乔布斯遗失的访谈

we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas,

我从来不觉得借鉴别人的创意可耻

and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that people working on it were musicians, and poets and artists, and zoologists and historians,

Macintosh团队里有音乐家，有诗人、艺术家、动物学家、历史学家

who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

这些人也懂计算机，所以Macintosh才这么出色

But if it hadn't been computer science, these people would have all been doing amazing things in other fields,

如果没有计算机，他们也会在其他领域造创奇迹

and they all brought with them,

大家各自贡献自己的专业知识

we all brought to this effort a very liberal arts sort of air, a very liberal arts attitude that we want to pull in the best that we saw in other fields into this field,

Macintosh因此吸收了各个领域的优秀成果

and I don't think you'll get that if you are very narrow.

否则的话，它很可能是一款非常狭隘的产品

One of the questions I asked everyone in the series was are you a hippie or a nerd?

最后我问了一个规定问题：你是嬉皮士，还是书呆子？

Oh if I had to pick one out of these two, I am clearly the hippie, all the people I work with were clearly that category too.

如果必须二选一的话，我肯定是嬉皮士，我所有的同事都属于嬉皮士。

Really?

真的吗？

Yeah.

是的。

Why? You seek out hippies? They are attracting to you?

为什么？你有意招聘嬉皮士吗？他们吸引你？

Well, ask yourself what's hippie?

你觉得什么是嬉皮士？

I mean this word has a lot of connotations,

不同的人有不同的理解

but to me, remember the 60's happens in the early 70's, we have to remember that,

但是对我来说…60~70年代的嬉皮士运动给我留下了深刻印象

that's sort when I came of age, so I saw a lot of these, and a lot of things happened in our backyard here.

有些活动就是在我家后院举行的，嬉皮士运动启发了我

So to me the spark of that was that there was something beyond, sort of what you see every day,

有些东西是超越日常忙碌琐碎的生活的

there are something going on here in life beyond just a job, a family, 2 cars in the garage and a career.

生活不仅仅是工作、家庭、财产、职业

There's something more going on, there's another side of the coin,

它更丰富，就像硬币还有另一面

that we don't talk about much. and we experience when there are gaps,

虽然大家嘴上不说，但在生活的间隙

when we kind of aren't... when everything is not ordered or perfect and when there's a kind of gap, you experience this inrush of something,

尤其是在不如意的时候，我们都能感受到某种冲动

乔布斯传第十一章 现实扭曲力场63

It was as if Jobs’s brain circuits were missing a device that would modulate the extreme spikes of impulsive opinions that popped into his mind. So in dealing with him, the Mac team adopted an audio concept called a “low pass filter.” In processing his input, they learned to reduce the amplitude of his high-frequency signals. That served to smooth out the data set and provide a less jittery moving average of his evolving attitudes. “After a few cycles of him taking alternating extreme positions,” said Hertzfeld, “we would learn to low pass filter his signals and not react to the extremes.”

乔布斯的大脑电路中似乎缺少了一个装置，这个装置可以调节在他脑中闪现的冲动观点的峰值。于是，在跟他打交道的过程中，Mac团队运用了音频上的一个概念——低通滤波器。在乔布斯向大家输入11点时，他们学会了将他的高频信号的振幅减小。如此一来就可以平滑地输出数据集，并且为他不断变化的态度提供一个让人不那么紧张的平均值。“几个周期后，”赫茨菲尔德说，“我们就学会了怎样低通过滤他的信号，以及如何不对他的极端态度作出反应。”

Was Jobs’s unfiltered behavior caused by a lack of emotional sensitivity? No. Almost the opposite. He was very emotionally attuned, able to read people and know their psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed. He intuitively knew when someone was faking it or truly knew something. This made him masterful at cajoling, stroking, persuading, flattering, and intimidating people. “He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe,” Joanna Hoffman said. “It’s a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you.”

乔布斯做出这些极端的行为是因为他缺乏情感上的敏感性吗？不，恰恰相反。他的情感理解能力是超强的。他有着不可思议的阅人能力，可以看出他人心理上的优势、弱点以及不安全感。他能在别人毫无防备的情况下，直击对方心灵最深处。他凭直觉就能看出一个人是在说谎还是真的知道一些事情。这让他成为了哄骟、安抚、劝说、奉承、威胁他人的大师。“他就是有这种神奇的力量，能准确地知道你的弱点是什么，怎样能让你觉得自己很渺小，怎样能让你畏缩，”霍夫曼说，“这是那些极富魅力、知道如何操纵别人的入身上的共同特质。你知道他能摧毁你，这就让你感觉自己变弱了，你渴望得到他的认可，然后他就可以把你推上神坛并彻底拥有你。”

Ann Bowers became an expert at dealing with Jobs’s perfectionism, petulance, and prickliness. She had been the human resources director at Intel, but had stepped aside after she married its cofounder Bob Noyce. She joined Apple in 1980 and served as a calming mother figure who would step in after one of Jobs’s tantrums. She would go to his office, shut the door, and gently lecture him. “I know, I know,” he would say. “Well, then, please stop doing it,” she would insist. Bowers recalled, “He would be good for a while, and then a week or so later I would get a call again.” She realized that he could barely contain himself. “He had these huge expectations, and if people didn’t deliver, he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t control himself. I could understand why Steve would get upset, and he was usually right, but it had a hurtful effect. It created a fear factor. He was self-aware, but that didn’t always modify his behavior.”

Jobs became close to Bowers and her husband, and he would drop in at their Los Gatos Hills home unannounced. She would hear his motorcycle in the distance and say, “I guess we have Steve for dinner again.” For a while she and Noyce were like a surrogate family. “He was so bright and also so needy. He needed a grown-up, a father figure, which Bob became, and I became like a mother figure.”

There were some upsides to Jobs’s demanding and wounding behavior. People who were not crushed ended up being stronger. They did better work, out of both fear and an eagerness to please. “His behavior can be emotionally draining, but if you survive, it works,” Hoffman said. You could also push back—sometimes—and not only survive but thrive. That didn’t always work; Raskin tried it, succeeded for a while, and then was destroyed. But if you were calmly confident, if Jobs sized you up and decided that you knew what you were doing, he would respect you. In both his personal and his professional life over the years, his inner circle tended to include many more strong people than toadies.

这样也有一些好处。那些没有被摧毁的人都变得更为强大。他们能更好地完成工作，既是出于畏惧，又是渴望取悦他，也是意识到自己身上背负着这样的期待。“他的行为可以让你在情感上饱受折磨，但如果你能挺过去，它就能起到积极的作用。”霍夫曼说。有时候，你可以对抗乔布斯的力量，这样的话不但可以幸存下来，还能茁壮成长。但这并不总能成功，拉斯金尝试过，短时间内他成功了，但之后还是被摧毁了。但如果你很自信而且你是正确的，如果乔布斯审视你一番后认为你清楚自己在干什么，他就会很尊重你。多年来，无论是在他的私人生活还是职业生涯中，他的核心圈子里集中的都是真正的强者，而不是馅媚者。

The Mac team knew that. Every year, beginning in 1981, it gave out an award to the person who did the best job of standing up to him. The award was partly a joke, but also partly real, and Jobs knew about it and liked it. Joanna Hoffman won the first year. From an Eastern European refugee family, she had a strong temper and will. One day, for example, she discovered that Jobs had changed her marketing projections in a way she found totally reality-distorting. Furious, she marched to his office. “As I’m climbing the stairs, I told his assistant I am going to take a knife and stab it into his heart,” she recounted. Al Eisenstat, the corporate counsel, came running out to restrain her. “But Steve heard me out and backed down.”

Mac团队也深知这一点。从1981年开始，他们每年都会将一个奖项颁发给最能勇敢面对乔布斯的人。这个奖在一定程度上是个玩笑，但也有认真的意思，乔布斯知道这个奖并且还很喜欢它。第一年，该奖被授予了乔安娜·霍夫曼。她来自一个东欧难民家庭，脾气和意志都很强硬。比如，有一天，她发现乔布斯以一种完全扭曲事实的方式更改了她的市场规划。她愤怒地冲向他的办公室。她回忆说；“在我上楼梯的时候，我就告诉他的助理，我要拿把刀插进他的心脏。”公司的法律顾问阿尔·艾森施塔特（AlEisemtat）跑过来制止了她。“但史蒂夫听我说完后作出了让步。”

Hoffman won the award again in 1982. “I remember being envious of Joanna, because she would stand up to Steve and I didn’t have the nerve yet,” said Debi Coleman, who joined the Mac team that year. “Then, in 1983, I got the award. I had learned you had to stand up for what you believe, which Steve respected. I started getting promoted by him after that.” Eventually she rose to become head of manufacturing.

霍夫曼在1982年再一次赢得了这个奖项。“我记得我当时很羡慕乔安娜，因为她敢于面对史蒂夫，而我却没那个胆子。”那一年加入Mac团队的黛比·科尔曼说，“然后，1983年，我赢得了那个奖项。我认识到，我必须坚守自己的信念，乔布斯也很尊重这种做法。从那以后我开始得到晋升。”最终，她成为了制造部门的负责人。

One day Jobs barged into the cubicle of one of Atkinson’s engineers and uttered his usual “This is shit.” As Atkinson recalled, “The guy said, ‘No it’s not, it’s actually the best way,’ and he explained to Steve the engineering trade-offs he’d made.” Jobs backed down. Atkinson taught his team to put Jobs’s words through a translator. “We learned to interpret ‘This is shit’ to actually be a question that means, ‘Tell me why this is the best way to do it.’” But the story had a coda, which Atkinson also found instructive. Eventually the engineer found an even better way to perform the function that Jobs had criticized. “He did it better because Steve had challenged him,” said Atkinson, “which shows you can push back on him but should also listen, for he’s usually right.”

一天，乔布斯冲进了阿特金森手下一名工程师的小隔间，说出了自己常说的那句话：“这是狗屎。”阿特金森回忆说：“那个家伙回答：‘不，这其实是最好的方法。’然后他向史蒂夫解释了自己在工程方面作的一些杈衡。”乔布斯败下阵来。阿特金森告诉他的团队，乔布斯的话不能照字面理解，需要转化一下。“我们把‘这是狗屎’解读为一个问句，它真实的意思是‘告诉我，这为什么是最好的方法？’”但这个故事的结尾让阿特金森也觉得很有教育意义。最终，那名工程师找到了一个更好的方法，来实现乔布斯之前指责的那个功能。“正因为史蒂夫挑战了他，他才找到了更好的方法。”阿特金森说，“这意味着，你可以反驳他的意见，但也应该认真听他说的话，因为他通常都是正确的。”