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.
You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
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 backward 10 years later.
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.
Stanford University is so startlingly paradisial, so fragrant and sunny, it's as if you could eat from the trees and live happily forever.
When I was studying at Chicago and at Stanford University, where many many cases of two people observing the same event have a different take on what happened.
Later, at Stanford University, I thought I'd become a lawyer or businessman, but my father came to me and said he thought there was a big future in the fine-wine business.
I fear -as far as I can tell- that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.
You've got to find what you love.