根據Paul Graham的簡歷，他是一個計算機博士，一個程式設計師，一個風險投資家。
但是，在我眼裡，他其實是一個思想家。他的很多觀點深刻地啟發了我。
比如，他說，程式設計師就是當今時代的手工藝人，其他行業的人都必須依附於流水線的工業化生產才能謀生，只有程式設計師可以靠個人的手藝謀生。再比如，他說，網際網路公司就像蚊子，唯一的競爭優勢就是數量多，作為種族可以生存下來，作為個體九死一生。
我一直想翻譯他的文章，下面就是他去年10月寫的《未來的網際網路創業》。全文分兩次貼出，我覺得有啟發的話，都加上了黑體。
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The Future of web startups
未來的網際網路創業
作者：Paul Graham
譯者：阮一峰
原文網址：http://www.paulgraham.com/webstartups.html
October 2007
2007年10月
(This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007.)
（本文根據作者在2007年10月Future of Web Apps 會議上的主題演講改編而成）
There's something interesting happening right now. Startups are undergoing the same transformation that technology does when it becomes cheaper.
眼下有一件有趣的事情正在發生。初創公司正在經歷著一種轉變，它很像發生在成本降低時期的技術轉變。
It's a pattern we see over and over in technology. Initially there's some device that's very expensive and made in small quantities. Then someone discovers how to make them cheaply; many more get built; and as a result they can be used in new ways.
這種轉變，我們在技術領域已經一再見到。一開始，新裝置非常昂貴，只能小批量生產。然後，有人發現了降低成本的方法，生產數量開始增加。最終，這種裝置找到新的用途。
Computers are a familiar example. When I was a kid, computers were big, expensive machines built one at a time. Now they're a commodity. Now we can stick computers in everything.
電腦是一個大家熟悉的例子。當我還是孩子的時候，電腦體積巨大，價格昂貴，一次只能生產一臺。現在，電腦只是一種普通商品，我們可以把電腦附加在所有東西上。
This pattern is very old. Most of the turning points in economic history are instances of it. It happened to steel in the 1850s, and to power in the 1780s. It happened to cloth manufacture in the thirteenth century, generating the wealth that later brought about the Renaissance. Agriculture itself was an instance of this pattern.
這種模式已經有很長曆史了。在經濟史中，可以找到許多例子，關於技術變遷的轉折點。比如，19世紀50年代的鋼鐵，18世紀80年代的發電。13世紀的紡織業，正是紡織業產生的財富，帶來了文藝復興。農業本身也是一個例子。
Now as well as being produced by startups, this pattern is happening to startups. It's so cheap to start web startups that orders of magnitudes more will be started. If the pattern holds true, that should cause dramatic changes.
現在，初創企業也在經歷這種模式，或者說這種模式正在影響初創企業。因為網際網路創業的成本如此之低，所以初創企業的數目將呈指數式增長。
1. Lots of Startups
1. 無數的創業者
So my first prediction about the future of web startups is pretty straightforward: there will be a lot of them. When starting a startup was expensive, you had to get the permission of investors to do it. Now the only threshold is courage.
關於未來的網際網路創業，我的第一個預言很簡單：無數人將會創業。以前創業很昂貴，你不得不找到投資人才能創業。而現在，唯一的門檻就是勇氣。
Even that threshold is getting lower, as people watch others take the plunge and survive. In the last batch of startups we funded, we had several founders who said they'd thought of applying before, but weren't sure and got jobs instead. It was only after hearing reports of friends who'd done it that they decided to try it themselves.
甚至就連這個門檻也正在變得更低，因為人們不斷看到周圍其他人創業成功。在上一批我們資助的初創企業中，有幾個創始人說，他們以前就想創業，但是下不了決心，不敢放棄現在的工作。只有當他們看到朋友們創業成功，他們才下決心親自創業。
Starting a startup is hard, but having a 9 to 5 job is hard too, and in some ways a worse kind of hard. In a startup you have lots of worries, but you don't have that feeling that your life is flying by like you do in a big company. Plus in a startup you could make much more money.
創業是艱難的，但是一份早9晚5的工作也是艱難的，在某種意義上，甚至比創業還艱難。你自己開公司，你會因為很多事情擔驚受怕，但是你不會感到虛度生命，在一家大公司裡打工，常常會有這種感覺。而且，創業可能會使得你掙來多得多的錢。
As word spreads that startups work, the number may grow to a point that would now seem surprising.
當越來越多的人相信創業是可行的，初創企業的數目就將增長到一個現在的人們會感到難以置信的程度。
We now think of it as normal to have a job at a company, but this is the thinnest of historical veneers. Just two or three lifetimes ago, most people in what are now called industrialized countries lived by farming. So while it may seem surprising to propose that large numbers of people will change the way they make a living, it would be more surprising if they didn't.
眼下，我們覺得有一份工作是正常的生活模式，但是這是最不可靠的歷史假象。在現在所謂的工業化國家裡，僅僅二三代人之前，大多數人都是靠務農為生。如果將來許許多多人改變謀生的方式，這也許會令人感到驚訝，但是如果沒有發生這種改變，會令人感到更驚訝。
2. Standardization
2. 標準化
When technology makes something dramatically cheaper, standardization always follows. When you make things in large volumes you tend to standardize everything that doesn't need to change.
當技術極大地降低一件東西的成本之後，標準化就會接踵而至。當你大批量生產某種東西，你就會將那些固定不變的部分標準化。
At Y Combinator we still only have four people, so we try to standardize everything. We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing.
在我的風險投資公司中，我們現在還是隻有4個人。所以，我們試著將一切都標準化。我們可以僱用更多的人，但是我們想強迫自己，找到有效投資的方法。
We often tell startups to release a minimal version one quickly, then let the needs of the users determine what to do next. In essense, let the market design the product. We've done the same thing ourselves. We think of the techniques we're developing for dealing with large numbers of startups as like software. Sometimes it literally is software, like Hacker News and our application system.
我們經常告訴創業者，儘快地釋出一個最簡版本，然後讓使用者的需求決定下一步該做什麼。從根本上，讓市場設計產品。我們自己也是這樣做的。我們想象自己，正在開發一種處理大量創業者的技術，就像開發軟體一樣。有時，它確實就是軟體，比如Hacker News和我們的風險投資申請系統。
One of the most important things we've been working on standardizing are investment terms. Till now investment terms have been individually negotiated. This is a problem for founders, because it makes raising money take longer and cost more in legal fees. So as well as using the same paperwork for every deal we do, we've commissioned generic angel paperwork that all the startups we fund can use for future rounds.
我們正在著手標準化的最重要的事情之一，就是投資條款。到目前為止，投資條款都是一對一商定的。這對創業者來說，是一個麻煩，因為它使得融資週期更長，法律費用也更多。我們對每一個交易都使用同樣的檔案，我們還授權讓我們資助的創業公司，將通用的融資檔案用於以後的融資。
Some investors will still want to cook up their own deal terms. Series A rounds, where you raise a million dollars or more, will be custom deals for the forseeable future. But I think angel rounds will start to be done mostly with standardized agreements. An angel who wants to insert a bunch of complicated terms into the agreement is probably not one you want anyway.
一些投資人依然堅持制定個性化的投資條款。在可預見的未來，成熟期的企業在融資100萬以上美元時，仍然需要個性化的合同。但是我想，早期的天使投資合同，大部分都將使用標準化合同。一個想在協議中插入一大堆複雜條款的天使投資人，可能根本不是你需要的那種投資人。
3. New Attitude to Acquisition
3. 對待併購的新態度
Another thing I see starting to get standardized is acquisitions. As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone.
另一件我看到正在標準化的是併購交易。當大量的初創企業出現後，大公司開始發展一套標準化程式，使得併購就好像僱用一個人那樣簡單。
Google is the leader here, as in so many areas of technology. They buy a lot of startups-- more than most people realize, because they only announce a fraction of them. And being Google, they're figuring out how to do it efficiently.
Google是這方面的領導者，正如它是很多技術領域的領導者一樣。它買進了許多初創公司----比大多數人意識到的還要多，因為google只公開了其中一部分的交易。站在Google管理者的角度，他們會考慮如何使併購更有效。
One problem they've solved is how to think about acquisitions. For most companies, acquisitions still carry some stigma of inadequacy. Companies do them because they have to, but there's usually some feeling they shouldn't have to--that their own programmers should be able to build everything they need.
他們已經解決的一個問題，就是如果看待併購。對於大多數公司，併購意味著自身有缺陷。那些進行併購的公司，往往是因為不得不如此。他們會有一種感覺，覺得本來可以避免併購的，覺得內部的程式設計師應該能夠開發出他們需要的任何東西。
Google's example should cure the rest of the world of this idea. Google has by far the best programmers of any public technology company. If they don't have a problem doing acquisitions, the others should have even less problem. However many Google does, Microsoft should do ten times as many.
Google的例子對整個有這種想法的世界，是一帖解藥。Google有著比任何上市公司多得多的優秀程式設計師。如果連Google都覺得併購沒有什麼不好意思的，那麼其他人就更不應該感到不好意思了。說實話，同Google的併購數量相比，微軟的併購數量本應該多十倍的。
One reason Google doesn't have a problem with acquisitions is that they know first-hand the quality of the people they can get that way. Larry and Sergey only started Google after making the rounds of the search engines trying to sell their idea and finding no takers. They've been the guys coming in to visit the big company, so they know who might be sitting across that conference table from them.
Google沒有對併購感到不好意思的一個原因是，他們很清楚地知道，通過這種方式，他們得到的人才的質量。Google的創始人Larry和Sergey，之所以會創立Google，是因為他們向其他搜尋引擎兜售他們的想法，結果都遭到拒絕。他們的這種拜訪大公司的經歷，使得他們知道坐在會議桌另一頭的人，可能有著什麼樣的質量。
（未完待續）