My second story is about love and loss.
我的第二个故事是关于热爱和得失
I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a 2 billion dollars company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
我很幸运,因为我早早便发现了自己喜欢做什么。我在20岁的时候和沃兹(Steve Wozniak)一起在我父母的车库里开创了苹果公司。我们工作十分努力,十年里后,苹果从车库里只有我们两人发展成为一家拥有4,000多名员工、市值20亿的公司。在第九年的时候,我们刚刚发布了我们最棒的产品——麦金托什电脑,而我刚到30岁。然后我被炒了鱿鱼。你怎么能被自己创办的公司炒鱿鱼呢?是这样的,随着苹果的发展,我们聘用了一个我认为颇有才能的人来和我一起运营公司,最初的一年里,一切进展顺利。但之后我们对未来的看法开始出现了分歧,最终我们吵翻了,这时,我们的董事会站在了他那边。于是,我在30岁的时候离开了,而且弄得人人皆知。我成年后全部生活的重心不复存在,这对我是一个毁灭性的打击。
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
有几个月我都真的不知道该做些什么。我觉得,我让创业先辈们失望了——我丢掉了传到我手上的接力棒。我去见了戴维·帕卡德(David Packard)和鲍勃·诺伊斯(Bob Noyce),试图为我把事情搞砸而道个歉。这个失败弄得满城皆知,我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但我渐渐地开始有了明确的想法——我仍然热爱我做过的一切。苹果公司发生的变故并没有丝毫改变这一点。我被驱逐了,但我仍然热爱我的事业。所以我决定重新开始。
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
那时候我还没有意识到,但后来事实却证明,被苹果炒鱿鱼是发生在我身上的最好的事情。我放下了已有成就的重担,取而代之的是重新创业、探索未来的轻松。这使我轻装上阵,进入了我一生中最富创造力的时期之一。
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
在接下来的五年之中,我创办了NeXT公司,还有皮克斯(Pixar)公司,我爱上了一位了不起的女人,她后来成为我的妻子。皮克斯公司制作了世界第一部用电脑制作的动画片《玩具总动员》,它现在是世界上最成功的动画工作室。接下来峰回路转,苹果在一个特殊的机遇下收购了NeXT,我又回到了苹果公司,我们在NeXT开发的技术是让苹果现在起死回生的核心技术。并且,劳伦(Laurence)和我共同拥有一个幸福的家庭。
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
我十分确定,如果我没有被苹果解雇,这一切都不会发生。这是一剂苦药,但是我认为对病人有好处。有时候,生活会给你当头一棒,但是不要失去信心。我相信促使我一往无前的唯一动力就是我热爱我所做的一切。你们一定要找到你们的所爱。对爱人是如此,对工作亦如此。你的工作将占据你的大部分生活,真正令人满意的唯一办法就是做你认为伟大的工作。而做伟大的工作的唯一途径就是热爱你的工作。如果你还没有找到你喜欢做的事情,请继续寻找。不要停顿。用你全部身心去寻找,当你找到的时候你会有所感知。而且,正如任何美好的事物一样,日久弥新。因此要不断地寻找,不要放弃。不要半途而废。