赞美另类 In praise of misfits

爱思英语编者按：无法拒绝另类。另类的生活充满自由和诱惑。可是，我们也无法投身另类。另类，需要环境，需要金钱，需要尊严和名誉的不被侵犯等等。

导读：Geek is the new cool，近年来随硅谷科技公司的表现和很多领域数学电脑精英的突起，让传统观念里擅于交际，灵活圆滑的商人形象发生了巨大的改变，一代特立独行，孤僻怪异的企业人才纷纷冒出头来。本文讨论了这一趋势的影响和可能的后果。

Schumpeter

熊彼得

In praise of misfits

赞美另类

Why business needs people with Asperger’s syndrome, attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia?

为什么商界需要阿斯伯格综合症、多动症和读写困难症患者？

IN 1956 William Whyte argued in his bestseller, “The Organisation Man”, that companies were so in love with “well-rounded” executives that they fought a “fight against genius”. Today many suffer from the opposite prejudice. Software firms gobble up anti-social geeks. Hedge funds hoover up equally oddball quants. Hollywood bends over backwards to accommodate the whims of creatives. And policymakers look to rule-breaking entrepreneurs to create jobs. Unlike the school playground, the marketplace is kind to misfits.

1956年威廉·怀特在他的畅销书籍《组织人》中提出了一个观点。他认为公司过于喜爱那些“全才型”的总裁，以致于许多公司已经到了“和天才为敌”的地步。今时今日，这种偏见体现在相反的方面。软件公司大肆招收不合群的极客[注1]。对冲基金同样急于吸入怪异的宽客[注2]。好莱坞竭尽全力来迁就创意人才的心血来潮。政治家们则指望打破规章的创业家来制造就业。和学校操场不同，市场对于这些另类分外和善。

Recruiters have noticed that the mental qualities that make a good computer programmer resemble those that might get you diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome: an obsessive interest in narrow subjects; a passion for numbers, patterns and machines; an addiction to repetitive tasks; and a lack of sensitivity to social cues. Some joke that the internet was invented by and for people who are “on the spectrum”, as they put it in the Valley. Online, you can communicate without the ordeal of meeting people.

招聘人士已经注意到一个优秀电脑编程员的心理特质非常接近于阿斯伯格综合症[注3]患者特点：对于一些狭窄的课题有强迫性的兴趣，热爱数字、规律和机器，对重复性的工作着迷，对于社交信号则置若罔然。正如硅谷人开玩笑所说的那样，互联网是那些“位于自闭症光谱”[注4]上的人为了自己而发明的。在网上，你可以和别人联系，而不需要承受见面带来的煎熬。

Wired magazine once called it “the Geek Syndrome”. Speaking of internet firms founded in the past decade, Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor, told the New Yorker that: “The people who run them are sort of autistic.” Yishan Wong, an ex-Facebooker, wrote that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, has “a touch of Asperger’s”, in that “he does not provide much active feedback or confirmation that he is listening to you.” Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, says he finds the symptoms of Asperger’s “uncomfortably familiar” when he hears them listed.

《连线》杂志称这种情况为“极客综合症”。Facebook的一位早期投资者彼得·提尔在接受《纽约客》访问谈到过去十年建立的互联网公司时曾这么说：“这些公司的老板都是一定程度上的自闭症患者。”Facebook前雇员黄易山曾撰文提到该公司的创始人马克·扎克伯格有“一点自闭症的味道”，原因是“他不会对你的话提供多少积极反馈或肯定，让你知道他正在听你说话。”克雷格分类广告网的创始人克雷格·纽马克说过当他第一次听到阿斯伯格综合症的症状时他觉得这些症状“熟悉得让他感到不适”。

Similar traits are common in the upper reaches of finance. The quants have taken over from the preppies. The hero of Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short”, Michael Burry, a hedge-fund manager, is a loner who wrote a stockmarket blog as a hobby while he was studying to be a doctor. He attracted so much attention from money managers that he quit medicine to start his own hedge fund, Scion Capital. After noticing that there was something awry with the mortgage market, he made a killing betting that it would crash. “The one guy that I could trust in the middle of this crisis,” Mr Lewis told National Public Radio, “was this fellow with Asperger’s and a glass eye.”

在金融业的高端类似的特点也很常见。如今宽客已经取代了传统的社会精英[注5]。迈克尔·刘易斯的纪实著作《大空头》中的主人公迈克尔·拜瑞性格孤僻。这位对冲基金经理在医学院念书期间以撰写股市博客作为消遣。他的博文吸引了大量资产管理人的注意，最终他放弃当医生开始了自己的对冲基金－赛昂资本公司。后来，他发现按揭市场存在问题，于是下了重注赌房地产市场将会崩市，赚了个杯满钵盈。刘易斯在接受国家公共电台采访时说：“在（金融）危机中我唯一可以信任的人就是这位患有阿斯伯格综合症，戴着一个假眼珠的老兄。”

Entrepreneurs also display a striking number of mental oddities. Julie Login of Cass Business School surveyed a group of entrepreneurs and found that 35% of them said that they suffered from dyslexia, compared with 10% of the population as a whole and 1% of professional managers. Prominent dyslexics include the founders of Ford, General Electric, IBM and IKEA, not to mention more recent successes such as Charles Schwab (the founder of a stockbroker), Richard Branson (the Virgin Group), John Chambers (Cisco) and Steve Jobs (Apple). There are many possible explanations for this. Dyslexics learn how to delegate tasks early (getting other people to do their homework, for example). They gravitate to activities that require few formal qualifications and demand little reading or writing.

创业家也展现出一些惊人的心理怪僻特点。凯斯商学院的朱莉·罗金调查了一群创业家，发现其中有35%称自己患有读写困难症[注6]。相较之下，读写困难症在全体人口中所占的比例只有10%，在职业经理人中该比例更只有1%。著名的读写困难症患者包括福特、通用电气、IBM和宜家这些公司的创始人，更不用说近年来的一些成功人士，查尔斯·施瓦布（一间证券经济公司的创始人），理查德·布兰森（维珍集团），约翰·钱伯斯（思科），还有斯蒂夫·乔布斯（苹果）。这背后有很多可能性。读写困难症患者从很小起就学会了如何分配工作（例如让其他同学帮自己做功课）。他们自然而然地趋向于不需要正式文凭，也不需要多少读写能力的活动。

Attention-deficit disorder (ADD) is another entrepreneur-friendly affliction: people who cannot focus on one thing for long can be disastrous employees but founts of new ideas. Some studies suggest that people with ADD are six times more likely than average to end up running their own businesses. David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue, a budget airline, says: “My ADD brain naturally searches for better ways of doing things. With the disorganisation, procrastination, inability to focus and all the other bad things that come with ADD, there also come creativity and the ability to take risks.” Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s and a hotch-potch of businesses since, has both ADD and dyslexia. “I get bored easily; that is a great motivator,” he once said. “I think everybody should have dyslexia and ADD.”

多动症[注7]则是另外一种和创业家有着不解之缘的病症。那些无法长时间在一件事上集中注意力的人会是非常糟糕的雇员，但同时也可以是新点子的源泉。一些研究表明多动症患者最后自己经商的机会是普通人的六倍。廉价航空公司捷蓝的创始人大卫·尼尔曼说过：“我的多动症大脑自然而然地在不停搜寻更好地行事方式。多动症带来缺乏组织、拖沓、无法集中和其它各种不利因素，但是它也带来了创意和冒风险的能力。”保罗·奥法里是金考快印的创始人，之后还创建过五花八门的各种公司，他同时患有读写困难症和多动症。他曾说过：“我很容易对事物厌烦，这给了我很大的动力。我觉得人人都应该患上读写困难症和多动症。”

Where does that leave the old-fashioned organisation man? He will do just fine. The more companies hire brilliant mavericks, the more they need sensible managers to keep the company grounded. Someone has to ensure that dull but necessary tasks are done. Someone has to charm customers (and perhaps lawmakers). This task is best done by those who don’t give the impression that they think normal people are stupid. (Sheryl Sandberg, Mr Zuckerberg’s deputy, does this rather well for Facebook.) Many start-ups are saved from disaster only by replacing the founders with professional managers. Those managers, of course, must learn to work with geeks.

那么老派的组织人还有什么可做呢？放心，他不会有问题。公司雇用的高明异类人才越多，它们也就需要越明智的经理来控制这些人才。总得有人来确保完成那些枯燥但必需的工作。总得有人来讨好顾客（或许还有政客）。这项工作最好还是交给那些不会流露出“普通人是笨蛋”想法的雇员。（扎克伯格的副手谢丽尔·桑德博格在这一点上就为Facebook做得很好。）许多新兴企业都是在职业经理人取代创始者之后才被拯救起来的。当然，那些经理人要学会和极客共事。

Geekery in the genes

基因中的极客因子

The clustering of people with unusual minds is causing new problems. People who work for brainy companies tend to marry other brainy people. Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University argues that when two hyper-systematisers meet and mate, they are more likely to have children who suffer from Asperger’s or its more severe cousin, autism. He has shown that children in Eindhoven, a technology hub in the Netherlands, are two to four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than children in two other Dutch towns of similar size. He has also shown that Cambridge students who study mathematics, physics and engineering are more likely to have autistic relatives than students studying English literature. Most employers are leery of hiring severely autistic people, but not all. Specialist People, a Danish firm, matches autistic workers with jobs that require a good memory or a high tolerance for repetition.

思维另类的人聚集在一起会引起新的问题。给高智商公司打工的人倾向于和其他高智商人士结婚。剑桥大学的西蒙·巴隆-科恩认为如果两个超系统化的人相遇并繁衍后代，他们的子女患有阿斯伯格综合症或其更严重的相关病症－自闭症的机会更大。他发现在荷兰科技中心艾德霍芬出生的儿童患自闭症的机会是另外两个人口类似的荷兰城市中儿童的二至四倍。他也发现在剑桥大学就读数学、物理学和工程的学生比就读英国文学的学生有更高的机会有患自闭症的亲戚。大多数的雇主对于雇用高度自闭症患者都存有戒心，但也有例外。丹麦的“专家人”公司就提供服务把自闭症患者和那些需要出色记忆力以及对重复活动有很高容忍度的岗位配对。

More broadly, the replacement of organisation man with disorganisation man is changing the balance of power. Those square pegs may not have an easy time in school. They may be mocked by jocks and ignored at parties. But these days no serious organisation can prosper without them. As Kiran Malhotra, a Silicon Valley networker, puts it: “It’s actually cool to be a geek.”

从更广的视角看，组织人被无组织人代替正在改变权力的平衡。那些另类人士在上学时可能并不轻松。他们遭受运动好手们的嘲讽，在聚会上无人搭理他们。但今时今日任何认真的组织都需要这类人才方能成功。正如一位硅谷的关系网人士吉兰·马尔霍特拉所说的那样：“当极客其实挺酷的。”

译者注：

1 - Geek，英语本意为性格古怪者，但随时代改变赋予新的意义。过去一般指“电脑专家或爱好者”，或是“过度的书呆子”，为贬义词。过去十年中这个词开始重兴，带上了一定的正面因素，很多人以此自居，由此引出“极客”这一译法。具体概念有很多不同的定义，大体来说，极客对科技，尤其是计算机和新媒体很感兴趣，是某一方面的专才，喜欢在生活中应用书本或是学术知识，对于更广泛的社交和常识不感兴趣，醉心于某些特立独行的活动或领域。和“宅文化”有共通之处，但细节上有区别。

2 - Quant，Quantitative analyst的简称，最早关注于投资管理、风险管理和衍生品的定价问题，后来拓宽到几乎所有在金融中应用数学的领域。和financial engineer（金融工程师）意义相当，近年来出现“宽客”这一译名，一般为数学、物理学科，而不是传统金融学科教育出来的人才，同时具有相当的电脑技术。在很多层面上和极客有共通点。

3 - Asperger’s syndrome，阿斯伯格综合症，有时被看作自闭症的一种（学术上有争议）。和一般自闭症不同，阿氏综合症患者的语言和认知发育一般不受到障碍，对日常生活影响不大，因此一般不需要接受治疗。主要包括社交沟通困难，偏执，兴趣狭窄等特点。确实有阿氏综合症患者是数学天才，但这是个别现象。

4 - on the spectrum是指Autism spectrum，自闭症光谱，广义的所有社交沟通上表现出障碍的病例总称。代表了从自闭症到阿斯伯格综合症等等一系列相似的发育障碍。

5 - preppy，或prep，是美国亚文化的一个概念，传统上指美国东北部私立大学（像常春藤大学）的预备学校，就读这些学校的很多学生都是家庭背景殷实，人脉良好。类似于社会上层的概念。这一概念在美国是非常复杂的，包含一个人的说话方式、口音、词汇、举止、礼仪等方面。在这里是指擅于交际，搞教育水平的传统社会精英，和极客对比。

6 - dyslexia，读写困难症，是一个很广义的概念，包括很多学习障碍，最典型的一种是阅读障碍，会影响一个人阅读理解的能力。患者无法顺利进行阅读活动，经过训练治疗可以进行阅读，但是速度较慢，在没有上下文拿出单个词语时理解拼写往往会有问题。此障碍和智商无关。

7 - Attention deficit disorder (ADD)，多动症。严格说来，“多动症”是指注意力匮乏障碍Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)，底下有三个分类表现，其中表现为注意障碍为主的称为ADD，其特点为注意障碍但不“多动”，主要表现为懒散、困惑、迷惘、动力不足，伴较多焦虑、抑郁，有较多的学习问题, 而较少伴品行问题。

俗语俚语：

bends over backwards - 非常尽力，竭尽所能去完成某一件事。字面意思为“下腰”，比喻要花大功夫才能做到。

make a killing - 大获成功，尤指赚到大钱，和中文赌博俗语“大杀三方”有异曲同工之妙。

square peg - 来自谚语Square peg in a round hole，插在圆洞里的方棍子，指和周围格格不入的另类

jock - 美语，代表运动员的一类刻板印象，通常指高中或大学里青少年亚文化圈子里那些英俊强壮，头脑愚蠢，态度傲慢，性格暴躁，受女孩子欢迎，欺负弱者的校队运动员形象。