Tim Cook Speech - Serve Humanity Edit

Aligned with myself and my own deep need to serve something greater.

And in a moment of youthful indiscretion. I might even. Have experimented.

And sometimes. It's even part of the problem.

And the other part kept asking. Is this all there is? I went to grad school at Duke looking for the answer. I tried meditation. I saw guidance and religion. I read great philosophers and authors.

As Steve once said. Technology alone is not enough. It is technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities that make our hearts sing.

As you go forward today. Use your minds and hands and your hearts to build something bigger than yourselves. Always remember, there is no idea bigger than this. As Doctor Martin Luther King said, a...

At a shareholders meeting a few years ago. Someone questioned. Apple's investment in focus on the environment. He asked me to pledge that Apple would only invest in green initiatives that could be ...

Because if, because if science is a surge in the darkness. Then the humanities are a candle that shows us where we've been and the danger that lies ahead.

Before that moment, I had never met a leader with such passion or encountered a company with such a clear and compelling purpose. To serve humanity. It was just that simple. Serve humanity. And it ...

But he expressed a shared concern in a powerful new way. Never has humanity had such power over itself.

But it can also be a place. Where basic rules of decency are suspended and pettiness and negativity thrive. Don't let that noise knock you off course. Don't get caught up in the trivial aspects of ...

But it doesn't want to do great things. It doesn't want anything.

But technology alone isn't the solution.

But with the help of hindsight, my breakthrough makes a lot more sense. I was never going to find my purpose working someplace without a clear sense of purpose of its own. Stephen Apple freed me to...

I found that my life got bigger when I stopped caring what other people thought about me. You will find yours will too. Stay focused on what really matters.

I kept convincing myself that it was just over the horizon. Around the next corner.

I thought that maybe I'd discover it when I found a good job. Then I thought I just needed to get a few promotions. That didn't work either.

I'll be honest, I asked myself that same question. And it took me nearly 15 years to answer it.

I'm not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans. I'm more concerned about people thinking like computers without values or compassion, without concer...

It means an iPhone that allows a blind person to run a marathon. It means an Apple Watch that catches a heart condition before it becomes a heart attack. It means an iPad that helps a child with au...

Last year, I had the chance to meet with Pope Francis. It was the most incredible meeting of my life. This is a man who has spent more time comforting the afflicted in slums than he has with heads ...

Maybe by talking about my journey today I can save you some time. The struggle for me started early on in high school. I thought I'd discover my life's purpose when I could answer that age-old ques...

Measure your impact on humanity, not in likes, but in the lives you touch. Not in popularity, but in the people you serve.

MIT and Apple share so much. We both love hard problems. We love to search for new ideas. And we especially love finding those ideas, the really big ones. The ones that can change the world. ...

Nothing worked and it was really tearing me apart. Part of me kept pushing ahead to the next achievement.

Of course, at that moment I didn't know all of that. I was just grateful to have that psychological burden lifted.

Or put a propeller beanie on the Great Dome. Or how you've obviously taken over the president's Twitter account. I can tell college students are behind it because most of the tweets happen at 3:00 ...

Or, as you would call them, hacks, and you've had pulled off some pretty great ones over the years. I'll never figure out how MIT students sent that Mars Rover to the Kreski Oval.

So I told him, if you can't accept our position, you shouldn't own Apple stock.

Sometimes the very technology that is meant to connect us divides us.

Sometimes the very technology that is meant to connect us divides us. I'm not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans. I'm more concerned about peopl...

Technology is capable of doing great things.

Technology today is integral to almost all aspects of our lives. And most of the time, it's a force for good. And yet the potential adverse consequences are spreading faster and cutting deeper than...

That part takes all of us. It takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities, our love of beauty and belief that all of our fates are interconnected. Our ...

That responsibility is immense. But so is the opportunity. I'm optimistic because I believe in your generation, your passion, your journey to serve humanity. We are all counting on you.

The good news is, since you're here today, you're already on a great track. At MIT, you've learned how much power science and technology have to change the world for the better. Thanks to discoveri...

Then today, all of humanity has good cause for hope. Thank you very much and congratulations class of 2017.

There is so much out there conspiring to make you cynical. The Internet has enabled so much and empowered so many.

There will be days where you will ask yourself, where is all this going? What is the purpose? What is my purpose?

There will be times when you resolve to serve humanity will be tested. Be prepared. People will try to convince you that you should keep your empathy out of your career. Don't accept this false pre...

This is life's biggest and most important question.

Whatever you do in your life, and whatever we do at Apple, we must infuse it with the humanity that each of us is born with.

When you keep people at the center of what you do, it can have an enormous impact.

When you work towards something greater than yourself, you find meaning, you find purpose. So the question I hope you will carry forward from here. Is How will you serve humanity?

When you're convinced that your causes rind, have the courage to take a stand. If you see a problem or an injustice, recognize that no one will fix it but you.

With a Windows PC. And obviously that didn't work. After countless twists and turns at last 20 years ago. My search brought me to Apple. At the time, the company was struggling to survive. Steve Jo...

Yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, he has said.