Shadowing Practice: 케빈 시스트롬: 행동의 열매 - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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At Stanford, you kind of started your first thing.
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At Stanford, you kind of started your first thing.
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It was a classified ad site, is that right?
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Yeah.
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As many people know, and I'm not sure how this has changed to date at Stanford and other schools,
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but like no one has money and all you want to do is get a fridge for your room, right?
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And I'm pretty certain that every single year someone starts this startup,
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and I caught this trap too,
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which is just like, how do you allow students to trade goods at the beginning and end of the year?
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And there's this interesting mismatch between like the end of the year,
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people want to get rid of the stuff in the beginning of the year,
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everyone wants to buy stuff.
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So I sat down and I decided to teach myself Ruby on Rails.
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And I was like, this is going to be a really awesome skill.
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So I learned that, learned about databases and learned enough to be dangerous.
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And this is like one of the lessons in entrepreneurship is that like,
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you don't have to be the best,
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but you have to be dangerous, right?
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You have to learn just enough to be dangerous to build an idea,
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concept it, and show it to the world.
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And then it turns out there are lots of other people,
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including all 170 employees that work at Instagram,
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who are much better at doing all that stuff than I am.
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But you need to find people who can,
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you know, be drawn to the idea that you build,
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and then they end up taking it and making it even better.
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So I worked on a classified ads startup at Stanford called The Tree List.
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It was supposed to be like Craigslist,
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but the tree is the same.
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It was a really terrible name.
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I'm not a marketing guy, by the way.
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Thank you, everyone, for laughing.
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So what's interesting, though, is I started it not at Stanford,
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but actually while I was studying abroad in Florence.
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So I love art history.
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I love photography, obviously.
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So I'd studied in Florence for three months.
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And I remember we didn't have much to do after class because,
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you know, it was the winter.
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It was cold.
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You know, I think the program had 12 students in it.
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So you'd go home to your,
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you know, host family and you'd eat an awesome Italian dinner.
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And then you'd sit there without TV and you'd just say,
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okay, what do I want to do?
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So Wi-Fi really wasn't a thing in their building.
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And I would have my laptop and I would literally just build this site at the time on my little,
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it was an iBook.
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And what I would do is actually to ship code,
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I would go outside of the apartment building, down the street.
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And like I remember specifically one day it was snowing.
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It doesn't snow in Florence very often,
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so that's why I remember it.
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It was snowing, and I would go next to the public library and lean with my laptop until I got enough signal.
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And I would like sync FTP to make the files go to the server,
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and then I would send off all my emails promoting it to people back at Stanford.
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So I was literally just trying to launch this thing from afar.
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There's so much you could learn from even launching this thing that,
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you know, a lot of people attempt,
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but the actual action of getting it out there,
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like that was probably the first,
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you know, first step to a lot of the other things that you did later.
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Yeah, I think what probably helped too was like the idea
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that I wasn't on the ground listening to whether
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or not people liked it gave me enough like ammunition and confidence to like keep working on it.
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And then all I had was like,
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are people using this or not?
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Not like, what do they think about it?
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And are they judging the idea?
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But like, are they using it?
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And that's really important because what people tell you and how people act are very,
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very different sometimes.
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So the lesson I learned was not very many people were using it.
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So we ended up, like I ended up forming the idea more into a like less of a overall Craigslist
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and more of it just a good transfer.
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But again, the other lesson here is sometimes it's not about the idea that you're working on,
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but instead the skills that you're learning while you work on it.
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And that really helped me,
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well, not only learn to program,
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but also like learn to market a consumer site to people.
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And I mean, colleges are probably the best form of marketing because everyone's interconnected and they talk all the time.
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I had the privilege of going to a Marine base once and talking to Marines about how they plan their next move.
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And there's this phrase called bias towards action that I really was taken to.
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So the idea that you can spend all of your time thinking about what the perfect next move is,
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trying to plan, am I gonna work at Google?
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Am I gonna work at Microsoft?
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Like which one?
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Like, am I gonna work at McKinsey or Bain?
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like trying to figure out all,
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like the next perfect move,
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and spending a tremendous amount of time trying to figure that out.
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The Marines say you can spend all the time you want,
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but by the time you figured it out, you're dead.
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Okay?
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So like sometimes you need to make a trade-off of what
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is the action I can take with the appropriate amount of information and risk to move,
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because moving and progress is what gets us to the next step.
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So for me, I mean,
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when I was in school trying to figure out what to do after college,
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all of my friends were interviewing at investment banks and Bain and McKinsey,
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and they were getting these offer letters with six figures.
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And I was like, oh,
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my God, six figures right out of college is crazy.
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By the way, it is.
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And it is.
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For a guy that didn't take a salary for the first two years of founding Bourbon slash Instagram,
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it was really harrying to think that people can have such a salary out of college,
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and you're going to go like,
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take not a great job, right?
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That you're going to do something that's a little riskier.
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It turns out, and I mean,
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don't quote me on this,
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because your parents will kill me,
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like, it's all going to be fine, okay?
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When I told my parents that I was going to go do a startup,
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and I know we're all a bit older here,
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but like, you know, when I told my parents I was going to do a startup,
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they're like, what about health insurance?
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And I was like, oh, that's a good point.
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What about health insurance?
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So thank you, parents, for making me think of that. So let's see here.
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It was scary, but that bias towards action was like,
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there's no perfect next move.
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You just need to know that by moving and learning,
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it all adds up.
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That summation of your experience over the last 10 years is what makes you into the thing tomorrow that will be successful.
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And it just takes trying and trying and trying again.
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I mean, Instagram filters came from a photography class that I took in Florence,
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where my photography teacher gave me a square format camera called a Holga.
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It's this plastic camera that got kind of hip with hipsters.
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And anyway, he handed it to me and he said,
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you should use this.
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And as we were developing the film,
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he's like, you know, you can change the look of the image
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if you put these chemicals in the bath when you're developing the print.
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And I was like, interesting.
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So, you know, you put it in,
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like the colors start changing to this interesting purple.
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And I started thinking to myself,
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like, oh, my God, this is like awesome.
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I'm going to do it on all my prints.
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And every time I made a print,
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every one of the people in that class were like,
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the prints are so cool.
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That idea laid dormant for like five years.
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So every little experience you have,
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you may not give credit to,
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but it turns out is super important for,
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you know, being foundational in your startup going forward.
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And you'll end up kind of figuring out how it takes form in your startup going forward.
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But each and every little experience adds up.

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About This Lesson

In this lesson, you will practice speaking and listening skills by engaging with a fascinating transcript from a discussion with Kevin Systrom. As you explore the themes of entrepreneurship and self-learning, you’ll improve your English fluency through both shadowing and critical thinking. This exercise will help you gain confidence in your speaking abilities, particularly in the context of tech start-ups and personal experiences—a rich area for IELTS speaking practice. By using the effective method of shadowspeak, you'll better understand the nuances of spoken English while enhancing your vocabulary.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • classified ad site - a platform where individuals can post advertisements for goods and services.
  • entrepreneurship - the process of starting and running a new business.
  • skill - the ability to do something well, often gained through practice.
  • database - an organized collection of data that can be easily accessed, managed, and updated.
  • dangerous (to be dangerous) - in this context, refers to being sufficiently skilled to create something, even if not an expert.
  • concept - an idea or abstract principle that is used to create a business or project.
  • host family - a local family that provides accommodation to students or visitors.
  • shipping code - the process of deploying software to a live environment where it can be used.

Practice Tips

When engaging with this transcript, aim to utilize the shadowspeaks technique. Start by listening to a small segment of the audio. Then, pause it and repeat exactly what you heard, mimicking the speaker's tone and speed. This method is particularly effective because it encourages natural speech patterns—a key element in IELTS speaking practice. Kevin's story is delivered at a moderate pace, which makes it ideal for learners to shadow without feeling overwhelmed.

Focus on key phrases, such as "teach myself Ruby on Rails" and "I learned enough to be dangerous." By practicing these phrases, you’ll enhance your vocabulary and comprehension. Try to add your personal touch to the sentences by altering them based on your own experiences or future aspirations. This will not only improve your fluency but also make your shadow speech more authentic and engaging.

Finally, consider recording yourself while you practice. Listening to the recordings allows you to identify areas for improvement and adjust your speaking style gradually. Remember, effective shadowing is all about gradual adaptation, so take your time and enjoy the journey of learning!

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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