这个年轻人是如何创建出一家250亿美元的公司的？

    正如最新一期《财富》杂志报道的那样，Airbnb公司创始人布莱恩•切斯基在很多方面都独树一帜。毕业于罗德岛设计学院的他，最初的志向是当一名工业设计师，但后来却创建起了一家如今估值高达255亿美元的公司——甚至比酒店业巨头万豪国际集团的市值还高。

    但在硅谷的风险资本家们看来，随着“新手”CEO在创业公司独掌大权之风的兴起，33岁的切斯基非常有代表性，他正是日益普遍的那种交游广阔的创业者中的一员。

    “在当下这个时代，交游广阔的个人可以做到一些曾经只有大型组织才能做到的事情。” 作家尼罗弗尔·莫晨特说道。他正在撰写一本探讨这方面话题的书《唯一性》（Onlyness），预计将于明年春季出版。

    凯鹏华盈高级合伙人朱丽叶·德拜尔尼表示：“现在业界对那些由创始人领导的公司支持力度空前之大，是我平生首遇。”对于个中原因，她总结出的理论是：

    首先，有越来越多的证据证明，由创始人领导的公司可以成为可持续挖掘的、极具价值的“宝藏”，比如亚马逊、Facebook、谷歌，以及其他一些年岁渐长的初创公司，其曾经青涩年轻的创始人现在依然掌控着公司的大局。

    其次，公司保持私有化的时间比以往更长了，这也是最近发生的一种新现象。随着规模空前的私募资金涌入各种科技初创公司，估值在10亿美元以上的“独角兽”公司数量越来越多。它们有更长的时间窗口来保持私有化，也使得CEO在上市之前可以有充分的时间来巩固自己的地位。

    第三，正如莫晨特所建议的那样，最聪明的那群年轻CEO早已学会如何结交能够助他们更上一层楼的专业人士。比如，Facebook的马克·扎克伯格特意从谷歌聘请了桑德伯格担任COO。切斯基则选择了另外一种方式，他亲自拜访了许多“创业导师”，包括巴菲特、迪士尼CEO鲍伯·艾格和投资者彼得·泰尔。

    切斯基在接受《财富》视频采访时表示，他收到的最重要的建议来自保罗·格雷厄姆。这位初创公司孵化器Y Combinator的缔造者、风险投资家告诉切斯基：“拥有100个热爱你的人，胜过拥有100万个对你有点好感的人。”切斯基应用这条建议来精雕细琢商业模式和所谓的“逆转工程”（reverse engineer）以扩大Airbnb的规模，而不是毫无章法地追求增长。正是这种聪明的做法，使该公司的估值达到255亿美元，并且稳固了他对公司的掌控权。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    Airbnb founder Brian Chesky is unique in many ways, as Leigh Gallagher notes in her recent profile of the first-time CEO. He’s a Rhode Island School of Design grad who planned to build a career as an industrial designer, but instead he built a company that’s now valued at $25.5 billion—more than the stock-market value of Marriott MAR 0.76% .

    But if you look at Chesky, 33, through another lens—the lens of Silicon venture capitalists who notice first-time CEOs keeping firm control of their companies—the Airbnb boss is an increasingly common sort of highly connected entrepreneur.

    “We’re living in an era where highly connected individual can do what only large organizations once could,” says author Nilofer Merchant, who is writing a book on this topic, Onlyness, due out next spring.

    Says Juliet de Baubigny, a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers: “I have never seen a moment in time when there is such unprecedented support for the founder-led company.” De Baubigny has a theory—actually, three theories—about why this is so.

    First, there’s ever-growing proof that founder-led companies can become valuable, durable “treasures,” as she calls Amazon AMZN 0.98% , Facebook FB 0.01% , Google GOOG -0.19% and other aging startups that have their once-green and youthful founders still at the helm.

    Second—and what’s new lately—is that companies are staying private longer than they used to. Thanks to unprecedented levels of private money going into tech startups, the list of unicorns—privately held startups with valuations of at least $1 billion—keeps growing. The wider window for private ownership gives more time for a CEO to grow in his or her role before going public

    And third, the smartest young CEOs have learned to connect—as Merchant advises—with experts who enable them to thrive. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg did it one way when he recruited Sheryl Sandberg from Google to be his COO. Chesky did it another, by knocking on the doors of many business-building pros, including Warren Buffett BRK.A -0.07% , Disney DIS 0.96% CEO Bob Iger and investor Peter Thiel.

    The most important advice, Chesky says in this video interview with Gallagher, says came from Paul Graham, the VC who runs startup incubator Y Combinator. Graham told Chesky: “It’s better to have 100 people love you than have a million people that sort of like you.” Chesky applied this advice to hone his business model and “reverse engineer” as he says, to scale Airbnb—rather than haphazardly chase growth. That’s a smart route to a $25.5 billion valuation and a secure place at the helm.