原文标题：
Bartleby
Are superstars as good when they move jobs?
The AI-talent scramble raises an old question
巴托比专栏
超级员工跳槽后还能一样优秀吗？
AI人才争夺战引出了一个老问题
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THE COMPETITION for the world’s best AI talent is frenzied.
全球顶尖AI人才的竞争异常激烈。
Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, has personally taken charge of efforts to recruit for a “superintelligence” lab.
Meta的老板马克·扎克伯格亲自上阵，为“超级智能”实验室招募人才。
The sums on offer are eye-watering: a rumoured $200m-plus to prise away the head of Apple’s AI models.
开出的薪水高得惊人：据传，他为挖来苹果公司AI模型部门的负责人，开价超过2亿美元。
OpenAI executives are said to be “recalibrating” compensation in order to ward off Mr Zuckerberg.
据称，OpenAI的高管们正在“重新调整”薪酬方案，以防范扎克伯格的挖角行动。
But hiring hotshots makes sense only if you believe that talent is portable, and that superstars will continue to shine in their new organisations.
但唯有认定人才具备可迁移性、且这些行业巨星在新组织中依旧能大放异彩时，那么招募这些精英才具备合理性。
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That is debatable. On average, internal hires outperform external ones.
这一点值得商榷。总体来看，内部晋升者的业绩优于外部聘用者。
People promoted from within have some obvious immediate advantages over new joiners. They know who to approach to ask dumb questions; they can actually log in.
与新入职者相比，从内部提拔的人具有一些显著的即时优势：他们清楚向谁请教基础问题，也能熟练登录系统。
If these kinds of basic procedural issues were the only problem, then a star should quickly brush them aside.
如果这些基本的流程问题是唯一的障碍，那么明星员工理应能迅速克服。
But the more profound issue is that a person’s performance is not just a matter of their own brilliance. It is often inseparable from the context—the relationships, culture, processes and tacit knowledge—that surrounds a star.
然而，更为关键的问题是，个体的业绩表现并非单纯取决于自身的才华，往往还与其所处的环境因素密不可分，环境因素包括围绕明星员工的人际关系、文化氛围、工作规程及隐性知识等。
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A variety of studies have tried to tease out how much these firm-specific factors matter to the performance of hotshots.
多项研究都试图弄清楚：企业特定因素对顶尖人才绩效的影响程度。
Perhaps the best-known research in this area has been done by Boris Groysberg of Harvard Business School.
在这一领域，最知名的研究或许来自哈佛商学院的鲍里斯·格罗伊斯伯格。
In one paper written with Linda-Eling Lee, of MSCI, and Ashish Nanda, also of Harvard, Mr Groysberg looked at the performance of the best investment analysts, as measured by external rankings, after they had moved firms.
格罗伊斯伯格与明晟公司的琳达-艾琳·李、还有同样在哈佛的阿希什·南达合著过的一篇论文中，以外部排名为衡量标准，对最优秀投资分析师在转投新公司后的业绩展开了研究。
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In theory, a move ought not to have made much difference to how well they did their job: analysts often cover the same firms for the same clients.
从理论上讲，换个工作不应太影响他们的业务水平：毕竟分析师通常为相同客户服务，研究的也是相同企业。
In practice, the stars’ performance declined compared with colleagues who stayed put.
然而实际上，与留任的同事相比，跳槽的明星员工绩效有所下降。
More recent research, by Claudia Gabbioneta of the University of York and her colleagues, found the same thing.
约克大学的克劳迪娅·加比奥内塔及其团队的近期研究亦印证了这一点。
They looked at recruitment among British corporate-law firms between 2000 and 2017, and found that, on average, practice areas that hired a star underperformed those that did not in the subsequent year.
他们研究了2000-2017年英国律师事务所的招聘情况，发现平均而言，聘请了明星员工的执业领域在随后的一年里表现不如未聘请明星员工的执业领域。
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That may be because incoming stars disrupt the performance of existing employees.
原因或许在于，新加入的明星员工会扰乱现有员工的绩效表现。
A study by Matteo Prato of ESADE and Fabrizio Ferraro of IESE, both in Spain, also looked at the movement of securities analysts to see if the arrival of an ace affected their new colleagues.
西班牙ESADE商学院的马特奥·普拉托与IESE商学院的法布里齐奥·费拉罗也研究了证券分析师的流动情况，目的是为了探究顶尖人才的加入是否会对新同事产生影响。
They found that the performance of the existing team fell, particularly among lower-ranked analysts; that fits with the hypothesis that stars will gobble resources and attention which might have gone to less celebrated peers.
他们发现，现有团队的绩效出现下降，尤以排名靠后的分析师为甚；这与“明星员工会抢占原本可能流向名气较小同事的资源和关注”这一假设相吻合。
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There are nuances. In another co-written paper, Mr Groysberg looked at the performance of top American football players who moved teams.
这里面存在细微差别。在另一篇与人合著的论文中，格罗伊斯伯格研究了美国顶尖橄榄球运动员转会后的赛场表现。
Wide receivers, whose job entails complicated plans involving words like scrimmage, did worse if they switched teams than those who did not.
外接手的工作需要复杂的战术配合，例如“争球线”等专业术语，他们转会后的赛场表现比留在原队的差。
Punters, who are very good at kicking a ball but don’t have to interact much with their teammates, saw no such drop.
而踢球手虽精于踢球，但无需与队友过多互动，他们的赛场表现并没有下降。
If a job genuinely depends on individual prowess, talent can travel.
如果一份工作真的取决于个人实力，那么人才的能力就具有可迁移性。
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Alternatively, if high performance is caused by the interactions of a group of people, then one answer is to lift out an entire team.
反之，如果高绩效是群体成员互动的结果，那么一个解决办法是挖走整个团队。
Changing employers did not greatly affect the performance of top-tier analysts who moved with their teammates, according to the study by Mr Groysberg et al.
根据格罗伊斯伯格等人的研究，顶尖分析师若与队友一同跳槽，绩效就不会受到显著影响。
The personality of the new recruits also matters: a study of American biotech firms by Rebecca Kehoe of Cornell University and Daniel Tzabbar of Drexel University found that collaborative stars helped their peers become more productive.
新入职者的性格也很重要：康奈尔大学的丽贝卡·基霍和德雷塞尔大学的丹尼尔·扎巴尔对美国生物科技公司进行的研究发现，善于合作的明星员工能帮助同事们提高工作效率。
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A superstar strategy may make more sense when it comes to AI. This is a field where cutting-edge knowledge is at a premium.
在人工智能领域，“超级明星策略”或许更具合理性。在这个行业里，尖端知识特别值钱。
Small numbers of talented people can have a disproportionate impact. And there are fewer incumbent employees to disappoint.
少数天才人物能产生巨大的影响力，因明星员工加入而受挫的现有员工也相对较少。
Equally, the research also suggests that stars do best when they move to a higher-performing firm; what they lose in organisational knowledge and relationships they make up for with an environment better able to harness their talents.
同样，研究还表明，明星人才若跳槽至绩效更优的公司，业绩最佳；他们在组织知识和人际关系方面的缺失，会被更能发挥其才能的环境所弥补。
Spraying money on stars in order to play catch-up, in other words, is a gamble that may not pay off.
换句话说，为了追赶竞争对手而不惜重金争抢明星人才，是一场未必能有所回报的冒险。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇693左右）
原文出自：2025年7月19日《TE》Business版块
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本文翻译整理: Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【重点句子】（3个）
But the more profound issue is that a person’s performance is not just a matter of their own brilliance. It is often inseparable from the context—the relationships, culture, processes and tacit knowledge—that surrounds a star.
然而，更为关键的问题是，个体的业绩表现并非单纯取决于自身的才华，往往还与其所处的环境因素密不可分，环境因素包括围绕明星员工的人际关系、文化氛围、工作规程及隐性知识等。
In practice, the stars’ performance declined compared with colleagues who stayed put.
然而实际上，与留任的同事相比，跳槽的明星员工绩效有所下降。
Alternatively, if high performance is caused by the interactions of a group of people, then one answer is to lift out an entire team.
反之，如果高绩效是群体成员互动的结果，那么一个解决办法是挖走整个团队。
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