-
演讲全文英汉对照如下：
I was
honored to be asked to speak at my alma mater, the
University of Illinois. My message for
this year
’
s graduates? Find
a better way.
我很荣幸被母校伊利诺伊大学邀
请做此次的毕业演讲。
我想传达给今年
毕业生的话是——寻找更
好的方法。
Chancellor
Wilson, President Killeen, faculty, and
distinguished
guests:
it
’
s an honor to be back
here at the University of Illinois.
尊敬的
名誉校长威尔逊女士，基林校长，全体教职员，以及各位尊敬的
来宾，我很荣幸能回到母
校伊利诺伊大学。
Class
of 2016, I
’
m here to
congratulate you, but I
’
m
also here to
thank you.
各位
2016
届的毕业生，我在这里祝贺你们，感谢你们。
For many of you, this
is your first college graduation ceremony.
Well, this is also my first college
graduation ceremony. See, I
didn
’
t come to
this event when I graduated in 1989. I had
excuses. I had a new job. I was eager
to get on with life.
对你们中的很多人来说，这是你们经历的
第一个大学毕业典礼。同时，
这也是我参加的第一个大学毕业典礼。
1989
年毕业时，因为一些理由
和新工作的原因，我没能
参加毕业典礼。我渴望过新的生活。
I don
’
t have many
regrets, but 27 years later,
that
’
s one of the
decisions I do regret, because I
didn
’
t get to share this day
with
the people who loved me and
supported me.
当时我没有感到过多的遗憾，但是
27
年过去了，不得不说这是我做过
的后悔的决定之一，
因为我没能与爱我和支持我的人分享这人生中重要
的一天。
That might also
explain why I have 15 members of my family
here today. And why my 90-year-old
father in Dubuque, Iowa is
watching on
the livestream right now.
这也是为什么今天在座宾客里
有
15
位是我的家人的原因。我
90<
/p>
岁的
父亲也在爱荷华州的迪比克观看着同步直播。
That
’
s a life
lesson that took me a while to learn:
it
’
s important
to
reflect and celebrate, and to be grateful for
those who bring
learning and love into
your life.
自省和庆祝非常重要，
还有要对那些在
你生命中给予过知识和爱的人心
怀感激。这是我花了一些时间才懂的人生道理。
In fact, how about
we all show our appreciation for the people
who helped you get here: your families,
friends, mentors, and
loved ones.
Graduates, please stand up,
let
’
s hear it for them!
说到这，不如让我们一起在这里对帮助过你的人：家人、朋友、导师和
爱
人表示感谢。各位毕业生，请起立。让我们听听他们的欢呼声！
Today,
I
’
d like to share three
pivotal chapters from my life.
今天，我想和大家分享我生命中三个重要的故事。
The experiences themselves
may not be universal, but the
lessons
of failure and resilience, of passion and purpose,
and of
loss and renewal may be. And
they
’
re united by an
overarching
belief, one that I hope I
can convince you to share.
这些经历本身可能并不普遍
，但这其中关于失败和抗逆，激情和目标，
受挫与重建的问题却是你我都会遇到的。他们
都受到同一个信念的支
配，我希望你们能在这次分享中对这个信念有所感悟。
The belief is this:
there has to be a better way.
这个信念就是：一定会有更好的方法。
故事一：从农家穷小孩到伊利诺伊大学
(UIUC)
读书
The first chapter opens in Menominee,
Illinois; population 248.
Downtown
Menominee has a church, a firehouse, a four-room
schoolhouse, and of course, a tavern. <
/p>
第一个故事发生在仅有
248
人的伊利诺
伊州梅诺米尼。
梅诺米尼的市中
心有一座教堂，一个消防站，一
个四间房的校舍，和一家小酒馆。
I grew up on a small dairy farm, the
youngest of five. The farm
was a great
place to grow up, although it
wasn
’
t without its,
ahem, character building moments.
我在一个小奶牛场长大，
是家中五个孩子中最小的。虽然这个地方没什
么特别的，但却是一个成长的理想之地。我的性格也在那时候塑造。
A key feature of the dairy
farm is the cow yard. A key feature of
the cow yard is, of course, cow manure.
Lots and lots of it. When
you add in
spring rains, it
’
s a thick
soup. One particularly soggy
day when I
was about 12 years old, my job was to walk out
through the cow yard to open the
pasture gate for our cows.
这个农场最主要的特点就是
奶牛场了。
奶牛场最主要的特点，
当然就是
牛粪。无尽的牛粪。当春雨降临时，它就如浓汤一般。在
12
岁时，一
个特别潮湿的日子，当时我的工作就是穿过牛场给奶牛打开牧场门。
Every step I took I
sank in deeper and deeper, until I was finally
near the middle and completely stuck.
Up to the top of my boots.
Cow poop
threatening to seep over the top. Not quite able
to
get them out. I yelled for help, but
no one could hear me except
the cows.
And they didn
’
t really seem
interested.
我每走一步都越陷越深，
直到走到中
间时已经完全不能动弹。
牛粪已经
淹没过我靴子的顶部，我无法
拔出双脚。我开始大喊寻求帮助，但是除
了奶牛没人能听到。显然它们看起来并没有兴趣
。
I started to
panic a little, but then a remarkable calm came
over
me. It was very Zen. I saw my
future: it was filled with cow
manure.
我开始有点惊慌，但又突然冷静下来。当时我头脑一片空白，仿佛看到
< br>了我的未来：被牛粪“淹没”。
Don
’
t get me
wrong. Farming is a worthy and noble way of life,
if you
’
re
passionate about it. But it was in that moment I
knew I
would need to find my purpose
elsewhere.
别误会。
在农场工作是一种有价值又高
尚的生活方式，
只要你对它有足
够的热情。但那一刻我知道我的
志向并不在此。
For me,
there had to be a better way to find fulfillment
and a
different future, and that meant
going to college. My parents
believed
in education, but they could only afford to pay
for the
first year of college. After
that, it was up to me.
对我来说，有一条更好的路实现自我
价值和追逐更好的未来，
那就是去
上大学。
我的父母重视教育，
但他们只能付得起我第一年的学费。
之
后，
我必须靠自己。
At the time, I had an uncle and a much-
older brother who were
both working in
accounting jobs in
“
the big
city,
”
Chicago. I
thought their work with then-cutting-
edge computer programs
was impossibly
cool, so I started lobbying my parents for a
computer.
当时，我的一个叔叔和哥哥都在大城市芝
加哥做会计工作。
我觉得他们
对着计算机程序工作实在是太酷了
，
于是我开始游说我的父母给我买电
脑。
An Apple II at the time
was about $$3,500
?
—
?
about the equivalent
of
one year
’
s earnings on the
farm. But my mother used her
inheritance from my godfather, all of
it, and bought me that
computer.
当时的一台二代苹果电脑大约需要
3,500
美金，
相当于农场一年的收
入。但我妈妈还是用我监护人留下的全部遗产，给我买了那台电脑。
Being a
precocious kid, I wasn
’
t
happy enough to just use it. I
had to
take it apart, and
“
soup it
up.
”
My parents
were horrified.
For me, the problem
wasn
’
t putting it back
together; it was that
I needed storage.
I needed floppy disks, lots of them.
作为
一个过早懂事的孩子，我并不满足于单纯使用电脑。我需要把它拆
分开，然后再重新组装
。这可把我的父母吓坏了。对我来说，头疼的并
不是要将它按原装组装好，而是存储问题
。我需要很多的软盘。
Floppy disks were the thumb drives of
the 1980s, except it would
take over
7,000 floppy disks, or a stack 50 feet high, and
cost
$$35,000, to equal the storage in a
one gigabyte thumb drive you
buy for 3
bucks today, and easily fits in your pocket.
Technology
is really damn cool.
软盘就是
20
世纪
80
年代的
U
盘，只不过它相当于
7000
张软盘，堆
积起来有
50
英尺高，花费
35
，
000
美元，储存容量相当于你今天花
3
美元买的一个
1GB
易携带的
U
盘。科技真是酷毙了。
But, the nearest computer dealer was 15
miles away, and a box
of disks cost
about 10 weeks
’
worth of my allowance for doing
farm chores.
但是，最近的电脑销售商在
15
英里以外，而且一盒磁盘的价格相当于
我
干
10
周农活的收入。
There had to be a better
way.
一定会有更好的方法。
So my brother helped me find a
distributor in Chicago where I
could
buy them at wholesale for myself. Then I took out
ads in
some very geeky computer
magazines,
“
Byte
”
and
“
Nibble
”
magazines, to sell to
others.
我的兄弟帮我找到了一个芝加哥的分销商，我可以在那里批发。于是我
就在一些异常火爆的电脑杂志上登广告售卖，
比如
“
Byte
”
和
“
Nibble
”
等杂志。
I
was a budding 14-year-old entrepreneur. I added
other
computer products over time and
taught myself how to code. I
bootstrapped the business out of my
farmhouse bedroom into
one of the first
mail-order computer product companies in the
country.
我是一个
14
岁初露锋芒的创业者。不久之后，我增售了其他的电脑产
品，
并自学了如何编程序。
我依靠自己的力量将事业搬出了农场的卧室，<
/p>
成立了国内第一个邮购计算机产品的公司。
And
that
’
s how I created .
这就是我创建
的经过。
http://
OK,
I
’
m kidding.
That
’
s a different Jeff,
who
’
s now an investor
in my new company, but
we
’
ll get to that in the 3rd
chapter.
呃，说笑了。那是另一个
Jeff
，现在是我新公司
Grail
的投资人之一，<
/p>
我将在第三个故事详细说到。
That business, born out of both desire
and need
?
—
?
a better way
?
—
?
got me to, and through, University
of Illinois. That excitement
about what
technology could make possible shaped the rest of
my life and career.
那份事业，诞生于
愿望和需求——这也将我带到一条更好的路——去
伊利诺伊大学读书。
< br>技术让一切变得可能的兴奋塑造了我今后的生活和
职业。
故事二：被
eBay
开除，成为
Google
副总裁
Which brings me to the
second chapter, which includes
something I
’
ve
never told anyone, except my wife, Laura.
< br>这就要说到我的第二个故事，
故事一些细节我从没和别人说过，除了我
的太太劳拉。
It
starts in 2002. I was working at eBay, drawn in by
founder
Pierre
Omidyar
’
s deep belief that
he, too, had found a better
way: a way
to use technology to level the playing field so
that the
little guys could compete with
big companies in online
commerce, a way
for a mom-and-pop shop to be open 24/7, 365
days a year.
2002
年，我在
eBay
工作，被创始人彼埃尔·奥米迪亚和他的理念
深深
吸引，找到了一个更好的方式：用技术搭建一个公平的环境以便一些小
公司能和大企业在电子商务中同场竞技，
一个全年
3
65
天无休店面的方
式。
I was a technologist who
was passionate about innovation
through
technology, but eBay then was increasingly focused
on
marketing. I wanted to keep the
playing field level. The
marketers then
wanted to charge more for an ad with blinking
text. I overstate a bit, but basically
it was the plot of the HBO
show
‘
Silicon
Valley
’
from a
few weeks ago.
我是一个对科技创新充满激情的技术人员，但是
eBay
却更多投入在市
场营销。
我想要保持竞争环境的公平性。
营销者当时想从夺人眼球的广
告中收取更多的费用。当然有一点夸张，但基本上类似几周前
HBO
的
电视剧《硅谷》里的情节。
I felt the dissonance
pretty acutely, and I guess it showed,
because
?
—
?
and this is the part
I
’
ve never told to anyone,
except
Laura
?
—
?
I was fired.
我感觉到这种
不和谐愈演愈烈，而它也确实存在，后来我被解雇了，我
从没对别人说过这些，除了
Laura
。
I thought I was going through the
motions pretty convincingly,
but I was
still going through the motions. My heart
wasn
’
t in it,
and
it showed. If you
’
re not
passionate about what you
’
re
doing,
then there has to be a better
way.
我曾经试图说服自己敷衍过去，但是我日渐感到煎熬。
我的心思不在这
里。如果你对你正在做的事情没有激情，那么一定会有更合适的出路。
Still, getting
fired was a shock and incredibly humbling. I was
devastated at the time, but it turned
out to be the best thing that
could
have happened. That failure led me, forced me, to
find a
better way.
不过，被人解雇的确
是一个打击也让我一时之间无所适从。
那段时间我
伤心透了，但
结果证明可能会有更好的事情发生。那次失败指引我，鞭
策我，令我找到更好的出路。<
/p>
The way for me
was Google, where I
“
found
my tribe,
”
where
the people I worked with believed in
innovation through
technology as much
as I did.
对我来说那就是谷歌，在那里我“找到了我的兴趣部落”，在那里
的同
事们和我一样相信技术创新。
At eBay, I had a fancy title and a big
team, but my new boss at
Google felt
strongly that you really have to earn leadership.
In
his words:
“
Go
in, work with the team. Show them what you can
do. Show them how you are going to help
them win. Be a
leader.
”
< br>在
eBay
，我有响亮的头衔和一个大团队，但我在谷歌
的新老板让我深
刻地感到你必须要具备领导能力。用他的话说：
“去吧，和你的团队一
起工作。
向他们展示你能做什么。
向他们展示你将怎样帮助他们获得胜
利。成为一个领导者。”
He was right:
it
’
s vitally important to
put your head down and do
the work and
earn it. So I did. I took a title cut and a pay
cut,
launched a career at Google in
2003, and got to work with some
of the
best people in the world and build the amazing
things
that Chancellor Wilson
mentioned: Google Ads, Google Apps,
Google Maps, and Google X. I found a
better way for myself, for
my career,
and maybe for the world.
他是对的：放下头衔，投入工作
，从中有所获得至关重要。所以我照做
了。
2003
年职位降低和薪资削减后，我开始了在谷歌的职业生涯，和
一些世界上最优
秀的人一起工作、
做一些了不起的事，
就是威尔逊校长
提到的：
谷歌广告、
谷歌应用程序、
谷歌地图、
谷歌实验室。
我为自己、
职业生涯、甚至可能为这个世界找到了更好的道路。
故事三：为了亡妻，跨界生物寻求癌症治愈之道
Now
we
’
re at the third and last
chapter in this story. It
’
s
the
most important one, and a difficult
one for me to tell.
现在我们来谈谈第三个故事。
这也是是最重要的，
也是最难以启齿的故
事。
It starts two
decades ago, when I was asked by my
then-employer to investigate an online
dating service as a
potential partner.
It was called . I created a profile out
of purely professional interest, of
course.
二十年前，
我被当时的雇主要求充当一个潜在
伙伴去调查一个线上约会
服务。网站叫做
。当然纯粹的出于专业兴趣我创建了个人
http://
资料
。
It was 1996,
so there weren
’
t mobile
phones with cameras, or
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