A is for Alphabet
A 代表 Alphabet
Hard to believe we are about a quarter short of two years of announcing Alphabet. It’s been busy! I certainly feel Alphabet is working well, and as intended (see the original “G is for Google” announcement). At the time, I wrote that “Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence.” The new structure has helped entrepreneurs build and run companies with the autonomy and speed they need.
难以相信，自从宣布 Alphabet 到现在已近两年还差大约四分之一年时间。真是忙得不可开交！我真切地感觉到 Alphabet 运作良好，并且正如预期般运行（参见最初的“G 代表谷歌”公告）。当时我写道：“Alphabet 是通过强有力的领导和独立性使企业蓬勃发展。” 新的架构帮助企业家以他们所需的自主性和速度建立和管理公司。
Sergey and I are working well together on the overall Alphabet direction and providing guidance to the companies. Sundar is doing great as Google CEO. It’s certainly a big job and we are very lucky to have him. He’ll probably write this letter again in the future as he has in the past, so I won’t speak too much for him on the Google related topics in this one. But, I’m excited about how he is leading the company with a focus on machine learning and AI. We took a big step in that direction with the Google Assistant, and built it into a new family of hardware devices like the Pixel and Google Home. There’s a lot more to come.
我和 Sergey 在整体 Alphabet 方向上协作良好，并为旗下公司提供指导。Sundar 作为谷歌 CEO 表现出色，这无疑是一项重大任务，我们非常幸运拥有他。他很可能像过去那样在未来再次撰写这封信，所以在与谷歌相关的话题上我不会替他多说什么。不过，我对他以机器学习和人工智能为重点引领公司的方式感到非常兴奋。我们借助 Google Assistant 朝这一方向迈出了重要一步，并将其打造成了一系列全新的硬件产品，如 Pixel 和 Google Home。未来还有更多惊喜。
We’ve had a number of significant things happen on the Alphabet side since I last wrote. A number of our projects became companies, with more autonomy and dedicated leadership.
自我上次撰写信件以来，Alphabet 方面发生了许多重大事件。我们的许多项目已经转变为拥有更大自主权和专门领导的新公司。
Waymo is the new self-driving car company formed from Project Chauffeur at X. John Krafcik is the new CEO and brings significant auto industry experience. I love the name and I love even more the excitement you can see when you visit with them! They also formed a partnership with Fiat Chrysler around their new plug-in hybrid Pacifica minivan which I see driving around the Waymo offices with lots of sensors on it. I can’t wait until Waymo launches.
Waymo 是从 X 的 Project Chauffeur 中组建的新自驾车公司。John Krafcik 担任新任 CEO，并带来了丰富的汽车行业经验。我喜欢这个名字，更喜欢当你拜访他们时能感受到的那份兴奋！他们还与菲亚特克莱斯勒围绕其新款插电式混合动力 Pacifica 小型面包车建立了合作关系，我曾看到它载满各类传感器在 Waymo 办公室周围行驶。我迫不及待地期待 Waymo 的发布。
Verily Life Sciences launched in December 2015 with Andy Conrad as founding CEO, also coming out of X. They have launched myriad efforts and raised $800M from Temasek, who joined their board and will help with Asian expansion. I’m very fond of their Debug project, which aims to stop mosquitoes in their tracks. It has been running for a while, showing some good foresight because it was started before Zika became a big concern.
Verily Life Sciences 于 2015 年 12 月启动，由 Andy Conrad 担任创始 CEO，同样起源于 X。他们启动了无数项目，并从淡马锡筹集了 8 亿美元，该公司已加入他们的董事会并将协助其在亚洲扩张。我非常喜欢他们的 Debug 项目，该项目旨在从源头阻止蚊子的滋生。它已经运行了一段时间，展现了良好的前瞻性，因为其启动早于寨卡病毒成为重大关注之前。
In June 2016, Marwan Fawaz became CEO of Nest. He has been doing great against their plan, and we have really been enjoying working with him! I recommend you buy all their excellent products including indoor and outdoor cameras, learning thermostats, and smoke alarms.
2016 年 6 月，Marwan Fawaz 成为 Nest 的 CEO。他在执行计划上表现出色，我们也非常享受与他的合作！我建议你购买他们所有出色的产品，包括室内外摄像头、智能温控器和烟雾报警器。
Very recently Greg McCray started as CEO of Google Fiber. I’ve been enjoying working with him and his team and he has rapidly been getting up to speed. He visited all of our Fiber cities so quickly that I think he was still a bit out of breath when he got back to Mountain View! We have made significant investments in bringing gigabit fiber internet to lots of happy customers and I’m excited about our opportunities to do it better.
最近，Greg McCray 开始担任 Google Fiber 的 CEO。我非常享受与他及其团队的合作，他也迅速适应了工作节奏。他如此迅速地拜访了我们所有的光纤城市，以至于我觉得他回到 Mountain View 时可能还略显气喘！我们在为众多满意的客户提供千兆光纤互联网方面进行了重大投资，我对进一步优化这一服务的机遇感到兴奋。
We have many other efforts within Alphabet. Calico CEO Art Levinson, former CEO of Genentech, is building an amazing research and development company focused on aging. We also have newly branded investment arms, GV (formerly Google Ventures), and CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) which are doing well. Sergey is continuing to spend time working with the X moonshot factory. They have a number of efforts like Wing, which is doing drone delivery. I also can’t wait for them to launch!
在 Alphabet 内部，我们还有许多其他项目。Calico 的 CEO Art Levinson（前 Genentech 的 CEO）正在打造一家专注于抗衰老的卓越研发公司。我们还设立了全新品牌的投资部门，GV（前称 Google Ventures）和 CapitalG（前称 Google Capital），它们运作良好。Sergey 仍在与 X 的月球工厂密切合作，他们开展了诸多项目，例如从事无人机配送的 Wing。我也迫不及待地期待它们的发布！
With the change to Alphabet, oversight has been easier because of increased visibility. We have streamlined efforts where it made sense and in other areas we have seen places to double down. I also think we have learned a lot about how to set up new companies with a structure for success. Our recent launch of Waymo was a great example of our learnings. In general we are taking a patient approach to investing our capital, especially significant uses. We’re not going to invest if we don’t see great opportunities and we feel like our track record for picking some important efforts long before others is pretty good. Machine learning and all the efforts around Google Brain and DeepMind are good examples. Google Cloud led by Diane Greene is doing a fabulous job of getting our machine learning hardware and software out to everyone. We were early in machine learning and are already seeing significant dividends coming out. Many of the Alphabet companies are already using this technology and are planning to use it even more.
随着转变为 Alphabet，因能见度提升而使监督工作变得更轻松。我们在合理的领域精简了工作，而在其他方面则发现了需要加倍努力的地方。我也认为我们在如何建立具有成功结构的新公司方面学到了很多。我们最近推出的 Waymo 就很好地体现了我们的经验教训。总体而言，我们在资本投资方面采取的是耐心策略，特别是对于重大的投入。只有在看到绝佳机遇时我们才会投资，而且我们在比其他人更早选择某些重要项目方面的成绩记录相当不错。机器学习以及围绕 Google Brain 和 DeepMind 的所有努力就是很好的例子。由 Diane Greene 领导的 Google Cloud 在将我们的机器学习硬件和软件推广给大众方面表现出色。我们在机器学习领域起步较早，已经见到了显著的回报。许多 Alphabet 旗下公司已经在使用这项技术，并计划进一步扩大应用。
So in conclusion, Sergey and I are having a good time looking for new opportunities and managing and scaling our existing efforts. I still see amazing opportunities that just aren’t quite fully developed yet—and helping making them real is what I get excited about.
总之，我和 Sergey 正在享受寻找新机遇以及管理和扩展现有项目的过程。我依然看到那些尚未完全开发的惊人机会——帮助它们变为现实正是让我充满激情的原因。