????每座城市都想成為下一個硅谷。在過去十年中，政策制定者和擁護者們投入了數百萬美元的刺激方案，希望吸引和培養當地企業家。看看這些方案：“費城企業孵化計劃”、 “邁阿密企業孵化計劃”、 “弗吉尼亞企業孵化計劃”、“美國企業孵化計劃”等等。然而無論這些城市多么努力地偷學灣區的魅力（說的就是你，Silicon Sandbar），并沒有哪座城市能夠復制硅谷讓初創企業成功的獨特公式，而且這種努力越來越像是誤入歧途。

????近年來，得益于數字設備的高效，公司盈利所需的員工數量日趨減少，這種跡象在科技創業公司中尤為顯著。Instagram以10億美元賣給Facebook的時候，只有13名員工。WhatsApp以190億美元賣給Facebook的時候，只有55名員工。而Snapchat獲得40億估值時，也只有20名員工。這類超精簡的“獨角獸”公司正越來越多。相較之下，2015年《財富》500強公司的平均員工數量是5.3587萬人。

????由此看來，這么多城市奮力尋找創業家來充當創造就業崗位的明星，似乎十分奇怪。就以“紐約企業孵化計劃”為例。紐約州試圖在5年中創造約2100個工作崗位。然而，在花費了一年時間和2800萬美元的市場營銷投入后，最終只催生了30家公司，共76個崗位。每個公司的平均員工數量不足3人。

????這種狀況并非科技行業所獨有。各行業初創公司招聘的員工都越來越少。很長時間以來，新公司一直是創造就業崗位的重要力量。但根據美國勞動統計局的數據，新公司雇用的員工數量從20世紀90年代開始持續下滑。1994年，新公司共創造了410萬個就業崗位，而2010年，新公司只創造了250萬個崗位。

????長期以來，巴布森高管教育學院創業實踐教授丹尼爾·伊森伯格都在批判將新公司看作經濟推動力量的現象。伊森伯格表示：“第一個問題是初創公司能夠創造工作崗位這個前提。從經驗角度來說，這一點是存疑的，而從邏輯上來看，它也站不住腳。如果我是一名投資者，我最不想看到的事情就是我投資的某家公司以創造工作崗位為目的。”

????伊森伯格表示，最大的問題在于初創公司可能會迅速砍掉他們創造的崗位。在最近進行的一項研究中，斯坦福大學商學院和IESE商學院的教授調查了歐洲和亞洲的15.8萬家初創公司。他們發現，成立5年后，這些公司創造的大部分工作崗位都被隨后的精簡裁員抵消了。此外，新公司創造的工作崗位并不總是報酬很高，而且發薪水往往需要很長時間。

????更好的解決方法是什么呢？伊森伯格認為，如果政策制定者希望在十年內看到效果，就應當著重激勵那些已經取得成功（年收入至少幾百萬美元），且有意擴大規模的現有公司。根據小型企業管理局的數據，那些對就業率增長影響很大的公司都不是新公司，而是平均成立時間至少有15至20年的公司。美國運通在最近發布的中型企業報告中指出，自2008年起，中型企業（年收入在1000萬美元至10億美元之間）創造了92%的就業崗位。

????凱斯西儲大學教授斯科特·謝尼認為，創業項目可以在城市中占有一席之地，但僅具有邊際意義。一個城市創業項目效果的衡量標準應該是看它是否能解決市場失效問題。比如說，如果政府插手來培養一個能讓公眾獲益，而不是私人投資者獲益的公司，那也許會有意義。不過謝尼告誡道，鼓勵創業本身也許會產生意料不到的負面影響。政府補貼也許會鼓勵人們創立公司，但他們也許在其他地方工作效率會更高。

????好消息是什么呢？據布魯金斯學會介紹，你不必通過創立公司來創造高薪水的技術崗位。最近一份報告發現，先進的技術部門發展速度比整體經濟要快30%，而其中大部分公司都來自開展數字化運營的其他行業（汽車公司、制造商、媒體、酒店業等等）。布魯金斯的馬克·穆羅表示：“大多數競爭性行業都充滿技術。”

????換句話說，一家位于得梅因的保險公司通過擴充信息技術部門創造的技術崗位，也許和該市一個應用開發商一樣多。地處大平原的城市可以用這種方法來擴充技術員工群體，而不需要真正營造創業景象——盡管那聽起來很棒。對不起了，硅谷平原。（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：任文科

????Every city wants to be the next Silicon Valley. In the last decade, policy makers and municipal boosters have spent millions on initiatives meant to lure and nurture local entrepreneurs. See: “StartUp PHL,” “StartUp-Miami,” “Startup VA,” “Startup America,” and countless others. But no matter how hard cities try to borrow that Bay Area magic (looking at you, “Silicon Sandbar”), none have managed to recreate the Valley’s particular formula for tech startup-fueled success—and increasingly it seems like the wrong aspiration.

????In recent years, digital efficiency has ground down the number of workers a company needs to make money, particularly in tech startups. Instagram had just 13 employees when it sold to Facebook for $1 billion. WhatsApp had 55 employees when Facebook bought it for $19 billion. And Snapchat had 20 employees when investors valued it at $4 billion. The list of super-lean unicorns goes on and on. For a little context, the average Fortune 500 company in 2015 had 53,587 employees.

????So it seems odd, then, that so many cities are trying so hard to recruit entrepreneurs to be their job creation champions. Just look at New York, where a state initiative called Startup NY, set out with the aim of creating some 2,100 jobs in five years. After one year and $28 million spent on marketing, it could claim just 76 new positions at 30 companies. Average employment per company was less than three people.

????And it’s not just tech. Startups across the board have been hiring fewer people. The number of people employed by new firms, long a huge factor in job growth, has been falling since the 90s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were 4.1 million jobs created by new firms in 1994, and just 2.5 million created by new firms in 2010.

????Daniel Isenberg, Babson Executive Education Professor of Entrepreneurship Practice, has long criticized the pursuit of young companies as economic drivers. “The first problem is the premise that startups create jobs,” Isenberg says. “Empirically it’s problematic, but also logically it’s problematic. … [As an investor], the last thing that I want a company that I invest in to do is create jobs.”

????The biggest problem, Isenberg says, is that young companies tend to shed the new positions they create very quickly. A recent study conducted by professors at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the IESE Business School followed 158,000 startups in Europe and Asia and found that by the end of five years, the majority of the initial gains in employment were offset by subsequent downsizing. Plus, the jobs that startups do create are not always highly paid, and they often take a long time to materialize.

????A better solution? Isenberg thinks if policymakers want to see results in less than a decade, they should instead focus on boosting existing companies with track record of success (meaning a few million in revenue), and with ambitions to scale. The companies in the U.S. that have a high impact on job growth aren’t newest firms—they’re companies that are at least 15 to 20 years old on average, according to the Small Business Administration. And a recent report on midsize businesses by American Express finds that medium-sized companies (between $10 million and $1 billion in revenue), have created 92% of the new jobs since 2008.

????Scott Shane, professor at Case Western Reserve University, believes that startup programs can have a place in cities, but only sparingly. A good test of the efficacy of a city startup initiative is whether it solves for a market failure. For example, it might make sense for the government to step in to seed a company that benefits the public good more than it would a private investor. But Shane cautions that promoting entrepreneurship for its own sake could have unintended negative consequences. The subsidies might encourage people to start companies when they would be more productive working elsewhere.

????The good news? According to the Brookings Institution, you don’t have to be a startup to create high-paying jobs in tech. The advanced technology sector is growing 30% faster than the economy as a whole, a recent report found, and much of that is at companies in other industries (car companies, manufacturers, media, hospitality and more) that are bulking up their digital operations. “Most competitive industries are saturated with technology,” says Brookings’ Mark Muro.

????In other words, an insurance company in Des Moines could create as many tech jobs by beefing up its IT department as a new app developer would by setting up shop in the same city. The Great Plains city could boost its tech employee base that way, without ever actually growing a startup scene—as great as that sounds. Sorry, Silicon Prairie.