抵抗天賦的誘惑

杰夫·貝索斯，全球最大的互聯網書店——亞馬遜網絡購物中心締造者，亞馬遜CEO，第一位成功的網上零售業者《時代》周刊風云人物。美國《財富》雜志“巨富排行榜”第二；美國《商業周刊》評選的“互聯網時代最具影響力的25人”之一。

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift， kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—theyre given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if youre not careful， and if you do， itll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

今天我想對你們說的是，天賦和選擇不同。聰明是一種天賦，而善良是一種選擇。天賦得來很容易——畢竟它們與生俱來。而選擇則頗為不易。如果一不小心，你可能被天賦所誘惑，這可能會損害到你做出的選擇。

This is a group with many gifts. Im sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. Im confident thats the case because admission is competitive and if there werent some signs that youre clever， the dean of admission wouldnt have let you in.

在座各位都擁有許多天賦。我確信你們的天賦之一就是擁有精明能干的頭腦。之所以如此確信，是因為入學競爭十分激烈，如果你們不能表現出聰明智慧，便沒有資格進入這所學校。

How will you use these gifts？ And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices？ I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2，300 percent per year. Id never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast， and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles—something that simply couldnt exist in the physical world—was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old， and Id been married for a year.

你們要如何運用這些天賦呢？你們會為自己的天賦感到驕傲，還是會為自己的選擇感到驕傲？ 16年前，我萌生了創辦亞馬遜的想法。彼時我面對的現實是互聯網使用量以每年2300%的速度增長，我從未看到或聽說過任何增長如此快速的東西。創建涵蓋幾百萬種書籍的網上書店的想法令我興奮異常，因為這個東西在物理世界里根本無法存在。那時我剛剛30歲，結婚才一年。

I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldnt work since most startups dont， and I wasnt sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy， Id been a garage inventor. Id invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires， a solar cooker that didnt work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil， baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. Id always wanted to be an inventor， and she wanted me to follow my passion.

我告訴妻子MacKenzie我想辭去工作，然后去做這件瘋狂的事情——很可能會失敗，因為大部分創業公司都是如此，而且我不確定那之后會發生什么。MacKenzie告訴我，我應該放手一搏。在我還是一個男孩兒的時候，我是車庫發明家。我曾用水泥填充的輪胎、雨傘和錫箔以及報警器制作了一個自動關門器?！?br>