My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
我的第二个故事是关于好恶与得失。幸运的是,我在很小的时候就发现自己喜欢做什么。我在 20 岁时和沃兹(Woz,苹果公司创始人之一 Wozon 的昵称─译注)在我父母的车库里办起了苹果公司。我们干得很卖力,十年后,苹果公司就从车库里我们两个人发展成为一个拥有 20 亿元资产、4,000 名员工的大企业。那时,我们刚刚推出了我们最好的产品─ Macintosh 电脑─那是在第 9 年,我刚满 30 岁。可后来,我被解雇了。你怎么会被自己办的公司解雇呢?是这样,随著苹果公司越做越大,我们聘了一位我认为非常有才华的人与我一道管理公司。在开始的一年多里,一切都很顺利。可是,随后我俩对公司前景的看法开始出现分歧,最后我俩反目了。这时,董事会站在了他那一边,所以在 30 岁那年,我离开了公司,而且这件事闹得满城风雨。我成年后的整个生活重心都没有了,这使我心力交瘁。
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
一连几个月,我真的不知道应该怎么办。我感到自己给老一代的创业者丢了脸─因为我扔掉了交到自己手里的接力棒。我去见了戴维帕卡德(David Packard,惠普公司创始人之一─译注)和鲍勃;诺伊斯(Bob Noyce,英特尔公司创建者之一─译注),想为把事情搞得这么糟糕说声道歉。这次失败弄得沸沸扬扬的,我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但是,渐渐地,我开始有了一个想法─我仍然热爱我过去做的一切。在苹果公司发生的这些风波丝毫没有改变这一点。我虽然被拒之门外,但我仍然深爱我的事业。于是,我决定从头开始。
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
虽然当时我并没有意识到,但事实证明,被苹果公司炒鱿鱼是我一生中碰到的最好的事情。尽管前景未卜,但从头开始的轻松感取代了保持成功的沉重感。这使我进入了一生中最富有创造力的时期之一。
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
在此后的五年里,我开了一家名叫 NeXT 的公司和一家叫皮克斯的公司,我还爱上一位了不起的女人,后来娶了她。皮克斯公司推出了世界上第一部用电脑制作的动画片《玩具总动员》(Toy Story),它现在是全球最成功的动画制作室。世道轮回,苹果公司买下 NeXT 后,我又回到了苹果公司,我们在 NeXT 公司开发的技术成了苹果公司这次重新崛起的核心。我和劳伦娜(Laurene)也建立了美满的家庭。
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
我确信,如果不是被苹果公司解雇,这一切决不可能发生。这是一剂苦药,可我认为苦药利于病。有时生活会当头给你一棒,但不要灰心。我坚信让我一往无前的唯一力量就是我热爱我所做的一切。所以,一定得知道自己喜欢什么,选择爱人时如此,选择工作时同样如此。工作将是生活中的一大部分,让自己真正满意的唯一办法,是做自己认为是有意义的工作;做有意义的工作的唯一办法,是热爱自己的工作。你们如果还没有发现自己喜欢什么,那就不断地去寻找,不要急于做出决定。就像一切要凭着感觉去做的事情一样,一旦找到了自己喜欢的事,感觉就会告诉你。就像任何一种美妙的东西,历久弥新。所以说,要不断地寻找,直到找到自己喜欢的东西。不要半途而废。

