SAN FRANCISCO — Uber CEO Travis Kalanick honored his controversial ride-sharing service at an event on Wednesday with surprisingly humble words to celebrate its five year anniversary.
三藩市報道：在上周三（6月3日）的一次公開活動，Uber公司的執(zhí)行總裁Travis Kalanick，以異常謙虛的致辭褒獎了他備受爭議的駕駛共享服務(wù)，慶祝公司創(chuàng)立五周年。

During the media event, the 38-year-old entrepreneur recalled how his business — now worth $50 billion — was born out of a conversation sparked in Paris with co-founder Garrett Camp, and how, in the early days, they barely had enough money "to keep the lights on." Kalanick acknowledged his mother in the audience and waxed poetic about a not-so-distant future: a world where transportation, goods and services are 5 minutes away, deliverable at the "touch of a button."
在本次的媒體見面會中，這一位38歲的企業(yè)家回憶了他的企業(yè)——如今市值500億美元的公司，如何從一次在巴黎與合作伙伴Garrett Camp交談中的靈光一現(xiàn)，到早些日子，他們幾乎沒有資金去維持這項事業(yè)的運行。Kalanick在受訪中感謝他的母親，并描繪出一個不遠的將來的景象：世界上所有的交通，物品以及服務(wù)都只需要通過“點擊按鈕”，就能在5分鐘內(nèi)完成傳遞。

"I can come off as a fierce advocate for Uber," he said. "I also realize that some have used a different 'A' word to describe me. I’ll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect and neither is this company."
“我能表現(xiàn)得像一名Uber的狂熱追隨者，”他表示，“我同時也意識到有些追隨者用不一樣的“A”來形容我，首先我要承認的是，我并不完美，我的公司也是。”

When I first met Kalanick in January 2012, Uber wasn't so polished, so much as frat-like. The service was just in eight cities then — a far cry from the 300 cities it is in now. Its haphazard offices occupied the top floor of a small building in San Francisco's shopping district — not the sleek, sprawling 200,000 square foot headquarters it inhabits today. And Kalanick wasn’t yet the buttoned-up leader recalling Uber's birth as a sweet Parisian brainstorm.
當筆者在2012年1月份與Kalanick的初次見面的時候，Uber并不完善，更多的像一個兄弟會。打車服務(wù)當時只限于8個城市，跟如今的縱橫300個城市天壤之別。隨機的辦公室坐落在三藩市商務(wù)區(qū)的一間小房屋的頂樓，而不是如今井然有條、覆蓋200,000平方英尺的總部。并且在當時，Kalanick還不能把Uber的創(chuàng)立看作美妙的巴黎頭腦風(fēng)暴。

“In the beginning, it was a lifestyle company," Kalanick told me then, tossing a mini-NERF football around in a red Radio Shack shirt, faded jeans and sneakers. The gray-haired entrepreneur liked to punctuate his sentences with a wide grin and brief pause, letting his words sink in.
“在公司起步的時候，營業(yè)方向還只是生活時尚，”Kalanick當時告訴筆者，當時他還穿著無線電公司的紅色襯衫，褪色的牛仔褲和球鞋，腳上玩弄著迷你汽車輪胎做成的足球。這位白發(fā)的企業(yè)家很喜歡露齒并短暫的停頓來中斷自己的句子，以便別人把自己的話聽進去。

"You push a button and a black car comes up," he added. "I mean,?who’s?the baller? It was a baller move to get a black car to arrive in eight minutes.”
“你按了一個按鈕，結(jié)果來了一輛黑車，”他補充道，“我的意思是，‘誰’是開黑車的人？就是那個去取一輛黑車，然后在8分鐘后到達的人。

Kalanick could be so determined, a former girlfriend of his told me he spent one International CES sleeping in a rented van and taking hobo baths — washing himself in a public sink — at a Mandarin Oriental hotel nearby.
Kalanick這么堅定，他的一位前女友告訴筆者，他曾經(jīng)在國際電子展上的一輛出租貨車上睡了一晚還洗了個流浪漢澡——在公共的澡堂里洗澡——就在附近的文華東方酒店。

"Don't let the gray hair fool you: he's like this tireless kid, always coming back for more," she said.
“別讓白頭發(fā)耍了你：他就像一個不知疲倦的小孩，總是回來要求更多的東西。”她說道。

Others who worked with him at previous companies had mixed things to say. But there was a clear takeaway: he was a smart, numbers crunching geek who could also be an uncompromising businessman.
還有一些曾經(jīng)在以前的公司與他一起工作的同事有不同的說法。但他們都一致同意：他是一個聰明的，喜歡咀嚼數(shù)字的怪咖，也是一名不愿妥協(xié)的商人。

In 2001, he co-founded Red Swoosh — a file-sharing system for corporate clients — which he referred to as a “revenge business.” He wanted Hollywood litigants who sued his previous?startup, a multimedia search engine called Scour, to pay for a similar technology. Why??
在2001年，他與別人共同創(chuàng)辦了Red Swoosh——一個為公司客戶所開放的文件共享系統(tǒng)，被他稱為“復(fù)仇產(chǎn)業(yè)”。他希望那位起訴他之前的公司，一個名為Scour的多媒體搜索引擎的好萊塢訴訟人，能夠付出類似的技術(shù)代價。為什么呢？

"I like pissing people off," Kalanick said back in 2012. "I like shaking things up in an old industry and making something new and different."?
“我喜歡惹別人生氣，”Kalanick在2012年的時候表示?！拔蚁矚g在舊的公司里改變一些東西去創(chuàng)造一些新的不一樣的東西。”

Mission accomplished. Since its launch, Uber has transformed transportation, upending decades of crusty taxi regulation and transforming the way people get around. In cities like San Francisco now, locals don't take cabs, anymore — they eitherUber?or Lyft.
任務(wù)完成。自從它的營業(yè)運行，Uber已經(jīng)改變的交通方式，使得一成不變的打車體制得到了歷史性的轉(zhuǎn)變，改善了人們出行的方式。就像在三藩市這樣的城市，當?shù)厝藗円呀?jīng)不再呼叫出租車了，他們使用Uber或Lyft。

Credit Kalanick's anti-establishment attitude for the company's rapid growth, too. Uber launched in new markets and dealt with the consequences later. Kalanick welcomed controversy, egging on regulators in Washington D.C. and elsewhere like a man with six months to live.
在這里也要贊揚一下Kalanick對公司快速發(fā)展的反建制的態(tài)度。Uber隨后就在新的市場并處理了新的事情。Kalanick開放接納不同的意見，敦促華盛頓以及其他地區(qū)的監(jiān)督者修改體制，就像他只剩下6個月生存的時間一樣。

But when you're a company reportedly valued at $50 billion, rebelliousness stops being cute, and the public becomes far less forgiving.
但當你的公司被公告出市值500億美元的時候，反動的聲音就不再友善，公眾也就越來越無法原諒你的錯誤。

Bad publicity soon caught up with Uber. The service got flack over cutthroat tactics with rival Lyft. Last November, an Uber executive caused a ruckus when he off-handedly suggested Uber conduct opposition research to dig up dirt on its critics.
負面的宣傳很快就侵襲了Uber。這些服務(wù)因惡性的商業(yè)宣傳手段和競爭對手Lyft造成了負面的宣傳效果。去年11月，Uber的一名行政人員的不經(jīng)意的言論，建議Uber進行對手調(diào)查挖掘負面消息造成了騷動。

There were also reports that drivers sexually harassed or assaulted female passengers and allegations of discrimination against blind and wheelchair-using riders. And partnerships, like the one announced in March with U.N. Women, fell apart, ostensibly over such allegations.
也有報告表明司機對女乘客進行性騷擾或性侵犯，甚至還有明確歧視失明人員和傷殘人士的斷言。至于合作關(guān)系，就像3月份在聯(lián)合國婦女事務(wù)機構(gòu)所宣稱的，在這些言論的壓力之下只是表明上的斷絕關(guān)系。

So it's no surprise then Uber is working hard on cleaning up its image with initiatives like an updated Uber app that caters to deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers, Uber Military, which enlists service members, veterans and military spouses as drivers, and now Wednesday's media event. For drivers, these initiatives are a win, even if the timing is convenient for Uber.
所以毫無疑問的Uber正努力地為公司形象洗白它的形象，從主動更新的手機應(yīng)用Uber以迎合失聰或聽覺障礙的司機，到Uber Military，把士兵，退休軍人以及軍屬的名單如同司機的名單列出來，在到本次的媒體見面會。對于司機來說，這些積極性的舉措對他們來說就已經(jīng)贏了，即使在時機上Uber占據(jù)了便利。

What's somewhat harder to accept is a humbler Kalanick and softer, nicer Uber so soon after months of negative publicity. Genuine atonement usually takes much longer.
有點難以接受的是，在數(shù)月負面宣傳后的Kalanick變得更謙虛了，Uber也更便利更人性化了。但是真正的贖罪需要更長的時間來完成。