乔布斯传之节选5

Cinderella

from Chapter Five

Jobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money, we’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in our lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any prospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two best friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”

Now that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for another visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees, and Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied around options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some neologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal Computers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start filing the papers. Finally Jobs proposed Apple Computer. “I was on one of my fruitarian diets,” he explained. “I had just come back from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge off the word ‘computer.’ Plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book.” He told Wozniak that if a better name did not hit them by the next afternoon, they would just stick with Apple. And they did.

Apple. It was a smart choice. The word instantly signaled friendliness and simplicity. It managed to be both slightly off-beat and as normal as a slice of pie. There was a whiff of counterculture, back-to-nature earthiness to it, yet nothing could be more American. And the two words together—Apple Computer—provided an amusing disjuncture. “It doesn’t quite make sense,” said Mike Markkula, who soon thereafter became the first chairman of the new company. “So it forces your brain to dwell on it. Apple and computers, that doesn’t go together! So it helped us grow brand awareness.”

khloe

乔布斯知道怎么样说服沃兹。他并没有去争辩着他们就肯定可以赚钱，相反，他认为着一定会是一次有趣的经历。“即使我们赔了钱，至少我们拥有了一家公司了，”乔布斯说，那个时候他们正开着他的大众汽车满城溜达，“至少在我们的一生中，会有这么一次，我们拥有一家公司。”这样的话对沃兹尼亚克的吸引力是相当大的，比变成富翁的吸引力更大。据沃兹尼亚克回忆：“只要一想到梦成真我就兴奋，两个最铁的朋友共同创办一家公司！天哪！我立刻就同意了，怎么会拒绝呢？”
既然他们已经决定开公司了，就要给公司起个名字了。乔布斯在此之前又去了一次团结农场，在那儿给格拉文施泰因的苹果树剪枝，沃兹去机场接他。在回罗斯阿尔托斯的路上，两人商讨了好几个名字。他们考虑了一些典型的技术专业词汇，比如“矩阵”（Matrix）；还考虑了自创新词，比如“EXECUTEK”，这个词融合了“执行”和“科技”；又或者干脆就用个直接但却无趣的名字，比如“个人电脑股份有限公司”。最终名称的截止日期是在第二天，因为这一天乔布斯就要准备递交申请文件了。最后，乔布斯提议“苹果电脑公司”。“我那时正在吃水果餐，”他解释道，“我刚从苹果农场回来。‘苹果’这名字听起来有趣，有活力，也不让人觉得害怕。‘苹果’一词也减少了‘电脑’的锐气。而且，这还能让我们在电话簿上排在雅达利前面。”他告诉沃兹，如果第二天下午再想不到更好的名字，我们就用“苹果”吧。然而，他们也真的用了。
“苹果”，这是个非常明智的决定。这个词会即刻释放友好简洁的信号。它既有那么一些别具创新，又不会那么叫人觉得奇怪。名字中有些非主流文化气息但却十分返朴归真，这是典型的美国化。苹果电脑——这两个词放一起形成了一种十分有趣的分离。“这名字是真的有点搞笑，”迈克马库拉说，他后来成了这家新公司的第一任董事长，“仔细品味，苹果和电脑，这两个东西根本没有关系啊！这么一来，也打响了我们品牌的知名度。”