在硅谷和华尔街，有一件事几乎人人都深信不疑，那就是如果哪天社交网站Facebook进行首次公开募股，那么公司创始人兼首席执行长马克•扎 克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)笃定将跻身全球最富有的20人之列。
Most everyone in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street agrees: The eventual IPO of social-networking site Facebook could make its founder the world's richest twenty-something.
不过，现年25岁的扎克伯格似乎想让百亿美元推迟到帐。
Yet Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, now 25, seems intent on deferring that multibillion dollar payday.
他一直在和英特尔(Intel)首席执行长保罗•奥特里尼(Paul Otellini)、甲骨文公司(Oracle Co.)总裁查尔斯•菲利浦斯(Charles Phillips)碰面，讨教如何更好地管理他这家独立的公司。扎克伯格建立了双重投票机制，使得自己日后不会太多受到其他普通股东的影响。去年，当员工 开始要求更多的回报时，他设法兑现了他们手中部分Facebook股票，而没有走IPO这条路。
He's huddled with executives like Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Oracle Corp. President Charles Phillips-the goal being to extract wisdom about how to better run his independent company. He set up a dual-class voting structure that would make him less beholden to any public shareholders. And last year, when staffers began itching for richer rewards, he devised a way for them to cash in some of their Facebook stock-without pushing the IPO button.
扎克伯格在近期一个采访中说，Facebook最终会上市的，因为我们和投资者以及员工签有这样的合同；但是我们肯定不会急于上市。
'We're going to go public eventually, because that's the contract that we have with our investors and our employees,' Mr. Zuckerberg said during a recent interview. But, he added, 'we are definitely in no rush.'
虽然投资界寄希望于Facebook引领硅谷IPO市场复苏，但扎克伯格明确表示自己不会理会这一点。
Despite hopes in the investment community that Facebook could herald a revival in the Silicon Valley IPO market, Mr. Zuckerberg has made it clear that he won't be dictated to.
与此同时，从他的延迟薪酬策略中多少能够看出日后作为上市公司的Facebook将会怎样。该薪酬制度还表明，扎克伯格在平衡公众持股和自己对 创新及财政控制的追求方面很可能面临挑战。
At the same time, his delayed-gratification approach offers some insights into what a publicly traded Facebook might eventually look like. It also highlights some of the challenges Mr. Zuckerberg is apt to face in balancing public ownership with his zeal for tight creative and financial control.
人称扎克(Zuck)的扎克伯格住在加州帕洛阿尔托市一栋不张扬的房子里，常常步行上班。员工说他是个要求多多的老板，他喜欢参与讨论，但对于 员工个人吝于赞美。据一位撰写了题为《与扎克共事》(Working with Zuck)内部备忘录的工程师说，期待扎克承认你在推动讨论方面发挥了作用是不明智的，把产品做好就算是回报了。
Zuck, as he's known to most, lives in a modest house in Palo Alto and often walks to the office. Employees say he's a demanding boss-one who loves to engage in debate but isn't big on lavishing individual praise. According to one engineer, who wrote an internal memo called 'Working with Zuck,' it is unwise to 'expect acknowledgment for your role in moving the discussion forward; getting the product right should be its own reward.'
对于这位年轻的首席执行长来说，拥有4亿用户的Facebook并非又一个在文化层面发挥作用的科技齿轮。他相信公司承诺提供的服务将使人们有 更大的能力在任何时间和任何人就任何事情展开交流，无论是通过网站、手机还是网游。
To the young CEO, Facebook, with its 400-million-plus users, is more than just another tech cog in the cultural landscape. The company's promise, he believes, has to do with facilitating people's ability to share almost any and everything with anyone, at any time-via Web sites, mobile phones, even videogames.
他说，在这个强制交流的年代，使事情变得更加开放的力量或许是最有强大、最能带来变革的社会改变，能够避免战争等事件的发生。扎克伯格 说，Facebook或许是真正引领这一趋势的公司，现在还不清楚其他人是否能正确处理这一问题。
In an era of obsessive communication, 'this push towards things becoming more open is probably the most powerful and transformative social change' barring an event such as war, he says. 'We may be the company that really leads this movement....It's not clear that anyone else is going to manage it correctly.'
扎克伯格的雄心壮志一点不输此前诸多科技业巨子。苹果公司(Apple Inc.)首席执行长乔布斯(Steve Jobs)在80年代初就宣布Macintosh将给计算机行业带来革命。谷歌(Google Inc.)创始人则宣布他们的搜索引擎将组织起全世界的信息。
Mr. Zuckerberg fits into a long queue of tech barons with grand ambitions. Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs in the early 1980s proclaimed that the Macintosh would revolutionize computing. Google Inc.'s founders boasted that its search engine would 'organize all the world's information.'
不过，和这些前辈不同的是，扎克伯格无需巨额现金来兴建工厂、铺设全球分销体统，甚至连大规模营销机制的建立都无需投入真金白银。扎克伯格说， 如果你不需要资本，那么你肩上的压力就会完全不一样了，上市的目的也会不一样。
But unlike some of his predecessors, Mr. Zuckerberg doesn't need huge cash reserves to build factories, a global distribution system or even a massive marketing machine. 'If you don't need that capital, then all the pressures are different, and the motivations [to go public] are not there in the same way,' Mr. Zuckerberg says.
扎克伯格的使命随时间不断调整。2004年，当他还未从哈佛大学退学时，他在宿舍创建了Facebook，他当时把这作为常春藤(Ivy League)大学学子间交流的工具。除了能以交友的方式联络他人之外，用户还可以互传文字和图片，不过这才刚刚是开始。
The mission has modulated over time. At Harvard, where Mr. Zuckerberg founded the company from a dorm room in 2004 before dropping out, he saw Facebook as a way for Ivy League buddies to socialize. Photo and message swapping-along with the ability to connect with others by 'friending' them-was just the beginning.
如今，Facebook正忙着开发一个工具，让用户可以通过网站来分享自己驻地的具体地理信息。公司还才在测试其他功能，比如让用户使用某种自 有货币向网上店家付费等。
Today, Facebook is busy working on a tool to let users share information about their physical whereabouts through the site. Other features, like allowing people to pay online vendors with some sort of proprietary currency, are in the test phases.
作为一位从微观着眼的管理者，扎克伯格现在已经减少了自己的会议时间，把这些工作交给资深员工负责，这样他就可以花更多的时间来考虑 Facebook涵盖范围更广、具有战略意义的游戏计划了。（此外，他还在考虑如果公司真的有了上万亿美元可以爱怎么花就怎么花，他该拿这些钱怎么办。） 他仍然握有对大多数产品的最终决定权，他还准备好放弃一些概念，哪怕工作已经进行了一年多也不会手软。
A micromanager, Mr. Zuckerberg has cut down on his meeting obligations and now delegates to senior-level staffers so that he can spend more time mulling Facebook's broader, strategic game plan. (Among other things, he's ruminated what the company would do if it had a trillion dollars at its disposal.) He still has the final word on most product decisions and readily abandons concepts a year or more in the making.
扎克伯格说，很多公司可能会迫于公司压力而偏离原定路线，我不知道五年后我们会生产什么，我甚至不知道三年后我们会生产什么。
'A lot of companies can go off course because of corporate pressures,' says Mr. Zuckerberg. 'I don't know what we are going to be building five years from now. I don't know what we are going to be building three years from now.'
这种公司可以自由行事的奢侈是他担心上市后可能必须牺牲的东西之一。他说，他担心员工们不是把眼光放在长远的目标上，而是可能把注意力集中到一 纸声明上，以及声明的后果和是否会推高股价上。
That luxury, of being light on one's corporate feet, is partly what he fears he may have to sacrifice by going public. Rather than fix their sights on long-term goals, he worries that his staff might become 'focused on an announcement, and how that plays out and whether the stock price goes up,' he says.
扎克伯格追求卓越的方式可以追溯到他的童年。他在纽约州阿兹利上高中的时候，是班里出类拔萃的学生。后来他转学到菲利普艾克瑟特学院 (Phillips Exeter Academy)，在那里他浸淫于拉丁文中。在大学里，他因能背诵《伊利亚特》(The Iliad)等长篇史诗中的诗句而出了名。熟悉他的成长过程的人说，他母亲叫他“高贵的王子”。
Mr. Zuckerberg's hard-charging ways date back to his childhood. At his Ardsley, N.Y., high school, he excelled in the classics. He transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy where he immersed himself in Latin. In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as 'The Iliad.' His mother called him 'Princely,' say people familiar with his upbringing.
在Facebook成立的早期，扎克伯格请一位画家画了一幅壁画，画中唤起孩子们用笔记本电脑接管世界。他在会议结束的时候，会向空中挥舞拳 头，带着员工们高呼“统治”。（据知情人士说，这种“仪式”受到了嘲笑，公司高管说这让他看起来很傻，竞争对手可能会把这作为Facebook有垄断目标 的证据，于是扎克伯格不再这样做了。）
In the company's early days, Mr. Zuckerberg had an artist paint a mural evoking kids taking over the world with laptops. He ended meetings by pumping his fist in the air and leading employees in a chant of 'domination.' (The ritual was in jest, say people familiar with the matter, and he dropped it after executives said it made him seem silly and that competitors might cite it as evidence of monopolistic goals.)
近来，扎克伯格还用电影对白提示员工他们是在从事比发财更伟大的事情。扎克伯格本人就是即将上映的一部故事片的主题。
More recently, Mr. Zuckerberg-who himself is the subject of a forthcoming feature film-has used movie lines to cue employees that they are engaged in something greater than getting rich.
去年春季在加州帕洛阿尔托喜来登酒店(Sheraton)召开的一次会议上，在数百名员工挤进酒店闷热的地下大厅之前，扎克伯格引用了电影《特 洛伊》(Troy)中的对白。他描述了信使告诉阿喀琉斯(Achilles)要与巨人萨洛尼卡(Thessalonian)对峙会有多吓人的场景，当时阿 喀琉斯正准备与萨洛尼卡作战。扎克伯格喊到，正是这样，才没有人会记得你的名字！
At a meeting last spring, Mr. Zuckerberg quoted from the movie 'Troy' before hundreds of employees crammed into the steamy basement of a Sheraton hotel in Palo Alto. He recounted the scene where a messenger tells Achilles how scared he would be to confront the giant Thessalonian, whom Achilles was preparing to battle. 'That's why no one will remember your name!' Zuckerberg shouted.
当应聘者问为什么他们要加入Facebook的时候，扎克伯格说，告诉他们，因为人们会记住你的名字。
When potential hires ask why they should join Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg said, 'Tell them: because people will remember your name.'
Facebook也出现过一些管理失误。去年底，公司受到公众指责，因为公司重新设计了隐私控制，导致用户必须公开更多的帐户信息。
The company has had its fair share of management gaffes. Late last year, Facebook came under public fire for redesigning its privacy controls in a way that caused users to make more of their account data public.
隐私维权人士集会抗议，Facebook取消了一些改变，不过美国、加拿大和欧洲的监管机构仍在密切注意着。上周，该公司承认，有小部分用户收 到了发给别的用户的私人信息。公司高管不断强调，他们致力于给予用户保护自己隐私的工具。
Privacy advocates rallied and Facebook rolled back some changes, but regulators in the U.S., Canada and Europe are still watchful. Last week, the company acknowledged that a 'small number of users' had received private messages intended for other members. Facebook executives regularly stress that they are committed to giving users tools to protect their privacy.
耶鲁大学管理学院教授索诺菲德(Jeffrey Sonnenfeld)说，Facebook目前处于这样一个阶段，一些创始人因为过于自信而陷入了麻烦。他为很多硅谷公司创始人提供咨询。他说，该公司 正处于十字路口，我们将要看到马克是否能组建一支强大到足以挑战他的队伍。
'Facebook is in the phase where some founders get themselves into trouble by being too sure of themselves, says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who has advised a number of Silicon Valley founders. The company 'is at a crossroads where we have to see if Mark can build a team strong enough to challenge him,' he says.
扎克伯格的一些仰慕者说，他天生是一个领导者，对目标非常清楚。其中包括Facebook前员工、风险投资者科勒(Matt Cohler)。
Some of his admirers, such as former Facebook employee and venture capitalist Matt Cohler, say he is a natural leader with 'a clarity of purpose that is remarkable.'
扎克伯格放弃了好几个卖掉公司、大赚一笔的机会。知情人士说，其中包括2006年雅虎(Yahoo Inc.)提议用10亿美元收购Facebook，微软(Microsoft Corp.)提出的用80亿美元甚至更多收购公司的初步意向。
Mr. Zuckerberg has passed up several opportunities to sell and make a killing. These include a $1 billion offer from Yahoo Inc. in 2006 and an overture from Microsoft Corp. that was worth a possible $8 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter.
扎克伯格拒绝就这些谈判进行置评，他只是说，听起来总比实际的要有板有眼得多。
Mr. Zuckerberg declines to comment on the talks, beyond saying: 'It always sounds a lot more concrete than it actually is.'
微软和雅虎发言人拒绝就收购提议置评。2007年10月，微软投资2.4亿美元，收购了Facebook约1.6%的股权和部分独家广告权。
A spokesman for Microsoft and a Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on the offers. In October 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million for a roughly 1.6% stake plus some exclusive ad rights.
2008年初之前，扎克伯格就开始行动起来，帮助筹备公司上市事宜。他扩大了管理团队，当年的3月份，他聘用谷歌高管桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)担任公司二把手。他邀请网景(Netscape)创始人之一安德列森(Marc Andreessen)和华盛顿邮报公司(Washington Post Co.)董事长格雷厄姆(Donald Graham)加入公司董事会，寻求一个有不同视角的董事会。不过，他保留了对他们席位的投票控制权。
By early 2008, Mr. Zuckerberg began to take steps to help prepare the company to go public. He expanded his management team, hiring Google executive Sheryl Sandberg as his No. 2 in March of that year. He sought new perspectives by inviting Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald Graham to join his board. He kept voting control over their seats, however.
他说，公司的建立方式无疑是我和其他创始人有着很大的控制权。他还说，加入的投资者明白，他们从根本上是无法把我们推向我们不想去的方向的。
'The company is definitely set up in a way where myself and the other founders have a lot of control over it,' he says. Investors who signed on, he adds, 'understood that they fundamentally weren't going to be able to push us in a direction that we wouldn't want to go.'
据知情人士称，扎克伯格牢牢掌控着IPO的时机选择权。他拥有Facebook四分之一以上的股份，控制着五个董事会席位中的三个。 Facebook发言人拒绝就董事会结构或扎克伯格对公司的所有权发表评论。
Any IPO timing is squarely in Mr. Zuckerberg's hands. He owns more than a quarter of Facebook's stock and controls votes for three of five board seats, say people familiar with the matter. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the board structure or Mr. Zuckerberg's ownership.
Facebook的现有股东也极少施加压力。他们大多是风险投资家，对Facebook良好的增长趋势表示满意。
There's little pressure from Facebook's existing shareholders-mostly venture capitalists who say they are pleased with its positive growth trend.
据知情人士透露，Facebook的高管们已经讨论过2010年的收入如何能达到12亿美元至20亿美元之间。2009年，该公司称产生了正的 现金流，在支付其1200名员工工资及负担一般管理费用方面绰绰有余。
Facebook executives have discussed how revenues for 2010 could hit between $1.2 to $2 billion, say people familiar with the matter. In 2009, the company said it was generating positive cash flow-more than enough to pay its 1,200 employees and overhead.
但由于进行IPO已无法避免，扎克伯格已经与硅谷的多名智者商量了此事。利用与前网景公司（Netscape）首席财务长库里(Peter Currie)等人一同吃午餐或奶昔的时间，他收集了大量的建议，把各种想法输入他的黑莓手机，形成一份长长的未来待办事项清单。
Mindful, though, of the inevitability of an IPO, Mr. Zuckerberg has consulted with several Silicon Valley wise men. Over lunches and milkshakes with people like former Netscape CFO Peter Currie, Mr. Zuckerberg has gobbled up advice, entering thoughts into what he calls 'the list' on his BlackBerry-a long to-do list of items for the future.
为了分散员工们对IPO的注意力，他给他们施加压力，让他们把注意力集中在扩大公司业务方面。他举办了一个派对以庆祝Facebook拥有1亿 用户。他给公司买了一个锣，当员工有新产品投放市场时就去敲一下。
To distract employees from the buzz of an IPO, he pressed them to focus on building a bigger company. He led a toga party to celebrate Facebook's 100-million-user mark. He bought a gong for the office, which employees bang when they launch new products.
2007年底，他和董事会改变了给予员工的股票类型，大大减小了公司的上市压力，在IPO的时机选择方面给予他更大的控制权。
In late 2007, he and the board changed the types of shares granted to employees, significantly lessening the pressure on the company to go public and giving him more control over the timing of such an event.
公司以限制股股份代替期权发放给员工，董事会同意了这一方案。持有限制股的人在公司上市前不能变成股东；而持有期权的人则有更灵活的行使权。
The switch, which the board agreed to, was to pay employees in restricted-stock units instead of options. Holders of RSUs generally can't become shareholders until the company goes public; options holders have more flexible exercise rights.
此举使公司股东能够保持在500人以下。美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)要求拥有500名以上股东的公司必须公布更多的财务信息。
So the move allowed the company to stay under 500 shareholders, the point at which the Securities and Exchange Commission requires companies to disclose more financial information.
扎克伯格说他们突然萌生了回避500股东规定的想法，但这对员工而言也是一个好的决定，因为技术上此举能使他们以更低的价格获得他们的股份。
Mr. Zuckerberg says that skirting the 500-shareholders rule 'crossed our minds,' but that the decision was also good for employees because of technicalities that made it cheaper for them to acquire their shares.
然而普通员工仍渴望兑现手中的股份。一些人开始私下里寻找买家，使公司对员工股票期权进行的内部评估更为复杂。
The ranks, though, were still anxious for a payday. Some began to seek private buyers of their shares, complicating the company's internal valuation for employee stock options.
据与扎克伯格交谈过的人称，虽然扎克伯格经常向员工自夸他对延迟满足有特别的承受力，这些人的举动还是激怒了扎克伯格。在一次会议中，他再三向 他的管理团队强调这一想法，他还举了个他十几岁时就有很好耐心的例子。
Their moves aggravated Mr. Zuckerberg, who often bragged to employees that he had a special capacity for delayed gratification, according to people he spoke with. He hammered home this idea to his management team at an offsite meeting, recounting a story about how he was good at waiting for things as a teenager.
以前扎克伯格曾穿着凉鞋参加大型会议，平常总穿着T恤衫和牛仔裤。2009年初，他改变了自己孩子气的形象，穿上了正装衬衫，打上了领带。他对 员工说，今年是严肃的一年，并解释类似的装扮也能让大学预科生看上去更加庄重些。
By early 2009, he had changed his own boyish look. Mr. Zuckerberg, who once sported sandals to major meetings, traded his daily uniform of a T-shirt and jeans for a button-down shirt and tie. 'This is a serious year,' he told employees, explaining how similar attire somehow gave prep-school students more gravitas.
他最终找到了解决办法，允许员工在2009年年中把手中的股份兑换成现金：俄罗斯投资者Digital Sky Technology(DST)公司从Facebook员工手中购买了约一亿美元的股份，并进行了两亿美元的直接投资，从而拥有了Facebook公司 3.5%的股份。
He eventually found a solution to allow employees to cash out in mid-2009: Russian investors Digital Sky Technology purchased roughly $100 million in shares from employees and invested $200 million directly, giving DST a 3.5% stake in the company.
扎克伯格通过向单个投资者打开大门，避免了Facebook股东基数的增加。此举也安抚了员工，让他们能够在新住宅、汽车和豪华休假上大笔花 钱。
By opening the door to a single investor, he avoided increasing the Facebook's shareholder base. The move also pacified employees, who splurged on new homes, cars and lavish vacations.
据知情人士透露，至少有一名Facebook的董事会成员──风险投资家、贝宝（PayPal）的合伙创始人泰尔(Peter Thiel)反对这一计划，称公司应当更遵规守纪并利用现有的条件创造更高的利润。
At least one board member, venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, had been against the plan, according to people familiar with the matter, arguing the company should be more disciplined and turn a bigger profit with what it had.
但由于扎克伯格的推动，泰尔默许了这一计划──只要条件对他有利。DST同意了Facebook公司100亿美元的巨额估价，对类似扎 克伯格的股东而言几乎没有稀释作用。
But Mr. Zuckerberg pushed and Mr. Thiel acquiesced-as long as the terms were favorable. DST agreed to a whopping $10 billion valuation, barely diluting shareholders like Mr. Zuckerberg.
2月，Facebook公司的早期投资人、公司董事布雷耶(Jim Breyer)在德国对一帮由技术人士组成的听众说，Facebook公司2010年不会上市。
In February, Jim Breyer, a board member and an early Facebook investor, told a German audience of techies that Facebook wouldn't be going public in 2010.
上个月末，已对这一话题感到厌烦了的扎克伯格在接受采访时说，作为惯例，我们对此不予置评。
Later that month, Mr. Zuckerberg, having grown weary of the topic, said in an interview, 'As a practice, we aren't going to comment on it.'
与此同时，这名首席执行长还有另一个有助于安抚员工的计划。虽然有些不值一提，但他答应给员工买一个更大的锣。
Meanwhile, the CEO has another, albeit modest, plan to help mollify employees. He promised to buy them a bigger gong.