1、夏日书单季（你想听哪一本？）
2、哪些美国大学在特朗普攻势下最倒霉？
3、工资谈判法则
4、 AI 智能体与企业管理软件（CRM \＆ERP）
5、 经济学家认告：费希尔
Spine－tingling 令人脊背发凉
The best books published so far this year 迄今为止今年出版的最佳书籍
When you lie down by the pool this summer，pick up one of these titles 今年夏天当你躺在泳池边时，拿起这些书中的一本
Biography and memoir 传记与回忆录
Buckley：The Life and the Revolution That Changed America． 巴克利：改变美国的生活与革命。
By Sam Tanenhaus．Random House；1，040 pages；$40\$ 40 and £33£ 33 作者：山姆·坦恩豪斯。兰登书屋；1040 页； $40\$ 40 和 £33£ 33
William Buckley revived American conservatism in the second half of the 20th century with his love of argument and erudite，incisive prose．This biography runs to more than 1,000 pages－yet is not a word too long． 威廉·巴克利凭借他对辩论的热爱以及博学、犀利的文笔，在 20 世纪下半叶复兴了美国保守主义。这部传记超过 1000 页——却没有一句多余。
Careless People． 《粗心的人们》
By Sarah Wynn－Williams．Flatiron Books； 400 pages；$32.99\$ 32.99 ．Macmillan；£22£ 22 Sold as ＂the book Meta doesn＇t want you to read＂，this memoir is a riveting corporate kiss－and－tell．It portrays Mark Zuckerberg，the company＇s founder and boss，as unfeeling and shallow． 作者：Sarah Wynn-Williams。Flatiron Books；400 页； $32.99\$ 32.99 。Macmillan； £22£ 22 被称为“Meta 不想让你读的书”，这本回忆录是一部引人入胜的企业内幕揭露。书中将公司创始人兼老板马克·扎克伯格描绘成冷漠且肤浅的人。
The Optimist：Sam Altman，OpenAI and the Race to Invent the Future． 乐观主义者：Sam Altman、OpenAI 与发明未来的竞赛。
By Keach Hagey．W．W．Norton； 384 pages；$31.99\$ 31.99 and £25 作者：Keach Hagey。W.W. Norton；384 页； $31.99\$ 31.99 和 25 英镑
A deeply researched，gripping account of OpenAI．Though the author had access to 一本经过深入研究、引人入胜的 OpenAI 纪实。尽管作者获得了..
Sam Altman, its co-founder and chief executive, this is no hagiography. 山姆·奥特曼，其联合创始人兼首席执行官，这并非一篇颂词。
Source Code: My Beginnings. 《源代码：我的起点》。
By Bill Gates. Knopf; 336 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25 作者：比尔·盖茨。Knopf 出版社；336 页；30 美元。Allen Lane 出版社；25 英镑。
The tech billionaire-turned- philanthropist recounts his origin story, from his birth in 1955 to the early years of Microsoft in the late 1970s. Mr Gates’s programming prowess and entrepreneurial zeal were entwined from the start, it shows. 这位科技亿万富翁转型为慈善家的故事，讲述了他从 1955 年出生到 1970 年代末微软早期的经历。书中显示，盖茨先生的编程才能和创业热情从一开始就紧密相连。
The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World's Most Coveted Microchip. 思考机器：黄仁勋、英伟达与全球最受追捧的微芯片。
By Stephen Witt. Viking; 272 pages; $30. Bodley Head; £25 作者：斯蒂芬·维特。维京出版社；272 页；30 美元。博德利出版社；25 英镑
This book is a guide to Nvidia and Jensen Huang, the man who turned the company from a pedlar of graphics chips for computer gamers into the semiconductor titan at the heart of the artificial-intelligence revolution. 本书是关于英伟达及其创始人黄仁勋的指南，讲述了他如何将公司从一个为电脑游戏玩家销售图形芯片的小商贩，转变为人工智能革命核心的半导体巨头。
Business, economics and technology 商业、经济与科技
Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company. 苹果在中国：全球最伟大公司的捕获。
By Patrick McGee. Scribner; 448 pages; $32. Simon & Schuster; £25 作者：Patrick McGee。Scribner 出版社；448 页；32 美元。Simon & Schuster 出版社；25 英镑。
Can Apple thrive without China? A journalist at the Financial Times explains how the company became enmeshed in the country and what the fracturing of global trade means for one of the world’s most valuable firms. 苹果能在没有中国的情况下繁荣发展吗？《金融时报》的一位记者解释了这家公司如何与中国紧密相连，以及全球贸易破裂对这家世界上最有价值的公司之一意味着什么。
The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck. 不确定性的艺术：如何驾驭机遇、无知、风险与运气。
By David Spiegelhalter. W.W. Norton; 336 pages; $32.99 Pelican; £22 作者：David Spiegelhalter。W.W. Norton 出版社；336 页；32.99 美元 Pelican 出版社；22 英镑
Using some intuitive assumptions and (very) simple algebra, this book offers an invaluable guide to thinking about uncertainty. It will appeal to many more than just aspiring mathematicians." 通过一些直观的假设和（非常）简单的代数，这本书为思考不确定性提供了宝贵的指导。它将吸引远不止有志成为数学家的人群。
Chokepoints. 瓶颈。
By Edward Fishman. Portfolio; 560 pages; $40. Elliott & Thompson; £25 作者：Edward Fishman。Portfolio 出版社；560 页；40 美元 Elliott & Thompson 出版社；25 英镑
An insider’s guide to economic warfare. With a satisfying amount of dash and drama, the author takes readers on a global tour of American sanctions. Ingenious 经济战的内部指南。作者以充满活力和戏剧性的笔触，带领读者环游全球，了解美国制裁。巧妙的
technocrats have forged new, more precise tools of economic coercion. 技术官僚们打造了新的、更精准的经济胁迫工具。
The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong. 21 世纪的公司：为什么我们被告知的（几乎）所有关于商业的事情都是错误的。
By John Kay. Yale University Press; 448 pages; $35. Profile; £25 作者：约翰·凯。耶鲁大学出版社；448 页；35 美元。简介；25 英镑
One of Britain’s leading economists asks what firms are for. Texts about purpose in business are all too often waffly and worthy, but this one is admirably clear. 英国一位顶尖经济学家探讨了企业的存在意义。关于企业使命的文章往往空洞而自命不凡，但这篇文章却异常清晰。
Empire of AI. 《人工智能帝国》。
By Karen Hao. Penguin Press; 496 pages; $32\$ 32 and £25£ 25 作者：Karen Hao。企鹅出版社；496 页； $32\$ 32 和 £25£ 25
A journalist explores the murky mix of missionary zeal, rivalry and mistrust at OpenAl in the run-up to the birth of ChatGPT. This tale reveals disturbing truths about the culture of Silicon Valley. 一位记者深入探讨了 OpenAI 在 ChatGPT 诞生前夕，充满使命感、竞争与不信任的复杂氛围。这段故事揭示了硅谷文化中令人不安的真相。
House of Huawei. 华为之家。
By Eva Dou. Portfolio; 448 pages; $34. Abacus; £25 作者：Eva Dou。Portfolio 出版社；448 页；34 美元。Abacus 出版社；25 英镑。
A technology-policy reporter has parsed decades’ worth of documents to piece together how Huawei’s enigmatic founder rose from poverty to lead what is probably China’s most powerful company. 一位科技政策记者梳理了数十年的文件，拼凑出华为神秘创始人如何从贫困中崛起，领导这家可能是中国最强大的公司的故事。
A degree of uncertainty 一定程度的不确定性
Which universities will be hit hardest by Trump's war on foreign students? 哪些大学将受到特朗普对外国学生政策的最大冲击？
It’s not the Ivy League 这不是常春藤联盟
IF COLLEGE PRESIDENTS were hoping Donald Trump would tire of lambasting America’s universities, the latest tirades against international students have left them freshly agog. On June 4th Mr Trump escalated his attacks against Harvard, issuing an order suspending the university from a student-visa programme, which would stop foreigners from attending. Of wider impact is the government’s decision to pause scheduling new visa interviews for foreign students, no matter where they aim to study. Beyond the damage this is doing to America’s reputation, and its prowess in 如果大学校长们曾希望唐纳德·特朗普会厌倦抨击美国的大学，那么他最近针对国际学生的激烈言论让他们再次震惊。6 月 4 日，特朗普加大了对哈佛大学的攻击，发布命令暂停该校参与学生签证项目，这将阻止外国学生入学。更广泛影响的是政府决定暂停安排外国学生的新签证面试，无论他们打算在哪里学习。除了这对美国声誉及其实力造成的损害之外，
research, the tumult has bean-counters across the country’s higher-education system wringing their hands." 研究人员，全国高等教育系统的会计人员正为此忧心忡忡。
Many American colleges and universities were facing financial problems long before Mr Trump’s return to the White House. Americans have soured on higher education, after years in which participation grew fast. The share of high-school leavers going straight to college fell from around 70%70 \% in 2016 to 62% in 2022. In December Moody’s, a rating agency, said a third of private universities and a fifth of public ones were operating in the red. 许多美国高校在特朗普重返白宫之前就已面临财务问题。经过多年的快速增长后，美国人对高等教育的热情已减退。高中毕业生直接进入大学的比例从 2016 年的约 70%70 \% 下降到 2022 年的 62%。评级机构穆迪在 12 月表示，三分之一的私立大学和五分之一的公立大学处于亏损状态。
Looming demographic change will bring more trouble. The total number of high-school graduates in America may fall by around 6% by 2030 and 13% by 2041, according to one estimate. The impact will vary widely by region: in some north-eastern and mid-western states (which for historical reasons have a surfeit of universities) the decline could be as high as a third. 即将到来的人口结构变化将带来更多麻烦。根据一项估计，到 2030 年，美国高中毕业生总数可能下降约 6%，到 2041 年可能下降 13%。影响因地区而异：在一些东北部和中西部州（由于历史原因大学数量过剩），下降幅度可能高达三分之一。
Foreign students are not an antidote, but they are helping offset some pain. The million or so foreigners studying in America are roughly double the number in 2000. They pay far higher fees than locals for undergraduate courses-in some public universities as much as three times the rate, says William Brustein, who has led international strategy at several of them. Over half the foreigners are postgraduates; these courses tend to bring outsize profits. 外国学生并非灵丹妙药，但他们确实在缓解一些痛苦。大约有一百万外国学生在美国学习，约是 2000 年的两倍。威廉·布鲁斯坦（William Brustein）曾在多所大学负责国际战略，他表示，外国本科生支付的学费远高于本地学生——在一些公立大学，学费甚至是本地学生的三倍以上。超过一半的外国学生是研究生；这些课程往往带来超额利润。
Though America has more foreign students than any other country, it would seem to have room for more: they make up only about 6%6 \% of those in higher education, compared with over 25%25 \% in each of its main competitors-Britain, Australia and Canada. For now, alas, growth is the last thing anyone expects. The risk is both that the number of foreigners who turn up this autumn will fall sharply, and of a longer-lasting depression caused by future applicants turning to countries that seem more welcoming than America. 尽管美国拥有比其他任何国家更多的外国学生，但似乎还有增长空间：外国学生仅占高等教育学生的约 6%6 \% ，而其主要竞争对手英国、澳大利亚和加拿大的这一比例均超过 25%25 \% 。遗憾的是，目前没人期待增长。风险在于，今年秋季到来的外国学生人数可能会大幅下降，以及未来申请者转向那些看起来比美国更欢迎他们的国家，导致的长期萧条。
The big question is who might suffer the most if there is a bust. Ultra-elite institutions may look exposed: around 28%28 \% of Harvard’s students and a whopping 40%40 \% at Columbia come from abroad. But these institutions have many ways to balance the 最大的问题是谁在经济崩溃时可能遭受最重的打击。超级精英院校看起来可能暴露无遗：哈佛约有 28%28 \% 的学生来自海外，哥伦比亚更是高达 40%40 \% 。但这些院校有许多方法来平衡
books: last year tuition fees (both domestic and foreign) and payments for room and board made up only about 20%20 \% of Harvard’s total income, compared with over 80%80 \% at the least prestigious private universities. Demand for spots at the highest-ranking universities is rarely affected by a slowdown and their home-grown students could pay more. 账目：去年哈佛的学费收入（包括国内和国外学生）以及住宿和膳食费用仅占其总收入的约 20%20 \% ，而最不知名的私立大学这一比例超过 80%80 \% 。顶尖大学的招生需求很少受到经济放缓的影响，而且它们本土学生的缴费能力也更强。
The trouble might be greater for second- and third-tier institutions, where foreign students are not quite so numerous but are often more important to the bottom line. For many years public universities ramped up foreign enrollment to make up for declining funding from the state where they are located. The best of these institutions were able to boost revenues by attracting high-paying Americans from out of state, whereas the rest had no choice but to pay agents and marketers to bring in overseas students. 问题可能对二线和三线院校更为严重，这些学校的外国学生数量虽不多，但对其财务状况却更为重要。多年来，公立大学通过增加外国学生人数来弥补所在州政府资金的减少。这些院校中最优秀的能够通过吸引来自州外的高付费美国学生来增加收入，而其余的则不得不支付代理和市场推广费用以吸引海外学生。
A pronounced slowdown in overseas arrivals could damage institutions, even those that have never enrolled a single foreigner. If highly regarded universities adapt by enrolling more local students, that will make it harder for institutions with lesser reputations to attract them, and thus to pay their bills. In Britain, changes to visa rules have recently brought sharp falls in arrivals of foreign students. Last year about 40%40 \% of universities predicted operating deficits. 海外入境人数的显著放缓可能会损害各类机构，甚至那些从未招收过外国学生的机构。如果备受推崇的大学通过招收更多本地学生来适应这一变化，那么声誉较差的机构将更难吸引学生，从而难以维持运营。在英国，签证规则的变化最近导致外国学生入境人数大幅下降。去年，大约有 40%40 \% 的大学预测将出现运营赤字。
This would not be a problem if it were to put shoddy and unpopular institutions out of business. But it is a worry if it leads to regional “cold spots” in which affordable degrees become difficult to find. Or if it benefits complacent incumbents that trade on their reputation rather than their teaching. Mr Trump’s war on the Ivy League could have much wider effects than he bargained for. 如果这能让劣质和不受欢迎的机构倒闭，那倒也无妨。但如果这导致某些地区出现“冷点”，使得负担得起的学位变得难以获得，那就令人担忧。或者如果这使得那些依赖声誉而非教学质量的自满现有机构受益，也同样令人担忧。特朗普对常春藤联盟的“战争”可能带来比他预料更广泛的影响。
Bartleby 巴特比
A short guide to salary negotiations 薪资谈判简明指南
Don't threaten. Do research 不要威胁。要做调查
TALKING ABOUT how much money you earn is uncomfortable for many people. But there are moments when it is an unavoidable topic of conversation. When you take a 谈论你赚多少钱对许多人来说是不舒服的。但有些时候，这是一个无法避免的话题。当你接受一份
new job or learn how much your rise will be for the coming year, you have to talk about salaries. You also have to make a decision about whether to negotiate for more. 新工作或得知来年的涨薪幅度时，你必须谈论薪水。你还得决定是否要争取更多。
Negotiating does seem to pay off, at least in monetary terms. In its 2025 survey of American jobseekers, Employ, a recruiting-software provider, found that 37% of candidates had asked for more money, and that 80%80 \% of them had got more than their initial offer. That is consistent with a paper published in 2011 by Michelle Marks of the University of Colorado and Crystal Harold of Temple University, which found that candidates who chose to bargain bumped up their starting salaries by an average of $5,000 ($7,160 in today’s money). 谈判似乎确实能带来回报，至少在金钱方面是这样。在 2025 年对美国求职者的调查中，招聘软件提供商 Employ 发现，37%的候选人曾要求加薪，其中 80%80 \% 的人获得了高于最初报价的薪水。这与科罗拉多大学的 Michelle Marks 和天普大学的 Crystal Harold 在 2011 年发表的一篇论文一致，论文发现选择讨价还价的候选人平均将起薪提高了 5000 美元（按现今价值约 7160 美元）。
Negotiating, which is the subject of this week’s episode of our Boss Class podcast, comes more naturally to some than others. A recent study by Jackson Lu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at 19 consecutive years of MBA graduates from an American business school, and found that graduates of East Asian and South-East Asian ethnicity had markedly lower salaries than South Asians and whites. The propensity to negotiate among different groups explains the gap; East Asians and South-East Asians who did not try to negotiate were more likely to say they were concerned about damaging the relationship with an employer. 谈判是本周我们《老板课堂》播客的主题，对某些人来说比对另一些人更为自然。麻省理工学院的 Jackson Lu 最近进行的一项研究，分析了美国一所商学院连续 19 年的 MBA 毕业生数据，发现东亚和东南亚裔毕业生的薪资明显低于南亚裔和白人。不同群体的谈判倾向解释了这一差距；那些没有尝试谈判的东亚和东南亚裔更可能表示他们担心会损害与雇主的关系。
Women are more likely than men to worry about the effect of negotiating-with some cause. As part of a paper on salary negotiations published in 2024, Francesco Capozza of the Berlin Social Science Centre conducted a survey of HR managers in America. The respondents thought that candidates who attempted to negotiate on pay were less likely to receive a job offer than those who did not, and that this penalty hit women disproportionately hard. 女性比男性更可能担心谈判的影响——这有一定道理。作为 2024 年发表的一篇关于薪资谈判论文的一部分，柏林社会科学中心的 Francesco Capozza 对美国的人力资源经理进行了调查。受访者认为，尝试就薪资进行谈判的候选人比不谈判的候选人更不可能获得工作机会，而且这种惩罚对女性的影响尤为严重。
If negotiating both raises salaries and risks a backlash, what is a bargainer to do? Leigh Thompson, who teaches at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, gives two pieces of advice to her MBA students as they look for work. One is not to start negotiating until you actually have a job offer (further evidence that MBAs may lack many things but confidence isn’t one of them). The other is not to turn a negotiation into a bidding war, deliberately playing potential employers off against each other to extract higher offers. Don’t be combative, she says. Don’t threaten. 如果谈判既能提高薪资又可能引发反弹，那么谈判者该怎么办？西北大学凯洛格管理学院的 Leigh Thompson 在指导 MBA 学生求职时给出了两条建议。一是不要在真正拿到工作邀请之前开始谈判（这进一步证明 MBA 可能缺少很多东西，但自信绝不是其中之一）。二是不要把谈判变成竞价战，故意让潜在雇主相互竞争以争取更高的报价。她说，不要采取对抗态度，也不要威胁。
Jim Sebenius, who teaches negotiating at Harvard Business School, advises scoping out the role as fully as possible and then finding the market rate for that sort of job. Information on pay is much easier to find than it was, owing to sites such as Glassdoor, and requirements in some places to publish salary ranges for advertised roles." 哈佛商学院教授谈判的 Jim Sebenius 建议尽可能全面了解职位，然后找到该类工作的市场薪资水平。由于 Glassdoor 等网站的出现，以及某些地区要求公开招聘职位的薪资范围，薪资信息比以前更容易获取。
If candidates can attach themselves to a reasonable principle-that they only want to be paid the going rate-and point to evidence to back up their argument, that is more likely to work than arbitrary numbers, begging or threats to go elsewhere. Even if more money isn’t available, other things might be on the table: a promise to review pay after a certain period, named parking bays or whatever floats your boat. 如果候选人能够依附于一个合理的原则——他们只想获得市场行情的报酬——并指出支持其论点的证据，这比随意开价、乞求或威胁跳槽更有效。即使没有更多的钱可供支付，其他条件也可能成为谈判筹码：比如承诺在一定期限后重新审查薪酬、指定停车位或任何你喜欢的福利。
It can be annoying for bosses to hear requests for more money, when all they really want is unbridled enthusiasm. But some employers actively want people to be good at negotiating. Photoroom is a French AI startup that makes photo-editing software; it offers negotiating training to anyone at the firm who wants it. Its primary goal is to enable engineers to buy kit fast without getting lost in red tape; the training helps them to do so at a good price. 当老板们听到加薪请求时可能会感到恼火，因为他们真正想要的只是员工的无限热情。但有些雇主实际上希望员工擅长谈判。Photoroom 是一家法国的人工智能初创公司，开发照片编辑软件；它为公司内任何想要的人提供谈判培训。其主要目标是让工程师能够快速购买设备，而不被繁琐的审批流程困扰；培训帮助他们以合理的价格完成采购。
Matt Rouif, its boss, says Photoroom also wants to know if it is paying below market rate; it buys in benchmark data on salaries and shares that data with employees so that conversations have a common starting-point. “A lot of people think it’s a fight. We’re trying to find the best outcome that looks fair.” That’s not a bad way for employees to frame a salary negotiation. 其负责人 Matt Rouif 表示，Photoroom 还希望了解自己是否支付的薪酬低于市场水平；公司购买薪资基准数据并与员工共享，以便对话有一个共同的起点。“很多人认为这是一场争斗。我们试图找到一个看起来公平的最佳结果。”这对于员工来说，是一个不错的薪资谈判思路。
Schumpeter 熊彼特
AI agents are turning Salesforce and SAP into rivals 人工智能代理正在将 Salesforce 和 SAP 变成竞争对手
Artificial intelligence is blurring the distinction between front office and back office 人工智能正在模糊前台和后台的界限
ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE is an unlikely source of hubbub. Bringing up CRM or 企业软件通常不是引起轰动的话题。提到 CRM 或
ERP in conversation has usually been a reliable way to be left alone. But not these days, especially if you are chatting to a tech investor. Mention the acronyms-for customer-relationship management, which automates front-office tasks like dealing with clients, and enterprise resource planning, which does the same for back-office processes such as managing a firm’s finances or supply chains-and you will set pulses racing. ERP 时，通常是让人避而远之的可靠方式。但如今情况不同，尤其是当你与科技投资者交谈时。提到这些缩写——客户关系管理（CRM），它自动化处理与客户打交道的前台任务；企业资源计划（ERP），它则管理公司的财务或供应链等后台流程——你会激起大家的兴趣。
Between June and early December 2024 Salesforce, the 26-year-old global CRM giant, created more than $120bn\$ 120 \mathrm{bn} in shareholder value, lifting its market capitalisation to a record $352bn\$ 352 \mathrm{bn}. In the past 12 months SAP, a German tech titan which more or less invented ERP in the 1970s, has generated more. It is Europe’s most valuable company, worth $380bn\$ 380 \mathrm{bn}, likewise an all-time high. Both enterprise champions rank among the world’s top ten software companies by value. Maybe not so dull, after all? 从 2024 年 6 月到 12 月初，拥有 26 年历史的全球 CRM 巨头 Salesforce 创造了超过 $120bn\$ 120 \mathrm{bn} 的股东价值，使其市值达到创纪录的 $352bn\$ 352 \mathrm{bn} 。在过去 12 个月里，德国科技巨头 SAP——大约在 1970 年代发明了 ERP——创造的价值更多。它是欧洲最有价值的公司，市值达到 $380bn\$ 380 \mathrm{bn} ，同样创下历史新高。这两家企业巨头均跻身全球市值最高的十大软件公司之列。或许，企业软件并非那么无聊？
The source of the excitement is another, much sexier acronym: Al. Builders of clever artificial-intelligence models may get all the attention; this week Elon Musk’s xAI hogged the headlines when it was reported that the startup was launching a $300m\$ 300 \mathrm{~m} share sale that would value it at $113bn\$ 113 \mathrm{bn}. But if the technology is to be as revolutionary as boosters claim, it will in the first instance be because businesses use it to radically improve productivity. And as anyone who has tried-and probably failed-to replace corporate computer systems will tell you, they are likely to do so with the assistance of their current IT vendors. 兴奋的源头是另一个更吸引人的缩写：AI。聪明的人工智能模型的开发者可能会获得所有关注；本周，当有报道称埃隆·马斯克的 xAI 初创公司将启动一轮 $300m\$ 300 \mathrm{~m} 股票发行，估值达到 $113bn\$ 113 \mathrm{bn} 时，它成为了头条新闻。但如果这项技术真的像支持者所说的那样具有革命性，首先是因为企业利用它来彻底提升生产力。正如任何尝试过——很可能失败过——替换企业计算机系统的人都会告诉你的那样，他们很可能会在现有 IT 供应商的协助下完成这一过程。
Salesforce and SAP each believes it will be the one ushering its clients into the AI age. The trouble is that many of those clients use both firms’ products. Perhaps nine in ten Fortune 500 firms run Salesforce software. The same share relies on SAP. Salesforce 和 SAP 都相信自己将引领客户进入 AI 时代。问题是，许多客户同时使用这两家公司的产品。大约十分之九的财富 500 强企业运行 Salesforce 软件，同样比例依赖 SAP。
This did not matter when the duo focused on their respective bread and butter. A client would run Salesforce’s second-to-none CRM in the front office and SAP’s first-rate ERP in the back. Amazon and Walmart, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, BMW and Toyota: pick a household name and the odds are it does just that. 当这两家公司专注于各自的核心业务时，这并不成问题。客户会在前台使用 Salesforce 无与伦比的客户关系管理（CRM）系统，在后台使用 SAP 一流的企业资源计划（ERP）系统。亚马逊和沃尔玛，可口可乐和百事可乐，宝马和丰田：选一个家喻户晓的名字，几乎都如此操作。
A big reason for SAP and Salesforce to slather a thick layer of AI on top of their existing offering, though, is to give customers a way to uncurdle their data, analyse it SAP 和 Salesforce 在其现有产品上大力加入人工智能的一个重要原因，是为了给客户提供一种方式来理清他们的数据，进行分析
and, with the help of semi-autonomous AI agents interacting with one another on behalf of their human managers, act on it. In this newly blended world, the lines between front and back office are fudged. “It’s one user experience,” sums up Irfan Khan, SAP’s data-and-analytics chief. 并且，在半自主的人工智能代理代表其人类管理者相互交互的帮助下，基于数据采取行动。在这个新融合的世界里，前台和后台的界限变得模糊。“这是一种统一的用户体验，”SAP 的数据与分析主管 Irfan Khan 总结道。
Controlling the user interface for this “agentic” Al experience promises fat profits. It also creates a head-to-head rivalry between the two enterprise masterchefs. For their AI recipes look alike. 掌控这种“代理式”人工智能体验的用户界面，意味着丰厚的利润。这也在这两位企业巨头之间制造了正面竞争。因为他们的人工智能方案非常相似。
Step one: expand your range of products. SAP has improved its front-office chops by buying CRM firms (like CallidusCloud) and marketing platforms (such as Emarsys). Though Salesforce has not gone full-ERP, it has a 16-year-old partnership with Certinia, whose financial-management system sits exclusively atop its platform. It has bought firms like ClickSoftware, which helps businesses manage their service workforce. On June 2nd it hired the team behind MoonHub, a recruitment-and-HR startup. Clients, spared from switching between providers for every specialist function, love it. So do SAP and Salesforce, since it amasses more client data, Al’s great leavener, in their own systems. 第一步：扩大你的产品范围。SAP 通过收购 CRM 公司（如 CallidusCloud）和营销平台（如 Emarsys）提升了其前台业务能力。虽然 Salesforce 尚未完全进入 ERP 领域，但它与 Certinia 有着 16 年的合作关系，后者的财务管理系统专门运行在其平台之上。Salesforce 还收购了帮助企业管理服务团队的 ClickSoftware。6 月 2 日，它又聘请了招聘和人力资源初创公司 MoonHub 的团队。客户无需为每个专业功能切换供应商，因此非常喜欢这种做法。SAP 和 Salesforce 也同样喜欢，因为这使它们能够在自己的系统中积累更多客户数据，而数据是人工智能的绝佳杠杆。
Step two: piggyback on the “hyperscalers”. This allows clients to choose between the cloud giants, including, in China, Alibaba and Tencent (and, in Salesforce’s case, excluding Microsoft, with which its co-founder and boss, Marc Benioff, has a long-running feud). It saves SAP and Salesforce from splurging on what each sees as infrastructure destined for “commoditisation”. Oracle, the giant of corporate-database management which has taken the opposite approach, has seen its quarterly capital budget explode from $400m\$ 400 \mathrm{~m} in 2020 to nearly $6bn\$ 6 \mathrm{bn} in its latest quarter; SAP and Salesforce spend $300m-400m\$ 300 \mathrm{~m}-400 \mathrm{~m} a quarter between them. 第二步：搭乘“超级规模云服务商”的顺风车。这让客户可以在云巨头之间进行选择，包括中国的阿里巴巴和腾讯（而在 Salesforce 的情况下，则排除了微软，因为其联合创始人兼老板马克·贝尼奥夫与微软有长期的纷争）。这避免了 SAP 和 Salesforce 在各自视为将被“商品化”的基础设施上大肆投入。采取相反策略的企业数据库管理巨头甲骨文，其季度资本预算从 2020 年的 $400m\$ 400 \mathrm{~m} 激增至最新季度的近 $6bn\$ 6 \mathrm{bn} ；而 SAP 和 Salesforce 两者合计每季度的支出为 $300m-400m\$ 300 \mathrm{~m}-400 \mathrm{~m} 。
Step three: whip up the Al layer. In February SAP teamed up with Databricks, a $60bn AI startup, to help clients make sense of their information, including that stored outside SAP systems, and deploy SAP’s Joule AI agents across their operations. On May 27th Salesforce said it would pay $8bn for Informatica, which designs tools to integrate and crunch corporate data. This will make its own Agentforce easier for clients to use beyond the front office. 第三步：打造人工智能层。今年 2 月，SAP 与估值 600 亿美元的人工智能初创公司 Databricks 合作，帮助客户理解其信息，包括存储在 SAP 系统之外的信息，并在其运营中部署 SAP 的 Joule AI 代理。5 月 27 日，Salesforce 宣布将斥资 80 亿美元收购 Informatica，该公司设计用于整合和处理企业数据的工具。这将使其自有的 Agentforce 更易于客户在前台以外的领域使用。
Right now investors prefer what SAP is serving up. Its systems cover a wider range of functions and thus contain more data. This data is also notoriously hard for non-SAP systems to extract. As annoying as this may be for clients, it gives them an incentive to look from inside the SAP platform out rather than the other way round. SAP’s share price has risen by 12%12 \% in the past six months. 目前，投资者更青睐 SAP 所提供的产品。其系统涵盖了更广泛的功能，因此包含更多数据。这些数据对于非 SAP 系统来说提取起来 notoriously 困难。尽管这对客户来说可能很烦人，但这也促使他们从 SAP 平台内部向外看，而不是反过来。过去六个月，SAP 的股价上涨了 12%12 \% 。
Meanwhile, Salesforce’s has collapsed like a bad soufflé. It is down by nearly 30%30 \% since its peak in early December. Although its sales passed those of SAP in 2023, growth is slowing while SAP’s accelerates. Analysts wonder if Agentforce, the launch of which fuelled last year’s rally, can make real money. They also fear a return to profligate dealmaking that culminated with the $28bn\$ 28 \mathrm{bn} purchase in 2021 of Slack, a corporate-messaging platform. 与此同时，Salesforce 的股价如同失败的舒芙蕾般崩溃。自去年 12 月初的高点以来，已下跌近 30%30 \% 。尽管其 2023 年的销售额超过了 SAP，但增长正在放缓，而 SAP 的增长则在加速。分析师们质疑去年推动股价上涨的 Agentforce 是否能真正盈利。他们也担心奢侈的交易行为会卷土重来，这种行为在 2021 年以收购企业消息平台 Slack 的 $28bn\$ 28 \mathrm{bn} 交易达到顶峰。
Investors could yet sour on SAP just as they have on Salesforce. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that between 2020 and 2024 rivals like Workday cut its share of the ERP business from 21%21 \% to 14%14 \%. For all its front-office efforts, its CRM sales declined around that time, even as Salesforce preserved its 20% slice of a growing market. Microsoft, which has its own cloud, its own cutting-edge AI and plenty of business clients, is elbowing its way into ERP, as well as CRM. The enterprise-AI food fight is just beginning. 投资者可能会像对 Salesforce 那样对 SAP 失去信心。研究公司 Gartner 估计，2020 年至 2024 年间，Workday 等竞争对手将其在 ERP 业务中的份额从 21%21 \% 削减到了 14%14 \% 。尽管 SAP 在前台业务上做了努力，其 CRM 销售在那段时间内却有所下降，而 Salesforce 则保持了其在不断增长的市场中 20%的份额。微软拥有自己的云服务、先进的人工智能技术和大量企业客户，正挤进 ERP 和 CRM 领域。企业人工智能的争夺战才刚刚开始。
Free exchange 自由交流
Stanley Fischer mixed rigour and realism, compassion and calm 斯坦利·费舍尔兼具严谨与现实、同情与冷静
The former IMF, Bank of Israel and Federal Reserve official died on May 31st" 这位前国际货币基金组织、以色列银行和美联储官员于 5 月 31 日去世
HE LOOKED RIDICULOUS, his wife assured him. Stan Fischer, the number-two official at the IMF, was supposed to be enjoying a holiday on Martha’s Vineyard in July 1998. Instead, he was perched on a sand dune, mobile-phone at his ear, trying to negotiate a bail-out of Russia, a country deemed “too nuclear to fail”. 他看起来很可笑，他的妻子向他保证。国际货币基金组织的二号人物斯坦·费舍尔本应在 1998 年 7 月享受马萨诸塞州马撒葡萄园岛的假期。相反，他正坐在一座沙丘上，手机贴着耳朵，试图协商对俄罗斯的救助，这个国家被认为“核武器太多，不能倒”。
Russia’s crisis also ruined Mr Fischer’s next holiday on the Greek island of Mykonos. He had to fly back to Washington, records “The Chastening”, a book by Paul Blustein, huddled under a blanket so other passengers could not overhear his phone calls. 俄罗斯的危机也毁了费舍尔先生下一次在希腊米科诺斯岛的假期。他不得不飞回华盛顿，正如保罗·布鲁斯坦的书《教训》中记载的那样，他裹着毯子，避免其他乘客听到他的电话内容。
Mr Fischer, who died on May 31st aged 81, bore such indignities with stoical good humour. This composure, as well as his wisdom, endeared him to his peers, his staff and even the many emerging-market officials, “fear in their eyes”, who turned to the fund for help during his tenure from 1994 to 2001. They hailed from Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Brazil and Argentina, as well as Russia. The Thai central bank, which had hidden the parlous state of its foreign-exchange reserves, eventually offered to reveal the true number. But only to Mr Fischer. One head of Brazil’s central bank refused to deal with IMF staffers, whose command of economics failed to impress him. But he spoke every day to Mr Fischer, whose credentials could not be doubted. 费舍尔先生于 5 月 31 日去世，享年 81 岁，他以坚忍的幽默感承受了种种屈辱。这种镇定自若以及他的智慧，使他深受同行、员工乃至许多新兴市场官员的喜爱——这些官员“眼中带着恐惧”，在他 1994 年至 2001 年任职期间向基金寻求帮助。他们来自墨西哥、泰国、印度尼西亚、韩国、巴西和阿根廷，以及俄罗斯。泰国央行曾隐瞒其外汇储备的危急状况，最终提出向费舍尔先生透露真实数字。但仅限于费舍尔先生一人。巴西央行的一位行长拒绝与国际货币基金组织的工作人员打交道，因为他们的经济学水平未能令他信服。但他每天都会与费舍尔先生通话，因为费舍尔的资历无可置疑。
The IMF man had travelled a long way to earn those credentials. Mr Fischer grew up in Mazabuka, a small town in what is now Zambia, where his father, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, ran the general store. He won a scholarship to the London School of Economics, where he was beguiled by the technocratic promise of his new discipline: “all it would take is a bit of algebra” to solve the problems of policymaking. He earned his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he returned as a faculty member after a few years away at the University of Chicago. 国际货币基金组织的这位人士为了获得这些资历，走过了漫长的路。费舍尔先生在现在的赞比亚一个名叫马扎布卡的小镇长大，他的父亲是一位来自拉脱维亚的犹太移民，经营着一家杂货店。他获得了伦敦政治经济学院的奖学金，在那里他被新学科的技术官僚承诺所吸引：“只需一点代数”就能解决政策制定的问题。他在麻省理工学院获得博士学位，之后在芝加哥大学工作了几年，又回到麻省理工学院担任教职。
Although he had been charmed by Keynes’s “General Theory”, he saw the assault on Keynesian economics from Chicago and elsewhere as an opportunity not just a threat. He adopted the critics’ internally consistent, forward-looking models, added a dash of realism, and reached different conclusions. The critics claimed that monetary policymakers are powerless to steer output if everyone knows what they are up to. But this policy fatalism ceases to be true if wages are somewhat “sticky” or inflexible, as Mr Fischer showed in a breakthrough paper published in 1977. 尽管他曾被凯恩斯的《通论》所吸引，但他将来自芝加哥及其他地方对凯恩斯经济学的攻击视为机遇，而非威胁。他采纳了批评者内部一致、面向未来的模型，加入了一些现实主义元素，并得出了不同的结论。批评者声称，如果所有人都知道货币政策制定者的意图，货币政策制定者就无力引导产出。但费舍尔先生在 1977 年发表的一篇突破性论文中表明，如果工资具有一定的“粘性”或不灵活性，这种政策宿命论就不再成立。
With its simplicity and punch, the paper was in keeping with a vibrant tradition of MIT economics. Indeed, Mr Fischer became what economists might call a “transmission mechanism” for that tradition, co-writing two textbooks, teaching a legendary class 凭借其简洁有力的风格，这篇论文延续了麻省理工学院经济学的生动传统。事实上，费舍尔先生成为了经济学家所谓的这一传统的“传导机制”，他合著了两本教科书，教授了一门传奇课程
and advising the theses of some of the world’s most influential economists, including Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank, and Ben Bernanke, former chair of America’s Federal Reserve, where Mr Fischer himself would serve as vice-chair from 2014-17. According to Olivier Blanchard, another protégé and co-author, some of this advising would take place while jogging along the Charles river. When Mr Fischer wanted his student to slow down their presentation, he would speed up his jogging. 并指导了包括欧洲央行前行长马里奥·德拉吉和美国联邦储备委员会前主席本·伯南克在内的一些世界上最有影响力的经济学家的论文，而费舍尔先生本人也曾于 2014 年至 2017 年担任美联储副主席。另一位门徒兼合著者奥利维耶·布兰查德表示，其中一些指导工作是在查尔斯河边慢跑时进行的。当费舍尔先生希望他的学生放慢演讲速度时，他会加快自己的跑步速度。
Mr Fischer’s first foray into policymaking was seductively successful. In the 1980s he provided advice on quashing triple-digit inflation to Israel, a country close to his heart (and where he would later serve as central-bank governor). Israel cut its budget deficit, pegged its currency temporarily and raised interest rates, combined with a less orthodox wage freeze. The plan worked. Mr Fischer’s main regret was the neglect of structural reforms, such as privatising government firms, which were not essential to the rescue plan, but proved difficult to implement after it succeeded. 费舍尔先生首次涉足政策制定便取得了诱人的成功。上世纪 80 年代，他为以色列提供了抑制三位数通胀的建议，这个国家对他来说意义非凡（他后来还曾担任该国央行行长）。以色列削减了预算赤字，暂时将货币与美元挂钩并提高利率，同时采取了较为非常规的工资冻结措施。该计划奏效。费舍尔先生最大的遗憾是忽视了结构性改革，比如私有化国有企业，这些改革对救助计划并非必需，但在计划成功后实施起来却十分困难。
Crises he faced at the IMF defied similar treatment. Neither Mexico nor Thailand, which had borrowed heavily in dollars, could exit their currency peg as painlessly as Israel. Budget-tightening prescribed in Thailand and South Korea was counterproductive. Indonesia’s plan included too many structural reforms. 他在国际货币基金组织面临的危机则无法用类似方法应对。墨西哥和泰国都大量借入美元，无法像以色列那样无痛地退出货币挂钩。泰国和韩国所采取的紧缩预算措施适得其反。印度尼西亚的计划则包含了过多的结构性改革。
In some debates within the IMF, Mr Fischer had a dovish reputation. He gave his blessing to fiscal easing in Thailand and South Korea when it quickly became clear austerity was unnecessary. He understood that investors’ expectations could be self-fulfilling. Like Peter Pan, the fund often found itself trying to persuade investors to believe in rescues that could have worked if investors had only believed they would. Their failure was not in itself proof they were wrong to try. He was less worried than many of the fund’s critics about moral hazard-the argument that saving people from the consequences of their misdeeds makes future mistakes more likely. In Mr Fischer’s view, if you have to cripple a country to send a message, the message is being sent too late. 在国际货币基金组织内部的一些辩论中，费舍尔先生有着鸽派的声誉。当节俭政策显然不必要时，他支持泰国和韩国实施财政宽松。他理解投资者的预期可能会自我实现。就像彼得·潘一样，基金经常试图说服投资者相信那些本可以奏效的救助方案，只要投资者相信它们会奏效。他们的失败本身并不能证明他们尝试是错误的。他不像基金的许多批评者那样担心道德风险——即救助那些因自身错误而陷入困境的人，会使未来的错误更可能发生。在费舍尔看来，如果你必须让一个国家陷入瘫痪才能传递一个信息，那么这个信息传递得太晚了。
A dash of realism 一点现实主义
But he was no softie. He recognised that macroeconomics often requires choosing between bad options. “Whatever type of exchange-rate arrangement a country has, there will be times when it wished it had a different one,” he once said. He compiled a list of lessons from the crises he faced at the IMF, the Bank of Israel and the Fed. One was the value of what he called the “eternal verities” preached by the IMF, including the need to keep inflation and the public debt in check and to follow growth-friendly policies. 但他并非软弱无力的人。他认识到宏观经济学常常需要在糟糕的选项中做出选择。“无论一个国家采用何种汇率安排，总会有希望换成另一种的时候，”他曾这样说过。他总结了自己在国际货币基金组织、以色列银行和美联储所经历危机中的教训。其中之一是他所称的国际货币基金组织所宣扬的“永恒真理”的价值，包括控制通胀和公共债务的必要性，以及遵循有利于增长的政策。
In 1995 he paid a visit to his father’s hometown in Latvia where he saw the damage wreaked by communism, an experiment that lasted two generations and set the country back a generation, according to his calculations. A trip back to Zambia in 2000 was more encouraging. He was welcomed by the new owner of his father’s shop and saw considerable progress. It is, he reflected, “a long way from Mazabuka to the IMF”. He had crossed that vast interval. And like the hurricane lamps that once illuminated his home, he was an unstinting light even in the worst storms. 1995 年，他访问了父亲的故乡拉脱维亚，在那里他看到了共产主义造成的破坏。根据他的计算，这场持续了两代人的实验使国家倒退了一代。2000 年回到赞比亚的旅程则更令人鼓舞。他受到了父亲商店新主人的欢迎，并看到了显著的进步。他反思道，“从马扎布卡到国际货币基金组织，还有很长的路要走”。他已经跨越了这段辽阔的距离。就像曾经照亮他家的风灯一样，即使在最恶劣的风暴中，他也是一盏不灭的明灯。