The scale-up nation做大做强Israel is trying to turn its Davids into Goliaths
以色列要将大卫们打造成巨人歌利亚Dec 13th 2014 | From the print edition
1 ISRAEL is rightly proud of its status as a startup nation. It boasts the world’s highest concentration of high-tech startups per head. Almost 1,000 new firms are launched every year. But all this entrepreneurial activity is not creating enough jobs as the population grows: the share of people employed in the high-tech sector has declined from 10.7% of the workforce in 2006-08 to 8.9% in 2013. Startups also fail to solve another problem: the country’s high retail prices, which are 20% higher for basic products than in other rich countries, according to the OECD, a think-tank.
最为一个新国家，以色列有资本为自己骄傲。他可以吹嘘世界最高的人均高科技公司集中水平。他每年都有几乎1000个新公司成立。但是随着人口增长，所有这些创业活动并未创造足够的工作岗位。高科技行业的劳动力占比从2006-08年的10.7%下降到了2013年的8.9%。新成立的公司也没能解决另一个问题：根据智库经合组织（OECD）指出，以色列的高零售价格比其他国家的基础商品贵20%。
2 It doesn’t come as a surprise then that Israelis have become less interested in the super-abundance of startups and more in the scarcity of big successful companies. The startup nation not only has too few of them, it also has the wrong sort. The big firms that dominate the country’s stock exchange are the opposite of startups: not laser-focused organisations, but lumbering business groups that could not compete outside Israel. Worse, Israel’s startups rarely turn into big companies.
这就不奇怪，比起超级富余的新公司，以色列对成功的大公司更感兴趣。这个新兴国家不仅这样的大公司太少，而且种类也不对。占了以色列股票市场大半江山的正是新兴公司的反面：不是拧成一股劲的组织，而是臃肿的商业集团，他们没法在以色列以外跟人竞争。更糟的是，以色列的新兴公司很少能成长蜕变成大企业。
3 Only one Israeli firm ranks in the world’s 500 largest companies by market cap, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. This dismal performance, some Israelis explain, is the result of theirs being a small country surrounded by hostile powers. But other small countries are much better at producing successful multinationals (though they are admittedly blessed with friendlier neighbours). Denmark, for instance, has a smaller population than Israel (5.6m versus 8.3m) but three companies in the top 500. Sweden (9.7m) has nine. And Switzerland (8.2m) has 17.
算市场价值的话，只有一家以色列企业进得了世界500强。但是其他小国家在孵育成功的跨国公司方面，做得更好，虽然退一步说他们的邻国更友好。比如丹麦，人口更少（560万对比以色列830万），却有3家企业在世界500强。瑞典人口970万有9家企业，瑞士人口820万有17家企业。
4 For a better explanation, start with Israel’s business statistics. It has one of the world’s most concentrated corporate sectors: 24 major conglomerates control nearly a quarter of the country’s 596 listed companies and more than two-thirds of the total market capitalisation of those firms. These groups have various vices, including high debt, poor focus and pyramid-style ownership structures that allow a handful of people at the top to control a large number of subordinate companies. Predictably, growth of their earnings per share has been dismal: 2% on average in the case of companies listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
我们可以先用以色列的商业统计来更好地解释。他有世界上最集中的企业分布：24家集团企业控制了1/4的全部596家上市公司，以及这些公司全部市值的2/3以上。这些集团有各类恶习，包括高额负债，焦点分散和金字塔式的所有权结构导致的一部分顶端的人员，控制着大部分下属公司。所以，可以预见其人均收益增长一直糟糕透顶：特拉维夫股票交易所的上市公司的人均收益增长平均只有2%。
5 Israel’s economy was founded by a combination of socialist politicians, who believed in keeping the commanding heights of the economy in state hands, and pioneering business families, who went into lots of loosely related businesses. In the 1990s, as the socialist dream finally faded, the government privatised many of the state-owned companies. But in tackling the first problem it reinforced the second: privatisation proved to be a bonanza for family-owned conglomerates and some newcomers, such as Lev Leviev, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who had amassed his wealth in the diamond trade and took over one of the largest state-owned construction companies.
社会主义政治家，他们相信要将经济制高点握在手中；勇于开拓的商业家族，他们进军许多相关性不大的行业。两者共同缔造了以色列的经济。19世纪90年代，社会主义者的梦想最终消散，政府对许多国有企业进行私有化。但是在解决第一个问题的之时，第二个问题随之加剧：私有化成了家族集团和一些新来企业的宝藏。像来自前苏联的外来企业列维夫（Lev Leviev），他在钻石交易中积累了大量财富，并且接手了最大的国有建筑施工公司之一。
6 This would be less of a problem if Israel did not also have a disappointing record in turning startups into viable companies. Venture capital goes mostly to young startups: 80% of funds in Israel compared with 52% in America. Most entrepreneurs cash in at the earliest moment, rather than raising their brainchildren to adulthood. Israeli startups rarely go public, according to the Milken Institute, a think-tank: in 2002-12 only 9% of exits were IPOs (rather than being bought by a bigger firm). And those IPOs had an average size of just $32m. In America the respective numbers were 20% and $237m.
如果以色列在新兴公司转变成真正企业这方面做得不是那么令人失望的话，第二个问题可能没那么严重。风险投资多数被年轻的新兴公司获得，以色列80%对比美国52%。多数创业者在公司发展早期就回收了资本，而非将自己的公司发展壮大。以色列的新兴公司很少上市。根据智库米尔肯研究所（Milken Institute ），2002-12年间，退出的新兴公司中只有9%成为上市公司（而不是被大公司收购）。而这些上市公司的平均规模只有3200万美元。在美国，相对应的公司有20%，平均规模在2亿3700万美元。
7 These early exits amount to selling the seeds before the tomatoes are ripe. It is also contributing to Israel’s sense of vulnerability: the habit of exiting early is reinforcing fears about inequality which already once, in 2011, exploded into huge demonstrations. Ordinary Israelis worry that young entrepreneurs are more interested in making fortunes than creating jobs—and hence are just as bad as the conglomerates, which are more skilful at extracting rents than providing services.
新兴公司过早退出可以看成是，番茄还没成熟就把种子给卖了。这也造成了以色列的脆弱之感。过早退出的习惯加深了人们对不公平的担忧，并已在2011，爆发过一次大型示威。普通以色列人担心年轻的创业者对赚钱更感兴趣，而不是创造就业——所以这就跟集团企业一样可恶，那些企业赚房租的手段要比提供服务的技术高明多了。
8 The country has started to tackle both sets of problems. In December 2013 its parliament passed the Business Concentration Act. To promote competition, it limits the use of pyramid structures and prohibits cross-holdings between financial and other firms. Although the legislation gave business groups years to comply, it has political heft behind it: the vote in the Knesset was unanimous. The law is likely to reshape Israel’s economy profoundly, forcing big firms to focus on core businesses and creating opportunities for market entrants.
以色列已经开始着手解决这两类问题。以色列国会在2013年十二月通过了《商业集中法案》。该法案旨在促进竞争，限制金字塔结构的使用，防止金融公司和其他公司相互持有股份。这项立法虽然给予了商业集团几年的缓冲时间，但它背后代表了政治重要性：法案在以色列国会获得了全票通过。这项立案很可能深远地对以色列经济进行重新塑造，迫使大公司把重点放在核心业务上，为市场新入者创造机会。
9 As for startups, a wide range of new policies is being discussed: reforming the stock exchange, in particular easing the listing requirements for startups and high-growth companies; introducing new types of visas to make it easier for foreigners to live in Israel; and ensuring that the new sovereign-wealth fund, which is being created on the back of royalties from the new natural gasfield off the Israeli coast, provides capital to high-growth startups.
对新兴公司而言，一系列新政策正在讨论中：改革股票交易所，尤其是放宽新兴公司和高增长公司的入市要求；推行新签证方便外国人在以色列生活；确保新的主权财富基金为高增长新兴公司提供资本。财富基金是由海岸外新天然气田的特许使用权费建成。
No stopdown nation
永不止步的国家 10 As politicians are thinking about how to make life easier for them, entrepreneurs are starting to be more patient. Waze, a car-navigation service, for instance, waited a few years before it sold itself to Google in 2013 for $966m. Wix, which helps people create websites, turned down several acquisition offers and went public, again in 2013. And in 2014 Mobileye, which makes software that helps drivers avoid car accidents, raised $890m, a record for an Israeli company going public in America.
政治家在思考如何更方便企业家之时，企业家亦开始能更加耐心地等待时机。比如位智（Waze），一款免费的汽车导航服务应用，等了几年直到2013年才被谷歌收购。帮助人们建立网站的维克斯（Wix），拒绝了几个收购邀请选择在2013年上市。2014年，移动眼（Mobileye），一款帮助司机规避车祸的软件，在美国上市时融资8900万，创下以色列公司记录。
11 It is tempting to dismiss the talk of a “scale-up nation” as yet more hype. But the reforms and the recent exits show that one should not underestimate the country’s capacity for patience, one of its hidden secrets, in business as in much else. The Israelis laboriously laid the foundations of the high-tech boom by pouring money into elite universities and creating a clever system to attract venture capital. They will be equally painstaking at ensuring that the land of Davids can produce its share of Goliaths.
对“做大做强”只是天花乱坠的宣传这种说法，以色列欲蓄力消弭。而且这些改革和近期退出的新兴公司表明，我们不应低估以色列的耐心，这是他做生意和其他事情的不传之秘之一。以色列为优秀大学投入资金并创造了一个聪明的吸引风投的系统，不辞辛劳地为高科技潮奠定下这些基础。他们将同样辛勤地确保大卫（David）丛生之地上也会有巨人歌利亚（Goliath）
From the print edition: Business
