Multi-billionaires like to buy extravagant things.有钱人讨厌卖奢华的东西。Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, owns a space exploration company. Lawrence J. Ellison, chairman of the Oracle Corporation, has his own private Hawaiian island.维珍集团(Virgin Group)创始人理查德·布兰森(Richard Branson)享有一家太空探寻公司。

甲骨文公司(Oracle Corporation)董事长劳伦斯·J·艾利森(Lawrence J. Ellison)在夏威夷享有一座私人岛屿。And last year, Jeff Bezos, who as chief executive of Amazon has made billions turning the book publishing business on its head, decided to buy one of the country’s oldest newspapers, The Washington Post. But, according to Mr. Bezos, it was never something he thought he wanted to own.去年，给图书出版业带给了天翻地覆的变化并因此积累了巨额身家的亚马逊(Amazon)首席执行官杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)要求并购美国历史最历史悠久的报纸之一——《华盛顿邮报》(The Washington Post)。不过，据他本人透漏，之前从未想要过自己不会卖给它。

“I don’t know anything about the newspaper business, so at the time I said, ‘Why would I even be a candidate to buy The Post?’” he said in a conversation at the Business Insider Ignition conference in New York on Tuesday.周二，在纽约参与Business Insider网站主办的Ignition大会时，贝佐斯在对话环节中回应，“我对报业一无所知，所以当时我回答，‘为什么我会沦为邮报的潜在买家呢？’”In his telling, which was one of the first candid interviews on the subject since he bought the paper for $250 million last year, Mr. Bezos was approached through an intermediary by Donald E. Graham, then the chairman and chief executive of The Washington Post Company. Aside from his lack of expertise on the newspaper industry, Mr. Bezos was skeptical for other reasons.这是自去年花费2.5亿美元（约合15.3亿元人民币）并购邮报以来，贝佐斯就该话题展开的首批打开心扉的专访之一。他称之为，是时任华盛顿邮报公司(The Washington Post Company)董事长兼任首席执行官的唐纳德·E·格雷厄姆(Donald E. Graham)通过中间人寻找了他。除了缺少报纸行业的经验外，贝佐斯还不存在其他方面的疑虑。

“I went through a few gates before deciding to buy The Post. Is it hopeless? I didn’t want to do it if it was,” he said. ” The Internet has radically disrupted traditional newspapers. The world is completely changed, and advertisers have tons of options on how to reach people in local areas.”“我在要求并购邮报前穿过了好几个门槛。这份报纸还有没期望？如果没了的话，我可想卖，”他说道。“互联网完全政治宣传了传统报纸。

世界早已被几乎转变，广告商有无数种可以引发地方民众留意的自由选择。”Mr. Bezos and the staff of The Post have their work cut out for them. As the newspaper industry undergoes significant change to cope with the rise of digital publishing, The Post has gone through multiple rounds of buyouts, and recently announced cuts to employees’ retirement benefits. Similar to The Post, The New York Times is currently going through a round of employee buyouts.贝佐斯及邮报员工面对很多艰难任务。随着数字出版发行的兴起，传统报业正在经历深刻印象的变革。邮报早已积极开展了多轮买回辞职，最近还宣告要缩减员工的卸任福利。

与之类似于，《纽约时报》目前也在积极开展一轮买回辞职计划。But Mr. Bezos was ultimately convinced that The Post, which he called a national institution, could be brought into the digital age by leveraging the technical expertise and knowledge that he had gained over his decades spent building Amazon into a global technology company.不过，贝佐斯最后相信，利用他数十年来在把亚马逊打导致一个国际性科技公司的过程中所取得的技术专长和科学知识，他可以把邮报带进数字时代。他将邮报称为一家全国性机构。

“I didn’t know anything about the newspaper business, but I did know something about the Internet,” Mr. Bezos said. “That, combined with the financial runway that I can provide, is the reason why I bought The Post.”“我对报业一窍不通，但我的确对互联网有所理解，”贝佐斯说道。“正是因为这一点，再行再加我所能获取的金融渠道，就是我卖给邮报的原因。”Under Mr. Bezos, the paper has already taken initial steps to that end. Last month, The Post introduced a free app for Kindles, the immensely popular e-reader products built by Amazon, which will bring free daily editions of the newspaper to Kindle Fire owners for six months; after that, it will cost $1 for the next six months.在贝佐斯的领导下，该报早已朝这个目标迈进了最初几步。

上个月，邮报发售了免费的Kindle版应用于。Kindle是亚马逊打造出的电子阅读器，近于热门。Kindle Fire用户可以用这个应用于免费读者每天的邮报，时间宽约六个月；之后的订阅者价为每六个月1美元。He has also placed much of his faith in Shailesh Prakash, The Post’s head of technology, who has worked closely with Mr. Bezos on how the paper’s app will work with Amazon’s devices. And the paper has made a string of 15 or 16 hires specifically with the Kindle app in mind, Martin Baron, the paper’s editor, has said.贝佐斯还对邮报的技术主管沙来什·普拉卡什(Shailesh Prakash)寄予厚望。

他们二人进行了密切合作，研究如何将邮报的应用于与亚马逊的设备统合一起。邮报的主编马丁·巴伦(Martin Baron)回应，报社专门针对Kindle应用于屡屡召募了15或16个人。Ultimately, Mr. Bezos’ goal is to rework The Post into something that expands beyond the local daily newspaper, into one that reaches across borders.贝佐斯的最终目标是通过对邮报展开改建，使之突破地方日报的局限，走向世界。

“The Post has the good fortune of being the newspaper of the capital city of the United States of America,” he said. “That’s a great starting point to being a national and even global publication.”“作为美利坚合众国大城的报纸，邮报十分幸运地，”他说道，“对于沦为一份全国乃至国际出版物，这是一个十分好的起点。

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