從新媒體女王到睡眠大使的英語美文

She’s the self-made media magnate who launched the Huffington Post website. These days, Arianna Huffington is more concerned with sleep. I met her at the Manhattan offices of Thrive Global, her latest business venture, whose mission is to end the stress and burnout epidemic.

她是白手起家的傳媒大亨，創立了《赫芬頓郵報》網站。不過近來，阿里安娜.赫芬頓更關心的是睡眠問題。我在Thrive Global的曼哈頓辦公室見到了她，這是她最新的創業項目，宗旨是幫當代人擺脱普遍困擾他們的壓力與精疲力盡感。

Andrew: So Arianna, you founded Huffington Post and Thrive Global after a long and varied career in other areas. What difference do you think it makes having experience before founding a business? Because most of your career up to then had not been about --

阿里安娜，你創辦了《赫芬頓郵報》和現在的Thrive Global，之前你在其他領域做過很長時間其他工作。你創業前的工作經歷對你的創業有幫助嗎?因為在創業之前，你的工作都不是經營公司——

Arianna: I was a writer. Yes. I had written a dozen books, [I was a] journalist, a speaker. I think, obviously, you bring all your earlier experiences to any new undertaking. For me, more important than my early experiences was my upbringing. You know, I was brought up in Athens, Greece by an amazing mother who had always made me feel that I could take risks because she kept saying failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a stepping stone to success. So I think being comfortable with the possibility of failure, which was incredibly high when I launched Huff Post, meant that I was willing to take the risk.

我之前是名作家，沒錯。我寫了十幾本書，還曾是一名記者、一名演講者。很顯然你會把以前的經驗都用到任何新工作中去。對我而言，比我之前的工作經歷更重要的是我的成長經歷。你知道的，我從小在希臘雅典長大。我有一位了不起的母親，她一直讓我覺得我可以承擔風險。因為她一直説，失敗不是成功的對立面，而是成功的墊腳石。所以我面對可能的失敗心態比較從容，而我創辦《赫芬頓郵報》時失敗風險非常高，這種心態讓我願意冒險。

After 12 years at the Huffington Post, Ms Huffington sold the news site to AOL for $350 million before launching Thrive Global.

創建和領導《赫芬頓郵報》12年後，赫芬頓女士以3.5億美元的價格將這個新聞網站賣給了美國在線(AOL)，在此之後創立了Thrive Global。

Andrew: What did you learn?

你從中學到了什麼?

Arianna: The first thing I learned, the most important thing is to make sure that you don’t hire people who may be great at their job, but they are toxic in terms of the culture. I call it “no brilliant jerks allowed”. And I think it’s my number one management rule. It’s very tempting when you find someone who is good at what they do, who delivers results, to overlook the toxic impact they have in the culture and on their colleagues, because of who they are and because of their character. Now, I do believe that everybody is redeemable, and people evolve and learn. But it’s at a very high cost for a company, especially a start-up.

我學到的'第一件事，也是最重要的事，就是確保不要僱傭那些可能在工作上表現得很出色，但會毒害企業文化的人。我稱這個(原則)為“不容許聰明的混蛋”。我把它當作我的口號管理原則。一個很擅長某項工作的人出現在你面前是很具有迷惑性的，你被他們的靚麗業績迷惑，以至於忽略了他們對企業文化和同事的負面影響。這源於他們的本性和性格。現在，我相信每個人都可以彌補這些缺陷，人們不斷地發展和學習。但對一家公司來説，它的成本太高，尤其是對一家初創公司。

Arianna: And now at Thrive Global, I am very conscious of the fact that the first 100 people you hire will determine the culture of the company.

在Thrive Global，我非常清楚前100個員工將決定公司文化。

Her aim at Thrive Global is to help people and companies improve their well-being and performance. The company offers everything from online advice to products such as smart watches and even miniature beds where you can tuck in your phone at night to charge, as part of a quest to encourage a healthier relationship with technology.

她創辦Thrive Global的目標是幫助人們和公司提高他們的福祉和業績。該公司提供各類產品，從在線諮詢到智能手錶，甚至“手機牀”，可以用來夜間給手機充電。這些嘗試都在鼓勵人們與科技建立更健康的關係。

Andrew: Tell us a little about the difference between setting up Huffington Post and setting up Thrive Global.

可以告訴我們創辦《赫芬頓郵報》和創辦Thrive Global感覺上有何不同嗎?

Arianna: Thrive Global has been a lot easier. I think, I’m sure it’s partly because it’s not my first rodeo and because we’re very lucky to be able to raise capital easily, both for the Series A and then the Series B. It was easier to recruit great people, which is so key for any start up. But I think more important than that is that I think we tapped into a moment in the zeitgeist. After sort of decades of believing the wrong thing, we are waking up and realising that this delusion, that burnout is essential in order to achieve and succeed, is something that has actually cost us a lot in terms of health, productivity, and ultimately, results.

創辦Thrive Global要容易很多。我相信一個原因是，這不是我第一次站上這個“牛仔競技會”了。還有一點是，我們很幸運，能夠比較輕鬆融到資金，在A輪和B輪都是如此。我們招聘優秀人才也比上次容易，這一點對創業企業至關重要。但我認為比這更重要的是，我們觸碰到了當代人的一個痛點。在我們埋頭於辛勤工作幾十年之後，我們清醒過來，意識到一個人必須工作到精疲力竭才能成功是一個錯覺。它其實代價高昂：損害我們的健康，我們的生產力，最終影響我們的工作成績。

Andrew: Would you have achieved as much, do you think, if you had understood this earlier?

你覺得如果你自己早一點認識到這一點，會獲得一樣的成功嗎?

Arianna: Oh I have no doubt about that. In fact, I can trace all the mistakes I made to being tired. To running on empty.

哦，我對此毫無疑問。事實上，我人生犯過的所有錯誤都可追溯到身體的疲憊上。疲憊讓我的大腦無法運轉。

Andrew: Have you got an example of a mistake?

給我們舉個這樣的例子吧?

Arianna: Mostly hiring mistakes. When you have like, a list of people you are hiring, it’s so tempting, when you are tired and exhausted and confronting your long to-do list, you want to cross something off the to-do list. And that’s when you kind of ignore the red flags.

主要是在僱人上犯的錯。如果你有一份招聘名單，而此刻你疲憊不堪，還面對一長串待辦事項，你想盡快勾掉一些事情。那就是你忽略危險信號的時候。

Andrew: How much, obviously, does your personality play into it? Its been fundamental at Huffington Post, and now at Thrive, that you are involved and contributing from the top. Does that put a huge amount of pressure on you personally to understand the and lead the culture?

你的個性在其中發揮了多大作用呢?從《赫芬頓郵報》開始，現在是在Thrive Global，你作為高層參與其中並做出貢獻。這會給你帶來巨大的壓力嗎?因為你必須去塑造和引領一家公司的文化。

Arianna: I don’t see it as a pressure. I see it more as creating a family feeling. From the first days of Huff Post, when we were five people, I would go buy everybody sweaters at Christmas. And we maintained that tradition. You know, we went from sweaters for 850 people, to PJs for 850 people, when I started writing about sleep. But my point is that, it isn’t just giving people a bonus or or a card to buy something. It’s the way you would treat people in a family.

我沒把它當做是一種壓力。我更多將它看作創造一種家庭的氛圍。從創辦《赫芬頓郵報》之初，當我們只有五個人的時候，我會在聖誕節時去為每個人買件毛衣。我們保持了這一傳統。當我開始寫關於睡眠的文章時，我們從為850名員工買毛衣變成為850位員工買睡衣。但我的觀點是，這不僅僅是給人一個獎勵或者是一張購物卡，這是你對待家人的方式。

Andrew: What sort of skills, other skills and characteristics do you think you need as a company founder?

什麼樣的技能，或者特質，是你認為作為公司創始人所必需的?

Arianna: I think you definitely need a sense of mission. The recognition that there is a value you can add to peoples’ lives. Whether that’s in the tech world or in customer service or in product or in this case, in media, the sense that you are adding value is a big driver when things don’t go well. And there is no founding story that is all success and glory. I mean, I still remember the first review we got um...

我覺得你肯定需要具備使命感，認識到你可以為人們的生活增添價值，不論是在科學技術上，還是在客户服務中。在我的案例中則是媒體，你能為別人的生活增添價值這種感覺，能在事情進展不順利時成為巨大的推動力。不是所有創業故事都充滿成功的榮耀。我還記得我們得到的第一個評論……

Andrew: Pretty critical.

對你們批評很激烈。

Arianna: Very critical. It said, the Huffington Post is an unsurvivable failure. It is the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar, and Heaven’s Gate all rolled into one. For those who are not movie buffs who are watching, these were all incredible flops.

對，很嚴重的批評。説：《赫芬頓郵報》將是一個無法挽救的失敗。它就好像《鴛鴦綁匪》、《伊斯達》和《天使之門》這三部電影融為一體。對那些不喜歡看電影的人來説，這些都是電影史上的大敗筆。

Andrew: What do you feel you’ve learned from seeing other founders and business people?

你覺得從其他企業創始人那裏學到了什麼?

Arianna: I think I’ve learned a lot about the importance of culture. We’re just beginning to understand how central culture is to the bottom line. Culture is the immune system of a company. You’re not going to improve human nature overnight. But a strong culture can protect the company from bad behaviour of any kind.

我學到了企業文化有多重要。我們剛剛開始明白，企業文化同盈利一樣重要。文化就像公司的免疫系統。你無法在一夜之間改善人性，但強大的文化可以保護一家公司，使它免受任何壞行為的侵害。