经济学人317:新创企业-料理他们的花园

 　　A MAN walks into a conference room at the W hotel in downtown Austin. The setting, sleek 1 and hushed, says business. The trainers—red, puffy, and paired with a sports coat—add a wink 2: new business.

　　一名男士步入了奥斯汀市中心W酒店的会议室。那里的环境井然有序且安静，一派职场气象。但是男士脚穿的红色蓬松运动鞋和身上的运动外套却在这派气象上加上了一种特殊意味：新型商务。
　　“There are crazy awesome 3 start-ups happening in every nook and cranny in this country,” says Scott Case, the man in question. He is the boss of the non-profit Start-up America Partnership 4, which means to help fledgling entrepreneurs by smoothing their access to private-sector 5 money and mentoring 6. The idea is that as these young companies grow, they will create jobs—new jobs, good jobs—and related economic activity that enriches the entire community. Some of the start-ups may even be “gazelles”, companies that grow by leaps and bounds.
　　“在这个国度的每个角落里，每个缝隙间，都蕴藏着疯狂惊人的新建公司创业事迹。”斯科特凯斯说道。他是非盈利性新创企业美国合伙人公司的老板，这意味着他帮助刚刚起步的企业家们融通私营企业资金，并进行相关指导。（其中的）理念在于，当这些年轻的公司逐步成长，它们将提供许多工作（新工作岗位，好工作岗位）以及丰富整个社会的相关经济活动。新创公司中有一些甚至成了“羚羊”，这些公司的成长是跨越式的。
　　Last year the Kauffman Foundation, a think-tank focused on entrepreneurship (and which provided initial funding for Mr Case’s partnership), released a report explaining that new firms typically create about 3m jobs in America each year. Between 1980 and 2005 they contributed some 40m net new jobs—as many as the country’s entire private sector managed over that time.
　　去年，一家专注于创业的智囊机构—考夫曼基金会（最初是它提供给凯斯先生合伙人公司的初始资金）—发布了一份报告宣称，新公司一般地为美国每年创造提供了300万的岗位工作。1980年至2005年间，这些新创公司提供了将近4000万新的岗位，与当时的美国全部私有部门管理的职位数一样多。
　　So people are keen to help. Barack Obama announced a start-up initiative at the beginning of last year, and last month he renewed the call. Congress is considering a bipartisan Start-up Act that could provide some tax credits, regulatory exemptions 7, and so on. Regional economic development groups have taken up the idea of economic “gardening”. The philosophy there is that regions should focus on core strengths and home-grown businesses, rather than squabbling with their neighbours in an effort to win a new car plant.
　　如此而来，人们都热衷于援助新创企业。巴拉克?奥巴马去年年初公布了一项新创公司动员计划，并于上个月修改了该项提议。美国国会正考虑一项两党新创公司法案，该法案可以提供一些税务减免和日常减免等等。区域经济发展团已经采纳了该理念，即经济型“园林管理”。这个层面上体现出的哲理是，地方上应当聚焦（自己的）核心竞争力以及土生土长原汁原味的生意，而不是和他们的邻里们为了争一个新汽车工厂而喋喋不休。
　　This is mostly sensible. Many of the proposals mooted 8 for start-ups—expanding the number of visas for highly skilled immigrants, for example—are generally sound. And some start-ups do turn out to be gazelles. Next month, for example, will mark five years since Twitter came to national attention at SXSW, Austin’s annual internet festival.
　　这大致是明智的。很多的建议书提出了对新创公司的讨论，例如扩大高技能移民们的签证数量，一般来说都很不错。确实一些新创公司转变成为了“羚羊”。例如，下个月将标志着Twitter公司在奥斯汀年度网络盛会——西南偏南节上成为国民聚焦企业的五周年纪念日。
　　Still, there is cause for caution. For one thing, there is some ambiguity 9 over what sort of companies the policymakers are trying to promote. Mr Obama talks about “start-ups and small businesses”. Private-sector people, however, seem to have less interest in the latter. They would rather live in Silicon 10 Valley than on Main Street. But high-tech 11 concepts are not the only viable 12 business ideas. The Austin metro 13 area, for example, is home to just two Fortune 500 companies, Dell and Whole Foods; both, oddly, were founded in the early 1980s by dropouts from the local university.
　　然而，还是需要小心谨慎。一方面来说，政策制定者们尝试促进的那类公司仍有点含糊不清。奥巴马先生高谈“新创企业和小生意”。然而，私营企业业主他们更关注硅谷的高科产业，而对小型普通商业不太感兴趣。但是，高科技理念不是唯一的可行商业理念。比如，奥斯汀地铁站区域是财富五百强中两大骄子Dell（戴尔）和Whole Foods（全食公司）的家乡，奇怪的是，二者都是当地大学退学学生在1980年早期办起来的。
　　Another issue is that the effects of start-ups on employment may be modest. Perhaps as a result of the recession, the number of new companies that actually employ people is declining. The cohort of companies born in 2009, according to Kauffman, created only 2.3 million jobs.
　　另一个问题在于新创公司的影响力对于雇佣员工来说不是很大。也许由于经济不景气的原因，新公司实际上雇佣的人数正在下降。据考夫曼基金会的报道，2009年诞生的一群公司仅仅提供了230万工作岗位。
　　Last month the White House invited Mike Krieger, the co-founder of Instagram, to attend the state-of-the-union message to show off America’s fastest-growing social mobile start-up. “What began as a small, two-person start-up working out of a pier 14 in San Francisco has grown to a dozen employees,” Mr Krieger wrote. Even the bigger companies may not be labour-intensive. There is a danger that start-up jobs will be the next variant 15 of “green jobs”: worthwhile, but slightly overhyped.
　　上个月，白宫邀请了Instagram公司的联合创始人Mike Krieger参加国情咨文，炫耀着美国增长速度最快的手机行业新创公司。 Krieger 先生写道：“刚开始，一个在旧金山码头运营的两人合伙小公司，逐渐变成了十几个员工的公司。”虽然比这更大的公司都可能不是劳动密集型企业的。潜在的危机在于，新创公司提供的工作岗位将成为下一个变质的“绿色工作”：很值，但稍稍有点浮夸了。