名人演講:We Are What We Choose 選擇塑造人生[杰夫·貝索斯]
We Are What We Choose 選擇塑造人生
—— Jeff Bezos 杰夫·貝索斯
[00:02.29]As a kid,
[00:06.36]I spent my summers
[00:07.84]with my grandparents
[00:10.20]on their ranch in Texas.
[00:12.61]I helped fix windmills,
[00:14.91]vaccinate cattle,
[00:16.92]and do other chores.
[00:20.03]We also watched soap operas
[00:21.65]every afternoon,
[00:23.20]especially Days of our Lives.
[00:27.06]My grandparents
[00:28.88]belonged to a Caravan Club,
[00:31.68]a group of Airstream
[00:33.42]trailer owners
[00:34.93]who travel together
[00:36.70]around the U.S. and Canada.
[00:39.25]And every few summers,
[00:41.44]we'd join the caravan.
[00:44.74]We'd hitch up the Airstream
[00:46.61]to my grandfather's car,
[00:49.46]and off we'd go
[00:52.67]in a line with 300 other
[00:55.22]Airstream adventurers.
[00:58.02]I loved and worshipped
[00:59.58]my grandparents
[01:02.31]and I really looked forward
[01:03.62]to these trips.
[01:06.51]On one particular trip,
[01:09.00]I was about 10 years old.
[01:11.61]I was rolling around
[01:14.49]in the big bench seat
[01:16.42]in the back of the car.
[01:19.03]My grandfather was driving.
[01:21.66]And my grandmother
[01:23.53]had the passenger seat.
[01:25.80]She smoked throughout these trips,
[01:30.62]and I hated the smell.
[01:38.92]At that age,
[01:40.62]I'd take any excuse
[01:42.92]to make estimates
[01:43.92]and do minor arithmetic.
[01:45.91]I'd calculate our gas mileage
[01:47.96]figure out useless statistics
[01:50.23]on things like grocery spending.
[01:53.53]I'd been hearing an ad campaign
[01:55.33]about smoking.
[01:57.69]I can't remember the details,
[02:00.01]but basically the ad said,
[02:02.06]every puff of a cigarette
[02:04.24]takes some number of minutes
[02:05.80]off of your life:
[02:07.44]I think it might have been
[02:08.87]two minutes per puff.
[02:10.99]At any rate,
[02:12.36]I decided to do the math
[02:13.66]for my grandmother.
[02:15.78]I estimated the number
[02:16.85]of cigarettes per day,
[02:19.11]estimated the number of puffs
[02:20.60]per cigarette and so on.
[02:22.71]When I was satisfied that
[02:24.10]I'd come up with a reasonable number,
[02:26.62]I poked my head
[02:27.51]into the front of the car,
[02:29.56]tapped my grandmother
[02:31.24]on the shoulder,
[02:32.56]and proudly proclaimed,
[02:34.61]At two minutes per puff,
[02:37.32]you've taken nine years off your life
[02:44.28]I have a very vivid memory
[02:45.47]of what happened next,
[02:48.81]and it was not what I had expected.
[02:52.70]I expected to be applauded
[02:53.82]for my cleverness
[02:56.20]and my arithmetic skills.
[03:01.05]Jeff, you're so smart.
[03:04.91]You had to have made some tricky estimates,
[03:07.98]figure out the number
[03:08.98]of minutes in a year
[03:10.89]and do some division.
[03:14.50]That's not what happened.
[03:17.18]Instead,
[03:19.06]my grandmother burst into tears.
[03:26.01]I sat
[03:27.19]in the backseat
[03:28.36]and did not know what to do.
[03:29.82]While my grandmother was crying,
[03:31.81]my grandfather,
[03:33.49]who had been driving in silence,
[03:35.39]pulled over
[03:36.63]onto the shoulder of the highway.
[03:38.76]He got out of the car
[03:40.47]and came around
[03:41.19]and opened my door
[03:42.80]and waited for me to follow.
[03:44.86]Was I in trouble?
[03:47.09]My grandfather was a highly intelligent,
[03:49.40]quiet man.
[03:51.01]He had never said a harsh word to me,
[03:53.38]maybe this was to be the first time?
[03:55.80]Or maybe he would ask
[03:57.95]that I get back in the car
[03:59.94]and apologize to my grandmother.
[04:02.37]I had no experience
[04:03.49]in this realm
[04:05.14]with my grandparents
[04:06.44]and no way to gauge
[04:08.35]what the consequences might be.
[04:11.28]We stopped beside the trailer.
[04:14.37]My grandfather looked at me,
[04:17.51]and after a bit of silence,
[04:19.52]he gently and calmly said,
[04:23.11]Jeff,
[04:24.88]one day
[04:26.69]you'll understand
[04:28.80]that it's harder to be kind
[04:31.46]than clever.
[04:38.18]But what I want to talk to you
[04:39.64]about today
[04:41.15]is the difference
[04:42.44]between gifts and choices.
[04:45.98]Cleverness is a gift,
[04:48.27]kindness is a choice.
[04:50.96]Gifts are easy
[04:52.50]they're given after all.
[04:55.13]Choices can be hard.
[04:57.37]You can seduce yourself
[04:58.88]with your gifts
[04:59.62]if you're not careful,
[05:01.26]and if you do,
[05:02.56]it'll probably be to
[05:03.81]the detriment of your choices.
[05:06.61]This is a group with many gifts.
[05:09.28]I'm sure one of your gifts
[05:10.84]is the gift of a smart
[05:11.98]and capable brain.
[05:14.38]I'm confident that's the case
[05:16.06]because admission is competitive
[05:18.84]and if there weren't some signs
[05:20.34]that you're clever,
[05:21.71]the dean of admission
[05:22.76]wouldn't have let you in.
[05:26.98]Your smarts will come in handy
[05:28.22]because you will travel
[05:29.96]in a land of marvels.
[05:32.65]We humans,
[05:33.52]plodding as we are,
[05:35.45]will astonish ourselves.
[05:37.75]We'll invent ways to generate
[05:39.18]clean energy and
[05:40.18]a lot of it.
[05:42.01]Atom by atom,
[05:43.59]we'll assemble small machines
[05:45.56]that will enter cell walls
[05:46.85]and make repairs.
[05:48.70]This month comes the extraordinary
[05:51.32]but inevitable news
[05:53.23]that we've synthesized life.
[05:55.59]In the coming years,
[05:56.57]we'll not only synthesize it,
[05:58.75]but engineer it to specifications.
[06:01.92]I believe you'll even see us understand
[06:03.72]the human brain.
[06:05.59]Jules Verne,
[06:07.02]Mark Twain,
[06:08.27]Galileo,
[06:09.59]Newton
[06:10.89]all the curious from the ages
[06:13.68]would have wanted to be alive
[06:15.73]most of all right now.
[06:18.93]As a civilization,
[06:20.68]we will have so many gifts,
[06:23.41]just as you as individuals
[06:25.03]have so many individual gifts
[06:26.96]as you sit before me.
[06:29.26]How will you use these gifts?
[06:31.31]And will you take pride in your gifts
[06:33.86]or pride in your choices?
[06:36.35]I got the idea to start Amazon
[06:38.65]16 years ago.
[06:41.39]I came across the fact
[06:42.26]that Web usage
[06:43.81]was growing at 2,300 percent per year.
[06:46.74]I'd never seen or heard
[06:47.99]of anything that grew that fast,
[06:52.40]and the idea of building an online bookstore
[06:54.64]with millions of titles
[06:56.57]something that simply couldn't exist
[06:58.18]in the physical world
[06:59.68]was very exciting to me.
[07:02.29]I just turned 30 years old,
[07:04.47]and I'd been married for a year.
[07:06.63]I told my wife MacKenzie
[07:08.80]that I wanted to quit my job
[07:10.67]and go do this crazy thing
[07:12.97]that probably wouldn't work
[07:14.71]since most startups don't,
[07:16.83]and I wasn't sure what would happen
[07:18.51]after that.
[07:20.48]MacKenzie,
[07:21.96]also a Princeton grad
[07:23.33]and sitting here in the second row,
[07:25.51]told me I should go for it.
[07:29.53]As a young boy,
[07:30.34]I'd been a garage inventor.
[07:34.57]I'd invented an automatic gate closer
[07:36.69]out of cement-filled tires,
[07:38.79]a solar cooker
[07:40.33]that didn't work very well,
[07:41.52]out of an umbrella
[07:42.52]and aluminum foil,
[07:44.76]baking-pan alarms
[07:46.00]to entrap my siblings.
[07:48.36]I'd always wanted to be an inventor,
[07:50.79]and she wanted me to follow my passion.
[07:54.21]I was working
[07:55.83]at a financial firm
[07:57.14]in New York City
[07:58.32]with a bunch of very smart people,
[08:00.90]and I had a brilliant boss
[08:02.08]that I much admired.
[08:04.26]I went to my boss
[08:06.65]and told him I wanted to start a company
[08:08.83]selling books on the Internet.
[08:11.77]He took me on a long walk
[08:12.95]in Central Park,
[08:14.63]listened carefully to me,
[08:17.56]and finally said,
[08:19.48]That sounds like a really good idea
[08:22.28]but it would be an even better idea
[08:24.65]for someone who didn't already
[08:26.09]have a good job.
[08:31.24]That logic made some sense to me,
[08:34.54]and he convinced me
[08:35.28]to think about it
[08:36.09]for 48 hours
[08:37.69]before making a final decision.
[08:42.69]Seen in that light,
[08:44.40]it really was a difficult choice,
[08:47.01]but ultimately,
[08:48.24]I decided I had to give it a shot.
[08:51.32]I didn't think I'd regret
[08:53.03]trying and failing.
[08:55.47]And I suspected
[08:56.56]I would always be haunted
[08:58.49]by a decision to not try at all.
[09:03.46]After much consideration,
[09:05.76]I took the less safe path
[09:08.70]to follow my passion,
[09:11.04]and I'm proud of that choice.
[09:16.11]Tomorrow,
[09:17.52]in a very real sense,
[09:19.32]your life
[09:20.85]the life you author
[09:22.62]from scratch on your own
[09:24.86]begins.
[09:27.24]How will you use your gifts?
[09:29.27]What choices will you make?
[09:31.52]Will inertia be your guide,
[09:35.22]or will you follow your passions?
[09:39.09]Will you follow dogma,
[09:41.36]or will you be original?
[09:45.25]Will you choose a life of ease,
[09:48.14]or a life of service and adventure?
[09:52.70]Will you wilt under CRIticism,
[09:56.90]or will you follow your convictions?
[10:00.60]Will you bluff it out
[10:01.56]when you're wrong,
[10:03.51]or will you apologize?
[10:07.16]Will you guard your heart
[10:09.66]against rejection,
[10:12.12]or will you act
[10:13.65]when you fall in love?
[10:16.41]Will you play it safe,
[10:18.72]or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
[10:22.70]When it's tough,
[10:24.84]will you give up,
[10:26.96]or will you be relentless?
[10:31.92]Will you be a cynic,
[10:35.43]or will you be a builder?
[10:40.53]Will you be clever
[10:43.61]at the expense of others,
[10:47.25]or will you be kind?
[10:54.12]I will hazard a prediction.
[10:57.02]When you are 80 years old,
[10:59.79]and in a quiet moment
[11:02.49]of reflection
[11:05.29]narrating for only yourself
[11:08.26]the most personal version
[11:10.66]of your life story,
[11:13.50]the telling
[11:16.13]that will be most compact
[11:18.12]and meaningful
[11:19.83]will be the series of choices
[11:22.12]you have made.
[11:24.17]In the end,
[11:25.55]we are our choices.
[11:28.18]Build yourself a great story.
[11:31.59]Thank you and good luck!
