后乔布斯时代的硅谷领袖：平淡无奇是一种新时尚

When Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas, greeted Jack Dorsey at a congressional hearing last week, he sounded flummoxed.

当德克萨斯州共和党众议员乔·巴顿(Joe Barton)在上周的国会听证会上开始向杰克·多尔西(Jack Dorsey)提问时，这位议员听起来有点困惑。

“I don’t know what a Twitter C.E.O. should look like,” Mr. Barton said. “But you don’t look like what a C.E.O. of Twitter should look like.”

“我不知道Twitter的首席执行官该是什么样子，”巴顿说。“但你看上去不像是Twitter首席执行官应该有的样子。”

The congressman had a point. Mr. Dorsey — who sported a nose ring, a popped-collar shirt and a craggy Moses beard — looked more like a hipster version of a Civil War officer than a tech icon. Yet more striking than his look was his manner before skeptical lawmakers.

这位国会议员说的有道理。戴着一枚鼻环、穿着一件翻领衬衫、留着一把摩西式大胡子的多尔西，看上去更像是美国内战时代军官的潮人翻版，而不是科技偶像。然而，比他的外表更异乎寻常的，是他在持怀疑态度的立法者们面前表现的举止。

Faced with tough questions, Mr. Dorsey did not mount an aggressive defense of his company and his technology, as an earlier generation of tech leader might have. Instead, he demurred, conceded mistakes and generally engaged in a nuanced and seemingly heartfelt colloquy on the difficulties of managing tech in a complex world. Even in response to Mr. Barton’s comment about his look, Mr. Dorsey was solicitous. “My mom agrees with you,” he said.

面对严厉质问时，多尔西没有像上一代科技领袖们可能做的那样，为自己的公司和自己的科技大力辩护，而是表达怀疑，承认错误，并就在一个复杂世界中管理科技的困难与议员们展开了一场细致入微、似乎发自内心的对话。就连回应巴顿对自己外貌的评论时，多尔西也表现出一种对他人的关切。“我妈妈同意你的看法，”他说。

Mr. Dorsey’s testimony prompted questions about what we expect from tech leaders today — and how thoroughly what we expect has been upturned in the last few years. Since the 1980s, a common leadership archetype has loomed over the tech business: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Sometimes unconsciously and often deliberately, a generation of tech leaders attempted to ape the Apple and Microsoft founders’ charisma, their quirks, their style and above all their irrepressible, hard-charging confidence, to say nothing of arrogance.

多尔西的听证会表现，引发了有关我们如今对科技行业领袖做何期待的问题，以及我们的期待在过去几年里发生了怎样彻底的转变。自20世纪80年代起，科技行业赫然耸现的常见领袖典型是史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)和比尔·盖茨(Bill Gates)。一代科技领导们曾试图模仿苹果和微软创始人的魅力，模仿他们的怪癖、他们的风格，尤其是他们十足的、全力进取的信心，更不用说他们的傲慢。这种模仿有时是无意识的，但通常是故意的。

Mr. Dorsey — who like the late Mr. Jobs returned to a company he co-founded in order to save it — has long drawn comparisons to Mr. Jobs. Yet the congressional testimony marked a surprising rhetorical shift. Instead of the black-turtlenecked Mr. Jobs, Mr. Dorsey sounded more like Tim Cook, the understated operations manager who replaced him (and who is holding his umpteenth iPhone event on Wednesday).

人们长久以来一直把多尔西与乔布斯相比，与已故的乔布斯一样，多尔西为了挽救自己参与创建的公司，重返公司工作。然而，他在国会听证会上的言辞标志着一个令人惊讶的转变。多尔西听起来不像是穿着黑色高领套头衫的乔布斯，而更像是蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)，也就是接替了乔布斯的那位行事低调的运营经理人。(周三，他将举行自己的第无数次iPhone发布会)。

That is, Mr. Dorsey sounded less like a quotable visionary who can see beyond the horizon and more like what he actually is and ought to be — a thoughtful, accessible, transparent and, despite the beard and nose ring, kind of boring manager of a serious company whose decisions have world-changing consequences.

也就是说，多尔西听起来不大像一位视野超越地平线的、时有名言警句的预言家，而更像他实际上的本人和他应该成为的人——一个关心别人、易于接近的、透明的人，而且，尽管他留着胡子、带着鼻环，多尔西更像一个重要公司的无聊经理人，做出改变世界的决策。

When it comes to tech C.E.O.s, boring is the new black. Under the glare of global scrutiny, the daring, win-at-all-costs ethos that defined so much of the tech industry in the last couple of decades has been undergoing a thorough metamorphosis.

当涉及科技行业首席执行官时，平淡无奇是一种新时髦。在全球的密切关注之下，过去几十年里定义了科技行业大部分的那种大胆、不惜一切代价取胜的信念，正在经历一个彻底的质变。

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief who was once the poster boy of breaking things and moving fast, is now sitting with magazine writers for lengthy, nuanced disquisitions on his failings. Last year, Uber replaced its controversy-magnet founder, Travis Kalanick, with Dara Khosrowshahi, whom almost nobody outside the tech industry had heard of before — a fact that the company regarded as an asset, not a liability.

Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)曾是打破陈规、勇往直前的典型代表，现在他正在与杂志作家们坐下来，对自己的失误进行冗长、细致入微的专题讨论。去年，优步(Uber)撤了经常引发争议的创始人特拉维斯·卡兰尼克(Travis Kalanick)首席执行官职务，用科技行业以外几乎没人听说过的达拉·霍斯劳沙希(Dara Khosrowshahi)取代之，公司把后者的不知名视为一种优点，而非负面的东西。

Google once played up the nerdy antics of its founders, but now the company’s leaders are almost unidentifiable ciphers. Larry Page, who runs Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has become a recluse, and even Sundar Pichai, Google’s achingly pleasant chief, declined to appear at last week’s hearings.

谷歌(Google)曾大肆渲染其创始人的古怪行为，但公司如今的领导者几乎都是毫无特征、无足轻重的人。管理谷歌母公司Alphabet的拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)已变得深居简出，就连很有亲和力的谷歌首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊(Sundar Pichai)也婉言拒绝了出席上周的听证会。

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief and the world’s wealthiest man, has been experimenting with a more daring fashion sense, but his leadership style has always been marked by patience and deliberate expansion — just the sort of boring, operator’s sensibility now in vogue.

虽然亚马逊(Amazon)首席执行官、全球首富杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)一直在尝试一种更大胆的时尚品味，但他的领导作风一直带有耐心和谨慎扩张的特征——这正是如今流行的那种平淡无奇的、营运者的敏感性。

Oh, and I almost forgot about Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s C.E.O. In my defense, everyone forgets about Mr. Nadella.

哦，我差点忘记了微软的首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉(Satya Nadella)。但这是情有可原的，没有人想得起来纳德拉。

It’s no mystery why tech leaders are turning inward. “Tech is now such a huge and dominant industry,” said Joshua Reeves, the proudly boring founder and chief executive of Gusto, a start-up that makes human resources software. “The fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants mind-set is just not viable when you have a trillion-dollar market capitalization or if you have more influence than many governments around the world.”

科技行业的领导者们为什么都转为内向，这一点也不神秘。“科技现在是一个如此巨大、如此占主导地位的行业，当你拥有万亿美元市值，或当你比世界上许多国家的政府都更有影响力时，凭直觉行事的思维模式就行不通了，”约书亚·里夫斯(Joshua Reeves)说，他是制造人力资源软件的初创企业Gusto的创始人兼首席执行官，对自己的平淡无奇颇感自豪。

Mr. Reeves pointed out that it’s not just the big companies whose chief executives are going beige. Some of the most successful start-ups — from Lyft to Airbnb to Stripe to Slack to Pinterest — are run by understated un-visionaries, people who aim for functional competence over hypey salesmanship. (What hasn’t changed is gender; boring or no, just about everyone who runs a tech company is still a man.)

里夫斯指出，不仅是大公司的首席执行官们正在变得平淡无奇。一些最成功的初创企业——从Lyft到爱彼迎(Airbnb)，从Stripe到Slack、再到Pinterest——也都由低调的非幻想家运营，这些人关注的是实用性的能力，而不是夸张的推销术。(没有多大改变的是性别;不管是否平淡无奇，几乎所有科技公司的运营者都是男性。)

“A start-up that has five million people using it — that’s small for Silicon Valley, but it’s a tremendous number of people, and so even they have a large amount of responsibility in the world,” Mr. Reeves said.

“一家初创公司有500万人使用其产品——这个规模对硅谷来说很小，但这也是很多人，所以即使是它们，对这个世界也负有很大的责任，”里夫斯说。

The tech press has also gotten tougher. Once, novelty alone would merit coverage, but in the social media age, even the tiniest misstep can be ruinous. It has become crucial to get a leader who doesn’t speak out of turn.

科技媒体也变得更加强硬。曾经，只是新奇的体验就值得报道，但在社交媒体时代，即使是最微小的失误也可能是毁灭性的。让领导者不多话就变得至关重要。

There is one obvious exception to my boring-is-in thesis: Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, whose string of unconsidered tweets, taunts and other recent scandals have been anything but eye-glazing.

我这个“无聊等于时尚”的论点中也有明显的例外：特斯拉(Tesla)和SpaceX的首席执行官埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)，他的一连串未经考虑的推文、嘲讽和其他近期的丑闻都绝不乏味。

Mr. Musk’s latest antics were typical. In an email that he considered off the record, Mr. Musk told BuzzFeed News that a diver who had rescued boys trapped in a Thai cave was a “child rapist.” (The diver had questioned Mr. Musk’s off-the-cuff plan to free the boys; Mr. Musk had earlier apologized for calling the diver a pedophile.)

马斯克最新的滑稽举止是很典型的。在一封他认为不会发表的电子邮件中，马斯克告诉BuzzFeed News，一名援救被困在泰国洞穴中的男孩的潜水员是“儿童强奸犯”。(该潜水员质疑马斯克的援救儿童计划过于冒失;马斯克早些时候为将这位潜水员称为恋童癖而道歉。)

Last week, during an interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, Mr. Musk smoked marijuana and extensively detailed what he sees as the apocalyptic possibilities of artificial intelligence. The interview — combined with news of further executive departures — helped sink Tesla’s stock further.

上周，在接受播客主持人乔伊·罗根(Joe Rogan)采访时，马斯克抽着大麻，并详细阐述了他心目中人工智能世界末日的可能性。采访加上更多管理层离职的消息，令特斯拉的股票下跌。

Mr. Musk’s odd behavior underlines the tensions at play as understated style takes over tech. There is a reason that a big, Jobsian personality was once so prized. Tech companies are leaps of faith. In their early days they exist on the knife edge of oblivion, and it is often only through a founder’s force of personality that investors, employees and the media take any notice. The most beloved founders possess an uncanny genius for selling the world on ideas that look useless, pointless or impossible before we all realize we can never live without them.

马斯克的奇怪表现凸显了低调风格接管科技界引发的紧张局面。强大的、乔布斯式的个性曾经如此受到珍视，这是有理由的。科技公司是信仰的飞跃。在早期岁月，这些公司存在于被遗忘的边缘，通常只有通过创始人的人格力量，投资者、员工和媒体才会注意到它们。最受欢迎的创始人拥有不可思议的天分，可以将那些看似无用、毫无意义或不可能的想法卖给世界，之后我们才会意识到，我们再也离不开它们了。

For all his flaws, Mr. Musk has long possessed such a genius. All the way back in 2006, he posted a “master plan” for Tesla that reads like a Wile E. Coyote caper: “1) Build sports car. 2) Use that money to build an affordable car. 3) Use that money to build an even more affordable car. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options. Don’t tell anyone.”

尽管马斯克有种种缺点，但他一直拥有这样的天分。2006年，他为特斯拉发布了一个“总体规划”，看上去像是威利狼(Wile E. Coyote)的胡闹：“1)制造跑车。2)用这笔钱制造一辆经济实惠的汽车。3)用这笔钱建造一辆更实惠的汽车。与此同时，还要提供零排放的电动车选项。别告诉任何人。”

Though he has made good on only some of those points — Tesla is now struggling to fulfill orders for the Model 3, the “even more affordable” car in the plan — posting the plan was part of an impish ploy to generate publicity for what looked like an outlandish idea. That ploy worked; ever since, Mr. Musk has leveraged his growing celebrity as if it were a currency.

虽然他只实现了其中一部分——特斯拉现在正在努力完成Model 3的订单，这是计划中“更实惠”的汽车——发布该计划是一种顽皮的策略，为一种看似古怪的观念做宣传。这个策略奏效了;从那以后，马斯克就一直利用他不断增长的名气，好像它是一种通货。

Every few months, he makes new promises about this or that amazing thing coming soon. Each time, he reaps more attention and financing and, eventually, builds real cars that are sold to real people. In this way, Mr. Musk’s personality became a key element of not just his companies’ brands, but their business models.

每隔几个月，他就会做出新的承诺，说要推出这个或那个惊人的东西。每一次，他都会获得更多的关注和融资，并且最终造出真正的汽车，出售给真正的人。通过这种方式，马斯克的个性不仅成为他公司品牌的关键元素，也成为其商业模式的关键要素。

But it’s a tricky, high-stakes gamble. For one thing, Mr. Musk has to deliver on his promises. More recently, another problem has eaten at this strategy: The future has been getting less obviously wonderful, so it’s hard to take any tech chief’s assurances that their new thing will indeed be as great for the world as they say.

但这是一个棘手的、高风险的赌博。首先，马斯克必须兑现他的承诺。最近，这个策略又遇到了另一个问题：未来的样子变得似乎不那么美妙，所以无论科技高管做出任何承诺，人们都很难相信，他们推出的新事物确实会像他们所说的那样对世界有益。

Back in Mr. Jobs’s day, tech was relatively uncomplicated; when the great man came bearing a new music player, you didn’t have to wonder whether it might help a foreign government steal an election. Now, after everything we have seen recently, you do have to worry about what the future may hold. Even Mr. Musk is worried.

在乔布斯的时代，科技还相对简单;当那位伟人带来一个新的音乐播放器时，你不必怀疑它是否可能有助于外国政府窃取选举。现在，我们已经看到了最近的那么多事情，你不得不担心未来会发生什么。就连马斯克也很担心。

“I tried to convince people to slow down A.I.,” he told Mr. Rogan. “This was futile. I tried for many years. Nobody listened. Nobody listened.”

“我试图说服人们放慢人工智能的发展，”他告诉罗根。“这是徒劳的。我努力很多年。没有人听。没有人听。”

Thus, the tension: On the one hand, Mr. Musk wants us to believe that everything he’s building is going to turn out wonderfully. On the other hand, he’s telling us to be very scared. This sounds like a contradiction, but in its admission of doubt and complexity, it’s actually a pretty good picture of the future.

因此，矛盾就来了：一方面，马斯克希望我们相信，他正在创造的一切都会变得非常精彩。另一方面，他告诉我们要非常害怕。这听起来像是一种矛盾，但它承认了疑虑和复杂性，实际上是为未来勾勒出一幅极好的画面。

No wonder he sounds crazy. No wonder everyone else is going for boring.

难怪他听上去很疯狂。难怪其他人都喜欢无聊。