杰夫·贝索斯：快速扩张

本BBC播客在英国境外由广告支持。嘿，瑞恩。这次行程真快，就像你瞬移了一样。是啊。

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside The UK. Hey, Ryan. That was a fast trip. It was like you teleported. Yeah.

刚到。我保证会记录所有开销。哦，不，你没事的。

Just got in. I'll get all my expenses logged. I promise. Oh, no. You're okay.

SAP Concur运用先进AI技术，你的费用报告几乎能自动生成。真是重大突破，仿佛我们已穿越到未来。好吧，出于好奇，你愿意书面授权我们将你的物质转化为能量模式，然后在随机旅行目的地重组吗？

SAP Concur uses advanced AI, so your expense report will practically write itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. Alright. So just curious, would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at, say, random travel destinations?

玛格丽特，你在造传送器吗？没有。有。SAP Concur助您企业加速前行。详情请访问concur.com。

Margaret, are you building a teleporter? No. Yes. SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at concur.com.

BBC Sounds，音乐、电台、播客。大家好，欢迎收听BBC Sounds出品的《善恶亿万富翁》。本播客将揭秘地球上最富有的人群如何积累财富。

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, and welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from BBC Sounds. In this podcast, we'll be finding out how the richest people on our planet got so rich.

然后我们将评判他们——是善是恶，或只是又一个亿万富翁？

And then we'll be judging them. Are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?

我是西蒙·杰克，BBC商业版块主编。

I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor.

我是星·辛格，身兼记者、播客主持人和作家。

And I'm Xing Singh, and I am a journalist, podcaster, and author.

每期节目我们会挑选一位引人入胜的亿万富翁，讲述他们登顶之路。那么这档节目如何展开呢？

Each episode, we're gonna pick a billionaire who we find fascinating and cover their journey to the top. So how is this program gonna work?

首先我们会讲述每位亿万富翁白手起家到百万富翁的历程，接着从百万到十亿甚至更高——某些案例远超这个数字。

First, we're gonna tell the story of how each billionaire went from zero to a million. And then we'll go from a million to a billion and beyond, well beyond in some cases.

在某些情况下是这样。那么，是什么让你对亿万富翁产生了兴趣呢？

In some cases. And what makes you interested in billionaires?

关键在于，当你谈论亿万富翁时，实际上是在谈论一个可能与政治家或民选国家元首同等重要且具有影响力的人物，但他们除了对股东负责外，对其他人完全无需交代。从这个意义上说，我真的很想揭开表象一探究竟，了解他们的内在驱动力。既然他们拥有如此巨大的力量来影响世界，他们是在以善还是恶的方式运用这种力量呢？

The thing is, if you talk about a billionaire, you're really talking about someone who is probably about as important and influential as a politician or an elected head of state, but they are completely unaccountable to everyone but their shareholders. And in that sense, I'm really interested in taking a peek behind the covers and finding out what makes them tick. Because if they've got this much power to influence the world, are they using it in a good or a bad way?

让我感兴趣的是他们存在的这个事实本身。我的意思是，比如81位亿万富翁拥有的财富相当于地球上最贫困的45亿人的总和，这个事实揭示了世界的运行机制。这种情况的存在说明了什么？这是否是一种荒诞的现象？还是说，这是真正有用、能改变我们生活世界的创新所带来的副产品？

What interests me about them is the fact that they exist at all. I mean, it tells us something about how the world works that 81 billionaires, for example, have as much wealth as the poorest four and a half billion people on the planet Earth. Now the fact that that is true tells us something. I mean, is it grotesque that that's the case? Or is it a byproduct of, like, really useful innovation which changes the world in which we live?

我得说我更倾向于认为这是荒诞的，但我愿意以开放的心态来看待这个问题，也许这期播客会改变我对亿万富翁的看法。

I mean, I have to say I'm leaning more towards grotesque, but I am willing to approach this with an open mind, and I want this podcast to change the way I feel about billionaires maybe.

在我们即将垂钓的这条大鱼塘里，我们要钓的第一条‘鲸鱼’是一位改变了全球购物方式的公司创始人，曾一度成为世界首富的亚马逊创始人——杰夫·贝索斯。这个故事处处彰显着‘巨大’：他的财富规模、事业版图，这里还有些惊人的事实。

In this pond of big fish that we'll be fishing in, we are gonna hook a whale for our first billionaire, the founder of a company that has changed the way the world buys things, founder of Amazon for a period, the very richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos. Everything about this story is big. There's some wild facts here.

杰夫·贝索斯在2017至2021年间是世界首富，现在排名第三——这依然是个不容小觑的位置。

Jeff Bezos was the richest man in the world from 2017 to 2021. He's now third, which is, you know, nothing to sniff at.

没错。而且他们的财富波动可以非常剧烈。曾有段时间他在两周内损失了800亿美元，这比我们某些亿万富翁一生积累的财富还要多。

Yeah. And their wealth can fluctuate a great deal. There's one day when he lost $80,000,000,000 in a couple of weeks, and that is more than some of our billionaires have have accumulated in their entire life.

他还是世界上首位‘百百亿富翁’。这具体是什么意思？

He's also the world's first centibillionaire. What what is that exactly?

我想这指的是第一个净资产达到1000亿美元的人。后来他也是第一个突破2000亿的人，不过现在热度稍退了。

I think that means first person to hit a $100,000,000,000 in net worth. Annie also was the first person to hit 200. He's come off the boil a bit.

我觉得他

I think he's

目前跌至约1.40美元。

down to about $1.40 at the moment.

没错。

Right.

他能应付的。当你拥有那么多钱时，唯一能让你花大钱的方式就是进军太空。所以他创办了自己的火箭公司，典型的邦德反派行为。

He'll get by. When you've got that kind of money, the only way you can make a dent in it is by going into space. So he started his own rocket company, classic Bond villain behavior.

在蓝色起源太空计划上花费了50亿美元。

Spent $5,000,000,000 on the Blue Origin space program.

搞火箭确实说得通。他是个疯狂的《星际迷航》粉丝，这说明了他的心之所向。

And the rocket stuff makes sense. He's a mad Star Trek fan, so that shows you where his heart lies.

他还为《星际迷航》粉丝们收藏了《星际迷航：下一代》中皮卡德船长的制服。你看，他还是稍微保留了些极客本色。

He also, for the Trekkies out there, owns Captain John Luke Picard's uniform from Star Trek The Next Generation. So, you know, still holding on to those geeky roots slightly.

当然，他还有另一项惊人纪录——史上最昂贵的离婚。他不得不向前妻支付380亿美元，这是史上最高的离婚协议金额。

Of course, he had one of the other great stats. He had the most expensive divorce in history. He had to give his ex wife $38,000,000,000, by Miles, the biggest divorce settlement.

所以她一下子就跻身全球亿万富豪之列，这买卖不亏。

So in one fell swoop, she became one of the world's billionaires too, which is not bad going.

如你所说，她很可能至少进入了全球前100名，确实不简单。当然，他一路走来也收购了不少东西，比如《华盛顿邮报》。

She would have been probably in the at least in the top 100, which is not bad going, as you say. He also, of course, has collected a few things along the way. The Washington Post, for example.

他还拥有全食超市，这是美国的大型连锁超市，在英国也有分店。

He also owns Whole Foods Market, which is a major US supermarket with some chains in The UK as well.

没错。他还花了十亿美元打造史上最贵的电视剧，就是《指环王》。实际上，亚马逊Prime（我们稍后会讨论的另一项业务）每年用于制作影视剧的预算高达80亿美元，这比整个BBC的预算还要多。

Yeah. And he spent a billion dollars on the most expensive TV show ever. That was the Lord of the Rings. In fact, Amazon Prime, which is another part of the business we'll talk about, their budget for making TV shows and films is $8,000,000,000 a year. That is more than the budget of the entire BBC.

对。作为对比，BBC去年的年度预算大约是30亿英镑。是的，这么一看就更能理解这个数字的规模了。

Right. For for context, I think the BBC's annual budget last year was around 3,000,000,000. Yeah. So that, I mean, that kind of puts it all into perspective.

让我们从头追溯。先看看他是如何从零赚到第一个百万的。他是个聪明的孩子。

Let's go and trace it all the way back. Let's start on how he goes from zero to his first million. He was a bright kid.

确实。他其实算是个神童。1964年出生于新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基市——对《绝命毒师》粉丝来说，这正是该剧的设定地点。他原名杰夫·乔根森。

He was. He was something of a child prodigy, actually. So he was born in 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Breaking Bad fans. That's where Breaking Bad is set. And he was originally called Jeff Jorgensen.

是的。他父母当时还是青少年，母亲生他时还在读高中。他说过，相信我，在那个年代这可不是什么光彩的事。

Yes. His parents were teenagers. His mother was still in high school when he was born. He said, believe me, this was a time when that was not a cool thing.

我读到他的生父曾是职业独轮车曲棍球运动员——顺便说这真是个正经运动项目，我查过了。有点像马球，只不过用独轮车代替马匹。这项运动曾在阿尔伯克基短暂流行过，但关键是这位独轮车球员父亲很快就离开了他的生活。

And I read that his birth father was a professional unicycle hockey player, and which is, by the way, actually a real sport. I had to look it up. It's kind of like polo but with unicycles instead of horses. Anyway, it was briefly popular in Albuquerque, but, crucially, the unicycle hockey player dad was not around for long.

在阿尔伯克基风靡一时，其他地方无人知晓。所以他后来随了继父的姓。

Big in Albuquerque, completely forgotten elsewhere. So he then took the name of his stepfather.

没错。生父离开后，大约三岁时母亲的新伴侣收养了他。差不多同时期，他开始展现出神童特质——三岁时就因想和大人一样睡床铺，用螺丝刀拆掉了自己的婴儿床。说真的，他母亲敢让他碰螺丝刀真是心大。

Yes. His dad was out of the picture, and he got adopted by the new guy in his mom's life at the age of, I think, around three. And this was also around the same time he starts exhibiting real prodigy behavior. So at three, he famously disassembles his own crib with a screwdriver because he wants to sleep on a bed like a grown up. I mean, God bless his mother for letting him anywhere near a screwdriver.

换我可能不会让幼儿碰这个，但毕竟这是贝索斯啊。他青少年时期的第一次创业是开办夏令营，因为他实在讨厌在麦当劳打工，觉得自己单干能赚更多。

I'm not sure I would let a toddler near one, but, you know, this is Bezos we're talking about. And his first business, when he was a teenager, he sets up a summer camp because he hates working at McDonough's so much and reckons he can make more money going at it on his own.

是啊。这是我们本系列要介绍的亿万富翁们的共同特点之一——他们很早就展现出创业能力和赚钱欲望。

Yeah. That's quite one of the interesting things about some of the billionaires we're gonna be covering in this series. They showed an entrepreneurial ability, desire to make a buck pretty early in life.

我读到关于贝索斯青少年时期一件有趣的事，来自他高中女友的回忆。她说，杰夫一直想赚很多钱，但这并非为了钱本身，而是关于他要用这些钱做什么——关于改变未来。所以你能立刻感觉到，金钱对贝索斯重要，但不是全部，关键在于他想用钱实现的愿景。

And one of the interesting things I read about Bezos as a teenager was from his high school girlfriend. And, you know, she says, Jeff always wanted to make a lot of money, but it wasn't about money itself. It's about what he's gonna do with the money about changing the future. So, know, immediately you get the sense that, you know, money is important to Bezos, but it's not everything. It's kind of what he wants to do with it.

没错。我记得他说过，人可以有份工作，可以有份事业，也可以有项使命。如果你找到使命，那就是中头彩了，因为这才是真正的动力源泉。不过让我们回到正题——他高中毕业时表现相当出色。

Yeah. I saw him say that you can either have a job, you can have a career, or you can have a calling. And if you get a calling, then you've hit the jackpot because that's the real deal and that's the kind of thing that motivates you. But let's go back. So he graduates high school, does pretty well.

他最终进入普林斯顿大学，1986年以最高荣誉获得电气工程和计算机科学学位。

He ends up going to Princeton and he graduates with highest honors in electrical engineering and computer science in 1986.

他做了什么？很多常春藤盟校毕业生都...常春藤是美国顶尖大学联盟，普林斯顿是其中之一。然后他去了华尔街。

He does what? Lots of Ivy League graduates. Ivy League, the top universities in America. Princeton's one of them. And he heads to Wall Street.

是的。在华尔街早期他并非交易员，更像是软件系统设计人员。他加入了这家叫D.E.

Yes. And he's Wall Street he wasn't a dealmaker in those days. He was more of a kind of software kind of person designing systems. And he went to work for this company called D. E.

Shaw的公司，类似私募基金但高度专注科技与互联网领域。

Shaw, which is sort of like a private equity fund, but very focused on technology and the Internet.

在D.E. Shaw公司期间，他结识了第一任妻子麦肯齐·塔特尔——同样在Shaw工作，六个月后他们结婚了。

And D. E. Shaw and Co. Is also where he ends up meeting his first wife, Mackenzie Tuttle, who also works at Shaw, and they marry six months later.

正如我们在片段中听到的，他当时决定：我要自立门户。他说要从车库开始卖书。

And that's, as we heard in that clip, he decides, you know what, I'm going off on my own. And he says, I'm gonna go and sell books from my garage.

这在当年可是大事对吧？毕竟那时的互联网和现在完全不同，人们肯定觉得他有点疯狂。

Kind of a big deal in those days, I think. Right? Because the internet was not the internet as we know it now. People must have thought he was kinda crazy.

当时与他共事的戴夫·肖在中央公园长谈时，贝索斯说要做线上售书。戴夫回应说这主意很棒——但对已有高薪工作的人可能不太划算。不过贝索斯心意已决。

Well, guy he was working with, Dave Shaw, he went for a long walk with him in Central Park. And he said, I'm going to sell books and I'm gonna put it online. And Dave Shaw apparently said, that sounds like a really good idea. It would be an even better idea for someone who didn't have a great paying job right now. So so but he was determined.

他打算在互联网上卖书。他意识到的是互联网正以惊人的速度增长。从1993年到1994年，互联网流量增长了2300%，他说事物通常不会增长得那么快。1994年，他创立了亚马逊。这不是公司的第一个名字。

He's gonna sell books on the Internet. The thing that he realized is that the Internet was growing at such speed. The Internet grew 2300% in terms of traffic in one year from '93 to '94, and he said things just don't grow that fast. In 1994, he sets up Amazon. Not the first name for the company.

公司的第一个名字是Cadabra。

The first name for the company was Cadabra.

说实话，Cadabra听起来有点像cadaver（尸体）。是的。

Cadabra, which sounds a little bit too much like cadaver, to be honest. Yeah.

然后他错误地认为亚马逊是世界上最长的河流。实际上，对于所有河流爱好者来说，尼罗河才是。但无论如何，这是一个很好的类比，就像一条你可以推动事物的溪流。这就是他的想法，互联网将成为一种流动，通过它你可以销售商品、服务、书籍等等。一切。

And then he mistakenly thought that Amazon was the longest river in the world. It is, in fact, the Nile for all the river geeks out there. But nevertheless, it's quite a good analogy as a stream through which you can push things. And that was kind of what the idea was, that the Internet was going to be this flow through which you could sell stuff, services, books, etcetera. Everything.

而且，嗯，一切，这就是为什么有些人至今称亚马逊为“万能商店”。

And and well, everything, which is why some people call Amazon to this day the everything store.

他搬到了西雅图，这是一个有趣的选择。对吧？关于他为什么特别选择西雅图，这里面有些原因。

And he moves to Seattle, which is kind of an interesting choice. Right? There's something in there about why he picked Seattle specifically.

西雅图有两个好理由。第一，它位于太平洋西北地区，离加利福尼亚的帕洛阿尔托不远，那里是科技产业的摇篮。第二，它人口较少，这意味着你不需要支付太多的销售税，因为亚马逊的客户不会太多来自他需要缴税的州。从一开始就在考虑税收问题。

So Seattle, two good reasons. One, it's on the Pacific Northwest, not a million miles away from Palo Alto, California, the cradle of the technology industry. And secondly, it's got a small population, which means you don't pay that much sales tax because not that many of Amazon's customers would be from the state in which he would have to pay tax. Thinking about tax right from the beginning.

是的。所以你可以看出他的心思很缜密。对吧？他在考虑长期计划，比如如何节省开支？如何在不偷工减料的情况下确保我们不会花不必要的钱？

Yeah. So you can already tell his mind is worrying. Right? He's thinking of the long term plan of, you know, how can we save on things? How can we not cut corners, but how can we kind of make sure we're not spending more money than we need to be?

他投资了自己的1万美元，并从认识的人那里贷款，包括他父母的10万美元，1995年他轰轰烈烈地创立了亚马逊。他甚至有一个有趣的想法，每次服务器记录一笔销售时就响铃。但几周后，他们不得不关掉它，因为铃声一直响个不停。

And he invests, what, dollars 10,000 of his own money and has loans from people he knows, including $100,000 from his parents, and he sets up Amazon with a bang in 1995. And he even has this fun idea of having a bell ring every time the servers record a sale. But a few weeks in, they have to turn it off because the bell just keeps going.

确实如此，因为他以比标价低40%的价格卖书。他以比商店标价低50%的批发价购买书籍，然后以40%的折扣出售。所以他赚了一点钱。但他真的是从零开始，因为在一开始，贝索斯本人就在打包包裹并把它们送到邮局。

It sure does, because he's selling books at 40% below their list price. He's buying them wholesale at 50% below the the list price that you'd pay in the store, and he's selling them for 40%. So he's making a little bit of money. But he is really starting from the bottom because right at the very start, he, Bezos himself, is packing the parcels and driving them down to the post office.

我是说，我怀疑他现在已经不亲自做这件事了。

I mean, I doubt he does that himself nowadays.

但是

But

当时给亚马逊供货的批发商只接受10本或以上的订单。但显然亚马逊刚起步时订单量不足，于是他们想出了这个小花招——订购一本真正需要的书，再搭配九本明知绝版不存在的书。这样供应商就会寄来那本真实需要的书，并为另外九本道歉。

the wholesaler who was supplying Amazon at the time would only accept orders for 10 books or more. But, obviously, Amazon was still starting up, so they didn't have the orders to fulfill. So they figured out this little trick. They'd order the one book they wanted and nine copies of a book they knew did not exist and was out of stock. So their supplier would send the one book they needed and an apology about the other nine.

聪明。我记得有句话说人生第一次总是难忘的。是啊，我还记得自己第一次网购书籍的情形。那时我住在大西洋中部的一个岛上。

Clever. I remember and you know they say that you never forget your first time. Yeah. I remember the first time that I ordered a book. I was living on an island in the middle of the Atlantic.

听说了亚马逊后，这本本·奥克里的《饥饿之路》竟通过邮政送到了岛上。我简直不敢相信西雅图的公司能把书送到这么偏远的地方，当时觉得非常震撼。

I heard of Amazon, and this book arrived through the post. It was Ben Okri's The Famished Road. And I couldn't believe that this company from Seattle had managed to get a book all the way to this island. So I thought that was pretty impressive.

明白了。话说在当时——虽然现在听起来很不可思议——你们通常怎么买书？必须去实体书店还是通过邮政目录邮购？

Okay. Because at the time, how did you I mean, this sounds crazy, but how did you buy books? Did you have to go into a bookshop or put out a kind of mail order through the post?

虽然有邮购目录，但在美国主要还是巴诺书店和博德斯书店的天下。各大城市都有它们的巨型门店，那仍是主流购书方式。但贝佐斯的天才之处在于意识到：市面上有数百万种在印书籍，根本不可能全陈列在一家店里。

There were mail order catalogs, but mainly in The US, it was dominated by Barnes and Noble and Borders. You would see those huge stores in most major cities. That was still the way you did it. But of course, what he realized and the genius of it was is that there were millions of books in print and you couldn't put them all in one store. No.

因此互联网成了绝佳的解决方案。虽然图书销售并非终极目标，但确实是改变人们购物方式的完美切入点。

And so it was an ideal way, a medium for doing it. I don't think books was ever going to be the end of this, but it was a perfect application of the Internet to change the way people shop for certain things.

没错。不过这生意起初根本不赚钱对吧？像给你这样住在大西洋岛屿的客户寄书，第一年肯定血本无归。

Right. But it also doesn't make money straight away. Right? I mean, sending books to guys like you in The Atlantic is not gonna make them loads of cash in the first year.

这正是亚马逊的关键策略——创立后近十年里几乎没实现过季度盈利，因为所有收入都立即被再投资。公司后来定下'快速扩张'的座右铭，所有决策都围绕规模扩张。这也是他们至今缴税很少的秘诀：只要把利润不断投入再生产，就无需纳税。

And this is the crucial thing about Amazon. It doesn't actually make a quarterly profit for nearly ten years from when it started because every single time they got any revenue, they would reinvest it. The motto of the company eventually was get big fast. So everything about it was about trying to reach scale. And that is the secret to why, to this day, they don't actually pay very much tax, because every bit of profit they make, they reinvest it and you don't have to pay tax if you put the money back into the business.

对。好吧，但我不明白的是亚马逊长期亏损的情况下，它是如何作为一家公司存活下来的？

Right. Okay, but here's what I don't understand about Amazon making a loss for so long. How does it survive as a company?

因为股东们相信这个故事：终有一天，当他们获得足够大的市场份额时，就能提高利润率和盈利水平。

Because shareholders believe the story that one day, once they've got a big enough market share, they'll be able to turn up the volume on their margins and their profits.

而贝索斯正是那种富有魅力的远见者，能够说服人们，对吧？因为从了解亚马逊的运营模式和工作文化来看，这种企业文化确实源自最高层。

And Bezos was kind of that charismatic visionary who could convince people, right? Because it sounds like from reading about what Amazon is like and what working at Amazon is like, there's a real kind of workplace culture that comes from the very top.

而且并不总是正面的，这点我们稍后会谈到。他与员工的关系并非总是那么和谐。但此时，贝索斯确实在全力推销亚马逊，他做的一个关键采访极大地提升了公司形象，当然更重要的是销售额。

And not always a good one, as we'll get on to later. His relations with his own employees haven't always been that harmonious. But at this time, Bezos is really out there selling Amazon, there's a crucial interview he does which really boosts the company's profile, importantly, of course, their sales.

是的。那是1996年《华尔街日报》头版的一篇专访，标题是《华尔街奇才如何在互联网上找到卖书的利基市场》，这篇报道让亚马逊的销售额一夜之间翻了一番。

Yes. So it's a 1996 interview on the front page of The Wall Street Journal headlined, how Wall Street whiz finds niche selling books on the Internet, and that sees Amazon sales literally double overnight.

随着销售额增长，接下来是一个非常重要的销售行为——公司自身通过IPO上市。IPO代表首次公开募股。这时你会邀请一群投资者、公众来购买公司股份。你出售一小部分股权，他们提供资金，从而拥有公司的一部分。亚马逊于1997年完成了IPO。

So sales are growing, and then a very important sale, which is selling the company itself in what they call an IPO. That stands for initial public offering. And that's when you ask a bunch of people, investors, the the public, to basically buy shares in your company. You sell a small portion of it, they give you the money, and they own a piece of the company. And he has the Amazon IPO in 1997.

所以最初投资他公司的人，比如他的父母，现在都成了百万富翁对吧？

So all the people who initially invested in his company, like his parents, are now millionaires. Right?

没错。包括杰夫本人。就这样，从零开始。1997年他正式成为纸面上的千万富翁。

That's right. And including Jeff. So there we are. We've gone from zero. He is officially on paper a multimillionaire in 1997.

所以1997年完成重大IPO。嗯。杰夫成为百万富翁，千万富翁

So 1997, it gets the big IPO. Mhmm. Jeff becomes a millionaire, a multimillionaire

千万富翁。

A multimillionaire.

一蹴而就。那么他是如何从百万身家跃升至十亿的？

In one fell swoop. So how does he then go from millions to a billion?

快得惊人。事实上，我想不出有谁从百万到十亿的速度比他更快。他只花了一年时间。哇哦。这再次印证了当时那种疯狂的市场氛围。

Remarkably quickly. In fact, I can't think of anyone who's ever gone more quickly from 1,000,000 to a billion. It took him a year. Wow. Again, that is an example of just this of the hysteria that was going on.

我们正处在互联网泡沫的鼎盛时期。我记得当时在金融行业工作，那种疯狂程度难以言表。任何人在互联网上有个点子就能融到资。连邮递员都会告诉你该买哪家科技公司的股票。太疯狂了。

We're right in the middle of the .com boom. Now I remember working in finance around that time, and it's hard to describe just the kind of hysteria there was. Anyone who had an idea on the Internet could raise money. You had your postman telling you which technology companies to buy. It was crazy.

任何与互联网沾边的东西，人们都争相砸钱。那个时代就是如此。

Anything remotely connected to the Internet, people wanted to throw money at it. And this was that period.

没错。所以本质上这就是一场新的淘金热。

Right. So it was basically the new gold rush.

完全就像淘金热。回忆起来都让我冒冷汗——我记得人们会在电话里喊'买Puma科技'、'买这个买那个'。美国每个频道都在播放股票经纪广告，人人都想分一杯羹。活脱脱就是淘金热。

It was totally like a gold rush. It kinda makes me almost come out in a sweat just remembering it because I remember people would be on the phone, oh, buy Puma Technologies or buy this, buy that. There was ads for stockbroking on every channel in America. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. So it was exactly like a gold rush.

这些公司的估值直冲云霄。但亚马逊的不同之处在于它背后确实有实实在在的业务支撑。

And the valuations of these companies went through the roof. The thing about Amazon was there was actually a proper business behind it.

确实。你认为这在互联网泡沫时期的企业中算比较罕见的情况吗？

Right. And would you say that was relatively rare for businesses in the .com boom?

并非所有企业都经得起推敲，但亚马逊确实有真材实料。所以如果你的互联网公司像亚马逊一样有实际业务，人们会抢破头投资。他们看到亚马逊销售额呈爆炸式增长，愿意为这种增长买单，股价自然飙升。单日涨幅曾达到19%。

Not all of them stood up to much scrutiny, but Amazon did have a proper business. And so if you had a company that was connected with the Internet that had a real business like Amazon did, then people would bite your hand off. They could see that Amazon sales were accelerating incredibly quickly. People were paying up for that kind of growth, so the stock price shoots up. In one day, it went up 19%.

仅那一天，他的净资产就增加了9亿美元。几乎是一天之内接近十亿的增幅。

On that day alone, his net worth, what he's worth, went up $900,000,000. So almost a a billion dollars in a day.

我是说，这些数字真的编都编不出来。但这只是其中一件我无法理解的事。亚马逊在亏损，对吧？直到2000年代它才首次公布季度盈利。

I mean, you really could not make those figures up. But that is just one thing that I just do not understand. Amazon's losing money. Right? It doesn't post a quarterly profit until the 2 thousands.

如果他的公司在这整个时期都在亏损，这家伙怎么能先值几百万然后又值十亿呢？

How can this guy be worth millions and then a billion if his company is just losing money throughout this whole period?

这完全取决于他持有的公司股票价值。在投资领域，如果投资者看到所谓的顶层销售增长，他们完全能接受亏损。他们看重的是销售规模在扩大、收入在增加，利润终会到来，但实质上是在持续抢占市场份额。这正是华尔街最青睐的——一个销售额呈指数级增长的商业故事，亚马逊正是如此。

It's all about the value of the shares he's got in the company. And when it comes to investing, investors are quite prepared to see losses if they see top line, what they call top line sales growth. They're just saying what they're doing is they're growing their sales, their revenue's increasing, profits will come in time, but you're basically gaining market share all the time. And that's what Wall Street absolutely loves. It's a story where the top line of sales is growing exponentially, which is what's happening with Amazon.

这使得他们的股票非常值钱，所以即使公司账面上亏损，他的个人财富仍在增长。

That makes their shares worth a lot of money, so his personal fortune is growing even if the company on paper is actually losing money.

因为他确实持有大量那些股票。

Because he actually owns quite a lot of those shares.

没错。他是公司最大股东。所以公司价值上升，他的个人财富就水涨船高。

Yeah. He's the company's biggest shareholder. So as the value of the company goes up, his personal fortune goes up.

你说市场份额时，具体指的是什么？

And when you say market share, what actually do you mean by that?

比如英国超市行业，有乐购、阿斯达、森斯伯瑞等，每家都占有一定市场份额——即它们在杂货市场中的营收占比。

Well, it's for example, you know, think about the supermarket sector here in The UK. Yeah. You've got Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, others. Each of them have a certain market share. How much money of their of the grocery market does each one of them have?

当时像巴诺书店、博德斯这些传统大型书店还是销售主力。但人们发现亚马逊的市场份额正飞速增长，以惊人速度吞噬着这个市场。

Now back at this time, people like Barnes and Noble, traditional bookstore, Borders, big US bookstore, they would be the biggest sellers. But what people are noticing is that Amazon's market share is growing really quickly. It's gobbling up this market at an incredible speed.

这是因为市场本身已经饱和无法再扩大了吗？打个比方，这块饼没法做得更大了？

And is that because the market is just confined, so the market can't expand anymore? The pie can't get bigger, so to speak.

确实，在某些领域，市场这块'饼'是可以做大的。比如个人电脑市场。早期拥有个人电脑的人并不多，上世纪八十年代那会儿，拥有电脑的人寥寥无几。所以当时IBM虽然市场份额巨大，但整个市场规模其实很小。

Well, it the the pie can get bigger for certain things. For example, the personal computer market. In the early days, not that many people have personal computers. Back in the sort of nineteen eighties, very few people had them. So you would have IBM with enormous market share of quite a small pie.

随着八九十年代越来越多人购买电脑，市场规模不断扩大。而图书市场可能相对有限——不太可能突然冒出大批新读者。亚马逊本质上是在蚕食传统书店的午餐，因为像Borders或巴诺这种实体书店能陈列的图书有限，而亚马逊却拥有人类所有书籍的在线库存。

Through the eighties and nineties, the size of the pie grows as more people are buying computers. So the market itself is growing. In books, probably a finite market, you're not gonna get lots of people suddenly reading books who hadn't before. So Amazon is eating their lunch, basically, eating into their market share because there's only so many books you can put in a Borders or a Barnes and Noble store. They've got every book available in humanity and it's all online.

所以他们提供更丰富的选择，能送货上门，价格还更便宜。谁不想要更便宜、更快捷、更便利的服务呢？如今我们早已习惯这种模式了。

So they've got a greater choice. They can deliver it to your door, and it's cheaper. So who doesn't want things cheaper, faster, and more convenient? No one. We've gotten used to that these days.

不过在那个年代，亚马逊确实在改变世界。

Amazon was changing the world though back in those days.

哇，它其实也在改变我们的思维方式对吧？现在走进书店如果找不到某本书，我们脱口而出就是'算了，我上亚马逊买'。

Wow. And it's really changing our mentality as well, right? Because now if we walk into a bookstore and we say, Why don't you have this book? I'll just get it on Amazon.

我知道很多人试图抵抗这种诱惑，他们说'我要支持独立书店'。但最后往往还是屈服——'实在没办法，他们既有现货又便宜，明天甚至当天就能送到'。

I know a lot of people try to resist the urge to, they say, I wanna preserve my independent bookshop. But in the end they go, I can't help it. I'm just gonna have to do it because they've got it. It's cheaper and it'll arrive tomorrow or sometimes today.

关键转折在1998年，亚马逊开始超越图书领域。你刚才提到图书市场份额有限，但这年他们开始销售CD、录像带和DVD，甚至收购了IMDb——那个相当于好莱坞维基百科的网站。

And crucially in 1998, Amazon expands beyond just books. So you talk about, you know, the market share for books being, you know, relatively constrained, but now it starts selling CDs and videos and DVDs. It even buys IMDb, which is the kind of Hollywood standard for Wikipedia kind of.

没错，IMDb就像电影行业的圣经。可见贝索斯当时已经在布局影视娱乐领域，他意识到这些都是高增长品类。

That's right. It's the kind of like the bible of of the movie industry. So we know perhaps that he's thinking about TV and movies and entertainment. He realizes these are big growth categories.

同一年（1998年），他还向一家名不见经传的新公司谷歌投资了25万美元，这笔投资到2004年2月将为他再赚取十亿美金。

And in the same year, 1998, he also invests a quarter of a million in a new company that not many people have heard of called Google, which will also make him another billion by 02/2004.

我记得199年有同事在办公室打开一个叫Google的网站，我问'谷歌是什么？'他看我的眼神仿佛我是个怪胎。如今'Google'都成了动词。他不仅打造了千亿级企业，还独具慧眼投资了另一家——关于谷歌的故事我们后续节目再详谈。

I remember in 1998, there was a guy who came into the office I was working in, and he opened this thing on his computer called Google. I said, what is Google? And he looked at me as if I was crazy from from me saying, what the hell is Google? It's now a verb. Not only is he building a multibillion pound company himself, he's also got a good eye for another one, and we'll probably get on to Google later in this series.

亚马逊如今正逐渐实现其‘万物商店’的标语。对吧？因为它新增了家居装修产品、软件、视频游戏和礼品等品类。它不再仅局限于图书销售，实质上已演变成全球版的街角杂货店，几乎能买到任何你想要的东西。

And Amazon is now beginning to earn its tagline of the everything store. Right? Because it adds home improvement products, it's adding software, it's adding video games, adding gift items. It's not just about books anymore. It's basically become the global version of the corner store where can get literally anything you want.

没错。图书从来不是他野心的终点。当他验证了这种模式可行——配送体系运转良好、库存更丰富、选择更多样、购物更便捷后，用商业术语来说，一旦概念验证成立，他就能通过亚马逊这条‘河流’运送所有其他商品。

Yeah. Exactly. Books was never going to be the extent of his ambition. He realized that once he'd proved that it works, that the delivery mechanism worked, that you could have more stock, that you had more choice, more convenience. Once he'd established proof of concept, as they say in business terms, he could send all these other products down the river, the Amazon River.

九十年代末，千禧年之交，他加冕《时代》杂志年度人物。从诸多方面来看，他就是互联网和.com热潮的代言人。

And the end of the nineteen nineties, the end of the millennium is crowned with him becoming Time Magazine's man of the year. In many ways, he was the poster child for the Internet and the .com boom.

你提到.com狂热以及当时的亲历感受。但众所周知，这种繁荣并未持续太久，对吧？随后出现了大崩盘。

So you talk about the .com hysteria and what it was like to kind of be there at the time. But, obviously, as we all know, it didn't stick around for the longest time. Right? There was a huge crash.

九十年代末确实发生了互联网泡沫破裂，亚马逊也未能幸免。其股价在2000年12月至12月间暴跌近90%。幸运的是——当时数百家企业因此消失——时任摩根士丹利投行家（现任谷歌母公司Alphabet CFO）的露丝·波拉特建议他们在欧洲抛售部分股票证券，由此获得了数亿美元的缓冲资金。

There was the .com crash at the end of the nineteen nineties, and Amazon was not immune to that. In fact, its share price fell almost 90% in that year from December to December 2000. Luckily for Amazon because a lot of companies got wiped out by that. Hundreds of companies just disappeared. But luckily for Amazon, Ruth Porat, who worked at an investment bank called Morgan Stanley by the way, she's now the chief financial officer at Google's parent company, Alphabet.

她在危机前一个月促成这笔交易。若非这笔资金缓冲，今天的亚马逊可能已不复存在。

So she's been she she appeared She around. Had advised them to sell some shares, some securities in Europe, and so they've had this cushion of several $100,000,000.

明白了。

Right.

确实如此。他们侥幸躲过这场灭顶之灾。

And it's quite possible. And that and they did that a month before the crash. It's quite possible. If they hadn't had that cushion, Amazon wouldn't be with us today.

哇，那对他们来说简直是生死攸关，却因机缘巧合得以幸存。

Wow. So it could have almost been life threatening for them, but they through stroke of luck.

是的。他们不仅熬过互联网寒冬，还在2002年2月首次实现单季500万美元盈利。创立八年后才迎来首个盈利季度，堪称传奇旅程。不过我在想，当贝索斯积累巨额财富时，为他工作是种什么体验？

Yeah. So they survived the .com crash and actually post their first quarterly profit of $5,000,000 in 02/2002. So eight years after setting up, they post their first quarterly profit. Quite a journey. But I'm just wondering, whilst he's making all that money, what's it like to work for Jeff Bezos?

他很好，他很节俭。用褒义词形容就是非常、非常精打细算。在互联网泡沫时期，大家都在给员工发福利，比如免费按摩之类的。而亚马逊的员工福利只有咖啡和香蕉。

He's well, he's tight. He's very, very tight or thrifty, if you want to use the complementary verb for it. So, you know, in the .com boom, everyone's kind of throwing perks at people. You get, you know, free kind of massages and things. The food perks at Amazon consist of coffee and bananas.

当亚马逊搬进新办公室时，贝佐斯用木门做的廉价桌子来布置。整个理念是亚马逊代表客户节俭，所以其他方面都很节省。客户永远是第一位的。贝佐斯对关注客户毫不松懈，但这也意味着作为老板，他对员工极其苛刻。

And when Amazon moves to a new office, Bezos furnishes them with cheap desks made of wooden doors. And the entire idea is that Amazon is frugal on behalf of its customers, so that's why it kind of scrimps on everything else. It's all about the customer first. Bezos has been relentless about focusing on the customer, but it also means that as a boss, he's also incredibly tough at people.

他有时会相当尖刻，喜欢对抗吗？

And he would sometimes be quite abrasive, quite confrontational?

是的。有传闻说他发邮件对员工大吼大叫，亚马逊仓库工人为完成指标承受巨大压力。不少案例显示，有工人表示同事或自己因在梯子上匆忙上下打包包裹而受伤。这种压力我认为确实来自高层。

Yes. So, you know, there are stories of him sending emails where he's screaming at workers, you know, there are stories of workers in Amazon warehouses being put under relentless pressure to hit numbers. There have been quite a few cases where Amazon workers have said, I've got colleagues who have had workplace injuries or I've been injured myself scrambling up and down these ladders to try and hit those targets to pack the Amazon parcels. And that kind of pressure really comes from the top, I think.

是啊，某种意义上他们想树立形象：我们在降低成本，为顾客争取利益。顾客至上。我们竭尽全力为你提供最优价格和最大便利。但很多人承受不了这种压力。

Yeah, I suppose in one sense, they're trying to give an image that they're driving costs down. They're batting for the customer. The customer comes first. We're straining every sinew to get you the best price and the most convenience. But a lot of people buckle under that kind pressure.

有些人甚至被迫用瓶子小便，因为他们不被允许去厕所。

Some people even peeing in bottles because they were allowed to go to loo.

没错。实际上现在就有亚马逊司机起诉公司违反劳动法。这拼凑出一幅相当黯淡的企业文化图景。

Yeah. Exactly. In fact, there's I think currently now a suit against Amazon from Amazon drivers who say that they violated workplace legislation. You know, it kinda adds up to quite a bleak company culture.

所以他们和工会冲突不断。美国某些州甚至爆发大规模斗争，工会不被承认。虽然后来有所进展，但可见亚马逊不乐意员工组织工会。

Which is why they've had so many run ins with the unions. In fact, there was a huge battle in some of the states in The US. They were denied union recognition. I think there's been some progress on that, but that gives you an idea that Amazon is not keen on having their workers organized or unionized.

对。他们还专门雇佣擅长反工会的律师事务所。总之这种职场文化并非凭空而来，源于不惜一切代价追求增长目标的偏执。从亚马逊早期就能看出这完全源自杰夫·贝佐斯本人。

Yeah. And it even hires law firms that specialize in fighting unions and kind of union busting. So all in all, know, that kind of workplace culture, I mean, it doesn't come from anywhere, right? It comes from a kind of relentless focus on hitting targets on growth at any cost. And you can see from the very early days of Amazon that that comes from Jeff Bezos himself.

当你身处恶劣工作环境，而制定这种基调的老板却越来越富，这实在令人愤慨。

Which is kind of galling if you're one of those people who feeling that they're working under very difficult conditions when the person you're working from who's setting that tone is becoming richer and richer and richer.

或许亚马逊一直缺失的正是那种人性化的触感。如果你读过那些曾与贝索斯共事者的访谈——比如在他工厂和仓库工作过的人——他们会提到贝索斯本人似乎缺乏同理心，因为他过分执着于榨取利润。他总想以最低成本...

Maybe it's something about the human touch that Amazon has always lacked. And I think if you read interviews of people who've worked with just Bezos before, you know, people who've worked in his factories and warehouses, know, they will kind of mention that Bezos as a person sort of almost lacks a bit of an empathetic human touch because he's so focused on juicing those margins. He wants to make it as cheap as possible for Of the

当然，这同时也是亚马逊Prime的天才之处（如果可以用这个词），或者说它的秘诀。成为Prime会员后，你能免费获得一堆东西：电视剧、电影...

course, that was also the genius, if you like, I can use that word, or the trick behind Amazon Prime. If you become an Amazon Prime member, you get a bunch of stuff for free. You get TV, movies.

还能享受Prime会员日的特惠。

You get Prime Day sales.

许多商品免运费。所以一旦你屈服于亚马逊的体系，成为Prime会员后，这种诱惑就难以抗拒了。

You get free delivery on a bunch of things. So you once you've kind of given in to the Amazon thing, once you're an Amazon Prime member, then that instinct is hard to resist.

你被套牢了。这就是所谓的'亚马逊化'现象——本质上是你整个生活都被亚马逊化了。你能在那买食品...

You're locked in. And that's, you know, you talk about the Amazonification of everything. I mean, that's basically the Amazonification of your entire life. Right? You could get food there.

能获取娱乐内容，能买到日常消费品。它为你打造了一个'亚马逊之家'的生态。

You could get entertainment there. You could get everyday consumer goods. It kind of sets you up for an Amazon home.

随着资金涌入，贝索斯的信条始终是'再投资、再投资'。于是我们看到了Kindle（还记得吗？）、Fire平板、Alexa...

And as that money came in, again, the Jeff Bezos mantra was reinvest, reinvest. So we start seeing things like Kindles. Do you remember those? The Fire tablets. You've got Alexa.

Echo智能音箱、影视内容...各种产品层出不穷。

You've got Echo. That smart speaker. You've got film. You've got television. You've got all sorts of things.

但真正的重磅是亚马逊网络服务(AWS)。没错，这就是支撑'云计算'的基础设施。事实上，你现在收听的节目很可能就存储在亚马逊服务器上——BBC和数百万企业都在使用它们。

But the big one actually was something called Amazon Web Services. Yeah. This is the plumbing behind what we the cloud, cloud computing. In fact, if you're listening to this, you probably downloaded it from an Amazon server. I know the BBC uses them like millions of other businesses.

他们是云计算领域的霸主，而这正是亚马逊最赚钱的业务板块，如今创造着数百亿的利润。

They're the biggest company in the cloud computing space. And in fact, that is the most profitable profitable bit of Amazon. Billions and billions and billions come from that business now.

我认为这正是贝佐斯真正聪明的地方，他不会固守自己的领域。当他看到机会时，不会因为云计算与销售打折书籍和CD的零售店之间看似毫无关联而止步不前。是的，他就是看准了就去做。从这个意义上说，这确实令人钦佩。

And I think that's one of the really smart things about Bezos, right, is that he doesn't stay in his lane. When he sees an opportunity, it doesn't he doesn't stop himself from going after it, even though, you know, there's not a lot to connect cloud computing to a retail store that flogs, you know, discount books and CDs. Yeah. You know, he just sees something and goes for it. And in that sense, it's kinda admirable.

所有这些业务大多赚得盆满钵满。最终，《福布斯》将杰夫·贝佐斯评为世界首富，也是人类历史上首位身价达到1000亿美元的富豪。

So all of these businesses, most of them making tons of money. Finally, Forbes names Jeff Bezos the world's richest person and the first human being ever to be worth $100,000,000,000

1000亿美元，也就是百亿富翁。我觉得这也是他生活方式开始改变的时期。他开始在奥斯卡颁奖礼上电视亮相，听说他还和马特·达蒙一起办派对，在比弗利山庄买了豪宅。

A $100,000,000,000, aka a centibillionaire. And I think this is also the time his lifestyle also changes. Right? So he starts appearing on TV at the Oscars. I heard that, you know, he threw a party with Matt Damon and bought a house in Beverly Hills.

差不多就在这个时候，他的身材变得非常非常健壮。是超级健壮。什么？HENCHED。HENCHED就是当你变得...哦，明白了。

This is around the time he also gets really, really henched. It's very HENCHED. What's that? HENCHED. HENCHED is when you get oh, okay.

HENCHED就是指你练得肌肉非常发达，体型魁梧。

HENCHED is when you get very, very muscly, when you get stacked.

好吧。

Okay.

变得肌肉贲张，这正是杰夫·贝佐斯现在的状态——他练就了一身腱子肉。

You get jacked, and this is exactly what Jeff Bezos becomes. He gets jacked.

如果你见过他，会发现他有点像《王牌大贱谍》里的迷你米。对，知道这个角色吗？他在很多方面就像那个角色的放大版，这个比喻并不夸张，因为他的行为举止确实如此。也就是从这时起，他开始关注火箭领域。

If you see him, he's got the ball he looks a bit like, you know, in Austin Powers' Mini Me. Yes. You know that one? He he looks like a big version of that in many ways, which is not a bad comparison because he behaves like that. And this is when he starts looking at the rockets.

他穿着飞行夹克，戴着墨镜。

He's wearing the flight jackets. He's got the shades on.

没错。黑色高领毛衣配飞行员款墨镜。

Yeah. The black polo necks and, you know, the kind of aviator sunglasses.

他现在完全是一副邦德反派的样子了。

He's going full Bond villain at this point.

是啊，他确实、确实如此。我觉得这也正是媒体喜欢把他塑造成这种形象的原因。你看他现在照片和当年登上《时代》杂志封面时相比，简直判若两人。

Yeah. He really, really is. And I think that's kind of what's given him this popular kind of portrayal in the media as well. You know, it's just you look at pictures of him now compared to when he was on Time Magazine's front cover, he looks like a different person.

确实。而且他还有着挥金如土的习惯——标配的湾流私人飞机，在曼哈顿买下一堆公寓打通成超级豪宅，还有个10万英亩的牧场作为火箭公司总部。

He does. And he's also got some lavish spending habits. He's got the the obligatory Gulfstream jet. He buys up a bunch of apartments in Manhattan, knocks them all together to have this vast place. Manhattan, he's got a a ranch with a 100,000 acres, which becomes the home of his rocket company.

这完全是在开足马力烧钱啊。

We are on full tilt, pedal to the metal in terms of expenditure here.

当贝索斯开始被看作超级反派时，人们最爱拿税收问题说事。众所周知亚马逊纳税很少，这很没道理——他可是亿万富翁对吧？公司现在也很赚钱。

So around the time Bezos becomes a kind of supervillain figure, one of the things that people always love to hit him over the head with is the idea of tax. And notoriously, Amazon doesn't pay that much tax, which doesn't seem to make sense to me because, you know, they're he's a billionaire. Right? And the company's making money now.

亚马逊有几种避税手段：一是利润再投资，税法允许用投资额抵扣利润，这样应税利润减少税就少了；二是像其他科技公司那样利用低税率地区。

There's a couple of ways that Amazon can minimize tax. One is to reinvest the profits it makes, and the tax rules allow you to basically offset investments against the profits you make. So your profits come down because it's profits minus investment. So your profits are lower, therefore the tax you pay is lower. The second one is, like a lot of other technology companies, they are masters of using low jurisdictions to keep their tax bill down.

比如在英国产生的利润和销售额，实际都记在税率近乎零的卢森堡。全球都在推动互联网公司多纳税，但像苹果亚马逊这些公司的利润就像在外太空——通过离岸避税天堂流转，各国都难以征税。所以才有了全球推行最低企业税率的运动。

So for example, most of the profits that are made here in The UK, the sales that are made in The UK, are actually booked in Luxembourg, which has an almost zero tax rate. Other companies do this as well, and there's been this worldwide campaign to try and get these internet companies to pay more taxes. Basically, as far as people like Apple and Amazon and others are concerned, these profits live in the equivalent of outer space. No one knows quite how to get get their hands on them because they're basically swapped between offshore tax jurisdictions where taxes are very low. One of the reasons why you said that this huge global campaign to try and introduce a minimum corporate tax rate around the world.

虽然尚未实现，但各国已开始行动要追缴这些公司赚取的数十亿美元税款。

It hasn't happened yet, but there are moves afoot for countries to get their hands on the billions these companies are making.

仔细想想很合理对吧？既然这些公司挤垮了本地商业街和小店铺，至少该让他们纳税吧？

And when you think about it, it kinda makes sense. Right? Because if your company is sort of strangling the local high street and putting corner shops out of business, why can't you at least tax them?

没错，正是这个理。

Yeah. Exo exactly right.

我们一路走来，现在我认为是时候评判贝索斯了。

So we've come a long way, and so I think it's time to judge Bezos.

好的。

Okay.

开始吧。这期播客的核心议题就是：我们要搞清楚亿万富翁对世界的影响是好是坏，或者说成为亿万富翁是否只是道德中立的事。为此我们设定了几个评判维度，比如反派指数、慈善力度等等，然后按10分制打分，最终判断这位亿万富翁属于善类、恶徒，还是单纯的富人。

Let's do it. So the entire point of this podcast is we wanna figure out if billionaires have been good or bad for the world, or, you know, if being a billionaire is just a morally neutral thing. So to do that, we've come up with a few categories like, you know, villainy, level of philanthropy, etcetera, and we're gonna rank them out of 10 to try and figure out if the billionaire we're talking about is good, bad, or just plain rich.

没错。这让我想起《顶级王牌》游戏——虽然可能在你出生前流行的——我们现在要做的就是给这些不同维度打分。先从财富开始，他确实相当富有，曾连续四年位居全球首富。虽然现在不是了，但我本来想给10分...

Yeah. This reminds me of top Trumps, which is probably before your time, but we're gonna go through these different categories and give them scores out of 10. So let's start with wealth. I mean, he's pretty wealthy. He's up there at the right richest man in the world for four years, I think we've gotta give him I mean, he's not the richest man in the world right now, so I was gonna give him a 10.

或许给个稳妥的9分吧。

Maybe we'll give him a solid nine.

嗯。考虑到他曾是世界首富...能打半分吗？

Yeah. I feel like because he once was the richest man in the world can we do half points?

9.5分？

Nine and a half?

9.5分？就9.5分吧。

Nine and a half? Let's do nine and a half.

好。不过他确实是白手起家的典范对吧？从出生到亿万富翁，他的阶层跨越幅度有多大？

Okay. He's definitely at the top of the tree though, isn't he? Rags to riches, how far have they traveled from birth to billionaire?

其实他并非在阿尔伯克基的贫民窟长大，对吧？他成长于中产家庭，而且众所周知，他父母还投资过他的公司。

I mean, it wasn't like he grew up in a shack in Albuquerque. Right? He had a pretty middle class lifestyle. And also famously, his parents invested in his business.

没错。如果父母能给你的生意投10万美元，你总不至于流落街头吧？

Yeah. If parents can put a $100,000 into your business, you're not living on the streets, are you?

正是如此。所以

Exactly. So

我觉得这更像是从体面到巨富，而不是白手起家

I kind of I I think it's like modest to mega rather than racks to

对，确实。所以他起步时的基础并非完全从零开始。

Yeah, that is true. So the distance he started out at is not quite, you know, a zero.

不过他确实变得非常富有，这点得承认。所以我给他打6分。

He did get very rich though, so okay to say. So I'm gonna give him a six.

好吧。我打算给他7分，要知道从新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基的普通孩子成为全球首位千亿富翁，这段旅程可不简单。

Okay. I think I'm gonna give him a seven because, you know, being the world's first centibillionaire is a big journey from just being some kid from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

他要是知道这个评分

He's gonna be gutted when he finds

肯定会崩溃的。我确定。好了，下一项是反派气质。

out these scores. I'm sure. Okay. So next is villainy.

行。这个我要打满分10分。我想没人能像杰夫·贝索斯这样完美契合007反派形象——简直就是《王牌大贱谍》里的迷你我的现实版。皮夹克、墨镜、火箭。

Okay. Well, I mean, I'm gonna give this a 10. I don't think there's anyone out there who quite matches the Bond villain type, the mini me from Austin Powers quite the way that Jeff Bezos does. The jacket, the shades, the rockets.

没错。还有打压工会、避税这些事。

Yeah. The union busting, the not paying of tats.

哦，还有那个。是的。当然。好吧。

Oh, there's that as well. Yes. Of course. Okay.

我是说，对，我有点想给她一些回旋余地。我不知道。也许我会再给他九分半。或许我们会遇到一个更邪恶的亿万富翁。

I mean, yeah, I I kinda wanna give her some wiggle room. I don't know. Maybe I'm gonna give him another nine and a half. Maybe there's a more villainous billionaire will meet.

你觉得呢？嗯，这有点像漫画形象，我觉得他很符合这个角色。我是说，某种程度上他几乎自己塑造了这个形象。他还没杀过人。至少不是直接动手。也许我们这期播客会讨论那些真正关注这个领域的亿万富翁。所以我给他——好吧。

Do you Well, it's kind of like it's the caricature which I think that he fits so I mean, he's almost created it in a way. I mean, he hasn't killed anyone. Not directly. Maybe we'll be maybe we'll be covering billionaires in this podcast who actually have watched this space. So I'm gonna give him alright.

邪恶程度，我给他9分。

Villainy, I'll give him 9.

好吧。我给他——我再给他九分半。

Okay. I'll give him I'll give him another 9 and a half.

行。可以。

Okay. Fine.

慈善事业。他其实做得不多，是吧？

Philanthropy. He's actually not done a lot, has he?

确实不多。我是说，看看比尔·盖茨这些人做了什么，他已经捐出了4050亿美元。沃伦·巴菲特说要捐出全部财产。美国有个很大的趋势——

Not really. I mean, if you look at what people like Bill Gates have done, he's given away $4,050,000,000,000. Warren Buffet says he's gonna give all his money away. There's a big movement. It's a thing about America

对。

Right.

——人们不介意你赚得盆满钵满，但有个潜规则是当你爬到顶层后，就要开始回馈社会。要成为职业慈善家，而我看不到这种情况发生在他身上。

Is that people don't mind you getting filthy rich, but there is an expectation that once you get to that top of the mind, you start giving it back. You start becoming a professional philanthropist, and I don't see that happening here.

众所周知，他还与妻子麦肯齐离婚了，随后她带着数十亿资产开始投身慈善事业，某种程度上比他做得更出色。对吧？

Famously, he also divorced his wife, Mackenzie, and she has then taken her billions and started becoming quite the philanthropist herself. So she's kinda shown him up. Right?

我认为确实比他出色得多。考虑到他拥有的巨额财富，在慈善方面我要给他打个大大的零分。

I think shown him up, know, really has shown him up. Philanthropy, given how much money he's got, I'm gonna give him a big fat zero.

我给他零分是因为他能做得更好。说真的，杰夫，如果你正在听这段内容——

I'm gonna give him a zero because he can do better. I mean, honestly, if you're listening to this, Jeff

抱歉了老兄，但真的该加把劲了。

Sorry, mate. But come on.

偶尔也施舍点小钱吧。

Chuck someone a tenor once in a while.

好吧，这方面你得分极低。不过在权力方面——

Okay. So you get you get very poor marks there. Power, on the other hand.

他们对世界的影响力究竟有多大？我认为在改变人们心理层面，亚马逊的成就是非凡的。他们让大众接受网购，培养出人们对当日达、次日达的需求，这都是亚马逊开创的。虽然他没有颠覆政府，但改变了大众心理模式，这在我看来更难能可贵。

How much influence do they really have in the world? I would rank him pretty highly in terms of in terms of when you think about what Amazon did to change people's mentality. They made people want to shop online. They made people want things same day delivery, you know, next day delivery, that's all an Amazon thing. You know, he hasn't toppled government, sure, but he's changed people's psychology, which I think is much trickier.

所以这方面我给他10分。

So I'm gonna give him a 10.

10分，因为他让我们都变得极度缺乏耐心，对吧？如果东西不能立刻到手，我们就要追问原因。不仅如此，亚马逊这个巨无霸还碾碎了整个行业，无数公司因无法竞争而倒闭。光是这个规模就——

A 10, because he has made us all very impatient, right? If something's not here now, we wanna know why. And not only that, he's mown down whole other industries with the Amazon juggernaut. There are dozens of companies who have gone bust because they can't compete with Amazon. Just the scale of that.

我认为他不仅改变了零售业格局，更改变了我们获取物品的思维方式。而且在他掌权时期，只要他决定涉足某个行业，就能彻底改变该行业的面貌。当然，他还收购了《华盛顿邮报》——这绝非无关紧要的收购，并在特朗普执政期间对其发起实质性的挑战。所以他也间接行使了相当大的权力。

So I think he's changed the landscape not just of retail, but the way we think about acquiring anything now. So I think that that and also when he was actually in charge as well, if he decided that he was going to dabble in this industry or that industry, he could change the face of those industries. Right. And, of course, he also bought the Washington Post, which is a not inconsequential purchase and obviously had a real go at Donald Trump whilst he was in office. So he was wielding indirectly quite a lot of power there as well.

是的。所以我认为我认为是10分。

Yeah. So I think I think a 10.

没错，绝对是10分。我们最后一个类别是什么？

Yeah. Think a 10, definitely. And what's our last category?

遗产。

Legacy.

我是说，世界在亚马逊之后变得不同了。

I mean, the the world is a different place post Amazon.

这很有趣。我记得我需要买点东西，比如一个捕鼠器，我立刻上了亚马逊，想第二天就拿到。然后我突然想到，等等，我家拐角处十分钟路程就有一家五金店，为什么我不能直接走过去买呢？

It's funny. I remember needing to get something, you know, maybe maybe a mousetrap even, and I went on to Amazon immediately and tried to get one for the next day. And then I thought to myself, wait a second. I live ten minutes around this corner from a hardware store. Why can't I just walk there?

但亚马逊的心态已经改变了人们的思维方式，以至于你只是期望在亚马逊上更快地得到东西。是的，这太不可思议了。

But the Amazon mentality has just changed people's minds to the extent where you just expect things to be faster on Amazon. Yeah. And that's incredible.

我曾经有个大问题，因为我的伴侣在亚马逊上买所有东西。比如我们需要一些东西，比如驱蛾喷雾。

I used to have a real problem because I'll because my partner buys everything on Amazon. And and it like, we need some things, moth spray.

对吧？典型的亚马逊购物。

Right? Classic Amazon

典型的亚马逊驱蛾喷雾。对吧？不错。就像我说的，这东西才两磅99便士。

purchase. Classic Amazon moth spray. Right? Nice. And as I said, it's like two pounds 99.

我说，我们不能就为了这一小罐东西让人专门送来，这太疯狂了。但她说，听着，反正他的卡车已经装满了东西，他本来就要经过我们这里。

And I said, we can't order this one little can of something and have someone come and deliver this to us. That's nuts. And she says, listen. He's got a a truck full of stuff anyway. He's coming down our way anyway.

这不会成功，因为我部分认为这是个极其繁琐的过程——让人从货架上取下商品，放进这个，顺着传送带下去，从末端取出，装进货车，司机四处送货，哒哒，最后把那小罐防蛾剂送到我手上。我说，这简直像用大锤砸核桃，但我们已经习惯了。

It's not going to make because part of me thought it's a obscenely involved procedure having someone picking off a shelf, put it in this, goes down the conveyor belt, comes off the end, puts in the van, he drives around, da da, and brings me my little can of moth stuff. And I said, surely that seems like using a a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but we've got used to it.

是啊。这就是亚马逊的遗产。它彻底改变了我们的购物方式。没错。所以这方面我要给他打10分。

Yeah. And that is the Amazon legacy. It's completely changed the way we shop. Yeah. So I would give him a 10 for this.

好吧。很难想象还有哪家公司比亚马逊更彻底地改变了我们的行为方式。所以我也要给它打10分。

Okay. It's hard to imagine a company that has changed the way we behave as much or more than Amazon. So I'm gonna give it a 10 as well.

那么最终评判时，贝索斯是好人、坏人，还是仅仅是个富豪？你怎么看？

So when it comes to our final judgment, is Bezos good, bad, or just wealthy? What do you think?

我要说主要是坏的。没错。但我也要说这事情的发生我也有责任。你

I'm gonna say mainly bad. Yeah. But I'm gonna say that it's my fault that it's happened as well. Do you

知道为什么吗？你的具体

know what Your why

责任具体是什么？具体来说？我的意思是，这是我们的错。它拥有的权力，它改变世界的方式，它摧毁的企业，带来的便利...你知道，是我们允许这一切发生的，因为我们就是那些想要更便宜、更快、更方便、更多选择的人。所有这些都让人无法抗拒。

is your fault specifically? Specifically? My I mean, it's our fault. The power that it has, the way it's changed the world, the businesses it's destroyed, the convenience brought it's you know, we are the people who allowed that to happen because we are the ones who want things cheaper, faster, more convenient, more choice. All of those things are irresistible.

所以我们对亚马逊的成功是同谋。因此，我要说主要是坏的，但此刻我正对着镜子审视自己。

So we are complicit in the success of Amazon. So it's, I would say, mainly bad, but I'm looking I'm I'm holding up a mirror to myself right now.

我认为主要是坏的。你说得也有道理。贝索斯并没有发明我们对廉价、快速、便捷购物的渴望。他只是看到了并无情地迎合了这种需求，而且

I would say it's mainly bad. And you make you make a good point as well. Bezos really Bezos didn't invent our desire for cheap, fast, accessible shopping. He just saw it and catered to it relentlessly and

很可能还剥削了这种需求。

probably Exploited it.

并加以利用，很可能还在此过程中利用了不少人来达成那个欲望。但归根结底，他只是在满足社会的需求。

And exploited it, and probably exploited quite a few people along the way to get to that desire. But at the end of the day, he was just serving what society wanted.

是啊。这太变态了。没错。

Yeah. That's psycho. Yeah.

正是如此。我们都很糟糕。这就是结论。

Exactly. We're all bad. That's the conclusion.

我们都很糟糕，而这让他变得非常非常富有。所以下周记得回来收听。我们将讨论世界上最富有的女性音乐家。她是美国最年轻的白手起家女性亿万富翁，全球白手起家女性富豪榜第21位。

We're all bad, and it made him very, very rich. So come back next week. We're gonna be talking about the wealthiest female musician in the world. She's the youngest self made female billionaire in America, the twenty first richest self made woman in the world.

而她在35岁的年纪就做到了这一切。

And she's done it all at the age of 35.

没错。她就是？

Yeah. And here she is?

坏女孩蕾蕾本人，蕾哈娜。

Bad girl Riri herself, Rihanna.

下周聊蕾哈娜。

Rihanna next week.

感谢收听《善恶亿万富翁》。

Thanks for listening to Good Bad Billionaire.

本播客由汉娜·赫福德和马克·沃德制作。

This podcast is produced by Hannah Hufford and Mark Ward.

詹姆斯·库克是我们的编辑，这是一部BBC音频作品。

James Cook is our editor, and it's a BBC audio production.

如果你喜欢收听，不妨推荐给朋友。

If you like listening, tell a friend.