不走寻常路：从女工程师到英国风投女王
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问：你曾说过自己不会为“令人讨厌的人”投资。你如何确定什么样的人是“令人讨厌的”？ 确实如此，但很大程度上，“令人讨厌”是一个主观概念，因此这种观念其实很危险。但在经历了人生的风风雨雨之后，我和我的合伙人得出结论：人生太短暂，不应该在那些令人讨厌的、无礼的甚至粗鲁的人身上浪费时间。我们希望与那些我们愿意与之共处的人合作。 为此，我们采用了人们在面试或招聘时使用的技巧。我们会问一些问题进行试探，尽量获得他们对专业问题和情景化问题的反应。我们还会观察当我们不在房间里或在听力范围之外时，创始人有何表现。对其他人（不论是谁）很粗鲁或不屑一顾的人，会被我们淘汰。 问：但有些“令人讨厌的人”确实建立了成功的公司，不是吗？ 确实有一种理论认为，“令人讨厌的人”或“混蛋”可以成为最成功的创始人和CEO。或许我有些理想主义，过于天真，我认为虽然这些人取得了成功，但如果他们没有这么令人讨厌，或许会更加成功。 我的看法非常简单：一个不令人反感的人，在招聘和吸引优秀的团队成员方面可以做得更成功。而从理论上来说，这些小的成功有助于建立一家更有价值的公司。 问：作为投资者，你目前对哪些行业最感兴趣？ 目前，我最感兴趣的有三个领域：金融技术（为金融公司提供技术的公司）、网络/信息安全和健康科技/医疗科技。并且我真心认为，伦敦/英国的初创公司在这些领域占有优势。 伦敦一直是世界金融中心。英国有政府通信总部（GCHQ）和其他情报机构以及顶尖的大学，在网络/信息安全与情报领域有悠久的历史和深厚的专业知识，此外，尽管人们对英国的国民卫生服务体系褒贬不一，但作为一个集中的“平台”，它可以更有效地利用或开发健康/医疗科技。 问：你是否在资助女性创业者方面做过特殊的努力？ 我一直在积极寻找有实力的创业者——不会去考虑性别或其他人口特征。由于众所周知的原因，我对女性创业者尤其感兴趣。因此，如果有女同胞愿意与我联系、寻求反馈或者兜售她们的创业理念，我都会尽量提供机会。最近这几年，我发现女性创业者越来越多，希望这种趋势能够继续下去。（财富中文网） 本文作者唐纳•芬恩撰写创业类文章已超过三十年。她是两本书的作者：《阿尔法狗：异军突起的行业领袖》（Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack）和《毛头小子创业暴发：美国青少年创业领袖实操笔记》（Upstarts: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business）。她还是《公司杂志》(Inc. Magazine)的特约编辑。 译者：刘进龙/汪皓 审校：任文科 |
Q: You’ve said that you’d rather not invest in “jerks.” How do you determine jerkiness? It’s true and therefore dangerous that “jerk” is largely subjective. However, my partners and I are all at points in our lives where we’ve the luxury to decide that life’s just too short to work with people who we find objectionable, offensive or even plainly rude. We want to work with people with whom we enjoy spending time. To discern this, we’ll employ techniques that anyone uses when they’re trying to interview/recruit candidates to hire. We’ll ask questions to probe and try to get a reaction about professional and situational matters. We’re also paying attention to how founders behave even when we’re not in the room or out of earshot. So if they’re rude or dismissive of other people (no matter who they are), that’s pretty much a non-starter. Q: But don’t some jerks build successful companies? There is indeed a theory that jerks or assholes make the most successful founders/CEOs. It might be idealistic and naive of me, but I’d like to think that as successful as those types of individuals have been, perhaps they could have been even more successful had they not been jerks. I very simplistically believe that one can be more successful at hiring and attracting great team members, partners and customers if they’re not off-putting, offensive or objectionable. Those small successes in theory contribute to building a more valuable business. Q: As an investor, which industries currently excite you the most? At the moment, I’m really excited about three specific sectors: fintech [companies that build technology for financial firms], cyber/infosecurity and healthtech/medtech. Conveniently, I also genuinely believe that startups in London/UK have an advantage in these specific sectors. London has always been one of the financial capitals of the world. Similarly, the UK has a long-standing heritage and deep expertise in cyber/infosecurity and intelligence with GCHQ and other intelligence agencies and strong universities, and finally for all its good and bad aspects, the UK also has the NHS [National Health Service] as a centralized “platform” to leverage or make more efficient. Q: Are you making a special effort to fund women entrepreneurs? I actively seek out strong entrepreneurs — regardless of gender or demographic. For obvious reasons, I take a great interest in women entrepreneurs in particular. Therefore I try to make myself available to anyone who is interested in connecting, getting feedback — or pitching. Over the years I’ve seen more women entrepreneurs emerging and I look forward to this trend continuing. Donna Fenn has been writing about entrepreneurship for more than thirty years. She is the author of two books: Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack; and Upstarts: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business, and a contributing editor at Inc. Magazine. |
