| Jun 30, 2007 |
| Follow your Heart and Intuition |
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To conquer or to save the world?
Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 10:22
After reading about the historic joint appearance of tech legends, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, at a digital conference last month, I decided to watch the Pirates of Silicon Valley again.
For those not familiar with that movie, it's basically about the rivalry between these two industry titans. Jobs was the innovator but it was Gates who proved to be the shrewder businessman. Both, though, are remarkable in their own ways.
Two years ago, Jobs gave an inspiring commencement speech at Stanford University. Earlier this month, Gates gave a substantially different but equally inspiring commencement speech at Harvard University. (Both men, interestingly, never finished their university education).
The different angle each man took reflects the different stage in life each is in. Jobs is still trying to shape his legacy. Gates has already built his. Let's have a look at the key points of each speech.
Jobs starts off by talking about how quitting college turned out to be one of the best decisions he 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 interesting."
Jobs goes on to say that he didn't know where this would all lead to but that the calligraphy classes he attended inspired him, years later, to create beautiful fonts for the Macintosh.
"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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
Next, he talks about love and loss. About how he co-founded Apple Computers only to eventually get fired from his own company. That, too, turned out to be among the best things to happen to him, Jobs says, because the "heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again..."
With that, he enters the most creative period of his life, founding NeXT, establishing Pixar and eventually returning to Apple to rescue it from the malaise it was in.
Lastly, Jobs talks about how he had been diagnosed with cancer and made him think about dying. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life… 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."
Now, on to Gates. Like Jobs, he starts off by making fun of his status as a drop out. He noted that he was invited to speak at a graduation ceremony. "If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today."
Gates also sat in on lots of classes he hadn't signed up for. Although he didn't stay in college long enough to get his degree, Gates called Harvard a "phenomenal experience" that transformed him.
He had, however, one regret: "I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair."
He then talks about how he and his wife, Melinda, figured out how to do the most good for the greatest number with the resources they had.
Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal; find the highest-leverage approach; discover the ideal technology for that approach; and make the smartest application of the technology that you already have. That is the process his charitable foundation adopts.
Gates ends with an anecdote about a letter his dying mother had written for Melinda, shortly before they got married. The gist of the letter was "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."
He tells the graduates that when they consider what they have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from them.
"As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer," he says.
Then, he asks: "Knowing what you know, how could you not?"
It's hard to say which speech moved me more. Both are equally stirring but they push different buttons. Jobs is basically calling for us to go out and conquer the world. Gates, meanwhile, is telling us to go out and save the world. |
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