Speech Style Grabber

[Transcript of a Speech]:  0:05 thank you 0:11 I'm honored to be with you today for 0:14 your commencement from one of the finest 0:16 universities in the world truth be told 0:22 I never graduated from college and this 0:27 is the closest I've ever gotten to a 0:29 college graduation today I want to tell 0:34 you three stories from my life that's it 0:36 no big deal 0:37 just three stories the first story is 0:41 about connecting the dots I dropped out 0:46 of Reed College after the first six 0:48 months but then stayed around as a 0:50 drop-in for another 18 months or so 0:52 before I really quit so why did I drop 0:55 out it started before I was born my 0:59 biological mother was a young unwed 1:02 graduate student and she decided to put 1:05 me up for adoption she felt very 1:08 strongly that I should be adopted by 1:09 college graduates so everything was all 1:12 set for me to be adopted at Birth by a 1:14 lawyer and his wife except that when I 1:17 popped out they decided at the last 1:19 minute that they really wanted a girl so 1:22 my parents who were on a waiting list 1:24 got a call in the middle of the night 1:26 asking we've got an unexpected baby boy 1:30 do you want him they said of course my 1:36 biological mother found out later that 1:38 my mother had never graduated from 1:39 college and that my father had never 1:41 graduated from high school she refused 1:44 to sign the final adoption papers she 1:48 only relented a few months later when my 1:50 parents promised that I would go to 1:52 college this was the start in my life 1:56 and 17 years later I did go to college 2:01 but I naively chose a college that was 2:04 almost as expensive as Stanford and all 2:07 of my working-class parents savings were 2:09 being spent on my college tuition after 2:12 six months 2:13 I couldn't see the value in it I had no 2:16 idea what I wanted to do with my life 2:17 and no idea how college was going to 2:20 help me figure it out and here I was 2:22 spending all the money my parents had 2:24 saved their entire life so I decided to 2:28 drop out and trust that it would all 2:30 work out okay it was pretty scary at the 2:33 time but looking back it was one of the 2:35 best decisions I ever made the minute I 2:39 dropped out I could stop taking the 2:42 required classes that didn't interest me 2:43 and begin dropping in on the ones that 2:47 looked far more interesting it wasn't 2:50 all romantic I didn't have a dorm room 2:52 so I slept on the floor in friends rooms 2:54 I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent 2:57 deposits to buy food with and I would 3:00 walk the seven miles across town every 3:01 Sunday night to get one good meal a week 3:04 at the Hari Krishna temple I loved it 3:07 and much of what I stumbled into by 3:10 following my curiosity and intuition 3:12 turned out to be priceless later on let 3:15 me give you one example Reid college at 3:19 that time offered perhaps the best 3:20 calligraphy instruction in the country 3:22 throughout the campus every poster every 3:25 label on every drawer was beautifully 3:27 hand calligraphed because I had dropped 3:31 out and didn't have to take the normal 3:32 classes I decided to take a calligraphy 3:35 class to learn how to do this I learned 3:38 about serif and sans-serif typefaces 3:40 about varying the amount of space 3:42 between different letter combinations 3:43 about what makes great typography great 3:47 it was beautiful historical artistically 3:50 subtle in a way that science can't 3:53 capture and I found it fascinating none 3:57 of this had even a hope of any practical 3:59 application in my life but 10 years 4:03 later when we were designing the first 4:04 Macintosh computer it all came back to 4:07 me and we designed it all into the Mac 4:10 it was the first computer with beautiful 4:12 typography if I had never dropped in on 4:15 that single course in college the Mac 4:18 would have never had multiple typefaces 4:19 or proportionally spaced fonts and since 4:22 windows just copied the Mac it's likely 4:25 that no personal computer 4:26 would have them if I had never dropped 4:35 out I would have never dropped in on 4:37 that calligraphy class and personal 4:39 computers might not have the wonderful 4:41 typography that they do of course it was 4:44 impossible to connect the dots looking 4:45 forward when I was in college but it was 4:48 very very clear looking backwards ten 4:50 years later again you can't connect the 4:53 dots looking forward you can only 4:55 connect them looking backwards so you 4:58 have to trust that the dots will somehow 4:59 connect in your future you have to trust 5:02 in something your gut destiny life karma 5:04 whatever because believing that the dots 5:07 will connect down the road will give you 5:10 the confidence to follow your heart even 5:12 when it leads you off the well-worn path 5:15 and that will make all the difference my 5:23 second story is about love and loss I 5:28 was lucky I found what I loved to do 5:31 early in life woz and I started Apple in 5:34 my parent's garage when I was 20 we 5:36 worked hard and in 10 years Apple had 5:39 grown from just the two of us in a 5:40 garage into a two billion dollar company 5:42 with over 4,000 employees we just 5:45 released our finest creation the 5:47 Macintosh a year earlier and I just 5:49 turned 30 and then I got fired how can 5:54 you get fired from a company you started 5:56 well as Apple grew we hired someone who 6:00 I thought was very talented to run the 6:02 company with me and for the first year 6:04 or so things went well but then our 6:06 visions of the future began to diverge 6:07 and eventually we had a falling out when 6:10 we did our Board of Directors sided with 6:12 him and so at 30 I was out and very 6:16 publicly out what had been the focus of 6:19 my entire adult life was gone and it was 6:21 devastating I really didn't know what to 6:24 do for a few months I felt that I had 6:26 let the previous generation of 6:27 entrepreneurs down that I had dropped 6:30 the baton as it was being passed to me I 6:32 met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and 6:35 tried to apologize for screwing up so 6:37 badly 6:38 I was a very public failure and I even 6:41 thought about running away from the 6:42 valley but something slowly began to 6:44 dawn on me I still loved what I did the 6:49 turn of events at Apple had not changed 6:51 that one bit I've been rejected but I 6:54 was still in love and so I decided to 6:57 start over I didn't see it then but it 7:01 turned out that getting fired from Apple 7:02 was the best thing that could have ever 7:04 happened to me the heaviness of being 7:06 successful was replaced by the lightness 7:08 of being a beginner again less sure 7:11 about everything it freed me to enter 7:13 one of the most creative periods of my 7:15 life during the next five years I 7:17 started a company named next another 7:19 company named Pixar and fell in love 7:21 with an amazing woman who would become 7:22 my wife 7:23 Pixar went on to create the world's 7:25 first computer animated feature film Toy 7:28 Story and is now the most successful 7:29 animation studio in the world in a 7:34 remarkable turn of events Apple bought 7:37 next and I returned to Apple and the 7:40 technology we developed it next is at 7:41 the heart of Apple's current Renaissance 7:43 and Laureen and I have a wonderful 7:46 family together I'm pretty sure none of 7:50 this would have happened if I hadn't 7:51 been fired from Apple 7:52 it was awful tasting medicine but I 7:54 guess the patient needed it sometime 7:57 life sometimes life's going to hit you 7:59 in the head with a brick don't lose 8:01 faith I'm convinced that the only thing 8:04 that kept me going was that I loved what 8:05 I did you've got to find what you love 8:08 and that is as true for work as it is 8:11 for your lovers your work is going to 8:13 fill a large part of your life and the 8:15 only way to be truly satisfied is to do 8:17 what you believe is great work and the 8:19 only way to do great work is to love 8:21 what you do if you haven't found it yet 8:24 keep looking and don't settle as with 8:28 all matters of the heart you'll know 8:30 when you find it and like any great 8:32 relationship it just gets better and 8:34 better as the years roll on so keep 8:37 looking don't settle 8:49 my third story is about death when I was 8:54 17 I read a quote that went something 8:56 like if you live each day as if it was 8:59 your last someday you'll most certainly 9:01 be right it made an impression on me and 9:06 since then for the past 33 years I have 9:09 looked in the mirror every morning and 9:11 asked myself if today were the last day 9:14 of my life what I want to do what I am 9:16 about to do today and whenever the 9:19 answer has been no for too many days in 9:21 a row I know I need to change something 9:24 remembering that all be dead soon is the 9:27 most important tool I've ever 9:29 encountered to help me make the big 9:30 choices in life because almost 9:33 everything all external expectations all 9:36 pride all fear of embarrassment or 9:38 failure these things just fall away in 9:41 the face of death leaving only what is 9:43 truly important remembering that you are 9:46 going to die is the best way I know to 9:49 avoid the trap of thinking you have 9:50 something to lose you are already naked 9:53 there is no reason not to follow your 9:56 heart about a year ago I was diagnosed 10:00 with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the 10:04 morning and it clearly showed a tumor on 10:06 my pancreas I didn't even know what a 10:08 pancreas was the doctors told me this 10:12 was almost certainly a type of cancer 10:13 that is incurable and that I should 10:16 expect to live no longer than three to 10:18 six months my doctor advised me to go 10:21 home and get my affairs in order which 10:25 is doctors code for prepare to die it 10:28 means to try and tell your kids 10:30 everything you thought you'd have the 10:32 next 10 years to tell them in just a few 10:35 months it means to make sure everything 10:37 is buttoned up so that will be as easy 10:39 as possible for your family it means to 10:42 say your goodbyes 10:43 I live with that diagnosis all day later 10:48 that evening I had a biopsy where they 10:51 stuck an endoscope down my throat 10:52 through my stomach into my intestines 10:55 put a needle into my pancreas and got a 10:57 few cells from the tumor I was sedated 11:00 but my wife who was there 11:02 told me that when they viewed the cells 11:04 under a microscope the doctor started 11:07 crying because it turned out to be a 11:09 very rare form of pancreatic cancer that 11:11 is curable with surgery I had the 11:13 surgery and thankfully I'm fine now 11:24 this was the closest I've been to facing 11:27 death and I hope it's the closest I get 11:29 for a few more decades having lived 11:31 through it I can now say this to you 11:34 with a bit more certainty than when 11:35 death was a useful but purely 11:37 intellectual concept no one wants to die 11:41 even people who want to go to heaven 11:44 don't want to die to get there 11:45 and yet death is the destination we all 11:49 share no one has ever escaped it and 11:52 that is as it should be because death is 11:55 very likely the single best invention of 11:58 life its life's change agent it clears 12:01 out the old to make way for the new 12:03 right now the new is you but some day 12:07 not too long from now you will gradually 12:09 become the old and be cleared away sorry 12:13 to be so dramatic but it's quite true 12:16 your time is limited so don't waste it 12:19 living someone else's life 12:21 don't be trapped by Dogma which is 12:24 living with the results of other 12:25 people's thinking don't let the noise of 12:28 others opinions drown out your own inner 12:30 voice and most important have the 12:33 courage to follow your heart and 12:34 intuition they somehow already know what 12:37 you truly want to become everything else 12:40 is secondary 12:53 when I was young there was an amazing 12:56 publication called the Whole Earth 12:58 Catalog which was one of the Bible's of 13:01 my generation it was created by a fellow 13:03 named Stuart brand not far from here in 13:06 Menlo Park and he brought it to life 13:08 with his poetic touch this was in the 13:11 late 60s before personal computers and 13:13 desktop publishing so it was all made 13:15 with typewriters scissors and Polaroid 13:17 cameras it was sort of like Google and 13:20 paperback form 35 years before Google 13:22 came along it was idealistic overflowing 13:26 with neat tools and great notions Stuart 13:30 and his team put out several issues of 13:31 the Whole Earth Catalog and then when it 13:34 had run its course they put out a final 13:36 issue 13:37 it was the mid-1970s and I was your age 13:40 on the back cover of their final issue 13:44 was a photograph of an early-morning 13:47 country road the kind you might find 13:49 yourself hitchhiking on if you were so 13:51 adventurous beneath it were the words 13:54 stay hungry stay foolish it was their 13:58 farewell message as they signed off stay 14:01 hungry stay foolish and I have always 14:05 wished that for myself and now as you 14:09 graduate to begin anew I wish that for 14:12 you stay hungry stay foolish thank you 14:16 all very much 14:22 You