乔布斯传 第113期:现实扭曲力场(6)

 Jobs's prickly behavior was partly driven by his perfectionism

乔布斯这种带刺的行为，一定程度上是受到了两种因素的驱使：一是他的完美主义，

and his impatience¹ with those who made compromises in order to get a product out on time and on budget.

二就是，他无法容忍那些为了让产品及时面世或为了压缩成本而作出合理（甚至明智）妥协的人。

"He could not make trade-offs well," said Atkinson.

“他不会在产品上作出妥协”阿特金森说，

"If someone didn't care to make their product perfect, they were a bozo."

“如果哪个人不愿意把产品做到完美，那他就是笨蛋。”

At the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1981, for example,

举例来说，1981年的西海岸计算机展销会上，

Adam Osborne released the first truly portable personal computer.

亚当·奥斯本发布了第一款真正意义上的便携式个人电脑。

It was not great—it had a five-inch screen and not much memory—but it worked well enough.

它并不出众——屏幕只有5英寸、内存也不大——但运行状况尚可。

As Osborne famously declared, "Adequacy is sufficient. All else is superfluous²."

正如奥斯本那句著名的宣言：“够用就好，多出来的功能都是浪费。”

Jobs found that approach to be morally appalling³, and he spent days making fun of Osborne.

乔布斯认为这整个想法都是可怕的，好几天的时间里他都在嘲笑奥斯本。

"This guy just doesn't get it," Jobs repeatedly railed as he wandered the Apple corridors.

“这家伙就是不明白，”他走在苹果公司的走廊里还反复骂道，

"He's not making art, he's making shit."

“他不是在创造艺术品，而是在制造垃圾。”.

One day Jobs came into the cubicle⁴ of Larry Kenyon, an engineer who was working on the Macintosh operating system,

一天，乔布斯走进了拉里·凯尼恩的办公隔间，他是负责麦金塔电脑操作系统的工程师，

and complained that it was taking too long to boot up.

乔布斯抱怨说开机启动时间太长了。

Kenyon started to explain, but Jobs cut him off.

凯尼恩开始解释，但乔布斯打断了他。

"If it could save a person's life, would you find a way to shave ten seconds off the boot time?" he asked.

他问道：“如果能救人一命的话，你愿意想办法让启动时间缩短10秒钟吗？”

Kenyon allowed that he probably could.

凯尼恩说也许可以。

Jobs went to a whiteboard and showed that if there were five million people using the Mac,

乔布斯于是走到一块白板前开始演示，如果有500万人使用Mac，

and it took ten seconds extra to turn it on every day,

而每天开机都要多用10秒钟，

that added up to three hundred million or so hours per year that people would save,

那加起来每年就要浪费大约3亿分钟，

which was the equivalent of at least one hundred lifetimes saved per year.

而3亿分钟相当于至少100个人的终身寿命。

"Larry was suitably impressed, and a few weeks later he came back and it booted up twenty-eight seconds faster," Atkinson recalled.

“这番话让拉里十分震惊，几周过后，乔布斯再来看的时候，启动时间缩短了28秒，”阿特金森回忆说，

"Steve had a way of motivating by looking at the bigger picture."

“史蒂夫能看到宏观层面，从而激励别人工作。”

1 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

2 superfluous   

adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的

参考例句：

• She fined away superfluous matter in the design. 她删去了这图案中多余的东西。
• That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it.我这样写的时候觉得这个请求似乎是多此一举。

3 appalling   

adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions.恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• Nothing can extenuate such appalling behaviour.这种骇人听闻的行径罪无可恕。

4 cubicle   

n.大房间中隔出的小室

参考例句：

• She studies in a cubicle in the school library.她在学校图书馆的小自习室里学习。
• A technical sergeant hunches in a cubicle.一位技术军士在一间小屋里弯腰坐着。