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This is a series of articles published by Kai Fu Lee. I did the translation after graduation from university in summer to learn more about the technology trend and practise my translation skill.

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Translation of Kaifu Lee’s post on LinkedIn - Why Weibo Technology Will Change China

李开复LinkedIn文章翻译之三 – 为什么美国互联网公司在中国频频失利？

Almost without exception, American Internet companies failed in China. The chart below shows the failure of American companies in China, and the three big winners: Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, that emerged as a result (the collective market capitalization of these three companies is about $150 billion).

几乎无一例外，美国的互联网公司在中国都失败了。下图展示了美国互联网公司在中国的败绩，以及三个大赢家：阿里巴巴，百度和腾讯，他们借此应运而生（这三家公司的市值总值大约在一千五百亿美元左右）。

Many attribute the American company failures to government regulations or favoritism. While these played a part in their failure, there were other more relevant reasons related to the companies themselves:

​很多人把美国公司失利归因于政府的管制或偏袒。尽管这些因素在他们的失败中起了一定作用，还有一些和他们公司自身更相关的原因：

1. Too short-term focused– China is a large market requiring much patience. American companies often prioritize globally based on profitability, or cut-back across all regions during economic downturns. But these moves often prove to be penny-wise, pound-foolish. They save some money in the short-term, but hand over market share to the competitors. Examples: AOL entered and exited China twice – each exit caused by its own financial woes, while the China market was booming.

   1. 过于短视 – 中国是一个需要极大耐心的巨大市场。美国公司经常基于盈利能力划分全球市场的优先级，或是在经济下行的时候缩减全部地区。但是这些举措常常被证明是拣了芝麻，丢了西瓜。他们在短期内省了钱，但把市场份额都拱手让给了竞争对手。例如：美国在线在中国市场两进两出 – 每次退出都是由于它自身的财政不景气，而当时中国的市场正在迅猛增长。

2. Local team not empowered– China is a tough, large market with fierce competitors. To have a chance in China, the American company must empower the local team to be responsive, autonomous, localized, and ready for combat. However, because of some horror stories or stereotyped concerns, American company headquarters would not only refuse to give autonomy, but also apply additional scrutiny. Example: Google’s processes required headquarter approval for policy, product, data center allocation, UI, and even doodle, not to mention hiring of each personnel.

   2. 本地团队授权不够– 中国是一个艰难的、巨大的市场，这里有凶猛的竞争者。为了在中国能有所作为，美国总部必须授权本地团队，让其能根据情况快速反应，自治，本地化，并时刻准备作战。然而，因为某些骇人听闻的事件或刻板印象的担忧，美国总公司不仅拒绝交出自治权，还强加一些额外的监督。例如：谷歌的工作流程需要总公司对政策，产品，数据中心分配，用户界面设计，甚至是首页涂鸦的一系列认可，更别提招聘每个职员了。

3. Slow global processes– Chinese market can be sufficiently different to require exceptions, but American companies care greatly about maintaining a single global platform. These decisions will maintain integrity of the global platform, but may give up the local market share. Example: eBay bought the market leader Eachnet, and then killed its platform in favor of the eBay platform hosted in the US, which was a disaster. Another example was eBay relied on seller reputation, but in China that was not enough, and Alipay came up with an escrow payment which won the battle and the war.

   3. 缓慢的全球化进程 – 中国市场有足够的差异性，值得被区别对待，但美国公司非常关心维持一个单一的全球平台。这些决定会维护全球平台的完整性，但是可能会放弃当地的市场份额。例如：eBay收购了市场领头的易趣网，然后为了支持主机在美国的eBay平台关闭了它的平台，这简直就是个灾难。另一个例子是eBay依赖卖家的声望，但是在中国这是不够的，随后支付宝以第三方支付起势并夺取了最后的胜利。

4. Cultural mismatch– American companies prefer to hire Ivy League MBAs or Stanford PhDs with years of experience, speaking perfect English and American body language. But these “sea turtles” may not be the most effective in day-to-day battle in the Chinese Internet gladiatorial fight. Example: Yahoo China had a GM who was considered a misfit inside Yahoo, but left to build a company valued over $3 billion in just six years.

   4. 文化不匹配– 美国公司倾向于招聘有几年工作经验的常青藤的MBA或斯坦福的博士，他们会用完美的英语和美式肢体语言。但这些”海龟”也许在中国互联网日常的战斗中不是最有效的。例如：雅虎中国有位总经理被认为在雅虎内部不合适，但仅仅在他离开后六年就创办了一家市值超过三十亿美元的公司。

So will an American company have a chance? It won’t be easy, but possibly. First, all of the above make a great textbook that must be studied to have a chance. Second, while Chinese companies are doing well in the consumer/mobile software space, I believe with big data, cloud computing, and enterprise software, American companies still have an edge… for now.

所以美国公司将来会有机会吗？没那么简单，但有可能。首先，所有以上公司的经历是一本很好的教科书，在能有所作为之前必须得好好研究下。其次，当中国公司在用户/移动软件领域做得很好的时候，我相信拥有大数据，云计算，以及企业级软件的美国公司还是有优势的… 至少现在还是有的。