Day 9: There’s no shortcut to monopoly
（Saturday）
Will this business still be around a decade from now
各位书友，今天我们一起阅读《Zero to One》第五章LAST MOVER ADVANTAGE的44-47页。
Will this business still be around a decade from now
10年之后，你的公司还能存在吗？
LAST MOVER ADVANTAGE
ESCAPING COMPETITION will give you a monopoly, but even a monopoly is only a great business if it can endure in the future.
规避竞争会帮助你打造垄断企业，但是只有经受住未来考验的企业才是成功的企业。
New York Times Company VS Twitter
Compare the value of the New York Times Company with Twitter. Each employs a few thousand people, and each gives millions of people a way to get news. But when Twitter went public in 2013, it was valued at $24 billion—more than 12 times the Times’ s market capitalization—even though the Times earned $133 million in 2012 while Twitter lost money.
相较纽约时报公司和推特公司的价值。这两家公司都雇用了数千员工，为数百万人提供了解实事的渠道。但是2013年，推特刚一上市，市值就达到40亿美元，是纽约时报市值的12倍还多。但是在此之前，2012年，纽约时报刚赚了1.33亿美元，而推特处于亏损状态。
What explains the huge premium for Twitter?
那么怎么解释推特公司的高溢价呢？
The answer is cash flow.
答案是现金流。
This sounds bizarre at first, since the Times was profitable while Twitter wasn’t. But a great business is defined by its ability to generate cash flows in the future. Investors expect Twitter will be able to capture monopoly profits over the next decade, while newspapers’ monopoly days are over.
这听上去很奇怪，因为纽约时报是赢利的，而推特是亏损的。但是一个企业成功与否要看它在未来生成现金流的能力。投资者认为推特在之后的10年中可以获得垄断利润，而报纸的垄断时代却会结束。
Simply stated, the value of a business today is the sum of all the money it will make in the future. To properly value a business, you also have to discount those future cash flows to their present worth, since a given amount of money today is worth more than the same amount in the future.
简单地说，一个企业今天的价值是它以后创造利润的总和。正确估价一家企业，还要把未来现金流折算成今天的价值，因为相同额度的资金值要比期值更有价值。
Comparing discounted cash flows shows the difference between low-growth businesses and high-growth start-ups at its starkest. Most of the value of low-growth businesses is in the near term. An old economy business (like a newspaper) might hold its value if it can maintain its current cash flows for five or six years. However, any firm with close substitutes will see its profits competed away. Nightclubs or restaurants are extreme examples: successful ones might collect healthy amounts today, but their cash flows will probably dwindle over the next few years when customers move on to newer and trendier alternatives.
通过比较现金流现值，我们能看出低增长企业和高增长的初创公司的明显区别。一家老公司（如报支公司）如果能维持目前的现金流五六年，就可以保持自己的价值。但是任何公司在与同实力的竞争者竞争时都会造成利润流失。夜总会和餐馆就是典型例子：成功者今天可能收入不菲，但是现金流可能会在几年之内减少，因为顾客总会选择更新更潮的地方去消费。
Technology companies follow the opposite trajectory. They often lose money for the first few years: it takes time to build valuable things, and that means delayed revenue. Most of a tech company’s value will come at least 10 to 15 years in the future.
科技公司则走相反的道路——通常是开始几年亏损。因为创造有价值的东西需要时间，所以收益延迟。一家科技公司的大部分价值都会在未来至少10-15年得到体现。
In March 2001, PayPal had yet to make a profit but their revenues were growing 100% year-over-year. Today, PayPal continues to grow at about 15% annually, and the discount rate is lower than a decade ago. It now appears that most of the company’s value will come from 2020 and beyond.
2001年3月，PayPal公司开始获利，我们的收入以每年100%的速度增长。现在PayPal公司继续以每年15%的速度增长，折现率也比10年前要低，而现在看来公司的大部分价值都来自2020年甚至之后。
LinkedIn is another good example of a company whose value exists in the far future.
领英（一家面向商业客户的社交网络服务网站）是另一个典型例子，它的价值也来自于遥远的未来。
The overwhelming importance of future profits is counter intuitive even in Silicon Valley. For a company to be valuable it must grow and endure, but many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t.
这种对未来利润的看重即使在硅谷也是违反常理。一个公司要想有价值，不但必须成长，还必须能持续发展，但是许多企业家只看到短期发展。他们有自己的理由：增长很好量化，但是没人知道一个公司能持续多久。
Those who succumb to measurement mania obsess about weekly active user statistics, monthly revenue targets, and quarterly earnings reports. However, you can hit those numbers and still overlook deeper, harder-to-measure problems that threaten the durability of your business.
热衷于量化的人痴迷于周活跃用户、月收益目标和季度收入报告。但是，你虽然可以得到这些数字，却忽视了更深层、更难量化的问题，而这些问题会威胁你公司的持久性。
For example, rapid short-term growth at both Zynga and Groupon distracted managers and investors from long-term challenges.
例如，星佳（一家社交游戏公司）和Groupon（一家全球性的团购公司）短期的快速增长使管理者和投资者忽视了长远的挑战。
They ended up with the same problem as every Hollywood studio: how can you reliably produce a constant stream of popular entertainment for a fickle audience? (Nobody knows.)
但是它们最后破产了，原因和每个好莱坞制片厂一样：你怎么能确定你创造的流行文化可以一直满足变幻无常的观众口味？（没人知道。）Groupon的产品被当地成百上千的企业试用，因此得到了飞速发展，但是让这些企业成为回头客比想象中要难得多。
If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business.
如果你把短期增长看成重中之重，就会错过最重要的问题：10年之后，你的公司还能存在吗？仅凭数字不能告诉你答案：你必须认真思考公司的本质特征。
拓展
premium
美 [ˈprimiəm] 英 [ˈpriːmiəm]
n. 保险费；额外费用；奖金；津贴
adj.优质的；昂贵的；价格更高的；
网络：溢价；升水；保费
"It will resolve investor uncertainty and provide shareholders with a substantial premium to our last traded share price, " he said.
他说：“这将为投资者消除不确定因素，并为股东提供较我们最后的股票交易价格较高的溢价。”
For example, rapid short-term growth at both Zynga and Groupon distracted managers and investors from long-term challenges.
例如，星佳（一家社交游戏公司）和Groupon（一家全球性的团购公司）短期的快速增长使管理者和投资者忽视了长远的挑战。
short-term
adj.短期的；近期的lasting a short time; designed only for a short period of time in the future
long-term
adj.长期的；长远的；长期有效的；近期不大可能改变的
Cash flow现金流
Cash flow is the movement of money into or out of a business, project, or financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, limited period of time. Measurement of cash flow can be used for calculating other parameters that give information on a company's value and situation.
☞ 领读达人：刘亚南