Introduction: How This Book Came to Be

前言:本书是如何诞生的

In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs.

2004年的初夏，我接到史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs)打来的电话。

He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity¹,

多年来，他对我还算友好，偶尔还会感情骤增一下，

especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked.

特别是当他希望即将推出的新产品能上《时代》杂志封面或者CNN(美国有线电视新闻网)专题报道的时候，而这两处恰好都是我曾工作过的地方。

But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much.

在我离开这两家媒体之后，就没有太多他的消息了。

We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado.

电话里我们谈论了一些关于我刚刚加入的阿斯彭研究所（AspenInstitute)的情况，我遨请他来科罗拉多的校园演讲。

He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted instead to take a walk so that we could talk.

他说他很乐意，但不想登台讲话，而是想和我散散步、聊聊天。

That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet know that taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation.

这番话听上去有点奇怪，因为当时我还不知道他喜欢在散步的过程中进行严肃的对话。

It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him.

后来我才知道，他是想让我写一本关于他的传记。

I had recently published one on Benjamin Franklin and was writing one about Albert Einstein,

我刚刚出版了本杰明·富兰克林（BenjaminFranMin)的传记,正在着手完成阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦(AlbertEinstein)的传记。

and my initial reaction was to wonder, half jokingly, whether he saw himself as the natural successor in that sequence.

因此我最初的反应是，他是不是把自己看做这些伟人的继承人了。

Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred².

当然这是半开玩笑的。我认为他还处在事业的波动期，等待他的还有诸多跌宕起伏，所以我拒绝了他的请求。

Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire.

现在还不是时候，我说，再等个十年二十年，等你退休了。

I had known him since 1984, when he came to Manhattan to have lunch with Time’s editors and extol³ his new Macintosh.

我认识他是在1984年，当时他来曼哈顿的时代-生活大厦（Time-LifeBuilding)与编辑们共进午餐，顺带夸耀他的麦金塔电脑（Macintosh)。

He was petulant⁴ even then, attacking a Time correspondent for having wounded him with a story that was too revealing.

那个时候他的脾气就不太好，他攻击《时代》杂志的一名记者，因为对方报道的一个故事暴露了太多事实而让他觉得受到了伤害。

But talking to him afterward⁵, I found myself rather captivated, as so many others have been over the years, by his engaging intensity.

但后来，通过与他的对话，我发现自己被他的强烈情感所吸引，就如同其他很多人多年来受到的吸引一样。

We stayed in touch, even after he was ousted⁶ from Apple.

自那以后，我们就一直保持联系，即便在他被迫离开苹果公司时也未中断。

When he had something to pitch, such as a NeXT computer or Pixar movie, the beam of his charm would suddenly refocus on me,

当他需要推销某样产品时，比如一台NeXT电脑或者一部皮克斯（Pixar)出品的电影，他的个人魅力就会突然间再次聚焦到我的身上，

and he would take me to a sushi restaurant in Lower Manhattan to tell me that whatever he was touting⁷ was the best thing he had ever produced.

他会带我去曼哈顿下城的一家寿司餐厅，告诉我他正在兜售的东西是他制造出的最棒的产品。

I liked him.

我喜欢这个家伙。