The forty-mile Santa Clara Valley, which stretches from South San Francisco through Palo Alto to San Jose,

这一綿延40英里的圣克拉拉谷，从南旧金山穿过帕洛奥图，一直延伸到圣何塞，

has as its commercial backbone¹ El Camino Real, the royal road that once connected California’s twenty-one mission churches and is now a bustling² avenue that connects companies and startups accounting³ for a third of the venture capital investment in the United States each year.

贯穿其中的是该地区的商业主干道国王大道” (El CaminoReal),这条道路曾经连接着加州的21所教会，而现在，这条繁忙的道路所连接的企业和新兴公司每年吸引着全美1/3的风险投资。

“Growing up, I got inspired by the history of the place,” Jobs said. “That made me want to be a part of it.”

“成长于此，我受到了这里独特历史的启发，”乔布斯说，“这让我很想成为其中的一分子。”

Like most kids, he became infused with the passions of the grown-ups around him.

像大多数孩子一样，他开始受身边大人们的热情影响。

“Most of the dads in the neighborhood did really neat stuff, like photovoltaics and batteries and radar,” Jobs recalled.

“住在我周围的父亲们大都研究的是很酷的东西，比如太阳能光伏电池和雷达，”乔布斯回忆道，

“I grew up in awe⁴ of that stuff and asking people about it.”

“我对这些东西充满了惊奇，经常向他们问这问那。”

The most important of these neighbors, Larry Lang, lived seven doors away.

这些邻居中最重要的一个人，拉里·朗（Larry Lang)，跟乔布斯家隔了7户人家。

“He was my model of what an HP engineer was supposed to be: a big ham radio operator, hard-core electronics guy,” Jobs recalled.

“他是我心中惠普工程师的标准形象：超级无线电爱好者、铁杆电子迷，他会带东西给我玩。”

“He would bring me stuff to play with.” As we walked up to Lang’s old house, Jobs pointed⁵ to the driveway.

当我们走到朗的老房子时，乔布斯指着车道说：

“He took a carbon microphone and a battery and a speaker, and he put it on this driveway. He had me talk into the carbon mike and it amplified⁶ out of the speaker.”

“他把一个碳精话筒、一块蓄电池和一个扬声器放在车道上。他让我对着话筒说话，声音就通过扬声器放大出来了。”

Jobs had been taught by his father that microphones always required an electronic amplifier.

乔布斯的父亲曾经告诉过他，话筒一定要有电子放大器才能工作。

“So I raced home, and I told my dad that he was wrong.” “No, it needs an amplifier,” his father assured him.

“所以我跑回家，告诉父亲他错了。”“不对，肯定需要放大器。”父亲的口气很肯定。

When Steve protested otherwise, his father said he was crazy.

当史蒂夫提出异议时，父亲说他疯了。

“It can’t work without an amplifier. There’s some trick.”

“没有放大器是不可能工作的，这其中是有诀窍的。”

“I kept saying no to my dad, telling him he had to see it, and finally he actually walked down with me and saw it.

“我不停地对我父亲说不是那样的，让他亲眼去看看，最终他跟我一起走到邻居家，看到了。

And he said, ‘Well I’ll be a bat out of hell.’”

他说：‘我还是赶紧走人吧。’”

Jobs recalled the incident vividly⁷ because it was his first realization⁸ that his father did not know everything.

这件事在乔布斯的心中印象深刻，因为这是他第一次意识到父亲不是万事通。

Then a more disconcerting discovery began to dawn on him: He was smarter than his parents.

然后，他发现了一件让他更加不安的事情：自己比父母还要聪明。

He had always admired his father’s competence⁹ and savvy¹⁰.

他一直很仰慕父亲的智慧和才能。

“He was not an educated man, but I had always thought he was pretty damn smart. He didn’t read much, but he could do a lot.

“他没有受过良好的教育，但我以前一直认为他特别聪明。他不怎么看书，却会做很多事情。

Almost everything mechanical, he could figure it out.” Yet the carbon microphone incident, Jobs said, began a jarring process of realizing that he was in fact more clever and quick than his parents.

机械方面的东西他几乎样样精通。”然而碳精话筒这件事，乔布斯说，让他的想法开始动摇，他意识到自己实际上比父母更聪明、更敏捷。

“It was a very big moment that’s burned into my mind.

“这种想法出现在脑海中，对我来说是一个重大的时刻。

When I realized that I was smarter than my parents, I felt tremendous shame for having thought that. I will never forget that moment.”

当我意识到自己比父母更聪明时，我为自己有这样的念头而感到异常羞愧。我永远忘不了那一瞬间。”

This discovery, he later told friends, along with the fact that he was adopted, made him feel apart—detached and separate—from both his family and the world.

他后来告诉朋友，这个发现，再加上自己是被领养的这个事实，让他觉得自己有些孤立——与世隔绝一般——脱离了父母，也脱离了世界。

Another layer of awareness¹¹ occurred soon after. Not only did he discover that he was brighter than his parents, but he discovered that they knew this.

此后不久，他又意识到了另一件事情。他不仅发现自己比父母聪明，还发现其实父母是知道这一点的。

Paul and Clara Jobs were loving parents, and they were willing to adapt their lives to suit a son who was very smart—and also willful.

保罗和克拉拉是一对很慈爱的父母，他们愿意改变自己的生活来适应这个非常聪明也非常任性的儿子。

They would go to great lengths to accommodate him. And soon Steve discovered this fact as well.

他们愿意竭尽全力去适应他，给他特别的对待。很快，史蒂夫也发现了这点。

“Both my parents got me. They felt a lot of responsibility once they sensed that I was special.

“父母都很了解我。他们意识到我的不同寻常之后就有了很强的责任感。

They found ways to keep feeding me stuff and putting me in better schools. They were willing to defer¹² to my needs.”

他们想尽办法让我学到更多东西，送我去好学校。他们愿意满足我的需求。”

So he grew up not only with a sense of having once been abandoned, but also with a sense that he was special.

所以在他长大的过程中，伴随他的不仅仅是曾经被遗弃的感觉，还有一种自己不同于常人的感觉。