初创企业的幕后英雄

On April 1, 2004, Eileen Burbidge stepped off the overnight flight from San Francisco to London. After years of working in various roles at Silicon Valley companies such as Apple, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems, she was taking up a job in the UK as Skype’s product development director.

2004年4月1日，艾琳•伯比奇(Eileen Burbidge)搭乘隔夜航班从旧金山抵达伦敦，她将担任Skype英国分公司的产品开发总监。此前数年，她在苹果(Apple)、雅虎(Yahoo)和太阳计算机系统公司(Sun Microsystems)等硅谷企业历任多个职位。

The internet video calls company then employed about 20 people across offices in London and Tallinn, Estonia. Ms Burbidge’s plan was to go to her hotel for a shower, then head straight to work to show how keen she was. But before she could even wash, her eager colleagues sent a message asking when she would arrive.

Skype是一家互联网视频电话公司，当时在伦敦分部和爱沙尼亚的塔林(Tallinn)分部差不多有20名员工。伯比奇本来打算先去酒店洗个澡，然后直奔公司，以示自己对工作很用心。但她还没开始洗，心急的同事们就给她发了一条信息，问她什么时候能到。

Her arrival was a matter of urgency because of the speed at which Skype was expanding. She describes the next year as the “rocket ship” phase. Given her prior experience, she could advise how to steer it. “It helped that somebody had a playbook in mind, to map how we should grow.”

由于Skype急速扩张，伯比奇的上任成了一件紧急的事情。她形容之后的一年好比乘坐“火箭船”。凭借之前的工作经验，她能为如何“驾驶”这艘船出谋划策。“有人胸有成竹是件好事，有助于勾勒出我们的发展路线图。”

When Ms Burbidge arrived, tens of thousands had downloaded Skype. Within weeks that became hundreds of thousands. Soon it was millions. Over the next 12 months, the London office went from a staff of five to 50. In 2005, shortly after Ms Burbidge left Skype, it was sold to eBay for $2.6bn.

伯比奇刚到Skype的时候，已有几万人下载了Skype。在数周之内，这个数字变成了数十万。不久又变成了数百万。而她上任一年后，伦敦分部的员工从5人增长到了50人。2005年，伯比奇离开Skype后不久，Skype被eBay以26亿美元的价格收购。

When the tale of a tech success such as Skype is told, much of the credit — rightly — goes to the boss. In start-up land, all hail the cult of the young founder. These origin stories follow a pattern. Twenty-something male, through inspiration and pluck, builds tech company that changes the world (through an app, available to download). But among these founder myths, few odes are sung to middle managers such as Ms Burbidge. Less is known about these sometimes older, often wiser heads. They are the product managers, sales executives and marketing heads who transform a start-up into a grown-up.

当人们说起Skype这样的科技公司的成功故事时，大部分的赞誉会归于老板，这样说也的确有其道理。在初创公司的世界里，所有人都对年轻创始人推崇备至。这些创始故事都有一个模式。二十多岁的男性，凭借灵感和魄力创办了一家（通过一款可供下载的应用）改变世界的科技公司。但在这些创始人的神话中，很少有人为伯比奇这样的人唱赞歌。人们对这些虽然可能年纪大些、通常却更加聪明的主管知之甚少。他们是帮助初创公司走向成熟的产品经理、销售主管和营销主管。

Ms Burbidge, now a partner at Passion Capital, a London-based venture capital firm, says there are a few prerequisites that budding tech groups need to bloom: lots of money, skilled computer engineers and, yes, compelling leadership. But also, she adds, a bench of experienced executives who know how to scale a fast-growing tech company.

伯比奇现在是伦敦一家风险投资公司Passion Capital的合伙人。她说，刚起步的科技企业要发展成熟，需要几个条件：大量资金和技能熟练的电脑工程师，当然也需要令人信服的领导层。除此之外，还需要一批经验丰富、知道如何管理一家快速发展的科技企业的管理者。

In California, hot start-ups already know this. They poach key staff from the trailblazers that went before them. These savvy hires soon become industry stars in their own right.

在加利福尼亚，那些红火的初创企业已经明白这一点。他们从更早的创业者那里挖走关键员工。这些精明的雇员很快就凭借自己的能力成为了行业明星。

When Mark Zuckerberg needed someone to build the advertising business for his social network, he grabbed Sheryl Sandberg from Google. She had previously run the search company’s sales operation.

当马克•扎克博格(Mark Zuckerberg)需要有人帮他的社交网络打造广告业务时，他从搜索引擎公司谷歌(Google)挖来了谢里尔•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)，后者此前负责谷歌的销售业务。

When Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snapchat, needed someone to do the same for his ephemeral-messaging app, he nabbed Emily White, a former lieutenant of Ms Sandberg, who had negotiated the first advertising deals for Instagram, the social network’s photo app service.

当阅后即焚应用Snapchat首席执行官埃文•斯皮格(Evan Spiegel)需要有人来帮他做同样的事情时，他挖来了曾担任桑德伯格副手的艾米丽•怀特(Emily White)，后者为这家社交网络公司的照片应用服务Instagram谈成了第一批广告协议。

Miracle-Gro executives are abundant in the Valley. Elsewhere, they are harder to unearth. Hiroki Takeuchi, 28-year-old founder and CEO of GoCardless, a London-based online payments group, says he can find computer engineers aplenty. But for months he has failed to find the ideal candidate for the post of vice-president for marketing. “These are people who will have a large amount of influence,” he says. “A year ago, there were no layers of managers here. But once you get to a certain scale, you need a certain level of management, as long as they have an appreciation for the need for speed.”

在硅谷，这种帮助创造奇迹的高管比比皆是。在其他地方就比较难找到。28岁的武内宏树(Hiroki Takeuchi)是伦敦一家在线支付集团GoCardless的创始人、首席执行官。他说，他能找到大量的计算机工程师。但是，他花了好几个月也没找到担任营销副总裁的理想人选。“这些都是将拥有很大影响力的人物，”他说，“一年前，这里并不存在多个层级的管理人员。但是，一旦你发展到了一定规模，你就需要有一定的等级，只要他们能理解快速发展的需要。”

Tech’s tender entrepreneurs are often mocked for monumental egos and megalomaniac ambitions. But I’ve found the very best are humble enough to know the debt they owe their teams.

科技企业的年轻创业者经常被人嘲笑极端自我，野心勃勃，不知天高地厚。但我发现，最优季的创业者都很谦逊，知道自己欠手下团队的情。

Patrick Collison is CEO and co-founder of Stripe, a San-Francisco based payments group recently valued at $3.5bn. A couple of years ago at the Dublin Web Summit, the 26-year-old Irishman was feted like a rock star. As local techies lined up to take selfies with him, Mr Collison seemed embarrassed. He told me the founder’s role has been overplayed, reckoning that, once the company reached a certain size, it was the executive bench that made the real difference.

帕特里克•科利森(Patrick Collison)是总部在旧金山的支付集团Stripe的首席执行官、联合创始人，该公司估值最近达到35亿美元。在几年前的都柏林网络峰会(Dublin Web Summit)上，这位时年26岁的爱尔兰人受到了摇滚明星般的对待。当地IT人士排队要和他一起自拍，这似乎令他感到难为情。他告诉我，创始人的作用被夸大了，他认为，一旦公司到了一定规模，真正起作用的是高管团队。

“I’m the CEO and the buck stops here on every decision we make,” he told me. “But everything we do, that is not my work. I help steer it . . . but it’s not my work. If it is, then it’s a small part and an increasingly small part.”

“我是首席执行官，我要对我们做出的每项决策负责，”他告诉我。“但我们做的每一件事，都不是我的工作。我只是帮助掌舵……但那不是我的功劳。即使是有我的作用，也只是很小的一部分，并且分量越来越小。”

The writer is the FT’s European technology correspondent

本文作者为英国《金融时报》欧洲科技记者