Reporter: How do you deal with roadblocks?
记者：你们是如何排除万难的？
Jobs: At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn’t great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months... We paid them all to twiddle their thumbs while the team perfected the story into what became Toy Story. And if they hadn’t had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is，and there probably would have never been a Pixar. We called that the“story crisis"，and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There’s been one on every film. We don’t stop production for five months. We’ve gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it’s just not working, and it’s so easy to fool yourself~ to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn’t. Well，you know what? It’s been that way with almost every major project at Apple, too... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, “I just don’t love this. I can’t convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we’ve ever done.” And we pushed the reset button. We went through all of the zillions of models we'd made and ideas we’d had. And we ended up creating what you see here as the iPhone, which is dramatically better. It was hell because we had to go to the team and say, “All this work you've done for the last year, we’re going to have to throw it away and start over, and we，re going to have to work twice as hard now because we don’t have enough time.” And you know what everybody said? “Sign us up.” That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of one of these crises, you’re not sure you’re going to make it to the other end. But we’ve always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder. I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.
乔布斯：当我们在皮克斯公司制作《玩 具总动员》的时候，曾经有一次，我们 不得不承认剧本实在不行。它就是不过 关。我们一度暂停了5个月……当团队 着手完善剧本时，我们让每个人都拿着 工资放大假去了。后来才做出你所看到 的《玩具总动员》。假如当时他们没有 停下来的勇气，那也不会有最终的《玩 具总动员》，甚至也不会有皮克斯的今 天。我们曾称之为“危机总动员”，谁 也不希望这种事情再发生。可你知道 吗？每部电影都是这样。但我们找到了 更聪明的解决办法，不再停工5个月。 总会有些山穷水尽的时刻，要蒙骗自 己其实并不难——说服自己：其实你 心里清楚，事情并不是这样的。好， 你知道吗？在苹果，几乎每个大项目 也都会遇到这种情况……拿iPhone举 例。我们曾经有过一个迥异的iPhone 封装设计，那时候离面世已经为时不 远，甚至没有时间再做改动了。在某 个周一的早晨，我走进公司说：“我真 没法儿爱上这个玩意儿。我说服不了自 己。而这是我们做过的最重要的产品。” 然后我们就按下了重启键。我们重新回 顾了曾经做出来的无数款模型机以及曾 经有过的想法。最终，我们做出来了今 天你看到的iPhone，好得出人意料。那 个过程简直如同去地狱里走了一圈，因 为你不得不当着整个团队的面说：“你们在过去一年里做出来的所有东西，我 们都要全盘否定并且重头再来。而且我 们必须加倍努力，因为我们已经没时间 了。”而你知道他们说了什么吗？ “算 我一个。”这种情况发生得比你想象的 频繁得多，因为这不仅仅是工程学和科 学。这也是艺术。有些时候，当你置身 于危机时，你并不能保证你能走到终 点。但我们总能挺过来，我想我们有着 一定程度的自信，尽管有些时候你会质 疑。我认为关键在于，我们在这种时候 不会被完全吓倒。我指的是，我们全身 心地投入到了这些事情之中。
Reporter: What’s the iPod’s tipping point?
记者：iPod的引爆点是什么？
Jobs: It was difficult for a while because for various reasons the Mac had not been accepted by a lot of people, who went with Windows. And we were just working really hard, and our market share wasn’t going up. It makes you wonder sometimes whether you’re wrong. Maybe our stuff isn’t better, although we thought it was. Or maybe people don’t care, which is even more depressing. It turns out with the iPod we kind of got out from that operating-system glass ceiling and it was great because it showed that Apple innovation, Apple engineering, Apple design did matter. The iPod captured 70% market share. I cannot tell you how important that was after so many years of laboring and seeing a 4% to 5% market share on the Mac. To see something like that happen with the iPod was a great shot in the arm for everybody.
乔布斯：有段时间我们很艰难。Mac因 为各种各样的原因不被接受，这些人选 择了 Windows。即便我们全力以赴，市 场份额仍没有增长。有时你会想是不是 你真的做错了。或许尽管我们认为自己 做得很好，但我们的产品仍不够好。或 者人们根本对此漠不关心，那就更令人 难过了。iPod的出现让我们突破了操作 系统的瓶颈。事情的美妙之处在于，它 证明了苹果式的创新、苹果式的工程 学以及苹果式的设计都是至关重要的。 iPod占据了 70%的市场份额。在打拼 多年并见证了 Mac电脑4%至5%的市 场份额之后，我简直无法告诉你这是多 么的重要。看到iPod惊人的表现，这仿 佛给我们每个人打了一针药效惊人的强 心针。
Reporter: Then, what did you do next?
记者：那么，接下来你们怎么做的？
Jobs: We made more. We worked harder. We said: ‘This is great. Let’s do more.’ I mean, the Mac market share is going up every single quarter. We’re growing four times faster than the industry. People are starting to pay a little more attention. We’ve helped it along. We put Intel processors in and we can run PC apps alongside Mac apps. We helped it along. But I think a lot of it is people have finally started to realize that they don’t have to put up with Windows—that there is an alternative. I think nobody really thought about it that way before.
乔布斯：我们干劲倍增，并且更加努力。我们曾经说过：“这事儿挺不错， 让我们做得更棒些。”我的意思是，Mac 的市场份额每个季度都有增长。我们 的增长速度比整个行业快4倍。人们开 始关注我们。而且我们正保持着这个势 头。我们把因特尔处理器放了进来，于 是我们不仅可以运行Mac软件，还可 以运行PC上的应用程序。我认为这件 事情最重要的一点在于，人们终于意识到，他们没必要再忍受Windows 了,其实还有另一个选择。我认为在此之 前，从来没人这样想过。
Reporter: Why did you get the idea to launch the Apple store?
记者：为什么会想开设苹果专卖店？
Jobs: It was very simple. The Mac faithful will drive to a destination, right? They’ll drive somewhere special just to do that. But people who own Windows—we want to convert them to Mac. They will not drive somewhere special. They don’t think they want a Mac. They will not take the risk of a 20-minute drive in case they don’t like it. But if we put our store in a mall or on a street that they’re walking by, and we reduce that risk from a 20-minute drive to 20 footsteps, then they’re more likely to go in because there’s really no risk. So we decided to put our stores in high-traffic locations. And it works.
乔布斯：很简单。苹果的信徒们将会驾 车驶向一个目的地，对吧？他们会开车 去一个特别的地方做喜欢做的事。但是 对于Window用户来说——我们想要他 们转而使用Mac。他们不会开车去特别 的地方。他们觉得自己不需要Mac电 脑。他们甚至不愿意花上20分钟开车 来瞅瞅，他们担心自己压根儿就不喜欢 苹果。但是如果我们把店面开在大商场 里或者大街上，人们会经常走过路过， 而我们就可以将20分钟的车程缩短为 20步的距离。他们进来参观的可能性 就大大增加了，这样就不用付出什么成 本。所以我们决定将苹果专卖店开到车 流密集的区域。它确实奏效了。
Reporter: Will you catch tech’s next wave?
记者：你们会赶上下一波技术热潮吗？
Jobs： Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years. One of our biggest insights years ago was that we didn’t want to get into any business where we didn’t own or control the primary technology because you’ll get your head handed to you. We realized that almost all一 maybe allof future consumer electronics, the primary technology was going to be software. And we were pretty good at software. We could do the operating system software. We could write applications on the Mac or even PC, like iTunes. We could write the software in the device, like you might put in an iPod or an iPhone or something. And we could write the back-end software that runs on a cloud, like iTunes. So we could write all these different kinds of software and make it work seamlessly. And you ask yourself, What other companies can do that? It’s a pretty short list. The reason that we were very excited about the phone, beyond that fact that we all hated our phones, was that we didn’t see anyone else who could make that kind of contribution. None of the handset manufacturers really are strong in software.
乔布斯：事情的发展速度其实十分缓 慢，这你也是知道的。确实如此。这 些一波接一波的技术热潮，都是可预 见的。你要做的，只是精明地选择站在 哪儿。如果你站错队，那么你就会浪费许多精力。但是如果你走 对方向，它呈现的速度也 是相当之缓慢。可能要花 上几年。多年前，我们最 具前瞻性的观点之一，就 是不要涉足任何我们不具 备或不能掌控核心技术的 领域，否则你会被杀得片 甲不留。我们意识到，对 于全部的——或许是全 部，未来的消费类电子产品而言，软件 都将是核心技术。而我们在软件领域实 在是得心应手。我们会做操作系统。可 以在Mac甚至PC上编写像iTunes —样 的各种程序。可以编写设备软件，就像 你可以放在iPod或者iPhone或者其他 设备中的程序。同样我们也可以编写像 iTunes—样的后台软体。因此，我们可 以编写多种软件，让它们交织在一起严 丝合缝地协同工作。试问还有哪些其他 公司可以做到这点？寥寥无几。在发现 了人们厌倦自己手机的事实之后，我们 对自己的手机产品变得极端兴奋，原因 在于，我们发现除了我们没人能为此作 出贡献。没有任何一个掌上设备制造商 在软件领域有实力。
Reporter: How do you find talented people? Do you have a special way?
记者：苹果怎样寻找人才？有没有什么 特殊渠道？
Jobs: When I hire somebody really senior，competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else. Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. We do it ourselves and we spend a lot of time at it. I’ve participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? Why are they here? I ask everybody that: “Why are you here?” The answers themselves are not what you’ re looking for. It’s the metadata.
乔布斯：我要招一个高级员工的时候， 能力是我所看重的。他们必须够聪明。 但对我来说，问题则在于：他们是否会 爱上苹果？因为如果会，那么其他所有 事情就会迎刃而解。他们的工作会以苹 果的最大利益为出发点，而非个人利 益、史蒂夫的利益或者其他某个人的利益。招聘绝非易事，就像是大海捞针一 般。我们自己去招聘，我们在这方面花 费了大量的精力。我一生中面试过超过 5000人。我对待此事的态度非常严肃。 你无法在一个小时的面试里了解足够多 的信息。所以最后，你只能凭借直觉做 出选择。我对这人的感觉是怎样的？他 们面临挑战时，会是什么样的呢？他们 为什么会在这里？我问 所有人：“你为什么来这 里？”答案本身并不是 你想要的东西。这只是 元数据。
Reporter: So far, Apple TV’s failing, what do you think of this?
记者：目前为止，Apple TV做得并不成功，你怎么看？
Jobs: Here’s how I look at it. Everybody’s tried to make a great product for the living room. Microsoft’s tried, we’ve triedeverybody’s tried. And everybody’s failed. We failed, so far. So there’s a whole bunch of people that have tried, and every single one of us. And that’s why I call it a hobby. It’s not a business yet, it’s a hobby. We’ve come out with our second try 一“Apple TV, Take 2” is what we call it internally. We realized that the first product we did was about helping you view the content of whatever you had in iTunes on your Mac or PC, and wireless sending it to your widescreen TV. Well, it turns out that’s not what people really wanted to do. I mean, yeah, it’s nice to see your photos up on the big screen. That’s frosting on the cake, but it’s not the cake. What everybody really wanted, it turned out, was movies. So we began the process of talking to Hollywood studios and were able to get all the major studios to license their movies for rental. And we only have about 600 movies so far ingested on iTunes, but we’ll have thousands later this year. We lowered the price to $229. And we’ll see how it does. Will this resonate and be something that you just can’t live without and love? We’ll see. I think it’s got a shot.
乔布斯：我来说说我的 看法。每个人都曾经尝 试过为客厅开发一个了 不起的产品。微软试过 了，我们也试过了—— 每个人都试过了。但每 我们目前也失败了。有 很多人都在尝试，然后所有人都以失败 告终，包括我们。这就是为什么我将其 称作一项“爱好”。它还不可以称作一 门生意，它只是一个爱好。我们已经作 了 第二次尝试——“Apple TV, Take 2” 是我们在公司内部的称呼。我们意识 到，我们的第一款产品只是在帮助你从 Mac或电脑上的iTunes中取得内容，并 且通过无线网络发送到宽屏幕的电视。 嗯，事实证明这并不是人们想要的。我 的意思是，没错，能在大屏幕上看到你的照片也不错一但那是蛋糕 上面的糖霜而不是蛋糕。事实 证明，人们真正需要的是电 影。所以我们开始和好莱坞制 片商进行对话，并且尽可能地 取得所有好莱坞大片的租赁授 权。现在iTunes里面只能找到 大约600部电影，但是在今年 晚些时候，我们就会有上千的 选择。我们把价格降到了 299 美元，准备看看效果如何。至 于这会不会引发你的共鸣，并 且成为你愿意与之共度余生 的钟情之物？等着瞧吧。我看 行。
Reporter: Does the economic downturn has any influence on Apple? How do you manage through this period?
记者：经济衰退期会对苹果造成影响 吗？在这个时期如何管理？
Jobs: We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place—the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that’s exactly what we did. And it worked. And that’s exactly what we’ll do this time.
乔布斯：我们之前已经经历过了一次， 就是在dot.com泡沫破灭的时候。我告 诉公司的是，我们会在经济衰退期里继 续坚持自己的投资思路。我们不会裁员， 我们会付出巨大的努力将员工放在苹果 各项工作的首位，最后一步才是裁员。 而且我们还将持续拨款。实际上，我们 当时计划调高研发预算，这样在度过经 济衰退期之后，我们才可以领先于竞争 对手。我们确实这样做了，而且行之有 效。这次我们还会这样做的。