亚马逊创始人贝索斯1997年致股东信（中英对照）原文译者戴汨，愉悦资本创始合伙人（midai@joycapital.com.cn, 微信 midai2008），经谱写网编辑。愉悦资本成立于 2015年，由原君联资本 TMT 团队刘二海、戴汨、李潇联合创办，是一家关注 TMT 的风险投资基金。
To our shareholders:
致股东：
Amazon.com passed many milestones in 1997: by year-end, we had served more than 1.5 million customers, yielding 838% revenue growth to $147.8 million, and extended our market leadership despite aggressive competitive entry.
1997年，亚马逊经历了多个里程碑：到今年年底，我们已经服务超过150万客户，收入增长838％到1.478亿美元，并且在竞争激烈的情况下扩大了市场领导地位。
But this is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets.
但是，这才是互联网的第一天，也才是亚马逊的第一天，如果我们执行好的话。今天，电子商务为客户节省了金钱和宝贵的时间。明天，通过个性化，电子商务将加速发现过程本身。 亚马逊使用互联网来为客户创造真正的价值，并通过这样做，希望在一个成熟的大市场创造一个持久的企业。
We have a window of opportunity as larger players marshal the resources to pursue the online opportunity and as customers, new to purchasing online, are receptive to forming new relationships. The competitive landscape has continued to evolve at a fast pace. Many large players have moved online with credible offerings and have devoted substantial energy and resources to building awareness, traffic, and sales. Our goal is to move quickly to solidify and extend our current position while we begin to pursue the online commerce opportunities in other areas. We see substantial opportunity in the large markets we are targeting. This strategy is not without risk: it requires serious investment and crisp execution against established franchise leaders.
我们有一个机会窗口，大的玩家在调集资源追逐在线的机会，客户面对在线购买渠道愿意形成新的关系。竞争格局持续快速演变。许多大玩家都在网上开始提供服务，并投入了大量的精力和资源来打造知名度、流量和销售。我们的目标是迅速采取行动，巩固和扩大我们目前的位置，同时我们开始追求其他领域的电子商务机会。我们看到目标市场的巨大机会。这个战略也并非没有风险：它需要巨大投入和清晰的执行来挑战现有的连锁领导者。
It’s All About the Long Term
一切围绕长期价值展开
We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
我们相信，我们成功的一个根本措施将是建立长期的股东价值。股东价值是我们扩展和巩固现有市场领先地位的直接结果。我们的市场领导地位越强，我们的经济模型越强大。市场领导地位可以直接转化为更高的收入、更高的利润、更快的资金速度，以及相应更高的投资回报。
Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand. We have invested and will continue to invest aggressively to expand and leverage our customer base, brand, and infrastructure as we move to establish an enduring franchise.
我们的决策体现了我们的专注。我们首先衡量最能显示我们市场领导地位的各项指标：客户和收入的增长、客户定期重复购买的程度、品牌的力量。为了建立一个长久的企业，我们已经投资，并将继续积极投资来扩大和利用客户群、品牌和基础设施。
Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies. Accordingly, we want to share with you our fundamental management and decision-making approach so that you, our shareholders, may confirm that it is consistent with your investment philosophy:
因为我们放眼长期，我们可以做出和其他公司不一样的选择。因此，我们希望与您分享我们的基础管理和决策方法，使我们的股东确认这是否与你的投资理念是一致的：
We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.
我们将继续不懈地专注于我们的客户：
We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.
我们将继续基于长远市场领导地位的考虑作出投资决策，而不是短期的盈利考虑或短期华尔街的反应。
We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures.
我们将继续通过分析评估我们的项目和投资的有效性，抛弃那些回报差的项目，并加强我们做的最好的领域的投资。我们将继续从成功和失败中学习。
We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.
我们将采取大胆而非胆怯的投资决策，一旦我们看到获得市场领导地位优势的充分可能性。其中一些投资会得到回报，其他一些不会，不管怎样我们会学到宝贵的经验。
When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows.
当被迫在优化我们的 GAAP 准则下财务的表现和最大化未来现金流的现值之间做出选择，我们将选择后者。
We will share our strategic thought processes with you when we make bold choices (to the extent competitive pressures allow), so that you may evaluate for yourselves whether we are making rational long-term leadership investments.
当我们做出大胆的选择，在竞争压力允许的情况下，我们将与您分享我们的战略思维过程，这样你就可以评估我们是否在做理性的目标长期领导地位的投资。
We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture, particularly in a business incurring net losses.
我们将努力把钱花在刀刃并维护我们的精益文化。我们理解不断强化成本意识的重要性，特别是企业还在净亏损。
We will balance our focus on growth with emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management. At this stage, we choose to prioritize growth because we believe that scale is central to achieving the potential of our business model.
我们会在专注增长和强调长期盈利能力和资本管理之间平衡。在这个阶段，我们选择增长，因为我们认为规模对实现我们商业模式的潜力至关重要。
We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees, and continue to weight their compensation to stock options rather than cash. We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner.
我们将继续专注于招聘和留住优秀人才，通过股票期权而非现金补偿他们。我们知道，我们的成功将在很大程度上取决于吸引和留住斗志高昂并目标一致的员工，如此每个人都是事实上的公司主人。
We aren’t so bold as to claim that the above is the “right” investment philosophy, but it’s ours, and we would be remiss if we weren’t clear in the approach we have taken and will continue to take.
我们不能大胆地宣称，以上是“正确” 的投资理念。但它是我们的，如果我们不清楚我们已经采取并将继续采取的方法，我们将是失职。
With this foundation, we would like to turn to a review of our business focus, our progress in 1997, and our outlook for the future.
有了这个基础，我们想谈谈我们的业务重点、我们在1997年的进展以及对未来的展望。
Obsess Over Customers （执着于客户）
From the beginning, our focus has been on offering our customers compelling value. We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to- search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We maintained a dogged focus on improving the shopping experience, and in 1997 substantially enhanced our store. We now offer customers gift certificates, 1-Click(SM) shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. We dramatically lowered prices, further increasing customer value. Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool we have, and we are grateful for the trust our customers have placed in us. Repeat purchases and word of mouth have combined to make Amazon.com the market leader in online bookselling.
从一开始，我们的重点就是为客户提供不可抗拒的价值。我们意识到，网络过去是现在仍然是，全球翘盼。因此，我们开始为客户提供他们根本无法从其他途径获得的东西，图书是一个起步。我们给他们带来了比实体店多得多的选择（我们的商店现在有6个足球场大），并通过有用的、易于搜索和浏览的方式展示它，一年365天每天24小时开业。我们聚焦改善购物体验，1997年有大幅提升。现在，我们为客户提供礼券、一键购物、海量评论和内容以及浏览选项、推荐功能等等。我们大大降低价格，进一步提升客户价值。口碑依然是最强大的客户获取工具。我们感谢客户的信任。重复购买和口碑都结合在一起使 Amazon.com 成为网上图书销售的市场领导者。
By many measures, Amazon.com came a long way in 1997:
1997年， 亚马逊走过了漫长的道路：
Sales grew from $15.7 million in 1996 to $147.8 million — an 838% increase.
销售从1996年的1570万美金1996年增长至1.478亿美金， – 同比增长838％
Cumulative customer accounts grew from 180,000 to 1,510,000 — a 738% increase.
累积的客户从增长18万增长到151万 – 增加了738％。
The percentage of orders from repeat customers grew from over 46% in the fourth quarter of 1996 to over 58% in the same period in 1997.
回头客订单从超过1996年第四季度的46％增长到1997年同期的超过58％
In terms of audience reach, per Media Metrix, our Web site went from a rank of 90th to within the top 20.
受众范围而言，根据Media Metrix， 我们的网站从90名进入前前20名
We established long-term relationships with many important strategic partners, including America Online, Yahoo!, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, @Home, and Prodigy.
我们和许多重要的战略合作伙伴建立了长期合作关系，包括美国在线、雅虎、Excite、网景、GeoCities、AltaVista、@Home和Prodigy。(译者：除了雅虎，19年后，还有谁在？）
Infrastructure （基础设施）
During 1997, we worked hard to expand our business infrastructure to support these greatly increased traffic, sales, and service levels:
在1997年，我们努力扩大我们的业务基础设施，以支持这些大大增加了的流量、销售和服务水平：
Amazon.com’s employee base grew from 158 to 614, and we significantly strengthened our management team.
Amazon.com的员工总数从158增长到614，我们显著加强我们的管理团队
Distribution center capacity grew from 50,000 to 285,000 square feet, including a 70% expansion of our Seattle facilities and the launch of our second distribution center in Delaware in November.
配送中心的容量从5万平方英尺增长到到28.5万，其中包括我们西雅图中心70％的扩张和我们11月在特拉华州的第二个配送中心启动
Inventories rose to over 200,000 titles at year-end, enabling us to improve availability for our customers.
库存截至年底上升到超过20万条目，使我们能够提升可获得性
Our cash and investment balances at year-end were $125 million, thanks to our initial public offering in May 1997 and our $75 million loan, affording us substantial strategic flexibility.
我们1997年5月实现了IPO，年终的现金和投资余额为1.25亿美金，我们有7500万美元的贷款，赋予我们极大的战略灵活性
Our Employees （我们的员工）
The past year’s success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success. It’s not easy to work here (when I interview people I tell them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three”), but we are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com.
过去一年的成功，因为我们拥有一支有才干、聪明而勤奋的工作团队。我为成为这个团队的一员感到自豪。在招聘上设置高门槛一直是并将继续是对Amazon.com的成功最重要的因素。
在这里工作不容易（当我面试人的时候，我告诉他们，“在亚马逊，你需要长时间、勤奋并且聪明工作，少一个都不行”），但是，我们正在努力建立的东西很重要，对我们的客户有价值，未来值得你告诉我们的子孙。这件事情并不容易。我们是令人难以置信的幸运，拥有这样一批敬业的员工，用他们的牺牲和激情打造亚马逊。
Goals for 1998 （1998年的目标）
We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers through Internet commerce and merchandising. Our goal remains to continue to solidify and extend our brand and customer base. This requires sustained investment in systems and infrastructure to support outstanding customer convenience, selection, and service while we grow. We are planning to add music to our product offering, and over time we believe that other products may be prudent investments. We also believe there are significant opportunities to better serve our customers overseas, such as reducing delivery times and better tailoring the customer experience. To be certain, a big part of the challenge for us will lie not in finding new ways to expand our business, but in prioritizing our investments.
我们仍然处于早期，仍然在学习如何通过互联网电子商务和销售给客户带来新的价值。我们的目标仍然是继续巩固和扩大我们的品牌和客户基础。这需要在系统和基础设施的持续投资，保证我们在增长的时候能够提供卓越的用户便利、选择和服务。我们计划将音乐添加到我们的产品线，并随着时间的推移，我们认为，其他产品也可能是审慎的投资。我们也相信，更好地服务于海外客户存在显著的机会，比如减少交货时间和更好的定制客户体验。毫无疑问，我们面临的挑战并不在于寻找新的方法来扩大我们的业务，而在于如何优先排序投资机会。
We now know vastly more about online commerce than when Amazon.com was founded, but we still have so much to learn. Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency. The challenges and hurdles we will face to make our long-term vision for Amazon.com a reality are several: aggressive, capable, well-funded competition; considerable growth challenges and execution risk; the risks of product and geographic expansion; and the need for large continuing investments to meet an expanding market opportunity. However, as we’ve long said, online bookselling, and online commerce in general, should prove to be a very large market, and it’s likely that a number of companies will see significant benefit. We feel good about what we’ve done, and even more excited about what we want to do.
和亚马逊成立之初相比，我们对电子商务的理解不可同日而语，但我们仍然有太多东西要学。虽然我们是乐观的，我们必须保持警惕和紧迫感。实现我们的长期愿景面临的挑战和障碍并不少：激进而实力雄厚的竞争;大幅增长的挑战和执行风险;产品和地域扩张的风险; 满足不断扩大的市场机遇需要的大量持续的投资，然而，正如我们早就说过，网上图书销售，以及更广的在线电子商务，应被证明是一个非常大的市场，而且很可能若干公司会显著得益。我们已经做的不错，未来我们想要做的更加令人兴奋。
1997 was indeed an incredible year. We at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.
1997年的确是一个令人难以置信的一年。我们感谢客户的支持和信任、感谢员工的的辛勤工作、感谢股东们的支持和鼓励。
Jeffrey P. Bezos （贝索斯）
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Amazon.com, Inc. （亚马逊创始人兼CEO）