My reflection on Steve Job's speech

[Lin Ping]

Reflection on Steve Jobs’ Stanford University Commencement Speech.

While I am certainly inspired by Steve Job’s commencement speech at
Stanford, I cannot help but wonder about this: Would Steve Jobs have
given the same speech if he were a Singaporean giving a commencement
speech at say, NUS or NTU? I guess the closest we have to Steve Jobs
is probably Sim Wong Hoo, founder of Creative Technologies. Would he
have told us to stay hungry, stay foolish?

My belief is that the environment plays a major part in stimulating
creativity and somehow in the US, they have found the right
ingredients. Failure is not just tolerated but actually celebrated.
Steve Jobs’ sacking from Apple enabled him to start anew. Here, if you
are some CEO sacked by a GLC such as SIA or Temasek Holdings, nobody
would touch you with a ten foot pole. Our environment is more
unforgiving and there have been far fewer ‘Comeback Kids’ than in the
US. Could that be the reason why many talented Singaporeans prefer to
work and settle down in the West? Perhaps there is more freedom to
pursue your dreams there.

Singapore is too small and everything is geared towards our survival.
As such, the margin of error is smaller and a top down approach is
adopted to ensure that everything is aligned towards our national
survival. We have often been told by our leaders that all it takes is
one wrong move and the success story known as Singapore would come
tumbling down faster than Humpty Dumpty. Given the constraints of our
nation, could creativity and entrepreneurship thrive?

The fact remains that for every successful entrepreneur standing at
the top of the mountain, there are hundreds of unsuccessful ones lying
at the bottom of the valley. We have all got to make a living and it
is hard to pursue your dreams when you have got that housing loan,
utilities bills, your children’s’ tuition fees etc to pay. How are we
going to cope with these expenses if we happen to be one of the
unsuccessful entrepreneurs lying at the bottom of the valley? Would
you stake your family’s well being and survival on the gamble of your
dreams?

The million dollar question is this: Given our constraints, can we
find a middle ground between our reality and our dreams? Can we find
space for the dreamers and the entrepreneurs to grow and thrive and at
the same time ensure our national survival and prosperity? We are
still struggling to find the answer