I was worth about over a million dollars
when I was twenty three and over ten
million dollars when I was 24 and over a
hundred million dollars when I was
twenty five and it wasn’t that important
because I never did it for the money
especially at that point in my life it
was it was not the most important thing
the most important thing was the company
the people the products we were what we
were going to enable people to do with
these products what had been the focus
of my entire adult life was gone and it
was devastating
I didn’t see it then it turned out that
getting fired from Apple was the best
thing that could have ever happened to
me
the penalty for failure for going and
trying to start a company in this valley
is non-existent there really isn’t the
penalty for failure either
psychologically or economically in the
sense that if you have a good idea you
ghost go out to start your own company
even if you fail you’re generally
considered worth more to the company you
left because you’ve gained all this
valuable experience in many discipline
most people don’t get those experiences
because they’d never ask
people say you you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up
most people never pick up the phone and
call most people never ask and that’s
what separates sometimes the people that
do things from the people that just
dream about got it you got an act and
you’ve got to be willing to fail you’ve
got to be willing to crash and burn if
you’re afraid of failing you won’t get
very far
people say you you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it if you’re not having fun doing
it you don’t really love it you’re gonna
give up and that’s what happens to most
people actually if you really look at
that the ones that ended up you know
being successful unquote in the eyes of
society and the ones that didn’t
oftentimes it’s the ones that are
successful loved what they did so they
could persevere well you know when it
got really tough and and the ones that
didn’t love it quit because they’re
saying right who would want to put up
with this stuff if you don’t love it so
it’s a lot of hard work and and it’s a
lot of worrying constantly and
if you don’t love it you’re gonna fail
so you got to love it you got to have
passion and I think that’s the
high-order bit the second thing is
you’ve got to be you’ve got to be a
really good talent scout because no
matter how smart you are you need a team
of great people and you’ve got to figure
out how to add a size people up fairly
quickly make decisions without knowing
people too well and hire them and you
know see how you do and refine your
intuition and be able to to help you
know build an organization that can
eventually just you know build itself
because you need great people around you
a lot of people kind of mean they say
well I want to be an entrepreneur and I
go that’s great what’s your idea and
they go well I don’t have one yet and I
say well I think you should go get a job
as a busboy or something so you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s it’s been done
but it’s rough I mean because it’s a
pretty much a you know an 18 hour a day
job seven days a week for a while so
unless you have a lot of passion about
this you’re gonna not survive you’re
gonna give it up so you got to have an
idea of an ax or a problem or a wrong
that you want to write that you’re
passionate about otherwise you’re not
going to have the perseverance to stick
it through and I think that’s half the
battle right there it’s hard to remember
how bad it was you know in 19
early 80s with IBM taking over the world
with the PC with das out there it was it
was far worse than the Apple 2 and they
tried to copy the Apple 2 and they’ve
done a pretty bad job but if you needed
to know a lot and so things were kind of
slipping backwards and Macintosh was you
saw the 1984 commercial but I hope you
have that in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM I’m saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better that it’s gonna beat you and we
are gonna do it and that’s what Apple
stood for you’ve just seen some pictures
of Macintosh now I’d like to show you
Macintosh in person all of the images
you are about to see on the large screen
will be generated by what’s in that bag
a lot of people come to me they say well
I want to be an entrepreneur and I go
that’s great what’s your idea and they
go well I don’t have one yet and I say
well I think you should go get a job as
a busboy or something until you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s been done but
it’s rough for me because it’s a pretty
much a you know an 18 hour a day job 7
days a week for a while so unless you
have a lot of passion
about this you’re gonna not survive
you’re gonna give it up so you got to
have an idea or a problem or a wrong
that you want to write that you’re
passionate about otherwise you’re not
going to have the perseverance to stick
it through and I think that’s half the
battle right there
[Music]
and so things were kind of slipping
backwards and McIntosh was you saw the
1984 commercial but I hope you have that
in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM and saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better than its gonna beat you
and we are gonna do it and that’s what
Apple stood for
[Music]
a lot of forces in life that tend to
tend to funnel us down into this
institutionalize man
and where people
where people sometimes forget that that
they’re very unique and that they have
very unique feelings and perspectives
[Applause]
truth be told I never graduated from
college 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 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 and much of what I stumbled
into by following my curiosity and
intuition turned out to be priceless
later on we’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 and the
only way to do great work is to love 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 and as the years
roll on so keep looking don’t settle
when I was 17 I read a quote 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’ve looked in the
mirror every morning and asked myself if
today were the last day of my life what
I want to do I’m about to do today and
whenever the answer has been no for too
many days in a row and now I need to
chose remembering that all be dead soon
is the most important rule I’ve ever
encountered to help me make the big
choices in life because almost
everything all external expectations
a fear of embarrassment failure these
things just fall away in the face of
death the aiming 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 towards you
there is no reason to family fault
about a year ago there was diagnosed
with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the
morning and it clearly showed it to
I don’t even have to pay his price the
doctors told me this was almost
certainly a type of cancer that is
incurable and I should expect to live no
longer than three to six months my
doctor advised me to go home and get my
affairs
which is doctors code for prepare
it means to try and tell their kids
everything you thought about the next
ten minutes to tell it means to make
sure everything is buttoned up to the
baby’s face as possible
even people who need to go to heaven 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 its life’s change agent it clears
out the old to make way for the new
right now the new is you 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 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
my entire life’s been spent only in one
industry which is this one and but I’ve
been in it for now for about 15 years
and I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot
of things I’ve seen a lot of people fail
a lot of things and my my point of view
on this or my observation is that the
doers are the major thinkers the people
that really create the things that
change this industry are both the
thinker doer in one person and if we
really go back and we examine you know
did Leonardo have a guy off to the side
that was thinking five years out in the
future what he would paint or the
technology he would use to paint it of
course not
Leonardo was the artist but he also
mixed all his own paints he also was a
fairly good chemist knew about pigments
knew about human anatomy and combining
all of those skills together the art and
the science the thinking and the doing
was what resulted in the exceptional
result and there is no difference in our
industry the people that really made the
contributions have been the thinkers and
the doers a lot of people of course it’s
very easy to take credit for the
thinking the doing is more concrete but
somebody is very easy for somebody say
oh I thought of this three years ago but
usually when you dig a little deeper you
find that the people that really did it
we’re also the people that really work
through the hard intellectual problems
as well we try to hire really smart
people but we have a very simple
organization and we try to focus and do
very few things well and focusing is
hard because focusing doesn’t mean
saying yes it means saying no so we say
we should we decide not to do a lot of
things so we can focus on a few handfuls
of things and do them well
and I think you know everybody working
the company wants to do something great
they want to be excited about what
they’re working and and they want to be
recognized for it when if they do a
really great job so we just try to allow
people to do the best work of their
lives at Apple and get it out to 25
million customers that we have and
that’s very exciting and when you’re
working on something you know this works
out up to 25 million people are going to
use this it’s very motivating
and it’s not just 25 million of our
customers but other companies tend to
follow us you know it takes them a few
years but other companies tend to copy
what we do if it works and and so we can
influence the whole industry
when I was a young kid there was a
widowed man that lived up the street and
he was in his 80s he’s a little
scary-looking and and I got to know him
a little bit I think he might have paid
me to cut his lawn or something and one
day he said come on into my garage I
want to show you something and he pulled
out this dusty old rock tumbler it was a
motor and a and a coffee can and a
little you know band between and and he
said come on with me we went out to the
back and we got some just some rocks
some regular old ugly rocks and we put
them in the can with a little bit of
liquid and a little bit of bug of grit
powder and we closed the can up and he
turned this motor on he said come back
tomorrow and as Ken was making a you
know racket as the stones were and I
came back the next day and we took we
open the can and we took out these
amazingly beautiful polished rocks
the same common stones that had gone in
through rubbing against each other like
this create a little bit of friction
creating a little bit of noise had come
out these beautiful polished rocks and
that’s always been in my mind my
metaphor for a team working really hard
on something they’re passionate about is
is that it’s through the team through
that group of incredibly talented people
bumping up against each other having
arguments having fights sometimes making
some noise and working together they
polish each other and they polish the
ideas and what comes out are these
really beautiful stones so it’s hard to
explain and it’s certainly not the
result of one person I mean people like
symbols so I’m the symbol of certain
things but it really is it was a team
effort on the Mac one of the things that
really hurt Apple was after I left John
Sculley got a very serious disease and
that disease I’ve seen other people get
it – it’s um it’s the disease of
thinking that a really great idea is 90%
of the work and then if you just tell
your all these other people you know
here’s this great idea then of course
they can go off and make it happen and
the problem with that is is that there’s
a just a tremendous amount of
craftsmanship in in-between a great idea
and a great product and as you evolve
that great idea it changes and grows it
never comes out like it starts because
you learn a lot more as you get into the
subtleties of it and you also find
there’s tremendous trade-offs that you
have to make I mean you know there are
there are just certain things you you
can’t make electrons do there are
certain things you can’t make plastic do
or glass do and and as you get into or
factories do or robots do and as you get
into all these things designing a
product is keeping 5,000 things in your
brain these concepts
and fitting them all together in in kind
of continuing to push to fit them
together in new and different ways to
get what you want and every day you
discover something new that is a new
problem or a new opportunity to fit
these things together a little
differently and it’s that process that
is the magic there needs to be someone
who is sort of the keeper and reiterate
ER of the vision because there’s just a
ton of work to do and a lot of times you
know when you have to walk a thousand
miles and you take the first step it
looks like a long ways and it really
helps if there’s someone there saying
well we’re one step closer you know that
the goal definitely exists it’s not just
a mirage out there so in a thousand and
one little and sometimes larger ways the
vision needs to be reiterated I do that
a lot
and it’ll all work itself out a lot of
people come to me they say well I want
to be an entrepreneur and I go that’s
great what’s your idea they go well I
don’t have one yet and I say well I
think you should go get a job as a
busboy or something until you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s it’s been done
but it’s rough because it’s a pretty
much you know a 18 hour a day job seven
days a week for a while so unless you
have a lot of passion about this you’re
gonna not survive you’re gonna give it
up so you got to have an idea or a
problem or a wrong that you want to
write that you’re passionate about
otherwise you’re not going to have the
perseverance to stick it through and I
think that’s half the battle right there
now that that’s why you need to do it
young that’s why we started Apple we
said you know we have absolutely nothing
to lose I was 20 years old at the time
woz was twenty four or five to me we
have nothing to lose we have no families
no children no houses woz had an old car
you know I had a Volkswagen van I mean
oh we were gonna lose is that our cars
and the shirts off our back we had
nothing to lose and we had everything to
gain when we figured even if we crash
and burn and lose everything the
experience will have been worth ten
times the cost so what did we have to
lose there was no risk and that’s
you know I think that’s a very healthy
way to look at it
some people say well you could have gone
to college and been a lawyer well you’re
right but you can go to college and be a
lawyer when you’re 25 there’s nothing
that stops you from doing that you
really the only thing you really have in
your life is time and if you invest that
time in yourself to have great
experiences that are gonna enrich you
then you can’t possibly lose so I always
advise people don’t wait do something
when you’re young when you have nothing
to lose and keep that in mind and I
think that’s the best way not that
people can’t start companies when
they’re 50 I’ve seen that very
successful companies but it’s a lot
easier when you’re young and have
nothing to lose and don’t have the
responsibilities to other people that
you will acquire later on in your life
[Music]
it’s hard to remember how bad it was you
know in 1980s with IBM taking over the
world with the PC with das out there it
was it was far worse than the Apple –
they tried to copy the Apple – and they
done a pretty bad job and if you needed
to know a lot and so things were kind of
slipping backwards and Macintosh was you
saw the 1984 commercial put that I hope
you have that in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM and saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better than its gonna beat you and we
are gonna do it and that’s what Apple’s
stood for things are packages of
emphasis some things are emphasized in a
product some things are not done as well
and a product some things are chosen not
to be done at all in a product and so
different people make different choices
and if the market tells us we’re making
the wrong choices we listen to the
market we’re just we’re just people
running this company we’re trying to
make great products for people and so
we’re we have the at least the courage
of our convictions to say we don’t think
this is part of what makes a great
product we’re gonna leave it out some
people are gonna not like that they’re
gonna call us names it’s not going to be
in certain companies vested interests
that we do that but we’re gonna take the
heat because we want to make the best
product in the world for customers we’re
gonna instead focus our energy on these
technologies which we think are in their
ascendency and we think are gonna be the
technologies for customers and you know
what they’re paying us to make those
choices that’s what a lot of customers
pay us to do is to try to make the best
products we can and if we succeed
they’ll buy them and if we don’t they
won’t yeah I didn’t know how to explain
it then but I thought a lot about it
since
if you most things in life the dynamic
range between average and the best is it
most to the one all right like if you go
to New York City and you get an average
taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab
driver you know you’re probably gonna
get to your destination with the best
taxi cab maybe 30% faster you know in an
automobile what’s the difference between
an average and the best maybe how 20%
the best CD player in an average CD
player I don’t 20% so 2 to 1 is a big
big dynamic range and in most of life
in software and it used to be the case
in hardware to the difference between
average and the best is fifty to one
maybe a hundred to one easy okay
I’ve very few things in life are like
this but what I was lucky enough to
spend my life in is like this and so
I’ve built a lot of my success off
finding these truly gifted people and
not settling for B and C players but
really going for the a players and I
found something I found that when you
get enough a players together when you
go to through the incredible work to
find you know five of these eight
players they really like working with
each other because they’ve never had a
chance to do that before and they don’t
want to work with B and C players and so
it becomes self policing and they only
want to hire more a players and so you
build up these pockets of a players and
it propagates and that’s what the Mac
team was like they were all a players
and these were extraordinarily talented
people
[Music]
when we were building our Apple ones in
the garage we knew exactly what they
cost when we got into a factory in the
Apple two days the accounting had this
notion of a standard cost where you’d
kind of set a standard cost and then at
the end of a quarter you’d adjust it
with a variance and I kept asking why
did we do this and the answer was less
just the way it’s done and after about
six months of digging into this what I
realized was the reason you do it is
because you don’t really have good
enough controls to know how much it
costs so you guess and then you fix your
guess at the end of the quarter and the
reason you don’t know how much it cost
is because your information systems
aren’t good enough so but nobody said it
that way and so later on when we
designed this automated factory for
Macintosh we were able to get rid of a
lot of these antiquated concepts and
know exactly what something costs to the
second so in business a lot of things or
I call it folklore they’ve done because
they were done yesterday and the day
before and so what that means is is if
you’re willing to sort of ask a lot of
questions and think about things and
work really hard you can learn business
pretty fast it’s not the heart not
rocket science it’s not rocket science
no
[Music]
you
when I was twenty three and over ten
million dollars when I was 24 and over a
hundred million dollars when I was
twenty five and it wasn’t that important
because I never did it for the money
especially at that point in my life it
was it was not the most important thing
the most important thing was the company
the people the products we were what we
were going to enable people to do with
these products what had been the focus
of my entire adult life was gone and it
was devastating
I didn’t see it then it turned out that
getting fired from Apple was the best
thing that could have ever happened to
me
the penalty for failure for going and
trying to start a company in this valley
is non-existent there really isn’t the
penalty for failure either
psychologically or economically in the
sense that if you have a good idea you
ghost go out to start your own company
even if you fail you’re generally
considered worth more to the company you
left because you’ve gained all this
valuable experience in many discipline
most people don’t get those experiences
because they’d never ask
people say you you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up
most people never pick up the phone and
call most people never ask and that’s
what separates sometimes the people that
do things from the people that just
dream about got it you got an act and
you’ve got to be willing to fail you’ve
got to be willing to crash and burn if
you’re afraid of failing you won’t get
very far
people say you you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it if you’re not having fun doing
it you don’t really love it you’re gonna
give up and that’s what happens to most
people actually if you really look at
that the ones that ended up you know
being successful unquote in the eyes of
society and the ones that didn’t
oftentimes it’s the ones that are
successful loved what they did so they
could persevere well you know when it
got really tough and and the ones that
didn’t love it quit because they’re
saying right who would want to put up
with this stuff if you don’t love it so
it’s a lot of hard work and and it’s a
lot of worrying constantly and
if you don’t love it you’re gonna fail
so you got to love it you got to have
passion and I think that’s the
high-order bit the second thing is
you’ve got to be you’ve got to be a
really good talent scout because no
matter how smart you are you need a team
of great people and you’ve got to figure
out how to add a size people up fairly
quickly make decisions without knowing
people too well and hire them and you
know see how you do and refine your
intuition and be able to to help you
know build an organization that can
eventually just you know build itself
because you need great people around you
a lot of people kind of mean they say
well I want to be an entrepreneur and I
go that’s great what’s your idea and
they go well I don’t have one yet and I
say well I think you should go get a job
as a busboy or something so you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s it’s been done
but it’s rough I mean because it’s a
pretty much a you know an 18 hour a day
job seven days a week for a while so
unless you have a lot of passion about
this you’re gonna not survive you’re
gonna give it up so you got to have an
idea of an ax or a problem or a wrong
that you want to write that you’re
passionate about otherwise you’re not
going to have the perseverance to stick
it through and I think that’s half the
battle right there it’s hard to remember
how bad it was you know in 19
early 80s with IBM taking over the world
with the PC with das out there it was it
was far worse than the Apple 2 and they
tried to copy the Apple 2 and they’ve
done a pretty bad job but if you needed
to know a lot and so things were kind of
slipping backwards and Macintosh was you
saw the 1984 commercial but I hope you
have that in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM I’m saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better that it’s gonna beat you and we
are gonna do it and that’s what Apple
stood for you’ve just seen some pictures
of Macintosh now I’d like to show you
Macintosh in person all of the images
you are about to see on the large screen
will be generated by what’s in that bag
a lot of people come to me they say well
I want to be an entrepreneur and I go
that’s great what’s your idea and they
go well I don’t have one yet and I say
well I think you should go get a job as
a busboy or something until you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s been done but
it’s rough for me because it’s a pretty
much a you know an 18 hour a day job 7
days a week for a while so unless you
have a lot of passion
about this you’re gonna not survive
you’re gonna give it up so you got to
have an idea or a problem or a wrong
that you want to write that you’re
passionate about otherwise you’re not
going to have the perseverance to stick
it through and I think that’s half the
battle right there
[Music]
and so things were kind of slipping
backwards and McIntosh was you saw the
1984 commercial but I hope you have that
in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM and saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better than its gonna beat you
and we are gonna do it and that’s what
Apple stood for
[Music]
a lot of forces in life that tend to
tend to funnel us down into this
institutionalize man
and where people
where people sometimes forget that that
they’re very unique and that they have
very unique feelings and perspectives
[Applause]
truth be told I never graduated from
college 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 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 and much of what I stumbled
into by following my curiosity and
intuition turned out to be priceless
later on we’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 and the
only way to do great work is to love 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 and as the years
roll on so keep looking don’t settle
when I was 17 I read a quote 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’ve looked in the
mirror every morning and asked myself if
today were the last day of my life what
I want to do I’m about to do today and
whenever the answer has been no for too
many days in a row and now I need to
chose remembering that all be dead soon
is the most important rule I’ve ever
encountered to help me make the big
choices in life because almost
everything all external expectations
a fear of embarrassment failure these
things just fall away in the face of
death the aiming 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 towards you
there is no reason to family fault
about a year ago there was diagnosed
with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the
morning and it clearly showed it to
I don’t even have to pay his price the
doctors told me this was almost
certainly a type of cancer that is
incurable and I should expect to live no
longer than three to six months my
doctor advised me to go home and get my
affairs
which is doctors code for prepare
it means to try and tell their kids
everything you thought about the next
ten minutes to tell it means to make
sure everything is buttoned up to the
baby’s face as possible
even people who need to go to heaven 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 its life’s change agent it clears
out the old to make way for the new
right now the new is you 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 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
my entire life’s been spent only in one
industry which is this one and but I’ve
been in it for now for about 15 years
and I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot
of things I’ve seen a lot of people fail
a lot of things and my my point of view
on this or my observation is that the
doers are the major thinkers the people
that really create the things that
change this industry are both the
thinker doer in one person and if we
really go back and we examine you know
did Leonardo have a guy off to the side
that was thinking five years out in the
future what he would paint or the
technology he would use to paint it of
course not
Leonardo was the artist but he also
mixed all his own paints he also was a
fairly good chemist knew about pigments
knew about human anatomy and combining
all of those skills together the art and
the science the thinking and the doing
was what resulted in the exceptional
result and there is no difference in our
industry the people that really made the
contributions have been the thinkers and
the doers a lot of people of course it’s
very easy to take credit for the
thinking the doing is more concrete but
somebody is very easy for somebody say
oh I thought of this three years ago but
usually when you dig a little deeper you
find that the people that really did it
we’re also the people that really work
through the hard intellectual problems
as well we try to hire really smart
people but we have a very simple
organization and we try to focus and do
very few things well and focusing is
hard because focusing doesn’t mean
saying yes it means saying no so we say
we should we decide not to do a lot of
things so we can focus on a few handfuls
of things and do them well
and I think you know everybody working
the company wants to do something great
they want to be excited about what
they’re working and and they want to be
recognized for it when if they do a
really great job so we just try to allow
people to do the best work of their
lives at Apple and get it out to 25
million customers that we have and
that’s very exciting and when you’re
working on something you know this works
out up to 25 million people are going to
use this it’s very motivating
and it’s not just 25 million of our
customers but other companies tend to
follow us you know it takes them a few
years but other companies tend to copy
what we do if it works and and so we can
influence the whole industry
when I was a young kid there was a
widowed man that lived up the street and
he was in his 80s he’s a little
scary-looking and and I got to know him
a little bit I think he might have paid
me to cut his lawn or something and one
day he said come on into my garage I
want to show you something and he pulled
out this dusty old rock tumbler it was a
motor and a and a coffee can and a
little you know band between and and he
said come on with me we went out to the
back and we got some just some rocks
some regular old ugly rocks and we put
them in the can with a little bit of
liquid and a little bit of bug of grit
powder and we closed the can up and he
turned this motor on he said come back
tomorrow and as Ken was making a you
know racket as the stones were and I
came back the next day and we took we
open the can and we took out these
amazingly beautiful polished rocks
the same common stones that had gone in
through rubbing against each other like
this create a little bit of friction
creating a little bit of noise had come
out these beautiful polished rocks and
that’s always been in my mind my
metaphor for a team working really hard
on something they’re passionate about is
is that it’s through the team through
that group of incredibly talented people
bumping up against each other having
arguments having fights sometimes making
some noise and working together they
polish each other and they polish the
ideas and what comes out are these
really beautiful stones so it’s hard to
explain and it’s certainly not the
result of one person I mean people like
symbols so I’m the symbol of certain
things but it really is it was a team
effort on the Mac one of the things that
really hurt Apple was after I left John
Sculley got a very serious disease and
that disease I’ve seen other people get
it – it’s um it’s the disease of
thinking that a really great idea is 90%
of the work and then if you just tell
your all these other people you know
here’s this great idea then of course
they can go off and make it happen and
the problem with that is is that there’s
a just a tremendous amount of
craftsmanship in in-between a great idea
and a great product and as you evolve
that great idea it changes and grows it
never comes out like it starts because
you learn a lot more as you get into the
subtleties of it and you also find
there’s tremendous trade-offs that you
have to make I mean you know there are
there are just certain things you you
can’t make electrons do there are
certain things you can’t make plastic do
or glass do and and as you get into or
factories do or robots do and as you get
into all these things designing a
product is keeping 5,000 things in your
brain these concepts
and fitting them all together in in kind
of continuing to push to fit them
together in new and different ways to
get what you want and every day you
discover something new that is a new
problem or a new opportunity to fit
these things together a little
differently and it’s that process that
is the magic there needs to be someone
who is sort of the keeper and reiterate
ER of the vision because there’s just a
ton of work to do and a lot of times you
know when you have to walk a thousand
miles and you take the first step it
looks like a long ways and it really
helps if there’s someone there saying
well we’re one step closer you know that
the goal definitely exists it’s not just
a mirage out there so in a thousand and
one little and sometimes larger ways the
vision needs to be reiterated I do that
a lot
and it’ll all work itself out a lot of
people come to me they say well I want
to be an entrepreneur and I go that’s
great what’s your idea they go well I
don’t have one yet and I say well I
think you should go get a job as a
busboy or something until you find
something you’re really passionate about
because it’s a lot of work and I’m
convinced that about half of what
separates the successful entrepreneurs
from the non successful ones is pure
perseverance it is so hard you pour so
much your life into this thing there are
such rough moments in time that most
people give up I don’t blame them it’s
really tough and it consumes your life I
mean if you’re if you’ve got a family
and you’re in the early days of a
company it’s I can’t imagine how one
could do it I’m sure it’s it’s been done
but it’s rough because it’s a pretty
much you know a 18 hour a day job seven
days a week for a while so unless you
have a lot of passion about this you’re
gonna not survive you’re gonna give it
up so you got to have an idea or a
problem or a wrong that you want to
write that you’re passionate about
otherwise you’re not going to have the
perseverance to stick it through and I
think that’s half the battle right there
now that that’s why you need to do it
young that’s why we started Apple we
said you know we have absolutely nothing
to lose I was 20 years old at the time
woz was twenty four or five to me we
have nothing to lose we have no families
no children no houses woz had an old car
you know I had a Volkswagen van I mean
oh we were gonna lose is that our cars
and the shirts off our back we had
nothing to lose and we had everything to
gain when we figured even if we crash
and burn and lose everything the
experience will have been worth ten
times the cost so what did we have to
lose there was no risk and that’s
you know I think that’s a very healthy
way to look at it
some people say well you could have gone
to college and been a lawyer well you’re
right but you can go to college and be a
lawyer when you’re 25 there’s nothing
that stops you from doing that you
really the only thing you really have in
your life is time and if you invest that
time in yourself to have great
experiences that are gonna enrich you
then you can’t possibly lose so I always
advise people don’t wait do something
when you’re young when you have nothing
to lose and keep that in mind and I
think that’s the best way not that
people can’t start companies when
they’re 50 I’ve seen that very
successful companies but it’s a lot
easier when you’re young and have
nothing to lose and don’t have the
responsibilities to other people that
you will acquire later on in your life
[Music]
it’s hard to remember how bad it was you
know in 1980s with IBM taking over the
world with the PC with das out there it
was it was far worse than the Apple –
they tried to copy the Apple – and they
done a pretty bad job and if you needed
to know a lot and so things were kind of
slipping backwards and Macintosh was you
saw the 1984 commercial put that I hope
you have that in your archives
you know Macintosh was basically this
this relatively small company you know
in Cupertino California taking on the
Goliath IBM and saying wait a minute
your way is wrong this is not the way we
want computers to go this is not the
legacy we want to leave this is not what
we want our kids to be learning this is
wrong and we are going to show you the
right way to do it and here it is it’s
called Macintosh and this is so much
better than its gonna beat you and we
are gonna do it and that’s what Apple’s
stood for things are packages of
emphasis some things are emphasized in a
product some things are not done as well
and a product some things are chosen not
to be done at all in a product and so
different people make different choices
and if the market tells us we’re making
the wrong choices we listen to the
market we’re just we’re just people
running this company we’re trying to
make great products for people and so
we’re we have the at least the courage
of our convictions to say we don’t think
this is part of what makes a great
product we’re gonna leave it out some
people are gonna not like that they’re
gonna call us names it’s not going to be
in certain companies vested interests
that we do that but we’re gonna take the
heat because we want to make the best
product in the world for customers we’re
gonna instead focus our energy on these
technologies which we think are in their
ascendency and we think are gonna be the
technologies for customers and you know
what they’re paying us to make those
choices that’s what a lot of customers
pay us to do is to try to make the best
products we can and if we succeed
they’ll buy them and if we don’t they
won’t yeah I didn’t know how to explain
it then but I thought a lot about it
since
if you most things in life the dynamic
range between average and the best is it
most to the one all right like if you go
to New York City and you get an average
taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab
driver you know you’re probably gonna
get to your destination with the best
taxi cab maybe 30% faster you know in an
automobile what’s the difference between
an average and the best maybe how 20%
the best CD player in an average CD
player I don’t 20% so 2 to 1 is a big
big dynamic range and in most of life
in software and it used to be the case
in hardware to the difference between
average and the best is fifty to one
maybe a hundred to one easy okay
I’ve very few things in life are like
this but what I was lucky enough to
spend my life in is like this and so
I’ve built a lot of my success off
finding these truly gifted people and
not settling for B and C players but
really going for the a players and I
found something I found that when you
get enough a players together when you
go to through the incredible work to
find you know five of these eight
players they really like working with
each other because they’ve never had a
chance to do that before and they don’t
want to work with B and C players and so
it becomes self policing and they only
want to hire more a players and so you
build up these pockets of a players and
it propagates and that’s what the Mac
team was like they were all a players
and these were extraordinarily talented
people
[Music]
when we were building our Apple ones in
the garage we knew exactly what they
cost when we got into a factory in the
Apple two days the accounting had this
notion of a standard cost where you’d
kind of set a standard cost and then at
the end of a quarter you’d adjust it
with a variance and I kept asking why
did we do this and the answer was less
just the way it’s done and after about
six months of digging into this what I
realized was the reason you do it is
because you don’t really have good
enough controls to know how much it
costs so you guess and then you fix your
guess at the end of the quarter and the
reason you don’t know how much it cost
is because your information systems
aren’t good enough so but nobody said it
that way and so later on when we
designed this automated factory for
Macintosh we were able to get rid of a
lot of these antiquated concepts and
know exactly what something costs to the
second so in business a lot of things or
I call it folklore they’ve done because
they were done yesterday and the day
before and so what that means is is if
you’re willing to sort of ask a lot of
questions and think about things and
work really hard you can learn business
pretty fast it’s not the heart not
rocket science it’s not rocket science
no
[Music]
you
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