来自 S-1 注册声明

“An Owner’s Manual” for Google’s Shareholders1

谷歌股东的“用户手册”

Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. Throughout Google’s evolution as a privately held company, we have managed Google differently. We have also emphasized an atmosphere of creativity and challenge, which has helped us provide unbiased, accurate and free access to information for those who rely on us around the world.

Google 不是一家传统公司。我们不打算成为一家传统公司。在 Google 作为一家私人控股公司发展的过程中，我们以不同的方式管理 Google。我们还强调创造力和挑战的氛围，这帮助我们为全球依赖我们的人提供公正、准确和免费的信息访问。

Now the time has come for the company to move to public ownership. This change will bring important benefits for our employees, for our present and future shareholders, for our customers, and most of all for Google users. But the standard structure of public ownership may jeopardize the independence and focused objectivity that have been most important in Google’s past success and that we consider most fundamental for its future. Therefore, we have implemented a corporate structure that is designed to protect Google’s ability to innovate and retain its most distinctive characteristics. We are confident that, in the long run, this will benefit Google and its shareholders, old and new. We want to clearly explain our plans and the reasoning and values behind them. We are delighted you are considering an investment in Google and are reading this letter.

现在，公司已经到了转向公众所有制的时候。这一变化将为我们的员工、现有和未来的股东、客户，尤其是谷歌用户带来重要的好处。但公众所有制的标准结构可能会危及谷歌过去成功中最重要的独立性和专注的客观性，而我们认为这些对其未来至关重要。因此，我们实施了一种旨在保护谷歌创新能力和保持其最独特特征的公司结构。我们相信，从长远来看，这将使谷歌及其新老股东受益。我们希望清楚地解释我们的计划以及背后的理由和价值观。我们很高兴您正在考虑投资谷歌并阅读这封信。

Sergey and I intend to write you a letter like this one every year in our annual report. We’ll take turns writing the letter so you’ll hear directly from each of us. We ask that you read this letter in conjunction with the rest of this prospectus.

谢尔盖和我打算每年在我们的年度报告中给你写一封这样的信。我们将轮流写信，这样你就能直接听到我们每个人的声音。我们请求你结合本招股说明书的其余部分阅读这封信。

Sergey and I founded Google because we believed we could provide an important service to the world-instantly delivering relevant information on virtually any topic. Serving our end users is at the heart of what we do and remains our number one priority.

我和谢尔盖创立谷歌是因为我们相信我们可以为世界提供一项重要服务——即时提供几乎任何主题的相关信息。服务我们的终端用户是我们工作的核心，并且仍然是我们的首要任务。

Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near term financial returns are not obvious. For example, we make our services as widely available as we can by supporting over 90 languages and by providing most services for free. Advertising is our principal source of revenue, and the ads we provide are relevant and useful rather than intrusive and annoying. We strive to provide users with great commercial information.

我们的目标是开发能够显著改善尽可能多人的生活的服务。在追求这一目标的过程中，我们可能会做一些我们认为对世界有积极影响的事情，即使短期的财务回报并不明显。例如，我们通过支持超过 90 种语言并免费提供大多数服务，使我们的服务尽可能广泛地可用。广告是我们的主要收入来源，我们提供的广告是相关且有用的，而不是侵入性和令人讨厌的。我们努力为用户提供优质的商业信息。

We are proud of the products we have built, and we hope that those we create in the future will have an even greater positive impact on the world.

我们为我们所打造的产品感到自豪，并希望我们未来创造的产品能够对世界产生更大的积极影响。

As a private company, we have concentrated on the long term, and this has served us well. As a public company, we will do the same. In our opinion, outside pressures too often tempt companies to sacrifice long term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations. Sometimes this pressure has caused companies to manipulate financial results in order to “make their quarter.” In Warren Buffett’s words, “We won’t ‘smooth’ quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you.”

作为一家私人公司，我们专注于长期发展，这对我们很有帮助。作为一家上市公司，我们也会这样做。在我们看来，外部压力常常诱使公司牺牲长期机会以满足季度市场预期。有时这种压力导致公司操纵财务结果以“达到他们的季度目标”。用沃伦·巴菲特的话来说，“我们不会‘平滑’季度或年度结果：如果收益数据在到达总部时是波动的，那么在到达您时也会是波动的。”

If opportunities arise that might cause us to sacrifice short term results but are in the best long term interest of our shareholders, we will take those opportunities. We will have the fortitude to do this. We would request that our shareholders take the long term view.

如果出现可能导致我们牺牲短期结果但符合股东长期最佳利益的机会，我们将抓住这些机会。我们将有勇气这样做。我们希望股东们能以长远的眼光看待。

You might ask how long is long term? Usually we expect projects to have some realized benefit or progress within a year or two. But, we are trying to look forward as far as we can. Despite the quickly changing business and technology landscape, we try to look at three to five year scenarios in order to decide what to do now. We try to optimize total benefit over these multi-year scenarios. While we are strong advocates of this strategy, it is difficult to make good multi-year predictions in technology.

你可能会问，长期是多长时间？通常我们期望项目在一两年内有一些实际的收益或进展。但是，我们尽量向前看得更远。尽管商业和技术环境变化迅速，我们试图考虑三到五年的情景，以决定现在该做什么。我们努力在这些多年情景中优化总收益。虽然我们是这一策略的坚定支持者，但在技术领域做出良好的多年预测是困难的。

Many companies are under pressure to keep their earnings in line with analysts’ forecasts. Therefore, they often accept smaller, predictable earnings rather than larger and less predictable returns. Sergey and I feel this is harmful, and we intend to steer in the opposite direction.

许多公司面临着将其收益与分析师预测保持一致的压力。因此，他们往往接受较小且可预测的收益，而不是较大且不可预测的回报。谢尔盖和我认为这是有害的，我们打算朝相反的方向前进。

Google has had adequate cash to fund our business and has generated additional cash through operations. This gives us the flexibility to weather costs, benefit from opportunities and optimize our long term earnings. For example, in our ads system we make many improvements that affect revenue in both directions. These are in areas like end user relevance and satisfaction, advertiser satisfaction, partner needs and targeting technology. We release improvements immediately rather than delaying them, even though delay might give “smoother” financial results. You have our commitment to execute quickly to achieve long term value rather than making the quarters more predictable.

谷歌有足够的现金来资助我们的业务，并通过运营产生了额外的现金。这使我们能够灵活应对成本、从机会中获益并优化我们的长期收益。例如，在我们的广告系统中，我们进行了许多改进，这些改进会对收入产生双向影响。这些改进涉及终端用户的相关性和满意度、广告商满意度、合作伙伴需求和定位技术。我们会立即发布改进，而不是推迟发布，尽管推迟可能会带来“更平稳”的财务结果。我们承诺快速执行以实现长期价值，而不是让季度业绩更可预测。

Our long term focus does have risks. Markets may have trouble evaluating long term value, thus potentially reducing the value of our company. Our long term focus may simply be the wrong business strategy. Competitors may be rewarded for short term tactics and grow stronger as a result. As potential investors, you should consider the risks around our long term focus.

我们的长期关注确实存在风险。市场可能难以评估长期价值，从而可能降低我们公司的价值。我们的长期关注可能只是错误的商业策略。竞争对手可能因短期策略而获得回报，并因此变得更强大。作为潜在投资者，您应该考虑我们长期关注的相关风险。

We will make business decisions with the long term welfare of our company and shareholders in mind and not based on accounting considerations.

我们将以公司和股东的长期利益为重作出商业决策，而不是基于会计考量。

Although we may discuss long term trends in our business, we do not plan to give earnings guidance in the traditional sense. We are not able to predict our business within a narrow range for each quarter. We recognize that our duty is to advance our shareholders’ interests, and we believe that artificially creating short term target numbers serves our shareholders poorly. We would prefer not to be asked to make such predictions, and if asked we will respectfully decline. A management team distracted by a series of short term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour.

虽然我们可能会讨论业务中的长期趋势，但我们不打算以传统意义上的方式提供收益指导。我们无法在每个季度内在一个狭窄的范围内预测我们的业务。我们认识到我们的职责是促进股东的利益，并且我们相信人为地设定短期目标数字对股东没有好处。我们宁愿不被要求做出这样的预测，如果被要求，我们将礼貌地拒绝。一个被一系列短期目标分散注意力的管理团队就像一个每半小时称一次体重的节食者一样毫无意义。

Our business environment changes rapidly and needs long term investment. We will not hesitate to place major bets on promising new opportunities.

我们的商业环境变化迅速，需要长期投资。我们不会犹豫在有前景的新机会中下大赌注。

We will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects because of short term earnings pressure. Some of our past bets have gone extraordinarily well, and others have not. Because we recognize the pursuit of such projects as the key to our long term success, we will continue to seek them out. For example, we would fund projects that have a 10% chance of earning a billion dollars over the long term. Do not be surprised if we place smaller bets in areas that seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses. Although we cannot quantify the specific level of risk we will undertake, as the ratio of reward to risk increases, we will accept projects further outside our current businesses, especially when the initial investment is small relative to the level of investment in our current businesses.

我们不会因为短期收益压力而回避高风险、高回报的项目。我们过去的一些赌注取得了极好的效果，而另一些则没有。因为我们认识到追求此类项目是我们长期成功的关键，我们将继续寻找这些项目。例如，我们会资助那些在长期内有 10%机会赚取十亿美元的项目。如果我们在一些与当前业务相比显得非常投机甚至奇怪的领域进行小额投资，请不要感到惊讶。虽然我们无法量化我们将承担的具体风险水平，但随着回报与风险的比率增加，我们将接受更超出当前业务范围的项目，尤其是在初始投资相对于我们当前业务的投资水平较小时。

We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google. This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner. For example, AdSense for content and Google News were both prototyped in “20% time.” Most risky projects fizzle, often teaching us something. Others succeed and become attractive businesses.

我们鼓励员工在完成常规项目的同时，花 20%的时间从事他们认为对 Google 最有利的工作。这使他们能够更加富有创造力和创新精神。我们的许多重大进展都是以这种方式发生的。例如，内容广告和 Google 新闻都是在“20%时间”内原型化的。大多数高风险项目会失败，但通常会教会我们一些东西。其他项目则成功并成为有吸引力的业务。

As we seek to maximize value in the long term, we may have quarter-to-quarter volatility as we realize losses on some new projects and gains on others. We would love to better quantify our level of risk and reward for you going forward, but that is very difficult. Even though we are excited about risky projects, we expect to devote the vast majority of our resources to improvements to our main businesses (currently search and advertising). Most employees naturally gravitate toward incremental improvements in core areas so this tends to happen naturally.

为了在长期内最大化价值，我们可能会在实现一些新项目的损失和其他项目的收益时出现季度波动。我们希望能够更好地量化我们未来的风险和回报水平，但这非常困难。尽管我们对风险项目感到兴奋，但我们预计将把绝大部分资源投入到我们主要业务（目前是搜索和广告）的改进中。大多数员工自然会倾向于在核心领域进行渐进式改进，因此这种情况往往会自然发生。

We run Google as a triumvirate. Sergey and I have worked closely together for the last eight years, five at Google. Eric, our CEO, joined Google three years ago. The three of us run the company collaboratively with Sergey and me as Presidents. The structure is unconventional, but we have worked successfully in this way.

我们以三人领导小组的方式运营谷歌。Sergey 和我在过去八年中密切合作，其中五年是在谷歌。我们的首席执行官 Eric 三年前加入谷歌。我们三人共同协作管理公司，Sergey 和我担任总裁。这个结构不太常规，但我们以这种方式成功地工作。

To facilitate timely decisions, Eric, Sergey and I meet daily to update each other on the business and to focus our collaborative thinking on the most important and immediate issues. Decisions are often made by one of us, with the others being briefed later. This works because we have tremendous trust and respect for each other and we generally think alike. Because of our intense long term working relationship, we can often predict differences of opinion among the three of us. We know that when we disagree, the correct decision is far from obvious. For important decisions, we discuss the issue with a larger team appropriate to the task. Differences are resolved through discussion and analysis and by reaching consensus. Eric, Sergey and I run the company without any significant internal conflict, but with healthy debate. As different topics come up, we often delegate decision-making responsibility to one of us.

为了便于及时决策，Eric、Sergey 和我每天都会见面，互相更新业务情况，并将我们的协作思维集中在最重要和最紧迫的问题上。决策通常由我们中的一人做出，其他人随后会被简要告知。这之所以有效，是因为我们彼此之间有着极大的信任和尊重，并且我们通常思维相似。由于我们长期紧密的工作关系，我们常常能够预测我们三人之间的意见分歧。我们知道，当我们意见不一致时，正确的决策并不明显。对于重要的决策，我们会与适合该任务的更大团队讨论问题。分歧通过讨论和分析以及达成共识来解决。Eric、Sergey 和我在没有任何重大内部冲突的情况下经营公司，但有健康的辩论。随着不同话题的出现，我们经常将决策责任委托给我们中的一人。

We hired Eric as a more experienced complement to Sergey and me to help us run the business. Eric was CTO of Sun Microsystems. He was also CEO of Novell and has a Ph.D. in computer science, a very unusual and important combination for Google given our scientific and technical culture. This partnership among the three of us has worked very well and we expect it to continue. The shared judgments and extra energy available from all three of us has significantly benefited Google.

我们聘请了埃里克作为谢尔盖和我更有经验的补充，帮助我们管理业务。埃里克曾是 Sun Microsystems 的首席技术官。他还曾是 Novell 的首席执行官，并拥有计算机科学博士学位，这对于谷歌来说是一个非常罕见且重要的组合，因为我们的文化注重科学和技术。我们三人之间的合作非常成功，我们希望这种合作能够继续。我们三人共同的判断力和额外的精力对谷歌有显著的益处。

Eric has the legal responsibilities of the CEO and focuses on management of our vice presidents and the sales organization. Sergey focuses on engineering and business deals. I focus on engineering and product management. All three of us devote considerable time to overall management of the company and other fluctuating needs. We also have a distinguished board of directors to oversee the management of Google. We have a talented executive staff that manages day-to-day operations in areas such as finance, sales, engineering, human resources, public relations, legal and product management. We are extremely fortunate to have talented management that has grown the company to where it is today-they operate the company and deserve the credit.

埃里克承担着首席执行官的法律责任，专注于管理我们的副总裁和销售组织。谢尔盖专注于工程和商业交易。我专注于工程和产品管理。我们三人都投入了大量时间来管理公司的整体事务和其他变化的需求。我们还有一个杰出的董事会来监督谷歌的管理。我们拥有一支才华横溢的执行团队，负责管理财务、销售、工程、人力资源、公共关系、法律和产品管理等领域的日常运营。我们非常幸运拥有才华横溢的管理团队，他们将公司发展到今天的地步——他们运营公司并值得称赞。

We are creating a corporate structure that is designed for stability over long time horizons. By investing in Google, you are placing an unusual long term bet on the team, especially Sergey and me, and on our innovative approach.

我们正在创建一种旨在长期稳定的公司结构。通过投资谷歌，您是在对团队，尤其是对谢尔盖和我，以及我们的创新方法进行一种不同寻常的长期押注。

We want Google to become an important and significant institution. That takes time, stability and independence. We bridge the media and technology industries, both of which have experienced considerable consolidation and attempted hostile takeovers.

我们希望谷歌成为一个重要且有影响力的机构。这需要时间、稳定性和独立性。我们连接媒体和技术行业，这两个行业都经历了相当大的整合和敌意收购的尝试。

In the transition to public ownership, we have set up a corporate structure that will make it harder for outside parties to take over or influence Google. This structure will also make it easier for our management team to follow the long term, innovative approach emphasized earlier. This structure, called a dual class voting structure, is described elsewhere in this prospectus. The Class A common stock we are offering has one vote per share, while the Class B common stock held by many current shareholders has 10 votes per share.

在向公众所有权过渡的过程中，我们建立了一种公司结构，使外部方更难接管或影响谷歌。这种结构还将使我们的管理团队更容易遵循之前强调的长期创新方法。这种结构称为双重投票权结构，在本招股说明书的其他地方有描述。我们提供的 A 类普通股每股一票，而许多现有股东持有的 B 类普通股每股有 10 票。

The main effect of this structure is likely to leave our team, especially Sergey and me, with increasingly significant control over the company’s decisions and fate, as Google shares change hands. After the IPO, Sergey, Eric and I will control 37.6% of the voting power of Google, and the executive management team and directors as a group will control 61.4% of the voting power. New investors will fully share in Google’s long term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights.

这种结构的主要影响可能是让我们的团队，特别是谢尔盖和我，对公司的决策和命运拥有越来越显著的控制权，因为谷歌的股票在交易中易手。IPO 之后，谢尔盖、埃里克和我将控制谷歌 37.6%的投票权，而执行管理团队和董事会作为一个整体将控制 61.4%的投票权。新投资者将完全分享谷歌的长期经济未来，但通过他们的投票权对其战略决策的影响能力有限。

While this structure is unusual for technology companies, similar structures are common in the media business and has had a profound importance there. The New York Times Company, The Washington Post Company and Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, all have similar dual class ownership structures. Media observers have pointed out that dual class ownership has allowed these companies to concentrate on their core, long term interest in serious news coverage, despite fluctuations in quarterly results. Berkshire Hathaway has implemented a dual class structure for similar reasons. From the point of view of long term success in advancing a company’s core values, we believe this structure has clearly been an advantage.

虽然这种结构对于科技公司来说不常见，但在媒体行业中类似的结构很常见，并且在那里具有深远的重要性。纽约时报公司、华盛顿邮报公司和道琼斯（《华尔街日报》的出版商）都拥有类似的双重股权结构。媒体观察家指出，双重股权使这些公司能够专注于其核心的、长期的严肃新闻报道利益，尽管季度业绩波动。伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司出于类似原因实施了双重股权结构。从推动公司核心价值观长期成功的角度来看，我们相信这种结构显然是一个优势。

Some academic studies have shown that from a purely economic point of view, dual class structures have not harmed the share price of companies. Other studies have concluded that dual class structures have negatively affected share prices, and we cannot assure you that this will not be the case with Google. The shares of each of our classes have identical economic rights and differ only as to voting rights.

一些学术研究表明，从纯粹的经济角度来看，双重股权结构并未损害公司的股价。其他研究则得出结论，双重股权结构对股价产生了负面影响，我们不能保证谷歌不会出现这种情况。我们每类股票的经济权利相同，仅在投票权上有所不同。

Google has prospered as a private company. We believe a dual class voting structure will enable Google, as a public company, to retain many of the positive aspects of being private. We understand some investors do not favor dual class structures. Some may believe that our dual class structure will give us the ability to take actions that benefit us, but not Google’s shareholders as a whole. We have considered this point of view carefully, and we and the board have not made our decision lightly. We are convinced that everyone associated with Google-including new investors-will benefit from this structure. However, you should be aware that Google and its shareholders may not realize these intended benefits.

谷歌作为一家私人公司取得了成功。我们相信双重股权投票结构将使谷歌作为一家上市公司能够保留许多作为私人公司的积极方面。我们理解一些投资者不赞成双重股权结构。有些人可能认为我们的双重股权结构将使我们能够采取对我们有利的行动，但对谷歌的股东整体不利。我们已经仔细考虑了这一观点，我们和董事会并没有轻率地做出决定。我们确信，与谷歌相关的每个人——包括新投资者——都将从这一结构中受益。然而，您应该意识到，谷歌及其股东可能无法实现这些预期的利益。

In addition, we have recently expanded our board of directors to include three additional members. John Hennessy is the President of Stanford and has a Doctoral degree in computer science. Art Levinson is CEO of Genentech and has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. Paul Otellini is President and COO of Intel. We could not be more excited about the caliber and experience of these directors.

此外，我们最近扩大了董事会，增加了三名新成员。John Hennessy 是斯坦福大学校长，拥有计算机科学博士学位。Art Levinson 是 Genentech 的首席执行官，拥有生物化学博士学位。Paul Otellini 是英特尔的总裁兼首席运营官。我们对这些董事的素质和经验感到无比兴奋。

We believe we have a world class management team impassioned by Google’s mission and responsible for Google’s success. We believe the stability afforded by the dual class structure will enable us to retain our unique culture and continue to attract and retain talented people who are Google’s life blood. Our colleagues will be able to trust that they themselves and their labors of hard work, love and creativity will be well cared for by a company focused on stability and the long term.

我们相信，我们拥有一个由谷歌使命激励并对谷歌的成功负责的世界级管理团队。我们相信，双重股权结构带来的稳定性将使我们能够保持独特的文化，并继续吸引和留住那些是谷歌生命血液的人才。我们的同事将能够信任，他们自己以及他们辛勤工作、热爱和创造力的成果将由一个专注于稳定和长期发展的公司得到良好的照顾。

As an investor, you are placing a potentially risky long term bet on the team, especially Sergey and me. The two of us, Eric and the rest of the management team recognize that our individual and collective interests are deeply aligned with those of the new investors who choose to support Google. Sergey and I are committed to Google for the long term. The broader Google team has also demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to our long term success. With continued hard work and good fortune, this commitment will last and flourish.

作为投资者，您正在对团队进行一项可能具有风险的长期投资，尤其是对谢尔盖和我。我们两人、埃里克以及管理团队的其他成员都认识到，我们个人和集体的利益与选择支持谷歌的新投资者的利益深度一致。谢尔盖和我致力于长期投入谷歌。更广泛的谷歌团队也表现出了对我们长期成功的非凡承诺。随着持续的努力和好运，这种承诺将持久并蓬勃发展。

When Sergey and I founded Google, we hoped, but did not expect, it would reach its current size and influence. Our intense and enduring interest was to objectively help people find information efficiently. We also believed that searching and organizing all the world’s information was an unusually important task that should be carried out by a company that is trustworthy and interested in the public good. We believe a well functioning society should have abundant, free and unbiased access to high quality information. Google therefore has a responsibility to the world. The dual class structure helps ensure that this responsibility is met. We believe that fulfilling this responsibility will deliver increased value to our shareholders.

当谢尔盖和我创立谷歌时，我们希望但并不期望它会达到目前的规模和影响力。我们强烈而持久的兴趣是客观地帮助人们高效地找到信息。我们还认为，搜索和组织全世界的信息是一项异常重要的任务，应该由一个值得信赖并关心公众利益的公司来执行。我们相信，一个运作良好的社会应该能够获得丰富、免费和公正的高质量信息。因此，谷歌对世界负有责任。双重股权结构有助于确保这一责任得到履行。我们相信，履行这一责任将为我们的股东带来更大的价值。

It is important to us to have a fair process for our IPO that is inclusive of both small and large investors. It is also crucial that we achieve a good outcome for Google and its current shareholders. This has led us to pursue an auction-based IPO for our entire offering. Our goal is to have a share price that reflects an efficient market valuation of Google that moves rationally based on changes in our business and the stock market. (The auction process is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this prospectus.)

对我们来说，拥有一个公平的 IPO 过程，既包括小投资者也包括大投资者，是很重要的。同样重要的是，我们要为谷歌及其现有股东取得良好的结果。这促使我们为整个发行追求基于拍卖的 IPO。我们的目标是拥有一个反映谷歌有效市场估值的股价，该股价会根据我们业务和股票市场的变化理性波动。（拍卖过程在本招股说明书的其他地方有更详细的讨论。）

Many companies going public have suffered from unreasonable speculation, small initial share float, and stock price volatility that hurt them and their investors in the long run. We believe that our auction-based IPO will minimize these problems, though there is no guarantee that it will.

许多上市公司遭受了不合理的投机、小规模的初始股票发行以及股价波动，这些在长期内对公司及其投资者造成了伤害。我们相信，基于拍卖的首次公开募股将最大限度地减少这些问题，尽管不能保证一定会如此。

An auction is an unusual process for an IPO in the United States. Our experience with auction-based advertising systems has been helpful in the auction design process for the IPO. As in the stock market, if people bid for more shares than are available and bid at high prices, the IPO price will be higher. Of course, the IPO price will be lower if there are not enough bidders or if people bid lower prices. This is a simplification, but it captures the basic issues. Our goal is to have the price of our shares at the IPO and in the aftermarket reflect an efficient market price-in other words, a price set by rational and informed buyers and sellers. We seek to achieve a relatively stable price in the days following the IPO and that buyers and sellers receive an efficient market price at the IPO. We will try to achieve this outcome, but of course may not be successful. Our goal of achieving a relatively stable market price may result in Google determining with our underwriters to set the initial public offering price below the auction clearing price.

拍卖在美国是首次公开募股的一种不寻常的过程。我们在基于拍卖的广告系统方面的经验对首次公开募股的拍卖设计过程有所帮助。就像在股票市场中一样，如果人们出价购买的股份多于可用股份并且出价较高，首次公开募股的价格将会更高。当然，如果没有足够的竞标者或人们出价较低，首次公开募股的价格将会更低。这是一个简化的说法，但它抓住了基本问题。我们的目标是让我们的股票在首次公开募股和后续市场中的价格反映一个有效的市场价格——换句话说，由理性和知情的买卖双方设定的价格。我们希望在首次公开募股后的几天内实现相对稳定的价格，并且买卖双方在首次公开募股时获得有效的市场价格。我们将努力实现这一结果，但当然可能不会成功。我们实现相对稳定市场价格的目标可能导致谷歌与我们的承销商决定将首次公开募股价格定在拍卖清算价格之下。

We are working to create a sufficient supply of shares to meet investor demand at IPO time and after. We are encouraging current shareholders to consider selling some of their shares as part of the offering. These shares will supplement the shares the company sells to provide more supply for investors and hopefully provide a more stable price. Sergey and I, among others, are currently planning to sell a fraction of our shares in the IPO. The more shares current shareholders sell, the more likely it is that they believe the price is not unfairly low. The supply of shares available will likely have an effect on the clearing price of the auction. Since the number of shares being sold is likely to be larger at a high price and smaller at a lower price, investors will likely want to consider the scope of current shareholder participation in the IPO. We may communicate from time to time that we are sellers rather than buyers at certain prices.

我们正在努力创造足够的股票供应，以满足 IPO 时和之后的投资者需求。我们鼓励现有股东考虑在此次发行中出售部分股票。这些股票将补充公司出售的股票，为投资者提供更多供应，并希望提供更稳定的价格。包括 Sergey 和我在内的其他人目前计划在 IPO 中出售我们部分股票。现有股东出售的股票越多，他们就越有可能认为价格并非不公平地低。可用股票的供应可能会对拍卖的清算价格产生影响。由于在高价时出售的股票数量可能较大，而在低价时较小，投资者可能希望考虑现有股东参与 IPO 的范围。我们可能会不时传达在某些价格下我们是卖方而非买方的信息。

While we have designed our IPO to be inclusive for both small and large investors, for a variety of reasons described in “Auction Process” not all interested investors will be able to receive an allocation of shares in our IPO.

虽然我们设计的首次公开募股（IPO）旨在让小型和大型投资者都能参与，但由于“拍卖过程”中描述的各种原因，并非所有感兴趣的投资者都能获得我们 IPO 的股份分配。

We would like you to invest for the long term, and you should not expect to sell Google shares for a profit shortly after Google’s IPO. We encourage investors not to invest in Google at IPO or for some time after, if they believe the price is not sustainable over the long term. Even in the long term, the trading price of Google’s stock may decline.

我们希望您进行长期投资，您不应期望在谷歌首次公开募股后不久就出售谷歌股票以获利。我们鼓励投资者不要在首次公开募股时或之后的一段时间内投资谷歌，如果他们认为价格在长期内不可持续。即使在长期内，谷歌股票的交易价格也可能下跌。

We intend to take steps to help ensure shareholders are well informed. We encourage you to read this prospectus, especially the Risk Factors section. We think that short term speculation without paying attention to price is likely to lose you money, especially with our auction structure. In particular, we caution you that investing in Google through our auction could be followed by a significant decline in the value of your investment after the IPO.

我们打算采取措施帮助确保股东获得充分的信息。我们鼓励您阅读本招股说明书，特别是风险因素部分。我们认为，不关注价格的短期投机可能会让您亏钱，尤其是在我们的拍卖结构下。特别是，我们提醒您，通过我们的拍卖投资谷歌后，您的投资价值可能会在 IPO 后大幅下降。

Our employees, who have named themselves Googlers, are everything. Google is organized around the ability to attract and leverage the talent of exceptional technologists and business people. We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled and hard working stars. We hope to recruit many more in the future. We will reward and treat them well.

我们的员工自称为 Googlers，他们就是一切。Google 的组织围绕着吸引和利用杰出技术人员和商业人才的能力。我们很幸运能够招募到许多有创造力、有原则且勤奋的明星。我们希望在未来招募更多这样的人才。我们将给予他们良好的奖励和待遇。

We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge, doctors and washing machines. We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.

我们为员工提供许多不同寻常的福利，包括免费餐食、医生和洗衣机。我们谨慎考虑这些福利对公司长期的好处。预计我们会增加福利，而不是随着时间的推移削减福利。我们认为，在可以为员工节省大量时间并提高他们的健康和生产力的福利方面，精打细算反而可能得不偿失。

The significant employee ownership of Google has made us what we are today. Because of our employee talent, Google is doing exciting work in nearly every area of computer science. We are in a very competitive industry where the quality of our product is paramount. Talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world; Google has large computational resources and distribution that enables individuals to make a difference. Our main benefit is a workplace with important projects, where employees can contribute and grow. We are focused on providing an environment where talented, hard working people are rewarded for their contributions to Google and for making the world a better place.

谷歌的重要员工持股使我们成为今天的样子。由于我们员工的才华，谷歌在几乎所有计算机科学领域都在进行令人兴奋的工作。我们处于一个竞争激烈的行业，产品质量至关重要。优秀的人才被谷歌吸引，因为我们赋予他们改变世界的力量；谷歌拥有庞大的计算资源和分发能力，使个人能够有所作为。我们的主要优势是一个有重要项目的工作场所，员工可以在这里贡献和成长。我们专注于提供一个环境，让有才华、勤奋的人因其对谷歌的贡献和让世界变得更美好而获得回报。

Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served-as shareholders and in all other ways-by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.

不作恶。我们坚信，从长远来看，即使放弃一些短期收益，一家为世界做好事的公司将更好地服务于我们作为股东和其他方面的利益。这是我们文化的重要方面，并在公司内部广泛共享。

Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a well-run newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers’ payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.

Google 用户信任我们的系统来帮助他们做出重要决策：医疗、财务和其他许多方面。我们的搜索结果是我们所能提供的最佳结果。它们是公正和客观的，我们不接受为它们或为包含或更频繁更新而支付的费用。我们也展示广告，我们努力使其相关，并清楚地标注。这类似于一家管理良好的报纸，广告清晰，文章不受广告商付款的影响。我们认为每个人都能获得最佳信息和研究是重要的，而不仅仅是人们付费让你看到的信息。

We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place. In pursuing this goal, we will always be mindful of our responsibilities to our shareholders, employees, customers and business partners. With our products, Google connects people and information all around the world for free. We are adding other powerful services such as Gmail, which provides an efficient one gigabyte Gmail account for free. We know that some people have raised privacy concerns, primarily over Gmail’s targeted ads, which could lead to negative perceptions about Google. However, we believe Gmail protects a user’s privacy. By releasing services, such as Gmail, for free, we hope to help bridge the digital divide. AdWords connects users and advertisers efficiently, helping both. AdSense helps fund a huge variety of online web sites and enables authors who could not otherwise publish. Last year we created Google Grants-a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.

我们渴望将谷歌打造成一个让世界变得更美好的机构。在追求这一目标的过程中，我们将始终牢记对股东、员工、客户和业务合作伙伴的责任。通过我们的产品，谷歌免费连接全球的人和信息。我们正在添加其他强大的服务，例如 Gmail，它提供一个高效的一千兆字节的 Gmail 账户，免费使用。我们知道，有些人对隐私问题提出了担忧，主要是关于 Gmail 的定向广告，这可能导致对谷歌的负面看法。然而，我们相信 Gmail 保护用户的隐私。通过免费发布像 Gmail 这样的服务，我们希望帮助缩小数字鸿沟。AdWords 高效地连接用户和广告商，帮助双方。AdSense 帮助资助各种各样的在线网站，并使那些无法出版的作者能够发表。去年，我们创建了 Google Grants——一个不断发展的项目，数百个解决环境、贫困和人权等问题的非营利组织获得了免费广告。现在，我们正在建立谷歌基金会的过程中。 我们打算为基金会贡献大量资源，包括员工时间和大约 1%的谷歌股权和利润。我们希望有一天这个机构能够通过大胆地将创新和大量资源应用于世界上最大的问题，在整体世界影响方面超越谷歌本身。

Google is not a conventional company. Eric, Sergey and I intend to operate Google differently, applying the values it has developed as a private company to its future as a public company. Our mission and business description are available in the rest of this prospectus; we encourage you to carefully read this information. We will optimize for the long term rather than trying to produce smooth earnings for each quarter. We will support selected high-risk, high-reward projects and manage our portfolio of projects. We will run the company collaboratively with Eric, our CEO, as a team of three. We are conscious of our duty as fiduciaries for our shareholders, and we will fulfill those responsibilities. We will continue to strive to attract creative, committed new employees, and we will welcome support from new shareholders. We will live up to our “don’t be evil” principle by keeping user trust and not accepting payment for search results. We have a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me.

Google 不是一家传统公司。Eric、Sergey 和我打算以不同的方式运营 Google，将其作为私人公司发展起来的价值观应用于其作为上市公司的未来。我们的使命和业务描述在本招股说明书的其余部分中提供；我们鼓励您仔细阅读这些信息。我们将优化长期发展，而不是试图每季度都产生平稳的收益。我们将支持选定的高风险、高回报项目，并管理我们的项目组合。我们将与我们的首席执行官 Eric 以三人团队的方式协作运营公司。我们意识到作为股东受托人的责任，并将履行这些责任。我们将继续努力吸引有创造力、敬业的新员工，并欢迎新股东的支持。我们将通过保持用户信任和不接受搜索结果的付款来践行我们的“不作恶”原则。我们有一个偏向于稳定性和独立性的双重股权结构，这要求投资者押注于团队，尤其是 Sergey 和我。

In this letter we have talked about our IPO auction method and our desire for stability and access for all investors. We have discussed our goal to have investors who invest for the long term. Finally, we have discussed our desire to create an ideal working environment that will ultimately drive the success of Google by retaining and attracting talented Googlers.

在这封信中，我们谈到了我们的 IPO 拍卖方法以及我们对所有投资者的稳定性和可及性的渴望。我们讨论了我们的目标是拥有长期投资的投资者。最后，我们讨论了我们希望创造一个理想的工作环境，通过留住和吸引有才华的谷歌员工来最终推动谷歌的成功。

We have tried hard to anticipate your questions. It will be difficult for us to respond to them given legal constraints during our offering process. We look forward to a long and hopefully prosperous relationship with you, our new investors. We wrote this letter to help you understand our company.

我们尽力预见您的问题。鉴于在我们的发行过程中存在法律限制，我们将很难回应这些问题。我们期待与您——我们的新投资者建立长期且希望是繁荣的关系。我们写这封信是为了帮助您了解我们的公司。

We have a strong commitment to our users worldwide, their communities, the web sites in our network, our advertisers, our investors, and of course our employees. Sergey and I, and the team will do our best to make Google a long term success and the world a better place.

我们对全球用户、他们的社区、我们网络中的网站、我们的广告商、我们的投资者，当然还有我们的员工有着坚定的承诺。Sergey 和我以及团队将尽最大努力使 Google 成为一个长期成功的公司，并让世界变得更美好。