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What the Future Looks Like’
“未來是什么樣子的”
“There’s a savior mentality in Silicon Valley,” says Lucie Greene, worldwide director of the Innovation Group at advertising and marketing giant J.
“硅谷有一種救世主心態，” 廣告和營銷巨頭智威湯遜廣告公司創新集團全球總監露西·格林說道。
Walter Thompson and author of the forthcoming book Silicon States, about the growing influence of high-tech companies.
露西·格林即將出版的《硅州》一書，講述高科技公司日益增長的影響力。
“Because these companies can attract so much money despite not having to succeed by traditional metrics like profitability, they’re able to position themselves to define what the future looks like.”
“盡管不需要通過盈利能力等傳統指標取得成功，但因為這些公司可以吸引如此多的資金，所以他們能夠通過定位自己來定義未來。”
For Musk, that means transforming the auto industry through innovative manufacturing built around leading-edge robots, advances in batteries and a unique approach to sales that cuts out the need for car dealerships.
對馬斯克來說，這意味著通過前沿機器人的創新制造、電池技術的進步以及獨特的銷售方式來改變汽車行業。
Tesla has almost single-handedly energized the electric car industry by bringing out sleek, fast,
特斯拉幾乎是單槍匹馬為電動汽車行業注入了活力，
luxurious vehicles that can travel over 300 miles between charges—a welcome development on a planet devastated by our over-reliance on fossil fuels.
特斯拉推出了時尚、速度快、豪華的汽車，一次充電可以行駛300英里以上——在我們過度依賴化石燃料的地球上，這是一個可喜的發展。
Tesla’s revenues are climbing as shipments of its first mass-market model start to take off.
隨著第一款大眾市場車型的出貨量開始激增，特斯拉的收入正在攀升。
The company has already taken deposits on the car from half a million apparently eager buyers,
特斯拉已經從50萬急切的買家那里拿到了預付款。
and Musk announced in August that Tesla is poised to turn a profit for the first time in the next six months.
今年8月，馬斯克宣布，特斯拉有望在未來6個月內首次實現盈利。
There’s a consensus among analysts that should Tesla burn through the nearly $2 billion it still has on hand—
特斯拉是否應該消耗掉手頭上的近20億美元——
the company incinerated a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2018 alone—
特斯拉僅在2018年第一季度就燒掉10億美元——
Musk can raise the funding he needs to keep going, in part because Tesla may have already become too big to fail.
分析師們一致認為，馬斯克能夠籌集到繼續運營所需的資金，部分原因是特斯拉可能已經大到不能倒了。
“The company has a market value of $60 billion, so investors will give him more money,” says Colin Rusch, lead analyst on sustainable energy for Wall Street investment company Oppenheimer.
“特斯拉市值600億美元，所以投資者會給他更多的錢，”華爾街投資公司Oppenheimer可持續能源首席分析師科林·羅斯克說道，
Even with the beating Tesla stock has taken recently, the company is still worth more than Ford.
盡管特斯拉的股價最近跌宕起伏，但該公司的市值仍高于福特。
To be sure, high-tech companies have long boasted of disrupting industries with innovative products and new ways to do business.
可以肯定的是，高科技公司長期以來一直以創新產品和新的經營方式顛覆行業而自豪。
They’ve unleashed vast improvements in information access, communications and productivity while creating incredible wealth for investors, entrepreneurs and key employees.
它們在信息獲取、溝通和生產率方面取得了巨大進步，同時為投資者、企業家和關鍵員工創造了難以置信的財富。
What Musk represents is the problematic Silicon Valley Effect—
馬斯克代表的是有問題的硅谷效應——
the troubling contradiction between tech companies’ loudly proclaimed dedication to making the world a better place and their quieter dedication to making products for the rich at the expense of workers.
科技公司高調宣稱要讓世界變得更美好，而他們以犧牲工人利益為代價為富人制造產品，兩者之間存在著令人不安的矛盾。
Just as Amazon’s rise has been a disaster for many of the 12 million American workers in the retail industry, Tesla’s ascendance could decimate U.S. manufacturing—and not just the automobile industry,
正如亞馬遜的崛起對零售業1200萬美國工人中的許多人來說是一場災難一樣，特斯拉的崛起可能會摧毀美國制造業——不僅是汽車工業。
which at last count employed 7 million people and supports the livelihood of many millions more.
據最新統計，汽車工業雇傭了700萬人，支撐著數百萬人的生活。
The catch to building world-changing companies, of course, is that they eventually have to turn a profit.
當然，打造改變世界的公司的關鍵在于，最終必須盈利。
That pressure to make money tends to push even leading-edge companies to focus on those who can afford premium, higher-priced products, and to slash labor costs through automation and squeezing fewer workers to do more for lower wages.
這種賺錢的壓力往往會促使甚至是最尖端的公司將重點放在那些能夠負擔得起高質量、高價格產品的企業上，并通過自動化來削減勞動力成本，并迫使更少的工人為更低的工資做更多事情。
Tesla is not exempt from the laws of financial gravity.
特斯拉也不能逃脫金融引力的法則。
The cheapest vehicle that the company will currently accept an order for is a $49,000 version of its newest model, the Model 3—a car Musk has long bragged would have a starting price of $35,000.
特斯拉目前接受訂單的最便宜車型是Model 3，售價4.9萬美元。馬斯克一直吹噓，Model 3的起價為3.5萬美元。
That’s essentially the average price for a new car in the U.S., but there are plenty of models priced under $20,000.
這基本上是美國新車的平均價格，但也有很多價格在2萬美元以下的型號。
His disputed claim—that Tesla can make money selling a $35,000 car to millions of people—has come to sound like the practice Silicon Valley fondly calls “fake it till you make it.”
他有爭議的主張是，特斯拉可以通過向數百萬人出售3.5萬美元的汽車來賺錢，這聽起來就像硅谷天真的說法，“真成功之前先假裝”。
That is, a disruptive new company that has a lot of kinks to work out needs to drum up a certain amount of hype to pull in the investors, talent and customers it needs to sustain itself while it tries to make a profit.
也就是說，一家有很多問題需要解決的具有顛覆性的新公司，需要進行一定程度的炒作，吸引投資者、人才和客戶，以便在盈利的同時維持自身的生存。
And then it has to figure out how to deliver on that hype before everyone notices.
然后，須得在所有人都注意到之前，找出傳播這種炒作的方法。
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