记者：您是在何时何地有了创办联邦快递的想法的呢?
Smith: The original idea came in two parts. The first part was when... I was a student at Yale and I was writing a paper about the computerized society that was on the horizon. It was pretty clear then, with IBM installing the big computers around, that the world was going to change. And the paper was about how this was going to change a lot of things, and in particular it was going to change the way things had to be distributed and moved to support those automated devices. Then I sort of let that lie. I didn’t get a particularly good grade on it, as I recall. I don’t think it was prescient, or brilliant in any respect. When I graduated from Yale in 1966，I went into the service, like a great percentage of my classmates at that time. The Vietnam War had begun in earnest, and I spent four and a half years in the Marine Corps. That’s when I sort of crystallized the idea for FedEx on the supply side, how to solve the problem that had been identified in that paper. In the military there’s a tremendous amountof waste. The supplies were sort of pushed forward, like you push food onto a table. And invariably, all of the supplies were in the wrong place for where they were needed. Observing that and trying to think about ways to have a different type of a distribution system is what crystallized the idea. The solution was, in my mind, to have an integrated air and ground system, which had never been done. And to operate not on a linear basis, where you try to take things from one point to another, but operate in a systemic manner. Sort of the way a bank clearing house does, you know? They have a bank clearing house in the middle of all the banks and everybody sends someone down there and they swap everything around. Well, that had been done in transportation before: the Indian post office， the French post office. American Airlines had tried a system like that shortly after World War II. But the demand side and supply side had really not met at an appropriate level of maturation. By the early ‘70s when I’d gotten out of the service it was very clear that this new society was coming in earnest. And so, at that point I said, “What the hell, let’s try to put it together.” And that’s how FedEx came to be. And then from that point forward, the requirements for this type of system were so profound and so big, really for the next 25 years to this date we’ve simply been running just to keep up with the requirements. And that’s what led to the hundreds of planes and the thousands of trucks. I wish it was something that I could say I was so smart. And that’s what we’ve been doing for the last quarter century.
史密斯：我最初的想法可以分为两部分。第一部分是当我还是一名耶鲁大学的学生的时候，那时候我准备写一篇有关于我们的社会即将成为一个计算机化的社会的论文。那时的形势是，随着 IBM在全世界范围内安装大型计算机， 我们生活的世界将会发生改变。我的论文是关于这将会如何使很多事物发生改变，尤其是这将会如何影响人们递送物品的方式，以支持那些自动化设备的运转。后来我就把这件事情搁置下了。我记得，当时我那篇论文并没有取得一个好的分数。我认为，那篇论文无论从哪一方面来说都不是有先见之明或是突出的。在我1966年从耶鲁大学毕业的时候，和那时我大多数的同学一样，我开始服兵役。那时候越南战争爆发了，我在海军陆战队待了4年半的时间。那个时候，我想要创办联邦快递的想法才渐渐有了雏形，我才知道了应该如何解决我在那篇论文中所提出的问题。在军队里，浪费的现象很严重。供给问题被提了出来，就像把食物放到桌上一样明显。因为毫无例外，所有的供给都没有被用到真正需要的地方。看到这些，我便开始想怎样才能有一种不同的分配体系，这样我的想法开始具体化。我脑海中想到的解决方式就是，我们需要有一个完整的空中和陆地供应体系， 这在那之前是并不存在的。这个体系的运行不仅要能够达到长度上的要求，即能够将事物从一个地方运送到另一个地方，还要能够以一种系统的方式运行。就像是银行票据交换处的工作方式那样。你知道在所有银行所处地域的中间地带，设置一个银行票据交换处，然后每一个银行都派一个工作人员去那里，进行票据交换。这以前在交通方面出现过，比如说，印度邮电局、法国邮电局。美国航空公司曾经在二战结束之后形成了一个体系。但是当时的需求方和供给方都没有达到一定的成熟度。到上世纪70年代初期，我服完兵役之后，很明显的就是一个新的社会正热切地朝我们走来。然后那时，我说： "管他呢，让我们把这些都组成一个整体吧! ”联邦快递就这样诞生了。然后从那时起，人们对于我们这种服务体系的需求越来越多，在接下来的25年中直到现在，我们一直都只是在从事着满足人们对于快递服务的需求的工作。这也促使我们拥有了属于自己的成百架飞机和成千辆卡车，我希望说自己在这方面做得还是很不错的，这也是我们在过去的25年时间中一直在从事的工作。
Reporter: How would you describe your childhood?
记者：您怎样看您的童年呢?
Smith: My childhood was autonomous, in the main. My father passed away when I was four. I had a lovely mother, but not having a father influence, I learned a lot of things on my own. I think that would be the best characterization of it.
史密斯：我的童年总体来说都是靠自己的。在我4岁的时候我父亲就去世了。我有一位非常可爱的母亲，但是由于从小没有父亲的帮助，很多事情都是我自学的。我想这就是对我童年的最好的描述。
