卡蘭尼克的悲劇告訴我們什么？

5月25日，優步總裁特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克71歲的母親在加州弗雷斯諾遭遇船只失事身亡（父親也身受重傷）。第二天，眾多媒體像之前緊盯優步新聞一樣迅速撲上，都是這種標題：《悲??！優步首席執行官卡蘭尼克痛失母親》，《優步老總特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克母親與丈夫劃船同游時撞上加州海岸礁石，母親身亡》，向來克制的《每日郵報》標題為《圖片：船只失事，優步首席執行官母親喪生》。（想來人們對硅谷各大公司所謂的按需經濟創新沒那么關注，真正關心的還是名人八卦。）

各家媒體的后續報道或多或少表達了震驚之情?！昂茱@然這對卡蘭尼克一家是可怕的悲劇，”卡拉?斯威舍在科技網站Recode上寫道?！埃ò钅?卡蘭尼克）生前很為兒子自豪?！蔽淖峙缘恼掌?，卡蘭尼克在肯德基德比市開心地站在父母中間。優步也發表了一篇飽含情感的聲明：“昨晚特拉維斯和家人遭遇了一場難以言喻的悲劇。他的母親在弗蘭斯諾附近一場災難性的船只事故中失去了生命，父親也情況危急。當次悲痛時刻，我們的心與特蘭尼克和家人同在，為他們最真摯地祈禱?！?/p>

慘劇發生后，卡蘭尼克領導下的公司發表這樣一篇聲明，并用上“難以言喻”、“災難性”，以及“悲痛”之類字眼沒什么出奇。但評論界也一片沉痛之情，有些不同尋常。畢竟，評論人士一直喜歡批評卡蘭尼克熱衷競爭，我在《財富》雜志的同事亞當?拉辛斯基的評價也差不多，說他“野心勃勃”，“無情冷酷”。但最近評論界風向突轉有些打臉。上周人們還在討論全球估值最高的私人公司老總是不是爛到骨子里。（“我覺得我不是混蛋，”卡蘭尼克告訴拉辛斯基?！拔液艽_定?！保┻@周眾人都在說他身為人子失去母親的傷痛。

為什么人們意識到硅谷的大神也有凡人一面后會震驚？因為輿論里總是將硅谷創業家塑造為整日叫囂顛覆和創新的傳奇人物，捧到的高度遠超普通公眾人物。但創業家也有父母，也有兒女，也有自己的愛好，并沒有宣傳中那么簡單。

舉個例子，Facebook精明強悍的首席運營官雪莉?桑德伯格曾競選政界職位，幾乎是水到渠成，不曾想，她的丈夫——SurveyMonkey首席執行官戴夫?戈德伯格突然身亡。雖然后來桑德伯格努力營造從逆境中崛起的形象，但那次悲劇中難得看到她真實一面。平時總是作為硅谷飛速增長爭議不斷的創業公司高管，外界只能看到新聞稿層層粉飾的女性高管，突造變故那一刻，她才讓世人看到真情流露的一面。而另一位硅谷創業者永遠仰視的大佬——特斯拉汽車和SpaceX首席執行官埃隆?馬斯克也類似，雖然離婚鬧得沸沸揚揚，卻也難得讓這位眼光高遠到探測火星的科技大牛難得接一回地氣。（火箭大佬似乎能隨意擺弄物理定律，面對婚姻法照樣無計可施。）

如今優步已有12000名員工，簽約司機無數，代表的創新概念已經遠超富有爭議的總裁本人。很快人們也會忘記這段插曲，追逐新的頭條，當然卡蘭尼克肯定忘不了。（實際上就在上周末，西班牙出租車司機集體罷工抗議優步，奧斯汀監管規則改動后優步服務在當地重新上線，關于優步存在性騷擾和性別歧視的詳細報告發表前大筆投機資金緊鑼密鼓運作。）但人們應當記住，在古希臘人眼里，變幻無常有時邪惡的神詆也會偶爾犯錯，他們只是比普通人聰明一點，能力強大很多而已。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審校：夏林

On Friday the 71-year-old mother of Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, was killed in a boating accident near Fresno, Calif. (His father was seriously injured.) The following day, the press jumped on the story as rabidly as those about Uber that preceded it: “Tragedy strikes as Uber CEO Kalanick loses mother,” “Uber chief Travis Kalanick's mum dies when the boat she was riding with husband smashed into rock off California coast,” and from the ever-restrained Daily Mail, “Pictured: Boat wreckage where Uber CEO's mother died.” (The on-demand economy, come to think of it, is less about our insatiable need for Silicon Valley services than our need to read about them.)

There seemed to be a degree of shock to each report that followed the first. “It’s obviously a terrible tragedy for the Kalanick family,” wrote Kara Swisher at the tech site Recode. "[Bonnie Kalanick] was deeply proud of her son.” The words were accompanied by a photograph of the CEO happily sandwiched between his parents at this year's Kentucky Derby. Uber, for its part, release an equally emotional statement: "Last night Travis and his family suffered an unspeakable tragedy. His mother passed away in a devastating boating accident near Fresno and his father is in serious condition. Our thoughts and prayers are with Travis and his family in this heartbreaking time."

It is hardly a surprise that the company Kalanick leads would issue a statement with such forceful words as "unspeakable," "devastating," and "heartbreaking" in the wake of the event. But it is somewhat remarkable that the commentariat would do the same. After all, these are the critics who have lambasted the executive, and rightly so, for a competitive attitude that my Fortune colleague Adam Lashinsky described in the same breath as "audacious ambition" and "tone-deaf ruthlessness." The abrupt change in tone was enough to induce whiplash. Last week we were mulling whether the top executive at the world's most highly valued private company was rotten to the core. ("I don’t think I’m an asshole," he told Lashinsky. "I’m pretty sure I’m not.") This week we're reminded that he's someone's son.

Why are we shocked to learn that Silicon Valley's demigods are, in fact, human? The larger-than-life ideas of our wizards of disruption and enchantresses of innovation make it easy to elevate them beyond simple public-figure status. But they also have private parents, children, and hobbies that complicate that portrayal.

It seemed almost inevitable, for example, that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's bubbly yet steely chief operating officer, would campaign for political office before her husband, SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, suddenly died. Though Sandberg has since fashioned her adversity into another plank of her platform of empowerment, the incident itself was a rare glimpse of her humanity—a moment of authenticity amidst a highly orchestrated swirl of communication for a top executive at a fast-growing, oft-criticized California company. Even the messy divorce of Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, perennially the executive that other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs most look up to, was an unusually grounded moment for a towering technologist who has set his sights on Mars. (The Rocket Man may seemingly be able to bend the laws of physics to his will, but the laws of marriage, well, that's another story.)

With 12,000 employees and countless drivers Uber is now a concept that dwarfs its controversial chief executive. We will quickly move on to the next set of headlines and forget this fleeting interruption, even if Kalanick will not. (Indeed, over the weekend taxi drivers in Spain staged strikes against the company, Uber services resumed in Austin after a change in regulations, and speculation intensified ahead of the expected release of a report detailing allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the company.) But it would do us well to remember that the ancient Greeks never believed their capricious, occasionally immoral gods to be infallible—just a little smarter and a lot more powerful.