第一篇:喬布斯在斯坦福大學2005年演講中英文對照稿
史蒂夫 喬布斯(Steve Jobs)在斯坦福大學2005年畢業典禮上的演講
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.I never graduated from college.Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That's it.No big deal.Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy;do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.It wasn't all romantic.I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward;you can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.My second story is about love and loss.I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 I was out.And very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn't know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs downthese things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.6
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn't even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and I'm fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: 7
No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It is Life's change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.8
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.Thank you all very much
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
翻譯:
史蒂夫 喬布斯(Steve Jobs)在斯坦福大學2005年畢業典禮上的演講
我今天很榮幸能和你們一起參加畢業典禮,斯坦福大學是世界上最好的大學之一。我從來沒有從大學中畢業。說實話,今天也許是在我的生命中離大學畢業最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三個故事而已。
第一個故事是關于如何把生命中的點點滴滴串連起來。
我在Reed大學讀了六個月之后就退學了,但是在十八個月以后——我真正的作出退學決定之前,我還經常去學校。我為什么要退學呢?
故事從我出生的時候講起。我的親生母親是一個年輕的,沒有結婚的大學畢業生。她決定讓別人收養我, 她十分想讓我被大學畢業生收養。所以在我出生的時候,她已經做好了一切的準備工作,能使得我被一個律師和他的妻子所收養。但是她沒有料到,當我出生之后, 律師夫婦突然決定他們想要一個女孩。所以我的生養父母(他們在待選名單上)突然在半夜接到了一個電話:“我們現在這兒有一個不小心生出來的男嬰,你們想要他嗎?”他們回答道: “當然!”但是我親生母親隨后發現,我的養母從來沒有上過大學,我的養父 甚至從沒有讀過高中。她拒絕簽這個收養合同。只是在幾個月以后,我的父母答應她一定要讓我上大學,那個時候她才軟化同意。
在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個幾乎和你們斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校, 我父母還處于藍領階層,他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學費上面。在六個 月后, 我已經看不到其中的價值所在。我不知道我真正想要做什么,我也不知道大學能怎樣幫助我找到答案。但是在這里,我幾乎花光了我父母這一輩子的 全部積蓄。所以我決定要退學,我覺得這是個正確的決定。不能否認,我當時確實非常的害怕, 但是現在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個決定。在我做出退學決定的那一刻, 我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。然后我可以開始去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。
但是這并不是那么羅曼蒂克。我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房間的地板上面睡覺,我去撿可以換5美分的可樂罐,僅僅為了填飽肚子, 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程,穿過這個城市到Hare Krishna神廟(注:位于紐約Brooklyn下城),只是為了能吃上好飯——這個星期唯一一頓好一點的飯,我喜歡那里的飯菜。
我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走, 遇到的很多東西,此后被證明是無價之寶。讓我給你們舉一個例子吧:
Reed大學在那時提供也許是全美最好的美術字課程。在這個大學里面的每個海報, 每個抽屜的標簽上面全都是漂亮的美術字。因為我退學了, 不必去上正規的課程, 所以我決定去參加這個課程,去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。我學到了san serif 和serif字體, 我學會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空白間距, 還有怎么樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。那種美好、歷史感和藝術精妙,是科學永遠不能捕捉到的, 我發現那實在是太迷人了。
當時看起來這些東西在我的生命中,好像都沒有什么實際應用的可能。但是十年之后,當我們在設計第一臺Macintosh電腦的時候,就不是那樣了。我把當時我學的那些 東西全都設計進了Mac。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。如果我當時沒有退學, 就不會有機會去參加這個我感興趣的美術字課程, Mac就不會有這么多豐富的字體,以及賞心悅目的字體間距。因為Windows只是抄襲了Mac,所以現在個人電腦就不會有現在這么美妙的字型了。
當然我在大學的時候,還不可能把從前的點點滴滴串連起來,但是當我十年后回顧這一切的時候,真的豁然開朗了。
再次說明的是,你在向前展望的時候不可能將這些片斷串連起來;你只能在回顧的時候將點點滴滴串連起來。所以你必須相信這些片斷會在你未來的某一天串連起來。你必須要相信某些東西:你的勇氣、目的、生命、因緣......這個過程從來沒有令我失望,只是讓我的生命更加地與眾不同。
我的第二個故事是關于愛和失去。
我非常幸運, 因為我在很早的時候就找到了我鐘愛的東西。Woz和我在二十歲的時候就在父母的車庫里面開創了蘋果公司。我們工作得很努力, 十年之后, 這個公司從那兩個車庫中的窮小子發展到了超過四千名的雇員、價值超過二十億的大公司。在公司成立的第九年,我們剛剛發布了最好的產品,那就是Macintosh。我也快要到三十歲了。在那一年, 我被炒了魷魚。你怎么可能被你自己創立的公司炒了魷魚呢? 嗯,在蘋果快速成長的時候,我們雇用了一個很有天分的家伙和我一起管理這個公司, 在最初的幾年,公司運轉的很好。但是后來我們對未來的看法發生了分歧, 最終我們吵了起來。當爭吵不可開交的時候, 董事會站在了他的那一邊。所以在三十歲的時候, 我被炒了。在這么多人目光下我被炒了。在而立之年,我生命的全部支柱離自己遠去, 這真是毀滅性的打擊。
在最初的幾個月里,我真是不知道該做些什么。我覺得我很令上一代的創業家們很失望,我把他們交給我的接力棒弄丟了。我和創辦惠普的David Pack、創辦Intel的Bob Noyce見面,并試圖向他們道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透頂了。但是我漸漸發現了曙光, 我仍然喜愛我從事的這些東西。蘋果公司發生的這些事情絲毫的沒有改變這些, 一點也沒有。我被驅逐了,但是我仍然鐘愛我所做的事情。所以我決定從頭再來。
我當時沒有覺察, 但是事后證明, 從蘋果公司被炒是我這輩子發生的最棒的事情。因為,作為一個成功者的負重感被作為一個創業者的輕松感覺所重新代替, 沒有比這更確定的事情了。這讓我覺得如此自由, 進入了我生命中最有創造力的一個階段。
在接下來的五年里, 我創立了一個名叫NeXT的公司, 還有一個叫Pixar的公司, 然后和一個后來成為我妻子的優雅女人相識。Pixar 制作了世界上第一個用電腦制作的動畫電影——“玩具總動員”,Pixar現在也是世界上最成功的電腦制作工作室。在后來的一系列運轉中,Apple收購了NeXT, 然后我又回到了Apple公司。我們在NeXT發展的技術在Apple的今天的復興之中發揮了關鍵的作用。而且,我還和Laurence 一起建立了一個幸福完美的家庭。
我可以非常肯定,如果我不被Apple開除的話, 這其中一件事情也不會發生的。這個良藥的味道實在是太苦了,但是我想病人需要這個藥。有些時候, 生活會拿起一塊磚頭向你的腦袋上猛拍一下。不要失去信仰。我很清楚唯一使我一直走下去的,就是我做的事情令我無比鐘愛。你需要去找到你所愛的東西。對于工作是如此, 對于你的愛人也是如此。你的工作將會占據生活中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是偉大的工作, 你才能怡然自得。如果你現在還沒有找到, 那么繼續找、不要停下來,只要全心全意的去找, 在你找到的時候,你的心會告訴你的。就像任何真誠的關系, 隨著歲月的流逝只會越來越緊密。所以繼續找,直到你找到它,不要停下來!
我的第三個故事是關于死亡的。
當我十七歲的時候, 我讀到了一句話:“如果你把每一天都當作生命中最后一天去生活的話,那么有一天你會發現你是正確的。”這句話給我留下了一個印象。從那時開始,過了33 年,我在每天早晨都會對著鏡子問自己:“如果今天是我生命中的最后一天, 你會不會完成你今天想做的事情呢?”當答案連續多天是“No”的時候, 我知道自己需要改變某些事情了。
“記住你即將死去”是我一生中遇到的最重要箴言。它幫我指明了生命中重要的選擇。因為幾乎所有的事情, 包括所有的榮譽、所有的驕傲、所有對難堪和失敗的恐懼,這些在死亡面前都會消失。我看到的是留下的真正重要的東西。你有時候會思考你將會失去某些東西, “記住你即將死去”是我知道的避免這些想法的最好辦法。你已經赤身裸體了, 你沒有理由不去跟隨自己內心的聲音。
大概一年以前, 我被診斷出癌癥。我在早晨七點半做了一個檢查, 檢查清楚的顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時都不知道胰腺是什么東西。醫生告訴我那很可能是一種無法治愈的癌癥, 我還有三到六個月的時間活在這個世界上。我的醫生叫我回家, 然后整理好我的一切, 那是醫生對臨終病人的標準程序。那意味著你將要把未來十年對你小孩說的話在幾個月里面說完.;那意味著把每件事情都安排好, 讓你的家人會盡可能輕松的生活;那意味著你要說“再見了”。
我拿著那個診斷書過了一整天,那天晚上我作了一個活切片檢查,醫生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去,通過我的胃, 然后進入我的腸子, 用一根針在我的胰腺上的腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時是被麻醉的,但是我的妻子在那里, 后來告訴我,當醫生在顯微鏡下觀察這些細胞的時候他們開始尖叫, 因為這些細胞最后竟然是一種非常罕見的可以用手術治愈的胰腺癌癥細胞。我做了這個手術, 現在我痊愈了。
那是我最接近死亡的時候, 我希望這也是以后的幾十年最接近的一次。從死亡線上又活了過來, 我可以比以前把死亡只當成一 種想象中的概念的時候,更肯定一點地對你們說:
沒有人愿意死, 即使人們想上天堂, 也不會為了去那里而死。但是死亡是我們每個人共同的終點。從來沒有人能夠逃脫它。也應該如此。因為死亡就是生命中最好的一個發明。它將舊的清除以便給新的讓路。你們現在是新的, 但是從現在開始不久以后, 你們將會逐漸的變成舊的然后被送離人生舞臺。我很抱歉這很戲劇性, 但是這十分的真實。
你們的時間很有限, 所以不要將他們浪費在重復其他人的生活上。不要被教條束縛,那意味著你和其他人思考的結果一起生活。不要被其他人喧囂的觀點掩蓋你真正的內心的聲音。還有最重要的是, 你要有勇氣去聽從你直覺和心靈的指示——它們在某種程度上知道你想要成為什么樣子,所有其他的事情都是次要的。
當我年輕的時候, 有一本叫做“整個地球的目錄”振聾發聵的雜志,它是我們那一代人的圣經之一。它是一個叫Stewart Brand的家伙在離這里不遠的Menlo Park編輯的, 他象詩一般神奇地將這本書帶到了這個世界。那是六十年代后期, 在個人電腦出現之前, 所以這本書全部是用打字機,、剪刀還有偏光鏡制造的。有點像用軟皮包裝的google, 在google出現三十五年之前:這是理想主義的,其中有許多靈巧的工具和偉大的想法。
Stewart和他的伙伴出版了幾期的“整個地球的目錄”,當它完成了自己使命的時候, 他們做出了最后一期的目錄。那是在七十年代的中期, 我正是你們的年紀。在最后一期的封底上是清晨鄉村公路的照片(如果你有冒險精神的話,你可以自己找到這條路的),在照片之下有這樣一段話:“求知若饑,虛心若愚。”這是他們停止了發刊的告別語。“求知若饑,虛心若愚。”我總是希望自己能夠那樣,現在, 在你們即將畢業,開始新的旅程的時候, 我也希望你們能這樣:
求知若饑,虛心若愚。
非常感謝你們
第二篇:喬布斯斯坦福大學演講中英文文本整理
喬布斯斯坦福大學演講
Thank you.I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That's it.No big deal.Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out? It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, “We've got an unexpected baby boy.Do you want him?” They said, “Of course.” My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.This was the start in my life.And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn't all romantic.I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms.I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example.Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligrapher.Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward.You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.I was lucky.I found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty.We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn't know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.But something slowly began to dawn on me.I still loved what I did.The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.I'd been rejected but I was still in love.And so I decided to start over.I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life.During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, “Toy Story,” and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it.Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick.Don't lose faith.I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers.Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle.As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on.So keep looking.Don't settle.My third story is about death.When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn't even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for “prepare to die.” It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months.It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept.No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life.It's life's change agent;it clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now, the new is you.But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true.Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking.Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras.it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along.It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stuart and his team put out several issues of the Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath were the words, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Stay hungry, stay foolish.謝謝大家。很榮幸能和你們,來自世界最好大學之一的畢業生們,一塊兒參加畢業典禮。老實說,我大學沒有畢業,今天恐怕是我一生中離大學畢業最近的一次了。
今天,我想告訴大家來自我生活的三個故事。不是長篇大論,只是三個故事而已。
第一個故事,如何串連生命中的點滴。
我 在里得大學讀了六個月就退學了,但是在十八個月之后--我真正退學之前,我還常去學校。為何我要選擇退學呢?這還得從我出生之前說起。我的生母是一個年 輕、未婚的大學畢業生,她決定讓別人收養我。她有一個很強烈的信仰,認為我應該被一個大學畢業生家庭收養。于是,一對律師夫婦說好了要領養我,然而最后一 秒鐘,他們改變了主意,決定要個女孩兒。然后我的排在收養人名單中的養父母在一個深夜接到電話,“很意外,我們多了一個男嬰,你們要嗎?”“當然要!”但 是我的生母后來又發現我的養母沒有大學畢業,養父連高中都沒有畢業。她拒絕在領養書上簽字。幾個月后,我的養父母保證會讓我上大學,她妥協了。
這 是我生命的開端。十七年后,我上大學了,但是我很無知地選了一所差不多和斯坦福一樣貴的學校,幾乎花掉我那藍領階層養父母一生的積蓄。六個月后,我覺得不 值得。我看不出自己以后要做什么,也不曉得大學會怎樣幫我指點迷津,而我卻在花銷父母一生的積蓄。所以我決定退學,并且相信沒有做錯。一開始非常嚇人,但 回憶起來,這卻是我一生中作的最好的決定之一。從我退學的那一刻起,我可以停止一切不感興趣的必修課,開始旁聽那些有意思得多的課。
事情并不那么美好。我沒有宿舍可住,睡在朋友房間的地上。為了吃飯,我收集五分一個的舊可樂瓶,每個星期天晚上步行七英里到哈爾-克里什納廟里改善一下一周的伙食。我喜歡這種生活方式。能夠遵循自己的好奇和直覺前行后來被證明是多么的珍貴。讓我來給你們舉個例子吧。
當 時的里得大學提供可能是全國最好的書法指導。校園中每一張海報,抽屜上的每一張標簽,都是漂亮的手寫體。由于我已退學,不用修那些必修課,我決定選一門書 法課上上。在這門課上,我學會了“serif”和“sans-serif”兩種字體、學會了怎樣在不同的字母組合中改變字間距、學會了怎樣寫出好的字來。這是一種科學無法捕捉的微妙,楚楚動人、充滿歷史底蘊和藝術性,我覺得自己被完全吸引了。
當 時我并不指望書法在以后的生活中能有什么實用價值。但是,十年之后,我們在設計第一臺 Macintosh 計算機時,它一下子浮現在我眼前。于是,我們把這些東西全都設計進了計算機中。這是第一臺有這么漂亮的文字版式的計算機。要不是我當初在大學里偶然選了這 么一門課,Macintosh 計算機絕不會有那么多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。要不是 Windows 照搬了 Macintosh,個人電腦可能不會有這些字體和字號。要不是退了學,我決不會碰巧選了這門書法課,個人電腦也可能不會有現在這些漂亮的版式了。
當 然,我在大學里不可能從這一點上看到它與將來的關系。十年之后再回頭看,兩者之間關系就非常、非常清楚了。你們同樣不可能從現在這個點上看到將來;只有回 頭看時,才會發現它們之間的關系。所以你必須相信,那些點點滴滴,會在你未來的生命里,以某種方式串聯起來。你必須相信一些東西--你的勇氣、宿命、生 活、因緣,隨便什么--因為相信這些點滴能夠一路連接會給你帶來循從本覺的自信,它使你走離平凡,變得與眾不同。
第二個故事是關于愛與失的。
我 很幸運。很早就發現自己喜歡做的事情。我二十歲的時候就和沃茨在父母的車庫里開創了蘋果公司。我們工作得很努力,十年后,蘋果公司成長為擁有四千名員工,價值二十億的大公司。我們只是推出了最好的創意,Macintosh操作系統,在這之前的一年,也就是我剛過三十歲,我被解雇了。你怎么可能被一個親手創 立的公司解雇?事情是這樣的,在公司成長期間,雇傭了一個我們認為非常聰明,可以和我一起經營公司的人。一年后,我們對公司未來的看法產生分歧,董事會站 在了他的一邊。于是,在我三十歲的時候,我出局了,很公開地出局了。我整個成年生活的焦點沒了,這很要命。一開始的幾個月我真的不知道該干什么。我覺得我 讓公司的前一代創建者們失望了,我把傳給我的權杖給弄丟了。我與戴維德-帕珂德和鮑勃-諾埃斯見面,試圖為這徹頭徹尾的失敗道歉。我敗得如此之慘以至于我 想要逃離這兒。有些東西在呼喚我:我還愛著我從事的行業。這次失敗一點兒都沒有改變這一點。我被逐了,但我仍愛著。我決定重新開始。
當 時我沒有看出來,但事實證明“被蘋果開除”是發生在我身上最好的事。成功的重擔被重新起步的輕松替代,對任何事情都不再特別看重。這讓我感覺如此自由,進 入一生中最有創造力的階段。接下來的五年,我創立了一個叫NeXT的公司,接著又建立了Pixar,然后與后來成為我妻子的女人相愛。Pixar出品了世 界第一個電腦動畫電影:“玩具總動員”,現在它已經是世界最成功的動畫制作工作室了。
在一系列的成功運轉后,蘋果收購了NeXT,我又回到了蘋果。我們在NeXT開發的技術在蘋果的復興中起了核心作用,另外勞琳和我組建了一個幸福的家庭。
我 非常確信,如果我沒有被蘋果炒掉,這些就都不會發生。這個藥的味道太糟了,但是我想病人需要它。有些時候,生活會給你迎頭一棒。不要喪失信心。我確信唯一 讓我一路走下來的是我對自己所做事情的熱愛。你必須去找你熱愛的東西,對工作如此,對你的愛人也是這樣的。工作會占據你生命中很大的一部分,你只有相信自 己做的是偉大的工作,你才能怡然自得。如果你還沒有找到,那么就繼續找,不要停。全心全意地找,當你找到時,你會知道的。就像任何真誠的關系,隨著時間的 流逝,只會越來越緊密。所以繼續找,不要停。
我的第三個故事關于死亡。
我 十七歲的時候讀到過一句話“如果你把每一天都當作最后一天過,有一天你會發現你是正確的”。這句話給我留下了深刻的印象。從那以后,過去的三十三年,每天 早上我都會對著鏡子問自己:“如果今天是我的最后一天,我會不會做我想做的事情呢?”當答案持續否定一些次數后,我知道我需要改變一些東西了。提醒自己就 要死了是我遇見的最大的幫助,幫我作了生命中的大決定。因為幾乎任何事——所有的榮耀、驕傲、對難堪和失敗的恐懼——在死亡面前都會消隱,留下真正重要的 東西。提醒自己就要死亡是我知道的最好的方法,用來避開擔心失去某些東西的陷阱。你已經赤裸裸了,沒有理由不聽從于自己的心愿。
大 約一年前,我被診斷出患了癌癥。我早上七點半作了掃描,清楚地顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時都不知道胰腺是什么東西。醫生們告訴我這幾乎是無法治愈 的,還有三到六個月的時間。我的醫生建議我回家,整理一切。在醫生的辭典中,這就是“準備死亡”的意思。就是意味著把要對你小孩說十年的話在幾個月內說 完;意味著把所有東西搞定,盡量讓你的家庭活得輕松一點;意味著你要說“永別”了。
我 整日都想著那診斷書的事情。后來有天晚上我做了一個活切片檢查,他們將一個內窺鏡伸進我的喉嚨,穿過胃,到達腸道,用一根針在我的胰腺腫瘤上取了幾個細 胞。我當時是被麻醉的,但是我的妻子告訴我,那些醫生在顯微鏡下看到細胞的時候開始尖叫,因為發現這竟然是一種非常罕見的可用手術治愈的胰腺癌癥。我做了 手術,現在,我痊愈了。
這 是我最接近死亡的時候,我也希望是我未來幾十年里最接近死亡的一次。這次死里逃生讓我比以往只知道死亡是一個有用而純粹書面概念的時候更確信地告訴你們,沒有人愿意死,即使那些想上天堂的人們也不愿意通過死亡來達到他們的目的。但是死亡是每個人共同的終點,沒有人能夠逃脫。也應該如此,因為死亡很可能是生 命最好的發明。它去陳讓新。現在,你們就是“新”。但是有一天,不用太久,你們有會慢慢變老然后死去。抱歉,這很戲劇性,但卻是真的。你們的時間是有限 的,不要浪費在重復別人的生活上。不要被教條束縛,那意味著會和別人思考的結果一塊兒生活。不要被其他人的喧囂觀點掩蓋自己內心真正的聲音。你的直覺和內 心知道你想要變成什么樣子。所有其他東西都是次要的。
我 年輕的時候,有一份叫做“完整地球目錄”的好雜志,是我們這一代人的圣經之一。它是一個叫斯糾華特-布蘭得,住在離這不遠的曼羅公園的家伙創立的。他用詩 一般的觸覺將這份雜志帶到世界。那是六十年代后期,個人電腦出現之前,所以這份雜志全是用打字機、剪刀和偏光鏡制作的。有點像軟皮包裝的Google,不 過卻早了三十五年。它理想主義,全文充斥著靈巧的工具和偉大的想法。斯糾華特和他的小組出版了幾期“完整地球目錄”,在完成使命之前,他們出版了最后一 期。那是七十年代中期,我和你們差不多大。最后一期的封底是一張清晨鄉村小路的照片,如果你有冒險精神,可以自己找到這條路。下面有一句話,“求知若渴,虛心若谷”。這是他們的告別語,“求知若渴,虛心若谷”。我常以此勉勵自己。現在,在你們即將踏上新旅程的時候,我也希望你們能這樣。
求知若渴,虛心若谷。
第三篇:喬布斯斯坦福大學演講 - 中英文完整版
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.Thank you.I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That’s it.No big deal.Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy, do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.This was the start in my life.And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn’t all romantic.I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms.I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand-calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever — because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.My second story is about love and loss.I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20.We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 I was out, and very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn’t know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley.But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did.The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.I had been rejected, but I was still in love.And so I decided to start over.I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple.It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick.Don’t lose faith.I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.You’ve got to find what you love.And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle.As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.So keep looking, don’t settle.My third story is about death.When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn’t even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctors started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and thankfully, I’m fine now.This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to Heaven don’t want to die to get there.And yet, death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It’s Life’s change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay hungry, stay foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you: Stay hungry, stay foolish.Thank you all very much.我很榮幸今天能和各位在此參加這所世界上最佳學府之一的畢業典禮。說實話,我大學沒畢業,這是我第一次離大學畢業典禮這么近。今天我想給大家講三個我自己的故事,不講別的,也不講大道理,就講三個故事。
第一個故事講的是串連生命中的點滴。我在里德學院(Reed College)只讀了六個月就退學了,此后便在學校里旁聽,又過了18個月,我才最終離開。那么,我為什么退學呢?
這得從我出生前講起。我的生母是一名年輕的未婚在校研究生,她決定將我送給別人收養。她非常希望收養我的是有大學學歷的人,所以把一切都安排好了,我一出生就交給一對律師夫婦收養。沒想到我落地的霎那間,那對夫婦臨時決定收養一名女孩。就這樣,我的養父母—當時他們還在登記冊上排隊等著呢—當晚半夜三更接到一個電話:“我們這兒有一個沒人要的男嬰,你們要么?”“當然。”他們回答。但是,我的生母后來發現我的養母不是大學畢業生,我的養父甚至連高中都沒有畢業,所以她拒絕在最后的收養文件上簽字。不過,沒過幾個月她就心軟了,因為我的養父母許諾日后一定送我上大學。這就是我生命的開始。
17年后,我真的進了大學。當時我很天真,選了一所幾乎和斯坦福大學一樣昂貴的學校,我那勞動階級的養父母傾其所有的積蓄為我支付了大學學費。讀了六個月后,我卻看不出其中的價值。我既不知道自己這一生想干什么,也不知道大學是否能夠幫我理出頭緒。可是我卻正在花光父母一輩子節省下來的錢了。所以,我決定退學,并且堅信日后會證明我這樣做是對的。當年做出這個決定時心里直打鼓,但現在回想起來,這還真是我有生以來做出的最好的決定之一。從退學那一刻起,我就可以不再上那些我毫無興趣的必修課,開始旁聽一些看上去有意思的課。
那些日子一點兒都不浪漫。我沒有宿舍,只能睡在朋友房間的地板上。我去撿每個五美分的可樂瓶,用換來的錢來買吃的。每個星期天晚上我都要走七英里,到城那頭的黑爾-科里施納印度教寺廟去,吃每周才能享用一次的美餐。我愛死圣餐了。我憑著好奇心和直覺所干的這些事情,有許多后來都證明是無價之寶。我給大家舉個例子:
當時,里德學院的書法課大概是全國最好的。校園里所有的公告欄和每個抽屜標簽上的字都寫得非常漂亮。當時我已經退學,不用正常上課,所以我決定選一門書法課,學學怎么寫好字。我學習寫帶短截線和不帶短截線的印刷字體,根據不同字母組合調整其間距,以及怎樣把版式調整得好上加好。這門課太棒了,既有歷史價值,又有藝術造詣,這一點科學就做不到,而我覺得它妙不可言。
當時我并不指望這在以后的生活中能有什么實用價值。但是,十年之后,我們在設計第一臺麥金塔計算機時,它一下子浮現在我眼前。于是,我們把這些東西全都設計進了計算機中。這是第一臺有這么漂亮的文字字體的計算機。要不是我當初在大學里偶然選了這么一門課,Mac計算機絕不會有那么多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。要不是 Windows 照搬了Mac,個人電腦可能就不會有這些字體和字號。要不是當初退了學,我也決不會碰巧選了這門書法課,個人電腦也可能不會有現在這些漂亮的字體了。當然,我在大學里不可能從這一點上看到它與將來的關系,十年之后再回頭看,兩者之間的關系就非常非常清楚了。
重申,你們同樣不可能從現在這個點上看到將來;只有回頭看時,才會發現它們之間的關系。所以,要相信生命中的點滴遲早會連接到一起。你們必須信賴某些東西——直覺、命運、生命,還有業力,等等。因為相信這些點滴終究會連結在一起,可以給你信心朝自己的理想邁進,就算是引領你遠離傳統的道路,那會很不同凡響。我的第二個故事是關于愛與失落的。我很幸運,在很小的時候就發現自己喜歡做什么。我在20歲時和沃茲(Woz,蘋果公司創始人之一Wozon的昵稱——譯注)在我父母的車庫里辦起了蘋果公司。我們干得很賣力,十年后,蘋果公司就從車庫里我們兩個人發展成為一個擁有20億元資產、超過4 000名員工的大企業。在那前一年,我們剛剛推出了我們最好的產品——麥金塔電腦——而我剛滿30歲。然后我被解雇了。你怎么會被自己辦的公司解雇呢?是這樣,隨著蘋果公司越做越大,我們聘了一位我認為非常有才華的人與我一道管理公司。在開始的一年多里,一切都很順利。可是,隨后我倆對公司前景的看法開始出現分歧,最后我倆反目了。這時,董事會站在了他那一邊,所以在30歲那年,我離開了公司,而且這件事鬧得滿城風雨。我成年后的整個生活重心都沒有了,這使我心力交瘁。
一連幾個月,我真的不知道應該怎么辦。我感到自己給老一代的創業者丟了臉——因為我把交到自己手里的接力棒接丟了。我去見了戴維·帕卡德(David Packard,惠普公司創始人之一——譯注)和鮑勃·諾伊斯(Bob Noyce,英特爾公司創建者之一——譯注),想為把事情搞得這么糟糕說聲道歉。這次失敗弄得沸沸揚揚的,我甚至想過逃離硅谷。但是,漸漸地,我開始有了一個想法——我仍然熱愛我過去做的一切。在蘋果公司發生的這些**絲毫沒有改變這一點。我雖然被拒之門外,但我仍然深愛我的事業。于是,我決定從頭開始。
雖然當時我并沒有意識到,但事實證明,被蘋果公司解雇是我一生中碰到的最好的事情。盡管前景未卜,但從頭開始的輕松感取代了保持成功的沉重感。這使我進入了一生中最富有創造力的時期之一。在此后的五年里,我創立了NeXT,另一家是皮克斯(Pixar),我還愛上一位了不起的女人,后來成了我的妻子。皮克斯推出了世界上第一部用電腦制作的動畫片《玩具總動員》(Toy Story),它現在是全球最成功的動畫制作室。在一個特別的機緣下,蘋果公司買下了NeXT,我又回到了蘋果公司,我們在 NeXT 公司開發的技術成了蘋果公司這次重新崛起的核心。我和勞倫(Laurene)也建立了美滿的家庭。
我確信,如果不是被蘋果公司解雇,這一切決不可能發生。這是一劑苦藥,可我認為良藥苦口利于病。有時生活會當頭給你一棒,但不要灰心。我堅信讓我一往無前的唯一力量就是我熱愛我所做的一切。你一定得知道自己喜歡什么,選擇愛人時如此,選擇工作時同樣如此。工作將是生活中的一大部分,讓自己真正滿意的唯一辦法,是做自己認為是有意義的工作;做有意義的工作的唯一辦法,是熱愛自己的工作。你們如果還沒有發現自己喜歡什么,那就不斷地去尋找,不要半途而廢。就像一切要憑著感覺去做的事情一樣,一旦找到了自己喜歡的事,感覺就會告訴你。就像任何一種美妙的東西,歷久彌新。所以說,要不斷地尋找,不要半途而廢。我的第三個故事與死亡有關。17歲那年,我讀到過這樣一段話,大意是:“如果把每一天都當作生命的最后一天,總有一天你會如愿以償。”我記住了這句話,從那時起,33年過去了,我每天早晨都對著鏡子自問:“假如今天是生命的最后一天,我還會去做今天要做的事嗎?”如果一連許多天我的回答都是“不”,我知道自己應該有所改變了。
讓我能夠做出人生重大抉擇的最主要辦法,是記住生命隨時都有可能結束。因為幾乎所有的東西——所有對自身之外的希求、所有的尊嚴、所有對困窘和失敗的恐懼——在死亡來臨時都將煙消云散,只剩下真正重要的東西。記住自己隨時都會死去,這是我所知道的防止患得患失的最好方法。你已經赤裸裸地面對生命了,還有什么理由不跟著自己的感覺走呢。
大約一年前,我被診斷患了癌癥。那天早上七點半,我做了一次掃描檢查,結果清楚地表明我的胰腺上長了一個腫瘤,可那時我連胰腺是什么還不知道呢!醫生告訴我說,幾乎可以確診這是一種無法治愈的惡性腫瘤,我最多還能活3到6個月。醫生建議我回去把一切都安排好,其實這是在暗示“準備后事”。也就是說,把今后十年要跟孩子們說的事情在這幾個月內囑咐完;也意味著,把一切都安排妥當,盡可能不給家人留麻煩;更意味著,永別。
那一整天里,我的腦子一直沒離開這個診斷。到了晚上,我做了一次組織切片檢查,他們把一個內窺鏡通過喉嚨穿過我的胃進入腸子,用針頭在胰腺的瘤子上取了一些細胞組織。當時我用了麻醉劑,陪在一旁的妻子后來告訴我,醫生在顯微鏡里看了細胞之后哭了,原來這是一種少見的可以通過外科手術治愈的惡性腫瘤。我做了手術,謝天謝地,現在已痊愈了。
這是我和死神離得最近的一次,我希望也是今后幾十年里最近的一次。有了這次經歷之后,現在我可以更加實在地和你們談論死亡,而不是純粹紙上談兵,那就是:誰都不愿意死。就是那些想進天堂的人也不愿意死后再進。然而,死亡是我們共同的歸宿,沒人能擺脫。我們注定會死,因為死亡很可能是生命最好的一項創造。它推進生命的變遷,舊的不去,新的不來。現在,你們就是新的,但在不久的將來,你們也會逐漸成為老舊,并遭到清除。抱歉,這聽上去很戲劇化,不過卻千真萬確。
你們的光陰有限,所以不要按照別人的意愿去活,這是浪費時間。不要囿于教條,那是在按照別人設想的結果而活。不要讓別人觀點的聒噪聲淹沒自己的心聲。最主要的是,要有跟著自己感覺和直覺走的勇氣。無論如何,感覺和直覺早就知道你到底想成為什么樣的人,其他都是次要的。
我年輕時有一本非常好的刊物,叫《全球概覽》(The Whole Earth Catalog),這是我那代人的寶書之一,創辦人名叫斯圖爾特·布蘭德(Stewart Brand),就住在離這兒不遠的門洛帕克市。他用詩一般的語言為這本刊物注入生命。那是20世紀60年代末,還沒有個人電腦和桌面印刷系統,全靠打字機、剪刀和寶麗萊照相機(Polaroid)。它就像一種紙質的 Google,卻比Google早問世了35年。這份刊物太完美了,查閱手段齊備、構思不凡。
斯圖爾特和他的同事們出了好幾期《全球概覽》,到最后辦不下去時,他們出了最 后一期。那是20世紀70年代中期,我也就是你們現在的年紀。最后一期的封底上是 一張清晨鄉間小路的照片,就是那種愛冒險的人等在那兒搭便車的那種小路。照片下面 寫道:求知若饑,謙卑若愚。那是他們停刊前的告別辭。
求知若饑,謙卑若愚。我一直如此自我期許。眼下正值諸位大學畢業、開始新生活之際,我同樣愿大家:求知若饑,謙卑若愚。
非常感謝各位聆聽。
第四篇:喬布斯在斯坦福大學演講全文
喬布斯在斯坦福大學演講全文:'You've got to find what you love,' 來源: 蔣文軒的日志
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.I never graduated from college.Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That's it.No big deal.Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out? It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy;do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.It wasn't all romantic.I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward;you can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.My second story is about love and loss.I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 I was out.And very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn't know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs downthese things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn't even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and I'm fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It is Life's change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.Thank you all very much
第五篇:喬布斯斯坦福大學演講
于喬布斯,在2005年斯坦福大學的演講就是他最好的自傳。
你得找出你的所愛。
今天,有榮幸來到各位從世界上最好的學校之一畢業的畢業典禮上。我從來沒從大學畢業。說實話,這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天,我只說三個故事,不談大道理,三個故事就好。
第一個故事,是關于人生中的點點滴滴怎么串連在一起。
我在里德學院(Reed college)待了六個月就辦休學了。到我退學前,一共休學了十八個月。那么,我為什么休學?
這得從我出生前講起。我的親生母親當時是個研究生,年輕未婚媽媽,她決定讓別人收養我。她強烈覺得應該讓有大學畢業的人收養我,所以我出生時,她就準備讓我被一對律師夫婦收養。但是這對夫妻到了最后一刻反悔了,他們想收養女孩。所以在等待收養名單上的一對夫妻,我的養父母,在一天半夜里接到一通電話,問他們「有一名意外出生的男孩,你們要認養他嗎?」而他們的回答是「當然要」。后來,我的生母發現,我現在的媽媽從來沒有大學畢業,我現在的爸爸則連高中畢業也沒有。她拒絕在認養文件上做最后簽字。直到幾個月后,我的養父母同意將來一定會讓我上大學,她才軟化態度。十七年后,我上大學了。但是當時我無知選了一所學費幾乎跟史丹佛一樣貴的大學,我那工人階級的父母所有積蓄都花在我的學費上。六個月后,我看不出念這個書的價值何在。那時候,我不知道這輩子要干什么,也不知道念大學能對我有什么幫助,而且我為了念這個書,花光了我父母這輩子的所有積蓄,所以我決定休學,相信船到橋頭自然直。當時這個決定看來相當可怕,可是現在看來,那是我這輩子做過最好的決定之一。當我休學之后,我再也不用上我沒興趣的必修課,把時間拿去聽那些我有興趣的課。
這一點也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍,所以我睡在友人家里的地板上,靠著回收可樂空罐的五先令退費買吃的,每個星期天晚上得走七里的路繞過大半個鎮去印度教的 Hare Krishna神廟吃頓好料。我喜歡Hare Krishna神廟的好料。追尋我的好奇與直覺,我所駐足的大部分事物,后來看來都成了無價之寶。舉例來說:
當時里德學院有著大概是全國最好的書法指導。在整個校園內的每一張海報上,每個抽屜的標簽上,都是美麗的手寫字。因為我休學了,可以不照正常選課程序來,所以我跑去學書法。我學了serif與san serif字體,學到在不同字母組合間變更字間距,學到活版印刷偉大的地方。書法的美好、歷史感與藝術感是科學所無法捕捉的,我覺得那很迷人。
我沒預期過學的這些東西能在我生活中起些什么實際作用,不過十年后,當我在設計第一臺麥金塔時,我想起了當時所學的東西,所以把這些東西都設計進了麥金塔里,這是第一臺能印刷出漂亮東西的計算機。如果我沒沉溺于那樣一門課里,麥金塔可能就不會有多重字體跟變間距字體了。又因為Windows抄襲了麥金塔的使用方式,如果當年我沒這樣做,大概世界上所有的個人計算機都不會有這些東西,印不出現在我們看到的漂亮的字來了。當然,當我還在大學里時,不可能把這些點點滴滴預先串在一起,但是這在十年后回顧,就顯得非常清楚。
我再說一次,你不能預先把點點滴滴串在一起;唯有未來回顧時,你才會明白那些點點滴滴是如何串在一起的。所以你得相信,你現在所體會的東西,將來多少會連接在一塊。你得信任某個東西,直覺也好,命運也好,生命也好,或者業力。這種作法從來沒讓我失望,也讓我的人生整個不同起來。
我的第二個故事,有關愛與失去。
我好運-年輕時就發現自己愛做什么事。我二十歲時,跟Steve Wozniak在我爸媽的車庫里開始了蘋果計算機的事業。我們拼命工作,蘋果計算機在十年間從一間車庫里的兩個小伙子擴展成了一家員工超過四千人、市價二十億美金的公司,在那之前一年推出了我們最棒的作品-麥金塔,而我才剛邁入人生的第三十個年頭,然后被炒魷魚。要怎么讓自己創辦的公司炒自己魷魚?好吧,當蘋果計算機成長后,我請了一個我以為他在經營公司上很有才干的家伙來,他在頭幾年也確實干得不錯。可是我們對未來的愿景不同,最后只好分道揚鑣,董事會站在他那邊,炒了我魷魚,公開把我請了出去。曾經是我整個成年生活重心的東西不見了,令我不知所措。
有幾個月,我實在不知道要干什么好。我覺得我令企業界的前輩們失望-我把他們交給我的接力棒弄丟了。我見了創辦HP的David Packard跟創辦Intel的Bob Noyce,跟他們說我很抱歉把事情搞砸得很厲害了。我成了公眾的非常負面示范,我甚至想要離開硅谷。但是漸漸的,我發現,我還是喜愛著我做過的事情,在蘋果的日子經歷的事件沒有絲毫改變我愛做的事。我被否定了,可是我還是愛做那些事情,所以我決定從頭來過。
當時我沒發現,但是現在看來,被蘋果計算機開除,是我所經歷過最好的事情。成功的沉重被從頭來過的輕松所取代,每件事情都不那么確定,讓我自由進入這輩子最有創意的年代。
接下來五年,我開了一家叫做NeXT的公司,又開一家叫做Pixar的公司,也跟后來的老婆談起了戀愛。Pixar接著制作了世界上第一部全計算機動畫電影,玩具總動員,現在是世界上最成功的動畫制作公司。然后,蘋果計算機買下了NeXT,我回到了蘋果,我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果計算機后來復興的核心。我也有了個美妙的家庭。
我很確定,如果當年蘋果計算機沒開除我,就不會發生這些事情。這帖藥很苦口,可是我想蘋果計算機這個病人需要這帖藥。有時候,人生會用磚頭打你的頭。不要喪失信心。我確信,我愛我所做的事情,這就是這些年來讓我繼續走下去的唯一理由。你得找出你愛的,工作上是如此,對情人也是如此。你的工作將填滿你的一大塊人生,唯一獲得真正滿足的方法就是做你相信是偉大的工作,而唯一做偉大工作的方法是愛你所做的事。如果你還沒找到這些事,繼續找,別停頓。盡你全心全力,你知道你一定會找到。而且,如同任何偉大的關系,事情只會隨著時間愈來愈好。所以,在你找到之前,繼續找,別停頓。
我的第三個故事,關于死亡。
當我十七歲時,我讀到一則格言,好像是「把每一天都當成生命中的最后一天,你就會輕松自在。」這對我影響深遠,在過去33年里,我每天早上都會照鏡子,自問:「如果今天是此生最后一日,我今天要干些什么?」每當我連續太多天都得到一個「沒事做」的答案時,我就知道我必須有所變革了。
提醒自己快死了,是我在人生中下重大決定時,所用過最重要的工具。因為幾乎每件事-所有外界期望、所有名譽、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼-在面對死亡時,都消失了,只有最重要的東西才會留下。提醒自己快死了,是我所知避免掉入自己有東西要失去了的陷阱里最好的方法。人生不帶來,死不帶去,沒什么道理不順心而為。
一年前,我被診斷出癌癥。我在早上七點半作斷層掃描,在胰臟清楚出現一個腫瘤,我連胰臟是什么都不知道。醫生告訴我,那幾乎可以確定是一種不治之癥,我大概活不到三到六個月了。醫生建議我回家,好好跟親人們聚一聚,這是醫生對臨終病人的標準建議。那代表你得試著在幾個月內把你將來十年想跟小孩講的話講完。那代表你得把每件事情搞定,家人才會盡量輕松。那代表你得跟人說再見了。
我整天想著那個診斷結果,那天晚上做了一次切片,從喉嚨伸入一個內視鏡,從胃進腸子,插了根針進胰臟,取了一些腫瘤細胞出來。我打了鎮靜劑,不醒人事,但是我老婆在場。她后來跟我說,當醫生們用顯微鏡看過那些細胞后,他們都哭了,因為那是非常少見的一種胰臟癌,可以用手術治好。所以我接受了手術,康復了。
這是我最接近死亡的時候,我希望那會繼續是未來幾十年內最接近的一次。經歷此事后,我可以比之前死亡只是抽象概念時要更肯定告訴你們下面這些: 沒有人想死。即使那些想上天堂的人,也想活著上天堂。但是死亡是我們共有的目的地,沒有人逃得過。這是注定的,因為死亡簡直就是生命中最棒的發明,是生命變化的媒介,送走老人們,給新生代留下空間。現在你們是新生代,但是不久的將來,你們也會逐漸變老,被送出人生的舞臺。抱歉講得這么戲劇化,但是這是真的。
你們的時間有限,所以不要浪費時間活在別人的生活里。不要被信條所惑-盲從信條就是活在別人思考結果里。不要讓別人的意見淹沒了你內在的心聲。最重要的,擁有跟隨內心與直覺的勇氣,你的內心與直覺多少已經知道你真正想要成為什么樣的人。任何其它事物都是次要的。
在我年輕時,有本神奇的雜志叫做Whole Earth Catalog,當年我們很迷這本雜志。那是一位住在離這不遠的Menlo Park的Stewart Brand發行的,他把雜志辦得很有詩意。那是1960年代末期,個人計算機跟桌上出版還沒發明,所有內容都是打字機、剪刀跟拍立得相機做出來的。雜志內容有點像印在紙上的Google,在Google出現之前35年就有了:理想化,充滿新奇工具與神奇的注記。
Stewart跟他的出版團隊出了好幾期Whole Earth Catalog,然后出了停刊號。當時是1970年代中期,我正是你們現在這個年齡的時候。在停刊號的封底,有張早晨鄉間小路的照片,那種你去爬山時會經過的鄉間小路。在照片下有行小字:求知若饑,虛心若愚。
那是他們親筆寫下的告別訊息,我總是以此自許。當你們畢業,展開新生活,我也以此期許你們。
求知若饑,虛心若愚。
非常謝謝大家。
‘You’ve got to find what you love
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.I never graduated from college.Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That’s it.No big deal.Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out? It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy;do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.It wasn’t all romantic.I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5?? deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward;you can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in somethingI found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We had just released our finest creationa year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 I was out.And very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn’t know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs downI still loved what I did.The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.I had been rejected, but I was still in love.And so I decided to start over.I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple.It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.Don’t lose faith.I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.You’ve got to find what you love.And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.Don’t settle.As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.So keep looking until you find it.Don’t settle.My third story is about death.When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.Because almost everythingthese things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn’t even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and I’m fine now.This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It is Life’s change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.Don’t be trapped by dogma-which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.Thank you all very much.喬布斯是個天才和瘋子,他每天必來到我們部門看昨天的成果,能聽到他罵人,我們并不生氣,因為我們知道他不允許產品上市后沒有銷路。
2011年8月25日,喬布斯先生宣布辭職的消息讓人吃驚,我們對他的健康狀況表示擔心。在辦公室里,也許再難聽到他罵人了,只留下曾經他的那些經典的激勵我們的語錄——
1、不要按照用戶的壞習慣去設計,也不要按照程序員的思維去設計!
1, do not according to user bad habits to design, also do not according to programmers thinking design!
2、有好的想法要堅持,不要被其他人的觀點的噪聲掩蓋你真正的內心的聲音。當你的想法站不住時,立即大度的丟棄,這其實是更是一種堅持。
2, have good ideas are going to insist, don’t be others’ opinion noise drown out your own inner voice.When your ideas stand, immediately magnanimous discard it is, and it is also a kind of persistence.3、任何一款產品都不應該帶著BUG去見用戶,那怕失信于媒體推遲發布時間。
3, any product are not should bring a BUG to meet users, that is afraid to betray media postpone the release of time.4、產品一定是讓人感覺最新,但堅決不做小白鼠去嘗試前無古人的新產品。
4, products must be feeling letting a person, but resolute don’t do new mice to try an unprecedented new product.5、把標志畫那么大干嗎?蘋果的產品要在任何時候都讓人一眼認出是蘋果的產品而非是蘋果的標志。
5, the sign painting so big? Apple products will at any time those who make a person recognized apple’s products rather than is the apple logo.6、比別人少用一條線獲得更低的工藝成本,比別人提供多一種價值認同并獲得更高的利潤,這就是蘋果。
6, less than others with a line acquire lower process cost more than others, and provide a kind of value identification and obtain more profits, this is an apple.7、所有的產品一定會離開蘋果商店但不能離開蘋果系統,我們要幫助客戶持續使用蘋果產品,直到壽終正寢。
7, all products will leave apple store but cannot leave apple system, we have to help customers continued use of apple products, until died.8、IBM Thinkpad如果沒了小紅點,那它就不是Thinkpad。MACBook如果加了小紅點,那它即不是IBM Thinkpad也不是蘋果MACBook了。
8, IBM Thinkpad if not a little red dot, it isn’t Thinkpad.MACBook if added little red dots, that it is not IBM Thinkpad nor apple MACBook.9、讓團隊中那些說“不可能”的人感到實現不了是可恥的。
9, let team for those who say “impossible” people feel not achieve them is shameful.10、品牌不是打上蘋果的標志就是蘋果的品質,打上蘋果的標志也需要信心和對客戶的承諾。10, brand is not playing apple logo is an apple quality, hit the apple logo also need confidence and commitment to customers.11、不要為別人而活,也不要為今天的自己而活,把今天的工作做好了,明天自然屬于你,薪水自然比別人高。
11, don’t lived for others, also don’t live for today’s themselves, to do good work today, tomorrow natural belong to you, high salary nature than others.12、產品設計時的所有功能都是一個整體,不應該有任何理由去砍功能,破壞整體性。12, product design all the functions are a whole, should not have any reason to cut function, destroy unity.13、領袖和跟風者的區別就在于創新,你的時間有限,所以不要像亞洲人那樣,浪費在模仿別人這種事上。
13, a leader and a follower innovation distinguishes between, your time is limited, so don’t like asians that, wasted in imitate others this kind of things.14、團隊中那些想用Keynote(蘋果的PPT)來證明自己的人只能說明你不行,請拿出解決方案。
14, team of people who want to use Keynote to prove themselves only shows that you can, please take out the solution.15、成為卓越的代名詞并不是因為他有多么聰明,而在于他有多么勤勞。
15, become the pronoun of not because of his remarkable how clever, but that he is how diligent.16、東方佛學中有一句話:永遠保持初學者的心態;擁有初學者的心態是件了不起的事情。16,East: “there’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘beginner’s never keep Have a beginner’s mind is a wonderful thing.17、不要小看ipod上的一顆按鈕,它和別人不一樣的是我們做了21個方案、84000次測試、57次改進,用戶的滿意源于不必要的堅持。
17, don’t look down upon a single button on the ipod, it and others are different is that we did 21 scheme, 84,000 times test, 57 times improvement, the satisfaction of customers from unnecessary insists