I took another really important course called gaming theory while I was here. Gaming theory to me was fascinating because, with all due respect to my very erudite teachers Jake Jacoby took that course. It's a great course, but to me what gaming theory was an attempt by scientists to explain irrational decision making and irrational framework. Not all decisions are rational; not all decisions are scientifically based. Many people in business are overcome at times by their fears, their resentments, their rivalries, their agendas. It is part of life and business is a collection of people working together. I started out as a secretary. I was a medieval history major and philosophy major at Stanford University; it was really interesting but it would not pay the bills. I went on to law school, and discovered very quickly that I hated law school. So I quit. And then I had to pay the bills. And I took the only job that I knew I could do that would pay my bills and that was to be a secretary. Actually, secretary is big glorified, I was a receptionist, I sat in front of the building I typed and I answered the phones. That was my job. I thought while I was a secretary that the people in the mail room must be fundamentally different from the people in the board-mom. In what I have learned, in the course of my life, and my career and what this book is all about is that people are people wherever you find them.
adj. 中世纪的