异类:不一样的成功启示录 第39期:久经沙场的老手交谈

This was when the railroads were built and when Wall Street emerged.

铁路正在兴建，华尔街开始繁荣，

It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest.

制造业正蓬勃发展，

It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy had functioned were broken and remade.

传统的经济体制被打破，新的经济体制开始重建：

What that list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformationhappened.

这些因素对他们的成功来说至关重要。当经济正发生变革的时候，如果你刚好20来岁，而你又能紧紧把握机遇，那么成功就近在眼前了。

If you were born in the late 1840s, you missed it. You were too young to take advantage of that moment.

如果你出生在19世纪40年代之后，那你就错过了机会，因为你的年龄太小，无法掌握稍纵即逝的机遇：

If you were born in the 1820s, you were too old. Your mind-set was shaped by the pre-Civil War paradigm.

如果你出生在19世纪20年代，你的年龄又太大了：你的思维已经老化，观念还停留在南北战争之前，

But there was a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held.

，只有在30年代的9个年头，才是一个奇特的黄金年代。

All of the fourteen men and women on that list had vision and talent.

上边列出的14个人都拥有过人的才华和超群的远见，

But they were also given an extraordinary opportunity

但他们也和那些出生在1月份、2月份、3月份的曲棍球运动员、足球运动员一样，

in the same way that hockey and soccer players born in January, February and March were given an extraordinary opportunity.

都离不开机遇的眷顾。

So let's do the same kind of analysis to people like Bill Joy and Bill Gates.

现在，让我们用同样的方法对比尔.乔伊和比尔.盖茨这样的软件企业大亨进行分析。

If you talk to veterans of Silicon Valley,

假如你和一位在硅谷久经沙场的老手交谈，

they'll tell you that the most important date in the history of personal computer revolution was January 1975.

他肯定会告诉你, 在个人计算机发展历史上，最重要的时间是1975年1月。

That was when the magazine Popular Electronics ran a cover story on an extraordinary machine called the Altair 8800.

当时, 《大众电子》杂志的封面故事报道了一台特殊的机器，这台机器的名字叫做Altair 8800计算机。

The Altair cost $397. It was a do-it-yourself contraption that you could assemble it at home.

这台机器那时候的价格是397美元，机器设计非常巧妙，能满足个人化组装要求，你在家里便可以自己动手组装。

The headline on the story read: "PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH! World's First MinicomputerKit to rival commercial models."

杂志报道的标题用了大号的字体《工程的重大突破!世界上第一台微机让商业模式受到挑战》。

To the readers of Popular Electronics, in those days the bible of the fledgling software computer world, that headline was a revelation.

在软件和计算机行业羽毛未丰的那个时代，《大众电子》对于读者来说，无疑是这个行业的圣经，杂志刊出的大字标题报道，让当时的读者眼前一亮。

Computers up to that point had been the massive, expensive mainframes of the sort sitting in the white expanse of the Michigan Computing Center.

那时候的计算机都是庞大又贵重的机器，就像安置在密歇根计算机中心那所白房子里面的主机一样。

For years, every hacker and electronics whiz had dreamt of the day

多年以来，能有一天拥有一台小巧又便宜，

when the computer will come along that was small and inexpensive enough for an ordinary person to use alone.

即便是普通百姓都能购买和使用的电脑，一直是每位电脑黑客和电子怪才的梦想。

That day had finally arrived.

而这一天终于来到了。