最近这两天，我开始看一本叫做《红色通缉》的书，作者是一位叫做比尔·克劳德的比尔·布劳德的投资基金经理。书中讲述了他的职业生涯。他主要投资俄罗斯，最终在那里得罪了普京总统手下的寡头，并因此被驱逐出境。而他的助手则被普京政府拘押并死于酷刑。
我在网上找了找这本书，有好几种语言的版本，但是就是没有直接阅读英文原版的。对于我来说有点吃力，也没有那么多时间和精力，不像看中文这样不怎么费脑子。好在现在的大语言模型流畅度已经相当高了。我用之前介绍过的方法，用aliabary翻译插件加本地运行大模型，将整本书翻译成了中文，然后放到手机上进行阅读，整个翻译过程也就花了大约一天左右的时间。而且基本上是电脑自动运行的，真的没想到科技有一天会进步到这种程度。想看这本书，再也不必等出版商引进、翻译出版，而且也不用担心国内会对内容进行删节和修改。
书归正传，讲讲我目前看到的一些内容。作者比尔·布劳德是一位美国人，他的成长经历很有意思。他的祖父是俄国犹太人，母亲是德国犹太人。在上世纪前叶，由于国际形势动荡，他们来到了美国组成了新家庭。尽管布劳德的爷爷离开了苏联，但他的思想仍然深受共产主义的影响，甚至成为了美国共产党的领袖。这给布劳德的父亲的职业生涯带来了一些困扰。不过，最终作者的父亲和母亲都还在大学里谋得了一份高级知识分子的职业。而作者的父母也深受祖父的影响，思想非常左倾。在这样的家庭氛围中，布劳德也难免受其影响，使他对于处于社会主义阵营的东欧和俄罗斯充满了向往。
不过，在求学的路上，布劳德的经历也很坎坷。因为他们的父母将主要精力放在学术和社会活动上，对他的关照非常有限。在大学以前，他基本上就是一个调皮捣蛋、打架斗殴的问题学生。不过，父母都是高级知识分子，他还是遗传到了这部分基因，考上了美国名校斯坦福大学。进入大学之后，他还加入了兄弟会，继续过着放荡不羁的生活。直到一次他的朋友、兄弟会会员之一因为吸毒被警察逮捕，他才幡然醒悟，将精力放在学习上，并取得了优异的成绩。从斯坦福大学毕业之后，他进入波士顿顾问集团实习。这个集团专门为各大机构提供金融顾问服务。
当被问到实习期结束想去哪里工作时，深受家庭影响的他，说出了他理想中的工作地点——东欧。当时还处于八十年代末的冷战末期，虽然东西方的关系已经有所缓和，但铁幕仍然存在。波士顿顾问集团并没有任何在东欧地区的实际业务。不过，该集团在伦敦的分支按照职责划分是负责这一地区的。于是，布劳德就被派往了伦敦办事处。就在布劳德到达伦敦后不久，机会就出现了。一九八九年，柏林墙倒塌，东欧国家纷纷结束共产党的统治，冷战彻底结束。这些前社会主义国家也都对西方敞开了大门，而布劳德也接到了他第一个梦寐以求的东欧任务——前往波兰帮助当地的一家公共汽车制造商制定私有化方案，并提交给世界银行。可以说，作者命运的多米诺骨牌的第一张已经倒下了。
In the last couple of days, I've been reading a book called "Red Wanted" by an investment fund manager named Bill Browder. The book tells the story of his career. He invested mainly in Russia, where he eventually offended oligarchs under President Vladimir Putin and was expelled. His aides were detained by Putin's government and died under torture.
I looked for the book online and it was available in several languages, but I didn't read the original in English. It's a little hard for me, and I don't have that much time and energy, and it's not as brainless as reading Chinese. The good news is that large language models are now quite fluent. I translated the whole book into Chinese using the aliabary translation plug-in and ran a large model locally, using the method described earlier, and then put it on my mobile phone to read it. The whole translation process took about a day or so. And basically computers run on their own, I really didn't think that technology would one day advance to such a degree. If you want to read this book, you no longer have to wait for publishers to introduce it, translate it and publish it, and you don't have to worry about domestic deletion and modification of the content.
Let's get back to what I've seen so far. The author, Bill Browder, is an American who had an interesting upbringing. His grandfather was a Russian Jew and his mother a German Jew. In the early part of the last century, due to the international turmoil, they came to the United States to form a new family. Although Browder's grandfather left the Soviet Union, his ideas remained deeply influenced by communism, and he even became the leader of the Communist Party of the United States. This caused some problems for Browder's father's career. In the end, however, both the author's father and mother managed to secure a career as senior intellectuals at the university. The author's parents were also deeply influenced by his grandfather, and their thoughts were very left-leaning. In such a family atmosphere, Browder was inevitably affected by it, which made him yearn for Eastern Europe and Russia, which were in the socialist camp.
However, on the road to education, Browder's experience was also difficult. Because their parents focused on academic and social activities, they gave him very limited attention. Before college, he was basically a troublemaking, brawling problem student. However, his parents are senior intellectuals, he still inherited this part of the gene, admitted to the prestigious American Stanford University. After entering college, he also joined a fraternity and continued to live a Bohemian life. It wasn't until one of his friends, a fraternity member, was arrested by the police for drug use that he realized what he was doing, focused on his studies, and achieved excellent grades. After graduating from Stanford, he interned at the Boston Consulting Group. The group specialises in providing financial advisory services to institutions.
When asked where he would like to work after his internship, he, influenced by his family, named his ideal place to work - Eastern Europe. It was still the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, and while East-West relations had thawed somewhat, the Iron Curtain remained in place. Boston Consulting Group does not have any real operations in Eastern Europe. However, the group's London unit is responsible for the region by division of responsibilities. Browder was sent to the London office. Soon after Browder arrived in London, the opportunity presented itself. The Cold War ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. These former communist countries also opened their doors to the West, and Browder received his first dream Eastern European assignment: to Poland to help a local bus manufacturer develop a privatization plan and submit it to the World Bank. It could be said that the first domino of the author's fate has fallen.