Speech Story: Jobs Speech at Stanford

 

On June 12, Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech to the Stanford class of 2005. Steve Jobs is the co-founder of Apple Inc. along with Steve Wozniak.

His speech consisted of three sections, Connect the Dots, Love and Loss and Death. In the first part of his speech, Connect the Dots deals with the beginning of his life and the reason he dropped out and how he found out what he was going to do with his life. He briefly attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He dropped out of college because he felt that it wasn’t right for his parents to be spending their money on something he wasn’t sure about.

“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out,” Jobs said.

Once he dropped out, he stopped taking the classes that didn’t interest but the one class that did. He decided to just take one class, which happened to be a calligraphy class because he saw calligraphy all throughout the campus and thought it was beautiful. By taking this class, it helped him design the first Macintosh computer. If he didn’t drop out, he would have never taken that course and we wouldn’t have the type of computers we have. He tells these graduates to trust in something because your life is full of connecting the dots to make your life better. You never were you are going until you look back on what you have accomplished.

Love and loss was his next big point in his speech that dealt with finding what he loved to do and how in second it was taken away but found him again. He states that he found what he wanted to do in life at a young age at the age of 20. Woz and Jobs started the Apple Company out of his parent’s garage and by the time they were 30 it had grown from just two people to a $2 billion company. Then after 10 years Jobs hired Sculley, a guy that he thought was very talented, but after a year they saw things differently and Jobs was fired.

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn’t know what to do for a few months, I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down,” Jobs stated.

After being fired, he decided to start over with a new company called NeXT and another company called Pixar. During this time, he married the love of his life Laurene. Pixar became the most successful animation studio in the world. NeXT was bought by Apple and then he returned. He states the life can hit your over the head with brick but don’t lose faith. You says you got to find what you to be able to do great work and let nothing stand in your way. He tells them you will know it when you find it, don’t settle.

 

The last part of his speech was about Death. He talks about how life throw curve balls at you when you least expect it. He was diagnosed was pancreatic cancer and had surgery to get it removed. He tells the students live everyday like it’s your last because you never know it could be. He mentions that we are all destined to die, no one has escaped it. He wants people to live their lives to fullest and do what they believe in.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs stated.

 

 

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