创业成功人士访谈录 第108期:我们不需要花哨的外观(4)

 　　I understand, but the apartment brokers¹ who we charge asked us to charge them

　　我明白你的意思，但纽约的房屋中介主动要求我们收费，

　　because they figured it would cut down on the perceived need to post and repost the same places

　　这样可以防止人们大量发布重复消息，

　　and they figured it would get rid of some of the scammers.

　　也为了将一些诈骗分子挡在外面。

　　The principle behind this一in 2000 I asked a lot of people,

　　对于这背后的原则, 在2000年，我问了很多人，

　　“What’s the right way for us to pay the bills, and maybe do better than that?"，

　　怎样收费最好，

　　People told us to charge people who already paid too much for less effective ads.

　　人们告诉我，向那些在传统广告上花了很多钱却收效甚微的人收费，

　　Specifically, the consensus² was it was OK to charge employers and recruiters

　　具体来讲，大家一致同意：向雇主和招聘人员，

　　and to charge apartment brokers and real estate agents.

　　房屋中介和房地产代理商收费是合理的，

　　And so we’ve done that, but only a little.

　　所以我们这样做了，但收得很少。

　　And this makes enough money for the company to survive and for your 25 San Francisco-based employees to get their paychecks?

　　这点钱够一个公司生存吗？或者说，够你向你的25个旧金山雇员发薪水吗？

　　Right. It ain’t bad. We just do what feels right and plug away.

　　够了，而且还不坏。我们坚持 不懈地致力于那些我们感觉是对的事。

　　So you founded Craigslist. but you aren’t an executive? Why is that?

　　你创立了 Craigslist,却不是执行官，为什么？

　　Inside the company, my job is customer service.

　　在我们公司，我是个客户服务人员，

　　Jim is a much better CEO.

　　吉姆更适合做CEO。

　　And my skills are not management skills;

　　我的能力不在经营管理，

　　however, I’m a really good customer service representative.

　　但我绝对是个好的客户服务代表。

　　I’m part of a customer service team and we handle things like cases of abuse from users of the Web site.

　　我是客服团队的一员，我的职责是处理一些网站被客户滥用的事情。

　　OK, so here you have Craigslist at your disposal.

　　好的，你有自己的Craigslist,

　　How do you use Craigslist? Do you buy things or list things for sale?

　　你怎么使用Craigslist,你也在上面买东西或发布商品吗？

　　Once in a while I do all the above.

　　偶尔也会，

　　I do so a little gingerly because it kind of feels like a conflict of interest

　　但我会很谨慎，因为这里面有利益冲突，

　　because when I do that I have to disclose who I am.

　　我要在上面做这些，我必须透露我是谁，

　　That isn’t a conflict of interest, but it still to me feels a little bit like one.

　　但难免就会出现利益冲突的事。其实这并不是利益冲突，

　　I feel the way I do and so I do things gingerly and that seems to be fair.

　　但是我还是觉得是。所以我想自己必须非常谨慎才会显得公平。

　　Five years from now, what do you see changing at Craigslist?

　　后5年，你会看到Craigslist有什么改变？

　　It’s going to be more of the same, more cities, more languages.

　　更多的会保持不变，我们会发展到更多城市，更多语言，

　　It’s now in English and we’ve recently introduced Spanish, starting with Madrid.

　　现在是英语，最近我们正尝试西班牙语，从马德里开始。

1 brokers   

n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排…

参考例句：

• The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers. 那家公司叫阿尔斯伯里公司，经销威士忌。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• From time to time a telephone would ring in the brokers' offices. 那两排经纪人房间里不时响着叮令的电话。 来自子夜部分

2 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？