Keeping Jobs happy and deferring to his expertise may have seemed like a smart strategy to Sculley. But he failed to realize that it was not in Jobs’s nature to share control. Deference did not come naturally to him. He began to become more vocal about how he thought the company should be run. At the 1984 business strategy meeting, for example, he pushed to make the company’s centralized sales and marketing staffs bid on the right to provide their services to the various product divisions. (This would have meant, for example, that the Macintosh group could decide not to use Apple’s marketing team and instead create one of its own.) No one else was in favor, but Jobs kept trying to ram it through. “People were looking to me to take control, to get him to sit down and shut up, but I didn’t,” Sculley recalled. As the meeting broke up, he heard someone whisper, “Why doesn’t Sculley shut him up?”
對斯卡利來說,讓喬布斯髙興并聽從他的專業(yè)意見,這可能是一個明智的策略;他認為這樣比采取對立的態(tài)度要好,這沒錯。但是,他未能認識到,在喬布斯的天性里,控制權(quán)不能共享。喬布斯并沒有自然而然學(xué)會服叢,他開始愈發(fā)強烈地表達自己對公司運營的看法。例如,在1984年的公司經(jīng)營戰(zhàn)略會議上,喬布斯逼迫蘋果公司的市場和銷售部門通過競標(biāo)的方式獲得為各產(chǎn)品部門的服務(wù)權(quán)。沒有人贊成這種方式,但是喬布斯不斷努力想要通過這個方案。“人們指望我來掌控局面,讓喬布斯坐下閉嘴,但我沒有這么做。”斯卡利回憶說。會議不歡而散,他聽到有人低聲說,“為什么斯卡利不讓他閉嘴?”
When Jobs decided to build a state-of-the-art factory in Fremont to manufacture the Macintosh, his aesthetic passions and controlling nature kicked into high gear. He wanted the machinery to be painted in bright hues, like the Apple logo, but he spent so much time going over paint chips that Apple’s manufacturing director, Matt Carter, finally just installed them in their usual beige and gray. When Jobs took a tour, he ordered that the machines be repainted in the bright colors he wanted. Carter objected; this was precision equipment, and repainting the machines could cause problems. He turned out to be right. One of the most expensive machines, which got painted bright blue, ended up not working properly and was dubbed “Steve’s folly.” Finally Carter quit. “It took so much energy to fight him, and it was usually over something so pointless that finally I had enough,” he recalled.
喬布斯決定在弗雷蒙建一家最先進的工廠,用以生產(chǎn)麥金塔,這時他的審美激情和控制天性越發(fā)達到極致。他想要把機械設(shè)備也涂成明亮的色調(diào),就像蘋果的彩虹標(biāo)志一樣;但是,他在顏色選擇上花了太多時間,以至于蘋果公司的生產(chǎn)總監(jiān)馬特·卡特(MattCarter)最后決定就用原本的米色或灰色。喬布斯去工廠參觀時,又下令把機器重新噴刷成他想要的鮮艷色彩。卡特反對,他認為這都是些精密設(shè)備,重新噴刷可能會造成問題。卡特說的沒錯。一臺最貴的機器被噴成亮藍色后就再也無法正常工作了,它被人戲稱為“史蒂夫的愚作”。最后,卡特辭職了。“跟他抗?fàn)幪M精力了,而且常常是為一些毫無意義的東西,我受夠了。”他回憶道。
Jobs tapped as a replacement Debi Coleman, the spunky but good-natured Macintosh financial officer who had once won the team’s annual award for the person who best stood up to Jobs. But she knew how to cater to his whims when necessary. When Apple’s art director, Clement Mok, informed her that Jobs wanted the walls to be pure white, she protested, “You can’t paint a factory pure white. There’s going to be dust and stuff all over.” Mok replied, “There’s no white that’s too white for Steve.” She ended up going along. With its pure white walls and its bright blue, yellow, and red machines, the factory floor “l(fā)ooked like an Alexander Calder showcase,” said Coleman.
喬布斯找來麥金塔團隊的財務(wù)主管黛比·科爾曼接任卡特的職位。科爾曼精力充沛、為人和善,麥金塔團隊有一個對抗喬布斯最佳人物年度大獎,科爾曼曾贏得該獎。但她也知道如何在必要的時候迎合喬布斯的奇想。蘋果公司的藝術(shù)總監(jiān)克萊門特·莫克(ClementMok)通知科爾曼說,喬布斯想把墻都刷成純白色,她反對說:“工廠不能刷成純白色,那樣到處都會是灰塵和臟東西。”莫克的回復(fù)是:“對喬布斯來說,多白都不過分。”科爾曼最后只好隨他去了。純白色的墻壁,亮藍色、黃色或紅色的機器,整個工廠車間“看上去就像亞歷山大·考爾德(AlexanderCalder)②的作品展”。科爾曼這樣描述。
When asked about his obsessive concern over the look of the factory, Jobs said it was a way to ensure a passion for perfection:
當(dāng)被問及為何對工廠的外觀如此重視時,喬布斯說,這是保證對完美的激情的一種方式:
I’d go out to the factory, and I’d put on a white glove to check for dust. I’d find it everywhere—on machines, on the tops of the racks, on the floor. And I’d ask Debi to get it cleaned. I told her I thought we should be able to eat off the floor of the factory. Well, this drove Debi up the wall. She didn’t understand why. And I couldn’t articulate it back then. See, I’d been very influenced by what I’d seen in Japan. Part of what I greatly admired there—and part of what we were lacking in our factory—was a sense of teamwork and discipline. If we didn’t have the discipline to keep that place spotless, then we weren’t going to have the discipline to keep all these machines running.
我會到工廠去,戴上一只白色手套檢查灰塵。我發(fā)現(xiàn)到處都是灰塵——機器上、機架頂部、地板上,然后就叫黛比清理。我跟她說,我們要一塵不染,這讓黛比非常惱火,她不明白,為什么要這么干凈。而我當(dāng)時也無法說明這個原因。明白嗎?在日本所看到的東西對我影響非常大。我十分欽佩曰本的一部分原因就在于他們的團隊精神和紀(jì)律意識,而這也是我們的工廠所缺少的東西。如果我們連保持工廠一塵不染都做不到,那么也無法讓所有機器都保證運轉(zhuǎn)。
One Sunday morning Jobs brought his father to see the factory. Paul Jobs had always been fastidious about making sure that his craftsmanship was exacting and his tools in order, and his son was proud to show that he could do the same. Coleman came along to give the tour. “Steve was, like, beaming,” she recalled. “He was so proud to show his father this creation.” Jobs explained how everything worked, and his father seemed truly admiring. “He kept looking at his father, who touched everything and loved how clean and perfect everything looked.”
一個周日的早晨,喬布斯把自己的父親帶到了工廠。保羅·喬布斯一向很講究,要確保自己的工藝嚴(yán)格,工具擺放整齊;史蒂夫很自豪地向父親展示,自己也能做到這樣。科爾曼當(dāng)時也陪同參觀。“史蒂夫當(dāng)時高興得不得了,”她回憶說,“他很自豪地向他父親展示自己的這一創(chuàng)造。”喬布斯向父親解釋工廠的運作方式,保羅似乎很欣賞。“他觸摸了每一樣?xùn)|西,非常欣賞這一切干凈和完美的程度,喬布斯則一直看著他。”
Things were not quite as sweet when Danielle Mitterrand toured the factory. The Cuba-admiring wife of France’s socialist president Fran?ois Mitterrand asked a lot of questions, through her translator, about the working conditions, while Jobs, who had grabbed Alain Rossmann to serve as his translator, kept trying to explain the advanced robotics and technology. After Jobs talked about the just-in-time production schedules, she asked about overtime pay. He was annoyed, so he described how automation helped him keep down labor costs, a subject he knew would not delight her. “Is it hard work?” she asked. “How much vacation time do they get?” Jobs couldn’t contain himself. “If she’s so interested in their welfare,” he said to her translator, “tell her she can come work here any time.” The translator turned pale and said nothing. After a moment Rossmann stepped in to say, in French, “M. Jobs says he thanks you for your visit and your interest in the factory.” Neither Jobs nor Madame Mitterrand knew what happened, Rossmann recalled, but her translator looked very relieved.
不過,當(dāng)法國總統(tǒng)密特朗的夫人達妮埃爾·密特朗來工廠參觀時,氣氛就不那么融洽了。達妮埃爾對古巴很欣賞,那次是陪同丈夫來進行國事訪問的。喬布斯讓喬安娜·霍夫曼的丈夫阿蘭·羅斯曼來做翻譯。密特朗夫人通過自己的翻譯人員,就工廠的工作條件問了很多問題,而喬布斯卻一直在解釋自己先進的機器人和技術(shù)。喬布斯談?wù)摿藴?zhǔn)時生產(chǎn)制(JIT)計劃后,密特朗夫人卻開始詢問工人的加班工資。他很惱火,于是開始描述自動化如何幫助自己壓低了勞動成本,他知道這個話題會讓她不高興。“工人的活兒很重嗎?”她問道,“他們有多少休假時間?”喬布斯按捺不住了。“如果她對工人的福利這么感興趣,”他對密特朗夫人的翻譯說,“告訴她,隨時歡迎她來這兒工作。”翻譯聽了臉色蒼白,什么都沒說。過了一會兒,羅斯曼介入進來,用法語說:“夫人,喬布斯說,感謝您的到訪及您對工廠的興趣。”喬布斯和密特朗夫人都不知道到底發(fā)生了什么,而那位翻譯頓時感到徹底解脫。