Transcript: (disclaimer: may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate and/or amusing transcription errors)
Ben: Welcome to this special of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies, and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert and I am the co-founder and Managing Director of Seattle-based Pioneer Square Labs and our venture fund, PSL Ventures.
Ben：欢迎收听本期特别节目《Acquired》，这是一个聚焦伟大科技公司及其背后故事与战略的播客。我是 Ben Gilbert，西雅图 Pioneer Square Labs 和我们的风险基金 PSL Ventures 的联合创始人兼常务董事。
David: I’m David Rosenthal and I am an angel investor based in San Francisco.
David：我是 David Rosenthal，一名常驻旧金山的天使投资人。
Ben: And we are your hosts. On today's show, we are sharing our most recent book club discussion with you all. We were fortunate enough to have repeat Acquired guest Brad Stone join us to talk about his most recent book *Amazon Unbound*.
Ben：我们是你们的节目主持人。今天这期节目，我们将和大家分享我们最近一次的读书俱乐部讨论。很幸运地，我们请到了 Acquired 的老朋友 Brad Stone，再次做客节目，与我们聊聊他的新书《Amazon Unbound》。
David: Brad is the best.
David：Brad 真的是最棒的。
Ben: Yeah. This book is the successor to Brad's first book *The Everything Store*. It is about everything that has happened at Amazon since 2013 including Alexa, Amazon Go, third-party sellers—the further development of the third-party seller ecosystem anyway—their various grocery businesses, and of course, the activities of Jeff Bezos outside of Amazon. This episode was recorded live with Acquired LPs on the line, and you'll hear some questions from them at the end.
Ben：没错。这本书是 Brad 第一部作品《The Everything Store》的续作，讲述了自 2013 年以来亚马逊发生的所有重大事件，包括 Alexa、Amazon Go、第三方卖家的进化、各类杂货业务，当然还有 Jeff Bezos 在亚马逊以外的诸多行动。本期节目是在 Acquired 的 LP 社群中直播录制的，最后你们会听到来自他们的一些提问。
As always, if you want to become an Acquired LP and be a deeper part of everything we do here, you can go to glow\.fm/Acquired.
和往常一样，如果你想加入 Acquired LP，深入参与我们所做的一切，可以访问 glow\.fm/Acquired。
Now, onto our conversation with Brad Stone on *Amazon Unbound*.
现在，就让我们一起来听 Brad Stone 关于《Amazon Unbound》的访谈。
David: We thought of a fun way to start—I don't think we've heard you do on any of the other pods you’ve been on yet. That I want to hear the story behind was—what is it called, the monograph page at the front of the book?
David：我们想了一个有趣的开场方式——好像你在其他播客上都没讲过。我特别想知道这背后的故事……书前面那页引用语叫什么来着？
Brad: The epigraph.
Brad：是引言（epigraph）。
David: The epigraph. You have two quotes, and the second one I just loved as a lifelong Steinbeck fan myself. You say—I think this is from *Cannery Row*—“It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” Where did you find that?
David：对，引言。你用了两个引文，第二个我特别喜欢——作为一个终身的 Steinbeck 粉丝。这段话好像来自《罐头厂街》：“我一直觉得很奇怪……我们所欣赏的品格，比如善良、慷慨、坦率、诚实、理解与情感，在我们的体制中往往意味着失败。而我们所厌恶的特质，如精明、贪婪、占有欲、刻薄、自负与利己，却是通往成功的通行证。尽管人们称赞前者的品质，但他们更爱后者所带来的成果。”你是怎么找到这段话的？
Brad: First of all, let me start with the other quote on that page from a book called *The Last Days of Night* about Thomas Edison. Actually, it was an Amazon Board Member named, Bing Gordon, who had pointed me to that novel. And that's about Edison in the system of invention and how applicable that is to Amazon and to Bezos. He has created a system of invention at Amazon, not just being an inventor, but creating the processes, the rituals, and all of that and then extended it to *The Washington Post*. That was my soul quote on that page, but it's a little bit of a flowery quote.
Brad：首先，我想先说说那页上的另一段引文，来自一本关于托马斯·爱迪生的小说《The Last Days of Night》。其实是亚马逊董事会成员 Bing Gordon 推荐我读这本书的。这本书讲的是爱迪生在发明体系中的角色，而这一点也非常契合亚马逊和贝索斯。他在亚马逊不仅是个发明家，更重要的是他构建了一整套发明体系，包括流程、仪式等等，后来也延伸到《华盛顿邮报》。那段是我原本打算单独使用的引文，只是它略显文艺。
In this book, I wanted readers to really think about Amazon's impact—the good and the bad—not just a system of invention, but the unanticipated consequences of building systems at scale. They're supposed to move fast and never break things, but in fact, with the marketplace globalizing and with the transportation network expanding, there have been repercussions.
在这本书里，我希望读者能真正去思考亚马逊的影响——好的与坏的，不只是发明体系本身，还有当你在大规模上构建系统时，所产生的意想不到的后果。这些系统原本是要“快速行动，不要破坏任何东西”，但随着市场全球化和物流网络的拓展，确实带来了很多影响。
I was searching for that alternate quote that can bring readers into the book with two things to think about. And yeah, *Cannery Row* was a book I had read and probably had underlined that quote. I was looking back and talking to my editor Stephanie at Simon & Schuster about it. Just came back, returned to that quote as being this great example of maybe something that could get readers thinking about the things that we're celebrating in business figures like Jeff Bezos.
所以我一直在找一个补充的引文，能引导读者从两个角度去思考。而《罐头厂街》是我读过的一本书，我大概当时就把这段话划线标记了。我回头翻阅时，和西蒙与舒斯特的编辑 Stephanie 讨论时，就又回到了这段话。我觉得它非常适合作为引导，引发大家去思考我们为何会去颂扬像 Jeff Bezos 这样的商业人物，以及这些颂扬背后的意义。
David: It's such a perfect quote. Before we get into the content of the book and talking all about Amazon, what was the moment when you decided *The Everything Store* needed a sequel?
David：这段引文真是太完美了。在我们深入聊这本书、聊亚马逊之前，我想问的是，你是在什么时候觉得《The Everything Store》需要有一部续集？
Brad: I was thinking about that. I went back to my notes and I started to do interviews for this in 2017. That was before HQ2 was announced, before Bezos became a figure of tabloid interest, and obviously before some of the more recent antitrust stuff and the pandemic. I think it was around the realization that Alexa had changed the company, the market cap had expanded so quickly, the transportation business had started, and that I was still on the road doing talks about Amazon, about *The Everything Store*, but the story had changed.
Brad：我也一直在想这个问题。我翻回去看了自己的笔记，最早为这本书做访谈是在2017年。那时候亚马逊的HQ2还没公布，贝索斯也还没成为八卦媒体关注的人物，更不用说之后的反垄断调查和疫情了。我当时意识到，Alexa 已经改变了这家公司，公司市值迅速扩大，运输业务也起步了，而我还在四处演讲宣传《The Everything Store》，但亚马逊的故事早就已经变了。
David: Right, which came out in 2013.
David：对，《The Everything Store》是2013年出版的。
Brad: Right. So the \$120 billion market cap was at the end of 2017, probably around an \$800 billion dollar market cap. I just felt like there were a lot of stories. When you’re starting a book, you're also realizing that you'll be working on it for at least two or three years. I figured it's probably going to get better. I had no idea. They kept adding other chapters.
Brad：对，当时市值从1200亿美元涨到了2017年底的大约8000亿美元。我感觉有太多新故事值得讲。而当你决定开始写一本书的时候，你也知道这至少是两三年的工作。我当时想着，之后可能还有更多值得写的内容——结果真的是，他们不断地往故事里加新篇章。
For a long time, I was thinking how can I end this in the pandemic? And its navigation of it ended up being the encapsulation of everything that's probably great and effective about Amazon, some of the dangers of it getting so big and dominant, and having so many advantages. That was crystallized during the pandemic when all of its competitors basically stopped operating.
我一直在想，能不能把这本书的结尾定在疫情期间？最终，这段时间其实成了亚马逊的缩影——它的高效与伟大，它因为规模庞大而带来的优势，也带来一些潜在的风险。这一切在疫情期间变得特别清晰，因为几乎所有竞争对手都停止运作了。
David: I hadn't quite thought about this, it's a huge opportunity cost for you to decide to write a book because you're a full-time journalist, editor. You're running Bloomberg's technology team. You had to take a full sabbatical to do this, right?
David：我之前没细想过这一点，但你选择写书其实是一个很大的机会成本。毕竟你是全职记者、编辑，还负责彭博社的科技团队。你得请整段时间的假来写这本书吧？
Brad: Yep. I took a couple of months off to write it. I am fortunate in that at my perch at Bloomberg, we're working, writing, thinking about this stuff anyway. Doing this—at least reporting it in addition to the day job—isn't as difficult as it seems. And maybe I'm also fortunate that I'm a manager with a lot of support around me so I can pull that off. But David, the one difficult thing is, particularly writing about tech companies, they change so often. I sometimes think about it as jumping onto a train.
Brad：是的，我请了几个月的假来写书。幸运的是，在彭博社的岗位上，我们本来就在报道、思考这些事情。所以一边上班一边做调研，其实没想象中那么难。而且我自己作为一个管理者，也有一支很有支持力的团队，这让我能把这事完成。但 David，说实话，写科技公司的书最难的一点是——这些公司变化太快了。我有时觉得这就像是跳上一列高速列车。
You guys remember my last book was called *The Upstarts* about Uber and Airbnb. I jumped in the train, moved, and I fell under the tracks because it was like a month after that book came out.
你们还记得我的上一本书叫《The Upstarts》，讲的是 Uber 和 Airbnb。我跳上了这列车，结果刚出书一个月，就被甩下车轱辘了。
Ben: 2017 with Uber.
Ben：你说的是 2017 年 Uber 的事吧。
Brad: The first Medium post by Susan came out alleging discriminatory culture at Uber, and then the story started rapidly changing. I came out with a paperback a year later that had an additional chapter on that. I’m proud of that book in retrospect, and it captures a moment in Silicon Valley. But it was a great illustration of just the risks of writing about companies that change so often.
Brad：是的，Susan 在 Medium 上发布了第一篇文章，指控 Uber 存在歧视文化，从那之后，故事急转直下。我一年后出了平装版，加了一章写这件事。现在回头看，我仍然为那本书感到自豪，它捕捉到了硅谷的一个重要时刻。但它也很好地说明了，写那些快速变化的公司所面临的巨大风险。
And had Bezos postponed his CEO resignation announcement for another quarter, that would have been a disaster.
如果贝索斯再晚一个季度才宣布辞去CEO职务，那对我来说简直是灾难。
David: You definitely would have had to write the third book.
David：你肯定得写第三本了。
Brad: Yeah. In this respect, on this one, I got lucky, as unlucky as I got with *The Upstarts* because I had time to add to the book. And I also recognize that the story I was telling (in some ways) was very consistent with the idea of Bezos getting more and more distant from Amazon and then moving into a broader world and focusing on other things.
Brad：没错。就这本书来说，我真的挺幸运的，和我写《The Upstarts》的倒霉情况正好相反——这次我有时间把这些内容加进书里。而且我也意识到，我讲述的这个故事本身其实和贝索斯逐步远离亚马逊、转向更广阔世界的轨迹是高度契合的。
Ben: Just to frame how much has happened since the first book, I was reading my copy of *Amazon Unbound*, and a friend said, what is that? I was like, oh, it's the second book by Brad Stone on Amazon. He was like, he already wrote the book on Amazon, right? I was looking at the date that *The Everything Store* came out, and Amazon has created over a trillion and a half dollars of market cap since you released the first book.
Ben：为了让大家理解从第一本书出版以来发生了多大的变化——我当时在读《Amazon Unbound》，一个朋友问我：“这是什么书？”我说：“这是 Brad Stone 写的第二本关于亚马逊的书。”他还问：“他不是已经写过一本亚马逊的书了吗？”然后我看了看《The Everything Store》的出版日期，自那之后，亚马逊已经增加了超过一万五千亿美元的市值。
David: Oh my God.
David：天哪。
Brad: Crazy, it's crazy. That's just the numerical representation of it. The Kindle company became the Alexa company, AWS was a cipher in 2013, the company revealed the financials in 2015, and the world recognized how good of a business that was. The marketplace became global and on and on. Amazon entered India—I have a chapter about that in the book—and Mexico. The high-profile battle at the Trump administration. The Jedi contract, HQ2, the advertising business really germinated over the past few years. The Prime Video and Amazon Studios business and Bezos’ is neck-deep involvement in that.
Brad：太疯狂了，真的很疯狂。但这只是其中的数字体现。曾经的 Kindle 公司变成了 Alexa 公司，2013 年时 AWS 还几乎无人问津，2015 年财务数据披露之后，全世界才意识到它是多么优质的业务。Marketplace 成为全球化平台，亚马逊进入了印度——书中我专门写了一章——也进入了墨西哥；还有与特朗普政府的高调冲突、JEDI 合同、HQ2、广告业务在过去几年迅速成长；Prime Video 和 Amazon Studios 的影视业务，以及贝索斯深度参与其中。
In some ways, maybe the momentum and some of the ideas were there back in 2013, but certainly, it's all become very public and shaped the perception of Amazon ever since.
某种程度上，这些势头和想法在 2013 年时可能已经初现端倪，但毫无疑问的是，如今它们已经完全浮出水面，并且彻底塑造了人们对亚马逊的看法。
David: I don't know if listeners would agree or if you would agree. I felt to a certain extent *The Everything Store* was kind of like the *Liar's Poker* or the *Social Network* of Amazon. I don't think you intended it to be like a cautionary tale in the same way that those books were. But for me at least, I read that book and I was like, this is an amazing company. It doubled, tripled, quadrupled my admiration for the company, and either drew me to it as a shareholder. Did you feel that way? The company—whatever they felt initially—did they see that they got applicants who started coming to the company being like I read *The Everything Store*, I want to work here?
David：我不知道听众会不会这样想，你自己是否也认同，但在我看来，《The Everything Store》某种程度上就像亚马逊版的《老千游戏》或者《社交网络》。我不认为你是想把它写成一个警示故事，但至少对我来说，看完之后我觉得这家公司实在太厉害了，我对它的钦佩翻了好几倍，甚至因此成了股东。你有这种感觉吗？公司方面——无论他们最初怎么看——是否遇到过求职者说：“我读了《The Everything Store》，所以想来这里工作”？
Brad: I do take a little bit of pride in the fact that people can come to both these books and take a lot of different things out of it. Critics will come out of it—the first book and then *Amazon Unbound*—with dockets full of evidence that they have for the next attack on Amazon. Fans of the company or employees at the company might find a flattering portrayal. But my goal is really just to tell a good story.
Brad：我确实有些自豪，因为人们读完这两本书后可以得出完全不同的感受。批评者读完这两本书——无论是《The Everything Store》还是《Amazon Unbound》——会带着一堆“证据”去准备下一次对亚马逊的攻击。而公司粉丝或员工可能会觉得我是在给公司正面宣传。但我的真正目标是讲一个好故事。
Yeah, I'm an Amazon customer, but I don't think I would be writing two books about the company if I didn't on some level admire entrepreneurship. I also find plenty of cause for concern in some of their anti-competitive tactics and some of the ways in which they've administered the marketplace or they build these transportation networks without really controlling them or employing the workers and how there are repercussions there.
是的，我是亚马逊的客户，但如果我内心完全不欣赏创业精神，我也不会写两本关于这家公司的书。当然，我对他们一些反竞争的做法也有不少担忧，比如他们如何管理平台，如何构建运输网络却不真正掌控或雇佣其中的劳动力，这些做法确实存在后果。
But I don't feel like I'm a critic and hopefully I'm not a geographer. It's not an old-school, Silicon Valley book of how this triumph was accomplished. I try to tell the words in all the stories and then hope different people can take different things out of it.
但我不觉得自己是个批评者，也不希望我是那种“地理学家式”的叙述者。这不是一本老派的硅谷成功学故事书。我只是尽力把每一个故事讲好，希望每位读者都能从中看到属于自己的东西。
Ben: I finished it. I came in right under the finish line yesterday. I definitely felt like toward the end, your description of how the company did through COVID and basically what they did for the world was really well-balanced. That was the thing that definitely hit me the most and your skill as an author of something that is currently unfolding is both looking back and saying, here are the things that they really screwed up during COVID. They seem pretty unabashed about it, but balancing that with the fact that between AWS and the incredible logistics networks they've built were all way better off over the last year for them existing.
Ben：我昨天刚好赶在截止前读完了整本书。我确实感觉到，到了结尾部分，你描述亚马逊在疫情期间的表现，以及他们为这个世界所做的事，真的是非常平衡。这是我印象最深的一点。你作为一名作者，写的是一段正在发生的历史，但你既能回顾并指出他们在疫情中确实搞砸的一些事情（他们自己似乎也没怎么掩饰），也能公正地呈现出 AWS 和他们建设的卓越物流网络在过去一年对社会带来的积极影响。
Brad: I think that is easier than it looks because at the moment, everyone is telling a really simplistic version of that story. You have critics inside and around the company—particularly in the organized labor movement—that are simply looking for the missteps and to characterize the company as irresponsible and putting employees at risk and obscuring the toll. That's obviously not true. There are human beings at Amazon, and they did their best during the pandemic amid incredibly challenging circumstances.
Brad：我认为这其实比看上去容易，因为眼下大家讲的版本都太简单了。公司内部和外部的批评者——尤其是工会运动中的人——总是想找出错误，把亚马逊描绘成一个不负责任、让员工冒风险、还试图掩盖代价的公司。但这显然不是事实。亚马逊里有一群真正的人，在疫情这样的极端困难环境下，他们已经尽了最大努力。
Then on the other side, you have Amazon wrapping itself up in the mantle of the pandemic hero who made no missteps, did everything by the book, and were virtually perfect and unfairly maligned.
另一边，亚马逊则极力塑造自己是“抗疫英雄”，仿佛从未出错、事事合规、几近完美，却被人无端诋毁。
David: You had the Jake \[...] quote in the book that I think he said, “I'm confident when the short-term and long-term histories are written, no one will have done more for the world than Amazon here.”
David：你书里还引用了 Jake 的一句话，我记得他说：“我相信无论是短期还是长期的历史书写中，没有哪家公司在这场疫情中为世界做得比亚马逊更多。”
Brad: Right. Just purely talking to everyone and figuring out what they did, they hired some world-famous virologist to counsel them, but they got lost in the confusion of March 2020 and they did make some mistakes. They did fire the whistleblowers, and there were lots of employees and executives who left the company and felt that was just wrong. Talking to as many people as I could, combining their accounts, looking at both sides, and trying to navigate the real story instead of the partisan stories that emerged over the last year and a half, that's basically the formula.
Brad：没错。我只是尽量和尽可能多的人交谈，去搞清楚他们到底做了什么。他们确实请了一位世界知名的病毒学家来为他们提供建议，但在 2020 年 3 月那场混乱中他们还是迷失了方向，确实犯了一些错误。他们解雇了吹哨人，很多员工和高管也因此离职，觉得那是错误的决定。我尽可能广泛地收集各方的叙述，结合起来看问题两面，努力还原一个真实的故事，而不是过去一年半中那些充满偏见的版本，这基本上就是我的写作方法。
Ben: I'm curious what your relationship with Amazon was as you are writing this because I think you made it pretty clear that you didn't actually speak with Jeff. But I imagine there are lots of conversations with Amazon PR and of course many departed and current executives. How does that dance go?
Ben：我很好奇你写这本书期间和亚马逊的关系，因为你已经很明确地说你并没有采访到 Jeff。但我想你肯定和亚马逊公关部有不少互动，也采访了很多现任和前任高管。这个“跳舞”过程是怎么展开的？
Brad: When I approached them in 2017 or maybe ‘18 when I first told them about it, they were pretty receptive. Almost as if they had maybe been anticipating, or at least anticipating that somebody would do the update to *The Everything Store*.
Brad：我大概是在 2017 或 2018 年向他们表明我有这个打算的，当时他们反应还算积极。几乎就像是他们早已预料到，或者至少预料到会有人来写《The Everything Store》的续集。
David: They could see the sales data. They were going to launch their first-party version.
David：他们肯定看到这本书的销量数据了，说不定还打算推出亚马逊“自营版”的续作（笑）。
Brad: Exactly, the Amazon basics history. I'd send Bezos a couple of notes explaining what I wanted to do and asking of course for access to him. They assigned a PR person to me, and they basically said after a while that they would give me access to anyone I wanted to talk to at the company and they would see about Bezos toward the end. I did labor under the perhaps false hope that I would break down his reluctance and get him to talk.
Brad：完全正确（笑），就像是亚马逊基础款的写作史。我给贝索斯写了几封信，说明我想做的事情，也当然请求采访他。他们给我指定了一位公关人员，然后过了一段时间，他们基本上答应我可以采访公司内任何我想采访的人，至于贝索斯的部分他们会“到时候再看”。我当时一直抱着一种可能有点不现实的希望，觉得我或许能打破他的防备，让他开口。
In the end, it didn't happen and I would just point to the recent history and his reluctance to really engage in a meaningful way with any kind of journalist over the past few years to address the challenges and tension points in Amazon history. When he's done it, it's always been about the broader things—Blue Origin or the Washington Post. He's talked to fellow billionaires, an Amazon employee, or his brother. In the end, even though I did harbor some hopes, maybe it wasn't all that surprising that he's not willing to sit for a Steve Jobs-like end of career retrospective.
最终还是没成。我想这和他近年来一贯回避深度媒体采访有关，尤其是在亚马逊的挑战和争议问题上。他接受采访的内容，往往是像蓝色起源或《华盛顿邮报》这种更宏观层面的事情，受访对象也多是亿万富豪、亚马逊员工或他的兄弟。所以虽然我曾抱有希望，但他不愿意像 Steve Jobs 一样坐下来接受一次职业生涯终点式的回顾访谈，其实也不令人太意外。
Ben: Plenty of time.
Ben：他还有大把时间。
Brad: Yeah, he's got time. But the other thing is I don't feel like the book suffered because of that. He's incredibly disciplined. He tells the same stories that are like polished little stones that he's crafted over the years, and I've heard them all. Frankly, I could probably recite them all.
Brad：是的，他时间充裕。但话说回来，我不觉得因为他没有接受采访这本书就因此打了折扣。他是个非常有纪律的人，他讲的那些故事就像是他多年来雕琢出来的光滑小石子，每次都是那几套。我其实全都听过，说实话，我可能都能背下来了。
David: I don't know, to me I thought it was almost better (a) because you knew what he would have given you if you had. But (b) I thought one of the coolest things about this book that I don't remember as much being in *The Everything Store* was the access you had to the S-team. I feel like we really got the stories of Dave Clark, some of the other folks that most people don't know about but have had huge impacts.
David：我不确定，但对我来说这反而更好，（一）因为你已经知道他就算接受采访会说些什么；（二）我觉得这本书比《The Everything Store》更精彩的一点就是你获得了对 S-team 的深入访问。我们真的得以了解了 Dave Clark 和一些其他人——他们对亚马逊有巨大影响，但大众其实并不了解他们的故事。
Brad: People really don't know who Dave Clark is. He's now the CEO of the retail business. One of the most powerful executives at Amazon, and he grew up in the sort of operations and fulfillment part of the business. As obviously a genius, great at building big systems, and he devised and executed the whole transportation arm of Amazon logistics.
Brad：是啊，大家其实根本不知道 Dave Clark 是谁。他现在是零售业务的 CEO，是亚马逊最有权势的高管之一。他从运营和履约部门一路成长起来，显然是个天才，擅长构建大型系统。他设计并推动了亚马逊物流整个运输体系的建立。
One of the interesting revealing things that I found in my research was his original boss at Amazon or one of his first bosses became his best friend and was the best man at his wedding. And then he gets promoted over that guy. When that executive leaves Amazon to go to Target, Dave Clark basically has Amazon sue him.
我在调研中发现一个非常有意思的细节：Dave Clark 最初在亚马逊的上司之一成了他最好的朋友，还是他婚礼上的伴郎。后来他升职超越了那位朋友。而当那位高管离开亚马逊前往 Target 任职时，Dave Clark 实际上让亚马逊起诉了他。
David: Yeah. That was the most heartbreaking moment in the book.
David：是啊，那是整本书里最令人心碎的时刻。
Brad: Yeah and they never talked again. Right there encapsulated perfectly is Amazon's ruthless, relentless, business-focused, competitive mindset where relationships and empathy don't really factor into it. I don't want to say that there's a little bit of heartlessness or a lack of empathy that goes into this empire-building. But okay, I did just say that, and right there was illustrated—he sued his best man. He's one of the most successful executives, most prominent executives at Amazon sitting there trading tweets with Bernie Sanders and other Amazon critics.
Brad：是的，他们再也没说过话。这个故事完美展现了亚马逊那种冷酷、执着、以商业为核心、竞争至上的心态——其中根本容不下人际关系和共情。我不想说这家公司在建立商业帝国的过程中带着一丝无情或缺乏同理心……但，好吧，我现在就是这么说了。而这个例子就是最直白的写照——他竟然起诉了自己的伴郎。而他如今却成了亚马逊最成功、最知名的高管之一，甚至会在 Twitter 上和 Bernie Sanders 以及其他亚马逊批评者公开论战。
Ben: I mean, this is Dave Clark, this isn't Jeff Bezos. This is an employee who rose up through the ranks who was indoctrinated with the Amazon culture, clearly bleeds into his personal life because he severed ties with his best man. That's completely outside the scope of a business relationship. How do you think about your comments that you had made in *The Everything Store* around Jeff bots in the current day, and does that apply in this situation?
Ben：我是说，这可是 Dave Clark，不是 Jeff Bezos。他是一名从底层一路爬升上来的员工，深受亚马逊文化的熏陶，甚至将这种文化带进了自己的私生活——不惜和伴郎断绝关系。这完全超出了商业关系的范畴。你在《The Everything Store》中提到过 Jeff bot（贝索斯化的执行者）这个概念，在今天看来你怎么看？这个概念是否适用于这个例子？
Brad: I actually dropped that terminology. I wanted to stand on its own and be fresh in part because even though I was sort of kidding about that in the first book, MacKenzie mentioned that in her one-star review I think. There were definitely executives who took it really way too personally, but I do make the same point.
Brad：其实这次我没有再用“Jeff bot”这个词。我希望这本书能独立成篇、有所新意，部分原因是尽管我在第一本书中用这个词是半开玩笑，但 MacKenzie（贝索斯的前妻）在她给我的一星评论里提到了它。还有一些高管确实对这个说法太过敏感了，但我在这本书里其实还是表达了类似的观点。
I think at the end of that chapter on Dave Clark and operations I say that he had demonstrated in some ways some of the Bezos ideals. The work in the company over everything else, not a lot of empathy, consensus building is really subjugated to getting to the right answer and doing what's best for the company and the customer. In some of these actions towards his fellow friend, Clark had illustrated a little bit of Bezos’ philosophy. Maybe I said it without just using the phrase.
我记得在关于 Dave Clark 和运营的那一章结尾，我写到他在某些方面体现了贝索斯的理想主义——公司事务优先于一切，缺乏同理心，追求的是找到“正确答案”，并始终将公司和客户利益放在首位。在对待他那位朋友的一些行为中，Clark 就展示出了贝索斯哲学的某些侧面。或许我只是没再用“Jeff bot”这个词，但含义还是一样的。
David: It's funny all the Jeff bots. I don't think the *Liar’s Poker* analogy is super applicable. *The Everything Store* is its own thing. But that was one of those things to viewers. MacKenzie at least got so offended by that, and probably Amazon and Jeff did too. But there's another side of that where you're like, yeah, if you're going to come to Amazon, you're going to be in charge of something, and you get to be Jeff for something. There's something appealing in that too, right?
David：说到 Jeff bot，确实挺有意思。我倒不觉得《The Everything Store》和《老千游戏》（Liar’s Poker）类比太合适，它是一本完全不同的书。不过当时的读者确实对这个说法印象深刻，至少 MacKenzie 对此非常不满，我想亚马逊和 Jeff 本人可能也不太高兴。但反过来说，如果你加入亚马逊并负责一个重要业务，那你就某种意义上成了“那个业务中的 Jeff”。这个想法本身其实也蛮有吸引力的，不是吗？
Brad: I think what I originally was riffing on with that term was how he's so effortlessly alluded difficult questions back when he gave interviews. And then I noticed that when I would talk to an executive like Steve Kessel who is running the Kindle business and then started to run the physical retail business that he had the same method for evading questions, and that was the origin of the Jeff bot idea. That they were just so all so skilled in the same exact way of speaking publicly and not saying anything.
Brad：其实我最初用“Jeff bot”这个词，灵感来源于他接受采访时总是能轻松巧妙地回避各种难题。后来我注意到，当我采访像 Steve Kessel 这样的高管时——他当时负责 Kindle 业务，之后又负责实体零售——他们在回避问题方面居然用了完全一样的套路。这就是“Jeff bot”这个概念的起点：他们在公开场合说话的方式高度相似，而且往往什么都没说。
Ben: When David and I were reading it, we were talking about this beforehand, the big aha moment of this book (at least in my opinion) was that this concept of interlocking and self-reinforcing businesses. Whereas in the previous book, it was very clearly the Amazon flywheel. We've all seen the diagram a zillion times at this point. How did you come to that realization of the self-reinforcing businesses as the point that you want to drive home this time?
Ben：David 和我在读这本书的时候，我们事先讨论过，我认为这本书最大的“啊哈”时刻，就是你提出了“相互交织、自我强化的业务”这个概念。而在你前一本书中，很明显是“亚马逊飞轮”理论——我们现在都已经看过那个图无数遍了。你是怎么意识到这次你要强调的主旨是这些互相强化的业务体系的？
Brad: It might have been in the chapter on Prime Video. It just seemed for a long time even employees and some board members and investors on Amazon didn't understand Bezos’ infatuation with Hollywood and his investment in video, and almost saw it as a personal weakness, midlife crisis, a digression, or a diversion. But as with all these things, so often, Bezos is just simply ahead of the pack in thinking about it.
Brad：可能是在我写 Prime Video 那一章时意识到的。很长一段时间，甚至亚马逊内部的员工、一些董事会成员和投资者，都不理解贝索斯对好莱坞的迷恋和他在视频业务上的投资，几乎把这看作是一种个人软肋、中年危机、离题或者干脆是走神。但就像很多事一样，贝索斯往往只是比别人早想到了而已。
It was this idea that Prime was a two-day shipping club and then it was a one-day shipping club. But the reality is that fulfillment centers are outside every major American city and shipping really ceases to be a differentiating factor. Prime would have to be something more, would have to be a content club.
最开始 Prime 是个“两天送达”会员俱乐部，后来升级成“一天送达”。但现实是，亚马逊的履约中心已经遍布美国主要城市，物流速度不再构成竞争优势。因此，Prime 必须成为更多的东西，必须变成一个“内容俱乐部”。
The way in which Prime Video feeds in the Prime and reinforces the retail business, and Prime Videos (in some ways) a consumer application of AWS because it's streaming and sitting on Amazon servers. The same with Alexa, it being a consumer application of AWS. That's how Jeff conceived it with that first email to executives at a \$20 computer whose brains are in the cloud controllable by voice.
Prime Video 不仅加强了 Prime 会员的粘性，也反过来强化了零售业务。而从某种意义上说，Prime Video 也是 AWS 的一个消费者应用，因为它的视频流是在亚马逊服务器上运行的。Alexa 也是如此，它同样是 AWS 的消费者应用。贝索斯最早在一封给高管的邮件中就设想过这个产品：一个 20 美元的小设备，核心计算大脑在云端，并且可以用语音控制。
It also goes back to one quote from *The Everything Store* where he said to Tim O’Reilly, we don't have any big advantages so we have to weave a rope with smaller advantages.
这也呼应了他在《The Everything Store》里说过的一句话，他对 Tim O'Reilly 说：“我们没有什么大的优势，所以我们必须用一根根小优势拧成一根绳子。”
That's the way Bezos thinks and the way he's encouraging his executives to think. What are you doing for the cloud business? What are you doing for Alexa? Getting everyone to go and exploit the assets and the advantages Amazon has. You've got this set of really opaque and hidden connections between all these businesses that are at the center of how Amazon operates. While they'll probably really resist mightily any effort or suggestion that they should break up.
这就是贝索斯的思维方式，也是他鼓励高管们要有的思维方式。你为云业务做了什么？你为 Alexa 做了什么？他要求大家都去利用亚马逊已有的资产和优势。这些业务之间存在一系列不透明、隐秘的联系，而这种“交织”恰恰是亚马逊运营模式的核心。当然，他们也会极力反对任何试图拆分公司的建议。
Ben: Actually, I want to put a pin in antitrust for one second and ask this question sort of in a different way, which was when I heard you were writing this book I made the comment to David that *The Everything Store* is a pretty clean narrative. It's one idea, it’s ecommerce starting with books becoming everything. It's *The Everything Store* and it's the story of this maniacal guy who's going to pull that off.
Ben：先暂且不谈反垄断，我想换个角度问你。当我听说你要写这本书时，我对 David 说，《The Everything Store》的叙事非常清晰：一个核心理念——从卖书起步的电商，最终变成“万能商店”。讲的就是一个执着疯狂的人如何实现这个愿景的故事。
For this one, I was like, oh my God, Amazon has done so many random things and many of them have become very big businesses. They're not a conglomerate like Berkshire Hathaway because the S-team is much more than capital allocators. They're not just sending money to the head office. His businesses really do—as you would later coin—interlock.
但这本书的情况完全不同。我当时的反应是：“我的天，亚马逊做了那么多看似零散的事，而且很多都变成了大业务。”他们不是像伯克希尔·哈撒韦那种控股公司，因为亚马逊的 S-team（高管团队）远不只是资金分配者。他们不是简单把钱上缴总部，而是这些业务真的——正如你后来所说——彼此交织。
I just think it's so fascinating that they occupied this middle ground between a classic conglomerate and what you would think of that sort of a normal business should just go into near adjacencies. Where it's like, well, let’s expand and address a very similar market. Whereas Amazon is taking the strategy of we are going to go after completely different markets and find ways to link them together with the same customer. It's just a super unique structure.
我觉得这点非常迷人——亚马逊恰好占据了一个介于传统控股集团和常规企业之间的中间地带。一般公司扩张会优先选择“邻近市场”，例如：“我们已经做 A，那不如也做相似的 B。”而亚马逊的策略是去进入完全不同的市场，然后想办法通过相同的客户，把这些业务连接在一起。这种架构实在太独特了。
Brad: They do both, right? For every satellite project Kuiper where they're going to get into internet access if they can ever launch the satellites, there's the physical retail initiative, the Amazon grocery stores that will also function as ecommerce distribution centers, and Pick and Pack in addition to using their AI strength. Use the Go Store technology to do cashierless checkout. There is some sort of far-field business expansion at the same time as they do kind of leach out into adjacent markets.
Brad：他们两个方向都做。比如 Kuiper 卫星计划，目标是进入互联网接入服务市场（前提是能把卫星成功发射）；另一方面是线下零售的尝试，比如亚马逊的杂货店，既是零售场所，又能作为电商配送中心，支持“拣货打包”（Pick and Pack）流程。同时利用他们的 AI 技术，用 Go 商店的无收银员结账系统。这说明他们一方面在远距离地拓展全新业务，另一方面也在逐步渗透到相邻市场中。
Ben: Do you think there's any advantage to AWS and the retail business being under the same roof at this point?
Ben：你觉得现在 AWS 和零售业务归在同一家公司旗下还有优势吗？
Brad: Totally. Yeah, retail is the biggest customer of AWS. It's the first customer. AWS is going to have a beta tester for every new service. It'll get to scale very quickly and enjoy the economies of scale because Amazon retail would be a big customer. And then on the retail side, I would assume they're going to “pay” more of a wholesale price for the cloud instead of a retail price, and then have the biggest and the best cloud provider behind them at moments of intense traffic during a pandemic or in the holiday season.
Brad：当然有。零售是 AWS 最大的客户，也是第一个客户。AWS 的每一项新服务都会先在零售业务中做测试，能迅速规模化，也能享受规模经济优势，因为亚马逊零售本身就是个大客户。而从零售业务角度看，他们“购买”云服务的价格可能更接近批发价而非零售价。在疫情或假期这种高流量时期，还有全球最大、最强的云服务提供商做后盾。
David: We did an LP show a couple of weeks ago with Oliver Sharp from Highspot about customer-led growth and customers’ interests. It’s like, yeah, the number one customer is right there in the same building.
David：我们几周前和 Highspot 的 Oliver Sharp 做了期 LP 节目，聊的是“以客户为导向的增长”和客户利益。AWS 的第一大客户就跟他们在同一栋楼里，这太有利了。
Brad: Just really quickly, in the device business and the video business with the whole is to intensify their relationship with the Amazon customer is built atop AWS. Things like Alexa are possible because the brains are sitting in the Amazon Data Center and are constantly being upgraded.
Brad：再补充一句，在硬件业务和视频业务中，其实核心目的都是为了加深与亚马逊客户的关系，而这一切都建立在 AWS 之上。比如 Alexa 能存在，是因为它的“大脑”在亚马逊的数据中心里，并且不断被升级。
David: You mentioned this in the book and I'd heard this before that Amazon retail ran on Oracle. Is it still in addition to AWS? Did you find out if that's still together or if they totally transitioned off to Oracle now?
David：你在书里提到过这个，我以前也听说过，说亚马逊零售系统是运行在 Oracle 上的。那现在呢？他们还在用 Oracle 吗？还是已经彻底迁移到 AWS？
Brad: They made a big fuss online when Jeff Wilke went and ripped out the last Oracle server used in Amazon retail. I think that was a couple of years ago. They were very proud of it, and that was part of the long-standing devolution of the relationship between the two companies.
Brad：他们当时在网上大肆宣传过，说 Jeff Wilke 拆掉了亚马逊零售中最后一台 Oracle 服务器。我记得那是几年前了。他们为此感到非常骄傲，这也标志着两家公司长期以来关系的彻底决裂。
David: Yeah. It's all well and everything that was to come. Okay, so on those threads, the long-term, the interlocking business, and video, in particular, one thing I've been watching—following Amazon for a long time, been a shareholder for a long time, I have lots of friends there. I had no idea that this campfire thing happened, and that it started in 2010 way before video and Hollywood. Tell us more about this campfire thing. And for people who haven't read the book yet, you can tell about it.
David：是啊，一切的发展都走向了现在。顺着刚才那些话题——长期思维、互锁的业务模型、尤其是视频这块——我一直在关注亚马逊，也持有股票，有很多朋友也在亚马逊工作，但我完全不知道有“Campfire”这个事，原来早在 2010 年就开始了，比他们做视频和涉足好莱坞还早。你能多说说这个 Campfire 活动吗？也给还没看书的听众介绍一下。
Brad: Yeah, and thank you, David. That's one of the things that I feel like my gut in the book and I was proud of and it took a lot of detective work and not a lot of people picked up on it. This has been mentioned a couple of times in the press, but basically for the last 10 years (at least before the pandemic) Bezos was hosting this secretive event first in Santa Fe among the literary elite, then it migrated to Santa Barbara more, and moved in the direction of the Hollywood elite. Oprah, Shonda Rhimes, and every celebrity you can imagine is invited. They are flown in private jets, their families are invited.
Brad：对，谢谢你提到这个，David。这是我在书里最得意也最直觉驱动的一个发现之一，花了很多侦查功夫才拼凑出来，而且很少有人注意过。虽然媒体偶尔提到过一两次，但基本没人挖掘。过去十年（至少在疫情之前），贝索斯一直在举办一个非常私密的活动，一开始是在圣塔菲，邀请的是文学圈的精英，后来迁到了圣巴巴拉，慢慢转向好莱坞圈子。奥普拉、Shonda Rhimes，几乎你能想到的每个名人都被邀请了。他们坐私人飞机来，家人也一起被邀请。
David: This is so not Amazon.
David：这太不像亚马逊了。
Brad: No, it's not. That's why no one ever knew or it was never reported who actually paid for this. I went into it thinking that actually Bezos paid for it personally because it's so not unfrugal. They get bags of swag in their hotel rooms. When the kids come they're given an individual counselor.
Brad：完全不像。这也就是为什么从来没人知道，媒体也没报道过这个活动到底是谁买单的。我一开始也以为是贝索斯自己掏钱的，因为这跟亚马逊那种极度节俭的文化完全不符。宾客住的酒店房间里会有一堆赠品礼包。孩子们来了还会配专属的生活辅导员。
David: It's like Sun Valley at the Allen & Company conference.
David：这就跟 Allen & Company 每年在 Sun Valley 办的那个大会一样。
Brad: Combined with a Ted because they'll bring in speakers and a networking event. There are hikes, there's a beach club. They rent out a whole hotel and beach club in Santa Barbara.
Brad：它融合了 TED 式的讲座和社交活动。他们会邀请演讲嘉宾，还会组织徒步旅行，有海滩俱乐部。他们会包下圣塔芭芭拉的一整家酒店和海滩俱乐部。
Ben: They had Michael Lewis come to speak that one year.
Ben：有一年他们还请了 Michael Lewis 来演讲。
Brad: I've got a bunch of the guests and the attendees in the book.
Brad：我在书里列出了一些嘉宾和参加者的名字。
David: Are we getting our invites for next year?
David：我们明年会收到邀请吗？
Brad: I am hoping for mine, but in fact, as I looked into it, Amazon pays for it. Bezos, he brought his family, called it the best part of his year. He loved it. Essentially, you had to almost put this first a literary community and then the entertainment community, bring them into Amazon's orbit, get to know people, strengthen the relationships, and show how important that was to him as he was thinking more about Prime being a bundle of important content, not just a shipping program.
Brad：我也希望能收到。但实际上，我调查发现，是亚马逊出钱办这个活动。贝索斯会带着家人参加，他称这是他一年中最美好的时光。他非常喜欢这个活动。本质上，这是先从文学界开始，后来扩展到娱乐圈，把这些人带入亚马逊的轨道，建立关系，加深联系，向他们展示他有多重视这件事。因为他当时已经开始将 Prime 设想为一个内容大礼包，而不仅仅是一个快递会员计划。
David: Yeah. I was so blown away. Everything about that just seemed so anti-Amazon to me and that it started in 2010.
David：对啊，我真的很震惊。这一切看起来都太不像亚马逊了，而且居然是从 2010 年就开始的。
Brad: It really is a symbol of its evolving ambitions because it was very much a literary weekend. You would have big-name authors. George R.R. Martin would be the center of attention. Actually, he probably would still be the center of attention.
Brad：这确实象征着亚马逊不断演进的野心。最初这就是一个文学周末活动，会有一些大牌作家参加，比如 George R.R. Martin，他当时是全场焦点，其实现在他大概还是全场焦点。
David: Bezos, as you said in the book, he wants his Game of Thrones, right?
David：就像你在书里说的，贝索斯想要拥有自己的《权力的游戏》，对吧？
Brad: He wants his Game of Thrones, right. Maybe, if they purchase MGM in the next couple of days, they'll have their James Bond, at least.
Brad：对，他就是想要自己的《权力的游戏》。也许，如果他们接下来几天收购了米高梅，至少就能拥有詹姆斯·邦德系列了。
David: Three individual business lines, I want to get your take on since you studied them so deeply. Let's start with video, there's now been, what do we think? \$10, \$20, \$30, \$40 billion of capital from Amazon sunk into video, easily. Good use of capital? The jury’s still out because there's no way to know this from Amazon's financial reporting.
David：我想请你点评三个业务线，你对它们研究得很深入。我们先从视频说起。现在亚马逊在视频上砸了多少钱？可能有 100 亿、200 亿、300 亿、甚至 400 亿美元。你觉得这笔资本花得值吗？现在下结论可能还为时过早，因为从亚马逊的财报里完全看不出这块的效果。
Brad: When you think about how valuable Prime is to the whole Amazon ecosystem, the fact that yes, shipping is receding as a centerpiece as I said in the direction that entertainment is going in, and the fact that Amazon wants to be the everything store and the DVDs shelves disappeared—this is the future of entertainment. They tend to also move in these directions and then figure out how to monetize them later.
Brad：如果你想想 Prime 对整个亚马逊生态系统有多重要，就知道其中包含的视频是值得投资的。正如我之前说的，物流配送已经不再是 Prime 的核心，方向正在转向娱乐内容。而亚马逊想要成为“万货商店”，DVD 架早就消失了，流媒体就是未来。他们一贯的做法是先往这些方向走，然后再去想如何变现。
Only now we're seeing the emergence of IMDb TV, which is a horrible name for anything but is this streaming service that is alongside Prime Video and it's free but supported by ads. Now you've got this massive advertising business. I think \$6 billion in the last quarter. That's the other category.
现在我们看到 IMDb TV 的出现（名字很糟糕），但它是一个与 Prime Video 并行的流媒体服务，免费但通过广告支持。这样亚马逊就发展出一个庞大的广告业务。我记得他们上季度的广告收入是 60 亿美元。那是“其他收入”类别的组成部分。
Ben: Quarter. It’s a \$6 billion a quarter business. That's like a 100% margin.
Ben：一个季度就 60 亿美元。这简直是 100% 毛利率的业务啊。
Brad: Right, exactly.
Brad：对，完全没错。
David: That's one of the business lines I don't need your take on whether it's good or not. It's obviously good.
David：这条业务线我不需要你评价它值不值得做了，显然是值得的。
Brad: That's why in the book I called that chapter *The Gold Mine in the Backyard* because it was there and they kind of turned it on. The more programming and content they add to that, the larger the video ad component of that becomes. It's just another act of business building. On its own, it's valuable. Then it ties into the Amazon ecosystem in these really interesting ways and then drives the central retail flywheel.
Brad：这就是为什么我在书里把那一章叫做“后院里的金矿”。它本来就在那儿，亚马逊只是把它启动了。随着他们增加更多内容和节目，视频广告的部分也就不断增长。这是又一次成功的业务建设。它本身就很有价值，而且还能以非常巧妙的方式与亚马逊的整体生态系统连接起来，进而推动其核心零售飞轮。
David: Okay, so that's video. International, you devote a few chapters to this. (A) They screwed up China, just like eBay back in the day. Unclear if any Western company ever would have won there in ecommerce, probably not. Then India and \[...] that you talked about too. Another business line that they have sunk untold billions into, the scene of Bezos wanting to ride in on the elephant, and he has to settle for the flatbed truck to deliver the check to...
David：好，视频说完了。接下来谈谈国际市场，你在书里专门写了几章。第一，他们搞砸了中国，就像当年的 eBay 一样。也许本来就没有哪家西方公司能在中国电商市场取胜。然后你还提到了印度等市场。这又是一条他们砸了无数亿美元的业务线，比如贝索斯原本想骑大象进场，最后只好坐平板卡车去送支票……
Ben: That’s in India, right?
Ben：你说的是印度吧？
David: In India, yeah. What's the state of those businesses?
David：对，是印度。那这些业务现在的状况如何？
Brad: India I think they built a big business there. It wouldn't surprise me if it was still unprofitable. Although I think the international part of the income statement in the last quarter was profitable for one of the first times. But India strikes me as still probably a money-losing proposition. In part because the political climate there has become so hostile to international companies. The Modi coalition has become nationalist, and they’re protecting the mom-and-pop shops that make up that economy.
Brad：在印度，我觉得他们确实建立起了一个大业务体。但如果现在还在亏钱我也不会惊讶。虽然我记得最近一个季度的国际业务部分可能是第一次实现盈利。不过我觉得印度那边可能仍然在亏损，部分原因是那里的政治环境对国际公司越来越不友好。莫迪政府的联盟越来越民族主义化，他们在保护构成印度经济基础的夫妻店体系。
Amazon had to operate as a pure marketplace business and really has been restricted with some of its workarounds like investing in the largest sellers on its Marketplace. But it's invested in Prime video, TV shows, and movies there, and changed the way people shop particularly in the larger cities. Now of course everything has been thrown into chaos by COVID-19. I wouldn't call that a failure, it’s still a bit of massively expensive work in progress. I quote Bezos in the book as saying, “The future of the world is the United States, China, and India. We need to succeed in two out of three.” They're not taking no for an answer.
亚马逊在印度只能以纯市场平台的形式运营，而且他们以前搞的一些变通做法，比如投资自己平台上最大的卖家，现在也受到很多限制。但他们也在印度投入了很多，比如 Prime 视频、本地电视剧、电影，特别是在大城市，确实改变了人们的购物方式。当然，新冠疫情也打乱了一切。我不觉得那是失败，更像是一个极其烧钱但仍在推进的项目。我在书里引用了贝索斯的话：“世界的未来在美国、中国和印度，我们必须在三者中赢得其二。”他们并不接受失败作为答案。
David: The interesting thing in India is it does seem like the game is still afoot because Flipkart, to my mind, I haven’t thought about this until reading the book, totally screwed up by selling to Walmart. If Flipkart were still an independent Indian national company, absolutely the Modi regime (to my mind) would be putting their fingers on the scale.
David：印度的局势还有意思的一点是，这场博弈似乎还在继续。我之前没怎么想过，但看了你的书后觉得 Flipkart 把自己卖给沃尔玛完全是个失误。如果它还是一家独立的印度本土公司，莫迪政府肯定会出手帮忙的。
Brad: There would be Reliance right now as the homegrown champion. I think I quote a Flipkart (maybe) board member investor in the book as saying, “If there was a mistake to make, we made it.”
Brad：现在他们扶持的对象就成了信实集团（Reliance），作为本土冠军。我记得我在书中引用了 Flipkart 一位董事或投资人说的话：“凡是能犯的错误，我们全犯了。”
David: You had the great quote too, I don't know that you had a name on it but it was just an S-team member who said, “We didn't know if we were going to get it right in India, but we knew Walmart was going to get it wrong.”
David：你还有一句很棒的引用，我记得好像没有署名，是一位亚马逊 S 团队成员说的：“我们不知道自己能不能在印度做成，但我们知道沃尔玛一定做不成。”
Brad: Exactly. Then you have Reliance who's now an offline conglomerate, who’s now trying to be the national ecommerce champion. Yet, as we know from experience, moving expertise in physical stores into the online channel is not easy. It's really a completely different business. In some ways, it's really disruptive. That's a game in progress.
Brad：对。现在信实是一个线下的大型企业集团，正试图成为印度的电商冠军。但正如我们从经验中看到的，从线下零售转向线上是很难的，那几乎是完全不同的业务模式。从某种角度讲，它本身就是一种颠覆。这场博弈还在继续。
Then I tell the story in Mexico, in part for two reasons, (1) they tried to launch in Mexico without Google. It was a great illustration of how concerned Bezos and Jeff Wilke were about Amazon’s reliance on Google and how they spent billions of dollars every year to advertise and acquire customers via search. They launched in Mexico without search advertising, and it doesn't work.
然后我还讲了亚马逊在墨西哥的故事，原因有两个：第一，他们最初尝试在不依赖 Google 的情况下进入墨西哥市场。这很好地反映了贝索斯和杰夫·威尔克对亚马逊过于依赖 Google 的担忧，因为他们每年花几十亿美元在搜索广告上获取客户。他们试图在墨西哥不做搜索广告地上线，结果是根本行不通。
Their numbers are upside down because they're trying to acquire customers with billboards and conventional ads, and it's super expensive and ultimately unproductive. So they turn on Google advertising. Then the second reason that was interesting was, it's a tragic story but they hired the CEO of their business in Mexico who ends up getting fired from the company. Then is accused of having his wife assassinated. Then goes on the lam and has never been seen since.
他们的投入和产出完全不成比例，因为他们改用广告牌和传统广告来获取用户，这既昂贵又无效。最后他们不得不开启 Google 广告。第二个原因也很有戏剧性，甚至是悲剧性的。他们在墨西哥雇了一位 CEO，后来被公司开除，之后被控谋杀妻子，并逃亡至今下落不明。
David: You had coffee with him in San Francisco.
David：你曾经在旧金山和他喝过咖啡。
Brad: Before he hired the assassins. I had absolutely no idea. To me, it was interesting. I don't want to read too much of it, but they hired the guy, they had him run their business in Mexico, and obviously, he turned out to be an unsavory character. There was a little bit of interesting judgment, who knows, maybe unforeseeable. But that was a story that ended in really hard to believe tragedy.
Brad：那是在他雇凶之前。我当时完全没有察觉有什么不对。在我看来这是件很有意思的事——他们雇了这个人来负责墨西哥业务，结果他显然是个品行不端的人。这个人事任命确实有些问题，但也可能是无法预见的。无论如何，这个故事的结局真的令人难以置信，是个悲剧。
David: Totally.
David：完全同意。
Ben: It is staggering that that nugget is in this business book. We haven't even gotten to the whole sort of 2018–2019 saga and Jeff's personal life. You're reading this, it's not by any means dry, it's one of the most interesting companies in the world written in this thriller-like way, but it's a business book. Then you hear that anecdote and you're like, I'm sorry, what? Did you have to hold yourself back from wanting to dig in further to that as a drama?
Ben：令人震惊的是，这种内容居然出现在一本商业书里。而且我们还没谈到 2018–2019 那整段关于杰夫个人生活的风波。你在读这本书时，完全不会觉得枯燥——它讲的是世界上最有意思的公司之一，文风像惊悚小说一样精彩，但归根到底它还是本商业书。然后你突然看到那则轶事，脑子一懵：等等，什么？你有没有很想深入挖掘那部分，把它写成一部剧情片？
Brad: A little bit. I mean, I did dig in further and sort of had to measure it because it is so startling and different in tone and content. I felt like it was interesting and I think it was relevant. The kicker of that whole section was how Amazon had to turn off Google AdWords after the assassination because the news story kept popping up. It was just so interesting and showed the strange interdependence between the two companies.
Brad：有一点吧。我确实进一步调查了这件事，但必须权衡，因为那部分的基调和内容实在太不同了，太令人震惊。但我觉得它确实很有意思，也确实相关。那段故事最精彩的地方是：在那桩谋杀案之后，亚马逊不得不关闭 Google 的广告投放，因为新闻报道不断弹出广告位。这太有意思了，也展示了这两家公司之间奇特的相互依赖关系。
Ben: Well, this is like a place where I really wanted to ask this question because we were talking a lot about Flipkart. It became very obvious to me (reading this book) that Jeff Bezos does indeed care about competition, in addition to the customer. It's this famous anecdote and I've heard it quoted to me by a thousand startup Founders over the years saying, oh, I don't pay attention to competition because Jeff Bezos doesn't. I'm only worried about my customer. Sure.
Ben：正好我一直想在这个地方提个问题，因为我们刚刚聊了很多关于 Flipkart 的事情。我在读这本书时特别明显地感受到一件事：杰夫·贝索斯其实确实很在意竞争者，不只是顾客。多年来，我听到无数创业者引用他的名言，说，“我不关注竞争对手，因为杰夫·贝索斯也不关注。我只关心我的客户。”当然啦……
After diving in as deep as you have, how would you massage how he actually looks at the competition, and when to pay attention to it and when not to?
你深入研究了这么多，你觉得他实际上是如何看待竞争对手的？他在什么时候会真正关注竞争？什么时候不会？
Brad: Whenever they say, it's disingenuous about that. It's theater.
Brad：每当他们说那些话，其实都有点虚伪，像在演戏。
David: Brad, it's a leadership principle.
David：Brad，那可是亚马逊的领导力原则啊。
Brad: Of course you pay attention to them. We study them, but we just don't obsess over them. We obsess over customers. Bezos came to India in 2014, and Flipkart’s got billboards lining the road from the airport. He's there studying their methods. They launched Big Billion Day, and then he insists on launching a sort of celebration of India's Space Program the next day. He wants to make a splash with the elephants. It's all very explicit.
Brad：当然他们会关注竞争对手。他们研究竞争对手，只是不“痴迷”于他们。他们“痴迷”的是客户。比如，2014 年贝索斯去了印度，当时从机场通往市区的路两边全是 Flipkart 的广告牌。他到那儿后仔细研究人家的打法。他们办了“大亿日”活动（Big Billion Day），第二天他就坚持办一个庆祝印度太空计划的活动，还想骑着大象出场制造轰动。这些举动都是非常直白的竞争反应。
The Google story of Mexico. There's another part of the book where he authorizes Prime now. A real foray into grocery delivery and fast two-hour delivery because Google is launching Google Express. At some point, they're launching it in Seattle, his backyard. This was an opportunity that he thought would be there for them down the road and suddenly he saw Google moving after it. This was a land grab. I don’t hold it against them. It all seems like good business to me, but the idea that they've got a higher ideal that puts them above or beyond focusing on competitors is definitely not true.
比如墨西哥市场里跟 Google 的那段故事。书中还有一段讲到他批准启动 Prime Now，这是他们首次真正尝试做杂货配送和两小时送达服务，原因是 Google 要推出 Google Express，而且还选在了西雅图——贝索斯的大本营。他原本以为这个机会以后再抓也来得及，结果一看到 Google 动作了，就知道这是块必须抢下的地盘。我并不觉得这种行为有什么问题，从商业角度看这些决定都很合理。但说他们有多么崇高的理念，不需要理会竞争对手，这肯定不是真的。
David: To that moment and this competitive dynamic of Bezos, I don't think you wrote this in the book but, was Prime now also partially a response to Instacart? I can't ignore the irony of both Instacart and Flipkart being founded by former Amazon Engineers who were like, we should do this. Amazon was like, we’re not going to do this. Then they go do it and raise billions of dollars and Amazon's like, we're doing it.
David：说到这一点和贝索斯的竞争性反应，我记得你好像在书里没写，但 Prime Now 的推出是不是也部分是对 Instacart 的回应？我实在无法忽视这个讽刺的事实——Instacart 和 Flipkart 都是前亚马逊工程师创办的。他们当时在公司里说“我们应该做这个”，但亚马逊说“我们不打算做”。结果他们出去创业，融了几十亿美元，亚马逊最后也跟着上了。
Brad: No. In that chapter, it's not just Google Express, it's Instacart and their success of fundraising rounds. Sometimes it's a story in the Wall Street Journal, the Times, or Bloomberg that catches their eye and there's a competitive response. Yes, certainly Instacart, the fact that this was a former employee had hit them hard, and they tried to copy it.
Brad：没错，那一章里说的可不仅是 Google Express，还有 Instacart 以及他们成功的融资。有时候就是《华尔街日报》、纽约时报或彭博的一篇报道引起了他们的注意，然后触发了竞争反应。Instacart 毫无疑问起了作用，尤其因为那是个前员工创办的项目，对亚马逊来说打击不小，他们尝试去复制。
I talk about what Prime now was at the beginning. One element of it, which they called \[...], was an effort to basically do the same thing as Instacart. Kind of syndicate offline physical retailers and use their shelves as fulfillment centers and deliver those with contractors to people's homes.
我在书里讲了 Prime Now 最初是什么样子。其中有个部分是他们内部叫做 \[…] 的项目，基本上就是在模仿 Instacart。他们想联合线下零售商，把他们的货架当作履约中心，然后用合同工把商品送到用户家门口。
What they found when they tried to emulate Instacart is that no grocery store was going to work with Amazon. That would be madness. Particularly since in a very Amazon-like way, they also had this AmazonFresh experiment happening in Seattle, and by that point probably San Francisco and LA, that seemed like this big mortal threat to the grocery stores. Little did they know, Amazon Fresh at the time was kind of a disaster and wasn't really being expanded.
但他们试图模仿 Instacart 的时候发现，没有一家杂货店愿意和亚马逊合作。那太疯狂了。尤其是很亚马逊式地，他们当时还在西雅图做 AmazonFresh 的试验项目，可能也扩展到了旧金山和洛杉矶，对杂货店来说看起来就是个巨大的生死威胁。但其实他们不知道，那时的 AmazonFresh 其实搞得很糟糕，根本没怎么扩展。
But Instacart has the benefit of being a technology platform for other grocery stores. Whereas Amazon was kind of doing both, a little bit of 3P and 1P. They even went to Whole Foods back in 2015 and got told no, which was interesting and precipitated a little bit of the relationship down the line.
Instacart 的优势是它是其他杂货商的技术平台。而亚马逊是自己既当卖家也当平台——既做 3P（第三方卖家）又做 1P（自营卖家）。他们甚至早在 2015 年就找过 Whole Foods 合作，结果被拒了。这一点很有意思，也为后来的收购埋下了伏笔。
David: There was a fun little moment that just reminded me of in the book. I think you either wrote implied that John Mackey at Whole Foods reached out to Bezos either through Bloomberg or after having seen something in Bloomberg.
David：你刚提到这事让我想起书里一个挺有意思的小片段。我记得你写到或者暗示说，Whole Foods 的 John Mackey 是通过彭博，或者是在看到彭博的某篇报道之后联系上了贝索斯。
Brad: Right. The companies had been circling each other. Activist investors were kind of pummeling Whole Foods Market. My colleague at Bloomberg, Spencer Soper, wrote an article that suggested that Amazon had considered buying Whole Foods in the past, which they had. That was a precipitating event to Mackey saying maybe we should pick up the phone and call these guys, maybe Amazon's our way out.
Brad：对，这两家公司其实一直在互相盘旋。那时候激进投资者正在猛烈抨击 Whole Foods。我在彭博社的同事 Spencer Soper 写了一篇文章，说亚马逊以前就考虑过收购 Whole Foods——事实确实如此。这篇文章促使 Mackey 觉得，也许我们应该拿起电话给他们打个电话，也许亚马逊是我们脱困的出路。
Then I've got the name of whoever this was in the book, and I'm not going to be able to remember it, but somebody who was advising Mackey had been active in Democratic politics and called Jay Carney, and that precipitated the deal.
书里我提到了一个人名字，我现在记不起来了。他是当时给 Mackey 出主意的人，之前在民主党圈子里活跃。他打电话给了 Jay Carney，事情由此推进，最后达成了交易。
Ben: Fascinating. That was one of David and my first big episodes. I woke up, saw the news, we texted each other and said, oh my God, we have to do this. We have to cover Amazon and Whole Foods even though we've never done a live on the scene thing before. That was, of course, not a part of the narrative at that point in history. It’s just cool to hear it unearthed.
Ben：太有意思了。那是我和 David 做的最早的大型节目之一。我一早醒来看到新闻，立刻发信息给他说，“天啊，我们必须讲这件事。我们得做一期关于亚马逊和 Whole Foods 的节目。”那时候我们其实从没做过什么“现场即时”分析，但还是冲上了。这些故事当时还不为人知，现在能听你揭示出来，真的太酷了。
David: The third business line I want your opinion on is, not the OG OG, but pretty close—the first kind of pillar of the story of Amazon is the Marketplace. I'd always assumed that this is an unassailable, unbelievable business. Even putting AWS aside, which on its own, should be a FAANG company. US Marketplace, also on its own, should be a FAANG Company. You paint kind of a dark picture of what's going on with the Marketplace right now. What’s your take? Tell us more.
David：我想请你点评的第三个业务线，虽然不是最早的那个 OG，但也很接近——就是亚马逊故事的第一根支柱：Marketplace（第三方卖家平台）。我一直以为这是一个坚不可摧、令人难以置信的好生意。哪怕不算 AWS，光是美国的 Marketplace，也应该是一家 FAANG 级别的公司。但你在书中对当前 Marketplace 的情况描绘得相当灰暗。你怎么看？请多谈谈。
Brad: They made a series of very logical choices over the years which unlocked a tremendous amount of opportunity and growth. In fact, one of the big questions I had going into the book was how does the retail growth of a 20-year-old company start to re-accelerate? That seems to defy the laws of company gravity. The bigger you are, the slower you grow. What exactly happened there in 2015–2016 that GMV kind of took off? I remember looking into it and talking to former members of that team. Essentially, again back to the competition point, they are “inspired.”
Brad：这些年来他们做出了一系列非常符合逻辑的决策，释放了巨大的机会和增长。事实上，我写这本书时最大的疑问之一是，一家已经运营了 20 年的零售公司怎么会突然加速增长？这似乎违反了企业成长的“重力定律”——公司越大，增长越慢。那么 2015 到 2016 年到底发生了什么，GMV（商品交易总额）突然飙升？我深入调查，采访了很多当时的团队成员。说到底，还是跟竞争有关，他们得到了“启发”。
Their eyes opened by two companies. (1) Alibaba is expanding AliExpress with the idea that the sellers who have learned how to sell on Alibaba in China could now reach customers in the US and Europe. That was a seductive idea. I think it got the attention of Amazon executives. In fact, I think, except for maybe parts of Europe, that really hasn't worked out that well. In any event, that was sort of one inspiration. There was internal communication among Amazon executives that I cite in the book expressing fear that maybe Jack Ma would like to reduce fees to nothing in an effort to expand outside China.
他们是被两家公司“点醒”的。（1）阿里巴巴正在扩展速卖通（AliExpress），理念是：在中国已经掌握电商技能的卖家，现在可以直接服务美国和欧洲的消费者。这是个非常诱人的想法，确实引起了亚马逊高管的注意。实际上除了欧洲的一些地方，这事后来发展得也没有特别成功。但这给了亚马逊一个启发。我在书中引用了亚马逊内部高层的邮件，他们担心马云会把卖家费用降到零，从而实现对中国以外市场的扩张。
David: Which is normal in China ecommerce as we see on Acquired.
David：在中国电商环境下这是很常见的，我们在《Acquired》中也经常看到这种情况。
Brad: Exactly. The other inspiration was wish.com conducting a kind of geographic arbitrage, getting sellers in China and other countries to sell to the West with really low fees, no-name brands, generic products, sometimes low quality, and weeks-long wait shipping time. Nevertheless, huge selection, really low prices, was raising money in Silicon Valley, and kind of taking off. Bezos \[...] his lieutenants and says, you’re on this, right? That was like, that's all they need. It's like the sly-nod from The Godfather.
Brad：没错。第二个启发是 wish.com。他们在做一种地理套利——让中国和其他国家的卖家以非常低的费用把无品牌的、通用的、甚至质量不太好的商品卖到欧美，虽然要等上几周才能到货，但胜在选择多、价格便宜。他们在硅谷获得融资，业务也迅速起飞。贝索斯看到后对他的副将们说：“你们注意到这个了吗？”——这就够了，就像《教父》里那个心照不宣的眼神。
They open up the Marketplace, they basically reduce all the friction to selling from China to the rest of the world. They're translating from Mandarin, it's self-service, sign up, and sell anywhere. They’re aggregating products in the ports and shipping them at low cost to the West. They're storing items on Amazon Fulfillment centers. They’re making it really easy for cross-border commerce to happen. That sounds great, and it was great.
于是他们对 Marketplace 敞开了大门，基本上消除了中国卖家向全球销售的所有障碍。他们做中文翻译，卖家自助注册，随时随地开卖。他们在港口整合商品，低成本运往欧美，并将商品存放在亚马逊的物流中心。跨境电商变得异常容易。这一切听起来非常棒，实际上也确实带来了巨大的增长。
David: Great for consumers and the business is booming in terms of revenue.
David：对消费者来说非常好，对亚马逊的营收也是爆炸式增长。
Brad: By the way, Amazon has seen that if you offer a curated selection of branded items at a high price, a very orderly store in say shoes, and then you A/B test that with a disorderly selection of unbranded products at low prices with an extensive selection and even low quality, actually customer still gravitate to the chaos in the large selection of the low prices. They knew what customers wanted. The corporate compass at Amazon is always pointed to what customers want. Again, good for customers.
Brad：顺便说一句，亚马逊的测试发现，如果你提供一组精挑细选的高价品牌商品，比如整齐的鞋子专区，然后你用它去跟一组混乱无序的、低价、无品牌、选择丰富甚至质量欠佳的商品做 A/B 测试，结果是——消费者仍然倾向于选择后者，选择那个“混乱但便宜”的选项。他们知道顾客真正想要的是什么。亚马逊这家公司的指南针永远指向“顾客需求”。从顾客角度看，确实没错。
Then every seller in the west is suddenly blown out of the water by a wave of competition from overseas, sellers who aren't paying the same taxes, who don't have the same labor costs, who are close to or in some cases are the manufacturers, no brands, no markups on prices. Also, a group of sellers in that community that is playing hardball, are wearing black hats.
但紧接着，西方本地卖家就被海外卖家的大潮冲垮了。这些海外卖家不需要缴纳相同的税，也没有相同的劳动力成本，有的甚至就是生产商本身。他们没有品牌，也没有加价空间。同时还有一批卖家在灰色地带操作，甚至是彻头彻尾的“黑帽”行为者。
David: Stealing IP or all sorts of stuff.
David：偷知识产权啊，各种乱七八糟的事情。
Brad: Bots with the reviews.
Brad：还有刷评论的机器人。
David: I don't know about everybody listening or you, but the number of times I get a little card on stuff I order from Amazon now saying, write a review and email it to us at this address and we’ll send you something.
David：不知道你或者其他听众有没有注意到，我现在在亚马逊上买东西，经常会收到一张小卡片，上面写着“写个评论，发到这个邮箱，我们送你点东西”。
Brad: When you read about exploding hoverboards, sneakers that are self-destructing after the second wear, or out-and-out fraud, it's because Amazon built these systems and scaled them. And in an Amazon-like way, ran them with algorithms, software, and a lot of human care and curation because they were moving quickly in setting up these systems and trying to globalize the marketplace before Alibaba, Wish, or anyone else.
Brad：你在新闻中读到那些爆炸的平衡车、穿两次就散架的球鞋，或者彻头彻尾的欺诈案例，都是因为亚马逊建立了这些系统并迅速扩张。而他们以“亚马逊式”的方式运营这些系统——依赖算法、软件，还有一定程度的人为筛选——因为他们在设立这些系统、试图在阿里巴巴、Wish 或其他人之前实现全球化市场时，行动非常迅速。
Ben: I thought that was a really interesting point that you made that was like, sure, there's this big problem with counterfeiting, IP theft, and factories selling direct even though it's really someone else's product. Let's even put that aside for a minute.
Ben：我觉得你提出的那个点很有意思。是的，现在确实存在仿冒、知识产权盗用、代工厂直接销售别人品牌产品的问题。就算我们暂且把这些问题搁在一边。
There's a sort of legitimate battle going on between Chinese manufacturers with lower-cost structures who are willing to play by the rules and are willing to build legitimate brands. I think Anker is the brand that you cited that made phone chargers and all sorts of gadgets. They just have a dramatically lower cost structure than the American brand that they're selling against because everything about the company is China-based. As long as they can ship them to American customers, they can always undercut the third-party seller marketplace.
中国产业链下，有些制造商成本结构更低，而且愿意遵守规则，努力打造自己的品牌。我记得你提到 Anker 这个品牌，他们做手机充电器和各类电子配件。他们的成本结构比他们竞争的美国品牌低很多，因为整个公司都是在中国运营的。只要他们能把货运到美国消费者手里，他们就永远能压过美国本土的第三方卖家。
Brad: Steven Yang, the CEO of Anker, says to a western seller named Bernie Thompson, who's the CEO of Plugable, which is in the same business accessories. He says to him at one point—in a very kind way because Steven’s a nice guy says—Bernie, we're going to run you over just because there’s the acknowledgement that you really can't compete. Steven and Anker, they have their manufacturing relationships and they have an underlying cost advantage.
Brad：Anker 的 CEO 杨明（Steven Yang）曾对一位西方卖家 Bernie Thompson 说——他是 Plugable 的 CEO，也在做类似的配件生意。Steven 是个很和善的人，但他当时还是说：“Bernie，我们会把你碾压掉。”这其实就是对一个事实的坦诚承认：你根本竞争不过我们。Steven 和 Anker 有制造端的关系网，还有根本性的成本优势。
I went back to a lot of the sellers who over the years have been mentioned in Bezos’ investor letters, to take their temperature and like, here they are in the letters as the evangelists for Amazon Marketplace. I thought after many years what would their tune be, and all of them had become disgruntled because of exactly what we're talking about. One of them had that great quote, I feel like I was invited for Thanksgiving dinner and I was the turkey.
我回访了许多这些年来曾被贝索斯在致股东信中点名表扬的卖家——他们曾是 Amazon Marketplace 的布道者。我想看看多年之后他们的态度是否还一样，结果几乎所有人都变得很不满，正是因为我们刚才讨论的这些问题。其中一个人说得特别有意思：“我感觉自己就像是被邀请参加感恩节晚宴的人，结果我居然是那只火鸡。”
David: I mean, for me, I’m (unapologetically) a huge Amazon fanboy. Up until that moment, I was like, yeah, but it's good for customers, it's good for customers, it's good for customers. Then when you went to every single person, every single seller that Amazon had championed in the past, even the guy that was sort of reluctant, you could tell he was pretty pissed off, he just didn't want to say it.
David：我一直以来都是个毫不掩饰的亚马逊粉丝。直到你写到这部分之前，我一直都在说：“这对消费者有好处，这对消费者有好处。”但当你把过去亚马逊亲自支持过的每一个卖家的近况写出来后——哪怕是那个看起来还在克制的人，也能明显看出他其实很愤怒，只是不愿意说出口。
Brad: I will say that Bernie Thompson is one of those sellers who has mentioned in the investor letter, this guy that Steven Yang of Anker said I'm going to run you over. Plugable, among all those guys, still is doing well. He's still selling on Amazon. He wasn't as embittered, although he did bring some arguments to Amazon to try to get them to change some policy. Look, sellers are being aggregated right now. You guys have probably heard about this. There's obviously opportunity on the Marketplace. They're being rolled up by bigger players.
Brad：我得说，Bernie Thompson 就是当年在股东信中被点名表扬的卖家之一，也就是那个 Steven Yang 说要“碾压”的人。Plugable 到现在还活得不错，依然在亚马逊上卖。他的情绪没那么消极，尽管他确实向亚马逊提出了一些政策上的改进建议。说实话，现在这些第三方卖家正在被整合，你们应该也听说过。有些大玩家正把他们收购整合，说明 Marketplace 上还是有机会的。
David: Thrasio and the like.
David：像 Thrasio 这样的公司。
Brad: Plugable is constantly changing the product mix and keeps bringing out new things and innovating. That's the key, someone who was selling stand-up paddleboards five years ago and still wants to be selling stand-up paddleboards today in the same way, that's commerce, that's capitalism, it's globalization plus Amazon on top, it's not going to be possible.
Brad：Plugable 一直在不断调整产品组合，不断推出新产品、做创新。这才是关键。如果一个人五年前在卖立式划水板，今天还想用同样的方式继续卖，那这就是商业，这是资本主义，这是全球化加上亚马逊的加持——这在今天根本不现实。
David: The conclusion I kind of came to was like, there's a problem there in the Marketplace. I do think Amazon will probably fix it enough in their Amazon way. I'm not too worried about Amazon, but it did make me think (a) not that I'm a shareholder or anything, but less bullish on the Thrasio-type model and aggregating sellers like you were a commodity before and now you're a super commodity. Whatever your cash flow dynamics are today, is not going to be what they are tomorrow. (2) Also more bullish on Shopify and arming the rebels thesis too existing alongside Amazon.
David：我得出的结论是，Marketplace 确实有问题。我认为亚马逊最终还是会以他们的方式把它修好，我对亚马逊本身并不担心。但这让我重新思考了两点：（1）虽然我不是股东，但我对 Thrasio 那类收购卖家的模式不再看好——你以前是商品化，现在更商品化了。你今天的现金流状况，明天可能就完全不同了；（2）我对 Shopify 及“武装叛军”的理论更看好了，它和亚马逊是可以共存的。
Brad: I agree with that. Amazon is doing so much now in serving so many constituencies that the brand holder who wants no part of this frontier chaos, wants to sell directly, and have a relationship with their customers. Shopify is serving that need, and Amazon kind of can't do it all.
Brad：我同意。亚马逊现在要服务的对象太多太广，那些品牌持有者根本不想卷入这种边界混战，他们更希望直接销售，与顾客建立关系。而这正是 Shopify 满足的需求，亚马逊也不可能什么都做。
Ben: For anyone listening to the show right now, we're live on the line with a bunch of our LPs. We want to get to some questions that they have. We have to touch on, as David has it in quotes here, “the Bezos lapse of judgment” in the 2018–2019 timeframe. There's so much stuff that you said in the book that I don't think that we need to rehash, but I did have one question for you.
Ben：在听节目的朋友们，我们现在和一些 LPs 正在连线直播。我们马上要开始回答他们的问题。但在此之前，我们得谈一下 David 这里引用的“贝索斯判断失误”，发生在 2018 到 2019 年间。你在书里讲了太多精彩内容，我觉得我们不用一一重复，但我确实有个问题想问。
Of all the things that you found about the helicopter flying, the helipads part of HQ2, and the insane leak from Lauren Sanchez’s brother that was happening simultaneously with the hack from NBS and the Saudi Arabian involvement. You can't make this stuff up. Was there anything that was original insights that you had found where you're like, oh my gosh, this hadn't been uncovered before?
你写到了那么多事：直升机飞行、HQ2 的直升机场请求、洛伦·桑切斯的哥哥泄密、NBS 的黑客攻击、沙特卷入等等……这些事简直像小说一样离奇。你有没有发现哪些之前没人写过、让你自己都觉得“天哪这居然是真的”的独家新料？
Brad: No, I mean, I think there's a lot in there. I mean, you mentioned the helipads. The idea that the request for helipads in Long Island City and Crystal City that were part of HQ2, that instituted a political backlash in New York, that Amazon claims was really just normal ordinary corporate request for aerial access, and that Bezos, not only—
Brad：有的，我觉得里面确实有很多内容。比如你提到直升机场的事情——亚马逊在长岛市和水晶城为 HQ2 提出了建设直升机场的请求，这在纽约引发了政治反弹。而亚马逊声称这只是普通的企业“空中通勤”需求请求。但贝索斯不仅——
Ben: For a company that doesn't own helicopters.
Ben：一家连自己都没有直升机的公司居然提出这种要求。
Brad: Right. Except that Bezos (what I found out) not only was seeing Lauren Sanchez who’s a helicopter pilot, but he had taken helicopter lessons at the time.
Brad：是啊。但我发现贝索斯当时不仅和直升机女飞行员洛伦·桑切斯约会，他自己也在学开直升机。
David: We got to stop first, what is up with that? The dude himself almost died in a helicopter accident. Obviously, there's Kobe. Does he not get that people die in a helicopter?
David：先等一下，这也太离谱了。他自己以前差点死在一场直升机事故里。还有科比那事。他难道不知道坐直升机是会出人命的？
Brad: And he's flying them. Although, I looked for the pilot's license and I couldn't find it in any database, but I do know that he took lessons. I found that he had personally bought a Bell Helicopter and that Lauren Sanchez’s company had also registered a new Bell Helicopter at the same time. My hypothesis, he bought his-and-hers Bell Textron state-of-the-art helicopter.
Brad：而且他还是亲自开的。我查了所有数据库没找到他的飞行执照，但我确定他确实上了课。我发现他亲自买了一架 Bell 直升机，而洛伦·桑切斯的公司也在同一时间注册了一架新 Bell 直升机。我的猜测是，他们买的是“情侣款”顶配贝尔直升机。
Anyway, there's a lot. I mean, there's a lot in there. The yacht, the fact that he's building the superyacht, three-masted schooner with an accompanying support yacht for the helicopters. That’s all fresh in the book. That took a lot of sleuthing.
总之，书里还有很多料。比如那艘超级游艇——三桅帆船，还有一艘专门用来停直升机的辅助游艇。这些内容都很新，查起来费了不少功夫。
Then, little aspects of the three-way fight between the National Enquirer, Bezos and his representatives, and Michael Sanchez trying to clear his sullied name, then he had MBS. That really had nothing to do with the whole thing. I mean people can go read it. It's chapter 13 in the book. There's some Businessweek excerpt. It's a tangled, strange, bizarre, hall of mirrors saga.
然后还有《国家询问报》、贝索斯及其代表人、迈克尔·桑切斯三方之间的争斗，以及 MBS 的卷入……尽管他实际上可能跟这件事根本没关系。大家可以去看书的第十三章，也有刊登在《商业周刊》的节选。这是一出复杂、离奇、诡异、充满镜像迷宫的故事。
Ben: It's an unbelievable chapter. Even if you feel like I know a lot of these stories, I'm not going read it. Go buy the book and read chapter 13. It’s such a crazy story completely on its own. Do I have it right that his phone via WhatsApp was hacked by Mohammed bin Salman, and that was very likely exfiltrating data, but that has nothing to do with how the public found out about the affair?
Ben：那一章简直难以置信。就算你觉得这些故事你都听过了，也还是应该去买书看看第13章。那就是一段完全独立存在的离奇剧情。我说得对吗？他是通过 WhatsApp 被穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼黑进手机的，很可能被窃取了数据，但这和公众得知他婚外情的事毫无关系？
Brad: The second part is right, it had nothing to do with the National Enquirer story, which supplied the evidence filed in the voluminous court cases. Amply showed, the evidence was supplied by the brother. I would say that there's just ambiguity around whether the Saudis hacked his phone. There was a study done by a consulting company that Bezos hired as a private investigator. There's a lot of skepticism in the cybersecurity community about that study and what they found. I don't know and I don't know that we'll ever know.
Brad：后半句你说得对，这和《国家询问报》的报道没关系。大量法庭文件都充分显示，证据是他哥哥提供的。至于沙特是否真的黑了他的手机，这点其实有很多不确定。贝索斯雇了一家顾问公司来做私家调查，他们做了一份研究报告。但在网络安全圈子里，很多人对那份研究和结论都持怀疑态度。我也不知道真相，也不知道我们是否有一天能知道。
What's unfortunate is that the Saudi bots on Twitter have kind of taken what I wrote in that book to launch another wave of attacks against Bezos saying that he improperly accused them. The interesting thing is that there is obviously real enmity from the Saudi government, the Crown Prince, and their agents against the Washington Post and against Jeff Bezos. That is unequivocally true. The question of whether they employed Pegasus software and hacked his phone. It's also true, by the way, that NBS was sending very curious texts.
可惜的是，现在沙特的水军在推特上利用我在书里写的内容，发起了新一轮针对贝索斯的攻击，说他错误地指责了他们。比较微妙的是，沙特政府、王储本人以及他们的代理人与《华盛顿邮报》、与贝索斯之间确实存在敌意，这点毫无疑问。但他们是否动用了 Pegasus 软件入侵他手机，这就说不准了。而且，顺带一提，NBS（王储）确实发过一些非常奇怪的短信。
David: That was suspicious.
David：那确实很可疑。
Brad: Wait, I just wanted to say one other thing that I just remembered. You asked, what was new. I'll just sort of at a distance refer. Do you remember that the center of this whole thing is whether The Enquirer had acquired explicit photographs?
Brad：等等，我还想补充一点，我刚刚想起来的。你问过有没有什么是新的内容，我可以稍微提一下。你记得整个事件的核心是，《国家询问报》是否拿到了贝索斯的裸照，对吧？
Ben: Yes.
Ben：对。
Brad: The selfie, we'll just leave it there. The fact that they never had it. What they had was a photograph that Michael Sanchez had taken from an escort website and passed off as an explicit photograph of the richest man in the world. That was one you cannot make up. It was funny. In retrospect, all of these parties were battling over a photograph that actually didn't exist.
Brad：对，我们就说是自拍照吧。他们其实根本没有那张图。他们拿到的那张，是迈克尔·桑切斯从一个“陪侍”网站上下载的照片，然后冒充是世界首富的裸照。你说这不是小说都没人信。回头看，所有人居然围绕一张根本不存在的照片上演了一出大戏。
David: That’s unbelievable. We could do a whole nother podcast that is not a business podcast about this. I do want to ask a meta-question. What was the link reporting that? You're kind of going behind the scenes of this story and sources. You’re a journalist yourself. You have sources, obviously you know the sanctity of sources, and you're trying to report on this. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of legal ramifications here, people could be going to jail, what was that like?
David：太离谱了。这事单独做一整期节目都可以了，而且都不用是商业类播客。我想问个更宏观的问题——你是怎么报道这段内容的？你等于是深入到了事件的幕后，还牵涉到各种消息来源。你本身也是记者，知道保护消息源的重要性，而且你在调查这个过程时还有一堆法律后果可能要面对，有人可能会坐牢。这是什么感觉？
Brad: David, I'm not going to lie, it was awesome. I'm a business journalist. We're writing web deals, we’re writing what business people tend to be scripted, disciplined, and boring. To write about explicit selfies, Saudi agents, hacks, tabloid journalists, and double-crossing sibling betrayal. Oh, it's great.
Brad：David，我不骗你，那感觉太棒了。我是商业记者，平时写的都是网站并购、协议条款……这些商业人物大多都讲究流程，克制无趣。而这次写的是裸照、沙特特工、黑客、小报记者、兄妹反目、互相出卖……简直太刺激了。
David: That's awesome.
David：太棒了。
Ben: All right, last question before we open it up to the floor, Brad, have you heard from Amazon, Jeff, or anyone in the book since publishing, and have you gotten any more recent feedback than what you actually wrote in the book?
Ben：好，开放给观众提问前的最后一个问题。Brad，你出书之后，有没有听到亚马逊、贝索斯，或者书中其他人物的回应？有没有在书之外收到一些最新反馈？
Brad: Not anything official, and I think they have maybe learned from the aftermath of *The Everything Store*, have realized that to respond publicly would only add oxygen to the fire.
Brad：没有正式回应。我觉得他们可能从《一网打尽》（The Everything Store）那本书的风波中学到教训了，他们现在明白，一旦公开回应，只会火上浇油。
As much as I might hope for a Dave Clark tweet, a Bezos Instagram rhetoric, even (praying to the heavens) another Mackenzie review, or Lauren Sanchez review, that would be awesome. I have a feeling that is not forthcoming. Informally, the feedback has all been good. It feels like a factual account and well told. That's a really informal reaction. Obviously, nothing from Bezos nor do I expect to. The response so far that I've gotten has been favorable.
尽管我很希望看到 Dave Clark 发个推，贝索斯发条 Instagram，甚至（仰望星空祈祷）再来一篇麦肯齐的一星书评，或者洛伦·桑切斯的评论，那一定精彩。但我感觉这些都不会出现了。私下里收到的一些反馈都还不错，大家觉得这本书事实扎实，讲述得也好。当然这些都是非正式的反应。贝索斯本人当然没给过任何反馈，我也不指望他会回应。到目前为止，整体反馈还是挺积极的。
Ben: That's great.
Ben：太棒了。
Ben: Anyone wants to kick us off here with the first question. Logan, I see your hand raised.
Ben：有人愿意第一个来提问吗？Logan，我看到你举手了。
Logan: Yeah, obviously, love the book. Read the book, loved it. Thank you for coming on. My question is related to Nina Rolle, the voice of Alexa. The question is more on the journalistic approach. Basically, can you go into more detail or whatever detail you can provide that you didn't include in the book on how you were able to (I don't know if this is the right phrase) hunt Nina Rolle down?
None of the parties involved can confirm that she's the voice of Alexa. I was curious if you can basically say how you were able to confirm the degree of confidence that you put her name in the book? How'd you find out that she was Alexa and what was that process?
Logan：我非常喜欢这本书，读过，非常喜欢，谢谢你今天来。我这个问题是关于 Alexa 的声音——Nina Rolle——更多是关于你在新闻调查方面的方法。你能不能分享一些书中没有写到的细节，比如你是怎么追踪到 Nina Rolle 的？虽然各方都无法正式确认她就是 Alexa 的配音人，但你却把她写进了书里。你是怎么确认并确信她就是 Alexa 的声音的？这个过程是怎样的？
Brad: Thank you, Logan. Definitely love talking about this. It was in the first book. I tracked down Bezos’ biological father. Unfortunately, there were no more long-lost relatives to hunt down in this one. I thought, well, what secrets are there to unearth?
Brad：谢谢你，Logan。我很喜欢聊这个话题。其实在我第一本书里，我追踪到了贝索斯的亲生父亲。但这本书里就没有什么失散亲属可找了，所以我想，还有什么秘密可以挖掘？
If you remember, Logan, the voice of Siri a couple of years ago—way back maybe 2012—was unveiled and it was a woman named Susan Bennett who actually hadn't even known early on that she was the voice of Siri. It was a data set that she had recorded for another company that had been acquired by Siri, and then acquired by Apple.
你可能还记得，大约2012年的时候，Siri 的声音被揭晓，是一位叫 Susan Bennett 的女士。而她一开始其实根本不知道自己成了 Siri 的声音。那是她为另一家公司录制的数据集，后来被 Siri 所用，再后来被苹果收购。
I knew and I remembered that these synthetic voices start out with voice actors or actresses reciting yards and yards of scripts, and then the AI takes that and produces a voice. I just put finding Alexa as one of my challenges for the book.
我知道并记得，这类合成语音通常都源于真人配音演员读了大量的脚本，然后 AI 用这些数据合成出语音。所以我就把“找到 Alexa 的原声”列为这本书的一个挑战目标。
Then it was right understanding where these voices come from. There's really only a couple of studios to do it. There's one in Atlanta that produces Siri called GM Voices. Just networking through employees, former employees, and people in the community, I found out that it was likely GM Voices that did Alexa. Then networking around GM Voices, I had some candidates. I went to their websites, and when I got to Nina Rolle (rhymes with trolley) her website, she had a bunch of voiceover clips that she had done in the past.
然后我开始追查这些声音可能来自哪里。这种语音数据库其实只有少数几家公司能做。其中一家叫 GM Voices，在亚特兰大，他们制作了 Siri 的语音。我通过现任和前任员工，还有圈子里的人脉，了解到 Alexa 很可能也是他们做的。然后我围绕 GM Voices 去查找人选。访问了一些配音演员的网站，当我点进 Nina Rolle（发音类似 trolley）的网站时，看到她上传了很多过往配音的样本。
I remember one was for Mott's applesauce, I think. Just playing it, I could tell. I played it for my daughters and they were like, yeah, that sounds familiar. Then I called her and she said she couldn't talk to me. That wasn't it. I did sort of know and had confirmed that it was her beforehand just through networking. Then when Amazon wouldn't talk about it and she wouldn't talk about it, I had a pretty good signal.
我记得有一段是她为 Mott's 苹果酱做的广告。我一听就觉得有点像。我还放给我女儿们听，她们也说“这个声音听起来很耳熟”。后来我给她打电话，她说她不能跟我谈这件事。但在那之前，通过各种线索我其实已经大致确认是她了。再加上 Amazon 不回应，她本人也不回应，这个信号已经非常强烈了。
Logan: Awesome, thank you. I'll leave it at that.
Logan：太精彩了，谢谢你。我就问到这里。
Ben: Thanks, Logan. All right. Ben Grinnall.
Ben：谢谢 Logan。好，Ben Grinnall，请说。
Ben G.: Super interesting book. Last week, I was part of another book club and it was for Working Backwards, so two great Fridays in a row. You've done so much reporting on Amazon and really dug deep. Two-part question. One, what is Amazon missing from their business model? What is a new opportunity or revenue stream that they haven't pursued which they could? And what's something that you think they should drop that they're currently doing?
Ben G.：这本书太精彩了。上周我还参加了另一个读书会，是读《逆向工作法》（Working Backwards），所以我连续两个周五都很棒。你对亚马逊做了大量深度报道。我有两个问题。第一，你觉得亚马逊在商业模式上还缺什么？有没有什么他们还没进入但应该进入的新机会或收入来源？第二，你觉得他们现在正在做、但应该砍掉的业务是什么？
Brad: Did you ask the Working Backwards guys this question?
Brad：你有问《逆向工作法》那本书的作者这个问题吗？
Ben G.: Side note, it was like an eight-person book club and Wilke came to it—very different conversation.
Ben G.：题外话，我们那个书友会只有八个人，但 Wilke（亚马逊前高管）居然来了——氛围完全不同哈哈。
Brad: Okay, that's going to challenge me. What is the thing that is missing? Hard to imagine what the missing pieces are in the Amazon quilt of businesses because they are sort of doing everything right now.
Brad：那我得认真想想了。说实话，现在亚马逊已经像一张拼布毯子一样，什么业务都做了，要说他们还缺什么真的很难想象。
I'm inclined to say the physical grocery opportunity was one that I think they were just laid on. They bought Whole Foods and then they've been waiting to perfect this Go store technology. I think they're viewing technology as a differentiator that cameras on the ceilings and the weights in the shells. The idea that you can bypass the cashier is their big selling point for these stores.
我倾向于说，他们在实体杂货零售这一块的动作是偏慢了。他们虽然收购了 Whole Foods，但之后就一直在等 Go Store 技术成熟。他们把技术当作差异化竞争点，比如天花板上装摄像头、货架里有重量感应器，核心卖点是顾客可以无需结账直接离店。
I don't know. Personally, I don't think that's a really big impediment. Waiting in line for a couple of minutes and checking your phone before you leave, I mean, maybe I'm wrong about that. I just feel like perfecting that, which has been a super expensive 10-year plus process, has slowed them down when it comes to entering physical retail in a big way. Maybe without that obsessive focus on finding a way to enter the market with a distinctive technology solution, they could have moved faster on physical retail in the opportunity to supermarkets.
我个人觉得，其实排队几分钟、刷个手机结账，这事不至于那么难忍，也许我错了。但我感觉他们花了十多年、烧了很多钱去完善这个技术，结果反而拖慢了他们在实体零售尤其是超市领域的大规模扩张。如果他们没有那么执着于“必须通过一项独特技术才能进场”，也许会走得更快一些。
Ben G.: Wasn't it \$10 billion or something you said in the book?
Ben G.：你在书里不是说这个（Go store）投入了100亿美元吗？
Brad: I don't know that I had a number, but I definitely had some sources saying that it was the biggest single investment in Amazon history. At least alongside China is the biggest capital investment, the Go store. Then the second thing is, what are they doing that they should drop?
Brad：我不记得自己写过具体金额，但有一些消息来源明确表示这是亚马逊历史上最大的一笔单项投资，至少可以跟他们在中国的投入并列为最大资本支出。然后你刚才提的第二个问题是，他们现在在做但应该砍掉的业务？
Ben G.: Yes.
Ben G.：对。
Brad: That's a tough one. The AWS service recognition, the image recognition service, and AI service that they have been selling to corporate customers but also police, and government authorities. They have suspended that. They suspended it for a year after the sort of outcry and anxiety about image recognition. Now, I think they've suspended it in perpetuity.
Brad：这个问题不容易。我觉得可以提 AWS 里的“Rekognition”图像识别服务，这是他们向企业客户、警方和政府机构提供的一项 AI 服务。他们在面对公众对面部识别的抗议与担忧后，曾宣布暂停一年。现在看起来是无限期暂停了。
There's just deep societal discomfort about the bias in those algorithms and the way in which police authorities have historically used them. That’s an easy one for me to grasp on to and say, maybe this suspension of selling recognition to governments should be following Google and other companies and actually really abandoning the technology.
公众对这类算法中的偏见，以及警方滥用这些工具的历史，有着深层次的不安。所以我认为这是一个很明显的例子：也许他们不只是暂停这项技术的政府销售，而是真的该像 Google 等公司一样，彻底放弃这项技术。
Ben G.: Very cool.
Ben G.：非常有意思。
Ben: I have sort of an answer to that that I'm curious if Brad thinks is an answer. It’s been a really long time since we covered this on Acquired. Brad, do you think the Zappos acquisition was value creative in a big way for Amazon, or is that just been a stagnant business?
Ben：我也想到一个例子，想听听 Brad 的看法。我们很久以前在《Acquired》节目里聊过。Brad，你觉得亚马逊收购 Zappos 是不是创造了很大价值？还是说它只是个停滞不前的业务？
Brad: It's a little bit like the acquisition of diapers.com, which was a little bit after it, in terms of neutralizing a competitor. Then allowing it to run autonomously, maybe learning from it a little bit but then pursuing their own strategy. Amazon never slowed down in terms of selling shoes or expanding the selection of shoes and apparel on its own site.
Brad：我觉得这有点像他们当年收购 diapers.com（婴儿用品电商），那次也稍微晚一点。本质上是中和了一个竞争对手，然后放任它独立运作，偶尔从中学点东西，但亚马逊还是坚持走自己的路。Zappos 的确没怎么改变亚马逊在鞋类或服装品类上的销售扩张节奏。
In terms of value creation, maybe it hasn't been positive. But in terms of neutralizing a competitor, slowing its growth down, and blocking the capital markets of a competitor from acquiring it, and posing a real competitive threat, it's been successful. The exact same thing with diapers.com. Marc Lore did a, How I Built This on NPR over the weekend where he tells the whole sort of bitter story of being acquired by Amazon and feeling like they closed some avenues for Quidsi.
从价值创造角度看，Zappos 并不一定是正向的；但从竞争角度看，它确实成功地压制了对手的增长，并阻止了资本市场去支持这个潜在威胁。diapers.com 的情况也一样。Marc Lore 最近刚在 NPR 的《How I Built This》节目上讲了他被亚马逊收购后的苦涩经历，他觉得亚马逊实际上是掐断了 Quidsi（diapers.com 母公司）很多发展的路。
This is why regulators and lawmakers now wish that the FTC had taken a harder look at those acquisitions.
这也是为什么现在的监管机构和立法者开始反思，希望当时美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）能对这些收购案审查得更严格。
Ben: Let's do Brad Romney next.
Ben：我们请 Brad Romney 来提问吧。
Brad R.: I'm curious to hear your thoughts on which elements of Amazon's innovation flywheel would you identify as being subtle yet impactful? And which elements could you potentially separate from the maybe less savory elements of the Amazon culture that you reported on?
Brad R.：我很好奇，你怎么看亚马逊创新飞轮中那些“看起来微妙但实际影响巨大的”部分？另外，有没有哪些飞轮要素是可以和你书中提到的亚马逊一些“文化中的不那么可取的部分”区分开来的？
Brad: That's a good question, Brad. You might stump me with that one. I mean I think that Bezos is central to the innovation process in Amazon. As much as they like to talk about a culture, I've been mentioning decentralized teams. When you peel back some of the biggest ideas at Amazon, it tends to start with an idea for Bezos like that Alexa email. Then his sort of maniacal attention to it and sponsorship within the company.
Brad：这个问题很好，Brad，也许你真的难住我了。我认为贝索斯是亚马逊创新过程中的核心人物。尽管亚马逊经常说他们有一种“文化”，比如我提到过去中心化的团队结构，但如果你深入挖掘亚马逊那些最重大的创意，往往都是源自贝索斯的点子，比如那封关于 Alexa 的邮件。然后是他在公司内部展现出的那种狂热的关注与全力支持。
I think it's a long-term challenge for Amazon because Jassy—for all his skills as an operator and he's been amazing at AW—I don't think it's capable of wheeling off and emailing a new business idea in the way that Bezos is. Then as the founder and the CEO, Bezos just brought a level of magic to his sponsorship of these ideas. It was a combination of inspiring employees, terrifying them, and getting them to jump through hoops and jump over high bars. He walks out of meetings.
我认为这对亚马逊来说是一个长期挑战。Jassy 虽然是一位非常出色的执行者，尤其在 AWS 上表现卓越，但他没法像贝索斯那样，凭空想出一个新业务并直接发邮件启动它。作为创始人兼 CEO，贝索斯在推动这些创意时带着一种“魔力”：他能既鼓舞员工，又让他们战战兢兢，逼着大家跳过一个又一个高门槛。他甚至会直接在会议中离席表达不满。
I have that anecdote in the book where he believes the Alexa team isn't collecting data fast enough and he walks out of the meeting. They come up with the AMP program to go and bring Alexa out secretively into the world to collect data. Those are the kind of heroic entrepreneurial feats he can inspire. You can't bottle that up because there's one Jeff Bezos. It really often comes to having someone who's inventive and creative, but also has the fortitude and a little bit of the guts and the resources to make these huge investments and try them. Also to fall flat on his face.
书里我写过这样一个故事：他觉得 Alexa 团队的数据收集速度不够快，就直接起身走人。于是团队就搞出了 AMP 项目，把 Alexa 悄悄推向真实世界以加速收集数据。这种“英雄式的创业壮举”就是贝索斯能激发出来的东西。而这种东西是无法“标准化复制”的，因为全世界只有一个 Jeff Bezos。真正的关键在于，得有这么一个人，既富有创造力，也有毅力、有胆识，愿意为大胆项目下注，并承受失败的代价。
One theme in the book, I think, is Bezos is willing to be embarrassed. He humiliates himself with the Fire Phone. Then launches Alexa a couple of months later. He risks embarrassment and is embarrassed by the Lauren Sanchez saga. Yet, maybe doesn't really have the gene that he cares that much about her. He's at least willing to risk the humiliation. It turns out that maybe it's the susceptibility or allowing yourself to fail and fail really publicly. That's also kind of key to the innovative process.
我在书中的一个核心观点就是：贝索斯愿意“丢脸”。Fire Phone 是个巨大的失败，他自己也被嘲笑。但几个月后他又推出了 Alexa。Lauren Sanchez 那场丑闻他也没回避，他愿意承受这种羞辱。也许他天性里并不怎么在意这类事情。某种意义上，创新过程中真正关键的品质之一，就是你是否愿意公开面对失败、接受尴尬和质疑。
Ben: Brad, it does seem also, just to chime in here, that founders get more leeway from the street. Bezos is the guy that made this happen, therefore, he's got a lot of rope. Not just from the board, but what activist shareholder is going to come in and try and say he's not doing a good job? You can see the successor, whoever comes in, (we know who comes in), but future non-founder CEOs, they get a much shorter leash from investors.
Ben：Brad，我补充一点——看起来创始人确实能从华尔街获得更大自由度。贝索斯是让这一切发生的人，所以大家对他包容度很高。不仅董事会给他空间，连激进投资者也不会跳出来说他干得不好。但对于他的继任者、任何非创始人 CEO 来说，投资人就会收紧绳子，要求更多更快的回报。
Brad: Totally. When you think about what Doug McMillon, the CEO of eBay, or even the CEO of Target have to deal with in terms of managing the street quarter-to-quarter and never really being able to go and have four lousy quarters so that you can have the potential of building something more promising down the line. Amazon can do that whenever they want. It's not just because Bezos is the founder, it's because he's stuck around but because he called the shots.
Brad：没错。你想想看，像 eBay 的 CEO Doug McMillon，或 Target 的 CEO，他们每一季都要向华尔街交代，根本没办法连续几季亏损去换一个长远的新增长点。但亚马逊可以这么做。而这不仅是因为贝索斯是创始人，更是因为他始终掌控局面，说了算。
贝索斯跟顶级的乔布斯、巴菲特有非常大的距离，但还是有一些平常心的，职业经理人很难有平常心，根本找不到有的证据。
With the first shareholder letter, he said this is how he's going to run his business. Then he has reproduced that letter every year and said it's still they won and repeated it all like a mantra. He's bought himself the leeway and the flexibility to do it.
在他的第一封致股东信里，他就说了：他要用这种方式来运营亚马逊。然后每年他都重复那封信的核心内容，就像念经一样。他通过这种方式，为自己争取到了足够的操作空间和灵活性。
David: Real quick on that. You more than allude to this in the book but there's a real rivalry between Elon and Bezos. Is there any more that didn't make it into the book that you found on that?
David：快速问一个问题。你在书里已经有所暗示，但贝索斯和马斯克之间确实存在竞争关系。有没有什么你在调研中发现、但没写进书里的细节？
Brad: I talk about it in the book how they met early on a couple of times. Elon tried to tell Jeff that some of his technical decisions were wrong. That they had really different philosophies. Bezos was constraining his investment in Blue Origin, wanted to keep the team small, and wanted to start with suborbital space. Then Elon comes and does it all 10X, gets government contracts and commercial contracts to pay for everything. Bezos is kind of left as a straggler, something that he's really not accustomed to being in second place.
Brad：我在书里确实提到过，他们早期有几次见面。马斯克试图告诉贝索斯，他在技术上的一些决定是错的。他们两个在理念上非常不同。贝索斯给 Blue Origin 的投资很克制，团队规模也刻意保持小型化，一开始只想从亚轨道飞行起步。而马斯克则是“10倍速度”推进，靠政府和商业合同来支付一切。贝索斯就被落在了后面，这是他非常不习惯的局面——居于第二。
I think the rivalry is real. It's super entertaining to see Elon exchange barbs with Jeff over Twitter and sometimes vice versa. It'll be interesting to see whether Bezos commits more of his time to Blue Origin now that he's retiring as CEO and tries to rescue it.
我认为这个竞争是真实存在的。马斯克和贝索斯在 Twitter 上互相挖苦，时不时就会看到一出好戏。现在贝索斯卸任 CEO，很可能会把更多时间投入到 Blue Origin，也许会尝试“挽救”它，这将很有看头。
I do think that company is a little bit dysfunctional in terms of Bezos owning it, operating it from afar, trying to keep its headcount small. But then really, in pursuit of SpaceX, changing directions abruptly, hiring Aerospace folks from companies like Honeywell, and changing the culture on a dime. Then investing a billion dollars worth of his return from Amazon stock every year and turbocharging it. That kind of change of pace I think has yielded some dysfunctional outcomes.
我确实认为 Blue Origin 的运作有些失调。贝索斯远程管理，控制员工规模，又不断调整方向来追赶 SpaceX，比如突然挖来像霍尼韦尔这种公司的航天工程师，文化转向也很剧烈。他还每年拿出亚马逊股票变现的十亿美元进行加码。这种节奏变化，最终带来的是组织的某种混乱。
Look, the story there might change in the next couple of weeks. They say New Shepherd’s going to fly paying tourists to suborbital space. Maybe that'll be a big triumph and create some momentum. But right now, they're sort of years behind all their projects and promises on a lot of these new contracts, like the Blue Moon contract, they're losing the SpaceX.
当然，这一切可能很快会变。他们说 New Shepard 即将带付费游客上亚轨道飞行。也许这会是一次大的胜利，重新带来动力。但截至目前，他们在很多新项目和承诺上都已经落后了数年，比如 Blue Moon 登月项目的合同，亚马逊就输给了 SpaceX。
Ben: Josh Guttman, let's go to you next.
Ben：Josh Guttman，下面轮到你提问了。
Josh: I was kind of curious because there's the time between *The Everything Store* and *Amazon Unbound*. Amazon started acquiring way more companies than they previously had. This was in a period where the company was much bigger too. In some ways, the acquisitions look smaller on paper. In hindsight, even Whole Foods, if you think about it in terms of the market cap now feels pretty insignificant. What has changed internally at Amazon for how they think about acquiring companies? What kind of made the cut for you in terms of what was worth talking about from an acquisition point of view?
Josh：我蛮好奇的一点是，在《一网打尽》（*The Everything Store*）和《解封的亚马逊》（*Amazon Unbound*）之间，亚马逊开始收购的公司远多于以前。而且那时候公司规模也大很多了。从某种角度看，这些收购在账面上反而显得“小”。就连 Whole Foods，从现在的市值角度看都不算什么。那么亚马逊在收购方面的内部思维发生了什么变化？你在写书时，又是根据什么标准决定哪些收购值得写、哪些不写？
Brad: I do tell the Kiva story in one of the chapters on operations. To me it was a Dave Clark call. It was the epitome of Amazon in terms of trying to automate systems and take humans out of the equation. It was a little bit of a ruthless move in that they negotiated the thing over many years and tried to suppress its growth, then bought it, then made a promise to the Kiva founders that they could sell it externally, and then reneged on that promise.
Brad：我在运营相关的一章里写了 Kiva 的故事。在我看来，那是 Dave Clark 主导的一笔交易，代表了亚马逊“系统自动化、消除人为环节”的典型思路。这笔交易其实有些“冷酷”：他们与 Kiva 谈判多年，一直压制其增长，最后买下它，还承诺创始人未来可以对外销售，结果后来反悔了。
It allowed the super scaling, the fulfillment centers, and made them incredibly more efficient. Then it also furnished Dave Clark with some leadership credentials that allowed him to continue to grow inside the organization.
这让亚马逊的物流中心得以超级扩张，效率也大幅提升。同时也让 Dave Clark 拿到了组织内部晋升所需的“领导力凭证”。
I think you're right, Josh. I did take a little bit of a light pass on Twitch. Definitely, on Ring, I did not do much. Part of it was just streamlining the story and trying to shoehorn everything into a narrative without too many digressions and also while keeping Jeff Bezos at the center of the action, that was the main narrative challenge of the book. Amazon might acquire MGM in the next couple of days.
Josh，我觉得你说得对。我确实没有太多写 Twitch，更别说 Ring 了。部分原因是我想让故事主线更紧凑，不希望有太多跑题内容。同时要确保贝索斯始终是叙事的核心——这本书的主要写作挑战就在这里。另外，亚马逊可能很快就会收购 MGM。
I always thought that Amazon's ability to acquire companies was going to get severely curtailed because of all this antitrust scrutiny. We'll see what happens, but it seems like that's an asset that they'll easily be able to buy and then increase their output of movies in their catalog. You're describing one of the challenges I had of figuring out what to include, what not to include, how to keep things moving in this book that covers the entire arc of Amazon history and all these characters that populate it.
我原本以为反垄断调查会大大限制亚马逊的并购能力。我们拭目以待，但目前来看，像 MGM 这样的资产，他们应该能轻松拿下，并扩展自己的影视内容目录。你提到的，其实正是我写作中遇到的一个难题：哪些内容该写进来，哪些该舍弃，如何让这本书在讲述亚马逊全史和众多人物时还能保持流畅推进。
Ben: Brad, to wrap, where can listeners buy the book?
Ben：Brad，最后一个问题，听众们可以在哪里购买这本书？
Brad: Well, Ben and David, it turns out that you can get it at your friendly local neighborhood bookstore. You can certainly pick it up at Barnes & Noble or if you must resort to it, it is available from Amazon itself as an ebook, as a hardcover, or as an Audible audiobook.
Brad：Ben、David，这本书当然可以在你家附近的独立书店买到。你也可以在 Barnes & Noble 购得。如果你非要这么做的话，亚马逊上也可以买到电子书、精装本，或 Audible 的有声书版本。
Ben: That's great.
Ben：太棒了。
David: You need to set up shop in your garage there selling it out the front door.
David：你应该在自己车库门口设个摊，当场卖书。
Brad: Exactly or I'll be selling it on my street corner this weekend.
Brad：说得没错，或者我这个周末就在街角摆摊卖。
Ben: There's a couple of parts that you actually read in the Audible if I was hearing right.
Ben：如果我没听错的话，有些章节是你亲自为 Audible 朗读的吧？
Brad: I do. I do the introduction.
Brad：是的，我读了引言部分。
Ben: And the acknowledgments that had to be you too, right?
Ben：还有致谢部分，那肯定也是你吧？
Brad: Frankly, it’s probably about as much as anyone wants to hear me read it. There's a reason professionals do it, which I've learned.
Brad：说实话，那已经是大家愿意听我读的极限了。我明白了为什么这事通常要交给专业朗读者来做。
Ben: That's great. Well, thank you so much. Anywhere else listeners should find you on the internet, follow you, or anything like that?
Ben：太棒了，非常感谢你。听众们还可以在哪里找到你、关注你之类的？
Brad: I'm @BradStone on Twitter.
Brad：我的 Twitter 账号是 @BradStone。
Ben: That's great. Really appreciate it. LPs, thank you for joining us today. Great questions. Brad, best of luck.
Ben：太好了，真的非常感谢你。也感谢所有 LP 们今天的参与，问题都很精彩。Brad，祝你一切顺利。
Brad: Thank you, guys.
Brad：谢谢你们。
Ben: Cheers. All right, listeners, that is all we have for you today. Thank you for tuning in. Obviously, you heard where you can find Brad on the internet, where you can buy the book. If you do buy the book you should go leave a review. I know Brad would greatly appreciate it. It is years of shutting yourself in a room and working through this crazy process, so we should all go and help Brad get the most out of this incredible story that he has unearthed. Go leave him a review.
Ben：感谢大家的收听，今天就到这里。你们已经知道可以在哪里找到 Brad，在哪里买书。如果你买了这本书，请记得去留个评论。我知道 Brad 一定会非常感激的。他为了写这本书闭关了好几年，深入挖掘出这段精彩的故事。我们每个人都可以出一份力，让这本书传播得更远。别忘了去留评论。
David: Totally. I left a review. I was very excited. I put a photo of my copy of the book with all my notes on it won't. I aim to be the top reviewer for all the books that I review. I think.
David：没错。我已经留了评论。我很兴奋，还贴了一张我那本书的照片，里面有我写的所有批注。我每次写书评都想冲上“最有帮助评论”的榜首。我觉得……
Ben: I think you are on *7 Powers*.
Ben：我记得你在《7 Powers》那本书上就是第一名。
David: I’m number one on *7 Powers*.
David：是的，我是《7 Powers》那本书的第一评论人。
Ben: Yeah.
Ben：没错。
David: Yeah. It's all because of the image. When you leave a review, put a photo in there.
David：秘诀就在于配图。评论的时候记得贴张照片。
Ben: Growth hack. All right. Well, listeners, we really appreciate it. As you heard at the top of the show, if you want to join the next one of these, you should become an LP, that's acquired.fm/lp. We are hanging out in Slack. That is free to join, everybody can join. You don't have to be an LP to do it. That is acquired.fm/slack. Come talk about the news of the day with us. If you like this episode, share it with a friend, subscribe from the podcast player of your choice. With that, listeners, we'll see you next time.
Ben：这是个增长小技巧。好了，听众朋友们，真的感谢你们的收听。就像我们节目开头说的，如果你想参加下一场这样的节目，欢迎成为我们的 LP，网址是 acquired.fm/lp。我们在 Slack 上也很活跃，任何人都可以加入，完全免费，不必成为 LP，地址是 acquired.fm/slack。欢迎来和我们一起讨论当天热点。如果你喜欢这一期节目，请推荐给朋友，也欢迎订阅我们的播客。不多说了，我们下次节目再见。
David: We'll see you next time.
David：下次节目见。
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
备注：Acquired 节目主持人和嘉宾可能持有本期节目中提到的相关资产。本播客不构成投资建议，旨在提供信息和娱乐内容。在进行任何金融交易前，请你自行调研并作出独立判断。