口译时事：土豆网创始人王微称放弃也是种解脱

　　Chinese Internet entrepreneur Gary Wang is gearing up to start an animated-film studio to make movies for Chinese audiences. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the 39-year-old Mr. Wang, who founded online video site Tudou.com in 2005, talked about his experience at Tudou and its merger last year with rival video site Youku. The following is an edited version of the interview.

　　中国互联网企业家王微正加紧努力准备成立一家动画工作室，为中国观众制作电影。现年39岁的王微曾于2005年创办在线视频网站土豆网。他接受了《华尔街日报》采访，谈及他在土豆网的经历以及土豆网去年与竞争对手优酷的合并。以下是经过编辑的访谈内容：

　　Q: How did you create Tudou?

　　《华尔街日报》：你怎么创办的土豆网?

　　Mr. Wang: Photo-sharing site Flickr was the main inspiration for Tudou. I used my own savings from my previous jobs to pay for Tudou’s launch, but I also talked to some venture capitalists. They told me, “It’s very hard to visualize what you are describing, so why don’t you create a rudimentary website so we can get a feel.” YouTube didn’t exist yet, so it was hard for people to understand the concept. I was a computer engineer but needed more developers to work with me, so I found some guys who were willing to work for $100 a month. I rented a two-bedroom apartment so they could all live and work there.

　　王微：创办土豆网主要是受了照片分享网站Flickr的启发。我用自己以前工作的积蓄作为土豆网的启动资金，同时也跟一些风险投资家聊过。他们对我说，你描述的东西很难想象，要不你弄一个初步的网站让我们感受一下。那时还没有YouTube，人们很难理解这个概念。我是个电脑工程师，但还需要更多的开发人员跟我合作，于是我找了几个人，他们愿意接受每月100美元的工作。我租了个两居室让他们住，工作也在那里。

　　Q: When Tudou was struggling financially, how did you manage to gain support from investors?

　　《华尔街日报》：当土豆在账务上陷入困境时，你怎样设法获得投资者的支持?

　　Mr. Wang: It’s important to explain what the situation really is. We didn’t tell them that everything was nice. We showed the true picture to every single one of our investors, and they believed in us. Of course when you are trying to sell something you always try to present one side of the story and talk about how great it is. But when it comes to asking for real commitment, at the moment of truth when they are going to sign a piece of paper and put some real money into the business, you’ve got to tell them what the real situation is.

　　王微：重要的是解释到底是什么情况。我们并没有跟他们说一切都很好。我们向每一个投资者展示了真实的情况，他们相信我们。当然了，你想卖东西的时候肯定会展示其中的一面，说它有多棒。但如果是寻求真正的认同，在人们要签下那张纸、真正投入真金白银的重要时刻，就必须得告诉他们真实情况。

　　Q: What were some of the most memorable moments at Tudou?

　　《华尔街日报》：在土豆网最让你难忘的是什么?

　　Mr. Wang: When we were just ready to complete the last round of filing for our IPO (Tudou’s stock listed on Nasdaq in August 2011), the U.S. stock market tanked and some bankers got cold feet. The market was so volatile after S&P downgraded U.S. debt earlier that month. I was in a tiny phone booth at the filing office, having a conference call at 4 a.m. with a lot of people. Some of them said we should postpone the IPO till later that year to wait for the market to recover, but I said this was the moment and it had to be done. Investors supported the decision. It was a crazy week but we still managed to go through it.

　　王微：我们正准备完成首次公开募股(IPO)的最后一轮申报时(土豆网于2011年8月在纳斯达克上市)，美国股市大跌，一些银行家退缩了。那个月早些时候标普(S&P)下调了美国国债评级，市场极其动荡。当时我在申报办公室的一个小电话间里，跟一大堆人在凌晨四点开电话会议。有人说我们应当把IPO推迟到年底，等市场恢复，但我说已经是时候了，必须要进行。投资者支持了这个决定。那是疯狂的一周，但我们还是挺过来了。

　　Q: How did you decide on the merger with Youku?

　　《华尔街日报》：与优酷合并的决定是怎么做出的?

　　Mr. Wang: For Tudou, IPO was purely for fundraising. We spent the money to acquire more content and bandwidth. That was a necessary move for Tudou to stay competitive so it could have more options for strategic realignment, including the possibility of a merger. Around January 2012, I started talking with not only Youku but also with (Chinese Web search company) Baidu and (online gaming and communication service company) Tencent. We discussed various scenarios for realignment of our online video businesses. But eventually (Youku CEO) Victor Koo and I agreed that the Youku-Tudou merger was by far the best option because it would reduce the cost and create a dominant player. Overall, I think the merger was a success and Victor has done a tremendous job in making sure that the transition is smooth.

　　王微：对于土豆网来说，IPO纯粹是为了筹资。我们把钱拿来购买更多的内容和带宽。那是土豆网保持竞争力的必要行动，这样在战略重组时才能有更多选择，包括并购的可能性。2012年1月前后，我开始跟优酷谈，同时还在跟百度和腾讯谈。我们讨论了重组我们在线视频业务的众多情形。但最后古永锵(优酷首席执行长)和我一致认为，优酷与土豆合并是最佳选择，因为这样会减少成本，并在市场上占据主导地位。总的来说，我觉得这次合并是成功的，古永锵在确保顺利过渡方面也做得非常出色。

　　Q: Was the merger a tough decision for you personally?

　　《华尔街日报》：对你个人来说，合并是不是个艰难的决定?

　　Mr. Wang: Emotionally it felt like a tremendous loss to let go something that I had created. But at the same time it was liberating. For seven years, all my waking moments were about Tudou. All the decisions I made were driven by Tudou’s needs. The best interest for Tudou dominated whatever the interest for me as a person, even though I didn’t see it as a sacrifice.

　　王微：放弃我自己一手创建的东西在感情上是一种巨大的失落。但同时也是一种解脱。七年来我一睁眼就只想着土豆网。我所做的所有决定都是出于土豆网的需要。什么对土豆网最有利决定着我个人的一切利益，虽然我并不觉得那是一种牺牲。

　　At Tudou there were a lot of people who joined the company because of me, and I explained to the team why the merger was the right thing to do for the company and why it was the best thing for the industry. That was probably the hardest part.

　　土豆网有很多人是因为我才加入公司，我向整个团队解释为什么合并对公司来说是好事，为什么它对整个行业来说是最好的选择。那或许是最难的部分。

　　Q: Tudou never became profitable and some people saw the business as a failure.

　　《华尔街日报》：土豆网从未实现盈利，一些人认为它是个失败案例。

　　Mr. Wang: Naturally some people see it that way. People can view it in whatever way. I, for one, agree that we had higher hopes for Tudou. When I started Tudou, the original goal was to create a platform for original user-generated content, a stage where creative types can show their work. When the site launched, some people did upload original videos, but it was mostly flooded with copyrighted content. Dealing with copyright issues, we had to spend a lot of cash to acquire licensed content, and that forced us to do a lot of additional fundraising. A lot of interesting things came out of Tudou. But I’m not sure how much of the content was truly original and groundbreaking.

　　王微：有人这样想是很自然的。人们可以从任何角度看待。就我自己而言，我承认我们对土豆网原本有更高的期望。我在创建土豆网时，最初的目标是打造一个针对用户原创内容的平台，一个创新者展示自己作品的舞台。网站成立后，确实有一些人上传了原创视频，但主要还是充斥着受版权保护的内容。在处理版权问题时，我们不得不花费大笔现金购买授权内容，这就迫使我们进行很多追加融资。土豆出现了很多有意思的东西。但我不确定有多少内容真的是原创的、具有突破意义的。

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