iPod 背后不为人知的豪赌：苹果的背水一战

Tony，欢迎来到 Giant Ideas。

Tony, welcome to Giant Ideas.

Tommy，很高兴来到这里。谢谢你的邀请。

Tommy, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

我找你做这个节目真的找了好几年了，所以我很兴奋你终于愿意来。明天我还要看你和阿尔·戈尔一起做点什么，所以我今天得在提问质量上打败阿尔·戈尔。呃，我—

I've been trying to get you to do this for literally years, and I'm really excited that you're going to do it. And tomorrow I'm seeing you do something with Al Gore. So I'm going to have to beat Al Gore in terms of the quality of my questions today. Well, I—

听起来对听众来说是个很好的比赛。

It sounds like it's a great competition for the listeners.

看看吧，看看我们能聊到哪里。来聊聊 iPod 和 iPhone 吧。你是 iPhone 的联合发明者，也是 iPod 的发明者。我想知道，当人们谈论这些彻底改变世界的爆款产品时，他们忽略了什么。关于这些产品已经有太多的文章和说法。但当历史学家回顾这一切时——他们一定会回顾的——你觉得人们会忽略哪些关于它们为什么成功、为什么如此强大、为什么奏效、Apple 和你们做对了什么、又有哪些是人们不理解的？

Let's see. Let's see where we get to. Let's talk about the iPod and the iPhone. You co-invented the iPhone. You invented the iPod. I want to hear what people miss when they talk about the story of these incredible smash-hit products that totally changed the world. So much has been written and said about them. But when the historians come to look at this, which they will, what do you think people miss about why these things happened, why they were so powerful, why they worked, what did Apple and you guys get so right, what do people not understand?

以 iPod 为例，当时的 Apple 还不是你今天看到的这家市值数万亿美元的公司。它当时大约值 30 到 40 亿美元，放在今天，你知道，这几乎只是一轮 B 轮融资的规模。对，就好像说：‘好吧，你一轮就融这么多，甚至还不盈利。’所以它几乎一文不值。它的市场份额不到 1%。Apple 当时岌岌可危。史蒂夫已经回归几年了。对，他推出了 iMac，就是那些果冻色救生圈糖一样的 Macintosh。

In the case of the iPod, Apple was not the company you know today, which is a multi-trillion-dollar company. It was worth about three to four billion dollars, which today, you know, is the size of a round for almost a Series B company. Yeah, it's like, 'Okay, that's how much you get for a round, not even profitable.' So it was worth almost nothing. It had less than 1% market share. Apple was on the ropes. Steve had already been back a couple of years. Right. He launched the iMac, these gel Lifesaver-colored Macintoshes.

是的。

Yes.

当时本来想着：‘好了，Apple 回来了。’Apple 凭 iMac 新产品经历了几季度的复苏，然后一切又崩了，因为人们不会从 Windows 机器、PC 转到 Mac。那太难了。就是实现不了。

And it was going to be, 'Okay, Apple's back.' And Apple had a kind of resurgence for a few quarters with the new iMac, and then it all collapsed again because people weren't going to move from Windows machines, PCs, over to Mac. It was just too hard. It just wasn't happening.

嗯。

Yeah.

当时没有 Apple 零售店。Apple 负债 5 亿美元，勉强收支平衡。Apple 已经命悬一线了。

There was no Apple retail. Apple was in debt of 500 million dollars. It was barely breaking even. Apple was on its last legs.

没错。

Right.

所以，迈克尔·戴尔有句名言：‘干脆把 Apple 关了吧，把钱还给股东。就这样。Apple 完了。’这甚至是在 iMac 推出之后。这是在 iMac 之后说的。

Okay? So Michael Dell famously said, 'Just close Apple down, give the money back to the shareholders. That's it. Apple's over.' That was even after the iMac. This was after the iMac.

因为这恰好凸显了历史上的那段空白，是不是？人们回头看时会觉得：‘是啊，他们做了 iMac，然后一切都直线上升了。’

Because that kind of highlights that gap in history, isn't it? Where people just look back and go, 'Yeah, they did the iMac and then it was all up and to the right.'

不，不，iMac 之后股价就崩了。

Yeah, no, no, the iMac and then the shares crashed.

对。

Right.

股价崩了，因为没有更多需求了。

The shares crashed because there was no more demand.

没错。

Right.

他们当时还在那儿不停地说‘我们比 Windows 好，我们比 Windows 好’，但没人想转回来。太难了，软件也不够。就在这时，微软投资了 Apple，这事大家都记得。

And they were sitting there still saying, 'Okay, we're better than Windows, we're better than Windows,' but nobody wanted to move back. It was too hard. There wasn't enough software. That was when Microsoft famously invested in Apple.

对。

Right.

为了帮它。当时 Apple 不得不卖出 ARM 的股份。Apple 早年是 ARM 最早期的投资者之一，所以持有 ARM 股份。它卖掉这些股份来维持公司生存。

To help it. When Apple had to sell its ARM shares. It had ARM shares back in the day because it was one of the first investors. It sold those to keep the company alive.

哇。

Wow.

所以，情况非常非常不同。当你说要做一部 iPod 的时候

Okay? So very, very different thing. So when you say you're going to build an iPod

嗯。

Mhm.

团队里很多人不想这么做，因为公司没有现金。

and many people in the team didn't want to do that because there was no cash.

好吧。

Okay.

他们就说，你会让大家从我们正在打的这场仗中分心。

It was like, you're going to distract everyone from this fight we're in.

对。

Yeah.

这是一个关乎生死存亡的问题和决策，决定是：‘好的，Mac 是另一回事。这个 iPod 项目会帮助卖出更多 Mac。我们要进军消费电子领域。我们之前基本上从没做过这个。我们要把它做成。’所以当你这么做的时候，这是一个巨大的赌注。我当时已经在硅谷待了 10 年。

This is an existential question and decision that was going to be made, saying, 'Okay, the Mac is this other thing. This iPod thing is going to help sell more Macs. We're going to go for consumer electronics. We've never done that before, for the most part. We're going to make that happen.' And so when you do that, it's a huge bet. Now, I had been in the Valley for 10 years.

嗯。

Mhm.

我经历过无数失败，从 General Magic 之类的公司开始。而 Apple 在史蒂夫重新掌舵后又一次陷入困境。我为什么还要加入呢？所以，为什么一家公司要打破自己的既定路线？为什么其他从外面观望的人要加入这家公司？这看起来并不好。

I had gone through countless failures, starting with General Magic or whatever. And Apple is a failing company again, even with Steve back at the helm. Why would I even join? So why should a company go off its script? Why should other people join the company who watched from the outside? It doesn't look good.

那么所有这些问题的答案是什么？为什么史蒂夫·乔布斯愿意冒险？为什么你愿意冒险去做这件事？

And so what is the answer to all these questions? Why did Steve Jobs take the risk? Why did you take the risk to do this?

好吧，这些问题都问得很好。首先，史蒂夫说过，你知道，这有点像爱因斯坦对疯狂的定义：一遍又一遍地做同一件事，却期待不同的结果。

Okay, so yeah, all those are very good questions. So the first thing was when Steve said, you know, it's kind of like Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

对。

Right.

所以你想一想，他们坐在这儿一直说 Mac 对 PC、Mac 对 PC，但没有任何进展。对吧？所以问题是，我们要做什么不同的事？而这就是不同的事：我们要重新回到消费者手中，因为他们热爱音乐，他们会在 Mac 上用 iTunes，他们会用 iPod。所以，卖出更多 Mac 的唯一办法就是卖出更多 iPod，因为人们需要 Mac 才能用 iPod。

So if you think about it, they're sitting here saying Mac versus PC, Mac versus PC, and it's not going anywhere. Right? So it's like, what are we going to do differently? And so this was the different thing, which was we're going to get back into consumers' hands because they love music, and they're going to use iTunes on a Mac and they're going to use an iPod. So the only way you're going to sell more Macs is by selling iPods, because people need to have Macs for that iPod to work.

嗯。

Mhm.

这算是一个策略，但并没有立刻奏效。

Which was a strategy, but it didn't work right away.

对。

Right.

所以我们‘破釜沉舟’干了 10 个月之后，把这个 iPod 发了出去。我们做出了一个非常棒的第一代产品。它卖了一两个季度，然后销售就停了。

So we shipped it after 10 months of 'burn the boats' — we're going to make this iPod. We made a really great first-generation product. And it sold for a quarter or two, and then the sales stopped.

好吧。

Okay.

为什么？因为其他人都没有 Mac。它和其他任何设备都不兼容。

And why? Because nobody else had Macs. And it didn't work with anything else.

对。

Right.

然后史蒂夫说，我们得改进产品，我们得改这些地方。所以我们改了产品，而且整个过程中我和团队一直在说，我们必须支持 Windows，我们必须支持 Windows。他却说，不，我们要靠 iPod 卖出更多 Mac。最后，第三代 iPod 终于火了。为什么？因为它在 Windows 机器上也能用了。

And so Steve's like, we got to fix the product, we got to change these things. So we changed the product, and all the time the team and I were all going, we have to work on Windows, we have to work on Windows. And he's like, no, we're going to sell more Macs because of the iPod. And at the end of the day, the third-generation iPod finally took off. Why? Because it worked on a Windows machine.

好吧，所以史蒂夫一直拒绝这个，直到……

Okay, so Steve said no to that until

史蒂夫对前两代 iPod 都拒绝支持 Windows，因为他想卖出更多 Mac。好吧。而我们——我和团队其他人——提出的论点是：你现在把一个 300 美元的 iPod 变成了 2700 美元。对吧，因为你还得买一台 Mac，还得把整个生活切换过去。是的。所以你让进入 Apple 生态的转换成本变得非常非常高。让我们把门槛降低吧。

Steve said no to a Windows-compatible iPod for the first two generations of the iPod, because he wanted to sell more Macs. Okay. And the argument, which I made and others on the team made, was: you've now taken a $300 iPod and made it $2,700. Right. Because you have to buy a Mac too, and you have to switch your life over. Yeah. So you were making the switching cost really, really high to get into Apple. Let's make it cheaper.

好吧。那么这个论点最后——你们最终是怎么赢的？

Okay. And how did that argument eventually — how did you prevail in the end?

我们最终是怎么赢的？这事有意思的地方在于，我们不得不找第三方。他的名字叫沃尔特·莫斯伯格。他当时不知道这件事，但沃尔特·莫斯伯格是《华尔街日报》的科技撰稿人，是所有人都想成为的那种人。

How did we prevail in the end? That was the interesting piece, which was we had to go to a third party. His name was Walt Mossberg. He didn't know this, but Walt Mossberg was the tech writer that everybody wanted to be, over at The Wall Street Journal.

在 Kara Swisher 之前，在 Joanna Stern 之前，在所有这些人之前，他是最早的那一位。他是 OG。好吧，他是个很棒的人，他为人们如何评测任何产品定下了基调，因为他能让评测非常贴近消费者。所以我们当时意见相左，Steve 说‘不不不’，我们说‘是是是’。最终，我们不得不做出一个基于意见的决策。Steve 不想做那个基于意见的决策，我们团队也没法做。Steve 必须拍板。于是他说：‘我打算让 Walt Mossberg 来告诉我们，这位头号科技评测人，这个 Windows 版 iPod 是否足够好到可以出货，因为他会定下基调。所以他来做这件事，但他自己并不知道。’

He was the person before Kara Swisher, before Joanna Stern, before all of them. He was the OG. Okay, great guy, and he set the tone for how people would review any product because he was able to make it very consumer. So we were at odds, and Steve was like, 'No, no, no.' And we were like, 'Yes, yes, yes.' And so, ultimately, we had to go to an opinion-based decision. Steve didn't want to make that opinion-based decision. Neither did we—couldn't as a team. Steve had to make the decision. So, he said, 'I'm going to let Walt Mossberg tell us, the number one tech reviewer, if this iPod on Windows is good enough to ship or not, because he's going to set the tone. So he's going to do it, but he didn't know this.'

好的。

Okay.

于是我们安排了一次演示。他试了试，然后说：‘嗯，我觉得挺好的。’你懂吗？于是 Steve 说：‘好的，我们就这么做，因为 Walt 说没问题。’

So we set up a demo. He tried it. He's like, 'Yeah, it seems pretty good to me.' You know? And so Steve said, 'Okay, we're going to do it because Walt said it was okay.'

是的，是的。

Yeah, yeah.

所以那件事真的很有意思，因为他不想做任何一边的决策。他事后会说自己是错的。

So that was the really interesting thing, because he didn't want to make the decision one way or another. He'd say he was wrong.

是的，是的。

Yeah, yeah.

我跟 Steve 说：‘你知道吗，如果你两年前就听我们的就好了，你知道吗？’

I told Steve, 'You know, if you'd just listened to us two years ago, you know?'

好吧，好吧，随便啦。

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

你知道吗，有时候就像我在 Apple 常说的：在 Steve 手下工作时，有时会做出疯狂的决定。绝对疯狂的决定。在我在那里的十年里我学到了——我当时想：‘理智终将获胜，只是时间问题。’

You know, sometimes it's like I've always said at Apple: when we were working under Steve, sometimes there were insane decisions being made. Absolutely insane decisions. And I learned over my ten years there—I was like, 'Sanity will prevail. It's just a matter of time.'

好的。不过稍微往回讲一下，跟我们说说你对 iPod 的愿景。你是怎么想到这个点子的？这个东西特别在哪里？因为之前已经有 MP3 播放器了。我记得我也有过一个，它们大致能做同样的事。但它们在美感上、在让人兴奋的程度上，差了好几个数量级。你是怎么想到的——你的愿景是什么？

Okay. But going back a bit, tell us a little about your vision for the iPod. How did you come up with the idea? What was it about this thing? Because there were MP3 players before. I remember having one, and they kind of did roughly the same thing. But they were just, you know, orders of magnitude less beautiful, less exciting. How did you—what was your vision?

嗯，第一件事是——我最初是作为顾问加入的。他们雇了我，作为顾问，他们收购了 iTunes。Jeff Robin 和 iTunes——它被收购，然后变成了 iTunes。他们说：‘我们试着用市面上那些 MP3 播放器，就像你提到的那些，但它们装不下足够多的歌。电池续航也不好。要么就是能装很多歌，但传输要花很长时间。而且如果你有很多歌，那个界面会……’所以我们试了几个月想让它可行。但用户体验很糟糕。Apple 的体验应该是什么样？Apple 的产品应该为这个做什么？当时我们当然还没有 iPod 这个名字。那是 2001 年 2 月。

Well, the first thing was—I started as a consultant. They hired me, and as a consultant, they bought iTunes. Jeff Robin and iTunes—it was bought, and then it became iTunes. And they said, 'We're trying to use these MP3 players out there like the ones you mentioned, but they don't hold enough songs. They don't have good battery life. Or they hold a lot of songs and take forever to transfer. And the interface, if you have lots of songs, it's...' So we tried for a few months to make it work. They're horrible experiences. What would an Apple experience be? What would an Apple product be for this? And we didn't have the name iPod at the time, obviously. This was February 2001.

好的。

Okay.

当时的情况是，我已经有一家做 MP3 播放器的初创公司——机架式的。

What had happened then was I already had a startup company making MP3 players—rack-mount ones.

对。

Right.

我在想未来的便携式播放器会长什么样。我已经做了十年便携小设备。所以我手头有各种东西，而且我还是个 DJ。我在各个演出之间要带着所有这些 CD 跑来跑去。它们非常重——所有塑料外壳什么的。而且我一直在做掌上设备。我当时想：‘哦，这里有个东西——我们是第一款支持有声书的掌上设备。’Audible 有声书，就是在 Amazon 商店里的那种。我们是 Philips 第一款让 Audible 有声书在掌上设备上运行的产品。然后我想：‘哦。’我看着我的 DJ 设备，心想：‘这可以用来放音乐。’然后 MP3 播放器出现，我心想：‘等等，我们可以做一个掌上设备。’所以它最初是一个机架式播放器，就放在电视下面。但最终它会成为一款便携产品。我和几个人已经在这个方向上做了好几年。然后 Apple 打电话来了，我心想：‘哦，对啊，我对这个很了解。让我重新扫描一下市场。’我发现了一家叫 PortalPlayer 的公司，它有一款用于机架式 MP3 播放器的低功耗芯片，但它的功耗低到可以做成电池供电。

Looking at the future of what a portable one would look like. I was already making portable little devices for ten years. So I had a mix of things, and I was also a DJ. I was carrying all these CDs with me between gigs. They were very heavy—all the plastic and everything. And I had been working on handhelds. I was like, 'Oh, here's this—we were the first handheld to do audiobooks.' Audible audiobooks, like on the Amazon store. We were the first product at Philips to make Audible audiobooks work on a handheld. And it was like, 'Oh.' And I'm looking at my DJ stuff and I'm like, 'This could be music.' And then MP3 players—I'm like, 'Wait a second, we could make a handheld.' So it first started as a rack-mount player, literally under your TV. And then it was ultimately going to be a portable product. I had been working on this for a few years with a couple of people. Then Apple called, and I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I know something about this. Let me rescan the market.' I found a company called PortalPlayer that had a low-power chip for rack-mounted MP3 players, but it was low enough power to make it battery-operated.

哦。

Oh.

好的，那很酷。

Okay, that's cool.

然后我们想：‘等等，我们需要怎么做才能做出一款像 Apple 的产品？’首先，它必须低功耗，必须能装下 1,000 首歌。2001 年 1 月，Toshiba 推出了一款硬盘，让我们基本上能存储 1,000 首歌。那是 4 GB 或 5 GB 的硬盘。所以我们能在一个硬盘上存下 1,000 首歌。所以：硬盘、电池、处理器和显示屏。我们需要足够大的显示屏——比计算器更大的屏——只要能让文字显示出来。但它不花哨，就是黑白或灰度显示。好的，很好。然后是界面。关键在于：问题都有哪些？做一个更好的界面，让它非常快。所以我们给它配了 FireWire，确保它能快速充电——FireWire 是可以通过它充电的。所以所有这些东西，一样比一样好。把这些组合起来，能放进口袋，能装一千首歌，而且能和 iTunes 配合。所有这些部分拼在一起，既是因为我们看到现有播放器的问题，也是因为我们希望拥有的东西——下一代 Sony Walkman，那是我成长过程中最喜欢的，团队里的人也一样。所以它本质上是把更好的音乐体验带入数字世界：你可以把一千首歌放进口袋。传输快、选择快、能听任何一首歌，并把你的所有音乐——当时就是你的全部音乐——随身带到任何地方。

And then we were like, 'Wait a second, what do we need to do to make an Apple-like product?' First, it has to be low power, it has to fit 1,000 songs. There was a hard drive that came out in January 2001 from Toshiba that allowed us to store basically 1,000 songs. It was a 4 GB or 5 GB drive. So we could store 1,000 songs on a hard drive. So: hard drive, battery, processor, and display. We needed enough of a display—a bigger calculator display—that could just display text. But it wasn't fancy; it was black and white or grayscale. Okay, great. Then the interface. It was all about: what are all the problems? Make a better interface, make it really fast. So we gave it FireWire, made sure it could charge fast—FireWire could charge over it. So it was all of these things: better, better, better. Combine fit in your pocket with a thousand songs, and it worked with iTunes. All of those pieces came together because of the problems we saw with the existing players, as well as what we would love to have—the next generation Sony Walkman, which was my love growing up, and for people on the team. So it was really about bringing a better music experience into the digital world, where you could have a thousand songs in your pocket. It was fast to transfer, fast to select, listen to anything, and take all your music—back then all your music—with you wherever you went.

是的。而且那句至今还印在人们脑海里的口号是‘把一千首歌装进口袋’。

Yeah. And the tagline that still sticks in the mind is 'a thousand songs in your pocket.'

是的，你知道，现在每个人的口袋里都有无限量的歌曲。无限量的一切。但在当时，没有网络连接——没有移动数据网络之类的。所以你只能装下这一千首歌。对我们这些年纪稍大的人来说，那简直是疯狂。那是一百张 CD 的内容，对吧？

Yeah, you know, today everyone's got unlimited songs in their pocket. Unlimited everything. But back then there was no connection—no mobile data network or anything. So you got a thousand songs. For us older people, that was insane. That was a hundred CDs of content, right?

我们来聊聊你当时提出并发展起来的产品制造哲学。跟我们说说‘习惯化’这个概念。

Let's talk a little bit about the product-making philosophy you had at the time and developed. Tell us a little bit about the concept of habituation.

Steve 有一句话：永远保持初学者心态。保持初学者心态。它的真正意思是：用初学者的眼光来看你正在做的产品、营销和客户旅程，就像拥有一双全新的眼睛。什么东西让你困惑？什么东西让你兴奋？并且要记住，我们的每一位客户都是初学者。所以，不要因为我们已经用过很多次、觉得没问题，就把设备或产品内部可能存在的问题‘习惯化’掉。

Steve had a saying: always stay beginner. Stay beginner. What that really meant was: look at the thing you're making, the marketing, the customer journey, as if you were a beginner—as if you have fresh eyes. What confuses you? What excites you? And remember that each of our customers are beginners. So don't habituate away a problem that might be inside the device or the product, because we've used it enough times and we think it's fine.

习惯化，一个完美的例子就是：早上你醒来，走进淋浴间，把手有点涩，你知道，就是调节水温或水量的时候。你会“嗯、嗯、嗯、嗯”地不停摆动它，直到找到合适的水量和温度。这仅仅是因为你早上很累。四五次之后，你就“好吧，行吧，管他呢。”然后你就只是机械地完成这些动作。这就是习惯化，对吧？

So, habituation—a perfect example is, you wake up and get in the shower in the morning, and the handle is a little sticky, you know, when you set the temperature or the volume of the shower. You're like, 'Eh, eh, eh, eh.' And you keep wiggling it until you get exactly the right volume and temperature. It's just because you're tired in the morning. After four or five times, you're just like, 'Well, okay, whatever.' And you just kind of go through the motions. Well, that's habituation, right?

好。

Okay.

所以，如果你是那个早上醒来的人，而它没有立刻调到你要的温度，你会生气，对吧？所以你必须记住在第一次接触新体验时的那种情绪。

So if you were that same guy or gal waking up in the morning, and it didn't get to the temperature you wanted right away, you would be mad, right? And so, you have to remember those emotions at the very first interaction with a new experience.

是的。

Yes.

所以，保持初学者心态，这样才能发现那些可能被习惯化掉的东西，并修复它们。然后你才能在产品使用的方方面面，让用户感到惊喜。

And so, stay a beginner, so that you can see the things that might be habituated away and fix them. Then you can delight the user as they use the product, in all respects.

我想到的一个很好的例子是“先充电再使用”的想法。即使在今天——前几天我给孩子买了一个玩具，他非常兴奋。包裹来了，是一辆小小的遥控车。然后就是巨大的失落：你得先给这东西充一个小时的电。你知道，你就是在粉碎这个四岁孩子的梦想。

One of the great examples I thought of was the idea of charge before use. Still today—I got my kid a toy the other day. He was so excited. The package comes, it's a little remote control car. And then there's the enormous deflation: you have to charge this thing for an hour. You know, you're just crushing this four-year-old's dreams.

是啊。

Yeah.

你知道，你会想：“我刚买的，我很兴奋，我想把它拆开来用——可现在我得先充电。”而且可能充半小时，也可能充三小时。你会说：“我还得等。”不要这样。所以真正有趣的是，我们当时用一种新的电池——现在它已经很常见了，但它是最早使用锂离子或锂聚合物电池的消费产品之一，明确地说。它能够长时间保存电量。前几代用的是镍镉、镍氢电池，它们会在 30 到 40 天内自放电。而锂离子能保存很长时间，这就是为什么现在的电动车等等都在用。当时我们还需要测试硬盘。我们会做一种叫“老化测试”（burn-in）的流程：在出厂前把硬盘老化测试 2 到 3 小时，确保这个精密的硬盘工作正常。而这段时间正好可以用来给产品充电。所以我们一边测试产品，一边给它充电，然后就能马上包装发货。它可以保持充电状态好几个月，6 到 9 个月。所以当人们打开包装时，可以立刻使用。当时我们就觉得“这不是显而易见吗？”“你在开玩笑吗？”而今天这已经是基本要求了。

You know, you're like, 'I just bought it. I'm excited. I want to use it, rip it apart—and now I've got to charge it.' And it could take half an hour, could take three hours. Like, 'I've got to wait.' Don't do that. So what was really interesting was that we were using a new—now it's very old—but it was one of the very first consumer products to use lithium-ion or lithium-polymer batteries, to be clear. And it could hold a charge over a long period of time. The previous generations—nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal hydride—would self-discharge over 30 to 40 days. But lithium-ion could store it for a long time. That's why electric cars and everything now use it. So, we also needed to test the hard drive. We would run what was called burn-in testing: we'd burn in the hard drives for two to three hours before letting them leave the factory, to make sure the delicate hard drive was working well. That was the same exact amount of time we could use to charge the product. So we charged the product at the same time we tested it, and we could wrap it up and ship it right away. It would stay charged for months—six to nine months. So when people opened the package, they could use it immediately. And that was like, 'Duh.' Like, 'Are you kidding me?' Today that's kind of table stakes.

那“疑虑病毒”呢？

What about the virus of doubt?

这是我发明的一个词。它是用来唤醒人们对那些已经习惯化的事物的感知。具体到 Nest 学习型恒温器，我们有一整套“疑虑病毒”话术来提醒人们。当时我们是 Nest，正在做一台恒温器。我们在做的是智能 AI——据我所知，这是第一个出现在家庭中的 AI 消费产品。当时我们不叫它 AI，我们叫它学习型恒温器，但它就是 AI。目的是让人们节约能源，让家里更舒适。但大多数人都已经忘记了恒温器。它从他们小时候就在那里，一直是那个该死的恒温器。大多数时候很丑，你不知道怎么用。很多时候它还被藏起来，通常被涂上了漆。它就是个东西，一个没人关心的实用物件。所以人们已经把恒温器给习惯化掉了。什么？恒温器？那又怎么样？谁在乎恒温器？所以“疑虑病毒”话术具体是这样的：“你知道那个没人爱的盒子吗？每个人都因为温度不对而去摸它、跟它较劲？你知道那个你讨厌的丑盒子吗？”所以记住——想一想我们用的每句话。让人们想起它很丑，他们讨厌使用它，他们为它争吵。“顺便说一下，你讨厌的那个盒子每年要花掉你一半的能源账单，因为你把钱都投到取暖和制冷上了。那是你家里最耗能的设备——那个你又讨厌、又跟它较劲、还觉得它丑的东西。”所以你要不断制造这种疑虑病毒：“你知道那东西吗？你知道那东西吗？”然后你说：“也许有更好的办法。如果它能学习你喜欢的温度呢？如果它只在你在家时开启，你一离开就立刻关掉呢？”诸如此类。所以你首先要设定：“还记得那东西的种种糟糕之处吗？那个你甚至不再考虑的东西？”现在让我们给你一个更好的方式。你从疑虑病毒开始，让人们去习惯化那些“我就是不想再折腾了”的习得性经验。

So, there's a term I coined. It's to reawaken people to the things they've habituated away. Specifically, in the case of Nest—the Nest Learning Thermostat—we had a whole set of 'virus of doubt' lines to remind people. We were Nest, making a thermostat. We were making a smart AI—the first AI consumer product I know of ever in a home. We didn't call it AI then; we called it the learning thermostat, but it was AI. It was to get people to save energy and be more comfortable in their homes. But most people had forgotten about the thermostat. It had been there since they were a kid. It was the same damn thermostat. Ugly, for the most part. You didn't know how to use it. In a lot of ways, it was hidden away, usually painted over. It was just this thing—a utility thing no one cared about. So people had habituated away the thermostat. What? A thermostat? What does that have to do with anything? Who cares about a thermostat? So the 'virus of doubt' lines were specifically: 'You know that box that's unloved, that everyone touches and fights over because the temperature isn't right? Do you know that ugly box you hate?' So remember—think of each line we used. Making people remember it's ugly, they hate using it, they fight over it. 'By the way, that box you hate costs you half your energy bill every year because you're dumping money into heating and cooling. That's the most expensive energy-using device in your house—the one you hate, fight over, and find ugly.' So you keep creating these virus-of-doubt reminders: 'You know that thing? You know that thing?' And then you say, 'There could be a better way. What if it learned the temperatures you like? What if it turned on when you were there and turned off immediately when you left the house?' Those kinds of things. So first you set up, 'Remember all those horrible things about this thing you don't even consider anymore?' And now let's give you a much better way. You start with the virus of doubt to de-habituate people from those learned behaviors of 'I just don't want to deal with that anymore.'

你看，这真的很有意思，因为我觉得它触及了人们对史蒂夫·乔布斯和苹果，以及你们建立的那种文化的认知——消费者几乎不知道自己想要什么，对吧？但当你把它给他们的时候，你会让他们惊喜到极致。

You see, that's really interesting, because I think it gets to what people know about Steve Jobs and Apple and the culture you guys built—consumers almost don't know what they want, right? But then when you give it to them, you delight them to extraordinary levels.

对，对，对。你必须理解：你要解决的是什么痛点？这其实就是理解痛点，给他们一剂止痛药，然后希望把它变成他们的超能力。让它成为那种让人惊叹“天哪，我不知道这会存在。我不知道我可以拥有这个。我想要它，它在某些方面让我的生活更好”的东西。所以在制造和设计产品时，你必须走过那段旅程——理解你带用户走的是什么样的旅程。而它必须从痛点开始。

Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to understand: what is the pain you're trying to solve? It was really about understanding the pain, giving them a painkiller for that pain, and then hopefully making it a superpower for them. Making it into something where they go, 'Oh my god, I didn't know this could exist. I didn't know I could have this. I want this, and it makes my life better in certain ways.' And so, when making and designing the product, you had to walk through that journey—understand what journey you were taking users on. And it had to start with pain.

止痛药，而不是维生素。

Painkiller, not a vitamin.

不，是的。止痛药，而不是维生素，正如你所说。因为归根结底，维生素不是必须吃的。在某些情况或对某些人来说，它们可能对你有好处。但疼痛——天哪。当你脖子疼、头疼的时候，你会说：“不管是什么，赶紧给我，让我摆脱这种疼痛。我必须马上要，对吧？”而维生素——好吧，也许一两个月后我会感觉好一些。但它解决不了我现在的问题。

No, yes. Painkillers, not vitamins, as you say. Because at the end of the day, you don't have to take vitamins. They're probably good for you in certain cases and for certain types of people. But pain—oh my god. When you have neck pain, when you have a headache, you're like, 'Give me whatever it is to get rid of this pain. I have to have it, right?' Vitamins—yeah, well, maybe in a month or two I'll feel better. They're not going to solve my problem right now.

“iPhone 当初是在解决什么痛点？”

What pain was the iPhone solving?

“哦，是这样的。在 General Magic——那部纪录片大家都该看看——我们当时做的其实就是在解决 iPhone 那个命题。我们早了 15 年在造 iPhone。所以要说 General Magic 当时解决的是什么痛点：没有痛点。”

Oh, that was that. So, at General Magic — movie that everybody should watch — what we were doing was solving for the iPhone. We were building the iPhone 15 years too early. And so, here's the pain we were solving at General Magic: none.

“我们在做可下载的电子邮件、可国际邮寄的可下载游戏、电子票务。我们在做各种各样的东西。我们在互联网出现之前就在做搜索。1991 年我们就做这些了，那时候还没有互联网，没有人知道什么叫电子零售，甚至没有人知道什么是表情符号。1991 年我们全都做了，因为我们觉得这些会是人们未来想做的很棒的事。”

We were making downloadable email, internationally mailable downloadable games, e-ticketing. We were making all kinds of things. We were making search before the internet. We were doing all this stuff in '91, before the internet, before anybody knew what e-tailing was, before anyone even knew what emojis were. We did all this in '91 because we thought these would be great things people would want to do in the future.

对。

Right.

“15 年后，iPhone 出现，解决的正是互联网以及其他一切开始制造出来的问题。所以，我们当时并不知道自己在解决的那些痛点，在 15 年后出现了。那就是 iPhone。”

The iPhone, 15 years later, came and solved the problems that had started to be created because of the internet and all the other things. So the pain we didn't know we were solving for showed up 15 years later. That was the iPhone.

“1991 年的时候基本还没有手机。所以通信——人们是在发短信、打电话。好，通信。iPhone 有这一点，所以他们手里有了一部手机。然后是生产工具：Microsoft Word、Excel 之类的，还有电子邮件、网页浏览。以前这些都在电脑上做。哦，那我有一台电脑，所以我有手机，也有电脑。现在我还喜欢移动娱乐。我有 iPod，里面装着我所有的音乐、照片、视频、电影等等。所以那个时候我随身带三样设备：一台笔记本电脑、一台电脑，还有一个 iPod。好，那把这三样合在一起。这就是 iPhone。”

Now, there were no mobile phones in '91 for the most part. So communications—people were texting and calling people. Okay, communication. The iPhone had that. So they had a mobile phone in their hand. Then they had productivity tools, which were Microsoft Word, Excel, whatever, email, web browsing. That was done on a computer. Oh, well, I have a computer, so I have a mobile phone and I have a computer. And now I also like mobile entertainment. I have my iPod with all my music, I have my photos, I have my videos—movies and all that stuff. So I was carrying at that time three devices: a laptop, a computer, and an iPod. Well, let's put them all together. And that's what the iPhone was.

“所以我们要解决的是随身带三台设备、还要带各种充电器的那个痛点，把它装进一个紧凑的形态，让你想去哪都行。而且，顺便说一句，它还能连 2G 网络，也能连 Wi-Fi，能上网。什么都能做。”

So we were taking that pain of carrying three devices with all the chargers and all that different stuff, and let's now put it into one compact form factor so you can take it wherever you want to go. And now, oh by the way, it also hooks up to 2G networks, or through Wi-Fi. It hooks up to the internet. It does all that stuff.

“在 General Magic 时代，这些东西统统不存在。什么也没有。所以我们在痛点出现之前就解决了问题。iPhone 之所以能成，是因为每个人都已经有了那个痛点。”

At General Magic, none of that stuff existed. Nothing existed. So we solved that problem before there was pain. The reason the iPhone worked is because everyone had the pain.

嗯。

Yeah.

“或者说至少有一大批人，他们说：‘我想把所有这些东西都放在一个屋檐下。’那就是 iPhone。”

Or at least a good set of people, and they said, 'I want all of this under one roof.' Which was the iPhone.

“如果让你提炼一下，为什么它那么神奇——它刚出来的时候确实很神奇——为什么它会那样？你的团队、领导层、想法、时机，到底特别在哪里？为什么它那么出色，比竞争对手好那么多？”

And if you had to distill down why it was so magic—and it kind of was magic when it came out—why was it like that? What was it about your team, about the leadership, about the idea, the timing? Why was it so brilliant and so much better than its competition?

“我们回到 iPhone 被创造、被设计时的背景。就像我们聊 iPod 时说的。先说说 iPod。当时 Apple 正在上升期，iPod 火了，人们开始对 Mac 这种产品产生兴趣，公司盈利了，50% 的收入来自 iPod。Apple 找回了自己的派头。Apple 这个品牌、美国的创新精神，回来了。一切都在发生。”

Let's go back to the context of when the iPhone was created and designed. Like we talked about with the iPod. Let's talk about the iPod. Okay, so Apple was now on an upswing. The iPod was happening. People were starting to get interested in these things called Macs. The company was profitable. 50% of revenue was coming from the iPod. Apple had its swagger back. The Apple brand, American ingenuity, was back. Things were happening.

“现在，显然诺基亚——当时全球第一大手机公司、手机设备供应商——还有西门子、摩托罗拉、索尼，他们都看到了这个。看到了 iPod，看到了 Apple，然后说：‘那是什么？’接着又说：‘哦，那是一个可以放进口袋、能播放音乐的设备。好，我们也有可以放进口袋的设备。我们让我们的产品也能播音乐，让我们的手机也能播音乐。’然后他们说：‘好，我们要直接拿走 iPod 的产品线之类的，把它整合进来。’”

Now, obviously Nokia—which was the number-one cell phone company, the mobile handset supplier—and Siemens, Motorola, Sony, they all saw this. They saw the iPod, they saw Apple, and they said, 'What? What is that?' And then, 'Oh, that's a pocketable device that plays music. Well, we have a pocketable device. We'll make ours play music. We'll make our mobile phones work and play music.' And they said, 'Okay, we're going to start stealing the iPod lines and everything else and start integrating it.'

“我们也意识到了这一点，心想：‘哦，Apple 终于成功了。’然后我们回头一看：‘好，现在对面是这些巨头，庞大的消费电子公司，一天能卖几百万台。’他们说：‘我们要去抢他们的市场。’而我们在 MP3 播放器市场有 80% 到 90% 的份额。所以，我们又面临一个生死攸关的问题。以前是公司要死了，现在是：‘哦，这个新产品线可能会消失——被这些人抢走。所以我们必须做点截然不同的事。’”

Well, we were waking up to that too and going, 'Oh, finally Apple's successful.' And we looked over our shoulders and went, 'Okay, now we have these behemoths—huge consumer electronics companies that are selling millions of units a day.' And they were saying, 'We're going to go take their market.' And we had 80 to 90% market share in these MP3 players. So we had another existential problem. Before, it was the company that was going to die. Now it was like, 'Oh, this new product line could be gone—these guys will take it. So we need to do something dramatically different.'

好。

Okay.

“所以我们就去想，怎么把通信功能弄进 iPod。首先是因为大家都在发短信、打电话，那我们就先把短信和电话装进 iPod。于是我们走了那条路。”

And so, let's go figure out how to bring communications into the iPod. It was all about, first, getting—because everyone was texting and calling—let's get texting and calling into the iPod. So we went down that road.

对。

Right.

“但那条路没走通。我们内部试过，最后还是放弃了，因为归根结底，我们没法用那个拨盘做出可用的用户界面。”

And that route was not successful. We tried it internally, but we threw it away because at the end of the day we couldn't make the user interface with a dial work.

嗯。

Yes.

“iPod 的拨盘根本行不通。”

An iPod dial wouldn't work.

嗯。

Yeah.

“对吧？所以，如果你要拨一个不在通讯录里的号码，基本上只能像老式转盘电话那样操作。”

Right? So, because if you wanted to dial a number that wasn't in your contact book, you basically had an old rotary phone.

嗯。

Okay.

“你要是想发短信，那时候也没有语音命令之类的东西。我们什么都没有。所以你所有的操作都得靠那个拨盘，这根本不可持续，行不通。所以我们就说：‘好，iPod 加手机不行。’这是我们试过的一条路。”

If you wanted to text, there were no voice commands or any of that other stuff. We didn't have any of that. So you had to do everything with the dial, and that was unsustainable. It just doesn't work. So we said, 'Okay, iPod plus phone does not work.' So we tried that.

“然后我们在做视频 iPod，那是一个全屏幕、带虚拟拨盘的 iPod。虚拟拨盘就是软件拨盘，可以用在这个全屏设备上，外观上有点像今天横着的 iPhone，对吧？没有任何按钮，但它有一个单点触控显示屏，让你能做和硬件 iPod 一样的用户界面。”

Then we were building a video iPod, which was an iPod that had a full screen and a virtual wheel. It had a virtual software wheel that you could use on top of this full-screen device that looked like a horizontal iPhone today, right? No buttons or anything, but it had a single-touch display that allowed you to do the same user interface as a hardware iPod.

“我们说：‘好，不错。我们有了全屏幕，有了可以放进口袋的机身，但它是单点触控。’然后想在上面做键盘之类的，就是行不通，因为单点触控的限制太多了。所以我们就说：‘好，这也不成。iPod 加电话不行。这个全屏视频 iPod 呢，某些场景下能用，但你还是没办法好好发短信或做其他事情。’”

It was like, 'Okay, great. So we have this full screen. We have this pocketable unit, but it had single touch.' And then trying to do a keyboard or anything, it just didn't work, because there are a lot of limitations with single touch. So we're like, 'Okay, well, that didn't work. iPod plus phone didn't work. This full-screen video iPod—it sort of works for certain things, but you still can't get any good texting or anything else.'

“然后 Steve 已经在和一个叫 Steve Hotelling 的人合作。他们刚收购了一家公司，在做一种叫多点触控的东西，想做出一个多点触控的 Macintosh。这基本上就是 Mac OS，但你可以用手指——像平板电脑或 iPad 那样——来操作 Mac。”

And then Steve was already working with a guy, Steve Hotelling. They had just bought a company, working on this thing called multi-touch, to make a multi-touch Macintosh. Which was basically Mac OS, but you could use your fingers—like a tablet or an iPad—to use the Mac.

“于是这三样东西走到了一起：通信功能、全屏 iPod 和多点触控界面。我们开始了一个疯狂的项目，因为这将拯救 Apple。而我们基本上必须干掉 iPod，才能把 Apple 从那些要来抢我们饭碗的大型手机巨头手中救下来。”

And so those three things came together: the communications, the full-screen iPod, and the multi-touch interface were put together. And we had a crazy project, because this was going to save Apple. And we had to basically kill the iPod to save Apple from the big mobile phone giants that were going to come and eat our lunch.

所以我觉得这确实把公司置于考验之中：“这就是必须发生的事。”而且史蒂夫坚信，如果苹果要在 iPod 之后继续活下去，就必须要这么做。

And so I think that really put us to the test as a company: 'This is what has to happen.' And Steve was driven by the conviction that this is what had to happen if Apple was going to live past the iPod.

我觉得这很有意思。在这两种情况下，这些标志性产品的背后都有一种恐惧在驱动，对吧？一种生存威胁。这不仅仅是，你知道的，那些很棒的加州人做着很酷的事，他们热爱设计、热爱字体，一切都很好。而是恐惧——如果我们不能兑现某些东西，这家公司就可能倒闭。

I think this is really interesting. In both cases, these defining products, there's an element of fear driving this, right? A sort of existential threat. It's not just, you know, these wonderful Californians doing this cool thing, loving design and loving fonts and it's all very nice. It's fear—this thing could go under if we don't deliver on something.

是的，我觉得……确实有这种潜台词。每个人心里都在说：“好吧，这事很严重。”但不是那种“天哪，我们慌了”的感觉，而是“我们必须把它做对”。就像“让我们干一票漂亮的”。我们从来不会不好好干。但我们必须做得比以往更好，因为苹果回来了，你不能失手。到那时我们已经做了五六代 iPod，它真的势头正猛，所有人又开始谈论苹果了。所以我们不能失手，绝不能失手。

Yeah, and I don't think... there was an undertone of that. Everyone was like, 'Okay, this is serious.' But it wasn't the 'Oh god, we're panicked.' It was 'We've got to get it right.' It was like, 'Let's do a great job.' And we would never not do a great job. But we had to do an even better job than ever because Apple was back and you didn't want to slip. And by that point we had done five or six generations of iPod, and it was really flying, and everybody was talking about Apple again. So we couldn't slip. We couldn't slip.

现在，这种攸关存亡的事——看看谷歌在 AI 竞赛中刚刚发生了什么。谷歌还是那个谷歌，可他们却只会不停发广告，别的什么都发不出来。就那样了，就是广告和搜索。谷歌做的其他事基本上都不成。然后他们就说：“哦，现在我们有了来自 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的生存威胁。”他们试着发布点什么，结果搞砸了，然后才意识到：“哦，这事真的非常重要。”最后他们终于掉头，把 Gemini 做到了世界领先的水平。再说，我在硅谷待过，也在飞利浦待过，就普遍人性而言，我已经屡见不鲜了：除非遇到濒死事件，否则人们不会改变。我们在健康领域也总能看到这种情况。人们说：“我要变健康，我要变健康。”然后心脏病发作了：“该死，现在我真得改了。”他们等到太晚了，也许有很小一部分人真的会改变并恢复，但很多时候人们就这样“啊”一声，然后死掉了。大公司也一样。“哦，一切安好，直到出了事。”诺基亚就是个绝佳例子。诺基亚没了。索尼也没了。所有这些公司，因为我们打败了它们，而它们只是“好吧好吧，随便吧”。它们没有足够认真地对待。所以，无论是因为公司由人运营，而人都有同样的毛病——除非真的受到威胁，他们才会真正地——不一定总是，但能够奋起应对吗？而且通常是在受到重大威胁时，他们才会奋起应对。

Now, this existential thing—look what just happened with Google in the AI race. Google was Googly, and they just kept shipping ads, and they couldn't ship anything else. That was it. It was ads and search. Nothing else Google did basically worked. And then they were like, 'Oh, now we have an existential threat from OpenAI and Anthropic.' They tried to ship something and got it wrong, and then it was like, 'Oh, this is really important.' And they finally turned around and got Gemini to a world-leading position. Again, I've seen this through my time in Silicon Valley, through my time at Philips, and just in human nature in general. People don't change unless it's a near-death event. So we see this all the time in health. People say, 'I'm going to get healthy, I'm going to get healthy.' Then they have a heart attack. 'Shit, now I've got to really change.' They wait until it's too late, and maybe in a small percentage of cases people do change and get back, but a lot of times people just die. And you see this with big companies too. 'Oh, everything's fine until it's not.' Nokia was a perfect example. Nokia's gone. Sony, gone. All these things because we bested them, and they were like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' They didn't take it seriously enough. Whether it's because companies are run by humans, and humans have that same trait. Unless they're really under threat, do they actually—not always, but can they rise to the occasion? And it's usually when they're under heavy threat that they rise to the occasion.

有意思的是，谷歌也和苹果一样，创始人的回归，对吧？谢尔盖·布林回来了，然后还有 DeepMind 的德米斯那种创始人的能量。这感觉很重要。

It's interesting with Google that also, like with Apple, there's the return of the founder, right? So Sergey Brin coming back, and then having the founder energy of Demis from DeepMind. That feels important.

是，你知道的，所有这些——你都必须去动摇那种文化。你不能想干嘛就干嘛。所以重要的是要明白，如果你想做出剧烈的改变，你必须考虑文化。

Yeah, you know, all of those things—you're going to have to shake up the culture. You can't just do whatever. So it's important to understand that if you want to make dramatic change, you've got to think about the culture.

让我们把目光投向未来，聊聊未来吧。我们来聊聊 AI。我很好奇——如果你在设计一个实体产品，一个可穿戴设备，人们将通过这个实体产品与 AI 互动——你的前同事乔尼·艾维现在正和 OpenAI 的山姆·奥特曼在做这件事——你觉得你会选择什么形态？你觉得最终真正做出来的会是什么形态？又是什么时候？

Let's throw it forward a little bit and talk about the future. Let's talk about AI. I'm really curious—if you were designing a physical product, a wearable, where people would basically interact with AI through a physical product, which your former colleague Jony Ive is now doing with Sam Altman at OpenAI—what form factor do you think you would do? And what form factor do you think will actually be the one that gets made? And when?

听着，我们不会只有一种设备。如果你只能有一种设备，最好的就是智能手机。我们已经有那个设备了。它需要升级，需要加入其他东西，但我们对它已经升级了 20 年，所以它正变得越来越好。我们不需要一种全新的设备。我们已经看到 Humane 死了。Humane 死了，因为他们想“哦，我们要取代手机。”重点不在于取代手机。AI 在拥有大量上下文时才能发挥更好。而大量的上下文——这要从 Nest 时代说起——意味着你周围有很多设备，以联邦式的方式协同工作，在设备端和云端都提供正在发生什么的上下文，从而给你更好的答案，帮你完成工作或你想做的事。所以说有什么一统天下的设备，绝对没有。 也许在 10 年、20 年、30 年之后，当我们真正理解 AI 是什么，以及它如何从周围各种事物中获取上下文，而且一切都相互连接时——你能从环境中读取上下文吗？而且它足够聪明，能通过声音完成大多数事情，还能在你的大脑或视网膜上投射出显示画面？我的意思是，在未来 10 年内，你将看到的是一群联邦式的设备。你已经有了这些设备。你有一块手表，你有一个戒指，你有你的 Meta 眼镜，你有手机，你有笔记本电脑，你有汽车，你有智能电视，还有家里所有的设备。这些就是那个联邦的组合，上下文从中被提取，而观看视觉信息最好的地方，就是显示屏上的画面。要说你会有一个没有屏幕的设备——那好，我想看地图，我想看照片，你上哪儿看去？除非它投射到你的视网膜上，或者通过 BCI（脑机接口）装进你的大脑，否则你需要一块显示屏。那么，你会用一块不同于你的小智能手机的显示屏吗？它是可卷曲的还是可折叠的？我们现在已经有这些了。所以，认为会有一种设备取代一切，绝对不可能。而且从我进入这个行业开始，从个人电脑到今天，每一次都会有“iPod 杀手”、“iPhone 杀手”、“笔记本电脑杀手”等等——你猜怎么着？我们的设备比以往任何时候都多。它没有取代任何东西，只是增加了。所以我看到的是越来越多的东西。就像我说的，也许在 20 年、30 年后，我们可能会开始减少东西，但现在还不是这样。

Look, we are not going to just have one device. If you're going to have one device, the best device is a smartphone. We already have that device. It needs to get upgraded, it needs to get other things, but we've been upgrading them for 20 years now, so they're getting better and better. We don't need a different device. We already saw Humane die. Humane died and they were like, 'Oh, we're going to replace the phone.' It's not about replacing the phone. AI works better when it has lots of context. Lots of context—and this was from the days of Nest—means a lot of devices all around you working together in a federated way to give context both on the device and into the cloud about what's going on, to get better answers for you to get your work done or whatever you're trying to get done. So to say there's a one-size-fits-all, absolutely not. Now, maybe in some 10, 20, 30 years from now, when we really understand what AI is and how it can get context from all kinds of things around it, and everything's interconnected—will you be able to read the context from the environment? And it's smart enough that it can do most things with voice and it can project into your brain a display, or onto your retina? I'm saying for the next 10 years really, you're going to see a federation of devices. You already have them. You have a watch, you have a ring, you have your Meta glasses, you have your phone, you have your laptop, you have your car, you have your smart TV, all the devices in your home. Those are going to be that federation of things where the context is taken from, and the best place to see visual information is visually on a display. To say you're going to have a display-less device—well, I want to look at a map, I want to look at a picture, where are you going to do that? Unless it's projected onto your retina or bolted into your brain with a BCI, a brain-computer interface, you need a display. So are you going to get a different display from your small smartphone? Is it going to be rollable or foldable? We have those now. So to think that we're going to have a device that replaces everything, absolutely not. And every time I've lived through this since personal computers to today, every time there was an 'iPod killer' and 'iPhone killer' and 'laptop killer' and so on, guess what? We have more devices than ever. It didn't replace anything; it just added to it. So I see more and more stuff. As I said, maybe 20, 30 years in the future, maybe we'll start removing things, but right now that's not the case.

托尼，我有两个非常非常可爱的孩子，一个 1 岁，一个 4 岁。

Tony, I've got two very, very sweet children, a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old.

恭喜恭喜。

Congratulations.

在我看来，他们超级可爱。有时候我妻子会对我说：“你难道不好奇吗？”因为他们两个的可爱方式是截然不同的。我妻子又说：“如果我们真的生了老三和老四，你不好奇他们会是什么样吗？你知道，他们也会以不同的方式可爱。”

They are unbelievably cute, in my opinion. And sometimes my wife says to me, 'Are you not curious?' Because they're both cute in very different ways. And my wife says, 'Are you not curious to see what it would be like if we did have a third and a fourth? And they'd be, you know, cute in different ways.'

你已经做出了 iPod、iPhone、Nest。它们全都是大获成功的产品。你有没有坐在那里想过：如果我再做第四幕会怎样？如果我现在还能做第四幕，去创造下一个 Tony Fadell 的爆款产品呢？

You've done the iPod, the iPhone, Nest. All of them are kind of smash hit products. Do you ever sit there and think, what if I'd done a fourth act? What if I still do a fourth act and create the next kind of Tony Fadell hit product?

嗯，幸运的是，因为和我共事的人以及我投资的公司，我基本上可以打造和设计很多产品。只是我不需要再做日常工作了。

Well, luckily, because of who I work with and the companies I invest in, I get to basically build a lot of products and design a lot of products. I just don't have to do it day-to-day.

好的。

Okay.

所以，我和一家叫 Ledger 的公司合作，帮他们设计了一系列产品。我还有几个产品项目，暂时还不方便说，是我在帮助其他公司做的。所以我还是在设计产品。我不需要再管日常事务，但我依然能参与其中。而且我觉得这更有成就感，因为我能实实在在地参与……你知道，我现在有上百个直接投资项目。我能和所有这些团队合作，把 AI 用在手术、纺织、回收、药物发现等领域。我喜欢这一点。所以我能参与所有这些不同的产品。我玩得比以前更开心，而且能复用我学到的东西和人脉，帮助那些真正敬业、充满热情的优秀团队。所以，这很有趣。

So, I worked with a company called Ledger, helping them design a set of products. I have a couple other products that I'm not talking about yet, but that I'm helping other companies with. So I get to design products. I get to do this stuff without having to do the day-to-day anymore. And I think it's more rewarding because I get to actually work on... you know, I have over a hundred direct investments now. And I'm able to work with all these teams doing AI in surgery, AI in textiles, AI in recycling, AI in drug discovery. I like it. So, I get to work on all these different products. And so, I get to have even more fun than ever and be able to reuse the things that I've learned and the networks, and enable these other really smart teams who are really dedicated and passionate to do that. So, it's fun.

Tony，非常感谢。这是第一部分的绝佳收尾。下周我们将带来第二部分。我们会聊一聊与 Steve Jobs 一起工作的生活，你从他那里学到了什么，以及更广泛的职业经验教训。

Tony, thank you so much. An amazing place to end part one. We'll be back next week with part two. We're going to talk about life working with Steve Jobs, what you learned from him, and also lessons for careers more widely.