有声英语故事连载：《名人传记》之乔布斯 第40期
故事连载
But there were two visits… you saw and you brought some people back with you,
听说你去参观了两次，第二次你带了些人去
and what happened the next time, they made you cool your heels for a while.
对方是不是让你们坐了冷板凳?
No.
没有。
Someone (a woman) said something.
有人说过
what do you mean?
我不明白。
Well, she did the demo when the group came back;
她说是她负责向你们展示的图形界面
she said that she argued against doing it for 3 hours,
起先她拒绝展示，大约僵持了3个钟头
and they took you to other places showing you other things while she was arguing.
这期间对方只好先带你们参观其他的项目
Oh… you mean they were reluctant to show us the demo. oh,
你是说他们不太乐意让我们参观
I have no idea. I don’t remember that, I thought you meant something else.
这个我一点不知道，没印象了
So they were very skillful.
看来对方掩饰得很巧妙。
Yeah, but they did show us.
是的，不过他们还是让我们参观了
And it’s good they showed us because the technology crashed and burned Xerox, they used to call...
还好他们让我们参观了，因为施乐后来被拖垮了…
Why?
为什么?
what’s that? Why?
怎么啦?为什么?
Yeah, why?
对，为什么?
I actually thought a lot about that, and I learned more about that with John Sculley later on and I think I understand that now pretty well.
我一直在思考这个问题。认识约翰·斯卡利以后，我现在有了清晰的答案
What happens is, like with John Sculley, err…John came from Pepsi co,
是这样，就像斯卡利一样，他以前在百事可乐工作
and they almost would change their product once every 10 years, to them, new product is like a new size of bottle,
他们的产品可以数十年不变，顶多更换可乐瓶子的尺寸
so if you are a product person, you couldn’t change the course of that company very much,
所以产品部门的人说话没什么份量
so who influences the success of Pepsi co?
在百事公司谁最有发言权?
The sales and marketing people, therefore they would once get promoted and therefore they would once run the company.
是营销部门的人，他们很容易升职从而掌管公司
Well, for Pepsi co, that might have been okay.
对百事来说，这不是件坏事
But it turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies, that they get monopolies, like old IBM and Xerox.
问题是垄断科技公司也有这种情况，比如IBM和施乐
If you are a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copy or a better computer, so what?
即便IBM和施乐的产品经理能做出更棒的产品，那又怎么样?
