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The technology industry has never been more economically important. The biggest five Silicon Valley firms now make up about 20% of the value of the s&p 500 stockmarket index of big American companies. Yet until recently no one had much idea of how these vast, essential businesses would fare in an economic downturn. When the last slump started in 2007, Facebook was only four years old, Amazon was a twentieth of its size today, and Apple made more cash from Mac computers than from iPhones.
科技行业的经济地位从未像现在一样重要。硅谷五大企业现在占美国大公司标准普尔500指数市值的20%。然而直到最近，人们都还不太清楚这些行业的中流砥柱将如何度过这段在经济低迷时期。上一次经济低潮期要追溯到2007年，当时Facebook创立仅4年；亚马逊的规模仅为现在的20分之1；苹果主要营收来自于Mac电脑而非iPhone手机。
fare 在某段时间的表现；度过
So how is big tech doing? An obvious—and frequently made—point is that the industry is thriving amid a savage recession as people spend more time on screens and work remotely. Look closer, however, and the picture is more complex. The industry is tilting away from business models thatruled in the past decade, towards a new era of subscriptions, e-commerce and business infrastructure. A simple way of putting it is that tech’s spiritual centre of gravity is moving from San Francisco to Seattle.
那么，大企业表现如何呢？一个显而易见且老生常谈的的观点就是：随着人们转向远程办公，把时间越来越多的花在屏幕前，科技行业正在一场残酷的经济衰退中蓬勃发展。然而仔细观察，情况就没那么简单了。科技行业正从上个十年主导的商业模式迈入一个由订阅、电子商务和业务基础设施领衔的新时代。简单来说就是科技行业的灵魂重心正从旧金山转向西雅图。
savage 残酷的
tilt towards 向..倾斜
rule 支配；占主导
The level of pain being endured by more traditional big firms is hard to overstate. On April 29th Ford said that it would lose $5bn this quarter while Boeing is going through $4.7bn of cash every three months. Compared with that, the tech firms are on a roll. Alphabet, Google’s parent, saw sales rise by 13% in the first quarter compared with the year before, and profits reached $7bn. Facebook’s 3bn users are spending more time on its services. Microsoft, now the most valuable tech firm, booked profits of $10.8bn for the quarter.
传统大企业所遭受的痛苦程度再怎么描述也不为过。4月29日，福特宣布本季度亏损50亿美元；波音则每季度亏损47亿美元。相较之下。科技企业就表现得相当不错了。谷歌的母公司Alphabet一季度销售额同比上升13%，营收达70亿美元。脸书的30亿订阅用户也增加了在脸书系服务的使用时间。现市值最高的企业微软本季度则录得108亿美元收入。
hard to overstate = cannot/ can hardly be overstated 再怎么形容都不为过
on a roll 做得很好；运气好
Yet behind those figures are hints of vulnerability. Advertising revenue, the main source of income for Alphabet and Facebook, is under pressure. Google saw spending on search adverts drop by about 15% in March compared with the year before. Small-business clients, in particular, are forking out less as the recession bites. Another area of weakness may be smartphone sales, which are typically sold through retail stores and rely on fiddly supply chains. As The Economist went to press, Apple had yet to report, but both Samsung and Qualcomm, which make money from handsets, have warned that sales of devices may fall. Among firms that rely on human contact, meanwhile, there is a brutalshake-out. Lyft, a ride-sharing firm which went public a year ago, plans to fire 17% of its workforce.
然而数字背后却隐藏了脆弱的迹象。Alphabet和脸书的主要收入来源是广告收入，而这项业务正面临压力。搜索广告在谷歌三月份的支出同比下跌15%。尤其是小型企业客户，由于经济衰退来袭，正在削减开支。另一个疲软的环节则可能是智能手机销售，智能手机通常要通过零售店进行销售，而且依赖于繁琐的供应链。截至经济学人发刊之际，苹果尚未公布一季度财报，但以手机业务为主要营收手段的三星和高通（为手机提供芯片、处理器，不卖手机）则预示手机的销售可能会下跌。与此同时，依赖于人际交流的企业则在经历着一场大洗牌。打车公司Lyft一年前刚上市，计划将削减17%的人力资源。
hints of ..的暗示
fork out 支出
fiddly 繁琐的；不便使用的
shake-out 清理；洗牌
Just as some of the ingredients that defined the previous era growstale, new sources of growth are becoming clearer. Instead of bombarding consumers with advertising, subscriptions are booming. Netflix, a streaming giant, added 16m new subscribers in the quarter to March. Spotify, a music service, posted similar gains (it also reported a surge in listeners searching for “chill”). Microsoft is providing the crucial infrastructure for remote working, alongside new stars such as Zoom. And Amazon has shown that many countries cannot live without its cloud-computing arm, aws, and its booming e-commerce operation.
正当一些定义了上个时代的元素开始失去魔力之时，新的增长来源也变得越来越明确。与其用广告轰炸用户，正在蓬勃发展的订阅业务才是正解。流媒体巨头网飞一季度截至3月份新增了1.6亿名订阅用户。音乐服务商Spotify也通告了类似的增长（同时也报告用户搜索“轻快电音”的次数激增）。微软以及一众以Zoom为代表的新星也在为远程办公提供关键的基础设备。亚马逊也表明了，许多国家离不开其云技术部门AWS及其蓬勃发展的电子商务业务。
stale 不新鲜；陈旧
Heading north 一路向北（按地理位置，西雅图在旧金山的北方；第二层意思则是暗示看好科技企业的走势，head south是指情况变坏）
The big firms that are less well positioned are adapting fast to this emerging new era. Facebook is rushing to beef up its video-call offering. Google is boosting its cloud-computing operation and, to stimulate demand, Apple is discounting phones and promoting its services arm. But for now the winners are Microsoft and Amazon, both based farther north on the Pacific Shelf, in Seattle. The crisis has illuminated big tech’s resilience—but also that the balance of power is shifting.
那些并非时代最佳受益者的企业也在迅速适应这个兴起的新时代。脸书正急于加强其视频电话服务；谷谷歌正在推进其云计算业务；而为了刺激需求，苹果正在打折销售手机，并推广其服务部门。但到目前为止，最大的赢家还是微软和亚马逊，两家企业都位于远在太平洋大陆架的北方——西雅图。这场危机彰显了大型科技企业的韧性——但也表明力量的平衡正在发生变化。
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