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 Apple与Pixar执行长Steve Jobs 在2005年6月12日对全体史丹佛大学毕业生的演讲内容
以下是Apple与Pixar执行长Steve Jobs 在2005年6月12日对全体史丹佛大学毕业生的演讲内容。
今天，很荣幸来到世界最好的学校之一，参加各位的毕业典礼。我大学从没毕业，说实话，这是我离大学毕业最近的一刻。今天我只说三个故事，不谈大道理，就三个故事。
第一个故事，是关于人生中的点点滴滴是怎么串在一起的。
我在里德学院（Reed college）待了六个月就休学了，我休学了18个月，直到我真正离开学校。我为什么休学？
这得从我出生前讲起。当时，我亲生母亲是个研究生，一位年轻的未婚妈妈，她决定让别人收养我。她执意认为我应该被大学毕业的人收养，所以我出生时，她就做好一切准备，要让一对律师夫妇收养我。但我出生之后，这对夫妻后来却反悔了，因为他们想收养的是女孩。在等待收养的名单上有一对夫妻，也就是我的养父母，有一天半夜他们接到电话，有人问他们：「有一个人家不要的小男婴刚出生，你们要认养吗？」
他们回答「当然要」。后来，我亲生母亲发现，我的养母大学没毕业，我的养父甚至连高中都没读完。她拒绝在最后的认养文件上签字。直到几个月后，我的养父母同意将来一定让我上大学，她态度才软化。
十七年后，我真的上大学了。但我当时很无知地选了一所学费几乎跟史丹佛一样贵的大学，我工人阶级的父母为了我的学费，花光了所有积蓄。六个月后，我看不出念大学有什么价值。那时候，我不知道这辈子要干什么，也不知道念大学对我搞清楚要做什么有任何帮助。而且，我在这里花光了父母所有积蓄。所以我决定休学，而且相信船到桥头自然直。那个决定当时看起来可怕，可是现在看起来，那却是我这辈子做过最好的决定之一。
休学之后，我可以不必再上那些我没兴趣的必修课，我开始去上那些我有兴趣的课。
这一点也不浪漫。我没有宿舍，所以我睡在朋友家的地板上，靠回收可乐罐的的五先令退费买东西吃。每星期天晚上，我会走七哩路横过市区去印度教的 Hare Krishna 神庙吃顿好吃的，我爱那些食物。我依循自己的好奇心跟直觉，我所涉猎参与的，后来证明都是无价珍宝。
举例来说：
当时里德学院提供可能是全国最好的书法指导。校园内的每张海报上，每个抽屉的标签，都是很美的手写字。因为我休学，不必上正常的课程，所以我就跑去上书法课，学怎么写。我学了serif 与san serif 字体，学到在不同字母组合间变更字间距，学到活版印刷的伟大之处。书法很美、有历史感与艺术感，是科学难以补捉的，我觉得很迷人。
我没预期，学这些东西在我生活中有什么实际的用处。不过十年后，在我设计第一台麦金塔时，当时所学的东西全回来了。我把这些东西都设计进麦金塔里，这是第一台能印出漂亮字体的电脑。如果我没有修那门课，麦金塔可能就不会有多种字体，以及能变更间距的字体可以用。也因为Windows刚好抄袭了麦金塔，否则PC也不会有这些字体。要不是我当年休学，我就不会跑去上书法课，那么世界上所有个人电脑可能印不出这么漂亮的字体。当然，在大学的时候往前看，是没办法把这些点点滴滴串在一起的。但是十年后回顾，一切就变得非常清楚。
我再说一次，你不能预先把这些点点滴滴串在一起；只有日后回顾时，你才会明白那些点点滴滴怎么串在一起。所以你得相信，你所经历的点点滴滴，将来多少会连结在一起。你得相信某个东西，胆识也好，命运也好，生命也好，业力也好，什么都行。这种方法从来没让我失望，它也让我的生命整个变得不同。
我的第二个故事，是关于爱与失去。
我运气很好，很年轻就发现自己爱做什么事。我二十岁的时候，跟Steve Wozniak在我爸妈家的车库里，开始苹果电脑的事业。我们拼命工作，苹果电脑在十年间，从车库里的两个人扩展成一家员工超过四千人、市价二十亿美金的公司。在那之前一年，我们推出最完美的作品～麦金塔，我刚迈入三十岁，然后，我被开除。
你怎么能被你所创办的公司开除呢？是这样的，苹果电脑成长后，我们找了一个在经营公司上很有才干的人，头一两年，他也的确干得不错。可是我们对未来的愿景不同，最后只好分道扬镳。结果，董事会站在他那边，在我30岁那年，把我开除，而且是公开扫地出门。曾经是我整个成年生活重心的东西消失了，我不知所措。
有几个月，我不知道干什么好。我觉得我让上一代的企业家失望～我把他们交给我的接力棒弄丢了。我见了创办HP的David Packard跟创办Intel的Bob Noyce，跟他们说我很抱歉，我把事情搞砸得这么惨。那是一个非常明显的失败，我甚至想离开矽谷。
但渐渐的我发现，我还是喜欢我做过的事，在苹果所经历的转折，丝毫没有改变这一点。我被否定了，但我还是爱做那些事，所以我决定从头来过。
我当时没发现，但现在回想起来，被苹果电脑开除，是我所经历过最好的事情。成功的沉重被从头来过的轻松所取代，每件事情不再是如此确定。因而，我得以无碍地进入这辈子最富创意的时光之一。
接下来五年，我开了一家叫做 NeXT的公司，又开一家叫做Pixar的公司，并爱上一个奇妙的女人，也就是我现在的老婆。Pixar制作了世界第一部电脑动画电影，玩具总动员，现在是世界上最成功的动画制作公司。然后，经历几个戏剧性的转折，苹果电脑买下NeXT，我重回苹果，我们在NeXT发展的技术成了苹果电脑后来复兴的核心。我也和我太太共组了美妙的家庭。
我很确定，如果当年苹果电脑没开除我，就不会发生这些事情。这帖药很苦，但我猜病人就是需要这帖药。有时候，生命就是会用砖块砸你的头。不要丧失信心。我深信支持我一路走过来唯一的原因是，我爱我所做的事。你得找出你所爱的，工作如此，爱情也是如此。你的工作将填满你一大块人生，要真正感到满足唯一的方式，就是去做你认为是伟大的工作。
做伟大的工作唯一的的方法是，爱你所做的事。如果你还没找到这些事，继续找，别停顿。你一找到，你的心就会告诉你。就像各种美好的关系一样，事情只会随着时间愈来愈好。所以，在你找到之前，继续找，不要停下来。
我的第三个故事，关于死亡。
当我十七岁时，我读到一则格言，好像是「如果你把每一天都当生命的最后一天，你就会轻松自在。」这对我影响深远，在过去33年里，我每天早上都会照镜子，自问：「如果今天是生命的最后一天，我还想做原本打算要做的事吗？」当我连续好几天得到的答案都是「不」，我就知道我要做些改变了。
提醒自己快死了，是我面临人生重大抉择时，用来帮助自己判断的最重要工具。因为几乎所有的事～所有世俗的期待、所有名誉、所有对困窘或失败的恐惧～在面对死亡时，这些东西都会消失，只有最重要的东西会留下来。
提醒自己快死了，是避免掉入「有什么东西会失去」的陷阱的最好方法。生不带来，死不带去，没什么道理不跟随你的心。
一年前，我被诊断出癌症。我早上七点半断层扫描，在胰脏清楚出现一个肿瘤。我连胰脏是什么都不知道。医生告诉我，那几乎可以确定是无法治愈的癌症，我大概活不超过三到六个月了。医生建议我回家，把事情交代好，这是医生对临终病人的标准建议。那表示，你得把未来来十年里想跟小孩讲的话，在未来几个月内讲完。那代表你得把所有的事情都打理好，让家人没有后顾之忧。那代表你得说再见。
我整天想着那个诊断结果。那天晚上我做了一次切片，喉咙插入一个内视镜，从胃进肠子，插了根针进胰脏，取了一些肿瘤细胞出来。我打了镇静剂，不醒人事，但是我老婆在场。她后来跟我说，当医生们用显微镜看过那些细胞后，都大叫起来，因为那是非常少见的一种胰脏癌，可以用手术治好。所以我接受手术，现在，我好了。
这是我最接近死亡的一次，我希望那也是未来几十年最接近的一次。经历过这件事，我可以比之前认为死亡不过是一个有用的抽象概念，更明确地告诉你们：
没有人想死，即使是想上天堂的那些人，也想活着上去。但是死亡是我们共同的目的地，没有人躲得过。这是注定的，因为死亡简直就是生命中最棒的发明，是转换生命的媒介，它送走老人，把空间留给新人。现在你们是新人，但不久将来，你们也会变老，最后被送出舞台。抱歉说得这么戏剧化，但是这是真的。
你们的时间有限，所以不要浪费时间活在别人的生活里。不要被信条束缚，不要活在别人的思考里。不要让别人的意见淹没你内在的声音。最重要的，要有勇气跟随你的心、你的直觉，它们知道你真正想成为什么人。其他事物，都是次要的。
我年轻的时候，有本神奇的杂志叫做 Whole Earth Catalog，是我们这一代的圣经之一。那是一位住在离这不远的Menlo Park的Stewart Brand发行的，他用他独特的诗意呈现整本杂志。那是1960年代末期，个人电脑跟桌上出版还没出现，所有内容都是用打字机、剪刀跟拍立得相机做出来的。杂志内容有点像印在纸上的Google，35年前出现的Google：理想化，充满各种新奇工具与神奇的注记。
Stewart跟他的出版团队出了好几期Whole Earth Catalog，然后出了停刊号。当时是1970年代中期，我差不多跟你们一样大。在停刊号的封底，有张照片，是晨间的乡间小路，如果你够喜欢冒险的话，就是你搭便车旅行时会碰上的乡间小路。在照片下有行小字写着：求知若饥，虚心若愚。
那是他们亲笔写下的告别讯息，我总是以此自许。当你们毕业，展开新生活，我也以此期许你们。
求知若饥，虚心若愚。
非常谢谢大家。
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 cents 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 calligrapher. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and 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 down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley.
But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the 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 failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades.
Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much
Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976, and Pixar, the Academy-Award-winning animation studios which he co-founded in 1986.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also leading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.
Pixar has created six of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Academy Award-winning Toy Story (1995); A Bug's Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Academy Award-winning Finding Nemo (2003); and The Incredibles (2004). Pixar's six films have grossed more than $3 billion at the worldwide box office to date.
Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lives there with his wife and three children.
【心得感想】
Steve Jobs与比尔盖兹都是电脑界不可或缺的传奇人物,没有大学学历,但成就惊人;他将自己生命中的经验与年轻学子分享,值得一再细细品尝.
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