But alas, I was never cool. I sat there hemming and hawing until every last molecule of oxygen had been sucked from the room. 不过我从来就没有酷过：我坐在那儿，说话吞吞吐吐，踌躇不定，只觉得大脑缺氧。

True to her word, she never even considered hiring me. 正如她所说，她完全没有动过雇用我的念头。

Fortunately, not everyone shared her view. 幸运的是，不是每个人都和她的想法一样。

Eric Schmidt and I had met several times during my Treasury years, and I went to see him just after he became CEO of the then relatively unknown Google. 当我还在美国财政部工作的时候，埃里克·施密特见过我几次，那时他刚当上还没有名气的谷歌公司的首席执行官。

After several rounds of interviews with Google's founders, they offered me a job. 经过几轮面试后，我进入了谷歌。

My bank account was diminishing quickly, so it was time to get back to paid employment, and fast. 那阵子我的经济压力很大，是该好好挣钱了，而且刻不容缓。

In typical — and yes, annoying — MBA fashion, I made a spreadsheet and listed my various opportunities in the rows and my selection criteria in the columns. 照着典型的MBA套路（是的，这种方式很招人烦），我做了个电子表格，横着列出可能的机会、竖着列出选择的标准，

I compared the roles, the level of responsibility, and so on. 比较工作角色、责任级别等。

My heart wanted to join Google in its mission to provide the world with access to information, 我很想加入谷歌公司实现为全球提供资讯渠道的使命，

but in the spreadsheet game, the Google job fared the worst by far. 但从电子表格显示的分数来看，谷歌的工作似乎并不被看好。

I went back to Eric and explained my dilemma. 我又回去找埃里克·施密特，向他解释我的两难处境。

The other companies were recruiting me for real jobs with teams to run and goals to hit. 其他的公司雇用我时会给我实际的工作，包括需要管理的团队和达到的目标。

At Google, I would be the first "business unit general manager," 但在谷歌，我可能是第一位“业务部总经理”，

which sounded great except for the glaring fact that Google had no business units and therefore nothing to actually manage. 听起来很棒，但事实上谷歌当时还没有业务部，也没有什么具体工作可做。