直截了當的埃隆馬斯克 將公司業務拓展至太陽能領域

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled a “master plan” for his Tesla electric car company this month.

本月，億萬富翁企業家埃隆•馬斯克(Elon Musk)公佈了一份其電動汽車公司特斯拉(Tesla)的“宏偉藍圖”(master plan)。

The reviews, it would be fair to say, were far from delivering a verdict of mastery. Investors harrumphed over his desire to branch out into solar energy. Analysts complained about scant details. Tesla’s stock sagged. It seemed that the man who is often said to be the inspiration for Tony Stark, the brash tycoon in the Iron Man movies, might finally have lost his knack for vision.

可以這麼說，外界對此項規劃的反響欠佳，認爲它算不得高明。投資者對馬斯克將公司業務拓展至太陽能領域的計劃嗤之以鼻。分析師抱怨該規劃缺乏細節。特斯拉股價下跌。人們常說，《鋼鐵俠》系列電影中傲慢自負的企業大亨託尼•斯塔克(Tony Stark)就是以馬斯克爲原型創作出來的，但馬斯克本人似乎最終失去了展望未來的才能。

Yet in one respect at least, namely the clarity of the master plan itself, Mr Musk retained his power to impress — giving a masterclass in jargon-free business communication that others would do well to copy.

不過，至少在一個方面——即這份規劃本身的清晰性上——馬斯克仍然有讓人耳目一新的能力——在不用專業術語進行商業溝通方面爲人們呈現了大師級一課，其他人最好也模仿這一點。

From self-driving cars to space rockets, Mr Musk’s ambitions veer towards the madcap. A few days ago he bounded on to a stage in Nevada, at the site of what will become the world’s largest industrial building: the Tesla “gigafactory”.

從自動駕駛汽車到航天火箭，馬斯克的雄心開始變得狂妄。幾天前，他跳上內華達州的一個舞臺上，那裏將建起全世界最大的工業建築——特斯拉“超級工廠”(gigafactory)。

This giant $5bn factorysite will eventually churn out batteries designed to power many of the company’s products, helping to fuel its broader expansion. Yet while Mr Musk’s growth strategy is often grandiose, his ability to explain it is not.

這個計劃投資50億美元的巨型工廠將生產該公司很多產品會用到的電池，幫助推動特斯拉的總體擴張。不過，儘管馬斯克的發展戰略往往華而不實，但他解釋的能力並非如此。

Start with length. His master plan was brief: a crisp 1,500 words or so, covering about two sides of A4. It used short words and sentences, and contained little in the way of jargon, meaning just about anyone who read it would be able to understand what it said.

先說長度。他的宏圖簡明扼要：短短1500個單詞左右，長度大概佔滿了A4紙的正反兩面。用的是簡短的單詞和句子，幾乎不用術語，這意味着基本上所有閱讀該規劃的人都能理解。

There was no PowerPoint, no fancy diagrams, and no accompanying pictures of smiling children. Instead, it laid out what Mr Musk planned to donamely: make cheaper cars and trucks under the Tesla brand, branch out into solar energy, and press on with plans to make cars that drive themselves.

沒有PPT，沒有花哨的圖表，也沒有面帶微笑的孩子的配圖。相反，可以說它羅列了馬斯克計劃要做的事情：製造更便宜的特斯拉品牌的汽車和卡車，業務拓展至太陽能領域，繼續推進自動駕駛汽車的生產計劃。

This didn’t please everyone. Investors are wary in particular of Mr Musk’s $2.6bn move to buy SolarCity, a solar power company, which wrapped up on Monday. Some question the financial logic of that deal. Others worry about conflicts of interest: the South African-born entrepreneur is SolarCity’s chairman, while the chief executive is his cousin.

這並不能讓所有人滿意。投資者尤其擔心馬斯克斥資26億美元收購太陽能公司SolarCity的舉動（週一剛剛完成收購）。一些人質疑該交易背後的財務邏輯。其他人則擔心其中的利益衝突：這位出生在南非的企業家是SolarCity的董事長，而首席執行官是他的表弟。

But either way, Mr Musk at least made the case for the acquisition in straightforward terms, arguing that he had always wanted to build a sustainable energy company, rather than one that made only cars.

但是，不管怎樣，馬斯克至少以直截了當的方式闡釋了收購理由，他表示自己一直希望成立一家可持續能源公司，而不是一家只製造汽車的公司。

“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine [them],” he wrote.

“如果特斯拉和SolarCity是兩家獨立的公司，這一目的則很難實現。因此，我們必須通過整合來消除作爲兩家獨立公司所固有的障礙。”他寫道。

Not everything in the plan was perfect. The title, “Master Plan, Part Deux”, referring to a plan produced a decade ago, is more than a little hubristic.

在該規劃中，並非一切都是完美的。標題《特斯拉宏圖之第二篇章》(Master Plan, Part Deux)（第一篇章制定於10年前），不是一般的傲慢。

Jargon is not entirely absent: at one point Mr Musk talks about “highly differentiated solar”, a concept that left me scratching my head. Perhaps his biggest mistake was talking up the safety of his self-driving cars without mentioning directly why people were worried about this issue — namely the death in May of a Tesla driver, who had been using the car’s autopilot system.

整篇中也並非全然沒有術語：馬斯克在某處談到了“高度差異化的太陽能”——這個概念令我百思不得其解。或許他最大的問題是，他對自己公司的自動駕駛汽車的安全性大談特談，卻不絕口不提人們爲何會擔心安全問題——今年5月一名使用自動駕駛系統的特斯拉駕駛員身亡。

Even so, the clear, concise writing style Mr Musk deployed remains both unusual and welcome, not least for the way it makes the company’s plans comprehensible to those who might buy his cars, or work in his factories.

即便如此，馬斯克簡潔明瞭的寫作風格不同尋常且受人歡迎，特別是因爲，通過這種方式，無論是特斯拉汽車的潛在買家還是在其工廠工作的員工，都能夠理解該公司的發展計劃。

Yet few corporate leaders copy it. Many persist in pretending that their businesses are more complex than they really are. Others pick up bad habits in business schools, listening to management experts who are rewarded for dreaming up convoluted ways of describing simple problems.

不過，沒有多少企業領導人能做到這一點。很多人常故弄玄虛，把企業說得比實際情況更復雜。其他人則習得了商學院的壞習慣，聽取那些以把簡單問題變複雜而獲得報酬的管理學專家的教誨。

The entrepreneurial titans of Silicon Valley are far from guilt-free in all this. The tech sector, especially in areas such as business software or IT outsourcing, is often among the worst offenders for speaking in a linguistic code of its own creation.

硅谷的商業巨頭也未能免俗。科技行業，特別是商業軟件或IT外包等領域，往往是使用自己創造的語言代碼的重災區。

Yet every now and then, people like Apple’s Steve Jobs or Mr Musk come along, who seem to have the self-confidence to cut out much of the blah that otherwise dogs their professions. When they do, they should be congratulated. Plain English alone is not going help Mr Musk make good on his vision for electric cars and sustainable energy. But it can’t hurt.

不過，時常會有像蘋果(Apple)的史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)或馬斯克這樣的人物出現。他們似乎有自信拋棄大部分的廢話，否則會影響他們的專業性。當他們這麼做時，應該得到稱讚。只靠簡單明瞭的語言，無法幫助馬斯克實現他對電動汽車和可持續能源的願景。但這也不會有損他的宏偉藍圖。