亚马逊 CEO 致股东信 2018 （中英文全文）
亚马逊CEO 致股东信 2018
（中英文全文， 中文翻译仅供参考）
从1997年年报开始， 一年一度的亚马逊CEO 致股东信，已经成为美国商界人士的必读大作。
而刚刚， 亚马逊CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos 发布了最新的年度致股东信。今天，这封信，在整个华尔街刷屏了。
从1997年开始，至这个最新的年度信，Jeffrey P. Bezos 总共写了20封信，累计超过70页，这足以成为当今工商业界和商学院的必读经典之作。
以下是刚刚发布的最新年度致股东信全文（中文翻译仅供参考）。
| Exhibit 99.1 |
To our shareowners: 致股东们
The American Customer Satisfaction Index recently announced the results of its annual survey, and for the 8th year in a row customers ranked Amazon #1. The United Kingdom has a similar index, The U.K. Customer Satisfaction Index, put out by the Institute of Customer Service. For the 5th time in a row Amazon U.K. ranked #1 in that survey. Amazon was also just named the #1 business on LinkedIn’s 2018 Top Companies list, which ranks the most sought after places to work for professionals in the United States. And just a few weeks ago, Harris Poll released its annual Reputation Quotient, which surveys over 25,000 consumers on a broad range of topics from workplace environment to social responsibility to products and services, and for the 3rd year in a row Amazon ranked #1. 美国顾客满意度指数(American Customer Satisfaction Index)最近公布了年度调查结果，亚马逊(Amazon)连续八年排名第一。英国有一个类似的指数，英国客户满意度指数，由客户服务协会推出。在该调查中，亚马逊英国排名第五。在LinkedIn的2018年顶级公司榜单上，亚马逊也刚刚被命名为“第一商务”，这是美国职业人士最向往的职业。就在几周前，哈里斯民意调查公司公布了其年度声誉指数，该指数调查了2.5万名消费者，从工作环境、社会责任到产品和服务等一系列广泛的话题，亚马逊连续第三年排名第一。
Congratulations and thank you to the now over 560,000 Amazonians who come to work every day with unrelenting customer obsession, ingenuity, and commitment to operational excellence. And on behalf of Amazonians everywhere, I want to extend a huge thank you to customers. It’s incredibly energizing for us to see your responses to these surveys. 恭喜你，感谢现在超过56万的亚马逊人，他们每天来上班，都是为了让顾客们对卓越的运营做出不懈的努力。我代表亚马逊公司，向顾客们致以崇高的敬意。看到你对这些调查的反应，我们感到非常振奋。
One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’. I see that cycle of improvement happening at a faster rate than ever before. It may be because customers have such easy access to more information than ever before – in only a few seconds and with a couple taps on their phones, customers can read reviews, compare prices from multiple retailers, see whether something’s in stock, find out how fast it will ship or be available for pick-up, and more. These examples are from retail, but I sense that the same customer empowerment phenomenon is happening broadly across everything we do at Amazon and most other industries as well. You cannot rest on your laurels in this world. Customers won’t have it. 我喜欢顾客的一个原因是，他们是神性上永远不满。他们的期望从来都不是静止的——他们日益增加。这是人的本性。我们从狩猎采集的日子里并没有得到满足。人们对更好的方式有着贪婪的欲望，而昨天的“哇”很快变成了今天的“平凡”。我认为这种改善的周期比以往任何时候都要快。这可能是因为客户有这样容易获得比以前更多的信息——在手机上滑动几秒, 用户就可以阅读评论, 就可以比较多个零售商的价格,是否有存货, 是否提供送货或者自取，等等信息。这些例子都来自于零售，但我觉得同样的客户授权现象在亚马逊和其他大多数行业都有广泛的应用。在这个世界上，你不能满足于你的成就。客户不会买你的账的。
How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There’s no single way to do it – it’s a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it. We’ve had some successes over the years in our quest to meet the high expectations of customers. We’ve also had billions of dollars’ worth of failures along the way. With those experiences as backdrop, I’d like to share with you the essentials of what we’ve learned (so far) about high standards inside an organization. 如何保持在不断增长的客户期望能够得到满足？ 我们没有单一的方法可以做到这一点——这是许多事情的结合。但是坚持高标准(被广泛部署，并且在所有细节层次上)无疑是其中的一个重要部分。多年来，为了满足客户的高期望，我们取得了一些成功。我们在这个过程中也经历了数十亿美元的失败。以这些经验为背景，我想和大家分享一下我们在一个组织中所了解到的关于高标准的要点。
Intrinsic or Teachable? 是内在的还是可教可学的？
First, there’s a foundational question: are high standards intrinsic or teachable? If you take me on your basketball team, you can teach me many things, but you can’t teach me to be taller. Do we first and foremost need to select for “high standards” people? If so, this letter would need to be mostly about hiring practices, but I don’t think so. I believe high standards are teachable. In fact, people are pretty good at learning high standards simply through exposure. High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread. And though exposure works well to teach high standards, I believe you can accelerate that rate of learning by articulating a few core principles of high standards, which I hope to share in this letter. 首先，有一个基本的问题:高标准是内在的还是可教的?如果你带我去你的篮球队，你可以教我很多东西，但你不能教我长高。我们首先需要选择“高标准”的人吗?如果是这样的话，这封信应该主要是关于招聘的，但我不这么认为。我认为高标准是可教的。事实上，人们仅仅通过接触就能很好地学习高标准。高标准是会传染的。让一个新人加入一个高标准的团队，他们很快就会适应。反之亦然。如果低标准盛行，这些也会迅速蔓延。尽管曝光工作很好地教高水准，我相信你可以通过阐明一些高标准的核心原则来加速学习的速度，我希望在这封信中分享这些原则。
Universal or Domain Specific? 普遍的或特定领域?
Another important question is whether high standards are universal or domain specific. In other words, if you have high standards in one area, do you automatically have high standards elsewhere? I believe high standards are domain specific, and that you have to learn high standards separately in every arena of interest. When I started Amazon, I had high standards on inventing, on customer care, and (thankfully) on hiring. But I didn’t have high standards on operational process: how to keep fixed problems fixed, how to eliminate defects at the root, how to inspect processes, and much more. I had to learn and develop high standards on all of that (my colleagues were my tutors). 另一个重要的问题是，高标准是通用的还是特定于领域的。换句话说，如果你在某一领域有很高的标准，你会自动在其他地方有高标准吗?我认为高标准是特定于领域的，而且你必须在每个利益领域分别学习高标准。当我创办亚马逊的时候，我对发明、客户服务和雇佣方面都有很高的标准。但是我在操作过程中没有很高的标准:如何固定固定的问题，如何消除根上的缺陷，如何检查过程，等等。我必须在所有这些方面学习和制定高标准(我的同事是我的导师)。
Understanding this point is important because it keeps you humble. You can consider yourself a person of high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or non-existent, and certainly not world class. It’s critical to be open to that likelihood. 理解这一点很重要，因为它让你保持谦逊。你可以认为自己是一个总体上高标准的人，而且仍然会有使人衰弱的盲点。你可能甚至不知道自己的标准是低的或不存在的，当然也不会有世界级的。对这种可能性持开放态度至关重要。
Recognition and Scope 识别和范围
What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result – the scope. Let me give you two examples. One is a sort of toy illustration but it makes the point clearly, and another is a real one that comes up at Amazon all the time. 在特定领域中，你需要什么来达到高标准?首先，你必须能够认识到在那个领域中什么是好的。其次，你必须要有现实的期望来实现这一结果——范围。让我给你们举两个例子。一种是一种玩具插画，但它清楚地说明了这一点，另一种是在亚马逊上经常出现的真实的例子。
Perfect Handstands 完美的倒手立
A close friend recently decided to learn to do a perfect free-standing handstand. No leaning against a wall. Not for just a few seconds. Instagram good. She decided to start her journey by taking a handstand workshop at her yoga studio. She then practiced for a while but wasn’t getting the results she wanted. So, she hired a handstand coach. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but evidently this is an actual thing that exists. In the very first lesson, the coach gave her some wonderful advice. “Most people,” he said, “think that if they work hard, they should be able to master a handstand in about two weeks. The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.” Unrealistic beliefs on scope – often hidden and undiscussed – kill high standards. To achieve high standards yourself or as part of a team, you need to form and proactively communicate realistic beliefs about how hard something is going to be – something this coach understood well. 我的一位好亲密的朋友最近决定学习做一个完美的自立的倒立。不要靠在墙上。不只是几秒钟。能够在 Instagram上炫耀的那种好。她决定开始她的旅程，在她的瑜伽工作室做一个手工作坊。然后她练习了一段时间，但没有得到她想要的结果。于是，她雇了一个倒立教练。是的，我知道你在想什么，但很明显这是真实存在的。在第一节课中，教练给了她一些很好的建议。“大多数人，”他说，“认为如果他们努力工作，他们应该能在两周内掌握一个倒立。实际情况是，它需要大约6个月的日常实践。如果你认为你应该能在两周内完成，你就会放弃。对范围的不切实际的信念——通常是隐藏的和未讨论的——扼杀了高标准。为了达到高标准，或者作为团队的一员，你需要形成并主动地传达一些现实的信念，即一些事情将会变得多么困难——这是教练所理解的核心。
Six-Page Narratives 6页备忘录的故事
We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of “study hall.” Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum. 我们不会在亚马逊做PowerPoint(或其他幻灯片导向的)演示。相反，我们写的是有条理的六页备忘录。我们在每次会议开始时都在一种“学习室”里默读。毫不奇怪，这些备忘录的质量千差万别。有些人有天使般清晰的歌声。他们才华横溢，思想缜密，为高质量的讨论奠定了基础。有时它们会出现在光谱的另一端。
In the handstand example, it’s pretty straightforward to recognize high standards. It wouldn’t be difficult to lay out in detail the requirements of a well-executed handstand, and then you’re either doing it or you’re not. The writing example is very different. The difference between a great memo and an average one is much squishier. It would be extremely hard to write down the detailed requirements that make up a great memo. Nevertheless, I find that much of the time, readers react to great memos very similarly. They know it when they see it. The standard is there, and it is real, even if it’s not easily describable. 在handstand示例中，很容易识别高标准。要详细列出一个执行良好的手倒立的要求并不难，然后你要么做，要么不做。写作的例子非常不同。一个伟大的备忘录和一个普通的备忘录之间的区别就更大了。要把组成一个伟大的备忘录的详细要求写下来是非常困难的。然而，我发现大部分时间，读者对伟大的备忘录的反应非常相似。当他们看到的时候就知道了。标准在那里，它是真实的，即使它不是很容易描述。
Here’s what we’ve figured out. Often, when a memo isn’t great, it’s not the writer’s inability to recognize the high standard, but instead a wrong expectation on scope: they mistakenly believe a high-standards, six-page memo can be written in one or two days or even a few hours, when really it might take a week or more! They’re trying to perfect a handstand in just two weeks, and we’re not coaching them right. The great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two. The key point here is that you can improve results through the simple act of teaching scope – that a great memo probably should take a week or more. 这是我们总结出来的。通常,当一个备忘录并不大,这不是作者的无法认识到高的标准,而是一个错误的期望范围:他们错误地相信一个高标准, 四五页备忘录可以写在一个或两天甚至几个小时,真的可能需要一个星期或更多! 他们正试图在两周内完善一个倒立，而我们并没有正确地指导他们。这些伟大的备忘录是写出来的，而且经常需要重写，还需要与被要求改进工作的同事分享，还需要留出几天时间再用一个全新的头脑重新编辑； 所以，他们不可能在一两天内完成。这里的关键点是，你可以通过简单的教学范围来提高结果——一份好的备忘录可能需要一周甚至更长时间。
Skill 技能
Beyond recognizing the standard and having realistic expectations on scope, how about skill? Surely to write a world class memo, you have to be an extremely skilled writer? Is it another required element? In my view, not so much, at least not for the individual in the context of teams. The football coach doesn’t need to be able to throw, and a film director doesn’t need to be able to act. But they both do need to recognize high standards for those things and teach realistic expectations on scope. Even in the example of writing a six-page memo, that’s teamwork. Someone on the team needs to have the skill, but it doesn’t have to be you. (As a side note, by tradition at Amazon, authors’ names never appear on the memos – the memo is from the whole team.) 除了认识到标准和对范围的现实期望之外，技能又如何呢?当然要写一份世界级的备忘录，你必须是一个非常熟练的作家?它是另一个必需的元素吗?在我看来，不是那么多，至少在团队中不是这样的。足球教练不需要投球，电影导演也不需要能够表演。但他们都需要认识到这些东西的高标准，并在范围上教授现实的期望。即使是在写六页备忘录的例子中，也是如此。这是团队合作。团队中有人需要这个技能，但不一定非得是你。(顺便提一句，在亚马逊的传统中，作者的名字永远不会出现在备忘录上——备忘录来自整个团队。)
Benefits of High Standards 高标准的好处
Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits. Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough! Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle: a culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional. 建立高标准的文化是值得的，而且有很多好处。当然，最明显的是，你将为客户打造更好的产品和服务——这是足够的理由!或许有一点不那么明显:人们被吸引到高标准——有助招聘和留住人才。更微妙的是:一种高标准的文化保护着所有公司的“无形”但至关重要的工作。我指的是没有人看到的工作。当没有人在看的时候做的工作。在一个高标准的文化中，做好工作本身就是一种奖励——它是成为专业人士的一部分。
And finally, high standards are fun! Once you’ve tasted high standards, there’s no going back. So, the four elements of high standards as we see it: they are teachable, they are domain specific, you must recognize them, and you must explicitly coach realistic scope. For us, these work at all levels of detail. Everything from writing memos to whole new, clean-sheet business initiatives. We hope they help you too. 最后，高标准很有趣!一旦你尝过了高标准，就没有回头路了。所以，我们所看到的高标准的四个要素是:它们是可教的，它们是特定领域的，你必须认识它们，你必须明确地指导现实的范围。对我们来说，这些工作在各个层次的细节。从写备忘录到全新的、清洁的商业计划。我们希望他们也能帮助你。
Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards
– many people may think these standards are unreasonably high.
-- from the Amazon Leadership Principles
坚持最高的标准。
领导者们的标准一直都很高
——许多人可能认为这些标准太高了。
——来自亚马逊的领导原则。
Recent Milestones 近期所到达的里程碑事件
The high standards our leaders strive for have served us well. And while I certainly can’t do a handstand myself, I’m extremely proud to share some of the milestones we hit last year, each of which represents the fruition of many years of collective effort. We take none of them for granted. 我们的领导人所追求的高标准对我们是有益的。虽然我自己也不能倒立，但我非常自豪地分享了我们去年所取得的一些里程碑，每一个都代表了多年集体努力的成果。如果不是这样，我们不认为这些成果是理所当然的。
| • | Prime – 13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally. In 2017 Amazon shipped more than five billion items with Prime worldwide, and more new members joined Prime than in any previous year – both worldwide and in the U.S. Members in the U.S. now receive unlimited free two-day shipping on over 100 million different items. We expanded Prime to Mexico, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and introduced Business Prime Shipping in the U.S. and Germany. We keep making Prime shipping faster as well, with Prime Free Same-Day and Prime Free One-Day delivery now in more than 8,000 cities and towns. Prime Now is available in more than 50 cities worldwide across nine countries. Prime Day 2017 was our biggest global shopping event ever (until surpassed by Cyber Monday), with more new Prime members joining Prime than any other day in our history. - 13年之后，我们在全球已经有超过1亿的付费会员。在2017年，亚马逊在全球推出了超过50亿件商品，而且新加入的会员数量比以往任何一年都要多——无论是在全球还是在美国，现在美国的会员都可以享受无限制的两天免费送货，超过1亿件不同的商品。我们扩大了对墨西哥、新加坡、荷兰和卢森堡的优惠，并引进了美国和德国的商业Prime服务。我们还保持着优质的货运速度，在超过8000个城市和城镇中，以Prime Free当日和Prime Free一天的服务。目前，在全球9个国家的50多个城市都有Prime服务。2017年的黄金日是我们有史以来最大的全球购物活动(直到网络星期一被超越)，在我们的历史上，有更多的新会员加入Prime。 |
| • | AWS – It’s exciting to see Amazon Web Services, a $20 billion revenue run rate business, accelerate its already healthy growth. AWS has also accelerated its pace of innovation – especially in new areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and serverless computing. In 2017, AWS announced more than 1,400 significant services and features, including Amazon SageMaker, which radically changes the accessibility and ease of use for everyday developers to build sophisticated machine learning models. Tens of thousands of customers are also using a broad range of AWS machine learning services, with active users increasing more than 250 percent in the last year, spurred by the broad adoption of Amazon SageMaker. And in November, we held our sixth re:Invent conference with more than 40,000 attendees and over 60,000 streaming participants. 亚马逊网络服务(Amazon Web Services)是一项规模达200亿美元的营收业务，它加速了本已健康的增长。AWS也加快了创新步伐——尤其是在机器学习和人工智能、物联网和无服务器计算等新领域。在2017年，AWS宣布了超过1400项重要的服务和功能，包括Amazon SageMaker，它从根本上改变了日常开发人员构建复杂机器学习模型的可访问性和易用性。成千上万的用户也在使用AWS机器学习服务，在去年，由于亚马逊公司的广泛采用，活跃用户增长了超过250%。在11月，我们举行了第六次会议:与4万多名与会者和6万多名流媒体参与者举行了发明大会。 |
| • | Marketplace – In 2017, for the first time in our history, more than half of the units sold on Amazon worldwide were from our third-party sellers, including small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Over 300,000 U.S.-based SMBs started selling on Amazon in 2017, and Fulfillment by Amazon shipped billions of items for SMBs worldwide. Customers ordered more than 40 million items from SMBs worldwide during Prime Day 2017, growing their sales by more than 60 percent over Prime Day 2016. Our Global Selling program (enabling SMBs to sell products across national borders) grew by over 50% in 2017 and cross-border ecommerce by SMBs now represents more than 25% of total third-party sales. 2017年，在我们的历史上第一次，超过半数的在亚马逊地区销售的产品来自我们的第三方卖家，包括中小型企业(smb)。在2017年，美国有30万中小卖家（smb）开始在亚马逊上销售，而亚马逊的实现则为全世界的smb提供了数十亿的产品。在2017年的黄金日期间，消费者从全球各地的smb订购了4000多万件商品，在2016年的黄金日期间，他们的销售额增长了60%以上。我们的全球销售计划(使smb能够跨国界销售产品)在2017年增长了50%以上，而smb的跨境电商现在占到第三方销售总额的25%以上。 |
| • | Alexa – Customer embrace of Alexa continues, with Alexa-enabled devices among the best-selling items across all of Amazon. We’re seeing extremely strong adoption by other companies and developers that want to create their own experiences with Alexa. There are now more than 30,000 skills for Alexa from outside developers, and customers can control more than 4,000 smart home devices from 1,200 unique brands with Alexa. The foundations of Alexa continue to get smarter every day too. We’ve developed and implemented an on-device fingerprinting technique, which keeps your device from waking up when it hears an Alexa commercial on TV. (This technology ensured that our Alexa Super Bowl commercial didn’t wake up millions of devices.) Far-field speech recognition (already very good) has improved by 15% over the last year; and in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, we’ve improved Alexa’s spoken language understanding by more than 25% over the last 12 months through enhancements in Alexa’s machine learning components and the use of semi-supervised learning techniques. (These semi-supervised learning techniques reduced the amount of labeled data needed to achieve the same accuracy improvement by 40 times!) Finally, we’ve dramatically reduced the amount of time required to teach Alexa new languages by using machine translation and transfer learning techniques, which allows us to serve customers in more countries (like India and Japan). 用户持续拥抱Alexa这款产品，在亚马逊所有的畅销产品中都有支持Alexa的设备。我们看到其他公司和开发人员非常强烈地采纳了他们的想法，他们想要和Alexa建立自己的经验。目前，来自外部开发人员的Alexa技能超过3万，客户可以从1200个独特的品牌和Alexa中控制4000多个智能家居设备。Alexa的基础每天都在变得更聪明。我们开发并实现了一种设备上的指纹技术，它可以防止你的设备在电视上听到Alexa广告时醒来。(这项技术确保了我们的Alexa超级碗广告不会吵醒数百万用户。)远场语音识别(已经很好)在过去一年已经提高了15%;在美国和、英国在过去的12个月里，我们通过改进Alexa的机器学习组件和使用半监督学习技术，使Alexa的口语理解提高了25%以上。(这些半监督学习技术减少了所需的标签数据量，达到同样的精度提高40倍!)最后，我们通过机器翻译和迁移学习技术，大大减少了教授Alexa新语言的时间，这使得我们可以在更多的国家(如印度和日本)为客户服务。 |
| • | Amazon devices – 2017 was our best year yet for hardware sales. Customers bought tens of millions of Echo devices, and Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick with Alexa were the best-selling products across all of Amazon – across all categories and all manufacturers. Customers bought twice as many Fire TV Sticks and Kids Edition Fire Tablets this holiday season versus last year. 2017 marked the release of our all-new Echo with an improved design, better sound, and a lower price; Echo Plus with a built-in smart home hub; and Echo Spot, which is compact and beautiful with a circular screen. We released our next generation Fire TV, featuring 4K Ultra HD and HDR; and the Fire HD 10 Tablet, with 1080p Full HD display. And we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Kindle by releasing the all-new Kindle Oasis, our most advanced reader ever. It’s waterproof – take it in the bathtub – with a bigger 7” high-resolution 300 ppi display and has built-in audio so you can also listen to your books with Audible. 亚马逊设备——2017年是我们硬件销售最好的一年。消费者购买了数以百万计的Echo设备，而Echo Dot和Fire TV Stick与Alexa是所有亚马逊地区最畅销的产品——所有类别和所有制造商。在今年的假日季，消费者购买了两倍的Fire TV棒和儿童版Fire平板电脑。2017年标志着我们全新的Echo的发布，设计改进，声音更好，价格更低;Echo Plus内置智能家居中心;而回波点，又紧凑又美观，有一个圆形的屏幕。我们推出了下一代Fire TV，主打4K超高清和HDR;和Fire HD 10平板电脑，1080p全高清显示。我们通过发布全新的Kindle Oasis(我们最先进的阅读器)来庆祝Kindle 10周年。它是防水的——把它放在浴缸里——用一个更大的7英寸高分辨率的300像素显示器，内置音频，这样你就可以听到你的书了。 |
| • | Prime Video – Prime Video continues to drive Prime member adoption and retention. In the last year we made Prime Video even better for customers by adding new, award-winning Prime Originals to the service, like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, winner of two Critics’ Choice Awards and two Golden Globes, and the Oscar-nominated movie The Big Sick. We’ve expanded our slate of programming across the globe, launching new seasons of Bosch and Sneaky Pete from the U.S., The Grand Tour from the U.K., and You Are Wanted from Germany, while adding new Sentosha shows from Japan, along with Breathe and the award-winning Inside Edge from India. Also this year, we expanded our Prime Channels offerings, adding CBS All Access in the U.S. and launching Channels in the U.K. and Germany. We debuted NFL Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, with more than 18 million total viewers over 11 games. In 2017, Prime Video Direct secured subscription video rights for more than 3,000 feature films and committed over $18 million in royalties to independent filmmakers and other rights holders. Looking forward, we’re also excited about our upcoming Prime Original series pipeline, which includes Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan starring John Krasinski; King Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson; The Romanoffs, executive produced by Matt Weiner; Carnival Row starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne; Good Omens starring Jon Hamm; and Homecoming, executive produced by Sam Esmail and starring Julia Roberts in her first television series. We acquired the global television rights for a multi-season production of The Lord of the Rings, as well as Cortés, a miniseries based on the epic saga of Hernán Cortés from executive producer Steven Spielberg, starring Javier Bardem, and we look forward to beginning work on those shows this year. Prime Video - Prime Video继续推动Prime会员的增加和保留。在过去的一年里，我们为客户制作了更好的视频，为客户添加了新的、获奖的原创作品，比如《了不起的梅塞尔夫人》、《两个评论家选择奖》和两个金球奖，以及奥斯卡提名的电影《大病人》。我们已经在全球范围内拓展了我们的编程领域，推出了来自美国的Bosch和Sneaky Pete的新赛季。这是来自英国的盛大旅行。你是德国人，同时还在日本加入了新的Sentosha展览，还有呼吸和来自印度的获奖作品。今年，我们扩大了我们的主要渠道，增加了在美国的哥伦比亚广播公司和在英国和德国的频道。我们在周四晚上首次播出了全美橄榄球联盟(NFL)的橄榄球比赛，总共有超过1800万观众观看了11场比赛。在2017年，Prime视频直接获得了3000多部故事片的视频版权，并向独立制片人和其他版权持有者支付了1800万美元的版税。展望未来，我们也对即将推出的Prime原创剧集《管道》感到兴奋，其中包括汤姆·克兰西主演的《杰克·瑞恩》，主演约翰·卡拉辛斯基;由安东尼·霍普金斯和艾玛·汤普森主演的《李尔王》;由马特·维纳(Matt Weiner)制作的罗曼诺夫出版社;奥兰多·布鲁姆和卡拉·迪瓦伊主演的嘉年华会;由乔·汉姆主演的《好兆头》;《返校节》由山姆·伊斯梅尔(Sam Esmail)执导，茱莉亚·罗伯茨(Julia Roberts)在她的第一部电视剧中出演。我们获得了《指环王》(Lord of the Rings)多季制作的全球电视转播权，以及Cortes，这部迷你剧是根据由执行制片人斯蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格(Steven Spielberg)执导的史诗传奇《赫南·科尔特》(Hernan Cortes)改编而成，由贾维尔·巴登(Javier Bardem)主演，我们期待着在今年的这些节目中开始工作。 |
| • | Amazon Music – Amazon Music continues to grow fast and now has tens of millions of paid customers. Amazon Music Unlimited, our on-demand, ad-free offering, expanded to more than 30 new countries in 2017, and membership has more than doubled over the past six months. 亚马逊音乐——亚马逊音乐继续快速发展，现在有数千万付费用户。亚马逊音乐无限，我们的按需、无广告发行，在2017年扩展到30多个新国家，会员人数在过去6个月增加了一倍多。 |
| • | Fashion – Amazon has become the destination for tens of millions of customers to shop for fashion. In 2017, we introduced our first fashion-oriented Prime benefit, Prime Wardrobe – a new service that brings the fitting room directly to the homes of Prime members so they can try on the latest styles before they buy. We introduced Nike and UGG on Amazon along with new celebrity collections by Drew Barrymore and Dwyane Wade, as well as dozens of new private brands, like Goodthreads and Core10. We’re also continuing to enable thousands of designers and artists to offer their exclusive designs and prints on demand through Merch by Amazon. We finished 2017 with the launch of our interactive shopping experience with Calvin Klein, including pop-up shops, on-site product customization, and fitting rooms with Alexa-controlled lighting, music, and more. 时尚——亚马逊已经成为数千万消费者购买时尚的目的地。在2017年，我们推出了第一款面向时尚的Prime benefit, Prime衣橱——一项新服务，将试衣间直接带到Prime会员的家中，这样他们就可以在购买前试穿最新款式。我们在亚马逊上推出了Nike和UGG，以及德鲁·巴里摩尔(Drew Barrymore)和德维恩·韦德(Dwyane Wade)的新名人系列，还有几十个新的私人品牌，比如Goodthreads和Core10。我们还将继续让成千上万的设计师和艺术家通过亚马逊的Merch提供他们的独家设计和印刷。我们在2017年完成了与Calvin Klein的互动购物体验的推出，包括弹出式商店、现场产品定制，以及与alexa控制的灯光、音乐等的试衣间。 |
| • | Whole Foods – When we closed our acquisition of Whole Foods Market last year, we announced our commitment to making high-quality, natural and organic food available for everyone, then immediately lowered prices on a selection of best-selling grocery staples, including avocados, organic brown eggs, and responsibly-farmed salmon. We followed this with a second round of price reductions in November, and our Prime member exclusive promotion broke Whole Foods’ all-time record for turkeys sold during the Thanksgiving season. In February, we introduced free two-hour delivery on orders over $35 for Prime members in select cities, followed by additional cities in March and April, and plan continued expansion across the U.S. throughout this year. We also expanded the benefits of the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card, enabling Prime members to get 5% back when shopping at Whole Foods Market. Beyond that, customers can purchase Whole Foods’ private label products like 365 Everyday Value on Amazon, purchase Echo and other Amazon devices in over a hundred Whole Foods stores, and pick-up or return Amazon packages at Amazon Lockers in hundreds of Whole Foods stores. We’ve also begun the technical work needed to recognize Prime members at the point of sale and look forward to offering more Prime benefits to Whole Foods shoppers once that work is completed. Whole Foods——去年，当我们完成收购全食超市(Whole Foods Market)的时候，我们宣布了我们致力于为所有人提供高质量、自然和有机食品的承诺，然后立即降低了一系列畅销食品的价格，包括牛油果、有机棕色鸡蛋和负责人工养殖的三文鱼。我们紧随其后，在11月进行了第二轮降价，我们的Prime会员独家促销活动打破了Whole Foods在感恩节期间出售的火鸡的历史记录。今年2月，我们推出了免费两小时的免费送货服务，在选择城市的Prime会员上的订单超过35美元，接下来是3月和4月的其他城市，并计划在今年全年继续在美国各地扩张。我们还扩大了Amazon Prime Rewards Visa卡的好处，让Prime会员在Whole Foods Market购物时能得到5%的回报。除此之外，顾客还可以购买Whole Foods的自有品牌产品，比如亚马逊上的365天的日常价值，在100多家Whole Foods商店购买Echo和其他亚马逊设备，并在数百家Whole Foods门店的亚马逊储物柜上购买或退货亚马逊的套餐。我们也已经开始了在销售点识别主要成员所需的技术工作，并期待在工作完成后，为所有的顾客提供更多的优惠。 |
| • | Amazon Go – Amazon Go, a new kind of store with no checkout required, opened to the public in January in Seattle. Since opening, we’ve been thrilled to hear many customers refer to their shopping experience as “magical.” What makes the magic possible is a custom-built combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, which come together to create Just Walk Out shopping. With JWO, customers are able to grab their favorite breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and grocery essentials more conveniently than ever before. Some of our top-selling items are not surprising – caffeinated beverages and water are popular – but our customers also love the Chicken Banh Mi sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, cut fruit, gummy bears, and our Amazon Meal Kits. 亚马逊(Amazon Go)——一种无需结帐的新型商店，于今年1月在西雅图向公众开放。自开业以来，我们一直很兴奋地听到许多客户把他们的购物体验称为“神奇的”。“让魔术成为可能的是一个定制的电脑视觉、传感器融合和深度学习的结合，这些结合在一起创造出了购物。”有了JWO，顾客可以比以往更方便地获取他们最喜欢的早餐、午餐、晚餐、零食和食品杂货。我们的一些畅销产品并不奇怪——含咖啡因的饮料和水很受欢迎——但我们的顾客也喜欢鸡肉三明治、巧克力曲奇、切水果、小熊软糖和我们的亚马逊套餐。 |
| • | Treasure Truck – Treasure Truck expanded from a single truck in Seattle to a fleet of 35 trucks across 25 U.S. cities and 12 U.K. cities. Our bubble-blowing, music-pumping trucks fulfilled hundreds of thousands of orders, from porterhouse steaks to the latest Nintendo releases. Throughout the year, Treasure Truck also partnered with local communities to lift spirits and help those in need, including donating and delivering hundreds of car seats, thousands of toys, tens of thousands of socks, and many other essentials to community members needing relief, from those displaced by Hurricane Harvey, to the homeless, to kids needing holiday cheer. 宝货卡车从西雅图的一辆卡车扩展到25个美国城市和12个英国城市的35辆卡车。从porterhouse steaks到最新的任天堂发行版，我们吹泡泡的音乐卡车完成了成千上万订单的交付。全年,宝卡车也与当地社区合作,提升精神和帮助那些有需要的人,包括捐款和提供数以百计的汽车座椅,成千上万的玩具,成千上万的袜子,和许多其他必需品社区成员需要救济,从那些流离失所的飓风哈维,无家可归,孩子需要节日快乐。 |
| • | India – Amazon.in is the fastest growing marketplace in India, and the most visited site on both desktop and mobile, according to comScore and SimilarWeb. The Amazon.in mobile shopping app was also the most downloaded shopping app in India in 2017, according to App Annie. Prime added more members in India in its first year than any previous geography in Amazon’s history. Prime selection in India now includes more than 40 million local products from third-party sellers, and Prime Video is investing in India original video content in a big way, including two recent premiers and over a dozen new shows in production. 印度亚马逊。根据comScore和相似网站的数据，印度亚马逊是印度增长最快的网上商城，也是桌面和移动领域访问量最大的网站。据app Annie的数据显示，2017年，在印度，亚马逊移动购物应用程序也是下载次数最多的购物应用。2017年，Prime在印度的新增会员数量超过了亚马逊历史上的任何一个市场会员新增数量。目前，印度的主要产品包括来自第三方卖家的4000多万件本地产品，Prime Video正在大举投资印度原创视频内容，其中包括两名最近的总理和十多场新节目的制作。 |
| • | Sustainability – We are committed to minimizing carbon emissions by optimizing our transportation network, improving product packaging, and enhancing energy efficiency in our operations, and we have a long-term goal to power our global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy. We recently launched Amazon Wind Farm Texas, our largest wind farm yet, which generates more than 1,000,000 megawatt hours of clean energy annually from over 100 turbines. We have plans to host solar energy systems at 50 fulfillment centers by 2020, and have launched 24 wind and solar projects across the U.S. with more than 29 additional projects to come. Together, Amazon’s renewable energy projects now produce enough clean energy to power over 330,000 homes annually. In 2017 we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Frustration-Free Packaging, the first of a suite of sustainable packaging initiatives that have eliminated more than 244,000 tons of packaging materials over the past 10 years. In addition, in 2017 alone our programs significantly reduced packaging waste, eliminating the equivalent of 305 million shipping boxes. And across the world, Amazon is contracting with our service providers to launch our first low-pollution last-mile fleet. Already today, a portion of our European delivery fleet is comprised of low-pollution electric and natural gas vans and cars, and we have over 40 electric scooters and e-cargo bikes that complete local urban deliveries. 可持续发展——我们致力于通过优化我们的运输网络，改进产品包装，提高能源效率来减少碳排放，我们有一个长期目标，即利用100%可再生能源为我们的全球基础设施提供动力。我们最近推出了美国最大的风力发电场——亚马逊风力发电场，每年从100多个涡轮机中产生超过100万兆瓦时的清洁能源。我们计划到2020年在50个执行中心建立太阳能系统，并在全美启动24个风能和太阳能项目，还有29个以上的项目。同时，亚马逊的可再生能源项目现在生产的清洁能源每年超过33万套。在2017年，我们庆祝了“无阻碍包装”的10周年纪念日，这是一套可持续包装计划的第一步，在过去的10年里，它已经淘汰了超过24.4万吨的包装材料。此外，仅2017年，我们的项目就大大减少了包装浪费，减少了相当于3.05亿箱的集装箱。在世界各地，亚马逊正与我们的服务提供商签订合同，推出我们的第一个低污染的最后一英里舰队。今天，我们的欧洲运输队中有一部分是由低污染的电力和天然气货车和汽车组成的，我们有超过40辆电动摩托车和电子货运自行车，它们完成了当地的城市运输。 |
| • | Empowering Small Business – Millions of small and medium-sized businesses worldwide now sell their products through Amazon to reach new customers around the globe. SMBs selling on Amazon come from every state in the U.S., and from more than 130 different countries around the world. More than 140,000 SMBs surpassed $100,000 in sales on Amazon in 2017, and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing. 支持小型企业——全球数以百万计的中小型企业现在通过亚马逊销售他们的产品，以吸引全球的新客户。在亚马逊上销售的smb来自美国的每个州。来自全球130多个国家。2017年，超过14万的smb在亚马逊上的销售额超过10万美元，超过1000名独立作者通过Kindle直接出版，并在2017年获得超过10万美元的版税。 |
| • | Investment & Job Creation – Since 2011, we have invested over $150 billion worldwide in our fulfillment networks, transportation capabilities, and technology infrastructure, including AWS data centers. Amazon has created over 1.7 million direct and indirect jobs around the world. In 2017 alone, we directly created more than 130,000 new Amazon jobs, not including acquisitions, bringing our global employee base to over 560,000. Our new jobs cover a wide range of professions, from artificial intelligence scientists to packaging specialists to fulfillment center associates. In addition to these direct hires, we estimate that Amazon Marketplace has created 900,000 more jobs worldwide, and that Amazon’s investments have created an additional 260,000 jobs in areas like construction, logistics, and other professional services. 投资和工作创造： 自2011年以来，我们已经在全球范围内投资了1500亿美元，用于实现网络、运输能力和技术基础设施，包括AWS数据中心。亚马逊在全球创造了超过170万个直接和间接的工作岗位。仅在2017年，我们就直接创造了超过13万个新的亚马逊工作岗位，不包括收购，使我们的全球员工总数超过了56万。我们的新工作涵盖了各种各样的职业，从人工智能科学家到包装专家到执行中心助理。除了这些直接雇佣，我们估计亚马逊市场在全球创造了90万个就业机会，亚马逊的投资在建筑、物流和其他专业服务领域创造了额外的26万个工作岗位。 |
| • | Career Choice – One employee program we’re particularly proud of is Amazon Career Choice. For hourly associates with more than one year of tenure, we pre-pay 95% of tuition, fees, and textbooks (up to $12,000) for certificates and associate degrees in high-demand occupations such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, and nursing. We fund education in areas that are in high demand and do so regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Globally more than 16,000 associates (including more than 12,000 in the U.S.) have joined Career Choice since the program launched in 2012. Career Choice is live in ten countries and expanding to South Africa, Costa Rica, and Slovakia later this year. Commercial truck driving, healthcare, and information technology are the program’s most popular fields of study. We’ve built 39 Career Choice classrooms so far, and we locate them behind glass walls in high traffic areas inside our fulfillment centers so associates can be inspired by seeing their peers pursue new skills. 职业选择——我们特别自豪的一个员工项目是亚马逊的职业选择。在一年多的工作时间里，我们为员工预付95%的学费、学费和课本(平均每个员工高达1.2万美元)，用于高需求职业的证书和副学位，如飞机力学、计算机辅助设计、机床技术、医学实验室技术和护理。我们在高需求的地区资助教育，无论这些技能是否与在亚马逊的职业相关。自2012年该项目启动以来，全球超过16,000名员工(包括超过12,000名美国人)加入了职业选择。职业选择是生活在十个国家，并在今年晚些时候扩展到南非、哥斯达黎加和斯洛伐克。商业卡车驾驶、医疗保健和信息技术是该项目最受欢迎的研究领域。到目前为止，我们已经建立了39个职业选择教室，我们把他们安置在我们的执行中心内的高交通区域的玻璃墙后面，这样，同事们就可以通过看到他们的同龄人追求新的技能而获得灵感。 |
The credit for these milestones is deserved by many. Amazon is 560,000 employees. It’s also 2 million sellers, hundreds of thousands of authors, millions of AWS developers, and hundreds of millions of divinely discontent customers around the world who push to make us better each and every day. 这些里程碑的功劳归属于许多人， 包括：亚马逊560000名员工、200万卖家，成百上千的作者，数以百万计的AWS开发人员，以及数以亿计的世界各地的客户，他们都在努力让我们每天都变得更好。
Path Ahead 前方的路
This year marks the 20th anniversary of our first shareholder letter, and our core values and approach remain unchanged. We continue to aspire to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, and we recognize this to be no small or easy challenge. We know there is much we can do better, and we find tremendous energy in the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. 今年是我们第一次股东信的20周年纪念日，我们的核心价值观和做法保持不变。我们继续渴望成为地球上最以客户为中心的公司，我们认识到这不是一个小的或容易的挑战。我们知道，我们有很多可以做得更好的事情，我们在未来的许多挑战和机遇中发现了巨大的能量。
A huge thank you to each and every customer for allowing us to serve you, to our shareowners for your support, and to Amazonians everywhere for your ingenuity, your passion, and your high standards. 非常感谢每一位客户，感谢他们让我们为您服务，为我们的股东们提供支持，为您的聪明才智、热情和高标准，向全世界的亚马逊人致敬。
As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. It remains Day 1. 和往常一样，我附上了我们1997年的原信。这是我们开始的第一天。
Sincerely, 真诚地,
Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
以下是1997年的致股东信
1997 LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS
(Reprinted from the 1997 Annual Report)
To our shareholders 致股东:
Amazon.com passed many milestones in 1997: by year-end, we had served more than 1.5 million customers, yielding 838% revenue growth to $147.8 million, and extended our market leadership despite aggressive competitive entry. 亚马逊在1997年通过了许多里程碑:到年底，我们已经服务了150多万客户，收入增长了838%，达到了1.478亿美元，并在竞争激烈的情况下扩大了我们的市场领导地位。
But this is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets. 但这是互联网的第一天，对亚马逊来说，如果我们执行得好。如今，在线商务为客户节省了金钱和宝贵的时间。明天，通过个性化，在线商务将加速发现的过程。亚马逊利用互联网为其客户创造了真正的价值，并通过这样做，希望创造一个持久的特许经营，即使是在已建立的大型市场。
We have a window of opportunity as larger players marshal the resources to pursue the online opportunity and as customers, new to purchasing online, are receptive to forming new relationships. The competitive landscape has continued to evolve at a fast pace. Many large players have moved online with credible offerings and have devoted substantial energy and resources to building awareness, traffic, and sales. Our goal is to move quickly to solidify and extend our current position while we begin to pursue the online commerce opportunities in other areas. We see substantial opportunity in the large markets we are targeting. This strategy is not without risk: it requires serious investment and crisp execution against established franchise leaders. 我们有一个机会的窗口，因为更大的玩家聚集资源去追求线上的机会，而作为顾客，变成在网上购物的新顾客，可以接受建立新的关系。竞争格局继续以较快的速度发展。许多大型公司都在网上提供了可信的产品，并投入了大量的精力和资源来建立知名度、流量和销售。我们的目标是在我们开始追求其他领域的在线商务机会的同时，迅速巩固和扩展我们目前的地位。我们看到了我们瞄准的大市场的巨大机遇。这种战略并非没有风险:它需要对老牌特许经营企业进行认真的投资和干脆利落的执行。
It’s All About the Long Term 一切着眼于长期
We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital. 我们相信，从长远来看，我们成功的一个基本标准是我们能否为股东创造价值。这个价值将是我们扩大和巩固我们当前市场领导地位的直接结果。我们的市场领导能力越强，我们的经济模式就越强大。市场领导可以直接转化为更高的收入，更高的盈利能力，更高的资本速度，以及相应的更强的投资回报。
Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand. We have invested and will continue to invest aggressively to expand and leverage our customer base, brand, and infrastructure as we move to establish an enduring franchise. 们的决定始终反映了这一焦点。我们首先衡量的是我们市场领导力的指标:客户和收入的增长，我们的客户重复向我们购买的程度，以及我们品牌的实力。我们已经投资并将继续大举投资，以扩大和利用我们的客户基础、品牌和基础设施，以建立一个持久的系列。
Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies. Accordingly, we want to share with you our fundamental management and decision-making approach so that you, our shareholders, may confirm that it is consistent with your investment philosophy:由于我们对长期的重视，我们可能会做出与某些公司不同的决策和权衡取舍。因此，我们想与您分享我们的基本管理和决策方法，以便您，我们的股东，可以确认它与您的投资理念是一致的:
| • | We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers. We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions. We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures. We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case. When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows. We will share our strategic thought processes with you when we make bold choices (to the extent competitive pressures allow), so that you may evaluate for yourselves whether we are making rational long-term leadership investments. We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture, particularly in a business incurring net losses. We will balance our focus on growth with emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management. At this stage, we choose to prioritize growth because we believe that scale is central to achieving the potential of our business model. We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees, and continue to weight their compensation to stock options rather than cash. We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner. 我们将继续不懈地关注我们的客户。 我们将根据着眼于建立长期市场领导地位的考虑，而不是短期盈利考虑或短期华尔街反应，继续作出投资决策。 我们将继续以分析的方式衡量我们的项目和投资的有效性，抛弃那些不能提供可接受回报的项目，并加大对那些最有效的投资。我们将继续从我们的成功和失败中吸取教训。 我们将大胆而不是谨慎地投资决策，在那里我们看到了获得市场领先优势的充分可能性。其中一些投资将会得到回报，而另一些则不会，我们将在这两种情况下获得另一个宝贵的教训。 当被迫在优化我们的GAAP会计表面利润和最大化未来现金流的现值之间做出选择时，我们将选择现金流。 当我们做出大胆的选择时，我们将与你分享我们的战略思维过程(在竞争压力允许的范围内)，这样你就可以自己评估我们是否正在进行理性的长期领导投资。 我们将努力工作，明智地消费，保持我们的精益文化。我们理解持续加强成本意识文化的重要性，尤其是在业务遭受净损失的情况下。 我们将把重心放在增长上，重点放在长期盈利能力和资本管理上。在这个阶段，我们选择优先增长，因为我们相信规模是实现商业模式潜力的核心。 我们将继续专注于招聘和留住多才多艺的员工，并继续重视他们对股票期权的补偿，而不是现金。我们知道，我们的成功将很大程度上受到我们吸引和留住有动机的员工的能力的影响，每个人都必须思考，因此必须是一个所有者。 |
We aren’t so bold as to claim that the above is the “right” investment philosophy, but it’s ours, and we would be remiss if we weren’t clear in the approach we have taken and will continue to take. With this foundation, we would like to turn to a review of our business focus, our progress in 1997, and our outlook for the future. 我们并没有大胆地宣称上述是“正确”的投资理念，但这是我们所选择的，如果我们不清楚我们采取的方法并将继续采取行动，我们将会错失良机。在此基础上，我们想回顾一下我们的业务重点，我们在1997年的进展，以及我们对未来的展望。
Obsess Over Customers 一切为了客户
From the beginning, our focus has been on offering our customers compelling value. We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We maintained a dogged focus on improving the shopping experience, and in 1997 substantially enhanced our store. We now offer customers gift certificates, 1-ClickSM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. We dramatically lowered prices, further increasing customer value. Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool we have, and we are grateful for the trust our customers have placed in us. Repeat purchases and word of mouth have combined to make Amazon.com the market leader in online bookselling. 从一开始，我们的重点一直是为客户提供令人信服的价值。我们意识到在网络商务领域仍然是如此，全世界都期待如此。因此，我们开始向顾客提供一些他们根本无法得到的东西，并开始为他们提供书籍。我们给他们带来了比实体店更多的选择(我们的商店现在占据了6个足球场)，并且以一种有用的、易于搜索的、易于浏览的格式呈现在商店里，一年365天，一天24小时。我们一直专注于改善购物体验，并在1997年大大提高了我们的店铺。我们现在为客户提供礼品券，1-ClickSM购物，以及更多的评论、内容、浏览选项和推荐功能。我们大大降低了价格，进一步提高了客户的价值。口碑仍然是我们拥有的最强大的客户获取工具，我们非常感谢客户对我们的信任。重复购买和口口相传，使亚马逊成为在线图书销售的市场领导者。
By many measures, Amazon.com came a long way in 1997: Sales grew from $15.7 million in 1996 to $147.8 million – an 838% increase. Cumulative customer accounts grew from 180,000 to 1,510,000 – a 738% increase. The percentage of orders from repeat customers grew from over 46% in the fourth quarter of 1996 to over 58% in the same period in 1997. In terms of audience reach, per Media Metrix, our Web site went from a rank of 90th to within the top 20. We established long-term relationships with many important strategic partners, including America Online, Yahoo!, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, @Home, and Prodigy. 从许多方面来看，亚马逊在1997年取得了长足的进步:销售额从1996年的1570万美元增长到1.478亿美元，增长了838%。累计客户账户从18万增长到1510000，增长了738%。重复客户订单的百分比从1996年第四季度的超过46%增长到1997年同期的58%以上。就受众而言，每一个媒体矩阵，我们的网站从第90位上升到前20位。我们与许多重要的战略合作伙伴建立了长期的关系，包括美国在线，雅虎!、Excite、Netscape、GeoCities、AltaVista、@Home和Prodigy。
Infrastructure 基础设施建设
During 1997, we worked hard to expand our business infrastructure to support these greatly increased traffic, sales, and service levels: Amazon.com’s employee base grew from 158 to 614, and we significantly strengthened our management team. Distribution center capacity grew from 50,000 to 285,000 square feet, including a 70% expansion of our Seattle facilities and the launch of our second distribution center in Delaware in November. Inventories rose to over 200,000 titles at year-end, enabling us to improve availability for our customers. Our cash and investment balances at year-end were $125 million, thanks to our initial public offering in May 1997 and our $75 million loan, affording us substantial strategic flexibility. 在1997年，我们努力扩展业务基础设施，以支持这些大大增加的流量、销售和服务水平:亚马逊的员工基数从158增长到614，我们的管理团队得到了极大的加强。配送中心的容量从50,000平方英尺增加到285,000平方英尺，其中包括我们的西雅图设施70%的扩张和11月在特拉华的第二个配送中心的启动。年底，库存增加到超过20万，这使我们能够提高客户的可用性。我们在年底的现金和投资余额为1.25亿美元，这要归功于我们在1997年5月进行的首次公开发行股票IPO，以及我们的7500万美元贷款，这为我们提供了巨大的战略灵活性。
Our Employees 员工
The past year’s success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success. It’s not easy to work here (when I interview people I tell them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three”), but we are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com. 过去一年的成功是我们这个充满才华、聪明、勤奋精神团队的共同成果，我为自己成为这个团队的一员而感到自豪。在我们的招聘方法中设置门槛很高，并且将继续是亚马逊成功的唯一最重要的因素。不容易在这里工作(当我在面试员工的时候，我告诉他们,“你可以选择工作时间长、工作努力程度高、或者聪明,但是在Amazon.com上你无法同时拥有这三者中的两个”),但我们正在努力构建重要的事情,关系到我们的客户,我们都可以告诉我们的子孙。这样的事情并不容易。我们非常幸运地拥有这群奉献的员工，他们的牺牲和热情造就了亚马逊。
Goals for 1998 1998年的目标
We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers through Internet commerce and merchandising. Our goal remains to continue to solidify and extend our brand and customer base. This requires sustained investment in systems and infrastructure to support outstanding customer convenience, selection, and service while we grow. We are planning to add music to our product offering, and over time we believe that other products may be prudent investments. We also believe there are significant opportunities to better serve our customers overseas, such as reducing delivery times and better tailoring the customer experience. To be certain, a big part of the challenge for us will lie not in finding new ways to expand our business, but in prioritizing our investments.我们还处在学习如何通过网络商业和营销为客户带来新价值的早期阶段。我们的目标是继续巩固和扩大我们的品牌和客户群。这需要对系统和基础设施的持续投资，以支持在我们成长过程中为客户提供的便利、选择和服务。我们正计划为我们的产品添加音乐，随着时间的推移，我们相信其他产品可能是谨慎的投资。我们也相信有大量的机会可以更好的为我们的海外客户服务，例如减少交货时间和更好的定制客户体验。可以肯定的是，我们面临的很大一部分挑战不是寻找新的方法来扩大我们的业务，而是优先考虑我们的投资。
We now know vastly more about online commerce than when Amazon.com was founded, but we still have so much to learn. Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency. The challenges and hurdles we will face to make our long-term vision for Amazon.com a reality are several: aggressive, capable, well-funded competition; considerable growth challenges and execution risk; the risks of product and geographic expansion; and the need for large continuing investments to meet an expanding market opportunity. However, as we’ve long said, online bookselling, and online commerce in general, should prove to be a very large market, and it’s likely that a number of companies will see significant benefit. We feel good about what we’ve done, and even more excited about what we want to do.我们现在对在线商务的了解远远超过了亚马逊的建立，但我们还有很多东西要学。虽然我们很乐观，但我们必须保持警惕，保持紧迫感。如果我们要将亚马逊的长期愿景成为现实， 我们不得不面对这些挑战和障碍：激进强大且资金充足的竞争对手、巨大的增长挑战和执行风险、产品和地理扩张的风险、并且需要大量的持续投资以满足不断扩大的市场机会。然而，正如我们长期以来所言，在线图书销售和在线商务一般都应该是一个非常大的市场，而且很有可能会有很多公司从中受益。我们对自己所做的事情感到满意，对自己想要做的事情更加兴奋。
1997 was indeed an incredible year. 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. 1997年确实是令人难以置信的一年。我们在亚马逊网站上感谢我们的客户，感谢他们的给我们的生意和对我们的信任，感谢我们的辛勤工作，感谢我们的股东，感谢他们的支持和鼓励。
Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer