Steve was a natural performer who elevated business presentations to something close to high art. But what made him fidgety this day was the prospect of addressing the Stanford University graduating class of 2005. University president John Hennessy had broached the idea several months earlier, and after taking just a little time to think it over, Steve had said yes. He was offered speaking engagements constantly, and he always said no. In fact, he was asked to do so many commencement addresses that it became a running joke with Laurene and other friends who had college or graduate degrees: Steve said he’d accept one just to make an end run around them and get his PhD in a day, versus the years and years it had taken them. But in the end, saying no was simply a question of return on investment—conferences and public speaking seemed to offer a meager payoff compared to other things, like a dazzling MacWorld presentation, working on a great product, or being around his family. “If you look closely at how he spent his time,” says Tim Cook, “you’ll see that he hardly ever traveled and he did none of the conferences and get-togethers that so many CEOs attend. He wanted to be home for dinner.”
Stanford was different, even though speaking there would not turn Steve into Dr. Jobs—the school did not offer honorary degrees. For starters, he wouldn’t have to travel or miss dinner, since it was possible for him to drive from his house to the university in just seven minutes. More important, the university was deeply tied into the Silicon Valley tech community in a way he admired. Its education was first-rate and the professors he’d met through the years, like Jim Collins, were top caliber. Despite being a dropout, he always enjoyed spending time around smart college students. “He was only going to do one commencement speech,” says Laurene, “and if it was going to be anywhere it was going to be at Stanford.”
1）能回家吃饭；2）斯坦福与硅谷联系紧密；3）ROI高，斯坦福学生可以加入苹果Getting around to writing the speech proved to be something of a bother. Steve had talked to a few friends about what to say, and he had even asked the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin for some thoughts. But nothing came of all that, so finally he decided to write it himself. He wrote up a draft one night, and then started bouncing ideas off Laurene, Tim Cook, and a couple of others. “He really wanted to get it right,” says Laurene. “He wanted it to say something he really cared about.” The language changed slightly, but its structure, which summed up his essential values in three vignettes, remained the same. In the days before the event he would recite it while walking around the house, from the bedroom upstairs to the kitchen below, the kids watching their dad spring past them in the same kind of trance he’d sometimes enter in the days before MacWorld or Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Several times he read it to the whole family at dinner.
这就是我们觉得斯坦福毕业演讲这么好的原因！！！From his earliest days, Steve had always been able to spin a tale. But nothing he ever said before resonated this way. The speech has been viewed at least 35 million times on YouTube. It didn’t go viral, in the way of a Web phenomenon of 2015—social networks weren’t as developed or extensive a decade ago. But it gradually became recognized as something truly exceptional, of great meaning to a world of people beyond the Stanford Stadium as well. Its popularity surprised him. “None of us expected it to take off like that,” says Katie Cotton, who headed up communications and PR for Apple at the time.
公关老大都震惊了，哈哈哈Collins has specialized in the study of what makes great companies tick, and what marks the people who lead them. He sees something unique in Steve’s unorthodox business education. “I used to call him the Beethoven of business,” he says, “but that’s more true of when he was young. When Steve was twenty-two, you could consider him a genius with a thousand helpers. But he grew way beyond that. He’s not a success story, but a growth story. It’s truly remarkable to go from being a great artist to being a great company builder.”
“The narrative that was created around Steve 1.0 has dominated,” says Collins. “That’s partly because the story of a man who matured slowly into a seasoned leader is less interesting. Learning how to have disposable cash flow, and how to pick the right people, and growing, and rounding off the sharp edges, and not merely acting strange—that’s not as interesting! But all that personality stuff is just the packaging, the window dressing. What’s the truth of your ambition? Do you have the humility to continually grow, to learn from your failures and get back up? Are you utterly relentless for your cause, ferocious for your cause? Can you channel your intensity and intelligence and energy and talents and gifts and ideas outward into something that is bigger and more impactful than you are? That’s what great leadership is about.”
WHEN I FIRST read the speech online, I remembered an interview I’d conducted with Steve in 1998. We had been talking about the trajectory of his career when, in a rambling aside not unlike the road on the back cover of the last issue of the Whole Earth Catalog, Steve told me about the impact that the Catalog had had upon him. “I think back to it when I am trying to remind myself of what to do, of what’s the right thing to do.” A few weeks after that interview had been published in Fortune, I received an envelope in the mail. It was from Stewart Brand, and it contained a rare copy of that final issue. “Please give this to Steve next time you see him,” Stewart asked. When I did, a week or two later, Steve was thrilled. He’d remembered the issue for all those years, but had never had the time to locate a copy for himself.
The end of the Stanford speech focuses on the Catalog’s back-cover motto, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” but my favorite line about the catalog in Steve’s speech is when he describes it as “idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” This is, in fact, a lovely description of Steve’s companies at their best. He was an empathetic man who wanted these graduates to head off on foolish, hungry pursuits, and who wanted to give them neat tools and great notions as they began their winding journey. Like Jim Collins, I had gotten close enough to Steve to see beyond his harshness and the occasional outright rudeness to the idealist within. Sometimes it was hard to convey this idealism to others, given Steve’s intensity and unpredictably sharp elbows. The Stanford commencement speech gave the world a glimpse of that genuine idealism.
好巧，我也喜欢那一句！！！
“idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.”
乔布斯经典照片集 坐在麗莎電腦旁。他說：「毕加索曾說：「好的藝術家懂得模仿，佛大的藝術家善於偷取。」因此，窃取偉大的點子沒有什麼好羞耻的。 與蓋茲在電話中達成協議：「比爾，謝謝你支持蘋果。因為你的支持，世界將變得更美好。」 1997年蘋果在波士頓舉行的麥金塔世界大會，蓋茲透過衛星連線在巨大的螢幕上出現。質伯斯說：「我真是笨死了，竟然讓蓋兹以這種方式現身。他讓我看起來好沙小。」 ──时刻自省 前言 The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. 只有那些瘋狂到以為自己可以改變世界的人， 才能改變這個世界。 這麼些年來，賈伯斯說起話來的認真與專注態度，著實打動不少人。我們一直保持連絡，即使在他被逐出蘋果之後，我們還有來往。每次他有新產品要推出時，像 NeXT 電腦或皮克斯 (Pixar）的電影，他就會來找我。他常帶我去曼哈頓下城一家壽司店用餐，講起他的產品，渾身散發出光和熱，眉飛色舞的說這是他登峰造極之作。我喜歡這個人。 ──对自己产品深深的爱 他的堅持教我疑惑。人人都知道賈伯斯不道餘力捍衛隱私， 而且我不知道他是否看過我寫的任何一本傳記。我還是不敢立刻答應，只說或許再等等。然而到了 2009年，我接到他太太蘿琳． 鮑威爾打來的電話。她直截了當說：「如果你還想為史帝夫寫傳，最好趕快動筆。」這是他第二次因病向公司請長假。我坦言他早在2004 年得知自己罹患胰臟癌的時候就曾主動邀我寫傳，但我當時對他罹癌的事一無所知。蘿琳解釋說，他們盡量保密，因此當時根本沒幾個人知道。他是在動手術的前夕打電話給我的。 ──和Make Something Wonderful对照起来看 他還說，自從他回到蘋果重新掌權，這十二年來是他創造新產品的高峰期，但他還有更重要的目標，也就是效法惠普的惠立和普克（David Packard），締造一家創新動力無限的公司，進而超越惠普。 ──苹果公司才是乔布斯最得意的产品 他說：「我一直認為，自己是個偏向人文的孩子，但我也喜歡電子的東西。後來，我讀到寶麗來(Polaroid）創辦人蘭德 (Edwin Land）曾說過，一個人能站在人文和科學的交會口，兼容贯通，才是真正的人才。在那當下，我决定要當這樣的人。」他似乎在暗示我，這可以做為傳...