我們都知道應該少吃多睡多運動。聽到這些忠告時，我們一本正經地做點頭狀，轉過頭來就吃個雙層芝士漢堡，刷手機刷到后半夜，或是經常在辦公桌后面久坐不動。畢竟理想很豐滿，現實很骨感，而現實的骨感總是能打敗理想的豐滿。

企業(yè)的高管也是凡人，凡人就有同樣的毛病。每當有人對他們提出“想長遠些”的忠告，他們也會一本正經地點點頭，轉過頭來一心只想把下季度的財報弄得再紅火些。

就像健康飲食和經常鍛煉對身體好一樣，那些著眼企業(yè)未來長遠發(fā)展、對研發(fā)進行大量投資的企業(yè)，也必然會比那些短視的企業(yè)發(fā)展得更好，相關的例子也不勝枚舉。今年二月，麥肯錫全球研究所發(fā)布的一份案例分析報告就揭示了以下數據——通過對2001至2004年的615家大中型企業(yè)的研究，麥肯錫的研究人員發(fā)現，所謂的“長期型企業(yè)”的營收增長率和利潤要顯著高于那些短視型企業(yè)。他們的市值也增長得更快，而且他們就算在金融危機期間也表現得好于短視型企業(yè)。（看到這里，您可能又會一本正經地點點頭了。）

問題是，人們很容易就會把這類研究和白皮書忘在腦后。但像英偉達CEO黃仁勛這樣的成功商人，卻絕對不是一個容易讓人忘記的人。黃仁勛也被《財富》評為2017年年度商業(yè)人物。這位現年54歲的英偉達CEO于1993年在創(chuàng)辦了英偉達，如今這家芯片制造商的市值已經直逼IBM?！敦敻弧窋底志庉嫲驳卖?努斯卡在12月1日刊的《財富》雜志寫道，英偉達生產的是“強大而神奇的東西”，它的圖形處理芯片（即GPU）可以在視頻游戲和電影中營造出奇妙的“視頻焰火”。過去四個季度，英偉達的銷售額達90億美元，利潤達到26億美元，它的三年增長率也高得令人咂舌。

更值得一提的是，英偉達的最新芯片已經能夠支持深度神經網絡了，后者正是人工智能革命的基石。英偉達的成績并不是偶然的。黃仁勛從未把他的目光從未來移開，即便是10年前股價疲軟的時候。英偉達的一名高管對《財富》回憶道：“那時全世界還不太理解我們做的是什么東西?！比欢S仁勛深知，他的公司研發(fā)這種先進的芯片將為一個新時代奠基。他表示：“同樣的一個故事我已經講了15年了，我?guī)缀踹B我的PPT都沒改過。”

如果你再看看《財富》年度商業(yè)人物排行榜上的其他19位入選者，你就會發(fā)現，他們的共同特點就是眼光相當長遠，且有勇氣去相信未來。貝索斯、貝尼奧夫、戴蒙等知名商人自不必提，Ulta Beauty公司的瑪麗?迪龍、Progressive公司的特里西亞?格里菲斯和有勇氣變革百年老店皇家飛利浦的萬豪敦等則更是如此。

在長遠投資上，最有說服力的一個例子就是中國政府，中國政府把目光投向了幾十年時間跨度下的創(chuàng)新，特別是加大了在先進半導體和機器人等可能重新定義整個工業(yè)的若干重點領域的投資。這也是為什么我們將于下月在廣州舉辦“2017全球財富論壇”，以及為什么屆時將有數百名CEO和企業(yè)家從世界各地趕來參會。

他們將在這里尋找能帶領他們的企業(yè)走向未來的智慧。我們相信，他們著眼的未來，也將是接下來的一二十年——而非僅僅是下個季度。

譯者：賈政景

本文的另一版本刊登于2017年12月1日刊的《財富》雜志上。

We’ve all been told to eat right, sleep longer, exercise more. We nod politely, and then many of us go back to our double cheeseburgers, late nights, and long stretches behind a desk. There is the wisdom of the ages, after all, and there is the reality of the day. On most days, the day wins.

That, inevitably, is how many corporate executives respond when they are reminded—as they so often are—of the advantages of “thinking long term” about their businesses: They nod politely and then go back to planning feverishly for the next quarter.

The evidence supporting the notion that future-minded companies—those that invest substantially in R&D and focus on developing and growing businesses far into the future—outperform the short-term thinkers is overwhelming, just as it is, of course, for the benefits of healthy diets and exercise. A February report from the McKinsey Global Institute lays out the business case with the kind of power data analysis you’d expect from the number crunchers there: Studying a universe of 615 large and midsize companies over the years 2001 to 2014, McKinsey researchers found that “l(fā)ong-term firms,” as they define them, had significantly higher revenue growth and profit than the short-termers. Their market value grew faster, and they fared better during the financial crisis too. (Feel free to nod politely.)

The problem is, studies and white papers can be easy to ignore. Much harder to ignore is someone like Jensen Huang, Fortune’s 2017 Businessperson of the Year. The 54-year-old CEO of Nvidia (NVDA, +0.94%), who cofounded the Silicon Valley chipmaker in 1993, has built it into a 21st-century phenom that now rivals IBM in market capitalization. As Fortune digital editor Andrew Nusca writes in our Dec.1 issue (please see his wonderfully lively profile of Huang here), Nvidia makes the “muscular mystery stuff”—the graphics processing units, or GPUs—that enable the “visual fireworks” in new video games and movies. In the past four quarters, it has racked up profits of $2.6 billion on $9 billion in sales, capping a three-year growth rate that is nothing short of astonishing.

The company’s latest chips, importantly, support the deep neural networks that are powering the modern revolution in artificial intelligence. But that didn’t happen by accident. Huang never took his aim off the future, even when the stock was floundering a decade ago. “The world didn’t quite realize what we were building,” an Nvidia exec tells Fortune. But the CEO knew his sophisticated chips were foundational. Says Huang, “I’ve been talking about the same story for 15 years. I’ve barely had to change my slides.”

You’ll see the same far-horizon gaze—and the courage to believe in it—in the other 19 CEOs who made our “Businessperson of the Year” list. You’ll see it in Bezos and Benioff and Dimon. It’s embedded in the careers of Ulta Beauty’s Mary Dillon and Progressive’s Tricia Griffith. It’s there in Frans van Houten’s ongoing transformation of the 126-year-old Royal Philips.

Perhaps most tellingly, you’ll see that same invest-in-what’s-next mindset in the Chinese government, which is helping to power the coming decades of innovation in that country—particularly in critical areas such as advanced semiconductors and robotics that are redefining industry. That’s a big reason we’re convening the 2017Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou this month—and why hundreds of CEOs and entrepreneurs from around the world will join us.

They’ll be looking for wisdom that will help them lead their companies into the future. And you can bet they’d like that to mean the next decade or two—not the next quarter.

A version of this article appears in the Dec. 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “Betting Long.”