新世纪英汉科技大词典
By Peter Eavis and Steve Lohr
彼得·埃维斯(Peter Eavis)和史蒂夫·洛尔(Steve Lohr)
U.S. tech titans flew high before the coronavirus pandemic, making billions of dollars a year.
在冠状病毒大流行之前，美国科技巨头飞得很高，每年赚数十亿美元。
Now the upheaval has lifted them to new heights, putting the industry in a position to dominate U.S. business in a way unseen since the days of railroads.
现在的动荡将它们提升到了一个新的高度，使该行业能够以自铁路时代以来未曾见过的方式统治美国业务。
A rally in technology stocks elevated the S&P 500 stock index to a record high Tuesday even as the pandemic crushes the broader economy. The stocks of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook, the five largest publicly traded U.S. companies, rose 37% in the first seven months this year, while all the other stocks in the S&P 500 fell a combined 6%, according to Credit Suisse.
科技股的上涨使标准普尔500指数周二升至历史新高，尽管大流行摧毁了整个经济。 据报道，今年前七个月，苹果，亚马逊，Alphabet，微软和Facebook这五家最大的上市公司股票上涨了37％，而标准普尔500指数成份股中的所有其他股票总计下跌了6％。瑞士信贷。
Those five companies now constitute 20% of the stock market’s total worth, a level not seen from a single industry in at least 70 years. Apple’s stock market value, the highest of the bunch, reached $2 trillion on Wednesday — double what it was just 21 weeks ago.
这五家公司现在占股票市场总价值的20％，这一水平至少是70年来从未出现过的一个行业。 苹果股票市值是周三中最高的， 达到2万亿美元，是21周前的两倍。
The tech companies’ dominance of the stock market is propelled by their unprecedented reach into our lives, shaping how we work, communicate, shop and relax. That has only deepened during the pandemic, and as people shop more frequently on Amazon, click on a Google or Facebook ad or pay up for an iPhone, the companies receive a greater share of spending in the economy and earn ever larger profits. This is why investors have flocked to those stocks this year at the expense of the scores of companies struggling in the health crisis and are betting that their position will be unassailable for years.
高科技公司在股票市场中的主导地位是由于它们前所未有地进入我们的生活，从而影响了我们的工作，沟通，购物和放松方式。 这种情况只有在大流行期间才加深，而且随着人们在亚马逊上购物的频率增加，点击Google或Facebook广告或为iPhone付费，这些公司在经济中所占的份额越来越大，利润越来越大。 这就是为什么投资者今年纷纷买进这些股票，而却牺牲了数十家在健康危机中挣扎的公司，并押注他们的头寸将在多年内保持无懈可击。
“COVID was the perfect positive storm for these guys,” said Thomas Philippon, a professor of finance at New York University.
纽约大学金融学教授托马斯·菲利彭(Thomas Philippon)表示：“对于这些人来说，COVID是一次完美的积极风暴。”
The companies’ deeper encroachment into American lives can be seen in web traffic numbers for Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon, which own the four most visited U.S. sites. The traffic on these sites was immense before the pandemic, but daily visits increased sharply in March, when stay-at-home orders began, with Facebook up 15% and YouTube 10%, according to SimilarWeb, an online data provider.
从拥有四个访问量最大的美国网站的Alphabet，Facebook和Amazon的网络访问量中可以看出，该公司对美国生活的更深入侵犯。 在线数据提供商SameWeb的数据显示，在大流行之前，这些网站上的流量非常庞大，但3月份开始进行全屋服务时，每日访问量急剧增加，其中Facebook增长了15％，YouTube增长了10％。
The web traffic has held steady at the higher plateau, with more than 1 billion daily visits to the big four sites in the United States alone. And the same pattern is evident worldwide. Facebook reported that the number of daily users of its services globally in June was 12% higher than a year earlier.
在较高的高原地区，网络访问量一直保持稳定，仅在美国，四大网站的每日访问量就超过10亿。 同样的模式在世界范围内也很明显。 Facebook报告称，6月份全球其服务的每日用户数量比去年同期增长了12％。
Amazon’s business, already towering over competitors in e-commerce and cloud computing, has become even more important to businesses and households. Its stock is up more than 50% from its pre-pandemic high, underscoring just how much investors think it has benefited from the disruption.
亚马逊的业务已经超越了电子商务和云计算领域的竞争对手，对企业和家庭而言，这一点变得更加重要。 该公司的股价已从大流行前的高点上涨了50％以上，突显了投资者认为它从这次危机中受益的程度。
Critics said the companies have grown in part because of a range of anti-competitive practices. European regulators are investigating whether Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules. U.S. regulators are looking at whether large tech firms committed antitrust abuses when acquiring other companies. Some antitrust scholars believe the rise of industry-dominating companies has led to stagnant wages and increased inequality. Last month, tech chief executives were grilled by members of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
评论家说，这些公司之所以成长，部分原因是一系列反竞争行为。 欧洲监管机构正在调查苹果的App Store是否违反竞争规则。 美国监管机构正在研究大型科技公司在收购其他公司时是否实施了反托拉斯滥用行为。 一些反托拉斯学者认为，主导行业的公司的崛起导致工资停滞和不平等加剧。 上个月，众议院司法部反托拉斯小组委员会的成员对科技公司的高管们进行了抨击。
“Any single action by one of these companies can affect hundreds of millions of us in profound and lasting ways,” Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said in his opening statement at the hearing. “Simply put: They have too much power.”
众议员戴维·西西里恩(David Cicilline)在听证会的开幕词中说：“其中一家公司的任何一项举动都会以深远和持久的方式影响着我们成千上万的人。” “简单地说：他们有太多权力。”
According to some competition experts, the concentration in some industries is greater today than in the late 1800s, when Congress passed sweeping antitrust legislation to curb the power of the railroads.
据一些竞争专家称，今天某些行业的集中度比1800年代后期要大，当时国会通过了广泛的反托拉斯法以遏制铁路的力量。
Jan Eeckhout, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, said that in 1929, Sears and A&P accounted for 3% of retail sales, a situation that stirred up concern in Congress and helped give rise to additional antitrust laws in 1936.
西班牙巴塞罗那庞贝法布拉大学经济学教授扬·埃克豪特(Jan Eeckhout)表示，1929年，西尔斯(Sears)和A＆P(A＆P)占零售额的3％，这种情况引起了国会的关注，并在1936年引发了新的反托拉斯法。
Today, he said, Walmart and Amazon jointly account for 15% of retail sales.
他说，今天，沃尔玛和亚马逊共同占了零售额的15％。
In a recent study, researchers at the RAND Corporation used public filings, other data and statistical inference techniques to model the connections among top companies. Its leading example was Amazon, with its e-commerce marketplace used by thousands of retailers and its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, powering so many online businesses.
在最近的一项研究中，兰德公司(RAND Corporation)的研究人员使用了公开文件，其他数据和统计推断技术来建立顶级公司之间的联系模型。 它的领先例子是亚马逊，其电子商务市场被成千上万的零售商使用，其云计算部门亚马逊网络服务为如此多的在线业务提供支持。
On a typical work-from-home day, a person might communicate with colleagues using Slack, attend videoconferences on Zoom, order takeout food via DoorDash and in the evening watch a movie on Netflix, said Jonathan Welburn, a lead author on the RAND study. All of them run their businesses on Amazon Web Services.
RAND研究的主要作者乔纳森·韦伯恩(Jonathan Welburn)说，在典型的在家工作日，人们可能会使用Slack与同事进行交流，参加Zoom会议的视频会议，通过DoorDash订购外卖食品，以及晚上在Netflix上观看电影。 。 他们所有人都在Amazon Web Services上开展业务。
“Amazon is a very central digital hub, and it epitomizes the direction our economy has taken,” Welburn said.
韦尔本说：“亚马逊是一个非常中央的数字枢纽，它代表了我们经济发展的方向。”
The growing importance of cloud computing, the digital engine rooms of the modern economy, shows how tech firms are building on their dominance. Global spending on cloud computing rose 33% to more than $30 billion in the second quarter, according to Synergy Research.
云计算(现代经济中的数字引擎室)的重要性日益增长，这表明科技公司如何在其统治地位上发展。 根据Synergy Research的数据，第二季度全球云计算支出增长了33％，超过了300亿美元。
To be a full-service cloud provider like Amazon, Microsoft and Google is an immensely expensive endeavor. Each spends an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion a year on its data centers and cloud networks, said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy. That is just the capital-spending table stakes to compete. Only a handful of companies in the world can afford them.
要成为像Amazon，Microsoft和Google这样的全方位服务的云提供商，这是一项极其昂贵的工作。 Synergy首席分析师John Dinsdale表示，每个人每年在数据中心和云网络上的花费约为100亿至150亿美元。 那只是资本支出表的赌注。 世界上只有少数公司能够负担得起。
The companies said their huge spending helps the U.S. economy and ends up lowering prices.
两家公司表示，他们的巨额支出有助于美国经济，最终降低了价格。
“Our engineers are helping America remain a global leader in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and quantum computing,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said in his prepared testimony at the recent House hearing. “Competition drives us to innovate, and it also leads to better products, lower prices and more choices for everyone.”
Google首席执行官Sundar Pichai在最近的众议院听证会上作证时说：“我们的工程师正在帮助美国在人工智能，自动驾驶汽车和量子计算等新兴技术方面保持全球领先地位。” “竞争驱使我们进行创新，这也带来了更好的产品，更低的价格以及每个人的更多选择。”
In his testimony, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, asserted that Apple did not have a dominant share of any market in which it did business.
苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)在证词中声称，苹果在开展业务的任何市场中都不占主导地位。
And during an earnings call in July, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said his company could not indefinitely thrive while the rest of the economy and other industries struggled.
微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉(Satya Nadella)在7月份的财报电话会议上表示，在其他经济和其他行业苦苦挣扎的情况下，微软的公司不可能无限发展。
“The world needs to do well for us to do well in the long run,” he said.
他说：“从长远来看，世界需要做好我们的工作，”
It is still possible for new companies to make inroads. Users of Zoom, the videoconferencing company, have ballooned during the pandemic, and its stock is up more than 150% since the end of February. And TikTok shows that it is still possible to build a highly popular social media app, although Microsoft may soon acquire it.
新公司仍有可能进军。 视频会议公司Zoom的用户在大流行期间Swift膨胀 ，自2月底以来其股价已上涨了150％以上。 TikTok显示，尽管微软可能很快就会收购它 ，但仍然有可能构建一个非常受欢迎的社交媒体应用程序。
Of course, the searing rally in the stocks could be the result of excessive optimism, and the stocks could fall. But if the Big Five keep reporting huge profits, they should still make up an outsize share of the overall market. In the 12 months through the end of June, they earned nearly $500 million a day in net income combined.
当然，股票的灼热反弹可能是过度乐观的结果，股票也可能下跌。 但是，如果五巨头继续报告巨额利润，它们仍将占整个市场的很大份额。 在截至6月底的12个月中，他们每天的净收入加起来接近5亿美元。
“The stock market has the great advantage that it’s looking at the stream of future profits,” Philippon said. “They think they are high today — and going to remain very high in the future.”
菲利彭说：“股票市场具有巨大的优势，它正在寻找未来的利润来源。” “他们认为自己今天很高-将来还会很高。”
For more great stories, subscribe to The New York Times.
欲了解更多精彩故事，请 订阅《纽约时报》 。
© 2020 New York Times News Service
©2020纽约时报新闻社
翻译自: https://medium.com/the-new-york-times/big-techs-domination-of-business-reaches-new-heights-79047846ceb8
新世纪英汉科技大词典