Zuora創始人兼首席執行官 成功三分靠自身七分靠環境

In the 1970s, Tien Tzuo’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan and promptly settled in Brooklyn. He recalls the place differently from the hipster paradise that it is today: It was a borough of mostly immigrants and some gangs. (As a child, Tzuo was mugged twice.) But he found his way to Cornell University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. While in school, Tzuo realized that he had a passion for building software applications. He went to work for Oracle ORCL -0.09% for the next six years.
20世紀70年代，左軒霆的父母從臺灣移民到美國，而且很快就在布魯克林安頓了下來。在左軒霆的記憶中，當時的布魯克林還不是如今的潮人天堂，聚居在此的主要是移民和一些黑幫（小時候他被搶過兩次）。但他還是考上了康內爾大學（Cornell University），還拿到了電氣工程學士學位。在學校裏，左軒霆發現自己對應用軟件開發很感興趣。隨後，他在甲骨文公司（Oracle）工作了六年。

Tzuo left Oracle to earn his MBA from Stanford. He eventually landed at CRM 2.61% , where he stayed for nine years and became the company’s chief marketing officer and chief strategy officer. In 2007, he set off to start his own enterprise software company, and today, he runs 350-person-strong Zuora, which aims to help businesses like Boz, Zendesk, Dollar Shave Club, and Docusign manage their subscription-based services. Naturally, CEO Marc Benioff is an angel investor.
爲了到斯坦福（Stanford）大學念MBA，左軒霆離開了甲骨文。後來，他在客戶關係管理解決方案供應商工作了九年，成爲這家公司的首席營銷官兼首席策略官。2007年，左軒霆組建了自己的企業軟件公司。今天，他的計費和支付系統公司Zuora有350多名員工，業務內容是幫助Boz、Zendesk、Dollar Shave Club和Docusign等公司管理它們的訂閱式服務。首席執行官馬克o貝尼奧夫自然是Zuora的天使投資人。

Tzuo, 46, spoke with Fortune.
46歲的左軒霆接受了《財富》（Fortune）雜誌的採訪。

1. Who in technology do you admire most? Why?
1. 在科技界你最欣賞的人是誰？爲什麼？

It’s not one person. I try to draw inspiration from any number of people, but one of the people who has influenced me is Marc Benioff. I worked with him for nine years. He taught me a lot of what I know today about strategy and marketing. To be able to be at his side as we built was an amazing experience, and I learned quite a bit. Marc is also just a genuinely good person. A lot of founders just aren’t that nice; but Marc is generous and has a great big heart.
我欣賞的不是某一個人。我會試着從每個人那裏汲取靈感。對我有影響的一個人是馬克o貝尼奧夫。我和他共事了九年。現在我對策略和營銷的瞭解有很多都是拜他所賜。能在他構建的過程中跟他一起工作是一次很棒的經歷，也讓我學到了相當多的東西。馬克是個大好人。許多企業創始人都不是那麼友善，但馬克很慷慨，心胸也非常寬廣。

2. Which area of technology excites you most?
2. 哪個科技領域最讓你激動？

If I were to start a company today, it would definitely be a mobile-only application. I look at the way my kids interact with technology. My 4-year-old’s ability to use smart phones and tablets far, far exceeds her ability to use a computer. The future is going to be these devices. It’s hard for those of us who are adults to imagine what will happen if we don’t have devices with keyboards anymore, but that’s where innovation is going and that’s where technology is going to be in five years.
如果現在讓我去組建公司，那一定會是一家純粹的移動應用開發商。我觀察過我的孩子們和科技的互動。我女兒今年4歲，使用智能手機和平板電腦的能力遠遠超過電腦。未來屬於這些產品。我們這些大人很難想象如果這些東西沒了鍵盤會出現什麼樣的情況，但這恰恰是創新的方向，也是今後五年科技的發展方向。

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?
3. 如果有人希望像你一樣幹一番事業，你對他們有什麼建議？

People think that success and innovation comes like a flash. You’re Isaac Newton, and you’re sitting below a tree. An apple falls on your head and boom: You have all these ideas about physics. Or you’re sitting around your house and have the idea for Dropbox, and the next thing you know it’s worth $1 billion. People seem to look for that “flash,” and it doesn’t work like that. We’ve all been with some friends, perhaps sitting around a diner, saying how about this idea, or that idea, and they’re hoping that during the course of a meal, they’ll come up with the next Dropbox. It just doesn’t work like that. You have to go and pursue an idea, and you have to work it out. It takes a long time. You plod away at something, and you try to go deep, immerse yourself, and learn. You try to take these leaps, and eventually, you hit upon your breakthrough.
人們都覺得成功和創新來自於靈機一動。就像牛頓坐在蘋果樹下。蘋果砸在頭上就立即掌握了所有的物理定律。或者在家裏坐着的時候想到了Dropbox這樣的雲存儲業務，接下來就發現它價值10億美元。他們尋找的似乎就是這樣的靈光閃現，但實際情況不是這樣。我們都會跟朋友見面，比如一起吃頓飯，席間大家會討論這樣或那樣的主意，都盼望着吃完這頓飯之後馬上就能建立起另一個Dropbox。但實際情況確實不是這樣。你必須去尋找和追蹤某個想法，必須讓它成爲現實。這需要很長時間。你得爲了某個目標而艱苦跋涉，深入鑽研，讓自己沉浸其中並進行學習。你得設法完成這樣的跨越，然後才能實現突破。

My biggest advice is to find the environment where you can immerse yourself and work it out. Our idea for Salesforce came because we were all in the enterprise software industry, and we were all struggling with the limitations of software in the age of the Internet. So we spent the next decade figuring out what that really meant. We’re trying to do same thing with Zuora with a business model built on the subscription economy. In fact, I believe success is only 30% based on you and 70% based on the environment you work in. People don’t think that way–most people think success is 100% due to themselves. So, pick your environment, pick the company, pick the people you work with, pick the neighborhood, and pick the area. Because that’s where you’re going to get the opportunity to submerge yourself and to work out your big ideas.
我最重要的建議就是找一個環境，能讓自己沉浸在這樣的目標之中，把它變爲現實。我們想到Salesforce的原因是我們都從事企業軟件工作，而且我們都因爲互聯網時代軟件的侷限性而苦苦掙扎。隨後，我們用了十年時間才弄明白這到底意味着什麼。在Zuora，我們也想這樣做，想把我們的商業模式建立在訂閱式經濟的基礎上。實際上，我相信成功只有30%來自人本身，另外70%則來自人所處的環境。但人們並不這樣想——大多數人都認爲成功完全來源於自身。因此，要選擇環境，選擇公司，選擇同事，選擇鄰里街坊，選擇自己所在的區域。因爲在那裏，你纔有機會讓自己沉下來，把高明的想法變成現實。

4. What is the best advice you ever received?
4. 你收到過的最佳建議是什麼？

I remember way back in ’07, when I was toying around with ideas, I went to a few mentors of mine. Now, I wasn’t one of these guys that said, “I’m going to be a CEO one day.” But I had this idea that was going to require me to leave my company to be a CEO. So I sought out my mentors and asked, “Do you think I’m ready?” A good mentor of mine said, “You’re absolutely ready.” Seeking mentors that give you advice to push you beyond your comfort zone is the best way to go.
記得在2007年，我在一些想法之間遊移不定，這時我去拜訪了幾位導師。那時我並不像別人那樣，懷揣着“總有一天我會當上CEO”的想法。但當時我所想到的東西需要我辭職，成爲一名CEO。因此，我問這些導師：“你覺得我準備好了嗎？”一位高明的導師說：“你絕對準備好了。”讓導師的建議把自己推出溫室是最好的辦法。

5. What’s the next big project you want to tackle?
5. 接下來你想進行什麼樣的大項目？

We make it really easy for companies to do what they want to do in a subscription economy. We make it easy for them to set a price and to participate in commerce. The next thing I would love to tackle is giving them more intelligence. We’ve been [running our subscription platform] for six years, and we have a lot of transactions in our system. We haven’t been taking advantage of it yet. We’re in a day and age where it’s all about big data and analytics. We have all the data and give it to customers so that they can do they’re own analytics, but I think we can do a much better job telling people, “Hey, based on our analysis, here’s a pricing plan that would suit you better.” Or, “Hey, based on our analysis, we think that these are the customers that you can upsell and increase your revenues by 10%.” I think we can do a much better job of that, and our customers would find that really valuable.
我們讓其他公司非常輕鬆地在訂閱式經濟中做自己想做的事。我們讓它們很輕鬆地定價和做生意。接下來我想做的是給它們更多的情報。我們（的訂閱平臺）已經運行了六年，我們的系統中記錄了很多交易信息，但一直沒有加以利用。我們處在一個大數據和分析起決定作用的時代。我們掌握着所有的數據，把這些數據提供給客戶，他們就能自行加以分析。但我覺得我們能做的比這好得多，我們可以告訴客戶：“嘿，根據我們的分析，這樣的定價方案更適合你們。”或者，“嘿，根據我們的分析，我們認爲這些客戶有消費升級潛力，他們能讓你的收入提高10%。”我想在這方面我們的工作成果會好得多，而且我們的客戶也會發現這確實有價值。6. What challenges are facing your business right now?
6. 你們公司現在面臨着什麼樣的挑戰？

Companies go through different phases. We’re about 350 people now, and I’d say the first $10 million in revenue, the first 150 or so employees, it’s about trying to figure out this company. What is the product market? What is your value proposition? How do you price? How do you sell the thing? How do you get customers to use it? Our next big milestone is $100 million in revenue, so at this size and scale, it winds up really being about people. How do you bring people into the organization? Where are the great players that see your company as the place where they can grow and develop themselves to the best that they can be? How do you keep them all aligned? How do you make them work more independently?
公司的發展有不同的階段。現在我們有大約350人。我要說，收入第一次達到1000萬美元以及員工人數第一次達到150人左右是公司的摸索階段。產品的市場在哪裏？你的價值主張是什麼？怎樣定價？怎麼銷售產品？如何才能讓顧客使用它？我們的下一個重大里程碑是收入達到1億美元。在這樣的體量和規模之下，公司纔會真正進入和人有關的階段。怎樣讓別人進入你的公司？那些認爲自己能在你的公司裏獲得最充分成長和發展的高端人才在哪裏？你如何讓他們同心協力？怎樣讓他們更獨立地工作？

We have this phrase in the company: We have one CEO, but we have 350 “ZEOs.” We like putting “z” in front of everything. But how do you have 350 ZEOs who feel empowered, and point them all in the same direction? That’s one of the big challenges of our scale. We hope we can continue on a track to keep doubling every 12 to 18 months. We want to be 1,000 people in the near future. But how do we put in a structure to have us all work together so that we don’t cave in on ourselves? That’s the biggest challenge we have right now.
我們的公司處在這樣一個階段：我們有一名CEO，但有350名ZEO。我們喜歡在所有的東西前面都加一個“z”。但你怎麼才能讓這350名ZEO都覺得充滿動力，同時引導他們朝着同一個方向邁進呢？這是在當前規模下我們面臨的最大挑戰之一。我們希望自己能保持每12-18個月規模翻番的速度。我們想在短期內擁有1000名員工。但我們要建立怎樣的機制才能讓所有人都攜手努力，以免功虧一簣呢？這就是目前我們面臨的最大挑戰。

7. If you could have done anything differently in your career, what would it have been?
7. 如果你的職業生涯中有件事可以重頭來過，它會是什麼？

I do a lot of international travel now, and I always thought it would be good to work overseas for a couple of years. I had a couple of opportunities to do so in my career, and for various reasons, usually personal ones, I didn’t choose to take it. But I think in today’s world, where the world is much smaller, technology is spreading much faster, and you have to have an international perspective. I just did this trip through Asia, and their use of mobile phones and mobile apps actually exceeds what we have here, even in our Silicon Valley bubble. So I would encourage people today to move around internationally. Try to work in different places because I think you need perspective going forward as opposed to have a U.S.-centric view of the world.
現在我總是往國外跑，而且我總覺得在國外工作一、兩年挺好。在我的職業生涯中有幾次出國工作的機會，但我都放棄了。原因有很多，通常都和個人有關。但我覺得，現在的世界已經小了很多，科技傳播的速度也快了很多，一個人必須具有國際化的眼界。我剛剛從亞洲出差回來。在那裏，人們對手機和移動應用的使用實際上已經超過了美國，甚至超過了硅谷泡沫時期的美國。因此，我想鼓勵現在的人們到國外去。試着在不同的地方工作，因爲我覺得今後人們看世界的角度不應該再以美國爲中心。

8. What was the most important thing you learned in school?
8. 你在學校學到的最重要的東西是什麼？

I’d say there are two things. I was an electrical engineering major. I can’t say that I liked it, and that’s why I’m not an electrical engineer today. I remember learning this while having to take weed out courses in my sophomore and junior years: What it taught me was that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. That was a really important lesson. You become less daunted about things. I think as we grow, we get so used to being in our comfort zone that we lose the ability to tackle new things.
我要說兩點。我學的專業是電氣工程，說不上喜歡，這也是今天我沒有成爲電氣工程師的原因。我記得在大二和大三，我在修專業課的同時還得去上篩選課程。我從中學到的是，如果專心致志，就能做成任何事情。這一課真的很重要。這會讓你變得不那麼容易氣餒。我覺得隨着年齡的增長，我們會習慣於待在讓自己舒服的環境裏，這會讓我們失去接納新事物的能力。

Now that I have a 4-year-old, and I see the opposite, where she’s tackling everything, I think the idea that you can learn anything is really important. The second thing is that when you go to business school and you learn about accounting and such, that’s all nice, but the big lesson in business is that at the end of the day, it’s all about people. It’s the organizational behavior classes are really important. Stanford has this class called “Touchy-Feely,” which is all about interpersonal dynamics. You learn about how you impact people and how people perceive you. It was a great class because in the end, it’s all about people; it’s all about relationships.
現在我有了一個四歲的女兒，她讓我看到了截然相反的情況，什麼東西她都會去探索。我覺得自己能學會任何東西的觀念真的很重要。第二點是，進入商學院後會學到會計等課程。這些課程都很好，但我在經營方面的重要經驗是，最終發揮作用的還是人。真正重要的是組織行爲課程。斯坦福大學（Stanford）有一門課叫“Touchy-Feely”，內容就是人際關係。學生們學的是自己如何影響別人以及別人怎麼看待自己。這門課很棒，因爲最終起作用的還是人，是人際關係。

9. What is one goal—either personal or professional—that you would like to accomplish during your lifetime?
9. 你在有生之年希望實現的個人目標或職業目標是什麼？

I’d like to change the software industry. I feel like we did that once at Salesforce, but I’d like to do it again. I’d like to change it for the better and create something that the enterprise software industry can learn from.
我想改變軟件行業。我覺得在Salesforce我們做到了這一點，但我還想再來一次。我想讓這個行業變得更好，我希望自己創造出的東西能成爲企業軟件行業的學習對象。10. 你怎樣保持平衡的生活？

10. What do you do to live a balanced life?
10. 你怎樣保持平衡的生活？

I’m actually very different in my personal life than in my professional live. At work, I’m very directed, very goal-oriented. When I’m not focused on work, I prefer to go with the flow, go where things take me. These days I have fun hanging out with my daughter. What I try to do is to let go, not dictate structure or goals, and just hang out with her. Whatever she wants to do, we’ll go do.
實際上，個人生活中的我和工作時的我大相徑庭。在工作中，我的方向非常明確，非常集中於自己的目標。不把注意力放在工作上時，我更願意順其自然，隨遇而安。最近我一直陪着我女兒，而且過的很快樂。我的做法是無爲而治，不設置條條框框或者目標，就是跟她待在一起。她想做什麼，我們就一起去做。