我职业生涯前半生的生活启示

作者：David A. Patterson

I started my career at Hughes Aircraft in 1972 while working on my Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After designing airborne computers for four years, I graduated and then taught and did systems research at UC Berkeley for the next 40. Since 2016, I’ve helped Google with hardware that accelerates artificial intelligence (AI).
我于 1972 年在休斯飞机公司（Hughes Aircraft）开始了我的职业生涯，当时我正在加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA）攻读博士学位。在设计了四年机载计算机后，我毕业了，随后在加州大学伯克利分校（UC Berkeley）从事教学和系统研究工作长达 40 年。自 2016 年以来，我一直在帮助谷歌开发加速人工智能（AI）的硬件。

At the end of my technical talks, I often share my life story and what I’ve learned from my half-century in computing. I recently was encouraged to share my reflections with a wider audience, so I’ve captured them here as 16 people-focused and career-focused life lessons.
在我的技术演讲结束时，我常常分享我的生活故事以及我在计算机领域半个世纪以来所学到的东西。最近，有人鼓励我将这些思考分享给更广泛的受众，因此我在这里总结了 16 条以人为中心和职业为中心的人生经验。

1. 家庭第一！不要将家庭的幸福牺牲在成功的祭坛上。

2. 选择幸福。

3. 长远来看，你珍视的是人，而非项目。

4. 赞美的成本很小，但对他人来说价值无法估量。

5. 寻求诚实的反馈；它可能是正确的。

6. “无论好坏，基准塑造了一个领域。”

7. “我了解到，勇气不是没有恐惧，而是战胜恐惧。”

8. 当心那些自认为是房间里最聪明的人。

9. “我们大多数人花太多时间在紧急的事情上，而没有足够的时间在重要的事情上。”

10. “世界上伟大的成就，无一不是源于热情。”

11. “在胜利的队伍中没有失败者，在失败的队伍中也没有胜利者。”

12. 以身作则。

13. “Audentes Fortuna iuvat.” （命运眷顾勇者）。

14. 文化至关重要。

15. 重要的不是你开始了多少项目，而是你完成了多少。

16. 寻找积极的机会。

People-Focused 以人为本

Family first! Don’t sacrifice your family’s happiness on the altar of success. Early in my Berkeley career, a senior colleague and I drove home late from an evening meeting in Silicon Valley. At the end of that long day, as I dropped him off, he remarked: “If I had to do it all over again, I wish I had spent more time with my family.”

家庭第一！不要将家庭的幸福牺牲在成功的祭坛上。 在我伯克利职业生涯的早期，我和一位资深同事在硅谷参加完晚间会议后深夜驾车回家。在那漫长的一天结束时，我送他下车时，他感慨道：“如果一切可以重来，我希望我能多花些时间陪伴家人。”

That was a phrase I never wanted to say.

那是我永远不想说的一句话。

My wife and I have two sons, and I volunteered for everything: Indian Guides, Cub Scout Den leader, assistant soccer coach, field trips, and so on. When one of my adorable children grew up to be a rowdy teenager, he accused me of never being around. I went down the list: Indian Guides, Cub Scouts, soccer…he begrudgingly agreed that I was indeed around.

我和妻子有两个儿子，我自愿参与了所有活动：印第安向导、幼童军团长、足球助理教练、实地考察等等。当我那可爱的孩子长大成为吵闹的青少年时，他指责我从未陪伴左右。我列举了所有参与的活动：印第安向导、幼童军、足球…… 他不情愿地承认我确实一直在场。

I’m very happy to say that today our sons, their spouses, our adult grandchildren, and their significant others live in four houses over a six-block patch in a small town near Berkeley, and we routinely get together for family events and vacations.

我很高兴地说，今天我们的儿子、他们的配偶、我们已成年的孙辈以及他们的重要伴侣都住在伯克利附近一个小镇上的六街区范围内的四栋房子里，我们经常聚在一起参加家庭活动和度假。

No one’s last words are, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” Today, it’s even easier to take your work home with you. If family is not your top priority, it can easily drift to the bottom.

没有人临终时会说：“我真希望能在办公室多待些时间。” 如今，把工作带回家变得更加容易。如果家庭不是你的首要考虑，它很容易就会被忽视。

Choose happiness. If you’re unhappy in life, success is much harder to achieve. When I was growing up, the American mantra was that happiness requires wealth. Wealth and happiness are two different goals; we have unhappy billionaires today! I always picked happiness over wealth when there was a choice, and I’m very glad that I did.
选择幸福。 如果你在生活中不快乐，成功就更难实现。在我成长的过程中，美国人的信条是幸福需要财富。财富和幸福是两个不同的目标；如今我们有不快乐的亿万富翁！当有选择时，我总是选择幸福而非财富，我非常高兴我这样做了。

While psychologists traditionally focused on mental health problems, more recently they evaluated what makes people happy.Their advice:

虽然心理学家传统上关注的是心理健康问题，但最近他们评估了是什么让人们感到幸福。 他们的建议是：

Have good friends and a good family. It’s hard to be happy if you’re isolated or having family problems.

拥有好朋友和美满的家庭。 如果你孤立无援或家庭问题缠身，很难感到幸福。

Help others. You feel better about yourself if you help the less fortunate via charity work or donations.

帮助他人。 通过慈善工作或捐款帮助那些不幸的人，你会对自己感觉更好。

Develop a spiritual side. You don’t have to join an organized religion—you can be inspired by the grandeur of nature—but it helps to be aware of a universe that is larger than yourself.

培养精神层面。 你不必加入某个宗教组织 —— 你可以从大自然的壮丽中汲取灵感 —— 但意识到一个比自己更宏大的宇宙是有益的。

Have a job you love. One reason I got a Ph.D. was to be able to have a job I’d love to do even if they didn’t pay me, as is the case at Berkeley and Google.

拥有一份你热爱的工作。 我获得博士学位的一个原因是，即使没有报酬，我也能拥有一份我愿意做的工作，就像在伯克利和谷歌那样。

Take time to have fun. Many adults often get too busy to play. I play Rummikub, go for walks with my wife, and bodysurf, cycle, lift weights, and play soccer on my own. Even now, if I do well in a soccer game, afterward I’m as happy as if I discovered a research breakthrough.

花时间享受乐趣。 许多成年人常常忙得没时间玩耍。我玩拉米纸牌、和妻子散步、冲浪、骑自行车、举重，还独自踢足球。即使现在，如果我在足球比赛中表现出色，赛后我会像发现研究突破一样开心。

I continue working because I love what I do. I still have a fire in my belly, and, thanks to exercise, my biological age is much younger than my chronological age. Why stop now?

我继续工作是因为我热爱我所做的事情。我依然充满激情，而且，多亏了锻炼，我的生理年龄比实际年龄年轻得多。为什么要现在停下来呢？

It’s the people, not the projects, that you value in the long run. When I was finishing my Ph.D. and deciding what to do next, I read a book that surveyed working people to see what they thought of their jobs.My conclusion was that professionals who helped people—like doctors or teachers or ministers—felt really good about their careers, and people who focused on more ephemeral tasks were less satisfied. I went to Berkeley expecting it would be the students and colleagues I worked with who mattered.

长远来看，你重视的是人，而不是项目。 当我完成博士学位并决定下一步该做什么时，我读了一本书，书中调查了工作的人们，了解他们对工作的看法。 我的结论是，那些帮助他人的专业人士 —— 如医生、教师或牧师 —— 对他们的职业生涯感到非常满意，而那些专注于更短暂任务的人则不太满意。我去伯克利时，期望的是与我共事的学生和同事才是最重要的。

I met up with the former dean of our College of Engineering 25 years ago. He told me that upon reflection, it was the people he worked with who mattered much more than his accomplishments. My internal reaction was, ‘I already knew that!’

我 25 年前遇到了我们工程学院的前任院长。他告诉我，经过反思，与他共事的人比他的成就重要得多。我内心的反应是：“我早就知道了！”

The cost of praise is small. The value to others is inestimable. However confident or successful one is, everyone loves praise and approval for a job well done. Praise or any other comments need to be sincere and true; otherwise, people see through them.

赞美的成本微乎其微，但其对他人的价值却难以估量。 无论一个人多么自信或成功，每个人都喜欢因工作出色而受到赞扬和认可。赞美或任何其他评论都需真诚真实；否则，人们会看穿它们。

A few words of approval or public remarks of praise are highly motivating to everyone. They cost so little, but net so much. Moreover, if the limelight is cast on you, reflecting it to others only brightens it—sharing does not diminish limelight.

几句赞许或公开的表扬对每个人来说都极具激励作用。它们成本低廉，却收获颇丰。此外，如果聚光灯照在你身上，将其反射给他人只会使其更加明亮 —— 分享并不会削弱聚光灯的光芒。

Seek out honest feedback; it might be right. Getting honest feedback is critical to success. You don’t want the first comments on your ideas to come from the decision makers. Remember that criticism of a project or idea is separate from criticism of you as a person. Offering suggestions is an endorsement that reviewers think your ideas are sufficiently interesting to be worthwhile of their time.

寻求诚实的反馈；它可能是正确的。 获得诚实的反馈对成功至关重要。你不希望决策者首次对你的想法发表评论。记住，对项目或想法的批评与对你个人的批评是分开的。提供建议意味着评审者认为你的想法足够有趣，值得他们花时间。

Listen hard to the feedback and never push back. At project retreats, the most important session is when we get reactions from outsiders, and we enforce the rule that no one argues with feedback.

认真倾听反馈，绝不反驳。在项目总结会上，最重要的环节是听取外部人士的意见，我们严格执行一条规则：任何人不得对反馈提出异议。

For papers, I send drafts to many people for feedback as early as possible. (I sent this article to a dozen.) I especially recruit reviewers who might not be fans, as they’ll give unvarnished comments.

对于论文，我会尽早将草稿发送给许多人以获取反馈。（我将这篇文章发送给了十几个人。）我特别邀请那些可能不是粉丝的审稿人，因为他们会给出直言不讳的意见。

“For better or for worse, benchmarks shape a field.” I coined this phrase for processor performance evaluation because I saw that good benchmarks accelerate progress and bad ones hinder it. But the quote also applies to life.

“无论好坏，基准测试塑造了一个领域。” 我为处理器性能评估创造了这句话，因为我看到好的基准测试能加速进步，而坏的则会阻碍它。但这句话同样适用于生活。

Bad benchmarks can warp careers. Until recently, one company had a highly visible 10-step technical ladder, which led some engineers to pick projects that were the safest path to getting promoted by avoiding high-risk, high-reward projects. In my opinion, that behavior was bad for their careers and bad for the company. In contrast, Hughes Aircraft followed the Bell Labs model, where the only technical titles were Member or Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff, which did not deter risk taking.

糟糕的基准会扭曲职业发展。直到最近，一家公司还设有一个高度可见的 10 级技术阶梯，这导致一些工程师选择那些最安全、能避免高风险高回报项目的晋升路径。在我看来，这种行为对他们的职业生涯和公司都不利。相比之下，休斯飞机公司遵循贝尔实验室的模式，仅有的技术头衔是技术团队成员或杰出技术团队成员，这并未阻碍冒险精神的发挥。

The academic versions of bad career benchmarks—for faculty and their institutions—are “publish or perish” and “dollars or death.” When I arrived, I asked what Berkeley values. The answer was “impact: a positive change in the world.” It didn’t matter about the number of papers or co-authorship with senior faculty, as long as the research had an impact. Papers and funding were the indirect consequences of impact not the actual target.

学术界对职业发展的不良衡量标准 —— 对教师及其机构而言 —— 是 “不发表就出局” 和 “无资金即死亡”。当我到任时，我询问伯克利重视什么。答案是 “影响力：对世界产生积极改变。” 只要研究有影响力，论文数量或与资深教师的合著并不重要。论文和资金是影响力的间接结果，而非实际目标。

I loved that advice. I am grateful now for such a good benchmark to start my career. But keep in mind, we as humans ultimately get to pick our own benchmarks, for our personal lives as well as for our careers.

我深爱那条建议。如今，我感激它为我的职业生涯提供了如此良好的起点。但请记住，作为人类，我们最终有权为自己的人生和事业设定自己的标杆。

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” If you see an injustice, speak out! Here are a few examples over my career:

“我了解到，勇气并非没有恐惧，而是战胜恐惧。” 如果你看到不公，就要大声说出来！以下是我职业生涯中的几个例子：

I wrote an op-ed about the downside to California if the legislature kept underfunding the University of California.

我写了一篇专栏文章，讨论了如果立法机构继续对加州大学资金不足，加州将面临的负面影响。

Ed Lazowska and I campaigned to change a new DARPA policy that would have cut academic funding nearly in half. DARPA has long-sponsored breakthrough dual-use CS research that relied on academia, such as the Internet, so this cut would’ve been bad for the country as well as for universities.Lazowska and I had a hard time finding other leading computer scientists to join us out of a well-founded fear that criticizing DARPA might make it much harder to get DARPA funding. While I had DARPA funding for the prior 20 years, for the next two projects after that op-ed I needed to learn how to raise funds from industry to replace the substantial DARPA funding of the past. I also lost a consulting role from a company with ties to DARPA due to my stance.

Ed Lazowska 和我发起了一项运动，旨在改变一项新的 DARPA 政策，该政策几乎将学术资助削减了一半。长期以来，DARPA 一直支持依赖于学术界的突破性军民两用计算机科学研究，如互联网，因此这一削减对国家及大学都将极为不利。Lazowska 和我发现很难找到其他顶尖的计算机科学家加入我们，因为他们有充分的理由担心批评 DARPA 可能会大大增加获得 DARPA 资助的难度。尽管我之前 20 年一直获得 DARPA 的资助，但在那篇专栏文章之后，接下来的两个项目中，我不得不学习如何从工业界筹集资金，以替代过去来自 DARPA 的大量资助。由于我的立场，我还失去了一家与 DARPA 有联系公司的咨询职位。

John Hennessy, Maria Klawe, and I wrote an op-ed refuting a (now former) Google engineer who speculated that female software engineers are underrepresented due to inherent biological differences.
John Hennessy、Maria Klawe 和我撰写了一篇专栏文章，反驳了一位（现已离职的）谷歌工程师的观点，该工程师推测女性软件工程师比例偏低是由于固有的生物学差异。

I organized a letter from 25 Turing laureates on how immigration crackdowns were driving away talent and that we should support candidates who would change that policy.Since we were taking a stand in a national election, where nearly half of Americans voted for the other candidate, I received emails attacking my taking a political stand in general and specifically on this election.
我组织了一封由 25 位图灵奖得主签署的信件，内容是关于移民限制政策如何驱赶人才，以及我们应该支持那些愿意改变这一政策的候选人。由于我们在全国大选中表明了立场，而近半数的美国人投票给了另一位候选人，我收到了许多邮件，攻击我在这次选举中以及总体上采取政治立场的行为。

One reviewer opined there was no downside of a well-known tenured professor taking such positions, so courage was not involved. As I look back on the first 50 years of my career, I am proud that I didn’t let fear of upsetting some people prevent me from taking the stands I took. While you need to act if it’s important, try to avoid making enemies when you can, as this proverb warns: “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”

一位评论者认为，知名终身教授担任此类职位并无不利之处，因此并不涉及勇气问题。回顾我职业生涯的前 50 年，我为自己没有因害怕得罪某些人而放弃立场感到自豪。虽然重要时需采取行动，但应尽量避免树敌，正如这句谚语所警示的：“朋友来来去去，敌人却会累积。”

Beware of those who believe they are the smartest people in the room. Over my career, I’ve known a few:
当心那些自认为是房间里最聪明的人。 在我的职业生涯中，我遇到过几位这样的人：

A senior professor who is widely disliked.
一位广受厌恶的资深教授。

The president of an Ivy League school who was fired.
一位被解雇的常春藤盟校校长。

The founder and the president of Enron, who are both convicted felons.
安然公司的创始人和总裁，两人都是已被定罪的罪犯。

A close relative of an ex-in-law who is also a convicted felon.
前姻亲的近亲，且此人也是一名已定罪的重罪犯。

Why would these calamities happen? My hypothesis is that it’s not that they aren’t smart; it’s because they think they are smarter than everyone else. They believe there is nothing to learn by asking for feedback, which leads to them making disastrous decisions. Whether or not my diagnosis is accurate, I’d steer clear of such people, as in my experience catastrophe is just around the corner.

为何这些灾难会发生？我的假设是，并非他们不够聪明，而是因为他们自认为比所有人都聪明。他们相信通过寻求反馈学不到任何东西，这导致他们做出灾难性的决策。无论我的诊断是否准确，我都会避开这类人，因为根据我的经验，灾难往往近在咫尺。

At the opposite end of the personality spectrum are insecure people, who I’d also avoid, as they tend to see credit as a zero-sum game, needing to diminish you to bolster themselves. As lesson 14 advises, it’s hard to prevent difficult people from being part of a large organization, but you can choose to avoid working closely with them.

在性格谱系的另一端是不安全的人，我也会避免与他们共事，因为他们往往将功劳视为零和游戏，需要通过贬低你来提升自己。正如第 14 课所建议的，很难阻止难相处的人成为大型组织的一部分，但你可以选择避免与他们密切合作。

Career-Focused 职业导向

While the following lessons are more focused on your career, they may apply to life as well.

虽然以下课程更侧重于你的职业生涯，但它们也可能适用于生活。

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” Some work on so many small tasks that their calendars are fully packed with meetings, and they have no time for critical, independent, self-reflective thinking. I know what time of day I am at my best and I protect that time. My brain automatically does background processing overnight on the ideas I’m exposed to during the day, and in the early-morning hours good ideas pop into my head. I get up early, and for two hours I record and act on those ideas. I return to bed and start the rest of my day later in the morning.

我们大多数人把太多时间花在了紧急的事情上，而没有足够的时间花在重要的事情上。 有些人忙于处理许多小任务，以至于他们的日程表上排满了会议，没有时间进行关键的、独立的、自我反思的思考。我知道自己在一天中的哪个时间段状态最佳，并会保护这段时间。我的大脑会在夜间自动处理白天接触到的想法，到了清晨，好的想法就会涌入脑海。我早起两个小时，记录并实践这些想法。然后我再回到床上，稍晚些时候开始一天的其他活动。

Covey uses this quadrant for time management:

Covey 使用这个象限进行时间管理：

A time-management matrix created by Steven Covey.
史蒂芬・柯维创建的时间管理矩阵。

Finding time for important, non-urgent tasks takes more initiative and proactivity than for urgent tasks. Success—in life and professionally—is often determined by making the time for important, non-urgent tasks.

为重要但不紧急的任务腾出时间，比处理紧急任务需要更多的主动性和积极性。无论是在生活中还是职业上，成功往往取决于能否为重要但不紧急的任务安排时间。

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.” Passion and enthusiasm help in recruiting teammates, securing funding, and pushing projects through the difficult challenges that you must overcome to succeed. My Berkeley career was based on a series of five-year projects where each time the group of faculty involved passionately believed we had a chance to change the world.

“世界上伟大的成就，无一不是源于热情。” 热情与激情有助于招募团队成员、确保资金支持，并推动项目克服成功路上必须面对的艰难挑战。我在伯克利的职业生涯基于一系列为期五年的项目，每次参与的教职员工都满怀激情地相信，我们有机会改变世界。

“There are no losers on a winning team, and no winners on a losing team.” I learned this quote from Turing laureate Fred Brooks, Jr., who borrowed it from his university’s basketball coach. The idea is that everyone involved wins if your team wins.

“在获胜的队伍中没有输家，在失败的队伍中也没有赢家。” 我从图灵奖得主小弗雷德・布鲁克斯那里学到了这句话，而他则是从大学篮球队教练那里借用的。其核心思想是，如果你的团队获胜，那么所有参与者都是赢家。

I wrestled in high school and college, and despite it being an individual sport, my coaches believed our squad would win more dual meets and tournaments if we bonded as a team. I believe down to my DNA that if a group forms an effective team, it can outperform others who don’t jell, independent of the competitors’ talents or resources. I strive to find good team players who can collaborate effectively to work on projects with me.

我在高中和大学时都参加过摔跤比赛，尽管这是一项个人运动，但我的教练们相信，如果我们作为一个团队紧密团结，我们的队伍就能赢得更多的双人对抗赛和锦标赛。我深信，如果一个团队能够形成有效的协作，无论竞争对手的才能或资源如何，它都能超越那些未能凝聚的团队。我努力寻找能够有效协作的优秀团队成员，与我共同完成项目。

Perhaps my favorite activity is helping my team win. In 2007, Intel and Microsoft held an open competition to fund a $10M research center in parallel computing. Like many of my projects,we formed a strong, multidisciplinary team, as we needed to collaborate in areas slightly outside our comfort zones and areas of expertise. We then practiced hard to pitch our ideas. One of the proudest moments of my career was receiving a call that the Berkeley team was the unanimous pick to get the center.

也许我最喜欢的活动就是帮助我的团队取得胜利。2007 年，英特尔和微软举办了一场公开竞赛，旨在资助一个价值 1000 万美元的并行计算研究中心。与我的许多项目一样， 我们组建了一个强大的多学科团队，因为我们需要在稍微超出我们舒适区和专业领域的领域进行合作。随后，我们努力练习，以推销我们的想法。我职业生涯中最自豪的时刻之一，就是接到电话得知伯克利团队被一致选中获得该中心。

Lead by example. If you want a high-productivity team, then coaching from the sidelines will only go so far; you have to lead by example. Teams are inspired if you’re the first on the practice field and the last one off. Trust also matters, especially in leadership positions. It is much easier to lead if people trust you and your motivations.Whatever behavior you model, the team will seek to display as well.

以身作则。 如果你想要一个高生产力的团队，那么场边指导只能起到有限的作用；你必须以身作则。如果你是第一个到达训练场并最后一个离开的人，团队会受到激励。信任也很重要，尤其是在领导职位上。如果人们信任你和你动机，领导起来会容易得多。无论你示范什么行为，团队也会努力展现出来。

“Audentes Fortuna iuvat.” (Fortune favors the bold). Vision matters: big things happen from a bold vision. Be curious, as bold visions often start from curiosity. When my colleague Randy Katz got the first new small, cheap hard disk drive for his Macintosh PC, he asked: “I wonder what we could do with these?” That curiosity eventually led to a bold vision of fast, reliable, low-cost storage, christened redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID).

“Audentes Fortuna iuvat.”（命运眷顾勇者）。 愿景至关重要：伟大的事业始于大胆的愿景。保持好奇心，因为大胆的愿景往往源于好奇。当我的同事 Randy Katz 为他的 Macintosh PC 拿到第一台新型、小巧且便宜的硬盘驱动器时，他问道：“我想知道我们能用这些做什么？” 这份好奇心最终催生了一个关于快速、可靠、低成本存储的大胆愿景，命名为廉价磁盘冗余阵列（RAID）。

As most research does not have a big impact—otherwise it’s not really research—people tend only to remember the rare home runs and not the other at bats. Since there is little reputational downside to missing a home run, if you want impact, why not swing for the fences? It strikes me that hitting it out of the park is more likely if you aim to hit home runs than if you always try to bunt for singles. As Helen Keller put it, aim high, as “the fearful are caught as often as the bold.”

由于大多数研究并不会产生重大影响 —— 否则就不算是真正的研究了 —— 人们往往只记得那些罕见的全垒打，而忘记了其他击球。既然错过全垒打对声誉几乎没有负面影响，如果你想要产生影响，为什么不全力以赴呢？在我看来，如果你瞄准全垒打，而不是总是试图短打一垒安打，那么击出全垒打的可能性更大。正如海伦・凯勒所说，目标要高，因为 “胆怯者和勇敢者一样经常被抓住。”

Culture matters. Berkeley Computer Science, Google, and Sun Microsystems all had policies of trying to not hire jerks—they actually use a more graphic term—but jerk filters don’t scale well. If you’re very careful, you can recruit a group of perhaps up to 10 people with no bad apples, but it’s nearly impossible to scale jerk-free to 50 or 100. Thus, it’s important to set expectations of good behavior in large organizations. My Berkeley projects recruited students and faculty who played well with others and we set social guidelines.I recently heard a story of behavioral norms in action. A friend had been at the same firm as another person before they both joined Google. He remembers his acquaintance shouting in meetings at the old place, but is now civil in Google gatherings because its employees are directed to act “Googley.”

文化至关重要。 伯克利计算机科学系、谷歌和太阳微系统公司都有政策试图不雇佣混蛋 —— 他们实际上使用了一个更生动的词汇 —— 但混蛋过滤器并不能很好地扩展。如果你非常小心，你可以招募一个可能多达 10 人的团队，其中没有害群之马，但要将无混蛋的规模扩大到 50 或 100 人几乎是不可能的。因此，在大型组织中设定良好行为的期望非常重要。我在伯克利的项目招募了能与他人良好合作的学生和教职员工，并设定了社交准则。我最近听到了一个关于行为规范在行动中的故事。一个朋友和另一个人之前在同一家公司工作，后来他们都加入了谷歌。他记得他的熟人在旧公司的会议上大喊大叫，但在谷歌的聚会上却变得彬彬有礼，因为谷歌的员工被要求表现得 “Googley”。

It’s not how many projects you start; it’s how many you finish. I awoke one sunny morning with this phrase stuck in my head, as if God had spoken to me. Since that epiphany, I make sure I only do one main research project at a time.But this guideline also applies to other responsibilities. For example, when I was chairing the CS Division, leading the Par Lab,being ACM President, refreshing the Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference,I did only one at a time, declining other big service tasks so I could finish the one already on my plate. Bear in mind that you will be remembered for the five or six really important things you do, rather than for a long list of minor contributions.

重要的不是你开始了多少项目，而是你完成了多少。 一个阳光明媚的早晨，我醒来时这句话萦绕在脑海中，仿佛上帝在对我说话。自那次顿悟以来，我确保自己一次只专注于一个主要研究项目。但这一准则同样适用于其他职责。例如，当我担任计算机科学部门主席、领导 Par Lab、担任 ACM 主席、振兴 Tapia 计算多样性庆祝会议时，我一次只做一件事，拒绝其他重大服务任务，以便完成手头的工作。请记住，人们会因为你所做的五六件真正重要的事情而记住你，而不是因为一长串的小贡献。

Look for the positive opportunities. There are so many things that might go wrong in a project that being positive is the best policy; otherwise, it’s very easy to surrender as problems can look insurmountable. I’m a natural-born optimist; my favorite book as a child was The Little Engine That Could. I went on a few dates with a girl when we were both 16, and I liked her so much that I asked to be exclusive (we called it “going steady”). Since we were young, her answer was, “Well, Dave, you’re such a nice guy, I don’t know how to say no.” Being an optimist and a logical thinker, not a “no” sounded like a “yes” to me, so I hugged her and said “Great!” She felt pity for me and decided she would let me down gently later. However, we’ve been married 57 years, and she hasn’t let me down yet.

寻找积极的机会。 在一个项目中，可能会有很多事情出错，因此保持积极是最好的策略；否则，当问题看起来无法克服时，很容易就会放弃。我天生就是个乐观主义者；小时候我最喜欢的书是《小火车做到了》。16 岁时，我和一个女孩约会了几次，我非常喜欢她，于是请求成为彼此的专属（我们称之为 “稳定交往”）。由于我们还年轻，她的回答是：“嗯，戴夫，你是个好人，我不知道怎么拒绝。” 作为一个乐观且逻辑思维强的人，听到 “不” 字对我来说就像是 “是”，所以我拥抱了她并说 “太好了！” 她对我感到同情，决定以后温柔地让我失望。然而，我们已经结婚 57 年了，她至今还没有让我失望过。

When you’ve been together that long, people ask what your secret is. It’s not that we don’t argue; one repeated source of friction is she tells me a problem she is having in the hope of getting empathy and I, as a good engineer, instead try to solve her problem. The secret is what we say after we resolve a disagreement. Usually one of us repeats these nine magic words: “I was wrong. You were right. I love you.” No substitutions! The last three words can’t be, “You’re a jerk!” And absolutely no additional use of the word “but”.

当你们在一起那么久，人们会问你们的秘诀是什么。并不是我们不吵架；一个反复出现的摩擦源是，她告诉我她遇到的问题，希望得到同情，而我作为一个优秀的工程师，却试图解决她的问题。秘诀在于我们在解决分歧后所说的话。通常我们中的一方会重复这九个神奇的词：“我错了。你是对的。我爱你。” 不能替换！最后三个词不能是 “你是个混蛋！” 而且绝对不能额外使用 “但是” 这个词。

Embracing these 16 life lessons and remembering to say (all of) the nine magic words may, and hopefully will, help you have a blissful, lifelong relationship and a happy, successful career.

拥抱这 16 条人生经验，并记住说出（所有）这九个神奇词汇，或许 —— 也希望能 —— 助你拥有幸福美满的终身伴侣关系以及快乐成功的事业。

Acknowledgements 致谢

I’d like to thank the following for their comments and suggestions that significantly improved this draft, which started with 10 lessons: Sarah Chasins, Jeff Dean, Armando Fox, Trevor Gale, John Hennessy, Kurt Keutzer, Derek Lockhart, Xiaoyu Ma, John Ousterhout, Timothy Pinkston, Jen Switzer, and Cliff Young. Based on observing my behavior over the years, Keutzer suggested lessons 4 and 12 and Ma recommended including protection of think time in lesson 9. Pinkston proposed that I share my advice more widely.

我要感谢以下各位的评论和建议，他们极大地改进了这份最初包含 10 条经验的草稿：Sarah Chasins、Jeff Dean、Armando Fox、Trevor Gale、John Hennessy、Kurt Keutzer、Derek Lockhart、Xiaoyu Ma、John Ousterhout、Timothy Pinkston、Jen Switzer 和 Cliff Young。基于对我多年行为的观察，Keutzer 提出了第 4 和第 12 条经验，而 Ma 则建议在第 9 条中加入保护思考时间的内容。Pinkston 提议我应更广泛地分享我的建议。

原文链接：https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/life-lessons-from-the-first-half-century-of-my-career/