Hello, my name is Jeff Bezos. I started about 15 years ago. Tons of stories from the early days…
大家好,我是Jeff Bezos。5年前我创建了亚马逊,一开始遇到过很多糗事...

We started the company in my house. We didn’t have enough electronic power in the house. At the certain point, We only had four employees then. But we already had enough computers, computer servers, where the string is big, orange electric extension chords from every room In the house to get enough power, en, into the room where the office was. So we are basically…all the circuit breakers were flipping. We couldn’t plug vacuum cleaner anywhere without flipping all the circuit breakers. So we finally had to move to a real office.
最初公司就设在我家,可家里电压不足。那时我们只有4名员工,但电脑、服务器都配备齐全,家里到处都是接线板,把电从其他房间接进我们的办公室。因此基本上跳闸会是家常便饭,只要吸尘器一通电,想都不要想...所有的闸门注定全军覆没。所以我们不得不换个正规点的地方办公。

When we launch the store, we made a very early mistake. It’s one of my favorite software bugs all the time. We found that customers can order an negative quantity of books. And we would credit their credit card with the price I assume wait around for them to ship us the books.
网店刚上线我们就出糗了。这是我爱念叨的笑话了。我们发现书籍的订购量居然可以为负数。这意味着我们要往顾客账上打款,等着他们给我寄书过来。

We fixed that one. Er, it’s fixed. And we made bunch of other mistakes over the time. We learned a lot. My whole body’s covered in scar tissue.
当然后来这个问题解决了。那段时间我们还走过很多弯路,也获得了很多宝贵的经验,可谓历经磨难。

We initially program the bell to ring, every time we got the order. And I am very pleased to say within the first 30 days doing business, that bell got annoying.Er, so we had to turned it off.
刚开始,我们安了个响铃装置,一旦收到订单铃就会响。让我很有成就感的是开张不到30天铃声就开始响个不停了。没办法,我们不得不关掉它。

It was a great moment when we were examining every order that would come into Amazon. And it’s always a family member place in the order. In the first order we got from stranger I remembered, you know, half dozen of (blah,blah,blah…) we gathered around after the bell ring, and looking at the order we were like -is that your Mom? -That’s not my Mom. Er, and that’s a begin.
核对亚马逊订单的时候我们最开心,可一开始全是自家亲戚来捧场。我记得 我们收到第一份来自陌生人的订单时你可以想象一下(买了什么商品呢? 你猜= =+),铃一响 我们全围了过来,盯着订单,你问我,我问你...-是你妈妈下的订单?-不是我妈!嗯 亚马逊算是正式开张了。

A lot happened in the last 15 years. Instead we made lots of mistakes, we learned some things. Er, I wanna tell you everything I know.
这15年期间发生了许多事情。我们犯了很多错误,也学到了很多。我愿意与大家分享我的所有经验。

I can guarantee that everything I know it’s a very short list. This wouldn’t take long. It’s complete too.
我列了个清单,但是放心,我不是话痨。清单很短但内容全面。

Alright, well the first thing I know is you need to obsess over customers. I can tell you we have been doing this from the very beginning. It’s the only reason that exists today in any form. We’ve always put customers first. When given the choice, obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, we always obsess over customers. We pay attention to what our competitors do, but it’s not where we put our energy, it’s not where we get our motivation from, we really like to start with customers and work backwards. And again, that is the Key thing that I know that covers lots of mistakes if you truly obsessed over customers. It will cover a lot of areas.
开始吧,第一条,一切要以客户为中心。我们从一开始就是这么做的,这亚马逊能够走到今天的原因,客户永远都是上帝。要问我谁更重要,竞争对手?还是客户?我们的选择永远都是客户。当然竞争者的动态我们也必须掌握。但是他们不是我们最关心的,更不是我们动力的来源,一切源自顾客,回馈客户。再强调一次,以客户为中心会少走很多弯路。

En, that second thing I know, is invent. It’s really important to invent. Er, anytime we have problems, we never accept either or thinking. We try to figure out a solution that gets both things. And that often requires invention, but you can invent a way out of any box, if you believe you can. And what we talk about is inventing on behalf of customers. It’s not customers’ job to invent for themselves. Er, you need to listen to customers, it’s critical. If you don’t listen to customers you will go astray. But they won’t tell you everything, and so you need to invent on their behalf. And that focus on invention has served us well. Some of the recent things, en, even Kindle, Kindle not just Kindle, but Ec2, the latest computer cloud, These are things we would never got until we did have an invent culture. But also those are kind of large-grain things, there are small things too.
第二条,创新。创新真的很重要。每次遇到问题我们都设法寻找全新的解决办法。希望鱼和熊掌可以兼得,因此我们需要创造力。只要你愿意,你可以天马行空、毫无束缚地创新。这里创新是指为客户创新,而不是让客户来创新。当然你需要倾听客户的意见,这点很重要。不了解客户的意见很可能误入歧途。但这还远远不够,你需要替他们去创新。鼓励创新让我们尝到了甜头。最近的一些产品,比如说Kindle电纸书,不仅是Kindle,还有EC2 Elastic Compute Cloud 亚马逊弹性计算云,如果缺少创新的氛围我们将一无所获。当然,创新不单单指大型项目,很多细节上也有创新的空间。

And then, think long term. This is really critical. Any company that wants to focus on customers, put customers first; Any company that wants to invent on behalf of customers has to be willing to think long term. It’s actually much rare than you might think. I find most of the initiatives we undertake may take five to seven years,
en, before they pay any dividends for the company. They may start paying dividends for the customers right away, they often take a long time to pin out for the shareholder in the company. So that ability to think sort of five years and seven years time frames really is very very useful, er, for us, and is definitely one of the things that I know. It requires by the way, and allows a willness to be misunderstood if you think long term. Many of the inventions that we undertake may be you just drop it anyway may not be understood in the early endings. And it’s often very important for us to think long term, so we can tolerate being misunderstood. We even been called , , en, many different things, many of them not appropriate for video.
第三条,长期规划。这点很重要,任何一个把客户视为上帝的公司,任何一个为客户创新的公司都必须把眼光要放长远些。很少有人做得到这点,我们投资的公司一般需要5到7年才能实现盈利。可能公司一开始就能给客户提供价值,却要等很长时间才有钱给股东们分红。因此做好长期的战略规划尤为重要。这绝对是经验之谈,也许这种做法不被理解,但你要排除万难坚持下去。在创新的过程中很多人因为不被理解而选择了半途而废,由此可见长期规划是何等重要。只有这样 我们才有可能面对质疑依旧不改初衷。曾经我们甚至还被戏称为Amazon.Toast 或是。各种花名,有些还少儿不宜。

If we think we are right, then we continue. If we think we are wrong, if we criticise about something we think we were wrong, we change it, we fix it.So, it’s really important to really think about these things, and never to buckle to sort of kind of stand kinds of pressures that come along that really force short term thinking. And it’s huge competitive advantage to be able to think long term, and you could serve customers much better.
如果我们认为自己是对的就会义无反顾、勇往直前;如果我们觉得自己错了也会积极改正,绝不抵赖。好好想想吧,在面对各方压力和误解时也不要轻易妥协,它们只会让你得近视眼。做好长期规划无疑能让你得心应手、如虎添翼,也能让你更好地为客户服务。

Alright, en, that’s all that I know, really.
好了,我快讲完了。

I know one more thing that I will save it for the end.En, but..I want…you know… this is a very exciting day.
还有一点想与各位分享一下。(各种激动= =+)

Zappos is a company that I have long admired. Er, for the very important reason, Zappos has customer obsession, Er, which is so easy for me to admire. It is the starting point for Zappos. It is the place where Zappos begins and ends. And that is a very key factor for me that I am kind of …you know… I get a weak knee when I see a customer-obsessing company. Er,and Zappos, certainly is that. Er, Zappos also has a totally unique culture. It’s unique. I’ve seen lots of companies. And I’ve never seen a company with culture like Zappos'. And I think that kind of unique culture is a very significant asset, En, and I’m super excited about that, You know, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with Fred, Alfred and Tony. And I have a good feeling for how important that culture is to the Zappos, the Zappos brand, Zappos customers, Zappos employees.
我一直以来都很崇拜Zappos公司,因为Zappos正是我所说的那种以客户为中心的公司。这是Zappos的立足之本,是Zappos的护身符。我对这样的公司毫无免疫力。只要看到以客户为中心的公司时我就佩服得五体投地。Zappos无疑就是这样的公司。Zappos还拥有自己独特的企业文化非常独特。公司我见多了,Zappos这样的企业文化我还是第一次见。这种文化是它最大的财富,对于这点我很佩服。我和Fred Alfred以及Tony交流过多次。我能感受到这种文化的对Zappos重要性,对Zappos品牌、消费者、员工的重要性。

And that culture in Zappos’ brand are huge assets that I value very much. And I want to see these things continue. And you are in such great hands with Fred Alfred and Tony. That’s a really big deal. Er, I’ve seen lots of leaders from the companies too, And I haven’t seen people better than those three. There’s a lot of growth ahead of us with Zappos. This really is the beginning. I am just totally excited about what can be accomplished over time. My believe is, we haven’t seen anything yet as much of Zappos has accomplished already, and it’s a lot. With that unique culture, and that great Zappos brand, and those terrific leaders, I know, that is just the very beginning.
我认为Zappo品牌的文化是无价之宝,我希望看到这种文化被不断地传承下去。Fred Alfred Tony你们之间的合作如此默契,真的很棒。我认识的老板很多,没有谁像你们这般出色。现在刚开了个头而已,Zappos的未来将不可估量,我很期待你们今后的发展。我相信迄今为止Zappos才刚刚露出冰山一角,潜力无穷,拥有如此独特的企业文化。如此强大的品牌,如此有优秀的领导者,我相信Zappos的前途一片光明 。

And that brings me to the final thing I know, it’s always Day 1. There’s always more inventions in the future. Always more customer innovation, new ways to obsess over customers. I am super excited about Zappos, thank you.
最后一条,每一天都是新的开始。未来还会有更多的产品,更多的创新发明,围绕着客户需求而不断地推陈出新。Zappos我看好你,谢谢。

@七印部落《启示录:打造用户喜爱的产品》译者>>