读书笔记：Make Something Wonderful - Steve Jobs

关于启蒙

I would say that gave one several things. It gave one an understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked, because it would include a theory of operation. But maybe even more importantly, it gave one the sense that one could build the things that one saw around oneself in the universe. These things were not mysteries anymore. I mean, you looked at a television set, and you would think, “I havenʼt built one of those—but I could. Thereʼs one of those in the Heathkit catalog, and Iʼve built two other Heathkits, so I could build a television set.” Things became much more clear that they were the results of human creation, not these magical things that just appeared in oneʼs environment that one had no knowledge of their interiors. It gave a tremendous degree of self-confidence that, through exploration and learning, one could understand seemingly very complex things.

And he gave me some of his smaller tools and showed me how to use a hammer and saw and how to build things. It really was very good for me. He spent a lot of time with me, teaching me how to build things, take things apart, put things back together.

关于计算机

Computers are really dumb. Theyʼre exceptionally simple, but theyʼre really fast…But hereʼs the key thing: letʼs say I could move a hundred times faster than anyone in here. In the blink of your eye, I could run out there, grab a bouquet of fresh spring flowers, run back in here, and snap my fingers. Y ou would all think I was a magician. And yet I would basically be doing a series of really simple instructions: running out there, grabbing some flowers, running back, snapping my fingers. But I could just do them so fast that you would think that there was something magical going on.

The problem was, you canʼt ask Aristotle a question. And I think, as we look towards the next fifty to one hundred years, if we really can come up with these machines that can capture an underlying spirit, or an underlying set of principles, or an underlying way of looking at the world, then, when the next Aristotle comes around, maybe if he carries around one of these machines with him his whole life—his or her whole life—and types in all this stuff, then maybe someday, after this personʼs dead and gone, we can ask this machine, “Hey, what would Aristotle have said? What about this?”And maybe we wonʼt get the right answer, but maybe we will. And thatʼs really exciting to me. And thatʼs one of the reasons Iʼm doing what Iʼm doing.

Weʼre trying to get away from programming. Weʼve got to get away from programming because people donʼt want to program computers. People want to use computers.

Well, every application wants a slightly different user interface, a slightly optimized set of buttons, just for it. And what happens if you think of a great idea six months from now? You canʼt run around and add a button to these things. Theyʼre already shipped. So what do you do? It doesnʼt work, because the buttons and the controls canʼt change. They canʼt change for each application, and they canʼt change down the road if you think of another great idea you want to add to this product.

关于犯错

Well, things get more refined as you make mistakes. Iʼve had a chance to make a lot of mistakes. Your aesthetics get better as you make mistakes. But the real big thing is: if youʼre going to make something, it doesnʼt take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. Not that much more. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until itʼs really great.

You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times.

Oh, of course. That was a very painful time, but you just march forward, and you try to learn from it. One of the things I always tried to coach myself on was not being afraid to fail. When you have something that doesnʼt work out, a lot of times, peopleʼs reaction is to get very protective about never wanting to fall on their face again. I think thatʼs a big mistake, because you never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times in the process of getting there. Iʼve tried to not be afraid to fail, and, matter of fact, Iʼve failed quite a bit since leaving Apple.

Regrets are most often things you didnʼt do, and wish you did. I still regret not kissing Nancy Kinniman in high school. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe she regrets it too …

关于交叉点

In another age, Steve believed, the people on the Macintosh team would have been writers, musicians, or artists. “The feelings and the passion that people put into it were completely indistinguishable from a poet or a painter,” he said. He called their work a form of love and their product “a computer for the rest of us,” with a mouse as well as arrow keys, desktop icons instead of programming commands, and, at startup, instead of a blinking cursor: a smile.

But aesthetics? I think aesthetics are a lot like singing. Joanie [Baez] has a beautiful voice, but the reason her voice is beautiful isnʼt because her voice is just beautiful. Itʼs because she has an  incredibly good ear. She can listen to somebody speak for thirty seconds and imitate their voice almost perfectly. Her ear is superb. And I think, in the same way, good aesthetics result from just your eye. An instinct of what you see, not so much what you do.

My strength probably is that Iʼve always viewed technology from a liberal arts perspective, from a human culture perspective.

关于成功

“If you really look closely,” Steve liked to say, “most overnight successes took a long time.”

We didnʼt want to have to convince people that our technology was great—we knew it was great. We wanted to use our technology to make something where nobody needed to know anything about the technology to love it.

关于创造力

Be a creative person. Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights that others donʼt see.

“Creative people are willing to take a leap in the air, but they need to know that the groundʼs going to be there when they get back.”

关于人生

Donʼt be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the “Career.” A career is a concept for how one is supposed to progress through stages during the training for and practicing of your working life.

Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.

Now, as you live your arc across the sky, you want to have as few regrets as possible. Remember, regrets are different from mistakes. Mistakes are those things that you did and wish you could do over again. In some you were a fool (usually concerning women). In others you were scared. In others you hurt someone else. Some mistakes are deep, others not. But if your intent was pure, they are almost always enriching in some way. So mistakes are things that you did and wish you could do over again.

Life is short; donʼt waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward.

You canʼt plan to meet the people who will change your life. It just happens. Maybe its random, maybe its fate. Either way, you canʼt plan for it. But you want to recognize it when it happens, and have the courage and clarity of mind to grab onto it.

关于团队

I believe as a “team” we work best when we challenge each other and come out all-the-better for it. SJ：Please continue to challenge me. Itʼs the way we get to the right decisions, and I enjoy it too.

I donʼt know. People are package deals; you take the good with the confused. In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person canʼt switch gears. Itʼs a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because almost always theyʼre the same thing.

一些建议

Habits are very powerful things … meditate 20 minutes a day.

the first piece of advice I want to give you is to try to always surround yourself with people smarter than you. This is how you get smarter and deeper…Second, Third, we are all going to die. You are going to die …Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And I wish that for you.

The most important thing Iʼve ever encountered to help me make the big choices is to remember that Iʼll be dead soon. I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but itʼs true. And when I remember this, I realize that all of the expectations and standards and restrictions of others and society mean nothing in the end. I realize that I have nothing to lose by following my heart and intuition, even if I embarrass myself or fail in the eyes of others. Because Iʼll be dead soon.