跟讀練習: Quick Study: How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions - 通過影片學習英語口語
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60 句
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My name is Elis Stravloff
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and I'm a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business as well as the founder
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and director of our venture capital initiative.
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Unless you know where to look, you might not see it, but venture capitalists or VCs are probably having a major impact on your life every single day.
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VCs are people who invest in small, risky, high -growth startups.
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And they often invest in companies that are trying to change our world.
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Think about Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Zoom, many other tech giants.
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They were all funded by VCs back when they were very small companies.
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My team and I tracked the successful COVID vaccines and found that about half are delivered by companies supported by venture capital.
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And even though it's in the news a lot more during tech booms, this powerful sector of the economy predates the Internet.
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My research shows that since the 1970s, the VC industry is behind about a third of all large publicly trade companies created in the United States.
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So how do these influential people choose what ideas to fund?
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Even many company founders seeking venture capital money don't really seem to understand the VC mindset, as I call it.
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That's what my research set out to demystify.
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My team and I found that the most important stage is what's referred to as deal selection.
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Deal selection is after they've already identified a startup to consider, but before VCs decide whether to invest in it or not to invest.
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During the deal selection process, VCs put every potential investment through something they call the deal funnel.
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On average, a hundred startups go into the deal funnel and only one comes out.
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Meaning that VCs invest in about one startup for each hundred that they consider.
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The first part of the funnel is typically where VCs evaluate the business model and the setup idea.
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Often VCs will say, well, the market is obviously too small, so therefore we don't have any interest.
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If the startup passes that stage, then VCs will typically meet with the founding team to evaluate them.
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Again, often enough VCs will say, well, the The business is interesting, but we are not impressed by the founding team.
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That's another startup squeezed out of the narrowing funnel.
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At the next stage, which relatively few deals reach, they'll bring this startup to their partners.
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And then the partners will decide to proceed with very careful due diligence on only some of the deals.
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On average, this entire process takes almost three months, and it's highly selective.
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What we found was that the median venture capital firm considers about 400 deals a year and only invests in four.
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That highly selective process benefits us all down the line.
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For example, my research shows that without venture capitalists, companies like Zoom might not have been identified, created, funded or scaled up.
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And of course, had Zoom not existed, our experience during the COVID pandemic would have been quite different.
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VCs' rigorous decision -making process can increase the success rate of companies that change our lives.
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So, how can a business idea make it through the deal funnel?
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My team and I talked to almost 900 venture capitalists at over 700 firms, asking these questions, many of those for the first time.
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We found that in order to try and minimize risk, VCs tend to concentrate on what I call the jockey rather than the horse.
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The jockey is the founders and the early management team of a company.
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In other words, the human element, the human capital.
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The horse is everything else – the product, business model, market, technology.
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Most VCs will not invest unless they have complete trust in that early management team that they can execute on the idea.
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Even with the best horse, VCs figure that without a good jockey to ride it, it will not be winning the race.
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Putting together those hundreds of surveys and conversations with venture capitalists, we've started to get a clearer picture of who they are and who they aren't.
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It turns out that the VC mindset is very different from other financial investors.
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They consider many more opportunities to start with.
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Other investors will not have as wide deal funnel as venture capitalists.
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VCs are also much more ready to take on risks, And they are much more likely to co -invest with other venture capitalists, so they're a part of a larger ecosystem.
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Because of all these differences, VCs have to come up with their own financial strategies.
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Because the standard financial models, like the ones we teach our MBA students here at Stanford, aren't really.. applicable that much to early -stage companies.
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Concepts like net present value or discounted cash flow techniques just aren't that much in use,
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since you can't predict future cash flows of an idea or forecast revenue without reliable data.
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And the data for these startups just doesn't exist yet.
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So, if you are not investing millions in startups, how does this all relate to you?
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Well, we can all probably benefit from thinking a little bit more like VCs.
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For example, people tend to be extremely risk -averse.
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So are corporate decision -makers.
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And when you invest, that actually might not be a bad idea, but when you are trying something new, either in your personal or professional life,
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being willing to fail and staying flexible is beneficial.
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That's what the VC mindset is all about.
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VCs have a lot to teach us about doing plenty of research before making decisions, but also experimenting and keeping an open mind.
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That's how you've been big in business.
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And the same is true in life.
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本課的詞彙與口語要點
這段影片共有 60 個句子、949 個單詞可供跟讀。 講話部分時長為 5:55。 說話人語速自然，每分鐘約 160 個詞，接近日常對話。 82% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，其餘的詞建議在練習前先學一下。
影片中的重點詞彙
影片中 15 個值得學習的單詞，附發音和釋義：
| 單詞 | 發音 | 釋義 |
|---|---|---|
| invest 動詞 | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | 耗費 /耗費, 投資 /投資 |
| startup 名詞 | /ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/ | 初創公司 /初創公司, 新創企業 /新創企業 |
| capitalist 名詞 | /ˈkæp.ɪ.tə.lɪst/ | 資本家 /資本家 |
| founder 名詞 | /ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/ | 創辦人 /創辦人, 創立者 /創立者 |
| mindset 名詞 | /ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/ | 心態 /心態, 思維模式 /思維模式 |
| jockey 名詞 | /ˈd͡ʒɑki/ | 騎師 /騎師, 騎手 /騎手 |
| evaluate 動詞 | /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/ | 評價 /評價 |
| investor 名詞 | /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/ | 投資者 /投資者, 投資家 /投資家 |
| technique 名詞 | /tɛkˈniːk/ | 技術 /技術, 技巧 |
| element 名詞 | /ˈɛləmənt/ | 要素 |
| refer 動詞 | /ɹɪˈfɜː/ | 談到 /談到 |
| narrow 形容詞 | /ˈnæɹəʊ/ | 窄 |
| experiment 名詞 | /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ | 實驗 /實驗 |
| initiative 名詞 | /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/ | 主動權 /主動權 |
| discount 名詞 | /ˈdɪskaʊnt/ | 折扣 |
影片中出現的短語動詞
| 單詞 | 發音 | 釋義 |
|---|---|---|
| come out 動詞 | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | 出, 出來 /出來 |
| come up with 動詞 | 想出, 提出 | |
| put together 動詞 | 拼合, 組合 /組合 | |
| turn out 動詞 | 原來 /原來 |
影片中的語法
說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：
| 結構 | 影片中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事 | they've already identified · we've started · you've been |
| 被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的 | are delivered · are not impressed · have been identified |
需要注意的發音
說話人用了 13 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 aren't, don't, can't。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
- 長單詞——注意重音位置: capitalist /ˈkæp.ɪ.tə.lɪst/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, applicable /əˈplɪk.ə.bəl/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/
如何用這段影片練習
- 先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟讀，熟練之後再回到正常速度。
- 錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 invest, startup, capitalist 這類單詞。
什麼是跟讀法？
跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。