2021-04-15 Jeff Bezos’s Letters to Amazon Shareholders
To our shareowners:
In Amazon’s 1997 letter to shareholders, our first, I talked about our hope to create an “enduring franchise,” one that would reinvent what it means to serve customers by unlocking the internet’s power. I noted that Amazon had grown from having 158 employees to 614, and that we had surpassed 1.5 million customer accounts. We had just gone public at a split-adjusted stock price of $1.50 per share. I wrote that it was Day 1.
在亚马逊 1997 年致股东的第一封信中，我谈到了我们希望打造“一项经久不衰的事业”，借助互联网的力量重新定义服务客户的方式。我提到亚马逊的员工人数已从 158 人增至 614 人，客户账户突破 150 万个。就在那年，我们以拆股后每股 1.50 美元的价格上市。我写道，那是“第一天”。
We’ve come a long way since then, and we are working harder than ever to serve and delight customers. Last year, we hired 500,000 employees and now directly employ 1.3 million people around the world. We have more than 200 million Prime members worldwide. More than 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses sell in our store, and they make up close to 60% of our retail sales. Customers have connected more than 100 million smart-home devices to Alexa. Amazon Web Services serves millions of customers and ended 2020 with a $50 billion annualized run rate. In 1997, we hadn’t invented Prime, Marketplace, Alexa, or AWS. They weren’t even ideas then, and none was preordained. We took great risk with each one and put sweat and ingenuity into each one.
如今我们已走过漫长的道路，并且比以往任何时候都更加努力地服务并取悦客户。去年，我们新增了 50 万名员工，目前在全球直接雇用 130 万人。我们的 Prime 会员已超过 2 亿。超过 190 万家中小企业在我们的商店销售商品，占零售销售额的近 60%。客户已将超过 1 亿台智能家居设备连接到 Alexa。Amazon Web Services 为数百万客户提供服务，并在 2020 年实现了 500 亿美元的年化营收。1997 年，我们尚未发明 Prime、Marketplace、Alexa 或 AWS——那些概念当时甚至还不存在，也从未注定会诞生。每一项业务我们都承担了巨大风险，倾注了汗水与创造力。
Along the way, we’ve created $1.6 trillion of wealth for shareowners. Who are they? Your Chair is one, and my Amazon shares have made me wealthy. But more than 7/8ths of the shares, representing $1.4 trillion of wealth creation, are owned by others. Who are they? They’re pension funds, universities, and 401(k)s, and they’re Mary and Larry, who sent me this note out of the blue just as I was sitting down to write this shareholder letter:
在这一过程中，我们为股东创造了 1.6 万亿美元的财富。他们是谁？本人——董事长——也是其中一员，我持有的亚马逊股票让我富有。但超过 7/8 的股份，代表 1.4 万亿美元的财富增值，属于他人。那些人是谁？他们是养老基金、大学基金和 401(k) 退休账户；他们也是玛丽和拉里——就在我坐下来撰写这封股东信时，他们突然给我寄来了这封信：
I am approached with similar stories all the time. I know people who’ve used their Amazon money for college, for emergencies, for houses, for vacations, to start their own business, for charity – and the list goes on. I’m proud of the wealth we’ve created for shareowners. It’s significant, and it improves their lives. But I also know something else: it’s not the largest part of the value we’ve created.
我经常听到类似的故事。我认识一些人，他们用亚马逊股票赚来的钱支付大学学费、应对紧急情况、购置房产、度假、创业、行善——等等不胜枚举。我为我们为股东创造的财富感到自豪。这笔财富意义重大，改善了他们的生活。但我也清楚：这并不是我们所创造价值的最大部分。
Create More Than You Consume
创造的价值要大于你消耗的价值
If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn’t create value for those it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn’t long for this world. It’s on the way out.
如果你想在商业上（实际上在生活中也是如此）获得成功，你必须创造的价值大于你消耗的价值。你的目标应该是为所有与你互动的人创造价值。任何一家无法为其接触到的人创造价值的企业，即便表面上看似成功，也不会长久，它终将被淘汰。
Remember that stock prices are not about the past. They are a prediction of future cash flows discounted back to the present. The stock market anticipates. I’m going to switch gears for a moment and talk about the past. How much value did we create for shareowners in 2020? This is a relatively easy question to answer because accounting systems are set up to answer it. Our net income in 2020 was $21.3 billion. If, instead of being a publicly traded company with thousands of owners, Amazon were a sole proprietorship with a single owner, that’s how much the owner would have earned in 2020.
请记住，股票价格并不是关于过去，它们是对未来现金流贴现到现值的预测。股市具有前瞻性。下面我暂且转换话题谈谈过去：在 2020 年，我们为股东创造了多少价值？这个问题相对容易回答，因为会计体系正是为此而设。我们 2020 年的净利润为 213 亿美元。如果亚马逊不是一家拥有成千上万股东的上市公司，而是一家只有单一所有者的独资企业，那么 2020 年这位所有者就可以获得 213 亿美元的收益。
How about employees? This is also a reasonably easy value creation question to answer because we can look at compensation expense. What is an expense for a company is income for employees. In 2020, employees earned $80 billion, plus another $11 billion to include benefits and various payroll taxes, for a total of $91 billion.
那员工呢？这个价值创造问题也相对容易回答，因为我们可以查看薪酬支出。对公司而言是支出，对员工来说就是收入。2020 年，员工共获得 800 亿美元薪酬，再加上福利和各类薪资税费 110 亿美元，总计 910 亿美元。
How about third-party sellers? We have an internal team (the Selling Partner Services team) that works to answer that question. They estimate that, in 2020, third-party seller profits from selling on Amazon were between $25 billion and $39 billion, and to be conservative here I’ll go with $25 billion.
再看第三方卖家？我们有一个内部团队（销售伙伴服务团队）专门研究这一问题。他们估计 2020 年第三方卖家通过在亚马逊平台销售获得的利润在 250 亿至 390 亿美元之间；为求保守，我在此采用 250 亿美元这一数字。
For customers, we have to break it down into consumer customers and AWS customers.
至于客户，我们需要将其分为终端消费者和 AWS 客户两类。
We’ll do consumers first. We offer low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery, but imagine we ignore all of that for the purpose of this estimate and value only one thing: we save customers time.
先说消费者。我们提供低价、海量选择和快速配送，但为了这项估算，假设我们忽略所有这些因素，只衡量一点：我们为客户节省的时间。
Customers complete 28% of purchases on Amazon in three minutes or less, and half of all purchases are finished in less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the typical shopping trip to a physical store – driving, parking, searching store aisles, waiting in the checkout line, finding your car, and driving home. Research suggests the typical physical store trip takes about an hour. If you assume that a typical Amazon purchase takes 15 minutes and that it saves you a couple of trips to a physical store a week, that’s more than 75 hours a year saved. That’s important. We’re all busy in the early 21st century.
客户在亚马逊完成28%的购买只需三分钟或更短时间，一半的购买在15分钟内完成。对比之下，实体店购物通常需要开车、停车、在货架间寻找商品、排队结账、找到自己的车、然后再开车回家。有研究显示，实体店一次典型的购物行程大约需要一个小时。如果我们假设在亚马逊一次典型的购物耗时15分钟，并且每周可以减少两次实体店购物，那么每年就能节省75个小时以上。这一点很重要，因为我们在21世纪初期都很忙碌。
So that we can get a dollar figure, let’s value the time savings at \$10 per hour, which is conservative. Seventy-five hours multiplied by \$10 an hour and subtracting the cost of Prime gives you value creation for each Prime member of about \$630. We have 200 million Prime members, for a total in 2020 of \$126 billion of value creation.
为了将其量化为金额，我们将时间价值保守地估算为每小时10美元。75小时乘以每小时10美元，再减去Prime会员的年费后，每位Prime会员的价值创造约为630美元。我们拥有2亿Prime会员，因此2020年的总价值创造约为1260亿美元。
AWS is challenging to estimate because each customer’s workload is so different, but we’ll do it anyway, acknowledging up front that the error bars are high. Direct cost improvements from operating in the cloud versus on premises vary, but a reasonable estimate is 30%. Across AWS’s entire 2020 revenue of \$45 billion, that 30% would imply customer value creation of \$19 billion (what would have cost them \$64 billion on their own cost \$45 billion from AWS). The difficult part of this estimation exercise is that the direct cost reduction is the smallest portion of the customer benefit of moving to the cloud. The bigger benefit is the increased speed of software development – something that can significantly improve the customer’s competitiveness and top line. We have no reasonable way of estimating that portion of customer value except to say that it’s almost certainly larger than the direct cost savings. To be conservative here (and remembering we’re really only trying to get ballpark estimates), I’ll say it’s the same and call AWS customer value creation \$38 billion in 2020.
AWS的估算比较困难，因为每位客户的工作负载差异很大，但我们还是尝试进行估算，前提是我们承认这个估算的误差范围很大。相比本地部署，使用云服务的直接成本节省率各不相同，但一个合理的估算是30%。以AWS在2020年的总收入450亿美元计算，30%的节省意味着客户价值创造为190亿美元（即客户如果自建将花费640亿美元，通过AWS则只需450亿美元）。估算中最难的部分在于，直接成本节省只是迁移至云端带来的客户收益中最小的一部分。更大的收益是软件开发速度的提升——这能显著提升客户的竞争力和营收表现。我们无法合理估算这部分的价值，只能说几乎肯定比直接成本节省更高。为了保守起见（同时记住我们只是想要一个大致的估算），我们假设这两者相等，那么2020年AWS的客户价值创造为380亿美元。
Adding AWS and consumer together gives us total customer value creation in 2020 of \$164 billion.
将AWS和消费者端的价值相加，2020年总的客户价值创造达到1640亿美元。
Summarizing:
Shareholders $21B
Employees $91B
3P Sellers $25B
Customers $164B
Total $301B
If each group had an income statement representing their interactions with Amazon, the numbers above would be the “bottom lines” from those income statements. These numbers are part of the reason why people work for us, why sellers sell through us, and why customers buy from us. We create value for them. And this value creation is not a zero-sum game. It is not just moving money from one pocket to another. Draw the box big around all of society, and you’ll find that invention is the root of all real value creation. And value created is best thought of as a metric for innovation.
如果每个群体都有一张收入报表来体现他们与亚马逊的互动，那么上述数字就相当于是这些报表的“净利润”部分。正是因为这些价值创造，人们才愿意为我们工作，卖家才通过我们销售，顾客才在我们平台购物。我们为他们创造了价值。而这种价值创造并不是零和游戏，它不仅仅是把钱从一个口袋挪到另一个口袋。如果把范围扩大到整个社会，你会发现发明是所有真实价值创造的根源。而“所创造的价值”最适合作为衡量创新的指标。
Of course, our relationship with these constituencies and the value we create isn’t exclusively dollars and cents. Money doesn’t tell the whole story. Our relationship with shareholders, for example, is relatively simple. They invest and hold shares for a duration of their choosing. We provide direction to shareowners infrequently on matters such as annual meetings and the right process to vote their shares. And even then they can ignore those directions and just skip voting.
当然，我们与这些利益相关方的关系，以及我们所创造的价值，并不仅仅以金钱来衡量。金钱并不能讲述整个故事。比如，我们与股东的关系就相对简单。他们投资并在自己选择的时间内持有股份。我们偶尔会就年会和投票程序等事项为股东提供指引。即便如此，他们也可以忽视这些指引，选择不参与投票。
Our relationship with employees is a very different example. We have processes they follow and standards they meet. We require training and various certifications. Employees have to show up at appointed times. Our interactions with employees are many, and they’re fine-grained. It’s not just about the pay and the benefits. It’s about all the other detailed aspects of the relationship too.
我们与员工的关系则截然不同。我们有流程要求他们遵循，有标准要求他们达成。我们要求员工接受培训和获得各种认证。他们必须在指定时间上岗。我们与员工之间的互动非常频繁且细致。这不仅仅关系到薪资和福利，还包括所有其他细节层面的互动。
Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn’t. I think we need to do a better job for our employees. While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees – a vision for their success.
你们的董事长是否会因贝塞默最近的工会投票结果而感到安心？不会。我认为我们需要为员工做得更好。虽然投票结果一边倒，显示我们与员工的直接关系依然牢固，但我很清楚，我们需要一个更好的愿景，来思考如何为员工创造价值——一个关于他们成功的愿景。
If you read some of the news reports, you might think we have no care for employees. In those reports, our employees are sometimes accused of being desperate souls and treated as robots. That’s not accurate. They’re sophisticated and thoughtful people who have options for where to work. When we survey fulfillment center employees, 94% say they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work.
如果你看过一些新闻报道，你可能会以为我们不关心员工。在那些报道中，我们的员工有时被描述成绝望的灵魂，被当作机器人对待。但这并不准确。他们是成熟而有思想的人，在选择工作地点方面拥有多种选择。当我们调查配送中心员工时，94%的人表示他们会向朋友推荐亚马逊作为工作场所。
Employees are able to take informal breaks throughout their shifts to stretch, get water, use the rest room, or talk to a manager, all without impacting their performance. These informal work breaks are in addition to the 30-minute lunch and 30-minute break built into their normal schedule.
员工在轮班期间可以随时进行非正式的短暂休息，比如伸展身体、喝水、上厕所或与经理交流，这些都不会影响他们的绩效。这些非正式休息时间是在正常排班中包含的30分钟午餐时间和30分钟休息时间之外的补充。
We don’t set unreasonable performance goals. We set achievable performance goals that take into account tenure and actual employee performance data. Performance is evaluated over a long period of time as we know that a variety of things can impact performance in any given week, day, or hour. If employees are on track to miss a performance target over a period of time, their manager talks with them and provides coaching.
我们不会设定不合理的绩效目标。我们设定的目标是可实现的，并充分考虑员工的任职时间和实际绩效数据。绩效是通过长期表现进行评估的，因为我们知道，在任何一周、一天甚至一小时内，都会有各种因素影响员工表现。如果某位员工在一段时间内有可能未达成绩效目标，主管会与他们沟通并提供指导和辅导。
Coaching is also extended to employees who are excelling and in line for increased responsibilities. In fact, 82% of coaching is positive, provided to employees who are meeting or exceeding expectations. We terminate the employment of less than 2.6% of employees due to their inability to perform their jobs (and that number was even lower in 2020 because of operational impacts of COVID-19).
我们也会为表现出色、准备承担更多责任的员工提供辅导。事实上，82%的辅导是积极性的，针对那些达到或超出预期的员工。由于无法胜任工作的原因而被解雇的员工比例不到2.6%（而且由于COVID-19带来的运营影响，这一数字在2020年甚至更低）。
Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work
地球上最好的雇主和最安全的工作场所
The fact is, the large team of thousands of people who lead operations at Amazon have always cared deeply for our hourly employees, and we’re proud of the work environment we’ve created. We’re also proud of the fact that Amazon is a company that does more than just create jobs for computer scientists and people with advanced degrees. We create jobs for people who never got that advantage.
事实上，亚马逊运营部门的数千位领导者一直非常关心我们的小时工员工，我们为我们营造的工作环境感到自豪。我们也为亚马逊不仅为计算机科学家和高学历人才创造就业机会，而且为那些未曾获得这些优势的人们创造了大量工作机会这一事实而感到骄傲。
Despite what we’ve accomplished, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees’ success. We have always wanted to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company. We won’t change that. It’s what got us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.
尽管我们已经取得了一些成就，但我很清楚，我们需要一个关于员工成功的更好愿景。我们一直以来的目标是成为“地球上最以客户为中心的公司”。这一点不会改变，这正是我们走到今天的原因。但我将在此基础上作出一个新的承诺：我们将努力成为“地球上最好的雇主”和“地球上最安全的工作场所”。
In my upcoming role as Executive Chair, I’m going to focus on new initiatives. I’m an inventor. It’s what I enjoy the most and what I do best. It’s where I create the most value. I’m excited to work alongside the large team of passionate people we have in Ops and help invent in this arena of Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. On the details, we at Amazon are always flexible, but on matters of vision we are stubborn and relentless. We have never failed when we set our minds to something, and we’re not going to fail at this either.
在我即将担任执行董事长的新职位中，我将专注于新的举措。我是一名发明家，这是我最喜欢做的事，也是我最擅长的地方，也是我最能创造价值的地方。我对即将与我们运营部门那支充满激情的庞大团队共同努力、在“地球上最好的雇主”和“地球上最安全的工作场所”这一领域展开创新感到非常兴奋。在具体事务上，亚马逊一贯保持灵活；但在愿景方面，我们始终坚定执着。只要我们下定决心做成一件事，就从未失败过，而这一次我们也不会失败。
We dive deep into safety issues. For example, about 40% of work-related injuries at Amazon are related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), things like sprains or strains that can be caused by repetitive motions. MSDs are common in the type of work that we do and are more likely to occur during an employee’s first six months. We need to invent solutions to reduce MSDs for new employees, many of whom might be working in a physical role for the first time.
我们深入研究安全问题。例如，亚马逊约有40%的工伤与肌肉骨骼疾病（MSD）有关，比如由于重复动作引发的扭伤或拉伤。在我们所从事的工作类型中，这类MSD是很常见的，尤其容易出现在员工入职的前六个月。我们需要发明新的解决方案，帮助新员工减少MSD的发生，毕竟其中许多人可能是首次从事这类体力劳动。
One such program is WorkingWell – which we launched to 859,000 employees at 350 sites across North America and Europe in 2020 – where we coach small groups of employees on body mechanics, proactive wellness, and safety. In addition to reducing workplace injuries, these concepts have a positive impact on regular day-to-day activities outside work.
我们推出了一个名为“WorkingWell”的项目，2020年覆盖了北美和欧洲350个站点的859,000名员工。在该项目中，我们为小组员工提供关于身体力学、主动健康管理和安全方面的指导。除了减少工作场所的伤害，这些理念也对员工日常生活中的活动产生了积极影响。
We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks. This new technology is central to a job rotation program that we’re rolling out throughout 2021.
我们正在开发新的自动化排班系统，利用复杂算法将员工轮换到使用不同肌腱群的岗位，以减少重复性动作，帮助员工降低罹患肌肉骨骼疾病（MSD）的风险。这项新技术是我们将在2021年全面推出的岗位轮换计划的核心。
Our increased attention to early MSD prevention is already achieving results. From 2019 to 2020, overall MSDs decreased by 32%, and MSDs resulting in time away from work decreased by more than half.
我们对MSD早期预防的重视已经初见成效。2019年至2020年，整体MSD案例下降了32%，而导致员工请假的MSD案例则减少了一半以上。
We employ 6,200 safety professionals at Amazon. They use the science of safety to solve complex problems and establish new industry best practices. In 2021, we’ll invest more than \$300 million into safety projects, including an initial \$66 million to create technology that will help prevent collisions of forklifts and other types of industrial vehicles.
亚马逊目前雇佣了6,200名安全专业人员。他们运用安全科学解决复杂问题，制定新的行业最佳实践。2021年，我们将投资超过3亿美元用于安全项目，其中首期6600万美元将用于开发预防叉车及其他工业车辆碰撞的技术。
When we lead, others follow. Two and a half years ago, when we set a \$15 minimum wage for our hourly employees, we did so because we wanted to lead on wages – not just run with the pack – and because we believed it was the right thing to do. A recent paper by economists at the University of California-Berkeley and Brandeis University analyzed the impact of our decision to raise our minimum starting pay to \$15 per hour. Their assessment reflects what we’ve heard from employees, their families, and the communities they live in.
当我们领先，其他人会跟随。两年半前，我们为小时工设定了15美元的最低工资标准，这一决定的初衷是希望在工资方面引领行业，而非随波逐流，也因为我们相信这是正确的做法。最近，加州大学伯克利分校和布兰迪斯大学的经济学家发表了一篇论文，分析了我们将最低起薪提高到15美元/小时这一决定的影响。他们的评估结果与我们从员工、他们的家庭以及所在社区所听到的反馈是一致的。
Our increase in starting wage boosted local economies across the country by benefiting not only our own employees but also other workers in the same community. The study showed that our pay raise resulted in a 4.7% increase in the average hourly wage among other employers in the same labor market.
我们提高起薪不仅惠及了自己的员工，也使同一社区的其他劳动者受益，从而推动了全国各地地方经济的发展。研究显示，我们的加薪举措促使同一劳动力市场中其他雇主的平均时薪上涨了4.7%。
And we’re not done leading. If we want to be Earth’s Best Employer, we shouldn’t settle for 94% of employees saying they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work. We have to aim for 100%. And we’ll do that by continuing to lead on wages, on benefits, on upskilling opportunities, and in other ways that we will figure out over time.
我们的引领还没有结束。如果我们想成为地球上最好的雇主，仅仅94%的员工愿意推荐亚马逊作为工作场所还不够，我们的目标应该是100%。为实现这一目标，我们将继续在薪酬、福利、技能提升机会等方面保持领先，并不断探索新的方式。
If any shareowners are concerned that Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work might dilute our focus on Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, let me set your mind at ease. Think of it this way. If we can operate two businesses as different as consumer ecommerce and AWS, and do both at the highest level, we can certainly do the same with these two vision statements. In fact, I’m confident they will reinforce each other.
如果有股东担心“成为地球上最好的雇主”和“最安全的工作场所”的目标会削弱我们作为“地球上最以客户为中心的公司”的专注，请让我打消你们的疑虑。你可以这样思考：如果我们能够高水平运营消费者电商和AWS这两项完全不同的业务，我们当然也能够同时实现这两个愿景。事实上，我有信心这两个目标将彼此加强、相互促进。
The Climate Pledge
《气候承诺》
In an earlier draft of this letter, I started this section with arguments and examples designed to demonstrate that human-induced climate change is real. But, bluntly, I think we can stop saying that now. You don’t have to say that photosynthesis is real, or make the case that gravity is real, or that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. These things are simply true, as is the reality of climate change.
在这封信的早期草稿中，我曾以一些论据和例子来证明人为导致的气候变化是真实存在的。但坦率地说，我认为我们现在不必再重复这个事实了。你不需要去证明光合作用是真实的，也无需论证重力的存在，或者水在海平面上是以摄氏100度沸腾的。这些事情本身就是真实的，气候变化也同样如此。
Not long ago, most people believed that it would be good to address climate change, but they also thought it would cost a lot and would threaten jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth. We now know better. Smart action on climate change will not only stop bad things from happening, it will also make our economy more efficient, help drive technological change, and reduce risks. Combined, these can lead to more and better jobs, healthier and happier children, more productive workers, and a more prosperous future.
在不久以前，大多数人还认为应对气候变化是好事，但也担心这将带来高昂代价，并威胁到就业、竞争力和经济增长。而现在我们认识得更加清楚。对气候变化采取明智行动不仅可以防止不良后果发生，还能提高经济效率，推动技术变革，并降低风险。所有这些共同作用，将带来更多、更优质的就业岗位、更健康、更快乐的下一代、更高生产力的员工，以及一个更加繁荣的未来。
This doesn’t mean it will be easy. It won’t be. The coming decade will be decisive. The economy in 2030 will need to be vastly different from what it is today, and Amazon plans to be at the heart of the change. We launched The Climate Pledge together with Global Optimism in September 2019 because we wanted to help drive this positive revolution. We need to be part of a growing team of corporations that understand the imperatives and the opportunities of the 21st century.
这并不意味着这会是一件容易的事。它不会。接下来的十年将是决定性的。到2030年，经济体系必须与今天大为不同，而亚马逊计划在这场变革中扮演核心角色。2019年9月，我们与“全球乐观主义”（Global Optimism）联合发起了《气候承诺》，正是因为我们希望推动这一积极的革命。我们需要成为越来越多了解21世纪紧迫性与机遇的企业团队的一员。
Now, less than two years later, 53 companies representing almost every sector of the economy have signed The Climate Pledge. Signatories such as Best Buy, IBM, Infosys, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Siemens, and Verizon have committed to achieve net-zero carbon in their worldwide businesses by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.
如今，仅仅不到两年时间，已有53家公司签署了《气候承诺》，这些公司几乎涵盖了经济的所有主要领域。包括百思买、IBM、印孚瑟斯、梅赛德斯-奔驰、微软、西门子和威瑞森在内的签署方承诺将在2040年前实现其全球业务的净零碳排放，比《巴黎协定》的目标提前了10年。
The Pledge also requires them to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis; implement decarbonization strategies through real business changes and innovations; and neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets. Credible, quality offsets are precious, and we should reserve them to compensate for economic activities where low-carbon alternatives don’t exist.
《气候承诺》还要求签署方定期测量和报告温室气体排放；通过真实的业务变革和创新来执行去碳战略；并使用额外的、可量化的、真实的、永久性的且具社会效益的碳补偿措施来抵消任何剩余排放。可信且高质量的碳补偿资源非常宝贵，我们应当将其保留用于尚无低碳替代方案的经济活动中。
The Climate Pledge signatories are making meaningful, tangible, and ambitious commitments. Uber has a goal of operating as a zero-emission platform in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. by 2030, and Henkel plans to source 100% of the electricity it uses for production from renewable sources.
《气候承诺》的签署方正在做出有意义的、切实的、雄心勃勃的承诺。优步计划在2030年前，将其在加拿大、欧洲和美国的平台运营转变为零排放运营。汉高计划100%使用可再生能源来满足其生产所需电力。
Amazon is making progress toward our own goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our initial 2030 target. Amazon is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world. We have 62 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 125 solar rooftops on fulfillment and sort centers around the globe. These projects have the capacity to generate over 6.9 gigawatts and deliver more than 20 million megawatt-hours of energy annually.
亚马逊自身也在朝着100%可再生能源的目标迈进，并计划在2025年达成，比最初设定的2030年目标提前五年。亚马逊是全球最大的企业可再生能源采购方。我们在全球拥有62个公用规模的风能和太阳能项目，以及部署于配送和分拣中心的125个屋顶太阳能项目。这些项目的装机容量超过6.9吉瓦，每年可提供超过2,000万兆瓦时的清洁能源。
Transportation is a major component of Amazon’s business operations and the toughest part of our plan to meet net-zero carbon by 2040. To help rapidly accelerate the market for electric vehicle technology, and to help all companies transition to greener technologies, we invested more than \$1 billion in Rivian – and ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from the company. We’ve also partnered with Mahindra in India and Mercedes-Benz in Europe. These custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian are already operational, and they first hit the road in Los Angeles this past February. Ten thousand new vehicles will be on the road as early as next year, and all 100,000 vehicles will be on the road by 2030 – saving millions of metric tons of carbon. A big reason we want companies to join The Climate Pledge is to signal to the marketplace that businesses should start inventing and developing new technologies that signatories need to make good on the Pledge. Our purchase of 100,000 Rivian electric vans is a perfect example.
运输是亚马逊业务运营中的一个关键组成部分，也是我们实现2040年净零碳排放计划中最艰难的部分。为了加速电动车技术的发展，并帮助所有公司向更环保的技术过渡，我们向Rivian投资了超过10亿美元，并向该公司订购了10万辆电动配送货车。我们还在印度与马恒达、在欧洲与梅赛德斯-奔驰建立了合作关系。这些来自Rivian的定制电动送货车已经投入运营，并于今年2月首次在洛杉矶上路。到明年初，将有一万辆新车投入使用，所有10万辆车辆将在2030年前上路——这将节省数百万公吨的碳排放。我们鼓励更多公司加入《气候承诺》的重要原因之一，就是向市场发出信号：企业应当开始发明和开发签署方履约所需的新技术。我们订购的这10万辆Rivian电动货车正是一个完美的例子。
To further accelerate investment in new technologies needed to build a zero-carbon economy, we introduced the Climate Pledge Fund last June. The investment program started with \$2 billion to invest in visionary companies that aim to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Amazon has already announced investments in CarbonCure Technologies, Pachama, Redwood Materials, Rivian, Turntide Technologies, ZeroAvia, and Infinium – and these are just some of the innovative companies we hope will build the zero-carbon economy of the future.
为了进一步加速对构建零碳经济所需新技术的投资，我们于去年6月推出了《气候承诺基金》。该投资计划以20亿美元启动，专注投资那些致力于推动向低碳经济转型的前瞻性公司。亚马逊已宣布对以下企业进行投资：CarbonCure Technologies、Pachama、Redwood Materials、Rivian、Turntide Technologies、ZeroAvia和Infinium——这些只是我们希望能参与构建未来零碳经济的一部分创新企业。
I have also personally allocated \$10 billion to provide grants to help catalyze the systemic change we will need in the coming decade. We’ll be supporting leading scientists, activists, NGOs, environmental justice organizations, and others working to fight climate change and protect the natural world. Late last year, I made my first round of grants to 16 organizations working on innovative and needle-moving solutions. It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals, and I’m excited to be part of this journey and optimistic that humanity can come together to solve this challenge.
我个人也已承诺拨出100亿美元，用于提供赠款，帮助在未来十年内推动我们所需的系统性变革。我们将支持一流的科学家、活动家、非政府组织、环境正义组织以及其他致力于应对气候变化和保护自然环境的机构。去年年底，我向16个致力于开创性、具有突破性解决方案的组织提供了首轮赠款。要解决这个挑战，我们需要大公司、小公司、国家、全球组织和个人的集体行动。我很高兴能够成为这个进程的一部分，并对人类能齐心协力解决这个问题感到乐观。
Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical
差异化是生存之道，而宇宙希望你平庸如常
This is my last annual shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon, and I have one last thing of utmost importance I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazonians take it to heart.
这是我作为亚马逊首席执行官撰写的最后一封年度股东信，我有一件极其重要的事情想要传授。我希望所有亚马逊人都能铭记于心。
Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins’ (extraordinary) book *The Blind Watchmaker*. It’s about a basic fact of biology.
以下这段话摘自理查德·道金斯那本非凡之作《盲眼钟表匠》，讲述的是一个基本的生物学事实。
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”
“抵御死亡是一项必须努力完成的任务。若不加干预——也就是当生命终结时——身体会趋于与周围环境达到平衡的状态。如果你测量某种生命体的参数，例如体温、酸碱度、水分含量或电位，你通常会发现这些数值与环境中的对应值存在明显差异。比如我们的体温通常高于外部环境，在寒冷的气候中，我们必须努力维持这种温差。当我们死去，这种‘努力’停止，温差开始消失，最终我们的体温与环境一致。并不是所有动物都会为避免与环境温度趋于平衡而付出巨大努力，但所有动物都会在某种程度上做类似的事情。比如在干燥的地区，动物和植物要努力保持细胞中的水分含量，抵抗水分自然流向干燥外部环境的趋势；如果失败，它们就会死亡。更普遍地说，如果生物不积极行动加以抵抗，它们最终将融入周围环境，不再作为独立体存在。这正是它们死亡时所发生的事情。”
While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?
虽然那段话本意并非比喻，但它仍是一个精彩的隐喻，与亚马逊息息相关。我认为它同样适用于所有公司、所有机构，以及我们每个人的生活。世界是如何在潜移默化中试图让你变得“正常”的？你又需要付出多少努力，才能维持你与众不同的特质？才能保留住那些让你特别的东西？
I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?” They both smile and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal.
我认识一对幸福的夫妻，他们之间有个常开的玩笑。丈夫常常假装苦恼地看着妻子说：“你就不能正常点吗？”然后他们会一起微笑、发笑。当然，内心深处的真相是：正是她与众不同的地方让他深深地爱着她。但与此同时，不可否认的是，如果我们稍微“正常”一些，事情往往也会变得更简单、更省力。
This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.
这种现象存在于所有层面。民主制度并不是常态，历史上专制才是常态。如果我们不再为维持这方面的独特性持续努力，很快我们就会与专制趋于平衡。
We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.
我们都知道，与众不同、独创性是有价值的。从小我们就被教导要“做自己”。但我真正想告诉你的是，要正视并接纳：维持这种与众不同需要付出巨大的能量。世界千方百计地想让你变得平庸普通——不要让它得逞。
You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.
保持独特是要付出代价的，但这是值得的。童话版本的“做自己”是：一旦你展现出与众不同，所有的痛苦都会消失。但这只是误导。做自己确实值得，但不要指望这条路轻松或没有代价。你必须不断地投入能量，才能维持它。
The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.
世界永远会试图让亚马逊变得更“典型”——与环境趋于平衡。这需要我们持续不断的努力，但我们可以，也必须，比这更出色。
* * *
As always, I attach our 1997 shareholder letter. It concluded with this: “We at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.” That hasn’t changed a bit. I want to especially thank Andy Jassy for agreeing to take on the CEO role. It’s a hard job with a lot of responsibility. Andy is brilliant and has the highest of high standards. I guarantee you that Andy won’t let the universe make us typical. He will muster the energy needed to keep alive in us what makes us special. That won’t be easy, but it is critical. I also predict it will be satisfying and oftentimes fun. Thank you, Andy.
一如既往，我附上我们1997年的股东信。那封信的结尾写道：“我们亚马逊感谢客户的信任与业务，感谢彼此的辛勤工作，也感谢股东的支持与鼓励。” 这一点至今未曾改变。我特别想感谢安迪·贾西（Andy Jassy）接受担任首席执行官的邀请。这是一份充满责任的艰巨工作。安迪才华横溢，标准极高。我向你们保证，安迪不会让这个世界把我们变得普通。他会调动一切所需的能量，去守护我们身上那份特别之处。这并不容易，但至关重要。我还预测，这段旅程将充满成就感，时而也会很有趣。谢谢你，安迪。
To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.
对所有人说：要友善，要独特，要创造多于消费，永远永远永远不要让世界将你抹平进环境之中。依然是第一天。
Sincerely,
Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
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