Veterans of the Mac team had learned that they could stand up to Jobs. If they knew what they were talking about, he would tolerate the pushback, even admire it. By 1983 those most familiar with his reality distortion field had discovered something further: They could, if necessary, just quietly disregard what he decreed. If they turned out to be right, he would appreciate their renegade attitude and willingness to ignore authority. After all, that’s what he did.

Mac團(tuán)隊(duì)的資深成員意識到，他們可以勇敢地面對喬布斯。如果他們清楚自己在說什么的話，喬布斯就能容忍反對的聲音，甚至微笑面對、表達(dá)贊賞之情。到1983年，那些最熟悉他現(xiàn)實(shí)扭曲力場的人有了進(jìn)一步的發(fā)現(xiàn)：如果必要的話，他們可以不動聲色地忽略他的命令。如果事實(shí)證明他們是正確的，喬布斯就會欣賞他們的叛逆態(tài)度和敢于無視權(quán)威的意愿。畢竟，他自己就是這么做的。

By far the most important example of this involved the choice of a disk drive for the Macintosh. Apple had a corporate division that built mass-storage devices, and it had developed a disk-drive system, code-named Twiggy, that could read and write onto those thin, delicate 5?-inch floppy disks that older readers (who also remember Twiggy the model) will recall. But by the time the Lisa was ready to ship in the spring of 1983, it was clear that the Twiggy was buggy. Because the Lisa also came with a hard-disk drive, this was not a complete disaster. But the Mac had no hard disk, so it faced a crisis. “The Mac team was beginning to panic,” said Hertzfeld. “We were using a single Twiggy drive, and we didn’t have a hard disk to fall back on.”

迄今為止，喬布斯的叛逆精神影響的最重大的一次事件，是在為麥金塔選擇磁盤驅(qū)動器這件事上。當(dāng)時(shí)蘋果公司有一個(gè)部門是生產(chǎn)大容量存儲設(shè)備的，他們幵發(fā)了一套磁盤驅(qū)動系統(tǒng)，代號崔姬（Twiggy），它可以讀寫那些纖薄、精致的5.25英寸軟盤，年長一些的讀者（那些還記得模特崔姬是誰的人）一定還能回想起那種軟盤。但到了1983年春天，麗薩準(zhǔn)備上市的時(shí)候，崔姬系統(tǒng)的高故障率已經(jīng)很明顯了。因?yàn)辂愃_還帶有一個(gè)硬盤驅(qū)動器，所以對它來說情況并不算太糟。但Mac沒有硬盤，所以它就面臨著危機(jī)。“Mac團(tuán)隊(duì)開始感到驚慌了，”赫茨菲爾德說，“我們只用了一個(gè)崔姬系統(tǒng)作為軟盤驅(qū)動器，又沒有硬盤可以備用。”

The team discussed the problem at the January 1983 retreat, and Debi Coleman gave Jobs data about the Twiggy failure rate. A few days later he drove to Apple’s factory in San Jose to see the Twiggy being made. More than half were rejected. Jobs erupted. With his face flushed, he began shouting and sputtering about firing everyone who worked there. Bob Belleville, the head of the Mac engineering team, gently guided him to the parking lot, where they could take a walk and talk about alternatives.

1983年1月，在卡梅爾的那次度假中，他們討論了這個(gè)問題，黛比·科爾曼把崔姬系統(tǒng)故障率的數(shù)據(jù)給了喬布斯。幾天之后，喬布斯開車來到蘋果公司在圣何塞的工廠，視察崔姬的生產(chǎn)過程。生產(chǎn)中的每一個(gè)流程，都有超過一半的產(chǎn)品不合格。喬布斯憤怒了。他的臉氣得通紅，開始咆哮，氣急敗壞地說要開除那兒所有的員工。Mac工程團(tuán)隊(duì)的負(fù)責(zé)人鮑勃·貝爾維爾平靜地把他帶到了停車場，在那兒他們一邊散步一邊討論替代方案。

One possibility that Belleville had been exploring was to use a new 3?-inch disk drive that Sony had developed. The disk was cased in sturdier plastic and could fit into a shirt pocket. Another option was to have a clone of Sony’s 3?-inch disk drive manufactured by a smaller Japanese supplier, the Alps Electronics Co., which had been supplying disk drives for the Apple II. Alps had already licensed the technology from Sony, and if they could build their own version in time it would be much cheaper.

有一個(gè)辦法，也是貝爾維爾一直在探索的，就是使用索尼公司剛剛研發(fā)的新型3.5英寸磁盤。這種磁盤被包裹在更加牢固的塑料中，并且可以塞進(jìn)襯衫口袋。還有一個(gè)辦法，就是使用日本的一家小供應(yīng)商——阿爾卑斯電子公司（theAlpsElectronicsCo.）生產(chǎn)的索尼3.5英寸磁盤的仿制品，這家公司一直為AppleII供應(yīng)磁盤驅(qū)動器。阿爾卑斯電子公司當(dāng)時(shí)已經(jīng)獲得了索尼的技術(shù)授杈，如果他們能及時(shí)生產(chǎn)出自家版本的驅(qū)動器的話，價(jià)格將便宜不少。

Jobs and Belleville, along with Apple veteran Rod Holt (the guy Jobs enlisted to design the first power supply for the Apple II), flew to Japan to figure out what to do. They took the bullet train from Tokyo to visit the Alps facility. The engineers there didn’t even have a working prototype, just a crude model. Jobs thought it was great, but Belleville was appalled. There was no way, he thought, that Alps could have it ready for the Mac within a year.

喬布斯和貝爾維爾，以及蘋果的資深員工羅德·霍爾特（幫喬布斯設(shè)計(jì)AppleII第一款電源的人）一起飛到了日本，尋求解決問題的辦法。他們從東京乘坐高速列車前往阿爾卑斯電子公司的工廠。那里的工程師甚至連一件可以使用的樣機(jī)都沒有，只有一個(gè)未完工的模型。喬布斯覺得不錯(cuò)，但貝爾維爾對這種狀況感到震驚。他認(rèn)為，阿爾卑斯電子公司絕不可能在一年之內(nèi)將它準(zhǔn)備就緒，然后應(yīng)用到Mac上。

As they proceeded to visit other Japanese companies, Jobs was on his worst behavior. He wore jeans and sneakers to meetings with Japanese managers in dark suits. When they formally handed him little gifts, as was the custom, he often left them behind, and he never reciprocated with gifts of his own. He would sneer when rows of engineers lined up to greet him, bow, and politely offer their products for inspection. Jobs hated both the devices and the obsequiousness. “What are you showing me this for?” he snapped at one stop. “This is a piece of crap! Anybody could build a better drive than this.” Although most of his hosts were appalled, some seemed amused. They had heard tales of his obnoxious style and brash behavior, and now they were getting to see it in full display.

他們又接著參觀了另外幾家日本公司，喬布斯的舉止十分粗魯。他穿著牛仔褲和運(yùn)動鞋去跟那些穿深色西裝的日本經(jīng)理會面。他們會按照慣例，鄭重地遞給喬布斯一些小禮物，但這些禮物經(jīng)常被喬布斯丟在一邊，他也從沒有回贈禮物給對方。成排的工程師們列隊(duì)歡迎他，對他鞠躬，然后恭敬地送上自己的產(chǎn)品供他檢查，他只會冷笑一聲。喬布斯既討厭他們的產(chǎn)品，又討厭他們的諂媚。“你繪我看這個(gè)干什么？”他在一家工廠的時(shí)候厲聲問道，“這就是一塊垃圾！隨便找個(gè)人做出來的驅(qū)動器都比這個(gè)好。”雖然接待方的大多數(shù)人都會對他的舉止感到震驚，但有一些人似乎被他逗樂了。他們事先聽說過關(guān)于他令人討厭的作風(fēng)和魯莽行為的故事，現(xiàn)在親眼見到了。

The final stop was the Sony factory, located in a drab suburb of Tokyo. To Jobs, it looked messy and inelegant. A lot of the work was done by hand. He hated it. Back at the hotel, Belleville argued for going with the Sony disk drive. It was ready to use. Jobs disagreed. He decided that they would work with Alps to produce their own drive, and he ordered Belleville to cease all work with Sony.

參觀的最后一站是坐落在東京一處死氣沉沉的郊區(qū)的索尼工廠。在喬布斯看來，這家工廠很雜亂，要價(jià)也很髙，很多工作都是手工完成的。他痛恨這些。回到酒店后，貝爾維爾主張使用索尼的磁盤驅(qū)動器，因?yàn)樗鼈円呀?jīng)可以直接用到Mac上了。喬布斯不同意，他決定跟阿爾卑斯電子公司合作，生產(chǎn)他們自己的驅(qū)動器，同時(shí)命令貝爾維爾停止與索尼的一切合作。

Belleville decided it was best to partially ignore Jobs, and he asked a Sony executive to get its disk drive ready for use in the Macintosh. If and when it became clear that Alps could not deliver on time, Apple would switch to Sony. So Sony sent over the engineer who had developed the drive, Hidetoshi Komoto, a Purdue graduate who fortunately possessed a good sense of humor about his clandestine task.

貝爾維爾認(rèn)為最好在一定程度上忽略掉布斯。他向邁克·馬庫拉解釋了情況，馬庫拉悄悄告訴他，采取一切必要措施，確保在短時(shí)間內(nèi)準(zhǔn)備好一款磁盤驅(qū)動器——但是不要告訴喬布斯。貝爾維爾在自己的頂級工程師們的支持下，要求索尼的一名管理人員，讓他們的磁盤驅(qū)動器準(zhǔn)備好應(yīng)用于麥金塔電腦上。萬一阿爾卑斯電子公司無法按時(shí)供貨，蘋果公司就會轉(zhuǎn)用索尼的產(chǎn)品。于是索尼把開發(fā)這款驅(qū)動器的工程師派到了蘋果公司，他就是嘉本秀年（HidetoshiKomoto），畢業(yè)于普渡大學(xué)，幸運(yùn)的是，他對于這項(xiàng)秘密任務(wù)充滿了幽默感。

Whenever Jobs would come from his corporate office to visit the Mac team’s engineers—which was almost every afternoon—they would hurriedly find somewhere for Komoto to hide. At one point Jobs ran into him at a newsstand in Cupertino and recognized him from the meeting in Japan, but he didn’t suspect anything. The closest call was when Jobs came bustling onto the Mac work space unexpectedly one day while Komoto was sitting in one of the cubicles. A Mac engineer grabbed him and pointed him to a janitorial closet. “Quick, hide in this closet. Please! Now!” Komoto looked confused, Hertzfeld recalled, but he jumped up and did as told. He had to stay in the closet for five minutes, until Jobs left. The Mac engineers apologized. “No problem,” he replied. “But American business practices, they are very strange. Very strange.”

每當(dāng)喬布斯離開公司辦公室，前去視察Mac團(tuán)隊(duì)的工程師的時(shí)候——基本上是每天下午——他們都會趕緊找個(gè)地方讓嘉本藏起來。有一次，喬布斯恰巧在庫比蒂諾的一處報(bào)刊亭遇到了嘉本并且認(rèn)出了他，兩人在日本見過，但喬布斯并沒有起疑心。最險(xiǎn)的一次是有一天，喬布斯出人意料地、急匆匆地來到Mac團(tuán)隊(duì)的辦公區(qū)，而當(dāng)時(shí)嘉本正坐在一個(gè)辦公隔間里。Mac的一名工程師抓起他，指了指清潔間。“快點(diǎn)，躲到里面去。拜托了！現(xiàn)在就去！”赫茨菲爾德回憶說，當(dāng)時(shí)嘉本一臉迷惑，但還是跳起來一頭沖進(jìn)了清潔間。他在里面待了5分鐘，直到喬布斯離開。Mac團(tuán)隊(duì)的工程師們向他道歉。“沒關(guān)系，”他回答道，“但美國的商業(yè)習(xí)慣真是非常奇怪，非常奇怪。”

Belleville’s prediction came true. In May 1983 the folks at Alps admitted it would take them at least eighteen more months to get their clone of the Sony drive into production. At a retreat in Pajaro Dunes, Markkula grilled Jobs on what he was going to do. Finally, Belleville interrupted and said that he might have an alternative to the Alps drive ready soon. Jobs looked baffled for just a moment, and then it became clear to him why he’d glimpsed Sony’s top disk designer in Cupertino. “You son of a bitch!” Jobs said. But it was not in anger. There was a big grin on his face. As soon as he realized what Belleville and the other engineers had done behind his back, said Hertzfeld, “Steve swallowed his pride and thanked them for disobeying him and doing the right thing.” It was, after all, what he would have done in their situation.

貝爾維爾的預(yù)言變成了現(xiàn)實(shí)。1983年5月，阿爾卑斯電子公司的人承認(rèn)，至少還需要18個(gè)月，才能生產(chǎn)出索尼驅(qū)動器的仿制品。在帕加羅沙丘休假時(shí)，馬庫拉追問喬布斯打算怎么辦。最終，貝爾維爾打斷了他們的對話，說自己可能有阿爾卑斯驅(qū)動器的替代產(chǎn)品，并且很快就可以投入使用。喬布斯困惑了一會兒，但很快他就明白了自己為什么會在庫比蒂諾遇到索尼的頂尖磁盤設(shè)計(jì)師。“你這個(gè)混蛋！”喬布斯說，但他的語氣中并沒有憤怒。他咧開嘴笑了起來。赫茨菲爾德說，喬布斯在知道了貝爾維爾和其他工程師背著他做的事情后，“收起了自己的傲慢，感謝他們沒有服從自己的命令，做了正確的事情”。畢竟，如果是喬布斯遇到這樣的狀況，他也會這么做的——

注釋：

①佛教禪宗用語。