风投公司的随大流效应

    少数往往服从多数，但这并不意味着多数人的意见就一定正确。

    最有说服力的一个例子来自我曾经工作过的一家顶级风投公司。该公司允许投资团队在公司参与的每轮融资中进行个人自主投资。可以不参与投资，可以“顶格投资”，也可以介于两者之间。根据员工在公司中的级别，每轮可投入资金设定一个上限。

    最有意思的是每轮融资结束后，他们会向整个投资团队公布每个人在这一轮融资中的自主投资额。要判断一个人对一项投资怎么看，最好的办法莫过于看他/她的个人投资开出了多大的支票。这是整个投资讨论中最没办法骗人的环节。当然，有些投资项目是公司里所有人都会用足个人投资上限（即“全票上限情形”）。同样，也有些项目除了项目主导人外，几乎无人参与（即“近零”情形）。这些投资决定往往基于私下的讨论，员工之间会互相探讨每项投资他们打算投入多少———通常很少是单独做出的决定。

    多次亲眼见证这类个人投资以后，我有些意外的发现。凡出现全票上限情形，说明一项投资可能会失败。如果每个人都喜欢这项交易，愿意加入个人投资，这个项目很可能不会成功。事实上，此类项目往往很快就会失败。反之，情形也惊人的相似。凡出现近零情形，一项投资往往会成功——有时甚至是巨大的成功。在我曾经工作过的其他公司，也有类似的实验，结果总是如此，不管是什么经济时期、投资项目或公司。

    The majority often rules, but that doesn't mean the majority is right.

    The most poignant example comes from a premier venture capital firm I once worked for. One of the opportunities it gave its investment professionals was to invest personally and on a discretionary basis in each round of each financing the firm participated in. You didn't have to invest, or you could "max out," or you could do anything in between. There was a maximum amount you could put into each round based on your level in the firm.

    Most interestingly, after each financing round closed, they would publish to the entire investment team how much each person invested for their discretionary investment in that round. There is no better way to tell how a person feels about an investment than to see the size of their personal check. It was the most honest moment of the entire investment discussion. There were certainly cases when everyone in the firm maxed out their personal investment (e.g. the "max out scenario"). And, there was a similar frequency of cases when nearly everyone didn't participate except the individual partner sponsoring the deal (e.g. the "zero out" scenario). These decisions were always made after individuals would talk to each other behind the scenes to discuss how much they were going to put into each investment – they were rarely made in isolation.

    What I learned from watching these personal investment decisions made over and over again was somewhat surprising. A great predictor of failure for an investment was when the max out scenario took place. If everyone loved a deal and backed up the truck on their personal investment, it was more than likely to not succeed. In fact, those deals often failed in quick fashion. The inverse was surprisingly true as well. More often than not, for those investments where the zero out scenario took place, they often became successes – sometimes the biggest successes. At the other firms I have worked at, various forms of this experiment have taken place and this observation holds true through different economic times, different investments, and different firms.