Thank you very much. It's great to be back and I just want to stay for the record, the class of 88-89 was by far the best class.
十分感谢,我很高兴回来。我在这里郑重声明,88-89届学生是迄今为止最棒的。
The decision to write a book called Tough Choices and to write it myself, I did, in fact, write it myself every word, no collaborator, no ghost writer, for better for worse.
我决定要亲自写: 《勇敢抉择》这本书,无论如何是我亲自动笔,是我一个字一个字写的,没有合作者或者找人代笔。
That decision first occurred to me about five years ago. I was sitting on the witness stand being cross examined by a team of attorneys, because having just received enough shareholder votes to complete the acquisition of Compaq computer. We were sued one last time to try stop it. And as I said on that witness stand being questioned by these attorneys that occurred to me that most people don't actually understand how a business operates. Because all of the questions that I was being asked really had to do with how you set goals and how you motivate people to achieve those goals. And the fact is that if you want to change products and profits, you have to change what people do everyday. And so I decided five years ago that I would write a book about business from the point of view of what I find most fascinating most challenging and most fun about business. And that is that's all about people, it's all about the people.
第一次有决定写书的想法大约是5年前,我当时在证人席上被一组律师盘问,缘于已经有了足够的股东投票数来完成与康柏的合并,但是有人最后控告我们,试图阻止合并。我在证人席上接受律师询问时才明白,实际上大多数人不懂如何做生意。因为,盘问我的问题应当是和如何定出目标和如何激励人们达成目标有关。而事实上,如果你想改变产品和提高利润,先要改变人们每天所做的事情,因此五年前我决定要写一本关于做生意的书,从我认为最引人入胜、最具挑战、最有趣味的观点着手。那就是人,人就是一切。