Transcript of YouTube Video: Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Transcript of YouTube Video: Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The following is a summary and article by AI based on a transcript of the video "Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address". Due to the limitations of AI, please be careful to distinguish the correctness of the content.

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00:07

this program is brought to you by

00:08

stanford university please visit us at

00:11

stanford.edu

00:21

thank you

00:26

i'm

00:27

honored to be with you today for your

00:29

commencement from one of the finest

00:30

universities in the world

00:35

truth be told

00:38

i never graduated from college

00:41

and

00:42

this is the closest i've ever gotten to

00:44

a college graduation

00:47

today i want to tell you three stories

00:49

from my life

00:51

that's it no big deal

00:53

just three stories

00:55

the first story

00:57

is about connecting the dots

01:00

i dropped out of reed college after the

01:02

first six months but then stayed around

01:04

as a drop in for another 18 months or so

01:06

before i really quit

01:09

so why'd i drop

01:10

out it started before i was born

01:15

my biological mother was a young unwed

01:17

graduate student and she decided to put

01:20

me up for adoption

01:22

she felt very strongly that i should be

01:24

adopted by college graduates so

01:26

everything was all set for me to be

01:28

adopted at birth by a lawyer and his

01:30

wife

01:31

except that when i popped out they

01:33

decided at the last minute that they

01:35

really wanted a girl

01:37

so my parents who were on a waiting list

01:39

got a call in the middle of the night

01:41

asking

01:43

we've got an unexpected baby boy do you

01:45

want him

01:47

they said of course

01:50

my biological mother found out later

01:52

that my mother had never graduated from

01:54

college and that my father had never

01:56

graduated from high school

01:58

she refused to sign the final adoption

02:01

papers

02:03

she only relented a few months later

02:05

when my parents promised that i would go

02:07

to college

02:09

this was the start

02:10

in my life

02:13

and 17 years later i did go to college

02:17

but i naively chose a college that was

02:19

almost as expensive as stanford

02:22

and all of my working class parents

02:24

savings were being spent on my college

02:25

tuition

02:27

after six months i couldn't see the

02:29

value in it

02:30

i had no idea what i wanted to do with

02:32

my life

02:33

and no idea how college was going to

02:34

help me figure it out

02:36

and here i was spending all the money my

02:38

parents had saved their entire life

02:42

so i decided to drop out and trust that

02:44

it would all work out okay

02:47

it was pretty scary at the time but

02:49

looking back it was one of the best

02:50

decisions i ever made

02:53

the minute i dropped out

02:55

i could stop taking the required classes

02:57

that didn't interest me

02:59

and begin dropping in on the ones that

03:01

looked far more interesting

03:04

it wasn't all romantic

03:06

i didn't have a dorm room so i slept on

03:08

the floor in friends rooms

03:10

i returned coke bottles for the five

03:12

cent deposits to buy food with

03:14

and i would walk the seven miles across

03:16

town every sunday night to get one good

03:18

meal a week at the hari krishna temple

03:21

i loved it

03:23

and much of what i stumbled into by

03:25

following my curiosity and intuition

03:27

turned out to be priceless later on

03:29

let me give you one example

03:33

reed college at that time offered

03:34

perhaps the best calligraphy instruction

03:36

in the country

03:38

throughout the campus every poster every

03:40

label on every drawer was beautifully

03:43

hand calligraphed

03:45

because i had dropped out and didn't

03:46

have to take the normal classes

03:49

i decided to take a calligraphy class to

03:51

learn how to do this

03:52

i learned about serif and sans serif

03:54

typefaces about varying the amount of

03:57

space between different letter

03:58

combinations about what makes great

04:00

typography great

04:03

it was beautiful historical artistically

04:06

subtle in a way that science can't

04:08

capture

04:09

and i found it fascinating

04:11

none of this had even a hope of any

04:13

practical application in my life

04:17

but ten years later when we were

04:19

designing the first macintosh computer

04:21

it all came back to me

04:23

and we designed it all into the mac it

04:25

was the first computer with beautiful

04:27

typography

04:29

if i had never dropped in on that single

04:31

course in college the mac would have

04:33

never had multiple typefaces or

04:34

proportionally spaced fonts

04:37

and since windows just copied the mac

04:39

it's likely that no personal computer

04:41

would have them

04:49

if i had never dropped out i would have

04:51

never dropped in on that calligraphy

04:53

class and personal computers might not

04:55

have the wonderful typography that they

04:56

do

04:58

of course it was impossible to connect

05:00

the dots looking forward when i was in

05:01

college but it was very very clear

05:04

looking backwards ten years later

05:06

again you can't connect the dots looking

05:09

forward you can only connect them

05:11

looking backwards

05:12

so you have to trust that the dots will

05:14

somehow connect in your future you have

05:16

to trust in something your gut destiny

05:19

life karma whatever

05:21

because believing that the dots will

05:22

connect down the road

05:24

will give you the confidence to follow

05:26

your heart even when it leads you off

05:28

the well-worn path and that will make

05:31

all the difference

05:38

my second story

05:40

is about love and loss

05:43

i was lucky i found what i loved to do

05:46

early in life

05:47

waz and i started apple in my parents

05:49

garage when i was 20.

05:51

we worked hard and in 10 years apple had

05:53

grown from just the two of us in a

05:55

garage

05:56

into a two billion dollar company with

05:57

over four thousand employees

05:59

we just released our finest creation the

06:01

macintosh a year earlier and i just

06:03

turned

06:04

30. and then i got fired

06:08

how can you get fired from a company you

06:10

started

06:12

well

06:13

as apple grew we hired someone who i

06:15

thought was very talented to run the

06:17

company with me and for the first year

06:19

or so things went well but then our

06:21

visions of the future began to diverge

06:23

and eventually we had a falling out

06:25

when we did our board of directors sided

06:27

with him

06:28

and so at 30 i was out

06:30

and very publicly out

06:32

what had been the focus of my entire

06:34

adult life was gone and it was

06:36

devastating

06:38

i really didn't know what to do for a

06:39

few months

06:40

i felt that i'd let the previous

06:42

generation of entrepreneurs down that i

06:44

had dropped the baton as it was being

06:46

passed to me

06:47

i met with david packard and bob noyce

06:50

and tried to apologize for screwing up

06:52

so badly

06:53

i was a very public failure and i even

06:55

thought about running away from the

06:56

valley

06:58

but something slowly began to dawn on me

07:01

i still loved what i did

07:04

the turn of events at apple had not

07:06

changed that one bit

07:07

i'd been rejected but i was still in

07:09

love

07:11

and so i decided to start over

07:14

i didn't see it then but it turned out

07:16

that getting fired from apple was the

07:17

best thing that could have ever happened

07:19

to me

07:20

the heaviness of being successful was

07:22

replaced by the lightness of being a

07:24

beginner again less sure about

07:26

everything

07:27

it freed me to enter one of the most

07:28

creative periods of my life

07:30

during the next five years i started a

07:32

company named next another company named

07:34

pixar and fell in love with an amazing

07:37

woman who would become my wife

07:39

pixar went on to create the world's

07:40

first computer animated feature film toy

07:42

story and is now the most successful

07:45

animation studio in the world

07:49

in a remarkable turn of events

07:51

apple bought next and i returned to

07:53

apple and the technology we developed it

07:56

next is at the heart of apple's current

07:57

renaissance

07:59

and laureen and i have a wonderful

08:01

family together

08:03

i'm pretty sure none of this would have

08:05

happened if i hadn't been fired from

08:06

apple

08:07

it was awful tasting medicine but i

08:09

guess the patient needed it sometime

08:12

life sometimes life's gonna hit you in

08:14

the head with a brick

08:15

don't lose faith

08:17

i'm convinced that the only thing that

08:18

kept me going was that i loved what i

08:20

did

08:21

you've got to find what you love and

08:24

that is as true for work as it is for

08:26

your lovers

08:27

your work is going to fill a large part

08:29

of your life and the only way to be

08:30

truly satisfied is to do what you

08:32

believe is great work and the only way

08:35

to do great work is to love what you do

08:38

if you haven't found it yet keep looking

08:41

and don't settle

08:43

as with all matters of the heart you'll

08:45

know when you find it and like any great

08:47

relationship it just gets better and

08:49

better as the years roll on so keep

08:52

looking

08:53

don't settle

09:04

my third story

09:06

is about death

09:08

when i was 17 i read a quote that went

09:10

something like

09:12

if you live each day as if it was your

09:14

last someday you'll most certainly be

09:16

right

09:20

it made an impression on me and since

09:22

then for the past 33 years i've looked

09:25

in the mirror every morning and asked

09:26

myself if today were the last day of my

09:29

life would i want to do what i am about

09:31

to do today

09:33

and whenever the answer has been no for

09:35

too many days in a row i know i need to

09:38

change something

09:39

remembering that i'll be dead soon is

09:42

the most important tool i've ever

09:43

encountered to help me make the big

09:45

choices in life

09:47

because almost everything

09:49

all external expectations all pride all

09:52

fear of embarrassment or failure these

09:54

things just fall away in the face of

09:56

death

09:57

leaving only what is truly important

10:00

remembering that you are going to die

10:02

is the best way i know to avoid the trap

10:04

of thinking you have something to lose

10:07

you are already naked there is no reason

10:10

not to follow your heart

10:13

about a year ago

10:14

i was diagnosed with cancer

10:17

i had a scan at 7 30 in the morning and

10:19

it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas

10:22

i didn't even know what a pancreas was

10:25

the doctors told me this was almost

10:27

certainly a type of cancer that is

10:29

incurable and that i should expect to

10:31

live no longer than three to six months

10:35

my doctor advised me to go home and get

10:37

my affairs in order which is doctors

10:40

code for prepare to die

10:43

it means to try and tell your kids

10:45

everything

10:46

you thought you'd have the next ten

10:48

years to tell them in just a few months

10:51

it means to make sure everything is

10:52

buttoned up so that will be as easy as

10:54

possible for your family

10:56

it means to say your goodbyes

11:00

i live with that diagnosis all day

11:03

later that evening i had a biopsy where

11:05

they stuck an endoscope down my throat

11:08

through my stomach and into my

11:09

intestines put a needle into my pancreas

11:12

and got a few cells from the tumor

11:14

i was sedated but my wife who was there

11:17

told me that when they viewed the cells

11:19

under a microscope the doctor started

11:21

crying because it turned out to be a

11:23

very rare form of pancreatic cancer that

11:26

is curable with surgery i had the

11:28

surgery and thankfully i'm fine now

11:40

this was the closest i've been to facing

11:42

death and i hope it's the closest i get

11:44

for a few more decades

11:46

having lived through it i can now say

11:48

this to you with a bit more certainty

11:50

than when death was a useful but purely

11:52

intellectual concept

11:54

no one wants to die

11:57

even people who want to go to heaven

11:59

don't want to die to get there

12:01

and yet

12:02

death is the destination we all share

12:05

no one has ever escaped it

12:07

and that is as it should be because

12:09

death is very likely the single best

12:12

invention of life

12:14

it's life's change agent it clears out

12:16

the old to make way for the new

12:19

right now the new is you

12:21

but someday not too long from now you

12:23

will gradually become the old and be

12:26

cleared away

12:27

sorry to be so dramatic

12:29

but it's quite true

12:31

your time is limited so don't waste it

12:34

living someone else's life

12:37

don't be trapped by dogma which is

12:39

living with the results of other

12:40

people's thinking

12:42

don't let the noise of others opinions

12:44

drowned out your own inner voice

12:46

and most important have the courage to

12:48

follow your heart and intuition

12:50

they somehow already know what you truly

12:53

want to become

12:54

everything else is secondary

13:08

when i was young

13:10

there was an amazing publication called

13:12

the whole earth catalog

13:14

which was one of the bibles of my

13:16

generation

13:17

it was created by a fellow named stuart

13:19

brand not far from here in menlo park

13:22

and he brought it to life with his

13:23

poetic touch

13:25

this was in the late 60s before personal

13:27

computers and desktop publishing so it

13:29

was all made with typewriters scissors

13:32

and polaroid cameras

13:33

it was sort of like google in paperback

13:35

form 35 years before google came along

13:39

it was idealistic

13:40

overflowing with neat tools and great

13:42

notions

13:44

stewart and his team put out several

13:46

issues of the whole earth catalog and

13:48

then when it had run its course they put

13:50

out a final issue

13:52

it was the mid 1970s and i was your age

13:57

on the back cover of their final issue

13:59

was a photograph of an early morning

14:02

country road the kind you might find

14:04

yourself hitchhiking on if you were so

14:06

adventurous

14:08

beneath it were the words

14:10

stay hungry

14:11

stay foolish

14:12

it was their farewell message as they

14:14

signed off stay hungry

14:17

stay foolish

14:19

and i've always wished that for myself

14:22

and now as you graduate to begin anew

14:26

i wish that for you

14:28

stay hungry stay foolish

14:30

thank you all very much

14:56

the preceding program is copyrighted by

14:58

stanford university please visit us at

15:01

stanford.edu