0:01 [Music]
0:07 this program is brought to you by
0:08 Stanford University please visit us at
0:11 stanford.edu
0:20 thank
0:26 you I'm uh honored to be with you today
0:29 for your commencement from one of the
0:30 finest universities in the
0:33 [Applause]
0:34 world truth be
0:37 told uh I never graduated from
0:40 college and uh this is the closest I've
0:43 ever gotten to a college
0:46 graduation today I want to tell you
0:49 three stories from my life that's it no
0:52 big deal just three
0:54 stories the first story is about
0:57 connecting the dots
1:00 I dropped out of Reed College after the
1:02 first 6 months but then stayed around as
1:04 a drop in for another 18 months or so
1:06 before I really
1:08 quit so why' I drop
1:11 out it started before I was
1:14 born my biological mother was a young
1:17 unwed graduate student and she decided
1:19 to put me up for
1:21 adoption she felt very strongly that I
1:23 should be adopted by college graduates
1:26 so everything was all set for me to be
1:28 adopted at Birth by a lawyer and a his
1:30 wife except that when I popped out they
1:33 decided at the last minute that they
1:35 really wanted a
1:36 girl so my parents who were on a waiting
1:39 list got a call in the middle of the
1:41 night asking we've got an unexpected
1:44 baby boy do you want him they said of
1:49 course my biological mother found out
1:52 later that my mother had never graduated
1:54 from college and that my father had
1:56 never graduated from high school she
1:59 refused to signed the final adoption
2:02 papers she only relented a few months
2:04 later when my parents promised that I
2:07 would go to college this was the start
2:10 in my
2:12 life and 17 years later I did go to
2:16 college but I naively chose a college
2:19 that was almost as expensive as
2:21 Stanford and all of my workingclass
2:23 parents savings were being spent on my
2:25 college tuition after 6 months I
2:28 couldn't see the value in it
2:30 I had no idea what I wanted to do with
2:32 my life and no idea how College was
2:34 going to help me figure it out and here
2:37 I was spending all the money my parents
2:39 had saved their entire
2:41 life so I decided to drop out and trust
2:44 that it would all work out okay it was
2:47 pretty scary at the time but looking
2:49 back it was one of the best decisions I
2:51 ever
2:52 made the minute I dropped out I could
2:56 stop taking the required classes that
2:58 didn't interest me and begin dropping in
3:00 on the ones that looked far more
3:03 interesting it wasn't all romantic I
3:06 didn't have a dorm room so I slept on
3:08 the floor in friends rooms I returned
3:10 Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to
3:13 buy food with and I would walk the seven
3:15 miles across town every Sunday night to
3:18 get one good meal a week at the Hari
3:20 Krishna Temple I loved it and much of
3:24 what I stumbled into by following my
3:26 curiosity and intuition turned out to be
3:28 Priceless later on let me give you one
3:31 example Reed College at that time
3:34 offered perhaps the best calligraphy
3:36 instruction in the country throughout
3:38 the campus every poster every label on
3:41 every drawer was beautifully hand
3:44 cigraph because I had dropped out and
3:46 didn't have to take the normal classes I
3:49 decided to take a calligraphy class to
3:51 learn how to do this I learned about
3:53 serif and Sans serif type faces about
3:56 varying the amount of space between
3:57 different letter combinations about what
4:00 makes great typography
4:02 great it was beautiful historical
4:05 artistically subtle in a way that
4:07 science can't capture and I found it
4:10 fascinating none of this had even a hope
4:13 of any practical application in my
4:16 life but 10 years later when we were
4:19 designing the first Macintosh computer
4:21 it all came back to me and we designed
4:24 it all into the Mac it was the first
4:26 computer with beautiful
4:28 typography if I had never never dropped
4:30 in on that single course in college the
4:32 Mac would have never had multiple type
4:34 faces or proportionately spaced fonts
4:37 and since Windows just copi the Mac it's
4:39 likely that no personal computer would
4:41 have
4:41 [Applause]
4:44 [Music]
4:48 them if I had never dropped out I would
4:51 have never dropped in on that
4:52 calligraphy class and personal computers
4:54 might not have the wonderful typography
4:56 that they do of course it was impossible
4:59 to connect the dots looking forward when
5:01 I was in college but it was very very
5:03 clear looking backwards 10 years later
5:07 again you can't connect the dots looking
5:09 forward you can only connect them
5:11 looking backwards so you have to trust
5:13 that the dots will somehow connect in
5:15 your future you have to trust in
5:17 something your gut Destiny Life Karma
5:20 whatever because believing that the dots
5:22 will connect down the road will give you
5:25 the confidence to follow your heart even
5:27 when it leads you off the well-worn path
5:29 path and that will make all the
5:37 difference my second story is about love
5:41 and
5:42 loss I was lucky I found what I love to
5:46 do early in life W and I started Apple
5:49 in my parents garage when I was 20 we
5:51 worked hard and in 10 years Apple had
5:53 grown from Just the Two of Us in a
5:55 garage into A2 billion doll company with
5:57 over 4,000 employees we just released
6:00 our finest creation the Macintosh a year
6:03 earlier and I just turned
6:05 30 and then I got
6:07 fired how can you get fired from a
6:09 company you
6:11 started well as Apple grew we hired
6:14 someone who I thought was very talented
6:16 to run the company with me and for the
6:18 first year or so things went well but
6:20 then our visions of the future began to
6:22 diverge and eventually we had a falling
6:24 out when we did our board of directors
6:27 sided with him and so at 30 I was out
6:30 and very publicly out what had been the
6:33 focus of my entire adult life was gone
6:35 and it was
6:37 devastating I really didn't know what to
6:38 do for a few months I felt that I had
6:41 let the previous generation of
6:42 entrepreneurs down that I had dropped
6:44 the Baton as it was being passed to me I
6:47 met with David Packard and Bob noise and
6:50 tried to apologize for screwing up so
6:53 badly I was a very public failure and I
6:55 even thought about running away from the
6:57 valley but something slowly began to
6:59 dawn on me I still loved what I
7:03 did the turn of events at Apple had not
7:06 changed that one bit I'd been rejected
7:09 but I was still in
7:10 love and so I decided to start
7:13 over I didn't see it then but it turned
7:16 out that getting fired from Apple was
7:17 the best thing that could have ever
7:19 happened to me the heaviness of being
7:21 successful was replaced by the lightness
7:24 of being a beginner again less sure
7:26 about everything it freed me to enter
7:28 one of the most creative periods per of
7:29 my life during the next 5 years I
7:32 started a company named next another
7:34 company named Pixar and fell in love
7:36 with an amazing woman who would become
7:37 my wife Pixar went on to create the
7:40 world's first computer animated feature
7:42 film Toy Story and is now the most
7:44 successful Animation Studio in the
7:48 world in a remarkable turn of events
7:51 Apple bought next and I returned to
7:54 Apple and the technology we developed it
7:56 next is at the heart of Apple's current
7:58 Renaissance and L and I have a wonderful
8:01 family
8:02 together I'm pretty sure none of this
8:05 would have happened if I hadn't been
8:06 fired from Apple it was awful tasting
8:08 medicine but I guess the patient needed
8:10 it sometime life sometimes life's going
8:13 to hit you in the head with a brick
8:15 don't lose faith I'm convinced that the
8:18 only thing that kept me going was that I
8:20 loved what I did you've got to find what
8:23 you love and that is as true for work as
8:25 it is for your lovers your work is going
8:28 to fill a large part of your life and
8:30 the only way to be truly satisfied is to
8:32 do what you believe is great work and
8:34 the only way to do great work is to love
8:37 what you do if you haven't found it yet
8:40 keep looking and don't settle as with
8:43 all matters of the heart you'll know
8:45 when you find it and like any great
8:47 relationship it just gets better and
8:49 better as the years roll on so keep
8:52 looking don't settle
8:57 [Applause]
9:04 my third story is about
9:07 death when I was 17 I read a quote that
9:10 went something like if you live each day
9:13 as if it was your last someday you'll
9:15 most certainly be
9:19 right it made an impression on me and
9:22 since then for the past 33 years I
9:25 looked in the mirror every morning and
9:26 asked myself if today were the last day
9:29 of my life what I want to do what I am
9:31 about to do today and whenever the
9:34 answer has been no for too many days in
9:36 a row I know I need to change
9:39 something remembering that I'll be dead
9:41 soon is the most important tool I've
9:43 ever encountered to help me make the big
9:45 choices in life because almost
9:48 everything all external expectations all
9:51 Pride all fear of embarrassment or
9:53 failure these things just fall away in
9:56 the face of death leaving only what is
9:58 truly important
10:00 remembering that you are going to die is
10:02 the best way I know to avoid the Trap of
10:05 thinking you have something to lose you
10:07 are already naked there is no reason not
10:10 to follow your
10:12 heart about a year ago I was diagnosed
10:15 with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the
10:19 morning and it clearly showed a tumor on
10:21 my pancreas I didn't even know what a
10:23 pancreas was the doctors told me this
10:27 was almost certainly a type of cancer
10:29 that is incurable and that I should
10:31 expect to live no longer than 3 to 6
10:34 months my doctor advised me to go home
10:37 and get my Affairs in order which is
10:40 doctor's code for prepare to die it
10:43 means to try and tell your kids
10:45 everything you thought you'd have the
10:47 next 10 years to tell them in just a few
10:50 months it means to make sure everything
10:52 is buttoned up so that it will be as
10:54 easy as possible for your family it
10:57 means to say your goodbyes
11:00 I live with that diagnosis all day later
11:03 that evening I had a biopsy where they
11:06 stuck an endoscope down my throat
11:08 through my stomach and into my
11:09 intestines put a needle into my pancreas
11:12 and got a few cells from the tumor I was
11:15 sedated but my wife who was there told
11:18 me that when they viewed the cells under
11:19 a microscope the doctor started crying
11:22 because it turned out to be a very rare
11:24 form of pancreatic cancer that is
11:26 curable with surgery I had the surgery
11:29 and thankfully I'm fine
11:39 now this was the closest I've been to
11:41 facing death and I hope it's the closest
11:43 I get for a few more decades having
11:46 lived through it I can now say this to
11:48 you with a bit more certainty than when
11:50 death was a useful but purely
11:52 intellectual
11:54 concept no one wants to die even people
11:58 who want to go to heaven don't want to
11:59 die to get there and yet death is the
12:03 destination we all share no one has ever
12:06 escaped it and that is as it should be
12:09 because death is very likely the single
12:12 best invention of life it's life's
12:14 change agent it clears out the old to
12:17 make way for the new right now the new
12:20 is you but someday not too long from now
12:23 you will gradually become the old and be
12:25 cleared away sorry to be so dramatic but
12:29 it's quite
12:30 true your time is limited so don't waste
12:34 it living someone else's life don't be
12:37 trapped by Dogma which is living with
12:39 the results of other people's thinking
12:42 don't let the noise of others opinions
12:44 drown out your own inner voice and most
12:47 important have the courage to follow
12:48 your heart and intuition they somehow
12:51 already know what you truly want to
12:54 become everything else is secondary
13:00 [Applause]
13:08 when I was young there was an amazing
13:11 publication called the whole earth
13:13 catalog which was one of the Bibles of
13:15 my generation it was created by a fellow
13:18 named Stuart brand not far from here in
13:21 Meno Park and he brought it to life with
13:23 his poetic touch this was in the late
13:26 60s before personal computers and
13:28 desktop publishing so it was all made
13:30 with typewriters scissors and Polaroid
13:32 cameras it was sort of like Google in
13:35 paperback form 35 years before Google
13:37 came along it was idealistic overflowing
13:41 with neat tools and great
13:43 Notions Stewart and his team put out
13:45 several issues of the whole earth
13:47 catalog and then when it had run its
13:49 course they put out a final issue it was
13:52 the mid 1970s and I was your
13:56 age on the back cover of their final
13:59 issue was a photograph of an early
14:01 morning Country Road the kind you might
14:04 find yourself hitchhiking on if you were
14:06 so
14:07 adventurous beneath it were the words
14:10 stay hungry stay foolish it was their
14:13 farewell message as they signed off stay
14:16 hungry stay foolish and I have always
14:20 wished that for
14:21 myself and now as you graduate to begin
14:25 a new I wish that for you stay hungry
14:29 stay foolish thank you all very
14:32 [Applause]
14:50 [Music]
14:55 much the preceding program is
14:57 copyrighted by Stanford University
15:00 please visit us at stanford.edu
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