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Guest Post: Would You Go To A U2 Concert Without Bono?
From Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors
Guest Post: Would You Go To A U2 Concert Without Bono?
It will be interesting to see what happens with Apple over the next few days and weeks. Clearly Mr. Jobs did not do it alone, but on the other hand, he didn't just create the best products, he created new product categories. I think it will come down to Apple people trusting themselves and doing what they know how to do. The only thing I know for sure is that Apple is almost 15% of QQQQ and just over 3% of the S&P 500.
Today all the CDX credit indices are doing well globally. Italian and Spanish bonds remain stable, with 10 year yields right about 5%. The only obvious problem in credit this morning is Greek 2 year bonds which are trading below 60% of par. If you assumed a 60% recovery for Greece that now implies a 100% probability of default. The market is clearly ignoring this latest downturn in Greek bonds, which is on low volume, but with growing disagreement amongst the European governments, it is worth remembering this problem.
IG16 is definitely outperforming stocks today. It is about 3 tighter, at 122, while stock futures are a tiny bit lower. That CDX indices are coming back into line makes sense, since credit largely ignored almost 60 points of the S&P run-up. It looks like IG16 is trading as much as 6 bps rich to intrinsics. Earlier this week, I mentioned that we don't usually see the end of widening until the indices trade very cheap. It is now actually trading very rich? It could be a sign of more to come. It is hard to think of a rally from 130 to 122 as creating very overbought conditions, but it is possible. The indices are the pain tool. Long biased cash bond holders who have been using index to manage disaster protection have been working hard to avoid getting whipsawed. Playing the most liquid part of the market to protect against illiquid positions is a difficult trade to manage well. The indices tend to overstate how good or bad the market feels, and with big bid/offers in the actual bond world, it is hard to get a true read from the cash markets. I suspect that people are getting long credit again, first by taking off their hedges, but will actually try and sell some bonds into any strength rather than using the index - if they get the chance.
HYG has been fairly stable and the shares outstanding haven't changed much in the past week. Both positive signs for credit. LQD actually saw some inflows. I guess that the move in treasuries pushed some people down the credit curve in an attempt to retain yield.
Gold. After a 3 day beating where it is down almost 200 from the highs, it seems awful. Except that it is still higher than it was on August 8th. And it is 250 higher than it was at the start of the quarter. Margin requirements went up (seems like it was leaked). Previous margin hikes on commodities have had limited long term impact on price direction. Gold should be no different. It makes sense for the exchanges to increase margins as the daily vol seems to be increasing. $25 a day change now seems about normal, so the increased protection to participants in the market that is provided by increased margin seems reasonable. I cannot imagine many people using a lot of leverage to play this market given the extreme swings. I think margin calls will be met as no one is playing this market that levered so they have the cash on hand. Also, the biggest gold bugs in the world all seem to want to own physical gold. That, I assume, is a no margin business, another reason not to get too worried about the margin hikes if you are long gold. Gold will continue to be far more impacted by global economic conditions, central bank and government rhetoric, and central bank actions (I'm assuming governments aren't doing anything, anytime soon).
That just leaves Jackson Hole. I think this will be a yawn. Any big new programs announced or hinted at could help the market, though even that feels partially priced in. Anything pretty generic has already been said and is unlikely to help the market. If he comes out attacking the government, that could actually spook the market. By and large I don't think he will say anything that helps the market. My sense is that a lot of people are saying that they don't expect him to do anything, but are positioned for him to do something. It reminds me a lot of the behaviour ahead of the debt ceiling limit. Lots said that the government might not come to agreement, but they all bet that they would.
And from jobs to jobless. Claims once again higher. Last week's number once again revised higher. Once again I am left wondering how after so much weakness we can still pretend that even 400k would be a good number, let alone 417k.
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Jobs Jobs Jobs Bitchez
FIrst of all, I had no idea that QQQQ was ...
http://www.nasdaq.com/indexshares/nasdaq100.stm
But, being a former gamer, I did immediately recognized QQ ...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=qq
Tyler, this is potentially epic dark humor to tuck away for the right moment! Hah!
Personally, I think SJ top ticked apple and quit when he more or less accepted there was no upside left on which his legacy/ego could feed. He is a genius, don't get me wrong, but more importantly he is a highly competitive egotistical genius. Gates did the same thing. SJ isn't going anywhere, just like Gates didn't go anyway. Just my two cents.
Regards,
Cooter
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e08-make-love-not-warcraft
"former" gamer? dont be ashamed! :p
and yes jobs top ticked rock star ceos always leave on top aapl may survive 2day but is a short
U2 is one of the top 3 most over-rated bands of all time.. Zepplin w/o Plant or Page would have been a better analogy..
yup they have become painful along with yellow lance arm strong bracelets and triathalons
wait that describes 95% of wall street
True story.
During a U2 concert Bono went into preach mode, slowly clapping his hands to the rythm of a song. He says, "Everytime I clap my hands a child dies of AIDS in Africa."
A guy in the audience yells, "So stop clapping yer hands ya fucking wanker!"
In an economy with high interest rates, debt will be more costly to a business than more flexible dividends on equity investment. It may be easier for a struggling business to be financed through equity investment as it may be possible to avoid paying a dividend if times are hard. Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Toronto condos
The EU operates through a system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmental negotiated decisions by the member states. Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central Bank. Thanks.
Regards,
phlebotomist
"...he created new product categories"
No.
He renamed product categories, sometimes with just an "i".
Spot on dw. Jobs was a creation of the system, to keep the MS/APPLE dichotomy to keep people divided.
My 3rd wife of many years was a Macolyte, so I know of what I speak.
Vivek
I used to read the comments on ZeroHedge and would find interesting discussions. Not anymore. Normally I don't read the comments at all, but a story including Steve Jobs interested me.
To say that Jobs did nothing but rename categories is simply ignorant. I was a Mac software developer and publisher starting in 1984. The Mac would not have happened without Steve Jobs' leadership. You think the Mac was just a category that was renamed? Jeesh, what a stupid statement. The first time I saw the Mac I knew it was a game changer (which is why I mortgaged the house and started the company).
And to folks who think Apple is now doomed . . . are you kidding me? First, Jobs only resigned from being CEO. Do you think he might still influence things as CHAIRMAN? Did Bill Gates still influence things as Chairman of Microsoft? You bet he did. Second, do you think Apple has nothing new in the pipeline? And third, do you think I'm going to all of a sudden switch to Windows to run my Final Cut (oh wait, there's no Final Cut on Windows), or switch to an Android tablet from my iPad, which works seamlessly with my Mac? In other words, there will still be buyers for Apple products.
Is there significance to the fact that Jobs is not CEO? Sure. But the corporate culture that Jobs established is there. He's still there . . . for now. Only after he's actually totally left the company would you have to watch to see if the board and top management can maintain that culture, or whether or not they are idiots and ruin the whole thing (always possible, but many years away as a scenario).
And now, back to the actual ZH articles, where I do find meaningful content.
All Jobs did was to brilliantly get kids hooked on Apples products. They gave them away freely to schools which meant that the early personal computer adopters "only knew" Apple. The Atari ST based on the GEM desktop was ahead of the Mac. Atari engineers went on to create the Amiga. Both were ahead of the Mac. Neither gave computers to schools. It was the marketing that Jobs excelled in.
I understand what you are saying about the marketing being important, but it was not what made the Mac happen. I was an attendee at the first Amiga developers conference, because right about that time, everyone was worried that the Mac might not survive and thrive and we took a look at it (the Amiga). Then Apple came out with the LaserWriter and Paul Brainerd launched PageMaker, and desktop publishing was born, which revived the Mac. Did the succcess of desktop publishing have anything to do with giving Macs to elementary school kids? No.
The Amiga was, in some ways, technically superior hardware, as you claim, but mainly for gaming. But it's all about the software. Apple had key employees called Evangelists (the best known nowadays is Guy Kawasaki, who was my 'evangelist') who helped us developers in any way they could. We had tremendous access to some key people, such as the folks in the User Interface group, who were absolutely brilliant. Did that come from giving kids computers? I think you probably see my point.
It's just not accurate to say Jobs was just brilliant at marketing. In fact, I would argue the opposite. When the Mac first came out, there was only the dot-matrix printer, the ImageWriter. This is not what 'serious' folks wanted, we wanted letter-quality, as it was called back then. What did Jobs say? Who needs that, dot-matrix is good enough. Also, there was no hard drive available, just one internal floppy drive. Jobs said, that's all you need for this 'appliance' computer. This was not brilliant marketing. But the Mac overcame its shortcomings because it had the first (OK, first commercialized) graphical user interface. Right at the time the Mac came out, I was just finishing a book on PC DOS 2.0. I put some illustrations in it, and I did them on the Mac, in MacPaint. This was groundbreaking stuff.
Jobs wasn't even at Apple when the Mac really got going. I never met him. And I would say again, it was not Apple's marketing that made everything happen, nor was it the Executive Team (I never talked to a single top executive - they did not interact with us software folks and lived in an ivory tower). It's always been the products.
And to the guy implying I'm some kind of Apple fanboi (I think that's the term), I've done a lot of business with Microsoft, too, and could tell you lots about the strengths of that company. Would that make me a Windows fanboi? And I'm about to buy an Android tablet, does that make me an Android fanboi? You folks who think you are cool with off-the-cuff, flippant remarks like "somebody has a crush on Jobs" are just plain lame. State some facts, make an argument, now that would be cool. But, likely it is beyond you to actually do that.
All the "faults of the Mac" you describe are DESIGN flaws...not marketing flaws. If you can get people to buy yout flawed hardware...you're a marketing genius. Apple got lucky with the right thing (desk top publishing) at the right time. But by the time of the Mac...the Apple IIs were already in the schools.
somebody has a crush on the Job
He does have good taste. Buying all those patents, turning Chinese, black turtlenecks. Let's not forget the packaging. Oh, such beautifully sexy wrapping paper.
If it weren't for Jobs, we'd probably all being using open-source software, yuck! Oh, wait, isn't Apple's OS based on open source? Oops, couldn't buy that patent and put a stop to the madness.
Apple is toast. Apple cult = Steve Jobs...now just another gizmo company. People are in delusion if they say Jobs leaving is no big deal.
The guy isn't dead yet. He is still chairman of the board. I'm quite certain that any bright ideas that he might have will be acted on.
I think the "original Sin" in their logo is a huge tell. I said it here a long time ago (relatively speaking), but this Original Biblical Apple, the APPL apple and the Big Apple are inextricably inter-twined.
Something tells me it's going to be one hell of a smackdown come next week. Glad I'm just an observer in this game.
Vivek
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/precursor-03-bottom-falling-out-still-still-and-a-gander/
If you looks at Microsoft's logo, it looks like a blue planet with a great pyramid aimed at you.
The Xbox360 is just taking the x that marks the spot and rotating it into a pyramid or around a sphere.
Bill Gates, the gatekeeper...
But just because others are self-delusional, like Jobs and Gates, doesn't mean I have to also see them as demi-gods.
Does my picture make me the real deal?
Cramer believes that Jobs leaving is "no big deal."
"In delusion ?"
Why, yes. That is James "J." Cramer in a nutshell.
Just keep making toys.
Without Bono is the only chance that I would go to a U2 concert!
Agreed, and his AID benefit where U2 concerts collected MANY MILLIONS of dollars/Euros yet only abut 2% actually went to help AIDs patience.... Bono is a scammer worse than Buffett, Geithner and the Bernak.
Didn't Bono die after skiing into a tree? Oh, and nobody scams better than the other three.
I got you, babe.
He didn't die after skiing into a tree. One ski went left, the other right. There was a 'Kapwang!' sound, like an old steel guital.
Interestingly enough I just watched Killing Bono based on the book
Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelganger by Neil McCormickBen Barnes and Robert Sheehan were wonderful.
But what I still don't understand is why Jack Nicholson introduced U2 at Live Aid.
lol, many of us were going to say this, but you da first.
Using a softword, I HATE the Bono.
Berkshire to invest $5bn into BAC
BAC is officially safe guys, load up the truck.
BONO IS AN ASSHOLE
this steve jobs is nothing but a big marketing scheme. He doesnt know shit. welcome to the future apple.
you opened to the door and now we know how to handle ourselves.
open source muther uckers. (i know thats how apple became big...but they have left the path and become dicks)
Did the Bernank just open his pie hole? Futures shot up 10 points in a second.
Edit: apparently Buffett opened his pie hole. Hilarity ensued.
He brought a cool factor to the products that will now be lost. In a way, he was the product.
I have no trouble seeing Jonathan Ives continuing to bring the "cool factor" to Apple design in the future.
and Buffett up for another round of Prop-the-Zombie
U2 may have been fun in the 80's, but like many things, they suck today, with or without Bono and his Luis Vutton photo shoot in Africa. What a joke these people are.
U2 always sucked.
People still go to see the Grateful Dead and Jerry has been gone a long time.
Tim Cook has been effectively running the company a long time.
I think THE critical thing Apple has to deal with going forward is NOT to do what Apple did when John Scully took over and that was to kick out a known genius with an amazing product just because he was brash (prick).
The Mac was a skunkworks project by a team led by Jobs at a time when Sculliy's minions wanted to continue to milk the Apple II cow. Jobs had the vision and the charisma and the great new product. But Scully's ego got bruised and that was that.
If Apple is to survive in the future, they had better let that geeky, perhaps cheeky (asshole) genius somewhere in their basement have the opportunity to bring that next genius idea/device to light and to fight for it.
Otherwise, we may see a slow decline just like we did when Jobs was kicked out all those years ago.
Get well, Steve......Apple needs you.......Hell.....Microsoft REALLY needs you ! As we all know....Apple is the R&D department for Microsoft.
I do not think Jobs has a problem waiting for the next big thing and bringing it to light for Apple so long as he is alive. That is precisely the point: Jobs is still alive and part of the Apple team. The language of the media is like a funeral oration, as if Jobs were already dead. Talk about front running someone's death...
I'm sorry, I did see U2 in concert during the Elevation tour, and it was one of the best live shows I've ever seen. They are past their prime, but I still dig their music.
Sue me :)
Could be the greatest reality show ever "NEW CEO", just like what some of the old has been bands (Edit: INXS) have done in a game show format. I would prefer a Hell's Kitchen approach with losers going against each other in a death match. Think we could get Max Keiser to MC?
Remember when Van Halen brought in Sammy Hagar? Worst moment of my adolescent life.
C'mon, 5150 and OU812 are solid albums. And Dave's Eat Em and Smile and Skyscraper helped ease the transition to Van Hagar, so we still had our dave fix. Just traded Eddie for Steve Vai.
Bono didn't write the tunes. Jobs didn't design the products or write the software. There's every reason to believe that his departure will be a net benefit for the company and improve Apple's culture (and perhaps even convince some of the talent that the 'insanely great' one induced to leave to give Apple a second chance).
You don't have to worry about the Chinese or Japanese, or Steve Jobs when it comes to Apple. The South Koreans will take care of that. Just like they destroyed Japan's Electronics industry with LG and Samsung, and are destroying the car industry with the best cars, KIA and Hyundai. They will out do Apple with thr Galixy, and I am going to buy one. Korea Rocks. They're the new Japan.
Would You Go To A U2 Concert Without Bono?
God yes. Like Springsteen and Neil Diamond, Bono's over the top, all-the-time earnestness just rubs me the wrong way. Get a black chick in there with a big set of pipes and I might give U2 another try...
How about a U2 concert with no U2 members. We'll call it U-Tubed..Every A-hole will come.
South Park: Bono is Crap.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155668/bono-is-crap
i wouldn't go to a u2 concert with or without bono
he wears 5" lifts in his shoes cuz hes 4, 11
and he sucks at everything
I wouldn't go to a U2 concert with or without Bono. Been bored with them since 1985. "War" was pretty good, but they've been dull since then.
OTOH, I would buy a whole row of front row tickets to U2 before I would ever go to another Bruce Springsteen concert. About 5 hours of non-stop fist pumping morons worshipping a leftist "singer" who is always flat.
<edit> Just caught my little pun. Totally unintentional. I'm just naturally clever I guess.</edit>
<edit2> Wow, same exact phrasing Ktaina. And almost at the same time (though you were slightly quicker). Cool.</edit2>
cui bono
Paul McGuinness - the U2 Manager was the business brain behind the band and its 5 th member really.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELy-v2WQacA
Correct: McGuinness set up U2s tax shelters and off-shore accounts.
"Would You Go To A U2 Concert Without Bono?"
Without Bono is the only chance that I would go to a U2 concert...
God yes...
i wouldn't go to a u2 concert with or without bono...
I wouldn't go to a U2 concert without Bono, the rifle would have been a total bleeding waste of money.
Incidentally, aren't we overlooking something?
1) Aged, contorted face with unnaturally tiny eyes - a bit like a person made of walnuts who just got a paper cut on his glans, the only bit of him that isn't made of walnuts.
2) Wee little man.
3) Sings songs that send you to sleep, and no-one can remember the exact tune half an hour after hearing them.
He's a Leprechaun.
It amazes me how the ZH'ers are so disparaging to Apple/Jobs. What the fuck? What company invented anything by your logic?
I mean come on now. Who made Unix accessible? Who made graphical user interfaces popular? Who invented new categories? Who was copied the most? Who has the most successful retail store operations? Who creates buzz?
And this Bono U2 vs Apple is stupid. As a musician and an Apple developer this is truly an Apple vs Oranges comparison.
Cheers
A ha ha! I see what you did there!
+1
Big Guns.
Wish they were dripping milk.
For strength and nourishment.
Incidentally, Mark II:
True story. I used to work in Apple's marketing department (not saying which country) and I was doing the rounds of retail stores back in the last years of C20th. Looking at display set-ups when a nine year old kid with a Newton comes up to me and tells me he works for Steve Jobs.
Not so batshit an idea, I find myself thinking. I could just picture it. So I go all quiet inside and pray for our declining world.
Kid keeps talking to me, as I wonder why I haven't jumped in front of a bus (not because of him) and it turns out Jobs had hired an unpaid army of followers via his newsletters to go around stores and spruce up the displays.
All totally voluntary, I should add for legal reasons*. And displaying the total love the followers have for Jobs, who may also have superpowers, probably cures herpes with one magic breath, and can punch out a bear.
* And so that Apple doesn't send its version of CHUDS after me.
Other true story: at a conference one time where the head of Apple UK - we got it on tape, and it broke in the media, so I can't be sued for this - tells us all 'I can't take a shit without Steve Jobs telling me where to do it'.
For legal reasons: I may have mis-heard this, the tape was faked by Mossad, and he said that Apple was giving its annual net profits to orphans. Buying an iPod cures dandruff, kids, and helps feed the homeless.
I wouldn't go see U2, period. Now, if it was Steve Lillywhite-era U2 and Bono wasn't there, I would probably still go, but not if I could go see a Virgin Prunes show instead. U2 is the biggest sell-out rock band in history, by their own admission.
hell, I wouldn't go to a Cher concert without Bono
(don't ski)
i wouldnt walk across the street to piss on Homo if he were on fire! much less seeing him...1987 Joshua Tree was the last of that shit....
Apple's been planning for this move for years. They probably have a ton in the hopper. Without question they'll take a hit when Jobs leaves for good. I think we Apple users don't realize how much Jobs is imbedded into our brand loyalty. But there is enough soul of Jobs to last for many many years. Even just for the fact that the alternatives don't measure up, as open source will never catch on and no one seems to get how important interface is like Apple does. Apple became one of the most valuable companies because of focus. Open source nor MS has any idea what focus means.
I was an Apple user for a long time - I managed Macintosh computers for the Seattle School District for years back in the early 90s. I was sorry to see them suplanted in public ed by Windows. Now, I wouldn't touch an Apple product with a 10 foot pole, but freedom means more to me than most. Neither Apple nor MS has any idea of what freedom means - actually, they do; they just don't want it (mine, that is). As a happy user of "Open source" since Slackware in 1993, I completely switched over about five years ago - haven't touched Apple or Windows since - and couldn't be happier. I don't give a shit what other people buy (or steal). Sucks to be a sheep.
And ya, the comments section on ZH has almost become useless. A bit of a credibility killer for the site.
Fuck off.
Go back to Yahoo, you Yahoo
You're going to get pissy about another man's personal decision to take care of his affairs before he dies? Seriously?
The Doors did well without Jim Morrison.
Ahem
If anyone recalls Microsoft owns Apple. They "bailed" them out when the company stock value was 3 bucks a share and Jobs convinced Gates to support them when he came back from his other company NeXT. Historically when Jobs heads out to start a new company or project and I might add, stay on the board of directors of Apple every single time. The company then turns into a technology showcase in "Crazy" and bad judgement.
This time around he's not leaving to start another project. He's going to go take care of his business. He got his single shot to take care of the cancer eating him alive, for a year it looked okay. Now he's going back for round two.
Anyone here know anyone that's made it through round two of cancer treatment? I haven't. It's usually a signal to the person that it's time to take care of their business, say their goodbyes and enjoy the medication while still lucid enough to recognize themselves in the mirror.
I'm hoping that the media leaves him alone to handle his affairs. But all things considered the media won't, he'll probably be used as a rout and an excuse as to why the market crashed. Poor fucker is going to be hounded until his last breath.
i hate bono
absolutely
aapl will finish green 2day just to fook with people s heads
cramer will go nuts
that's dookie
I thought this was a really thought provoking speech, Im sharing it for those who didnt see it already-
Steve Jobs reflected on his life, career and mortality in a well-known commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.
Here, read the text of of that address:
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, 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 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 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 college 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 have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out 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 someday go to college.
Journal CommunityAnd 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively 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 how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of 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 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¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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 san 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 this calligraphy class, and personal 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 ten 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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
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 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. 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. So at 30 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 had 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 of 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 worlds 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, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene 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 hits 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 your 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. 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 until you find it. 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 tool 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 doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure 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 and 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 doctors 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 I'm 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 is 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 is 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. 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.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, 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, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, 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 it 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.