文字难度：★★★
Six years ago, fresh out of Stanford with a degree in economics, I had what many would consider the perfect job. I was a management consultant at a prestigious firm, with an office overlooking the San Francisco Bay and a shiny new 1)ThinkPad to 2)boot. My co-workers were intelligent, ambitious and fun, and I interacted with high-level executives at 3)Fortune 500 companies. My 4)perks included free concert tickets, ski trips and fancy dinners. I was on track to be earning six figures within three years. It was the good life I had been chasing along with my peers at Stanford. So why wasn’t I happy?
6年前,手握经济学学位刚从斯坦福大学毕业的我,拥有着一份在许多人眼里都很完美的工作。我在一个声望颇高的公司里担任管理顾问,有着一间从里面可远眺旧金山海湾景观的办公室,还有一台崭新闪亮的IBM笔记本电脑供我使用。我的同事们都是些拥有高智商、野心勃勃且有趣的人。我还会和《财富》杂志刊登出的世界500强公司的高管打交道。我享受到的额外福利包括免费的音乐会门票、滑雪旅行以及奢华的宴会。我正朝着在3年内能赚到6位数收入的生活迈进。这是在斯坦福大学念书时,我和同伴们一直在追求的优越生活。那么,我为何会不快乐?
After six months of living this supposed dream, my day-to-day life was far from satisfying. I was working 14-hour days, and most of my time seemed to be spent 5)nudging 6)boxes around in PowerPoint slides and agonizing over the 7)wording of 8)bullet-pointed items. It felt wrong to be dreading work at such a young age. I wanted to wake up each morning excited about what was ahead. I wanted to create something of my own. I had joined consulting with the goal of starting my own company one day, perhaps after getting my 9)MBA. At the time, I believed that management consulting would best prepare me to run my own business, but I soon realized that consulting was mostly just teaching me how to be a better consultant.
在过上了6个月的这种梦想中的生活后,我每天的生活远远给不了我任何满足感。我每天工作14个小时,且大部分时间似乎都在纠缠于PowerPoint幻灯片上的方框,苦恼其中要点的措辞。年纪轻轻就对工作感到厌烦,实在太不应该。我希望每天早上醒来都会为新一天的到来而感到兴奋不已。我想创造一些属于自己的东西。我加入顾问这一行的目标是未来某天能开一家属于自己的公司,或许是在我获得工商管理硕士学位之后。我相信管理顾问这份工作最有助于我为日后经营自己的生意做好准备,但我很快便意识到,顾问这个工作顶多教会了我如何成为一名更好的顾问。
Venture capital, I thought, would be a more direct path to entrepreneurship. So I quit my job as a consultant after six months and joined a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. I lasted just six weeks this time. Although I had indeed moved closer to the world of entrepreneurship, I found myself no closer to actually becoming an entrepreneur. To make matters worse, the work I was doing was even more painful than before, and the hours were longer. My day now consisted of 10)mining lists and industry reports for high-growth companies, then 11)cold-calling their chief executives. The more CEO’s I spoke to, the more “points” I got. Soon I would be judged by how many meetings I was able to schedule for my partners. And if a meeting turned into a deal, I made money. In short, I was a saleswoman.
我想,加入风险投资这一行是成为企业家的更直接途径。于是6个月后,我辞去顾问这一工作,加入了硅谷一家风险投资公司。这一次,我只坚持了6周。尽管我的确更接近企业家的世界,但我发现自己并没真的更接近那成为一名企业家的理想。更糟的是,我在做的工作甚至比之前那份工作更痛苦,而且工作时间更长。现在,每天的工作包括从各种排名列表和行业报告里挖掘业绩高增长的公司,然后冷不防地给他们的首席执行官打电话。和越多的总裁谈话,我获得的“分数”就越多。很快,我的工作能力便以我能为合作伙伴安排多少场洽商会议来评定。而如果某场会议达成了合作,我就能赚到钱。简而言之,我成了一名推销员。
Sales is an essential aspect of entrepreneurship, which is what initially attracted me to this job. A few weeks of selling something for which I had no passion, however, were enough for me to realize that my venture-capital 12)gig wasn’t the good life I had imagined.
推销是企业家的必备能力之一,同时也是这份工作最初吸引我之处。推销着我一点儿也不喜欢的东西,尽管只有几周,但足以让我意识到,风险投资这一“快艇”上的生活并非我想象的那般好。
Switching jobs had not solved my problems. The truth was that I hated working in a conventional structure. I hated having a boss, working on someone else’s creation and sitting in an office all day. My time was not my own, and I was miserable. I could not bear it for even one day longer. So I quit and decided to become an entrepreneur. Along with my boyfriend (now my husband), Parag Chordia, I raised money through family and friends and started my own technology company, a social networking site that grew to two million users. And I have never looked back—even though that company has not been profitable.
换工作并没解决我的问题。事实是我讨厌在传统的公司体系里工作。我讨厌有个上司,讨厌为别人的创造成果工作,讨厌一整天都坐在办公室里。我的时间不属于我自己,我感到痛苦。这一切让我无法再多忍受一天。于是我辞去工作,决定成为一名企业家。和我的男朋友(如今成了我的丈夫)帕拉格·乔尔迪亚一起,我从家人和朋友们那里筹集资金,创办了我自己的科技公司——用户现已增至200万的社交网站。至今我不曾往回看——尽管我那公司还没有盈利。
Last year, Parag and I started Khush Inc., which makes an 13)iPhone music 14)application called LaDiDa. It’s a kind of reverse karaoke—it creates background music when people sing lyrics into a microphone, and it is one of the top 20 paid music applications in 15)iTunes. As chief executive of my own 16)start-up, I now spend my days building consumer products from the ground up, creating 17)grass-roots marketing campaigns, pitching my ideas to investors and dreaming about the next big thing. How many people bought my product? Who saw my video? What can I do to reach more people tomorrow? These are the questions I ask myself each day. There is a certain thrill to seeing one’s own creation in the hands and minds of thousands, sometimes even millions, of people around the world. Entrepreneurship is 18)intoxicating.
去年,我和帕拉格创办了库什公司,致力于研发一个被称为“啦嘀哒”的iPhone音乐应用软件。那是一种反向卡拉OK应用软件——当人们对着话筒唱出歌词时,它可以由此创作背景音乐,它是iTunes网站上的20大收费音乐应用软件之一。作为自己公司的首席执行官,我现在每天都把时间花在从头开始创立消费产品,在大众中开展营销活动,把我的想法推销给投资者们,还有就是想想接下来要做的大事。有多少人买了我的产品?谁看了我的视频?明天我要怎么做才能接触到更多的人?这是我每天都会问自己的问题。看见自己的创造成果被推广至世界各地数千,有时甚至是数百万人们的手中或脑中,这无疑会令人兴奋不已。当上企业家,令人感到无比兴奋。
Exciting as it may be, however, the entrepreneurial life is far from easy. Stress is a regular part of the day. Money is tight. There are frequent emotional highs and lows, and the desire to succeed can become all-consuming. Underlying all of this is the knowledge that failure is the most likely outcome. Yet, no matter how tough things get, I wake up every morning with renewed hope and excitement for what lies ahead. The fact that I am working on my passion gives meaning to even the most 19)mundane tasks.
兴奋归兴奋,但企业家的生活却很不容易。压力是每天惯常的一部分,资金紧,情绪经常大起大落,对成功的渴望也会让人筋疲力尽。这一切背后,企业家很清楚失败是最有可能出现的结果。然而,不论事情多么棘手,我每天早上醒来都对未来充满全新的希望和兴奋。我满怀着激情在工作,这一事实让那些即使是最普通的任务也变得富有意义。
My future is perhaps more uncertain than it ever has been. I may end up wealthy, or I may earn barely enough to support myself. But the realization that I face a high 20)likelihood of failure is not enough to send me back to the corporate 21)cubicle.
相比从前的任何一个阶段,现在,我的未来或许更加不可预测。最终,我可能会变得很富有,又或者赚的钱还不够维持自己的生活。但我对自己很可能遭遇失败这一情况的认识并不足以把我打发回别人公司里的小办公间。
Maybe I value my time more than my net worth. Maybe my fear of boredom outweighs my fear of failure. Or, maybe I have an irrational belief that I will succeed 22)against all odds. Whatever it is, I find the risk of entrepreneurship to be not only worthwhile but also necessary for fulfillment. Work is no longer work. It is life, and a good one.
也许,相比我的净资产,我更看重我的时间。也许,我对厌倦的恐惧超过了我对失败的恐惧。又或者,也许我有种不理智的信念,即我将克服种种困难,获得成功。无论怎样,我发现,成为一名企业家的风险不仅值得冒,它还是获得满足感的必经之路。工作不再只是工作,它成了生活,还是一种美好的生活。 译 /远行的心
