FOREWORD
序言
By Naval Ravikant作者：纳瓦尔·拉维坎特
English: You're holding in your hands the only book an entrepreneur needs.
中文： 你手中拿着的是创业者唯一需要的书。
English: A lone founder takes a unique journey to discover and encapsulate the truth into a product. Weighted by responsibility and expectation, the founder seeks out mentors and books—but the best mentors can't be hired, and the books are either anecdotal or academic. The only reliable teacher is bitter experience.
中文： 孤独的创业者踏上一段独特的旅程，去发现真理并将其封装到产品中。创业者肩负着责任和期望，寻求导师和书籍——但最好的导师无法雇佣，书籍要么是轶事要么是学术性的。唯一可靠的老师是痛苦的经验。
English: In this book, Eric put his ego aside and did the thankless work of compiling Elon's best lessons, in Elon's own words, as practical as possible. This isn't a tedious biography or recounting of events, it's the explanation and the manual. An eager co-founder stole my first copy, and my coworkers will get the next twenty.
中文： 在这本书中，埃里克放下自我，做了这份不讨好的工作：汇编埃隆最好的课程，用埃隆自己的话，尽可能实用。这不是一本枯燥的传记或事件叙述，它是解释和手册。一位热情的联合创始人偷走了我的第一本，我的同事们将得到接下来的二十本。
English: Elon is the greatest entrepreneur since Steve Jobs, but he isn't just a copy. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme, and it's the occasional Napoleon, whether in science, art, or politics, who appears and reroutes the inexorable forces of history with a unique vision and drive. Hard work is common, intelligence uncommon, courage rare—and Elon combusts all three.
中文： 埃隆是自史蒂夫·乔布斯以来最伟大的创业者，但他不仅仅是一个复制品。历史不会重复，但会押韵，偶尔会出现拿破仑式的人物，无论是在科学、艺术还是政治领域，他们以独特的愿景和驱动力重新引导历史不可阻挡的力量。努力工作很常见，智慧不常见，勇气罕见——而埃隆同时具备这三者。
English: The banal observation is that he's a founder of Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Neuralink. These companies, however, are just means to products—the self-driving cars, the autonomous robots, the thinking machines, and the awe-inspiring, ground-shattering, heavy rockets that thunder into space and land on their toes. Even the products are just a means unto the mission. If it's allowed by the laws of physics, and takes us into our sci-fi dreams, Elon will drag us there.
中文： 平庸的观察是他是特斯拉、SpaceX、OpenAI 和 Neuralink 的创始人。然而，这些公司只是产品的手段——自动驾驶汽车、自主机器人、思考机器，以及那些轰鸣着进入太空并用脚尖着陆的令人敬畏、震撼地面的重型火箭。甚至产品也只是使命的手段。如果物理定律允许，并能带我们进入科幻梦想，埃隆会把我们拖到那里。
English: The wealth, the fame, and the envy are a byproduct. Crabs in the gravity well, blinded by politics, will point to his father's and the government's money. But envy says more about the envious than the envied. Elon sleeps on the factory floor, doubles down every time, and never gives up. The people worth impressing are impressed, and millions of children are inspired to make real change. Culture is downstream of the technology that enables us to be generous and free, and Elon will be remembered long after the big talkers and small doers are forgotten.
中文： 财富、名声和嫉妒都是副产品。重力井中的螃蟹被政治蒙蔽，会指向他父亲和政府的钱。但嫉妒更多说明的是嫉妒者而非被嫉妒者。埃隆睡在工厂地板上，每次都加倍投入，从不放弃。值得 impress 的人被 impress 了，数百万儿童受到鼓舞去做出真正的改变。文化是使我们慷慨和自由的技术的下游，在夸夸其谈者和小事执行者被遗忘很久之后，埃隆将被铭记。
English: As Chief Engineer, Elon reminds us that building value is building things, not financing or managing them. It's a better world when the richest man is one who creates wealth, rather than shuffles it around, or seizes it in the name of the people.
中文： 作为首席工程师，埃隆提醒我们，创造价值是建造事物，而不是融资或管理它们。当最富有的人是创造财富的人，而不是四处转移财富或以人民的名义夺取财富时，世界会更美好。
English: Wealth, as the physicist David Deutsch wrote, is the set of physical transformations that we can effect—true for both individuals and societies. The main component of wealth is knowledge, not capital. By creating new knowledge, and then instantiating it in products that are duplicated and distributed, Elon and his fellow entrepreneurs are engines of wealth creation and distribution.
中文： 正如物理学家大卫·多伊奇所写，财富是我们能够实现的物理变换的集合——这对个人和社会都适用。财富的主要组成部分是知识，而不是资本。通过创造新知识，然后将其实例化为可复制和分发产品，埃隆和他的创业者同伴们是财富创造和分配的引擎。
English: You may have the opportunity to ask yourself: When humanity went to the stars, what were you doing? When men walked on Mars, were you mocking them or exhorting them? When they mined the first asteroids and built the first space stations? When fleets of self-driving cars reclaimed cities from parking and traffic? When the paraplegics rose up and walked alongside us? When the robots took over the miserable and repetitive work? Were you in the front row, cheering? Or sour-faced in the bleachers, jeering?
中文： 你可能有机会问自己：当人类走向星辰时，你在做什么？当人类在火星上行走时，你在嘲笑他们还是在鼓励他们？当他们开采第一颗小行星并建造第一个空间站时？当自动驾驶汽车车队从停车和交通中收复城市时？当瘫痪者站起来与我们并肩行走时？当机器人接管痛苦和重复的工作时？你是坐在前排欢呼吗？还是板着脸在看台上嘲笑？
English: There is even a third option—young or old, your life isn't over yet. Elon's methods are copy-able, in matters big and small. Eric has laid them out for you as plainly as possible. If your motives are pure and greater than yourself, the world will conspire in its subtle ways to help you. When one man shows what's possible, a million arise, not as followers, but as missionaries in their own right.
中文： 甚至有第三个选择——无论年轻还是年老，你的生活还没有结束。埃隆的方法是可以复制的，无论大事小事。埃里克已经尽可能清晰地向你展示了它们。如果你的动机是纯粹的且大于你自己，世界会以它微妙的方式帮助你。当一个人展示了什么是可能的，百万人就会崛起，不是作为追随者，而是作为他们自己的传教士。
English: You don't have to do what Elon does, and you don't have to do it his way, but this short life is best spent in the arena, on something other than the mundane and insatiable self. Reject the craving for comfort and social approval. Reorient to the optimism of youth. Leave those talking and dividing, and get on the path to learning and building.
中文： 你不必做埃隆所做的事，也不必用他的方式去做，但这短暂的生命最好是在竞技场上度过，投入到平凡和永不满足的自我之外的事物上。拒绝舒适和社会认可的渴望。重新定位到青春的乐观主义。离开那些空谈和分裂的人，走上学习和建造的道路。
English: Your energy is best spent with like-minded people who are unstoppable on a mission to make something beautiful. Don't make the thing to make the money, make the money so that you can make the thing. Don't get paid for work, get paid so that you can do your best work. Rise up, choose inspiration over envy, and show your younger and older selves that the desires of this life were completely and totally exhausted into the universal will.
中文： 你的精力最好花在与志同道合的人一起，他们在创造美好事物的使命上势不可挡。不要为了赚钱而制造东西，要赚钱以便你能制造东西。不要为工作而获得报酬，要获得报酬以便你能做你最好的工作。站起来，选择灵感而非嫉妒，向你年轻和年长的自己展示，这一生的欲望完全且彻底地倾注于普遍的意志中。