前言:本书是如何诞生的

　　In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs.

　　2004年的初夏，我接到史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs)打来的电话。

　　He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity,

　　多年来，他对我还算友好，偶尔还会感情骤增一下，

　　especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked.

　　特别是当他希望即将推出的新产品能上《时代》杂志封面或者CNN(美国有线电视新闻网)专题报道的时候，而这两处恰好都是我曾工作过的地方。

　　But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much.

　　在我离开这两家媒体之后，就没有太多他的消息了。

　　We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado.

　　电话里我们谈论了一些关于我刚刚加入的阿斯彭研究所（AspenInstitute)的情况，我遨请他来科罗拉多的校园演讲。

　　He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted instead to take a walk so that we could talk.

　　他说他很乐意，但不想登台讲话，而是想和我散散步、聊聊天。

　　That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet know that taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation.

　　这番话听上去有点奇怪，因为当时我还不知道他喜欢在散步的过程中进行严肃的对话。

　　It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him.

　　后来我才知道，他是想让我写一本关于他的传记。

　　I had recently published one on Benjamin Franklin and was writing one about Albert Einstein,

　　我刚刚出版了本杰明·富兰克林（BenjaminFranMin)的传记,正在着手完成阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦(AlbertEinstein)的传记。

　　and my initial reaction was to wonder, half jokingly, whether he saw himself as the natural successor in that sequence.

　　因此我最初的反应是，他是不是把自己看做这些伟人的继承人了。

　　Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred.

　　当然这是半开玩笑的。我认为他还处在事业的波动期，等待他的还有诸多跌宕起伏，所以我拒绝了他的请求。

　　Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire.

　　现在还不是时候，我说，再等个十年二十年，等你退休了。

　　I had known him since 1984, when he came to Manhattan to have lunch with Time’s editors and extol his new Macintosh.

　　我认识他是在1984年，当时他来曼哈顿的时代-生活大厦（Time-LifeBuilding)与编辑们共进午餐，顺带夸耀他的麦金塔电脑（Macintosh)。

　　He was petulant even then, attacking a Time correspondent for having wounded him with a story that was too revealing.

　　那个时候他的脾气就不太好，他攻击《时代》杂志的一名记者，因为对方报道的一个故事暴露了太多事实而让他觉得受到了伤害。

　　But talking to him afterward, I found myself rather captivated, as so many others have been over the years, by his engaging intensity.

　　但后来，通过与他的对话，我发现自己被他的强烈情感所吸引，就如同其他很多人多年来受到的吸引一样。

　　We stayed in touch, even after he was ousted from Apple.

　　自那以后，我们就一直保持联系，即便在他被迫离开苹果公司时也未中断。

　　When he had something to pitch, such as a NeXT computer or Pixar movie, the beam of his charm would suddenly refocus on me,

　　当他需要推销某样产品时，比如一台NeXT电脑或者一部皮克斯（Pixar)出品的电影，他的个人魅力就会突然间再次聚焦到我的身上，

　　and he would take me to a sushi restaurant in Lower Manhattan to tell me that whatever he was touting was the best thing he had ever produced.

　　他会带我去曼哈顿下城的一家寿司餐厅，告诉我他正在兜售的东西是他制造出的最棒的产品。

　　I liked him.

　　我喜欢这个家伙。