演讲文本

We realized online video was a new media

我们认识到 网络视频是一种新媒体

that it could unleash the creativity of people all over the world

它能释放出世界各地人们的创造性

and also spark the curiosity of people who wanted to watch them

也能激发出观看者的好奇心

And even though we knew this was early, it had the potential to be big

我们知道 虽然现在还很早 但它的潜力肯定是无限大的

But soon after we had our initial success with Google Video

但就在谷歌视频取得初步成功后不久

another site launched

另一个网站上线了

YouTube

YouTube

And it started growing faster

它增长得更快

a lot faster

快很多

And all of a sudden

突然间

we saw our newfound success slipping away

我们刚刚建立的成功就这样溜走了

And just after we thought we were winning

就在我们刚刚看到胜利曙光的时候

we found out that we were losing

我们却发现 自己已经失败了

We were scared and confused

我们很害怕 很困扰

Very quickly, I had to make a tough call

我需要快速作出一个艰难的决定

Do we pretend that things are okay and try to fix them?

我们是应该假装一切正常 尝试进行改善

And continue to build a Google Video and hope we catch up?

继续着手谷歌视频 尝试迎头赶上

Or do we admit our failure

还是应该承认失败

and look to acquire YouTube

寻求兼并YouTube

a company with no revenue

这家没有收入

lots of legal liability

法律责任众多

it was only a year old

只有一年历史

and pay 1.6 billion for it?

还要价16亿美元的公司

And just as we are making this decision as if it were not hard enough

在我们做这个艰难决定的同时

an industry veteran and Internet investor

一位从事互联网投资的行业老手

published a well read article saying

发表了一篇广为流传的文章

only a moron would buy YouTube

说只有傻子才会买YouTube

Well, you know how this ended

你们知道最终的结果是怎样的

I guess you can call me a moron

你们或许可以把我称作傻子

But I had to go to our founders and our board

不过我必须去找创始人和董事会

and tell them the product that we spent so much time building Google Video was losing

告诉他们 我们花大量时间打造的谷歌视频失败了

and we would have to spend over 1 billion and a half to fix the mistake

我们需要花超过15亿美元来修正这一错误

It was painful, it was public

这很痛苦 这是公开的

it was one of the hardest decisions that I've had to make

也是我要做的最艰难的决定之一

人物简介和演讲视频

人物简介

Youtube首席执行官苏珊·沃西基在约翰霍普金斯大学2014年毕业典礼上的演讲。苏珊·沃西基是谷歌旗下全球最大视频网站Youtube的CEO，在2014年福布斯全球权势女性榜中排名第12。演讲中，她讲解了自己人生中的三个故事，包括谷歌两位创始人是如何在她家车库中开始创业的，包括谷歌视频的失败以及谷歌对Youtube的兼并。她从自己的这些亲身经历中，给学生提出了一些饱含哲理的建议。