Before Alibaba raised $25 billion in an initial public offering last year, its founder¹, Jack² Ma, said he did not care much about share prices.

阿里巴巴去年通过首次公开募股(IPO)筹集了250亿美元（约合1550亿元人民币）。在那之前，其创始人马云(Jack Ma)曾表示，他不是很在乎公司的股价。

On Thursday, Mr. Ma made it clear he was not too worried about shaking things up, either, replacing the company’s chief executive just days after airing concerns about efficiency.

周四，马云更换了公司的首席执行官。此举向外界表明，他也不介意对公司的领导层进行重组。几天之前，马云刚刚对公司效率表达了担忧。

In the surprise leadership change, Mr. Ma picked Daniel Zhang, who has been at Alibaba for eight years, to lead one of the world’s largest Internet companies. Mr. Ma, in a letter to employees, portrayed³ the replacement⁴ of the chief executive, Jonathan Lu, as a sort of changing of the guard.

在这次意外的领导层变动中，马云任命在阿里巴巴供职八年的张勇(Daniel Zhang)担任公司的领导者。阿里巴巴是世界最大的互联网公司之一。在致员工的信中，马云把替换现任CEO陆兆禧(Jonathan Lu)描述为“交接换班”。

”Alibaba Group is ready to completely hand over management leadership to those of you who were born in the ’70s,” Mr. Ma wrote, adding that several other experienced Alibaba leaders would give up some day-to-day control to allow younger executives to rise.

“阿里巴巴集团已经可以把领导权全面移交给70后，”马云写道。他还说，另外几名资深的阿里巴巴高管也将脱离日常管理工作，从而让更年轻的管理人员成长。

When Mr. Ma stepped aside from the chief executive role two years ago, he emphasized that he had grown too old to run a technology company. In his letter, he said the company’s recent efforts had helped a new generation shine. More than 95 percent of the management team was born in the ’70s and ’80s, he noted⁵.

两年前，在马云卸任CEO的时候，他强调自己太老了，不适合管理一家科技公司。他在最近的这封信中表示，公司近期的行动已经帮助年轻一代脱颖而出。他指出，公司管理层中70后和80后占了95%以上。

Mr. Zhang, who was born in 1972, has become well known among employees at Alibaba for his public speaking and charisma⁶. Leading Alibaba’s investment call on Thursday, Mr. Zhang’s polished English underlined the divide between himself and Mr. Ma, who, though once an English teacher, speaks a more unorthodox, self-taught brand of the language. Within Alibaba, there is admiration⁷ for Mr. Zhang’s cosmopolitan⁸ management style, in part honed during stints⁹ early in his career at Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

张勇出生于1972年，他凭借出色的公众演讲能力和个人魅力，在阿里巴巴员工中有很高的威望。周四，张勇主持了阿里巴巴的投资电话会议，他精湛的英语能力突显了他与马云的区别。后者虽然曾是一名英语老师，但英语却不太纯正，带有自学的风格。在阿里巴巴内部，不少人十分欣赏张勇国际化的管理风格，这在一定程度上要归功于他早期在安达信会计师事务所(Arthur Andersen)和普华永道(PricewaterhouseCoopers)工作时得到的训练。

Mr. Lu, who is only a few years older than his replacement, is scheduled to step down as chief executive on Sunday, exactly two years after he took over from Mr. Ma. At the time of his ascent¹⁰, he was portrayed as a utility player who would help the ballooning start-up manage its rapid growth. Mr. Lu will remain on the board.

陆兆禧只比张勇大几岁，他卸任CEO的时间定在周日，正好是在他接替马云担任该职位的两年之后。升任CEO时，他被描述为一位多面手，将帮助这家蒸蒸日上的创业公司管理快速的发展。陆兆禧将继续在董事局任职。

To many Alibaba employees, Mr. Zhang, who led the rise of the company’s Tmall shopping site, is known as one of the most capable of the new generation of leaders.

对于阿里巴巴的许多员工来说，带领公司的天猫商城获得巨大成功的张勇，是新一代高管中最有能力的人之一。

Mr. Zhang will need all the youthful energy he can manage to steer¹¹ an e-commerce goliath that employs more than 30,000 people across the globe. He will very likely move quickly to address company inefficiencies that Mr. Ma identified last week in a speech to employees in Beijing.

要想管理这家在全球雇佣了3万人的电子商务巨头，张勇必须动用自己所有年轻旺盛的精力。他很可能将迅速着手解决马云上周在北京对员工发表讲话时提到的效率不高的问题。

During the speech, Mr. Ma said the company would strive not to have a net growth in employees over the coming year. Instead, he said, Alibaba will work to transfer employees between departments and use technology to smooth operations.

马云在这次演讲中说，今年整个集团的员工总数不会增加一个人。他说，阿里巴巴会让员工在不同部门间调动，利用科技来提高运营效率。

Alibaba’s shares fell in recent months as Alibaba became involved in a public spat¹² with a Chinese regulator over fake items on its shopping sites. It also missed revenue targets last quarter.

最近几个月，由于阿里巴巴与中国一家监管机构就其购物网站上假货问题发生了矛盾，阿里巴巴的股价下挫。此外，它也未能达到上季度的营收目标。

But on Thursday, the company’s stock rose after the news of the leadership shake-up and the release of the retailer’s earnings¹³.

然而周四，在宣布领导层变动的消息和盈利报告之后，阿里巴巴股价出现了上涨。

In an earnings statement, Alibaba said that in the quarter that ended March 31, its net profit was $463 million, down 49 percent from the same period a year earlier and below analyst¹⁴ forecasts. Alibaba’s revenue rose to $2.8 billion, compared with a year earlier, roughly in line with the consensus¹⁵ analyst estimate.

阿里巴巴在一份盈利报告中称，在3月31日结束的季度里，公司净利润为4.63亿美元，较去年同期下降了49%，低于分析师的预期。与去年同期相比，阿里巴巴的营收上升至28亿美元，基本上与分析师的普遍预期相符。

Though analysts¹⁶ generally agree that Alibaba’s long-term growth potential still lives up to the hopes that surrounded its listing last year, many have become more cautious about how much the company can increase earnings in the coming months. One issue, they say, is that Alibaba makes less money from advertising¹⁷ on smartphones than it does on computers, yet more of its traffic comes via phones.

尽管分析师们普遍认为阿里巴巴的长期增长潜力仍然符合去年上市时外界的期望，但对于未来几个月阿里巴巴的利润能增加多少，许多人的态度越来越谨慎。他们说，一个问题是，阿里巴巴通过智能手机上广告获得的利润，少于电脑上广告的利润，然而该公司旗下服务的访问流量更多来自手机。

Alibaba also reported a net profit of $1.2 billion using figures derived¹⁸ from nonstandard accounting¹⁹ rules, a rise of 16 percent from a year earlier. The figures leave out items like special payments to employees after its offering in September, and are meant to be a closer approximation of future profits.

阿里巴巴还用源自非标准会计规则的数据通报称，实现净利润12亿美元，同比增加16%。这些数据未计入部分项目，如去年9月IPO后发放给员工的特别款项，这样做的目的是更接近未来的利润预期。

Since then, Alibaba’s e-commerce business has continued to add revenue. But it has struggled with the less straightforward²⁰ business of keeping investors²² happy. Shares have steadily²³ receded²⁴ from a November peak of $119.15 toward the company’s listing price of $68. The shares closed Thursday at $86.

自那时以来，阿里巴巴电商业务的营收继续增加。然而让投资者满意的任务却没有那么简单，阿里巴巴做得不那么好。自去年11月达到119.15美元的高点后，阿里巴巴的股价稳步下滑，直逼68美元的发行价。阿里巴巴股票周四以86美元报收。

In part, Alibaba is suffering from the huge expectations of such a prominent and successful listing, experts say.

专家称，因为上市备受关注且极为成功，随之而来的巨大期待在一定程度上给阿里巴巴造成了影响。

”The I.P.O. was clearly very fully priced; it was high but not unreasonable²⁵. But by the end of the first day of trading, a lot of the future upside was already priced into the stock,” said Bill Bishop²⁶, an independent technology investor²¹ and editor of the Sinocism China Newsletter.

“IPO显然非常彻底地体现出了其价值；当时的价格很高，但并非离谱。但到首个交易日结束时，未来会出现的很多利好因素都已经反映在了股价中，”独立科技投资者、Sinocism中国新闻简报的编辑利明璋(Bill Bishop)说。

For all the emphasis on the company’s share price, Alibaba’s leaders are unlikely to act like most executives, who may view their primary job as maximizing shareholder²⁷ value. In his speech last week, Mr. Ma made it clear that he planned to stick to his long-held philosophy of putting shareholders²⁸ behind the company’s customers and employees.

尽管强调公司的股价，但阿里巴巴的领导层不太可能表现得像许多高管那样，后者可能会认为自己的主要工作就是实现股东利益最大化。在上周的讲话中，马云明确表示，他打算坚持自己长期以来的理念，即优先关注公司的客户和员工，之后才是股东。

”We can’t make every analyst happy; we have to build the future,” he said. “If we were a traditional company, we would have to follow closely our stock price and what investors want. However we handle it, we would be exhausted²⁹. We need to think clearly about our first love, making it easier to do business across the world.”

“我想我们没有办法满足每一个分析师对我们的期望，但是我们必须去创造未来，”他说。“如果我们像传统企业一样，去经常关注我们的股票，投资者想要什么，我们做什么，这个公司永远会疲惫不堪，我们一定要想清楚当年的初心：让天下没有难做的生意。”

Though Mr. Ma has stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Alibaba, his letter to employees and his recent speech show that he has a big hand in managing the strategic direction of the company.

尽管马云已经脱离了阿里巴巴的日常经营，但写给员工的信及最近的讲话表明，他在管理该公司的战略方向上，起着重要作用。

Even as Alibaba focuses on managing its rapid growth, Mr. Ma will probably be watching the company’s biggest rival, Tencent. Though Alibaba’s smartphone applications attract hundreds of millions of users, Tencent’s WeChat messaging app dominates the time that people in China spend on their mobile phones.

即便阿里巴巴把精力集中在了管理迅速增长上，马云仍然可能会持续关注该公司最大的竞争对手腾讯(Tencent)。虽然阿里巴巴的智能手机应用吸引了数亿用户，但是从中国人使用手机的时间来看，腾讯的通讯工具微信依然占据主导地位。

With social networking and chat features alongside an e-commerce platform run by China’s second-largest e-commerce company, JD.com, Tencent may be able to take sales that would otherwise have gone to Alibaba, analysts say.

分析人士称，由于具有社交和聊天功能，并且有中国第二大电子商务企业京东运营的电子商务平台，腾讯或许可以分走一些本应流向阿里巴巴的销售额。

Mr. Zhang said on Thursday that merchants who sell on Alibaba’s platforms were likely to spend more on mobile advertising down the line. Fifty-one percent of transactions on the company’s e-commerce sites now take place on smartphones.

张勇在周四表示，在阿里巴巴的平台上销售商品的商家，未来可能会在移动广告上加大投入。目前，该公司电商网站上51%的交易发生在智能手机上。

The CLSA analyst Elinor Leung said that even if Alibaba did lose ground to competitors, she expected e-commerce sales and Alibaba’s revenue to continue to rise as more Chinese gain access to speedier smartphones.

里昂证券(CLSA)的分析师梁向奕(Elinor Leung)表示，即便阿里巴巴的部分市场流向了竞争对手，她预计随着更多中国人拥有速度更快的智能手机，电商销售和阿里巴巴的收入仍会继续增加。

”I don’t see the mobile transition as a hurdle³⁰, but it is a transition,” she said. “You have to promote the Taobao and Tmall applications and spend more money on advertising, and on big data to support targeted advertising.”

“我不认为移动交易是一种障碍，它是一种变革，”她说。“你得推广淘宝和天猫应用，在广告及大数据上投更多钱，从而实现更有针对性的广告。”

Some employees at Alibaba seemed pleased by the sudden announcement of Mr. Zhang’s ascension. Several posted messages on social media accounts welcoming the shift and proclaiming that young people could have great accomplishments³¹.

阿里巴巴的一些员工似乎对突然宣布张勇升职感到高兴。几名员工在社交媒体账户上发帖，对这一变动表示欢迎，并称年轻人可能会取得重大成就。

For his part, Mr. Ma welcomed the new chief executive with a joke about Mr. Zhang’s financial and accounting background.

马云本人则用一个玩笑，对绰号“逍遥子”的张勇表示了欢迎。那个玩笑关于这位新任CEO的财务背景。

”I am embarrassed that I used to say: ‘There’s nothing to fear but a C.F.O. pretending to be C.E.O.,’” Mr. Ma wrote, referring to a chief financial officer. “Alas, Daniel’s background was of a C.F.O., but he’s much much more.”

“说来惭愧，我以前经常说，‘天不怕地不怕，就怕CFO做CEO，’”马云写道，CFO指的是首席财务官。“而逍遥子是CFO出身。”