The Wizard and the Mortal: Two Sides of Genius
奇才和凡人：天才的兩面世界

IN August 1931, Thomas Alva Edison, age 84, became gravely ill with kidney problems. He recovered a little, then suffered a setback and was confined to bed at home, drifting in and out of consciousness. Newspapers issued multiple bulletins each day, reporting on signs of improvement or decline. The end came in the early morning of Oct. 18, 1931, with his family at his bedside.
1931年8月，時年84歲的托馬斯·阿爾瓦·愛迪生因?yàn)槟I臟問題病情嚴(yán)重。他有一點(diǎn)恢復(fù)，但是很快病魔再次襲來。偉大的發(fā)明家臥床不起，時而昏迷，時而清醒。當(dāng)時的報紙每天都要發(fā)布很多條公告，報道愛迪生的病情減輕或是加重的跡象。這一切也終于走到了終結(jié)：1931年10月18日凌晨，愛迪生病逝，去世時他的家人都在他的身邊。

That day, The New York Times ran nearly two-dozen articles on Edison’s life and death. Newspapers worldwide were filled with eulogies and remembrances for many days afterward. Words alone were not enough to express the nation’s grief. Heeding President Herbert Hoover’s request, many Americans briefly turned off their electric lights at 10 o’clock Eastern time on the night of Edison’s funeral.
當(dāng)天的紐約時報刊登了有二十幾篇文章，報道愛迪生的死訊和回顧他的生平。在那之后的好多天里，全球的報紙都滿是哀悼和追憶之詞。簡單的文字似乎不足以表達(dá)這個民族的悲傷，根據(jù)當(dāng)時美國總統(tǒng)胡佛的建議，許多美國人在愛迪生葬禮舉行的當(dāng)晚10點(diǎn)鐘，暫時關(guān)掉了電燈，以示對這位偉大發(fā)明家的緬懷之情。

The broad outpouring that has followed the death of Steve Jobs reminds me of the display of grief following Edison’s death. In both cases, their passing evoked an extraordinary public response, tributes that were greater and broader than those paid to many a head of state. Why is that?
史蒂夫·喬布斯過世后，美國人民廣泛流露的悲傷之情讓我想起了愛迪生過世時的全國大哀悼。這兩個人的離世引起了不尋常的公眾反應(yīng)，人們對他們的贊美遠(yuǎn)勝于許多國家元首。為什么會這樣？

Both men have fully occupied my attention at different times. I wrote a book about Mr. Jobs in 1993. I looked at his struggling endeavor to start another computer company, NeXT, after he left Apple amid a power struggle in 1985. His return to Apple in 1997 and the triumphs that would follow were not within sight. I took my snapshot of him and the company when he was at the miserable nadir of his professional life.
他們都曾在不同的時間占據(jù)了我的注意力。1993年我寫了一本關(guān)于喬布斯先生的作品。我主要關(guān)注了他在1985年權(quán)力之爭中落敗離開蘋果創(chuàng)立另一家電腦公司NeXT的奮斗史，當(dāng)時我也并沒有預(yù)見到他會在1997年重返蘋果以及后來他的一系列勝利。我的文字記錄了職業(yè)生涯痛苦低谷時期的他和他的公司。

Years later, I wrote a biography of Edison, a person whom Mr. Jobs admired. When you compare the two personalities and their careers, a few similarities emerge immediately. Both had less formal schooling than most of their respective peers. Both possessed the ability to visualize projects on a grand scale. Both followed an inner voice when making decisions. And both had terrific tempers that could make their employees quake.
幾年后，我開始寫愛迪生傳記。喬布斯很欣賞愛迪生。如果你把他們的個性和職業(yè)進(jìn)行比較，你會立刻發(fā)現(xiàn)一些相似點(diǎn)。比起大多數(shù)的同齡人，他們接受正規(guī)教育都比較少；他們都擁有從宏觀角度構(gòu)想項(xiàng)目的能力；他們在做決定的時候都會聽從內(nèi)心的聲音；他們脾氣都很壞，會讓員工抓狂。

Both men worked in several product areas, but entertainment-related technology was a major portion of their product portfolios. This prompts a question: Would the public’s relationship to Edison have been essentially the same without the phonograph and without movies? Or with Mr. Jobs, if Apple had remained just Apple Computer?
他們都曾涉足過不同的產(chǎn)品領(lǐng)域，但是與娛樂相關(guān)的科技總會是他們產(chǎn)品組合中主要的部分。這也提出了一個問題：如果沒有留聲機(jī)和電影，公眾對愛迪生的感情還會一樣嗎？如果蘋果只是蘋果電腦，人們還會如此關(guān)注喬布斯嗎？

After enjoying early success, each of them pursued a quixotic project that would occupy them for roughly 10 years — Mr. Jobs’s disappointing but enlightening NeXT odyssey and Edison’s failed attempt to build an iron ore processing business in northwestern New Jersey.
在取得早期的成功后，他們各自都花了大約十年的時間來追求一項(xiàng)不切實(shí)際的計劃：喬布斯的NeXT奧德賽系統(tǒng)雖然令人失望都卻很有啟發(fā)作用；愛迪生在新澤西州西北部開始的鐵礦石加工業(yè)務(wù)也以失敗告終。

THE later careers of the two were more different than similar. Mr. Jobs was able to realize his product visions — again and again. Edison’s career was characterized by a pattern of introducing what today we would call a beta version of a product and then losing interest in it. Competitors would then swoop in and fully commercialize the idea — and profit the most from it.
不過他們后來的職業(yè)生涯有了很多的不同。喬布斯一次又一次實(shí)現(xiàn)了他對產(chǎn)品的愿景，而愛迪生的事業(yè)則陷入了一種模式：用現(xiàn)在的話來說就是產(chǎn)品的測試版，然后很快對這個產(chǎn)品失去興趣。而他的競爭對手，則會蜂擁而入，將他的這些想法完全商業(yè)化，當(dāng)然也從中獲利頗豐。

Mr. Jobs was the far shrewder businessman, even if he never talked about wealth as a matter of personal interest. When Edison died, he left behind an estate valued at about $12 million, or about $180 million in today’s dollars. His friend Henry Ford had once joked that Edison was “the world’s greatest inventor and the world’s worst businessman.” Mr. Jobs was worth a commanding $6.5 billion.
喬布斯則是個很精明的商人，雖然他從沒有表示過財富是他的個人興趣所在。愛迪生死后，他留下了價值1200萬美元的遺產(chǎn)，相當(dāng)于現(xiàn)在的18億美元。他的朋友亨利·福特（福特汽車公司的創(chuàng)始人）曾經(jīng)拿愛迪生開玩笑說過：“這世界上最偉大的發(fā)明家也是最差勁的商人?！?喬布斯則要比愛迪生厲害得多，他去世時留下了65億美元的遺產(chǎn)。

Mr. Jobs was perhaps the most beloved billionaire the world has ever known. Richard Branson’s tribute captures the way people felt they could identify with Mr. Jobs’s life narrative: “So many people drew courage from Steve and related to his life story: adoptees, college dropouts, struggling entrepreneurs, and people fighting debilitating illness. We have all been there in some way and can see a bit of ourselves in his personal and professional successes and struggles.”
喬布斯大概是最受大家喜愛的億萬富翁了。理查德·布蘭森（英國億萬富翁）對喬布斯的贊美可能正好抓住了很多人從喬布斯生平中感悟到的認(rèn)同感：“許多人從史蒂夫的故事中得到了勇氣，與自己的人生經(jīng)歷產(chǎn)生了共鳴：出生時被收養(yǎng)，大學(xué)輟學(xué)，努力創(chuàng)業(yè)，對抗病魔。我們?nèi)松锌赡芏加幸恍┫嗤慕?jīng)歷，在他的個人和事業(yè)成功和奮斗史中，我們會看到一些自己的影子?！?/div>

By contrast, Edison became a victim of his own manufactured life narrative and the world’s adulation. Earlier, when Edison introduced the spring-driven phonograph in 1878, a reporter coined a nickname for him: “The Wizard of Menlo Park.” He liked — too much — playing the Wizard. Educational reform. National defense spending. The fatal effects of clothing. The relationship of diet to national destiny. Much of it was ephemera or idiocy, best forgotten.
相比之下，愛迪生就是他自己的制造生涯和世界阿諛奉承之語下的犧牲品。1878年愛迪生發(fā)明了發(fā)條留聲機(jī)，當(dāng)時有一位記者給他取了個綽號叫：“門洛帕克的奇才?！?他太喜歡沉迷于天才的神奇世界里了。教育改革，國防開支，衣物對身體的致命影響，飲食習(xí)慣對民族命運(yùn)的影響，這些要么是蜉蝣撼大樹，要么超級白癡，只有被遺忘的下場。

Steve Jobs did not waste his time or ours with similar flotsam. A rare time that he publicly stepped out of the role of chief executive and shared personal thoughts was when he delivered the commencement address at Stanford in June 2005. It was a moving meditation on his life and his — and our — mortality. It was a talk for the ages.
喬布斯則不會在這些沒用的東西上浪費(fèi)他或者我們的時間。他僅有的一次走出首席執(zhí)行官的角色與公眾分享他的個人想法的機(jī)會是在2005年6月斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)演講上。那是對他的生命，對他還有我們最終的死亡一次動人的思考，那是時代的對話。

The public tributes to Edison in 1931 and those to Mr. Jobs 80 years later were similar, but only superficially. With Edison, the public thought of the Wizard, an outsize persona, through which it was impossible to see an actual person. But with Mr. Jobs, the tributes were to a fellow mortal, exactly our own height, just as vulnerable as we all are to the random strike of a life-ending catastrophe.
1931年公眾對愛迪生的贊美和80年后對喬布斯的溢美之詞內(nèi)容相似，但是這種相似只是流于表面。想到愛迪生，人們會想到超級奇才，我們可能沒法看到真實(shí)的人的存在；而喬布斯，他是和我們相同高度的凡人，和我們一樣隨時會被死神之手勒住脖頸的凡人。