盖茨推荐《商业冒险》(Business Adventures)

本书中最有启发性的故事之一是“施乐施乐施乐施乐”(Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox)。施乐的案例值得科技业所有人研究。从上世纪70年代开始，施乐庞大的研发费用并没有全部直接投入到打印机业务中，而是投入到了以太网(Ethernet)以及第一款图形用户界面（就是如今Windows或OS X系统界面的始祖）的研发方面。

But because Xerox executives didn't think these ideas fit their core business, they chose not to turn them into marketable products. Others stepped in and went to market with products based on the research that Xerox had done. Both Apple and Microsoft, for example, drew on Xerox's work on graphical user interfaces.

但由于施乐高管认为这些构想并不符合施乐的核心业务，他们选择不把这些构想转变为实际销售产品。后来其他一些企业跟进，开发出了基于施乐研发成果的产品。苹果公司(Apple)和微软(Microsoft)均利用了施乐的图形用户界面研发成果。

I know I'm not alone in seeing this decision as a mistake on Xerox's part. I was certainly determined to avoid it at Microsoft. I pushed hard to make sure that we kept thinking big about the opportunities created by our research in areas like computer vision and speech recognition. Many other journalists have written about Xerox, but Brooks's article tells an important part of the company's early story. He shows how it was built on original, outside-the-box thinking, which makes it all the more surprising that as Xerox matured, it would miss out on unconventional ideas developed by its own researchers. (To download a free e-book of 'Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox,' go to GatesNotes.com.)

我想并不止我一个人认为施乐公司做出了错误决策。我下定决心避免微软犯下同样的错误，努力确保微软可以大胆思考我们在计算机视觉和语音识别等领域的研究发现所带来的机会。许多其他记者以前也曾写过施乐公司，但布鲁克斯在书中向读者披露了施乐公司早期发展的一个重要阶段。他讲述了施乐公司早期是如何藉助创新思维起家，这不禁令人更加惊叹，这家公司后来竟会在逐步成熟的过程中错失了研发人员提出的非常规创意。

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布鲁克斯的书很好地提醒了人们：对于经营一家强大的企业和创造价值而言，规则并没有改变。首先，企业所做的每一步努力都离不开一个关键因素，那就是用人之道。不论你有没有完美的产品、生产计划和营销策略，你都需要合适的人选来领导和执行这些计划。

That is a lesson you learn quickly in business, and I've been reminded of it at every step of my career, first at Microsoft and now at the foundation. Which people are you going to back? Do their roles fit their abilities? Do they have both the IQ and EQ to succeed? Warren is famous for this approach at Berkshire Hathaway, where he buys great businesses run by wonderful managers and then gets out of the way.

这是人们在企业经营过程中很快会领悟的道理，不论是最初的微软还是现在的基金会，我都在自己职业生涯的每个阶段时刻提醒自己这一点。你支持哪些人？他们的能力和职位相匹配吗？他们是否具有成功所需的智商和情商？巴菲特以其在Berkshire Hathaway的用人之道而闻名，他在收购优质资产之后将其交由出色的经理人打理，而自己则退居幕后。