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. 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.
我想帶各位回到約七年前的人生點。 星期五下午, 2009 年,在聖誕節的前幾天, 我是舊金山一間 消費者產品公司的營運主任, 我被召喚去參與一個會議, 會議已經在進行中。 結果,那個會議是我的辭退面談。 我跟其他幾個人被開除了。 那時我 64 歲。 我也不是完全沒預期到。 我簽了一疊文件, 收拾我的私人物品, 離開公司,去和我老婆會合, 她在附近的餐廳等我, 她完全不知道此事。 把時間快轉七小時, 我們兩個都醉到腦筋不清楚了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
所以,連續四十多年的職涯, 做過大大小小的各種公司, 結束了。 我有好人脈、好名聲── 原本以為我不會有事的。 我曾是製造和包裝的工程師, 有不錯的學經歷背景。 和許多人一樣,對我來說, 退休根本不在我的選項中。 所以接下來幾年,我轉任顧問, 沒有任何的熱情。
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.
接著,一個點子開始生根, 源自於我對於我們周圍環境的關心。 我想建造我自己的事業, 用廢物來設計製造 生物能分解的包裝── 用的是紙、農業、甚至紡織廢物── 取代有毒且用完就丟的塑膠包裝, 我們都太習慣用這類包裝了。 這叫做乾淨科技, 我覺得對我而言很有意義。 這個企業能協助減少每年被丟棄的 數十萬磅的單次使用塑膠包裝, 這些包裝在污染我們的 大地、河流、海洋, 且把問題丟給我們 未來的世代去解決── 我們的孫子孫女, 我的孫子孫女。
And so now at the age of 66, with 40 years of experience, I became an entrepreneur for the very first time.
所以,我 66 歲時, 帶著 40 年的經驗, 我變成了初次創業的企業家。
(Cheers)
(歡呼)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you. But there's more.
謝謝。 但還不只如此。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
有很多事要處理: 製造、發包、工作分配、 商標、合夥關係、資金── 這些都是新公司的典型議題, 但對我來說毫不典型。 簡單談談資金。 我在舊金山定居和工作。 如果你要找資金, 通常你得和一些來自高科技產業 非常年輕的人競爭, 過程相當令人害怕和沮喪。 我有年歲比他們長的鞋子。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I do.
是真的。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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,五年後, 我很興奮也很榮幸能和各位分享, 我們的營收每年倍增, 我們沒有債務, 我們有幾個名稱響亮的客戶, 我們的專利已經被核發下來, 我有個很棒的合作夥伴, 他從一開始就跟我一起打拼, 我們的努力已經贏得了 超過二十個獎項。 但,最棒的是, 我們做出了小小的貢獻── 在全球塑膠污染危機的年代, 我們做出了小小的貢獻。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
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.
此時做的是我人生中 最有益也最有意義的工作。 我可以告訴各位,現在有很多資源 可以讓各年齡層的創業家取用, 但我五年前就很渴望 想找其他和我同年齡的初次創業者 我想和他們連結。 當時我沒有學習的榜樣,完全沒有。 來自矽谷的二十多歲應用程式開發者 不是我的榜樣。 (笑聲)
(Laughter)
我確知他很聰明──
I'm sure he was very clever --
(笑聲)
(Laughter)
我希望能為社會做點什麼,
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.
我希望我們都能為社會做點貢獻。 我更想跟大家談談 那些直到年紀大了才創業的人。 談談我們這些大膽的男女長者, 在同儕退休的年齡 投入創業領域的這群人; 以及如何連結所有這些人, 跨產業、跨地區和跨國家, 並建立起一個社群。
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 --
聯邦小企業管理局告訴我們, 64% 美國私人企業的新工作, 來自我們這種小型私人企業公司。 而且,誰說我們會永遠都很小? 我們有個很有趣的文化, 大部分人認為當你達到某個年齡時, 就只會打高爾夫球、玩西洋棋、 或隨時得幫忙照顧孫子孫女。 雖然我很喜歡我的孫子孫女──
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
and I'm also passionate about doing something meaningful in the global marketplace.
但我也很熱衷 想要在全球市場上做些有意義的事。
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.
不久的將來,有很多人會跟我一樣。 人口普查局說,到 2050 年, 我國將會有 8400 萬名老年人。 那是個很驚人的數字。 幾乎是現今的兩倍。 你們能想像 8400 萬人當中 會有多少人首次創業嗎? 且他們都有四十年的經驗。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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「多聊聊 這些優質的創業家」時, 意思是,我們來談談他們的創投, 如同我們談論那些遠比他們 年輕許多的創業家的創投。 我國的年長創業家 開創新企業的成功率是 70% 。 70% 的成功率。 我們就像創業家中的金州勇士隊──
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And that number plummets to 28 percent for younger entrepreneurs. This is according to a UK-based group called CMI.
而年輕創業家的成功率落到 28%。 數據的來源是英國一個 名為 CMI 的團體。
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 --
七十歲創業家的成就 難道不是和三十歲創業家的成就 一樣有意義, 一樣值得報導嗎? 當然是。 那就是為什麼我想要讓 「70 位 70 歲以上菁英」這個詞──
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
just as commonplace as the phrase "30 under 30."
和「30 位 30 歲以下菁英」 一樣普遍。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Cheers)
(歡呼)
(Applause)
(掌聲)