经济学人01:离奇的企业家 Entrepreneurs

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　　书评；企业家

　　Headbanging

　　离奇的企业家

　　World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business As We Knew It. By John Byrne.

　　世界改变者：25位改变传统商业的企业家 作者：约翰·拜恩。

　　Hero-worship is out. Most serious writers are more interested in “forces” and “factors” than in heroes and heroines. And even biographers specialise in exposing feet of clay. Lord Acton's dictum that “great men are almost always bad men” has become a commonplace. Yet one group has escaped from this general cynicism: entrepreneurs. Company executives may be boring Gradgrinds, bankers the spawn³ of the devil and politicians crooks⁴ and liars⁵. But all agree that entrepreneurs are a cut above the rest of mankind.

　　英雄崇拜的时代已经不再。大多严肃的作家对“影响力”和“影响因素”比对英雄本身更加感兴趣。即使是传记作者，也开始专门曝光英雄的缺陷。艾克顿公爵的格言“伟人几乎总是坏人”已经成为名句。但是有一类人免受这种普遍的怀疑：企业家。企业的高管们也许像令人厌的葛擂梗（Gradgrinds，译者注：狄更斯小说《艰难时世》中的人物），是万恶之源的银行家和瞒天过海的政治家。但是所有人都同意企业家要高出其他人一筹。

　　The obvious reason for this is that entrepreneurs represent the creative side of “creative destruction”: it is not hard to see how Richard Branson and Steve Jobs have made the world a better place, or even Howard Schultz, the founder⁶ of Starbucks. A less obvious reason is that entrepreneurs appeal to our anti-establishment instincts: some of the very emotions that lead us to dislike chief executives and bankers also lead us to admire entrepreneurs. They are impatient with stuffy⁷ conventions. They turn the world upside-down. And they get fabulously⁸ rewarded for their efforts.

　　一个显而易见的原因是，企业家们代表着“创造性破坏”中创造性那一面：不难看到理查德·布兰森（Richard Branson，译者注：维珍（Virgin）品牌的创始人）和史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs），抑或是星巴克的创始人霍华德·舒尔茨（Howard Schultz）是如何使世界变得更好。另一个不那么明显的原因是，企业家唤起了我们反体制的本能：某种情绪让我们讨厌高管和银行家，却崇拜企业家。他们无法忍受古板的条条框框。他们将世界反转。他们也因其努力获得了惊人回报。

　　John Byrne's “World Changers” is a classic exercise in hero-worship. The author provides some interesting insight into what makes entrepreneurs tick. They come in a dizzying variety of shapes. John Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods, was a hippie. Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express, served in the marines during the Vietnam war. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, was a former leftist who found himself on the wrong side of the Bulgarian police.

　　约翰·拜恩（John Byrne）的《改变世界者》是英雄崇拜的经典之作。作者对什么使得企业家发挥作用提供了一些有趣的洞见。他们的出身形形色色。全食食品公司（Whole Foods）的联合创始人约翰·马克（John Mackey）是一个嬉皮士。联邦快递（Federal Express）的创始人弗里德·史密斯（Fred Smith）曾在越战时期参军。印孚瑟斯（Infosys）的联合创始人纳拉亚纳·穆尔萨（Narayana Murthy）曾经是站在保加利亚警方反方的左派。

　　But three things seem to unite them. The first is that entrepreneurs routinely see opportunities where everyone else sees problems. A surprising number of great companies were born out of fury and frustration⁹. Reed Hastings got the idea for Netflix when a video-rental agency presented him with a $40 late fee for “Apollo 13”. This opportunism melds with determination to produce a powerful cocktail¹⁰ of self-belief. Jeff Bezos continued to work away at his idea for an online bookshop even after his company, which remained in the red for its first six years, had been widely dismissed as Amazon.toast.

　　但是三件东西是他们同时具备的。第一，众人眼里的问题，企业家们通常却看到机会。从挫折中诞生的伟大的公司数不胜数。里德·哈斯廷斯（Reed Hastings）是在一家影碟租赁公司向他索取《阿波罗13号》40美元的滞纳金时，冒出了Netflix的灵感。这种机会主义和决心的融合通常炮制出了自我信念。杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）在他的公司前六年持续亏损，被广泛否认为“Amazon.toast”的时候，仍然坚持他网上书店的想法。

　　The second is an ability to live with risk and failure. Entrepreneurs do not go out of their way to court risk for its own sake. Many of them are far more conscious of risk than more conventional business people. Mr Hastings started working on the next iteration of Netflix almost as soon as he established his company because he knew that the internet would destroy his business model. But they accept that risk comes with success. Again and again entrepreneurs have been willing to bet their futures¹¹ on what sensible people might dismiss as a crazy idea. The entrepreneur's hall of fame is full of teenage flakes¹² and college dropouts.

　　第二是在风险和失败中存活的能力。企业家因从未因自身的原因放弃过多风险的追逐。许多企业家远比传统的商人更有风险意识。哈斯廷斯先生在Netflix成立之初就开始着手下一代Netflix的建设，因为他知道互联网将会破坏他的商业模式。但是他接受成功总是伴着风险。企业家总是愿意将他们的未来投在敏感的人看来疯狂的想法上。企业家们的名声里总不乏青年期叛逆和大学辍学等字眼。

　　The third feature uniting them is a determination to run their own lives. Most entrepreneurs have a problem with authority. They would rather fail as their own boss than succeed as second-in- command. A striking number of them come from difficult backgrounds. Ted² Turner's father, whom the boy worshipped, sent him to boarding school at the age of four and beat him with a coat hanger¹, for example. A disproportionate number suffer from dyslexia (Richard Branson and Charles Schwab are prominent examples).

　　第三个他们共有的特征是按照自己意愿生活的决心。多数企业家都有权利情结。他们宁愿像自己的老板一样失败，也不愿做个成功的二把手。他们中背景曲折的人奇多。比如，泰德· 特纳（Ted Turner，译者注：CNN的创办者）的父亲，深受特纳崇拜，在特纳四岁时就将他送入了寄宿学校，还用衣架打他。还有一部分人受到阅读障碍的困扰（理查德·布兰森和查尔斯·施瓦布（Charles Schwab，译者注：嘉信理财的创始人）就是典型的例子）。

　　Had “World Changers” continued in this vein¹³ it might have been a fascinating book. Mr Byrne is one of the most knowledgeable¹⁴ business writers around—a long-term writer for Business Week and the editor-in-chief of Fast Company. And he has been interviewing entrepreneurs for most of his professional life. But here he soon runs out of steam. He contents himself with printing his own interviews with his 25 world changers (or sometimes clipping together bits of other people's interviews) rather than writing interpretative essays. And he confronts them with soft questions. The likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg deserve to be admired. But 276 pages of hero-worship, particularly when so much of it comes in the form of the heroes blowing their own trumpets¹⁵, can wear a little thin.

　　如果《改变世界者》延续这个脉络，可能会是一本非常令人着迷的书。拜恩先生是最见多识广的商业作家之一，担任商业周刊的长期撰稿人和快速公司（Fast Company）的主编。在他多数的职业生活中他都是在访问企业家。但是他很快就失去了活力。他满足于书写他和25位改变世界者的访谈（或者有时候将其他人的访谈也拼凑一点），而并不写些有解释力的文章。他也总问他们一些温和的问题。比尔·盖茨和马克·扎克伯格之辈确实值得被崇拜。但是276页满篇的英雄崇拜，尤其很多都以英雄们自吹自擂的方式呈现，难免乏味。

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