谷歌是21世纪的通用电气

当前位置：首页 > 英语笔译

谷歌是21世纪的通用电气

天之聪教育 2013-06-13 天之聪教育 265次

谷歌是21世纪的通用电气

Google is

Everywhere one looks, Google is doing remarkable things. It could soon overtake Apple in downloads of applications; it is developing self-driving cars; people wear its kooky augmented reality Glass spectacles; it is signing renewable power deals in South Africa and Sweden.

不管放眼哪个领域，谷歌(Google)都在做着非同凡响的事情。谷能的应用下载量可能很快超过苹果(Apple)。它正在开发自动驾驶汽车。人们戴上了谷歌疯狂的增强现实眼镜。谷歌正在与南非和瑞典签署投资可再能能源电厂的协议。

From being a one-product company that tapped a stream of wealth with paid internet search, Google is emerging as the dominant consumer technology company of the early 21st century, along with Amazon. Fred Wilson, a leading New York venture capitalist, accuses it of trying to control the internet, “like Microsoft tried with personal computing . . . Who will stop Google?”

谷歌曾是一家只有单一产品的公司，从付费网络搜索中掘到了金矿。如今谷歌正在与亚马逊(Amazon)一道，成为21世纪前期占据主导地位的消费科技企业。一位重要的纽约风险投资家弗雷德•威尔逊(Fred Wilson)指责谷歌试图控制互联网，“就像微软(Microsoft)曾尝试控制个人电脑一样……谁能阻止谷歌？”

My answer is: nobody, or not easily. Indeed, the best comparison for Google seems to me not Microsoft in the 1980s but General Electric in the late 19th century – the age of electrification. Like GE, Google is a multifaceted industrial enterprise riding a wave of technology with an uncanny ability not only to invent far-reaching products but also to produce them commercially.

我的回答是：没有人，或者难度很大。其实，在我看来，与谷歌地位最相像的不是20世纪80年代的微软，而是19世纪末期电气化时代的通用电气(GE)。谷歌就像通用电气一样，是一家业务极其多元化的工业企业，踩准科技潮流，能力非凡，不仅能发明出影响深远的产品，还能挖掘产品的商业价值。

It coincides with Larry Page’s ascent to being undisputed leader of the company he founded at Stanford University with Sergey Brin 15 years ago. Instead of the “Google guys” – Mr Page, Mr Brin and Eric Schmidt, its former chief executive and now chairman – running it as an amiable mixture of a company and a chaotic research lab, Mr Page has made it formidably focused.

谷歌的崛起也正是拉里•佩奇(Larry Page)成长为这家企业无可争议的领导者之时。15年前，佩奇与谢尔盖•布林(Sergey Brin)在斯坦福大学(Stanford University)联合创立了谷歌。佩奇、布林与前首席执行官、现任董事长埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)被称为“谷歌那帮人”，他们把谷歌经营成企业与混乱的研究实验室的亲切混合体，但佩奇不同，他让谷歌变得异常专注。

Google’s growing lead in data analysis and artificial intelligence became clear at its developers’ conference in May. “It’s easy for consumers to switch to another search engine, but it is difficult to make anything as good,” says Benedict Evans, an analyst. “Google is a massive machine learning project, and it’s been feeding the machine for a decade.”

在五月份举办的开发者大会上，谷歌在数据分析与人工智能方面日益巩固的领先地位已十分明显。分析师班尼迪克•埃文斯(Benedict Evans)指出：“用户很容易就能转换到其他搜索引擎，但要其他公司很难做出谷歌那么优秀的东西。谷歌是一个庞大的机器学习项目，十年来一直支持着这台机器的运行。”

All of this is happening at a time of growing scepticism about Silicon Valley – its airy claims to be changing the world for the better when the people who most benefit are its own billionaires; its use of low-tax jurisdictions to avoid corporate tax; the dubious ways in which many free services collect and exploit personal data; the triviality of countless start-ups.

谷歌崛起的同时，人们对硅谷的质疑也在日益加剧。硅谷提出让世界变得更美好的口号虚无缥缈，最大的受益人是硅谷的亿万富翁。硅谷企业借用低税率地区的优势规避企业所得税。很多免费服务收集与利用个人数据的方式让人生疑。无数初创企业平凡庸碌。

The social networking boom that started a decade ago is waning, with Zynga, the internet games company, laying off 18 per cent of employees. George Packer wrote in The New Yorker of Silicon Valley: “The hottest tech start-ups are solving all the problems of being 20 years old, with cash in hand, because that’s who thinks them up.”

10年前兴起的社交网络繁荣正在消退，互联网游戏公司Zynga裁员18%。乔治•帕克(George Packer)在《纽约客》(New Yorker)上谈论硅谷时写道：“最热门的科技初创企业都在解决20岁来岁的人手握大把现金带来的所有问题，因为公司是这些年轻人创立的。”

Google is not without sin – it faces heavy criticism for its tax avoidance, and despite its proclamation of being an open standards company, it fights as hard as Microsoft to keep others stuck to its platform. But Mr Page can hardly be accused of lacking purpose and vision.

谷歌并非毫无瑕疵，人们大力抨击谷歌逃税。尽管谷歌声称自己是一家开放标准的企业，却像微软一样不遗余力地把他人黏在自己的平台上。但人们很难指责佩奇缺乏目标和愿景。

He has extended its search lead into mobile, through Android and Chrome software, and he shows no signs of being satisfied. “We haven’t seen this rate of change in technology for a long time, probably not since the birth of personal computing,” he remarked happily at the May conference.

他通过安卓(Android)和Chrome浏览器等软件，把谷歌的搜索领先地位拓展到移动领域，而且并不就此满足。在五月份的大会上，他愉快地说道：“我们已经很久没有见过这么快速的科技变化了，可能自个人电脑诞生以后就没见过。”

Meanwhile, other Silicon Valley giants face varying degrees of difficulty. Investors have soured on Apple since Tim Cook became chief executive, discouraged by, among other things, its botched attempt to rival Google Maps. Yahoo, run by an ex-Googler, Marissa Mayer, is struggling to replicate its engineering strength, while Facebook is trying to move to mobile.

同时，其他硅谷巨头正在面临不同程度的困难。自蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)出任苹果首席执行官以来，投资者对苹果就失去了兴趣，苹果拙劣地想要同谷歌地图竞争，此类事件让投资者望而却步。由前谷歌员工梅里莎•梅尔(Marissa Mayer)掌管的雅虎(Yahoo)正在艰难地复制其工程实力，而Facebook正在尝试进入移动领域。

None matches its computer science research capacity, or ability to turn ideas into products. The clearest manifestation is Google X, its “moonshot” research lab, which is developing wearable computers and “autonomous” cars. But research in software and artificial intelligence lies at Google’s core.

但谁也比不上谷歌的计算机科学研究能力，或者把想法转化成产品的能力。最明显的代表是其探月研究实验室Google X，目前正在开发可穿戴式计算机以及“自动驾驶”汽车。但软件与人工智能方面是谷歌研究的核心。

What was once a search company has become an internet, data and software company with boundless ambition and the capacity to deliver a flow of unexpected products. In that sense, Mr Page is a latter-day Thomas Edison, a commercial inventor marked by “the utterly fearless range of his experimental activities,” according to Randall Stross, a biographer.

如今，谷歌已从昔日的搜索公司变成一家网络、数据和软件公司，既有勃勃雄心，又有足够的能力来开发一系列出人意料的产品。从这个方面讲，佩奇就是当代的托马斯•爱迪生(Thomas Edison)。用传记作家兰德尔•斯特罗斯(Randall Stross)话说，爱迪生是一位有商业头脑的发明家，典型特征是“他进行了各种各样大胆的实验活动”。

Compared with the 1890s, Google resembles GE, while Amazon is like Sears Roebuck, the catalogue shopping company that transformed US retailing. GE was founded in 1892 and Sears Roebuck in 1893, at a time when the continent was altered by the telegraph and electricity.

拿现在与19世纪90年代相比，谷歌类似于通用电气，而亚马逊则像改变了美国零售业的目录购物公司西尔斯罗巴克(Sears Roebuck)。通用电器成立于1892年，西尔斯罗巴克成立于1893年，当时电报和电力改变了美洲大陆的面貌。

Mr Page often talks of his fascination with Nikola Tesla, the Serbian US immigrant who worked for Edison and later fought him in the “wars of current” – the battle between Edison and Westinghouse over whether the US should adopt DC or AC electricity. He read a biography of Tesla as a child and “cried at the end because I realised you can be the world’s greatest inventor and still be a failure”.

佩奇常常谈到他对尼古拉•特斯拉(Nikola Tesla)的崇拜。特斯拉是位塞尔维亚裔美国移民，为爱迪生工作，后来与爱迪生陷入“电流之战”。这是一场爱迪生与西屋(Westinghouse)的争斗，焦点是美国应该采用直流电还是交流电。佩奇小时候读特斯拉的传记，“读到最后哭了起来，因为我认识到，你可以成为世界最伟大的发明家，但依然陷入失败。”

Both Tesla and Edison were equal parts inventors and showmen, and neither one succeeded completely in business – GE was formed in a merger, with Edison losing control. Henry Ford is said to have called him “the world’s greatest inventor and the world’s worst businessman”. Mr Page, who has a $20bn fortune, scores higher.

特斯拉与爱迪生是旗鼓相当的发明家，也是炫耀者，两人在商业上都不算大获成功——通用电气诞生于一场兼并之中，爱迪生失去了对公司的控制权。据说亨利•福特(Henry Ford)曾说他“是世界上最伟大的发明家，但又是全世界最差劲的生意人”。佩奇身家达200亿美元，在商业方面得分更高。

But electricity disrupted industries as fully as the internet. The Brooklyn Eagle wrote of incumbent gas companies: “To see them squirm and writhe is a public satisfaction that lifts Edison to a higher plane than that of the wonderful inventor and causes him to be regarded as a benefactor of the human race.”

但互联网与电力一样，颠覆了工业。《布鲁克林之鹰》(Brooklyn Eagle)曾评论现有油气企业：“看着它们坐立不安辗转反侧真是大快人心，这提高了爱迪生的地位，使他不仅仅被视为一位伟大的发明家，而是给全人类带来了福音。”

GE had many rivals, yet its combination of inventiveness and commercial acumen marked it out from the pack, setting it up to exploit the technology Edison had pioneered for the next century. The unnerving thing about Mr Page is that he studies history.

通用电气有很多竞争对手，但其发明能力结合敏锐的商业意识让其脱颖而出，踌躇满志地在下一个世纪利用爱迪生开拓的科技。佩奇让人胆怯的是，他研究历史。