The first time I met Steve Jobs, he walked out of the room. It was 1994, he was chief executive of NeXT Computer and exiled from Apple, and I had asked him why he made beautiful, expensive machines that only a few enthusiasts wanted. He swore at me, barked “I created the Mac and it’s still the best!” and was gone. Five years later, after he had returned to the company he co-founded, I wrote that he had saved Apple, but said I didn’t care, because Microsoft enjoyed a near-monopoly in personal computer software and so controlled computing. This view was conventionally savvy, but wrong. Mr Jobs has turned out to be much more influential than Bill Gates.
我頭一次碰上史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)時，他正從房間裏走出來。那是在1994年，當時他已被蘋果(Apple)辭退，擔任NeXT電腦公司(NeXT Computer)的執行長。我問他爲什麼要造那些外觀漂亮、價格昂貴但只受到少數發燒友追捧的機器。他罵了我一句，咆哮著說，「我創造了Mac，現在它仍是最棒的！」然後，他就轉身離開了。五年過去了，當喬布斯再度回到他與別人一起創辦的蘋果後，我曾寫道喬布斯已經拯救了蘋果，但我表示這無關大局，因爲微軟(Microsoft)在個人電腦(PC)軟體領域享有近乎壟斷的地位、並因此控制著電腦行業。一般來說，這個觀點有道理的，但這次它卻錯了。事實證明，喬布斯現在的影響力顯著超過了比爾•蓋茲(Bill Gates)。