第一篇：比爾蓋茨夫婦斯坦福大學(xué)2014年畢業(yè)典禮演講

Stanford Stanford University 斯坦福大學(xué)

Bill and Melinda Gates 比爾蓋茨夫婦 Bill：Congratulations, class of 2014!祝賀2014屆畢業(yè)生！

Melinda and I are excited to be here.我和梅琳達(dá)很高興能來到這里。

It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to speak at a Stanford commencement, but it’s especially gratifying for us.能受邀到斯坦福做畢業(yè)演講對于任何人來說都是一件令人激動的事情, 我們尤是如此。Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family, and it’s long been a favorite university for Microsoft and our foundation.斯坦福正迅速成為我們家人最喜歡的一所大學(xué)，它也一直是微軟以及我們基金會最偏愛的一所大學(xué)。

Our formula has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.我們喜歡招募最聰明最有創(chuàng)造性的人去解決最重要的問題。

It turns out that a disproportionate number of thost people are at Stanford.事實(shí)證明，我們這里很大一部分人都來自于斯坦福。

Right now, we have more than 30 foundation research projects underway here.現(xiàn)在這里有30多個基金會研究項(xiàng)目正在進(jìn)行。

When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases we work with Stanford.當(dāng)我們想更深入理解免疫系統(tǒng)幫助治療最嚴(yán)重的疾病時，我們找到斯坦福一同合作。

When we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States, so that more low-income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.當(dāng)我們想了解美國高等教育現(xiàn)狀的改變趨勢,幫助更多低收入家庭的學(xué)生獲得大學(xué)學(xué)位時，我們找到斯坦福一同合作。This is where genius lives.斯坦福是一個盛產(chǎn)天才的地方。

There’s a flexibility of mind here, and openness to change, an eagerness for what’s new.這里的思想充滿了靈活性，開放性和創(chuàng)新性。

This is where people come to discover the future, and have fun doing it.斯坦福是促進(jìn)人類探索未來并樂在其中的地方。

Melinda: Now, some people call you all nerds and we hear that you claim that label with pride.有些人把你們稱作“書呆子”，聽說你們很喜歡這個稱謂。

Bill: Well, so do we.我們也喜歡。

夫婦同時戴眼鏡

My normal glasses really aren’t all that different.Laughing。臺下大笑。我平時用的眼睛其實(shí)也沒有多大不同。

There are so many remarkable things going on here at this campus, but if Melinda and I had go put into one word what we love most about Stanford, it’s the optimism.這所學(xué)校里發(fā)生了很多了不起的事情。如果要我和梅琳達(dá)用一個詞來總結(jié)對斯坦福的熱愛，我們會說是“樂觀”。

There’s an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.這里有著濃郁的氛圍，讓人覺得創(chuàng)新能夠解決所有問題。

That’s the belief that drove me in 1975 to leave a college in the suburbs of Boston and go on endless leave of absence.也正是這種信念讓我在1975年離開波士頓郊外的那所大學(xué)，從此一去不復(fù)返。

I believed that magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and make the world much, much better.我相信，神奇的計算機(jī)和軟件能夠讓全世界所有人獲得力量，讓世界變得比現(xiàn)在好很多很多。It’s been 40 years since then, and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.從那時到現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)過40年，我和梅琳達(dá)結(jié)婚也已經(jīng)20年了。We are both more optimistic now and ever.我們?nèi)匀粓猿种@份樂觀，甚至更甚于當(dāng)年。But on our journey, our optimism evolved.隨著人生旅途的展開，這份樂觀也隨之深化。

We would like to tell you what we learned and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more for more people..今天，我們愿與大家分享自己的經(jīng)歷，告訴大家你們的樂觀也可以和我們一樣為更多的人做到更多。

When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of the computers and software to the people, and that was the kind of rhetoric we used.我和保羅`艾倫開創(chuàng)微軟時，希望讓計算機(jī)和軟件的力量造福全人類，這也正是我們所想傳達(dá)的理念。

One of the pioneering book in the field had raised fist on the cover, and it was called “Computer Lib.”

領(lǐng)域內(nèi)的一本先驅(qū)性的書籍封面上舉起拳頭，將這稱作是“計算機(jī)解放運(yùn)動”。At that time, only big businesses could buy computers.當(dāng)時，只有大公司才買得起計算機(jī)。

We wanted to offer the same power to regular people, and democratize computing.我們希望讓普通人也能使用這份力量，讓計算機(jī)能夠民眾化 普及化。

By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people, but that success created a new dilemma.到1990年代，我們都見證了個人計算機(jī)為人類做出的巨大貢獻(xiàn)，但這份成功同時又引來了新的困境。

If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn’t, then technology would make inequality worse.如果富有孩子有電腦用，而窮孩子沒有，那么技術(shù)的天平將變得更加不平等。That ran counter to our core belief.這將同我們的核心新年背道而馳。Technology should benefit everyone.技術(shù)應(yīng)當(dāng)讓每個人收益。

So we worked to close the digital divide.于是我們開始行動，試圖縮小這一數(shù)字鴻溝。

I made a priority at Microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an early priority at our Foundation.我原來在微軟以及我和梅琳達(dá)在蓋茨基金會早期都確立了。

Donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure that everyone had access.向公共圖書館捐贈個人計算機(jī)這一優(yōu)先事務(wù)以幫助每個人獲得計算機(jī)使用權(quán)。The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997, when I took my first trip to South Africa.1997年這意數(shù)字鴻溝是我的主要關(guān)注焦點(diǎn)，當(dāng)時我是第一次去南非。I went there on business.我是出公差。

So I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg.大多數(shù)時間都在于漢內(nèi)斯堡中心城區(qū)開會。

I stayed in the home of one of the richest families of South Africa.住在南非國內(nèi)非常有線的一位富豪家里。

It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.當(dāng)時離納爾遜·曼德拉當(dāng)選只有三年時間，種族隔離剛剛終結(jié)。

When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler.我同屋子的主任坐在一起用餐，主人眼紅鈴來呼喚仆人。

After dinner, the women and men separated and the men smoked cigars.餐后女人們會和男人們分開，男人們會抽雪茄。

I thought, good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn’t have known what was going on.我心想，幸好我讀過簡·奧斯汀的作品，否則我估計根本無法理解這里發(fā)生了什么。

But the next day I went to Soweto, the poor town just southwest of Johannesburg, that had been the center of the antiapartheid movement.第二天我去了索韋托，于漢內(nèi)斯堡西南面一個很貧窮的城鎮(zhèn)，曾經(jīng)反種族運(yùn)動的中心。It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring and harsh.這座城鎮(zhèn)離約翰內(nèi)斯堡主城區(qū)并不遠(yuǎn)，但進(jìn)入索韋托后，我立刻感受到了強(qiáng)烈的視覺沖擊。I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.它和我之前看到的完全是兩個世界。

My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how na?ve I was.到索韋托后我才剛開始意識到原來自己有多么天真。

Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there.微軟當(dāng)時將計算機(jī)和軟件捐給當(dāng)?shù)氐纳鐓^(qū)中心。The kind of thing we did in the United States.這同我們在美國所做的一樣。

But it became clear to me, very quickly, that this was not the United States.但我很快意識到南非并不是美國。

I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.我之前看過關(guān)于貧困的統(tǒng)計數(shù)字，但卻從來沒真正看過什么叫貧窮。

The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks, with on electricity, no water, no toilets.當(dāng)?shù)厝俗≡诤喡慕饘倥锢铮瑳]有電沒有水 沒有廁所。Most people didn’t wear shoes.大多數(shù)人連鞋都沒有穿的。

They walked barefoot along the streets, except there were no streets, just ruts in the mud.他們赤腳在街上走，其實(shí)那里根本就沒有街，不過只有一些泥巴路。The community center had no consistent source of power.社區(qū)中心連持續(xù)的電力供應(yīng)都沒有。

So they rigged up an extension cord that ran 200 feet from the center to the diesel generator

outside.人們只能臨時拉了一根200英尺長的延長線，讓社區(qū)中心能夠街上外面的柴油機(jī)發(fā)電機(jī)。Looking at this setup, I knew the minute the reporters left, the generator would get to a more urgent task.看到這種情形，我知道一旦記者離開發(fā)電機(jī)就會被用到更緊急的任務(wù)。

And the people at the community center would go back to worry about challenges that couldn’t be solved by a personal computer.而社區(qū)中心的人們也需要重新去面對那些不是個人計算機(jī)就能解決的問題。When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said Soweto is a milestone.我按照事先準(zhǔn)備的講稿，對媒體說索韋托是一個里程碑。

There’s major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.在未來，為了不讓發(fā)展中國家在技術(shù)上落后顯然還有很多重大決定要做。This is to close the gap.我們將像這樣，努力縮小技術(shù)上的鴻溝。

But as I read those words, I knew they weren’t super relevant.但在我閱讀這份講稿時，我深知情況遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)沒有這么簡單。

What I didn’t say was, by the way, we’re not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria.講稿上有一段我沒有讀，也就是我們還沒開始關(guān)注這塊大陸上，每年有大約五十萬人死于瘧疾這一事實(shí)。

But we are sure as hell going to bring you computers.但我們至少能夠給大家?guī)碛嬎銠C(jī)。

Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world’s problems but I was blind to many of the most important ones.在我去索韋托之前，我以為我了解世界的問題，事實(shí)上我對很多問題都一無所知。

I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, did I still believe that innovation could solve the world’s toughest problems? 親眼所見的情形讓我非常驚訝，我不得不問自己我還相信創(chuàng)新能夠解決世界上最困難的問題嗎？

I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.我許下承若要在下次回到非洲之前，更了解到底是什么導(dǎo)致了人們的持續(xù)貧窮。Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the pressing needs of the poor.這些年來，我和梅琳達(dá)確實(shí)更了解窮人的急切需求。

On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, multidrug resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 59%.在之后一次去南非的過程中，我造訪了一家治療MDR-TB病人的醫(yī)院，MDR-TB也就是多耐藥肺結(jié)核，這種疾病的治愈率低于50%。I remember that hospital as a place of despair.我還記得那所醫(yī)院是一個充滿絕望的地方。

It was a giant open ward, with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks.一個開放式的巨大病房中，到處都是身著病服和口罩，馱著沉重步伐走動的病人。There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.有一層樓專門容納兒童病人，包括剛出生不久的嬰兒。

They had a little school for kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn’t make it, and the hospital didn’t seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.這里還有一所小型學(xué)校，為身體條件足夠好的孩子們準(zhǔn)備，但很多孩子都沒好轉(zhuǎn)到能夠上學(xué)，醫(yī)院不知道開這么一所學(xué)校是否值得。I talked to a patient there in her early 30s.我同以為三十歲出頭的年輕女患者談了談。

She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough.她之前在一家結(jié)合并醫(yī)院當(dāng)護(hù)工，結(jié)果自己也開始咳嗽。She went to a doctor and said she had drug-resistant TB.她去看醫(yī)生，醫(yī)生說她得了耐藥性結(jié)核病。She was later diagnosed with AIDS.之后她又被確診患有艾滋病。

She wasn’t going to live much longer.But there were plenty of MDR patients, waiting to take her bed when she vacated it.她估計活不了多久，但還有很多肺結(jié)核患者等待這她死后騰出的病床。This was hell with a waiting list.這是一個排隊(duì)等待死亡的地獄。

But seeing this hell didn’t reduce my optimism.It channeled it.看到這個地獄并沒有挫敗我的樂觀態(tài)度。而是為我指引了方向。

I got into the car as I left and I told the doctor we were working with, I know MDR-TB is hard to cure, but we must do something for these people.離開的時候，我鉆進(jìn)車?yán)锔嬖V與我們共事的醫(yī)生，我知道MDR-TB很難治愈，但我們必須為這些人們做點(diǎn)什么。

And, in fact, this year, we are entering phase three with the new TB drug regime for patients who respond, instead of a 50% cure rate after 18 months for $2000, we get an 80% cure rate after six months under $100.實(shí)際上，就在今年，我們進(jìn)入了一種新結(jié)核藥的第三階段，對于響應(yīng)的患者，情況不再是2000美元價格，治療18個月治愈率50%，而是不到100美元的價格，治療6個月治愈率80%。

Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.樂觀經(jīng)常會由于錯誤的希望而消散。但錯誤的絕望同樣存在。

That’s the attitude that says we can’t defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.這種態(tài)度總在告訴我們，我們無法打敗貧窮和疾病。實(shí)際上我們肯定能打敗。

Melinda: Bill called me that day after he visited the TB hospital and normally if one of us is on an international trip, we will go through our agenda for the day and who we met and where we have been.那天造訪結(jié)合醫(yī)院后，比爾打電話給我，如果我們倆有人要到國外出差，一般情況下，我們都會對去哪以及見誰有一個計劃。

But this call was different.Bill said to me, Melinda, I have been somewhere that I have never been before.但這通電話很特別。比爾跟我說，梅琳達(dá)我去了一個從沒去過的地方。And then he coked up and he couldn’t go on.然后他有些哽咽有些話說不出來。

And he finally just said, I will tell you more when I get home.最后他說等我回來以后再跟你仔細(xì)講。

And I knew what he was going through because when you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.我能了解他正經(jīng)受著什么，當(dāng)你看到有人如此缺乏希望時，你會感到心碎。

But if you want to do the most, you have to go see the worst, and I’ve had days like that too.但要想做得最多，你必須看到最糟的真相。我也有過這樣的經(jīng)歷。

About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of friends to India.On last day I was there, I had a meeting with a group of prostitutes, and I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS that they were facing, but what they wanted to talk to me about was stigma.大約十年前我和一幫朋友去了印度。待在那里的最后一天我見了一群妓女，跟她們討論她們所面臨的艾滋病威脅，但她們想跟我講的確實(shí)污名。Many of these women had been abandoned by their husbands.她們很多人都被丈夫拋棄了。

That’s why they even went into prostitution.不得已靠賣身為生。

They wanted to be able to feed their children.她們必須想辦法養(yǎng)活自己的孩子。

They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anyone, even the police, and nobody cared.她們在社會的眼中如此卑賤以至于任何人甚至警察都可以隨意強(qiáng)奸搶劫和毆打她們，但卻沒人關(guān)心。

Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me, but what I remember most was how much they wanted to be touched.同她們的對話讓我動容，我印象最深刻的是她們很希望同人接觸。They wanted to touch me and to be touched by them.她們希望接觸我也希望我接觸她們。

It was if physical contact somehow proved their worth.似乎只有通過這種身體接觸，她們才能體會到自己的存在價值。

And so before I left, we linked arms hand in hand and did a photo together.于是我在離開之前，同她們手拉手照了合影。

Later that same day, I spent some time in India in a home for the dying.還是那一天，我后來又去了一所垂死之家。

I walked into a large hall and I saw rows and rows of cots, and every cot was attended to except for one, that was far off in the corner.And so I decided to go over there.我走過大廳看到一排排病床，每張病床都有人照料，除了角落里的那張略顯孤獨(dú)。于是我決定過去看看。

The patient who was in this room was a woman in her 30s.And I remember her eyes.床上是以為三十多歲的女性。我深深記得她的眼睛。

She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated and on the verge of death and her intestines were not holding anything and so the workers had put a pan under her bed, cut a hole in bottom of the bed, and everything in her was just pouring out into that pan.她有一對充滿悲傷的棕色大眼睛。她很消瘦離死亡已不遙遠(yuǎn)，她的肚子里已經(jīng)無法容納任何東西，義工們不得不將床板切一個洞，并將盆子放到床下，她體內(nèi)的一切就這樣傾瀉到盆子里。

I could tell that she had AIDS.Both in the way she looked and the fact that she was off in this corner alone.我可以看出她患有艾滋病。她有一些癥狀而且被安排在這個孤獨(dú)的角落更說明了這一點(diǎn)。The stigma of AIDS is vicious, especially for women.And the punishment is abandonment.艾滋病的污名是惡劣的，特別是對于女性。而懲罰便是被拋棄。When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt completely and totally helpless.我到了她的病床前，我感到的是完全的無助。

I had absolutely nothing I could offer this woman.I knew I couldn’t save her.But I didn’t want her to be alone.我沒有什么能給這位女性的。我沒辦法挽救她的生命。但我不認(rèn)看到她那么孤獨(dú)。

So I knelt down with her and put my hand out..She reached for my hand and grasped it and she wouldn’t let it go.于是跪在她身旁，把手伸給他。她抓住我的手久久不愿放開。

I didn’t speak her language.And I couldn’t think of what I should say to her.我不會講她的語言，我也不知道該對她說什么。And finally I just said to her, it’s going to be okay.最后我只能說 沒事的。

It’s going to be okay.It’s not your fault.沒事的，這不是你的錯。

And after I had been with her for sometime, she started pointing to the roof top.She clearly wanted to go up and I realized the sun was going down and what she wanted to do was so up on the roof and see the sunset.我同他相處了一段時間，她指向屋頂。她顯然是想上去，我意識到太陽就快下山。她肯定是想到屋頂看日落。

The workers in this home for the dying were very busy.I said to them can we take her up on the roof top? And they said, “No.No.We have to pass out medicines.”

垂死之家的義工都非常忙碌。我們她們能否幫忙把她抬上屋頂？她們說：“不行，我們還需要非法藥物。”

I waited that for that to happen and I asked another worker and they said “No no no, we are too busy.We can’t get her up there.”

我等著她們做完我又問了另一個義工“不行不行，我們太忙了，沒時間把她抬上去。” And so finally, I just scooped this woman up in my arms.最后我只能自己將這位女性用手摟起。

She was nothing more than skin over bones and I took her up on the roof top and I found one of those plastic chairs that blows over in the light breeze.I put her there and sat her down, and put a blanket over her legs and she sat there facing to the west, watching the sunset.她幾乎痩的只剩皮包骨頭了，我將她攙扶到屋頂，找了一張被人遺忘的在微風(fēng)中的塑料椅子，讓她坐在椅子上，用毛毯蓋上她的雙腿，她坐在那里，面朝西方，靜靜的看著日落。

The workers knew—I made sure they knew that she was up there so that they would bring her down after later that evening after the sun went down and then I had to leave.我告訴義工們她在上面，讓她們晚上日落后把她搬下來，然后我不得不離開。But she never left me.但對她的記憶卻在心中揮之不去。

I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman’s death.聽到這位女性死去的消息我覺得自己完全沒有做好心理準(zhǔn)備。

But sometimes, it’s the people that you can’t help that inspire you the most.有時正是那些你幫不了的人對你心靈的震撼最大。

I knew that those sex worker I had met in the morning could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening, unless we found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.我知道白天我碰到的那些性工作者，以后很有可能就會變成那天晚上我扶上樓的那位女性，除非我們能夠找到辦法，為她們洗脫身上無法擺脫的污名。

Over the past ten years, our Foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower one another to speak up and demand safe sex and that their clients use condoms.過去十年來 我們基金會幫助性工作者建立起很多支持小組 讓他們有能力互相鼓勵發(fā)出聲音 要求安全的性交易 要求客人使用安全套。

Their brave efforts have helped to keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers and a lot of studies show that’s the big reason why the AIDS epidemic has not exploded in India.她們的努力讓性工作者的艾滋病發(fā)病率保持較低水平，很多研究顯示這也正是艾滋病沒有在印度大范圍暴發(fā)的重要原因。

When these sex workers gather together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.性工作者們聚在一起幫助阻止艾滋病傳播的同時，又發(fā)生了一件令人意想不到的奇妙事情。The community they formed became a platform for everything.她們組成的群體為自身權(quán)益的伸張筑起了平臺。

Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn’t get away with it anymore.強(qiáng)奸 搶劫她們的警察和其他人不能再逍遙法外。

The women set up systems to encourage savings for one another and with those savings, they were able to leave sex work.這些女性組織起了一個鼓勵大家存錢的體系，通過這些存款 不少人得以脫離性工作。This was all done by people that society considered the lowest of the low.這些都是被社會認(rèn)為最下等的人們所做的。

Optimism, for me, is not a passive expectation that things are going to get better.樂觀在我看來，并不是一種認(rèn)為未來會變美好的被動期望。For me, it’s a conviction and a belief that we can make things better.而是一種信念 相信我們能用自己的雙手讓未來變的更好。

So no matter how much suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don’t lose hope and if we don’t look away.無論我們遭受了多少苦難 無論境況有多糟糕，只要不喪失希望 不假裝沒看見我們就能幫助這些人。

Bill: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes, but we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.我和梅琳達(dá)都講述了災(zāi)難性的情景，但我們愿意以最好的期許 相信樂觀的力量。

Even in dire situations, optimism fuels innovation and leads to new approaches that eliminate suffering.越是在極端惡劣的情形下，樂觀越能激發(fā)出創(chuàng)新 為消除苦難找出新的方法。But if you never really see the people who are suffering, your optimism can’t help them.但如果你沒親眼見過遭受苦難的人們，你的樂觀將幫不到她們。You will never change their world.你也永遠(yuǎn)無法改變他們的世界。

And that brings me to what I see is a paradox.這在我看來是一個巨大的悖論。

The modern world is an incredible source of innovation and Stanford stands at the center of that, creating new companies, new schools of thought, prize-winning professors, inspired art and literature, miracle drugs, and amazing graduates.現(xiàn)代世界是一個無可比擬的創(chuàng)新之源，斯坦福則位于這一切的中心，創(chuàng)立起新公司和新的思想學(xué)派，充滿獲獎教授，啟迪指示和智慧，研發(fā)出神奇藥物，培養(yǎng)出了不起的畢業(yè)生。Whether you are a scientist with a new discovery, or working in the trenches to understand the needs of the most marginalized, you are advancing amazing breakthroughs in what human beings can do for each other.無論你是得到新發(fā)現(xiàn)的科學(xué)家，還是奮戰(zhàn)于滿足邊緣人群需求最前線的人，你都是在推動人類相互幫助上的偉大突破。

At the same time, if you ask people across the United States is the future going to be better than the past, most say no.My kids will be worse off than I am.同時在美國范圍內(nèi)如果你問人們未來會比過去號碼，大多數(shù)人說不會。我的子孫會比我過的糟糕。

They think innovation won’t make the world better for them or their children.他們認(rèn)為創(chuàng)新不會讓她們及子孫的世界變得更好。So who is right? 到底誰對呢？

The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better? Or the people who see a trend toward inequality and a decline in opportunity and don’t think innovation will change that? 是那些聲稱創(chuàng)新能夠創(chuàng)造新機(jī)遇并讓世界變得更好的人，還是那些認(rèn)為不平等會加重，機(jī)會會減少，不認(rèn)為創(chuàng)新能夠改變這些趨勢的人？

The pessimists are wrong, in my view.But they are not crazy.在我看來，悲觀主義者是錯誤的。但她們的想法并不瘋狂。

If innovation is purely market driven, and we don’t focus on the big inequalities, then we could have amazing advances in inventions that leave the world even more divided.如果創(chuàng)新純粹是市場驅(qū)使的，沒人關(guān)心不平等的加劇，那么世界就算有再多美妙發(fā)明也是白搭，只能讓世界分化越發(fā)嚴(yán)重。

We won’t improve public schools.We won’t end malaria.We won’t end poverty.We won’t develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.我們將無法改善公立學(xué)校條件，我們將無法根除瘧疾，我們將無法根除貧窮。我們將無法開發(fā)出貧苦農(nóng)民所需的創(chuàng)新，讓她們能在變化的氣候條件下種出作物。

If our optimism doesn’t address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools.如果我們的樂觀不能解決這些問題，不能幫助很多需要幫助的同胞，那么這種樂觀就需要更多同情心。如果同情心能夠引導(dǎo)我們的樂觀，我們就肯定能看到貧困，疾病和糟糕的教育條件。

We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.我們就肯定能通過創(chuàng)新給我答案，我們就肯定能讓悲觀主義者大吃一驚。

Over the next generation, you, Stanford graduates, will lead a new weave of innovation.在下一代，你們這些斯坦福畢業(yè)生將會引領(lǐng)新一波創(chuàng)新。Which problems will you decide to solve? 你們決定處理哪些問題？

If your world is wide, you can create the future we all want.如果你們的世界觀足夠?qū)拸V你們將恩那個創(chuàng)建出我們所有人都想要的未來。If your world is narrow, you may create the future the pessimists fear.如果你們的世界觀太過狹窄，你們就有可能創(chuàng)建出悲觀主義者們所害怕的未來。

I started learning in Soweto, that if we are going to make our optimism matter to everyone, and empower people everywhere, we have to see the lives of those most in need.從索韋托開始我開始了解到，如果我們要將這份樂觀傳遞給每個人，讓所有地方的人都獲得力量，我們需要首先去感受那些需求最迫切者的生活。

If we have optimism, without empathy, then it doesn’t matter how much we master the secrets of science.如果我們指示樂觀而沒有同情心，那么對科學(xué)秘密掌握得再好也將毫無用處。

We are not really solving problems.We are just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader view than I had at your age.You can do better at this than I did.因?yàn)槲覀儾⒉皇窃诮鉀Q問題，而是僅僅在做一些智力題。我想你們大多數(shù)人，世界觀都比我在你們這么大時更加寬廣。你們肯定能夠比我做到更好。

If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We are eager to see it.只要全心全意的投入進(jìn)來，我們就必然能讓悲觀主義者震驚。我們很像看到你們創(chuàng)造的未來。Melinda: So let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.讓自己沉浸于心碎。這會改變你們對樂觀的理解。

On a trip to South Asia, I met a desperately poor Indian woman who had two children and she begged me to take them home with me.有一次去南亞，我碰到了以為赤貧的印度女性，她有兩個孩子，她請求我把這兩個孩子帶回去領(lǐng)養(yǎng)。

And when I begged her for her forgiveness she said, well, then please, just take one of them.在我請她原諒我的無能為力時她說，那請你領(lǐng)養(yǎng)其中一個孩子行嗎。

On another trip to south Los Angeles, I met with a group of the students from a tough neighborhood.A young girl said to me, do you ever feel like we are the kids whose parents shirked their responsibilities and we are just the leftovers? 還有一次我去南洛杉磯，見了一群來自艱苦社區(qū)的學(xué)生。一個小女孩跟我說，你有沒有覺得我們這些孩子都被父母放置不理，我們只不過是多余的東西。These women broke my heart.And they still do.這些女性讓我感到心碎。現(xiàn)在仍然如此。

And the empathy intensifies if I admit to myself, that could be me.如果想想“這也可能是我”同情心便會越發(fā)強(qiáng)烈。

When I talk with the mothers I meet during my travels, there’s no difference between what we want for our children.The only difference is our ability to provide it to our children.我在其他地方碰到過很多母親。我們想為子女提供的東西其實(shí)并沒有太大差別。唯一差別在于我們?yōu)樽优峁┻@些東西的能力。So what accounts for that difference? 這中差異是如何造成的？

Bill and I talk about this with our own kids around the dinner table.我和比爾在餐桌上同我們自己的孩子討論這個問題。

Bill worked incredibly hard and he took risks and he made sacrifices for success.比爾工作無比努力，他冒過很多風(fēng)險，做過很多犧牲采取的了今天的成功。

But there’s another essential ingredient of success, and that is luck.Absolute and total luck.但成功還有另外一個很重要的成分那就是運(yùn)氣。完全純粹的運(yùn)氣。When were you born? Who are your parents? Where did you grow up? 你出生在什么年代，你的父母是誰？你在那里長大？ None of us earn these things.These things were given to us.我們誰都不能掙得這些，這些都是被給予的。

So when we strip away all of our privilege and we consider where we would be without them, it becomes someone much easier to see someone who is poor and say, that could be me.And that’s empathy.當(dāng)我們?nèi)コ羲械膬?yōu)勢，考慮我們沒有這些優(yōu)勢。這就是同情心。

Empathy tears down barriers, and it opens up whole new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you all.As you leave Stanford, take all your genius and your optimism and your empathy, and go change the world in ways that will make millions of people optimistic.同情推到一切障礙，并且打開樂觀的新視野。這里有很大的吸引力。

You don’t have to rush.You have careers to launch and debts to pay and spouses to meet and marry.That’s plenty enough for right now.But in the course of your lives, perhaps without any plan on your part, you will see suffering that’s going to break your heart.And when it happens, don’t turn away from it.That’s the moment that change is born.Congratulations and good luck to the class of 2014!

第二篇：比爾蓋茨夫婦在斯坦福大學(xué)的演講-2014

Text of the 2014 Commencement Address by Bill and Melinda Gates

Following is the text of the address by Bill and Melinda Gates, philanthropists and cochairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as prepared for delivery at Stanford University's 123rd Commencement on June 15, 2014.Bill Gates: Congratulations, Class of 2014!Melinda and I are excited to be here.It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to speak at a Stanford Commencement – but it's especially gratifying for us.Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family.And it's long been a favorite university for Microsoft and our foundation.Our formula has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.It turns out that a disproportionate number of those people are at Stanford.Right now, we have more than 30 foundation research projects underway with Stanford.When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases, we work with Stanford.When we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States so that more low-income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.This is where genius lives.There is a flexibility of mind here – an openness to change, an eagerness for what's new.This is where people come to discover the future and have fun doing it.Melinda Gates: Some people call you nerds – and you claim the label with pride.Bill: Well, so do we.There are so many remarkable things going on here at this campus.But if Melinda and I had to put into one word what we love most about Stanford, it's the optimism.There's an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.That's the belief that drove me, in 1975, to leave a college in the suburbs of Boston and go on an endless leave of absence.I believed that the magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and make the world much, much better.It's been almost 40 years since then, and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.We are both more optimistic now than ever.But on our journey together, our optimism evolved.We'd like to tell you what we learned – and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more – for more people.When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of computers and software to the people – and that was the kind of rhetoric we used.One of the pioneering books in the field had a raised fist on the cover, and it was called Computer Lib.At that time, only big businesses could buy computers.We wanted to offer the same power to regular people – and democratize computing.By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people.But that success created a new dilemma: If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn't, then technology would make inequality worse.That ran counter to our core belief: Technology should benefit everybody.So we worked to close the digital divide.I made it a priority at Microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an early priority at our foundation – donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure everyone had access.The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997 when I took my first trip to South Africa.I went there on business, so I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg.I stayed in the home of one of the richest families in South Africa.It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler.After dinner, the men and women separated, and the men smoked cigars.I thought, “Good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn't have known what was going on.” The next day I went to Soweto – the poor township southwest of Johannesburg that had been a center of the anti-apartheid movement.It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring, and harsh.I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how na?ve I was.Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there – the kind of thing we did in the United States.But it became clear to me very quickly that this was not the United States.I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks with no electricity, no water, no toilets.Most people didn't wear shoes;they walked barefoot along the streets.Except there were no streets – just ruts in the mud.The community center had no consistent source of power, so they had rigged up an extension cord that ran about 200 feet from the center to a diesel generator outside.Looking at the setup, I knew the minute the reporters and I left, the generator would get moved to a more urgent task, and the people who used the community center would go back to worrying about challenges that couldn't be solved by a PC.When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said: “Soweto is a milestone.There are major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.This is to close the gap.” As I was reading those words, I knew they were irrelevant.What I didn't say was: “By the way, we're not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria.But we're sure as hell going to bring you computers.” Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world's problems, but I was blind to the most important ones.I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, “Do I still believe that innovation can solve the world's toughest problems?” I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the most pressing needs of the poor.On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, or multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 50 percent.I remember that hospital as a place of despair.It was a giant open ward with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks.There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.They had a little school for the kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn't make it, and the hospital didn't seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.I talked to a patient there in her early thirties.She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough.She went to a doctor, and he told her she had drug-resistant TB.She was later diagnosed with AIDS.She wasn't going to live much longer, but there were plenty of MDR patients waiting to take her bed when she vacated it.This was hell with a waiting list.But seeing hell didn't reduce my optimism;it channelled it.I got in the car and told the doctor who was working with us: “Yeah, I know.MDR-TB is hard to cure.But we should be able to do something for these people.” This year, we're entering phase three with a new TB drug regime.For patients who respond, instead of a 50 percent cure rate after 18 months for $2,000, we could get an 80-90 percent cure rate after six months for under $100.That's better by a factor of a hundred.Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.That's the attitude that says we can't defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.Melinda: Bill called me after he visited the TB hospital.Ordinarily, if we're calling from a trip, we just go through the agenda of the day: “Here's what I did;here's where I went;here's who I met.” But this call was different.He said: “Melinda, I've gone somewhere I've never been before” and then he choked up and couldn't talk.Finally he just said: “I'll tell you when I get home.” I knew what he was going through.When you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.But if you want to do the most, you have to see the worst.That's what Bill was doing that day.I've had days like that, too.Ten years ago, I travelled to India with friends.On the last day there, I spent some time meeting with prostitutes.I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS, but they wanted to talk about stigma.Most of these women had been abandoned by their husbands, and that's why they'd gone into prostitution.They were trying to make enough money to feed their kids.They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anybody – even by police – and nobody cared.Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me.But what I remember most is how much they wanted to touch me and be touched.It was as if physical contact somehow proved their worth.As I was leaving, we took a photo of all of us with our arms linked together.Later that day, I spent some time in a home for the dying.I walked into a large hall and saw rows and rows of cots.Every cot was attended except for one far off in the corner that no one was going near, so I walked over there.The patient was a woman who seemed to be in her thirties.I remember her eyes.She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated, on the verge of death.Her intestines weren't holding anything – so they had put her on a cot with a hole cut out in the bottom, and everything just poured through into a pan below.I could tell she had AIDS, both from the way she looked, and the fact that she was off in the corner alone.The stigma of AIDS is vicious – especially for women – and the punishment is abandonment.When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt totally helpless.I had absolutely nothing I could offer her.I knew I couldn't save her, but I didn't want her to be alone.So I knelt down next to her and reached out to touch her – and as soon as she felt my hand, she grabbed it and wouldn't let go.We sat there holding hands, and even though I knew she couldn't understand me, I just started saying: “It's okay.It's okay.It's not your fault.It's not your fault.” We had been there together for a while when she pointed upward with her finger.It took me some time to figure out that she wanted to go up to the roof and sit outside while it was still light out.I asked one of the workers if that would be okay, but she was overwhelmed by all the patients she had to care for.She said: “She's in the last stages of dying, and I have to pass out medicine.” Then I asked another, and got the same answer.It was getting late and the sun was going down, and I had to leave, and no one seemed willing to take her upstairs.So finally I just scooped her up – she was just skin over a skeleton, just a sack of bones – and I carried her up the stairs.On the roof, there were a few of those plastic chairs that will blow over in a strong breeze, and I set her down on one of those, and I helped prop her feet up on another, and I placed a blanket over her legs.And she sat there with her face to the west, watching the sunset.I made sure the workers knew that she was up there so they would come get her after the sun went down.Then I had to leave her.But she never left me.I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman's death.But sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.I knew that the sex workers I linked arms with in the morning could become the woman I carried upstairs in the evening – unless they found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.Over the past 10 years, our foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower each other to speak out for safe sex and demand that their clients use condoms.Their brave efforts helped keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers, and a lot of studies show that is a big reason why the AIDS epidemic in India hasn't exploded.When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.The community they formed became a platform for everything.They were able to set up speed-dial networks to respond to violent attacks.Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn't get away with it anymore.The women set up systems to encourage savings.They used financial services that helped some of them start businesses and get out of sex work.This was all done by people society considered the lowliest of the low.Optimism for me isn't a passive expectation that things will get better;it's a conviction that we can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope and we don't look away.Bill: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes.But we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.Even in dire situations, optimism can fuel innovation and lead to new tools to eliminate suffering.But if you never really see the people who are suffering, your optimism can't help them.You will never change their world.And that brings me to what I see as a paradox.The world of science and technology is driving phenomenal innovations – and Stanford stands at the center of that, creating new companies, prize-winning professors, ingenious software, miracle drugs, and amazing graduates.We're on the verge of mind-blowing breakthroughs in what human beings can do for each other.And people here are really excited about the future.At the same time, if you ask people across the United States, “Is the future going to be better than the past?” most people will say: “No.My kids will be worse off than I am.” They think innovation won't make the world better for them or for their children.So who's right? The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better? …or… The people who see a trend toward inequality and a decline in opportunity and don't think innovation will change that? The pessimists are wrong in my view, but they're not crazy.If technology is purely market-driven and we don't focus innovation on the big inequities, then we could have amazing inventions that leave the world even more divided.We won't improve public schools.We won't cure malaria.We won't end poverty.We won't develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.If our optimism doesn't address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy channelled our optimism, we would see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools, we would answer with our innovations, and we would surprise the pessimists.Over the next generation, you Stanford graduates will lead a new wave of innovation and apply it to your world.Which problems will you decide to solve? If your world is wide, you can create the future we all want.If your world is narrow, you may create the future the pessimists fear.I started learning in Soweto that if we're going to make our optimism matter to everyone and empower people everywhere, we have to see the lives of those most in need.If we have optimism, but we don't have empathy – then it doesn't matter how much we master the secrets of science, we're not really solving problems;we're just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader worldview than I had at your age.You can do better at this than I did.If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We can't wait to see it.Melinda: Let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.On a trip to South Asia, I met a desperately poor mother who brought me her two small children and implored me: “Please take them home with you.” When I begged her forgiveness and said I could not, she said: “Then please take one.” On another trip, to South Los Angeles, I was talking to a group of high school students from a tough neighbourhood when one young woman said to me: “Do you ever feel like we are just somebody else's kids whose parents shirked their responsibilities, that we're all just leftovers?” These women made my heart break – and still do.And the empathy intensifies if I admit to myself: “That could be me.” When I talk with the mothers I meet during my travels, I see that there is no difference at all in what we want for our children.The only difference is our ability to give it to them.What accounts for that difference? Bill and I talk about this with our kids at the dinner table.Bill worked incredibly hard and took risks and made sacrifices for success.But there is another essential ingredient of success, and that ingredient is luck – absolute and total luck.When were you born? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? None of us earned these things.They were given to us.When we strip away our luck and privilege and consider where we'd be without them, it becomes easier to see someone who's poor and sick and say “that could be me.” This is empathy;it tears down barriers and opens up new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you: As you leave Stanford, take your genius and your optimism and your empathy and go change the world in ways that will make millions of others optimistic as well.You don't have to rush.You have careers to launch, debts to pay, spouses to meet and marry.That's enough for now.But in the course of your lives, without any plan on your part, you'll come to see suffering that will break your heart.When it happens, and it will, don't turn away from it;turn toward it.That is the moment when change is born.Congratulations and good luck.

第三篇：比爾蓋茨夫婦2014斯坦福大學(xué)演講稿

比爾蓋茨夫婦斯坦福大學(xué)2014畢業(yè)會演講 Stanford University.BILL GATES: Congratulations, class of 2014!(Cheers).Melinda and I are excited to be here.It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to speak at a Stanford commencement, but it's especially gratifying for us.Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family, and it's long been a favorite university for Microsoft and our foundation.Our formula has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.It turns out that a disproportionate number of those people are at Stanford.(Cheers).Right now, we have more than 30 foundation research projects underway here.When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases, we work with Stanford.When we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States, so that more low-income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.This is where genius lives.There's a flexibility of mind here, an openness to change, an eagerness for what's new.This is where people come to discover the future, and have fun doing it.MELINDA GATES: Now, some people call you all nerds and we hear that you claim that label with pride.(Cheers and Applause).BILL GATES: Well, so do we.(Cheers and Applause).BILL GATES: My normal glasses really aren't all that different.(Laughter).There are so many remarkable things going on here at this campus, but if Melinda and I had to put into one word what we love most about Stanford, it's the optimism.There's an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.That's the belief that drove me in 1975 to leave a college in the suburbs of Boston and go on an endless leave of absence.(Laughter).I believed that the magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and make the world much, much better.It's been 40 years since then, and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.We are both more optimistic now than ever.But on our journey, our optimism evolved.We would like to tell you what we learned and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more for more people.When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of computers and software to the people, and that was the kind of rhetoric we used.One of the pioneering books in the field had a raised fist on the cover, and it was called “Computer Lib.” At that time, only big businesses could buy computers.We wanted to offer the same power to regular people and democratize computing.By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people, but that success created a new dilemma.If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn't, then technology would make inequality worse.That ran counter to our core belief.Technology should benefit everyone.So we worked to close the digital divide.I made it a priority at Microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an early priority at our Foundation.Donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure that everyone had access.The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997, when I took my first trip to South Africa.I went there on business so I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg.I stayed in the home of one of the richest families in South Africa.It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler.After dinner, the women and men separated and the men smoked cigars.I thought, good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn't have known what was going on.(Laughter).But the next day I went to Soweto, the poor township southwest of Johannesburg, that had been the center of the anti-apartheid movement.It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring and harsh.I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how naive I was.Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there.The kind of thing we did in the United States.But it became clear to me, very quickly, that this was not the United States.I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks with no electricity, no water, no toilets.Most people didn't wear shoes.They walked barefoot along the streets, except there were no streets, just ruts in the mud.The community center had no consistent source of power.So they rigged up an extension cord that ran 200 feet from the center to the diesel generator outside.Looking at this setup, I knew the minute the reporters left, the generator would get moved to a more urgent task.And the people who used the community center would go back to worrying about challenges that couldn't be solved by a personal computer.When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said Soweto is a milestone.There are major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.This is to close the gap.But as I read those words, I knew they weren't super relevant.What I didn't say was, by the way, we're not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria.But we are sure as hell going to bring you computers.Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world's problems but I was blind to many of the most important ones.I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, did I still believe that innovation could solve the world's toughest problems? I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the pressing needs of the poor.On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 50%.I remember that hospital as a place of despair.It was a giant open ward, with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks.There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.They had a little school for kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn't make it, and the hospital didn't seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.I talked to a patient there in her early 30s.She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough.She went to a doctor and he told her said she had drug-resistant TB.She was later diagnosed with AIDS.She wasn't going to live much longer, but there were plenty of MDR patients waiting to take her bed when she vacated it.This was hell with a waiting list.But seeing this hell didn't reduce my optimism.It channeled it.I got into the car as I left and I told the doctor we were working with I know MDR-TB is hard to cure, but we must do something for these people.And, in fact, this year, we are entering phase three with the new TB drug regime for patients who respond, instead of a 50% cure rate after 18 months for $2,000, we get an 80% cure rate after six months for under $100.(Applause).Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.That's the attitude that says we can't defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.MELINDA GATES: Bill called me that day after he visited the TB hospital and normally if one of us is on an international trip, we will go through our agenda for the day and who we met and where we have been.But this call was different.Bill said to me, Melinda, I have been somewhere that I have never been before.And then he choked up and he couldn't go on.And he finally just said, I will tell you more when I get home.And I knew what he was going through because when you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.But if you want to do the most, you have to go see the worst, and I've had days like that too.About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of friends to India.And on last day I was there, I had a meeting with a group of prostitutes and I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS that they were facing, but what they wanted to talk to me about was stigma.Many of these women had been abandoned by their husbands.That's why they even went into prostitution.They wanted to be able to feed their children.They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anyone, even the police, and nobody cared.Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me, but what I remember most was how much they wanted to be touched.They wanted to touch me and to be touched by them.It was if physical contact somehow proved their worth.And so before I left, we linked arms hand in hand and did a photo together.Later that same day, I spent some time in India in a home for the dying.I walked into a large hall and I saw rows and rows of cot and every cot was attended to except for one, that was far off in the corner.And so I decided to go over there.The patient who was in this room was a woman in her 30s.And I remember her eyes.She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated and on the verge of death.Her intestines were not holding anything and so the workers had they put a pan under her bed, and cut a hole in the bottom of the bed and everything in her was just pouring out into that pan.And I could tell that she had AIDS.Both in the way she looked and the fact that she was off in this corner alone.The stigma of AIDS is vicious, especially for women.And the punishment is abandonment.When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt completely and totally helpless.I had absolutely nothing I could offer this woman.I knew I couldn't save her.But I didn't want her to be alone.So I knelt down with her and I put my hand out and she reached for my hand and grabbed it and she wouldn't let it go.I didn't speak her language and I couldn't think of what I should say to her.And finally I just said to her, it's going to be okay.It's going to be okay.It's not your fault.And after I had been with her for sometime, she started pointing to the roof top.She clearly wanted to go up and I realized the sun was going down and what she wanted to do was go up on the roof top and see the sunset.So the workers in this home for the dying were very busy and I said to them, you know, can we take her up on the roof top? No.No.We have to pass out medicines.So I waited that for that to happen and I asked another worker and they said, No no no, we are too busy.We can't get her up there.And so finally I just scooped this woman up in my arms.She was nothing more than skin over bones and I took her up on the roof top, and I found one of those plastic chairs that blows over in a light breeze.I put her there, sat her down, put a blanket over her legs and she sat there facing to the west, watching the sunset.The workers knew--I made sure they knew that she was up there so that they would bring her down later that evening after the sun went down and then I had to leave.But she never left me.I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman's death.But sometimes, it's the people that you can't help that inspire you the most.I knew that those sex workers I had met in the morning could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening.Unless Also we found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.Over the past ten years, our Foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower one another to speak up and demand safe sex and that their clients use condoms.Their brave efforts have helped to keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers and a lot of studies show that's the big reason why the AIDS epidemic has not exploded in India.When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.The community they formed became a platform for everything.Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn't get away with it anymore.The women set up systems to encourage savings for one another and with those savings, they were able to leave sex work.This was all done by people that society considered the lowest of the low.Optimism, for me, is not a passive expectation that things are going to get better.For me, it's a conviction and a belief that we can make things better.So no matter how much suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope help and if we don't look away.(Applause).BILL GATES: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes, but we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.Even in dire situations, optimism fuels innovation and leads to new approaches that eliminate suffering.But if you never really see the people that are suffering, your optimism can't help them.You will never change their world.And that brings me to what I see is a paradox.The modern world is an incredible source of innovation and Stanford stands at the center of that, creating new companies, new schools of thought, prize-winning professors, inspired art and literature, miracle drugs, and amazing graduates.Whether you are a scientist with a new discovery, or working in the trenches to understand the needs of the most marginalized, you are advancing amazing breakthroughs in what human beings can do for each other.At the same time, if you ask people across the United States is the future going to be better than the past, most say no.My kids will be worse off than I am.They think innovation won't make the world better for them or their children.So who is right? The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better? Or the people who see a trend toward inequality and a decline in opportunity and don't think innovation will change that? The pessimists are wrong, in my view.But they are not crazy.If innovation is purely market driven, and we don't focus on the big inequities, then we could have amazing advances and in inventions that leave the world even more divided.We won't improve cure public schools, we won't cure malaria, we won't end poverty.We won't develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.If our optimism doesn't address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools.We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.Over the next generation, you, Stanford graduates, will lead a new wave of innovation.Which problems will you decide to solve? If your world is wide, you can create the future we all want.If your world is narrow, you may create the future the pessimists fear.I started learning in Soweto, that if we are going to make our optimism matter to everyone, and empower people everyone, we have to see the lives of those most in need.If we have optimism, without empathy, then it doesn't matter how much we master the secrets of science.We are not really solving problems.We are just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader world view than I had at your age.You can do better at this than I did.If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We are eager to see it.(Applause).MELINDA GATES: So let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.On a trip to south Asia, I met a desperately poor Indian woman.She had two children and she begged me to take them home with me.And when I begged her for her forgiveness she said, well then, please, just take one of them.On another trip to south Los Angeles, I met with a group of the students from a tough neighborhood.A young girl said to me, do you ever feel like we are the kids' whose parents shirked their responsibilities and we are just the leftovers? These women broke my heart.And they still do.And the empathy intensifies if I admit to myself, that could be me.When I talk with the mothers I meet during my travels, there's no difference between what we want for our children.The only difference is our ability to provide it to our children.So what accounts for that difference? Bill and I talk about this with our own kids around the dinner table.Bill worked incredibly hard and he took risks and he made sacrifices for success.But there's another essential ingredient of success, and that is luck.Absolute and total luck.When were you born? Who are your parents? Where did you grow up? None of us earn these things.These things were given to us.So when we strip away all of our luck and our privilege and we consider where we would be without them, it becomes someone much easier to see someone who is poor and say, that could be me.And that's empathy.Empathy tears down barriers and it opens up whole new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you all.As you leave Stanford, take all your genius and your optimism and your empathy, and go change the world in ways that will make millions of people optimistic.You don't have to rush.You have careers to launch and debts to pay and spouses to meet and marry.That's plenty enough for right now.But in the course of your lives, perhaps without any plan on your part, you will see suffering that's going to break your heart.And when it happens, don't turn away from it.That's the moment that change is born.Congratulations and good luck to the class of 2014!

第四篇：比爾蓋茨夫婦在2014年斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮勵志演講稿

2014屆畢業(yè)生，祝賀你們!能站在這里，梅琳達(dá)和我都很興奮。每一個收到邀請，能夠在斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮上講話的人都會又緊張又興奮——但我們尤其高興。

長久以來，斯坦福都是最受微軟和我們的基金會青睞的大學(xué)之一，而現(xiàn)在它正迅速得到我們家族的喜愛。我們的原則是讓最聰明、最有創(chuàng)造力的人來解決最重要的問題。事實(shí)證明，有相當(dāng)一部分這樣的人都出自斯坦福。

現(xiàn)在，有30多個我們基金會投資的研究項(xiàng)目都在斯坦福開展。當(dāng)我們想更好地了解免疫系統(tǒng)從而幫助治愈絕癥時，我們與斯坦福開展了合作;當(dāng)我們想了解美國高等教育狀況的變化以便使更多來自低收入家庭的學(xué)生讀得起大學(xué)時，我們又一次與斯坦福展開了合作。

這里天才匯聚，思想靈活——人們對變化持開放態(tài)度，對新鮮事物充滿了渴望。人們在這里可以饒有興味地一窺未來。

梅琳達(dá)：

有些人叫你們“呆子”——而你們則自豪地接受了這一綽號。

比爾·蓋茨：

我們也是如此。

在這所斯坦福的校園里發(fā)生著許多非凡的事情。但如果非要梅琳達(dá)和我用一個詞來說明我們對這里的熱愛，那么這個詞是“樂觀”。在這里有一種極富感染力的氛圍，即創(chuàng)新幾乎可以解決一切問題。

正是在這種信念的激勵下，我于1975年離開了這所位于波士頓郊區(qū)的學(xué)校，并從此一去不回頭。我相信，計算機(jī)和軟件的魔力能夠使世界上所有的人都變得更強(qiáng)大，并使世界變得越來越美好。

自那時起已經(jīng)過了將近40年，而梅琳達(dá)和我也已經(jīng)結(jié)婚20年。如今我們比以往更加樂觀。但在我們共同的旅程中，樂觀精神是逐漸延續(xù)的。今天，我們希望將自己學(xué)到的傳授給你們——并且告訴你們，我們大家的樂觀精神將會如何為更多人做更多事。

在保羅·艾倫和我初創(chuàng)微軟時，我們想讓人們獲得計算機(jī)和軟件的力量——這是我們使用的一種比喻性說法。在這個領(lǐng)域中的一本開創(chuàng)性書籍的封面上有一只舉起的拳頭，書名叫做《計算機(jī)的解放》。在那時，只有大公司才能買得起計算機(jī)。我們想使普通人也也能買得起——并且使電腦操作普遍化。

到20世紀(jì)90年代，我們見證了個人計算機(jī)使人們獲得的深遠(yuǎn)力量。但這種成功又帶來了新的困境：如果富人家的孩子擁有了計算機(jī)，而窮人家的孩子無法擁有，那么技術(shù)反而會使不公平的狀況加劇。這種狀況違背了我們的核心信念——技術(shù)應(yīng)當(dāng)使所有人受益。因此我們致力于縮小這種“數(shù)字鴻溝”。我將它作為微軟發(fā)展的重中之重，梅琳達(dá)和我將它作為基金會早期發(fā)展的重點(diǎn)——向公共圖書館捐獻(xiàn)個人電腦并保證所有人都能使用。

在我1997年第一次造訪非洲時，“數(shù)字鴻溝”是我關(guān)注的一個重點(diǎn)問題。我是因公務(wù)去的那里，因此大部分時間我都在約翰內(nèi)斯堡的市中心開會。期間，我居住在南非最富的一戶人家里。那時距納爾遜·曼德拉被選舉為南非總統(tǒng)從而標(biāo)志著種族隔離的結(jié)束僅僅過去了三年時間。當(dāng)我坐下來，與那戶人家的主人們一起用餐時，他們就搖鈴，將管家喚過來為他們服務(wù)。用餐結(jié)束后，男女賓客會分開，男士們聚在一起抽雪茄。那時我想，“還好我讀過簡·奧斯汀的書，否則根本弄不明白這是怎么回事”。

第二天我去了索維托，這是一個位于約翰內(nèi)斯堡西南方向的貧窮小鎮(zhèn)，這里曾經(jīng)是一個反種族隔離運(yùn)動的中心。

從市區(qū)到這個小鎮(zhèn)只有很短一段距離，但進(jìn)入小鎮(zhèn)的那一刻我非常震驚，一切都是那么不和諧。我進(jìn)入了一個與我的國家截然不同的世界。

索維托之行早早地就為我上了一課，讓我明白了自己有多么天真。

微軟向那里的一個社區(qū)中心捐贈了計算機(jī)和軟件——這些事是我們在美國就曾做過的。但我很快明白過來，這里并不是美國。

我曾閱讀過有關(guān)貧困的數(shù)據(jù)，但我從未真正見過貧窮。那里的人們住在皺巴巴的鐵皮棚子里，里面不通電、不通水，也沒有廁所。大多數(shù)人都不穿鞋，赤著腳走在街上——只不過那里也沒有街——只有在泥土上軋出的一條條車轍。

社區(qū)中心沒有接入穩(wěn)定的電源，因此人們裝配了一條長達(dá)200英尺的延長電纜，從外面的一個柴油發(fā)動機(jī)接入到社區(qū)中心。看著這堆裝備，我知道，現(xiàn)場的記者們和我一離開，發(fā)電機(jī)就會被挪走，去解決其他更緊迫的問題，社區(qū)中心的使用者們也會回去，繼續(xù)為生活的挑戰(zhàn)而憂心忡忡，因?yàn)閭€人計算機(jī)并不能為他們解決這些挑戰(zhàn)。

當(dāng)我對媒體發(fā)表已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好的評論時，我說：“我們在索維托所做的是一個里程碑。以后我們就會知道，先進(jìn)技術(shù)是否會將發(fā)展中國家拋在后面。我們所做的將會縮小發(fā)達(dá)國家與發(fā)展中國家的差距”。

讀出這些句子時，我明白它們都是些不相干的話。我沒有說出的是：“順便提一下，我們并沒有關(guān)注這樣一個事實(shí)——這片大陸上每年有50萬人死于瘧疾。但是我們非常確定，將會為你們帶去計算機(jī)”。

去索維托之前，我以為自己理解這世上的問題，但我卻對那些最重要的問題視而不見。我所見到的讓我大為吃驚，因此我必須問自己，“我還相信創(chuàng)新能夠解決這世界上最棘手的那些問題嗎”?

我對自己承諾，在返回非洲之前，我要找到更多導(dǎo)致人們貧窮的原因。

多年以來，梅琳達(dá)和我的確越來越多地了解了貧窮的人們最迫切的需求。后來有一次去南非時，我探訪了一家治療耐多藥肺結(jié)核(MDR-TB)的醫(yī)院，這種病的治愈率不足50%。

我記得那家醫(yī)院，那里充斥著絕望。那里有著巨大而開闊的病房，許多病人穿著睡衣，戴著口罩，腳步沉重地走來走去。

醫(yī)院里有一層是兒童病區(qū)，其中有一些仍在襁褓中的嬰兒。這里有一個小小的學(xué)校，身體狀況足夠好的孩子可以在這里學(xué)習(xí)，但是許多孩子的病情都不見好轉(zhuǎn)，院方似乎也不知道是否值得開著學(xué)校。

我與這里一位30出頭的女病人聊了聊。在一家肺結(jié)核醫(yī)院工作的時候，她開始咳嗽。然后她去看了醫(yī)生，醫(yī)生告訴她，她感染了抗藥性肺結(jié)核。后來，她又被診斷出患有艾滋病。她的生命沒有多少時間了，但還是有許多MDR患者等著在她騰出床位之后占據(jù)她的床。

那是一個地獄，那里的人們都在死亡名單上等候著。

但是面對地獄，我的樂觀精神并沒有減退，反而使我變得更加樂觀。我上了車，對與我們共事的醫(yī)生說：“是的，我知道MDR-TB很難治愈。但我們應(yīng)該能為這些人做一些事”。我們在今年進(jìn)入了一項(xiàng)新的肺結(jié)核藥物療法的第三階段。根據(jù)參與療法的病人的反饋，以前18個月的治療費(fèi)用為2000美元，治愈率只有 50%，而如今六個月的治療費(fèi)用在100美元以下，治愈率能達(dá)到80%到90%。失敗率能降到百分之一就更好了。

人們經(jīng)常會把樂觀當(dāng)作虛假的希望加以摒棄，但同樣存在著虛假的絕望。

正是這種態(tài)度宣稱，我們無法打敗貧窮和疾病。

但我們一定可以。

梅琳達(dá)：比爾在參觀完那個肺結(jié)核醫(yī)院之后就給我打了電話。通常我們在旅行期間通話時，只是回顧一下一天中的行程：“這些是我今天做的事;這些是我今天去的地方;這些是我今天見的人”。但那天的電話很不一樣。他說：“梅琳達(dá)，我去了一個以前從沒去過的地方”，然后他哽咽得說不出話來。最后他只說了句：“回家后我會告訴你一切”。

我知道他都經(jīng)歷了些什么。看到生活在絕望中的人們，你也會心碎的。但要盡可能多地幫助他們的話，你就必須看到最壞的情況。那就是比爾在那天所做的，我同樣經(jīng)歷過那樣的日子。

十年前，我曾與朋友們一同到印度旅行。在離開印度的前一天，我抽出了一些時間見了幾個性工作者。我本來希望跟她們談一談，她們可能會染上艾滋病，但她們卻想說從事這一行業(yè)的恥辱。大多數(shù)女性都是因?yàn)楸徽煞驋仐壊砰_始做妓女的。她們要努力掙到足夠的錢，才能養(yǎng)活孩子。在社會上的其他人看來，她們的地位非常卑微，因此任何人——包括警察——都可以搶劫、毆打甚至凌辱她們，而沒有任何人關(guān)心她們。

與她們一起談?wù)撋顚ξ业挠|動很大。但我印象最深的是，她們非常渴望與我接觸，似乎肢體接觸能夠在某種程度上證明她們的價值。在我要走的時候，我們所有人胳膊挽在一起，照了一張像。

后來我又花了些時間拜訪一個絕癥患者之家。走進(jìn)一個大廳，我看到了成排的簡易床。每張床前都有人照料著，除了遠(yuǎn)離角落的一張床無人走近，因此我走了過去。這張床上躺著一個看上去三十多歲的女性。我到現(xiàn)在還記得她那悲傷的棕色大眼睛。她骨瘦如柴，快要死去了。她的腸胃里無法儲存任何食物，因此人們只能讓她躺到一張簡易床上，在床的底部挖出一個洞，她可以通過這個洞將一切排泄到床下放著的一個便盆里。

從她的樣子，以及她被單獨(dú)放置在角落這一事實(shí)，我都能看出來，她得了艾滋病。染上艾滋病的恥辱是非常可怕的——特別是對于一個女性來說——她因此受到的懲罰就是被拋棄。

站在她的病床前，我忽然感到非常無助。我什么東西都不能給她。我知道自己救不了她，但也不想讓她孤單。因此我在她旁邊跪下來，伸出手去撫摸她，而她一感覺到我的手就抓住了它，再不放開。我們手拉著手坐在那兒，盡管知道她聽不懂，但我還是說，“不要緊，不要緊，這不是你的錯”。

我們在一起待了一會兒，然后她用手指向上指了指。過了一會兒我才明白過來，她想趁天還亮著的時候到屋頂上去，在外面坐著。我問一位工作人員這是否可以，但需要她照顧的病人正讓她忙得團(tuán)團(tuán)轉(zhuǎn)。她說，“她馬上就要不行了，而我現(xiàn)在必須為病人們分藥”。然后我又問了另一位工作人員，得到了同樣的答案。天色漸漸變晚，太陽開始下山了，而我那天必須要離開，似乎沒有人愿意帶她到房頂上。

因此，最后我一下子抱起她——她骨瘦如柴，幾乎就是一堆骨頭——帶她沿著樓梯走了上去。在屋頂上有幾把塑料椅子，椅子很輕，一陣強(qiáng)風(fēng)就能吹走。我把她放在其中一把椅子上，用另一把椅子支撐住她的腿，然后在她的腿上搭了一個毯子。

她面朝西坐在那兒，看著落日。我確保工作人員知道她在屋頂上，這樣太陽落山之后他們就會來上來接她。然后我不得不離開了她。

但她從來沒有離開過我。

面對這位女病人的死，我感到自己做得還差得很遠(yuǎn)。

但有時正是你無法幫助的人才真正激勵著你。

我明白，那些早晨還跟我挽著胳膊的性工作者晚上可能就會成為我?guī)У椒宽斏系哪俏慌浴撬齻兡苷业揭环N方法，可以公然反抗生活中無處不在的恥辱。

在過去的10年時間里，我們的基金會已經(jīng)幫助性工作者建立起了互助團(tuán)體，這樣她們就可以從彼此身上獲得力量，大聲呼吁安全的性行為，并要求顧客使用安全套。

她們勇敢的行為是HIV病毒沒有在性工作者之間大規(guī)模傳播的原因之一，許多研究也表明，這是艾滋病沒有在印度爆發(fā)的一個主要原因。

當(dāng)這些性工作者團(tuán)結(jié)在一起阻止艾滋病傳播時，一件出乎我們意料的大事發(fā)生了。他們建立的團(tuán)體成為了一個包羅萬象的平臺。她們建立起了快速撥號網(wǎng)絡(luò)以應(yīng)對暴力襲擊，凌辱并搶劫她們的警察及其他人再也無法逃脫制裁;她們還建立了鼓勵儲蓄的制度，他們使用金融服務(wù)，這幫助她們中的一些人開始創(chuàng)業(yè)并不再從事性服務(wù)。所有這些都是在社會眼中處于最底層的人做的。

對我來說，樂觀主義并不是消極地期盼事情變好，而是一種相信我們能使事情變好的信念——無論見證了什么苦難，不論情況有多糟，只要不失去希望，只要不消極對待，我們都能幫助這些人們。

比爾·蓋茨：

梅琳達(dá)和我描述了一些令人震驚的場景。但是為了說明樂觀主義的力量，我們要舉出最強(qiáng)大的一個例子。即使是在絕境中，樂觀主義也能激發(fā)創(chuàng)新，從而帶來消滅苦難的新工具。但如果從來沒有真正見過處于苦難中的人們，那么你的樂觀就無法幫助他們，你將永遠(yuǎn)無法改變他們的世界。

而這一點(diǎn)與我看到的卻是相互矛盾的。

科技的世界推動著非凡的創(chuàng)新——而斯坦福就站在創(chuàng)新的中心，它創(chuàng)立起新公司、培養(yǎng)出摘得獎項(xiàng)的教授、制造出絕妙的軟件和神奇的藥物，教導(dǎo)出令人驚嘆的學(xué)生們。對于人類能夠?yàn)楸舜俗龅模覀兗磳?chuàng)造出令人興奮的突破。這里的人們對于未來確實(shí)激動萬分。

與此同時，如果你問美國人“未來是否會比過去更好”?大多數(shù)人會說：“不，我的孩子過的會比我差”。他們認(rèn)為創(chuàng)新并不能使他們自己的或者孩子的世界變得更好。

那么誰是對的呢?

是聲稱創(chuàng)新將會帶來新的可能并使世界變得更加美好的人呢，還是認(rèn)為社會不公將加劇，機(jī)會將越來越少，而創(chuàng)新無力改變這一切的人?

在我看來悲觀主義者是錯的，但他們并不是瘋子。如果技術(shù)創(chuàng)新完全由市場推動，如果我們沒有將創(chuàng)新集中于解決主要的社會不公，那么那些令人驚嘆的發(fā)明可能會使世界的兩極分化更加嚴(yán)重。

在我看來悲觀主義者是錯的，但他們并不是瘋子。如果技術(shù)創(chuàng)新完全由市場推動，如果我們沒有將創(chuàng)新集中于解決主要的社會不公，那么那些令人驚嘆的發(fā)明可能會使世界的兩極分化更加嚴(yán)重。

我們將無法對公立學(xué)校改造升級，無法治愈瘧疾，無法終結(jié)貧困，無法推動創(chuàng)新，從而使貧苦農(nóng)民在氣候巨變中也能種植食物。

如果樂觀主義無法解決這些影響眾多人類同胞的問題，那么在這種樂觀中我們就需要更多地感同身受。如果二者相通，那么我們就能看到貧困、疾病與窮困的學(xué)校，就能用創(chuàng)新解決這些問題，然后使悲觀主義者大吃一驚。

在索維托，我開始明白，如果要使所有人都重視樂觀主義并且為全世界所有人都賦予力量，我們就必須關(guān)注那些最需要幫助的人的生活。如果只擁有樂觀主義，而不能對他們的苦難感同身受，那么無論我們掌握了多少科學(xué)的奧秘，都無法真正地解決問題;我們只是在迷宮中做無用功而已。

我相信在座的大多數(shù)同學(xué)都比你們這個年紀(jì)時的我有著更廣闊的世界觀。在這方面你們會比我做得更好。如果全身心地投入到這一事業(yè)中，你們會令悲觀主義者大吃一驚。我們迫不及待地想要看到這一情形。

梅琳達(dá)：

心碎之后，你對待樂觀主義的態(tài)度就會改變。

在一次南亞之行中，我遇到了一個一貧如洗的母親，她將自己的兩個幼子帶到我面前，請求我：“請您帶他們走吧”。當(dāng)我請求她的原諒，表示我不能這樣做時，她說：“那就請帶走一個孩子”。

在另一次去洛杉磯南部的旅行中，我與一隊(duì)來自某個貧困社區(qū)的高中生攀談了起來，一位年輕的女性問我：“您是否有時會覺得我們只是其他人的孩子，我們的父母逃避責(zé)任，因此我們是被遺棄的?”這些女性曾令我——現(xiàn)在仍然令我——心碎。如果我對自己承認(rèn)：“我也可能是她們中的一個”，那么我就會加倍地同情她們。

在與旅行中遇到的母親們交談的過程中，我發(fā)現(xiàn)我們想為孩子做的是完全相同的，唯一的不同就是我們做到這些事的能力。

那么是什么造成了這種不同呢?

比爾與我曾在飯桌上跟我們的孩子討論過這個問題。比爾工作時的努力程度超乎想象，為了成功他也有過冒險和犧牲。但是要取得成功還有一個必不可少的因素，那就是好運(yùn)氣——絕對的好運(yùn)氣。

你什么時候出生?你的父母是誰?你在哪里長大?這些東西任何人都無法爭取到，我們只能接受它們。

如果去掉好運(yùn)和特權(quán)，然后思考一下沒有這些的話我們將何去何從，想象一個貧窮而體弱多病的人說“我也可能使是她們中的一個”可能會更容易一些。這就叫做感同身受，它能夠打破隔閡，使樂觀精神得到更廣泛的傳播。

因此，我們呼吁：離開斯坦福之后，請用你們的天賦、樂觀和同情心使成千上萬的其他人同樣變得樂觀，從而改變這個世界。

不必心急，因?yàn)槟銈冞€要創(chuàng)業(yè)，要支付賬單，要戀愛，要結(jié)婚。現(xiàn)在這樣就足夠了。

但在你們的人生旅途中，倘若對自己沒有規(guī)劃的話，苦難會使你們心力交瘁。

如果這種狀況真的發(fā)生了——它會發(fā)生的——那么別逃避，面對它便是。

改變就會在這一時刻發(fā)生。

祝賀你們畢業(yè)，祝你們好運(yùn)。

第五篇：比爾蓋茨夫婦2014年在斯坦福大學(xué)的演講 英文版

Bill: Congratulations!Class of 2014!Melinda and I are excited to be here.It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to the speak on Stanford commencement, but it’s especially gratifying for us.Stanford has rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family.And it’s long been the favorite university for microsoft and fundation.Our fomular has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.It turns out that a disproportion number of those people are Stanford.Right now we have more than 30 fundation research projects on the way here.When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases, we work with Stanford;when we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States so that more low income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.This is where genius lives.There is a flexibility of mind here, an openness to change and an eagerness for what’s new.This is where peoople come to discover the future and have fun doing that.Melinda: But some people call you are nerds, and we hear that you claim that label with pride.Bill: well, so do we.My normal glasses really aren’t that different.There are so many remarkable things going on here in this campus, but if Melinda and I had to put it into one word what we love most about Standord, it’s the optimism.There is an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.That’s the belief that drove me in 1975 to leave the college in the suburb of Boston and go on an endless leave absence.I believed that the magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and made the world much much better.It’s been 40 years since then and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.We are both more optimistic now than ever.But on our journey our optimism involved.We’d like to tell you what we learned and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more for more people.When Paul Allen and I started microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of computers and software to the people and that was the kind of ridiric we used.One of the pioneering books in the field had a raised fist in the cover and it was called computer liber.At that time only big businesses could buy computers.We wanted to offer the same power to regular people, and democradize computing.By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people.But that success created a new dilemma.If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn’t, then technology would made inequality worse.That ran enaccount to our core beliefs.Technology should benefit anyone.So we woked to close the digital divide.I made it a priority of microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an earlier priority of our foundation.Donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure everyone had access.The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997 when I took my first trip to South Africa.I went there on business so I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown to Houseburger.I stayed in the home of one of the richest families in South Africa.It’s only been three years since Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used bell to call the butler.After dinner then men and women seperated, men smoked cigar.I thought “good thing, I’ve read Jane Austin, I wouldn’t have known what’s going on.” But the next day I went to Soweto, the poor township to the southwest of Johannesturg, that it’s been the center of the anti-attack movement.It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, and hard.I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.My visit to Soweto became an early lesson and how na?ve I was.Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there, the kind of thing we did in the United States.But it became clear to me very quickly that this was not the United States.I’ve seen statistics on poverty, but I’ve never really seen poverty.The people there lived in corrugated tin shelters with no electricity, no water, no toilets.Most people didn’t wear shoes.They walked barefeet along the streets except there were no streets, just rots in the mud.The community center had no consistent source of power, so they ripped up an extention cord that ran 200 feet from the center to the diesel generator outside.Looking at these set up, I knew the minute the reporter left that generator would get moved to more emergent task and people used the community center would go back to ring about challenges that could be solved by a personal computer.When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said “Soweto is a mileston.” There are major decisions that I had about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.This is the close of the gap.But as I read these words, I knew they weren’t superrelavent.What I didn’t say was “By the way, we are not focused on the fact that half million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria, but we are sure we will bring you computers.” Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world’s problems, but I was blind to the most important ones.I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself “Did I still believe that innovation could solve the world’s toughest problems?” I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.Over the years Melinda and I did learn more about the pressing needs of the poor.On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, a disease where the curing of under 50 percent.I remembered that hospital as a place of despair, it was a giant open wart with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas wearing masks.There was a one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.And a little school for kids who are old enough to learn.But many of the children couldn’t make it.And the hospital didn’t seem to know whether it’s worth it to keep the school open.I talked to a patient there in her early 30s.she had been a worker at theTB hospital when she came down with cough.She went to a doctor, and he told her that she had the drug system TB.She was later diagnosed with AIDs.She wasn’t going to live much longer, but there were plenty of MDR patients waiting to take her bed when she decayed day by day.This was a hell with a waiting list.But seeing this hell didn’t reduce my optimism.It channeled it.I got into the car as I left and told the doctor we were working with, “I know MDR-TB is hard to cure, but we must do something for these people.” And in fact, this year, we are entering phase 3 with the new TB drug machine, for patients we respond, instead of 50 percent of curing after 18 months for 2,000 dollars, we get an 80 percent curing after 6 months for under 100 dollars.Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.That’s the attitude that says we can’t defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.Melinda: Bill called me that day after he visited the TB hospital and normally if this is one of this international trip, we’ll go through the agenda of our day, who we met and where we’ve been.But this call was different, Bill said to me “Melinda, I’ve been somewhere that I’ve never been before” and then he choked up and he couldn’t go on.And finally he just said,”I’ll tell you when I get home.” And I knew what he was going through because when you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.But if you want to do the most, you have to go see the worst.And I’ve had days like that too.About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of friends to India, and on the last day I was there, I had a meeting with a group of postitutes.And I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDs that they were facing.But what they wanted to talk to me about was stigma.Many of these women had been abandoned by their husbands.That’s why they went to the industry of postitution.They wanted to be able to feed their children.They were so low in the eyes of the society that they could be raped, robbed and beaten by anyone, even the police.And nobody cared.Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me.But what I remembered most was how much they wanted to be touched.They wanted to touch me and be touched by them.It was this physical contact that somehow proved their worth.And so before I left, we linked arms hand in hand, and did photo together.Later that same day, I spent some time in India in the home for the dying.I walked to the large hall ,and I saw rows of rows carts, and every cart was attended to except for one that was far off the corner, and so I decided to go over there.The patient who was in the room was a woman in her 30s.and I remember her eyes.She had these huge, brown ,sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated along the verge of death.Her intensity won’t hold anything so the workers put a pan under her bed and cut a hole in the bottom of the bed everytihg out was just pouring out into that pan.And I could tell that she had AIDs both from the way she looked and the fact that she was off in this corner alone.The stigma of AIDs is vicious, especially for women.And the punishment is the abandonment.When I arrived at her cart, I suddenly felt completely and totally helpless.I had absolutely nothing I could offer this woman, I knew I couldn’t save her, but I didn’t want her to be alone.So I knelt down with her and I put my hand out and she reached for my hand and grabbed it and she wouldn’t let it go.And I didn’t speak her language and I couldn’t think what I could say to her, and finally I just said to her “it’s gonna be ok.It’s gonna be ok.It’s not your fault.” And after I’ve been with her for some time, she started to point to the roof top, she clearly wanted to go up and I realized that the sun was going down, what she wanted to do was to go up on the roof top to see the sunset.So the workers in this home for this dying room was very busy, and I said to them, you know, “can we take her up to on the roof top?” and they said “no, no, no.we have to pass out medicines.” So I waited for that to happen, I asked another worker.They said “no no no.we are too busy, we can’t go out there.” So finally I just scooped this woman up in my arms.She was nothing more than skin over bones.And I took her up on the roof top, and I found on of these plastic chairs that blows over her life breath.I put her there, settled her down and put a blank over her legs.And she sat there facing to the west, watching the sunset.The workers knew I made sure that they knew she was absolutely there so that they would bring her down later that evening after the sun went down.And then I had to leave.But she never left me.I feel completely and totally inadequate in face of the woman’s death.But sometimes it’s the people that you can’t help that inspired you most.I knew that those sex workers I had met in the morning could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening unless we find a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.Over the past ten years, our foundation helps sex workers build support groups so they can empower one another to speak up and demand safe sex and that the clients use condoms.Their brave efforts have helped keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers.And a lot of studies show that’s the big reason why AIDs epidemic has not exploded in India.When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDs transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.The community they formed became a platform for everything.Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn’t get away with it anymore.The women set up systems to encourage savings for one another and with those savings.They were able to leave sex work.This was all done by people that the society considered the lowest of below.Optimism for me is not a passive expectation that things would be going to get better.For me, it’s a conviction and belief that we can make things better.So no matter how much suffering we see and no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don’t lose hope.And if we don’t look away.Bill : Melinda and I have described some devasting scenes, but we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.Even in dying situation, optimism fuels innovation and lives to newer cultures that would eliminate suffering.But if you’ve never seen the peple who are suffering, your optimism can’t help them.You will never change their world.And that brings me to what I see is a paradox.The modern world is an incrediable source of the innovation and and Stanford stands in the center of that, creating new companies, and schools of thoughts, and inspiring the art of literature,miracal drugs and amazing graduates.Whether you are the scientist with a new discovery or working in the trendrous to understand the needs of the most margin lives.You are advancing amazing breakthroughs and what people can do for each other.At the same time, if you ask people across the United States, is the future going to be better than the past, most say no.my kids would be worse off than I am.They think innovation won’t make the world better for their children.So who is right? The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better, or the people who see a trend for inequality and a deline in opportunity and don’t think innovation will change that? The pessimists are wrong in my view.But they are not crazy.If innovation is purely market driven, and we don’t focus on the big inequalities, then we could have an amazing advances and inventions that leave the world even more divided.We won’t improve public schools, we won’t cure malaria, we won’t end poverty.We won’t develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.If our optimism doesn’t stress the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy chanels our optimism, we will see the poverty, and disease and poor schools.We will answer with our innovations.And we will surprise the pessimists.Over the next generation, you Stanford graduates will lead a new wave of innovation.Which problems will you decide to solve? If your world is wide, you could create the future we all want.If your world is narrow, you may create the future that pessimists fear.I started learning in Soweto that if we are going to make our optimism matter to everyone, and enpower people everywhere, we have to see the lives of those most in need.If we have optimism without empathy, then it doesn’t matter how much we master the scret of science.We are not really solving problems.We are just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader world view than I had at your age.You could do better at this than I did.If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We are eager to see it.Melinda: so let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.On a trip to South Asia, I met a desperately poor Indian woman.She has two children and she’s begged me to take them home with me.And when I begged her for her forgiveness, she said , well,then please just take one of them.Another trip to south Los Angelas, I met with a group of students from a tough neighbourhood.A young girl said to me, do you ever feel like we are the kids whose parents shirk their responsibilities, and we are just leftovers? Thes women broke my heart.And they still do.And the empathy intensifies, if I admit to myself that could be me.When I talked with the mothers I meet during my travels, there is no difference between what we want for our children, the only difference is our ability to provide it to our children.So what accounts for that difference? Bill and I talked about this with our own kids around the dinner table.Bill worked incredibly hard.And he took risks and he made sacrifices for success.But there is another essential ingredient of success, and that is luck.Absolute and total luck.When were you born.Who are your parents.Where did you grow up.None of us earn these things.These things were given to us.So when we strip away all ouf luck and previledge, and we consider where we would be without them, it becomes so much easier to see someone who is poor and say that could be me.And that’s empathy.Empathy tears down barriers, and opens up a whole new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you all.As you leave Stanford, take all your genius, and your optimism and your empathy, and go change the world in ways that would make millions of people optimistic.You don’t’ have to rush.You have careers to launch and debts to pay and spouses to meet and marry.That’s plenty enough for right now.but in the course of your lives, perhaps without any plan on your part, you’ll suffering that’s gonna break your heart.And when it happens, don’t’ turn away from it.That’s the moment that change is born.Congratulations and good luck to the class of 2014.