美科技界大佬同特朗普會面 適應新現實

The technology industry always has its eyes on the future, but few foresaw the scene that played out on Wednesday afternoon in Trump Tower.

科技行業總是着眼未來，但很少有人能夠預見到週三下午發生在特朗普大廈的一幕。

One by one, the leaders of the world’s most elite and successful technology companies trooped up to the 25th floor to meet President-elect Donald J. Trump, who had criticized them and who they, in turn, had criticized. The executives did not acknowledge or speak to the press on the way in.

全球最頂尖、最成功的科技公司的領導者相繼抵達這座大廈的25樓，會見候任總統唐納德•J•特朗普(Donald J. Trump)，他曾經批評過他們，而他們也反過來批評他。進入大廈時他們沒有向媒體致意或講話。

First everyone went around the room and introduced themselves — Jeff Bezos, of Amazon; Elon Musk, of Tesla; Tim Cook, of Apple; Sheryl Sandberg, of Facebook; Larry Page of Alphabet, Google’s parent company; Satya Nadella, of Microsoft, and other tech leaders. Mr. Trump was seated next to Peter Thiel, the tech investor who is a member of the president-elect’s transition team. Three of Mr. Trump’s children also attended.

一開始大家紛紛在會議室內相互致意――亞馬遜的傑夫•貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)；特斯拉(Tesla)的埃隆•馬斯克(Elon Musk)；蘋果的蒂姆•庫克(Tim Cook)；Facebook的謝莉爾•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)；谷歌母公司Alphabet的拉里•佩奇(Larry Page)；微軟的薩蒂亞•納德拉(Satya Nadella)，以及其他科技公司領導者。坐在特朗普旁邊的是彼得•蒂爾(Peter Thiel)，這位科技業投資者是候任總統過渡團隊中的成員。特朗普的三個子女也在場。

The president-elect greeted the executives effusively after they were seated around a long rectangular conference table.

高管們在長長的長方形會議桌旁就坐，候任總統熱情地跟他們打招呼。

“This is a truly amazing group of people,” Mr. Trump said. “I won’t tell you the hundreds of calls we’ve had asking to come to this meeting.” Everyone laughed.

“這可真是特別棒的一羣人，”特朗普說。“我們接到幾百個電話要求參加這次會議，這個我就不跟你們多說了。”所有人都笑了。

“I’m here to help you folks do well,” Mr. Trump said, adding somewhat cryptically: “And you’re doing well right now and I’m very honored by the bounce. They’re all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me — at least a little bit — but we’re going to try and have that bounce continue.”

“我的責任是幫你們成功，”特朗普含糊其辭地補充說：“你們現在就很成功，這種轉變讓我不勝榮幸。他們都在說轉變的事。所以眼下這個房間裏的每個人都應該喜歡我――至少有那麼一點――但我們要試着讓轉變持續下去。”

Shortly after that, the press was ushered out of the room. It wasn’t immediately clear what unfolded after that.

不久後，媒體就被請出了房間。目前還不清楚其後屋子裏發生了什麼事。

The technology world had been in turmoil as the meeting drew near. Some argued the chief executives should boycott the event to show their disdain for Mr. Trump’s values. Others maintained they should go and forthrightly make their values clear. And still others thought they should attend and make their accommodations with the new reality.

隨着會議臨近，科技界一直處於混亂之中。有人認爲，首席執行官們應該抵制這次會面，以表明他們鄙視特朗普的價值觀。有人則認爲他們應該去，並且直率地表明自己的價值觀。還有一些人認爲，他們應該前往，並且適應新的現實。

“There is a wide spectrum of feeling in the Valley,” said Aaron Levie, chief executive of the cloud storage company Box.

雲存儲公司Box的首席執行官阿隆•列維(Aaron Levie)說，“硅谷之內對此有各種不同的感受。”

Complicating the debate was the fact that the most fervently anti-Trump elements in Silicon Valley seem to be the start-ups and venture capitalists, few of which were invited to the meeting.

令這場辯論更加複雜的是，硅谷最狂熱的特朗普反對者們似乎是那些創業公司和風險資本家，他們幾乎沒有被邀請參加會議。

In the days and hours before the meeting, various factions made their positions clear. A group of engineers and other tech workers issued a statement asserting they would refuse to participate in the creation of databases that could be used by the government to target people based on their race, religion or national origin.

在會議之前的幾天乃至幾個小時裏，各種派別都做了明確表態。一羣工程師和其他技術工作者發表聲明，稱如果數據庫會被用來根據種族、宗教信仰或原國籍對人民進行區別對待，他們會拒絕參與這種數據庫的創建。

The proclamation immediately drew more than 500 signatories, including employees at Google, Apple and Microsoft. During the campaign, Mr. Trump did not rule out the idea of a database of Muslims.

該聲明立即吸引了500多位簽名者，包括谷歌、蘋果和微軟的員工。在競選期間，特朗普曾表示不排除建立穆斯林數據庫的做法。

Another group of entrepreneurs assembled virtually this week with the same goal of preventing any erosion of civil liberties. They also accepted “a responsibility to partner with communities where the effects of rapidly changing technologies have hurt our fellow Americans.” Among those signing were Aileen Lee, a venture capitalist; Dave McClure, of the 500 Start-Ups incubator; and Lenny Mendonca, an angel investor.

另一羣企業家亦在本週聚集在一起，他們同上述聲明者的目標幾乎是一樣的，都是爲了防止任何對公民自由的侵害。他們也相信“當技術的快速變化對我們的美國同胞造成了傷害時”，我們有責任與受影響的社區進行合作”。簽名者包括風險資本家艾琳•李(Aileen Lee)；“創業500”(500 Start-Ups)孵化器的戴夫•麥克盧爾(Dave McClure)和天使投資者萊尼•門東薩(Lenny Mendonca)。

Mr. Levie, of Box, a Hillary Clinton supporter who this week joined the executive council of the bipartisan policy group TechNet, believes in engagement with the new administration. “We have to face reality that this is the next four years, and the best way to make sure our values are upheld is actually push on them,” he said.

作爲希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)的支持者，Box公司的列維本週加入了兩黨政策集團TechNet的執行委員會，他認爲應該與新政府進行接觸。“我們必須面對現實，未來四年就是這樣的，確保我們的價值觀得到維護的最好方法就是切實地推廣它們，”他說。

Other tech chief executives were also taking the same route of working with the new administration. Hours before Mr. Trump’s meeting with tech leaders, the president-elect announced that Mr. Musk and Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, would be among those joining his Strategic and Policy Forum, which is already stacked with businesspeople from finance and other industries. Ginni Rometty, the chief executive of IBM, had previously joined the forum.

其他科技公司的首席執行官也同樣採取了同樣的方式與新政府合作。在與科技領袖們會面幾小時之前，特朗普宣佈馬斯克和優步的首席執行官特拉維斯•卡蘭尼克(Travis Kalanick)將加入他的戰略與政策論壇(Strategic and Policy Forum)，該論壇中已有一批來自金融業和其他行業的商人。IBM的首席執行官羅睿蘭(Ginni Rometty)之前亦加入了該論壇。

While few in tech publicly supported Mr. Trump, his election is prodding the industry to realize it was isolating itself. For all of tech’s success in defining the first years of the 21st century, there were too many people who felt left behind.

雖然科技界很少有人公開支持特朗普，但他的當選促使該行業意識到自己正在日益孤立。儘管科技成功決定了21世紀最初數年的面貌，但是有太多人產生了被遺棄的感覺。

“There is a growing divide between those who get to participate in our growth and those stuck in legacy industries,” said Mr. Levie. “Bridging that gap will require better partnership and better collaborations.”

“參與了我們的發展的人，和那些被困在傳統行業內的人之間，分歧越來越大，”列維說。“在這一鴻溝上架起橋樑需要更好的夥伴關係與更好的合作。”