科技的下一个热门话题是不温不火的投资吗？

这似乎是高科技天堂里的一场比赛。NestLabs于2010年在加利福尼亚州帕洛阿尔托的一个车库里由前苹果高管托尼·法德尔（TonyFadell）孵化而成，他在iPod和iPhone的开发中扮演了关键角色。法德尔对下一件大事的构想是一种智能的、可交流的恒温器，它可以开启所谓的智能家居时代。他很快就获得了由硅谷传奇风险投资公司Kleiner Perkins Caufield&Byers牵头的天使基金。2014年，投资者以32亿美元的高价将Nest卖给了谷歌。

“We felt it was a fair price because Google was getting arguably the best hardware team on the planet at the time,” says Rob Coneybeer, co-founder of Shasta Ventures, which joined Kleiner Perkins in Nest’s A-round funding.

把这个团队与谷歌的网络优势和巨大的财政资源结合起来，重新设计我们的生活方式——会出什么问题？结果是很多。法德尔是一位阿尔法高管，他向纽约时报他“把人们推到他们认为可以达到的程度之外”，与一个关键下属发生了一场丑陋的公开争吵，然后与谷歌（正式更名为Alphabet Inc.）的新首席财务官发生了半公开的摩擦，后者迫使他缩短Nest所谓的盈利跑道。收购两年后，他准备辞职。他六月份离开了公司。

与此同时，巢它的第二大产品，一个烟雾探测器，在监管机构发现它可能被意外禁用时，不得不召回。当先行者步履蹒跚时，竞争对手包括亚马逊网站，苹果和三星电子公司意识到了智能家居的潜力。technorati目前的共识是，亚马逊已经在这个潜在的数十亿美元的市场上跃跃欲试，邀请外部世界围绕其Alexa语音命令系统构建硬件。

科技咨询公司Gartner负责个人技术的沃纳•戈尔茨（Werner Goertz）表示：“市场仍处于一个非常新生和支离破碎的状态，但亚马逊是当今的主导者。”。

Nest和它的父代Alphabet很难在智能家居上脱颖而出。但雀巢前六年的动荡对那些从不断发展的科技奇迹中寻求回报的机构投资者来说是一个警示。尽管硅谷仍然是一口看似取之不尽、用之不竭的创新和实施之井，但无论是通过创新者的股票发行，还是通过Alphabet等现有上市公司的收购，投资组合投资亚博赞助欧冠者都难以在一瓶稳定的盈利能力中捕捉到这一创新的光芒。对于最聪明的人来说，有很多方法可以让他们跌跌撞撞——通过幻想家变幻莫测的自我，竞争天才的不懈努力，或者在一个不断发展的领域里简单的错误猜测。

风险资本家可以忍受多次失败，这要归功于他们从成功中付出的巨大代价。机构投资者在公司发展周期的后期进入公司，却不能。“我的商业经济允许我在不到20%的时间里取得成功，但仍然能带来非凡的回报，”负责管理其公司在Nest股份的Kl亚博赞助欧冠einer Perkins合伙人Randy Komisar说。“公开市场的投资者就是承受不起。”

凯鹏华盈是雀巢第一个也是最大的私人投资者，但科米萨尔承认，当托尼·法德尔第一次向他投球时，他有点信心不足。他说：“在iPod和iPhone问世之后，我认为他可以做很多伟大的事情。”。“当他展示圆形恒温器时，我有点失望。”

By 2010, Fadell, now 47, had a reputation as one of the Valley’s most potent secret weapons. Raised outside Detroit, he had headed west after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1991 with a computer engineering degree. Fadell got a job at General Magic, a wireless communications pioneer founded by renegade Apple engineers. His colleagues there included established tech legends like Andy Hertzfeld, a founding father of the Macintosh personal computer, and legends-to-be like Pierre Omidyar, who not long afterward started eBay.

“托尼是一位刚从大学毕业的领导者，”另一位普通魔术校友彼得·尼尔回忆道，他在20年后作为光速创投合伙人的合伙人投资了Nest。“他是一位令人难以置信的工程师，同时也是一位具有挑衅性的思想家。如果托尼要开一家公司做餐车，我们会支持他的。

Fadell left General Magic after its 1995 IPO but continued to focus on the budding field of networked devices. He created a business unit to focus on palmtop computers for Dutch electronics giant Philips, then in 1999 formed a company called Fuse. There he tinkered with a portable digital music player to capitalize on the burgeoning MP3 file-sharing movement. (Free-music pioneer Napster launched that same year.) Fuse failed to raise sufficient venture capital funding but found a home within Apple, where Steve Jobs made Fadell chief of the iPod group in 2001.

Over the next seven years, Fadell proved his mettle at Apple as both an innovator and an administrator, overseeing massive hardware development efforts for the iPod and early generations of the iPhone.

“I saw Tony drive teams on time and on budget over very tight schedules for dozens of product versions,” Komisar says. “The work he did at Apple was critical in transforming it from a computer maker to a consumer products company.”

在Nest，法德尔很快就说服了科米萨和他的其他投资者，他的小型圆形恒温器孕育了另一场有利可图的革命。用科米萨的话说，这是一个“特洛伊木马”，是在尖端人工智能和网络科学的推动下，对世界生活空间的重新思考。智能家居是国内备受推崇的物联网前沿。让无生命物体看到周围事物的传感器，教它们如何分辨所见事物的机器学习算法，以及与其他类似聪明物体的通信连接——所有这些都应该让我们冲向一个拥有自我修复汽车和工厂车间机器人的世界，这些机器人可以自己订购库存，举两个例子。

一些早期的智能产品看似异想天开,like the Samsung Family Hub fridge — unveiled this year and priced at $5,000 — that can report remotely when its owner is running low on milk. But an intelligent thermostat like Nest’s can have a significant, immediate impact on energy use and costs. The device’s sensors can, among other abilities, correct for the effect of winter sunlight warming a thermostat while the rest of the house stays cold. Constant communication with a utility’s computers allows the homeowner to draw energy in cheaper, off-peak periods and save it for the peaks.

法德尔利用他的苹果经验，使他的设备简单和有吸引力，很清楚，90%的业主不费心编程，因为他们的恒温器的过程太复杂。投资者康尼比尔说：“托尼和他的团队完全疯狂地专注于这一单一产品。“他们买了几百个恒温器，放在办公室的假墙上。他们花了数百个小时走访他们家里的人，看看恒温器挂在哪里。”

尽管如此，Nest的真正承诺是有机会制定未来智能家居发明将遵循的协议和标准，就像iPhone对移动应用程序领域所做的那样。Gartner的Goertz说，其中一些应用程序是设想出来的，但尚未开发。其中包括智能洒水系统，该系统集成了土壤湿度读数和天气预报，以更有效地灌溉花园，以及为老年人提供的监控器，如果佩戴者血压升高或摔倒，可以呼叫帮助。其他的创新可能仍然无法预料——因为法德尔本人在本世纪中叶帮助创建iPhone时，不可能预见到Uber技术。

巢started with a clear head start as the hub of this far-reaching ecosystem. “It’s 20th-century thinking that you’re investing in companies and their products,” says Michael Schrage, an author on innovation and a research fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business. “What you’re investing in now is great platforms.”

法德尔和他的初级合伙人马特·罗杰斯（Matt Rogers）曾在苹果公司为自己的团队工作，他们并没有让风险资本投资者失望。尽管销售数据仍然保密，但Nest恒温器已于2011年10月从车库搬出并投入批量生产，目前已成为五金店货架上的固定设备。第二种产品，Nest Protect烟雾和一氧化碳报警器，于2013年10月推出。（其中一个有趣的特点是：一旦发生火灾，它会关闭家里的锅炉和炉子。）“它们的表现就像一个瑞士钟，”科米萨尔回忆道。“这是我们在Kleiner Perkins有史以来发展最快的产品公司之一。”

科米萨和其他投资者表示，Nest并没有为买家买单。但法德尔通过比尔•马里斯（billmaris）与谷歌创始人拉里•佩奇（larrypage）和谢尔盖•布林（sergeybrin）建立了非正式的联系，后者当时是谷歌风投（googleventures）投资部门的负责人，后者曾早期入股Nest。在雀巢测试其市场实力之际，这三家实力雄厚的公司开始定期闲谈。2013年底，收购谈判升温。

尽管有32亿美元的诱惑，但包括Maris在内的Nest的支持者表示，他们对出售感到严重不安。马里斯说：“我原以为谷歌拿到Nest后得到了一笔令人尖叫的交易。“我本希望看到公司保持隐私。”（去年夏天，法德尔去世几个月后，他离开了谷歌，声称10年后精疲力尽，希望能有更多时间和他年幼的儿子在一起。）

Fadell and Rogers were won over, however. Google announced the acquisition in January 2014 and added to the price tag in June of that year by paying $555 million for Dropcam, a maker of next-generation security cameras that after some fits and starts became Nest’s third product line.

谷歌收购后不久，麻烦就开始了。美国消费品安全委员会在2014年4月发现Nest的烟雾报警器存在危险问题，迫使该公司停止销售，并在下月召回44万台。Dropcam的收购带来了第二个有远见的人——该公司的创始人格雷格·达菲（Greg Duffy）——他未能与法德尔融为一体。八个月后，达菲离开了巢穴，他和法德尔随后通过充满活力的硅谷媒体互相辱骂。

法德尔在网上发表了一篇文章，称“许多（Dropcam）员工并没有我们所希望的那么好。”作为报复，达菲对《商业内幕》说，他称法德尔为“暴君官僚”。他在媒体网站上的一篇文章中详细阐述道：“Nest目前的领导层。似乎只崇拜导师最多余、最消极的特质。”

Some outside observers see Fadell’s prickly personality as a $3.2 billion accident waiting to happen. “This was a completely logical acquisition for Google in terms of competencies and capabilities,” MIT’s Schrage says. “But it was an unexpectedly problematic acquisition because personalities matter as much or more than strategy.”

Fadell’s admirers respond that his personality is part and parcel of his success. “When you want to drive for excellence, you can’t be Mr. Nice Guy,” Lightspeed’s Nieh says. “If you went into Tony’s office without thinking things through, he would hand you some body part on a platter.”

While the ego clashes took their toll, it became increasingly clear that smart-home products would wreak disruption only gradually. Replacing a thermostat, however sensible in the long run, was a less compelling priority for consumers than upgrading to an iPhone or summoning Uber instead of waiting for the bus. Just 6 percent of U.S. homes contain an Internet-connected device — a number that will creep up to 15 percent by 2021, according to the经济学家. Gartner的Goertz预计，到2020年，全球智能家居硬件市场规模将达到20亿美元。而目前iPhone的销售额远远超过1000亿美元。专注于科技的券商Wedbush Securities的研究总监吉尔•卢里亚（Gil Luria）指出：“我们谈论物联网和互联设备已经很多年了，但这一愿景尚未在足够大的市场实现。”。

Aside from smart-home apps not being killer enough, putting houses online creates hacking threats. “Nobody is taking security seriously enough in this area,” says Rob Enderle, a closely followed independent tech analyst. “A few [denial of service] attacks and you could get into an IoT apocalypse.”

当法德尔和罗杰斯接受谷歌的提议时，他们认为他们的新老板们会耐心等待一段长时间的酝酿期，以期在谷歌最终发展成为一个摇钱树时拥有这个类别。原型是YouTube，谷歌在2006年收购了YouTube，但据大多数人说，它还没有盈利。（该公司将YouTube的财务状况与其核心搜索驱动的广告业务相结合。）

Brin and Page generously funded half a dozen other ambitious open-ended projects before Nest, in fields ranging from Google Glass to self-driving cars, medical robots, and fiber-optic cable. Techies applauded their enthusiasm. “Google is very liberal in throwing technology against the wall and seeing if it sticks,” Gartner’s Goertz says. But some securities analysts take a dimmer view of multibillion-dollar expenditures with no obvious focus or accountability. “Google’s acquisition history could be described as a four-year-old with sugar,” Enderle says. “Everything they have done since they have gone public has been an abysmal failure.” Google’s IPO was in 2004.

成立二人似乎注意到投资者的rumblings in August 2015, when they announced the creation of Alphabet, a holding structure that would begin to separate the money machine of Google’s ad business from the company’s diverse venture projects; the latter were bunched in a division called Other Bets. Google watchers linked the decluttering to the arrival five months earlier of a new chief financial officer: Ruth Porat, a 28-year Wall Street veteran who came from the CFO’s chair at Morgan Stanley in New York.

2015年11月完成的向字母表的过渡，清楚地表明了其他字母表在财务上的产出是多么少。最新的季度财报显示，该部门营收1.97亿美元（仅占Alphabet总营业额的0.9%），亏损8.65亿美元。该公司并没有为每一笔押注分别公布数字，因此Nest自己的损益表仍然是一个猜测的问题。

波拉特开始努力阻止其他投注者的赤字，并提出一些尖锐的问题，说明远投何时可能达到有利可图的目的地。Alphabet董事长、谷歌前首席执行官埃里克•施密特（Eric Schmidt）告诉记者：“成本削减是真实的，而且是由（Porat）推动的。”Fortune最近。“在她来之前，我们已经失去了纪律。”

Investors love Porat’s firm hand. Alphabet shares have soared 40 percent since she came on board in March 2015, compared with a 15 percent rise in the most widely held diversified tech fund, the SPDR Technology Sector ETF (ticker symbol: XLK). But key personnel at the long-shot companies seem to be voting against that firm hand with their feet. Fadell made up his mind to leave last February, three months after Google became Alphabet, his friends say. He publicly ascribed his departure to the genius’s natural creative cycle. “I’m a guy who’s at the beginning of things,” he told the纽约时报. “我不喜欢维护模式。”他仍然是字母表的顾问。

法德尔的支持者科米萨更直截了当。“我相信他们会后悔在两年内出售，谷歌改变了它的战略，一年零一个月后，他们签署了协议，”他说。“托尼预计会有一个很长的时间线。”法德尔之后，更多的人退出了其他的赌注。谷歌风险投资公司（Google Ventures）创始人马里斯（Maris）在8月份递交了辞呈。谷歌光纤公司老板克雷格·巴拉特（Craig Barratt）本身就是一位明星企业家，他在10月份以37亿美元的价格将自己的半导体制造商Atheros卖给了高通公司（Qualcomm）。

随着内部政治放缓，其竞争对手加快了智能家居的步伐，未来学家关于生态系统如何发展的理论也发生了转变：目前，共识预测是围绕一个语音响应中心的设备网络。亚马逊的回声扬声器（Echo speaker）将命令转换为Alexa操作系统，看起来正处于这股浪潮的风口浪尖上。Echo于2015年6月向公众发售。

麻省理工学院的施拉格说：“我绝对相信，与Nest-Dropcam方法相比，Alexa是一个更好的进入家的窗口。”。“它有一整套API，旨在为开发人员社区提供便利。当Nest被收购时谁会知道呢？“（API代表“应用程序编程接口”，即使外部供应商能够围绕行业标准构建软件的工具。）

Alphabet正在与谷歌主页（GoogleHome）进行反击，后者是去年11月发布的一种扬声器系统，与谷歌助手指挥系统集成。但据《科技期刊》（tech journal）报道，Echo在18个月的起步阶段，推出了约3000款与其硬件相关的应用程序（亚马逊称之为skills），而googlehome推出之日只有4款CNET公司. Nest, as a stand-alone unit, seems to have refocused its ambitions on key hardware spokes, leaving the race to develop a smart-home hub to its corporate parent. “We’re platform-agnostic and can work with Alexa,” Nest spokeswoman Kate Brinks says. “If you’re talking to consumers about what products to put in their home, they don’t say Amazon. They say Nest.”

对科技精英来说，困扰Nest的问题是他们改变世界运作方式的自封使命中的普通、甚至是必要的因素。像法德尔这样有魅力的创始人在出售给谷歌（Google）这样的巨头后，离开的次数要多于留下的次数。当权的巨人们经常会跌跌撞撞，让他们无情的竞争对手突然袭击。当下一个疯狂的细胞在下一个车库里播种将产生新的数百亿美元的种子时，数十亿美元可能会白白花掉。所有这些都没有削弱内部人士对智能家居、物联网或科技魔力的信心。Wedbush的Luria说：“科技领域的重大变革总是比我们想象的要花费更长的时间，然后产生比我们想象的更大的影响。”。“个人电脑、互联网和社交网络就是这样。”

Such cosmic reassurance is of little comfort to institutional investors, however. Venture capital and private equity firms, which scout for future disrupters in their infancies, may lose four out of five times and still win. Triumphant disrupters from previous waves, like Google, can afford to make some bad calls on the next wave. Alphabet booked $5.06 billion in net profit during the three months ended September 30, a 27 percent jump year-on-year — numbers that assuaged shareholders’ indignation about chaos in the Other Bets.

投资组合投资者在永久性技术革命中的地位不那么有利。在最好的情况下，指数回报率已经在资金链的更上层获得。“大部分价值都是在私人市场创造的，”卢里亚观察到。“就连Facebook和谷歌在上市时也已经非常庞大了。”

在最坏的情况下，风险投资公司的利润安全地存入银行后，股权投资者或企业收购者就会陷入崩溃，而且这种情况还有很多。到臭名昭著的世纪之交的崩溃像美国在线和Boo.com网站，我们自己的时代正在增加Fitbit、Groupon，也许还有Twitter的悲惨历史——所有这些公司都以令人兴奋的方式移动了技术针，然后在财务上失败了。

That does not mean diversified stock investors should avoid tech, broadly speaking. The SPDR sector ETF has outperformed wider markets over the past five years, rising by 85 percent, compared with 78 percent for the S&P 500 index. But the fund’s big holdings are in proven profit churners that dominate a more or less mature market: Apple, Microsoft Corp., Facebook, AT&T, and Alphabet itself. Chasing Silicon Valley’s latest visions, investors often buy into an expensive mirage.•