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Investors think Amazon is going to grow faster, longer and bigger than almost any firm in history. Can they be right?

投资者相信亚马逊将比历史上几乎所有公司发展速度更快，持续时间更长，变得规模更大。他们的想法可能成真吗？

Every chief executive hopes to lead his company to success. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, wants something more epic. A prominent wall in the company’s headquarters in Seattle is covered with narratives from historic explorations: excerpts from “The Odyssey”; notes from the journey of Lewis and Clark as they ventured across America; the transcript of the first moon-walkers talking to mission control. At the end, ones and zeroes spell out how far the company has got: “Day One”.

每位首席执行官都希望带领公司取得成功。而亚马逊老板杰夫·贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）则希望取得更具史诗般的成功。公司在西雅图的总部有一面墙壁异常醒目，写满了历史上有名的探险故事：“奥德赛”节选; 刘易斯和克拉克横跨美国的探险笔记; 第一位月球漫步者与控制中心的交谈记录。在最后，“1”和“0”的数字清清明白地表明这家公司走了多远：“第一天”。

TheLewis and Clark Expeditionfrom May 1804 to September 1806, also known as theCorps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of theUnited States. It began nearSt. Louis, made its way westward, and passed through thecontinental divideto reach the Pacific coast. It comprised a selected group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of CaptainMeriwether Lewisand his close friend, Second LieutenantWilliam Clark.--- from Wikipedia

“DAY1”是贝索斯的理念，指不管公司发展到什么程度，不管取得了多少成就，仍然要把每天当作第一天，用心做好当下。贝索斯的办公室位于DAY1 NORTH。

The phrase, reflecting Mr Bezos’s belief that Amazon’s journey has just begun—and begins again each day—is the company’s mantra. At any other firm such grandiosity would invite derision. At Amazon,it makes investors drool and rivals quake.

这句话表达了贝索斯的理念，即亚马逊的旅程才刚刚开始，并且每天都是重新开始 - 这是公司的至理名言。任何其他公司如果这么自大都会引来冷嘲热讽。亚马逊则不然，它让投资者垂涎三尺又让对手胆战心寒。

Amazon, which went public 20 years ago, is now the world’s fifth-largest company by value, worth over $400bn. Its e-commerce site accounts for about 5% of retail spending in America, roughly half the share of Walmart, the biggest firm in the sector. It is the biggest online retailer in America, and accounts for over half of all new spending. Its cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is larger in terms of basic computing services than the three closest competing cloud offerings combined.

二十年前上市的亚马逊公司以市值论如今已位居世界第五，估值超过4000亿美元。其电商网站的零售额约占美国的5％，差不多是行业老大沃尔玛的一半。它是美国最大的线上零售商，攫取了所有新支出的一半还多。在基础计算服务方面，其云计算业务的规模-亚马逊网络服务（AWS）比最有竞争力的三个云产品的总和还要大。

Since the start of 2015 Amazon’s share price has risen by 173%, seven times the growth of the preceding two years. Operating profits have expanded, too, but at $4.2bn remain relatively small—which is how shareholders like it. Amazon has always emphasised the value of long-term growth (presumably with some bigger profits down the line), and investors have come to accept this. In February, when Amazon reported higher profits but lower revenue than expected, its share price temporarily dipped. Shareholders worried it might not be set to grow as quickly as they had hoped.

自2015年年初以来，亚马逊的股价上涨了173％，是之前两年的7倍多。营业利润也在扩大，虽然42亿美元的水平仍不算多 - 这就是股东们喜欢它的原因。亚马逊一直强调长期增长的价值（很可能最终带来更好的利润），投资者对此欣然接受。亚马逊2月报表录得较高的利润，而收入却低于预期，其股价随之暂时下滑。因为股东们担心，公司可能不再像预期那样快速成长。

Morgan Stanley, a bank, expects Amazon’s sales to rise by a compound average of 16% each year from 2016 through to 2025: that is higher than its estimates for Google or Facebook. That is a slower pace than Amazon managed over the past decade; but the bigger a company is, the harder it is to keep growing. Amazon’s annual sales of $136bn are almost 50% more those of Alphabet, Google’s parent, and over four times Facebook’s. Credit Suisse, another bank, calculates that only ten firms with sales of more than $50bn have managed to grow by an average of 15% or more for ten years straight since 1950; no company with sales of more than $100bn has done so. If Amazon were to pull it off, it would be the most aggressive expansion of a giant company in the history of modern business.

摩根士丹利银行（Morgan Stanley）预计，从2016年至2025年，亚马逊的销售额将以每年16％的复合增长率增长，高于其对Google或Facebook的预测。相比亚马逊过去十年的进步速度，未来它将放缓脚步; 公司规模越大，持续增长就越难。亚马逊的年销售额达到了1360亿美元，超过谷歌母公司,Alphabet几乎50%，也是Facebook公司的四倍多。另一家银行-瑞士信贷计算后得出结论，1950年至今，销售额超过500亿美元的公司中只有十家取得了持续十年，平均15％以上的增长。销售额超过1000亿美元的公司则没有一家达到过这个水平。如果亚马逊努力后能达成这个目标，这将是现代企业历史上大公司最有进取心的扩张。

That raises two questions. The first is how Amazon could possibly achieve this. The second is which industries it might upend in the process.

这引出了两个问题。首先是亚马逊如何实现这一目标？其次是这个过程中它将颠覆哪些行业？

Amazon’s growth to date has come from following a rather vague mission—becoming “Earth’s most customer-centric company”—with massive investment that takes a long view when it comes to attracting,keeping and making more money from those customers. Year after year, an expanding collection of services sweeps up more customers and creates more cash. The company produced $16bn in cashflow before investment last year, more than four times the level five years earlier. That is thanks to its scale, says Heath Terry of Goldman Sachs, the investments it chooses and its skill at executing them.

亚马逊迄今为止的增长始于追寻一个相当模糊的使命-成为“全球最大的客户至上公司” ，以及大规模投资。在吸引和留住客户以及从客户赚取更多利润的同时，其投资的目光也相当长远。年复一年，其服务范围不断扩大，吸引了更多的客户，产生了更多的现金流。该公司去年创造了160亿美元的投资前现金，是五年前的四倍多。高盛的希思特里归因于它的规模，它选择的投资方向以及实施这些投资的技能。

The virtuous buzzsaw

虚拟圆锯

The money it has spent on its e-commerce system has set new standards for service and price. Its site and the formidable logistics behind it are an alternative to queues and trekking from shop to shop. Little wonder that, according to a recent Harris poll, Americans hold Amazon in higher esteem than any other company.

亚马逊在电子商务系统上的支出为服务和定价设定了新标杆。它的网站和隐身其后的强大物流能力为商店购物的排队长龙和奔波之苦提供了新选择。难怪最近一次哈里斯调查显示，所有公司中，美国人更信任亚马逊。

Having first taught people that it was safe to shop on computer screens, Amazon went on to offer them new ways of buying stuff. The Kindle is not just an easy way of reading e-books; it is a very convenient way of purchasing them. Alexa, a virtual assistant linked to the company’s Echo speaker, makes many sorts of shopping all but frictionless—a consumer can say she needs shampoo and that shampoo will arrive on her doorstep.

亚马逊首先教会了人们在电脑屏幕上购物是安全的，接着为他们提供了更多购物新方式。 Kindle不仅仅是阅读电子书的简单方法;它还是一种非常方便的购书途径。 Alexa是与公司Echo扬声器相连的虚拟助手，它可以进行各种无障碍购物-消费者只要说出她“需要洗发水”，洗发水就会送达家中。

The company has also found new things to sell: most notably, computing power delivered as a service. The ability to get the number-crunching, data-storage and development tools they need without capital expenditure has been a blessing for startups and larger customers alike. Netflix, a streaming-video company, uses AWS to serve 94m subscribers; America’s Central Intelligence Agency uses a version customised to its security needs. (The Economist’s website is also hosted by AWS.)

该公司还发现了可供销售的新事物：最特别的是计算能力竟然可作为一项服务销售给客户。客户可以获得数据解读，数据存储和开发工具的能力而无需资本支出，这对创业公司和大客户来说同样都是福音。 Netflix是一家流媒体视频公司，它使用AWS为其9，400万用户提供服务;美国中央情报局使用其针对安全需求定制的版本。 （经济学人网站的主机也在AWS）