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The Big is Back
王者歸來
Corporate giants were on the defensive for decades. Now they have the advantage again.
在過去幾十年里，大型企業一直處于防守狀態，現在他們又重新獲得了優勢。
In 1996, in one of his most celebrated phrases, Bill Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over". He might have added that the era of big companies was over, too. The organization that defined capitalism for much of the 20th century was then in retreat, attacked by corporate raiders, harassed by shareholders and outfoxed by entrepreneurs.
1996年，在克林頓的眾多著名言論中，他曾說過“大型政府的時代已經結束了”。當時應該再加上一句“大型企業的時代也隨之消失了”。從那時起，在20世紀一直秉持資本主義精神的大型企業已經開始萎縮，并受到破壞者的攻擊、股東的騷擾和其他企業家的挫敗。
Today the balance of advantage may be shifting again. To a degree, the financial crisis is responsible. It has devastated the venture-capital market, the lifeblood of many young firms. Governments have been rescuing companies they consider too big to fail, such as Citigroup and General Motors. Recession is squeezing out smaller and less well-connected firms.
現如今，利益的天平可能要傾向另外一邊了。從某種程度來說，金融危機正是誘因所在。這次的危機摧毀了一些新型公司賴以生存的風險投資市場。政府一直忙于拯救那些不能讓其隨便破產的大企業，比如花旗集團和通用汽車，而任憑危機去淘汰那些不太重要的小企業。
Of course, big companies never went away. There were still plenty of first-rate ones: Unilever and Toyota continued to innovate through thick and thin. And not all start-ups were models of success: Netscape and Enron promised to revolutionize their industries only to crash and burn. Nevertheless, the balance had shifted in favor of small organizations.
事實上，大企業一直都在。比如聯合利華和豐田等大型企業就一直不畏艱難，勇于創新。而且，并不是所有的創業型公司都成為了成功典范：網景和安然公司就曾揚言要革新自己的領域，然而卻以失敗告終。盡管如此，當時天平還是偏向了小型企業一側。
The entrepreneurial boom was supercharged by two developments. Deregulation opened protected markets. Some national champions, such as AT&T, were broken up. Others saw their markets eaten up by swift-footed newcomers. The arrival of the personal computer in the 1970s and the internet in the 1990s created an army of successful start-ups. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer in 1976 in the Jobs family's garage. Microsoft and Dell Computer were both founded by teenagers (in 1975 and 1984 respectively). Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in Stanford dorm rooms.
創業的黃金時代的到來主要源于兩件事。撤銷經濟管制打開了受保護的市場的大門。一些大型企業，例如美國電訊公司最終倒閉，而另外一些企業占有的市場被后來居上的對手蠶食。20世紀70年代個人電腦的誕生以及90年代互聯網的推廣為創業型公司提供了一臂之力。1976年，史蒂夫·喬布斯和史蒂夫·沃茲尼亞克在喬布斯家的車庫里創建了蘋果電腦公司。微軟和戴爾的創始人當時也還是十幾歲的少年（他們的公司分別在1975和1984年創建）。拉瑞·佩吉和塞吉·布林在斯坦福大學宿舍里開始了谷歌的創業歷程。
Two further developments are shifting the balance of advantage in favor of size. One is a heightened awareness of the risks of subcontracting. Toy companies and pet-food firms alike have found that their brands can be tainted if their suppliers turn out shoddy goods. Big industrial companies have learned that their production cycles can be disrupted if contractors are not up to the mark. Boeing, once a champion of outsourcing, has been forced to take over faltering suppliers.
還有兩個原因導致了天平傾向大型企業。一是人們對承包風險的認識不斷加深。玩具公司和寵物食品公司都意識到，如果他們的供應商提供劣質貨物，自己的品牌形象就很容易受到影響。大型工業公司同樣也意識到，如果承包人不能勝任自己的工作，公司的生產周期將會受到影響。波音公司的外包業務曾經是業界之冠，現在卻被迫承擔起供應的責任。
A second is the emergence of companies that have discovered how to be entrepreneurial as well as big. These giants are getting better at minimizing the costs of size (such as longer, more complex chains of managerial command) while exploiting its advantages (such as presence in several markets and access to a large talent pool). Cisco Systems is pioneering the use of its own video technology to improve communications between its employees. IBM has carried out several company-wide brainstorming exercises, recently involving more than 150,000 people that have encouraged it to put more emphasis, for example, on green computing. Disney has successfully ingested Pixar's creative magic.
另一方面，則是出現了一批懂得如何自我發展和壯大的企業。他們在降低成本（比如延長或深化經營管理周期）和利用自身優勢（例如涉足多個行業并發展一個大的智囊團）方面做得非常好。思科系統開辟了使用自身研發的視頻技術改善員工溝通的先河。IBM目前已經開展了幾次公司級別的意見征集大會，最近一次的會議涉及到15萬人之多，以激勵員工更加重視綠色計算（或其他）。迪士尼也成功地收購了皮克斯，從而將皮克斯的創新魔力據為己有。
You might suppose that the return of the mighty, now better equipped to crush the competition, is something to worry about. Not necessarily. Big is not always ugly just as small is not always beautiful. Most entrepreneurs dream of turning their start-ups into giants (or at least of selling them to giants for a fortune). There is a symbiosis between large and small. "Cloud computing" would not provide young firms with access to huge amounts of computer power if big companies had not created giant servers. Biotech start-ups would go bust were they not given work by giants with deep pockets.
你也許對大企業的回歸感到擔憂，比如他們擁有可以摧毀對手的更強勁的力量。這種顧慮是沒有必要的，因為大的不一定就丑，正如小的不一定都美。很多創業人士都夢想著把自己的企業做大（或者賣給大企業）。大企業和小公司是互利依存的。如果大企業沒有制造出大型服務器，那么“云計算”就無法向小公司提供龐大的計算機數據。如果生物技術行業的小公面沒有從大企業口袋里賺錢，那他們一定會破產。
