英语PK台 第1027期:翻译入门(22) 优步的崛起与迷失（在线收听）

Mr. Kalanick deserves credit for creating a world-changing company, one that scaled vertiginously from a modest black car service in San Francisco to a global brand in hundreds of cities. Those who invested first saw staggering returns. One frequent customer, Oren Michels, cut Mr. Kalanick a check for $5,000 early on. By the end of 2017, the stake had multiplied in value some 3,300 times, worth more than $15 million.

卡兰尼克创造了一家改变世界的公司，这值得称赞。这家公司令人目眩神迷，从旧金山一家不起眼的高级轿车服务公司发展成为在数百个城市拥有业务的全球品牌。最先投资的人获得了惊人的回报。在早期，一位名叫奥伦·米歇尔(Oren Michels)的常客给卡兰尼克开了一张5000美元的支票。到2017年底，这些股份的价值已经增长了3300倍，价值超过1500万美元。

As a private start-up, Uber represented pure possibility — at its peak, a $69 billion wrecking ball threatening entities as vast as the taxi industry, mass transit networks and automotive giants, all at the same time. It was a start-up that not only booked Beyoncé to play a staff party — it paid her with $6 million in restricted stock that quickly surged in value.

作为一家私营初创企业，优步呈现了绝对的潜能——在鼎盛时期，它像是一个价值690亿美元的落锤，同时威胁着出租车行业、公共交通网络和汽车巨头等庞大的实体。这家初创公司不仅邀请碧昂丝(Beyoncé)来员工派对演出，还以600万美元限制性股票的形式支付报酬给她，股票价值也很快暴涨。

The public Uber displays little of this braggadocio, and competitors and critics are moving in. Labor activists are pushing back against the lack of worker protections for drivers, and legislation could push up the driver minimum wage in cities like New York. The hype around Uber’s autonomous cars has died down, and until they arrive — if they ever do — the company will have a hard time reducing the costs it incurs paying drivers.

上市后的优步很少表现出这种浮夸，而竞争对手和批评人士也在步步进逼。劳工维权人士正在反对司机缺乏工人保护，立法可能会提高纽约等城市司机的最低工资。对优步无人驾驶汽车的热炒已经冷却，在这种车成为现实之前——假设真的能实现——公司需要费很大力气降低付钱给司机带来的成本。

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In August, Uber posted its largest-ever quarterly loss, about $5.2 billion, as its revenue growth hit a record low. In cities around the world, Uber faces well-financed competitors offering a substantially similar product. And its food delivery business — a bright spot that executives point to for growth prospects — is in danger of becoming another cash-suck. Uber and most of its basically indistinguishable competitors (it names 10 of them in a recent filing) are subsidizing customers’ meals in a bid for market share, with profitability a secondary concern.

今年8月，优步营收增长创下历史新低，季度亏损约52亿美元，是该公司创立以来最大的季度亏损。在世界各地的城市，优步面临着资金充足的竞争对手，它们提供的产品基本类似。而其送餐业务——公司高管以此为增长前景的一个亮点——可能会成为又一个烧钱的无底洞。优步及其大多数基本上没什么区别的竞争对手（在最近的一份文件中，优步列出了10家竞争对手）都在贴钱给订餐的顾客，以争夺市场份额，盈利能力是次要的。

Investors are internalizing these challenges. Interest in shorting Uber stock has only grown since the I.P.O., according to share borrowing data from IHS Markit, with pessimists betting some $2 billion that the price of shares will continue to fall.

这些挑战投资者都看在眼里。自优步上市以来，做空其股票的兴趣只增不减，根据IHS Markit的股票借贷数据，悲观人士押了20亿美元赌它的股票继续下跌。

In combing through documents, interviewing opponents and talking to more than 200 current and former employees while researching my book, what came up again and again was this sense of a public-private divide — that Mr. Kalanick had built a start-up that thrived on venture investment, blitzkrieg expansion tactics, but that the playbook made little sense for a publicly traded entity.

在为本书做研究期间，我梳理文档，采访竞争对手，与200多名现任和前任员工交谈，这种上市与私人公司的区别一次又一次地浮现出来——卡兰尼克建立了一个初创公司，靠着风险投资、闪电战扩张策略发展起来，但是这套攻略对上市的实体毫无意义。