英語美文朗讀 第361期 At The Age Of 66 I Became An Entrepreneur

I'd like to take you back about seven years in my life. Friday afternoon, a few days before Christmas 2009, I was the director of operations at a consumer products company in San Francisco, and I was called into a meeting that was already in progress. That meeting turned out to be my exit interview.

 

我想讓大家先了解一下，7年前我的生活。那是2009年圣誕節(jié)前幾天一個周五的下午，當時的我是舊金山一家消費品公司的運營總監(jiān)。我被叫進一個正在進行的會議。我發(fā)現(xiàn)這場會議是我的離職面談。

 

I was fired, along with several others. I was 64 years old at the time. It wasn't completely unexpected. I signed a stack of papers, gathered my personal effects, and left to join my wife who was waiting for me at a nearby restaurant, completely unaware. Fast-forward several hours, we both got really silly drunk.

和其他的幾個人一樣，我被解雇了。那時我64歲。這并不完全出乎我的意料。我簽了一堆的文件，收拾了一下自己的東西，就去找我的妻子了，她在附近的一個小飯店里等我，但對此毫不知情。幾個小時之后，我們都喝得酩酊大醉。

 

So, 40 plus years of continuous employment for a variety of companies, large and small, was over. I had a good a network, a good reputation -- I thought I'd be just fine. I was an engineer in manufacturing and packaging, I had a good background. Retirement was, like for so many people, simply not an option for me, so I turned to consulting for the next couple of years without any passion whatsoever.

就這樣，40多年在各個公司間顛沛流離的職業(yè)生涯結束了。我擁有很好的朋友圈，人緣也不錯，我以為這沒什么大不了的。我曾經(jīng)是個工作于制造業(yè)和包裝業(yè)的工程師。我有很好的從業(yè)背景，跟很多人一樣，退休對我來說，不是我想要的生活。于是在接下來的幾年中我一直做著咨詢工作，卻沒有什么激情。

 

And then an idea began to take root, born from my concern for our environment. I wanted to build my own business, designing and manufacturing biodegradable packaging from waste -- paper, agricultural, even textile waste -- replacing the toxic, disposable plastic packaging to which we've all become addicted. This is called clean technology, and it felt really meaningful to me. A venture that could help to reduce the billions of pounds of single-use plastic packaging dumped each year, and polluting our land, our rivers and our oceans, and left for future generations to resolve -- our grandchildren, my grandchildren.

然而后來因為我對環(huán)境的關心，我產(chǎn)生了一個新的想法。我想要建立自己的公司， 從廢物中設計并生產(chǎn)能進行生物降解的包裝，用以廢紙，作物，甚至是紡織廢料為原料所制造的包裝，取代那些人類越來越依賴的，有毒的一次性塑料包裝。這被稱作清潔技術。它對我而言意義非凡。這家公司每年能幫助減少數(shù)十億磅污染我們的土地，河流和海洋的 一次性塑料包裝，它們也會給我們的子孫后代造成困擾——我們的孫輩，我的孫輩。

 

And so now at the age of 66, with 40 years of experience, I became an entrepreneur for the very first time.

現(xiàn)在我66歲，有著40年的工作經(jīng)驗，第一次成為了一名企業(yè)家。

 

Thank you. But there's more.

謝謝。但不僅如此。

 

Lots of issues to deal with: manufacturing, outsourcing, job creation, patents, partnerships, funding -- these are all typical issues for a start-up, but hardly typical for me. And a word about funding. I live and work in San Francisco, and if you're looking for funding, you are typically going to compete with some very young people from the high-tech industry, and it can be very discouraging and intimidating. I have shoes older than most of these people.

很多事情有待解決：生產(chǎn)，外包，招聘，專利，合伙人，資金——這些都是創(chuàng)業(yè)者面臨的典型問題，但對我而言并非如此。順帶說下資金。我在舊金山居住和工作。 如果你要尋找資金，那你一般要與一些從事著高科技工作的年輕人競爭，這很令人喪氣和膽怯。我穿的鞋年頭都比這些人年紀還要大。

 

I do.

確實如此。

 

But five years later, I'm thrilled and proud to share with you that our revenues have doubled every year, we have no debt, we have several marquee clients, our patent was issued, I have a wonderful partner who's been with me right from the beginning, and we've won more than 20 awards for the work that we've done. But best of all, we've made a small dent -- a very small dent -- in the worldwide plastic pollution crisis.

但五年過去了，我可以興奮且自豪的告訴大家，我們的收入每年倍增沒有外債， 還有一些重要的客戶，專利申請也通過了。我有一個很棒的合伙人，他從最初就和我一起創(chuàng)業(yè)，我們的工作已經(jīng)獲得了超過20個獎項。不過最好的是，我們緩解了——微不足道地緩解了——世界塑料污染危機。

 

And I am doing the most rewarding and meaningful work of my life right now. I can tell you there's lots of resources available to entrepreneurs of all ages, but what I really yearned for five years ago was to find other first-time entrepreneurs who were my age. I wanted to connect with them. I had no role models, absolutely none. That 20-something app developer from Silicon Valley was not my role model.

而我現(xiàn)在做著一生中回報最為豐厚、最有意義的工作。我可以告訴大家，對各個年齡階段的企業(yè)家，都有很多可利用的資源。但過去五年我最渴望的事情是找到其他與我同齡的，第一次創(chuàng)業(yè)的企業(yè)家，我想和他們取得聯(lián)系。那時我沒有可以參考的榜樣，完全沒有。 硅谷那位20多歲的應用程序開發(fā)者可不是我的榜樣。

 

I'm sure he was very clever --

我確信他很聰明。

 

I want to do something about that, and I want all of us to do something about that. I want us to start talking more about people who don't become entrepreneurs until they are seniors. Talking about these bold men and women who are checking in when their peers, in essence, are checking out. And then connecting all these people across industries, across regions, across countries -- building a community.

所以，我想改變一下現(xiàn)狀，我希望所有人都可以有所行動。我希望我們可以更多的談論那些直到老年才成為企業(yè)家的人。多談論這些勇敢的人，當他們的同齡人退休時，他們才開始正式入行。然后，將所有這些跨行業(yè)、跨地區(qū)、跨國家的人聯(lián)合起來，組成一個社區(qū)。

 

You know, the Small Business Administration tells us that 64 percent of new jobs created in the private sector in the USA are thanks to small businesses like mine. And who's to say that we'll stay forever small? We have an interesting culture that really expects when you reach a certain age, you're going to be golfing, or playing checkers, or babysitting the grandkids all of the time. And I adore my grandchildren --

小企業(yè)管理局數(shù)據(jù)顯示在美國，64%的私企提供的新崗位是像我這樣的小企業(yè)創(chuàng)造的。并且誰敢說，我們會一直維持這個規(guī)模？我們有個有趣的文化，當你到了一定的年齡，就得去打高爾夫、下棋、照顧孫子，在這些方面傾注所有。我很愛我的孫輩。

 

and I'm also passionate about doing something meaningful in the global marketplace.

可我也充滿了熱忱，希望為全球市場貢獻自己的一份力量。

 

And I'm going to have lots of company. The Census Bureau says that by 2050, there will be 84 million seniors in this country. That's an amazing number. That's almost twice as many as we have today. Can you imagine how many first-time entrepreneurs there will be among 84 million people? And they'll all have four decades of experience.

我還會開很多公司。美國人口普查局表示，到2050年，美國會有8400萬老年人。 這個數(shù)字非常驚人，幾乎是現(xiàn)在的兩倍。可以想象，到時候在 這8400萬人中會有多少首次創(chuàng)業(yè)者嗎？他們都有40年的工作經(jīng)驗。

 

So when I say, "Let's start talking more about these wonderful entrepreneurs," I mean, let's talk about their ventures, just as we do the ventures of their much younger counterparts. The older entrepreneurs in this country have a 70 percent success rate starting new ventures. 70 percent success rate. We're like the Golden State Warriors of entrepreneurs --

所以，當我說“讓我們更多的 談論這些優(yōu)秀的企業(yè)家，”我的意思是，讓我們談論他們的冒險精神，就像我們談論那些 年輕創(chuàng)業(yè)者的冒險精神一樣。在美國，年長的創(chuàng)業(yè)者有70%的成功機會去 建立新的事業(yè)。70%的成功機會。我們就像創(chuàng)業(yè)者中的金州勇士（美國西部職業(yè)籃球隊）一樣。

 

And that number plummets to 28 percent for younger entrepreneurs. This is according to a UK-based group called CMI.

而在年輕人中，這個數(shù)字只有28%。這是一家英國組織CMI公布的數(shù)據(jù)。

 

Aren't the accomplishments of a 70-year-old entrepreneur every bit as meaningful, every bit as newsworthy, as the accomplishments of a 30-year-old entrepreneur? Of course they are. That's why I'd like to make the phrase "70 over 70" just as --

難道一個70歲創(chuàng)業(yè)者的成就不同樣有意義，同樣有新聞價值嗎? 和一個30歲的創(chuàng)業(yè)者沒什么不同。當然應該是這樣。這也是我為何要用這個詞“70大杰出老人”——

 

just as commonplace as the phrase "30 under 30."

就像大家通用的“30大杰出青年”一樣。

 

Thank you.

謝謝大家。