The Best of Steve Jobs

The Best of Steve Jobs
Originally uploaded by divedi.

Keywords: Steve Jobs

Transcript of Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University:

"This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered 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 5ў 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, its 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 retuned 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 its 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 other's 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."

Link
Source: Stanford Report

Discussion:
Steve Jobs In Praise of Dropping Out - Slashdot

Blogs:
Steve Jobs - Technorati

Tags:
del.icio.us/tag/SteveJobs

Update:
Let's compare Steve Jobs with Larry Ellison.

Interview:
On the record: Larry Ellison - San Francisco Chronicle

Audio:
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison - On The Record - San Francisco Chronicle

Update 2:
I've replaced the Slashdot transcript with the Stanford one.
Transcript of Jobs' commencement speech - Slashdot

Update 3:
Listen to Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs: Commencement Address at Stanford University - American Rhetoric

The Day After Tomorrow

"Doug Randall wrote (along his boss at Global Business Network, Peter Schwartz) what has come to be known as 'the Pentagon study' on abrupt climate change. Their scenaric findings -- that the gradual global warming we're experiencing could plausibly trigger an abrupt climate snap, and that its effects would be massive, perhaps catastrophic, and of direct relevance to the national security of the United States -- we're picked up by media around the world, gathering a snowball of controversy and hype along the way. Their scenarios, freely available on the Web, were termed a 'secret Pentagon report,' and their descriptions of possible climate catastrophe taken as bald prediction.

But underneath the hype was a reasoned attempt to judge the seriousness of the threat posed by climate instability. That's something all of us hoping to change the world have to take into account. So we asked Doug about the implications of that report (now that the dust has settled), the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and how to think about the future of climate change."

Link
Source: WorldChanging
See also:
Dry /Ice: Global Warming Revealed
The Pentagon and Abrupt Climate Change
GBN: Abrupt Climate Change
A Feel-Good Disaster Movie
The Day After Tomorrow
PhysicsWeb - Models within models
The Day After Tomorrow - IMDB
The Day After Tomorrow - Yahoo! Movies
Arctic Getting Warmer Faster
Big Climate Shifts in the Arctic
Ocean and Climate Change Institute - Abrupt Climate Change
Swiss Re - Economic dimension of climate change
Climate change - Wikipedia
Hollywood, Science and the End of the World

Report of the Day: The Economist on the World in 2007

Keywords: 2007, The Economist

"The 21st edition of The Economist’s annual compilation of forecasts, The World In 2007 , examines critical issues that will shape the year ahead. Journalists from The Economist , prominent politicians and luminaries from the world of business look ahead to bring you their considered predictions on business, politics, technology and more.

Among the contributors to The World In 2007 are Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, potential Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile and the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron. There are articles from two top CEOs: Google’s Eric Schmidt and Oracle’s Larry Ellison (who writes not about software but about yachting’s America’s Cup). There are even thoughts from a Siberian prison by Mikhail Khordorkovsky. As ever, the publication is both entertaining and informative, telling readers what to expect in 2007 on topics ranging from slavery to Pi?a Colada."

Topics:
- the European Union and Germany
- George Bush
- Iraq
- David Cameron and the Conservative Party in the UK
- democracy in the world
- crime gangs
- Russia and the emergence of a new world order
- France after Chirac
- the web is a serial killer
- China
- investing in climate change
- towards immortality
- the collapse of North Korea
- Japan’s relations with China
Source: The Economist

Report of the Day: 2007 Digital Fact Pack

Keywords: Advertising Age

"It's becoming critical to stay atop the digital media and marketing space, but the pace of technological change is making it increasingly difficult. That's why we've again pulled together the important data and trends to serve as a guide to marketing in this space.

This, our second annual Digital Fact Pack, is full of fascinating numbers."
Source: AdAge.com

Bookmarks:
del.icio.us/Monten/marketing
del.icio.us/Monten/media
del.icio.us/Monten/advertising
del.icio.us/Monten/report
del.icio.us/Monten/research
del.icio.us/Monten/internet
del.icio.us/Monten/search
del.icio.us/Monten/web2.0
del.icio.us/Monten/video
del.icio.us/Monten/SNS

See also:
Report of the Day - The World 2 Come

Report of the Day: The State of the News Media 2006

Keywords: journalism, news media

"The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism.

Our goal is to put in one place as much original and aggregated data as possible about each of the major journalism sectors."
Link
[via Jeff Jarvis]

Blogs:
Media Blogs - The World 2 Come

Insight:
Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch - Guardian

Audio:
Newspapers in the age of blogs - RSA Lectures
The Future of Newspapers - Open Source

Audio of the Day: Google's Sergey Brin at the World Economic Forum in Davos

Image: Vassil Mladjov

Keywords: Google, Sergey Brin, World Economic Forum

"Sergey Brin's first podcast? Maybe, it is not that important. Sergey explains why he takes this time to participate to the Annual Meeting in Davos and comments Google's recent developments 'trying to put everything on-line.' "
Source: Loic Le Meur

Blogs:
Delving into Davos - Blogs - International Herald Tribune
Silicon Valley meets Davos - Red Herring Blog

Spesial report:
World Economic Forum
Davos 2006 - Bloomberg

Video:
Digital 2.0: Powering a Creative Economy - World Economic Forum
Sergey Brin Speaks with UC Berkeley Class - Google Video
The world according to Google - BBC News
InfoSys 141 Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business - UC Berkeley

See also:
Google - The World 2 Come
Audio of the Day: Sergey Brin at Web 2.0 2005 - The World 2 Come
Audio of the Day - The World 2 Come

Report of the Day: Search Engine Marketing Fact Pack 2006

Keywords: search engine marketing (SEM)

52-Page Data Guide on Engines, Keywords, Sites and Studies
"IT SOLVES A BASIC MARKETING need: connecting potential buyers to sellers. But until the recent past, search marketing has lived a low-profile life in the media and advertising world.

Today, however, it’s hard to ignore the stats: About 80% of internet traffic begins at a search engine, according to Harris Interactive, and DoubleClick reports 41% of web users use search for simple navigation, typing a query to find a brand rather than typing a URL directly into their browser.

And how the business has grown: the latest figures from Forrester indicate search marketing will be a $7 billion business this year. While it may not be as flashy as TV, search is one of the best ways to extend the life of a 30-second spot. Ignoring it is a stumble few marketers can afford, which is why Advertising Age has compiled its first comprehensive Fact Pack devoted to search marketing."
Source: AdAge.com

Blogs:
Pocketbook Statistics for Search Engine Marketing - SearchViews

News & Blogs:
Search Engine Marketing - Topix.net

Events/Conferences:
Search Engine Conferences - Search Engine Roundtable

Audio:
Daily SearchCast

See also:
Search - The World 2 Come

Report/Audio of the Day: Guardian on Web 2.0

Keywords: Web 2.0

"John Lanchester gets to grips with the virtual universe and Guardian writers interview the smartest and the luckiest entrepreneurs who demolished the old internet and built a brand new one."
Source: Guardian
[via Antony Mayfield]

Interviews with:
- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia
- Evan Williams, Blogger/Odeo
- Matt Mullenweg, WordPress
- Michael and Xochi Birch, Bebo
- Sam Schillace, Writely
- Kevin Rose, Digg
- Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist
- Martin Stiksel, Last.fm
- Joshua Schachter, Del.icio.us
- Dick Costolo, FeedBurner
- Tariq Krim, Netvibes
- David Sifry, Technorati
- Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, Flickr

See also:
Web 2.0 - The World 2 Come
Audio of the Day - The World 2 Come

Blog of the Day: The Happiness Project

Keywords: happiness

Gretchen Rubin:
"I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about this year, during which I'm testing every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I can find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. I’m gathering these rules for living from everywhere I can, and I’ll report what works and what doesn’t. This happiness blog is part of my larger project."
Source: The Happiness Project
[via Ben Casnocha]

See also:
Blog of the Day - The World 2 Come

Blog of the Day: Crisis in the Middle East

Keywords: Middle East, Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Jamal:
"I've noticed a high number of Israelis on Lebanese blogs these days claiming they want peace."
Source: Jamal's Propaganda Site
[via The Big Pharaoh]

Blogs:
Crisis in the Middle East: Local Bloggers Report - The Truth Laid Bear
The Israel-Hezbollah War Part Five - Pajamas Media
Lebanon - Global Voices Online
Israel - Defense Tech

News:
Lebanon - Topix.net
Israel - Topix.net
Lebanon - Digg
Israel - Digg

Analysis:
Iran launches a pre-emptive war... - Thomas P.M. Barnett
Guerrilla Proto-States - John Robb's Weblog
Now, I "get it." - Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006

Photos:
Lebanon - Flickr
Israel - Flickr
Baleboosteh

Video:
Lebanon - YouTube
Israel - YouTube
Israel - Google Video
Lebanon - Google Video

Audio:
Blog Week in Review, July 14, 2006 - Pajamas Media
Israel and Lebanon: Three Views of a Regional War - Open Source
From the Israeli Side of the Border - Open Source
Israel - Open Source
Lebanon - Open Source

Q&A:
Israel - Yahoo Answers
Lebanon - Yahoo Answers

Learn:
Israel - About.com
Israel - MIT OCW
Lebanon - About.com
Lebanon - MIT OCW

Discuss:
Libnan wa Libnani (Lebanon and the Lebanese) - Myspace
Israel - Myspace
Planet Lebanon - Myspace

Audio of the Day: Steve Jobs at MacWorld

Image: Engadget

Keywords: Apple Computer, Steve Jobs

Audio:
Steve Jobs Podcast of Keynote Speech at MacWorld - PodTech News
Steve Jobs - MacWorld Keynote Speech - Part 1 of 8 - PodTech News

Blogs:
Steve Jobs keynote live from Macworld 2006 - Engadget
Macworld: The Steve Jobs Show - PaidContent
Steve Gillmor

Special report:
Macworld 2006 - CNET News

Photos:
Macworld 2006 - Flickr
Steve Jobs keynote picture by picture - Silicon Valley Sleuth

Insight:
Michael Gartenberg: iLife 06 and a new .mac are the real stars of the show for me - JupiterResearch Analyst Weblogs

News:
Apple Computer - Topix.net

Stocks:
AAPL - The Consumer Electronics Stock Blog

Communications:
Lessons from Steve's Keynote - Guy Kawasaki
Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic - Presentation Zen
Visual simplicity: Steve Jobs does it again - Presentation Zen
Kawasaki on Steve Jobs's keynote - Presentation Zen
Behind the magic curtain - Guardian
Writers Block Live
2-D or not 2-D? - Presentation Zen

See also:
Apple - The World 2 Come
Steve Jobs - The World 2 Come

Report of the Day: Rise Of A Powerhouse

Keywords: Eastern Europe

"How the young knowledge workers of Central Europe are pushing the region to a new level."
Source: Business Week

News:
Europe News - Topix.net

Blogs:
The european blogosphere - LoicLeMeur Wiki

What's up with Microsoft?

Keywords: Microsoft

Special Report:
"Once the dream workplace of tech's highest achievers, it is suffering key defections to Google and elsewhere. What's behind the losses?"
Troubling Exits At Microsoft - Business Week

Analysis:
Microsoft's Midlife Crisis - Forbes.com

Interview:
Gates on Google: What, me worry? - CNET News

Opinion:
My MSFT morale report - Robert Scoble
Is Bill Gates the Cat with Nine Lives? - A VC
What’s Up At Microsoft! - Om Malik
Mini-Microsoft

Discuss:
Microsoft - Slashdot

Finance:
MSFT - The Internet Stock Blog

Event:
PDC Bloggers

Analysts:
JupiterResearch Analyst Weblogs

Marketing:
Inside Microsoft's Marketing Machine - Clickz

Audio:
An interview with Bill Gates from PDC 2005 - Jon Udell
Roadkill Gang - Gillmor Gang

Search:
Google Blog Search
Technorati
IceRocket

See also:
Video of the Day: Bill Gates on Channel 9 - The World 2 Come

Audio of the Day: ScrappleFace

Keywords: satire

ScrappleFace
"News Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher. The number one daily, conservative, family-friendly satire site."
Link