鮑康如敗訴在硅谷掀起漣漪效應

SAN FRANCISCO — John Doerr really needed a win, and late Friday the esteemed venture capitalist got one of the biggest of his career: a jury’s complete dismissal of gender discrimination claims against his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

舊金山——約翰·德爾(John Doerr)的確需要一場勝利，週五晚些時候，這名受人尊敬的風險投資人獲得了職業生涯中最大的勝利：陪審團全面駁回了針對其公司凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)的性別歧視指控。

But success in the courtroom is a tricky thing, and Kleiner’s victory contains perils that his company will still have to overcome, such as its image as a boys’ club. There is a less obvious one, too, which is how the details that came out during the trial may upend perhaps the most celebrated aspect of venture capitalism: investing on instinct, almost impulsively.

但法庭裏的勝利是一件微妙的事情。凱鵬華盈勝訴之後，該公司仍然需要克服一些問題，如“男孩俱樂部”的形象。還有一個不那麼明顯的問題是，案件審理期間揭示出的細節，可能會對風險投資或許最著名的特點——憑直覺，甚至是靠衝動投資——產生怎樣的影響。

Instead, expect more bureaucracy.

現在不同了，可能要面對更繁雜的程序。

In its glory days, venture capital was a freewheeling enterprise with few rules and scant documentation. That may all be over now.

在最輝煌的時期，風險投資是一種隨心所欲的行業，幾乎沒有什麼規則，也沒有多少文書和存檔。這種情況現在可能不會存在了。

This probability became apparent during the testimony of Ellen Pao, the former junior partner who was suing Kleiner. She said that she had discovered Twitter as a potential investment for the venture capital firm. But Kleiner disputed that Ms. Pao had found Twitter because she could not prove it. Twitter is now worth $32 billion.

在對凱鵬華盈提起訴訟的前初級合夥人鮑康如出庭作證期間，這種可能性體現了出來。她表示，她爲公司推薦了潛在的投資對象Twitter。但凱鵬華盈對此提出異議，稱鮑康如無法證明。Twitter目前的市值爲320億美元（約合1990億元人民幣）。

“There is not a single piece of evidence to suggest Ellen Pao ever sourced Twitter,” Kleiner’s lawyer, Lynne C. Hermle, told the jury. “Not one. I can say I sourced Twitter, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s so. There should be evidence — written evidence, consistent with the practices of Kleiner — if that’s true, and there is nothing.”

“沒有任何一份證據能表明，鮑康如推薦了Twitter，”凱鵬華盈的律師琳內·C·赫爾姆勒(Lynne C. Hermle)告訴陪審團。“一份證據都沒有。我也可以說，是我推薦了Twitter，但這並不意味着事實的確如此。如果她說的是真的，應該留下證據——與凱鵬華盈的規範做法一致的書面證據，然而沒有任何證據。”

The issue of having to document an idea is now set to ripple through Silicon Valley. While the truth of what did or did not happen with Twitter was one of the many unresolved points of the trial — Kleiner did invest later in Twitter, but at such a high valuation that it did not qualify as a home run — it is a pretty good bet that the next time a junior partner at Kleiner or any other venture firm thinks he or she has come up with something great, the partner will record it in emails, memos, diaries and possibly stone tablets.

有必要記錄想法的問題，現在開始影響到整個硅谷。雖然有沒有推薦投資Twitter的問題，只是這起案件裏許多尚未解決的問題中的一個，但是可想而知，凱鵬華盈或其他風投公司的初級合夥人下一次想出好主意時，大概都會在郵件、備忘錄、日記，甚至可能是石板上記錄下來。凱鵬華盈後來確實對Twitter進行了投資，但當時Twitter的估值已經很高，算不上多麼理想。

“As a result of hearing the testimony, I would advise my clients to document any information and make notes, and perhaps formal memoranda, regarding their contributions to the firm and their decisions,” said Kathleen M. Lucas of the Lucas Law Firm in San Francisco.

舊金山盧卡斯律師事務所(Lucas Law Firm )的凱瑟琳·M·盧卡斯(Kathleen M. Lucas)表示，“聽完證詞之後，我會建議我的客戶，記錄所有信息並且多做筆記，甚至是正式的備忘錄，記下他們對公司的貢獻，以及自己做過的決定。”

Formalizing so much about the venture capital process goes directly against the go-with-your-instinct approach that has been a cornerstone of the industry. Mr. Doerr rose to fame because his intuition was so good about which entrepreneur to invest in. Not much separated the potential winners from the losers.

將風投過程如此形式化，直接違背了憑直覺投資的方式，而這是風投行業的基石。德爾之所以名聲大震，就是因爲對於投資支持哪個創業者有很準的直覺。潛在的贏家和輸家之間，往往沒有什麼差別。

“I’m still looking for a bunch of burrito-eating Stanford kids who walk in with no idea what a business plan is, we write them a check and work intensively with them for several months, and — boom! — you’ve got a company with a market cap of $2 billion,” Doerr said in a 1999 book, “The Silicon Boys.” In cartoon form, that summarizes Kleiner’s investment in Google, made at about that time.

“我依然在尋找一羣吃着玉米卷的斯坦福年輕人，他們來的時候不知道商業計劃書爲何物，但我們開支票給他們，與他們一起緊鑼密鼓地工作幾個月，然後——轟的一下！——就有了一家市值20億美元的公司，”德爾在1999年的著作《硅谷小夥》(Silicon Boys)中寫道。該書以漫畫的形式，概述了凱鵬華盈在谷歌(Google)的投資。那筆投資正是大概在那個時間進行的。

Yet now the stakes are too high in venture capital for any approach other than writing it all down, however much it goes against the go-with-your-gut heritage. The testimony in the trial with Ms. Pao repeatedly circled back to the issue of who got credit for profitable investments.

但現在，在風險投資領域，不管全部寫下來的做法與跟着直覺走的傳統有多大的衝突，除此之外的其他任何做法的風險都太高了。鮑康如一案中的證詞，多次繞回到了賺錢的投資應歸功於誰的問題。

“Kleiner needed a win. Everybody needed a win. I could use some wins,” Mr. Doerr testified about another disputed find of Ms. Pao’s, RPX.

“凱鵬華盈需要勝利。所有人都需要勝利。我的確需要一些勝利，”德爾作證期間，在提到鮑康如另一個存在爭議的發現RPX時說。

Margaret O’Mara, an associate professor of history at the University of Washington who has studied the history of technology, said the Pao case highlighted how Silicon Valley has been based on a culture of personal connections and personality-driven deals. Those considerations still drive decisions “even though the Valley is no longer this little outlier community of small electronics manufacturers,” she said.

華盛頓大學(University of Washington)研究科技史的歷史學副教授瑪格麗特·奧瑪拉(Margaret O’Mara)表示，鮑康如一案突顯出，硅谷建立在一種個人關係文化的基礎之上，慣於由名人來推動交易。她說，“儘管硅谷不再是那個由小型電子生產商組成的邊緣小羣體”，但那些思路依然會推動決策。

Beyond the impact on venture capital, reaction to the verdict and analysis of what it means for Silicon Valley diversity has been swift.

這起案件除了對風險投資產生影響之外，人們也很快對判決本身做出了反應，此外也迅速開始分析案件對硅谷的多樣性意味着什麼。

“There are people that will take this ruling and say there is no problem with gender discrimination, and that would be a horrible shame,” said Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, who sits on the board of directors of Reddit, where Ms. Pao is now interim chief executive. “I hope it makes men and women listen to people’s experiences in their careers and form their opinions about challenges that any group, and in this case women, face.”

“有人會以這個判決爲例，說性別歧視沒問題，那就太令人遺憾了，”Y Combinator總裁薩姆·奧特曼(Sam Altman)說。奧特曼也是Reddit的董事，而鮑康如則在Reddit擔任臨時CEO。“我希望它能讓人們先傾聽他人在職場中的經歷，再就任何羣體在職場中遭遇的挑戰形成自己的觀點——具體到這個案件，就是女性。”

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder and chairman of Reddit, added that he was “glad to see that her actions have helped to push forward the conversation about gender parity not just in the tech sector but in the business world.”

Reddit聯合創始人兼主席亞歷克西斯·瓦尼安(Alexis Ohanian)補充說，他“高興地看到，她的行動幫助推動了有關性別平等的討論，不僅是在科技領域，還包括商業領域”。

Even without a victory for Ms. Pao, the case succeeded in putting the issue of women in technology in the spotlight. Tracy Young, a founder and chief executive of PlanGrid, a San Francisco start-up that offers apps for construction workers, said Ms. Pao highlighted how “sexual discrimination is a real problem. There is a lot we must do and can do to prevent it.”

儘管鮑康如沒有勝訴，但此案成功地讓女性在科技領域的地位受到了關注。舊金山創業公司PlanGrid的創始人兼首席執行官特蕾西·揚(Tracy Young)說，鮑康如案突顯出“性別歧視是一個現實問題。爲了避免這個問題，有很多事我們可以做也必須做”。該公司提供面向建築工人的應用。

“Issues about diversity are more at the forefront than they have ever been,” said Bridget Frey, chief technology officer at the online real estate company Redfin. “Without that dialogue, we can’t help each other get better,” she said.

“有關多樣性的問題比以往任何時候都更重要，”在線房地產公司Redfin的首席技術官布里吉特·弗雷(Bridget Frey)說。“沒有那場對話，我們就無法互相幫助，改善彼此的處境。”