双语新闻：谷歌里的“老家伙”
在位于加州山景城的谷歌(Google)总部，有一根4英尺长的巨型大头针矗立在埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)的办公室门外。Googleplex
大楼里分布着很多奇怪的物品，用来激发和鼓励员工——从乐高(Lego)拼装玩具，到即兴搭建的菜园子，不一而足。而这个大头针雕塑就是其中之一。不过，这个超大号的大头钉指向这位首席执行官的大门还是挺合适的。它表明这里有这样一个人：他定下了谷歌有意而为的杂乱公司文化，并推动谷歌朝着组织全球信息的目标前进。
施密特最近出席“谷歌欧洲搜索流行榜”(Google Zeitgeist
Europe)活动时表示，“相对于我们拥有的全部信息而言”，谷歌仍然“处在非常初期的阶段”，但谷歌的目标是，让“用户能够问这样的问题，比如‘我明天做什么?'、‘我该做什么工作?'”
要达到这样的目标，施密特就得完成棘手的任务，避开竞争对手的对抗，并防止引起用户对隐私问题的担忧。
在迈克尔•莫里茨(Michael Moritz)看来，施密特能做到这一点。莫里茨是红杉资本(Sequoia
Capital)的一位风险资本家，也曾是谷歌的董事会成员。“对谷歌众多彼此不同的支持者来说，他显然是一个非常出色的大使。他举止沉着冷静、镇定自若，并不特别需要引人注目，但实际上，他一直是支撑谷歌成功的一块基石。”
尽管他身担重任，却一直是谷歌三巨头中名气最小的一位：跟谢尔盖•布林(Sergey Brin)和拉里•佩奇(Larry
Page)一比，他就是个老人(现年52岁)。那两位更富盛名的年轻创始人现在才30多岁。
不过，《搜索》(The Search)一书的作者约翰•巴特利(John
Battelle)认为，他正在成为该公司的形象代表。“他是三巨头之中唯一具有高管经验的人，知道如何处理一家总在万众瞩目之下的公司所面临的各种压力。这种经验可能连拉里和谢尔盖也想要拥有。”《搜索》是一本描述谷歌崛起的权威性著作。
施密特散发出一种冷静、凡事都要弄清楚的美国式首席执行官风格。不管是面对谷歌商业战略的问题，还是关于互联网将如何塑造人类行为的这种超前的、社会学方面的问题，他都像一位条理清晰、善于表达的思想家。例如，今年3月在华盛顿，他向一群听众提出了这样的推测：“如果MySpace有了10亿人，它就会有自己的政府吗?”
他坦承自己是个政治迷，他敏锐地察觉到了YouTube(谷歌去年收购了该视频网站)迫使公司和政治家提高透明度的能力——在2006年的美国中期选举中，弗吉尼亚州共和党参议员乔治•阿伦(George
Allen)竞选失利，就是因为之前有一段种族主义侮辱性言谈的视频贴到了YouTube上。提到施密特本人的政治立场，他会比较敏感。他给民主党人提供了巨额捐赠，其中包括2004年向民主党国会竞选委员会(Democratic
Congressional Campaign
Committee)捐款2.5万美元，但他坚决否认这“对一个价值1500亿美元的公司的行为有什么影响”。2006年，他没有进行捐赠。
加州大学伯克利分校(Berkeley)的商业教授兼谷歌顾问哈尔•瓦里安(Hal
Varian)指出，施密特的这种政治兴趣，源于他在华盛顿附近长大以及他父亲是位经济学家的客观事实。“他是美国阿斯本研究所(Aspen
Institute)和世界经济论坛(World Economic Forum)的热心参与者。”
他1955年生于哥伦比亚特区华盛顿，在弗吉尼亚州长大。十几岁的时候，他就依靠修剪草坪挣零用钱，还喜欢造家具。1970年，他父亲租了一台电脑，他以超前的智力改写了电脑的软件。由于在普林斯顿(Princeton)获得了一个电子工程学位，后来又获得了计算机科学方面的硕士学位，让他得到了在帕罗奥多市施乐研究中心(Xerox
research centre)工作的机会。他曾加入太阳微系统(Sun
Microsystems)公司，领导这个公司的Java软件开发，并在1994年成为了这家公司的首席技术官。他离开这家公司，成了网络公司
Novell的首席执行官。之后，他于2001年3月加入谷歌，担任董事长。
“他第一次来到谷歌的时候就说，他会提供成人式的监管，我认为，到现在这话也还是有些道理。”瓦里安指出：“大家围着桌子讨论可能会贡献很多看法，但总得有人来形成一致意见。”
施密特来的时候，布林和佩奇只有27岁，距离他们在斯坦福宿舍里创建谷歌已有五年时间。他们的关键词广告(AdWords)还处于婴儿期(这种服务会在搜索结果后面显示相关的广告)。施密特引入了一个70-20-10规则：雇员在核心业务上花70%的时间，在相关项目上花20%的时间，在新项目上花10%的时间。瓦里安指出：“拉里和谢尔盖会进行他们确实非常感兴趣、非常钟爱的项目，但是埃里克会帮助他们集中注意力。”
施密特还在2004年帮助谷歌顺利完成其艰难的首次公开发行(IPO)。莫里茨表示，这得益于他的“多语言技能”，他能够以“极大的魅力和耐心”与工程师、销售人员和金融分析师有效沟通。
标准普尔(Standard & Poor's)股票分析师斯科特•凯斯勒(Scott
Kessler)表示：“华尔街许多分析师都不看好此次IPO。”但由于施密特的努力，让这家被人们视为“刻意与其它公司保持不同、打破陈规的新兴公司”具有了成熟感。
随着收入和利润强劲增长，谷歌的股价从85美元一路飙升至500美元。《福布斯》(Forbes)
2007年富豪榜显示，施密特以62亿美元的净资产排名第117位。佩奇和布林共同排在第26位。
前华尔街分析师亨利•布洛杰特(Henry
Blodget)表示：“很难确定过去几年来谷歌出色的表现，多大程度上是埃里克管理技能的结果，多大程度是他们当初灵机一动的结果——这个灵机一动，开发出了历史上最为成功的产品之一。”
不过，尽管施密特对谷歌带来的新透明性推崇备至，但他一直对自己的私生活保护有加，除了自己爱好飞行以外，他很少透露其私生活的细节;他每周会驾驶一次私人喷气机前往东海岸或欧洲。
尽管他已在华尔街站住了脚，但施密特如今必须在美国商界发挥他的魅力。谷歌正开始进军图书出版、广播和电视等传统领域。收购YouTube导致谷歌与维亚康姆(Viacom)对簿公堂，因为谷歌越来越强的实力让维亚康姆担心不已。
谷歌清楚遭遇对抗情绪的风险。不过，巴特利警告称：“‘不要担心、相信我们'这句话的说服力正在减弱，而且传媒业不是一个值得信任的行业。谷歌需要应付许多事情，单凭一人之力不可能完成那项任务。随着压力的加大，我们可能看到他会撤出某些领域。”
A 4ft-long giant pin stands outside the office of Eric Schmidt at Google's
Mountain View headquarters in California.
The sculpture is one of several odd objects spread around the Googleplex to
intrigue and inspire staff, from Lego sets to impromptu vegetable patches. But
it is apt that the oversized tack points at the chief executive's door. It shows
the location of the man who has to pin down Google's intentionally chaotic
corporate culture and drive it towards its goal of organising all the world's
information.
Mr Schmidt told the Google Zeitgeist Europe event this week that Google was
still “very early in the total information we have” but the aim was to enable
“users to be able to ask questions such as: ‘What shall I do tomorrow?' and
‘What job shall I take?'”
Achieving that goal will require Mr Schmidt to navigate the delicate task
of avoiding the antagonism of rivals and sparking privacy fears from its
users.
For Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital and former
Google board member, Mr Schmidt can do that. “He is clearly a spectacular
ambassador to many different constituencies for Google. He has a calm and
unflappable demeanour, he has no particular need for the limelight, but the fact
is he has been a keystone that underlies the success of Google.”
Despite his role he remains the least famous of the Google triumvirate: the
greybeard (he is now 52) to Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the more exuberant
youthful founders, now in their 30s.
Yet he is becoming the public face of the company, according to John
Battelle, author of The Search, a definitive account of Google's rise. “He is
the only one who has the executive experience to deal with the pressures of
leading a company that is constantly in the spotlight and it is probably
something that Larry and Sergey want as well.”
Mr Schmidt exudes a sober, buttoned-down, Brooks Brothers, executive style.
He comes over as a clear, articulate thinker, as engaged by questions about
Google's business strategy as futuristic, sociological questions of how the
internet will shape human behaviour. He speculated to an audience in Washington
in March, for example, “If MySpace gets a billion people does it get its own
government?”
He is a self-confessed political junkie, keenly aware of the power of
YouTube, the video site Google bought last year, to force transparency on
companies and politicians – as in the 2006 mid-term elections, when George
Allen, the Republican senator for Virginia, lost his race after a video with a
racist insult was posted on the site. When it comes to his own politics, Mr
Schmidt is more sensitive. He has made substantial donations to Democrats,
including $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2004,
but strongly denies this would “bias the activities of a $150bn corporation”. In
2006 he made no contributions.
That policy interest, says Hal Varian, a business professor at Berkeley and
Google adviser, stems from growing up around Washington and his father being an
economist. “He is an avid participant in the Aspen Institute and the World
Economic Forum.”
He was born in Washington, DC in 1955 and grew up in Virginia. He mowed
lawns in his teens for pocket money and liked to build furniture. In 1970, his
father rented a computer and he precociously rewrote its software. A degree in
electrical engineering at Princeton and masters in computer science followed,
leading to a job at the Xerox research centre in Palo Alto. He joined Sun
Microsystems and led development of its Java software and became its chief
technology officer in 1994. He left to become chief executive of Novell, the
networking company, before he joined Google as its chairman in March 2001.
“When he first came to Google, he said he was providing the adult
supervision, and I think there is still some truth to that,” says Mr Varian.
“There can be a lot of contributions around the table, but somebody has to forge
that consensus.”
Mr Brin and Mr Page were 27 when Mr Schmidt arrived, five years after they
founded Google in their Stanford dorms. Their AdWords, which displayed relevant
advertisements next to search results, was in its infancy. Mr Schmidt introduced
a 70-20-10 rule. Employees spend 70 per cent of their time on core business, 20
per cent on related projects and 10 per cent on new ones. “Larry and Sergey will
have a pet project they get really excited about, but Eric helps keep them
focused,” says Mr Varian.
It was also Mr Schmidt who saw Google through its rocky initial public
offering in 2004. This played on his “multilingual skills”, says Mr Moritz,
where he can communicate effectively with engineers, sales people and financial
analysts “with great charm and patience”.
“There was a lot of negativity on Wall Street around the IPO,” says Scott
Kessler, a Standard & Poor's equity analyst, but Mr Schmidt lent maturity to
a company seen as “an iconoclastic upstart that was intentionally different from
other companies”.
Google's shares have soared from $85 towards $500 amid strong revenues and
profits. According to the 2007 Forbes list of richest billionaires, Mr Schmidt
now ranks 117th, with a net worth of $6.2bn. Mr Page and Mr Brin rank joint
26th.
“It is hard to say how much of Google's amazing performance over the past
few years is the result of Eric's management skills compared to the stroke of
genius when they developed what has been one of the most successful products in
history,” says Henry Blodget, the former Wall Street analyst.
Yet while Mr Schmidt hails the birth of a new transparency afforded by
Google, he has been protective of his personal life, giving away scant details
other than that his hobby is flying; he flies a private jet once a week to the
east coast or to Europe.
For all his ease on Wall Street, Mr Schmidt must now use his charms on
corporate America. Google is starting to invade the traditional terrain of book
publishing, radio and television. The acquisition of YouTube led to a lawsuit
with Viacom, concerned about its growing power.
Google is aware of the dangers of a backlash. Yet Mr Battelle warns: “The
‘don't worry about it, trust us' line is wearing thin and the media industry is
not one to be trusting in the first place. Google has so many things in play and
one man alone cannot execute on that agenda. As the pressure grows, we may see
him backing off in some areas.”
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