Elon Musk's 2003 Stanford University Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture

If you like space, you'll like this talk.

如果你喜欢太空，那你一定会喜欢这场演讲。

So, uh, my background—uh, in brief—I'll talk a little bit about Zip 2.

那么，呃，简单介绍一下我的背景——我会稍微讲讲Zip 2这家公司。

And uh and PayPal.

还有PayPal。

Uh, and then uh mostly about space and what we're doing in space.

然后，呃，主要讲讲太空以及我们目前在太空领域所做的工作。

Um, so I originally came out of California to do energy physics at Stanford.

嗯，我最初是从加州出来，去斯坦福大学攻读能源物理学的。

Actually, um, and ended up putting this on hold in '95 to start Zip 2.

实际上，我在1995年决定暂停学业，转而创办了Zip 2。

Um, and Zip 2—I'll tell you a little bit about the thought process of exactly what happened there.

关于Zip 2，我会稍微讲讲当时具体的思考过程和发生的情况。

Um, in '95, it wasn't at all clear明确的 that the internet was going to be a big commercial thing.

在1995年，互联网是否会成为一项巨大的商业事业，完全还看不清。

In fact, most of the venture capitalists that I talked to hadn't even heard of the internet—which sounds bizarre奇异的—on Sand Hill Road.

事实上，我接触过的绝大多数风险投资家甚至都没听说过互联网——这在桑迪尔路（硅谷著名的风投聚集地）听起来很荒谬。

Um, so uh—but I wanted to do something, and I thought it would be a pretty huge thing.

嗯，所以我还是想做点什么，我觉得这会是一件非常了不起的大事。

And um, I thought it was one of those things that only came along once in a very long while.

我认为这是那种很久才出现一次的机遇。

So I got a deferment延期 at Stanford, and I thought I'd give it a couple quarters.

于是我从斯坦福获得了延期入学许可，打算先尝试几个学期。

And if it didn't work out— which I thought it probably wouldn't—then I'd come back to school.

如果行不通——我当时觉得很可能行不通——那我就回学校继续读书。

Um, and actually, when I talked to my professor and told him this, he said, 'Well,

嗯，其实当我跟教授谈了这个想法并告诉他时，他说：‘好吧，'

I don't think you'll be coming back,' and that was the last conversation I had with him.

‘我不认为你会回来’，那也是我最后一次跟他交谈。

So um, but there weren't a lot of ways to get involved—

所以嗯，但当时参与其中的途径并不多——

the only way to get involved with the internet in '95 that I could think of was to start a company,

1995年我能想到的唯一能涉足互联网的方式就是创办一家公司。

because there weren't a lot of companies to go and work for—apart from Netscape, maybe one or two others.

因为当时可供加入的公司寥寥无几——除了网景（Netscape），可能也就一两家其他公司。

So um, and then I didn't have any money, so I thought, 'Well, we've got to make something that's going to return money very, very quickly.'

所以嗯，而且我身无分文，我想：‘好吧，我们必须做出某种能迅速带来回报的东西。’

So we thought, 'Well, the media industry would need help converting its content from print to electronic, and they clearly had money.'

所以我们想：‘媒体行业需要帮助，将其内容从印刷版转换为电子版，而且他们显然很有钱。’

So if we could find a way to help them move their media to the internet, that would be an obvious way of generating revenue.

如果我们能找到一种方法帮助他们将媒体内容搬上互联网，那显然是创收的一条明路。

There was no advertising revenue on the internet at the time.

当时互联网上还没有广告收入。

So uh, and that was really the basis基础 of Zip 2, and we ended up building quite a bit of software for the media industry—primarily the print media industry.

这就是Zip 2的基石，我们最终为媒体行业——主要是印刷媒体行业——开发了不少软件。

Uh, so we had as investors and customers Hachette Corporation, Knight-Ridder, um, most of the major US print publishers.

我们的投资者和客户包括哈切特公司、奈特-里德公司，以及美国大多数主要的印刷出版商。

We built that up, and then we had the opportunity to sell to Compaq in early '99

我们逐步将其做大，随后在 99 年初获得了被康柏收购的机会。

and basically took that offer—it was for a little over $300 million in cash—and that's a currency I highly recommend.

我们基本上接受了这个报价——现金超过 3 亿美元——我强烈推荐这种支付方式。

Um, so we had that, and um—but I wanted to do something more after Zip 2.

嗯，所以我们有这笔钱，但我想在 Zip2 之后做点更特别的事。

So uh, post the sale—in fact, immediately post the sale—I didn't really take any time off.

所以，呃，交易完成后——事实上是紧接着——我并没有休息片刻。

Um, I was trying to think of where the opportunities were.

我在思考机会究竟在哪里。