Ben: Listeners, Microsoft today is sprawling and massive. It is the world's most valuable company worth over $3 trillion. They have 49 years of history making software for consumers and enterprises, making hardware, gaming systems, gaming studios, Windows apps, iPad apps, Mac apps, operating systems, mobile operating systems, MP3 players, search engines, cloud computing, services on cloud computing, programming languages, development environments, and the list goes on. But it did not start out that way.
本：听众朋友们，今天的微软公司规模庞大。它是世界上最有价值的公司，价值超过 3 万亿美元。他们有 49 年的历史，为消费者和企业制造软件，制造硬件、游戏系统、游戏工作室、Windows 应用程序、iPad 应用程序、Mac 应用程序、操作系统、移动操作系统、MP3 播放器、搜索引擎、云计算、云计算服务、编程语言、开发环境，等等，不一而足。但它一开始并非如此。
Today, we will tell the story of the desktop software company. Before the enterprise, before IT, before the Internet, before being a trusted partner to governments around the free world, and really, before people even knew what to do with personal computers, this is the story of a bunch of ragtag geniuses in their 20s pushing what was possible. Welcome to Microsoft, the PC era.
今天，我们将讲述桌面软件公司的故事。在企业、IT、互联网出现之前，在成为世界各国政府值得信赖的合作伙伴之前，甚至在人们还不知道如何使用个人电脑之前，这是一群 20 多岁的破落天才创造可能的故事。欢迎来到微软，来到个人电脑时代。
Listeners, if you want to know every time an episode drops, you can get hints at the next topic and follow up. You can sign up at acquired.fm/email. Come talk about this episode with the community at acquired.fm/slack. If you want more from David and I, you should check out our second show, ACQ2, where we interview founders, investors, and experts often as a deeper dive into topics we cover on the main show. Before we dive in, we want to briefly thank our presenting sponsor, JP Morgan Payments.
听众朋友们，如果您想在每期节目播出时知道下一期的主题和后续内容，您可以获得提示。您可以在 acquired.fm/email 注册。请登录 acquired.fm/slack 与社区讨论本期节目。如果你想从大卫和我这里获得更多信息，你应该看看我们的第二档节目 ACQ2，我们经常在这里采访创始人、投资者和专家，深入探讨我们在主节目中涉及的话题。在正式开始之前，我们想简单地感谢一下我们的赞助商摩根大通支付公司（JP Morgan Payments）。
David: Yes, just how we say every company has a story, every company's story is powered by payments. JP Morgan Payments is a part of so many journeys from seed to IPO and beyond.
大卫：是的，就像我们说每家公司都有自己的故事一样，每家公司的故事都是由支付驱动的。摩根大通支付公司参与了许多企业从种子到上市以及更多的发展历程。
Ben: With that, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss and likely all of you if you hold any index funds, and the show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. David, where on earth do we start the Microsoft story?
本：有鉴于此，本节目并非投资建议。大卫和我可能对我们讨论的公司有投资，如果你们持有任何指数基金，也可能对你们所有人有投资，本节目仅供参考和娱乐之用。大卫，微软的故事究竟从何说起？
David: We're right down the middle on this one. We're going to start in 1955 in Seattle, Washington with the birth of Bill Gates III or Trey as he's known growing up. It's so confusing because his dad is the second, but he goes by Senior, and Bill is Junior/III/Trey. Bill is born in 1955 as the second of three children to Bill and Mary Gates. Bill Gates Sr. (his father), is from Bremerton, the Navy town just across the sound from Seattle, where he grows up in a family that owns and runs a furniture store there, a long way from the software king of the world here.
大卫：这次我们从中间开始。我们将从 1955 年华盛顿州西雅图市比尔-盖茨三世（Bill Gates III）的出生说起。这让人很困惑，因为他的父亲是老二，但他叫老三，而比尔是小三/三/特雷。比尔出生于 1955 年，是比尔-盖茨和玛丽-盖茨三个孩子中的老二。老比尔-盖茨（他的父亲）来自西雅图隔海相望的海军小镇布雷默顿，他在那里一个拥有并经营着一家家具店的家庭中长大，与这里的世界软件之王相距甚远。
Bill Gates Sr./II, after high school, he joins the Army during World War II, serves during World War II, and then he goes, I presume on the GI Bill to the University of Washington, where he's the first member of his family to go to college. There he gets an undergrad and a law degree in four years, and then decides to stay in Seattle with his new family and become a practicing attorney.
老比尔-盖茨二世高中毕业后，在第二次世界大战期间参军，在二战期间服役，然后，我猜他是拿着大兵法案进入华盛顿大学的，他是家里第一个上大学的人。在那里，他用四年时间拿到了本科和法学学位，然后决定和新家庭一起留在西雅图，成为一名执业律师。
I say family because at the U-Dub, he meets and marries one Mary Maxwell. Mary, I don't know how to put it other than that she is a force. Mary's family had founded National City Bank, and her father was a senior executive at First Interstate Bank, which later became a big part of Wells Fargo. Mary, despite being the daughter of a successful business family in that day and age, was not cast aside like so many other daughters we've talked about on the show.
我之所以说 "家庭"，是因为他在 U-Dub 遇到并娶了玛丽-麦克斯韦尔（Mary Maxwell）为妻。玛丽，我不知道该怎么说，只能说她是一股力量。玛丽的家族创立了国家城市银行，她的父亲是第一州际银行（后来成为富国银行的重要组成部分）的高级管理人员。在那个时代，尽管玛丽是一个成功商业家庭的女儿，但她并没有像我们在节目中谈到的其他许多女儿一样被抛弃。
Ben: New York Times, Hermes, where it was passed to the son-in-law to continue to run the business. That was not the case with Mary Maxwell.
本：《纽约时报》、爱马仕，都是传给女婿继续经营。玛丽-麦克斯韦尔的情况并非如此。
David: No. After she graduates from the U-Dub, she becomes first the president of the Seattle Junior League. She starts joining nonprofit boards in Seattle as a very young woman. She joins the Seattle Symphony Board, the Chamber of Commerce, the Children's Hospital, the King County United Way. She's such a force on these boards that she starts getting asked by her fellow board members to join their company's boards too. The corporate boards were so impressed with her.
她从大学毕业后，首先成为西雅图青年联盟的主席。她年纪轻轻就开始加入西雅图的非营利组织董事会。她加入了西雅图交响乐团董事会、商会、儿童医院、金郡联合之路。她在这些董事会中发挥了巨大的作用，因此她的董事会成员也开始邀请她加入他们公司的董事会。公司董事会对她印象深刻。
First, she joins the board of First Interstate Bank, the bank that her family's a part of. Then she joins the board of Cairo Television in Seattle. She even ends up joining the Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Board.
首先，她加入了第一州际银行的董事会，她的家族就是这家银行的一部分。然后，她加入了西雅图开罗电视台的董事会。最后，她还加入了西北太平洋贝尔电话董事会。
Ben: That's right, part of the AT&T breakup.
本：没错，这是 AT&T 分手的一部分。
David: Yeah. Eventually, she joins the Board of Regents of the University of Washington and the entire national United Way board. She never works full-time in a corporate setting, but it is not an overstatement at all to say that Mary Gates became one of the most powerful business people in the Pacific Northwest, period.
大卫：是的。最后，她加入了华盛顿大学董事会和整个国家的联合之路董事会。她从未全职在企业工作过，但玛丽-盖茨成为西北太平洋地区最有权势的商界人士之一，这样说一点也不为过。
Ben: Absolutely, and Bill Gates Sr. was the prominent attorney in the region, so it's quite the power couple.
本当然，老比尔-盖茨是该地区著名的律师，所以这是一对相当有实力的夫妇。
David: Ben, it's like you're reading my script here. Yes. We don't want to give Bill Sr. the short shrift here either. He becomes a superstar lawyer, and he becomes a co-founding partner of the firm Preston, Gates, and Ellis, which today, I didn't even realize until I dug in the research, that is K&L Gates today, one of the largest law firms in the world.
本，你好像在读我的剧本。是啊 Yes.我们也不想在这里贬低老比尔。他成为了一名超级明星律师，成为了普雷斯顿、盖茨和埃利斯律师事务所的共同创始合伙人，今天，直到我深入研究后才意识到，这就是今天的 K&L Gates，世界上最大的律师事务所之一。
Another fun fact that you probably know about Bill Gates Sr., but we got to, this being Acquired, talk about. Do you know what corporate board he joined later in life?
另一个你可能知道的关于老比尔-盖茨的趣事，但我们不得不说，这就是《收购》。你知道他后来加入了哪个公司的董事会吗？
Ben: I do not.
本：我不知道。
David: Costco. 好市多
Ben: Of course, Bill Gates Sr., we should say too, basically galvanized the entrepreneurial community in Seattle. He started the tech alliance. He was a huge angel investor. He really did organize angel investors, people who want to put high risk capital to work into startups. His heart was there, obviously, through his law practice, long before Bill Gates III became the prodigy he became.
本：当然，应该说老比尔-盖茨也基本上激发了西雅图的创业社区。他创立了科技联盟。他是一个巨大的天使投资人。他确实组织了天使投资人，那些想把高风险资金投入初创企业的人。很显然，在比尔-盖茨三世成为神童之前，他就已经通过他的法律实践，在那里投资了。
David: Totally, and that's the point we want to land here. For young Bill, Trey growing up here, he is growing up in a pretty unique household. He would later talk about being 9 or 10 years old. Most nights at dinner at his house, there would be a CEO, a senator, a governor, or somebody who's just over for dinner, and Bill would sit there and absorb the business conversation. It's like the Hermes family, the Dumas family that we talked about in that episode. This whole thing makes me think of Paul, the main character in the Dune movies in the book. He's bred from birth to be this incredible business mind.
大卫：完全正确，这也是我们想说的重点。对于在这里长大的小比尔-特雷来说，他是在一个非常独特的家庭里长大的。他后来说起自己 9 岁或 10 岁的时候。大多数晚上在他家吃晚饭时，都会有一位首席执行官、参议员、州长，或者是来吃晚饭的人，比尔会坐在那里，吸收商业谈话的内容。这就像我们在那期节目中谈到的爱马仕家族、大仲马家族一样。整件事让我想起了《沙丘》电影中的主角保罗。他一出生就被培养成了一个不可思议的商业头脑。
Ben: At age 13, with his best friend, who we will talk about very soon, he brought up the idea, I wonder what company I will be the CEO of when I grow up. What industry will I go after? What problems will I tackle? It wasn't a question of if, but which.
本：13 岁时，他和他最好的朋友（我们很快就会谈到这个朋友）提出了一个想法：我想知道我长大后会成为哪家公司的首席执行官。我会进入哪个行业？我要解决什么问题？这不是 "如果 "的问题，而是 "哪个 "的问题。
David: Yes. It just turned out that He would be the CEO and founder of the biggest company in the biggest industry ever to exist. The other thing that we got to say about Bill growing up, he is insanely competitive. He did not and does not like to lose at anything. That is putting it mildly, whether it's sports, swimming, computers, school, or the classroom.
大卫：是的。事实证明，他将成为有史以来最大行业中最大公司的首席执行官和创始人。在比尔的成长过程中，我们不得不说的另一件事是，他的好胜心非常强。他过去和现在都不喜欢在任何事情上失败。无论是体育、游泳、计算机、学校还是课堂，他都不喜欢输。
There's a quote in one of the books we read from a childhood friend of his who says, "Everything Bill did, he did competitively and never simply to relax." I think this used to be more than today. There's this image of Bill Gates that he was a computer nerd, that he was this shy little skinny kid. The way he looks doesn't help this, but that is not the case at all. This guy had a competitive fire in him, I'm sure he still does like none other.
在我们读过的一本书中，有一句话是比尔儿时的朋友说的："比尔所做的一切，都是为了竞技，从来没有放松过"。我认为这句话在过去比今天更有说服力。在人们的印象中，比尔-盖茨是个电脑呆子，是个害羞的瘦小孩子。他的长相并不能帮助人们了解他，但事实并非如此。这家伙的内心充满了竞争的火焰，我相信他现在仍然如此。
Ben: Both things can be true. He was the number one math student in the State of Washington. He was a nerdy kid, a brilliant kid, and also fiercely competitive. His childhood friend and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, would say about him, “You could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart, he was really competitive, and he wanted to show you how smart he was. And he was really, really persistent.”
本：两件事都有可能是真的。他是华盛顿州数学第一名。他是一个书呆子，一个聪明的孩子，也是一个竞争激烈的孩子。他的童年好友、微软联合创始人保罗-艾伦曾这样评价他："你可以很快看出比尔-盖茨的三点。他非常聪明，非常好胜，他想让你知道他有多聪明。而且他非常非常执着"。
David: That sounds about right. Famously, speaking of Paul and where Bill and Paul meet, when Bill is in seventh grade, his parents enroll him at the Lakeside School, which now I think is internationally famous because of Bill. It is a super rigorous college prep school, middle school, and high school. Bill ends up writing the scheduling software for class scheduling that he puts himself in the classes with all the girls. Funny.
大卫：听起来差不多。说到保罗以及比尔和保罗相遇的地方，比尔七年级的时候，他的父母把他送进了湖畔学校。这是一所超级严格的大学预科学校、初中和高中。比尔最后编写了排课软件，他把自己和所有女生都安排在一起上课。真有趣
This Bill, 13 years old, seventh grade, Lakeside, this is when it starts. Obviously, Microsoft doesn't start. But during that year, Bill is 13 years old, the Lakeside Mothers Club raises money to buy the school a teletype, connect it up, and rent computer time from a DEC PDP 10 that is located in downtown Seattle and owned by the branch office there of General Electric.
这位比尔，13 岁，七年级，湖滨区，这是它开始的时候。显然，微软并没有开始。但在比尔 13 岁的那一年，湖畔母亲俱乐部筹款为学校购买了一台电传打字机，并将其连接起来，还租用了一台 DEC PDP 10 电脑，这台电脑位于西雅图市中心，归通用电气公司的分公司所有。
Probably a bunch of you are like, I have no idea what any of those words mean, so we got to set some context. This is 1968, the Beatles, Vietnam, the Summer of Love. This is not the computer age.
可能你们中的很多人都会说，我不知道这些词是什么意思，所以我们得先了解一下背景。现在是 1968 年，披头士、越南、"爱之夏"。现在可不是电脑时代。
Ben: 2001, A Space Odyssey had just come out.
本：《2001 太空漫游》刚刚问世。
David: Nolan Bushnell has not founded Atari yet. Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore are only just leaving Fairchild Semiconductor to start Intel. Silicon Valley is still dominated by Lockheed. There is no such thing as a microprocessor.
大卫：诺兰-布什内尔还没有创立雅达利公司。鲍勃-诺伊斯（Bob Noyce）和戈登-摩尔（Gordon Moore）才刚刚离开仙童半导体公司，创办英特尔公司。硅谷仍然是洛克希德公司的天下。根本就没有微处理器这回事。
Ben: The United States would land on the moon one year later.
本：美国将在一年后登上月球。
David: Totally. The way computing worked back then, it was basically still the ENIAC days. A computer meant two things. It either meant a massive room sized machine that had about the computing power of a calculator, or it meant a human. People talked about computers as humans. Have you ever seen the movie Hidden Figures about the black women who did the calculations?
大卫：完全正确。当时的计算机工作方式，基本上还停留在 ENIAC 时代。计算机有两种含义。要么是指一个巨大的房间大小的机器，计算能力和计算器差不多；要么是指一个人。人们把计算机说成是人类。你看过电影《隐藏人物》（Hidden Figures）吗？
Ben: Yes. Those women were the computers.
本：是的。那些女人就是电脑。
David: They were called the computers, yes.
戴维：是的，它们被称为计算机。
Ben: Because they would sit there and compute.
本：因为他们会坐在那里计算。
David: This was a totally different era. The idea that a 13-year-old kid in this high school, this middle school would get access to share computer time, I can't imagine there are many other secondary schools in the country that were doing this.
大卫：那是一个完全不同的时代。在这所高中、中学里，一个 13 岁的孩子可以共享电脑时间，我无法想象全国还有多少其他中学在这样做。
Ben: This is a very early place to make the point. Microsoft is the result of tremendous intelligence, brilliant strategy, fierce competition, and an unbelievable amount of luck. Bill Gates was born in 1955, the same year as Steve Jobs, to come into adulthood just as the personal computer wave is starting.
本：这是一个很早提出观点的地方。微软是巨大的智慧、出色的战略、激烈的竞争和难以置信的运气的结晶。比尔-盖茨出生于 1955 年，与史蒂夫-乔布斯同年，在个人电脑浪潮刚刚开始的时候步入成年。
The fact that he was at a middle school and had this much privilege, where he could get access to a PDP-10 at this point in his life to help him understand how important computers would become, there are dozens of people in America who are as well-situated as Bill is, and that might be overly generous.
事实上，他当时就读于一所中学，拥有如此优越的条件，可以在人生的这个阶段接触到一台 PDP-10，帮助他了解计算机将变得多么重要。
David: He and Paul got a sneak peek into the future there at Lakeside. It's funny, you said the personal computer era. We are so far away from the personal computer here. We got us at the stage. What is computing? I mentioned ENIAC and these room-sized things.
戴维：他和保罗在湖畔窥见了未来。有趣的是，你说的是个人电脑时代。我们这里离个人电脑时代太远了。我们正处在这个阶段。什么是计算？我提到了ENIAC和这些房间大小的东西
Computers did not have screens. You didn't have cursors, you didn't have lights, you didn't have pixels. Everything was done on a teletype that looked like typewriters, and they were wired up remotely either in the same facility or what Lakeside is doing. You could be remote. It's almost the cloud today.
计算机没有屏幕。没有光标，没有灯光，没有像素。所有的工作都是在电传打字机上完成的，看起来就像打字机，它们是远程连线的，要么在同一个设施里，要么就像湖畔公司正在做的那样。你可以远程操作。这几乎就是今天的云计算。
Ben: And it called over a phone line. That was the teletype.
本：它通过电话线呼叫。那就是电传打字机
David: Exactly. Got wired over the phone line, hooked up to these mainframes. You typed commands into this teletype, and then the response came back over the phone line or over whatever cable from the mainframe. It got printed out on a spool of tape on the teletype. But this is power that normal 13-year-olds don't come anywhere near accessing.
戴维：没错。通过电话线连接到这些主机上。你在电传打字机上输入命令，然后响应通过电话线或任何电缆从主机传回来。它被打印在电传打字机的一卷磁带上但这是普通13岁孩子接触不到的能力
What is the computing market at this time? It is pretty much—we'll come back to the pretty much in a minute—100% dominated by IBM. IBM, Big Blue, Big Iron is what it was referred to, the products that they would produce, were the industry.
目前的计算机市场是怎样的？我们稍后再谈 "几乎 "的问题，IBM 占据了整个市场的 100%。IBM、Big Blue、Big Iron 就是这个意思，他们生产的产品就是这个行业。
Ben: Ben Thompson has a fantastic quote on this. He has an article called, What is a Tech Company? And here's his comment. "Fifty years ago, what is a tech company was an easy question to answer. IBM was the tech company, and everybody else was IBM's customers. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. IBM built the hardware, at that time the System 360, They wrote the software, including the operating system and the application, and provided services including training, ongoing maintenance, and custom line of business software.”
本：本-汤普森（Ben Thompson）对此有一段精彩的引述。他有一篇文章叫《什么是科技公司？以下是他的评论"50年前，什么是科技公司是一个很容易回答的问题。IBM 是技术公司，其他人都是 IBM 的客户。这可能有点夸张，但也差不了多少。IBM 制造硬件，当时是 System 360，他们编写软件，包括操作系统和应用程序，并提供培训、持续维护和定制业务软件等服务。
David: Yeah, System 360 was a line of solutions, I would say, offered by IBM. It consisted of the room-sized thing, the mainframe, the software, which was system 360, and the consulting and the implementation. You couldn't just call up UPS and forklift one of these things into a company and expect it to work. No, you got to operate this thing too.
戴维：是的，System 360 是 IBM 提供的一系列解决方案。它包括房间大小的主机、软件（即 System 360）、咨询和实施。你不能只是给 UPS 打个电话，然后把其中的一个叉车运到一家公司，就指望它能工作。不，你还得操作这个东西。
Ben: Totally, it's like ASML machines. You don't just ship them off to TSMC and say, good luck making semiconductors. It's a full solution, full service thing. But an important thing that was also happening this year, 1968, was that IBM was undergoing some antitrust scrutiny over that huge bundle that I just told you about.
本：完全正确，就像 ASML 机器一样。你不只是把它们运到台积电，然后说，祝你好运，制造半导体。这是一个全套解决方案、全套服务的事情。1968 年，今年还发生了一件重要的事情，那就是 IBM 正在接受反垄断审查，审查的内容是我刚刚告诉你的那笔巨额捆绑交易。
Doesn't it smell antitrust? They do everything from the hardware to the software to the operating system, the service, the support. They are the whole market. They're starting to get concerned. Proactively, they unbundled hardware, software, and services. They started selling those separately for the first time, which was not a problem at first. What it did was it cracked the door for customers to say, oh, I can buy hardware from IBM and software from someone else? Other people were not exploiting this, but it was possible.
这难道没有反垄断的味道吗？从硬件、软件到操作系统、服务和支持，它们无所不包。他们就是整个市场。他们开始担心了。他们主动将硬件、软件和服务拆分开来。他们首次开始单独销售这些产品，起初这并不是问题。它的作用是为客户打开了一扇门：哦，我可以从 IBM 购买硬件，从别人那里购买软件吗？其他人并没有利用这一点，但这是可能的。
David: Yeah, interesting. It cracks the door for Microsoft 15–20 years later.
大卫：是的，很有趣。它为 15-20 年后的微软打开了一扇门。
Ben: Yes, but this is where the seeds are sown of what is the exploitable opportunity when Bill Gates is ready to do something.
本：是的，但这正是播种的地方，当比尔-盖茨准备有所作为时，什么才是可利用的机会？
David: Interesting. Back to the timing thing for Bill, Paul, and Microsoft. I mentioned when we were setting this up that there's something else to talk about here. IBM was facing a disruptive force at this moment, I think, probably for the first time in its history, certainly in the computing era of IBM's history, and that was the Digital Equipment Corporation or DEC. Noticed when we said earlier that Lakeside is renting computer time from the General Electric computer in downtown Seattle, I said it's a deck PDP-10. It's not an IBM product.
大卫：有意思。回到比尔、保罗和微软的时机问题。我们在讨论这个问题的时候，我提到过这里还有些别的东西要谈。我认为，IBM 在这一时刻正面临着一股破坏性的力量，这可能是其历史上的第一次，当然是在 IBM 历史上的计算时代，这就是数字设备公司（DEC）。当我们刚才提到湖滨公司从西雅图市中心的通用电气计算机租用计算机时间时，我说这是一台 PDP-10 型计算机。它不是 IBM 的产品。
What's DEC? They're the "mini" computer company. Mini meaning it was the size of a closet, not the size of a room. It's all relative. DEC had been started by this guy, Ken Olson from MIT.
DEC 是什么？他们是 "迷你 "计算机公司。迷你的意思是它只有衣柜那么大，而不是房间那么大。这都是相对的。DEC 是由麻省理工学院的肯-奥尔森创办的。
What they did, he had this brilliant insight that would play out over and over and over again in technology that I'm not going to go compete with IBM head on, I'm not going to make any act. I'm not going to make mainframes.
他们所做的是，他有一个杰出的洞察力，这个洞察力将一次又一次地在技术领域发挥出来，那就是我不会与 IBM 正面竞争，我不会做任何事情。我不会制造大型机。
But computing has advanced enough that there's an opportunity to make something smaller, less powerful, more toy-like, and there's enough demand out there that I think they can find some new markets for people who will buy those types of computers and it’s smaller businesses. But in particular, it's branch offices of the big company.
但计算技术已经发展到足够先进的程度，有机会制造出体积更小、功能更弱、更像玩具的产品，而且有足够的需求，我认为他们可以找到一些新的市场，让人们购买这些类型的电脑。尤其是大公司的分支机构。
I am sure General Electric bought lots and lots and lots of IBM mainframes and products at their headquarters, but the GE field office in Seattle is not going to truck in a mainframe.
我确信通用电气公司在其总部购买了很多很多 IBM 大型机和产品，但通用电气公司在西雅图的外地办事处不会用卡车运来大型机。
Ben: And in 1968, Seattle is a provincial little town. I'm standing here right now. It's a major city and a huge economy in the United States. But at the time, a podunk, forgotten, sleepy, faraway place.
本：1968 年，西雅图还是一个外省小镇。我现在就站在这里。它是美国的大城市和经济中心但在当时，却是一个被遗忘、沉睡、遥远的地方。
David: Totally. Microsoft would go a long way to changing that over time.
大卫：完全正确。随着时间的推移，微软将在很大程度上改变这种状况。
Ben: We should say this is the classic low-end disruption playbook. This is what Clayton Christensen was talking about. Going from mainframe to mini computers, I'm going to make something that's worse for most things, but better for some new things that new customers and new markets are going to care a lot about. IBM's going to look at it and go, that can't do any of the things that are important to our customers. And that's exactly why it works.
本：我们应该说这是经典的低端颠覆玩法。这就是克莱顿-克里斯坦森所说的。从大型机到小型机，我要做的东西对大多数事情来说比较糟糕，但对一些新客户和新市场会非常关注的新事情来说却比较好。IBM 看了之后就会说，它做不了任何对我们的客户来说很重要的事情。这正是它成功的原因。
David: Specifically, why are they not going to care about it? I don't know exactly what an IBM mainframe system, System 360, 370, whatever cost. I'm imagining tens of millions of dollars all in total cost, maybe hundreds of millions of total dollars to run a system like that and buy it.
戴维：具体来说，他们为什么不关心这个问题？我不知道 IBM 大型机系统、System 360、370 或其他系统的确切成本是多少。我想象的是，要运行这样的系统并购买它，总成本可能高达数千万美元，甚至数亿美元。
The first DEC machine, when it comes out, the PDP-1, a few years before this time, was priced at $120,000, so an order of magnitude, maybe two below a system that you would buy from IBM. Obviously still a long, long, long way from the personal computer. People are not buying these things for their houses, but GE will buy one for the field office in Seattle, or universities will buy them for research, for their students, for their professors.
第一台 DEC 机器 PDP-1 在几年前问世时，售价为 12 万美元，比从 IBM 购买的系统低了一个数量级，也许是两个数量级。显然，这离个人电脑还有很长很长的路要走。人们不会为自己的房子买这些东西，但通用电气会为西雅图的现场办公室买一台，或者大学会为研究、学生和教授买一台。
DEC creates a new market for computing. Bill, he's so studied in business history, the founder, Ken Olson is Bill's hero. He totally looks up to DEC and what DEC's done. The DEC and minicomputer UI is still the same as the mainframe. You're still using a teletype. There's no innovation in terms of what computing is or how you use it. It's just cheaper and more people have access to it.
DEC 创造了一个新的计算机市场。比尔对商业史很有研究，创始人肯-奥尔森是比尔的偶像。他完全崇拜 DEC 和 DEC 所做的一切。DEC 和微型计算机的用户界面仍与大型机相同。你仍然在使用电传打字机。在计算的本质和使用方式上没有任何创新。只是价格更便宜，使用的人更多而已。
Back to Lakeside and the Mother's Club raising money for this access here for the school, Bill, remember, he's just started. He's in seventh grade, and Lakeside is a middle school in a high school. The high school is actually in a separate building. The computer room that gets installed with the teletypes was over in the high school, but Bill doesn't care. He gets exposed to it in a math class one day and he's like, oh, I'm hooked.
回到湖畔，母亲俱乐部为学校的这个通道筹集资金，比尔，请记住，他才刚刚开始。他才上七年级，湖畔学校是一所中学里的初中。高中实际上是在一栋独立的建筑里。安装了电传打字机的电脑室在高中那边 但比尔不在乎有一天，他在数学课上接触到了它，然后他就想，哦，我上瘾了。
He goes over. He's hanging out with the high schoolers, teaches himself how to program, and pretty quickly he becomes known as one of the very best programmers there. He and three other kids form what they call themselves the Lakeside Programmers Group. One of his buddies who he forms it with is of course the high schooler or I think the 10th grader at the time, Paul Allen.
他过去了。他和高中生们混在一起，自学编程，很快就成为那里最出色的程序员之一。他和其他三个孩子组成了湖畔程序员小组。和他一起组建该组织的其中一个伙伴当然就是当时的高中生，或者我认为是 10 年级的保罗-艾伦（Paul Allen）。
Ben: There is a fantastic photo, listeners, that we will tweet of Bill and Paul sitting in the computer room at Lakeside. Bill, I think he's 13–14. He looks like he's about eight. I think on the wall, there's this almost printed out magazine thing that says the bug slayer that they've hung up over the wall. It's amazing.
本：听众朋友们，我们将在推特上发布一张精彩的照片，比尔和保罗坐在湖畔学校的电脑室里。比尔，我想他有 13-14 岁。他看上去只有八岁。墙上挂着一本杂志，上面写着 "虫子杀手"。太神奇了
David: These high school kids, they start the Lakeside Programmers Group. They call it the programmers group because they are programmers. This is another super important thing to learn. To use a computer at this time meant to be a programmer. There was no package software that you bought. The software that IBM was selling was the operating system to make the machines actually function, and it was the programming languages that you could then program on but you weren't clicking around and using Excel or pulling up apps. Everybody who used a computer wrote their own software.
大卫：这些高中生成立了湖畔程序员小组。他们称之为程序员小组，因为他们都是程序员。这是另一个超级重要的学习内容。在当时，使用电脑意味着成为一名程序员。当时还没有购买软件包。IBM 出售的软件是操作系统，它能让机器真正运转起来，它是编程语言，你可以用它来编程，但你不能随意点击，使用 Excel 或调出应用程序。每个使用电脑的人都会编写自己的软件。
Ben: Right. There was not this multi-sided network of you've got developers making applications, and then you've got users of those applications. No, everybody who used a computer was a programmer.
本：没错。当时并不存在这样的多方网络：开发人员在开发应用程序，然后是这些应用程序的用户。不，每个使用电脑的人都是程序员。
David: The goal of the Lakeside Programmers Group, remember Bill is this business prodigy, is to use their very valuable and very rare skills as programmers at this time to make money, do a business.
大卫：湖畔程序员小组的目标是，利用他们作为程序员所掌握的非常宝贵、非常罕见的技能来赚钱、做生意。
It turns out at the same time—the coincidences here are just crazy—there is a local startup coming out of the University of Washington called the Computer Center Corporation or C-Cubed. The business plan behind C-Cubed was that they were going to get a bunch of DECs, a bunch of PDP-8s, PDP-10s, PDP-11s, whatever, and they were going to be AWS. They were going to just be a computer time-sharing company.
与此同时，华盛顿大学也成立了一家名为 "计算机中心公司"（Computer Center Corporation，简称 C-Cubed）的本地初创公司--这里的巧合简直太疯狂了。C-Cubed 背后的商业计划是，他们将获得一批 DEC、一批 PDP-8、PDP-10、PDP-11，等等，然后他们将成为 AWS。他们打算做一家计算机分时租赁公司。
C-Cubed hires the Lakeside Programmers Group, these kids, to come in and find and document bugs in the system. They're going to pay them directly in computer time. When they come into C-Cubed, they learn Fortran, they learn Lisp, they learn machine language for the PDPs. Back at Lakeside, they were just using BASIC, the programming language.
C立方聘请了湖畔程序员小组的这些孩子 来发现并记录系统中的错误他们直接用电脑时间来支付报酬。他们进入 C 立方体后，学习 Fortran、Lisp 和 PDP 的机器语言。在湖畔公司，他们只使用 BASIC 编程语言。
Ben: Which is reasonably high level in terms of how abstract it is. You're not writing machine language. You don't have to know how to address memory, registers, and all that. It reads English, it knows how to add numbers together. It's not an elegant language, and it's a very verbose language. But if you look at it with your eyes as a person who speaks English and knows basic math, you're like, I understand what this program does. There's a meaningful amount of translation done by a BASIC interpreter that takes you from the BASIC code you have to write to what is actually running on the machine.
本：就其抽象程度而言，这是相当高的水平。你不是在写机器语言。你不需要知道如何寻址内存、寄存器等。它能读懂英语，知道如何将数字相加。它不是一种优雅的语言，也是一种非常啰嗦的语言。但如果你是一个会说英语、懂基本数学的人，你就会觉得，我明白这个程序在做什么。BASIC 解释器完成了大量有意义的翻译工作，将你必须编写的 BASIC 代码转换为机器上实际运行的内容。
David: Yes, but BASIC, we don't want to give the impression that it is just basic or just for kids.
戴维：是的，但 BASIC，我们不想给人一种印象，它只是基本的或只是为孩子们准备的。
Ben: No, it's widely used.
本：不，它被广泛使用。
David: It's going to become hugely, hugely important. It is both the gateway programming language for everybody, but it's a real programming language, and a lot of stuff is done in it.
大卫：它将变得非常非常重要。它既是每个人的编程语言大门，也是一门真正的编程语言，很多东西都是用它完成的。
Ben: It's the Python of its day. I think the way Python is now where you joke that Python is so flexible, you can accidentally write a program by writing English, it can forgive a lot of mistakes, and it reads English, it's a reasonable parallel to draw it way back when with BASIC where you say, look, you can understand it as a layman, but also it's used in a broad set of business applications.
本：它是那个时代的 Python。我认为 Python 现在的样子，你可以开玩笑说 Python 非常灵活，你一不小心就能用英文写出一个程序，它可以原谅很多错误，而且它还能读懂英文，这与当年的 BASIC 有着合理的相似之处，你可以说，看，你可以作为一个门外汉理解它，但它也被广泛应用于商业领域。
David: Totally. When Bill, Paul, and their buddies come into C-Cubed, they're now getting access to learn real hardcore systems programming languages, including machine code for the PDP-10. They're becoming pretty prolific engineers here.
大卫：完全正确。当比尔、保罗和他们的伙伴来到 C-Cubed 时，他们现在有机会学习真正的核心系统编程语言，包括 PDP-10 的机器代码。他们在这里成为了非常多产的工程师。
Ben: They're handwriting assembly code.
本：他们在手写汇编代码。
David: And they're getting mentored. One of the executives at C-Cubed is a guy named Steve Russell. Did you find this, Ben? Do you know about this?
大卫：他们正在接受指导。C-Cubed公司的一位高管叫史蒂夫-罗素。你发现这个了吗，本？你知道这件事吗？
Ben: No.
David: This is amazing. You're going to die. Steve Russell was the guy who wrote Spacewar when he was at MIT on the first PDP, the PDP -1. He's a computer science legend.
太神奇了你会死的史蒂夫-罗素在麻省理工学院用第一台 PDP（PDP -1 ）编写了《太空战争》，他是计算机科学的传奇人物。
Ben: Nolan Bushnell told us about that.
本：诺兰-布什内尔告诉过我们。
David: Yes. Spacewar was the first video game, first computer game ever written. It was written as a fun side project by some MIT engineers in the early days of DEC, and then that became Nolan Bushnell's inspiration for starting Atari and Pong. Steve Russell, that guy, he mentored Bill Gates.
大卫：是的。太空大战》是有史以来第一款视频游戏，也是第一款电脑游戏。它是麻省理工学院的一些工程师在 DEC 早期编写的一个有趣的副项目，后来成为诺兰-布什内尔创办雅达利和 Pong 的灵感来源。史蒂夫-罗素，就是他，比尔-盖茨的导师。
Ben: Wow, and he was here at the University of Washington?
本：哇，他就在华盛顿大学？
David: He had come out to the University of Washington, and then left and was part of one of the execs starting this company.
戴维：他曾就读于华盛顿大学，后来离开了华盛顿大学，成为这家公司的创始人之一。
Ben: C-Cubed, wow. That's a mile from my house.
C 立方体，哇。离我家有一英里远
David: Right? Crazy. 大卫：对吗？Crazy.
Ben: Wow. 本：哇
David: After a little while at C-Cubed, all of this real expertise that these kids are getting leads to another opportunity at another timeshare computing company based down in Portland. They ask the kids to write a real piece of software, to write a payroll billing program for all their clients that are using the timeshare system.
戴维：在 C-Cubed 工作了一段时间后，这些孩子们获得了所有这些真正的专业知识，从而在波特兰的另一家分时度假计算公司获得了另一个机会。他们要求孩子们编写一个真正的软件，为所有使用分时度假系统的客户编写一个工资计费程序。
Bill now, who's the de facto leader of this group, negotiates a deal with the help of his dad, Bill Gates Sr. prolific corporate attorney in Seattle. Rather than just being paid hourly for their time, they're going to get a royalty on the revenue that their client makes off the software. I can't believe it. These kids are teenagers. They're figuring out the whole software business model here.
比尔-盖茨现在是这个团队的实际领导者，他在父亲老比尔-盖茨的帮助下，与西雅图多产的公司律师谈判达成了协议。他们将从客户的软件收入中获得使用费 而不仅仅是按小时支付的报酬我简直不敢相信。这些孩子才十几岁他们正在摸索整个软件商业模式
They end up making at least $10,000 from these royalties, which the average household income in the US at the time was below $10,000. These kids are rolling in money. The next year, Paul graduates from Lakeside and goes off to college at Washington State. He and Bill decide to team up on a new venture that they're going to do together called Traf-O-Data.
他们最终从这些版税中至少赚到 1 万美元，而当时美国的平均家庭收入还不到 1 万美元。这些孩子们赚得盆满钵满。第二年，保罗从湖畔大学毕业，去了华盛顿州立大学。他和比尔决定联手创办一家名为 Traf-O-Data 的新公司。
Ben: They've identified a market opportunity, and that opportunity is reducing traffic.
本：他们发现了一个市场机会，这个机会就是减少交通流量。
David: Yes. The business plan is that municipalities count cars that go through intersections, use that to make decisions about how they're going to do city planning. Bill and Paul are like, we can take this new thing that's coming out of Intel, a microprocessor, which is promising to be a full computer on one chip. We can use that. We can build a machine that is going to be a computer, and it'll process and analyze that data, and then we can sell it to governments. Great, big market.
戴维：是的。他们的商业计划是让市政当局计算通过十字路口的汽车数量，并以此来决定如何进行城市规划。比尔和保罗想，我们可以利用英特尔公司推出的新产品--微处理器，它有望成为一个芯片上的完整计算机。我们可以利用它。我们可以制造一台机器 它将是一台电脑 它将处理和分析这些数据 然后我们可以把它卖给政府这是个巨大的市场
Ben: Listeners, are you sensing what's happening here? Mainframe, mini computer, microprocessor. We have to keep using smaller and smaller words to represent the fact that the computer is getting smaller and smaller here.
本：听众朋友们，你们感觉到这里发生了什么吗？主机、迷你电脑、微处理器。我们必须不断使用越来越小的词来表示电脑越来越小的事实。
David: It wasn't until we started doing research for this episode that I finally realized, oh, microcomputers, which is the original term for the personal computer for the PC. It was called microcomputers before PC caught on. They're called microcomputers because they're based on the microprocessor.
大卫：直到我们开始为这一集做研究时，我才终于意识到，哦，微型计算机，这是个人电脑 PC 的最初术语。在个人电脑流行之前，它就叫微型计算机。之所以叫微型计算机，是因为它们基于微处理器。
Ben: Yes, absolutely. 本：是的，当然。
David: It's not just that micro is smaller than mini.
大卫：不仅仅是微型比迷你小。
Ben: It is funny that it stopped there. The computers that are sitting on all of our desks are microcomputers.
本：有趣的是，它就停在这里。我们办公桌上的电脑都是微型计算机。
David: Right. While they're waiting for the AD08, this new first microprocessor from Intel, to come out, or at least for them to get access to it, they want to get a head start on programming their traffic data machine and programming this microprocessor. Paul's like, I got this. I can find a way to make this happen.
大卫：是的。当他们在等待英特尔公司新推出的第一款微处理器AD08问世时，或者至少是在等待他们获得这款微处理器时，他们希望在交通数据机编程和这款微处理器编程方面先拔头筹。保罗想，我有这个。我有办法实现这个目标
He takes the PDP-10 at Washington State and he writes a whole emulator program to mimic the instruction set for the AD08 from the manual. They get a full emulator up and running, and they can code even without the microprocessor actually being there. It's just NVIDIA. When Jensen was like, no, we got to build an emulator and simulate this, and then we're going to ship it sight unseen, they're doing the same thing.
他利用华盛顿州立大学的 PDP-10 编写了一整套仿真程序，模仿手册中 AD08 的指令集。他们得到了一个完整的模拟器并开始运行，即使微处理器不在那里，他们也能编码。这就是英伟达。当 Jensen 说："不，我们得先做一个模拟器，模拟出这个，然后我们再把它运到市场上，他们也在做同样的事情。
Ben: It's funny. In many ways, at this point in history, getting a manual was actually much more valuable than getting the processor itself because the processor would arrive. Unless there was documentation, you would have no idea how to interact with it to take advantage of its power.
本：这很有趣。从很多方面来说，在这个历史时刻，获得一本使用手册实际上比获得处理器本身更有价值，因为处理器就在眼前。除非有文档，否则你根本不知道如何与它互动，以发挥它的威力。
If you had a manual, sure, you couldn't actually test the stuff you wrote for it on the hardware. But if you wrote an emulator on a bigger, more powerful computer that could mimic the computer that you're actually targeting, you could go years before actually ever running the software on the target device and just work off of what the manual says as long as the manual is correct and matches how it actually works.
如果你有一本手册，当然，你无法在硬件上实际测试你为手册编写的内容。但如果你在一台更大、更强大的计算机上编写了一个模拟器，它可以模拟你的实际目标计算机，你就可以在多年后才在目标设备上实际运行软件，只要手册是正确的，并且与实际工作方式相符，你就可以根据手册的内容工作。
David: And this is going to become very important to Microsoft in just a second. Traffic data is not a huge success. I think I read a few places, they make about $20,000 in revenue from it. Again, great money for high school and college kids, but not world-changing stuff here. This is not what Bill aspires to for the company he's going to start.
大卫：这一点对微软来说非常重要。流量数据并不是一个巨大的成功。我想我在一些地方读到过，他们从中获得了大约 2 万美元的收入。对于高中生和大学生来说，这也是一笔不错的收入，但并不是改变世界的东西。这不是比尔想要创办的公司的目标。
Bill and Paul are getting experience with the microprocessor. Bill actually has the idea for Microsoft when they're working with it. He's like, oh, this is a computer, why don't I go off and write an interpreter for BASIC here, and we can sell the BASIC interpreter for the microprocessor and build a big business? The AD08 just wasn't powerful enough yet to do that.
比尔和保罗正在积累使用微处理器的经验。当他们使用微处理器时，比尔实际上已经有了微软的想法。他想，哦，这是一台计算机，我为什么不在这里写一个 BASIC 解释器，然后我们就可以销售微处理器的 BASIC 解释器，建立一个大企业？AD08 的功能还不够强大，做不到这一点。
Ben: But spoiler alert, that totally becomes Microsoft. The seeds of Microsoft are selling language interpreters for new processors, new hardware, new computers that enable you to write familiar programming languages on that new hardware.
本：但剧透一下，这完全变成了微软。微软的种子正在为新的处理器、新的硬件、新的计算机销售语言解释器，让你能在新的硬件上编写熟悉的编程语言。
David: Yup. Bill and Paul are not the only ones having this insight here, too. Another Seattle guy named Gary Kildall who they had intersected with, who they knew from C-Cubed and the University of Washington, had the same idea here. We're going to bring up Gary and his company, Digital Research, a little bit later.
大卫：是的。比尔和保罗并不是唯一有这种见解的人。另一个与他们有交集的西雅图人加里-基尔达尔（Gary Kildall）也有同样的想法，他们是在 C-Cubed 和华盛顿大学认识的。我们稍后会提到加里和他的公司数字研究公司（Digital Research）。
Ben: Yeah, he cared a little bit less about programming languages and a little bit more about operating systems. That's how they diverged for the few years here.
本：是的，他不太关心编程语言，而更关心操作系统。这就是他们这几年的分歧所在。
David: Bill and Paul absolutely see the vision for what this can grow into and become. Bill has a great quote. "Paul and I had talked about the microprocessor, and it was really his insight that because of semiconductor improvements, things would just keep getting better. I said to him, oh, exponential phenomena are pretty rare, pretty dramatic. Are you serious about this? Because this means, in effect, that we can think of computing as free. It was a gross exaggeration, but it was probably the easiest way to understand what it means to cut costs like that. And Paul was quite convinced of it."
戴维：比尔和保罗绝对看到了我们的发展前景。比尔有一句名言"保罗和我讨论过微处理器，他认为由于半导体的改进，事情会越来越好。我对他说，哦，指数现象非常罕见，非常戏剧化。你是认真的吗？因为这实际上意味着，我们可以认为计算是免费的。虽然有些夸张，但这可能是理解如此削减成本的最简单方法。保罗对此深信不疑。"
Ben: Is this in the Smithsonian interview?
本：这是史密森尼的采访内容吗？
David: Yes, so good. 大卫：是的，非常好。
Ben: It's so good. This quote is incredible because basically, Paul Allen brings up Moore's Law to Bill Gates; they don't use that language there. But in 1971, that is what's happening. For Paul, this is just an observation of hey, there's an exponential thing happening here, it seems like it's going to keep happening, it's been happening.
本：太棒了。这句话太不可思议了，因为基本上，保罗-艾伦向比尔-盖茨提出了摩尔定律；他们在那里不用这种语言。但在 1971 年，这就是正在发生的事情。对保罗来说，这只是一种观察：嘿，这里正在发生一件指数级的事情，它似乎会继续发生，而且一直在发生。
Bill's shaking and he's like, what? Exponential phenomena don't just happen. That's incredibly, incredibly rare and immediately gets Bill's wheels turning on. What does this mean for the world? If that's actually true, we need to act and do something profoundly different than anyone's ever done before because this enables new things that no one ever thought could be possible.
比尔在发抖，他说，什么？指数现象不会凭空出现。这太不可思议了，太罕见了，比尔的脑子立刻转了起来。这对世界意味着什么？如果这是真的，我们就需要行动起来，做一些与以往任何人都截然不同的事情，因为这能带来前所未有的新事物。
David: This moment is the genesis of the vision for Microsoft. Even though Bill doesn't say the words in this quote, the vision of a computer on every desk in every home, that's the famous part that got left off later when the DOJ started sniffing around was running Microsoft software.
大卫：这一刻是微软愿景的起源。尽管比尔在这段话中没有说 "每个家庭的每张桌子上都有一台电脑 "的愿景，但这是著名的部分，后来当司法部开始调查运行微软软件的情况时，这部分被遗漏了。
But that is the vision here, and it is crazy at the time. A computer on every desk and in every home, Bill sees that this is what this exponential phenomenon, what Moore's law means, that that is going to happen. We're still in the era of teletypes. Nobody else sees this.
但这就是我们的愿景，这在当时是非常疯狂的。比尔认为，这就是指数现象，摩尔定律的含义，这一切即将发生。我们还处在电传打字机时代。没有人看到这一点。
Ben: And it's also the reason why Microsoft is going to form into such a different type of company that's ever come before it, why they can break all the rules, why they can sell just software, even though that's never been a thing before, why their business model can be so much different than everyone else's business model.
本：这也是为什么微软会成为一家与众不同的公司的原因，为什么他们可以打破所有的规则，为什么他们可以只卖软件，尽管这在以前从未有过，为什么他们的商业模式可以与其他人的商业模式大相径庭。
In preparing for this episode, we got to talk with Pete Higgins, who ran Excel and was an executive overseeing Office for a long time in the early days. He had this great quote to us, which was, "Computer on every desk was wackadoo stuff. People laughed at it. It was absolutely wild. People thought, I don't know, maybe 1 in 10 people in their finance group or something will have one at some point. This is the profoundness of an exponential decrease in price or increase in power of computing. It's going to become universal."
在准备这期节目的过程中，我们与皮特-希金斯（Pete Higgins）进行了交谈，他负责管理 Excel，并在早期长期担任监督 Office 的高管。他对我们说过这样一句话："每张桌子上的电脑都是古怪的东西。人们对此嗤之以鼻。这简直太疯狂了。人们认为，我不知道，也许在他们的财务小组或其他小组中，每 10 个人中就会有一个人拥有一台电脑。这就是指数级价格下降或计算能力提升的深远意义。它将变得普及"。
David: All that said, even Bill and Paul know the AD08. It's not there yet. It's not powerful enough to really be a general-purpose computer on a chip, but they know it's coming. In the fall of 1973, Bill goes off to college at Harvard famously. It's funny, at Harvard, like Jim Simons that we talked about at MIT on the RenTech episode. Bill thinks he's going to be a world-class mathematician and set the world on fire.
大卫：综上所述，即使比尔和保罗也知道 AD08。现在还没到那一步。它的功能还不够强大，不能真正成为芯片上的通用计算机，但他们知道它即将问世。1973年秋天 比尔去了著名的哈佛上大学有趣的是，在哈佛，就像我们在 RenTech 一集中谈到的在麻省理工的吉姆-西蒙斯一样。比尔认为自己会成为世界级的数学家 让世界为之沸腾
Ben: It's literally a quote from Paul Allen. Bill was the number one math student in the state of Washington. He gets there, and he does this theoretical math class, math 55 and gets a B. Paul says, when it came to higher mathematics, he might've been one in a hundred thousand or better, but there were people who were one in a million or one in 10 million. And some of them wound up at Harvard. Bill would never be the smartest guy in the room, and I think that hurt his motivation. He eventually switched his major to applied math.
本：这是保罗-艾伦的名言。比尔是华盛顿州数学成绩最好的学生。保罗说，在高等数学方面，他可能是十万分之一或更高，但也有人是百万分之一或千万分之一。他们中的一些人最终进入了哈佛大学比尔永远不会成为房间里最聪明的人，我想这打击了他的积极性。最终他改学了应用数学
David: Yes. While Bill's at Harvard, he's also doing a bunch of the typical college kid stuff. He's playing poker, he's cutting classes, he's making friends. One of the friends he makes there is a kid down the hall from him named Steve Ballmer. Everybody knows Ballmer. He's everything that Bill is not. He's super social, he's super outgoing. He's in a final club, which is a big thing in the social scene at Harvard.
大卫：是的。比尔在哈佛的时候，也在做一些典型的大学生该做的事。他打扑克、逃课、交朋友。他交到的朋友中，有一个就在他隔壁，名叫史蒂夫-鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）。大家都认识鲍尔默他拥有比尔所没有的一切。他是超级社交狂，超级外向。他参加了一个决赛俱乐部 这在哈佛的社交圈可是件大事
Ben: He's gregarious. Anyone who's ever met Steve or seen a video of Steve, you are well aware that this man has a presence. But the thing that people don't know about him is he is so unbelievably analytical. Steve is the guy that outscored Bill Gates on the Putnam exam.
本：他很好客。任何见过史提夫或看过史提夫视频的人，都会清楚地意识到这个人很有影响力。但人们不知道的是，他的分析能力超乎想象。史蒂夫就是那个在普特南考试中胜过比尔-盖茨的人。
David: Which is the annual math competition for college students.
大卫：这是一年一度的大学生数学竞赛。
Ben: Yeah, Steve isn't a programmer, but he is every bit the mathematician that Bill Gates is. That is one of these things where I think when people try to set it up as well, you've got the brilliant programmer genius and the marketing guy, it's just like those are the roles they took. But I think when you're getting a sense of who the original crew was at Microsoft, they were all brainiacs, and they were all wildly analytical.
本：是的，史蒂夫不是程序员，但他和比尔-盖茨一样都是数学家。我认为，当人们试图把微软塑造成一个天才程序员和一个市场营销人员时，他们的角色就是这样的。但我认为，当你了解微软最初的员工时，你会发现他们都是脑力劳动者，他们都善于分析。
David: Totally. In the spring of 1974, Bill's freshman year, Electronics Magazine publishes big news about a new Intel chip, the next generation, the next turn of the crank on Moore's Law, the 8080. In Bill's words here, all at once, we were looking at the heart of a real computer, and the price was under $200. We attacked the manual. I told Paul, DEC can't sell any more PDP-8s now. It seemed obvious to us that if a tiny chip could get so much more powerful, the end of big unwieldy machines was coming.
大卫：完全正确。1974 年春天，也就是比尔上大一的那一年，《电子杂志》（Electronics Magazine）刊登了一条大新闻，是关于英特尔公司（Intel）的新一代芯片，摩尔定律（Moore's Law）的下一个转折点，8080。用比尔的话说，我们一下子看到了真正计算机的核心，而且价格还不到 200 美元。我们开始研究手册。我告诉保罗，DEC 现在不能再卖 PDP-8 了。在我们看来，如果一个微小的芯片都能变得如此强大，那么笨重的大型计算机的末日就要来临了。
Ben: Yup. This is really where Bill Gates commits to computers to be his life's work. I think what's often lost in the story is Bill, even though he was good at computers and spent tons of time programming computers, never fancied himself a computer guy until this moment in history. He went to Harvard because he felt, hey, if I ever want to be a lawyer or something else, they've got a lot of great programs there. This was the moment where I think it really clicked for him that I'm just in the middle of the right place at the right time with the right skill set, and this is my way of having the most impact on the world.
本：是的。这就是比尔-盖茨将计算机作为毕生事业的真正原因。我认为，故事中经常忽略的一点是，比尔虽然精通计算机，也花了大量时间编写计算机程序，但在这一历史时刻之前，他从未认为自己是个计算机人。他去哈佛是因为他觉得，嘿，如果我想成为一名律师或其他什么人，那里有很多很棒的课程。这一刻，我觉得他真正明白了，我只是在正确的时间、正确的地点，拥有了正确的技能，这就是我对世界产生最大影响的方式。
David: They think, okay, what's clearly going to happen here is all the big computer companies, IBM, DEC, the big Japanese computing companies, they see this. They're going to get into this business, they're going to make machines, and they're going to make microcomputers. Surely, they will jump on this opportunity, right?
戴维：他们认为，好吧，很明显，所有的大型计算机公司，IBM、DEC，还有日本的大型计算机公司，都看到了这一点。他们要进入这个行业，他们要制造机器，他们要制造微型计算机。他们肯定会抓住这个机会，对吗？
Ben: If it didn't destroy their existing business model, sure they would.
本：如果不破坏他们现有的商业模式，他们当然会这么做。
David: Exactly. Bill and Paul are sitting around waiting through 1974 and 1975 being like, hey, when are the 8080 computers going to come out? Where are they? It's just crickets. Paul is so convinced that the revolution is coming that he actually drops out of Washington State, moves to Boston to be close to Bill so that they can be ready when it happens. That summer, they both get summer jobs at Honeywell as programmers. Paul stays on into the next school year when Bill goes back to school. He's just waiting, waiting, waiting.
大卫：没错。比尔和保罗在 1974 年和 1975 年一直坐在那里等待，他们想，嘿，8080 计算机什么时候问世？它们在哪里？只是鸦雀无声。保罗深信革命即将来临，于是他从华盛顿州辍学，搬到波士顿离比尔很近，这样他们就能在革命发生时做好准备。那年夏天，他们都在霍尼韦尔公司找到了一份程序员的暑期工作。保罗一直工作到下一学年，比尔也回到了学校。他只是在等待，等待，等待。
In December 1974, Paul is walking across Harvard Square, and he sees in a newsstand the January issue of Popular Electronics, on whose cover is the Altair 8800, the world's first real honest-to-God commercially available for sale microcomputer. The legend has it that Paul grabs the magazine, runs over to Bill's dorm, throws open the door, throws the magazine on the desk, and is like, it's here. Bill's just says, oh, my God, it's happening without us. We need to get on this right now.
1974 年 12 月，保罗走过哈佛广场，在一个报摊上看到了《大众电子》1 月刊，封面上是 Altair 8800，这是世界上第一台真正意义上的商用微型计算机。传说保罗抓起这本杂志，跑到比尔的宿舍，推开门，把杂志扔在桌子上，说："就在这里。比尔说："哦，我的天哪，我们都不在，这事儿就这么发生了。我们得马上行动
Ben: It's so funny he thinks they're already behind because clearly they're not. History would show. I think Bill Gates even says, we might've actually started a year or two too early. The market actually hadn't materialized yet. The funniest thing is, the starting gun went off, Bill and Paul ran, and everyone else is still standing around.
本：他认为他们已经落后了，这太可笑了，因为他们显然没有落后。历史会证明这一点。比尔-盖茨甚至说，我们可能早了一两年。市场实际上还没有形成。最有趣的是，发令枪响了，比尔和保罗跑了，其他人还站在原地。
David: This is it. This is the moment. The revolution is here. Microsoft is about to be founded. But first, this is a great time to thank our presenting partner this season, JP Morgan Payments.
就是现在。就是现在革命就在这里。微软即将成立。但首先，我们要感谢本季的合作伙伴摩根大通支付公司。
Ben: Just like Bill's vision of Microsoft to put a computer on every desk and in every home, JP Morgan has a vision for making payments real time, 24/7 everywhere and in every currency. JP Morgan has experienced a massive digital transformation, and is now much more than just a global bank. They invest $15 billion a year into technology and R&D. With JP Morgan Payments, you are getting their history of service, stability, and scale, but also innovation and new technology.
本：就像比尔对微软的愿景一样，要让每张桌子和每个家庭都有一台电脑，摩根大通的愿景是让支付实时化、全天候、无处不在、使用各种货币。摩根大通经历了大规模的数字化转型，现在已不仅仅是一家全球性银行。他们每年投资 150 亿美元用于技术和研发。通过摩根大通支付，您不仅能获得他们历史悠久的服务、稳定性和规模，还能获得创新和新技术。
David: Scale is really the key word here. Every episode, we talk about Hamilton Helmer's seven powers, and boy, does JP Morgan have scale economies. What's unique about their position in payments is that they can make massive infrastructure investments that benefit their customers in the near term, in addition to the long-term technology bets like blockchain or quantum computing. Since they move $10 trillion a day in 160 countries, these investments create a lot of shared value across their large customer base.
大卫：规模是这里的关键词。我们每集都会讨论汉密尔顿-海尔默的七种力量，而摩根大通拥有规模经济。摩根大通在支付领域的独特之处在于，除了区块链或量子计算等长期技术投资外，他们还可以进行大规模的基础设施投资，使客户在短期内受益。由于摩根大通每天在 160 个国家和地区转移 10 万亿美元的资金，这些投资为其庞大的客户群创造了大量共享价值。
Ben: Yeah, not to mention the second of the Seven Powers' network economies.
本：是啊，更不用说七大国中的第二个网络经济体了。
David: Yup. If you're a JP Morgan payments customer, whether you're a startup or a Fortune 500, you can access their payments partner network. This is a set of third party integrations across virtually every industry and payment use case. It makes it easy to discover what specific set of tools are best for your business.
大卫：是的。如果你是摩根大通的支付客户，无论你是初创企业还是财富 500 强企业，你都可以访问他们的支付合作伙伴网络。这是一套几乎涵盖所有行业和支付用例的第三方集成。它可以让您轻松找到最适合您业务的特定工具集。
Ben: It's basically a B2B marketplace that connects their clients with the broader payments and technology ecosystem such as treasury management systems, ERPs, point of sale hardware solutions, payment gateways, and so much more. Given JP Morgan's scale, you can imagine the value that comes with unlocking access to their industry leading partners and technology.
本：它基本上是一个 B2B 市场，将客户与更广泛的支付和技术生态系统（如资金管理系统、ERP、销售点硬件解决方案、支付网关等）连接起来。考虑到摩根大通的规模，您可以想象通过访问其行业领先的合作伙伴和技术所带来的价值。
David: Let's take Visa, for example, which listeners may remember. We talked a lot on that episode about the power of a network. Visa works with JP Morgan to provide global payment processing services. Now through the partner network, you can easily add Visa as an acceptance method through a streamlined implementation with consolidated reporting. Other companies in the partner network include Oracle, American Express, MasterCard, Accenture, and many more including friends of the show, Modern Treasury.
大卫：以Visa为例，听众可能还记得。我们在那期节目中多次谈到网络的力量。Visa 与摩根大通合作提供全球支付处理服务。现在，通过合作伙伴网络，您可以通过简化的实施和综合报告，轻松地将 Visa 添加为收款方式。合作伙伴网络中的其他公司包括甲骨文、美国运通、万事达卡、埃森哲等，其中也包括本节目的朋友现代财资公司。
Ben: Across any industry, the most successful companies we've talked about are the ones who think and invest strategically through a long-term lens. Like Hermes, durability and reliability are paramount for building hundred year companies that can reinvent and continue to grow. That is the case for JP Morgan Payments. Their history of trusted solutions and investments in technology bring clients and new fintech companies together to drive innovation and growth for businesses of all sizes.
本：无论在哪个行业，我们所谈论过的最成功的公司都是那些从长远角度进行战略思考和投资的公司。就像爱马仕一样，耐久性和可靠性是建立百年企业的首要条件，这些企业可以重塑并持续增长。摩根大通支付公司就是如此。摩根大通支付公司拥有值得信赖的解决方案和技术投资历史，将客户和新兴金融科技公司紧密联系在一起，为各种规模的企业推动创新和增长。
David: Before we jump back into Bill and Microsoft, who essentially wrote the modern playbook on building platforms, be sure to check out jpmorgan.com/acquired or click on the link in the show notes.
大卫：在我们回到比尔和微软的话题之前，请务必访问 jpmorgan.com/acquired 或点击节目注释中的链接。
Ben: David, they're like, it's happening without us. What do they do?
本：大卫，他们会说，没有我们也会发生。他们在做什么？
David: They do the natural thing that two super excited, ambitious, high octane college kids would do. They call up the main phone number of Altair's manufacturer, a company called MITS and ask for the president, a man named Ed Roberts. Bill and Paul get them on the phone and they say, we have a BASIC interpreter, ready to go, ready to ship, for the 8080 Intel chip, and we want to provide it for you, for your machine.
大卫：他们做了两个超级兴奋、雄心勃勃、精力旺盛的大学生会做的自然而然的事情。他们拨通了 Altair 制造商--一家名为 MITS 的公司--的总机，并找来了总裁，一个叫埃德-罗伯茨的人。比尔和保罗接通了电话，他们说，我们有一个 BASIC 解释器，准备好了，随时可以发货，适用于 8080 英特尔芯片，我们想把它提供给你们，用在你们的机器上。
Ben: Of course they don't.
本：当然没有。
David: They don't have a single letter of code written. They don't have anything.
大卫：他们没有写任何一个字母的代码。他们什么都没有。
Ben: It's a market test. They want to know what's the response if this were true.
本：这是一个市场测试。他们想知道，如果这是真的，反应会如何。
David: Exactly. Ed's a bit of a character himself. He says, okay, well, guys, a lot of other people are calling me and saying the same thing. What I'm telling them, and I'm going to tell you too, is that anybody who can come here to my office in Albuquerque, New Mexico and demonstrate a working version of BASIC on my Altair will get a contract with us to distribute it when they go on sale. Bill and Paul say, okay, great, we'll see you soon, and hang up. By ‘see you soon,’ they mean, ‘let's go get to work.’
大卫：没错。埃德自己也有点个性。他说，好吧，伙计们，很多其他人都给我打电话，说了同样的话。我告诉他们，我也要告诉你们，谁能到我在新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基的办公室来，在我的 Altair 上演示 BASIC 的工作版本，谁就能得到我们的合同，在产品上市时发行它。比尔和保罗说，好的，太好了，我们很快就会再见面，然后就挂断了电话。他们说的 "再见 "是指 "我们开始工作吧"。
Ben: This is a big deal for MITS too if this works, because right now they've just announced a machine for which you can't really do anything on it. The hardware is powerful, but they're not going to have a lot of customers unless there's stuff you can do on the machine. A BASIC interpreter running on it, it's quite valuable to then make the claim you can program BASIC on our computer. They're very excited about this, even though they're playing coy.
本：如果成功的话，这对 MITS 来说也是件大事，因为现在他们刚刚发布了一款机器，你在上面什么都做不了。硬件是很强大，但除非你能在这台机器上做一些事情，否则他们不会有很多客户。在这台计算机上运行 BASIC 解释器，然后宣称你可以在我们的计算机上编写 BASIC 程序，这就非常有价值了。他们对此非常兴奋，尽管他们还在忸怩作态。
David: I was going to talk about this in a minute, but let's talk about what the Altair is. What did they just announce in the magazine here? The Altair is the first mass market commercially available personal computer.
大卫：我马上就要谈这个问题了，但我们还是先谈谈 Altair 是什么吧。他们刚刚在杂志上宣布了什么？Altair 是第一款大规模商用个人电脑。
Ben: Again, no screen or anything.
本：还是那句话，没有屏幕什么的。
David: Yeah. Does not have a screen, does not have a keyboard, doesn't have a display of any kind. What it does have is it has a set of 16 lights on the front of the machine, Christmas lights and 16 switches. You can flip the switches to flip bits, and then the machine will respond by lighting up different patterns of lights. It doesn't come with any software. There's nothing. That's all it is, 16 lights, 16 switches.
大卫：是的。没有屏幕，没有键盘，没有任何显示屏。它有的只是机器前面的一组 16 盏灯，圣诞灯和 16 个开关。你可以拨动开关来翻转位，然后机器会亮起不同图案的灯。它不附带任何软件。什么都没有。这就是它的全部，16盏灯，16个开关。
Ben: In order to use it, you got to hook up your own teletype, you got to get the manual, you got to hope that the manual is right, and you got to code to the machine instructions, literally the assembly language for the chip inside for the Intel 8080.
本：为了使用它，你得连接自己的电传打字机，你得拿到手册，你得希望手册是正确的，你还得按照机器指令编码，也就是英特尔 8080 芯片内部的汇编语言。
David: Back to the Traf-O-Data days and Paul writing the emulator for the 8008 at Washington State, Paul's like, we got this. I'll just write an emulator on the Harvard PDP-10 for the 8080 instruction set.
大卫：回到 Traf-O-Data 时期，保罗在华盛顿州立大学为 8008 编写仿真器时，保罗说，我们能行。我就在哈佛 PDP-10 上写一个 8080 指令集的仿真器。
Ben: He does the same thing again. They get the manual, they have an emulator, and they write it against an emulator.
本：他又做了同样的事情。他们拿到手册，有一个模拟器，然后对照模拟器编写。
David: Yup. Bill writes the BASIC interpreter. In a couple of weeks, they've got it working. Ed's like, okay, come on out to Albuquerque. Bill and Paul—remember, Bill still looks he's 12 at this point in time—decide that just Paul should go.
大卫：是的。比尔编写了 BASIC 解释器。几周后，他们就能用了。埃德说，好吧，来阿尔伯克基吧。比尔和保罗--别忘了，比尔现在看起来还只有 12 岁--决定只让保罗去。
Ben: Does Paul have a rocking beard at this point yet?
本：保罗现在还有摇滚胡子吗？
David: Paul is super 70s. He is into it. As we'll see, he's going to fit right in at Albuquerque and MITS. Paul gets on a plane, flies from Boston to Albuquerque. In a total epic legend moment, they didn't have a bootloader written for the BASIC interpreter.
大卫：保罗是超级 70 后。他很投入。我们会看到，他很适合阿尔伯克基和MITS。保罗坐上飞机，从波士顿飞往阿尔伯克基。在这史诗般的传奇时刻 他们没有为BASIC解释器编写引导程序
They had the BASIC, it was all written, they'd done it on the emulator, and Paul's flying out with the computer tape with the code of the BASIC interpreter on it. He's like, oh, shoot, we can't just feed that right into the machine. There's got to be a bootloader to load up this thing. He writes the bootloader on the plane.
他们有 BASIC，都写好了 他们在仿真器上完成了 保罗带着电脑磁带飞了出来 上面有 BASIC 解释器的代码他想，哦，天哪，我们不能就这么直接输入机器啊。必须有一个引导程序来加载这个东西。他把引导程序写在了飞机上
Ben: On paper, by hand, he is hand coding octal, not even assembly language instructions. He's hand coding in pure octal the instructions to load their BASIC interpreter program into memory.
本：在纸上，他用手工编码八进制，甚至不是汇编语言指令。他用纯八进制手写编码指令，将 BASIC 解释器程序加载到内存中。
David: Yup. He lands in Albuquerque, drives out to MITS. They load the bootloader onto the prototype Altair there that loads up the BASIC interpreter, and it fails. It doesn't work. Paul's like, oh, shoot, let's try it again. Let's try it again. They try it again. This is how early computing is. It works the second. Who knows what the bug was the first time. They didn't change anything, it just didn't work the first time, and it worked the second time.
大卫：是的。他在阿尔伯克基着陆，开车去了 MITS。他们把引导程序加载到Altair原型机上 加载BASIC解释器，结果失败了没有成功保罗想，哦，该死，再试一次吧再试一次他们再试一次这就是早期的计算机第二次就成功了谁知道第一次出了什么问题他们什么都没改，只是第一次不成功，第二次就成功了。
It loads up, Paul writes in the instructions, print two plus two. It spits out four—by spits out, I mean the lights light up and say four. Both he and Ed, their jaws are on the floor. Paul's like, oh, my God, the BASIC works. Ed's like, oh, my God, the Altair works. Neither of them believed this was actually going to work.
加载完毕，保罗在说明书上写道："打印二加二"。打印出来的是四，我是说灯亮了，显示的是四。他和埃德都惊呆了保罗说，哦，天哪，BASIC 能用了。埃德说，天哪，Altair能用了他们都不相信这真的能行
Ben: Ed actually has more eggs in this basket than he let on because when Bill and Paul call and say, hey, can you give us the teletype instructions, he reveals they're actually the only ones who called about that. Everyone else who said they were writing a BASIC never got far enough to ask, how do we actually interact with your computer?
本：埃德在这个篮子里的鸡蛋其实比他自己说的要多，因为当比尔和保罗打电话说，嘿，你能给我们电传指令吗？其他所有说要写 BASIC 的人，都没来得及问 "我们该如何与你们的计算机交互"。
David: Yes. Now is the time to say a few words about Ed and MITS. What is this company? Bill and Paul originally thought that it was going to be the IBMs, the DECs, the Japanese companies who are going to make the first microcomputers. MITS is about as far away from IBM as you can possibly imagine. MITS basically was a model rocket company.
大卫：是的。现在是时候谈谈埃德和 MITS 了。这是一家什么公司？比尔和保罗最初认为，制造第一台微型计算机的将是 IBM、DEC 和日本公司。MITS 与 IBM 的距离你能想象到有多远。MITS 基本上是一家火箭模型公司。
Ben: Which, Albuquerque is a great place to do that.
本：阿尔伯克基是个不错的地方。
David: Ed Roberts, the founder, had been in the Air Force and stationed in Albuquerque. That's how he got involved in model rocketry. The reason that they're introducing the Altair and they made this big Splash in the magazine was this is a last ditch gambit to try and save the company. You got a bankrupt model rocketry company.
大卫：创始人埃德-罗伯茨曾在空军服役，驻扎在阿尔伯克基。他就是这样开始接触火箭模型的。他们推出 Altair 火箭并在杂志上大肆宣传的原因是，这是拯救公司的最后一搏。火箭模型公司已经破产了
Ben: Their little gambit worked and got a couple of college kids to pounce.
本：他们的小把戏成功了，让几个大学生扑了个空。
David: Totally. Why did it work? They had two things going for them that really, Ed, I think probably personally made happen. (1) They got this splashy popular electronics magazine cover that was through a relationship that Ed had. (2) The sticker price was $397, which is about $2300 in 2024 dollars. Yes, that's a lot of money, but the next cheapest computer that anybody could buy at this point in time was a DEC, a $120,000 mini computer. The idea that somebody could buy a computer for $400, I don't care who's selling that thing, I want that.
大卫：完全正确。为什么会成功？他们有两方面的优势，我想可能是埃德个人促成的。(1)他们通过埃德的关系拿到了这本热门电子杂志的封面。(2）标价为 397 美元，按 2024 年的美元汇率计算，约合 2300 美元。是的，这是一笔不小的数目，但在这个时间点上，人们能买到的第二便宜的电脑是一台 DEC，一台售价 12 万美元的迷你电脑。有人花 400 美元就能买到一台电脑，我不管谁在卖，我都要买。
Ben: What did they get, some sweet deal from Intel?
本：他们得到了什么，从英特尔那里得到了什么好处？
David: Yes. This is all Ed's doing. The list price from Intel for the 8080 chip was $360. I think this is part of what was deterring the market of how would anybody sell a kit that was affordably priced when so much of the cost of goods would go to Intel with the processor deal. He managed to negotiate a volume deal with Intel to get 8080 chips at $75 a pop. That was the key unlock.
大卫：是的。这都是埃德的功劳。英特尔 8080 芯片的标价是 360 美元。我认为这也是阻碍市场发展的部分原因，因为在处理器的交易中，英特尔占了很大的商品成本，怎么会有人去销售价格合理的套件呢？他设法与英特尔公司谈成了一笔批量交易，以 75 美元的价格买到了 8080 芯片。这就是解锁的关键。
Ben: That's a 5X price reduction.
本：降价 5 倍。
David: Totally. I wasn't able to find how that negotiation went down or why Ed Roberts in Albuquerque, New Mexico got this sweetheart deal from Intel.
大卫：完全正确。我找不到谈判是如何进行的，也不知道为什么新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基市的埃德-罗伯茨能从英特尔公司得到这笔优惠交易。
Ben: Either the list price is wildly wrong, or they were cutting deals all over the place. One thing it could have been is just that, and I'm totally speculating, but chips are the ultimate high fixed cost investment, low marginal costs next to software.
本：要么是标价大错特错，要么就是他们在到处砍价。有一种可能就是，我完全是在猜测，但芯片是固定成本高、边际成本低的终极投资，仅次于软件。
You could imagine maybe Intel had already put all the money into the fixed costs of spinning up the fabs and was expecting a certain amount of market demand, and they weren't seeing it. They were like, crap, we've got to recoup our investment. I don't know, lower the price, let them just sell. Maybe we'll make it up in volume.
你可以想象，也许英特尔已经把所有的钱都投入到了建立晶圆厂的固定成本上，并期待着一定的市场需求，但他们并没有看到。他们想，糟糕，我们必须收回投资。我不知道，降价吧，让他们卖掉。也许我们可以用销量来弥补。
David: I like that. I have no idea, but that's a totally viable train of thought here. Either way, he gets the sweetheart deal. Not only does it make computer history and enable and create Microsoft, it saves the company of MITS.
大卫：我喜欢。我不知道，但这是一个完全可行的思路。无论如何，他都得到了甜头。这不仅创造了计算机历史，使微软公司得以诞生，还拯救了 MITS 公司。
They were on the edge of bankruptcy. After the popular electronics article comes out, they get 4000 pre-orders in the first month or two, which is $1.5 million in revenue, cash paid upfront. That is pure cash hitting the bank account.
他们濒临破产。在流行电子产品的文章发表后，他们在头一两个月就收到了 4000 份预订单，这就是 150 万美元的收入，而且是预付的现金。这就是打入银行账户的纯现金。
Ben: That will save a company.
本：这将拯救一家公司。
David: And also just proves 4000 people just paid cash sight unseen for 16 lights and switches. There's a lot of demand for a home computer here.
大卫：这也证明有 4000 人花了现金购买了 16 个电灯和开关。这里对家用电脑的需求很大。
Ben: At decent margins too, if they're getting the processor for $72, and they're selling it for what did you say?
本：利润也很可观，如果他们以 72 美元的价格获得处理器，他们的售价是多少？
David: $397. 大卫：397 美元。
Ben: Everything else in there is much cheaper than the processor, so I don't know. Depending on how much they have to give to the sales channel they're selling through, if it's retail or distributors.
本：里面的其他东西都比处理器便宜得多，所以我不知道。这取决于他们必须给销售渠道多少钱，是零售还是分销商。
David: I think they're selling direct. I think people are just sending money orders.
大卫：我认为他们是直销。我认为人们只是寄汇票。
Ben: It's a decent margin business. Unlike what the PC business would become over time, they managed to have nice margins.
本：这是一项利润不错的业务。与个人电脑业务随着时间的推移而变得不同的是，他们设法获得了不错的利润率。
David: Paul and Ed hit it off. Paul decides to move out to Albuquerque to be close to the action here. He actually joins MITS as their vice president of Software. He's vice president of a software department of one. He is the software department here.
保罗和艾德一见如故。保罗决定搬到阿尔伯克基，以便靠近这里的活动。实际上，他加入了 MITS 担任软件部副总裁。他是一个软件部门的副总裁。他就是这里的软件部门。
Ben: Yeah, software department of one, but he's got his buddy Bill Gates who is not employed, but Bill's definitely working on software for the Altar as well.
本：是的，一个软件部门，但他还有他的好友比尔-盖茨（Bill Gates），虽然比尔-盖茨没有受雇于他，但他肯定也在为 Altar 开发软件。
David: Yes. Bill stays at Harvard, but keeps cranking on enhancing the BASIC interpreter and adding more functions and functionality to the version of BASIC that they had just written for the Altair. Once the school year is over, he comes out to Albuquerque for the summer.
戴维：是的。比尔留在哈佛，但一直在改进 BASIC 解释器，为他们刚刚为 Altair 编写的 BASIC 版本添加更多的功能。学年一结束，他就来阿尔伯克基过暑假。
The Altair is getting ready to ship with the Microsoft BASIC included in it. Bill and Paul need to set up a company, but Paul is an employee of MITS at this point, so what did they do? They set up a partnership. The founding of Microsoft, at this point Micro-Soft, is a two-person partnership between Bill and Paul.
Altair 正在准备出货，其中包含 Microsoft BASIC。比尔和保罗需要成立一家公司，但保罗此时是 MITS 的员工，他们怎么办呢？他们建立了合作伙伴关系。比尔和保罗两人合伙成立了微软公司，也就是现在的 Micro-Soft。
Ben: As we record this, that was 49 years and one day ago. We are sitting here on April 5th recording. That was April 4th, 1975. It is very funny to look back at some of the original signatures when Bill writes on letters. It's Bill Gates, the general partner of Micro-Soft, which is great. I think it's actually a Paul Allen name where he wants to put together microcomputer and software. Bill's like, that's perfect, we're immediately just going to run with it. As it was a partnership, originally, they were going to call it something like Allen and Gates, and then they ultimately are like, no, Micro-Soft is perfect.
本：当我们录制这段视频时，距今已有 49 年零一天。我们是在 4 月 5 日坐在这里录音的。那是 1975 年 4 月 4 日。回顾比尔写信时的一些原始签名，非常有趣。这是比尔-盖茨，Micro-Soft 的普通合伙人，这很棒。我认为这实际上是保罗-艾伦的名字，他想把微型计算机和软件放在一起。比尔就说，这很好，我们马上就开始运作。由于是合作关系，最初他们打算叫艾伦和盖茨这样的名字，但最终他们觉得，不，Micro-Soft 才是完美的。
David: Microsoft has become Kleenex. Microsoft means microprocessor software.
大卫：微软已经变成了面巾纸。微软是指微处理器软件。
Ben: I will say it's a nice clarifying North Star because it really draws the line in the sand and says, we're in the software business. Gates makes this really clear to Paul Allen, who is often tempted to do hardware stuff. Bill is very hardcore about saying, no, what we're uniquely good at in the world is software and we should stick to that.
本：我得说，这是一个很好的澄清 "北极星 "的机会，因为它真正划清了界线，表明我们是做软件业务的。盖茨向保罗-艾伦（Paul Allen）清楚地表明了这一点，因为艾伦经常受到做硬件的诱惑。比尔非常坚定地说，不，我们在世界上独一无二的专长是软件，我们应该坚持这一点。
I also suspect Bill is starting to realize that there's an amazing business model here if we can pull it off, where we don't have to make the hardware, and we can charge for every copy of the software sold. But that insight, I would say, has not yet fully materialized.
我还怀疑比尔已经开始意识到，如果我们能够成功，这将是一个惊人的商业模式，我们不需要制造硬件，我们可以对售出的每一份软件收费。但我想说的是，这种洞察力还没有完全实现。
David: Let's talk about business model here in one sec. First though on the partnership. Again, we've been saying all along that Bill is clearly the leader here. They set up the partnership. Initially, it's 60/40 ownership, Bill is 60%, Paul is 40%. Later, it gets changed to Bill is 64% and Paul is 36%. Yup, Bill is the leader here.
大卫：我们马上来谈谈商业模式。首先是合作伙伴关系。我们一直在说，比尔显然是这里的领导者。他们建立了合作关系。最初，双方各占 60%，比尔占 60%，保罗占 40%。后来改成比尔占 64%，保罗占 36%。没错，比尔是老大。
Ben: Bill's case that he makes on that to Paul is, hey, you took a job and you were doing this on the side, I was all in. Paul's an agreeable guy, and 36% is still a nice percent, so he says, sure.
本：比尔向保罗提出的理由是，嘿，你接受了一份工作，你在兼职做这个，我全包了。保罗是个讨人喜欢的人，而且 36% 还是个不错的百分比，所以他说，没问题。
David: In the long run here, everybody gets nuts. It's all a rounding error, but to that point back to the business model. Once the partnership is set up, they sign an exclusive licensing arrangement with MITS. This is super important. This is a big lesson that young Bill and Paul are going to learn here.
大卫：从长远来看，每个人都会疯掉。这只是四舍五入的误差，但还是要回到商业模式上来。一旦建立了合作关系，他们就会与 MITS 签订独家授权协议。这一点超级重要。这是年轻的比尔和保罗要学习的重要一课。
MITS gets exclusive license to the BASIC interpreter to the BASIC as they call it for the 8080. MITS is the one that can then decide whether to sublicense the BASIC out to other companies or not.
MITS 获得了 8080 的 BASIC 解释器和他们所说的 BASIC 的独家许可。然后，MITS 可以决定是否将 BASIC 分许可给其他公司。
Essentially, this is a distribution deal with MITS, where MITS becomes the exclusive seller and distributor of Microsoft's BASIC. Microsoft doesn't have any direct sales control here, and it's going to become a big, big, big issue. The terms of the deal are Microsoft is to get $30 for each copy of BASIC that MITS sells plus 50% of the revenue that comes from the sublicensing deals that MITS may or may not do with other companies who want to use the BASIC.
从本质上讲，这是与 MITS 达成的一项分销协议，MITS 成为微软 BASIC 的独家销售商和分销商。微软在这里没有任何直接的销售控制权，这将成为一个很大很大的问题。交易条件是，MITS 每卖出一份 BASIC，微软就可以得到 30 美元，另外，MITS 还可以与其他想使用 BASIC 的公司进行转授权交易，从中获得 50%的收入。
Ben: Why would they ever do any sublicensing deals? Why would you give it to your competitors?
本：他们为什么要做转授权交易？为什么要给竞争对手？
David: That is a really good question, Ben.
大卫：这是一个非常好的问题，本。
Ben: Let's just round that part of the revenue to zero.
本：那部分收入就四舍五入为零吧。
David: Yeah. This is a big, big, big divergence of interest between Microsoft and MITS. The kicker on this contract is that the total amount of lifetime revenue that Microsoft can make from the BASIC from MITS is capped at $180,000. Ed admits really has the upper hand in this deal.
大卫：是的。这是微软和 MITS 之间一个很大很大的利益分歧。这份合同的关键在于，微软从 MITS 的 BASIC 中获得的终生收入总额上限为 18 万美元。Ed 承认在这笔交易中占了上风。
Ben: Or phrased another way, we will give you $180,000 for you to hand over exclusive rights to all that cool BASIC stuff you just wrote to us. But if we sell fewer than X machines, we're actually going to pay it out to you on a prorated basis at $30 a pop rather than giving you the full $180,000.
本：或者换一种说法，我们会给你 18 万美元，让你把你刚刚写的那些很酷的 BASIC 东西的专有权交给我们。但如果我们卖出的机器少于 X 台，我们实际上会按比例支付给你，每台 30 美元，而不是全额支付给你 18 万美元。
David: That is another way to frame it. Definitely, a great deal for MITS. On the other hand, what are Bill and Paul going to do here?
大卫：这是另一种说法。对 MITS 来说，这绝对是一笔大买卖。另一方面，比尔和保罗打算在这里做什么呢？
Ben: Right, a great deal for them too given the position they're in.
本：是的，鉴于他们的处境，这对他们来说也是一笔大买卖。
David: Right, MITS is the industry. There is one very, very important clause in the contract though, protecting Microsoft's interests. That clause is that MITS must use its best efforts to license, promote, and commercialize the BASIC broadly in the marketplace. Any failure to do so by MITS would be grounds for termination of the contract by Microsoft.
戴维：对，MITS 就是这个行业。不过，合同中有一个非常非常重要的条款，保护微软的利益。该条款规定，MITS 公司必须尽最大努力在市场上广泛许可、推广和商业化 BASIC。如果 MITS 做不到这一点，微软就有理由终止合同。
Ben: Thank God, Bill's dad is a lawyer.
谢天谢地，比尔的爸爸是个律师。
David: Indeed. The Altair comes out for sale later in 1975. Microsoft does $16,000 in revenue that year from their $30 a pop, the BASICs that are getting sold with the Altair, which is great, especially the first year that they're starting.
大卫：的确如此。Altair 在 1975 年晚些时候上市销售。那一年，微软从售价 30 美元的 Altair BASIC 中获得了 16,000 美元的收入。
The next year in 1976, everybody's so excited about this new market, the vision that's happening, the demand, the Altair, the sales that Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full-time. Bill drops out of Harvard officially. He moves to Albuquerque. They're all in on this. But for the year in 1976, Microsoft's revenue is still only $22,000. It was $16,000 the year before, $22,000 in 1976.
第二年，也就是 1976 年，每个人都对这个新市场、正在发生的愿景、需求、Altair 和销售额感到非常兴奋，保罗-艾伦（Paul Allen）从 MITS 辞职，全职加入微软。比尔正式从哈佛退学他搬到了阿尔伯克基他们都参与其中但在 1976 年，微软的收入仍然只有 22,000 美元。前一年是 1.6 万美元，1976 年是 2.2 万美元。
Ben: Not a high growth company.
本：不是高增长公司。
David: This is less than they were making in high school. What is going on here? (1) MITS is the one at the controls of sales, not Microsoft. (2) MITS is selling a thousand computers a month. This is taking off. This is creating a new industry. Despite MITS selling thousands of computers a month, only a few hundred copies of BASIC are selling per month. What's going on? People are pirating the software. This is the discovery of software piracy.
这比他们上高中时挣得还少。这到底是怎么回事？(1) 控制销售的是 MITS，而不是微软。 (2) MITS 每月销售一千台电脑。这正在起飞。这正在创造一个新的产业。尽管 MITS 每月销售数千台电脑，但 BASIC 的月销量却只有几百份。这是怎么回事？人们在盗版软件。这就是盗版软件的发现。
Ben: This is a pretty interesting time to pause and say, are they pirating software?
本：这是一个非常有趣的时刻，我们可以停下来说，他们是在盗版软件吗？
David: That's a good question.
大卫：这是个好问题。
Ben: This is 1975. Piracy implies that you are running afoul of some particular legal protection for the good. You might say, well, with today's legal frameworks in hindsight, you would say, of course, if they're copying the software and not paying the money for it, it's piracy. That was actually not established yet. This is the craziest thing. Bill basically has an opinion that it's piracy, and he writes letters to the computer community.
本：现在是 1975 年。盗版意味着你违反了某些特定的法律保护。你可能会说，以现在的法律框架，你当然会说，如果他们拷贝软件却不付钱，那就是盗版。但事实上，这一点尚未确立。这是最疯狂的事情。比尔基本上认为这是盗版，他还写信给计算机界。
David: He writes an open letter to hobbyists.
大卫：他给业余爱好者写了一封公开信。
Ben: Yes, and tries to basically guilt trip people. He tries to use that as a recruiting method and say, if you're so excited about pirating our software, maybe you should just come work with us. Nothing would make me happier than making the best software in the world, and please join us on this mission. But ultimately, the legal standing that he has to say, hey, what you're doing is illegal, is not fully established.
本：是的，他试图让人们感到内疚。他试图用这种方法来招募员工，并说，如果你对盗版我们的软件如此兴奋，也许你应该来和我们一起工作。没有什么比做出世界上最好的软件更让我高兴的了，请加入我们的使命吧。但归根结底，他说 "嘿，你的行为是非法的 "的法律地位还没有完全确立。
It would actually take a couple of years for the courts to look at software and say, what about this is protectable? If you think about it, it is a little bit weird. You've got source code that looks like English, BASIC, it's letters and numbers. It gets translated to machine code. That machine code ends up running, and it's basically electrons. It's voltages that are flipped up and down. What about that are we trying to protect?
实际上，法院需要几年的时间来审视软件，然后说，这个软件的哪些方面可以受到保护？如果你仔细想想，这确实有点奇怪。你的源代码看起来像英语、BASIC，是字母和数字。它被翻译成机器代码。机器码最后运行起来，基本上就是电子。它是上下翻转的电压。我们要保护的是什么？
Ultimately, the way it gets litigated through some case law from court cases is that the source code is a copyrightable, creative work that is expressed through some tangible medium. That's the important thing about copyright law. It's a creative work expressed through a tangible medium. A book, the creative work is the words and the tangible medium is printed on paper.
归根结底，通过法院案例中的一些判例法进行诉讼的方式是，源代码是一种可受版权保护的、通过某种有形媒介表达的创造性作品。这就是版权法的重要意义。它是通过有形媒介表达的创造性作品。一本书，创意作品是文字，有形媒介是印刷在纸上的文字。
With software, it actually took until 1980. Congress changed the law. We'll put a link in the show notes to the literal congressional change that happened. It is in Title 17, Copyrights Chapter 1, Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright. In 1980, they include a defined term, which is a "computer program is a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result.” Once you have that passed by Congress codified into law, you now have the standing legal framework that all the whole computer industry used going forward, in particular, the software industry, a computer program is copyrightable work.
在软件方面，实际上要到 1980 年。国会修改了法律。我们将在节目注释中提供一个链接，链接到国会所做的字面修改。这是在第 17 章 "版权 "的第 1 章 "版权的主题和范围 "中。1980 年，他们加入了一个定义术语，即 "计算机程序是一组直接或间接用于计算机以实现特定结果的语句或指令"。一旦国会通过了这一条款，并将其编纂成法律，那么整个计算机行业，尤其是软件行业就有了一个长期使用的法律框架，即计算机程序是可受版权保护的作品。
David: Wow, I didn't know all, that's awesome.
大卫：哇，我都不知道，太棒了。
Ben: It's totally crazy how recent that is. But when you think about it, why would that have any legal…? Software is such an abstract idea. Before, the whole business model of computers was good luck just replicating an IBM PC and everything that comes with it. You don't need any legal standing. But if you're going to pursue this software only business model, what's the protection around your abstract product?
本：最近才发生的事太疯狂了。但仔细想想，为什么会有法律上的......？软件是一个如此抽象的概念。在此之前，计算机的整个商业模式就是复制一台 IBM PC 和随之而来的一切。你不需要任何法律地位但如果你要追求这种只用软件的商业模式，你的抽象产品该如何保护？
David: That's exactly what I was going to say here. This is the other element of what's going on. This is the first time software has ever been sold. Other than the IBM accounting machinations to protect themselves from antitrust, which was just accounting, nobody had ever sold software before. This is the first time.
大卫：这正是我想说的。这就是事情的另一个要素。这是第一次出售软件。除了 IBM 为保护自己不受反托拉斯法侵害而采取的会计手段（这只是会计手段）之外，以前从未有人出售过软件。这是第一次。
Ben: Certainly to build a legitimate business around it. The other thing that's useful to know is when you're selling an IBM PC, you're literally selling a PC to a customer the same way that when I'm selling you this glass. From crate and barrel, I am selling you the glass, and the glass is now yours. I've transferred property to you.
本：当然是围绕它建立合法的业务。还有一点值得注意的是，当你销售 IBM 个人电脑时，你实际上是在向客户销售个人电脑，就像我向你销售这块玻璃一样。从板条箱和木桶开始，我把玻璃卖给你，现在玻璃是你的了。我把财产转让给了你。
Software is not that, so the whole world of software is built on a license agreement. The source code that computer program the actual right of that is retained by the creator, and you license the copyright to your customer to be able to use that on their machine.
软件并非如此，因此整个软件世界都建立在许可协议之上。计算机程序的源代码的实际权利由创建者保留，而你将版权许可给你的客户，让他们可以在自己的机器上使用。
There's this dual idea that computer software is copyrightable, and you can grant a license under certain conditions for customers to use it. That is the legal framework for which the next 50 years of technology at large would operate under.
有这样一种双重理念，即计算机软件是受版权保护的，你可以在一定条件下授予客户使用许可。这就是未来 50 年整个技术运作的法律框架。
David: For the moment though...
大卫：不过目前...
Ben: They have a piracy problem.
本：他们有盗版问题。
David: Right. The law isn't going to change until 1980. Microsoft would be dead if they didn't figure out a solution to this before 1980. This is when Bill ultimately realizes, shoot, we did the wrong business deal with MITS here. MITS has to sell, and customers have to make the decision buy our BASIC. It's a key critical part of the value of the computer. It's the whole thing.
戴维：对。法律在 1980 年之前不会改变。如果微软不在 1980 年前找到解决方案，他们就死定了。这时，比尔最终意识到，糟糕，我们与 MITS 之间的交易是错误的。MITS 必须销售，而客户必须决定购买我们的 BASIC。这是计算机价值的关键部分。这就是全部
Ben: It makes that machine useful.
本：它能让机器派上用场。
David: Without it, it is not useful. It's totally setting up the wrong incentives and value equation that customers should be buying this themselves. It should be included by the hardware OEM in the machine that they are selling and in the total purchase price. If that happens, We no longer have a piracy problem because we're just getting paid as part of the purchase of the machine.
大卫：没有它就没有用。这完全是错误的激励机制和价值等式，客户应该自己购买。硬件 OEM 应将其包含在销售的机器和总购买价格中。如果这样，我们就不会再有盗版问题，因为我们只是在购买机器时得到了报酬。
Ben: Right, it should be a royalty.
本：对，应该是版税。
David: Right. The problem is that is not the deal that they had with MITS.
大卫：对。问题是他们与 MITS 达成的协议并非如此。
Ben: Right, or framed differently. Instead of saying, hey, consumer, do you want to buy something else too and make a new purchase decision, they should be saying, hey computer manufacturer, we make your thing actually useful, so pay us for it.
本：对，或者换一种说法。他们不应该说，嘿，消费者，你是不是也想买点别的东西，然后做出新的购买决定，而应该说，嘿，电脑制造商，我们让你的东西真正有用，所以请付钱给我们。
David: Yes. During 1975 and 1976, MITS pretty much had this new microcomputer market all to themselves. There were a couple of other competitors who sprung up, but nothing made. The Altair and MITS was the microcomputer company.
大卫：是的。1975 年和 1976 年期间，MITS 几乎独占了这个新的微型计算机市场。虽然也出现了一些其他竞争对手，但都没有成功。Altair 和 MITS 就是当时的微型计算机公司。
All that changes, though, in a big way in 1977, when what Byte Magazine calls the 1977 Trinity hits the market. That is three machines, the Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80, the Commodore Personal Electronic Transactor, or the acronym PET, and the Apple II. All three of which machines were like the Altair, low cost, mass market.
不过，到了 1977 年，这一切都发生了巨大的变化，《字节》杂志称之为 1977 年三位一体的机器上市了。这就是三台机器：Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80、Commodore Personal Electronic Transactor（简称 PET）和 Apple II。这三台机器都与 Altair 类似，价格低廉，面向大众市场。
Unlike the Altair, they were not kits. They were fully assembled, fully functional, right out of the box, and they each had their own major distribution advantages. In Bill's words, these three machines, the 1977 Trinity, ignite volume in the market. Bill loves these really dramatic verbs like we attacked the manual, they ignite the volume in the market.
与 Altair 不同的是，它们不是套件。它们完全组装好，功能齐全，开箱即用，而且各有其主要的销售优势。用比尔的话说，这三台机器，即 1977 年的 "三位一体"，点燃了市场的销量。比尔喜欢这些非常夸张的动词，比如 "我们攻击了手册"，"它们点燃了市场的销量"。
Ben: The press just latches on to him. Whenever Bill has a leaked memo or something where he talks about all this war terminology, those all become headlines.
媒体就是盯着他不放。每当比尔有泄露的备忘录或其他东西，他谈到所有这些战争术语，这些都成为头条新闻。
David: It's so great. Earlier, during 1976, Microsoft had started getting approached by a few of the bigger computing companies NCR (National Cash Register), GE, Control Data Systems. I want to license Microsoft BASIC for the 8080 microprocessor here so that we can experiment with these things. Each of these deals would have been revenue to Microsoft of $100,000-ish.
大卫：太棒了。早在 1976 年，一些大型计算机公司 NCR（美国国家收银机公司）、GE、Control Data Systems（控制数据系统公司）开始与微软公司接触。我想获得微软 BASIC 在 8080 微处理器上的使用许可，这样我们就可以对这些东西进行试验。每笔交易都会给微软带来 10 万美元左右的收入。
Ed and MITS, they keep dragging their feet on negotiating these. They've got the exclusive license. Everything's got to go through MITS. Most of them are turning down because Ben, you said, they don't want anybody to come in and compete with them.
艾德和 MITS 公司，他们在谈判这些问题上一拖再拖。他们有独家授权一切都得通过MITS公司他们大多数都拒绝了 因为本，你说过 他们不希望有人来和他们竞争
Ben: Yup, there's the misaligned incentive.
本：是的，这就是激励机制的错位。
David: There's the misaligned incentive. There is the clause that Bill and Microsoft, and I presume Bill Sr. put in the original agreement—is MITS is using its best efforts to commercialize the BASIC and gain adoption in the market? You can make a pretty strong argument that they're not.
大卫：这就是激励机制的错位。比尔和微软，我想也是老比尔，在最初的协议中加入了一个条款--MITS 是否正在尽最大努力使 BASIC 商业化并在市场上得到采用？你可以提出一个很有力的论点，他们没有。
Ed, though, unbeknownst to Bill and Paul, has another reason that he's dragging his feet on these deals, which is that he's about to sell the company. In May of 1977, MITS gets acquired by the tape drive manufacturer, Pertec, for $6.5 million. Ed rides off into the sunset.
不过，比尔和保罗并不知道，埃德在这些交易上拖拖拉拉还有另一个原因，那就是他即将出售公司。1977 年 5 月，MITS 被磁带机制造商 Pertec 以 650 万美元的价格收购。埃德骑着马奔向夕阳。
Pertec knows about this dispute with Microsoft, and they come in and they figure, who is this Bill Gates? He's a 21-year-old kid, a college dropout, we're a big company, we can deal with this. Robert says an amazing quote later. He says, "Pertec kept telling me they could deal with this kid. It was a little Roosevelt telling Churchill that he could deal with Stalin."
波泰克公司知道与微软公司的纠纷，他们来了之后就想，这个比尔-盖茨是谁？他是一个 21 岁的孩子，大学辍学，我们是一家大公司，我们可以处理这个问题。罗伯特后来说了一句惊人的话。他说："波泰克公司一直告诉我，他们可以搞定这个孩子。就像罗斯福对丘吉尔说 他能对付斯大林一样"
Ben: Oh, my God. 哦，我的上帝。
David: I also don't think they realized that this kid's dad is one of the best corporate attorneys in the country.
大卫：我想他们也没有意识到，这孩子的父亲是全国最优秀的企业律师之一。
Ben: Bill Gates was just constantly underestimated, which worked to his advantage in those early days.
本：比尔-盖茨一直被低估，这对他早期的发展很有利。
David: Totally. 大卫：完全正确。
Ben: This is the thing about Microsoft. People forget how insanely young Bill was. He was just 20. To put that in context, he's only 7 years older than Jensen Huang, but they feel an entire generation apart since Microsoft was started almost 20 years before NVIDIA. When you start bending your mind around like, oh, Bill Gates is still pretty young, considering what an institution Microsoft has become in the world.
本：这就是微软的特点。人们忘记了比尔有多年轻。他当时只有 20 岁。虽然他只比黄仁勋大 7 岁，但由于微软比英伟达早成立了近 20 年，所以人们感觉他们差了整整一代人。考虑到微软在世界上的地位，比尔-盖茨还是相当年轻的。
David: Right. Microsoft next year is going to have its 50th anniversary. I believe that'll also be the same year that Bill turns 70. That's wild.
大卫：对。明年是微软公司成立 50 周年。我相信那一年也是比尔 70 岁生日。太疯狂了。
Ben: Yeah. 本：是的。
David: That fall in 1977. The dispute between MITS/Pertec and Microsoft goes to arbitration in Albuquerque. The interim months while this arbitration is happening are the only moment in Microsoft's history where cash gets tight. They're running out of money because they can't really make any sales here.
大卫：1977 年秋天。MITS/Pertec 和微软之间的纠纷在阿尔伯克基进行仲裁。仲裁期间的几个月是微软历史上唯一资金紧张的时期。他们的钱快用光了，因为他们在这里无法进行任何销售。
Ben: They don't control their destiny.
本：他们无法掌控自己的命运。
David: People aren't paying MITS for the BASIC. They're "pirating" the software. They can't do deals with all the other computer companies that want to come licensed directly, so things get a little tight. Microsoft ends up winning the arbitration, I believe, in maybe November 1977, meaning they are now totally free to license BASIC to anybody who wants to buy it on any terms that they want.
大卫：人们并没有为 BASIC 向 MITS 付钱。他们在 "盗版 "软件。他们无法与所有想直接获得授权的其他计算机公司达成交易，所以事情变得有点紧张。微软公司最终赢得了仲裁，我相信大概是在 1977 年 11 月，这意味着他们现在可以完全自由地向任何想购买 BASIC 的人发放许可证，条件不限。
They turn around. They immediately license it to Trinity, Apple, Commodore, Radio Shack, and Tandy. They license it to all the big companies, the GEs, the NCRs, who want to experiment with microcomputers.
他们转过身来。他们立即授权给 Trinity、Apple、Commodore、Radio Shack 和 Tandy。他们授权给所有想尝试微型计算机的大公司、GE、NCR。
There's a really funny story with Apple that apparently, Woz had more or less written 95% of their own BASIC. But it didn't have floating point numbers, it only had integer numbers. Jobs is totally writing Woz. He's like, the BASIC is really important. Can you just finish it? Can you do floating point? Woz just doesn't do it, so Jobs has to go license Microsoft's BASIC. Amazing.
苹果公司有一个非常有趣的故事：沃兹或多或少编写了他们自己 95% 的 BASIC。但它没有浮点数，只有整数。乔布斯完全是在写沃兹。他说，BASIC 真的很重要。你能完成它吗？你能做浮点数吗？沃兹就是不做，所以乔布斯不得不去授权微软的 BASIC。太神奇了
Ben: That's the first deal that happens between the companies. There's so many deals done, both directions, commercial deals, equity deals, legal disputes in both directions. This is the very first time that they do something together.
本：这是公司之间发生的第一笔交易。双方都做过很多交易，有商业交易、股权交易，也有法律纠纷。这是他们第一次合作。
David: Yup. Bill, Paul, and Microsoft, do all these deals. They do them all as cash upfront, fixed cost, all you companies, you're going to pay us. You include the BASIC in the machines that you're selling, and we're going to get all the money up front. Super presciently, though, Bill does not value maximize on these deals.
大卫：是的。比尔、保罗和微软做的所有这些交易。他们做的都是预付现金、固定成本的交易，你们所有的公司都要付钱给我们。你们在销售的机器中加入 BASIC，我们就能提前拿到所有的钱。不过，比尔很有先见之明，他并没有将这些交易的价值最大化。
The Apple deal is $31,000 for eight years of access for Apple for the Apple II Microsoft's BASIC. They're not price gouging here because Bill sees, he's like, the play here is we want to make it a no brainer for everybody who's selling a microcomputer to have Microsoft's BASIC on it, because we want to set the standard.
苹果公司的协议是，苹果公司以 31,000 美元购买八年的 Apple II 微软 BASIC 使用权。他们并不是在压价，因为比尔认为，我们的目的是让所有销售微机的人都不费吹灰之力就能买到微软的 BASIC，因为我们要制定标准。
If we are the standard programming environment that anybody who's using these computers—and again, anybody who is using these computers is programming them, they're used to the Microsoft version of BASIC—we're going to have so much power that it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. All of our competitors will just wither away. Nobody will want them because it's not going to be compatible with the language everybody knows. Once people start trading and then ultimately developing and selling software that they've written, it's only going to run on our BASIC interpreter, not anybody else's.
如果我们成为使用这些计算机的人的标准编程环境--再说一遍，使用这些计算机的人都在编程，他们习惯于使用微软版的 BASIC--我们就会拥有如此强大的能力，以至于一语成谶。我们所有的竞争对手都会凋零。没有人会想要它们，因为它们无法与大家都熟悉的语言兼容。一旦人们开始交易，并最终开发和销售他们编写的软件，这些软件将只能在我们的 BASIC 解释器上运行，而不是其他人的。
Ben: Fascinating. I actually didn't know that it started this early. One correction there, you don't know for a fact it's only going to run on Microsoft's BASIC interpreter, but you do know for a fact that it will run on Microsoft's BASIC interpreter. If it's cheap enough, why would you take the chance on a clone that might have one or two things wrong with it?
本：很有意思。其实我不知道它这么早就开始了。需要更正的是，你不能确定它只能在微软的 BASIC 解释器上运行，但你可以确定它能在微软的 BASIC 解释器上运行。如果它足够便宜，你为什么要冒险去买一个可能有一两个问题的克隆版呢？
David: Yes. Basically, his vision is, I want to remove any oxygen from any argument anyone could have about not using Microsoft's BASIC on a microcomputer. He thinks about this concept as a positive spiral that he really in his mind is the reason for Microsoft's success.
戴维：是的。基本上，他的愿景是：我要消除任何人对不在微型计算机上使用微软 BASIC 的争论。他认为这个概念是一个积极的螺旋，在他看来，这就是微软成功的原因。
He says, “Success reinforces success. In a growing market, one way of doing something gets a slight advantage over its competitors, this is most likely to happen with high technology products that can be made in great volume for a very little increase in cost.” If you get that slight advantage, it'll compound, and this is what he's playing for here.
他说："成功会巩固成功。在一个不断增长的市场中，一种做事方法会比竞争对手略胜一筹，这种情况最有可能发生在高科技产品上，因为这些产品可以大量生产，而成本增加很少。如果你获得了这种微小的优势，就会产生复合效应，而这正是他的目的所在。
Ben: It's interesting. In the earliest days, what was stopping someone else from writing a BASIC interpreter and licensing it to Apple or RadioShack? Nothing. There were other smart people out there. It was just a very good business decision to say, we got to close that door. We just got to make this a no-brainer for people to buy from us, because if we're value maximizing and it's starting to feel expensive, they're going to turn elsewhere until we get a lead.
本：这很有趣。最早的时候，有什么能阻止别人编写 BASIC 解释器并授权给苹果公司或 RadioShack 呢？没有。外面还有其他聪明人。我们必须关上这扇门，这是一个非常明智的商业决定。我们必须让人们毫不费力地从我们这里购买产品，因为如果我们的价值最大化，而人们却开始感到昂贵，那么他们就会转向其他地方，直到我们获得先机。
David: The Apple story is the perfect example. The Woz thing is cute, it makes for a good story, and oh, he didn't finish the BASIC. But when Microsoft sold them the BASIC, which was already getting established as the standard for $31,000...
大卫：苹果公司的故事就是最好的例子。沃兹的事很可爱，是个好故事，哦，他没有完成 BASIC。但当微软以 31,000 美元的价格卖给他们 BASIC 时，BASIC 已经被确立为标准......
Ben: Sure. Why not? 本：当然，为什么不呢？
David: No brainer. Apple could have gone out and hired another programmer to finish the BASIC. They're like, wait, we could do that, or I could just get the standard one for $31,000. I'm going to do that.
大卫：没问题。苹果公司本可以再雇一个程序员来完成 BASIC。他们想，等等，我们可以这么做，或者我可以花 31,000 美元买个标准版。我就这么做了。
Ben: Just because it's important to establish there are trade offs for everything, if you're running a startup right now, you might think to yourself, oh, great. I'll just run that exact strategy. The important thing here is (a) Most of the work was already done for the original BASIC. (b) Bill was doing it himself, Bill and Paul, so the importance of technical co-founders. Their overhead was crazy low.
本：重要的是，任何事情都有代价，如果你现在正在经营一家初创公司，你可能会想，哦，太好了。我就采取这种策略。这里最重要的是：(a) 最初的 BASIC 已经完成了大部分工作。(b) 比尔和保罗亲自操刀，所以技术联合创始人的重要性不言而喻。他们的开销非常低。
They could do these deals where they don't make very much money. I think at the end of 1977, there were five employees. Their overhead was just so unbelievably low that they could take a really long lens.
他们可以做这种赚不了多少钱的交易。我想在1977年底，他们只有5名员工。他们的管理费用低得令人难以置信，以至于他们可以拍摄很长的镜头。
David: Even though it takes until the very end of 1977 when the MITS dispute gets resolved and Microsoft can actually make money again, they end 1977 with $381,000 in revenue, despite zero for the first 11 months of the year. They're just rolling in cash. This is when Bill famously goes out and buys a green Porsche 911 and is motoring around Albuquerque, getting all sorts of speeding tickets and hilarious stuff.
戴维：尽管直到 1977 年年底，MITS 公司的纠纷才得到解决，微软公司才真正开始赚钱，但 1977 年年底，他们的收入达到了 38.1 万美元，尽管这一年前 11 个月的收入为零。他们的现金滚滚而来。就在这时，比尔买了一辆绿色的保时捷 911，在阿尔伯克基到处兜风，收到了各种超速罚单和搞笑的东西。
Ben: This is when he got his mugshot, right?
他就是在这时候拍的大头照吧？
David: Yeah, I think that's right.
大卫：是的，我想这是对的。
Ben: This is the classic Bill Gates holding up the...
本：这是经典的比尔-盖茨高举...
David: Yes. Amazing. 大卫：是的。太神奇了
Ben: He got, I think, three speeding tickets in one day, two of which were from the same police officer.
本：我记得他一天之内收到了三张超速罚单，其中两张是同一个警察开的。
David: Yeah, and there are funny stories of the Albuquerque police thought, how is a kid driving a Porsche 911? He must be a drug dealer or something.
大卫：是的，还有一些有趣的故事，阿尔伯克基的警察认为，一个孩子怎么会开保时捷 911？他肯定是个毒贩什么的。
Ben: Even when he was 20–21, he looked 17.
本：即使在他 20-21 岁的时候，他看起来也只有 17 岁。
David: Right. It's like, do you even have a driver's license?
大卫：对。你有驾照吗？
Ben: Wild. 本：狂野。
David: Back to what you're saying, it's a really, really important point. To make this dynamic work, you need to be able to afford the investment in the fixed cost for the software, for the technology to make it that little bit superior, like Bill's talking about, the slight advantage over the competitors. At this moment in time, the industry is completely brand new. The software industry is brand new.
大卫：回到你所说的，这一点真的非常重要。要使这一动态发挥作用，你必须有能力投资于软件的固定成本，投资于技术，使其略胜一筹，就像比尔所说的，比竞争对手略胜一筹。目前，这个行业还是全新的。软件业是全新的。
The amount that that fixed costs takes, the cost is quite low. Really, it's just Bill and Paul's time and dedication to this industry that nobody else is making that investment. You can't run this playbook today because in any market, even a brand new market, even a speculative market, the minimum viable fixed cost is billions of dollars.
固定成本所占的比例很低。实际上，这只是比尔和保罗的时间和对这个行业的奉献，没有其他人会做这样的投资。今天，你无法运行这套游戏规则，因为在任何市场，即使是一个全新的市场，即使是一个投机市场，最低可行的固定成本也要数十亿美元。
Ben: Right. Yeah, that's interesting. I also think this moment galvanized something important, which is Bill and Paul could look around and see that there is going to be so much value created by microcomputers and by software. They really found religion around software is magic. The things that people can create now that we've done this BASIC interpreter and these machines are cheap and plentiful. The magic will take care of itself as long as we ensure this industry can just exist and do its thing.
本：对。是的，这很有趣。我还认为这一刻激发了一些重要的东西，那就是比尔和保罗可以环顾四周，看到微型计算机和软件将创造出如此多的价值。他们真的发现，围绕软件的宗教是神奇的。既然我们已经开发出了 BASIC 解释器，而且这些机器又便宜又多，人们就能创造出更多的东西。只要我们能确保这个行业的存在和发展，魔力就会自生自灭。
They flipped from this mode of we need to bite and scratch and claw, and make sure that we win in deals to, huh, how can we enable software as a thing to thrive? I'm sure we can position ourselves well to capture some or a lot of that. I think they became almost stewards of the software industry and evangelists from this point forward.
他们从 "我们需要咬咬牙、抓抓挠挠，确保在交易中获胜 "的模式转变为 "我们如何才能让软件这一事物茁壮成长？我相信我们可以很好地定位自己，抓住其中的一些或很多机会。我认为，从这一点出发，他们几乎成了软件产业的管理者和传播者。
David: Yes. They also do another really prescient thing the next year in 1978, which is they go global.
大卫：是的。第二年，即 1978 年，他们还做了另一件非常有远见的事情，那就是走向全球。
Ben: Yes. 本：是的。
David: Nobody else is going global yet, and the way that this happens is so fun. Bill gets a call one day.
还没有人走向全球，而这种方式非常有趣。有一天，比尔接到一个电话。
Ben: Also, how crazy is it? You've got five people, you're operating out of Albuquerque, you just finally expanded from having one customer, and you're like, you know what we should do this year? Let's open in Japan and become an international company.
本：还有，这有多疯狂？你有五个人，你在阿尔伯克基运营，你终于从一个客户扩展到了另一个客户，你想，你知道我们今年应该做什么吗？让我们在日本开店，成为一家国际公司。
David: Yes. The way this happens is one day, Bill gets a call from a guy named Kazuhiko Nishi, or Kay Nishi, who's a computer enthusiast in Japan, has gotten a hold of Microsoft BASIC, and totally shares the same vision as Bill and Paul. He doesn't have a Paul nor is he technical himself.
大卫：是的。有一天，比尔接到一个叫西和彦（Kazuhiko Nishi）或西凯（Kay Nishi）的人的电话，他是日本的一个电脑爱好者，掌握了微软的 BASIC，完全赞同比尔和保罗的观点。他没有保罗，自己也不懂技术。
He's like, I'm going to bring you guys to Japan. I'm going to bring you to all the big computer companies. They agree that Kay will become Microsoft's exclusive distribution partner in Japan. By the next year in 1979, half of Microsoft's revenue is coming from Japan, which is wild.
他说，我要带你们去日本。我要带你们去见所有的大型电脑公司他们同意凯公司成为微软在日本的独家分销合作伙伴。到了1979年的第二年，微软一半的收入都来自日本，这太疯狂了。
Ben: It's unbelievable, and it stayed at that very high run rate of an international being a huge chunk, close to half always basically forever. This is a huge cornerstone of Microsoft's success that they were an international company from year three of their existence.
本：这太不可思议了，而且它一直保持着很高的运行率，国际业务占了很大一部分，基本上永远接近一半。这是微软成功的一大基石，因为他们从成立的第三年起就是一家国际公司。
David: Totally. Revenue in 1977, that last month of revenue was almost $400,000. 1978 revenue is $1.3 million.
大卫：完全正确。1977 年的收入，最后一个月的收入差不多是 40 万美元。1978 年的收入是 130 万美元。
Ben: They have 13 employees at this point.
本：目前他们有 13 名员工。
David: In 1979, revenue is $2.4 million. At the end of that year, they're like, all right, we got to get out of Albuquerque.
戴维：1979 年，收入是 240 万美元。那年年底，他们想，好吧，我们得离开阿尔伯克基。
Ben: They've got 25 employees, I believe, at that point.
本：我想，那时他们已经有 25 名员工了。
David: Yeah, something like that. This is when they moved to Seattle. It's interesting to hear Bill talk about this. He actually really liked Albuquerque. Specifically, there weren't any distractions there.
大卫：是的，差不多。他们就是那时搬到西雅图的。听比尔说起这件事很有意思。他其实很喜欢阿尔伯克基。特别是那里没有任何干扰。
Ben: No distractions, weather was great.
本：没有干扰，天气很好。
David: Everybody was happy there, but the big problem was recruiting. He's like, if we're going to build this into the opportunity that I see, the vision that I see and that Paul shares with me, there's no way we're going to do that in Albuquerque. We got to move to a hub.
戴维：在那里每个人都很开心，但最大的问题是招聘。他想，如果我们要把公司发展成我所看到的机遇、我所看到的愿景以及保罗与我分享的愿景，我们不可能在阿尔伯克基做到这一点。我们必须转移到一个中心。
Ben: He's got three reasons for why Seattle in particular. By the way, it worked. Every single person except for his secretary did make the move. (1) He grew up in Seattle. He's like, I just want to go home. He justifies it in two other ways, which I found pretty fascinating. This is from an interview in the early 90s that he did.
本：他有三个理由来解释为什么特别是西雅图。顺便说一句，他成功了。除了他的秘书，其他人都搬走了。(1）他在西雅图长大。他想，我就是想回家。他还有另外两个理由，我觉得很吸引人。这是 90 年代初他接受的一次采访。
He said it basically came down to Seattle or Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, it's hard to keep secrets because there's a rumor mill. In Seattle, we can be a little bit more removed, and we can announce things when we want to announce them.
他说，这基本上取决于西雅图还是硅谷。在硅谷，很难保守秘密，因为那里谣言四起。而在西雅图，我们可以更隐蔽一些，我们可以在想公布的时候公布。
(2) In Silicon Valley, people switch around companies. I don't want that. I want people to just work at Microsoft. There was a disadvantage to not being able to recruit from your competitors, but for a while, they were really the only game in town in Seattle.
(2) 在硅谷，人们经常换公司。我不希望这样。我希望人们只在微软工作。不能从竞争对手那里招人是一个不利因素，但有一段时间，他们确实是西雅图唯一的竞争者。
David: But not really, though, because pretty quickly, Microsoft is such an important part of the industry. They recruit from Silicon Valley, too. We're going to talk about some of the people who come up. You're totally right, people stay at Microsoft. They don't leave. This continues right through to this day.
戴维：但也不尽然，因为微软很快就成为该行业的重要组成部分。他们也从硅谷招聘人才。我们将讨论一些新来的人。你说得很对，人们会留在微软。他们不会离开。这种情况一直持续到今天。
The other thing that I think is really important to say that makes it work for Seattle in a way that I don't know that this could have worked in too many other places in the country is the University of Washington. The computer science department there was really good. There were great people. Steve Russell had come out there. There was real talent, and they were churning out graduates out of the U-Dub that would go on to populate Microsoft for decades to come.
我认为还有一点非常重要，那就是华盛顿大学。那里的计算机科学系真的很棒。那里有很多优秀的人才。史蒂夫-拉塞尔就在那里。那里人才济济 他们从华盛顿大学培养出的毕业生 将在未来的几十年里为微软效力
Ben: Bill, of course, reinvested in that flywheel, donating tons of money to the university. There are buildings, there are whole new schools.
本：当然，比尔对飞轮进行了再投资，向大学捐赠了大量资金。有了大楼，有了全新的学校。
David: Yes, absolutely. They played right into it.
大卫：是的，当然。他们正中下怀。
Ben: Today, it's always a top 10, if not top 5 computer science program in the country. But unlike other top computer science programs, it's a state school, so it just has huge volumes. I think more students come out of the University of Washington and go to big tech than any other program in the country. That has stayed this amazing advantage.
本：如今，这所学校的计算机科学专业一直位居全国前十，甚至前五。但与其他顶尖计算机专业不同的是，华盛顿大学是一所州立学校，所以它的学生数量非常多。我认为，从华盛顿大学毕业并进入大型科技公司的学生人数比全国任何其他专业都要多。这就是华盛顿大学的优势所在。
David: Yeah. I think the only thing even close to it is Berkeley in the Bay Area with a lot of the same dynamics. But there's Stanford there too, so it's a dual university system in the Bay Area. You cannot overstate how important the University of Washington was to this decision and an ultimate success of coming to Seattle.
我想唯一能与之相媲美的是湾区的伯克利大学，那里也有很多相同的动力。但那里也有斯坦福大学，所以湾区有双大学系统。华盛顿大学对我做出这个决定以及最终成功来到西雅图有多么重要，怎么强调都不为过。
This brings us to 1980 in the beginning of the year when they move to Seattle, just in time for, I think you can make a very strong argument, the single most important deal ever done in the history of technology. It's crazy to even say it now, the Microsoft-IBM PC partnership.
今年年初，他们搬到了西雅图，正好赶上科技史上最重要的一笔交易。现在说起来都觉得不可思议，微软和 IBM PC 的合作。
Ben: It's crazy. You have this absolute behemoth partnering with someone that's not really relevant. If you're standing here today, it sounds like I'm talking about Microsoft partnering with IBM. At the time, it was IBM partnering with Microsoft. It was the only computer company that mattered in the entire world, got themselves into a particular situation where they came to Microsoft looking for help. It's the craziest set of events that made this possible, and I can't wait to dive into it.
本：这太疯狂了。你让这个绝对的庞然大物与一个并不相关的人合作。如果你今天站在这里，听起来就像我在谈论微软与 IBM 的合作。当时，是 IBM 与微软合作。这是全世界唯一一家重要的计算机公司，他们陷入了一种特殊的境地，向微软寻求帮助。这是一系列最疯狂的事件，让这一切成为可能，我迫不及待地想深入了解。
David: Me too. Before we do, this is the perfect time to talk about another one of our favorite enterprise software platforms, ServiceNow, who is one of our big partners here in Season 14.
大卫：我也是。在此之前，现在是谈论我们最喜欢的另一个企业软件平台 ServiceNow 的最佳时机，ServiceNow 是我们第 14 季的重要合作伙伴之一。
Ben: ServiceNow is the AI platform for your enterprise, helping automate processes, improve service delivery, and increase efficiency. Over 85% of the Fortune 500 runs on them, and they have quickly joined the Microsofts and the NVIDIAs as one of the most important enterprise technology vendors in the world.
本：ServiceNow 是企业的人工智能平台，可帮助企业实现流程自动化、改善服务交付并提高效率。超过 85% 的财富 500 强企业都在使用它，它已迅速加入微软和英伟达的行列，成为全球最重要的企业技术供应商之一。
David: Just like those companies, ServiceNow has AI baked in everywhere in their platform, and they're also a major partner of both Microsoft and NVIDIA. I was at NVIDIA's GTC last week, which, by the way, was insane. I felt like a VIP at a Taylor Swift concert, it was crazy. Jensen brought up ServiceNow and their partnership many times throughout the keynote.
大卫：就像这些公司一样，ServiceNow 也在其平台中处处嵌入了人工智能，而且他们还是微软和英伟达的主要合作伙伴。我上周参加了英伟达的 GTC，顺便说一句，那简直太疯狂了。我感觉自己就像泰勒-斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）演唱会的贵宾，太疯狂了。詹森在主题演讲中多次提到了 ServiceNow 及其合作伙伴关系。
Why is ServiceNow so important both to NVIDIA and to Microsoft? AI in the real world is only as good as the bedrock platform infrastructure it runs on. For enterprises around the world, ServiceNow manages that infrastructure.
为什么 ServiceNow 对英伟达和微软都如此重要？现实世界中的人工智能只有在其运行的基础平台基础架构上才能发挥最大的作用。对于世界各地的企业而言，ServiceNow 负责管理这些基础架构。
All the AI applications for enterprises, whether that's supercharging developers with generative AI, empowering and streamlining customer service, allowing HR to deliver better employee experiences, ServiceNow has already done the hard technical work to make rolling them out not just possible, but easy and fast.
面向企业的所有人工智能应用，无论是利用生成式人工智能为开发人员增添动力，还是增强和简化客户服务，抑或是让人力资源部门提供更好的员工体验，ServiceNow 都已完成了艰巨的技术工作，使这些应用的推出不仅成为可能，而且简单快捷。
Ben: Employees can get answers quickly with smarter self-service like changing 401(k) contributions directly through AI powered chat, or developers can build apps faster with AI powered code generation, and service agents can use AI to notify you that someone's product needs replacing before they even chat with you about it. With the ServiceNow platform, your business is 100% ready for AI. Simply turn it on, and it all works.
本：员工可以通过更智能的自助服务快速获得答案，例如直接通过人工智能驱动的聊天工具更改 401(k) 缴款，或者开发人员可以通过人工智能驱动的代码生成更快地构建应用程序，而服务代理则可以使用人工智能在某人与您聊天之前就通知您其产品需要更换。借助 ServiceNow 平台，您的企业已为人工智能做好了 100% 的准备。只需打开它，一切都能正常运行。
David: They've built AI directly into their platform, so all the integration work to prepare for it that otherwise would have taken you years is already done. If you want to learn more about the ServiceNow platform and how it can turbocharge the time to deploy AI for your business, go on over to servicenow.com/acquired. When you get in touch, just tell them that Ben and David sent you.
David：他们已经将人工智能直接内置到了自己的平台中，因此原本需要花费数年时间才能完成的所有集成准备工作都已经完成。如果您想了解有关 ServiceNow 平台的更多信息，以及它如何为您的企业加快部署人工智能的时间，请访问 servicenow.com/acquired。联系时，请告诉他们是 Ben 和 David 介绍您来的。
The IBM PC. Why is IBM getting into the personal computer here in 1980? A fun quote we heard in our research was that IBM was the sun, the moon, the stars of the computing industry. That meant the hardcore enterprise mainframe computing industry.
IBM PC。为什么 IBM 要在 1980 年涉足个人电脑领域？我们在研究中听到一句有趣的话：IBM 是计算机行业的太阳、月亮和星星。这指的是核心企业大型机计算行业。
Ben: David, are you going to attribute that quote or are you going to leave listeners just hanging?
本：戴维，你是要说明这句话的出处，还是要让听众们悬着心呢？
David: All right, I think it's time. We talked to probably 10 early Microsoft people in research and preparation. One of those folks was Steve Ballmer himself. He used those words in describing IBM.
大卫：好了，我想是时候了。我们大概和 10 位早期的微软研究和准备人员进行了交谈。其中一位就是史蒂夫-鲍尔默本人。他在描述 IBM 时用了这些词。
Ben: And it's hard to imagine a better person to get their perspective on what IBM meant to the world at this point in time, because 1980 was also the year that Steve joined Microsoft. Literally at the same time in 1980, you've got the management team coming together with Steve, Bill, and Paul Allen, and you've got the IBM thing going on, and you've got them moving to Seattle. We haven't even talked about Charles Simonyi yet, but this was the year he joined.
本：很难想象还有谁比史蒂夫更适合从他们的角度来了解 IBM 在这个时间点对世界的意义，因为 1980 年也是史蒂夫加入微软的一年。就在 1980 年的同一时间，史蒂夫、比尔和保罗-艾伦的管理团队走到了一起，IBM 的事情发生了，他们搬到了西雅图。我们还没有谈到查尔斯-西蒙尼，但他就是在这一年加入的。
David: This is the year. Every year for Microsoft until this point is the year, but 1980 is big.
大卫：就是这一年。在此之前，微软的每一年都是重要的一年，但 1980 年是重要的一年。
Ben: Okay, so why is IBM the sun, the moon, and the stars of computing? Why are they getting into this PC? It's way cheaper than anything else they sell. It seems to be a totally different business strategy, a different customer set. What's going on?
本：好吧，为什么说 IBM 是计算机领域的太阳、月亮和星星？他们为什么要涉足个人电脑领域？这比他们卖的任何其他产品都便宜。这似乎是一个完全不同的商业战略，一个不同的客户群体。这是怎么回事？
David: All the early microcomputers we were just talking about, the Altair, the Apple II, the TRS-80, are all 8-bit machines. They're running the Intel 8080 processor or a competitor making a similar 8-bit processor. The problem with an 8-bit processor is that the maximum data size for a given instruction cycle in the processor—this is called a data word in computer science terminology—is 256, 28. You can't represent any number greater than 256 in any given CPU clock cycle in an 8-bit machine.
大卫：我们刚才谈到的所有早期微型计算机，如 Altair、Apple II、TRS-80 等，都是 8 位机器。它们运行的是英特尔 8080 处理器或竞争对手生产的类似 8 位处理器。8 位处理器的问题在于，处理器中给定指令周期的最大数据量--在计算机科学术语中称为数据字--是 256，2 8 。在任何给定的 CPU 时钟周期内，8 位机器都无法表示任何大于 256 的数字。
Ben: It's effectively a bandwidth limitation, where if you're in a single clock cycle trying to do some particular instruction, it's a very, very small amount of data that you can move through the arithmetic logic unit or that you can move through the processor in that clock cycle.
本：这实际上是一种带宽限制，如果你在一个时钟周期内试图执行某些特定指令，那么在该时钟周期内，你可以通过算术逻辑单元或处理器移动的数据量是非常非常小的。
David: Totally. You could think of it as an hourglass or something. There's all the data sitting there in memory at the top of the hourglass, and then there's this small little funnel that it goes through. That's the processor, and then it comes out.
大卫：完全正确。你可以把它想象成沙漏之类的东西。所有的数据都在内存中，在沙漏的顶端，然后有一个小漏斗，它穿过这个小漏斗。这就是处理器，然后数据就出来了。
Ben: That's a good analogy. It's going to take forever.
本：这个比喻不错。要花很长时间。
David: Yeah, into the application of the software that the user sees. You just are not really going to process it that fast.
戴维：是的，进入用户看到的软件应用程序。只是处理速度没那么快。
Ben: Very primitive machines.
本：非常原始的机器。
David: Yes. For a company IBM, they eclipsed the 8-bit computing cycle a long, long, long time ago. Mainframes, even minicomputers with DEC, all these machines are at least 16-bit, if not 32-bit computing machines. 8-bit is just not interesting.
大卫：是的。对于 IBM 公司来说，他们在很久很久以前就超越了 8 位计算周期。大型机，甚至是 DEC 的微型计算机，所有这些机器即使不是 32 位，也至少是 16 位计算机器。8 位计算根本不值得一提。
Ben: Which is why they only cost $375 or whatever for an Altair.
本：这也是为什么 Altair 只卖 375 美元的原因。
David: Right. In late 1979, Intel announces that they're coming out with the 8086 processor, which is a 16-bit microprocessor. With 16 bits, you can really start to do some damage here in terms of the applications that you could put on this thing to eat into business software use cases.
戴维：没错。1979 年底，英特尔宣布推出 8086 处理器，这是一款 16 位微处理器。有了 16 位微处理器，你就可以真正开始在应用方面大展拳脚了，你可以在这东西上安装各种应用软件，以蚕食商业软件的用例。
Ben: In 16 bits, you can represent numbers up to 65,536, so that's two to the 16th. You can do interesting things passing 16 bits around at once.
本：在 16 位中，最多可以表示 65,536 个数字，也就是 2 到 16。你可以同时传递 16 个比特来做一些有趣的事情。
David: There are some really, really fun aspects to this. If you look at pictures of these processors, what did the 8080, the 8-bit processor look like? And then you look at what the 8086, the 16-bit processor, looked like? You can see this.
大卫：这其中有一些非常有趣的方面。如果你看看这些处理器的图片，8 位处理器 8080 长什么样？然后再看看 16 位处理器 8086 又是什么样子？你可以看到这一点。
In the 8008 processor that's only eight bits, you see only nine pins coming off of the little chip. There's the eight pins for the data bits, and then I think there's one more control pin. If you look at the 8086 processor, it's a much longer rectangle with 16, 17, maybe 20 pins coming off of it. You see this physically represented in the chip.
在 8008 处理器中，只有八个比特，你可以看到小芯片上只有九个引脚。八个引脚用于数据位，然后我想还有一个控制引脚。如果你看一下 8086 处理器，它是一个更长的矩形，上面有 16、17，甚至 20 个引脚。这就是芯片的物理结构。
Ben: The further we get in the computing world, the more abstract stuff becomes. It's always fun to go back in history when these concepts were so grounded in our physical reality that's easily observable since everything was so much bigger too.
本：我们在计算领域走得越远，东西就变得越抽象。回顾历史总是很有趣，当时这些概念都是基于我们的物理现实，很容易观察到，因为当时的一切都大得多。
David: Yeah. Back in 1980, the 8086 has been announced, 16-bit microprocessor is coming. IBM has already lived through missing a computing expansion era once with DEC and the minicomputer. They just let DEC take that market. Of course, that didn't really hurt IBM, but man, it would have been nice to also have that market too.
大卫：是的。1980 年，8086 发布，16 位微处理器即将问世。IBM 已经与 DEC 和微型计算机一起，经历了一次计算扩展时代的缺失。他们只是让 DEC 抢占了这一市场。当然，这并没有真正伤害到 IBM，但如果能同时拥有这个市场就好了。
Ben: The thing that they're observing about the microcomputer market is it's exploding. People in our industry know about DEC, people in the broader world never knew about DEC. But I think it's a very different rate of adoption and rate of demand with microcomputers where IBM started to look at and go, oh, this might be a really big computer market for people.
本：据他们观察，微型计算机市场正在爆炸式增长。我们行业的人知道 DEC，而更广泛的世界的人却从来不知道 DEC。但我认为，微型计算机的采用率和需求率与 IBM 开始关注的市场大相径庭。
David: They're finally observing the same thing that Bill and Paul did all the way back in the Traf-O-Date days of this is an exponential cycle. Moore's law, this is exponential, and exponential gets real big very quickly once you get a few years in.
戴维：他们终于观察到了比尔和保罗在 Traf-O-Date 时代所做的同样的事情，这是一个指数周期。根据摩尔定律，这是一个指数周期，而指数周期一旦持续几年就会变得非常快。
Ben: Yup. 本：是的。
David: The mini computer cycle never was that. It's hard to remember today, but just to underscore this again, in 1980, IBM was the most valuable company in the entire world, the highest market cap company, bigger than all the oil companies in 1980.
戴维：小型计算机周期从来都不是这样的。今天已经很难回忆起来了，但为了再次强调这一点，在 1980 年，IBM 是全世界最有价值的公司，市值最高的公司，比 1980 年所有的石油公司都要大。
Ben: The sun, the moon, and the stars.
本：太阳、月亮和星星。
David: Yes. Do you know what their market capital was?
大卫：是的。你知道他们的市场资本是多少吗？
Ben: In 1980, $150 billion?
本：1980 年，1500 亿美元？
David: You are almost an order of magnitude off $34 billion. That was the most valuable company. It is wild what a different world we live in today.
大卫：340 亿美元几乎是你的一个数量级。那是最有价值的公司。我们今天生活的世界真是天壤之别。
Ben: Yeah, even inflation adjusted, it's interesting that the rate of growth of the most valuable companies in the world in terms of market cap has far outpaced inflation.
本：是的，即使按通胀率调整，有趣的是，按市值计算，全球最有价值公司的增长速度远远超过了通胀率。
David: That company, the most valuable in the world, they're going to tiny little Microsoft that's just moved to Seattle for this partnership. What's going on here? This is just so amazing. They deserve so much credit here. They got the Clay Christensen disrupt yourself, disruptive technology thing intuitively decades before Clay writes any of this stuff.
大卫：这家世界上最有价值的公司，为了这次合作，要去刚搬到西雅图的小微软公司。这是怎么回事？这太不可思议了。他们功不可没。在克雷写出这些东西之前的几十年，他们就凭直觉掌握了克雷-克里斯坦森的 "颠覆自己 "和 "颠覆性技术"。
The way that they decide to compete is all the things that Clay wrote about are working against us here. What we need to do is we need to create essentially a skunk works division, just our Lockheed episode. We need to do something outside the company, completely removed from the politics, sure, but the business incentives not to disrupt ourselves, and create a new division they called the entry level systems division. Actually, it may have existed before, but they repurpose it.
他们决定竞争的方式，就是克雷所写的所有事情都对我们不利。我们需要做的是创建一个臭鼬工厂部门，就像洛克希德公司一样。我们需要在公司外部做一些事情，当然要完全脱离政治，但商业动机是不破坏我们自己，并创建一个新的部门，他们称之为入门级系统部门。实际上，这个部门以前可能就存在，但他们重新利用了它。
Ben: This is in Boca Raton?
本：这是在博卡拉顿？
David: In Boca Raton, Florida. Very nice place. We were just there a couple of months ago, but not a technology hotbed in the world. They create a secret project called Project Chess, secret from the rest of the company, the whole world. The goal is to develop the IBM microcomputer or the personal computer, as people are starting to refer to microcomputers.
大卫：在佛罗里达州的博卡拉顿。很不错的地方。我们几个月前刚去过那里，但不是世界上的技术温床。他们创建了一个名为 "国际象棋项目 "的秘密项目，对公司其他部门和全世界都是保密的。其目标是开发 IBM 微型计算机或个人计算机，人们开始称其为微型计算机。
This is wild. They're going to do it in secret with a small team with no other IBM resources. That means this small team, the only way they can do it is to use all off-the-shelf components from technology providers, basically play on the same level playing field as all the other microcomputer manufacturers out there.
这太疯狂了。他们将由一个没有其他 IBM 资源的小团队秘密完成。这就意味着，这个小团队唯一能做的就是使用技术提供商提供的所有现成组件，基本上与所有其他微型计算机制造商在同一起跑线上竞争。
One more thing, IBM leadership tells this team in Boca, they have to ship the PC to customers within one year.
还有一件事，IBM 的领导告诉博卡的这个团队，他们必须在一年内将 PC 交付给客户。
Ben: It's a crazy constraint.
本：这是一个疯狂的限制。
David: It is a total crazy constraint. A couple of quotes on this. Don Estridge, who is one of the leaders of Project Chess, would later say that the company realized that if you're going to compete against people who started in a garage, obviously a reference to Apple here, you have to start in a garage yourself. Lou Gerstner, who later would take over IBM, would describe this whole Boca project as, "The way you get an elephant to tap dance."
大卫：这完全是一种疯狂的限制。关于这一点，我想引用几句话。唐-埃斯特里奇（Don Estridge）是 "国际象棋项目 "的领导者之一，他后来说，公司意识到，如果你要与那些从车库起步的人竞争，显然这里指的是苹果公司，你就必须从自己的车库起步。后来接管 IBM 的 Lou Gerstner 将整个博卡项目形容为 "让大象跳踢踏舞的方法"
Ben: The question is, are they playing from behind and thus have to adopt a flawed strategy, or is this strategy of assembling with all off-the-shelf components actually a good strategy if it works?
本：问题是，他们是在落后的情况下进行比赛，因此不得不采取一种有缺陷的策略，还是说，这种使用所有现成组件进行组装的策略如果奏效的话，实际上是一种好策略？
David: Let's tell the story and then come back to it.
大卫：我们先讲故事，然后再回来看。
Ben: Great. 本：太好了。
David: Okay. What do they do? The hardware aspect of this is trivial, basically. Ed Roberts could put together the hardware to sell a microcomputer and do this deal with Intel. I think IBM can do a deal with Intel, not necessarily trickier but the more important part is the software. Thanks to Bill's genius strategy about be the volume player, don't optimize on per unit price, set the standards out there.
大卫：好的。它们是做什么的？硬件方面的工作基本上微不足道。埃德-罗伯茨（Ed Roberts）可以组装硬件，销售微型计算机，然后与英特尔（Intel）做这笔交易。我认为，IBM 可以与英特尔达成交易，不一定更棘手，但更重要的是软件。这要归功于比尔的天才战略，他提出了 "批量生产"、"不以单价论英雄"、"制定标准 "等理念。
Ben: They were the world's leading provider of programming language interpreters, right?
本：他们是世界领先的编程语言解释器供应商，对吗？
David: 100%. There is one game in town and one game in town only, and that is Microsoft in Bellevue, Washington at this point in time.
大卫：100%。目前镇上只有一个游戏，那就是位于华盛顿州贝尔维尤市的微软公司。
Ben: Now, interpreters are notably different from operating systems, but Microsoft definitely has raised the flag. Everyone could see, if I want to go buy software for my computers, broadly, they're an interesting group to talk to.
本：现在，解释器与操作系统有着明显的不同，但微软无疑已经举起了这面旗帜。每个人都可以看到，如果我想为我的电脑购买软件，从广义上讲，他们是一个有趣的群体。
David: Yeah. Obviously, operating systems are going to become really, really big here in just a sec. Again, the 8-bit generation operating systems weren't that important because people were writing their own software. The standardized software, packaged application software doesn't happen until the 16-bit era and doesn't really, really happen until the 16-bit era and the IBM PC. That's why BASIC the interpreter is so important.
大卫：是的。很明显，操作系统马上就会变得非常非常重要。同样，8 位时代的操作系统并不那么重要，因为人们都在编写自己的软件。标准化软件、打包应用软件直到 16 位时代才出现，而且直到 16 位时代和 IBM PC 才真正出现。这就是 BASIC 解释器如此重要的原因。
What happens? IBM calls up Bill Gates. By August, 1980, the two companies are in serious talks to partner and work together on the IBM PC. We referenced Steve Ballmer a minute ago. The timing is just crazy. Steve had just joined the company in June of 1980.
发生了什么？IBM 打电话给比尔-盖茨。1980 年 8 月，两家公司就合作开发 IBM PC 进行了认真的谈判。我们刚才提到了史蒂夫-鲍尔默。这个时机太疯狂了。1980 年 6 月，史蒂夫刚刚加入公司。
Ben: He's employee number 30.
他是 30 号员工。
David: The Microsoft team of 30, which the whole company of Microsoft pivots to work on the IBM PC partnership, is bigger than the Project Chess team in Boca.
戴维：微软的 30 人团队，整个微软公司都投入到 IBM PC 合作项目中，比博卡的国际象棋项目团队还要大。
Ben: It's amazing. 本：太神奇了。
David: Wow. Okay, Bill has just convinced Steve to drop out of business school at Stanford and come help him and Paul run the company. Microsoft at this point in time is still a partnership. Steve is the first person besides Bill and Paul to get equity in the company when he joins. It's 8.5% and it's a handshake deal at this point.
哇比尔刚刚说服史蒂夫从斯坦福商学院退学，来帮助他和保罗管理公司。此时的微软仍是一家合伙公司。史蒂夫是除比尔和保罗之外，第一个加入公司并获得股权的人。他的股份占公司总股本的 8.5%，目前双方还只是握手言和。
Ben: Bill really, really wanted to bring Steve on. He knew him from the Harvard days, knew what an asset he could be.
本：比尔非常非常想让史蒂夫加入。他在哈佛的时候就认识史蒂夫，知道他能发挥多大的作用。
David: He is the Yin of Bill's Yang.
大卫：他是比尔阳中之阴。
Ben: Yes. Frankly, 8.5%, it's a big grant. Who's out there running a 30-person company, and you're giving away 8.5% slugs? That just doesn't happen. Those are founder shares. This is really a reflection that the way that Bill thought about Steve was as a founder.
本：是的。坦率地说，8.5% 是一笔很大的赠款。谁在外面经营一家 30 人的公司，而你却要赠送 8.5% 的赠款？那是不可能的。这些都是创始人的股份。这实际上反映了比尔把史蒂夫视为创始人的想法。
In fact, it created some tension with Paul Allen, where Bill asked Paul, if they could go to 5%, Paul said, sure. And then Bill actually offered him 8.5%. Paul got upset and Bill said, I'll eat the 3.5%. It can come out of my share because I want him that bad.
事实上，这与保罗-艾伦（Paul Allen）的关系有些紧张，比尔问保罗，他们是否能提高到 5%，保罗说，当然可以。然后比尔给了他 8. 5%。保罗不高兴了，比尔说，那 3.5%我吃了。可以从我的股份里扣，因为我太想要他了。
David: He's the perfect person for this point in time. Bill was the only salesperson doing these OEM deals. Now they're dealing with IBM. They're entering the enterprise world. This needs to be a real business.
大卫：他是此时此刻的最佳人选。比尔是唯一一个做 OEM 交易的销售人员。现在他们正在与 IBM 打交道。他们正在进入企业世界。这需要成为一项真正的业务。
Back to the IBM negotiations, obviously Microsoft is very interested. IBM is not just very interested in working with Microsoft. They have to work with Microsoft. They're the only game in town.
回到 IBM 的谈判，很明显，微软对此非常感兴趣。IBM 不仅对与微软合作非常感兴趣。他们必须与微软合作。他们是城里唯一的竞争者。
Ben: Specifically, they asked Microsoft for programming languages. They're like, we're making this great PC, we're going to need a BASIC. We think you guys are working on a COBOL. We'd like some COBOL.
本：具体来说，他们向微软公司索要编程语言。他们说，我们要做一台很棒的 PC，需要一种 BASIC。我们认为你们正在开发 COBOL。我们需要 COBOL。
David: Yeah, Fortran. Give us the whole thing. There's some debate on whether it was the Microsoft side or the IBM side that really saw the vision of, hey, the 16-bit generation is going to enable real business software use cases on the personal computer, but it doesn't matter. That's the plan here, and that is absolutely what happens.
是的，Fortran。给我们讲讲整个过程。关于是微软公司还是 IBM 公司真正看到了 "嘿，16 位一代将在个人电脑上实现真正的商业软件用例 "这一愿景，还存在一些争论，但这并不重要。但这并不重要，这就是我们的计划，而这也绝对会发生。
These initial discussions are for the programming language. Microsoft doesn't make an operating system at this point, because in the 8-bit generation, the operating system, I think, was a glorified bootloader to just get into the programming environment so that you could either write or load up the BASIC programs that Microsoft was going to interpret and then run.
这些最初的讨论是针对编程语言的。在这一点上，微软并没有生产操作系统，因为在 8 位机时代，我认为操作系统只是一个美化了的引导加载器，只是为了进入编程环境，这样你就可以编写或加载 BASIC 程序，微软将对这些程序进行解释，然后运行。
In the 8-bit generation, most, if not all hardware providers of microcomputers just wrote their own operating systems. It just wasn't a big deal. Now, there was one off-the-shelf operating system out there from a company called Digital Research, which was run by Gary Kildall, who, I think as we talked about earlier, Bill and Paul had actually intersected with back in Seattle.
在 8 位机时代，即使不是所有的微机硬件供应商，大多数也只是编写自己的操作系统。这并不是什么大事。现在，有一个现成的操作系统来自一家叫数字研究的公司，该公司由加里-基尔达尔（Gary Kildall）经营，我想，正如我们之前所说的，比尔和保罗在西雅图时曾与他有过交集。
Ben: Yup. I think they were reasonably friendly.
本：是的。我觉得他们还算友好。
David: Yeah, I think they were quite friendly because they partnered. You needed the operating system to get into the programming environment. It wasn't that big of a deal. Whenever anybody needed one off-the-shelf, Bill and Microsoft would just refer people over to Digital to get it.
戴维：是的，我认为它们非常友好，因为它们是合作伙伴。你需要操作系统才能进入编程环境。这并不是什么大问题。只要有人需要现成的操作系统，比尔和微软就会介绍人们去 Digital 公司购买。
Ben: Yup. CP/M, right? 本：是的。CP/M，对吧？
David: Exactly. CP/M, which I think is maybe Control Program for Microprocessors, I think, is the abbreviation there.
戴维：没错。CP/M，我想可能是微处理器控制程序的缩写。
Ben: God, they were so bad. Every single thing that's been named to this point, except for the company Microsoft, was a horrible name. The processor is 8008, and now it's 8080, but the machine is 8800, that the processor is inside. Give me a break, everyone. It's horrible naming.
本：天哪，它们太糟糕了。到目前为止，除了微软公司之外，其他公司的名字都很难听。处理器是 8008，现在是 8080，但机器是 8800，处理器在里面。大家饶了我吧。命名太可怕了。
David: Bill and I'm sure Paul too, but Bill is the only person in this industry that has the vision for what this can become, even Intel. Bill talks about this. He doesn't think that Intel even realizes what's happening here. They're just like, oh, we're just making more chips, and people use them for stuff.
戴维：比尔，我相信保罗也是，但比尔是这个行业中唯一一个有远见的人，甚至是英特尔。比尔谈到了这一点。他认为英特尔甚至没有意识到这里发生的一切。他们只是想，我们只是在制造更多的芯片，人们用它们来做东西。
Ben: It does seem like very few people are thinking about their products as something they really need to build a brand around with consumers, hence the naming schemes.
本：似乎很少有人把自己的产品当作真正需要与消费者建立品牌的东西，因此才有了命名计划。
David: The IBM, Microsoft discussions are going along. IBM's like, oh, hey, yeah, we need an operating system. Bill, I think from everything we've read and folks we've talked to, in good faith just does the standard thing he's always done in these situations. He's like, oh yeah, go talk to Gary, go talk to Digital Research. He can probably do that.
大卫：IBM 和微软的讨论正在进行中。IBM 就像，哦，嘿，是的，我们需要一个操作系统。比尔，我认为从我们读到的所有资料和与我们交谈过的人来看，在这种情况下，他只是善意地做了他一贯做的标准事情。他说，哦，对了，去和加里谈谈，去和数字研究公司谈谈。他也许可以做到这一点。
Ben: Right. We don't have an operating system, this guy does.
本：对。我们没有操作系统，这家伙有。
David: What happens next is unclear. But what is clear is however it goes down, this is one of, if not the biggest business blunder in history. IBM, that team from Project Chess, flies down, I think, directly from Seattle and talking with Bill and Steve to Monterey, California, where Digital Research is based at this point, to meet with Gary and his wife, Dorothy, who run the business together. Bill's called them. He's like, hey, I got a big OEM client coming down, needs an operating system.
大卫：接下来会发生什么还不清楚。但可以肯定的是，无论结果如何，这都是历史上最大的商业失误之一。IBM，国际象棋项目的那个团队，我想是直接从西雅图飞到加利福尼亚蒙特雷，与比尔和史蒂夫进行了交谈。比尔给他们打了电话。他说，嘿，我有个 OEM 大客户要过来，需要一个操作系统。
Ben: He signed hefty, hefty NDAs. He cannot say who it is, but he's like, you really should take this seriously.
本：他签了很重很重的保密协议。他不能说是谁，但他说，你真的应该认真对待这件事。
David: Right. The team comes down. Obviously, they show up there from IBM. There's a big snafu where Gary does not attend the meeting. There are conflicting reports about what happened.
大卫：对。团队下来了。显然，他们是从 IBM 来的。发生了一个大插曲，加里没有出席会议。关于所发生的事情，各方说法不一。
Ben: Was it one of them that he's out flying an airplane?
本：他是在开飞机吗？
David: Yeah. I'm pretty sure he was flying his personal airplane while this happens. Some reports are he was just out joyriding and missed it. Some reports are no, he was on a business trip, knew it was happening, but he had another important business meeting. He didn't know that this was IBM that was coming. Regardless, it doesn't really matter because IBM just wants the operating system.
我很确定发生事故时他正在驾驶自己的飞机。有些报道说他只是出去兜风，错过了。也有报道说他当时正在出差，知道会发生这样的事，但他有另一个重要的商务会议。他不知道这是 IBM 要做的事。不管怎样，这并不重要，因为 IBM 只想要操作系统。
Dorothy does meet with them. She's unwilling to sign their NDA. There's a lawyer from Digital Research who gets involved, and he doesn't really understand what's going on.
桃乐茜确实和他们见过面。她不愿意在保密协议上签字。数字研究公司的一位律师介入了此事 但他并不清楚发生了什么事
The punchline is that IBM leaves this interaction with the belief that Gary and Digital Research aren't up for working with them and aren't capable of producing here. Producing is important because it's not like the existing CP/M OS that they made would work here. They would have to write a new version, a 16-bit version, and they hadn't done that yet.
关键是，IBM 认为加里和数字研究公司不适合与他们合作，也没有能力在这里生产。生产是很重要的，因为他们现有的 CP/M 操作系统在这里并不适用。他们必须编写一个新版本，一个 16 位版本，而他们还没有做到这一点。
Ben: In particular, they would have to do some customizing. But part of what IBM wants is a customized version of an operating system for the IBM PC. They don't want this to be fully off-the-shelf.
本：他们尤其需要做一些定制工作。但 IBM 想要的部分是 IBM PC 的定制版操作系统。他们不希望这种系统完全是现成的。
Just to add one more stir the pot of history here, there is another version of this story where Gary does actually have a conversation with IBM, and it blows up over licensing terms. What Gary really wants is a significant royalty of every IBM PC sold, and IBM walks over that. Whether that happened or whether it's just an NDA issue, either way, I think we all know the IBM PC did not end up running the CP/M operating system.
为了在历史的长河中再添一把火，这个故事还有另一个版本，在这个版本中，加里确实与 IBM 进行了一次对话，但却因为授权条款而闹得不可开交。加里真正想要的是每卖出一台 IBM PC 就能得到一笔可观的特许权使用费，但 IBM 拒绝了。不管是发生了这样的事情，还是只是 NDA 的问题，不管怎样，我想我们都知道 IBM PC 最终没有运行 CP/M 操作系统。
David: That's amazing. I didn't know that. We'll talk about that when we get to the business terms of the Microsoft IBM deal in a minute. But for the moment, there's no deal yet because an operating system needs to be provided here.
大卫：太神奇了。我还真不知道。等一会儿谈到微软 IBM 交易的商业条款时，我们再谈这个问题。但目前还没有达成交易，因为这里需要提供操作系统。
IBM goes back to Microsoft and they're like, hey, this guy you referred us to ain't going to work. The way that I read some quotes from the IBM people here were like, we just threw the problem back in Microsoft's lap of you guys deal with this, you source an operating system.
IBM 回到微软，他们说，嘿，你介绍给我们的这个人不行。我在这里读到的一些 IBM 人员的说法是，我们只是把问题扔给了微软，让你们来处理这个问题，你们提供一个操作系统。
I'd like to say that Bill, Steve, and Microsoft, you don't need to give them an opportunity twice. In this case, you did need to give them an opportunity twice because they almost flubbed it and sent IBM down to see Gary. This time they don't flub it. They're like, okay, we'll get you an operating system.
我想说，比尔、史蒂夫和微软，你们不需要给他们两次机会。在这种情况下，你确实需要给他们两次机会，因为他们几乎搞砸了，还让 IBM 去见了加里。这次他们没有搞砸。他们说，好吧，我们会给你一个操作系统。
Ben: Enter Seattle Computer Products.
本：进入西雅图电脑产品公司。
David: Yes. It just so happens that right down the road from Microsoft in the Seattle area—I think despite being named Seattle Computer Products, I think this company was actually based in Tukwila, Washington—a programmer named Tim Patterson had just written a 16-bit operating system for the 8086 that Intel had just announced, and he was calling it the Quick and Dirty 16-bit Operating System or QDOS for short, and had it ready to go.
大卫：是的。恰巧，就在微软公司附近的西雅图地区--我想，尽管这家公司名为西雅图计算机产品公司（Seattle Computer Products），但实际上它的总部在华盛顿州的图克维拉（Tukwila）--一位名叫蒂姆-帕特森（Tim Patterson）的程序员刚刚为英特尔（Intel）刚刚发布的 8086 编写了一个 16 位操作系统，他将其命名为 "Quick and Dirty 16 位操作系统"，简称 QDOS，并已准备就绪。
Why had he written this? What was this company, Seattle Computer Products? Why did they have an operating system? They were a component provider to microcomputer manufacturers. They essentially made motherboards. When Intel now has announced this new 16-bit processor generation that they're coming out with, Seattle Computer Products want to sell motherboards and have them ready for 16-bit.
他为什么要写这封信？西雅图计算机产品公司是一家什么公司？他们为什么会有操作系统？他们是微电脑制造商的零部件供应商。他们主要生产主板。当英特尔公司宣布即将推出新一代 16 位处理器时，西雅图计算机产品公司希望销售主板，并为 16 位处理器做好准备。
They need to test and play around with these things, and their customers are asking for it. They had been going to Kildall and Digital Research too and badgering them to like, hey, write the 16-bit version of CP/M. Gary just didn't, so Tim's like, fine, I'll do a quick and dirty version myself, and thus DOS is born.
他们需要测试和玩弄这些东西，他们的客户也在要求这样做。他们还去找 Kildall 和 Digital Research，恳求他们写出 16 位版本的 CP/M。加里就是不干，于是蒂姆就想，好吧，我自己来做一个快速而肮脏的版本，于是 DOS 诞生了。
Ben: Incredible, which of course later, they would drop the Q and call it DOS, the Disk Operating System. Something about dirty didn't have a ring to it when you're selling it to IBM.
本：难以置信，当然后来他们去掉了 "Q"，把它叫做 "DOS"，即 "磁盘操作系统"。当你把它卖给 IBM 的时候，"脏 "这个字就显得不那么响亮了。
David: No. Bill, Paul, and Microsoft have learned about this. They know Seattle Computer Products, they know Rod Brock, the guy who owns the company. They get in touch with him and they say, hey, can we license QDOS from you and Tim? We've got a big OEM customer that wants a 16-bit operating system. They work out a deal whereby Microsoft pays Seattle Computer Products $25,000 for the rights to adapt and sell QDOS to the one unnamed original equipment manufacturer who they're working with.
比尔、保罗和微软已经知道了这件事。他们知道西雅图计算机产品公司，知道公司的老板罗德-布洛克（Rod Brock）。他们与他取得联系，然后说，嘿，我们能从你和蒂姆那里获得 QDOS 的许可证吗？我们有一个 OEM 大客户想要一个 16 位操作系统。他们达成协议，微软向西雅图计算机产品公司支付 2.5 万美元，以获得 QDOS 的改编权，并将 QDOS 出售给与他们合作的一家不知名的原始设备制造商。
Tim, actually, is jazzed about this. He ends up leaving SCP computer products and joining Microsoft. With the rest of the team, he's part of building DOS, taking his initial work and turning it into real DOS. Later on, before this all gets announced and the PC ships, Microsoft would pay Seattle computer products another $50,000 for full rights to own 86 QDOS, sell and license it to anybody else indefinitely. I believe the total amount of dollars that changed hands here is $75,000.
事实上，蒂姆对此非常高兴。他最终离开了 SCP 计算机产品公司，加入了微软。他和团队的其他成员一起，参与了 DOS 的开发工作，将他最初的工作成果转化为真正的 DOS。后来，在这一切公布和 PC 出货之前，微软又向西雅图计算机产品公司支付了 5 万美元，以获得 86 QDOS 的全部所有权，并将其无限期地出售和授权给其他人。我相信这里的转手总额是 75,000 美元。
Ben: Unbelievable. 本：难以置信。
David: This is DOS. One programmer wrote a "quick and dirty" operating system, and Microsoft bought the license to that and adapted it into DOS. Tim, when he was at Seattle computer products, definitely did not write DOS as DOS. It's not like Microsoft bought all of DOS for $75,000. They did a lot of work on it, but this is how it all goes down.
大卫：这就是 DOS。一位程序员写了一个 "快速而肮脏 "的操作系统，微软买下了它的许可证，并将其改编成 DOS。蒂姆在西雅图计算机产品公司工作时，绝对没有把 DOS 写成 DOS。微软并不是用 7.5 万美元买下了 DOS 的全部。他们为此做了大量工作，但事情就是这样发展的。
Ben: Microsoft would eventually generate billions of dollars on DOS-based products. You're exactly right in the same way that Instagram today is a much different code base than Instagram and much larger code base than Instagram when it was purchased, but my God, $75,000 to buy DOS to get this whole thing started. Until Windows 95, all of the Windows operating systems were DOS-based.
本：微软最终在基于 DOS 的产品上创造了数十亿美元的收入。你说得很对，就像今天的 Instagram 与 Instagram 的代码库大不相同，也比 Instagram 被收购时的代码库要大得多，但我的天啊，7.5 万美元就买下了 DOS 来启动这一切。在 Windows 95 之前，所有的 Windows 操作系统都是基于 DOS 的。
David: It's just crazy. It really illustrates how fast things were moving, how much all this was getting invented and discovered in real time that even to this point, Bill Gates isn't thinking that operating systems are that important. This is just a shortcut to get the deal done with IBM to make it happen.
戴维：这太疯狂了。比尔-盖茨认为操作系统并不那么重要。这只是与 IBM 达成交易的捷径。
Ben: Also, David, I got to say, I just looked it up. The address of Seattle Computer Products, on the original business card for Seattle Computer Products where I presume QDOS was written, the space is available, so I know where our next studio needs to be.
本：另外，戴维，我得说，我刚刚查了一下。西雅图计算机产品公司的地址，在西雅图计算机产品公司的原始名片上，我猜 QDOS 就写在那里，空间是可用的，所以我知道我们下一个工作室需要在哪里了。
David: It's in Tequila? 龙舌兰酒？
Ben: It's in Tequila. 本：在龙舌兰酒里。
David: All right. The rent can't be that expensive then, so let's do it.
好吧。那房租就不会那么贵了，就这么办吧。
Ben: Correct. 本：正确。
David: Hell, yeah. We've been joking for years about making the Acquired Museum. We might have a location.
大卫：当然。多年来，我们一直开玩笑说要建立一个 "收购博物馆"。我们可能有一个地点。
Okay. Now they've got the operating system, they've got QDOS or DOS in place to license the IBM. The only thing that is left to formalize the partnership is the business terms.
好的现在他们已经有了操作系统，有了 QDOS 或 DOS，可以获得 IBM 的许可证。唯一需要正式确定合作关系的就是商业条款了。
Ben, if what you said is right about the Gary Kildall IBM negotiations, this is just a master stroke from Bill here in the licensing with IBM, because there are two really, really big levers that it looks like Bill is giving big time on one of them, but he is winning big time on the other one.
本，如果你所说的加里-基尔多尔与 IBM 的谈判是正确的，那么比尔在与 IBM 的许可谈判中就是一个神来之笔，因为有两个非常非常大的杠杆，看起来比尔在其中一个杠杆上付出了很多，但在另一个杠杆上他却赢得了很多。
Ben: What are they? 本：它们是什么？
David: The one that it looks like he's giving on is he does another fixed cost OEM deal with IBM.
戴维：看起来他要做的是与 IBM 达成另一项固定成本 OEM 交易。
Ben: This is in Paul Allen's memoir. IBM paid Microsoft $75,000 for testing and consultation, $45,000 for DOS, and $310,000 for an array of 16-bit language interpreters and compilers. All told, bundled together, that is $430,000 fixed that IBM paid Microsoft with no ongoing obligation.
本：这是保罗-艾伦回忆录中的一段话。IBM 向微软支付了 7.5 万美元的测试和咨询费用，4.5 万美元的 DOS 费用，31 万美元的 16 位语言解释器和编译器费用。总之，捆绑在一起，IBM 向微软支付了 43 万美元的固定费用，而且没有持续的义务。
David: Yes. No per copy royalties. Every copy of DOS that IBM sells is either included as part of systems that they're selling, or they're free to charge independently for DOS, whatever amount they want, Microsoft gets $0. If it's true that this is where things fell apart with Gary Kildall, crazy that Bill is willing to do this.
大卫：是的。不收取每份拷贝的版税。IBM 出售的每份 DOS 都包含在他们出售的系统中，或者他们可以对 DOS 单独收费，无论多少，微软得到的是 0 美元。
Ben: You might say, what? Didn't Bill learn his lesson? Why would he ever agree to this?
本：你可能会说，什么？比尔没吸取教训吗？他怎么会同意呢？
David: On the one hand, this is what he was doing with Apple and others. He was doing these fixed cost deals. He would think, man, IBM, this is the time. People aren't going to pirate IBM software. Now's the time to really grab the money bags.
戴维：一方面，这就是他与苹果公司和其他公司的合作。他在做这些固定成本的交易。他会想，IBM，现在是时候了。人们不会再盗版 IBM 软件了。现在是真正抓住钱袋子的时候了。
Ben: But Bill saw something that no one else did.
本：但比尔看到了别人没有看到的东西。
David: I don't know if it was directly in exchange in the negotiations, but the other lever that he saw, that he pulled was Microsoft retained the rights to own DOS and to own their languages and license it and them to anyone else they wanted at any price on any terms.
大卫：我不知道这是否是谈判中的直接交换条件，但他看到的另一个杠杆是，微软保留了拥有 DOS 和自己语言的权利，并可以以任何价格、任何条件将其授权给其他任何人。
Ben: It's so interesting, because what ended up happening that Bill Gates masterminded was once we distribute our operating system through IBM's PC, that's going to become the thing everyone buys. Now, in the 16-bit generation, when there are people building programs for computers, not just developers, once those application developers who are writing programs are targeting an operating system, then that is the operating system that every other OEM, every other computer maker is also going to want and really need, and we're going to be the ones that they have to come to to buy it.
本：这太有趣了，因为比尔-盖茨策划的最终结果是，一旦我们通过 IBM PC 发布我们的操作系统，它就会成为每个人都会购买的东西。现在，到了 16 位时代，人们开始为计算机编写程序，而不仅仅是开发人员，一旦这些编写程序的应用软件开发人员将目标锁定在操作系统上，那么其他所有原始设备制造商、其他所有计算机制造商也都会想要并真正需要这个操作系统，而我们将成为他们必须购买的对象。
I can't figure out, did IBM miss this fact? Or did they know it? Basically, what IBM did was they were the one place where every business needed to go for their computer needs. What they did in this negotiation was they actually handed that over to Microsoft. They said, we are going to become a commodity, just like every other hardware manufacturer, and you are going to be the point of integration for the whole ecosystem. You're going to be the linchpin that everyone has to target for their applications.
我不明白，是 IBM 错过了这一事实？还是他们早就知道？从根本上说，IBM 的所作所为是，他们是每个企业需要电脑的地方。在这次谈判中，他们的所作所为实际上是将其拱手让给了微软。他们说，我们将成为一种商品，就像其他硬件制造商一样，而你们将成为整个生态系统的整合点。你们将成为每个人应用软件的关键。
David: I think there are two things going on here, one small and one big. The small thing is actually related all the way back to the beginning of the episode, what you said, Ben, about the antitrust concerns within IBM. To hear them say it, they actually didn't want ownership of the software. They wanted it to be separate because it would look better.
戴维：我认为这里有两件事，一件小事和一件大事。小事情实际上与本集开头你所说的 IBM 内部的反垄断担忧有关。听他们说，他们其实并不想要软件的所有权。他们希望将软件独立出来，因为这样看起来更好。
Ben: Because then they have the plausible deniability of, how could we possibly have a monopoly? We're buying off-the-shelf...
本：因为这样他们就可以似是而非地否认，我们怎么可能垄断？我们买的是现成的......
David: Part of an ecosystem, blah-blah-blah. Yeah.
生态系统的一部分，等等等等。是啊
Ben: Yeah. From a vendor who can sell to anybody else. We have no lock in.
本：是的。供应商可以卖给其他人。我们没有锁定。
David: That may well be true. I think the bigger thing that just wasn't in their consideration or mindset was they (I think) assumed that once they entered the PC market, IBM was going to be the dominant player, so it didn't matter. Once IBM is selling PCs, who's going to buy a PC from anybody else? IBM is going to win this market.
戴维：也许确实如此。我认为更大的问题是，他们（我认为）认为一旦他们进入个人电脑市场，IBM 就会成为主导者，所以这并不重要。一旦 IBM 开始销售 PC，谁还会去买别人的 PC 呢？IBM 将赢得这个市场。
Ben: Just like they have in every other line of business they've been in.
本：就像他们从事的其他行业一样。
David: What Bill saw was he really made a bet that the same dynamics that played out with the Altair were also going to play out with the IBM PC. There would be a million hardware manufacturers, flowers blooming here.
戴维：比尔看到的是，他真的下了一个赌注：Altair 的发展势头与 IBM PC 的发展势头如出一辙。将会有无数的硬件制造商，在这里百花齐放。
Ben: Building to the same spec.
本：按照同样的规格建造。
David: Building to the same spec.
大卫：按照同样的规格建造。
Ben: Using the same processor.
本：使用相同的处理器。
David: Which of course, they could because it was all off-the-shelf components. IBM either didn't see or didn't believe that that would actually happen.
大卫：当然，他们可以这样做，因为这些都是现成的部件。IBM 要么没有看到，要么不相信会真的发生。
Ben: IBM failed to see the value of software, and they certainly failed to understand what a software platform business model would be.
本：IBM 没有看到软件的价值，当然他们也没有理解软件平台的商业模式是什么。
David: Which makes sense. Why would they? They are the computing company.
大卫：有道理。他们为什么要这么做？他们是计算机公司。
Ben: Yes. Their experience in selling mainframes with everything bundled in was the wrong experience to go off of in understanding the way the future would unfold. Bill's very modest experience watching the Altair and all these Altair clone type machines, or even if they're not Altair clones, just more microcomputers that need more software, actually was the useful experience to pattern match off of of what does the world of microcomputers look like, and how is that fundamentally different than the world of mainframes.
本：是的。他们销售捆绑了所有功能的大型机的经验，是理解未来发展方式的错误经验。比尔在观察 Altair 和所有这些 Altair 克隆机，或者即使它们不是 Altair 克隆机，只是需要更多软件的更多微型计算机方面的非常有限的经验，实际上是非常有用的经验，它可以帮助我们了解微型计算机的世界是什么样的，它与大型机的世界有什么本质区别。
David: Totally. In a way that the mini computer generation, like we've been saying, it was like a half generation. It wasn't actually fundamentally that different other than DEC gained a foothold.
大卫：完全正确。从某种程度上说，迷你电脑一代，就像我们一直在说的，就像是半代人。除了 DEC 站稳了脚跟之外，实际上并没有本质上的区别。
Ben: The deal that Bill Gates made with IBM for the IBM PC is the greatest deal in at least computer industry history, if not all business history, full stop.
本：比尔-盖茨与 IBM 就 IBM PC 达成的协议至少是计算机行业历史上最伟大的协议，甚至可以说是所有商业历史上最伟大的协议。
David: Let's say a little bit about why. It's obvious, but here now is IBM, most valuable company in the world. They're going to come out with the PC platform. They are going to build the market. Microsoft is going to own the linchpin, in Hamilton Helmer terms, where the power is in the market, and they're going to be free to license it at whatever terms they want to any other player who wants to enter.
大卫：我们来谈谈原因。很明显，IBM 是世界上最有价值的公司。他们将推出个人电脑平台。他们将建立市场。用汉密尔顿-海尔默（Hamilton Helmer）的话说，微软将拥有市场的核心力量，他们可以自由地以任何条件向任何其他想进入市场的公司发放许可证。
They signed this agreement in November 1980. The IBM PC ships in August 1981. Just incredible, almost exactly a little more than a year from the time Project Chess starts to when they actually ship the PC.
双方于 1980 年 11 月签署了这项协议。IBM PC 于 1981 年 8 月出货。真不可思议，从国际象棋项目启动到 PC 实际出货，几乎刚好一年多一点的时间。
Ben: Truly incredible, they pulled it off.
本：真的难以置信，他们成功了。
David: Truly incredible. It changes the world. That's such a trite thing to say, but everything that everybody's imagining happens.
大卫：真的难以置信。它改变了世界。虽然这么说很老套，但每个人想象中的一切都会发生。
Ben: IBM was right that it was by far in a way the most successful personal computer on the market as soon as they released it.
本：IBM 说得没错，它一经推出，就成为目前市场上最成功的个人电脑。
David: Totally. They sell 13,500 IBM PCs within the first couple of months after they announce it. Over the next two years, they sell half a million of them, makes them unquestionably the largest personal microcomputer manufacturer/market leader. Everybody at IBM is celebrating. The clones haven't arrived yet, and maybe they won't. It'll play out like they think. Not exactly.
大卫：完全正确。他们在宣布推出 IBM PC 的头几个月内就售出了 13500 台。在接下来的两年里，他们卖出了 50 万台，毫无疑问地成为最大的个人微型计算机制造商/市场领导者。IBM 的每个人都在庆祝。克隆产品还没有到来，也许也不会到来。事情会像他们想的那样发展吗？也不尽然。
Before we talk about the clones, this is really just a footnote because of course all the incentives are aligned for IBM to push DOS as the operating system for the PC. They've done this whole deal with Microsoft. They have a royalty-free deal with them.
在我们谈论克隆系统之前，这其实只是一个脚注，因为 IBM 将 DOS 作为 PC 操作系统的所有动机当然都是一致的。他们与微软达成了整个协议。他们与微软达成了免版税协议。
When they launch the PC, customers actually have a choice of which operating system they want on their IBM PC. They don't have to go with DOS. Consumers can choose between DOS, 16-bit CP/M. By this point in time, Gary and Digital Research have gotten their act together. They've written a 16-bit version of the CPM operating system. Or another 16-bit operating system called Pascal that came out of the University of California at San Diego.
在推出 PC 时，客户实际上可以选择在 IBM PC 上使用哪种操作系统。他们不必选择 DOS。消费者可以在 DOS 和 16 位 CP/M 之间进行选择。此时，加里和数字研究公司（Digital Research）已经行动起来。他们编写了 16 位 CP/M 操作系统。或者是加州大学圣迭戈分校的另一个 16 位操作系统 Pascal。
The price sheet for the operating system option is Pascal is an extra $450 with your IBM PC. CP/M is an extra $175 with your IBM PC, and DOS, which was developed specifically for the PC is the best way to run it is only $60. IBM is making $60 of full 100% margin on top of their hardware for the PC by selling DOS because they don't have to pay Microsoft any of that, and they've set up the incentives that obviously everybody's going to choose DOS.
操作系统选项的价目表是：Pascal 需与 IBM PC 一起额外支付 450 美元。CP/M 需另加 175 美元，而专为 PC 开发的 DOS 是运行 PC 的最佳方式，只需 60 美元。IBM 通过销售 DOS 在其 PC 硬件的基础上赚取了 60 美元的 100% 利润，因为他们不必向微软支付任何费用，而且他们还制定了激励措施，显然每个人都会选择 DOS。
Ben: It's fascinating. And you know what? To give them a little bit more credit too, they did try to enforce that there's some amount of lock-in to the IBM PC. They did that in two ways. One is we're simplifying calling it DOS. It was PC-DOS, which is different than MS-DOS, which would get licensed to other computer makers. I don't know exactly what happened, but it basically seems like it just wasn't different enough to be meaningful to application developers. That's one piece of it.
本：这很吸引人。你知道吗？给他们多一点点赞，他们确实试图强制要求在一定程度上锁定 IBM PC。他们通过两种方式做到了这一点。一是简化了 DOS 的叫法。它是 PC-DOS，不同于 MS-DOS，后者会被授权给其他电脑制造商。我不知道到底发生了什么，但基本上，它的不同似乎不足以对应用软件开发者产生意义。这是其中的一个原因。
The second is IBM did actually have proprietary BIOS. That was another part where they thought that that might provide them some protection, where they could stay a linchpin in the ecosystem. It wasn't just all off-the-shelf. They actually did have something that was theirs that was proprietary.
其次，IBM 实际上拥有专有的 BIOS。他们认为这可以为他们提供一些保护，让他们在生态系统中保持关键地位。这不仅仅是现成的。实际上，他们确实有自己的专有技术。
David: It just turned out that the effort required to reverse engineer the IBM BIOS was trivial, basically.
大卫：事实证明，对 IBM BIOS 进行逆向工程所需的工作基本上是微不足道的。
Ben: Do you know the story of the Compaq BIOS?
本：你知道康柏 BIOS 的故事吗？
David: I know the Compaq story, but I don't know the story of the BIOS specifically. Enlighten us.
大卫：我知道康柏的故事，但不知道 BIOS 的具体故事。请指教。
Ben: It is basically why Compaq worked is what it comes down to. Compaq was formed basically to clone the IBM PC. They saw the market opportunity, and they realized they could buy from all the same equipment vendors. Let's go eat their margin is basically the plan.
本：这就是康柏成功的根本原因。康柏的成立基本上是为了克隆 IBM PC。他们看到了市场机会，并意识到他们可以从所有相同的设备供应商那里购买设备。我们的计划基本上就是吃掉他们的利润。
However, the one thing that was not off-the-shelf is the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which is effectively the thing that decides to load the operating system when you turn the machine on. There's some proprietary magic that happens to call upon the operating system to do its thing. Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS. The way that they did it was very similar to Trip Hawkins and the story that he told us about his reverse engineering at Electronic Arts.
不过，有一样东西不是现成的，那就是 BIOS（基本输入/输出系统），它实际上就是在开机时决定加载操作系统的东西。它有一些专有的神奇功能，可以调用操作系统来完成它的工作。康柏逆向设计了 BIOS。他们这样做的方式与特里普-霍金斯（Trip Hawkins）以及他在电子艺术公司（Electronic Arts）讲述的逆向工程故事非常相似。
David: Of the Psychogenesis.
大卫：关于心理生成。
Ben: Yes. Compaq had two engineers. One engineer went in and fully dissected the code for the IBM PC BIOS, basically saw all the proprietary calls that it made, and documented each of those calls without writing the implementation steps. Then he handed, hey, here's what the BIOS needs to interface with, over to the other engineer. The other engineer, on their own, just went through and thought of an implementation.
本：是的。康柏有两名工程师。其中一位工程师对 IBM PC BIOS 的代码进行了全面剖析，基本上了解了 BIOS 的所有专有调用，并记录了每个调用，但没有编写实现步骤。然后，他把 "嘿，这是 BIOS 需要的接口 "交给另一位工程师。而另一位工程师则自己去想实现的方法。
They have no idea if it's the same implementation, so it's not breaking any infringement. They're basically saying, I'm just seeing the requirements for this product, and I'm coming up with my own implementation of that product. They basically figured out how to exactly clone the IBM PC and buy the very same operating system.
他们不知道这是否是相同的实现，因此这并不构成侵权。他们基本上是在说，我只是看到了这个产品的要求，然后我就可以自己实现这个产品了。他们基本上是在想办法克隆 IBM PC 并购买相同的操作系统。
To go back to quoting Ben Thompson because this is from his great piece again, "The result was a company that came to dominate the market. Compaq was the fastest startup to ever hit $100 million in revenue, then the youngest firm to break into the Fortune 500, then the fastest company to hit $1 billion in revenue, and by 1994, Compaq was the largest PC maker in the world."
本-汤普森再次引用了他的名言："结果，康柏公司成为市场的主宰。1994 年，康柏成为世界上最大的 PC 制造商"。
David: The Compaq story is amazing. The three people who start Compaq in 1982 are actually Texas Instruments engineers who left, and they wanted to start a company. I believe as the legend goes, they were trying to decide what to start. They were considering a restaurant chain and a bunch of different business ideas. The IBM PC comes out at the end of 1981 and they're like, oh, we can clone this and do everything, the story you just told. It's wild. They start the company in 1982. Within the first year, they do $111 million of revenue of selling IBM PC clone hardware.
大卫：康柏的故事令人惊叹。1982 年创办康柏的三个人实际上是德州仪器公司的工程师，他们离开后想创办一家公司。我相信就像传说中的那样，他们当时正试图决定创办什么公司。他们考虑了连锁餐厅和各种不同的创业想法。1981年底，IBM PC问世，他们想，哦，我们可以克隆它，做所有的事情，就像你刚才讲的故事一样。这太疯狂了。1982 年，他们成立了公司。第一年，他们销售 IBM PC 克隆硬件的收入就达到了 1.11 亿美元。
Ben: And is it just cheaper? Basically this is the IBM PC, but for less money?
本：它只是更便宜吗？基本上，这就是 IBM PC，但花钱更少？
David: Yes, exactly. Same thing, cheaper.
大卫：是的，没错。一样，更便宜。
Ben: So begins the race to the bottom of PC hardware. Completely undifferentiated, all the value accrues to the software layer.
本：个人电脑硬件的竞速赛就此拉开帷幕。完全无差别，所有价值都来自软件层。
David: Totally. Compaq went public the very next year, in 1983 well before Microsoft, which is funny. Compaq, all these other clone companies that get started. Microsoft licenses DOS to all of them importantly, critically, on a per-machine-sold basis. This is when they grab the money. The operating system is so deeply embedded and needs to get shipped with the computer itself.
大卫：完全正确。康柏公司第二年就上市了，1983 年，比微软还早，这很有趣。康柏公司和所有其他克隆公司都是这样起步的。重要的是，微软按每台机器的销售量向所有这些公司发放 DOS 许可证。这就是他们抢钱的时候。操作系统是如此深入人心，需要与电脑本身一起出厂。
Consumers can go buy operating systems to upgrade and whatnot, but no hardware manufacturer is going to ship a 16-bit PC without an operating system. Piracy is not an issue here. Microsoft can now do a per-copy-sold, per-machine-sold license with all these clones. My God, it's just a geyser of money.
消费者可以购买操作系统进行升级什么的，但没有一家硬件制造商会出产没有操作系统的 16 位 PC。盗版在这里不是问题。微软现在可以对所有这些克隆产品实行按拷贝销售、按机器销售的许可证制度。天哪，这简直就是金钱的喷泉。
Ben: Microsoft used IBM to generate demand for their software, and then they used every other PC manufacturer to capture the value that all that demand created.
本：微软利用 IBM 为其软件创造需求，然后利用其他所有 PC 制造商来获取所有这些需求所创造的价值。
David: Yeah. I think I have these numbers and timeframes right. I believe that for calendar year 1982, Microsoft's revenue was $25 million. I think this must have been when they switched to fiscal year end and June 30th. Microsoft's fiscal year end starting then and up through now is June 30th.
戴维：是的，我想我没有记错这些数字和时间范围。我相信在 1982 年，微软的收入是 2500 万美元。我想这一定是他们改用财政年度截止日和 6 月 30 日的时候。从那时起直到现在，微软的财政年度截止日期都是 6 月 30 日。
They're fiscal 1984. The year ended June 30th, 1984, so 1983 midpoint to 1984 midpoint. Microsoft does $98 million. In an 18-month period from the end of 1982, they go from $25–$98 million. It's all on the back of the clones. Unlike Compaq that they did $111 million of revenue their first year, they're selling hardware which has serious cogs associated with it. Microsoft, 100% essentially, gross margin, software revenue, more than doubling year on year. It's the best business of all time.
它们是 1984 财政年度。这一年截至 1984 年 6 月 30 日，即 1983 年中点到 1984 年中点。微软公司的业绩是 9800 万美元。从1982年底开始的18个月内，他们从2500万美元增长到9800万美元。这一切都要归功于克隆产品。与康柏公司不同的是，他们第一年的收入就达到了 1.11 亿美元，他们销售的是与之相关的硬件。微软公司的毛利率基本上是 100%，软件收入每年翻一番多。这是有史以来最好的业务。
Ben: Yes, and they combined two magical principles together. This infinite replicability, zero marginal costs of software, and becoming the linchpin of the ecosystem. They are now the software that everyone needs to target, which gives them pricing power. That pricing power raises your top line, and you have no costs. It's unbelievable.
本：是的，他们将两个神奇的原则结合在一起。这就是软件的无限可复制性、零边际成本，以及成为生态系统的关键。他们现在是每个人都需要瞄准的软件，这给了他们定价权。这种定价能力提高了你的收入，而你却没有成本。这是难以置信的。
David: Meanwhile, in the computing industry background, while all this is going on with the launch of the IBM PC and then the clones, Apple had gone public at the end of 1980 in I think, the biggest and most successful IPO of all time at that point. Remember we talked about Genentech on the Novo Nordisk episode. They went public right before Apple, and then Apple was bigger. They're valued at $1.8 billion at IPO. Steve Jobs is this multi hundred millionaire, media darling, all this stuff.
大卫：与此同时，在计算机行业的背景下，当所有这一切随着 IBM PC 的推出以及随后的克隆产品而发生时，苹果公司已于 1980 年底上市，我认为这是当时有史以来最大、最成功的首次公开募股。还记得我们在诺和诺德事件中谈到的基因泰克公司吗？他们在苹果公司之前上市，而苹果公司的规模更大。他们上市时估值 18 亿美元。史蒂夫-乔布斯（Steve Jobs）是亿万富翁，媒体的宠儿，所有这些东西。
The next year in 1981, Microsoft reorganizes from the partnership between Bill and Paul with the handshake deal that Steve's going to be cut in on the partnership into a stock company, a C-corporation. As part of doing that, the venture firm, Technology Venture Investors (TVI) invest $1 million, I believe, for 5% of the company. This is crazy. That's a $20 million post money valuation.
第二年，也就是 1981 年，微软从比尔和保罗的合伙公司重组为一家股份公司，即 C 公司。作为重组的一部分，风险投资公司 "技术风险投资者"（TVI）投资了 100 万美元，我相信是 5%的股份。这太疯狂了。投资后的估值是 2000 万美元。
Ben: It's a 1-on-20 post when Microsoft is doing how much in revenue?
本：这是一个 1 对 20 的职位，微软的收入有多少？
David: That year, they did $17 million in revenue, and they're about to do the IBM deal. This is absolutely absurd.
大卫：那一年，他们的收入达到了 1700 万美元，而他们即将与 IBM 达成交易。这太荒唐了。
Ben: It says a lot about this period of time that you could do a 1X revenue deal in a high-margin software company. I actually don't think this shows a weakness in Microsoft. Oh, they didn't have leverage or something that. That wasn't it at all, it was just the deals sucked.
本：在高利润率的软件公司里，你可以做 1 倍收入的交易，这说明了很多问题。实际上，我并不认为这显示了微软的弱点。哦，他们没有杠杆之类的东西。根本不是这样，只是交易太糟糕了。
David: Venture capital sucked back then. There's no other way to put it.
戴维：那时的风险投资糟透了。没有别的说法。
Ben: It's only 5%, so good on Microsoft. Spoiler alert, this is the only dilution that they would ever take. That's also extremely different than today, but a $20 million valuation at this stage is frankly ludicrous.
本：只有 5%，微软干得不错。剧透一下，这是他们唯一会采取的稀释措施。这与今天也有很大不同，但在现阶段，2000 万美元的估值坦率地说是可笑的。
David: Even among people who should be in the know, the beauty of the software business model still is something people don't understand.
戴维：即使是那些本应了解情况的人，也不了解软件商业模式的魅力所在。
Ben: That's exactly right.
本：完全正确。
David: The hotness is the hardware. It's like Apple just IPO'd. Apple's worth $1.8 billion. Like, ooh, that's the industry, ooh, it's IBM, et cetera. When Microsoft itself would go public a few years later in 1986, they actually go public the same week that they moved to the big campus in Redmond, where they are to this day. Their market cap at IPO is only $750 million despite having done $200 million of very high margin software revenue in the trailing 12 months up to that, growing 100% year over year. It's insane.
大卫：最热门的是硬件。就像苹果公司刚刚上市一样。苹果公司价值 18 亿美元。就像，哦，这就是这个行业，哦，这就是 IBM 等等。几年后，微软公司于 1986 年上市，上市当周他们就搬到了雷德蒙德的大园区，一直到今天。尽管在上市前的 12 个月内，他们的高利润软件收入达到 2 亿美元，同比增长 100%，但上市时的市值仅为 7.5 亿美元。这太疯狂了。
Ben: Hey, that's 4X multiple expansion off the last time they raised money.
本：嘿，这比他们上次融资时扩大了 4 倍。
David: Right? It's just crazy that people don't yet appreciate the power.
大卫：对吗？人们还不了解这种力量，这太疯狂了。
Ben: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett did a conversation at the University of Washington in 1998. This is as late as 1998. This thing that we're talking about, the magic of the software business model and how it should be reflected in a company's valuation especially when it's a high-growth company was still not understood even by Bill Gates himself.
本：1998 年，比尔-盖茨和沃伦-巴菲特在华盛顿大学进行了一次对话。这已经是 1998 年的事情了。我们谈论的这件事，即软件商业模式的魔力，以及如何将其反映在公司估值中，尤其是当它是一家高速成长的公司时，甚至连比尔-盖茨本人都还不了解。
Here's the quote. Bill Gates says, "I think the multiples of technology stocks should be quite a bit lower than the multiples of stocks like Coke and Gillette because we are subject to complete changes in the rules. I know very well that in the next 10 years, if Microsoft is still a leader, we will have had to weather at least three crises." Bill Gates is essentially making an argument. Granted, this is in the middle of all the antitrust stuff, so he's very prime for this.
引用如下。比尔-盖茨（Bill Gates）说："我认为，科技股的倍数应该比可口可乐和吉列等股票的倍数低得多，因为我们要面对规则的彻底改变。我很清楚，在未来 10 年里，如果微软仍然是领导者，我们至少要经受三次危机"。比尔-盖茨基本上是在进行论证。当然，这是在反垄断的大背景下，所以他非常适合这样做。
David: And the Internet. 大卫：还有互联网。
Ben: And the Internet. He's basically making the argument that disruptive forces come at you so fast in the technology industry that even though you can grow extremely fast, it's this extremely scalable thing, distributing software at zero distribution costs, and even though the margins are unbelievable because you have zero marginal costs, they still shouldn't be valued as highly as a CPG company, which is so different than the way that people think about it today.
本：还有互联网。他的基本论点是，科技行业的颠覆性力量来得如此之快，以至于即使你可以极速发展，但这是一件极具可扩展性的事情，以零分销成本分销软件，即使利润率高得令人难以置信，因为你的边际成本为零，但它们的估值仍然不应该像中央保健品公司那样高，这与今天人们的想法大相径庭。
David: It's funny. I've thought about this a lot, and I actually watched that interview years ago. It's so good. There are elements of truth to this too. I think it's that for most technology companies, that is totally true. For a few technology companies that have true power and true scale, the exact opposite is true. Microsoft is still the most valuable company in the world today.
大卫：这很有趣。我想了很久，其实几年前我就看过那篇访谈。太精彩了。这其中也有道理。我认为，对于大多数科技公司来说，这完全正确。而对于少数拥有真正实力和规模的科技公司来说，情况则恰恰相反。微软仍然是当今世界上最有价值的公司。
Ben: Companies that are less susceptible to disruption, more predictable in terms of high growth, high margin revenue deserve a premium. But Gates is basically arguing, everyone else doesn't.
本：那些不太容易受到干扰、在高增长和高利润率收入方面更具可预见性的公司理应获得溢价。但盖茨的基本观点是，其他人都不需要。
Let's flash all the way back to 1981 and talk about this venture capital investment, this 1-on-20 that TVI does.
让我们回到 1981 年，来谈谈这项风险投资，TVI 所做的 1 对 20 投资。
David: Good work if you can get a man.
如果你能找到一个人，那就干得好。
Ben: How does this come to be? Even a whole year before in the fall of 1980, Dave Marquardt, one of the partners and the founders at TVI, flies up to Seattle not to meet Bill Gates, but to meet Steve Ballmer.
本：这是怎么一回事？甚至在整整一年前的 1980 年秋天，TVI 的合伙人和创始人之一戴夫-马夸特（Dave Marquardt）飞到西雅图，不是去见比尔-盖茨，而是去见史蒂夫-鲍尔默。
David: Because they were classmates at GSB, right?
大卫：因为他们是GSB的同学，对吗？
Ben: They weren't quite classmates, but because I think they were two years apart, so they didn't overlap, but they had some of the same social circles. Steve was effectively the screener for anyone who wanted to come and talk to Bill and try and invest in the business.
本：他们不算是同学，但因为我认为他们相差两届，所以没有重叠，但他们有一些相同的社交圈。史蒂夫实际上是筛选者，筛选那些想来和比尔谈谈并尝试投资公司的人。
TA Associates had been up, Sutter Hill had been up, Hambrick and Quist had been up, Xerox Ventures, and all of them only ever got to meet with Steve Ballmer and never got passed on to Bill Gates. Steve would basically just bounce them off. I know all this because there's a great oral history from the Computer History Museum, where this whole thing's in a transcript with an interview with Dave Marquardt recalling the whole thing.
TA Associates、Sutter Hill、Hambrick and Quist、Xerox Ventures 等公司都曾参与其中，但都只与史蒂夫-鲍尔默见过面，从未转交给比尔-盖茨。史蒂夫基本上只是把它们弹开。我之所以知道这一切，是因为计算机历史博物馆有一份很好的口述历史记录，其中有戴夫-马夸特（Dave Marquardt）回忆整件事的采访记录。
Dave flies up to meet with Steve. Steve says, you're asking really interesting questions. You're thinking about our strategy the right way. You don't just want to do a transactional deal. You really think this is something special. Why don't you meet with Bill? Bill, of course, doesn't have any extra time in his schedule. He says, but I am going to the U-Dub Arizona football game at Husky stadium. Why don't you come and talk to me there?
戴夫飞去见史蒂夫。史蒂夫说，你问的问题很有意思。你在用正确的方式思考我们的战略。你不只是想做一笔交易。你真的认为这很特别。你为什么不和比尔见个面？比尔当然没有多余的时间。他说，但我要去赫斯基体育场看亚利桑那州立大学的橄榄球赛。你为什么不去那里和我谈谈呢？
Of course they go, Bill doesn't pay attention to the game at all. He's just laying out the strategy, grilling Dave, and talking about software the whole time. This is fall of 1980. That's a whole year before the deal gets done. Dave's remarking at this point in 1980, they're doing $5 million in revenue, $2–$3 million in profit. They don't need VC money, and yet he was able to get in.
他们当然会去，比尔根本不关注比赛。他只是在布置战术，拷问戴夫，一直在谈论软件。这是 1980 年的秋天。离交易完成还有整整一年。戴夫说，在 1980 年的这一点上，他们的收入是 500 万美元，利润是 200 万至 300 万美元。他们不需要风险投资的钱，但他却能加入。
Here's the quote. "I was just helping them out with the business. In the venture business, you're buying and you're selling at the same time. You're trying to figure out, are these guys crazy? Are they ever going to do anything really interesting? If so, how do I get myself positioned to be able to help them do it? So I spent a lot of time up there helping recruit people. I helped to recruit Charles Simonyi, who was an early key guy." Charles Simonyi would go on, this is an aside, to write Microsoft Word. Charles was at Xerox PARC inventing the GUI.
引用如下"我只是在业务上帮助他们。在风险投资行业，你既要买，又要卖。你要搞清楚，这些人是不是疯了？他们会做出真正有趣的事情吗？如果是，我该如何定位自己，帮助他们实现目标？因此，我花了很多时间在那里帮助招募员工。我帮助招募了查尔斯-西蒙尼，他是早期的关键人物。查尔斯-西蒙尼（Charles Simonyi）后来编写了微软 Word，这是题外话。查尔斯在施乐帕克公司发明了图形用户界面。
David: We're going to talk about Charles in just a sec.
大卫：我们马上就要谈到查尔斯了。
Ben: Yes. He says, “And I was working with Steve on business strategy. They had these OEM customers, the PC manufacturers, and they had started to engage with IBM on this operating system. Are we just going to become a low-cost contract programming shop for IBM, an outsourced sweatshop? Or is there some way we can build a business out of this?
本：是的。他说："我和史蒂夫一起研究商业战略。他们有 OEM 客户，即 PC 制造商，他们开始与 IBM 合作开发操作系统。我们只是要成为 IBM 的一个低成本合同编程车间，一个外包的血汗工厂吗？还是说，我们有什么办法能从中建立起自己的业务？
Which led to the fixed fee to IBM, the retention of the code, which then we could sell to other people. That's what created the PC industry basically.” That is his recollection of the whole thing, that he was very helpful in this transformative time for the company. At the same time, you have to look at everyone else's incentives.
这样，我们就可以向 IBM 收取固定费用，保留代码，然后再卖给其他人。个人电脑产业基本上就是这样形成的。"这是他对整件事的回忆，他说自己在公司的转型时期帮了大忙。与此同时，你还必须看看其他人的激励措施。
David: How can I be helpful, Ben?
我能帮上什么忙呢，本？
Ben: Dave is only 29 years old, but everyone else is 23. He actually is adult supervision. At the same time, the partnership was still just a partnership, and there was a handshake deal for the equity. If you're Steve Ballmer at this point in history, it would be nice to have a forcing function to actually turn this into a corporation so that we can get some shares granted here. There's a little bit of incentive to say, hey, if we take on an outside investor, we're going to have to restructure.
本戴夫只有 29 岁，但其他人都只有 23 岁。他实际上是成年人的监护人。与此同时，合伙关系还只是合伙关系，股权交易也是握手言和。如果你是史蒂夫-鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer），在这个历史时刻，最好能有一个强制功能，将其真正变成一家公司，这样我们就可以在这里获得一些股份。这样我们就可以获得一些股份，这样我们就有动力说，嘿，如果我们接受外部投资者，我们就必须重组。
David: That's what I had always read about the TVI investment. Obviously, Microsoft didn't need the money. They like Dave, but also a big part of it was this was a catalyzing function to do the conversion into a C-corp.
大卫：这就是我一直读到的关于 TVI 投资的报道。显然，微软并不需要这笔钱。他们喜欢戴维，但其中很大一部分原因是这对转换为 C-corp.具有催化作用。
Ben: Yes. This would create a little bit of board and governance, so it's not just Bill all the time. Bill, of course, I think is still the controlling shareholder just by the amount of stock that he owns. But there's a board. It's Bill, it's Dave, and it's Kay Nishi. It's a three-person board.
本：是的。这样就可以建立一个董事会和管理机构，这样就不会一直只有比尔一个人了。当然，我认为比尔仍然是控股股东，只是从他拥有的股票数量来看。但公司有董事会。有比尔、戴夫和凯-西。董事会由三人组成
David: Yeah, we should say-to-vis a vis Paul, tragically, and I believe it was 1982-1983, he's diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. He ends up taking a leave and then fully leaving the company. I think he did go on and off the board at various points in time.
大卫：是的，我们应该说，对于保罗，不幸的是，我相信是在 1982-1983 年间，他被诊断出患有霍奇金病。他最终请了假，然后完全离开了公司。我想他确实在不同的时间点进出过董事会。
Ben: That's true. 本：没错。
David: But he's no longer a full-time member of the company after his diagnosis.
大卫：但他在确诊后就不再是公司的全职成员了。
Ben: Yup. On this venture investment, it's pretty fascinating. None of these are terribly compelling reasons other than, I guess, it would be nice to have a little bit of capital associated with us formalizing the corporation, but they don't need money at all. They're printing cash. They've been printing cash ever since that one tight period in Albuquerque. Dave charmed them. I think that's the answer.
本：是的。关于风险投资，这很吸引人。这些都不是什么令人信服的理由，除了，我想，能有一点与我们正式成立公司相关的资金会很好，但他们根本不需要钱。他们在印现金。自从在阿尔伯克基那段紧张时期后 他们就一直在印现金戴夫把他们迷住了我想这就是答案
David: I've always heard wonderful, wonderful things about Dave, and I think everybody really did love him and see his value. But man, to be a venture capitalist in the 1980s and 1990s, oh, man, you couldn't lose.
戴维：我一直听说戴夫的好话，我想每个人都很喜欢他，也看到了他的价值。但是，在 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代，要成为一名风险投资家，哦，伙计，你不能输。
Ben: It's pretty crazy. I think part of it too had to do with the fact that Microsoft was up in Seattle. The VCs just weren't traveling. Dave was young and he was single.
本：这很疯狂。我认为部分原因也与微软当时在西雅图有关。风险投资人并不出差。戴夫当时很年轻，还是单身。
David: Don Valentine famously had the rule. They didn't invest in any company that you couldn't bicycle to from Sand Hill Road.
大卫：唐-瓦伦丁有一个著名的规则。他们不投资任何你无法从沙山路骑自行车到达的公司。
Ben: It's crazy. Dave Marquardt, I think most weekends, is flying up to Seattle to hang out with Bill and Steve. It was a real sell. He says, I was young, I was single, I had nothing better to do, and it was really fun and intellectually interesting, so I did it. That resulted in, depending how long TVI held, one of, if not the best venture capital return in history.
本：太疯狂了。戴夫-马夸特（Dave Marquardt），我想大多数周末，都会飞到西雅图和比尔、史蒂夫一起玩。那是一次真正的推销。他说，我当时还年轻，单身，没有更好的事情可做，而且这真的很有趣，在智力上也很有意思，所以我就做了。结果，根据TVI的持有时间，即使不是历史上最好的风险投资回报，也是其中之一。
David: Hard to argue with that one. Okay, back to the story. There are a couple more really, really key things that happened in the PC era. Particularly now, once we're into the IBM PC era and the clones, the 16-bit era. Let's start with applications.
很难反驳。好了，回到故事上来。PC 时代还有几件非常非常关键的事情。尤其是现在，一旦我们进入 IBM PC 时代和克隆机时代，也就是 16 位时代。让我们从应用程序开始。
Like we've been saying all along, the 8-bit era, applications, package software aren't really a thing. In 1979, at the tail end of the 8-bit era, two programs come out for the Apple II, VisiCalc and WordStar. VisiCalc is the first software spreadsheet application, and WordStar is a word processor. These applications by today's standards are super simple, stone age–type stuff, but they're the first of their kind, particularly VisiCalc and the spreadsheet. They established the potential for business applications on personal computers.
就像我们一直说的那样，8 位时代、应用软件、套装软件并不是真正意义上的东西。1979 年，在 8 位时代的尾声，Apple II 推出了两个程序：VisiCalc 和 WordStar。VisiCalc 是第一个电子表格应用软件，而 WordStar 则是一个文字处理器。以今天的标准来看，这些应用程序都是超级简单、石器时代的东西，但它们却是同类产品中的首创，尤其是 VisiCalc 和电子表格。它们开创了个人电脑商业应用的先河。
There's a joke at one point in the industry that the Apple II was a "VisiCalc" accessory for small businesses. I think that is part of what IBM is seeing and why they're deciding to now get into the industry with the personal computer. Around this time, Microsoft starts the "Consumer Products Division" to compete and make application software themselves.
业界曾有一个笑话，说 Apple II 是小型企业的 "VisiCalc "配件。我认为，这正是 IBM 所看到的，也是他们现在决定通过个人电脑进入这一行业的部分原因。大约在这个时候，微软成立了 "消费产品事业部"，与 IBM 竞争，自己生产应用软件。
Ben: It's quite telling it's called the Consumer Products Division to make applications. Even though they're competing to make these applications that today we would view as business tools, spreadsheets, and word processing, that is not how they referred to it.
本：这很能说明问题，它被称为消费产品部门，负责生产应用程序。尽管他们在竞争中制作的这些应用程序在今天我们看来是商业工具、电子表格和文字处理，但他们并不是这样称呼它的。
David: Right. One of the first people that they hire into this new division to get it going is an engineer, Ben, who you referenced just a minute ago, named Charles Simonyi. They poach Charles, perhaps with Dave Marquardt's help, away from the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC). I think this is one of the great misconceptions in technology history. Hopefully we can set the record straight a little bit here.
戴维：对。他们为这个新部门招聘的第一批人员之一是一位工程师，本，就是你刚才提到的查尔斯-西蒙尼（Charles Simonyi）。也许是在戴夫-马夸特（Dave Marquardt）的帮助下，他们从富有传奇色彩的施乐帕洛阿尔托研究中心（Xerox PARC）挖来了查尔斯。我认为这是科技史上最大的误解之一。希望我们能在这里澄清一下。
Ben: Yes. If you ask anybody in our ecosystem, save for the 1% of people who actually know this, what happened at Xerox PARC? They will tell you they invented the mouse, they invented the graphical user interface, and then Steve Jobs walked in, he saw it all, and he said, oh, my God, we have to have it. He went off and he made the Lisa, which had a graphical user interface and a mouse. That failed, but what succeeded was the Macintosh, and it's a wholesale ripoff of Xerox PARC that lives on today in Apple. That is the story that you will hear from basically everyone.
本：是的。如果你问我们生态系统中的任何人，除了那 1%真正了解这个的人，施乐 PARC 发生了什么？他们会告诉你，他们发明了鼠标，发明了图形用户界面，然后史蒂夫-乔布斯（Steve Jobs）走了进来，他看到了这一切，然后他说，哦，天哪，我们必须拥有它。他去做了 Lisa，它有图形用户界面和鼠标。它失败了，但成功的是 Macintosh，它是对施乐 PARC 的全盘抄袭，如今在苹果公司依然存在。基本上每个人都会这么说。
David: I've heard it characterized as something like Xerox hosted a picnic in Silicon Valley, and Steve Jobs attended and dined lavishly at the feast.
大卫：我听说过这样的描述：施乐公司在硅谷举办了一次野餐会，史蒂夫-乔布斯出席了这次盛宴，并在席间大吃大喝。
Ben: All of this is true.
本：这些都是事实。
David: Which is true. That is true. All of that is true.
大卫：没错。没错。所有这些都是真的。
Ben: But it's half the story.
本：但这只是故事的一半。
David: He was not the only person who dined lavishly at the feast. Microsoft did just as much directly from Xerox, and Charles was one of the main vectors by which this happened.
戴维：他并不是唯一一个在宴会上大吃大喝的人。微软公司直接从施乐公司获得了同样多的利益，而查尔斯是实现这一目标的主要媒介之一。
Here is the list of things that were invented or basically invented at Xerox PARC. The graphical user interface, the desktop, the mouse, object-oriented programming, ethernet, laser printing, along with a whole host of other things. This is everything about modern computing, invented there.
以下是施乐 PARC 发明或基本发明的事物清单。图形用户界面、台式机、鼠标、面向对象编程、以太网、激光打印，以及一大堆其他东西。这就是现代计算机的一切，都是在那里发明的。
Who are the people who were at Xerox PARC? There was Alan Kay, there was Bob Metcalfe, who would go on to found 3Com. He invented ethernet, Metcalfe's Law.
施乐 PARC 有哪些人？有艾伦-凯，有鲍勃-梅特卡夫，他后来创建了3Com公司。他发明了以太网 梅特卡夫定律
Ben: Yeah, the value of a network scaling proportionally to the square of the number of inputs.
本：是的，网络的价值与输入数量的平方成正比。
David: Yeah. Bob Metcalf, Xerox PARC, Larry Tesler, who would join Apple, John Warnock, who started Adobe, Eric Schmidt worked at Xerox PARC. Everybody was there. It was a lavish picnic.
大卫：是的。鲍勃-梅特卡夫（Bob Metcalf），施乐 PARC，拉里-特斯勒（Larry Tesler），他后来加入了苹果公司，约翰-沃诺克（John Warnock）创办了 Adobe，埃里克-施密特（Eric Schmidt）在施乐 PARC 工作过。所有人都在那里。这是一次奢华的野餐。
Ben: And Charles Simonyi.
本：还有查尔斯-西蒙尼。
David: And Charles Simonyi. The thing about PARC and the computer that they built there to instantiate all these concepts, which was named the Alto, is it really was a research center. The Alto, go look it up on Wikipedia, go look at pictures. It's the Mac. The Alto is the Mac.
还有查尔斯-西蒙尼。关于 PARC 和他们为实现所有这些概念而建造的计算机（被命名为 Alto），它确实是一个研究中心。Alto，去维基百科上查查，看看图片。它就是 Mac。Alto 就是 Mac。
Ben: It's the Mac with the monitor turned on its side.
本：这是把显示器翻转过来的 Mac。
David: Yes, it's a vertical Mac.
大卫：是的，这是一台垂直 Mac。
Ben: It's a 3x4 display, not a 4x3 display.
本：是 3x4 显示屏，不是 4x3 显示屏。
David: They start making it in 1973. You might be like, wait a minute, what's going on here? The Mac doesn't come out till 1984.
大卫：他们从 1973 年开始生产。你可能会想，等等，这是怎么回事？Mac 直到 1984 年才问世。
Ben: 11 years earlier. 本：11 年前。
David: How on earth is Xerox making the Mac in the pre 8-bit era, the pre-microprocessor era? It's not a microprocessor. The Alto is not a microprocessor architecture. It's a mini computer. What you see when you look at photos of the Alto is you see the Mac. What you don't see is under the table or behind it is a mini computer.
大卫：施乐公司究竟是如何在前 8 位时代、前微处理器时代制造 Mac 的？它不是微处理器。Alto 不是微处理器架构。它是一台迷你电脑。当你看到 Alto 的照片时，你看到的是 Mac。你没有看到的是，在桌子下面或后面有一台迷你电脑。
Ben: I never realized that.
本：我从未意识到这一点。
David: It is not a personal computer architecture at all. It is a 16-bit, essentially mini computer, that costs tens of thousands of dollars to make each one of them. It's a science project.
戴维：它根本不是一种个人计算机结构。它是一种 16 位的微型计算机，每台的制造成本高达数万美元。这是一个科学项目。
Ben: You should have a little bit more generosity for the East Coast management at Xerox for failing to commercialize this.
本：你应该对施乐公司东海岸的管理层多一点宽容，因为他们没能把它商业化。
David: Totally. The time was not right. It was not possible. It wasn't even conceived of in the microprocessor architecture, because the microprocessor basically didn't exist when they made it.
大卫：完全正确。时机不对。这是不可能的。甚至在微处理器架构中都没有考虑到这一点，因为在他们制造它的时候，微处理器基本上还不存在。
Ben: Interesting. 本：有意思。
David: In 1980, again, this year for Microsoft, same year Microsoft joins, same year they signed the IBM partnership, Charles Simonyi comes up from Xerox PARC. He's of course bringing all this same knowledge, all this same experience that Steve jobs is bringing into Apple. He's bringing all that right into Microsoft too.
戴维：1980 年，同样是这一年，微软加入微软，与 IBM 签订合作协议的同一年，查尔斯-西蒙尼（Charles Simonyi）从施乐 PARC 上台。当然，他带来了所有这些与史蒂夫-乔布斯（Steve Jobs）为苹果公司带来的相同的知识和经验。他也把所有这些都带进了微软。
The first thing that he gets tasked with is working with this new consumer products division to build application software to compete with VisiCalc and WordStar to compete with spreadsheets and to compete in word processing. He leads the teams that create Word and MultiPlan, Microsoft's first spreadsheet. Remember, we're still at the end of the 8-bit era. The graphical user interface doesn't exist yet other than on the Alto in Xerox PARC.
他的第一项任务就是与这个新成立的消费产品部门合作，开发应用软件，与 VisiCalc 和 WordStar 竞争，开发电子表格和文字处理软件。他带领团队创建了 Word 和 MultiPlan，这是微软的第一款电子表格。请记住，我们还处于 8 位时代的末期。除了施乐 PARC 的 Alto 外，图形用户界面还不存在。
Ben: No, these are DOS applications. It's all character mode.
本：不，这些都是 DOS 应用程序。都是字符模式。
David: Yes, it is command line interface. The vector that they think they're going to compete, at least in spreadsheets with VisiCalc, is that they're going to be on every platform out there. VisiCalc, I believe, was more or less basically only on the Apple II. That doesn't end up working too well.
大卫：是的，它是命令行界面。他们认为，至少在电子表格方面，他们能与 VisiCalc 竞争的载体是，他们将在所有平台上使用 VisiCalc。我相信，VisiCalc 基本上只能在 Apple II 上使用。结果效果并不理想。
The next generation, the IBM PC era, they make the same mistake. The application business stays focused on being on lots of machines, making software that's compatible with everything. A new company pops up called Lotus. Lotus makes the radical decision that they are going to make a spreadsheet only for the IBM PC.
到了下一代，也就是 IBM PC 时代，他们又犯了同样的错误。应用软件业务一直专注于在许多机器上使用，制作与所有机器兼容的软件。一家名为 Lotus 的新公司横空出世。Lotus 做出了一个激进的决定，他们将只为 IBM PC 制作电子表格。
This was genius. This is the 1-2-3 spreadsheet. It goes on to become, at that point in time, the most successful software ever. This is wild. I can't even believe I'm about to say this, and it blew my mind when I found it in research. There are a couple of years in the late eighties, where Lotus has more revenue than Microsoft and is valued higher.
这真是天才。这就是 1-2-3 电子表格。在当时，它成为有史以来最成功的软件。这太疯狂了。我甚至不敢相信我会这么说，当我在研究中发现这一点时，我简直不敢相信。在 80 年代末的几年里，Lotus 的收入超过了微软，估值也更高。
Ben: Yup. In fact, the year that Microsoft went public, Lotus had more revenue than Microsoft at the IPO.
本：是的。事实上，在微软上市的那一年，Lotus 在首次公开募股时的收入就超过了微软。
David: Yes. Wild. 大卫：是的。Wild.
Ben: it's crazy. Lotus 1-2-3 had some graphics, but it was still in character mode. It was a powerful spreadsheet that could start to do some graphics, even though there wasn't actually a GUI operating system yet, which is interesting. Lotus 1-2-3 was faster, it had bigger spreadsheets, and it was just more powerful. Microsoft Multiplan was still targeting the older 8-bit.
本：太疯狂了。Lotus 1-2-3 有一些图形，但仍处于字符模式。虽然当时还没有图形用户界面操作系统，但它是一款功能强大的电子表格，可以开始制作一些图形，这一点很有意思。Lotus 1-2-3 的速度更快，电子表格更大，功能也更强大。而微软的 Multiplan 仍以较老的 8 位为目标。
Multiplan, despite Microsoft's best efforts, is completely left in the dust. Microsoft's trying to figure out, what should we learn from this? In talking with Pete Higgins and Mike Slade, who were both early leaders in the development and the marketing of the applications division, actually, Mike Slade went on to work directly for Steve Jobs at NeXT and Apple for many years.
尽管微软尽了最大努力，但 Multiplan 还是被彻底甩在了后面。微软正在想，我们应该从中学到什么？在与皮特-希金斯（Pete Higgins）和迈克-斯莱德（Mike Slade）的交谈中，他们都是应用软件部门开发和营销的早期领导者，实际上，迈克-斯莱德后来在 NeXT 和苹果公司直接为史蒂夫-乔布斯工作了很多年。
In chatting with both of them, what basically became apparent Microsoft learned, with our applications, we should not be targeting the current platforms at all. The lesson to learn is never leave yourself open to the next generation of technology. They're learning the Moore's Law lesson again.
在与他们两人的交谈中，微软基本上明白了，我们的应用程序根本不应该以当前的平台为目标。我们要吸取的教训是，永远不要对下一代技术敞开大门。他们又在吸取摩尔定律的教训了。
David: Yes, and how it applies to applications. Yes. You always got to target the next platform.
大卫：是的，以及如何应用。是的。你总得瞄准下一个平台。
Ben: Right, even if that platform is not the one you own. That's the interesting thing about when they're evaluating Multiplan and they say, how do we not get Lotus 1-2-3 again, basically, the applications team gets the freedom to look around and say, okay, no matter what our overall company strategy is right now, or no matter what the systems division is doing, what is the most cutting-edge platform that is going to be so interesting to people that we can develop the most envelope-pushing technology for it? That becomes the mandate for applications.
本：没错，即使那个平台不是你自己的。有趣的是，当他们在评估 Multiplan 时，他们会说，我们如何才能不再使用 Lotus 1-2-3，基本上，应用团队可以自由地环顾四周，然后说，好吧，不管我们公司现在的整体战略是什么，也不管系统部门在做什么，什么是最前沿的平台，会让人们如此感兴趣，以至于我们可以为其开发最先进的技术？这就是应用程序的任务。
David: This is the dawn of horizontal software. You can have a whole company or a whole division of a company, in Microsoft's case, that makes this tool. That tool will be so much better than anything that even the largest companies can have their own software developers write. General Electric isn't going to write a better spreadsheet than 1-2-3. I think that the technology complement to this law is the killer app.
大卫：这是横向软件的曙光。你可以让整个公司或公司的整个部门（以微软为例）来制造这种工具。即使是最大的公司，也可以让自己的软件开发人员开发出比任何工具都好的工具。通用电气公司不会编写比 1-2-3 更好的电子表格。我认为，这项法律的技术补充才是杀手级应用。
Ben: You have to counter position. If 1-2-3 is the best spreadsheet out there for the current technology generation, you just can't compete with them. You need to wait for the next big leap forward in order to find a new competitive vector.
本：你必须反其道而行之。如果 1-2-3 是当前技术时代最好的电子表格，你就无法与之竞争。你需要等待下一次大飞跃，才能找到新的竞争载体。
David: You need to be the killer app on the next platform, and that's what Lotus 1-2-3 did with the spreadsheet on the IBM PC and IBM compatible PC. That's what Microsoft decides, hey, we got to do this in the graphical interface.
大卫：你需要成为下一个平台上的杀手级应用，这就是 Lotus 1-2-3 在 IBM PC 和 IBM 兼容 PC 上的电子表格所做的事情。这就是微软决定，嘿，我们要在图形界面上做这个。
Ben: Who's about to come out with the very best instantiation of a graphical user interface? Apple computer.
本：谁即将推出图形用户界面的最佳实例？苹果电脑。
David: That would be Steve Jobs.
大卫：那就是史蒂夫-乔布斯。
Ben: Yes. The next chapter of our Microsoft story is the Macintosh in 1984.
本：是的。微软故事的下一章是 1984 年的 Macintosh。
David: It's so fun. 大卫：太有趣了。
Ben: Before we do that, this is the perfect time to talk about another one of our favorite companies and longtime Acquired partners who are back, pilot.com. For startups and growth companies of all kinds, Pilot handles all of your company's accounting, tax, and bookkeeping needs, and is in fact now by far the largest startup focused accounting firm in the entire US.
本：在此之前，现在是谈论我们最喜爱的另一家公司和《收购》的长期合作伙伴--pilot.com--的最佳时机。对于初创企业和各类成长型公司来说，Pilot 可以满足公司所有的会计、税务和簿记需求，事实上，它是目前全美最大的专注于初创企业的会计师事务所。
David: Also, we have to give our good buddy and Pilot CEO, Waseem Daher, a special shout out here because I think he is now the only Acquired sponsor CEO, who is also a source for an episode, because back when Waseem was a student at MIT, he interviewed Bill Gates for the school paper. He dug up the PDF and sent it to us. We're going to link to it in the episode sources.
大卫：另外，我们还得特别表扬一下我们的好兄弟、Pilot 首席执行官瓦西姆-达赫（Waseem Daher），因为我认为他是目前唯一一位同时也是本期节目素材来源的 Acquired 赞助商首席执行官，因为早在瓦西姆还是麻省理工学院学生的时候，他就为校报采访过比尔-盖茨。他挖出了 PDF 文件并发给了我们。我们将在节目来源中链接到它。
Ben: Yes. Very fun. Back to Pilot, and speaking of incredibly successful Seattle business people, we talk all the time on Acquired about Jeff Bezos' AWS-inspired axiom that startups should focus on what makes their beer taste better, i.e. only spend your limited time and resources on what is actually going to move the needle for you, your product, your customers, and outsource everything else that you need to do as a company but doesn't fit that bill.
本：是的。非常有趣。回到 Pilot，说到西雅图非常成功的商业人士，我们在 Acquired 频道一直在谈论杰夫-贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）在 AWS 启发下提出的公理，即初创企业应专注于让啤酒更美味的事情，也就是说，只把有限的时间和资源花在真正能推动你、你的产品、你的客户的事情上，而把公司需要做但不符合要求的其他事情都外包出去。
Accounting is example number one of what he's talking about. Every company needs this, but it needs to be done by a professional. You don't want to take any risk of something going wrong. But at the same time, it actually has zero impact on your product or your customers.
会计就是他所说的第一个例子。每家公司都需要，但必须由专业人士来做。你不想冒任何出错的风险。但同时，这实际上对你的产品或客户没有任何影响。
David: So enter Pilot. Pilot both sets up and operates your company's entire financial stack, finance, accounting, tax, even CFO services like investor reporting from your general ledger, all the way up to budgeting and financial sections of your board decks. They've been doing this now for years across thousands of startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. There's nobody better who you can trust to both get finance right and make it easy and painless for your company.
大卫：那就进入 Pilot 吧。Pilot 既能建立也能运营公司的整个财务堆栈，包括财务、会计、税务，甚至是首席财务官服务，如从总账到预算和董事会报告中的财务部分的投资者报告。多年来，他们一直为硅谷和其他地方的数千家初创企业提供服务。没有比他们更值得您信赖的人了，他们既能为您的公司提供正确的财务服务，又能让您的公司轻松无忧地完成财务工作。
Ben: These are now companies like OpenAI, Airtable, Scale, as well as large ecommerce companies. It's not just that they have the experience across startups, they can also keep working with you as you scale to the growth phase and beyond. If your company wants to go back to focusing on what makes your beer taste better, go on over to pilot.com/acquired and tell them that Ben and David sent you.
本：这些公司现在包括 OpenAI、Airtable、Scale 以及大型电子商务公司。他们不仅拥有跨初创企业的经验，还能在你进入成长期或更高阶段时继续与你合作。如果您的公司想继续专注于如何让啤酒更美味，请访问 pilot.com/acquired，并告诉他们是 Ben 和 David 派您来的。
All right, David, why are we talking about the Mac?
好吧，大卫，我们为什么要讨论 Mac？
David: Because I think it's fair to say that the Mac made Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Office made the Mac. I don't think that it's actually a controversial statement, although it probably sounds crazy to many of you listening.
大卫：因为我认为，Mac造就了微软Office，而微软Office造就了Mac。我不认为这是一个有争议的说法，尽管对许多听众来说这可能听起来很疯狂。
Ben: Totally. Far and away the first thing to point out is the first version of Microsoft Excel was for the Mac. It's especially crazy for all the finance people today who are like, oh, Mac Excel isn't real Excel. Excel has to happen on Windows.
本：完全正确。首先要指出的是，Microsoft Excel 的第一个版本是 Mac 版。这对现在的财务人员来说尤其疯狂，他们会说，哦，Mac Excel 不是真正的 Excel。Excel 必须在 Windows 上运行。
David: No, Excel was on the Mac. That was it.
大卫：不，Excel 是在 Mac 上用的。就是这样。
Ben: Yes. The logic basically was Microsoft was really coming around to the idea that the next big thing in computing was the graphical user interface. The reason they were coming around to this was because they knew from Xerox PARC just as well as Apple did, and they were rapidly trying to figure out how to get All of that Xerox PARC-iness into their product line, too. That's the other half of this untold Xerox PARC story.
本：是的。基本上是这样的，微软开始意识到，计算机领域的下一件大事就是图形用户界面。他们之所以这么想，是因为他们对施乐帕克公司（Xerox PARC）和苹果公司（Apple）的了解不相上下，而且他们也在迅速尝试如何将施乐帕克公司的技术融入到他们的产品线中。这就是施乐 PARC 不为人知的另一半故事。
One of the first ways that they see to bring the graphical user interface to their products is launching Excel for the Mac because they basically see, the way that we got destroyed with Lotus 1-2-3, we can't compete with lotus on the IBM PC, so we're going to shelf Multiplan start over, and Excel is going to come out in the graphical user interface. We're going to try to be first and best on the GUI.
他们认为，将图形用户界面引入其产品的首要途径之一就是推出 Mac 版 Excel，因为他们基本上已经看到，我们被 Lotus 1-2-3 毁掉的方式，我们无法在 IBM PC 上与 Lotus 竞争，所以我们将重新搁置 Multiplan，推出图形用户界面的 Excel。我们将努力在图形用户界面上做到最好。
David: One thing just to underscore here, Excel is the world's first graphical spreadsheet program. That's why it wins, and that's why it's so important. Imagine trying to use Excel in the command line interface. That's what VisiCalc was, that's what even 1-2-3 was. Yeah, useful, better than nothing, but graphical charts, cells, visual relationships, this is so important. Excel is where it all starts.
大卫：这里有一点需要强调，Excel 是世界上第一个图形电子表格程序。这就是它获胜的原因，也是它如此重要的原因。想象一下在命令行界面下使用 Excel 的情形。VisiCalc 就是这样，1-2-3 也是这样。是的，有用，聊胜于无，但图形图表、单元格、可视化关系，这些是如此重要。Excel 是这一切的起点。
Ben: Yup. Of course, Apple loves this. The Macintosh came out in 1984, and everybody remembers the great intro video and the hello script. I've watched that Steve Jobs keynote because of course, I have, and it's this magical moment in computing history where finally something that's insanely great comes out. It's the beginning of Steve Jobs' unbelievable presentation prowess. It's so fun to watch it. It's, of course, a product that eventually people really loved. But at first...
Ben: 是的。当然，苹果公司也喜欢这样。Macintosh 于 1984 年问世，每个人都还记得那段精彩的介绍视频和 "你好 "脚本。我当然看过史蒂夫-乔布斯的主题演讲，那是计算机历史上神奇的一刻，终于有伟大的产品问世了。这是乔布斯令人难以置信的演讲能力的开端。看它是如此有趣当然，这款产品最终深受人们喜爱但一开始...
David: It doesn't have the killer app.
大卫：它没有杀手级应用。
Ben: No, it's a product that was supposed to ship in 1982. It didn't, it shipped in 1984. At the time, what they were targeting for 1982 was a pretty great set of technologies. By 1984, it's an aging set of technologies. It debuts with 128K of memory, which basically isn't enough to create any interesting applications. Developers are ignoring it as an interesting platform to develop on. Within 12 months, they figure it out and come out with a better version that's 512K. That's the version that people now really think about.
本：不，这是一款本应在 1982 年出货的产品。结果没有，1984 年才出货。当时，他们在 1982 年瞄准的是一套相当不错的技术。到了 1984 年，这套技术已经老化。它首次亮相时只有 128K 内存，基本上不足以创建任何有趣的应用程序。开发人员忽视了它是一个有趣的开发平台。不到 12 个月，他们就发现了问题所在，并推出了更好的 512K 版本。这才是人们现在真正考虑的版本。
David: That gets re-christened as like, that's the original Mac. The original original is the Mac 128 or something that.
大卫：它被重新命名为 "原版 Mac"。最初的原版是 Mac 128 或类似的东西。
Ben: Exactly. But in the meantime, Microsoft, the applications group is working their ass off to make something really great for the Macintosh, and they come up with Excel. What ends up happening is Apple's really trying to promote the sales of this machine. They view Excel and PageMaker as the killer apps, as reasons that people should buy this thing, because once you run through a lot of the demo apps and the stuff that Apple built, you're like, okay, what else is here? It's crickets.
本：没错。但与此同时，微软公司的应用软件小组却在拼命为 Macintosh 做一些非常棒的东西，于是他们就有了 Excel。最后的结果是，苹果公司真的想促进这台机器的销售。他们将 Excel 和 PageMaker 视为 "杀手级应用"，将其视为人们应该购买这台机器的理由，因为一旦你用过很多演示应用和苹果公司制作的东西，你就会想，好吧，这里还有什么？那就是 "蛐蛐"。
David: Right. Writing hello in script is cool, but like a lot of VR stuff, you're like, oh, that's a cool demo, but you're going to do that every day? No.
大卫：没错。用脚本写 "你好 "很酷，但就像很多 VR 产品一样，你会觉得，哦，这是个很酷的演示，但你会每天都这么做吗？不可能
Ben: I'm not sure this has ever been publicly disclosed before, but Apple spent just as much marketing Excel as Microsoft did. They matched Microsoft's marketing spend with their own campaign for it and split the bill.
本：我不确定这一点以前是否公开披露过，但苹果公司在市场营销 Excel 方面的投入与微软公司不相上下。他们的营销费用与微软的营销费用相等，并且平分了账单。
David: That's amazing.
Ben: You've got a couple of concurrent things going on in applications land. You've got Excel coming out for Mac to take advantage of the GUI. This strategy is just all over the place, I think that's an interesting thing to underscore about Microsoft in this era. They're trying a ton of stuff because they're paranoid. They don't want to miss the next wave. Meanwhile, also in the applications group, Charles Simonyi has written Word. This is about a year before in 1983. Microsoft Word comes out for DOS.
本：在应用程序领域，有几件事情同时发生。Excel 将推出 Mac 版，以利用图形用户界面的优势。我认为这是微软在这个时代的一个有趣之处。他们尝试了大量的东西，因为他们是偏执狂。他们不想错过下一波浪潮。同时，在应用软件部门，查尔斯-西蒙尼（Charles Simonyi）编写了 Word。大约在一年前的1983年DOS版微软Word问世
David: Right, and they ship it with a mouse.
大卫：是的，他们在发货时还附带了一个鼠标。
Ben: Yes. This is like, okay, we see the Xerox PARC stuff coming out in the Mac. Great, Excel will be for that. We want to develop Word. We're going to do that for DOS. But I can imagine how useful the mouse is going to be in a word processing environment. They actually ship a mouse tied to the application that's not a part of DOS. This is how early we were in figuring out what the split between applications and platforms were at this point in history. Microsoft thought maybe a mouse makes sense just for this one application, even though it doesn't do anything else for the rest of the command line interface.
本：是的。这就好比，好吧，我们看到施乐 PARC 的产品将在 Mac 上推出。很好，Excel 将用于此。我们想开发 Word。我们要做的是 DOS 版。但我可以想象，鼠标在文字处理环境中会有多大用处。实际上，他们出货的鼠标是与应用程序绑定的，而不是 DOS 的一部分。这就是我们在这一历史时刻，对应用程序和平台之间的分工的早期认识。微软认为，尽管鼠标对命令行界面的其他部分没有任何作用，但也许鼠标只对这一个应用程序有意义。
David: It was all being figured out. I think it is also really fair to say that Microsoft was right there with Apple in the Mac development phase. Obviously, they're working on Excel, working on other what would become the Office Suite applications together for Mac.
大卫：一切都在摸索中。我认为，在 Mac 的开发阶段，微软与苹果的合作也是非常公平的。很明显，他们正在开发 Excel 和其他 Mac 版 Office 套件应用软件。
Steve Jobs shows Bill Gates the Mac project in 1981, three years before it ships. Microsoft and Apple signed an agreement to work together on applications for it in 1982. They were very deeply embedded on this, which is going to make the lawsuit and what comes up in a minute here all the more funny.
1981 年，史蒂夫-乔布斯向比尔-盖茨展示了 Mac 项目，这比 Mac 上市早了三年。1982 年，微软和苹果签署协议，共同开发 Mac 的应用程序。他们在这方面的合作非常深入，这将使诉讼和稍后出现的内容更加有趣。
Ben: The decision for the Excel team is to focus on GUI. The whole marketing message is Excel on a Mac is better than Lotus 1-2-3 on a PC. You're starting to see truly divergent cultures at Microsoft between the systems group, which is currently making DOS.
本：Excel 团队决定把重点放在图形用户界面上。整个营销信息就是 Mac 上的 Excel 比 PC 上的 Lotus 1-2-3 好。在微软，你会发现目前正在生产 DOS 的系统部门之间的文化确实存在分歧。
We'll soon make Windows, soon partner with IBM, or soon do something else that we're getting into here in the next chapter of the story, and the applications group, which is also currently a bunch of disparate applications and teams targeting disparate platforms, but is also about to become unified in their next chapter. Within the applications group, that next chapter is Microsoft Office.
我们很快就会生产 Windows，很快就会与 IBM 合作，或者很快就会做一些其他的事情，这些我们都会在故事的下一章节中介绍。在应用程序组中，下一章就是 Microsoft Office。
In 1985, in January, the bundle is released. It was originally called the Business Pack for Microsoft. It started on the Mac.
1985 年 1 月，捆绑软件发布。它最初被称为微软商业包。它始于 Mac。
David: It really rolls off the tongue.
大卫：真的是娓娓道来。
Ben: Totally does. They haven't acquired PowerPoint yet or forethought as we talked about eight years ago on Acquired way back in history. There's no PowerPoint, it's not part of the bundle. What you've got here on the Mac and the first version of Office is Word, which they've developed in house, File, Chart, and Multiplan. This first notion of a suite, so today we're very familiar with suite—Creative Suite over at Adobe. Software is sold this way. This was the first time.
本：完全正确。他们还没有收购 PowerPoint，也没有像我们八年前在 "Acquired way back in history "节目中谈到的那样先入为主。没有 PowerPoint，它不是捆绑软件的一部分。Mac 上的第一版 Office 是他们自己开发的 Word、文件、图表和 Multiplan。这是套装软件的第一个概念，所以今天我们对 Adobe 的套装软件--创意套装非常熟悉。软件就是这样销售的。这是第一次。
What was actually happening is all of the bundling was happening in pricing, in marketing, and in manufacturing. You had a single box that they would ship with the different applications by 1988 or 1989. It was Word, Excel, PowerPoint. They're very different things, but they're getting bundled together in a way to be sold to customers, but there's no product integration.
实际上，所有的捆绑都是在定价、营销和制造过程中发生的。到 1988 年或 1989 年，他们将不同的应用软件装在一个盒子里。有 Word、Excel 和 PowerPoint。它们是非常不同的东西，但它们被捆绑在一起卖给客户，但没有产品整合。
You don't have the ability to do this very nice copy-paste from an Excel table and just paste that into Word. That whole idea is pretty far away. In this earliest Microsoft Office, it was just, how can we bundle something for a cheaper price if you buy all three and make marketing easier for us to have this unified message?
你没有能力从 Excel 表格中进行漂亮的复制粘贴，然后直接粘贴到 Word 中。这种想法离我们还很遥远。最早的微软办公软件只是，如果你同时购买三个软件，我们怎样才能以更便宜的价格将它们捆绑在一起，使我们的营销更容易获得统一的信息？
David: Soon to come—and we'll get into Windows here in a second—one of the big killer app for productivity in particular for business productivity with a graphical user interface like Windows and true multitasking, you can get copy-paste from Excel into PowerPoint. Lotus and the world back in the command line interface where you've got these programs running on top of DOS, that is a completely foreign concept.
戴维：很快就会出现，我们稍后会介绍 Windows，它是生产力的一大杀手级应用，尤其是在商业生产力方面，有了 Windows 这样的图形用户界面和真正的多任务处理功能，你可以将 Excel 复制粘贴到 PowerPoint 中。而在 Lotus 和命令行界面的世界里，你可以在 DOS 上运行这些程序，这是一个完全陌生的概念。
Ben: Right, none of those verbs exist.
本：对，这些动词都不存在。
David: Exactly. We've now set the stage of Microsoft's doing a lot of stuff. They're hedging a lot of bets, they're not totally sure which strategy is going to win out, they're not sure which platform is going to win out. They're not sure if they're more of a systems company or an application company, but what they are unified on is we make great software for personal computers. I think anything that fell into that purview, they were willing to explore.
大卫：没错。我们现在已经为微软做了很多事情做好了准备。他们在做很多对冲，他们不完全确定哪种战略会胜出，他们不确定哪种平台会胜出。他们不确定自己是一家系统公司还是一家应用软件公司，但他们一致认为，我们为个人电脑开发了优秀的软件。我认为，只要是属于这个范畴的，他们都愿意去探索。
They didn't really have hard boundaries between, we'll do anything to make our operating systems great, or we'll do anything to advantage our applications. Even we think we're an enterprise company, we think we're a consumer company. They just didn't have well formed opinions yet. It was just we make software for personal computers.
他们并没有在 "我们将不惜一切代价使我们的操作系统更出色 "和 "我们将不惜一切代价使我们的应用程序更出色 "之间划定严格的界限。甚至我们认为我们是一家企业公司，我们认为我们是一家消费者公司。他们只是还没有形成自己的观点。我们只是为个人电脑做软件。
David: At this point in time, the actual boundary between an operating system and an application is very fluid.
大卫：目前，操作系统和应用程序之间的实际界限非常不稳定。
Ben: You've got a mouse that works for one program.
本：你的鼠标只适用于一个程序。
David: Totally. Lotus would really go down a dead end evolutionary path with Notes later in its life and its final chapter, where the application was going to be the operating system.
大卫：完全正确。Lotus 在其生命的晚期和最后一章中，Notes 走上了一条死胡同式的发展道路，应用程序将成为操作系统。
Ben: Right. Lotus Notes was crazy. It was a word processor, an email service, and it was a platform on which you could write other applications.
本：没错。Lotus Notes 太疯狂了。它是一个文字处理器，一个电子邮件服务，也是一个可以编写其他应用程序的平台。
David: Yes, and it itself was an application.
戴维：是的，它本身就是一个应用程序。
Ben: It's crazy. 本：太疯狂了。
David: Not an operating system. It was all dynamic. Speaking of though, Microsoft here is in bed with Apple, working on the Mac. Bill and the company are big believers in the future of the graphical user interface. Starting in 1983, they're like, we got to do our own graphical operating system or at least user interface. This is the origins of the Windows product. They actually announced it in November, 1983, before the Mac ends up shipping, which their partner, Apple, is of course not happy about.
大卫：不是操作系统。都是动态的。说到操作系统，微软公司与苹果公司合作开发 Mac。比尔和公司都坚信图形用户界面的未来。从1983年开始，他们就想，我们要做自己的图形操作系统，至少是用户界面。这就是 Windows 产品的起源。实际上，他们是在 1983 年 11 月宣布推出 Windows 的，当时 Mac 还没有上市，他们的合作伙伴苹果公司当然对此感到不满。
Just development of the Mac was rocky, development of Windows was super freaking rocky within Microsoft, too. This is around that same time when Paul Allen gets Hodgkin's disease and leaves the company. His presence as great technical leader is very much missed, but they bring in someone from Xerox to manage the development of Windows.
就在 Mac 发展坎坷的时候，Windows 的发展在微软内部也是异常坎坷。就在这个时候，保罗-艾伦（Paul Allen）得了霍奇金病，离开了公司。人们非常怀念他作为伟大技术领导者的风采，但他们还是从施乐公司请来了一个人管理 Windows 的开发。
That person ends up not working out, he gets fired. Steve Ballmer gets drafted to come in and be the dev manager for the final push to release Windows 1.0, which is hilarious. You can find amazing YouTube videos from the launch and all joking about how non technical Steve coming in to Save the day and dev manage windows to launch.
这个人最终没有成功，被解雇了。史蒂夫-鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）被任命为开发经理，负责发布 Windows 1.0 的最后冲刺工作。你可以在 YouTube 上找到发布时的精彩视频，视频中所有人都在开玩笑，说非技术出身的史蒂夫是如何来拯救这一天，并开发管理 Windows 的发布。
Ben: Which is so funny. I don't think at this point in history, the lines were clearly formed among the executives yet. Steve wasn't running the global sales force, and Microsoft wasn't an enterprise company.
本：这太有趣了。我认为在这个历史时刻，高管之间的界限还没有形成。史蒂夫并没有管理全球销售团队，微软也不是一家企业级公司。
David: No, we're going to get to that later.
大卫：不，我们稍后再谈这个。
Ben: Steve was one of the smart executives, they were a software company, and someone had to manage getting the software out the door. Windows 1.0 comes out. It's bad.
本：史蒂夫是聪明的管理者之一，他们是一家软件公司，必须有人管理软件的销售。Windows 1.0问世。很糟糕。
David: It's bad. November 1985, Windows 1.0 is a very, very different thing than you imagine a graphical user interface is today or what you know of as Windows. It was tiled. It was not overlapping Windows that you can drag around and have one over the other. When you opened a program in Windows 1.0, the system created a literal window of it on your screen, and then it dynamically resized the windows as you open other applications. Nothing could ever be on top of each other. As you open more and more stuff, the windows get smaller and smaller and smaller. It's very bizarre.
大卫：很糟糕。1985 年 11 月，Windows 1.0 与你今天想象中的图形用户界面或你所知道的 Windows 完全不同。它是平铺的。它不是可以拖动的重叠 Windows。在 Windows 1.0 中，当你打开一个程序时，系统会在你的屏幕上创建一个真正的窗口，然后在你打开其他应用程序时动态调整窗口的大小。任何程序都不会相互重叠。随着你打开的程序越来越多，窗口也会越来越小。这非常奇怪。
Ben: Yeah. The idea of windows overlapping on top of each other, that was a uniquely Mac thing and a thing that smart engineers at Apple figured out how to do that in a performant way that offers good user experience. I would classify Windows 1.0 as a half step between command line and an actual graphical user interface.
本：是的。窗口相互重叠的概念是 Mac 独有的，苹果公司聪明的工程师们想出了如何以一种性能良好的方式实现这一概念，并提供良好的用户体验。我将 Windows 1.0 归为命令行和实际图形用户界面之间的半步。
David: Yes, 100%. I believe Microsoft and Apple actually did a licensing agreement while they were working together during this time that said, hey, Microsoft can use a lot of the stuff that's being developed for Mac for Windows 1.0.
大卫：是的，100%。我相信，微软和苹果公司在合作期间确实签署了一份许可协议，其中规定，微软可以在 Windows 1.0 中使用为 Mac 开发的大量内容。
Ben: Yes, that's right. Apple does do a deal to license a lot of "their intellectual property" which of course came from Xerox, to Microsoft. Apple, I think, was under the impression that it was just for Windows 1.0, but the actual terms of the agreement are this and all future versions of Windows, which comes back to haunt Apple later. But yes, they totally get the license.
本：是的，没错。苹果公司确实与微软公司达成了一项协议，将大量 "他们的知识产权 "授权给微软公司，这些知识产权当然来自施乐公司。我想，苹果公司一直以为这只是针对 Windows 1.0 的，但协议的实际条款却是针对 Windows 1.0 和所有未来版本的，这在后来会给苹果公司带来麻烦。不过，是的，他们完全获得了许可。
David: Also, by the time that this agreement actually happens, I think Steve Jobs has been ousted, so it's Scully who does this agreement. People in Apple would look back on this for years and be like, this was a huge error.
戴维：另外，我认为当这份协议真正达成时，史蒂夫-乔布斯（Steve Jobs）已经下台了，所以是斯卡利（Scully）签署了这份协议。苹果公司的人多年后回想起来，会觉得这是一个巨大的错误。
The other important thing about Windows during this awkward teenage phase is it's not an operating system. It's just a graphical interface on top of DOS.
在这个尴尬的青少年阶段，关于 Windows 的另一件重要事情是，它并不是一个操作系统。它只是 DOS 上的一个图形界面。
Ben: Yes. 本：是的。
David: The original name for Windows was Interface Manager.
大卫：Windows 的原名是界面管理器。
Ben: Isn't it crazy? In all of their early marketing, they referred to it as Windows, a graphical operating environment that runs on the Microsoft MS-DOS operating system. Actually, it was not until Windows 95 that Windows was its own operating system. It was in Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, and Windows for Workgroups. It was a graphical operating environment.
本：这不是很疯狂吗？在所有早期的市场营销中，他们都把它称为 Windows，一个在微软 MS-DOS 操作系统上运行的图形操作环境。实际上，直到 Windows 95，Windows 才成为自己的操作系统。它曾出现在 Windows 1.0、2.0、3.0、3.1 和 Windows for Workgroups 中。它是一种图形操作环境。
Here's the question. Why is Microsoft doing Windows? Obviously here, Microsoft knows they need to evolve DOS. They need to figure something out for the graphical world. David, are you telling me that Windows is the widely agreed upon future of the company and that's just a straight line?
问题来了。微软为什么要做 Windows？很明显，微软知道他们需要发展 DOS。他们需要为图形世界想点办法。大卫，你是在告诉我，Windows 是公司广泛认同的未来，而这只是一条直线吗？
David: Obviously that's a setup there. Here's the other thing that's happening in the company at this time, and it's the bigger thing. It's the next phase of the IBM relationship. Windows, the Mac, all of this, are hedges for the company. Microsoft and Bill, in particular, were masters of hedging their bets in an uncertain technology future.
大卫：很明显，这是一个陷阱。下面是公司目前正在发生的另一件大事。这是 IBM 关系的下一阶段。Windows、Mac，所有这些，都是公司的对冲工具。尤其是微软和比尔，他们都是在不确定的技术未来中进行对冲的高手。
He was so great. The company was so great at making sure that whichever way the apple fell from the tree, as Jetson Huang put it to us in our interview, Microsoft was going to be positioned to catch it. A lot of people, including Bill and Microsoft themselves, believe that the way that apple was going to fall from the tree here was IBM and OS/2.
他是如此伟大。正如黄洁逊在采访中对我们说的那样，公司非常善于确保无论苹果从树上掉下来，微软都能及时接住。包括比尔和微软自己在内的很多人都认为，苹果从树上掉下来的方向是 IBM 和 OS/2。
Ben: The IBM PC was such a big deal last time around. You would think that whatever IBM wants to do next is a pretty good way to ally yourself.
本：IBM PC 上一轮大获成功。你会认为，无论 IBM 下一步想做什么，都是结盟的好办法。
David: What's going on here? IBM, obviously the PC was a huge success, but losing dominance of the ecosystem to the clones, this was bad. IBM wants to find a way to evolve the PC ecosystem back to being more IBM proprietary. They're going to make Microsoft come along for the ride here.
大卫：这是怎么回事？IBM 的 PC 显然取得了巨大成功，但由于克隆产品的出现而失去了生态系统的主导地位，这很糟糕。IBM 希望找到一种方法，将 PC 生态系统重新演变为更多的 IBM 专有系统。他们要让微软也加入进来。
The way that they're going to do this is with the next generation of the PC ecosystem, they are going to make a whole new modern operating system. They're going to get rid of DOS. They're going to make this operating system in partnership with Microsoft, and it's going to be called, fittingly, OS/2. They are going to lock Microsoft up that they can't license it to anybody else. OS/2 is going to be proprietary to IBM hardware, just like the Mac operating system is proprietary to Apple hardware.
他们要做的是，在下一代 PC 生态系统中，他们要制造一个全新的现代操作系统。他们将摆脱 DOS。他们将与微软公司合作开发这一操作系统，并将其命名为 OS/2。他们要把微软锁起来，不能授权给其他人。OS/2 将是 IBM 硬件的专利，就像 Mac 操作系统是苹果硬件的专利一样。
As powerful as Microsoft's become here, they're still the little brother to IBM. This is not great news for Microsoft. On the other hand, it's much better for them to be on the inside here with IBM working in bed with them than it would be to be on the outside looking in if IBM's vision comes true and they recapture control of the PC ecosystem.
尽管微软在这里变得强大，但他们仍然是 IBM 的小弟弟。这对微软来说可不是什么好消息。另一方面，如果 IBM 的愿景成真，微软重新夺回 PC 生态系统的控制权，那么微软在内部与 IBM 合作要比在外部观望要好得多。
Bill, Microsoft, the company, and Steve too as the manager of the account with IBM, commit themselves to Microsoft is all in on this vision of the future of OS/2, and IBM is our horse in the race.
比尔、微软公司以及作为与 IBM 合作的客户经理的史蒂夫都承诺，微软将全力以赴实现 OS/2 的未来愿景，而 IBM 则是我们的赛马。
Ben: This is such a crazy part of the story to me, because we just talked about how Microsoft discovered this amazing business model. With everyone needing to license DOS from them, they're taking over the world, and they're becoming the standard development platform. Why on earth, if all that is true, are they going to develop some software that's going to be locked to IBM computers?
本：对我来说，这部分故事太疯狂了，因为我们刚刚谈到微软是如何发现这种惊人的商业模式的。每个人都需要从他们那里获得 DOS 许可，他们正在占领世界，他们正在成为标准的开发平台。如果这一切都是真的，他们究竟为什么要开发一些只能在 IBM 电脑上使用的软件呢？
David: This is a recentralization attempt. Ballmer has this great, great, great quote about it. He says, "This,” the IBM partnership at this time, “was what we used to call riding the bear. You just had to try to stay on the bear's back and the bear would twist, turn, and try to throw you off. But we were going to stay on the bear because the bear was the biggest, the most important. You just had to be with the bear. Otherwise, you would be under the bear." That was IBM at this point in time.
大卫：这是一次重新集权的尝试。鲍尔默对此有一段非常、非常、非常精彩的话。他说："这，"此时的 IBM 合作伙伴关系，"就是我们过去常说的骑熊。你只需努力骑在熊背上，熊就会扭动身体，转弯，试图把你甩下来。但我们会一直骑在熊背上，因为熊是最大、最重要的。你必须和熊在一起。否则，你就会被熊压在下面。"这就是当时的 IBM。
Really, I think it was IBM essentially putting a gun to Microsoft's head and being like, well, you can be in bed with us on this future that we're going to re-centralize everything, or you can be everybody else and not be, and you'll lose.
实际上，我认为 IBM 本质上是用枪指着微软的头，然后说，好吧，你可以在未来与我们同舟共济，我们将重新集中一切，或者你可以成为其他人，但你将输掉。
Ben: Even though Microsoft's doing all these little hedges, Windows, this tiny little team that's 30 people or something, it's not the most prestigious place at the company. The people in the applications division may as well be on another planet by this point from the systems division. They're trying all kinds of crazy stuff. The company motto at this point is the next big thing is OS/2 and IBM, and we are the software vendor for that.
本：尽管微软在做所有这些小动作，Windows，这个只有 30 人的小团队，并不是公司最有声望的地方。在这一点上，应用软件部门的人和系统部门的人简直就像是在另一个星球上。他们在尝试各种疯狂的东西。目前，公司的座右铭是，下一件大事是 OS/2 和 IBM，而我们是这方面的软件供应商。
David: Certainly Bill and I think Steve, too, they needed to tow the party line politically of expressing that, nope, OS/2 is the future. What we're doing with Windows and with the Mac is those are small things within the company. It's a super bizarre period in history, but IBM had also made a bit of a power play too with the later generations of the 16-bit era product they called the PC/AT. They used the Intel 286 chip instead of the Intel 386 chip. The 286 chip—this was an intentional decision on IBM's part—was good, but it wasn't great.
大卫：当然，比尔和我认为史蒂夫也是如此，他们需要在政治上与党保持一致，表达 "不，OS/2 才是未来 "的观点。我们正在做的 Windows 和 Mac 都是公司内部的小事情。这是一个超级离奇的历史时期，但 IBM 在 16 位时代的后期产品 PC/AT 上也玩了一把权术。他们使用英特尔 286 芯片，而不是英特尔 386 芯片。286 芯片--这是 IBM 有意为之的决定--很好，但并不出色。
Ben: You say it was good, but not great. Bill Gates said it was brain dead.
本：你说它不错，但不是很好。比尔-盖茨说它是 "脑死亡"。
David: Yes. Bill Gates called it a brain-dead chip.
戴维：是的。比尔-盖茨称其为 "脑死亡芯片"。
Ben: I think you might be being charitable.
本：我觉得你可能是在做慈善。
David: I think it certainly was more powerful than the 8086, 8088, but it was nowhere near what the 386 could do. There's a bunch of technical aspects to this, but the most important takeaway is that the 286 was not really powerful enough to do a graphical user interface or to power true multitasking in a way that the 386 and then later the 486 would be.
戴维：我认为它肯定比 8086 和 8088 功能强大，但远不及 386。这里面有很多技术层面的问题，但最重要的一点是，286 并没有真正强大到可以实现图形用户界面或真正的多任务处理，而 386 和后来的 486 则可以做到这一点。
A big part of actually the Compaq story about how Compaq and the clones leap ahead of IBM is they're not deterred from coming out with 386 machines, which are way more powerful, can run Windows, can do all this stuff. That's how they start to separate from IBM.
关于康柏和克隆机如何跃居 IBM 前列，康柏的一个重要故事是，他们毫不畏惧地推出了 386 机器，这些机器功能更强大，可以运行 Windows，可以做所有这些事情。他们就是这样开始与 IBM 分庭抗礼的。
Ben: That's right. That was a bet that company move where Microsoft was like, hey, Compaq, go make 386 stuff because we're going to make a really great 386 software. We need someone to be all in on that because IBM's not.
本：没错。那是公司的一个赌注，微软想，嘿，康柏，去做 386 的东西吧，因为我们要做一个非常棒的 386 软件。我们需要有人参与进来，因为 IBM 没有。
David: This is the thing. Bill, Steve, and the company, they're having to tow the party line of expressing commitment to IBM, but really they're like, no, Compaq, go do the 386, we're going to do Windows.
大卫：这就是问题所在。比尔、史蒂夫和公司，他们不得不坚持党的路线，表示对 IBM 的承诺，但实际上，他们就像，不，康柏，去做 386，我们要做 Windows。
Ben: Right, they're riling up the rebels.
本：对，他们在煽动叛军。
David: Exactly. They are the rebels versus the empire here. Anyway, IBM, of course, sees all this. They made the decision not to go to 386 and to discourage it in the marketplace because they didn't want PCs to start creeping into the core enterprise mainframe IBM workloads, their core business. If that was going to happen, they wanted it to be IBM proprietary closed system. I think that was a big part of the impetus for this OS/2 initiative.
大卫：没错。他们是反叛者与帝国的对决。总之，IBM 当然看到了这一切。他们决定不采用 386，并在市场上加以阻止，因为他们不希望 PC 开始渗透到 IBM 核心企业大型机的工作负载中，即他们的核心业务中。如果要这样做，他们希望是 IBM 专有的封闭系统。我认为这也是 OS/2 计划的重要推动力。
Ben: I see. 本：我明白了。
David: This is the empire strikes back here.
这是帝国的反击。
Ben: They're basically trying to coop the PC movement back into IBM proprietary land.
本：他们基本上是想把 PC 运动拉回到 IBM 的专有领域。
David: Exactly. When OS/2 finally does come out in December 1987, predictably, as you can imagine here, it's not very good. The market does not like it. Thank God for Microsoft. Again, this probably was Bill's strategy all along that they hedged with Windows, with the Mac. That's clearly the future. The market is not going to accept OS/2 and a recentralization on IBM. Microsoft's just crushing it on the revenue side, even though OS/2 is a failure.
戴维：没错。1987 年 12 月，OS/2 终于面世了，可以预料的是，正如你在这里所能想象的那样，它并不是很好。市场并不喜欢它。感谢上帝，感谢微软。同样，这可能也是比尔一直以来的策略，他们用 Windows 和 Mac 来对冲。这显然是未来的趋势。市场不会接受 OS/2 和 IBM 的重新集权。尽管 OS/2 失败了，但微软在收入方面却大获全胜。
Ben: DOS and the applications were both great businesses by 1987.
本：到 1987 年，DOS 和应用程序都已成为一项伟大的业务。
David: Yes. Fiscal 1987, Microsoft does $350 million in revenue. Fiscal 1988, they do $600 million in revenue. Basically, none of this is from OS/2 and the IBM world. Towards the end of 1988 is when the wind starts really blowing away from IBM here.
大卫：是的。1987 财年，微软的收入为 3.5 亿美元。1988 财年，他们的收入为 6 亿美元。基本上，这些收入都不是来自 OS/2 和 IBM 世界。到 1988 年底，IBM 的风头才真正开始刮起来。
In June of 1988, Microsoft hires Mike Maples, who is IBM's director of software strategy away from IBM to come head Microsoft's application software. What is Microsoft's application software strategy right now? It's the graphical user interface. It's everything that IBM isn't. The writing is starting to be on the wall here that divorce is coming between IBM and Microsoft.
1988 年 6 月，微软聘请 IBM 软件战略总监迈克-梅普尔斯（Mike Maples）来领导微软的应用软件。微软现在的应用软件战略是什么？就是图形用户界面。它拥有 IBM 所没有的一切。IBM 和微软之间的分道扬镳已经是板上钉钉的事了。
Finally, a year-and-a-half later in 1990, Windows 3.0 comes out. This is when they get it right. This is when there's enough installed base of 386 and 486 machines out there in the open PC ecosystem that you can have a really good, true multitasking, good UI, graphical user interface running on top of DOS.
终于，一年半后的 1990 年，Windows 3.0 问世了。这是他们取得成功的时刻。这时，在开放的 PC 生态系统中，386 和 486 机器的装机量已经足够多，你可以在 DOS 的基础上运行一个真正优秀的、真正的多任务、良好的用户界面和图形用户界面。
Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 only ever achieved 5% penetration of the DOS installed base. Windows 3.0 doubles that in the first six months. PC Computing magazine writes about Windows 3.0. May 22nd, 1990 will mark the first day of the second era of IBM compatible PCs. Microsoft released Windows 3.0.
Windows 1.0 和 Windows 2.0 的渗透率仅为 DOS 安装基数的 5%。而 Windows 3.0 在头六个月就将这一数字翻了一番。PC Computing》杂志撰文介绍了 Windows 3.0。1990 年 5 月 22 日是 IBM 兼容 PC 进入第二个时代的第一天。微软发布了 Windows 3.0。
On that day, the IBM compatible PC, a machine hobbled by an outmoded character-based operating system and 70s style programs, was transformed into a computer that could soar in a decade of multitasking graphical operating environments, aka everything OS/2 is not. Windows 3.0 gets right what its predecessors got wrong. It drives adequate performance, it accommodates existing DOS applications, and it makes you believe that it belongs on a PC.
就在那一天，IBM 兼容 PC，一台被过时的基于字符的操作系统和 70 年代风格的程序所束缚的机器，摇身一变，成为了一台可以在多任务图形操作环境中翱翔十年的电脑，也就是 OS/2 所没有的一切。Windows 3.0 做对了前人做错的事。它能提供足够的性能，兼容现有的 DOS 应用程序，让你相信它属于个人电脑。
Ben: That's awesome. 本：太棒了。
David: That's what the press thought. Ben, I know you talked to a really important person in the Windows ecosystem and Microsoft internally at this time. What do you have for us?
大卫：媒体是这么认为的。本，我知道你在这个时候与 Windows 生态系统和微软内部的一位非常重要的人物进行了交谈。你有什么要说的吗？
Ben: We have to thank Brad Silverberg for helping us with this section. Brad led the Windows 3.1 team. He came in right after the 3.0 release and would eventually go on to lead the Windows 95 effort as the VP of the Personal Systems Division.
本：我们必须感谢布拉德-西尔弗伯格（Brad Silverberg）帮助我们完成这部分内容。布拉德领导了 Windows 3.1 团队。他在 3.0 版本发布后就加入了团队，并最终以个人系统部门副总裁的身份领导了 Windows 95 的工作。
Brad comes in, Windows 3.0 has just shipped. The first thing that is super, super obvious is as Brad observed everything going on with OS/2 land and everything going on with the core Microsoft culture, it was a complete clash. It was impossible for the pace of Microsoft. This is a super young group, all in their 20s. Some people in their 30s, but mostly 20s who just want to push the cutting edge, ship stuff.
布拉德进来时，Windows 3.0 刚刚发布。布拉德观察到，OS/2 和微软核心文化之间存在着巨大的冲突。这对微软的发展速度来说是不可能的。这是一个超级年轻的团队，都只有 20 多岁。有些人已经 30 多岁了，但大多数都是 20 多岁的年轻人，他们只想推动前沿技术的发展，制造新产品。
Think about Google in the early 2000s, just hire all the smartest people you can, set them loose, have creativity, and bump up against the edge of what's possible, both in terms of pushing the hardware, but also pushing even laws as we would later see. Let's just do what users love and see what happens. Let's just do what technology enables us to do and see what happens. That's the opposite of IBM's culture at this point. There's this huge cultural rift between what IBM needs and who Microsoft is at this point.
想想本世纪初的谷歌，雇佣所有最聪明的人，让他们放手去做，让他们发挥创造力，在可能的范围内挑战极限，既要推动硬件的发展，也要推动法律的发展，正如我们后来看到的那样。让我们做用户喜欢的事，看看会发生什么。让我们做技术能让我们做的事，看看会发生什么。这与 IBM 目前的文化恰恰相反。在这一点上，IBM 的需求与微软的定位之间存在着巨大的文化裂痕。
What ended up happening with 3.0, it was unexpectedly loved. Microsoft was not really prepared for how much people were going to love the GUI, and with 3.1 it got really good. There was a small off site of the executives, and Bill and Steve basically decided that it was time to bet on Windows. That was the new strategy. Windows had always been plan B, and now suddenly it was plan A.
但 3.0 版却出乎意料地受到了人们的喜爱。微软并没有真正准备好让人们如此喜爱图形用户界面，而 3.1 版的表现却非常出色。在一次小型的高管离职会议上，比尔和史蒂夫基本上决定，是时候把赌注押在 Windows 上了。这是新的战略。Windows 一直是 B 计划，现在突然变成了 A 计划。
When I say plan B, I don't mean thought they had a prayer of being plan A. It was 65 people that shipped windows 3.1. These were the misfits. It was not prestigious. The prestigious thing to work on at Microsoft was OS/2 and eventually Windows NT. But the Windows team in the Windows 3.0 era is almost the Mac team over at Apple. They were flying the rebel flag, they valued creativity over bureaucracy, even if it meant they weren't working on the prestigious thing.
当我说 B 计划时，我的意思并不是说他们有希望成为 A 计划。他们都是不合群的人。这并不光彩。在微软，有声望的工作是 OS/2 和最终的 Windows NT。但 Windows 3.0 时代的 Windows 团队几乎就是苹果公司的 Mac 团队。他们高举反叛的旗帜，重视创造力而非官僚主义，即使这意味着他们不从事有声望的工作。
Suddenly, there's this huge strategic opportunity to become the standard independent of IBM if the platform is good enough, and then boom. The early reception to Windows is so good, it gives this glimmer of, that may seem really ambitious, but that opportunity is actually ours if we want to go seize it. Everyone took a big gulp and said, the GUI's the next big thing, users love this, let's take the ragtag group and promote them.
突然间，如果平台足够好，就会出现一个巨大的战略机遇，成为独立于 IBM 的标准，然后就会蓬勃发展。Windows 早期的反响如此之好，这让我们看到了一丝曙光：这看似雄心勃勃，但如果我们想抓住它，机会其实就在我们身边。每个人都咽了一大口唾沫，然后说，图形用户界面是下一件大事，用户喜欢这个，让我们带着这群散兵游勇去推广他们吧。
David: This was, I think, the moment when Microsoft started to believe in themselves, really. If you look at the facts as we told the story, it was like, Bill did this great business deal with IBM, anticipated the rise of the clones in the first PC, won, and then Microsoft now was the thing, and IBM was the old thing. It wasn't until this. In this whole OS/2 thing, I think you can see, they felt like they were still little brother. They had to go along with what IBM dictated. Now they're like, whoa.
大卫：我认为，这是微软开始相信自己的时刻，真的。如果你看一下我们讲故事时的事实，就会发现比尔与 IBM 达成了这笔伟大的商业交易，预见到了第一台 PC 中克隆产品的崛起，并赢得了胜利，然后微软就成了现在的微软，而 IBM 则成了过去的 IBM。直到这次在整个 OS/2 事件中，我想你可以看到，他们觉得自己还是小弟弟。他们不得不服从 IBM 的命令。现在他们觉得，哇哦
Ben: Why do we again?
本：为什么又是我们？
David: Yeah, we're in control.
戴维：是的，我们掌控着一切。
Ben: The press is making a big deal out of Bill Gates. Boy Wonder, he's the youngest ever billionaire at age 31. By the way, when Bill Gates became a billionaire, there were not lots of billionaires, there were 50 billionaires. All this lore around the company, it's like they can do no wrong. But inside the company, I think they're like, we don't know the future of technology. Any wave could break against us at any moment, and this is all tenuous. I think that chasm kept getting wider and wider and wider of internally feeling like they're screwed and externally it's seeming this is the next great thing.
本：媒体正在大肆渲染比尔-盖茨。神奇小子，他是有史以来最年轻的亿万富翁，31 岁。顺便说一句，比尔-盖茨成为亿万富翁时，亿万富翁的数量并不多，只有 50 个。所有这些围绕着公司的传说，就好像他们不会做错事一样。但在公司内部，我认为他们认为，我们不知道技术的未来。任何风浪都可能随时袭来 这一切都很脆弱我认为这个鸿沟越拉越大，公司内部觉得他们完蛋了，而公司外部却觉得这是下一个伟大的事情。
David: Totally. I've got some fun stats on money and revenue around all this. In fiscal 1990, the year that Windows 3.0 shipped, Microsoft does $1.2 billion in revenue, making them the first software company ever to pass a billion dollars in revenue. Fiscal 1991, they do $1.8 billion. Fiscal 1992, they finally win the Apple copyright lawsuit around the GUI.
大卫：完全正确。我有一些关于资金和收入的有趣统计数据。1990 财年，也就是 Windows 3.0 上市的那一年，微软的收入达到 12 亿美元，成为有史以来第一家收入突破 10 亿美元的软件公司。1991 财年，他们的收入达到 18 亿美元。1992 财年，他们终于赢得了苹果公司围绕图形用户界面的版权诉讼。
Ben: By the way, the way that they won that, a judge basically looked at the paper and said, Apple, you totally said in all the future versions of Windows, they can use your UI paradigms. For most of the counts, they're covered. For these other things that you're trying to ask them about, those are not actually defensible. It's just widely accepted that these are UI paradigms now, and you can't enforce any ownership over those. It basically got thrown out. Apple tried to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, who said no.
本：顺便说一下，他们胜诉的方式是，法官基本上是看着论文说，苹果，你完全说了，在未来所有的 Windows 版本中，他们都可以使用你的用户界面范例。在大多数情况下，他们都可以使用。至于你想问他们的其他问题，实际上是站不住脚的。现在，人们普遍认为，这些都是用户界面范例，你不能对其行使任何所有权。这个案子基本上被驳回了。苹果公司试图上诉至最高法院，但最高法院拒绝了。
David: That's right. Like we've been saying too, they both stole from Xerox.
大卫：没错。就像我们一直说的，他们都是从施乐公司偷来的。
Ben: Yes. 本：是的。
David: Fiscal 1992 though, this is when Microsoft just blows the doors off. They do $2.8 billion in revenue in fiscal 1992, up from $1.8 the year before. That year, 1992 in October is when Gates finally passes John Kluge—Acquired OG fans, back to the LVMH episode—Gates passes John Kluge of Metromedia fame, media mogul to become the wealthiest person in America. Everything you're talking about, all the press comes around that.
戴维：1992 财年是微软大获全胜的一年。他们在 1992 财年的收入从上一年的 18 亿美元增加到了 28 亿美元。那一年，1992 年 10 月，盖茨终于超越了约翰-克鲁格（John Kluge）--收购 OG 的粉丝们，回到 LVMH 的那一集--盖茨超越了 Metromedia 的约翰-克鲁格（John Kluge），成为美国最富有的人，媒体大亨。你所说的一切，所有的新闻都是围绕着这个话题展开的。
In January 1993, the crowning moment happens. Microsoft passes IBM in market cap. They have inherited the earth. They have inherited computing. Supposedly. I don't know if this is 100% true. This is written in one of the books I read. I read this. The folks involved will have to confirm or deny.
1993 年 1 月，最辉煌的时刻到来了。微软的市值超过了 IBM。他们继承了地球。他们继承了计算机。据说我不知道这是否百分之百属实。这是我读过的一本书里写的。我读过这本书。相关人员必须证实或否认。
Supposedly, the next month after Microsoft passes IBM in market cap—we're now in February 1993—the IBM board is in disarray. The empire is going down. They fired the CEO. Tom Murphy of Capital Cities fame who is on the IBM board, supposedly comes out to Redmond to sit down with Bill and personally ask him to come and be the next CEO of IBM.
据说，在微软公司市值超过 IBM 公司的下一个月--现在是 1993 年 2 月--IBM 董事会就会陷入混乱。帝国正在走向衰落。他们解雇了首席执行官。IBM 董事会的汤姆-墨菲（Tom Murphy），来自 "资本城市"（Capital Cities），据说他来到雷德蒙德（Redmond），与比尔坐下来，亲自邀请他出任 IBM 的下一任首席执行官。
Ben: No way. 本：不可能。
David: Yes. This is what I read. I don't know if this actually happened, but this is what I read.
大卫：是的。这是我读到的。我不知道这是否真的发生过，但这是我读到的。
Ben: Is that in Hard Drive?
本：是在硬盘里吗？
David: That's in Hard Drive, yeah.
大卫：是的，在 "硬盘 "里。
Ben: Wow. Listeners, there are some unauthorized biographies that we tried to corroborate as many of the facts as we can. But the ones where David's saying he doesn't know a source, it's these unauthorized ones.
本：哇。听众朋友们，有一些未经授权的传记，我们尽量去证实其中的事实。但戴维说他不知道消息来源的那些，都是未经授权的。
David: Yes. Gates obviously declines that. Whether or not that actually happened, spiritually, you could believe that happened. Bill and Microsoft are the new emperor here. This carries through to this day. We're going to tell in the next episode here, the antitrust, the fall, and all that, but not really. Microsoft's still the most valuable company in the world. They inherited the throne from IBM. It happens right here.
大卫：是的。盖茨显然拒绝了。无论这是否真的发生过，从精神上讲，你都可以相信它发生过。比尔和微软是这里的新皇帝。这一点一直延续到今天。我们将在下一集讲述反垄断、衰落等等，但并不是真的。微软仍然是世界上最有价值的公司。他们继承了 IBM 的王位。事情就发生在这里。
Ben: It's nuts. Suddenly, Microsoft feels the full weight of everything that you have to do to build a platform and be a steward of an ecosystem. Suddenly, this huge effort began to try and make developers successful. That's how Windows would be successful if it was a great platform for application developers to thrive on.
本：这太疯狂了。突然之间，微软感受到了建立一个平台和管理一个生态系统所必须做的一切。突然间，微软开始付出巨大努力，试图让开发者获得成功。如果 Windows 是一个能让应用程序开发人员茁壮成长的伟大平台，它就会成功。
Cameron Myhrvold led the developer relations group basically to try and figure out, what do people want out of a platform, and how do we provide the APIs for them, the support, and everything in order to do that, all the documentation, all the help, everything? At the same time, Microsoft basically knew establishing a platform is brutal and requires bootstrapping a multi sided network of developers, users, and PC manufacturers.
卡梅隆-迈尔沃德（Cameron Myhrvold）领导的开发者关系小组基本上是要弄清楚，人们想从一个平台中得到什么，以及我们如何为他们提供 API、支持和一切，以便做到这一点，包括所有的文档、所有的帮助和一切？与此同时，微软基本上知道建立一个平台是非常艰难的，需要引导一个由开发者、用户和 PC 制造商组成的多方网络。
So 3.1 had users excited, but it was still very early. They could have lost that throne. Developers were not really yet targeting Windows. Microsoft had to show, we make great applications for Windows, too. The applications group really had to start doing Windows 3.1.
因此，3.1 版让用户兴奋不已，但还为时尚早。他们可能会失去这个宝座。开发者还没有真正瞄准 Windows。微软必须表明，我们也为 Windows 开发了优秀的应用程序。应用软件部门必须开始开发 Windows 3.1。
David: Right, because developers were targeting DOS at this point. They were probably preparing for OS/2. Some of them were targeting the Mac, Microsoft itself, but nobody was targeting Windows.
戴维：对，因为此时开发人员的目标是 DOS。他们可能在为 OS/2 做准备。他们中的一些人瞄准了 Mac 和微软本身，但没有人瞄准 Windows。
Ben: Exactly. You've got this big developer relations group effort that spins up. Meanwhile, there's a huge push with OEMs to get them to install Windows. At this point, they were still installing DOS or some people were actually installing nothing and requiring users to put operating systems on. There's a conceded push to get the OEMs to install 3.1.
本：没错。开发者关系小组的工作就是这样开展起来的。与此同时，OEM 厂商也在大力推动用户安装 Windows。在这一点上，他们仍然在安装 DOS，或者有些人实际上什么都不安装，要求用户安装操作系统。现在，OEM 厂商已经同意安装 3.1 操作系统。
David: Yeah, and there are some people installing nothing. We should mention here, around this same time, this era, they move a lot of their OEM deals to a per processor licensing fee arrangement, which gets them in a lot of hot water with antitrust a few years later.
大卫：是的，有些人什么都不装。我们应该在这里提一下，大约在同一时期，也就是这个时代，他们将很多 OEM 交易转为按处理器许可费安排，这让他们在几年后陷入了反垄断的漩涡。
Ben: Okay, this happened from 1988 to 1994. David, explain the per processor licensing agreement.
本：好的，这发生在 1988 年到 1994 年之间。戴维，解释一下每个处理器的许可协议。
David: Here's how Microsoft (I think) would position it to their OEM partners. You could pay us a license fee for every machine you ship with DOS installed on it, or DOS and Windows. You can offer other OSes too. But rather than that arrangement, we'll give you a cheaper per unit deal because you're going to ship DOS on everything. DOS is the standard, and we want Windows to be the standard, and Windows is going to be the standard.
大卫：以下是微软（我认为）对其 OEM 合作伙伴的定位。你可以为每台安装了 DOS 或 DOS 和 Windows 的机器向我们支付许可费。你也可以提供其他操作系统。但与这种安排相比，我们会给你一个更便宜的单价，因为你会在所有机器上都安装 DOS。DOS 是标准，我们希望 Windows 成为标准，Windows 将成为标准。
We'll make it more economically attractive to you, give you a lower per unit rate. If we just change the terms and say, instead of every unit you ship with, DOS or with Windows, every machine you ship, period, every microprocessor based machine that you ship, no matter what operating system is installed on us, just pay us a per processor rate. If you do that, you'll be paying us for every machine, whether you ship DOS or Windows on it or not, but you're going to ship DOS and Windows anyway.
我们会让它对你更有经济吸引力，给你更低的单价。如果我们改变条款，不再规定每台机器都要装 DOS 或 Windows 系统，而是规定每台机器都要装 DOS 或 Windows 系统，每台基于微处理器的机器都要装 DOS 或 Windows 系统，无论装的是什么操作系统，都按处理器付费。如果你这样做了，你将为每台机器向我们支付费用，无论你是否装有 DOS 或 Windows 系统，但无论如何你都会装有 DOS 和 Windows 系统。
Ben: You may as well take the cheaper rate.
本：你还是选便宜的吧。
David: You may as well take the cheaper option. Obviously, what effect does this have on competition? There's now a very, very, very strong incentive never to ship any other operating system.
戴维：还不如选便宜的。显然，这会对竞争产生什么影响？现在有一个非常、非常、非常强烈的动机，那就是永远不生产其他操作系统。
Ben: Yeah. Basically, you're going to pay for two different operating systems, even though you're only putting one on if you ever load a different operating system on. Yes, it very strongly incentivizes you to never ever ever ship any other operating systems on your computers as a company.
本：是的。基本上，你要为两个不同的操作系统买单，尽管你只装了一个，如果你装了一个不同的操作系统的话。是的，这将极大地鼓励你永远不要在电脑上安装其他操作系统。
This is of course the way that regulators would look at it in 1994. That would get Microsoft in some hot water, and they had to agree to stop doing this practice. The way Microsoft would look at it is, we're just helping our customers. Do you really think that these companies want to keep a whole separate ledger of what machines they shipped DOS on or Windows on versus what machines they shipped period? Wouldn't it just be easier if once a month or once a quarter, they could just report to us their total shipments like they have to report to their investors anyway, and then we'll just send them an invoice for all their machines?
这当然是 1994 年监管机构的看法。这让微软惹上了一些麻烦，他们不得不同意停止这种做法。微软的看法是，我们只是在帮助我们的客户。你真的认为，这些公司想把他们在哪些机器上销售 DOS 或 Windows，与在哪些机器上销售期间的情况分开记账吗？如果他们每月或每季度向我们报告一次他们的总出货量，就像他们必须向投资者报告一样，然后我们再给他们寄一张所有机器的发票，这不是更简单吗？
David: Totally. While antitrust and the government would seize onto this as a smoking gun, I think the reality is this was irrelevant in terms of the forces that made DOS and Windows the winners. They were already the winners by the time they started doing this.
大卫：完全正确。虽然反托拉斯和政府会把这当作一把 "定时炸弹"，但我认为，就使 DOS 和 Windows 成为赢家的力量而言，这并不重要。在他们开始这样做的时候，他们已经是赢家了。
Ben: If this had happened earlier, you could see how this would be more of a compelling way to get market share. But by the time they started doing it, they were already running away with the market.
本：如果这种情况发生得早一些，你就会发现这是一种更有说服力的获取市场份额的方式。但当他们开始这样做的时候，他们已经在市场上跑马圈地了。
David: Yes. Speaking of this new customer-friendly, buyer-friendly business practice from Microsoft, which I think is how they thought about it...
大卫：是的。说到微软这种新的客户友好型、买家友好型商业实践，我认为他们是这样考虑的......
Ben: Totally. They wanted to make the stuff that people wanted to use the most, and that's how they would win. Their goal was make the very best products, the best software we possibly can in the ways that people want to use and buy software, and then we'll make a bunch of money.
本：完全正确。他们想做人们最想用的东西，这样他们就赢了。他们的目标是制造出最好的产品、最好的软件，以人们想要的方式使用和购买软件，然后我们就能赚一大笔钱。
David: Yup. As this changing of the guard is happening from IBM to Microsoft, I think part of this new self confidence from Microsoft is, wait a minute, why can't we go win the enterprise too and take that from IBM? We don't have to get in bed with them to sell to the enterprise. We should sell to the enterprise.
大卫：是的。随着从 IBM 到微软的卫兵更迭，我认为微软新的自信心的一部分是，等一下，为什么我们不能也去赢得企业市场，从 IBM 手中夺回市场呢？我们不一定非得和他们合作才能向企业销售。我们应该向企业销售。
Ben: The thing they were realizing is, well, we have made software that people like to use, so they're using it in businesses. They always wanted that to be the goal, but now it was happening. People are doing their work in Excel. People are bringing PCs to the office.
本：他们意识到的一点是，我们制作了人们喜欢使用的软件，所以他们在企业中使用。他们一直希望实现这个目标，但现在这个目标已经实现了。人们在 Excel 中工作。人们把 PC 带到办公室。
Maybe businesses are buying their PCs, but people are actually buying them themselves and using them in the office. It just made them that much more efficient. Microsoft really had to figure out how to sell to businesses, but we actually have no idea how to do that. It sounds crazy today. The Microsoft you know today, as late as the mid-90s, really had no idea how to sell or build software for businesses.
也许企业在购买 PC，但实际上人们自己也在购买 PC 并在办公室使用。这让他们的工作效率大大提高。微软真的必须弄清楚如何向企业销售，但实际上我们根本不知道该怎么做。这在今天听起来很疯狂。你今天所知道的微软，早在上世纪 90 年代中期，就真的不知道如何销售或构建面向企业的软件。
David: Totally. This is the first half of the original Microsoft vision statement coming true, a PC on every desk and in every home. Desk means work, means enterprise. In this era, everybody we talk to, gives 100% of the credit to Steve Ballmer.
大卫：完全正确。这是微软最初愿景声明的前半部分，即在每个办公桌上和每个家庭中都配备个人电脑。办公桌意味着工作，意味着企业。在这个时代，我们接触到的每个人都把 100% 的功劳归于史蒂夫-鲍尔默。
Steve took it on his shoulders at this point in time when Microsoft is passing IBM to say, I am going to build, and we are going to learn as a company how to sell to enterprises. Ben, like you're saying, it's impossible to imagine now Microsoft not like this, but there's so much that they needed to do that they didn't have.
在微软超过 IBM 的时候，史蒂夫把它扛在了肩上，他说："我要建立一个公司，我们要学习如何向企业销售。本，就像你说的，无法想象现在的微软不是这样，但他们需要做的事情太多了，而他们却没有。
Ben: In part because prior to this, personal computers were not used by enterprises. It was just not an enterprise tool. Now that it was happening, Microsoft had to figure out how to be the ones that would benefit from it.
本：部分原因是在此之前，企业并不使用个人电脑。个人电脑并不是企业工具。既然出现了这种情况，微软就必须想办法从中获益。
David: That meant selling to the C-suite at global Fortune 500 companies, most of whom did not use computers.
戴维：这意味着要向全球财富 500 强公司的 C-suite 销售产品，而他们中的大多数人都不会使用电脑。
Ben: Correct. Certainly, it didn't want to buy operating systems one at a time.
本：没错。当然，它不想一次购买一个操作系统。
David: Right. To the extent, members of the C-suite like CIOs or proto IT organizations used computers or were the computing centers in the company, they hated the PC. It made their life hard. This was when employees would bring a PC to work, plop it down on their desk, and start mucking around with stuff. It made things hard.
戴维：没错。在一定程度上，像首席信息官或原 IT 组织这样的 C-suite 成员会使用电脑，或者是公司的计算中心，他们痛恨 PC。这让他们的生活变得艰难。这时候，员工会带着电脑来上班，把它放在办公桌上，然后开始捣鼓东西。这让事情变得棘手。
Ben: And there really isn't yet a business server that couples nicely with the PC on the desk. You have this weird thing where there's a mainframe that is where the company's real enterprise applications run, but people are bringing PCs. Those PCs don't actually communicate well with anything else yet. They just are there for the employee to do their own work on a spreadsheet or something, print it out because finally 3.1 had printer drivers, and then deliver that. But it wasn't a system that operated with other systems in your enterprise.
本：现在还没有一款商务服务器能与桌上的个人电脑完美结合。你会遇到这样的怪事：公司真正的企业应用程序运行在主机上，但人们却带着个人电脑。这些个人电脑实际上还不能很好地与其他任何设备通信。它们只是供员工在电子表格或其他东西上完成自己的工作，并打印出来，因为 3.1 版终于有了打印机驱动程序，然后将其交付。但它并不是一个能与企业中其他系统一起运行的系统。
David: There's no email. This really was a business transformation task for the global Fortune 500.
大卫：没有电子邮件。这确实是全球 500 强企业的一项业务转型任务。
Ben: It wasn't like, hey, let's sell something to businesses that they want to buy. It's, hey, let's convince businesses that PCs are a good idea for their workforce to adopt.
本：这并不是说，嘿，让我们向企业销售他们想要购买的东西。而是，嘿，让我们说服企业，让他们的员工采用个人电脑是个好主意。
David: This was partnering with the consulting firms. This was building a direct sales force within Microsoft. This is building an indirect sales force within Microsoft to partner with distribution partners, with channel partners, with independent software vendors. This is building a customer service organization. This is building the executive briefing center on the Microsoft campus, and bringing CEOs and other C-suite folks there to Microsoft. It's building solutions for them, it's becoming a partner. It's everything that Steve is frankly just born to do.
大卫：这是与咨询公司合作。这是在微软内部建立一支直接销售队伍。这是在微软内部建立一支间接销售队伍，与分销合作伙伴、渠道合作伙伴和独立软件供应商合作。建立客户服务机构。这是在微软园区建立高管简报中心，将首席执行官和其他 C-suite 人员带到微软。为他们提供解决方案，成为他们的合作伙伴。坦率地说，史蒂夫生来就是做这些事情的。
Ben: All of this stuff is pretty out of scope for this episode, including all the software systems you would need to build for the enterprise like Windows NT server, Exchange, SQL server, and Active Directory, the classic mid-2000s Microsoft stuff that they got known for. That is what this would all evolve into, and it really just started with everyone looking at Steve and saying, can you figure this out?
本：所有这些东西都超出了本集的讨论范围，其中包括你需要为企业构建的所有软件系统，如 Windows NT 服务器、Exchange、SQL 服务器和 Active Directory，这些都是 2000 年代中期微软的经典产品，他们也因此而闻名。这就是这一切的演变过程，而真正的开始是每个人都看着史蒂夫说，你能解决这个问题吗？
We've all to date basically just been either running dev teams, running marketing, or running product groups, and been selling through retail or distributors in the application side or mostly through OEMs on the systems and operating system side. But can you go figure out how to sell everything we make in a completely different way to a completely different buyer profile and keep us posted on how that needs to change all the products we make in order to do that? That's a pretty crazy change.
迄今为止，我们基本上都是在管理开发团队、管理市场营销或管理产品组，并通过零售或分销商销售应用软件，或主要通过原始设备制造商销售系统和操作系统。但是，你能想出如何以完全不同的方式将我们生产的所有产品销售给完全不同的买家，并随时向我们汇报为了做到这一点，需要如何改变我们生产的所有产品吗？这是一个相当疯狂的变化。
David: Yup. How it actually goes down, and we heard this from Steve and you heard it from other people, is so fitting. By the end of 1990, the Microsoft-IBM divorce is official. IBM takes full control of OS/2 development back from Microsoft. Microsoft ceases involvement. The breakup is official. This now gives Microsoft and Steve hunting license in the enterprise to go compete against IBM, but they have a secret weapon that is going to enable them to come take the enterprise from IBM. Ben, tell us what it is.
大卫：是的。我们从史蒂夫那里听到的，你从其他人那里也听到了。1990 年底，微软与 IBM 正式离婚。IBM 从微软手中夺回了 OS/2 开发的全部控制权。微软不再参与。双方正式分手。现在，微软和史蒂夫获得了在企业中与 IBM 竞争的狩猎许可，但他们有一个秘密武器，可以让他们从 IBM 手中夺走企业。本，告诉我们是什么。
Ben: It's painfully obvious. It's Microsoft Office, and it's the fact that the whole workforce is already using Microsoft Office. Everyone loves to talk about product-led growth and how it's this new thing in the late 2010s, how Slack, Atlassian, Trello, and everyone figured out PLG. This bottoms-up workforce-adopted way, rather than selling to procurement, IT, or the central administrator. And it's just not new.
本：这是显而易见的。它就是微软的 Office，而且事实上所有员工都已经在使用微软的 Office。每个人都喜欢谈论产品导向型增长，谈论它如何成为 2010 年代末的新事物，谈论 Slack、Atlassian、Trello 和每个人都是如何想出 PLG 的。这种自下而上的员工采用方式，而不是向采购、IT 或中央管理员推销。这并不新鲜。
David: No. This has always been the case, and Microsoft invented it.
微软发明了它。
Ben: All the employees wanted to use Excel and Word. They were doing it anyway. At some point Microsoft needed to figure out how to take advantage of selling it centrally and how you do business with other businesses, rather than selling a zillion retail copies of people who are using it illegally for their work.
本：所有员工都想使用 Excel 和 Word。反正他们都在用。在某种程度上，微软需要弄清楚如何利用集中销售的优势，以及如何与其他企业开展业务，而不是向非法使用它工作的人销售数以百万计的零售拷贝。
David: There's so many things that are beautiful about this. It's the legacy of this bet on the Mac, bet on Excel, and bet on Windows shortly thereafter, that enables Microsoft to go into the enterprise because even though they've just broken up with IBM and OS/2 isn't going anywhere, it's not like Steve can just go knock on the door of some banking CEO or C suite and be like, I'm Microsoft, come talk to me about how you're going to use Microsoft products in your organization. But rather it's like, hey, thousands of people in your organization are already using Excel. Let's have a conversation about how we can make that work better for your organization, and what else Microsoft can do for you.
大卫：这其中有很多美好的东西。因为即使微软刚刚与 IBM 分手，OS/2 也不会消失，史蒂夫也不可能去敲某个银行首席执行官或首席执行官办公室的门，然后说："我是微软，来和我谈谈你将如何在你的组织中使用微软的产品。而不是说，嘿，你们公司成千上万的人已经在使用 Excel 了。让我们来谈谈如何让Excel更好地为你们的组织服务，以及微软还能为你们做些什么。
Ben: Absolutely. Next episode is going to be all about the enormous success of becoming an enterprise company, the enterprise agreement, cloud, and everything that came after that. But we have two chapters left in this episode, and they happen concurrently within the systems group by two very, very different teams, and that is Windows 95 and Windows NT.
本：当然。下一集将讲述成为企业公司的巨大成功、企业协议、云计算以及之后的一切。但本集还有两个章节，它们同时发生在系统集团内两个非常不同的团队中，那就是 Windows 95 和 Windows NT。
David, let's start with NT, and then our little cherry on top can be 95 to close us out. How did Windows NT happen?
戴维，让我们从 NT 开始，然后我们的小樱桃就可以用 95 来结束了。Windows NT 是如何诞生的？
David: Perfect, and it's intertwined with the beginning of all this enterprisification of Microsoft. Okay, Windows NT. Remember, IBM's whole goal with OS/2 was that they saw the trajectory of the PC was going to eat into traditional mainframe type applications in the enterprise. They wanted to recentralize and own the PC enterprisification of workloads. NT is, after the divorce, Microsoft being like, screw that we're going to do the same thing and eat your lunch.
大卫：很好，这与微软企业化的开端密不可分。好，Windows NT。请记住，IBM 开发 OS/2 的整个目标是，他们看到了 PC 的发展轨迹将侵蚀企业中传统的大型机类型的应用。他们希望重新集中和拥有 PC 企业化的工作负载。NT则是在离婚后，微软想，去他妈的，我们也要做同样的事，吃掉你的午餐。
The initial work starts out of the work they had been doing on OS/2 with IBM. But then in October 1988, as they're heading towards divorce, Microsoft hires Dave Cutler away from DEC. Dave is an absolute beast and legend. He's still writing code at Microsoft today, which is amazing.
最初的工作是从他们与 IBM 合作开发 OS/2 开始的。1988 年 10 月，就在他们即将离婚的时候，微软从 DEC 聘请了戴夫-卡特勒（Dave Cutler）。戴夫绝对是个传奇人物。他至今仍在微软编写代码，令人叹为观止。
Ben: Isn't that crazy? He's in his 80s.
本：这不是很疯狂吗？他都80多岁了
David: Amazing. Dave at DEC wrote the whole operating system that DEC ran on VAX. Poaching him away to come work at Microsoft, he's the guy that's going to build an enterprise-ready, take share away from the way traditional enterprise computing is done onto the PC. He's got the chops to do this, he's also got the credibility to do this.
戴维：了不起。戴夫在 DEC 编写了 DEC 在 VAX 上运行的整个操作系统。把他挖到微软工作，他就是那个要建立企业就绪操作系统的人，他要把传统企业计算的份额转移到 PC 上。他有能力做到这一点，也有信誉做到这一点。
Ben: He's written a widely-deployed enterprise operating system.
本：他编写了一个广泛部署的企业操作系统。
David: Yes. Him coming to Microsoft, him leading and building this effort, gives Steve and the sales force so much legitimacy when they're going in and talking to the C-suites, the CIOs, the IT departments, and enterprises.
大卫：是的。他来到微软，领导并建立了这项工作，这让史蒂夫和销售团队在与首席信息官、首席信息官、IT 部门和企业进行交流时，有了更多的合法性。
Ben: Even though they don't yet have an enterprise product to sell, they've got DOS and early Windows, which is essentially consumer-targeted, but now they've got this guy, Dave.
本：尽管他们还没有企业级产品可卖，但他们已经有了 DOS 和早期的 Windows，基本上是针对消费者的，但现在他们有了戴夫这个家伙。
David: Yes, now they've got Dave.
戴维：是的，现在他们有戴夫了。
Ben: We should say, this is really the first time they brought in someone who had real industry experience. In 1988, Microsoft was 13 years old, so Bill Gates would have been 33. Everyone is in their late 20s and early 30s, and Dave's mid-40s. He's like, you know I've seen a few things.
本：应该说，这是他们第一次引入真正有行业经验的人。1988 年，微软成立了 13 年，比尔-盖茨当时应该是 33 岁。每个人都在 20 岁上下，而戴夫已经 40 多岁了。他说，你知道我见过很多事情。
David: I think it was Dave and also Mike Maples coming from IBM too. Mike obviously wasn't a technical leader but on the business and strategy side, too. NT, we'll talk a lot more about it on the next episode. But spoiler alert, it is the vision of what IBM wanted OS/2 to be, but it's Microsoft's version of it.
戴维：我认为是戴夫，还有来自 IBM 的迈克-梅普尔斯。迈克显然不是技术领导，但也是业务和战略方面的领导。我们将在下一集详细介绍 NT。但剧透一下，它是 IBM 希望 OS/2 成为的样子，但它是微软的版本。
Ben: It enables all of your desktop computers at the company to join and network together in a compliant way. It enables an internal server that everything communicates with. It enables a directory of all the devices on the network and all the people in your organization.
本：它能让公司的所有台式电脑以一种合规的方式连接起来并联网。它能让所有设备与内部服务器进行通信。它可以建立网络上所有设备和组织内所有人员的目录。
David: Soon with the Internet coming, it'll enable servers that face externally from your company. The punchline here is that NT becomes the seeds of Windows Server, the business line, which become the seeds of Azure today.
大卫：很快，随着互联网的到来，它将使服务器从你的公司面向外部。这里的关键是，NT 成为 Windows Server 的种子，业务线成为今天 Azure 的种子。
Ben: The other important takeaway on NT is it was going to take a long time to build. It was going to take a long time to test. It was going to take a long time to sell and deploy, and it was going to have really strict requirements for what it could work on because it's a power hungry operating system built for enterprise IT administrators. That is not your short-term product strategy. That is a long-term bet that a team is going to work on concurrently while you're figuring out what to do after Windows 3.1.
本：关于 NT 的另一个重要启示是，它需要很长时间来构建。测试需要很长时间。它需要很长的时间来销售和部署，而且它对运行环境的要求非常严格，因为它是为企业 IT 管理员打造的一款耗电操作系统。这不是短期产品战略。这是一个长期的赌注，当你在考虑 Windows 3.1 之后该怎么做时，一个团队将同时开展这项工作。
In 1991, Bill Gates sums this up in a memo where he says, “Our strategy is Windows. One evolving architecture, a couple of implementations, and an immense number of great applications from Microsoft and others.” Every word in that sentence does a bunch of heavy lifting.
1991 年，比尔-盖茨在一份备忘录中总结道："我们的战略是 Windows。一个不断发展的架构，几种实现方式，以及微软和其他公司提供的大量优秀应用软件"。这句话中的每一个字都举足轻重。
You got one architecture. Okay. I think what that basically ends up meaning a few years later is one application programming interface (API) that developers can target so that when they want to write a Windows app, it works on both NT and whatever the evolution of 3.1 is. That's one architecture, but it says one evolving architecture. That buys Microsoft a little bit more fluidity in the one architecture that's being targeted.
你只有一个架构。我认为，几年后，这基本上意味着开发人员可以使用一个应用程序编程接口 (API)，这样，当他们想编写一个 Windows 应用程序时，它就可以在 NT 和 3.1 的任何演进版本上运行。这是一种架构，但也是一种不断发展的架构。这样，微软就能在一个目标架构中获得更多的流动性。
Then you hear a couple of implementations. This basically says, even though developers are targeting what became the Win32 API, the one way that we write applications, there are two different implementations. For many years, they would display very differently on NT systems versus—spoiler alert—Windows 95, the successor to Windows 3.1.
然后，你会听到几种不同的实现方式。这基本上是说，尽管开发人员使用的是后来的 Win32 API，也就是我们编写应用程序的一种方式，但却有两种不同的实现方式。多年来，它们在 NT 系统和 Windows 95（Windows 3.1 的后续版本）上的显示效果截然不同。
David: By Windows 95, you mean Windows 4 that was supposed to ship in 1993?
戴维：你说的 Windows 95，是指应该在 1993 年发布的 Windows 4 吗？
Ben: Yes, I do, but it's so much sexier to say Windows 95 and name it after the year that it actually ships. Yes, an immense number of great applications from Microsoft and others sheds light on the DRG (Developer Relations Group) strategy. We got to go out and be massive evangelists, and everyone in the systems group is looking over at the apps group going, did you see that? Bill Gates just said our strategy is Windows. We're now the Windows company, and that includes great applications from Microsoft and others.
本：是的，我是这么认为的，但说 Windows 95 并以它实际发布的年份命名要性感得多。是的，微软和其他公司推出的大量优秀应用软件为 DRG（开发人员关系小组）战略提供了启示。我们必须走出去，成为大规模的传播者，而系统组的每个人都在看着应用程序组，你们看到了吗？比尔-盖茨刚刚说我们的战略是 Windows。我们现在是 Windows 公司，包括来自微软和其他公司的优秀应用程序。
What does that mean, applications group? Let's go first and best on Windows, get to it. I just think that sentence says it all for what we're looking at 1991 through call it 2000 or so.
应用程序组是什么意思？让我们先来了解一下 Windows 系统。我认为，这句话说明了一切，我们要看的是 1991 年到 2000 年左右的情况。
David: Yup. We just spent a bunch of time talking about the enterprisification and all the amazing enterprise stuff that the seeds get sewn from Microsoft at this point in time. This era is also the heyday of the consumer PC. In 1993, Jensen starts NVIDIA, graphics cards are becoming a thing. PC gaming is becoming an industry. You can even look at Minesweeper as being a seminal moment in terms of the consumerization, these devices, these personal computers becoming companions to people's lives like the phone is today. You've got CD-ROM technology, multimedia, Encarta. The heyday of the consumer PC is here in this era.
大卫：是的。我们刚刚花了很多时间来讨论企业化和所有令人惊叹的企业级产品，这些都是微软在这个时间点上播下的种子。这个时代也是消费 PC 的鼎盛时期。1993 年，英伟达（NVIDIA）公司成立，显卡开始普及。PC 游戏逐渐成为一个产业。你甚至可以把 "扫雷 "看作是消费化的开创性时刻，这些设备、这些个人电脑就像今天的手机一样，成为人们生活的伴侣。你已经有了 CD-ROM 技术、多媒体、Encarta。消费类个人电脑的鼎盛时期就在这个时代。
Ben: Totally. Even before Windows 95 shipped, they had 75 million Windows users. This is even before you get plug-and-play, multimedia, or networking. This is on Windows 3.1. Crazy.
本：完全正确。甚至在 Windows 95 上市之前，他们就拥有了 7500 万 Windows 用户。这还不算即插即用、多媒体或网络功能。这还是在 Windows 3.1 的基础上。太疯狂了
We've been leading up to what we've been building hype, Windows 95, or should I say Chicago? The Chicago name, for those of you out there who were paying attention when this was under development, and you were all excited about what Windows 95 would become—and it's probably 1% of our audience or something who knows the Chicago code name—they wanted to create an OS for the everyman, one that was easy to get to, a nice quality of life when you're there, it was affordable. Chicago is the perfect name in every way. It is also a contrast to what was going on in a different part of Microsoft, where there was the codename of Cairo for a very ambitious next generation operating system.
我们一直在炒作 Windows 95，或者我应该说是 "芝加哥"？芝加哥 "这个名字，对于那些在开发过程中关注过这个名字的人来说，你们都对 Windows 95 的未来充满了期待--可能只有 1% 的受众知道 "芝加哥 "这个代号--他们希望为普通人创建一个操作系统，一个交通便利、生活质量高、价格合理的操作系统。无论从哪方面看，芝加哥都是一个完美的名字。在微软的另一个部门，一个雄心勃勃的下一代操作系统的代号是 "开罗"。
Mind you, NT had already come out in 1993. Cairo is this general bucket of maybe it's post-NT, maybe it's part of NT, but this is a really sophisticated, crazy set of technologies that we're going to eventually bake into an operating system. It doesn't really have a release date. No one really believes in any of the release dates that are proposed.
要知道，NT 早在 1993 年就已经问世了。开罗就是这样一个大桶，也许它是后 NT 时代的产物，也许它是 NT 的一部分，但这是一套非常复杂、疯狂的技术，我们最终会把它融入到操作系统中。它并没有真正的发布日期。没有人真正相信所提出的发布日期。
The Windows 95 team, the Windows 4 team, the Chicago team, loved contrasting this idea of a far flung land that's really ambitious. Who knows what it'll actually be like? Chicago is something we know quite well. You get on I-90 from Seattle, you drive for three days, and you're there. That is the goal. That's the spiritual thing about Windows 95.
Windows 95 团队、Windows 4 团队、芝加哥团队，都喜欢将这个雄心勃勃的遥远国度的想法进行对比。谁知道它实际上会是什么样子呢？芝加哥是我们非常熟悉的地方。从西雅图上 I-90，开上三天就到了。这就是我们的目标。这就是 Windows 95 的精神所在。
David: Pizza, the bears, the cubs.
披萨，熊，小熊。
Ben: 100%. We should say, Cairo never shipped, so there's a lesson in that.
本：100%。应该说，开罗从未出过货，这也是一个教训。
David: Might as well been called Oz.
还不如叫奥兹呢。
Ben: Or Longhorn. 本：或者长角号。
David: Right. Okay, all right, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
大卫：对。好吧，好吧，我们越说越远了。
Ben: We are getting ahead of ourselves. Windows 95, let's start with the launch event itself. It was a huge, ridiculous, insane day in Redmond, Washington. They set up tents all over Microsoft's campus. They flew in journalists, beta testers. There was a movement around Windows 95 in a way that you would not believe. It was an operating system launch, and Jay Leno launched it. It wasn't like Jay Leno did some stand up, it was Jay Leno for 90 minutes in a tightly scripted environment, co-hosted with Bill Gates all of the fanfare and festivities.
本：我们说得太快了。Windows 95，让我们从发布会本身说起。那是在华盛顿州雷德蒙德举行的盛大、荒唐、疯狂的一天。他们在微软校园里搭起了帐篷。他们请来了记者和测试人员围绕着 Windows 95 展开了一场你无法想象的运动这是一次操作系统的发布，杰-雷诺发布了它。这不是杰-雷诺的个人表演 而是杰-雷诺与比尔-盖茨共同主持的 90 分钟的大张旗鼓的庆祝活动
David: There is no other word to describe the Windows 95 launch besides glorious. I am so glad that this stuff is preserved on the Internet and on YouTube, and that we could experience it ourselves over the past month.
大卫：除了 "辉煌 "这个词，没有别的词可以形容 Windows 95 的发布。我很高兴这些东西能保存在互联网和 YouTube 上，也很高兴我们能在过去的一个月里亲身经历。
Ben: It might be the peak moment of pure joy to celebrate technology before a lot of the skepticism came in and the tech haters.
本：这可能是在很多怀疑论和科技仇视者出现之前，庆祝科技的纯粹快乐的巅峰时刻。
David: The DOJ. 司法部
Ben: Totally. It was unabashed celebration of software is probably the best way to put it. Microsoft license Start Me Up famously from the Rolling Stones.
本：完全正确。用 "软件的庆典 "来形容它再恰当不过了。微软从滚石乐队那里获得了著名的 Start Me Up 许可证。
David: It's amazing, a software company licensed Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones as the official theme song of an operating system. The idea that this would be happening, certainly back in 1975 when they were moving to Albuquerque, but even just a couple of years earlier, this is breaking new ground.
大卫：一家软件公司授权滚石乐队的《Start Me Up》作为操作系统的官方主题曲，这太不可思议了。当然，这是在 1975 年他们搬到阿尔伯克基的时候，但即使是在几年前，这也是开创性的。
Ben: Totally. The other thing that's happening in 1995 is the Internet hype is starting to build, but we will table that for next episode. Right at this point in history, only 14% of Americans had internet access. It was still very early, so there was no guarantee that any story posted online would actually reach the masses. Microsoft had really relied on traditional broadcast coverage of this event, and brought in all these journalists, all these print magazines, and all these newspapers to build the hype.
本：完全正确。1995 年发生的另一件事是，互联网的热潮开始兴起，但我们将在下一集讨论这个话题。在这个历史时刻，只有 14% 的美国人可以上网。由于时间尚早，我们无法保证任何在网上发布的新闻都能真正传播到大众中去。微软对此次活动的报道主要依赖于传统的广播报道，并请来了所有的记者、所有的印刷杂志和所有的报纸来炒作。
I watched the whole keynote yesterday. At the end, they ripped down the back of the tent behind the stage. There's the entire development team in the red, yellow, green, and blue squares of the Windows logo sitting outside on the big sports field on Redmond's campus. There's only 360 people that built Windows 95, so it's still a small team, but they're all there. They're fired up. They're part of the moment. That's the launch event in Redmond, at least.
我昨天看了整个主题演讲。最后，他们拆掉了舞台后面的帐篷。身着 Windows 徽标红、黄、绿、蓝四色方巾的整个开发团队就坐在外面雷德蒙德校园的大运动场上。开发 Windows 95 的人员只有 360 人，所以这仍然是一个小团队，但他们都在那里。他们热血沸腾。他们是这一时刻的一部分。这至少是雷德蒙德的启动仪式。
Around the world, people are lined up around the block to buy an operating system. There's a lot of news coverage of that. It was basically the iPhone launch of its day. They lit up the CN Tower, the Tower of London. This date, August 24th, 1995, they basically treated an operating system launch the way that you would launch a movie or a new Madonna album. It was a marketing case study, so much so that the folks from Coca-Cola actually reached out to Microsoft to ask them, how do you do marketing this well in the new age?
在世界各地，人们排队购买操作系统。很多新闻都对此进行了报道。这基本上就是当时的 iPhone 发布会。他们点亮了 CN 塔和伦敦塔。1995 年 8 月 24 日这一天，他们基本上是以发布电影或麦当娜新专辑的方式来对待操作系统的发布。这是一个营销案例研究，以至于可口可乐公司的人主动联系微软，问他们：在新时代，你们是如何做好营销的？
David: To the Bill Gates quote with the Warren Buffett talk at U-Dub.
大卫：为比尔-盖茨的名言和沃伦-巴菲特在杜巴大学的演讲干杯。
Ben: Yes. This is a company that freaking invented Santa Claus to sell us all sugar water, and they're calling Microsoft asking, how do you market in this new era? It was that successful. They launched concurrently worldwide in eight languages. This thread that Microsoft had of early international continued all the way through to this moment. They invested heavily in doing all of the localization and help stuff so that the whole world really could adopt something all at one time. It really was the perfect product at the right time, the Internet, games, all of that.
本：是的。这是一家发明了圣诞老人来向我们推销糖水的公司，他们打电话问微软，你们如何在这个新时代进行营销？就是这么成功。他们在全球同时推出了八种语言的版本。微软早期国际化的这条主线一直延续至今。他们投入巨资进行所有的本地化和帮助工作，以便全世界都能同时采用。在互联网、游戏等所有领域，它都是恰逢其时的完美产品。
David: There's so much about Windows 95 too that I'm sure you're going to get into, but the start menu. It was so perfect because this was the peak of the PC going fully mainstream. Nobody had ever treated software like this before.
戴维：关于 Windows 95 还有很多东西，我相信你会深入了解的，但开始菜单是其中之一。它太完美了，因为这是 PC 全面主流化的顶峰。以前从未有人这样对待软件。
Ben: That's the takeaway. They thought about software in a completely different way. Yes, the start menu, while it got cluttered, complicated, and messed up over time, the idea of a button that you click to start using your computer was very appealing to people.
本：这就是我们的收获。他们对软件的思考方式完全不同。是的，开始菜单虽然随着时间的推移变得杂乱、复杂和混乱，但点击一个按钮就能开始使用电脑的想法对人们来说非常有吸引力。
David: Totally. The Mac obviously shared a lot of these elements, but it was at so much a smaller scale.
大卫：完全正确。Mac 显然也有很多这样的元素，但它的规模要小得多。
Ben: The Mac just never had any real PC penetration. From the IBM PC forward, it never had big market share.
本：Mac 从未真正渗透到 PC 中。从 IBM PC 开始，Mac 的市场份额就一直不大。
David: This was your grandmother coming into the digital world.
大卫：这是你的祖母进入数字世界。
Ben: That is how they tried to market it. They market it as people on job sites using Windows. They marketed it as people doing crafts. There's someone who's modeling something for an F1 car. It's just fun watching all these old videos and seeing all the different personas.
本：他们就是这么推销的。他们把它推销给在工地上使用 Windows 的人。他们把它推销给做手工的人。还有人在为 F1 赛车建模。观看所有这些老视频，看到所有不同的角色，真是乐趣无穷。
David: Computer companies love F1 cars for demos. It's the ultimate aspirational demo.
大卫：电脑公司喜欢用 F1 赛车做演示。它是令人向往的终极演示。
Ben: I must say this all pains me deeply as someone who never owned a PC, grew up using a Mac, loved every bit of my Mac. I was even an apologist in the OS-9 era of this isn't very good, but I'm still going to say it's good. I was on the OS-10 public beta. I only clicked a start menu when I was fixing a teacher's computer at school. Even though the takeaway here is everyone thought this was a great operating system and it won the market, I always looked at it like, well, it's not a Mac.
本：我必须说，作为一个从未拥有过 PC 的人，我对这一切深感痛心，我是用 Mac 长大的，我爱 Mac 的每一处。在 OS-9 时代，我甚至是一个 "这不是很好 "的辩护者，但我还是要说它很好。我用的是 OS-10 公共测试版。我只是在学校给老师修电脑时点了一下开始菜单。尽管大家都认为这是一个很棒的操作系统，而且它赢得了市场，但我总是这样看待它：好吧，它又不是 Mac。
David: That's how Mac users always look at Windows.
大卫：Mac 用户总是这样看待 Windows。
Ben: The way that Apple products became mainstream always felt odd to me as someone who was using them when they weren't, but it's been interesting gaining a new appreciation for Microsoft through studying their history that I absolutely did not have as a user during this era.
本：苹果产品成为主流的方式总让我觉得很奇怪，因为我在使用苹果产品的时候，它们还没有成为主流，但通过研究微软的历史，我对微软有了新的认识，这很有意思，因为在这个时代，我绝对没有使用过微软产品。
David: Having this discussion now makes me think, Windows 95, they did what Apple tried to do in bringing Scully in. Scully came from Pepsi. Obviously, that didn't work, but Microsoft, they're the ones who did it. They're the ones who mass-marketified the computing vision.
大卫：现在讨论这个问题，让我想到 Windows 95，他们做了苹果公司想做的事，引进了斯卡利。斯卡利来自百事可乐。显然，这没有奏效，但微软做到了。是他们将计算机的愿景大众化。
Ben: It was the wrong strategy for Apple, and it was the right strategy for Microsoft. Apple has always, at least in my opinion, created a better computing experience by being completely integrated. It's the Alan Kay quote, "Anyone who cares about making great software needs to build their own hardware." The complete integrated package that Apple offers, I have always found to be the best computing experience. And it doesn't scale.
本：对苹果公司来说，这是一个错误的战略，而对微软公司来说，这是一个正确的战略。至少在我看来，苹果一直通过完全集成的方式创造更好的计算体验。正如艾伦-凯（Alan Kay）所说："任何想制作优秀软件的人，都需要制造自己的硬件"。我一直认为，苹果提供的完整集成软件包是最好的计算体验。而且它不会扩展。
David: It didn't in that era for sure.
大卫：那个时代肯定没有。
Ben: In that era, yeah. The way to scale is Make the software that is going to get distributed on the most PCs, and then that is the most interesting to software developers. It is the most interesting to consumers who want the software and IT buyers who want to buy the standard thing. Apple's strategy versus Microsoft strategy in this era, Apple was always going to be a bit player rather than the scale winner.
本：在那个时代，是的。扩大规模的方法是让软件在最多的个人电脑上发布，这对软件开发商来说是最有趣的。对于那些需要软件的消费者和希望购买标准产品的 IT 买家来说，这也是最有趣的。在这个时代，苹果公司的战略与微软公司的战略相比，苹果公司始终是一个小角色，而不是规模上的赢家。
The trade off is lots of PCs had blue screens of death, Apple never had blue screens of death. Where do blue screens come from? It's driver problems. It's that the printer is not speaking the same language as your particular computer and what the operating system knows about your computer, and are the device drivers right for your particular version of whatever's on your motherboard? Apple never had those issues, but they also had very few units shipped and much more expensive product.
代价是许多个人电脑都出现过蓝屏死机，而苹果却从未出现过蓝屏死机。蓝屏从何而来？是驱动程序问题。这是因为打印机与你的特定电脑以及操作系统对你的电脑的了解不一样，设备驱动程序是否适合你的主板上的特定版本？苹果公司从未遇到过这些问题，但他们的产品出货量也很少，而且价格要贵得多。
David: Sidebar. That Alan Kay quote about if you really care about software, you do your own hardware, makes so much more sense to me now having done this episode, because he's coming from having made the Alto and the graphical interface there. The only way that he could have made the GUI on the Alto was basically building a mini computer.
大卫：题外话。艾伦-凯（Alan Kay）曾说过，如果你真的关心软件，你就自己做硬件，做了这期节目之后，我觉得这句话更有意义了，因为他是在制作了奥拓（Alto）和图形界面之后才说这句话的。他在 Alto 上制作图形用户界面的唯一方法，基本上就是制造一台迷你电脑。
Ben: Isn't that crazy? 本：这不是很疯狂吗？
David: It makes so much more sense now.
大卫：现在说得更有意义了。
Ben: A little bit more on Windows 95 before we finish the story here, it is remarkable to reflect that it took 5–6 years to go from Windows' plan B to Microsoft being extremely right that that was the franchise, that was the bet to bet the entire company on.
本：在我们讲完这个故事之前，我想再谈谈 Windows 95，从 Windows 的 B 计划到微软极其正确地认为 Windows 95 是特许经营产品，是整个公司的赌注，微软用了 5-6 年的时间，这是很了不起的。
As Brad Silverberg put it this way to me, he said, Windows 95 cemented Windows as the franchise product for Microsoft, which interestingly it was not yet. David, this is crazy. It would remain the franchise product for the next 20 years, perhaps 5 or 10 years too long, but we'll save that story.
布拉德-西尔弗伯格（Brad Silverberg）是这样对我说的，他说，Windows 95 巩固了 Windows 作为微软特许经营产品的地位，有趣的是，当时它还不是。大卫，这太疯狂了。在接下来的 20 年里，Windows 95 仍将是微软的特许经营产品，也许这时间长了 5 年或 10 年，但我们还是留着这个故事吧。
David: Yeah. Just to put some numbers on this, August 24th, 1995 is the launch event, the glorious day. Windows 95 comes out. It sells a million copies in the first week, seven million copies in the first month.
大卫：是的。1995年8月24日是Windows 95发布的光辉日子。Windows 95问世。第一周就卖出了 100 万份，第一个月就卖出了 700 万份。
Fiscal 1995—this is the 12 months ending in June before Windows 95 comes out—Microsoft did $5.9 billion in revenue. Fiscal 1996, they did $8.7 billion. Fiscal 1997 when Windows 95 is really going, they do $12 billion in revenue. First software company to pass $10 billion in revenue, already the most valuable company in the world. They are a monster. There is no other way to put it.
1995 财年，也就是 Windows 95 上市前的 12 个月，微软公司的收入为 59 亿美元。1996 财年的收入为 87 亿美元。1997 财年，当 Windows 95 真正上市时，他们的收入达到 120 亿美元。第一家收入超过 100 亿美元的软件公司，已经成为世界上最有价值的公司。他们是一个怪物。没有别的说法了。
Ben: It's crazy. From a product perspective, there was just so much really got smoothed here. This was a user experience where they finally had time to think, what actually do users want to do with an operating system? What features should be part of the OS, and what should we delegate to applications? What are modern networking technologies that we should bring in?
本：太疯狂了。从产品的角度来看，这里有很多东西都变得平滑了。这是一种用户体验，他们终于有时间思考，用户到底想用操作系统做什么？哪些功能应该是操作系统的一部分，哪些功能应该交给应用程序？我们应该引入哪些现代网络技术？
I don't want to foreshadow too much, but how should the Internet be in a modern operating system? That was a huge thing. The multimedia, the video stuff. An operating system really showed up and said, we thought about this experience for you. You're looking for where to start, you're looking for cool stuff to do, and you're looking for it to not break on you. We now finally have a complete story around all of that.
我不想预示太多，但互联网在现代操作系统中应该是怎样的？这是一件大事。多媒体，视频。一个操作系统真的出现了，它说，我们为你考虑了这种体验。你在寻找从哪里开始，你在寻找很酷的东西，你在寻找它不会坏掉。现在，我们终于有了围绕这一切的完整故事。
A couple of interesting technical notes, it was basically all new technology. If you try to look this up, it will tell you, Windows 95 was DOS-based. It still used DOS in fallback situations for older DOS applications or drivers. But for most of the time, it was no longer true that Windows was just an operating environment on top of the DOS operating system.
有几个有趣的技术说明，基本上都是新技术。如果你试着查找一下，就会发现 Windows 95 是基于 DOS 的。在旧版 DOS 应用程序或驱动程序的备用情况下，它仍然使用 DOS。但在大部分时间里，Windows 不再是 DOS 操作系统之上的操作环境。
Windows had now become a true 32-bit operating system of its own. Windows did all the heavy lifting. It had its own file system. It accomplished a lot of the user experience magic and speed that it was praised for by rewriting a lot of this from scratch. This was the beginning of Windows as its own OS. You can see that actually change in the marketing messages that change from operating environment to operating system.
现在，Windows 已成为真正的 32 位操作系统。所有繁重的工作都由 Windows 来完成。它拥有自己的文件系统。它通过从头开始重写大量内容，实现了许多为人称道的神奇用户体验和速度。这是 Windows 成为自己操作系统的开端。你可以从从操作环境到操作系统的营销信息中看到这一变化。
David, that brings us to the end of our chapter one. We've got plenty of analysis here to do, but my God, what a first 20 years for the company.
大卫，第一章到此结束。我们还有很多分析要做，但我的上帝啊，公司的前 20 年是多么美好啊。
David: We knew this was going to happen. This is why we waited 10 years into Acquired's life to cover Microsoft. It's the most important company in the world still today.
大卫：我们知道这种情况会发生。这就是为什么我们在《收购》问世 10 年后才报道微软的原因。它是当今世界上最重要的公司。
It was so fun researching, going back and doing all this because there are so many different perspectives, and so much has been written. I don't know if we've gotten it right here, but I feel like every other major attempted storytelling at this has not gotten it right. Getting to go talk to all the people who were part of this...
研究、回溯和做这些事情非常有趣，因为有这么多不同的视角，而且已经写了这么多。我不知道我们是否写对了，但我觉得其他所有试图讲故事的人都没有写对。能和所有参与其中的人交谈...
Ben: Yeah, living in Seattle is quite helpful.
本：是的，住在西雅图很有帮助。
David: Yeah. We really got that sense of like, there's still a story to be told here. It's never been more relevant again than today. All that to say, I'm glad we waited 10 years.
大卫：是的。我们真的感觉到，这里还有故事要讲。它从未像今天这样具有现实意义。说了这么多，我很高兴我们等了十年。
Ben: And there's all this stuff we miss. I didn't mention Microsoft Research. Microsoft Research was a lot of people and a lot of money.
本：我们错过了很多东西。我没有提到微软研究院。微软研究院有很多人和很多钱。
David: Microsoft tried to buy Intuit too along the way. That got canned.
大卫：微软也曾试图收购 Intuit。但最后不了了之。
Ben: Actually, the start of research is interesting. I'll say this real quick. In 1991, Nathan Myhrvold started Microsoft Research, and the logic is fascinating. Basically, everything Microsoft had done until that point was taking things from mainframes and mini computers, and adapting those tasks, those jobs to be done for personal computers.
本：事实上，研究的开端很有意思。我简单说一下。1991 年，内森-迈尔沃尔德（Nathan Myhrvold）创办了微软研究院，其中的逻辑令人着迷。基本上，在此之前，微软所做的一切都是从大型机和小型机中提取东西，然后将这些任务和工作调整到个人电脑上。
At some point, they looked around and said, all right, well, we did it. All the personal and business applications can now be run on personal computers, so we have to come up with uses for future technologies in order to continue to drive the ecosystem forward. There's no more low hanging fruit. I thought that was an interesting thesis of why to spin up a research division at that point in history.
在某个时刻，他们环顾四周，然后说，好吧，我们做到了。现在，所有的个人和商业应用都可以在个人电脑上运行，所以我们必须想出未来技术的用途，才能继续推动生态系统向前发展。再也没有低垂的果实了。我认为这是一个有趣的论点，说明了为什么要在那个历史时刻成立一个研究部门。
David: Yes. Let's move into analysis.
大卫：是的。让我们开始分析。
Ben: Okay, great. Playbook. The big interesting one that I want to start with, and it actually involves a chapter from the story that we just glossed over, is capital efficiency allows founders to control their own destinies in a way that you just don't get when you're selling off huge chunks of the company in order to accomplish your mission.
本：好的，很好。Playbook.我想从一个有趣的大问题说起，这个问题实际上涉及到我们刚刚略过的故事中的一个章节，那就是资本效率可以让创始人控制自己的命运，而当你为了完成任务而出售公司的大部分股份时，你就无法做到这一点。
David: Yes, I love this.
大卫：是的，我喜欢这个。
Ben: Let's just talk through the cap table over time and how the company went public. We talked about the partnership being 64% Gates, 36% Paul Allen. In 1980, Steve Ballmer comes in and gets 8.5%, 8.75%, or something that percent of the company, so dilutes Gates and Allen down.
本：让我们来谈谈随着时间推移的市值表，以及公司是如何上市的。我们说过，合伙关系中盖茨占 64%，保罗-艾伦占 36%。1980 年，史蒂夫-鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）加入，获得了公司 8.5%、8.75% 或更高比例的股份，从而稀释了盖茨和艾伦的股份。
In 1981, just a year later, they take the VC investment for 5% of the company from TVI. This also, I'm guessing around 5% trying to reverse engineer some of the numbers. They also created an option pool, where they were then creating opportunity for basically rewarding management, which is how there were 10,000 millionaires created in the Seattle area from Microsoft.
1981 年，也就是仅仅一年之后，他们从 TVI 获得了风险投资，获得了公司 5%的股份。我猜测这也是 5%左右的股份，并试图反向推算一些数字。他们还创建了一个期权池，为管理层创造奖励机会，这就是微软在西雅图地区创造出 1 万名百万富翁的原因。
David: That's the amazing thing. The option pool doesn't get created until late in Microsoft's life. All those Microsoft millionaires only came from whatever size that was, 5% of the company or whatever.
大卫：这就是令人惊讶的地方。期权池直到微软生命的后期才建立起来。所有这些微软的百万富翁都来自于公司的任何规模，5%的股份或其他。
Ben: At IPO, even with all this dilution, you've got the Ballmer dilution, the VC dilution, and the option pool dilution, Bill Gates still owned 49% of the company. That's pretty unprecedented. He wasn't the only one with a big chunk. Paul Allen owned 28% of the company. Steve had 7.5% of the company.
本：在首次公开募股时，即使有鲍尔默的稀释、风险投资的稀释和期权池的稀释，比尔-盖茨仍然拥有公司 49% 的股份。这是史无前例的。他并不是唯一一个拥有大块股份的人。保罗-艾伦拥有公司 28% 的股份。史蒂夫拥有公司 7.5% 的股份。
This company was basically owned by the three more or less co-founders. A little tiny option pool, and then a VC who ended up with 6.1%. I think Dave got some more shares from being on the board. You just don't see companies that look this anymore.
这家公司基本上由三位联合创始人共同拥有。一个小的期权池，然后是一个风险投资人，他最后占了 6.1%。我想戴夫因为是董事会成员，还得到了一些股份。这样的公司再也见不到了。
David: This is Bill's company. This is their company in a way that no other company is these days. No venture-backed company going through the modern era is like that. By the time you get to be public, you may still be the largest shareholder as a founder or CEO, but it's not your company, far from it.
大卫：这是比尔的公司。这是他们的公司，现在的其他公司都不是这样。在现代，没有一家风险投资公司是这样的。到你上市的时候，作为创始人或首席执行官，你可能仍然是最大的股东，但这不是你的公司，远非如此。
Ben: Absolutely. I'm trying to figure out why they were able to be so capital efficient. Is it just that software was such an unbelievably good business model compared to everything else that existed? They didn't need a lot of working capital, everything was high margin, they could grow really fast. Or it was just an era before much competition. They didn't need to out-raise their competitors. Once they got a little bit ahead, there was really no way for anybody else to close the gap, assuming that they executed well.
本：当然。我想知道他们为什么能如此高效地利用资本。难道只是因为与其他现有的一切相比，软件是一个好得令人难以置信的商业模式？他们不需要大量的营运资金，所有的东西都是高利润的，他们可以发展得非常快。或者，这只是一个竞争还不太激烈的时代。他们不需要超越竞争对手。一旦他们稍稍领先，假定他们执行得好，其他人真的没有办法缩小差距。
David: I totally think it's the latter. I think it's that the minimum fixed cost threshold to be that, in Bill's words, slightly better than your competitors and get the positive spiral going, was low enough that it could be paid for just in Bill and Paul's time and effort. There was that unique moment at the beginning of the software industry where that was true, and that would never be true again.
大卫：我完全认为是后者。我认为，用比尔的话说，要做到比竞争对手略胜一筹，并实现螺旋式上升，最低的固定成本门槛要低到只需要比尔和保罗付出时间和精力就能获得回报。在软件行业起步之初，曾有过这样一个独特的时刻，而这种情况再也不会发生了。
Ben: That's so, so, so insane. There was no one else really with the knowledge either. Even if someone else came in with a big $1 million check and gave it to a competitor, in 1975, how many people could really write these language interpreters?
本：这太，太，太疯狂了。当时也没有人真正掌握这些知识。在 1975 年，即使有人拿着 100 万美元的大支票，把它给了竞争对手，又有多少人能真正写出这些语言解释器呢？
David: You couldn't buy the experience having written emulation software for microprocessors that Paul had.
大卫：你不可能买到像保罗那样编写微处理器仿真软件的经验。
Ben: They had an obsession and an obscure skill that turned out to be one of the most valuable in the world in an area where there was a freak law of nature in play with Moore's Law that was so unintuitive, that you had to think from real first principles to understand the impacts of it.
本：他们有一种痴迷和一种晦涩难懂的技能，结果却成为世界上最有价值的技能之一，在这个领域，摩尔定律是一种畸形的自然法则，它是如此的不直观，以至于你必须从真正的第一原理来思考，才能理解它的影响。
David: I think there are two freak laws of nature's one. (1) There was Moore's law that they were benefiting from. (2) There was the zero marginal cost of software.
戴维：我认为自然规律中有两个怪胎。(1）摩尔定律，他们从中受益。(2）软件的边际成本为零。
Ben: That's true. It's this complete perfect storm that enabled them to build a highly defensible business without really any investment ever. This is the largest company in the world, the most valuable company in the world that was entirely bootstrapped.
本：没错。正是这场完美的风暴，让他们能够在没有任何投资的情况下，建立起一个极具防御能力的企业。这是世界上最大的公司，也是世界上最有价值的公司，完全是靠自力更生建立起来的。
David: Even though they raised money, not a single dollar of investment actually happened at this company.
大卫：尽管他们筹集到了资金，但这家公司实际上并没有获得一美元的投资。
Ben: No, and in 1986, when they actually did go public, they raised $45 million. They never spent that because they generated much more free cash flow than that that year.
本：不，1986 年，当他们真正上市时，他们筹集了 4500 万美元。他们从未花掉这笔钱，因为那一年他们产生的自由现金流要比这笔钱多得多。
David: It was just a means to an end of getting public.
大卫：这只是一种手段，目的是让公众知道。
Ben: And they needed to for the reason that they had been granting so many stock options from that little option pool to employees that they were going to blow the SEC's 500 shareholder cap. They projected 1987, so they wanted to go public on their own terms in 1986, not when they had to buy SEC rules.
本：他们需要这样做的原因是，他们已经从那个小小的期权池中向员工授予了太多的股票期权，以至于他们要突破美国证券交易委员会规定的 500 名股东的上限。他们预计在 1987 年上市，所以他们想在 1986 年按自己的条件上市，而不是在必须遵守证监会规定的时候上市。
David: Also, Microsoft needed to be a public company. If you're going to be an important company in the world at this scale, if you're going to first ride the bear with IBM but then inherit the earth from IBM, you got to be a public company. You can't be a private partnership. You're not going to go have conversations with C-suites and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies if you are a private partnership in this era especially.
大卫：另外，微软需要成为一家上市公司。如果你想成为世界上如此大规模的重要公司，如果你想先与 IBM 一骑绝尘，然后再从 IBM 手中继承地球，你就必须成为一家上市公司。你不能成为私人合伙公司。特别是在这个时代，如果你是一家私人合伙公司，你就不可能与《财富》500 强公司的首席执行官和首席执行官进行对话。
Ben: Maybe. I don't know. I'd agree with you if you had a bunch of short-term capital interests that owned your company, but if it's all founder-owned, there are great, large private companies in the world.
本：也许吧。我不知道。如果你有一堆短期资本利益拥有你的公司，我会同意你的观点，但如果都是创始人拥有，世界上有很多伟大的大型私人公司。
David: Yeah, fair, true. 大卫：是的，公平，没错。
Ben: Coke Industries is a trusted company by a whole bunch of their customers. Cargill is even bigger than that. There's a bunch of European industrial and shipping companies. Rolex. There are privately-held, big, important companies in the world.
本：可口可乐工业公司是一家深受众多客户信赖的公司。嘉吉公司比这还要大。还有很多欧洲的工业和航运公司。劳力士。世界上有很多私人控股的重要大公司。
David: For sure, but none of those companies are Microsoft.
大卫：当然，但这些公司都不是微软。
Ben: That's true. That's very fair. Especially getting to the stage that they eventually got to being the trusted partner to governments around the free world, that requires being a public company.
本：没错。这很公平。尤其是他们最终成为自由世界各国政府值得信赖的合作伙伴，这就需要成为一家上市公司。
David: It's funny. This playbook theme, this was a moment in time and a set of factors where this worked. I guess the lesson is find an industry in its infancy, be capital-efficient, and run the table.
大卫：这很有趣。这本游戏手册的主题，是在一个时间点和一系列因素中发挥作用的。我想这给我们的启示是，要找到一个处于起步阶段的行业，要有资本效率，要能跑赢大盘。
Ben: That has unique economic conditions that have never existed before to create these magical businesses you could never fathom before this new technology thing existed? It's an impossible thing to wish for. It may never happen again. We may never get another Google either.
本：拥有前所未有的独特经济条件，就能创造出这种新技术出现之前你无法想象的神奇企业？这是不可能实现的愿望。它可能永远不会再发生了。我们也可能再也找不到第二个谷歌了。
David: That's what I was going to say, it did happen again, it happened with Google.
大卫：这就是我想说的，它确实又发生了，发生在谷歌身上。
Ben: But how many things can you collapse to zero? I think that's the question. With Microsoft, they were able to collapse their marginal cost to zero, but they still had distribution costs, and then Google collapsed distribution costs to zero with the Internet. What's a big cost that a company has now? Maybe AI will collapse. You no longer need 50,000 employees, you can have five employees. Maybe it can collapse that to zero.
本：但你能把多少东西坍缩为零？我认为这是一个问题。对于微软来说，他们能够将边际成本降为零，但他们仍有分销成本，然后谷歌通过互联网将分销成本降为零。现在公司的大成本是什么？也许人工智能会崩溃。你不再需要 50,000 名员工，你只需要 5 名员工。也许它能将成本降至零。
You need something of that scale, which is, where does a company spend most of its money that suddenly it can spend no money on? I suppose actually it is on the human capital. You just look at big successful companies and look at what they spend money on. Those are the candidates.
你需要这种规模的东西，那就是，一家公司突然可以不花钱了，它的大部分钱会花在哪里呢？我想其实是人力资本。你只要看看成功的大公司，看看他们把钱花在什么地方。这些就是候选人。
David: Good point. Still unlikely we'll ever find another Microsoft opportunity.
大卫：说得好。我们还是不太可能找到另一个微软的机会。
Ben: Yup. Other fun things on the IPO, do you know who IPO'd the day before Microsoft did?
本：是的。关于首次公开募股的其他趣事，你知道微软上市前一天谁上市了吗？
David: No.
Ben: Oracle. Oracle had a nice pop, which actually helped Microsoft price a little bit higher in their IPO. That is another episode we have to do.
本：甲骨文。甲骨文有一个很好的爆点，这实际上帮助微软在首次公开募股中把价格抬高了一点。这是我们要做的另一集。
Another thing adds yet another layer to the insanity of everything that we've been talking about of why they were able to build such a successful company on such little capital, I don't think there has ever been a tailwind in history like the one that Microsoft had with the secular growth of the personal computer wave. The only thing I can think of that is comparable is Amazon with the growth of the Internet, powering their early growth.
我认为历史上从未有过像微软这样借助个人电脑浪潮世俗增长的尾风。我能想到的唯一能与之相比的是亚马逊，互联网的发展为其早期的增长提供了动力。
Here's the stat. From 1975 to 1986, 11 years prior to their IPO, so founding to IPO, PCs grew at a compound annual growth rate of 98%. It grew from 4000 units per year to 9 million units per year shipped. You can almost not mess up when you have a tailwind that.
统计数据如下。从 1975 年到 1986 年，即上市前 11 年，个人电脑的年复合增长率高达 98%。它的年出货量从 4000 台增长到 900 万台。有了这样的逆风，你几乎不会出错。
David: Especially when you are the linchpin player.
大卫：尤其当你是关键球员的时候。
Ben: They managed to make themselves the point of integration for the whole industry. Oftentimes, I find myself when we're looking at these companies that are among the most successful in the world or like Microsoft, the most successful in the world, it's basically a multidimensional multiplication problem.
本：他们设法使自己成为整个行业的整合点。很多时候，我发现当我们审视这些世界上最成功的公司时，或者像微软这样世界上最成功的公司时，基本上是一个多维乘法问题。
They had this unbelievable one in a zillion thing going for them, which you can multiply by this other one in a zillion multi thing. It's the zero marginal cost, zero distribution cost, unbelievable secular growth of the PC, Moore's law happening. They're the single choke point for the whole industry. It's just crazy how many things you multiply together, and of course it should end up in a number over three trillion.
他们拥有令人难以置信的 "万分之一 "的优势，再乘以另一个 "万分之几 "的优势。零边际成本、零分销成本、PC 不可思议的持续增长、摩尔定律的出现。它们是整个行业的唯一咽喉。把这么多东西相乘，结果当然是超过 3 万亿的数字。
David: Yup. I'll jump in with a playbook theme that we referenced a little bit in the episode, but we really got a highlight here. Bill, Steve, Paul, and everybody at Microsoft, were incredibly talented, incredibly smart. They saw the future in a way nobody else did, but they also were willing to hedge their bets.
大卫：是的。我想说的是，我们在这一集里稍微提到了一个游戏本主题，但我们在这里真的有一个亮点。比尔、史蒂夫、保罗以及微软的每一个人都才华横溢、聪明绝顶。他们以一种别人无法企及的方式看到了未来，但他们也愿意对冲他们的赌注。
It's not like they just got everything right. They were going to get things wrong with OS/2, but they hedged the bets with Windows. I think that is such a key lesson of when you're in a really dynamic market like this, in our ecosystem right now in tech, venture capital, startups, whatnot, people put so much value on conviction. I have conviction. This is what the future is going to be like. I think the Microsoft story is the opposite of that. They had conviction that software was going to be big.
他们并不是什么都做对了。他们会在 OS/2 上出错，但他们在 Windows 上进行了对冲。我认为，当你身处这样一个充满活力的市场时，在我们现在的生态系统中，在科技、风险投资、初创企业等领域，人们非常看重信念，这就是一个重要的教训。我有信念。这就是未来的样子。我认为微软的故事与此相反。他们坚信软件将大行其道。
Ben: And personal computers. Creating software for desktop computers was a really good idea, and they wanted to be the best at it.
本：还有个人电脑。为台式电脑开发软件是一个非常好的想法，他们希望成为这方面的佼佼者。
David: Yeah, but the exact path of how that was going to play out, they had very little conviction and were willing to be very flexible.
戴维：是的，但在具体的实施过程中，他们几乎没有什么信念，而且愿意非常灵活。
Ben: You're right. It's both the hedging, but also then the ability to read the world and quickly, entirely change your strategy if you need to, and having your hedge be far enough along that you can jump quickly to it and shift your whole organization to get on board with it. That's a hard leadership thing to do.
本：你说得对。既要有对冲能力，又要有审时度势的能力，在需要的时候迅速、完全地改变策略，而且对冲策略要足够成熟，以便你能迅速做出反应，让整个组织都参与进来。这是很难做到的领导力。
David: Totally. I can't wait in the next episode to talk about the Internet tidal wave memo. That's related to your playbook theme too. You can't really do that if you don't own 49% of the company, if it's not your company.
完全正确。我迫不及待地想在下一集中谈谈互联网浪潮备忘录。这也与你的剧本主题有关。如果你不拥有公司 49% 的股份，如果这不是你的公司，你就无法真正做到这一点。
Ben: Which I think you're seeing play out with most CEOs today. There's a big difference between a founder-CEO and the stuff that they can do. Zuckerberg with the metaverse or Jensen with betting the whole company and going all in again on AI versus Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai, certainly a very different type of CEO. Satya is interesting. Despite the fact that he doesn't own half the company, he's got a lot of founder-like control, which I think is pretty interesting.
本：我想你也看到了当今大多数首席执行官的表现。创始人兼 CEO 与他们所能做的事情之间存在很大差异。扎克伯格（Zuckerberg）的 "元宇宙"（metaverse）或詹森（Jensen）将整个公司押在人工智能上的做法，与蒂姆-库克（Tim Cook）或桑达尔-皮查伊（Sundar Pichai）相比，肯定是截然不同的 CEO 类型。萨提亚很有意思。尽管他并不拥有公司的一半股份，但他拥有很多类似创始人的控制权，我认为这非常有趣。
David: All right, don't get ahead of ourselves.
戴维：好了，别想太多了。
Ben: Moving along. Other playbook themes, a big one that jumps out to me is that new generations of technologies enable market dislocations. Unless you are in a transformational moment in terms of a new technology came out that enables something that wasn't possible before that's going to rearrange the whole value chain and open up new markets, it's pretty hard to go challenge an incumbent. No one was going to challenge IBM really until the microcomputer, even the minicomputer people. Did DEC really challenge IBM? Not really. It never made a dent.
本：继续。其他游戏手册的主题中，有一个让我印象深刻，那就是新一代技术会导致市场错位。除非你正处在一个转型的时刻，新技术的出现带来了一些以前不可能实现的东西，重新安排了整个价值链，开辟了新的市场，否则你很难去挑战一个在位者。在微型计算机问世之前，没有人会真正挑战 IBM，即使是微型计算机专家也是如此。DEC 真的挑战过 IBM 吗？没有。它从未有过起色。
David: It wasn't a full platform shift in the same way.
大卫：这不是一个全面的平台转变。
Ben: And there are these little blips of it. The GUI I think meaningfully reshuffled the DECs. Those are the moments where you can have meaningful new entrants. Otherwise, you have to bide your time and just build your hedges and see.
本：还有一些小插曲。我认为图形用户界面对 DEC 进行了有意义的重新洗牌。在这些时刻，你会有有意义的新进入者。否则，你就只能等待时机，建立对冲，静观其变。
Related, even if you are the incumbent being disrupted, it is possible to have a very, very large and durable revenue stream that can go on for a very long time. What I'm referring to in this particular example is despite all of the dethroning that we just talked about, Microsoft would not eclipse IBM in revenue. You mentioned market cap, David, but in revenue until the year 2015. Isn't that nuts?
与此相关的是，即使你是被颠覆的在位者，也有可能拥有非常、非常庞大和持久的收入流，而且可以持续很长时间。在这个特殊的例子中，我指的是，尽管我们刚才谈到了所有的颠覆，微软在收入上仍不会超越 IBM。大卫，你提到了市值，但直到 2015 年，微软的营收都不会超过 IBM。这不是疯了吗？
David: I intentionally didn't look up revenue because it made the story muddier, but wow, there you go.
大卫：我故意不查收入，因为这会让故事变得更复杂，不过，哇，你看。
Ben: I think that's the point. Microsoft's perception by the market, I'm sure they were growing faster, I'm sure they had better gross margins. I'm sure there was a better story there, so there's a multiple that comes out of the story. I'm sure there are lots of good reasons why Microsoft became more valuable than IBM very early, but IBM's revenue did not peak until 2012. What?
本：我认为这就是问题所在。在市场对微软的看法中，我确信他们的增长速度更快，毛利率更高。我相信他们有更好的故事，所以故事中会有一个倍数。我相信，微软很早就比 IBM 更有价值，这有很多很好的原因，但 IBM 的收入直到 2012 年才达到顶峰。什么？
Long after public perception moves on, customers still get value from something created by incumbents for a very long time. I think that's something we often forget about in the buzzy Twitterverse of like, oh that thing's over. It might still grow for another 20 years before it's over.
在公众的看法发生改变之后的很长一段时间里，客户仍能从现有公司创造的产品中获得价值。我认为这是我们在热闹的 Twitter 上经常忘记的事情，就像 "哦，那件事已经结束了"。在结束之前，它可能还会再发展 20 年。
David: That also just speaks to the nature of the enterprise business, too.
大卫：这也说明了企业业务的本质。
Ben: That's a good point.
本：说得好。
David: IBM was the enterprise business. Today, Microsoft is the enterprise business.
大卫：IBM 是企业业务。今天，微软是企业业务。
Ben: That's true. Peloton revenue can dry up a lot faster than contracts for mainframes. What do you got?
本：没错。Peloton 的收入会比主机合同更快枯竭。你有什么发现？
David: A playbook theme that I want to highlight that really, really came out in our conversations is Microsoft was not just a talent magnet, the talent magnet during the PC era. If you were an ambitious young person, this is where you wanted to be.
大卫：在我们的谈话中，我想强调的一个主题是，微软不仅仅是一个人才磁铁，还是 PC 时代的人才磁铁。如果你是一个有抱负的年轻人，这里就是你想去的地方。
It was on every dimension. If you were an ambitious young technical person, that's where you wanted to be. If you were an ambitious young salesperson, if you're an ambitious young marketing person, that's where you wanted to be.
它涉及方方面面。如果你是一个雄心勃勃的年轻技术人员，那就是你想去的地方。如果你是一个雄心勃勃的年轻销售人员，如果你是一个雄心勃勃的年轻营销人员，那就是你想去的地方。
They just had this culture there, which is so funny. We'll talk in the next episode of how that culture really fell apart for a while there. I asked a lot of these early people that we talked to, what was it being there? You guys worked yourselves half to death. Were you mad about that? Did you resent it? Were you just making Bill rich? They're all like, no. Yeah, we neglected every other part of our life, but that was the good old days. This was the magic, we were making it happen.
他们就是有这样的文化，这太有趣了。我们将在下一集讨论这种文化是如何分崩离析的。我问过很多和我们交谈过的早期员工 在那里是什么感觉？你们把自己累得半死。你们为此生气吗？你们怨恨吗？你们只是为了让比尔发财吗？他们都说，没有是的，我们忽略了生活的其他部分 但那是美好的过去那是神奇的时刻，我们在创造奇迹
Ben: That totally comes through. I asked Brad, why did Windows 95 work? There's lots of structural reasons, but he said, we basically did two things. (1) We laid out principles for product and then pushed responsibility down. Developers were often their own PMs. There's this idea of once you got the principles, we don't need to write a zillion specs, design something three times, and pass it through three functions. You know the principles, make great software that follows the principles. (2) He said that everyone felt personally responsible for the product, and it really showed.
本：这一点完全体现出来了。我问布拉德，为什么 Windows 95 能成功？有很多结构性原因，但他说，我们基本上做了两件事。(1) 我们制定了产品原则，然后将责任下推。开发人员通常是他们自己的项目经理。我们的想法是，一旦你掌握了原则，我们就不需要写无数的规范，设计三次，再通过三次函数。你知道了原则，就能做出遵循原则的优秀软件。(2) 他说，每个人都觉得自己要对产品负责，这确实体现了这一点。
David: Anybody you talked to from this era of Microsoft, this was their life's work. No doubt about it.
大卫：任何与微软这个时代的人交谈过的人，这都是他们毕生的事业。这是毫无疑问的。
Ben: Something we touched on a little bit is the benefit of scaling with OEMs. This was the contrast against Apple, where I said Apple was always going to be a niche player by the way that they designed, built, and packaged everything themselves. Apple is in many ways like the AmEx, where Microsoft is the Visa.
本：我们提到了一点，那就是与原始设备制造商合作的好处。这与苹果公司形成了鲜明对比，我说过，由于苹果公司自行设计、制造和包装所有产品，因此他们始终是一家利基厂商。苹果在很多方面就像美国运通，而微软则是维萨。
On our Visa episode, it just became so clear that Visa could quickly take over the world at MasterCard by being an open network, where they didn't have to do all the work to scale themselves. They could distribute to a bank, partner with a bank, and then boom, each of the banks that was on their network could independently scale at their own rate, which created obviously compounding effects for how fast Visa and MasterCard could scale. The same can be said of Windows.
在我们的维萨专辑中，我们清楚地看到，维萨可以通过开放式网络迅速占领万事达卡的全球市场，因为他们不必自己完成所有的扩展工作。他们可以向银行分销，与银行合作，然后 "砰 "的一声，在他们网络上的每家银行都可以按照自己的速度独立扩展，这显然为威士卡和万事达卡的快速扩展创造了复合效应。Windows 也是如此。
David: Totally, the OEMs. Yeah.
大卫：完全是原始设备制造商。是啊
Ben: I think the Microsoft OEM team for Windows was 20 people or something. Before the enterprise, in this era that we're talking about, the group of people responsible for go-to market for Windows was really small. They sold some retail, but the team was just about, hey, make sure HP and...
本：我认为微软的 Windows OEM 团队只有 20 人左右。在我们谈论的这个时代，在进入企业市场之前，负责 Windows 走向市场的团队规模非常小。他们销售一些零售产品，但团队只是负责确保惠普和...
David: Compaq, Dell, and Gateway.
大卫：康柏、戴尔和 Gateway。
Ben: Exactly. That was their go-to market, and it makes your scaling unbelievably efficient.
本：没错。这就是他们的目标市场，它让你的扩展效率高得令人难以置信。
David: Dude, you're getting a Dell.
老兄，你买的是戴尔。
Ben: Dude, you are getting a Dell. Similarly, I think the fact that they went international early was this very powerful constraint. It meant that every time they shipped software, they had to make it globally ready quickly. That meant that if there was any network effects to your software, anything becoming a standard, Microsoft was just way better positioned to become the standard than anyone else was.
本：伙计，你买的是戴尔的车。同样，我认为他们提前进入国际市场也是一个非常强大的制约因素。这意味着他们每次推出软件时，都必须迅速在全球范围内做好准备。这意味着，如果你的软件有任何网络效应，任何东西成为标准，微软都比其他任何人更有能力成为标准。
On top of there being network effects, there's also scale economies. A word processor is a word processor. The extent that you have customers in every country who can buy your one piece of software, you can amortize the development costs over a huge user base so much more quickly.
除了网络效应，还有规模经济。文字处理软件就是文字处理软件。如果每个国家都有客户购买你的一款软件，你就可以在庞大的用户群中更快地摊销开发成本。
David: 100%. 大卫：100%。
Ben: The fact that they forced themselves to be international early meant that every product after that also had to figure out how to do all the localization, training, and all of that to get all those effects too.
本：事实上，他们很早就迫使自己国际化了，这意味着之后的每一款产品都必须想办法做好本地化、培训等所有工作，以获得所有这些效果。
David: No matter how much time, money, and resources you have to spend to localize Microsoft word into kanji, it's a lot less time and resources and money than developing Microsoft word.
大卫：无论你要花费多少时间、金钱和资源才能将 Microsoft word 本地化为汉字，这都比开发 Microsoft word 少很多时间、资源和金钱。
Ben: Exactly. They just realized that so early. They also realized that most people who were doing some localization would do a shoddy job. They would think about it as lesser than the US market. They just did a good job at localization. They just cared. They thought of it as this is a strategic pillar that in every country, everyone experiences our software to the same quality because it's our brand everywhere. I don't know. I just think that is not how the rest of the industry thought about it.
本：没错。他们很早就意识到了这一点。他们还意识到，大多数做本地化的人都会偷工减料。他们会认为这不如美国市场。他们只是做好了本地化工作。他们只是关心。他们认为这是一个战略支柱，在每个国家，每个人都能以同样的质量体验我们的软件，因为这是我们的品牌。我也不知道。我只是觉得，业界其他公司不是这么想的。
David: Definitely not. 大卫：肯定不是。
Ben: On top of all of this, the way that they executed it through subsidiaries was pretty genius. Redmond did not control international. They spun up country managers and subsidiaries in each of these countries in a ton of countries.
本：除此以外，他们通过子公司来执行的方式也非常天才。雷德蒙德没有控制国际业务。他们在很多国家都设立了国家经理和子公司。
While Redmond did the product development and then did the engineering work to do localization to all the strings files and everything for those countries, the actual marketing messaging, the sales strategy, and the sales structure, happened in country that was owned by a person who lived there so they actually could think through, what is the best way for people to receive this software here?
雷德蒙德公司负责产品开发，然后进行工程设计，针对这些国家的所有字符串文件和一切内容进行本地化，而实际的营销信息、销售策略和销售结构，则是由生活在这些国家的人负责制定的，因此他们实际上可以思考：人们在这里接受这款软件的最佳方式是什么？
Again, that's just going to yield way better results than if you're sitting there armchair quarterbacking at Redmond thinking about how a person in Chile is going to receive your marketing message.
同样，这比你坐在雷德蒙德的椅子上思考智利人如何接收你的营销信息会产生更好的效果。
One other that I have is this one that we didn't really talk about, but Microsoft famously was not first to market with basically any of their applications. They aren't even really today in most cases. You think about the strategy that they had early on spreadsheets, word processing, all these were copycats at their outset.
还有一个问题，我们并没有真正谈到，但微软的应用程序基本上都不是第一个进入市场的。今天，在大多数情况下，他们甚至都不是。你想想他们早期在电子表格、文字处理方面的策略，所有这些在一开始都是模仿者。
Sometimes they would do an acquisition, but most of the time they just look at a product and say, huh, our software should do the same thing, and they would copy it. They had no shame in doing that. They had their eyes everywhere looking for good ideas, they had reverence for the good ones, and then they would just incorporate them.
有时，他们会进行收购，但大多数时候，他们只是看看产品，然后说，嗯，我们的软件应该做同样的事情，然后他们就会复制它。他们这样做并不丢人。他们到处寻找好点子，对好点子心存敬畏，然后将其吸收进来。
On top of that, they wanted to make the software very easy to switch to. A lot of the keyboard shortcuts in Excel to this day are there because they were originally the Lotus 1-2-3 shortcuts. They wanted people to have the same muscle memory that just worked.
除此之外，他们还想让软件非常容易切换。时至今日，Excel 中的很多快捷键都是由 Lotus 1-2-3 的快捷键演变而来的。他们希望人们拥有相同的肌肉记忆，这样就能正常工作了。
Fundamentally, what this does for you as a business is it just leads to better risk adjusted returns. You already know what's going to work before you ship it. You don't really take market risk. You're not going to be the first to the market with early adopters, but most of the time, you actually don't need to be to win.
从根本上说，这对企业的好处在于，它能带来更好的风险调整回报。在发货之前，你已经知道什么会成功。你不会真正承担市场风险。你不可能成为市场上第一批早期采用者，但在大多数情况下，你并不需要成为市场上的第一批早期采用者。
I think Microsoft own that idea. Most of the time people are sheepish about it. Steve Jobs famously said, Microsoft has no taste. I think that's another way to put it that it's copycatting.
我认为微软公司拥有这种想法。大多数时候，人们对此都是羞于启齿的。乔布斯有句名言：微软没有品味。我认为这也可以说是一种山寨。
David: I do agree with the premise, with all of this. I think doing this episode though has made me think there's a little more nuance to it. Yes. In broad strokes, you can say that's what Microsoft strategy was with applications over the years, but the Microsoft versions never actually won until there was a platform shift that they could take advantage of to beat the incumbent.
大卫：我同意前提，同意这一切。不过，我觉得做这一集让我觉得这里面有更多的细微差别。是的。概括地说，你可以说这就是微软多年来在应用软件方面的策略，但实际上微软的版本从来没有赢过，直到出现了平台转变，他们可以利用平台转变来击败现任者。
Microsoft wasn't going to beat Lotus 1-2-3 until the graphical paradigm came along, and then Excel being graphical was just obviously so much better. They tried with Multiplan, they failed. Multiplan was fine, but 1-2-3 was the winner.
在图形化模式出现之前，微软是不可能打败 Lotus 1-2-3 的，而 Excel 的图形化显然要好得多。他们尝试过 Multiplan，但失败了。Multiplan 是不错，但 1-2-3 才是赢家。
The nuance to me is yes, but it's more like with the resources of Microsoft and the timeframe that Microsoft can afford to have, they can afford to start building the application, start building the product, getting into market, start learning, be positioned that then when the paradigm shift comes, leap ahead.
对我来说，细微差别是肯定的，但这更像是以微软的资源和微软所能承担的时间框架，他们有能力开始构建应用、开始构建产品、进入市场、开始学习、定位，然后当模式转变到来时，一跃成为领先者。
Ben: That's a good point. It's also different. The Lotus 1-2-3–Multiplan thing, in that era, Microsoft just didn't have great distribution yet. Lotus 1-2-3 just got pretty far ahead of them, and Microsoft had no way to catch up. A few years after that, that would basically never be true again.
本：说得好。这也是不同之处。Lotus 1-2-3-Multiplan 在那个时代，微软还没有强大的分销能力。Lotus 1-2-3 比他们领先很多，微软没有办法追赶。几年之后，这种情况基本上就不会再发生了。
David: That could be true too.
大卫：也有可能是真的。
Ben: I will say, you touched on something that's an interesting corollary to this. Their first versions of software famously are not good. You look at Windows 1.0 and 2.0. They know that it's part of the strategy, and they were world class at learning from customers and integrating customer feedback into subsequent versions.
本：我要说的是，你提到了一个有趣的推论。他们的第一版软件出了名的不好。你看看 Windows 1.0 和 2.0。他们知道这是战略的一部分，而且他们在向客户学习并将客户反馈融入后续版本方面堪称世界一流。
There's always this saying of Microsoft doesn't have a very good first or second version, but the third version of something is typically pretty good. I think that fact pattern definitely follows.
人们常说，微软的第一版或第二版都不怎么样，但第三版一般都很不错。我认为，这种事实模式绝对成立。
David: I'm curious your thoughts on this. I'm so surprised. One thing that you have not brought up yet on this episode is you were a PM at Microsoft for several years.
大卫：我很好奇你对此的看法。我太惊讶了。在本期节目中，有一件事你还没有提到，那就是你曾在微软担任过几年的项目经理。
Ben: I was, but it was such a different era in that 2012–2014 era. I guess 2011 is when I started as an intern. I'll have a lot of thoughts on it next episode.
本：是的，但 2012-2014 年的时代已经不同了。我想 2011 年是我开始实习的时候。下一集我会有很多感想。
David: Okay, great. I've got one more playbook theme before we move on to power. Microsoft figured out software before anybody else, and they figured out so many aspects of what it means to be a software business before anybody else, but they figured out that software is never done.
大卫：好的，太棒了。在我们继续讨论 "动力 "之前，我还有一个游戏主题。微软比任何人都更早地发现了软件，他们比任何人都更早地发现了软件业务的许多方面，但他们发现软件永远不会完成。
I do think a lot of their competitors, we didn't obviously didn't study Lotus to the same degree that we studied Microsoft here, we didn't study WordPerfect, et cetera, but I think there was a mindset that a lot of other folks are like, you ship software, and then the software was done.
我确实认为他们的很多竞争对手，我们显然没有像研究微软那样研究 Lotus，我们也没有研究 WordPerfect 等等，但我认为其他很多人都有这样一种思维模式：你把软件运出去，然后软件就完成了。
That was not the culture at Microsoft. This is related to what you were just saying. Shipping software is the beginning. You are always working on that software. You're working on next versions and stuff, but even before the next version, the work of software is never done.
这不是微软的文化。这与你刚才所说的有关。交付软件只是开始。你一直在开发软件。你在开发下一个版本，但即使在下一个版本之前，软件的工作也永远不会完成。
Ben: Of course, if you own the hardware, you definitely think of it more of like, well, we ship them, the big cabinet of things, we install it, and we fix it if it's broken, but we've sold them hardware. The software is required to run it, but the thing we sold them is the hardware. If you're a pure software company, you think about the world differently.
本：当然，如果硬件是你自己的，你肯定会更多地认为，好吧，我们发货给他们，大柜子里的东西，我们安装，坏了我们修，但我们卖给他们的是硬件。运行需要软件，但我们卖给他们的是硬件。如果你是一家纯软件公司，你对世界的看法就会不同。
You're like, well, I can always ship you another CD, another floppy disk, over the Internet. It's obviously very different. But because there weren't really software companies before them, of course people didn't come from that mindset.
你会想，好吧，我可以通过互联网再给你寄一张 CD 或软盘。这显然是非常不同的。但由于在他们之前并没有真正意义上的软件公司，人们当然不会有这种想法。
David: I think you still see the legacy of this right to this day in Apple versus Microsoft. Apple still is on a yearly software release cadence, which is ridiculous. Whereas Microsoft is on the cloud, it's all constant. It's all constantly shipping. Look at AI, look at OpenAI. The software is never done so deeply in the software business model.
大卫：我认为，时至今日，你仍能从苹果与微软的竞争中看到这种传统。苹果公司仍然保持着每年发布一次软件的节奏，这太荒谬了。而微软是云计算，一切都很稳定。一切都在持续不断地进行。看看人工智能，看看 OpenAI。在软件商业模式中，软件从未如此深入。
Ben: That's true. 本：没错。
David: All right, should we move on to power?
大卫：好吧，我们是否应该继续讨论权力问题？
Ben: Yes. Listeners who are new to the show, we do this section based on Hamilton Helmer's seven powers framework. The question is, what is it that enables a business to achieve persistent differential returns, or to put in another way, to be more profitable than your closest competitor and do so sustainably?
本：是的。新来参加节目的听众朋友们，我们这一节是根据汉密尔顿-海尔默的七种力量框架来做的。问题是，是什么让企业能够实现持续的差异化回报，或者换一种说法，是什么让企业比最接近的竞争对手获得更多的利润，并可持续地做到这一点？
The seven are counter positioning, scale economies, switching costs, network economies, process power, branding, and cornered resource. David, I am pretty sure I could make a case somewhere between 1975 and 1995 at Microsoft for all seven of these.
这七个方面是：反定位、规模经济、转换成本、网络经济、流程能力、品牌和垄断资源。戴维，我敢肯定，在 1975 年至 1995 年期间，我在微软公司的某个地方可以为所有这七种经济模式提供论据。
David: Totally. 大卫：完全正确。
Ben: It's one of the most defensible businesses they built in history, so of course they would have all seven of the powers.
本：这是他们在历史上建立的最有保障的企业之一，所以他们当然会拥有所有七种权力。
David: All right, let's run through each of them and do a quick 45 seconds on each.
戴维：好的，让我们逐一介绍，每项用时 45 秒。
Ben: Great. Counter positioning. I think the biggest example of this comes through where Microsoft is basically willing to jump on the microcomputer revolution before the incumbents were. IBM did not want microcomputers to happen. When they started to happen, IBM tried to figure out how to slow it down and reintegrate it into their old business model.
本：很好。反定位。我认为最大的例子是，微软公司基本上愿意在现有公司之前就加入到微型计算机革命中来。IBM 并不希望微型计算机的出现。当微型计算机开始出现时，IBM 试图找出减缓其发展速度的方法，并将其重新整合到原有的商业模式中。
Microsoft basically had no baggage. This is classic innovator’s dilemma stuff. They could say, well, we don't need to make any money on hardware. We don't need to even make hardware. We are free to become the whole point of integration for the entire ecosystem just by shipping bits. And that is crazy.
微软基本上没有包袱。这是典型的创新者困境。他们可以说，我们不需要在硬件上赚钱。我们甚至不需要生产硬件。我们只需提供比特，就可以成为整个生态系统的整合点。这太疯狂了。
David: Actually, related to that—I can't believe we haven't talked about this in the episode until now—Microsoft could enable other companies to be successful. You talk to Microsoft people, they always talk about themselves as a platform, like we're a platform. Other companies grow on the back of Microsoft. That was not true for IBM. Totally not true.
大卫：实际上，与此相关的是--真不敢相信我们到现在才在这一集中谈到这个问题--微软可以帮助其他公司取得成功。你和微软的人交谈，他们总是说自己是一个平台，就像我们是一个平台一样。其他公司是在微软的支持下成长起来的。但对 IBM 而言却并非如此。完全不是这样。
Microsoft could make Compaq successful. Microsoft could make Lotus successful. Microsoft could make Intuit successful. Microsoft could make Netscape successful.
微软可以使康柏成功。微软可以使 Lotus 成功。微软可以使 Intuit 成功。微软可以使网景成功。
Ben: We keep talking about Microsoft as the point of integration, choke point, dependency, or standard for the whole ecosystem. Given that, it is quite remarkable how much value they created on top of the platform versus just captured for themselves. There's that famous Bill Gates line, you want your ecosystem around you to be generating more revenue than you are taking for yourself. They did a ton of that. It's the OEMs, and it's the application developers.
本：我们一直在谈论微软是整个生态系统的整合点、咽喉点、依赖点或标准。有鉴于此，他们在平台之上创造了多少价值，而不仅仅是为自己获取了多少价值，这是非常了不起的。比尔-盖茨有句名言：你希望你周围的生态系统为你带来的收入比你自己获得的多。他们做到了这一点。这是原始设备制造商，也是应用开发商。
David: That's major counter positioning. Okay, that's one.
这是主要的反定位。好吧，这是一个。
Ben: Scale economies. 本：规模经济。
David: That's everything we just talked about in Playbook.
大卫：这就是我们刚才在 Playbook 中谈到的一切。
Ben: It's unbelievable. When Microsoft has an install base of 100 million people using Excel—in this episode, let's just say 10 million people who are using Excel—and suddenly some up and coming spreadsheet comes out with a cool feature like auto sum, fill down, draw borders around the cells, or whatever, suddenly, Microsoft does a tiny bit of dev work. They can reap tons and tons and tons of value for doing that that the tiny company cannot do.
本：真是难以置信。当微软拥有一亿使用 Excel 的安装用户时--在本期节目中，我们假设有一千万人在使用 Excel--突然间，一些新兴的电子表格推出了很酷的功能，比如自动求和、向下填充、在单元格周围绘制边框等，突然间，微软只做了一点点开发工作。他们可以从中获得数以吨计的价值，而这是小公司无法做到的。
David: Yup, great. 大卫：是的，很好。
Ben: Fixed amount of dev work amortized across a large customer base.
本：在庞大的客户群中摊销固定的开发工作量。
David: I don't think we need to say any more on this. The whole episode's about scale economies.
戴维：我想我们不需要再说什么了。整集都在讲规模经济。
Ben: Yes. Switching costs. The funny thing about monopoly is there's nothing to switch to.
本：是的。转换成本垄断的有趣之处在于，没有什么可以转换。
David: That's a good one. This one's pretty related to network economies for me with this one of, okay, sure, you can switch to another operating system. Good luck getting other applications that you know and love to run on that.
大卫：这是个好问题。对我来说，这个问题与网络经济很有关系，好吧，当然，你可以切换到另一个操作系统。祝你好运，能让你熟悉和喜爱的其他应用程序在上面运行。
Ben: Yeah, that's the answer.
本：是的，这就是答案。
David: Speaking of network economies, developers, applications, OEMs.
大卫：说到网络经济、开发商、应用软件、原始设备制造商。
Ben: There's not a classic network, Facebook, or AT&T style network here, in terms of one user can contact every other user, but more users being on Windows incentivizes more developers to make great applications for Windows, which enables Microsoft to sell more copies to more users, et cetera.
本：这里并不存在传统的网络、Facebook 或 AT&T 式的网络，即一个用户可以联系其他所有用户，但更多的用户使用 Windows 会激励更多的开发者为 Windows 开发优秀的应用程序，从而使微软能够向更多用户销售更多的产品，等等。
David: Although, actually, I think once they start getting into the enterprise workplaces in general, organizations in general, there is the user network effect, like I want this Microsoft Word document that I just worked on for you to be able to open it and use it too.
戴维：不过，实际上，我认为一旦它们开始进入企业工作场所、组织机构，就会产生用户网络效应，比如我希望我刚刚编写的 Microsoft Word 文档你也能打开并使用它。
Ben: You're right. I didn't even think about that. The document formats are a huge network effect thing, even before the Internet. Even before organizations were networked and computers were networked outside of an organization, file formats. You're right, there are huge network economies to file formats.
本：你说得对。我都没想到这一点。文件格式是一个巨大的网络效应，甚至在互联网出现之前。甚至在机构联网和机构外计算机联网之前，文件格式就已经存在了。你说得对，文件格式有巨大的网络经济效益。
David: Yeah, and it's inter-organizational too. If I'm a law firm, I want my clients to be able to open my Word docs.
戴维：是的，而且还是跨组织的。如果我是一家律师事务所，我希望我的客户能打开我的 Word 文档。
Ben: Right. 本：对。
David: Okay, next. 大卫：好的，下一个。
Ben: Process power. This might be the weakest.
本：处理能力。这可能是最弱的。
David: As it so often is.
大卫：经常是这样。
Ben: It's elusive. This is a little bit later in history, but I did always think it was absolutely incredible when I was at Microsoft, and we would ship a version of Office every three years. I worked on Office 15. The entire 6000 person organization had a process in place, where we could release to manufacturing (RTM) on a date that we planned three years in advance and actually hit it.
本：难以捉摸。虽然这是后话，但我在微软工作时一直觉得这绝对不可思议，我们每三年就会推出一个版本的 Office。我曾开发过 Office 15。整个 6000 人的组织都有一套流程，我们可以在三年前就计划好的日期发布到制造阶段（RTM），并且真的实现了。
The process of the ads cuts meetings, the zero bug bounce, the testing schedule, and the triage when you had things that people wanted to introduce late in the schedule. It was a remarkable product, especially with all these teams that needed all their code to interoperate.
广告削减会议的流程、零漏洞反弹、测试计划，以及当有人想在计划后期引入代码时的分流。这是一个了不起的产品，尤其是所有这些团队都需要他们的代码能够互操作。
I worked on a shared experiences team that would check things and that would be a dependency. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, all of them took on the shared code. We knew our ship date three years in advance and would hit it. It's crazy.
我曾在一个共享经验团队工作过，该团队会检查一些东西，这将成为一种依赖。Word、Excel、PowerPoint 都需要共享代码。我们提前三年就知道了发货日期，并且会如期完成。这太疯狂了。
David: Totally. This exists. Especially by the time you get to the Windows 95 era at the end of this episode, it's like RenTech. The amount of stuff and process within Microsoft, the device drivers, the middleware, the programming languages, the dev tools, the machine there to make all this computing work, there was a miracle that this stuff worked. You couldn't just recreate that.
大卫：完全正确。这一切都存在尤其是到了本集末尾的 Windows 95 时代，简直就像 RenTech。微软内部有大量的东西和流程、设备驱动程序、中间件、编程语言、开发工具，还有让所有这些计算工作的机器，这些东西能正常工作简直就是奇迹。你不可能重新创造这些。
Ben: It's funny. The process power, I would say, is stronger in Office than Windows. Now my colors are showing. Windows always notoriously miss their ship dates. I'm actually less sure that process power existed in that early days. I think they were a bunch of smart people, but I'm not sure that they had a unique way of creating software.
本：这很有趣。我得说，Office 的处理能力比 Windows 更强。现在我的颜色显现出来了。Windows 总是以错过出货日期而臭名昭著。实际上，我不太确定早期是否存在处理能力。我认为他们都是一群聪明人，但我不确定他们是否有创造软件的独特方法。
David: I think that got built over time.
大卫：我认为这是随时间推移建立起来的。
Ben: Agree. Ben: 同意。
David: Okay, branding, for sure.
大卫：好的，当然是品牌建设。
Ben: For sure. 本：当然。
David: Don't get fired for buying Microsoft.
大卫：不要因为购买微软而被解雇。
Ben: That's true. Windows 95 built a consumer brand. The idea of a consumer brand of operating systems was there was Apple, but they were tiny, and that was more around the hardware.
本：没错。Windows 95 打造了一个消费者品牌。关于操作系统消费者品牌的概念，当时有苹果公司，但它们规模很小，而且更多的是围绕硬件。
David: It's both fronts. It's their brand in the enterprise that is an amazing story that they built. They were branding consumer. The easiest to point to instantiation is the Rolling Stones and Jay Leno, but they had a software brand. Nobody had that.
大卫：两方面都有。他们在企业中建立的品牌是一个了不起的故事。他们是消费者品牌。最简单的例子就是滚石乐队和杰伊-雷诺（Jay Leno），但他们有一个软件品牌。没有人拥有这样的品牌。
Ben: But branding is probably the thing that they rely on the least interestingly enough. There are other structural reasons that they're entrenched, where even if Microsoft had a crappy brand in this era, they probably still would have won. The magic of getting the whole deal with the IBM PC and then getting to sell licenses to all the other OEMs.
本：但有趣的是，品牌可能是他们最不依赖的东西。即使微软在这个时代有一个糟糕的品牌，他们可能仍然会赢。与 IBM PC 达成整个交易，然后向所有其他 OEM 出售许可证的魔力。
David: That brings us to the last one, which I think is a super strong one at least in this era, cornered resource. DOS, full stop.
大卫：这就引出了最后一个问题，我认为这是一个超级强大的问题，至少在这个时代是这样，即 "被逼无奈的资源"。DOS，句号。
Ben: Yup. It didn't start as a cornered resource, but as soon as IBM started shipping it on the IBM PCs, it was over. I'll say it again, IBM's distribution created demand for DOS, and then Microsoft just got to capture value from everyone else who wanted it.
本：是的。它一开始并不是一个被垄断的资源，但只要 IBM 开始在 IBM PC 上销售它，它就完了。我再说一遍，IBM 的分销创造了对 DOS 的需求，然后微软就可以从其他想要它的人那里获取价值。
All right, we would do bear and bull, listeners, but we know what happened after this. The bull case is that the party continues, and Microsoft continues shipping amazing operating systems after amazing operating systems. That stays the important thing in the world. The bear case is something else becomes an important thing in the world. Just having this super locked-in operating system is not actually the way to bet your whole company for the future.
好吧，听众朋友，我们会做熊市和牛市的分析，但我们知道之后发生了什么。看涨的情况是，狂欢仍在继续，微软继续推出一个又一个令人惊叹的操作系统。这仍然是世界上最重要的事情。熊市的情况是，世界上另一些事情变得重要起来。仅仅拥有这个超级锁定的操作系统，实际上并不是为整个公司的未来下注的方式。
David: The dramatic tension for you all to come back for our next episode on Microsoft here is not because you want to find out what happens.
大卫：让大家回来收看下一集《微软》节目的戏剧性紧张气氛，并不是因为你们想知道会发生什么。
Ben: That's true. 本：没错。
David: Okay, take away, splinter. We've spent the last probably six weeks deep in this. We've talked to everybody. What are you thinking about in the middle of the night?
好了，拿走吧，碎片。我们花了大概六周的时间在这上面。我们和每个人都谈过了。你半夜在想什么？
Ben: The IBM deal. I can't unsee it. Microsoft figured out a way to take someone else's dominance and wholesale transfer that into their dominance for the next generation. The fact that IBM called the Project Chess is so deeply ironic because Bill Gates was playing chess and they played checkers.
IBM的交易我不能不看到它。微软想出了一个办法，把别人的主导地位全盘转移到自己的下一代主导地位上。IBM 将 "国际象棋项目 "称为 "国际跳棋项目 "这一事实极具讽刺意味，因为比尔-盖茨在下国际象棋，而他们在下国际跳棋。
David: Maybe Bill was playing 3D chess. This is the thing about it, though. We got to give IBM so much credit for Project Chess and the PC, that they even did what they did was huge, that a big entrenched corporation that could ship a skunkworks project in a year, revolutionized the industry. They just didn't end up capturing any value out of it.
大卫：也许比尔在下 3D 象棋。这就是问题所在。我们要为 IBM 的国际象棋项目和个人电脑点赞，他们所做的一切都是巨大的，一个根深蒂固的大公司能在一年内完成一个低级的项目，并彻底改变了整个行业。只是他们最终没有从中获取任何价值。
Ben: If I could make a less cheeky comment on it, I would say it's that a new technology generation, when something becomes possible and opens up a new market, it enables a shift in the point of integration and a value chain.
本：如果我可以不那么厚颜无耻地评论一下，我会说，新一代技术，当某些东西成为可能并开辟了一个新市场时，它就会使整合点和价值链发生转变。
The old value chain of IBM, if you shipped the mainframe, you had all the power. But in this new world of PCs, if you controlled the operating system that all the users were familiar with and all the developers wanted to target, you had all the power. I think that is not necessarily obvious unless you went through it and have the hindsight of history to be able to articulate it.
在 IBM 的旧价值链中，如果你生产大型机，你就拥有了所有的权力。但在个人电脑的新世界里，如果你控制了所有用户都熟悉、所有开发人员都想使用的操作系统，你就拥有了一切力量。我认为，除非你亲身经历过，并有历史的后见之明，否则不一定能清楚地认识到这一点。
David: I think you might be right. I think this might be the single best business deal negotiation of all time.
大卫：我想你可能是对的。我认为这可能是有史以来最好的一次商业交易谈判。
Ben: It arguably created $3 trillion of value.
本：可以说，它创造了 3 万亿美元的价值。
David: No, a lot more than that because this is the point about Microsoft being a platform. Microsoft is worth $3 trillion, but how much value has been created on top of Microsoft? No matter what you think, good, bad, or ugly of Microsoft, you can't deny that.
大卫：不，远远不止这些，因为这就是微软作为一个平台的意义所在。微软价值 3 万亿美元，但在微软之上创造了多少价值？无论你怎么看微软，好的，坏的，丑的，你都不能否认这一点。
Ben: Absolutely. 本：当然。
David: At least twice as much, probably much, much more.
大卫：至少是两倍，可能还要多得多。
Ben: You watch every early interview with Bill, and you read a lot of his writing, he's a great writer. It's awesome that so many of his memos leaked whether intentionally or unintentionally over time.
本：你看过比尔早期的每一次采访，也读过他的很多文章，他是个伟大的作家。随着时间的推移，他的很多备忘录都有意无意地泄露了出去，这太了不起了。
David: So many of his memos were issued for publication.
戴维：他的很多备忘录都是为了出版而发布的。
Ben: He really did view himself as a steward of the software ecosystem, and had this steadfast belief that software was magic and was going to change the world. Over the next 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, software did change the world, and Microsoft enabled it to happen.
本：他确实将自己视为软件生态系统的管理者，并坚信软件具有魔力，将改变世界。在接下来的 20 年里，从 1975 年到 1995 年，软件确实改变了世界，而微软使之得以实现。
Again, good, bad, or ugly, whatever you think of the company, they were sincere. I think the ugly part is, a lot of people want to hate on the value capture, because god did they capture value, but they were sincere in their desire and ability to create too.
再说一遍，不管你对这家公司的看法是好是坏还是丑陋，他们都是真诚的。我认为丑陋的部分在于，很多人都想抨击他们的价值捕捉，因为他们确实捕捉到了价值，但他们在创造价值的愿望和能力上也是真诚的。
David: Totally. That's super related to my takeaway here. The moment for me in the research and then when we're telling the story along the way is when they start to believe in themselves that they don't need IBM. Just the audacity, and I mean that in a pure good way of these kids. These kids changed the world. That's so trite to say.
大卫：完全正确。这与我在这里得到的启示超级相关。对我来说，在研究过程中，以及在我们讲述故事的过程中，他们开始相信自己不需要 IBM。这就是这些孩子的胆识，我的意思是说，他们纯粹是好样的。这些孩子改变了世界。这样说太老套了。
My book we read my daughter at bedtime and somebody gave us, it's like the most Silicon Valley trophy thing ever. It's like, what do you do with an idea? The punchline at the end of it is you change the world. It's become such a trope, but these kids in the 70s did it. They believed in themselves in the beginning and then more and more and more over time.
我的书是我女儿睡前读的，有人送给我们的，就像硅谷最有价值的东西。它就像，你用一个想法做了什么？书的最后一句话是，你改变了世界。这已经成了老生常谈 但这些70年代的孩子做到了他们一开始就相信自己 然后随着时间的推移越来越相信自己
There's just this moment that I think, where they started to really, truly believe that they were going to change the world. Again, good, bad and ugly come out of that. Mostly good, I think, but just the level of ambition and audacity of these people is staggering.
我认为，就在那一刻，他们开始真正相信，他们将改变世界。同样，好的、坏的、丑的都会出现。我认为，大部分都是好的，但这些人的野心和胆识令人震惊。
Ben: Is that your splinter in your mind?
本：那是你心中的碎片吗？
David: That's my splinter, yeah.
戴维：这是我的小插曲，是的。
Ben: Listeners who are new to the show, we've been iterating on how we end episodes. We decided on this recently of, how should we land the plane? It's to talk about the thing that we can't stop thinking about.
本：刚开始听节目的听众朋友们，我们一直在反复斟酌节目的结尾方式。我们最近决定，飞机该如何着陆？这是为了讨论我们一直在思考的问题。
David: This company's 49 years old, and it's still the most valuable company in the world.
大卫：这家公司已经 49 岁了，但它仍然是世界上最有价值的公司。
Ben: Crazy. All right, David, I have some trivia for you.
本：疯了好了，大卫，我有些琐事要告诉你。
David: I love it. Trivia before carve outs.
大卫：我喜欢。小题大做
Ben: Do you know where Dave Marquardt from TVI first encountered Bill Gates?
本：你知道 TVI 的戴夫-马夸特（Dave Marquardt）是在哪里第一次见到比尔-盖茨的吗？
David: No, I just assumed it was through Steve.
大卫：不，我只是以为是通过史蒂夫。
Ben: Dave had watched Bill present many years earlier at none other than the Homebrew Computer Club at Stanford, the very place that is part of the Apple lore with Jobs and Woz showing off the early Apple computer. Apparently, Bill also went and made a presentation there and would hang out there, and that is where Dave first came across him.
本：戴夫多年前曾在斯坦福大学的自制电脑俱乐部观看过比尔的演讲，那里正是乔布斯和沃兹展示早期苹果电脑的苹果传说的一部分。显然，比尔也曾在那里发表过演讲，并在那里流连忘返，戴夫就是在那里第一次见到他的。
David: Amazing. When we were talking about the letter that Bill writes to the hobbyist community decrying piracy and software, he's basically writing it to the Homebrew Computer Club. He believed that those were the people who were ripping off his software.
大卫：太神奇了。当我们谈到比尔写给业余爱好者的那封谴责盗版软件的信时，他基本上是写给自制计算机俱乐部的。他认为就是这些人在盗用他的软件。
Ben: It's amazing. All right, carveouts?
本：太神奇了。好吧，分割？
David: All right, carveouts. For new listeners, at the end of every episode, Ben and I just chat about one or two things that we've been enjoying personally lately that usually have nothing to do with the episode.
戴维：好的，"carveouts"。对于新听众来说，在每期节目的最后，本和我都会聊一两件我们最近个人非常喜欢的事情，这些事情通常与本期节目无关。
In my case, I have two. The first one has a lot to do with the episode. I have discovered/rediscovered the LGR YouTube channel. Are you into this Ben?
就我而言，我有两个。第一个与这期节目有很大关系。我发现/重新发现了 LGR YouTube 频道。你喜欢本吗？
Ben: No.
David: Clint and LGR, and it stands for Lazy Game Reviews, which I think is how it started, but then it became so much more, and now it's just LGR. Clint is this awesome dude, and I think he lives in North Carolina. He is dedicated to basking in the glory, restoring, reliving, and preserving computer history, hardware and software from this era. The YouTube channel is all unboxing a Compaq PC from 1992 or restoring a Windows 3.1 machine.
大卫：克林特和 LGR，代表《懒惰游戏评论》（Lazy Game Reviews），我想这就是它的起点，但后来它变得越来越多，现在它只是 LGR。克林特是个很棒的人，我想他住在北卡罗来纳州。他致力于沉浸在这个时代的荣耀中，修复、重现和保护电脑历史、硬件和软件。YouTube 频道的内容都是开箱展示 1992 年的康柏 PC 或修复 Windows 3.1 机器。
Ben: That's awesome. 本：太棒了。
David: It's so good. He's got the best, most soothing voice in the world. He just seems like such a nice dude. He's dedicated to preserving the era of computing that we are talking about on this episode. It's so fun.
大卫：太好听了。他有世界上最好、最舒缓的声音。他看上去就是个好人。他致力于保护我们这一集所讨论的计算机时代。太有意思了
Ben: That's cool. It's really hard because all hardware fails eventually. At some point, there will be zero computers out there that can run Windows 3.1 that will boot. The only way to experience any of these things is through an emulator. I don't know. To be able to capture high-res footage and stuff of those machines while they still work, it's cool.
本：这很酷。这真的很难，因为所有硬件最终都会失效。到那时，能运行 Windows 3.1 并能启动的电脑将为零。体验这些东西的唯一方法就是通过模拟器。我不知道。能在这些机器还能工作的时候，捕捉到它们的高清画面和其他东西，这很酷。
David: Yup, super cool. My other carve out is Andre 3000 from Outkast. Do you know what Andre 3000 is up to these days?
大卫：是的，超酷。我的另一个偶像是 Outkast 乐队的安德烈-3000（Andre 3000）。你知道安德烈-3000 最近在忙什么吗？
Ben: Not at all. No.
本：完全没有。No.
David: Oh, my God. Okay. GQ just did a big interview with Andre 3000 because he just released a new album. This is not what you think. Andre, a lot of people say, consensus top five rappers of all time. Big Boi, his counterpart in Outkast, also great too, but they basically went out on top.
大卫：哦，天哪。好吧GQ》杂志刚刚对安德烈-3000（Andre 3000）进行了大篇幅采访，因为他刚刚发行了一张新专辑。这不是你想的那样。很多人都说，安德烈是史上前五的说唱歌手。Big Boi，他在Outkast的搭档，也很棒，但他们基本上都是名列前茅。
They did Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which was their double album. I think it came out 2004 maybe. I was a freshman in college.
他们制作了 Speakerboxxx/The Love Below，这是他们的双人专辑。我想大概是 2004 年发行的。当时我才上大一。
Ben: Hey Ya was on that, right?
本：嘿，雅也在那上面，对吗？
David: Hey Ya, yeah, everything was on that. They did one more album, and then they stopped. Andre would be featured on some other rappers tracks over the years, but didn't put out another album for close to 20 years. He just put out an album, and he just did this big video interview with GQ.
大卫：嘿，是的，所有东西都在那张专辑里。他们又出了一张专辑，然后就停了。多年来，安德烈也曾在其他说唱歌手的作品中出现过，但将近 20 年都没有再出专辑。他刚刚发行了一张专辑，还接受了《GQ》杂志的视频采访。
The album is a flute album. He got really into woodwind instruments. This has been his life. He reveals in the interview that he has put out other songs and other albums over the years under pseudonyms. This interview is so great. It's so unexpected because the interviewer keeps asking, you're Andre 3000, why'd you stop rapping? I don't have anything to say. Am I going to rap about getting a colonoscopy? This is where my life is right now. I never wanted to put out any work that wasn't both authentic and great. I didn't have anything to say anymore.
这张专辑是一张长笛专辑。他对木管乐器情有独钟。这就是他的生活。他在访谈中透露，多年来他还用笔名推出过其他歌曲和专辑。这次采访太棒了。这太出乎意料了，因为采访者一直在问，你是安德烈-3000，为什么不再说唱了？我没什么好说的。我会说唱结肠镜检查吗？这就是我现在的生活。我从来不想发表任何不真实、不伟大的作品我已经无话可说了。
Ben: Yup, I love that. If you ever heard the phrase, go out when the top row at the back of the auditorium is empty?
本：是的，我喜欢这句话。如果你听过这样一句话：当礼堂后面第一排空着的时候再出去？
David: Yeah, and that's what they did. Idlewild which was the album that came out after Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, was great, but it wasn't that, and yet that's exactly what he did.
大卫：是的，他们就是这么做的。在《Speakerboxxx/The Love Below》之后推出的专辑《Idlewild》很棒，但并不是那样，而这正是他所做的。
Ben: I think it's a Seinfeld quote. I might misattribute it. Drop a note in the Slack if I did, but I think it's a Seinfeld quote. "You let one row be empty, but you don't want to wait too long."
本：我想这是宋飞的名言。我可能说错了。但我觉得这是宋飞的名言"你让一排空着 但你不想等太久"
David: Yeah, it's the same thing as what Seinfeld did.
大卫：是的，这与《宋飞正传》的做法如出一辙。
Ben: Fascinating. 本：令人着迷。
David: Super fun. We'll link to it in the show notes.
大卫：超级有趣。我们会在节目注释中链接到它。
Ben: All right. I have three and they're all different. We've had a tradition on the recent episodes of doing multiple carveouts, and all of them are different genres. My product that I've really been loving, my physical product is the Meta Ray-Bans.
本：好的。我有三个，都不一样。在最近的节目中，我们有一个传统，就是做多个carveout，而且都是不同类型的。我非常喜欢的产品是 Meta Ray-Bans。
David: Yes. I was talking with the team at Meta about them. They're doing great.
大卫：是的。我和 Meta 的团队聊过他们。他们做得很好。
Ben: I bet. It's a pretty delightful product. I bought them because I was in Hawaii and with my four month old son. We were in the pool and stuff. My iPhone's waterproof, but I want a different angle, and I don't necessarily want to be holding my phone. It's very cool to be able to take pictures and record video of what I actually see to be able to relive that moment.
本：我猜也是。这是一款非常讨人喜欢的产品。我买它们是因为我当时在夏威夷，带着我四个月大的儿子。我们在游泳池之类的地方。我的 iPhone 是防水的，但我想要一个不同的角度，我不一定要拿着手机。能拍下我实际看到的东西并录制视频，重温那一刻，感觉非常酷。
I did a bunch of photos and video. We were on vacation that way, and then I discovered a thing that they're actually just awesome for. I think even better than AirPods is phone calls. The speakers are great. I wouldn't say necessarily they're the best for listening to music. The bass is obviously not as good as headphone bass. They project the sound down toward your ears. Unless you're standing really close to me, you can't really hear, or unless I have the volume all the way up.
我拍了很多照片和视频。我们就是这样度假的，然后我发现了一件事，它们其实非常棒。我觉得比 AirPods 更好的是打电话。扬声器很棒。我不敢说它一定是听音乐的最佳选择。低音显然不如耳机的低音。它们将声音向下投射到你的耳朵。除非你站得离我很近，否则你真的听不到，或者除非我把音量调到最大。
The microphones are great too. I was on a long walk on the beach with the wind whipping by on a call with my mom. I was like, does this sound really bad and distorted to you? She's like, not at all. I was really impressed and we'll definitely be using them for more calls. I think that style of headphone over the ear, there are many things that it's not good for.
麦克风也很棒。我和妈妈通话时，正在海滩上漫步，风呼呼地刮着。我问，你觉得这听起来很糟糕、很失真吗？她说，一点也不。我真的被打动了，我们肯定会在更多的通话中使用它们。我觉得这种耳机有很多不好的地方。
When you're on an airplane or something, you want to plug your ears, or if you're in a super loud environment. But unless you're in one of those environments, it's a nice break for your ears versus having AirPods jammed in. It's a great call experience. So they're great.
当你在飞机上或其他地方时，你会想塞住耳朵，或者如果你在一个超级嘈杂的环境中。但除非是在这样的环境中，否则戴上 AirPods 会让你的耳朵得到很好的休息。这是一种很棒的通话体验。所以它们很棒。
The battery's great. It's a four-hour battery, so it's a low key, more subtle, augmented reality experience. There's no heads up display. You don't see anything, but when you get a text message, it'll read it to you.
电池很棒。电池续航时间为四小时，是一种低调、更微妙的增强现实体验。没有抬头显示。你看不到任何东西，但当你收到短信时，它会读给你听。
David: There's more than just the camera system.
大卫：不仅仅是摄像系统。
Ben: Totally. It basically is you have AirPods in, but you don't actually have AirPods in, and you have a pretty good photo video camera on your face.
本：完全正确。它基本上就是你戴着 AirPods，但实际上你并没有戴 AirPods，你的脸上有一个相当不错的拍照摄像摄像头。
David: Does it have an indication when you're taking photo or recording video?
大卫：在拍照或录制视频时有指示吗？
Ben: Yes. It's not super bright. I'm not sure everybody really knows when you are, but if you know what to look for, you know if it's on or off.
本：是的。不是很亮。我不确定每个人都知道你什么时候亮，但如果你知道该注意什么，你就会知道是亮还是不亮。
David: Cool. 酷。
Ben: I've been loving it. I think it's a great product. I intend to wear them a lot this summer.
本：我一直很喜欢它。我认为这是一款很棒的产品。我打算今年夏天经常穿。
My second one is a thank you to a very, very good designer, Julia Rundberg, who worked with David and I on a recent project for some design work, some of which is actually featured as we speak on Apple podcasts. She did a bunch of other stuff with us, too, and she's really excellent.
第二件事是感谢一位非常非常优秀的设计师茱莉亚-伦德伯格（Julia Rundberg），她在最近的一个项目中与我和戴维合作，完成了一些设计工作，其中一些工作在我们说话的时候已经在苹果播客上播出了。她还和我们一起做了很多其他工作，她真的非常出色。
If you're looking for someone who's good at visual identity, branding, slide decks, websites, I've worked with her on a few projects before and she's just awesome, so I wanted to recommend her.
如果你想找一个擅长视觉识别、品牌、幻灯片、网站的人，我之前和她合作过几个项目，她非常棒，所以我想推荐她。
My third is this community spotlight to go all the way back to nine years ago Acquired. It was a listener who runs a company called Summer Health reached out and said, I heard you say that you have a baby. I've got this great company that is for new parents, and here's some info on it. I am now a paying member. It is an on-demand texting relationship with a pediatrician.
我的第三个问题是这个社区聚光灯，要追溯到九年前的《收购》。一位经营一家名为 Summer Health 公司的听众联系我说："我听你说过，你有一个孩子。我有一家很不错的公司，专门为新手父母服务，这里有一些相关信息。我现在是付费会员了。这是一种按需与儿科医生建立的短信关系。
David: Wow. This is crack for new parents.
哇这对初为父母的人来说简直是灾难。
Ben: It is crack for parents. It's crazy. You can hook up multiple phones, so my wife and I both have a direct line to like, something weird is going on, will you help me through it? We had a 2:00 AM wake up the other night. Everything ended up being fine, but as I'm sure any other new parents can relate to, you really want to make sure in the middle of the night, if you're not sure if everything's fine, you would like to figure out the right steps to make sure everything's fine. Having a virtual doctor on demand is totally amazing. Summer Health, if you are a new parent, we've been loving it.
本：这对父母来说是一种折磨。太疯狂了你可以连接多部手机，这样我和我妻子都可以直接联系，比如有什么奇怪的事情发生了，你能帮我解决吗？有天凌晨两点，我们被吵醒了。最后一切都很好，但我相信任何其他新手父母都会有同感，你真的想确保在半夜，如果你不确定是否一切正常，你会想出正确的步骤来确保一切正常。拥有一个随叫随到的虚拟医生是一件非常了不起的事情。Summer Health，如果你是新手父母，我们一直都很喜欢它。
David: Amazing. I'm going to have to subscribe. We've referred to this before. I think this will probably be the last episode that comes out while I'm still the parent of just one child. Number two coming soon. If it may take a little longer than usual for the next Microsoft episode to come out, our next six-hour opus on Microsoft, don't get too mad, that is the reason why.
大卫：太棒了。我要订阅。我们之前提到过这个。我想这可能会是最后一集了，因为我还是只有一个孩子的父母。第二集很快就会播出如果微软的下一集，也就是我们关于微软的下一部长达六小时的大作，可能要比平时多花一点时间才能播出，请不要太生气，这就是原因。
Ben: We have a lot of thank yous on this one, as you can imagine. People were really generous with their time, pointing us to different resources, explaining their recollection of history as it happened. Being in Seattle, active in the venture community here, both through PSL and David, you're in my shared history at Madrona, me working at Microsoft, a lot of good opportunities to learn what really happened from folks.
本：你可以想象，我们在这次采访中收到了很多感谢。大家都非常慷慨地抽出时间，给我们指点不同的资源，解释他们对历史的回忆。我在西雅图，通过 PSL 和戴维活跃在这里的风险投资社区，你是我在 Madrona 的共同经历，我在微软工作，有很多好机会从人们那里了解真实发生的事情。
A huge thank you to Mike Slade who spent the time with me. Mike spent two different stints at Microsoft and then at NeXT, and Apple in between.
非常感谢迈克-斯莱德（Mike Slade）与我共度时光。迈克先后在微软和 NeXT 以及苹果公司工作过。
David: Yeah, he worked for Steve at NeXT, right?
大卫：是的，他在 NeXT 为史蒂夫工作，对吗？
Ben: Yup. One of the few people in the world who both spent a ton of time with Steve, Bill, and worked closely with both of them. It's so great to get his perspective, especially about the early days of Office and the applications group. Very helpful. Similarly, Pete Higgins worked closely with Mike. Pete, I think, ran Excel for a long time and oversaw a lot of the different stuff in the applications group, and I believe also ran Office.
本：是的。他是世界上为数不多的与史蒂夫和比尔都共事过很长时间的人，而且还与他们两人密切合作。能从他的角度看问题真是太棒了，尤其是关于 Office 和应用软件小组的早期情况。非常有帮助。同样，皮特-希金斯（Pete Higgins）也与迈克密切合作。我认为皮特在很长一段时间内负责管理 Excel，并监督应用软件部门的许多不同工作，我相信他还负责管理 Office。
It's funny how many different people picked up the mantle over time as these things traded around groups. But frankly, I think that's a huge part of the Microsoft story. The company very quickly adapted and changed its structure depending on the current needs of technology, competitors, and et cetera.
有趣的是，随着时间的推移，有多少不同的人接过了衣钵，因为这些东西在不同的群体中进行交易。但坦率地说，我认为这是微软故事的一个重要部分。公司根据当前的技术需求、竞争对手等情况，迅速调整和改变了自己的结构。
Huge thanks to Tren Griffin, who is actually a lifelong Seattleite and close friend to the whole Gates family. Bill Gates Sr. was his mentor. I'm sure you've seen Tren's prolific tweets online about Microsoft history. Actually, Tren I think currently works at Microsoft in a strategy role. Thanks Tren for your help as well. David, I know you've got a bunch.
非常感谢特伦-格里芬（Tren Griffin），他其实是西雅图人，也是盖茨家族的密友。老比尔-盖茨是他的导师。我相信你一定在网上看到过特伦关于微软历史的大量推文。事实上，我认为特伦目前在微软从事战略工作。也谢谢特伦的帮助。大卫，我知道你有很多。
David: Yes. Also, speaking of former Microsoft folks who are very active and prolific on Twitter, we talked to Steven Sinofsky who had lots and lots of great perspective, and we can't wait to share more of it on the next episode.
大卫：是的。另外，说到在 Twitter 上非常活跃和多产的前微软员工，我们采访了史蒂文-辛诺夫斯基（Steven Sinofsky），他有很多非常好的观点，我们迫不及待地想在下一集中与大家分享。
Ben: I read 20 of Steven's Hardcore Software posts. When David and I were dividing up what belongs in what episode, I realized 19 of them belong in next episode. Steven, thank you for your early prep work for part two.
本：我读了史蒂文的 20 篇 "硬核软件 "文章。当大卫和我划分哪些属于哪一集时，我发现其中 19 篇属于下一集。史蒂文，感谢你为第二部分所做的前期准备工作。
David: So much fun internet stuff to talk with that Steven was right there for. I spoke with other people who ran windows, Terry Myerson who's a great friend and a supporter of the show. Terry ran Windows for quite a long time, right?
大卫：和史蒂文在互联网上聊了很多有趣的事情。我还和其他运营 Windows 的人聊了聊，特里-迈尔森（Terry Myerson）是我的好朋友，也是节目的支持者。特里管理 Windows 很长时间了，对吧？
Ben: Yeah. When I was there, Terry was EVP over Windows and Windows Phone.
本：是的。我在那里的时候，特里是负责 Windows 和 Windows Phone 的执行副总裁。
David: Terry was very generous. He was actually the first person that clued us into just how key Steve's role was in building the enterprise for Microsoft.
戴维：特里非常慷慨。实际上，他是第一个让我们意识到史蒂夫在微软企业建设中的关键作用的人。
Ben: And how different the go to market motions were for Windows and Office. I think Terry was the one that gave us the insight of Windows, especially in the early days. It was basically an OEM game, small group doing an OEM thing.
本：Windows 和 Office 的上市动议有何不同？我认为是特里让我们了解了 Windows，尤其是在早期。它基本上是一个 OEM 游戏，小集团在做 OEM 的事情。
David: There were 10 people selling that.
有 10 个人在卖这个。
Ben: And it's still I don't think a very big team even today.
本：即使到了今天，我认为它仍然不是一个很大的团队。
David: Speaking of strategy, Charles Fitzgerald, who's OG in Microsoft and a great platform strategy guy, prolific angel investor in Seattle now, it's fun chatting with him about the early days.
大卫：说到战略，查尔斯-菲茨杰拉德（Charles Fitzgerald）是微软的OG，也是一位出色的平台战略专家，现在是西雅图多产的天使投资人。
Ben: Obviously, Brad Silverberg who we mentioned a bunch. It was very fun seeing after spending some time talking with Brad and texting a lot with him to see the end of the Windows 95 announcement after Bill and Jay Leno are done for Brad to come out and finish it off. It's fun. It's like watching a time machine, watching that thing is really cool.
本：很明显，布拉德-西尔弗伯格（Brad Silverberg）我们已经提到过很多了。在与布拉德交谈了一段时间并发了很多短信后，看到比尔和杰伊-雷诺（Jay Leno）在 Windows 95 发布结束后，布拉德出来完成发布，感觉非常有趣。这很有趣。就像在看时光机一样，看那东西真的很酷。
Soma Somasegar at Madrona is someone that David and I love crossing paths with in the Seattle entrepreneurship ecosystem.
在西雅图的创业生态系统中，Madrona 公司的索玛-索玛塞格尔（Soma Somasegar）是我和戴维最喜欢接触的人。
David: Soma's just such a legend at Microsoft and in the industry too. There's so many people who Soma made their careers, plucked them out of school, saw something in them that maybe they didn't even see in themselves, and then they went on to be big executives or venture capitalists at Microsoft or elsewhere.
大卫：索玛是微软和业界的传奇人物。有很多人都是索玛成就了他们的事业，把他们从学校里拉出来，看到了他们身上的闪光点，而这些闪光点可能连他们自己都没有发现，后来他们成为了微软或其他公司的高管或风险投资家。
Ben: Lastly, huge thank you to Steve Ballmer. To be honest, it was a little bit surreal chatting and hearing about his experience over the whole thing. There's nobody including Bill Gates that bleeds Microsoft more than Steve Ballmer, and his just unabashed pure pride in what they built is infectious.
本：最后，非常感谢史蒂夫-鲍尔默。老实说，和他聊天并听他讲述整个过程的经历有点不真实。包括比尔-盖茨（Bill Gates）在内，没有人比史蒂夫-鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）更了解微软，他对微软的自豪感毫无掩饰，极具感染力。
David: Absolutely. It was so fun talking to Steve. He was so gracious with his time. It must have been just super special for you too. He was the CEO when you worked there.
大卫：当然。和史蒂夫聊天很有意思。他非常和蔼可亲。这对你来说也一定很特别。你在那里工作时，他是首席执行官。
Ben: Totally. To be frank, I had a very opposite strategy in mind, but I was a new hire out of college, individual contributor PM. It was still the Windows company then, and Steve was championing the Windows strategy, and I was a guy working on Office for iPad.
本：完全正确。坦率地说，我当时的战略与现在截然相反，但我是大学毕业的新员工，个人贡献者 PM。当时公司还是 Windows 公司，史蒂夫正在倡导 Windows 战略，而我只是一个为 iPad 开发 Office 的人。
With that, our huge thank you to JP Morgan Payments, ServiceNow, and Pilot. You can click the link in the show notes to learn more about any of those great partners of Acquired.
在此，我们衷心感谢 JP Morgan Payments、ServiceNow 和 Pilot。您可以点击节目注释中的链接，了解更多 Acquired 合作伙伴的信息。
If you like this episode, I was thinking of ones to recommend. It would be pretty funny to go listen to the forethought acquisition, given all of this context. It's a short episode when David and I were not good at this yet, and we did our very best. It is from our early days, and it covers overlapping source material.
如果你喜欢这一集，我正在想推荐哪一集。鉴于所有这些背景，去听听《深谋远虑的收购》会非常有趣。这是一集很短的节目，当时我和戴维还不擅长这个，我们已经尽力了。这是我们早期的作品，涵盖了重叠的原始资料。
David: Forethought was the company that made PowerPoint, Microsoft acquired, the first major acquisition for the company.
大卫：Forethought 是制作 PowerPoint 的公司，微软收购了它，这是该公司的第一次重大收购。
Ben: If you are new to the show and looking for great recent episodes that we've done, I highly recommend the Visa one as discussed earlier in the Network of Networks idea, if you haven't heard that, or perhaps the Nintendo or NVIDIA episodes, all of which will be right up your alley if you liked this one.
Ben：如果你是节目的新听众，想了解我们最近制作的精彩节目，我强烈推荐前面讨论的《网络的网络》（Network of Networks）中的《维萨》（Visa）一集，如果你还没听过《维萨》的话，或者《任天堂》（Nintendo）或《英伟达》（NVIDIA）一集，如果你喜欢这一集的话，这些节目都会很适合你。
David: If you're not at all interested in technology or software, but have somehow managed to get through all these hours with us, give a listen to our LVMH and Hermes episodes. Even if you do love technology and software, which obviously you do if you're still here, there's so much to learn from that world.
大卫：如果你对技术或软件一点都不感兴趣，但还是设法和我们一起度过了这么多小时，那就听听我们的《LVMH》和《爱马仕》吧。即使你热爱技术和软件，如果你还在这里的话，显然也是如此。
Ben: If you want to know every time an episode drops, get hints at the next episode topic, and get episode corrections and follow up, you can sign up at acquired.fm/email. Come discuss this episode with everyone else who's chatting about it at acquired.fm/slack.
本：如果你想在每集节目播出时都知道，得到下集主题的提示，得到节目的更正和跟进，你可以在 acquired.fm/email 注册。请访问 acquired.fm/slack，与其他正在聊天的人一起讨论这期节目。
If you're looking for another episode, go check out our second show, ACQ2, where we will have actually some very awesome tech CEO guests coming out over the next month or so that are absolutely worth listening to, especially if you're interested in semiconductor and tech history. If you want some sweet Acquired merch, go to acquire.fm/store.
如果你想听下一集，可以去看看我们的第二档节目 ACQ2，在接下来的一个月左右时间里，我们将邀请一些非常棒的科技 CEO 做客节目，绝对值得一听，尤其是如果你对半导体和科技史感兴趣的话。如果你想要一些精美的 Acquired 商品，请访问 acquire.fm/store。
With that, listeners, we'll see you next time.
听众朋友们，我们下次再见。
David: We'll see you next time.
我们下次再见。
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