????3. 如果有人希望像你一樣干一番事業(yè)，你對他們有什么建議？

????人們都覺得成功和創(chuàng)新來自于靈機一動。就像牛頓坐在蘋果樹下。蘋果砸在頭上就立即掌握了所有的物理定律?；蛘咴诩依镒臅r候想到了Dropbox這樣的云存儲業(yè)務(wù)，接下來就發(fā)現(xiàn)它價值10億美元。他們尋找的似乎就是這樣的靈光閃現(xiàn)，但實際情況不是這樣。我們都會跟朋友見面，比如一起吃頓飯，席間大家會討論這樣或那樣的主意，都盼望著吃完這頓飯之后馬上就能建立起另一個Dropbox。但實際情況確實不是這樣。你必須去尋找和追蹤某個想法，必須讓它成為現(xiàn)實。這需要很長時間。你得為了某個目標(biāo)而艱苦跋涉，深入鉆研，讓自己沉浸其中并進行學(xué)習(xí)。你得設(shè)法完成這樣的跨越，然后才能實現(xiàn)突破。

????我最重要的建議就是找一個環(huán)境，能讓自己沉浸在這樣的目標(biāo)之中，把它變?yōu)楝F(xiàn)實。我們想到Salesforce的原因是我們都從事企業(yè)軟件工作，而且我們都因為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)時代軟件的局限性而苦苦掙扎。隨后，我們用了十年時間才弄明白這到底意味著什么。在Zuora，我們也想這樣做，想把我們的商業(yè)模式建立在訂閱式經(jīng)濟的基礎(chǔ)上。實際上，我相信成功只有30%來自人本身，另外70%則來自人所處的環(huán)境。但人們并不這樣想——大多數(shù)人都認為成功完全來源于自身。因此，要選擇環(huán)境，選擇公司，選擇同事，選擇鄰里街坊，選擇自己所在的區(qū)域。因為在那里，你才有機會讓自己沉下來，把高明的想法變成現(xiàn)實。

????4. 你收到過的最佳建議是什么？

????記得在2007年，我在一些想法之間游移不定，這時我去拜訪了幾位導(dǎo)師。那時我并不像別人那樣，懷揣著“總有一天我會當(dāng)上CEO”的想法。但當(dāng)時我所想到的東西需要我辭職，成為一名CEO。因此，我問這些導(dǎo)師：“你覺得我準備好了嗎？”一位高明的導(dǎo)師說：“你絕對準備好了?！弊寣?dǎo)師的建議把自己推出溫室是最好的辦法。

????5. 接下來你想進行什么樣的大項目？

????我們讓其他公司非常輕松地在訂閱式經(jīng)濟中做自己想做的事。我們讓它們很輕松地定價和做生意。接下來我想做的是給它們更多的情報。我們（的訂閱平臺）已經(jīng)運行了六年，我們的系統(tǒng)中記錄了很多交易信息，但一直沒有加以利用。我們處在一個大數(shù)據(jù)和分析起決定作用的時代。我們掌握著所有的數(shù)據(jù)，把這些數(shù)據(jù)提供給客戶，他們就能自行加以分析。但我覺得我們能做的比這好得多，我們可以告訴客戶：“嘿，根據(jù)我們的分析，這樣的定價方案更適合你們?！被蛘?，“嘿，根據(jù)我們的分析，我們認為這些客戶有消費升級潛力，他們能讓你的收入提高10%?！蔽蚁朐谶@方面我們的工作成果會好得多，而且我們的客戶也會發(fā)現(xiàn)這確實有價值。

????6. 你們公司現(xiàn)在面臨著什么樣的挑戰(zhàn)？

????公司的發(fā)展有不同的階段?，F(xiàn)在我們有大約350人。我要說，收入第一次達到1000萬美元以及員工人數(shù)第一次達到150人左右是公司的摸索階段。產(chǎn)品的市場在哪里？你的價值主張是什么？怎樣定價？怎么銷售產(chǎn)品？如何才能讓顧客使用它？我們的下一個重大里程碑是收入達到1億美元。在這樣的體量和規(guī)模之下，公司才會真正進入和人有關(guān)的階段。怎樣讓別人進入你的公司？那些認為自己能在你的公司里獲得最充分成長和發(fā)展的高端人才在哪里？你如何讓他們同心協(xié)力？怎樣讓他們更獨立地工作？

????我們的公司處在這樣一個階段：我們有一名CEO，但有350名ZEO。我們喜歡在所有的東西前面都加一個“z”。但你怎么才能讓這350名ZEO都覺得充滿動力，同時引導(dǎo)他們朝著同一個方向邁進呢？這是在當(dāng)前規(guī)模下我們面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)之一。我們希望自己能保持每12-18個月規(guī)模翻番的速度。我們想在短期內(nèi)擁有1000名員工。但我們要建立怎樣的機制才能讓所有人都攜手努力，以免功虧一簣呢？這就是目前我們面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)。

????7. 如果你的職業(yè)生涯中有件事可以重頭來過，它會是什么？

????現(xiàn)在我總是往國外跑，而且我總覺得在國外工作一、兩年挺好。在我的職業(yè)生涯中有幾次出國工作的機會，但我都放棄了。原因有很多，通常都和個人有關(guān)。但我覺得，現(xiàn)在的世界已經(jīng)小了很多，科技傳播的速度也快了很多，一個人必須具有國際化的眼界。我剛剛從亞洲出差回來。在那里，人們對手機和移動應(yīng)用的使用實際上已經(jīng)超過了美國，甚至超過了硅谷泡沫時期的美國。因此，我想鼓勵現(xiàn)在的人們到國外去。試著在不同的地方工作，因為我覺得今后人們看世界的角度不應(yīng)該再以美國為中心。

????3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?

????People think that success and innovation comes like a flash. You’re Isaac Newton, and you’re sitting below a tree. An apple falls on your head and boom: You have all these ideas about physics. Or you’re sitting around your house and have the idea for Dropbox, and the next thing you know it’s worth $1 billion. People seem to look for that “flash,” and it doesn’t work like that. We’ve all been with some friends, perhaps sitting around a diner, saying how about this idea, or that idea, and they’re hoping that during the course of a meal, they’ll come up with the next Dropbox. It just doesn’t work like that. You have to go and pursue an idea, and you have to work it out. It takes a long time. You plod away at something, and you try to go deep, immerse yourself, and learn. You try to take these leaps, and eventually, you hit upon your breakthrough.

????My biggest advice is to find the environment where you can immerse yourself and work it out. Our idea for Salesforce came because we were all in the enterprise software industry, and we were all struggling with the limitations of software in the age of the Internet. So we spent the next decade figuring out what that really meant. We’re trying to do same thing with Zuora with a business model built on the subscription economy. In fact, I believe success is only 30% based on you and 70% based on the environment you work in. People don’t think that way–most people think success is 100% due to themselves. So, pick your environment, pick the company, pick the people you work with, pick the neighborhood, and pick the area. Because that’s where you’re going to get the opportunity to submerge yourself and to work out your big ideas.

????4. What is the best advice you ever received?

????I remember way back in ’07, when I was toying around with ideas, I went to a few mentors of mine. Now, I wasn’t one of these guys that said, “I’m going to be a CEO one day.” But I had this idea that was going to require me to leave my company to be a CEO. So I sought out my mentors and asked, “Do you think I’m ready?” A good mentor of mine said, “You’re absolutely ready.” Seeking mentors that give you advice to push you beyond your comfort zone is the best way to go.

????5. What’s the next big project you want to tackle?

????We make it really easy for companies to do what they want to do in a subscription economy. We make it easy for them to set a price and to participate in commerce. The next thing I would love to tackle is giving them more intelligence. We’ve been [running our subscription platform] for six years, and we have a lot of transactions in our system. We haven’t been taking advantage of it yet. We’re in a day and age where it’s all about big data and analytics. We have all the data and give it to customers so that they can do they’re own analytics, but I think we can do a much better job telling people, “Hey, based on our analysis, here’s a pricing plan that would suit you better.” Or, “Hey, based on our analysis, we think that these are the customers that you can upsell and increase your revenues by 10%.” I think we can do a much better job of that, and our customers would find that really valuable.

????6. What challenges are facing your business right now?

????Companies go through different phases. We’re about 350 people now, and I’d say the first $10 million in revenue, the first 150 or so employees, it’s about trying to figure out this company. What is the product market? What is your value proposition? How do you price? How do you sell the thing? How do you get customers to use it? Our next big milestone is $100 million in revenue, so at this size and scale, it winds up really being about people. How do you bring people into the organization? Where are the great players that see your company as the place where they can grow and develop themselves to the best that they can be? How do you keep them all aligned? How do you make them work more independently?

????We have this phrase in the company: We have one CEO, but we have 350 “ZEOs.” We like putting “z” in front of everything. But how do you have 350 ZEOs who feel empowered, and point them all in the same direction? That’s one of the big challenges of our scale. We hope we can continue on a track to keep doubling every 12 to 18 months. We want to be 1,000 people in the near future. But how do we put in a structure to have us all work together so that we don’t cave in on ourselves? That’s the biggest challenge we have right now.

????7. If you could have done anything differently in your career, what would it have been?

????I do a lot of international travel now, and I always thought it would be good to work overseas for a couple of years. I had a couple of opportunities to do so in my career, and for various reasons, usually personal ones, I didn’t choose to take it. But I think in today’s world, where the world is much smaller, technology is spreading much faster, and you have to have an international perspective. I just did this trip through Asia, and their use of mobile phones and mobile apps actually exceeds what we have here, even in our Silicon Valley bubble. So I would encourage people today to move around internationally. Try to work in different places because I think you need perspective going forward as opposed to have a U.S.-centric view of the world.