Thinking of going into business with a friend? Your relationship could cost you, according to research.

在考虑和朋友合伙做生意吗？研究表明，你的友情会让你遭受损失。

Researchers at Harvard University, in a study looking at friendship among venture capitalists, found that those who paired together based on how much they liked each other - as opposed to basing the decision on ability - were likely to see less success on their investments.

哈佛大学的研究人员发现，那些选择交情好的人做合作伙伴的人，相比那些根据对方能力来选合作伙伴的人，在投资上更容易失败。这些研究人员对风险资本家之间的友情进行了研究。

"The Cost of Friendship" report by three authors - whether they are friends or not is not known - studied more than 3,500 venture capitalists from 1975 to 2003.

这一研究报告名为《友情的代价》，由三个人共同撰写完成，至于他们是不是朋友就不得而知了。该研究在1975年到2003年间调查了3500名风险资本家。

The study showed that if business partners of the same minority group worked together, their chances of a successful return dropped by 25 percent.

研究显示，如果选择朋友作为自己的生意合伙人，他们的投资成功率将减少25%。

By the same token, those partners who went to the same college saw their chance of success drop by 22 percent, and by 18 percent if they started a business together before.

同样，那些上同一所大学的合伙人投资成功的几率会减少22%，如果过去曾合伙创业，那么成功几率将减少18%。

The report said: "Collaborations based on characteristics unrelated to ability might suffer from a 'cost of friendship' and induce a negative relationship between affinity based similarities and performance."

报告称：“根据与能力无关的性格来确立合作关系，将可能‘因友情而付出代价’，而且关系亲密的人相似点较多，这种相似性会对工作业绩产生消极影响。”

If you want to see a real-world example, just look at Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin. While the pair have both reaped millions - in Zuckerberg's case, many billions - the pair had an hugefalling-out in the early days of the social network, as was portrayed in the film The Social Network.

如果你想了解现实世界的例子，只需看看马克•扎克伯格和爱德华多•萨维林就知道。尽管这两人都获益数百万美金以上（扎克伯格是上百亿），但是正如电影《社交网络》中所描述的，他们却在社交网站创立初期大吵一架。

The researchers said that the flip-side of working with friends included working with too many similarly-minded people, all sharing certain strengths and weaknesses, and potentially having poor decision-making as decisions would be made on a group basis.

研究人员称，与朋友合伙的弊端在于，和太多想法相似的人一起工作，这些人拥有同样的长处和弱点，在集体做决定时，可能会做出糟糕的决定。

However, it is unlikely that this report will stop friends starting businesses together - it is one of the most popular ways to set up a business.

不过，这一报告也不大可能会阻止朋友们一起创业，毕竟这是最普遍的创业方式之一。

But, as the authors, warn: "To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, you cannot afford to be stupid with old friends when you are venture capitalists co-investing together."

但是，正如作者们警告的那样：“改写一下爱默生的话：和老朋友一起做傻事没什么，但如果你是要和老朋友一起做风险投资，那你可输不起。”