Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and 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 six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen 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 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've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later 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 go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely 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 of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all 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 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 five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven 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 sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals 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 10 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--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

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 twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, 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, and so at thirty, 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'd 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 in 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 world's 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 and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene 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's going to hit 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 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, 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 as the years roll on. So keep looking. 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 thing 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 doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that 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 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 doctor 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, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's 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's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, 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 Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, 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 thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies 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 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. 


(출처 : http://fashiontraveleat.blogspot.com/2007/03/steve-jobs-speech-script_25.html) 


 
 

Introduction

In most countries, political leaders and bosses are using the global economic crisis to once again unleash an attack on workers and the poor.  As part of this, we have seen corporations around the world trying to make workers pay for the crisis by retrenching tens of millions of people.  In the most extreme cases, workers arrive at their companies in the morning and are told they no longer have a job.  With all these retrenchments, corporations are not just taking away jobs but they are also attacking people's dignity.  They are literally throwing people into a very uncertain world where it is getting harder and harder to even get the basics of life such as food and shelter.  Of course, the corporate elite are not worried if people starve or live in misery, what they care about is their profit margins and bottom lines.  Through retrenchments, therefore, the elite are waging a war on workers and the poor in the name of corporate survival and profit prospects.  Fortunately, workers around the world have started resisting.  Strikes against retrenchments have occurred from France to China and from Greece to South Korea.  In some cases, workers have even kidnapped their bosses and occupied factories and offices to stop being made 'redundant.'¹  It is through this type of direct action that the workers involved are winning concessions from the elite.  Indeed, workplace occupations seem to be one of the most effective ways for people to win their demands and reclaim their dignity back from the elite.

Worker Occupations Are Spreading

A few years ago, it would have seemed crazy to even suggest that workers across the world would be starting to once again occupy their factories to stop closures and retrenchments.  The only place this seemed to happen up until recently was in Argentina.  With the crisis in Argentina in 2001 hundreds of workplace occupations occurred.  In the end, over 200 factories were recovered by workers and in many cases they became democratically run by the workers themselves.²  Nonetheless, few even imagined that factory occupations and self-management would become a possibility in many other countries.  Certainly, in every country around the world retrenchments have been rife over the last 20 years, but staging direct action to stop this through occupations did not look like a realistic option.  For example, in South Africa hundreds of factories have closed since the 1990s, but trade union leaders did not even consider occupations as a viable strategy to combat this.  Within the last several months, however, factory occupations have occurred in at least a dozen other countries besides Argentina.  Once again direct action and even talk of worker self-management are back on the agenda of many workers.

Even in Britain and Northern Ireland, where Thatcher's brutal attack on the coal miners in 1984 left lasting scares amongst workers and the poor, workplace occupations have occurred.  When the car parts manufacturer Visteon informed workers that the company would be shutting its doors, the workers decided to occupy the company's plants.  They were furious as they had only been given 6 minutes notice and a severance package that was paltry.  For over a month, the workers occupied Visteon's buildings despite the threat of arrest.³  In the end, even though they could not save their jobs, they won a severance package that was worth ten times the original offer.  In the process, the Visteon workers regained the dignity that the management tried to strip them of.  Similarly, when workers at Prisme Packaging in Dundee were told that the company was shutting its doors, they staged a 51-day sit-in.  They had decided that they were not willing to lose their jobs and said that they wanted to re-open Prisme as a co-operative under self-management.  For them, victory came when they managed to secure funding for their co-operative venture.⁴

Similar stories of workplace occupations have also occurred in the Republic of Ireland.  Earlier this year, workers at the Waterford Crystal factory were informed by the companies liquidators -- Deloitte and Touch -- that they no longer had jobs and that they would not even receive severance pay.  The workers decided to defend their livelihoods by staging an occupation.  In response Deloitte and Touch sent in a private security force to threaten and intimidate the workers.  Eventually, however, 10 million Euros was made available for a severance fund and negotiations are now underway for some of the workers to keep their jobs.⁵

Factory and workplace occupations have also been taking place in several countries on continental Europe.  When the current crisis first struck, in late 2007, 300 workers at Frape Behr in Spain occupied their workplace to stop retrenchments.  As part of this, community activists and supporters surrounded the building and protested in solidarity with the workers inside.⁶  At the same time as this was occurring, workers in Serbia were occupying their factory, Shinvoz, to prevent it being privatized.⁷  In France, workers under the threat of retrenchments have also charged into the offices of their bosses and held them until their demands have been met.  For example, at FM Logistics 125 workers invaded a managers meeting and held the bosses hostage.  The reason the workers did this was because the company had formulated a plan to retrench over 470 workers due to the current economic crisis.  After only one day of 'captivity,' the managers of FM Logistics agreed to re-examine their retrenchment plans.  Similar 'bossnappings' have also occurred at the French holdings of Sony, 3M, and Cattepillar.  The majority of the French public have supported these 'bossnappings.'  This support has meant that the French state has not been able to move against the workers involved.⁸

Over the last few months, factory occupations have also been taking place in Turkey.  Workers in Turkey have been hit extremely hard by the crisis with over 500,000 people losing their jobs since September 2008.  In order to stem this, workers in a number of factories -- such as MEHA textiles and Sinter Metal -- embarked on workplace occupations.  The Turkish state, however, has reacted harshly and used security forces to drive the workers out.  Nonetheless, the workers then camped outside of the factories and their resistance has continued.  Recently, the workers at Sinter held a celebration to mark their 100th day of resistance.⁹

North America has also seen a string of workplace occupations.  Due to the collapse of the auto industry in Canada, workers have occupied 4 different plants because they had been refused any compensation.  Reportedly, the workers were occupying the plants in order to prevent machinery being removed by the liquidators.  In fact, they were using this tactic in order to force the bosses and the liquidators to the negotiating table.  Likewise, in the United States, there have also been a number of occupations.  The most well know was the Republic Windows and Doors occupation.  The occupation occurred because the workers at the plant were given just 3 days notice that it was to be shut.  To add insult to injury, it turned out that Republic was closing because the Bank of America -- which had received billions of dollars of public money in bailouts -- refused to extend the company's credit.  Again the occupiers received massive public support.  Subsequently, the workers won severance pay and the company has opened under new ownership -- meaning some jobs, but certainly not all -- have been saved.¹⁰

With the current global economic crisis, Argentina has once again been taking the lead in occupations and turning occupied factors into worker self-managed institutions.  Under the threat of downsizing and pay cuts, 10 factories have been occupied in Argentina since 2008.  The workers have taken this action to stop the owners from declaring bankruptcy.  Indeed, it has been a strategy of the Argentine business elite to use crises to declare insolvency, then fraudulently liquate assets and suddenly open the business under a new name a few months later.  A number of the newly occupied factories have also received major support from the older self-managed factories.¹¹  Already, workers at least one of the 10 occupied factories -- Arrufat Chocolate -- have elected to take over the factory permanently and operate it on a democratic basis.  They have already gone into production using generators and are turning Arrufat into a viable worker self-managed operation.¹²

Conclusion

The current economic crisis has seen corporations unleash a series of attacks on workers.  This has included retrenchments, wage freezes, and in some cases closers.  In many parts of the world, workers have responded with their own actions.  These have included workplace occupations and even in some instances complete factory takeovers with the aim of embarking on self-management.  As such, these workers are finding their own solutions to the crisis.  The actions of these workers are inspirational.  It seems likely that more and more workers will begin adopting and adapting the idea of factory occupations as a viable way to save jobs and reclaim the dignity that bosses have tried to take away from them.  Perhaps what we are also seeing through the occupations, takeovers, and self-management is a glimpse of what a post-capitalist world, created by the workers and the poor themselves, would look like.  Indeed, hopefully the factory occupations that we are beginning to see are an embryo of a different world -- a world where there are no bosses, where workers manage themselves, where the economy is democratically planned through worker and community assemblies, where there are no hierarchies, where the environment is not raped, and where the goal is to meet peoples' needs and not make profits.

1  Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, "Fire the Boss: The Worker Control Solution from Buenos Aires to Chicago,"15 May 2009.

2 Marie Trigona, "FASINPAT (Factory without a boss): An Argentine Experiment in Self-management."  In Spannos, C (ed.) Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, AK Press, 2008.

3  www.libcom.org/tags/visteon-occupation

4  Left Luggage, "Dundee: Prisme Occupation Workers Save Their Jobs," IndyMedia, 24April 2009.

5  Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, "The Cure for Layoffs: Fire the Boss!" 20 May 2009.

6   Freedom Fight, "Catalan, Serbian Workers 'Squat' in Factories," ZNet, 21 January 2008.

7  Freedom Fight, "Letter of Support to Factory Occupations in Serbia," ZNet, 9 January 2008.

8  Christopher Ketcham, "Enraged about Corporate Greed?  Kidnap Your Boss," 1 May 2009.

9  Eren Buglalilar, "Deepening Crisis, Growing Resistance: Workers in Turkey," MRZine, 27 April 2009.

10  "Chicago Window Factory Reopens with Occupying Workers Back on the Job," DemocracyNow! 15 May 2009.

11  Marie Trigona, "Argentine Factory in the Hands of the Workers: FASINPAT a Step Closer to Permanent Worker Control," 27 May 2009.

12  Klein and Lewis, "The Cure for Layoffs: Fire the Boss!" op. cit.