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Thinking of going into business with a friend? Your relationship could cost you, according to research。
在考慮和朋友合伙做生意嗎？研究表明，你的友情會讓你遭受損失。
Researchers at Harvard University, in a study looking at friendship among venture capitalists, found that those who paired together based on how much they liked each other - as opposed to basing the decision on ability - were likely to see less success on their investments。
哈佛大學的研究人員發現，那些選擇交情好的人做合作伙伴的人，相比那些根據對方能力來選合作伙伴的人，在投資上更容易失敗。這些研究人員對風險資本家之間的友情進行了研究。
'The Cost of Friendship' report by three authors - whether they are friends or not is not known - studied more than 3,500 venture capitalists from 1975 to 2003.
這一研究報告名為《友情的代價》，由三個人共同撰寫完成，至于他們是不是朋友就不得而知了。該研究在1975年到2003年間調查了3500名風險資本家。
The study showed that if business partners of the same minority group worked together, their chances of a successful return dropped by 25 percent。
研究顯示，如果選擇朋友作為自己的生意合伙人，他們的投資成功率將減少25%。
By the same token, those partners who went to the same college saw their chance of success drop by 22 percent, and by 18 percent if they started a business together before。
同樣，那些上同一所大學的合伙人投資成功的幾率會減少22%，如果過去曾合伙創業，那么成功幾率將減少18%。
The report said: 'Collaborations based on characteristics unrelated to ability might suffer from a 'cost of friendship' and induce a negative relationship between affinity based similarities and performance.'
報告稱：“根據與能力無關的性格來確立合作關系，將可能‘因友情而付出代價’，而且關系親密的人相似點較多，這種相似性會對工作業績產生消極影響。”
If you want to see a real-world example, just look at Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin. While the pair have both reaped millions - in Zuckerberg's case, many billions - the pair had an hugefalling-out in the early days of the social network, as was portrayed in the film The Social Network。
如果你想了解現實世界的例子，只需看看馬克·扎克伯格和愛德華多·薩維林就知道。盡管這兩人都獲益數百萬美金以上(扎克伯格是上百億)，但是正如電影《社交網絡》中所描述的，他們卻在社交網站創立初期大吵一架。
The researchers said that the flip-side of working with friends included working with too many similarly-minded people, all sharing certain strengths and weaknesses, and potentially having poor decision-making as decisions would be made on a group basis。
研究人員稱，與朋友合伙的弊端在于，和太多想法相似的人一起工作，這些人擁有同樣的長處和弱點，在集體做決定時，可能會做出糟糕的決定。
However, it is unlikely that this report will stop friends starting businesses together - it is one of the most popular ways to set up a business。
不過，這一報告也不大可能會阻止朋友們一起創業，畢竟這是最普遍的創業方式之一。
But, as the authors, warn: 'To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, you cannot afford to be stupid with old friends when you are venture capitalists co-investing together.'
但是，正如作者們警告的那樣：“改寫一下愛默生的話：和老朋友一起做傻事沒什么，但如果你是要和老朋友一起做風險投資，那你可輸不起。”
