财富精英励志演讲99:确定你的目标(5)

 　　But I mean, if you launch a feature, obviously retention¹ is going to go up. All right, so I mean, retention has been up recently because of the photos. But focusing on things that are sustainable and scalable, so that when we launch more schools or go into the next market or whatever we do, we're going to set ourselves up to have the same success that we've had without hurting ourself in current position.

　　不过，如果你推广一个新的功能，回访率就会明显上升。所以，自从相册上线之后，回访率就升高了。要关注那些可持续发展的、规模容易扩大的事物，所以当我们向更多的学校扩展，就是进入新的市场时，我们的目标是获得跟以前一样的成功，而且不破坏现有的水平。

　　Jim Breyer: Mark is incredibly good at keeping the bar very high on new hires. When you're quadrupling in size in terms of people, there's always a tendency.

　　吉姆·布莱耶：马克在招聘新员工时，从来不会降低标准，当你需要将员工规模翻四番时，大多数人总会降低标准。

　　You see it again and again and I know Tom Byers and many of you in the audience always talk about quality of people and maintaining the bar. But in practice, it's really easy to say "this person doesn't match up in there, but does match up along so many dimensions. It would take six months to find the right person." And Mark has been extraordinary, as a leader in maintaining a very high bar and at time walking away from people who are receiving, outstanding recommendations, but either don't fit from a standpoint, or they're not going to scale and they'd be the wrong person a year or two from now.

　　我知道Tom Byers (译者注：他是斯坦福大学的教授）和在座的很多听众，经常讨论人员素质以及保持很高的门槛。可在实践中，人们很容易找到这样的借口说“这个人在某一方面不合适，可在其他那么多方面都合适，要找到一个适合的人得花上6个月啊。”马克作为一个领导者，在坚持标准不放松这点上做得非常出色。他经常会放弃一些得到强有力推荐的应聘者，要么因为他们在文化方面不契合，或者是因为公司没打算扩张，那他们就会在一到两年内成为一个错误选择。

　　And that is certainly, as an investor² and board member an ongoing³ challenge. How do you deal with that trade-off where you absolutely need an ad sales force, but at the same time, it's one person at a time. You just can't say let's go out and hire five good engineers or five good ad sales people and not have them be great. Because the B+ or A- people, you know it，they'll hire B's md B minuses. And this is a time in the company where you just have to aspire⁴ with each hire to get an A or A+ person. And it's easier said than done. I think that is one of the fundamental ongoing challenges.

　　对一个投资者兼董事会成员来说，这当然是个持续性的挑战。你要怎么样取舍，当你急需一批销售人员，可是同时你只能要一个合适的，你不能在找不到出色的人选时，就去聘上5个差不多的工程师或者 5个差不多的广告销售人员，本来想要B+或是A-的人，可结果招来的却是B或B-的人。在这个时代，公司招进来的每一个人应该都是一个A或者A+的人才，不过，说来容易做来难。这也是一个根本有持久的挑战。

1 retention   

n.保留，保持，保持力，记忆力

参考例句：

• They advocate the retention of our nuclear power plants.他们主张保留我们的核电厂。
• His retention of energy at this hour is really surprising.人们惊叹他在这个时候还能保持如此旺盛的精力。

2 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

3 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

4 aspire   

vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于

参考例句：

• Living together with you is what I aspire toward in my life.和你一起生活是我一生最大的愿望。
• I aspire to be an innovator not a follower.我迫切希望能变成个开创者而不是跟随者。