2015年Amazon致股東信：如何成為史上最快達到年銷售額千億美元的公司？｜見識之旅

導讀

這封信是2015年Amazon的第19封致股東信。

2015年，Amazon成為有史以來最快達到年銷售額1000億美元的公司。其中AWS是整個公司最強勁的增長點。

提到Amazon增長迅猛的原因，Jeff Bezos認為最根本的原因是鼓勵創新、鼓勵失敗的文化。

為什麼歸因於企業文化？企業文化聽起來很空泛，有那麼強的影響力嗎？

在Jeff Bezos的定義下，企業文化確實是開拓新事業時成敗的根本原因。擁有鼓勵創新、鼓勵失敗的企業文化，才有可能誕生出有重大意義的發明。

怎麼塑造出一種企業文化？不能靠紙和筆寫下，要靠人和故事，在時間的淬鍊下將企業文化定型。

Amazon也是在一次又一次的試驗與失敗後，才逐漸將創新的基因深植於Amazon公司裡。

沒有豪賭般的投入，Amazon今天就不會擁有三大支柱AWS、Prime和第三方賣家服務。

好了，導讀結束，以下致股東信正文開始。

正文

To our shareowners:

致我們的股東：

This year, Amazon became the fastest company ever to reach $100 billion in annual sales. Also this year, Amazon Web Services is reaching $10 billion in annual sales … doing so at a pace even faster than Amazon achieved that milestone.

今年，Amazon成為有史以來最快達到年銷售額1000億美元的公司。其中，AWS的年銷售額就達到了100億美元。AWS的增長速度超過了Amazon本身實現這一里程碑的速度。

What’s going on here? Both were planted as tiny seeds and both have grown organically without significant acquisitions into meaningful and large businesses, quickly. Superficially, the two could hardly be more different. One serves consumers and the other serves enterprises. One is famous for brown boxes and the other for APIs. Is it only a coincidence that two such dissimilar offerings grew so quickly under one roof? Luck plays an outsized role in every endeavor, and I can assure you we’ve had a bountiful supply. But beyond that, there is a connection between these two businesses. Under the surface, the two are not so different after all. They share a distinctive organizational culture that cares deeply about and acts with conviction on a small number of principles. I’m talking about customer obsession rather than competitor obsession, eagerness to invent and pioneer, willingness to fail, the patience to think long-term, and the taking of professional pride in operational excellence. Through that lens, AWS and Amazon retail are very similar indeed.

這一切究竟發生了什麼？兩者起初都是剛萌芽的種子，而且都在沒有大額收購下，自發地成長為有價值的大型企業。從表面上看，兩者幾乎沒有什麼不同。一項服務於消費者，另一項服務於企業客戶。前者以棕色包裝盒聞名，後者以API為人所知。兩個如此不同的產品，在同一個屋簷下如此迅速地增長，只是一個巧合嗎？運氣在事業發展中總會發揮舉足輕重的作用，而我們的運氣很不錯。拋開表面來看，這兩項業務之間有一些共通之處。他們都有著獨特的組織文化，關注少數原則並堅信不移。我所說的是對客戶的關注，而不是對競爭對手的關注。對發明和開拓事業的渴望，並願意為此承擔失敗的可能。對長期思考的耐心，以及對卓越運營的自豪感。從這個角度來看，AWS和Amazon零售業務十分相似。

A word about corporate cultures: for better or for worse, they are enduring, stable, hard to change. They can be a source of advantage or disadvantage. You can write down your corporate culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it — not creating it. It is created slowly over time by the people and by events — by the stories of past success and failure that become a deep part of the company lore. If it’s a distinctive culture, it will fit certain people like a custom-made glove. The reason cultures are so stable in time is because people self-select. Someone energized by competitive zeal may select and be happy in one culture, while someone who loves to pioneer and invent may choose another. The world, thankfully, is full of many high-performing, highly distinctive corporate cultures. We never claim that our approach is the right one — just that it’s ours — and over the last two decades, we’ve collected a large group of like-minded people. Folks who find our approach energizing and meaningful.

這裡我想分享一段關於企業文化的描述：無論好與壞，它們都是持久、穩定且難以改變的。它們可能成為某項優點或缺點的來源。你當然可以輕易地用紙和筆寫下公司的企業文化，但是這麼做並不能創造一種企業文化。企業文化是由人和故事塑造的。隨著時間流逝，過去的成功和失敗將逐漸成為公司的一部分。如果這是一種獨特的文化，那麼它就像定製手套一樣只適合某些人。文化之所以穩定，其原因是人們的自我選擇。充滿競爭熱情的人，可以在某種文化中感到快樂，而熱愛開拓創新的人可以選擇另一種文化。值得慶幸的是，世界上充滿了許多高效且獨特的企業文化。我們從來沒有說過我們的方法是絕對正確的－它只不過是我們選擇的企業文化，我們用它在過去二十年中吸引了一大批志同道合的人。這些人都認為我們的企業文化充滿活力和富有意義。

One area where I think we are especially distinctive is failure. I believe we are the best place in the world to fail (we have plenty of practice!), and failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there. Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a ten percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you’re still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.

我認為讓Amazon與眾不同的一點就是失敗。如果要失敗，我相信Amazon是世界上最好的地方（對此我們很有經驗！）。失敗和發明是密不可分的雙胞胎。要想發明創造些什麼，你必須先進行實驗。如果你事先知道它會起作用，那就稱不上實驗。大多數大型組織都想要發明的成果，但不願意承受過程中一系列的失敗實驗。豐厚的回報通常來自與傳統作法的對賭，而傳統作法智慧在大多數情況下是正確的。假設有10%的機會能獲得100倍的回報，我認為你應該嘗試。你的確可能在10次中錯了9次，你有可能會揮棒落空，也有可能擊出本壘打。然而，棒球與商業之間的區別在於棒球的可能性是有限的。揮棒時，無論你表現得再好，你能跑的壘包數最多就是四個。在商業世界中則不然，你最多可以往前邁進1000步。這種長尾的收益分配，是為什麼我認為應該要大膽的原因。最大的贏家，做了最多的實驗。

AWS, Marketplace and Prime are all examples of bold bets at Amazon that worked, and we’re fortunate to have those three big pillars. They have helped us grow into a large company, and there are certain things that only large companies can do. With a tip of the hat to our Seattle neighbors, no matter how good an entrepreneur you are, you’re not going to build an all-composite 787 in your garage startup — not one you’d want to fly in anyway. Used well, our scale enables us to build services for customers that we could otherwise never even contemplate. But also, if we’re not vigilant and thoughtful, size could slow us down and diminish our inventiveness.

AWS、Marketplace和Prime都是Amazon大膽下注的例子，最終我們很幸運地擁有這三大支柱。它們幫助我們成長為一家大公司，讓我們有機會去做那些只有大公司才能做的事。我們向我們在西雅圖的鄰居打開大門，提供我們的服務。無論你是多麼出色的企業家，你都不可能在車庫創業公司中建造一架全複合材料的波音787飛機。我們運用自身的巨大規模來為客戶提供服務，如果運用得當，這些服務將是我們以前無法企及的。如果我們不保持警惕，那麼規模會使我們放慢腳步，削弱我們的創造力。

As I meet with teams across Amazon, I am continually amazed at the passion, intelligence and creativity on display. Our teams accomplished a lot in the last year, and I’d like to share a few of the highlights of our efforts to nourish and globalize our three big offerings — Prime, Marketplace and AWS. And while I’ll focus on those three, I assure you that we also remain hard at work on finding a fourth.

當我與Amazon的不同團隊見面時，我對他們都展現出來的熱情、智慧和創造力感到訝異。團隊們去年取得了很大的成就，在此我想分享的三大產品－Prime、Marketplace和AWS，重點強調團隊為它們付出的努力。儘管我只重點介紹這三個，但我向你保證，我們會繼續努力尋找第四個。

Prime

Prime服務

We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.

我們希望Prime擁有極高的價值，讓每個會員都認為非常物超所值。

We’ve grown Prime two-day delivery selection from 1 million items to over 30 million, added Sunday Delivery, and introduced Free Same-Day Delivery on hundreds of thousands of products for customers in more than 35 cities around the world. We’ve added music, photo storage, the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and streaming films and TV.

我們已將Prime服務中兩天內到貨的商品品項從100萬件增加至超過3000萬件，並新增了「周日到貨」服務選項，為全球超過35個城市的顧客推出了當日到貨服務，涵蓋成千上萬種產品。我們新增了音樂、照片儲存、Kindle圖書館、串流影音服務。

Prime Now offers members one-hour delivery on an important subset of selection, and was launched only 111 days after it was dreamed up. In that time, a small team built a customer-facing app, secured a location for an urban warehouse, determined which 25,000 items to sell, got those items stocked, recruited and on-boarded new staff, tested, iterated, designed new software for internal use — both a warehouse management system and a driver-facing app — and launched in time for the holidays. Today, just 15 months after that first city launch, Prime Now is serving members in more than 30 cities around the world.

從構想到實現，我們只花了111天就推出了Prime Now服務。會員可在一部份品項中享受1小時內到貨的配送服務。當時，一個小團隊構建了一個面向消費者的App，在城市倉庫中保留一部分位置，決定2.5萬件要出售的商品，將這些商品存入倉庫，招聘和僱用新員工，進行了軟體的設計、測試和迭代，讓內部使用的倉庫管理系統及面向司機的App及時在假期上線。今天，距離我們在第一個城市推出服務後僅15個月，Prime Now正在為全球30多個城市的會員提供服務。

Prime Video offers exclusives from some of the world’s most passionate storytellers. We want brilliant creators like Jill Soloway, Jason Schwartzman and Spike Lee to take risks and push boundaries. Our original series have already earned more than 120 nominations and won nearly 60 awards, including Golden Globe and Emmy awards. Many of these are stories that might never have been told in the traditional linear programming model. In the pipeline and coming soon are new series and movies from creators like Jeremy Clarkson, David E. Kelley, Woody Allen and Kenneth Lonergan.

Prime Video提供獨家內容，這些內容來自世界上最熱情的創作者。我們希望像Jill Soloway、Jason Schwartzman和Spike Lee這樣的傑出創作者冒險並突破界限。我們最初的系列影集已獲得了超過120個提名，獲頒近60個獎項，其中包括金球獎和艾美獎。得獎作品中，有許多都是傳統敘事方式從未講過的故事類型。即將上映的作品包括Jeremy Clarkson、David E. Kelley、Woody Allen和Kenneth Lonergan等創作者的新影集和電影。

The Man in the High Castle, based on the Philip K. Dick novel, explores an alternate history where the U.S. lost World War II. It debuted on Prime Video on November 20th and in four weeks became our most-viewed show — receiving acclaim from critics like “…Amazon has the best new drama of the season in The Man in the High Castle” and “The Man in the High Castle accomplishes so much, where most new broadcast TV dramas these days don’t even try.”

根據Philip K.Dick的小說改編，《The Man in the High Castle》講述了美國在第二次世界大戰中失敗的另一個平行時空的故事。11月20日在Prime Video上首次播出，在四個星期內榮登成為觀看次數最多的節目。節目受到評論家的讚賞，例如「 Amazon擁有本季最佳新影集《The Man in the High Castle》」和「《The Man in the High Castle》的成就之高，是多數新播出的電視劇沒有嘗試過的。」

These shows are great for customers, and they feed the Prime flywheel — Prime members who watch Prime Video are more likely to convert from a free trial to a paid membership, and more likely to renew their annual subscriptions.

這些節目非常適合顧客，而且他們會推動Prime服務的飛輪運轉－觀看Prime Video的會員更可能從免費試用轉換為付費會員，並且更有可能再次續訂。

Finally, our first ever Prime Day surpassed all our expectations — more new members tried Prime that day than any other day in our history. Worldwide order growth increased 266% over the same day the year before, and sellers whose products are Prime-eligible through FBA saw record-breaking sales — with growth nearing 300%.

最終，我們有史以來的第一個針對Prime會員的優惠之日Prime Day大大超出我們的期望－史上增加最多新會員嘗試Prime的一天。全球訂單比前年同期增長了266％，參與Prime服務的第三方賣家銷售額創歷史新高，增長率接近300％。

Prime has become an all-you-can-eat, physical-digital hybrid that members love. Membership grew 51% last year — including 47% growth in the U.S. and even faster internationally — and there are now tens of millions of members worldwide. There’s a good chance you’re already one of them, but if you’re not — please be responsible — join Prime.

Prime已成為最受喜愛的無限量吃到飽的會員資格，提供實體產品也提供虛擬產品。去年，Prime會員人數增長了51％（其中美國增長了47％，國際增長速度更快），現在全球有數千萬Prime會員。你很有可能已經是其中一員，但如果你還不是－對自己的荷包負責，快加入Prime。

Marketplace

第三方賣家平台Marketplace

We took two big swings and missed — with Auctions and zShops — before we launched Marketplace over 15 years ago. We learned from our failures and stayed stubborn on the vision, and today close to 50% of units sold on Amazon are sold by third-party sellers. Marketplace is great for customers because it adds unique selection, and it’s great for sellers — there are over 70,000 entrepreneurs with sales of more than $100,000 a year selling on Amazon, and they’ve created over 600,000 new jobs. With FBA, that flywheel spins faster because sellers’ inventory becomes Prime-eligible — Prime becomes more valuable for members, and sellers sell more.

15年前，在我們推出Marketplace之前，我們經歷兩次變動和誤判，錯過了Aunctions和zShops。我們從失敗中汲取教訓，對願景更加堅持。如今，在Amazon上出售的商品中，近50％是由第三方賣家出售的。Marketplace對顧客來說很棒，因為它增加更多獨特的選擇。Marketplace對賣家也很棒，平台上有超過7萬名企業家，他們的年銷售額超過10萬美元，創造了超過60萬個工作機會。借助Amazon配送服務，飛輪的旋轉速度更快。第三方賣家的庫存商品符合Prime資格，而Prime讓顧客的會員資格更有價值，顧客買得更多，賣家則賣出更多。

This year, we created a new program called Seller Fulfilled Prime. We invited sellers who are able to meet a high bar for shipping speed and consistency in service to be part of the Prime program and ship their own orders at Prime speed directly. Those sellers have already seen a significant bump in sales, and the program has led to hundreds of thousands of additional items that are available to Prime customers via free two-day or next-day shipping in the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

今年，我們開始了一個新計畫程序，稱為「第三方賣方Prime計畫」。我們邀請那些能滿足快速配送要求的第三方賣家加入Prime計劃，請他們直接以Prime計劃要求的速度配送自己的訂單。這些賣家已經感受到銷量的巨大提升，此計劃為顧客帶來了成千上萬種新商品可供選擇。在美國、英國和德國，這些商品能在兩天內或一天內免運送達Prime顧客手中。

We also created the Amazon Lending program to help sellers grow. Since the program launched, we’ve provided aggregate funding of over $1.5 billion to micro, small and medium businesses across the U.S., U.K. and Japan through short-term loans, with a total outstanding loan balance of about $400 million. Stephen Aarstol, surfer and owner of Tower Paddle Boards, is one beneficiary. His business has become one of the fastestgrowing companies in San Diego, in part with a little help from Amazon Lending. Click-to-cash access to capital helps these small enterprises grow, benefits customers with greater selection, and benefits Amazon since our marketplace revenue grows along with the sellers’ sales. We hope to expand Amazon Lending and are now working on ways to partner with banks so they can use their expertise to take and manage the bulk of the credit risk.

我們開啟了「Amazon借貸計劃」幫助賣家發展。自該計劃啟動以來，我們已透過短期貸款向美國、英國和日本的微型、中小型企業提供了總計超過15億美元的資金，其中尚未償還的貸款餘額總計約為4億美元。Tower Paddle Boards公司的Stephen Aarstol就是其中一位受益者。他的業務已成為聖地亞哥發展最快的公司之一，部分得益於Amazon借貸計劃。由於我們的市場收入隨著賣家的銷售而增長，因此幫助這些小型企業發展能使Amazon受益，讓顧客有更多選擇。這些小型企業要做的事只有點擊頁面上的按鈕，他們就能獲得資金。我們希望擴大Amazon借貸計劃，現在正在研究與銀行的合作方式，以便銀行可以運用其專業知識來承擔和管理大部分信貸風險。

In addition to nourishing our big offerings, we work to globalize them. Our Marketplace creates opportunities for sellers anywhere to reach buyers around the world. In the past, many sellers would limit their customer base to their home country due to the practical challenges of selling internationally. To globalize Marketplace and expand the opportunities available to sellers, we built selling tools that empowered entrepreneurs in 172 countries to reach customers in 189 countries last year. These cross-border sales are now nearly a quarter of all third-party units sold on Amazon. To make this possible, we translated hundreds of millions of product listings and provided conversion services among 44 currencies. Even small and niche sellers can now tap into our global customer base and global logistics network. The end result is very different from sellers handling their own one-at-a-time, cross-border fulfillment. Plugable Technologies’ CEO, Bernie Thompson, put it this way: “It really changes the paradigm when you’re able to ship the goods in bulk to a warehouse in Europe or Japan and have those goods be fulfilled in one day or two days.”

除了豐富大型產品，我們也致力於將它們全球化。Marketplace為第三方賣家創造更多商業機會，覆蓋全球各地的消費者。過去，由於在跨境銷售困難重重，許多賣家會將客群限制在境內。為了使Marketplace全球化，我們開發了相關的銷售工具，讓全球172個國家的企業家在去年能夠觸及189個國家的消費者。目前這些跨境銷量佔Amazon第三方銷量的近四分之一。為了實現全球化，我們翻譯了數億種產品清單，提供了44種貨幣之間的轉換服務。現在，即使是小型賣家也可以運用我們的全球客群和物流網絡。使用Amazon服務和賣方自己處理跨境物流得到的結果大不相同。Plugable Technologies的CEO Bernie Thompson這樣說：「當你能夠將貨物批量運送到歐洲或日本的倉庫，並在一兩天內完成商品配送，這確實是範式層級的改變。」

India is another example of how we globalize an offering like Marketplace through customer obsession and a passion for invention. Last year we ran a program called Amazon Chai Cart where we deployed three-wheeled mobile carts to navigate in a city’s business districts, serve tea, water and lemon juice to small business owners and teach them about selling online. In a period of four months, the team traveled 15,280 km across 31 cities, served 37,200 cups of tea and engaged with over 10,000 sellers. Through this program and other conversations with sellers, we found out there was a lot of interest in selling online, but that sellers struggled with the belief that the process was time-consuming, tedious and complex. So, we invented Amazon Tatkal, which enables small businesses to get online in less than 60 minutes. Amazon Tatkal is a specially designed studio-on-wheels offering a suite of launch services including registration, imaging and cataloguing services, as well as basic seller training mechanisms. Since its launch on February 17th, we have reached sellers in 25 cities.

說到透過顧客至上的理念和對發明的熱情來推行產品全球化，印度是我們一個很好的例子。去年，我們開始了一個名為Amazon Chai Cart的計劃，在城市的商業區中放置三輪移動推車，為小型企業主提供茶、水和檸檬汁，教授他們關於線上零售的知識。在四個月的時間裡，該團隊在31個城市中行駛了15280公里，提供了37200杯茶，與超過10萬名賣家接觸。透過該計劃，我們發現賣家在線上零售非常感興趣，但他們認為這一過程耗時、乏味又複雜。因此，我們發明了Amazon Tatkal，它使小型賣家可以在不到60分鐘的時間內開始在網路上銷售商品。Amazon Tatkal是一款經過特殊設計的移動工作室，提供一整套上架服務，包括註冊、拍照和編目服務，以及基本的賣方培訓機制。自2月17日推出Amazon Tatkal後，我們已經觸及25個城市的賣家。

We’re also globalizing Fulfillment by Amazon, adapting the service to local customer needs. In India, we launched a program called Seller Flex to combine Amazon’s logistics capabilities with sellers’ selection at the local neighborhood level. Sellers set aside a part of their warehouse for storing items to be sold on Amazon, and we configure it as a fulfillment center in our network that can receive and fulfill customer orders. Our team provides guidance on warehouse layout, IT and operational infrastructure, and trains the seller on standard operating procedures to be followed onsite. We’ve now launched 25 operational Seller Flex sites across ten cities.

我們也正在將Amazon配送服務全球化，使服務更適應當地消費者的需求。在印度，我們啟動了一個名為Seller Flex的計劃，將Amazon的物流能力與當地賣家的商品品項相結合。賣家空出一部分倉庫，存放要在Amazon上出售的商品，我們會將其配置為Amazon物流網絡中的配送點，可以接收和配送消費者的訂單。我們的團隊提供關於倉庫設計、IT技術和運營的指導，對賣家進行標準操作程序的培訓。現在，我們已經在十個城市裡啟動了25個可運營Seller Flex的站點。

Amazon Web Services

AWS雲端運算服務

Just over 10 years ago, AWS started in the U.S. with its first major service, a simple storage service. Today, AWS offers more than 70 services for compute, storage, databases, analytics, mobile, Internet of Things, and enterprise applications. We also offer 33 Availability Zones across 12 geographic regions worldwide, with another five regions and 11 Availability Zones in Canada, China, India, the U.S., and the U.K. to be available in the coming year. AWS started with developers and startups, and now is used by more than a million customers from organizations of every size across nearly every industry — companies like Pinterest, Airbnb, GE, Enel, Capital One, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, Hess, Adobe, McDonald’s, and Time Inc.

就在10年前，AWS開始了在美國的第一項主要業務，即簡單存儲服務（Simole Storage Service）。如今，AWS提供了計算、儲存、數據庫、分析、移動端、物聯網和企業應用等超過70種服務。明年，我們將在全球12個區域提供33個服務點，其中包含加拿大、中國、印度、美國和英國的11個服務點。AWS從開發人員和新創公司開始，如今服務超過100萬名客戶，涵蓋幾乎各行各業不同規模的組織，包括Pinterest、Airbnb、GE、Enel、Capital One、Intuit、Johnson＆Johnson、Philips、Hess、Adobe、McDonald’s和Time。

AWS is bigger than Amazon.com was at 10 years old, growing at a faster rate, and — most noteworthy in my view — the pace of innovation continues to accelerate — we announced 722 significant new features and services in 2015, a 40% increase over 2014.

AWS的規模比10年前的Amazon更大，而且增長速度更快。我認為最值得關注的是－創新的步伐依然不斷加快。AWS在2015年推出了722種重要的新功能和服務，和2014年相比增長了40％。

Many characterized AWS as a bold — and unusual — bet when we started. “What does this have to do with selling books?” We could have stuck to the knitting. I’m glad we didn’t. Or did we? Maybe the knitting has as much to do with our approach as the arena. AWS is customer obsessed, inventive and experimental, long-term oriented, and cares deeply about operational excellence.

在我們開始時，許多人都將AWS視為大膽且不正常的賭注。「AWS和賣書有什麼關係？」我們本來可以固守本業，但很高興的是我們沒有。倘若拋開業務所在領域，就價值觀來說，我們依然固守原本的做事方法。AWS依然信奉顧客至上、創新與實驗精神、長期主義，並非常重視卓越的運營。

Given 10 years and many iterations, that approach has allowed AWS to rapidly expand into the world’s most comprehensive, widely adopted cloud service. As with our retail business, AWS is made up of many small teams with single-threaded owners, enabling rapid innovation. The team rolls out new functionality almost daily across 70 services, and that new functionality just “shows up” for customers — there’s no upgrading.

經過10年，在多次迭代之後，這樣的做事方法已使AWS迅速拓展為世界上最全面、應用最廣泛的雲服務。和我們的零售業務一樣，AWS由許多專業分工的小型團隊組成，因此可大大實現快速創新。AWS團隊幾乎每天都會推出新功能，而且這些新功能可直接使用，無需升級。

Many companies describe themselves as customer-focused, but few walk the walk. Most big technology companies are competitor focused. They see what others are doing, and then work to fast follow. In contrast, 90 to 95% of what we build in AWS is driven by what customers tell us they want. A good example is our new database engine, Amazon Aurora. Customers have been frustrated by the proprietary nature, high cost, and licensing terms of traditional, commercial-grade database providers. And while many companies have started moving toward more open engines like MySQL and Postgres, they often struggle to get the performance they need. Customers asked us if we could eliminate that inconvenient trade-off, and that’s why we built Aurora. It has commercial-grade durability and availability, is fully compatible with MySQL, has up to 5 times better performance than the typical MySQL implementation, but is 1/10th the price of the traditional, commercial-grade database engines. This has struck a resonant chord with customers, and Aurora is the fastest-growing service in the history of AWS. Nearly this same story could be told about Redshift, our managed data warehouse service, which is the second fastest growing service in AWS history — both small and large companies are moving their data warehouses to Redshift.

許多公司說自己是以客戶為中心，但很少公司真正實行。多數大型科技公司都以競爭對手為關注核心。他們看到別人在做什麼，然後努力迅速跟進。相較之下，AWS有超過9成的功能是由客戶告訴我們他們想要什麼，進而驅動我們實現。一個絕佳的例子是我們的新數據庫引擎Amazon Aurora。出於專用性、高成本和授權條款等特性，傳統的商業級數據庫並不能讓客戶滿意。儘管許多公司開始轉向MySQL和Postgres這類更開放的數據庫引擎，但它們通常很難達到客戶所需的效能。客戶問我們是否能解決折衷帶來的不便，於是我們建構了Aurora。Aurora兼具商業級的耐用性和可用性，與MySQL兼容，性能比一般的MySQL高5倍，但價格只有傳統商業數據庫引擎的十分之一。這引起了客戶的好感，Aurora是AWS歷史上增長最快的服務。我們幾乎可以用同樣的故事套用在數據庫托管服務Redshift，它是AWS歷史上增長第二快的服務－大大小小的公司正將數據庫遷移到Redshift。

Our approach to pricing is also driven by our customer-centric culture — we’ve dropped prices 51 times, in many cases before there was any competitive pressure to do so. In addition to price reductions, we’ve also continued to launch new lower cost services like Aurora, Redshift, QuickSight (our new Business Intelligence service), EC2 Container Service (our new compute container service), and Lambda (our pioneering server-less computing capability), while extending our services to offer a range of highly cost-effective options for running just about every type of application or IT use case imaginable. We even roll out and continuously improve services like Trusted Advisor, which alerts customers when they can save money — resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for our customers. I’m pretty sure we’re the only IT vendor telling customers how to stop spending money with us.

我們以客戶為中心的文化決定了我們的定價方式－在眾多競爭壓力面前，我們將價格降低了51倍。除了降價外，我們還繼續推出低成本的新服務，例如Aurora、Redshift、QuickSight（新的商業智能服務）、EC2 Container Service（新的計算容器服務）和Lambda（我們的無伺服器運算服務），同時也擴展我們的服務，提供一系列極具成本效益的功能。我們推出並不斷改進Trusted Advisor，它會在客戶應該省錢時提醒他們，這項服務為我們的客戶節省了數億美元。我敢肯定，我們是唯一一家會告訴客戶不要再付錢給我們的IT系統供應商。

Whether you are a startup founded yesterday or a business that has been around for 140 years, the cloud is providing all of us with unbelievable opportunities to reinvent our businesses, add new customer experiences, redeploy capital to fuel growth, increase security, and do all of this so much faster than before. MLB Advanced Media is an example of an AWS customer that is constantly reinventing the customer experience. MLB’s Statcast tracking technology is a new feature for baseball fans that measures the position of each player, the baserunners, and the ball as they move during every play on the field, giving viewers on any screen access to empirical data that answers age-old questions like “what could have happened if…” while also bringing new questions to life. Turning baseball into rocket science, Statcast uses a missile radar system to measure every pitched ball’s movements more than 2,000 times per second, streams and collects data in real-time through Amazon Kinesis (our service for processing real-time streaming data), stores the data on Amazon S3, and then performs analytics in Amazon EC2. The suite of services will generate nearly 7 TB of raw statistical data per game and up to 17 PB per season, shedding quantitative light on age-old, but never verified, baseball pearls of wisdom like “never slide into first.”

無論你是昨天創立的新創公司，還是有140年歷史的企業，雲技術都為我們所有人提供了難以置信的機會。有了雲技術，重塑業務的速度比以前更快，可以更快提升客戶體驗、調整資金促進增長、提升安全性。在AWS的客戶中，MLB Advanced Media就是不斷重塑客戶體驗的一個例子。美國職業棒球大聯盟的Statcast追蹤技術是球迷可使用的一項新功能，它可以測量每位球員、跑壘球員和球在每次比賽中移動時的位置，使球迷可以在任何電子裝置上查找歷史數據，球迷可以從中找到「如果……將會發生怎樣？」的答案。同時也帶來了新的問題，Statcast將棒球變得像火箭科學，Statcast採用導彈的雷達系統，以每秒採樣2000次的速度測量每顆球的運動，並透過Amazon Kinesis（我們用於處理實時數據的服務）收集數據。數據會儲存在Amazon S3上，然後在Amazon EC2中進行分析。每場球賽產生將近7 TB的原始統計數據，每個賽季最多可產生17 PB。於是，從此以後我們可以定量研究「跑一壘時別滑壘」這樣的古老智慧是否正確。

About seven years ago, Netflix announced that they were going to move all their applications to the cloud. Netflix chose AWS because it provided them with the greatest scale and the broadest set of services and features. Netflix recently completed their cloud migration, and stories like theirs are becoming increasingly common as companies like Infor, Intuit, and Time Inc., have made plans to move all of their applications to AWS.

大約在七年前，Netflix宣布將把所有應用程序遷移到AWS。Netflix之所以選擇AWS，是因為AWS提供了最大的規模、最豐富的服務和功能。近期，Netflix完成了遷移工作。隨著Infor、Intuit和Time Inc.等公司計劃將其所有應用程序遷移至AWS，這樣的事情正變得越來越普遍。

AWS is already good enough today to attract more than 1 million customers, and the service is only going to get better from here. As the team continues their rapid pace of innovation, we’ll offer more and more capabilities to let builders build unfettered, it will get easier and easier to collect, store and analyze data, we’ll continue to add more geographic locations, and we’ll continue to see growth in mobile and “connected” device applications. Over time, it’s likely that most companies will choose not to run their own data centers, opting for the cloud instead.

如今，AWS已經出色到可以吸引超過一百萬名客戶，而且服務會因此變得更好。隨著團隊不斷加快創新腳步，我們將提供更多功能，使企業可以放開手任意開發，不受束縛。收集、儲存和分析數據將變得越來越容易，我們會繼續增加服務點，相信未來能在AWS上見到更多移動端應用及物聯網設備。隨著時間的流逝，大多數公司可能會選擇不運行自己的數據中心，轉而選擇雲服務。

Invention Machine

一台發明機器

We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness, and riskacceptance mentality normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.

我們希望成為一家大公司，這間公司就像一台發明機器。巨大的規模，給了我們為客戶服務的卓越能力。我們希望能將服務能力與快速創新的腳步、樂於接受風險的心態相結合。

Can we do it? I’m optimistic. We have a good start on it, and I think our culture puts us in a position to achieve the goal. But I don’t think it’ll be easy. There are some subtle traps that even high-performing large organizations can fall into as a matter of course, and we’ll have to learn as an institution how to guard against them. One common pitfall for large organizations — one that hurts speed and inventiveness — is “one-size-fits-all” decision making.

我們做得到嗎？對此我很樂觀。在這方面，我們一開始的表現不錯，我認為我們的文化可以使我們實現目標。但是我認為這並不容易，即使是高效的大型組織也會陷入一些小陷阱，我們必須作為一個學院來學習如何防範這些小陷阱。大型組織常遇到一個陷阱是－想要用一種決策方式決定所有事情，這樣的做法會減弱創新的速度與能力。

Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible — one-way doors — and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions. But most decisions aren’t like that — they are changeable, reversible — they’re two-way doors. If you’ve made a suboptimal Type 2 decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high judgment individuals or small groups.

有些決策的影響是巨大的，甚至是幾乎不可逆轉的－就像是只有一個通行方向的單向門。這些決定必須條理清晰、謹慎、緩慢地進行，需要經過深思熟慮和諮詢。如果通過了單向門以後，你不喜歡看到的景色，那你也無法回到過去。我們可以將這些類決策稱為第一類決策。但是大多數決策並非如此－它們是可改變的、可逆轉的－就像是有兩個通行方向的雙向門。如果做出第二類決策不理想，那麼你不必忍受長期的後果。你可以重新打開雙向門後輕易回到決策前。判斷力高的人或組織可以且應該迅速做出第二類決策。

As organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavy-weight Type 1 decision-making process on most decisions, including many Type 2 decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention.1 We’ll have to figure out how to fight that tendency.

隨著組織規模的擴張，組織將越來越傾向於將第一類決策的決策方式套用在所有決策上，其中包括很多第二類決策。這麼做的結果，就是決策緩慢、不敢充分實驗，因此減少了發明創造。我們必須搞清楚如何面對這樣的決策傾向。

And one-size-fits-all thinking will turn out to be only one of the pitfalls. We’ll work hard to avoid it… and any other large organization maladies we can identify.

一刀切的思維最終會成為陷阱。我們將會努力避免這種情況發生……以及我們所能鑑別的大型組織常見弊病。

Sustainability and Social Invention

永續與社會創新

Our growth has happened fast. Twenty years ago, I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift. In absolute numbers (as opposed to percentages), the past few years have been especially significant. We’ve grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to more than 230,000 now. We’re a bit like parents who look around one day and realize their kids are grown — you blink and it happens.

我們增長迅猛。二十年前，我需要開著我的雪佛蘭，把包裹送到郵局。那時，我幻想著擁有一台堆高機。從絕對數字（而不是百分比）來看，過去幾年的意義非凡。從2010年的3萬名員工，發展到如今超過23萬名員工。我們就像父母，有一天環顧四周時才意識到自己的孩子已經長大了－眨眨眼，這一切就發生了。

One thing that’s exciting about our current scale is that we can put our inventive culture to work on moving the needle on sustainability and social issues.

我們目前的規模帶來的一切好事是，我們可以利用我們的發明文化，努力推動永續發展與社會議題。

Two years ago we set a long-term goal to use 100% renewable energy across our global AWS infrastructure. We’ve since announced four significant wind and solar farms that will deliver 1.6 million megawatt hours per year of additional renewable energy into the electric grids that supply AWS data centers. Amazon Wind Farm Fowler Ridge has already come online. We reached 25% sustainable energy use across AWS last year, are on track to reach 40% this year, and are working on goals that will cover all of Amazon’s facilities around the world, including our fulfillment centers.

兩年前，我們設定了一個長期目標－全球AWS基礎設施中的能源來源要達到100%可再生能源。

後來，我們啟動建造四座風力發電場和太陽能發電場，它們每年將為AWS數據中心的電網提供160萬兆瓦的可再生能源。Amazon位於Fowler Ridge的風力發電場已開始運作。去年，AWS的可再生能源使用率達25%，今年有望達到40％。我們正努力實現在所有Amazon設施中（包括配送中心）完全使用可再生能源的的目標。

We’ll keep expanding our efforts in areas like packaging, where our culture of invention led to a big winner — the Frustration-Free Packaging program. Seven years ago we introduced the initiative with 19 products. Today, there are more than 400,000 globally. In 2015, the program eliminated tens of millions of pounds of excess packaging material. Frustration-Free Packaging is a customer delighter because the packages are easier to open. It’s good for the planet because it creates less waste. And it’s good for shareholders because, with tighter packaging, we ship less “air” and save on transportation costs.

我們會持續包裝領域投入心力。在發明文化的引領下，Frustration-Free包裝計劃取得豐碩成果。七年前，我們最初推出了19種產品，而今年全球共計有超過40種產品。

2015年，Frustration-Free包裝計劃減少了數千萬磅的多餘包裝材料。Frustration-Free包裝是客戶滿意的選擇，因為包裝更易於打開，而且對地球有益。Frustration-Free包裝計畫對股東也有好處，因為包裝更加緊實，包裝中的空氣更少，因此可以節省運輸成本。

We also continue to pioneer new programs for employees — like Career Choice, Leave Share, and Ramp Back. Career Choice pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses that teach in-demand skills, regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. We’ll pay for nursing certifications, airplane mechanic courses, and many others. We’re building classrooms with glass walls right in our fulfillment centers as a way to encourage employees to participate in the program and to make it easy. We see the impact through stories like Sharie Warmack — a single mother of eight who worked in one of our Phoenix fulfillment centers. Career Choice paid for Sharie to get licensed to drive an 18-wheeler. Sharie worked hard, passed her tests, and she’s now a long-haul driver for Schneider Trucking — and loving it. This coming year, we’re launching a program to teach other interested companies the benefits of Career Choice and how to implement it.

我們也持續為員工啟動新的計劃，例如職業選擇計畫（Career Choice）、假期共享（Leave Share）計畫和重返工作計畫（Ramp Back）。職業選擇計畫會為員工預付課程的95％學費，而且不用考慮這些課程教授的技能是否與員工在公司的職位相關。我們將支付護理課程、飛機修護課程和許多其他費用。我們正在配送中心建造新教室，鼓勵員工參加此計劃，並讓計畫進行得更順利。Sharie Warmack等人的故事，讓我們看到這個計劃帶來的影響力。Sharie Warmack是八個孩子的媽媽，在Amazon鳳凰城配送中心工作。職業選擇計畫為Sharie支付了取得半掛式卡車駕駛執照的費用。Sharie努力工作，並通過了測試，現在她是Schneider卡車公司的長途司機－這是一份她熱愛的工作。我們將啟動計劃，向其他對此感興趣的公司傳授職業選擇計畫的好處，以及如何實施職業選擇計畫。

Leave Share and Ramp Back are programs that give new parents flexibility with their growing families. Leave Share lets employees share their Amazon paid leave with their spouse or domestic partner if their spouse’s employer doesn’t offer paid leave. Ramp Back gives birth mothers additional control over the pace at which they return to work. Just as with our health care plan, these benefits are egalitarian — they’re the same for our fulfillment center and customer service employees as they are for our most senior executives.

假期共享計畫與重返工作計畫可為新手父母提供靈活性。如果員工的配偶的雇主不提供帶薪休假，則員工的帶薪休假額度可與其配偶或家庭伴侶共享。重返工作計畫給予媽媽權力，讓她們對生完孩子重返工作的節奏有更多控制。就像我們的醫療保健計劃一樣，這些好處對配送中心和客戶服務的基層員工和管理高層員工都是一樣的。

Renewable energy, Frustration-Free Packaging, Career Choice, Leave Share, and Ramp Back are examples of a culture that embraces invention and long-term thinking. It’s very energizing to think that our scale provides opportunities to create impact in these areas.

可再生能源、Frustration-Free包裝計畫、職業選擇計畫、假期共享計畫和重返工作計畫正是發明文化和長期思考的結果。規模提供我們這些產生影響力的機會，非常令人為之振奮。

I can tell you it’s a great joy for me to get to work every day with a team of such smart, imaginative, and passionate people. On behalf of all of us at Amazon, thank you for your support as shareholders. As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. Our approach remains the same, and it’s still Day 1.

我可以告訴你，每天與如此聰明、富於想像力和熱情的團隊一起工作，對我來說是一種極大的快樂。我代表Amazon的所有員工，感謝你作為股東的支持。如同往常，我把我們在1997年寫的致股東信附在文末。我們的價值觀依然不變，今天依舊是Day 1。

Jeffrey P. Bezos

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Amazon.com, Inc.

傑夫·貝佐斯

Amazon創始人暨CEO

以上就是2015年Amazon致股東信。

想看隔年的Amazon致股東信，請至《2016年Amazon致股東信：一直在談Day 1，這次來聊聊Day 2》。

想看全系列導讀目錄，請至《Amazon 1997–2019年致股東信導讀目錄》。