We realized online video was a new media
我们认识到 网络视频是一种新媒体
that it could unleash the creativity of people all over the world
它能释放出世界各地人们的创造性
and also spark the curiosity of people who wanted to watch them
也能激发出观看者的好奇心
And even though we knew this was early, it had the potential to be big
我们知道 虽然现在还很早 但它的潜力肯定是无限大的
But soon after we had our initial success with Google Video
但就在谷歌视频取得初步成功后不久
another site launched
另一个网站上线了
YouTube
YouTube
And it started growing faster
它增长得更快
a lot faster
快很多
And all of a sudden
突然间
we saw our newfound success slipping away
我们刚刚建立的成功就这样溜走了
And just after we thought we were winning
就在我们刚刚看到胜利曙光的时候
we found out that we were losing
我们却发现 自己已经失败了
We were scared and confused
我们很害怕 很困扰
Very quickly, I had to make a tough call
我需要快速作出一个艰难的决定
Do we pretend that things are okay and try to fix them?
我们是应该假装一切正常 尝试进行改善
And continue to build a Google Video and hope we catch up?
继续着手谷歌视频 尝试迎头赶上
Or do we admit our failure
还是应该承认失败
and look to acquire YouTube
寻求兼并YouTube
a company with no revenue
这家没有收入
lots of legal liability
法律责任众多
it was only a year old
只有一年历史
and pay 1.6 billion for it?
还要价16亿美元的公司
And just as we are making this decision as if it were not hard enough
在我们做这个艰难决定的同时
an industry veteran and Internet investor
一位从事互联网投资的行业老手
published a well read article saying
发表了一篇广为流传的文章
only a moron would buy YouTube
说只有傻子才会买YouTube
Well, you know how this ended
你们知道最终的结果是怎样的
I guess you can call me a moron
你们或许可以把我称作傻子
But I had to go to our founders and our board
不过我必须去找创始人和董事会
and tell them the product that we spent so much time building Google Video was losing
告诉他们 我们花大量时间打造的谷歌视频失败了
and we would have to spend over 1 billion and a half to fix the mistake
我们需要花超过15亿美元来修正这一错误
It was painful, it was public
这很痛苦 这是公开的
it was one of the hardest decisions that I've had to make
也是我要做的最艰难的决定之一
