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TED, Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

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.

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.


Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address Ομιλία του Steve Jobs στο Stanford το 2005 Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address Discurso de graduación de Steve Jobs en Stanford en 2005 Discours de Steve Jobs lors de la cérémonie de remise des diplômes à Stanford en 2005 Discorso di laurea di Steve Jobs a Stanford nel 2005 スティーブ・ジョブズの2005年スタンフォード大学卒業式講演 스티브 잡스의 2005년 스탠포드 졸업식 연설 Przemówienie inauguracyjne Steve'a Jobsa w Stanford w 2005 r. Discurso de formatura de Steve Jobs em Stanford em 2005 Выступление Стива Джобса на церемонии вручения дипломов в Стэнфорде в 2005 году Steve Jobs'un 2005 Stanford Mezuniyet Konuşması Промова Стіва Джобса у Стенфорді у 2005 році 史蒂夫·乔布斯 2005 年斯坦福大学毕业典礼演讲 史蒂夫賈伯斯 2005 年史丹佛大學畢業典禮演講

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005 Stanford Report, June 14, 2005 Stanford Raporu, 14 Haziran 2005

'You’ve got to find what you love,' Jobs says 好きなことを見つけなければならない」とジョブズ氏 Jobs 'Sevdiğiniz şeyi bulmalısınız' diyor

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. これは、2005年6月12日にアップルコンピュータ社およびピクサー・アニメーション・スタジオのCEOであるスティーブ・ジョブズ氏が行った入学式式辞の原稿である。 Apple Computer ve Pixar Animasyon Stüdyoları CEO'su Steve Jobs tarafından 12 Haziran 2005 tarihinde yapılan mezuniyet konuşmasının hazırlanmış metnidir.

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. A dire il vero, questa è la cosa più vicina a una laurea. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Niente di che. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. La prima storia riguarda il collegamento dei punti.

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. Ho abbandonato il Reed College dopo i primi sei mesi, ma poi sono rimasto come drop-in per altri 18 mesi circa prima di abbandonare davvero. Desisti do Reed College ao fim dos primeiros 6 meses, mas depois continuei a frequentar o colégio durante mais 18 meses, mais ou menos, antes de me despedir de facto.

So why did I drop out? Allora perché ho abbandonato? 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. La mia madre biologica era una giovane studentessa universitaria non sposata e decise di darmi in adozione. 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. Era fermamente convinta che dovessi essere adottato da persone laureate, quindi tutto era pronto perché fossi adottato alla nascita da un avvocato e da sua moglie. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. Solo che quando sono spuntata io hanno deciso all'ultimo momento che volevano davvero una bambina. 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?" Così i miei genitori, che erano in lista d'attesa, ricevettero una telefonata nel cuore della notte che chiedeva: "Abbiamo un bambino inaspettato; lo volete?". They said: "Of course." Hanno risposto: "Certo". My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. La mia madre biologica scoprì in seguito che mia madre non si era mai laureata e che mio padre non si era mai diplomato. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. Si è rifiutata di firmare i documenti per l'adozione definitiva. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. Ha ceduto solo qualche mese dopo, quando i miei genitori mi hanno promesso che un giorno sarei andata all'università. And 17 years later I did go to college. E 17 anni dopo sono andata all'università.

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. Ma ingenuamente ho scelto un'università che costava quasi quanto Stanford, e tutti i risparmi dei miei genitori della classe operaia sono stati spesi per la mia retta universitaria. 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. Non avevo idea di cosa volessi fare nella mia vita e non avevo idea di come l'università mi avrebbe aiutato a capirlo. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. Ed eccomi a spendere tutti i soldi che i miei genitori avevano risparmiato per tutta la vita. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. Così ho deciso di ritirarmi e di confidare che tutto si sarebbe risolto per il meglio. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. All'epoca era piuttosto spaventoso, ma ripensandoci è stata una delle decisioni migliori che abbia mai preso. 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. Nel momento in cui mi sono ritirato, ho potuto smettere di seguire i corsi obbligatori che non mi interessavano e iniziare a frequentare quelli che sembravano interessanti. It wasn’t all romantic. Non è stato tutto romantico.

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. Non avevo una stanza nel dormitorio, quindi dormivo per terra nelle stanze degli amici, restituivo le bottiglie di coca cola per avere un deposito di 5 centesimi con cui comprare il cibo, e ogni domenica sera attraversavo la città a piedi per fare un buon pasto a settimana al tempio Hare Krishna. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. E molte delle cose in cui mi sono imbattuta seguendo la mia curiosità e il mio intuito si sono rivelate in seguito inestimabili. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. All'epoca il Reed College offriva forse il miglior insegnamento di calligrafia del Paese.

Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. In tutto il campus ogni poster, ogni etichetta su ogni cassetto era splendidamente calligrafata a mano. 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. Ho imparato a conoscere i caratteri serif e san serif, a variare la quantità di spazio tra le diverse combinazioni di lettere, a capire cosa rende grande la tipografia. 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. Niente di tutto questo aveva anche solo una speranza di applicazione pratica nella mia vita.

But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. Ma dieci anni dopo, quando stavamo progettando il primo computer Macintosh, mi è tornato in mente tutto. 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. E poiché Windows ha appena copiato il Mac, è probabile che nessun personal computer li abbia. 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. Questo approccio non mi ha mai deluso e ha fatto la differenza nella mia vita. 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. L'anno prima avevamo rilasciato la nostra migliore creazione, il Macintosh, e io avevo appena compiuto 30 anni. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Come si può essere licenziati da un'azienda che si è fondata? 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. Ma poi le nostre visioni del futuro hanno cominciato a divergere e alla fine abbiamo litigato. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. Quando l'abbiamo fatto, il nostro Consiglio di amministrazione si è schierato dalla sua parte. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. E molto pubblicamente. 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. Per qualche mese non sapevo davvero cosa fare.

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. Sentivo di aver deluso la precedente generazione di imprenditori, di aver perso il testimone mentre mi veniva passato. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. Ho incontrato David Packard e Bob Noyce e ho cercato di scusarmi per aver sbagliato così tanto. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. Sono stato un fallimento molto pubblico e ho persino pensato di scappare dalla valle. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. Ma lentamente ho cominciato a capire che amavo ancora quello che facevo. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. La piega che hanno preso gli eventi alla Apple non ha cambiato di una virgola le cose. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. Ero stato rifiutato, ma ero ancora innamorato. And so I decided to start over. E così ho deciso di ricominciare. 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. Allora non me ne accorsi, ma alla fine il licenziamento da Apple fu la cosa migliore che mi potesse capitare.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. La pesantezza del successo è stata sostituita dalla leggerezza di essere di nuovo un principiante, meno sicuro di tutto. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. Mi ha permesso di entrare in uno dei periodi più creativi della mia vita. 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. Nei cinque anni successivi ho fondato un'azienda di nome NeXT, un'altra di nome Pixar e mi sono innamorato di una donna straordinaria che sarebbe diventata mia moglie.

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. La Pixar ha creato il primo lungometraggio d'animazione al computer, Toy Story, ed è oggi lo studio di animazione di maggior successo al mondo. 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. In una straordinaria successione di eventi, Apple ha acquistato NeXT, io sono tornato in Apple e la tecnologia che abbiamo sviluppato in NeXT è al centro dell'attuale rinascita di Apple. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. Io e Laurene abbiamo una famiglia meravigliosa. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. Sono abbastanza sicuro che tutto questo non sarebbe successo se non fossi stato licenziato da Apple.

It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Era una medicina dal sapore orribile, ma credo che il paziente ne avesse bisogno. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. A volte la vita ti colpisce in testa con un mattone. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. Sono convinto che l'unica cosa che mi ha fatto andare avanti è che amavo quello che facevo. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. E questo vale tanto per il vostro lavoro quanto per i vostri amanti. 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. Non accontentatevi. 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. E, come ogni grande relazione, migliora sempre di più con il passare degli anni. 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. Quando avevo 17 anni, ho letto una citazione che diceva più o meno così: "Se vivi ogni giorno come se fosse l'ultimo, un giorno avrai sicuramente ragione".

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. E quando la risposta è stata "No" per troppi giorni di fila, so che devo cambiare qualcosa. 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. Perché quasi tutto, tutte le aspettative esterne, l'orgoglio, la paura dell'imbarazzo o del fallimento, cadono di fronte alla morte, lasciando solo ciò che è veramente importante. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. Ricordare che si sta per morire è il modo migliore che conosco per evitare la trappola di pensare di avere qualcosa da perdere. You are already naked. Siete già nudi. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. Circa un anno fa mi è stato diagnosticato un cancro.

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. I medici mi dissero che si trattava quasi certamente di un tipo di cancro incurabile e che avrei dovuto aspettarmi di vivere non più di tre o sei mesi. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. Il mio medico mi consigliò di andare a casa e di sistemare i miei affari, che è il codice del medico per dire di prepararsi a morire. 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. Significa cercare di raccontare ai propri figli tutto ciò che si pensava di poter raccontare nei prossimi 10 anni in pochi mesi. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. Significa assicurarsi che tutto sia sistemato in modo che sia il più semplice possibile per la vostra famiglia. It means to say your goodbyes. Significa dire addio. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Ho vissuto tutto il giorno con quella diagnosi.

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. Più tardi, la sera stessa, sono stata sottoposta a una biopsia: mi hanno infilato un endoscopio in gola, nello stomaco e nell'intestino, hanno inserito un ago nel pancreas e hanno prelevato alcune cellule del tumore. 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. Sono stato sedato, ma mia moglie, che era presente, mi ha raccontato che quando hanno visto le cellule al microscopio i medici si sono messi a piangere perché è risultato che si trattava di una forma molto rara di cancro al pancreas, curabile con la chirurgia. 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. Questo è stato il momento in cui sono stato più vicino ad affrontare la morte, e spero che sia il più vicino per qualche altro decennio.

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: Avendola vissuta, ora posso dirvelo con un po' più di certezza rispetto a quando la morte era un concetto utile ma puramente intellettuale: 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. Eppure la morte è la destinazione che tutti condividiamo. No one has ever escaped it. Nessuno è mai sfuggito ad essa. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. Ed è giusto che sia così, perché la morte è molto probabilmente la migliore invenzione della vita. It is Life’s change agent. È l'agente di cambiamento della vita. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Elimina il vecchio per far posto al nuovo. 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. Mi spiace essere così drammatico, ma è proprio così. 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. Non lasciatevi intrappolare dal dogma, che consiste nel vivere con i risultati del pensiero altrui. Don’t let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Non lasciate che il rumore delle opinioni altrui annulli la vostra voce interiore. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. In qualche modo sanno già cosa volete veramente diventare. 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. Quando ero giovane, c'era una pubblicazione straordinaria chiamata The Whole Earth Catalog, che era una delle bibbie della mia generazione.

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. È stata creata da un certo Stewart Brand, non lontano da qui, a Menlo Park, che l'ha portata in vita con il suo tocco poetico. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. Eravamo alla fine degli anni '60, prima dei personal computer e del desktop publishing, quindi tutto era fatto con macchine da scrivere, forbici e polaroid. 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. Era un po' come Google in versione cartacea, 35 anni prima dell'arrivo di Google: era idealista, e traboccava di strumenti ordinati e grandi idee. 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. Stewart e il suo team hanno pubblicato diversi numeri di The Whole Earth Catalog e poi, una volta terminato il suo corso, hanno pubblicato un numero finale.

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. Sulla quarta di copertina dell'ultimo numero c'era la fotografia di una strada di campagna di prima mattina, di quelle che si possono percorrere in autostop se si è così avventurosi. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Sotto c'erano le parole: "Rimani affamato. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. È stato il loro messaggio d'addio mentre si congedavano. Stay Hungry.

Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. E io l'ho sempre desiderato per me stesso. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. E ora, mentre vi laureate per ricominciare da capo, vi auguro questo. Stay Hungry.

Stay Foolish. Aptal kal. Thank you all very much. Hepinize çok teşekkür ederim.