2020年经济学人 技术行业在危机中的机会(1)（在线收听）

Leaders

来源于《社论》版块

The technology industry

技术行业

Don’t waste a good crisis

不要在危机中浪费好机会

Big tech firms are thriving. They should seize the moment and detoxify their relations with society

大型科技公司正在蓬勃发展。应抓住时机，消除与社会的关系

The pandemic will have many losers, but it already has one clear winner: big tech. The large digital platforms, including Alphabet and Facebook, will come out of the crisis even stronger. They should use this good fortune to reset their sometimes testy relations with their users. Otherwise big government, the other beneficiary of the covid calamity, is likely to do it for them.

这场流行病将导致许多输家，但已经有了一个明显的赢家：大型科技公司。包括Alphabet和Facebook在内的大型数字平台在渡过危机后将更加强大。他们应该充分发挥这种上升运势来重新调整与用户之间有时会出现的紧张关系。否则，“大政府”——冠状病毒灾难的另一个受益者——可能会代他们做这件事。

Demand for online services has exploded and the infrastructure behind the internet has proved to be admirably reliable. Newcomers such as Slack and Zoom, which help businesses operate remotely, have become household names. And although some tech supply chains are creaking and online advertising spending has dipped, overall the big five firms are seeing surging demand.

对在线服务的需求呈爆炸式增长，互联网背后的基础设施也被证明是非常可靠的。帮助企业远程操作的Slack和Zoom等新公司已经成为家喻户晓的名字。尽管一些技术供应链正在崩溃，在线广告支出有所下降，但总体而言，五大公司的需求正在飙升。

Facebook has said that messaging activity has increased by 50% in those countries hit hard by the virus. Amazon is planning to hire 100,000 new staff to keep up with higher e-commerce orders. The big tech firms are also a bastion of financial stability: together Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have $570bn of gross cash on their balance-sheets. Shares in these firms have outperformed the market since late January.

Facebook表示，在那些遭受病毒重创的国家，消息传递活动增加了50%。亚马逊计划招聘10万名新员工，以满足更多的电子商务订单需求。大型科技公司也是金融稳定的堡垒：Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、Facebook和微软的资产负债表上总共有5700亿美元现金。自1月底以来，这些公司的股票表现一直优于市场均值。

Just as the big firms are standing even taller, many of the tech industry’s younger, smaller firms are being crushed in the worst slump since the dotcom crash 20 years ago. Even before the coronavirus hit, trouble was brewing in the land of unicorns, as tech startups worth more than $1bn are called. Among many firms catering to consumers, the strategy of growing at all costs, known as “blitzscaling”, had turned out to be flawed. Some firms, particularly those stuffed with capital by SoftBank’s $100bn Vision Fund, had already started laying off people. All this will make it easier for the big firms to hire the best talent. Collapsing firms could be snapped up by the tech giants.

就在大公司站得更高的时候，许多资历更短、规模更小的科技公司却在这场自20年前互联网泡沫破裂以来最严重的经济衰退中被压垮了。早在冠状病毒爆发之前，这个“独角兽之地”就已经在酝酿着麻烦。“独角兽之地”指的是市值超过10亿美元的科技初创企业。在许多迎合消费者的公司中，不惜一切代价发展的策略，即所谓的“闪电式扩张”，被证明是有缺陷的。一些公司，尤其是软银1000亿美元愿景基金注资的那些公司，已经开始裁员。所有这些都将使大公司更容易雇佣到最优秀的人才。濒临倒闭的公司可能会被科技巨头争相收购。