2012 Founders’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

Refer To：《2012 Founders' Letter》。

Imagine you are catching up with an old friend 15 years from now. She wants to go out for a coffee. So you hit a button and within seconds a self-driving car pulls up outside your apartment. You both get in, say your destination, and are whisked away. On your journey, you talk, play games and catch up on news, while the car effortlessly navigates the roads. It merges onto a freeway and gets into a high-speed lane where self-driving cars flow faster, more smoothly and use less of the road (their precision driving allows them to travel much closer together). You look around and all sorts of people are in such cars – the young, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Within minutes you arrive at a nearby park and cafe where parking lots used to be and people are now enjoying themselves in this green, open space.

想象一下，15年后的今天，你正与一位老朋友叙旧。她想出去喝杯咖啡。于是你按下一个按钮，几秒钟内，一辆自动驾驶汽车停在你公寓外。你们一起上车，报上目的地，车子便载着你们迅速离开。在旅途中，你们聊天、玩游戏、了解新闻，而汽车则轻松自如地行驶在道路上。它驶入高速公路，并进入一个自动驾驶汽车行驶更快、更顺畅且占用道路更少的高速车道（其精准驾驶使得车辆能彼此靠得更近）。你环顾四周，各种各样的人都乘坐着这样的车——年轻人、老年人以及残障人士。几分钟内，你们便抵达了一个曾经是停车场的附近公园和咖啡馆，人们现在正享受着这片绿色、开放的空间。

It’s these kinds of ideas – which have the potential to transform lives and communities – that make me excited about coming to work every day. Will these dreams become reality? Will Google play an important role? Will these technologies ultimately be good for the world? There is no way to answer these questions with certainty. Nonetheless I am optimistic that if we choose important problems – transportation in this case – work in partnership with others, and have a vision we believe in, the odds are on our side. On a year-by-year basis, progress may seem slow and success dubious, but over a longer time period technological change is often abrupt and revolutionary.

正是这些具有改变生活和社区潜力的理念，让我每天上班都充满了期待。这些梦想会成为现实吗？谷歌会发挥重要作用吗？这些技术最终会对世界有利吗？这些问题无法确定地回答。尽管如此，我仍然乐观地认为，只要我们选择重要的问题——在此案例中是交通——与他人合作，并坚持我们所信仰的愿景，成功的概率就会站在我们这一边。虽然从年度角度看进展可能显得缓慢、成功似乎难以捉摸，但从长远来看，技术变革往往是突然且革命性的。

For example, when Larry and I started the company less than 15 years ago, we afforded ourselves the rare luxury of having a cell phone.

例如，当 Larry 和我在不到15年前创立公司时，我们享有拥有手机这一难得的奢侈。

Back then they were brick-sized devices, used solely for making calls that only the privileged few could have. Over the next 15 years, the phones became pocket-sized and more powerful than the computers we started Google with. Most importantly they are now in the hands of billions of people, making them nearly ubiquitous throughout the world.

那时的手机像砖头一样大，仅用于打电话，而且只有极少数特权人士才能拥有。接下来的15年里，手机变得口袋大小，其性能甚至超过了我们当初用来创立谷歌的计算机。最重要的是，如今它们掌握在数十亿人手中，几乎遍布全球。

This transformation has made a huge difference to people’s lives. In 1998, meetings had to be prearranged, travel had to be carefully planned, a paper map was in order to get to a new place, and knowledge was contained in your mind. Today, it takes a minute on a street corner to catch up with a friend, book a holiday, find your way in almost any corner of the world, and find out almost anything about almost anything.

这种转变极大地改变了人们的生活。1998年，会议必须提前安排，旅行需要精心规划，到一个新地方则得依靠纸质地图，而知识则只存在于你的脑海中。如今，在街角仅需一分钟，你就能与朋友叙旧、预订假期、在几乎世界任何角落找到方向，并几乎了解任何事物的方方面面。

Of course it’s important to recognize that sometimes change is positive – forging closer connections, making life easier, improving productivity. Sometimes it is negative – increasing distraction and stress levels, as well as overwhelming us with choice. I am optimistic that on balance technology will make the world a better place. Still, we need to continue to work hard to ensure that our contributions are decidedly beneficial – helping people to lead easier, richer, and more fulfilling lives.

当然，我们必须认识到，有时变革是积极的——它能拉近彼此关系、让生活更轻松、提高生产力；而有时变革也是消极的——它会增加干扰和压力，同时让我们在众多选择面前不知所措。我乐观地认为，总体上科技将使世界变得更美好。然而，我们仍需继续努力，确保我们的贡献确实能带来实质性的益处——帮助人们过上更轻松、更富足、更有满足感的生活。

技术进步相当于图片的象素，越来越高。

Sergei B signature

Sergey Brin

2012 Update from the CEO

2012 来自首席执行官的更新

Velocity, execution and focus

速度、执行力与专注

Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people’s lives and, hopefully, the world. And in the decade-plus that’s followed, we’ve been constantly delighted by the ways in which people have used our technology—such as making an artificial limb using old designs discovered online.

Sergey 和我创立谷歌，是因为我们相信打造卓越的搜索体验能够改善人们的生活，乃至改善整个世界。而在随后的十余年中，我们不断为人们使用我们技术的各种方式感到欣喜，例如利用网上发现的旧设计制造人工肢体。

But we’re always impatient to do better for our users. Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous. So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world. Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up.

但我们始终迫切希望能为用户提供更好的服务。卓越至关重要，而技术进步之迅猛，使得改进的潜力巨大。因此，自从我再次出任首席执行官以来，我大力推动提升我们的速度、改善执行力，并专注于那些能够改变世界的大赌注。如今谷歌已是一家大型公司，但如果我们以初创企业那般充满激情和灵魂来对待生活，我们将会取得更多成就，而且速度更快。

Last April, I began by reorganizing the management team around our core products to improve responsibility and accountability across Google. I also kicked off a big clean-up. Google has so many opportunities that, unless we make some hard choices, we end up spreading ourselves too thin and don’t have the impact we want. So we have closed or combined over 30 products, including projects like Knol and Sidewiki. In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look.

去年四月，我首先围绕核心产品重组了管理团队，以提升整个谷歌的责任感与问责制。同时，我也启动了一次大规模的整顿。谷歌拥有太多机遇，如果我们不做出艰难的选择，就会资源分散、影响力不足。因此，我们关闭或合并了30多个产品，包括 Knol 和 Sidewiki 等项目。此外，我们还为许多产品（如 Google 搜索）进行了视觉刷新，使它们呈现出更加整洁、一致且美观的外观。

A beautifully simple experience across Google

谷歌全线呈现出美丽而简洁的体验

Creating a simpler, more intuitive experience across Google has been another important focus. I have always believed that technology should do the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers! That means making our products work together seamlessly. People shouldn’t have to navigate Google to get stuff done. It should just happen. As Sergey said in the memorable way only he can, “We’ve let a thousand flowers bloom; now we want to put together a coherent bouquet.”

在谷歌构建一个更简单、更直观的体验一直是我们的另一个重要重点。我始终相信，技术应承担起繁重的任务——发现、组织、沟通——以便用户能够专注于让自己最快乐的事：生活与热爱，而不是与烦人的电脑纠缠。这就意味着让我们的产品能够无缝协作。用户不应为完成任务而费力在谷歌中穿梭，而应让一切自然而然地发生。正如 Sergey 那独特而令人难忘的方式所说：“我们已经让千朵花竞相开放；现在，我们要把它们组合成一束协调一致的花束。”

听从了乔布斯的建议。

Think about basic actions like sharing or recommendations. When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends. Google+ makes sharing super easy by creating a social layer across all our products so users connect with the people who matter to them.

试想那些基本操作，比如分享或推荐。当你发现一篇优秀的文章时，你希望把这份知识分享给同样会感兴趣的人；如果你看到一部精彩的电影，你也想向朋友推荐。Google+ 通过在我们所有产品间构建一层社交网络，使得分享变得异常简单，从而帮助用户与对他们重要的人建立联系。

When you sign up for Google+, you can use Circles to group people into different categories, such as “Friends,” “Family,” or “Rocket Scientists,” and then engage with them just like in real life. You can recommend great news articles, websites, and videos to specific Circles, or share photos with “Family” straight from your Android device. And the photos are even uploaded for you automatically! To follow people with shared interests, such as photography, just add them to your Circles. And you can share your own ideas with the world, or a smaller group, via the Google+ Stream and have others respond.

注册 Google+ 后，你可以使用“圈子”将人们分组，如“朋友”、“家人”或“火箭科学家”，然后就像在现实生活中那样与他们互动。你可以向特定圈子推荐优秀的新闻文章、网站和视频，或直接从 Android 设备中与“家人”分享照片，而且照片会自动上传！想要关注那些兴趣相投的人，比如摄影爱好者，只需将他们添加到你的圈子中。你还可以通过 Google+ 动态与全世界或某个小群体分享你的想法，并让其他人作出回应。

It’s still early days, and we have a long way to go. But these are tremendously important changes, and with over 120 Google+ integrations to date (including Google Search, YouTube and Android), we are on the right track. Well over 100 million users are active on Google+, and we’re seeing a positive impact across the Web, with Google users being able to recommend search results and videos they like—a goal we’ve had ever since we started the company.

这仍处于起步阶段，我们还有很长的路要走。但这些变化极为重要，到目前为止已有 120 多项 Google+ 集成（包括 Google 搜索、YouTube 和 Android），我们正走在正确的轨道上。活跃的 Google+ 用户超过 1 亿，我们在整个网络上也看到了积极影响，谷歌用户能够推荐他们喜欢的搜索结果和视频——这正是我们自公司成立以来的目标。

Activity on the Google+ Stream itself is increasing too. We’re excited about the tremendous speed with which some people have amassed over one million followers, as well as the depth of the discussions taking place among happy, passionate users—all evidence that we’re generating genuine engagement. When I post publicly I get a ton of high quality comments, which makes me happy and encourages me to keep posting. I strongly encourage all of you to follow me on Google+—I love having this new way to communicate and share with all of you!

Google+ 动态上的活动也在不断增加。我们对部分用户以惊人速度聚集超过一百万粉丝，以及那些充满热情的用户之间展开的深入讨论感到振奋——这一切都证明我们正在创造真实的互动。当我公开发帖时，总能收到大量高质量的评论，这让我感到开心，并激励我持续分享。我强烈建议大家关注我的 Google+ 账号——我非常喜欢这种全新的沟通和分享方式！

做不好社交软件很可能跟性格有关，缺少正常人的感受，Google+在2019年完全关闭，期间出现大量缺少常识和愚蠢的设计。

Next-generation search

下一代搜索

Understanding identity and relationships can also help us improve search. Today, most search results are generic, so two strangers sitting next to each other in a café will get very similar answers. Yet everyone’s life experiences are unique. We are all knowledgeable about different things; we have different interests and our preferences—for music, food, vacations, sports, movies, TV shows, and especially people—vary enormously.

了解身份和关系同样有助于改进搜索。如今，大多数搜索结果都是通用的，所以两个在咖啡馆里坐在一起的陌生人会得到非常相似的答案。然而，每个人的生活经历都是独一无二的；我们各有所长，兴趣各异，对音乐、食物、假期、运动、电影、电视节目，尤其是对人物的偏好，差异极大。

Imagine how much better search would be if we added… you. Say you’ve been studying computer science for awhile like me, then the information you need won’t be that helpful to a relative novice and vice versa. If you’re searching for a particular person, you want the results for that person—not everyone else with the same name. These are hard problems to solve without knowing your identity, your interests, or the people you care about.

试想如果加入了……你，搜索会变得多么出色。假如你像我一样学习计算机科学已有一段时间，那么你所需的信息对一个初学者来说可能帮助不大，反之亦然。如果你在搜索某个人，你希望得到的结果是关于那个人的信息，而不是所有同名者的信息。没有了解你的身份、兴趣或你在乎的人，这些问题难以解决。

We have an old-time Googler called Ben Smith, who is a good friend of mine. It turns out that he isn’t the only Ben Smith in the world! Today, it’s tough for Google to find the right Ben for me. Many people share only their public profiles, not their posts, photos, or connections. And privacy considerations certainly limit the information that can be shared between platforms—even if the third parties hosting it were willing to work with Google, which hasn’t always been the case.

我们有一位老谷歌员工，名叫 Ben Smith，他是我的好朋友。结果发现，他并不是世界上唯一的 Ben Smith！如今，谷歌很难为我找到那个真正的 Ben Smith。很多人仅共享他们的公开资料，而不包括帖子、照片或社交关系。而隐私方面的考量确实限制了平台间信息的共享——即便承载这些信息的第三方愿意与谷歌合作，这种情况也并非总是如此。

Google+ helps solve this problem for us because it enables Google to understand people and their connections. So when I search for Ben Smith, I get the real Ben Smith (for me), right there in my search box, complete with his picture. Previously, the search box would just have had the series of letters I had typed, with no real understanding that I was looking for a unique person. This is a huge and important change, and there’s a ton more work to do. But this kind of next-generation search in which Google understands real-world entities—things, not strings—will help improve our results in exciting new ways. It’s about building genuine knowledge into our search engine.

Google+ 帮助我们解决了这个问题，因为它使谷歌能够理解人们及其联系。所以当我搜索 Ben Smith 时，我能在搜索框中立即看到真正的 Ben Smith（对我而言），并附有他的照片。过去，搜索框中只会显示我输入的一串字符，并不能真正理解我在寻找一个独特的人。这是一次重大而重要的变化，未来还有大量工作要做。但这种下一代搜索——谷歌理解现实世界中的实体（事物，而非单纯的字符串）——将以令人兴奋的新方式改善我们的搜索结果。这正是在我们的搜索引擎中构建真实知识。

社交和搜索是两个独立的产品，后面一大堆愚蠢的设计很可能跟这样的定位有关，比如，隐私数据的泄露。

Taking actions

采取行动

In the early days of Google you would type in a query, we’d return ten blue links, and you would move on fairly happily. Today you want more. If you search for “weather san francisco”, chances are you want… the weather in San Francisco right there on the results page, not another click or two away. So that’s what we now provide. In fact, before you’ve even finished typing “weather” into the search box we give you the weather because we’ve learned that’s most likely what you’re looking for.

在谷歌早期，你只需输入查询，我们返回十个蓝色链接，而你便会心满意足地继续浏览。而今天，你想要更多。如果你搜索“旧金山天气”，很可能你希望在结果页面上直接看到旧金山的天气，而不需要再多点几下。所以这正是我们现在提供的功能。实际上，在你还没输入完“weather”这个词时，我们就已经显示出天气信息，因为我们了解到那极有可能是你所需要的。

Truly great search is all about turning your needs into actions in the blink of an eye. There is a huge amount of data in the world that isn’t publicly available today. Showing it in our results involves deep partnerships across different industries in many countries. It’s very similar to the work we did to get Google Maps off the ground.

真正卓越的搜索就是能在眨眼之间将你的需求转化为行动。世界上有大量数据今天还未公开展示。将这些数据呈现在我们的搜索结果中，需要与许多国家的不同行业建立深度合作。这与我们当初推出 Google Maps 的工作非常相似。

Last year, for example, we welcomed ITA Software to the Google family. They have strong relationships with the airline industry, and using that data we can now provide more relevant results for travel queries. This means that if you search for “flights from chicago to los angeles”, you get a list of the most relevant flights with prices, and you can book directly with the airline—or click on an ad for an online travel agency. We’re also experimenting with a feature called Hotel Finder, which enables you to compare prices and book a hotel room right from the results page. It’s all about speeding things up so users can get on with the things that matter in their lives.

例如，去年我们迎来了 ITA Software 加入谷歌大家庭。他们与航空业关系密切，借助这些数据，我们现在能为旅行查询提供更相关的结果。这意味着，如果你搜索“从芝加哥飞往洛杉矶的航班”，你会得到一个包含价格的最相关航班列表，并可以直接与航空公司预订——或者点击在线旅行社的广告。我们还在试验一项名为 Hotel Finder 的功能，它可以让你直接在搜索结果页面上比较价格并预订酒店房间。这一切都是为了加快流程，让用户能够专注于生活中更重要的事情。

From desktop to mobiles and tablets, oh my

从桌面到手机和平板，哇哦

Getting from needs to actions lightning fast is especially important on smaller devices like mobile phones, where screen size is limited and context really matters. That’s why I’m so excited about Android. Take Google Maps, one of our best-loved services. With it, you can search for something, perhaps the nearest bookstore, find it, and be shown the way straight there. And you can now turn your phone into a wallet using… Google Wallet. So you can tap, pay, and save while you shop. No more claiming you left your credit card at home when your friend asks you to pay for lunch!

在像手机这样屏幕尺寸有限且情境至关重要的小设备上，实现需求与行动之间的极速转换尤为重要。这正是我对 Android 感到兴奋的原因。拿 Google Maps 来说，这是我们最受喜爱的服务之一。借助它，你可以搜索某个地点，或许是最近的书店，找到它，并获得直达的路线。而且，你现在还可以通过……Google Wallet 将手机变成钱包。这样购物时你就可以轻触、支付并节省开支，再也不用在朋友叫你付午餐费时说信用卡忘在家里了！

It wasn’t always that easy. I remember first meeting Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, back in 2004. At the time, developing apps for mobile devices was incredibly painful. We had a closet full of over 100 phones, and we were building our software pretty much one device at a time. Andy believed that aligning standards around an open source operating system would drive innovation across the mobile industry. At the time, most people thought he was nuts.

事情并非一直如此简单。我记得2004年第一次见到 Android 创始人 Andy Rubin。当时，为移动设备开发应用极其艰难。我们有一个满是超过 100 部手机的储藏室，几乎是一部设备接着一部地开发软件。Andy 相信，以开源操作系统为标准的统一能推动整个移动行业的创新，而当时大多数人都认为他疯了。

Fast forward to today. Android is on fire, and the pace of mobile innovation has never been greater. Over 850,000 devices are activated daily through a network of 55 manufacturers and more than 300 carriers. Android is a tremendous example of the power of partnership, and it just gets better with each version. The latest update, Ice Cream Sandwich, has a beautiful interface that adapts to the form of the device. Whether it’s on a phone or tablet, the software works seamlessly.

快进到今天。Android 正处于火热状态，移动创新的步伐从未如此迅猛。每天有超过 85 万部设备通过 55 家制造商和 300 多家运营商的网络激活。Android 是合作力量的绝佳典范，并且随着每个版本的更新，它变得越来越好。最新版本 Ice Cream Sandwich 拥有一个美观的界面，能够适应设备的形态。无论是在手机还是平板上，软件都能无缝运行。

As devices multiply and usage changes (many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine), it becomes more and more important to ensure that people can access all of their stuff anywhere. Constant downloading is a terrible experience, so I am excited about products like Gmail and Google Docs that work well across Android and desktop. With Chrome now recently available on Android, switching devices becomes painless, too, because all of your tabs are just there across your desktop and Android. You can even click the back button on a different device, and it just works! And with Google Play, movies, books, apps, and games are all accessible from the Web or an Android device—no cables, downloading, or syncing required. I think there is a theme here!

随着设备数量激增和使用方式的改变（如今许多上网用户可能永远不会使用台式机），确保人们可以在任何地方访问所有资料变得越来越重要。频繁下载是一种糟糕的体验，因此我对 Gmail 和 Google Docs 等在 Android 与桌面间运行良好的产品感到兴奋。如今，Chrome 也已登陆 Android，切换设备变得毫不费力，因为你所有的标签页在桌面和 Android 上都同步存在。你甚至可以在另一设备上点击后退按钮，它依然能正常工作！而借助 Google Play，电影、书籍、应用和游戏都可以从网页或 Android 设备上访问——无需数据线、下载或同步。我觉得这里有一个共同的主题！

In August, we announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, a company that bet big on Android very early on. We are excited about the opportunities to build great devices capitalizing on the tremendous success and growth of Android and Motorola’s long history of technological innovation. But it’s important to reiterate that openness and investment by many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success. So we look forward to working with all of them in the future to deliver outstanding user experiences. Android was built as an open ecosystem, and we have no plans to change that.

今年八月，我们宣布了收购 Motorola Mobility 的计划——这是一家很早就对 Android 下重注的公司。我们对利用 Android 巨大的成功与增长，以及 Motorola 长期以来在技术创新方面的深厚积淀，打造出卓越设备的机遇感到兴奋。但必须重申，众多硬件合作伙伴的开放态度和投资促成了 Android 的成功。因此，我们期待未来与所有合作伙伴携手，提供卓越的用户体验。Android 是作为一个开放生态系统构建的，我们无意改变这一点。

Long-term focus

长期关注

We have always tried to concentrate on the long term, and to place bets on technology we believe will have a significant impact over time. It’s hard to imagine now, but when we started Google most people thought search was a solved problem and that there was no money to be made apart from some banner advertising. We felt the exact opposite: that search quality was very poor, and that awesome user experiences would clearly make money.

我们一直致力于专注于长期，并在我们认为会随着时间产生重大影响的技术上下注。现在很难想象，但当我们创立谷歌时，大多数人认为搜索问题已经解决，除了横幅广告之外再也无利可图。而我们的看法正好相反：搜索质量非常差，而出色的用户体验显然能带来收益。

Today it feels like we’re watching the same movie in slow motion over again. We have tremendous new products that were seen as crazy at launch yet now have phenomenal usage. They easily pass the toothbrush test: they are important enough that millions of people use them at least once or twice a day. Take Chrome, for example. In 2008, people asked whether the world really needed another browser. Today Chrome has over 200 million users and is growing fast, thanks to its speed, simplicity, and security. If you don’t use Chrome, just try it out, you’ll never go back! I promise it won’t take too long to install, and if it does you probably need a new computer.

今天感觉就像我们在慢动作中反复观看同一部电影。我们拥有许多新产品，刚推出时被认为疯狂，而如今的使用率却异常惊人。它们轻松通过了“牙刷测试”——足够重要，以至于数百万人每天至少使用一两次。以 Chrome 为例，2008 年时，人们还质疑世界是否真的需要另一款浏览器。如今，Chrome 拥有超过2亿用户，并以其速度、简洁和安全性迅速增长。如果你还没用过 Chrome，试试看，你将一去不返！我保证安装所需时间不会太长，如果拖得太久，那你可能真的需要一台新电脑。

Google的能力跟微软、腾讯比较接近，Android、搜索、Chrome都是成功复制的结果，敢为天下后，后来居上。

We are seeing phenomenal usage of our Web-based applications, too. When we launched Gmail in 2004, most people thought webmail was a toy, but its accessibility—all your email from anywhere, on any device—and insane storage have made it a winner with more than 350 million people. And our enterprise customers love it too. Over 5,000 new businesses and educational establishments now sign up every day.

我们的基于网络的应用同样展现出惊人的使用率。当我们在2004年推出 Gmail 时，大多数人认为网络邮件不过是个玩具，但它的可访问性——无论何时何地、任何设备上都能接收所有邮件——以及巨大的存储容量，使其赢得了超过3.5亿用户的青睐。而我们的企业客户也十分喜爱，现如今每天有超过5000家新企业和教育机构注册使用。

In 2006, when Google acquired YouTube, we faced a lot of skepticism. Today, YouTube has over 800 million monthly users uploading over an hour of video per second. It enables an activist in Syria to broadcast globally or a young star to build an entertainment network from scratch. YouTube channels have real potential to entertain and educate, as well as to help organize all the amazing videos that are available. So I’m excited we have a new effort working with media powerhouses such as Jay-Z, the Wall Street Journal, and Disney to create channels that appeal to every interest.

2006年，当谷歌收购 YouTube 时，我们面临了大量质疑。而今天，YouTube 拥有超过8亿月活用户，每秒上传的视频时长超过一小时。它使叙利亚的一位活动家能够进行全球直播，也让一位年轻明星从零开始建立起娱乐网络。YouTube 频道具有真正的潜力，不仅能提供娱乐和教育，还能帮助整理所有那些令人惊叹的视频资源。因此，我对与 Jay-Z、《华尔街日报》和迪士尼等媒体巨头合作创建迎合各种兴趣的频道充满期待。

People rightly ask how we’ll make money from these big bets. We understand the need to balance our short- and longer-term needs because our revenue is the engine that funds all our innovation. But over time, our emerging high-usage products will likely generate significant new revenue streams for Google as well as for our partners, just as search does today. For example, we’re seeing a hugely positive revenue impact from mobile advertising, which grew to a run rate of over $2.5 billion by the third quarter of 2011—two and a half times more than at the same point in 2010. Our goal is long-term growth in revenue and absolute profit—so we invest aggressively in future innovation while tightly managing our short-term costs.

人们理所当然会问，我们如何从这些重大赌注中获利。我们理解必须平衡短期与长期需求，因为收入是支撑所有创新的引擎。但随着时间的推移，我们新兴的高使用率产品很可能为谷歌以及我们的合作伙伴带来显著的新收入流，就像今天的搜索一样。例如，我们看到移动广告带来了极为正面的收入影响，到2011年第三季度，其年化收入已超过25亿美元——是2010年同期的两倍半。我们的目标是实现收入和绝对利润的长期增长，因此我们在未来创新上大举投资，同时严格管控短期成本。

Love and trust

爱与信任

We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind. We’re lucky to have a very direct relationship with our users, which creates a strong incentive for us to do the right thing. For every magic moment we create—like the ability to drop a photo into Google and search by image—we have a very happy user. And when our products don’t work or we make mistakes, it’s easy for users to go elsewhere because our competition is only a click away.

我们一直希望谷歌成为一家值得被热爱的公司。但我们也认识到，这是一个雄心勃勃的目标，因为大多数大公司并不受人喜爱，甚至看起来也未必如此。我们很幸运能与用户保持直接联系，这促使我们必须做正确的事。每当我们创造出魔幻时刻——例如能够将照片拖入谷歌并通过图像搜索——都会有用户感到无比高兴。而当我们的产品出问题或我们犯错时，用户也很容易转向竞争对手，因为竞争对手仅在一点击之遥。

Users place a lot of trust in Google when they store data, like emails and documents, on our systems. And we need to be responsible stewards of that information. It’s why we invest a lot of effort in security and related tools for users, like 2-step verification and encryption, which help prevent unauthorized access to information. The recent changes we made to our privacy policies generated a lot of interest. But they will enable us to create a much better, more intuitive experience across Google—our key focus for the year.

当用户将邮件和文档等数据存储在我们的系统上时，他们对谷歌寄予厚望。我们必须成为这些信息的负责任的守护者。这也是我们在安全及相关工具上投入大量精力的原因，例如两步验证和加密技术，帮助防止未经授权的信息访问。我们最近对隐私政策所做的更改引起了广泛关注，但这些更改将使我们能够在谷歌范围内创造出更好、更直观的体验——这是我们今年的重点。

We have always believed that it’s possible to make money without being evil. In fact, healthy revenue is essential if we are to change the world through innovation, and hire (and retain) great people. As a child I remember reading about Nikola Tesla, a genius whose impact was severely limited by his failure to make money from his inventions. It was a good lesson. Today, most of our revenue comes from advertising. We take pains to make sure that users know when something is paid for, and we work hard to make these advertisements relevant for users. Better ads are better for everyone—better information or offers for users, growth for businesses, and increased revenue for publishers to fund better content.

我们始终相信，不作恶也能赚钱。实际上，健康的收入对于通过创新改变世界、招聘（及留住）优秀人才至关重要。我小时候曾读到尼古拉·特斯拉的故事，这位天才因未能从其发明中盈利而大大限制了其影响力，这给了我很好的教训。如今，我们的大部分收入来自广告。我们不遗余力地确保用户知道哪些内容是付费的，并努力使这些广告对用户具有相关性。更好的广告对每个人都有益——为用户提供更佳的信息或优惠，为企业带来增长，并增加出版商的收入以支持更优质的内容。

Over one million businesses now use Google’s advertising products and we’re delighted with the ways in which we have helped other companies (both large and small) succeed. I recently heard about a Thai dressmaker whose store was destroyed by floods. To start rebuilding her business, she invested $5 a day in Google AdWords and doubled her revenue. Today over 80 percent of her orders come from the Web. Taylor’s Bike Shop in Utah, a family-run store, saw increase in sales of over 50 percent when they started using AdWords. Today they maintain a staff of eight people on a steady basis.

如今，超过一百万家企业使用谷歌的广告产品，我们对帮助大大小小的其他公司取得成功感到由衷高兴。我最近听说一位泰国服装设计师，她的店铺被洪水摧毁。为了重建生意，她每天在 Google AdWords 上投资5美元，结果收入翻了一番。如今，她超过80%的订单都来自网络。位于犹他州的 Taylor’s Bike Shop 是一家家族企业，自从开始使用 AdWords 后，销售额增长了超过50%，现在他们稳定雇佣着八名员工。

At the heart of our business model has always been the belief that we’re better off if we can create a larger pie for our partners. We started with AdSense, and Google has paid out over $30 billion to support content on the Web since its launch over a decade ago. That is a mighty big check (actually lots of smaller checks!) and I’m delighted we’ve been able to support our partners with that much resource. The same is true for our newer technologies like DoubleClick for online publishers and AdMob for mobile developers. YouTube also generates healthy revenue for Google and our content partners—in fact, partner ad revenue has more than doubled for the fourth year in a row. One thing I’ve learned is that if you keep doubling things, it really adds up fast!

我们的商业模式核心一直是：如果能为合作伙伴创造更大的蛋糕，大家都会更好。我们从 AdSense 起步，谷歌自十多年前推出以来已向网络内容支付了超过300亿美元。这是一笔巨额支票（实际上是许多小支票的总和！），我很高兴我们能够以如此丰富的资源支持合作伙伴。对于我们新推出的技术，如面向在线出版商的 DoubleClick 及面向移动开发者的 AdMob，情况同样如此。YouTube 也为谷歌及我们的内容合作伙伴带来了可观的收入——事实上，合作伙伴广告收入已连续第四年翻倍增长。我学到的一点是，如果你不断翻倍，增长速度真的会非常快！

这个想法非常幼稚。

All that said, we recognize that we don’t get everything right—and that the changes we make, like our recent visual refresh, can initially upset some users (even if they later come to love them). But we don’t operate in a static industry, and technology changes so fast that we need to innovate and iterate. Of course, when we do make mistakes we try to fix them as quickly as possible and, if necessary, change the way we do things to prevent problems from arising again. And we work hard to explain what we are doing—and why—because with size comes responsibility.

尽管如此，我们也认识到，并非所有事情都能做到完美——例如，我们最近的视觉刷新可能最初会让一些用户不适（即使他们之后会爱上它）。但我们所处的行业并非静止不变，技术变化如此迅速，以至于我们需要不断创新和迭代。当然，当我们犯错时，会尽快修正，并在必要时改变做事方式以防止问题再次发生。我们还努力向外界解释我们在做什么以及为何这么做，因为随着规模的扩大，责任也随之而来。

Googlers

谷歌员工

People are a crucial part of Google’s long-term success, since companies are no greater than the efforts and ingenuity of their employees. Our goal is to hire the best at every level and keep them. In our experience your working environment is enormously important because people want to feel part of a family in the office, just as they do at home. So we invest in great food, high quality medical care, gyms, and other fitness facilities, as well as cool workspaces that bring people together.

员工是谷歌长期成功的关键，因为一个公司的实力来源于其员工的努力与智慧。我们的目标是在每个层面上招聘并留住最优秀的人才。我们的经验告诉我们，工作环境极为重要，因为人们希望在办公室中感受到家庭般的温暖，就像在家里一样。因此，我们在美味的餐食、高质量的医疗服务、健身房及其他健身设施上进行投资，同时打造能聚集人群的酷炫工作空间。

Most important of all, however, we believe that work should be challenging. People are more motivated and have more fun when they work on important projects. Take Google Translate, which we started eight years ago and now enables anyone to translate text in an instant between any two of 64 languages—including Hindi, Arabic and Chinese. That’s actually 4032 different pairs of languages you can translate! In fact, by combining it with our voice recognition technology, we’ve turned mobile phones into pocket translators for millions of users globally. When you work on projects of this magnitude, it’s impossible not to wake up excited about work; the chance to make a difference is the greatest motivation anyone can have.

然而，最重要的是，我们认为工作应充满挑战。当人们从事重要项目时，他们会更有动力，也会更快乐。以 Google Translate 为例，我们在八年前启动了这一项目，如今它使任何人都能在 64 种语言之间即时翻译文本——包括印地语、阿拉伯语和中文——实际上你可以翻译 4032 种不同的语言对！事实上，通过结合我们的语音识别技术，我们已将手机变成了全球数百万用户的口袋翻译器。当你参与如此规模的项目时，早晨醒来无法不对工作充满激情；改变世界的机会是任何人最大的动力。

改成卓越的项目更好。

Happiness is a healthy disregard for the impossible

幸福就是对不可能抱有健康的漠视

When I was a student at the University of Michigan, I went on a summer leadership course. The slogan was “a healthy disregard for the impossible,” and it’s an idea that has stayed with me ever since. It may sound nuts, but I’ve found that it’s easier to make progress on mega-ambitious goals than on less risky projects. Few people are crazy enough to try, and the best people always want to work on the biggest challenges. We’ve also found that “failed” ambitious projects often yield other dividends. Believe it or not, the technological innovation behind AdSense, which, as I mentioned earlier, has paid out over $30 billion to partners, was the result of a “failed” more ambitious project to understand the Web. The team failed at understanding the Web, mostly, I think, because they were distracted by their work making advertisements amazingly relevant.

当我还是密歇根大学的学生时，我参加过一个夏季领导力课程。那时的口号是“对不可能抱有健康的漠视”，这一理念自此深深印在我心中。听起来可能疯狂，但我发现，相比风险较低的项目，推动超雄心目标的进展更为容易。很少有人疯狂到敢于尝试，而最优秀的人总是希望挑战最大的难题。我们还发现，那些“失败”的雄心勃勃的项目往往会带来其他回报。信不信由你，正如我之前提到的，支撑 AdSense 技术创新的，正是一项“失败”的更宏大项目——试图理解网络。团队未能理解网络，我认为主要是因为他们被制作出极为相关的广告工作分散了注意力。

Last year, the Google+ team decided to integrate multi-person video into their efforts. They had a small committed team that was crazy enough to believe this was possible, and Google+ Hangouts was born. You can now video chat with anyone, anywhere, even from the Great Barrier Reef. It was the same with driverless cars, which we started on in 2008. Today we have driven over 200,000 miles, and Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, recently took a drive in one of them. So the one-sentence summary of how to change the world… work on something that is uncomfortably exciting!

去年，Google+ 团队决定将多人视频功能融入他们的产品中。他们有一支小而坚定的团队，疯狂到相信这件事是可能的，于是诞生了 Google+ Hangouts。你现在可以与任何人、在任何地方视频聊天，即便是在大堡礁也不例外。自动驾驶汽车的情况也类似，这是我们在2008年启动的项目。如今，我们已驾驶超过20万英里，而法律上视力受限的 Steve Mahan 最近也试驾了其中一辆。所以，用一句话总结如何改变世界……那就是：去做那些让人既不安又激动的事！

关注新和奇的表面现象明显反映性格上的问题。

Today the opportunities are greater than ever. Things we used to think were magic, we now take for granted: the ability to get a map instantly, to find information quickly and easily, to choose any video from millions on YouTube rather than just a few TV channels. People are buying more devices and using them more because technology is playing an increasingly important role in our lives. I believe that by producing innovative technology products that touch people deeply, we will enable you to do truly amazing things that change the world. It’s a very exciting time to be at Google, and I take the responsibility I have to all of you very seriously.

今天，机遇比以往任何时候都多。那些曾被我们视作魔法般的事物，如今已被视为理所当然：能够瞬间获取地图、快速轻松找到信息、从 YouTube 数百万视频中选择任意一个，而不只是寥寥几条电视频道。人们购买并使用越来越多的设备，因为科技在我们的生活中扮演着越来越重要的角色。我相信，通过生产那些深深触动人心的创新科技产品，我们将使你能够做出真正惊人的改变世界的事情。现在在谷歌工作是一个非常激动人心的时代，我也非常认真地对待我对大家的这份责任。

Larry Page Signature

Larry Page

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