Schumpeter
熊彼特
Does Perplexity’s “answer engine” threaten Google?
Perplexity的“答案引擎”威胁到谷歌了吗？
Taking aim at one of the best business models of all times
剑指史上数一数二的商业模式
WHEN ARAVIND SRINIVAS was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley, to do a PhD, his mother was disappointed. Like many Indian parents, she wanted him to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But things worked out after all; on the west coast he interned at OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, both of which became leaders in generative artificial intelligence (AI). With that experience, he co-founded Perplexity, a generative-AI startup recently valued at $1bn that provides fast, Wikipedia-like responses to search queries. He is an unassuming interviewee, but an ambitious one. His “answer engine” is aimed at competing with Google search, one of the best business models of all time. Think Martin Luther taking on the Catholic church.
阿拉温德·斯里尼瓦（Aravind Srinivas）被加州大学伯克利分校录取攻读博士学位时，他的母亲感到失望。和许多印度父母一样，她希望儿子能入读麻省理工学院。但这最终无碍斯里尼瓦走上康庄大道：在美国西海岸，他曾进入OpenAI和谷歌的DeepMind实习，两者后来都成为生成式AI的领导者。凭借这些经验，斯里尼瓦与他人联合创办了Perplexity，这家提供类似维基百科的快速搜索查询的生成式AI创业公司最近拿到了10亿美元的估值。在接受采访时，斯里尼瓦显得平易近人，但也雄心勃勃。他的“答案引擎”要挑战的是谷歌搜索这一史上数一数二的成功商业模式。想想当年马丁·路德是怎么挑战天主教会的。
- 拓展学习：熟词僻义 | 经济学人的 Leaders 栏目是讲各国领导人的吗？
- 拓展学习：熟词僻义 | fast 是一种什么饮食方式？
- ambitious 形容人“有野心的、有强烈欲望的、有志向抱负的、雄心勃勃的”（参见：小词详解 | ambitious）
Mr Srinivas is a student of disruption. When a podcaster asked him recently to compare the cultures of OpenAI and DeepMind, he explained how the engineer-led, free-wheeling approach of the former disrupted what he called the research-obsessed “very British” hierarchy of the latter (which was founded in London). He resorts to disruption theory when discussing Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Rather than explaining how Perplexity’s business model will enable it to attack the search giant, he uses a celebrated concept outlined in “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, a management bestseller from 1997 by Clayton Christensen, to identify what he sees as Alphabet’s Achilles heel. He is not alone. The innovator’s dilemma has been invoked to explain why Google is threatened by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and by other generative-AI sites such as You.com. The argument is seductive. But it is off the mark.
斯里尼瓦深受颠覆理念的熏陶。最近有一位播客主持人问他OpenAI和DeepMind在文化上有何异同，他解释道，前者由工程师主导的自由放任文化颠覆了后者执着于研究的“非常英国式”的等级文化（DeepMind在伦敦创立）。在讨论谷歌母公司Alphabet时，他也使用了颠覆理论。他没有解释Perplexity的商业模式将何以能攻击谷歌这一搜索巨头，而是援引了克莱顿·克里斯滕森（Clayton Christensen）在1997年出版的畅销管理书《创新者的窘境》（The Innovator’s Dilemma）中阐述的这个著名概念，以指出他认为Alphabet存在的致命弱点。这不是他的独家观点。之前也有人以“创新者的窘境”来解释谷歌为何受到OpenAI的ChatGPT以及You.com等其他生成式AI网站的威胁。这个说法很吸引人，但并不准确。
- obsess 指幻想、定见等“迷住、使着迷、使痴迷、使迷恋、使心神不宁”（参见：小词详解 | obsess）
- dilemma 泛指进退两难的“窘境、困境”（参见：小词详解 | dilemma）
