When Adam Cheyer started working with computers back in the early 90s, he instinctively knew that the future would involve people interacting with the machines in a more natural way, through some combination of speech and graphic interfaces.

当Adam Cheyer在90年代初开始用电脑工作时，他本能地意识到未来人们可能会以一种更加自然的方式，比如通过语音和图形界面相结合的方式与电脑互动。

That’s why in 1993 Cheyer, who was then working in at the SRI International research lab, built the first prototype of what would one day become Siri, the automated voice assistant on Apple iPhones.

这就是为什么当时还在SRI International 研究实验室工作的Cheyer在1993年打造了第一款Siri（苹果手机上的自动语音助手）的原型。

Over two decades, Cheyer built 50 versions of his Siri technology. But it wasn’t until the iPhone was released in 2007 that his team saw an imminent opportunity for others to use Siri in a way that would make them money.

在20多年的时间里，Cheyer打造了50个不同版本的Siri技术。但是，直到2007年苹果推出iPhone手机后，Cheyer的团队才发现一个近在咫尺的机会。这个机会就是Siri可以为人们所用，而人们使用Siri的方式可以让团队赚钱。

Cheyer, with co-founders Dag Kittlaus and Tom Gruber, spent the next couple of years building a commercial version of Siri, and in February 2010, the company he co-founded, Siri, Inc., launched Siri as an app in the Apple store, alongside hundreds of thousands of other apps.

作为Dag Kittlaus和Tom Gruber的联合创人，Cheyer又在接下来的几年打造出了一款商业版的Siri。2010年2月，Cheyer作为联合创人的公司Siri, Inc.在苹果的应用商店推出了Siri 小程序。Siri成为苹果商店上千万小程序中的一个。

Apparently it stood out, because two to three weeks after launch, Steve Jobs called Cheyer’s office, unannounced. He wanted to buy Siri, its technology and Siri, Inc.

很显然，Siri从众多小程序中脱颖而出。因为就在Siri发布2到3个星期之后，乔布斯在没有通知的情况下给Cheyer打电话并提出想要购买Siri，Siri的技术和Siri公司的请求。

Cheyer and the Siri team refused Jobs’ first buyout offer. “With no hesitation, we said we were flattered but that we weren’t looking to sell at that time,” says Cheyer. “We had just raised a new round of funding and had gone through a successful launch. ...[A]n acquisition was just not something we were actively seeking.”

Cheyer和Siri团队拒绝了乔布斯第一次的收购请求。Cheyer说：“我们当时毫不犹豫地告诉乔布斯，我们感到很荣幸，但是我们还不打算出售。我们刚完成了新一轮的融资并且产品的发布也非常成功。收购并不是我们想要的。”

Buyout：控制股权收购a situation in which a person or group gains control of a company by buying all or most of its shares

But when Jobs came back a few months later, they sold Siri to Apple in April 2010 for more than $200 million, according to reports. For a year and a half, Cheyer worked at Apple to create the version of Siri that now exists on the iPhone.

但是乔布斯几个月之后又提出收购的请求。于是，根据报道，Cheyer团队在2010年4月以2亿美元的价格将Siri卖给了苹果。在1年半的时间里，Cheyer在苹果公司工作并打造了一个苹果手机目前所使用的Siri版本。

It wasn’t Cheyer’s only multimillion-dollar exit: He went on to co-found Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence assistant company, which the South Korean electronics giant Samsung acquired in 2016 for about $215 million, according to reports.

这并非Cheyer唯一一次获得数百万美元后的退出经历。他接下来又和其他人共同创办了Viv Labs，一家人工智能辅助公司。根据报道，这家公司在2016年被韩国电子设备巨头三星以2.15亿美元的价格收购。

It’s safe to say Cheyer is a successful entrepreneur. He’s proven that he knows what it takes to build a successful company, and according to the serial founder, it’s these four things:

可以肯定的说，Cheyer是一位成功的企业家。他的成功已经证明，他了解如何打造一家成功的公司。而根据Cheyer的经验，打造一家成功的企业，有以下四个要素：

An ambitious idea

一个宏大的想法

″[The idea] needs to be big enough, ambitious enough,” Cheyer tells CNBC. It also needs to have a market and “be something that people could need or that you can convince them that they would need,” he says.

“这个想法需要足够大，足够有野心，”Cheyer告诉CNBC。“这个想法还要有市场，是人们可能会需要的东西或者你可以说服人们需要的东西”。

The right team

合适的团队

To launch a successful start-up, you have to have the right co-founders, says Cheyer. “You cannot do it all by yourself. In order to execute on a company, you really need different skill sets.”

要想让初创企业获得成功，你还要有合适的联合创始人。“你不可能一个人包揽全部的工作。公司的运营需要不同的技能。”

There are four essential components, according to Cheyer. Every start-up needs a visionary who can think big; a product development expert who can translate the idea into an actionable to-do list; a marketing expert who can communicate the idea to the world; and of course, people to execute the idea.

根据Cheyer的介绍，公司的构成有四大关键要素。每家初创企业都需要一个有远见的人，他需要有弘大的抱负；一个能够将创意转化成切实可行的任务清单的产品开发专家；一位可以将理念传递给全世界的市场营销专家；还有就是能够将想法落实的人。

“Maybe as a founder you can be one or two of those things, but it’s rare you’ll find someone who can do all four,” says Cheyer. “So you need to find the right people to join you as the core team to take it to market.”

Cheyer表示：“作为一个创始人，你也许能够扮演其中两种角色。但是，很少有人可以同时扮演四种角色。因此，你需要寻找合适的人来加入并形成可以将产品推向市场的核心团队。”

Other people’s money

获得投资人的支持

“When you’re in it, you’re so close to it, you’re really not a good judge” of how worthy your idea is, says Cheyer. So having to convince other people to give you their money to fund your start-up is a good test, he says.

“当你开始着手开创公司，由于你就在公司内部，因此你无法真正判断你的想法到底有多值钱，”Cheyer表示。因此，说服别人给你钱并给你的公司提供资金就是一个很好的测试，它可以测试你的想法到底有多值钱。

Killer execution

当机立断

“It’s about execution. And what does execution mean? It means you have a limited amount of time and resources — you have to make the right decisions,” says Cheyer.

“这个和执行有关。那么执行是什么意思呢？执行的意思是你的时间和资源都很有限-因此你必须做出正确的决策，”Cheyer表示。

Steve Jobs famously said: “I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” Cheyer agrees, saying what you say no to is just as important as what you aggressively pursue.

乔布斯曾经说过一句很有名的话：“我对我们没有做的事情和我已经做过的事情都一样感到自豪。创新就是对1000种事情说不”Cheyer也赞同这一观点。他表示，你拒绝去做的事情和你积极想要去做的事情一样重要。

“Every decision you make, when you choose to do something, that means you’re choosing not to do many other things,” explains Cheyer. “Every decision you make impacts what you end up with and how you get there.”

“你所做的每个决定，当你选择做某些事时，这意味着你选择不去做许多其他的事。每个你做出的决定都对最终的结果以及你如何实现这一最终结果有影响。”

原文来源：美国消费者新闻与商业频道

编辑：上海译锐翻译