财富忠告：独立思考，回归本原

格罗夫（英特尔Intel的掌门人）

独立思考，回归本原，将知识建立在事实与分析之上，而不是建立在“所有人都知道”之上。

当“所有人都知道”这件事是真的时，也就没有人知道其不真的一面了。

格罗夫：我有生以来得到的最好的忠告来自Alois Xavier Schmidt，他是我最喜欢的纽约城市学院的教授。Schmidt教授常说：“当‘所有人都知道’这件事是真的时，就没有人知道其不真的一面了。”

40年前，我们在仙童半导体公司的研发小组开始研究现代集成电路的核心问题――表面涂层的特征。当时，“所有人都知道”表层状态（一种量子力学的方法）将影响我们制造芯片。其结果是，没有人知道其不真的一面：我们从未发现任何表层状态；我们发现的是微量污染物（trace contamination）。当我们发现并清除了它，我们便找到了而今通向芯片产业的阳光大道。

10年前，当我被诊断出患有前列腺癌时，我又一次想起了Schmidt教授的话。“所有人都知道”哪种治疗方法对我最好。我想，也许这又是一个应该对常识提出质疑的病历，并决定自己进行研究，比较所有已知的关于各种治疗结果的数据，得出不那么常识性的结论。Schmidt教授的话时常提醒我要独立思考，回归本原，将知识建立在事实与分析之上，而不是建立在“所有人都知道”之上。

When "everyone knows" something to be true, nobody knows nothing’.

Grove: The best advice I ever got was from AloisXavier Schmidt, my favorite professor at the City college of New York. He often said, “When ‘everyone knows’ something to be true, nobody knows nothing’.”

Our little research group at Fairchild Semiconductor some 40 years ago started to study the characteristics of surface layers that were the heart of modern integrated circuits. At that time, “everybody knew” that surface states, an artifice of quantum mechanics,would interfere with us building such chips. As it turns out, nobody knew nothing’:We never found any surface states; what we found was trace contamination. When we identified and removed this, the road opened up to the chip Industry as we know it today.

I remembered professor Schmidt’s words again ten years ago, when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.“Everybody knew” what treatment would be best for me. I thought that perhaps this was another case where common wisdom might be suspect and decided to do myown research, comparing all the known data about various treatment outcomes and coming up with less-conventional conclusions. Time and again, professor Schmidt’ssaying prompted me to think for myself, go back to first principles, and base knowledge on facts and analysis rather than on what “everybody knew”.

摘自《财富》——易激扬编译

《寻求真理，高处不胜寒 2017》摄于普诺岗日冰川（海拔5500米）