经济学人20:不带来好处的友谊

 　　Finance and Economics; Choosing co-investors²; Friends without benefits;

　　财经；选择投资伙伴；不带来好处的友谊；

　　Venture capitalists need to be ruthless about their relationships;

　　风险投资家们在他们的关系里需要更加无情；

　　Even in a world of algorithmic trading and automated³ credit scoring, good financial decisions still depend on judgment⁴. Choosing whom to invest alongside is particularly important in the uncertain world of venture capital, where many deals are syndicated, in order to share risk and information. Paul Gompers and Yuhai Xuan of Harvard Business School and Vladimir Mukharlyamov of Harvard University have put together a dataset of 3,500 early-stage investors in almost 12,000 deals to examine why specific pairs of investors are drawn⁵ to each other, and how that affects their financial performance.

　　就算在一个充斥着算法式交易和自动信誉评级的世界里，好的投资决策依然依靠判断力。选择与谁并肩作战，在一个充满着未知数的风投世界里显得尤其重要。许多风投项目都是联合投资以分散风险与共享信息。哈佛商学院Paul Gompers和Yuhai Xuan跟哈佛大学Vladimir Mukharlyamov整合了一个拥有3500名早期投资者，将近12,000个案例的资料库。该数据库式用以检验为什么特定组合的投资者能互相吸引，而这种关系如何影响他们的投资表现。

　　Investors clearly prefer partners with whom they have something in common. People who have worked at the same company are over 60% more likely to co-invest than those who have not. Investors who belong to the same ethnic⁶ minority, or studied at the same university, are around 20% more likely to pair up. The bias⁷ towards co-investors on measures of ability is weaker: investors with degrees from the best universities are just 9% more likely to get together.

　　投资者明显更喜欢拥有共同点的伙伴。曾在同一家公司上班的比那些没有这种经历的伙伴共同投资的几率要高60％。同一种族，或同一大学毕业的投资者共同投资的几率也要高出20％。根据个人能力来搭伙的倾向并不明显，具有最优秀大学学位的投资者共同投资的几率仅高出9％。

　　Rapport⁸ is a poor basis for selecting partners. The authors examine investors' record at exiting investments through an initial public offering (IPO). An IPO is the holy grail for many start-ups, but the odds⁹ of success are 22% lower if a co-investing pair are alumni of the same university, and 18% lower if they share a past employer. By itself, ethnicity has no effect on investment success. In a pair, it is a different story. Co-investors from the same ethnic minority are 25% less likely to bring a portfolio¹⁰ company to an IPO (and the odds are still lower if the partners are East Asian). The data suggest that the poorer results of similar investors stem less from selecting bad companies, more from bad decisions taken together after the initial investment. It may be that a diversity of views helps investors to make better calls.

　　基于友善来选择伙伴是一个失败的根据。作者从现有上市的表现来检验了投资者的投资记录。上市是许多创业公司的终极目标，但校友伙伴搭配投资的成功率比非校友的要低22％，同时曾同事过的伙伴成功率则低18％。如果仅考虑种族问题，这对最终投资成功率没有影响。但一旦涉及搭配，这就完全不一样。由同一种族组成的共同投资搭配，旗下企业上市的几率要低25％（东亚伙伴的成功率则更低）。这些数据表明具有共同点投资伙伴所产生的疲弱投资结果，受选错公司的影响其实较小，而更多的是由初步投资后的错误决策而导致。这可能是因为多样化视角有利于投资者作出更好的判断。

　　Partnerships¹¹ based on ability, not similarity, tend to do better. If one investor¹ of a pair has a degree from a leading university, this adds 9% to the possibility of their selected firms reaching an IPO; if the second does too, that adds a further 11%. Of course, such investors still have to find each other. Research led by Alexander Ljungqvist of New York University's Stern School of Business has shown that VC firms in influential¹² network positions perform better, as they have more opportunity to take part in syndications. The moral seems to be that investors should make friends easily, but not invest for friendship's sake alone.

　　基于能力而非共同点组成的搭配往往更成功。如果其中一名投资者拥有顶尖大学学位，这将使被投资公司的上市几率上升9％；如果另一名也有同样等级的学位，这将额外增加11％的上市几率。纽约大学斯特恩商学院Alexander Ljungqvist带头的研究显示，拥有具影响力关系网的风投企业表现更好，因为他们更有机会参与到联合投资里。这个寓言似乎告诉投资者应广泛交友，而不要仅因友谊就参与投资。

1 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

2 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

3 automated   

a.自动化的

参考例句：

• The entire manufacturing process has been automated. 整个生产过程已自动化。
• Automated Highway System (AHS) is recently regarded as one subsystem of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). 近年来自动公路系统(Automated Highway System,AHS)，作为智能运输系统的子系统之一越来越受到重视。

4 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

5 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

6 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

7 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

8 rapport   

n.和睦，意见一致

参考例句：

• She has an excellent rapport with her staff.她跟她职员的关系非常融洽。
• We developed a high degree of trust and a considerable personal rapport.我们发展了高度的互相信任和不错的私人融洽关系。

9 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

10 portfolio   

n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位

参考例句：

• He remembered her because she was carrying a large portfolio.他因为她带着一个大公文包而记住了她。
• He resigned his portfolio.他辞去了大臣职务。

11 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

12 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。