比尔·盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲（1）
阮一峰 译
President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming
President
Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of
Overseers,
members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the
graduates:
尊敬的Bok校长，Rudenstine前校长，即将上任的Fau
st校长，哈佛集团的各
位成员，监管理事会的各位理事，各位老师，各位家长，各位同学：
I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I
always
told you I’d come back and get my degree.”
有一句话我等了三十年，现在终于可以说了：”老爸，我总是跟你说，我会
回来拿到我的学位的！”
I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing
my
job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college
degree
on my resume.
我要感谢哈佛大学在这个时候给我这个荣誉。明年，我就要换工作了（注：
指从微软公司退休）……我终于可以在简历上写我有一个本科学位，这真是不错
啊。
I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct
route
to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson
has
called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes
me
valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of
everyone
who failed.
我为今天在座的各位同学感到高兴，你们拿到学位可比我简单多了。哈佛的
校报称我是”哈佛大学历史上最成功的辍学生”。我想这大概使我有资格代表我这
一类学生发言……在所有的失败者里，我做得最好。
But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve
Ballmer
to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I
was
invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your
orientation, fewer of you might be here today.
但是，我还要提醒大家，我使得Steve
Ballmer（注：微软总经理）也从哈
佛商学院退学了。因此，我是个有着恶劣影响力的人。这就是为什么我被邀请来
在你们的毕业典礼上演讲。如果我在你们入学欢迎仪式上演讲，那么能够坚持到
今天在这里毕业的人也许会少得多吧。
Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life
was
fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even
signed
up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe,
in
Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room
late
at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry
about
getting up in the morning. That’s how I came to be the leader of
the
anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating
our
rejection of all those social people.
对我来说，哈佛的求学经历是一段非凡的经历。校园生活很有趣，我常去旁
听我没选修的课。哈佛的课外生活也很棒，我在Radcliffe过着逍遥自在的日子。
每天我的寝室里总有很多人一直待到半夜，讨论着各种事情。因为每个人都知道
我从不考虑第二天早起。这使得我变成了校园里那些不安分学生的头头，我们互
相粘在一起，做出一种拒绝所有正常学生的姿态。
Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up
there,
and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination
offered
me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned
the
sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee
success.
Radcliffe是个过日子的好地方。那里的女生比男生多，而且大多数男生都
是理工科的。这种状况为我创造了最好的机会，如果你们明白我的意思。可惜的
是，我正是在这里学到了人生中悲伤的一课：机会大，并不等于你就会成功。
One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975,
when I
made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that
had
begun making the world’s first personal computers. I offered to
sell
them software.
我在哈佛最难忘的回忆之一，发生在1975年1月。那时，我从宿舍楼里给位
于Albuquerque的一家公司打了一个电话，那家公司已经在着手制造世界上第一
台个人电脑。我提出想向他们出售软件。
I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a
dorm
and hang up on me. Instead they said: “We’re not quite ready, come
see
us in a month,” which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written
the
software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this
little
extra credit project that marked the end of my college education
and
the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.
我很担心，他们会发觉我是一个住在宿舍的学生，从而挂断电话。但是他们
却说：”我们还没准备好，一个月后你再来找我们吧。”这是个好消息，因为那时
软件还根本没有写出来呢。就是从那个时候起，我日以继夜地在这个小小的课外
项目上工作，这导致了我学生生活的结束，以及通往微软公司的不平凡的旅程的
开始。
What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst
of
so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating,
intimidating,
sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an
amazing
privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years
at
Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.
不管怎样，我对哈佛的回忆主要都与充沛的精力和智力活动有关。哈佛的生
活令人愉快，也令人感到有压力，有时甚至会感到泄气，但永远充满了挑战性。
生活在哈佛是一种吸引人的特殊待遇……虽然我离开得比较早，但是我在这里的
经历、在这里结识的朋友、在这里发展起来的一些想法，永远地改变了我。
But taking a serious look back … I do have one big
regret.
但是，如果现在严肃地回忆起来，我确实有一个真正的遗憾。
I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities
in
the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth,
and
opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of
despair.
我离开哈佛的时候，根本没有意识到这个世界是多么的不平等。人类在健康、
财富和机遇上的不平等大得可怕，它们使得无数的人们被迫生活在绝望之中。
I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics
and
politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in
the
sciences.
我在哈佛学到了很多经济学和政治学的新思想。我也了解了很多科学上的新
进展。
But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries –
but
in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.
Whether
through democracy, strong public education, quality health care,
or
broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest
human
achievement.
但是，人类最大的进步并不来自于这些发现，而是来自于那些有助于减少人
类不平等的发现。不管通过何种手段——民主制度、健全的公共教育体系、高质
量的医疗保健、还是广泛的经济机会——减少不平等始终是人类最大的成就。
I left campus knowing little about the millions of young
people
cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And
I
knew nothing about the millions of people living in
unspeakable
poverty and disease in developing countries.
我离开校园的时候，根本不知道在这个国家里，有几百万的年轻人无法获得
接受教育的机会。我也不知道，发展中国家里有无数的人们生活在无法形容的贫
穷和疾病之中。
It took me decades to find out.
我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。
You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know
more
about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before.
In
your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how –
in
this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on
these
inequities, and we can solve them.
在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生，
更多地了解世界是怎样的不平等。在你们的哈佛求学过程中，我希望你们已经思
考过一个问题，那就是在这个新技术加速发展的时代，我们怎样最终应对这种不
平等，以及我们怎样来解决这个问题。
Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few
hours
a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and
you
wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the
greatest
impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend
it?
为了讨论的方便，请想象一下，假如你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月
可以捐献一些钱——你希望这些时间和金钱，可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生
活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方？
For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we
do
the most good for the greatest number with the resources we
have.
对Melinda（注：盖茨的妻子）和我来说，这也是我们面临的问题：我们如
何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用。
During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read
an
article about the millions of children who were dying every year
in
poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless
in
this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow
fever.
One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half
a
million kids each year – none of them in the United States.
在讨论过程中，Melinda和我读到了一篇文章，里面说在那些贫穷的国家，
每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、
乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种以前我从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致
50万儿童死亡，但是在美国一例死亡病例也没有。
We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of
children
were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a
priority
to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did
not.
For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save
lives
that just weren’t being delivered.
我们被震惊了。我们想，如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎，而且他们是可
以被挽救的，那么世界理应将用药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但是事实并非如此。
那些价格还不到一美元的救命的药剂，并没有送到他们的手中。
If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting
to
learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not.
We
said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it
deserves
to be the priority of our giving.”
如果你相信每个生命都是平等的，那么当你发现某些生命被挽救了，而另一
些生命被放弃了，你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说：”事情不可能如此。如果
这是真的，那么它理应是我们努力的头等大事。”
So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin
it.
We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”
所以，我们用任何人都会想到的方式开始工作。我们问：”这个世界怎么可
以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去？”
The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward
saving
the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it.
So
the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no
power
in the market and no voice in the system.
答案很简单，也很令人难堪。在市场经济中，拯救儿童是一项没有利润的工
作，政府也不会提供补助。这些儿童之所以会死亡，是因为他们的父母在经济上
没有实力，在政治上没有能力发出声音。
But you and I have both.
但是，你们和我在经济上有实力，在政治上能够发出声音。
We can make market forces work better for the poor if we
can
develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach
of
market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least
make
a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst
inequities.
We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer
money
in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the
taxes.
我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务，如果我们能够设计出一种更有创新性的
资本主义制度——如果我们可以改变市场，让更多的人可以获得利润，或者至少
可以维持生活——那么，这就可以帮到那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们。
我们还可以向全世界的政府施压，要求他们将纳税人的钱，花到更符合纳税人价
值观的地方。
If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in
ways
that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we
will
have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.
This
task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious
effort
to answer this challenge will change the world.
如果我们能够找到这样一种方法，既可以帮到穷人，又可以为商人带来利润，
为政治家带来选票，那么我们就找到了一种减少世界性不平等的可持续的发展道
路。这个任务是无限的。它不可能被完全完成，但是任何自觉地解决这个问题的
尝试，都将会改变这个世界。
I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics
who
claim there is no hope. They say: “Inequity has been with us since
the
beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just
…
don’t … care.” I completely disagree.
在这个问题上，我是乐观的。但是，我也遇到过那些感到绝望的怀疑主义者。
他们说：”不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在，到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在。
——因为人类对这个问题根本不在乎。”我完全不能同意这种观点。
I believe we have more caring than we know what to do
with.
我相信，问题不是我们不在乎，而是我们不知道怎么做。
All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have
seen
human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing –
not
because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. If
we
had known how to help, we would have acted.
此刻在这个院子里的所有人，生命中总有这样或那样的时刻，目睹人类的悲
剧，感到万分伤心。但是我们什么也没做，并非我们无动于衷，而是因为我们不
知道做什么和怎么做。如果我们知道如何做是有效的，那么我们就会采取行动。
The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too
much
complexity.
改变世界的阻碍，并非人类的冷漠，而是世界实在太复杂。
To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see
a
solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three
steps.
为了将关心转变为行动，我们需要找到问题，发现解决办法的方法，评估后
果。但是世界的复杂性使得所有这些步骤都难于做到。
Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is
still
a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When
an
airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference.
They
promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent
similar
crashes in the future.
即使有了互联网和24小时直播的新闻台，让人们真正发现问题所在，仍然十
分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了，官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会，他们承诺进行调查、
找到原因、防止将来再次发生类似事故。
But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: “Of
all
the people in the world who died today from preventable causes,
one
half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to
do
everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of
the
one half of one percent.”
但是如果那些官员敢说真话，他们就会说：”在今天这一天，全世界所有可
以避免的死亡之中，只有0.5%的死者来自于这次空难。我们决心尽一切努力，调
查这个0.5%的死亡原因。”
The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions
of
preventable deaths.
显然，更重要的问题不是这次空难，而是其他几百万可以预防的死亡事件。
We don’t read much about these deaths. The media covers what’s
new
– and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in
the
background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it
or
read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem.
It’s
hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we
don’t
know how to help. And so we look away.
我们并没有很多机会了解那些死亡事件。媒体总是报告新闻，几百万人将要
死去并非新闻。如果没有人报道，那么这些事件就很容易被忽视。另一方面，即
使我们确实目睹了事件本身或者看到了相关报道，我们也很难持续关注这些事件。
看着他人受苦是令人痛苦的，何况问题又如此复杂，我们根本不知道如何去帮助
他人。所以我们会将脸转过去。
If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we
come
to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a
solution.
就算我们真正发现了问题所在，也不过是迈出了第一步，接着还有第二步：
那就是从复杂的事件中找到解决办法。
Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of
our
caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization
or
individual asks “How can I help?,” then we can get action – and
we
can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted.
But
complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone
who
cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.
如果我们要让关心落到实处，我们就必须找到解决办法。如果我们有一个清
晰的和可靠的答案，那么当任何组织和个人发出疑问”如何我能提供帮助”的时候，
我们就能采取行动。我们就能够保证不浪费一丁点全世界人类对他人的关心。但
是，世界的复杂性使得很难找到对全世界每一个有爱心的人都有效的行动方法，
因此人类对他人的关心往往很难产生实际效果。
Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through
four
predictable stages: determine a goal, find the
highest-leverage
approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in
the
meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that
you
already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug,
or
something simpler, like a bednet.
从这个复杂的世界中找到解决办法，可以分为四个步骤：确定目标，找到最
高效的方法，发现适用于这个方法的新技术，同时最聪明地利用现有的技术，不
管它是复杂的药物，还是最简单的蚊帐。
The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course,
is
to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention.
The
ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity
with
a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations
fund
vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a
decade,
so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand –
and
the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to
avoid
risky behavior.
艾滋病就是一个例子。总的目标，毫无疑问是消灭这种疾病。最高效的方法
是预防。最理想的技术是发明一种疫苗，只要注射一次，就可以终生免疫。所以，
政府、制药公司、基金会应该资助疫苗研究。但是，这样研究工作很可能十年之
内都无法完成。因此，与此同时，我们必须使用现有的技术，目前最有效的预防
方法就是设法让人们避免那些危险的行为。
（待续）