When Apple developed the iMac, Jobs drove with Jony Ive to show it to the folks at Pixar. He felt that the machine had the spunky personality that would appeal to the creators of Buzz Lightyear and Woody, and he loved the fact that Ive and John Lasseter shared the talent to connect art with technology in a playful way.
在苹果开发出了iMac之后，乔布斯和乔尼·艾弗开车去了皮克斯，把iMac展示给那儿的伙伴们。乔布斯认为这款活力十足的机器能够吸引“巴斯光年”和“伍迪”的创造者，而且他很髙兴看到艾弗和约翰·拉塞特都具备这种把艺术和科技有趣结合的天赋。
Pixar was a haven where Jobs could escape the intensity in Cupertino. At Apple, the managers were often excitable and exhausted, Jobs tended to be volatile, and people felt nervous about where they stood with him. At Pixar, the storytellers and illustrators seemed more serene and behaved more gently, both with each other and even with Jobs. In other words, the tone at each place was set at the top, by Jobs at Apple, but by Lasseter at Pixar.
皮克斯就像一座避风港，得以让乔布斯排解在库比蒂诺的压力。在苹果，管理人贾时而兴奋时而疲累，乔布斯情绪多变，经常把大家弄得不知所措。在皮克斯，编剧和插画师无论彼此合作还是和乔布斯在一起，都更加平和，举止行为也更加和善。换句话说，领导者的性格奠定了整个公司的风格，就如同苹果带着乔布斯的影子，而皮克斯也深受拉塞特的影响。
Jobs reveled in the earnest playfulness of moviemaking and got passionate about the algorithms that enabled such magic as allowing computer-generated raindrops to refract sunbeams or blades of grass to wave in the wind. But he was able to restrain himself from trying to control the creative process. It was at Pixar that he learned to let other creative people flourish and take the lead. Largely it was because he loved Lasseter, a gentle artist who, like Ive, brought out the best in Jobs.
乔布斯陶醉于电影制作过程的趣味性，并深深着迷于魔法般的计算机特技，比如计算机模拟制作雨滴折射出阳光，或青草叶在微风吹拂下晃动。同时他也克制自己不要去控制创意过程。在皮克斯，他懂得了要给创意人员天马行空的自由空间。这在很大程度上是因为，他很形：赏拉塞特这样一位彬彬有礼的艺术家，像艾弗一样，能激发出自己最好的一面。
Jobs’s main role at Pixar was deal making, in which his natural intensity was an asset. Soon after the release of Toy Story, he clashed with Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had left Disney in the summer of 1994 and joined with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to start DreamWorks SKG. Jobs believed that his Pixar team had told Katzenberg, while he was still at Disney, about its proposed second movie, A Bug’s Life, and that he had then stolen the idea of an animated insect movie when he decided to produce Antz at DreamWorks. “When Jeffrey was still running Disney animation, we pitched him on A Bug’s Life,” Jobs said. “In sixty years of animation history, nobody had thought of doing an animated movie about insects, until Lasseter. It was one of his brilliant creative sparks. And Jeffrey left and went to DreamWorks and all of a sudden had this idea for an animated movie about—Oh!—insects. And he pretended he’d never heard the pitch. He lied. He lied through his teeth.”
在皮克斯，乔布斯的主要任务是“谈生意”，他与生俱来的强硬态度绝对是个优势。在《玩具总动员》发行上映后不久，他就和杰弗里·卡曾伯格谈崩了。卡曾伯格在1994年夏天离开迪士尼，加入了史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格和戴维·格芬的团队并成立了新的工作室——梦工厂。乔布斯认为，当卡曾伯格还在迪士尼工作时，皮克斯团队曾和他讨论过关于第二部电影《虫虫危机》（ABug-sLife）的内容，但卡曾伯格盗取了这个昆虫卡通动画电影的创意，在梦工厂制作了《小蚁雄兵》（Antz）。乔布斯说：“当杰弗里还在运营迪士尼的动画业务时，我们就和他讲过《虫虫危机》的创意。在过去60年的动画片历史中，还没有人想过以昆虫为角色制作动画电影，拉塞特是第一人。这是他最精彩的创意之一。之后杰弗里离开了迪士尼，加入了梦工厂，他‘一眨眼’就想到了一个动画电影的主题——哦！昆虫。他假装好像从没听过这个创意似的。他是个骟子，满嘴谎话。”
Actually, not. The real story is a bit more interesting. Katzenberg never heard the Bug’s Life pitch while at Disney. But after he left for DreamWorks, he stayed in touch with Lasseter, occasionally pinging him with one of his typical “Hey buddy, how you doing just checking in” quick phone calls. So when Lasseter happened to be at the Technicolor facility on the Universal lot, where DreamWorks was also located, he called Katzenberg and dropped by with a couple of colleagues. When Katzenberg asked what they were doing next, Lasseter told him. “We described to him A Bug’s Life, with an ant as the main character, and told him the whole story of him organizing the other ants and enlisting a group of circus performer insects to fight off the grasshoppers,” Lasseter recalled. “I should have been wary. Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released.”
其实这并不是事实。真实的情况更加有趣。卡曾伯格在迪士尼时，从来没有听过关于《虫虫危机》的创意。但是在离开迪士尼去了梦工厂之后，卡曾伯格仍然和拉塞特保持着联系，而且还时不时地给他打电话，不过大都是伙计！最近怎样，随便问问”之类的对话。所以，当拉塞特去环球影业旗下的特艺公司（Technicolor）时，路过梦工厂，他打电话给卡曾伯格，约出来见一面，在场的还有拉塞特的几个同事。卡曾伯格问他们下一步有些什么计划，拉塞特告诉了他。“我们向他描述了《虫虫危机》，以一个蚂蚁为主要角色，而且还给他讲了整个故事，主角组织其他蚂蚁并在一群昆虫马戏团演员的帮助下，一起打败了蚱蜢。”拉塞特回忆起那时的情景：“我当时应该警觉一些的。杰弗里还一直在问我打算何时发行。”
Lasseter began to get worried when, in early 1996, he heard rumors that DreamWorks might be making its own computer-animated movie about ants. He called Katzenberg and asked him point-blank. Katzenberg hemmed, hawed, and asked where Lasseter had heard that. Lasseter asked again, and Katzenberg admitted it was true. “How could you?” yelled Lasseter, who very rarely raised his voice.
1996年初，拉塞特开始担心了。他听到一些传言说梦工厂正在制作一部关于妈蚁的动画电影。他打电话给卡曾伯格，直截了当地质问他。卡曾伯格干咳了几声，闪烁其词了几句，然后问他是从哪里听到的。拉塞特又问了一次，这次卡曾伯格承认了。一向彬彬有礼的拉塞特大喊道：“你怎么能这样？”
“We had the idea long ago,” said Katzenberg, who explained that it had been pitched to him by a development director at DreamWorks.
“I don’t believe you,” Lasseter replied.
Katzenberg conceded that he had sped up Antz as a way to counter his former colleagues at Disney. DreamWorks’ first major picture was to be Prince of Egypt, which was scheduled to be released for Thanksgiving 1998, and he was appalled when he heard that Disney was planning to release Pixar’s A Bug’s Life that same weekend. So he had rushed Antz into production to force Disney to change the release date of A Bug’s Life.
卡曾伯格说：“我们很久以前就想到这个创意了。”并还解释说，这是梦工厂的业务发展总监和他提起的。
“我不相信你。”拉塞特回答。
卡曾伯格承认，他后来加速了《小蚁雄兵》的制作是为了和迪士尼的前同事竞争。梦工厂的第一部主要作品是《埃及王子》（ThePrinceofEgypt），计划在1998年感恩节期间上映。后来他听说迪士尼也计划在同一个周末首映皮克斯的《虫虫危机》，所以他加快了《小蚁雄兵》的进度，以迫使迪士尼改变《虫虫危机》的首映日期。
“Fuck you,” replied Lasseter, who did not normally use such language. He didn’t speak to Katzenberg for another thirteen years.
“去你妈的！”拉塞特愤怒地说道，他平时几乎没说过脏话。在之后的13年里，拉塞特没有再和卡曾伯格说过一句话。
Jobs was furious, and he was far more practiced than Lasseter at giving vent to his emotions. He called Katzenberg and started yelling. Katzenberg made an offer: He would delay production of Antz if Jobs and Disney would move A Bug’s Life so that it didn’t compete with Prince of Egypt. “It was a blatant extortion attempt, and I didn’t go for it,” Jobs recalled. He told Katzenberg there was nothing he could do to make Disney change the release date.
乔布斯怒不可遏，在发泄情绪这方面，他显然比拉塞特更放得开。他打通了卡曾伯格的电话，破口大骂。卡曾伯格提出了一个条件：如果迪士尼改变《虫虫危机》的首映日期，不和《埃及王子》竞争的话，他们就可以放慢《小蚁雄兵》的制作。乔布斯回忆道：“这是个无耻的敲诈，我不接受。”他告诉卡曾伯格,他无能为力，无法让迪士尼改变首映日期。
“Of course you can,” Katzenberg replied. “You can move mountains. You taught me how!” He said that when Pixar was almost bankrupt, he had come to its rescue by giving it the deal to do Toy Story. “I was the one guy there for you back then, and now you’re allowing them to use you to screw me.” He suggested that if Jobs wanted to, he could simply slow down production on A Bug’s Life without telling Disney. If he did, Katzenberg said, he would put Antz on hold. “Don’t even go there,” Jobs replied.
卡曾伯格回答：“你当然做得到。你连大山都可以搬动。你还教过我该怎么做！”他说，当皮克斯濒临破产时，是他给《玩具总动员》投了钱才拯救了整个公司。“我曾经这样支持你们，可如今你却帮他们来反咬我一口。”他认为，如果乔布斯愿意，完全可以放缓《虫虫危机》的制作而不被迪士尼知道。如果这样，卡曾伯格说他也会暂停《小蚁雄兵》的制作。“我根本不想谈。”乔布斯回答。
Katzenberg had a valid gripe. It was clear that Eisner and Disney were using the Pixar movie to get back at him for leaving Disney and starting a rival animation studio. “Prince of Egypt was the first thing we were making, and they scheduled something for our announced release date just to be hostile,” he said. “My view was like that of the Lion King, that if you stick your hand in my cage and paw me, watch out.”
卡曾伯格的抱怨是有理由的。显然，艾斯纳和迪士尼打算用皮克斯的新电影来报复卡曾伯格离开迪士尼并创办同类动画工作室的行为。“《埃及王子》是我们制作的第一部作品，在我们宣布了首映日期之后，他们的安排很明显是带有敌意的。”卡曾伯格说，“我的看法和《狮子王》里说的很相似——如果你把爪子伸到我的笼子里来抓我，等着瞧。”
No one backed down, and the rival ant movies provoked a press frenzy. Disney tried to keep Jobs quiet, on the theory that playing up the rivalry would serve to help Antz, but he was a man not easily muzzled. “The bad guys rarely win,” he told the Los Angeles Times. In response, DreamWorks’ savvy marketing maven, Terry Press, suggested, “Steve Jobs should take a pill.”
双方都没有妥协，这场“蚂蚁电影之战”也在媒体上炒得沸沸扬扬。迪士尼希望乔布斯保持安静，因为理论上看，过分夸大对手的不是，反而有益于《小蚁雄兵》的曝光。但是乔布斯没那么轻易被说服。“坏人们几乎要打赢了。”他告诉《洛杉矶时报》。作为反击，梦工厂精明的营销专家特里·普莱斯（TerryPress）说：“史蒂夫·乔布斯该吃药了。”
Antz was released at the beginning of October 1998. It was not a bad movie. Woody Allen voiced the part of a neurotic ant living in a conformist society who yearns to express his individualism. “This is the kind of Woody Allen comedy Woody Allen no longer makes,” Time wrote. It grossed a respectable $91 million domestically and $172 million worldwide.
《小蚁雄兵》在1998年10月初首映了。这是一部不错的电影，伍迪·艾伦（WoodyAllen）还为这个生活在保守社会、渴望表达个人主义观点的神经质妈蚁配了音。《时代》杂志报道称：“这是伍迪·艾伦不再制作的一种‘伍迪·艾伦式’喜剧。”该片在美国获得高达9100万美元的票房，全球票房达到1.72亿美元。
A Bug’s Life came out six weeks later, as planned. It had a more epic plot, which reversed Aesop’s tale of “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” plus a greater technical virtuosity, which allowed such startling details as the view of grass from a bug’s vantage point. Time was much more effusive about it. “Its design work is so stellar—a wide-screen Eden of leaves and labyrinths populated by dozens of ugly, buggy, cuddly cutups—that it makes the DreamWorks film seem, by comparison, like radio,” wrote Richard Corliss. It did twice as well as Antz at the box office, grossing $163 million domestically and $363 million worldwide. (It also beat Prince of Egypt.)
按照计划，《虫虫危机》将于6周后上映。这部动画电影更具史诗情节，灵感来自伊索寓言《妈蚁与蚱蜢》的故事，并加入了更加精彩的电脑特技表现细节，使得银幕上从昆虫的视角看到的青草让人震撼。《时代》杂志的评论家理查德·科里斯对这些特效的喜爱之情溢于言表：“电影的设计做得太精彩了——满银幕的树叶和迷宫，如同伊甸园，各种丑陋的、毛茸茸的、可爱又滑稽的角色——相比之下，梦工厂的电影就像收音机那样缺乏表现力。”《虫虫危机》的票房收入是《小蚁雄兵》的两倍，在美国本土达1.63亿美元，全球票房3.63亿美元（也一举打败了《埃及王子》）。
A few years later Katzenberg ran into Jobs and tried to smooth things over. He insisted that he had never heard the pitch for A Bug’s Life while at Disney; if he had, his settlement with Disney would have given him a share of the profits, so it’s not something he would lie about. Jobs laughed, and accepted as much. “I asked you to move your release date, and you wouldn’t, so you can’t be mad at me for protecting my child,” Katzenberg told him. He recalled that Jobs “got really calm and Zen-like” and said he understood. But Jobs later said that he never really forgave Katzenberg:
几年后，卡曾伯格碰到乔布斯，试图重修旧好。卡曾伯格坚持说自己在迪士尼时从没听过关于《虫虫危机》的内容；如果听过的话，按照他和迪士尼的协议，他还能从利润中得到一些分成，所以他没有撒谎。乔布斯笑了，接受了这个说法。卡曾伯格说：“我请你更改首映日期，你不同意，所以你也不能反对我保护自己的‘孩子’。”他回忆，乔布斯当时“变得非常冷静，像个禅师”，并表示理解。但是乔布斯事后说，他从来没有真正原谅过卡曾伯格：
Our film toasted his at the box office. Did that feel good? No, it still felt awful, because people started saying how everyone in Hollywood was doing insect movies. He took the brilliant originality away from John, and that can never be replaced. That’s unconscionable, so I’ve never trusted him, even after he tried to make amends. He came up to me after he was successful with Shrek and said, “I’m a changed man, I’m finally at peace with myself,” and all this crap. And it was like, give me a break, Jeffrey.
For his part, Katzenberg was much more gracious. He considered Jobs one of the “true geniuses in the world,” and he learned to respect him despite their volatile dealings.
我们的电影票房胜过了他的。这种感觉好吗？不，我们仍然觉得很糟糕，因为人们开始谈论好莱坞人人都在做昆虫电影。他从约翰那里窃取了精彩的原创点子，而这是永远不能被取代的。这样做太没良心了，所以我永远不再相信他，即使事后他试图补偿也没用。在他的《怪物史莱克》（Shrek）获得成功后，他来找我，和我说：“我变了，我现在完全平靜下来了。”这些都是胡扯。那就像是在说“饶了我吧，杰弗里”。他工作很努力，但是我不认同他的道德观。好莱坞的人经常撒谎，这是个奇怪的现象。他们撒说，是因为在这一行不用对自己的行为负贲任。完全没有。所以，他们都可以侥幸过关。
More important than beating Antz was showing that Pixar was not a one-hit wonder. A Bug’s Life grossed as much as Toy Story had, proving that the first success was not a fluke. “There’s a classic thing in business, which is the second-product syndrome,” Jobs later said. It comes from not understanding what made your first product so successful. “I lived through that at Apple. My feeling was, if we got through our second film, we’d make it.”
比打败《小蚁雄兵》更重要的，也是比这场战争更刺激的是，皮克斯证明了自己并不是昙花一现的奇迹。《虫虫危机》赚得的收入和《玩具总动员》相当，证明了第一次成功并不是偶然。乔布斯之后说：“在商业界有个很经典的理论，叫做‘第二个产品综合症’。”症结在于对第一个产品的成功缺乏理解。“我在苹果就对此深有体会。我的感觉是，如果做成了第二部电影，我们就成功了。”
Toy Story 2, which came out in November 1999, was even bigger, with a $485 million gross worldwide. Given that Pixar’s success was now assured, it was time to start building a showcase headquarters. Jobs and the Pixar facilities team found an abandoned Del Monte fruit cannery in Emeryville, an industrial neighborhood between Berkeley and Oakland, just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. They tore it down, and Jobs commissioned Peter Bohlin, the architect of the Apple stores, to design a new building for the sixteen-acre plot.
《玩具总动员2》在1999年11月上映，比第一部还要轰动，在美国获得2.46亿美元的票房，全球票房达到4,85亿美元。既然皮克斯的成功已经得到了认可，那么是时候盖一栋可以展示形象的总部大楼了。乔布斯和皮克斯的设施管理团队在爱莫利维尔市找到了德尔蒙食品公司（DelMonte）—个废弃的水果罐头厂，这是一个位于伯克利和奥克兰之间的工业区，就在旧金山海湾大桥的另一端。他们拆除了旧工厂,乔布斯委托苹果零售店的建筑师彼得·伯林（PeterBohliti）为这块16英由的区域设计一栋新大楼。
Jobs obsessed over every aspect of the new building, from the overall concept to the tiniest detail regarding materials and construction. “Steve had this firm belief that the right kind of building can do great things for a culture,” said Pixar’s president Ed Catmull. Jobs controlled the creation of the building as if he were a director sweating each scene of a film. “The Pixar building was Steve’s own movie,” Lasseter said.
乔布斯关注着新大楼的每一个方面，从整体设计理念到建材和建造方式这些最细枝末节的地方。皮克斯总裁埃德·卡特穆尔说；“史蒂夫坚信，设计对路的建筑物会对文化起到积极的作用。”乔布斯控制着大楼的建造，就像导演精心操控电影的每一个场景。拉塞特说：“皮克斯大楼是史蒂夫自己的电影。”
Lasseter had originally wanted a traditional Hollywood studio, with separate buildings for various projects and bungalows for development teams. But the Disney folks said they didn’t like their new campus because the teams felt isolated, and Jobs agreed. In fact he decided they should go to the other extreme: one huge building around a central atrium designed to encourage random encounters.
拉塞特最初的想法，是建造一个传统样式的好莱坞工作室——各自独立的大楼为不同的项目服务，开发团队在单层建筑里办公。但是迪士尼的同事说，他们并不喜欢这样的新园区，因为团队之间有疏离感，乔布斯认同这个看法。实际上，他走向了另一个极端——一栋庞大的建筑围绕着中庭，为员工们的“偶遇”制造机会。
Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings. “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,” he said. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.”
虽然生活在数字世界里，又或许因为他太了解数字生活带来的孤立感，乔布斯非常推崇面对面的交谈。他说：“在我们这个网络时代，有一种想法认为，创意通过邮件和网络iChat聊天就可以被开发出来。这是个疯狂的想法。创意产生于自发的谈话和随机的讨论中。比如你偶遇某个人，你问最近在做些什么，然后你说‘哇’，很快你就会蹦出各种想法。”
So he had the Pixar building designed to promote encounters and unplanned collaborations. “If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” The front doors and main stairs and corridors all led to the atrium, the café and the mailboxes were there, the conference rooms had windows that looked out onto it, and the six-hundred-seat theater and two smaller screening rooms all spilled into it. “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” Lasseter recalled. “I kept running into people I hadn’t seen for months. I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.”
所以，乔布斯把皮克斯的大搂设计成了一个推崇“偶遇”和“计划外合作”的场所。他说：“如果一栋大楼没有这样的功能，你就会失去很多由于偶遇而产生的创意和奇想。所以我们设计这栋大楼的目的，是希望员工们走出办公室，多到中央中庭来走走，因为他们会遇到一些平时见不到的人。”大楼的前门、主楼梯和走廊都能通到中庭，那里有咖啡厅和信箱，几间能透过玻璃窗看到中庭的会议室，还有一座能容纳600人的剧场，以及两个小放映室。拉塞特回忆道：“史蒂夫的理论从第一天起就见效了。我接连遇见一些几个月都没碰见的人。我还从来没见过哪座大楼的设计能如此鼓励合作和激发创意。”
Jobs even went so far as to decree that there be only two huge bathrooms in the building, one for each gender, connected to the atrium. “He felt that very, very strongly,” recalled Pam Kerwin, Pixar’s general manager. “Some of us felt that was going too far. One pregnant woman said she shouldn’t be forced to walk for ten minutes just to go to the bathroom, and that led to a big fight.” It was one of the few times that Lasseter disagreed with Jobs. They reached a compromise: there would be two sets of bathrooms on either side of the atrium on both of the two floors.
乔布斯更进一步，决定在整栋大楼里只建造两个大的卫生间，一男一女，和中庭连接在一起。皮克斯的总经理帕姆·克尔温回忆道：“他一定要坚持这么做。但我们有些人觉得这有点儿夸张了。有个怀孕的员工说她不能为了上厕所还要走上10分钟的路。这件事最后还引起了很大的争议。”这大概是拉塞特极少数不认同乔布斯的方面之一。最后他们妥协的结果是：在两层中庭的两边各设立两个男女卫生间。
Because the building’s steel beams were going to be visible, Jobs pored over samples from manufacturers across the country to see which had the best color and texture. He chose a mill in Arkansas, told it to blast the steel to a pure color, and made sure the truckers used caution not to nick any of it. He also insisted that all the beams be bolted together, not welded. “We sandblasted the steel and clear-coated it, so you can actually see what it’s like,” he recalled. “When the steelworkers were putting up the beams, they would bring their families on the weekend to show them.”
根据设计，由于大楼的钢筋要外露出来，为了挑选出颜色和材质最好的，乔布斯看遍了美国各地所有制造商提供的钢筋样本。他最后选择了阿肯色州的一家工厂，让他们把钢材喷纯净的颜色，并确保卡车司机在运输中丝毫不能磕碰。他还坚持要把所有的钢筋用螺栓固定，而不是焊接。他回忆道：“我们喷沙处理了钢材，并在表面刷了透明涂层，所以人们能看到钢筋的本来面目。建筑工人搭建的时候，他们可以让家人在周末过来参观。”
The wackiest piece of serendipity was “The Love Lounge.” One of the animators found a small door on the back wall when he moved into his office. It opened to a low corridor that you could crawl through to a room clad in sheet metal that provided access to the air-conditioning valves. He and his colleagues commandeered the secret room, festooned it with Christmas lights and lava lamps, and furnished it with benches upholstered in animal prints, tasseled pillows, a fold-up cocktail table, liquor bottles, bar equipment, and napkins that read “The Love Lounge.” A video camera installed in the corridor allowed occupants to monitor who might be approaching.
整栋建筑最古怪的地方就是“爱的酒吧”（TheLoveLounge）。一个动画制作人在搬进自己的办公室之后，在后墙发现了一个小门。门外是一条低矮的过道，可以由此爬到一个金属板覆盖的房间，里面是一些中央空调的阀门。这个制作人和他的同事“私吞”了这个秘密房间，用圣诞彩灯和熔岩灯装饰了一下，摆放了一些动物印花图案的长凳、几个流苏抱枕、一张可折叠的鸡尾酒桌、几瓶烈酒、一套吧台设施，还有印着“爱的酒吧”的餐巾纸。他们还在走廊里安装了一个摄像头，以便查看外面的动静。
Lasseter and Jobs brought important visitors there and had them sign the wall. The signatures include Michael Eisner, Roy Disney, Tim Allen, and Randy Newman. Jobs loved it, but since he wasn’t a drinker he sometimes referred to it as the Meditation Room. It reminded him, he said, of the one that he and Daniel Kottke had at Reed, but without the acid.
拉塞特和乔布斯带来一些重要人物，并邀请他们在“爱的酒吧”墙上签名。签名者包括迈克尔·艾斯纳、罗伊·迪士尼、蒂姆·艾伦（TimAlien），以及兰迪·纽曼。乔布斯很喜欢这间屋子，但是因为他不怎么喝酒，所以他有时也把它叫做“禅房”。他说，这个房间让他回想起他和丹尼尔·科特基在里德大学时期的经历，但与毒品无关。
In testimony before a Senate committee in February 2002, Michael Eisner blasted the ads that Jobs had created for Apple’s iTunes. “There are computer companies that have full-page ads and billboards that say: Rip, mix, burn,” he declared. “In other words, they can create a theft and distribute it to all their friends if they buy this particular computer.”
2002年2月，在呈给参议院委员会的一份声明里，迈克尔·艾斯纳严厉批评了乔布斯为苹果iTunes制作的广告：“某些计算机公司在整版的广告和广告牌上写着‘扒歌、混制、刻录’。换句话说，所有买这款计算机的人可以去偷窃，并把这个成果散布给他们的朋友。”
This was not a smart comment. It misunderstood the meaning of “rip” and assumed it involved ripping someone off, rather than importing files from a CD to a computer. More significantly, it truly pissed off Jobs, as Eisner should have known. That too was not smart. Pixar had recently released the fourth movie in its Disney deal, Monsters, Inc., which turned out to be the most successful of them all, with $525 million in worldwide gross. Disney’s Pixar deal was again coming up for renewal, and Eisner had not made it easier by publicly poking a stick at his partner’s eye. Jobs was so incredulous he called a Disney executive to vent: “Do you know what Michael just did to me?”
这并不是个髙明的评论。它误读了“扒歌”（Rip）的意思，认为广告中有引导大众“偷窃他人财物”（Ripsomeoneoff）的嫌疑，其实这是指从CD上把文件输入计算机。更严重的是，这条消息彻底把乔布斯激怒了，艾斯纳应该预计到这一点——这仍然不高明。皮克斯最近刚推出了与迪士尼合作的第四部电影《怪物公司》（MonstersInc.）并一举超过前三部，全球票房达到5.25亿美元。到了迪士尼和皮克斯即将续约的日子，艾斯纳并没有把事情变得更简单，还在参议院上公开拆台。乔布斯觉得难以置信，他打电话给迪士尼的一位高层发泄不满：“你们知道迈克尔对我做了什么吗？”
Eisner and Jobs came from different backgrounds and opposite coasts, but they were similar in being strong-willed and without much inclination to find compromises. They both had a passion for making good products, which often meant micromanaging details and not sugarcoating their criticisms. Watching Eisner take repeated rides on the Wildlife Express train through Disney World’s Animal Kingdom and coming up with smart ways to improve the customer experience was like watching Jobs play with the interface of an iPod and find ways it could be simplified. Watching them manage people was a less edifying experience.
艾斯纳和乔布斯分别来自东西海岸，生活背景不同。但是两人有一个共词点，那就是拥有强大的意志力，并且不愿意妥协。他们都热衷制造好的产品，而这也通常意味着苛求细节，批评起人来丝毫没有温言软语。为了研究出更方便的路线，艾斯纳曾经一遍一遍地搭乘迪士尼乐园动物王国的“野生动物号”（WildlifeExpress）,以提升游客体验；这和乔布斯不断研究iPod界面、希望把界面做得更加简洁的做法极为相似。然而，两人在管理人的方面的确都不怎么在行。
Both were better at pushing people than being pushed, which led to an unpleasant atmosphere when they started trying to do it to each other. In a disagreement, they tended to assert that the other party was lying. In addition, neither Eisner nor Jobs seemed to believe that he could learn anything from the other; nor would it have occurred to either even to fake a bit of deference by pretending to have anything to learn. Jobs put the onus on Eisner:
他们两个都擅长逼迫别人，却不喜欢被逼迫，所以当彼此试图去威慑对方时，气氛就变得很不愉快。遇到任何意见不合的情况，就倾向于认为对方在撒谎。此外，艾斯纳和乔布斯都不认为自己能从对方那里学到什么，而且他们谁也不可能先低头，哪怕是装作自己不懂而需要讨教。乔布斯把过失全部推到了艾斯纳身上：
The worst thing, to my mind, was that Pixar had successfully reinvented Disney’s business, turning out great films one after the other while Disney turned out flop after flop. You would think the CEO of Disney would be curious how Pixar was doing that. But during the twenty-year relationship, he visited Pixar for a total of about two and a half hours, only to give little congratulatory speeches. He was never curious. I was amazed. Curiosity is very important.
That was overly harsh. Eisner had been up to Pixar a bit more than that, including visits when Jobs wasn’t with him. But it was true that he showed little curiosity about the artistry or technology at the studio. Jobs likewise didn’t spend much time trying to learn from Disney’s management.
我认为最糟糕的事情，就是皮克斯成功地让迪士尼重现活力，当迪士尼每况愈下时，皮克斯就一部接一部地推出精彩的电影。你可能会想，迪士尼的那位CEO会很好奇皮克斯是怎么做到这些的。但是在我们长达20年的合作中，他来皮克斯拜访的时间累计只有两个半小时，只是发表几句祝贺的话。他从来都没好奇过。我十分震惊。好奇心是很重要的。
这话说得严苛了一点儿，艾斯纳拜访皮克斯的时间不止这么短，有几次来的时候乔布斯也不在场。但是艾斯纳的确对皮克斯在艺术或技术方面的造诣没什么好奇心。同样，乔布斯也没有花什么时间学习迪士尼的管理方法。
The open sniping between Jobs and Eisner began in the summer of 2002. Jobs had always admired the creative spirit of the great Walt Disney, especially because he had nurtured a company to last for generations. He viewed Walt’s nephew Roy as an embodiment of this historic legacy and spirit. Roy was still on the Disney board, despite his own growing estrangement from Eisner, and Jobs let him know that he would not renew the Pixar-Disney deal as long as Eisner was still the CEO.
乔布斯和艾斯纳正式开战是在2002年夏天。乔布斯一直都很欣赏沃尔特·迪士尼的创意精神，主要是因为他“培育”了一家能够沿袭几代人的公司。乔布斯把沃尔特的侄子罗伊看做是这一历史传承和精神的化身。罗伊依然在迪士尼的董事会里，虽然他和艾斯纳的矛盾也越来越大。乔布斯对罗伊说，在艾斯纳任职CEO期间，皮克斯不会和迪士尼续约。
Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, his close associate on the Disney board, began warning other directors about the Pixar problem. That prompted Eisner to send the board an intemperate email in late August 2002. He was confident that Pixar would eventually renew its deal, he said, partly because Disney had rights to the Pixar movies and characters that had been made thus far. Plus, he said, Disney would be in a better negotiating position in a year, after Pixar finished Finding Nemo. “Yesterday we saw for the second time the new Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, that comes out next May,” he wrote. “This will be a reality check for those guys. It’s okay, but nowhere near as good as their previous films. Of course they think it is great.” There were two major problems with this email: It leaked to the Los Angeles Times, provoking Jobs to go ballistic, and Eisner’s assessment of the movie was wrong, very wrong.
罗伊·迪士尼和他在董事会里的一位亲密同伴斯坦利·高德（StanleyGold）开始提醒其他董事关于皮克斯柜绝续约的事情。这促使了艾斯纳在2002年8月下旬向董事会所有成员发了一封措辞激烈的邮件，他坚信皮克斯最终会和迪士尼续约，一部分原因是因为迪士尼拥有皮克斯迄今为止制作的电影和动画人物的版杈。他还补充，在皮克斯制作完《海底总动员》（FindingNemo）之后，迪士尼将在谈判中居于更有利的地位。他写道：“昨天我们第二次看了皮克斯将在明年5月发布的新电影《海底总动员》。这将是对皮克斯这些工作人员的真实考验。这部电影虽然不错，但是没有他们之前的电影好。当然，他们肯定自认为很棒。”这封邮件出现了两个主要问题：第一，邮件透露给了《洛杉矶时报》，这让乔布斯暴跳如雷；第二，艾斯纳预测错了，大错特错。
Finding Nemo became Pixar’s (and Disney’s) biggest hit thus far. It easily beat out The Lion King to become, for the time being, the most successful animated movie in history. It grossed $340 million domestically and $868 million worldwide. Until 2010 it was also the most popular DVD of all time, with forty million copies sold, and spawned some of the most popular rides at Disney theme parks. In addition, it was a richly textured, subtle, and deeply beautiful artistic achievement that won the Oscar for best animated feature. “I liked the film because it was about taking risks and learning to let those you love take risks,” Jobs said. Its success added $183 million to Pixar’s cash reserves, giving it a hefty war chest of $521 million for the final showdown with Disney.
《海底总动员》成为了皮克斯（也是迪士尼）到当时为止最火爆的作品，一举打败《狮子王》，成为了历史上最成功的动画电影，美国国内票房达到3.4亿美元，全球票房髙达8.68亿美元。截至2010年，《海底总动员》的DVD也成为史上最畅销的DVD，累计售出了4000万张。该片更是成为迪士尼乐园中最受欢迎的主题之一。此外，《海底总动员》的画面质感丰富细腻，在艺术方面成就非凡，还获得了奥斯卡最佳动画长片奖。乔布斯说：“我喜欢这部电影，因为这是关于冒险，以及学会让你爱的人也去冒险的故事。”《海底总动员》的成功为皮克斯的现金储备增加了1.83亿美元，并为和迪士尼的最终摊牌准备了5.21亿美元的“战争资本”。
Shortly after Finding Nemo was finished, Jobs made Eisner an offer that was so one-sided it was clearly meant to be rejected. Instead of a fifty-fifty split on revenues, as in the existing deal, Jobs proposed a new arrangement in which Pixar would own outright the films it made and the characters in them, and it would merely pay Disney a 7.5% fee to distribute the movies. Plus, the last two films under the existing deal—The Incredibles and Cars were the ones in the works—would shift to the new distribution deal.
就在《海底总动员》制作完毕后不久，乔布斯向艾斯纳开价，但这种过于一相情愿的要求显然会被拒绝。相对于现有协议下的五五分成，乔布斯提出了一个新的协议——皮克斯将拥有电影和卡通人物的全部版杈，而且只分给迪士尼7.5%的发行分成。另外，在现有协议下的最后两部电影——正在制作的《超人特攻队》（TheIncredibles）和《汽车总动员》（Cars），将被转人新的协议下。
Eisner, however, held one powerful trump card. Even if Pixar didn’t renew, Disney had the right to make sequels of Toy Story and the other movies that Pixar had made, and it owned all the characters, from Woody to Nemo, just as it owned Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Eisner was already planning—or threatening—to have Disney’s own animation studio do a Toy Story 3, which Pixar had declined to do. “When you see what that company did putting out Cinderella II, you shudder at what would have happened,” Jobs said.
不过，艾斯纳还握着一张王牌。即使皮克斯不续约，迪士尼也有权制作《玩具总动员》和其他所有皮克斯制作过的动画电影的续集，而且迪士尼还拥有合作产生的所有卡通人物，从伍迪到尼莫，就像拥有米老鼠和唐老鸭一样。艾斯纳已经计划——或者说是威胁——既然皮克斯拒绝再做下去了，那就让迪士尼自己的动画工作室制作《玩具总动员3》。乔布斯说：“当你听说有哪家公司要做《灰姑娘2》时，你肯定会觉得恐怖吧。”
Eisner was able to force Roy Disney off the board in November 2003, but that didn’t end the turmoil. Disney released a scathing open letter. “The company has lost its focus, its creative energy, and its heritage,” he wrote. His litany of Eisner’s alleged failings included not building a constructive relationship with Pixar. By this point Jobs had decided that he no longer wanted to work with Eisner. So in January 2004 he publicly announced that he was cutting off negotiations with Disney.
艾斯纳在2003年11月迫使罗伊·迪士尼离开了童事会，但是这场混乱并未结束。罗伊·迪士尼发布了一封言辞尖刻的公开信，信中写道：“公司已经丢失了焦点，丢失了创意的能量，也丢失了传统。”罗伊对艾斯纳的不满还包括没能让迪士尼与皮克斯建立一种积极的关系。到了这时，乔布斯已经决定不再与艾斯纳合作。所以在2004年1月，他公开宣布与迪士尼停止谈判。
Jobs was usually disciplined in not making public the strong opinions that he shared with friends around his Palo Alto kitchen table. But this time he did not hold back. In a conference call with reporters, he said that while Pixar was producing hits, Disney animation was making “embarrassing duds.” He scoffed at Eisner’s notion that Disney made any creative contribution to the Pixar films: “The truth is there has been little creative collaboration with Disney for years. You can compare the creative quality of our films with the creative quality of Disney’s last three films and judge each company’s creative ability yourselves.” In addition to building a better creative team, Jobs had pulled off the remarkable feat of building a brand that was now as big a draw for moviegoers as Disney’s. “We think the Pixar brand is now the most powerful and trusted brand in animation.” When Jobs called to give him a heads-up, Roy Disney replied, “When the wicked witch is dead, we’ll be together again.”
通常情况下，乔布斯能够控制住自己，不会把在家里饭桌上和朋友探讨的过激言论公开化。但是这一次他忍不住了。在一次和记者的电话会议中，他说，当皮克斯在制作精彩的作品时，迪士尼动画正在生产“令人尴尬的旧衣服”。他嘲笑了艾斯纳的关于“迪士尼为皮克斯的电影作出了创造性的贡献”的说法：“事实上，我们已经多年没有和迪士尼在创意方面进行合作了。你可以比较我们的电影和迪士尼最近推出的三部电影在创意质量上的差别，两家公司的创意能力一目了然。”除了建立一支更好的创意团队之外，乔布斯还打赢了一场品牌大战，皮克斯对影迷的吸引力已经不亚于迪士尼。当乔布斯打电话给罗伊·迪士尼，帮他打气时，罗伊回答道：“我们认为皮克斯已经成为动画界最强有力而且是最值得信赖的品牌。等‘邪恶的巫婆’死去，我们又可以一起合作了。”
John Lasseter was aghast at the prospect of breaking up with Disney. “I was worried about my children, what they would do with the characters we’d created,” he recalled. “It was like a dagger to my heart.” When he told his top staff in the Pixar conference room, he started crying, and he did so again when he addressed the eight hundred or so Pixar employees gathered in the studio’s atrium. “It’s like you have these dear children and you have to give them up to be adopted by convicted child molesters.” Jobs came to the atrium stage next and tried to calm things down. He explained why it might be necessary to break with Disney, and he assured them that Pixar as an institution had to keep looking forward to be successful. “He has the absolute ability to make you believe,” said Oren Jacob, a longtime technologist at the studio. “Suddenly, we all had the confidence that, whatever happened, Pixar would flourish.”
约翰·拉塞特对乔布斯决定与迪士尼分家的消息大为震惊。“我担心我的‘孩子们’，那些人会怎么对待我们创造出来的这些角色呢？”他回忆道，“就像匕首刺中了我的心。”拉塞特在皮克斯的会议室把这一消息告知其他髙层人员时流下了眼泪；第二次流泪，是在工作室的中庭里面向约800名皮克斯员工讲话时。“这种感觉就像，你有一群可爱的孩子们，而现在不得不放弃他们，而且还把他们交给了被控有虐童罪的人来收养。”之后，乔布斯走上了中庭的讲台，试图让气氛平缓下来。他向大家解释了不再和迪士尼合作的原因，并保证：皮克斯作为一家具有标志意义的公司，一直在向成功的目标迈进。一位在皮克斯任职很久的技术人员奥伦·雅各布（OreiUacob）说：“他有一种绝对的能力让你去相信他。突然之间，我们都有了信心，无论发生什么，皮克斯一定会成功的。”
Bob Iger, Disney’s chief operating officer, had to step in and do damage control. He was as sensible and solid as those around him were volatile. His background was in television; he had been president of the ABC Network, which was acquired in 1996 by Disney. His reputation was as a corporate suit, and he excelled at deft management, but he also had a sharp eye for talent, a good-humored ability to understand people, and a quiet flair that he was secure enough to keep muted. Unlike Eisner and Jobs, he had a disciplined calm, which helped him deal with large egos. “Steve did some grandstanding by announcing that he was ending talks with us,” Iger later recalled. “We went into crisis mode, and I developed some talking points to settle things down.”
迪士尼的首席运营官鲍勃·艾格（BobIger）不得不介入此事，并控制损失。当周围的人正在喋喋不休的时候，他依然保持着理智和冷静。艾格来自电视行业，曾任美国广播公司（ABCNetwork）的主席，该公司于1996年被迪士尼收购。他举止大方合宜，善于灵活处理事件；同时也懂得慧眼识人，具有幽默感，善解人意；为人低调不多言，才得以稳坐如今的位子。不同于艾斯纳和乔布斯，艾格处事冷静的性格使他懂得如何与过度自我的人交流。艾格回忆道：“史蒂夫通过宣布与我们停止谈判，获得了一些关注。我们现在进入了危机模式，为了把事情处理妥当，我也有所准备。”
Eisner had presided over ten great years at Disney, when Frank Wells served as his president. Wells freed Eisner from many management duties so he could make his suggestions, usually valuable and often brilliant, on ways to improve each movie project, theme park ride, television pilot, and countless other products. But after Wells was killed in a helicopter crash in 1994, Eisner never found the right manager. Katzenberg had demanded Wells’s job, which is why Eisner ousted him. Michael Ovitz became president in 1995; it was not a pretty sight, and he was gone in less than two years. Jobs later offered his assessment:
从弗兰克·沃尔斯（FrankWells）任总裁开始，艾斯纳在迪士尼任职已超过十年。沃尔斯为艾斯纳减少了很多管理工作，才使得他能够专心出谋划策，提出有价值的建议，改进每一个电影项目、主题公园火车、电视节目以及其他产品。但在1994年，沃尔斯由于直升机失事不幸去世，之后，艾斯纳一直没有碰到合适的领导。卡曾伯格觊觎沃尔斯的职位，这就是艾斯纳把他挤走的原因。1995年，迈克尔·奥维茨（MichaelOvitz）成为了新任总裁，但好景不长，奥维茨干了不到两年就离职了。乔布斯之后作出了如下评价：
For his first ten years as CEO, Eisner did a really good job. For the last ten years, he really did a bad job. And the change came when Frank Wells died. Eisner is a really good creative guy. He gives really good notes. So when Frank was running operations, Eisner could be like a bumblebee going from project to project trying to make them better. But when Eisner had to run things, he was a terrible manager. Nobody liked working for him. They felt they had no authority. He had this strategic planning group that was like the Gestapo, in that you couldn’t spend any money, not even a dime, without them approving it. Even though I broke with him, I had to respect his achievements in the first ten years. And there was a part of him I actually liked. He’s a fun guy to be around at times—smart, witty. But he had a dark side to him. His ego got the better of him. Eisner was reasonable and fair to me at first, but eventually, over the course of dealing with him for a decade, I came to see a dark side to him.
在艾斯纳任职的第一个十年中，他干得不错，但是在最后的十年里，他真是差劲儿透了。弗兰克·沃尔斯的去世成为了分水岭。艾斯纳是一个非常有创意的家伙，他提出了很多精彩的建议。所以当沃尔斯负责运营时，艾斯纳忙得像一只蜜蜂，穿梭于各个项目之间，以推动项目顺利进行。但是当艾斯纳全盘接手运营时，他就变成了可怕的经理人。没有人喜欢为他工作。大家觉得自己没有被授权。他的战略计划团队就像盖世太保那样，在这里，如果没有得到批准，你一分钱都不能动用。不过，即使我和他的关系破裂，我依然尊重他在前十年取得的成就。而且我确实很欣赏他的某些性格。他是个有趣的家伙，精明又机智。但是他也有黑暗的一面，他的自我过于膨胀。起初，艾斯纳对我还算合理公正，但十年来，随着相处的时间增加，我开始看到了他的黒暗面。
Eisner’s biggest problem in 2004 was that he did not fully fathom how messed up his animation division was. Its two most recent movies, Treasure Planet and Brother Bear, did no honor to the Disney legacy, or to its balance sheets. Hit animation movies were the lifeblood of the company; they spawned theme park rides, toys, and television shows. Toy Story had led to a movie sequel, a Disney on Ice show, a Toy Story Musical performed on Disney cruise ships, a direct-to-video film featuring Buzz Lightyear, a computer storybook, two video games, a dozen action toys that sold twenty-five million units, a clothing line, and nine different attractions at Disney theme parks. This was not the case for Treasure Planet.
2004年，艾斯纳最大的麻烦就在于他不知道动画部门巳经一团糟了。最新推出的两部电影《星银岛》（TreasurcPlanet）和《熊的传说》（BrotherBear）并未达到迪士尼应有的水准，甚至没有达到收支平衡。动画片是迪士尼的命脉，正是它们衍生了主题公园、玩具和电视节目。一部《玩具总动员》成就了续集、一部迪士尼冰上表演、一部在迪士尼海上巡游船上表演的《玩具总动员》音乐剧、一部以“巴斯光年”为主角的电视电影、一本计算机故事书、两款电子游戏、销量达2500万个的电动玩具、一条服装生产线，以及迪士尼主题公园里的9个场景。相比之下，《星银岛》可就没有这么好运了。
“Michael didn’t understand that Disney’s problems in animation were as acute as they were,” Iger later explained. “That manifested itself in the way he dealt with Pixar. He never felt he needed Pixar as much as he really did.” In addition, Eisner loved to negotiate and hated to compromise, which was not always the best combination when dealing with Jobs, who was the same way. “Every negotiation needs to be resolved by compromises,” Iger said. “Neither one of them is a master of compromise.”
艾格后来解释道：“迈克尔还没有意识到，迪士尼在动画片上出的问题已经很严重了。这也反映到了他对待皮克斯的态度。他并不觉得他有多么需要皮克斯。”此外，艾斯纳喜欢谈判，痛恨妥协，而这种性格并不适合和乔布斯一起共事，因为乔布斯也是这种人。艾格说：“每一次谈判最终都要以妥协来收尾。但是他们两个谁都不愿作出让步。”
The impasse was ended on a Saturday night in March 2005, when Iger got a phone call from former senator George Mitchell and other Disney board members. They told him that, starting in a few months, he would replace Eisner as Disney’s CEO. When Iger got up the next morning, he called his daughters and then Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. He said, very simply and clearly, that he valued Pixar and wanted to make a deal. Jobs was thrilled. He liked Iger and even marveled at a small connection they had: his former girlfriend Jennifer Egan and Iger’s wife, Willow Bay, had been roommates at Penn.
僵局在2005年3月的一个周六晚上被打破了。艾格接到了前参议员乔治·米切尔（GeorgeMitchell）和迪士尼其他董事会成员的电话。他们告诉艾格，再过几个月，他将取代艾斯纳成为迪士尼的CEO。第二天，艾格起床之后，分别给他的女儿、乔布斯，以及约翰·拉塞特打了电话。他直截了当地说，他非常重视皮克斯，并希望能够达成合作。乔布斯非常兴奋。他喜欢艾格，甚至惊异于他们之间在冥冥之中的联系：他的前女友珍妮弗·伊根和艾格的妻子威罗·贝（WillowBay）曾是宾夕法尼亚大学时期的室友。
That summer, before Iger officially took over, he and Jobs got to have a trial run at making a deal. Apple was coming out with an iPod that would play video as well as music. It needed television shows to sell, and Jobs did not want to be too public in negotiating for them because, as usual, he wanted the product to be secret until he unveiled it onstage. Iger, who had multiple iPods and used them throughout the day, from his 5 a.m. workouts to late at night, had already been envisioning what it could do for television shows. So he immediately offered ABC’s most popular shows, Desperate Housewives and Lost. “We negotiated that deal in a week, and it was complicated,” Iger said. “It was important because Steve got to see how I worked, and because it showed everyone that Disney could in fact work with Steve.”
那年夏天，在艾格正式接任之前，他和乔布斯进行了一次“试合作”。苹果将推出一款既能播放音乐又能播放视频的iPod，艾格想在iPod上面播放电视剧，但是在谈判中，乔布斯表示不想做得太公开，因为和往常一样，他希望在产品被正式发布之前保留神秘感。在当时有两部很受欢迎的美剧，《绝望主妇》（DesperateHousewives）和《迷失》（Lost），都是由美国广播公司（ABC）推出的。而美国广播公司恰好属于艾格的管辖范围。艾格拥有好几部iPod，从早上5点晨练一直用到深夜。他早就想着怎么能够把iPod和电视剧结合起来，所以立刻就决定植入美国广播公司最流行的电视剧。艾格说：“我们用了一个星期的时间谈这项合同，其中的条款比较复杂。这次合作很重要，因为史蒂夫会看到我是怎么做事的，而且这也会让每一个人看到，迪士尼其实是能够与史蒂夫合作的。”
For the announcement of the video iPod, Jobs rented a theater in San Jose, and he invited Iger to be his surprise guest onstage. “I had never been to one of his announcements, so I had no idea what a big deal it was,” Iger recalled. “It was a real breakthrough for our relationship. He saw I was pro-technology and willing to take risks.” Jobs did his usual virtuoso performance, running through all the features of the new iPod, how it was “one of the best things we’ve ever done,” and how the iTunes Store would now be selling music videos and short films. Then, as was his habit, he ended with “And yes, there is one more thing:” The iPod would be selling TV shows. There was huge applause. He mentioned that the two most popular shows were on ABC. “And who owns ABC? Disney! I know these guys,” he exulted.
为了发布这款带有视频功能的iPod，乔布斯在圣何塞租了一座剧院，还邀请了艾格作为“神秘嘉宾”。艾格回忆道：“我从来没有参加过苹果品的发布会，所以我不知道这会是个多大的场面。对于我们的关系来说，这是一次真正的突破。他认为我是个技术专家，并且敢于冒险。”乔布斯又像往常一样进行了精彩的表演，首先是演示新款iPod的所有功能，它为什么能被称为“我们做过的最好的产品之一”，以及iTunes商店将开始销售音乐视频和短片。乏后，按照他的习惯，他以“是的，还有一点”作为结束语——“新款iPod将幵始销售电视剧。”全场顿时掌声如雷。他还提到了美国广播公司播出的两部最受欢迎的电视剧。“谁拥有美国广播公司？是迪士尼！我认识他们！”他兴髙采烈地说。
When Iger then came onstage, he looked as relaxed and as comfortable as Jobs. “One of the things that Steve and I are incredibly excited about is the intersection between great content and great technology,” he said. “It’s great to be here to announce an extension of our relation with Apple,” he added. Then, after the proper pause, he said, “Not with Pixar, but with Apple.”
艾格上台时，和乔布斯一样轻松自若。他说：“史蒂夫和我最兴奋的一件事，就是精彩的内容和伟大的科技相结合。”他又补充道：“今天能在这里宣布我们和苹果的关系又进了一步，我感到非常高兴。”在适度的停顿之后，他接着说：“不是和皮克斯，而是和苹果。”
But it was clear from their warm embrace that a new Pixar-Disney deal was once again possible. “It signaled my way of operating, which was ‘Make love not war,’” Iger recalled. “We had been at war with Roy Disney, Comcast, Apple, and Pixar. I wanted to fix all that, Pixar most of all.”
他们友好的拥抱也意味着，皮克斯和迪士尼的新一轮合作再一次成为了可能。艾格回忆道：“这也体现了我对公司的运营方式。我希望创造出爱，而不是战争。我们曾经和罗伊·迪士尼、康卡斯特（Comcast）、苹果和皮克斯都有过战争。我希望改善和他们的关系，尤其是皮克斯。”
Iger had just come back from opening the new Disneyland in Hong Kong, with Eisner at his side in his last big act as CEO. The ceremonies included the usual Disney parade down Main Street. Iger realized that the only characters in the parade that had been created in the past decade were Pixar’s. “A lightbulb went off,” he recalled. “I’m standing next to Michael, but I kept it completely to myself, because it was such an indictment of his stewardship of animation during that period. After ten years of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, there were then ten years of nothing.”
艾格与艾斯纳一起参加了香港迪士尼乐园的开幕式，这是艾斯纳在任职CEO期间的最后一次大动作。庆祝活动包括常规的迪士尼队伍在主街上的游行。艾格发现，在游行队伍中，近十年出现的最新的卡通人物都是由皮克斯打造出来的。他回忆道：“我当时有一种恍然大悟的感觉。我站在迈克尔旁边，但是我什么都没有说，因为这就像一场对他这些年在动画业务管理上的控诉。继《狮子王》《美女与野兽》（BeautyandtheBeast）和阿拉丁（Aladdin）之后的十年完全是一片空白。”
Iger went back to Burbank and had some financial analysis done. He discovered that they had actually lost money on animation in the past decade and had produced little that helped ancillary products. At his first meeting as the new CEO, he presented the analysis to the board, whose members expressed some anger that they had never been told this. “As animation goes, so goes our company,” he told the board. “A hit animated film is a big wave, and the ripples go down to every part of our business—from characters in a parade, to music, to parks, to video games, TV, Internet, consumer products. If I don’t have wave makers, the company is not going to succeed.” He presented them with some choices. They could stick with the current animation management, which he didn’t think would work. They could get rid of management and find someone else, but he said he didn’t know who that would be. Or they could buy Pixar. “The problem is, I don’t know if it’s for sale, and if it is, it’s going to be a huge amount of money,” he said. The board authorized him to explore a deal.
艾格回到伯班克之后作了一些财务分析。他发现在过去十年中，迪士尼在动画方面其实是亏损的，而且对附属产品的营销也没有什么推动作用。在接任CEO之后的第一次会议中，他向董事会报告了财务分析的结果。董事会成员也表现出愤怒，因为他们从来没有被告知球这些。艾格告诉蓳事会：“随着动画片业务的开展，我们的公司却每况愈下。一部热卖的动画片对拉动全公司的业务有显著的效果，而我们经营的每一个分支却都处于衰落趋势——包括出现在游行中的卡通角色、音乐、主题公园、电子游戏、电视节目、互联网、消费产品。如果我们不能制造出有拉动效应的动画片，公司是不会成功的。”之后，他又给董事会提供了一些可供选择的方案：一、沿用现在的动画片管理模式，但他认为这样做不会有成效；二、重组董事会，但是他不知道该找谁来加入；最后一个方案就是收购皮克斯。他说：“问题是我不知道皮克斯愿不愿意出售，如果他们愿意，那会是很大一笔钱。”董事会准许他去考察一下这笔交易的可能性。
Iger went about it in an unusual way. When he first talked to Jobs, he admitted the revelation that had occurred to him in Hong Kong and how it convinced him that Disney badly needed Pixar. “That’s why I just loved Bob Iger,” recalled Jobs. “He just blurted it out. Now that’s the dumbest thing you can do as you enter a negotiation, at least according to the traditional rule book. He just put his cards out on the table and said, ‘We’re screwed.’ I immediately liked the guy, because that’s how I worked too. Let’s just immediately put all the cards on the table and see where they fall.” (In fact that was not usually Jobs’s mode of operation. He often began negotiations by proclaiming that the other company’s products or services sucked.)
这一次艾格用了不同寻常的方式。当他第一次和乔布斯提起这件事的时候，坦陈了自己在香港的感悟，他认为迪士尼是太需要皮克斯了。乔布斯回忆道：“这就是我很喜欢鲍勃·艾格的原因，他是个心直口快的人。在谈判中这么早就泄露底牌是一种最愚蠢的做法，至少按照传统的规则来说是这样的。他就那么把他的牌摊在桌面上，说了句‘我们完蛋了’。我立刻就喜欢上了这个家伙，因为我也是这种人。所以我们就马上把所有的牌都摊在桌上，看看他是在哪里摔的跟头。”（事实上，这并不是乔布斯惯常的操作模式。通常情况下，在谈判最初的阶段，他都会抱怨其他公司的产品或服务不好。）
Jobs and Iger took a lot of walks—around the Apple campus, in Palo Alto, at the Allen and Co. retreat in Sun Valley. At first they came up with a plan for a new distribution deal: Pixar would get back all the rights to the movies and characters it had already produced in return for Disney’s getting an equity stake in Pixar, and it would pay Disney a simple fee to distribute its future movies. But Iger worried that such a deal would simply set Pixar up as a competitor to Disney, which would be bad even if Disney had an equity stake in it. So he began to hint that maybe they should actually do something bigger. “I want you to know that I am really thinking out of the box on this,” he said. Jobs seemed to encourage the advances. “It wasn’t too long before it was clear to both of us that this discussion might lead to an acquisition discussion,” Jobs recalled.
乔布斯和艾格在帕洛奥图的苹果园区一起走了很久，又到了位于森尼韦尔的艾伦公司（Allen&Co.）的度假中心。起初，他们商定了一个关于发行的新计划：皮克斯将收回所有之前制造的电影和卡通人物的版杈，作为回报，迪士尼将掌控皮克斯的一部分股权；对于未来的电影，皮克斯将向迪士尼支付一定的发行费用。但是艾格担心这么做会把皮克斯变成迪士尼的一个强大的竞争对手，即使迪士尼拥有一部分股权，也可能会造成不好的结果。所以，他开始向乔布斯暗示，也许他们可以做得更大。他说：“我想让你知道，关于这个问题我有个比较创新的想法。”乔布斯似乎比较感兴趣，他回忆道：“没过多久，我们就明确了这场合作将以收购的方式进行。”
But first Jobs needed the blessing of John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, so he asked them to come over to his house. He got right to the point. “We need to get to know Bob Iger,” he told them. “We may want to throw in with him and to help him remake Disney. He’s a great guy.” They were skeptical at first. “He could tell we were pretty shocked,” Lasseter recalled.
但是首先，乔布斯需要得到约翰·拉塞特和埃德·卡特穆尔的支持，所以他邀请他们来到家中。乔布斯开门见山：“我们需要了解一下鲍勃·艾格。我们应该和他合作，帮助他重建迪士尼。他是个很棒的家伙。”起初，拉塞特和卡特穆尔都对此表示怀疑。拉塞特回忆道：“他能看出来，我们当时都很震惊。”
“If you guys don’t want to do it, that’s fine, but I want you to get to know Iger before you decide,” Jobs continued. “I was feeling the same as you, but I’ve really grown to like the guy.” He explained how easy it had been to make the deal to put ABC shows on the iPod, and added, “It’s night and day different from Eisner’s Disney. He’s straightforward, and there’s no drama with him.” Lasseter remembers that he and Catmull just sat there with their mouths slightly open.
乔布斯继续说：“如果你们不想这么做，完全可以，但是我希望你们在决定之前认识一下艾格。我和你们的感觉一样，但是我越来越喜欢这家伙了。”他向他们讲述了当时是如何轻松地把美国广播公司的电视剧放在iPod上面的，然后补充道：“这和艾斯纳时期的迪士尼简直是天壤之别。艾格是个直来直去的人，从来不会变幻无常。”拉塞特还记得，他和卡特穆尔坐在那里，听得目瞪口呆。
Iger went to work. He flew from Los Angeles to Lasseter’s house for dinner, and stayed up well past midnight talking. He also took Catmull out to dinner, and then he visited Pixar Studios, alone, with no entourage and without Jobs. “I went out and met all the directors one on one, and they each pitched me their movie,” he said. Lasseter was proud of how much his team impressed Iger, which of course made him warm up to Iger. “I never had more pride in Pixar than that day,” he said. “All the teams and pitches were amazing, and Bob was blown away.”
艾格开始了行动。他从洛杉矶飞到拉塞特所在的城市，到拉塞特家共进晚餐，见了他的妻子和家人，和他们聊到深夜。艾格还与卡特穆尔一道晚餐，之后独自拜访了皮克斯工作室，没有任何随行人员，也没有和乔布斯一起。艾格说：“我和每位导演都一一交谈，他们都向我推销自己的电影。”艾格对拉塞特的团队印象深刻，这一点令拉塞特很自豪，这也让他对艾格有了兴致。他说：“在皮克斯，我从来没有像那天那样自豪过。我们所有的团队和推介讲漬都很精彩。让鲍勃大吃一惊。”
Indeed after seeing what was coming up over the next few years—Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E—Iger told his chief financial officer at Disney, “Oh my God, they’ve got great stuff. We’ve got to get this deal done. It’s the future of the company.” He admitted that he had no faith in the movies that Disney animation had in the works.
实际上，在看了之后几年皮克斯出品的作品——《汽车总动员》、《美食总动员》（Ratatouille）以及《机器人瓦力》（WALL-E）——艾格对迪士尼的首席财务官说：“天哪，他们的产品真不错。我们要把这笔生意谈下来。这关系到我们公司的未来。”他承认他对迪士尼制作的动画片没有信心。
The deal they proposed was that Disney would purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion in stock. Jobs would thus become Disney’s largest shareholder, with approximately 7% of the company’s stock compared to 1.7% owned by Eisner and 1% by Roy Disney. Disney Animation would be put under Pixar, with Lasseter and Catmull running the combined unit. Pixar would retain its independent identity, its studio and headquarters would remain in Emeryville, and it would even keep its own email addresses.
双方最后谈定，迪士尼将用74亿美元收购皮克斯的股份，乔布斯也将由此成为迪士尼最大的股东，拥有迪士尼近7%的股份；相比之下，艾斯纳所拥有的股份仅为1.7%，罗伊·迪士尼的股份为1%。迪士尼动画将归属皮克斯，由拉塞特和卡特穆尔运营。皮克斯可以保留其独立身份，皮克斯的工作室和总部可以继续留在爱莫利维尔市，原有的电子邮件域名也可以继续使用。
Iger asked Jobs to bring Lasseter and Catmull to a secret meeting of the Disney board in Century City, Los Angeles, on a Sunday morning. The goal was to make them feel comfortable with what would be a radical and expensive deal. As they prepared to take the elevator from the parking garage, Lasseter said to Jobs, “If I start getting too excited or go on too long, just touch my leg.” Jobs ended up having to do it once, but otherwise Lasseter made the perfect sales pitch. “I talked about how we make films, what our philosophies are, the honesty we have with each other, and how we nurture the creative talent,” he recalled. The board asked a lot of questions, and Jobs let Lasseter answer most. But Jobs did talk about how exciting it was to connect art with technology. “That’s what our culture is all about, just like at Apple,” he said.
艾格告知乔布斯，于某个周日的早晨带上拉塞特和卡特穆尔去参加一个在洛杉矶世纪城召开的迪士尼董事会的秘密会议，以示尊重他们在此次巨额交易中的地位。当三人准备从停车场出发时，拉塞特对乔布斯说；“如果我一会儿兴奋得忘乎所以或者滔滔不绝，你就拍一下我的腿。”结果在会议中乔布斯还真的拍了一下他的腿，但除此之外拉塞特的推介演讲堪称完美。他回忆道：“我讲了我们怎么制作电影，我们的理念是什么，我们之间的互信，以及我们是怎么培养创意人才的。”董事会问了很多问题，乔布斯让拉塞特回答了其中的大部分。乔布斯自己则谈到了把艺术和科技联系起来是一件多么令人兴奋的事情：“这就是我们的文化理念，和苹果的是一样的。”他说。艾格回忆道：“每个人都惊讶于他们是如此引人注目和热情洋溢。”
Before the Disney board got a chance to approve the merger, however, Michael Eisner arose from the departed to try to derail it. He called Iger and said it was far too expensive. “You can fix animation yourself,” Eisner told him. “How?” asked Iger. “I know you can,” said Eisner. Iger got a bit annoyed. “Michael, how come you say I can fix it, when you couldn’t fix it yourself?” he asked.
然而，在迪士尼董事会通过收购决议之前，迈克尔·艾斯纳有些动摇，并试图阻止这次合作。他打电话给艾格说这个价格太贵了。“你可以自己解决动画片的困境。”艾斯纳说。艾格问：“怎么解决？”“我知道你可以的。”艾斯纳说。艾格有些生气了。“迈克尔，你自己都解决不了，凭什么认为我能做到？”
Eisner said he wanted to come to a board meeting, even though he was no longer a member or an officer, and speak against the acquisition. Iger resisted, but Eisner called Warren Buffett, a big shareholder, and George Mitchell, who was the lead director. The former senator convinced Iger to let Eisner have his say. “I told the board that they didn’t need to buy Pixar because they already owned 85% of the movies Pixar had already made,” Eisner recounted. He was referring to the fact that for the movies already made, Disney was getting that percentage of the gross, plus it had the rights to make all the sequels and exploit the characters. “I made a presentation that said, here’s the 15% of Pixar that Disney does not already own. So that’s what you’re getting. The rest is a bet on future Pixar films.” Eisner admitted that Pixar had been enjoying a good run, but he said it could not continue. “I showed the history of producers and directors who had X number of hits in a row and then failed. It happened to Spielberg, Walt Disney, all of them.” To make the deal worth it, he calculated, each new Pixar movie would have to gross $1.3 billion. “It drove Steve crazy that I knew that,” Eisner later said.
艾斯纳说他想召开一次董事会来反对这次收购——即使他已经不是董事会成员了，也不算是公司高层。艾格拒绝了，但是艾斯纳给公司的大股东沃伦·巴菲特（WarrenBuffet）和董事会主席乔治·米切尔打了电话。这位前议员说服了艾格，让艾斯纳表达自己的意见。“我告诉董事会，我们不需要买下皮克斯，因为我们已经拥有了皮克斯制作的85%的动画片。”艾斯纳说道。他指的是对于皮克斯已经推出的电影，迪士尼已经可以从收入中获得一定比例的分成、有权制作所有电影的续集，并拥有所有卡通人物的版杈。“我对他们说，现在皮克斯只有15%不属于迪士尼，所以你们将得到的也只有这15%，其他的就要看皮克斯接下来的电影如何了。”艾斯纳承认，皮克斯运营得很好，但是他认为好景不会太长。“我向大家列出了历史上屡获殊荣，却又走向失败的制片人和导演名单，都是斯皮尔伯格、沃尔特·迪士尼之类的人物。”他还计算了一下，要让这笔生意做得值得，皮克斯的每一部新片的收入必须要达到13亿美元。“我知道我把乔布斯气疯了。”艾斯纳事后回忆道。
After he left the room, Iger refuted his argument point by point. “Let me tell you what was wrong with that presentation,” he began. When the board had finished hearing them both, it approved the deal Iger proposed.
在艾斯纳离开会议室之后，艾格逐项反驳了他的观点。“让我来告诉你们，他刚才的演讲中出现了哪些错误。”当董事会成员听完双方的观点之后，他们通过了艾格的提案。
Iger flew up to Emeryville to meet Jobs and jointly announce the deal to the Pixar workers. But before they did, Jobs sat down alone with Lasseter and Catmull. “If either of you have doubts,” he said, “I will just tell them no thanks and blow off this deal.” He wasn’t totally sincere. It would have been almost impossible to do so at that point. But it was a welcome gesture. “I’m good,” said Lasseter. “Let’s do it.” Catmull agreed. They all hugged, and Jobs wept.
艾格飞到爱莫利维尔去见乔布斯，并和乔布斯一起，向皮克斯的员工们宣布了收购的决定。但是在他们宣布之前，乔布斯和拉塞特还有卡特穆尔单独聊了一会儿。他说：“如果你们两个有任何一个人有异议，我可以告诉他们‘谢谢，不必了’，然后取消这个交易。”他说这旬话的时候并不很情愿。在当时的形势下，取消这个交易几乎是不可能的了。但是乔布斯还是听到了他期待的回应。“我觉得可以。”拉塞特说，“我们就这么做吧。”卡特穆尔也同意了。三人拥抱在了一起，乔布斯流泪了。
Everyone then gathered in the atrium. “Disney is buying Pixar,” Jobs announced. There were a few tears, but as he explained the deal, the staffers began to realize that in some ways it was a reverse acquisition. Catmull would be the head of Disney animation, Lasseter its chief creative officer. By the end they were cheering. Iger had been standing on the side, and Jobs invited him to center stage. As he talked about the special culture of Pixar and how badly Disney needed to nurture it and learn from it, the crowd broke into applause.
之后，所有人都聚集到了中庭。乔布斯宣布：“迪士尼要收购皮克斯了。”一些员工哭了，但是当乔布斯解释了这次合作的内容之后，员工们开始明白，从某种程度上来说，这其实有一些反向收购的意味。卡特穆尔将成为迪士尼动画的主席，而拉塞特将出任首席创意官。讲话的最后，大家都欢呼喝彩。艾格本来站在边上，乔布斯邀请他来到中间的舞台上。当他讲到皮克斯特立独行的文化，以及迪士尼是多么需要培养这种文化并向皮克斯学习时，人群中爆发出热烈的掌声。
“My goal has always been not only to make great products, but to build great companies,” Jobs later said. “Walt Disney did that. And the way we did the merger, we kept Pixar as a great company and helped Disney remain one as well.”
“一直以来，我的目标不仅仅是制作杰出的作品，还要建立卓越的公司。”乔布斯之后说道，“沃尔特·迪士尼做到了。以这样的方式合并之后，皮克斯仍然是一家卓越的公司，同时我们也帮助迪士尼保持着卓越公司的地位。”