Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech at Princeton University

After all, where else can a few clicks of a mouse take you from the latest novel by Tony Morrison to an 18th century edition版次 of the works of John Lockach, having

畢竟，除了這裡，還有哪裡能讓你透過幾次滑鼠點選，從託尼·莫里森的最新小說瞬間跳轉到約翰·洛克十八世紀的作品集？

stopped in power tools and women's shoes along the way.

途中還會順便瀏覽電動工具和女鞋等商品。

Yet, the founder and chief executive officer of the world's largest retailer, whose net sales surpassed超過 24.5 billion in 2009, is only 46 years old.

然而，這位全球最大零售商的創始人兼執行長年僅46歲，其2009年的淨銷售額已突破245億美元。

And Amazon.com has only existed since 1995, making it even younger than the class of 2010.

亞馬遜網站直到1995年才成立，甚至比2010屆的畢業生還要年輕。

The moral of this story is that the right idea in the right hands at the right time can change the way we lead our lives.

這個故事告訴我們：正確的想法、合適的人選以及恰當的時機，足以改變我們的生活方式。

The idea in this case was harnessing揹帶 the power of the naent internet to create a virtual bookstore of limitless proportions.

當時的構想是利用網際網路的力量，建立一個規模無限的虛擬書店。

The hands were those of our speaker, Jeff Bezos, a self-described nerdy commuter commu computer science and electrical engineering major who graduated from Princeton with highest honors in 1986.

而‘雙手’的主人正是演講者傑夫·貝佐斯，他自稱是個書呆子氣的通勤者，主修電腦科學和電氣工程，於1986年以優異成績從普林斯頓大學畢業。

And the time was 1994 when he and his wife McKenzie Tuttle Bezos of the class of 1992 exchanged the security安全 of Wall Street where they worked at De Shaun Company for

而那個時機是1994年，當時他和妻子麥肯齊·塔特爾·貝佐斯（1992屆畢業生）放棄了在德肖恩公司工作的華爾街安穩生活，

the uncertain prospects前景 of a dotcom startup.

去追求一家初創網際網路公司充滿不確定性的前景。

But then, as Jeff points out, failure is an essential component組成部分 of innovation and invention.

但正如傑夫所指出的那樣，失敗是創新和發明的必要組成部分。

If you know it's going to work, it's not an experiment.

如果你知道它一定會成功，那就不算實驗了。

And Amazon.com was nothing if not a grand experiment.

而亞馬遜網站絕非一場普通的宏大實驗。

Working on improvised tables in the garage of his Seattle home and using his parents' savings as startup capital, Jeff defied the forces that cause most young companies to fail.

傑夫在自家車庫用臨時拼湊的桌子工作，並動用父母的積蓄作為啟動資金， defiance了導致大多數年輕公司倒閉的種種力量。

Partly, he admits, through sheer完全的 good fortune, but also because of his unwavering determination to create the world's most customer centric company.

部分原因，他承認，是純粹的運氣使然，但也源於他堅定不移的決心，即打造世界上最以客戶為中心的公司。

And as he notes in his company's latest annual report, of the 452 goals that Amazon.com has set for itself this year, 360 of them will directly affect the customer experience.

正如他在公司最新年度報告中所指出的那樣，亞馬遜今年設定的452個目標中，有360個將直接影響客戶體驗。

While the word revenue is used on only eight occasions, I do not advise you to start off with 452 goals this year.

雖然報告中“收入”一詞僅出現了八次，但我並不建議你今年也設定452個目標。

by the way.

順便提一句。

But this is just one of the keys to Jeff's success.

但這只是傑夫成功的秘訣之一。

Another lies in his exceptional ability to marry commerce and technology in creative ways in his sheer inventiveness and willingness to take the risks inherent固有的 in this process.

另一秘訣在於他非凡的能力：以富有創意的方式將商業與技術相結合，憑藉他驚人的創造力以及承擔這一過程中固有風險意願。

Indeed, the history of Amazon.com is one of daring leaps跳躍.

的確，亞馬遜的歷史就是一部大膽飛躍的歷程。

One such leap involved creating the capacity to search inside the books sold by his company.

其中一次飛躍涉及建立了在其銷售書籍內部進行搜尋的功能。

Not by designing a modest pilot project, but by committing the resources to make it possible to scour徹底搜尋 the text of more than 120,000 volumes when this feature debuted in 2003.

他們並非設計一個 modest 的試點專案，而是投入資源，使得在2003年該功能推出時，能夠檢索超過12萬卷圖書的全文。

Other innovations have included one-click shopping, online product reviews by customers, and of course, the Kindle reading device, which we test drove in three courses this fall.

其他創新包括一鍵購物、客戶線上產品評論，當然還有Kindle閱讀裝置，我們今年秋天在三門課程中試用過它。

Mirroring the rapid growth of Amazon itself, the number of books available through the US Kindle store topped 460,000 in 2009, just two years after its launch.

隨著亞馬遜自身的快速增長，美國Kindle商店的圖書數量在2009年突破了46萬冊，而這距離其推出僅僅兩年時間。

And there's no turning back.

而且，這已無回頭路可走。

Our vision is every book, every printed in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.

我們的願景是：任何語言、任何印刷版本的書籍，都能在不到 60 秒內獲取。

Jeff has stated an audacious大膽的 proposition to be sure, but as Al Albert Einstein once observed, if at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

傑夫確實提出了一個大膽的設想，但正如阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦曾指出的那樣：“如果一個想法起初聽起來荒謬，那它就沒有希望。”

Perhaps the American Academy of Achievement summarized our speaker's impact best when it noted, "Having already revolutionized徹底變革 the way the world buys books, Jeff Bezos is now transforming the way we read

或許美國成就學院最恰當地總結了這位演講者的影響力，他們指出：“在徹底改變了世界購書方式之後，傑夫·貝佐斯現在正在改變我們閱讀的方式。”

them as well."

也是如此。