專訪谷歌CEO拉里佩奇 爲何霸主級科技公司會走向衰敗

Google is at the top of its game, and its chief executive, Larry Page, is pursuing a growing number of ambitious “moon shots” that could transform transportation, medicine, the Internet itself, and more. Page’s intensity of purpose and his company’s GOOG 1.13% stellar financial results earned him recognition as Businessperson of the Year in Fortune. (See the cover story of our Dec. 1, 2014 issue, “Larry Page–The most ambitious CEO in the universe.”)

谷歌（Google）已經站在了行業的巔峯，該公司首席執行官拉里o佩奇正在追尋越來越多充滿野心的“探月計劃”，這些前沿項目有望改變運輸、醫藥、互聯網以及其他行業。佩奇懷抱的堅定信念，以及谷歌傲人的財務業績，讓他成爲今年的《財富》（Fortune）年度商業人物。（請看2014年12月1日《財富》封面故事：《拉里o佩奇——全宇宙最有野心的首席執行官》。）

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the article’s publication, Page discussed with Fortune why dominant technology companies fade and how Google hopes to evade that fate, among other things. Here are a few excerpts of his words from that interview, edited for clarity.

在文章發表前就一系列話題接受《財富》專訪時，佩奇暢談了爲何霸主級的科技公司會走向衰敗，谷歌準備如何避開這一命運等問題。以下內容摘錄自這次採訪，爲了表述清晰，文章進行了一定的編輯。

On why dominant tech companies fail:

爲何霸主級的科技公司會失敗？

I’m always asking the question, as the company has grown from a hundred people, “Would I want to work for Google?” I think in general the answer is “yes.” Part of my focus has also been making sure that we’re creating an environment for people who want to ask those questions and want to be curious and want to be entrepreneurial and want to do things that are really impactful for the world.

谷歌最初僅有100位員工，一路走來，我一直在詢問一個問題：“我願意爲谷歌工作嗎？”我想總體來說，我的答案是：“願意。”而我關注的重點之一，就是要確保我們爲那些願意問這些問題、想要保持好奇心和創業精神、並且希望做些事情來改變世界的人營造一個良好的環境。

If I look at most of the tech companies that I felt have kind of reached a plateau or have generally atrophied or something like that, I would say “no,” they weren’t a good home for people who wanted to do those things. In general they kind of kept doing the same thing, kind of eking out a little bit more scale but not really being a place where people want to continue to really do impactful things.

如果去看看大部分我覺得已經達到瓶頸，甚至已經開始衰敗的科技公司，我想我的答案都會是：“不願意。”對懷抱上述理想的人來說，這些公司並不是好的歸宿。一般說來，這類公司總是在重複同樣的事情，他們可能想竭力擴大規模，但並不適合那些真正想不斷做大事的人。

On how Google’s fabled moonshots—self driving cars, nano-particles for cancer detection—fit into the arc of the company:

谷歌如何把自動駕駛汽車、診斷癌症的納米顆粒這類前沿項目納入公司的規劃？

It doesn’t feel all that different than it’s felt before to me in the past. I remember when we started Gmail. Everyone was upset with us, including people in the company, like, “Why are we working on email? We’re a search company.” [We were] less than two hundred and fifty people I think when we started Gmail, and we were talking about that even before that. I think that was pretty ambitious, given the scale of the company.

和以前做的事情相比，我沒覺得這些計劃有那麼特別。我記得當我們啓動Gmail項目時，每個人都對我們表示了疑惑，包括公司的同事，他們會問：“我們爲什麼要去做電子郵件？我們是搜索公司。”最初做Gmail時，我們公司只有不到250人，而甚至在那之前我們就開始討論這個計劃了。考慮到當時公司的規模，我認爲那真是雄心勃勃的計劃。

So given that we have forty thousand people now [Google employs about 55,000 people, actually. —Ed.], the fact that we’re working on the [self-driving] car doesn’t feel that ambitious to me.

現在我們已經有4萬人了（編者注：實際上谷歌目前有5.5萬員工），所以着手做自動駕駛汽車，在我看來並沒那麼雄心勃勃。

On seizing the opportunity in mobile:

如何抓住移動產品的機遇？

I think my job as CEO, it’s always to be pushing people ahead. If I were to look at the percentage of people [working] on mobile, it’s not 100% in the company. And nor should it be 100%. But it should probably be larger than it is.

我認爲作爲首席執行官，就是要推動所有谷歌人不斷前行。看看我們公司移動部門的員工比例，他們並不佔公司全部員工人數的100%，當然這個比例也不應該是100%。但是移動部門的員工比例應該比現在更高些纔是。

I think externally if you asked people on the Street, they’re going to worry mostly about monetization [on mobile]. And I think we’re doing pretty well there. There’s always more work to be done. I think that search is working well on mobile, the ads on search are working well on mobile.

我想如果你問華爾街的人，他們最擔心的應該是怎麼通過移動產品掙錢。而我覺得我們在這方面做得很棒。我們總有很多事情可以做。我認爲搜索與移動產品契合得很好，在搜索引擎中植入廣告的效果很棒。

But the work at this stage is probably more disruptive in nature too. We really need to say, “Well, if you’re on mobile, maybe it’s easier to call someplace, or it’s easier to visit the place, or it’s easier to have help with those things.” So maybe the ads should look a little different or work differently.

不過，這個階段的工作在本質上可能更具顛覆性。我們真的需要說：“好吧，如果你使用移動設備，也許你打電話會更方便，或者可以更容易地拜訪某地，或者做這些事的時候能更輕鬆地獲得幫助。”所以，廣告也許要看起來有所不同，或是應該採取不同的運行方式。

On the recent reorganization that put the fast-rising Sundar Pichai in charge of most Google products:

爲什麼要在最近的管理結構重組中讓後起之秀桑德爾o皮採負責大部分谷歌產品？

I only have 24 hours in a day, and any time I can delegate some things, I should. I’ve been working with Sundar for a long time. And I just started to realize that a lot of the stuff that came to me because of our organizational structure around some of the product decision-making that happens day-to-day, he could do a tremendous job of, and that would free me up then to do more things.

我每天只有24個小時，因此應該儘可能把工作委派出去。我與桑德爾共事了很長時間。我不久前開始意識到，由於公司的組織結構所致，每天我都得處理大量產品決策的問題，而他可以在其中幫上很大忙，這可以把我解放出來，我就能做更多事情了。

On former Ford and Boeing CEO Alan Mulally, Google’s newest board member, who has become Page’s latest go-to advisor on management issues:

曾經擔任福特（Ford）和波音（Boeing）首席執行官的艾倫o穆拉利加入谷歌董事會，出任佩奇的新一任首席管理顧問，這種安排出於何種考慮？

I’m excited about trying to spend more time with him and really learn the lessons he’s learned about how to run organizations well and efficiently. And I think I do a pretty good job of that, but I mean, he’s like an A+ on that scale, and I think there are things I can learn from him.

我很激動能試着和他共處更長時間，並真正學到一些他在高效順暢地運營公司上的經驗。我覺得我在這方面做得很棒，但我的意思是，他在這方面更加出色，有一些地方值得我學習。

On why Inbox—the company’s new, mobile-first email application—has features like reminders that make certain message pop up at different times:

爲何谷歌爲移動設備開發的新款電子郵件應用Inbox擁有提醒這類特色功能，可以讓特定信息在不同時段自動彈出？

You know one of the things they’re trying to do is really make it easier to keep track of tasks. We have Post-It notes. Why do we have those? I mean it’s kind of ridiculous. We have them because the software is not that good yet. A lot of times people actually will send an email to themselves, which is kind of insane when you think about it. It’s not really designed for that, and it gets lost after a while. So I think that’s one of the examples, when you’re really thinking about mobile, the kind of problems you need to solve are different.

你知道，這個團隊正在試着做的事情之一，就是真正讓用戶方便地關注自己要做的事情。日常生活中我們會用到便利貼（Post-It）。爲什麼要有這個？我的意思是，這有點荒謬。我們用它，是因爲軟件這方面的功能做得還不夠好。實際上在許多時候，人們還會發郵件給自己。仔細想想，這真令人抓狂。這真的不是設計郵件的本意，隨着時間的推移，這款產品似乎有些迷失。我覺得這就是一個例證，說明當你在考慮移動產品時，需要解決的可能會是其他問題。

On Google’s original mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”:

請你回顧一下谷歌最初的使命：“整合全球信息，使人人皆可訪問並從中受益”。

I think the mission statement is probably a little bit too narrow and we’re thinking about how to do that a little more broadly. But I do think we’ve been talking about it for a while and I think it’s pretty obvious what we’re doing.

我覺得這個使命的範圍有點狹隘，我們正試着看如何拓展它。不過我確實認爲，我們就這個問題已經討論了一段時間，我們在做什麼已經很明顯了。

We’re also trying to do something that not many other people seem to be trying to do, which is to make some big bets on some important areas. To make those things really real and to make sure they’re great products for people and they have real positive impact on people and the world.

我們也在試着做一些其他人不太會嘗試的事情，在一些重要的領域押下重注。我們想真正實現那些創想，並保證它們是偉大的產品，能夠對用戶、對世界產生積極的作用。

I feel a little bit we’re in uncharted territory. Because I think that what we’re trying to do, you know I can’t just look to another company and say, “Oh, we should do roughly what another company is doing.”

我感覺我們是在未知的領域探索，因爲我們嘗試的事情不太一樣。你知道，我不能去看其他公司然後說：“噢，我們也做個類似的東西。”

To me it feels like the world as a whole is very subscale. When I see important things like the self-driving cars or even search itself, and I say is there really enough resource going into that. And I don’t think that there is. It could use a lot more resource to make those things better.

對我來說，世界作爲一個整體是相當精彩的。當我看見一些重要事物，比如自動駕駛汽車，又甚至是搜索本身時，我就會問：我們真的有足夠的資源來進入這些領域嗎？我不覺得有。我們還需要更多的資源才能改進這些產品。（財富中文網）