John Brooks is an unbelievable business writer. He's probably my favorite, and it's too bad so many people haven't had a chance to hear about him and the great work he did.
John Brooks 是位不可思議的商業作家。他大概是我的最愛，而這真的很可惜有那麼多人還沒有機會聽說他以及他寫過的偉大作品。
He loved stories with vivid characters. Venal, bumbling, brilliant—you name it, he loved them.
他熱愛有鮮明角色的故事。貪腐的、粗心大意的、有才氣的－－你能想到的，他都愛死他們了。
He was a novelist to heart, and he found a lot of good stories in Wall Street.
他打從心底就是一位小說家，而他在華爾街找到許多好故事。
Warren Buffett gave me a copy of Business Adventures, feeling like with our dialogue about trying to understand the world of business that I'd enjoy it as much as he had. And in fact, it was phenomenal.
Warren Buffett 給了我一本《商業冒險》，覺得好像我們有那段關於嘗試去了解商業世界的對話，那我會像他一樣那麼喜歡。而事實上，這本書滿驚人的。
Oh, I knew he'd like it. I mean, that was written for him. That was written for me, too. If you're gonna run a company, you should read The Impacted Philosophers. Man, when you learn how pretty...probably pretty decent people start behaving a bad way, it's...that's fascinating.
哦，我就知道他會喜歡。我是說，那是為他所寫的。那也是為我所寫的。如果你要經營一家公司，你應該讀讀「頑固的哲學家」。老天，當你讀到...大概算滿體面的人們如何開始以不妥當的方式表現，這是...那很吸引人。
He talks about these people in GE who would wink when they would actually say what the rule book said to do. "Now, remember you cannot talk to our competitors about this," wink, you know, which is essentially saying, "Go talk to them."
他講到在奇異公司的這些人確實會在他們講出規則書裡說要做的東西時眨眼。「現在，記得你不可以告訴我們的競爭者這件事。」眨眼，你知道，這根本是在說「快去告訴他們。」
He makes it come alive in a particular way. He makes it come alive as comedy, because he understands that most of the time if you look closely enough, the motives of the people involved are as short-sighted and self-seeking as all of the human motives, and that's material of a company.
他以一種特別的方式使這本書變得栩栩如生。他把它變得像喜劇一樣生動，因為他了解大多數時候如果你夠仔細地去看，牽涉在內的人們的動機就和所有人的動機一樣目光短淺且自私自利，而那就是一間公司的素材。
Ford Motor Company was super successful. They introduced a car called the Edsel, and they spent more money on picking the name, and planning the features than it'd ever been spent on any new American product, and yet, it was an abysmal failure.
福特汽車公司當時超級成功。他們推出一台叫 Edsel 的車，而且他們花了比史上任何新的美國產品還要多的錢在挑選名稱及設計功能上，然而，它卻是一次徹底的失敗。
Ford counted on selling at least 200,000 Edsels the first year. "There may be an aborigine somewhere in a remote rainforest, who hasn't yet heard that things failed to turn out that way." I just love that line.
福特指望在頭一年賣出至少二十萬輛 Edsel。「也許在遙遠的雨林中有個土著，他還沒聽說到事情結果並不是那樣。」我就是很愛那句話。
And yet in a way, the Edsel wasn't so bad. It embodied much of the spirit of it's time, or at least the time when it was designed, early in 1955. It was clumsy, powerful, dowdy, gauche, well-meaning—a de Kooning woman.
然而在某種程度上，Edsel 沒有那麼糟糕。它體現它那時期大部分的精神，或至少是當它被設計出的那時期，在 1955 年早期。它臃腫、有力、過時、笨拙、好心腸－－就像一個德庫寧畫筆下的女人。
I think you can read this book today, and learn a lot.
我認為你可以今天讀這本書，然後學到許多。
All the work of Michael Lewis comes directly from this.
所有 Michael Lewis 的作品都直接取自這本書。
And he really was the Michael Lewis of his day.
而他確實是他那時代的 Michael Lewis 。
The rules of running a great business, value creation are unchanged. And Brooks took some very dramatic examples that are particularly fun, and interesting, and instructive.
經營一家大公司、創造價值的規則是不變的。而 Brooks 舉了一些特別有趣、迷人、且有啟發性的十分戲劇化的例子。
John Brooks was a staff writer for the New Yorker for many years.
John Brooks 當了《紐約客雜誌》的特約撰稿人好幾年。
He died in 1993 at the age of 72.
他於 1993 年在 72 歲時逝世。
Business Adventures was republished in 2014, 43 years after it went out of print.
《商業冒險》在 2014 年重新出版，在它絕版 43 年後。
- 「絕版的」- Out Of Print
Business Adventures was republished in 2014, 43 years after it went out of print.
《商業冒險》在 2014 年重新出版，在它絕版 43 年後。
