早期投資人稱投資Yammer是“職業生涯最有意義的成功”
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????近幾周，微軟（Microsoft）擬購舊金山企業社交網絡公司Yammer的消息早已是傳得人盡皆知。周一，微軟終于對此發布了官方聲明：表示將以12億美元現金收購Yammer。 ????這筆交易正式宣布后，曾領導Charles River Ventures對Yammer進行原始投資的喬治?扎恰里在推特上激動地寫下了：“這是我職業生涯中最有意義的成功。我太激動了。感謝你們。” |
????Microsoft (MSFT) today made official what we've all known for weeks: It has agreed to acquire Yammer, the San Franicsco-based enterprise social networking company, for $1.2 billion in cash. ????After the deal was formerly announced, the following tweet popped up from George Zachary, who led the original investment in Yammer for Charles River Ventures: |
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????這個評價可不低，要知道扎恰里從上世紀90年代起就一直在從事風險投資，成功的投資案例包括Millennial Media、Shutterfly等多家公司。為此，我特地聯系到正在加勒比度假的扎恰里進行了一次簡短的采訪。以下是采訪內容的錄音整理。 ????《財富》雜志：您將此稱為個人職業生涯中最有意義的成功。為什么這么說？ ????扎恰里：因為在我們開始商業合作前，（Yammer的創始人兼CEO）戴維?薩克斯和我就是非常親密的朋友，能夠從一開始就為朋友提供支持，然后看著他和他的公司取得成功，意義重大。 ????那么，CRV最初投資Yammer時主要考慮的因素是戴維，還是商業設想？ ????哦，Yammer源于我們曾經提供資金、如今已經盈利的Geni。當時，戴維和我在談論Twitter，像這樣的東西怎么能為一家公司所用。當時的人們都在自己的格子間里工作，依賴電子郵件進行溝通。我還記得我們第一次談到要改變這一切、創造企業環境中的Twitter時，我們感受到的興奮和激動。 ????這宗交易的投資回報是你作為風投家獲得過的最高回報嗎？ ????這宗投資給CRV帶來的收益略超2億美元（總投資約1,200-1,500萬美元），我在上世紀90年代曾獲得過3.30億美元收益。因此，這不是最高的投資回報，但從數量來看，這使得我職業生涯以來實現的投資收益超過了10億美元。 ????今年初Yammer進行最后一輪風險融資時所獲估值據稱僅為微軟此次收購價的一半。你對這次的收購價感到意外嗎？ ????不，我一點也不意外。我們已經開始看到用戶數量呈指數式增長，而且從一些用戶公司的首席信息官處也直接聽到，他們可以看到Outlook和Yammer使用量的此消彼長。 ????對于Yammer并入微軟后有何擔憂？ ????你永遠都不知道一家大公司里會發生些什么，但斯蒂夫?鮑爾默同戴維見了面，他們都非常興奮。他們都知道Outlook必須改變。我相信隨著時間推移，Yammer和Outlook將進行結合。在此之前，Yammer將整合入SharePoint。 ????譯者：早稻米 |
????That's a big claim, considering that Zachary has been a venture capitalist since the 1990s, with a track record that includes such companies as Millennial Media (MM) and Shutterfly (SFLY). So I briefly spoke with Zachary, who is vacationing in the Caribbean. What follows is a transcript of our conversation: ????FORTUNE: Most meaningful success in your career. Why? ????Zachary: Because [Yammer founder and CEO] David Sacks and I were very close friends before we got into business together, and it's great to be able to back a friend from the beginning and watch him and his company succeed. ????So when CRV first invested in Yammer, was it mostly about David or the idea? ????Well, Yammer came out of Geni, which we had funded and is now profitable. David and I were talking about Twitter, and we talked about how useful something like that would be inside of a company. People were all working in their cubicles, stuck with just their inboxes for communication. I remember the moment when we first talked about changing that, creating something like Twitter for business environments, and the spark and sense of excitement we felt. ????So is this the largest return you've ever generated as a VC? ????It's slightly over a $200 million gain to CRV [on around $12m-$15m of total investment], but I had a $330 million gain in the 1990s. So it's not the biggest, although from a quantitative perspective it puts me at over $1 billion of gains in my career. ????Yammer raised its final round of venture funding early this year at a valuation reported to be just half of what Microsoft is paying. Are you surprised at the sale price? ????No, I'm not surprised at all. We were beginning to see exponential user increases, and were hearing directly from CIOs that they could see decreasing their use of Outlook and increasing their use of Yammer. ????Any worries about what will happen to Yammer inside of Microsoft? ????You never know what will happen inside of a large company, but Steve Ballmer met with David and they both are incredibly excited. They both know that Outlook has to change and I think, over time, that there will be a combination of Yammer and Outlook. Before that, Yammer will be integrated into SharePoint. |
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