如何创造财富
原文：http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
译者：阮一峰
如果你想致富，应该怎么做？我认为最好的办法就是自己创业，或者加入创业公司。几百年来，这一直是致富的可靠途径。“创业公司”（startup）这个词诞生于20世纪60年代，但是它与中世纪集资进行的航海冒险活动其实也相差无几。
创业公司往往与技术有关，所以“高技术创业公司”这个短语几乎就是同义重复。创业公司其实就是解决了某个技术难题的小公司。
许多人对此一无所知，但也发了财。这就好像你不用学习物理学也能成为一个出色的棒球投球手。但是，我认为理解这些原理，有助于你取得成功。为什么创业公司必须是小公司？当创业公司不断变大时，它是否不可避免地失去创新能力？为什么创业公司往往选择在新技术领域创业？为什么如此之多的创业公司在开发新药或者计算机软件，而不是再卖玉米油或者洗衣粉。
If you want to get rich, how would you do it? I think your best bet would be to start or join a startup. That's been a reliable way to get rich for hundreds of years. the word "startup" dates from the 1960s, but what hanppens in one is very similar to the venture-backed trading voyages of the Middle Ages.
Startups usually involve technology, so much so that the phrase "high-tech startup" is almost redundant. A startup is a company that takes on a hard technical problem.
Lots of rich people get rich knowning nothing more than that. You don't have to know physics to be a good pitcher. But I think i could given you an edge to underlying principles. why do startup have to be small? Will a startup inevitably stop being a startup as it grows larger? And why do they so often work on developing new technology? Why are there so many startups selling new drugs or computer software, and none selling corn oil or laundry detergent?
一个命题
从经济学观点看，你可以把创业想象成一个压缩过程，你的所有工作年份被压缩成了短短几年。你不再是低强度地工作四十年，而是以极限强度工作四年。在高技术领域，这种压缩的回报尤其丰厚，工作效率越高，额外报酬就越高。
下面举一个简单的例子说明这个经济学命题。如果你是一个20多岁的优秀黑客，每年的年薪大约是8万美元。这意味着，平均来看，你必须每年至少为公司带来8万美元利润，这样才能保证公司没有亏钱。但是，你的真正工作时间其实可以是公司上班时间的2倍，如果你全神贯注，每小时的产出可以提高3倍。如果再把大公司里令人讨厌的中间管理层除去（他们经常以主管的身份妨碍你的工作），你的效率可以再提高2倍。还有一个可以提高效率的地方：你不用再完成强行指派个你的工作，尽可以根据自己的愿望，做出最能发挥你聪明才智的成果。假定这会把工作效率再增加三倍。将这些因子放在一起做乘法，你的工作效率将是在公司时的36倍。如果一个优秀黑客在大公司里的身价是每年8万美元，那么一个勤奋工作、摆脱杂事干扰的聪明黑客，他的工作相当于每年新创造300万美元的价值。
Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast.
Here is a brief sketch of the economic proposition. If you're a good hacker in your mid twenties, you can get a job paying about $80,000 per year. So on average such a hacker must be able to do at least $80,000 worth of work per year for the company just to break even. You could probably work twice as many hours as a corporate employee, and if you focus you can probably get three times as much done in an hour. [1] You should get another multiple of two, at least, by eliminating the drag of the pointy-haired middle manager who would be your boss in a big company. Then there is one more multiple: how much smarter are you than your job description expects you to be? Suppose another multiple of three. Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claiming you could be 36 times more productive than you're expected to be in a random corporate job. [2] If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 a year at a big company, then a smart hacker working very hard without any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to do work worth about $3 million a year.
