President Obama
奥巴马总统
On a trip to Washington in the early fall of 2010,
2010年初秋,在去华盛顿的一次旅行中,
Powell had met with some of her friends at the White House who told her that President Obama was going to Silicon Valley that October.
鲍威尔见到了白宫的一些朋友,他们告诉她,奥巴马总统将于10月访问硅谷。
She suggested that he might want to meet with her husband. Obama's aides liked the idea; it fit into hisnew emphasis on competitiveness.
鲍威尔建议,总统或许愿意跟她丈夫见上一面。奥巴马的助手们喜欢这个想法,认为这种安排也跟总统新近对竞争力的关注很契合。
In addition, John Doerr, the venture capitalist who had become one of Jobs's close friends,
另外,风险投资家、乔布斯的好朋友约翰·多尔之
had told a meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board about Jobs's views on why the United States was losing its edge.
前曾经在总统经济复苏顾问委员会的一次会议上,谈到了乔布斯关于为什么美国在失去竞争优势的观点。
He too suggested that Obama should meet with Jobs.
他也建议奥巴马应该跟乔布斯会面。
So a half hour was put on the president's schedule for a session at the Westin San Francisco Airport.
所以,总统的行程上被留出了半个小时的时间,安排在旧金山机场的威斯汀酒店见面。
There was one problem: When Powell told her husband, he said he didn't want to do it.
然而问题是,当鲍威尔告诉丈夫这个安排时,他说他不想去。
He was annoyed that she had arranged it behind his back.
乔布斯对她背着他安排了这件事感到不悦。
"I'm not going to get slotted in for a token meeting so that he can check off that he met with a CEO," he told her.
“我不想被安插进一个象征性的会谈,就为了他可以勾上一个行程说他见了一个CEO。”他告诉她。
She insisted that Obama was "really psyched to meet with you."
鲍威尔坚持说奥巴马“真的很想见到你”。
Jobs replied that if that were the case, then Obama should call and personally ask for the meeting.
乔布斯回答说如果真是那样,奥巴马应该亲自打电话来提出邀请。
The standoff went on for five days. She called in Reed, who was at Stanford, to come home for dinner and try to persuade his father.
这个僵局持续了5天。她把在斯坦福上学的里德叫回家来吃饭,试图让他劝说父亲。
Jobs finally relented. The meeting actually lasted forty-five minutes, and Jobs did not hold back.
乔布斯最后态度软了下来。这次会谈实际上持续了45分钟,乔布斯说话丝毫不留情面。
"You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs told Obama at the outset.
“看你的架势,你就想当一届总统吧。”一开场乔布斯就这样对奥巴马说。
To prevent that, he said, the administration needed to be a lot more business-friendly.
否则,他说,奥巴马政府应该对企业更友好一些。
He described how easy it was to build a factory in China,
他描述了在中国建一家工厂有多么容易,
and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.
而这在现在的美国几乎不可能做成,主要是由于监管和不必要的成本。
Jobs also attacked America's education system, saying that it was hopelessly antiquated and crippled by union work rules.
乔布斯还抨击了美国的教育体系,说它陈旧得毫无希望,而且被工会制度掣肘。
Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.
在教师工会瓦解前,几乎没有希望进行教育改革。
Teachers should be treated as professionals, he said, not as industrial assembly-line workers.
他说,教师应该被当做专业人员对待,而不是工厂组装生产线上的工人。
Principals should be able to hire and fire them based on how good they were.
校长应该有权力根据教师的水平聘用或解雇他们。
Schools should be staying open until at least 6 p.m. and be in session eleven months of the year.
学校应该一直开到至少下午6点,一年应该开放11个月。
It was absurd, he added, that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks.
他还说,非常奇怪美国的教室里依然是老师站在讲台上用教科书讲课。
All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time.
所有的书、学习资料和测试都应该是数字化的,而且是互动的,为每个学生专门定制,并提供实时反馈。
Jobs offered to put together a group of six or seven CEOs who could really explain the innovation challenges facing America, and the president accepted.
乔布斯主动提出要组织一个会议,找六七个真正能解读美国所面临的创新挑战的CEO来,总统接受了这个建议。
So Jobs made a list of people for a Washington meeting to be held in December.
乔布斯起草了一份名单,计划12月在华盛顿开会。
Unfortunately, after Valerie Jarrett and other presidential aides had added names, the list had expanded to more than twenty, with GE's Jeffrey Immelt in the lead.
不过,在瓦莱丽·贾勒特和总统的其他助理添加了一些人名后,这个名单就扩充到了20多人,以通用电气总裁杰弗里·伊梅尔特为首。
Jobs sent Jarrett an email saying it was a bloated list and he had no intention of coming.
乔布斯给贾勒特发了封邮件说,这个名单过于冗长,他不打算去了。
In fact his health problems had flared anew by then, so he would not have been able to go in any case, as Doerr privately explained to the president.
事实上他的健康那时又突然出现问题了,因此他本来也无法参加,多尔也私下里向总统作出了解释。