英语视频：精益创业之父明尼苏达理工毕业致辞

Now we tell the truth.There’s a big difference between being an employee at a great company and having the guts to start one.You don’t get grades for resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. But you do get successful.The downside of starting something new is that it’s tough,because unlike the movies – you fail a lot. For every Facebook and Google, thousands never make it.Like Rocket Science Games, which was my biggest failure. 90 days after showing up on the cover of Wired Magazine I knew the game company where I raised 35 million dollars was going out business.We’d believed our own press, inhaled our own fumes and built lousy games. Customers voted with their wallets and didn’t buy our products. The company went out of business. Given the press we had, it was a very public failure.We let our customers, our investors, and our employees down. I thought my career and my life were over.But I learned something important, that in Silicon Valley, honest failure is a badge of experience.All of you will fail at some time in your career…or in love, or in life. No one ever sets out to fail. But being afraid to fail means you’ll be afraid to try. Playing it safe will get you nowhere.As it turns out, rather than run me out of town, the two venture capitalists that had lost $12 million in my failed startup actually asked me to work with them again.And during the next couple years…and much humbler… I raised more money and started another company that we were ultimately able to take public, and those patient investors more than made up for their earlier loss – about billion times more.

　　这是实话。能进入优秀的公司，并不代表你有胆量创办公司。因为学校无法给毅力、机智、好奇心、观察能力打分，但这并不妨碍你们毕业。创业的风险很高，这不是电影，不可能一帆风顺。Facdbook和Google背后是无数倒闭的公司，就像我那失败的游戏公司一样。尽管筹集了3500万，还上了《连线》杂志的封面，公司最后还是倒闭了。我们过于自负，以为用户会买媒体的账，结果开发的游戏无人问津。我不仅失败了，而且还“声名扫地”。公司员工、投资者、用户大失所望。我几乎以为自己无路可走了。但是我吸取了教训，接受失败才能积累经验，每个人都会遇到挫折。生活挫折、事业挫折、感情挫折，大家都不愿意失败。但是害怕失败意味着害怕尝试，畏首畏尾终将一事无成。后来，我的两位投资人坚持继续与我合作，尽管我让他们损失了1200万美元几年后，我创办的另一家公司成功上市，为投资者带来了丰厚的回报。

　　As scientists and engineers, you know about failure. You know that virtually no experiment works the first time. And here is the news, a new company all you have is a series of untested hypotheses. You learned something vital in school,to test your hypotheses by designing experiments, getting accurate data, analyzing the results, and then modifying those hypotheses based on those results. This is the scientific method, and surprisingly we just discovered the exact same method works for startups.Because failure is a part of the startup process. In Silicon Valley, we have a special word for a failed entrepreneur – it’s called experienced. Our country and our entrepreneurial culture is one of second and third chances.It’s what makes us great. You don’t have to change your name or leave town. Entrepreneurs in America know that they get multiple shots at the goal.Now someday several of you in this graduating class will be worth a $100 million dollars. And a few of you might change the way the world works.

　　作为理工科学生，你们对失败并不陌生，没有哪个试验第一次就能成功。新公司除了创意和假设，什么都没有。你们在学校学会了很重要的东西，设计实验来验证假设，收集数据，分析结果，根据结果修正假设。这种科研方法正是创业者必备的。因为创业公司必须在失败中学习。在硅谷，失败是宝贵的经验。我们的文化对失败者特别宽容。这是我们的优势，失败者不必隐姓埋名、远走他乡。失败了可以卷土重来，要知道你们当中有些人会成为亿万富翁，有些人会改变世界。

　　I want you to look around. Seriously …Go ahead. Take a few seconds and take a look… Go ahead, I’ll wait.While most of you were looking around wondering who were the three people was going to be worth 100 million dollars, I hope a few of you were feeling sorry for the rest of your classmates, knowing that the most successful person in the audience is going to be you.These days I write a blog about entrepreneurship. At the end of each post, I conclude with “lessons learned”a kind of Cliff Notes of my key takeaways. 

　　请大家看看周围的同学，仔细观察一下。还有时间，大多数人都在猜谁会成为亿万富翁。但是少数人会暗自窃喜。他们知道那个人就是自己。我一直坚持写有关创业的博客。每篇博客结尾都有一个小结，就像要点回顾。

　　So that’s how I’ll finish up today.Here are the two lessons that I’d like to pass on to you.Your science or engineering degree gives you tremendous choices you, and no one else gets to decide two things:

　　这里我也做个小结，作为今天的结尾。理工科教育背景为你们提供了更多选择，但你们必须决定两件事

　　one, whether you choose to be or you choose to do

　　第一，是替人打工，还是独立创业

　　and whether you “work to live” or whether you “live to work”

　　第二，是为生活而工作，还是为工作而生活

　　Remember… live your life with no regrets. There’s no undo button.

　　记住，世上没有后悔药，不要让生命留下遗憾

　　And Congratulations — you’ve earned it!

　　恭喜你们顺利毕业

　　Thank you very much.

　　谢谢大家。