Never give up. I didn't get into Brown University. I was on the wait list. I called them up and they eventually decided that it was getting really annoying to have me call everyday so they let me in. At Carnegie Mellon I didn't get into graduate school. Andy had mentored me. He said, go to graduate school, you're going to Carnegie Mellon. All my good students go to Carnegie Mellon. Yeah, you know what's coming. And so he said, you're going to go to Carnegie Mellon no problem. What he had kind of forgotten was that the difficulty of getting to the top Ph.D. program in the country had really gone up. And he also didn't know I was going to tank my GRE's because he believed in me. Which, based on my board scores was a really stupid idea. And so I didn't get into Carnegie Mellon. No one knows this. ‘Til today I’m telling the story. I was declined admission to Carnegie Mellon. And I was a bit of an obnoxious little kid. I went into Andy's office and I dropped the rejection letter on his desk. And I said, I just want you to know what your letter of recommendation goes for at Carnegie Mellon. [laughter] And before the letter had hit his desk, his hand was on the phone and he said, I will fix this. [Laughter] And I said, no no no, I don't want to do it that way. That's not the way I was raised. [In a sad voice] Maybe some other graduate schools will see fit to admit me. [Laughter] And he said, look, Carnegie Mellon's where you're going to be. He said, I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. Go visit the other schools. Because I did get into all the other schools. He said, go visit the other schools and if you really don't feel comfortable at any of them, then will you let me call Nico? Nico being Nico Habermann and I said, OK deal. I went to the other schools. Without naming them by name -- [in a coughing voice] Berkeley, Cornell. They managed to be so unwelcoming that I found myself saying to Andy, you know, I'm going to get a job. And he said, no, you're not. And he picked up the phone and he talked in Dutch. [laughter] And he hung up the phone and he said, Nico says if you're serious, be in his office tomorrow morning at eight a.m. And for those of you who know Nico, this is really scary. So I'm in Nico Habermann's office the next morning at eight a.m. and he’s talking with me, and frankly I don’t think he’s that keen on this meeting. I don't think he's that keen at all. And he says, Randy, why are we here? And I said, because Andy phoned you? Heh. [laughter] And I said, well, since you admitted me, I have won a fellowship. The Office of Naval Research is a very prestigious fellowship. I've won this fellowship and that wasn't in my file when I applied. And Nico said, a fellowship, money, we have plenty of money. That was back then. He said, we have plenty of money. Why do you think having a fellowship makes any difference to us? And he looked at me. There are moments that change your life. And ten years later if you know in retrospect it was one of those moments, you're blessed. But to know it at the moment…. With Nico staring through your soul. [laughter] And I said, I didn't mean to imply anything about the money. It's just that it was an honor. There were only 15 given nationwide. And I did think it was an honor that would be something that would be meritorious. And I apologize if that was presumptuous. And he smiled. And that was good.
So. How do you get people to help you? You can't get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.
所以。如何让别人去帮助你?你不能单打独斗。你需要人来帮你。我相信因果报应。我相信回报。你讲真话,人们就来帮你。真挚做人。我会毫不犹豫的选择一个真诚的人,而不是一个时髦的人,因为时髦是短暂的。真诚是长远的。
Apologize when you........