第一篇:喬布斯在斯坦福大學的演講稿 英文原稿
喬布斯在斯坦福大學的演講稿 英文原稿
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 na?vely 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-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 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.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 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.I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stuart and his team put out several issues of the 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.Thank you all, very much.
第二篇:喬布斯在斯坦福大學的演講稿 英文原稿
喬布斯在斯坦福大學的演講稿 英文原稿
Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs
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 na?vely 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-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 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.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 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.I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stuart and his team put out several issues of the 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.Thank you all, very much.
第三篇:CEO喬布斯在斯坦福大學的演講稿(英文)
You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
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 somethingthe Macintoshthat 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 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 everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failurewhich 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.Steve Jobs
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.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——盲從信條是活在別人的生活里。不要讓任何人的意見淹沒了你內在的心聲。最重要的,擁有跟隨內心和直覺的勇氣。
你的內心與直覺知道你真正想成為什么樣的人。任何其他事物都是次要的。
第四篇:喬布斯斯坦福大學演講稿
《求知若饑,虛心若愚》(Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish)
今天,很榮幸來到這所世界上最好的學校之一的著名學校,參加畢業典禮。我從來沒從大學畢業過,說實話,這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天,我只說3個故事,不談大道理,3個故事就好。
第1個故事,是關于人生中的點點滴滴如何串連在一起。
我在銳意得學院(Reed College)待了6個月就辦休學了。到我退學前,一共休學了18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,年輕的未婚媽媽,她決定讓別人收養我。她強烈覺得,應該讓已經畢業的人收養我,所以我出生時,她就準備讓一對律師夫婦收養我。但是這對夫妻到了最后一刻反悔了,他們想收養女孩。所以我必須等待收養名單上的另一對夫妻,也就是我后來的養父母。有一天半夜,他們接到一個電話,“有一名意外出生的男孩,你們要認養他嗎”,他們回答“當然要”。但是我的生母發現,我的養母從來沒有大學畢業過,我現在的爸爸則連高中畢業文憑也沒有,所以她拒絕在送養文件上做最后簽字。直到幾個月后,我的養父母保證將來一定會讓我上大學,我生母的態度才軟化。
17年后,我上大學了。但是當時我無知地選了一所學費幾乎跟死蛋孵的一樣貴的大學,我那工人階級的父母將所有積蓄都花在我的學費上。6個月后,我看不出念這個學院的價值何在。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,只知道我為了念這個書,花光了我父母這輩子所有積蓄。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,那是我這輩子做過的最棒的決定之一。我休學之后,我再也不用上我沒興趣的必修課了,我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,靠著回收空可樂罐的5分錢退費買吃的。每個星期天晚上,我得走7哩路,繞過大半個鎮去印度教的Hare Krishna神廟吃頓好料,我喜歡Hare Krishna神廟的好吃的。
我追隨著我的好奇心和直覺,我的大部分投入,后來都成了無價之寶。舉個例子。當時銳意得學院有著大概是全國最好的書寫教育,校園里的每一張海報上每一個抽屜標簽上,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,所以我跑去上書寫課。我學了serif 與sanserif體,學到在不同字母組合間變更字間距,學到活字印刷偉大的地方。書寫的美好、歷史感、藝術感是科學所不具備的,我覺得這很迷人。
我沒預期過學這些東西能在我的生活中起些什么實際作用,不過10年后,當我在設計第1臺麥金塔電腦時,我想起了過去所學的東西,把這些東西都設計進了麥金塔,這是第1臺能印刷出漂亮東西的電腦。如果我沒能沉溺于這樣一門課,麥金塔可能就不會有多重字體和等比例間距字體。Windows抄襲了麥金塔的使用方式。因此,如果當年我沒有休學,沒有去上這門書寫課,大概所有的個人電腦都不會有這些東西,印不出現在我們看到的漂亮的字。
當然,當我還在大學的時候,不可能把這些點點滴滴預先串連在一起,但10年后的今天回首,一切顯得非常清楚。我再說一次,你不可能把點點滴滴事先串連起來,只有回首往事,你才能把它們串在一起(you can't connect the dots look-ing forward;you can only connect them looking backwards)。所以你得相信,眼前你經歷的種種,將來多少會連結在一起。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,我的人生因此變得完全不同。
我的第2個故事,有關愛和失去。
我很幸運年輕時就發現了自己愛做什么事。我20歲時,跟Steve Wozniak在我爸媽的車庫里開始了蘋果電腦的事業。我們拼命工作,蘋果電腦在10年間從一間車庫里的兩個小伙子擴展!成了一家員工超過4000人市價20億美金的公司。在那事件之前1年推出了我們最棒的作品——麥金塔(Macintosh)電腦,那時我才剛開始30歲;然后,我被解雇了。
我怎么會被自己創辦的公司給解雇了?
嗯,當蘋果電腦成長后,我請了一個我以為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,就這樣,在我30歲的時候,公司把我解雇了。我失去了整個生活的重心,我的人生就這樣被摧毀。
有幾個月,我不知道要做些什么。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,跟他們說很抱歉我把事情給搞砸了。我成了公眾眼中失敗的示范,我甚至想要離開硅谷。
但是漸漸地,我發現,我還是喜愛那些我做過的事情,在蘋果電腦中經歷的那些事絲毫沒有改變我愛做的事。雖然我被否定了,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,但現在看來,被蘋果開除,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5年,我開了一家叫做“NeXT”的公司,又開一家叫做“Pixar”的公司,也跟后來的太太Laurene談起戀愛。Pixar接著制作了世界上第1部全電腦動畫電影《玩具總動員(Toy Story)》,現在是世界上最成功的動畫制作公司(聽眾鼓掌大笑)。然后,蘋果電腦買下NeXT,我又回到了蘋果,我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果電腦后來復興的核心部份。我也有了個美妙的家庭。我很確定,如果當年蘋果電腦沒開除我,就不會發生這些事情。這帖藥很苦口。有時候,人生會用磚頭打你的頭,但不要喪失信心。
我確信,讓我一路走過來的惟一動力,是我熱愛我做的工作。(I'm onvinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did)。
你得找出你的最愛,工作上是如此,人生伴侶也是如此。你的工作將占掉你人生的一大部分,而通過偉大事業的必由之路是,熱愛你做的工作(And the only way to do great work is to love what you do)。如果你還沒找到這些事,繼續找,別停下來。盡你全心全力,你知道你一定會找到。而且,如同任何偉大的事業,情況只會隨著時間推移變得愈來愈好。所以,在你找到之前,繼續找,別停頓。
我的第3個故事,關于死亡。
17歲時,我讀到一則格言,好像是說“把每1天都當成生命中的最后1天,你就會輕松自在(If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right)。”這對我影響深遠,在過去的的33年里,我每天早上都會照鏡子自問:“如果今天是此生最后1日,我要做些什么?”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改變了。
此生當我面臨重大抉擇時,提醒自己“馬上就要死了”,是我用過的最重要的方法。因為,幾乎所有事情——所有外界期望、所有榮譽、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼——這些事情在面對死亡的時候全都消失了,只有真正的最重要的東西才會留下,提醒自己快死了,是我所知道的避免掉入喪失和畏懼陷阱的最好方法。人生不帶來,死不帶去,沒理由不順心而為。
1年前,我被診斷出癌癥。我在早上7點半作斷層掃瞄,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,預計我大概活不到3到6個月。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10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,穿過胃進到腸子,將探針伸進胰臟,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,我可以比先前只是假想死亡時更肯定地告訴你們,沒有人想死,即使那些想上天堂的人,也想活著上天堂。
但是死亡是我們共同的終點,沒有人逃得過。這是注定的,因為死亡很可能就是生命中最棒的發明,是生命交替的媒介,送走老人們,給新生代讓出道路。
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。不要被教條所局限,盲從教條就是活在別人思考的結果里。不要讓別人的意見淹沒了你內在的心聲。最重要的是,要有勇氣追逐你們自己的內心世界和直覺,它們多少已經知道你們真正想要成為什么樣的人,其他任何事情都是次要的!
在我年輕時,有本神奇的雜志,叫做《Whole Earth Catalog》,當年這是我們的經典讀物。那是位住在離這不遠的Menlo Park 的Stewart Brand發行的,他把雜志辦得很有詩意。那是60年代末,個人電腦和桌上出版還沒出現,所有內容都是打字機、剪刀、拍立得相機做出來的。雜志內容有點像印在紙上的平面Google,在Google 出現之前35年就有了。這本雜志很理想主義,充滿新奇工具與偉大的見解。Stewart 跟他的團隊出版了好幾期的《Whole Earth Catalog》,然后很自然地,最后出了停刊號。當時是70年代中期,我正是你們現在這個年齡。在停刊號的封底,有張清晨鄉間小路的照片,那種你四處搭便車冒險旅行時會經過的鄉間小路。在照片下印了行小字: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish(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,我也以此祝福你們——Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!
吸收知識就像是饑餓時想吃東西一樣,形容對知識很渴望;向他人請教時要像什么都不懂,形容非常的謙虛好學。
第五篇:喬布斯斯坦福大學演講稿
喬布斯斯坦福演講
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校學,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。不管你現在學習的對于將來有沒有用,興趣也好,應用也好,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,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,你只有相信自幾做的是偉大的工作,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
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。