庫克終須超越喬布斯的遺產(chǎn)

At the end of each Apple board meeting, Tim Cook, chief executive, raises the question of who should succeed him if he “[steps] off the wrong curb or something”. It is a tribute to Mr Cook after five years at the helm of the world’s most valuable company that an accident is more likely to finish him than investor discontent.

每次蘋果(Apple)董事會會議結(jié)束時，首席執(zhí)行官蒂姆•庫克(Tim Cook)都會提出一旦他“死亡或發(fā)生其他事”該由誰繼任的問題。在掌管這個全球市值最高企業(yè)五年后，庫克因投資者不滿離職的可能性還不如發(fā)生一次事故導(dǎo)致他離職的可能性高，這一點是對庫克的一種褒獎。

Mr Cook became Apple’s chief executive in August 2011 in tragic and extremely difficult circumstances: just before the death of Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and guiding genius. Jobs was, as Mr Cook noted in an interview with the Washington Post, an impossible act to follow. “It would have been a treacherous thing if I would have tried to do it,” he said.

2011年8月，庫克是在一種悲劇性而又極端困難的氛圍下?lián)翁O果首席執(zhí)行官的：當(dāng)時蘋果的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人及天才導(dǎo)師史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)已時日無多。正如庫克在接受《華盛頓郵報》(Washington Post)采訪時指出的，喬布斯是不可能效仿的。庫克表示：“如果我試圖這么做，那將是一種非常危險的行為。”

The impossibility is clear in how Mr Cook’s first five years are sometimes seen: as a mild disappointment. He has presided over the launch of Apple Watch and Apple Pay but it has unveiled no blockbuster to rival the iPhone, an astonishingly successful device that now accounts for nearly 70 per cent of its revenues.

這種不可能在庫克任期頭五年有時得到的評價中體現(xiàn)得很明顯：他被認(rèn)為略微叫人失望。他領(lǐng)導(dǎo)了Apple Watch和Apple Pay的推出，然而這兩者卻沒有掀起可與iPhone相比的火爆。iPhone則極為成功，目前占蘋果近70%的營收。

It is fairer to regard his tenure from another perspective: Apple has not only remained steady but has flourished and Mr Cook has kept its senior talent largely in place. Unlike others who have succeeded charismatic and forceful founders, including John Sculley when Apple forced out Jobs in the mid-1980s, he has stopped it veering off track and managed to develop and broaden its product line.

從另一個角度看待他的任期則更公平一些：蘋果不僅保持了穩(wěn)定，而且還發(fā)展壯大，庫克也基本將資深人才留在了崗位上。他阻止了蘋果在急轉(zhuǎn)彎下脫軌，并成功發(fā)展和拓寬了蘋果的產(chǎn)品線，這與其他有領(lǐng)袖魅力而強勢的創(chuàng)始人的繼任者不同——包括上世紀(jì)80年代中期蘋果擠走喬布斯時的約翰•斯卡利(John Sculley)。

Mr Cook was known before Jobs’ death as an operations specialist, the person who kept Apple’s global operations and manufacturing network running smoothly, allowing Jobs to focus on new, breakthrough products. Mr Cook has since applied his analytical brain to Apple, making sure that neither size nor complexity gets in the way of continued progress.

在喬布斯逝世前，庫克是以運營專家而出名，他就是確保蘋果全球業(yè)務(wù)和制造網(wǎng)絡(luò)運營平穩(wěn)的人，令喬布斯能夠?qū)⒕杏谛碌?、突破性的產(chǎn)品。而自喬布斯逝世以來，庫克把他分析式的頭腦用到了蘋果身上，確保規(guī)模和復(fù)雜性都不會成為蘋果繼續(xù)發(fā)展的阻礙。

A lot can go wrong at any company, especially a very large one. That accounts for the shortening of chief executives’ tenures. It is easy to make strategic errors under pressure from consumers, shareholders and regulators, or steadily to lose touch with what made a company great. Merely avoiding these pitfalls for five years is itself an achievement.

任何企業(yè)都有許多地方可能出錯，尤其是非常大的企業(yè)。這一點解釋了首席執(zhí)行官任期不斷縮短的問題。在消費者、股東和監(jiān)管機構(gòu)的壓力下，很容易犯戰(zhàn)略錯誤，或漸漸忘掉是什么使企業(yè)偉大。僅僅是能在五年里避開這些陷阱本身，就是一大成就。

In addition, Mr Cook has made his personal presence felt. He has defied short-term shareholder pressure to return more of Apple’s $232bn cash pile and resisted the idea that he is there solely to serve their interests, rather than that of consumers and society as a whole. He has taken strong and salutary stands on social issues, including his declaration that he is gay.

此外，庫克還令人體會到了他個人的存在感。他抵制了短線股東讓蘋果將2320億美元現(xiàn)金多返還一些的壓力，并抵制了認(rèn)為他的職責(zé)僅僅是服務(wù)于股東利益而非消費者和社會整體利益的看法。他對社會問題采取了強硬而有益的立場——其中包括宣布自己是同性戀。

But this was Mr Cook’s first act. To achieve a decade at the helm, he must go further than exploiting the iPhone’s potential in new markets: he has to deliver an unexpected product of his own. So far, neither Apple Watch nor services such as iCloud and its App Store, despite the latter’s financial growth, amount to that.

不過，這只是庫克的第一步。要想在蘋果帥位待上十年，他必須比在新市場開發(fā)iPhone潛力更進一步：他必須推出屬于他自己的出人意料的產(chǎn)品。到目前為止，Apple Watch及蘋果的iCloud和應(yīng)用商店(App Store)等服務(wù)都達不到這一點——盡管應(yīng)用商店在財務(wù)上取得了巨大增長。

This is a daunting challenge, given that Apple’s historic speciality is, as he puts it, “insanely great products that really change the world in some way”, combining hardware, software and services in a single package. The company’s recent efforts to produce an Apple television have come to naught, and it is unclear whether it wants to make its own car, or merely the software to operate others.

這是一個可怕的挑戰(zhàn)。正如庫克曾說過的，蘋果在歷史上的專長是推出“能真正以某種方式改變世界的偉大到極致的產(chǎn)品”，將硬件、軟件和服務(wù)熔于一爐。蘋果最近生產(chǎn)蘋果電視的努力已成泡影，而目前仍不清楚蘋果是想自己生產(chǎn)汽車，還是只希望為其他品牌汽車推出操作軟件。

Mr Cook was a close friend of Jobs and has an ingrained sense of the company’s qualities. Perhaps only Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, knows better the products that have made it great. In Mr Cook’s five years in charge, he has remained faithful to Jobs’ legacy; eventually, he must transcend it.

庫克是喬布斯的親密朋友，對蘋果的品質(zhì)有著根深蒂固的感受。也許只有蘋果首席設(shè)計官喬納森•艾夫爵士(Sir Jonathan Ive)能比他更了解那些令蘋果偉大的產(chǎn)品。在庫克執(zhí)掌蘋果五年的時間里，他依然忠于喬布斯的遺產(chǎn)。而最終，他必須超越這一遺產(chǎn)。