第五集：Siri

好了，各位听众。

Alright, listeners.

现在正是感谢Anthropic公司的好时机，他们是Claude的开发者。

Now is a great time to thank our friends at Anthropic, the makers of Claude.

这里有一件事，可能Acquired的听众还不知道。

So here's something Acquired listeners may not know.

我们实际上一直在用Claude的代码来搭建Acquired平台的基础设施。

We have actually been using Claude code to build infrastructure for Acquired itself.

这让我们能够打造一些如果没有Claude就根本无法实现的听众体验。

This let us create listener experiences that otherwise would not have existed if we did not have Claude.

没错。

Yes.

比如支撑我们YouTube视频字幕的自动转录系统。

Like the transcription pipeline that powers our YouTube episodes.

那就是用Claude写的代码。

That is Claude code.

对。

Yep.

我们还用它来让Acquired的日常运营效率提升了很多。

And we also use it to run our business here at Acquired much more efficiently.

以前我得手动维护一堆老旧的静态表格，用来追踪下载量，试着从中找规律。

I used to maintain these old static spreadsheets for tracking downloads and trying to draw conclusions.

我们用Claude Code写了一些脚本，把这些表格改成了内部的实时仪表盘，能自动抓取整个节目库的数据和我们每周都看的关键指标，好判断每期节目的表现。

We wrote scripts with Claude Code to turn those into custom internal dashboards that pull in live data across the whole catalog and metrics that we actually look at every week to figure out how episodes are doing.

而且我根本不用靠自己那点早就生疏的编程知识，那都过时很久了。

And I didn't need to rely on any of my old software developer knowledge for this, which is, quite expired at

到现在。

this point.

谁都能做到。

Anyone can do this.

我只要说清楚需要什么，Claude Code就全帮我搞定了

I just described what I needed, and Claude Code handled

是的。

Yep.

这些可不是原型。

And these are not prototypes.

每次我们发布新节目，转录系统都会自动运行。

The transcriber runs on every episode we publish.

仪表盘实时获取数据。

The dashboards pull live data.

这是我们日常运营依赖的核心系统。

This is the production infrastructure that we depend on.

没错。

That's right.

如果你是个开发者，整天被那些想甩掉的琐事拖着，ClaudeCode 直接在终端里运行，读取你的代码库，就能帮你写测试、重构代码或者调试，根本不用你一步一指导。

And if you are a developer and you're spending half your day on tasks that you wish you could just hand off, ClaudeCode runs in your terminal, reads your code base, and can take on things like writing tests, refactoring, or debugging without you hand holding through every step.

这可不是代码自动补全。

And this isn't autocomplete.

使用 ClaudeCode，你可以给它一个完整的任务，比如修复一个漏洞或开发新功能，它就能独立完成。

With Claude code, you give it an entire task like fixing a bug or building a new feature, and it handles it.

所以，对于值得解决的问题，赶紧去 Claude.ai/acquired 开始使用 Claude 吧。

So for problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude dot a I slash acquired.

嘿，Siri。

Hey, Siri.

你被苹果收购后表现得怎么样？

Were you a good acquisition by Apple?

这个问题挺有意思。

Interesting question.

谁掌握了真相？

Who got the truth?

是你吗？

Is it you?

是你吗？

Is it you?

是你吗？

Is it you?

现在谁掌握了真相？

Who got the truth now?

欢迎来到《收购》第五集。

Welcome to episode five of Acquired.

这一集讲的是Siri和苹果的收购案。

This episode is about Siri and Apple's acquisition.

我们开始吗？

Are we starting?

是的。

Yeah.

我们开始了。

We're starting.

欢迎各位听众再次回来。

So, welcome back to all of our listeners.

和往常一样，你们可以在 Twitter 上关注 Acquired FM，给我们提任何建议或反馈。

As usual, you can, give us any feedback or anything at Acquired FM on Twitter.

最近几期节目真的很有趣。

It's been a fun last few episodes.

我觉得这是新年之前最后一期了。

Think this is our last one before, before the New Year.

是的。

Yeah.

祝大家节日快乐。

Happy holidays, everybody.

对。

Yeah.

没错。

Yeah.

不过在这之前，我们为大家准备了一期特别的内容。

In the meantime, though, we've got a, special one for you here.

我们来聊一聊Hey Siri。

We're doing Hey Siri.

没错。

We are.

没错。

We are.

没错。

We are.

大卫，你来给我们讲讲Siri的收购历史和相关背景吗？

David, do wanna start us off with the acquisition history and facts?

一如既往。

As always.

Siri的背景非常有意思，它是从SRI国际分离出来的，而SRI本身是个很特别的机构，很多人可能都听说过，总部在门洛帕克。

So Siri, super interesting history, a spinout from SRI International, which itself is a fascinating organization, many people are probably familiar with, based in Menlo Park.

它其实成立于1946年，由斯坦福大学的董事会创办，最初的名字叫斯坦福研究所。

It itself was actually started in 1946 by the trustees of Stanford, and was originally called the Stanford Research Institute.

它的目标是将研究成果商业化，也就是做研发，然后孵化出新的公司，把基础技术推向市场。多年来，它一直得到政府、斯坦福大学以及许多其他机构的资金支持。

And the purpose of it was to commercialize well, to research and then spin out and potentially spin out and commercialize basic technology and has been funded by the government, Stanford itself, and many other sources over the years.

做了很多了不起的工作。

Done a lot of great work.

到了2000年代中期，他们开始参与一个叫CALO的项目，这个项目由DARPA资助，SRI是主要参与方之一。

And in the sort of mid two thousands started working on this project called CALO, which was funded by DARPA and that SRI was a major participant of.

这个项目的目标是开发一款基于人工智能的个人助手，专门服务于政府和军方。

And the goal of that was to develop an artificial intelligence based personal assistant for the government and the military.

SRI觉得这项技术很有潜力，可以独立出来，推向市场，甚至用在智能手机上。

And SRI thought that the potential was there to spin this out and commercialize it and put it on smartphones.

所以2008年，他们把后来成为Siri的项目分拆出来，关于命名的经过其实有个很有趣的故事，是在Quora上讲的。

So in 2008, they spun out what would become Siri and there's a really cool story about how they decided to name it actually on Quora.

联合创始人之一、Siri的工程副总裁亚当·切耶尔提到过他们是怎么想出这个名字的。

Adam Cheyer, one of the cofounders, and the VP of engineering at Siri, talks about how they came up with the name.

当然，这个名字和它出身的SRI有着明显的呼应。

And, obviously, it echoes SRI, that the company spun out of.

但达格·基特劳，当时是Siri的CEO，据说在他女儿出生时，曾考虑过用这个名字给她命名。

But Dag Kittlau, was the CEO of Siri, had apparently once considered it as, the name for his daughter, when his daughter was born.

每次你说‘嘿，Siri’的时候，不妨想想这一点。

And Just just think of that every time you say, hey, Siri.

每次你说‘嘿，Siri’的时候。

Every every time you say, hey, Siri.

在挪威语里，Dag是挪威裔美国人常用的名字。

And in in in Norse, Dag is is Norwegian American.

在挪威语中，它的意思是‘引领你走向胜利的美丽女性’。

In Norse, means beautiful woman who leads you to victory.

而在斯瓦希里语里，它意思是‘秘密’——这正是我最喜欢的部分。正如亚当在Quora上写的，这是向项目早期‘隐身模式’阶段致敬，那时他们还叫stealth-company.com，那个网站至今还在。

And then apparently in Swahili, it means secret, which this is my favorite part, is as as Adam writes on Quora, a tip of the hat to their pre named days of the project when they began as stealth-company.com, which still exists.

如果你访问stealth-company.com，会看到一个很复古的网站，上面写着：‘Stealth，尽早加入。’

If you go to stealth-company.com, there is this really old school looking website, saying, Stealth, get in early.

我们正在打造硅谷下一个伟大的公司。

We are forming Silicon Valley's next great company.

我们的目标是彻底改变消费互联网的面貌。

We aim to fundamentally redesign the face of consumer Internet.

在新闻和动态方面，他们的办公室地址已于2月1日确定。

And then in news and events, they have office location finalized on February 1.

1月18日，他们从顶级风投那里融到了一大笔钱。

And January 18, money raised from top VCs, in parentheses, lots.

这才是成功的关键。

That's that's the key to success.

我的理解就是这样。

That's my understanding.

这些才是最重要的事情。

Those are the those are the biggies.

喂。

Hey.

你有办公室了吗？

You got an office?

你拿到投资了吗？

You got funding?

你要彻底改变消费互联网的面貌。

You're gonna revolutionize consumer Internet.

好的。

Alright.

我们跳到后面。

So fast forward.

它已经独立出来了。

So it's it's spun out.

它成了一个独立的公司。

It's its own independent company.

它转型成了面向消费者的產品。

It becomes a consumer offering.

有个应用可以在商店下载，我今天早些时候随便搜了下截图，记得以前手机上装过，但不记得当年那界面有多差了。

There's an app you can download in the store where if you look at some screenshots of it, I was just Googling around earlier today, I remember having it on my phone, but I don't remember how bad that UI used to be.

哦，差劲透了。

Oh, so bad.

但那时候还太早，现在回头看，很难说那只是基本要求，还是他们真的把功能放在了外观前面——抱歉，我说反了，是功能优先于界面。

But it was early days, it's hard to know at this point looking back if like, that was sort of table stakes or if if they were actually just, like, yeah, way way way form before function or I'm sorry, function before form.

那时候还是iOS 3，iPhone 3G和iPhone 3GS的时代，特别老派了。

I mean, this was back in the days of iOS three, I believe, and the iPhone three g and the iPhone three GS.

有意思的是，我记得在苹果收购Siri之前就用过Siri 2，我最喜欢的功能是可以打字输入，不用非得说话。

Super old school and what was interesting, I remember using Siri two before Apple acquired it and my favorite feature actually was the ability to type into it.

真遗憾，苹果后来把这功能给取消了。

You didn't have to use your voice And I'm so bummed that Apple ditched that over the years.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

And well, yeah.

其实这种问题在美國的很多地方都能看到。

I mean, it's it manifests in so many other parts of The US.

但他们最主要的做法是，跟Nuance签了一份大规模的授权协议，用Nuance来做所有的语音识别。

But the the the main thing that they basically did was they took out a massive license with Nuance, and used Nuance for all the speech recognition.

Nuance本身其实是从SRI分拆出来的公司。

Nuance itself being an SRI spin out from the past.

我之前还真不知道这一点。

I did not know that.

不过那时候它还是家独立公司，多年来一直把语音识别技术授权给各大厂商，还和Siri要整合的那些独立功能服务商合作。

But still an independent company, that over the years has licensed their speech recognition technology to all the major players, and they combined that with partnering with a bunch of the independent functions that Siri was going to serve.

比如查找餐厅，

So looking up restaurants,

打开地图，预订座位。

Open mapping table, making reservations.

天气查询，还有所有那些你可能会用到的接口功能，

Weather, kind of all the ABIs Yeah, that you would yeah.

然后他们就从这里开始推进了。

And they kind of went from there.

所以它变成了一款应用，理论上用语音来查询这些特定功能会更方便，老实说，背后其实用了大量if-then逻辑和正则表达式，简单解析你说的每一句话。

So it became an app where it was theoretically easier to use your voice to look up all those specific functions, and quite honestly, probably a lot of if then statements, a lot of of regular expressions, like kinda just parsing whatever you were saying.

背后全是临时凑合，用胶带绑着撑着。

Bailing or wearing duct tape behind the scenes.

有意思的是，我记得当时这款应用特别酷，上了不少新闻，我还下载了，偶尔用一用，但实际操作起来，远不如直接打开OpenTable应用来得方便。

What's interesting though is, like, I remember this being super cool as an app, getting a lot of press, downloading it, using it occasionally, but it was actually way harder to do anything on it versus just opening up the OpenTable app yourself.

对。

Yeah.

而且想想看，那时候iPhone还没原生支持语音输入。

And it's and and thinking about that too, I mean, that was before there was proper dictation on the iPhone.

我记得那时候经常走着走着，打开Nuance的Dragon听写应用，对着手机说话，再把内容复制粘贴到别的地方用。

So I remember, you know, walking around and opening the Nuance app, the Dragon dictation app, to talk into my phone and then copying and pasting out of that into other things where I wanted to use it.

所以当时的情况是，现在回头看，其实我也没怎么用Siri。

So at the time, you know, now we're looking back at like, well, I don't really use Siri that much.

我用语音输入的频率远高于用Siri，但这些功能后来都被苹果打包成了一体的东西。

I use dictation a lot more than I use Siri, and that all kinda has been bundled together, in Apple as as sort of one big thing.

是的。

Yep.

于是这家公司独立出来了。

So the company spins out.

他们从摩根通纳和门罗风险投资公司筹集了两轮风投，总共2400万美元。

They raised two rounds of venture capital from Morgenthaler and Menlo Ventures, 24,000,000 in total.

这款应用在App Store上大概运营了一年，可能还不到一年，我记得是这样。

The company the apps in the App Store for just about a year, maybe less I believe.

到了2010年4月，当时它只在iOS上推出。

And then in April 2010, and it was only on iOS.

那时候他们还宣布正在开发安卓版和黑莓版。

They'd announced that they were working on Android versions and BlackBerry versions at the time.

你还记得黑莓吗，本？

Remember BlackBerry, Ben?

已经过去很久了

It's been

很久以前了。

a long time.

很遥远了。

Far away.

到了2010年4月，苹果宣布收购了这家公司，虽然价格从未公开，但传闻大约是两亿美元。

And and then in April 2010, Apple announces that they're acquiring the company for they've never disclosed the price, but rumors are around $200,000,000.

再过一年半，到2011年10月iPhone 4S发布时，Siri被整合为iPhone 4S的专属功能正式推出。

And then fast forward another year and a half after that to the launch of the iPhone four s in October 2011, and Siri relaunches as a baked in feature exclusive to the iPhone four s.

而且它是有史以来最紧张的测试版之一。

And as as one of the most intense, betas of all time.

我的意思是，我觉得它作为测试版持续了一年，还是说它经历了两次正式发布？

I mean, I think for a year or maybe it was a was it a full release or two full releases?

Siri在技术上一直属于测试版。

Siri was technically beta.

当时Siri要是出了什么离谱的问题，大家都会说，哦，这是测试版嘛。

And, you know, any any ridiculous things that happened with Siri, ah, it's a beta.

就是Gmail那个情况。

It's the Gmail thing.

永远的测试版。

Perpetual beta.

有趣的是，苹果采取了一个非常典型的做法——iPhone 4S发布时，他们把Siri应用从App Store下架了。

And and interestingly, in a very Apple like move, when the iPhone four s came out, they removed the Siri app from the App Store.

所以你想用Siri，就必须买一部苹果的iPhone 4S。

So if you wanted to use Siri, you had to have an Apple iPhone four s.

你知道吗？

And you know what?

他们这么做的原因肯定有不少，我敢打赌。

There's a variety of reasons they they did that, I'm sure.

其中有一条，我猜很多人会搞混。

One of which I bet people get confused.

我的意思是，你听说Siri发布了，看到广告宣传，你第一反应是不是会去下载那个大家都在新苹果手机上热议的App？

I mean, I bet you hear Siri comes out, you see it advertised, and where do you go to check out the thing that you're seeing everybody talk about on the new Apple phone?

你会上App Store去下载，这可能会让人特别困惑。

You're going to the App Store, and that could be enormously confusing.

更别说，我觉得那年圣诞节帮着卖出了不少iPhone。

Not to mention, I think it helped sell a lot of iPhones that Christmas.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

我想深入聊聊这一点。

And I wanna get into that.

这就是整个来龙去脉。

So that's the history.

各位听众朋友，

Alright, listeners.

现在正是感谢我们一家特别喜欢的公司——Sentry的好时机。

This is a great time to thank one of our favorite companies, Sentry.

Sentry，就是守卫那个意思，我们一会儿会给Acquired的听众们送上一份专属福利。

That's s e n t r y, like someone standing guard, and we have something special for the Acquired community to share here in a minute.

没错。

Yes.

Sentry 帮开发者排查错误和延迟问题，几乎任何软件故障都能发现并修复，赶在用户发火之前搞定。

Sentry helps developers debug errors and latency issues, pretty much any software problem, and fix them before users get mad.

他们官网上说，超过四百万名开发者都认为他们‘还不错’。

As their homepage puts it, they are considered, quote, unquote, not bad by over 4,000,000 software developers.

今天我们要聊的是 Sentry 如何与 Acquired 宇宙里的另一家公司 Anthropic 合作。

Today, we are talking about the way that Sentry works with another company in the acquired universe, Anthropic.

Anthropic 以前用过一些老式的监控系统，但面对他们那么庞大的规模和复杂性，最终选择了 Sentry，好更快地解决问题。

Anthropic used to have some older infrastructure monitoring in place, but at their massive scale and complexity, they instead adopted Sentry to help them fix issues faster.

对。

Yep.

在人工智能领域，崩溃可是个大问题。

Crashes can be a massive problem in AI.

如果你在运行一个大规模的计算任务，比如训练模型，一旦某个节点出问题，可能会影响成百上千台服务器。

If you're running a huge compute job like training a model and one node fails, it can affect hundreds or thousands of servers.

Sentry 帮助他们及时发现硬件故障，从而在引发连锁反应前将其屏蔽掉。

Sentry helped them detect bad hardware so they could quickly reject it before causing a cascading problem.

Sentry 还让他们能在几小时内而不是几天内定位并解决大型问题，尽快恢复训练任务。

Sentry also enabled them to debug massive issues in hours instead of days so they could get back to their training runs.

如今，Anthropic 依赖 Sentry 实时追踪异常、分配错误并分析研究团队所用主要语言——包括 Python、Rust 和 C++——中的故障情况。

And today, Anthropic relies on Sentry to track exceptions, assign errors, and analyze failures in real time across all the primary languages used by Anthropic's research teams, including Python, Rust, and c plus plus.

据 Anthropic 团队说，Sentry 为开发人员提供了一个统一的平台，所有排查问题所需的信息都能在这里找到。

According to the Anthropic team, Sentry gives our developers one place that will have all the information they need to debug an issue.

说到 AI，Sentry 现在推出了一款名为 SEER 的 AI 调试工具。

And speaking of AI, Sentry now has an AI debugger called SEER.

SEER 是一个 AI 代理，它会结合 Sentry 的错误上下文和你的代码库，不只是猜测，而是直接定位那些棘手问题的根本原因，并为你量身提出可直接合并的修复方案。

SEER is an AI agent that taps into the issue context from Sentry and your code base to not just guess, but root cause gnarly issues and propose merger ready fixes specific to your application.

我们非常期待与 Sentry 继续合作。

We're pumped to be working with Sentry.

他们的客户名单非常亮眼，不仅包括Anthropic，还有Cursor、Vercel、Linear等等。

They have an incredible customer list, including not only Anthropic, but Cursor, Vercel, Linear, and more.

如果你也想像全球超过二十万家组织那样快速修复代码问题——从独立开发者到世界顶级大公司，都可以访问 sentry.io/acquired 了解详情。

And if you wanna fix broken code fast like over 200,000 other organizations that use Sentry from indie hobbyists to some of the biggest companies in the world, you can check out sentry.io/acquired.

最后提一下，我们的朋友Sentry将在今年九月于旧金山举办官方的Acquired线下聚会。

And one last thing, our friends at Sentry are hosting the official Acquired meetup in San Francisco this September.

想了解更多详情并获取活动时间通知，请访问 sentry.io/acquired/meetup。

To learn more and get notified about dates, visit sentry.io/acquired/meetup.

我们真的特别期待。

We're so pumped.

很期待在现场见到大家。

We can't wait to see so many of you there.

好了，我们继续回到节目。

And now back to the show.

苹果当初以大约两亿美元收购了Siri。

So Apple had acquired Siri for for $200,000,000 ish.

听到过各种说法，但这一集我们就以这个收购价为准吧。

Heard heard a variety of figures, but I think we'll we'll kinda lock on that on on what we look at the acquisition price this episode.

这算是斯科特·福斯特尔的一个重点项目。

And that was sort of a pet project of Scott Forstall.

大家还记得吧，他当时算是公司的二号人物，也就是所谓的“第二个史蒂夫·乔布斯”。人们常提到乔尼·艾夫在设计美学上的贡献，以及那种专注于打造精美产品的理念。

If you guys remember, was sort of the second Steve Jobs of the company, and people talk about Johnny and the design, design aesthetic and and kinda that that focus on making beautiful things.

但斯科特更像是那个仅次于史蒂夫的产品负责人。

But Scott was kinda the product person that was, like, second only to Steve.

而且我记得，我觉得我记忆没错吧，但在乔布斯健康状况恶化那段时间，很多人都在讨论福斯特可能是苹果的下一任CEO。

And and I remember, I think I'm remembering, right, but in the time when Jobs' health was declining, a lot of people were talking about Forstall as potentially being the next CEO of Apple.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

确实如此。

It's true.

很多人现在提到Scott，都会想到他负责了苹果地图，就像Siri是他一手带大的项目一样，苹果地图也差不多是他的心血。

And I mean, think a lot of people now know Scott as the guy that kinda took on Apple Maps, just just like just like Siri was gonna be his baby, that Apple Maps was kind of his his

他更出名的是iOS里那些拟物化设计。

Not too much in the guy infamous for skeuomorphic design in iOS.

我觉得这种说法是事后才贴上的标签，简单地把他负责的领域说成是他的地盘。

I think that's a that's a after the fact assignment and and really easy way to say he that was his little fiefdom.

历史总是由胜利者书写的，本。

History is written by the victors, Ben.

确实如此。

It's true.

其实我觉得，今年他制作的那部百老汇音乐剧还拿了托尼奖。

Scott's actually I think he produced the the Tony award winning Broadway musical this year.

我刚才说的不对。

So I talk about quite No.

是去年的事吧？

Different It was last year?

这事儿真值得查一查，因为我听说的时候简直不敢相信。

That this is worth looking up actually, because it's it's totally crazy when I heard about it.

让我想想。

Let's see.

斯科特·福斯特尔是百老汇音乐剧《欢乐之家》的制作人之一，这部剧讲述了一位女同性恋漫画家回顾自己童年，发现父亲一直秘密出柜的故事。

So Scott Forstall was a producer of Fun Home, a Broadway musical that follows the story of a lesbian cartoonist looking back on her childhood with a secretly gay father.

他离开苹果之后，媒体一片寂静，好像什么都没做。

And so interesting to see after he leaves Apple, total media silence, not doing anything else.

结果我们才发现，他原来在忙这个，最搞笑的是，我记得——我觉得这纯属巧合——就在WWDC主题演讲期间，他发了条推文，那可能是他多年来的第一条推文。

Then we find out this is what he's been up to, and the the really funny part, I remember, I think it was totally coincidence, but it was during the WWDC keynote that he tweeted that he would I think it was like his first tweet or his first tweet in a very long time.

他写道：‘非常激动今年能制作出这部获得托尼奖的音乐剧，感谢所有参与的了不起的人们’，大概就是这类话。

So excited to have produced the the Tony award winning musical this year, thanks to all the amazing people that worked on it, something like that.

我当时就想，这太离谱了，居然就在主题演讲正进行的时候发出来。

And I remember thinking, this is unbelievable, like, right in the middle of the keynote.

天啊。

Wow.

总之，这次收购其实是斯科特·福斯特尔主导的，这也引发了一系列苹果后续的收购动作。

Anyway, so that the acquisition was kind of done by by Scott Forstall, and that kicked off a a a long chain of things happening in Apple acquisitions.

Siri，回头来看，其实背后投入了大量深入的研究，尤其是在语音和——嗯，姑且叫人工智能系统这类技术的架构上。

Siri, you know, as it as it sort of turns out looking back, there's a lot of really intense research that has gone on since then in architecting these kind of voice and and, you know, I guess for lack of a better word, AI systems.

我们现在看到的很多语音助手，我不确定Siri是不是，但我知道谷歌的和Cortana都是基于神经网络架构的，而当年被收购时，Siri这家公司根本不是这样做的。

And, you know, we see a lot of them, I I'm not sure if if Siri is or not, but I know that that Google's is and Cortana is architected as a neural network, and Siri, at the time of acquisition, the company that was Siri, was definitely not that.

我觉得从现在开始，有必要把Siri看成两个不同的东西。

And I think it's important to start, kinda at this point going forward thinking about Siri as two things.

它不再只是苹果当初收购的那个产品，而是一个负责听写、语音搜索等各项功能的内部团队，以及如今我们在iOS设备上使用的那个叫Siri的产品。

No longer as the product that Apple acquired, but as both an organization at Apple that is responsible for dictation, for voice search, for a variety of those things, and the product that is is shipped on iOS devices that we now today know as Siri.

这个产品其实融合了太多功能于一体。

And that product is is is a ton of things all in one.

苹果之所以成立这个团队，并决心在每一个iOS版本中都推这个产品，如果没有那次收购，根本不可能发生。但Siri今天能有这么大的成就，远不止靠那次收购那么简单。

I mean, I think that, the impetus for Apple to actually create this this group and to focus on shipping this product, in every version of iOS going forward, That would not have happened without this acquisition, but the theoretical success that Siri has today as a product is attributed to so much more than that.

苹果开始非常认真地招揽顶尖人才。

Apple got extremely serious about hiring great people.

他们聘了一位资深总监。

They they hired a senior director.

他就是现在的Siri资深总监亚历克斯·阿塞罗，之前在微软研究院工作。

He's now the senior director of Siri, Alex Acero, who is ex Microsoft Research.

他们做了大量收购，包括Topsy、Novauris Technologies、OttoCat、Cue、Spotsetter、VocalIQ这些公司，最近还收购了。

They made a ton of acquisitions, including but not limited to Topsy, Novauris Technologies, OttoCat, Cue, Spotsetter, VocalIQ pretty recently Pretty recently.

还有Perceptio。

And Perceptio.

这些收购，尤其是Topsy，为Siri如今的搜索技术和方法论奠定了坚实的学术基础。

And these things, particularly Topsy, are really kind of the academic rigor around the the search and the methodologies that Siri uses today.

想想看，Topsy那笔收购就花了两亿美元。

I mean, think Topsy Topsy was another $200,000,000 acquisition.

差不多吧。

That one Ish.

对，差不多。

Ish.

是的

Yeah.

我觉得那个可能只是传闻而已。

I think actually that one might be Reported probably.

是的

Yeah.

是的

Yeah.

但Topsy实际上构成了Siri搜索功能的核心，以及其底层技术的运作方式。

But but Topsy is effectively the the backbone of how the search works within Siri, and how the the, kind of deeply technical part of it works.

而且，很多优秀的人才都是跟着Topsy一起加入的。

And I I think a lot of really good people came came with Topsy.

相比之下，你看Siri最初的收购，那三位创始人早就离开了。

Whereas, you look at the actual Siri acquisition, all three of those founders are gone.

他们后来创办了Viv，我猜是这么念的，那是一家更新、更好、更下一代的人工智能公司。

They started, I think, Viv, I think is how it's pronounced, but effectively newer, better, next generation New AI company.

是的。

Yeah.

你知道，那次收购之后，很多人离开了。

And, you know, they they had a lot of people attrite from from that acquisition.

对。

Yeah.

Topsy的那批人很多留了下来，我跟一些了解内情的朋友聊过，都是顶尖人才。

Topsy, lot of those people stayed with the company, and from from talking to some friends that are kinda in the know, really, really top people.

我和戴夫之前还聊过，觉得可以做个双集专题，专门讲Topsy和Siri这家公司，因为Topsy对今天Siri产品的核心作用真的太关键了。

And, you know, I I Dave and I were talking earlier, thought about kinda doing this this as a dual episode on on Topsy and this and the Siri company, because that's that's sort of how important Topsy is to the product that Siri is today.

对。

Yeah.

我觉得有几点特别有意思。

I think a couple really interesting notes.

就像本提到的，这个收购居然催生了苹果内部一个全新的部门，负责AI和搜索这类平台技术——而这些，以前根本不在苹果的基因里。

I mean, as Ben mentioned, fascinating that this acquisition has led to the creation of this whole organization within Apple that, you know, AI, search, and those types of that type of platform technology was so not in Apple's DNA prior to the Siri acquisition.

是的。

Yeah.

我真的觉得，要不是我们砸了大笔钱收购了这家公司，这个产品根本不可能面世。

I truly believe that we wouldn't have this product shipped if not for, wow, we just unloaded a bunch of cash acquiring this thing.

我们得认真对待这件事。

We gotta be serious about it.

没错。

Yep.

更有趣的是，苹果当初收购的那些Siri原班人马，其实早就走光了。

And what's doubly interesting about that is that the actual people at Siri that Apple acquired, like, they're gone.

真正重要的是，我们收购了这家公司，把它的产品和功能整合进iOS，这才为苹果后来打造平台打下了第一块基石，之后所有优秀的人才都是陆续招进来的。

It was acquiring this company and bringing this product and this feature into iOS that was the first foundation of a platform that Apple started building and, and all the great people that they've acquired and hired since then.

你可以说，而且说得很有道理，谷歌在人工智能、搜索、语音搜索和语音识别这些领域，目前还是领先于苹果。

And you can argue, I think, probably very justifiable justifiably so that Google is still ahead of Apple in a lot of these areas, AI, search, voice search, speech recognition.

但毫无疑问，如果没有这次收购，苹果现在的差距只会大得多。

But certainly, is not nearly as far behind as they would have been had they continued along the path they were before this acquisition.

不行。

No.

我觉得，谈到任何收购时，都可以用‘自建还是收购’这个框架来思考。

And I think that, in kind of thinking about any acquisition, you can use the framework of build or buy.

如果你是公司领导，在决定收购之前，你得想清楚：我们确实需要这个东西，花两亿美元买下来，或者自己开发。

What's, you know, if if you're thinking about it before you make the acquisition, you're a leader at that company, and you've decided that, you know, this is something we need to pursue, and it's gonna cost us $200,000,000 to buy, or we could build.

但我觉得这里的情况不是这样。

And I don't think that that is the case here.

我不觉得苹果公司

I don't think that Apple

他们真能自己搞出来吗？

Could they even have built?

他们能请到机器学习、人工智能、语音识别领域最顶尖的人才吗？

Like, would they be able to hire the really top people that they would have needed to in machine learning, AI, speech recognition Yeah.

要做出这样的成果，光靠自己根本做不到。

To make this happen.

是的。

Yeah.

我觉得这挺有意思的。

I don't it's interesting.

这本来就是个巨大的挑战，现在依然是。

It would have been a tall order, and and still was.

我的意思是，即使他们收购了Siri之后，要把它打造成今天这个产品，也还有很长的路要走。

I mean, I think that even after they they did the Siri acquisition, they they had a long, long road ahead of them to to turn it into the product it is today.

所以让我想的是，就算它换了名字，起步方式也不一样。

And the the question that sort of begs to me is, you know, it would have a different name, and it would it would have started off in a different place.

但如果他们根本没收购Siri，而是只靠其他收购和关键人才引进呢？

But what if they didn't acquire Siri at all, and they just made all these other acquisitions and these other key hires?

毕竟他们已经从Nuance挖走了不少顶尖人才。

Because they've hired a lot of the really great people away from Nuance.

对。

Yep.

他们实际上已经自己从头搭建了整个语音识别系统，以前这些可是从Nuance授权来的。

They've actually architected the whole kind of, speech recognition pipeline that they were licensing from Nuance internally.

他们把从Siri买来的代码全部重写甚至彻底扔掉了。

They've they've rewritten and thrown away all the code that they've acquired from Siri.

现在既没有Siri的团队，也没有Siri的技术，只剩下Siri这个品牌，以及当初那个产品原本的功能。

So there's no Siri people, there's no Siri technology, there's merely a Siri brand and basically what that original product did there.

但今天iOS里Siri这个产品之所以成功，主要功劳并不在当年收购来的那些东西。

But a lot of the success of what Siri, the product in iOS is today, is not attributed to what they actually acquired.

是的。

Yeah.

顺便说一句，挺有意思的是，关于Nuance，现在大部分主流移动平台公司——微软、谷歌、苹果——都已经不再用他们了。

And it's interesting, a little bit of an aside, on Nuance, most of the major mobile companies, mobile platform companies, Microsoft, Google, Apple.

我觉得，目前几乎所有主要公司都已脱离Nuance了。

I believe most or all of them have moved away from Nuance at this point.

是的。

Yeah.

我觉得确实如此。

I think that's true.

Nuance的销售代表们肯定气坏了。

Gotta be some really upset account reps at at Nuance.

是的。

Yeah.

我很喜欢我们刚才的讨论。

So I love the discussion we've been having.

说起来，我们现在都快到2015年底了，还在聊这个话题。

In a way, you know, we're sitting here at the end of twenty fifteen talking about this.

这次收购都过去快六年了。

It's been almost six years since this acquisition happened.

我们还没怎么聊过Siri这个产品或功能本身。

We haven't really talked about Siri, the product slash feature yet.

我觉得，很多人也会同意，到目前为止，它还没达到当初的预期。

And I think, you know, I would argue as would a lot of people, it really hasn't lived up to its promise so far.

我不知道你怎么样，本，但我用Siri就干一件事：设闹钟。

I don't know about you, Ben, but I I use Siri for one thing, setting alarms.

我真想看看苹果内部关于这个的使用数据分布图，我觉得Siri根本没走多远。

It's a it's a I got I would love to see the histogram of this at Apple, because I think I just don't think Siri has gotten that far.

他们其实有两个问题。

Well, they have two problems.

第一，我觉得他们在真正实现所谓‘学习’能力方面，根本没做到位。

One, I don't think they've gotten that far from actually being able to, you know, do things that are like, quote, unquote, learning.

对吧？

Right?

比如我，我就用它做几个固定的操作，就像当初的Siri那样——我会说：‘嘿，Siri，帮我找找附近最好的早餐店’之类的。

Like, I know I have these very specific functions, much like the original Siri, where I go, hey, Siri, look up the best breakfast restaurant around me, or something like that.

第二个问题是，就算他们将来真能解决这个问题，推出一套更复杂、真正深入底层的搜索和理解系统，我又怎么知道它升级了呢？

And the sort of second problem around that is if they have fixed that, or they they do in the future kinda roll out something that's much more technically sophisticated, that's truly like a deep systems approach to search and and understanding and, you know, all all these deeply technical things, how am I supposed to know about it?

因为像我们这种人，至少会看WWDC主题演讲，觉得那挺酷的。

Because I think that, like, there are some of us that, you know, will watch the WWDC keynote, and that's super cool.

但这种没有界面、看不到所有功能的语音交互方式，其实挺危险的。

But it's a really sort of dangerous thing with these voice based interfaces that don't have a layout of all the possible functions in front of your face that you can use.

要是你试了几次它都搞砸了，你就会觉得它根本做不到那些事，以后再也不想用了。

If it falls on its face a couple times for you, you basically assume it can't do things in the future and you never try again.

是的。

Yep.

而且你很容易就掉进那种诡异的谷底，然后直接放弃它。

And you definitely fall into that uncanny valley and then you just reject it.

所以我才说，2015年快结束了，我们还在讨论这个话题，真的很有趣，因为可以说，Siri这个产品本质上已经失败了。

And that's why I said it's super interesting we're sitting here at the end of 2015 talking about this because I think it's noncontroversial to say Siri as a product has been a failure.

就连一些最基本的功能，比如我老婆的名字叫Jenny，J-E-N-N-I-E。

All these, like, even just basic basic stuff like, you know, my wife's name is Jenny, j e n n I e.

这是她的正式名字。

That's her given name.

每次我跟Siri提起我老婆，它都念成J-E-N-N-Y。

Every time I talk to Siri about my wife, it says j e n n y.

她的姓跟我不一样。

And she has a different last name to me.

她没改姓。

She didn't change her name.

Siri 就是搞不明白这一点。

Siri doesn't, like, figure that out.

真是烦人。

It's so annoying.

这些都是最基础的功能。

Super basic stuff.

但我们现在还坐在这儿。

But we're sitting here right now.

你知道吗，今年亚马逊推出了 Echo 和 Alexa。

You know, Amazon came out with the Echo and Alexa this year.

他们在上面投入了大量资源。

They're investing heavily in that.

毫无疑问，亚马逊认为语音和语音界面将成为未来科技的重要组成部分，谷歌和苹果也是这么想的。

Definitely, Amazon believes that voice and voice interfaces are gonna be a huge part of technology going forward as does Google, as does Apple.

在很多方面，我觉得这次收购的完整故事还没写完，因为接下来还有更多事情要发生。

In a lot of ways, I think this the the full story on this acquisition hasn't been written yet because there's gonna be so much more to come.

是的。

Yeah.

而且确实还应该继续下去。

And then there needs to be.

有意思的是，我们这个节目讲的是那些真正成功的科技收购案，而我们今天能做这一期，正是因为苹果必须这么做。

I mean, the interesting thing, you know, we say this show is about technology acquisitions that actually went well, and if you look at kind of the app we can do this this episode of this show because Apple needed to do this.

说白了，把个人助手内置到移动操作系统里，已经是基本要求了。

I mean, it's it's effectively table stakes to have a, personal assistant baked into your mobile operating system.

要是不这么做，那简直太丢脸了。

Like, they they it would be embarrassing

继续这样下去可不行。

for to continue do that.

你刚说那话的时候，我左手扭了一下，不小心激活了苹果手表上的Siri。

As you're saying that, I I had my my left hand twisted back, and, I accidentally activated Siri on my Apple Watch.

你开了‘嘿，Siri’功能吗？

Oh, do you have Hey Siri on?

没有。

No.

是我一直捏着数字表冠造成的。

It was holding the the digital crown.

这怪你。

That's your fault.

但从根本上说，这功能必须要有，尤其是现在用上了手表、电视、智能音箱，你得能对着手机说‘嘿，Siri’，这已经是任何平台都不可或缺的部分了。

But but it's so fundamentally, like, this needs to be a part of especially as you move into watches and televisions and connected speakers and being able to say, hey, Siri, to your phone, a critical part of any platform.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

Yeah.

确实如此。

It is.

挺有意思的。

It's interesting.

要想出Siri做不到的事情，其实挺难的，因为你的脑子已经被它能做的事给框住了。

In trying to think of examples of things that Siri can't do, it the thought exercise of it is actually difficult because your mind is trapped in the things that you can do.

我刚拿起手机，想着：嘿，Siri，我明天上班前有时间去跑步吗？取决于我第一个会议的时间，还有我想走路去上班，但又不知道现在天气怎么样。

Like, I'm pulling up my phone thinking of like, you know, hey, Siri, am I gonna have time to go for a run tomorrow before work based on when my first meeting is and the fact that I wanna walk to work not knowing what the weather will be right now.

你好。

Hi.

本·莱德海姆。

Ben Ledheim.

‘莱德海姆’这个念法不对，正确读法跟‘光明节’一样。

That's a mispronunciation of Ledheim because it's Hanukkah.

比如

Like

没错。

Right.

还有很长的路要走。

There's a long way to go.

路还很长。

Long way to go.

各位听众朋友们，

Alright, listeners.

现在正好跟大家介绍一下我们特别喜欢的一家公司——WorkOS。

Now is a great time to tell you about one of our favorite companies, WorkOS.

正如很多朋友知道的，现在开发软件的成本已经低到几乎可以忽略不计。

So as many of you know, the cost of building software has collapsed to basically zero.

你甚至一个周末就能做出一个能用的产品，代码大部分都是AI帮着写的。

You can build a real working product in a weekend, and AI writes most of the code.

这当然很棒，直到你打算开始卖它的时候。

Which is great right up until you wanna start selling it.