双语阅读｜孙正义的赌注：千亿美元的"野兽级”科技风投基金
“I HAVEN’T accomplished anything I can be proud of in my 60 years on Earth,” Masayoshi Son, the boss of SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms group, recently confided. Now he has enough money to make a dent in the universe: on May 20th SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), along with smaller investors including Apple and Sharp, launched the world’s largest technology-investment fund, worth nearly $100bn. How will Mr Son and his team deploy these riches?
“在世60年里，我从来没有的做成一件让自己骄傲的事，”日本电信企业软银集团的老板孙正义说道。现在，他手上有钱，能名留千古了：在5月20日，软银和沙特的公共投资基金（RIF）携及苹果和夏普等小投资者发起了一支全球规模最大的科技投资基金，数额高达千亿美元。孙正义及其投资伙伴将会把这些钱投在什么地方呢？
He has a vision to match his vehicle. Within 30 years, he predicts, the world will be populated by billions of robots, many of them more intelligent than humans. Several of SoftBank’s recent acquisitions, most of which are expected to be part of the fund’s portfolio, should be seen in this light. ARM, a British chip firm acquired for a whopping $32bn last year, will design the brains for the robots. OneWeb, a satellite startup in which SoftBank acquired a 40% stake for $1bn in December, will connect them. Nvidia, another chip-design firm, in which SoftBank has bought a big stake, reportedly of $4bn, is meant to provide processors for artificial-intelligence services.
他既有当凌绝顶的壮志雄心，也有足够的能力。他预测，在未来30年里，全球会有数十亿的机器人，其中很多机器人会比人类更为“智能”。在软银近期的一些收购案中，大多数预计会成为新成立基金的一部分投资项目，同时也反映出他的理念。在2016年以320亿美元高价收购价的英国芯片厂商ARM将会研发机构人的大脑。软银在2016年11月以10亿美元的代价收购了40%股份的卫星创业企业OneWeb则将这些“大脑”连接起来。另一家软银占有大量股份——据称股票市值达40亿美元——的芯片设计企业英伟达（Nvidia）将会为人工智能服务提供处理器。
The fund’s investment team, which will eventually number 100, has another dozen deals in the pipeline. These will be followed by a further 40 or so, although not all of them will fit neatly into Mr Son’s vision (biotech investments will be considered, for instance). Deal sizes will range between $500m and $3bn, although another ARM-sized acquisition is a possibility, too. The fund has five years to invest its money and will run for a maximum of 14 years.
这支新基金的投资团队最终投资100人个项目，目前手上有数十个项目正在考察。之后还有40多个在排队，当然并不是所有的项目都符合孙正义的理念（例如，会考虑投资生物科技）。投资的规模会在5亿美元至30亿美元之间，不过，与ARM收购案相当的规模也是有可能的。基金投资团队有五年时间将钱花出去，同时基金运营的时间最长不超过14年。
Making so many investments in the fast-moving tech world would be challenging in any circumstances. Another complexity is the influence likely to be exerted by the PIF, which has promised up to $45bn for the fund; Saudi Arabia seems to see it as a means to further its plans to diversify the economy (though insiders deny reports that the PIF has a veto right). Then there is Mr Son’s promise to Donald Trump to invest $50bn in America and create 50,000 jobs. Potential conflicts of interest have to be managed, too: SoftBank itself will invest $28bn in the fund, $8.2bn of that in the form of a stake in ARM, with the rest of ARM remaining in SoftBank’s hands.
在风云变化的科技行业里，数量如此多的投资无论如何都会是挑战性的。另一个困难就是PIF的影响力，因为它为基金出资450亿美元；沙特似乎是将这项投资看看作是扩大其经济多元化的计划（不过，内部人士否认有关PIF有否决权的报道。）然后，还有孙正义对美国总统特朗普的承诺，即在美国投资500亿美元，创造5万个工作岗位。这就要求控制好可能出现的利益冲突：软银自己在基金中的投资是280亿美元，其中82亿是ARM的股权 ——剩下的部分仍然掌握在软银的手中。
Other tech investors look at the fund with a mix of scepticism and greed. Many think SoftBank lacks a successful record in tech investing, excluding an early stake in Alibaba, a Chinese internet giant. “You don’t get into investing with no real experience and want to deploy $100bn,” scoffs an executive at one of Silicon Valley’s most illustrious venture-capital firms. But Mr Son’s fund, which is bigger than all investments of American venture-capital firms in 2016 combined, could help solve their “unicorn” problem: how to unload profitably the many private tech startups worth more than $1bn.
对于这支基金，其他的科技行业投资者的态度颇为复杂，即有怀疑又流口水。一些人认为软银缺乏在科技领域投资的成功案例，唯一的例外就是早期投了中国互联网巨头阿里巴巴。“你不能在没有的真正经验的情况下小涉足投资，而且还想投入千亿美元，”美国硅谷的一家最富知名的风投机构高管醋溜溜地说道。不过，孙正义的这支基金会超过了美国所有风投机构在2016年的投资总额，而且有效地解决这些风投机构的“独角兽”难题：对于众多市值超过10亿美元的未上市科技创业企业，如何实现他们的盈利呢？
编辑：翻吧君
英文来源：经济学人