《微软启示录：比尔·盖茨语录》试读：文摘

Acquiring Other Companies 关于兼并其他公司 We’ve done a number of acquisitions in our history.… A lot of the time, the reason we do the acquisition is, when we see a market developing very rapidly … we want to reduce the amount of time it takes us to get in there, get working with customers, get the feedback that’s valuable. —Keynote speech, San Jose State, January 27, 1998 在历史上，我们进行过许多次兼并。大多数时候，我们这样做的原因是因为市场发展得很快……我们要减少进入市场、接触用户和获取宝贵反馈的时间。 ——圣何塞州立大学主题演讲，1998年1月27日 Analyzing Other Companies 关于分析其他公司 We focus on what companies do well as opposed to what they do poorly. We don’t dismiss a company as unimportant just because a lot of things about it may be less than perfect. The company may be doing something important; it may not even know that it is important. —New York Times News Service/Syndicate, February 19, 1996 我们关注其他公司什么事做得好，而不是什么事做得不好。我们不会因为一家公司在许多方面不完美，就认为它不重要。它可能正在做某件很重要的事情，它自己可能都没有意识到。 ——《纽约时报》公司，1996年2月19日 Andy Grove 关于英特尔公司的CEO安迪•格罗夫 Andy Grove is an incredible CEO. He’s big on picking objectives, and driving the company towards that objective. He’s big on clarity. He is an engineering manager, par excellence. —Keynote speech, San Jose State, January 27, 1998 安迪•格罗夫是一个好得难以置信的CEO。他很善于挑选目标，然后带领公司向这些目标前进。他善于把复杂的东西变得清晰明白。他是一个技术型经理人，第一流的。 ——圣何塞州立大学主题演讲，1998年1月27日 Apple 关于苹果公司 To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different; it takes something that’s really new, and really captures people’s imagination. And the Macintosh—of all the machines I’ve seen—is the only one that meets that standard. —Speech, 1984 要想创造一个新标准，一点点的与众不同是不够的，而是需要一些真的很新颖的东西，确确实实能抓住人们想象力的东西。在所有我见过的机器当中，只有Mac 电脑达到了这个标准。 ——演讲，1984 年 Bad News 关于坏消息 There is a tendency in companies to let good news travel fast. Oh, we just won this account. Oh, things went so well. But, the thing about good news is, it’s generally not actionable…. Bad news, on the other hand, is actionable. This customer is not very happy. This competitor is doing something very well. This project is behind…. The sooner you get the bad news, the better off you’re going to be, in order to kind of absorb it, to change your product plan, to go back and talk to the people, really dig into it. So when somebody sends me mail saying, you know, we won XYZ account for Exchange. I send mail back and say, does that mean we lost every other account, because you only sent me mail on one account? Tell me about the ones we lost, and why? And so that’s really gotten into our culture. —Keynote speech, San Jose State, January 27, 1998 很多公司喜欢听好消息。哦，我们又赢得了一个客户；哦，事情进展得如此顺利。但是，好消息通常不会有实际价值。……相反，坏消息才比较实用。顾客不满意，竞争对手表现出色，项目进度滞后。……你越早得到坏消息，结果就会越好。你会为了纠正它，为了改变产品计划，为了反省和跟人讨论，真的深入去研究这个坏消息。所以，每当有人发邮件给我，比如报告Exchange 软件又赢得了什么客户，我就会回信问他，这是否意味着我们丢失了所有其他客户，因为你只来信说赢得了这一个客户？告诉我我们丢失了哪些客户，以及丢失的原因。就这样，这种做法已完全融入了我们的文化。 ——圣何塞州立大学主题演讲，1998年1月27日 Being CEO 关于当CEO Steve Ballmer said … that the responsibility of being CEO was more burdensome than he had expected. Well, I told him before he took the job that it was an inhuman job. It makes infinite demands on you, and I feel very lucky that I have Steve. I think he’s stepping into the shoes exactly the way I hoped he would. —Newsweek, April 16, 2000 史蒂夫•鲍尔默说……CEO 这个职位的责任，比他想的沉重得多。关于这一点，我在他就职前就跟他说过，这是一个非人的工作。它对你有无限的要求。我感到很幸运，因为有史蒂夫帮我。我觉得他正在进入角色，与我希望的样子完全相符。 ——《新闻周刊》，2000年4月16日 Being in Charge 关于当负责人 [In high school I told the other programmers], “Look, if you want me to come back you have to let me be in charge. But this is a dangerous thing, because if you put me in charge this time, I’m going to want to be in charge forever after.” —Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, 2003 （高中时，我告诉其他程序员）“事情是这样的，如果你们要我回来，就必须让我当负责人。但这是有风险的，因为如果你们这次让我当负责人，我就会要求以后一直这样。” ——史密森学会口述历史档案，2003 年 Being the Face of Microsoft 关于充当微软公司的脸面 Externally, people tend to identify the company with one person. It’s a natural thing so I’ve had mostly the minuses, but [also] the pluses of that. —Newsweek, June 23, 1997 在外面，人们往往让一个人代表整个公司。这是很自然的事情。尽管我得承担大多数负面效应，但同时也得到了那些正面效应。 ——《新闻周刊》，1997年6月23日 People’s perception of the importance of my role is certainly greater than the reality. —Newsweek, December 1, 1996 人们想象中的我的角色的重要性，肯定比现实中的更大。 ——《新闻周刊》，1996年12月1日 The world has had a tendency to focus a disproportionate amount of attention on me. —U.S. News & World Report, June 16, 2006 这个世界喜欢将大得不成比例的关注放在我身上。 ——《美国新闻与世界报道》，2006年6月16日 Breakthroughs 关于突破 A breakthrough is something that changes the behavior of hundreds of millions of people where, if you took it away from them, they’d say, “You can’t take that away from me.” Breakthroughs are critical for us. All we get paid for are breakthroughs, because people who have our software today can keep using it forever and not pay us another dime. —Newsweek, November 24, 2003 突破就是能改变无数人生活的东西。如果你把这样东西从人们的生活中拿走，他们会说：“你不能从我这里拿走它。”突破对我们至关重要。我们得到的一切都依赖突破，因为使用我们软件的用户可以一直用下去，不付给我们一毛钱（除非我们作出突破）。 ——《新闻周刊》，2003年11月24日 Business Computing 关于商业计算 [A business’s] corporate memory is not very good unless somebody who is working on a project can sit down at their PC and in less than 60 seconds call up any memos or documents that might relate to a similar project that was done in the past. If it takes more time than that, people probably won’t go and find it. —Speech, Enterprise Perspective, March 24, 1999 假定你是某家公司的员工，正致力于某个项目，你坐在电脑前，如果不能在六十秒之内找到任何与以前类似项目相关的备忘录或文档，（这家公司的）商业记忆力就称不上优秀。如果查找时间超过了这个限度，人们就不会去查找了。 ——企业视角会议上的演讲，1999年3月24日 Business Customers 关于顾客 One thing that never comes out is that the software business is bigger selling to businesses than it is to consumers. Microsoft is really in touch with what are the practicalities, how do you make workers more productive, what are the pains in an IT department, what does corporate site development involve. We have built up over the decades the real ability to have great ongoing dialog with businesses about how they do their software and what they do. We have a very strong position. —PC Magazine, June 23, 2008 软件业从未曝光的一件事是：商业软件的销售额要大于个人软件。微软真的一直在跟进什么样的软件更实用，怎样提高工人的生产效率，IT 部门最头痛的是什么事，公司网站的开发需要什么。几十年来，关于企业怎么使用他们的软件，用来做什么，我们培养了与他们进行卓有成效对话的能力。我们的优势很明显。 ——《个人电脑》，2008年6月23日 Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. —Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 对你最不满意的顾客，可以让你学到最多。 ——《未来时速》，1999 年 Business Standards 关于企业标准 I really shouldn’t say this, but in some ways it leads, in an individual product category, to a natural monopoly: where somebody properly documents, trains, promotes a particular package and through momentum, user loyalty, reputation, sales force, and prices builds a very strong position with that product. —Rosen Research Personal Computer Forum Proceedings, May 1981 我真的不应该这样说，但是在某种程度上确实如此，个人产品领域会形成自然垄断：当某人做好某种特定产品的说明、培训和促销，通过产品的势头、用户忠诚度、名声、销售力量和价格策略，就能用这个产品建立非常强的优势。 ——卢森研究个人电脑论坛的会议记录，1981 年5 月 Capitalism 关于资本主义 People underestimate how effective capitalism is at keeping even the most successful companies on edge. —The Rich and How They Got That Way, 2001 人们低估了资本主义的能耐，它可以让最成功的公司也活得战战兢兢。 ——《富人和他们的致富之道》，2001 年 Capitalism is great and having thousands of things going on in parallel. And a lot of them fail. Some are just mediocre. But the ones that are special can grow and, you know, stun everybody. And in all those fields I mentioned, there is going to be several companies that kind of take your breath away. —CNBC Town Hall Event, Columbia University, November 12, 2009 资本主义很不错，可以让成千上万件事同时发生。其中很多会失败，有些很平庸。但是那些真正特别的东西，你们知道，它们会成长壮大，震惊所有人。在我提到的所有那些领域，将会出现几家让人大为惊叹的公司。 ——CNBC访谈，哥伦比亚大学，2009年11月12日