经济学人166:魔法部长隐退

 　　BUSINESS

　　商业报道
　　Steve Jobs resigns
　　斯蒂芬乔布斯辞职
　　The minister of magic steps down
　　魔法部长隐退
　　Can Silicon 1 Valley's most disruptive firm prosper 2 without its maker 3?
　　没有了创始人，硅谷曾经最混乱的公司会繁荣起来吗?
　　IN A commencement speech to students at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, advised his audience to avoid being trapped by dogma and to have the courage to follow their hearts and their intuition.
　　2005年，苹果首席执行官斯蒂芬乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上对学生们提出建议，不要被教条束缚，要勇于跟随自己的内心和直觉。
　　“Stay hungry. Stay foolish,” he said as he signed off.
　　结束时，他说，永远不要裹足不前。
　　By following his own advice, Mr Jobs, who resigned as Apple's boss on August 24th, has turned the company from a basket case on the brink 4 of bankruptcy 5 when he returned to its helm in 1997 into a world-beater that is reshaping a big chunk 6 of the technology industry.
　　乔布斯于8月24日辞去苹果总裁一职。就像他所说的那样，自从1997年他登上苹果的领导地位，他将这个毫无希望的濒临破产边缘的公司带入世界领先地位，并重建为科技产业的巨头。
　　Earlier this month, Apple even briefly 7 surpassed Exxon Mobil, an oil giant, to become the world's most valuable company.
　　就在这个月初，苹果甚至超越了石油大腕埃克森美孚，成为世界上最有价值的公司。
　　No other boss in recent history has embodied 8 and defined a firm as completely as Mr Jobs.
　　在近代史上，没有一个人能像乔布斯那样将一个公司做的如此风生水起。
　　So his decision to resign as chief executive has inevitably 9 raised the question of whether Apple will remain as hungry and as wildly successful without its entrepreneurial maestro at the helm.
　　因此他辞去首席执行官的决定不可避免地引发了争论—在其开拓者离开后，苹果还能否保持前进的动力以及巨大的成功。
　　Other giants in the tech industry have seen their fortunes fade after iconic leaders have departed.
　　科技产业的其他大型公司，在招牌领导人离去后，财富就缩水了。
　　Microsoft has struggled to regain 10 its mojo since Bill Gates stood down as its chief executive in January 2000.
　　2000年比尔盖茨辞去微软的首席执行官后，微软经历了一段困难时期才重拾辉煌。
　　Could Apple suffer a similar fate?
　　苹果也会经历同样的命运吗？
　　That seems unlikely for several reasons.
　　由于一些原因，苹果可能不会经历相同的命运。
　　One is that the company has had plenty of time to plan for this moment.
　　原因之一，公司有足够的时间对现在进行规划。
　　Mr Jobs has stepped aside from day-to-day management at Apple on a couple of occasions before, after having surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004.
　　乔布斯以前也有过不参与苹果日常管理的时候，例如04年因胰腺癌接受手术的时期。
　　Each time, Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, temporarily assumed his boss's responsibilities.
　　每次，都是由苹果的首席运营官蒂姆库克暂代总裁职位。
　　That allowed Mr Cook, who is taking over from Mr Jobs as CEO, to get a taste for the top spot—and it gave Apple's board a chance to see him in action.
　　这让库克尝到了做第一把交椅的滋味，并且让苹果的董事会看到了他所起的作用。
　　On each occasion, Mr Cook kept Apple's money-making machine ticking over smoothly 12.
　　每一次，库克都使苹果有稳定的收入。
　　An expert in manufacturing and logistics, he closed down almost all of Apple's manufacturing operations after he arrived at the firm in the late 1990s and outsourced much of these to Asia.
　　他是一位制造学和后勤学的专家，在20世纪90年代末来到苹果后，他几乎撤销了所有的制造工序，并将其转包给亚洲国家。
　　Announcing his promotion 13, Apple's board said that he had shown “remarkable talent and sound judgment 14 in everything he does.”
　　谈到他的升职，苹果董事会表示他所做的一切显示了卓越的才能和非凡的决策力。
　　Talent is something that Apple also has an abundance of elsewhere in its ranks.
　　才能，是苹果的高管最不缺乏的。
　　Executives such as Phil Schiller, who oversees 15 the company's marketing 16, and Jonathan Ive, a Briton whose domain 17 is design, are part of a team that has worked closely together for many years.
　　像是执行官菲尔席勒，他负责公司的营销。还有乔纳森伊夫，英国人，他负责设计。这两个人都是苹果队伍的一员，队员们已经协调合作了很多年。
　　If Mr Cook can keep this group intact, then Apple's future should be bright.
　　如果库克能使这样的队伍继续保持下去，苹果的未来就是光明的。
　　The firm also benefits from an intensely loyal and motivated workforce 18. Glassdoor, an online jobs and careers community, carries reviews of the company from almost 1,000 Apple employees.
　　公司的成功还得益于忠实而有激情的职工们。玻璃门—一个在线职业联盟——通过调查了大约1000名苹果职工对该公司进行了检验。
　　Most are glowing about the firm and in particular about Mr Jobs's impact on it. One post even calls Apple's former boss “the Thomas Edison of this century”.
　　大部分职工对公司充满热情，并十分肯定乔布斯对公司的影响。一个帖子甚至称苹果前任总裁为“当代爱迪生”。
　　Paul Saffo of Discern Analytics, a financial-analytics company, reckons that this depth of loyalty 19 will mean that even though Mr Jobs is stepping down, the firm's employees will continue to ask themselves “what would Steve do?” when making decisions.
　　保罗萨佛的识别分析—一个金融分析公司——猜想，这种程度的忠诚度意味着，即使乔布斯隐退，公司的员工们在做决定的时候依然会问自己“斯蒂夫将会如何做”。当然，提出问题比猜想正确答案要容易得多。
　　Another reason for optimism is that Mr Jobs is not disappearing from the scene entirely 20. Instead he is taking on a new role as the chairman of Apple's board, which should allow him to keep weighing in on important decisions for some time to come, assuming that his health allows.
　　人们可以抱有乐观态度的另一原因是，乔布斯并没有完全从舞台上消失，他只不过是扮演了新的角色—苹果董事会主席。如果他的健康状况允许，他可以继续权衡未来的重要决策。
　　Apple has a pretty clear product pipeline 21 for the next couple of years, which is reassuring 22.
　　在接下来的几年中，苹果有一条非常清晰的生产线，人们大可放心。
　　The firm is due to unveil the latest version of its hugely successful iPhone in the coming weeks and is expected to launch a new iPad early next year.
　　在未来几周内，苹果将会揭开新版iphone的面纱，并在明年初将新一代ipad投放市场。
　　But Apple is far more than the sum of the devices that it sells, impressive though they are.
　　但是，苹果不仅仅是它销售的产品的总和，虽然这些产品都让人们爱不释手。
　　Its secret sauce lies in the integration 23 of these with software and services such as its iTunes online content store and its recently announced iCloud online-storage offering.
　　它的秘诀在于通过软件和服务将这些设备集中为一体。例如它的itunes在线资料库和最近提供的icloud在线储备库。
　　These form what tech types like to call an “ecosystem” that has proved so popular that it is forcing other companies to develop similar capabilities 24.
　　这种类型的科技被称为“生态系统”，它是如此受欢迎，以至于迫使其他公司纷纷效仿。
　　Google, which has long excelled at developing software, recently splashed out $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility 25 so that it could get its hands on the firm's smartphones, tablets and other devices.
　　谷歌一直擅长于开发软件，最近向摩托诺拉移动公司注资125亿美元以将该公司的智能手机、平板电脑和其他设备弄到手。
　　And Amazon, which has a huge cloud business, is planning to launch its own tablet computer to compete with Apple's iPad.
　　有着巨大云业务的亚马逊公司也在计划推出自己的平板电脑与苹果的ipad竞争。
　　The good news for Apple's investors 26 is that the firm has been given a great head start in the battle for dominance of this emerging tech landscape thanks to Mr Jobs, whose vision of the future has been honed over a long and tumultuous career.
　　对于苹果的投资者们来说，好消息是，多亏了乔布斯，苹果公司在抢夺科技领域领导地位的竞争中占据非常有利的地位。
　　After co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in the 1970s, he went on to pioneer the era of the personal computer in the following decade. He was then ousted 27 from Apple after a boardroom coup 11 in 1985.
　　乔布斯对未来的远见在长期而丰富的职业生涯中经过了历练。20世纪70年代，在与史蒂夫沃兹尼亚克共同创办了苹果公司后的十年里，乔布斯开创了个人电脑的时代。然后在1985年的一次苹果董事会政变中被驱逐出苹果公司。
　　After that, Mr Jobs followed his heart and his intuition by building up Pixar, a film studio that specialises in computer-animated films. It has produced a string of hits, from “Toy Story” to “Finding Nemo”.
　　在那之后，乔布斯跟随了自己的内心和直觉创办了皮克斯电影工作室，它专门从事电脑动画电影，并制作了一连串的好作品，如“玩具总动员”和“海底总动员”
　　He returned to Apple as an adviser 28 in 1996, when the firm was in dire 29 straits.
　　1996年，在苹果陷入重大困境之际，他作为顾问重返公司。
　　A year later he was made interim 30 chief executive.
　　一年后，他成为临时执行总裁。
　　Asked at the time what he thought Mr Jobs should do with Apple, Michael Dell, a rival computer-maker, helpfully suggested that he should shut it down.
　　当竞争对手—电脑制造商迈克尔戴尔被问到，他认为乔布斯应如何对待苹果的时候，戴尔好心建议他应该将苹果公司关闭。
　　Find out how much of an Apple iPhone is actually a Samsung with our "teardown" infographic.Mr Jobs ignored that advice.Instead he led the company on to its greatest triumphs. Among them were the creation of the iMac, which revived the firm's ailing 31 computer business, and the development of the iPod, which ended up transforming the music industry. But just as important as what Apple did was what it did not do.
　　乔布斯没有接受这个建议。相反，他将公司带入了全盛时期。在此期间，苹果生产了imac，使破败的电脑业务焕发了生机。同时，也研发了ipod，结束了音乐工业的转换。苹果做了什么，这很重要，但是，苹果没有做什么，一样重要。
　　Charles Golvin of Forrester, a research firm, says that one of Mr Jobs's greatest skills has been to decide which projects the firm should not undertake.
　　弗雷斯特研究公司的查尔斯戈尔文说乔布斯的计策之一便是决定哪些项目公司不应该去做。
　　It has been widely rumoured 32, for example, that engineers at Apple were urging its boss to create a tablet computer in the early part of the decade.
　　例如，有件事情广为流传，苹果的工程师们曾在十年间的早期建议他们的老板生产一台平板电脑。
　　But Mr Jobs turned a deaf ear to their entreaties 33 and instead insisted that the company focus on producing a smartphone.
　　但是乔布斯没有接受他们的恳求，而是坚持使公司致力于生产一款智能手机。
　　The result was the iPhone, which transformed yet another market and is still minting money.
　　结果便是iphone的问世，它改变了另一个市场并依然在赚钱。
　　In a creative cauldron like Apple, ideas are rarely in short supply.
　　在像苹果这样一家具有创造力的大公司里，从不缺乏建议。
　　But the skill of choosing the right ones to focus on at the right time is rare.
　　但是采纳正确的建议并在正确的时间实施，这种能力确是不多见的。
　　Mr Jobs has it. Apple's shareholders 34 will have to hope that Mr Cook does too.
　　而乔布斯就有这种能力。苹果的股东们应该期待库克也有这种能力。
　　1.prosper v.繁盛；成功
　　We are bound to prosper beyond other countries.
　　我们肯定要比其他国家更兴旺繁荣。
　　2.audience n.听众；观众
　　The audience was no less than five thousand.
　　听众有五千人之多。
　　3.surpass v.超越；胜过
　　To be in love is to surpass oneself.
　　人在爱中超越自我。
　　4.define v.规定；限定
　　We should clearly define the scope of our research.
　　我们应该明确规定我们的研究范围。
　　5.fade v.逐渐消失；褪色；凋谢
　　Hopes of a peaceful settlement are now fading.
　　和平解决的希望正在消失。