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. \u201cThis is the closest I have ever gotten to a college graduation\u201d 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 \u201cdrop-in\u201d 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 \u201cexcept when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they wanted a girl.\u201d Steve Jobs\u2019 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\u2019s 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 \u201c I naievely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.\u201d This got a rise out of the faculty members in attendance as well. Jobs summarized his first point of \u201cconnecting the dots\u201d by saying that this can\u2019t be done looking forward, but only looking backward.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 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. \u201cHow can you get fired from a company that you started?\u201d 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\u2019s first animation film, \u201cToy Story.\u201d In what Jobs described as a \u201cremarkable turn of events\u201d 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.\u00a0 He ended by exclaiming that even if you lose what you love, that doesn\u2019t mean you won\u2019t get it back. \u201cKeep looking, don\u2019t settle\u201d said Jobs.<\/p>\n
Jobs\u2019 third and final story revolved around the concept of death. He opened by saying \u201cif you live every day like it is your last, surely someday you will be right.\u201d 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. \u201cDeath is very likely the best invention of life\u201d said Jobs, \u201cIt\u2019s life\u2019s change agent, it clears out the old, and brings in the new.\u201d 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. \u201cYour time is limited, don\u2019t waste it by living someone else\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7022"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/blakeharmetj237\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}