Fortune's Brainstorm Tech Conference (July 22-24 in Aspen, Colo.) regularly brings together the best and brightest minds in tech innovation. Each week, Fortuneturns the spotlight on a different conference attendee to offer his or her own personal insight into business, tech, and entrepreneurship. This week, we asked former entrepreneur and current Greylock Partners general partner Joseph Ansanelli to answer 10 questions about life outside of work, the company he admires most, and industry advice for young entrepreneurs. His responses follow.

What is the best advice you ever received?

    My father would write notes and letters to me and often end with the phrase "Ad astra, per aspera," which translates as: "To the stars, through difficulty." That's the startup narrative in a nutshell.

What was the last book you read?

    Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili and Andres McConnon. It chronicles the story of Gino Bartali, the youngest rider to win the Tour de France in 1938.

    Beyond cycling, Bartali sheltered a Jewish family during World War II to protect them from the Nazis. And while on 100-mile training rides during the war, he smuggled counterfeit identity documents past Fascist and Nazi police because they all knew him as a cycling hero and would not arrest him. He was a true hero.

What would you say to a group of young people looking to enter the tough job market?

    Figure out what you love to do, and find a way to get paid doing it. Even though it's tough, take chances, and don't get caught up in chasing other people's dreams or going after the latest shiny penny.

What was your biggest missed opportunity?

    I interviewed with Jeff Bezos when Amazon (AMZN) had just a couple hundred employees but did not see how an online book seller could eventually become the technology juggernaut it is today. I hope Jeff can forgive me.

What was the most important thing you learned in school?

    As Bill Cosby once joked, I did not graduate magna cum laude or summa cum laude. I graduated "thank you, lordy."

    Despite not getting good grades, what I did learn was how to think and reason through hard problems, and I learned the importance of people. I met some amazing people that I worked with on several startups, including my first startup, Trio Development, a software company that Apple (AAPL) acquired.

    《财富》杂志举办的科技头脑风暴大会（7月22日至24日在美国科罗拉多州阿斯彭召开）定期召集科技创新领域最优秀和最聪明的思想家相聚一堂。每周，《财富》杂志都会重点推介一位大会嘉宾，分享他/她对于商业、科技和创业的真知灼见。本周，我们代表年轻企业家向前创业者、现硅谷风投公司Greylock Partners的一般合伙人约瑟夫•安萨尼利就工作之余的生活、最崇拜的公司以及行业建议提出了10个问题。他的回答如下。

你获得过的最好建议是什么？

    我父亲会记笔记，给我写信，在信末附上“Ad astra, per aspera”这样的拉丁文箴言，意思是：“穿过苦难才能看见星空”。这是对创业企业的概括。

你最近读过的一本书是什么？

    《英勇之路：二战意大利、纳粹以及激励了整整一个国家的自行车手的真实故事》(Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation)，作者是艾丽和安德斯•麦肯农夫妇，记载了1938年环法自行车赛（Tour de France）最年轻冠军车手基诺•巴特利的故事。

    除了从事自行车运动，巴特利还在二战期间保护了一个犹太家庭免遭纳粹的迫害。二战期间进行的100英里训练骑行期间，他在法西斯和纳粹警察的眼皮子底下偷偷传递虚假身份证件。因为这些人都知道他是一位自行车冠军，不会逮捕他。他是一位真正的英雄。

当前就业市场非常严峻，对于即将进入这个市场的年轻人，你想说些什么？

    想明白自己喜欢做什么，找到干这个可以赚钱的方式。即便再难，抓住机会，别追错了梦想，或者捡了芝麻丢了西瓜。

错过的最佳机会是什么？

    多年前，亚马逊(Amazon)的杰夫•贝佐斯面试过我。当时亚马逊只有几百个员工，我真没想到这样一家书籍零售网站最终会变成今天的科技巨擘。希望杰夫能原谅我。

你在学校学到的最重要的东西是什么？

    正如比尔•考斯比有一次开玩笑的那样，我不是优等生毕业。我能毕业真是谢天谢地。

    虽然没有获得好成绩，我还是学会了如何思考问题，解决问题，我懂得人的重要性。我遇到了一些非常出色的人，我们一起做了好几家创业公司，包括我的第一家创业公司Trio Development。这家软件公司已经被苹果公司(Apple)收购。

What do you do for fun?

    My wife and I love the outdoors. We hike, run, and ride our road and mountain bikes. When the snow falls, we love to ski.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

    Honestly, I love being in the Bay Area. Where else do you have this incredible spirit of innovation, combined with some of the most beautiful places in the world in our backyard -- from the San Francisco Bay, to Marin, to Sonoma, to Lake Tahoe? I can't think of another place like it in the world.

What has been your biggest failure?

    I've failed and learned from lots of things. The biggest commercial failure I've been involved with was Apple's Newton, which was pushing the bounds of many technologies, and one that did not work very well which was handwriting recognition.

    Yet I had the good fortune to learn from amazing people during that failure. They include: Steve Capps, who co-developed the original Macintosh Finder and taught me about user interface design; Jony Ive, who today leads Apple's design team and taught me what makes for great industrial design; and Michael Tchao, who runs Apple's iPad product marketing and taught me creative and strategic marketing.

    And I believe that, despite the failure of Newton, it lit the spark that led us, 20 years later, to the current explosion of smartphones and tablets.

What other companies do you admire? Why?

    I recently had a chance to meet James Hall, one of the cofounders of Patz & Hall Winery.

    It's a story of real entrepreneurship. James borrowed a small amount of money from his parents and pooled it with seed capital from his three co-founders. Fueled by a deep passion for making a high-quality product (and some wine!), they slowly built one of the most successful family-owned and -operated wineries in the United States.

What is one characteristic that every leader should possess?

    Every great leader has different characteristics that lead to their success. Jeff Bezos is different from Steve Jobs, who is different from John Chambers, who is different from Bill Gates.

    What makes them similar, though, is that each of them figured out a way to attract and engage other great people. I believe one of their keys to success comes from communicating a compelling vision and giving people the confidence to follow them on the path to what may seem quite crazy at first, yet in hindsight shows true genius.

你有什么爱好？

    我和我的妻子喜欢户外运动。我们远足、跑步、骑登山车和开车。下雪时我们喜欢去滑雪。

如果你可以立即去世界上任何地方，你希望去哪里？

    老实说，我很喜欢呆在湾区。世界上还有什么地方能像这里，这样富有创新精神，而且在距离不远的地方就有这样景色美丽的地方--从旧金山湾到马林县，再到索诺马, 到太浩湖?我想不出哪里还能找到这样的地方。

你最大的失败是什么？

    我失败过，从很多事情中学习。我亲身经历过的最大一次商业失败是苹果公司(Apple)的Newton，它突破了很多科技的边缘，但手写识别不佳。

    但在这次失败中，我有幸从很多出色的人那里学到很多东西。他们包括：Macintosh Finder的共同开发者史蒂夫•凯普斯，他教给我用户界面设计；如今领导苹果公司设计团队的乔尼•伊夫教给我什么成就伟大的工业设计；以及如今管理苹果公司iPad产品营销的迈克•特乔，他教给我什么是创意的战略营销。

    而且，我相信虽然Newton失败了，它的星光在20年后仍引领我们来到当今智能手机和平板电脑的爆炸式增长。

你还崇拜其他哪些公司？为什么？

    我最近有机会见到了詹姆斯•豪尔，Patz & Hall Winery的创始人之一。

    这是一个充满真正创业精神的故事。詹姆斯从父母那里借了一小笔钱，与三个共同创始人凑出了种子资金。怀着一股做出高质量产品(和一些葡萄酒!)的激情，他们慢慢地打造了一家非常成功的由家族持股和经营的美国葡萄酒庄。

所有领导人都应具备的一项品质是什么？

    每位伟大的领导人都有不同的品质促成最终的成功。杰夫•贝佐斯和史蒂夫•乔布斯不同，史蒂夫•乔布斯和约翰•钱伯斯（思科公司总裁兼首席执行官——译注）不同，约翰•钱伯斯又与比尔•盖茨不同。

    但让他们相似的是他们每个人都想出了一种方式，如何吸引和凝聚其他杰出的人才。我相信，促使他们最终成功的一个关键是，他们都善于描绘令人信服的远景，让人们有信心跟随他们走上一条最开始可能有些难以理解、但事后看来真的具有天才洞见的道路。（财富中文网）

    译者：杨智