几乎无一例外，美国互联网公司在中国市场都失败。而与此同时，中国的三大公司阿里巴巴、百度和腾讯则从中受益。这三大公司总市值达到约1500亿美元。

许多人将美国公司失败的原因归于政府的监管和袒护，尽管这一点是这些公司失败的原因之一，但更主要的是他们自身原因：

1、过于短视行为。中国是一个庞大的市场，要求更多的耐心。美国公司常常根据盈利状况对全球市场进行选择，往往在经济低迷时撤出地区市场。但是，这一行为往往被证明是以小失大。他们从短期上讲是节省了部分钱，但却将市场份额送给了竞争对手。例如，AOL两次进入和退出中国市场，每次退出时都是因为自己的账务状况窘况所致，而当时的中国市场正处于急速发展时期。

2、本地化团队未获授权。由于拥有激烈的竞争对手，中国是一个艰难而巨大的市场。为了在中国拥有机会，美国公司必须授权本地团队以让他们应答、自我管理、本地化和应对竞争。但是，由于一些不快的事情或陈规的担心，美国公司总部不仅拒绝给予所述的自我管理权，还加上了另外的监管。例如，谷歌(微博)运作时，对政策、产品、数据中心配给、用户界面，甚至涂鸦，都必须经过谷歌总部批准，更不用说每个员工的聘请了。

3、全球进程缓慢。中国市场特殊，需要特殊对待。但美国公司非常看重维持全球性的统一平台。这样的决策将维持全球平台的完整，但可能会放弃本地市场份额。例如，eBay收购了市场本地市场领头羊易趣(Eachnet)，随后扼杀了该平台而以主机在美国的eBay平台取而代之，这成了一个灾难。再如，eBay依靠销售商人的信誉，而在中国这样做是不够的，而支付宝提供了第三方担保服务，从而赢得了竞争。

4、文化差异。美国公司喜欢雇用有着多年工作经验的“常春藤联盟”学校的MBA，或者斯坦福大学博士，讲着纯正的英语和美语。但是，这些“海龟”在中国互联网市场的激烈竞争中可能不是最有效的。例如，雅虎中国(Yahoo China)曾有一位总经理被认为在雅虎内部不善于与人共事，离开后创办的一家公司，6年时间价值就超过30亿美元。

那么，美国公司在中国还有机会吗?不容易，但可能。首先，上面所述提供了一本很好的教科书，为了获得机会必须予以研究。第二，尽管中国公司在消费者/移动软件空间做得很好，我认为凭借大数据、云计算和企业软件，美国公司仍然具有优势，至少是现在。(编译：图奇)

作者系创新工场创始人、董事长兼CEO 李开复

英文原文(李开复博士发表于职业社交网站LinkedIn)：

Almost without exception, American Internet companies failed in China. The chart below shows the failure of American companies in China, and the three big winners: Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, that emerged as a result (the collective market capitalization of these three companies is about $150 billion).

Many attribute the American company failures to government regulations or favoritism. While these played a part in their failure, there were other more relevant reasons related to the companies themselves:

Too short-term focused — China is a large market requiring much patience. American companies often prioritize globally based on profitability, or cut-back across all regions during economic downturns. But these moves often prove to be penny-wise, pound-foolish. They save some money in the short-term, but hand over market share to the competitors. Examples: AOL entered and exited China twice — each exit caused by its own financial woes, while the China market was booming.

Local team not empowered — China is a tough, large market with fierce competitors. To have a chance in China, the American company must empower the local team to be responsive, autonomous, localized, and ready for combat. However, because of some horror stories or stereotyped concerns, American company headquarters would not only refuse to give autonomy, but also apply additional scrutiny. Example: Google’s processes required headquarter approval for policy, product, data center allocation, UI, and even doodle, not to mention hiring of each personnel.

Slow global processes — Chinese market can be sufficiently different to require exceptions, but American companies care greatly about maintaining a single global platform. These decisions will maintain integrity of the global platform, but may give up the local market share. Example: eBay bought the market leader Eachnet, and then killed its platform in favor of the eBay platform hosted in the US, which was a disaster. Another example was eBay relied on seller reputation, but in China that was not enough, and Alipay came up with an escrow payment which won the battle and the war.

Cultural mismatch — American companies prefer to hire Ivy League MBAs or Stanford PhDs with years of experience, speaking perfect English and American body language. But these “sea turtles” may not be the most effective in day-to-day battle in the Chinese Internet gladiatorial fight. Example: Yahoo China had a GM who was considered a misfit inside Yahoo, but left to build a company valued over $3 billion in just six years.

So will an American company have a chance? It won’t be easy, but possibly. First, all of the above make a great textbook that must be studied to have a chance. Second, while Chinese companies are doing well in the consumer/mobile software space, I believe with big data, cloud computing, and enterprise software, American companies still have an edge… for now.