怀念乔布斯：斯坦福大学演讲英文全文(StayHungry,StayFoolish)

Thank you.
I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one ofthe finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I nevergraduated from college, and this is theclosest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want totell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Justthree stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of ReedCollege after the first six months, but then stayed around as adrop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So whydid 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 collegegraduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birthby a lawyer and his wife -- except that when I popped out theydecided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middleof the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy; do you wanthim?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out laterthat my mother had never graduated from college and that my fatherhad never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the finaladoption papers. She only relented a few months later when myparents promised that I would go to college. This was the start inmy life.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose acollege that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of myworking-class parents' savings were being spent on my collegetuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had noidea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college wasgoing to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of themoney my parents had saved their entire life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of thebest decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stoptaking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begindropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept onthe floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the fivecent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven milesacross town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at theHare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled intoby following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be pricelesslater on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphyinstruction 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 normalclasses, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to dothis. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varyingthe amount of space between different letter combinations, aboutwhat makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical,artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and Ifound it fascinating.


None of this had even a hope of any practical application in mylife. But ten years later, when we were designing the firstMacintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it allinto 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 proportionallyspaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likelythat no personal computer would have them. If I had never droppedout, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, andpersonal computers might not have the wonderful typography thatthey do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots lookingforward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear lookingbackwards 10 years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can onlyconnect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dotswill somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something-- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever -- because believingthat the dots will connect down the road will give you theconfidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off thewell-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. Woz1 and Istarted 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 garageinto a two billion dollar company with over 4000 employees. We'djust released our finest creation -- the Macintosh -- a yearearlier, and I had just turned 30.

And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company youstarted? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought wasvery talented to run the company with me, and for the first year orso things went well. But then our visions of the future began todiverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Boardof Directors sided with him. And so at 30, I was out. And verypublicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life wasgone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I hadlet the previous generation of entrepreneurs down -- that I haddropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with DavidPackard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up sobadly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought aboutrunning away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn onme: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had notchanged 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 fromApple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Theheaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness ofbeing a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me toenter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, anothercompany named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman whowould become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's firstcomputer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the mostsuccessful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn ofevents, Apple bought NeXT, and I retuned to Apple, and thetechnology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's currentrenaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful familytogether.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't beenfired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess thepatient needed it. Sometime life -- Sometimes life going to hit youin the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that theonly thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You'vegot to find what you love.

And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Yourwork is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only wayto be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. Andthe only way to do great work is to love what you do. If youhaven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with allmatters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like anygreat relationship, it just gets better and better as the yearsroll 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 youlive each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainlybe right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for thepast 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and askedmyself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to dowhat 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 changesomething.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I'veever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Becausealmost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fearof embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in theface of death, leaving only what is truly important. Rememberingthat you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trapof 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 7:30in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. Ididn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this wasalmost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that Ishould expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctoradvised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which isdoctor's code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell yourkids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tellthem in just a few months. It means to make sure everything isbuttoned 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 abiopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through mystomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got afew cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who wasthere, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscopethe doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rareform of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had thesurgery and, thankfully, I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's theclosest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, Ican now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when deathwas a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants todie.

Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to getthere. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one hasever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is verylikely 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 isyou, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually becomethe old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it'squite 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 ofother people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinionsdrown out your own inner voice. And most important, have thecourage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow alreadyknow what you truly want to become. Everything else issecondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The WholeEarth Catalog, which was one of the "bibles" of my generation. Itwas created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here inMenlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. Thiswas in the late 60s, before personal computers and desktoppublishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, andPolaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing withneat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole EarthCatalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a finalissue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back coverof their final issue was a photograph of an early morning countryroad, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you wereso adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. StayFoolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. StayHungry. Stay Foolish. And I've always wished that for myself. Andnow, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

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