Uber CEO：洗白还需要些日子

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　　三藩市报道：在上周三（6月3日）的一次公开活动，Uber公司的执行总裁Travis Kalanick，以异常谦虚的致辞褒奖了他备受争议的驾驶共享服务，庆祝公司创立五周年。

　　During the media event, the 38-year-old entrepreneur recalled how his business — now worth $50 billion — was born out of a conversation sparked in Paris with co-founder Garrett Camp, and how, in the early days, they barely had enough money "to keep the lights on." Kalanick acknowledged his mother in the audience and waxed poetic² about a not-so-distant future: a world where transportation, goods and services are 5 minutes away, deliverable at the "touch of a button."

　　在本次的媒体见面会中，这一位38岁的企业家回忆了他的企业——如今市值500亿美元的公司，如何从一次在巴黎与合作伙伴Garrett Camp交谈中的灵光一现，到早些日子，他们几乎没有资金去维持这项事业的运行。Kalanick在受访中感谢他的母亲，并描绘出一个不远的将来的景象：世界上所有的交通，物品以及服务都只需要通过“点击按钮”，就能在5分钟内完成传递。

　　"I can come off as a fierce advocate for Uber," he said. "I also realize that some have used a different 'A' word to describe me. I’ll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect and neither is this company."

　　“我能表现得像一名Uber的狂热追随者，”他表示，“我同时也意识到有些追随者用不一样的“A”来形容我，首先我要承认的是，我并不完美，我的公司也是。”

　　When I first met Kalanick in January 2012, Uber wasn't so polished, so much as frat-like. The service was just in eight cities then — a far cry from the 300 cities it is in now. Its haphazard³ offices occupied the top floor of a small building in San Francisco's shopping district — not the sleek⁴, sprawling⁵ 200,000 square foot headquarters it inhabits today. And Kalanick wasn’t yet the buttoned-up leader recalling Uber's birth as a sweet Parisian brainstorm⁶.

　　当笔者在2012年1月份与Kalanick的初次见面的时候，Uber并不完善，更多的像一个兄弟会。打车服务当时只限于8个城市，跟如今的纵横300个城市天壤之别。随机的办公室坐落在三藩市商务区的一间小房屋的顶楼，而不是如今井然有条、覆盖200,000平方英尺的总部。并且在当时，Kalanick还不能把Uber的创立看作美妙的巴黎头脑风暴。

　　“In the beginning, it was a lifestyle company," Kalanick told me then, tossing a mini-NERF football around in a red Radio Shack⁷ shirt, faded jeans and sneakers. The gray-haired entrepreneur liked to punctuate⁸ his sentences with a wide grin and brief pause, letting his words sink in.

　　“在公司起步的时候，营业方向还只是生活时尚，”Kalanick当时告诉笔者，当时他还穿着无线电公司的红色衬衫，褪色的牛仔裤和球鞋，脚上玩弄着迷你汽车轮胎做成的足球。这位白发的企业家很喜欢露齿并短暂的停顿来中断自己的句子，以便别人把自己的话听进去。

　　"You push a button and a black car comes up," he added. "I mean, who’s the baller? It was a baller move to get a black car to arrive in eight minutes.”

　　“你按了一个按钮，结果来了一辆黑车，”他补充道，“我的意思是，‘谁’是开黑车的人？就是那个去取一辆黑车，然后在8分钟后到达的人。

　　Kalanick could be so determined⁹, a former girlfriend of his told me he spent one International CES sleeping in a rented van and taking hobo baths — washing himself in a public sink — at a Mandarin¹⁰ Oriental hotel nearby.

　　Kalanick这么坚定，他的一位前女友告诉笔者，他曾经在国际电子展上的一辆出租货车上睡了一晚还洗了个流浪汉澡——在公共的澡堂里洗澡——就在附近的文华东方酒店。

　　"Don't let the gray hair fool you: he's like this tireless kid, always coming back for more," she said.

　　“别让白头发耍了你：他就像一个不知疲倦的小孩，总是回来要求更多的东西。”她说道。

　　Others who worked with him at previous companies had mixed things to say. But there was a clear takeaway: he was a smart, numbers crunching¹¹ geek who could also be an uncompromising businessman.

　　还有一些曾经在以前的公司与他一起工作的同事有不同的说法。但他们都一致同意：他是一个聪明的，喜欢咀嚼数字的怪咖，也是一名不愿妥协的商人。

　　In 2001, he co-founded Red Swoosh — a file-sharing system for corporate¹² clients — which he referred to as a “revenge business.” He wanted Hollywood litigants¹³ who sued his previous startup, a multimedia¹⁴ search engine called Scour¹⁵, to pay for a similar technology. Why?

　　在2001年，他与别人共同创办了Red Swoosh——一个为公司客户所开放的文件共享系统，被他称为“复仇产业”。他希望那位起诉他之前的公司，一个名为Scour的多媒体搜索引擎的好莱坞诉讼人，能够付出类似的技术代价。为什么呢？

　　"I like pissing people off," Kalanick said back in 2012. "I like shaking things up in an old industry and making something new and different."

　　“我喜欢惹别人生气，”Kalanick在2012年的时候表示。“我喜欢在旧的公司里改变一些东西去创造一些新的不一样的东西。”

　　Mission accomplished¹⁶. Since its launch, Uber has transformed transportation, upending decades of crusty taxi regulation and transforming the way people get around. In cities like San Francisco now, locals don't take cabs, anymore — they eitherUber or Lyft.

　　任务完成。自从它的营业运行，Uber已经改变的交通方式，使得一成不变的打车体制得到了历史性的转变，改善了人们出行的方式。就像在三藩市这样的城市，当地人们已经不再呼叫出租车了，他们使用Uber或Lyft。

　　Credit Kalanick's anti-establishment attitude for the company's rapid growth, too. Uber launched in new markets and dealt with the consequences later. Kalanick welcomed controversy¹⁷, egging on regulators in Washington D.C. and elsewhere like a man with six months to live.

　　在这里也要赞扬一下Kalanick对公司快速发展的反建制的态度。Uber随后就在新的市场并处理了新的事情。Kalanick开放接纳不同的意见，敦促华盛顿以及其他地区的监督者修改体制，就像他只剩下6个月生存的时间一样。

　　But when you're a company reportedly valued at $50 billion, rebelliousness¹⁸ stops being cute, and the public becomes far less forgiving.

　　但当你的公司被公告出市值500亿美元的时候，反动的声音就不再友善，公众也就越来越无法原谅你的错误。

　　Bad publicity¹⁹ soon caught up with Uber. The service got flack over cutthroat tactics with rival Lyft. Last November, an Uber executive caused a ruckus when he off-handedly suggested Uber conduct opposition²⁰ research to dig up dirt on its critics.

　　负面的宣传很快就侵袭了Uber。这些服务因恶性的商业宣传手段和竞争对手Lyft造成了负面的宣传效果。去年11月，Uber的一名行政人员的不经意的言论，建议Uber进行对手调查挖掘负面消息造成了骚动。

　　There were also reports that drivers sexually harassed²¹ or assaulted female passengers and allegations of discrimination against blind and wheelchair-using riders. And partnerships²², like the one announced in March with U.N. Women, fell apart, ostensibly over such allegations.

　　也有报告表明司机对女乘客进行性骚扰或性侵犯，甚至还有明确歧视失明人员和伤残人士的断言。至于合作关系，就像3月份在联合国妇女事务机构所宣称的，在这些言论的压力之下只是表明上的断绝关系。

　　So it's no surprise then Uber is working hard on cleaning up its image with initiatives like an updated Uber app that caters²³ to deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers, Uber Military, which enlists²⁴ service members, veterans and military spouses²⁵ as drivers, and now Wednesday's media event. For drivers, these initiatives are a win, even if the timing²⁶ is convenient for Uber.

　　所以毫无疑问的Uber正努力地为公司形象洗白它的形象，从主动更新的手机应用Uber以迎合失聪或听觉障碍的司机，到Uber Military，把士兵，退休军人以及军属的名单如同司机的名单列出来，在到本次的媒体见面会。对于司机来说，这些积极性的举措对他们来说就已经赢了，即使在时机上Uber占据了便利。

　　What's somewhat harder to accept is a humbler Kalanick and softer, nicer Uber so soon after months of negative publicity. Genuine atonement usually takes much longer.

　　有点难以接受的是，在数月负面宣传后的Kalanick变得更谦虚了，Uber也更便利更人性化了。但是真正的赎罪需要更长的时间来完成。

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