VOA慢速英语2017 人们在硅谷的咖啡馆工作、沟通

People Work, Make Connections at Silicon Valley Café

Coupa Café is a restaurant where, over the years, Apple’s Steve Jobs, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sergey Brin have been seen.

过去几年里，库帕咖啡馆一直被苹果公司的史蒂夫·乔布斯，脸书公司的马克·扎克伯格和谷歌公司的谢尔盖·布林等人光顾。

The cafe is in Palo Alto, California. Palo Alto is at the heart of Silicon Valley, home to some of the world’s largest technology companies and some of the smallest startups.

该咖啡馆位于加利福尼亚州的帕洛阿尔托。帕洛阿尔托位于硅谷的中心，硅谷是一些世界上最大的科技公司和最小的创业公司的所在地。

Coupa Cafe is where many people buy coffee and make business plans.

很多人在库帕咖啡馆买咖啡、制定商业计划。 

The owner of the cafe is Jean Paul Coupal. He started the cafe with his mother and his sister in 2004.

库帕咖啡馆馆主是让·保罗·库帕尔。他在2004年与自己的母亲和姐姐一起开了这家咖啡馆。 

The Coupa logo was seen on a cup in the 2010 movie The Social Network, about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

咖啡馆的商标在2010年上映的电影《社交网络》中出现过，该电影讲述的是脸书的创立者马克·扎克伯格的故事。

The cafe serves Venezuelan coffee and a few Venezuelan dishes.

咖啡馆供应委内瑞拉的咖啡和少量委内瑞拉菜品。 

Because the cafe is in Silicon Valley, it has tried some of the latest inventions in technology. In 2013, Coupa Cafe started accepting Bitcoins, a digital payment system outside of traditional banks.

因为座落于硅谷，库帕咖啡馆已经尝试过一些科技方面的最新发明。2013年，库帕咖啡馆开始接收比特币，比特币是一种电子支付系统，不同于传统的银行支付。

“We want to be part of the technology,” Coupal said.

“我们希望成为科技的一部分，”库帕尔说道。 

The cafe is also a place for people to hold meetings.

库帕咖啡馆也是人们举办会议的场所。 

“I remember seeing Mark Zuckerberg sitting here and having meetings,” said Eric Sokol, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University.

“我记得我看到过马克·扎克伯格坐在那里开会，”埃里克·索科尔说，他是斯坦福大学妇产科学的副教授。

Sokol said he had many professional opportunities come about at Coupa Cafe. Sometimes other people would overhear a conversation he was having. Currently he is an advisor to a health care related startup and a new investment fund. Both opportunities came when he was at the cafe.

索科尔说他的很多工作机会来自于库帕咖啡馆。有时候其他人可能会无意中听到他正在进行的对话。现在他是一家健康方面的创业公司和一个新的投资基金的顾问。这两个机会都是他在咖啡馆时得到的。

Because the cafe lets customers stay all day, many people do work there.

因为咖啡馆允许顾客整天待在那里，很多人就真的在那里工作起来。 

“A lot of the startups in the area come and they like to work at Coupa, coding all day,” Coupal said. “We’ve seen a lot of products that got developed at Coupa.”

“硅谷很多创业公司都会来这里，人们很喜欢在库帕咖啡馆办公，整天都在那里编程，”库帕尔说。“我们已经见证了很多在库帕咖啡馆开发出来的产品。”

The cafe also attracts students from colleges nearby like Stanford University.

咖啡馆也吸引到了附近的大学的学生，比如斯坦福大学。 

Katie Kennedy is a student from a local community college. She said she knew that opportunities could come from chance encounters at the cafe.

凯蒂·肯尼迪是当地一所社区大学的学生。她说她知道在库帕咖啡馆，很多机会来自于偶遇。 

“I am currently teaching myself JavaScript here at Coupa right now. If someone happened to look over my shoulder and saw what I was doing, I would definitely not say no to any help.”

“我最近正在库帕咖啡馆自学JavaScript。如果有人碰巧从我背后看到我正在做的事情，我一定不会拒绝任何帮助。”

Currently there are eight Coupa Cafes. All were hand painted by Coupal’s mother and sister.

现在已经有八家库帕咖啡馆。这八家咖啡馆都是库帕尔的母亲和姐姐亲自装修的。 

“The food’s good, the coffee’s good,” Sokol said. “It just has the right atmosphere, the right mix of people. It’s got an energy about it, I guess.”

“这里的食物很好吃，咖啡很好喝，”索科尔说。“这里气氛恰好，人员混合恰当。我猜，它也许有一种能量。”

Words in This Story

startups – n. a small, new business

obstetrics – n. a branch of medicine that has to do with pregnancy and childbirth

gynecology – n. a branch of medicine that cares for women’s reproductive health

opportunities – n. a good chance

fund – n. a company or group that invests the money of a number of investors

encounter – v. to meet someone without planning

JavaScript – n. a computer programming language