如果你还年轻，该如何思考未来？——这篇请至少阅读3遍

原文来自硅谷第一孵化器 YC 的 CEO Sam 的 blog 。这是我看到的关于年轻人如何思考未来最好的建议，没有之一。我唯一补充的建议就是：

如果你还年轻，阅读三遍！

As a kid, I just sort of took for granted that stuff got better every year—TVs got bigger and then thinner, cars got a little faster, and computers got unbelievably better on an exponential curve.

孩子的时候，我想当然地认为，每年都会越来越好——电视越来越大，越来越薄，汽车越来越快，电脑以指数曲线的速度变好。

As an adult, I realized that the future is not guaranteed to be better. The default is that things stay the same (or get worse because we continue to create new problems and occasionally get in wars). The world only gets better if committed people with strong visions about the future work hard to make it better.

作为一个成年人，我意识到未来不能保证更好。正常的情况是，事情保持不变（或变得更糟，因为我们不断创造新的问题，偶尔还爆发战争）。只有那些对未来报有强烈愿景和坚定信念的人努力使它更好，世界才会变得更好。

It’s easy to get caught up in the moving sidewalk of a career and end up deeply involved in something that does not maximize your potential. It’s never too late to change, and it’s always good to be thoughtful about the path you’re on and how to best use your time.

人很容易陷入职业生涯的岔道，忙忙碌碌于那些不能最大发挥你潜力的东西。做出改变永远都不晚，你应该充分的思考清楚你现在的这条职业道路，以及如何最好地利用你的时间。

I made some notes before my brother Jack interviewed me for How to Build the Future, where I mostly talked about how ambitious young people should think about their careers. I thought I’d clean those up to share for the New Year. Here they are.

我的兄弟 Jack 要就“如何构建未来”这个话题采访我，我准备了一些提要笔记，主要讨论雄心勃勃的年轻人应该如何思考他们的职业生涯。新年来了，我把这些内容整理了一下，分享出来。

I think the best way to pick what you want to do is to find the intersection of what you’re good at, what you enjoy, what the world needs, and what the world values.

我认为，选择你想做的工作最好的方法是找到三者的交集：你擅长的，你喜欢的，世界需要的并且有价值的。

It’s not easy to figure out what you actually care about– there are so many directions you can go. But rather than listening to where other people might push you, it’s worth trying to figure this out for yourself. Don’t chase other people’s ideas of what matters. The best way to succeed long-term is to deeply believe that what you’re doing matters.

弄清楚你真正关心什么并不容易 — 有这么多方向你可以去。但不要听随其他人推动你，你需要自己搞明白。不要追逐别人的想法。长期成功的最好办法是深深相信你在做的事情很重要。

Most people just fall into things that come their way. That can work – people sometimes just have to try stuff to figure out what they like – but I think it’s worth being more deliberate. Try to develop and carefully refine strong convictions about what you want to accomplish.

大多数人都是随遇而安。这没什么问题——有时候我们需要尝试才能找出喜欢什么——但我认为我们可以更加慎重筹划。尝试去发现并不断优化形成你对自己人生职业目标的坚定信念。

The framework I’ve found most useful for helping people think through career decisions is to consider both impact maximization and regret minimization—a decision that scores well on both is likely to be a good one.

我发现帮助人们思考职业决定的最有用的框架是：影响最大化和遗憾最小化。一个决定，如果两个条件都满足，可能是一个好的决定。

The way to get things done in the world is a combination of focus, personal connections, and self-belief.

在这个世界上，实现目标的方法是三者的结合：聚焦，个人网络和自信。

You should work really hard. You should be willing to do whatever it takes; society doesn’t owe you success. Be a doer, not a talker – history belongs to the doers.

你应该努力工作。你应该去做任何达到目标必须的事情，社会不欠你的成功。让自己成为一个行动者，而不是一个高谈阔论者——历史属于行动者。

Whatever you choose to do, you’ve got to believe in your own capacity to succeed. People will doubt you and think your goals are impossible or dumb, but you have to stand behind your convictions.

无论你选择做什么，你都必须相信自己有能力成功。人们会怀疑你，认为你的目标是不可能或愚蠢的，但你必须坚信你的信念。

It’s ok to start off motivated by wanting to make a lot of money or wanting fame and glory. At some point though, most people need to find a deeper mission to keep pushing forward.

开始的时候， 你的动力可能是因为钱或想要的名望和荣耀。但到了某些时候，大多数人需要找到一个更深的使命才能继续前进。

The right way to think about your career is like compound interest; if you put in long hours at the start of your career and get a little bit better at what you do every day, you’re going to accomplish more than others. That builds up a compound effect that will extend throughout your entire career. Life is obviously unfair and you don’t know what will happen, but all else equal it becomes a major advantage.

思考你职业生涯的正确方式是复利思维；如果你在职业生涯的开始的时候花了很长时间，并且每天都不断进步，那么你将比其他人做得更好。这将产生一种复利效果，使你整个职业生涯都因此受益。生活显然是不公平的，你不知道会发生什么，但如果其他方面都相当，这会成为你的一个主要优势。

Enjoy your life when you’re young – it’s a true cliche that you only have your youth once – but work harder than most people think you should. I’ve come to believe that burnout isn’t so much associated with working too hard, but instead from things not working out. If you have momentum with whatever you’re working on, you’ll stay motivated and refreshed.

当你年轻时，享受你的生活——因为青春只有一次，这是陈词滥调——但别忘了要比别人想象的更努力工作。我现在相信，倦怠不是因为为工作太辛苦的原因，而是工作没有成果。如果你现在做的事情势头不错，你会保持动力，并且精力充沛。

Learn to say “yes” to an amazing opportunity even if you’re not 100% sure how to do it or if you’re ready—it’s possible to learn a lot very quickly. A mistake a lot of people make is to compare themselves to very successful people today, instead of the version of that person from ten years ago, which probably looks a lot more familiar.

面对一个伟大机会的时候，学会说“ Yes ”，即使你不是 100％ 确定怎么做，或你是不是准备好了——你可以在短时间内学会很多。许多人所犯的错误是将自己与今天非常成功的人进行比较，而不是和他们十年前的那个版本比较，那样看起来会更熟悉。

You want to find your tribe – the types of people like you that you can imagine working with for the rest of your career. Within that, you want to find a small group of people whom you trust, and whose opinions you really respect.

你要找到你的部落 — 那些和你一样类型的人，你可以想象在剩下的职业生涯里与他们一起工作。在那里，你要找到一小群你信任的人，他们的意见，你真正尊重。

You should probably be willing to move. For whatever you’re interested in, there will be pockets of people around the world who are doing the best work, and it’s worth getting as close to them as possible.

你要愿意移动。不管你感兴趣什么，世界上总会有一群人正在做而且做的最好，你值得尽可能接近他们。

Help others for no reason at all. When you’re young, you tend to have a small network, and that limits your options. When you help people without any intention of ever getting benefit back, doors and new connections will open – this has been super important for me.

无理由的帮助别人。当你年轻时，你的个人网络比较小，这限制了你的选择。当你帮助人们而没有任何意图得到回报，门和新的连接将打开——这对我来说是非常非常重要的。

When some people try something and it doesn’t work after a few weeks or months, they give up. I think that’s way too early to quit.

当一些人尝试一件事情的时候，如果几个星期或几个月搞不定，他们就会放弃。我认为这样的放弃太早了。

If people are saying that what you’re doing or what you’re making is bad, pay attention to that as feedback, but don’t let it get to you personally. It’s not a sign to give up, but instead to refine your approach.

如果人们说你做的事情不行的时候，你应该把它当做反馈意见，但不要受它的影响。这不是一个放弃的标志，你要做到的是改进你的方法。

It’s hard to say when is the right time to give up, but I think it’s usually when you yourself feel you have run out of ideas, and you don’t see any pathways to keep experimenting further.

很难说什么时候是放弃的正确时间，但我认为通常是当你自己觉得你的想法已经用完，你没有看到任何途径可以继续进行尝试。

If you think you’ve reached that point, by all means walk away. There’s no glory in dragging things out if you’re truly out of ideas. Shut down what you’re working on, decompress, and try something new a few months later.

如果你认为你已经达到这一步，那就应该走开了。如果你真的用尽了想法，继续拖延不会给你带来荣耀。结束你正在做的工作，放松一下，并在几个月后尝试新的东西。

If you’re working on the right thing it will probably be really hard. It will likely take a long time and you’ll face a lot of criticism. The super successful people I know spent a very long time pursuing their ideas, way past when most people would have given up. Keep pushing forward.

如果你正在做正确的事情，它也可能会真的很难。这可能需要很长时间，并且你会面临很多质疑。我知道的那些超级成功的人花了很长的时间去追求他们的想法，换了大多数人早就放弃了。所以，坚持向前。

Most people are wrong about what is risky and what is not, and so they don’t take nearly enough risk. Take more risks, especially when you’re early on in your career; being young and unknown is actually a major advantage because you have very little to lose.

对于什么是有风险的而什么不是，大多数人的认知都是错误的， 所以他们几乎不承担足够的风险。一定要承担更多的风险，特别是当你还在职业生涯早期的时候；年轻和未知实际上是一个重要的竞争优势，因为你不会失去什么东西。

Don’t let fear of failing stop you from taking risks. That is a risk itself, because you will miss out by not acting.

不要让失败的恐惧阻止你冒险。这本身就是一个风险，因为你会由于不行动而错过机会。

If you do fail or end up in a crisis, you’ll probably be OK. The more crises I’ve faced in my life, the less scary each subsequent one has become. I’m secure in the knowledge I’ve made it through disaster before and I believe I will again.

如果你确实失败了或最终陷入危机，不要担心有太大问题。我在生活中遇到的危机越多，下一次遇到危机的时候就越没那么害怕。我现在安全，是因为以前从危难中学到的知识，我相信以后也会是这样。

If you do something new and ambitious, be ready for doomsayers. Doing new things is hard both because you have to figure out how to do it and you have to deal with a constant barrage of negativity.

如果你做的是新的雄心勃勃的事情，准备应对那些末日预言家。做新事是很困难的，因为你既要弄清楚如何做到，同时还必须面对持续的负面嘲讽。

Simple tip – don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. If you’re doing something ambitious, you’ll be told “no”, a lot. Sometimes though, people will give you what you want. Those times will outweigh the pains of being rejected, so be aggressive.

一个简单的提示——不要害怕索取你想要的东西。如果你做的是有抱负的事情，大部分的时候，你会被拒绝。但有的时候，人们会给你你想要的。那个时候，所有被拒绝的痛苦都是值得的，所以要保持进取姿态。

When I was young, I had a misconception that you get rich from making a nice salary. As I got older, I realized the way to get rich was by owning things that go up in value—i.e., equity.

当我年轻时，我有一个误解，我以为挣个不错的薪水会让我变得富有。随着我变老，我意识到致富的方式是拥有价值上涨的东西——比如，股份。

I think that time is the major arbitrage opportunity still left in the market. People are increasingly focused on the short-term, so there are lots of untouched opportunities that just take a long time to mature. I’ve found that these types of bets have helped me generate the most value and wealth.

我认为，时间是市场上仍然存在的主要的套利机会。人们越来越专注于短期，所以有很多没人碰的机会，只是需要很长时间才能成熟。我发现这些类型的赌注帮助我产生了最大的价值和财富。

One way to become an owner is to start a company, and there especially, it’s best to take a long-term approach. If you pick the right thing and devote yourself to growing it over the long run, you can make far more money than with a bunch of short-term payouts along the way. If you aim big, you only have to be right once. Start early in your career, and if you fail, keep trying.

成为财富所有者的一种方式是创办一家公司，尤其是最好采取长期的方法。如果你选择正确的东西，并投身于此，面向长期增长，你可以比一路上遇到的短期机会赚多的多钱。如果你的目标很大，你只需要一次正确就够了。趁着你的职业生涯早期就开始，如果你失败了，继续尝试。

As a general note, I think you should look for opportunities where if they work out, you will 10x your net worth. And if you have the option to invest in advancing yourself, do it — it’s usually better than saving the money.

一般而言，我认为你应该寻找这样的机会，如果它们成功了，你的净财富能翻上 10 倍。如果你有这样的投资机会，抓住它——这通常比储蓄更好。

Strong opinions about the future are valuable. Here again, the most interesting and successful people I know seem to all have strong ideas about what the future will look like. They are willing to be convinced with new data that they are wrong, but the bar for that is fairly high.

对未来抱有强烈愿景是有价值的。我再说一下，我所知道的最有趣和最成功的人似乎都对未来会是什么样子抱有强烈的想法。如果有新的数据出现，他们愿意相信他们是错误的，但说服的门槛很高。

I don’t agree with the idea that the future is unknowable. There’s a lot you can have conviction about that will happen or that you can make come true.

我不同意未来不可知的想法。有很多事情，你可以有信心它们会发生，或者你可以让它们发生。

Have strong opinions on where you want to go and then be flexible on the details.

对你想去的地方，坚定信念，而对于路上的细节，保持灵活。

橙子君说

对未来

抱有强烈愿景是有价值的

对很多事情

你可以有信心它们会发生

或者，你也可以让它们发生

只有你坚信未来会变得更好

你才能让未来变得更好

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