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Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
2011/10/06 15:13:25瀏覽261|回應0|推薦0
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

賈伯斯在史丹佛大學的演講全文:

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¢ 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 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 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, it's 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 returned 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 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. 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 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 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.

譯者注:你或許讀過這篇演講稿,但今天重讀,你一定有不一樣的感受。蘋果公司共同創辦人賈伯斯二○○五年到加州史丹福大學畢業典禮
演講,後來被稱為「賈伯斯的人生三堂課」,曾感動無數人,在他過世後,昨天再度被全球網友瘋狂轉貼。他在演說中談到對死亡的看法、創業歷程和人生哲學,堪
稱賈伯斯畢生歷練的精華。本報特譯全文,讓讀者回顧與珍藏這篇歷史性演說。

 



 
從出生到被收養 一波三折


今天,我很榮幸和各位一同參加全球第一流大學的畢業典禮。本人大學沒畢業。老實說,這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天我只說三個親身的故事。沒什麼了不起。就是三個故事。


第一個故事,是人生的點點滴滴如何串在一塊。


我在里德學院念了六個月就休學,但多待了十八個月才離校。我為什麼要休學?


故事得從我出生前談起。我生母是未婚的大學研究生,她決定讓別人收養我,更認為應該讓擁有大學學歷的夫婦收養我。原本有對律師夫婦準備收養我。但他們想要
的其實是女孩。所以在等待收養名單上的一對夫妻,半夜裡接到電話詢問:「這裡突然有個男嬰,你們要嗎?」他們說:「當然。」後來我的生母發現,我現在的媽
媽大學沒畢業,我現在的爸爸連高中都沒畢業。她拒絕在收養文件上簽名。直到幾個月後,我的養父母承諾將來一定讓我上大學,她才改變心意。


十七年後,我真的上大學了。但我太天真,選了一所學費幾乎跟史丹福一樣貴的學校。我的父母是勞動階級,積蓄全拿來繳我的學費了。六個月後,我看不出念大學
的價值到底在哪裡。當時,我不曉得以後要做什麼,也不知道大學要怎麼幫我理出頭緒。而我在這裡念大學,花光了父母畢生的積蓄。於是我決定休學,相信船到橋
頭自然直。在當時,這是個讓人害怕的決定;但現在來看,卻是我這輩子做過最好的決定之一。一休學,我再也不上沒興趣的必修課,開始上看起來有意思的課。


可這一點兒也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍房間,所以在朋友房間打地鋪,靠回收可樂瓶罐每個五分錢的退瓶費買東西吃,每周日晚上穿越市區,走七哩遠的路到禮讚克里西那神廟飽餐一頓。我樂在其中。那時候基於好奇心和直覺,碰巧栽進去的事物,後來大多都成了無價之寶。


里德學院的英文書法課大概是全國最好的。校園各個角落的每張海報、教室抽屜的標籤,都是漂亮的書寫體。我休學,不用上正課,決定學書法。我學到了襯線字體
與無襯線字體,學會在不同的字母組合間變換間距,認識活版印刷偉大之處。這種優美、兼具歷史感與藝術感的微妙形式,是科學無法捕捉的。我覺得它很迷人。


我從未期待這些東西能在我的人生中發揮任何實際作用。然而,十年後,當我們在設計第一台麥金塔電腦時,這一切突然重新浮現在我腦海中。我們把這些想法都納
入麥金塔系統的程式設計。這是第一部具有優美字體的電腦。假如我當年在大學沒上過那一門課,麥金塔就不可能有那麼多種字體以及字母間距協調勻襯的字型。且
因視窗系統抄襲麥金塔,假如我沒輟學,就不會去旁聽書法課,所有個人電腦恐怕都不會有今天各種優美的字體。我念大學時,無法預見如何將這些點點滴滴串在一
起。但是十年後再回顧,就非常、非常清楚。


各位無法預先串連人生的點滴,只能在回顧時將其串連起來,因此必須相信這些點滴總會以某種方式在未來串連。各位必須相信某些事情──直覺、天命、人生、因果,凡此種種。這樣的想法從未讓我失望,也讓我的人生更美好。

從車庫起家 到員工四千人

 我的第二個故事,是關於愛與失去。


我很幸運,年輕時就發現自己喜歡做的事情。我二十歲時,就和沃茲合作,在我父母親的車庫創辦蘋果電腦。我們拚命工作,十年後,蘋果電腦已經從車庫二人組成
長為一家價值二十億美元、員工超過四千人的公司。我們一年前才推出最棒的作品──麥金塔,我剛滿三十歲。然後,我被解雇了。你怎麼會被自己創辦的公司解雇
呢?是這樣的,當蘋果日益擴大,我聘請一位我認為很有才華的人跟我一起經營公司,起初合作愉快。但我們對願景的想法開始不同,鬧到決裂。董事會挺他,炒了
我魷魚,公開把我掃地出門。我成年後的生活重心全部消失了,對我打擊很大。


我有好幾個月實在不知該如何是好,更覺得令企業界前輩失望了:他們傳給我的接力棒,掉了。我找了派克(惠普科技創辦人之一)和諾宜斯(英特爾創辦人之
一),試圖向他們道歉,因為我搞砸了。我是個眾所周知的失敗者,甚至想遠離矽谷。然而我慢慢領悟,我仍喜歡我本來做的事,我在蘋果發生的波折絲毫都沒有改
變這一點,即使人們否定我,可是我還是愛做那些事情,所以我決定從頭來過。


當時我沒察覺,不過被蘋果炒魷魚變成我人生中最棒的遭遇。成功的沉重被重新創業的輕鬆取代,每件事都少一點確定,讓我進入人生中最有創意的階段。


接下來的五年我創辦了一家叫做NeXT的公司,又創辦另一家叫做皮克斯的公司,還愛上了一個好女人,她後來成為我的妻子。皮克斯製作了世上第一部電腦動畫
劇情長片「玩具總動員」,它也是當今最成功的動畫製片廠。在某個奇特的形勢變化下,蘋果買下NeXT,我回到蘋果,我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果重振
雄風的關鍵,羅倫和我也共組了美滿的家庭。


我敢打包票,蘋果沒開除我的話,這些事絕不會發生。這是帖苦藥,可是我認為良藥苦口利於病。有時候,老天會拿磚塊砸你的頭。不要失去信心。我很確信,我能
堅持下去的唯一理由就是我愛自己所做的事。你必須找到你的所愛,對工作、對愛情都一樣。工作會占去你一大塊人生,唯一能真正滿足的方法,就是去做你認為偉
大的事情。要做偉大的事,唯一方法就是做你愛做的事。如果你還沒找到,繼續觀察,不要停止。全心全意去找,發現時自然會知道。就像所有美妙的關係,隨時間
展延,只會愈來愈好,所以繼續找,找到為止。

從接近死神 到了解死亡


我的第三個故事,是關於死亡。


十七歲時讀到的一則格言影響了我:「把每一天都當成生命中的最後一天,你終會找到人生的方向。」過去三十三年,每天早上我都會攬鏡自問:「如果今天是我人生的最後一天,我會想做我今天要做的事嗎?」每當連續好多天答案都是否定時,我就會知道我必須有所改變了。


提醒自己快死了,是我做重大決定時最重要的工具。幾乎每件事,所有外界期望、所有名譽、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼,在面對死亡時,全消失了,只有最重要的東西才會留下。提醒自己你快死了,是最好的方法,避免掉進患得患失的陷阱。你本來就一無所有,沒理由不順心而為。


一年前,我被判定得了癌症。早上七點半做斷層掃描時,發現胰臟裡出現腫瘤,我甚至不知道胰臟是什麼器官。醫生告訴我,幾乎確定是不治之症,頂多再活三到六
個月。醫生要我回家,交代後事。醫生對末期病人都會說這樣的話。這表示你要在幾個月內,對孩子說完本來是未來十年要告訴他們的話;這也表示你要把每件事安
排好,家人才會比較好過,這更表示你要向所有人說再見。


診斷結果讓我想了一整天。傍晚時,我被帶去做切片,他們把內視鏡從我喉嚨伸進去,穿過我的胃,進入腸子,把針刺進胰臟,取得一些腫瘤細胞。我打了麻醉,不
省人事,但是我太太在場,她後來告訴我,當他們在顯微鏡下看見細胞時,醫生們都脫口而出驚呼,因為這是一種很少見、可以用手術治癒的胰臟癌,後來我接受手
術,現在沒事了。


那是我最靠近死神的一刻,希望也是未來幾十年最接近的一次。有了這次經驗,比起從前死亡只是一個有用但純粹抽象的概念,我可以更確定的對你們說:沒有人想
死。即使那些想上天堂的人,也不想搭乘死亡列車抵達那裏。然而,死亡是我們共同的宿命,沒有人能逃過這個宿命,死亡很可能是生命獨一無二的最棒發明,它是
生命更替變化的媒介,它清除老一代的生命,為新一代開道。此刻的新一代是你們,不久的將來,你們也會變老,並且被清掉。很抱歉講這麼誇張,但是實話。


人生苦短,不要浪費時間活在別人的陰影裡;不要被教條困住,活在別人思考的結果裡。不要讓他人意見的雜音壓過自己的心聲。最重要的,有勇氣去追隨自己的內心與直覺。它們已經知道你真的想成為什麼樣的人。其他均屬次要。


我年輕的時候,有本很棒的刊物叫做「全球目錄」,是我這一代的聖經之一。這本刊物是一個名叫史都華‧布蘭德的傢伙,在離這裏不遠的門羅公園創辦的,他以自
己詩意的感受賦與這本刊物生命。那是一九六○年代晚期的事了,當時,個人電腦與桌上型電腦尚未誕生,所以,這本刊物全都是用打字機、剪刀與拍立得相機製作
而成,它就像紙本Google,比Google早了三十五年問世;它很理想化、充滿了很優的工具跟概念。


史都華與他的團隊發行了幾期「全球目錄」,當這本刊物完成使命後發行了最後一期。當時是一九七○年代中期,我和各位年紀差不多。最後一期封底,有張清晨鄉
間公路的照片,那是某種夠有冒險精神的人可能會在那裏搭便車的路。照片下面有一段話:「求知若飢,虛心若愚。」那是他們停刊的告別辭。


求知若飢,虛心若愚,我一直以此自許。各位現在畢業了,展開人生新的一頁之際,我也以此期許各位:求知若飢,虛懷若愚。


非常謝謝大家。




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