????眼下，社交媒體、金融媒體乃至整個媒體圈都在濃墨重彩地報道一些互聯網大公司的股票鎖定期到期以及內部人士賣盤的消息。作為一個風險投資者，我也賣過幾回解鎖股，在這里我想就此談談自己的一些看法。

????首先，這篇文章無關我所在的風投公司已經、可能或正在考慮對我們可能持有/或不持有的股票采取的行動。這個免責聲明是針對那些不了解情況的人。

????當一家風投支持的公司公開上市，市值數十億美元（或數千億美元），向這家公司提供早期投資的投資者將擁有很多股票。他們可能很容易就獲得這些公司15-20%乃至更多的股票。即便他們擁有的股票不到10%——就像Accel Partners擁有的Facebook股份一樣——這些股票的價值可能也會達到幾十億美元。

????實現投資回報是投資者的職責。我再重申一遍。實現投資回報是投資者的職責。這是評判我們的標準。賬面收益是不錯。但最終，對投資者的評判還要看他們獲得的現金或流動股回報除以投資資本。對于一只風險投資基金而言，3倍回報算是不賴，5倍回報就可以稱得上相當出色，10倍則要十年一遇。

????當一位投資人看到單一持股市值已達到他們整個基金的3倍、5倍或10倍時，你可以肯定他們將鎖定這些收益。這可以產生出色的投資表現。而且，不鎖定收益的下行風險遠遠超出持股市值相比基金規模再漲上一、兩倍的上行風險。

????那么，問題就來了：風險投資公司是好的公開市場投資者嗎？他們應當管理/持有上市股票嗎？我手頭沒有掌握翔實的數據，但一些數據顯示，我們風險投資公司是糟糕的公開市場投資者。因此，很多風險投資公司的政策都是公開上市股票要盡可能快地剔除出投資組合。

????我認為，這是一項好政策。風險投資就是賺取從公司初創到公開上市前的價值。其他人應當將重點放在賺取公開上市后的價值。

????那么，讓我們再回到鎖定期到期和由此產生的內部人士賣盤潮。這是意料之中的現象，事實上公開市場也有心理準備。看看在這些新上市公司的股票鎖定期到期前幾周所有新建的空頭頭寸吧。投資者們知道將有大量股票流入市場，賭定它將影響股價，而且大多數情況下它的確影響了股價。就像JLM總是喜歡說“性不是這一代發明的”，這種狀況自我上世紀80年代中期進入風險投資行業以來就一直存在，我預計還會延續比這長得多的時間。

????因此，對于所有那些對當前的內部人士賣盤感到震驚和憤怒的人們，我建議他們將憤怒轉向資本主義的本性。那些當年冒著血本無歸風險、押注于年僅20歲的馬克?扎克伯格的人們有權獲得回報。他們會獲得回報。不愿意這么想的人都是在逃避現實。

????本文作者弗萊德?威爾森（@fredwilson）從1996年起擔任風險投資人，現為美國合廣投資（Union Square Ventures）的執行合伙人。他定期在www.avc.com上發表博客文章。

????譯者：早稻米

????There is a lot of sturm und drang out there in the worlds of social media, financial media and just plain media about all the lockups coming off and all the insider selling going on in some big Internet stocks. As someone who has played this game a few times, I thought I'd post some thoughts about this.

????First and foremost, this post has nothing to do with what my venture capital firm has done, might do, or is thinking about doing with specific stocks we might own or not. That's a disclaimer for those who aren't familiar with one.

????When a venture-backed company goes public and is worth billions (or even hundreds of millions), the investors who provided the early capital to that company are going to be sitting on a lot of stock. They can easily own 15-20% or more of these companies. But even if they own less than 10% -- as Accel Partners does in Facebook (FB) -- they can be looking at billions of dollars of value.

????It is an investors job to return capital. I will say that again. It is an investors job to return capital. That is how we are measured. Paper gains are fine. But at the end of the day, an investor will be measured by the amount of cash or liquid stock they return divided by the amount of cash that was invested in their fund. A multiple of three is good for a venture capital fund. A multiple of five is great. A multiple of ten is once a decade.

????When an investor is looking at a single holding being worth three, five, or possibly ten times their entire fund, you can be sure they are looking to lock in that gain. That's a recipe for fantastic performance and the downside of not locking that in is a lot bigger than the upside of another one or two times their fund size.

????And then there's the question of whether venture capital firms are good public market investors and whether they should be managing/holding public stocks. I don't have any hard data here, but my anecdotal data says that we are terrible public market investors. That is why many VC firms have a policy of moving the public stocks out of their portfolios as quickly as they can.

????I think that is a good policy. Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase. Others should be focused on capturing the value post the public offering.

????So let's go back to the expiration of lockups and the waves of insider selling that result. This is to be expected and in fact is expected by the public markets. Look at all of the short positions that get built up in the locked up newly minted public companies in the weeks before the lockups come off. Investors know that a ton of stock is going to hit the markets and they make bets that it will impact the stock price and in most cases it does impact the stock price. As JLM likes to say "this generation did not invent sex." This has been going on since I got into the venture capital business in the mid 80s and I expect its been going on for a lot longer than that.

????So to all the folks out there who are shocked and outraged at all the insider selling going on, I would suggest they park their outrage at the door of capitalism. Those who took the risk of losing all the capital they bet on 20 year old Mark Zuckerberg are entitled to their return. And they will get it. And anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand.

????Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) has been a venture capitalist since 1996, and currently serves as managing partner of Union Square Ventures. He blogs regularly at AVC.