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《名人传记》之乔布斯亿万富豪嬉皮士33:谢谢你,乔布斯

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Horn responded, “Well, actually, Steve, a lot of things that are right with the Mac are my fault, and I had to fight like crazy to get those things in.”

霍恩回答道:“好吧,史蒂夫,事实上,Mac的许多好处也是我的错,我还得像疯了似的把这些好处都给弄进去。”

“You’re right,” admitted Jobs. “I’ll give you 15,000 shares to stay.” When Horn declined the offer, Jobs showed his warmer side. “Well, give me a hug,” he said. And so they hugged.

“没错。”乔布斯认可了这一回应,“如果你留下,我就给你15000股股票。”霍恩拒绝了,乔布斯就展现出自己温柔的一面。“好吧,来给我个拥抱。”他说。于是,他俩拥抱在一起。

But the biggest news that month was the departure from Apple, yet again, of its cofounder, Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was then quietly working as a midlevel engineer in the Apple II division, serving as a humble mascot of the roots of the company and staying as far away from management and corporate politics as he could. He felt, with justification, that Jobs was not appreciative of the Apple II, which remained the cash cow of the company and accounted for 70% of its sales at Christmas 1984. “People in the Apple II group were being treated as very unimportant by the rest of the company,” he later said. “This was despite the fact that the Apple II was by far the largest-selling product in our company for ages, and would be for years to come.” He even roused himself to do something out of character; he picked up the phone one day and called Sculley, berating him for lavishing so much attention on Jobs and the Macintosh division.

不过,当月最轰动的新闻还是苹果公司创始人之一史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克的离开。也许是因为个性不同,这两位创始人之间从未有过激烈的冲突。沃兹尼亚克仍然充满梦想和童趣,乔布斯比以往更加紧张易怒。但是,在苹果的管理和战略问题上,两人有着根本的分歧。当时,沃兹尼亚克低调地在AppleII部门做中级工程师,作为公司谦卑的招牌人物而存在,并尽可能地远离管理和公司政治。在他看来,有理由相信乔布斯并不欣赏AppleII;而AppleII电脑仍然是苹果公司的摇钱树,而且1984年圣诞期间,其销量就占公司产品销量的70%。“公司里其他人也认为AppleII团队的成员不重要,”他后来说道,“尽管在当时,AppleII是我们公司多年来销量最大的产品,而且未来几年它仍然可能是最畅销的机型。”沃兹尼亚克甚至强迫自己去做一些不合自己性格的事;有一天,他拿起电话打给斯卡利,痛斥他在乔布斯和麦金塔部门浪费了太多注意力。

Frustrated, Wozniak decided to leave quietly to start a new company that would make a universal remote control device he had invented. It would control your television, stereo, and other electronic devices with a simple set of buttons that you could easily program. He informed the head of engineering at the Apple II division, but he didn’t feel he was important enough to go out of channels and tell Jobs or Markkula. So Jobs first heard about it when the news leaked in the Wall Street Journal. In his earnest way, Wozniak had openly answered the reporter’s questions when he called. Yes, he said, he felt that Apple had been giving short shrift to the Apple II division. “Apple’s direction has been horrendously wrong for five years,” he said.

沮丧万分的沃兹尼亚克决定悄然离去,创办一家新公司,制造自己发明的万能遥控器。有了这个装置,用户只需通过几个简单的按钮,就能控制家里的电视机、立体声音响和其他电子设备。他将自己的想法告诉了AppleII部门的工程师主管,但觉得自己并不那么重要,没必要通知别的部门,也没必要告诉乔布斯和马库拉。因此,直到看到《华尔街日报》报道,乔布斯才第一次得知此事。当记者致电时,沃兹尼亚克真诚坦率地回答了记者的问题。他说,是的,自己觉得苹果公司怠慢了AppleII部门。“苹果的发展方向已经严重错误,并持续5年了。”他表示。

Less than two weeks later Wozniak and Jobs traveled together to the White House, where Ronald Reagan presented them with the first National Medal of Technology. The president quoted what President Rutherford Hayes had said when first shown a telephone—“An amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one?”—and then quipped, “I thought at the time that he might be mistaken.” Because of the awkward situation surrounding Wozniak’s departure, Apple did not throw a celebratory dinner. So Jobs and Wozniak went for a walk afterward and ate at a sandwich shop. They chatted amiably, Wozniak recalled, and avoided any discussion of their disagreements.

不到两周后,沃兹尼亚克和乔布斯共同前往白宫,时任美国总统的罗纳德·里根授予他们首届国家技术奖章(NationalMedalofTechnology)。里根引用第19任总统拉瑟福德·海斯(RutherfordHayes)初次见到电话时所说的一句话——“惊人的发明,但是谁想要用这个东西呢?”然后打趣道:“我觉得,他当时可能弄错了。”鉴于沃兹尼亚克离开苹果公司的尷尬情形,苹果公司之后并未举行庆祝晚宴,斯卡利或其他高层也没有来华盛顿。乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克在领奖之后一起出去散步,在一家三明治店吃了些东西。沃兹尼亚克回忆说,他们亲切地聊了聊,避开了任何关于分歧的讨论。

Wozniak wanted to make the parting amicable. It was his style. So he agreed to stay on as a part-time Apple employee at a $20,000 salary and represent the company at events and trade shows. That could have been a graceful way to drift apart. But Jobs could not leave well enough alone. One Saturday, a few weeks after they had visited Washington together, Jobs went to the new Palo Alto studios of Hartmut Esslinger, whose company frogdesign had moved there to handle its design work for Apple. There he happened to see sketches that the firm had made for Wozniak’s new remote control device, and he flew into a rage. Apple had a clause in its contract that gave it the right to bar frogdesign from working on other computer-related projects, and Jobs invoked it. “I informed them,” he recalled, “that working with Woz wouldn’t be acceptable to us.”

沃兹尼亚克想让自己和苹果公司之间友好地分手,这是他的风格。于是,他同意兼职的方式,薪酬2万美元,并代表公司出席括动和展览。这是一种渐渐疏远彼此的优雅方式,但是乔布斯心里就没有那么舒服。在华盛顿领奖几周后的一个周六,乔布斯前往哈特穆特·艾斯林格在帕洛奥图的新工作室,他的青蛙设计公司(FrogDesign)为了处理苹果公司的设计而搬到了这里。乔布斯碰巧在那里看到了一些草图,是该公司为沃兹尼亚克的新遥控器设计的,他暴跳如雷。苹果公司同青蛙设计公司的合同中有一条写着,苹果公司有权禁止青蛙设计公司为其他公司做计算机相关产品的设计,乔布斯援引这一条款。“我通知他们,”乔布斯回忆说,“我们不能接受他们做沃兹的项目。”

When the Wall Street Journal heard what happened, it got in touch with Wozniak, who, as usual, was open and honest. He said that Jobs was punishing him. “Steve Jobs has a hate for me, probably because of the things I said about Apple,” he told the reporter. Jobs’s action was remarkably petty, but it was also partly caused by the fact that he understood, in ways that others did not, that the look and style of a product served to brand it. A device that had Wozniak’s name on it and used the same design language as Apple’s products might be mistaken for something that Apple had produced. “It’s not personal,” Jobs told the newspaper, explaining that he wanted to make sure that Wozniak’s remote wouldn’t look like something made by Apple. “We don’t want to see our design language used on other products. Woz has to find his own resources. He can’t leverage off Apple’s resources; we can’t treat him specially.”

《华尔街日报》得知此事后,联系上了沃兹尼亚克,他像往常一样坦率真诚。他说乔布斯在惩罚他。“史蒂夫·乔布斯恨我,可能是因为我针对苹果说的话。”他告诉记者。乔布斯这种行为显得很小气,但他之所以如此,部分原因是他知道产品的外观和风格就是产品品牌的一部分,其他人不像乔布斯这样明白这个道理。如果沃兹尼亚克的设备和苹果公司的产品使用同一种设计语言,就可能会让人误会他的设备是苹果公司的。“这并非私人恩怨。”乔布斯告诉《华尔街日报》,解释说自己想要确保沃兹尼亚克的遥控器不会像苹果生产的东西一样。“我们不想看到自己的设计语言用在别的产品上。沃兹得找到自己的资源。他不能利用苹果的资源,我们不能对他特殊对待。”

Jobs volunteered to pay for the work that frogdesign had already done for Wozniak, but even so the executives at the firm were taken aback. When Jobs demanded that they send him the drawings done for Wozniak or destroy them, they refused. Jobs had to send them a letter invoking Apple’s contractual right. Herbert Pfeifer, the design director of the firm, risked Jobs’s wrath by publicly dismissing his claim that the dispute with Wozniak was not personal. “It’s a power play,” Pfeifer told the Journal. “They have personal problems between them.”

至于青蛙设计公司已经为沃兹尼亚克做了的东西,乔布斯表示愿意个人支付这笔费用。但即便如此,该公司的管理者也都吃了一惊。乔布斯要求青蛙设计公司把为沃兹尼亚克设计的图纸交给自己或毁掉,对方拒绝了。乔布斯不得不向他们发信,援引苹果公司的合同权利。靑眭设计公司的设计总监赫伯特·法伊弗(HerbertPfeifer)冒着激怒乔布斯的风险,公开驳斥乔布斯关于同沃兹尼亚克的争端并非私人恩怨的说法。“他这是仗势欺人,”法伊弗对《华尔街日报》说,“他们之间有私人问题。”

Hertzfeld was outraged when he heard what Jobs had done. He lived about twelve blocks from Jobs, who sometimes would drop by on his walks. “I got so furious about the Wozniak remote episode that when Steve next came over, I wouldn’t let him in the house,” Hertzfeld recalled. “He knew he was wrong, but he tried to rationalize, and maybe in his distorted reality he was able to.” Wozniak, always a teddy bear even when annoyed, hired another design firm and even agreed to stay on Apple’s retainer as a spokesman.

听说了乔布斯的所作所为后,赫茨菲尔德异常气愤。他家离乔布斯的住处大约相隔12个街区,即使在他离开苹果后,乔布斯有时也会顺路去他家坐坐。“我对于沃兹尼亚克遥控器的事非常气愤,以至于乔布斯后来到我家来,我都没让他进门。”赫茨菲尔德说道,“他知道自己错了,但是试图把自己的所作所为合理化,也许在他自己的现实扭曲力场里,他能做得到。”而沃兹尼亚克即便是生气的时候,也像泰迪熊一样温顺。他换了一家设计公司,甚至同意继续留任苹果公司做发言人。


重点单词   查看全部解释    
awkward ['ɔ:kwəd]

想一想再看

adj. 笨拙的,尴尬的,(设计)别扭的

 
spread [spred]

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v. 伸展,展开,传播,散布,铺开,涂撒
n.

 
brand [brænd]

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n. 商标,牌子,烙印,标记
vt. 打烙印,

联想记忆
remote [ri'məut]

想一想再看

adj. 偏僻的,遥远的,远程的,(感情等)距离很大

联想记忆
corporate ['kɔ:pərit]

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adj. 社团的,法人的,共同的,全体的

联想记忆
invention [in'venʃən]

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n. 发明,发明物,虚构,虚构物

 
strict [strikt]

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adj. 严格的,精确的,完全的

 
episode ['episəud]

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n. 插曲,一段情节,片段,轶事

联想记忆
distorted [dis'tɔ:tid]

想一想再看

adj. 歪曲的;受到曲解的 v. 扭曲(distort

 
control [kən'trəul]

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n. 克制,控制,管制,操作装置
vt. 控制

 


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