thank you I'm honored to be with you

today for your commencement from one of

the finest universities in the world

[Applause]

truth be told I never graduated 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

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 so why did 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 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've got an

unexpected baby boy do you want him they

said of course my biological mother

found out later 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 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 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 the money 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 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 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

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 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

calligraphed 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 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 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 typefaces

or proportionally spaced fonts and since

windows just copied the Mac it's likely

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 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 because believing that the dots

will connect down the road will give you

the confidence 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 I

was lucky I found what I loved to do

early in life woz and I started Apple in

my parent's 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 two billion dollar company

with over 4,000 employees we just

released our finest creation the

Macintosh a year earlier and I 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 and 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'd 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've 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

world's 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 and I returned to Apple and

the technology we developed it next is

at the heart of Apple's current

Renaissance and Laureen 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 sometime

life sometimes life's gonna hit 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 work as it is for

your lovers

your work is gonna 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 and

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 don't settle

[Applause]

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'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 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 3 to 6

months my doctor advised me to go home

and get my affairs in order which is

doctors 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 will be as easy as possible for

your family it means to say your

goodbyes

I live 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 doctor 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 thankfully I'm fine now

[Applause]

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 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 its life's change agent it clears

out the old to make way for the new

right now the new is you but some day

not too long from now you will gradually

become the old and be cleared away sorry

to be so dramatic but it's 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

others 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 Bible's of

my generation it was created by a fellow

named Stuart brand not far from here in

Menlo Park and he brought it to life

with his poetic touch this was in the

late 60s before personal computers and

desktop publishing so it was all made

with typewriters scissors and Polaroid

cameras it was sort of like Google and

paperback form 35 years before Google

came along it was idealistic overflowing

with neat tools and great notions 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 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

[Applause]

{{}}

谢谢你们今天很荣幸能和

你们一起从世界

上最好的大学之一

毕业[掌声]说实话我从来没有从

大学毕业，这是我今天离

大学毕业最近的一次

我 想告诉你

我生命中的三个故事，这没什么大不了的，

只是三个故事第一个故事是

关于连接我

在前六个月从里德学院辍学的点点

滴滴，然后又作为一个辍学者留在了大约

18 个月左右 在我

真正辞职之前为什么我退出了它

在我出生之前就开始了我的亲生

母亲是一个年轻的未婚

研究生，她决定让我

收养她非常强烈地认为我

应该被大学毕业生收养

所以一切都很好 让我

在出生时被一位律师和他的

妻子收养，但当我突然出现时，他们

在最后一刻决定他们

真的想要一个女孩，所以我

在等候名单上的父母在中间接到了电话

那天晚上问我们有一个

意想不到的男婴，你想要他吗，他们

说当然是我的亲生母亲

后来发现我母亲从未

从大学毕业，而我

父亲从未从高中

毕业，她拒绝在决赛上签字

几个月后，当我的父母

承诺我会上

大学时，她才

松了口气 六个月后，我工薪阶层

父母的积蓄花在了我的

大学学费上 我

看不到其中的价值 我不

知道我想用我的生活做什么

，也不知道

大学将如何帮助我弄清楚 在

这里，我花光了

父母为他们挽救了一生的所有钱，所以我

决定辍学，相信

一切都会好起来的

当我辍学的那一刻，我可以

停止参加

我不感兴趣的必修课，并开始

参加那些看起来更

有趣的课程。这并不浪漫我

没有宿舍，所以我睡

在 在朋友房间的地板上我退回

可乐瓶以支付 5 美分的押金

以购买食物，每周日晚上我会步行

7 英里穿过城镇，

每周在

哈里·克里希纳 (Hari Krishna) 寺庙吃一顿美餐

跟随我的

好奇心和直觉后来证明是

无价的让我举个

例子里德学院当时

提供了可能是全国最好的书法

教学在

整个校园每张海报每个抽屉上的每个标签

都是精美的手绘

因为我 已经辍学

，不必参加普通

课程 我决定参加书法

课来学习如何做到这一点 我了解

了关于改变 amoun 的衬线和无衬线字体

不同字母组合之间的空间，

关于是什么让伟大的排版变得伟大

它是美丽的历史艺术

微妙的方式，科学无法

捕捉，我发现它很迷人

，这些都没有希望

在我的生活中有任何实际应用，但 10 年

后来，当我们设计第一台

Macintosh 计算机时，这一切都回到了

我的脑海，我们将它全部设计到 Mac 中

，

如果我在大学里没有参加过

那门单一的课程，Mac

将永远不会有多个排版。 字体

或按比例间隔的字体，而且由于

Windows 只是复制了 Mac，

如果我从未

辍学，很可能没有个人电脑会拥有

它们 当然，

在我

上大学的时候，向前看是不可能的，但

向后看十点非常清楚 多年

以后，你无法连接向前看的点点滴滴

，你只能连接它们

向后看，所以你必须

相信点点滴滴会在你的未来以某种方式连接起来

你必须相信

你的直觉命运生活业力，

因为相信这些点点滴滴

将沿着这条路连接 会让你

有信心跟随你的心，

即使它会让你偏离陈旧的道路

，这会让一切变得不同 我的

第二个故事是关于爱和失落 我

很幸运我找到了我喜欢做的事

早年我和沃兹 20 岁时在

我父母的车库里创办了

Apple

一年前创建了 Macintosh，我

刚满 30 岁，然后我被解雇了，

你怎么能从一家你起步很好的公司被解雇，

随着苹果的成长，我们聘请了一个

我认为非常有才华的人来管理

公司 和我在一起，第一年

左右事情进展顺利，但后来我们

对未来的愿景开始出现分歧

，最终当我们这样做时我们发生了争吵，

我们的董事会站在

他一边，所以在 30 岁时我就出局了，而且非常

公开

我整个成年生活的重心都消失了，这是

毁灭性的。几个月来我真的不知道该怎么

办我觉得我

让上一代企业家

失望了 它

被传给了我我会见了大卫

帕卡德和鲍勃诺伊斯并试图

为搞砸了这么严重而道歉

我做了什么

苹果公司发生的事情并没有改变

那一点我被拒绝了但

我仍然爱着所以我决定重新

开始我当时没有看到但

事实证明被苹果公司解雇

是 可能发生的最好的

事情 d 对我来说，成功的沉重被

重新成为初学者的轻松所取代

皮克斯并爱上

了一位后来成为我妻子的了不起的女人

皮克斯继续创作了

世界上第一部电脑动画

故事片《玩具总动员》，现在

是世界上最成功的动画工作室，

苹果

接下来收购了我和我 回到苹果公司，

我们接下来开发的技术是

苹果公司当前复兴的核心

尝药，但我

猜病人有时需要它

有时生活会

用砖头砸你的头 不要失去信心

我相信唯一能让我

保持 我的意思是我喜欢我

所做的你必须找到你喜欢的东西，这对于工作和你的爱人

一样真实

你的工作将占据你生活的大部分

时间，并且是真正满足的唯一途径

就是做你认为

伟大的工作，而做伟大工作的唯一方法

就是热爱你所做的事情，如果你

还没有找到它，继续寻找，

不要安于所有

内心的事情，你会知道什么时候 你找到了它，

就像任何伟大的关系一样

，随着岁月的流逝，它会变得越来越好，

所以继续寻找不要解决

[掌声]

我的第三个故事是关于死亡的，当我

17 岁时，我读到了一句话，

就像如果你活着 每一天都好像这是

你的最后一天 你肯定

是对的 它给我留下了深刻的印象，

从那时起，在过去的 33 年里，我

每天早上都照镜子

问自己今天是不是我的最后

一天 生活我想做的

事情我今天要做的事情以及当

答案对太多人来说是否定的时候

连续几天我知道我需要改变一些事情

记住我很快就会死是

我遇到过的最重要的工具

来帮助我做出

人生中的重大选择因为几乎

所有的外部期望所有的

骄傲都害怕尴尬 或者

失败 这些东西

在死亡面前就消失了 只留下

真正重要的东西 记住你

将要死是我所知道的最好的方法

避免陷入认为你有

东西要失去的陷阱 你已经赤身裸体

没有理由 不要跟随你的

心 大约一年前我被诊断出

患有癌症 我在早上 7:30 进行了扫描

，它清楚地显示我的胰腺上有一个肿瘤

我什至不知道

医生告诉我的胰腺

是什么 几乎可以肯定是一种

无法治愈的癌症，我的

寿命预计不会超过 3 到 6

个月，我的医生建议我回家

整理我的事务，这是

医生准备死亡的代码，这意味着

尝试和打电话 l 你的孩子，

你认为在未来 10 年内你会

在短短几个月内告诉他们的

一切 这意味着确保一切都搞定，

这样对

你的家人来说尽可能容易 意味着说

再见

我活着 那个诊断结果

那天晚上晚些时候，我做了活检，他们

把一个内窥镜从我的喉咙里

穿过我的胃，进入我的

肠子，把一根针插入我的胰腺

，从肿瘤中取出了一些细胞，我被

镇静了，但我的妻子在那里

告诉我，当他们

在显微镜下观察细胞时，医生开始

哭泣，因为结果证明这是一种

非常罕见的胰腺癌，

可以通过手术治愈。我做了

手术，谢天谢地我现在很好

[掌声]

这是 我离死亡最近的一次

，我希望这是

我经历了几十年后

最接近的一次 想死，

即使是想去天堂的人

也不想死去那里

，但死亡是我们共同的目的地，

没有人逃脱过它，

这应该是因为死亡

很可能是最好的

生命的发明它生命的改变剂它

清除旧的为新的让路

现在新的就是你但

不久之后的某一天你会逐渐

变旧并被清除

对不起如此戏剧化但它很 真的，

你的时间是有限的，所以不要浪费它过

别人的生活

不要被教条所困，教条是

按照别人的想法生活的，

不要让

别人的意见淹没你自己内心的

声音，最重要的是

有勇气跟随你的心和

直觉 他们不知何故已经知道

你真正想成为什么 其他一切

都是次要

的 我年轻的时候有一本很棒的

出版物，叫做《全球

目录》，它是我同辈的圣经之一

它是由

离这里不远的

门洛帕克（Menlo Park）的一个名叫 Stuart Brand 的家伙创建的，他以诗意的笔触将它变为现实

，这是在

60 年代后期，在个人电脑和

桌面出版之前，所以它都是

用打字机剪刀和宝丽来

相机制作的 它有点像谷

歌出现前 35 年的谷歌平装本，

充满

了简洁的工具和伟大的理念 Stuart

和他的团队推出了几期

《全球目录》，然后当它运行时，

他们推出了一个 最后一

期是 1970 年代中期，我在

他们最后一期的封底上是你的年龄，

是一张清晨

乡村公路的照片，

如果你

在它下面如此冒险，你可能会发现自己搭便车

饥饿保持愚蠢这是他们的

告别信息，因为他们签署了保持

饥饿保持愚蠢，我一直

希望为自己，现在当你

毕业重新开始时，我希望

你 饿着肚子呆着呆着 非常感谢大家

[鼓掌]