让世界更美好的手机应用

In every episode of “Silicon Valley,” the terrific HBO comedy series created by Mike Judge, there is always a moment, rendered utterly deadpan, that both mocks and explains the current, are-we-in-a-bubble-yet state of play in, well, Silicon Valley.

在迈克尔·贾奇(Mike Judge)为HBO创作的出色喜剧《硅谷》(Silicon Valley)中，每一集都会有那么一个时刻，用一本正经的口吻，在诠释硅谷那种“说不定已是泡沫”的现状同时，又对它进行了嘲讽。

In one episode this Season, for instance, the show’s hero, Richard Hendricks, the nerdy founder of Pied Piper, mentions the plans he has “once we have a subscription-revenue model.” His backer, an obnoxious billionaire, leaps out of his seat. “No, no, no!” he exclaims. “Why would you go after revenue?”

比方说，本季有一集里，片中主角、推出了“花衣吹笛人”(Pied Piper)应用的技术宅理查德·亨德里克斯(Richard Hendricks)提到，“一旦我们有了一个基于注册用户的收入模式”，他就计划如何行事。听闻此言，资助亨德里克斯的那名招人嫌的大富豪马上从椅子上蹦了起来。“别、别、别！”他大喊。“你要收入干什么？”

“To make money?” Richard answers meekly. “If you have no revenue, you can say you are prerevenue,” explains the billionaire. “You’re a potential pure play. It’s not about how much you earn; it’s about what you’re worth. And who’s worth the most? Companies that lose money!”

“为了赚钱啊？”理查德乖乖地回答。“如果没有收入，你就可以说自己处于即将有收入的阶段，”富豪解释道。“那么你就是纯粹的潜力股。你挣多少根本无所谓，关键是你的估值。那谁的估值最高？当然是亏损的公司啊！”

In other episodes this season, we’ve been introduced to an app called “Bro” — its only function is to allow someone to send the word “bro”’ to someone else — and the coming of “datageddon,” thanks to all the “selfies and useless files people refuse to delete.”

这一季的另一集里，我们听说了一款叫做“兄弟”(Bro)的应用，唯一的功能就是让用户发送“兄弟”二字来给别人打个招呼。我们还听说，因为“人们不愿删除自拍照和无用资料”，“数据末日”恐将来临。

And, of course, there is the way all the young, scruffy entrepreneurs on “Silicon Valley” profess to be in business to “make the world a better place” rather than get rich. “We’re making the world a better place through Paxos algorithms for consensus protocols,” says one company founder at a TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

当然了，更别提《硅谷》里头那些邋里邋遢的创业年轻人都在掏心窝，之所以做这些事，不是为了一夜暴富，而是“要让世界变得更美好呀”。某公司的创始人在TechCrunch Disrupt大会上表示，“通过一致性协议的Paxos算法，我们正在让世界变得更美好。”

“And we’re making the world a better place through software-defying data centers for cloud computing,” says another.

“通过面向云计算的软件定义的数据中心，我们正在让世界变得更美好，”另一个人说道。

Which perhaps explains why I immediately thought of Judge’s parody of life in techland as I read the real-life news last week that the social app Secret was shutting down after only 16 months. Like many of the fake companies on “Silicon Valley,” Secret was based on a truly ridiculous idea: that an app that allowed people to send anonymous messages would not only be a hit, but would “reduce the barrier to communication” and make it possible to convey the “raw truth” without that annoying filter of identity. Anonymity was going to be the next big thing in “social,” according to its founders, David Byttow, 33, and Chrys Bader-Wechseler, 31.

这或许能解释，当上周读到社交应用Secret在推出仅16个月后即将关门大吉的真实消息后，我立即想到了贾奇对技术圈生活的滑稽再现。跟《硅谷》里头许许多多的虚构公司一样，Secret建立在一个荒谬透顶的理念之上：能发匿名讯息的应用不仅会大热，还能“减少沟通障碍”，使得绕过身份限制，表达“赤裸真相”成为可能。创办这家公司的33岁的戴维·拜陶(David Byttow)和31岁的克里斯·巴德-维切斯勒(Chrys Bader-Wechseler)表示，匿名将是“社交”领域的下一个引爆点。

“It helps you become a better person if you want to be a better person,” Byttow told the audience at — where else? — a TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

“如果你想成为一个更出色的人，它就能帮你成为一个更出色的人，”拜陶告诉听众。至于他说出这番话的场合？还能是哪里，当然是在TechCrunch Disrupt大会上。

Internet anonymity can make you a better person? Since when? Hadn’t we learned long ago that cyberbullying, gossip of the rankest sort, and the spreading of false rumors were the usual results of web anonymity, crowding out other, more ennobling responses.

匿名上网能让你更出色？这是打哪儿来的说法？我们不是老早就听说，匿名上网通常会导致网络霸凌行为、最为恶毒的八卦，以及谣言的散布，从而排挤较为理性的其他声音吗？

But Byttow — who only wears black in public, to judge by his various YouTube appearances — and Bader-Wechseler were convinced that making it easy for people to post anonymous messages — to their friends, no less — would, indeed, make the world a better place. Or at least they convinced enough gullible venture capitalists of this that they were able to raise some $35 million during their company’s short life, giving it a valuation at one point of $100 million.

从YouTube网站上展示的拜陶的多次活动来看，他在公共场合只穿黑衣。他和巴德-维切斯勒坚信，让用户可以发送匿名讯息——而且还是发给友人噢——真的可以让世界变得更美好。或者至少是，他们让足够人数的天真的风险投资人信了这一套，使得Secret在这短短的存活期里筹到了3500万美元（约合2.2亿元人民币）的资金，公司估值一度达到1亿美元。

As for revenue, it pretty much followed the “Silicon Valley” model. Any interviewer who asked how a completely anonymous “community” could serve as the foundation for a money-making business was told, quite matter of factly, that it was far too early to contemplate such mundane matters. Searching for a revenue model “would be a distraction at this point,” Byttow explained to the technology journalist Kara Swisher, who occasionally plays her sardonic, all-knowing self on “Silicon Valley.” “You have to build liquidity in your users,” added Bader-Wechseler.

至于收入嘛，基本就是《硅谷》里描绘的那套模式。要是有人问，一个完全匿名的“社区”怎么能为赚钱打下基础？此人会得到一个相当实诚的答案：思考这样的俗气问题，实在还为时尚早。寻找收入模式“在目前这个阶段将使我们分心，”拜陶曾向报道技术领域的记者卡拉·斯威舍(Kara Swisher)这样解释。“你得先在用户当中制造流动性，”巴德-维切斯勒补充道。斯威舍本人会偶尔在《硅谷》里出镜，扮演冷嘲热讽、无所不知的自己。

So what happened to Secret? Cyberbullying was a problem from the start, which seemed to surprise the founders, who were in a constant struggle to keep control of the posts. Security and privacy were also issues. (“We have learned a lot!” Bader-Wechseler told an interviewer five months in.) Brazil ordered it shut down. Marc Andreessen criticized it. As the app’s novelty wore off, people stopped using it. Byttow and Bader-Wechseler responded by redesigning the site so that it more closely resembled Yik Yak, a more successful competitor.

那么，Secret身上经历了些什么呢？网络霸凌的问题打一开始就存在，而这一点似乎还在两名创始人的意料之外。他们总是在控制发帖的事情上遭遇麻烦。此外，还存在安全与隐私的问题。（推出应用5个月后，巴德-维切斯勒告诉记者，“我们学了很多东西！”）巴西勒令它关闭；马克·安德雷森(Marc Andreessen)对它进行了批评。随着这款应用的新鲜感逐渐消退，人们便不再使用。拜陶和巴德-维切斯勒的应对办法是，重新设计网站，让它更接近成功一些的竞争对手Yik Yak。

Employees started leaving, including Bader-Wechseler in January. Meanwhile, as The Times reported, the founders had each taken $3 million off the table in the second round of financing, and Byttow had bought himself a red Ferrari (which, it’s been reported, he has since gotten rid of). Most new tech companies that realize their business model is doomed spend the rest of their money “pivoting” to something more promising. Byttow instead decided to return the leftover money to his investors. A classy touch.

员工开始离职，就连巴德-维切斯勒也于今年1月抽身而去。与此同时，《纽约时报》撰文指出，两名创始人在第二轮融资的时候各拿走了300万美元，而拜陶给自己买了辆红色法拉利（据报道，他后来把这辆车处理掉了）。在意识到自己的商业模式必将失败的新科技公司中，多数会把剩余的钱花在“转向”更有前途的东西上。拜陶倒是决定把余下的资金返还给投资者。挺有品。

In the blog post in which he announced that he was shutting down the Secret app, Byttow promised that he would “publish postmortems so that others can learn from the unique mistakes and challenges we faced and the wisdom gained from such an incredible 16 months.”

在宣布即将关闭Secret应用的博客文章中，拜陶承诺，他将“把事后反思写出来，让其他人可以从我们独特的错误和面临过的挑战中吸取教训，从我们这难以置信的16个月经历中汲取智慧。”

No doubt Mike Judge will be taking notes for future episodes.

毫无疑问，迈克尔·贾奇会为《硅谷》未来的剧集来提取灵感。