This is a book about the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries:
这是一本关于一个富有创造力的企业家的书,关于他过山车一般的人生,关于他炽热强烈的个性。他对完美的狂热以及积极的追求彻底变革了六大产业:
personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
个人电脑、动画电影、音乐、移动电话、平板电脑和数字出版。
You might even add a seventh, retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize but did reimagine.
你可能还会想到第七个产业:连锁商店。对于零售连锁产业他算不上彻底变革,但的确重新描绘了这个产业的画面。
In addition, he opened the way for a new market for digital content based on apps rather than just websites.
此外,他通过开发应用程序,为数字内容开辟了一个全新的市场,而不再像以前一样只能依赖网站。
Along the way he produced not only transforming products but also, on his second try,
随着时间的推移,他不仅制造出革命性的产品,还在自己的第二次努力下成就了一家充满生命力的公司,
a lasting company, endowed with his DNA, that is filled with creative designers and daredevil engineers who could carry forward his vision.
这家公司继承了他的基因,集中了一群极富想象力的设计师和大胆创新的工程师,他们能够将他的设想发扬光大。
In August 2011, right before he stepped down as CEO, the enterprise he started in his parents’ garage became the world’s most valuable company.
在2011年8月乔布斯卸任苹果公司CEO的时候,这家最初在他父母车库里建立起来的公司,已经成为全世界最富有的企业。
This is also, I hope, a book about innovation.
我希望这也能是一本关于创新的书。
At a time when the United States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies,
如今,美国正在寻找方法保持自身的创新优势,全世界都在努力建设创造性的数字时代经济,
Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness, imagination, and sustained innovation.
乔布斯成为了创造力、想象力以及持续创新的终极标志。
He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology,
他深知21世纪创造价值的最佳途径就是将创造力与科技结合起来,
so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
所以他创建了一家公司,在这里,想象力的跳跃与高超的工程学技术被结合到一起。
He and his colleagues at Apple were able to think differently:
他和他的同事们能够以全新的方式思考:
They developed not merely modest product advances based on focus groups, but whole new devices and services that consumers did not yet know they needed.
他们开发的并非是针对目标人群的普通产品改进,而是消费者还没有意识到其需求的全新设备和服务。
He was not a model boss or human being, tidily packaged for emulation.
他不是众人尽可效仿的模范老板,或是人类楷模。
Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to fury and despair.
他就像被恶魔驱使一样,可以让身边的人狂怒和绝望。
But his personality and passions and products were all interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system.
但他的个性、激情与他的产品之间是相互关联的,就好像苹果的硬件和软件一样,各为整体系统的一部分。
His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
因此,他的故事既有启发性,也有告诫意义,其中充满了创新、品质、领导力和价值观方面的经验。
Shakespeare’s Henry V—the story of a willful and immature prince who becomes a passionate but sensitive, callous but sentimental, inspiring but flawed king—begins with the exhortation
莎士比亚的《亨利五世》——一个关于任性幼稚的哈尔王子成长为狂热又敏感、冷漠又感性、鼓舞人心又并不完美的君主的故事——开头就是一段呼唤:
“O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”
“啊!光芒万丈的缪斯女神,你登上了无比辉煌的幻想的天堂!”
For Steve Jobs, the ascent to the brightest heaven of invention begins with a tale of two sets of parents,
而对于史蒂夫·乔布斯来说,那光明的创新天堂之旅,始于他的两对父母,
and of growing up in a valley that was just learning how to turn silicon into gold.
以及一个学习如何点石成金的山谷。