去好莱坞还是去硅谷发大财？

Hollywood, or Silicon Valley: Where’s the Money?
By NICK BILTON July 24, 2013

去好莱坞还是去硅谷发大财？
NICK BILTON 2013年07月24日
Last year, “The Dark Knight Rises” was one of the top-grossing films of [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] in worldwide box-office sales. That same year, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], the photo-sharing site based in Silicon Valley, was also one of the top-grossing commercial tech deals of the year; [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] bought it for $1 billion. So which was a better return on investment, the Hollywood hit or the Silicon Valley wonder?
去年，《蝙蝠侠：黑暗骑士崛起》(The Dark Knight Rises)是年度最卖座的影片之一，撷取了10亿美元（约合62亿元人民币）的全球票房。同年，硅谷的照片分享网站Instagram参与了年度价值最高的消费电子业交易之一——Facebook以10亿美元收购了该网站。那么，其中哪一项有着更好的投资回报，是好莱坞大片还是硅谷奇迹？
If you really want a sure bet, the answer is neither, said [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], a professor of finance at [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]’s Graduate School of Business, who advised caution before whipping out your checkbook to finance either the next movie or start-up. Both industries, he pointed out, are unpredictable and unstable, and not the ideal way to make money.
斯坦福大学商学院(Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business)的金融学教授伊利亚·A·施特雷布拉伊夫(Ilya A. Strebulaev)说，如果真的想要稳赢，那么答案是两个都不选。他建议你在掏出支票簿投资下一个电影或创业公司时要三思。在他看来这两个行业都是不可预测且不稳定的，都不是理想的赚钱方式。
“Hollywood and Silicon Valley really exist because of a few big successes,” Mr. Strebulaev said. “If you take a random movie, it loses money. Hollywood makes money from its big hits. The exact same is true with Silicon Valley; the average investment loses money.” He said both were considered “alternative investments.”
“好莱坞和硅谷的存在，本质上靠的是少数重大成功，”施特雷布拉伊夫说。“如果你随便挑部电影，它肯定赔钱。好莱坞从它的大热影片上赚钱。这和硅谷完全相同，一般的投资是亏损的。”他说，这两种都被认为是“另类投资”。
[要查看本图请先注册并登录]
Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures
电影《复仇者联盟》。
Still, in some ways, the movie industry — in the midst of the summer blockbuster season — may be a better bet, in that its returns are often more consistent. And when it comes to failure, the Valley seems to have even more spectacular flops. The common refrain I hear from venture capitalists is that nine out of 10 start-ups fail within the first two years. In Hollywood, only seven of 10 movies fail at the box office — meaning they do not make back their original investment, according to producers and executives.
不过，从某种意义来说，电影业——在夏季大片季节里——可能是个更好的投资，因为其回报通常更为稳定。至于在失败这个层面，硅谷的失败似乎更为惨烈。我从风险投资人那里听到的一个常见说法是，10家创业公司中有9家会在最初两年内倒闭。制片人和电影业高管则称，在好莱坞，10部影片中只有7部会遭遇票房失败，即没有收回原始投资。
But that one tech company in 10 that does not fail can reap huge returns. Far larger than Hollywood.
但是，这10家技术企业中未倒闭的那一家可以收获巨大的回报。远比好莱坞要高得多。
“A good tech investment firm returns three times the fund it uses for investments,” said Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital, one of the first companies to [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]Mr. Sabet noted that this meant that a $100 million fund should return $300 million to investors. “In most venture capital firms, one third of the investments in start-ups don’t work out, one third are flat and one third are the winners.”
“一家优秀的科技投资机构将收回三倍于投资的钱，”星火资本(Spark Capital)的普通合伙人比詹·萨比特(Bijan Sabet)说。星火资本属于最先投资Tumblr的公司之列。萨比特指出，这意味着1亿美元资金会给投资者带来3亿美元回报。“多数风投在对创业公司的投资中，有三分之一不成功，三分之一持平，另外三分之一才赚钱。”
Doing the math, that means the winning start-ups must return nine times the original investment. In a rare few instances, that number can be considerably larger, and often outperforms most other investments.
算一算就知道，这意味着创业公司带来的回报必须达到原始投入的九倍。在极少数情况下，回报率可能比这个数字大得多，通常优于绝大多数其他投资。
For example, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], of the venture capital firm Accel Partners, said his investment in Facebook returned 100 times its original cost. And anyone who invested in [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] in the early days would have a 50-fold return on that bet today at the company’s current $10 billion valuation. “The Twitter and Facebook returns come along once every 10 years,” Mr. Sabet said.
例如，阿克塞尔合伙公司(Accel Partners)的詹姆斯·W·布雷耶(James W. Breyer)说，他对Facebook的投资回报是原始投入的100倍。所有在初期投资了Twitter人今天都将得到50倍的回报，因为该公司目前的估值是100亿美元。“像Twitter和Facebook这样的回报是十年一遇的，”萨比特说。
Hollywood has those once-every-10-years wins, too. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which was released by the Independent Film Channel in 2002, had a production budget[要查看本链接请先注册并登录] and made $369 million at the box office. Not including DVD, on-demand and other rights, that’s 60 times the return on investment. “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” which opened in theaters in 1982 [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], made just under $800 million, 80 times its investment.
好莱坞也有这类十年一遇的大赚机会。《我盛大的希腊婚礼》(My Big Fat Greek Wedding)于2002年由独立电影频道(Independent Film Channel)发行，该片的制作预算近600万美元，但却获得了3.69亿美元的票房。不算DVD、点播和其他授权所得，这个回报已经是投资的60倍。1982年上映的《ET外星人》(E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial)预算是1000万美元，而票房将近8亿美元，是其投资的80倍。
Although the [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] here, the difference is that the return on the Valley can be in billions of dollars, while Hollywood still talks in millions of dollars. Additionally, Hollywood has to split the box office costs with the theaters, though the industry makes still more on residuals from television, on-demand, DVDs and licensing.
数目上看或许差不多，但区别在于，硅谷的回报能达到数十亿美元，而在好莱坞涉及的只是几百万美元的量级。此外，好莱坞必须在票房上与院线分成，虽然它们另外还能够从电视、点播、DVD和播放授权上赚钱。
While venture capitalists are often looking for the companies with the biggest returns, film executives seem equally enticed by the prospect of a good narrative. “You can’t make a film in a garage, you need a great story and that’s where it all starts,” said [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], a film executive and vice chairman of [要查看本链接请先注册并登录].
风险投资人往往在寻找回报率最高的企业，这跟电影业高管对好故事的渴求似乎是对等的。“你无法在车库里拍摄一部影片，你需要一个不错的故事，一切都得这样开始，”电影业高管、狮门影业公司(Lionsgate)的董事会副主席迈克尔·伯恩斯(Michael Burns)说。
“The real financial opportunity to catch lighting in a bottle in the film industry is with the franchise hits,” Mr. Burns said. “’[要查看本链接请先注册并登录],’ ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Twilight’ are all examples of this.”
“电影行业万里挑一的真正能赚大钱的机会，是找畅销系列作品。《哈利·波特》(Harry Potter)、《饥饿游戏》(The Hunger Games)和《暮光之城》(Twilight)均属此列，”伯恩斯说。
Those movies make consistent huge profits for studios, which could be in the billions. Tech start-ups, in comparison, don’t have anything close to a franchise opportunity. Even when there is a seasoned entrepreneur at the helm, investors are always betting on a company for the first time.
这些电影能给制片厂带来高达数十亿美元的稳定巨额利润。相比之下，科技创业公司则不存在任何类似系列产品的机会。就算是有一名资深的企业家当掌门人，投资者赌的都是一个全新的公司。
Tech investors are by and large richer than movie moguls. According to Forbes, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], creator of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and the television series CSI is considered one of the most successful film and television producers in the world, with a [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who invested in [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] and Twitter, has an estimated [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. That’s three times the size of Mr. Bruckheimer’s bank account.
不过，科技投资者总体而言比电影巨头富裕。根据《福布斯》(Forbes)的统计，杰瑞·布鲁克海默(Jerry Bruckheimer)的资产净值为8.5亿美元，约翰·多尔(John Doerr)的净值则约为28亿美元。布鲁克海默缔造了“加勒比海盗”(Pirates of the Caribbean)电影系列和电视系列剧《犯罪现场调查》(CSI)，被认为是世界上最成功的影视制作人之一。多尔是凯鹏华盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)的普通合伙人，投资过谷歌(Google)和Twitter。后者的钱包比前者鼓两倍。
Silicon Valley can even claim to be home to those with more fame. [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], a co-founder of Facebook, has 18.5 million followers on the site. [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] has a comparatively modest 5.5 million followers there.
硅谷甚至还可以宣称，那里的人名气更大。Facebook的联合创始人马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在自家网站上有1850万名关注者，而莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥(Leonardo DiCaprio)的关注者人数则是相对普通的550万。
Though let’s not dismiss the power of Hollywood. Mr. Zuckerberg is in part so famous because of the global reach of the film [要查看本链接请先注册并登录],” about the founding of his company. It no doubt also helped bring people to Facebook, which had 500 million users when the movie opened and has since blown past a billion.
尽管如此，我们可别低估好莱坞的能量。扎克伯格之所以如此出名，部分原因在于以他创造Facebook公司为主题的电影《社交网络》(The Social Network)的全球影响力。毫无疑问，影片还有助于吸引人们上Facebook。影片上映前，网站有5亿用户，现在已经膨胀至10亿以上。
So which is a better investment — Hollywood or Silicon Valley? Here’s Mr. Strebulaev’s bottom line: If you want bigger wins, go with Silicon Valley, if you want more consistent, but smaller returns, pick Hollywood. But if you want to reliably make money, go with neither. “If you look at other markets, if you invest oil or steel, you will have a more consistent return on your investment.”
那么，到底哪个是更好的投资，好莱坞还是硅谷？施特雷布拉伊夫的底线是：如果想赚更多的钱，选硅谷，如果想要较稳定却较小的回报，选好莱坞。但是，如果想可靠地赚钱，两个都不要选。“如果转向其他市场，比如投资石油或者钢铁，将给你的投资带来更稳定的回报。”