Thank you. I'm honored纪念 to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth真理 be told, I never graduated授予…学位 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买卖. 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 18 months or so before I really quit离开.
So why'd I drop out? It started before I was born承担. My biological生物的 mother was a young unwed graduate研究生 student, and she decided to put me up for adoption采用. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted采用 by college graduates研究生, so everything was all set for me to be adopted采用 at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped发出“砰”的一声 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想不到的 baby boy.
Do you want him? They said, of course. My biological生物的 mother found out later that my mother had never graduated授予…学位 from college and that my father had never graduated授予…学位 from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption采用 papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.
And all of my working class parents' savings储蓄 were being spent on my college tuition学费. 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认为 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决定 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存款 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 Hari Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled绊倒 into by following my curiosity好奇 and intuition直觉 turned out to be priceless无价的 later on. Let me give you one example. Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction命令 in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label标签 on every drawer was beautifully美丽地 hand-caligraphed.
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改变 the amount of space between different letter combinations结合, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical历史的, artistically艺术地 subtle微妙的, in a way that science can't capture捕获. And I found it fascinating迷人的. None of this had even a hope of any practical实践的 application请求 in my life.
But 10 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多重的 typefaces or proportionally成比例地 spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely可能的 that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class.
And personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 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由于某种原因 connect in your future. You have to trust in something-- your gut内脏, destiny命运, life, karma, whatever-- because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence信心 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遗失. I was lucky. I found what I love 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 4,000 employees. We just released释放 our finest creation创造, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I just turned 30.
And then I got fired开火. How can you get fired开火 from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented天才的 to run the company with me. And for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions视 of the future began to diverge(道路等)分叉, and eventually终于 we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided支持 with him. And so at 30, I was out, and very publicly公然地 out.
What had been the focus焦点 of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating破坏性的. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous先的 generation of entrepreneurs<法>企业家 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拧紧 up so badly. I was a very public failure失败, 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拒绝, 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开火 from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness轻盈 of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.
It freed使自由 me to enter one of the most creative创造性的 periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named Next, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated使有生气 feature特征 film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation活泼 studio工作室 in the world. In a remarkable异常的 turn of events, Apple bought Next, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed发展 at Next is at the heart of Apple's current当前的 renaissance复兴.
And Loreen and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired开火 from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote引用 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印象 on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself if today were the last day of my life, what 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遭遇 to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external外部的 expectations期待, all pride, all fear of embarrassment窘迫 or failure失败, 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裸体的. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago, I was diagnosed诊断 with cancer癌症. I had a scan扫描 at 7.30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor瘤 on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas[解]胰腺 was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer癌症 that is incurable不能治愈的, 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 and 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 live with that diagnosis诊断 all day. Later that evening, I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, threw my stomach into my intestines肠, put a needle into my pancreas, and got a few cells from the tumor瘤.
I was sedated给…服镇静剂, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed看待 the cells under a microscope显微镜, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare稀薄的 form of pancreatic胰的 cancer癌症 that is curable with surgery外科. I had the surgery外科, and thankfully, I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty必然 than when death was a useful but purely纯粹地 intellectual智力的 concept概念.
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可能的 the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent代理人. 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戏剧的, but it's quite true. Your time is limited有限的, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped诱骗 by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drowned淹死 out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage勇气 to follow your heart and intuition直觉. They somehow由于某种原因 already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary第二的. When I was young, there was an amazing publication公布 called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the Bibles of my generation.
It was created by a fellow人 named Stuart Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park. And he brought it to life with his poetic诗的 touch. This was in the late '60s, before personal computers and desktop桌面 publishing. So it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback简装本 form 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic理想主义的, overflowing溢出 with neat整洁的 tools, and great notions想法. Stuart 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免费搭乘他人便车 on if you were so adventurous爱冒险的. Beneath it were the words, stay hungry, stay foolish愚蠢的. It was their farewell告别的 message as they signed off. Stay hungry, stay foolish愚蠢的. And I have always wished that for myself.
And now, as you graduate授予…学位 to begin anew重新, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish愚蠢的. Thank you all very much.