Business | Big tech’s big tumble

商业 | 科技巨头的大滑坡

How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

经济疲软，科技公司为何突然不再风景独好

The year Silicon Valley fell to earth

这一年，硅谷跌落神坛

Whatever the economic weather, the sun always seemed to shine on Silicon Valley. America’s five largest technology companies—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta—saw their revenues and profits grow at five times the rate of American gdp in the decade to 2021. Tech’s ability to thrive as others struggled seemed to be confirmed during covid-19 lockdowns, when firms in the Valley posted record earnings even as much of the economy crumpled.

无论经济风云如何变幻，硅谷似乎总是一片晴天。苹果、微软、Alphabet、亚马逊和Meta作为美国五大科技巨头，在2021年前的十年，营收和利润的增速是美国GDP增速的五倍。其他公司尚在艰难度日，科技公司却仍能繁荣发展，这一点在疫情封控期间似乎得到了印证，当时尽管经济出现大规模崩溃，但硅谷科技公司公布的收益仍再创新高。

In 2022 tech’s luck ran out. It has been a difficult year for everyone: the s&p 500, an index of America’s largest firms, has fallen by a fifth since January. But digital firms have been hit harder, with the nasdaq composite, a tech-heavy index, losing a third of its value. Tech’s five giants have collectively lost a dizzying $3trn in market value (see chart 1). The most dramatic loser, Meta, barely even counts as part of “big” tech any more—nearly two-thirds of its value was wiped out, leaving its market capitalisation at just over $300bn.

但2022年，科技公司好运殆尽。这一年，每个人都不容易：作为记录美国最大的500家上市公司的股票指数，标准普尔500指数自1月以来已经下跌了五分之一。但科技公司受到的打击更大，重仓科技的纳斯达克综合指数也失守了三分之一。五大科技巨头市值总共蒸发了3万亿美元，令人瞠目结舌（见图1）。其中Meta亏损最多，甚至都快不能被称为“科技巨头”了——市值蒸发近三分之二，仅剩3000多亿美元。

The end of tech exceptionalism has several causes. One is that after years of growth, digital markets are maturing. Take advertising, the lifeblood of Alphabet and Meta, and a growing sideline for Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. During past downturns, ad spending fell but spending on digital ads kept growing, as advertisers pulled their budgets from old media like tv and newspapers and shifted adverts online. Today, much of that migration has already taken place: about two-thirds of ad spending in America this year was digital. Online ad platforms are thus vulnerable to the cyclical shifts that have long battered their offline rivals. In July Meta reported its first-ever quarterly drop in revenue; in October it reported another.

科技公司不能继续一枝独秀有几大原因。一是科技市场在多年的增长后，正在走向成熟。以广告为例，广告是Alphabet和Meta的核心业务，对亚马逊、苹果和微软来说，广告也是一大收益日益增长的次要业务。过去经济衰退时，虽然广告的整体支出下降，但其中的在线广告支出反而保持增长，这是因为广告商过去把预算用于电视和报纸等传统媒介，现在转而投到了在线广告上。如今，这一转变基本上已经完成：美国今年的在线广告支出约占总广告支出的三分之二。因此，在线广告平台很容易受到周期性变化的影响，而这一问题也同样长期困扰着传统线下媒介。7月，Meta报告了其首次季度营收下跌；10月的报告里又是季度营收下跌。

The next change is competition. For years tech was synonymous with concentrated markets: Google monopolising search, Facebook dominating social media, and so on. These days competition is fierce. Part of the reason for Meta’s pain was that new rivals, particularly TikTok, caused the first-ever drop in user numbers at Facebook, its flagship social network. Tech firms are also trespassing more on each other’s turf. Amazon’s cloud-computing arm has seen a sharp slowdown in growth, partly because Google is pouring billions into its own cloud service, taking big losses in order to gain a toehold in the business. Netflix, which for years had streaming virtually to itself, now faces competition not just from Disney and Warner Bros but from Apple and Amazon, which can splurge more liberally on content. That is one reason why its market value has dropped by 50% this year.

另一大改变就是竞争局势。以往，科技市场就相当于垄断市场：谷歌垄断了搜索引擎市场，脸书主导了社交媒体，诸如此类，不胜枚举。如今，竞争已十分激烈：Meta已苦不堪言，这部分归咎于以TikTok为主要代表的新对手，导致Meta旗下王牌社交应用Facebook的用户数量首次下降。此外，科技公司之间的地盘争夺战也愈演愈烈：亚马逊云计算服务增速骤减，部分原因是谷歌力拨数十亿，大举投资自己的云服务，即使蒙受巨额亏损也要在云服务领域找到落脚点。数年来，Netflix一直独揽数字流媒体的天下，可如今它不仅面临来自迪士尼和华纳兄弟的竞争，也要接受来自苹果和亚马逊的挑战，后两家公司都在内容投资方面出手更为阔绰。这就是今年Netflix市值下跌一半的原因之一。

These changes in the structure of the tech business have coincided with headwinds that are particularly troublesome for digital companies. In America the Federal Reserve has raised the upper bound on its policy interest rate to 4.5%, from 0.25% in January, as it battles inflation. This makes life harder for all businesses. But tech companies, whose high valuations reflect investors’ belief that they will deliver outsized earnings far in future, look much less appealing in a world of high rates, which erode the present value of those promised earnings. Higher rates have been particularly hard on the venture-capital (vc) industry, which places long-term bets on unprofitable startups. The value of new vc deals globally was 42% lower in the first 11 months of 2022 than in the same period the year before, according to Preqin, a research firm—a steeper fall than after the financial crisis of 2007-09.

科技领域掀起了这些巨大结构性变革，恰逢科技公司遇到了众多十分棘手的问题。美联储为了抑制通货膨胀，将政策利率上限从1月的0.25%一路升至4.5%，因此各行各业都愈发艰难。但科技公司估值之高则表明，投资者相信，自己能在遥远的未来获得巨额收益。但若在一个高利率的世界里，科技公司的吸引力则大不如前，因为高利率降低了未来收益的现值。面对更高利率，风投行业首当其冲，因为该行业长期押注于不盈利的初创企业。研究公司Preqin表明，2022年前11个月，在全球范围内，新达成的风投交易额比去年同比下降42%，这一数值甚至超过了2007-09年金融危机后的跌幅。

Semiconductors have been another sore spot in the tech world. Over the past two years the supply of chips has built up as manufacturers have added capacity. But just as chip production bloomed, demand withered, thanks to falling sales of pcs and smartphones. Further pain was caused by the collapse of the cryptoverse, which meant miners of digital currencies no longer needed the advanced processors built by Nvidia and amd, two big chipmakers. On December 21st Micron Technology, an American maker of memory chips, reported a quarterly loss and said it would lay off a tenth of its staff in the new year.

半导体是科技领域面临的另一大痛处。过去两年，半导体制造商提升了产能，芯片供应也得以增加。然而，正当芯片产量激增之际，个人电脑和智能手机销量下降，导致芯片需求收缩。加密货币市场的崩溃更是雪上加霜，今后数字货币的矿工不再需要两大芯片制造商英伟达（Nvidia）和超威（AMD）的高端处理器了。12月21日，美国存储芯片制造商美光科技（Micron Technology）发布财报称，公司出现季度亏损，并计划在2023年裁员10%。

Geopolitical tensions added to the strife. America announced several new trade restrictions on the export of semiconductor equipment to China, the world’s biggest buyer of chips. Apple, which makes most of its gadgets in China, is steadily shifting new production to India and Vietnam. Supply-chain hiccups have weighed on the world’s most valuable company, which despite outperforming its peers has still lost more than a quarter of its market value in the past 12 months.

地缘政治冲突则让局势更加严峻。美国宣布新增几项半导体设备的对华出口管制措施，而中国是全球最大的半导体进口国。苹果的大多数产品都在华生产，如今正逐步将其产能转移到印度和越南。供应链中断也给苹果这家全球市值最高的公司带来重重困难。即便苹果的业绩胜过同类企业，其市值在过去一年里也收缩了25%以上。

These difficulties mean that the year ahead will be a lean one in techland. Most have made a resolution to trim their costs, which in many cases means cutting the payroll (see chart 2). Tech firms worldwide have announced more than 150,000 job cuts so far in 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website. Meta alone accounts for 11,000 of those. Amazon has told graduates who were meant to be starting work in May 2022 that they will need to wait until the end of 2023. Whereas tech once seemed like something of a haven for investors and employees, in the months ahead it may feel like anything but. 

对科技领域来说，上述困难意味着来年将会是个歉年。大多数科技公司都制定了节流计划，然而这在许多情况下相当于裁员（见图2）。Layoff.fyi网站的数据显示，2022年全球科技公司已裁掉了15万人，而单单Meta一家公司就裁了1.1万人。亚马逊则通知本该在2022年5月上岗的毕业生得等到2023年年底才能入职。科技公司曾一度是投资者和员工的港湾，但未来几个月则将风光不再。