Why the Postpandemic Tech Bust Sent Billionaires to Trump

为什么后疫情时代的科技泡沫破裂将亿万富翁推向了特朗普

In the spring of 2020, as a new and highly contagious virus spread throughout the country, the US came to a standstill. The economy shut down, cities emptied, and white-collar workers were sent home en masse. Platforms like Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams surged in usage as WFH became ubiquitous. From remote schooling and virtual weddings to app-based grocery delivery and livestreamed concerts, the pandemic accelerated and cemented society’s increasing reliance on digital platforms. Already one of the most powerful forces in the American economy, the tech sector suddenly became the infrastructure underpinning every aspect of life.

2020年春季，随着一种新型且极具传染性的病毒在全国蔓延，美国陷入了停滞。经济活动关闭，城市变得空荡，白领员工被大规模遣送回家。随着居家办公（WFH）变得无处不在，Zoom、Slack和Microsoft Teams等平台的使用量激增。从远程教学、虚拟婚礼到基于应用程序的杂货配送和直播音乐会，疫情加速并巩固了社会对数字平台日益增长的依赖。作为美国经济中最强大的力量之一，科技行业突然成为了支撑生活方方面面的基础设施。

Tech giants went on an unprecedented hiring spree, scrambling to meet new demand and cement their dominance. Where tech workers already had tremendous labor market power in the preceding decade, the postpandemic boom for technology tilted the balance even more sharply in favor of workers. Demand for technical skills exploded, and tech companies scrambled to recruit engineers, designers, and data scientists, often without fully knowing what to do with them.

科技巨头们开启了前所未有的招聘狂潮，争先恐后地满足新需求并巩固其主导地位。在过去十年中，科技从业者本已拥有巨大的劳动力市场话语权，而疫情后的科技繁荣更是将这种平衡进一步向员工倾斜。对技术技能的需求呈爆炸式增长，科技公司竞相招募工程师、设计师和数据科学家，尽管它们往往并不完全清楚该如何安排这些新员工。

Between 2019 and 2022, Amazon and Facebook more than doubled their head count, growing by 92 percent and 93 percent, respectively. Microsoft added nearly 80,000 new employees, while Google brought on over 60,000. With so many workers joining the industry, many were onboarded to teams with no immediate tasks, held in reserve for future projects that hadn’t yet been planned—they were, in other words, hired with nothing to do.

2019年至2022年间，亚马逊和Facebook的员工人数翻了一番以上，分别增长了92%和93%。微软增加了近8万名新员工，谷歌则招募了超过6万人。随着如此多的员工涌入该行业，许多人加入团队后并没有直接的任务，而是作为储备人员等待尚未规划的未来项目——换句话说，他们被雇佣时其实无事可做。

Tech’s pandemic-era hiring boom was underwritten by an extraordinary financial backdrop shaped by over a decade of loose monetary policy. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero to stimulate the economy. And for most of the 2010s, rates remained near zero, creating what economists call an era of zero interest rate policy, or ZIRP.

科技行业疫情期间的招聘热潮，是由十多年来宽松货币政策所塑造的特殊金融背景支撑的。2008年金融危机后，美联储将利率降至接近零的水平以刺激经济。在2010年代的大部分时间里，利率一直维持在零附近，创造了经济学家所称的“零利率政策”（ZIRP）时代。

With money easy to borrow and venture funds flush with cheap capital, tech firms expanded aggressively, and office workers reaped the rewards: skyrocketing salaries, unprecedented job mobility, and the leverage to demand more from their employers. The result was a golden age for tech workers. Many could choose which projects to join, pursue skill development on the clock, or even negotiate permanent remote work arrangements. In this environment, tech workers were prized assets, courted and catered to in ways rarely seen in other industries.

由于借贷容易且风险投资基金充斥着廉价资本，科技公司大举扩张，办公室职员也因此获益：薪水飙升、前所未有的工作流动性，以及向雇主提出更多要求的筹码。结果是科技从业者迎来了一个黄金时代。许多人可以自由选择加入的项目、在工作时间提升技能，甚至协商永久性的远程办公安排。在这种环境下，科技从业者成为了珍贵的资产，受到其他行业罕见的追捧和优待。

Then inflation hit as an unprecedented flood of pandemic-era stimulus cash went into the hands of consumers, and the Fed responded with one of the most aggressive tightening campaigns in decades. Rates were raised from near zero to roughly 5.5 percent, with the bank making 10 consecutive hikes in just 15 months. As intended, the economy turned cold. The S&P 500 fell 19.4 percent, the largest drop since 2008. Sectors across the board felt the slowdown. Real estate activity plummeted as higher mortgage rates discouraged potential homebuyers. Top retail and entertainment firms, from Walt Disney to Nike to Home Depot, were similarly hit as consumer spending drew back.

随后，随着疫情期间前所未有的刺激资金流入消费者手中，通货膨胀随之而来，美联储以几十年来最激进的紧缩行动之一作为回应。利率从接近零提高到约5.5%，美联储在短短15个月内连续加息10次。正如预期的那样，经济转冷。标普500指数下跌了19.4%，创下自2008年以来的最大跌幅。各行各业都感受到了放缓。由于抵押贷款利率上升抑制了潜在购房者，房地产活动大幅下滑。从华特迪士尼到耐克再到家得宝，顶级零售和娱乐公司也因消费者支出缩减而受到类似冲击。

But more than any other sector, the tech industry, which had soared to unprecedented heights during the pandemic, fell the hardest. Having experienced outsize gains during the easy-money boom years, tech’s rapid ascent was followed by an equally dramatic crash.

但与其他任何行业相比，在疫情期间飙升至前所未有高度的科技行业跌得最惨。在廉价资金繁荣时期经历了超额收益后，科技行业的快速崛起紧接着就是同样剧烈的崩盘。

Major tech firms began missing Wall Street’s expectations. Amazon reported sluggish growth and razor-thin margins. Google saw four consecutive quarterly declines in profit, hit hard by a slowdown in digital ad spending. Microsoft also faced headwinds, with its cloud business, its key growth driver, showing signs of deceleration. The exuberance that had fueled the postpandemic rally evaporated, and the air came rushing out of the sector’s inflated valuations. Almost $4 trillion in combined market value vanished from Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Facebook lost two-thirds of its value. Amazon lost half. And nearly $1 trillion was shaved off Microsoft’s valuation. At year’s end, the industry fell 30 percent, making 2022 the third-worst year in the industry’s history, after the 2008 financial crisis and the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000.

大型科技公司开始未能达到华尔街的预期。亚马逊报告增长缓慢，利润率极低。谷歌利润连续四个季度下滑，受到数字广告支出放缓的沉重打击。微软也面临阻力，其关键增长引擎云业务显示出减速迹象。推动疫情后反弹的狂热情绪烟消云散，该行业虚高的估值泡沫迅速破裂。亚马逊、Facebook、苹果、谷歌和微软的总市值蒸发了近4万亿美元。Facebook损失了三分之二的价值，亚马逊损失了一半，微软的估值也被削减了近1万亿美元。到年底，该行业下跌了30%，使2022年成为继2008年金融危机和2000年互联网泡沫破裂之后，该行业历史上第三糟糕的一年。

Almost in lockstep with the Fed’s unprecedented interest rate hikes, tech companies, long buoyed by an unshakable belief in inevitable growth, implemented a series of mass layoffs and budget cuts. The industry that had once prided itself on generous perks, sprawling campuses, and nonstop hiring began to speak a new language of financial restraint. For the first time in years, the tech industry, rather than pitching itself as the frontier of unstoppable growth and expansion, presented a different vision of its future: austerity.

几乎与美联储前所未有的加息步伐同步，长期以来受“必然增长”这一坚定信念支撑的科技公司，实施了一系列大规模裁员和预算削减。这个曾经以慷慨福利、广阔园区和不停歇招聘为荣的行业，开始使用一种关于财务约束的新语言。多年来，科技行业第一次不再将自己标榜为不可阻挡的增长和扩张的前沿，而是呈现出一种对其未来的不同愿景：紧缩。

So why was tech hit so hard? An industry built on cheap capital suddenly found itself exposed to a level of risk that made the dominant business model no longer tolerable. In a high-interest-rate environment, the opportunity cost of risky bets increases dramatically because cash can accrue real value in safer assets. As a result, investors became more cautious, demanding safer returns and more predictable outcomes instead of long-shot promises of future monopolies.

那么，为什么科技行业受到的打击如此之大？一个建立在廉价资本基础上的行业，突然发现自己暴露在一种风险水平之下，使得其主导的商业模式不再可行。在高利率环境下，风险投资的机会成本急剧增加，因为现金可以在更安全的资产中获得实际价值。因此，投资者变得更加谨慎，要求获得更安全的回报和更可预测的结果，而不是对未来垄断的遥不可及的承诺。

For tech firms, this new financial environment meant that executives could no longer justify burning cash in the name of growth. Lavish spending on massive compensation packages, generous perks, and playground-like offices started to look less like visionary leadership and more like fiscal irresponsibility. The massive hiring spree of previous years was now recast as misguided bloat.

对于科技公司而言，这种新的金融环境意味着高管们再也无法以增长为名烧钱。在巨额薪酬方案、慷慨福利和游乐场式办公室上的挥霍，看起来不再像是富有远见的领导力，而更像是财政上的不负责任。前几年的大规模招聘狂潮现在被重新定义为误导性的臃肿。

But rather than acknowledge their own reckless expansion, CEOs and venture capitalists threw the blame on workers. Silicon Valley investor Keith Rabois, a prominent voice among tech elites, declared that thousands of employees at companies like Facebook and Google were doing “fake work.” He complained that new empl…

但CEO们和风险投资家们并没有承认自己鲁莽的扩张，而是将责任推给了员工。硅谷投资者基思·拉博伊斯（Keith Rabois）作为科技精英中的重要人物，宣称Facebook和谷歌等公司的数千名员工在做“假工作”。他抱怨说，新员工……