????回顧歷史，我們很容易就能發現那些最佳的風險投資其實在早期就已經顯露出成功跡象。然而，它們中只有極少數是在剛剛獲得投資的時候就已經出落得光彩照人。實際上，我們回顧了格雷洛克風投公司（Greylock）的投資歷程，發現最成功的幾次投資起初毫不起眼，在后來的合作中才逐漸開始展現光芒。九年前對商務社交網站LinkedIn的投資便是其中之一。

????投資背景

????2014年10月對于后來演變成為社交網站的先驅者而言是一個奇怪的時間段。

????當時，Friendster漸入頹勢的跡象已經十分明顯。盡管它又跌跌撞撞地支撐了許多年，卻注定要成為伊卡洛斯那樣的悲劇神話，而不是埃德蒙?希拉里的登頂傳奇。它的投資者舔著自己的傷口，尚未出資的人則暗呼僥幸，畢竟它曾是如此炙手可熱的投資對象。這兩種人做了同樣的一件事——發誓一定要從這段歷史中吸取教訓。

????MySpace是當時的一個新創公司。2003年8月成立的它預計將在2005到2008年初成為全球訪問量最大的社交網站。2006年6月，它將超過谷歌（Google），成為全美訪問量最大的網站。不過在2004年10月，盡管它增長很快，規模卻仍然相對較小——每月只有大約500萬的用戶訪問量。顯然，它也有著伊卡洛斯的宿命，雖然它與Friendster的劇情并不相同。

????那Facebook呢？好吧，它在當年2月剛誕生于哈佛（Harvard）無名小卒馬克?扎克伯格之手。那時它叫“thefacebook”（一個單詞，全是小寫），只是一個哈佛大學、耶魯大學（Yale）和斯坦福大學（Stanford）的封閉式校園網站，用戶不過幾千人。實際上，在那時，MySpace和Friendster之后第三大的社交網站可能是Orkut，這是一個由谷歌（Google）于2004年1月啟動的項目，充滿了活力。

????也是在同年8月的一個周一，LinkedIn的共同創始人兼首席執行官雷德?霍夫曼來到格雷洛克進行融資演示。大家也許覺得LinkedIn在2004年是一個不可錯過的投資對象。不過在那時，我們也有著合理的擔憂：

????? Friendster、MySpace和Orkut的規模都遠大于LinkedIn，后者仍然在試圖達到100萬注冊用戶的目標。

????? LinkedIn預測自己將有能力建立營收渠道，但是他們還沒掙到一分錢，也沒有證明自己的這種能力。

????? 大多數人并不熟悉職業社交網絡的概念。

????時間快進到今天，雷德仍毫不掩飾他一貫的對于幫助企業家的興趣。他發布了當日曾在格雷洛克用過的融資演示，還加上了自己的觀點、評注和建議。無論你是一家公司的創始人，打算開創公司的人，抑或只是個研究創新和初創公司史的學生，它都稱得上極具價值，值得一讀。

????The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect, however very few of them are actually obvious when you make them. In fact, we reviewed our process at Greylock and discovered that the best investments are non-obvious enough that they result in a mixed vote by our partnership. Such was the case with LinkedIn (LNKD) nine years ago.

????The context of the investment

????October 2004 was a strange times for the pioneers of what would become social networks.

????The signs of Friendster's decline into irrelevance were already evident. Although it would limp on for a number of years more, Friendster was clearly destined to be a tale like Icarus, not Sir Edmund Hillary. Its investors licked their wounds and those that hadn't been investors counted themselves lucky, given how white-hot the investment had been. One thing that both groups had in common is that they vowed to learn from history.

????MySpace was the new upstart. Founded in August, 2003, MySpace would go on to be the most visited social networking site in the world from 2005 until early 2008. In June 2006, it would pass Google (GOOG) as the most visited website in the United States. But in October, 2004, though growing rapidly, it was still relatively tiny — seeing roughly 5 million users per month. Obviously, it too would have an Icarus-like ending, but that's a different story.

????And what of Facebook (FB)? Well, it had just been foundedthat February by an unknown kid named Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard. It was called "thefacebook" (onewordalllowercase) and It was a small, closed college network at Harvard, Yale and Stanford with members numbering in the low thousands. In fact, at that time, the next biggest social networking site after MySpace and Friendster was likely Orkut, an internal passion-project launched by Google in January, 2004.

????And it was on a Monday in August of that same year that LinkedIn co-founder and CEO Reid Hoffman visited Greylock to present to the team. You may think LinkedIn was an obvious investment in 2004. At the time, however, there were legitimate concerns:

????? Friendster, MySpace, and Orkut were all massively larger than LinkedIn, which was still approaching its first million registered users.

????? LinkedIn projected the ability to build revenue but didn't have a dollar of revenue and hadn't proven it.

????? Most people were unfamiliar with the concept of professional social networking.

????Fast forward to today and, with his usual focus on transparency in the interest of helping entrepreneurs, Reid has now published the pitch deck he used at Greylock that day with additional perspective, commentary and advice. It's a great read whether you are a founder of a company, thinking about becoming one, or simply a student of innovation and start-up history.