2019 Stanford Commencement address by Tim Cook

0:04 Stanford University please join me in welcoming Tim Cook thank you thank you good morning class of 2019 Thank You president Tessier Levine for that very generous introduction I'll do my best to earn it before I begin I want to

0:36 recognize everyone whose hard work made this celebration possible including the groundskeepers assured volunteers and crew thank you I am deeply honored and frankly a little astonished to be invited to join you for this most meaningful of occasions graduates this is your day but you didn't get here

1:08 alone family and friends teachers mentors loved ones and of course your parents all work together to make you possible and they share your joy today here on Father's Day let's give the dads in particular a round of applause Stanford is near to my heart not least because I live just a mile and a half

1:38 from here of course if my accident hasn't given it away for the first part of my life I had to admire this place from a distance I went to school on the other side of the country at Auburn University in the heart of landlocked eastern Alabama you may not know this but I was on the sailing team all four years it wasn't easy

2:08 back then the closest marina was a three-hour drive for practice most of the time we had to wait for a heavy rainstorm to flood the football field and tying knots is hard who knew yet somehow against all odds we managed to beat Stanford every time we must have gotten lucky with a wind kidding aside I know the real reason I'm

2:40 here and I don't take it lightly Stanford and Silicon Valley's roots are woven together we're part of the same ecosystem it was true when Steve stood on this stage 14 years ago it's true today and presumably it'll be true for a while longer still the past few decades have lifted us together but today we gather at a moment that demands some

3:11 reflection fueled by caffeine and code optimism and idealism conviction in AI and creativity generations of Stanford graduates and dropouts have used technology to remake our society but I think you would agree that lately the results haven't been neat or straightforward in just the four years that you've been here at the farm things

3:43 feel like they've taken a sharp turn crisis has tempered optimism consequences have challenged idealism and reality has shaken blind faith and yet we are still drawn here for good reason big dreams live here as do the genius and passion to make them real in an age of cynicism this place still believes

4:14 that the human capacity to solve problems is boundless but so it seems is our potential to create them that's what I'm interested in talking about today because if I've learned one thing it's the technology doesn't change who we are it magnifies who we are the good and the bad our problems in technology in

4:47 politics wherever our human problems from the Garden of Eden to today it's our humanity that got us into this mess and it's our humanity that's going to have to get us out first things first here's a plain fact Silicon Valley is responsible for some of the most revolutionary inventions in modern

5:18 history from the first oscillator built in a Hewlett Packard garage to the iPhones that I know you're holding in your hands social media shareable video snaps and stories that connect half the people on earth they all trace their roots to Stanford's backyard but lately it seems this industry is becoming better known for a less noble innovation

5:49 the belief that you can claim credit without accepting responsibility we see it every day now with every data breach every privacy violation every blind I turn to hate speech fake news poisoning our national conversation the false miracles in exchange for a single drop of your blood too many seem to

6:23 think that good intentions excuse away harmful outcomes but whether you like it or not what you build and what you create define who you are it feels a bit crazy that anyone should have to say this but if you built a chaos factory you can't dodge responsibility for the chaos taking responsibility means having the courage to think things through and

6:55 there are few areas where this is more important than privacy if we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated sold or even leaked in the event of a hack then we lose so much more than data we lose the freedom to be human think about what's at stake everything you write

7:27 everything you say every topic of curiosity every stray thought every impulsive purchase every moment of frustration or weakness every gripe or complaint every secret shared in confidence in a world without digital privacy even if you have done nothing wrong other than think differently you begin to censor yourself not entirely at

7:58 first just a little bit by bit to risk less to hope less to imagine less to dare less to create less to try less to talk less to think less the chilling effect of digital surveillance is profound and it touches everything what a small unimaginative world we would end up with

8:30 not entirely at first just a little bit by bit ironically it's the kind of environment that would have stopped Silicon Valley before it ever gotten started we deserve better you deserve better if we believe that freedom means an environment where great ideas can take root where they can grow

9:01 and be nurtured without fear of irrational restrictions or burdens then it's our duty to change course because your generation ought to have the same freedom to shape the future as the generation that came before graduates at the very least learn from these mistakes if you want to take credit first learn to take responsibility

9:42 now a lot of you the vast majority won't find yourselves in tech at all that's as it should be we need your minds at work far and wide because their challenges are great and they can't be solved by any single industry no matter where you go no matter what you do I know you will be ambitious you wouldn't be here today if you aren't match that ambition with humility a humility of

10:13 purpose that doesn't mean being tamer being smaller being less in what you do it's the opposite it's about serving something greater the author Madeleine L'Engle Road humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else in other words whatever you do with your life be a builder you don't have to start from

10:47 scratch to build something monumental and conversely the best founders the ones whose creations last and whose reputations grow rather than shrink with passing time they spend most of their time building piece by piece builders are comfortable in the belief that their life's work will one day be bigger than them bigger than any one person they're

11:17 mindful that its effects will span generations that's not an accident in a way it's the whole point in a few days we will mark the 50th anniversary of the riots at Stonewall when the patrons of the Stonewall Inn showed up that night people of all races gay and transgender young and old they had no idea what

11:50 history had in store for them it would have seemed foolish to dream it when the door was busted open by police it was not the knock of opportunity or the call of Destiny it was just another instance of the world telling them that they ought to feel worthless for being different but the group gathered there felt something strengthened in them a conviction that they deserved something

12:21 better than the shadows and better than Oblivion and it if it wasn't going to be given then they were going to have to build it themselves I was eight years old and a thousand miles away when stonewall happened there were no news alerts no way for photos to go viral no mechanism for a kid on the Gulf Coast to hear these unlikely heroes tell their

12:53 stories Greenwich Village may as well have been a different planet though I can tell you that the slurs and hatreds were the same what I would not know for a long time was what I owed to a group of people I never knew in a place I'd never been yet I will never stop being

13:24 grateful for what they had the courage to build graduates being a builder is about believing that you cannot possibly be the greatest cause on this earth because you aren't built to last it's about making peace with the fact that you

13:54 won't be here for the end of the story that brings me to my last bit of advice 14 years ago Steve stood on this stage and told your predecessors your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life here's my corollary your mentors may leave you prepared but they

14:26 can't leave you ready when Steve got sick I had hardwired my thinking to the belief that he would get better I not only thought he would hold on I was convinced down to my core that he'd still be guiding Apple long after I myself was gone then one day he called me over to his house and told me that it

14:57 wasn't going to be that way even then I was convinced he would stay on as chairman that he would step back from the day-to-day but always be there as a sounding board but there was no reason to believe that I never should have thought it the facts were all there and when he was gone truly gone I learned the real visceral difference

15:29 between preparation and readiness it was the loneliest I've ever felt in my life by an order of magnitude it was one of those moments where you can be surrounded by people yet you don't really see hear or feel them but I could sense their expectations when the dust settled all I

16:01 knew was that I was going to have to be the best version of myself that I could be I knew that if you got out of bed every morning and set your watch by what other people expect or demand it drive you crazy so what was true then is true now don't waste your time living someone else's life don't try to emulate the people who came before you to the exclusion of everything else contorting into a shape

16:29 that doesn't fit it takes too much mental effort effort that should be dedicated to creating and building you'll waste precious time trying to rewire your every thought and in the meantime you won't be fooling anybody graduates the fact is when your time comes and it will you'll never be ready but you're not supposed to be find the

17:01 hope and the unexpected find the courage in the challenge find your vision on the solitary road don't get distracted there are too many people who won't credit without responsibility too many who show up for the ribbon-cutting without building anything worth a damn be different leave something worthy and always remember that you can't take it with you you're going to have to pass it on thank you very much and

17:33 congratulations to the class of 2019

18:04 you