《名人传记》之乔布斯最后一件事

one man who witnessed jobs' return to apple

有一个人目睹了乔布斯回到苹果公司，

Was friend walt mossberg.

那就是 Walt Mossberg.

He came back to apple, and the company was almost dead.

他回到苹果，整个公司被死板，刻板笼罩着.

Literally. It was 90 days from going bankrupt.

正在90天的破产保护期之中.

He said to the people at this very demoralized, Almost out of business company,

在这个士气低落濒临破产的时刻，他对所有人说道

"we're not looking backward.

"我们不需要向后看.

"I don't really care that we once had

"我真的不在乎我们之前拥有过什么

"the first successful personal computer.

"第一台成功的个人电脑

"I really don't care that we were famous and successful.

"我真的不在乎我们以什么变得著名和成功

"we're not anymore, and this is where we're starting from,

"我们什么都不是，这里就是我们重新开始的地方

And this is where we're moving."

这里就是我们重新开始的地方

And so when you see the second coming of steve jobs and apple,

就这样当你发觉乔布斯重返苹果以后

Apple went from being a wide-open and wacky company To be a very disciplined company

苹果从一个开放、疯癫的公司转变成一个纪律严明的公司

That understood its financials At a level that few companies do.

要明白 甚少达到如此财政水平的公司会这样做

That's because steve thought of every dollar As being his every dollar.

那是因为史蒂夫认为每一分钱都是他自己的。

They have resolved these differences in a very, very...

他们解决这样的分歧用一种非常，非常……

it was an investment from bill gates That ultimately helped to save apple,

是来自比尔盖茨的资金最终帮助拯救了苹果

But when gates made a live appearance with jobs

但是当盖茨同乔布斯一同登台

To explain the deal, it didn't go down well

向苹果的忠实粉丝解释这桩交易的时候

With the loyal apple audience.

进行的不怎么顺利

Bill gates was actually onstage rescuing apple, rescuing apple.

比尔盖茨竟然会是那个拯救了苹果公司的人,拯救苹果公司

He did two things.

他做了两件事

He gave them $150 million for which he got

他给了他们1.5亿美元

Nonvoting stock that expired After a certain number of years,

在数年以后获得了在董事会中投反对票的权利

And he promised to keep producing microsoft office,

而且他承诺保留微软的程序office

The macintosh version, for, I think, 5 years,

在MAC电脑上，我想一想，5年吧

And so he was onstage rescuing apple,

因此他真的拯救了苹果

And yet the acolytes who were filling the room Had learned to hate him.

然后整个房间苹果支持者开始憎恨他

They treated him as, you know the, devil,

他们议论起他就像，你知道吗，恶魔,

The antichrist, and they booed him.

反基督的家伙，并且向他发出嘘声

《乔布斯传》第十九章 皮克斯 技术与艺术相遇118

CHAPTER NINETEEN

第十九章

PIXAR

皮克斯

Technology Meets Art

技术与艺术相遇

Lucasfilm’s Computer Division

卢卡斯影业的电脑部门

When Jobs was losing his footing at Apple in the summer of 1985, he went for a walk with Alan Kay, who had been at Xerox PARC and was then an Apple Fellow. Kay knew that Jobs was interested in the intersection of creativity and technology, so he suggested they go see a friend of his, Ed Catmull, who was running the computer division of George Lucas’s film studio. They rented a limo and rode up to Marin County to the edge of Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, where Catmull and his little computer division were based. “I was blown away, and I came back and tried to convince Sculley to buy it for Apple,” Jobs recalled. “But the folks running Apple weren’t interested, and they were busy kicking me out anyway.”

1985年夏天，乔布斯在苹果公司正处于失势中。一天，他和艾伦·凯一起散步，凯曾在施乐PARC工作，当时是苹果公司职员。凯知道，乔布斯对创意与技术的交融很感兴趣，于是建议他一同拜访自己的朋友埃德·卡特穆尔（EdCatmull）。卡特穆尔当时是乔治·卢卡斯（GeorgeLucas）电影制片厂电脑部门的负责人。乔布斯他们租了一辆豪华轿车，驾车前往马林郡，来到卢卡斯天行者牧场（SkywalkerRanch）的边上，卡特穆尔及其电脑部门就在这里。“我感到很震撼，回公司以后就试图说服斯卡利把它收购下来。”乔布斯回忆道，“但是管理苹果公司的那帮家伙对此不感兴趣，而且他们正忙着把我赶出去。”

The Lucasfilm computer division made hardware and software for rendering digital images, and it also had a group of computer animators making shorts, which was led by a talented cartoon-loving executive named John Lasseter. Lucas, who had completed his first Star Wars trilogy, was embroiled in a contentious divorce, and he needed to sell off the division. He told Catmull to find a buyer as soon as possible.

卢卡斯影业电脑部门有两个主要组成部分：一个团队研发定制电脑，使之能够将实景电影胶片上的图像数字化，并融入酷炫的特效；还有一个电脑动画团队制作动画短片，如《安德烈与沃利历险记》（TheAdventuresofAndréandWallyB.）这部动画片在1984年的一次行业大会上展出，令其导演约翰·拉塞特（JohnLasseter）声名大噪。卢卡斯当时已经完成了他的《星球大战》（StarWars）三部曲的第一部，正陷入一场争吵不断的离婚案中，他需要卖掉这个电脑部门。卢卡斯叫卡特穆尔尽快找到买家。

After a few potential purchasers balked in the fall of 1985, Catmull and his colleague Alvy Ray Smith decided to seek investors so that they could buy the division themselves. So they called Jobs, arranged another meeting, and drove down to his Woodside house. After railing for a while about the perfidies and idiocies of Sculley, Jobs proposed that he buy their Lucasfilm division outright. Catmull and Smith demurred: They wanted an investor, not a new owner. But it soon became clear that there was a middle ground: Jobs could buy a majority of the division and serve as chairman but allow Catmull and Smith to run it.

1985年秋，在一些潜在买家都鋳躇不决时，卡特穆尔和联合创始人阿尔维·雷·史密斯（AlvyRaySmith）决定自己买下这个部门并寻找投资者。于是，他们打电话找到乔布斯，又安排了一次会面，两人驱车前往乔布斯位于伍德赛德的家中。乔布斯先是抱怨了一通斯卡利的愚蠢和背信弃义，然后提议自己全资买下卢卡斯影业的电脑部门。卡特穆尔和史密斯拒绝了。他们想要一位主要投资者而不是一个新的所有者。不过很快就有了一个折中办法：乔布斯出资购买多数股权，并担任董事长，但由卡特穆尔和史密斯来运营。

“I wanted to buy it because I was really into computer graphics,” Jobs recalled. “I realized they were way ahead of others in combining art and technology, which is what I’ve always been interested in.” He offered to pay Lucas $5 million plus invest another $5 million to capitalize the division as a stand-alone company. That was far less than Lucas had been asking, but the timing was right. They decided to negotiate a deal.

“我之所以想收购这个部门，是因为我真的很喜欢计算机图形。”乔布斯后来回忆道，“看到卢卡斯影业电脑部门这些人的时候，我意识到，在融合艺术与技术的领域，他们走在了其他人前面，而这个领域一直都是我的兴趣所在。”乔布斯知道，在未来数年里，计算机将会比现在强大上百倍，他相信这会给动画和逼真的3D图形带来巨大进步。“卢卡斯团队正在研究的问题需要非常强大的计算处理能力，这使我意识到他们必将引领历史。我喜欢这样的发展方向。”

The chief financial officer at Lucasfilm found Jobs arrogant and prickly, so when it came time to hold a meeting of all the players, he told Catmull, “We have to establish the right pecking order.” The plan was to gather everyone in a room with Jobs, and then the CFO would come in a few minutes late to establish that he was the person running the meeting. “But a funny thing happened,” Catmull recalled. “Steve started the meeting on time without the CFO, and by the time the CFO walked in Steve was already in control of the meeting.”

乔布斯提出的条件是，向卢卡斯支付500万美元，然后自己再投入500万美元，从而将这一部门变成独立的公司。这比卢卡斯一直以来所要求的金额低得多，然而时机对乔布斯来说却刚刚好。于是，双方决定通过谈判达成交易。卢卡斯影业的CFO发现乔布斯傲慢又易怒，在谈判各方即将举行会谈时，这位CFO对卡特穆尔说：“我们必须建立正确的等级次序。”他的计划是，将所有人和乔布斯都聚集在一间会议室里，然后这位CFO晚到几分钟，以表明他才是主持会议的人。“但是有趣的事情发生了，”卡特穆尔回忆说，“史蒂夫在CFO缺席的情况下按时开始了这次会议，而当那位CFO走进来时，史蒂夫已经掌握了会议的控制权。”

Jobs met only once with George Lucas, who warned him that the people in the division cared more about making animated movies than they did about making computers. “You know, these guys are hell-bent on animation,” Lucas told him. Lucas later recalled, “I did warn him that was basically Ed and John’s agenda. I think in his heart he bought the company because that was his agenda too.”

乔布斯只见过乔治·卢卡斯一面，卢卡斯警告他说，比起做电脑，这个部门的人更关心制作动画电影。“你知道，这些家伙都是在拼命做动画。”卢卡斯对乔布斯说。卢卡斯后来回忆表示：“我确实警告过他，这个部门基本是按埃德和约翰的计划来开展工作的。我觉得在他看来，买下这家公司是因为它也符合他自己的计划。”