不担心价格侵蚀意义上的商品化，这常被隐含提及。虽然商品化常被用作贬义词，但确实，你可以将基础模型视为如同超大规模云服务商那样的商品。顺便说一句，软件史上最成功的业务——AWS，就存在于人们所谓的'商品'领域。因此我认为同样的剧本将在基础模型领域重演。我相信这些模型之上的层级将创造非凡价值，因为它们将交付非凡价值。

I don't worry about commoditization in the sense of price erosion, which is often implied. It's often used as a derogatory term, but sure, you can think of perhaps foundation models as commodities in the way that hyperscalers are. And by the way, the best business in the history of software is sitting there with AWS in what people refer to as a commodity. So I think the same playbook is going to be run-in the foundation models. I think that the layers on top of those models are going to extract phenomenal value because they're gonna deliver phenomenal value.

我认为我们将看到技术栈的多个层级都会诞生伟大的企业。

And I think we're gonna see great businesses built at multiple layers in the stack.

当前投资时你对利润率的重视程度如何？很多人贬低那些特定应用层公司利润率低下。在早期投资时，你如何看待良好利润率的重要性？

To what extent do you care about margin when investing today? A lot of people are denigrating a lot of the specific app player companies for having shitty margins. How do you think about the importance of good margins early when investing?

你提问的方式很有趣。'当前投资时如何看待利润率？'我想补充的是：我非常关注当前投资的未来利润率结构。许多从事变革性业务的公司在初期可能确实存在糟糕的净利润率，但更重要的是——我想问题指向的是——由于需要大规模资本支出等因素导致的低毛利率。你可以看看Snowflake这样的企业，在其生命周期很后期仍保持负毛利率。

So it was interesting how you worded the question. How do you think about margins when investing today? And I would separate I would add some words in there, which is I care a lot about margins on investments we make today, but the margin profile of the future. And a lot of these businesses that are doing transformative things may have really crappy, certainly net margins, but more importantly, I think the question was going, gross margins, because of an investment profile that involves massive capex, etc. And so you can look at a business like a snowflake that had negative gross margins very late in their life cycle.

这其实是LLM（大语言模型）世界的前兆——这些业务早期毛利率极其艰难，但现在你开始看到杠杆效应显现。我们是为未来投资，所有投资决策都不基于短期现金流，事实上也很少考虑短期毛利率。但许多投资确实需要你放眼长远，预见可能发生的变革。Stripe、Twilio和Shopify都经历过类似历程。

And that was a precursor to the LLM world, where these businesses have had very tough gross margins in the early days, and you're now starting to see the leverage kick in. And so we are investing for the future. None of the investments we make are cash flow based in the short term, and in fact, very few of them are gross margin based in the short term. But a lot of them do require you to look over the horizon and see what can happen. And in a business like a Stripe or a Twilio or Shopify, they went through those journeys as well.

即便是前沿科技之外的领域，许多企业也面临这种高强度资本投入期。

Many businesses have this really intense capital intensive investment horizon even outside of frontier tech.

考虑到你提到的资本支出需求，这些在很大程度上都是资本密集型业务，甚至应用层也达到我们前所未见的程度。鉴于当前早期阶段和所需巨额现金投入，你如何看待这些业务的股权稀释特性？

When we think about you said that the CapEx required, these are in large part very capital intensive businesses, even on the app layer, to the extent that we haven't really seen before. How do you think about the dilutive nature of these businesses, given how early we both are, and how much cash is gonna need to go in?

我们经常讨论这个问题。可以说，在很多情况下，我们很乐意成为巨头公司的小股东。看看Anthropic、Perplexity或Canva，我们对每家公司的投资都达到九位数，但仍远低于传统风投期望持有20%股份的标准。这是个漫长的旅程，至少其中几家公司可能还会再融资数十亿。所以这是种不同的风险投资模式。

We talk about this a lot, and I'd say, you know, we're excited in many cases to be small investors in very large companies. You look at an Anthropic or Perplexity or a Canva, we have 9 figures into each of these companies. And yet we are still well below historical venture standards where you aspire to own 20% or something in these businesses. It's a long journey where billions more will probably be raised by at least a couple of those. And so it is a different venture.

老兄，你为何决定打破常规？因为资金永远有机会成本，你可以把那九位数投到别处。记得我在堪培拉的朋友投资Anthropic时估值是4，到60时由于稀释只剩3.8倍回报，这让我震惊。问题在于：虽然是划时代的卓越企业，但那个倍数的机会成本实在太高了。

Why did you decide to break the rules there, my friend? Because there's always an opportunity cost of cash, and you can put that 9 figure somewhere else, And that multiple is just getting shot. You know, I remember one of my friends in Canberra, they did not Canberra, Anthropic, and they did it at, like, 4. And when it was done at 60, they had, like, a 3.8 x because of the dilution, and that really struck me. And my question then is, well, amazing businesses and, yes, generational defining, but the opportunity cost on that multiple is pretty high.

如果你认为那是终局确实如此。但最新报告显示Anthropic可能以170亿估值融资，投资者相信它可能成为下一个万亿级超大规模企业。3.8倍回报虽能长期维持运营，但投资的根本原因是你相信可能获得30倍回报。这正是我们投资Anthropic的基础——我们相信这是家划时代的公司。当然这样的企业凤毛麟角。

If you believe that's the end state, sure. But current reports suggest Anthropic may be raising at $1.70, and people are buyers at that number believing that they could be one of the next hyperscalers in a trillion dollar business. So 3.8 x will keep you in business for a long time, but the reason to do it is because you believe it could be a 30 x. That's the basis of our Anthropic investment is we believe that it is a generational company. Now there aren't going be many of those.

因此你必须正确。而当前可怕之处在于，赌注比以往任何时候都要高得多。在某些情况下，这些企业仍可能归零。于是你面临着这些令人恐惧的超幂律结果。这正在改变游戏规则的本质。

And so you have to be right. And that's the scary thing right now is that the stakes are way higher than they've ever been. These businesses in some cases could still go to zero. And so you've got these hyper power law outcomes that are scary. It is changing the nature of the game.

我确实认为规模对风投机构在私有企业生命周期中持续运作至关重要。另一方面，投资回报将超出我们以往的所有想象。多年前我以数亿美元出售了自己的公司，当时感觉那是全世界的财富，也是我们2005年那批软件公司中的最佳成绩。如今，这笔钱只相当于某些企业的种子轮融资规模。

I do think that scale matters for venture firms to be able to play over this arc of private life. On the flip side, the outcomes are going to be bigger than we've ever conceived of. I sold my company years ago for hundreds of millions of dollars, and that felt like all the money in the world and was the top outcome for our software cohort in that vintage back in 02/2005. You know, now that's a a seed round for some of these businesses.

OpenAI某一轮融资金额相当于当季整个SaaS融资市场的总量。所以不必太沮丧。我的问题是——此前我与我们共同的朋友Jason Lemkin交流时，他表示非常想与你探讨：面对价值与资金的集中化（当前40%风投资金流向前十项目），如今投资超大型项目之外还有意义吗？

One of OpenAI's rounds is about the size of the entire SaaS funding market for that quarter. So, you know, don't feel too bad. My question to you is I was chatting to Jason Lemkin before this, our mutual friend. Well, he said, I'd love to understand with him very much on this point is when we look at the concentration of value, the concentration of funds, is there any point in investing outside of the mega top 10 deals today given 40% of venture funding went to 10 deals?

没错。这是个广阔领域。由于这种集中现象，募资数据存在偏差。目前三大语言模型——包括Anthropic、OpenAI和X——将在六个月内融资1000亿美元，这数字远超历史认知。显然人们押注这里会有风险回报。

Yeah. It's a big landscape. And so there's a skew with the dollars raised stats because of that concentration. I think the numbers right now, the top three LLMs, if you include Anthropic, OpenAI and X in there, are going to raise $100,000,000,000 in this six month period, which is just an inconceivable number by any historical standards. Obviously, people are betting that there'll be a venture return there.

然而，围绕这些生态系统将诞生数百家极具潜力的新兴企业。我坚信其中会涌现出多个优秀的风投案例。幂律效应将体现在顶级项目的回报上，但周边领域也会产生大量10倍甚至100倍回报的机会。整体经济依然充满活力，只是集中程度远超我们几年前所能想象的极限。

However, there are hundreds of other really compelling venture businesses that will be created in and around those ecosystems. And I do believe there will be great venture outcomes from a number of companies in and around those businesses. And so the power law will play into the premium outcomes of those returns, but I also think there's a lot of, you know, 10 Xs and many 100 Xs that are going to exist in and around those businesses. And so I do think that the economy is still vibrant and healthy. It's just skewed much more than we've ever seen or or literally could have believed just a few years back.

能指点我吗朋友？我是个垂直SaaS爱好者，可惜没你厉害，不然我也能拥有运动队了。我的问题是...

Can you help me, my friend? I'm a vertical SaaS nerd, not quite as good as you, sadly. Otherwise, I would own sports teams too. But my question being

给点时间，Harry。你太谦虚了。

Give it time, Harry. You're far too kind.

说实话我感觉自己像个老古董——当别人都在追逐那些酷炫公司时，我还在寻找下一个ServiceTitan或Procore。我们熟知的垂直SaaS是否已经消亡？坦白说，现在谁还在乎这个？

I feel like an old man, if I'm honest. Like, looking for the next service titan or the next procore when everyone else is shooting around with these incredibly cool companies. Is vertical SaaS as we know it dead in the way that, honestly, kinda who gives a shit?

这是个合理质疑。我们的答案是否定的，但这确实存在争议。真正的超额收益不仅来自正确判断，更源于逆向思维——因为市场总有周期轮转。我们认为垂直SaaS正在经历新一轮周期，而AI将成为其未来发展的基石。

I think it's a it's a legitimate question. Our view is no, but it's a it's an area of debate. And frankly, alpha comes from not only being right, but contrarian ideally, because you're going to get some counter cycles in there. And our belief is that it's going through another cycle. And AI is a foundational part of what vertical SaaS is ahead.

数据模型的重要性远超历史水平，供应链上下游的协同连接价值凸显，市场平台能力构成护城河。当我们回顾Shopify、ServiceTitan和Toast等案例时，支付功能的接入就曾为它们打开新天地，使市场容量与估值翻倍。AI将带来同样的变革效应。

Data models matter much more than they historically did. Connectivity and collaboration up and down the supply chain matter much more, marketplace capabilities are defensible moat. There's a lot of attributes that matter a lot. And as I think back on our vertical SaaS investments, like a Shopify or ServiceTitan or a Toast, when they added payments, it became that big next horizon unlock for them and really doubled the TAM and the market caps for these businesses. I think AI is going to do the same thing.

正如他们谈论自动化技术员体验及配备副驾驶功能时提到的，ServiceTitan所能实现的。昨天我参加了MaintainX的董事会，他们在工厂车间也做着同样的事。再看房地产领域的Luxury Presence，他们为房产专业人士提供的客户互动工具。竞争格局正在升温，因为更多参与者能从横向领域跨界，或从基础设施层崛起，试图在这些领域分一杯羹。

That what it can do with ServiceTitan, as they talk about automating the technician experience and the ability to go out there and have a co pilot alongside of you. I was at the MaintainX board meeting yesterday. They're doing the same thing on the factory floor. When you look at luxury presence in real estate, what they can do for the real estate professional to interact with their clients. And so the competitive landscape is heating up in the sense that more entrants are able to come over from horizontals and come up from infrastructure layers to try to make a run at these spaces.

但我坚信优秀的垂直软件终将胜出。这些都是巨大的市场，从业者理应获得顶尖技术——他们也终将得到。某种程度上，我反而喜欢当前这个不够性感的时机，因为人们的注意力分散，我们将坚守核心，与优秀创始人共同开拓优质市场，相信长期会获得回报。

But I do believe great vertical software will still win. These are big markets. These practitioners deserve great tech and they will get it. And so in many ways I love that it's not as sexy right now and people are distracted because we're going to stick you know, our core and work with great founders in great markets, and I think that those will be rewarded over time.

顺着这个话题我有几个问题。你提到一些成熟企业已具规模，这与那些年收入不足百万、缺乏分销渠道和客户基础的公司截然不同。

A couple of kind of questions off the back of that. You mentioned that, you know, some great businesses, but some businesses that are already at scale, that's different versus a company that's sub a million in revenue with next to no distribution and next to no customers.

完全正确。哈里，我们两者都在投资。

Absolutely. We're doing both, Harry.

这对ServiceTitan更有利，还是对你们的种子轮公司更有利？

Does it favor ServiceTitan more or your Preseed company more?

好问题。坦白说，我们专注挑战者业务，而AI赋予了在位者云计算时代不曾有过的优势。云计算时代存在商业模式（从许可转向订阅）和交付模式（从本地部署转向多租户云服务）的双重颠覆。而这次AI浪潮本质上是云的延伸。

Okay. So that's a great question, and I will confess. We're in the Challenger business, and AI gives the incumbent some advantages that didn't happen in Cloud One. So in Cloud One, you had a business model dislocation going from license to subscription, and you had a delivery model dislocation going from on prem to single instance, multi tenant, Cloud delivered. In this AI wave, it's really the next horizon of Cloud.

AI是在云交付和商业模式之上叠加智能层，可能转向代币化等价值变现方式。在位者拥有平台、数据和庞大分销网络的优势，快速反应的在位者必将争夺下个周期的领导地位——这对挑战者构成威胁，确实令人担忧。

You're layering intelligence on top of Cloud delivery and business models. You're moving maybe to a token model or some other monetization of value, but essentially it's an extension of cloud. And the incumbents have platform advantage, data advantage, massive distribution advantages. And so the fast moving incumbents are absolutely going to make a run at being the leaders in the next cycle, which hurts the challengers. And that is a reason to be scared.

但我仍相信高执行力的挑战者终将胜出，他们具备创新者的天然优势。看看我们的被投企业：Canva和Intercom已在某些领域成为在位者，却仍以惊人速度自我颠覆，其AI产品收入已达数亿美元。他们的表现预示着，如果上市公司足够敏捷，也可能复制这种成功。

I still believe that the high execution challengers will beat them over time, and they also have some inherent advantages and innovators and some of these things still exist. When I look at our own portfolio, I look at a company like Canva or I look at a company like Intercom that's at a scale where in some ways they're already becoming an incumbent in those markets, and yet they're disrupting themselves at awesome rates and have AI products that are already deep into the hundreds of millions in revenue. And it's just fantastic to see what they're doing, which then I think will be an indication of what the public incumbents may be able to do if they're nimble and act fast.

我认为Intercom将成为剧变世界中最激进转型的典型案例

I think Intercom will be actually a case study for the most aggressive rejuvenation in a world of very changing

欧文团队开发的Fin产品是AI应用的绝佳范例——利用客户数据和交互记录。前几天我在某家被投企业董事会上听说，他们将人工干预切换为Intercom的Fin产品后，自动化拦截率升至90%，NPS也提升了。我最初不解：为什么机器人交互体验能超越人类？

people and anyone what what Owen and the team have done with this fin product, and it's a great use case for AI to be clear, like, where you have the customer data, that interaction. But I was at one of our portfolio company board meetings the other day and they mentioned that they had switched from human based interventions to the fin product from Intercom. Showed the stats of deflections went up, I forget, to 90% automated now and their NPS went up. I said, Okay, I get that the deflections and costs are going down, but it makes no sense to me. Why is a robot better than a human in interactions?

他们说，看，它们提供更快更全面的答案。提问的客户获得的链接、参考资料和信息比我们人工提供的还要多。所以这是更好的体验。这让我恍然大悟，意识到实际上这在多个层面都能实现多赢，而且已经开始发生。因此，客户支持、服务、消息传递、帮助台和工单处理等，正是这些杀手级应用场景的开始，但它将席卷更多领域。

They said, Look, they're giving faster and more comprehensive answers. The customer who has the question is getting, they're getting links and references and more information back than our humans were providing. So it's a better experience. And that was an unlock for me where I realized like, actually, this can be a win win win on so many levels and it's starting to happen. And so customer support and service and messaging and and help desk and ticketing and these things, you know, is one of these killer use cases that's just starting, but it's gonna roll through so many other areas.

我认为罗里提出的根本问题实际上可以规模化，我不喜欢告诉他们，但和他们相处确实让我聪明了很多。但他真正教会我的是，在下一波浪潮中，我们真正需要应对的问题是：人工智能是否会将我们销售和创造的技术从根本上转移到人力预算，而不仅仅是技术预算？如果实现了，那太棒了，我们将打开一个数万亿美元的市场。如果没有，那就没那么令人兴奋了。

I think the fundamental question that Rory address can actually at scale, I don't like to tell them, but they actually make me quite a lot smarter by hanging out with them. But one thing that he's really taught me is that, really, the real question we have to grapple with in this next wave is, will AI fundamentally transition the technology that we sell and create into the labor budget, not just the technology budget, or will it remain in the technology budget? If it does move, amazing. We open up a multitrillion dollar market. If it doesn't, much less exciting.

你如何看待这个关于能否转移到人力预算的根本问题？

How do you think about that fundamental question of the ability to move to the human labor budget?

哦，这个问题已经有答案了。甚至都不用争论了，哈利。已经结束了。这些技术解决方案正在全面覆盖软件、硬件和服务预算，而且做得非常成功。如果你看看早期采用这些方案的类别，你问我们是否还在做垂直SaaS的早期阶段？

Oh, that question's already being answered. It's not even a debate anymore, Harry. It's over. These tech solutions are absolutely addressing software, hardware and services budgets comprehensively, and they're doing it in a very successful way. And if you look at early adoption in categories that skew this way, and so you asked, are we still doing early stage vertical SaaS?

我们正在深入会计、法律和医疗领域。这些领域有很多前台人员在处理繁忙的工作和文书工作，我们正在增强他们的能力。我们正在消除许多手动转录、总结和容易出错的繁琐流程，解放他们的时间。比如，让医生在患者互动中真正与患者交流，而不是在大部分会议时间里转身往电脑里输入内容。

We're going down accounting and legal and medical. We're going through these sectors where there's a lot of frontage humans doing busy work and paperwork, and we're supercharging them. We're taking away a lot of the manual transcription and summarization and error prone laborious processes, and we're freeing them up. A bridge is freeing doctors up and their patient interactions to actually interact and talk with a patient, than having to turn around and type things into the computer for most of the meeting.

好的。这是个非常有趣的话题，因为让我印象深刻的是Epic站出来说，嘿，我们要提供转录服务。我觉得你越来越看到这种情况，老牌企业在反击。你如何看待这些有三十年历史的老牌企业的反击？

Okay. That's a really interesting topic because what struck me there was Epic coming out and saying, hey, we're gonna offer transcription. And I think you're seeing this more and more where the incumbent is fighting back. How do you think about that fight back from the thirty year old incumbent?

比赛开始了。我认为Epic长期以来享有这种政府认可垄断的美好状态。我希望他们继续被迫开放系统。我觉得你会看到医疗生态系统中百花齐放，因为这是人工智能最需要解决的领域之一。如果你读过Anthropic Machines的达里奥的文章《爱与优雅的机器》，我强烈推荐大家读一读，那是一篇对人工智能潜力持乐观态度的文章。

The game is on. And I think that, you know, Epic has had this this wonderful state endorsed monopoly for a long time. I hope that they're gonna continue to be forced to be open as a system. And I think you're gonna see a thousand flowers bloom in the medical ecosystem because that is one of the most important areas for AI to address. If you read Dario's essay from Anthropic Machines of Love and Grace, I highly recommend everyone reads it, but it's a tech optimistic outlook of what AI can do.

他有一个伟大的观点：未来十年将推进一百年的医学研究。这不仅涉及诊断和治疗，还包括患者护理互动。人工智能在帮助患者治疗、护理、随访和预防医学等方面可以发挥巨大作用。Epic掌握着我们需要的患者数据的关键。我们需要解锁这个宝库，让这些应用和创新得以实现。我认为这一定会发生，我对人工智能在医疗用例和更广泛的医疗保健领域彻底改变患者生活质量和治疗过程的潜力非常乐观。

One of the great statements he has is that one hundred years of medical research is about to be pulled forward in the next decade. And so this certainly goes into diagnostics and treatments, but it also goes into patient care interactions. AI can be so damn powerful when you use it to help patients at the point of treatment, at the point of care, for follow ups, for preventative medicine, those sorts of things. And Epic holds the key in terms of patient data that we need unlocked. We need that treasure trove to be accessible for these apps and for innovation to happen, and I think it's going to happen, and I'm very bullish on the potential for AI in medical use cases and healthcare more broadly to be utterly transformative into quality of life and the treatment processes for patients.

我们提到了转移到人力预算的问题。我们已经看到，我是说，

We mentioned about moving into the human labor budget. We've seen, I mean,

你的一家公司Shopify，简直不可思议。过去几年收入增长91%，而员工减少了30%。你在Palantir的亚历克斯·卡普那里也看到了同样的情况，员工减少，收入大幅增长。我们是否正在完全进入一个员工数量急剧减少、收入优化的时代？以更少的资源做更多的事，这是无情的领导力体现。

one of your companies, Shopify, unbelievable. Like, 91% revenue growth in the last few years with a 30% reduction in workforce. You're seeing Alex Karp say the same thing at Palantir, reduction in workforce, massive growth in revenues. Are we seeing the era completely where it's dramatic reduction in workforce and optimization of revenue. More with less ruthless leadership on this behalf.

确实如此。不过我想对‘无情领导力’这一点稍作反驳——我十分欣赏这些高管的表态：我们将为你提供全世界所有的工具来赋能日常工作，让你重新专注于那些酷炫的事务。你将从事战略规划、架构设计、方向把控。技术将为你服务，而非让你沦为技术的奴隶。

We are. I just would push back on the on the ruthless leadership point in the sense of, I I love the statements these executives are making, which is we're going to give you all the tools in the world to supercharge your daily job so that you're doing the cool stuff again. You're doing the strategic, the architecture, the direction. Tech is going to work for you. You're not going to be a slave to tech.

我们将实现业务增长，但无需扩充人力。我们要让每个人的效能倍增。因此我认为我们将迎来微型企业的时代——10人规模的公司突破十亿美元估值，在校学生能实时创办前所未有的商业模式。这对经济绝对是重大利好。

We're going to grow the business, but we don't need to grow the workforce to do it. We're going to supercharge what everyone's doing. And so I think we're going to see the era of the micro business. I think that we're going to have 10 person companies that are crossing billion dollar valuations and kids in schools are going to be able to launch businesses in real time in ways that haven't been possible before. I think that is great for the economy.

我有三个孩子正陆续步入职场，变革必然带来阵痛，这种不安我完全理解。我们需要重新定义初级岗位的内涵，思考培训赋能等体系。但人类社会历经多次类似挑战，我相信这次我们也能快速积极地完成转型。

I've got three kids that are at various stages of entering the workforce, and so there's going be disruption, and that's scary, and I absolutely admit that we're going to go through this cycle that we all need to understand in terms of what entry level jobs mean, the training, the enablement, those sorts of things. But society's been through this many, many times before, and I believe that we will work through this cycle quickly and positively.

你开场时就说过这话，但愿你还保持着那种天真的乐观。可惜我没有。欧洲有句谚语叫‘扔进垃圾堆’——我真正担忧的是23-30岁这代人，他们缺乏专业热忱，技艺不精，却要遭遇这种乌托邦式幻想的冲击：以为给些工具就能创造奇迹。

You said that at the beginning when we chatted, know, I hope you've still got that kind of, you know, useful naivety. Sadly, no. In Europe, we say, a la poo belle, you know, to the trash. I'm really concerned that there's this generation of 23 to 30 year olds who don't have a passion for the craft, who aren't experts in the craft, who are about to get hit by I think it's this completely naive utopian view of, like, oh, we're just gonna give you tools. You're gonna do more with with them, and how beautiful.

这是实质裁员，Byron。不是简单的效能提升。Toby已裁撤数千人，这对企业虽是正确决策。但这些23-30岁的年轻人即将遭遇灭顶之灾，你不同意吗？

It's a reduction in force, Byron. It's not like, hey, just do more. Toby's cut thousands of people, which has been a good decision for the business. But these 23 to 30 year olds are about to get hit with a train. Do you disagree?

历史总有惊人相似——贝西默风投的命名来源贝西默炼钢法就是个例证。翻阅百年前报纸，满版都是‘劳动力大置换’的骇人标题，预言着传统工人被高效炼钢技术淘汰后社会经济面临的危机。然而短短数年后，更强钢材让摩天大楼拔地而起，横贯美国的铁路网推动商贸流通。还记得电话接线员案例吗？当时4%女性劳动力从事人工交换机操作，自动化引发的就业恐慌与今日如出一辙。技术颠覆总是伴随着数百个这样的微观周期。

There's this awesome history going back to Bessemer Venture Partners namesake, the Bessemer Steel process, which many people don't know. You look at newspaper clippings from a hundred years ago, and there's these great headlines and articles about the coming workforce dislocation and factory workers being displaced because the Bessemer steel process is so much more efficient and the struggles the economy is going to face and society is going to face. And yet literally fast forward a few years later, and buildings are built into the sky because skyscrapers are not possible with stronger steel, and railroads are built across The US, and transportation and connectivity and commerce unlocks. You read the articles about the phone operators, and I think it was 4% of the female workforce was doing manual switchboards, and this idea of this huge dislocation of the workforce when that was automated. There's hundreds of these microcycles that have gone through with different tech disruptions and things.

变革确实迫近，但机遇也随之诞生。新一代劳动者将运用技术实现惊人创造：用笔记本制作电影的独立制片人，开发应用程序的极客，在生物物理化学新领域借助AI博士级智能体开展基础研究的探索者。我们正在投资的核聚变领域，也必将因AI加速突破。

It's coming, definitely, And at the same time, opportunity is going to be created as a result. And the potential for these new workers to leverage technology to do amazing creative things. The micro film producer that can now, release a movie that they can create on a laptop. The ability to do apps, the ability to do fundamental research with agentic PhD level supporters in new areas of biology and physics and chemistry. We're looking at fusion investments now that I think will be supported and accelerated by AI.

这将开启全新的创新浪潮，奖励敏捷、应变与活力，而整个人类社会都将受益。

There's just this whole different wave of innovative unlock that will be possible, that will favor the the nimble and the reactive and the dynamic, but society at large will benefit.

正如我们提到的，我或是失去了天真，或是积累了愤世嫉俗——随你怎么定义。

We mentioned kind of the naivety that I've lost or the cynicism that I've gained, whichever way you wanna put it.

看到你这样真令人难过，振作点Harry。

It's sad to see you, Harry. Come on.

是啊。抱歉兄弟，达里奥的文笔确实出色，但说真的，未免太过乐观了。我猜他写那篇文章时刚完成新一轮融资。但我想问你的是，我在这行摸爬滚打这么多年...

Yeah. Sorry, dude. Dario's writing is brilliant, but, you know, optimistic, to say the least. I think he just raised a new round when he wrote it. But my question to you is, I have been raised in this business.

有些规则已经刻进骨子里了。比如那个'三倍、三倍、两倍、两倍'的SaaS复合增长法则。可我现在看着这条金科玉律，担心我们给创始人们画的这个大饼已经不够用了。你觉得我们是不是误导了创业者？现在这个标准还适用吗？

And as part of that, there's rules that are ingrained in you. Now one of those rules is treble, treble, double, double. You know, the SaaS compounding growth journey. And I look at that, and I worry that what we've told founders for treble, treble, double, double is no longer enough. Do you think that is correct and we have now misled founders, and that isn't enough now?

别误会，能沿着这个增长曲线发展的公司依然非常出色。但残酷的是——没错。我们刚发布的AI行业报告量化分析了这个现象。我们把AI生态比作银河系，里面有些超新星企业就像流星般崛起，一年半就能从零冲到1亿美元。

Don't get me wrong. It's still a pretty damn good business if you ride that arc and scale it. But unfortunately, yes. We just released a state of the AI report that broke this down and quantified it. We referred to these AI ecosystems as galaxies and talked about some of these supernovas and shooting stars that are emerging where we're seeing businesses go from zero to 100,000,000 in one point five years.

这就是超新星企业的成长轨迹。Anthropic的达里奥现在公开了数据——他们早已突破这个量级：首年1000万，次年超1亿，第三年直奔10亿。他直言明年有可能突破百亿大关。

That's the supernova profile. Dario at Anthropic has now been open with it. They're well past it, so I think he's more comfortable sharing the numbers. But 10,000,000, over 100,000,000, over 1,000,000,000 the next year. He's openly said there's a chance to cross 10,000,000,000 in the next year.

增长曲线是这样的。还记得Gartner云报告里七年做到1亿的'半人马'企业吗？现在...

It's a curve that goes like this. You know, we used to have this Gartner stay the cloud report that had a seven year journey, and and those were centaurs to a 100,000,000. That has I mean,

我记得18个月做到千万级就让人惊呼'见鬼了'，赶紧牵着狗带着金主去送投资条款书的日子...

I remember it was zero to 10,000,000 in, like, eighteen months was like, holy shit. Go deliver the term sheet with, you know, a dog and a golden you know?

现在看那都是小儿科了，数量级都不同。这类企业凤毛麟角，在我们投资组合里也是极少数。但我们认为有必要记录分享——这种爆发式增长在当下确实可能实现。

Yeah. That that's cute now, but it's off by an order of magnitude. This is a rare class of company and a rare breed. A small subset of even the companies we back, nonetheless all the companies that are started, meet that profile. But we thought it was important to document and share it, and say like, this is actually possible now.

企业级产品正在呈现消费级增长曲线， adoption速度快得超乎想象。超新星之后是'流星'企业——四年达成1亿的成长轨迹，这是我们多数被投企业的常态。这种'四倍、四倍'的爆发周期里，企业边际效益你之前问过——早期需要重投入，但并非全部如此。

Consumer like growth for enterprise businesses is happening, where adoption curves can pull through great products in inconceivable rates of adoption and speeds. And the supernovas then yield to the shooting stars, which is kind of a four year profile, and I would say that's the fatter part of the curve for businesses we're fortunate to work with, where you see a pretty good number of companies going from zero to 100,000,000 in a four year arc. And again, that gets to this kind of quadruple, quadruple type cycle where the businesses are just scaling really steep curves. You had asked earlier about margin profiles. Some of these early on are needing to invest at heavy rates, but far from all of them.

很多企业资本效率极高，这特别令人振奋。我知道你也痴迷数据，我们常讨论X法则和增长效率的平衡。归根结底，企业价值仍取决于未来自由现金流总和——而令人惊叹的是，这些爆发型企业大多仍保持健康的经济模型，最终能产生规模性现金流。

You see a large number of these businesses that are doing it in pretty capital efficient ways, and that gets incredibly exciting. Know that you're a data nerd like me, we talk about the rule of x and these trade offs between growth and efficiency and all that. And ultimately, we do still believe that all businesses should be valued as a sum of their future free cash flows, and that ultimately is the mark of a good business. And the incredible thing is that these businesses still have those fundamental economic profiles in most cases where they can throw off real cash flow at scale.

但如果我是正在听你说话的创业者，你的意思不就是'能融多少融多少，他妈的全砸增长上，利润率见鬼去'吗？

But if I'm a founder now listening to you, what you're telling me is, hey, take as much money as possible, invest in fucking growth as fast as possible, and don't worry about margin.

所以实际上，并非如此。这正是我想强调的第二点——效率依然重要。我们确实认为需要权衡这一点，并进行了量化。从数学角度看，X法则表明在中期规模（比如约5000万美元的年经常性收入阶段），增长对效率的乘数效应约为2到2.5倍。早期阶段，这种计算并不太重要。

So actually, no. And that's why I wanted to make that second point that efficiency still matters. We do think that trade off comes into play and we quantify it. The rule of x mathematically shows it's about a two to two and a half x multiplier value of growth over efficiency at mid stage scale, call it 50,000,000 ARR or so. Early on, the math doesn't matter much.

那时全凭希望与梦想，你只是试图打入市场。所以任何事物的乘数都是无限的。但当你真正启动引擎时，基本假设背后应该有数学支撑。我敢保证，Anthropic和Perplexity在加拿大的业务档案最酷的一点就是——数学计算完全成立。你会听到这些创始人谈论基础模型阶段时有些误导，因为损益表并不完美匹配，但你应该把这些模型发布本身视为独立的产品。

It's hopes and dreams, you're just trying to get in market. So it's an infinite multiple of anything. But when you actually get the engine going, there should be math underlying the fundamental assumptions. And I assure you, one of the coolest things about the profile of anthropic and perplexity in Canada and these businesses is the math actually pencils out. You'll hear these founders talk about like in the foundation model phase, it's a bit misleading because the P and L doesn't match beautifully, but you should think of these model releases as a product in and of themselves.

这些产品有着健康的生命周期。因此，你正在用去年的训练成果实现今年的收入，同时投资于明年将发布的模型——这些模型会在明年变现。可能会出现数量级的阶跃函数现象：每个产品单元都非常成功且盈利，但由于超高速增长（无意双关）和前瞻投资周期，损益表看起来却是颠倒的。尽管这看似疯狂，但我认为当市场需求存在且能在每个基础层面证明经济性时，不进行前瞻投资才是经济上的失策。

And there's a healthy life cycle to that product. And so, you're monetizing last year's training in this year's revenue line while you're investing in next year's model, which is going to be monetized in next year's release. And so there may be these order of magnitude step functions where each atomic unit of product is highly successful and profitable, and yet the P and L looks upside down because of this hyperscale, no pun intended, growth rate that they're enjoying in that forward investment cycle. And so even though it seems crazy, I believe it would be economically imprudent not to forward invest when you have that market demand there and when you can show economics working at each fundamental level.

请问，很多人认为虽然当前的热潮非常真实，但某些方面会趋于平缓，GPT-5可能是这种渐进式发展的首个体现？考虑到现状，你如何看待这种渐进主义？鉴于我们仍处于曲线早期，像埃隆和达里奥那样增加算力，是否真的会在未来18到24个月内带来持续的指数级提升？

Can I ask you, a lot of people think that the excitement, although very real, will plateau in some respects and that maybe GPT-five is the first instantiation of that kind of incrementalism in terms of development? Do you agree in terms of that incrementalism coming? What do you actually think, given what you see today? We're still so early on the curve that actually more compute in the way that we're seeing Elon and Dario require it, will lead to actually continuous exponential gains for the near eighteen to twenty four month future.

发展会是断断续续的，我认为这正是人们对第五版发布和讨论感到失望的部分原因。但我们经历过这种周期，突破终将到来。从根本上说，我坚信...

It's gonna be fits and spurts, and I think that was part of the people being underwhelmed with the five o release and discussions. But, you know, we've had these cycles before, and there will be breakthroughs. But fundamentally, I do believe

这让你想起其他周期吗？我最欣赏你的智慧和诚实。你阅历丰富，这是否让你联想到其他周期？

Does it remind you of other cycles? The thing I love about you is your wisdom, honesty. You've seen so much. Does it remind you of other cycles?

确实如此。我们走过不少艰难岁月，哈里。但曲线无疑仍在向右上方延伸，我坚信我们会渡过这个阶段。

It does. And there have been some hard miles here. We've been through a lot, Harry. But the curve is still up into the right. Without a doubt, and I do believe that we will cross over this term.

人们用各种术语描述推理水平、意识、AGI等概念。我毫不怀疑，即便现在尚未达到，我们很快会超越并实现那种能比肩世界顶尖科学家的高级推理能力。我认为这将在未来18个月内实现，这些增长曲线将持续。如何驾驭这种能力、如何具体呈现，将是我们共同探索和变现的机会，但发展速度不会放缓。同时，硬件方案也日益多元化，这不再是英伟达独霸的时代。

You know, people use various different terms about levels of reasoning and awareness and AGI and the like. I have no doubt if we're not there, we're going to blow past it very soon and that we will get to this notion of higher level reasoning that does mirror the world's smartest scientists. And I think that's coming in the next eighteen months and that these curves are going to continue. How we harness that, how it instantiates itself will be the opportunity for us all to figure out and monetize, but I don't think it's slowing down. I do think that we're also getting many more hardware approaches and solutions out there so that it's not as wonderful as NVIDIA is, it's not just an NVIDIA world anymore.

亚马逊、谷歌、AMD等公司的芯片组已相当强大。你还将看到不同的技术路径、优化方案和创新技术，这些都将带来训练能力和推理成本方面的飞跃。我相信这方面的创新会持续，缩放定律依然有效。

The chipsets from Amazon, Google, and AMD, and others are becoming quite capable. You're also going to see different approaches, different optimization paths, innovations in technology that unlock leap aheads in terms of training capabilities and cost to deliver inference. I do think that we're going to continue to see innovation there and the scaling laws continue to hold.

我注意到过去十年投资中竞争格局的巨大变化。十年前通常只有一两个竞争对手，你会暗自讨厌他们——公开表达是不礼貌的。但现在每个领域都有15个竞争者。你在做投资决策时如何考量这一点？

You know what I find really interesting that's changed a lot in my ten years investing is levels of competition. I'm sure you remember when, ten years ago, there'd always be one other competitor, and you'd, like, hate them, you know, silently because it's rude to hate them publicly, And, you know, there'd be one or two. Now there's 15 in every single thing. How do you think about them? How does that factor in to your thinking when making an investment?

是啊。社交礼仪都消失了，不是吗？这有点让人沮丧。

Yeah. The social graces are gone, aren't they? It's kind of a bummer.

没错。好吧。就像Rory说得很好，在AI领域获胜的方式就是进入一个领域，然后拼命制造最大声量，之后再兑现客户承诺。但要喊得震天响，尽可能筹集巨额资金，吸干风投圈的所有氧气，再从那里开始交付。Harvey就是个很好的例子。

Yeah. Alright. It's like the way the way to win, Rory says this really well, which is like the way to win in AI, enter a space and just, like, scream the freaking loudest and then, like, deliver on customer promises afterwards. But scream so loudly and raise as much freaking money as possible then, suck all the air out of the VC room, and then deliver from there. Like, Harvey's a good example of that.

是的。我认为在某些领域这招有效。不过这与我先前的观点相悖——伟大的产品是被需求拉动的。人们会主动发现它们。你看，ChatGPT并没有满世界嚷嚷。

Yeah. I think that works in some spaces. I think that's counter to my earlier point, though, which was the great products are being pulled through. People are finding them. You know, ChatGPT didn't scream from mountaintops.

他们提供了改变世界的用户体验，用户就自发推荐。Perplexity在搜索问答领域做到了这点，API层的这些模型也为想要接入的商业用户实现了这点。所以我认为资本对于建设和前瞻性投资很重要，正如我们讨论过的商业模式那样。但实际上我认为营销和销售在新经济中的作用比过去小了，这些产品很大程度上在自我推销，产品驱动的增长和创新才是实现超新星式爆发增长的关键，因为你没法用人类销售团队来应对这种规模。

They they delivered world changing user experience, and people showed their friends. Perplexity is doing that in search and answer engine world, and these models at the API layer are doing this for business users who are looking to connect them. And so I think the capital is important in terms of building and forward investing, as we talked about, for the business model. But I actually think marketing and sales have less of a role in this new economy than they did before. And that these products in many ways are selling themselves, and product led growth and innovation is the unlock for this supernova and shooting star aspirational growth profile, because you can't put human sales reps against these things.

马克·莱斯利几十年前在Veritas时谈到的销售学习曲线已经不再适用，因为你根本不可能在两年内用人力堆砌出从零到百的增长曲线。现有的销售模式支撑不了这种速度。

Just the sales learning curve that Mark Leslie talks about when we backed him decades ago in Veritas is no longer applicable because you just can't possibly throw the bodies at a zero to 100 growth curve inside of two years. Just the, you know, the sales models don't support that.

我欣赏Bessemer的一点就是你们的纪律性，而且你们在多轮周期中都保持了这点。大家始终认为你们是非常自律的玩家，无论是时间分散还是定价方面。但在新周期里你们不得不打破这种纪律。我很想了解，对于你提到的那些案例，你们现在如何看待打破定价纪律？什么情况下愿意破例？

One of the things I love about Bessemer is your discipline, actually, and I think you've seen it play out across multiple cycles. I think people consistently think you're a very disciplined player, be it in terms of temporal diversification and price. You've had to break that discipline in a new cycle. I I just love to understand, how do you think about breaking pricing discipline today, where respectfully you have in the names that you mentioned? How you think about when you're willing to versus when you're not?

这显然只是结果情景规划游戏吗？

Is it clearly just an outcome scenario planning game?

谢谢你的——我猜这是赞美——但我也要说我们花了大量

So thank you for the I I think what it was meant as a compliment, but I'll also say that we spend a lot of

时间...我好像说得有点负面了，真抱歉。

time I turned into a bit of a negative. I'm so sorry.

不，这很公允。我想说的是，我们当然不是价值投资者。我们支付市场清算价格，在确信机会来临时会全力投入，即便面对数亿美元的顶级估值轮次也会再次出手。很明显，我们参与就是为了赢。

No, it's fair. And what I would say is, I mean, we're certainly not value investors. We pay market clearing prices. We lean in where we believe it's there and we're buyers again at some of these top pegged rounds deep into the hundreds of millions. I think it's very clear that we play to win.

我认为其中的区别在于，我们从根本上希望理解企业如何实现自我持续和规模化发展。对于许多单位经济账算不过来的项目，我们会选择放弃。特斯拉早期就是我最著名也最痛心的案例之一，它被列在我的'反投资组合'中。如果你访问Bessemer网站，我们有一个专门记录投资失误的页面，那其中就有我的这一笔。

I think the distinction there is that we do fundamentally want to understand how the businesses become self sustaining and scaled. We will walk from a lot of things that we don't see the unit economics penciling. One of the most famous and most painful for me was Tesla early on. It's on my anti portfolio. If you go to the Bessemer website, we have a page dedicated to our screw ups, that's one of mine.

当时我根本看不到Roadster这款车的单位经济模型如何成立。坦白说，它确实从未成立。如果没有美国能源部的救助贷款等措施，特斯拉可能早已不复存在。但我忽略了埃隆是个自然之力般的存在，是划时代的企业家，他扛起公司挺过重重难关，让后续车型的经济模型得以运转并带动整个企业。这正是我最大的遗憾之一——我们的职责本应是识别企业家的这种潜力，创造突破点。我现在不断反思的挑战就是：如何打破短期财务纪律的束缚，去看见长期可能性。

And it was because I couldn't fundamentally see how the unit economics of the Roadster were ever going to work. And to be clear, they didn't. And without the DOE bailout loan and things, Tesla wouldn't have existed. But what I missed was that Elon's a force of nature, a generational entrepreneur, and he put that company on his back and powered through so many subsequent layers that the next arcs of the model worked and pulled everything else through it. And that's one of my big regrets, is that our job is to see that potential in entrepreneurs, to create those unlocks, and that's the challenge I put back on myself, is how to break this notion of short term discipline for the long term horizon of what's possible.

价格起什么作用

What prices do

那你们给Perplexity的估值是多少？

you do Proplexity at then?

我们参与了过去几轮融资。首轮估值我记不清了，不过要特别称赞Pete Sonsini——他既是我的好友也是杰出投资人，曾早期投资Databricks。在Perplexity创立阶段，我们参与了技术意义上的第二轮融资。

I mean, we've done the last several rounds. So I I forget the valuation of the first round. I give Pete Sonsini, by the way, a lot of credit, who's a good friend and a great investor. He also did Databricks, but he was very early, with Arvind. As that business was being formed, we did that that I believe what was technically the second round.

那轮应该被称为B轮，也可能实质是A轮之后的后续轮次。但说实话，我多希望我们当时能更早介入、持有更多股份，至今仍遗憾没能像Pete那样早早看清这个项目的潜力。

So I I think that was branded a b. It may have been technically an a and then and then subsequent rounds. But, again, I wish we were earlier and larger shareholders and still regret that we didn't see what what Pete saw early in that business.

你们考虑过适时部分套现吗？我不是特指Perplexity，而是普遍现象。如今私募市场的存续期前所未有地延长。Horsey Bridge让我明白，除非能识别并抓住短暂的高流动性窗口，否则风投本质上是个极具挑战的资产类别。你认为当前这些资产正处于这种高流动性窗口期吗？你们会采取行动吗？

Do you think about taking chips off the table at any point? You know, we're seeing the extension of private I'm not talking about perplexity here, but just generally. We're seeing the extension of private markets in a way that we've never seen before. You know, Horsey Bridge taught me that, you know, fundamentally, venture is a very challenging category or asset class unless you know the small windows of hyperliquidity and can recognize and act on them. Do you think we are in one of those small windows of hyperliquidity in these assets today, and do you act on them?

这个问题问得好！希望你也向LP和后期投资者提出——因为目前这种行为是受鄙视的，几乎成了禁忌。如果我们减持某些公司的股份，人们可能会解读出负面信号。公平地说，Bessemer有着辉煌历史，已为LP创造数百亿回报，不像新兴基金面临分配压力。但我认为这种污名化是错误的。

I love that question, and I hope you continue to ask that question to to LPs and later stage investors as well because it's looked down upon right now. It's sort of a dirty word. If we went and sold part of our position in some of these companies, people might think there's signal risk there, there's issues. And to be fair, Bessemer has this awesome history and we've generated billions for our LPs. So we don't have DPI pressure that some emerging funds might or whatever, but I think that stigma's wrong.

如果这些企业像过去那样上市——我的首个IPO项目Cornerstone OnDemand当年以5000万美元年收入和7亿市值上市，最终成长为百亿企业，这在当年算是非常成功的IPO。而如今Canva估值超400亿，Anthropic超1700亿，Perplexity也达到十角兽级别，这些企业短期内都不会上市。从投资者角度，确实应该考虑将接力棒传给后期投资者和对冲基金。因此我期待并相信二级市场流动性会获得更积极的看待。

If these businesses went public as they used to, mean, my very first IPO, Cornerstone OnDemand, went public with $50,000,000 of ARR and I think with $700,000,000 market cap, and they traded up to billions over time. That used to be a really successful IPO back many years ago. And now you look at Canva at $40,000,000,000 plus and Anthropic at $170,000,000,000 plus and Perplexity, you know, deep into Decoukorn status and the like, these businesses, you know, aren't going public anytime soon. And yet, from an an investor standpoint, there's a there's an argument that they should be handed off to later stage investors and hedge funds and things. And so I do hope and believe for the industry that liquidity in the secondary markets is is viewed more favorably and more active.

我必须承认这个观点有所转变。过去我坚决反对早期流动性——对创始团队除外，他们适当减压是好事。但当企业长期保持私有状态时，我认为中期阶段需要健康的退出渠道。LP们理应获得这种流动性机会。

This is a change in my view. I'll confess that I I was pretty hard lined against this, not for founders and teams. I always feel that taking some pressure off for them is good, but I didn't love it when our co investors were looking for liquidity early in businesses. But I do think that in these mid stages when people are staying private so long that an outlet's healthy. And I do think that LPs deserve that.

我认为对于新兴基金来说，拥有这些选择很重要，而且世界不应因此对你产生负面评价，反而应该理解在一个健康的生态系统中存在某种经济必要性，资本是双向流动的。

I think for emerging funds, it's important that you have these options and that the world doesn't judge you negatively for it, but actually understands that there's some economic necessity in in a healthy ecosystem and capital flows both ways.

多年来，私募市场的定价溢价在很大程度上推动了这些私募市场的扩张。现在你看到这种趋势转向公开市场，看到Figma们的爆发式表现，你们的Core Weaves、Circles，以及Bullish昨天的暴涨。我的问题是，鉴于第一波企业获得的市场反响，我们是否会看到大规模转向公开市场的浪潮？

For years, you've had a pricing premium in private markets, which has led in large part to the expansion of these private markets. Now you're seeing that move to the public market, and you're seeing your Figma's pop in the way that they do, your core weaves, your circles, your bullish pop yesterday. My question to you is, will we see this mass movement towards public markets given the reception that this first wave has had?

噢，我希望如此，哈利。天啊，我真希望如此。讨论确实又开始升温了。我确实认为今年年底尤其是进入明年后，我们会迎来更健康的IPO市场。但在很多方面，我们不得不如此——过去几年创纪录的低迷和糟糕表现是不可持续的，这不符合我们刚谈到的资本流动逻辑。

Oh, I hope so, Harry. God, I hope so. Definitely, the discussions are heating up again. I do think we're gonna have a healthier IPO market at the end of this year and in particular going into next year, but in many ways, we have to. It has been record lows and record bad in the last several years, and that's not sustainable for the capital flow reasons we just talked about.

流动性折价一直不合理。回顾十多年前的市场，私募市场因流动性差、不确定性高和信息披露不足而存在折价，这在逻辑上是合理的。但现在变成了增长调整后的折价。当然当私营公司增长更快时，你必须相应调整倍数。但理性而言，锁定期特性和信息流等因素本应带来折价，我们却多年未见这种现象。

This liquidity discount hasn't made sense. If you go back in the markets a decade plus, private markets traded at a discount because they were illiquid and there was uncertainty and less disclosures in those things, and logically they should. Now it's a growth adjusted discount. Of course, when private companies are growing faster, you have to normalize the multiples accordingly. But rationally, there should be a discount for the lockup characteristics and the information flows and those things, we haven't seen that in many years.

如果公开市场回归溢价倍数而私募市场据此定价，我会非常乐见。虽然不确定能否实现，但我乐观认为我们终将看到更多IPO活动。看看我们即将发布的Cloud 100榜单——先透露个消息：仅前100家云AI公司的私募市值就已突破万亿美元。这个天文数字值得深思。

I hope and would love it if the public markets return to premium multiples and the private markets price off of those. I'm not convinced we will, but I am optimistic that we are finally gonna see more IPO activity. When you look at our Cloud 100 list, which will be released here shortly, I'll give you a little bit of a spoiler piece of news there. We're over a trillion dollars in private market cap now among just the top 100 cloud AI companies right now. Just a astronomical number to consider.

所以现在有万亿美元规模

And so there's a trillion dollars

你觉得其中有多少是真实的？

How much of that is legitimate, do you think?

什么？

What's that?

这些市值中有多少是真实的，多少是人为炒作？

How much of that is legitimate versus synthetic hype?

我认为完全真实，哈利。这才是疯狂之处。当然主要集中在头部——OpenAI、X、Anthropic、Canva、Databricks、Stripe这些公司。它们本质上已是可公开交易的高质量企业，只是目前还披着私营外壳。

I think this is entirely legitimate, Harry. And that's the that's the crazy thing. Now, of course, it's skewed towards the top. I think OpenAI, X, Anthropic, Canva, Databricks, Stripe, go down the list. I think those are incredibly high quality companies that essentially are tradable public entities and a private wrapper today.

因此我认为这些估值完全准确且真实可靠。这份榜单的质量水平从未如此之高。我认为在整个前100名中，买卖双方都能在这些估值点上达成交易。当然，你可以提出101到300名之间可能存在一些‘受伤的选手’，某些上一轮的定价存在人为操控等问题，但我认为我们已基本清除了系统中的这类情况。当你观察……

So I think that those are entirely accurate marks and very real. The quality level of this list has never been higher. I think there's buyers and sellers at the marks all the way down the top 100. Now you can make a case that 101 to 300 may have some walking wounded, some last round prices that are artificial and the like, but I think we've cleared most of that out of the system. When you look at Mr.

如果用NFL选秀来类比，排名第100的‘无关先生’其实是家非常出色的上榜企业。这个优质业务绝对会有人愿意以不低于上轮估值的价格收购，我认为整份榜单都会呈现这种态势。这里蕴藏着万亿美元的企业价值尚未进入公开市场，而这种情况应该很快就会改变。

Irrelevant, if you use the NFL draft analogy, number 100, it's an awesome company on the list. It's a great business that certainly people would be buyers at or above the last round marks, I and think you're gonna see that across the list. And so, again, there's a trillion dollars of enterprise value sitting there that's not yet in the public markets and and should be soon.

你之前说短期内不会看到你们的Canvas上市，为什么？我跟Cliff说过这事——Figma上市后我还专门发消息给他：他们应该上市。

You said, like, we're not gonna see, like, your canvas go out soon. Why? I said this to Cliff. I messaged him after the Figma IPO. They should go public.

没错，他们确实应该也终将上市，我这不是在爆料。我把他们归入‘极短期’范畴，大概就在第三季度这个时间窗口。其实他们早就可以上市，只是他们完全不着急。在所有创始人中，他们考虑得异常长远。

Yeah. They should, and I and I think they will, so I'm not not scooping any news. And I put them in a in a general basket of very short term, meaning, you know, in the in the q three window or the like. But clearly they could have been public long ago, and they're in no rush. And they, of all founders out there, are thinking incredibly long term.

他们做出的终极捐赠承诺——捐出30%的经济效益用于公共事业，包括在非洲的诸多倡议，我认为这充分展现了……

The ultimate giving pledge that they did, giving away 30% of their economics for public good, including, you know, a lot of initiatives in in Africa, I think shows

我跟他说过，他完全可以把这笔捐赠给我的基金。

I told I told told him he could have just done the giving pledge to my fund. You

你肯定很乐意吞下那300亿。看啊Harry，这就是权力线。

you would have absorbed the, the 30,000,000,000 happily. See, Harry, the power line.

帮朋友忙嘛Byron，我这人最讲义气。

I would help a friend, Byron, okay? I'm here.

你根本消化不了290亿，Harry。别太贪心。

You couldn't deploy more than 29,000,000,000 Harry. Don't get greedy, come on.

谁说的？Sam你想要吗？当然要。

Well, I could. Sam, do you want it? Yes, please.

令人惊讶的是，有这么多特殊目的载体（SPV）突然冒出来，提供完全相同的价值主张。

It's amazing how many SPVs have popped up with that exact value proposition.

天啊。这就像一层包装套着另一层包装。连我的牙医都在搞这个，我就想，我...

Oh my God. It's like there's a wrapper on a wrapper on a wrapper. And my dentist is doing it I'm like, I

毫不怀疑。这可能是另一个迹象，表明市场可能有点过热。但我确实认为像Canva这样的优秀公司最终应该上市，也必将上市。他们聘请了Kelly这位出色的CFO。他们显然在释放朝这个方向发展的信号，但他们仍在坚持长期思维。

have no doubt. And that is probably another sign that things may be a little heated. But I do think that great companies ultimately like Canva deserve to be public, will be public. They've hired a great CFO in Kelly. They're certainly giving indications that they're headed that direction, but they continue to think long term.

他们已向投资者明确表示不希望有短期心态，而我们接受了这点。这是我们公司历史上最大规模的投资之一。我们投入了数亿美元，很荣幸能参与其中。他们持续创造价值，我们相信当他们选择上市时，会成为一家优秀的上市公司。但你知道，他们的紧迫感是适度的。

And they've made it clear to investors that they do not want a short term mindset, and we bought in. It's one of our largest investments in our firm history. We're hundreds of millions in, and we're thrilled to be part of it. And so they keep building value, and we believe that it it will be a great public company when they choose to go public. But, you know, the the urgency level there is moderate.

你们最大的投资是什么？

What is your largest investment?

上次Founders Fund来的时候，他们说是Anjuril。这是他们的第一笔也是第二大的投资。我当时就震惊了。成为第一笔已经很了不起，但既是第一又是第二大？你们的呢？

When I had Founders Fund on, they said it was Anjuril. It was their first and their second largest check. I was like, woah. It one thing to be your first, but your first and your second? What's yours?

太棒了。以前是Twilio，然后可能是StubHub、Canva、Anthropic这些。我们很乐意深度投入数亿美元。我们明白这些融资轮次已发展到规模确实重要的阶段，我们需要有能力全程支持我们的公司。因此我们增加了增长能力来实现这一点。

That's awesome. So it used to be Twilio, then probably StubHub, Canva, Anthropic, probably that bucket. We're very comfortably go deep into the hundreds of millions. We understand that these rounds have grown to a point where scale does matter, and we need to be able to support our companies all the way up. And so we've we've added, you know, growth capabilities to be able to do that.

巴伦，你是如何学会适应这种转变的？作为朋友，我想说从2000万美元支票——这已经是巨款了，我们都非常感激有能力开出这样的支票——过渡到2亿美元...

Did you have to learn to get comfortable doing that, Barron? You're my friend. Like, if I was right, like, the transition from a $20,000,000 check, which is an awful lot of money, and we're both very grateful to have the luxury to write them, But that to a 200,000,000.

这需要完全不同的能力。正如你暗示的，当一家公司运转良好，你已经持有大量股份且估值翻了10倍时，新一轮融资又以高倍数进行，这种心理矛盾很强烈：'让别人来抬价定价吧，我已经有10倍收益了' vs '我要再次买入并重置一切，投入2亿后还得重新证明能获得回报'。

It is a very different muscle, and I'll tell you also, as you're alluding to, it goes against your instincts when when you have a business that's cranking and you own a lot and it's marked up, you know, 10 x, and another round comes up that's also at a big forward multiple. This mental disconnect of, Hey, let's let someone else now come and mark it up and price it and let them run. I'm already sitting at a 10x, that's great. Versus this, I want to be a buyer again and reset everything. Put in 200,000,000 that now I need to go back to work and prove that I can dig out and get a return on again, etcetera.

这确实令人却步。我们实际上增加了人员和流程来避免这种心理惯性。我们会邀请另一位合伙人审视，我们最好的交易总是说：'我们有世纪团队，相信这些会成为下个世纪的标志性公司'（这也是对我们Cloud一百的呼应），这个团队会来协助并重新评估交易：'让我们重新审视，重新评估，确保前方还有10倍潜力'。我们正试图打破安于成功而不敢全力加注的心理陷阱，未来你会看到我们越来越多这样做。

It's intimidating. And we've actually added people and processes to make sure that we don't get subject to this kind of mental inertia. We invite in another partner to look at it and our best deals were constantly saying, okay, we have the Century team, believe which will be the iconic companies in next Century, and it's also a bit of a riff on our Cloud one hundred, is a team that'll come and help and basically partner with you on a deal and say, Okay, let's take a fresh look at this, let's re underwrite it, and let's make sure that we believe there's a 10x here ahead that can be there, in which case, you know, let's double down. We're trying to break that mental trap of being comfortable with success and being afraid to really back up the truck. And so you'll see us doing that more and more, I think.

我搞砸的地方在于，比如当你以2000万美元的种子轮估值做了一笔交易，四个月后估值暴跌至100。我一直在想，为什么要支付我刚付过的五倍价格？实际上，你必须愿意快速为你最看好的公司加注，而不是纠结‘为何要支付比已投入更高的价格’——这种心态非常危险。

Where I fucked up is, like, when you do a deal at 20,000,000 at seed, and then four months later, it's crushed and it's at a 100. And I've been like, why would I pay 5 x what I've just paid? And actually, you have to be willing to pay up fast in your best companies and don't think about it in the why would I pay more than what I've already paid? Very dangerous minder.

这极其困难，尤其当我们最初都以大额数字进行投资时。经常出现的情况是：融资轮次官宣当天，就有人开出两倍溢价收购。要知道，这仍可能是一笔绝佳投资。

It's incredibly hard, especially when, you know, we're we're all investing at big numbers to begin with. And and we have a lot of times where literally the day the round is announced, someone will offer them a two x step up. You know, that could still be a great investment. And so

这不算坏事。我记得帕特·格雷迪对我说：老兄，我最大的挑战是刚完成交易，第二天就有人开出三倍价格收购。我们往往忽略了，过量资本会像填鸭式喂养公司，反而会扭曲其发展轨迹。

It's not bad. I remember Pat Grady saying to me, dude, the biggest challenge that I have is that I do a deal, and the next day, someone offers them three times the money at three times the price. And what we forget is that, actually, capital foie gras companies and can distort the journey in a negative way.

我认为企业确实存在过度融资的风险。但其中也有积极面：当优秀机构和合伙人加入时，会产生信号效应和实际影响。我们确实能帮助这些公司略微提升成长曲线，创造附加值。比如让后续融资更顺畅——这绝对是真实且有益的。

I think there's a real risk of overfunding businesses. And so there's a good in there, which is I I do think that there's a positive when you get, you know, great firms and partners in there. There's a signaling benefit and there's an impact. I do think that we actually can help move the slope of the line a little bit for these companies and add value. And so one of the ways that we add value is that it makes it easier to raise downstream capital, and I think that's totally true and a good thing.

但过量资本确实存在。那些次日就带着超高溢价追加投资的人对创始人极具诱惑力。关键是要讨论：如果获得额外资金，绝不能以破坏性方式挥霍——就像鹅肝酱比喻中因暴食资本而窒息。若按计划执行，价值自会增长。我们应确保充足资金应对下一阶段风险与目标，适量追加也未尝不可。

But there is an excess, and the people showing up the next day with huge markups pushing more capital can be seductive to founders. And so part of the discussion is, look, if you have that additional capital, the critical thing is not to spend it in a disruptive way, and that's the foie gras analogy where you choke on the capital and you don't want that. And if you execute on the plan every day, you're going be adding value. So let's make sure we're fully capitalized to play out this next horizon of risks and goals and investment we want. And if we could take a little extra capital to do that, maybe we do.

更可能的情况是：先落实执行，用好首轮资金创造价值，后续投资者自会以更高估值入场。我们与团队达成共识的核心是：只要价值持续增长，即便因估值过高无法跟投也是好事。若资本成本大幅下降，我们作为股东将协助以极高估值融资，实现多方共赢。

But what's more likely is let's actually go out and execute, and let's put this first wave capital to use, and let's build more value, and those investors are going to be there at even higher prices downstream. And the important thing, and we try to get alignment with our team members and things, is we want to build a ton of value, and that if the round gets so frothy and runs away that it's even too highly priced for us to double down, that's okay. That's a good thing for the company. And if your cost of capital goes down a ton, then we're your partner. We'll go out and raise at a very high number and take very little dilution, and everyone wins because we're shareholders and we're aligned.

彼得·蒂尔总说其最大投资错误是没参与Facebook下一轮融资。若问你‘未能加注的最大失误案例’，会是哪个？你个人如何反思？

Peter Thiel always says his biggest investing mistake is not doing the next round of Facebook. If I were to ask you, what's the biggest mistake you made when you didn't double down again, What would it be, and how do you reflect on that personally?

哦，我不仅有错过特斯拉、Atlassian等明星项目的‘反投资组合’，事实上对我们所有成功项目都该持续加注。幸运的是，ServiceTitan是我第13个IPO项目，还有几十个独角兽投资——从数学上说，每个项目的后续轮次我都该参与。

Oh, I mean, not only do I have the anti portfolio of the misses that we didn't do, the, you know, the Tesla and Atlassian and companies like that front and center, But, yeah, doubling down on on every one of our winners. I mean, I'm fortunate. I I think service titan was my thirteenth IPO, you know, have have a couple dozen unicorn investments. And so mathematically, every one of those, I should have done every subsequent round and wish I did. But I would

有没有特别令你印象深刻的案例？

also Is there one that comes to mind more?

正面案例是Twilio——我们完美执行了策略。像Procore或ServiceTitan虽保持大股东地位，但后续引入大量跟投者。这其实涉及你提过的垂直SaaS领域：我们低估了总市场规模（TAM），当时不确定这些公司能成为500亿级企业，因为尚未解锁支付扩展潜力——这种误判导致我们在十亿级估值阶段投资力度不足。

I would say on the positive, Twilio, we did exactly this. I would say with a company like Procore or ServiceTitan, we still were very large shareholders, but we had a lot of people come in and follow. And I think this was one of the things, actually you talked about vertical SaaS, so there is a good lesson in this. We underestimated TAM and weren't sure these could be $50,000,000,000 businesses because we didn't yet unlock the payments expander. And so we misassessed the total TAM and therefore got weak need investing into the billions.

我们本应如此，但却错失了大量收益。Shopify和Twilio上市时我们持有28%股份，而Procore和ServiceTitan的持股比例则低得多，因为我们在后期引入了太多其他投资者。

And we should have, but we left a lot of money on the table. We own 28% of Shopify and Twilio at IPO, and we owned you know, well less than that of of Procore and ServiceTitan just because we we included a lot of other investors downstream.

市场规模误判是错失伟大投资的头号原因。你们是否会针对最佳情况制定收益情景规划？毕竟你们对这些市场的判断经常严重失准。

Market size misunderstanding, misestimation is the single greatest reason why great investments are not made. Do you bother doing outcome scenario plans given for your best, you wildly misread them?

我们不仅做情景分析，还强制要求执行。每份投资建议书（我们称为备忘录）末尾都附有情景分析。我们甚至将许多备忘录公开在官网上——这有时很尴尬，因为当你看到那些疯狂乐观的情景预测时，会发现它们保守得可笑。这不是因为当时的投资人不相信更大可能性，而是我们试图保持理性，将预测框定在合伙人能理解的中期范围内。

Not only do we do it, we require it. Every one of our IRs, investment recommendations, the is our memo terminology, has a scenario analysis at the end. And we also have actually published many of these on our website where we'll go back and publish the memos. And it's kind of embarrassing when we do, because you look at the just goes nuts upside scenario, and they're embarrassingly small. And it's not because as investors at the time, don't believe that they could be much more, but we're trying to be rational and we're trying to bracket it in a medium term horizon that our partners will understand.

然而最终促成交易的，总是你内心坚信能爆发式增长、存在百倍回报可能性的项目。这就像个有趣的拉锯战：我们提交的大部分交易方案都指向三倍回报。看着这些情景分析时你总忍不住想：为什么每份备忘录都止步于三倍？因为人们试图平衡理性，讨论资本损失等等。但归根结底，能成交的交易都是合伙人拍着桌子坚持认为上限可以更高的项目。

And yet, the tiebreaker of these deals is always the one that you and your gut believe can just go nuts, and where the 100x scenario is there. It's always this amusing back and forth where the vast majority of our deals that we put forward you know, solve to a three x. And you're sitting there and like, you know, you look at these scenario analyses and it's like, why is it that every memo I'm reading solves to a three x? And it's because, you know, people are trying to balance and be rational and talk about capital loss and all these things. But at the end of the day, the deals that get done, it's the ones where the the the partner is sitting there saying, I'm pounding the table that the the high end and more is possible.

这种定性判断覆盖层实际上具有巨大的量化影响。

That really is the the qualitative overlay that has massive quantitative implications.

明白了。但考虑到历史上因误判市场规模和TAM（总可寻址市场）造成的错误，如果持续低估市场，难道不会实质损害你们的投资决策质量吗？

Get it. But if you think about the mistakes that have been made in terms of the misreading of markets and TAMs, is it not actually detrimental to the quality of your investment decision making if we consistently misunderestimate or underestimate them?

危害极大。回想当年...

It's incredibly detrimental. And, you know, go back go back to

就像...

the way that,

如果对Facebook前身'Facemash'（哈佛大学选美网站）做TAM分析，得出的市场规模会非常有限。

you know, the Facebook, if you did a TAM analysis on Harvard, you know, hot or not, it would have been pretty small.

但我要引用Jason Lemkin的教诲：别这么做。他说：'你只需要判断创始人是否世界级'

But then I I I go to what Jason Lemkins taught me, which is like, don't do it. Don't do it. He's like, hey. You know what you do? You go, is the founder world class?

第一点。然后是第二点，我能否在下轮融资前看到三倍增长？如果可以，就敲定这笔交易。世界级的创始人，我能看出来。别费心琢磨Twilio是否能成为百亿美元市值的公司？

One. And then two, can I see a three x by the time of the next round? If I can, do the deal. World class founder, and I can see it. Don't try and think, is Twilio gonna be a $10,000,000,000 business?

因为当初没人认为Twilio能做到百亿美元市值。现在它远超这个规模。只管实现三倍增长就行。

Because no one thought Twilio would be a $10,000,000,000 business. Now it's much bigger. Just do the three x.

没错。不过我不完全认同这点。或许我心中的决胜因素是至少要看到令人兴奋的相邻机会。创业者必须拥有某种碾压性的不公平优势起家，同时要具备这样的思维：他们清楚首先要攻克的领域。

Yeah. And so I I don't fully concede that. Maybe the tiebreaker here in my mind is I look for at least exciting adjacencies. So you've got to have some killer unfair advantage to get started. You've got to have this mindset of, okay, they know what they're going to go attack first.

他们会打造出颠覆级产品，能进入增长飞轮并实现爆发。虽然我对市场总容量存疑，但只要存在足够多的相邻机会和潜在成功路径，他们就能层层叠加。因此我希望看到由用户群体、产品线和细分市场构成的三维立方体具有延展性——我们无需现在就完全规划清楚，但必须相信他们驰骋的疆域足够广阔，足以孕育非凡成果。

They're going to build a killer product. They can get into some vortex of growth and launch. I may have a lot of questions about the TAM, but there's enough adjacencies, enough things that could go right that they could layer things on. And so I want to see that the three-dimensional cube of segments and products and users that that can flex over time, and we don't have to have it figured out. We don't have to know exactly what it's gonna be, but I have to believe that they're playing in a big enough pond where good things can happen.

这就是区别所在。我完全承认有时我们缺乏足够的想象力，而杰出创始人往往能突破局限。但团队规模与市场容量的组合依然至关重要——如今我们的投资决策，特别是我个人的选择，仍然极度侧重这两个要素，至少是我们对市场边界的预判。就像我们之前讨论的垂直领域SaaS案例：从工作流自动化切入，延伸到支付领域，现在进军AI和服务业——只要对市场边界有创造性认知，看似微小的市场也能释放巨大价值。伟大企业家正是这样攻占市场、汲取价值、交付卓越产品并建立伟大企业的。

I think that's the difference, and I will totally concede that there are times where we're not imaginative enough to go after it, and great founders will break through at times. But I think that combination is still powerful. And the investments that we're making today, and certainly that I'm making personally, tend to still overweight massively those two things, team and TAM, and at least our vision of the TAM horizons. But I would say, like the analogy we were talking about of vertical SaaS before, where you go through workflow automation, then you go into payments, now you go into AI, and you go into services, Even what seem like small markets can unlock massive dollars when you're creative about the horizons, and that's what great entrepreneurs will do. They'll go attack those markets, suck up the value, and really deliver awesome product, and and can build great businesses.

只要在每个阶段合理定价循序渐进，最终可能也会符合Jason的测算逻辑——只不过这是自上而下而非自下而上的视角。

And and as long as you, you know, you price things rationally at each step and walk it up, it probably back solves into Jason's math also, but from a top down rather than bottoms up point of view.

我认为铁律是：真正伟大的创始人总能发现第二曲线——比如Toast的支付业务就彻底打开了前所未有的商业空间。你提到Shopify上市时支付占比约28%。我的问题是：众所周知你们退出过早，而后续发展远超所有人预期。作为合伙机构，你们是否会反思这点并调整上市后的减持策略？

I think the unwavering lesson is truly great founders always find the second that the payments for Toast, which completely unlocks a business that was never there before. You said about 28% of Shopify at IPO. How my question to you is, famously, you guys sold pretty early. The outcome since has been so astronomically larger than anyone anticipated there. Do you sit and reflect on that as a partnership and change your go forward stance on liquidating positions once public as a result?

关键区别在于我们是早期分配而非主动抛售。我们给予LP选择权——实际上很多有限合伙协议强制要求上市后迅速减持，这让很多人错失了巨额收益。

So importantly, we distributed early. We didn't necessarily sell. So what we did is we gave people the choice. And a lot of RLPs, mind you, do sell pretty quickly after getting stopped by mandate. That left a lot of money on the table for a lot of folks.

我们当然希望当初没有分配Shopify股份。所幸部分LP和我的几位合伙人坚持持有，享受了后续上涨。归根结底这是家非凡的企业，我认为其成长远未结束——这就是为什么即便在当前估值仍有人持续买入。

We absolutely wish that we had held onto Shopify and not distributed when we did. Hopefully, some of our LPs and certainly some of my partners have held and been able to benefit from the run up. But at the end of the day, you know, it's a fantastic company. I think there's still a long journey ahead, and that's why you see people still buying even at these valuations.

碾压级的表现。绝对如此。

Crushing. Absolutely.

他也是那种具有划时代影响力的企业家之一。

Is a one of those force of nature generational entrepreneurs as well.

你赞同红杉资本的常青基金结构吗？

Do you agree with Sequoia's evergreen fund structure?

我认为它有很多优点。这种全程激励管理的理念很好。实际上，Bessemer在几十年前就有过常青基金的基因。但我也认为这很困难，毕竟公开市场管理是另一回事。

I agree that there's a lot of positives to it. This idea that you have incentives to manage all the way through. Bessemer actually has a heritage where many decades ago, we had some evergreen components to it. But I do think it's hard. I think that public management's a different beast.

我确实认为经济模式应该有所不同。尤其在DPI（现金回报）主导的世界里，LP们获取资金管理报酬进行资产配置，但多数LP希望收回本金。因此资金流动的稳定性与持有周期、公开市场期限之间存在权衡。我热爱资本市场创新——我们看到其他机构正在拓展资管业务、债务产品、并购整合等各种尝试。

I do think that the economics should be different. And at the end of the day, especially in a DPI world, LPs get paid to manage capital and do the allocation, and a lot of them want the capital back. And so the merits of consistency and fund flows and those things have some trade offs with hold periods and public duration. And I love innovation in capital markets. We're seeing other firms adding asset management businesses and debt products and roll ups and doing all sorts of things.

其中有些核心理念我们认同，但也有很多是我们不会采用的。不过作为资本市场创新的拥护者，我赞赏这种突破边界的创造力。

You know, there's there's some kernels in there that we agree with. There's a lot in there we we probably aren't gonna pursue. But as a fan of capital markets and innovation, just I I applaud creativity and pushing bounds.

资本市场与创新啊！风投现在纯粹是规模游戏吗？我们看到General Catalyst、Lightspeed、Andreessen都在扩张...

Capital markets and innovation, baby. Is venture a game of just pure scale? We're seeing general catalyst. We're seeing Lightspeed. We're seeing Andreessen.

现在没资金根本玩不转这个游戏。你认同当前流行的二分法吗？我称之为香奈儿与沃尔玛模式——精品服务商专注特定客户，而沃尔玛式巨头则用现金高墙覆盖全品类。你认同这种比喻吗？

You need money to play this game now, it would seem. Do you agree with the world that is being often articulated? I call it Chanel and Walmart, which is boutique provider with specialist customer, and then Walmart's enormous provider, wall of cash, sells everything. Do you agree with that or not?

沃尔玛的类比？不认同。但规模确实重要？完全同意。

Do I agree with the Walmart analogy? No. But do I agree that scale is important? Yes.

为什么不认同沃尔玛的类比？

Why don't you agree with the Walmart analogy?

实际上，低成本供应商/低资金成本的类比有些片面。我认为这反映了资产类别的成熟化，更恰当的类比可能是投行界——像高盛、摩根士丹利、摩根大通这样的平台提供全球化、多资产、多阶段、跨行业的全方位服务。这正是Bessemer的发展路径，我们在全球设有九个办公室。

Well, actually, the direct analogy of the low cost provider, lower cost of capital, you know, sort of push to the bottom, I think you're seeing a maturation of the asset class. And I think the analogy might be the investment banking world. And that you have platforms like the Goldman's and Morgan's and JP Morgan's that are providers of broad, global, multi asset, multi stage, multi sector that can be full service shops. That's very much the path that Bessemer's on. We have nine offices around the world.

我们管理着数百亿美元的资产，采取多阶段投资策略，致力于全程支持我们的企业。这正是我们的核心理念。我也认为存在专业机构，或许以蒂芙尼为喻——在银行业界，这类机构可能成为催化剂或关键角色，它们在某些特定领域极为擅长。

We manage tens of billions in assets. We're multi stage. We want to be able to support our companies all the way through. That's very much the mindset we're in. I do also believe that there are specialists and maybe, you know, the Tiffany's analogy is maybe, I don't in the banking world, maybe that's the catalyst or what have you, where very good at very specific things.

这正是你们执行的策略，也是Benchmark持续贯彻的策略，我认为其中蕴含巨大机遇。因此投资方式可能呈现双峰曲线，尤其是区域性机构或垂直领域机构。医疗健康就是典型例证——行业专长确实能带来优势，但需要规模支撑。正因如此，专注医疗的机构才能取得成功。

That's very much the strategy you're running, that's the strategy that Benchmark continues to run, and I think that there's a lot of opportunity there. And so there can be a bimodal curve in terms of approaches. In particular, I think geographic firms or very specific sector firms. Healthcare has been an example where sector expertise has been really an advantage, but you need scale. And so I think healthcare specific firms have had success for that reason.

市场成熟化将使中间层机构举步维艰。

Maturation is gonna make it tough in the middle.

你如何看待这个问题？这很有意思。我不看好主题基金，但医疗和网络安全确实是两个值得主题化投资的领域，因为需要极其深厚的专业知识和人脉网络。不过纵观顶级风投机构的成功案例，多数赢家都来自综合型基金。

How do you think about that? That's an interesting one. I don't like thematic funds. I think you health care and cyber are two areas where it really pays to be thematic because I think it's just so deep sexual knowledge and networks that are so required. But if you actually look at the majority of great venture firms in terms of the winners that they've had, they've been in generalist funds.

我不认同专注国防、气候或金融科技的机构。说实话，Stripe这样的成功案例不正是被你们这类综合型催化剂机构拿下的吗？

I don't buy the defense firm, climate firm, fintech focused firm. Actually, do you know what? Stripe's been won by your general catalysts of the world. Yeah.

我大体上同意你的观点。这类专项基金虽能带来超额收益，但关键是要避免策略僵化。正因如此，我们既不招聘行业专属投资人，也不会在某个行业遇冷时提供保护伞——我们的职责是为LP创造收益。如果你所在的领域开始降温，最好立即转向盈利赛道，或者停止投资。

I actually agree with you for the most part. I would say that you will get alpha from some of those funds, but the important thing is not to get ossified in an approach. And this is very much why we don't hire sector specific investors, and we don't give you air cover if your sector goes out of favor. Meaning, our job is to make our LPs money. And if you're in a sector that's cooling off, you better get the hell out and go somewhere else that's gonna make money or, like, you should stop investing.

设立半导体专项基金或团队的风险在于，比如划拨5亿美元投资该领域，他们必定会把这5亿全砸进去——无论正确答案是该投20亿还是零。因此我们采取截然不同的策略：持续优化每1美元在行业、阶段和地域间的配置，内部存在资金竞争机制。

The risk of having a semiconductor fund or a semiconductor team is that, you know, you carve out, pick a number, 500,000,000 to invest there. Like, you bet your ass they're gonna invest 500,000,000 in semi, whether the right answer was 2,000,000,000 or 0. And that's the risk. And so we have a very different approach, which is we are constantly optimizing the incremental dollar across sector, but also stage and geography. And we compete for dollars.

这种我们推崇的思维模式需要持续自我革新。内部术语叫'路线图'——每次闭门会上，合伙人们都会展示新路线图，探讨他们追踪的主题、行业、细分领域及投资假设，接受反馈并分享见解。

And that is a mindset that we love and it requires constant reinvention. The term we use internally is roadmaps. At every one of our off sites, partners are presenting new roadmaps and they're talking about theme, sectors, sub sectors, investment hypotheses that they have that they're going after. They're getting feedback. They're sharing it.

他们不断迭代。如果不能持续自我革新，就没有未来投资可言。市场瞬息万变，我们必须抢占下一趋势先机，而非安逸地躺在过往成功的行业里，妄想还能再续十年辉煌。

They're iterating. And if you don't constantly reinvent yourself, you don't have a future investment. Because the markets are moving fast, it's our imperative to to get ahead of the next trend, not sit comfortably in a sector that has had a good run and believe that you're entitled to another good ten years ahead.

拜伦，老兄我太欣赏你了，你的投资履历简直...说真的，你难道从没有过败绩吗？我是认真的。

Byron, I love you, dude, and your track is just so investing period? Like, did you ever have a no. I'm being serious.

我我那是那是为什么我在笑。这不是个愚蠢的问题。这是个令人痛苦的问题。

I I that that is why I'm laughing. It's not a silly question. It's a painful question.

13家独角兽企业。我之前还在冲我母亲嚷嚷，她问‘下午打算做什么？’我说要参加拜伦的活动，还跟她提起你。我说‘大概30家公司里就有13家独角兽’，你的命中率高得离谱。

13 unicorns. I was shouting to my mother before this, and she's like, oh, what are you doing this afternoon? I'm like, I'm entering Byron, and I told her about you. I'm like, it's like, oh, it's 13 unicorns of, like, 30 companies. I mean, your hit rate is, like, ridiculous.

你是否像许多人在‘21年Zurp时代后那样，经历过作为投资者的自我怀疑或身份危机时刻？

Did you have a moment of self doubt, crisis of identity as an investor, like many are having post the '21 Zurp era?

哦哈里，我经历过太多次了。在我们这行，早上翻开TechCrunch或听播客，就会意识到我们多糟糕——总有那么多精彩项目被我们错过。我在Bessemer的第一个投资方向是RFID射频识别，至今仍是零市场规模。彻底失败了。幸好我只投了一个项目，那个项目还有SaaS基础，后来转型赚了点钱。

Oh, Harry, I've had so many. I mean, in our industry, you just wake up and you read TechCrunch or or listen to some of your podcasts, you're reminded how bad we are in the at this job because there's so many cool things happening that we've missed. My first road map at Bessemer was RFID, Radio Frequency Identification, was and is a $0 market. It was a total dud. Thankfully, I only made one investment there and it also had a SaaS underpinning, we ended up pivoting and making a few bucks.

那是个蠢主意。我要感谢合伙人们两点：一是耐心，二是直言不讳的反馈。所以我们迭代转型了。毕竟他们雇我不是为了投射频识别，而是给了转型机会。顺便说，我的第二方向是云计算，结果成了不错的第二幕，但最初确实是个糟糕主意。

It was a stupid idea. What I credit my partners with is one, patience, but two, direct feedback. And so we iterated and pivoted. Because I wasn't hired as a radio frequency identification investor, I was given the opportunity to pivot. My secondary roadmap was cloud, by the way, which ended up being a pretty nice second act, but it was a really bad idea.

所以我前三笔投资都很失败，接着两笔最终成了十亿美元级IPO项目。

So I had my first three investments were all very bad. My next two ended up being, you know, billion dollar IPOs, and so

我和Doug Leone聊过这事——年轻人总会有失败的首投。我也一样，曾以为医疗版WhatsApp会成功。你是怎么走出低谷的？连败三场...

I spoke to Doug Leone about this, where you have young people who make bad first investments. I certainly did the same. I thought WhatsApp for doctors and nurses would be a good business. How did you get out of the trough or not get in it? Three bad is

靠耐心和合伙人的支持，让我有足够试错机会来获得统计显著性。记得资深合伙人Phil De Hardeman（哈佛商学院多年教授），我常去听他讲课并共进晚餐。他在白板上画出我的职业轨迹——基本是条带着小起伏的直线，早期投Cornerstone OnDemand和Eloquence时才略有起色。他说‘给点时间，伙计，你现在就像在沙漠里徘徊’。

Patients and support from the partnership to to make enough shots on goal to to get some statistical relevance out of the sample size. I I remember one of my great senior partners, Phil De Hardeman, who was a professor at HBS for years, and I would go sit in one of his classes and have a long dinner or lunch with him. And he drew on the board my career, which is basically the straight you know, you know, with some bumps and then like a little bit of a tick up with Cornerstone OnDemand and Eloquence of my early things. But he's like, he's like, just give it time, dude. Like, you're, you know, you're wandering in the desert a bit.

我知道你焦虑，你是A型人格渴望成功。但这行关键是构建组合并创造成功条件。别一开始就疯狂砸大钱，如果前三投全败就...要循序渐进。

I know you're anxious. You're type A. You want success. But like, this business is all about building a portfolio and putting yourself in position to be successful. Don't shoot out of the gun crazy big checks out of the gate so if you go zero for three, you're Ease into it.

当时这话很难接受，毕竟这行都激进热情。但这是对的反馈。重置、学习、进步让我能以良好心态继续投资。记得我创业时董事Robin Vasant（当时在Mayfield），我重回风投加入Bessemer前还去请教过他。

And that was hard to take at the time because we're all aggressive and enthusiastic in this industry, but it was the right feedback. Resetting and learning and trying to get better allowed me to be in a good headspace for subsequent investments and to keep going and to have some confidence. I do remember back when I was an entrepreneur, one of my board members was Robin Vasant. He was at Mayfield at the time. And I went to see him when I was going back into venture and joined Bessemer and getting some advice.

他说，你的第一笔投资会搞砸。总是如此。我当时在谈一笔具体交易，他基本上说，那就别做。我说，但罗宾，按这个逻辑，我永远没法做投资，因为你必须跨过第一次。而他表示，没错，但这次真的...不幸的是，他两点都说对了。

He said, Your first investment's going to suck. It always does. I was talking to about a deal specifically, he basically said, Well, so don't do it. And I'm like, But Robin, by definition then, I'll never do an investment because you have to get over that first one. And he's like, Yeah, but this one really Unfortunately, he was right on both.

我的第一笔投资确实糟糕，本不该投那个项目。但我觉得这个观点成立——这是学习的过程，你需要持续参与才能获得足够多的射门机会来得分。周期非常重要。我真心为那些2019、2020年带着支票簿加入我们行业的潜力投资者感到惋惜，他们做了好项目但买入价格过高。很多人因此被淘汰出局，没能像我一样做到第四第五笔投资。

My first investment did suck, and I shouldn't have done that one. But I think the point kind of applies, which is it's a learning game, so just you need to be in it to have enough shots on goal to score some. Cycles matter a lot. I really feel bad for great potential investors who joined our industry with checkbooks in 2020, 2019, and they did great deals but at market prices which were way too high. Many of those people got washed out of the industry and never got a chance to make their fourth and fifth investment like I did.

我们可能永远无法知道他们是否本可以成为优秀投资者。所以周期至关重要，枪膛里有足够子弹击中目标也极其重要。

And we may never know if they could have been great investors. And so cycles matter a lot, and having enough bullets in the gun to hit a target matters a lot.

我认为这就是为什么时间分散如此关键。看我们的第一支基金，很多项目估值偏高，虽然是好公司。而后半期项目定价就合理得多。

I think that's why temporal diversification is so important. I I look at our our first fund. A lot of it is high priced, in good companies, but high priced. And then the second half is much more reasonably priced.

确实如此。时间分散是这个行业少数可控因素之一。你提到LP关注的退出集中度问题，这通常成立但非我们能控制——IPO窗口和并购窗口总会周期性出现，我们要抓住机会，但它们往往扎堆出现。不过投资端的分散是我们能主动实现的。

Very much so. I mean, time diversification is one of the few things we can manage in our industry. You mentioned it in terms of exits with the LP comment where concentration matters. That tends to be true, but it's not something we can control because there tend to be IPO windows, M and A windows, and our job is to try to take advantage of them and they'll cluster, but we can't usually create those when markets are closed. However, entry diversification we can create.

极少有人能逆势操作——在市场冷清时最激进，火热时收缩，这本该是正确做法。但至少保持平稳节奏度过风暴，才能在退出窗口集中时获益，这通常是时间分散最成功的风投模式。

Few of us are good enough to actually play the markets counter to trends and be most aggressive when things are cool and to really pull back when they're hot, which is probably what you should do. But at least some notion of smooth and consistent to weather those storms so that you can take advantage of the cluster of exits tends to be about the most successful model for time diversification and venture.

我们见过大量年轻人自立门户，甚至有人离开Bessemer。但你认为分拆热潮结束了吗？那段密集分拆期是新常态，还是人们意识到分成不如预期后，觉得单干或自建基金更好的特殊时期？

We've seen a shit ton of young people start their own firms. You you've seen people even leave Bessemer. Do you think, though, that the spinout time is is up? We saw this, like, compressed time where, like, a lot of freaking spinouts very quickly. Do you think that was a new normal, or do you think that was a compressed time where people realized that carry would be less than they thought and it would actually be better to be a solo GP or a GP of their own fund?

后者。这确实是人们寻求重置的时点——无论出于积极或消极原因，他们想要新开始。风投行业中，合伙机制和平台确实重要。最终很多人目标还是另建新机构，所以要么逃离现状要么追求新局。但顶尖机构通常顶层结构扁平。

The latter. I do think that this was a point in time where people were looking for that reset, where for positive or negative reasons, they they wanted, you know, a fresh start. Because in venture, I do think partnerships and platform matter. Ultimately, lot of those goals are to then go out and build up another firm. And so you're either running from something or to something, but at the end of the day, I think the best firms are pretty flat at the top.

你不是追求更好分成，而是寻求更优环境或架构。确实很多优秀合伙人成功自立并获得融资。我们会看到这些新基金发展出平台，行业可能迎来前所未有的重塑。但这是少数「历史业绩预示未来成功」的资产类别——私募市场本质是关系网络。我合伙人Phil De Hardiman（哈佛前教授）会用数据证明：前十大机构通常有八家能在下个周期保持领先，形成良性循环。挑战在于哪些新基金能跻身颠覆者的那两席，机会存在且可能增至三四家。但持续稳定的平台也有其优势，很多将长久存续。

And so you're not seeking better economics, you're really seeking a better environment or better structure. And so I do think that a lot of great partners were able to launch out and get funded and kick off. And we'll see platforms then built out of some of those new funds and probably more reinvention in the industry than we'd seen before. But it is one of the few asset cycles where past performance is an indicator of future success. Private markets are very much networking ecosystem based, and you see very analytically, I referenced my partner, Phil De Hardiman, who taught at Harvard before.

他量化研究过这些并撰写过私募与风投教材，具体数据我记不清了，但大约八成顶级机构能延续成功。所以关键在于哪些新基金能打破格局成为那两匹黑马，机会是存在的，或许能增加到三四家。但保持一贯稳定的平台同样具有持久优势。

He would quantify this, and he wrote the private equity and venture capital textbook and would do the data, but I forget the exact numbers, but if something like eight out of the top 10 firms in one cycle would repeat in the next because there was this virtuous cycle. And so the challenge is which of the new funds are gonna break in and be those those next two that disrupt, and there's opportunity there, and maybe it goes up to three or four. But I also think that there's a benefit to being a consistent, stable platform, and many of those will persist.

在进入快问快答环节前最后一个问题。人们总说私募股权会来救场，将掀起一波收购浪潮。你认为私募真能来力挽狂澜吗？这是第一个问题。

A final one before we do a quick fire. Everyone's always saying, like, PE is gonna come save the day. There's gonna be a wave of PE acquisitions. Do you think PE will come in and save the day? Number one.

第二个问题是，你认为他们现在试图通过整合你们销售亏损和Claries业务的策略真的会奏效吗？

And and do you think, number two, the roll up strategy that they're trying now with your sales loss and your Claries will actually work?

我认为下一波流动性将来自多个领域的组合。私募会是其中之一。对这些历史悠久的企业来说会是绝佳时机——绝大多数无法上市，整合势在必行。因为这些业务本质都是高毛利但低效运营的，早期我们只关注增长而非成本优化。私募将有大量机会重组这些资产组合。

I think the next wave of liquidity is gonna come from a combination of several buckets. I think PE will be one of them. It's gonna be a pretty fun time for PE as these companies are long in the tooth, vast majority are not going to get public, consolidation will make sense. Because at the core, a lot of these businesses are very high gross margin and are run pretty inefficiently because we've got a growth mindset and we're certainly not optimizing for cost in the early days. And so there will be a lot of opportunity to work through those portfolios, and I think private equity will have a run there.

我也认为大型并购即将回归。传统企业为应对云AI变革必须重启收购。FTC终于对反垄断和交易阻挠采取了更理性态度，市场机制将重新发挥作用。公开市场将涌现收购浪潮。

I also think big M and A is coming back. I do think that the incumbents responding to the cloud AI imperatives are going to need to get back in the buying game. The FTC is finally taking a more rational posture on, antitrust and and blocking deals and these things. Think they're going to let market forces operate there again. And so there will be this buying imperative that rolls through the public markets.

像SAP、甲骨文和IBM这类公司不收购就会被淘汰。IPO市场也将重启。而最大的变数是我们谈过的第四领域——二级流动性是否会通过不同资本渠道流动？跨界投资者是否愿意参与更多二级交易？我认为会的。虽然对私募市场交易所持保留态度，但二级交易会逐渐被接受，释放资金压力后反而可能反哺前端投资。

And companies like SAP and Oracle and IBM need to buy or they're going to get crushed. And then I do think that the IPO markets are gonna open up again, and we're gonna see a pull through there. And the big wild card, this fourth bucket is what we talked about briefly, and I thought one of the great questions you asked was, will secondary liquidity start to flow through from different, you know, capital providers, and will crossover investors be comfortable doing more secondaries and things? And I and I think, yes. I'm not totally sold on these exchanges for private markets or these sorts of things, but I do think incrementally we're gonna see people get more comfortable with secondary transactions, stop looking for signal risk in that, and we're gonna take pressure out from all these sources, which will then get capital flows coming back, which ironically may then just feed the engine at the front end even more.

老虎基金对生态系统的帮助多还是伤害多？

Did Tiger do more to help or to hurt the ecosystem?

这让我想起鹅肝酱的比喻——好坏参半。我赞赏其带来的颠覆性创新，但也要为大量 reckless过度投资和非治理性交易收拾残局...

Oh, boy. The foie gras analogy comes back to me there. Incredibly mixed. I think that there was a lot of happy disruption and big thinking and creativity that that I applaud, and there was a lot of reckless overfunding and deal work and nongovernance that we're gonna have to clean up for quite a

我认为实际回报会高于人们预期。看看OpenAI和其他几家头部企业——它们处于优先股顶端，以34亿估值投资年收入50-60亿且有三五年现金流的企业。这些交易不会亏钱，虽非暴利但足以保本。

I think that returns will be better than people give them credit for. When I look at scale, when I look at OpenAI, and I look at quite a few that actually they're in with me, they're at the top of the pref stack, and they're in, like, $5,060,000,000 ARR companies at $3,400,000,000 prices with three to five years of runway. I'm like, they're not gonna lose money on those deals. They're not gonna make huge money, but they'll be okay.

这就是奇妙之处。风投指数长期看可能还行——历史上跑输标普500，这次或许依旧，但终会盈利。虽然投资组合构建不完美，但你说得对，几个全垒打就足以弥补多数失败项目。

I mean, that's the amazing thing. Over these cycles, an index of the venture industry may be fine. Historically, it has underperformed the S and P and probably will again in this case, but you'll make money. That very well could be the case there. It certainly wasn't an optimal portfolio construction, but at the end of the day, I think you're right, that they're going to have some home runs in there, more than make up for a lot of the the zeros.

而中段项目里会有大量1-3倍回报的项目支撑大局。

And then in the middle of the pack, there's gonna be a lot of one to three x's that carry the load.

我的朋友，准备好来一轮快问快答了吗？

My friend, are you ready for a quick fire round?

来吧，我全听你的。

Let's do it. I'm in your hands.

你们Bessemer团队里最厉害的‘飞碟手’是谁？

Who's the best saucer in your Bessemer team?

哎呀，这可难倒我了。我们合伙团队每个人都在积极开拓项目。如果非要选一个，可能是杰里米·莱文，因为他总能发现那些反常规的独特交易。要知道，寻找项目源不仅是主动出击、积极创新，更重要的是具备别人没有的洞察力——这点常被忽视。

Oh, boy. Everyone on in our partnership is constantly outbound. I would probably put Jeremy Levine there in terms of just his ability to see unique deals that are contrarian. And I think, you know, part of sourcing, we think of it as just, hey, outbound, aggressive, creative, etcetera. But I think the insights to see what others don't is is the essential part of that that's often overlooked.

其实我的很多合伙人都有这个能力，但你只让选一个，所以这就是我的答案。

And and I give many of my partners credit for that, but but you asked for one, so that'd probably be my answer.

最佳‘狙击手’。说到投资精准度，你觉得谁最厉害？

Best picker. Who do you think, when it's the accuracy of shot, they're good?

大卫·考恩。他总能在奇怪的地方发现做着疯狂项目的优秀人才。比如Rocket Lab——彼得·贝克在新西兰搞火箭，还有Auth0这些案例。他有着惊人的决断力，会为那些看似不明显的项目全力争取。这家伙嗅觉灵敏，在这行已经深耕多年了。

David Cowan. Steadily finds great people in weird places doing bizarre things. Mean, Rocket Lab is one, know, Peter Beck sitting in New Zealand, you know, recently or Auth0 or some of these things. He just has incredibly high conviction and will pound the table at times, you know, things that may seem non obvious and just has an incredible nose, has been doing this a long time.

如果作为有限合伙人，你会投资哪家种子轮基金、A轮基金和成长型基金？

One seed firm, one series a firm, and one growth firm that you can invest in as an LP.

天啊，先说清楚你完全没让我准备啊，我只能即兴回答了。种子基金——我之前提过皮特·西奇尼。Lod Ventures的运作模式让我非常敬佩，他们直接在项目萌芽期介入。

Oh, boy. And to be clear, you gave me no prep, so I'm gonna give this on reaction. Seed Fund. I mentioned Pete Sicini before. What they're doing at Lod Ventures, I've got immense respect for, where they're going in at inception stage.

他们真的会坐在加州伯克利和斯坦福的教室实验室里跟教授们合作。皮特已经用这种方式投出了Perplexity、Databricks等多个独角兽企业——他可是在这些十亿级企业刚起步时就参与了。光其中任何一个案例就足以成就一个投资人或一家基金了，而他做到了多个。所以种子阶段我看好他们。早期阶段嘛...老天，选择太多了。

They're literally sitting in the classrooms and labs at Cal and Stanford working with professors. Pete's done this many times already with with Perplexity and Databricks and many others where I mean, he literally was there at the inception stage of these Decacorn businesses. Any one of those deals would be a great firm run or a great career for an investor, and he's done multiple. So from a seed stage, I think they're going to do some really special things. Early stage, oh god, there's so many.

我觉得第一轮的各位，我想，哦，这太糟糕了。我忘了Uncork的新名字。提醒我一下。哦，不，抱歉。Uncork就是新名字。

I think that first round folks, I think Oh, this is horrible. I'm forgetting Uncork's new name. Remind me. Oh, no, sorry. Uncork is the new name.

没错，就是前身。我认为Uncork做了很多了不起的事情，而且在投资风格和方式上非常契合。你提到了Lemkin以及他以非常精选的方式所做的事情。我只是非常欣赏。

That's right. The predecessor. I think Uncork does awesome things and actually is very aligned in kind of investment style and approach. You mentioned, you know, Lemkin and what he's done in very selective ways. I just I have a lot of appreciation.

我是说，这很好。我是说，这很好。我爱那些人。Jason就像我最亲密的朋友，最亲密的。那里没有新面孔。

I mean, it's nice. I mean, it's nice. I love those people. Jason's like my dearest friend, dearest. None of the new guard there.

那些不是性感的名称。你选了第一轮、Uncork和Jason。我再次声明，我爱他们。我同意。他们都是十年以上的老手。

Those aren't the sexy names. You chose first round, uncork, and Jason. I again, I love them. I agree. They're all ten year plus films.

他们都算是老资历了。有趣的是，你却没有提到更热门的名字，比如你的Sarah Gwo。

They'd all be kind of long in the long in the tooth. You didn't mention, ironically, your Sarah Gwo's, the hotter names. That was interesting.

Harry，你暗示历史是个负面因素。但从数量上看，历史是积极的。我认为数据显示，你实际上受益于平台上某种成功的模式。这些公司都经历过一些周期。FirstRound和Uncork肯定正在经历代际更替，但我认为下一代非常有前途。

Harry, you suggest that that history is a negative. Quantitatively, history is a positive. I think the data shows that you actually benefit from some pattern of success in platform. And each of those firms has to go through some cycle. And both FirstRound and Uncork are certainly going through generational transitions, but I think the next generation are incredibly promising.

我想创始人甚至会表示，他们为能够继承并超越前人而感到自豪。所以我认为这些公司正在变得更强大，而不是更弱。

I think the founders would even say they're they're proud that they, you know, they'll carry on and and exceed them. And so think I those firms are getting stronger, not weaker.

拜托，我绝无对他们不敬之意。我没有任何恶意。我爱这三个人。Jason，如果你在听的话，尤其别误会我，别不认我。

Please, and no no disrespect to them. I didn't mean it in any horror. I love all three. Jason, if you're listening especially, like, you know, shoot yourself. Don't disown me.

我太爱你了，伙计。还有Josh Koppelman，别生我的气。是的。

I love you so much, dude. And Josh Koppelman, don't eat me. Yeah.

而且这丝毫不减损你提到的许多新兴公司的价值。我认为它们还不够成熟。所以我们也在尝试与它们合作，但我们还在摸索中。

And and that is that takes nothing away from a number of the upstarts that you highlighted. I think they're less proven. And so we're also trying to work with them, but we're figuring that out.

你会选择哪家成长型公司？比如我的是Maritech。

Which growth firm would you do? Like, mine's Maritech.

Maritech非常棒。我热爱他们的文化和风格。从量化角度看，红杉资本仍在不断创造白金级业绩。所以可能会选择两者的某种组合。

I mean, Maritech's fantastic. I love their culture. I love their style. I mean, quantitatively, think that, you know, Sequoia continues to to mint platinum records. And so, you know, probably some combination of the two.

你最想改变自己投资风格中的哪个方面？

What element of your investing style would you most like to change?

天啊。我的合伙人可能会说我应该更注重细节。我更依赖团队和直觉，老实说我不打算改变这点。但有时确实会忽略一些小问题，比如我不太会深究文件细节之类的东西。

Oh, boy. My partners would probably say I should be more detail oriented. I am much more team and gut, and so I'll confess I don't intend to change it. But but I do miss some of those small things at times. Like, I'm not a guy that's going deep in documents and details and things.

我不会纠结于某些交易条款或财务细节。现阶段我只想与优秀的人共事，人生苦短。我热爱这份工作，只想享受乐趣，与杰出之人共创伟业。这有时会让我犯些疏忽的错误，但我不打算改变。

Like, I'm not I'm not gonna be hung up on some usually deal term or financial thing or whatever. Like, I I'm all about working with great people this phase in life. It's too short. I love this job, but I just I wanna have fun. I wanna do big things with great people, and and that'll get me in sometimes I'll do crimes of of commission where I'll just fall in love with some things and miss some details, but I don't think I'm gonna change that.

我请教过你最大的竞争对手（匿名），问该问你什么。他们说：'这家伙是极少数在财务上取得惊人成功却看似毫不在意的人，依然充满斗志，只想不断获胜。'金钱到某个程度就不重要了吗？纯粹是为了赢？

I asked one of your biggest competitors who said, can you this be nameless, what I should ask? And they said, the dude is just one of the only people who's done insanely well, respectfully, financially, and it seemingly just doesn't matter to him. Like, he's just as hungry as ever, doesn't kinda give a shit. He just wants to win more and more. Does the money not matter after a point and it's just about winning?

你如何看待竞争对手的这个评价？

How do you reflect on that comment from your competitor?

首先，真希望你能透露他的名字，这评价太令人欣喜了。我确实努力践行这种态度。多年前卖掉公司时，我和妻子曾讨论过是否要退休定居，养育家庭。

One, I I wish you'd name him because that's incredibly flattering. I I I appreciate that, and I love hearing that. I do think I try to live by that. I mean, I'll confess, when I sold my business long ago, my wife and I sat back and said, okay, like, hey, it's not life changing money, but actually, we could retire on that money. Do we wanna move somewhere, raise a family, unplug?

但我完全无法想象那么做。我们实在太幸运了，这个行业经济回报丰厚，报酬远超应得。参与其中乐趣无穷，我无法想象不做这行。

And I couldn't conceive of doing that. We are all so damn fortunate. Like, there's a lot of great economics in this industry, and we get paid way more than we deserve. It's just so damn fun to be in the middle of what we're doing. I can't imagine not doing this.

能与想要改变世界的杰出人士共事并协助他们，是莫大的荣幸。这简直是地球上最酷的工作。我丝毫没有近期停手的打算，金钱只是美好副产品，这份工作本身就很棒。

It's an incredible privilege to sit down with awesome people who wanna change the world and help them do it. Like, it is it is the coolest job on the planet. And so, like, I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. And and the money is, you know, is a nice byproduct of it, but, it's a cool gig.

最后一个问题。过去十二个月里，你最大程度改变看法的是什么？

Final one. What have you changed your mind on most in the last twelve months?

是关于机遇规模的认知。比如，我原以为我们理解即将进入的下一阶段会有多大，但非常诚恳地说，我们可能把所有预期都加了个零。我认为这将催生许多万亿美元级的企业。说起来有点尴尬，看看我们之前发布的场景分析和备忘录，我们把十亿美元级成果当作重大成就，而这些企业最终成为了百亿甚至千亿美元级的公司。

The what can be from the scale of the opportunities. Like, I I thought we understood this next phase we are going into, how big this was gonna be. And very sincerely, we've probably added a zero to everything. I think there's going to be a lot of trillion dollar businesses that are created from this. And I said it was kind of embarrassing when you look at our scenario analyses and our memos that we published on our website before, because we talk about a billion dollar outcome as a big deal and the great success case in these businesses went on to become 10 or $100,000,000,000 companies.

同样的情况正在发生——当我们讨论某些投资时犹豫不决，最终虽谨慎投资却充满焦虑。但最终这些项目总会突破所有预期。现在正真实上演：当你看到Anthropic最新披露的数据，他们通向数百亿收入的路径和惊人的单位经济效益，这在我们行业历史上前所未见。

That exact thing's gonna happen where we talk about some of these investments and we hesitate and you know, we get really close and we invest, but we're anxious and nervous and whatever, and at the end of the day these things just blow through everything that it can be. And we're seeing it real. Like when you actually see the anthropic numbers that he's now sharing, this is real. You know, their path to billions and billions in revenue and really compelling unit economics, we have never seen this in the history of our industry, and it's playing out

我要问个不公平的问题：三年内，Anthropic市值会超过还是低于万亿美元？

in I'm front gonna ask you an unfair question. Anthropic, over or under a trillion within a three year period.

我们用真金白银押注了'超过'。即便一年前我们投资时，也没敢想象这个数字——当时认为现在的估值就是退出点，没想到只是新起点。这实在太惊人了。

I mean, we put our money where our mouth is. We've been a buyer so over. And that's, again, like we a year ago, when we were buyers, we still wouldn't have didn't conceive of that. We thought that where they're at now would be the exit, not another entry point. And that is incredibly awesome.

我永远记得Thrive的Vince主导300亿美元融资轮时，我问他'老兄你疯了吗'，他回答'Harry，如果是万亿级公司我们就能赚钱'。当时觉得这是最扯的投资逻辑，现在觉得自己蠢透了。

I will never forget having Vince on from Thrive when he led the $30,000,000,000 round. And I was like, dude, what are you what are you doing? And he's like, Harry, if it's a trillion dollar company, we'll make money. And I was like, that is the weakest investment rationale I've ever heard. And now I feel like a total moron.

这行的魅力就在于——富贵险中求，未来会有更多这样的案例。我们当然会把赌注押在认为会发生的地方。

One of the beauties of this business is can you know, fortune favors the bold, and there will be those outcomes ahead. And obviously, we placed our bets where we think they'll happen, and there'll be many more.

兄弟我太感谢你了，珍惜这份友谊。谢谢你今天来做客。

Dude, I so appreciate you. I so appreciate the friendship. Thank you for joining me today, man.

很高兴重逢，期待线下见面。在此之前，谢谢你邀请。

Great to see you again. Great to be back. I look forward to seeing you in person. But until then, thank you.

他真是了不起的人！如开场所说，Byron在我一无所有时慷慨相助。这次对话太精彩了！想看完整视频的朋友，请在YouTube搜索20VC频道。

I mean, what a fantastic guy. As I said at the beginning, Byron was so kind and helped me when I was starting out and really had nothing. That was so much fun to do. What an incredible guest. If you wanna find more, you can find it on YouTube by searching for 20 v c, where you can find the full video of the show there.

在结束今天的节目之前，我特别欣慰能看到团队齐心协力完成这期节目。但令我头疼的是，我们需要在数十个平台、产品和工具中追踪所有信息、数据及项目进度。这就是我们选择Coda的原因——这款一体化协作工作空间已帮助全球5万支团队实现高效协同。Coda兼具文档的灵活性与电子表格的结构化，能促进更深度的团队协作与更快速的创意落地。而其开箱即用的AI解决方案Coda Brain，更是颠覆性的存在。

Before we leave you today, I love seeing the team come together to make this show happen. What I don't love is trying to keep track of all the information, the data, and the projects that we're working on across dozens of platforms, products, and tools. That's why we use Coda, the all in one collaborative workspace that's helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page. Offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets, Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity. And their turnkey AI solution, the intelligence of Coda Brain, is a game changer.

依托Grammarly技术支持的Coda正进入创新扩张新阶段，致力于重新定义AI时代的生产力。无论你是需要灵活管理混乱的初创公司，还是寻求更好协同的成熟企业，Coda都能适配你的工作方式。其无缝工作空间可连接数百种常用工具（包括Salesforce、Jira、Asana和Figma），帮助团队优化流程并加速产出。立即访问coda.i0/20vc，初创公司可免费获得团队版六个月使用权。记住是coda.i0/20vc，免费享团队版半年服务。

Powered by Grammarly, Coda is entering a new phase of innovation and expansion aiming to redefine productivity for the AI era. Whether you're a start up looking to organize the chaos while staying nimble or an enterprise organization looking for better alignment, Coda matches your working style. Its seamless workspace connects to hundreds of your favorite tools, including Salesforce, Jira, Asana, and Figma, helping your teams transform their rituals and do more faster. Head over to coda.i0/20vc right now and get six months off the team plan for startups for free. That's coda, c0da.i0/20vc, and get six months off the team plan for free.

coda.i0/20vc。当Coda让我们团队如虎添翼时，AngelList则让我们的基金更胜一筹。20 VC的听众都知道我们标准极高——而AngelList正是顶级风投机构使用的现代平台，超过40%顶尖捐赠基金和银行是其LP客户。他们的客户包括前五大风投机构、20 VC，目前平台资产管理规模已达1710亿美元。

Coda.i0/20vc. And while coda keeps our team sharp, AngelList keeps our fund sharper. If you're listening to 20 VC, you know we have a really freaking high bar. Well, AngelList is the modern platform used by the best in class venture funds where over 40% of top endowments and banks are LPs. Their customers include a top five venture firm, 20 VC, and they now have, check this out, a $171,000,000,000 of assets on the platform.

他们将一体化软件平台与响应迅速的专业服务团队完美结合。有位管理人如此评价：‘AngelList就像我基金的延伸。’另一位则表示：‘AngelList让我彻底安心，其细节把控、闪电响应及团队的主人翁精神，让我无需再为后台运营操心。’所以若你正在筹建新基金，别犯傻——直接用AngelList就对了。

They combine an all in one software platform with a dedicated service team that moves as fast as you do. One manager said this awesome quote, AngelList feels like an extension of my fund. Another said, AngelList gives me total peace of mind, the attention to detail, lightning fast response time, and just real sense of ownership from the team are exactly what I need to stop worrying about back office ops. So if you're starting a new fund, don't be a moron. Just use AngelList.

他们实在太出色了。访问angellist.com/20vc了解更多。当你规范设立基金后，接下来就该打造与之匹配的初创品牌形象了。各位科技创始人注意：当你终于想出完美公司名称，却发现.com域名已被占用——

They're incredible. Head over to angellist.com/20vc to learn more. And once you've set up your fund the right way, it's time to make sure your startup's brand looks just as sharp. This one's for all you tech founders out there. You finally come up with the perfect name for your startup, then you check the .com and damn, it's taken.

要么闲置停放，要么标着帕罗奥图房租般的天价。于是你不得不妥协使用加字母、怪异拼写等方式。但现在，专为科技创始人打造的.tech域名终于问世，让你无需再将就。在.tech上注册你真正心仪的初创名称，彻底告别妥协。

Parked, unused, or priced like rent in Palo Alto. So you settle with extra letters, weird spellings, whatever it takes. But, hey, you don't have to compromise because now there's finally a domain for tech founders like you, .techdomains. Get the startup name you actually want on .tech. No compromises.

更重要的是，使用.tech域名能向客户和投资者传递明确的科技属性——仅通过域名即可实现，这难道不酷吗？如果你已有心仪名称，立即在GoDaddy等可信平台搜索.tech域名，或访问get.tech/20vc注册。衷心感谢大家的支持，接下来请收听本周最精彩的一期——Jason Lampkin与Rory O'Driscoll的对话。

What's more, when you use .tech, you signal to your customers and investors that you're building tech with just your domain name. Isn't that cool? So if you've got a name in mind, search for it now with .tech on a trusted platform like GoDaddy or visit get.tech/20vc to grab it. I so appreciate all your support, and stay tuned for an incredible episode. Jason Lampkin, Rory O'Driscoll, the favorite show of the week.

这期绝对不同凡响。

It's gonna be a special one.