Amelio resisted. “Remember, Ed, I told the board it was going to take three years to get this company back on its feet again,” he said. “I’m not even halfway through.”

阿梅里奧還想反抗。“記得嗎，埃德，我當(dāng)初告訴董事會需要三年時間讓這家公司重新站起來，”他說，“現(xiàn)在我連一半還沒走到。”

“The board is at the place where we don’t want to discuss it further,” Woolard replied. Amelio asked who knew about the decision, and Woolard told him the truth: the rest of the board plus Jobs. “Steve was one of the people we talked to about this,” Woolard said. “His view is that you’re a really nice guy, but you don’t know much about the computer industry.”

“董事會認(rèn)為我們不想再繼續(xù)討論了。”伍拉德答道。阿梅里奧問都有誰知道這個決定，伍拉德實話實說：董事會其他成員加上喬布斯。“史蒂夫是我們討論這件事的人之一。”伍拉德說，“他的觀點是你是個好人，但是你對計算機行業(yè)了解得不多。”

“Why in the world would you involve Steve in a decision like this?” Amelio replied, getting angry. “Steve is not even a member of the board of directors, so what the hell is he doing in any of this conversation?” But Woolard didn’t back down, and Amelio hung up to carry on with the family picnic before telling his wife.

“你們怎么會在作這樣的決定時把史蒂夫扯進(jìn)來？”阿梅里臾生氣地說，“史蒂夫連董事會成員都不是，他到底為什么會參與這樣的討論？”但是伍拉德沒有讓步。阿梅里奧掛上電話，繼續(xù)跟家人去野餐，之后才告訴他妻子。

At times Jobs displayed a strange mixture of prickliness and neediness. He usually didn’t care one iota what people thought of him; he could cut people off and never care to speak to them again. Yet sometimes he also felt a compulsion to explain himself. So that evening Amelio received, to his surprise, a phone call from Jobs. “Gee, Gil, I just wanted you to know, I talked to Ed today about this thing and I really feel bad about it,” he said. “I want you to know that I had absolutely nothing to do with this turn of events, it was a decision the board made, but they had asked me for advice and counsel.” He told Amelio he respected him for having “the highest integrity of anyone I’ve ever met,” and went on to give some unsolicited advice. “Take six months off,” Jobs told him. “When I got thrown out of Apple, I immediately went back to work, and I regretted it.” He offered to be a sounding board if Amelio ever wanted more advice.

喬布斯時常會有一種奇怪的表現(xiàn)，一會兒渾身是刺，一會兒又渴望交流。對此，他常常完全不在乎別人會怎么想。他可以跟人絕交，冉也不想跟他們講話，但是有時他也有沖動解釋自己。所以那天晚上，阿梅里奧接到喬布斯的電話很驚訝。“吉爾，我只是想讓你知道，我今天跟埃德談了這件事，我真的感覺很糟糕，”他說，“我想讓你知道我跟這些局勢的變化完全沒有關(guān)系，那是董事會作出的決定，但是他們問了我的意見。”他告訴阿梅里奧他尊重他是“我所見過的最正直的人”，然后又主動給出了一些建議。“休6個月的假，”喬布斯告訴他，“當(dāng)年我被踢出蘋果時，立即開始了新的工作，后來很后悔。我真應(yīng)該好好享受那段時間。”他說任何時候阿梅里奧如果需要建議，都可以來找他。