我一生都在追求新事物。正是这种冲动，让我小时候把一支著名摇滚乐队带到了我所在的小城镇高中；后来，在耶鲁大学时，我又把芭蕾舞者带到了当时仍是全男生的大学。
I have lived my life in pursuit of the new. It was that impulse that led me, as a boy, to bring a famous rock group to my small-town high school, and later, at Yale, to bring ballerinas to a university that was then still all male.
黑石公司成立于1985年，当时只有三条业务线。如今已有85条。一项又一项业务在公司内部孕育而生。
Blackstone began in 1985 with three lines of business. Today there are 85. One venture after another has been created inside the firm itself.
我体内的创业精神，若脱离美国的历史便无法理解。美国成立250年前，尚无既定秩序。当时的美国人别无选择，只能自谋出路，亲自摸索如何生活。
The entrepreneurial spirit in me cannot be understood apart from the history of America. When the United States was founded 250 years ago, there was no established order. Americans of that era had little choice but to make their own way and work out for themselves how to live their lives.
正是在此，美日欧之间才有根本区别：日本和欧洲的社会秩序是经过数千年才逐步建立起来的。
Therein lies a great difference between the U.S. and places like Japan or Europe, whose social orders were built over thousands of years.
在美国建国之初，任何人都可以来到这里。美国的文化并非单一固定的东西，而是一团乱麻。移民别无选择，只能靠自己开辟道路，除了家人之外几乎无人可依。
At the time of its founding, anyone could come to America. The nation's culture was not a single, settled thing but a jumble. Immigrants had no choice but to carve out their own paths, with scarcely anyone to rely on beyond their own families.
跨洋来到新大陆本身就是一种冒险。新来者甚至不知道等待他们的是什么，离开故乡的人们只是简单地送上一句“祝你好运”。为了生存，他们必须具备强大的适应能力。正是如此，我们的祖先培育出了后来被称为“开拓精神”的品质。
To cross an ocean to a new continent was itself a risk. Newcomers arrived not knowing what awaited them, sent off with little more than a "Good luck," from those they left behind. To survive, they needed a powerful capacity to adapt. In that way, our ancestors cultivated what came to be called the pioneer spirit.
我继承了一种“基因”——敢于冒险的基因，它源自我的曾祖父，他当年从奥地利迁徙而来。
I inherited a "gene" for embracing risk, one that began with my great-grandfather who crossed over from Austria.
我进入耶鲁大学时，想买一套音响设备，以便在宿舍里听音乐。但音响太贵，于是我想到一个主意：卖印有大学名称和购买学生姓名的个性化文具。我接手了耶鲁的文具特许经营权，挨宿舍楼、挨楼梯、挨房间地走，一个接一个地敲门，试图说服学生购买带有个性化信头的写纸。
When I arrived at Yale, I wanted a stereo so I could listen to music in my room. But stereos were expensive, so I hit upon the idea of selling personalized stationery printed with the university's name and that of the student who purchased it. I took over the Yale stationery concessions and walked every stairway in every dormitory, knocking on door after door as I tried to persuade students to buy writing paper with personalized letterheads.
我并不是一开始就想成为一名企业家；我只是想在房间里听一些好的摇滚乐。我想要某样东西，如果父母不愿意给我钱，我就会想办法自己赚。在美国，这是一种很普通的思维方式。
I did not set out to become an entrepreneur; I simply wanted to listen to good rock and roll in my room. There was something I wanted, and if my parents were not going to give me the money, I would figure out a way to earn it myself. In America, this is an ordinary way of thinking.
一个优秀企业家的一个标志是愿意接受错误会发生。如果你行动迅速，你就不可避免地会犯错。关键在于你是否能够找出原因并改变你的执行方式，或者改变产品本身。只有当你具备学习能力时，这才是可能的。
One mark of a good entrepreneur is a willingness to accept that mistakes will happen. If you move quickly, you inevitably run the risk of getting things wrong. The question is whether you can identify the cause and change your method of execution, or the product itself. That is possible only if you are capable of learning.
美国在这方面做得很好，这也与这个国家的形成方式有关。美国是由各种族背景的人们聚集在一个没有固定秩序的地方而形成的。它没有继承其他国家所具有的统一价值观或固定思维模式——那种会把失败转化为持久社会污名的模式。
This is something America does well, and it, too, has to do with how the country came into being. America was formed by people of every ethnic background gathering in a place where there was no settled order. It did not inherit the uniform values or fixed patterns of thought found in other countries -- the kind that can turn failure into lasting social stigma.
正如我稍后将讨论的，黑石集团受一个简单的企业精神驱动：“不要亏钱。”这听起来可能与我之前谈到的接受风险相矛盾，但它的本意是警告人们避免愚蠢的失败。如果你在认真考虑之后确信某件事值得去做，那么即使最终它没有成功，也没有关系。
As I will discuss later, Blackstone is driven by a simple corporate ethos: "Don't lose money." That may sound at odds with my earlier point about embracing risk, but it is meant to warn against foolish failures. If, after considering a matter properly, you are convinced something is worth doing, it does not matter if, in the end, it does not work out.
失败当然令人不快。这意味着你必须认识到你曾相信的愿景是错误的。但这种认识只是旅程的开始。更重要的是，你要根据所学到的东西来调整你的愿景。你不需要一开始就完全正确。
Failure is unpleasant, of course. It means recognizing that the vision you believed in was wrong. But that recognition is only the beginning of the journey. What matters more is to change your vision based on what you learn. You do not need to be 100% right from the start.
日本在其悠久的历史中，以非凡的纪律性组织了其社会。与美国不同，美国有广阔的空间供人开拓，而日本的可耕地有限。考虑到这样的历史背景，日本人与美国人有所不同是很自然的。
Japan, over its long history, has organized its society with extraordinary discipline. Unlike America, with its wide space for pioneering, Japan has limited arable land. Given such a historical background, it is natural that Japanese differ from Americans.
我并不是说企业家精神不能在日本扎根。企业家是在其本土土壤中被培育出来的。尝试新事物的意愿——一种人们常在华人身上看到的态度——如今比以往任何时候都更需要在日本。受教育程度高的日本人肯定具备这种潜力。
I am not saying an entrepreneurial spirit cannot take root in Japan. Entrepreneurs are nurtured in their native soil. The willingness to attempt new things -- an attitude one often sees in the Chinese -- is needed more than ever in Japan. The Japanese, with their high level of education, surely possess that potential.
如今日本的年轻人知道森田昭雄和井深大的名字吗？他们是二战后创立索尼的伟大企业家，仅用一代人的时间就把它打造成了风靡全球的公司。
Do young people in Japan today know the names Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka? They were the great entrepreneurs who founded Sony after World War II and, in a single generation, built it into a company that swept the world.
如果这两个人的成就被写进学校教材并教授给孩子们，日本的企业家数量肯定会增加。
If the achievements of these two men were written into school textbooks and taught to children, the number of entrepreneurs in Japan would surely grow.
斯蒂芬·施瓦茨曼是黑石集团的联合创始人、董事长兼首席执行官。
Stephen Schwarzman is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone.