1998-09-04 Steve Jobs.Insisting on Only the Best People, Products, and Purpose
The story of Steve Jobs is the story of a young college drop-out who sojourned to India in search of purity and enlightenment, returned to the U.S., and founded Apple Computer.
史蒂夫·乔布斯的故事是一个年轻的大学辍学生前往印度寻求纯净和启蒙的故事，他回到美国，创办了苹果电脑。
Was dabbling with Hinduism the key to success for a 20-year-old with little money and a modest technical background?
接触印度教是否是一个 20 岁、资金有限且技术背景普通的年轻人成功的关键？
Perhaps. High school buddy Steve Wozniak—by all accounts a brilliant tinkerer and engineer—and Jobs collaborated on several "projects" during their adolescence, including hacking into phone company networks and making video games. Yet, over time, their individual responsibilities remained well-defined: Wozniak mainly designed and built the product, and Jobs scrambled to find customers, coworkers, and components. Eventually the projects became of value to others and Jobs persuaded Wozniak in 1976 to devote his energy to a partnership—Apple Computer.
也许。高中好友史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克——据说是一位出色的修补匠和工程师——与乔布斯在青少年时期合作了几个“项目”，包括入侵电话公司网络和制作视频游戏。然而，随着时间的推移，他们各自的职责保持明确：沃兹尼亚克主要设计和制造产品，而乔布斯则忙于寻找客户、同事和组件。最终，这些项目对他人产生了价值，乔布斯在 1976 年说服沃兹尼亚克将精力投入到一个合作伙伴关系——苹果电脑。
Many would-be entrepreneurs, lacking money or strong business experience, become stymied by the challenges of obtaining financing and recruiting people to join in working for what is essentially an idea. Yet Jobs doggedly cajoled suppliers and retail outlets to provide Apple with low pricing and extended credit. His apathy for maintaining his outward appearance—he often showed up to meetings barefoot and bearded—didn't appear to lessen his zeal. Instead, his aggressiveness netted the help of several engineers, marketing firms, and venture capitalists.
许多有志创业者由于缺乏资金或丰富的商业经验，在获得融资和招募人手以实现本质上只是一个想法的过程中感到困惑。然而，乔布斯执着地劝说供应商和零售商为苹果提供低价和延长信用。他对保持外表的漠不关心——他经常赤脚和蓄着胡子出席会议——似乎并没有减弱他的热情。相反，他的积极进取为他赢得了几位工程师、营销公司和风险投资家的支持。
The product of Wozniak's astounding engineering feats and Jobs' relentless ambition, Apple's mainstream computer, the Apple II, began selling like wildfire. The company mush-roomed, with the Apple Il bringing in huge profits. Media attention turned toward Silicon Valley, and Jobs, the master salesman, graced the cover of Time in 1982.
沃兹尼亚克惊人的工程成就与乔布斯不懈的雄心结合，苹果的主流计算机 Apple II 开始如 wildfire 一般热销。公司迅速壮大，Apple II 带来了巨额利润。媒体的关注转向硅谷，销售大师乔布斯在 1982 年登上了《时代》杂志的封面。
Jobs, however, is best known in the computer industry for leading the team that developed the boldly-designed computer used by millions today: the Apple Macintosh. During a demonstration of a prototype computer at the famed Xerox PARC, Jobs and other Apple employees were astounded by a computer that displayed graphical icons and pull-down menus in its operating system. The computer even allowed the user to issue commands from a small, wheeled device (a mouse). The demonstration's impact on the Apple team cannot be over-estimated—Jobs scrambled to rewrite Apple's plan for its next computer, the Lisa, in order to accommodate the revolutionary ideas and logic of the Xerox PARC prototype. In its most basic description, the Lisa was the mother of the Macintosh.
然而，乔布斯在计算机行业最为人知的是他领导的团队开发了今天被数百万人使用的大胆设计的计算机：苹果麦金塔。在著名的施乐 PARC 进行原型计算机演示时，乔布斯和其他苹果员工对一台在其操作系统中显示图形图标和下拉菜单的计算机感到震惊。这台计算机甚至允许用户通过一个小型的带轮设备（鼠标）发出命令。此次演示对苹果团队的影响不可低估——乔布斯急忙重写了苹果下一台计算机 Lisa 的计划，以便适应施乐 PARC 原型的革命性理念和逻辑。最基本的描述是，Lisa 是麦金塔的母机。
Targeted at corporate America, Lisa was a powerful computer destined to leapfrog its competition, but instead floundered in the marketplace mainly due to its hefty $10,000 price tag.
针对美国企业，丽莎是一款强大的计算机，注定要超越竞争对手，但由于其高达 10,000 美元的价格标签，反而在市场上挣扎。
During this time, Jobs recruited Pepsi marketing executive John Sculley to join Apple as CEO. Jobs' management responsibility shifted to leading product development for a pint-sized version of Lisa, code-named Macintosh. Jobs zealousness and management style drove the Macintosh team to sustained levels of intense work: seventy-plus hour weeks for months at a stretch became the norm. When later asked to explain their incredible work ethic, Macintosh team developers spoke of a sense of importance to their work, a messianic belief that the Macintosh would not only change computing, it would change the world.
在此期间，乔布斯招募了百事可乐的市场执行官约翰·斯卡利加入苹果担任首席执行官。乔布斯的管理责任转向领导一款代号为麦金塔的小型 Lisa 版本的产品开发。乔布斯的热情和管理风格使麦金塔团队在高强度工作中保持了持续的水平：每周超过七十小时的工作成为常态。当后来被问及他们惊人的工作伦理时，麦金塔团队的开发者谈到了对自己工作的重视感，以及一种救世主般的信念，认为麦金塔不仅会改变计算机，还会改变世界。
Yet, after an initial spurt of sales to early adopters and yuppies, Macintosh sales lagged behind forecasts. Dissension in the nine-year-old company grew. Jobs and Sculley, once partners, became bitter enemies and attempted various power plays to remove each other. Politically more astute and agile than Jobs, Sculley won the showdown and Jobs was forced to retreat.
然而，在对早期采用者和年轻专业人士的初期销售激增之后，Macintosh 的销售却未能达到预期。这个成立九年的公司内部出现了分歧。乔布斯和斯卡利，曾经是合作伙伴，变成了 bitter 敌人，并试图通过各种权力斗争来互相排挤。斯卡利在政治上比乔布斯更敏锐和灵活，最终赢得了对决，乔布斯被迫撤退。
Jobs soon left the company with several key Apple employees in tow and started NeXT, his bid to revolutionize computing a second time. After a string of disappointing hardware product initiatives, NeXT boasted an estimated $60 million in yearly revenues in 1996—very respectable for a software company, but disappointing perhaps to those who expected nothing less than another rabbit hat trick and billion dollar revenues.
乔布斯很快带着几位关键的苹果员工离开了公司，创办了 NeXT，这是他第二次试图革新计算机行业。在一系列令人失望的硬件产品计划之后，NeXT 在 1996 年的年收入估计为 6000 万美元——对于一家软件公司来说非常可观，但对于那些期待另一个魔术般的成功和十亿美元收入的人来说，可能会感到失望。
However, Steve Jobs still does magic. In an ironic twist to this Silicon Valley soap opera, Apple Computer decided to purchase NeXT for $400 million at the end of 1996. Why?
然而，史蒂夫·乔布斯仍然在施展魔法。在这场硅谷肥皂剧的讽刺转折中，苹果公司在 1996 年底决定以 4 亿美元收购 NeXT。为什么？
Apple, by the end of 1996, was desperately struggling to revamp its own operating system and boost lagging sales. It needed a new vision, and chose NeXT—among several other potential companies—to fulfill that vision. Apple's reasons behind the purchase were widely speculated upon in the press, and many journalists had critical comments about Apple's strategy behind the acquisition-after all, NeXT only posted an annual profit once in the past four years, and was a market share laggard. Will NeXT—and Steve Jobs—be able to help save Apple? Only time will tell.
到 1996 年底，苹果公司正在拼命努力重塑自己的操作系统并提升疲软的销售业绩。它需要一个新的愿景，并选择了 NeXT——在几家潜在公司中——来实现这个愿景。媒体对苹果收购的原因进行了广泛的猜测，许多记者对苹果的收购策略提出了批评意见——毕竟，NeXT 在过去四年中仅有一次年利润，并且在市场份额上处于落后状态。NeXT 和史蒂夫·乔布斯能否帮助拯救苹果？只有时间会告诉我们。
Fate rarely presents entrepreneurs more than one golden opportunity for commercial success. But Steve Jobs manages to defy the odds. Longing to enter computer animation, Jobs acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, renamed it Pixar, and helped shepherd it to a successful launch of a computer-generated feature film (Toy Story) and a public stock offering that pushed Jobs' estimated wealth well over the $500 million mark.
命运很少给企业家提供超过一次的商业成功的黄金机会。但史蒂夫·乔布斯成功地打破了这种规律。渴望进入计算机动画领域，乔布斯收购了卢卡斯影业的计算机图形部门，将其更名为皮克斯，并帮助其成功推出了一部计算机生成的动画长片（《玩具总动员》）和一次公开募股，使乔布斯的估计财富超过了 5 亿美元。
Yet, in the final analysis, Steve Jobs built a team of tremendously motivated and talented people who were able to truly change the world. All from a small company that started out of a suburban California garage.
然而，归根结底，史蒂夫·乔布斯组建了一支极具动力和才华的团队，他们能够真正改变世界。这一切都源于一家位于加利福尼亚郊区车库的小公司。
We met with Steve Jobs at NeXT's corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California.
我们在加利福尼亚州红木城的 NeXT 公司总部与史蒂夫·乔布斯会面。
Interview Transcript
访谈记录
What talent do you think you consistently brought to Apple and bring to NeXT and Pixar?
你认为你在苹果公司、NeXT 和皮克斯始终带来的是什么才能？
I think that I've consistently figured out who really smart people were to hang around with. No major work that I have been involved with has been work that can be done by a single person, or two people, or even three or four people. Some people can do one thing magnificently, like Michaelangelo, and others make things like semiconductors or build 747 airplanes—that type of work requires legions of people. In order to do things well that can't be done by one person, you must find extraordinary people.
我认为我一直能够识别出真正聪明的人，值得与他们交往。我参与的任何重大工作都不是一个人、两个人，甚至三四个人能够完成的。有些人可以出色地完成一件事，比如米开朗基罗，而其他人则制造半导体或建造 747 飞机——这类工作需要大量的人。为了做好那些无法由一个人完成的事情，你必须找到杰出的人。
The key observation is that, in most things in life, the dynamic range between average quality and the best quality is, at most, two-to-one. For example, if you were in New York and compared the best taxi to an average taxi, you might get there 20 percent faster. In terms of computers, the best PC is perhaps 30 percent better than the average PC. There is not much difference in magnitude. Rarely you find a difference of 2 to 1. Pick anything.
关键观察是，在生活中的大多数事情中，平均质量和最佳质量之间的动态范围最多是二比一。例如，如果你在纽约，将最好的出租车与普通出租车进行比较，你可能会快 20%。在计算机方面，最好的个人电脑可能比普通个人电脑好 30%。差别并不大。很少能找到二比一的差异。随便选一样。
But, in the field that I was interested in-originally, hardware design—I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Given that, you're well advised to go after the cream of the cream. That's what we've done. You can then build a team that pursues the A + players. A small team of A + players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. That’s what I’ve tried to do.
但是，在我最感兴趣的领域——最初是硬件设计——我注意到，普通人能够完成的事情和最优秀的人能够完成的事情之间的动态范围是 50 到 100 比 1。考虑到这一点，建议你去追求最优秀的人。这就是我们所做的。然后你可以组建一个追求 A+级人才的团队。一小队 A+级人才可以轻松超越一支庞大的 B 和 C 级人才团队。这就是我所尝试做的。
So you think your talent is in recruiting?
所以你认为你的才能在于招聘吗？
It's not just recruiting. After recruiting, it's then building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people and that their work is bigger than they are. The feeling that the work will have tremendous influence and is part of a strong, clear vision—all of those things. Recruiting usually requires more than you alone can do, so I've found that collaborative recruiting and having a culture that recruits the A players is the best way. Any interviewee will speak with at least a dozen people in several areas of this company, not just those in the area that he would work in. That way a lot of your A employees get broad exposure to the company, and—by having a company culture that supports them if they feel strongly enough—the current employees can veto a candidate.
不仅仅是招聘。在招聘之后，还要建立一个让人们感到自己被同样优秀的人包围的环境，以及他们的工作超越了个人的感觉。那种工作将产生巨大影响并且是强大、清晰愿景的一部分的感觉——所有这些都是重要的。招聘通常需要的不仅仅是你一个人能做到的，所以我发现协作招聘和拥有一种吸引顶尖人才的文化是最好的方法。任何面试者都会与公司多个领域的至少十几个人交谈，而不仅仅是他将要工作的领域。这样，你的许多优秀员工就能广泛接触到公司，并且——通过拥有一种支持他们的公司文化，如果他们感到足够强烈——现有员工可以否决一个候选人。
That seems very time-consuming.
这似乎非常耗时间。
Yes, it is. We've interviewed people where nine out of ten employees thought the candidate was terrific, one employee really had a problem with the candidate, and therefore we didn't hire him. The process is hard, very time-consuming, and can lead to real problems if not managed right. But it's a very good way, all in all.
是的，确实如此。我们采访过一些人，其中十分之九的员工认为候选人非常出色，但有一名员工对候选人有很大的问题，因此我们没有雇用他。这个过程很困难，耗时很长，如果管理不当可能会导致真正的问题。但总的来说，这是一种非常好的方式。
Yet, in a typical startup, a manager may not always have time to spend recruiting other people.
然而，在一个典型的初创公司中，经理可能没有时间去招募其他人。
I disagree totally. I think it's the most important job. Assume you're by yourself in a startup and you want a partner. You'd take a lot of time finding the partner, right? He would be half of your company. Why should you take any less time finding a third of your company or a fourth of your company or a fifth of your company? When you're in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the company succeeds or not. Each is ten percent of the company. So why wouldn't you take as much time as necessary to find all A players? If three were not so great why would you want a company where thirty percent of your people are not so great? A small company depends on great people much more than a big company does.
我完全不同意。我认为这是最重要的工作。假设你在一家初创公司里独自一人，想找一个合伙人。你会花很多时间去寻找合伙人，对吧？他将是你公司的一半。那为什么你在寻找公司三分之一、四分之一或五分之一的合伙人时就不花同样多的时间呢？在初创公司中，前十个人将决定公司是否成功。每个人占公司百分之十。那么，为什么不花足够的时间去寻找所有的 A 类人才呢？如果三个人表现得不那么出色，为什么你还想要一个三十%的员工表现不佳的公司呢？小公司比大公司更依赖优秀的人才。
But, what about the need for speed when taking your product to market? Wouldn't recruiting in this manner take away time from getting your product to market quickly?
但是，在将产品推向市场时，速度的需求如何呢？以这种方式招聘难道不会占用将产品快速推向市场的时间吗？
You'd better have great people or you won't get your product to market as fast as possible. Or, you might get a product to market really fast but it will be really clunky and nobody will buy it. There are no shortcuts around quality, and quality starts with people. Maybe shortcuts exist, but I'm not smart enough to have ever found any.
你最好有优秀的人，否则你无法尽快将产品推向市场。或者，你可能会很快将产品推向市场，但它会非常笨重，没人会买。没有任何捷径可以绕过质量，而质量始于人。也许存在捷径，但我没有足够聪明去发现任何。
I spend 20 percent of my time recruiting even now. I spend a day a week helping people recruit. It's one of the most important things you can do.
我现在仍然花 20%的时间进行招聘。我每周花一天时间帮助人们招聘。这是你能做的最重要的事情之一。
If finding the A players is so important, how can you tell who is an A player and who isn't?
如果找到 A 级人才如此重要，您如何判断谁是 A 级人才，谁不是呢？
That's a very hard question. Ultimately there are two paths. If a candidate has been in the workplace for a while, you have to look at the results. There are people who look so good on paper and talk such a good story but have no results behind them. They can't point to breakthroughs or successful products that they shipped and played an integral part in. Ultimately the results should lead you to the people. As a matter of fact that's how I find great people. I look at great results and I find out who was responsible for them.
这是一个非常困难的问题。最终有两条路径。如果候选人在职场上待了一段时间，你必须关注结果。有些人在纸面上看起来很好，讲得也很动听，但背后却没有任何结果。他们无法指出突破或成功的产品，以及他们在其中发挥的关键作用。最终，结果应该引导你找到合适的人。事实上，这就是我发现优秀人才的方法。我关注优秀的结果，然后找出谁对此负责。
However, sometimes young people haven't had the opportunity yet to be in a position of influence to create such results. So here you must evaluate potential. It's certainly more difficult, but the primary attributes of potential are intelligence and the ability to learn quickly.
然而，有时年轻人还没有机会处于能够产生这种结果的影响力位置。因此，在这里你必须评估潜力。这当然更困难，但潜力的主要特征是智力和快速学习的能力。
Much of it is also drive and passion-hard work makes up for a lot.
很多时候，这也源于动力和激情——努力工作弥补了很多。
When you recruit you're rolling the dice. No matter what, you're rolling the dice because you've only got an hour to assess the candidate. The most time I spend with somebody is an hour and I must then recommend whether we hire the person or not. Others will recommend, too, so I won't be the only one but I'll still have to throw my vote in the hat. Ultimately it comes down to your gut feeling. Your gut feeling gets refined as you hire more people and see how they do. Some you thought would do well don't and you can sense why. If you study it a bit you might say, "I thought this person was going to do well but I overlooked this aspect," or "I didn't think this person would do well but they did and here's why." As you hire people over time your gut instinct gets better and more precise.
当你招聘时，你是在掷骰子。无论如何，你都在掷骰子，因为你只有一个小时来评估候选人。我与某人相处的最长时间是一个小时，然后我必须推荐是否雇用这个人。其他人也会推荐，所以我不会是唯一的一个，但我仍然必须投票。最终，这取决于你的直觉。随着你雇用更多的人并观察他们的表现，你的直觉会得到提升。有些你认为会表现良好的人却没有，而你能感受到原因。如果你稍微研究一下，你可能会说：“我认为这个人会表现良好，但我忽视了这个方面，”或者“我没想到这个人会表现良好，但他们做到了，原因在这里。”随着时间的推移，你的直觉会变得更好、更准确。
Over time, my digging in during an interview gets more precise. For example, many times in an interview I will purposely upset some-one: I'll criticize their prior work. I'll do my homework, find out what they worked on and say, "God, that really turned out to be a bomb.
随着时间的推移，我在面试中的深入挖掘变得更加精准。例如，在面试中，我会故意让某人不高兴：我会批评他们之前的工作。我会做好功课，了解他们做过的事情，然后说：“天哪，那真是个失败。”
That really turned out to be a bozo product. Why did you work on that?" I shouldn't say this in your book, but the worse thing that someone can do in an interview is to agree with me and knuckle under.
这确实是个愚蠢的产品。你为什么要做这个？"我不应该在你的书里这么说，但在面试中，最糟糕的事情就是有人同意我并屈服。
What I look for is for someone to come right back and say, "You're dead wrong and here's why." I want to see what people are like under pressure. I want to see if they just fold or if they have firm conviction, belief, and pride in what they did. It's also good every once in a while to really piss somebody off in an interview to see how they react because, if your company is a meritocracy of ideas, with passionate people, you have a company with a lot of arguments. If people can't stand up and argue well under pressure they may not do well in such an environment.
我所寻找的是有人能立刻反驳我，说：“你完全错了，原因在这里。”我想看看人们在压力下的表现。我想知道他们是屈服还是对自己所做的事情有坚定的信念、信仰和自豪感。偶尔在面试中惹恼某人也是好的，这样可以看看他们的反应，因为如果你的公司是一个思想的精英制度，拥有充满激情的人，你的公司就会有很多争论。如果人们在压力下不能站出来并进行良好的辩论，他们可能在这样的环境中表现不佳。
You mentioned how important it is to find good people, regardless of the time to market issue. Yet, when you first started Apple it seemed as if you were just hiring people as fast as you could.
你提到找到优秀的人是多么重要，无论市场时间问题如何。然而，当你刚开始苹果时，似乎你只是尽可能快地招聘人。
In the early days of Apple we were just trying to hire people that knew more than we did about anything and that wasn't hard because we didn't know a lot. The problem was not that we could find people who knew more than we did. That was easy. The problem was that we were pretty quick studies and before too long, we knew more than they did and we'd ask questions that they couldn't answer because they never really thought about it.
在苹果的早期，我们只是试图招聘那些在某些方面比我们更有知识的人，这并不难，因为我们知道的并不多。问题不在于我们找不到比我们更有知识的人，这很简单。问题在于我们学习得很快，不久之后，我们知道的比他们还多，我们会问一些他们无法回答的问题，因为他们从来没有真正思考过这些问题。
That was tough because we'd sometimes hire good people and they didn't have the ability to grow as fast as we needed them to grow, because in any young company your perspectives are changing monthly as you learn more. People have to be able to change and adapt and really be able to see things from new points of view. If they get stuck in their own points of view, it gets very difficult.
这很困难，因为我们有时会雇佣优秀的人，但他们的成长速度无法满足我们的需求，因为在任何年轻的公司中，随着我们学习更多，视角每个月都在变化。人们必须能够改变和适应，真正能够从新的角度看待事物。如果他们固守自己的观点，就会变得非常困难。
What do you mean by getting stuck in their own points of view?
你所说的被困在自己的观点中是什么意思？
I'll give you an example. One of the reasons why Apple was successful was because we built the [computer] dealer channel. The dealer channel did not exist before Apple built it. And, one of the things Apple did to build the dealer channel was to finance it by extending dealers credit when they were really not creditworthy.
我给你举个例子。苹果成功的原因之一是我们建立了[计算机]经销商渠道。这个经销商渠道在苹果建立之前是不存在的。而苹果为了建立经销商渠道所做的事情之一就是在经销商实际上并不具备信用的时候，向他们提供信贷融资。
So, we were extending credit, and when dealers were going broke, we ate the cost of goods—that's part of the cost of building the channel. We quickly realized that we would have a lot less credit exposure if we could get our product to the dealer very fast because then they would not have to stock a lot of inventory. So, we created big distribution centers in several places around the country and dealers could get product shipped to them within twenty-four hours. This way, the dealer wouldn't have to stock much inventory, and we wouldn't have to extend them much credit.
所以，我们在提供信贷，当经销商破产时，我们承担了商品成本——这也是建立渠道的一部分成本。我们很快意识到，如果能够快速将产品送到经销商手中，我们的信贷风险会大大降低，因为这样他们就不需要囤积大量库存。因此，我们在全国多个地方建立了大型配送中心，经销商可以在二十四小时内收到发货。这样，经销商就不需要囤积太多库存，我们也不需要给他们提供太多信贷。
After this system was established, I once asked Fred Smith [the CEO of Federal Express] how much would it cost to ship a Mac anywhere in the country directly from Apple to the customer within two days. He thought about it, did his calculations, and said about $27.10 went back to Apple and analyzed our current distribution system which by this time took about three weeks from the factory to the customer. And, even worse, we found out that it cost us $57.
该系统建立后，我曾问过联邦快递公司首席执行官弗雷德·史密斯，将一台 Mac 从苹果公司直接送到全国任何地方需要多少钱，两天内送到客户手中。他想了想，算了算，说大约 27.10 美元。我们回到苹果，分析了我们现有的分销系统，到那时大约需要三周时间才能将产品从工厂送到客户手中。更糟糕的是，我们发现这让我们花了 57 美元。
So, I proposed to our people that we completely eliminate the distribution warehouses, have FedEx just pick up Macs at the back of our factories, and have our computers link into Federal Express' tracking systems in order to eliminate paperwork and get the product from the factory to the customer within 48 hours. This way we would eliminate several hundred jobs and tons of computer systems, tons of bricks and mortar, while still getting the product to the customer three weeks sooner. But, I got my head shot off because people couldn't change their perspective.
因此，我向我们的员工提议，完全取消配送仓库，让联邦快递直接从我们的工厂后方取走苹果电脑，并将我们的电脑连接到联邦快递的跟踪系统，以消除文书工作，并在 48 小时内将产品从工厂送到客户手中。这样，我们就可以消除数百个工作岗位和大量的计算机系统、大量的砖块和水泥，同时仍然可以比以前提早三周将产品送到客户手中。但是，我的计划被否决了，因为人们无法改变他们的思维方式。
Explain that a little more. What do you mean by "people couldn't change their perspective?"
再详细解释一下。你说的“人们无法改变他们的视角”是什么意思？
Well, generally it's because people never know or forget what they're really doing—that is, what the benefit is to what they're really doing.
好吧，通常是因为人们从来不知道或忘记了他们真正的所作所为——也就是说，他们真正所做的事情的好处是什么。
Our distribution centers forgot that what they were really all about was getting product from Apple to its customers really fast. They thought they were about a whole lot of other things like personal relationships with the customer. They had taken over some sales functions, and it became a real mess. Eventually, the industry went the way of mail-order. Dell Computer was built on that model. Apple could have done what Dell did much sooner.
我们的配送中心忘记了他们的真正目标是尽可能快地将苹果产品送到客户手中。他们认为他们肩负着许多其他的责任，例如与客户建立个人关系。他们接管了一些销售职能，结果变得一团糟。最终，该行业走向了邮购模式。戴尔电脑就是建立在这种模式上的。苹果本可以比戴尔早很多就采取戴尔的做法。
But, usually, people never think that much about what they re doing or why they do it. They just do it because that's the way it has been done and it works. That type of thinking doesn't work if you're growing fast and if you're up against some larger companies. You really have to out-think them and you have to be able to make those paradigm shifts in your points of view.
但是，通常，人们从来不会太多考虑他们在做什么或为什么要这样做。他们只是因为这样做是惯例而且有效而去做。如果你在快速成长并且面临一些大公司的竞争，这种思维方式就行不通了。你真的需要超越他们的思维，并且能够在你的观点上进行那些范式转变。
In addition to finding the right people, you also stated that building the environment of the company is important. What things can management do to create the right environment and culture of a young company?
除了找到合适的人才，您还提到建立公司的环境很重要。管理层可以做些什么来创造一个年轻公司的正确环境和文化？
Hewlett and Packard, of course, set the tone for the modern intellectual property-based company. They did such a good job of it that the rest of us have only built on their foundation. I'll explain this in a different way than they did. Most of the companies here create intellectual property. They are pure intellectual property companies. Some are different: Intel, for example, has billions of dollars in factories, but most companies don't.
惠普和帕卡德当然为现代知识产权公司定下了基调。他们做得如此出色，以至于我们其余的人只能在他们的基础上继续发展。我将以不同于他们的方式来解释这一点。这里的大多数公司创造知识产权。它们是纯粹的知识产权公司。有些公司则不同：例如，英特尔拥有数十亿美元的工厂，但大多数公司并没有。
Most of the companies in Silicon Valley succeed or fail based on their ability to have breakthrough ideas and implement those ideas. The implementation is primarily intellectual property—writing software and figuring out designs of one type or another. When your primary product is essentially bits on a disk or on a wire, your primary assets are human capital, not financial capital. And, since demand for people is greater than the supply, you must offer those people something more than a paycheck and stock options. You must offer them the ability to make larger decisions and to be a part of the core company. That involvement is what drives much of this fun.
硅谷的大多数公司成功或失败的关键在于它们是否能够提出突破性的想法并实施这些想法。实施主要是知识产权——编写软件和设计各种类型的方案。当你的主要产品本质上是磁盘或电缆上的比特时，你的主要资产是人力资本，而不是金融资本。而且，由于对人才的需求大于供应，你必须为这些人提供比薪水和股票期权更多的东西。你必须让他们有能力做出更大的决策，并成为公司的核心部分。这种参与感是推动许多乐趣的动力。
For example, you want people to make key company decisions without you even knowing it. They'd better have access to most of the company's information, so you'd better have an open communication policy so that people can know just about everything, otherwise they will make important decisions without the right information. That would be really stupid. Generally technology companies are very open. Generally they are driven by the meritocracy of ideas, not by hierarchy.
例如，你希望员工在你不知情的情况下做出公司的关键决定。他们最好能接触到公司的大部分信息，所以你最好有一个开放的沟通政策，让人们可以知道几乎所有的事情，否则他们就会在没有正确信息的情况下做出重要决定。那就太愚蠢了。一般来说，科技公司都非常开放。通常他们是由思想的能力而不是由等级制度驱动的。
If there is someone really good four levels down—and you don't listen to them—they'll go somewhere else that will listen to them.
如果下面四层有真正优秀的人，而你不听他们的意见，他们就会去其他愿意听他们意见的地方。
Hierarchy takes on a different meaning when people you work for are your coaches, not your bosses. If you're in Silicon Valley, you're your own boss because you don't have a contract. Silicon Valley does not work on contracts the way some industries do. If you don't like the way things are at one company, and if you're good, then you can leave anytime and go anywhere else. In fact, headhunters are calling you every week. All you have to do is take one of those calls and you're out of there. The whole power structure of an intellectual property-driven enterprise of good people is turned upside down. The CEO has the least power and the people with the most power are the hotshot individual contributors. They work as pure individual contributors and have more power than anybody because they come up with product.
当你为教练而不是老板工作时，等级制度的意义就会有所不同。如果你在硅谷，你就是自己的老板，因为你没有合同。硅谷的运作方式与某些行业的合同运作方式不同。如果你不喜欢某家公司的现状，而且你很优秀，那么你可以随时离开，去其他地方。事实上，猎头每周都会打电话给你。你所要做的就是接听其中一个电话，你就可以离开。一个以知识产权驱动的优秀企业的整个权力结构被颠倒了。首席执行官的权力最小，而拥有最大权力的是那些优秀的个人贡献者。他们作为纯粹的个人贡献者工作，拥有比任何人都多的权力，因为他们提出了产品。
Now, I'm exaggerating a little because middle managers are extraordinarily important—they hire and nurture these talented hotshots.
现在，我有点夸张，因为中层管理者非常重要——他们招聘并培养这些有才华的优秀人才。
Fundamentally, though, it would not be too distorted to say that the traditional corporate pyramid is completely inverted. That's the way it ought to be. Silicon Valley has pioneered the way that many businesses will need to be run as we enter the next century, where more and more companies are pure intellectual property interests.
从根本上说，传统的企业金字塔完全颠倒了，这样说并不算太扭曲。这正是应该如此。硅谷开创了许多企业在进入下一个世纪时需要运作的方式，越来越多的公司将是纯粹的知识产权利益。
That's nice from a theoretical standpoint. But from a practical stand-point, what does that mean? Does having access to information and "knowing just about everything" mean that a talented programmer can walk in your office and open your file cabinet whenever he wishes?
从理论上讲，这很好。但从实际角度来看，这意味着什么？拥有信息的访问权限和“几乎了解一切”是否意味着一个有才华的程序员可以随时走进你的办公室，打开你的文件柜？
No. That wouldn't be appropriate because that's not showing respect for individuals and I'm an individual too. What it means is that employees can know things. We get the whole company together once a month and tell everybody everything that's going on. More companies are doing that but many don't.
不，这样做不合适，因为这不尊重个人，而我也是一个个体。这意味着员工可以了解事情。我们每个月把整个公司聚在一起，告诉大家发生的一切。越来越多的公司在这样做，但许多公司并没有。
And you also ask for suggestions and inputs.
您还会征求建议和意见。
Sure. That happens constantly. We'll stand up and say, "We just lost this order and here's why." Or, "We just won three orders and this is how the new product's coming, and this is how another product is slipping."
当然。这种情况经常发生。我们会站起来说：“我们刚刚失去了这个订单，原因是这样的。”或者，“我们刚刚赢得了三个订单，新产品的进展是这样的，另一个产品的情况是这样的。”
Whatever it might be: good news or bad news. And we talk about strategies. Once a year we go offsite for two days and bring the whole company, even the receptionists—we figure they might as well know what's going on too. We discuss company strategy: where we're going, where we're screwing up, and our plan for the coming year. We refocus and resynchronize everything once a year. We have heated discussions at those meetings, too. It costs a lot of money, but is incredibly valuable.
无论是什么：好消息还是坏消息。我们讨论战略。每年我们会外出两天，带上整个公司，甚至接待员——我们认为他们也应该知道发生了什么。我们讨论公司的战略：我们要去哪里，哪里做得不好，以及我们来年的计划。我们每年都会重新聚焦和同步一切。在那些会议上，我们也会进行激烈的讨论。这花费了很多钱，但非常有价值。
We've talked about the talent that you bring to companies. What do you think your weaknesses are when it comes to management?
我们谈到了你为公司带来的才能。你认为在管理方面你的弱点是什么？
I don't know. People are package deals; you take the good with the confused.
我不知道。人是一个整体；你必须接受好的和困惑的。
In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person can't switch gears. It's a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because almost always they're the same thing.
在大多数情况下，优势和劣势是同一个硬币的两面。在一种情况下是优势的，在另一种情况下就是劣势，但通常情况下人们无法转换思维。谈论优势和劣势是一件非常微妙的事情，因为几乎所有情况下，它们都是同一种东西。
My strength probably is that I've always viewed technology from a liberal arts perspective, from a human culture perspective. As such, I've always pushed for things that pulled technology in those directions by bringing insights from other fields. An example of that would be—with the Macintosh-desktop publishing: its proportionately spaced fonts, its ease of use. All of the desktop publishing stuff on the Mac comes from books: the typography, that rich feel that nobody in computers knew anything about. I think that my other strength is that I'm a pretty good judge of people and have the ability to bring people together around a common vision.
我的优势可能在于，我总是从文科的角度、从人类文化的角度来看待技术。因此，我总是通过从其他领域汲取灵感，推动技术向这些方向发展。这方面的一个例子就是 Macintosh 的桌面排版：它的字体间距适中，易于使用。Mac 上所有的桌面排版都来自于书籍：排版、丰富的感觉，而计算机领域的人对此一无所知。我认为我的另一个优势是善于察言观色，有能力将人们团结在一个共同的愿景周围。
Well then, when are your strengths-judgment of character and liberal arts perspective-your weaknesses?
那么，你的优点——判断能力和人文学科视角——是什么时候变成了你的缺点？
In certain cases my weaknesses are that I'm too idealistic. Realize that sometimes best is the enemy of better. Sometimes I go for "best" when I should go for "better," and end up going nowhere or backwards. I'm not always wise enough to know when to go for the best and when to just go for better. Sometimes I'm blinded by "what could be" versus "what is possible," doing things incrementally versus doing them in one fell swoop. Balancing the ideal and the practical is something I still must pay attention to.
在某些情况下，我的弱点是过于理想主义。意识到有时候“最好”是“更好”的敌人。有时我追求“最好”，而应该追求“更好”，结果却一无所获或倒退。我并不总是足够明智，知道何时追求最好，何时只追求更好。有时我被“可能会发生的事情”与“实际可能发生的事情”所蒙蔽，选择逐步进行而不是一次性完成。平衡理想与现实是我仍需关注的事情。
In terms of going for the best, you have a widely held reputation of being extremely charismatic-someone who is always able to draw out the best in other people. How have you been able to motivate your employees?
在追求最佳方面，你有着广泛认可的声誉，极具魅力——总是能够激发他人最佳表现的人。你是如何激励你的员工的？
Well, I think that-ultimately, it's the work that motivates people. I sometimes wish it were me, but it's not. It's the work. My job is to stretch beyond their best. But it's ultimately the work that motivates people. That's what binds them together.
我认为，最终，激励人们的是工作。我有时希望是我，但事实并非如此。是工作。我的工作是让他们超越自己的最佳状态。但最终激励人们的还是工作。这就是将他们团结在一起的原因。
Yet, in the case of the Macintosh you got tremendous output from people. Regardless of the type of work, not everybody can elicit that type of commitment.
然而，在 Macintosh 的案例中，你得到了人们的巨大反馈。无论工作类型如何，并不是每个人都能引发那种承诺。
Well, I'm not sure I'd chalk that up to charisma. Part of the CEO's job is to cajole and beg and plead and threaten, at times-to do whatever is necessary to get people to see things in a bigger and more profound way than they have, and to do better work than they thought they could do.
好吧，我不确定我会把这归结为魅力。首席执行官的工作部分是劝说、恳求、乞求和威胁，有时是做任何必要的事情，让人们以比他们之前更广阔和更深刻的方式看待事物，并做出比他们认为自己能做得更好的工作。
When they do their best and you don't think it's enough, you tell them straight: "This isn't good enough. I know you can do better. You need to do better. Now go do better."
当他们尽力而为而你认为还不够时，你直截了当地告诉他们：“这还不够好。我知道你们可以做得更好。你们需要做得更好。现在去做得更好。”
You must play those cards carefully. You must be right a lot of the time, because you're messing with people's lives. But that's part of the job. In the end, it's the environment you create, the coworkers, and the work that binds. The Macintosh team, if you talk to most of them—a dozen years since we shipped the product—most will still say that working on the Mac was the most meaningful experience of their lives. If we'd never shipped a product they wouldn't say that. If the product hadn't been so good they wouldn't say that. The Macintosh experience wasn't just about going to camp with a bunch of fun people. It wasn't just a motivational speaker. It was the product that everybody put their heart and soul into and it was the product that expressed their deep appreciation, somehow, for the world to see.
你必须小心地打这些牌。你必须经常是对的，因为你正在干涉人们的生活。但这就是工作的一部分。最终，决定一切的是你创造的环境、同事和工作。麦金塔团队，如果你和他们大多数人谈谈——自从我们发布产品已经过去了十多年——大多数人仍然会说，参与麦金塔的工作是他们一生中最有意义的经历。如果我们从未发布过产品，他们不会这么说。如果产品没有那么好，他们也不会这么说。麦金塔的经历不仅仅是和一群有趣的人一起去露营。这不仅仅是一个激励演讲者。这是每个人倾注心血的产品，也是那个以某种方式表达他们对世界深切感激的产品。
So, in the end it's the work that binds. That's why it's so important to pick very important things to do because it's very hard to get people motivated to make a breakfast cereal. It takes something that's worth doing.
所以，最终是工作将人们联系在一起。这就是为什么选择非常重要的事情去做是如此重要，因为让人们有动力去制作早餐的谷物是非常困难的。这需要一些值得去做的事情。
Let's shift gears here. What should be the role of venture capitalists in starting new businesses?
让我们换个话题。风险投资家在创办新企业中应该扮演什么角色？
In the old days venture capitalists helped a company a lot. They were mentors.
在过去，风险投资家对公司帮助很大。他们是导师。
More so than today?
比今天更甚吗？
Yes. The reason is very simple. In the old days venture capitalists were people who had run businesses or major parts of businesses. Don Valentine was the vice-president of marketing at National Semiconductor when he became a venture capitalist. Venture capitalists were people that had done substantial work in successful startup companies and were bringing their expertise and experience as much as their money.
是的。原因很简单。在过去，风险投资家是那些曾经经营过企业或企业主要部分的人。唐·瓦伦丁在成为风险投资家时是国家半导体公司的市场副总裁。风险投资家是那些在成功的初创公司中做过大量工作的人员，他们带来了自己的专业知识和经验，以及他们的资金。
But the industry grew so fast that it outstripped the ability to grow people of that caliber. Many VCs [venture capitalists) don't have that experience. They just bring money. Not that there's anything wrong with money, but it's unfortunate because things are very different now. I hear VCs sitting around arguing about whether to change CEOs or not. That's not what they ought to be talking about. They ought to be helping the companies make it.
但这个行业发展得太快，以至于超出了培养这种人才的能力。许多风险投资家没有那种经验。他们只是带来资金。资金本身并没有错，但这很不幸，因为现在的情况非常不同。我听到风险投资家们坐在一起争论是否要更换首席执行官。这不是他们应该讨论的内容。他们应该帮助公司渡过难关。
So, if you were a young entrepreneur without money today, would you still go to them?
所以，如果你今天是一个没有钱的年轻企业家，你还会去找他们吗？
If you want to start a company and you're young, the best thing in the world is to find someone who's done it-who has experience and expertise and is looking to invest a little money. If that person happens to be a venture capitalist, so be it. If that person happens to be a private investor, so be it. If that person happens to be someone from a successful company that cashed in their stock options and is willing to invest a little bit, so be it. It doesn't matter what they call themselves. It matters who they are. It matters that they've had the experience.
如果你想创办一家公司而且你还年轻，世界上最好的事情就是找到一个有经验和专业知识的人，他们愿意投资一点钱。如果那个人恰好是风险投资家，那也没关系。如果那个人恰好是私人投资者，那也没关系。如果那个人恰好是来自一家成功公司的员工，他们兑现了股票期权并愿意投资一点，那也没关系。重要的不是他们自称是什么，而是他们是谁。重要的是他们有过这样的经验。
What advice would you give someone interested in starting their own company?
你会给有兴趣创办自己公司的人的什么建议？
A lot of people ask me, "I want to start a company. What should I do?" My first question is always, "What is your passion? What is it you want to do in your company?" Most of them say, "I don't know." My advice is go get a job as a busboy until you figure it out. You've got to be passionate about something. You shouldn't start a company because you want to start a company. Almost every company I know of got started because nobody else believed in the idea and the last resort was to start the company. That's how Apple got started. That's how Pixar got started. It's how Intel got started. You need to have passion about your idea and you need to feel so strongly about it that you're willing to risk a lot. Starting a company is so hard that if you're not passionate about it, you will give up. If you're simply doing it because you want to have a small company, forget it.
很多人问我：“我想开公司，我该怎么办？”我总是先问：“你的热情是什么？你想在公司里做什么？”他们中的大多数人说：“我不知道。”我的建议是先去当一名服务员，直到你弄清楚。你必须对某件事充满热情。你不应该因为想开公司而开公司。我知道的几乎每个公司都是因为没有人相信这个想法，最后不得不自己开公司。苹果就是这样开始的，皮克斯也是这样，英特尔也是如此。你需要对你的想法充满热情，并且要强烈到愿意冒很大的风险。开公司是非常困难的，如果你对它没有热情，你会放弃。如果你只是因为想拥有一家小公司而去做，那就算了。
It's so much work and at times is so mentally draining. The hardest thing I've ever done is to start a company. It's the funnest thing, but it's the hardest thing, and if you're not passionate about your goal or your reason for doing it, you will give up. You will not see it through. So, you must have a very strong sense of what you want.
这是一项非常繁重的工作，有时会让人感到精神疲惫。我做过的最困难的事情就是创办一家公司。这是最有趣的事情，但也是最困难的，如果你对自己的目标或做这件事的理由没有热情，你就会放弃。你不会坚持下去。因此，你必须对自己想要的东西有非常强烈的认识。
Whether it's baking bread or—
无论是烘焙面包还是——
It doesn't matter what industry it is. There are very successful bakeries. There are very successful semiconductor companies. You name it, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you feel very, very strongly about it. You have to need to run such a business and know you can do it better than anyone else. You have to really want it because it's going to take a lot of work, especially in the early stages.
无论是什么行业，都有非常成功的面包店，也有非常成功的半导体公司。你可以列举任何行业，但这并不重要。重要的是你对它有非常强烈的感觉。你必须渴望经营这样的企业，并且知道自己能比任何人做得更好。你必须真的想要，因为这将需要大量的工作，尤其是在初期阶段。
What keeps you doing it? You could spend more time with family.
是什么让你继续这样做？你可以花更多时间和家人在一起。
I come to Pixar and I come to NeXT every day. I come to them for two reasons: one, because what each company does is really great; and, two, because of the extraordinary people. I get to hang around many incredible people all day. That's why I do what I do.
我每天都去皮克斯和 NeXT。我去这两家公司有两个原因：第一，因为每家公司所做的事情都非常棒；第二，因为这里有非凡的人。我整天都能和许多了不起的人在一起。这就是我做我所做事情的原因。
I am, however, trying to lead a more balanced life. Since I have two kids, I certainly work much fewer hours and I've reduced my travel. If you don't find the balance, you won't have a family or you will miss it. Keeping things balanced is always a challenge.
然而，我正在努力过上更平衡的生活。由于我有两个孩子，我的工作时间确实少了很多，并且我减少了出差。如果你找不到平衡，你就不会有家庭，或者你会错过它。保持事物的平衡总是一个挑战。
Speaking of Pixar, how do you think the two industries—software and motion pictures—are similar? And how do they differ?
谈到皮克斯，你认为软件和电影这两个行业有什么相似之处？它们又有什么不同？
Well, the product life cycle is different.
产品生命周期是不同的。
Other than Pixar, almost everything else I've worked on in my life—an Apple II, for example—you can hardly find anymore. You won't be able to boot up a Macintosh in ten more years. Everything I've worked on in technology becomes the sediment layer for other things to build on top of. The Macintosh, for example, just advanced the culture at that time. Now, Windows has grabbed the baton and is running its leg of the relay. Later something else will.
除了皮克斯，我这一生中所做的大多数工作（比如 Apple II）现在你几乎都找不到了。十年之后你将无法启动一台 Macintosh。我在科技领域所做的一切都成为了其他事物之上的沉淀层。例如，Macintosh 只是推动了当时的文化。现在，Windows 已经接过了接力棒，正在进行它的接力赛。之后还会有其他事物出现。
In contrast, Pixar is putting something into culture that will renew itself with each generation of children. Snow White was rereleased on video two years ago and sold over 20 million copies. It's sixty years old. I think people will be watching Toy Story in sixty years just the way they're watching Snow White now. The fact that the same movie will be watched 60 or 100 years from now is intriguing.
相比之下，皮克斯正在将一些东西融入文化中，这些东西将随着每一代孩子的成长而焕发新生。《白雪公主》在两年前重新发行了视频，销量超过了 2000 万份。它已经六十岁了。我认为人们在六十年后会像现在观看《白雪公主》一样观看《玩具总动员》。同一部电影在 60 年或 100 年后仍然会被观看，这一点令人着迷。
Speaking of the Mac, I wanted to talk a little bit about John Sculley. You've expressed, both privately and publicly, your dissatisfaction with him, and have even gone so far as to state that he destroyed Apple.
说到 Mac，我想谈谈约翰·斯卡利。你在私下和公开场合都表达了对他的不满，甚至还说过他毁了苹果公司。
He did, yes. 他确实做了，是的。
If so, then what would have Steve Jobs done differently? What would Steve Jobs have done differently from John Sculley? Are we talking about not licensing its operating system, or allowing others to make compatibles?
如果是这样，史蒂夫·乔布斯会有什么不同的做法？史蒂夫·乔布斯与约翰·斯卡利有什么不同的做法？我们是在谈论不授权其操作系统，还是允许其他人制造兼容产品？
No. It was much more profound than that.
不，这比那深刻得多。
For many years, Apple was about bringing a computer to everybody. It was about the personal computer revolution. It was about the products and the user's experience with those products. I was taught by some wise people that if you manage the top line of your company—your customers, your products, your strategy—then the bottom line will follow. But if you manage the bottom line of the company and forget about the rest, you'll eventually hit the wall because you'll take your eyes off the prize.
多年来，苹果的目标是将计算机带给每个人。这是关于个人计算机革命的故事。这关乎产品和用户与这些产品的体验。一些聪明的人教导我，如果你管理好公司的顶线——你的客户、你的产品、你的战略——那么底线自然会跟随。但如果你只关注公司的底线而忽视其他方面，最终你会碰壁，因为你会失去对目标的关注。
At Apple, the top management basically got very corrupt—starting with John—in several ways. They got corrupt about their purpose and became very financially driven instead of product- and customer-driven. They became financially corrupt and started self-dealing: there were a lot of company Mercedes, company planes, and company houses. Who am I to say, but my guess is that if somebody plowed through that stuff it would border on criminal. Previous to that, Apple had been a very democratic, egalitarian place. No one had palatial offices. There weren't fat cats at the top.
在苹果公司，从约翰开始，高层管理人员基本上在几个方面都变得非常腐败。他们对自己的目标产生了怀疑，变得非常以财务为导向，而不是以产品和客户为导向。他们在经济上变得腐败，开始自我交易：有很多公司的奔驰车、公司的飞机和公司的房子。我无权说三道四，但我猜想，如果有人去查证这些东西，那简直就是犯罪。在此之前，苹果公司一直是一个非常民主、平等的地方。没有人拥有豪华的办公室。高层没有肥猫。
The most important part of this corruption was that the values of the company changed. They changed from the conviction of making the best computers in the world to the conviction of making money—a very subtle thing, really. This, and the fact that most of the people who made the breakthrough products soon left the company, was what destroyed Apple.
这场腐败最重要的部分在于公司的价值观发生了变化。它们从制造世界上最好的电脑的信念转变为赚钱的信念——这实际上是一个非常微妙的变化。正是这一点，以及大多数创造突破性产品的人很快离开公司，最终摧毁了苹果。
Many new people joined Apple. But, it was as if they boarded a rocket ship as it was leaving the launch pad and they thought they made the rocket ship rather than having just been passengers, which is all they really were. All these passengers were convinced that they made the rocket ship. That was fine until the company needed a new rocket ship. Yet, Apple has, up to this point, not been able to make one. They tried with Newton. That was a fiasco and they're still on the same rocket ship. They needed a new one years ago, but the culture doesn't exist to know how to build rocket ships.
许多新人加入了苹果公司。但是，这就像他们登上了一艘即将离开发射台的火箭，他们认为是自己造了这艘火箭，而不是仅仅作为乘客，而这才是他们的真实身份。所有这些乘客都确信是自己造了这艘火箭。这没什么问题，直到公司需要一艘新的火箭。然而，苹果公司迄今为止还未能造出一艘新的火箭。他们尝试过牛顿，但那是一场灾难，他们仍然在同一艘火箭上。他们几年前就需要一艘新的火箭，但公司文化还没有学会如何建造火箭。
I'll try to muster it in one sentence. Apple had a wonderful set of values that was based on, in many ways, what Hewlett-Packard did.
我试着用一句话来概括。苹果公司有一套很好的价值观，它在很多方面都是以惠普公司的做法为基础的。
We copied a lot and tried to build upon it. Our values were about building the best computers in the world and when those values changed to the value of "the reason we make computers is to make a lot of money," many things started to change, subtly and not so subtly. The kind of people that flourished in the old value system didn't flourish in the new one. A different set of people flourished The biggest manifestation of these changed values was that before we wanted as many people as possible to use our products. We didn't call it market share in those days, but it was.
我们复制了很多东西，并试图在此基础上进行构建。我们的价值观是打造世界上最好的电脑，当这些价值观转变为“我们制造电脑是为了赚很多钱”时，许多事情开始发生变化，既微妙又不那么微妙。在旧的价值体系中茁壮成长的人在新的体系中并没有得到发展。另一群人开始繁荣。这些价值观变化的最大表现是，在此之前，我们希望尽可能多的人使用我们的产品。那时候我们并不称之为市场份额，但实际上就是。
Apple's greatest mistake, in my opinion, is not that it did or didn't license their technology in the late '80s. Apple's biggest mistake was that it got immensely greedy. Apple priced the product so high that it didn't go for market share and left a giant umbrella for the PC industry. We originally weren't on that trajectory. The reason we built the Mac factory was to get the Mac down to $1,000 someday, but instead they sold it for much, much more. I think Apple could now have a 35 percent market share had management cared about people using Apple computers instead of making $400 million a year in profits.
在我看来，苹果公司最大的错误并不在于它在 80 年代末是否授权了自己的技术。苹果最大的错误在于它变得无比贪婪。苹果将产品定价定得太高，以至于没有去抢占市场份额，给个人电脑产业留下了一把巨大的保护伞。我们最初并没有走上这条道路。我们之所以建立 Mac 工厂，就是为了有朝一日把 Mac 的售价降到 1000 美元，但他们却卖出了更高的价格。我认为，如果管理层关心的是人们使用苹果电脑的情况，而不是每年赚取 4 亿美元的利润，苹果现在的市场份额可能会达到 35%。
It's what you care about. An organization with talented people will definitely adjust itself to the value structure expressed at the top.
这是你所关心的。一个拥有优秀人才的组织一定会根据高层表达的价值结构进行自我调整。
People who were better for one value structure, when it changes, will leave. And other people will come in. You can change an organization in a big way in five years. That's part of what happened at Apple. They hired a stream of mediocre people, just one after another after another.
那些更适应某种价值观结构的人，当它改变时，就会离开。其他人会进来。五年内，你可以从根本上改变一个组织。这正是苹果公司发生的事情之一。他们雇佣了一批平庸的人，一个接一个，接连不断。
Speaking of great products, what do you think the next great products of this industry are going to be? What's its future?
说到伟大的产品，你认为这个行业下一个伟大的产品会是什么？它的未来如何？
To be honest, I have no idea.
老实说，我不知道。
All you can see are the plate tectonic trends. The trend is that computers will move from primarily being a computational device to primarily a communications device. We've known that was coming. The internet is certainly doing it on a larger scale than some people had imagined. But what this all means yet I don't know. The internet was around for a long time before the World Wide Web made it more approachable, and yet the World Wide Web is still a very simplistic thing. I think there's room for a lot more breakthroughs. I think when they happen they might spread very quickly, much like the World Wide Web did, meaning that in a period of five years things could be very different. But it's hard to say exactly what they're going to be. It's very hard.
你能看到的所有只是板块构造的趋势。趋势是计算机将从主要计算设备转变为主要通信设备。我们知道这种情况将会发生。互联网当然比一些人想象的要更大规模。但这一切意味着什么，我还不知道。互联网在万维网使其更易于访问之前就已经存在很长一段时间了，然而万维网仍然是一件非常简单的事情。我认为还有很多突破的空间。我认为当它们发生时，它们可能会像万维网一样迅速传播，这意味着在五年的时间里，情况可能会非常不同。但究竟会是什么样子，很难说。这很难说。
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