经济学人财经 || 软银之后，风投何去何从？
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感谢思维导图作者May Li
May Li，我要去追逐心中的太阳，北大临床心理备考中
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VC after SoftBank
软银之后，风投何去何从？
英文部分选自经济学人20191102Finance and economics版块
VC after SoftBank
软银之后，风投何去何从？
What happens when the wellspring of the best business ideas meets too much money
当源源不断的绝佳商业创意遇上蜂拥而至的投资资金，会碰撞出什么火花？
Dealmakers are smooth talkers. They need to be. But which branch of finance has the slickest ones? Consider the polished, public-school manner of the City investment banker—or the high-velocity spiel of the Wall Street bank boss. Both have a strong claim. But the venture capitalists, or vcs, of Silicon Valley have a stronger one. They spend their time either being pitched to by, or pitching on behalf of, entrepreneurs who hope to be the next Zuck or Larry-and-Sergey. Peddlers of such extravagant dreams have to have silver tongues.
职业使然，交易撮合者普遍口齿伶俐。但金融领域里究竟谁最能说会道？是那些衣着光鲜、举止得体的顶尖投行家，还是高谈阔论的华尔街银行老板？两者旗鼓相当。而硅谷的风险投资人却更胜一筹。他们平日就是与那些希望成为下一个扎克伯格或拉里和谢尔盖的企业家们打交道，听他们谈论创业项目（听他们吹牛），或帮他们推销项目（帮他们吹牛）。兜售如此宏大的梦想，能说会道是必须的。
注：
1.Zuck：Mark Elliot Zuckerberg，脸书创始人扎克伯格。Facebook的早期投资者Accel Partners 和 Breyer Capital，在2005年各投了1270万美元，拿到了当时叫“Thefacebook”公司15%的股权。
2.Larry-and-Sergey：Lawrence Edward Page （Larry Page）and Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin（Sergey Brin），谷歌两大创始人。1998年9月，25岁的Page和24岁的Brin决定合伙开个公司，公司提供的唯一服务就是搜索引擎。两人在对商业计划一无所知的情况下就从斯坦福校友、思科公司的现任副总裁贝托尔斯海姆那里顺利地拿到了第一笔投资：10万美元，从此开始谷歌的征程。
3.Pitch：音高，投掷、投标、推销。If someone makes a pitch for something, they try to persuade people to do or buy it. 游说。Pitchbook项目建议书。
4.Peddler：小贩、传播者。one who peddles: 1.one who offers merchandise (such as fresh produce) for sale along the street or from door to door 2.one who deals in or promotes something intangible (such as a personal asset or an idea)
5.Silver tongue： an expression used to describe a person who has a clever way with words.
They certainly have some catchy phrases. They speak of “vanity metrics” (misleading measures of a startup’s progress); of the importance of “product-market fit” (how well a piece of software meets the customer’s needs); and “deal heat”, the fever that causes investors to overpay. After a while even a normally buttoned-up Buttonwood is asking to “double-click” on a topic when he wants more detail from a voluble vc.
风险投资人善用一些夺人眼球的表述。比如谈论“虚荣指标”（对初创公司经营发展情况的误导性衡量指标）、“产品与市场契合度”（软件满足客户需求的程度）的重要性以及“交易冲动”（投资人愿意支付溢价的热度）。被这些信息狂轰滥炸后，即使是平常不露声色的华尔街投资人也会对个中话题产生兴趣，想从健谈的风险投资人那里了解更多的细节。
注：
1.Vanity metrics：measurements and calculations that are designed to be impressive as opposed to actionable or relevant to core business goals such as revenue and operating margins. They tend to include things like pages views of a website that produce big numbers that don’t necessarily result in revenue. It is also common for vanity metrics to highlight a growth rate from a low starting number. As an extreme example, if the downloads of an app rise from 2 to 4, you can claim a 100% growth rate.( source:https://simplicable.com/new/vanity-metrics)
2.Buttoned-up：守口如瓶的，沉默寡言的
A subject guaranteed to Get Them Talking is the flood of capital into Silicon Valley. In the popular metaphor, the vc business used to consist of a flotilla of small boats fishing in a well-stocked lake. It was all very collegial. Now the lake is an ocean. Trawlers are out there—big institutions, such as sovereign-wealth funds and pension-fund managers, that increasingly invest directly in technology firms before they reach public markets. The abundance of capital has made the vc game more competitive. It has also distorted the market for privately held firms.
令风险投资人滔滔不绝的话题之一是源源不断涌入硅谷的资本。用通俗的比喻来说，风投行业过去好比是一队在储量丰富湖中捕鱼的小船。过去风投机构彼此之间的做法都很和谐。如今湖泊变海洋，小船换渔船——大型机构投资者，如主权财富基金和养老基金资产管理公司越来越偏好直接投资科技公司而非等其进入二级公开市场之后。资本充足使得风投间竞争更为激烈，同时也扭曲了非上市公司市场（一级市场）。
注：
1.flotilla /fləˈtɪlə/
可数名词 A flotilla is a group of small ships, usually military ships. 小型舰队
2.collegial：used to describe a method of working in which responsibility is shared between several people.同事间气氛融洽的, （用来形容）分工协作、共同承担责任的工作方式。
3.Trawlers [ˈtrɔːlə(r)] 拖网渔船
4. sovereign-wealth funds
主权财富（Sovereign Wealth）基金，与私人财富相对应，是指一国政府通过特定税收与预算分配、可再生自然资源收入和国际收支盈余等方式积累形成的，由政府控制与支配的，通常以外币形式持有的公共财富。
5.扩展阅读:
全球最大的5个主权财富基金，及其投资组合
https://m.baidu.com/s?from=1012852y&word=%E4%B8%BB%E6%9D%83%E8%B4%A2%E5%AF%8C%E5%9F%BA%E9%87%91
That new firms are staying private for longer is both a cause and a consequence of this change. The deeper reasons for the shift are debated. Some vc types put it all down to regulations that made it costlier to become a public company and easier to remain a private one. Others place more weight on the changing nature of new firms, which need less capital than they once did, both to start and to grow. The building blocks for business software or smartphone apps are freely available as open-source code. Computing power can be leased. The result is a shift in the balance of power from suppliers of capital towards entrepreneurs, who want to be spared the scrutiny of public markets.
初创公司选择维持私有化时间更长既是此种转变带来的因，同时也是果。更深层的原因仍存在争议。一些风险投资人完全将其归咎于高额的监管/合规成本，公司宁可维持简单的私有化而不选择上市。另一些人则更倾向归因于初创公司自身性质的改变，无论是处于初始还是发展阶段，其所需资金都比以往要少。因为软件或智能手机应用程序开发都可直接免费套用开源第三方库和代码；算力也能够租用。其结果就是打破原有平衡，话语权从资本方转向了那些想要免除公开市场审查的企业家们。
Perhaps a more important shift than the fall in demand for capital has been a steady rise in its supply. The secular slump in long-term interest rates, caused in part by abundant savings, was given an extra shove after the financial crisis by central banks’ easy-money policies. Yields on listed stocks have fallen, too. The venturesome, noting the boom in the share prices of tech stocks, moved into pre-ipo financing in search of higher returns. Sums that not so long ago could only be raised through a stock-exchange listing are now routinely raised privately.
比起对资本需求的减少，资本供给持续增长带来的转变似乎更为显著。曾一定程度上因为大量储蓄，且利率长期维持在较低水平，而金融危机后央行的货币宽松政策进一步推动了利率下跌。上市股票的收益率也降低了。注意到科技股股价大涨的风投们纷纷选择在上市前融资阶段进行布局以期更高回报。从而发展成不久前只能通过公开发行股票募集资金现在都以私募形式进行。
注：
1. Secular adj.长期性的
2. Slump n.猛然严重下降，低潮期
3. Shove n.猛推，挤
One consequence has been a fall in the number of listed companies. By the time a tech startup goes public, its days of supercharged revenue growth may be over. This fear only fuels desperation to get in on the act sooner. There is much shaking of VC heads about the participation of institutions based back East in even the early funding rounds for new tech firms. VCs pride themselves on pastoral care: the support, expertise and contacts they provide to fledgling firms. What do “tourists” from Boston and New York bring, apart from their big cheques?
这造成的后果之一就是上市公司的数量减少了。等到一家科技初创公司上市时，其收入高速增长的日子可能已经结束了。这种担忧只会促使风投抓紧行动（提早投资）。当美东投资机构（如华尔街）甚至开始介入初创科技公司的早期融资时，美西风投巨头（如硅谷）开始费解。风投凭借对创业者的精神关照而自豪：他们为初创企业提供帮助、专业知识以及人脉资源。而来自波士顿和纽约的“游客们”（美东投资机构）除了大额支票又带来了什么呢？
注：
1. Supercharged adj.超动力的
2. Pastoral adj.牧师的 pastoral care 引申为精神上的关怀
As more and more money crams into Silicon Valley, valuations inevitably become inflated. Last month WeWork, an office-sharing firm, was forced to pull its ipo when public investors balked at the price tag. A bail-out by SoftBank, WeWork’s main backer and a writer of big cheques more generally, valued the firm at $8bn. Yet a funding round in January put the firm’s value at $47bn. “The damage done by SoftBank is incalculable,” says one Silicon Valley bigwig. “If you make a firm go faster, it does unnatural things.” There is a growing sense that capital is being wasted. “Businesses that shouldn’t be funded are getting funded,” says another vc. Sales and marketing budgets are swollen. Firms lose track of whether their product is any good.
随着越来越多的资本涌入硅谷，企业的估值也不可避免地随之飞涨。就在上个月，主打共享办公空间的Wework被迫推迟上市，因为公众投资者对其发行价望而却步。日本软银是Wework的最大买家和支持者，软银近期宣布了Wework“救助方案”，方案中Wework估值仅区区80亿美金。而对比今年1月那轮注资，Wework估值曾一度飙升至470亿美元。硅谷的一位资深人士说到：“软银造成的损失是无法估量的。如果让一家公司走得太快，它就会做出一些反常的事。”越来越多的人意识到，资本正在被浪费。另一位风投人士表示“一些本不应该得到资金的项目也处于融资中。”同时，市场营销方面的预算正在膨胀。众多企业失去了评判自身产品好坏的风向标。
注：
1. bail-out:口语化的非正式经济术语，意指出面拯救一个企业或是国家免于破产，或防止金融危机蔓延的手段或计划，流行于02008年金融危机后。
2. 在Wework上市失败后，软银最终决定继续向wework提供100亿美元用以纾困。
3. Lose track of: 失去消息，没有把握好。失去
Nevertheless a general view is that it will take something dramatic—a meltdown in tech stocks or a sharp rise in interest rates—to scare the money from Silicon Valley. Big dreams are part of venture capitalism. Everyone fishing in these crowded waters still hopes to land a whale. Look at it another way, says a vc. In 2012 Facebook paid $1bn for Instagram, a firm that had 13 employees and was not yet two years old. That seemed profligate, he says. But with the benefit of hindsight, Facebook underpaid.
虽然主流观点认为需要通过一次大变革来吓跑硅谷的资本，比如一场科技股集体暴跌或是短期大幅升息。但是伟大的梦想本就是风投不可或缺的一部分啊。在这片拥挤的水域，每一个捕鱼者仍希望能捕到鲸鱼。一位风投人士说道：何不换种方式来看待。例如，2012年Facebook 花了10亿美元买下彼时只有13名员工，成立不到两载的Instagram。这在那时看起来简直是挥霍，但事后来看，Facebook当初花的钱相比如今所得实在是太少了。
注：
1. Meltdown：n. 灾难, 暴跌，熔化
2. Profligate：adj. 放荡的，不检点的；恣意挥霍的
翻译组：
Vivian，女，金融硕士，爱潜水爱运动
Vivifang，女，外币债券交易员，经济学人粉丝
Ashley，女，金融硕士，爱宠物 爱英语，爱旅游，经济学人粉丝
Summer（琚儿），女，QE在职，梦想能仗翻译/音乐 /健康走天涯
校对组：
Emily，食物链底端金融民工，经济学人粉丝
Martina，女，谷歌广告从业者，爱电影爱生活，爱金融经济
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观点|评论|思考
本期感想
Alan，男，金融工程硕士，经济学人粉丝
这篇文章讨论了为什么越来越多的新科技公司选择成为私人企业而不是上市，文章认为一方面是科技公司对于资金的需求变少了因为代码都开源了网络服务都可以一整套租赁而不是自己从头到底全都自己要弄一遍，另一方面文章觉得更是因为资金的供给变多了，因为科技公司在上市之后估值增加要比在前面几轮融资过程中估值翻翻来的难得多，所以很多风投都越来越多抢在前期给钱，而这又反过来导致了硅谷不的公司缺钱选择成为私人公司（原理就是索罗斯的反身性理论啊……）。
其实越来越多的公司选择不上市成为私有公司，说明这些公司不缺钱、议价能力变高了。上市之后会面对各种各样的监管以及机构投资者每季度例行公司经营状况问询的狂轰滥炸。大多数企业都是职业经理人在管理公司所以对这一套比较能应付，但是科技企业的管理者大多数就是公司创始人，技术出身拥有愿景怀抱梦想觉得科技改变世界又没有经历过商业金融知识洗礼，面对一群在他眼里东海岸的只会白天起来疏个大油头在顾客面前吹嘘满身做作不能静心思考问题的人，而且是每季度都要应付的时候往往是很抵触的，这方面的典型就是特斯拉的义隆马斯克去年还因为声称会把特斯拉私有化而被美国SEC罚了2000万美金并且被迫辞去董事长一职才达成和解，另外马斯克的特斯拉饱受二级市场上被做空之苦，而科技公司在这方面遭受做空也比其他公司频繁。
私人企业不用面临监管和信息披露每年还能剩下几百万合规审计等费用，不用面对机构投资者的每季度狂轰滥炸，不用面对二级市场上的做空，并且在公司做大之后聘请的一些高管也不再需要给他们和公司股票挂钩的期权，这些都让公司能成长得更加稳健。（给高管期权虽然一定程度上消除了代理人成本但是会激励高管采取激进的短期扩张策略）另外私人企业还能把帐往低了做省税，上市企业就不行不得不把帐往高了做因为业绩低了股东们会不高兴要撤换高管，但结果就是税高了。
科技公司的核心文化是以工程师为核心开展工作辅以有远见卓识的产品经理人，比如沃兹尼亚克+乔布斯这样的组合。私人企业虽然不用面临监管，但同时监管其实也在督促企业保持进取，而私人企业就没有这种督促，全凭创始人团队的一腔热情抱负，但是如果哪一天创始人一觉醒来这种理想抱负消退了，却很难找到可以替代他的产品经理人，而且私人企业的架构也没有来自股东们的压力让公司时刻紧盯业绩利润，这个时候把堵住全压在创始人的鸿图抱负上恐怕就得不偿失了。
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