At his Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar
June 12, 2005
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.
그 당시 리드 대학에서는 아마도 우리나라 최고의 서예 강의를 제공했습니다. 교정 내 여기저기의 모든 포스터, 모든 서랍장의 모든 라벨은 아름다운 필체로 젹혀 있었습니다. 제가 중퇴를 했고 정규수업들을 수강하지 않아도 되었기에, 저는 이것을 어떻게 쓰는 것인지 배우기 위해 서예 강의를 수강하기로 결심했습니다. Serif 와 San serif 서체들을 배웠고, 다른 문자 조합들 사이의 공백을 달리하는 것을 배웠고, 무엇이 훌륭한 서체를 훌륭하게 만드는지 배웠습니다. 그것은 어떤 면에서 과학이 정보화할 수 없기에 아름다웠고, 역사적이었으며, 예술적으로 절묘했습니다. 제게 서체는 정말 매력적이었습니다.
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, its 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.
이것이 제 인생에서 실제로 적용될거란 그 어떤 희망조차 갖지 않았었습니다. 하지만 10년 후, 우리가 첫번째 맥킨토시 컴퓨터를 디자인할 때, 모든 것이 제게 돌아왔습니다. 그리고 우리는 모든 것을 맥에 적용했습니다. 아름다운 서체를 가진 첫번째 컴퓨터였습니다. 제가 만약 대학에서 그 단과강좌를 참여하지 않았었다면, 맥은 절대 다양하며 비례적인 공간을 갖는 서체를 갖지 못했을 것입니다. 그리고 윈도우가 맥을 그대로 모방했기에, 위와 같은 서체를 갖지 못한 컴퓨터는 없을 것 같습니다. 제가 만약 중퇴하지 않았었다면, 서체 수업도 듣지 않았을 것이고, 컴퓨터는 그들이 가지고 있는 훌륭한 서체를 아마도 가지지 못했을지도 모릅니다. 당연하겠지만 대학 때는 앞을 내다보며 결론에 도달하는 것이 불가능했습니다. 하지만 창립 후 10년 뒤를 되돌아보면 결론은 명확했습니다.
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.
다시 말하면, 여러분은 앞을 내다보며 결론에 도달할 수 없습니다, 오직 과거를 되돌아보며 결론에 도달할 수 있습니다. 그렇기에 여러분은 당신의 미래 언젠가는 결론에 도달할 것임을 믿어야만 합니다. 여러분은 직감, 운명, 삶, 업보, 무엇이든 믿어야만 합니다. 왜냐면 그 점들이 장차 언젠가는 연결될거란 믿음이 당신에게 마음에서 우러나는 자신감을 줄 것이기 때문입니다. 당신이 진부한 계획으로 시작할 때조차도, 그 계획은 장차 모든 차이점을 만들 것입니다.
My second story is about love and loss.
저의 두번째 이야기는 사랑과 상실에 대한 것입니다.
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.
저는 운이 좋았습니다. 그렇기에 인생의 초반부에 제가 하고자 사랑하는 것을 찾은거죠. 워즈와 전, 제가 20세 때 애플이란 회사를 제 부모집의 주차장에서 시작했습니다. 우리는 열심히 일했고, 그랬기에 10년 안에 애플은 주차장에서 단 두명으로 시작해 4,000명의 직원과 함께하는 20억달러 가치의 회사로 성장했습니다. 우리는 막 우리의 최선의 창조물인 맥킨토시를 예정보다 1년 더 일찍 공개했고, 제 나이 30세가 되었습니다. 그 후 전 해고되었습니다. 여러분, 어떻게 여러분이 시작한 회사에서 해고될 수 있을까요? 그건, 애플이 성장함에 따라 우린 제가 생각하기에 저와 함께 회사를 운영하는데 큰 재능을 가진 누군가를 고용했고, 첫 해 혹은 그 즈음엔 잘 운영되었습니다. 하지만 미래에 대한 우리의 비젼이 갈리기 시작했고 결국 우리 사이는 틀어졌습니다. 우리가 서로 틀어졌을 때, 회사의 임원진들은 그를 지지했습니다. 그래서 제 나이 30세에 전 회사를 나오게 되었습니다. 매우 공개적이었죠. 제 모든 성년기를 바쳤던 것이 없어졌고, 상당히 충격적이었습니다.
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 retuned 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 its 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 other’s 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.
