Steve Jobs commencement address

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. 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. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. 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 - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

1816 - Family was forced out of home, and he had to work to support them
1818 - His mother died
1831 - Failed in business
1832 - Lost election for legislature
1832 - Lost his job
1832 - Wanted to go to law school but couldn’t get in
1833 - Began a business and went bankrupt, spent next 17 years paying off the debt
1835 - Sweetheart died
1836 - Nervous breakdown
1838 - Sought to become speaker of legislature and was defeated
1843 - Defeated for Congress
1848 - Defeated for re-election to Congress
1849 - Rejected for job of land officer
1854 - Defeated for US Senate
1856 - Defeated for Vice President
1858 - Defeated for US Senate
1860 - Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States

Something to think about..........

On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo 11Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong
was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping
on the moon, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,"
were televised to Earth and heard by millions. But just before he re-entered
the lander, he made the enigmatic remark: "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival
Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the
Russian or American space programs. Over the years many people questioned
Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but
Armstrong always just smiled.


On 5 July, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following
a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This
time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died and so Neil Armstrong felt he
could answer the question.
In 1938 when he was a kid in a small Midwest town, he was playing baseball
with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball, which landed in
his neighbour's yard by the bedroom windows.
His neighbours were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky.
As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs.Gorsky
shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Sex! You want sex?! You'll get sex when the kid
next door walks on the moon!"

A university creative writing class was asked to write a concise essay
containing these four elements:

- religion

- royalty

- sex

- mystery

The prize-winning essay read:

"My God," said the Queen. "I'm pregnant. I wonder who did it?"

FOR A FRIEND
For the love of a friend
One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class
walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying
all of his books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his
books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd." I had quite a weekend planned
(parties and a football game with my friend tomorrow afternoon), so I
shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids
running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms
and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I
saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw
this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. So, I jogged
over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw a tear
in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, "Those guys are jerks. They
really should get lives." He looked at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There was
a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real
gratitude. I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As
it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him
before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never
hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home, and
carried his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he
wanted to play football on Saturday with me and my friends. He said yes. We
hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him.

And my friends thought the same of him. Monday morning came, and there was
Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said,"Damn
boy,you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books
everyday!" He just laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four
years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to
think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke.

I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a
problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a
football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all
the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I
was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak. Graduation day, I
saw Kyle.He looked great.He was one of those guys that really found himself
during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He
had more dates than me and all the girls loved him! Boy, sometimes I was
jealous. Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about
his speech. So, I smacked him on the back and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be
great!" He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one)
and smiled.

"Thanks," he said. As he started his speech, he cleared his
throat, and began."Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you
make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your
siblings, maybe a coach... but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of
you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am
going to tell you a story." I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he
told the story of the first day we met. He had decided to kill himself over
the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom
wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard
at me and gave me a little smile. "Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved
me from doing the unspeakable."I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this
handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his Mom
and Dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile. Not until that
moment did I realize it's depth. Never underestimate the power of your
actions. With one small gesture you can change a person's life. For better
or for worse. God puts us all in each other's lives to impact one another in
some way. Look for God in others.

The woman in a gingham dress and the man in a homespun suit got off the train in Boston and made their way to the office of the president of Harvard University. They did not have an appointment. They entered the outer office where the secretary looked at them with disdain, taking in the gingham dress and homespun suit.


"What can I do for you?" she snapped.

"We wish to see the president" the man said quietly.

"He's busy all day" she snapped again.

"We'll wait" said the man.

Hours passed, and the secretary began to fidget. "These people had no right to be here taking up valuable time." Finally she could stand it no more and doing the chore she always regretted, she interrupted the president of Harvard University.

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him.

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But, about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched...He was shocked.

"Madam, he said gruffly, "we can't put up a statue to every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."
"Oh no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard." For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?

Her husband nodded.

The presidents face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto , California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about

Small Gestures


At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the school's students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question.

"Everything God does is done with perfection yet, my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is God's plan reflected in my son?"
The audience was stilledby the query.
The father continued. "I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a child like Shay into the world, an opportunity to realize the Divine Plan presents itself. And it comes in the way people treat that child."
Then, he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they will let me play?" Shay's father knew that most boys would not want him on their team. But the father understood that if his son were allowed to play it would give him a much-neededsense of belonging.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates.
Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We are losing by six runs, and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning."
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

At the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Although no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his

father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.
Now, with two outs and bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base.

Shay was scheduled to be the next at-bat. Would the team actually let Shay bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob
the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have ended the game.

Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman.

Everyone started yelling, "Shay, run to first. Run to first."

Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline,
wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled "Run to second, run to second!" By the time Shay was rounding

first base, the right fielder had the ball.

He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman for a tag.

But the right fielder understood what the pitcher's intentions had been, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head.

Shay ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously! circled the bases towards home.

As Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base,

and shouted, "Run to third!" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming, "Shay!

Run home!" Shay ran home, stepped on home plate and was cheered as the hero, for hitting a "grand slam" and winning the game for his team.



"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of the Divine Plan into this world"


And now, a footnote to the story. We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency is too often suppressed in school and the workplace.

If you are thinking about forwarding this message, you are probably thinking about which people on your address list aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. The person who sent this to you believes that we can all make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities a day to help realize God's plan.

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

please share this story with your friends ..who can tell when the right word might start a spark or re-ignite a fire?

bigger..

another email....


" Fresh from my shower, I stand in front of the mirror, complaining to my
husband
that my breasts are too small. Instead of characteristically telling me
it's
not so, he uncharacteristically comes up with a suggestion.

"If you want your breasts to grow, then every day take a piece of
toilet paper
and rub it between your breasts for a few seconds."

Willing to try anything, I fetch a piece of toilet paper and stand in
front of
the mirror, rubbing it between my breasts.

"How long will this take?" I ask? They will grow larger over a period
of
years," he replies. I stop.

"Do you really think rubbing a piece of toilet paper between my
breasts every
day will make my breasts larger over the years?"

Without missing a beat he says, "Worked for your butt, didn't it?"

He's still alive, and with a great deal of therapy, may even walk
again.
Stupid, stupid man "

got the following in poem in the mail, author unknown, but the sentiments are known...

" Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,

For life is a swift and terrible race,

He knows I like him just as well,

As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine if, we were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,

Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim"

"Just to show that I'm thinking of him."

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,

And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner! yet miles away,

"Here's a telegram sir" "Jim died today."

And that's what we get and deserve in the end.

Around the corner, a vanished friend.

Remember to always say what you mean.

If you love or like someone, tell them.

Don't be afraid to express yourself. Reach out and

tell someone what they mean to you. Because when

you decide that it is the right time it might be too late.

Seize the day. Never have regrets. And most importantly, stay

close to your friends and family, for they have

helped make you the person that you are today."