英語翻譯
In Search of Davos Man
Peter Gumbel
William Browder was born in Princeton,New Jersey,grew up in Chicago,and studied at Stanford University in California.But don’t call him an American.For the past 16 of his 40 years he has lived outside the U.S.,first in London and then,from 1996,in Moscow,where he runs his own investment firm.Browder now manages $ 1.6 billion in assets.In 1998 he gave up his American passport to become a British citizen,since his life is now centered in Europe.“National identity makes no difference for me,” he says.“I feel completely international.If you have four good friends and you like what you are doing,it doesn’t matter where you are.That’s globalization.”Alex Mandl is also a fervent believer in globalization,but he views himself very differently.A former president of AT & T,Mandl,61,was born in Austria and now runs a French technology company,which is doing more and more business in China.He reckons he spends about 90% of his time traveling on business.But despite all that globetrotting,Mandl who has been a U.S.citizen for 45 years still identifies himself as an American.“I see myself as American without any hesitation.The fact that I spend a lot of time in other places doesn’t change that,” he says.
Although Browder and Mandl define their nationality differently,both see their identity as a matter of personal choice,not an accident of birth.And not incidentally,both are Davos Men,members of the international business elite who trek each year to the Swiss Alpine town for the annual meeting of the world Economic Forum,founded in 1971.This week,Browder and Mandl will join more than 2,200executives,politicians,academics,journalists,writers and a handful of Hollywood stars for five days of networking,parties and endless earnest discussions about everything from post-election Iraq and HIV in Africa to the global supply of oil and the implications of nanotechnology.Yet this year,perhaps more than ever,a hot topic Davos is Davos itself.Whatever their considerable differences,most flows of capital,labor and technology across national borders,is both welcome and unstoppable.They see the world increasingly as one vast,interconnected marketplace in which corporations search for the most advantageous locations to buy,produce and sell their goods and services.