史蒂夫·乔布斯 2005 斯坦福大学演讲稿解读（2） | 史蒂夫・乔布斯是如何写出穿透时光的毕业典礼演讲的-优快云博客

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乔布斯斯坦福演讲：超越时代的精神回响

史蒂夫・乔布斯在斯坦福大学的毕业演讲，其魔力在于将宏大人生哲理拆解为三个具体生动的个人故事，令听众在情感共鸣中自然接纳深刻道理。乔布斯没有站在成功者的制高点说教，而是像朋友般坦诚分享人生的 “至暗时刻” 与 “高光瞬间”，这种平等叙事姿态让每个人都能从中窥见自我。

例如，他讲述被苹果解雇的经历，直面 “毁灭性” 的痛苦 ——“我整个成年生活的重心消失了”，却也毫不掩饰重生后的释然：“被苹果解雇是我这辈子遇到的最好的事情”。这种真实情感起伏，让 “热爱可抵岁月漫长” 不再是空洞口号，而是有了具体支撑。许多人在遭遇挫折时，会反复咀嚼这段经历，从中汲取 “重新开始” 的勇气。

关于死亡的故事，更是以近乎残酷的直白打破人们的规避：“记住自己终将死去，是我所知道的避免陷入‘有所失’思维陷阱的最好方法”。这句话如利刃般剖开人们对世俗成功的执念，促人重新审视 “什么才是真正重要的”。尤其是他结合癌症诊断的经历，让 “向死而生” 的哲学有了直击人心的力量 —— 当死亡从遥远概念变为近在咫尺的威胁时，人们才会猛然惊醒：时间如此有限，不该浪费在迎合他人期待上。

演讲中那些看似不经意的细节，亦藏着精心设计。例如提到里德学院的书法课对 Macintosh 字体设计的影响，既呼应了 “串联生命点滴” 的主题，又以具体案例证明了 “无用之用” 的价值。这让听众明白，当下看似无意义的探索，或许会在未来某天成为改变的关键。这种 “延迟满足” 的智慧，对于即将踏入社会、急于看到成果的毕业生而言，是一份珍贵提醒。

二十年来，这篇演讲的影响力早已超越斯坦福校园。它被收录进教材、制成音频课程、在无数励志场合被引用，甚至成为许多人迷茫时的 “精神急救包”。“Stay hungry, stay foolish” 这八个字，更是从一句告别语升华为一种生活态度 —— 它鼓励人们保持对世界的好奇，不被经验束缚；保持对自我的清醒，不被成就裹挟。

或许乔布斯自己也未曾料到，当年那篇让他紧张到 “考虑退出” 的演讲，会成为跨越时代的精神符号。正是这种源于真实生命体验的表达，才拥有穿越时光的力量。它告诉我们，最好的演讲从不是华丽辞藻的堆砌，而是用真诚讲述自己的故事，让他人在其中找到属于自己的答案。而对于每个聆听者而言，这篇演讲的价值，不仅在于记住那些金句，更在于在人生的不同阶段，重新读懂其中的深意 —— 在顺境时警惕 “成功的沉重”，在逆境时相信 “热爱的力量”，在任何时候都不忘 “向死而生” 的勇气。

演讲前的纠结与筹备：从抗拒到摸索方向

2005 年 6 月初，史蒂夫・乔布斯在给朋友迈克尔・霍利的邮件中，坦承对斯坦福大学毕业典礼演讲的生疏，甚至自嘲 “别吐”。这篇后来被观看超 1.2 亿次的演讲，彼时仍是初具雏形。乔布斯向来抗拒公开私人话题 —— 包括被收养的创伤、1985 年被苹果解雇、以及癌症细节等，而此次他却要在 2.3 万人面前直面这些，倍感压力。

事实上，乔布斯并非毕业班的首选（学生更倾向喜剧演员乔恩・斯图尔特）。最终，因斯坦福校长约翰・轩尼诗的青睐及 “就近、可能获荣誉学位” 的考量，他才接受邀请。然而，很快乔布斯便开始动摇：斯坦福不授予荣誉学位，他对非苹果风格的演讲毫无头绪，甚至曾尝试让艾伦・索金代笔，却无果而终。1 月时，他给自己写邮件构思初步想法，从 “人如其食” 的营养建议到资助 “特别学生” 的奖学金，内容显得零散。直到偶遇皮克斯员工汤姆・波特后，他才从学生建议和轩尼诗 “少抽象、多个人化” 的提醒中找到方向。

关键助力：霍利的介入与内容打磨

陷入困境的乔布斯最终向老友迈克尔・霍利求助。霍利是麻省理工媒体实验室的全才，曾与乔布斯在 NeXT 共事，两人关系密切。据霍利回忆，乔布斯最初甚至想让他代讲，被拒后才恳求帮忙。

霍利认可了乔布斯 “以辍学经历开场” 的想法。当时乔布斯计划给学生三条建议：第一条是 “围绕更聪明的人”，第三条聚焦 “死亡必然性”，但第二条始终空缺。他还提前构思了结尾 —— 引用《全球概览》最后一期的 “求知若渴，虚心若愚”。霍利则力劝他强化结尾感染力，“像喜剧演员打磨笑点一样重视收尾”，并提醒他解释清楚《全球概览》的意义（“对我们这代人而言，它就像谷歌”）。

5 月至 6 月初，乔布斯因筹备苹果开发者大会暂停演讲准备，直到 6 月 7 日才重新投入，甚至被霍利调侃 “得像本科生一样通宵赶工”。他与妻子劳伦进行马拉松式写作，按霍利建议打印演讲稿反复朗读、排练，甚至在晚餐时读给全家听。

演讲当天：紧张与意外中的真情流露

演讲前一晚的嘉宾晚宴上，乔布斯仍在向毕业班联合主席们抱怨 “没准备笑话，肯定搞砸”，甚至坦言曾想退出，让学生们暗自慌张。6 月 12 日当天，他从起床便焦虑不安，车程中仍在修改演讲稿，到了体育场还因找不到 VIP 通行证，让身穿黑 T 恤、破洞牛仔裤的自己差点被保安拦在门外。

斯坦福毕业典礼的狂欢氛围与酷热天气，让听众注意力涣散 —— 学生们前一晚狂欢未醒，有人只顾喝水降温，乐队还会在他说出 “辍学生”“NeXT” 等词时插播音符。乔布斯穿着不自在的礼服（而非标志性的三宅一生高领衫），照着稿子朗读，声音平稳却少了平日的气场，正如霍利所说：“这是他少有的公开脆弱时刻。”

他的演讲没有刻意搞笑，仅在提到 “Windows 抄袭 Mac” 时略带调侃。听众起初反应平淡，但当他以 “求知若渴，虚心若愚” 收尾时，掌声逐渐蔓延，最终演变成全体起立 —— 乔布斯虽未察觉，却已完成了一场超越预期的演讲。

从 “结束” 到 “流传”：慢病毒式的持久影响

乔布斯回家后如释重负，甚至觉得 “总算结束了”，但这仅仅是开始。当时 YouTube 刚诞生，社交媒体尚未普及，斯坦福仅在官网发布文字稿，却让演讲以 “慢病毒式” 传播开来。

六年后乔布斯去世，让这篇演讲更添重量 —— 人们意识到他践行了自己的建议：追求热爱、拒绝盲从。它的影响力远超校园：2016 年 NBA 总决赛，勒布朗・詹姆斯用它激励骑士队夺冠；毕业生葆拉・方丹在班级聚会上定制 “依然求知若渴，依然虚心若愚” 的毛衣；至今仍被奉为 “史上最棒毕业演讲”。正如霍利所言，这场充满脆弱感的演讲，恰恰成了最动人的注脚。

‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says

乔布斯说：“你必须找到自己喜欢的东西”。

June 12th, 2005

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech Transcript 2005
史蒂夫·乔布斯 2005 年斯坦福大学毕业典礼演讲

Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, gave a commencement address at Stanford University for the class of 2005. Read the full transcript of the June 12, 2005 commencement speech here.
史蒂夫·乔布斯，苹果电脑公司和皮克斯动画工作室的首席执行官及联合创始人，为斯坦福大学 2005 届毕业生发表了毕业典礼演讲。以下是 2005 年 6 月 12 日这场演讲的全文。

开场与演讲主题介绍

Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. 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’d I drop out? It started before I was born.

谢谢大家。今天能和你们一起参加毕业典礼，我深感荣幸，因为你们毕业于世界上最好的大学之一。说实话，我从未从大学毕业，今天是我离大学毕业最近的一次。我想给你们讲我人生中的三个故事。就这些，没什么大不了的，只是三个故事而已。第一个故事是关于“串联起生命中的点滴”。我在里德学院读了六个月就退学了，但之后又在学校里旁听了大约 18 个月才真正离开。那么我为什么要退学呢？这要从我出生前说起。

第一个故事：串联起生命中的点滴

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.

我的生母是一名年轻的未婚研究生，她决定把我送给别人收养。她强烈希望我能被大学毕业生收养。所以，一切都安排好了，我一出生就会被一对律师夫妇收养，但就在我出生时，他们在最后一刻决定，他们其实想要一个女孩。于是，我的养父母——他们当时在等待名单上——在半夜接到了一个电话：“我们这儿有一个意外出生的男婴，你们想要他吗？”他们说：“当然想。”后来，我的生母发现我的养母从未大学毕业，养父也从未高中毕业，她就拒绝签署最后的收养文件。几个月后，当我的养父母承诺一定会让我上大学时，她才勉强同意。这就是我人生的起点。

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.

17 年后，我确实上了大学，但我天真地选择了一所几乎和斯坦福一样昂贵的大学，而我工薪阶层的父母毕生的积蓄都花在了我的学费上。六个月后，我看不到这其中的价值。我不知道自己这辈子想做什么，也不知道大学能帮我找到答案，可我却在花着父母一辈子攒下的钱。所以我决定退学，并且相信一切都会好起来。当时，这确实很可怕，但现在回想起来，这是我做过的最好的决定之一。从我退学的那一刻起，我就可以不再去上那些我不感兴趣的必修课，而是去旁听那些看起来更有趣的课。

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 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 sanserif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.

这并不全是浪漫的。我没有宿舍，所以只能睡在朋友房间的地板上。我会退还可乐瓶，用那 5 美分的押金买食物，而且每个周日晚上，我都会步行七英里穿过市区，去克利须那神庙吃一周里唯一一顿像样的饭。我喜欢那样的生活，而很多我因为好奇心和直觉偶然接触到的东西，后来都变得无比珍贵。我给你们举个例子，当时里德学院的书法教学或许是全国最好的，校园里的每一张海报、每一个抽屉上的标签，都是漂亮的手写书法。因为我退学了，不用去上常规课程，所以我决定去上书法课，学习怎么写。我学到了衬线字体和无衬线字体，学到了不同字母组合之间间距的变化，也学到了是什么让优秀的排版变得优秀。

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. 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.

书法很美，有历史感，在艺术上有种科学无法捕捉的精妙，我觉得它很迷人。当时，我根本没想过这些东西在我的生活中会有任何实际应用。但 10 年后，当我们设计第一台麦金塔电脑时，这些东西全都涌上了我的心头，我们把这些都融入了麦金塔电脑的设计中。它是第一台拥有精美排版的电脑。如果我当时没有旁听那门课，麦金塔电脑就不会有多种字体或比例匀称的字体。因为 Windows 只是抄袭了麦金塔，所以很可能所有个人电脑都不会有这些。如果我没有退学，我就不会去旁听那门书法课，个人电脑可能就不会有现在这么棒的排版了。

Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 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.

当然，在我上大学的时候，是不可能从未来的角度把这些点滴串联起来的，但 10 年后回头看，一切就非常、非常清晰了。再说一次，你无法从未来的角度串联点滴，只能从过去的角度去串联。所以你要相信，这些点滴总会在未来的某个时刻以某种方式串联起来。你要相信一些东西，比如你的直觉、命运、生活、因果报应等等，因为相信这些点滴会在未来串联起来，会给你跟随自己内心的信心，即使它会让你偏离寻常的道路，而这会带来所有的不同。

第二个故事：爱与失去

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I love 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 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.

我的第二个故事是关于爱与失去。我很幸运，在人生早期就找到了自己热爱的事情。我 20 岁的时候，和沃兹在我父母的车库里创办了苹果公司。我们努力工作，10 年后，苹果公司从车库里的两个人，发展成了一家市值 20 亿美元、拥有 4000 多名员工的公司。一年前，我们刚刚推出了我们最棒的作品——麦金塔电脑，而我刚满 30 岁，然后我就被解雇了。你怎么会被自己创办的公司解雇呢？是这样的，随着苹果的发展，我们雇了一个我认为很有才华的人来和我一起管理公司，在最初的一年左右，一切都很顺利。但后来，我们对未来的愿景开始出现分歧，最终我们闹翻了。当我们闹僵时，董事会站在了他那边。

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.

所以，30 岁的我出局了，而且是非常公开地出局。我整个成年生活的重心消失了，这太毁灭性了。有好几个月，我真的不知道该做什么。我觉得自己让上一代的企业家们失望了，在接力棒传到我手中时，我把它弄丢了。我见了戴维·帕卡德和鲍勃·诺伊斯，试图为自己搞砸了一切而道歉。我成了一个公开的失败者，我甚至想过逃离硅谷，但慢慢地，我开始明白一些事情。我仍然热爱我所做的事情。

The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I’d been rejected, but I was still in love. 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’ve 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.

苹果发生的这一系列变故，丝毫没有改变这一点。我被拒绝了，但我仍然热爱我所做的事情。所以我决定重新开始。当时我并没有意识到，但事实证明，被苹果解雇是我这辈子遇到的最好的事情。成功带来的沉重感被重新做回初学者的轻松感所取代，对一切都不那么确定了。这让我得以进入我人生中最具创造力的时期之一。在接下来的五年里，我创办了一家叫 NeXT 的公司，另一家叫皮克斯的公司，还爱上了一个很棒的女人，她后来成了我的妻子。皮克斯推出了世界上第一部电脑动画长片《玩具总动员》，现在它是世界上最成功的动画工作室。

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. 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’s going to 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.

世事难料，苹果后来收购了 NeXT，我也回到了苹果，而我们在 NeXT 开发的技术，成了苹果如今复兴的核心。我和劳伦有了一个美好的家庭。我非常确定，如果我没有被苹果解雇，这一切都不会发生。那是一剂很苦的药，但我想病人需要它。有时候，生活会给你当头一棒。不要失去信念。我确信，支撑我走下去的唯一动力，就是我热爱我所做的事情。

You’ve got to find what you love, and that is as true for 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. 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.

你们必须找到自己热爱的东西，无论是工作还是爱情，都是如此。工作将占据你生活的很大一部分，而能让你真正满意的唯一方式，就是去做你认为是伟大的工作。做伟大工作的唯一方式，就是热爱你所做的事情。如果你还没有找到它，继续寻找，不要停下来。就像所有与心相关的事情一样，当你找到它的时候，你会知道的，而且就像任何美好的关系一样，随着岁月的流逝，它会变得越来越好。所以，继续寻找，不要停下来。

第三个故事：关于死亡

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. 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, would I want to do what I am about to do today? 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.

我的第三个故事是关于死亡。我 17 岁的时候，读到过一句名言，大概是这样的：“如果你把每一天都当作生命中的最后一天去生活，那么总有一天你会发现自己是对的。”这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那以后，在过去的 33 年里，我每天早上都会对着镜子问自己：如果今天是我生命中的最后一天，我还会想做我今天要做的事情吗？每当连续很多天答案都是“不”的时候，我就知道我需要改变些什么了。记住自己很快就要死了，这是我所知道的帮助我做出人生重大选择的最重要的工具。因为几乎所有的事情，所有外界的期望、所有的骄傲、所有对难堪和失败的恐惧，在死亡面前都会消失殆尽，只剩下真正重要的东西。记住你终将死去，是我所知道的避免陷入“有所失”思维陷阱的最好方法。你本来就一无所有，没有理由不跟随自己的内心。

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 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.

大约一年前，我被诊断出患有癌症。早上 7 点 30 分，我做了一次扫描，结果清楚地显示我的胰腺上有一个肿瘤。我当时甚至不知道胰腺是什么。医生告诉我，这几乎肯定是一种无法治愈的癌症，我预计最多还能活 3 到 6 个月。我的医生建议我回家，把事情安排好，这是医生对“准备好死亡”的一种说法。意思是，要试着在短短几个月内，把你原本以为有 10 年时间告诉孩子们的话都告诉他们；意思是，要确保所有事情都安排妥当，让你的家人尽可能轻松一些；意思是，要和大家告别。

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 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.

那一整天，我都被这个诊断结果笼罩着。那天晚上，我做了活检，他们把一根内窥镜从我的喉咙伸进去，穿过胃，进入肠道，然后用一根针插入我的胰腺，从肿瘤上取了一些细胞。我当时处于镇静状态，但在旁边的妻子告诉我，当医生在显微镜下观察这些细胞时，他们哭了，因为这竟然是一种非常罕见的胰腺癌，可以通过手术治愈。我接受了手术，谢天谢地，我现在没事了。

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. 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.

这是我离死亡最近的一次，我希望这也是未来几十年里我离死亡最近的一次。有过这样的经历后，我现在可以更确定地对你们说这些话，而不像以前那样，死亡只是一个有用但纯粹是理论上的概念。没有人想死。即使是那些想上天堂的人，也不想通过死亡的方式去那里。然而，死亡是我们所有人共同的终点。没有人能逃脱它，事情本就该如此，因为死亡很可能是生命最棒的一项发明。

It’s 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’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 drowned 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.

它是生命的变革剂。它清除旧的，为新的让路。现在，新的是你们，但在不久的将来，你们也会逐渐变成旧的，被清除掉。抱歉说得这么夸张，但这是千真万确的。你们的时间有限，所以不要浪费时间去过别人的生活。不要被教条束缚，教条就是按照别人的思维结果生活。不要让别人的意见淹没了你自己内心的声音，最重要的是，要有勇气跟随自己的内心和直觉。它们在某种程度上已经知道你真正想成为什么样的人，其他所有的一切都是次要的。

结尾与寄语

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 60’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, 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.

我年轻的时候，有一本很棒的杂志叫《全球概览》，它是我们那一代人的圣经之一。它是由一个叫斯图尔特·布兰德的人创办的，就在离这里不远的门洛帕克，他用富有诗意的笔触让这本杂志焕发生机。那是在 60 年代末，当时还没有个人电脑和桌面出版系统。所以这本杂志完全是用打字机、剪刀和宝丽来相机制作出来的。它有点像纸质版的谷歌，比谷歌出现早了 35 年。它充满了理想主义色彩，里面有各种精巧的工具和伟大的想法。斯图尔特和他的团队出版了好几期《全球概览》，当它完成了自己的使命后，他们出版了最后一期。

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. I’ve 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.

那是 70 年代中期，我当时和你们现在一样大。在最后一期的封底上，有一张照片，拍的是一条清晨的乡间小路，如果你足够有冒险精神，可能会在这条路上搭便车。照片下面写着一句话：“求知若渴，虚心若愚。”这是他们停刊时的告别语。求知若渴，虚心若愚。我一直希望自己能做到这一点，现在，在你们毕业，即将开始新的人生旅程之际，我也希望你们能做到这一点。求知若渴，虚心若愚。非常感谢大家。

Speaker 1:
The preceding program is copyrighted by Stanford University. Please visit us at stanford.edu.

上述内容版权归斯坦福大学所有。欢迎访问我们的网站 stanford.edu。

How Steve Jobs Wrote the Greatest Commencement Speech Ever

史蒂夫·乔布斯是如何写出史上最棒的毕业典礼演讲的

Back in 2005, Jobs spent months trying to figure out what to say to Stanford’s graduates. Newly released materials show how he went from hopelessly flailing to delivering a talk for the ages.
早在 2005 年，乔布斯花了数月时间，琢磨着要对斯坦福大学的毕业生们说些什么。新公布的资料展示了他是如何从毫无头绪、手足无措，最终发表了一篇流传千古的演讲的。

从抗拒到接受：一场“意外”的演讲邀约

Apple Computers Inc. CEO Steve Jobs right walks with Stanford President John Hennessy before Jobs spoke at the…
苹果电脑公司首席执行官史蒂夫·乔布斯（右）在斯坦福大学发表演讲前，与斯坦福大学校长约翰·轩尼诗一同前行……

IN EARLY JUNE 2005, Steve Jobs emailed his friend Michael Hawley a draft of a speech he had agreed to deliver to Stanford University’s graduating class in a few days. “It’s embarrassing,” he wrote. “I’m just not good at this sort of speech. I never do it. I’ll send you something, but please don’t puke.”
2005 年 6 月初，史蒂夫·乔布斯给朋友迈克尔·霍利发了一封电子邮件，里面是他同意几天后向斯坦福大学毕业班发表演讲的草稿。“这太尴尬了，”他写道，“我真的不擅长这类演讲。我从来没做过。我会发点东西给你，但求你别吐。”

The notes that he sent contained the bones of what would become one of the most famous commencement addresses of all time. It has been viewed over 120 million times and is quoted to this day. Probably every person who agrees to give a commencement speech winds up rewatching it, getting inspired, and then sinking into despondency. To mark the 20th anniversary of the event, the Steve Jobs Archive, an organization founded by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, is unveiling an online exhibit with a remastered video, interviews with some peripheral witnesses, and ephemera such as his enrollment letter from Reed College and a bingo card for graduates with words from his speech. “Failure,” “biopsy,” and “death” were not on the card, but they were clearly on Jobs’ mind as he composed his remarks. (If you somehow have never viewed this speech, maybe you should watch it in the video player below, then return to this account suitably verklempt.)
他发送的这些笔记，包含了后来成为史上最著名毕业典礼演讲之一的核心内容。这段演讲的观看次数已超过 1.2 亿次，至今仍被人们引用。或许每个同意发表毕业典礼演讲的人，最终都会重温这段演讲，从中获取灵感，然后又陷入沮丧之中。为了纪念这一事件 20 周年，由他的妻子劳伦·鲍威尔·乔布斯创立的史蒂夫·乔布斯档案馆，推出了一个在线展览，其中包括经过重新制作的视频、对一些外围见证人的采访，以及一些短暂留存的物件，比如他来自里德学院的录取通知书，还有一张为毕业生准备的、印有他演讲中词汇的宾果卡。“失败”“活检”和“死亡”这些词不在卡片上，但在乔布斯构思演讲内容时，这些显然在他的脑海中盘旋。（如果你碰巧从未看过这段演讲，或许你应该先看看下面视频播放器里的内容，然后再回到这篇文章，届时你定会感慨万千。）

Jobs dreaded giving this speech. The Jobs I knew stayed in a strictly policed comfort zone. He thought nothing of walking out of a meeting, even an important one, if something displeased him. His exacting instructions to anyone charged with preparing his meals rivaled those for the manufacture of iPhones. And there were certain subjects that, in 2005, you best never broach: the trauma of his adoption, his firing from Apple in 1985, and the details of his cancer, which he held so closely that some wondered if it was an SEC violation. So it’s all the more astonishing that he set out to tell precisely these stories in front of 23,000 people on a scorching hot Sunday in Stanford’s football stadium. “This was really speaking about things very close to his heart,” says Leslie Berlin, executive director of the archive. “For him to take the speech in that direction, particularly since he was so private, was incredibly meaningful.”
乔布斯害怕做这个演讲。我所认识的乔布斯，总是待在一个有严格“管辖”的舒适区里。如果有什么事让他不高兴，他会毫不犹豫地退出会议，即便是重要的会议也不例外。他对负责为他准备餐食的人提出的苛刻要求，堪比制造 iPhone 的要求。而且在 2005 年，有一些话题你最好绝不要提及：他被收养的创伤、1985 年被苹果公司解雇的经历，以及他癌症的细节——他对此守口如瓶，以至于有人怀疑这是否违反了美国证券交易委员会的规定。因此，在一个酷热的周日，在斯坦福大学的足球场，他打算在 2.3 万人面前，恰恰讲述这些故事，这就更令人震惊了。“这真的是在谈论那些贴近他内心的事情，”档案馆执行董事莱斯利·柏林说，“对于他来说，把演讲引向这个方向，尤其是考虑到他如此注重隐私，这是非常有意义的。”

Jobs actually wasn’t the graduating class’s top choice. The four senior copresidents polled the class, and number one on the list was comedian Jon Stewart. The class presidents submitted their choices to a larger committee, including alumni and school administrators. One of the copresidents, Spencer Porter, lobbied hard for Jobs. “Apple Computer was big, and my dad worked for Pixar at the time, so it was the obvious thing that I represent the case for him,” Porter says. Indeed, legend has it that Porter was the inspiration for Luxo Jr., the subject of Pixar’s first short film and later its mascot. When his dad, Tom Porter, brought Spencer to work one day, the story goes, Pixar auteur John Lasseter became entranced by the toddler’s dimensions relative to his father’s and got the idea for a baby lamp. In any case, Stanford’s president, John Hennessy, liked the Jobs option best and made the request.
实际上，乔布斯并不是毕业班的首选。四位高年级联合主席对全班进行了民意调查，排在第一位的是喜剧演员乔恩·斯图尔特。班级主席们将他们的选择提交给了一个更大的委员会，其中包括校友和学校管理人员。联合主席之一斯宾塞·波特为乔布斯大力游说。“苹果电脑当时很厉害，而且我爸爸那时候在皮克斯工作，所以很明显，我要为他说话，”波特说。事实上，有传说称波特是《小台灯》的灵感来源，《小台灯》是皮克斯的第一部短片的主角，后来成为了皮克斯的吉祥物。据说有一天，他的爸爸汤姆·波特带斯宾塞去上班，皮克斯的导演约翰·拉塞特被这个蹒跚学步的孩子相对于他父亲的体型所吸引，于是萌生了设计一个婴儿台灯的想法。无论如何，斯坦福大学校长约翰·轩尼诗最喜欢乔布斯这个选择，并提出了邀请。

By this point Jobs had declined many such invitations. But he’d turned 50 and was feeling optimistic about recovering from cancer. Stanford was close to his house, so no travel was required. Also, as he told his biographer Walter Isaacson, he figured he’d get an honorary degree out of the experience. He accepted.
到这时，乔布斯已经拒绝了许多这样的邀请。但当时他已经 50 岁了，对自己的癌症康复感到乐观。斯坦福大学离他家很近，所以不需要出差。而且，正如他告诉传记作者沃尔特·艾萨克森的那样，他认为通过这次经历他能获得一个荣誉学位。于是他接受了邀请。

创作初期的挣扎：从抽象构思到聚焦个人经历

Almost immediately Jobs began to second-guess himself. In his own keynotes and product launches, Jobs was confident. He pushed his team with criticism that could be instant and corrosive, even cruel. But this was decidedly not an Apple production, and Jobs was at sea as to how to pull off the feat. Oh, and Stanford doesn’t give out honorary degrees. Whoops.
几乎在接受邀请后，乔布斯就开始怀疑自己了。在他自己的主题演讲和产品发布会上，乔布斯充满自信。他会用犀利、甚至近乎残酷的批评来鞭策他的团队。但这次绝不是苹果的产品发布会，乔布斯对如何完成这项任务感到茫然无措。哦，而且斯坦福大学不授予荣誉学位。哎呀。

On January 15, 2005, Jobs wrote an email to himself (Subject: Commencement) with initial thoughts. “This is the closest thing I’ve ever come to graduating from college,” Reed College’s most famous dropout wrote. “I should be learning from you.” Jobs—famous, of course, for his ultra-artisanal organic diet—considered dispensing nutritional advice, with the not terribly original slogan “You are what you eat.” He also mused about donating a scholarship to cover the tuition of an “offbeat student.”
2005 年 1 月 15 日，乔布斯给自己写了一封电子邮件（主题：毕业典礼），里面是一些初步的想法。“这是我离大学毕业最近的一次，”这位里德学院最著名的辍学生写道，“我应该向你们学习。”乔布斯——当然，他以极致的手工有机饮食而闻名——曾考虑提供营养方面的建议，还想出了一个不算太新颖的口号：“人如其食”。他还琢磨着捐赠一项奖学金，用于支付一名“与众不同的学生”的学费。

Flailing a bit, he reached out for help from Aaron Sorkin, a master of dialog and an Apple fan, and Sorkin agreed. “That was in February, and I heard nothing,” Jobs told Isaacson. “I finally get him on the phone and he keeps saying ‘Yeah,’ but … he never sent me anything.”
在有些不知所措的情况下，他向对话大师、苹果粉丝艾伦·索金寻求帮助，索金同意了。“那是在 2 月，之后我就杳无音信了，”乔布斯告诉艾萨克森，“我终于打通了他的电话，他一直在说‘好的’，但……他从来没给我发过任何东西。”

One day at Pixar, Jobs ran into Tom Porter. As Spencer Porter says it, Jobs asked Tom if his son could send over a few pointers. The students sent Jobs some thoughts. Hennessy told him to forget abstract advice and make the speech personal.
有一天在皮克斯，乔布斯偶遇了汤姆·波特。正如斯宾塞·波特所说，乔布斯问汤姆，他的儿子能否给一些建议。学生们给了乔布斯一些想法。轩尼诗告诉乔布斯，不要给那些抽象的建议，要让演讲更具个人色彩。

关键助力：霍利的介入与内容打磨

Eventually, Jobs recruited his old friend Michael Hawley to help him out. Hawley was a polymath associated with the MIT Media Lab. A brilliant technologist, he was once a cowinner of a worldwide piano competition for “outstanding amateurs,” and he later organized a TED-like conference called EG. Hawley had worked with Jobs at Next and even shared a house with him at the time. They had kept in close touch.
最终，乔布斯找来他的老朋友迈克尔·霍利帮忙。霍利是一位博学多才的人，与麻省理工学院媒体实验室有关联。他是一位杰出的技术专家，曾是全球“杰出业余爱好者”钢琴比赛的获奖者之一，后来还组织了一个类似 TED 的会议，名为 EG。霍利曾在 NeXT 与乔布斯共事，当时甚至还和他同住一所房子。他们一直保持着密切的联系。

Hawley’s contribution to the speech has been somewhat of an open secret for years. Still, there is no mention of him in Becoming Steve Jobs, by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, which devoted a chapter to the speech. The Isaacson biography doesn’t cite him and neither does, surprisingly, the exhibit at the Steve Jobs Archive. In an online Festschrift for Hawley in April 2020, Jobs’ son Reed spoke about Hawley’s role, including the “don’t puke” email quoted above. But Hawley never spoke publicly about exactly how he helped Jobs—except for one day in 2020, while driving around Boston with the journalist John Markoff a few months before Hawley’s death at age 58 from cancer. Markoff recorded the conversation, none of which has been made public until now.
多年来，霍利对这篇演讲的贡献在某种程度上是一个公开的秘密。尽管如此，在布伦特·施伦德和里克·泰策利合著的《成为史蒂夫·乔布斯》一书中，有一章专门讲述了这篇演讲，却没有提到他。艾萨克森的传记中也没有引用他的内容，令人惊讶的是，史蒂夫·乔布斯档案馆的展览中也没有提到他。在 2020 年 4 月为霍利举办的在线纪念文集中，乔布斯的儿子里德谈到了霍利的作用，包括上面引用的那封“别吐”的电子邮件。但霍利从未公开谈论过他具体是如何帮助乔布斯的——除了 2020 年的一天，当时 58 岁的霍利因癌症去世前几个月，他和记者约翰·马尔科夫在波士顿开车时聊过。马尔科夫记录了这段对话，直到现在都没有公开过。

As Hawley recounted to Markoff, Jobs first tried to get him to deliver the address. “He told me he was hoodwinked, as he put it, into giving a speech at Stanford and just didn’t know what to say or do,” Hawley said. “He wanted to turn it down, he wanted to get me to do it instead. I said, ‘No way—it’s your gift.’ He then basically begged me, in a very sweet way, a very Steve way, to help him out. And I said sure.”
正如霍利向马尔科夫讲述的那样，乔布斯起初想让他来发表这篇演讲。“他说，用他的话来说，他是被哄骗着要去斯坦福发表演讲，而且根本不知道该说什么、该做什么，”霍利说，“他想拒绝，想让我来代替他。我说，‘不可能——这是你的天赋。’然后他基本上是用一种非常亲切的方式，一种非常乔布斯式的方式，恳求我帮他。我说当然可以。”

Hawley loved Jobs’ idea of opening with his own experience of not graduating from college. Jobs had been kicking around the idea of giving the students “three pieces of advice as you leave college.” The first would be about “surrounding yourself with people smarter than you.” He didn’t seem to have a second. The third was built around the fact that “we are all going to die. You are going to die.” A few days later, Jobs drafted some lines about the Whole Earth Catalog, figuring some notes on its final issue might work as a potential ending to his speech.
霍利很喜欢乔布斯以自己未从大学毕业的经历作为开场的想法。乔布斯一直有个想法，就是给学生们“三条离开大学时的建议”。第一条是关于“让自己身边围绕着比你更聪明的人”。第二条他似乎还没想好。第三条围绕着“我们都会死。你也会死”这一事实展开。几天后，乔布斯起草了一些关于《全球概览》的内容，认为关于其最后一期的一些笔记或许可以作为他演讲的潜在结尾。

“He had the closing idea before he had any of the content of the speech,” Hawley said. He urged Jobs to strengthen the kicker. “Like a good comedian telling a joke, or a good composer writing a piece of music, you want to be sure to nail the punch line, so I think maybe think more about the ending,” he wrote to Jobs in an email. “I like your Whole Earth recollection a lot. I grew up with it too. Even the phrase WHOLE EARTH taps a powerful idealistic undercurrent.” He suggested a few tweaks and reminded Jobs that he’d have to explain what the catalog was. As Hawley told Markoff, “I said, ‘Look, this was Google for our generation … And I said for god’s sake, give credit to Stewart Brand, whose poetic touch infused all that and so much more.”
“在他想好演讲的任何内容之前，他就有了结尾的想法，”霍利说。他力劝乔布斯强化结尾部分。“就像一个优秀的喜剧演员讲笑话，或者一个优秀的作曲家写一首乐曲，你要确保把点睛之笔做好，所以我觉得或许可以多想想结尾，”他在给乔布斯的电子邮件中写道，“我非常喜欢你对《全球概览》的回忆。我也是伴随着它长大的。甚至‘全球’这个词都触及了一种强大的理想主义暗流。”他建议做一些调整，并提醒乔布斯必须解释一下这个目录是什么。正如霍利告诉马尔科夫的那样：“我说，‘听着，这对我们这一代人来说就相当于谷歌……而且我说，看在上帝的份上，要归功于斯图尔特·布兰德，是他的诗意笔触赋予了这一切以及更多东西生命。’”

最后的冲刺：从通宵写作到演讲前夜的焦虑

The archive exhibit contains eight emails that Jobs sent himself. There’s a gap between early May and June; presumably, Jobs was preparing for a more familiar sort of presentation at that time: his opening keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6. Onstage in San Francisco that day, Jobs was masterful, stalking the stage in alpha fashion, explaining a new phenomenon called podcasting (“We see it as the hottest thing going in radio”) and the Macintosh’s switch from PowerPC to Intel processors. But the Stanford deadline was looming. By June 7, he was back to sending emails to himself. Hawley told him that, just like an undergraduate, he might have to pull an all-nighter to finish the speech.
档案馆的展览包含了乔布斯发给自己的 8 封电子邮件。5 月初到 6 月之间有一段空白期；据推测，当时乔布斯正在准备一种他更熟悉的演讲：6 月 6 日苹果全球开发者大会的开幕主题演讲。那天在旧金山的舞台上，乔布斯表现出色，以一种主导者的姿态在舞台上踱步，介绍了一种名为播客的新现象（“我们认为这是广播领域最热门的事物”），以及麦金塔电脑从 PowerPC 处理器向英特尔处理器的转换。但斯坦福演讲的截止日期日益临近。到 6 月 7 日，他又开始给自己发电子邮件。霍利告诉他，就像一个本科生一样，他可能得通宵才能完成这篇演讲。

By all accounts, Jobs did have a marathon writing session, working with Laurene. Hawley had suggested that he print out the speech, squint at it, and practice reading it out loud. “You don’t want to be stumbling with your nose in a page, so just walk down the street and read it to a tree a few times so that you’re comfortable with the page turns or whatever,” Hawley told him. For the next few days, Jobs rehearsed and revised and, as Schlender and Tetzili wrote in their book, read it to his whole family at dinner.
大家都说，乔布斯确实和劳伦一起进行了一场马拉松式的写作。霍利建议他把演讲稿打印出来，眯着眼睛看，然后练习大声朗读。“你不想埋头盯着纸页磕磕绊绊地读，所以就走到街上，对着一棵树读几遍，这样你就能熟练地翻页或者应对其他情况了，”霍利告诉他。在接下来的几天里，乔布斯反复排练、修改，正如施伦德和泰策利在他们的书中所写的那样，他还在晚餐时读给全家人听。

The night before the ceremony, Stanford held a dinner for various commencement guests. Jobs’ attendance was uncertain. “The entire day we were hearing Steve is coming,” Porter says. “Then we heard Steve is not coming, definitely not. Then, 30 minutes before, we hear he is coming.” When Jobs arrived, he gravitated to his Pixar employee Tom Porter, who introduced him to his son and the other copresidents. They thanked him effusively for doing the speech. “I should never have agreed to do this,” he told them. “I don’t have any jokes. It’s not going to go well.” He told them that just days before, he had considered backing out. The copresidents looked at each other in horror. “We were like, holy shit, this guy doesn’t even want to be here,” says Paola Fontein, one of the copresidents. “Should we have gotten Jon Stewart?” Another copresident, Steve Myrick, thought to himself, I sure hope he shows up tomorrow.
典礼前一天晚上，斯坦福为各位毕业典礼嘉宾举办了一场晚宴。乔布斯是否会出席并不确定。“一整天我们都听说史蒂夫会来，”波特说，“然后又听说他不来了，肯定不来了。接着，在晚宴开始前 30 分钟，我们又听说他会来。”乔布斯到达后，主动走向了他在皮克斯的员工汤姆·波特，汤姆把他介绍给了自己的儿子和其他几位联合主席。他们热情地感谢他同意做这个演讲。“我真不该答应做这个，”他对他们说，“我没准备任何笑话。演讲不会顺利的。”他告诉他们，就在几天前，他还考虑过退出。联合主席们惊恐地对视了一眼。“我们当时想，我的天，这家伙根本不想来这儿，”联合主席之一葆拉·方丹说，“我们当初是不是应该选乔恩·斯图尔特？”另一位联合主席史蒂夫·迈里克心里想，我真希望他明天能来。

演讲当天：在混乱与紧张中传递真诚

Jobs woke up on the morning of the 12th riddled with anxiety. “I’d almost never seen him more nervous,” Laurene Powell Jobs would tell Schlender and Tetzeli. Even on the short drive from his home to the stadium—their three kids in the back—he rode shotgun in the family SUV, still tweaking the speech. When they tried to get to the VIP parking lot, they couldn’t find the pass that would gain them entry. They had trouble convincing the guard that the frazzled guy in a black T-shirt and ripped jeans was actually the commencement speaker, but they finally got through. (Jobs had earlier asked Hennessy if it would be OK to wear jeans, and indeed he showed up in Levi’s and Birkenstocks.)
12 日早上，乔布斯醒来时满心焦虑。“我几乎从没见过他这么紧张，”劳伦·鲍威尔·乔布斯后来告诉施伦德和泰策利。即使是在从家到体育场的短途车程中——他们的三个孩子坐在后座——他坐在家庭 SUV 的副驾驶座上，还在修改演讲稿。当他们试图进入 VIP 停车场时，却找不到通行的证件。他们费了好大劲才让保安相信，这个穿着黑色 T 恤和破洞牛仔裤、神色疲惫的人其实是毕业典礼的演讲者，但最终还是进去了。（乔布斯早些时候问过轩尼诗穿牛仔裤是否合适，事实上他当天穿了李维斯牛仔裤和勃肯鞋出席。）

The family went to a luxury suite while Jobs was fitted with regalia. By the time Jobs joined the procession to the podium with President Hennessy and other guests, the atmosphere in the stadium had taken on a rowdy aspect. Commencement day at Stanford has a carnival element. The graduates-to-be circled the field in a “wacky walk” and wore preposterous costumes over their robes. A lot of them were still fuzzy from celebrating the night before. Also, it was a sizzling summer day. So after Hennessy gave Jobs a warm introduction, the speaker faced a boisterous audience distracted by the heat. And Jobs was about to give a speech that could have qualified as the downer of all time—setting graduates off into their new lives by reminding them that they were going to die.
乔布斯去换上礼服时，家人去了一个豪华套房。当乔布斯和轩尼诗校长以及其他嘉宾一起列队走向讲台时，体育场里的气氛已经变得有些喧闹。斯坦福的毕业典礼当天带有狂欢节的元素。即将毕业的学生们以“古怪的步伐”绕着场地行进，在学士服外面套着荒诞的服装。他们中的很多人因为前一晚的庆祝活动，状态还很迷糊。而且，那是一个酷热的夏日。所以，在轩尼诗热情地介绍完乔布斯之后，这位演讲者面对的是一群因炎热而注意力分散、喧闹不已的听众。而乔布斯即将发表的演讲，几乎可以说是史上最令人沮丧的——他要提醒毕业生们他们终将死亡，以此开启他们的新生活。

Though he almost certainly practiced the 15-minute speech enough to memorize it—in his keynotes he would speak articulately without notes for an hour—he opted here to read from his printed sheets of paper. This was no Stevenote. The audience was unfamiliar. The venue was uncomfortable. He was in a weird robe, not his beloved Issey Miyake turtleneck.
尽管他几乎肯定对这 15 分钟的演讲进行了充分练习，足以背下来——在他的主题演讲中，他可以一小时不看笔记，表达流畅——但在这里，他选择照着打印出来的稿子读。这不是一场“史蒂夫式演讲”。听众是陌生的。场地也不舒适。他穿着一件奇怪的礼服，而不是他心爱的三宅一生高领衫。

When he spoke, his voice was steady, but it lacked his typical authority and verve. “He was a little gimpy at the podium,” Hawley told Markoff. “It was one of the few times he was vulnerable in public. That worked out well for him.”
他开口讲话时，声音很平稳，但缺少了他特有的权威感和活力。“他在讲台上有点拘谨，”霍利告诉马尔科夫，“这是他为数不多的在公众面前表现出脆弱的时刻之一。但这对他来说效果很好。”

From the video, it seemed the audience was listening politely. Some hardly did. Even Porter, the copresident who most wanted Jobs there, was somewhat distracted. “It was so unbelievably hot that a lot of time during that speech I just spent drinking water and looking for more water,” he says. The Stanford band had been instructed to play a note each time Jobs said a word on the Bingo card, so there were some bleats when he hit the squares for words like “dropout” or “Next.” Graduation speeches often are crafted to evoke laughter, but the closest Jobs got to a joke was when he mentioned how Windows copied the Mac—a drive-by remark on how the Macintosh’s treatment of fonts set the tone for the entire computer industry. Jobs didn’t acknowledge the crowd’s response. He kept reading.
从视频中看，听众似乎在礼貌地倾听。有些人几乎没在听。即使是最希望乔布斯来的联合主席波特，也有些分心。“那天热得让人难以置信，所以在演讲的大部分时间里，我都在喝水，还在找更多的水喝，”他说。斯坦福乐队接到指示，每当乔布斯说出宾果卡上的一个词，就演奏一个音符，所以当他说出“辍学生”或“NeXT”等词时，乐队就会发出一些短促的声音。毕业演讲通常是为了引发笑声而精心设计的，但乔布斯最接近笑话的话，是在提到 Windows 如何抄袭 Mac 时——这是一句随口一提的话，讲的是麦金塔电脑对字体的处理如何为整个计算机行业定下了基调。乔布斯没有理会观众的反应，继续读着演讲稿。

“Most folks had gone out celebrating the night before, so you had a group of tired people sitting in the sun,” Myrick says. “But you could tell it was something that he had really put thought into. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, like, I’d like to go back and read that when I’m not in this situation.’” Hennessy says that he knew from the start that Jobs was delivering a thoughtful, moving oratory, never mind the printed sheets.
“大多数人前一晚都出去庆祝了，所以一群疲惫的人坐在阳光下，”迈里克说，“但你能看出来，这是他真正用心思考过的内容。我记得当时想，‘哇，我想等我不在这种情况下的时候，再回去读一遍。’”轩尼诗说，他从一开始就知道乔布斯正在发表一篇深思熟虑、感人至深的演说，不管他是不是照着稿子读。

从“结束”到“不朽”：演讲的后续影响与传奇地位

Jobs concluded with the words printed on the back cover of the final issue of the Whole Earth Catalog: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” It was exactly the uplifting kicker that Hawley had asked for. Stewart Brand would later remark that because he wound up as the punch line for the most renowned college address ever, “I became famous late in life.”
乔布斯以《全球概览》最后一期封底上的文字结束了演讲：“求知若渴，虚心若愚。”这正是霍利所要求的那种振奋人心的结尾。斯图尔特·布兰德后来表示，因为他最终成了这篇史上最著名大学演讲的点睛之笔，“我在晚年出了名。”

The initial applause from the students was modest. At his keynotes, Jobs was used to a more thunderous response when announcing, say, a new OS feature or how many iPods sold in the past year. After a few seconds, though, some students stood, seemingly more out of respect than jubilation. Most others followed suit. It isn’t clear that the speaker noticed. He simply looked relieved. “Steve wasn’t so sure it went well as we headed out of the stadium,” Hennessy says. “But I assured him it had.” Jobs returned home with his family, glad the episode was over.
学生们最初的掌声并不热烈。在他的主题演讲中，当宣布诸如新的操作系统功能或过去一年 iPod 的销量时，乔布斯习惯了更热烈的反响。然而，几秒钟后，一些学生站了起来，似乎更多的是出于尊重而非喜悦。大多数其他人也跟着站了起来。不清楚演讲者是否注意到了这一点。他只是看起来如释重负。“当我们走出体育场时，史蒂夫不太确定演讲进行得是否顺利，”轩尼诗说，“但我向他保证，演讲非常成功。”乔布斯和家人回到了家，很高兴这件事终于结束了。

It was only the beginning.
而这仅仅是个开始。

At that point in time, YouTube was only months old, Twitter didn’t exist, and Facebook didn’t even have its news feed. The national media hadn’t covered the speech. Apple sent out no press releases. But Stanford published the transcript on its primitive website, and people began discovering it. I recently checked my inbox for June 2005 and found multiple copies sent to me from different mailing lists. As the weeks and months went by, more and more people found the speech. Berlin describes it as going “slow-motion viral.”
当时，YouTube 才诞生几个月，Twitter 还不存在，Facebook 甚至还没有新闻推送功能。全国性媒体没有报道这篇演讲。苹果公司也没有发布新闻稿。但斯坦福大学在其简陋的网站上公布了演讲 transcript，人们开始发现这篇演讲。我最近查看了 2005 年 6 月的收件箱，发现有不同邮件列表发来的多份演讲稿。随着时间一周周、一月月过去，越来越多的人看到了这篇演讲。柏林将其描述为“慢动作式的病毒式传播”。

“The speech started to get talked about, how honest it was,” says Porter, the class copresident. “I would have meetings in Hollywood—I’m a TV writer—and people would see I was from Stanford and ask if I saw that speech that Steve Jobs gave.” Jobs himself seldom mentioned it; at least I never saw him quoted on the subject. He joked to one person that he’d bought it from CommencementSpeeches-dotcom. He responded to a thank-you note from the copresidents by saying, “It was really hard for me to prepare for this, but I loved it (especially when it was over).”
“人们开始谈论这篇演讲，谈论它是多么真诚，”班级联合主席波特说，“我在好莱坞开会时——我是一名电视编剧——人们看到我来自斯坦福，就会问我有没有看过史蒂夫·乔布斯的那篇演讲。”乔布斯本人很少提及这篇演讲；至少我从未见过有引用他关于这篇演讲的言论。他曾跟一个人开玩笑说，这篇演讲是他从毕业典礼演讲网站上买的。他在回复联合主席们的感谢信时说：“准备这篇演讲对我来说真的很难，但我很喜欢（尤其是当它结束的时候）。”

Six years later, something happened that would change the way viewers perceived the speech. On the podium Jobs had said that his cancer diagnosis and his surgery a year later had been the closest he had come to facing death, and that he hoped to have a few more decades. On October 5, 2011, after many months of fighting the cancer he told students he had beaten, Steve Jobs died.
六年后，发生了一件事，改变了观众对这篇演讲的看法。乔布斯在讲台上说，他被诊断出癌症以及一年后的手术，是他离死亡最近的时刻，他希望能再多活几十年。2011 年 10 月 5 日，在与癌症抗争了多个月后——他曾告诉学生们他战胜了癌症——史蒂夫·乔布斯去世了。

Anyone replaying his speech today knows how much he accomplished in his 56 years. As much as any public figure in our time, Jobs lived according to the advice he offered the students that day. He pursued what he loved and refused to lead anyone else’s life, and the result can be measured in his legendary products. But as life-changing as his gadgets were, none strike the heart and soul as intimately as the Stanford speech. Random example: In 2016, after the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the first two games of the NBA finals, LeBron James played the speech for the disheartened squad in the locker room. It galvanized the team. Kevin Love wrote “stay hungry, stay foolish” on his sneakers. Four games later, James hoisted the championship trophy.
如今，任何重看他演讲的人都知道，他在 56 年的人生中取得了多么大的成就。与我们这个时代的任何公众人物相比，乔布斯都践行了他那天给学生们的建议。他追求自己热爱的事物，拒绝过别人眼中的生活，而他那些传奇的产品就是最好的证明。但尽管他的电子产品改变了人们的生活，却没有一样能像斯坦福的这篇演讲那样，如此深刻地触动人们的心灵。举个例子：2016 年，在克利夫兰骑士队输掉 NBA 总决赛前两场后，勒布朗·詹姆斯在更衣室给沮丧的球队播放了这篇演讲。这篇演讲激励了整个球队。凯文·乐福在他的球鞋上写下了“求知若渴，虚心若愚”。四场比赛后，詹姆斯举起了总冠军奖杯。

For her class reunion this October, Paola Fontein, the class copresident, plans to make custom sweaters with the words “still hungry, still foolish.” I asked her if she thought it was the greatest commencement speech of all time. “I would say so,” she replied. “I don’t hear anyone talking about another one.”
今年 10 月的班级聚会上，班级联合主席葆拉·方丹计划制作印有“依然求知若渴，依然虚心若愚”字样的定制毛衣。我问她是否认为这是史上最棒的毕业典礼演讲。“我认为是的，”她回答说，“我没听到有人谈论其他的演讲。”