第一篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲.中文
乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲
史蒂夫•乔布斯（Steve Jobs）今年 6 月在斯坦福大学的演讲中谈到了他生活中的三次体验，这三次体验不仅在斯坦福大学的毕业生、也在硅谷乃至其他地方的技术同行中引起了巨大反响。尤其The Whole Earth Catalog提到的话，作为杂志，这是一种精神，一种气质。
“好学若饥、谦卑若愚”
很荣幸和大家一道参加这所世界上最好的一座大学的毕业典礼。我大学没毕业，说实话，这是我第一次离大学毕业典礼这么近。今天我想给大家讲三个我自己的故事，不讲别的，也不讲大道理，就讲三个故事。
第一个故事讲的是点与点之间的关系。我在里德学院（Reed College）只读了六个月就退学了，此后便在学校里旁听，又过了大约一年半，我彻底离开。那么，我为什么退学呢？这得从我出生前讲起。我的生母是一名年轻的未婚在校研究生，她决定将我送给别人收养。她非常希望收养我的是有大学学历的人，所以把一切都安排好了，我一出生就交给一对律师夫妇收养。没想到我落地的霎那间，那对夫妇却决定收养一名女孩。就这样，我的养父母─当时他们还在登记册上排队等著呢─半夜三更接到一个电话: “我们这儿有一个没人要的男婴，你们要么？”“当然要”他们回答。但是，我的生母后来发现我的养母不是大学毕业生，我的养父甚至连中学都没有毕业，所以她拒绝在最后的收养文件上签字。不过，没过几个月她就心软了，因为我的养父母许诺日后一定送我上大学。年后，我真的进了大学。当时我很天真，选了一所学费几乎和斯坦福大学一样昂贵的学校，当工人的养父母倾其所有的积蓄为我支付了大学学费。读了六个月后，我却看不出上学有什么意义。我既不知道自己这一生想干什么，也不知道大学是否能够帮我弄明白自己想干什么。这时，我就要花光父母一辈子节省下来的钱了。所以，我决定退学，并且坚信日后会证明我这样做是对的。当年做出这个决定时心里直打鼓，但现在回想起来，这还真是我有生以来做出的最好的决定之一。从退学那一刻起，我就可以不再选那些我毫无兴趣的必修课，开始旁听一些看上去有意思的课。那些日子一点儿都不浪漫。我没有宿舍，只能睡在朋友房间的地板上。我去退还可乐瓶，用那五分钱的押金来买吃的。每个星期天晚上我都要走七英里，到城那头的黑尔－科里施纳礼拜堂去，吃每周才能享用一次的美餐。我喜欢这样。我凭著好奇心和直觉所干的这些事情，有许多后来都证明是无价之宝。我给大家举个例子:当时，里德学院的书法课大概是全国最好的。校园里所有的公告栏和每个抽屉标签上的字都写得非常漂亮。当时我已经退学，不用正常上课，所以我决定选一门书法课，学学怎么写好字。我学习写带短截线和不带短截线的印刷字体，根据不同字母组合调整其间距，以及怎样把版式调整得好上加好。这门课太棒了，既有历史价值，又有艺术造诣，这一点科学就做不到，而我觉得它妙不可言。
当时我并不指望书法在以后的生活中能有什么实用价值。但是，十年之后，我们在设计第一台 Macintosh 计算机时，它一下子浮现在我眼前。于是，我们把这些东西全都设计进了计算机中。这是第一台有这么漂亮的文字版式的计算机。要不是我当初在大学里偶然选了这么一门课，Macintosh 计算机绝不会有那么多种印刷字体或间距安排合理的字号。要不是 Windows 照搬了 Macintosh，个人电脑可能不会有这些字体和字号。要不是退了学，我决不
会碰巧选了这门书法课，个人电脑也可能不会有现在这些漂亮的版式了。当然，我在大学里不可能从这一点上看到它与将来的关系。十年之后再回头看，两者之间的关系就非常、非常清楚了。你们同样不可能从现在这个点上看到将来；只有回头看时，才会发现它们之间的关系。所以，要相信这些点迟早会连接到一起。你们必须信赖某些东西─直觉、归宿、生命，还有业力，等等。这样做从来没有让我的希望落空过，而且还彻底改变了我的生活。
我的第二个故事是关于好恶与得失。幸运的是，我在很小的时候就发现自己喜欢做什么。我在 20 岁时和沃兹（Woz，苹果公司创始人之一 Wozon 的昵称─译注）在我父母的车库里办起了苹果公司。我们干得很卖力，十年后，苹果公司就从车库里我们两个人发展成为一个拥有 20 亿元资产、4,000 名员工的大企业。那时，我们刚刚推出了我们最好的产品─ Macintosh 电脑─那是在第 9 年，我刚满 30 岁。可后来，我被解雇了。你怎么会被自己办的公司解雇呢？是这样，随著苹果公司越做越大，我们聘了一位我认为非常有才华的人与我一道管理公司。在开始的一年多里，一切都很顺利。可是，随后我俩对公司前景的看法开始出现分歧，最后我俩反目了。这时，董事会站在了他那一边，所以在 30 岁那年，我离开了公司，而且这件事闹得满城风雨。我成年后的整个生活重心都没有了，这使我心力交瘁。一连几个月，我真的不知道应该怎么办。我感到自己给老一代的创业者丢了脸─因为我扔掉了交到自己手里的接力棒。我去见了戴维•帕卡德（David Packard，惠普公司创始人之一─译注）和鲍勃•诺伊斯（Bob Noyce，英特尔公司创建者之一─译注），想为把事情搞得这么糟糕说声道歉。这次失败弄得沸沸扬扬的，我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但是，渐渐地，我开始有了一个想法─我仍然热爱我过去做的一切。在苹果公司发生的这些**丝毫没有改变这一点。我虽然被拒之门外，但我仍然深爱我的事业。于是，我决定从头开始。
虽然当时我并没有意识到，但事实证明，被苹果公司炒鱿鱼是我一生中碰到的最好的事情。尽管前景未卜，但从头开始的轻松感取代了保持成功的沉重感。这使我进入了一生中最富有创造力的时期之一。在此后的五年里，我开了一家名叫 NeXT 的公司和一家叫皮克斯的公司，我还爱上一位了不起的女人，后来娶了她。皮克斯公司推出了世界上第一部用电脑制作的动画片《玩具总动员》（Toy Story），它现在是全球最成功的动画制作室。世道轮回，苹果公司买下 NeXT 后，我又回到了苹果公司，我们在 NeXT 公司开发的技术成了苹果公司这次重新崛起的核心。我和劳伦娜（Laurene）也建立了美满的家庭。
我确信，如果不是被苹果公司解雇，这一切决不可能发生。这是一剂苦药，可我认为苦药利于病。有时生活会当头给你一棒，但不要灰心。我坚信让我一往无前的唯一力量就是我热爱我所做的一切。所以，一定得知道自己喜欢什么，选择爱人时如此，选择工作时同样如此。工作将是生活中的一大部分，让自己真正满意的唯一办法，是做自己认为是有意义的工作；做有意义的工作的唯一办法，是热爱自己的工作。你们如果还没有发现自己喜欢什么，那就不断地去寻找，不要急于做出决定。就像一切要凭著感觉去做的事情一样，一旦找到了自己喜欢的事，感觉就会告诉你。就像任何一种美妙的东西，历久弥新。所以说，要不断地寻找，直到找到自己喜欢的东西。不要半途而废。我的第三个故事与死亡有关。17 岁那年，我读到过这样一段话，大意是:“如果把每一天都当作生命的最后一天，总有一天你会如愿以偿。”我记住了这句话，从那时起，33 年过去了，我每天早晨都对著镜子自问: “假如今天是生命的最后一天，我还会去做今天要做的事吗？”如果一连许多天我的回答都是“不”，我知道自己应该有所改变了。
让我能够做出人生重大抉择的最主要办法是，记住生命随时都有可能结束。因为几乎所有的东西─所有对自身之外的希求、所有的尊严、所有对困窘和失败的恐惧─在死亡来临时都将不复存在，只剩下真正重要的东西。记住自己随时都会死去，这是我所知道的防止患得患失的最好方法。你已经一无所有了，还有什么理由不跟著自己的感觉走呢。
大约一年前，我被诊断患了癌症。那天早上七点半，我做了一次扫描检查，结果清楚地表明我的胰腺上长了一个瘤子，可那时我连胰腺是什么还不知道呢！医生告诉我说，几乎可以确诊这是一种无法治愈的恶性肿瘤，我最多还能活 3 到 6 个月。医生建议我回去把一切都安排好，其实这是在暗示“准备后事”。也就是说，把今后十年要跟孩子们说的事情在这几个月内嘱咐完；也就是说，把一切都安排妥当，尽可能不给家人留麻烦；也就是说，去跟大家诀别。
那一整天里，我的脑子一直没离开这个诊断。到了晚上，我做了一次组织切片检查，他们把一个内窥镜通过喉咙穿过我的胃进入肠子，用针头在胰腺的瘤子上取了一些细胞组织。当时我用了麻醉剂，陪在一旁的妻子后来告诉我，医生在显微镜里看了细胞之后叫了起来，原来这是一种少见的可以通过外科手术治愈的恶性肿瘤。我做了手术，现在好了。
这是我和死神离得最近的一次，我希望也是今后几十年里最近的一次。有了这次经历之后，现在我可以更加实在地和你们谈论死亡，而不是纯粹纸上谈兵，那就是: 谁都不愿意死。就是那些想进天堂的人也不愿意死后再进。然而，死亡是我们共同的归宿，没人能摆脱。我们注定会死，因为死亡很可能是生命最好的一项发明。它推进生命的变迁，旧的不去，新的不来。现在，你们就是新的，但在不久的将来，你们也会逐渐成为旧的，也会被淘汰。对不起，话说得太过分了，不过这是千真万确的。
你们的时间都有限，所以不要按照别人的意愿去活，这是浪费时间。不要囿于成见，那是在按照别人设想的结果而活。不要让别人观点的聒噪声淹没自己的心声。最主要的是，要有跟著自己感觉和直觉走的勇气。无论如何，感觉和直觉早就知道你到底想成为什么样的人，其他都是次要的。
我年轻时有一本非常好的刊物，叫《全球概览》（The Whole Earth Catalog），这是我那代人的宝书之一，创办人名叫斯图尔特•布兰德（Stewart Brand），就住在离这儿不远的门洛帕克市。他用诗一般的语言把刊物办得生动活泼。那是 20 世纪 60 年代末，还没有个人电脑和桌面印刷系统，全靠打字机、剪刀和宝丽莱照相机（Polaroid）。它就像一种纸质的 Google，却比 Google 早问世了 35 年。这份刊物太完美了，查阅手段齐备、构思不凡。
斯图尔特和他的同事们出了好几期《全球概览》，到最后办不下去时，他们出了最后一期。那是 20 世纪 70 年代中期，我也就是你们现在的年纪。最后一期的封底上是一张清晨乡间小路的照片，就是那种爱冒险的人等在那儿搭便车的那种小路。照片下面写道: 好学若饥、谦卑若愚。那是他们停刊前的告别辞。
求知若渴，大智若愚。这也是我一直想做到的。眼下正值诸位大学毕业、开始新生活之际，我同样愿大家: 好学若饥、谦卑若愚。
第二篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲(英文中文全文)
New York: 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 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 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 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 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.我今天很荣幸能和你们一起参加毕业典礼，斯坦福大学是世界上最好的大学之一。我从来没有从大学中毕业。说实话，今天也许是在我的生命中离大学毕业最近的一天了。今天我想向你们讲述我生活中的三个故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三个故事而已。
第一个故事是关于如何把生命中的点点滴滴串连起来。
我在Reed大学读了六个月之后就退学了，但是在十八个月以后——我真正的作出退学决定之前，我还经常去学校。我为什么要退学呢？
故事从我出生的时候讲起。我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的，没有结婚的大学毕业生。她决定让别人收养我，她十分想让我被大学毕业生收养。所以在我出生的时候，她已经做好了一切的准备工作。所以我的养父母突然在半夜接到了一个电话:“我们现在这儿有一个不小心生出来的男婴,你们想要他吗？”他们回答道: “当然！”但是我亲生母亲随后发现，我的养母从来没有上过大学,我的养父 甚至从没有读过高中。她拒绝签这个收养合同。只是在几个月以后,我的父母答应她一定要让我上大学,那个时候她才勉强同意。
在十七岁那年,我真的上了大学。但是我很愚蠢的选择了一个几乎和你们斯坦福大学一样贵的学校, 我父母还处于蓝领阶层，他们几乎把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上面。在六个月后, 我已经看不到其中的价值所在。我不知道我真正想要做什么,我也不知道大学能怎样帮助我找到答案。但是在这里，我几乎花光了我父母这一辈子的 全部积蓄。所以我决定要退学，我觉得这是个正确的决定。不能否认，我当时确实非常的害怕，但是现在回头看看，那的确是我这一生中最棒的一个决定。在我做出退学决定的那一刻，我终于可以不必去读那些令我提不起丝毫兴趣的课程了。然后我可以开始去修那些看起来有点意思的课程。
但是这并不是那么浪漫。我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房间的地板上面睡觉,我去捡可以换5美分的可乐罐，仅仅为了填饱肚子, 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程，穿过这个城市到Hare Krishna神庙(注：位于纽约Brooklyn下城),只是为了能吃上好饭——这个星期唯一一顿好一点的饭，我喜欢那里的饭菜。
我跟着我的直觉和好奇心走, 遇到的很多东西,此后被证明是无价之宝。让我给你们举一个例子吧：Reed大学在那时提供也许是全美最好的美术字课程。在这个大学里面的每个海报, 每个抽屉的标签上面全都是漂亮的美术字。因为我退学了, 不必去上正规的课程, 所以我决定去参加这个课程，去学学怎样写出漂亮的美术字。我学到了san serif 和serif字体, 我学会了怎么样在不同的字母组合之中改变空白间距, 还有怎么样才能作出最棒的印刷式样。那种美好、历史感和艺术精妙，是科学永远不能捕捉到的, 我发现那实在是太迷人了。当时看起来这些东西在我的生命中，好像都没有什么实际应用的可能。但是十年之后,当我们在设计第一台Macintosh电脑的时候,就不是那样了。我把当时我学的那些 东西全都设计进了Mac。那是第一台使用了漂亮的印刷字体的电脑。如果我当时没有退学, 就不会有机会去参加这个我感兴趣的美术字课程, Mac就不会有这么多丰富的字体，以及赏心悦目的字体间距。因 为Windows只是照抄了Mac，所以现在个人电脑才能有现在这么美妙的字型。
当然我在大学的时候，还不可能把从前的点点滴滴串连起来,但是当我十年后回顾这一切的时候,真的豁然开朗了。
再次说明的是,你在向前展望的时候不可能将这些片断串连起来；你只能在回顾的时候将点点滴滴串连起来。所以你必须相信这些片断会在你未来的某一天串连起来。你必须要相信某些东西：你的勇气、目的、生命、因缘......这个过程从来没有令我失望,只是让我的生命
更加地与众不同。
我的第二个故事是关于爱和失去。
我非常幸运, 因为我在很早的时候就找到了我钟爱的东西。Woz和我在二十岁的时候就在父母的车库里面开创了苹果公司。我们工作得很努力, 十年之后, 这个公司从那两个车库中的穷小子发展到了超过四千名的雇员、价值超过二十亿的大公司。在公司成立的第九年,我们刚刚发布了最好的产品,那就是Macintosh。我也快要到三十岁了。在那一年, 我被炒了鱿鱼。你怎么可能被你自己创立的公司炒了鱿鱼呢? 嗯,在苹果快速成长的时候，我们雇用了一个很有天分的家伙和我一起管理这个公司, 在最初的几年,公司运转的很好。但是后来我们对未来的看法发生了分歧, 最终我们吵了起来。当争吵到不可开交的时候, 董事会站在了他的那一边。所以在三十岁的时候, 我被炒了。在这么多人目光下我被炒了。在而立之年，我生命的全部支柱离自己远去, 这真是毁灭性的打击。
在最初的几个月里，我真是不知道该做些什么。我觉得我很令上一代的创业家们很失望，我把他们交给我的接力棒弄丢了。我和创办惠普的David Pack、创办Intel的Bob Noyce见面，并试图向他们道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透顶了。但是我渐渐发现了曙光，我仍然喜爱我从事的这些东西。苹果公司发生的这些事情丝毫的没有改变这些, 一点也没有。我被驱逐了，但是我仍然钟爱我所做的事情。所以我决定从头再来。我当时没有觉察, 但是事后证明，从苹果公司被炒是我这辈子发生的最棒的事情。因为，作为一个成功者的负重感被作为一个创业者的轻松感觉所重新代替, 没有比这更确定的事情了。这让我觉得如此自由, 进入了我生命中最有创造力的一个阶段。在接下来的五年里，我创立了一个名叫NeXT的公司, 还有一个叫Pixar的公司, 然后和一个后来成为我妻子的优雅女人相识。Pixar制作了世界上第一个用电脑制作的动画电影——“玩具总动员”，Pixar现在也是世界上最成功的电脑制作工作室。
在后来的一系列运转中,Apple收购了NeXT，然后我又回到了Apple公司。我们在NeXT发展的技术在Apple的今天的复兴之中发挥了关键的作用。而且，我还和Laurence 一起建立了一个幸福完美的家庭。
我可以非常肯定,如果我不被Apple开除的话，这些事情一件也不会发生的。这个良药的味道实在是太苦了，但是我想病人需要这个药。有些时候, 生活会拿起一块砖头向你的脑袋上猛拍一下。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无比钟爱。你需要去找到你所爱的东西。对于工作是如此，对于你的爱人也是如此。你的工作将会占据生活中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是伟大的工作，你才能怡然自得。如果你现在还没有找到，那么继续找、不要停下来，只要全心全意的去找，在你找到的时候，你的心会告诉你的。就像任何真诚的关系，随着岁月的流逝只会越来越紧密。所以继续找，直到你找到它，不要停下来！我的第三个故事是关于死亡的。
当我十七岁的时候, 我读到了一句话：“如果你把每一天都当作生命中最后一天去生活的话,那么有一天你会发现你是正确的。”这句话给我留下了一个印象。从那时开始,过了33 年，我在每天早晨都会对着镜子问自己:“如果今天是我生命中的最后一天, 你会不会完成你今天想做的事情呢？”当答案连续多天是“No”的时候, 我知道自己需要改变某些事情了。“记住你即将死去”是我一生中遇到的最重要箴言。它帮我指明了生命中重要的选择。因为几乎所有的事情, 包括所有的荣誉、所有的骄傲、所有对难堪和失败的恐惧,这些在死亡面前都会消失。我看到的是留下的真正重要的东西。你有时候会思考你将会失去某些东西, “记住你即将死去”是我知道的避免这些想法的最好办法。你已经赤身裸体了，你没有理由不去跟随自己内心的声音。
大概一年以前, 我被诊断出癌症。我在早晨七点半做了一个检查, 检查清楚的显示在我的胰腺有一个肿瘤。我当时都不知道胰腺是什么东西。医生告诉我那很可能是一种无法治愈的癌症, 我还有三到六个月的时间活在这个世界上。我的医生叫我回家, 然后整理好我的一切, 那是医生对临终病人的标准程序。那意味着你将要把未来十年对你小孩说的话在几个月里面说完.；那意味着把每件事情都安排好, 让你的家人会尽可能轻松的生活；那意味着你要说“再见了”。
我拿着那个诊断书过了一整天，那天晚上我作了一个活切片检查，医生将一个内窥镜从我的喉咙伸进去,通过我的胃, 然后进入我的肠子, 用一根针在我的胰腺上的肿瘤上取了几个细胞。我当时是被麻醉的，但是我的妻子在那里, 后来告诉我，当医生在显微镜下观察这些细胞的时候他们开始尖叫, 因为这些细胞最后竟然是一种非常罕见的可以用手术治愈的胰腺癌症细胞。我做了这个手术，现在我痊愈了。
那是我最接近死亡的时候, 我希望这也是以后的几十年最接近的一次。从死亡线上又活了过来, 我可以比以前把死亡只当成一 种想象中的概念的时候，更肯定一点地对你们说：没有人愿意死, 即使人们想上天堂, 也不会为了去那里而死。但是死亡是我们每个人共同的终点。从来没有人能够逃脱它。也应该如此。因为死亡就是生命中最好的一个发明。它将旧的清除以便给新的让路。你们现在是新的, 但是从现在开始不久以后, 你们将会逐渐的变成旧的然后被送离人生舞台。我很抱歉这很戏剧性, 但是这十分的真实。
你们的时间很有限, 所以不要将他们浪费在重复其他人的生活上。不要被教条束缚,那意味着你和其他人思考的结果一起生活。不要被其他人喧嚣的观点掩盖你真正的内心的声音。还有最重要的是, 你要有勇气去听从你直觉和心灵的指示——它们在某种程度上知道你想要成为什么样子，所有其他的事情都是次要的。
当我年轻的时候，有一本叫做“整个地球的目录”振聋发聩的杂志，它是我们那一代人的圣经之一。它是一个叫Stewart Brand的家伙在离这里不远的Menlo Park编辑的，他象诗一般神奇地将这本书带到了这个世界。那是六十年代后期, 在个人电脑出现之前, 所以这本书全部是用打字机,、剪刀还有偏光镜制造的。有点像用软皮包装的Google, 在Google出现三十五年之前：这是理想主义的，其中有许多灵巧的工具和伟大的想法。Stewart和他的伙伴出版了几期的“整个地球的目录”，当它完成了自己使命的时候，他们做出了最后一期的目录。那是在七十年代的中期, 我正是你们的年纪。在最后一期的封底上是清晨乡村公路的照片(如果你有冒险精神的话，你可以自己找到这条路的)，在照片之下有这样一段话：“求知若饥，虚心若愚。”这是他们停止了发刊的告别语。“求知若饥，虚心若愚。(stay hungry,stay foolish)”我总是希望自己能够那样,现在，在你们即将毕业，开始新的旅程的时候，我也希望你们能这样：求知若饥，虚心若愚。非常感谢你们！
第三篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲
乔布斯(Steve Jobs)在斯坦福大学2005年毕业典礼上的演讲
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 o
f 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 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 pol
aroid 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
第四篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲
乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲
今天我能和你们一起参加毕业典礼让我感到很荣幸，斯坦福大学是世界上一流的大学之一。我从来没有从大学毕业。说真的，今天可能是我一生中离大学毕业最近的一天。今天我将向你们讲述我生活中三个故事。这三个故事并不是什么大不了的事情，只是我生活中的三个故事而已。
第一个故事是关于怎样把生活中的点点滴滴都串联起来。
我在里德学院读了6个月的书之后就退学了，但是在我真正放弃之前大约18个月的时间里，我还经常去学校听课。那么我为什么要退学呢？
这个故事要从我出生的时候讲起。我的亲生母亲是一个未婚的年轻的研究生。她决定把我送给别人收养，她非常想让一个大学毕业生收养我。在我就要出生的时候，她已经把一切准备工作做好了，希望我被一对律师夫妇收养。唯独有一件事没有准备好：在我出生的那一刻，那对律师夫妇在最后一分钟才决定，他们其实想要一个女孩。所以排在候选名单上的我的养父母，在半夜突然接到一个电话：“我们这里刚刚生了个意料之外的男婴，你们想要他吗？”他们回答说道：“当然想要！”但是我的亲生母亲很快就发现，我的养母没有上过大学，我的养父甚至连高中都没读完。于是她拒绝在这份收养合同上签字。在几个月之后，我的养父母保证一定会让我上大学，这个时候她才勉强同意让他们收养我。
在17岁那年，我真的去上了大学。但是我当时很幼稚地选择了一所费用贵得能和你们斯坦福大学相媲美的学校。我的父母都是工薪阶层，他们几乎把他们一生所有的积蓄都花在了我的学费上。在入学6个月之后，我已经看不到在这里上学的价值所在。我当时并不知道我真正想要的到底是什么，我也不知道这所大学怎么能帮我找到我想要的答案。但是在这里，我几乎花光了我父母一生的全部积蓄。因此我决定退学，并相信这是一个明智的决定。不可否认，其实我当时的确是非常害怕的，但是现在看来，那可真是我这一生中作出的最好的一个决定。就在我做出退学决定的那一刻，我终于可以不再去读那些令我厌烦的课程了。然后我就可以去学那些我感兴趣的课程了。
可是事情并不如想象的那么浪漫。我不能再住在宿舍里了，所以我就只能睡在朋友家的地板上，靠回收空可乐瓶的5美分退费买吃的。在周日的晚上，我要穿过这个城市到Hare Krishna神庙（位于纽约布鲁克林下城—编者注），走上7英里的路只是为了吃顿好点的饭，这可是一个星期里最好的一顿饭，我喜欢那里的饭菜。
追随我的好奇心和与直觉，我所投入过的大部分的事情，后来看来都是无比珍贵的。我在这里给你们举个例子吧：那时候里德学院的美术字课程可能是全美最好的美术字课。这所大学里的每份海报，每个抽屉的标签上面全部都是最漂亮的美术字体。因为我退学了，所以我不必去上那些正规的课程，可以去学学那些美术字课程，学习怎样才能写出漂亮的美术字。我学会了衬线字体和无衬线字体，我还学会如何改变不同字母之间的空间距离，还学会了如何去做出最好的印刷式样。那种美妙的艺术感和历史感，是科学永远都不可能做到的，我发现那真的是很让人着迷。
在当时看来，这些东西在我生命中好像没有什么实际的用处，但只在十年之后，当我们在设计第一台麦金塔电脑的时候,我发觉了这些东西的用处。我把当时我学到的那些东西全
部都用到了麦金塔的设计上。那是第一台有非常漂亮的印刷字体的电脑。如果我当时没有退学的话，就没有机会去参加那个我感兴趣的美术字课程，麦金塔也就不会有那么多丰富的美术字体和那些美妙的字体间距。因为Windows只是照抄了麦金塔，所以现在大家使用的个人电脑才会有那么多美妙的字体。
当然在上大学的时候，我还不能前瞻性地把那些点点滴滴联系起来，但是在十年之后，在回顾这一切的时候，真的是豁然开朗了。
我再说一次，你在展望未来的时候可能还不能将那些点滴的片段串联起来；只有在你回顾的时候才能将它们串联起来。所以你一定要相信这些片断会在你未来某一天里全部串联起来。在你的生命中你必须相信某些东西：你的直觉、命运、生命、缘分……在这个过程中从来都没有令我失望过，而且让我的生命更加与众不同。
我第二个要讲的故事是关于爱和失去。
我真的是非常的幸运，在很早的时候就找到了我感兴趣的那些东西。沃兹和我在我们20多岁的时候就在我父母的车库里开创了苹果公司。我们很努力地工作，10年之后，这个公司从只有两个穷小子发展到拥有4000多名员工、市值超过20亿美元的大公司。在这家公司成立的第9年里，我们发布了最棒的产品，那就是麦金塔。那年我刚好30岁。然后，我被炒鱿鱼了。
你怎么可能被你自己一手创立起来的公司给炒鱿鱼了呢？嗯,在苹果公司快速发展的时期，我们雇用了一个我认为非常有天分的人和我一起管理这家公司。在开始的几年里，苹果公司运转得非常好，但是后来我们在公司未来的发展上发生了分歧，最终我们吵了起来。当我们吵得很凶的时候，董事会站了出来，并且站到了他的那边。所以在我30岁的时候，我被炒了鱿鱼。在众目睽睽之下我被苹果开除了。在而立之年，这绝对是毁灭性的打击。我生命的全部支柱都离我而去。
在被开除的最初几个月里，我真是不知道自己该做些什么。我觉得我很令上一代的那些创业家们失望，我把他们交给我的接力棒弄丢了。我和创办惠普的大卫·帕克、创办英特尔的鲍勃·诺伊斯见面，并想向他们道歉，因为我把事情弄得很糟糕。但是我渐渐地发现希望，因为我仍然喜爱我从事的那些事情。在苹果公司发生的那些不愉快的事情丝毫没有改变我的想法，一点也没有改变。我被苹果抛弃了，但我仍然钟爱我所从事的事情。所以我决定东山再起，从头再来。我当时并没有觉察,?但是事后证明，被苹果公司炒鱿鱼是我这辈子发生的最棒的事情。因为，作为一个成功者的负重感被作为一个创业者的轻松感所代替，对任何事情都不再那么特别看重了。这让我感觉很自由，我进入了生命中最有创造力的一个阶段。在接下来的五年里，我创立了一个新的公司名字叫NeXT，同时还创立了一个叫皮克斯的公司,?然后和一个后来成为我妻子的美丽女人相识。而皮克斯制作出了世界上第一个用电脑制作的动画电影—《玩具总动员》，皮克斯现在已经是世界上最成功的电脑动画制作工作室。后来，苹果收购了NeXT，之后我就又回到了苹果公司。我们在NeXT公司创新出来的技术对苹果的今天发展起到至关重要的作用。而且，我还和劳伦斯一起建立了一个幸福美满的家庭。
我可以非常肯定，如果当初我不被苹果开除的话，那么后来的这些事情一件也不会发生的。良药确实苦口，但是我想病人需要这个药。有些时候，上帝会跟你开一个很大的玩笑。
这时不要失去信仰。我确信，我热爱我所做的事情，是这些年来支持我继续走下去的唯一理由。你需要去找到你所爱的东西。对于工作是如此，对于你的爱人也是如此。你的工作将会占据生活中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是伟大的工作，你才能怡然自得。如果你现在还没有找到，那么继续找，不要停下来。只要全心全意地去找，在你找到的时候，你的心就会告诉你的。这就像任何深厚的关系，随着岁月的流逝只会越来越紧密。所以继续找，直到你找到它为止，千万不要停下来！
我讲的第三个故事是关于死亡的。
在我17岁的时候，我读过这样一句话：“如果你把每一天都当作生命中最后一天去生活的话，那么有一天你会发现你是正确的。”这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那个时候开始，在过去的33年里，我每天早晨都会对着镜子问自己：“如果今天是你生命中的最后一天，你会不会完成你今天想做的事情呢？”如果答案连续很多天都是“不”的话，我知道自己需要改变一些事情了。
“记住你终将死去”是我一生中遇到的最重要箴言。它帮我指明了生命的方向。因为几乎所有的事情，包括所有来自外部的期望、所有的荣誉、所有的骄傲、所有对困难和失败的恐惧，所有的这些在死亡面前都会消失，而留下来的那些才是真正重要的东西。你有时候会想你将会失去某些东西，“记住你终将死去”是我所知道的避免这些思维陷阱的最好办法。你已经什么都没有了，没有理由不去听从自己内心的声音。
大约在一年以前，我被诊断出了癌症。我那天早晨七点半做了一个体检，体检报告清楚地显示在我的胰腺上有一个肿瘤。说实话当时我都不知道胰腺是什么东西。医生告诉我说这很可能是一种无法治愈的癌症，我只能活三到六个月的时间。我的医生叫我回家，然后准备好一切后事，那是医生对临终病人的标准程序。那意味着你将要把未来十年对你小孩说的话在几个月里面说完；那意味着把每件事情都安排好，让你的家人会尽可能轻松地生活；那意味着你要说“再见了”。我拿着那个诊断书过了整整一天，当天晚上我作了一个切片检查，医生将一个内窥镜从我的喉咙伸进去，通过我的胃，然后进入我的肠子，用一根针从我的胰腺肿瘤上取了几个细胞。当时我是被麻醉的，但是我的妻子在那里，后来她告诉我，当医生在显微镜下观察到这些细胞的时候他们欢呼起来，因为这些细胞竟然是一种非常罕见的可以用手术治愈的胰腺癌症细胞。之后我就做了手术，现在我很好。
那个时候是我最接近死亡的时刻，我希望这也是我以后的几十年里最接近的一次。从死亡线上我又活了过来，现在，比起只把死亡当成一种想象中的概念，我可以更肯定地对你们说：没有人愿意死，即使人们想上天堂，也没有人愿意去死。但是死亡是我们每个人共同的终点。从来没有人能够逃脱它。其实也应该是如此，因为死亡很可能就是生命中最棒的一种“发明”。它是生命交替的媒介。它将老的清除，以便给年轻的让路。你们现在是年轻的，但是从现在开始过不了多久，你们将会逐渐变成老的然后被送离人生舞台。我很抱歉说得很戏剧性，但是这确实是真实的。
你的时间是有限的，所以不要浪费时间活在别人的生活里。不要被教条束缚，那意味着你将按别人的想法生活。不要让其他人的观点弱化你内心的声音。还有最重要的一点就是，要有勇气去听从来自内心和直觉的指示—你自己其实已经知道你真正想要成为什么样的人，而其他所有的一切都是次要的。
当我年轻的时候，有一本很棒的杂志，叫做《地球全目录》。它是我们那一代人的圣经之一。它是由一个叫斯图尔特·布兰德的人在离这里不远的门洛帕克创办的，他诗人一般神奇地将这本书带到了这个世界。那是在20世纪60年代后期，当时个人电脑还没有出现，因此这本书全部是用打字机、剪刀还有一次成影照相机做出来的。那样子是有点像今天的谷歌的“平装版”，那是在谷歌出现35年以前：这本杂志是理想主义的，其实这其中有许多巧妙的工具和伟大的想法。
斯图尔特和他的伙伴出版了好几期《地球全目录》。当它完成了自己使命的时候，他们出了最后一期。那是在20世纪70年代的中期，我正像你们一样年轻。在最后一期的封底上是清晨乡村公路的照片（如果你有冒险精神的话，你可以自己找到这条路的），在照片之下有这样一段话：“求知若饥，虚心若愚。” 这是他们停止发刊的告别语。“求知若饥，虚心若愚。”我总是希望自己能够那样，现在，在你们即将毕业，开始新的旅程的时候，我也希望你们能这样。
求知若饥，虚心若愚。
非常感谢你们！
第五篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲(英文)
乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲(英文)New York: 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 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 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 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 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.
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