The new geography of innovation
创新新地貌
Peak Valley
硅谷“触顶”
The Bay Area’s primacy as a technology hub is on the wane. Don’t celebrate
湾区的科技中心地位正在衰退，且慢庆祝
“LIKE Florence in the Renaissance.” That is a common description of what it is like to live in Silicon Valley. America’s technology capital has an outsize influence on the world’s economy, stockmarkets and culture. This small portion of land running from San Jose to San Francisco is home to three of the world’s five most valuable companies. Giants such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Netflix all claim Silicon Valley as their birthplace and home, as do trailblazers such as Airbnb, Tesla and Uber. The Bay Area has the 19th-largest economy in the world, ranking above Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.
“就像文艺复兴时期的佛罗伦。”说到在硅谷的生活的感受，人们常常会这样描述。美国这一科技之都对世界经济、股市和文化影响巨大。在这片从圣何塞到旧金山的小小区域里聚集了全球市值最高的五大公司中的三家。苹果、Facebook、谷歌和Netfix 等巨头都把硅谷称为自己的诞生地和总部，爱彼迎（Airbnb）、特斯拉（Airbnb）和优步（Airbnb）等这些开创性企业也一样。湾区可作为全球第19大经济体，排在瑞士和沙特阿拉伯之上。
The Valley is not just a place. It is also an idea. Ever since Bill Hewlett and David Packard set up in a garage nearly 80 years ago, it has been a byword for innovation and ingenuity. It has been at the centre of several cycles of Schumpeterian destruction and regeneration, in silicon chips, personal computers, software and internet services. Some of its inventions have been ludicrous: internet-connected teapots, or an app that sold people coins to use at laundromats. But others are world-beaters: microprocessor chips, databases and smartphones all trace their lineage to the Valley.
硅谷不仅是一个地区，还是一种理念。自从约80年前比尔·休利特（Bill Hewlett）和戴维•帕卡德(David Packard) 在车库里创业以来，硅谷就一直是创新和独创性的代名词。这里处于数个熊彼特创造性破坏和复苏周期的中心，经历了硅谷芯片、个人电脑，软件和网络服务的更迭。有些发明滑稽可笑：联网的茶壶，或兜售洗衣店硬币的应用软件，但有些发明推溯于硅谷，举世无敌：微处理器芯片、数据库和智能手机。
Its combination of engineering expertise, thriving business networks, deep pools of capital, strong universities and a risk-taking culture have made the Valley impossible to clone, despite many attempts to do so. There is no credible rival for its position as the world’s pre-eminent innovation hub. But there are signs that the Valley’s influence is peaking. If that were simply a symptom of much greater innovation elsewhere, it would be cause for cheer. The truth is unhappier.
硅谷凭借专业工程技能，兴旺发达的商业网络，雄厚的资本，阵容强大的大学资源以及敢于冒险的文化氛围，让硅谷的成功无法复制。尽管许多企业尝试效仿硅谷。硅谷作为世界首屈一指创新中心，无竞争对手可相匹敌。但有迹象表明，硅谷的影响力达到顶峰（见简报）。如果这仅仅是因为其他地区创新层见叠出，那将令人欢欣鼓舞。但事实却不尽人意。
Silicon Plateau 硅谷停滞期
First, the evidence that something is changing. Last year more Americans left the county of San Francisco than arrived. According to a recent survey, 46% of respondents say they plan to leave the Bay Area in the next few years, up from 34% in 2016. So many startups are branching out into new places that the trend has a name, “Off Silicon Valleying”. Peter Thiel, perhaps the Valley’s most high-profile venture capitalist, is among those upping sticks. Those who stay have broader horizons: in 2013 Silicon Valley investors put half their money into startups outside the Bay Area; now it is closer to two-thirds.
首先，有迹象表明 有些事今非昔比。去年离开旧金山的美国人比到来的人要多。根据最近的一项调查，46%的受访者表示他们计划在未来几年离开旧金山海湾区，高于2016年的34%。许多初创公司正拓展到新领域，这一趋势有了一个名字，“走出硅谷”(Off Silicon Valleying)。彼得•泰尔(Peter Thiel)或许是硅谷最知名的风险投资家，他也搬到别处。哪些留下来的投资人眼界更开阔： 2013年，硅谷投资者将一半资金投入海湾区以外的初创公司，而现在投资资金已接近三分之二。
The reasons for this shift are manifold, but chief among them is the sheer expense of the Valley. The cost of living is among the highest in the world. One founder reckons young startups pay at least four times more to operate in the Bay Area than in most other American cities. New technologies, from quantum computing to synthetic biology, offer lower margins than internet services, making it more important for startups in these emerging fields to husband their cash. All this is before taking into account the nastier features of Bay Area life: clogged traffic, discarded syringes and shocking inequality.
这种转变的原因是多方面的，但其中最主要的是硅谷的巨大开支。硅谷生活成本可谓世界之最。一位创始人认为，与美国其他大多数城市相比，初创公司在硅谷的运营成本至少高出四倍。量子计算，合成生物学等新科技带来的利润低于互联网服务，这对于初创企业来说，节省开支显得更重要。除此之外， 硅谷的生活现状令人难以愉悦：交通堵塞、毒品泛滥和不平等现象骇人。
Other cities are rising in relative importance as a result. The Kauffman Foundation, a non-profit group that tracks entrepreneurship, now ranks the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area first for startup activity in America, based on the density of startups and new entrepreneurs. Mr Thiel is moving to Los Angeles, which has a vibrant tech scene. Phoenix and Pittsburgh have become hubs for autonomous vehicles; New York for media startups; London for fintech;
Shenzhen for hardware. None of these places can match the Valley on its own; between them, they point to a world in which innovation is more distributed.
因此其他城市的相对重要性凸显。考夫曼基金会(Kauffman Foundation)是一家专门追踪创业发展的非营利组织。他们按照初创企业和新创业者的密度，将迈阿密-劳德代尔堡地区列为全美最适合创业的地区。彼得•泰尔(Peter Thiel)正迁往洛杉矶，那里科技行业很活跃。菲尼克斯和匹兹堡已经成为自动驾驶汽中心；纽约聚集了大批媒体初创公司；伦敦形成了金融科技中心；深圳变为硬件中心。这些城市没有一个能与硅谷相媲美；这些城市你会发现，创新领域更加分散。
If great ideas can bubble up in more places, that has to be welcome. There are some reasons to think the playing-field for innovation is indeed being levelled up. Capital is becoming more widely available to bright sparks everywhere: tech investors increasingly trawl the world, not just California, for hot ideas. There is less reason than ever for a single region to be the epicentre of technology. Thanks to the tools that the Valley’s own firms have produced, from smartphones to video calls to messaging apps, teams can work effectively from different offices and places. A more even distribution of wealth may be one result, greater diversity of thought another. The Valley does many things remarkably well, but it comes dangerously close to being a monoculture of white male nerds. Companies founded by women received just 2% of the funding doled out by venture capitalists last year.
如果伟大的创想能在更多地方涌现，那也确实喜闻乐见。的确，人们有理由认为，创新竞技场正升级。人们能够获取资本的方式更广，世界各地的人才都能更容易的获得资本投入： 科技投资者日益放眼全球， 而非只盯着加州。单个地区越不可能成为科技中心了。多亏了硅谷自己公司开发的工具，从智能手机到视频通话，再到即时通讯应用，团队可以在不同的办公室和地点高效工作。由此不仅带来财富分配更加平均，还能够激发创意更加多元化。虽然硅谷在很多方面成绩斐然，但却陷入白人技术宅男主导的单一文化风险之中。去年，女性创办的企业仅得到风投家们2%的资金支持。
Shadows of the colossi 巨人的阴影
The problem is that the wider playing-field for innovation is also being levelled down. One issue is the dominance of the tech giants. Startups, particularly those in the consumer-internet business, increasingly struggle to attract capital in the shadow of Alphabet, Apple, Facebook et al. In 2017 the number of first financing rounds in America was down by around 22% from 2012. Alphabet and Facebook pay their employees so generously that startups can struggle to attract talent (the median salary at Facebook is $240,000). When the chances of startup success are even less certain and the payoffs not so very different from a steady job at one of the giants, dynamism suffers—and not just in the Valley. It is a similar story in China, where Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent are responsible for close to half of all domestic venture-capital investment, giving the giants a big say in the future of potential rivals.
问题是，更广泛的创新竞技场也在逐步缩小。一个问题是科技巨头的主导地位。在Alphabet、苹果(Apple)、Facebook等公司的阴影下，初创企业，尤其是那些从事消费互联网业务的初创企业，越来越难以吸引资本。与2012年相比， 2017年美国首轮融资额下降了22%。Alphabet和Facebook支付员工的薪酬非常慷慨，如此一来，初创公司很难吸引到人才(Facebook的平均工资是24万美元)。初创公司成功的机遇飘忽不定，而且员工薪资与巨头公司中一份稳定岗位的工资相差无几，创新活力因此会受到影响，这种 情况不仅仅发生在硅谷，中国的情况如出一辙。阿里巴巴、百度和腾讯占了中国国内风险近一半，这让这三家巨头在对未来潜在的竞争对手面前有相当大的话语权。
The second way in which innovation is being levelled down is by increasingly unfriendly policies in the West. Rising anti-immigrant sentiment and tighter visa regimes of the sort introduced by President Donald Trump have economy-wide effects: foreign entrepreneurs create around 25% of new companies in America. Silicon Valley first bloomed, in large part, because of government largesse. But state spending on public universities throughout America and Europe has fallen since the financial crisis of 2007-08. Funding for basic research is inadequate—America’s federal-government spending on R&D was 0.6% of GDP in 2015, a third of what it was in 1964—and heading in the wrong direction.
西方社会出台的不友好的政策是导致创新水平下降的另一个原因。日益增长的反移民情绪和唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统推行的更严格的签证制度，已经对整个经济产生了影响:在美国，约25%的新公司是由外国企业家创立的。在很大程度上，硅谷的繁荣是由于政府的慷慨解囊。但自2007-08年的金融危机以来，无论美国还是欧洲国家，在公立大学上资金投入不断下降。基础研究的资金不足——美国联邦政府2015年研发投入仅占GDP的0.6%，仅为1964年的三分之一——正朝着错误的方向发展。
If Silicon Valley’s relative decline heralded the rise of a global web of thriving, rival tech hubs, that would be worth celebrating. Unfortunately, the Valley’s peak looks more like a warning that innovation everywhere is becoming harder.
如果硅谷的相对衰落预示着全球范围内科技中心兴盛，竞争对手的崛起，那就值得庆祝一番了。不幸的是，硅谷的“触顶”似乎更像是一个警告:世界各地的创新正寸步难行。
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