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The 1992 book Merchants of Debt, a critical history of the private equity firm KKR, recounts the moment in the early 1980s when a firm executive came across VisiCalc, the spreadsheet software that would upend both KKR and Wall Street.
1992年出版的《債務商人》(Merchants of Debt)一書是關於私募股權公司KKR的重要歷史，書中講述了上世紀80年代初，一位公司高階主管偶然發現VisiCalc這款電子表格軟體。這個軟體顛覆了KKR和華爾街。
“KKR couldn’t rapidly stalk several companies at once, because its financial blueprints required weeks of calculations by hand,” George Anders wrote of the old way of doing business. But with the arrival of VisiCalc “all of a sudden, giant companies’ finances could be picked apart in an afternoon”.
「KKR不可能同時快速跟蹤幾家公司，因爲它的財務藍圖需要手工進行數週的計算，」喬治•安德斯(George Anders)在談到過去的經營方式時寫道。但隨著VisiCalc的到來，「突然之間，大公司的財務狀況一個下午就能剖析得一清二楚」。
After VisiCalc came Lotus 1-2-3 and later Microsoft Excel. For investors like Martin Brand, who today runs Blackstone’s US leveraged buyout group, it is now possible to get a deal analysis done while still on the phone to the investment banker making the sales pitch.
VisiCalc之後是Lotus 1-2-3和後來的Microsoft Excel。對於像馬丁•布蘭德(Martin Brand)這樣的投資者來說，現在可以在與投資銀行家進行推銷的同時完成一項交易分析。布蘭德目前負責管理黑石(Blackstone)的美國槓桿收購部。
Blackstone has dozens of data scientists and engineers. They work alongside its investors to come up with automation tools able to ease the processing burden on junior employees without sacrificing the rigorous number-crunching needed to put billions of dollars to work.
黑石擁有數十名數據科學家和工程師。他們與投資者一起開發自動化工具，既能減輕初級員工的處理負擔，又不影響數十億美元投資所需的嚴格數字計算。
One such tool is BX Atlas, a standardised LBO model that gives Blackstone dealmakers a near-instantaneous readout of a deal’s feasibility and whether it merits a more detailed study. “It’s really cool,” said Brand.
BX Atlas就是這樣一個工具，它是一種標準化的槓桿(LBO)收購模型，可以讓黑石的交易撮合者近乎即時地瞭解交易的可行性，以及是否值得進行更詳細的研究。「這真的很酷，」布蘭德說。
Even with functionality increasing each year, 20-something bankers and investors had been stuck manually typing numbers and equations into cells and then linking and formatting those cells.
儘管功能每年都在增加，但20多歲的銀行家和投資者仍不得不手動將數字和公式輸入單元格，然後對這些單元格進行鏈接和排版。
That drudgery may be about to end with seismic advances in computing power. What that means for investment returns, the happiness of workers in the salt mines of Wall Street and the skills needed for the next generation of rainmakers has become the next interesting question.
隨著計算能力的突飛猛進，這種苦差事可能即將結束。這對投資回報、華爾街鹽礦工人的幸福感以及下一代「造雨者」所需的技能意味著什麼，已成爲下一個有趣的問題。
For firms lacking Blackstone’s internal tech developers, Ian Gutwinski is trying to fill the gap. The 2021 Harvard Business School grad and former PE investor sells LBO modelling software called Mosaic. Like Blackstone’s Atlas, Mosaic can spit out investment returns with just a few quick manual inputs.
對於缺乏黑石內部技術開發人員的公司，伊恩•古特文斯基(Ian Gutwinski)正試圖填補這一空白。這位哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School) 2021屆畢業生和前私募股權投資者出售名爲Mosaic的槓桿收購建模軟體。與黑石的Atlas一樣，Mosaic只需幾次快速的人工輸入，就能生成投資回報。
Mosaic also delivers helpful visualisations that show whether those returns stem from operating improvements or sheer financial leverage. The whole process takes minutes. Gutwinski says that preliminary models are not only fast but defect-free, eliminating the chance of common human error such as entering the wrong number or link. Mosaic models can also be downloaded to Excel and then further customised as deemed necessary by the deal team.
Mosaic還提供了有用的可視化顯示，顯示這些回報是來自運營改善還是純粹的財務槓桿。整個過程只需要幾分鐘。古特文斯基說，初步模型不僅速度快，而且沒有缺陷，消除了輸入錯誤數據或鏈接等常見的人爲錯誤。Mosaic模型也可以下載到Excel中，然後根據交易團隊的需要進一步定製。
Gutwinski’s clients so far include powerhouses such as Warburg Pincus and CVC Capital. One user, who declined to be identified, explained that junior associates had numerous daily responsibilities, including monitoring existing companies, that were better uses of their time. “Modelling is a commodity,” this person said.
迄今爲止，古特文斯基的客戶包括華平投資(Warburg Pincus)和CVC Capital等大公司。一位不願透露姓名的用戶解釋說，初級員工有許多日常職責，包括監督現有公司，這些職責更能利用他們的時間。「模型是一種商品，」這位人士表示。
“One of the really striking things about the story of spreadsheets in the 1980s, particularly in the case of PE, is that spreadsheets allowed financiers to see and imagine differently,” said William Deringer, a historian at MIT and a former investment banker.
麻省理工學院(MIT)歷史學家、前投資銀行家威廉•德林格(William Deringer)表示：「上世紀80年代電子表格的故事，尤其是私募基金的故事，真正引人注目的一點是，電子表格讓金融家以不同的方式看待和想像。」
“I think it is quite possible that new automation tools for financial analysis might offer similarly new kinds of vision and imagination.”
「我認爲，新的自動化金融分析工具很可能會提供類似的新視野和想像力。」
In an academic paper, Deringer cited a 1989 New York Times article that captured the cultural shift sweeping Wall Street in the nascent VisiCalc era. “Sharp elbows and a working knowledge of computer spreadsheets suddenly counted more than a nose for dry sherry or membership in Skull and Bones”, it wrote — the latter referring to Yale’s blue-blooded secret society.
在一篇學術論文中，德林格引用了1989年《紐約時報》(New York Times)的一篇文章，該文章捕捉到了VisiCalc時代初期席捲華爾街的文化轉變。文章寫道：「突然之間，犀利的手肘和電腦電子表格的工作知識比對幹雪利酒的嗅覺或骷髏會(Skull and Bones)的會員資格更重要。」骷髏會指的是耶魯的貴族祕密社團。
At this time of year, investment banks are greeting their new trainee classes and teaching them the building blocks of spreadsheet modelling. The ultimate objective is not just understanding the mechanics but building critical thinking, intuition and problem-solving abilities. And the coin of the realm in these fresh cohorts historically has been slick Excel skills.
每年的這個時候，投資銀行都在迎接新的實習生，教授他們電子表格建模的基本知識。最終的目的不僅僅是理解原理，還要培養批判性思維、直覺和解決問題的能力。而在這些新學員中，歷來最重要的就是熟練的Excel技能。
It is possible that emerging black-box tools will soon mean that technical capabilities matter less, in the same way that software coders are expected to one day give way to AI “prompt” engineers. There has always been a gap between what makes a good junior associate — raw processing horsepower — and a senior executive — decisiveness, maturity, and a respectable golf game. Starting now, that disconnect may slowly begin to shrink.
新出現的黑盒工具可能很快就會意味著技術能力不再那麼重要，就像軟體編碼員總有一天會讓位於人工智慧「提示」工程師一樣。一直以來，優秀的初級助理（原始處理能力）和高級主管（果斷、成熟和令人尊敬的高爾夫球技）之間都存在著差距。從現在開始，這種差距可能會慢慢縮小。