Showdown, Spring 1985

攤牌，1985年春

There were many reasons for the rift between Jobs and Sculley in the spring of 1985. Some were merely business disagreements, such as Sculley’s attempt to maximize profits by keeping the Macintosh price high when Jobs wanted to make it more affordable. Others were weirdly psychological and stemmed from the torrid and unlikely infatuation they initially had with each other. Sculley had painfully craved Jobs’s affection, Jobs had eagerly sought a father figure and mentor, and when the ardor began to cool there was an emotional backwash. But at its core, the growing breach had two fundamental causes, one on each side.

1985年春，喬布斯和斯卡利之間出現了裂痕。原因是多方面的。有些只是業務上的分歧，譬如，斯卡利意圖維持麥金塔的髙價來達到利潤最大化，而喬布斯則想要讓它的價格更實惠。另一些就是奇怪的心理因素，源自他們最初對彼此的狂熱和不現實的迷戀。斯卡利苦苦渴求喬布斯的喜愛，而喬布斯則渴望在斯卡利身上獲得父親和良師益友般的感覺。當兩人的熱情開始降溫時，就產生了情緒上的反彈。但是，造成兩人之間裂痕日益加深的根本原因仍在他們自己身上。

For Jobs, the problem was that Sculley never became a product person. He didn’t make the effort, or show the capacity, to understand the fine points of what they were making. On the contrary, he found Jobs’s passion for tiny technical tweaks and design details to be obsessive and counterproductive. He had spent his career selling sodas and snacks whose recipes were largely irrelevant to him. He wasn’t naturally passionate about products, which was among the most damning sins that Jobs could imagine. “I tried to educate him about the details of engineering,” Jobs recalled, “but he had no idea how products are created, and after a while it just turned into arguments. But I learned that my perspective was right. Products are everything.” He came to see Sculley as clueless, and his contempt was exacerbated by Sculley’s hunger for his affection and delusions that they were very similar.

對喬布斯來說，問題在于斯卡利從來都沒有成為一個懂產品的人。他沒有努力，也沒有顯示出自己有能力理解蘋果公司所做產品的精妙之處。相反，斯卡利覺得喬布斯太過沉迷于細微的技術調整和設計細節，沒有效率。他過去做的工作是銷售汽水和零食，產品的配方在很大程度上與自己無關。他對產品也沒有天生的熱情，而這正是喬布斯所能想象的最深重的罪孽之一。“我試圖教會他工程上的細節，”喬布斯后來回憶說，“但是，他不知道產品是怎樣創造出來的，一段時間以后，這種培養變成了爭論。但我知道，我的觀點是正確的。產品就是一切。”他覺得斯卡利很愚蠢。但斯卡利渴望得到喬布斯的喜愛，并且產生了自己和他很相似的幻覺，這更加劇了喬布斯對他的蔑視。

For Sculley, the problem was that Jobs, when he was no longer in courtship or manipulative mode, was frequently obnoxious, rude, selfish, and nasty to other people. He found Jobs’s boorish behavior as despicable as Jobs found Sculley’s lack of passion for product details. Sculley was kind, caring, and polite to a fault. At one point they were planning to meet with Xerox’s vice chair Bill Glavin, and Sculley begged Jobs to behave. But as soon as they sat down, Jobs told Glavin, “You guys don’t have any clue what you’re doing,” and the meeting broke up. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help myself,” Jobs told Sculley. It was one of many such cases. As Atari’s Al Alcorn later observed, “Sculley believed in keeping people happy and worrying about relationships. Steve didn’t give a shit about that. But he did care about the product in a way that Sculley never could, and he was able to avoid having too many bozos working at Apple by insulting anyone who wasn’t an A player.”

而斯卡利覺得問題出在喬布斯身上，當喬布斯不再處于“求愛期”或有所圖時，就常常很令人討厭、粗魯、自私并且對其他人脾氣不好。斯卡利經歷過寄宿學校和大客戶銷售工作的打磨，他覺得喬布斯的行為粗魯可鄙，這程度就和喬布斯鄙視他對產品細節缺乏激情一樣。斯卡利能和善、關切、彬彬有禮地對待錯誤，喬布斯則做不到。有一回，他們計劃與施樂公司董事會副主席比爾·格拉文（BillGlavin）會面，斯卡利乞求喬布斯到時候不要失禮。然而，剛一就座，喬布斯就跟格拉文說：“你們這些家伙完全不知道自己在做什么。”會面不歡而散。“對不起，但我控制不住自己。”喬布斯告訴斯卡利。這只是許多類似情況中的一例。正如雅達利公司的阿爾·奧爾康后來評論的，“斯卡利想讓別人高興，并會顧及人際關系。史蒂夫對此則不屑一顧。但他對產品的關注又是斯卡利永遠達不到的，而且喬布斯會侮辱任何一個算不上一流隊員的人，以避免蘋果出現太多的笨蛋。”

The board became increasingly alarmed at the turmoil, and in early 1985 Arthur Rock and some other disgruntled directors delivered a stern lecture to both. They told Sculley that he was supposed to be running the company, and he should start doing so with more authority and less eagerness to be pals with Jobs. They told Jobs that he was supposed to be fixing the mess at the Macintosh division and not telling other divisions how to do their job. Afterward Jobs retreated to his office and typed on his Macintosh, “I will not criticize the rest of the organization, I will not criticize the rest of the organization . . .”

董事會對于兩人關系的動蕩越發警覺。1985年初，亞瑟·羅克及其他一些心懷不滿的董事對他們倆進行了嚴厲的訓誡。他們告訴斯卡利，本來應該由他來運營公司，他應該用更大的權力履行管理蘋果公司的職責，而少花些心思同喬布斯交好。他們告訴喬布斯，他應該解決麥金塔部門內部的混亂狀況，而不應該告訴別的部門如何做好本職工作。之后，喬布斯回到辦公室，在自己的電腦上打著：“我不再批評公司其他部門，我不再批評公司其他部門。”

As the Macintosh continued to disappoint—sales in March 1985 were only 10% of the budget forecast—Jobs holed up in his office fuming or wandered the halls berating everyone else for the problems. His mood swings became worse, and so did his abuse of those around him. Middle-level managers began to rise up against him. The marketing chief Mike Murray sought a private meeting with Sculley at an industry conference. As they were going up to Sculley’s hotel room, Jobs spotted them and asked to come along. Murray asked him not to. He told Sculley that Jobs was wreaking havoc and had to be removed from managing the Macintosh division. Sculley replied that he was not yet resigned to having a showdown with Jobs. Murray later sent a memo directly to Jobs criticizing the way he treated colleagues and denouncing “management by character assassination.”

1985年3月，麥金塔電腦的表現持續令人失望，其銷量只有預測的10%,喬布斯躲在自己的辦公室里生氣，或是在大廳里訓斥其他人。他的情緒起伏更大，對周圍人的辱罵也更甚。中層主管們開始起來反抗他。營銷主管邁克·默里在一個行業會議上與斯卡利私下會面。兩人走向斯卡利的酒店房間時，喬布斯看到了，于是要求一起去。默里叫他不要跟過來。默里告訴斯卡利，喬布斯正在造成嚴重的破壞，必須把他從麥金塔部門的管理層踢走。斯卡利回答說，自己還沒有到要和喬布斯攤牌的地步。默里后來直接給喬布斯發了一份備忘錄，批評他對待同事的方式，并譴責其“人身攻擊的管理方式”。

For a few weeks it seemed as if there might be a solution to the turmoil. Jobs became fascinated by a flat-screen technology developed by a firm near Palo Alto called Woodside Design, run by an eccentric engineer named Steve Kitchen. He also was impressed by another startup that made a touchscreen display that could be controlled by your finger, so you didn’t need a mouse. Together these might help fulfill Jobs’s vision of creating a “Mac in a book.” On a walk with Kitchen, Jobs spotted a building in nearby Menlo Park and declared that they should open a skunkworks facility to work on these ideas. It could be called AppleLabs and Jobs could run it, going back to the joy of having a small team and developing a great new product.

有好幾個星期的時甸，兩人之間的問題似乎存在某種解決的可能。喬布斯開始著迷于一種平板顯示屏技術，這是帕洛奧圖附近的伍德賽德設計公司（WoodsideDesign）研發的，管理這家設計公司的是一位名叫史蒂夫·基欽（SteveKitchen）的古怪工程師。另一家創業公司做出的觸摸屏也讓喬布斯興致很濃，利用這種技術，用戶可以直接用手指控制設備，而無需鼠標。這兩種技術可能有助于實現喬布斯創造“Mac書”（Macinabook）的愿景。同基欽的一次散步中，在門洛帕克附近的一幢建筑旁，喬布斯說道，他們可以開設一處科研基地，以實現這些想法。它可以叫蘋果實驗室（AppleLabs），由喬布斯來管理，這樣，他又能重回帶領小團隊開發偉大新產品的喜悅之中。