软件正在吞噬世界
2011年 马克·安德森 投稿的文章
‘为什么软件正在吞噬世界
(Why Software Is Eating The World)?’
本周，（我担任董事会成员的）惠普宣布，为了把投资更集中地投向成长潜力更好的软件领域，正在考虑退出陷入苦战的 PC 业务。 另一方面，谷歌打算收购手机制造商摩托罗拉。两则消息都让技术市场感到意外。但两则消息也都与我一直观察到的趋势方向一致。尽管最近股市陷入混乱，这一趋势却让我对美国和全球经济未来的增长抱有乐观。
This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I’ve observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the recent turmoil in the stock market.
简而言之，软件正在吞噬世界。距1990年代互联网泡沫达到顶峰已过去十余年的今天，Facebook、Twitter 等十几家新兴互联网公司迅速攀升的估值和成功的 IPO 案例在硅谷引发争议。 由于 Webvan 和 Pets.com 鼎盛时期留下的创伤在投资者心里仍历历在目，人们心存疑虑：“这次会不会又是一场危险的泡沫？”
In short, software is eating the world. More than 10 years after the peak of the 1990s dot-com bubble, a dozen or so new Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter are sparking controversy in Silicon Valley, due to their rapidly growing private market valuations, and even the occasional successful IPO. With scars from the heyday of Webvan and Pets.com still fresh in the investor psyche, people are asking, “Isn’t this just a dangerous new bubble?”
我与其他一些人一直在为相反的一面辩护。（我是投资了 Facebook、Groupon、Skype、Twitter、Zynga、Foursquare 等公司的风险投资机构 Andreessen Horowitz 的合伙人兼联合创始人。我个人也投资了 LinkedIn。） 我们相信，新近涌现的知名互联网公司中，有许多正在真正构建高成长、高利润且说得通的业务。
I, along with others, have been arguing the other side of the case. (I am co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, which has invested in Facebook, Groupon, Skype, Twitter, Zynga, and Foursquare, among others. I am also personally an investor in LinkedIn.) We believe that many of the prominent new Internet companies are building real, high-growth, high-margin, highly defensible businesses.
正如知名技术公司的市盈率（P/E ratio）一直偏低所显示的那样，如今的股市低估了技术公司。 例如，苹果尽管拥有极高的盈利能力和压倒性的市场地位，市盈率却只有与上市公司平均水平相当的15.2。（过去两周，苹果按市值超过埃克森美孚，成为美国最大的公司。）而且或许正如大多数人所说，在人们不断谈论泡沫的时候，泡沫绝不会形成。
Today’s stock market actually hates technology, as shown by all-time low price/earnings ratios for major public technology companies. Apple, for example, has a P/E ratio of around
15.2—about the same as the broader stock market, despite Apple’s immense profitability and dominant market position (Apple in the last couple weeks became the biggest company in America, judged by market capitalization, surpassing Exxon Mobil). And, perhaps most telling, you can’t have a bubble when people are constantly screaming “Bubble!”
但相比硅谷新涌现的顶尖公司所具备的内在价值，如今太多争论仍然只围绕金钱上的估值展开。我认为我们正处在一场广泛而剧烈的经济结构变革之中。在这场变革中，软件公司已准备好占据经济的很大一部分。
But too much of the debate is still around financial valuation, as opposed to the underlying
intrinsic value of the best of Silicon Valley’s new companies. My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy.
从电影到农业乃至国防，越来越多的主要产业由软件驱动、通过在线服务交付。 许多赢家是颠覆了既有产业结构的硅谷式技术创业公司。我预计十年后会有更多产业被软件取代，而其中很大一部分将由在相应领域新涌现的顶尖硅谷公司完成。
More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.
为什么这件事会在此刻发生呢？
因为在计算机革命60年、微处理器发明40年、互联网出现20年之后，能够通过软件改造产业的各项技术终于真正可用，并且能够以全球规模交付。在我参与创办的网景时期，十余年前大约有5,000万人使用互联网，而现在使用互联网的人超过20亿。我预计十年后至少会有50亿人拥有智能手机，因而每一个人都能随时接入互联网。
Why is this happening now?
Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale. Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day.
在后端，软件编程工具和基于互联网的服务的发展，将使各行各业新的软件驱动创业公司无需新建基础设施或增聘人手，就能以低廉的成本轻松成长为全球性创业公司。 2000年，我的合伙人本·霍洛维茨担任首家云计算公司 Loudcloud 的 CEO 时，一位客户运行一个基本的互联网程序每月要花费15万美元，而如今在亚马逊使用同样的服务每月只需约1,500美元。得益于降低的初始成本和大幅扩张的在线服务市场，90年代初所憧憬的数字互联世界，在一代人之后的今天正成为现实。
On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees. In 2000, when my partner Ben Horowitz was CEO of the first cloud computing company, Loudcloud, the cost of a customer running a basic Internet application was approximately $150,000 a month. Running that same application today in Amazon’s cloud costs about $1,500 a month. With lower start-up costs and a vastly expanded market for online services, the result is a global economy that for the first time will be fully digitally wired—the dream of every cyber-visionary of the early 1990s, finally delivered, a full generation later.
要举出软件吞噬既有业务的一个最具戏剧性的例子，大概就是 Borders 的衰落以及随之而来的亚马逊的崛起。2001年，Borders 认为网上售书无关紧要，把互联网业务交给了亚马逊。天哪，如今全球最大的图书销售商亚马逊是一家软件公司。 因为亚马逊的核心能力是让商品得以在线售出的软件引擎。更何况，在 Borders 于逼近的破产阵痛中苦苦挣扎之时，亚马逊改版了自己的网站，首次把电子书 Kindle 的推广置于纸质书之前。如今连书本身也成了软件。
Perhaps the single most dramatic example of this phenomenon of software eating a traditional business is the suicide of Borders and corresponding rise of Amazon. In 2001, Borders agreed to hand over its online business to Amazon under the theory that online book sales were non-strategic and unimportant.
Oops.
Today, the world’s largest bookseller, Amazon, is a software company—its core capability is its amazing software engine for selling virtually everything online, no retail stores necessary. On top of that, while Borders was thrashing in the throes of impending bankruptcy, Amazon rearranged its web site to promote its Kindle digital books over physical books for the first time. Now even the books themselves are software.
如今按订阅用户数计算最大的视频服务是软件公司 Netflix。Netflix 如何击垮百视达已是老生常谈，但如今其他传统娱乐经营者也面临同样的威胁。 康卡斯特、时代华纳等多家公司正推出 TV Everywhere 这类可在智能手机或平板上观看内容的服务，通过把自己改造成软件公司来加以应对。
Today’s largest video service by number of subscribers is a software company: Netflix. How Netflix eviscerated Blockbuster is an old story, but now other traditional entertainment providers are facing the same threat. Comcast, Time Warner and others are responding by transforming themselves into software companies with efforts such as TV Everywhere, which liberates content from the physical cable and connects it to smartphones and tablets.
苹果的 iTunes、Spotify 以及 Pandora 等近来最有实力的主要音乐公司同样是软件公司。传统唱片公司只不过是向这些软件公司提供内容罢了。2010年通过数字渠道取得的行业收入达46亿美元。这占行业总收入的29%，较2004年的2%大幅增长。
Today’s dominant music companies are software companies, too: Apple’s iTunes, Spotify and Pandora. Traditional record labels increasingly exist only to provide those software companies with content. Industry revenue from digital channels totaled $4.6 billion in 2010, growing to 29% of total revenue from 2% in 2004.
近来成长最快的娱乐公司是电子游戏制作商。这一次同样是软件公司。这一产业已从五年前的300亿美元规模成长到如今的600亿美元规模。而成长最快的主要电子游戏公司 Zynga（《农场小镇》的制作商）只在线上提供游戏。Zynga 2011年第一季度收入为2亿3千5百万美元，比一年前增长了一倍以上。《愤怒的小鸟》的制作商 Rovio 预计2011年全年将取得1亿美元收入（这家公司在2009年末于 iPhone 上推出《愤怒的小鸟》之前几乎濒临破产）。
另一方面，传统电子游戏界的实力派艺电和任天堂的收入则始终不振。
Today’s fastest growing entertainment companies are videogame makers—again, software—with the industry growing to $60 billion from $30 billion five years ago. And the fastest growing major videogame company is Zynga (maker of games including FarmVille), which delivers its games entirely online. Zynga’s first-quarter revenues grew to $235 million this year, more than double revenues from a year earlier. Rovio, maker of Angry Birds, is expected to clear $100 million in revenue this year (the company was nearly bankrupt when it debuted the popular game on the iPhone in late 2009). Meanwhile, traditional videogame powerhouses like Electronic Arts and Nintendo have seen revenues stagnate and fall.
过去数十年间新涌现的电影制作公司中最出色的皮克斯也曾是一家软件公司。就连那个了不起的迪士尼，为了在动画行业里生存下去也只能收购皮克斯。
The best new movie production company in many decades, Pixar, was a software company. Disney —Disney!—had to buy Pixar, a software company, to remain relevant in animated movies.
摄影当然也早已被软件取代。如今几乎不可能买到不搭载由软件控制的相机的手机。而且照片会自动上传到互联网以便收藏和分享。Shutterfly、Snapfish 以及 Flickr 这样的公司正在接过柯达的位置。
Photography, of course, was eaten by software long ago. It’s virtually impossible to buy a mobile phone that doesn’t include a software-powered camera, and photos are uploaded automatically to the Internet for permanent archiving and global sharing. Companies like Shutterfly, Snapfish and Flickr have stepped into Kodak’s place.
如今最大的直效营销平台是软件公司谷歌。Groupon、LivingSocial、Foursquare 这样的公司也一同加入，用软件吞噬零售营销市场。Groupon 在2010年，也就是开业仅两年之后，取得了7亿美元的收入。
Today’s largest direct marketing platform is a software company—Google. Now it’s been joined by Groupon, Living Social, Foursquare and others, which are using software to eat the retail marketing industry. Groupon generated over $700 million in revenue in 2010, after being in business for only two years.
如今成长最快的电信公司是不久前被微软以85亿美元收购的软件公司 Skype。 市值达2,000亿美元、在美国排名第三的 CenturyLink，截至6月30日接入线路为1500万条，正以每年约7%的速度下滑。若剔除收购 Qwest 带来的收入，CenturyLink 的收入减少超过11%。 另一方面，两大电信公司 AT&T 与 Verizon 则通过与苹果及其他智能手机制造商合作，成功转型为软件公司而存活了下来。
Today’s fastest growing telecom company is Skype, a software company that was just bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. CenturyLink, the third largest telecom company in the U.S., with a $20 billion market cap, had 15 million access lines at the end of June 30—declining at an annual rate of about 7%. Excluding the revenue from its Qwest acquisition, CenturyLink’s revenue from these legacy services declined by more than 11%. Meanwhile, the two biggest telecom companies, AT&T and Verizon, have survived by transforming themselves into software companies, partnering with Apple and other smartphone makers.
LinkedIn 是当今全球成长最快的招聘公司。通过 LinkedIn，求职者有史以来第一次可以把自己的简历放在互联网上，供招聘方实时检索。LinkedIn 由此获得了吞噬高达4,000亿美元、利润丰厚的招聘产业的机会。
LinkedIn is today’s fastest growing recruiting company. For the first time ever, on LinkedIn, employees can maintain their own resumes for recruiters to search in real time—giving LinkedIn the opportunity to eat the lucrative $400 billion recruiting industry.
软件也在蚕食那些被认为只能存在于物质世界的产业的大部分价值链。 如今的汽车里，软件驱动发动机、控制安全装置、为乘客提供娱乐，并把驾驶者引导至目的地。而且还把汽车连接到移动网络、卫星以及 GPS 网络。由于软件的高度化，汽车发烧友能自己修车的时代早已过去。向混合动力或电动汽车发展的趋势将加速汽车的软件化。因为电动汽车完全由计算机控制。由软件实现的无人驾驶汽车，已经在谷歌和主要汽车公司进入开发阶段。
Software is also eating much of the value chain of industries that are widely viewed as primarily existing in the physical world. In today’s cars, software runs the engines, controls safety features, entertains passengers, guides drivers to destinations and connects each car to mobile, satellite and GPS networks. The days when a car aficionado could repair his or her own car are long past, due primarily to the high software content. The trend toward hybrid and electric vehicles will only accelerate the software shift—electric cars are completely computer controlled. And the creation of software-powered driverless cars is already under way at Google and the major car companies.
如今领先的线下零售商沃尔玛使用软件来强化物流与配送能力，并借此压倒竞争对手。同样，联邦快递也可以理解为一张附带了卡车、飞机和配送枢纽的软件网络。而航空公司无论现在还是未来的成败，完全取决于它们能否通过软件恰当地定价、优化航线与收益。
Today’s leading real-world retailer, Wal-Mart, uses software to power its logistics and distribution capabilities, which it has used to crush its competition. Likewise for FedEx, which is best thought of as a software network that happens to have trucks, planes and distribution hubs attached. And the success or failure of airlines today and in the future hinges on their ability to price tickets and optimize routes and yields correctly—with software.
石油和天然气公司很早就在超级计算以及数据可视化与分析方面实现了创新，这些在今天的石油与天然气勘探中起着极为关键的作用。农业也越来越多地借助软件的力量。通过卫星进行土壤分析来选择种子的算法就是其中一例。
Oil and gas companies were early innovators in supercomputing and data visualization and analysis, which are crucial to today’s oil and gas exploration efforts. Agriculture is increasingly powered by software as well, including satellite analysis of soils linked to per-acre seed selection software algorithms.
过去30多年间，金融服务显著地被软件改变。从买一杯咖啡到1万亿美元的信用衍生品，实际上所有金融交易都由软件处理。而许多引领金融服务创新的企业都是软件公司。让任何人都能用智能手机收取信用卡付款的 Square，以及2011年第二季度收入超过10亿美元、比上一年增长31%的 PayPal，正是这样的公司。
The financial services industry has been visibly transformed by software over the last 30 years. Practically every financial transaction, from someone buying a cup of coffee to someone trading a trillion dollars of credit default derivatives, is done in software. And many of the leading innovators in financial services are software companies, such as Square, which allows anyone to accept credit card payments with a mobile phone, and PayPal, which generated more than $1 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year, up 31% over the previous year.
在我看来，医疗和教育是下一个将被软件改变的领域。我的风险投资公司正在支持活跃于这两个庞大而重要产业中的创业公司。我们相信，这两个历来对变革并不友好的产业，如今已准备好被新涌现的优秀的以软件为中心的创业者所改变。
Health care and education, in my view, are next up for fundamental software-based transformation. My venture capital firm is backing aggressive start-ups in both of these gigantic and critical industries. We believe both of these industries, which historically have been highly resistant to entrepreneurial change, are primed for tipping by great new software-centric entrepreneurs.
就连国防领域也在逐步走向以软件为基础。现代战斗人员被连接在提供情报、通信、后勤、武器使用方法的软件网络之中。无需让人类飞行员冒险，由软件操控的无人机就能实施轰炸。情报机构利用软件进行大规模数据挖掘，以揭露和追踪潜在的恐怖袭击计划。
Even national defense is increasingly software-based. The modern combat soldier is embedded in a web of software that provides intelligence, communications, logistics and weapons guidance. Software-powered drones launch airstrikes without putting human pilots at risk. Intelligence agencies do large-scale data mining with software to uncover and track potential terrorist plots.
无论自己身处哪个领域，所有公司都必须抱着软件革命即将到来的想法。这甚至适用于如今已经以软件为基础运转的产业。甲骨文和微软这样的既有软件产业巨头，正日益感受到来自 Salesforce.com 或 Android 这类公司的威胁。如果谷歌收购摩托罗拉，Android 将成为更大的威胁。
Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming. This includes even industries that are software-based today. Great incumbent software companies like Oracle and Microsoft are increasingly threatened with irrelevance by new software offerings like Salesforce.com and Android (especially in a world where Google owns a major handset maker).
在石油或天然气这类以实体为中心的产业里，软件革命对既有强者而言将是机会。 但在许多产业中，新的软件创意将催生出向既有企业发起挑战的硅谷式创业公司。十年后，既有当权企业与以软件为先锋的反叛军之间的战斗将会波澜壮阔。创造出“创造性破坏”一词的经济学家约瑟夫·熊彼特会感到自豪吧。
In some industries, particularly those with a heavy real-world component such as oil and gas, the software revolution is primarily an opportunity for incumbents. But in many industries, new software ideas will result in the rise of new Silicon Valley-style start-ups that invade existing industries with impunity. Over the next 10 years, the battles between incumbents and software-powered insurgents will be epic.Joseph Schumpeter, the economist who coined the term “creative destruction,” would be proud.
过去几周里看着自己的退休金账户（美国的退休年金）起起落落的人们也许会对此心存怀疑，但这是一件非常积极的事情。对美国经济而言尤其如此。 谷歌、亚马逊、eBay 等近来涌现的巨型技术公司是美国公司，绝非偶然。美国所拥有的能够承担基础研究的优秀大学、敢于冒险的商业文化、完备的追求创新的资本与可信赖的法律体系之间的结合，在全世界前所未有，也无可比拟。
And while people watching the values of their 401(k)s bounce up and down the last few weeks might doubt it, this is a profoundly positive story for the American economy, in particular. It’s not an accident that many of the biggest recent technology companies—including Google, Amazon, eBay and more—are American companies. Our combination of great research universities, a pro-risk business culture, deep pools of innovation-seeking equity capital and reliable business and contract law is unprecedented and unparalleled in the world.
但仍有几件需要解决的事。首先，如今所有的新公司都是在比90年代更难创办公司的经济环境中建立起来的。好消息是，即便在这样的环境里仍能成功的公司会非常强健且富有韧性。而一旦经济环境稳定下来，走着瞧吧，那些新生公司会成长得更快。
Still, we face several challenges.
First of all, every new company today is being built in the face of massive economic headwinds, making the challenge far greater than it was in the relatively benign ’90s. The good news about building a company during times like this is that the companies that do succeed are going to be extremely strong and resilient. And when the economy finally stabilizes, look out—the best of the new companies will grow even faster.
第二，美国乃至全世界的许多人并不具备参与软件革命中诞生的新生公司所需的适当技能与教育水平。我共事过的大多数公司都极度渴求有才能的人手，这不能不说是一场悲剧。硅谷受认可的软件工程师、管理者、营销人员以及销售人员，随时想要就能拿到数十个高薪且前景看好的职位，而全国范围的失业与不充分就业却处在非常严重的水平。这个问题比看上去更严重。 许多身处既有产业的劳动者将被推向被软件带来的创造性破坏所摧毁的一方，他们能够工作的领域将会消失。解决这个问题的办法只有教育。我们要走的路还很长。
Secondly, many people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution. This is a tragedy since every company I work with is absolutely starved for talent. Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high. This problem is even worse than it looks because many workers in existing industries will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again. There’s no way through this problem other than education, and we have a long way to go.
最后，新生公司必须证明自己的价值。它们必须打造强大的文化、让自己的客户满意、稳固自己的竞争优势，从而为自己飙升的估值取得正当性。在既有产业已然扎根的环境中，新建一家高成长的软件驱动公司绝非易事。那是非常困难的。
Finally, the new companies need to prove their worth. They need to build strong cultures, delight their customers, establish their own competitive advantages and, yes, justify their rising valuations. No one should expect building a new high-growth, software-powered company in an established industry to be easy. It’s brutally difficult.
我认为能与新生软件公司共事是一种特权。而且我可以告诉各位，他们确实把自己想做的事做得很好。如果他们能回应我和其他人的期待，他们将成为在全球经济中起基石作用、极具价值的公司。他们将能够占据比以往技术企业所追逐的市场大得多的市场。
I’m privileged to work with some of the best of the new breed of software companies, and I can tell you they’re really good at what they do. If they perform to my and others’ expectations, they are going to be highly valuable cornerstone companies in the global economy, eating markets far larger than the technology industry has historically been able to pursue.
与其不断对他们的价值提出质疑，不如去思考新一代技术公司是如何做成他们所做之事的、其结果会给产业和经济带来什么影响，以及为了造就那样具有革新性的软件公司我们能齐心协力做些什么，如何？ 这真是一个巨大的机会。
Instead of constantly questioning their valuations, let’s seek to understand how the new generation of technology companies are doing what they do, what the broader consequences are for businesses and the economy and what we can collectively do to expand the number of innovative new software companies created in the U.S. and around the world.
我知道自己把钱投在哪里。
That’s the big opportunity. I know where I’m putting my money.
话题: 马克·安德森,大型科技公司
分类: 剪藏/文章
来源: https://a16z.com/why-software-is-eating-the-world/