一位“中國(guó)通”眼中的馬云 China’s virtual reality

In 1999, Duncan Clark gained bragging rights that any long-time China hand would relish today: the former Morgan Stanley investment banker turned business consultant was given the chance to visit the lakeside apartment of Jack Ma.

1999年，鄧肯•克拉克(Duncan Clark)得到了任何一位資深“中國(guó)通”在今天都會(huì)渴望得到的炫耀資本：這位由摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)前投行家轉(zhuǎn)行的商業(yè)顧問有機(jī)會(huì)參觀馬云(Jack Ma)坐落在湖畔的公寓。

The flat was the nucleus of a new company that Ma had named Alibaba a few months before, saying he wanted to sell things online in China. To some this seemed a laughable prospect in a country that then had minuscule internet penetration. But if Alibaba was to fail, it would not be for want of trying: you could “count the number of cofounders by the toothbrushes jammed into mugs on a shelf”, Clark writes of the company’s early years. And ultimately, the days and nights spent coding, calling and hustling would be rewarded in 2014 with a $25bn initial public offering, the biggest of all time.

馬云在數(shù)月前剛創(chuàng)辦的新公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba)將從這座公寓起步——馬云說他想在中國(guó)開展在網(wǎng)上銷售商品的業(yè)務(wù)。在一些人看來，這簡(jiǎn)直可笑，因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)在中國(guó)還沒有多少人使用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。但是，如果阿里巴巴失敗了，也絕不會(huì)是因?yàn)闆]有去嘗試——克拉克在敘述該公司早年歷史時(shí)這樣寫道：數(shù)一數(shù)架子上塞滿馬克杯的牙刷的數(shù)量，你就知道這家公司有多少個(gè)聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人。日以繼夜編寫代碼、打電話和奔波忙碌終于在2014年看到了回報(bào)，阿里巴巴在首次公開發(fā)行中融資250億美元，創(chuàng)下“史上最大規(guī)模IPO”的紀(jì)錄。

Clark has long been one of the most visible westerners in China’s technology scene. In Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built, he draws on a considerable trove of personal reminiscences in addition to dozens of interviews to write what could be the definitive history not just of Alibaba but other titans of the Chinese internet such as Tencent, Sohu, Sina and Baidu — all household names in China but little known in the west.

在中國(guó)科技界，克拉克向來是最引人關(guān)注的西方人之一。在《阿里巴巴：馬云的基業(yè)》(Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built)一書中，他憑借大量的個(gè)人回憶和數(shù)十次采訪，寫下了堪稱權(quán)威的關(guān)于中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭——不只是阿里巴巴，還有騰訊(Tencent)、搜狐(Sohu)、新浪(Sina)和百度(Baidu)——發(fā)展歷史的著作。在中國(guó)，這些都是家喻戶曉的名字，在西方卻鮮為人知。

The author tends to accentuate the positive about Alibaba, referring to his subject throughout as “Jack” and serving up a succession of anecdotes that illustrate his business genius. Many chapters begin with a stirring quote from Ma such as: “The Internet [is like] beer . . . the good stuff is at the bottom. Without the bubbles, the beer is flat and nobody would want to drink it.”

該作者著重講述阿里巴巴的正面情況，從頭到尾把他的主人公稱做“杰克”，并為讀者奉上一系列體現(xiàn)馬云經(jīng)商天分的趣聞?shì)W事。很多章節(jié)都是以馬云振奮人心的名言開始，比如：“互聯(lián)網(wǎng)像一杯啤酒……好東西都在底下。沒有沫，啤酒就走味了，沒人想喝。”

But the narrative is at its best when it seeks to place Alibaba in its local context. In Taobao, the eBay-like online marketplace launched by Ma in 2003, Clark sees a virtual reflection of the bustling Yiwu wholesale market just down the road in Alibaba’s home city of Hangzhou — and, beyond that, of Ma’s native Zhejiang province as a whole, which the author describes as “China’s crucible of entrepreneurship”. Blazing with pop-up boxes and floating banner ads, Taobao is about as far away from the clean lines and uncluttered negative spaces of Google as could be imagined.

不過這本書最精彩的地方是在它嘗試把阿里巴巴置于其當(dāng)?shù)乇尘爸聛頂⑹龅臅r(shí)候。馬云在2003年創(chuàng)辦了與eBay類似的網(wǎng)上市場(chǎng)淘寶網(wǎng)(Taobao)，在淘寶網(wǎng)的身上，克拉克看到了熙熙攘攘的義烏小商品批發(fā)市場(chǎng)——距離阿里巴巴總部所在地杭州市不遠(yuǎn)——以及馬云的家鄉(xiāng)、被克拉克形容為“中國(guó)企業(yè)家熔爐”的浙江省——的虛擬版本。不斷有窗口彈出、布滿浮動(dòng)的橫幅廣告的淘寶網(wǎng)與谷歌簡(jiǎn)單的線條和整潔的負(fù)空間簡(jiǎn)直是天壤之別。

While the bustling entrepreneurial energy of China’s bricks-and-mortar economy has been reproduced in Taobao and latterly its sister website Tmall, so have the problems — counterfeit goods and some accusations of counterfeit numbers following Alibaba wherever it goes.

盡管淘寶網(wǎng)及后來創(chuàng)辦的姊妹網(wǎng)站天貓(Tmall)重現(xiàn)了中國(guó)實(shí)體經(jīng)濟(jì)中充沛的創(chuàng)業(yè)活力，但是這些網(wǎng)站也傳染了實(shí)體經(jīng)濟(jì)中的問題——假貨以及與阿里巴巴如影相隨的關(guān)于捏造數(shù)字的指責(zé)。

Clark gives this side of the story too, offering the most thorough treatment yet of some of the more difficult episodes in Alibaba’s history. In 2011 an argument erupted over the transfer of the Alipay online payments business to a company controlled by Ma, which raised fears among minority shareholders Yahoo and SoftBank that the value of their stakes in Alibaba would be eroded. The investors accused Ma of asset-stripping, while Ma argued that there were solid regulatory reasons for his apparent violation of corporate governance norms. Clark speaks to all the parties concerned, setting out the claims and counterclaims in accessible fashion — and Ma does not come off looking particularly good.

克拉克也介紹了這方面的情況，對(duì)阿里巴巴發(fā)展歷程中的一些艱難經(jīng)歷進(jìn)行了最全面的敘述。2011年，阿里巴巴將在線支付業(yè)務(wù)支付寶(Alipay)的所有權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)移到馬云控股的一家公司名下，引發(fā)了爭(zhēng)議，少數(shù)股東雅虎(Yahoo)和軟銀(SoftBank)擔(dān)心它們所持阿里巴巴股份的價(jià)值會(huì)受到侵蝕。投資者指責(zé)馬云進(jìn)行資產(chǎn)剝離，而馬云認(rèn)為他表面上違背公司治理規(guī)范的行為從監(jiān)管方面來說有著充足理由。克拉克與所有相關(guān)方進(jìn)行了交談，以讓人容易理解的方式列出了正、反主張——馬云表現(xiàn)得并不是特別好。

The last chapter, “Icon or Icarus?”, looks at the future of Alibaba, which has not had a particularly smooth ride from investors since it went public in 2014. After a vertiginous rise in the months following its IPO, Alibaba’s shares sank by 50 per cent before the summer of 2015 was out. In late August, they fell below the $68 IPO price for the first time, and have hovered a little above negative territory ever since.

在最后一章“偶像還是伊卡洛斯?”中，作者展望了阿里巴巴的未來。自從2014年上市以來，阿里巴巴并沒有一直得到投資者另眼相看。在IPO后幾個(gè)月里阿里巴巴的股價(jià)大幅上漲，隨后在2015年夏天結(jié)束前，其股價(jià)暴跌50%。去年8月底，阿里巴巴的股價(jià)首次跌破68美元的發(fā)行價(jià)，自那以來其股價(jià)一直徘徊在略高于發(fā)行價(jià)的水平上。

The book is a must-read for anyone hoping to navigate China’s new economy. Despite being behind the “Great firewall”, China’s internet — thanks largely to Ma — will become a part of everyone’s life sooner rather than later.

對(duì)于每個(gè)希望在中國(guó)新經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域闖蕩的人來說，這本書是必讀之作。盡管中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)被隔離在“防火墻”之內(nèi)，但是它肯定會(huì)成為每個(gè)人生活中的一部分，只會(huì)早不會(huì)晚——而這在很大程度上多虧了馬云。