盘点：欧洲前19家融资最多的科技风投公司
编者注：在移动互联网最开始发展之际，欧洲科技行业的发展是处在衰落状态的。但是，2014年，欧洲科技行业展开了猛烈的发展攻势，已有13家“独角兽”产生。那么，这背后是哪些风投为这些独角兽推波助澜了呢？下面我们来一览欧洲最大的19家科技风投公司的风采。
欧洲的科技行业发展正旺：2014年，欧洲有13家初创企业变身为“独角兽”，它们的企业估值都达到或超过了10亿美元。相对于2013年欧洲只有3家“独角兽”来说，这简直是迈出了巨大的一步。
欧洲初创企业的发展势必会将欧洲风投的资金聚集在一起，投资资本进入初创企业的发展系统是希望培养出下一个Spotify（猎云网注：全球最大的正版流媒体音乐服务平台之一，2014年它的估值是欧洲最高）或Skype（一款即时通讯软件）。当然，他们的投资也不仅限于上述两个领域，还有健康行业、能源行业以及其它的一些传统行业。
在美国科技市场研究公司CB Insights的帮助下，《商业内幕》（ Business Insider ）整理出了自2010年以来欧洲融资最多的风投公司，下面就是根据他们的融资数额的多少进行的排名（由少到多）：
No.19 Principia（2亿美元）
意大利风投公司Principia成立于2002年，坐落在意大利第二大城市米兰。它的投资对象是那些营业额少于5000万欧元的初创企业和中小型企业。
No.18 Earlybird Venture Capital（2亿美元）
Earlybird Venture Capital的总部在柏林，但它在德国的慕尼黑和土耳其的伊斯坦布尔也有办事处。Earlybird Venture Capital会投资处在不同发展阶段的企业，在过去的12月里，它一共投资了11家公司，同时也会投资健康科技行业。
Earlybird投资过to-do list（待办事项表）应用Wunderilist、社交网站数据分析公司SocialBakers以及兼具拍照和分享功能的照片应用EyeEm。
上图为Earlybird的联合创始人和合伙人Dr. Hendrik Brandis。
No.17 Gilde Healthcare Partners（2亿美元）
Gilde投资的是医疗技术和医疗服务行业，它的办公地位于波士顿和荷兰。它很支持高新技术的发展，力争一次性投资该领域初创企业1500万欧元。
No.16 DN Capital（2亿美元）
有15年投资经验的DN Capital的总部位于伦敦，它给每家公司的投资额均是25万欧元到1500万欧元之间。根据CrunchBase的数据存储信息显示：“这家公司主要投资那些刚起步和还处在成长阶段的公司，它还会帮助美国的公司打开欧洲市场”。（猎云网注：CrunchBase是一个免费的科技公司、技术行业知名人物和投资者相关信息的数据库）
它投资过的公司包括能辨认音乐的移动应用Shazam、社交应用Happn以及科技创业企业孵化器Seedcamp。
No.15 Bridge Ventures（2.0113亿美元）
Bridge Ventures是2002年在伦敦成立的风投公司，它善于寻找机会，通过帮助那些面临严峻社会形势和环境挑战的企业获得投资回报。举个例子：它最近支持了Unforgettable.org，一个即将发布的网络社区和电子商务平台，专为患有老年痴呆症以及他们的护理人员开放。
No.14 TVM Capital Life Science（2.016亿美元）
TVM Capital Life Science是另一家专注于健康科技投资公司，位于德国的慕尼黑和加拿大的蒙特利尔。它的主要投资对象是生物科技公司、制药公司和医疗用材公司。
上图为Dr. Hubert Birner 是TVM Capital Life Science慕尼黑分公司的管理合伙人。
No.13 Scottish Equity Partners （2.2243亿美元）
Scottish Equity Partners 成立于1991年，投资了能源、医疗和科技行业。就科技行业而言，它的投资组合包括提供语言学习服务的Babbel、航班搜索网Skyscanner以及帮助管理Twitter账户的工具SocialBr。
它在伦敦有一个办事处，在苏格兰有两个办事处（其中一个在格斯拉斯，另一个在爱丁堡）。
No.12 Advent Life Sciences （2.35亿美元）
Advent Life Sciences位于伦敦，是一家专门投资医疗行业的投资公司。它投资的是生命科学领域，包括新药物的研发、使能技术、医药技术和诊断技术。
No.11 Partech Ventures（2.4亿美元）
风投公司Partech成立于1984年，它在欧洲的办事处位于巴黎和柏林，同时他在旧金山也有自己的办事处。
它最近的一次投资对象是在线家居零售商Made.com，Made.com在此轮投资中共获6000万美元，其中有3400万美元来自Partech。它之前投资过的公司有德国的点评网Oype（这家公司随后被它的竞争者Yelp收购了）、法国的视频分享网站Daily Motion以及健康医疗提供平台GetInsured.com。
No.10 Rockaway Capital（2.53亿美元）
Rockaway风投公司的工作人员说：“我们是在新兴市场中建立互联网经济。”Rockaway在欧洲的办事处位于捷克的布拉克，与此同时，它在旧金山和圣保罗也有办事处。
上图为Rockaway的首席执行官Jakub Havrlant。
No.9 Business Growth Fund （3.0376亿美元）
Business Growth Fund是英国的一家投资公司，它的投资组合范围很广，有医疗保健行业、建筑行业和商业服务行业。它在科技方面的投资组合包括英国协作软件专业厂商WorkShare、智能化媒体购买市场The Exchange Lab以及公共部门云软件提供商Skyscape。
No.8 Balderton Capital（3.05亿美元）
2000年时，Balderton Capital还是美国顶级风投Benchmark在欧洲的分部，它于2007年从Benchmark独立出来。现在，Balderton Capital的总部位于伦敦，它投资过的公司包括BetFair、Kobalt、Lovefilm、Bebo、Citymapper和 Wonga。
上图为Balderton的一位普通合伙人Bernard Liautaud。
No.7 Northzone Ventures（3.25亿美元）
Northzone Ventures已经成立了19年，它在伦敦、纽约、斯德哥尔摩和哥本哈都有办事处。至今为止，它已投资过了100多家公司，包括Spotify, LastMinute.com和 iZettle。
上图为Northzone的联合创始人之一Bjørn Stray。
No.6 Holtzbrinck Ventures （3.31亿美元）
德国的风投公司Holtzbrinck Ventures成立于2000年，自认为是欧洲早期风投公司的元老。最为出名的是其对Zalando、Groupon和 Delivery Hero的投资。
上图为Holtzbrinck Ventures的一位普通合伙人Sven Achter。
No.5 Abingworth（3.75亿美元）
Abingworth成立于1973年，它致力于投资生命科学和健康医疗领域。它投资的公司处在各个不同的发展阶段，包括早期或晚期的私人交易，投向私人股权投资已上市公司的股份和公共公司。它在伦敦、美国的门罗帕克和波士顿都有自己的办事处。
No.4 Atomico（4.7663亿美元）
Skype的联合创始人Niklas Zennström 于2006年成立了Atomico公司，这家公司对科技行业情有独钟。它的总部位于伦敦，在北京、东京、圣保罗和伊斯坦布尔也有办事处。它的投资面向全球，包括欧洲的Skype、Rovio和Last.fm以及美国的Fab和Jambone。
上图为Atomico的创始合伙人和首席执行官Niklas Zennström。
No.3 Regional Growth Fund（4.8435亿美元）
Regional Growth Fund(区域成长基金)是英国政府为了帮助英国商业发展所建立的投资基金。公司相关人员在网上解释说道：“通过Regional Growth Fund（RGF)投资的每一英镑，相当于给私人企事业单位投资了5.5英镑。”到目前为止，在RGF的努力下已经创造出了13万份工作，有效帮助解决国家的就业问题。
上图为Regional Growth Fund的商务秘书Sajid Javid。
No.2 Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners（6.2亿美元）
Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners是由德国电信公司巨头Deutsche Telekom于2014年11月成立的。公司员工在其成立的发布会上说：“我们的目标是通过投资成为风投公司中的外部创新发动机，我们对德国正在发展的初创企业相当感兴趣。”
到目前为止，Crunchbase的统计数据显示它只投资过了一家公司，那就是在自动化软件公司Mojio的A轮融资中对其投资了800万美元。
上图为Deutsche Telekom的首席执行官Timotheus Höttges。
No.1 Index Ventures（7.0616亿美元）
Index Ventures成立于1996年，在日内瓦、瑞士、伦敦、美国的新泽西州和旧金山都设有办事处。它投资科技和医疗保健行业。它的投资组合包括Asos、BetFair、Facebook、Etsy和Just Eat。
（注：自从2010年开始，Index筹集到了多类资金，并将这些资金投资到了各个领域的企业，所以CB Insights把它排在了首位。）
上图为Index伦敦公司的合伙人之一Ben Holmes。
Source:businessinsider
硅谷
2015年08月06日
硅谷
优秀人才喜欢什么样的创业公司？2016年招聘季可以准备起来了
本文作者Chad Halvorson为When I Work的创始人兼CEO
在所有成功的创业公司背后，总是有一支充满激情、目标明确的优秀团队在推动公司不断向前发展。每一个创业公司地拥有者都希望成功，因此不可避免地他们都会忍不住问这样一个问题：“如何才能找到最优秀的人才帮助我？”
为什么大家都求贤若渴呢？因为如果你能为顶尖人才创造一个理想的工作环境，你就拥有了拉拢最最优秀人才的机会——而这些人才可以助你实现创业理想，可以使你的公司声名远播。
那么，在未来到底要怎么做才能吸引为数不多的顶尖人才加入到你的创业团队？就目前而言，响亮的头衔，具有竞争力的薪水还有完美的合作环境都是吸引优秀人才的好方法。但是光有这些还远远不够。打破思维定势，你可以获得任何竞争对手所不具备的优势。下面我们就来了解一下其他吸引优秀人才的好方法。
提示：以下提到的建议并不一定都适用于你的公司。你不必照搬这些解决方案。之所以列出这些建议和案例，是为了给大家一个参考，打开各位的思路，从而找到行之有效的最佳人才吸引策略。你是创业公司的拥有者、创始人，你才是那个决定什么样的方案最适合你的公司和团队的人。
股权之外
股权是创业公司招聘的最爱。如果你的公司正处于发展早期，股权可以替你弥补在公司稳定性方面的不足。有风投支持的创业公司通常会给匀出所有股份的10-20%作为员工的福利。有的创业公司就做到这里，但你知道你应该为员工提供更多。
除了提供单一的金融股权之外，你还可以允许你的员工真正地投资公司产品或服务。优秀的员工乐于投入他们的精力，同时他们也更希望参与公司的发展策略。招聘杰出人才地时候可以许诺他们一些诱人的东西：新产品的开发，产品重新设计，乃至管理的机会。在创业公司领域，人员流动率很高——顶尖的人才希望可以在一开始就可以产生有力影响而不是光拿工资。通过一些简单地改变，在你的公司里营造出富有竞争力和远大抱负的氛围。
团队思考靠边站：顶尖人才通常喜欢独树一帜。不要强迫新员工接受公司的一贯风格，而是鼓励他们提出自己独特的见解。
培养独立项目：Google可能将不得不删减掉20%的模型，但是你不必这么做。给你的员工充分的时间培养他们的好奇心。个人创新力量永远不可预测！
放下繁文缛节：放在员工面前的障碍越多，他们越没有动力。简单合理的审批程序有助于把创意转化为实际成果。
价值观和透明度
物以类聚人以群分。如果你想让员工都诚实可靠，你需要在公司业务的各个方面都体现出你的价值观去。如果你不这么做，优秀的人才很容易在面试中就察觉到你公司空泛不切实际的价值观，有时候甚至不需要面试仅仅瞥一眼你的公司主页就知深浅。
比如这家出色的创业公司Asana，公司的价值观渗透到工作中的每一个环节。公司的名字来源于瑜伽概念“asana”，指的是一种可以帮助练习者重新感知幸福的姿势。Asana的价值观包括了沉思和平静，但又不仅限于言语——这些价值观体现在公司文化的方方面面。比如由家庭主厨准备的有机餐点和现场瑜伽都体现了该公司所想表达的价值观。越是优秀的人才越能够与公司内在信息达成共鸣，所以务必时刻展现你公司的价值观。
有的公司甚至会做更多。比如通过透明化的博客内容分享公司内部的工作情况。Buffer，Moz和Unbounce都是这方面的极好例子——如果你效仿他们的方法，你或许可以从招聘中获益匪浅。当Buffer在他们的博客上公布了员工的薪酬之后，他们立刻收到了大量的简历，是上一个月收到的简历数量两倍之多。正如他们的首席执行官Joel Gascoigne所说，“在过去我们从未能如此快速地找到优秀的人才。”当创业公司坦诚地传达自己的价值观之后，他们得到的是信任——无法用价格衡量的信任。
家庭福利
当潜在的员工考虑你的公司时，他们思考的不只是这份工作是不是最适合他们的职业生涯，而是这份工作是否有利于他们的所有生活。如果你真心渴求优秀人才，不要吝啬你的钱，从投资家人开始俘获他们的忠心。
一家位于旧金山的公司Paper G做了一项调查研究，发现创业公司通常会为员工提供健身会员卡、餐补，甚至在承诺带薪产假之前还有交通补贴。提供实质性的且有证明的父母福利可以对留住公司人才起到显著的积极作用。不信可以问问Mary Ellen Slayter。Mary Ellen是Reputation Capital的首席执行官，她想方设法用带薪产假留住了她的营销战略主管。Lee，就是那位主管，答应未来继续回来工作，“如果只是拿工资，那么我大可以心不在焉地工作或者干脆辞职离开，我完全不用在意。然而是我的团队，他们的团结一致，合作关心让我觉得在这里的每一天工作都无比美好。”
另外一家技术创业公司Treehouse LLC则从另一个层面表现出对员工家庭的照顾——这家公司一到周四就放假休息了！周五，所有员工都可以呆在家里陪着家人。公司的首席执行官兼创始人Ryan Carson解释道，“自从实行一周四天工作制后，招聘和人员保留都变得容易顺利多了！你简直想象不到。当有人在Google或者Facebook以及我们公司之间摇摆不定时，我们就会告诉他，‘我们这里一周只需要工作四天，考虑一下吧！’这一招屡试不爽，说是我们的招聘王牌一点也不夸张。毕竟，没有可以抵抗这种福利诱惑。”你会拒绝一个一周只需要工作四天的工作吗？当然不会啦！
因人制宜
Treehouse LLC的例子提醒了我们朝九晚五的工作时间制已成为过去。每个人都希望自己的工作时间能够适应自己的需求和利益。为什么一定要员工来适应你的工作时间要求而不是你去迎合他们的需求呢？把工作个性化作为市场营销和管理的一种技术，并且全身心地接受它，你会发现身边的优秀人才会越聚越多。
个性化的办公空间：有研究表明用植物或者照片装饰他们的办公空间的员工更加高产。Asana为其员工提供了1万美元用来创造设计他们自己的办公空间——不妨设想一下你的员工会怎么使用这笔钱装饰他们的办公空间？
工作地点独立性：Baremetrics，Zapier，InVision这些创业公司都十分欢迎分散式的团队，他们的员工可以在任何地方工作。如果你无法接受全职的远程工作，那么还可以尝试一下FullContact的做法。这家位于丹佛的创业公司为员工提供了“微远程工作机会”。FullContact的员工每年中可以有一个月的时间随便在哪里工作，并且FullContact还会送你到你想去的地方工作。在When I Work，我们同样用类似的福利吸引招聘全国范围内最优秀的人才。
弹性工作时间：如果你想招聘到高产高效的人才，那就把你的关注点放在他们交付的成果上，不要去计较他们的工作时间。然后你会发现你的员工保留率提高了，员工评估变得理想了，所以把无关紧要的指标放到一边去吧！
假如你能做到以上几点，你的公司在招聘市场上势必会变得更加具有吸引力和竞争力。既然你决议要吸纳当地最优秀的人才，那么你还应该保证你有能力留住这些人才。在HireArt的一份调查研究中显示，25%的创业公司反馈说约有一半的非技术人入职不到半年便离开了。如果你在渴求的人才之间培养一个开放的对话模式，并保持一个灵活的态度，我相信你至少可以在你的公司里更长久地留住优秀员工。
How To Attract Top Talent To Join Your Startup in 2016
Behind every great startup you've ever read or heard about exists a team of passionate, talented, and motivated individuals driving growth. The question most new startup owners ask themselves is, "how do I get the most talented people to help me?"
The fact of the matter is, by cultivating the ideal environment for top talent, you have an opportunity to compete with the best of the best in order to reign in the very best employees out there--the ones that can help you put your startup on the map.
So how do you do it? How can you attract top talent to join your startup in 2016? Yes, there are some obvious ways to reign in the best talent: hefty titles, uber-competitive salaries and awesome collaborations. But there's a lot more to it than that. By thinking outside the box, you can gain the edge over just about any competitor. Here are some ideas on how to best approach attracting top talent.
Note: not every solution mentioned below will be right for your company. Don’t feel like you have to offer or implement everything you read here. The purpose of presenting these ideas and examples is to provide you with a complete picture and get you thinking about what you can realistically and feasibly offer at your company for your employees. As an owner or founder, it’s up to you to decide which solutions work best for you and your team.
Beyond Equity
Every startup hire loves equity. If you are in the early stage of your growth, equity can help you compensate for the stability talent would find at a established company. Venture-backed startups typically offer employee equity out of the 10-20% of the total shares of the business. Some startups stop there, but you shouldn't.
Instead of solely offering financial equity, allow your talent to truly invest in your product or service. The best employee are happy to pitch in with labor, but they really want a hand in strategy. Recruit talent by giving them something big: a new product development, a design reboot or even a management opportunity. In the startup world, turnover is high--top recruits want to make a big impact from the beginning rather than paying dues. Foster this ambition by making simple changes.
Let Go of Group Think: Top talent usually has an independent streak. Don't make new hires to drink the company kool-aid, and instead ask them to contribute their unique perspectives.
Nurture Independent Projects: Google may have axed its 20% model, but that doesn't mean that you should. Give employees time to nurture their curiosities. Who knows what can come from individual innovation?
Down with the Red Tape: The more roadblocks you place in front of talent, the more frustrated they become. Streamline approval processes to allow for greater ease between ideas and their fruition.
Values and Transparency
Like attracts like. If you want talent with integrity, you need to embody your values in every aspect of your business. If you don't, the best hires will sniff out your company's hollow values in an interview, or even at a first glance at your company's blog.
Asana, a productivity startup, does a tremendous job embodying their values in every level of their work. The founders pulled the company name from the yogic notion of "asana," which refers to postures that restore one's sense of wellbeing. Asana's values, which include mindfulness and equanimity, are not just words--they are present in every aspect their community culture. Perks like shared, organic meals prepared by a homechef and on-site yoga are meaningful embodiments of Asana'sstated values. The top talent for your company will always resonate with your deepest message, so make sure to let your values shine (we link to ours right on theWhen I Work Careers page to make sure that they are front and center for anyone interested in coming to work for us).
Some companies take their mission a step further, embracing transparency blogging as a way to share internal workings. Buffer, Moz and Unbounce are great examples of this marketing approach--if you follow their lead, you could reap rewards during recruitment. After Buffer posted employee salaries on their blog, they received more than double the applications than they had the month prior. As their CEO Joel Gascoigne said, "We've never been able to find great people this quickly in the past." When startups embody and demystify their values, it nurtures trust--something you can't put a pricetag on.
Family Benefits
As potential employees consider your company, they will think about whether it's in the best interest of their whole lives not just their work lives. If you want to recruit the best talent, put your money where their hearts are by investing in families.
A survey from the San Francisco-based Paper G found that startups often offer gym memberships, meals and even subsidized transportation before committing to paid parental leave policies. Offering substantial and documented parent benefits can help corral and keep talent in your company. Just ask Mary Ellen Slayter. As the CEO of Reputation Capital, Mary Ellen went above and beyond to give her director of marketing strategy a paid maternity leave. Lee, the director, said about coming back to work, "If my job was just a paycheck, it would have been easy for me to mentally check out or leave altogether. It's my team of committed, caring coworkers that make me excited to have this job every day."
The tech startup Treehouse LLC takes family-friendly to the next level by closing its doors every Thursday evening. On Fridays, employees stay home with their families. As chief executive and founder Ryan Carson told the Washington Post, "It makes recruiting and retention so much easier. It's almost funny. When someone is considering us or Google or Facebook, we say, 'Well, are you going to work a four-day week there?' It's almost like our amazing ace up the sleeve. It's just something nobody can beat." Would you turn down a four-day-a-week job? Probably not!
Personalization
As Treehouse LLC shows us, the age of the cookie-cutter 9-5 is over. Everyone wants a job that accommodates their needs, strengths and interests. Why not mold your expectations instead of expecting your employees to mold to you? Embracing job personalization as a marketing and management technique will entice (and keep) the best talent around.
Personalized Office Space: One study showed that workers who could personalize their office space with plants or pictures were 32 percent more productive. Asana gives its employees $10,000 to create their own workspaces--imagine what your employees could do with that kind of money?
Location Independence: Startups like Baremetrics, Zapier, InVision embrace a distributed team, and their employees can work from anywhere. If you're not able to offer full-time remote work, follow FullContact's lead. This startup based in Denver offers mini-remote opportunities instead. Their employees can work wherever they want for one month of the year, and FullContact will help them to get there, too! At When I Work, we also offer this perk as a way to attract and hire the best people from around the country.
Flexible Hours: If you want to attract productive talent, value their deliverables rather than their hours on the job. You will increase your retention rate and shift your employee evaluations to powerful, rather than irrelevant metrics.
Taking each of these steps makes your company more appealing from the outside. Now that you're on your way to bringing in the best talent in town, you have to make sure you don't lose them faster than you can say, "You're hired." In a survey by HireArt, 25% of startups reported losing 50% of their non-technical talent within the first six months of work. If you cultivate open dialogue with talents and maintain a posture of flexibility, you can reverse the statistic--at least within your company.
Source:Inc
硅谷
2015年08月06日
硅谷
想要在职业生涯给社会带来积极影响？听听 80000 Hours 的建议吧
科技行业的人士都喜欢讨论 如何成就一番事业 。但怎样才能让你的职业生涯更有意义呢？如果你真的想对这个世界带来积极影响，你究竟是该为创业公司工作呢，还是说为非营利机构服务呢？抑或是远离创业公司和非营利组织？
80000 Hours 便是一个帮助你做出上述决定的组织。这是一家非营利组织，成员包括当前孵化自 Y Combinator 的一批创业公司，由本·托德（Ben Todd）和威尔·麦克斯基尔（Will MacAskill）创建于 2011 年。托德目前担任 80,000 Hours 的执行董事，而麦克斯基尔则担任总裁。
麦克斯基尔是英国牛津大学研究哲学的副教授，他说在遇到托德时，后者还是一个学生，正面临事业上的艰难选择。他俩最终成立了一个讨论组， 讲授有关这个话题的课程 ，直至最终创建 80000 Hours，用以传播他们的想法（这一组织的名称是指一个人职业生涯的全部工作时间）。
80000 Hours 的工作涉及一对一职业培训，但重点已转向 80000 Hours 网站上的文章和其他相关内容——毕竟，这样一来，他们可以覆盖更多的受众。托德表示，80000 Hours 的内容更具交互性和个性化，比如包含一些小测验，现在它上面还有 职业规划指导 和 大量相关文章 ，（更新： 这就是 80000 Hours 上面的一个测验 ，最终建议我应该参考智库研究。）80000 Hours 目前还在围绕此类内容打造一个社区。
80000 Hours 的目标不是向所有人都推荐相同的职业，而是确保他们拥有做出正确职业决定的理想框架——他们要问自己一些合适的问题。
顺便说一句，80000 Hours 的建议有时与我们的直觉完全相反。例如，它明确反对盲目遵从托德所说的“常见的职业规划建议”，即追随你的内心。
相反，80,000 Hours 会告诉读者，“ 不要追随内心 ”——这是让人相当吃惊的做法。“追随内心”不会让你变得更具上进心，从而更成功吗？
托德反驳说，热情“并不是成功的保证，也不能确保你一定就可以对社会做出积极贡献。”他还指出，大多数人都说他们对体育、艺术等领域充满热情，但这些领域的职业机遇十分有限。
托德指出，最为重要的是，研究表明追随内心只会“让事情出现倒退”，相反，你应该把精力放在“熟悉有意义的事情上，然后再慢慢形成对这些事情的兴趣。”
麦克斯基尔（他写了一本有关“有效的利他主义”的书）还怀疑另一个看似显而易见的情况——要为非营利机构工作，尤其是将它作为你大学毕业后的第一份工作。他并没有轻视所有这些机构的意思，他说只有少数非营利机构会真正起作用。此外，如果某个非营利机构没有提供帮助你发展专业技能的资源，那么为它服务可能会限制你今后的工作能力。
所以，为什么 80000 Hours 本身是一个非营利机构？麦克斯基尔表示，“我们有必要避免利益冲突，有必要避免对‘给出帮我们赚钱的建议’而有压力。”
“如果我们认为我们可以克服那个困难，我们就要解放思想，朝着营利性的模式发展，”他补充道。无论如何，关键是“专注于拥有尽可能最大的社会影响，”既为了读者，也为了 80000 Hours 自己。
Want To Make An Impact With Your Work? Try Some Advice From 80,000 Hours
People in the tech world like to talk about doing great things. But what does that actually mean for your career? If you’re serious about making a positive impact on the world, should you go work for a startup? A nonprofit? Or none of the above?
80,000 Hours is an organization aiming to help with those decisions. It’s a nonprofit in the current class of startups incubated by doing great things, but it was founded back in 2011 by Ben Todd (the organization’s executive director) and Will MacAskill (its president).
MacAskill is an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford University, and he said that when they met, Todd was a student wrestling with many of these questions. They ended up forming a discussion group and giving lectures on the topic, then eventually creating 80,000 Hours to spread their ideas. (The name refers to the number of hours in your career)
Part of their work involves one-on-one career coaching, but the focus has shifted toward articles and other content on the 80,000 Hours site — which, after all, can reach a broader audience. Todd said the content should get more interactive and personalized through things like quizzes, but for now, there’s already a career guide and plenty of articles. (Update: Here’s one of those quizzes, which suggested that I look into think tank research.) 80,000 Hours is also working to build a community around that content.
The point isn’t to just direct everyone to the same type of career, but rather to make sure they’ve got the right framework for making their decisions — that they’re asking themselves the right questions.
The advice, by the way, can be pretty counter-intuitive. For example, it pushes back against what Todd calls “the paradigm career advice of our time,” namely following your passion.
In contrast, 80,000 Hours tells readers, “Don’t follow your passion” — which is pretty surprising. Isn’t following your passion supposed to make you more motivated, and therefore more successful?
Todd countered that passion is “not anywhere close to a guarantee of being successful or having an impact.” He also noted that most people say their passion is in areas like sports and the arts, which offer very limited career opportunities.
Most importantly, he said that research suggests that following your passion “gets things backwards.” Instead, you should focus on “getting good at something that’s meaningful, and then passion develops from that later on.”
MacAskill (who wrote a book about “effective altruism”) was also skeptical of another seemingly obvious track — going to work for a nonprofit, especially as your first job out of college. He didn’t dismiss all such organizations, but he said only a small number of them have a real impact. In addition, working for a nonprofit might limit your ability to do good later on, if the organization doesn’t have the resources to help you develop your professional skills.
So why is 80,000 Hours a nonprofit itself? MacAskill said it’s necessary to avoid conflicts of interest and feeling pressured to “give the sorts of recommendations that make us money.”
“We’d be open to the idea of moving to a for-profit model if we think we could overcome that difficulty,” he added. Either way, the key is being “laser-focused on having the biggest social impact,” both for individual readers, and for 80,000 Hours itself.
来自：techcrunch
硅谷
2015年08月05日
硅谷
解决科技行业多元化问题的关键在于留住员工
科技行业的多元化对话往往更关注于“交流途径”，让更多少数族裔的员工跨过这道门槛。不过，这只是第一步。第二步、也是最为关键的一步是，让他们留下来。如果具有不同背景的员工不能给公司创造一种包容性和友好的环境，那么公司就没有必要耗费资源来聘请这样的员工了。
“这并不是说你不应该重视招聘，而是说你不仅要重视招聘，还要把精力放在留住员工上面，这就像你正在填满漏水的水桶一样。”Paradigm 的首席执行官乔利·埃莫森（Joelle Emerson）告诉我。
Paradigm 是一个专注于多元化问题的咨询公司。目前 该公司正在与一些高速发展的公司合作 ，例如 Pinterest 和 Slack，用以培育并保留多样化的工作场所。这是因为，如果企业不能有效留住背景不同的人才，那便是对金钱和资源的大量浪费了。事实上，根据美国进步中心（Center for American Progress）的 研究 ，招聘和雇佣新员工的成本通常在员工年薪中占到 20%。
Twitter 工程部经理莱斯利·米莱（Leslie Miley）是位黑人，他告诉我：“我认为，即便不是更重要的一个问题，但留住员工也很重要，因为你不想挖掘具有不同背景的员工。因为如果你拥有了背景不同的员工，这便和你的文化有很大关系了。不想拥有这种员工的企业，将永远无法增强自身的多元化。这听起来很简单，但是真的很有趣，有些公司还没弄清楚这一点。”
米莱谈到，流失这样的员工可能意味着几件事。一是表明公司的企业文化没有意识到员工多元化的重要性，二是说明公司有“害群之马”，让员工在这里呆不下去了。
“事实上，我之前遇见过这样的情形，在我的职业生涯中，有人只会给有色人种创造让人寒心的环境，”米莱说道。“例如有这样一家公司——但我不会说出这个公司的名字——当他们意识到问题的时候，一切都太晚了。”
虽然米莱并未指名道姓提到 Dropbox，但我敢打赌，他指的就是 Dropbox 前员工安吉利卡·科尔曼（Angelica Coleman）遭遇的情况。科尔曼称，由于 Dropbox 工作环境对女性不友好，她最终离开了这家公司。
根据《哈佛商业评论》实施的 一项调查 ，女性离开科技公司的比例是男性的两倍。最常见的原因就是工作环境，例如得不到晋升、工作时间长以及工资低等。
埃莫森表示，若想解决员工留存问题，一个办法就是确定你的公司是否可能存在这种问题，做到这一点并不难，通过对员工进行调查即可。这种调查应该问员工几个问题，如他们打算在公司工作多长时间，他们如何看待公司的多元化和包容性问题，他们是否看到获得晋升的机会等等。若想让具有不同背景的员工们明白他们会有晋升的机会，那就是确保公司有少数族裔背景的人在领导岗位上。
埃莫森指出，企业还必须意识到，具有不同背景的员工留存率高，并不意味着企业做的任何事情都是对的。员工有可能会出于经济方面的考虑被迫留在公司里，而不是因为他们真的很享受在那里工作。“如果人们并没有离开，企业有时可能自我感觉不错，但事实并非如此，”埃莫森说。
团队任务管理平台 Asana 是与埃莫森有合作关系的另一家高增长型创业公司，该公司已经认识到多元化员工的留存重要性，但它并没有试图通过建立一套有效的机制，将员工留在公司里。
Asana 人力资源部门主管安迪·斯托（Andy Stoe）说：“我们并不是依靠我们作为‘北极星’的自我价值，让我们各司其职，相反，我们还试图打开‘黄手铐’（golden handcuff），这样员工会出于合理的考虑留在 Asana。”
斯托所说的“金手铐”是指各种公司福利，比如说股票期权及其他丰厚的奖励等，旨在鼓励员工不要离开公司。Asana 尝试放松“金手铐”的束缚，改变标准的劳资协议条款，令其适用于公司新的股票期权规定。
以前，Asana 员工离职后，只有三个月时间来执行股票期权，过后即丧失期权。如今，从 Asana 授予其股权之日起，员工将有 10 年时间来执行期权，即便他们任职未满 10 年就离开了公司。
最终，科技公司必须对两个问题进行深入思考，一是创造哪种工作环境，二是如何能让背景多元的员工寻找和获得晋升的机会。此外，企业还必须要知道激励员工留下来的原因是什么。是企业包容、健康的工作环境，还是说员工手腕上的“金手铐”？如果是因为后者他们才留了下来，那么企业就必须做出改变了。
Hacking Diversity In Tech By Emphasizing Retention
Conversations around diversity in tech often focus on the “pipeline” and getting more people from underrepresented groups through the door. But that’s just a first step. The next, most critical step is retention. There’s no point in a company using its resources to hire a diverse people if they’re not going to offer them an environment that is both supporting and nurturing.
“It’s not to say that you shouldn’t focus on [hiring], but to focus on that and not focus on retention, it’s like you’re filling up a leaky bucket,” Paradigm CEO Joelle Emerson tells me.
Paradigm is a consulting startup that focuses on diversity. It’s currently working with high-growth companies like Pinterest and Slack on fostering and retaining a diverse workplace. That’s because if companies can’t effectively retain diverse people it’s a huge waste of money and resources. In fact, the cost of recruiting and hiring a new employee is typically 20 percent of the annual salary for that person, according to the Center for American Progress.
“I think that [retention is] as important if not more important because you don’t want to churn out diversity,” Twitter Engineering Manager Leslie Miley, who is black, tells me. “Because if you churn out diversity, that says a lot about your culture. Companies that do churn out diversity will never be able to increase their diversity. It sounds very simple, but it’s really interesting to see that some companies haven’t figured that one out.”
Losing diverse employees could mean a couple of things, Miley says. It could mean either that it’s a culture that doesn’t recognize diversity matters, or it could be that there’s just a bad apple driving people out the door.
“I have actually seen that previously in my career where one person can create an environment that is just chilling for people of color,” Miley says. “There’s one example, but I won’t name the company, by the time they realized that there was a problem, it was too late.”
Even though Miley didn’t specifically call out Dropbox, my bet is that he was referring to the situation with former Dropbox employee Angelica Coleman, who says she left the company because of its unsupportive environment.
Women leave tech companies at twice the rate of men, according to a study by the Harvard Business Review. The most common reason is the working conditions (e.g. no advancement, number of hours, low salary).
One way to combat retention issues is by determining if your company is at risk of them, which can be accomplished through surveys, Emerson says. These surveys should ask employees things like how long they plan to be at the company, how they perceive diversity and inclusion in the company, and if they are aware of opportunities for advancement. And one way to signal to diverse employees that there are opportunities for advancement is to ensure there are people from underrepresented backgrounds in leadership roles.
Companies also need to recognize that a high retention rate of diverse employees doesn’t necessarily mean the company’s doing anything right, Emerson says. People might be forced to stay on at a company because of financial reasons, not because they actually enjoy working there. “If people aren’t leaving, companies sometimes make the assumption that everything is fine, and that’s not always the case,” Emerson says.
Productivity startup Asana, another high-growth company that Emerson works with, recognizes that retention of diverse employees is really important, but it tries not to create mechanisms just to keep people at the company.
“Instead we rely on our own values as the north star, and literally hold ourselves accountable, Asana Head of Recruiting Andy Stoe says. “We also try to remove the ‘golden handcuffs’ so people want to stay at Asana for the right reasons.”
The “golden handcuffs” Stoe is talking about are the benefits, like stock options and other deferred payments, that aim to discourage people from leaving the company. Asana has tried to loosen the handcuffs by changing the standard terms that apply to the company’s new stock options.
In the past, employees had just three months after leaving Asana to exercise their options before they were forfeited. Now, employees have 10 years to exercise those options from the date Asana grants them, even if they leave the company before that time.
Ultimately, tech companies need to be thoughtful about the kind of work environment they create, and how they enable diverse employees to seek and attain opportunities for advancement. Companies also need to be aware of what is incentivizing people to stay. Is it because of the company’s supportive, nourishing environment? Or, are employees staying because of the golden handcuffs around their wrists? If it’s the latter, something needs to change.
来源：techcrunch
Captain401： 希望帮助企业更简单地创建 401K 计划
周四，从创业孵化器 Y Combinator 毕业的 Captain401 正式上线，这是一项帮助小型企业创建 401K 计划（译注：一种由雇员、雇主共同缴费建立起来的完全基金式的养老保险制度）的服务。Captain401 的目标是让管理 401K 计划像运营公司其他业务一样简单，而且像 Zenefits 或 Zenpayroll 一样更加聚焦于数字技术。
该公司首席执行官罗杰·李（Roger Lee）说，Captain401 寻求创建一套流程，避免投资那些收取高额手续费和跑不赢市场的基金。他表示，Captain401 的投资服务是自动化的，能够帮助员工做出更好的投资决策，并且对最佳选择拥有更深入的认识。
“像 ADP 和 John Hancock 那些老牌公司，它们要求大量的文书工作、缓慢的信件邮寄、各种文件填报和签名。”李说，“一些公司，比如富达投资集团（Fidelity），根本不跟小型企业合作。我们认为，我们可以在那方面做得更好，我们的解决方案是网络和无纸化。企业只需要 10 分钟就能创建自己的计划，我们让持续管理实现了自动化。对员工来说，他们免除了搞清楚自己该怎么做的麻烦。”
尽早创建 401K 计划是很重要的，这有几方面的原因，如果说哪个最重要，那就是展示雇主关心自己员工的未来。李此前曾运营一家创业公司，他的员工问起了 401K 计划的事情。李想创建一套，但整个过程缓慢而又过时。举例来说，那些提供此项计划的机构仍然需要大量的文书工作，需要签名、邮寄和传真文件。
“它看起来是一个麻烦，花的时间很长，我们认为，我们可以利用更加现代化的技术做得更好。”李说，“多年来，我个人帮助过 100 多名亲朋好友检查他们的 401K 计划，并协助他们进行投资。我意识到，他们 401K 计划的投资分配都不够理想。他们不知道该如何选择自己的投资对象，我们希望在 401K 领域引入 Wealthfront 那样的在线理财平台。”
与此同时，Captain401 的另一位联合创始人保罗·萨瓦亚（Paul Sawaya）是来自 Mozilla 基金会的一名软件开发者。该公司创建了一套 401K 计划，但整个流程很难管理，员工也没有被教授最佳的投资方式。“我只登进过系统一次，当时我还是那里的员工。”萨瓦亚说道。两人通过一个共同的好友——Clever 的泰勒·博斯米尼（Tyler Bosmeny）——结识，他们最终谈到了 401K 计划，他们觉得自己可以提供一种更好的体验。
Captain401 的 401K 计划跟数十个先锋指数基金进行了对接，李表示，此举将能带来高于其他基金的业绩表现。“那是人们喜欢的沃伦·巴菲特（Warren Buffet）式做法，经济学家认为，这是员工的最佳选择，能够取得最多的投资回报。”
Captain401 毕业于今夏的 Y Combinator 培训班，有趣的是，Y Combinator 自己将成为该公司的客户。
“员工能够在自己的养老金计划中得到更好的投资选择，并能够就个人情况制定合适的投资策略，如果我们能够朝着那样的世界迈进，那么比之单打独斗的做法，效果能够好得多，而且能够为员工提供更多的帮助。”李说，“显然，这里面还有大量的工作要做。”
YC-Backed Captain401 Wants To Make Creating A 401k Easier For Businesses
Captain401, a service that helps small businesses set up a 401k, is launching out of Y Combinator today. The goal of Captain401 is to make managing 401ks as simple as other services are for other functions within companies — and in a more digitally focused manner like Zenefits or Zenpayroll.
Captain401 seeks to create a process that avoids funds that have higher fees and fail to beat the market, CEO Roger Lee said. The investing service is automated, helping employees make better decisions about their investments and become more educated about the best choices, he said.
“Incumbents like ADP, John Hancock, they require tons of paperwork, snail mailing, filling out and signing,” he said. “Some companies like Fidelity don’t work with small businesses. We think we can do a lot better there, our solution is online and paperless. “It takes companies 10 minutes to set up their plan, we automate the ongoing administration. For the employees it’s that education and investment experience where the existing 401k companies leave employees to figure out what to do on their own.”
401ks are important to set up early for a number of reasons, if only is to show that employers care about the future of their employees. Lee had previously run a startup where his employees were asking about a 401k. Lee wanted to set one up, but the whole process was slow and outdated. Institutions, for example, still required stacks of paperwork that required signatures and had to be mailed and faxed in.
“It seemed like a hassle, it took way longer, and we thought we could do a lot better with more modern tech,” he said. “I personally over the years helped more than a 100 friends and family look at their 401ks and help with their investments, and realized without fail that each was sub-optimally allocated. They didn’t know how to choose their investments. We wanted to bring a Wealthfront into the 401k space.”
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Meanwhile, his co-founder Paul Sawaya was a software developer at Mozilla. That company had a 401k instituted, but the whole process was difficult to manage and employees weren’t given education on how to best invest, he said. “I only logged in once when I was an employee there,” he said. The two met through a mutual friend — Tyler Bosmeny at Clever — and eventually came to the topic of 401ks, which they decided they could offer a better experience.
The 401k is tied to dozens of Vanguard index funds, which Lee says ultimately leads to higher performance than other funds. “That’s the approach that people like Warren Buffet, economists [consider], it’s the best approach for employees and get to the most returns.”
Captain401 came out of this year’s summer Y Combinator class. Interestingly enough, Y Combinator will be a customer of Captain401.
“Any step closer to a world where employees can get better investment options in their plan and they can diversify and get a suitable investment strategy that makes sense for them and their personal situation, that can just be so much better and help them so much more than the go it alone approach,” Lee said. “Obviously there’s a lot of work to do here.”
来源：techcrunch
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