喬布斯不爲人知的另一面

The relationship between journalists and Steve Jobs could often be fraught, but there were always a handful of reporters he liked and trusted. They included John Markoff of The New York Times; Steven Levy, formerly of Wired magazine (he’s now at Medium); Walt Mossberg, the longtime technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal (he’s now at Re/code); and Brent Schlender of Fortune. They had all been on the technology beat seemingly forever, and they had known Jobs for decades.

史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)與記者之間的關係常常糟糕，不過也有一些記者，一直受到了他的喜愛和尊重。其中包括《紐約時報》的約翰·馬科夫(John Markoff)；曾供職於《連線》雜誌的史蒂文·列維(Steven Levy)，現在他在Medium；長期在《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)寫科技專欄的沃爾特·莫斯伯格(Walt Mossberg)，現在他在Re/code；以及《財富》(Fortune)雜誌的布倫特·施倫德(Brent Schlender)。他們好像一直都在跑科技口，都和喬布斯打了幾十年的交道。

As Schlender writes in “Becoming Steve Jobs,” the forthcoming book he co-authored with Rick Tetzeli, he first met Jobs in April 1986, eight months after the Apple co-founder had been ousted by John Sculley, then Apple’s chief executive. Jobs, who had started a new company called NeXT, was 31. Schlender, who had just joined The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau, was 32.

施倫德在與裏克·特策利(Rick Tetzeli)合著的新書《成爲喬布斯》(Becoming Steve Jobs)中寫道，他第一次遇到喬布斯是1986年4月，八個月前蘋果公司的這位聯合創始人被時任CEO約翰·斯卡利(John Sculley)趕走了。當時，喬布斯創辦了一家名爲NeXT的新公司，時年31歲。施倫德則剛加入《華爾街日報》的舊金山分社，當時32歲。

During the next quartercentury, Schlender conducted “more than 150 interviews and informal conversations” with Jobs. He wrote cover stories for Fortune about Apple, some of which Jobs liked, and some of which he hated. On occasion, he visited Jobs at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. What began as a subject-journalist relationship evolved into something deeper — “a long, complicated and mostly rewarding relationship,” as Schlender characterizes it in the book.

在接下來的四分之一個世紀裏，施倫德和喬布斯有過“超過150次採訪和非正式談話”。他爲《財富》撰寫過關於蘋果的封面報道，其中一些讓喬布斯喜歡，另一些則讓喬布斯厭惡。有時，他前往喬布斯位於加州帕洛阿爾託的家中拜訪。最初採訪對象和記者的關係，變得更加深入，成了“一種漫長、複雜，但大體有益的關係”，施倫德在書中這樣形容道。

So it is not a huge surprise that Schlender — and his friend Tetzeli, a former Fortune deputy managing editor — would see Jobs in a different light than most. (Disclosure: I worked with Schlender and Tetzeli during my decade at Fortune.) After Jobs died, they write, the coverage reflected “stagnant stereotypes.” On the one hand, “Steve was a genius with a flair for design,” whose powers of persuasion were such that he could convince people that the sun rose in the west and set in the east. On the other hand, he was also “a pompous jerk,” who humiliated employees and “disregarded everyone else in his single-minded pursuit of perfection.”

所以，施倫德和他的朋友特策利（前《財富》雜誌執行副主編）對喬布斯的看法與多數人不同，也不太出人意料了。（我承認，我在《財富》的十年裏，曾與施倫德和特策利共事。）喬布斯去世後，他們寫道，報道反映了“僵化的印象”。一方面，“史蒂夫是一個有設計品位的天才”，他的說服力很強，以至於能讓人相信太陽從西邊升起，在東邊落下。另一方面，他也是一個“自負的混蛋”，羞辱同事，“偏執地追求完美，無視其他任何人。”

It is Schlender’s and Tetzeli’s contention that Jobs was a far more complex and interesting man than the half-genius/half-jerk stereotype, and a good part of their book is an attempt to craft a more rounded portrait. What makes their book important is that they also contend — persuasively, I believe — that, the stereotype notwithstanding, he was not the same man in his prime that he had been at the beginning of his career. The callow, impetuous, arrogant youth who co-founded Apple was very different from the mature and thoughtful man who returned to his struggling creation and turned it into a company that made breathtaking products while becoming the dominant technology company of our time. Had he not changed, they write, he would not have succeeded.

施倫德和特策利認爲，喬布斯遠非一半天才一半混蛋的慣常形象，而是一個遠更復雜而有趣的人。兩人的書中用了很多筆墨嘗試勾畫出一幅更全面的形象。他們的書之所以重要，還在於他們也提出，儘管形成了刻板印象，但巔峯時期的喬布斯和事業剛開始時，並不是同一個人——在我看來他們的論述很有說服力。共同創立蘋果的那個稚嫩、魯莽、傲慢的年輕人，與危難之時迴歸蘋果的那個成熟、多思的男人之間，有很大的不同。他回到自己締造的公司之後，將它轉變成了一家能夠造出懾人心魄的產品的企業，這家公司已經成爲了我們這個時代主導的科技企業。他們寫道，如果他沒有轉變，可能就不會成功。

For Schlender and Tetzeli, the crucial period was the most overlooked part of Jobs’s career: The years from 1985 to 1997, when he was in exile from Apple and running NeXT. As a business, NeXT was a failure. Begun as a company that was going to bring affordable yet superior computers to the higher education market, it eventually had to abandon the hardware side of the business and become a pure software company. The point that is normally made about NeXT is that when Jobs returned to Apple, he brought with him the NeXTSTEP operating system, which became the foundation for a new generation of Macs and was a critical component of the company’s revival.

在施倫德和特策利看來，這段關鍵的時期是他職業生涯中最被忽視的部分。從1985年到1997年，那時他被蘋果放逐，於是轉而經營NeXT。作爲一家企業，NeXT並不成功。這家公司的目標是將出色但廉價的電腦，推向高等教育市場，但最後不得不放棄硬件業務，成爲了一家純軟件公司。關於NeXT人們經常談到的是，喬布斯回到蘋果之後，將NeXTSTEP操作系統帶了過來。這個系統成了新一代Mac的根基，也成了公司起死回生的關鍵因素。

Every bit as important, though, was that Jobs brought his core group of executives with him to Apple, and they stayed with him for years. At the same time he was running NeXT, Jobs also owned Pixar, the animation studio he bought from George Lucas. It took years before Pixar came out with its first full-length movie, “Toy Story.” During that time, he saw how Ed Catmull, Pixar’s president, managed the company’s creative talent. Catmull taught Jobs how to manage employees.

不過，同樣重要的是，喬布斯把麾下一羣核心的高管也帶到了蘋果，他們追隨喬布斯很多年。與此同時，他也在經營NeXT，而且他同時也擁有從喬治·盧卡斯(George Lucas)手中購買的動畫工作室皮克斯(Pixar)。皮克斯花了很多年，才推出了第一部全長電影《玩具總動員》(Toy Story)。在那段時間，他了解了皮克斯總裁艾德·卡特姆(Ed Catmull)管理公司創意人才的方式。是卡特姆教會了喬布斯，要怎麼管理員工。

When Jobs returned to Apple, he was more patient — with people and with products. His charisma still drew people to him, but he no longer drove them away with his abrasive behavior and impossible demands. He had also learned that his ideas weren’t always the right ones, and he needed to listen to others.

喬布斯回到蘋果後變得更有耐心了，對人、對產品都是如此。他的個人魅力仍然能吸引人來到身邊，但是不再會用粗魯的舉止和苛刻的要求把人攆走。他也明白了，自己的想法並不總是對的，他需要聽取別人的意見。

Perhaps the most important example of this was the App Store. Jobs had initially opposed allowing outside developers to build apps for the iPhone, but he did a quick about-face once he realized he was wrong. The App Store has been hugely important in making the iPhone perhaps the most profitable consumer electronic device ever.

這種轉變最重要的例子或許就是App Store。喬布斯最初反對讓外部開發者爲iPhone開發app，不過在認識到自己錯了之後，就迅速改變了立場。iPhone能成爲有史以來利潤最豐厚的消費電子產品，App Store起到了巨大的作用。

Jobs has long been hailed as one of the great creative minds of modern business. His genius for creating products and his marketing flair have also been rightly hailed. All of that comes through in “Becoming Steve Jobs,” but so does something else: He was a great manager. You can’t build a great company if you aren’t one.

喬布斯長期以來都被奉爲現代商業世界一個有創造力的偉大頭腦。他創造產品的天才，他在營銷方面的天賦也理所應當地受到了讚許。所有這些都在《成爲喬布斯》中得到了表達，不過書中還提到了另外一點：他是一個很棒的經理人。如果不是很棒的經理人，根本建立不了很棒的公司。