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The Big is Back
王者归来
Corporate giants were on the defensive for decades. Now they have the advantage again.
在过去几十年里，大型企业一直处于防守状态，现在他们又重新获得了优势。
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，在克林顿的众多著名言论中，他曾说过“大型政府的时代已经结束了”。当时应该再加上一句“大型企业的时代也随之消失了”。从那时起，在20世纪一直秉持资本主义精神的大型企业已经开始萎缩，并受到破坏者的攻击、股东的骚扰和其他企业家的挫败。
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.
现如今，利益的天平可能要倾向另外一边了。从某种程度来说，金融危机正是诱因所在。这次的危机摧毁了一些新型公司赖以生存的风险投资市场。政府一直忙于拯救那些不能让其随便破产的大企业，比如花旗集团和通用汽车，而任凭危机去淘汰那些不太重要的小企业。
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.
事实上，大企业一直都在。比如联合利华和丰田等大型企业就一直不畏艰难，勇于创新。而且，并不是所有的创业型公司都成为了成功典范：网景和安然公司就曾扬言要革新自己的领域，然而却以失败告终。尽管如此，当时天平还是偏向了小型企业一侧。
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.
创业的黄金时代的到来主要源于两件事。撤销经济管制打开了受保护的市场的大门。一些大型企业，例如美国电讯公司最终倒闭，而另外一些企业占有的市场被后来居上的对手蚕食。20世纪70年代个人电脑的诞生以及90年代互联网的推广为创业型公司提供了一臂之力。1976年，史蒂夫·乔布斯和史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克在乔布斯家的车库里创建了苹果电脑公司。微软和戴尔的创始人当时也还是十几岁的少年（他们的公司分别在1975和1984年创建）。拉瑞·佩吉和塞吉·布林在斯坦福大学宿舍里开始了谷歌的创业历程。
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.
还有两个原因导致了天平倾向大型企业。一是人们对承包风险的认识不断加深。玩具公司和宠物食品公司都意识到，如果他们的供应商提供劣质货物，自己的品牌形象就很容易受到影响。大型工业公司同样也意识到，如果承包人不能胜任自己的工作，公司的生产周期将会受到影响。波音公司的外包业务曾经是业界之冠，现在却被迫承担起供应的责任。
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，则是出现了一批懂得如何自我发展和壮大的企业。他们在降低成本（比如延长或深化经营管理周期）和利用自身优势（例如涉足多个行业并发展一个大的智囊团）方面做得非常好。思科系统开辟了使用自身研发的视频技术改善员工沟通的先河。IBM目前已经开展了几次公司级别的意见征集大会，最近一次的会议涉及到15万人之多，以激励员工更加重视绿色计算（或其他）。迪士尼也成功地收购了皮克斯，从而将皮克斯的创新魔力据为己有。
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.
你也许对大企业的回归感到担忧，比如他们拥有可以摧毁对手的更强劲的力量。这种顾虑是没有必要的，因为大的不一定就丑，正如小的不一定都美。很多创业人士都梦想着把自己的企业做大（或者卖给大企业）。大企业和小公司是互利依存的。如果大企业没有制造出大型服务器，那么“云计算”就无法向小公司提供庞大的计算机数据。如果生物技术行业的小公面没有从大企业口袋里赚钱，那他们一定会破产。
