经济学人下载:堀江贵文的回归 升高升高再升高

Business
商业报道

Takafumi Horie's comeback
堀江贵文的回归

Up, up and away
升高，升高再升高

The controversial entrepreneur remains popular, brash and ambitious
这个有着很大争议的企业家依旧很受欢迎并且野心勃勃

IN 2005 Takafumi Horie, then president of Livedoor, an internet firm, joined the X PRIZE Foundation,
2005年，互联网公司活力门的总经理堀江贵文加入了X奖基金会。

a charity which gives cash for innovative projects such as space tourism.
X奖基金会是一个慈善组织，这个组织会为一些创新科技项目提供资金，如：太空旅行。

Joining forces with the likes of Larry Page and Elon Musk, co-founders of Google and PayPal respectively, was a typically bold move by the self-styled boy billionaire from Fukuoka.
加入一个有拉里佩奇和埃隆?马斯克这样的人的组织，无疑是这个福冈不为人知的亿万富翁小子的一项勇敢举措。拉里佩奇和埃隆?马斯克分别是谷歌和贝宝的合作创建人。

Instead of going into orbit, however, Mr Horie went behind bars.
不像其他人那样走的一帆风顺，堀江贵文曾在监狱服过刑。

He was arrested in Japan's biggest financial scandal of the decade.
他被捕的原因是卷入了日本数十年来最大的财政丑闻。

Now, however, he is out on parole, and says he will soon launch a low-cost space-tourism business using a Russian capsule.
但是现在，他假释出狱，并且表示，他马上就会使用俄罗斯研发的一种太空舱经营一个低成本的太空旅行企业。

He has completed several test launches.
他已经进行了多次发射演练。

A large Japanese firm is on the verge of sponsoring a flight next year, he says.
他说，日本的一家大公司已经准备明年投资一架飞机。

Other investors, he claims, are standing by.
并且声称，其他的投资者也都蠢蠢欲动了。

This time the money will come not from inflating the earnings and shares of Livedoor, for which Mr Horie was sent down,
现在这个时期，对于像堀江贵文这样子被开除的人来说，钱不是那么容易就能从活力门的股份和通货膨胀的工资中挣到，

but from a dedicated following of 20- and 30-somethings who pay to hear his thoughts via a monthly digital magazine.
但是他却可以从一大批忠心的追随者中赚到钱，那些追随者会订电子月刊付钱听他的想法。

He has almost a million followers on Twitter. Social media and crowdfunding platforms, he says, make it far easier now to launch new businesses.
他在推特上已经有了将近一百万的追随者。他说，社交媒体和云募资平台使得创建新企业变得更加容易。

Not even 21 months in a Japanese prison,
绝不仅仅只是21个月在日本监狱生活，

including solitary confinement, freezing temperatures and forced labour, were able to stop him entertaining an audience.
这之中堀江贵文还被送到那种极度寒冷且被迫大量劳动的地方单独监禁，这种经历使得他不再用愉悦的口吻为自己的听众做讲解。

From his cell he published two well-received books with gritty manga strips describing his new life:
牢狱中，他在自己的小房间中出版了两本很受欢迎的书，书中他用日本漫画来描绘自己的生活：

cleaning pubic hair out of toilets, being farted at by the senior prisoners he had to tend to, and having to surrender porn magazines to prison guards.
清理洗手间的毛发，比自己早来的犯人冲着自己放屁，被迫向监狱看守交出自己的色轻杂志。

He also dreamed up dozens of new-business ideas.
他也在书中阐述了很多关于新企业的想法。

Among the 30 or so earthbound plans are a new reality show where fans will pay to put their idols on television,
大约有三十个切合实际的计划都是关于一个新的实体秀的，在这个实体秀中，粉丝需要付钱把他们的偶像放到电视上，

a celebrity-chat smartphone application and a scheme to undercut the price of livestreaming video to phones. Nothing too radical, then:
付钱去申请一个和名人电话通话的机会，付钱去买更为廉价的主流音像资源到手机上。这之中没有任何一个特别激进的，然后：

Japan, after all, is already awash with social-media and smartphone start-ups.
日本就会充斥着社交媒体和智能电话企业。

As for his reception back into business life,
至于他返回商业界的感受，

Mr Horie jokes that everyone has welcomed me, except for the chairman of Fuji TV.
堀江贵文开玩笑地说道：每个人都很欢迎我，除了富士电视套台长。

Many people reckon the entrepreneur was punished harshly mainly because he tried to win control of the big broadcaster, and because he flaunted his wealth.
很多人推测堀江贵文之所以被如此严厉的惩戒主要是因为他曾经试图去控制广播公司，而且他还总是去炫耀自己的资产。

The authorities usually treat accounting fraud more leniently. In July a group of executives at Olympus, a camera-maker, received suspended prison sentences for a far larger scheme.
政府惩罚做假账的都比这轻。七月，奥林巴斯的一组高官由于一个很大的商业阴谋而被判缓刑。

Mr Horie, now 40, says he is trying to forget what happened.
四十岁的堀江贵文说他正在试图忘记所发生的不好的事情。

It will be hard for his generation to do likewise.
但这对于他那一代人来说却很难。

William Saito, a serial entrepreneur who travels the country encouraging graduates to start new businesses, says he has spent the past five years trying to undo the dispiriting effect of Mr Horie's fall and punishment on young people.
连环创业者威廉斋藤游遍全国去游说毕业生创业，他说，他过去五年都在尝试解开堀江贵文的失败为年轻人们带来的负面效应。

A successful new venture would help greatly.
一个成功的新企业将会起到很大的帮助。