Stanford University Commencement

---

• Thank you.
• I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement[1] from one of the finest universities in the world.
  [1] commencement.
  1.1 the beginning of something.
  e.g. the commencement of building work.
  1.2 a ceremony at which university, college, or high school students receive their diplomas
  Picture for Commencement

• Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
• Today, I wanna tell you three stories from my life. That's it, not big deal, just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

• I dropped out [2] of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop in [3] for another eighteen months also before I really quit.
  Reed College
  [2] dropped out.
  If someone drops out of college or a race, for example, they leave it without finishing what they started.
  e.g. He'd dropped out of high school at the age of 16.
  [3] drop in.
  If you drop in on someone, you visit them informally, usually without having arranged it.
  e.g. Why not drop in for a chat with us?
  a drop-in == an auditor. == a listener.(not a formal student)
  a person who attends a class informally without working for academic credit.

• So why did I dropped out?
• It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young unwed graduate student [4], and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates.
  [4] graduate student.
  A graduate student is someone who has earned a bachelor’s degree and is pursuing additional education in a specific field.

• So everything was all set for me to be adopted by a lawyer and his wife.

• Except 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 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 my father had never graduated from high school, she refused to sign the final adoption papers.

• She only relented [5] a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
  [5] relent.
  abandon or mitigate a harsh intention or cruel treatment.
  e.g. "she was going to refuse his request, but relented"
  (She changed her mind and signed the paper finally.)

• This was a start in my life.

• At seventeen 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 [5] parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.
  [5] working-class == laboring-class.
  The working class (also laboring class) are the people employed for wages especially in manual-labor occupations and industrial work Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some white-collar jobs, and most pink-collar jobs.

• 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 my 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 that 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 look 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 [6] for the 5 cent deposits [7] to buy food with.
  [6] returned coke bottles

[7] deposits.
a sum of money placed or kept in a bank account, usually to gain interest.
e.g. "we've saved enough for a deposit on a house"

deposit

• And I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple [8].
  [8] the Hare Krishna temple
  the Hare Krishna temple

• I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into [9] by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
  [9]. stumble.
  trip or momentarily lose one's balance; almost fall.
  e.g. "her foot caught a shoe and she stumbled"
  trip repeatedly as one walks.
  e.g. "his legs still weak, he stumbled after them"
  make a mistake or repeated mistakes in speaking.
  e.g. "she stumbled over the words"
  stumble into someone or something
  to trip and lurch into someone or something.
  e.g. Not seeing the brick in the path, Carl tripped and stumbled into Alice. Jamie stumbled into the wall.
  

  stumble into

• Let me give you one example, Reed college at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy [10] instruction in the country.
  [10] calligraphy
  decorative handwriting or handwritten lettering.
  the art of producing decorative handwriting or lettering with a pen or brush.

• Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand calligrapher.

• 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.

  
  serif and san serif

• 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 never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never had multiple typefaces or proportionally [11] spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
  [11] proportion.
  a part of a number or an amount, considered in relation to the whole.
  e.g. The proportion of women graduates has increased in recent years.

• 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 [12], destiny, life, karma [13], whatever...because believing that these dots would connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.
  [12] gut.
  a reaction or feeling that you are sure is right, although you cannot give a reason for it.
  e.g. He had a gut feeling that Sarah was lying.
  [13] karma.
  the belief that all the good and bad things that you do in this life affect how good or bad your future lives will be, according to the Hindu and Buddhist religions.

• Even when it leads you off the well-worn [14] path, and that will make all the difference.
  [14]. well-worn.
  showing the signs of extensive use or wear.
  e.g. "a well-worn leather armchair"
  (of a phrase, idea, or joke) used or repeated so often that it no longer has interest or significance.
  well-worn path

My second story is about Love And Loss.

• I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life.

• Wards and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard and in ten years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
  

  garage

• We 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 [15].
  

  diverge

[15]. falling out
a quarrel or disagreement.
"the two of them had a falling-out"

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. [16]
  [16]. devastating
  highly destructive or damaging.
  "a devastating cyclone struck Bangladesh"
  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 [17] as it was being passed to me.
  [17] baton
  a thin stick used by a conductor to direct an orchestra or choir.
  using a baton to direct the orchestra

a short stick or tube passed from runner to runner in a relay race.

passing the baton

• I met with David Packard and Bob Noyes, and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.

  
  David Packard from Hewlett-Packard Company

• I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.
• But something slowly began to dawn [18] on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.
  [18] dawn
  the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise.
  image.png

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn

• 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.
  NeXT
  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 featured 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 at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.
• And Laurence 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 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 your 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 the matters of the heart, you will 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.

My third story is about death.

when I was seventeen, 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 was the last of my life, would I wanna do what I'm about to do today.".
• And whenever the answer had 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.

tumor pancreas

• 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 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 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.

  
  biopsy

endoscope intestines

• I was sedated [19] but my wife who was there told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctors started crying.
  [19] sedate
  to give someone drugs to make them calm or to make them sleep
  He was still in shock, and heavily sedated.

• 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.

• 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 wanna go to heaven, don't wanna 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 and make way for the new.

• Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you'll 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.

Drowning

• When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.
  

  The Whole Earth Catalog

• It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park,

• And he brought it to life [20] with his poetic touch, this was in the late 60's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras.
  bring to life. [20]
  regain or cause to regain consciousness or return as if from death.
  "all this was of great interest to her, as if she were coming to life after a long sleep"
  scissors
  Polaroid camera

• It was sort of like Google in paperback form 35 years before Google came along.

  
  paperback

• It was idealistic and overflowing [21] with neat tools and great notions.
  [21]. overflowing
  

  image.png

• 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-1970's 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 [22] message as they signed off: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
  [22] farewell
  an act of parting or of marking someone's departure.
  "the dinner had been arranged as a farewell"

• And I have always wished that for myself, and now as you graduate to begin a new, I wish that for you, Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

• Thank you all very much.