外刊閱讀20200901|科技巨頭如何應對中年危機？
《本期內容》
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導讀
眼下的谷歌或許才21歲，卻已迎來了中年危機。與這類危機中常見的一樣，表面看來一切都好。
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雙語閱讀
Being hauled before Congress is, on the face of it, a sign of success. But it also marks a difficult moment for Google’s leaders: the onset of corporate middle age. This is a problem as old as business itself. How do companies sustain the creativity and agility that made them great, even as they forge a culture and corporate machine that is built to last?
表面上看，被國會質詢是企業成功的體現。但對谷歌的領導層來說，它同樣標誌著一個艱難時刻的到來：公司開始步入中年。這個問題和商業活動本身一樣歷史悠久。公司如何在打造一種經久不衰的文化和企業機制的同時，保持曾讓自己發家興業的創造力和敏捷性？
The cultural challenge is fuzzier but no less urgent for a firm that is proud of its unusual corporate character. The freewheeling ethos that was so successful in Google’s early days has become a liability. It works much less well at scale.
對於谷歌這樣一家以獨特的企業性格為榮的公司來說，文化上的挑戰雖沒有那麼明顯，卻同樣緊迫。谷歌自由自在的氣質在早期極為成功，如今卻成了一種包袱。公司規模變大後這種氣質擁有的優勢大打折扣。
Google now has nearly 120,000 employees, and even more temporary contractors. Doing things from the bottom up has become harder as the workforce has grown larger and less like-minded, with squabbles breaking out over everything from gender politics and the serving of meat in cafeterias to Google’s sale of technology to police forces.
谷歌目前有近12萬名員工，合同工的數量甚至更多。隨著員工人數的增加，這個群體的觀念也更多元，圍繞性別政治、餐廳肉食供應、公司向警方出售技術等各種問題的爭吵聲不絕於耳，想要自下而上做成一件事情變得更加困難。
The signs of ageing are apparent in Google’s maturing business, its changing culture and its ever-more-entwined relationship with government. Take the business first. The firm is running up against growth constraints in its near-monopolies of search and online-advertising tools. Its market share in search ads is around 90%.
谷歌的衰老正從幾個方面顯現出來：趨於成熟的業務、演變的企業文化，以及和政府的關係比以往都要糾結不清。先說業務。在被它近乎壟斷的搜索和在線廣告工具領域，谷歌的擴張開始觸頂。它在搜索廣告市場所佔份額已達到90%左右。
Unearthing other gold mines has proved difficult. None of the ambitious “moonshot” projects into which Alphabet has poured billions, such as deliverydrones and robots, has been a breakout success. To keep growing, Google is having to try to muscle in
on the turf occupied by big tech rivals, such as cloud computing and enterprise software and services.而到別處掘金的歷程並不順利。Alphabet已為雄心勃勃的“登月”項目投入了數十億美元，包括送貨無人機和機器人，但無一取得突破性成就。為保持增長，谷歌不得不費力擠進已被其他大型科技競爭對手佔領的地盤，比如雲計算、企業軟件和服務等。
本文節選自：The Economist（經濟學人）
發佈時間：2020.08
原文標題：The firm has outgrown its uninhibited corporate culture. It is time to learn from its elders
