The first time I met Steve Jobs, he walked out of the room. It was 1994, he was chief executive of NeXT Computer and exiled from Apple, and I had asked him why he made beautiful, expensive machines that only a few enthusiasts wanted. He swore at me, barked “I created the Mac and it’s still the best!” and was gone. Five years later, after he had returned to the company he co-founded, I wrote that he had saved Apple, but said I didn’t care, because Microsoft enjoyed a near-monopoly in personal computer software and so controlled computing. This view was conventionally savvy, but wrong. Mr Jobs has turned out to be much more influential than Bill Gates.
我頭一次碰上史蒂夫?喬布斯(Steve Jobs)時(shí)，他正從房間里走出來(lái)。那是在1994年，當(dāng)時(shí)他已被蘋果(Apple)辭退，擔(dān)任NeXT電腦公司(NeXT Computer)的首席執(zhí)行官。我問(wèn)他為什么要造那些外觀漂亮、價(jià)格昂貴但只受到少數(shù)發(fā)燒友追捧的機(jī)器。他罵了我一句，咆哮著說(shuō)，“我創(chuàng)造了Mac，現(xiàn)在它仍是最棒的！”然后，他就轉(zhuǎn)身離開(kāi)了。五年過(guò)去了，當(dāng)喬布斯再度回到他與別人一起創(chuàng)辦的蘋果后，我曾寫(xiě)道喬布斯已經(jīng)拯救了蘋果，但我表示這無(wú)關(guān)大局，因?yàn)槲④?Microsoft)在個(gè)人電腦(PC)軟件領(lǐng)域享有近乎壟斷的地位、并因此控制著計(jì)算機(jī)行業(yè)。一般來(lái)說(shuō)，這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)有道理的，但這次它卻錯(cuò)了。事實(shí)證明，喬布斯現(xiàn)在的影響力顯著超過(guò)了比爾?蓋茨(Bill Gates)。