精英逆襲,達人戰勝專家的年代

The experts keep getting it wrong. And the oddballs keep getting it right.

專家總是弄錯，怪人卻總能碰對。

Over the past five years of business history, two events have shocked and transformed the nation. In 2007 and 2008, the housing market crumbled and the financial system collapsed, causing trillions of dollars of losses. Around the same time, a few little-known wildcatters began pumping meaningful amounts of oil and gas from U.S. shale formations. A country that once was running out of energy now is on track to become the world's leading producer.

在過去五年的商業史上，有兩大事件震撼和改變了美國。在2007年和2008年，住房市場崩潰，金融體系瓦解，釀成數萬億美元損失。而差不多在同一時間，一些不知名的投機勘探者卻開始從美國頁岩層中開採出數量可觀的石油和天然氣。美國這個能源曾幾近告竭的國家如今正向全球主要能源生產國邁進。

What's most surprising about both events is how few experts saw them coming -- and that a group of unlikely outsiders somehow did. Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke failed to foresee the financial meltdown. Top banking executives were stunned, and leading investors such as Bill Gross, Jim Chanos and George Soros didn't fully anticipate the downturn.

這兩大事件最讓人驚訝的地方是，準確預見事態發展的專家寥寥無幾――而一羣不大可能的圈外人卻做出了正確的預期。美國聯邦儲備委員會(Federal Reserve, 簡稱Fed)主席阿蘭?格林斯潘和本?貝南克沒能預見金融危機。銀行業頂級高管驚得目瞪口呆，比爾?格羅斯(Bill Gross)、吉姆?查諾斯(Jim Chanos) 和喬治?索羅斯等頂尖投資者也沒能完全預料到經濟的衰退。

The big winners were people like John Paulson, an expert in mergers who only began researching housing in 2006 and scored a record $20 billion for his hedge fund. Jeffrey Greene, a Los Angeles playboy who partied with Paris Hilton, made $500 million predicting housing troubles.

大贏家是像約翰?鮑爾森(John Paulson)這樣的人，他是一位併購專家，2006年纔開始研究住房市場，但他爲自己麾下的對衝基金賺得創紀錄的200億美元。與帕麗斯?希爾頓(Paris Hilton)往來甚密的洛杉磯花花公子傑弗裏?格林(Jeffrey Greene)因預見住房市場危機而賺得5億美元。

In 2006, Andrew Lahde was an out-of-work 35-year-old stuck in a cramped one-bedroom apartment; then he made tens of millions of dollars betting against subprime mortgages. So did Michael Burry, a doctor-turned-stock investor in northern California with Asperger's syndrome.

2006年，35歲的安德魯?拉赫德(Andrew Lahde)住在一套只有一個臥室的狹小公寓裏，沒有工作；後來他通過做空次級抵押貸款賺得數千萬美元。同樣大賺特賺的還有北加州的邁克爾?伯裏(Michael Burry)，他以前是醫生，後來改行做了股票投資人，患有亞斯伯格綜合症(Asperger's syndrome)。

Wall Street talks up the importance of being contrarian. But in 2007, most traders subscribed to the mantra that the Fed wouldn't let housing crumble or that the boom would continue, while others couldn't find a good way to short subprime mortgages. They left it for the amateurs to figure out.

華爾街會大談反向操作的重要性。但2007年多數交易員都篤信Fed不會放任住房市場崩潰，他們還堅信市場的繁榮局面會持續下去，另一些交易員則找不到做空次級抵押貸款的好辦法。於是他們任由圈外人去絞盡腦汁。

Less well known, but no less dramatic, is the story of America's energy transformation, which took the industry's giants almost completely by surprise. In the early 1990s, an ambitious Chevron executive named Ray Galvin started a group to drill compressed, challenging formations of shale in the U.S. His team was mocked and undermined by dubious colleagues. Eventually, Chevron pulled the plug on the effort and shifted its resources abroad.

沒那麼廣爲人知，但一樣充滿戲劇性的是美國能源產業的變革之路，這一過程可以說是完全出乎行業巨頭的意料。在20世紀90年代初，雪佛龍一位名叫拉伊?加爾溫(Ray Galvin)的雄心勃勃的高管組建了一個團隊，試圖在美國對富有挑戰性的緊硬頁岩層進行開採。他的團隊受到將信將疑的同事的嘲笑和打擊。最終，雪佛龍叫停了頁岩氣開採，將能源重心轉移到了國外。

Exxon Mobil also failed to focus on this rock -- even though its corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas, were directly above a huge shale formation that eventually would flow with gas. Later, it would pay $31 billion to buy a smaller shale pioneer.

埃克森美孚也沒能關注頁岩氣開採――儘管該公司位於德克薩斯州歐文(Irving)的總部正下方就是一個最終開掘出天然氣的巨大頁岩層。該公司後來以310億美元收購了一家規模較小、開創頁岩氣開採先河的公司。

'I would be less than honest if I were to say to you [that] we saw it all coming, because we did not, quite frankly,' Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil's chairman and CEO said last year in an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations.

埃克森美孚董事長兼首席執行長雷克斯?蒂勒森(Rex Tillerson)去年在美國外交關係委員會接受採訪時表示：“如果我對大家說，我們預計到了頁岩氣時代的來臨，那我就太不誠實了，因爲坦率地說我們並沒有預見到。”

In 2003, Alan Greenspan warned that the nation's gas fields were running dry and urged Congress to back costly facilities to import gas. Famed investors Warren Buffett and Henry Kravis invested in a record-setting utility-company buyout in 2007, wagering that a dearth of U.S. natural gas would send prices higher. Instead, the U.S. has so much cheap natural gas today that it is set to export it. The country is also pumping 7.9 million barrels of oil a day, up more than 50% since 2006 and the most in nearly 25 years.

2003年，格林斯潘警告稱，美國的天然氣田即將枯竭，他敦促國會支持興建昂貴的設施以進口天然氣。著名投資者沃倫?巴菲特和亨利?克拉維斯(Henry Kravis) 2007年對一樁價格創紀錄的公共事業公司股權收購交易進行了投資，他們押注美國天然氣的緊缺會推高價格。但事實卻是，美國如今擁有大量便宜的天然氣，不僅能滿足國內需求，而且有望出口。此外，美國一天可產790萬桶石油，較2006年增產逾50%，爲近25年來最高水平。

The resurgence in U.S. energy came from a group of brash wildcatters who discovered techniques to hydraulically fracture -- or frack -- and horizontally drill shale and other rock. Many of these men operated on the fringes of the oil industry, some without college degrees or much background in drilling, geology or engineering.

美國能源行業的復甦要歸功於一批自負的投機勘探者，是他們首創了水力壓裂以及頁岩和其他岩石的橫向 探技術。這其中許多人從事的是石油行業的邊緣領域，一些人並沒有大學學位，也沒有什麼 探、地質學或工程背景。

In the late 1990s, George Mitchell, the son of a Greek goatherder, ran a midsize Houston-based company with shrinking natural-gas production. His stock price was falling, the industry was on its back, the 79-year-old had been diagnosed with cancer and his wife was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In almost two decades of trying, his men had not been able to coax enough natural gas from Mitchell Energy's Texas shale fields. But in 1998, one of Mr. Mitchell's engineers finally figured out how to properly fracture shale, stunning colleagues and larger competitors while launching the American energy revolution.

20世紀90年代末，希臘牧羊人的兒子喬治?米切爾(George Mitchell)在休斯敦經營一家名爲米切爾能源（Mitchell Energy）的中型公司，當時這家公司面臨天然氣產量不斷減少的局面。公司股價在下跌，整個行業都在走下坡路，79歲的米切爾被診斷出癌症，他的妻子則患有早期阿爾茨海默病(Alzheimer's disease)。經過近20年的嘗試，米切爾手下員工仍未能從該公司位於德克薩斯州的頁岩田中開採出充足的天然氣。但到了1998年，米切爾手下一名工程師最終找到了壓裂頁岩的適當方法，這件事爲美國能源革命拉開了序幕，震驚了同行及更大的競爭對手。

Harold Hamm grew up dirt-poor in a tiny town in Oklahoma. He began school around Christmas-time each year, once it became too cold to pick cotton, and he started his career raking out oil tanks. Over the past six years, Mr. Hamm and his company have discovered so much oil in North Dakota that he is now worth $14 billion. Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward of Oklahoma were land-leasing specialists; they managed to build the nation's second-largest gas producer by leading the charge into shale fields. Charif Souki, a Lebanese immigrant and former restaurateur who knew more about fajitas than fracking, today runs Cheniere Energy, a Houston-based company that is on track to become the first to export gas from the contiguous U.S.

哈羅德?哈姆(Harold Hamm)成長於俄克拉荷馬州(一個小鎮，家裏窮得叮噹響。他每年從 誕節前後開始上學，因爲這時候天冷得不能摘棉花了。哈姆最初做的是清理油罐的工作。在過去六年裏，哈姆和他的公司在北達科他州發現了非常多的石油，現在他的身價高達140億美元。俄克拉荷馬州的奧佈雷?麥克倫登(Aubrey McClendon)和湯姆?沃德(Tom Ward)是從事土地租賃的專業人士；作爲頁岩氣領域的先行者，他們成功地建起了美國第二大天然氣生產商。相比水力壓裂，黎巴嫩移民、曾爲餐館老闆的謝里夫?蘇基(Charif Souki)更熟悉墨西哥烤肉，但如今他經營總部位於休斯敦的公司Cheniere Energy，該公司有望成爲第一家從美國本土出口天然氣的公司。

Bucking conventional wisdom is always risky, and many would-be mavericks in finance and the energy industry have failed. But corporate caution and complacency have their costs too, and today's emphasis on short-term performance means that executives are even less likely to take long-term risks, to anticipate the unexpected. For the next great business revolution, it would be smart to bet once again on stubborn, flamboyant dreamers.

挑戰傳統智慧總是充滿風險的，在金融和能源行業，許多想要特立獨行的人都失敗了。但一些企業的謹慎和自大也是有代價的，如今，對短期業績的強調導致企業高管越發不願承擔長期風險和麪對意外情況。在下一場商業大革命中，明智的做法是再度押注執着、自負的夢想家。