Any book that starts with a description of a chief executive on his knees, throwing up into a bin after being betrayed by friends and investors is unlikely to be a traditional founder’s tale.

如果一本书在开篇就描述一位首席执行官在遭到朋友和投资者的背叛后，跪在地板上对着垃圾桶呕吐，那么它不太可能成为一个经典的创业故事。

Forget your classic bedroom-to-billionaire narrative, often so dull that it must be perked up with allusions to a girl who got away: the story of Twitter’s foundation is a full-on saga of back-stabbing. And it is published the same week as the social media company’s initial public offering.

忘掉你们那些经典的从“卧室创业”到亿万富翁的故事吧，这些故事往往如此枯燥，以至于不得不提到一位移情别恋的姑娘来吸引读者的兴趣：Twitter的创业故事充满了背后捅刀子的情节。

In Hatching Twitter , New York Times journalist Nick Bilton traces the company’s history from an idea so simple no one really knew what to do with it to a service equally famous for celebrities and revolutionaries.

在《孵化Twitter》一书中，《纽约时报》记者尼克•比尔顿(Nick Bilton)追溯了该公司的历史——从一个非常简单、没有人真正知道有什么用的创意，发展到一项名人和革命者都爱用的服务。

Suddenly, the start-up has got to a stage where Snoop Dogg is dropping in to start an impromp­tu party while the executives are out of the of­fice; or a founder is strug­gling to distract a visiting Dmitry Med­vedev, then president of Russia, when the site goes down just as he is due to send his first tweet.

突然间，这家初创公司登上了这样一个舞台：饶舌巨星史努比狗狗(Snoop Dogg)不期而至，在高管们都不在办公室时开一个即兴的派对；或者一位创始人竭力让到访的俄罗斯时任总统德米特里•梅德韦杰夫(Dmitry Medvedev)转移注意力——当时梅德韦杰夫正要发送自己的首条tweet，可Twitter网站偏偏出了故障。

Corporate suitors start turning up, from big technology companies such as Google, Microsoft – and several times – Facebook, to the more unlikely including Al Gore, former US vice-president, who drinks shots with the founders as he tries to persuade them into a deal.

许多人开始寻求收购Twitter，从谷歌(Google)和微软(Microsoft)等大型科技公司（Facebook也曾多次接洽），到那些较不可能的个人，包括美国前副总统阿尔•戈尔(Al Gore)，后者和联合创始人推杯交盏，试图说服他们签订交易。

However, the story focuses on two of the three official co-founders – Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey – as they turn against each other, and first Dorsey, then Williams, get pushed off the perch of CEO. It is Williams who ends up vomiting.

然而，本书主要讲述3名正式创始人中的两位——埃文•威廉姆斯(Evan Williams)和杰克•多尔西(Jack Dorsey)，因为他们闹翻了，而且先后（先是多尔西，然后是威廉姆斯）被赶下首席执行官的宝座。最终被气得呕吐的人正是威廉姆斯。

Unusually for Silicon Valley, neither Williams, Dorsey, nor the under-the-radar co-founder Biz Stone, still work day-to-day at Twitter and only Williams retains a stake that is more than 5 per cent.

无论是威廉姆斯和多尔西，还是没有受到密切关注的联合创始人比兹•斯通(Biz Stone)，如今都已不再在Twitter从事日常工作，同时只有威廉姆斯还持有5%以上的股份。这种情况在硅谷不太常见。

The book ends just as Dick Costolo, current CEO, takes over. Since then, the co-founders seem to have made peace, ap­pearing in public together for the sake of the forthcoming IPO.

该书讲述到现任CEO迪克•科斯特洛(Dick Costolo)上任之际。自那以后，这些联合创始人似乎已经讲和，为了即将来临的IPO而联袂出现在公众面前。

Bilton is at his best when he uses tweets, photos and videos as primary source material, cutting through the founders’ competing myths to show at first hand how the company developed.

比尔顿写得最精彩的地方是，使用tweets、相片和视频作为主要素材，透过这些创始人彼此矛盾的说法，来揭示这家公司的发展历程。

The first tweets show the start-up’s staff saying goodnight to each other on Twitter like “a bunch of children at a sleepover”, and trace how its power as a medium to discuss live events and news became clear during a small Bay Area earthquake.

最初的tweets表明，这家初创公司的员工在Twitter上互道晚安，就像“一群小孩在别人家过夜”，并描绘了在旧金山湾区发生小规模地震期间，Twitter作为讨论实时事件和新闻的媒介，威力充分展现。

But the story suffers when he sinks into cliché to make clear that his sympathies lie with Williams and not Dorsey. Williams is the boss ev­eryone “yearns” to work with, starting life in a lonely town where “his only friends were the crickets”. When Williams sacks someone he is making “shrewd” choices in the interests of Twitter.

但是当比尔顿落入俗套，表明他同情威廉姆斯、而不是多尔西时，整个故事就有些失色了。威廉姆斯是所有人“渴望”一起共事的老板，小时候居住在一个偏僻的小镇上，“唯一的朋友只有蟋蟀”。当威廉姆斯解雇某人时，他是为了Twitter着想而做出的“精明”选择。

Dorsey, however, is cast as personifying the stereotypical “what I had for breakfast” tweet. While few dispute he had the original idea, Bilton gives him little credit because Twitter has evolved into more of a tool to talk about “what’s happening?” than the status updater Dorsey devised.

然而，多尔西被描述为只会俗气地发一些“我早餐吃什么”的tweet。尽管无人质疑Twitter是他最初提出的创意，但比尔顿认为他没啥功劳，因为Twitter已经发展到一种谈论“现在在发生什么事？”的工具，而不是多尔西当初设想的状态更新器。

As CEO, Dorsey is des­cribed by Bilton as doing the sums wrong on spreadsheets he keeps to himself. Once kicked out, he is mocked by Bilton for trying to style himself as the latest Steve Jobs, expelled from Apple before a triumphant return.

比尔顿在书中称，作为一名首席执行官，多尔西曾在自己制作的电子表格上出错。在被踢出公司后，多尔西被比尔顿嘲讽为试图自我标榜为又一个史蒂文•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)——后者曾被苹果公司(Apple)解雇，后来扬眉吐气地回归。

The clichés climax at the end, where Bilton imagines Chris Hadfield, the tweeting spaceman, looking down on the world in a scene that suggests the author al­ready has one eye on making the movie. Hadfield sees Williams at home, engaged in frequent family time as he tries to bring up decent kids incapable of back-stabbing, while Dorsey is seen friendless “in an empty glass castle in the sky”.

这种陈词滥调最后达到了高潮——比尔顿想象了宇航员克里斯•哈德菲尔德(Chris Hadfield)在太空发tweet、俯瞰地球的场面，似乎表明作者已经有意写一个电影剧本。哈德菲尔德看到呆在家里的威廉姆斯——后者经常和家人在一起，努力将孩子培养成不会暗箭伤人的正派人，同时他还看到多尔西孤零零地呆在“天空中一个空旷的玻璃城堡中”。

Cringeworthy Hollywood finish aside, this well-timed book successfully mines a story so rich it is destined to be told and retold. Vomit and all.

撇开这种令人皱眉的好莱坞电影式的结尾，这本颇合时宜的书籍成功地讲述了一个注定会广为传颂的精彩故事。呕吐以及其他所有情节。