导语：

感谢大家订阅皮埃罗·斯加鲁菲（Piero Scaruffi）的钛媒体72问.知识专栏《硅谷的秘密》。我是今天的提问者赵何娟。前几期专栏皮埃罗跟我们说了很多关于硅谷诞生背后的故事，那么如果给硅谷的那么多成功因素排个序的话，该怎么排呢？

The first and last one is easy. First is society and the last is government. Traditionally, we don't like the government even now the vast majority don’t like government to get involved we take the money very happy to take the money but we don't really like government to tell us what to do Silicon Valley is always viewed the government as very far, in Washington. Good, stay there, stay there. Sometimes when they asked me which city in china is more similar to the two Silicon Valley I think which city is very far from Beijing. Because that's our attitude. That’s easy.

我觉得很容易决定什么是最重要和最不重要的。最重要的是社会文化影响，最不重要的是政府支持。传统上看，美国并不喜欢政府参与，社会也不欢迎政府干预。我们很乐意从政府手上拿钱，但是不喜欢政府指手画脚。硅谷觉得政府距离他们很远，因为华盛顿离硅谷很远。很好，政府就远离我们，别动。有时候别人问我：“中国有哪一个城市跟硅谷会比较像？”我会说离北京远的城市会跟硅谷的相似度会更高。

The number one is society because it’s the society that creates this different attitude towards technology. Venture capital is a long story and I wish some of my venture capitalists were here so you can hear their version. In the book I write, in my opinion, venture capital has not been a positive force because venture capital tends to come after not before. And it distorts the market when capitalist come and invest in one thousand companies. And then most of these fail, the market crashes a lot of people lose their job it's unfair to blame the dot coms.

我们先来谈社会文化的影响，硅谷的社会文化是包容科技的，但风险投资又是另外一回事了。如果你而有其他的风险投资人聊天，他们会给出不同的答案。我在书中写的是，在硅谷风险投资并不是一个正面的角色，因为他们是在创业公司有了起色后才进行投资的。风险投资人来到硅谷给1000个创业公司进行投资时，实际上，他们扰乱了技术市场。很多企业都失败了，市场也完蛋了，很多的人因此失业，所有责备失败的创业公司是不公平的。

Of course, if you have an idea, you get the money. The distortion comes from the fact that venture capitalists tend to be a little stupid they invest in what is popular. Right now, as we speak probably they're investing a lot in artificial intelligence without even understanding. What it is that good or bad some people will tell you it's good because it helps a lot of artificial intelligence companies get started but my opinion is bad actually because it creates too much expectation that would probably not, create bubbles, was creating the bubbles in Silicon Valley. 

因为如果你有一个想法，你就可以获得投资。但风险投资有一点很愚蠢的是，他们专门给时下流行的想法投钱。我想现在一定有很多的风险投资人给人工智能资金，但他们可能都不懂什么是人工智能。那风险投资对人工智能到底是好还是坏呢？有的人可能会说好，因为有人会认为这些钱帮助了很多人工智能的初创公司。但是我认为这些风险投资并不好，因为它会导致人们对人工智能领域有太多的期望。投资会导致硅谷出现过多的泡沫。

I don't think you have to blame it on a Steve Jobs and the market and so on. Of course, they were very happy bubble creates bigger nets but you have to blame it on the retail is in my opinion that an eventual capital is a speculator. It is like in China the value of homes goes up a lot, because people start buying ten, twenty homes. Say that with the companies and so my feeling has always been that it was a negative force not a positive force, but again if my friends in the venture capitals were here, they would tell you the opposite. 

我不认为有指责乔布斯或扎克伯格的需要，因为每次发生市场泡沫的时候，都会出现很多位亿万富翁。但我认为风险投资需要负责任，因为风险投资就是在投机。这点跟中国的情况很像，中国房价高企是因为有的人会买十几，二十套房子。风险投资就是给很多公司投钱，所以我的看法是风险投资是起着消极的作用。然而，我也必须重申，如果我那些做风险投资的朋友在场，他们一定会向你阐述另外一种观点。

They would tell you, without our money, Silicon Valley would be nothing and there's also some truth in what they say. I would rank venture capital lower. One thing, two things I mentioned. One is the loss of California there was actually more important than the government in Washington. California has always had laws that are very loose the very, you know, they encourage business in many ways. The most famous is the fact that you can quit Apple and go work for a competitor of Apple. And the law in California tends to protect you, you cannot, of course, you cannot tell the secrets of Apple to another to a competitor but you can work in a very similar project. Yes, and in other states is not true and other countries is defining not true.

他们会告诉你，如果不是投资人给硅谷投钱，硅谷什么都不是。当然，他们讲的也不完全错。我不认为风险投资有那么的重要。实际上加州的法律比政府还要重要。加州法律较为宽松，而且鼓励创业。如果你在硅谷工作的话，你可以从Apple辞职，为其竞争对手工作。加州的法律也会保护你的权益，但前提是你不能泄露Apple的商业机密。你可以为竞争对手做类似的项目，而在其他国家你可能就不能这么做。

So in California, it is always been much easier to quit the company and join the other company that makes a big difference because in silicon value expected if you stay if you worked for the same company for five years, people ask you why it sounds strange it almost sounds like you're not so good. Because if you are good a competitor should offer you money and so most of my friends a change job every two or three years, you meet them after one year or so first question is so you working for now because you expect them to change that's so easy because the loss in California make it easy in other places you have to be careful and also some companies will not hire you because they would be afraid that Apple see what ever so one thing you didn't ask is the loss of California and that make it a little easier to do these things.

在加州，你可以从一个公司跳槽到另外一个公司。这就会有很大的不同。在硅谷，如果你为同一家公司工作了五年，人们可能就会问你为什么。这听起来就很奇怪，因为别人问你的时候，仿佛是在质疑你是不是没有那么好。因为如果你真的很厉害，竞争对手应该高薪挖走你。所以，我的朋友很多都换过老板。我们见面问的第一句话就是“你现在为谁工作？”加州的法律让跳槽变得简单，但是在其他地方你要很谨慎。其他公司未必敢雇用你，因为他们害怕遭到你原公司起诉。所以你没有提到的就是加州法律所带来的影响，法律让人们换工作变成很容易。

And then the other thing you didn't ask well I guess it maybe it's part of society but the bay area always had all these people protesting against technology, That's very important, actually. So we all had the two, almost like you I know you know the split brain the people have this disease where there are two people in one. The bay area is easily little bit like that so some the same place the bay area has people who love technology and it has people who hate technology and both are famous. And so these things create really a dialogue between maximum technology and minimum technology. So you have people who actually say my buy I’ll go live forest literally and they created commune and live in the forest and they are very happy we not technology and then you have all these high tech startups so that actually I see that as very very useful. I think that as a contributing to new ideas.

你没有提到社会问题。其实在旧金山湾区也有抗议发展技术的人，这也是很重要的影响因素。旧金山湾区有热爱技术的人，也有很讨厌科技的人。旧金山的这两种人都很出名，也引起了一些争论：我们是要把技术用到极致，还是尽量少用技术？在旧金山你会遇到一些人说：“再见了，我要去森林里住了。”他们也的确这么做了，在森林里过得还很滋润，而且没有使用任何现代科技。与此同时，硅谷有很多高科技创业公司。所有你会发现，这也是很重要的影响因素，因为这种争论也带来了新的想法。

Yeah even even talents. I was going to say something about talent. I mean, to me talents should be rephrased as immigration because every place in the world has talents. I mean there are no stupid people in the world. In any country is a lot of very intelligent people the big advantage that we have is that you want to come to Silicon Valley. You know, that's a big advantage and as I said that there were young educated people coming from everywhere when I present when I talk about artificial intelligence. I have a slide it's mainly to wake up people but it's an interesting slide. You know I list all the people who invented today artificial intelligence the new artificial intelligence. And for each person I write next to it where it was born you go through the list not one born in the United States.

还有就是人才因素。我也想谈论一下人才，我认为人才就是移民。我觉得世界上没有蠢人，每个国家都有很多人才，而硅谷的优势就是人才想要过来。这是一个很大的优势。我先前所提到，我们这里有来自世界各地的受过高等教育的年轻人才。我也做了一个小统计，记录现在大热的人工智能领域的工程师来源国。你看一下清单，就会发现没有一个人是在美国出生的。

Deep learning was all invented by people who were born outside the United States but now you think of deep learning at Silicon Valley but they were not born there. So talents are everywhere if you just write talents I put it last because every country has it but if you write immigrants then is very high I mean this power the Silicon Valley has to attract foreigners it's a big contribution. 

人工智能也是由美国以外出生的人所发明的。现在你提到硅谷的深度学习，你会发现这些工程师都不是美国人，所以到处都有人才，你不能只提到人才，因为每个国家都有人才。但是你可以说影响硅谷的是这里的移民，硅谷能够吸引外国人来为我们做贡献。

It's even difficult to quantify how much the United States as a whole as you know is a country of immigrants so in immigrants have always been important. But in California it’s very high, in the Bay Area it’s colossal, it could be ninety percent of the innovation we have come from immigrants, meaning also from other states. Ok, Steve jobs is the exception. He was raised in Silicon Valley but if you look through all the other people almost all of them came from somewhere else so that's a big big powerful thing so it depends, if you just call it talent, it’s the last one if you call it immigrants.

美国总的来说是一个移民国家，移民对美国来说很重要；对加州来说，移民非常重要；对旧金山湾区来说，移民至关重要。这里90%以上的创新发明都是移民做出的，他们都不是在美国出生，但乔布斯是一个特例，他是在美国长大的移民后代。如果你看看其他人，他们基本都不是在美国出生。移民是非常有影响力的因素。如果你将把它成为人才因素，我觉得那就是最不重要的因素了。

immigrants and then I would say, I would say the laws. So last one is government and that’s sixth, this is fifth. So most important factor for Silicon Valley in my opinion is the society, the culture. And it's a complex culture, a complex society and it’s unique and that's what makes Silicon Valley unique. And that's why it's so difficult to replicate Silicon Valley in other places we don't have another Silicon Valley in the United States.

第二重要的是移民因素，第三重要的是加州的法律，最不重要的是政府。政府是第五还是第六个因素。所以我重复一遍，最重要的就是硅谷的社会文化。硅谷的社会文化很复杂，所以硅谷是独一无二的。其他国家也无法复制，美国也没有第二个硅谷。

The second I would say, immigration, in the contribution of immigrants is very important even if some of them some of them don't found companies, they don't become famous like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. But if you look at the people who work for them, the engineers, even some of the marketing people some of the people really created the trends. And those are immigrants so I think they are very important. 

第二重要的因素就是移民。移民对于硅谷的共享非常重要。一些移民没有创业，不如乔布斯或是扎克伯格出名，但是你看看，很多硅谷为乔布斯或扎克伯格工作的工程师、销售人员或者引领趋势的人都是移民。所以我认为移民是很重要的影响因素。

And then the laws in California were important, because they helped create this attitude toward changing jobs, don't be afraid to fail this. All the things I told you about the society are true also because the laws of California make it easy in some countries if you fail you go to jail. That makes a difference, right? 

加州的法律当然也很重要了，因为加州的法律让人敢于换工作，不害怕失败。可以说加州的法律让跳槽、创业变得非常的简单。在一些国家如果你创业失败的话，可能要进监狱。所以这就是很大的差别。

So number four would be the capital venture capital which was useful for some things, but I think it tends to distort. I think it slows down innovation, actually. Because the money doesn't go into real innovation, but it goes into exploiting innovation making money out of innovation. 

第四重要的是风险投资。讲真的，他有一定的积极影响，但我觉得消极影响占更多。这些风险投资会降低人们创新的积极性。因为这些风险投资的资金并没有真正的用到创新上，他们利用这些资金去榨取创新，想要通过创新赚更多的钱。

And the last one, the government. Government has an indirect role a government so why we take the money from the government if we don't particularly like the government. We don't like to get orders take orders but we like the money the advantage of government money is that its long term. Venture capitals are short term they give you money but then they want to return in two years. So you are forced to abandon their research and try to focus on the pothole founders by the way were very smart at avoiding that problem by any way that's an exception. 

最不重要的就是政府的影响，政府对硅谷的影响都是间接的。我们不喜欢政府对我们指手画脚，但是我们不介意从政府那里获得资金，因为政府的资金都是长期投资，而风险投资只是一些短期贷款。他们投资你的想法，但是要求你在未来两年为他们带来巨大的收益，所以你不得不放弃做科研，去关注如何做一个好的产品

In general, venture capital is short-term, so when it very often kills the research. It wants to market what you have now. Government money is long term government is thinking in terms of war. So what do you don’t need to return tomorrow morning. If your research doesn't do anything useful for ten years, it’s fine. Government is thinking at ten years from now, I will have better missiles or better satellites whatever. So that's why we take the money from the government, because it's like a long-term venture capital. But otherwise, we don't particularly like it. 

但总的来说，风险投资都是一些短期的投资，他们想让你把手头上的发明投入市场。政府的资金是长期投资，因为政府考虑到的是战争的问题，而且你还不需要还钱。如果你拿到政府的资金，你可以专心做研究。政府会给你10年时间，做出更好的导弹或卫星。所以，我们也会从政府那里拿到投资，因为政府的钱更像是长期的风险投资。否则在其他情况下，我们通常不喜欢政府。

And I really don't think government was, it's not a matter of liking not liking. Sometimes we like it I mean Silicon Valley obviously liked Obama, dislike Trump. Everybody knows this but it's just that government did not plan Silicon Valley. So that's why ranks last. There wasn’t a day when somebody told the president there is a place called Silicon Valley or there was a day when the President was watching TV and ask her what is this Silicon Valley. It was not planned by him. So, in this sense, the government did not have a direct influence on Silicon Valley. 

不过我们不会考虑是否喜欢政府的问题。有时候我们还是喜欢政府的，我是说以前，在硅谷大家都喜欢奥巴马，但是讨厌特朗普。政府没有想要打造出硅谷，所以这就是我把它排到最后了。以前没有人告诉总统，未来会有一个硅谷；也不会有美国总统看到电视介绍硅谷是什么样的，他们都没有为硅谷做出规划，所以政府对硅谷的都是间接影响。

In fact, the US government invested in many technology areas in the United States and put more money in other areas. So they never said number one is San Francisco Bay Area, never! Actually, I think the opposite I think there are many places in the United States that offer more benefits to high tech, in Seattle sets lower taxes. I think almost everybody is lower taxes in California to Texas. There's many states they really encourage Silicon Valley companies to move out of the Bay Area. And in some cases, that has happened. In Intel has a big factory is I think in Oregon whatever and of course it is well known. Many countries have better laws. 

实际上，美国政府在技术领域上花了很多钱进行研究，但是他们在其他地方的投入甚至更多。美国政府没有说他们给旧金山湾区投入最多资金。但在美国有很多地方会给高新技术开绿灯，如西雅图的税率更低。我认为，很多地方的税收都比加州的低，有很多州都鼓励硅谷的大公司搬到他们州去。他们还提供一些税收优惠，而这些政策也有一定的成效。英特尔就把工厂搬到俄勒冈了。当然，很多国家也有更低的税率。

Apple smart phones are not made in the bay area the made in China or Taiwan. and so on somebody was telling me that the Bay Area employs millions of people many more than we think. Why? Because you have to count also the ones that are outside of the United States. So I think, in general, government has not helped Silicon Valley much. Other governments helped their sort of Silicon Valley more. Where the government has helped is indirectly. Again, indirectly.

一个很好的例子就是iPhone， iPhone都不是在美国生产的，基本是在中国或者是中国台湾生产的。有人告诉我旧金山湾区雇用了成千上万的人，甚至比我们想象的要多。为什么？因为还要算上这些公司海外工厂提供的就业岗位。总的来说美国政府对硅谷没有太多影响，特别是相比其他国家政府对高科技园区的扶持力度。

Bill Clinton’s vice president Al Gore was influential and decided that the internet should become a commercial network. The internet was invented as a government network for the military and for research. So when, I think, in 1992, maybe it wasn't him but anyway that the internet should become a commercial network that was very important. That's why we had the dot com. Before that it was difficult to make any. Any commercial activity on the internet was discouraged if not illegal so there was very important there was also a law in the 60s or 70s when the government decided it will help any venture capitalist was willing to invest in a high technology because Silicon Valley was one of the beneficiaries. I see, but these decisions were not about Silicon Valley they were about the whole United States and whine why Silicon Valley had bigger returns or benefits from these decisions on that that's because Silicon Valley was special enough but those decisions by the government were not specifically to help Silicon Valley where to help their whole country.

比尔·克林顿的副总统阿尔·戈尔是一个很有影响力的人，他决定了把互联网做成商业网络。当时互联网是政府所发明的，主要用于军事和研究。在1992年，我也不记得是不是戈尔说的，互联网要成为一种商业网络。之后才有了互联网泡沫。在此之前，互联网商业化都是违法行为。在60或70年代，美国有一部法律让风险投资人能够投资高科技领域，而硅谷可以从中受益。但是这些决策都不只是针对硅谷，而是针对全美国的。为什么硅谷能够有更多的收益？那是因为硅谷很特别，但政府决策的目的不是扶植硅谷，而是想帮助全美国的科技发展。

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