報社老板貝佐斯要說清楚政治觀
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????第一次聽說亞馬遜公司（Amazon）創始人杰夫?貝佐斯是自由意志論者時，我不由得放聲大笑起來，因為我覺得這簡直是個笑話。畢竟，貝佐斯的公司是在互聯網的基礎上創立的，而互聯網是在冷戰期間由聯邦政府的研發機構——高級研究計劃局建立的。換言之，沒有阿帕網（ARPANET，互聯網的前身），就沒有互聯網。沒有互聯網，就沒有亞馬遜，更談不上杰夫?貝佐斯250億美元的個人財富了。 ????為什么我現在要寫貝佐斯呢？你可能心里有答案了，沒錯，原因跟你想的完全一樣：此時正值貝佐斯收購《華盛頓郵報》期間。你可以說我幼稚，這無所謂。但是我覺得，如果你打算收購一家優質的新聞企業，尤其是像《華盛頓郵報》這種以叩問權勢人物為職責的大報，你得先做好自己被叩問的準備。 ????但是叩問貝佐斯需要運氣。 ????我把這期專欄的主題透露給亞馬遜時，亞馬遜連一點回音都沒有，更別提給我安排采訪了。 ????我的同事、《財富》記者彼得?艾爾金德花了幾個月的時間寫了一篇值得一讀的封面故事，發表在6月期的《財富》上，標題為《亞馬遜稅務大戰：一場不那么隱秘的戰斗》（Amazon’s (not so secret) war on Taxes】。撰稿期間，他試圖向貝佐斯詢問他的商業哲學和個人哲學，但是對方含糊其辭。當然，這件事情發生在貝佐斯收購《華盛頓郵報》的消息浮出水面之前。 ????你要是去找找與貝佐斯相關的文章——這樣的文章有一大把，包括《財富》的“2012年度商業人物”——或者看一看他做過的訪談，你就會發現，每次遇到和自由意志論相關的問題，他都會含糊其辭。不過聽聽這樣一則軼聞還是挺有用的，這還得多虧了亞馬遜前首席技術官謝爾頓?卡芬提供的信息?？ǚ沂秦愖羲构蛡虻牡谝粋€亞馬遜員工。 ????據卡芬回憶，他曾聽貝佐斯說：“就算政府當初沒有發明互聯網，私營企業也會發明互聯網?！睕]錯，私營企業還能打敗前蘇聯呢。 ????這么說吧，只要貝佐斯老老實實經營亞馬遜，不干別的，那就沒什么理由關心他的政治理念。我當然也對此毫無興趣。但是如果你想收購像《華盛頓郵報》這樣一份日薄西山、卻依然影響重大的報紙，進而一躍成為華盛頓政治生活的一個重要勢力，那就不一樣了。 ????不管貝佐斯現在怎么說，一旦他收購《華盛頓郵報》的交易按照計劃于今年秋季順利達成，幾乎可以肯定的是，他會在報紙上推行自己的標準和理念，至少觀點專欄會成為他的輿論陣地。 ????因為不管是好還是壞，這就是報社老板做的事情——但是我想至少聽貝佐斯談談他的理念，聽聽他怎么解釋自己相互矛盾的立場和行為：一方面他是自由意志論者，另一方面它的公司賴以建立的基礎——互聯網的研發離不開納稅人的血汗錢。自由意志論者的一個中心理念是，他們的觀點會在自由市場大受歡迎。而且如果大家懂市場，就會明白，要想實現市場的公平與高效，關鍵在于，要讓盡可能多的參與者知道盡可能多的信息。 ????最后想說的是，我忘不了魯伯特?默多克1976年從自由主義者多蘿西?希夫手里收購《紐約郵報》（New York Post）之后發生的事。默多克當時向報社員工保證，《紐約郵報》作為嚴肅大報的本質特征會得到保留。但是后來的結果怎樣，我們都知道。 ????信息披露：筆者是《華盛頓郵報》的退休員工和股票持有者，貝佐斯的《華盛頓郵報》要是想轉載我的文章，請跟《財富》談去吧。（財富中文網） ????譯者：Nasca?? |
????When I first heard that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, was a Libertarian, I laughed out loud, because I thought it was a joke. Bezos's company, after all, is based on the Internet, which was created during the Cold War by a military research-and-development arm of the federal government, the Advanced Research Project Agency. No ARPANET, no Internet. No Internet, no Amazon, no $25 billion personal fortune for Jeff Bezos. ????Why am I writing about Bezos now? For exactly the reason you might suspect: because of his pending purchase of the Washington Post. Call me na?ve, if you like, but I think that if you're going to own a high-class journalistic enterprise like the Post, whose job is to call powerful forces to account, you should expect to be called to account yourself. ????But good luck trying to get that done when it comes to Bezos. ????When I exposed the thesis of this column to Amazon, I couldn't even get a response, much less an interview. ????When my Fortune colleague Peter Elkind, who spent months working on a must-read cover story in June called "Amazon's (not so secret) War on Taxes," tried to talk to Bezos about his business and personal philosophies, he was stonewalled. That, of course, was before Bezos's deal to buy the Post surfaced. ????If you check the numerous articles about Bezos -- including Fortune's 2012 Businessperson of the Year and the interviews that he's done -- you see that he ducks and weaves when he's asked about Libertarianism. But consider this anecdote, courtesy of Sheldon Kaphan, formerly Amazon's chief technology officer, and Bezos's first hire at the firm. ????Kaphan says he once heard Bezos say: "If the government hadn't invented the Internet, private enterprise would have done it." Yeah, right, and defeated the Soviet Union, too. ????Look. As long as Bezos was doing nothing but running Amazon (AMZN), there wasn't much reason for people to care about his politics. I certainly didn't care about them. But when you're about to become a major force in the political life of Washington by buying a diminished but still immensely powerful outlet like the Post, that's a different story. ????No matter what Bezos says now, once his purchase of the Post closes, scheduled for the fall, he's almost certain to begin imposing his standards and beliefs on the Post, or at least on its opinion pages. ????For better or worse, that's what newspaper owners do -- but I'd at least like to hear from Bezos what his beliefs are, and to have him reconcile the question of his being a Libertarian who's benefited immensely from taxpayers' R&D money. A core belief of Libertarianism is that their ideas will prevail in a free market place. And if you know about markets, you know the key to making them efficient and fair is for as many players to have as much information as possible. ????Finally, I can't forget what happened after Rupert Murdoch bought then-upscale New York Post from its liberal owner, Dorothy Schiff, in 1976. Murdoch assured the paper's staff that he'd retain the Post's essential character as a serious newspaper. And we all know how that turned out. ????Disclosure: I am a retiree of and own stock in the Washington Post Co. (WPO), and the Post pays Fortune for the right to run my work. |
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