硅谷頂級風投公司的成功秘訣

????風投公司安德森?霍洛維茨（Andreessen Horowitz）的合伙人跟創業者開會，如果遲到的話，就得買單。這是真的。它是公司聯合創始人、一度也創過業的馬克?安德森和本?霍洛維茨在2009年創辦公司時制定的制度之一。合伙人每遲到10分鐘，罰款10美元。這項制度是為了強調安德森?霍洛維茨所秉持的創業者值得尊重的理念。安德森和霍洛維茨希望將公司打造成為創業者在創業初期的融資首選。公司目前已經成立了三只基金，總計募集超過了27億美元的資金，投資對象包括Facebook、Skype、團購網站Groupon和圖片共享網站Instagram等。安德森?霍洛維茨現已迅速發展成為沙嶺路上最具影響力的風投公司之一。

????《財富》雜志（Fortune）編輯亞當?拉辛斯基與公司創始合伙人面對面探討他們的業務模式、投資理念和職責分工。座談記錄如下，略經修改。

????亞當?拉辛斯基： 今天我有幸邀請到來自風投公司安德森?霍洛維茨的馬克?安德森和本?霍洛維茨。硅谷的傳統觀念認為，創業者和風險資本家并不是好戰友，而你們二位曾經也是創業者，在創辦自己的風投公司前也曾多次創業。因此，我想先問一下馬克，究竟是什么使您有興趣成為一位風險資本家？

????馬克?安德森： 在人生職業生涯的特定階段，我是說，部分原因出于個人因素，在人生職業生涯的特定階段，幫助創業者比成為創業者更有意義。這屬于反思的一面，在這方面我并不擅長，因此我這次采訪中不想談太多。

????但另一個原因，也是更為客觀的因素，那就是我們看到了機會，可以創辦一個我們曾經從它那里取得資金的風投公司。因此它也是一個經典的案例，我們成為風險資本的客戶已有15年歷史。我們還不是風險資本家時，就已非常了解如果成為風險資本家，談判桌對面將會是什么情形，了解產品消費者實際將會怎么樣。

????亞當?拉辛斯基： 所以你們有意采取與眾不同的風投策略。能否解釋一下。

????本?霍洛維茨： 確實如此。形成這一策略的原因包括多個不同的理念。第一點，創業者才是最好的經理人。當時，通過換位思考我們所考察的所有真正偉大的公司，這些公司一般都由創業者親自經營。通過我們曾經身為創業者的經歷，我們切實相信創業者有知識、有承諾、有熱忱，而這一點很難移植到公司之中。因此，我們公司的宗旨并不是要用職業經理人代替創業者，而是輔導創業者如何成為經理人，幫助創業者成為經理人。

????一旦我們實現這個目標，一切都將徹底改變。因此，首先要求合伙人具有實際公司經營的經驗。

????亞當?拉辛斯基： 這里的合伙人是指你們公司的合伙人，也就是風險資本家吧。

????本?霍洛維茨： 是投資合伙人。如果有人要擔任你公司的董事，而你將擔任CEO，那么如果該人曾經也擔任過CEO，知道怎樣成為一名CEO，將會很有幫助。因此，我們可以幫助創業者獲得需要的能力。

????第二點，職業經理人擁有龐大的關系網絡。他們熟悉媒體、客戶、高管以及所有能帶入公司的一切人。因此我們認為，風投公司應當為硅谷建立龐大的網絡，從而在創業者到來時，我們可以為他提供好于任何職業經理人的網絡。以上兩點正是我們公司真正與眾不同的地方。（財富中文網）

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????When partners at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz are late to a meeting with entrepreneurs, they pay for it – literally. That's one of the rules established by co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, former entrepreneurs themselves, who started the firm in 2009. Partners are fined $10 for every minute they are late to a meeting, a punishment that reinforces the belief that at Andreessen Horowitz, entrepreneurs deserve respect. Andreessen and Horowitz aimed to create the kind of firm they would have wanted to fund them in their startup days. Having raised three funds worth more than $2.7 billion--and investments that have included Facebook, Skype, Groupon, and Instagram--Andreessen Horowitz quickly has become one of the most influential firms on Sand Hill Road.

????Fortune's Adam Lashinsky sat down with the firm's founding partners to discuss their business model, investing philosophies and role models. A lightly edited transcript follows.

????ADAM LASHINSKY:So I'm here with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. It's conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are not the best of buddies, and you guys were both entrepreneurs, were operating entrepreneurs several times over before starting your firm. And so the first question for you, Marc, is why were you interested in becoming a venture capitalist at all?

????MARC ANDREESSEN:At a certain point in your career -- I mean, part of the answer is a personal answer, which is that at a certain point in your career, it becomes more satisfying to help entrepreneurs than to be one. That's the introspective side of things, which I'm terrible at and so I'll just like -- I'll refuse to talk about that going forward in this interview.

????The other answer, though, the more sort of objective answer is we saw the opportunity to create the venture capital firm that we would have wanted to take money from had it existed. And so it's sort of the classic case of we were a customer of venture capital for 15 years. So while we hadn't been VCs, we had a very good idea of what it was like to be on the other side of the table and to actually be the consumer of the product, if you will.

????ADAM LASHINSKY:And you took a purposely different approach to venture capital. Explain that.

????BEN HOROWITZ: Right. Well, we had a couple of different ideas that led to that. And the first was founders make the best CEOs. And that was, at the time, like real counter-programming in that we had looked at all the really great companies, and they were typically run by their founders. And we really believed there was a reason for that, having been entrepreneurs, that the founder has the knowledge, they've got the commitment, they've got the passion, and that's very hard to implant into the company. And then we designed the firm rather than being a firm to replace a founder with a professional CEO, we became the firm to teach the founder how to be the CEO and enable the founder to be the CEO.

????And once we did that, there was a whole set of things that changed. So, the first thing was the partners needed to have experience running companies.

????ADAM LASHINSKY:By partners, you mean your partners, the venture capitalists.

????BEN HOROWITZ:The investing partners. If somebody's going on your board and you're going to be CEO, it will help if that person knows how to be CEO, who has done it before. So that we could help the founder get the skill set.

????And then the second thing was professional CEOs have these incredible networks. They know people in the press and customers and executives and all these guys they can bring into the company. So we thought the firm ought to build the definitive network for Silicon Valley so that when a founder comes in, we can give him a network that's better than any professional CEO. And those two things really ended up differentiating the firm in a big way.