2020年Amazon致股東信：我們為客戶、員工和股東創造的價值遠超營收數字｜見識之旅

導讀

這封2020年股東信不僅總結了亞馬遜的成長之路，更是Jeff Bezos作為CEO所撰寫的最後一封股東信。

這封信不僅傳達了亞馬遜對未來的宏大願景，更充滿了具體的實踐細節和成就數據。

從創造1.6兆美元的股東財富，到為200多萬Prime會員節省時間，再到為數百萬小型商家提供銷售平台，這封信中提供了亞馬遜如何為每個合作群體創造價值的實際數據。

此外，Bezos還分享了亞馬遜在成為「地球最佳雇主」和「最安全工作場所」方面的具體努力，包括工作環境的改善、安全措施的投資等。

這封信不僅展示了亞馬遜的成就，更是一個行動指南，揭示企業如何透過具體實踐，真正地為員工、客戶和社會創造長遠價值。

正文

To our shareowners:

致我們的股東：

In Amazon’s 1997 letter to shareholders, our first, I talked about our hope to create an “enduring franchise,” one that would reinvent what it means to serve customers by unlocking the internet’s power. I noted that Amazon had grown from having 158 employees to 614, and that we had surpassed 1.5 million customer accounts. We had just gone public at a split-adjusted stock price of $1.50 per share. I wrote that it was Day 1.

在亞馬遜 1997 年致股東的首封信中，我談到了我們希望創建一個「持久的特許經營權」，藉由釋放互聯網的力量來重新定義客戶服務的意義。我提到亞馬遜已從 158 名員工成長到 614 名，客戶帳戶數量突破 150 萬。我們以每股 1.50 美元（經股票分割調整後）的價格首次公開募股。我在信中寫道，這是 Day 1。

We’ve come a long way since then, and we are working harder than ever to serve and delight customers. Last year, we hired 500,000 employees and now directly employ 1.3 million people around the world. We have more than 200 million Prime members worldwide. More than 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses sell in our store, and they make up close to 60% of our retail sales. Customers have connected more than 100 million smart home devices to Alexa. Amazon Web Services serves millions of customers and ended 2020 with a $50 billion annualized run rate. In 1997, we hadn’t invented Prime, Marketplace, Alexa, or AWS. They weren’t even ideas then, and none was preordained. We took great risk with each one and put sweat and ingenuity into each one.

從那時起，我們走過了漫長的道路，比以往任何時候都更加努力地服務和取悅客戶。去年，我們新增了 50 萬名員工，目前在全球直接雇用 130 萬人。我們的 Prime 會員已超過 2 億。超過 190 萬家中小型企業在我們的平台上銷售，佔我們零售額近 60%。客戶已將逾 1 億台智慧家居設備連接到 Alexa。Amazon Web Services 為數百萬客戶提供服務，2020 年底的年化營收達 500 億美元。1997 年時，Prime、Marketplace、Alexa 和 AWS 還不存在，甚至連構想都沒有，更不用說是命中註定的了。我們為每一項服務承擔了巨大風險，並投入了大量心血和創意。

Along the way, we’ve created $1.6 trillion of wealth for shareowners. Who are they? Your Chair is one, and my Amazon shares have made me wealthy. But more than 7/8ths of the shares, representing $1.4 trillion of wealth creation, are owned by others. Who are they? They’re pension funds, universities, and 401(k)s, and they’re Mary and Larry, who sent me this note out of the blue just as I was sitting down to write this shareholder letter:

在這過程中，我們為股東創造了 1.6 萬億美元的財富。這些股東是誰？我是其中之一，我的亞馬遜股票讓我變得富有。然而，超過 7/8 的股票—代表著 1.4 萬億美元的財富創造—屬於其他人。這些人包括養老基金、大學和 401(k) 退休福利計畫。他們也是像 Mary 和 Larry 這樣的普通人。就在我準備寫這封股東信時，他們突然給我發來了一封信：

I am approached with similar stories all the time. I know people who’ve used their Amazon money for college, for emergencies, for houses, for vacations, to start their own business, for charity – and the list goes on. I’m proud of the wealth we’ve created for shareowners. It’s significant, and it improves their lives. But I also know something else: it’s not the largest part of the value we’ve created.

我經常聽到類似的故事。有人用亞馬遜帶來的收益支付大學學費、應對緊急情況、購置房產、度假、創業、捐贈慈善——這樣的例子不勝枚舉。我為我們為股東創造的財富感到自豪。這確實意義重大，改善了他們的生活。然而，我更深知一點：這並非我們創造的價值中最重要的部分。

Create More Than You Consume

創造大於消耗

If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn’t create value for those it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn’t long for this world. It’s on the way out.

如果你想在商業上取得成功（其實在生活中也是如此），你創造的必須多於你消耗的。你的目標應該是為每個與你互動的人創造價值。任何企業如果不能為其接觸的人創造價值，即使表面上看似成功，在這個世界上也不會長久。這樣的企業終將消亡。

Remember that stock prices are not about the past. They are a prediction of future cash flows discounted back to the present. The stock market anticipates. I’m going to switch gears for a moment and talk about the past. How much value did we create for shareowners in 2020? This is a relatively easy question to answer because accounting systems are set up to answer it. Our net income in 2020 was $21.3 billion. If, instead of being a publicly traded company with thousands of owners, Amazon were a sole proprietorship with a single owner, that’s how much the owner would have earned in 2020.

請記住，股票價格並非反映過去，而是對未來現金流折現至現在的預測。股市總是著眼未來。讓我們暫時轉換話題，回顧過去。2020 年我們為股東創造了多少價值？這個問題相對容易回答，因為會計系統就是為此而設計的。我們 2020 年的淨收入達 213 億美元。假設亞馬遜不是擁有數千股東的上市公司，而是一家獨資企業，那麼這就是該唯一所有者在 2020 年的收入。

How about employees? This is also a reasonably easy value creation question to answer because we can look at compensation expense. What is an expense for a company is income for employees. In 2020, employees earned $80 billion, plus another $11 billion to include benefits and various payroll taxes, for a total of $91 billion.

對於員工創造的價值，我們也可以輕易地通過查看薪酬支出來衡量。畢竟，公司的支出就是員工的收入。2020年，我們的員工總共賺取了910億美元——其中800億美元是直接薪酬，另外110億美元則包括各種福利和工資稅。

How about third-party sellers? We have an internal team (the Selling Partner Services team) that works to answer that question. They estimate that, in 2020, third-party seller profits from selling on Amazon were between $25 billion and $39 billion, and to be conservative here I’ll go with $25 billion.

那麼第三方賣家呢？我們有一個專門的內部團隊（銷售夥伴服務團隊）來評估這個問題。他們估算，2020年第三方賣家在亞馬遜平台上的利潤介於250億至390億美元之間。為了保守起見，我們在此採用較低的估計值：250億美元。

For customers, we have to break it down into consumer customers and AWS customers.

對於客戶價值的評估，我們需要將其分為消費者客戶和 AWS 客戶兩個類別。

We’ll do consumers first. We offer low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery, but imagine we ignore all of that for the purpose of this estimate and value only one thing: we save customers time.

我們先來看消費者。雖然我們提供優惠價格、多樣選擇和迅速配送，但讓我們暫且把這些放在一邊。為了這個估算，我們只聚焦於一個關鍵點：我們為客戶節省了寶貴的時間。

Customers complete 28% of purchases on Amazon in three minutes or less, and half of all purchases are finished in less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the typical shopping trip to a physical store – driving, parking, searching store aisles, waiting in the checkout line, finding your car, and driving home. Research suggests the typical physical store trip takes about an hour. If you assume that a typical Amazon purchase takes 15 minutes and that it saves you a couple of trips to a physical store a week, that’s more than 75 hours a year saved. That’s important. We’re all busy in the early 21st century.

Amazon上28%的購買在3分鐘內完成，半數在15分鐘內完成。對比實體店購物——開車、停車、尋找商品、排隊結帳、找車、開車回家。研究顯示，一次典型的實體店購物約需一小時。假設在亞馬遜購物平均需15分鐘，每週可省下幾次實體店行程，那麼一年就能節省75多個小時。這在我們忙碌的21世紀極為重要。

So that we can get a dollar figure, let's value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative. Seventy-five hours multiplied by $10 an hour and subtracting the cost of Prime gives you value creation for each Prime member of about $630. We have 200 million Prime members, for a total in 2020 of $126 billion of value creation.

為了得到一個具體的數字，我們保守地將節省的時間估值為每小時10美元。75小時乘以每小時10美元，再減去Prime會員費用，每位Prime會員創造的價值約為630美元。我們擁有2億Prime會員，因此2020年總共創造了1260億美元的價值。

AWS is challenging to estimate because each customer's workload is so different, but we'll do it anyway, acknowledging up front that the error bars are high. Direct cost improvements from operating in the cloud versus on premises vary, but a reasonable estimate is 30%. Across AWS's entire 2020 revenue of $45 billion, that 30% would imply customer value creation of $19 billion (what would have cost them $64 billion on their own cost $45 billion from AWS). The difficult part of this estimation exercise is that the direct cost reduction is the smallest portion of the customer benefit of moving to the cloud. The bigger benefit is the increased speed of software development – something that can significantly improve the customer's competitiveness and top line. We have no reasonable way of estimating that portion of customer value except to say that it's almost certainly larger than the direct cost savings. To be conservative here (and remembering we're really only trying to get ballpark estimates), I'll say it's the same and call AWS customer value creation $38 billion in 2020.

AWS 很難估計，因為每個客戶的工作負載都非常不同，但我們還是會這樣做，但我們知道可能的誤差很大。在雲運營與在本地運營的直接成本改善各不相同，但合理的估計是 30%。在 AWS 2020 年全年 450 億美元的收入中，這 30% 意味著為客戶創造 190 億美元的價值（他們自己會花費 640 億美元，而 AWS 則花費了 450 億美元）。此估算的難點在於，直接成本降低是遷移到雲的客戶收益的最小部分。更大的好處是軟體開發速度的提高 – 這可以顯著提高客戶的競爭力和收入。我們沒有合理的方法來估計這部分客戶價值，只能說它幾乎可以肯定大於直接成本節省。在這裡保守一點（請記住，我們實際上只是想獲得大致的估計值），我會說這兩者是一樣的，也就是 AWS 在 2020 年創造了 380 億美元的客戶價值。

Adding AWS and consumer together gives us total customer value creation in 2020 of $164 billion.

結合 AWS 和消費者部門，我們在 2020 年為客戶創造了總計 1640 億美元的價值。

Summarizing: Shareholders $21B Employees $91B 3P Sellers $25B Customers $164B Total $301B

總計： 股東 $21B 員工 $91B 第三方賣家 $25B 消費者 $164B 總計 $301B

If each group had an income statement representing their interactions with Amazon, the numbers above would be the “bottom lines” from those income statements. These numbers are part of the reason why people work for us, why sellers sell through us, and why customers buy from us. We create value for them. And this value creation is not a zero-sum game. It is not just moving money from one pocket to another. Draw the box big around all of society, and you’ll find that invention is the root of all real value creation. And value created is best thought of as a metric for innovation.

如果每個群體都有一份與亞馬遜互動的損益表，上述數字將代表這些損益表的「底線」。這些數字部分解釋了為什麼人們願意為我們工作、賣家選擇通過我們銷售，以及客戶從我們這裡購買產品。我們為他們創造價值，而這種價值創造並非零和遊戲。它不僅僅是將資金從一個口袋轉移到另一個，而是擴大了整個社會的範疇。從更廣闊的視角來看，你會發現創新是所有真正價值創造的根源。因此，創造的價值最好被視為創新的指標。

Of course, our relationship with these constituencies and the value we create isn’t exclusively dollars and cents. Money doesn’t tell the whole story. Our relationship with shareholders, for example, is relatively simple. They invest and hold shares for a duration of their choosing. We provide direction to shareowners infrequently on matters such as annual meetings and the right process to vote their shares. And even then they can ignore those directions and just skip voting.

當然，我們與這些群體的關係及創造的價值不僅僅關乎金錢。財務數字無法完整描述全貌。以我們與股東的關係為例，它相對簡單。股東自主決定投資期限和持股時間。我們僅在年度大會和投票程序等少數事項上給予指引。即便如此，股東仍可選擇忽略這些指示，甚至完全不參與投票。

Our relationship with employees is a very different example. We have processes they follow and standards they meet. We require training and various certifications. Employees have to show up at appointed times. Our interactions with employees are many, and they’re fine-grained. It’s not just about the pay and the benefits. It’s about all the other detailed aspects of the relationship too.

我們與員工的關係是截然不同的例子。我們制定了他們需遵循的流程和達到的標準，要求他們接受培訓並獲得各種認證。員工必須準時上班，而我們與他們的互動既頻繁又細緻。這種關係遠不止工資和福利，還涉及許多其他微妙的層面。

Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn’t. I think we need to do a better job for our employees. While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees – a vision for their success.

董事長對最近在 Bessemer 舉行的工會投票結果感到欣慰嗎？絕對不。我深知我們必須為員工做得更好。儘管投票結果呈現壓倒性差距，我們與員工之間的直接關係也相當穩固，但我清楚意識到：我們需要一個更卓越的願景來為員工創造價值——一個關於他們如何在亞馬遜成就非凡的藍圖。

If you read some of the news reports, you might think we have no care for employees. In those reports, our employees are sometimes accused of being desperate souls and treated as robots. That’s not accurate. They’re sophisticated and thoughtful people who have options for where to work. When we survey fulfillment center employees, 94% say they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work.

如果你閱讀某些新聞報導，你可能會認為我們完全不關心員工。這些報導中，我們的員工有時被描述為絕望的靈魂，被當作機器人對待。然而，這種描述並不準確。事實上，我們的員工是經驗豐富、深思熟慮的人，他們有選擇工作場所的自由。當我們對配送中心的員工進行調查時，94%的受訪者表示他們會向朋友推薦亞馬遜作為工作場所。

Employees are able to take informal breaks throughout their shifts to stretch, get water, use the rest room, or talk to a manager, all without impacting their performance. These informal work breaks are in addition to the 30-minute lunch and 30-minute break built into their normal schedule.

員工可在整個輪班期間自由進行非正式休息，包括伸展身體、飲水、使用洗手間或與經理交談，這些活動不會影響其績效評估。這些非正式的休息時間是對正常工作日程中既定的 30 分鐘午餐和 30 分鐘休息時間的額外補充。

We don’t set unreasonable performance goals. We set achievable performance goals that take into account tenure and actual employee performance data. Performance is evaluated over a long period of time as we know that a variety of things can impact performance in any given week, day, or hour. If employees are on track to miss a performance target over a period of time, their manager talks with them and provides coaching.

我們不設置不切實際的績效目標。相反，我們制定可達成的目標，充分考慮員工的任職時間和實際表現數據。績效評估是一個長期過程，因為我們明白在任何特定的週、日或小時內，都有諸多因素可能影響表現。如果員工在一段時間內難以達成目標，他們的經理會與他們溝通並提供指導。

Coaching is also extended to employees who are excelling and in line for increased responsibilities. In fact, 82% of coaching is positive, provided to employees who are meeting or exceeding expectations. We terminate the employment of less than 2.6% of employees due to their inability to perform their jobs (and that number was even lower in 2020 because of operational impacts of COVID-19).

我們還為表現優異且願意承擔更多責任的員工提供指導。事實上，82% 的輔導屬於積極性質，針對達到或超越預期的員工。由於無法勝任工作，我們僅終止了不到 2.6% 員工的雇傭關係（受 COVID-19 運營影響，2020 年這一比例更低）。

Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work

全球最佳僱主和全球最安全的工作場所

The fact is, the large team of thousands of people who lead operations at Amazon have always cared deeply for our hourly employees, and we’re proud of the work environment we’ve created. We’re also proud of the fact that Amazon is a company that does more than just create jobs for computer scientists and people with advanced degrees. We create jobs for people who never got that advantage.

事實是，在 Amazon 領導運營的數千人組成的龐大團隊一直非常關心我們的時薪工作者，我們為我們創造的工作環境感到自豪。我們還為 Amazon 是一家不僅僅是為計算機科學家和擁有高級學位的人創造就業機會的公司而感到自豪。我們為從未獲得過這種優勢的人創造就業機會。

Despite what we’ve accomplished, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees’ success. We have always wanted to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company. We won’t change that. It’s what got us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.

儘管我們已取得諸多成就，我深知我們仍需為員工的成功制定更卓越的願景。我們一直致力於成為地球上最以客戶為中心的公司，這一點不會改變——正是這個理念引領我們走到今天。然而，我承諾我們將更進一步：我們不僅要成為地球上最佳雇主，還要打造地球上最安全的工作場所。

In my upcoming role as Executive Chair, I’m going to focus on new initiatives. I’m an inventor. It’s what I enjoy the most and what I do best. It’s where I create the most value. I’m excited to work alongside the large team of passionate people we have in Ops and help invent in this arena of Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. On the details, we at Amazon are always flexible, but on matters of vision we are stubborn and relentless. We have never failed when we set our minds to something, and we’re not going to fail at this either.

在我即將擔任的執行主席一職中，我將專注於新舉措。作為一名發明家，這不僅是我最熱衷的事，也是我最擅長的領域——我在此創造最大價值。我期待與我們充滿熱情的運營團隊並肩工作，共同在「地球最佳雇主」和「地球最安全工作場所」這兩個領域中創新。Amazon 在細節上始終保持靈活，但在願景問題上，我們堅定不移。當我們下定決心做某事時，我們從未失敗過，這次也不會例外。

We dive deep into safety issues. For example, about 40% of work-related injuries at Amazon are related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), things like sprains or strains that can be caused by repetitive motions. MSDs are common in the type of work that we do and are more likely to occur during an employee’s first six months. We need to invent solutions to reduce MSDs for new employees, many of whom might be working in a physical role for the first time.

我們深入研究安全問題。以肌肉骨骼疾病（MSD）為例，它約佔亞馬遜工傷的40%。MSD包括可能由重複性動作引起的扭傷或拉傷，在我們的工作環境中很常見，尤其容易發生在員工入職的前六個月。許多新員工可能是首次從事體力工作，因此我們需要創新解決方案來降低他們的MSD風險。

One such program is WorkingWell – which we launched to 859,000 employees at 350 sites across North America and Europe in 2020 – where we coach small groups of employees on body mechanics, proactive wellness, and safety. In addition to reducing workplace injuries, these concepts have a positive impact on regular day-to-day activities outside work.

其中一項計劃是 WorkingWell，我們於 2020 年在北美和歐洲的 350 個地點向 859,000 名員工推行。該計劃中，我們為小組員工提供身體力學、主動健康和安全方面的指導。這不僅減少了工作場所的傷害，還對員工的日常生活產生了積極影響。

We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks. This new technology is central to a job rotation program that we’re rolling out throughout 2021.

我們正在開發新型自動排班系統，運用複雜算法讓員工在不同工作崗位間輪換，以調動不同的肌肉群，從而減少重複性動作並降低肌肉骨骼疾病（MSD）風險。這項創新技術是我們 2021 年全面推行的工作輪換計劃的核心。

Our increased attention to early MSD prevention is already achieving results. From 2019 to 2020, overall MSDs decreased by 32%, and MSDs resulting in time away from work decreased by more than half.

我們對早期 MSD 預防的持續關注已見成效。從 2019 年到 2020 年，總體 MSD 發生率下降了 32%，而導致停工的 MSD 案例更是減少了超過一半。

We employ 6,200 safety professionals at Amazon. They use the science of safety to solve complex problems and establish new industry best practices. In 2021, we’ll invest more than $300 million into safety projects, including an initial $66 million to create technology that will help prevent collisions of forklifts and other types of industrial vehicles.

Amazon 雇用了 6,200 名安全專業人員，他們運用安全科學解決複雜問題並建立行業新標準。2021 年，我們將投入超過 3 億美元於安全項目，其中包括初始投資 6,600 萬美元，用於開發防止叉車和其他工業車輛碰撞的技術。

When we lead, others follow. Two and a half years ago, when we set a $15 minimum wage for our hourly employees, we did so because we wanted to lead on wages – not just run with the pack – and because we believed it was the right thing to do. A recent paper by economists at the University of California-Berkeley and Brandeis University analyzed the impact of our decision to raise our minimum starting pay to $15 per hour. Their assessment reflects what we’ve heard from employees, their families, and the communities they live in.

當我們引領潮流，他人便會跟隨。兩年半前，我們為時薪工人設定 15 美元的最低工資，這一決定源於我們希望在薪酬方面領先群倫，而非隨波逐流，更重要的是，我們深信這是正確之舉。近期，加州大學伯克利分校和布蘭代斯大學的經濟學家發表了一篇論文，分析了我們將最低起薪提高到每小時 15 美元的影響。他們的評估印證了我們從員工、其家人以及所在社區所聽到的反饋。

Our increase in starting wage boosted local economies across the country by benefiting not only our own employees but also other workers in the same community. The study showed that our pay raise resulted in a 4.7% increase in the average hourly wage among other employers in the same labor market.

我們提高起薪不僅惠及自身員工，還使同社區的其他工人受益，進而促進了全國各地的地方經濟。研究顯示，我們的加薪舉措導致同一勞動力市場中其他雇主的平均時薪上漲了 4.7%。

And we’re not done leading. If we want to be Earth’s Best Employer, we shouldn’t settle for 94% of employees saying they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work. We have to aim for 100%. And we’ll do that by continuing to lead on wages, on benefits, on upskilling opportunities, and in other ways that we will figure out over time.

我們的領導之路尚未終止。作為地球上最佳雇主的目標，我們不能僅滿足於94%的員工願意向朋友推薦亞馬遜作為工作場所。我們的目標必須是100%。為此，我們將持續在薪資、福利、技能提升機會等方面保持領先，並不斷探索新的方式來實現這一願景。

If any shareowners are concerned that Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work might dilute our focus on Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, let me set your mind at ease. Think of it this way. If we can operate two businesses as different as consumer ecommerce and AWS, and do both at the highest level, we can certainly do the same with these two vision statements. In fact, I’m confident they will reinforce each other.

如果有股東擔心「地球最佳雇主」和「地球最安全工作場所」這兩個目標可能會分散我們對「地球最以客戶為中心的公司」的注意力，請讓我消除你們的疑慮。不妨這樣想：既然我們能夠同時經營消費者電子商務和 AWS 這兩項截然不同的業務，並且都達到最高水準，那麼我們當然也能夠實現這兩個願景。事實上，我深信這些目標會相輔相成，互相促進。

The Climate Pledge

氣候宣言

In an earlier draft of this letter, I started this section with arguments and examples designed to demonstrate that human-induced climate change is real. But, bluntly, I think we can stop saying that now. You don’t have to say that photosynthesis is real, or make the case that gravity is real, or that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. These things are simply true, as is the reality of climate change.

在這封信的早期草稿中，我本打算以論點和例子來證明人為氣候變化的真實性。但坦白說，我認為我們現在可以不再這麼做了。就像我們不需要證明光合作用、重力的存在，或水在100度沸騰一樣。這些都是既定事實，氣候變化的現實也不例外。

Not long ago, most people believed that it would be good to address climate change, but they also thought it would cost a lot and would threaten jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth. We now know better. Smart action on climate change will not only stop bad things from happening, it will also make our economy more efficient, help drive technological change, and reduce risks. Combined, these can lead to more and better jobs, healthier and happier children, more productive workers, and a more prosperous future. This doesn’t mean it will be easy. It won’t be. The coming decade will be decisive. The economy in 2030 will need to be vastly different from what it is today, and Amazon plans to be at the heart of the change. We launched The Climate Pledge together with Global Optimism in September 2019 because we wanted to help drive this positive revolution. We need to be part of a growing team of corporations that understand the imperatives and the opportunities of the 21st century.

不久前，大多數人認為解決氣候變化問題是件好事，但同時也擔心這會耗費巨資，並威脅就業、競爭力和經濟增長。如今，我們的認知已更加深入。明智地應對氣候變化不僅能防止負面影響，還能提升經濟效率，推動技術創新，並降低風險。這些效果相互作用，將創造更多更好的工作機會、培養更健康快樂的下一代、提高勞動生產力，最終帶來更繁榮的未來。

然而，這並非易事。未來十年將是關鍵。2030年的經濟格局必須與今天大不相同，而亞馬遜致力於成為這一變革的核心。2019年9月，我們與Global Optimism攜手發起《氣候宣言》，旨在推動這場積極的革命。我們需要加入日益壯大的企業陣營，共同認識並把握21世紀的挑戰與機遇。

Now, less than two years later, 53 companies representing almost every sector of the economy have signed The Climate Pledge. Signatories such as Best Buy, IBM, Infosys, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Siemens, and Verizon have committed to achieve net-zero carbon in their worldwide businesses by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Pledge also requires them to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis; implement decarbonization strategies through real business changes and innovations; and neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets. Credible, quality offsets are precious, and we should reserve them to compensate for economic activities where low-carbon alternatives don’t exist.

如今，短短兩年內，來自各行各業的53家公司已簽署《氣候宣言》。百思買、IBM、Infosys、賓士、Microsoft、西門子和Verizon等簽署方承諾在2040年前實現全球業務的淨零碳排放，較《巴黎協定》目標提前10年。這項承諾要求他們定期測量並報告溫室氣體排放；通過實質性的業務變革和創新來實施減碳策略；並透過額外的、可量化的、真實的、永久的且對社會有益的碳抵銷來中和剩餘排放。高品質且可信的碳抵銷十分珍貴，我們應將其用於補償那些尚無低碳替代方案的經濟活動。

The Climate Pledge signatories are making meaningful, tangible, and ambitious commitments. Uber has a goal of operating as a zero-emission platform in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. by 2030, and Henkel plans to source 100% of the electricity it uses for production from renewable sources. Amazon is making progress toward our own goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our initial 2030 target. Amazon is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world. We have 62 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 125 solar rooftops on fulfillment and sort centers around the globe. These projects have the capacity to generate over 6.9 gigawatts and deliver more than 20 million megawatt-hours of energy annually.

《氣候宣言》的簽署方正在做出有意義、具體且雄心勃勃的承諾。Uber 計劃到 2030 年在加拿大、歐洲和美國實現零排放平台運營，而漢高則致力於將生產用電 100% 轉為可再生能源。Amazon 也在積極推進自身目標，預計將於 2025 年實現 100% 可再生能源使用，比最初設定的 2030 年目標提前了五年。作為全球最大的企業可再生能源買家，亞馬遜在全球範圍內擁有 62 個公用事業規模的風能和太陽能項目，以及 125 個配備太陽能屋頂的配送和分揀中心。這些項目的年發電容量超過 6.9 吉瓦，可提供逾 2000 萬兆瓦時的能源。

Transportation is a major component of Amazon’s business operations and the toughest part of our plan to meet net-zero carbon by 2040. To help rapidly accelerate the market for electric vehicle technology, and to help all companies transition to greener technologies, we invested more than $1 billion in Rivian – and ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from the company. We’ve also partnered with Mahindra in India and Mercedes-Benz in Europe. These custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian are already operational, and they first hit the road in Los Angeles this past February. Ten thousand new vehicles will be on the road as early as next year, and all 100,000 vehicles will be on the road by 2030 – saving millions of metric tons of carbon. A big reason we want companies to join The Climate Pledge is to signal to the marketplace that businesses should start inventing and developing new technologies that signatories need to make good on the Pledge. Our purchase of 100,000 Rivian electric vans is a perfect example.

運輸是亞馬遜業務運營的重要組成部分，也是我們到 2040 年實現淨零碳排放計劃中最具挑戰性的環節。為了加速電動汽車技術市場的發展，並協助所有公司過渡到更環保的技術，我們向 Rivian 投資了逾 10 億美元，並訂購了 100,000 輛電動送貨車。我們還與印度的 Mahindra 和歐洲的 Mercedes-Benz 建立了合作關係。這些來自 Rivian 的客製化電動送貨車已投入運營，今年 2 月首次在洛杉磯上路。明年將有 10,000 輛新車投入使用，到 2030 年，全部 100,000 輛車輛都將上路，預計可節省數百萬公噸的碳排放。我們鼓勵公司加入《氣候宣言》的一個重要原因是向市場傳達信號：企業應開始發明和開發簽署者履行承諾所需的新技術。我們購買的 100,000 輛 Rivian 電動貨車正是這一理念的絕佳範例。

To further accelerate investment in new technologies needed to build a zero-carbon economy, we introduced the Climate Pledge Fund last June. The investment program started with $2 billion to invest in visionary companies that aim to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Amazon has already announced investments in CarbonCure Technologies, Pachama, Redwood Materials, Rivian, Turntide Technologies, ZeroAvia, and Infinium – and these are just some of the innovative companies we hope will build the zero-carbon economy of the future.

為了進一步加速投資於建構零碳經濟所需的新技術，我們於去年 6 月推出了氣候承諾基金。這項投資計劃初始資金為 20 億美元，旨在投資於致力促進低碳經濟轉型的有遠見公司。亞馬遜已宣布投資 CarbonCure Technologies、Pachama、Redwood Materials、Rivian、Turntide Technologies、ZeroAvia 和 Infinium 等創新企業。這些只是我們期望能共同打造未來零碳經濟的眾多先驅公司中的一部分。

I have also personally allocated $10 billion to provide grants to help catalyze the systemic change we will need in the coming decade. We’ll be supporting leading scientists, activists, NGOs, environmental justice organizations, and others working to fight climate change and protect the natural world. Late last year, I made my first round of grants to 16 organizations working on innovative and needle-moving solutions. It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals, and I’m excited to be part of this journey and optimistic that humanity can come together to solve this challenge.

我個人還投入了 100 億美元用於提供贈款，以促進未來十年內所需的系統性變革。我們將支持頂尖科學家、社會活動家、非政府組織、環境正義組織，以及其他致力於應對氣候變化和保護自然世界的人士。去年年底，我向 16 個致力於創新和突破性解決方案的組織提供了首輪資助。應對氣候變化需要大公司、小企業、國家、全球組織和個人的共同努力。我很榮幸能參與這一旅程，並且樂觀地相信人類能夠團結一致，共同解決這一挑戰。

Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical

差異化是生存之道，然而宇宙卻傾向於平庸

This is my last annual shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon, and I have one last thing of utmost importance I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazonians take it to heart.

這是我作為亞馬遜 CEO 的最後一封年度股東信。在此，我想分享一件我認為至關重要、必須傳授的事。我衷心希望所有亞馬遜人都能銘記於心。

Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins’ (extraordinary) book The Blind Watchmaker. It’s about a basic fact of biology.

這是理查·道金斯（Richard Dawkins）的傑作《盲眼鐘錶匠》（The Blind Watchmaker）中的一段話。它闡述了一個生物學的基本原理。

“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”

避免死亡是一項持續的努力。若任其自然——這正是死亡時的情況——身體會趨向與環境達成平衡。若測量活體的某些指標，如溫度、酸鹼度、含水量或電位，你通常會發現它們與周遭環境有顯著差異。舉例來說，我們的體溫通常高於環境，在寒冷氣候中，身體必須努力維持這種差異。當我們死亡時，這種努力停止，溫差開始消失，最終我們的溫度與環境無異。

並非所有動物都如此努力避免與周遭溫度達成平衡，但所有生物都在進行類似的工作。比如，在乾燥地區，動植物努力維持細胞的水分，抵抗水分自然流向乾燥外界的趨勢。若失敗，便會死亡。更廣義地說，若生物不積極抵抗，最終將融入周遭環境，不再作為獨立個體存在。這正是死亡時所發生的事。

While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?

雖然這段話並非隱喻，卻恰如其分地比喻了亞馬遜的處境。我認為，它不僅與所有公司和機構息息相關，更與我們每個人的生活密切相連。試想：這個世界如何拉扯著你，企圖將你磨平成「正常人」？你需要付出多少努力才能保持自己的獨特性？又該如何維持那些讓你與眾不同的特質？

I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?” They both smile and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal.

我認識一對幸福的夫妻，他們的關係中有個有趣的玩笑。丈夫時常用假裝痛苦的眼神看著妻子，說道：「你就不能正常點嗎？」他們總是相視而笑，因為深層的真相是，她的獨特之處正是他所珍愛的。然而，不可否認的是，如果我們變得稍微「正常」一些，生活往往會更輕鬆——需要耗費的精力也更少。這是一個弔詭的事實。

This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.

這種現象存在於各個層面。民主制度並非常態，反而是暴政在歷史上更為普遍。若我們停止為維護民主的獨特性而持續付出艱辛努力，很快就會滑向暴政的深淵。

We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.

我們都知道獨特性——原創性——是寶貴的。我們常被教導要「做自己」。但我真正希望你能做到的，是坦然接受並切實認識到：保持獨特需要耗費多少精力。這個世界總想把你塑造成平凡之輩——它用千百種方式拉扯著你。別讓這種情況發生。

You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.

你必須為獨特性付出代價，但這絕對值得。童話版的「做自己」常說，只要展現真我，所有痛苦就會消失。這種說法具有誤導性。做真實的自己確實值得，但別以為這條路會輕鬆。保持獨特需要持續不斷地投入精力。

The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.

世界總是試圖將 Amazon 拉回平庸——讓我們與環境趨於一致。維持我們的獨特性需要持續不懈的努力，但我們不僅能做到，更必須超越這種平庸。

As always, I attach our 1997 shareholder letter. It concluded with this: “We at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.” That hasn’t changed a bit. I want to especially thank Andy Jassy for agreeing to take on the CEO role. It’s a hard job with a lot of responsibility. Andy is brilliant and has the highest of high standards. I guarantee you that Andy won’t let the universe make us typical. He will muster the energy needed to keep alive in us what makes us special. That won’t be easy, but it is critical. I also predict it will be satisfying and oftentimes fun. Thank you, Andy.

一如既往，我附上了 1997 年的股東信。它的結語是：「我們 Amazon.com 感謝客戶的業務與信任，感謝彼此的辛勤付出，感謝股東的支持與鼓勵。」這份感恩之心至今未變。在此，我特別感謝 Andy Jassy 接受 CEO 的職位。這是一項充滿挑戰和重責的工作。Andy 才智過人，擁有最高標準。我向你們保證，Andy 絕不會讓宇宙磨平我們的獨特性。他將凝聚必要的能量，確保我們的特質永葆活力。這條路並不輕鬆，卻至關重要。我相信，這份工作不僅令人滿足，更常常充滿樂趣。謝謝你，Andy。

To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.

致所有人：保持善良，追求原創，創造多於消費，永遠、永遠、永遠不要讓這個世界磨平你的獨特性。今天依然是第一天。

Sincerely,

真誠地

Jeffrey P. Bezos

傑弗里·貝佐斯

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

創始人兼CEO

Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com 公司

以上就是2020年Amazon致股東信。

想看隔年的Amazon致股東信，請至《2021年Amazon致股東信：應對COVID挑戰的本事來自先前長期的投入》。

想看全系列導讀目錄，請至《Amazon 1997–2023年致股東信導讀目錄》。