黑石创始人Steve Schwarzman的自传，副标题是Lessons in the pursuit of excellence，读完之后觉得是非常难得的一本书，也值得反复读。这本书2019年下半年刚刚出来，还没有中文版。借着假期这几天，一读就爱不释手，也算读完了今年的第一本英文书。按惯例，简要摘录如下，英文是原文，中文是简要感受。
But I’ve always believed that it’s just as hard to achieve big goals as it is small ones. The only difference is that bigger goals have much more significant consequences. Since you can tackle only one personally defining effort at a time, it’s important to pursue a goal that is truly worthy of the focus it will require to ensure its success.
1/25（表示这是斯瓦茨曼先生最后25点总结的第1点，下面以此类推）。实现大目标和实现小目标的难度想起来差异很大，但实际上通常差不多，因此要选择大目标，所谓“立长志”而不是“常立志的道理”。个人如此，运营公司也是如此。步入社会越久，就越容易自我定义成螺丝钉，而不在去敢立长志了，而这恰恰是重要的。
The best executives are made, not born. They absorb information, study their own experiences, learn from their mistakes, and evolve.The former US treasury secretary and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, who suggested I go over my old calendars, record my thoughts on building and managing an organization, and have them transcribed in case I might someday want to publish them.
2/25。最好的管理者是后天养成的，并非天生，是那种能够广泛吸收信息、积累经验、学习教训、不断进化的人。之后是个值得学习的好习惯了，很早他就被传授经验要每天做点记录，以便将来写回忆录用。其实也能起到很好的反思作用，很有帮助。
But what I lacked in basic economics, I made up for with my ability to see patterns and develop new solutions and paradigms, and with the sheer will to turn my ideas into reality. Finance proved to be the means for me to learn about the world, form relationships, tackle significant challenges, and channel my ambition. It also allowed me to refine my ability to simplify complex problems by focusing on only the two or three issues that will determine the outcome
非常值得学习的方法论。自己感觉以投资来看，真正重要的一是有能力找到社会运行的范式，理解其运行，发现“范式转换”带来的巨大机会；第二就是能够把复杂问题简单化，核心是抓住其中2-3个关键点。
We believe in meritocracy and excellence, openness and integrity. And we work hard to hire only people who share those beliefs. We are fixated on managing risk and never losing money. We are strong believers in innovation and growth—constantly asking questions in order to anticipate events so that we can evolve and change before we are forced to.
坚信精英、卓越、开放和正直，专注于控制风险和不输本金，相信回报来源于对创新和增长追求，发现趋势并预计到未来的变化。这是行业的基石性真理了。
“When people ask me how I succeed, my basic answer is always the same: I see a unique opportunity, and I go for it with everything I have. And I never give up.”
16/25. 发现机会，勇敢去追，永不放弃。
以下分章节
1
“You can learn to be a manager. You can even learn to be a leader. But you can’t learn to be an entrepreneur.”
企业家是自带天赋的，寻找天赋型的企业家。
“If you want something badly enough, you can find a way. You can create it out of nothing. And before you know it, there it is.”
“my experience at Abington with Little Anthony had taught me a lesson I have replicated throughout my life: if you’re going to commit yourself to something, it’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small. Both will consume your time and energy, so make sure your fantasy is worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.”
1/25.
2
“He had told me I could do anything to which I set my mind. At some point in life, we have to figure out who we are, he said. The sooner we do it the better, so we can pursue the opportunities that are right for us, not some false dream created by others. But if I was going to turn my worthy fantasies into reality, to become a telephone switchboard filled with inputs, I’d need money.”
追梦固然好，越早越好，但现实很重要，先赚到钱很重要。
“The lesson was that everything in business relates to everything else. For a business to succeed, each part has to work on its own and with all the other parts. It’s a closed, integrated system, organized by managers.
5/25。商业是由很多零部件构成的一体化的闭环系统，部件之间密切相关。要获得成功，起码需要每个部分都能良好运行。这也是我最近思考的发现，投资和商业的成功，虽然有其偶然性，但也有其必然性，也可以说是科学性。商业的科学同等重要。
“In the cases we studied, I could spot patterns, sense the problems, and suggest potential solutions without getting lost in the numbers. And my extracurricular activities had taught me I enjoyed working with people to take on difficult, even improbable challenges. I would rather work somewhere where my personality was a natural fit. ”
找到范式很重要，找到好队友很重要。
3
“Finance, and investing especially, is a dynamic world in which you must adjust to new information, people, and situations quickly. If a candidate doesn’t demonstrate the ability to connect, engage, pivot, and change course within the bounds of a conversation, chances are that person won’t fare well at Blackstone.
用人之道。要在面试中看到connect, engage, pivot, and change course的能力。
Our people are all different, but they share some common traits: self-confidence, intellectual curiosity, courtesy, an ability to adjust to new situations, emotional stability under pressure, a zero-defect mentality, and an unwavering commitment to behaving with integrity and striving for excellence in all we choose to do. Being nice—thoughtful, considerate, and decent—doesn’t hurt either. I will never hire anyone who isn’t nice regardless of his or her talent. It’s also important to me that Blackstone remains free of internal politics, so if jockeying for position is part of your nature, we don’t want you.”
直接copy学习，值得打出来，挂墙上。
4
“You build a model of why this is a good investment. Everything’s a spread.”
简单而深刻的道理。Everything’s a spread.
“Putnam gave me a lesson in raising money that would stay with me throughout my career as I raised fund after fund at Blackstone. Investors are always looking for great investments. The easier you make it for them, the better for everyone.”
想投资人之所想，再去募资。换个角度看，争取失去帮助投资人解决他们焦虑的问题，而不是找他们所要什么东西，才是最好的募资姿势。
“Similarly, people who succeed in finance must start with repetitive practice before they can ever hope to achieve mastery.”
投资还真是门经验科学，要不断练习，体会精进，方能有一二所得。
“Getting to know Jack and watching him in action reinforced my growing belief that the most important asset in business is information. The more you know, the more perspectives you have and the more connections you can make, which allow you to anticipate issues. The more you know, the more perspectives you have, and the more likely you are to spot patterns and anomalies before your competition. So always be open to new inputs, whether they are people, experiences, or knowledge.
6/25. 信息是企业的最重要资产，毋庸置疑。永远开放心态，保持信息、知识、经验和新人的输入。
5
“How you initiate and manage that change is the measure of your success.”
对变化的应对和管理很大程度上决定着是否成功。机会多来源于变化，拥抱变化才是成功的前提。
6
“Listening to people seemed obvious. But it evidently marked me out on Wall Street. I didn’t just try selling whatever it was I had to sell. I listened. I waited to hear what people wanted, what was on their mind, then set about making it happen. I rarely take notes in meetings. I just pay very close attention to what the other person is saying and the way he or she is saying it. ”
“One effect of my intense listening is that I can recall events and conversations in detail. It’s as if they are imprinted and stored away in my brain. A lot of people fail because they start from a position of self-interest. What’s in this for me? They will never get to do the most interesting and rewarding work. Listening closely and watching the way people talk puts me much closer to answering the question I’m always asking myself, which is: How can I help? If I can help someone and become a friend to their situation, everything else follows.”
聆听，不只是修养和心态，首先是非常重要的信息输入方式。其次是解决问题的开始，很多情况下，答案自己就藏在问题里，认真听，听懂了，答案就不远了
7
“In April 1985, Pete and I began meeting every day in the courtyard restaurant at the Mayfair Hotel on East Sixty-Fifth Street and Park Avenue. We were the first to arrive and the last to leave, talking for hours, reflecting on our careers and thinking of what we could do together.”
伟大的创业起点首先是认真的想清楚。这两位一个大投行的CEO，一个部门明星负责人，本可以随便开始任何事，但他们居然能如此认真地探讨他们的开始，能首先投入苦功去想清楚，这样想不成功都难。
“ I had reached an important conclusion about starting any business: it’s as hard to start and run a small business as it is to start a big one. You will suffer the same toll financially and psychologically as you bludgeon it into existence. It’s hard to raise the money and to find the right people. So if you’re going to dedicate your life to a business, which is the only way it will ever work, you should choose one with the potential to be huge.”
人生这么短，大事小事都是一辈子，要干就干点大的，才不虚此生。
“KKR had put in just 5 percent of the cash to buy Houdaille, an industrial manufacturing conglomerate, and borrowed the rest. Leverage on that scale meant the company could grow at 5 percent, but the equity would grow at 20 to 30 percent.”
LBO的魅力所在，要有杠杆L，并且L还足够高。
“Compared to most other businesses on Wall Street, private equity firms were simpler in structure, and the financial rewards were concentrated in fewer hands. But you needed skill and information to make this model work. I believed we had both and could acquire more.”
PE领域，技术和信息是关键。
“Pete and I thought of the people we wanted to run these new business areas as “10 out of 10s.” We had both been judging talent long enough to know a 10 when we saw one. Eights just do the stuff you tell them. Nines are great at executing and developing good strategies. You can build a winning firm with 9s. But people who are 10s sense problems, design solutions, and take the business in new directions without being told to do so. Tens always make it rain.”
23/25. 找到10分的人才才能成功，而不仅仅是人才。8分的人是能胜任工作，说啥做啥；9分就能主动制定策略然后很好的执行，10分能嗅到问题，设计解决方案并且主动发现新机会的人，是造雨者。
“Businesses often succeed and fail based on timing. Get there too early, and customers aren’t ready. Arrive too late, and you’ll be stuck behind a long line of competitors.”
时机很重要
“He proposed we draw on the English translations of our two names. The German schwarz means black. Pete’s father’s original Greek name was “Petropoulos.” Petros means stone or rock. We could be Blackstone or Blackrock. I preferred Blackstone. Pete was happy to go along.”
黑石名字的来源，应该认真取。
“I thought the time and money we spent when both were scarce were essential to getting this right. When you’re presenting yourself, the whole picture has to make sense, the entire, integrated approach that gives other people cues and clues as to who you are. ”
花点钱把细节做好是很值得的，这段话写在他们花心思印名片之后，核心是认真。回到之前总结的商业是个一体化闭环系统，每一环节都很重要，体现的都是价值观，因此印名片也不应该马虎。这点在美式文化里很好理解，但不同于当下国内提倡的野蛮生长时的生存法则。我想这件事本身也是要区别化来看的，业务忙到不可开交自然可以不拘小节，但事情不多的话，就应该认真对待每一个细节，无论多小。
8
“As an investment banker and later as an investor, I found that the harder the problem, the more limited the competition. If something’s easy, there will always be plenty of people willing to help solve it. But find a real mess, and there is no one around. If you can clean it up, you will find yourself in rare company. People with tough problems will seek you out and pay you handsomely to solve them. You will earn a reputation for doing what others cannot. For a pair of entrepreneurs trying to break through, solving hard problems was going to be the best way of proving ourselves.”
这其实是个真理，作者最后没总结，但我认为很重要。立足解决越难的问题，竞争就越少，当然回报也会很好。容易的事情、低壁垒的事情竞争太激烈，还是要从高壁垒入手。也容易脱颖而出。
“It was step two of our business plan: going from providing advice and transaction services to the more complex but (we hoped) more durable and profitable business of investing. ”
原来是人家一开始就计划好的。
“Because it’s us. And because it’s a moment.”When I began my career, I was like most other ambitious young people: I believed success was achieved in a straight line. As a baby boomer, I had grown up seeing only growth and opportunity. Success seemed a given. But working through the economic ups and downs of the 1970s and early 1980s, I had come to understand that success is about taking advantage of those rare moments of opportunity that you can’t predict but come to you provided you’re alert and open to major changes.”
17/25。成功是需要机遇的，所以一旦机会来了千万别犹豫。但如果机会没来，也别瞎折腾，静静等，开放心态。
“As a salesman, I’d learned you can’t just pitch once and be done. Just because you believe in something doesn’t guarantee anyone else will. You’ve got to sell your vision over and over again. Most people don’t like change, and you have to overwhelm them with your argument, and some charm. If you believe in what you’re selling and they say no, you have to presume that they don’t fully understand, so you give them another opportunity. ”
15/25. 至理名言，特别是对没有销售经验的人来说。没有一蹴而就的销售，这很正常，要反复说，不断讲，没卖出去之前就是假定对方没听懂，继续去。
9
“He was not someone who failed. He hated failure. But at the same time, he was sixty years old. He was at a different place than I was, with a different mentality. If I had the drive, he had the patience and equanimity. He picked me up and kept me going. He assured me that when you believe in what you’re doing, overwhelmed or not, you have to keep moving forward, even when the quest feels hopeless. Which it did.”
一次失败的路演+下雨淋了个落汤鸡，狼狈不堪之时作者的想法，很有意思。
“Pete said that one of my unique qualities is that my “goals are so demanding and dynamic that sometimes it is even hard for me to accept yes for an answer.”
非常高要求的人，
“There is a saying in finance that time wounds all deals. The longer you wait, the more nasty surprises can hurt you.”
18/25。时间能杀伤所有的项目。等的越久，坏事越多。我的理解没那么深，一方面确实是和预期比，现实总是要更骨感，预算总是不够；同时对于退出来说，越晚退出回报率越低。但换个角度看，如果做时间朋友的话，又能躺赢。有点冲突。
10
“Since we weren’t yet either the biggest or the best in our business, we had to pick spots where the problems were toughest and we were the only ones offering a way forward.”
找最难的题，找自己唯一能解的机会。
“I told them they were wrong. We had analyzed the opportunity in depth. Steel was a commodity, vulnerable to shifts in the price of its inputs, iron ore, coal, and nickel, and supply and demand in the market. The price for shipping steel, though, was based on volume, and the Interstate Commerce Commission set the tariffs.”
对当时钢铁项目的一个评价。钢铁确实是大宗商品生意，要更多从这个角度要理解产业，这也是我们接下来深入行业的基础。
“Blackstone put in $13.4 million in equity; USX put up $125 million in vendor financing, lending us money to take the division off their hands”
黑石的第一个大项目USX，6.5亿美元的交易，51%的股权，之付了2%的金额收购股权，多么牛的交易。这个L达到了25倍。
“But our first new business line had just popped up in front of us, and it ticked all the boxes: an amazing opportunity, beautifully timed, in a giant asset class, with one of the two top people in the world to manage it. We had prepared ourselves to expect the unexpected, and here it was. We would be fools to let it slip. Pete and I decided we would each invest a further $2.5 million personally in Blackstone to fund Larry’s new venture. We would own half of the new company, Blackstone Financial Management, and Larry and his managers would own the other half.”
刚成立2年，就能有勇气再投入当初金额的10倍专门支持一项新人的新业务，还仅仅50%持股，这才成就了今日的Blackrock，不得不佩服。最难的还是机会和人才。
“Once again, we needed someone to get us in the door.”
募资在美国，也需要师傅领进门，需要熟人介绍。
“What Jim had was far more important than a business card from one of the big placement firms: he had the credibility and temperament for the work. Visiting pension funds with Jim turned out to be like going around Japan after Nikko invested with us.”
找到合适的人募资太重要了。投资人很大程度上要看是谁在募，不同的人出来，结果完全不一样。
“What that thinking ignores is all the value you can realize once you own an asset: the improvements you can make, the refinancing you can do to improve your returns, the timing of your sale to make the most of a rising market. If you waste all your energy and goodwill in pursuit of the lowest possible purchase price and end up losing the asset to a higher bidder, all that future value goes away. Sometimes it’s best to pay what you have to pay and focus on what you can then do as an owner. The returns to successful ownership will often be much higher than the returns on winning a one-off battle over price.”
另一条真理，不纠结价格，专注于后续增值。对各类投资人都同等重要，这也是我们奉为圭臬的另一条哲学。可以挂墙上的。
“As the economy recovered, the vacant 20 percent of apartments would fill up, lifting the 23 percent return to 45 percent. And rents would then rise, taking the 45 percent to 55 percent. If all we had to do for this 55 percent compound return was buy the asset, I reasoned, we shouldn’t be worrying about getting the lowest possible price at the auction. ”
踏对周期的可怕回报，尤其是对EOP这种几百亿美元的案例。虽然是预测，但后来果真如此了，这才是可怕之处。
“A few times in every investor’s life, an immense opportunity appears. ”
每个投资人都能遇上几次真正的大机会。这个问题不大，但问题是能否抓住。
“We decided that for every three dollars an investor pledged to our real estate fund, two dollars could be discretionary. They could make a pledge, but if they didn’t like the specific deals we were presenting, they could hold back two-thirds of it.”
为地产基金募资困难时，给LP的优惠条件，大家不得不接受。规则真是用来打破的，创新也真是解决问题的法宝。
11
“The success of any investment depends in large part on where you are in the cycle when you make it. Cycles can have a major impact on the growth trajectory of a business, the valuation, and, of course, the potential rate of return. ”
周期定成败。时机/timing。经济周期的影响时全面的。
“In my career, I have seen seven major market declines or recessions: 1973, 1975, 1982, 1987, 1990–1992, 2001, and 2008–2010. Recessions happen.
萧条并不少出现，繁荣也是。关键是踏对周期。
Market bottoms can be difficult to detect as markets are declining and the economy weakens. Most public and private investors buy too early and underestimate the severity of recessions. It’s important not to react too quickly. Most investors don’t have the confidence or discipline to wait until a cycle fully plays out. These investors suffer by not maximizing the profit they would have otherwise made from executing the same idea at a later point.
Timing the bottom of a cycle isn’t easy, and it’s often a bad idea to try in any case. The way to avoid this type of situation is to invest only when values have recovered at least 10 percent from their lows. Asset values tend to increase as economies gain momentum. It’s better to give up the first 10 to 15 percent of a market recovery to ensure that you are buying at the right time.”
周期中成为右侧交易者，不要追求利润最大化，没有意义，代价可能是进入早了被套住，所以要做右侧交易者，等待从低谷出来10%左右再进场，赚主要趋势即可。
12
“As I sat there absorbing the punishment, I knew that he was right. We were losing their money because our analysis was flawed. I was the person who had made the decision. I don’t think I have been as ashamed as that in my life before or since. Even messing up those deal book numbers for Eric Gleacher as a first-year associate at Lehman didn’t compare. I wasn’t capable. I wasn’t competent. I was a disgrace.”
Edgcomb项目失败后，面对LP批评时的反思：归责于内，才能持续精进。
“Back in the office, I worked like a demon to make sure that even if Blackstone and our investors lost money on Edgcomb, our creditors—the banks we had borrowed from to fund part of the deal—didn’t lose a nickel. ”
保护债权人，也是合作伙伴的重要性。
“Failures are often the best teachers in any organization. You must not bury your failures but talk about them openly and analyze what went wrong so you can learn new rules for decision making. Failures can be enormous gifts, catalysts that change the course of any organization and make it successful in the future. Edgcomb’s failure showed that the change had to start with me and my approach to investing and evaluating potential investments.”
22/25. 失败是宝藏
“In my enthusiasm to give a new partner a shot with the Edgcomb deal, I had made myself and the firm vulnerable.”
给同事机会这种方式放手，其实是不负责任的，也让公司更脆弱。不能同意更多了，警示自己。
“Finance is full of people with charm and flip charts who talk so well and present so quickly you can’t keep up. So you have to stop that show. Decisions are much better made through systems designed to protect businesses and organizations than through individuals. We needed rules to depersonalize our investment process. It could never again rely on one person’s abilities, feelings, and vulnerabilities. We needed to review and tighten our process.”
投资经理都巧舌如簧，ppt决策是不行的。
“Next, we insisted that anyone with a proposal would have to write a thorough memorandum and circulate it at least two days before any meeting so it could be carefully and logically evaluated. The two-day requirement would give readers time to mark up the memo, spot any holes, and refine their questions. No additions could be made to the memo at the meeting unless there was a significant subsequent development. We did not want extra sheets of paper going around the room.”
“These discussions had two fundamental rules. The first was that everyone had to speak, so that every investment decision was made collectively. The second was that our focus should be on the potential investment’s weaknesses. Everyone had to find problems that hadn’t been addressed. ”
“Once this group dissection process concluded, whoever was running the deal now had a list of problems to address and questions to answer. ”
值得借鉴。也值得挂墙上。
“I also resolved that I would never talk to just the lead partner on any potential investment. If I had detailed questions, I would call the most junior person, the one working the spreadsheets and closest to the numbers. ”
不要私下勾兑，整体研究。
13
“People often smile whenever they hear my number one rule for investing: Don’t. Lose. Money. ”
19/25. 太重要了。居然和巴菲特是一个经验，不要输钱。其实VC一定程度上也是。
“We train our professionals to distill every individual investment opportunity down to the two or three major variables that will define the success of our investment case and create value.”
找关键点。
“We structure our investment process to democratize decision making and encourage intellectual engagement by everyone involved—the deal team and committee members. There is no “us” and “them,” no seeking of approval from a group of elders. Instead, there is only a collective sense of responsibility for identifying the critical drivers of a deal and analyzing the extent to which those drivers could affect the financial performance of an investment in various scenarios.”
“At Blackstone, investment committees are about discussion and discovery, not about getting a deal approved. ”
投委会要真正发挥集体智慧，集思广益而不是投票，还需要持续深入的理解。
14
“We formulated a clear set of expectations, which I laid out in a welcome speech to our new analysts. It boiled down to two words: excellence and integrity. To ensure my message got through, I defined excellence in narrow, practical terms: It meant 100 percent on everything. No mistakes. That is different from school or college, where you can get an A with 95 percent. At Blackstone, that 5 percent of underperformance can mean a massive loss for our investors. It is a lot of pressure, but I suggested two ways to relieve it.
卓越就是100分，100分就是没有任何失误。不同于学校，95分就很好，在投资界，5分的失误就是灾难。这个高要求没错。
The first was focus. If you ever felt overwhelmed by work, I said, pass on some of your work to others. It might not feel natural. High achievers tend to want to volunteer for more responsibility, not give up some of what they have taken on. But all that anyone higher up in the firm cares about is that the work is done well. There is nothing heroic or commendable about taking on too much and then screwing it up. Far better to focus on what you can do, do it well, and share the rest.
“The second way to maximize your chances of achieving excellence was to ask for help when needed. Blackstone is full of people who have worked on a lot of deals. If you are spending all night trying to solve a problem, chances are there is someone a few offices away with more experience who could solve it in far less time. Don’t waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel, I advised. There were plenty of wheels all around you, ready-made, just waiting for you to spin them faster, further, and in new directions.”
“So my message to our new analysts was simple: stick to our values and never risk our reputation.”
值得学习。
15
“But I made the mistakes of an inexperienced CEO: I let the differences between us brew. I stood my ground on the dilution of our equity because I considered it a moral principle to respect the terms of the original deal. Instead, I should have recognized that when a situation changes and a business is doing extremely well, sometimes you have to make accommodations.
写在Blackrock拆分后的反思。当时不愿意变通当初股权比例的约定，才有了今天的遗憾，如果要是稍微变通下的话，效果会好很多。黑石会比今天大很多倍，所以思考问题还是要考虑当下的状态，不要太被历史或规则牵绊自己。
“When we first thought of adding business lines to Blackstone, our idea wasn’t to enter just any area. We wanted to build businesses that were great in their own right but also made our whole firm smarter. We believed that the more we learned from different lines of business, the better we would become at everything. It was the one thing they taught at Harvard Business School: everything in business is connected. We would see opportunities and markets in unusual and different ways from our competitors. Our perspective would broaden and deepen. The more feeds we had running into the firm, the more we’d know, the smarter we’d be, and the better the people who’d want to work with us.”
不同的业务线能带来不同视角，不同机会。这个观点非常认可，何况我们正在进行类似的尝试。
16
“Every Monday morning, for example, all of our investment teams gathered to talk about their deals and their context, starting at 8:30 a.m. and running until early afternoon. We discussed the global economy, politics, conversations with our investors, media, any issues that might affect the business. Then we went through a list of live deals, sharing our insights and ideas from our different activities around the world. Everyone could attend. Those who had something relevant to say were encouraged to say it, whatever their age or rank within the firm. All that mattered was the quality of their thinking.”
例会模版。
“He reached out to families and invited our employees to bring their children to work to learn about what their parents did all day. He instituted 360-degree performance reviews to assess everyone at the firm. He overhauled the compensation system toward one based on group bonus pools, written feedback, and open reviews.”
公司的制度和文化建设。
“We are in the business of buying, fixing, and selling. We are managers and owners as much as we are investors. We try to improve the companies we buy and help them grow faster. The faster a company grows, the more someone else will pay for it. The perceived problems arise when we buy a company that is poorly managed and we have to fire people to make room for better ones, or change strategy. ”
PE生意的本质。
17
“My experience of entrepreneurship was anything but a smooth, upward curve. It was so grueling that I have never understood the idea of people wanting to be “serial entrepreneurs.” Doing it once is hard enough.”
哈哈，企业家成功地做一次都足够难了，为何还要连续创业。非常有意思的观察。我想可能是连续创业者的成功来的太容易了，或者说只是连续失败，尚未成功呢。
“ If you are going to start a business, I told them, I believe it has to pass three basic tests. First, your idea has to be big enough to justify devoting your life to it. Make sure it has the potential to be huge.
Second, it should be unique. When people see what you are offering, they should say to themselves, “My gosh, I need this. I’ve been waiting for this. This really appeals to me.” Without that “aha!” you are wasting your time.
Third, your timing must be right. The world actually doesn’t like pioneers, so if you are too early, your risk of failure is high. The market you are targeting should be lifting off with enough momentum to help make you successful.
If you pass these three tests, you will have a business with the potential to be big, that offers something unique, and is hitting the market at the right time. Then you have to be ready for the pain. No entrepreneur anticipates or wants pain, but pain is the reality of starting something new. It is unavoidable.”
够大、够独特/高壁垒、时机正好。创业三要素，三者具备就值得应对一次创业的苦难了。
“As a decent person you think your role is to coax the bad ones along, to find workarounds. As employees, these are 6s and 7s out of 10. If you keep them, you will end up with a dysfunctional company, where you do all the work, staying up all night with the few people who can make it happen.”
“If you are ambitious, you have to fill your company with 9s and 10s, and give them the difficult tasks to do.
用人之道，6-7分不能用，9、10分才行，这点今后要用好。
Finally, to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be paranoid. You always have to believe your company, regardless of size, is a little company. The moment you start to become big and successful, challengers will appear and do their best to take your customers and defeat your business. You are never more vulnerable than at the moment you think you have succeeded.”
对企业家也是，谦虚使人进步，骄傲使人落后。这句要挂墙上。
18
“In an increasingly globalized economy, you had to be able to make connections that a decade or two earlier might not have existed. Cheap, readily available credit was now virtually borderless, flowing around the world in pursuit of opportunity. If we were seeing real estate bubbles in Spain and India, chances were that it was happening elsewhere. This was no time to reach for high-priced real estate deals in overheated markets.”
举一反三的能力太强大，从西班牙和印度泡沫就能想到全球泡沫，确实也是，这不就是全球化的后果吗。从这点出发，我们的业务目标之一还是要在美元世界立足，虽然是连个够世界，但后者更全球化。
“All my life, I have been looking and listening for patterns. The suspicions raised by that real estate meeting earlier in the week now grew into outright fears of an imminent collapse. As I sat there in the Florida sunshine, I began to have serious concerns about the risk of a global collapse.”
寻找范式之余感受疑问。
“Changing your behavior in the face of changing information is always hard. But when people are doing well, they don’t want to change. They choose to ignore the discordant notes and the tunes you are hearing. They feel threatened by bad news and dread the uncertainty of change and the hard work it demands. This tendency makes them passive and rigid at the very moment they should be most active and flexible.
这其实就是人的惯性。
I have always regarded worry as an active, liberating kind of activity. Worrying allows you to articulate the downside in any situation and leads to action to avoid it.”
21/25 焦虑其实是潜意识的警示，是难得财富。
“We were going to do our real estate deals to the same standard we demanded in our private equity business: the same analytical rigor, the same discipline, the same level of trust. We might lose some deals in the short term. But in the long run, we would maintain our reputation as a firm that meant what it said.”
面对地产行业四套账的常规做法之余，黑石能坚持“正”的难得。
“Jon’s second insight was that public companies containing lots of properties were frequently valued at less than the sum of their parts. Real estate investors tended to be individual proprietorships or small family firms without our intellectual or financial resources. ”
“If you offered a good price for the whole lot at the right moment, they might take it because they did not have the people or patience to go through the entire portfolio, putting precise values on every piece of it and finding different buyers willing to pay the highest price. We had experts who could value a piece of real estate, fix it up, and then find the perfect buyer from our network of relationships. We also had the financing available to be patient. By doing all the work that other owners either couldn’t or wouldn’t, we could earn the difference between the “street value” of these properties and the “screen value,” the value we could establish through our disciplined analysis. This increased our reward while lowering our risk.”
A股就面临这样的系统性机会，财报掘金。
19
“This deal is so dangerous,” I told Jon and his team, “I want to sell half of it immediately at a profit to make the price for the rest of it more conservative. I want to sell it on the day we close. I don’t want any daylight. We need to execute the exact same day we buy.” Everyone around the table froze. Who did that? Even thinking about doing it was surreal. But I wasn’t kidding. This deal could bankrupt us.”
EOP项目的巨大创新，接手同时就卖了1/3，很快又卖了1/3，只持有剩余1/3。
20
“I insisted we adopt the same approach we used for all of our investments. Start with an idea. Discuss it, criticize it, and question it. And only when we were as certain as we could possibly be, make a decision. ”
流程。
“I had written a section for the prospectus myself, titled “We Intend to Be a Different Kind of Company.”
这篇下次找出来好好读读。
“The deal required the approval of China’s State Council and premier, both of whom, to my astonishment, took just a few days to reply. In the United States or Europe, it could have taken months or longer. The speed with which official China acted showed me that this decision was more than just financial. This had profound political and diplomatic ramifications.”
入股黑石的事情，居然要到国务院批。中国效率，这个事也很有中国特色。
“Just as I was about to relax, I got another call. There was a problem with Tony’s plane. One of its engines had failed over Iranian airspace, but the pilot hadn’t filed for permission to fly over Iran.”
路演间隙的小插曲，居然能有这种事情发生，做点事情真不容易，无论大小。
21
“But what the hell are you talking about? I’m not writing any checks. This game is for grown-ups. We’ve got a prospectus. People take risks. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.” I told him that such logic did not apply to a firm as big as Bear Stearns, with so much else at stake. ”
“I don’t know about markets,” I said. “But there are times when you just have to stand up and write a check. You have to show customers that you own this, because if you don’t, they’re not going to trust you ever again.” I had felt the pain of this dilemma after our experience with Edgcomb, I had made sure we paid back the banks that lent to us. It would have cost us a lot more to earn back their trust on later deals if we had not made them whole right then.”
类似“刚兑”的时刻，保护投资人是个基础原则，固然有很多合理的理由，但还是要信誉至上，信誉的核心就是大家的利益你能保护，你能担着。
“FAS 157 required the opposite. In the name of transparency, it made the balance sheets of financial institutions look insanely volatile. Portfolios of assets that had been built up to be held over long durations now had to be priced when their values were collapsing. ”
描述导致金融危机的Mark to market原则的荒诞。
“You’re not bailing anybody out. You’re lending them money, which is going to be repaid. It’s just a bridge loan where the taxpayers are going to get all their money back, with interest and probably with a big profit when the banks recover. Describing it as a bailout is going to create a PR nightmare. It’s going to be completely misunderstood.”
“What an amazing thing, I thought. I have been helpful here. It felt extremely good. Nobody knew what to do as we risked heading into something worse than the Great Depression. Thanks to Christine’s persistence, I had volunteered to be part of the solution, and Hank had taken the time to listen. ”
金融危机期间，给财长的电话内容和后续的到认可时的感受。
22
“Life is long, and helping people when they need it often comes back to you in ways you least expect it. You never forget the friends who came to your aid in tough situations.”
24/25 助人为乐，手有余香。
“Success breeds arrogance and complacency, he said. You only learn from your mistakes and when the worst happens.”
成功容易带来骄傲和自满，只有失败或者最糟糕的情况出现才能学到教训。
“On Hilton alone, we had to write down the value of our investment by 70 percent as the company’s revenues and earnings collapsed. I told Ken not to worry. These low-asset valuations were just marks. They would come back. We invest based on a thesis. If we still believed it, we just had to keep working and be patient. If the financial system collapsed, we would all be finished. As long as it survived, so would we.”
居然会有70%这么大的减值，这个项目后来成了最赚钱的之一。
“In both the housing boom that preceded the crisis and the bust that followed, the government’s policies exacerbated the situation. When the market was going too fast, they slammed on the gas. When it was grinding to a halt, they hit the brakes. The poor American consumer suffered whiplash in the passenger seat.”
政策总是加剧经济周期，而不是熨平。
“Looking back, our initial observation seems to have been a simple one: When people are being stopped, for no good reason, from buying what they need, the system has to adjust. When it adjusts, the price of the commodity will rise. People needed houses, but after the crash, irrational regulators and fearful bankers got in their way. It was just a question of buying in the right way at the right time in the cycle.
投资地产项目的缘由。。
The opportunity, then, was to buy or build pieces of the energy industry’s infrastructure and sell them at full market prices.When the opportunity reached the investment committee, we had a lot of concerns. We don’t care if a deal is the best oil and gas deal out there. It has to stand up against the entire universe of investments we can make, from health care to real estate, media to technology. Another concern was Charif himself. Founder entrepreneurs can have strong ideas and personalities to match, so we drafted a clear set of expectations and targets to minimize the risk of any future disagreements. As long as the project stayed on track, he stayed in charge. ”
投资案例的分享。
“It was a curious request, but as an entrepreneur, I’ve learned that finance is a simple business. When somebody asks you for something new, the odds that he or she is the only person on the planet at that point of time who would find that of interest is zero. When you get one of those inquiries, it’s potentially a huge opportunity. Those who are asking don’t know that. They are just looking at their own needs. But if those needs make sense and you create the right product to fit those needs, you can roll it out more broadly and your competitors will be left wondering how you figured it out.”
值得挂墙上。吃的苦中苦方为人上人，金融行业也如此。
23
But one of the great things about the entrepreneurial experience is that over time, if everything works out, life does get easier. As your business matures, the quality of the people around you gets better and your systems become more consistent. You put the right risk controls in place. You create an institution with successors who care. Your reputation improves and starts doing some of the work for you. The virtuous cycle spins faster, and in the case of Blackstone, clients and investors give us more money in larger amounts than they ever did before.
成功企业家的感悟，企业可以越管越简单，越管越容易。
Somehow everything was going to take twice as long and cost twice as much than we anticipated.
实际所需的时间和费用都会是预算的2倍…要有心理准备。
24
“I spoke to all of them beforehand to preview what they wanted to discuss and insisted that we didn’t spend time at these meetings arguing over the source or nature of the problems. I wanted to frame the issues for a productive discussion. The members of our forum were serious, direct people who were good at being heard.”
为总统工作也是这么个好习惯。
“I asked if China would consider cutting its steel capacity by 15 to 20 percent. To my astonishment, Vice Premier Wang said yes. Wilbur was delighted. But President Trump wanted nothing of the deal. China had far too much steel capacity as it was. They would have closed their excess plants anyway. It wasn’t a big enough concession to warrant his support”
中美贸易战这么大的事情，成就这个转折点就是斯瓦茨曼先生本人。不得不说，当初能决策投资黑石的人多么英明，有时候交对朋友很重要，不仅能帮赚钱，还能帮上大忙。国家如此，做人也如此。
25
“In our world, we found the opposite happening: as our funds grew and our rivals struggled, our size became a major source of advantage. We found buyers and sellers eager to work with us, and us alone. We moved away from participating in many competitive auctions with other private equity firms into situations where we could focus more specifically on the value to both sides and less on rival bidders.”
规模优势出来了。但本质其实还是要做别人做不了的事情，高壁垒的事情。
“Jon is always emotionally balanced, eager to learn new facts, and confident in his own judgment. ”
优秀人才的标准：情绪控制能力强，学习新东西、自信且有判断。
“Whenever we promote people to senior roles at Blackstone, I congratulate them in person and we talk about their new responsibilities. My conversation with Kathleen was typical of those I have with many people across the firm. She began by asking me about how we maintain the spirit of entrepreneurship at Blackstone. The trick, I told her, was finding fantastic people and giving them the chance to be the best at what they do. We keep our edge by reinventing everything we do to make it better. We also talked about the emotions that surround succession. When people are promoted, there are a lot of feelings to consider. Those promoted might feel a sense of pride in their own success but also anxiety about their new responsibilities. Others will have thought they would get promoted and didn’t. Some will feel excited about having a new boss; others will feel unmoored and frightened of change. The effects of those feelings will show up in unusual ways and at strange times, and being aware of them, understanding and managing them, is essential to the success of any leader. This was one of those management lessons you learn only from experience.”
提升谈话的模版，值得学习。
其他未曾包括的总结的点还有12个：
3. Write or call the people you admire, and ask for advice or a meeting. You never know who will be willing to meet with you. You may end up learning something important or form a connection you can leverage for the rest of your life. Meeting people early in life creates an unusual bond.
4. There is nothing more interesting to people than their own problems. Think about what others are dealing with, and try to come up with ideas to help them. Almost anyone, however senior or important, is receptive to new ideas provided they are thoughtful.
7. When you’re young, only take a job that provides you with a steep learning curve and strong training. First jobs are foundational. Don’t take a job just because it seems prestigious.
8. When presenting yourself, remember that impressions matter. The whole picture has to be right. Others will be watching for all sorts of clues and cues that tell who you are. Be on time. Be authentic. Be prepared.
9. No one person, however smart, can solve every problem. But an army of smart people talking openly with one another will.
10. People in a tough spot often focus on their own problems, when the answer usually lies in fixing someone else’s.
11. Believe in something greater than yourself and your personal needs. It can be your company, your country, or a duty for service. Any challenge you tackle that is inspired by your beliefs and core values will be worth it, regardless of whether you succeed or fail.
12. Never deviate from your sense of right and wrong. Your integrity must be unquestionable. It is easy to do what’s right when you don’t have to write a check or suffer any consequences. It’s harder when you have to give something up. Always do what you say you will, and never mislead anyone for your own advantage.
13. Be bold. Successful entrepreneurs, managers, and individuals have the confidence and courage to act when the moment seems right. They accept risk when others are cautious and take action when everyone else is frozen, but they do so smartly. This trait is the mark of a leader.
14. Never get complacent. Nothing is forever. Whether it is an individual or a business, your competition will defeat you if you are not constantly seeking ways to reinvent and improve yourself. Organizations, especially, are more fragile than you think.
20. Make decisions when you are ready, not under pressure. Others will always push you to make a decision for their own purposes, internal politics, or some other external need. But you can almost always say, “I need a little more time to think about this. I’ll get back to you.” This tactic is very effective at defusing even the most difficult and uncomfortable situations.
25. Everyone has dreams. Do what you can to help others achieve theirs.