第二十一封信中英文对照：

To our shareowners:

致我们的股东：

The American Customer Satisfaction Index recently announced the results of its annual survey, and for the 8th year in a row customers ranked Amazon #1. The United Kingdom has a similar index, The U.K. Customer Satisfaction Index, put out by the Institute of Customer Service. For the 5th time in a row Amazon U.K. ranked #1 in that survey. Amazon was also just named the #1 business on LinkedIn’s 2018 Top Companies list, which ranks the most sought after places to work for professionals in the United States. And just a few weeks ago, Harris Poll released its annual Reputation Quotient, which surveys over 25,000 consumers on a broad range of topics from workplace environment to social responsibility to products and services, and for the 3rd year in a row Amazon ranked #1.

美国消费者满意度指数最近公布了其年度调查结果，连续八年将Amazon排在第一名。英国的消费者服务协会（Institute of Customer Service）公布了类似的指数，即「英国消费者满意度指数」，英国Amazon连续第五次在调查中排名第一。Amazon刚刚被LinkedIn评为2018年最佳公司排行榜第一名，此榜单旨在评选美国专业人士心目中的最受欢迎公司。就在几周前，Harris Poll发布了商誉商数（Reputation Quotient），此报告对超过2.5万多名消费者进行调查，主题包含工作环境、社会责任和产品服务，Amazon连续三年在排行榜排名第一。

Congratulations and thank you to the now over 560,000 Amazonians who come to work every day with unrelenting customer obsession, ingenuity, and commitment to operational excellence. And on behalf of Amazonians everywhere, I want to extend a huge thank you to customers. It’s incredibly energizing for us to see your responses to these surveys.

祝贺我们能得到这样的成绩。感谢超过56万名Amazon员工每天都专注于客户，承诺以独创性和卓越的运营服务客户。我代表世界各地的Amazon员工，向客户表示由衷感谢。我们非常开心能收到客户的高度评价。

One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’. I see that cycle of improvement happening at a faster rate than ever before. It may be because customers have such easy access to more information than ever before – in only a few seconds and with a couple taps on their phones, customers can read reviews, compare prices from multiple retailers, see whether something’s in stock, find out how fast it will ship or be available for pick-up, and more. These examples are from retail, but I sense that the same customer empowerment phenomenon is happening broadly across everything we do at Amazon and most other industries as well. You cannot rest on your laurels in this world. Customers won’t have it.

我最喜欢客户的一点是－客户总是很不满意。他们的期待不会一成不变，而是会不断上升。这是人的本性。 我们并没有因此满足，而是不断精进自己。人们渴望会有更好的东西，昨天的「哇」很快就变成了今天的「普普通通」。我看到优化的速度比以往任何时候都快。与过去相比，客户可以更轻松地在网络上取得更多信息－只需几秒钟，轻按几下手机，客户就可以找到评论、多家零售商的价格、库存量、发货及提货时间。以上所说的是发生在零售行业的现象，但我认为我们在Amazon其他领域，甚至是其他的行业中也会发生这样的现象。在这个世界上，你不能止步于第一名，客户不会永远因此满足。

How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There’s no single way to do it – it’s a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it. We’ve had some successes over the years in our quest to meet the high expectations of customers. We’ve also had billions of dollars’ worth of failures along the way. With those experiences as backdrop, I’d like to share with you the essentials of what we’ve learned (so far) about high standards inside an organization.

你如何因应客户不断增长的期望？没办法一招吃遍天下，需要多种多样的结合。但是高标准（广泛施行且注重所有细节）无疑是其中很重要的部分。多年来，我们在满足客户的高期望方面取得了一些成功。在此过程中，我们曾损失数十亿美元。有了这些经验，我想和大家分享迄今为止我们了解的组织内高标准的基本知识。

Intrinsic or Teachable?

先天具备还是后天习得？

First, there’s a foundational question: are high standards intrinsic or teachable? If you take me on your basketball team, you can teach me many things, but you can’t teach me to be taller. Do we first and foremost need to select for “high standards” people? If so, this letter would need to be mostly about hiring practices, but I don’t think so. I believe high standards are teachable. In fact, people are pretty good at learning high standards simply through exposure. High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread. And though exposure works well to teach high standards, I believe you can accelerate that rate of learning by articulating a few core principles of high standards, which I hope to share in this letter.

首先，最基本的问题是：高标准是先天具备还是可经由后天习得？如果你带我加入篮球队，你可以教给我很多东西，但是你无法教我变得更高。我们是否首先需要选择「高标准」的人？如果是这样的话，这封信的重点将会是聘用做法，但我认为不是这样的。我相信高标准是可以后天习得的。实际上，人们很擅长通过耳濡目染学习高标准。高标准具有传染性。将一个新成员带入高标准团队，他会迅速适应。反之亦然。如果盛行的是低标准，那么那些低标准也将迅速传染。尽管耳濡目染可以很好地传播高标准，但我相信你可以透过高标准的一些核心原则来加快学习速度，这正是我希望在这封信中与大家分享的知识。

Universal or Domain Specific?

普遍适用还是仅限特定领域？

Another important question is whether high standards are universal or domain specific. In other words, if you have high standards in one area, do you automatically have high standards elsewhere? I believe high standards are domain specific, and that you have to learn high standards separately in every arena of interest. When I started Amazon, I had high standards on inventing, on customer care, and (thankfully) on hiring. But I didn’t have high standards on operational process: how to keep fixed problems fixed, how to eliminate defects at the root, how to inspect processes, and much more. I had to learn and develop high standards on all of that (my colleagues were my tutors). Understanding this point is important because it keeps you humble. You can consider yourself a person of high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or non-existent, and certainly not world class. It’s critical to be open to that likelihood.

另一个重要的问题是：高标准是普遍适用还是仅限特定领域的？换句话说，如果你在一个领域中有高标准，那么你在其他地方会自动拥有高标准吗？我认为高标准是仅限特定领域的，

你必须在每个感兴趣的领域中各自学习高标准。当我创办Amazon时，我在发明、客户服务以及招聘（好险有）方面都有很高的标准。但是我对流程没有很高的标准：如何解决常见的问题、如何从根本上消除缺陷、如何进行流程检查等等。我必须在这些方面学习和制定高标准（我的同事就像是我在这些领域的家教）。理解这一点很重要，因为它会使你更谦逊。通常，你可以认为自己是一个高标准的人，但你依然会有盲点。在所有工作领域中，你甚至可能不知道自己的标准是非常低的、肯定不是一流的。了解到这一点至关重要。

Recognition and Scope

认知与范畴

What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result – the scope.

在特定领域内达到高标准，你需要什么条件？首先，你必须能够识别在那个领域中什么才称得上「好」？其次，你必须对达到高标准的难度进行合理预期－这称为范畴。

Let me give you two examples. One is a sort of toy illustration but it makes the point clearly, and another is a real one that comes up at Amazon all the time.

让我举两个例子。一个就像是玩具的说明书，它能很好地说明了这一点。另一个是玩具本身。

Perfect Handstands

完美的倒立

A close friend recently decided to learn to do a perfect free-standing handstand. No leaning against a wall. Not for just a few seconds. Instagram good. She decided to start her journey by taking a handstand workshop at her yoga studio. She then practiced for a while but wasn’t getting the results she wanted. So, she hired a handstand coach. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but evidently this is an actual thing that exists. In the very first lesson, the coach gave her some wonderful advice. “Most people,” he said, “think that if they work hard, they should be able to master a handstand in about two weeks. The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.” Unrealistic beliefs on scope – often hidden and undiscussed – kill high standards. To achieve high standards yourself or as part of a team, you need to form and proactively communicate realistic beliefs about how hard something is going to be – something this coach understood well.

最近，我的一名好友决定学习如何完美的倒立。不能倚在墙上、不只是短短几秒。她决定透过瑜伽工作室学习倒立，以此开始自己的旅程。她练习了一段时间，但没有得到想要的结果。因此，她聘请了一名倒立教练。这显然是真实存在的实际情况。在第一堂课中，教练给她一些很棒的建议。他说：「大多数人认为，如果他们够努力，应该能够在两周内掌握倒立。但现实情况是大约需要每天练习，持之以恒六个月。如果你认为应该在两周内掌握倒立，那你最后只会放弃。」对范畴不切实际的想法（通常是隐藏且未经讨论的）扼杀了高标准。为了让自己成为高标准团队的一员，你需要主动沟通，以了解现实情况并对难度有合理预期。这位倒立教练对此理解透彻。

Six-Page Narratives

六页备忘录

We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of “study hall.” Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.

在Amazon，我们不会使用PowerPoint（或其他任何投影片展示工具）。相反，我们编写一份叙事结构的六页备忘录。在每次会议开始时，我们都会在「阅读室」中静静阅读备忘录。一点都不意外，这些备忘录的质量差距很大。有些人把备忘录写得就像是天使在歌唱。他们非常聪明，考虑到很多细节，并安排了高质量的会议讨论。有些备忘录则与之相反。

In the handstand example, it’s pretty straightforward to recognize high standards. It wouldn’t be difficult to lay out in detail the requirements of a well-executed handstand, and then you’re either doing it or you’re not. The writing example is very different. The difference between a great memo and an average one is much squishier. It would be extremely hard to write down the detailed requirements that make up a great memo. Nevertheless, I find that much of the time, readers react to great memos very similarly. They know it when they see it. The standard is there, and it is real, even if it’s not easily describable.

在倒立这个例子中，识别什么是高标准很简单。详细阐述什么是好的倒立并不难。你要么做对，要么做错。写作则没有这么显而易见的标准。一份出色的备忘录与一份平庸的备忘录的差距巨大。要列出好的备忘录的要求非常困难。尽管如此，我发现很多时候阅读者对好的备忘录的反应非常相似。他们一看到就知道这份备忘录写得很好。标准就在那里，即使不容易清晰描述，它就是真实存在的。

Here’s what we’ve figured out. Often, when a memo isn’t great, it’s not the writer’s inability to recognize the high standard, but instead a wrong expectation on scope: they mistakenly believe a high-standards, six-page memo can be written in one or two days or even a few hours, when really it might take a week or more! They’re trying to perfect a handstand in just two weeks, and we’re not coaching them right. The great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two. The key point here is that you can improve results through the simple act of teaching scope – that a great memo probably should take a week or more.

这就是我们想出的结论。通常来说，当一份备忘录不够好时，不是作者不知道什么是高标准，而是对范畴的错误期望：他们错误地认为可以在一两天内，甚至是几小时内就可以写出高标准的六页备忘录。事实上，他们实际需要一周或更长时间！他们就像是试图在短短两周内学会倒立，并我们没有正确地告诉他们、指导他们。好的备忘录写完之后可能会被重写。与同事分享写好的备忘录，然后把备忘录搁置几天，再以归零重来的心态重新整理备忘录。他们不可能在一两天内完成备忘录撰写。这里的关键点是，你可以透过学习来改善结果－学习认清事实，一份好的备忘录可能需要一周或更长时间。

Skill

技巧

Beyond recognizing the standard and having realistic expectations on scope, how about skill? Surely to write a world class memo, you have to be an extremely skilled writer? Is it another required element? In my view, not so much, at least not for the individual in the context of teams. The football coach doesn’t need to be able to throw, and a film director doesn’t need to be able to act. But they both do need to recognize high standards for those things and teach realistic expectations on scope. Even in the example of writing a six-page memo, that’s teamwork. Someone on the team needs to have the skill, but it doesn’t have to be you. (As a side note, by tradition at Amazon, authors’ names never appear on the memos – the memo is from the whole team.)

除了认清标准和范畴，那关于技巧呢？要写出一流的备忘录，你必须是一位非常熟练的作家吗？这是必要的吗？在我看来不必要，至少对于团队中的一员来说不必要。足球教练不需要射门，电影导演也不需要会演戏。但是他们都需要清楚知道这些事情的高标准为何，并就范畴提出符合实际的期待。以撰写六页备忘录为例，这也需要团队合作。团队中的某个人需要具备该技能，但不一定是你。（顺带一提，按照Amazon的传统，备忘录中永远不会出现作者个人的名字－备忘录的作者是整个团队。）

Benefits of High Standards

高标准带来的好处

Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits. Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough! Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle: a culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional.

建立高标准的文化值得付出努力，而且也有很多好处。最明显的是，你将为客户打造更好的产品和服务－这已经足够了！也许不那么明显的是：人们会被高标准吸引－这有助于招聘和留住员工。更微妙的是：高标准文化可以确保「看不见」但至关重要的工作得到良好执行。我说的是那些没有镁光灯关注的工作。在高标准的文化中，做好工作是对自己的肯定－这是成为专业人士必须具备的素质。

And finally, high standards are fun! Once you’ve tasted high standards, there’s no going back.

最后，高标准非常有趣！就像你品尝了高标准的葡萄酒之后，就再也没有回头路了。

So, the four elements of high standards as we see it: they are teachable, they are domain specific, you must recognize them, and you must explicitly coach realistic scope. For us, these work at all levels of detail. Everything from writing memos to whole new, clean-sheet business initiatives. We hope they help you too.

我们所看到的高标准，通常具备四个要素：可后天习得、仅限特定领域、需要清楚认知何谓高标准、具备明确实际的范畴。对我们来说，这些都需要在各细节层面进行。从撰写备忘录到全新的业务计划，都需要注意这四个要素。我们希望这四个要素也能帮助到你。

Insist on the Highest Standards Leaders have relentlessly high standards – many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. — from the Amazon Leadership Principles
领导者实现高标准的方法就是坚持制定高标准－即使许多人可能认为这些标准高的不合理。－来自Amazon领导力原则

Recent Milestones

最近取得的里程碑

The high standards our leaders strive for have served us well. And while I certainly can’t do a handstand myself, I’m extremely proud to share some of the milestones we hit last year, each of which represents the fruition of many years of collective effort. We take none of them for granted.

领导者追求的高标准，为我们提供很好的服务。尽管我自己无法倒立，但我非常自豪地分享我们去年取得的一些里程碑。每个里程碑代表了多年集体努力的成果。我们都不把它们视为理所当然。

• Prime – 13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally. In 2017 Amazon shipped more than five billion items with Prime worldwide, and more new members joined Prime than in any previous year – both worldwide and in the U.S. Members in the U.S. now receive unlimited free two-day shipping on over 100 million different items. We expanded Prime to Mexico, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and introduced Business Prime Shipping in the U.S. and Germany. We keep making Prime shipping faster as well, with Prime Free Same-Day and Prime Free One-Day delivery now in more than 8,000 cities and towns. Prime Now is available in more than 50 cities worldwide across nine countries. Prime Day 2017 was our biggest global shopping event ever (until surpassed by Cyber Monday), with more new Prime members joining Prime than any other day in our history.
• Prime－推出13年后，我们在全球已拥有超过1亿名付费Prime会员。2017年，Amazon在全球向会员配送了超过50亿件商品，新加入Prime的会员数量超过以往任何一年（无论是以全球或美国来说都是）。美国会员现在可以不受限制地享受两天内到货的免费服务，可配送超过1亿种不同商品。我们将Prime拓展到墨西哥、新加坡、荷兰和卢森堡，并在美国和德国引入了Business Prime Shipping。我们也不断提高Prime的配送速度，在超过8000个城镇提供Prime Free当日到货和Prime Free一日到货服务。在全球9个国家，超过50个城市中提供Prime Now。Prime Day 2017是我们有史以来最大的全球购物活动（直到被Cyber Monday超过），与历史上任何一天相比，Prime新会员的人数是最多的。
• AWS – It’s exciting to see Amazon Web Services, a $20 billion revenue run rate business, accelerate its already healthy growth. AWS has also accelerated its pace of innovation – especially in new areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and serverless computing. In 2017, AWS announced more than 1,400 significant services and features, including Amazon SageMaker, which radically changes the accessibility and ease of use for everyday developers to build sophisticated machine learning models. Tens of thousands of customers are also using a broad range of AWS machine learning services, with active users increasing more than 250 percent in the last year, spurred by the broad adoption of Amazon SageMaker. And in November, we held our sixth re:Invent conference with more than 40,000 attendees and over 60,000 streaming participants.
• AWS－令人振奋的是，营业额达200亿美元的AWS再次加速增长。AWS加快了创新步伐，尤其是在机器学习、人工智能、物联网和无服务器计算等新领域。2017年，AWS推出了超过1400种重要服务和功能，包括Amazon SageMaker，此服务从根本上改善了开发人员构建复杂的机器学习模型的易用性。数以万计的客户使用AWS机器学习服务，由于Amazon SageMaker的广泛采用，去年活跃用户增长超过250％。11月，我们举办了第六届re：Invent大会，与会者超过4万人，在线观看者超过6万名。
• Marketplace – In 2017, for the first time in our history, more than half of the units sold on Amazon worldwide were from our third-party sellers, including small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Over 300,000 U.S.-based SMBs started selling on Amazon in 2017, and Fulfillment by Amazon shipped billions of items for SMBs worldwide. Customers ordered more than 40 million items from SMBs worldwide during Prime Day 2017, growing their sales by more than 60 percent over Prime Day 2016. Our Global Selling program (enabling SMBs to sell products across national borders) grew by over 50% in 2017 and cross-border ecommerce by SMBs now represents more than 25% of total thirdparty sales.
• Marketplace－2017年，史上第一次在全球范围内售出的商品中有超过一半来自第三方卖家，包括中小企业（SMB）。2017年，超过30万个美国中小型企业在Amazon上销售商品，Amaozon会为全球中小型企业运送了数十亿件商品。2017年Prime Day期间，消费者从中小型企业订购了超过4千万件商品，与2016年Prime Day相比，销售额增长超过60％。全球销售计划（Global Selling，使中小型企业能够跨国贩卖商品）在2017年增长超过50％，如今中小企业的跨境电商交易额占第三方卖家总销售额25％以上。
• Alexa – Customer embrace of Alexa continues, with Alexa-enabled devices among the best-selling items across all of Amazon. We’re seeing extremely strong adoption by other companies and developers that want to create their own experiences with Alexa. There are now more than 30,000 skills for Alexa from outside developers, and customers can control more than 4,000 smart home devices from 1,200 unique brands with Alexa. The foundations of Alexa continue to get smarter every day too. We’ve developed and implemented an on-device fingerprinting technique, which keeps your device from waking up when it hears an Alexa commercial on TV. (This technology ensured that our Alexa Super Bowl commercial didn’t wake up millions of devices.) Far-field speech recognition (already very good) has improved by 15% over the last year; and in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, we’ve improved Alexa’s spoken language understanding by more than 25% over the last 12 months through enhancements in Alexa’s machine learning components and the use of semi-supervised learning techniques. (These semi-supervised learning techniques reduced the amount of labeled data needed to achieve the same accuracy improvement by 40 times!) Finally, we’ve dramatically reduced the amount of time required to teach Alexa new languages by using machine translation and transfer learning techniques, which allows us to serve customers in more countries (like India and Japan).
• Alexa－Alexa持续受到客户的喜爱，支持Alexa的设备遍及整个Amazon畅销榜。我们看到其他公司大力支持Alexa，与Alexa一起创造优质用户体验。现在，外部开发人员共计为Alexa提供超过3万种技术，消费者可以使用Alexa控制1200种品牌的4000多种智能家居设备。Alexa每天都在变得越来越聪明。我们已经开发并上线了一种终端指纹识别技术，可防止你的设备在听到电视上的Alexa广告时唤醒。（这项技术确保了我们的Alexa超级碗广告不会唤醒数百万个设备。）远场语音识别技术（已经非常好）去年提升了15％；在美国、英国和德国，过去12个月来，我们透过加强Alexa的机器学习组件和使用半监督学习技术，将Alexa的口语理解能力提高了25％以上。（这些半监督学习技术将同等能力提升所需的数据量减少了40倍！）最后，我们透过使用机器翻译和迁移学习技术极大地降低学习Alexa新语言所需的时间，使我们能够为更多国家（例如印度和日本）的客户提供服务。
• Amazon devices – 2017 was our best year yet for hardware sales. Customers bought tens of millions of Echo devices, and Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick with Alexa were the best-selling products across all of Amazon – across all categories and all manufacturers. Customers bought twice as many Fire TV Sticks and Kids Edition Fire Tablets this holiday season versus last year. 2017 marked the release of our all-new Echo with an improved design, better sound, and a lower price; Echo Plus with a built-in smart home hub; and Echo Spot, which is compact and beautiful with a circular screen. We released our next generation Fire TV, featuring 4K Ultra HD and HDR; and the Fire HD 10 Tablet, with 1080p Full HD display. And we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Kindle by releasing the all-new Kindle Oasis, our most advanced reader ever. It’s waterproof – take it in the bathtub – with a bigger 7” high-resolution 300 ppi display and has built-in audio so you can also listen to your books with Audible.
• Amazon devices－2017年是我们迄今为止硬件销售表现最好的一年。客户购买了数以千万计的Echo设备，而带有Alexa的Echo Dot和Fire TV Stick是Amazon所有类别和所有制造商中最畅销的商品。与去年同期相比，客户在此次假期中购买的Fire TV Stick和Kids Edition Fire Tablet的数量是去年的两倍。2017年标志着我们全新的Echo上市，改进的设计、更好的声音和更低的价。具备智能家居集线器的Echo Plus；采用圆形屏幕、小巧美观的Echo Spot。我们推出具有4K Ultra HD和HDR功能的新一代Fire TV，以及具有1080p高清显示屏的Fire HD 10 Tablet。为了庆祝Kindle 10周年，我们推出了全新的Kindle Oasis，这是迄今为止最先进的阅读器。防水－所以你可以放在浴缸里。更大的高清显示屏－7英寸300 ppi。内置音频，因此你可以直接使用Audible听书。
• Prime Video – Prime Video continues to drive Prime member adoption and retention. In the last year we made Prime Video even better for customers by adding new, award-winning Prime Originals to the service, like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, winner of two Critics’ Choice Awards and two Golden Globes, and the Oscar-nominated movie The Big Sick. We’ve expanded our slate of programming across the globe, launching new seasons of Bosch and Sneaky Pete from the U.S., The Grand Tour from the U.K., and You Are Wanted from Germany, while adding new Sentosha shows from Japan, along with Breathe and the award-winning Inside Edge from India. Also this year, we expanded our Prime Channels offerings, adding CBS All Access in the U.S. and launching Channels in the U.K. and Germany. We debuted NFL Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, with more than 18 million total viewers over 11 games. In 2017, Prime Video Direct secured subscription video rights for more than 3,000 feature films and committed over $18 million in royalties to independent filmmakers and other rights holders. Looking forward, we’re also excited about our upcoming Prime Original series pipeline, which includes Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan starring John Krasinski; King Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson; The Romanoffs, executive produced by Matt Weiner; Carnival Row starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne; Good Omens starring Jon Hamm; and Homecoming, executive produced by Sam Esmail and starring Julia Roberts in her first television series. We acquired the global television rights for a multi-season production of The Lord of the Rings, as well as Cortés, a miniseries based on the epic saga of Hernán Cortés from executive producer Steven Spielberg, starring Javier Bardem, and we look forward to beginning work on those shows this year.
• Prime Video－Prime Video继续推动Prime会员的拉新与留存。去年，我们新增了屡获殊荣的全新Prime原创作品，从而使Prime Video给用户更好的服务，例如获得两次广播影评人协会奖和两次金球奖的《The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel》，以及获得奥斯卡提名的《The Big Sick》。我们的节目编排遍及全球，包括美国的《Bosch》和《Sneaky Pete》、英国的《The Grand Tour》、德国的《You Are Wanted》、日本的《Sentosha》、印度的《Breathe》和屡获殊荣的《Inside Edge》。同样时，我们扩增了Prime Channel的内容，在美国增加了CBS All Access，并在英国和德国推出许多新频道。在Prime Video上首次播放NFL周四足球夜（Thursday Night Football），在11场比赛中总计有1800万观众观看。2017年，Prime Video Direct取得超过3000部视频的订阅版权，将会为独立电影制片人和其他版权持有者带来超过1800万美元的版税。展望未来，我们也对即将推出的Prime原创电视剧感到兴奋。Tom Clancy创作的《Jack Ryan》，将由John Krasinski主演。《King Lear》将由Anthony Hopkins和Emma Thompson主演。Matt Weiner制作的《Romanoffs》。《Carnival Row》由Orlando Bloom和Cara Delevingne主演。《Good Omens》由Jon Hamm主演。由Sam Esmail制作，并由Julia Roberts主演的电视剧《Homecoming》，这是Julia Roberts的第一部电视剧。我们取得几季电视剧《The Lord of the Rings》的全球电视转播权。由Steven Spielberg制作的《Cortés》是一部以《HernánCortés》的传奇故事为背景的迷你剧，由Javier Bardem主演。我们非常期待今年的作品。
• Amazon Music – Amazon Music continues to grow fast and now has tens of millions of paid customers. Amazon Music Unlimited, our on-demand, ad-free offering, expanded to more than 30 new countries in 2017, and membership has more than doubled over the past six months.
• Amazon Music－Amazon音乐持续增长，现在拥有数千万付费会员。我们的按需计价无广告产品Amazon Music Unlimited，在2017年扩展市场到30多个国家，过去六个月中，会员数增加了一倍以上。
• Fashion – Amazon has become the destination for tens of millions of customers to shop for fashion. In 2017, we introduced our first fashion-oriented Prime benefit, Prime Wardrobe – a new service that brings the fitting room directly to the homes of Prime members so they can try on the latest styles before they buy. We introduced Nike and UGG on Amazon along with new celebrity collections by Drew Barrymore and Dwyane Wade, as well as dozens of new private brands, like Goodthreads and Core10. We’re also continuing to enable thousands of designers and artists to offer their exclusive designs and prints on demand through Merch by Amazon. We finished 2017 with the launch of our interactive shopping experience with Calvin Klein, including pop-up shops, on-site product customization, and fitting rooms with Alexa-controlled lighting, music, and more.
• Fashion－Amazon已经成为数千万顾客购买时尚名品的地方。2017年，我们推出了第一个时尚导向的Prime优惠－Prime Wardrobe。这是一项新服务，将未购买的商品直接送到Prime会员的住处，让消费者在家就可以试穿最新的款式。我们在Amazon上引入了Nike和UGG两个品牌、Drew Barrymore和Dwyane Wade的名人系列、Goodthreads和Core10等数十个新品牌。我们还将继续引入很多位设计师和艺术家，让他们能够透过Amazon Merch提供独家设计商品。我们在2017年与Calvin Klein推出互动购物体验，包括快闪店、现场产品订制以及由Alexa控制灯光音乐的试衣间。
• Whole Foods – When we closed our acquisition of Whole Foods Market last year, we announced our commitment to making high-quality, natural and organic food available for everyone, then immediately lowered prices on a selection of best-selling grocery staples, including avocados, organic brown eggs, and responsibly-farmed salmon. We followed this with a second round of price reductions in November, and our Prime member exclusive promotion broke Whole Foods’ all-time record for turkeys sold during the Thanksgiving season. In February, we introduced free two-hour delivery on orders over $35 for Prime members in select cities, followed by additional cities in March and April, and plan continued expansion across the U.S. throughout this year. We also expanded the benefits of the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card, enabling Prime members to get 5% back when shopping at Whole Foods Market. Beyond that, customers can purchase Whole Foods’ private label products like 365 Everyday Value on Amazon, purchase Echo and other Amazon devices in over a hundred Whole Foods stores, and pick-up or return Amazon packages at Amazon Lockers in hundreds of Whole Foods stores. We’ve also begun the technical work needed to recognize Prime members at the point of sale and look forward to offering more Prime benefits to Whole Foods shoppers once that work is completed.
• Whole Foods－去年我们收购了Whole Foods超市，并承诺未来将向所有人提供高质量、天然和有机食品，同时立即降低酪梨、有机鸡蛋、责任养殖的鲑鱼等畅销杂货。随后我们在11月进行了第二轮降价，我们推出Prime会员独家促销方案，打破了Whole Foods感恩节火鸡销量的的历史记录。2月，我们为部分城市的Prime会员提供两小时到货的免费配送服务，订单金额超过35美元即可使用。随后在3月和4月将服务拓展到其他城市，今年将在整个美国范围内继续拓展。我们还增加了Amazon Prime Rewards Visa卡的优惠，Prime会员在Whole Foods购物时可获得5％的现金返还。除此之外，客户还可以在Amazon上购买Whole Foods自有品牌产品，例如365 Everyday Value，也可以在一百多家Whole Foods中购买Echo和其他Amazon电子装置，在数百家Whole Foods中的Amazon Lockers取货或退货 。我们已开始着手将Prime会员从Whole Foods顾客中识别出来，以提供他们更多的Prime会员优惠。
• Amazon Go – Amazon Go, a new kind of store with no checkout required, opened to the public in January in Seattle. Since opening, we’ve been thrilled to hear many customers refer to their shopping experience as “magical.” What makes the magic possible is a custom-built combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, which come together to create Just Walk Out shopping. With JWO, customers are able to grab their favorite breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and grocery essentials more conveniently than ever before. Some of our top-selling items are not surprising – caffeinated beverages and water are popular – but our customers also love the Chicken Banh Mi sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, cut fruit, gummy bears, and our Amazon Meal Kits.
• Amazon Go－Amazon Go是一种无需结账的新型商店，1月在西雅图开放营业。开业以来，我们很高兴听到许多顾客称这样的购物体验为「神奇」。结合计算器视觉、传感器和深度学习，使这一切从魔术成为可能，创造出拿了就走的购物体验，我们称之为Just Walk Out Shopping。透过Just Walk Out Shopping，消费者取得自己喜欢的早餐、午餐、晚餐、点心和杂货会更加方便。我们的最畅销产品是－不足为奇的咖啡因饮料和水，但他们也喜欢Chicken Banh Mi三明治、巧克力曲奇饼干、水果、小熊软糖和我们的Amazon餐包。
• Treasure Truck – Treasure Truck expanded from a single truck in Seattle to a fleet of 35 trucks across 25 U.S. cities and 12 U.K. cities. Our bubble-blowing, music-pumping trucks fulfilled hundreds of thousands of orders, from porterhouse steaks to the latest Nintendo releases. Throughout the year, Treasure Truck also partnered with local communities to lift spirits and help those in need, including donating and delivering hundreds of car seats, thousands of toys, tens of thousands of socks, and many other essentials to community members needing relief, from those displaced by Hurricane Harvey, to the homeless, to kids needing holiday cheer.
• Treasure Truck－Treasure Truck从西雅图的一辆卡车起步，扩展为横跨25个美国城市、12个英国城市，总数35辆的卡车车队。我们的吹泡泡音乐泵车服务了数十万笔订单，从丁骨牛排到最新的任天堂游戏机。Treasure Truck与当地小区合作，振作人们的精神，帮助有需要的人。捐赠和运送数百个汽车座椅、数千个玩具、数万只袜子和许多必需品。给那些因哈维飓风而流离失所者、无家可归者和需要鼓励的孩子。
• India – http://Amazon.in is the fastest growing marketplace in India, and the most visited site on both desktop and mobile, according to comScore and SimilarWeb. The http://Amazon.in mobile shopping app was also the most downloaded shopping app in India in 2017, according to App Annie. Prime added more members in India in its first year than any previous geography in Amazon’s history. Prime selection in India now includes more than 40 million local products from third-party sellers, and Prime Video is investing in India original video content in a big way, including two recent premiers and over a dozen new shows in production.
• India－根据comScore和SimilarWeb的数据，Amazon印度站是印度增长最快的第三方卖家平台，也是PC和移动设备上流量最大的网站。根据App Annie的数据，Amazon购物App是2017年印度区下载量最多的购物App。在印度推出Prime会员的第一年度，Prime会员增长数就超过了Amazon历史上的任何地方的纪录。印度的Prime商品主要来自第三方卖家，超过4000万种当地商品。Prime Video正大量投资于印度的原创内容，包括两位主要人物和十多个新节目。
• Sustainability – We are committed to minimizing carbon emissions by optimizing our transportation network, improving product packaging, and enhancing energy efficiency in our operations, and we have a long-term goal to power our global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy. We recently launched Amazon Wind Farm Texas, our largest wind farm yet, which generates more than 1,000,000 megawatt hours of clean energy annually from over 100 turbines. We have plans to host solar energy systems at 50 fulfillment centers by 2020, and have launched 24 wind and solar projects across the U.S. with more than 29 additional projects to come. Together, Amazon’s renewable energy projects now produce enough clean energy to power over 330,000 homes annually. In 2017 we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Frustration-Free Packaging, the first of a suite of sustainable packaging initiatives that have eliminated more than 244,000 tons of packaging materials over the past 10 years. In addition, in 2017 alone our programs significantly reduced packaging waste, eliminating the equivalent of 305 million shipping boxes. And across the world, Amazon is contracting with our service providers to launch our first low-pollution last-mile fleet. Already today, a portion of our European delivery fleet is comprised of low-pollution electric and natural gas vans and cars, and we have over 40 electric scooters and e-cargo bikes that complete local urban deliveries.
• Sustainability－我们致力于优化运输网络、改善产品包装和提高运营效率，最大程度地减少碳排放。我们的长期目标是使用100％可再生能源。我们最近启用了德州的Amazon风力发电场，这是我们迄今为止最大的风力发电场，100多个涡轮机能产生超过100万兆瓦时的清洁能源。我们计划2020年前在50个配送中心设置太阳能系统，在美国启动了24个风能和太阳能项目，另外还有29个即将成立的新项目。如今Amazon可再生能源项目共产生了足够33万个家庭使用的清洁能源。2017年是Frustration-Free包装计划的10周年，在过去十年此计划消除了超过24.4万吨包装材料。仅在2017年就大大减少了包装浪费，相当于减少了3.05亿个包装箱。Amazon正在与服务提供商签约，启动我们的第一个运送最后一英里的低污染车队。今天，我们在欧洲的运输车队中，已经有一部分由低污染的电动货车和天然气货车组成。我们拥有40多辆电动踏板车和电动货运自行车，可以完成当地城市运输任务。
• Empowering Small Business – Millions of small and medium-sized businesses worldwide now sell their products through Amazon to reach new customers around the globe. SMBs selling on Amazon come from every state in the U.S., and from more than 130 different countries around the world. More than 140,000 SMBs surpassed $100,000 in sales on Amazon in 2017, and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing.
• Empowering Small Business－现在，全球数以百万个的中小型企业透过Amazon贩卖商品，吸引全球新客户。在Amazon上销售的中小企业商品，来自美国的各个州和全球130多个的国家。 2017年，超过14万名中小型企业在Amazon上的销售额超过10万美元。同时，有1000多名独立创作者透过Kindle Direct Publishing的版权费赚到超过10万美元。
• Investment & Job Creation – Since 2011, we have invested over $150 billion worldwide in our fulfillment networks, transportation capabilities, and technology infrastructure, including AWS data centers. Amazon has created over 1.7 million direct and indirect jobs around the world. In 2017 alone, we directly created more than 130,000 new Amazon jobs, not including acquisitions, bringing our global employee base to over 560,000. Our new jobs cover a wide range of professions, from artificial intelligence scientists to packaging specialists to fulfillment center associates. In addition to these direct hires, we estimate that Amazon Marketplace has created 900,000 more jobs worldwide, and that Amazon’s investments have created an additional 260,000 jobs in areas like construction, logistics, and other professional services.
• Investment & Job Creation－自2011年以来，我们已在全球投资超过1500亿美元在配送网络、运输功能和基础设施（包括AWS数据中心）上。Amazon在全球直接或间接创造超过170万个工作机会。仅在2017年，我们就直接创造了超过13万个新的工作机会（不包括收购），我们的全球员工总数因此超过56万人。我们的新工作涵盖了领域很广泛，从人工智能科学家、包装专家到配送中心员工。除了这些直接聘雇人员，我们估计Amazon在全球间接创造了90万个个工作机会。Amazon在建筑、物流和其他专业服务的投资一共创造了26万个工作机会。
• Career Choice – One employee program we’re particularly proud of is Amazon Career Choice. For hourly associates with more than one year of tenure, we pre-pay 95% of tuition, fees, and textbooks (up to $12,000) for certificates and associate degrees in high-demand occupations such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, and nursing. We fund education in areas that are in high demand and do so regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Globally more than 16,000 associates (including more than 12,000 in the U.S.) have joined Career Choice since the program launched in 2012. Career Choice is live in ten countries and expanding to South Africa, Costa Rica, and Slovakia later this year. Commercial truck driving, healthcare, and information technology are the program’s most popular fields of study. We’ve built 39 Career Choice classrooms so far, and we locate them behind glass walls in high traffic areas inside our fulfillment centers so associates can be inspired by seeing their peers pursue new skills.
• Career Choice－我们特别引以为傲的计划就是职业选择计划（Career Choice）。对于任职时间超过一年的员工，我们预付95％的学杂费和教科书费用（最高1.2万元），为员工取得高要求职业证书（例如飞机修护师、计算器辅助设计、机器技术、医疗科技和护理）的证书和副学士学位。我们提供教育资金给需求量很大的地区，无论这些技能是否与员工在Amazon的职务相关都可以获得资助。自2012年推出此计划，全球已有1.6万名员工（包括美国的1.2万多名）加入职业选择计划。职业选择计划在10个国家实行，将于今年内拓展至南非、哥斯达黎加和斯洛伐克。商用卡车驾驶、医疗保健和IT技术是此计划最受欢迎的研究领域。到目前为止，我们已经建立了39个职业选择计划教室，它们位于配送中心最繁忙的区域，员工可以透过玻璃墙看到其他同事追求新技能，进而受到启发。

The credit for these milestones is deserved by many. Amazon is 560,000 employees. It’s also 2 million sellers, hundreds of thousands of authors, millions of AWS developers, and hundreds of millions of divinely discontent customers around the world who push to make us better each and every day.

这些里程碑确实值得赞扬。Amazon有56万名员工、200万名卖家、成千上万的作者、数百万AWS开发人员以及世界各地成千上万名需求未被满足的顾客，他们每天都在努力使我们变得更好。

Path Ahead

前方的路

This year marks the 20th anniversary of our first shareholder letter, and our core values and approach remain unchanged. We continue to aspire to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, and we recognize this to be no small or easy challenge. We know there is much we can do better, and we find tremendous energy in the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

今年距离第一封致股东信刚好满20周年，我们的核心价值观和做事方法依旧不变。我们渴望成为地球上最以顾客为中心的公司。我们知道到这绝非易事，我们还有很多可以做得更好的地方。在即将到来的众多挑战和机遇中，我们看到巨大的潜力与活力。

A huge thank you to each and every customer for allowing us to serve you, to our shareowners for your support, and to Amazonians everywhere for your ingenuity, your passion, and your high standards.

非常感谢每个客户让我们为你提供服务，感谢我们的股东的支持，也感谢所有Amazon员工的勤奋、热情和高标准。

As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. It remains Day 1.

如同往常，我把我们在1997年写的致股东信附在文末。我们的价值观依然不变，今天依旧是Day 1。

Sincerely,

Jeffrey P. Bezo

真诚的

杰夫·贝佐斯

Jeffrey P. Bezos

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Amazon.com, Inc.

杰夫·贝佐斯

Amazon创始人暨CEO

我的想法

贝索斯说，他要感谢客户的不满意，顾客渴望更好的东西，让他们不断迭代，打造一个高标准的公司。

那怎么才能高标准呢，这里说了4个点。

1. 高标准是后天习得的。 高标准具有传染性，将一个新成员带入高标准团队，他会迅速适应。 其实低标准也是，公司就是大染缸，不被染的人很少。
2. 高标准仅限特定领域。 其实这很好理解，不可能人在所有领域都坚持高标准。
3. 高标准需要有清楚的认知。很多人不知道自己的标准是很低的，也不知道在领域里面什么是好。
4. 高标准有明确的范畴。 知道这事需要多久才能达到预期的期望。

贝索斯还举了一个例子，大多数人认为，他们努力，可以2周之内学习倒立。但是，现实情况是需要每天练习，六个月才能掌握。 这是因为你开始对这个事情的认知就不到位，充满了不切实际的想法，导致你不可能高标准，有了认知之后就会制定合理的预期。

高标准的好处

高标准可以为客户打造更好的产品和服务。最重要的一点是，高标准的文化可以确保看不见但是至关重要的工作可以得到良好的执行。