莱斯利·伯林访谈

原文标题: Interview with Leslie Berlin

背景: 2003年5月24日，史蒂夫与莱斯利·伯林谈论他的导师罗伯特·诺伊斯。诺伊斯共同发明了微芯片，共同创立了英特尔和仙童半导体——硅谷第一家成功的硅微芯片公司。

主题: "我想我很幸运，有胆量给这些人打电话"

核心概念

  1. 罗伯特·诺伊斯 (Robert Noyce) - 乔布斯的导师，英特尔共同创始人
  2. 安迪·格罗夫 (Andy Grove) - 英特尔CEO
  3. 英特尔 (Intel) - 英特尔公司
  4. 比尔·盖茨 (Bill Gates) - 微软创始人
  5. 硅谷 (Silicon Valley) - 硅谷传统

内容

中文翻译

莱斯利·伯林: 你为什么决定加入格林内尔学院董事会？

史蒂夫·乔布斯: 鲍勃让我做的。我上过一所小型文理学院。官方六个月，两年我是那种蹭课生。所以我一直对私立文理学院有 soft spot。你真的只在美国找到它们，它们是非常美妙的东西。

这是一次有趣的经历。最有趣的部分就是和鲍勃一起旅行。我们差点一起死去；我不知道你是否知道这件事。

LB: 不知道。

SJ: 嗯，鲍勃是飞行员，你知道。他飞过各种飞机。他买了一架Seabee。你听说过吗？

LB: 我听说他有这架飞机。

SJ: 那是一架Seabee。Seabee是二战飞机。他们可能在四十年代末就停止制造了。大约还剩一百架。这是一种机身呈船体形状的飞机。翅膀在上面；它可以在跑道或水上降落。

他买了一架。他刚刚得到它，他打电话给我说，"嘿，Trinity Lake有个Seabee fly-in。[……]你想去吗？"我说，"当然。我们走吧。"所以，我们上了Seabee飞机[……]我们在沙斯塔湖降落。我们出来游泳，真的很棒。真的很棒。所以我们再次起飞，天气有点热。鲍勃拉了一个他以为是空气通风的操纵杆。但他拉错了操纵杆。他拉了锁住轮子的操纵杆。

我们到达Trinity Lake，他在跑道上降落[……]我们撞上柏油路面。机翼上的轮子，当然，被锁住了，所以飞机立即向前冲。火花开始飞溅。我们差点把飞机翻过来。多亏他出色的飞行技术我们才幸存。

当这一切发生时，我想象着头条："诺伊斯和乔布斯在烈火飞机失事中丧生。"我认为这很接近了。

SJ: 我那时年轻。我快三十了。鲍勃——天哪，他一定是快五十了。

LB: 他出生于27年。

SJ: 是啊，我出生于55年。所以差不多三十年。是啊，所以，他在——天啊——他快五十了。现在我也快五十了，很容易看出五十多岁的人比二十多岁知道更多。

他只是想给我地形 lay，给我一种我只能部分理解的视角。

我想他也对二十多岁的人的想法感兴趣。而且他对个人电脑很着迷。个人电脑和英特尔当时没有任何关系。所以他对那东西很着迷。就是那样。所以我们只是成为了伙伴。

LB: 你记得任何具体对话或任何情况吗，你在想一件事，他在建议另一件事，你听了还是没听？

SJ: 我记得的不是商业事情。实际上是更个人的东西。我记得他试图教我如何更好地滑雪。我记得当我被苹果解雇时，他是最早给我打电话的人之一。

他就是有很多灵魂。而且我认为他是英特尔的灵魂。戈登[摩尔]和安迪[格鲁夫]都很棒，但我认为鲍勃，鲍勃是那里的灵魂。

LB: 我最喜欢的他的引言之一是他说的，乐观是创新的基本要素。

SJ: 嗯，是乐观和激情，因为这真的很难。如果你不真的、真的在乎你在做什么，如果你是一个理智的人，你会放弃——因为它就是超级难。我肯定他有时候也非常难。

SJ: 当你五十多岁时——我四十八，我差不多了，差不多了——你不是从二十五岁的人手中抢过铅笔来做得比他们更好。如果你聪明，你雇佣比你更聪明的二十五岁人。你知道他们不知道的东西，他们知道你不知道的东西，一切都奏效。

不应该是鲍勃设计突破性芯片，如果是，那他就不是在经营公司。他的工作是，第一，招募；第二，设定整体方向；第三，你知道，激励、哄骗和说服。如果那是他以之闻名的东西，那意味着他在做工作。他有他年轻 hotshot 的时代，他挺过来了。但那不是工作。

SJ: 我给他、安迪和其他几个人打了电话，杰瑞·桑德斯[微芯片公司AMD的创始人]。我只是打电话给他们说，"听着，我年轻，我正在努力经营这家公司。我只是想知道我是否可以每季度买你一次午餐，挑你的脑子。"

我问过的每个人都说可以。很好。鲍勃说可以。安迪·格鲁夫说可以；那就是我怎么认识安迪的。杰瑞·桑德斯说可以。非常棒。我非常、非常幸运，因为我有机会见到并稍微了解一下休利特和帕卡德。

我感觉像是山谷的第二个时代，半导体公司某种程度上引入早期计算机公司——我得以 smell that，我一直把那非常亲近和珍视。而鲍勃某种程度上就是为什么。

LB: 你认为你在这里描述的代际联系，就你与鲍勃的关系，以及较小程度上你与休利特和帕卡德的关系——你认为这是山谷的特征，还是你只是幸运并有胆量给这些人打电话？

SJ: 嗯，我想我很幸运，有胆量给这些人打电话。然而，有其他有胆量打电话给其他人的人。谷歌创始人打电话给我，所以我与他们共进午餐。所以我认为它仍然发生一点。我不认为它曾经发生很多，我也不认为它现在发生很多。但我认为它仍然发生——它发生一点，它仍然发生一点。也许大多数人不感兴趣。他们有自己的事情要担心。

SJ: 我认为这里有传统[在硅谷]。而且这并不意味着它是一条你 drop into 的 well-worn groove。没那么容易。但有榜样，有传说，有各种各样的民间传说——构成文化的东西。很多人不花时间去了解它，这没关系。但有些人发现自己在其中，慢慢开始吸收它并对他们之前的东西产生好奇。

LB: 当你想到鲍勃给你地形 lay，是沿着这些线索，在某种意义上？

SJ: 哦是的，绝对。我是说，有点像……你知道你的嗅觉是你与记忆连接最强烈的感官？你可以闻到东西，在你三十多岁时，它会带你直接回到你七岁时。鲍勃给我的礼物是那种连接和嗅觉，那种回到我生活的山谷某个美妙时代的强烈连接，但[只]通过他我才非常强烈地感觉到它是什么。

很难解释。但如果你可以 sort of 传输——当你闻到那个味道，它带你回到你七岁时——如果你可以把那给其他人，那某种程度上是他能够给我的。而且我不知道它如何发生，但你知道它。而且我很好奇。

LB: 为什么这种连接感重要？为什么它对你如此重要？

SJ: 几乎所有事情都有人类戏剧。你有时看它，它看起来像干巴巴的历史。但如果你剥开洋葱，下面有人性。

仅仅理解现在正在发生什么——你不能真正那样做，除非你理解它如何到达这里。叔本华有句伟大的话。这是句伟大的话。我应该把它找出来。我会搞错。我得上去拿它。

[上楼，拿了叔本华的《论世界的苦难》，然后在楼梯上读。]"活了两三代的人就像坐在集市魔术师摊位上的人，见证了两次或三次连续的表演。魔术只应该看一次；当它们不再是新奇事物并停止欺骗时，它们的效果就消失了。"

SJ: 我钦佩鲍勃的另一件事是他放弃了英特尔的CEO职位。你知道，他真的放弃了。他不是试图从后房间经营它。

他理解继任的重要性，保持公司运转，不要让它只是一人秀。

英文原文

Interview with Leslie Berlin, Make Something Wonderful

Interview with Leslie Berlin

"I think I got lucky and had the chutzpah to call these guys up."

On May 24, 2003, Steve spoke with Leslie Berlin about his mentor Robert Noyce. Noyce co-invented the microchip and co-founded Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, the first successful silicon microchip company in Silicon Valley.

Leslie Berlin: Why'd you decide to join the Grinnell College board?

Steve Jobs: Bob asked me to do it. I went to a small liberal arts college. Six months officially, and for two years I was kind of a drop-in. And so I've always had a soft spot for private liberal arts colleges. You really only find them in America, and they're a very wonderful thing.

It was a fun experience. And the funnest part was just traveling down with Bob. We almost died together; I don't know if you know about this.

LB: No.

SJ: Well, Bob's a pilot, as you know. He flew all kinds of planes. He bought a Seabee. Have you heard about that?

LB: I've heard that he had this plane.

SJ: It was a Seabee. And a Seabee was a World War II plane. They stopped making them probably at the end of the forties. And there were like a hundred of them left. It was a plane whose fuselage was in the shape of the hull of a boat. Its wings were on top; and it could land on a runway or in the water.

He bought one. He had just gotten it, and he called me up and said, "Hey, there's a Seabee fly-in up at Trinity Lake. […] Do you want to go?" I said, "Sure. Let's go." So, we get in the Seabee plane […] and we land in Lake Shasta. We got out and went for a swim, and it was really great. Really great. So we take off again, and it's getting kind of hot. Bob pulls a lever that he thinks is the air ventilation. But he pulls the wrong lever. He pulled the lever that locks the wheels.

We get to Trinity Lake, and he's landing on the runway […] and we hit the tarmac. The wheels on the wings, of course, are locked, so the plane immediately lunges forward. Sparks start flying. We very nearly flipped the plane over. It was only due to his excellent piloting that we survived.

And I was imagining, as this was all happening, the headlines: "Bob Noyce and Steve Jobs Killed in Fiery Plane Crash." I think it was pretty close.

SJ: I was young. I was in my late twenties. And Bob was—gosh, he must have been in his later forties.

LB: He was born in '27.

SJ: Yeah, and I was born in '55. So almost thirty years. Yeah, so, he was in his—well, Jesus—in his early fifties. And now that I'm approaching fifty, it's easy to see how people in their fifties know more than people in their twenties.

He just kind of tried to give me the lay of the land and tried to give me a perspective that I could only partially understand.

I think he was interested in what someone in their twenties thought too. And he was fascinated by the personal computer. The personal computer and Intel had nothing to do with each other at that time. So he was fascinated by that stuff. That was it. So we just, we just became buddies.

LB: Do you recall any specific conversations or any situations where you were thinking one thing and he was suggesting otherwise, and you did or didn't listen?

SJ: The things I remember are not the business things. It's actually more personal stuff. I remember him trying to teach me how to ski better. I remember when I got fired from Apple, he was one of the first people to call me.

He just had a lot of soul. And I think he was the soul of Intel. Gordon [Moore] and Andy [Grove] are fantastic, but I think Bob, Bob was the soul of that place.

LB: One of my favorite quotes from him is where he says that optimism is the essential ingredient for innovation.

SJ: Well, it's optimism and passion, because it's really hard. And if you don't really, really care about what you're doing, you're gonna give up if you're a a sane person—because it's just super hard. I'm sure it was extremely hard for him at times.

SJ: When you get into your fifties—I'm forty-eight, I'm kind of there, pretty much—you're not grabbing the pencil out of the twenty-five-year-old's hand to do it better than they are. If you're smart, you're hiring twenty-five-year-olds who are smarter than you. You know things that they don't know, and they know things that you don't know, and it all works.

It shouldn't have been Bob that was designing the breakthrough chips, and if it was, then he ain't running the company. His job was to, number one, recruit; number two, set an overall direction; and number three, you know, inspire and cajole and persuade. And if that's what he's known for, that means he's doing the job. He had his day when he was the young hotshot, and he came through. But that wasn't the job.

SJ: I called up him and Andy and a few other people, Jerry Sanders [the founder of microchip company AMD]. I just called them up and I said, "Look, I'm young and I'm trying to run with this company. I'm just wondering if I could buy you lunch once a quarter and pick your brain."

And everybody I ever asked said yes. It was nice. Bob said yes. Andy Grove said yes; that was how I met Andy. Jerry Sanders said yes. It was pretty wonderful. I was very, very lucky, because I got to meet and get to know a little bit of Hewlett and Packard, too.

I sort of feel like that second era of the Valley, the semiconductor companies kind of leading into the early computer companies—I got to smell that, and I always held that very near and dear. And Bob was sort of why.

LB: Do you think this sort of generational link you're describing here, in terms of your own relationship with Bob and, to a lesser extent, your relationship with Hewlett and Packard—do you think it's a feature of the valley, or do you think you just got lucky and had the chutzpah to call these guys up?

SJ: Well, I think I got lucky and had the chutzpah to call these guys up. However, there are other people who have chutzpah to call people up too. The Google guys called me up, so I had lunch with them. And so I think it still happens a little. I don't think it ever happened a lot, and I don't think it happens a lot now. But I think it still happens—it happened a little, and it still happens a little. Maybe most people aren't interested. They have their own things to worry about.

SJ: I think there's a tradition here [in Silicon Valley]. And that doesn't mean that it's a well-worn groove that you drop into. It's not that easy. But there's role models, and there's legends, and there's all sort of folklore—the kind of thing that makes a culture. And many people don't spend the time to learn about it, which is fine. But some people find themselves in it, and slowly start to absorb it and get curious as to what came before them.

LB: And when you think of Bob giving you the lay of the land, is it along these sorts of lines, in some sense?

SJ: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's sort of like… you know your olfactory sense is your most poignant sense in terms of its connection to your memory? You can smell something, in your thirties, and it'll take you right back to when you were seven years old. The gift that Bob gave me was that connection and sense of smell, that strong connection back to some wonderful era of this valley that I lived in but [only] through him got a very strong sense of what it was.

It's hard to explain. But if you could sort of transmit—when you smell that smell, and it takes you back to when you were seven—if you could give that to somebody else, that was kind of what he was able to give to me. And I don't know how it happens, but you know it. And I was curious.

LB: Why does that sense of connection matter? Why is it so important to you?

SJ: There's a human drama to most everything. You look at it sometimes, and it seems dry as history. But if you peel the onion, there's humanity underneath.

Just to understand what's going on now—you can't really do that unless you understand how it got here. There's a great quote by Schopenhauer. It's a great quote. I should pull this up. I'll get it all wrong. I've got to go up and get it.

[Goes upstairs, grabs Schopenhauer's On the Suffering of the World, and then reads from it on the stairs.] "He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone."

SJ: The other thing I admired about Bob was that he gave up the CEO job at Intel. You know, he really did give it up. He wasn't trying to run it from a back room.

He understood how important it was to have a succession, to keep the company going, not have it just be a one-man show.

思考与洞察

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