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May Li，男，我要去追逐心中的太陽，還要繼續努力的亞古獸
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企業創新迷思
英文部分選自經濟學人20250517期財經板塊
Business | Bartleby
The myths of corporate innovation
企業創新迷思
Forget the breakthrough moments. Embrace the grind
別沉迷於守株待“新”，著眼於“日拱一卒”。
If innovation has an iconography, it involves a genius, a breakthrough and a dash of serendipity. Alexander Fleming notices mould growing on a plate of bacteria and discovers penicillin. John Snow produces a map of the victims of a cholera outbreak in 19th-century London and traces the outbreak to a single water pump. A German chemist called August Kekulé falls asleep, dreams about snakes eating their tails and realises upon waking that the benzene molecule has the shape of a ring.
如果創新可以用“影像敘事”，那它的敘事要素往往有一個天才、一場突破，以及一絲偶然。亞歷山大·弗萊明（Alexander Fleming）注意到細菌培養皿上長出黴菌，從而發現了青黴素；約翰·斯諾（John Snow）繪製了19世紀倫敦霍亂疫情的死亡分佈圖，並將疫情源頭追溯到一處水泵；德國化學家奧古斯特·凱庫勒（August Kekulé）打盹入夢，夢見蛇咬著自己的尾巴，醒來後頓悟苯分子的環狀結構。
註釋：
1.Serendipityn. the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for n. 意外發現珍奇事物的才能
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serendipity
2.Penicillin: n.青黴素
3.Benzene: n.[化]苯
Moments like these make for good film scenes, but they are precisely the wrong way to think about corporate innovation. Firms make advances through sustained effort, the passage of time and teamwork. Take, for example, three stories of innovation from the new season of Boss Class, our podcast on how to be a great manager.
這類時刻雖然很適合用作電影橋段，但卻完全不是理解企業創新的正確方式。企業的突破往往源於持續投入、時間積累和團隊協作。新一季Boss Class（一檔關於如何成為優秀管理者的播客）中講述的三個創新故事，就很好地說明了這一點。
Wayve, a self-driving software firm that is now one of Europe’s hottest artificial intelligence (AI) startups, was an outlier for years. Alex Kendall, a co-founder, was studying at Cambridge when he became convinced that the best way to solve the self-driving problem was to have an AI learn patterns of driving behaviour for itself.
如今已成為歐洲最炙手可熱的人工智慧初創公司之一的自動駕駛軟體企業 Wayve，在早些年卻是一個不被看好的“異類”。聯合創始人亞歷克斯·肯德爾（Alex Kendall）在劍橋大學讀書時，就堅信解決自動駕駛難題的最佳路徑，是讓人工智慧自主習得駕駛行為的規律與模式。
延伸閱讀：《這家自動駕駛公司被重投75 億》
Source: https://36kr.com/p/2789692515697542
That made him unusual. At the time the industry was trying to write rules for what a car should do when it encounters a specific situation. Wayve’s approach is much more orthodox now; last month the firm signed a deal with Nissan to be part of the Japanese carmaker’s autonomous-driving technology. But it’s been an eight-year effort to get there. “The biggest bullshit is eureka ideas where you just wake up and have an idea that solves things,” says Mr Kendall.
這使得他與眾不同，彼時，整個行業都在嘗試為自動駕駛汽車制定規則來應對它們遇到的特殊場景。但如今Wayve的方式已成為主流。上個月，Wayve剛和日產達成協議，將為這家日本車企提供自動駕駛技術支援。為了達成今天的成就，Wayve足足努力了八年。在肯德爾看來：“關於創新最大的謬論就是所謂的靈光一現，就好像你睡一覺就能想到解決問題的方法。”
A good idea can go nowhere if the circumstances are not right. By the same token, having tried something before is not a reason to ignore it in the future, as the case of Google shows. Liz Reid, its head of search, says that many of the tech giant’s successes were tried several times before they finally caught on. One example is reviews for restaurants on Google Maps, a feature that the team was sure would be useful but that initially asked too much of reviewers. The arrival of notifications and location data was crucial. Before then, you had to remember to write a review or indeed where you had been to eat. After that, Google’s knowledge that you had been to a specific restaurant, and its ability to prompt you to give a rating, made reviewing much simpler.
時運不濟，良策亦難成器。同理，既往嘗試未果，未必來日不可為——谷歌案例便是明證。谷歌搜尋業務主管麗茲·裡德（Liz Reid）表示，谷歌的許多產品在最終流行前都要經歷多次失敗嘗試。以谷歌地圖上的餐廳評價功能為例，開發團隊確信這個功能有用，但最初軟體因使用者點評流程過於繁瑣而遇冷，直至推送通知與定位技術成熟，局面才得以扭轉——此前使用者需主動分享就餐經歷並手動輸入餐廳地址，而此後系統能自動識別使用者到訪餐廳，並觸發評分提醒，終使點評體驗化繁為簡。
Finally, consider Monumental, a four-year-old Dutch startup that is trying to mechanise bricklaying using robots. It depends on constant feedback to improve. Salar al-Khafaji, a co-founder, sold his first startup to Palantir, a data-analytics giant; there he saw the practice of “forward deployment”, whereby Palantir’s developers work directly with customers to configure software to suit their needs. His new firm adopts a similar principle of getting out into the world.
最後，我們來看看這家成立四年的荷蘭初創公司Monumental。它致力於使用機器人實現機械化砌磚。Monumental的技術迭代高度依賴於持續的反饋。聯合創始人薩拉・哈法吉（Salar al-Khafaji）曾將自己的首家初創公司賣給資料分析巨頭Palantir。在那裡，他見識到了“前置部署”模式，即 Palantir 的開發人員直接與客戶合作，根據客戶需求配置軟體。他的新公司採用了類似原則：走出公司，深入實際場景。
Monumental acts as a subcontractor on construction jobs, using human masons to finish any work that its machines cannot do. Working on projects in this way gives the company both a flow of money and, even more usefully, information about all the problems it has yet to overcome. Building sites are messy, unstructured places, where things get moved, weather changes and lots of things can go wrong. Operators on the site note down every glitch and obstacle that the robots encounter in a shared “friction log”; engineers and coders at the firm’s headquarters in Amsterdam try to resolve them.
Monumental公司以分包商身份參與建築專案，在機器人無法完成的作業環節仍依賴人工泥瓦匠。這種合作模式不僅為Monumental帶來了資金流，更重要的是可以藉此收集大量亟待攻克的技術難題資訊。建築工地環境混亂無序，物料位置頻繁調整、天氣條件多變、突發狀況層出不窮。現場操作員會將機器人遇到的每一個技術障礙記錄在共享的“摩擦日誌”中，位於阿姆斯特丹總部的工程師和程式設計師團隊則負責解決這些難題。
Companies achieve breakthroughs all the time. Dramatic scenes can unfold. Wayve chose to train its cars in London, because the city’s narrow streets, cyclists and jaywalkers make for a particularly testing environment for drivers. Late last year the firm tested its software for the first time in America: on its first day the car learned for itself to drive on the right side of the road, as well as mastering other oddities. You can almost hear the soaring music in the film version.
企業每時每刻都在推進技術突破的實現，有時甚至充滿戲劇性。自動駕駛公司Wayve選擇倫敦作為汽車訓練場，因為這座城市有著狹窄的街道、密集的騎行者和隨意穿行的行人，這樣的駕駛環境是測試汽車功能的理想之地。去年末，該公司首次在美國測試其自動駕駛系統，測試首日，車輛就自主掌握了靠右行駛規則及其他地域性駕駛特徵，這般場景若搬上銀幕，此處應有背景音樂激昂響起。
But for the most part corporate innovation is not cinematic. The myths of lone geniuses and moments of inspiration undoubtedly capture the imagination. But the reality—of problems solved by groups of determined people over many years—is an even better story.
但現實生活中的企業創新往往不是電影中那樣。雖然孤膽天才和靈光乍現的故事更能讓人浮想聯翩，但現實世界中由團隊經年累月攻堅克難實現突破的歷程，才是更動人的篇章。
翻譯組：
Martina，女，愛電影愛生活，愛金融經濟風箏，熱愛生活熱愛翻譯熱愛搞錢熱愛貓咪Humi，女，學習財經的金融小白，不負韶華，平視世界
校對組：
Rachel，心有懵虎，細嗅烏龜
Hannah，女, 愛讀財經的金融小白 經濟學人唯粉
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感想
休息一下
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願景
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