評論
打印
Business
來源于《商業》版塊
Big Tech and antitrust
大型科技公司與反壟斷
How to dismantle a monopoly
如何打破壟斷
Would it be possible to carve up Big Tech? If so, would it ever happen?
有可能瓜分大型科技公司嗎？如果是這樣，它會發生嗎？
“Father lennon, have you some money? Buy Standard Oil.” That’s what John D. Rockefeller is said to have told his golf partner, a priest, when he heard the news in 1911 that the Supreme Court had ruled his oil company was to be broken up into 34 smaller firms. It was good advice. Within a few years the value of those firms rose threefold. The net worth of Rockefeller, who owned more than 25% of each, grew from about $300m in 1911to $900m in 1913, around $23bn in current dollars.
“列儂神父，你有錢嗎？請買下標準石油公司。”據說1911年，約翰·D.洛克菲勒在聽到最高法院裁定他的石油公司將被分拆成34家小公司的消息時，就是這么對他的牧師高爾夫球伙伴說的。這是個好建議。幾年內，這些公司的價值增長了三倍。洛克菲勒擁有兩家公司25%以上的股份，其凈資產從1911年的3億美元增長到1913年的9億美元，相當于現在的230億美元。
A break-up of today’s tech titans—Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple—could also unlock vast value, say some with an eye on the industry. If the most radical plan, proposed by Elizabeth Warren, a leading Democratic contender for America’s presidency, were fully implemented, by some calculations the parts spun off alone could be worth over $2trn—roughly half the value of the four complete firms today.
一些關注該行業的人士表示，如今的科技巨頭（谷歌、亞馬遜、Facebook和蘋果）的分拆也可能釋放出巨大的價值。如果由美國總統的主要民主黨競爭者伊麗莎白•沃倫提出的最激進的計劃得到全面實施，根據一些計算，僅剝離出來的部分就價值超過2萬億美元，大約是今天四家完整公司價值的一半。
Ms Warren’s two-pronged scheme was presented in March, but it is now coming under closer scrutiny as her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination gathers steam. The first part is relatively straightforward. She intends to unwind tech mergers deemed “anticompetitive” because they were undertaken to neutralise potential competitors. This is mainly aimed at Facebook, which in 2012 bought Instagram, a picture-heavy social network, for $1bn and in 2014 paid $19bn for WhatsApp, an instant-messaging service. Both of these, industry insiders argue, could have become serious rivals to Facebook. But Ms Warren also aims to undo other deals, such as DoubleClick, an advertising exchange bought by Google, and Whole Foods, a grocery chain acquired by Amazon.
沃倫的雙管齊下的計劃于今年3月提出，但隨著她爭取民主黨總統候選人提名的活動逐漸升溫，該計劃目前正受到更密切的關注。第一部分相對簡單。她打算撤銷被視為“反競爭”的科技企業合并，因為這些合并是為了中和潛在競爭對手。這主要是針對Facebook的。2012年，Facebook斥資10億美元收購了以圖片為主的社交網絡Instagram，2014年又斥資190億美元收購了即時通訊服務WhatsApp。業內人士認為，這兩家公司都可能成為Facebook的勁敵。但沃倫還打算撤銷其它交易，例如谷歌收購的廣告交易所DoubleClick，以及亞馬遜收購的雜貨連鎖店Whole Foods。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
