Bill Maris: How Google Could Crush AI Competitors, Why Small Funds Win, and AI's Atari Stage

After saying he was out, now Bill Maris is returning to the investing world. 说好要退出，Bill Maris 现在又重返投资界了。 The founding CEO of Google Ventures has raised $150 million for his new fund called Section 32. Google Ventures 的创始 CEO 为新基金 Section 32 募集了 1.5 亿美元。 With a smaller fund, I have the advantage to be very selective in the companies that I invest in, the people that I hire. 规模较小的基金让我能够在投资对象和雇用人才上高度精挑细选。 We're going to invest for a financial return. 我们的目的是追求财务回报。 Any other metric is impossible to measure and therefore won't succeed. 其他任何指标都无法衡量，因此注定会失败。 Think of the change that has happened just in the last hundred years and what's about to happen in the next hundred years with the advent of AI. 想想过去一百年发生了怎样的变化，再想想 AI 出现后的未来一百年将会发生什么。 The world is going to change by orders of magnitude. 这个世界将以数量级的幅度改变。 Thank you very much for that uh warm welcome. 非常感谢你们热情的欢迎。 I am Bill Maris. 我是 Bill Maris。 I'm the founder of section 32. 我是 Section 32 的创始人。 Prior to that, I was the founder and CEO of Google Ventures. 在此之前，我是 Google Ventures 的创始人兼 CEO。 I was also Google's vice president of special projects where I incubated Whimo and Google X Calico uh uh and many other uh projects as well. 我也曾担任 Google 特别项目副总裁，孵化了 Waymo、Google X、Calico 以及许多其他项目。 Uh and before that I founded a web hosting and data center company uh which we're going to talk a little bit about. 在那之前，我还创办了一家虚拟主机和数据中心公司，我们等会儿会聊到这段经历。 Um and uh today I think I'm going to talk to you about a few of the lessons I've learned on these interesting experiences I've had uh in life. 今天我想和大家分享几条从这些人生经历中总结出的教训。 So, we'll start. 那我们开始吧。 We're going to have four lessons I'm going to talk about. 我会讲四条教训。 And we're going to go back to 1997 to start when I was a uh fresh college graduate. 我们先回到 1997 年，那时我刚刚大学毕业。 I had a degree in neuroscience. 我学的是神经科学。 Uh and I found myself on Wall Street. 呃，我阴差阳错地来到了华尔街。 Uh somehow managed to land a job there, but I was miserable having to wear a suit uh and trudge to work in the heat. 不知怎么找到了那份工作，但每天穿西装、顶着酷暑上班，我过得很痛苦。 But one good thing came of that which was I looked in the closet of the office one day and I saw a server and I asked, "Well, what is this thing beneath our jackets?" 不过有一件好事，有天我打开办公室的壁橱，看到一台服务器，就问：这件夹克下面是什么东西？ And they said, "Well, that's where our email and websites uh live." 他们说：这里存着我们的邮件和网站。 And and as can happen to many of us, I I had a moment where I felt like I was bathed in the light of inspiration. 就像很多人都有过的那种瞬间，我忽然觉得自己被灵感的光芒沐浴到了。 And and I thought I thought I think I've glimpsed the future. 我心想，我好像看见未来了。 Uh, I I I think I can maybe make a business out of this because if you can have our website and email in your closet, how many websites and emails could I put in my closet? 如果壁橱里能放网站和邮件，那我的壁橱里能放多少个网站和邮件？或许我能做成一门生意。 So, I immediately quit my job. 于是我立刻辞职了。 Uh, because I I had I had kind of glimpsed through a keyhole and through that keyhole I thought I saw the internet and I saw a data center and it looked something like this. 因为我通过一个钥匙孔看到了互联网，看到了数据中心，大概就是这个样子。 Or maybe when I say data center, you think of a something like this or something like this. 也许我说数据中心，你脑子里浮现的是这种，或者这种。 But in 1997, a state-of-the-art data center uh looked almost exactly like this. 但在 1997 年，最先进的数据中心，大概就长这样。 Uh we had three servers. 我们有三台服务器。 Uh a small, medium, and large. 呃，有大中小三个规模。 Uh business grew. 业务在增长。 We eventually had five servers. 后来我们有了五台服务器。 Uh and this isn't a data center at all. 这根本不是数据中心。 This was my apartment where I founded the company uh with credit cards. 这是我用信用卡创业、住的那间公寓。 Uh, and the servers lived in one room. 服务器放在一间屋子里。 Uh, the work, uh, happened in the other room. 工作在另一间屋子进行。 Uh, and it would get very hot in that room. 那间屋子会变得非常热。 Uh, and this was in Vermont. 这是在佛蒙特州。 Uh, so I open the windows and then it would get very cold. 所以我打开窗户，然后又变得很冷。 So cold, in fact, that by noon, if you had a glass of water in your desk, it would ice over. 冷到什么程度呢，中午时分，桌上放的一杯水会结冰。 Uh, you may think, though, this isn't so bad. 你可能会觉得，这也没那么难熬。 But, but actually, this was also my apartment as well. 但问题是，那也是我住的地方。 This was the bed. 那就是我的床。 Uh, and you may look at that and think, well, you've got a mattress and a nice pillow and then look at that nice blanket, but this is a rug I got from Home Depot to keep myself warm on those nights. 你可能会看到一张床垫、一个漂亮的枕头，还有一条漂亮的毯子，但那是我从 Home Depot 买来御寒的地毯。 And one day there was a thunderstorm. 有一天下起了暴风雨。 Uh, the roof started to leak. 屋顶开始漏水。 Uh, and I knew I needed to do something because water and computers and servers don't mix well. 我知道必须做点什么，因为水和电脑、服务器不能共存。 So, so I called the landlord and said, "The roof's leaking." 于是我打给房东说，屋顶漏了。 The landlord said, "Well, that happens sometimes." 房东说，这种事偶尔会发生。 Uh, but I knew that I needed to do something. 但我知道自己必须采取行动。 So, when you don't know what to do, you go to Home Depot. 不知道怎么办的时候，就去 Home Depot。 I got a bucket of tar and a mop and I went up on the roof and there was lightning and there was rain. 我买了一桶沥青和一把拖把，爬上屋顶，雷声阵阵，大雨倾盆。 And I went up there and I I tarred the roof. 我就这么爬上去，把屋顶涂上了沥青。 And I did not glimpse the future in that case because I didn't know when you're taring the roof that you should start at the far corner and work towards the door rather than the reverse. 这次我没能预见未来，因为我不知道涂沥青应该从最远的角落开始、朝着门的方向涂，而不是反过来。 And I tarred myself into a corner. 我把自己逼进了死角。 But the choice that I faced was either the servers get electrocuted or perhaps I get electrocuted. 我面临的选择是：要么服务器触电，要么我触电。 But as an entrepreneur, I was willing to take that risk, which you know, news flash, I survived. 但作为创业者，我愿意承担那个风险，剧透一下，我活下来了。 Uh my shoes though are still stuck on that roof uh in Vermont, which takes me uh to uh lesson two, which is to see the future, sometimes you need to be a little bit insane. 不过我的鞋子还粘在佛蒙特的那块屋顶上，这引出了第二条教训：要看见未来，有时候你得稍微疯狂一点。 Uh, it may appear to those around you that you are taring the roof in a thunderstorm. 在旁人看来，你可能是在雷雨天修屋顶。 And to that point, I'm going to share a few slides here that a friend named Stuart Butterfield was kind enough to share with me. 说到这儿，我想分享几张幻灯片，是我的朋友 Stuart Butterfield 慷慨提供的。 And here's the inauguration, 1989. 这是 1989 年的就职典礼。 And there's someone taking a picture. 有人在拍照。 That makes sense. 很正常。 It's probably a film camera. 可能是胶片相机。 And 2005 is not very different. 2005 年的情况差不多。 There's still someone back there taking a picture. 后面还是有人在拍照。 And then let's go just four years later to another inauguration. 再往后看，四年后的另一场就职典礼。 And if we look closely, it's quite a bit different because now everybody's got a camera. 仔细看，有很大不同，因为现在每个人都有相机了。 Everybody's got a camera. 每个人都有相机。 And this was kind of before cameras were mushed into cell phones. 那时候相机还没完全融入手机。 It was kind of around that time it was starting to happen. 大概正处于那个转变的时间节点。 But but that's not the most interesting thing about this photo because in this crowd is someone who to his friends, I'm sure seemed insane, who also did glimpse the future. 但这张照片最有意思的地方不在这里，人群中有一个人，他的朋友们一定觉得他疯了，但他也确实看见了未来。 If we look closely, this gentleman has decided to, I don't know, live stream or record the inauguration on his laptop. 仔细看，这位老兄决定用笔记本电脑直播或录制这场就职典礼。 Uh, he knew something that those around him didn't know, which is one of the things that I've always looked for in entrepreneurs is they know a secret about the future that most of us don't believe. 他知道一个周围人都不知道的秘密，这正是我在创业者身上一直寻找的特质，他们掌握着关于未来的秘密，而大多数人并不相信那个秘密。 Let's fast forward to 2007. 快进到 2007 年。 I find myself somehow at Google. 我不知怎么来到了 Google。 Uh, and a challenge was given to me. 然后我接到了一个挑战。 Uh the challenge was Google needs a venture fund. 挑战是：Google 需要一支风险投资基金。 Uh we were starting to make some investments. 我们当时已经在做一些投资了。 Uh we didn't have a coherent strategy. 但没有清晰的策略。 There were no budgets. 也没有预算。 I had to figure out what to do. 我得想出一个方向。 Uh so I first found a friend Rich Miner who's the co-founder of Android. 我先找到了 Rich Miner，Android 的联合创始人。 Uh and he became my partner in crime as we conceptualized what what could Google Ventures be. 他成了我的搭档，我们一起构想 Google Ventures 可以是什么。 Uh we went up and down Sand Hill Road and we we talked to everyone. 我们走遍了沙山路，和所有人都谈过。 anyone that was willing to talk to us and have a conversation, we were willing to talk to to see what we what we could learn. 愿意和我们聊的，我们都愿意谈，只要能学到东西。 Uh we came up with a plan. 我们想出了一个计划。 Our plan was to obtain all the data of venture that we could find. 计划是：收集所有能找到的风险投资数据。 And being Google, you can imagine it was a lot of data, historical data, you name it. 既然是 Google，你可以想象，数据量相当惊人，历史数据，应有尽有。 Uh then we decided we would as step two use AI. 然后我们决定第二步用 AI。 But at that time, Google would not let us use the term AI. 但那时候，Google 不允许我们使用 AI 这个词。 And this persisted for many years. 而且这种情况持续了很多年。 Bill, AI is science fiction. Bill，AI 是科幻小说。 It is it's a hundred years away if it's ever going to happen. 就算真的会实现，也是一百年后的事。 Uh let's stick to machine learning. 我们还是说机器学习吧。 By the way, when you say AI, it freaks people out. 顺带说一句，你一说 AI，大家就会恐慌。 So stop freaking people out. 所以别吓人了。 So we had to call it machine learning. 于是我们不得不叫它机器学习。 Uh and we used machine learning to do two things. 我们用机器学习做了两件事。