“局外人”如何带领PayPal起死回生？ 《经济学人·商论》一月刊
互联网最老牌企业之一贝宝（PayPal）能够在竞争激烈的硅谷取得蓬勃发展，得感谢一种打破常规的全新治理模式——被称为“再创始人”（refounder）的管理者身为局外人，能积极拥抱新战略，而不会受制于创始人当初的设想。这一角色发挥的作用显著：2014年已经“濒死”的贝宝如今市值达1010亿美元，跻身硅谷身价最高的科技公司之一。
贝宝
PayPal
钱包里的财源
Next time, ask first
Under a “refounder” boss, one of the original dotcoms（互联网企业） is thriving by defying conventional wisdom（打破常规）
在“再创始人”的治下，互联网最老牌企业之一打破常规，蓬勃发展
硅谷的人们沉迷于最新的事物，所以科技迷们很少会想起贝宝（PayPal）这家在上月满20岁的电子支付公司。如果它的名字出现了，那通常都与“贝宝帮”有关——包括特斯拉的伊隆·马斯克和风险资本家彼得·泰尔在内的一批企业家。2002年eBay以15亿美元收购了他们的公司，让他们收获了自己的第一桶金。要是问一问科技企业的员工硅谷最大、最成功的公司是哪家，贝宝不太可能出现在他们的名单中。
In silicon valley people are besotted（沉迷） by the latest thing, which is why techies（科技迷） rarely give a thought to PayPal, a digital-payments firm that turns 20 this month. If its name comes up, it usually has to do with the “PayPal mafia（帮派）”, a group of entrepreneurs, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist, who made their first fortunes when eBay bought their firm for $1.5bn in 2002. Ask tech employees about the Valley’s largest, high-flying（最成功） firm and PayPal is unlikely to make their list.
但贝宝靠业绩弥补了它在公众关注度方面的缺失。经历在eBay的控制下萎靡不振之后，它在2015年剥离出来并重新上市。如今贝宝的市值达1010亿美元，是硅谷市值最高的科技公司之一，甚至超过了高盛或摩根士丹利。
What PayPal lacks in terms of its profile, it has made up for in performance. After languishing（萎靡不振） under eBay’s control, in 2015 it broke away（剥离出来） and re-listed（重新上市）. Today PayPal has a market capitalisation（市值） of $101bn and is one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable technology firms, larger than either Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley by value.
2018年它处理的数字支付价值预计将达5820亿美元左右，约为2012年时的四倍。贝宝是一个数字钱包，在消费者使用它完成在线交易时向商家收费获利。预计该公司2018年的营业收入将达34亿美元。
This year it is expected to facilitate（处理） digital payments worth around $582bn, roughly four times more than in 2012. PayPal acts as a digital wallet and profits by charging merchants a fee when consumers use it for their online transactions. In 2018 the firm is expected to bring in $3.4bn in operating income.
这与硅谷有关如何创建和经营公司的传统智慧非常不同。硅谷的一个信条是创始人是最好的老板。这就是为什么创始人获得了如此多的自主权，还常常被叫回去运营公司，比如杰克·多尔西（Jack Dorsey）在Twitter。
That offers a counterpoint（不同点） to Silicon Valley’s conventional wisdom（传统智慧） about how to build and run companies. One credo is that founders are the best bosses, which explains why they get so much leeway（自主权） and are brought back to run companies (as Jack Dorsey was at Twitter).
* Leeway is the freedom that someone has to take the action they want to or to change their plans. 自由空间; 回旋余地
而对贝宝的老板丹·舒尔曼（Dan Schulman）来说，身为一名局外人似乎带来了好处。在2014年接管贝宝之前，他曾管理电信公司维珍移动（Virgin Mobile）并在美国运通任职。贝宝曾经采用的战略是与包括信用卡公司在内的竞争对手展开激烈竞争——因为如果人们是用他们的银行账号而不是信用卡与贝宝关联，贝宝能赚取更高的费用。调研公司MoffettNathanson的莉萨·埃利斯（Lisa Ellis）说，“所有人都讨厌他们。他们的文化是破坏性的，和谁都要斗。”如果不是舒尔曼改变策略，“贝宝可能已经死了。”
For PayPal’s boss, Dan Schulman, who ran the telecoms firm Virgin Mobile and worked at American Express before taking over in 2014, being an outsider appears to have helped. PayPal had previously embraced a strategy of clashing with rivals（与对手激烈竞争）, including credit-card firms, as it gets higher fees if people link their bank accounts to PayPal instead of credit cards. According to Lisa Ellis of MoffettNathanson, a research firm, “Everyone hated them. They had a culture of disruption and fought with everyone.” Had Mr Schulman not changed tack（策略）, “PayPal could have been dead by now.”
相反，舒尔曼与维萨卡、万事达卡和Google Pay等潜在竞争对手谈拢了约40项合作，以扩大贝宝的影响。例如，使用Google Pay结帐的购物者可以关联到贝宝帐户。这家公司会有这样的开放性，在某种程度上应该要感谢以色列近身格斗术（Krav Maga）。舒尔曼是这种由以色列军队开发的武术形式的忠实爱好者。他有时会带着乌青的眼圈和伤痕出现在办公室。“因为武术，我坚定地相信，赢得战斗的最好方法是避免战斗。”他说。这种策略让投资者相信，信用卡公司和其他科技公司不会试图铲除贝宝。过去，这方面的担忧损害了市场情绪。
Instead Mr Schulman brokered around（谈拢） 40 partnerships with would-be rivals（潜在竞争对手）, including Visa, MasterCard and Google Pay, to extend PayPal’s reach（扩大影响）. For example, shoppers who use Google Pay to check out can link their PayPal accounts. For such openness the firm should partly thank Krav Maga, a form of martial arts developed by Israel’s army, of which Mr Schulman is a devotee（忠实爱好者）—he sometimes shows up to the office with a black eye and cuts. “I’m a big believer because of martial arts that the best way to win a fight is to avoid a fight,” he says. This strategy has given investors confidence that credit-card firms and other tech firms would not try to stamp out（铲除） PayPal, a concern that had hurt sentiment（市场情绪）.
舒尔曼属于这样一批首席执行官：鲜为人知、并非公司创立者，却让陷入停滞的公司提升了业绩。长期担任教育技术公司Chegg老板的丹·罗森维格（Dan Rosensweig）也不是这家公司的创始人，他给这个群体取名为“再创始人”。微软的萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）可能是最符合这个名号的老板。此外还有软件公司Adobe的山塔努·纳拉延（Shantanu Narayen）和思科的查克·罗宾斯（Chuck Robbins）等。作为局外人，他们能积极拥抱新战略，而不会受制于创始人当初的设想。
Mr Schulman is part of a cohort of（一批） little-known chief executives who did not found their firms but have lifted performance（提升业绩） at stagnating companies. Dan Rosensweig, who is not a founder but is the longtime boss of the education-technology firm Chegg, calls this group “re-founders”. Satya Nadella of Microsoft is probably the best-known boss to fit the label（符合名号）; others include Shantanu Narayen of the software firm Adobe and Chuck Robbins of Cisco. As outsiders they have been able to embrace new strategies without being beholden（受制于） to what founders had envisioned.
硅谷另一个普遍认知是在一个领域里只能有一个赢家。“网络效应”（因为越来越多人加入而让一项服务变得更有用）帮助谷歌和Facebook分别称霸在线搜索和社交网络领域。埃利斯认为，贝宝也享有网络效应——网上购物的美国人中有约六成去年用过贝宝；在线零售商500强约八成都为客户提供了用贝宝付款的选项。
Another piece of accepted wisdom in Silicon Valley is that only one company in an area can win. “Network effects” which make a service more useful as more people join, helped Google conquer search and Facebook reign over（称霸） social networking. PayPal also has network effects—around 60% of Americans shopping online have used it in the past year, reckons Ms Ellis, and around 80% of the top 500 online retailers offer customers the option of paying with PayPal.
但这家公司证明，在某些在线行业，蛋糕之大足以喂饱许多人。随着电子商务持续发展，许多为数字支付提供便利的企业都将蓬勃发展，包括美国的Square和中国的蚂蚁金服。舒尔曼认为，“真正的战争是关乎现金的战争”。美国约有40%的交易仍以现金支付，因此数字支付业务还有增长的空间。
But the firm is proof that in certain online sectors, the pie is big enough to feed many. As e-commerce continues to grow, many firms that help with digital payments will thrive, including Square in America and Ant Financial in China. “The real war is the war on cash,” argues Mr Schulman. About 40% of transactions in America are paid for in cash so there is room to grow.
贝宝通过收购发展壮大。2018年它在收购上花费了29亿美元。最大的一笔交易发生在5月份，它以22亿美元收购了iZettle。iZettle为商家提供软件解决方案，并帮助贝宝在欧洲扩张（不过该交易在英国仍面临竞争监管机构的审查而尚未获批）。一项较小但仍重要的收购是它在2013年以8亿美元收购Braintree，这家公司帮助企业在自己的移动应用中接受用户付款。那次收购一并带来了Venmo——一款让手机用户互相转账的应用。Venmo很受年轻人欢迎，这帮助贝宝扩大了对新一代用户的吸引力。Venmo尚未盈利，它有意放慢速度，推迟启动收费和其他营利功能。Venmo代表着一个机遇，不过机会还不止于此。有消息称，Facebook将把贝宝整合到旗下消息应用WhatsApp中。
PayPal has grown through deals; in 2018 it has spent $2.9bn. The largest transaction has been its purchase of iZettle for $2.2bn in May. It offers software solutions to merchants and helps PayPal expand in Europe (although the deal is facing scrutiny from Britain’s competition authority and has not been approved). A smaller but still significant acquisition was Braintree, a firm that helps firms accept payment within their mobile apps, for $800m in 2013. With it came Venmo, an app that lets mobile-phone users transfer money to each other. Venmo is popular with youngsters, which has helped extend PayPal’s appeal for a new generation. Venmo is not yet profitable, having been deliberately slow in starting to introduce fees and other moneymaking features. Venmo represents an opportunity, but there are others too. There are whispers that（有消息称） Facebook will integrate PayPal into WhatsApp, its messaging app.
仍有一些竞争对手需要对付。其中最令人不安的是亚马逊。亚马逊的网站不使用贝宝，而是用自己的支付产品Amazon Pay。这个竞争产品仍比贝宝小得多，处理的支付总额约为贝宝的十分之一，但增长迅猛。贝宝确实有一项优势：零售商对亚马逊的恐惧。零售商们不大会想在自己的网站上提供Amazon Pay的支付服务来助力亚马逊扩展。舒尔曼说，亚马逊在2017年收购杂货商全食超市“是零售业的珍珠港事变。它唤醒了所有人，让大家意识到事情正在发生根本性的变化”。这个事件可能帮助贝宝赢得了与更多零售商的合作。但是，如果亚马逊这个电商巨头在支付领域加大投入，对贝宝来说可能是个坏消息。战争终究是漫长又艰苦的。
There are still rivals to face down（对付）. The most unsettling（令人不安的） is Amazon, which does not allow PayPal on its site and has a competing payments product, “Amazon Pay”. It is still significantly smaller than PayPal, handling around one-tenth of PayPal’s total payments, but is growing briskly（迅猛）. PayPal does have the advantage that retailers fear Amazon, so are unlikely to want to help it expand by making its payment service available on their websites. When Amazon bought the grocer Whole Foods in 2017, it “was the Pearl Harbour of the retail industry. It woke everyone up that things are fundamentally changing（根本性变化）,” says Mr Schulman. The news probably helped PayPal win more partnerships with retailers. Should the e-commerce goliath invest more heavily in the area of payments, however, that could spell（意味着） bad news for PayPal. Wars are long and gruelling（艰苦） affairs.■