stay hungry, stay foolish


この秀逸イラストは香港のジョナサン・マーク(19歳)作成のものです

stay hungry, stay foolish


ひとりの男であり、夫でもあった

STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH
スタンフォード大学の卒業式でのスピーチ全文【スタンフォード大学】)

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

このスピーチはおそらく、21世紀を過ぎても後世語り続けられると思います。(赤文字部分が個人的には響きました)

12 件のコメント

  • それまで、パソコンといえばNECのPC〜シリーズしか知らなかったのですが、ある日店頭でMacintoshをみて衝撃を受けたのを今でも思い出します。
    それから、高嶺の花を想う日々を過ごしていましたが、値がこなれてきたのをみて思い切って買ったのがLC475でした。その後知人からClassic IIを譲り受け、今でも大事にしています。さすがに電源を入れる頻度は激減しましたが、最高のインテリアであると思っています。
    ジョブスさん、あなたがいなければパソコンは業務用として使用されるつまらないものになっていたでしょう。ありがとうございました。

  • お久しぶりです、お邪魔していましたがコメントできずに
    すみません。
    非難メールなんて来るのですね…そのエネルギー違うことに使ったら!と思います。気にしない、気にしない。
    私は、Macユーザーではありませんが買い換えるなら次は
    Macと思っていました。これほどの、こだわりと美意識を
    電気製品に見たのは初めてで…本当に、お若いのに残念です。ご冥福をお祈りします。
    なおきんさん、無理せずにブログ続けてくださいね。
    今回の、イラストとってもいいですね!!

  • こんにちは(^^)

    批判めいたメールですか?
    有名になると、いろんなことがおきるんですね。
    私は一度だけコメントさせてもらって、そのときに頂いた
    返事、嬉しかったなぁ〜

    私、猫のブログを明るく楽しくずっとやっていたんですけど、なんか自分の
    本音も書きたいと思って、もう一つブログを作りました。
    で、その名前を、『今 ここ 自分』 を使わせていただきました。

    事後報告ですみません!よろしくお願いいたします<(_ _)>

    私は、なおきんさんのブログが大好きです。
    いつもいつも読んでいます。
    難しい記事もあってわからない時もありますが、とても楽しみにしています。

    私はMacファンじゃないんだけど、このIpod、持ってます(^^)

  • すばらしい言葉ですよね・・・

    なおきんさんも彼のように生きたいと願っているお一人でしょうか。

    ジョブス氏のこのメッセージを読んだとき、
    自分が何をしたいかということさえ考えた事がなかった
    己の日常にショックを受けました。
    明日、死ぬかもしれないのに・・・。

    巨星がまたひとつ・・・。

  • アタシが初めて触れたPCはiMacでした(今ではすっかりWindowsユーザーですが。。。)それでも、アタシの生活にはiPodが定着し、なければならない存在です。きっと世界中のみなさんがそうなんぢゃないでしょうか。それだけアタシたちのライフスタイルを変えてしまった彼の存在は偉大でしたね。。。

  • ニュースを知ってから、何かぽっかりと心のなかに大きな穴ができてしまったように感じてます。
    穴はどこまでも深くて、どこまでも暗いかんじ。
    なんだろう、これは。

    なおきんさんと同じように4sは見送ろうかと思っていました。
    が、3gsの契約も今月で終わるし。。。
    いっちゃうんだろうなぁ。。。

    Follow your heart

  • 初めまして。
    いつも楽しく読み逃げでさせてもらっています。
    Steve Jobs氏のこのスピーチ、私もとても心に
    響きました。私の初めてのパソコンはMacでした。
    今、アップル製品高くて使っていないのですが、
    やっぱり原点はここだなと思います。

  • はてなさん、一番ゲット、おめでとさまです!
    そういえばとても古い映画で"My foolish heart"なんてのがありましたね。スマートぶらないことで、より学習能力が高まりそうです。
    ——————————-
    おととさん、
    すごい偶然。ぼくもLC475の中古を譲り受け、会社のColor Classic IIを自宅で使ってました。ほとんどWindowsファイルの互換確認用でしたが。古きよきマシンでしたね、ジョブズ氏はすでにAppleを追い出された頃のプロダクトでしたが。最初のマックが、マウスが、オブジェクトデスクトップがなかりせば、いまのような普及は絶対なかったと思います。よりよい世界はどうあるべきで、そのためになにが必要かちゃんと見えてたのがスゴイですね。
    ——————————-
    さえぴーさん、
    いろいろお気遣いをありがとうございます。ふいに過去の記事がどこかで紹介され、それについていまさらのようにああだこうだ言う方がいらっしゃいます。まあ、それはそれで捉え方は人それぞれですからね。過去記事の解釈はなかなかしんどいもんですね。
    ——————————-
    Yossyさん、
    おひさしぶりです!励ましのおことば、とてもズシンと響きました。ましてや、ブログのタイトルに、以前書いたぼくの記事名を使われただなんて嬉しい驚きです。うかうかとへんな題名にしないよう気を付けないとね(笑)お題はいろいろありますが、これからもよろしくです。
    ——————————-
    エイシアさん、
    はい、ぼくはとてもジョブズ氏のようにはいきませんが、さまざまな行動変容に彼の影響を受けています。ビジネスに於いてはバインディングな商品サービスを、生き方においては朝、鏡の自分に問いかける習慣を。このたびの訃報はつくづく人類は大きな損失でしたね。
    ——————————-
    siusiumaoさん、
    一時はどこかに吸収されて無くなってしまうかも、と思っていたApple社。ジョブズ氏が戻ってくるなり見事に立ち直り、それどころか家の何処かにApple製品がひとつはある、みたいなことになった。というのはほんとうに凄いですね。夢ってこんなふうに実現されていくものなんだと。
    ——————————-
    たいさん、
    ぼくも訃報を聞いて以来、なにか人類にとって明るい兆しがひとつ消されたような、ちょっと穴ぽっかりな感傷になってしまいました。それからYouTubeやPodcastでジョブズ氏のkeynoteをあらためて鑑賞しなおしたり・・・。4S、ゲットされちゃいそうですね。
    ——————————-
    Limepieさん、初コメントありがとさまです!
    アップル製品はまるで魔法のように、次々と持ち物をアップル製品のものに買い変えたくなる魔力があります。そういう意味でアップルが車や冷蔵庫やソファやエアコンを作っていなくてよかった、とおもいます。でもアップル製品を持っていなくたってジョブズ氏の影響を受けたいろんな製品が世界中にありますよね。

  • なおきんさん、Jobsのこのページ、来るたびに新しい発見があって良いです。テキストをアップしていただいてありがとうございます。実は、あれから毎朝通勤途中スピーチを聞いてます。テキストで見ると声が蘇ると同時に、読みながら何か新しいことを感じました。ありがとうございます。ちょっと拝借して、iPhoneとiPadに入れさせていただきます。Thank you Naokin very much.

  • たいさん、
    スピーチの全文は邦訳版もあるようですが、 原文に勝るものはありません。"stay hungry, stay foolish" ひとつとってみても、「ハングリーであれ、愚かであれ」という邦訳には個人的に違和感があります。あえて意訳すれば「自分の心の声に忠実に、決して小さなことで満足するな」というかんじかなと解釈しています。

  •  そうですね、なおきんさん。日本語に訳しちゃうから、多くの人には共感しずらいんじゃないかなと思います。今まで、親戚の若者達にこのスピーチのことを伝えたりしてきたけれど、受験英語しかしてない彼らには、最後の部分でピンときてない様子でした。(でも、携帯はiPhoneに変わっていたから、少しは役にたったかも)
     「ハングリー」にしても「愚か」にしても、日本の土壌で作られてきた語感ができあがちゃっている言葉だし、それは決して、英語の、しかも、あのスタンフォードという場所で、そこを出ていこうとする若者に伝えられたHungryやFoolishの持っていた語感とは決して同じではないですよね。
     なおきんさんの、あえての意訳のほうがずいぶんとぴったり来るなと思います。
     Stay hungry, Stay foolishというのは、Jobsのスピーチ全部を聞く人間に一瞬でフラッシュバックさせる、とても刺激的な言葉です。
     それを聞いただけで、血が、肉が、自分のまわりのバイブレーション全部が震えだしちゃうような、そんな言葉ですね。
     朝、会議で、刺激的な上司が、しめくくりに、パンと手を打って、
     All right, guys. Let's rock'n roll.  
     って言うのにちょっと似てます。

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    ABOUTこの記事をかいた人

    なおきんプロフィール:最初の職場はドイツ。社会人歴の半分を国外で過ごし、日本でサラリーマンを経験。今はフリーの立場でさまざまなビジネスにトライ中。ドイツの永久ビザを持ち、合間を見てはひとり旅にふらっとでるスナフキン的性格を持つ。1995年に初めてホームページを立ち上げ、ブログ歴は10年。時間と場所にとらわれないライフスタイルを めざす。