當地時間5月22日，硅谷投資人、約翰·霍普金斯大學工學院董事吳軍博士在美國約翰·霍普金斯大學工學院博士生畢業典禮上發表演講。

當地時間5月22日，硅谷投資人吳軍博士在美國約翰·霍普金斯大學工學院博士生畢業典禮上發表演講。

吳軍說，“20年前，在我畢業時，就曾想過有朝一日可以站在講臺上，作為嘉賓跟新一代畢業生們分享我的故事。20年后，我也算是得償所愿了。”

現為約翰·霍普金斯大學工學院董事的吳軍，畢業于清華大學和約翰·霍普金斯大學，計算機科學博士，人工智能、自然語言處理和網絡搜索專家，曾先后供職谷歌、騰訊。2014年，他作為創始合伙人創立豐元投資。

以下為演講全文：

甘奇（Gange）教務長，施萊辛格（Schlesinger）院長，教授們，嘉賓們，還有我的畢業生朋友們：

我非常榮幸能夠回到約翰·霍普金斯大學懷廷工學院（Whiting School of Engineering）。我在這里向你們所有人表示祝賀，你們今晚將獲得人生中的最高學位，明天也將開始新的征程。我相信你們一定對未來的精彩人生感到非常興奮。20年前我在這里獲得博士學位時，也有同樣的感覺。今天，我想與你們分享我一路走來學到的三堂人生課，它們使我的生活和事業受益匪淺。

第一堂課是我們的老校長比爾·布羅迪（Bill Brody）在1998年我的碩士畢業典禮上講的。他分享了哈里·杜魯門（Harry Truman，美國前總統）的故事，強調了運氣對成功的意義。布羅迪校長說，每個人都會經歷好運和厄運，沒有例外。然而，好運往往會導致不利的結果，反之亦然。因此，最好小心謹慎，做好準備。這些話在我身上應驗了。

當我在1999年開始收尾博士研究工作時，我連續發表了多篇論文，其中一篇獲得了Eurospeech（一個專注于語音技術研究領域的國際學術會議）的最佳論文獎。運氣不錯，對吧？我被邀請到許多大的研究實驗室做講座，包括貝爾實驗室、IBM研究院和斯坦福國際研究所。還有更多好運氣。2000年的就業市場非常強勁，我的組員們都收到了大公司的多個offer（錄用通知）。我覺得自己在找工作時肯定會有好運。

不幸的是，我過于自信了。我沒有為畢業委員會的口試（GBO）做充分的準備，所以沒有通過。壞運氣出現了。結果，我不得不再當一年學生。此后，更多厄運接踵而至——先是互聯網泡沫破滅，然后是發生“9.11”事件。大多數公司凍結了招聘并裁員。我除了等待大公司恢復招聘外，什么也做不了。多虧了我的導師桑吉夫·庫坦普（Sanjeev Khudanpur），我被允許在學校多待一年，這樣就可以保留我的F1簽證。

在等待AT&T和IBM的錄用通知時，我在網上搜索，看看是否有公司在裁員潮中仍然會招聘。我發現一家名為Google（谷歌）的小公司有一個空缺，而我的經驗符合他們的要求。我聯系他們并提交了簡歷。幸運的是，他們回復我并安排了面試。這一次，我準備得非常充分，所以所有面試都非常順利。3天后，我收到了offer。在1500份簡歷中，我是那個幸運兒。有意思的是，那些大型研究實驗室隨后重新開放招聘，并告訴我他們會給我發offer。如果他們的offer早幾周到來，我就會毫不猶豫地接受其中一個。然而，這一次我把命運押在了谷歌身上，而我贏了。現在回想起來，如果我有幸在2000年按時畢業，并在一個大型實驗室安頓下來，我就會失去在谷歌萌芽時期加入它的千載難逢的機會。事實上，許多在那些大公司面試過我的科學家后來都加入了谷歌。

許多人認為今年的就業市場不好，因為許多大公司都在裁員。這意味著畢業生的運氣不好。但記住，你不會永遠不走運，好運可能比你預期的更早到來。因此，你唯一能做的就是做好準備！未來，你會成功很多次。你可能會把一切都歸功于天賦和努力工作，但你一定不要陷于自負——因為厄運可能就在眼前。一生中，你也會遭遇艱難歲月，但即使面對逆境，也永遠不要絕望——因為好運在等著你。我問過幾十位成功創立價值十億美元公司的企業家，他們成功的首要原因是什么。他們一致認為，只是運氣好。我還問了數百名生意失敗的創始人，他們學到了什么教訓。很少有人反思自己的問題，幾乎所有人都回答只是運氣不好。但運氣，從來只會垂青那些謙卑且敬畏命運的人。

第二堂課來自于我在谷歌的上級們，包括阿米特·辛格爾（Amit Singhal）、艾倫·尤斯塔斯（Alan Eustace）和埃里克·施密特（Eric Schmidt）。他們鼓勵我從大處著眼，只關注那些能使世界上絕大多數人受益的項目。

有一天，當我在谷歌站穩腳跟有了一點成就之后，阿米特找到我，問我是否可以為亞洲語言編寫搜索算法，包括中文、日文、韓文等。當時，我對這個想法不感興趣。我想回到自然語言處理的研究中去，我從研究生時代起就對這個感興趣。當阿米特試圖說服我時，他這樣告訴我：“亞洲有40億人口，但我們無法提供與英語相當的服務。試想一下，如果其中10%，也就是4億人從你的算法中受益，其成就就要比發表論文大一千倍。”我認為他是對的，我寫了這些算法，這些算法至今仍被數十億人使用。當埃里克·施密特聽到這件事時，他非常興奮，給了我沒有上限的名額，讓我成立一個工程團隊，為亞洲市場打造產品。

當我們決定做什么時，大多數人都關注自己喜歡做的事情或擅長的事情。但更重要的是，我們需要考慮世界需要我們做什么。換句話說，我們如何能通過自己的努力使世界變得更好？我們的成就取決于世界上有多少人可以從我們的工作中受益。作為未來的行業領袖，你們應該胸懷大志，思維開闊。不要把你們的潛力限制在自己的舒適區。

我學到的第三堂課是要回饋社會。

1996年，當我來到約翰·霍普金斯大學時，我手中只有兩個手提箱，口袋里裝著幾百美元。當時，是約翰·霍普金斯大學給了我全額獎學金，才讓我能夠負擔得起教育和生活的費用。霍普金斯給了我最好的教育，以及認識相關領域研究者的無數機會。如果沒有在約翰·霍普金斯大學的經歷，我是不可能成功的。所以我一直對學校心存感激，并努力盡我所能支持學校。當我還是學生的時候，我受益于校友們的貢獻，所以我希望年輕人也能從我們的努力中受益。我相信你們所有人將來在事業上都會非常成功，所以我希望你們所有人都能以自己的方式回饋學校。奉獻會讓你更快樂！

今天的世界遠不完美，我們要面對戰爭、疾病、歧視以及氣候變化等等問題。我不知道是不是因為我們運氣太壞生在了這樣一個時代。但我知道，抱怨于事無補，而行動卻可以。因此，霍普金斯的畢業生們，這是你們的責任和榮幸，應用你們在學校所學的知識和能力，去解決世界的問題，讓這個世界變得更好。我相信，你們必定能做到，你們必將做到！

謝謝你們。

吳軍

【附英文原文】

Provost Gange, Dean Schlesinger, faculties, distinguished guests, and my fellow graduates.

It's my great honor to be back here at WSE. I'm here to congratulate all of you, who will receive the highest degree of your life tonight and start a new journey tomorrow. I'm sure you must be very excited about your wonderful life ahead. I felt the same way when I received my Ph.D. degree here twenty years ago. Today I would like to share with you three lessons I learned along the way that benefitted me in my life and career.

                                                                      *

The first lesson was delivered by our ex-president Bill Brody at my master's degree commencement in 1998. He shared the story of Harry Truman, highlighting the significance of luck in success. President Brody said that everybody will experience good luck and bad luck without exception. However, good luck can often result in adverse outcomes, and vice versa. So it is best to be careful and to be prepared. These words came true for me.

When I was wrapping up my Ph.D. research in 1999, I published several papers, one of which received the Best Paper Award from Eurospeech. Good luck, right? I was invited to give talks at many big research Labs, including Bell Labs, IBM Research, and SRI International. More good luck. The job market was so strong in 2000, and all my group mates received multiple offers from big companies. I felt sure I would be blessed in my own job search.

Unfortunately, I was overconfident. I did not prepare adequately for my GBO, so I failed it. Bad luck reared its head. As a result, I had to remain a student for one more year. After that, more bad luck ensued. The Internet bubble burst and 911 transpired. Most companies froze their hiring and laid off existing employees. I could do nothing but wait for the big companies to resume hiring. Thanks to my advisor Sanjeev Khudanpur, I was allowed to stay at school for one more year so I could keep my F1 visa.

While waiting for offers from AT&T and IBM, I searched on the web to see if there were any companies still hiring in the midst of layoffs. I found an opening at a small company called Google, and my experience fit their requirements. I contacted them and submitted my resume. Fortunately, they replied to me and scheduled interviews. This time around, I was very well prepared, so all interviews went extremely smoothly. I received an offer 3 days later. Out of 1500 resumes, I was now the lucky one. Funnily enough, those big research labs then reopened and told me they would send me offers now. If their offers had come a couple of weeks earlier, I would not have hesitated to accept one of them. However, this time I bet my fortune on Google, and I won. In retrospect, if I had been fortunate to graduate on time in 2000, and I would have settled down at a big lab, I would have lost my once-in-a-lifetime chance to join Google when it was still very small. In fact, many scientists who interviewed me at those larger companies joined Google later.

Many people thought the job market was bad this year, as many big companies were laying off people. It meant bad luck for graduates. But just remember, you won't be unlucky forever and good luck may come sooner than you expect. So the only thing you can do is to be ready! In the future, you will succeed many times. You may attribute everything to your talent and hard work, but you must not fall prey to hubris--for bad luck may be just around the corner. You will also endure hard times throughout your life, but even in the face of adversity, never despair--because good luck is waiting for you. I asked tens of entrepreneurs who had successfully founded billion-dollar companies what was the number one reason for their success. They unanimously agreed that they just got lucky. I also asked hundreds of founders who lost their businesses, what lessons they learned. Few reflected upon their own problems, and nearly everybody replied they were just unlucky. Fortune favors humble people who are in awe of fate.

                                                                       *

The second lesson comes from my higher-ups at Google, including Amit Singhal, Alan Eustace, and Eric Schmidt. They encouraged me to think big and to focus only on projects that could benefit a vast majority of people in the world.

One day, after I had built up my reputation at Google, Amit approached me to ask if I could write search algorithms for Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. I was not interested in that idea. I wanted to return to natural language processing research, which I had been interested in since I was a graduate student. When Amit tried to convince me, he told me this: "There are 4 billion people in Asia but we cannot provide services equivalent to those in English. Just imagine, if 10%, 400 million people benefit from your algorithms, that achievement is a thousand times greater than that of publishing papers." I thought he was right and I wrote the algorithms, which were still used by billions of people today. When Eric Schmidt heard about this, he was so excited that he gave me an unlimited head count to found an Engineering team to build products for the Asian market.

When we decide what to do, most of us focus on what we like to do or what we are good at. But more importantly, we need to think about what the world needs us to do. In other words, how can we make the world better through our efforts? Our achievement depends on how many people in the world can benefit from our work. As future industry leaders, you should think big, and think broadly. Don't limit your potential to your own comfort zone.

                                                                        *

The third lesson I learned was to give back to society. When I arrived at Hopkins in 1996, I carried only two suitcases in my hands and several hundred dollars in my pocket. It was Johns Hopkins that granted me a scholarship so that I could afford my education and living expenses. Hopkins also gave me the best education and countless opportunities to meet people in my research area. I couldn't have succeeded without my experiences at Hopkins. So I'm always grateful to the school and I try to do my best to support school. When I was a student, I benefited from the contributions of alumni, so I hope young people can benefit from our efforts too. I'm sure all of you will be very successful in your careers in the future, so I hope all of you can give back to the school in your own way. Giving will make you happier!

Today, the world is far from perfect--there are wars, diseases, discrimination, climate challenges, and so forth. Are we unlucky to be born in an era with so many problems? I don't know. But I know complaining won't help; Actions will. So, Hopkins graduates, it's your responsibility and privilege to use the knowledge and ability you obtained at school to solve world problems and make the world better. I believe you can, and you will do it!

Thank you.

Jun Wu

（本文為2023年5月22日吳軍博士在約翰·霍普金斯大學工學院博士生畢業典禮上的致辭，經作者授權，澎湃科技編譯刊發。中文由澎湃新聞記者方曉翻譯。）