直奔主题

    2010年夏天，《财富》杂志（Fortune）评选出了科技界最优秀人物。

    我们根据职位选出了最优秀的人士（最优秀的CEO：史蒂夫•乔布斯；最优秀的创始人：马克•扎克伯格；最优秀的工程师：Cloudera数据管理软件服务公司的克里斯托夫•比希利亚），而结果竟然与当时的主流趋势基本吻合（科技、社交媒体与云计算技术的消费化），这并不完全是巧合。

    所以今年，我们决定直接从最热门的行业中寻找各领域最优秀的企业家、高管和工程师等。我们将在9月5日发行的杂志中公布最优秀人物的完整名单。敬请关注。

Straight to the source

    Last year Fortune featured the smartest people in technology circa summer 2010.

    We organized our geniuses around their jobs (Smartest CEO: Steve Jobs; Smartest Founder: Mark Zuckerberg; Smartest Engineer, Cloudera's Christophe Bisciglia) -- and, not entirely coincidentally, wound up highlighting the trends of the moment (consumerization of tech, social media and the cloud).

    So this year we decided to go straight to the hot industries and write about the smartest entrepreneurs, executives and engineers in their respective fields. Our full list of the smartest people in tech will be revealed in the Sept. 5 issue of the magazine. So stay tuned.

电子商务：维尼特•巴拉拉与马克•劳

亚马逊旗下Quidsi公司创始人

    维尼特•巴拉拉与马克•劳是发小。2005年，两人合作成立了Diapers.com网站。传统观点认为，在线销售散装商品无利可图。但巴拉拉与劳对这种言论却并不买账。在商业计划书中，他们把尿不湿定位成“为招揽客户亏本出售的商品以及建立客户关系的媒介”。便宜的尿不湿可以吸引忙碌的妈妈们。而通过免费、快速的送货服务和高度个性化的客户服务，Diapers.com能够争取到足够多的客户。妈妈们会再次访问这个网站，而这次买的就不仅是尿不湿，还有一些价格更昂贵的商品，比如折叠式婴儿车和玩具等。

    巴拉拉和劳把他们的公司命名为Quidsi，在拉丁语中意为“如果……会怎样？”他们建立了一个非常讲究的、一目了然的门面，目前里面存放了超过25，000件婴儿用品。其后，他们建立起复杂而精细的物流系统和日臻完善的企业。他们设计了一款软件，可以从23个不同尺寸的箱子中，找出货运成本最低的那一个。劳发明了一种算法，来确定精确的库存数量以及何时补充库存。而且，Quidsi对货运商的选择范围广泛而灵活，不仅有当地的货运商，也包括业务范围覆盖全国的货运商。这不但降低了成本，还能保证订单准时送达。

    鉴于亚马逊（Amazon）在价格与货运方面已经占据先机，所以很显然，仅靠这些策略并不足以使Quidsi胜出。然而，正如妈妈们平常所做的，她们光顾了网站，然后她们会告诉朋友：再也不用深夜为了买尿不湿奔波，或者到好市多（Costco）排队买婴儿食品了。去年，Diapers.com的收入达到3亿美元。其中包括生活必需品专营网站Soap.com的收入。这家网站成立于2010年，可以为妈妈们提供其他25，000件商品。Soap.com与Diapers.com使用相同的结账系统，并坚持相同的价值定位：低廉价格，优质服务，快速送达。

    很明显，Quidsi在谋求获得更多，所以去年11月份，亚马逊收购这家公司，就没什么大惊小怪的了（最终价格：5.45亿美元）。但这家西雅图网络零售业巨头看中的不是Quidsi忠诚的客户群或物流业务；公司得到的是巴拉拉和劳这个天才二人组，他们将继续在新泽西总部负责Quidsi的运营。今年7月，Quidsi团队又成立了宠物用品销售网站Wag.com。Quidsi的创始人一定能扭转Pets.com的颓势，不信就拭目以待吧。美国精品投资银行Stifel Nicolaus的网络分析师乔丹•罗翰表示：“低利润和免费货运一直是亚马逊的王牌。而马克与维尼特却勇敢地闯入了亚马逊的地盘，而且还取得了成功。”

E-commerce: Vinit Bharara and Marc Lore

Founders, Quidsi

Amazon

    When childhood friends Vinit Bharara and Marc Lore launched Diapers.com in 2005, conventional wisdom said you couldn't make money selling bulk commodities online. Bharara and Lore weren't buying it. Their business plan envisioned diapers as a "loss leader and relationship builder." Low-priced diapers would get busy moms in the door. Diapers.com would win those moms over via free, fast shipping and high-touch customer service. Moms would return to buy not just diapers but also pricier gear like strollers and toys.

    Bharara and Lore called their new company Quidsi, Latin for "What if?" They built an elegant, intuitive storefront that now stocks more than 25,000 baby items. Behind it, they set up a sophisticated logistics and fulfillment enterprise. They designed software that determines which of 23 different-sized boxes should be used to ship an order at the lowest possible price. Lore created an algorithm to determine precise inventory amounts and when to reorder. And Quidsi uses a range of national and local shippers to keep costs down and make sure orders arrive on time.

    Given that Amazon was already winning the price and delivery game, this wasn't obviously a winning strategy. But the moms came, and as moms do, they told their friends: No more late night diaper runs or standing in line at Costco to buy formula. Last year, Diapers.com posted $300 million in revenue. That included sales from Soap.com, a dedicated site for household essentials, which launched in July 2010 and offered moms another 25,000 items to buy. Soap.com shares a checkout cart with Diapers.com and offers the same value proposition: low prices, great service, fast delivery.

    Clearly the Quidsi guys were onto something, so it came as little surprise when Amazon scooped up the company last November (final price: $545 million). But the giant Seattle e-tailer didn't just get Quidsi's loyal customer base or logistics operation; it acquired the genius duo of Bharara and Lore, who continue to run Quidsi from its headquarters in New Jersey. This past July the Quidsi team launched pet supply site Wag.com. Bet on Quidsi's founders to overturn the hapless legacy of Pets.com. Says Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst at boutique investment bank Stifel Nicolaus: "Marc and Vinit ventured boldly into Amazon's province, the land of low margins and free shipping, and they emerged victorious."

社交媒体：雷德•霍夫曼

职业社交网站LinkedIn执行主席，格雷洛克公司合伙人

    雷德•霍夫曼的故事也许永远不会被拍成好莱坞大片，但毫无疑问，他是社交媒体领域一颗耀眼的明星。2002年，Facebook创始人扎克伯格刚刚被哈佛大学（Harvard）录取，而霍夫曼却已经建立了LinkedIn。目前，这一网站已经成为世界上最大的职业网络，共有1亿名会员，并且每周以100万的数量增长。

    LinkedIn成立于2003年，并由现年44岁的霍夫曼担任掌门人。利用之前供职在线支付网站PayPal获得的经验，他带领网站实现了早期的增长。2009年，霍夫曼把权利移交给目前的CEO杰夫•威纳，但依然担任公司的执行主席，并持有公司20%的股份。今年5月，LinkedIn成为美国第一家上市的社交媒体网站。最初，公司的股价为45美元，之后一度飙升至122美元，日前，股价在100美元区域徘徊。按照当前股价计算，LinkedIn的市值将达到96亿美元，霍夫曼也成了亿万富翁。

    去年，LinkedIn通过市场营销、招聘解决方案，以及高级内容订阅等实现的收入为2.43亿美元。网站的成功足以确立霍夫曼“社交网络之父”的地位。但他绝对不是昙花一现的人物。

    1997年，霍夫曼对社交媒体产生了强烈的兴趣。当时，他与人合作成立了最早的约会与社区网站Socialnet.com。2001年，该网站被出售给了约会网站Spark Networks公司。早期在富士通公司（Fujitsu）和苹果公司（Apple）从事产品开发与用户体验的工作经历使霍夫曼成功扮演了公司初创时期“产品强人”（霍夫曼自己的说法）的角色，也使他开始了解通过在线网络实现人与人互联的力量。

    之后，他加入Paypal公司，担任首任董事和高层管理人员。通过将这一支付平台出售给eBay，在当时看来，霍夫曼大赚了一笔。而且，他也因为是“PayPal黑手党”的一员而声名鹊起，之所以获得这个称号，是因为他的一些同事，包括联合创始人艾伦•马斯科、手机支付应用公司Square的基思•拉布伊斯和投资家皮特•泰尔，之后在技术领域都获得了成功。LinkedIn是霍夫曼的代表作，但他同时也是硅谷最多产的天使投资人之一，最著名的青年创业顾问，尤其是对社交网络感兴趣的年轻人。在内容分享网站掘客网（Digg）、图片分享网站Flickr，以及最大的分享网站Facebook的初期，他都投入了资金，并且收获颇丰。

    2009年，霍夫曼加入风险投资公司格雷洛克（Greylock），目前为该公司合伙人。他主要负责监督公司在定位共享网站Shopkick与房屋租赁网站Airbnb的投资等。此外，他还是团购网站Groupon的顾问和社交游戏网站Zynga的董事，这两家网站均以社交网络为依托，它们即将进行的首次公开招股甚至会抢去LinkedIn的风头。不过，霍夫曼在这两家公司都持有股份，所以，他肯定不会担心。

    美国网景公司（Netscape）创始人、风险投资家马克•安德森称：“在硅谷和行业内，大大小小的社交网络公司经常会向他求助。他既是优秀的公司创建者，又是知识渊博的思想者，这是一种非常罕见的组合。每当我感到困惑，第一个想到的人肯定就是他。”

Social: Reid Hoffman

Executive chairman, LinkedIn

Partner, Greylock

    He may never be portrayed in a Hollywood blockbuster, but there's no doubt that Reid Hoffman is one of the stars of the social network phenomenon. In 2002, around the time that a certain young prodigy was matriculating at Harvard, Hoffman was already building LinkedIn, today the world's largest professional network with 100 million members and one million new recruits every week.

    LinkedIn launched in May 2003 with Hoffman, now 44, at the helm. He took the site through its early-stage growth, drawing on his previous experience as an executive at PayPal. In 2009, Hoffman passed the reins to current CEO Jeff Weiner, but remained as executive chairman with a 20% stake in the venture. This past May, LinkedIn became the first U.S. social network to go public. Shares were initially priced at $45, shot as high as $122, and today hover around $100. The current price gives LinkedIn a market valuation of $9.6 billion, and makes Hoffman a billionaire.

    The success of LinkedIn, which delivered $243 million in revenue last year from marketing and hiring solutions, and premium subscriptions, would be enough to establish Hoffman as a founding father of social networking. But he's no one-hit wonder.

    Hoffman caught the social bug in 1997, when he co-founded Socialnet.com, an early dating and community site that was sold to Spark Networks in 2001. Earlier stints in product development and user experience at Fujitsu and Apple trained Hoffman for his role as the startup's "product guy" (his words), and he began to understand of the power of connecting people through online networks.

    Next came PayPal, where as a founding board member and executive, Hoffman made a then-fortune from the sale of the payments platform to eBay. He also became known as a member of the "PayPal Mafia," so-called because colleagues like co-founder Elon Musk, Square's Keith Rabois and investor Peter Thiel went on to further success in tech. LinkedIn is Hoffman's claim to fame, but he also became one of Silicon Valley's most prolific angel investors and advisors to young entrepreneurs, especially those with a social bent. He placed successful early-stage bets on Digg (content sharing), Flickr (photo sharing) and Facebook, the biggest sharing site of them all.

    Today Hoffman serves as a partner at venture capital firm Greylock, which he joined in 2009. He oversees the firm's investments in location sharing site Shopkick and home sharing site Airbnb, among others. He is also notably, an advisor to Groupon, and a director at Zynga, two companies that were built on the back of social networks, and whose upcoming IPOs could upstage LinkedIn's. But given that Hoffman has a stake in both, he's probably not too concerned.

    Says Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen: "Reid is one of the top go-to people in the Valley and in the industry for social Internet businesses of all sizes and shapes. He's both a great company builder and a profound thinker -- a very rare combination. He's my first call when I'm confused."

支付：杰克•多尔塞

Square公司CEO兼创始人

    只要有一个点子，就能彻底改变我们思考的方式。而到目前为止，34岁的杰克•多尔塞已经有过两次这样的机会。2006年，多尔塞创建了微博网站Twitter，目前他依然是该网站的产品主管。他的第二次创业是Square，这是一项手机支付服务，可以替代传统的信用卡读卡机设备、商业银行账户和办公电脑。

    在使用Square时，用户只需在iPhone、iPad或安卓设备中插入一个免费的方形塑料接收器，就能把它变成一个手机信用卡读卡器。这项服务对于那些通常不带信用卡的小商户来说绝对是福音。而更吸引人的是，这家创业公司不收取交易手续费，不过每笔交易，它会从中抽取2.75%的提成。

    2009年，多尔塞与人合作成立了Square。目前，公司的日交易额达到300万美元，这意味着公司每年的利润在3，000万美元左右。每个月新注册的小企业超过50，000家。近期，Square获得了1亿美元风险投资，使公司的市值翻了四倍，达到10亿美元。

    公司早期成功的关键因素便是多尔塞本人，他现在每天至少都会花8个小时用于打理Square公司，而另外8个小时则用于领导Twitter的产品开发。Square公司COO基思•拉布伊斯表示：“对于复杂的问题，许多人也会给出复杂的答案。但杰克却与众不同，因为他能把非常复杂的功能简化成精炼而又简洁的解决方案，并且‘效果非常好’，但事实上，做到这一点难度更大。”

Payments: Jack Dorsey

CEO and founder, Square

    It only takes one great idea to radically change the way we think. Jack Dorsey, 34, has had two so far. In 2006 Dorsey created the microblogging network Twitter, where he still serves as product chief. His new venture is Square, a mobile payment service that replaces the traditional payment apparatus of credit card reader machines, merchant bank accounts and back-office computers.

    To use Square, merchants simply plug a free plastic square-shaped dongle into an iPhone, iPad or Android device, turning it into a mobile credit card reader. The service has been a particular boon for smaller merchants who don't normally take plastic. Even more enticing, the startup doesn't charge flat transaction fees, though it does scrape 2.75% from each transaction.

    Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009. Today the company processes $3 million in daily transactions, which implies annual revenues of around $30 million. More than 50,000 small businesses are signing up each month. Square recently nabbed an additional $100 million in venture funding, quadrupling the company's value to $1 billion.

    The crucial element in this early success is Dorsey himself, who currently puts in at least eight hours a day running Square, plus another eight-plus hours leading product development at Twitter. "Many people come up with complicated answers to complicated problems," says Square COO Keith Rabois. "Jack is extraordinary in that he's able to reduce a very complicated set of features into a very elegant but simple solution that `just works,' which is orders of magnitude more difficult."

音乐：丹尼尔•埃克

Spotify公司CEO兼联合创始人

    数年以来，Spotify一直是最热门的音乐服务网站，但美国人却始终无缘享用。由于看好美国市场的发展前景，并且经过深思熟虑，Spotify从斯德哥尔摩远涉重洋登陆美国的旅程可谓轰轰烈烈，充满了承诺、猜测以及与唱片公司之间旷日持久的许可权谈判。Spotify终于登陆美国（7月，Spotify在美国上线），这家由丹尼尔•埃克成立的音乐流媒体服务公司已经做好准备，立意颠覆美国本土音乐爱好者音乐消费的方式，复制它在欧洲的成功。

    美国一直都不缺“自助式”音乐服务，但没有一家能像Spotify一样，提供简单、快速、合法的独立应用，使用户可以免费收听和分享1，300多万张唱片。美国音乐订阅服务商Rhapsody要求每月预付订阅费，而Spotify则使用一种免费+增值的模式。免费服务含广告，且每月可以播放音乐的时间，以及同一首歌可以收听的次数都受到限制。而最佳服务计划则可以使用户在手机上存储歌曲。Spotify利用广告销售的收入和订阅费来支付唱片公司和音乐家的费用。

    而且，埃克还创建了一种新潮的用户体验，效果甚至超过了iTunes。尽管iTunes比Spotify提供的音乐多出一百万首，但它要求用户预付费，并且在完全收听之前，必须等待下载。而埃克则相信，如果能够将整个音乐目录免费向用户开放，最终他们会被吸引进来，愿意支付订阅费。哪种方法更优秀？还得用数字来说话。截至目前，Spotify在欧洲的用户达到1，500万人，其中超过75万人为付费用户。

Music: Daniel Ek

CEO and co-founder, Spotify

    For years, Spotify was the hot music service that Americans couldn't get their hands on. Its journey across the pond from Stockholm was fueled by promises, speculation, and drawn-out licensing negotiations with record labels. Now that it's here (Spotify launched in the U.S. in July), the music streaming service founded by Daniel Ek seems poised to transform the way stateside listeners consume music, just as it did in Europe.

    "All-you-can-eat" music services have existed in the U.S for some time, but none of them work quite like Spotify, a simple, fast, and legal stand-alone application that lets users listen to and share the service's 13 million-plus tracks for free. Whereas Rhapsody requires upfront monthly paid subscriptions, Spotify uses a freemium model. The free tier is ad-supported and places caps on the number of hours that music can be streamed and the number of times a song can be listened to each month. Premium plans let users go mobile and store songs on their mobile devices. Spotify uses money from ad sales and subscription fees to compensate labels and artists.

    Ek also created a snappy user experience that outpaces even iTunes, which offers about a million more songs than Spotify but makes users pay upfront and wait for tracks to download before listening to them in full. Ek put stock in the belief that if you open up the entire music catalog to users for free, they will eventually get sufficiently hooked to pony up those subscription fees. The numbers speak for themselves. To date Spotify reaches 15 million users in Europe, more than 750,000 of whom are paying customers.

硬件：唐•马特里克

微软互动娱乐业务部总裁

    从历史上来看，视频游戏机的寿命通常在5到7年。随着制造商宣布推出新一代产品，市面上现有产品的销量将逐步降低，直至退出市场。但是由于有了唐•马特里克，微软公司（Microsoft）的Xbox 360打破了这一宿命。

    对于这款标志性的游戏机而言，它的发展道路并非一帆风顺。2007年，马特里克从电子艺界公司（Electronic Arts）来到了微软。当时，Xbox的业务尚未实现盈利。同一年，由于硬件缺陷，使Xbox 360游戏机的故障率高达24%。延长保修期，对不满的用户进行补偿，使公司损失了11.5亿美元。马特里克起草并负责执行了一份三年计划，目的是扭转这一局面。微软互动娱乐业务部（Microsoft Interactive Entertainment）COO兼CFO丹尼斯•德尔金称：“整个部门发生了很大的变化。唐确实是我们的‘定海神针’。”

    如果没有马特里克，也就不会有Kinect。Kinect是微软公司针对Xbox 360推出的体感控制器。马特里克组建了Kinect团队，并从外部招募了优秀人才，比如创意总监库都•图苏诺达；此外，他还制定了重要的目标，如降低成本，以达到消费者可接受的价位。

    目前，不论是口碑还是销量，Kinect都是微软公司最成功的硬件设备。去年11月产品推出以来，Kinect的销量已经超过1，000万台。2011年前四个月，公司游戏机的销量与去年同期相比增长了29%，这也被认为是Kinect的功劳。程序设计迷已经编写了无数Kinect应用程序，从增强实境游戏到动作捕捉动画程序；而且，机器人专家也在使用Kinect的摄像机，来捕捉3-D实时影像。

    德尔金说：“许多人都能看清趋势，但唐不仅能看清趋势，还能组建团队，将愿景付诸行动。他就这样改变了我们的业务发展轨道。”

    （翻译 刘进龙）

Hardware: Don Mattrick

President, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment

    Historically, video game consoles survive for between five and seven years, with sales petering out when manufacturers announce the next product. Thanks to Don Mattrick, that's not the case for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

    Things didn't always look this good for the iconic console. When Mattrick moved from Electronic Arts to Microsoft in 2007, the Xbox business had yet to turn a profit. That same year, hardware defects caused up to 24% of all Xbox 360 consoles to fail, causing a $1.15 billion write-off to extend warranties and reimburse disgruntled owners. Mattrick wrote and executed a three-year plan to turn the business around. "There was just a lot of change, and Don was a real stabilizing force," says Dennis Durkin, COO and CFO for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business.

    Without Mattrick there wouldn't be Kinect, the company's motion-sensor controller for the Xbox 360. Mattrick assembled the Kinect team, recruited outside talent like creative director Kudo Tsunoda, and set crucial goals like reducing costs to reach an affordable consumer price point.

    Now Kinect is one of Microsoft's most successful hardware devices, both critically and financially. Microsoft has sold more than 10 million units since last November's launch and is largely credited with driving console sales up 29% during the first four months of 2011 compared with the same period last year. Hackers have already programmed numerous Kinect applications, from augmented reality games to motion-capture animation programs; and roboticists are using the Kinect's camera to capture 3-D real-time images.

    "A lot of people can see trends, but Don also formed a team that could execute against a vision," says Durkin. "That's where he's really changed the trajectory of our business."