谷歌創始人拉里·佩奇密歇根大學畢業演講稿英文與翻譯

如果看過谷歌的介紹,可能你會不由得想到一個詞—神話。這說的不光是拉里·佩奇和謝爾蓋·布林兩個博士沒讀完的輟學生在硅谷的車庫裏創業,最後建成了市值超過ibm(甚至有人預測五年後會超越微軟)的it巨擎的傳奇故事,說的還是谷歌裏面那令無數打工族垂涎萬尺的企業文化:牛仔褲、t-shirt衫的.隨意穿着,美餐、中餐、印度餐等一應俱全的大食堂,免費就醫、洗衣、洗車的服務,甚至可以帶上狗狗和滑板車一起上班……

谷歌的故事,舉世矚目。創始人的生活也爲人津津樂道。今年5月,拉里·佩奇獲邀在母校密歇根大學的畢業典禮上發表演講。雖然已是成功典範,但拉里並沒有誇誇其談,他用誠摯的語言講述自己家庭背景和人生經歷,告訴大家人生中最寶貴的兩樣東西—夢想和親友。

class of XX! first i’d like you to stand up, and wave and cheer your supportive family and friends! i’m sure you can find them out there. show your love!

a long time ago, in this cold september of 1962, there was a steven’s co-op at this very university. that co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers probably every decade or so. picture a college girl named gloria, climbing up high on a ladder, struggling to clean that filthy ceiling. standing on the floor, a young boarder named carl was admiring the view. and that’s how they met. they were my parents, so i suppose you could say i’m a direct result of that kitchen chemistry experiment, right here at michigan.

everyone in my family went here to michigan: my brother, my mom, my dad—all of us. my father’s father worked in the chevy plant in flint, michigan. he was an assembly line worker. he drove his two children here to ann arbor, and told them: that is where you’re going to college. i know it sounds funny now. both of his kids actually did graduate from michigan. that was the american dream.

what i’m trying to tell you, this is way more than a homecoming for me. i have a story about following dreams. or maybe more accurately, it’s a story about finding a path to make those dreams real.

you know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? and you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and 4)pad by the bed, it will be completely gone by the next morning?

well, i had one of those dreams when i was 23. when i suddenly woke up, i was thinking: what if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links? and i grabbed a pen and started writing! sometimes it’s important to wake up and stop dreaming. i spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. soon after, i told my advisor, terry winograd, it would take a couple of weeks for me to download the web—he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough not to tell me. the optimism of youth is often underrated! amazingly, at that time, i have no thoughts building a search engine. the idea wasn’t even on the radar. but, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking and we made a really great search engine, and google was born. when a really great dream shows up, grab it!

當我在讀博士的時候,其實我有三個項目是想做的。謝天謝地,我的導師對我說,“爲什麼你不先做一會網絡的事呢?”科技,尤其是因特網真的能讓人變懶。變懶?我的意思是一個三人的小組可以寫出讓數百萬人喜愛使用的軟件程序。但三個人可以接上百萬次電話嗎?找到撬起地球的槓桿,你就能真的懶起來。

總而言之,我知道這個世界看起來分崩離析,但這確是你們人生中一個偉大的時代,你們可以瘋狂一點,追隨自己的好奇心,雄心勃勃地實現它。不要放棄你們的夢想。世界需要你們所有人。

以下是我要說的最後一個故事:

就像今天的某一日,你們可能感到欣喜若狂,就像你剛從馬戲團的大炮口被射了出來——甚至更加所向無敵。絕不要忘了那種難以名狀的美妙感覺,但同時,也要永遠記住和親朋好友相聚的時刻,記住我們得做些可能會爲世界帶來鉅變的事情的機會,或者只是爲你所愛的人帶來小變化的機會——所有生活給予我們美好機會,也能將它們帶走。世事瞬息萬變,比你設想的要快得多。

1996年3月下旬,就在我到斯坦福上研究生院不久,我爸爸呼吸出現困難,被送到醫院。兩個月後,他去世了。我當時幾近崩潰了。許多年以後,在我重新振作後,在我談戀愛後,在我體驗瞭如此多的人生經歷後,我發現自己總是想起我的爸爸。

如果我爸爸能活到今天,我想他最開心的莫過於看到露西和我即將擁有自己的孩子。如果他今天也能來到這裏,噢,那將會是他人生中最美好的日子

之一。

我們中很多人都很幸運,能夠在這裏和家人們一起。我們中的一些還可以和親友家人一起回家。請和他們保持親密,並且記住:他們纔是生命中真正至關重要的。

感謝媽媽,感謝露西。

同時,十分感謝大家。