前CEO講述諾基亞的盛衰往事
It is hard to overstate just how dominant Nokia was in the pre-iPhone era.
很難高估諾基亞(Nokia)在iPhone問世之前佔據過多麼主導的地位。
The company gave Finland its first global brand beyond the Moomins and Marimekko.
該公司讓芬蘭擁有了除姆明一族(Moomins)和Marimekko（芬蘭家居用品企業——譯者注）以外的首個全球品牌。
Jorma Ollila was the unlikely hero of Nokia’s rise from a failing conglomerate making everything from toilet paper and rubber boots to cables for the Soviet Union.
約瑪•奧利拉(Jorma Ollila)是諾基亞崛起過程中一位不可思議的英雄，當初諾基亞是一家瀕臨倒閉的綜合企業，生產多種日用品，包括衛生紙、膠鞋，以及出口到蘇聯的電纜。
He spent 25 years at the helm of one of the most curious success stories in the history of the technology sector.
他用25年時間譜寫出了科技行業史上最不尋常的成功故事之一。
Yet Against All Odds proves to be a more cautionary tale than one that revels in how the Finns beat the world.
然而，《排除萬難》(Against All Odds)更像是一個警示故事，而非陶醉於芬蘭人如何傲居世界首位。
The book begins with the phrase no one was happy, which sets the tone for the rest of his story detailing the pitfalls and financial crises that almost subsumed the business.
該書開頭寫道：那時沒有人高興，這爲整個故事奠定了基調，書中詳細描述了幾乎葬送了這家企業的失誤和財務危機。
He rarely dwells on its periods of rampant success.
他很少把筆觸放在諾基亞大獲成功的時期。
I was captain of a vessel where only the bridge remained above the waterline: the hull was already submerged and the water was coming in the engine room, he says of his first days as chief executive.
他在說到他擔任首席執行官最初的日子時寫道：我是一艘大船的船長，該船隻有駕駛室在吃水線上方：船體已沒入水中，水正流入發動機艙。
References to the company haemorrhaging cash and being ripe for plucking by larger rivals become so numerous, it is almost easy to forget he is detailing one of the biggest success stories of the 1990s.
他多次提到該公司資金嚴重流失以及被較大規模競爭對手收入囊中的時機成熟，以至於讀者幾乎很容易忘記他在敘述上世紀90年代最成功的故事之一。
When Nokia’s workforce doubled, its revenue grew tenfold and its profit rose a hundredfold.
當時諾基亞的員工數量翻了一番，收入增長了10倍，利潤擴大了100倍。
This is an unlikely tale of how a group of provincial Finns changed communications and the world.
這是一個不可思議的故事，講述的是一羣土生土長的芬蘭人如何改變電信行業乃至世界。
Ollila is from Ostrobothnia which is so rural that studying in the Welsh town of Bridgend as a youth makes him feel worldly.
奧利拉來自奧斯托波斯尼亞(Ostrobothnia)，那裏的鄉村氣息如此濃厚，以至於他年輕時在威爾士布里真德鎮(Bridgend)學習時，竟有見了大世面的感覺。
The Nokia 101, the Ford Model T of mobile phones, was developed by Pertti Korhonen who hailed from Meltaus within the Arctic Circle, about as far away from Silicon Valley as you can imagine.
諾基亞101被稱爲手機中的福特T型車(Ford Model T)，其開發者佩爾蒂•科爾霍寧(Pertti Korhonen)來自北極圈以內的Meltaus，那裏距離硅谷遠的不能再遠了。
Ollila spends much of the book describing how he unpicked the old Nokia by selling off the sacred paper division as well as the large television division that had become a millstone.
奧利拉用了很多的筆墨描寫他是如何通過出售神聖的造紙業務和已成爲沉重負擔的大規模電視業務來告別舊諾基亞的。
Apart from a few crayfish parties, there is no wild excess on show.
除了一些小龍蝦聚會，書中沒有展示過度的鋪張。
That may reflect his early days working under the Nokia chairman Kari Kairamo, who would hang out of helicopters and was obsessed with his public image.
這可能反映出他早年在諾基亞董事長卡瑞•凱雷莫(Kari Kairamo)手下工作的經歷，凱雷莫常常在直升機上探身出來炫耀，念念不忘自己的公共形象。
Kairamo committed suicide in the role and his eventual successor describes feeling powerless and a little betrayed as he poses for a photo shoot with a French magazine in the hours after the news was broken to him.
凱雷莫在任上自殺，他最終的繼任者在他去世消息傳來幾小時後接受一家法國雜誌的拍照時感到無能爲力和些許的背叛。
A Finnish sense of humour is apparent in his writing.
文中明顯流露出芬蘭式幽默感。
Ollila describes skiing in the Alps to get away from Nokia when his phone starts ringing, which is a problem he helped to impart to the world.
奧利拉寫道，爲了清靜，他跑到阿爾卑斯山上滑雪，結果他的手機響起，而這個問題正是他參與帶給世界的。
An anecdote about receiving a phone call in his car from Bill Gates that was so furious he had to pull over — only to discover later that the billionaire had meant to call his counterpart at Ericsson — is hilarious.
有一件軼事很好笑，他在車中接到比爾•蓋茨(Bill Gates)的電話，對方非常生氣，以至於他不得不在路邊停車，結果發現這位億萬富翁打電話找的是愛立信(Ericsson)的掌門人的。
The revelation that the word geek translates to nörtti in Finnish is also a lovely fact.
極客這個詞在芬蘭語中被翻譯爲nörtti，這也是一個有趣的事實。
Ollila’s turn of phrase chimes with Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan school of humour.
奧利拉的措辭與芬蘭導演阿基•郭利馬斯基(Aki Kaurismäki)的冷幽默不謀而合。
He describes delivering a rather long and gloomy monologue, straight from my heart in one board meeting.
他曾在一次董事會會議上說出一段長長的憂鬱的獨白，發自我的內心。
The view of a church out of the window at another crucial meeting is described thus: The tombstones of the old plague victims buried there appeared as dark shadows against the ground, while the trees seemed even darker and more threatening.
在另一次重要會議上，他這樣描寫窗外的一座教堂：當年瘟疫受害者的墓碑好像是投在地面上的陰影，而樹木似乎更陰暗更嚇人。
The impression was radiant in a way only a deep Finnish winter could be.
這幅景象給人以光芒四射的印象，只有芬蘭的嚴冬纔會這樣。
Ollila pulls no punches on how and why Nokia fell from grace although he keeps his powder dry on Stephen Elop, whom he hired, and the eventual sale to Microsoft of its famed handset business.
奧利拉毫不留情地講述了諾基亞是如何以及爲何跌落神壇的，不過他沒有評論他聘用的史蒂芬•埃洛普(Stephen Elop)以及最終將諾基亞著名的手機業務出售給微軟(Microsoft)的交易。
Against All Odds is a unique tale and Ollila’s way of telling it is equally left field.
《Against All Odds》是一個獨特的故事，奧利拉的敘事方法也同樣別具一格。
