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《名人传记》之乔布斯遗失的访谈30:处于瘫痪状态的苹果

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30CHAPTER NINE

第九章

GOING PUBLIC

上市

A Man of Wealth and Fame

名利双收

Options

期权纷争

When Mike Markkula joined Jobs and Wozniak to turn their fledgling partnership into the Apple Computer Co. in January 1977, they valued it at $5,309. Less than four years later they decided it was time to take it public. It would become the most oversubscribed initial public offering since that of Ford Motors in 1956. By the end of December 1980, Apple would be valued at $1.79 billion. Yes, billion. In the process it would make three hundred people millionaires.

1977年1月,马库拉加入了乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克的生意,将这两个新手创立的事业转变成了苹果计算机公司(AppleComputerCo.),当时他们对公司的估价是5309美元。过了不到4年,他们认为公司上市的时机到了。苹果公司造就了自1956年福特汽车之后,超额认购最为火爆的首次公开募股(IPO)。到1980年12月底,苹果的估值已高达17.9亿美元。没错,是“亿”,它也让300个人变成了百万富翁。

Daniel Kottke was not one of them. He had been Jobs’s soul mate in college, in India, at the All One Farm, and in the rental house they shared during the Chrisann Brennan crisis. He joined Apple when it was headquartered in Jobs’s garage, and he still worked there as an hourly employee. But he was not at a high enough level to be cut in on the stock options that were awarded before the IPO. “I totally trusted Steve, and I assumed he would take care of me like I’d taken care of him, so I didn’t push,” said Kottke. The official reason he wasn’t given stock options was that he was an hourly technician, not a salaried engineer, which was the cutoff level for options. Even so, he could have justifiably been given “founder’s stock,” but Jobs decided not to. “Steve is the opposite of loyal,” according to Andy Hertz-feld, an early Apple engineer who has nevertheless remained friends with him. “He’s anti-loyal. He has to abandon the people he is close to.”

丹尼尔·科特基却不在其中。他一直都是乔布斯的挚友,两人一起读大学,一起去印度,一起待在团结农场,一起经历了克里斯安·布伦南的怀孕风波。苹果公司还在乔布斯的车库时,他就加入了公司,到公司上市时,他仍然以时薪员工的身份在那里工作。但是他的级别不够髙,无法获得IPO之前奖励给员工的股票期权。“我完全相信史蒂夫,我想,他会像我以前照顾他那样地照顾我,所以我没有催促他。”科特基说。官方对此给出的理由是:科特基是一名领时薪的技术人员,不是领固定薪水的工程师,而只有全职的工程师才可以得到期杈奖励。然而即便如此,他也完全有资格获赠一些“发起人股”,但乔布斯对这些一直陪伴在自己身边的人十分冷漠。“史蒂夫就是忠诚的反义词,”苹果公司早期的工程师、一直与乔布斯保持着朋友关系的安迪·赫茨菲尔德说,“他完全处在忠诚的对立面,他总会拋弃那些和自己亲近的人。

Kottke decided to press his case with Jobs by hovering outside his office and catching him to make a plea. But at each encounter, Jobs brushed him off. “What was really so difficult for me is that Steve never told me I wasn’t eligible,” recalled Kottke. “He owed me that as a friend. When I would ask him about stock, he would tell me I had to talk to my manager.” Finally, almost six months after the IPO, Kottke worked up the courage to march into Jobs’s office and try to hash out the issue. But when he got in to see him, Jobs was so cold that Kottke froze. “I just got choked up and began to cry and just couldn’t talk to him,” Kottke recalled. “Our friendship was all gone. It was so sad.”

科特基决定守在乔布斯的办公室外,当面请他解决这个问题。但每次碰面,乔布斯都对他置之不理。“最让我难过的是,史蒂夫从没跟我说过我没有资格得到期权,”科特基说,“作为朋友,他有义务告诉我。我问到关于股票的事情,他就让我去跟我的经理谈。”IPO之后过了大约6个月,科特基终于鼓起勇气,冲进乔布斯的办公室,想要解决这个问题。但当他走进办公室后,乔布斯的冷漠让他呆住了。“我气疯了,大哭了起来,再也说不出话来。”科特基回忆,“我们的友谊在那一刻彻底破裂了,太伤心了。”

Rod Holt, the engineer who had built the power supply, was getting a lot of options, and he tried to turn Jobs around. “We have to do something for your buddy Daniel,” he said, and he suggested they each give him some of their own options. “Whatever you give him, I will match it,” said Holt. Replied Jobs, “Okay. I will give him zero.”

设计出电源的工程师罗德·霍尔特分到了很多股票期杈,他试图让乔布斯改变主意。“我们必须为你的朋友丹尼尔做点儿什么。”他说,并且建议他们两人从自己的期杈中拿出一部分送给科特基。霍尔特说:“你给他多少,我就给他多少。”乔布斯说好的。我什么都不给他。”

Wozniak, not surprisingly, had the opposite attitude. Before the shares went public, he decided to sell, at a very low price, two thousand of his options to forty different midlevel employees. Most of his beneficiaries made enough to buy a home. Wozniak bought a dream home for himself and his new wife, but she soon divorced him and kept the house. He also later gave shares outright to employees he felt had been shortchanged, including Kottke, Fernandez, Wigginton, and Espinosa. Everyone loved Wozniak, all the more so after his generosity, but many also agreed with Jobs that he was “awfully na?ve and childlike.” A few months later a United Way poster showing a destitute man went up on a company bulletin board. Someone scrawled on it “Woz in 1990.”

沃兹尼亚克在处理此事的态度上,自然是与乔布斯截然不同的。在苹果的股票公开上市之前,他就把自己期权中的2000份以极低的价格卖给了40名中层员工。大多数受益人都赚到了足够买一套房子的钱。沃兹尼亚为自己和新婚妻子买下了一幢梦幻般的屋子,但她很快与他离婚并得到了房子。后来,他又把自己的股份赠与了那些在他看来受到了不公正待遇的员工,包括科特基、费尔南德斯、威金顿和埃斯皮诺萨。所有人都喜欢沃兹尼亚克,在他的慷慨捐赠之后更加如此,但很多人也同意乔布斯对他的评价,认为他“极其天真幼稚”。几个月后,公司的公告板上出现了一张联合慈善总会(UnitedWay)的海报,画面上是一个穷困潦倒的人。有人在海报上涂鸦道:“1990年的沃兹。”

Jobs was not na?ve. He had made sure his deal with Chrisann Brennan was signed before the IPO occurred.

乔布斯可不天真。在IPO之前,他已经签好了和克里斯安·布伦南之间的协议。


重点单词   查看全部解释    
generosity [.dʒenə'rɔsiti]

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n. 慷慨,大方

联想记忆
abandon [ə'bændən]

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v. 放弃,遗弃,沉溺
n. 放纵

联想记忆
certain ['sə:tn]

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adj. 确定的,必然的,特定的
pron.

 
fledgling ['fledʒliŋ]

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n. 刚会飞的幼鸟,尚缺乏经验的人

联想记忆
plea [pli:]

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n. 恳求,申诉,请愿,抗辩,借口

 
paralysis [pə'rælisis]

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n. 瘫痪

 
capable ['keipəbl]

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adj. 有能力的,足以胜任的,有 ... 倾向的

 
mate [meit]

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n. 伙伴,配偶,同事
vt. 使 ... 配

 
bulletin ['bulitin]

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n. 公示,公报,新闻快报,期刊
vt. 发表

联想记忆
employee [.emplɔi'i:]

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n. 雇员

联想记忆


关键字: 乔布斯 传记 名人

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