Jobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs, and Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In addition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no manual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them out. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid Klingons.”

乔布斯在雅达利学到了很多。他通过改进芯片，作出了更有趣的设计和更人性化的人机交互，进而完善了公司的一些游戏。布什内尔夸大事实的本事以及按自己规则办事的意愿影响了乔布斯。除此之外，乔布斯还很欣赏雅达利开发的游戏的简单性。游戏没有使用手册，简单到即便是一个喝醉酒的初学者也能很快上手。雅达利的《星际迷航》游戏仅有的说明就是：“1.投入硬币；2.躲开克林贡人。

Not all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a draftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It subsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start your own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had never met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together; Jobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But Wayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest way to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to start his own business.”

并不是所有同事都讨厌乔布斯。他与一个叫做罗恩·韦恩（RemWayne）的绘图员成了朋友，此人之前经营着自己的公司，生产老虎机，但之后生意失败了。然而乔布斯觉得开一家自己的公司这主意很吸引人。“罗恩是个很了不起的人乔布斯说，“他开过公司。我从没有遇到过他这样的人。”乔布斯向罗恩·韦恩提议两人一起做生意；他说自己可以借来50000美元，然后他们可以设计并销售老虎机。但是韦恩曾经在生意场上吃过苦头，所以拒绝了。“我说那是损失50000美元最快的方法，”韦恩回忆说，“但我很佩服他，他有很迫切的欲望去开始自己的事业。”

One weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in philosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell him. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said yes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He planted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful woman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse. You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it is.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my whole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t have any effect on our relationship.”

一个周末，乔布斯到韦恩的公寓拜访，像往常一样讨论哲学问題。这时韦恩说有些事情要吿诉乔布斯。“我想我知道你要说什么，”乔布斯回答，“我觉得你喜欢男人。”韦恩承认了。“那是我第一次遇到熟人中有同性恋，”乔布斯回忆，“他给我灌输了关于同性恋的正确观点。”乔布斯追问他：“你看到一个漂亮的女人会有什么感觉？”韦恩答道：“就好像你看到一匹漂亮的马，你欣赏它，但你不想和它上床。你只是纯粹欣赏它的美。”韦恩说自己就是想把这个告诉乔布斯。“雅达利公司没人知道，在我的一生中知道这件事的人也屈指可数，”韦恩说，“但我觉得告诉他没有任何问题，、他会理解的，而且这也不会影响到我们的关系。”

India

印度

One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert Friedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own spiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji), who had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do the same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere adventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of enlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole in him, and he was trying to fill it.”

1974年初，乔布斯急切地想要赚钱，原因之一就是前一年夏天去过印度的罗伯特·弗里德兰鼓励他也去印度进行一次精神之旅。弗里德兰在印度师从尼姆·卡罗里大师（也就是马哈拉杰-吉），尼姆是20世纪60年代嬉皮士运动的精神导师。乔布斯决定也要去印度，还叫上了丹尼尔·科特基与他同行。驱动乔布斯的并不单纯是冒险精神。“对我来说这是一次很严肃的探索，”他说，“我迷上了自我启蒙的想法，想要弄清楚我到底是什么样的人，我该怎样融入这个世界。”科特基补充说，乔布斯的这次探索之旅，也有一部分是因为他不知道自己的亲生父母是谁。“他心里有个洞，他想把它填上。”

When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India, the jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and shipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a wholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the American rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in Europe, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and then offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to India from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the exhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”

当乔布斯告诉雅达利的同事们自己要辞职去印度寻找精神导师的时候，奥尔康被逗乐了。“他走进来，盯着我，然后宣布：‘我要去寻找我的导师了。’我说：‘不会吧！太棒了！记得给我写信！’然后他说希望我能承担他的费用，我告诉他：‘做梦！’”奥尔康有了一个主意。雅达利在生产一些配件，这些配件要运往慕尼黑，在那里组装完毕后由都灵的一家批发商负责配送。但是有一个问题。因为游戏都是为美国市场设计的，帧频是60帧每秒，到了欧洲就会有让人沮丧的冲突，因为那里是50帧每秒。奥尔康简单地向乔布斯描述了补救方案，然后花钱送他去欧洲解决问题。“从那里去印度路费会便宜一点儿。”他说。乔布斯同意了。就这样，奥尔康送走了乔布斯，还叮嘱他：“代我向你的导师问好。”

Jobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the process he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that he dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’ And they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more guys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs was upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even have a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.

乔布斯在慕尼黑待了几天，解决了游戏机的冲突问题，但在这一过程中他把一群西装革履的德国经理搞得很困惑。他们向雅达利公司抱怨，说乔布斯的穿着和身上的味道像个流浪汉，而且举止粗鲁。“我说：‘他解决问题了没有？’他们回答：‘是的。’我说：‘下次你们再有什么问题，尽管给我打电话，我这儿还有很多像他那样的人！’他们说：‘不用，下次再有问题我们自己会解决的。’”乔布斯方面，德国人老是让他吃肉和土豆，这使他非常不高兴。“他们甚至没有素食这个词。”他在给奥尔康的电话中抱怨。