专访谷歌CEO拉里佩奇 为何霸主级科技公司会走向衰败

Google is at the top of its game, and its chief executive, Larry Page, is pursuing a growing number of ambitious “moon shots” that could transform transportation, medicine, the Internet itself, and more. Page’s intensity of purpose and his company’s GOOG 1.13% stellar financial results earned him recognition as Businessperson of the Year in Fortune. (See the cover story of our Dec. 1, 2014 issue, “Larry Page–The most ambitious CEO in the universe.”)

谷歌（Google）已经站在了行业的巅峰，该公司首席执行官拉里o佩奇正在追寻越来越多充满野心的“探月计划”，这些前沿项目有望改变运输、医药、互联网以及其他行业。佩奇怀抱的坚定信念，以及谷歌傲人的财务业绩，让他成为今年的《财富》（Fortune）年度商业人物。（请看2014年12月1日《财富》封面故事：《拉里o佩奇——全宇宙最有野心的首席执行官》。）

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the article’s publication, Page discussed with Fortune why dominant technology companies fade and how Google hopes to evade that fate, among other things. Here are a few excerpts of his words from that interview, edited for clarity.

在文章发表前就一系列话题接受《财富》专访时，佩奇畅谈了为何霸主级的科技公司会走向衰败，谷歌准备如何避开这一命运等问题。以下内容摘录自这次采访，为了表述清晰，文章进行了一定的编辑。

On why dominant tech companies fail:

为何霸主级的科技公司会失败？

I’m always asking the question, as the company has grown from a hundred people, “Would I want to work for Google?” I think in general the answer is “yes.” Part of my focus has also been making sure that we’re creating an environment for people who want to ask those questions and want to be curious and want to be entrepreneurial and want to do things that are really impactful for the world.

谷歌最初仅有100位员工，一路走来，我一直在询问一个问题：“我愿意为谷歌工作吗？”我想总体来说，我的答案是：“愿意。”而我关注的重点之一，就是要确保我们为那些愿意问这些问题、想要保持好奇心和创业精神、并且希望做些事情来改变世界的人营造一个良好的环境。

If I look at most of the tech companies that I felt have kind of reached a plateau or have generally atrophied or something like that, I would say “no,” they weren’t a good home for people who wanted to do those things. In general they kind of kept doing the same thing, kind of eking out a little bit more scale but not really being a place where people want to continue to really do impactful things.

如果去看看大部分我觉得已经达到瓶颈，甚至已经开始衰败的科技公司，我想我的答案都会是：“不愿意。”对怀抱上述理想的人来说，这些公司并不是好的归宿。一般说来，这类公司总是在重复同样的事情，他们可能想竭力扩大规模，但并不适合那些真正想不断做大事的人。

On how Google’s fabled moonshots—self driving cars, nano-particles for cancer detection—fit into the arc of the company:

谷歌如何把自动驾驶汽车、诊断癌症的纳米颗粒这类前沿项目纳入公司的规划？

It doesn’t feel all that different than it’s felt before to me in the past. I remember when we started Gmail. Everyone was upset with us, including people in the company, like, “Why are we working on email? We’re a search company.” [We were] less than two hundred and fifty people I think when we started Gmail, and we were talking about that even before that. I think that was pretty ambitious, given the scale of the company.

和以前做的事情相比，我没觉得这些计划有那么特别。我记得当我们启动Gmail项目时，每个人都对我们表示了疑惑，包括公司的同事，他们会问：“我们为什么要去做电子邮件？我们是搜索公司。”最初做Gmail时，我们公司只有不到250人，而甚至在那之前我们就开始讨论这个计划了。考虑到当时公司的规模，我认为那真是雄心勃勃的计划。

So given that we have forty thousand people now [Google employs about 55,000 people, actually. —Ed.], the fact that we’re working on the [self-driving] car doesn’t feel that ambitious to me.

现在我们已经有4万人了（编者注：实际上谷歌目前有5.5万员工），所以着手做自动驾驶汽车，在我看来并没那么雄心勃勃。

On seizing the opportunity in mobile:

如何抓住移动产品的机遇？

I think my job as CEO, it’s always to be pushing people ahead. If I were to look at the percentage of people [working] on mobile, it’s not 100% in the company. And nor should it be 100%. But it should probably be larger than it is.

我认为作为首席执行官，就是要推动所有谷歌人不断前行。看看我们公司移动部门的员工比例，他们并不占公司全部员工人数的100%，当然这个比例也不应该是100%。但是移动部门的员工比例应该比现在更高些才是。

I think externally if you asked people on the Street, they’re going to worry mostly about monetization [on mobile]. And I think we’re doing pretty well there. There’s always more work to be done. I think that search is working well on mobile, the ads on search are working well on mobile.

我想如果你问华尔街的人，他们最担心的应该是怎么通过移动产品挣钱。而我觉得我们在这方面做得很棒。我们总有很多事情可以做。我认为搜索与移动产品契合得很好，在搜索引擎中植入广告的效果很棒。

But the work at this stage is probably more disruptive in nature too. We really need to say, “Well, if you’re on mobile, maybe it’s easier to call someplace, or it’s easier to visit the place, or it’s easier to have help with those things.” So maybe the ads should look a little different or work differently.

不过，这个阶段的工作在本质上可能更具颠覆性。我们真的需要说：“好吧，如果你使用移动设备，也许你打电话会更方便，或者可以更容易地拜访某地，或者做这些事的时候能更轻松地获得帮助。”所以，广告也许要看起来有所不同，或是应该采取不同的运行方式。

On the recent reorganization that put the fast-rising Sundar Pichai in charge of most Google products:

为什么要在最近的管理结构重组中让后起之秀桑德尔o皮采负责大部分谷歌产品？

I only have 24 hours in a day, and any time I can delegate some things, I should. I’ve been working with Sundar for a long time. And I just started to realize that a lot of the stuff that came to me because of our organizational structure around some of the product decision-making that happens day-to-day, he could do a tremendous job of, and that would free me up then to do more things.

我每天只有24个小时，因此应该尽可能把工作委派出去。我与桑德尔共事了很长时间。我不久前开始意识到，由于公司的组织结构所致，每天我都得处理大量产品决策的问题，而他可以在其中帮上很大忙，这可以把我解放出来，我就能做更多事情了。

On former Ford and Boeing CEO Alan Mulally, Google’s newest board member, who has become Page’s latest go-to advisor on management issues:

曾经担任福特（Ford）和波音（Boeing）首席执行官的艾伦o穆拉利加入谷歌董事会，出任佩奇的新一任首席管理顾问，这种安排出于何种考虑？

I’m excited about trying to spend more time with him and really learn the lessons he’s learned about how to run organizations well and efficiently. And I think I do a pretty good job of that, but I mean, he’s like an A+ on that scale, and I think there are things I can learn from him.

我很激动能试着和他共处更长时间，并真正学到一些他在高效顺畅地运营公司上的经验。我觉得我在这方面做得很棒，但我的意思是，他在这方面更加出色，有一些地方值得我学习。

On why Inbox—the company’s new, mobile-first email application—has features like reminders that make certain message pop up at different times:

为何谷歌为移动设备开发的新款电子邮件应用Inbox拥有提醒这类特色功能，可以让特定信息在不同时段自动弹出？

You know one of the things they’re trying to do is really make it easier to keep track of tasks. We have Post-It notes. Why do we have those? I mean it’s kind of ridiculous. We have them because the software is not that good yet. A lot of times people actually will send an email to themselves, which is kind of insane when you think about it. It’s not really designed for that, and it gets lost after a while. So I think that’s one of the examples, when you’re really thinking about mobile, the kind of problems you need to solve are different.

你知道，这个团队正在试着做的事情之一，就是真正让用户方便地关注自己要做的事情。日常生活中我们会用到便利贴（Post-It）。为什么要有这个？我的意思是，这有点荒谬。我们用它，是因为软件这方面的功能做得还不够好。实际上在许多时候，人们还会发邮件给自己。仔细想想，这真令人抓狂。这真的不是设计邮件的本意，随着时间的推移，这款产品似乎有些迷失。我觉得这就是一个例证，说明当你在考虑移动产品时，需要解决的可能会是其他问题。

On Google’s original mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”:

请你回顾一下谷歌最初的使命：“整合全球信息，使人人皆可访问并从中受益”。

I think the mission statement is probably a little bit too narrow and we’re thinking about how to do that a little more broadly. But I do think we’ve been talking about it for a while and I think it’s pretty obvious what we’re doing.

我觉得这个使命的范围有点狭隘，我们正试着看如何拓展它。不过我确实认为，我们就这个问题已经讨论了一段时间，我们在做什么已经很明显了。

We’re also trying to do something that not many other people seem to be trying to do, which is to make some big bets on some important areas. To make those things really real and to make sure they’re great products for people and they have real positive impact on people and the world.

我们也在试着做一些其他人不太会尝试的事情，在一些重要的领域押下重注。我们想真正实现那些创想，并保证它们是伟大的产品，能够对用户、对世界产生积极的作用。

I feel a little bit we’re in uncharted territory. Because I think that what we’re trying to do, you know I can’t just look to another company and say, “Oh, we should do roughly what another company is doing.”

我感觉我们是在未知的领域探索，因为我们尝试的事情不太一样。你知道，我不能去看其他公司然后说：“噢，我们也做个类似的东西。”

To me it feels like the world as a whole is very subscale. When I see important things like the self-driving cars or even search itself, and I say is there really enough resource going into that. And I don’t think that there is. It could use a lot more resource to make those things better.

对我来说，世界作为一个整体是相当精彩的。当我看见一些重要事物，比如自动驾驶汽车，又甚至是搜索本身时，我就会问：我们真的有足够的资源来进入这些领域吗？我不觉得有。我们还需要更多的资源才能改进这些产品。（财富中文网）