柳青：烧钱大战的赢家Jean Liu:Splashing the cash

Last September, Jean Liu, president of Didi Kuaidi (now Didi Chuxing), had the unenviable task of explaining why it was losing huge amounts of money in a subsidy¹ war with Uber, with no end in sight.

去年9月，滴滴快的(现更名为滴滴出行)总裁柳青(Jean Liu)的棘手任务是，解释该公司为何在与优步(Uber)的补贴大战中亏损巨额资金，而且这种状况看不到结束的迹象。

Rather than duck, she took the question head on: “We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for burning cash,” she said.

她没有选择回避，而是直截了当地回答： “不烧钱我们走不到今天这一步。”

She was right, and continued to be so. The oft-quoted line became an anthem² for Didi, as it went head-to-head with Uber in losing billions of dollars subsidising riders and drivers in a bid for market share.

她的话在当时是对的，现在依然是对的。随着滴滴与优步短兵相接，为争夺市场份额不惜亏损数十亿美元补贴乘客和司机，这句经常被引用的话变成了滴滴的凯歌。

Finally, Ms Liu, credited as the brains behind Didi’s ability to raise money and burn it at a jaw-dropping pace, was vindicated³ this week, as Didi vanquished⁴ Uber in a war of nerves (and cash).

上周，随着滴滴在这场胆略（及资金）的较量中彻底击败优步，柳青终于证明了自己的正确。人们认为，滴滴能够筹集资金并以令人瞠目结舌的速度烧钱，就是她在运筹帷幄。

Uber is retreating from China, albeit⁵ with a 20 per cent stake in Didi, after losing $1bn last year, though Didi probably lost even more. Uber “has done better than any Silicon⁶ Valley company in China”, she said charitably, in a joint letter to Didi staff with Cheng Wei, the company’s chairman.

去年亏损10亿美元之后，优步正在撤出中国——尽管其获得了滴滴20%的股份（滴滴去年可能亏损更多）。在与滴滴首席执行官程维联名发给滴滴员工的一封公开信中，柳青盛赞优步是“历史上硅谷公司在中国做到过最好的”。

The Harvard and Peking University-educated scion⁷ of a Chinese tech dynasty, Ms Liu sits at the nexus⁸ of the Chinese and US technology aristocracies — her father is Liu Chuanzhi, who founded Lenovo, the computer maker⁹ that bought IBM’s PC business in 2005 and subsequently became the largest PC maker in the world.

毕业于哈佛大学(Harvard University)和北京大学(Peking University)的柳青是“科二代”，身处中美科技巨头的中枢——她的父亲柳传志创立的联想(Lenovo)于2005年收购了IBM的个人电脑业务，随后成为世界最大的个人电脑制造商。

Ms Liu told the Chinese press that she followed the life plan laid out by her father — study abroad and work abroad to gain experience, but then come back to China.

柳青曾对中国媒体表示，她一直遵循父亲为她制定的人生规划——出国留学，在海外工作以积累经验，然后回到中国。

After a masters at Harvard in computer science, Ms Liu cut her teeth at Goldman Sachs, starting in 2002 as a junior analyst¹⁰ and working her way up to managing director. She quit banking¹¹ to join Didi in 2014, and promptly¹² made her mark by masterminding the merger¹³ between Didi and Kuaidi, which was then its chief rival.

获得哈佛大学计算机科学硕士学位后，柳青加入高盛(Goldman Sachs)，2002年从初级分析师做起，一步步晋升为董事总经理。2014年，柳青离开银行业加盟滴滴，并迅速做出了成绩——策划滴滴与当时主要竞争对手快的合并。

As president at Didi, sharing power with Mr Cheng, Ms Liu became the international face of the company and its chief dealmaker and fundraiser through the Uber “cash burn” wars.

柳青在滴滴担任总裁，与程维共同执掌公司。在这个位置上，她成为滴滴在国际上的代言人，并在滴滴与优步的“烧钱”大战全过程中统领交易和筹款事务。

The best advice from her father, she says, was “don’t listen to what investors¹⁴ say, but what they do” — and while Didi’s financiers continued to press the company to stop the costly¹⁵ price war with Uber, they still poured money into the company.

她说，父亲给她的最佳忠告是，“不要听投资者说什么，而要看他们做什么”——虽然滴滴的投资者一直在敦促该公司停止与优步进行代价高昂的价格大战，但他们仍将大量资金投入滴滴。

In May, Ms Liu won a $1bn investment from Apple — a rare mark of approval from the iPhone maker. She went on to raise a further $6bn for Didi in June, a record for a Chinese start-up.

今年5月，柳青获得了来自苹果(Apple)的10亿美元投资——这是一罕见之举标志着这家iPhone制造商对滴滴的认可。6月，她又为滴滴筹得60亿美元，创下中国创业型企业筹资记录。

As one of the most prominent woman leaders in Chinese tech, Ms Liu also made waves last year when she announced internally that she was being treated for breast cancer at the age of 37. A Didi spokesperson said Ms Liu is now “fine”.

作为中国科技业最知名的女性领导者之一，柳青也曾在去年引起轰动——时年37岁的她在公司内部宣布自己正在接受乳腺癌治疗。滴滴发言人表示，柳青现在“很好”。

“She has been in all-in mode for quite some time,” she said.

“很长时间以来，她一直处于全身心投入的状态，”她说。

This week, however, she was barely seen and gave no press interviews other than the joint letter and a bland¹⁶ press statement, leading to questions about why the friendly, English-speaking face of Didi was publicly absent during the company’s biggest foreign acquisition.

然而，上周，除了那封联名公开信以及一份四平八稳的新闻声明，她几乎没有现身，也没有接受过任何媒体采访。这不禁让人疑惑，为什么滴滴这张亲切、讲英语的面孔未在滴滴进行它最大的一笔海外收购期间公开露面。

“Management is now focusing on internal communications and integration,” said a spokesperson for the company.

滴滴发言人表示：“管理层现在正聚焦于公司内部的沟通与整合。”