初创企业快速扩张的发展模式越来越遭质疑，没有公认的盈利能力的初创企业将会更难获得现金
WeWork shows why some venture capitalists are in a world of make-believe
Until recently the image of an entrepreneur was of a thrifty workaholic toiling away in a garage. Then came the “founder”, as epitomised by the flowing-haired Adam Neumann of WeWork, an office-subleasing firm dressed up as a tech giant. More emperor than entrepreneur, he wanted not merely to start a business but “elevate the world’s consciousness”. He sought limitless funds. He broke norms. And he generated losses as fast as he raised revenues.
直到前不久，人们印象中的创业家还是那种车库里辛苦工作的节俭工作狂。
但现在，人们迎来了以WeWork的亚当·诺伊曼为代表的、拥有飘逸长发的“创始人”。
WeWork是一家打扮成科技巨头的办公室租赁公司。
比起企业家，诺依曼更像是一个皇帝，不仅想要创业，还要“提高世界的觉悟”。
他寻求无尽的资金，打破规范，与此同时快速地亏损，就如他快速地获得收入一样。
He was not unique. Like other charismatic founders, such as Travis Kalanick, co-creator of Uber, a ride-hailing service, he tripped over his own billion-dollar ego. On September 24th Mr Neumann was ousted as chief executive of WeWork’s parent company, by his board, including his backers at SoftBank, the Japanese group, and its $100bn Vision Fund, which together own 29% of its shares. Days earlier the company’s initial public offering (ipo) was postponed because of weak demand for its shares and the Wall Street Journal reported that he smoked pot on private jets. He will be replaced by two co-chief executives.
像他这样的人不止一个。
如同打车服务公司Uber的联合创始人特拉维斯·卡兰尼克这些魅力超凡的创始人一样，诺伊曼也被数十亿美元的身家冲昏了头脑。
9月24日，诺伊曼被董事会罢免了WeWork母公司首席执行官的职务。
这些董事中还包括他在软银集团的支持者，这家日本公司和它价值1000亿美元的愿景基金总共持有WeWork29%的股份。
早些时候，因为股票需求疲软，WeWork的IPO被迫延期。
据《华尔街日报》报道，诺伊曼在私人飞机上抽大麻。
他将被两名联合CEO取代。
In such cases, attention invariably focuses on the founders’ hubris. Their rise and fall is the stuff of bestsellers. But it is the venture-capital industry that helps spin the invisible yarn that creates the legends. Some of its biggest names, such as SoftBank, have been peddling valuations of companies like WeWork that border on the absurd. In their competition to fund the biggest deals, they have been in thrall to founders’ excesses, rather than providing sober adult supervision. Good, then, that exposure to the dowdy stockmarket is at last knocking sense into Silicon Valley’s moneymen (for they are mostly male).
在这类事情里，人们的注意力总是集中在创始人的傲慢上面。
他们的崛起或陨落是畅销书里常见的内容。
但是，帮助创造这类虚假的传奇故事的却是风投行业。
其中一些知名企业，比如软银，一直在兜售像WeWork这样近乎荒唐的公司。
为了争夺那些大单交易的投资权，他们甘愿屈服于创始人各种任性的要求，而不是提供清醒成熟的监督。
好吧，至少WeWork在准备上市期间所暴露的问题最终给硅谷的投资者们打了一针清醒剂。
The folly begins with a sound idea. Startups need scale to become global champions. Thanks to the internet, ideas spread quickly. Because of network effects, the more people use a service, the better it gets. The fastest-growing firms, like WeWork and Uber, “blitzscale”, meaning they attempt to disrupt a whole industry before anyone can stop them, raising fortunes to acquire users. The pioneers of this, such as Facebook in America and Tencent in China, have become so valuable that everyone wants to emulate their success. At its height this year, WeWork was valued at $47bn, a staggering amount for a company which last year lost $1.9bn on revenues of $1.8bn. That is more than ten times the market capitalisation of iwg, a rival with bigger sales—and a profit to boot.
愚蠢的行为往往源自于听起来不错的想法。
创业公司需要规模效应来成为全球冠军。
有了互联网，想法传播得很快。
由于网络效应，使用某项服务的人越多，这项服务就会越好。
这些快速增长的公司如 WeWork 和Uber在闪电扩张，意味着在其他人阻止他们之前，他们可以破坏整个行业，大量募资以来获取用户。
此法的先行者如美国的Facebook和中国的腾讯，现如今都已价值不菲，以至于每个人都想效仿他们的成功。
WeWork在今年的最高估值是470亿美元，这对一家去年营收18亿但亏损19亿美元的公司来说是一个惊人的数字。
这个估值是其竞争对手iwg市值的十倍，可是后者销售额更高，而且还有利润。
When venture capitalists jostle with each other to write cheques of $100m or more on a daily basis, it goes to a founder’s head. As is now common in Silicon Valley, Mr Neumann demanded more power for himself and his heirs via supervoting rights. He engaged in potential conflicts of interest, listed in the firm’s ipo prospectus. The mountain of venture money available, including from mutual funds, enabled his firm to stay private for nine years, almost three times longer than the average tech startup in 2001. It entrenched bad habits.
风险投资家们争抢着每天写出1亿美元甚至更多的支票，这些钱充满了创始人的头脑。
就像如今在硅谷常见的那样，诺伊曼先生通过超级投票权要求自己和继承人拥有更多的权利。
在公司的ipo招股说明书中，他陷入了潜在的利益冲突。
由于包括共同基金在内的大量风投资金不断输血，WeWork 保持私营身份长达九年，这几乎是2001年普通科技创业公司保持私营时长的三倍。
因此，它养成了坏习惯。
When the firm tried to go ahead with an ipo, it ignored the implicit bargain of the stockmarket: that investors give companies capital in exchange for some influence. Mr Neumann sought to keep absolute control by having shares with ten times the voting rights of other shareholders. Rather than buying into a company run by a messianic overlord with an insatiable demand for cash, investors balked. A red-faced SoftBank lost faith in Mr Neumann. He will lose his majority control (but remain co-chairman).
当WeWork试图IPO时，它忽略了股票市场的隐形规则：
投资者给公司资金，来换得一些对公司的影响力。
而诺伊曼先生试图拥有十倍于其他股东投票权的股份来保持对公司的绝对控制。
对这个现金需求不断、且由狂热的君主所掌管的公司，投资者并没有买入，而是犹豫了。
在这种情况下，丢了面子的软银失去了对诺伊曼的信心。
诺伊曼将失去他的多数控制权（但还会担任联合董事长）。
The saga will have three ripple effects: on fundraising, governance and the wider economy. Startups with no recognisable route to profitability will find it harder to get cash. Even before WeWork’s fiasco the taps were being tightened. In China the average volume of venture-capital deals has fallen from $28bn a quarter last year to $11bn a quarter this year, according to Prequin, a data provider. In America they fell from $32bn in the second quarter to $23bn in the third. Blitzscaling may become a dirty word. Cash-burning firms yet to join the rush to ipos, such as micro-mobility ventures Bird and Lime, may find themselves stranded like their ubiquitous e-scooters. As regulators look increasingly askance at Big Tech, the very notion of blitzscaling raises competition and other concerns, which will make public investors yet more queasy. California’s recent efforts to categorise drivers for gig-economy firms as employees rather than contractors has added to the post-ipo sell-off of Uber and its rival, Lyft.
这一连串的事件将产生三个连锁反应：
分别作用在初创公司筹款，治理和其他更广泛的经济体上。
没有公认的盈利能力的初创企业将会更难获得现金，甚至在WeWork惨败之前，风投资金的水龙头就已经拧紧了。
据数据提供商普瑞奇的数据，中国风投交易的平均金额从去年每季度的280亿美元降到今年每季度的110亿美元。
在美国，这一数字从第二季度的320亿美元降到第三季度的230亿美元。
闪电式扩张可能成为一个禁忌。
尚未IPO还在烧钱的公司——比如电动滑板车企业Bird和Lime——可能会像它们无处不在的滑板车一样陷入困境。
随着监管机构对大科技公司的日渐怀疑，闪电式扩张的概念激起了竞争和其他方面的担忧，这将让公众投资者更加不安。
加利福利亚最近将出行公司的众包司机划为雇员而非临时工，这加剧了Uber和其竞争对手Lyft的股价下跌。
Second, as money dries up, the balance of power may shift from the founders to investors, reducing the tolerance for supervoting shares and crony boards. It will be tough. Governance remains dull as ditchwater in Silicon Valley—until something goes wrong. No one wants to crush a creator’s zeal.
其次，随着资金的枯竭，权力的平衡可能会从偏向创始人转移到偏向投资者，从而降低了对超级投票权和董事会里裙带关系的容忍度。
这会让人很为难。
在硅谷，公司治理如今仍是几乎缺位的，除非出现问题。
没有人愿意粉碎创造者的热情。
Lastly, business at large will feel the impact. It may doom Softbank’s efforts to raise a second $100bn-plus Vision Fund to replicate its earlier one, which invested in companies like Uber and WeWork. Bulge-bracket banks like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which were to lead WeWork’s abortive ipo, may end up looking gullible. Commercial-property markets may wobble as WeWork curbs its appetite for office space. For a while at least, there could be fewer of the breathtaking innovations such as ride-hailing that have transformed cities around the world.
最后，整个企业界都会感到影响。
软银正努力筹集第二笔1000亿美元以上的愿景基金，来复制之前的那一个，该基金用于投资像Uber和WeWork这样的公司，但WeWork的问题可能会给第二次募资蒙上阴影。
那些主导WeWork IPO的华尔街大型投行，如摩根大通和高盛，可能会落得个“容易上当”的形象。
随着WeWork抑制它对办公空间的欲望，商业房地产市场可能会发生波动。
至少在一段时间内，像打车服务这类能变革世界各地城市的惊人创新会越来越少。
WeWill and WeWon’t
我们会做的和我们不会做的
That is not to say entrepreneurs or ipos are gone for good. Shares of newly listed software firms that crank out at least some cash, such as Zoom Video Communications and Datadog, have rocketed this year. Airbnb, a lodging site with positive ebitda, still makes investors swoon. The salutary lesson is that the public markets are doing their job, rewarding firms that generate cash or profits, shunning those that do not. After years in which venture capitalists have cast themselves as infallible arbiters of value, it is good to see public investors shouting when an entrepreneur, for all his chutzpah, has no clothes.
这不是说创业家或者ipo永远消失了。今年，新上市软件公司的股价飙升，比如Zoom 和Datadog，股价飙升，这些公司至少赚到了一些钱。Airbnb作为一家拥有净现金盈利的住宿网站，仍然令投资者着迷。有用的教训是，二级市场正在做好自己的工作，奖励产生现金和利润的公司，而回避那些没有现金和利润的公司。多年来风投家将自己定位为价值的绝对仲裁者，如今令人欣喜的是，当一个肆无忌惮的企业家穿着“皇帝的新衣”招摇过市的时候，大众投资者们能大声指出他没穿衣服。
翻译：
张丹，原载
2019年9月28日《经济学人》
