Showdown, Spring 1985

摊牌，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，乔布斯和斯卡利之间出现了裂痕。原因是多方面的。有些只是业务上的分歧，譬如，斯卡利意图维持麦金塔的髙价来达到利润最大化，而乔布斯则想要让它的价格更实惠。另一些就是奇怪的心理因素，源自他们最初对彼此的狂热和不现实的迷恋。斯卡利苦苦渴求乔布斯的喜爱，而乔布斯则渴望在斯卡利身上获得父亲和良师益友般的感觉。当两人的热情开始降温时，就产生了情绪上的反弹。但是，造成两人之间裂痕日益加深的根本原因仍在他们自己身上。

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.

对乔布斯来说，问题在于斯卡利从来都没有成为一个懂产品的人。他没有努力，也没有显示出自己有能力理解苹果公司所做产品的精妙之处。相反，斯卡利觉得乔布斯太过沉迷于细微的技术调整和设计细节，没有效率。他过去做的工作是销售汽水和零食，产品的配方在很大程度上与自己无关。他对产品也没有天生的热情，而这正是乔布斯所能想象的最深重的罪孽之一。“我试图教会他工程上的细节，”乔布斯后来回忆说，“但是，他不知道产品是怎样创造出来的，一段时间以后，这种培养变成了争论。但我知道，我的观点是正确的。产品就是一切。”他觉得斯卡利很愚蠢。但斯卡利渴望得到乔布斯的喜爱，并且产生了自己和他很相似的幻觉，这更加剧了乔布斯对他的蔑视。

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.”

而斯卡利觉得问题出在乔布斯身上，当乔布斯不再处于“求爱期”或有所图时，就常常很令人讨厌、粗鲁、自私并且对其他人脾气不好。斯卡利经历过寄宿学校和大客户销售工作的打磨，他觉得乔布斯的行为粗鲁可鄙，这程度就和乔布斯鄙视他对产品细节缺乏激情一样。斯卡利能和善、关切、彬彬有礼地对待错误，乔布斯则做不到。有一回，他们计划与施乐公司董事会副主席比尔·格拉文（BillGlavin）会面，斯卡利乞求乔布斯到时候不要失礼。然而，刚一就座，乔布斯就跟格拉文说：“你们这些家伙完全不知道自己在做什么。”会面不欢而散。“对不起，但我控制不住自己。”乔布斯告诉斯卡利。这只是许多类似情况中的一例。正如雅达利公司的阿尔·奥尔康后来评论的，“斯卡利想让别人高兴，并会顾及人际关系。史蒂夫对此则不屑一顾。但他对产品的关注又是斯卡利永远达不到的，而且乔布斯会侮辱任何一个算不上一流队员的人，以避免苹果出现太多的笨蛋。”

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 . . .”

董事会对于两人关系的动荡越发警觉。1985年初，亚瑟·罗克及其他一些心怀不满的董事对他们俩进行了严厉的训诫。他们告诉斯卡利，本来应该由他来运营公司，他应该用更大的权力履行管理苹果公司的职责，而少花些心思同乔布斯交好。他们告诉乔布斯，他应该解决麦金塔部门内部的混乱状况，而不应该告诉别的部门如何做好本职工作。之后，乔布斯回到办公室，在自己的电脑上打着：“我不再批评公司其他部门，我不再批评公司其他部门。”

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，麦金塔电脑的表现持续令人失望，其销量只有预测的10%,乔布斯躲在自己的办公室里生气，或是在大厅里训斥其他人。他的情绪起伏更大，对周围人的辱骂也更甚。中层主管们开始起来反抗他。营销主管迈克·默里在一个行业会议上与斯卡利私下会面。两人走向斯卡利的酒店房间时，乔布斯看到了，于是要求一起去。默里叫他不要跟过来。默里告诉斯卡利，乔布斯正在造成严重的破坏，必须把他从麦金塔部门的管理层踢走。斯卡利回答说，自己还没有到要和乔布斯摊牌的地步。默里后来直接给乔布斯发了一份备忘录，批评他对待同事的方式，并谴责其“人身攻击的管理方式”。

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.

有好几个星期的时甸，两人之间的问题似乎存在某种解决的可能。乔布斯开始着迷于一种平板显示屏技术，这是帕洛奥图附近的伍德赛德设计公司（WoodsideDesign）研发的，管理这家设计公司的是一位名叫史蒂夫·基钦（SteveKitchen）的古怪工程师。另一家创业公司做出的触摸屏也让乔布斯兴致很浓，利用这种技术，用户可以直接用手指控制设备，而无需鼠标。这两种技术可能有助于实现乔布斯创造“Mac书”（Macinabook）的愿景。同基钦的一次散步中，在门洛帕克附近的一幢建筑旁，乔布斯说道，他们可以开设一处科研基地，以实现这些想法。它可以叫苹果实验室（AppleLabs），由乔布斯来管理，这样，他又能重回带领小团队开发伟大新产品的喜悦之中。