库克终须超越乔布斯的遗产

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.

每次苹果(Apple)董事会会议结束时，首席执行官蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)都会提出一旦他“死亡或发生其他事”该由谁继任的问题。在掌管这个全球市值最高企业五年后，库克因投资者不满离职的可能性还不如发生一次事故导致他离职的可能性高，这一点是对库克的一种褒奖。

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，库克是在一种悲剧性而又极端困难的氛围下担任苹果首席执行官的：当时苹果的联合创始人及天才导师史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)已时日无多。正如库克在接受《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)采访时指出的，乔布斯是不可能效仿的。库克表示：“如果我试图这么做，那将是一种非常危险的行为。”

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.

这种不可能在库克任期头五年有时得到的评价中体现得很明显：他被认为略微叫人失望。他领导了Apple Watch和Apple Pay的推出，然而这两者却没有掀起可与iPhone相比的火爆。iPhone则极为成功，目前占苹果近70%的营收。

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.

从另一个角度看待他的任期则更公平一些：苹果不仅保持了稳定，而且还发展壮大，库克也基本将资深人才留在了岗位上。他阻止了苹果在急转弯下脱轨，并成功发展和拓宽了苹果的产品线，这与其他有领袖魅力而强势的创始人的继任者不同——包括上世纪80年代中期苹果挤走乔布斯时的约翰•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.

在乔布斯逝世前，库克是以运营专家而出名，他就是确保苹果全球业务和制造网络运营平稳的人，令乔布斯能够将精力集中于新的、突破性的产品。而自乔布斯逝世以来，库克把他分析式的头脑用到了苹果身上，确保规模和复杂性都不会成为苹果继续发展的阻碍。

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.

任何企业都有许多地方可能出错，尤其是非常大的企业。这一点解释了首席执行官任期不断缩短的问题。在消费者、股东和监管机构的压力下，很容易犯战略错误，或渐渐忘掉是什么使企业伟大。仅仅是能在五年里避开这些陷阱本身，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，库克还令人体会到了他个人的存在感。他抵制了短线股东让苹果将2320亿美元现金多返还一些的压力，并抵制了认为他的职责仅仅是服务于股东利益而非消费者和社会整体利益的看法。他对社会问题采取了强硬而有益的立场——其中包括宣布自己是同性恋。

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.

不过，这只是库克的第一步。要想在苹果帅位待上十年，他必须比在新市场开发iPhone潜力更进一步：他必须推出属于他自己的出人意料的产品。到目前为止，Apple Watch及苹果的iCloud和应用商店(App Store)等服务都达不到这一点——尽管应用商店在财务上取得了巨大增长。

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.

这是一个可怕的挑战。正如库克曾说过的，苹果在历史上的专长是推出“能真正以某种方式改变世界的伟大到极致的产品”，将硬件、软件和服务熔于一炉。苹果最近生产苹果电视的努力已成泡影，而目前仍不清楚苹果是想自己生产汽车，还是只希望为其他品牌汽车推出操作软件。

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.

库克是乔布斯的亲密朋友，对苹果的品质有着根深蒂固的感受。也许只有苹果首席设计官乔纳森•艾夫爵士(Sir Jonathan Ive)能比他更了解那些令苹果伟大的产品。在库克执掌苹果五年的时间里，他依然忠于乔布斯的遗产。而最终，他必须超越这一遗产。