So, how do you turn your mind into the kind that has startup ideas unconsciously?
如何让创意无意识地映入眼帘呢?
1, learn about things that matter.
第1,学习重要知识
2, work on problems that interest you.
第2,解决感兴趣的问题
3, with people you like and respect.
第3,与喜欢和尊重的人共事
That third part incidentally is how you get co-founders at the same time as the idea.
第3点同时适用于寻找合伙人和创意
The first time I wrote that paragraph,
第一次写那篇文章时
instead of learn a lot about things that matter, I wrote become good at some technology.
我写的是“精通一门技术”,而不是“学习重要知识”
But that prescription, though sufficient, is too narrow.
原先的表述,尽管可以,但是有些狭隘
What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia from Airbnb was not they were experts in technology.
Airbnb的创始人Brian Chesky和Joe Gebbia与众不同,他们不精通技术
They went to art school.
他们上的是艺术学习
They were experts in design, and perhaps even more importantly,
他们精通设计
they were really good at organizing people and getting projects done.
更重要一点是,他们擅长组织众人完成任务
So, you don't have to work on technology per se, so long as you work on things that stretch you.
所以,你不必擅长技术,只要有一技之长就行
What kind of things are those?
什么技能有助于创业呢?
Now, that is very hard to answer in the general case.
很难讲
History is full of examples of young people
纵览历史,不难发现很多例子
who were working on problems that no one else, at the time, thought were important.
一些年轻人从事别人都认为不重要的项目,连他们的父母也认为不重要
And in particular that their parents didn't think they were important.
但是这些年轻人后来成功了
On the other hand, history is even fuller of examples of parents
另一方面,反面的例子更多
who thought their kids were wasting their time,and who were right, so.
一些父母觉得他们的孩子是在浪费时间,果不其然
How do you know if you're working on real stuff?
怎么能知道从事的项目会成功呢?
I mean when Twitch TV switched from being Justin Dot TV to Twitch TV,
当JustinTV变身为TwitchTV时
and they were gonna broadcast people playing video games,
变身为游戏直播网站时
I was like what? But, turned out to be a good business.
我并不看好,但结果人家很成功
Well, I know, I know how I know, real problems are interesting.
我知道的是,好项目都是有意思的
And I'm self-indulgent.
我自己很放浪形骸
I like, I'm always interested in working on interesting things
我常常专注于我觉得有意思的事情
even if no one else cares about them.
即使无人问津,也无所谓
And I find it very hard to make myself work on boring things even if they're supposed to be important.
专注做一些我觉得无聊的事情,对我来说很难,即使这些事情很重要
My life is full of case after case where I worked on things just cuz I was interested.
我专注于我喜欢的项目,这些项目后来被外界认可
And they turned out to be useful later in some worldly way.
这样的例子,数不胜数
Y Combinator itself is something I only did because it seemed interesting.
我之所以参与YC纯粹是因为我觉得有意思
So, I seem to have some sort of internal compass that helps me out.
我觉得我体内好像有个指南针,帮我指明方向
But, this is, for you, not me and I don't know what you have in your heads.
这节课的对象是你们,我不知道你们是如何定位方向的
Maybe if I think more about it I could come up with some heuristics for recognizing genuinely interesting ideas.
或许我多想想能提出识别好创意的方法呢
But for now, all I can give you is the hopelessly question begging advice,
不过现在,我能做的就是告诉你,不断地提出问题,解决问题
incidentally, this is the actual meaning of the phrase, begging the question.
这个说法挺形象的,“祈求问题”
The hopelessly question begging advice that if you're interested in genuinely interesting problems,
不断地提出问题,解决问题,如果你对某个问题感兴趣
gratifying your interest energetically is the best way to prepare yourself for a start-up.
想方设法地解决问题,这是创业的最好准备方法
And, for that matter, probably the best way to live.
满足自己的兴趣,活得也幸福
But although I can't explain in the general case what counts as an interesting problem,
尽管,我不能笼统地解释什么样的问题是有趣的问题
I can tell you about a large subset of them.
但是我可以举一些例子