跟读练习: Quick Study: How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions - 通过视频学习英语口语
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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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本课的词汇与口语要点
这段视频共有 60 个句子、949 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 5:55。 说话人语速自然，每分钟约 160 个词，接近日常对话。 82% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，其余的词建议在练习前先学一下。
视频中的重点词汇
视频中 15 个值得学习的单词，附发音和释义：
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| invest 动词 | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | 耗費 /耗费, 投資 /投资 |
| startup 名词 | /ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/ | 初創公司 /初创公司, 新創企業 /新创企业 |
| capitalist 名词 | /ˈkæp.ɪ.tə.lɪst/ | 資本家 /资本家 |
| founder 名词 | /ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/ | 創辦人 /创办人, 創立者 /创立者 |
| mindset 名词 | /ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/ | 心態 /心态, 思維模式 /思维模式 |
| jockey 名词 | /ˈd͡ʒɑki/ | 騎師 /骑师, 騎手 /骑手 |
| evaluate 动词 | /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/ | 評價 /评价 |
| investor 名词 | /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/ | 投資者 /投资者, 投資家 /投资家 |
| technique 名词 | /tɛkˈniːk/ | 技術 /技术, 技巧 |
| element 名词 | /ˈɛləmənt/ | 要素 |
| refer 动词 | /ɹɪˈfɜː/ | 談到 /谈到 |
| narrow 形容词 | /ˈnæɹəʊ/ | 窄 |
| experiment 名词 | /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ | 實驗 /实验 |
| initiative 名词 | /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/ | 主動權 /主动权 |
| discount 名词 | /ˈdɪskaʊnt/ | 折扣 |
视频中出现的短语动词
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| come out 动词 | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | 出, 出來 /出来 |
| come up with 动词 | 想出, 提出 | |
| put together 动词 | 拼合, 組合 /组合 | |
| turn out 动词 | 原來 /原来 |
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事 | they've already identified · we've started · you've been |
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | are delivered · are not impressed · have been identified |
需要注意的发音
说话人用了 13 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 aren't, don't, can't。请按听到的简短形式来说。
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
- 长单词——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/
如何用这段视频练习
- 先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟读，熟练之后再回到正常速度。
- 录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 invest, startup, capitalist 这类单词。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。