已故的蘋果公司聯合創始人史蒂夫·喬布斯生前喜歡跟硅谷老一代企業家聊天，他的理由是，“如果不了解歷史，就無法了解當前發生的事。”對其他人來說，讀一讀萊斯利·柏林寫的硅谷詳史或許也能溫故知新。

柏林的新書名叫《找麻煩的人》，非常有助于理解當下美國科技行業前所未有的性別歧視危機，政治壓力，還有失控的社交媒體。

有些故事其實聽起來很熟悉。舉個例子，柏林講述了喬布斯和其他硅谷大佬開發產品時深受硅谷反叛文化影響，都曾向傳統企業開炮。書中還介紹了著名的“叛逆八人幫”（這八人甩開導師自行成立了仙童半導體公司，后來成了非常有名的企業），還介紹了施樂公司的PARC實驗室諸多意識超前的發明。

Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs liked to hang out with an older generation of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs because, he claimed, “you can’t really understand what is going on now unless you understand what came before.” For the rest of us, Leslie Berlin’s sweeping new history of the Valley is the next best thing.

Berlin’s book, Troublemakers, is particularly essential reading at a time when the U.S. tech industry is facing an unprecedented crisis over sexism, declining political clout, and social media platforms run amok.

Some of its story is familiar. For example, Berlin recounts how Jobs and other techies drank deeply from the Bay Area’s counter culture as they built great products and set fire to corporate flimflam. The book also describes the “traitorous eight” (who ditched their mentor to launch Fairchild Semiconductor, and then famous firms of their own), and recounts the ahead-of-their-time inventions of Xerox’s PARC lab.

不過書中大多數故事都名不見經傳。從她的研究中可以發現，上世紀70年代硅谷曾出現大量創新，而且并不局限于計算機方面，例如網絡、視頻游戲和軟件等，還包括生物科技、風險資本、市場推廣和知識產權等領域。

硅谷吸引了大批行事風格特別的人（還有充滿反叛精神的人），他們共同顛覆了傳統觀念里在公司、實驗室或大學里工作的含義。喬布斯和英特爾的安迪·葛洛夫等科技行業傳奇經常在《找麻煩的人》一書中出現，柏林比較反對歷史“偉人”理論，更欣賞不那么知名卻共同創造巨大價值的人。

總體來說，書中詳盡介紹了一些意義重大的發現，例如基因重組和微型處理器等，也筆法輕快地說了一些略帶顏色的段子，諸如裸體浴缸會議和沉迷大麻的程序員等。雖然柏林尊崇歷史，不喜歡說教，但《找麻煩的人》書中回憶的不少故事都能看出，當前在硅谷引發強烈抗議的性別歧視問題有著很深的根源。

舉個例子，第一位女性首席執行官，也是第一位帶公司成功上市的女性桑德拉·科特齊格開會時經常被誤認為“禮儀小姐”，長期以來科技行業里如果有女性入侵男性工程師地盤，挑戰其權力或威信，一定會受到懲罰。此外，從柏林的描述中能看出上世紀70年代，硅谷大牛們很少關心附近居住的低收入人群，毫不在意自己的財富、技術優勢還有鱗次櫛比的辦公樓對當地人生活造成多大壓力。

如今隨著科技行業開始應對當前的危機，借鑒《找麻煩的人》一書或許可以從長遠角度看待硅谷的成功和問題所在。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審校：夏林

Much of what Berlin recounts, though, is less well known. Her research reveals how Silicon Valley in the 1970s created a staggering amount of innovation not just in computer related fields—networking, video games, software—but other ones like biotechnology, venture capital, marketing and intellectual property.

The Valley attracted people who did things differently (and often defiantly), and came together to upend conventional views of what it meant to work in a company or a research lab or a university. While tech legends like Jobs and Intel’s Andy Grove turn up frequently in Troublemakers, Berlin rejects “great man” theories of history in favor of lesser-known figures who together made the value what it is.

Overall, the book does a masterful job explaining profound discoveries like recombinant DNA and microprocessors, while also keeping up a brisk narrative that’s aided by off-color accounts of naked hot tub meetings and pot-addled programmers. While Berlin prefers history to moralizing, such stories recounted in Troublemakers makes it clear the current outcry about sexism in the Valley is deeply-rooted.

For example, Sandra Kurtzig, a CEO and the first woman to take a company public, was often mistaken for a “booth babe” at conference shows, while male engineers across the industry have long been quick to punish any female intrusion on their power or prestige. Meanwhile, Berlin’s accounts show how, even in the 1970s, the hotshots of Silicon Valley appeared to care little about the lower income people nearby who they displaced with their wealth, technology and sprawling corporate compounds.

Today, as the tech industry comes to grips with its current crisis, Troublemakers provides a welcome long view of Silicon Valley’s triumphs and troubles.