translation:
am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the best universities in the world. I did not ever graduate. To be honest, this is the closest thing to a degree, for me.
Today I want to tell you three stories that belong to me. That's it. Nothing special. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months but I stayed around for another 18 months before leaving permanently. Why did I do?
all started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unmarried college student and decided to give me up for adoption. He felt in his heart that I should be adopted by a graduate, so I was prepared for the adoption at birth by a lawyer and his wife.
Only when I saw the light at the last minute they decided they wanted a child. So my parents, who were on the waiting list, were called in the middle of the night by a voice asking: "We have an unwanted child, you want it?" They said, "Sure." My biological mother later discovered that my mother had never graduated that my father had not even graduated from high school. He refused to sign the documents for adoption. He agreed, reluctantly, only a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
17 years later I went to college. But I naively chose a college as expensive as Stanford, and all the savings of my parents were often employed for the line. After six months I could not see any use. I had no idea what to do in life and no clue as to how the university could help me understand. So spent all the money my parents had saved an entire life's work. I decided not to follow the plan of compulsory education, trusting that all would. I was very frightened by that decision, but in hindsight, was one of the best decisions I ever made. The moment I chose a personal study plan I had the ability to ignore the lessons that I did not care and choose the ones that I looked more interesting.
It was not all romantic. I had a room at the dorm, so I slept on the floor in the rooms of friends. Returned the empty Coke for 5 cents deposit, we buy food, and I did more than 10 miles on foot through the town every Sunday night for a meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. That's nice. Everything that I stumbled just following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be my value as a result of invaluable.
For example:
Reed College at that time offered what was perhaps the best calligraphy class in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand-written. I decided to take calligraphy lessons. I learned the difference between the types of characters with grace and without thanks. I learned the importance of spatial variation between different combinations of characters. They taught me what elements make typography great typography. It was fascinating: it was history, beauty and art as science can not capture.
None of this had mnima though the hope of any application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, everything came back good. And mettemo entirely in the Mac was the first computer to cure the print shop. If I'd never have chosen that course in college, the Mac would never have proportional fonts and fixed-width fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no computer would have them. If I had not chosen to stop the plan of compulsory education would not have chosen that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they have. It was obviously impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college and understand what it would have made concrete. But the realization was clear estremamenta, guardardando behind him, ten years later.
I repeat, you can not connect the dots looking forward, you can connect them in a drawing, if you look at the past. You then need to be confident that the dots will connect in some way in your future. You must have faith in something - your intuition, fate, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never disappointed me and has made all the difference in my life
The second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky - I found what I loved to do very soon. Woz and I founded Apple in my parents garage when I was twenty. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple grew from two to we were in a garage to a company with $ 2 billion more than 4000 employees.
We just created our best product - the Macintosh - a year before, and I had just turned 30. And I got fired. How can you be dismissed from the company you founded? Well, as soon as the Apple expanded we hired someone who I thought was very good at managing the business with me, and for the first year or so things went well.
But our vision of the future began to diverge and eventually we decided to break. When we were breaking our leaders decided to stay on his side. Thus, thirty years, I was out. And very publicly. The center of my adult life was completely gone, gone, was devastating.
I did not know which way to turn for a while 'for months. I felt I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs have to let go. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce to try to apologize for screwing up so badly. It was a very public failure, I even thought of leaving. But something slowly, there was light in me. I still loved what I had done. The unexpected and sudden change at Apple had not changed what I felt, not even a little. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. So I decided to start over.
At the time I did not noticed, but my dismissal from Apple was the best thing that could happen. The weight of success was replaced by illumination of being a beginner again, with much less security throughout. This freed me and allowed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I founded a company named NeXT, another named Pixar, I fell in love with a beautiful woman who would become my wife.
Pixar eventually create the first computer-animated film in history, Toy Story, and is now the most famous animation studio in the world. Apple, with a significant move, acquired NeXT, I returned to Apple, and technology development with NeXT is now in the heart of the Renaissance Apple. Laurene and I have a wonderful family.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I had not been fired from Apple. It 'been a bitter pill to throw down, but it was the medicine I needed. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Do not lose faith. I am convinced that the only thing that allowed me to continue was the love I felt for what I did. you find what you love. And 'this is as true for your work and for those who love you. The work will fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you think is the best job. And the only way to do the job better and to love what you do. If you have not yet found, keep looking. Do not stop. Like all love affairs, you'll know when you find it. And, as in the best relationships, become better and better over the years. So keep looking until you have found. Do not stop.
The third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a story that said more or less: "If you live each day as if it were the last, sooner or later it will really be." I was impressed, and since then, for the past 33 years, I looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, I really want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer is "No" for too many days in a row I knew I needed to change something.
Remember that I will die soon is the most important tool that allowed me to make the big choices in my life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, pride, fear of failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving us with what is really important.
Remember that 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 did a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I did not know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me it was definitely a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I had a life expectancy of no more than 3-6 months. My doctor advised me to go home and fix my stuff, which is the coded message to tell the doctors prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought to tell him over the next ten years, in a few months. It means that you should make sure that everything is in place so that will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say goodbye.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later in the afternoon, I was a biopsy. I have inserted an endoscope into the throat that has passed through my stomach and my intestines. They put a needle into my pancreas and collected some cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they analyzed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it was discovered that a rare form of pancreatic cancer, curable with surgery. I was operated on. I'm fine now.
It 'been my experience closer to death and I hope to remain so for several more decades. Having passed I can finally say with more certainty than when death was simply a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die
. Even those who want to go to heaven wants to die to get there. And despite everything, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped. And so it should be because death is probably the single best invention of Life. And 'Life's change agent. Delete the old to make room for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too far from now, you will gradually become the old and should be discarded. Sorry to be so dramatic, but this is the truth.
Your time is limited, so do not waste it living someone else's life . Do not be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of the thinking of others. Do not let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice leaves. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition. They already know what you really want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog , who was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not too far from here in Menlo Park, and brought it to life with his poetic touch. We're talking the late '60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, quid was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid. Google was a kind of paper, 35 years before the coming of Google: it was idealistic, and full of useful tools and valuable information.
Stewart and his team publicist many catalog numbers of the Great World to the last edition. We were in the mid 70s and I was your age. On the back cover of the last issue there was a picture of a country road at dawn, such a path on which you might find yourself hitchhiking if private seasonal so adventurous. Below were the words "Be hungry, be foolish be absurd." That was the message of leave. Stay hungry. Remain neutral Stay absurd. I have always wished. And now, for you are about to graduate, I wish that for you.
Be hungry. Be crazy.
Thanks.
