《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版

A special report on entrepreneurship
关于创业精神的特别报道

Lands of opportunity
机遇之地

Mar 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Israel, Denmark and Singapore show how entrepreneurialism can thrive in different climates
以色列、丹麦和新加坡显示了创业精神如何在不同的土壤中开花结果

DOV MORAN’S desk is littered with the carcasses of dismembered phones. Mr Moran has already had one big breakthrough: inventing the now ubiquitous memory stick. But he dreams of another one: he wants to separate the “brains” of the various gizmos that dominate our lives from the “bodies” to enable people to carry around tiny devices that they will be able to plug into anything from phones to cameras to computers. Mr Moran sold his memory-stick business to SanDisk for $1.6 billion, creating a thriving technology cluster near his office. This time he wants to build an Israeli business that will last, challenging the giants of the camera and phone businesses. 

Dov Moran的桌上杂乱堆放着支离破碎的电话残骸。他已然完成了一项创举，即发明了现在使用广泛的记忆卡，而现在则梦想着一个新目标：将那些人们日常离不开的各种各样小电器的核心部件分离出来，就像将大脑从躯体中取出，这样大家就可以随身携带这些小设备并随时接驳到从电话、相机到计算机任意一种电子产品中。Moran将自己的记忆卡业务以16亿美元的价格卖给了SanDisk公司，建立了一个生机勃勃的技术产业集群，现在他希翼建立一家可持续发展的以色列本土公司，来挑战那些照相机和手机业务的巨无霸们。

Israel is full of would-be Dov Morans. It is home to 4,000 high-tech companies, more than 100 venture-capital funds and a growing health-care industry. Innovations developed in the country include the Pentium chip (Intel), voicemail (Comverse), instant messaging (Mirabilis, Ubique), firewalls (Checkpoint) and the “video pill”, which allows doctors to study your insides without the need for invasive surgery.

以色列充满了将会成为Dov Moran这样的创业者，该国拥有4000家本土高科技公司、100多只创业资本基金和日渐成长的卫生保健产业。在以色列发展起来的革新包括：奔腾芯片（Intel公司）、语音邮件（Comverse公司）、即时信息（Mirabilis和Ubique公司）、防火墙软件（Checkpoint公司）和“药丸式摄像机”（该技术使得医生不通过开刀手术也可对身体内部进行检查）。

Even more than other countries, Israel has America to thank for its entrepreneurial take-off. A brigade of American high-tech companies, including Intel and Microsoft, have established research arms there. And a host of Israelis who once emigrated to America in search of education and opportunity have returned home, bringing American assumptions with them. Many Israeli entrepreneurs yo-yo between Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv; almost 70 Israeli companies are traded on NASDAQ. 

相比其他国家，以色列的创业腾飞更让美国感到欣慰。大量的美国高科技企业，包括英特尔和微软，均在以色列建立了研究团队，许多曾移民美国寻求更好教育水平和商业机会的以色列人带着美国信念返回祖国。众多以色列人在选择硅谷还是特拉维夫进行创业时犹豫不决；将近70家以色列公司在美国纳斯达克上市交易。

The Israeli government helped by providing a ready supply of both human and physical capital. Israel has the world’s highest ratio of PhDs per person, the highest ratio of engineers and scientists and some of the world’s best research universities, notably Technion. The country’s native talent was supplemented by the arrival of 400,000 well-educated Jewish refugees from the former Soviet empire. 

以色列政府为这些创业者提供了现成的人力与物力资本，该国的人均博士学位比例世界第一，工程师和科学家的高比例比例无人能比，此外还拥有多所世界顶尖的研究型大学，特别是Technion工业大学。来自前苏联受过良好教育的40万名犹太难民更是增加了以色列的本国人才实力。

However, Israel’s main qualification for entrepreneurialism is its status as an embattled Jewish state in a sea of Arab hostility. The Israeli army not only works hard to keep the country at the cutting edge of technology, it also trains young Israelis (who are conscripted at 18) in the virtues of teamwork and improvisation. It is strikingly common for young Israelis to start businesses with friends that they met in the army. Add to that a high tolerance of risk, born of a long history and an ever-present danger of attack, and you have the makings of an entrepreneurial firecracker. 

然而，以色列创业精神的主要禀赋还是其作为犹太国家在四面楚歌的状态下产生的。以色列军队不仅努力使国家保持技术领先，而且训练年轻国民（在以色列，18岁就会被应征入伍）具有团队精神与应变能力的品质。年轻的以色列士兵在部队里就开始和朋友做生意的现象非常普遍。以上这些，加上高风险承受能力、悠久的历史和经常存在的受袭危险，成为点燃以色列创业精神的星星之火。

Danish dynamism
丹麦活力

Compared with a lion like Dov Moran, Frederik Gundelach is a mere cub, but he has some of the same sense of purpose about him. Sitting in one of Denmark’s “growth houses” (incubators for entrepreneurs), he places a flask on the table and launches into an elaborate explanation.

如果说Dov Moran像一只雄狮，相比而言，Frederik Gundelach则仅是头幼狮，但他对自己的未来也有和Moran类似的打算。在丹麦“成长之屋”里（创业者孵化器机构），他把一个烧瓶放在桌上，开始了详尽的解说。



Mr Gundelach claims that he and his father have discovered a novel way of boiling water that does not require the application of heat. He hopes to sell the flask to outdoor types and soldiers, but that is not the limit of his ambition. The chemical reaction that heats the water can also be used to heat or cool houses, he claims, radically reducing the cost of domestic heating and the threat of global warming.

Gundelach宣称自己和父亲发现了不需使用加热设备将水烧开的新颖办法。他希望将这种烧瓶卖给户外爱好者和士兵，然而这并不能满足他的雄心壮志。通过化学反应的方法为水加热同样可以用来房屋取暖，他说，这样可以从根本上降低国内取暖的成本，减轻全球变暖的威胁。

It is too early to say whether Mr Gundelach’s flask will turn out to be a miracle in a bottle or a pipedream, but the Danish government is doing everything it can to give him the support he needs. Denmark is engaged in a social experiment to test whether it can embrace capitalist globalisation yet continue to preserve its generous welfare state. The Danish economy has traditionally been divided between big multinational companies (such as Carlsberg, a brewing behemoth) and a welter of small family firms. The government now wants to add a third economic force: start-ups with the potential for rapid growth. 

现在就断定Gundelach的烧瓶创意是瓶中美梦或妄想还为时过早，但是丹麦政府正在尽其所能为他提供所需的一切。丹麦正在进行一项社会性的实验，来检验是否能在融入资本全球化的进程的同时继续保持慷慨的高福利政策。传统上丹麦经济两极分化，既有大型跨国企业（例如嘉士伯，酿造业巨头），也有苦苦挣扎的家庭作坊。现在政府希望引入第三种经济力量：具有高增长潜力的创业型企业。

The government has done everything a tidy-minded Scandinavian country can to cultivate these start-ups. The World Bank ranks Denmark fifth in the world for ease of doing business. There is a network of growth houses—ready-made offices that provide start-ups with many of the advantages of large companies such as consulting advice, legal services and conference rooms. The government has created a public venture-capital fund, the Vaekstfonden, and is now trying to change attitudes to entrepreneurs and promoting “education for entrepreneurship”. 

丹麦这个头脑精明的斯堪迪纳维亚国家正在倾尽全力培养这些创业型企业。在经商环境优越度的评比中，世界银行将丹麦排到了第五位。“成长之屋”也已形成网络，这些现成的机构为创业者提供了很多大型公司的才具有的优势，诸如咨询建议、法律服务和会议场所。政府建立了公共创业资本基金：Vaekstfonden，并正努力转变人们对创业者的看法，以及推动创业教育等。

When Muslim countries boycotted Danish goods in 2005 after a Danish newspaper published some disrespectful cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, wags joked that this hardly mattered because the only things that Denmark produced were beer and bacon. But the government’s embrace of entrepreneurialism is clearly changing the economy. Denmark is already home to about 20% of Europe’s biotech companies. It also has thriving clean-technology, fashion and design industries. As a proportion of GDP, Danish companies attract more venture capital than any other European country. 

当2005年丹麦一家报纸刊登了亵渎先知穆罕默德的漫画，这一事件后穆斯林国家抵制丹麦商品。那些丹麦的支持者开玩笑说抵制就抵制，反正丹麦人只会生产穆斯林不能沾的两样东西：啤酒和熏肉。但丹麦政府所信奉的创业精神无疑的改变了该国经济。丹麦已经拥有欧洲20%左右的生物技术公司，而且正在蓬勃发展清洁技术、时装与设计等产业。丹麦公司引入的创业资本与GDP的比例已经超过任何一个欧洲国家。

Sizzling Singapore
令人振奋的新加坡

At first sight Denmark and Singapore do not have much in common, yet they share not only the same official enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism but also many of the same policies. Singapore’s government has invested heavily in digital media, bio-engineering, clean technology and water purification, creating huge incubators and enticing foreign scientists with fat pay packets, as well as setting up a public venture-capital fund that has in turn brought in lots of private venture capital. More than 5% of Singapore-based companies are backed by venture capital. 

乍一看丹麦和新加坡没有太多共通之处，但不仅两国政府都热衷于创业精神，而且制定了相同的激励政策。新加坡政府大量投资于数字媒体、生物工程、清洁技术和净水技术，建立大型企业孵化器机构，以高薪吸引外国科学家，同时也设立了一支公共创业资本基金，该基金随后引入了许多私人创业资本。5%以上的新加坡企业得到了创业资本的支持。

The government has done everything in its power to make life easy for entrepreneurs, which has earned it first place in the World Bank league table for ease of doing business. It is also trying hard to encourage a traditionally passive population to become more innovative. Schools teach the virtues of entrepreneurialism. The universities put ever more emphasis on business education and links with industry. The Nanyang Technological University (whose chairman, like that of the National University of Singapore, is an alumnus of Hewlett-Packard) offers a graduate degree in technopreneurship and innovation. 

政府在权力范围内尽其所能让创业者们更加轻松，世界银行商业环境优越度排名表中新加坡排在第一位。该国也努力鼓励那些消极人口更加具有创造力。中小学教授学生创业精神美德，大学更加强调商业教育，并注重于产业相结合。南洋理工大学（该校主席和新加坡国立大学主席一样，都出自惠普公司）提供科技创业与创新学科的硕士学位教育。

Singapore sees entrepreneurialism as a prerequisite to future growth. It has spent the past few decades climbing up the “value chain” from manufacturing to services and from trade to finance. Its biggest test yet may be to create knowledge industries and produce companies that can commercialise intellectual breakthroughs. 

新加坡视创业精神为未来发展的先决条件。过去几十年，通过从生产业到服务业，从贸易业到金融业的转型，该国努力爬上了“价值链”的顶端，她目前面临的最大考验可能是构建知识产业并创建那些能把智力发明商业化的公司。

All three countries have both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to embracing entrepreneurship. Israel depends too heavily on America and is being hit hard by the downturn there. Denmark is too egalitarian. A top personal-income-tax rate of 63% drives the most successful entrepreneurs out of the country. 

在热衷创业精神的时候，这三个国家都有优缺点：以色列太过于依赖美国，正在经受美国经济低迷的影响。丹麦太讲求平均主义，最高可达63%的个人所得税正在逐出那些成功的创业者。

Singaporeans have even deeper cultural problems with entrepreneurship. The best and brightest have little appetite for risk-taking entrepreneurship, and most people suffer from an excessive fear of bankruptcy, according to Monitor. The country’s consumers are anything but venturesome: for all the island’s cultural diversity, they remain obsessed by Western brand names. The country is paying a heavy price for this. A Singapore-based company, Creative Technology, invented a digital music player, the NOMAD, two years before Apple launched the iPod, but Creative’s NOMAD looked like a clunky CD player rather than a miniature fashion accessory. It received $100m from Apple for patent infringement, but that did not make up for the loss of a mass market.

对于创业精神，新加坡则具有更深层次的文化问题。Monitor杂志发现，最优秀、最聪明的人才不热衷富于冒险的创业，大部分人过于恐惧破产。该国的消费者也绝不冒险：尽管这个岛国具有文化差异性，但国民只着迷于那些西方品牌，国家为此付出了巨大的代价。在苹果公司发布iPod两年前，新加坡的创新科技公司就发明了数字音乐播放器“NOMAD”，但创新的NOMAD被看作是一个蠢笨的激光唱机，而不是迷你时尚小配件。虽然苹果公司向创新科技支付了1亿美元的侵权费用，但这无补于那失去的巨大市场。

Still, the governments of all three countries remain enthusiastic supporters of the entrepreneurial idea. The Danes and the Singaporeans regard it as their ticket to success in a global economy and the Israelis as a matter of survival. All three are also helping to spread the creed in their regions. Arab countries are beginning to realise that the best way to deal with Israel is to copy its vibrant economy. Denmark serves as a model to European leaders such as France’s Nicolas Sarkozy who want to combine dynamism with social protection. The Chinese regard Singapore as a useful laboratory for reform. In the 1980s China asked Goh Keng Swee, Singapore’s former finance minister, to advise on the development of its special economic zones; today it is keeping a watchful eye on the city-state’s model of state-sponsored entrepreneurship. 

尽管存在问题，上述三国政府仍然对创业思想给予热情支持。丹麦和新加坡视其为全球经济的成功钥匙，以色列则定位为生存之道。三国都在所在地区推行这种信条。阿拉伯国家开始意识到对付以色列最好的办法是复制其充满活力的经济模式。丹麦为如法国总统尼古拉•萨科齐那种希望将经济活力社会保障有效结合的欧洲国家领导人树立了一个标杆。中国视新加坡为其改革的成功研究室，上世纪80年代曾邀请新加坡前任财长吴庆瑞为其经济特区的发展献言建策；如今中国正密切关注新加坡这个城市国家政府资助创业的模式。