乔布斯遗失的访谈

Steve: You don't really want to hear about NeXT, do you?

Steve: 你大概没兴趣听我聊NeXT吧？

Yes, I do.

我想听。

You do? Okay, well... maybe the best things take so much time, I just tell you what NeXT is today.

好吧。我直接说NeXT目前在做什么吧

There hasn't been … clearly the innovation of computer industry is happening in software right now,

很显然，计算机产业创新要靠软件

and there hasn't been a revolution in how we create software in a long... (sneeze) Sorry.

但是长久以来，软件开发方式没有本质变化。对不起

The innovation in the industry is in software, and there hasn't ever been a real revolution how we created software, certainly nonetheless in 20 years .

软件开发方式20年来一直没有变化

As a matter of fact, it's getting worse.

不但没有变化，反而越来越糟

Well, Macintosh was a revolution for the end users to make it easier to use,

降低了用户的使用难度，这是一项创举

it was the opposite for the developer, the developer pays the price,

但增加了程序员的工作难度

and the software got more complicated to write,

软件开发越来越复杂

as it became easier to use for the end user, so software is impetrating everything we do these days, in businesses software is one of the most important pop competitive weapons.

软件正在向各行各业渗透，成为重要的商业竞争武器

I mean it's the most successful business war was MCI friends and family in the last 10 years, and what was that?

MCI与AT&T十年来的竞争是就是最好的例证，MCI做了什么？

It was a brilliant idea it was custom-billing software.

不过是率先采用客户账单软件

AT&T didn't respond for 18 months yielding millions of dollars for the market share to MCI.

18个月内就抢走了AT&T数百万美元的市场份额

Not because they are stupid, but because they couldn't get the billing software done.

AT&T并非毫不知情，可就是搞不定客户账单软件

So in ways like that, in smaller ways, software is becoming an incredible force in this world,

软件正在释放不可思议的力量

to provide new goods and services to people whether it's over the Internet or what have you, software is going to be a major enabler in our society.

新的软件产品和软件服务将改变我们的社会

乔布斯传第十章 Mac诞生了59

But many others realized that despite his temperamental failings, Jobs had the charisma and corporate clout that would lead them to “make a dent in the universe.” Jobs told the staff that Raskin was just a dreamer, whereas he was a doer and would get the Mac done in a year. It was clear he wanted vindication for having been ousted from the Lisa group, and he was energized by competition. He publicly bet John Couch $5,000 that the Mac would ship before the Lisa. “We can make a computer that’s cheaper and better than the Lisa, and get it out first,” he told the team.

但其他很多人意识到，尽管乔布斯有喜怒无常的毛病，但他非凡的魅力和团队影响力都足以引领大家改变世界。乔布斯告诉员工，拉斯金只是一个空想家，而自己是一个实干家，他会在一年之内完成Mac项目。很明显，从丽萨项目中被逐出后，他需要证明自己，而竞争可以进一步激励他。他公开与约翰·库奇打賭5000美元，赌Mac会在丽萨之前完工。“我们能够造出一台比丽萨更便宜也更好的电脑，而且我们能更快完成它。”他告诉团队里的人。

Jobs asserted his control of the group by canceling a brown-bag lunch seminar that Raskin was scheduled to give to the whole company in February 1981. Raskin happened to go by the room anyway and discovered that there were a hundred people there waiting to hear him; Jobs had not bothered to notify anyone else about his cancellation order. So Raskin went ahead and gave a talk.

拉斯金原定于1981年2月要主持一场全公司范围的自带午餐的研讨会，但乔布斯为了树立自己在项目组的威信，宣布取消了研讨会。然而那天拉斯金碰巧走过会议室，发现里面坐了上百人在等着自己发言。乔布斯根本没有把取消研讨会的决定通知项目以外的其他人。于是拉斯金就走进去发表了一番讲话。

That incident led Raskin to write a blistering memo to Mike Scott, who once again found himself in the difficult position of being a president trying to manage a company’s temperamental cofounder and major stockholder. It was titled “Working for/with Steve Jobs,” and in it Raskin asserted:

这件事导致拉斯金向迈克·斯科特递交了一份言辞激烈的备忘录，斯科特又一次陷入了艰难的境地：身为公司的总裁，他又要去管束那个喜怒无常的联合创始人兼大股东了。备忘录的标题是“为（和）史蒂夫·乔布斯工作”，拉斯金写道：

He is a dreadful manager. . . . I have always liked Steve, but I have found it impossible to work for him. . . . Jobs regularly misses appointments. This is so well-known as to be almost a running joke. . . . He acts without thinking and with bad judgment. . . . He does not give credit where due. . . . Very often, when told of a new idea, he will immediately attack it and say that it is worthless or even stupid, and tell you that it was a waste of time to work on it. This alone is bad management, but if the idea is a good one he will soon be telling people about it as though it was his own.

? “他是个糟糕透顶的管理者……我一直都很喜欢史蒂夫，但我发现自己无法为他工作……乔布斯经常错过预定安排。这个人尽皆知，几乎已经流传成笑话了……他总是不经过思考就行动，而且判断力很差……他不给别人应得的赞扬……经常发生的情况是，你告诉他一个新想法，他会立刻攻击这个想法，说它是毫无价值的甚至是愚蠢的，并且告诉你研究它就是在浪费时间。光这个就已经很糟糕了，但如果他听到的是一个好点子，他很快就会到处宣传，就好像是他自己想出来的一样……他喜欢打断别人的讲话，从不耐心倾听。

That afternoon Scott called in Jobs and Raskin for a showdown in front of Markkula. Jobs started crying. He and Raskin agreed on only one thing: Neither could work for the other one. On the Lisa project, Scott had sided with Couch. This time he decided it was best to let Jobs win. After all, the Mac was a minor development project housed in a distant building that could keep Jobs occupied away from the main campus. Raskin was told to take a leave of absence. “They wanted to humor me and give me something to do, which was fine,” Jobs recalled. “It was like going back to the garage for me. I had my own ragtag team and I was in control.”

那天下午，斯科特叫来了乔布斯和拉斯金，让他们在马库拉面前摊牌。乔布斯开始哭泣。他和拉斯金只在一件事上达成了共识：两人谁都无法为对方工作。当年在丽萨项目上，斯科特选择了支持库奇。这一次，他认为最好能让乔布斯臝一次。毕竟，Mac只是个小规模的开发项目，而且办公地点在别处，这样一来就可以让乔布斯离开公司总部了。于是，拉斯金被要求休假。“他们想要迁就我，给我找点儿事情做，我觉得挺好，”乔布斯回忆，“对我来说就好像回到了当年的车库一样。我有了自己的小团队，一切尽在我的掌控之中。”

Raskin’s ouster may not have seemed fair, but it ended up being good for the Macintosh. Raskin wanted an appliance with little memory, an anemic processor, a cassette tape, no mouse, and minimal graphics. Unlike Jobs, he might have been able to keep the price down to close to $1,000, and that may have helped Apple win market share. But he could not have pulled off what Jobs did, which was to create and market a machine that would transform personal computing. In fact we can see where the road not taken led. Raskin was hired by Canon to build the machine he wanted. “It was the Canon Cat, and it was a total flop,” Atkinson said. “Nobody wanted it. When Steve turned the Mac into a compact version of the Lisa, it made it into a computing platform instead of a consumer electronic device.”1

拉斯金遭到驱逐看起来也许不是很公平，但事后证明这对麦金塔项目起到了积极的作用。拉斯金想要的机器内存小、处理器差，使用的是磁带存贮，没有鼠标，图形效果也很糟糕。与乔布斯不同，他也许可以将价格压到接近1000美元，也许可以帮助苹果公司赢得市场份额。但他永远也达不到乔布斯的髙度：乔布斯创造并推广的电脑改变了整个个人电脑产业。实际上，我们也可以看看，如果当年按照拉斯金的思路发展，会是怎样的结果。拉斯金后来受雇于佳能公司，制造了他一直想要的电脑。“就是佳能猫（CanonCat），这是一个彻底的败笔，”阿特金森说，“没人想要它。史蒂夫将Mac变成了简洁版的丽萨，它不单单是消费电子设备，更是一个运算平台。”①——

注释：

①作者注：1987年3月，第100万台Mac下线，苹果公司在上面刻上了拉斯金的名字后，将它送给了拉斯金，这让乔布斯大为不悦。2005年，拉斯金死于胰腺癌，此前不久乔布斯也被诊断患上了该疾病。