Day 26: Seven questions that every business must answer
Tuesday
各位书友，今天我们一起阅读《Zero to One》第十三章SEEING GREEN。
Doing something different is what’s truly good for society—and it’s also what allows a business to profit by monopolizing a new market. The best projects are likely to be overlooked, not trumpeted by a crowd; the best problems to work on are often the ones nobody else even tries to solve.
做些与众不同的事情才是真正有益于社会，也是企业通过垄断新市场赢利的方式。最好的项目可能是人们忽视的项目，或没有大肆宣扬的项目；最好的问题是无人尝试解决的问题。
思考问题：
The ambiguity in the word “social” is even more of a problem: if something is “socially good,” is it good for society, or merely seen as good by society?
“社会”一词模棱两可的意义更为问题：如果某事“就社会而言是好的”，那么它是对社会好呢，还是社会认为它是好的？
欢迎各位书友留言，文字语音都可以，中文英文均不限。
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01 SEEING GREEN
AT THE START of the 21st century, everyone agreed that the next big thing was clean technology. It had to be: in Beijing, the smog had gotten so bad that people couldn’t see from building to building—even breathing was a health risk. Bangladesh, with its arsenic-laden water wells, was suffering what the New York Times called “the biggest mass poisoning in history.” In the U.S., Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina were said to be harbingers of the coming devastation from global warming. Al Gore implored us to attack these problems “with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war.” People got busy: entrepreneurs started thousands of cleantech companies, and investors poured more than $50 billion into them. So began the quest to cleanse the world.
21世纪初，人们一致认为接下来的大事件是清洁技术。这必然如此：因为在北京，雾霾非常严重，建筑物间的能见度很低——连呼吸都威胁着健康。孟加拉国，遭受着含砷井水的侵害，《纽约时报》称之为“史上最大的集体中毒事件”。在美国，艾琳和卡特里娜飓风被认为是全球变暖灾难来临的预兆，美国前副总统戈尔呼吁我们解决这些问题：局面如同大战在即一般紧急，必须马上付诸行动。人们开始忙碌起来，企业家们开办了成千上万的清洁技术公司，投资者投入了500多亿美元。清洁世界的探索由此开始。
It didn’t work. Instead of a healthier planet, we got a massive cleantech bubble. Solyndra is the most famous green ghost, but most cleantech companies met similarly disastrous ends—more than 40 solar manufacturers went out of business or filed for bankruptcy in 2012 alone. The leading index of alternative energy companies shows the bubble’s dramatic deflation:
但这些投资徒劳无功。我们创造出一个巨大的清洁技术泡沫，而非健康有益的世界。美国太阳能板生产商Solyndra公司倒闭成为最知名的绿色幽魂，但多数清洁技术公司遭遇了相同的结局——仅2012年一年倒闭破产或申请破产保护的太阳能制造商就有40多家。新能源公司的主要指标表明了泡沫正在快速破灭。
Why did cleantech fail? Conservatives think they already know the answer: as soon as green energy became a priority for the government, it was poisoned. But there really were (and there still are) good reasons for making energy a priority. And the truth about cleantech is more complex and more important than government failure.
为什么清洁技术惨遭失败？保守派认为他们已经知道了答案：一旦绿色能源成为政府要务，整个产业就一定会被扭曲。但过去有理由（现在也同样有理由）是能源成为重中之重。清洁技术失败的实际情况远比政府失灵复杂得多，也重要得多。
Most cleantech companies crashed because they neglected one or more of the seven questions that every business must answer:
多数能源公司折戟是因为至少忽略了以下7个问题之一，而这些问题是每个公司必须回答的：
1. The Engineering Question
Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?
2. The Timing Question
Is now the right time to start your particular business?
3. The Monopoly Question
Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
4. The People Question
Do you have the right team?
5. The Distribution Question
Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product?
6. The Durability Question
Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future?
7. The Secret Question
Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?
1.工程问题：
你的技术具有突破性，而不仅仅是稍有改进吗？
2.时机问题：
现在开创事业，时机合适吗？
3.垄断问题：
开创之初，是在一个小市场抢占大份额吗？
4.人员问题：
你有合适的团队吗？
5.销售问题：
除了创造产品，你有没有办法销售产品？
6.持久问题：
未来10年或20年，你能保住自己的市场地位吗？
7.秘密问题：
你有没有找到一个其他人没有发现的独特机会？
We’ve discussed these elements before. Whatever your industry, any great business plan must address every one of them. If you don’t have good answers to these questions, you’ll run into lots of “bad luck” and your business will fail. If you nail all seven, you’ll master fortune and succeed. Even getting five or six correct might work. But the striking thing about the cleantech bubble was that people were starting companies with zero good answers—and that meant hoping for a miracle.
我们之前已经讨论过这些因素。无论从事哪个行业，成功的企业规划都必须解决这些问题。若你不能给出好的答案，变回厄运连连，最终公司倒闭。若7个问题你都能解决好，那你一定会获得成功。即使只解决好五六个问题，你也能取得成功。然而，清洁技术泡沫的明显问题在于清洁技术类初创公司创办时没有回答好上述任何一个问题——这意味着期待奇迹的出现。
It’s hard to know exactly why any particular cleantech company failed, since almost all of them made several serious mistakes. But since any one of those mistakes is enough to doom your company, it’s worth reviewing cleantech’s losing scorecard in more detail.
很难确切解释某一清洁技术公司失败的缘由，因为几乎所有的公司都犯了几个严重的错误。而任何一个错误都足以毁掉公司，所以值得仔细回顾其失败的原因。
02 THE MYTH OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
公益创业的神话
Cleantech entrepreneurs aimed for more than just success as most businesses define it. The cleantech bubble was the biggest phenomenon—and the biggest flop—in the history of “social entrepreneurship.” This phianthropic approach to business starts with the idea that corporations and nonprofits have until now been polar opposites: corporations have great power, but they’re shackled to the profit motive; nonprofits pursue the public interest, but they’re weak players in the wider economy. Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.
清洁技术公司不只想追求多数企业定义的成功。清洁技术泡沫还是“公益创业”史上最大的风潮，也是最大的失败。这种行善的经商之道源于认为营利企业和非营利组织截然相反的想法：企业有很大的影响力，但受获利动机的控制；非营利组织追求公共利益，却是更大经济体中的弱势玩家。公益创业旨在结合两者精华，并“借由做好事以促成功”，但通常两方面都做不到，最终以失败而告终。
The ambiguity between social and financial goals doesn’t help. But the ambiguity in the word “social” is even more of a problem: if something is “socially good,” is it good for society, or merely seen as good by society? Whatever is good enough to receive applause from all audiences can only be conventional, like the general idea of green energy.
将社会和经济目标混同，起不到任何作用。而“社会”一词的歧义就更成问题了：如果某事“就社会而言是好的”，那么它是对社会好呢，还是社会认为它是好的？不管是哪种好，好到能够赢得所有人喝彩的必然是很传统的共识，比如有关绿色能源的一般看法。
Progress isn’t held back by some difference between corporate greed and nonprofit goodness; instead, we’re held back by the sameness of both. Just as corporations tend to copy each other, nonprofits all tend to push the same priorities. Cleantech shows the result: hundreds of undifferentiated products all in the name of one overbroad goal.
阻碍进步的不是企业的贪婪与非营利组织的善良之间的差异，而是做一样的事。企业往往互相效仿，非营利组织优先推动的事情也都相同。清洁技术公司揭示出了这个结果：几百种毫无差异的产品都是在同一个过于宽泛的目标下生产出来的。
本月共读《Zero to One》英文版
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☞ 领读达人：刘亚南，英语共读负责人，85后
☞ 主播：熊叔，别人说我英语讲得像母语，是个美国人，我笑~谁说不出国门就学不会地道美语?，别人说我拥有TESOL国际教师资格证~，我笑~自己只是个教书的逗比小光头罢了。
☞ 设计：刘莹
☞ 编校：陈珺洁