Facebook and the conglomerate curse

Facebook和大企业诅咒

Beset bybloating andegomania,big tech would benefit from active boards and investors

受臃肿和自大的困扰，大科技公司将从积极的董事会和投资者中受益。

In 1997, in his first letter to shareholders, Jeff

Bezos, Amazon’s founder, wrote that it was still “Day 1” for his firm. Day 2,

he later explained, would mean stasis, followed by irrelevance. His rousing call to avoid complacency seems apt today. Silicon Valley’s five big tech

giants, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, have long been the bedrock of America’s

stockmarket and economy, miraculously combining reliable growth and

profitability. But after a torrid third quarter their market capitalisations have nowcollectively dropped by 37% so far this year. About $3.7trn of value hasevaporated.

1997年，亚马逊的创始人杰夫-贝索斯在他给股东的第一封信中写道，对他的公司来说，这仍然是 "第一天"。他后来解释说，第2天将意味着停滞不前，然后是毫无意义。他呼吁人们不要自满，这一振奋人心的呼吁在今天看来是恰当的。硅谷的五大科技巨头Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、Meta和微软，长期以来一直是美国股市和经济的基石，奇迹般地结合了可靠的增长和盈利能力。但是，在经历了激烈的第三季度之后，他们的市值今年迄今为止已经集体下降了37%。大约37万亿美元的价值蒸发了。

The law of large numbers made it inevitable that the tech

giants would mature. Sales growth in the last quarter slowed to 9%—barely above inflation.As they have grown bigger, they have becometied to the

economic cycle; a fact which the digital surge during the pandemiconly temporarilymasked. Penetration

rates for smartphones, digital advertising and streaming are plateauing. With slowing

core businesses, the giants are venturing onto each other’s turf, increasing competition.

大数定律使得科技巨头不可避免地走向成熟。上个季度的销售增长放缓至9%——勉强高于通货膨胀率。随着规模的扩大，它们已经与经济周期绑定在一起；疫情期间的数字激增只是暂时掩盖了这一事实。智能手机、数字广告和流媒体的渗透率趋于稳定。随着核心业务的放缓，巨头们纷纷冒险进入对方的地盘，这加剧了竞争。

Meanwhile, they are threatened by “conglomeritis”. The symptoms of this diseaseare bloating and egomania. Consider the recentorgy of spending on hiring, experimental

ventures, vanity projects and building data centres. In March the five firms’

combined annual expenses reached $1trn for the first time, and the value of the

physical plant of these supposedly asset-light businesses has reached $600bn, over triple the level

of five years ago. Swollen costs and

balance-sheets mean returns on capital have fallen from over 60% five years ago

to 26%. Three of the five do not deign topay dividends.

同时，他们受到了 "大企业病"的威胁。这种疾病的症状是臃肿和自大狂。想想最近在招聘、试验性投资、面子工程和建设数据中心方面的开支狂欢吧。3月，这五家公司的年度支出总额首次达到1万亿美元，而这些所谓轻资产企业的实体工厂的价值已经达到6000亿美元，是五年前的三倍多。膨胀的成本和资产负债表意味着资本回报率已从五年前的超过60%降至26%。这五家公司中有三家不屑于分红。

It is hardly unprecedented for successful companies to

lose their focus, or to fail to control costs. In the 1980s RJR Nabisco’s

executives splurged on jets and golf

before being ousted by private equity’s barbarians. General Electric sprawled and had to be

partially bailed out during the financial

crisis of 2008-09. The best safeguards against such indiscipline are active boards and

investors. When successful managers start to believe that they always know

best, it is the board’s job to rein them in.

成功的公司失去重心，或无法控制成本，这并非没有先例。20世纪80年代，纳贝斯克的高管们在私人飞机和高尔夫上挥霍无度，直到被私人股本的野蛮人赶下台。通用电气公司大肆扩张，后来在2008-09年的金融危机中不得不接受部分纾困。防止这种违纪行为的最佳保障是积极的董事会和投资者。当成功的经理人开始感觉自己总是最懂的时候，董事会就有责任约束他们。

But here, the tech firms’ governance rules add a twist.

Often they entrust disproportionate power to bosses and founders, some of whom

enjoy special voting rights that give them near-absolute control. Such bosses

often cultivate an image as visionaries, whose daring bets horrify myopic outsiders but end

up lucratively transforming theworld.

但在这一点上，科技公司的治理规则增加了一个转折。它们经常把不成比例的权力交给老板和创始人，其中一些人享有特殊的投票权，这使他们拥有近乎绝对的控制权。这样的老板通常会打造一种远见卓识的形象，他们大胆的赌注让目光短浅的局外人感到恐惧，但最终却以有利可图的方式改变了世界。

At the worst end of the spectrum is Meta, the owner of

Facebook, run increasingly erratically by Mark Zuckerberg. Its value has dropped by

74% this year. Its core business is wobbly, attracting too much toxicity, too few young

people and too little advertising. It has become clear that Mr Zuckerberg is

betting the firm on the metaverse, an attempt to diversify away from social

media, on which he plans to lavish 20 times what Apple spent to build the first iPhone.

Because dual share classes give him 54% of voting rights, Mr Zuckerberg has

been able to ignore the pleas of outside investors. Alphabet, the owner of Google, has

performed better but is flabby. Its founders retain 51% of its voting rights, allowingthem to overrule the wishes of other owners.

最糟糕的是Facebook的母公司Meta，由马克·扎克伯格管理得越来越不稳定。今年它的市值已经下跌了74%。它的核心业务不稳定，吸引的有毒物质太多，年轻人太少，广告太少。很明显，扎克伯格将公司的赌注押在了元宇宙上，这是一种从社交媒体转向多元化的尝试，他计划在元宇宙上投入20倍于苹果打造第一代iPhone的资金。由于双重股权结构赋予他54%的投票权，扎克伯格可以无视外部投资者的呼吁。谷歌的母公司Alphabet得表现要好一些，但也有些疲软。该公司创始人保留51%的投票权，允许他们否决其他股东的意愿。

In the middle is Amazon, which has over-invested in

e-commerce and expanded too far, crushing its cashflow and returns. Mr Bezos,

who remains executive chairman, owns less than 15% of the firm’s voting rights,

so he has to be at least somewhat responsive to investors. Apple and Microsoft

are at the benign end of the spectrum. Both firms are

older, no longer have founders with controlling stakes and operate on the

principle of one share, one vote. Both listen to outsiders. In 2013 Tim Cook,

Apple’s boss, sat down for dinner with Carl Icahn, a fiery investor, and took on board his request toreturn money to shareholders through buybacks. In 2014 Microsoft invited anactivist investor, Mason Morfit, onto its board. The two firms have performedthe best of the big five this year.

处于中间位置的是亚马逊，它在电子商务领域过度投资，扩张过快，现金流和回报都受到挤压。贝索斯仍然是公司的执行主席，但他拥有公司不到15%的投票权，因此他至少要对投资者有所回应。苹果和微软属于良性的一端。这两家公司的历史都比较悠久，创始人不再持有控股权，并遵循一股一票的原则运作。两者都听取外部人士的意见。2013年，苹果公司老板蒂姆•库克与狂热的投资者卡尔•伊坎共进晚餐，并接受了伊坎通过股票回购向股东返还资金的要求。2014年，微软邀请一位积极的投资者梅森·莫菲特(Mason Morfit)加入董事会。这两家公司是今年五大公司中表现最好的。

When you have disrupted industries and created hundreds

of billions of dollars of wealth it is hard to accept financial constraints and

outside scrutiny. Nonetheless,many in big tech’s elite need to show more humility and better performance.Otherwise Day 3 might bring an escalating confrontation between them andinvestors over who controls the most successful firms of the past twodecades.

当你颠覆了行业并创造了数千亿美元的财富时，你很难接受财务约束和外部监督。尽管如此，大科技公司的许多精英们需要表现出更多的谦逊和更好的业绩。否则，在过去20年来最成功的公司该谁说了算这件事上，未来他们和投资者之间的对抗会不断升级。