When he was restored to the throne at Apple, we put him on the cover of Time,

乔布斯重新执掌苹果公司之后，我们将他搬上了《时代》杂志的封面，

and soon thereafter he began offering me his ideas for a series we were doing on the most influential¹ people of the century.

此后不久，他就开始给我们正在做的20世纪最有影响力人物系列专题出谋划策。

He had launched his “Think Different” campaign,

当时他已经展开了“非同凡想”（Think Different)的宣传活动，

featuring iconic photos of some of the same people we were considering, and he found the endeavor of assessing historic influence fascinating.

在他的电视广告片里出现的众多历史人物中，有一些也正是我们在考虑的，而乔布斯发现，评估人物的历史影响力很有意思。

After I had deflected² his suggestion that I write a biography of him, I heard from him every now and then.

在拒绝了帮他写传记的建议后，我还是时不时收到一些他的消息。

At one point I emailed to ask if it was true, as my daughter had told me,

有一次，我发电子邮件询问他，苹果公司的标识是不是如同我女儿告诉我的一样，

that the Apple logo was an homage³ to Alan Turing,

是在向伟大的英国计算机先驱阿兰·图灵（AlanTuring)致敬。

the British computer pioneer who broke the German wartime codes and then committed suicide by biting into a cyanide-laced apple.

图灵破译了战争时期德国的电码，最后却食用浸过氰化物的苹果自杀了。

He replied that he wished he had thought of that, but hadn’t.

乔布斯回复我说，他希望自己曾经考虑过这一点，但实际上并没有。

That started an exchange about the early history of Apple,

从这件事起，我开始逐渐了解苹果公司的早期历史，

and I found myself gathering⁴ string on the subject, just in case I ever decided⁵ to do such a book.

并一点一点搜集这方面的资料，没准儿哪天我想写一本这方面的书呢。

When my Einstein biography came out, he came to a book event in Palo Alto and pulled me aside to suggest, again, that he would make a good subject.

我的爱因斯坦传记出版后，有一次，在帕洛奥图的一个新书活动上，乔布斯把我拉到一边，再一次提出，以他为主题的书肯定很有意思。

His persistence⁶ baffled me.

他的坚持让我很为难。

He was known to guard his privacy, and I had no reason to believe he’d ever read any of my books.

众所周知他非常注意保护自己的隐私，而我想他应该从来没有看过我写的书。

Maybe someday, I continued to say. But in 2009 his wife, Laurene Powell, said bluntly,

也许将来的某个时候吧，我还是这么说。但是，到了2009年，他的妻子劳伦·鲍威尔（LaurenePowell)对我直言不讳地说：

“If you’re ever going to do a book on Steve, you’d better do it now.”

“如果你真的打算写一本关于史蒂夫的书，最好现在就开始。”

He had just taken a second medical leave.

他当时刚刚第二次因病休假。

I confessed to her that when he had first raised the idea, I hadn’t known he was sick.

我向劳伦坦承，当乔布斯第一次提出这个想法时，我并不知道他病了。

Almost nobody knew, she said. He had called me right before he was going to be operated on for cancer, and he was still keeping it a secret, she explained.

几乎没有人知道，她说。他是在接受癌症手术之前给我打的电话，直到今天他还将此事作为一个秘密，她这么解释道。

I decided then to write this book.

就在那个时候，我决定要写这本书了。

Jobs surprised me by readily acknowledging that he would have no control over it or even the right to see it in advance.

让我惊喜的是，乔布斯欣然允诺，他不会干涉这本书的写作过程，甚至不会提前阅读它。

“It’s your book,” he said. “I won’t even read it.”

“这是你的书，”他说，“我不会看的。”

But later that fall he seemed to have second thoughts about cooperating and, though I didn’t know it, was hit by another round of cancer complications.

但那年秋天的晚些时候，他似乎对于合作有了犹豫，而我不知道的是，他被又一轮癌症并发症侵袭了。

He stopped returning my calls, and I put the project aside for a while.

他不再回我的电话，我也把这个项目放到了一边。

Then, unexpectedly, he phoned me late on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2009.

之后，很出人意料的，他在2009年末新年前夜的傍晚给我打来了电话。

He was at home in Palo Alto with only his sister, the writer Mona Simpson.

他在帕洛奥图的家中，陪伴他的只有他的妹妹，作家莫娜·辛普森（MonaSimpson)。

His wife and their three children had taken a quick trip to go skiing, but he was not healthy enough to join them.

妻子劳伦和三个孩子去滑雪了，身体状况让他未能成行。

He was in a reflective mood, and we talked for more than an hour.

他追思往事，跟我聊了一个多小时。

He began by recalling that he had wanted to build a frequency counter when he was twelve,

他先是回忆自己12岁的时候曾经想要做一个频率计数器，

and he was able to look up Bill Hewlett, the founder⁷ of HP, in the phone book and call him to get parts.

当时他在电话簿上查到了惠普的创始人比尔·休利特（BillHewlett)的号码，并给他打电话，想要得到一些零部件。

Jobs said that the past twelve years of his life, since his return to Apple, had been his most productive in terms of creating new products.

乔布斯说，他重新回到苹果公司的这12年，从创造新产品的角度来说，是他最髙产的一个阶段。

But his more important goal, he said, was to do what Hewlett and his friend David Packard had done,

但他还有一个更重要的目标，他说，就是像休利特和戴维·帕卡德（DavidPackard)—样，

which was create a company that was so imbued⁸ with innovative⁹ creativity that it would outlive them.

建立一家充满了革命性创造力的公司，而且这家公司要比惠普更能经受岁月长河的涤荡。

“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,”

“我小的时候，一直都以为自己是个适合人文学科的人，但我喜欢电子设备，”

he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection¹⁰ of humanities and sciences,

他说，“然后我看到了我的偶像之一，宝丽来创始人埃德温·兰德（EdwinLand)说的一些话，是关于既揎长人文又能驾驭科学的人的重要性的，

and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

于是我决定，我要成为这样的人。

It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid).

”这好像是他在向我暗示这本传记的主题（这一次，这个主题至少是合理的）。

The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein,

在我写的富兰克林以及爱因斯坦的传记中，最让我感兴趣的话题就是，一个具有强烈个性的人身上集合了人文和科学的天赋后所能产生的那种创造力，

and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.

我相信这种创造力也是在21世纪建立创新型经济的关键因素。