[Boutique] Jobs speech

Jobs is a pioneer in the era of smart mobile devices. It is believed that only diseases can beat him. Whether it is iPhone, iPad, iPod and MacBook, these products are as full of personality as himself. Now Apple founder Jabes is cancer. The center receives treatment, let us listen to the voice of the era before the great life.

Speaker: Steve Jobs Speech Time: June 12, 2005 Presentation: Stanford University Graduation Ceremony

Today, I am honored to be here at the graduation ceremony. Stanford University is one of the best universities in the world. I have never graduated from college. To be honest, this is my closest contact with college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories, all of which are closely related to myself. Yes, they are just three stories.

The first story is about the connection between small things.

But for six months, I dropped out of Reed College, but after that, I stayed in the college for another 18 months before actually leaving. So why should I drop out of school?

I have to start from the time I was born. My biological mother is a young unmarried college student mother. She decided to send me to someone else's home and insist that the person who adopts me must be a college graduate. Before I was born, everything about adopting me was already arranged. I should have been sent to a lawyer, but when I was born, the lawyer and his wife found out at the last moment that what they really wanted was a girl. So my biological father and mother called the other family on the application list in the middle of the night. "We have a boy who was accidentally born. Do you want to adopt him?" They replied, "Of course I think." But later, I The mother found that my mother was not a college graduate, and my father didn’t even graduate from high school, so she refused to sign the adoption file. A few months later, she finally compromised because my parents promised to send me to college in the future.

Seventeen years have passed, and I really went to college. But I was ignorant of picking up a school that was as expensive as Stanford University. It was a tuition fee that cost my parents years of hard work, and they were just ordinary workers. After six months in school, I found that the school did not have any value to me. I don't know what my life expectation is, nor how I can find it at school. Moreover, I studied at school and spent my parents' savings. So I decided to drop out of school and firmly believe that this is the right decision. At the time, this was indeed a very risky move, but looking back today, it was the most sensible decision I made. After dropping out of school, I quickly escaped those boring courses and began to study subjects that I was really interested in.

But things are not perfect. I didn't have a bedroom after I dropped out of school, so I slept on the floor of my friend's bedroom. In order to have money to eat, I can return the bottle to the store, only for the deposit of 5 cents. On Sunday night every week, I have to walk 7 miles to eat a big meal at the Krishna Temple at the other end of the town. But I love this kind of life. Moreover, many of the things that I have done by curiosity and intuition have become valuable. Let me give an example.

At the time, Reed College had the best calligraphy class in the country. Walking on campus, every poster on the wall, every label stuck to the drawer, is written in a beautiful handwriting. Since I had dropped out of school and didn't have to go to class, I decided to sign up for a calligraphy training class and learn a beautiful word. In the course, I learned about the wick body and the serif body, the gap change between the letter combinations, and how to make the prints more beautiful. All this is so beautiful, so simple, so artistic, so subtle, that modern science cannot touch. I am so fascinated.

At the time, it seemed that these things did not have any practical significance in my life. But ten years later, when I was designing the first Apple computer, it all came back to my mind, and finally integrated into the Mac system, making our Apple computer the first computer to make text layout. If I didn't drop out of school at the time, I wouldn't be able to attend a calligraphy training class. The Mac system wouldn't have multiple font choices, and there would be no symmetrical gaps between the letters. And because Windows is a product of the Mac, it is possible that all personal computers now have no multi-words and wonderful letter gaps. These things are like one point at a time. When I was still at school, it was impossible to see how these points could be linked to each other in the future. But ten years later, looking back, everything is suddenly clear.

The same is true for you. It is impossible to connect the points now. Only after a while will the connections between them be revealed. But you have to believe that they can always be linked. Moreover, you still have to adhere to a belief, whether it is intuition, fate, or even life, or the afterlife, no matter what. I am so convinced, and I have benefited a lot from it, and my life is different.

The second story I am talking about is about love and failure.

I am lucky because I have found a career that I am willing to pursue throughout my life. When I was 20, I founded Apple in my parents' garage with Watts. We worked hard, and in less than a decade, we moved out of the garage from only two employees, both me and Woz, and employed more than 4,000 employees and had $2 billion in assets. Then, at the age of 30, I successfully launched our best artwork, the Macintosh. Then I was fired. How can a person be dismissed by a company he founded? Because, as Apple grew, we hired someone. At the time, I thought he was very talented and hoped he could run Apple with me. In the first year, everything looks good. But the good times are not long. We are slowly disagreeing with Apple's future, and finally we have a heated argument. But the company's board of directors stood on his side, so I left, just under the watchful eye of everyone. That year I was exactly 30 years old. What followed, as well as my goal of living in adulthood, at the time, it caused a considerable blow to me.

In the first few months, I didn't know what to do. I always feel that I let the previous generation of entrepreneurs disappoint, because I passed them to my baton and fell to the ground. I met David Packard and Bob Noyce and wanted to try to apologize because I messed things up. I feel that I have become a laughing stock of the public, and I even thought about escaping from Shibuya. But things started to take a turn for the better, and I still love my career. The failure of Apple did not reduce my love for my career. Although I feel frustrated, I still love it all. So I decided to start all over again.

I didn't realize it at the time, but then I discovered that being fired by Apple was the best thing that happened to me. Starting again, all the unknowns easily rid the pressure of success and gave me the most creative time of my life.

In the next five years, I set up two companies, one called NeXT, one called Pixar, and fell in love with a good woman, she is my current wife. Later, Pixar created the world's first full-computer-generated animated film, Toy Story, and has become the most successful animation company. At the same time, I also encountered a dramatic turn, Apple acquired NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology I developed in NeXT has become the source of Apple's current revival. Laurenta and I also have a happy family.

I am pretty sure that if I didn't leave Apple, it wouldn't happen. Leaving the apple is like a bitter medicine, but it is what my patient needs. Life may give you a heavy blow, but you must not lose your faith. I am convinced that it is my love for the cause I am engaged in to support me and keep me going. You are the same, you have to find what you love. This is true whether you are looking for a job or looking for a partner. Work will accompany you through a long period of time in your life. Only if you think that the work you are doing is great, you will truly feel satisfied, so you must love your work. If you don't know what it is now, then keep looking for it, don't deal with it. Believe in the feeling of your own heart, this feeling will tell you when you find it. This kind of work, like good love, is getting better with time. So be brave to find it, don't deal with it.

The last story is about death.

I read a sentence when I was 17 years old. The words are like this. "If you spend every day as the last day of your life, you will gain a lot of money one day." I have been deeply impressed by the words. From the 33 years since then, I have asked myself in the mirror every morning. "If today is the last day of my life, I will still do what I am going to do today. "If my answer is "no" for a few days, I know I need to make a change.

Always remind yourself that your life will end, this is the best way to help me make decisions about the important choices in life. Because all expectations, all pride, all fears, and all that are in the face of death are not worth mentioning. In the face of death, the most important talents in life remain. Always remind yourself that your life will end, this is the best way to prevent yourself from being afraid of your feet. Since you have nothing, why not listen to your inner thoughts?

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I went to check at 7:30 that morning and found a tumor on the pancreas. I don't know what pancreatic cancer means, but the doctor told me that pancreatic cancer is basically a terminal illness. I can live less than six months. The doctor advised me to go home immediately and summarize my various matters. Usually, this is the euphemism that doctors let patients prepare to face death. This means that in a month, you have to say what you want to say to the children in the next ten years; that means you have to arrange everything in your family to avoid causing trouble to your family; meaning, you Have to say goodbye to this world.

On that day, the diagnosis was in my mind all the time. Later in the night, the doctor took an endoscope through the stomach and intestines, placed a probe in my pancreas, removed several tumor cells, and performed a biopsy. I have been very calm until my wife told me that the doctor yelled excitedly when examining the slice under the microscope, because it is a very rare pancreatic cancer that can be cured by surgery. So I underwent surgery and now I am in good health.

This is the moment when I am closest to death. I sincerely hope that I will not have such an experience in the next few decades. After crossing this difficult time, it is only an abstract concept compared to death. Now I can say the following to you in a more certain tone.

Everyone does not want to die. Even if someone longs for heaven, he does not want to go there by death. But all of us will eventually fall into the arms of death. Everyone can't escape death, but this is the law of the development of things, because death may be the best creation of life. Death, as the messenger of the new and old life, erases the old things and allows the new forces to develop in space. At this moment, you are the new force, but not too long, you will grow old and disappear. I am sorry to say so pessimistic, but this is true.

Your time is limited. Don't go to life you don't want. It is a waste of time. Don't be bound by dogma, it is no doubt that you live in the minds of others. Don't let the opinions of others overwhelm your inner cry. The most important thing is that you have the courage to pursue your thoughts and pursue your perception. They really know what kind of person you want to be. All other factors can only be used for reference.

When I was young, there was a book called The Global Catalogue, which read it amazingly, the Bible of my generation. The author of the book is Stewart Brand, who uses his poetry to write this book vividly. He lives in Menlo Park, not far from here. It was still in the late 1960s, and personal computers and desktop publishing have not yet been invented. He can only use typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras. The book is the same as Google, but it was 35 years earlier than Google and is printed on paper. It is the product of idealism, full of great creativity and great ideas.

Stewart and his team launched several versions of the Global Catalog, and finally, when Global Catalog was about to exit the stage, they launched the final version. It was in the mid-1970s, when I was as big as you. On the back cover of the final version, there is a picture of a country road in the morning light. If some of you have bravely taken a car to someone else, you may have traveled such a path. There is such a sentence below the picture, "If you are hungry, you are humble and humble." This is their stop speech. If you are hungry, you will be humble. I have always asked myself this way. Now, when you are about to graduate and welcome a new starting point in life, I hope that you can remember this sentence.