外国领导人为什么都爱参观硅谷

    通常，外国领导人会对他们与正在讨好的科技公司之间存在的分歧避而不谈。毕竟，在隐私、人权和法律管制问题上引起紧张情绪是没必要的。奥朗德政府正在调查谷歌、Facebook和LinkedIn这类科技公司是否存在非法偷税漏税的问题。此外，法国政府最近还惩罚了谷歌侵犯隐私的行为，要求它在网站首页保留48小时的尴尬的道歉声明。

    谷歌并未就奥朗德的拜访、法国政府及针对谷歌进行的调查问题发表相关评论。Facebook只是发表了一个模糊的声明，类似于“我们携手并进。”

    Facebook表示：“能够会见奥朗德总统及其政府成员，开诚布公地讨论法国及其在培养创新精神、吸引国外投资问题上扮演的角色，我们对这样的机会表示欢迎。”

    外国领导人纷纷来到硅谷的现象并不新奇。沃尔特•艾萨克森2011年在乔布斯的传记中写道，另一位法国总统弗朗索瓦•密特朗1984年年也造访过硅谷。当时，他的妻子丹尼尔并没有探讨科技问题，而是尖刻地就加班工资和假期之类的员工福利问题向史蒂夫•乔布斯发问。硅谷崛起前，外国领导人会访问“铁锈地带”（指美国东北部各州,东起俄亥俄州,西至艾荷华州,北至密歇根州的地区。它们曾经是美国的传统制造业中心——译注）的工厂。如今，他们怀着同样的目的，只是迅速发展的行业已经不同以往了。

    硅谷的领袖有时会对所受的关注投桃报李。他们出国时，往往会受到热烈的欢迎。Facebook董事长马克•扎克伯格2012年去日本时会见了日本首相安倍晋三。而去年，他和首席运营官谢丽尔•桑德伯格都会见了韩国总统朴槿惠。

    会见并不总是礼节性的，有时也会达成真正的商业外交。去年在巴黎与奥朗德的一次联席会议上，谷歌的施密特签署协议，承诺谷歌公司将提供8,000万美元帮助法国媒体公司进行在线展示。此前，法国的新闻媒体曾指控谷歌在搜索结果中显示了他们作品的片段，涉嫌窃取他们的内容，而这份协议则达成了彼此之间的和解。

    硅谷的领袖又能得到什么回报呢？很多。一旦这些国家的政府就知识产权、移民、许可之类的问题起草法案时，这些身居高位的朋友们就能帮上大忙。实质性的商业交易至少在短期内不会时常发生。但会面有时会让沟通变得更顺畅。

    斯坦福大学前教务长米勒这样评论首席执行官们的想法：“大家有一种感觉，如果世界上的其他地方正在变得更好，我们也能变得更好。它并不是竞争，而是合作。如今的产品创新已经不再局限于某一个地方了。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    Usually, foreign leaders steer clear of the differences they have with the technology companies they're courting. No need to inflame tensions, after all, over issues like privacy, human rights, and regulations. Hollande's government is probing whether technology companies like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn (LNKD) illegally dodged taxes. Moreover, France recently punished Google for privacy violations by requiring it to post an embarrassing notice about its misdeeds on its home page for 48 hours.

    Google did not respond to requests for comment about Hollande's visit or his government or targeting it with investigations. Facebook would only give a vague statement along the lines of, "Let's all work together."

    "We welcomed the opportunity to meet with President Hollande and some members of his government for an open discussion about France and its role in fostering innovation and attracting foreign investment," Facebook said.

    The phenomenon of foreign leaders flocking to Silicon Valley isn't entirely new. François Mitterand, another French president, toured Silicon Valley in 1984, during which his wife Danielle, peppered Steve Jobs with uncomfortable questions about worker welfare like overtime pay and vacations rather than gushing about the technology, according to Walter Isaacson's 2011 biography of Jobs. Before Silicon Valley's rise, foreign leaders visited factories in the Rust Belt. Now, it's the same idea, just a different growth industry.

    Silicon Valley leaders reciprocate some of the attention they receive. When they go abroad, they often find a warm reception. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, met with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a trip to Japan in 2012. And last year, both he and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, met with South Korea's President Park Geun-hye.

    Meetings aren't always courtesy calls. In some cases, some real business-diplomacy is done. Last year, in a joint meeting in Paris with Hollande, Google's Schmidt signed an agreement in which the company pledged to pay $80 million to help French media companies build their presence online. The deal settled a dispute in which French news outlets accused Google of stealing their content by showing snippets of their work in search results.

    What do Silicon Valley leaders get in return? Plenty. Friends in high places can only help when it comes time for their governments to draft regulations about intellectual property, immigration, and permitting, for example. Actual business deals are few and far between, at least in the short term. But the meetings can sometimes get the ball rolling.

    "There's a sense that if the rest of the world is doing better, we'll do better," Miller, the former Stanford provost, said of the CEO mindset. "It's not competition but cooperation. Product innovation doesn't just occur in one place anymore."