‘Every computer is going to work this way. You can’t argue about that anymore. You can argue about how long it will take, but you can’t argue about it anymore.’”
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The problem was, you can’t ask Aristotle a question. And I think, as we look towards the next fifty to one hundred years, if we really can come up with these machines that can capture an underlying spirit, or an underlying set of principles, or an underlying way of looking at the world, then, when the next Aristotle comes around, maybe if he carries around one of these machines with him his whole life—his or her whole life—and types in all this stuff, then maybe someday, after this person’s dead and gone, we can ask this machine, “Hey, what would Aristotle have said? What about this?” And maybe we won’t get the right answer, but maybe we will.
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What we want to do is put an incredibly great computer in a book that you carry around with you, that you can learn how to use in twenty minutes. That’s what we want to do. And we want to do it this decade. And we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything—you’re
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And what I mean by that is, most of us didn’t make the clothes we’re wearing, and we didn’t cook or grow the food that we eat, and we’re speaking a language that was developed by other people, and we use a mathematics that was developed by other people. We are constantly taking. And the ability to put something back into the pool of human experience is extremely neat.
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One of the things that I love is that a very small company, if they invest a lot in their website, can look just as formidable and just as solid on the web as a very large company can.
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First and foremost is the notion that your work is different and separate from the rest of your life. If you are passionate about your life and your work, this can’t be so.
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I still regret not kissing Nancy Kinniman in high school. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe she regrets it too …
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“Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”
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“Make what you love your work.”
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“If this was the last day of my life, would I rather have dinner with the important customers or her?”
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“If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And when the answer has been “NO” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something in my life.
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Another way to think about this is that your life is a story. It’s hard to see it that way when you’re looking forward at 22. But imagine yourself as an old person looking back on your life. Your life will be a story. It will be your story, with its highs and lows, its heros and villains, its forks in the road that mean everything. And if you can remember that your life is a story in the making, it will help you make those important decisions.
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So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being. Sent from my iPad
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Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact—and that is: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.
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