TED@New York
Jeff Smith: Lessons in business ... from prison
傑夫．史密斯：從監獄學到的經商之道
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傑夫．史密斯在監獄裡度過了一年。他發現裡面的情況並不如他所想－－獄友創意無限，具商業頭腦。他問：為什麼我們不協助這些更生人士開發創業潛能，讓他們重返社會時回饋社會？ (出處 TED Talent Search event TED@紐約)
Jeff Smith - Recovering politician
Once an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with. Full bio
Once an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
B.J. was one of many fellow inmates
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B.J. 是個有長遠計畫的囚犯
00:19
who had big plans for the future.
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B.J. 是個有長遠計畫的囚犯
00:21
He had a vision. When he got out,
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他很有遠見
00:23
he was going to leave the dope game for good and fly straight,
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出獄後循規蹈矩，不再碰毒品
00:26
and he was actually working on merging his two passions into one vision.
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他正將兩件他熱衷的事合為一項夢想
00:31
He'd spent 10,000 dollars
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他花一萬美元買了個網站
00:33
to buy a website that exclusively featured women
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講述女人在豪華跑車上/車內做愛
00:36
having sex on top of or inside of luxury sports cars. (Laughter)
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講述女人在豪華跑車上/車內做愛
00:42
It was my first week in federal prison,
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我在聯邦監獄的第一個星期
00:45
and I was learning quickly that it wasn't what you see on TV.
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便知道情況不如電視上看到的那樣
00:49
In fact, it was teeming with smart, ambitious men
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監獄裡有智慧、有野心的人比比皆是
00:52
whose business instincts were in many cases
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他們的商業頭腦
00:55
as sharp as those of the CEOs
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很多時可以媲美行政總裁
00:58
who had wined and dined me six months earlier
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像那些六個月前宴請我的大老闆一樣
00:59
when I was a rising star in the Missouri Senate.
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而我當時還是密蘇里州參議院的新秀
01:04
Now, 95 percent of the guys that I was locked up with
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和我一起蹲大牢的囚犯當中
01:07
had been drug dealers on the outside,
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百分之九十五的人在外頭賣過毒品
01:10
but when they talked about what they did,
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提起往事時
01:13
they talked about it in a different jargon,
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他們總說圈內獨有的行話
01:16
but the business concepts that they talked about
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但他們談論的經商理念
01:17
weren't unlike those that you'd learn in a first year MBA class at Wharton:
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與你頭一年在華頓MBA課裡學到的不相上下
01:21
promotional incentives, you never charge a first-time user,
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各種促銷手法，如永不向新客人收錢
01:26
focus-grouping new product launches,
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舉辦產品發表會
01:29
territorial expansion.
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拓展據點
01:31
But they didn't spend a lot of time reliving the glory days.
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但他們沒花多少時間緬懷黃金歲月
01:35
For the most part, everyone was just trying to survive.
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人人只一心努力求存
01:38
It's a lot harder than you might think.
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而這比你所想的困難得多
01:40
Contrary to what most people think,
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與大部分人所想的相反
01:43
people don't pay, taxpayers don't pay, for your life
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你坐牢，納稅人不會為你付生活費
01:46
when you're in prison. You've got to pay for your own life.
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自己的生活費要自己負責
01:48
You've got to pay for your soap, your deodorant,
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肥皂、除臭劑、牙刷、牙膏...
01:50
toothbrush, toothpaste, all of it.
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通通自己買
01:53
And it's hard for a couple of reasons.
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監獄裡日子難過有幾個原因
01:54
First, everything's marked up 30 to 50 percent
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第一，什麼都比街上賣的貴三到五成
01:56
from what you'd pay on the street,
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第一，什麼都比街上賣的貴三到五成
01:58
and second, you don't make a lot of money.
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第二，你賺不了多少錢
02:00
I unloaded trucks. That was my full-time job,
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我負責卸貨，那可是全職工作
02:03
unloading trucks at a food warehouse,
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在食物倉庫卸貨
02:05
for $5.25, not an hour, but per month.
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收入只有5.25美元，不是時薪，是月薪
02:09
So how do you survive?
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你怎麼能生存？
02:11
Well, you learn to hustle, all kinds of hustles.
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你得學會用各種方式賺錢
02:15
There's legal hustles.
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那裡有一套合法的買賣方式
02:17
You pay everything in stamps. Those are the currency.
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買東西便付郵票，那是裡頭的貨幣
02:19
You charge another inmate to clean his cell.
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你幫獄友清理牢房，向他要錢
02:21
There's sort of illegal hustles, like you run a barbershop out of your cell.
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有些賺錢方法輕微違規，如在牢房外開理髮店
02:26
There's pretty illegal hustles: You run a tattoo parlor out of your own cell.
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有些賺錢方法明顯違規，如在牢房外幫人刺青
02:30
And there's very illegal hustles, which you smuggle in,
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有些賺錢方法嚴重違規
02:34
you get smuggled in, drugs, pornography,
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像走私毒品、色情刊物、行動電話
02:38
cell phones, and just as in the outer world,
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情況一如外面的世界
02:41
there's a risk-reward tradeoff, so the riskier the enterprise,
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這些交易都有風險
02:45
the more profitable it can potentially be.
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風險愈大，潛在回報愈高
02:47
You want a cigarette in prison? Three to five dollars.
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想在監獄裡抽煙嗎？盛惠三到五美元
02:51
You want an old-fashioned cell phone that you flip open
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想要舊款的折疊式手機嗎？
02:55
and is about as big as your head? Three hundred bucks.
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電話大小和你的頭差不多，盛惠三百美元
02:58
You want a dirty magazine?
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想看色情雜誌嗎？
03:01
Well, it can be as much as 1,000 dollars.
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可能要花一千美元
03:04
So as you can probably tell, one of the defining aspects
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你該知道，絞盡腦汁是牢獄生活的最佳寫照
03:07
of prison life is ingenuity.
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你該知道，絞盡腦汁是牢獄生活的最佳寫照
03:11
Whether it was concocting delicious meals
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把倉庫裡偷來的剩菜煮成佳餚
03:13
from stolen scraps from the warehouse,
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把倉庫裡偷來的剩菜煮成佳餚
03:17
sculpting people's hair with toenail clippers,
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用指甲剪幫人做髮型
03:21
or constructing weights from boulders in laundry bags
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把石頭裝到洗衣袋裡來製造重量，然後綁在樹枝上
03:26
tied on to tree limbs, prisoners learn how to make do with less,
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囚犯學習如何用最簡單的方式做事
03:31
and many of them want to take this ingenuity
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很多人想把這份才智
03:34
that they've learned to the outside
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運用在出獄後的事業
03:36
and start restaurants, barber shops,
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像經營餐廳、理髮店
03:38
personal training businesses.
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及個人健身訓練指導
03:40
But there's no training, nothing to prepare them for that,
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但是裡頭沒有更新訓練
03:44
no rehabilitation at all in prison,
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沒人為他們準備任何事
03:46
no one to help them write a business plan,
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也沒人幫他們撰寫創業計畫
03:48
figure out a way to translate the business concepts
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把忽然想到的生意點子
03:52
they intuitively grasp into legal enterprises,
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轉換成一盤合法生意
03:55
no access to the Internet, even.
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監獄裡甚至連不上網絡
03:57
And then, when they come out, most states
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很多州政府沒有法例保護有前科的員工
04:00
don't even have a law prohibiting employers
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很多州政府沒有法例保護有前科的員工
04:02
from discriminating against people with a background.
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使他們免受歧視
04:06
So none of us should be surprised
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因此在座各位不必驚訝
04:08
that two out of three ex-offenders re-offend
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三分之二的囚犯出獄五年內會再次入獄
04:11
within five years.
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三分之二的囚犯出獄五年內會再次入獄
04:14
Look, I lied to the Feds. I lost a year of my life from it.
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我欺騙聯邦政府，在牢獄蹲了一年
04:19
But when I came out, I vowed that I was going to do
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但我出獄後
04:23
whatever I could to make sure
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發誓定必盡我所能，去幫助囚犯
04:24
that guys like the ones I was locked up with
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發誓定必盡我所能，去幫助囚犯
04:27
didn't have to waste any more of their life than they already had.
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不讓他們在監獄裡浪費更多時間
04:31
So I hope that you'll think about helping in some way.
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我希望你能考慮用某種方法幫他們
04:35
The best thing we can do is figure out ways
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最好的法子是培養囚犯的創業精神
04:37
to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit
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最好的法子是培養囚犯的創業精神
04:40
and the tremendous untapped potential in our prisons,
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以及那些未開發的驚人潛能
04:43
because if we don't, they're not going to learn any new skills
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否則，沒有自給自足的新技能
04:46
that's going to help them, and they'll be right back.
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他們很快便會重回監獄
04:49
All they'll learn on the inside is new hustles.
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只會學到更多違法賺錢手段
04:52
Thank you. (Applause)
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謝謝
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jeff Smith - Recovering politicianOnce an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with.
Why you should listen
In 2004, Jeff Smith ran for the U.S. Congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephardt, and came this close to defeating Republican Russ Carnahan. His inspiring, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign was documented in the award-winning documentary, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?.
A year later, Smith ran for the Missouri State Senate and won in a hotly contested election. He quickly became a rising star in the legislative body, focusing on education reform and tax credits among other things. However, in 2009, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into whether Smith had lied about a violation in his 2004 campaign. He ultimately plead guilty and spent a year in jail. It’s a story he has told on This American Life.
Since being released from prison, Smith accepted a position as an assistant professor at The New School's Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy in New York City. His research focuses on political campaigns, the role of race in urban politics and the legislative process. At the same time, he writes for The Recovering Politician, City & State NY and Politico's The Arena, and is working on an memoir.
Jeff Smith | Speaker | TED.com