The Computer

NeXT計算機

During the early months of NeXT, Jobs and Dan’l Lewin went on the road, often accompanied by a few colleagues, to visit campuses and solicit opinions. At Harvard they met with Mitch Kapor, the chairman of Lotus software, over dinner at Harvest restaurant. When Kapor began slathering butter on his bread, Jobs asked him, “Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?” Kapor responded, “I’ll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality.” It was meant humorously, but as Kapor later commented, “Human relationships were not his strong suit.” Lotus agreed to write a spreadsheet program for the NeXT operating system.

NeXT公司成立的最初幾個月，喬布斯和丹·盧因四處奔波，常常和其他一些同事一起走訪校園，征求意見。在哈佛大學，他們遇見了正在Harvest餐廳就餐的蓮花軟件公司董事長米切爾·卡普爾。卡普爾正往面包上涂黃油，喬布斯看著他問道：“你聽說過血清膽固醇嗎？”卡普爾回答說：“我們來作個交易，你別評論我的飲食習慣，我也不談論你的性格。”這是卡普爾的小幽默，蓮花公司同意為NeXT操作系統(tǒng)編寫電子表格程序，但是正如卡普爾后來評論的那樣：“人際關(guān)系不是他的長項。”

Jobs wanted to bundle useful content with the machine, so Michael Hawley, one of the engineers, developed a digital dictionary. He learned that a friend of his at Oxford University Press had been involved in the typesetting of a new edition of Shakespeare’s works. That meant that there was probably a computer tape he could get his hands on and, if so, incorporate it into the NeXT’s memory. “So I called up Steve, and he said that would be awesome, and we flew over to Oxford together.” On a beautiful spring day in 1986, they met in the publishing house’s grand building in the heart of Oxford, where Jobs made an offer of $2,000 plus 74 cents for every computer sold in order to have the rights to Oxford’s edition of Shakespeare. “It will be all gravy to you,” he argued. “You will be ahead of the parade. It’s never been done before.” They agreed in principle and then went out to play skittles over beer at a nearby pub where Lord Byron used to drink. By the time it launched, the NeXT would also include a dictionary, a thesaurus, and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, making it one of the pioneers of the concept of searchable electronic books.

喬布斯想要在機器中預裝出色的內(nèi)容，于是工程師邁克爾·霍利（MichaelHawley）開發(fā)了一部電子詞典。一天，他買了新版的莎士比亞作品集，翻閱時發(fā)現(xiàn)自己有位朋友在牛津大學出版社并參與了這本書的卩版。這意味著，霍利或許可以拿到他們的排版，而且如果對方同意，就能把這本書存入NeXT。“于是，我打電話給史蒂夫。他說這主意很棒，我們就一起飛到牛津。”在1986年春天的一個美麗的日子，他們在牛津郡中心的出版社大樓見面，喬布斯提出，一次性支付2000美元且每賣出一臺電腦支付給出版社74美分，以獲得牛津版莎士比亞作品集的版權(quán)。“這對你們而言就是輕而易舉的收入，”喬布斯表示，“你們將走在潮流的前列，這是別人從來沒有做過的事情。”出版社大體上同意了，然后他們一同前往拜倫曾經(jīng)駐足的小酒館，喝啤酒玩撞柱游戲。NeXT電腦還將囊括一部字典、一部百科匯編和一部《牛津引語詞典》，這使得NeXT電腦成為實現(xiàn)可搜索式電子書概念的先驅(qū)之一。

Instead of using off-the-shelf chips for the NeXT, Jobs had his engineers design custom ones that integrated a variety of functions on one chip. That would have been hard enough, but Jobs made it almost impossible by continually revising the functions he wanted it to do. After a year it became clear that this would be a major source of delay.

NeXT電腦沒有使用現(xiàn)成的芯片，喬布斯讓工程師們設(shè)計定制芯片，能夠在一個芯片上集成多種功能。這已經(jīng)夠困難的了，而喬布斯還在不斷修改他想要的功能，這就使得這項工作幾乎不可能完成。一年后，這成了產(chǎn)品延遲發(fā)布的一個主要原因。

He also insisted on building his own fully automated and futuristic factory, just as he had for the Macintosh; he had not been chastened by that experience. This time too he made the same mistakes, only more excessively. Machines and robots were painted and repainted as he compulsively revised his color scheme. The walls were museum white, as they had been at the Macintosh factory, and there were $20,000 black leather chairs and a custom-made staircase, just as in the corporate headquarters. He insisted that the machinery on the 165-foot assembly line be configured to move the circuit boards from right to left as they got built, so that the process would look better to visitors who watched from the viewing gallery. Empty circuit boards were fed in at one end and twenty minutes later, untouched by humans, came out the other end as completed boards. The process followed the Japanese principle known as kanban, in which each machine performs its task only when the next machine is ready to receive another part.

喬布斯還堅持建設(shè)自己的全自動化和未來派的工廠，就像他曾經(jīng)對麥金塔項目的設(shè)想一樣。他并未從那次經(jīng)歷中學乖。這次，他犯了同樣的錯誤，而且有過之而無不及。由于他強迫癥似的不斷修改配色方案，機器和機器人被噴涂了一遍又一遍。墻壁是博物館式的純白色，就和麥金塔工廠一樣，工廠里還擺放著價值2萬美元的黑色皮座椅，修造了一截定制的樓梯，就和NeXT公司總部一樣。喬布斯堅持重新配置總長165英尺的裝配線上的所有機器，從而在生產(chǎn)時，可以讓電路板從右向左移動，這樣在有人來參觀時，站在觀景臺上就會看到更漂亮的生產(chǎn)流程。原始電路板從裝配線的一端進入，20分鐘后，做好的電路板再從另一端出來，完全無需人工接觸。這種流程是學習了日本的“看板管理”（Kanban），只有當負責下一個流程的機器能夠處理另一個零件時，負責上一個流程的機器才會開始執(zhí)行自己的任務。

Jobs had not tempered his way of dealing with employees. “He applied charm or public humiliation in a way that in most cases proved to be pretty effective,” Tribble recalled. But sometimes it wasn’t. One engineer, David Paulsen, put in ninety-hour weeks for the first ten months at NeXT. He quit when “Steve walked in one Friday afternoon and told us how unimpressed he was with what we were doing.” When Business Week asked him why he treated employees so harshly, Jobs said it made the company better. “Part of my responsibility is to be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” But he still had his spirit and charisma. There were plenty of field trips, visits by akido masters, and off-site retreats. And he still exuded the pirate flag spunkiness. When Apple fired Chiat/Day, the ad firm that had done the “1984” ad and taken out the newspaper ad saying “Welcome IBM—seriously,” Jobs took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming, “Congratulations Chiat/Day—Seriously . . . Because I can guarantee you: there is life after Apple.”

喬布斯沒有緩和自己對待員工的苛刻方式。“他對施展魅力和公開羞辱這兩種方式的運用，在大多數(shù)情況下非常奏效。”特里布爾回憶道。但有時候也不盡然。工程師戴維·保爾森（DavidPaulsen）在NeXT工作的頭10個月里，每周工作90個小時。之后，他辭職不干了，他回憶說，“一個周五下午，喬布斯走進來，跟我們說，他對我們所正在做的東西非常之不屑一顧。”《新聞周刊》采訪喬布斯，問他為什么要對員工如此嚴厲，喬布斯說，這樣才會使公司更好。“我的一部分責任就是衡量質(zhì)量。有些人不習慣那種追求卓越的環(huán)境。”另一方面，他仍然保持著自己的精神和領(lǐng)袖魅力。喬布斯組織了大量的實地考察以及外出集思會，還經(jīng)常請合氣道大師來公司參觀。他仍然表現(xiàn)出英勇的海盜氣質(zhì)。蘋果解雇了Chiat/Day廣告公司，它曾做過1984”廣告，以及在報紙上刊登平面廣告，上書“歡迎——真的”。喬布斯就在《華爾街日報》買下了一整版版面，宣稱“恭喜Chiat/Day廣告公司——真的……因為我能保證：離開蘋果后是重生”。

Perhaps the greatest similarity to his days at Apple was that Jobs brought with him his reality distortion field. It was on display at the company’s first retreat at Pebble Beach in late 1985. There Jobs pronounced that the first NeXT computer would be shipped in just eighteen months. It was already clear that this date was impossible, but he blew off a suggestion from one engineer that they be realistic and plan on shipping in 1988. “If we do that, the world isn’t standing still, the technology window passes us by, and all the work we’ve done we have to throw down the toilet,” he argued.

蘋果和后蘋果生活之間的最大共同點便是喬布斯的現(xiàn)實扭曲力場。1985年底，NeXT在圓石灘（PebbleBeach）舉行了第一次外出集思會，喬布斯的現(xiàn)實扭曲力場在離開蘋果后第一次展現(xiàn)了出來。他對自己的團隊斷言，第一臺NeXT將在18個月內(nèi)出貨。當時情況已經(jīng)很明顯，這是不可能的。一位工程師建議現(xiàn)實一點兒，將出貨期改為1988年，喬布斯駁回了這個提議。“世界不會靜止不動，如果我們這樣做，領(lǐng)先的技術(shù)就會把我們甩下，而我們已經(jīng)做出來的東西就不得不被扔進垃圾桶。”他爭論道。

Joanna Hoffman, the veteran of the Macintosh team who was among those willing to challenge Jobs, did so. “Reality distortion has motivational value, and I think that’s fine,” she said as Jobs stood at a whiteboard. “However, when it comes to setting a date in a way that affects the design of the product, then we get into real deep shit.” Jobs didn’t agree: “I think we have to drive a stake in the ground somewhere, and I think if we miss this window, then our credibility starts to erode.” What he did not say, even though it was suspected by all, was that if their targets slipped they might run out of money. Jobs had pledged $7 million of his own funds, but at their current burn rate that would run out in eighteen months if they didn’t start getting some revenue from shipped products.

麥金塔團隊的老成員喬安娜·霍夫曼是敢于挑戰(zhàn)喬布斯的人之一，她又一次這樣做了。“現(xiàn)實扭曲具有激勵價值，我覺得這很好。”她說，當時喬布斯站在白板前，“但是，出貨日期會影響產(chǎn)品的設(shè)計，所以在設(shè)定這種日期的時候，如果還扭曲現(xiàn)實就會帶來大麻煩。”喬布斯不同意，“我覺得我們必須賭一把，而且，我認為，如果錯過了這個肘間，我們的信譽就會受損。”盡管很多人都懷疑之所以不能推遲是因為目標如果沒有實現(xiàn)就可能資金短缺，但喬布斯并沒有提及這個原因。他自己在NeXT公司投了700萬美元，但是按照他們當時的資金消耗速度，這筆錢只能撐18個月；如果那時還無法通過出貨獲得收入，他們就沒錢了。

Three months later, when they returned to Pebble Beach for their next retreat, Jobs began his list of maxims with “The honeymoon is over.” By the time of the third retreat, in Sonoma in September 1986, the timetable was gone, and it looked as though the company would hit a financial wall.

3個月后，即1986年初，他們?yōu)橛忠淮瓮獬黾紩氐搅藞A石灘，喬布斯訓話時開場說道：“蜜月結(jié)束了。”1986年9月，第三次外出集思會，整個時間表已不見蹤影，看上去NeXT已經(jīng)走上了財政末路。