彼得•泰尔：打破束缚，一个人的人生应该由他自己去规划

    问：你认为你的这些见解能够给年轻的创业者们带来哪些帮助？

    答：相比职责明确的专业人士，创业者必须应对更多不确定性。由于这些不确定性，他们往往会禁不住诱惑，试图寻找各种指引，比如传统的商学院案例研究，更有可能的是，被视为竞争对手的公司最近的举动等。根据竞争对手的举动做出反应，至少可以让你知道应该做什么。我们早已习惯于发展道路上的竞争，以至于创业者之间会迅速陷入日益激烈的竞争，而他们本身几乎都没有意识到这一点。但是，通过竞争对手来确定自己的发展方向，意味着放弃了创业最重要的理由：你可以做一些世界上前所未有、如果没有你就不可能出现的东西。

    问：除了发明一台时间机器，他们如何才能更快深刻体会这些智慧？

    答：我不知道。如何教会人们去做从未有人做过的事情，是一个无解的谜题。正是由于学校往往教导学生遵从某种流程，我才为那些希望在真实世界中学习如何创业的年轻人创办了奖学金——只有这样，他们才能尽早规划自己的发展道路。

    我在斯坦福任教也是出于同样的原因——因为我想告诉学生，他们不需要接受学校教育或竞争对手给他们铺设的道路。从根本上来说，一个人的人生应该由他自己去规划。

    问：有哪些事情是你现在已经知道，但很庆幸当时并不知道的？

    答：如果我知道创新如此艰难，尤其是在支付行业，我恐怕不会创建贝宝。这也是为什么经验丰富的银行从业者中，没人做这件事情。你需要足够天真地认为一件新事物能够成功。结果证明了我的观点：贝宝取得了成功。而如果我积累了更多经验，我肯定会避开风险，从事一些更无聊的事情。所以，现在的年轻人有一种奇怪的技术优势，因为他们没有被洗脑，不会认为现有的方法是不可避免的。

    问：你对有抱负的创业者最好的建议是什么？

    答：最重要的事情很简单：先从小市场开始，占领这个市场。大的市场固然充满诱惑，看起来满是机遇，但大多数机会都会面临许多竞争者。创业者应该聚焦某个特定的问题，集中精力做出一个绝对出色的解决方案。（财富中文网）

    为了更简便易读，采访内容经过编辑。

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Q: How do you think young entrepreneurs might benefit from this insight?

    A:An entrepreneur must deal with more uncertainty than a professional with a well-defined role. Because of that uncertainty, there’s always a temptation to reach out for some kind of guide, whether it’s old business school case studies, or, more likely, the most recent moves of the firms that you perceive to be competitors. Reacting to them can at least give some idea of what to do. We’re so used to competing on tracks that entrepreneurs can quickly get caught up in incremental battles with each other, almost without realizing it. But defining yourself by a competitor means giving up the most important reason to be an entrepreneur: You can do something new in the world that won’t be done unless you are the one to do it.

    Q: Besides inventing a time machine, how might they realize this wisdom sooner?

    A: I don’t know. How to teach people to do what hasn’t been done is a great riddle. It’s because schools tend to breed a kind of process-oriented conformity that I started a fellowship for young people who want to learn by getting something done in the real world — precisely so they can begin charting their own path as early as possible.

    I taught a class at Stanford for the same reason — because I wanted to tell students that they don’t have to accept the paths laid down by their schooling or by their competitors. But fundamentally it’s something people have to figure out for themselves.

    Q: What are you glad you didn’t know then that you know now?

    A:If I had known how hard it would be to do something new, particularly in the payments industry, I would never have started PayPal. That’s why nobody with long experience in banking had done it. You needed to be naive enough to think that new things could be done. And it turned out to be true: PayPal worked. But if I’d had more experience, I’m sure I would have shied away from the risk and done something much more boring. This is one of the reasons that young people can have a strange advantage in technology in that they haven’t yet been brainwashed into thinking that current methods are inevitable.

    Q: What is your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

    A: The most important thing is simple: Start with a small market and dominate that first. Big markets are tempting because they seem full of opportunity but most of that opportunity will be for others to compete with you. Instead focus your ambition on a definitively superior solution to a specific problem.

    This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.