1994-06-16 Steve Jobs.The Rolling Stone Interview
The story of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is one of the most familiar in American business — shaggy Bob-Dylan-loving kid starts a computer company in a Silicon Valley garage and changes the world. But like any compelling story, it has its dark moments. Before the iPad or the iPhone, Jobs, then the head of the short-lived NeXT Computer, sat down with Rolling Stone‘s Jeff Goodell. It was 1994, Jobs had long ago been booted from Apple, the internet was still the province of geeks and academics, and the personal computer revolution looked like it might be over. But even at one of the low points in his career, Jobs still had confidence in the limitless potential of personal computing. Read on to get Jobs’ prescient take on PDAs and object-oriented software, as well as his relationship with Bill Gates and why he wanted the internet in his den, but not living room. Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 on October 5th, 2011.
苹果首席执行官史蒂夫·乔布斯的故事是美国商业中最为人熟知的故事之一——一个热爱鲍勃·迪伦的蓬头垢面的孩子在硅谷的车库里创办了一家计算机公司，并改变了世界。但像任何引人入胜的故事一样，它也有黑暗的时刻。在iPad或iPhone之前，乔布斯，当时短命的NeXT Computer的负责人，坐下来与滚石杂志的杰夫·古德尔交谈。那是 1994 年，乔布斯早已被苹果公司踢出，互联网仍然是极客和学者的领域，个人计算机革命看起来可能已经结束。但即使在他职业生涯的低谷之一，乔布斯仍然对个人计算的无限潜力充满信心。继续阅读，了解乔布斯对个人数字助理和面向对象软件的先见之明，以及他与比尔·盖茨的关系，以及他为什么想在书房里而不是客厅里使用互联网。史蒂夫·乔布斯于 2011 年 10 月 5 日因胰腺癌去世，享年 56 岁。
Like other Phenomena of the ’80s, Steve Jobs was supposed to be long gone by now. After the spectacular rise of Apple, which went from a garage start-up to a $1.4 billion company in just eight years, the Entrepreneur of the Decade (as one magazine anointed him in 1989) tried to do it all again with a new company called NeXT. He was going to build the next generation of the personal computer, a machine so beautiful, so powerful, so insanely great, it would put Apple to shame. It didn’t happen. After eight long years of struggle and after running through some $250 million, NeXT closed down its hardware division last year and laid off more than 200 employees. It seemed only a matter of time until the whole thing collapsed and Jobs disappeared into hyperspace.
Like 其他 80 年代的现象一样，史蒂夫·乔布斯本该早已消失。经过苹果公司的辉煌崛起，从一个车库创业公司在短短八年内发展成为一家价值 14 亿美元的公司，这位被某杂志在 1989 年称为“十年企业家”的人试图通过一家名为 NeXT 的新公司再次实现这一切。他打算打造下一代个人电脑，一台如此美丽、如此强大、如此疯狂伟大的机器，以至于让苹果感到羞愧。然而，这并没有发生。在经历了八年的艰难奋斗和耗费了约 2.5 亿美元后，NeXT 去年关闭了其硬件部门，并裁员超过 200 人。似乎整个事情崩溃只是时间问题，乔布斯也将消失在超空间中。
But it turns out that Jobs isn’t as far gone as some techno-pundits thought. There are big changes coming in software development — and Jobs, of all people, is trying to lead the way. This time the Holy Grail is object-oriented programming; some have compared the effect it will have on the production of software to the effect the industrial revolution had on manufactured goods. “In my 20 years in this industry, I have never seen a revolution as profound as this,” says Jobs, with characteristic understatement. “You can build software literally five to 10 times faster, and that software is much more reliable, much easier to maintain and much more powerful.”
但事实证明，乔布斯并没有像一些科技评论家所认为的那样走得很远。软件开发即将迎来重大变化——而且，偏偏是乔布斯在努力引领这一潮流。这一次，圣杯是面向对象编程；有人将其对软件生产的影响与工业革命对制造商品的影响相提并论。“在我 20 年的行业生涯中，我从未见过如此深刻的革命，”乔布斯以其一贯的低调说道。“你可以将软件的构建速度提高到字面上五到十倍，而且这些软件更加可靠，更易于维护，功能也更强大。”
This article appeared in the June 16, 1994 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available in the online archive.
本文出现在《滚石》杂志的1994 年 6 月 16 日期。该期在在线档案中可获取。
Of course, this being Silicon Valley, there is always a new revolution to hype. And to hear it coming from Jobs — Mr. Revolution himself — is bound to raise some eyebrows. “Steve is a little like the boy who cried wolf,” says Robert Cringely, a columnist at Info World, a PC industry newsweekly. “He has cried revolution one too many times. People still listen to him, but now they’re more skeptical.” And even if object-oriented software does take off, Jobs may very well end up a minor figure rather than the flag-waving leader of the pack he clearly sees himself as.
当然，作为硅谷，总是有新的革命值得炒作。而且听到乔布斯——革命先生——说这些话，肯定会引起一些人的关注。Info World的专栏作家罗伯特·克林杰（Robert Cringely）说：“史蒂夫有点像那个喊狼来了的男孩。他已经喊了太多次革命。人们仍然听他的，但现在他们更加怀疑。”即使面向对象的软件真的起飞，乔布斯也很可能最终成为一个小角色，而不是他自己明显认为的那个挥舞旗帜的领袖。
Whatever role Jobs ends up playing, there is no question evolutionary forces will soon reshape the software industry. Since the Macintosh changed the world 10 years ago with its brilliant point-and-click interface, all the big leaps in computer evolution have been on the hardware side. Machines have gotten smaller, faster and cheaper. Software, by contrast, has gotten bigger, more complicated and much more expensive to produce. Writing a new spreadsheet or word-processing program these days is a tedious process, like building a skyscraper out of toothpicks. Object-oriented programming will change that. To put it simply, it will allow gigantic, complex programs to be assembled like Tinkertoys. Instead of starting from the ground up every time, layering in one line of code after another, programmers will be able to use preassembled chunks to build 80 percent of a program, thus saving an enormous amount of time and money. Because these objects will work with a wide range of interfaces and applications, they will also eliminate many of the compatibility problems that plague traditional software.
无论乔布斯最终扮演什么角色，毫无疑问，进化的力量将很快重塑软件行业。自从十年前麦金塔凭借其出色的点选界面改变了世界以来，计算机进化的所有重大飞跃都发生在硬件方面。机器变得更小、更快且更便宜。相比之下，软件变得更大、更复杂，生产成本也大幅上升。如今，编写一个新的电子表格或文字处理程序是一个乏味的过程，就像用牙签建造摩天大楼一样。面向对象的编程将改变这一切。简单来说，它将允许像拼装玩具一样组装庞大而复杂的程序。程序员不必每次从头开始，一行一行地添加代码，而是可以使用预先组装的模块来构建程序的 80%，从而节省大量时间和金钱。由于这些对象可以与各种接口和应用程序兼容，它们还将消除困扰传统软件的许多兼容性问题。
For now, the beneficiary of all this is corporate America, which needs powerful custom software to help manage huge databases on its networks. Because of the massive hardware requirements for object-oriented software, it will be years before it becomes practical for small businesses and individual users (decent performance out of NeXT’s software on a 486/Pentium processor, for example, requires 24 megs of RAM and 200 megs on a hard drive). Still, in the long run, object-oriented software will vastly simplify the task of writing programs, eventually making it accessible even to folks without degrees from MIT.
目前，所有这些的受益者是美国企业，它们需要强大的定制软件来帮助管理其网络上的庞大数据库。由于面向对象软件对硬件的巨大需求，小型企业和个人用户在几年内都无法实际使用（例如，NeXT 的软件在 486/Pentium 处理器上获得良好性能需要 24MB 的 RAM 和 200MB 的硬盘空间）。尽管如此，从长远来看，面向对象的软件将大大简化编写程序的任务，最终使没有麻省理工学院学位的人也能使用。
No one disputes the fact that NeXT has a leg up on this new technology. Unlike most of its competitors, whose object-oriented software is still in the prototype stage, NEXTSTEP (NeXT’s operating system software) has been out in the real world for several years. It’s been road-tested, revised, refined, and it is, by all accounts, a solid piece of work. Converts include McCaw Cellular, Swiss Bank and Chrysler Financial. But as the overwhelming success of Microsoft has shown, the company with the best product doesn’t always win. For NeXT to succeed, it will have to go up against two powerhouses: Taligent, the new partnership of Apple and IBM, and Bill Gates and his $4 billion-a-year Microsoft steamroller. “Right now, it’s a horse race between those three companies,” says Esther Dyson, a Silicon Valley marketing guru. A recent $10 million deal with Sun Microsystems — the workstation company that was once NeXT’s arch rival — has breathed new life into NeXT, but it is only one step in a very long journey. Still, few dare count NeXT out.
没有人会质疑 NeXT 在这项新技术上的优势。与大多数竞争对手仍处于原型阶段的面向对象软件不同，NEXTSTEP（NeXT 的操作系统软件）已经在现实世界中运行了好几年。它经过了道路测试、修订和完善，毫无疑问是一项扎实的作品。用户包括 McCaw Cellular、瑞士银行和克莱斯勒金融。但正如微软的压倒性成功所示，拥有最佳产品的公司并不总是能获胜。为了成功，NeXT 必须与两个强大的对手竞争：苹果和 IBM 的新合作伙伴 Taligent，以及比尔·盖茨和他每年 40 亿美元的微软巨头。“现在，这三家公司之间是一场赛马，”硅谷营销专家埃丝特·戴森说。与曾经是 NeXT 死敌的工作站公司 Sun Microsystems 达成的 1000 万美元的交易为 NeXT 注入了新的活力，但这只是漫长旅程中的一步。尽管如此，仍然很少有人敢排除 NeXT 的可能性。
Today, Jobs, 39, seems eager to distance himself from his reputation as the Wunderkind of the ’80s. He wears small, round John Lennon-style glasses now, and his boyish face is hidden behind a shaggy, Left Bank-poet beard. During our interview at the NeXT offices in Redwood City, Calif., just 20 miles north of his old Apple fiefdom, he took particular joy in bashing his old rival Bill Gates but avoided discussing other heavyweights by name. Trademark Jobsian phrases like “insanely great” or “the next big thing” were nowhere to be found. Friends say the Sturm und Drang of the past few years has humbled Jobs ever so slightly; he is a devoted family man now, and on weekends, he can often be seen Rollerblading with his wife and two kids through the streets of Palo Alto.
如今39岁的乔布斯似乎急于与他作为80年代神童的名声划清界限。他现在戴着小巧的圆形约翰·列侬风格眼镜，稚气的脸庞被一副蓬乱的左岸诗人式的胡须遮住。在我们于加利福尼亚州红木城的NeXT办公室的采访中，距离他曾经的苹果王国仅20英里，他特别高兴地抨击他的老对手比尔·盖茨，但避免提及其他重量级人物。像“疯狂伟大”或“下一个大事件”等乔布斯式的标志性短语在他身上再也找不到了。朋友们说，过去几年的风风雨雨让乔布斯稍微谦卑了一些；他现在是个忠实的家庭男人，周末时常能看到他和妻子及两个孩子在帕洛阿尔托的街道上滑轮溜冰。
“Remember, this is a guy who never believed any of the rules applied to him,” one colleague says. “Now, I think he’s finally realized that he’s mortal, just like the rest of us.”
“记住，这个家伙从来不相信任何规则适用于他，”一位同事说。“现在，我想他终于意识到自己也是凡人，就像我们其他人一样。”
It’s been 10 years since the Macintosh was introduced. When you look around at the technological landscape today, what’s most surprising to you?
自从 Macintosh 推出以来已经过去 10 年了。当你环顾今天的科技环境时，最让你感到惊讶的是什么？
People say sometimes, “You work in the fastest-moving industry in the world.” I don’t feel that way. I think I work in one of the slowest. It seems to take forever to get anything done. All of the graphical-user interface stuff that we did with the Macintosh was pioneered at Xerox PARC [the company’s legendary Palo Alto Research Center] and with Doug Engelbart at SRI [a future-oriented think tank at Stanford] in the mid-’70s. And here we are, just about the mid-’90s, and it’s kind of commonplace now. But it’s about a 10-to-20-year lag. That’s a long time.
人们有时会说：“你在世界上发展最快的行业工作。”我并不这样认为。我觉得我在一个最慢的行业工作。完成任何事情似乎都需要很长时间。我们在麦金塔上做的所有图形用户界面工作都是在 70 年代中期由施乐帕洛阿尔托研究中心和道格·恩格尔巴特在斯坦福的未来导向智库开创的。而现在我们已经快到 90 年代中期了，这些东西现在已经变得很普遍。但这大约有 10 到 20 年的滞后。这是很长的时间。
The reason for that is, it seems to take a very unique combination of technology, talent, business and marketing and luck to make significant change in our industry. It hasn’t happened that often.
原因在于，似乎需要技术、人才、商业、市场营销和运气的独特组合，才能在我们的行业中带来重大变化。这种情况并不常见。
The other interesting thing is that, in general, business tends to be the fueling agent for these changes. It’s simply because they have a lot of money. They’re willing to pay money for things that will save them money or give them new capabilities. And that’s a hard one sometimes, because a lot of the people who are the most creative in this business aren’t doing it because they want to help corporate America.
另一个有趣的事情是，通常情况下，商业往往是这些变化的推动力。这仅仅是因为他们有很多钱。他们愿意为能够节省他们资金或提供新能力的事物支付费用。有时候这很困难，因为在这个行业中，许多最具创造力的人并不是因为想要帮助美国企业而从事这项工作。
A perfect example is the PDA [Personal Digital Assistant] stuff, like Apple’s Newton. I’m not real optimistic about it, and I’ll tell you why. Most of the people who developed these PDAs developed them because they thought individuals were going to buy them and give them to their families. My friends started General Magic [a new company that hopes to challenge the Newton]. They think your kids are going to have these, your grandmother’s going to have one, and you’re going to all send messages. Well, at $1,500 a pop with a cellular modem in them, I don’t think too many people are going to buy three or four for their family. The people who are going to buy them in the first five years are mobile professionals.
一个完美的例子是个人数字助理（PDA）产品，比如苹果的Newton。我对此并不太乐观，我告诉你为什么。开发这些 PDA 的大多数人是因为他们认为个人会购买它们并送给家人。我的朋友们创办了 General Magic（一个希望挑战Newton的新公司）。他们认为你的孩子会拥有这些设备，你的祖母也会有一个，你们都会发送消息。然而，售价 1500 美元，配有蜂窝调制解调器，我认为不会有太多人会为他们的家庭购买三四个。在头五年内，购买它们的人主要是移动专业人士。
And the problem is, the psychology of the people who develop these things is just not going to enable them to put on suits and hop on planes and go to Federal Express and pitch their product.
问题是，开发这些东西的人的心理状态根本无法让他们穿上西装，登上飞机，去联邦快递推销他们的产品。
To make step-function changes, revolutionary changes, it takes that combination of technical acumen and business and marketing — and a culture that can somehow match up the reason you developed your product and the reason people will want to buy it. I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.
要实现跨越式的变革，革命性的变化，需要技术敏锐性与商业和市场营销的结合，以及一种能够将你开发产品的原因与人们想要购买它的原因相匹配的文化。我非常尊重渐进式的改进，我在生活中也做过这种事情，但我总是对更具革命性的变化感兴趣。我不知道为什么。因为它们更难。这在情感上压力更大。而且你通常会经历一个阶段，大家都告诉你你完全失败了。
Is that the period you’re emerging from now?
你现在正从那个时期走出来吗？
I hope so. I’ve been there before, and I’ve recently been there again.
我希望如此。我以前去过那里，最近又去了一次。
As you know, most of what I’ve done in my career has been software. The Apple II wasn’t much software, but the Mac was just software in a cool box. We had to build the box because the software wouldn’t run on any other box, but nonetheless, it was mainly software. I was involved in PostScript and the formation of Adobe, and that was all software. And what we’ve done with NEXTSTEP is really all software. We tried to sell it in a really cool box, but we learned a very important lesson. When you ask people to go outside of the mainstream, they take a risk. So there has to be some important reward for taking that risk or else they won’t take it
正如你所知，我职业生涯中大部分工作都是软件。Apple II 的软件不多，但 Mac 完全是一个装在酷盒子里的软件。我们必须构建这个盒子，因为软件无法在其他盒子上运行，但无论如何，它主要还是软件。我参与了 PostScript 和 Adobe 的成立，这一切都是软件。我们在 NEXTSTEP 上所做的也完全是软件。我们试图将其放在一个非常酷的盒子里出售，但我们学到了一个非常重要的教训。当你要求人们走出主流时，他们会冒险。因此，必须有一些重要的回报来激励他们冒险，否则他们就不会去冒险。
What we learned was that the reward can’t be one and a half times better or twice as good. That’s not enough. The reward has to be like three or four or five times better to take the risk to jump out of the mainstream.
我们了解到，奖励不能只是好一倍半或两倍。这还不够。奖励必须好三倍、四倍或五倍，才能冒险跳出主流。
The problem is, in hardware you can’t build a computer that’s twice as good as anyone else’s anymore. Too many people know how to do it. You’re lucky if you can do one that’s one and a third times better or one and a half times better. And then it’s only six months before everybody else catches up. But you can do it in software. As a matter of fact, I think that the leap that we’ve made is at least five years ahead of anybody.
问题是，在硬件方面，你无法再制造出比其他人好两倍的计算机。太多人知道怎么做。如果你能做出一个好一又三分之一倍或好一又二分之一倍的计算机，那你就算幸运了。而且过不了六个月，其他人就会赶上来。但在软件方面你可以做到。事实上，我认为我们所取得的飞跃至少领先其他人五年。
Let’s talk about the evolution of the PC. About 30 percent of American homes have computers. Businesses are wired. Video-game machines are rapidly becoming as powerful as PCs and in the near future will be able to do everything that traditional desktop computers can do. Is the PC revolution over?
让我们谈谈个人电脑的演变。大约 30%的美国家庭拥有电脑。企业已经联网。电子游戏机正在迅速变得与个人电脑一样强大，并且在不久的将来将能够完成传统台式电脑所能做的一切。个人电脑革命结束了吗？
No. Well, I don’t know exactly what you mean by your question, but I think that the PC revolution is far from over. What happened with the Mac was — well, first I should tell you my theory about Microsoft. Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet — basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.
不。我不太清楚你问题的确切意思，但我认为个人电脑革命远未结束。关于 Mac 发生的事情——首先我应该告诉你我对微软的理论。微软在过去 10 年中有两个目标。一个是复制 Mac，另一个是复制 Lotus 在电子表格方面的成功——基本上是应用程序业务。在过去的 10 年中，微软实现了这两个目标。现在他们完全迷失了方向。
They were able to copy the Mac because the Mac was frozen in time. The Mac didn’t change much for the last 10 years. It changed maybe 10 percent. It was a sitting duck. It’s amazing that it took Microsoft 10 years to copy something that was a sitting duck. Apple, unfortunately, doesn’t deserve too much sympathy. They invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D, but very little came out They produced almost no new innovation since the original Mac itself.
他们能够复制 Mac，因为 Mac 在时间上被冻结。过去 10 年里，Mac 变化不大，可能只变化了 10%。它就像一只待宰的鸭子。令人惊讶的是，微软花了 10 年时间来复制这样一只待宰的鸭子。不幸的是，苹果并不值得太多同情。他们在研发上投资了数亿甚至数亿美元，但几乎没有什么成果。自原始 Mac 以来，他们几乎没有产生任何新的创新。
So now, the original genes of the Macintosh have populated the earth. Ninety percent in the form of Windows, but nevertheless, there are tens of millions of computers that work like that. And that’s great. The question is, what’s next? And what’s going to keep driving this PC revolution?
所以现在，Macintosh 的原始基因已经遍布地球。90%以 Windows 的形式存在，但无论如何，仍然有数千万台计算机以那种方式运作。这很好。问题是，接下来是什么？是什么将继续推动这场个人电脑革命？
If you look at the goal of the ’80s, it was really individual productivity. And that could be answered with shrink-wrapped applications [off-the-shelf software]. If you look at the goal of the ’90s — well, if you look at the personal computer, it’s going from being a tool of computation to a tool of communication. It’s going from individual productivity to organizational productivity and also operational productivity. What I mean by that is, the market for mainframe and minicomputers is still as large as the PC market And people don’t buy those things to run shrink-wrapped spreadsheets and word processors on. They buy them to run applications that automate the heart of their company. And they don’t buy these applications shrink-wrapped. You can’t go buy an application to run your hospital, to do derivatives commodities trading or to run your phone network. They don’t exist. Or if they do, you have to customize them so much that they’re really custom apps by the time you get through with them.
如果你看看 80 年代的目标，那确实是个人生产力。而这可以通过包装软件来解决。如果你看看 90 年代的目标——好吧，如果你看看个人电脑，它正从计算工具转变为沟通工具。它正从个人生产力转向组织生产力和运营生产力。我所说的意思是，大型机和小型机的市场仍然和个人电脑市场一样大。而人们购买这些东西并不是为了运行包装好的电子表格和文字处理软件。他们购买它们是为了运行能够自动化公司核心业务的应用程序。而且他们并不是购买这些包装好的应用程序。你无法购买一个应用程序来管理你的医院、进行衍生商品交易或运营你的电话网络。这些应用程序并不存在。或者如果存在，你必须对它们进行如此多的定制，以至于在你完成后，它们实际上已经变成了定制应用程序。
最终被Salesforce和CRM实现了。
These custom applications really used to just be in the back office — in accounting, manufacturing. But as business is getting much more sophisticated and consumers are expecting more and more, these custom apps have invaded the front office. Now, when a company has a new product, it consists of only three things: an idea, a sales channel and a custom app to implement the product. The company doesn’t implement the product by hand anymore or service it by hand. Without the custom app, it doesn’t have the new product or service. I’ll give you an example. MCI’s Friends and Family is the most successful business promotion done in the last decade — measured in dollars and cents. AT&T did not respond to that for 18 months. It cost them billions of dollars. Why didn’t they? They’re obviously smart guys. They didn’t because they couldn’t create a custom app to run a new billing system.
这些定制应用程序曾经只存在于后台——在会计、制造等领域。但随着商业变得越来越复杂，消费者的期望也越来越高，这些定制应用程序已经侵入了前台。现在，当一家公司推出新产品时，它只包含三样东西：一个想法，一个销售渠道和一个实施产品的定制应用程序。公司不再手动实施或服务产品。没有定制应用程序，就没有新产品或服务。我给你举个例子。MCI 的“朋友与家人”是过去十年中最成功的商业促销——以美元和分为衡量标准。AT&T 对此没有反应长达 18 个月。这让他们损失了数十亿美元。为什么他们不回应？显然，他们是聪明人。他们之所以没有，是因为他们无法创建一个定制应用程序来运行新的计费系统。
So how does this connect with the next generation of the PC?
那么这与下一代个人电脑有什么关系？
I believe the next generation of the PC is going to be driven by much more advanced software, and it’s going to be driven by custom software for business. Business has focused on shrink-wrapped software on the PCs, and that’s why PCs haven’t really touched the heart of the business. And now they want to bring them into the heart of the business, and everyone is going to have to run custom apps alongside their shrink-wrapped apps because that’s how the enterprise is going to get their competitive advantage in things.
我相信下一代个人电脑将由更先进的软件驱动，并且将由针对商业的定制软件驱动。商业一直专注于个人电脑上的包装软件，这就是为什么个人电脑并没有真正触及商业的核心。而现在，他们希望将其引入商业的核心，每个人都将不得不在使用包装软件的同时运行定制应用程序，因为这就是企业在各方面获得竞争优势的方式。
For example, McCaw Cellular, the largest cellular provider in the world, runs the whole front end of their business on NEXTSTEP now. They’re giving PCs with custom apps to the phone dealers so that when you buy a cellular phone, it used to take you a day and a half to get you up on the network. Now it takes five minutes. The phone dealer just runs these custom apps, they’re networked back to a server in Seattle, and in a minute and a half, with no human intervention, your phone works on the entire McCaw network.
例如，世界上最大的移动通信服务提供商McCaw通信现在在其业务的整个前端运行 NEXTSTEP。他们向手机经销商提供配备定制应用程序的个人电脑，这样当你购买一部手机时，以前需要一天半的时间才能连接到网络。现在只需五分钟。手机经销商只需运行这些定制应用程序，它们通过网络连接到西雅图的服务器，经过一分钟半的时间，无需人工干预，你的手机就可以在整个McCaw网络上使用。
In addition to that, the applications business right now — if you look at even the shrink-wrap business — is contracting dramatically. It now takes 100 to 200 people one to two years just to do a major revision to a word processor or spreadsheet. And so, all the really creative people who like to work in small teams of three, four, five people, they’ve all been squeezed out of that business. As you may know, Windows is the worst development environment ever made. And Microsoft doesn’t have any interest in making it better, because the fact that its really hard to develop apps in Windows plays to Microsoft’s advantage. You can’t have small teams of programmers writing word processors and spreadsheets — it might upset their competitive advantage. And they can afford to have 200 people working on a project, no problem.
除了这一点，当前的应用程序业务——即使是收缩包装业务——也在急剧收缩。现在需要 100 到 200 人花费一到两年时间才能对文字处理器或电子表格进行一次重大修订。因此，所有喜欢在三、四、五人小团队中工作的真正创造性人才都被挤出了这个行业。正如您所知，Windows 是有史以来最糟糕的开发环境。微软对改善它没有任何兴趣，因为在 Windows 中开发应用程序非常困难，这对微软来说是有利的。您不能让小团队的程序员编写文字处理器和电子表格——这可能会影响他们的竞争优势。而且他们可以负担得起 200 人同时在一个项目上工作，毫无问题。
With our technology, with objects, literally three people in a garage can blow away what 200 people at Microsoft can do. Literally can blow it away. Corporate America has a need that is so huge and can save them so much money, or make them so much money, or cost them so much money if they miss it, that they are going to fuel the object revolution.
凭借我们的技术，三个在车库里的人可以轻松超越微软 200 人的工作。真的可以轻松超越。美国企业有一个如此巨大的需求，能够为他们节省大量资金，或者为他们赚取大量资金，或者如果错过了将花费他们大量资金，因此他们将推动面向对象革命。
That may be so. But when people think of Steve Jobs, they think of the man whose mission was to bring technology to the masses — not to corporate America.
这可能是对的。但是当人们想到史蒂夫·乔布斯时，他们想到的是那个将技术带给大众而不是美国企业。
Well, life is always a little more complicated than it appears to be.
生活总是比看起来要复杂一些。
What drove the success of the Apple II for many years and let consumers have the benefit of that product was Visi-Calc selling into corporate America. Corporate America was buying Apple IIs and running Visi-Calc on them like crazy so that we could get our volumes up and our prices down and sell that as a consumer product on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays while selling it to business on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We were giving away Macintoshes to higher ed while we were selling them for a nice profit to corporate America. So it takes both.
推动Apple II多年成功的因素之一，是Visi-Calc在美国企业市场的热销。美国企业疯狂购买Apple II并运行Visi-Calc，这让我们的销量得以提升，价格得以降低，从而能够在周一、周三和周五将其作为消费产品销售，同时在周二和周四向企业销售。我们在向高等教育赠送Macintosh的同时，也在向美国企业以可观的利润出售。因此，这两者都是必不可少的。
What’s going to fuel the object revolution is not the consumer. The consumer is not going to see the benefits until after business sees them and we begin to get this stuff into volume. Because unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don’t know any better. They’re not sitting around thinking that they have a giant problem that needs to be solved — whereas corporations are. The PC market has done less and less to serve their growing needs. They have a giant need, and they know it. We don’t have to spend money educating them about the problem — they know they have a problem. There’s a giant vacuum sucking us in there, and there’s a lot of money in there to fuel the development of this object industry. And everyone will benefit from that
推动面向对象革命的动力不是消费者。消费者在商业看到好处之前是不会看到这些好处的，而我们开始将这些东西投入到大规模生产中。因为不幸的是，人们并没有反抗微软。他们并不知道更好的选择。他们并没有坐在那里思考自己有一个需要解决的巨大问题——而企业却在思考。个人电脑市场越来越无法满足他们日益增长的需求。他们有一个巨大的需求，他们知道这一点。我们不需要花钱去教育他们关于这个问题——他们知道自己有问题。那里有一个巨大的真空在吸引我们，里面有很多资金可以推动这个产业的发展。每个人都将从中受益。
I visited Xerox PARC in 1979, when I was at Apple. That visit’s been written about — it was a very important visit. I remember being shown their rudimentary graphical-user interface. It was incomplete, some of it wasn’t even right, but the germ of the idea was there. And within 10 minutes, it was so obvious that every computer would work this way someday. You knew it with every bone in your body. Now, you could argue about the number of years it would take, you could argue about who the winners and losers in terms of companies in the industry might be, but I don’t think rational people could argue that every computer would work this way someday.
我在 1979 年访问了施乐 PARC，当时我在苹果公司。那次访问已经被写过很多次——这是一次非常重要的访问。我记得他们向我展示了他们初步的图形用户界面。它还不完整，有些地方甚至不正确，但这个想法的雏形已经存在。而在 10 分钟内，显而易见的是，未来每台计算机都将以这种方式工作。你全身的每一个细胞都知道这一点。现在，你可以争论需要多少年，你可以争论行业中谁会是赢家和输家，但我认为理性的人不会争论未来每台计算机都将以这种方式工作。
I feel the same way about objects, with every bone in my body. All software will be written using this object technology someday. No question about it. You can argue about how many years it’s going to take, you can argue who the winners and losers are going to be in terms of the companies in this industry, but I don’t think a rational person can argue that all software will not be built this way.
我对面向对象有同样的感觉，发自我身体的每一个骨头。总有一天，所有软件都将使用这种技术编写。毫无疑问。你可以争论这需要多少年，你可以争论在这个行业中哪些公司会是赢家和输家，但我认为理性的人无法争辩所有软件不会以这种方式构建。
Would you explain, in simple terms, exactly what object-oriented software is?
你能用简单的术语解释一下什么是面向对象的软件吗？
Objects are like people. They’re living, breathing things that have knowledge inside them about how to do things and have memory inside them so they can remember things. And rather than interacting with them at a very low level, you interact with them at a very high level of abstraction, like we’re doing right here.
面向对象就像人一样。它们是有生命、有呼吸的事物，内部蕴含着关于如何做事的知识，并且有记忆，可以记住事情。与其在非常低的层面上与它们互动，不如在一个非常高的抽象层面上与它们互动，就像我们现在所做的那样。
Here’s an example: If I’m your laundry object, you can give me your dirty clothes and send me a message that says, “Can you get my clothes laundered, please.” I happen to know where the best laundry place in San Francisco is. And I speak English, and I have dollars in my pockets. So I go out and hail a taxicab and tell the driver to take me to this place in San Francisco. I go get your clothes laundered, I jump back in the cab, I get back here. I give you your clean clothes and say, “Here are your clean clothes.”
这是一个例子：如果我是你的洗衣对象，你可以把脏衣服给我，并发一条消息说：“请你帮我洗衣服。”我恰好知道旧金山最好的洗衣店在哪里。我会说英语，口袋里有美元。所以我出去叫了一辆出租车，告诉司机带我去旧金山的这个地方。我去把你的衣服洗了，跳回出租车，回到这里。我把你的干净衣服给你，说：“这是你的干净衣服。”
You have no idea how I did that. You have no knowledge of the laundry place. Maybe you speak French, and you can’t even hail a taxi. You can’t pay for one, you don’t have dollars in your pocket. Yet I knew how to do all of that. And you didn’t have to know any of it. All that complexity was hidden inside of me, and we were able to interact at a very high level of abstraction. That’s what objects are. They encapsulate complexity, and the interfaces to that complexity are high level.
你不知道我是怎么做到的。你对洗衣店一无所知。也许你会说法语，但连叫出租车都不会。你不能支付，因为口袋里没有美元。然而我知道怎么做这一切。而你不需要知道任何这些。所有的复杂性都隐藏在我里面，我们能够在一个非常高的抽象层次上互动。这就是面向对象的意义。它们封装了复杂性，而与这些复杂性交互的接口是高层次的。
基于等于企业软件（即CRM的定义。
You brought up Microsoft earlier. How do you feel about the fact that Bill Gates has essentially achieved dominance in the software industry with what amounts to your vision of how personal computers should work?
你之前提到了微软。你对比尔·盖茨凭借你对个人电脑应如何工作的愿景在软件行业基本上取得主导地位的事实有什么看法？
I don’t really know what that all means. If you say, well, how do you feel about Bill Gates getting rich off some of the ideas that we had … well, you know, the goal is not to be the richest man in the cemetery. It’s not my goal anyway.
我真的不知道那是什么意思。如果你问，我对比尔·盖茨靠我们的一些想法变得富有有什么感觉……那么，你知道，目标不是成为墓地里最富有的人。反正这不是我的目标。
The thing I don’t think is good is that I don’t believe Microsoft has transformed itself into an agent for improving things, an agent for coming up with the next revolution. The Japanese, for example, used to be accused of just copying — and indeed, in the beginning, that’s just what they did. But they got quite a bit more sophisticated and started to innovate — look at automobiles, they certainly innovated quite a bit there. I can’t say the same thing about Microsoft.
我认为不好的事情是，我不相信微软已经转变为一个改善事物的代理，一个提出下一个革命的代理。例如，日本曾经被指责只是抄袭——实际上，最开始他们确实是这样做的。但他们变得更加复杂，开始创新——看看汽车，他们在这方面确实创新了很多。我不能对微软说同样的话。
And I become very concerned, because I see Microsoft competing very fiercely and putting a lot of companies out of business — some deservedly so and others not deservedly so. And I see a lot of innovation leaving this industry. What I believe very strongly is that the industry absolutely needs an alternative to Microsoft. And it needs an alternative to Microsoft in the applications area — which I hope will be Lotus. And we also need an alternative to Microsoft in the systems-software area. And the only hope we have for that, in my opinion, is NeXT.
我非常担心，因为我看到微软在激烈竞争，并让很多公司倒闭——有些是应得的，有些则不应得。我看到很多创新正在离开这个行业。我非常坚信，这个行业绝对需要一个微软的替代品。它在应用程序领域需要一个微软的替代品——我希望是 Lotus。我们在系统软件领域也需要一个微软的替代品。在我看来，我们唯一的希望就是 NeXT。
Microsoft, of course, is working on their own object-oriented operating system —
微软当然正在开发他们自己的面向对象操作系统——
They were working on the Mac for 10 years, too. I’m sure they’re working on it
他们也在 Mac 上工作了 10 年。我相信他们正在继续努力。
Microsoft’s greatest asset is Windows. Their greatest liability is Windows. Windows is so nonobject-oriented that it’s going to be impossible for them to go back and become object-oriented without throwing Windows away, and they can’t do that for years. So they’re going to try to patch things on top, and it’s not going to work.
微软最大的资产是 Windows。他们最大的负担也是 Windows。Windows 是如此非面向对象，以至于他们不可能回头变成面向对象，而不抛弃 Windows，而他们在多年内无法做到这一点。因此，他们将尝试在上面修补，但这不会奏效。
You’ve called Microsoft the IBM of the ’90s. What exactly do you mean by that?
你称微软为 90 年代的 IBM。你具体是什么意思？
They’re the mainstream. And a lot of people who don’t want to think about it too much are just going to buy their product. They have a market dominance now that is so great that it’s actually hurting the industry. I don’t like to get into discussions about whether they accomplished that fairly or not That’s for others to decide. I just observe it and say it’s not healthy for the country.
他们是主流。很多不想过多思考的人只会购买他们的产品。他们现在的市场主导地位如此强大，以至于实际上正在伤害这个行业。我不喜欢讨论他们是否公平地实现了这一点，这由其他人来决定。我只是观察这一切，并说这对国家来说并不健康。
What do you think of the federal antitrust investigation?
你对联邦反垄断调查有什么看法？
I don’t have enough data to know. And again, the issue is not whether they accomplished what they did within the rule book or by breaking some of the rules. I’m not qualified to say. But I don’t think it matters. I don’t think that’s the real issue. The real issue is, America is leading the world in software technology right now, and that is such a valuable asset for this country that anything that potentially threatens that leadership needs to be examined. I think the Microsoft monopoly of both sectors of the software industry — both the system and the applications software and the potential third sector that they want to monopolize, which is the consumer set-top-box sector — is going to pose the greatest threat to Americas dominance in the software industry of anything I have ever seen and could ever think of. I personally believe that it would be in the best interest of the country to break Microsoft up into three companies — a systems-software company, an applications-software company and a consumer-software company.
我没有足够的数据来判断。而且，再次强调，问题不在于他们是否在规则范围内完成了他们所做的事情，或者是通过违反一些规则来完成的。我没有资格说。但我认为这并不重要。我认为这不是关键问题。真正的问题是，美国目前在软件技术方面引领世界，这对这个国家来说是如此宝贵的资产，任何可能威胁到这种领导地位的事情都需要被审视。我认为微软在软件行业两个领域的垄断——系统软件和应用软件，以及他们想要垄断的潜在第三个领域，即消费机顶盒领域——将对美国在软件行业的主导地位构成我所见过和能想到的最大威胁。我个人认为，将微软拆分为三家公司——一家系统软件公司、一家应用软件公司和一家消费软件公司，将符合国家的最佳利益。
Hearing you talk like this makes me flash back to the old Apple days, when Apple cast itself in the role of the rebel against the establishment. Except now, instead of IBM, the great evil is Microsoft. And instead of Apple that will save us, it’s NeXT. Do you see parallels here, too?
听你这样说让我想起了旧时的苹果时代，那时苹果把自己定位为反叛者，反对体制。只不过现在，取代 IBM 的伟大邪恶是微软。而拯救我们的不再是苹果，而是 NeXT。你也看到这里的相似之处了吗？
Yeah, I do. Forget about me. That’s not important. What’s important is, I see tremendous parallels between the solidity and dominance that IBM had and the shackles that that was imposing on our industry and what Microsoft is doing today…. I think we came closer than we think to losing some of our computer industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and I think the gradual dissolution of IBM has been the healthiest thing that’s happened in this industry in the last 10 years.
是的，我知道。别提我了，那不重要。重要的是，我看到IBM曾经的稳固和主导地位与其对我们行业的束缚，以及今天微软所做的之间存在巨大的相似之处……我认为在70年代末和80年代初，我们的计算机行业曾经差点失去了一些东西，而IBM的逐渐解体是过去10年中这个行业发生的最健康的事情。
What’s your personal relationship with Bill Gates like?
你和比尔·盖茨的个人关系怎么样？
I think Bill Gates is a good guy. We’re not best friends, but we talk maybe once a month.
我认为比尔·盖茨是个好人。我们不是最好的朋友，但我们每个月可能会聊一次。
A lot has been made of the rivalry between you two. The two golden boys of the computer revolution —
你们之间的竞争引起了很多关注。这两位计算机革命的金童——
I think Bill and I have very different value systems. I like Bill very much, and I certainly admire his accomplishments, but the companies we built were very different from each other.
我认为比尔和我的价值观非常不同。我非常喜欢比尔，当然也钦佩他的成就，但我们所建立的公司彼此之间非常不同。
A lot of people believe that given the stranglehold Microsoft has on the software business, in the long run, the best NeXT can hope for is that it will be a niche product.
很多人认为，考虑到微软在软件行业的垄断地位，从长远来看，NeXT 最好的希望就是成为一个小众产品。
Apple’s a niche product, the Mac was a niche product And yet look at what it did. Apple’s, what, a $9 billion company. It was $2 billion when I left They’re doing OK. Would I be happy if we had a 10 percent market share of the system-software business? I’d be happy now. I’d be very happy. Then I’d go work like crazy to get 20.
苹果是一个小众产品，Mac 也是一个小众产品。然而看看它做了什么。苹果，嗯，市值 90 亿美元。离开时是 20 亿美元。他们过得不错。如果我们在系统软件业务中拥有 10%的市场份额，我会很高兴。我现在会很高兴。我会非常高兴。然后我会拼命工作争取 20%。
You mentioned the Apple earlier. When you look at the company you founded now, what do you think?
你之前提到了苹果。现在当你看到你创办的公司时，你有什么想法？
I don’t want to talk about Apple.
我不想谈论苹果。
What about the PowerPC?
PowerPC 怎么样？
It works fine. It’s a Pentium. The PowerPC and the Pentium are equivalent, plus or minus 10 or 20 percent, depending on which day you measure them. They’re the same thing. So Apple has a Pentium. That’s good. Is it three or four or five times better? No. Will it ever be? No. But it beats being behind. Which was where the Motorola 68000 architecture was unfortunately being relegated. It keeps them at least equal, but it’s not a compelling advantage.
它运行良好。这是一个奔腾处理器。PowerPC 和奔腾处理器是等效的，误差在 10%到 20%之间，具体取决于你测量的那一天。它们是一样的。所以苹果有一个奔腾处理器。这很好。它是好三倍、四倍还是五倍？不是。它会变得更好吗？不会。但这总比落后要好。不幸的是，摩托罗拉 68000 架构正被降级到那个位置。它至少让他们保持平等，但这并不是一个令人信服的优势。
You can’t open the paper these days without reading about the Internet and the information superhighway. Where is this all going?
如今你无法打开报纸而不读到关于互联网和信息高速公路的内容。这一切将走向何方？
The Internet is nothing new. It has been happening for 10 years. Finally, now, the wave is cresting on the general computer user. And I love it. I think the den is far more interesting than the living room. Putting the Internet into people’s houses is going to be really what the information superhighway is all about, not digital convergence in the set-top box. All that’s going to do is put the video rental stores out of business and save me a trip to rent my movie. I’m not very excited about that. I’m not excited about home shopping. I’m very excited about having the Internet in my den.
互联网并不是什么新鲜事。它已经存在了 10 年。最终，现在，这股浪潮正在向普通计算机用户涌来。我喜欢它。我认为书房比客厅有趣得多。将互联网引入人们的家中，才是真正的信息高速公路的意义所在，而不是机顶盒中的数字融合。那只会让视频租赁店倒闭，省去我去租电影的麻烦。我对此并不感到兴奋。我对家庭购物也不感到兴奋。我非常兴奋能在我的书房里使用互联网。
Phone companies, cable companies and Hollywood are jumping all over each other trying to get a piece of the action. Who do you think will be the winners and losers, say, five years down the road?
电话公司、网络公司和好莱坞正在争相抢夺这块蛋糕。你认为五年后谁会是赢家，谁会是输家？
I’ve talked to some of these guys in the phone and cable business, and believe me, they have no idea what they’re doing here. And the people who are talking the loudest know the least
我和一些电话和网络行业的人谈过，相信我，他们对自己在这里做的事情毫无头绪。而那些大声说话的人往往知道得最少。
Who are you referring to –John Malone?
你指的是谁——约翰·马龙？
I don’t want to name names. Let me just say that, in general, they have no idea how difficult this is going to be and how long it is going to take. None of these guys understands computer science. They don’t understand that that’s a little computer that they’re going to have in the set-top box, and in order to run that computer, they’re going to have to come up with some very sophisticated software.
我不想点名。让我说，总的来说，他们完全不知道这将有多困难，以及需要多长时间。这些人都不懂计算机科学。他们不明白他们将在机顶盒中拥有一个小型计算机，而为了运行那台计算机，他们需要开发一些非常复杂的软件。
Let’s talk more about the Internet. Every month, it’s growing by leaps and bounds. How is this new communications web going to affect the way we live in the future?
让我们更多地谈谈互联网。每个月，它都在飞速增长。这个新的通信网络将如何影响我们未来的生活方式？
I don’t think it’s too good to talk about these kinds of things. You can open up any book and hear all about this kind of garbage.
我认为谈论这些事情并不好。你可以随便翻一本书，听到关于这种垃圾的所有内容。
I’m interested in bearing your ideas.
我对听取你的想法很感兴趣。
I don’t think of the world that way. I’m a tool builder. That’s how I think of myself. I want to build really good tools that I know in my gut and my heart will be valuable. And then whatever happens is… you can’t really predict exactly what will happen, but you can feel the direction that we’re going. And that’s about as close as you can get. Then you just stand back and get out of the way, and these things take on a life of their own.
我并不以那种方式看待世界。我是一个工具制造者。这就是我对自己的看法。我想制造出真正好的工具，我在内心深处知道它们会有价值。然后，无论发生什么……你无法准确预测会发生什么，但你可以感受到我们前进的方向。这就是你能接近的程度。然后你只需退后，放手让这些事情自行发展。
Nevertheless, you’ve often talked about how technology can empower people, how it can change their lives. Do you still have as much faith in technology today as you did when you started out 20 years ago?
尽管如此，你常常谈到技术如何能够赋予人们权力，如何能够改变他们的生活。你今天对技术的信心是否仍然像 20 年前刚开始时那样强烈？
Oh, sure. It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.
哦，当然。这不是对技术的信仰，而是对人类的信仰。
Explain that.
解释一下。
Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them. It’s not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.
技术无所谓。重要的是你对人们的信任，相信他们本质上是善良和聪明的，如果你给他们工具，他们会用这些工具做出奇妙的事情。你信任的不是工具——工具只是工具。它们要么有效，要么无效。你信任的是人，而不是工具。是的，当然，我仍然保持乐观，我的意思是，我有时会感到悲观，但不会持续太久。
It’s been 10 years since the PC revolution started. Rational people can debate about whether technology has made the world a better place –
自个人电脑革命开始以来已经过去了 10 年。理性的人们可以辩论技术是否让世界变得更美好——
The world’s clearly a better place. Individuals can now do things that only large groups of people with lots of money could do before. What that means is, we have much more opportunity for people to get to the marketplace — not just the marketplace of commerce but the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace of publications, the marketplace of public policy. You name it. We’ve given individuals and small groups equally powerful tools to what the largest, most heavily funded organizations in the world have. And that trend is going to continue. You can buy for under $10,000 today a computer that is just as powerful, basically, as one anyone in the world can get their hands on.
世界显然变得更美好了。个人现在可以做以前只有拥有大量资金的大团体才能做的事情。这意味着，我们为人们进入市场提供了更多机会——不仅是商业市场，还有思想市场、出版市场和公共政策市场。你可以列举任何东西。我们为个人和小团体提供了与世界上最大、资金最雄厚的组织同样强大的工具。这一趋势将会继续下去。今天，你可以花不到 10,000 美元买到一台基本上与世界上任何人能获得的电脑一样强大的电脑。
The second thing that we’ve done is the communications side of it. By creating this electronic web, we have flattened out again the difference between the lone voice and the very large organized voice. We have allowed people who are not part of an organization to communicate and pool their interests and thoughts and energies together and start to act as if they were a virtual organization.
我们所做的第二件事是沟通方面。通过创建这个电子网络，我们再次缩小了孤立声音与大型组织声音之间的差距。我们让那些不属于任何组织的人能够沟通，汇聚他们的兴趣、想法和精力，开始像一个虚拟组织一样行动。
So I think this technology has been extremely rewarding. And I don’t think it’s anywhere near over.
所以我认为这项技术非常有价值。而且我认为它远未结束。
When you were talking about Bill Gates, you said that the goal is not to be the richest guy in the cemetery. What is the goal?
当你谈到比尔·盖茨时，你说目标不是成为墓地里最富有的人。那目标是什么？
I don’t know how to answer you. In the broadest context, the goal is to seek enlightenment — however you define it. But these are private things. I don’t want to talk about this kind of stuff.
我不知道怎么回答你。在最广泛的意义上，目标是寻求启蒙——无论你如何定义它。但这些都是私人的事情。我不想谈论这种事。
Why?
为什么？
I think, especially when one is somewhat in the public eye, it’s very important to keep a private life.
我认为，尤其是当一个人有些处于公众视野中时，保持私人生活是非常重要的。
Are you uncomfortable with your status as a celebrity in Silicon Valley?
你对自己在硅谷作为名人的身份感到不舒服吗？
I think of it as my well-known twin brother. It’s not me. Because otherwise, you go crazy. You read some negative article some idiot writes about you — you just can’t take it too personally. But then that teaches you not to take the really great ones too personally either. People like symbols, and they write about symbols.
我把它看作是我那著名的双胞胎兄弟。这不是我。因为否则你会发疯。你读到一些傻瓜写的关于你的负面文章——你就是不能太在意。但这也教会你不要对那些真正好的文章太在意。人们喜欢符号，他们写关于符号的文章。
I talked to some of the original Mac designers the other day, and they mentioned the 10-year-annniversary celebration of the Mac a few months ago. You didn’t want to participate in that. Has it been a burden, the pressure to repeat the phenomenal success of the Mac? Some people have compared you to Orson Welles, who at 25 did his best work, and it’s all downhill from there.
我前几天和一些原始 Mac 设计师谈过，他们提到几个月前的 Mac 十周年庆祝活动。你不想参加那个。重复 Mac 的巨大成功是否给你带来了压力？有人把你和奥逊·威尔斯相比，他在 25 岁时做出了最好的作品，从那以后就一直在下滑。
I’m very flattered by that, actually. I wonder what game show I’m going to be on. Guess I’m going to have to start eating a lot of pie. [Laughs.] I don’t know. The Macintosh was sort of like this wonderful romance in your life that you once had — and that produced about 10 million children. In a way it will never be over in your life. You’ll still smell that romance every morning when you get up. And when you open the window, the cool air will hit your face, and you’ll smell that romance in the air. And you’ll see your children around, and you feel good about it. And nothing will ever make you feel bad about it.
我对此感到非常受宠若惊。 我想知道我会参加什么游戏节目。 看来我得开始吃很多派了。[笑] 我不知道。 Macintosh 就像你生活中曾经拥有的那段美好浪漫——并且产生了大约 1000 万个孩子。 在某种程度上，它在你的生活中永远不会结束。 每天早上你起床时仍然能闻到那种浪漫。 当你打开窗户，凉爽的空气会扑面而来，你会在空气中闻到那种浪漫。 你会看到你的孩子们在身边，你会对此感到良好。 没有什么会让你对此感到不快。
But now, your life has moved on. You get up every morning, and you might remember that romance, but then the whole day is in front of you to do something wonderful with.
但现在，你的生活已经继续前行。你每天早上起床，可能会想起那段浪漫，但接下来的一整天都在你面前，可以去做一些美好的事情。
But I also think that what we’re now may turn out in the end to be more profound. Because the Macintosh was the agent of change to bring computers to the rest of us with its graphical-user interface. That was very important. But now the industry is up against a really big closed door. Objects are going to unlock that door. On the other side is a world so rich from this well of software that will spring up that the true promise of many of the things we started, even with the Apple II, will finally start to be realized.
但我也认为，我们现在所处的阶段可能最终会更加深远。因为Macintosh是变革的推动者，它通过图形用户界面将计算机带给了我们其他人。这一点非常重要。但现在，行业面临着一扇真正巨大的闭门。面向对象将打开这扇门，门的另一边是一个丰富的软件世界，它将从中涌现出来，许多我们开始时设想的东西的真正承诺，甚至是与Apple II一起的那些，将最终开始实现。
After that … who knows? Maybe there’s another locked door behind this door, too; I don’t know. But someone else is going to have to figure out how to unlock that one.
之后……谁知道呢？也许在这扇门后面还有另一扇锁着的门；我不知道。但其他人得想办法打开那扇门。
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