2019年11月7日 星期四

‘Unicorns’ Learn A Hard Lesson:Profits Matter 獨角獸學到教訓:要能賺錢才行


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2019/11/08 第284期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 'Unicorns' Learn A Hard Lesson:Profits Matter 獨角獸學到教訓:要能賺錢才行
For Britain, the Clock Is Ticking on Carbon Emissions 英國拚淨零排碳 時間緊迫
紐時周報精選
 
'Unicorns' Learn A Hard Lesson:Profits Matter 獨角獸學到教訓:要能賺錢才行
文/Erin Griffith
譯/李京倫

獨角獸學到教訓:要能賺錢才行

Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures, recently published a blog post titled "The Great Public Market Reckoning." In it, he argued that the narrative that had driven startup hype and valuations for the past decade was now falling apart.

美國聯合廣場創業投資公司創投業者威爾森,最近發表一篇部落格文章,題為「公開市場算總帳」,他在文中主張,過去十年使新創事業知名度和市值衝高的那一套說詞,如今不管用了。

His post quickly ricocheted across Silicon Valley. Other venture capitalists, including Bill Gurley of Benchmark and Brad Feld of Foundry Group, soon weighed in with their own warnings about fiscal responsibility.

威爾森的文章隨即在整個矽谷引起回響。其他創投業者,包括標竿資本公司的格利和鑄造集團的費爾德,旋即加入討論,各就財務責任提出警告。

At some startups, entrepreneurs began behaving more cautiously. Travis VanderZanden, chief executive of the scooter startup Bird, declared at a tech conference in San Francisco last week that his company was now focused on profit and not growth.

一些新創事業的創業者開始更謹慎行事。美國共享電動滑板車新創企業柏德公司執行長范德桑登,本月初在舊金山一場科技會議上宣布,他的公司現在專注於獲利,而非成長。

The moves all point to a new gospel that is starting to spread in startup land. For the last decade, young tech companies were fueled by a wave of venture capital-funded excess, which encouraged fast growth above all else. But now some investors and startups are beginning to rethink that mantra and instead invoke turning a profit and generating "positive unit economics" as their new priorities.

這些舉動都反映出,新的信條開始在新創事業圈風行。過去十年,新興科技公司受到爆量的創投資金鼓舞,這些資金重視快速成長甚於一切。不過,如今一些投資人和新創事業開始反省「快速成長」這信條,轉以獲利和產生「正向單位經濟效益」為新的首要目標。

The nascent change is being driven by the stumbles of some high-profile "unicorns" — the startups that were valued at $1 billion and above in the private markets — just as they reached the stock market.

出現這種新的轉變,是因為一些高知名度的「獨角獸」一上市就受挫。獨角獸是指在私募市場市值10億美元以上的新創事業。

The lackluster performances have raised questions about Silicon Valley's startup formula of spending lots of money to grow at the expense of profits. (All of those companies lose money.) Public market investors, it seemed, just weren't having it.

這些獨角獸表現不佳,令人質疑矽谷新創事業砸大錢拚成長卻犧牲獲利的成規。(這些公司全都賠錢。)看來公開市場的投資人也不相信這一套。

"A lot of these highly valued companies have run into the buzz saw of Wall Street, where they're questioning or reminding us that profitability matters," said Patricia Nakache, a partner at Trinity Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

矽谷創投公司「三人組創投」合夥人派翠西亞.納卡奇說:「許多高市值公司在華爾街踢到鐵板,這些公司探究得知,獲利能力很重要,這些公司的例子也提醒我們這件事。」

She added that she anticipated a "ripple effect" on private startup valuations that would start with the largest, most valuable companies and trickle down to the smaller, younger ones.

納卡奇說,她預期這會對私人新創事業的市值產生「連鎖效應」,市值下降的情況會從規模最大、市值最高的公司開始,逐漸擴及規模較小、成立時間較短的公司。

Aileen Lee, an investor at Cowboy Ventures, a venture capital firm in Palo Alto, California, said she considered dusting off a four-year-old "winter is coming" email she had sent to startups in 2015, telling them to prepare for a downturn.

加州帕羅奧圖市創投公司「牛仔創投」的投資人艾琳.李說,她考慮把四年前寄給新創事業、警告「冬天就要來了」的一封電子郵件重新拿出來看看。2015年她在這封信中提醒新創事業,為這個圈子的下行趨勢做準備。

Other venture capitalists are being more forward. At Eniac Ventures, a venture firm in New York and San Francisco, the partners recently combed through their companies and identified the "gross margins" — a measure of profitability — for each one, said Nihal Mehta, general partner of the firm. This was not something the firm regularly looked at, he said, but they were inspired by Wilson's cautionary blog post.

其他創投業者更進一步。紐約與舊金山創投公司「伊尼亞克創投」普通合夥人梅塔說,這家公司的合夥人最近審視了投資的公司,並找出每家公司獲利能力的指標「毛利」。他說,這並不是合夥人常常會做的事,不過他們從威爾森那篇部落格示警文得到啟發。

※說文解字看新聞

矽谷一些知名新創事業(startup)上市後市值大跌,也從而明白獲利可能比成長重要。

startup是由一個以上創業者創立的公司,目的是發展獨特的產品或服務並將之帶進市場。公司在草創時期幾乎沒有營收,創業者為了取得足夠資金以發展產品,必須說服潛在貸款者和投資人,自己的想法夠創新,或比市面上類似想法更好。

startup的資金來源包括:傳統來源,如銀行的小型企業貸款;育成中心(incubator),通常與商學院和非營利組織有關,提供輔導、辦公空間和資本;天使投資人(angel investor,富裕的個人投資者)和創投公司(venture capital firm),向startup提供資金支持並取得該公司股份,目的是在日後得到收益,例如公司在首次公開募股(IPO)中向公開市場投資人出售股票時。

unicorn是傳說中的動物獨角獸,常用來指在私募市場市值10億美元以上的新創事業,引申為獨特、罕見的事物,如:In Washington, D.C., truth is now a veritable unicorn.

在本文中,firm和company交替使用,不過,兩個字的意涵其實有別,firm通常指「事務所」,如law firm、accountancy firm。company是最常用來表示「公司」的字,通常指「正式註冊的公司」,法律條文中的「公司」通常都用這個字。

 
For Britain, the Clock Is Ticking on Carbon Emissions 英國拚淨零排碳 時間緊迫
文/Somini Sengupta
譯/李京倫

英國拚淨零排碳 時間緊迫

In the shadow of a noisy, turbulent Brexit, another epic transformation is underway in Britain.

在喧鬧混亂的英國脫歐陰影下,另一場規模宏大的轉變正在英國展開。

A leading industrial power that built itself on coal and colonialism, Britain is now trying to pivot away from the fossil fuels that powered the industrial age. The government has set a legally binding target to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

英國是靠煤和殖民崛起的工業大國,如今卻致力與為工業時代提供動力的化石燃料告別。英國政府已立下具法律約束力的目標,要在2050年前實現淨零排碳。

Some of that change is already in motion: The country is fast ditching coal in favor of wind energy and gas. And this summer, for the first time in more than 130 years, it went two weeks without burning one lump of coal.

部分改變已經發生:英國正快速捨棄煤,改用風力與天然氣發電。今年夏天,英國更做到連續兩周完全不燒煤,是130多年來首見。

The new net-zero target, though, demands a far bigger shift that will likely change everything from the way Britons heat their homes to how they get to work to what food they grow and eat.

不過,若要達成新的淨零排碳目標,需要的轉變大得多,很可能樣樣事都得改變,包括英國人如何使家裡變暖和通勤上班,以及種植和食用那些食物。

The good news for Britain is that climate action enjoys widespread political support in an otherwise polarized society. The governing Conservatives proposed the net zero target, while the Labour Party recently one-upped them by calling for a 2030 deadline.

對英國來說,好消息是,儘管英國社會在其他方面意見皆呈兩極化,阻止氣候變遷的行動卻廣受政界支持。執政的保守黨提出淨零排碳的目標之後,在野的工黨最近加碼,說要提前在2030年達成。

"There's a high degree of consensus that we need to do something, and the U.K. has a moral duty to lead," said Bryony Worthington, a member of the House of Lords and executive director of the European branch of the Environmental Defense Fund. "We led the industrial revolution."

英國上議院議員布萊歐妮.渥辛頓是環保組織「環境保護基金會」歐洲總監,她說:「我們必須有所作為,而且英國有扮演領頭羊的道德責任,英國社會對此有高度共識,畢竟工業革命是我們主導的。」

Britain's historical emissions are the fifth highest in the world, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief, a British website that covers climate science and policy.

英國介紹氣候科學與政策的網站「碳簡報」的分析顯示,英國以往的碳排放量是世界第五高。

Nick Bridge, Britain's senior climate envoy, said his country wants to position itself as "a global green hub."

英國氣候變遷特別代表布里奇說,英國想自我定位為「全球環保中樞」。

Bold promise, meet the mess known as Brexit.

遠大的承諾偏偏遇到名為英國脫歐的混亂局面。

Britain's economy is slowing precisely at a time when the country will need to invest the equivalent of at least 1% of its gross domestic product to meet its net zero target, according to the Committee on Climate Change, a government advisory body. Moreover, at a time of peak political dysfunction, the government has not implemented the policies needed to get to net-zero, nor mapped out how it will pay for the transition.

英國政府的顧問機構「氣候變遷委員會」的資料顯示,英國必須投注至少1%的國內生產毛額(GDP),才能達到淨零排碳目標,偏偏此際英國經濟成長卻在走緩。此外,目前英國政治極度失調,政府並未執行達到淨零碳排放的必要政策,亦未做好轉化的財源規畫。

"Brexit is a horrible distraction," Worthington said. "Politically there's not enough oxygen to even have a conversation."

渥辛頓說:「英國脫歐吸走了太多注意力,在政治層面甚至連展開對話的基本條件都付之闕如。」

At the moment, the country is not on track to meet its earlier target for an 80% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.

英國先前定下目標,要使碳排放量降到1990年水準的兩成,但目前看來恐難達成。

Alex Kazaglis, an economist who served on the Committee on Climate Change said, to get net-zero, Britain needs to generate much more electricity than ever before — all of it from non-fossil fuel sources.

曾在氣候變遷委員會任職的經濟學家卡薩格里斯說,英國若要達到淨零排碳,必須產出遠比先前多的電力,而且都要使用化石燃料之外的能源。

 
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