JOBS of the CEO角色定位
Earlier I mentioned that the only universal job description of the CEO is to make sure the company wins. Although that’s true, I wanted to talk a little more specifically about how a CEO should spend his or her time.
之前我提到CEO的职责很简单，就是让公司在市场中胜出。话是这么说，但我还是想稍微详细聊聊CEO的时间分配问题。
A CEO has to 1) set the vision and strategy for the company, 2) evangelize the company to everyone, 3) hire and manage the team, especially in areas where you yourself have gaps 4) raise money and make sure the company does not run out of money, and 5) set the execution quality bar.
CEO的任务有：1、为公司找到方向；2、到处跟人宣传咱们公司；3、招人，并且管理招来的人，尤其是那些分管你不熟悉的领域的人；4、融资，保证公司账上有钱花；5、设定内部工作执行的标准。
In addition to these, find whatever parts of the business you love the most, and stay engaged there.
除此之外，还要找到这份事业里你最喜欢的部分，然后一头扎进去。
As I mentioned at the beginning, it’s an intense job. If you are successful, it will take over your life to a degree you cannot imagine—the company will be on your mind all the time. Extreme focus and extreme intensity means it’s not the best choice for work-life balance. You can have one other big thing—your family, doing lots of triathlons, whatever—but probably not much more than that. You have to always be on, and there are a lot of decisions only you can make, no matter how good you get at delegation.
我在开头就说过，创业是一件极其辛苦的事情。如果你能成功，那你的人生会进入到一个你之前无法想象的境界——你所有的时间都会被创业充斥。高度的专注和投入注定让你做不到工作生活两不误。你可以花点时间陪陪家人或者跑个马拉松什么的，但也差不多就只能这样了。你必须随时待命，去做那些只有你能做的决策，不管你雇了多少人为你分忧。
You should aim to be super responsive to your team and the outside world, always be clear on the strategy and priorities, show up to everything important, and execute quickly (especially when it comes to making decisions others are blocked on.) You should also adopt a “do whatever it takes” attitude—there will be plenty of unpleasant schleps. If the team sees you doing these things, they will do them too.
你应该力图做到对团队以及其他所有事情负责，做到心里对公司发展战略和事项安排永远有清晰的视野，做到在重要的事情上身先士卒，并且快速地执行正确的方案（尤其是在别人举棋不定做不了决策的时候）。你应该做好“不惜任何代价都要把事情做成”的心理准备，无论路上要克服多少让你心累心塞的难关。如果你能这么做，那么所谓上行下效，你的团队也会学着这么做。
Managing your own psychology is both really hard and really important. It’s become cliché at this point, but it’s really true—the emotional highs and lows are very intense, and if you don’t figure out how to stay somewhat level through them, you’re going to struggle. Being a CEO is lonely. It’s important to have relationships with other CEOs you can call when everything is melting down (one of the important accidental discoveries of YC was a way for founders to have peers.)
做好你的心智管理非常重要并且会很困难。虽然有点老生常谈，但事实的确如此——人的感情起伏可以很剧烈，而如果你没能找到一个方法保持淡定，那你就注定要煎熬。CEO是场独角戏。你最好与别的CEO处好关系，以防你公司天塌下来了都没人帮你顶一把（说起来，YC倒是无心插柳柳成荫地促成了许多创业者之间的友情）。
A successful startup takes a very long time—certainly much longer than most founders think at the outset. You cannot treat it as an all-nighter. You havde to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You have to spend time with your family and friends. You also need to work in an area you’re actually passionate about—nothing else will sustain you for ten years.
创业成功需要很多时间——肯定比大多数创业者起初以为的要长，所以你要做好持久战的准备：好好吃饭，好好睡觉并且锻炼身体，腾出时间来陪陪家人与朋友。你还需要确认所从事的事业是你真正热爱的，否则很难坚持十年。
Everything will feel broken all the time—the diversity and magnitude of the disasters will surprise you. Your job is to fix them with a smile on your face and reassure your team that it’ll all be ok. Usually things aren’t as bad as they seem, but sometimes they are in fact really bad. In any case, just keep going. Keep growing.
你会一直觉得什么东西都是百废待兴——创业路上各种稀奇古怪的超级大坑会让你大开眼界。你作为CEO的任务，就是要么拼了老命把它们填上，要么殚精竭虑想办法绕过去，而且与此同时面对团队的时候脸上还必须洋溢着幸福的傻笑。不过通常事情没有看起来那么糟。（有的时候真的有那么糟！）反正不管发生什么事，聚精会神保持成长保持发展就对了。
The CEO doesn’t get to make excuses. Lots of bad and unfair things are going to happen. But don’t let yourself say, and certainly not to the team, “if only we had more money” or “if only we had another engineer”. Either figure out a way to make that happen, or figure out what to do without it. People who let themselves make a lot of excuses usually fail in general, and startup CEOs who do it almost always fail. Let yourself feel upset at the injustice for 1 minute, and then realize that it’s up to you to figure out a solution. Strive for people to say “X just somehow always gets things done” when talking about you.No first-time founder knows what he or she is doing. To the degree you understand that, and ask for help, you’ll be better off. It’s worth the time investment to learn to become a good leader and manager. The best way to do this is to find a mentor—reading books doesn’t seem to work as well.
CEO的词典里没有“借口”两个字。许多闻所未闻的困境会发生在你身上。但是绝对不要说（尤其是跟团队说）“要是咱们有钱就好了”或者“要是再来个工程师就好了”之类的话。如果你没法找到钱或者另一个工程师，那就闭嘴，还是想想怎么在没钱少人的情况下解决问题吧。喜欢找借口的普通人在生活工作中多半是卢瑟，而如果一个创业公司的CEO喜欢找借口，那这个公司基本上属于黄土埋到脖子上了。你可以坐在那里自怨自艾一分钟，但是在这一分钟之后要马上起来寻找解决问题的路子。你需要努力做到的目标，就是当人们谈论起你的时候，总会评价“这家伙就是有办法搞定所有事情”。初次创业，迷茫是正常的。尽力去理解，理解不了就求助，逐步提升自己。如何管理和领导团队是件值得花时间去学习的事——纸上得来终觉浅，你还需要找导师。
A surprising amount of our advice at YC is of the form “just ask them” or “just do it”. First-time founders think there must be some secret for when you need something from someone or you want to do some new thing. But again, startups are where tricks stop working. Just be direct, be willing to ask for what you want, and don’t be a jerk.
我们在YC给出了很多“直接去问他们”或者“放手去做吧”之类的建议。初次创业的菜鸟们总觉得找大人物帮忙或者开发什么新项目的背后存在什么神奇秘笈——其实并没有。创业的世界没有那么多弯弯绕，有什么事情你就开口直说，保持礼貌就好。
It’s important that you distort reality for others but not yourself. You have to convince other people that your company is primed to be the most important startup of the decade, but you yourself should be paranoid about everything that could go wrong.
无论为了各种目的而信口开河，你自己心里一定要知道最真实的情况。在别人面前你可以自信地把自己公司捧到天上去，但是你胸中必须明镜一样清楚地知道那些会让你一招不慎全盘皆输的地方。
Be persistent. Most founders give up too quickly or move on to the next product too quickly. If things generally aren’t going well, figure out what the root cause of the problem is and make sure you address that. A huge part of being a successful startup CEO is not giving up (although you don’t want to be obstinate beyond all reason either—this is another apparent contradiction, and a hard judgment call to make.)
要有咬牙坚持的精神。大多数创业者太快就放弃现有的产品而去尝试新的想法。如果事情不太顺利，那么就从深层次地思考一下问题的来源，确保你想得很清楚。“不轻言放弃”是成功创业CEO的必备特质。（当然要是坚持做一件错事，那就完全是南辕北辙了。这是创业当中的一个矛盾点，也是很难做出的决策。）
Be optimistic. Although it’s possible that there is a great pessimistic CEO somewhere out in the world, I haven’t met him or her yet. A belief that the future will be better, and that the company will play an important role in making the future better, is important for the CEO to have and to infect the rest of the company with. This is easy in theory and hard in the practical reality of short-term challenges. Don’t lose sight of the long-term vision, and trust that the day-to-day challenges will someday be forgotten and replaced by memories of the year-to-year progress.
要保持乐观。我还没遇到过那个悲观主义的CEO把事情做成了的。你要坚信“未来会更好”并且把这样的理念在全公司散布开来。这件事说起来容易，但在公司遇到挑战时做起来难。不要太短视，要相信现在每天面对的挑战在数年以后会变成珍贵的回忆。
Among your most important jobs are defining the mission and defining the values. This can feel a little hokey, but it’s worth doing early on. Whatever you set at the beginning will usually still be in force years later, and as you grow, each new person needs to first buy in and then sell others on the mission and values of the company. So write your cultural values and mission down early.
你最重要的任务还有定义公司的使命和价值观。这可能会显得有点装，但在一开始把这些事情说清楚还是值得的。你在初期定下来的精神会在几年里一直发挥作用，每个进公司的新人都会受到潜移默化的影响并且把这些使命和价值观传承下去。所以早早地想好你的情怀是什么吧。
Another cliché that I think is worth repeating: Building a company is somewhat like building a religion. If people don’t connect what they’re doing day-to-day with a higher purpose they care about, they will not do a great job. I think Airbnb has done the best job at this in the YC network, and I highly recommend taking a look at their cultural values.
有一点，虽然被很多人说过但是我还是想啰嗦一句：打造一个公司和建立一个宗教有点像。如果人们不是带着一个崇高的使命感在做事，他们通常不会干得太好。在这点上，YC毕业的公司里Airbnb是做得最棒的。你可以研究一下他们是怎么做到的。
One mistake that CEOs often make is to innovate in well-trodden areas of business instead of innovating in new products and solutions. For example, many founders think that they should spend their time discovering new ways to do HR, marketing, sales, financing, PR, etc. This is nearly always bad. Do what works in the well-established areas, and focus your creative energies on the product or service you’re building.
CEO们常犯的一种错误是想要在商业运营方面，而不是产品和解决方案上做些创新。比如许多创业者经常花时间去探索人力资源管理、营销、财务和公关上的新方法。这通常不是什么好事。如果某个领域已经有明确的套路，那你应该集中精力去打造产品而不是寄希望在运营上颠覆些什么。
HIRING & MANAGING招聘与管理
Hiring is one of your most important jobs and the key to building a great company (as opposed to a great product.)My first piece of advice about hiring is don’t do it. The most successful companies we’ve worked with at YC have waited a relatively long time to start hiring employees. Employees are expensive. Employees add organizational complexity and communication overhead. There are things you can say to your cofounders that you cannot say with employees in the room. Employees also add inertia—it gets exponentially harder to change direction with more people on the team. Resist the urge to derive your self-worth from your number of employees.
要建立一个伟大的公司，招聘是一切的基础。关于招聘，我的第一条建议是：不要招聘。大多数YC投的成功公司都等了很长时间才开始招聘员工。招人的经济成本很高，而且招来人以后管理与沟通成本也会直线上升（总有些话是你只能对合伙人说而不想让员工知道的）。员工还会带来更多惰性——团队里人越多，公司改方向的难度就越大。请按耐住你心里想要招兵买马扩大队伍的冲动。
The best people have a lot of opportunities. They want to join rocketships. If you have nothing, it’s hard to hire them. Once you’re obviously winning, they’ll want to come join you.
牛人们总是会很抢手。他们希望能加入最具潜力的公司。如果你啥都没有，那么要招到牛人的可能性也几乎就没有。而一旦你的公司成为当红炸子鸡，牛人们也会闻风而至。
It’s worth repeating that great people have a lot of options, and you need great people to build a great company. Be generous with equity, trust, and responsibility. Be willing to go after people you don’t think you’ll be able to get. Remember that the kind of people you want to hire can start their own companies if they want.
我再说一遍：牛人们手头总会有不少选择。你需要找到优秀的人才来建立一个伟大的公司，所以你应该慷慨地给予他们公司期权、你的信任和工作责权。你觉得希望不大的人选也可以去接触接触看。记住，你想招的那些人也可以开创属于他们自己的事业。
When you are in recruiting mode (i.e., from when you get product-market fit to T-infinity), you should spend about 25% of your time on it. At least one founder, usually the CEO, needs to get great at recruiting. It’s most CEOs’ number one activity by time. Everyone says that CEOs should spend a lot of their time recruiting, but in practice, none but the best do. There’s probably something to that.
当你为产品找到市场以后，你就应该进入并且保持招聘模式，花25%的时间在招人上面。至少一位联合创始人（通常是CEO）需要擅长招人识人，而这也是占据CEO们最多时间的活动。大家都说CEO应该多花时间找人，但实际上只有最好的CEO才能做到这点。
Don’t compromise on the quality of people you hire. Everyone knows this, and yet everyone compromises on this at some point during a desperate need. Everyone goes on to regret it, and it sometimes almost kills the company. Good and bad people are both infectious, and if you start with mediocre people, the average does not usually trend up. Companies that start off with mediocre early employees almost never recover. Trust your gut on people. If you have doubt, then the answer is no.
不要因为招人难就降低你的标准。每个人都知道这句话，但每个人都曾在某个绝望的时刻，在某种程度上做过妥协。妥协过后便是后悔——而这样的事情也许会拖垮整个公司。近朱者赤，近墨者黑。你招两个50分的人，他们的能力也不会比一个90分的人强。一开始就招平庸之辈的公司基本上很难有什么大起色。在招人时要相信你的直觉。如果你有些许犹豫，那么就对眼前之人说不吧。
Do not hire chronically negative people. They do not fit what an early-stage startup needs—the rest of the world will be predicting your demise every day, and the company needs to be united internally in its belief to the contrary.
小心不要招充满负能量的家伙。他们不适合早期的创业企业。全世界所有人都在等着看你们把事情搞砸，所以公司内部必须团结一致避免那样的悲剧发生。
Value aptitude over experience for almost all roles. Look for raw intelligence and a track record of getting things done. Look for people you like—you’ll be spending a lot of time together and often in tense situations. For people you don’t already know, try to work on a project together before they join full-time.
比起经验，快速学习能力更重要。努力寻找那些嘴上无毛但是脑中有货的年轻人。努力寻找你喜欢的人——你要跟他们长相厮守很久呢……对于那些你不认识的人，可以在全职录用之前让他们参与一个小项目试试看。
Invest in becoming a good manager. This is hard for most founders, and it’s definitely counterintuitive. But it’s important to get good at this. Find mentors that can help you here. If you do not get good at this, you will lose employees quickly, and if you don’t retain employees, you can be the best recruiter in the world and it still won’t matter. Most of the principles on being a good manager are well-covered, but the one that I never see discussed is “don’t go into hero mode”. Most first-time managers fall victim to this at some point and try to do everything themselves, and become unavailable to their staff. It usually ends in a meltdown. Resist all temptation to switch into this mode, and be willing to be late on projects to have a well-functioning team.
多花点心思去成为一个好的管理者。对于大多数创业者来说这都很难，而且这绝不是一份可以靠直觉混过去的工作。但是做好管理简直太重要了。找几个导师吧。如果你无法学会管理，人才会离你而去。而要是公司里留不住人，那你的招人技术再高超也是白搭。管理学的大多数原则问题已经是路人皆知的事，但我发现有个话题不怎么有人提，那就是“不要逞英雄”。很多初涉管理的创业者往往陷入这个误区，事无巨细事必躬亲，忙得连员工想找他也找不到。而逞英雄的结果基本上是毁灭性的。压制住员工不给力的时候你心里亲力亲为的欲望，宁可慢一点，也要磨练出一个成建制的团队来。
Speaking of managing, try hard to have everyone in the same office. For some reason, startups always compromise on this. But nearly all of the most successful startups started off all together. I think remote work can work well for larger companies but it has not been a recipe for massive success for startups.
聊起管理，还有一点，那就是尽量让所有人在同一个地方办公。不知怎么，创业公司通常会在这点上作出妥协。但是几乎所有最成功的创业公司起初都是在一起办公的。我觉得对于大公司而言远程协作也许没问题，但初创公司还是算了吧。
Finally, fire quickly. Everyone knows this in principle and no one does it. But I feel I should say it anyway. Also, fire people who are toxic to the culture no matter how good they are at what they do. Culture is defined by who you hire, fire, and promote.
最后我想提的一点是：辞退的时候一定要快刀斩乱麻。虽然这又是大家都知道可都不去遵守的一点，但我觉得还是要提一下。另外，那些与你公司气场不合的人必须被请走，无论他们的工作能力有多优秀。你招什么样的人，裁什么样的人，提拔什么样的人——这些事情定义了你的公司文化。
COMPETITORS竞争对手
A quick word about competitors: competitors are a startup ghost story. First-time founders think they are what kill 99% of startups. But 99% of startups die from suicide, not murder. Worry instead about all of your internal problems. If you fail, it will very likely be because you failed to make a great product and/or failed to make a great company.
一言以概之：竞争对手是一种像鬼一样吓人但并不存在的东西。没有经验的创业者会觉得来自竞争对手的碾压是99%创业公司的死因，但其实并非如此——99%的创业公司死于自杀而不是谋杀。你还是多操心操心你自己吧，要是你失败了，那多半是因为你没能打造一款卓越的产品或者建立一个伟大的公司。
99% of the time, you should ignore competitors. Especially ignore them when they raise a lot of money or make a lot of noise in the press. Do not worry about a competitor until they are beating you with a real, shipped product. Press releases are easier to write than code, which is easier still than making a great product. In the words of Henry Ford: "The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time."
所以作为一个初创企业，99%的时间里，你完全可以把竞争对手当空气，尤其是在他们融到了一大笔钱或者在媒体上造势的时候。在他们捣鼓出一个对你有实质性威胁的产品之前，你对他们置之不理就好了，因为比起产品开发来，耍耍嘴皮子简直是幼儿园水平的事情。福特汽车的创始人亨利·福特说过，“你真正需要畏惧的竞争对手是那种不声不响，但坚持不懈地埋头干实事的人。”
Every giant company has faced worse competitive threats than what you are facing now when they were small, and they all came out ok. There is always a counter-move.
每个大公司在初期都应付过比你现在残暴得多的竞争压力，他们不都挺过来了？别怕，办法总比困难多。
