Steve Jobs delivers Stanford Commencement speech

Apple and Pixar CEO and founder Steve Jobs gave the Spring commencement speech at Stanford University on Saturday. The crowd of eager college graduates and esteemed faculty erupted in applause when Jobs was introduced, but then the crowd went hush as he stepped to the microphone. Jobs, 50, opened up his speech by telling the graduates that he had never actually graduated college. “This is the closest I have ever gotten to a college graduation” he joked, this drew a chuckle from the attentive crowd of young adults. Yes, after just six months at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Steve Jobs dropped out. However, he stayed as a “drop-in” student to still be abl to attend the classes he wanted to for about 18 months. While Jobs is not a college graduate, neither was his biological Mother. She believed that he should be raised by college graduates, so Steve was put up for adoption. His mother made arrangements for him to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Jobs drew another laugh from the audience when he said “except when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they wanted a girl.” Steve Jobs’ eventual adopted parents were on a waiting list, so when the adoption center called and asked if they wanted an unexpected baby boy, they said of course. Job’s adopted parents assured is biological mother that someday he would go to college. 17 years later, he enrolled at Reed. Glancing back at the board members behind him, Jobs exclaimed “ I naievely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.” This got a rise out of the faculty members in attendance as well. Jobs summarized his first point of “connecting the dots” by saying that this can’t be done looking forward, but only looking backward.

The heads of the listening graduates seemed to slowly lean forward in attention as the Apple CEO made his next point. After a brief pause, Jobs, explained how his next story was about love and loss, and the eyebrows of the yearning graduates pursed together in anticipation to see where he was going. Mouths slowly opened in awe when Steve talked about how after starting Apple in his parents’ garage with his best friend Woz, the company was worth two billion dollars, and had over 4,000 employees after ten years in business. Jobs then revealed that at one point, he was actually fired. “How can you get fired from a company that you started?” he asked in an elevated volume, the crowd again laughed in reply. While Steve Jobs just had certain differences with HP founder David Packard, he felt as if he was a public faiure, and that his termination was his own fault. Over the following five years, Steve Jobs went on to create a new company called NeXT, and another one called Pixar, which created the world’s first animation film, “Toy Story.” In what Jobs described as a “remarkable turn of events” Apple bought NeXT, and he returned to the groundbreaking company. Jobs is convinced that his success happened because he was originally fired by Apple. But, Steve Jobs is the perfect example perserverance.  He ended by exclaiming that even if you lose what you love, that doesn’t mean you won’t get it back. “Keep looking, don’t settle” said Jobs.

Jobs’ third and final story revolved around the concept of death. He opened by saying “if you live every day like it is your last, surely someday you will be right.” One year ago, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and was given just a few months to live. Luckily, the cancer turned out to be a rare form that could be cured with surgery, and Steve is now in healthy condition. “Death is very likely the best invention of life” said Jobs, “It’s life’s change agent, it clears out the old, and brings in the new.” Having lived through his cancer diagnosis, Steve Jobs is the model person for providing advice on how to life you to the fullest, and how to continue to strive for successm which is exactly what he did through this speech. “Your time is limited, don’t waste it by living someone else’s life.”