Let’s Be Pirates!

我们当海盗吧

As the Macintosh team grew, it moved from Texaco Towers to the main Apple buildings on Bandley Drive, finally settling in mid-1983 into Bandley 3. It had a modern atrium lobby with video games, which Burrell Smith and Andy Hertzfeld chose, and a Toshiba compact disc stereo system with MartinLogan speakers and a hundred CDs. The software team was visible from the lobby in a fishbowl-like glass enclosure, and the kitchen was stocked daily with Odwalla juices. Over time the atrium attracted even more toys, most notably a B?sendorfer piano and a BMW motorcycle that Jobs felt would inspire an obsession with lapidary craftsmanship.

随着麦金塔团队的不断扩大，它从德士古塔搬到了位于班德利大道（BandleyDrive）的苹果公司主办公区，并于1983年年中在班德利3号楼安顿下来。那里有一个可以玩电子游戏的现代化中庭大厅，游戏都是由伯勒尔·史密斯和安迪·赫茨菲尔德挑选出来的，还有一套东芝的CD音响系统，配上了马丁·洛根（MartinLogan）扬声器和100张CD光盘。从大厅就能看到软件小组的员工，他们的办公区域被玻璃围住，看上去就像待在鱼缸里一样，厨房里每天都备有Odwalla果汁。逐渐地，中庭里的玩物越来越多，最醒目的就是一架贝森朵夫钢琴和一辆宝马摩托车，乔布斯觉得这些东西可以让员工迷上简洁高雅的工艺风格。

Jobs kept a tight rein on the hiring process. The goal was to get people who were creative, wickedly smart, and slightly rebellious. The software team would make applicants play Defender, Smith’s favorite video game. Jobs would ask his usual offbeat questions to see how well the applicant could think in unexpected situations. One day he, Hertzfeld, and Smith interviewed a candidate for software manager who, it became clear as soon as he walked in the room, was too uptight and conventional to manage the wizards in the fishbowl. Jobs began to toy with him mercilessly. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?” he asked.

乔布斯对招聘流程有着严格的控制，目的是招到具有创造力、绝顶聪明又略带叛逆的人才。软件小组会让应聘者玩史密斯最爱的电子游戏守护者（Defender）。乔布斯会问一些他常问的古怪问题，以考验求职者在突发状况下的思维能力，以及他们的幽默感和反抗精神。有一天，他和赫茨菲尔德、史密斯一起，面试一个应聘软件经理的人，这个人一走进来，身上的保守和刻板气质就显露无遗，很明显无法管理鱼缸里的那群天才。乔布斯开始无情地捉弄他。“你是几岁失去童贞的？”乔布斯问。

The candidate looked baffled. “What did you say?”

应聘者听得一头雾水。“你说什么？”

“Are you a virgin?” Jobs asked. The candidate sat there flustered, so Jobs changed the subject. “How many times have you taken LSD?” Hertzfeld recalled, “The poor guy was turning varying shades of red, so I tried to change the subject and asked a straightforward technical question.” But when the candidate droned on in his response, Jobs broke in. “Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,” he said, cracking up Smith and Hertzfeld.

“你是处男吗？”乔布斯问道。应聘者坐着，显得非常紧张不安，于是乔布斯换了个问题：“你服用过多少次迷幻药？”赫茨菲尔德回忆说：“那个可怜的家伙满脸通红，于是我试图转移话题，问了他一个很直白的技术问题。”但是，当应聘者开始唠唠叨叨地回答问题时，乔布斯打断了他。“咯咯，咯咯，咯咯，咯咯。”他发出这样的声音，让一旁的史密斯和赫茨菲尔德也都笑了起来。

“I guess I’m not the right guy,” the poor man said as he got up to leave.

“我想我不适合这份工作。”那个可怜的人说着就起身离开了。

For all of his obnoxious behavior, Jobs also had the ability to instill in his team an esprit de corps. After tearing people down, he would find ways to lift them up and make them feel that being part of the Macintosh project was an amazing mission. Every six months he would take most of his team on a two-day retreat at a nearby resort.

乔布斯虽然有很多让人讨厌的行为，但他也能给自己的队伍注入团队精神。在把别人贬得一文不值之后，他又能找到办法激励他们，让他们觉得成为麦金塔项目的一员是一项美妙的任务。每半年，他都会带着团队的大部分人，去附近的一处度假胜地举行为期两天的集思会。

The retreat in September 1982 was at the Pajaro Dunes near Monterey. Fifty or so members of the Mac division sat in the lodge facing a fireplace. Jobs sat on top of a table in front of them. He spoke quietly for a while, then walked to an easel and began posting his thoughts.

1982年9月的那次集思会是在蒙特雷附近的帕加罗沙丘（PajaroDunes）进行的。大约50名Mac团队的成员坐在小屋里，面朝着壁炉。乔布斯坐在他们前面的一张桌子上。他小声地说了一会儿话，然后走到一个黑板架旁边，开始贴上自己的想法。

The first was “Don’t compromise.” It was an injunction that would, over time, be both helpful and harmful. Most technology teams made trade-offs. The Mac, on the other hand, would end up being as “insanely great” as Jobs and his acolytes could possibly make it—but it would not ship for another sixteen months, way behind schedule. After mentioning a scheduled completion date, he told them, “It would be better to miss than to turn out the wrong thing.” A different type of project manager, willing to make some trade-offs, might try to lock in dates after which no changes could be made. Not Jobs. He displayed another maxim: “It’s not done until it ships.”

第一条是“决不妥协”。这一条在日后的岁月里被证明是一把双刃剑。大多数的科技团队都会妥协。另一方面，Mac最终成为了乔布斯和他的队伍所能做出的最“完美得不可思议”的产品——但它还需要16个月才能上市，远远晚于计划时间。在提到一个计划中的完工日期后，他告诉他们：“即便错过上市日期，也不能粗制滥造。”换作愿意做出妥协的项目经理的话，也许会敲定一个完工日期，之后不得再作出任何改动。但乔布斯不是这样的人，他的另一句名言就是：“直到上市，产品才能算是完工。”

Another chart contained a koōan-like phrase that he later told me was his favorite maxim: “The journey is the reward.” The Mac team, he liked to emphasize, was a special corps with an exalted mission. Someday they would all look back on their journey together and, forgetting or laughing off the painful moments, would regard it as a magical high point in their lives.

另一张纸上有一句公案①—样的短语，他后来告诉我那是他最爱的一旬格言。上面写的是：“过程就是奖励。”他喜欢强调，Mac团队是一支有着崇高使命的特殊队伍。未来的某一天，他们会回顾这段共同度过的时光，对于那些痛苦的时刻，只是过眼云烟，或者付之一笑，他们会把这段时光看做人生中奇妙的巅峰时刻。