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Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech

QFace said:
Steve's partner went to UC, Berkeley...
As a cal student, this is blasphemy!
Steve, this is unforgivable!
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As a fellow Cal student, all I can say is "hear, hear!"

(For those out of the loop, Stanford--or "Stanfurd," as some of us spell it--is Cal's arch-rival.)
 
I wonder how he was chosen to give this speech. I thought it was great though, one of the few times I've heard of him giving a speech other than something involving his companies. As for the whole memorizing the speech thing, I figure it was probably just because he really wanted to make sure he said what he wanted to, and besides, his keynotes are usually a little more laid back.

My only comment would have to be my slight annoyance with the dropping out of college thing. I know he said it to a graduating class, but really, that's the worst thing to say to a student struggling to get through college. "I'm successful and I dropped out" isn't exactly the most encouraging thing, lol.
 
damn

is there anything that Steve Jobs can't do??? Jeesh....

great talk....SJ blows me away.... :)
 
very moving

I have to say -- that was a very wise, and moving speech, and I relate to it on many levels. I have a lot of respect for Steve Jobs, and getting to catch a glimpse at a deep side of him reinforces that respect tenfold. I think he WILL go down as one of the most brilliant businessmen in tech history, and also a cultural innovator. Bravo.
 
MacFan26 said:
I wonder how he was chosen to give this speech. I thought it was great though, one of the few times I've heard of him giving a speech other than something involving his companies. As for the whole memorizing the speech thing, I figure it was probably just because he really wanted to make sure he said what he wanted to, and besides, his keynotes are usually a little more laid back.

My only comment would have to be my slight annoyance with the dropping out of college thing. I know he said it to a graduating class, but really, that's the worst thing to say to a student struggling to get through college. "I'm successful and I dropped out" isn't exactly the most encouraging thing, lol.
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Yeah, I kinda thought that too. But maybe he means it like "I dropped out and made it. You stayed in and have an even better chance than I did."

Of course there is only one Steve Jobs...

I actually went to Reed briefly back in the 90s. It is a very tough school. It's small and as "ivy league" as you get in Oregon, if that makes sense. I now live a few blocks from it.

I ditched the physics program there and went to U of O which was much cheaper and more realistic at the time.

I think they ought to clone Steve so Steve can train the youngling now. Then when he is ready to retire in 20 years his clone can take over. We have the technology, might as well use it for a good cause. :D
 
wwooden said:
Just finished reading it. Next year is my senior year at college, man it would be sweet to have him come and talk at my school (I highly doubt it though, I go to the University of Vermont, I don't we quite have the same budget).
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Don't worry about budget. He's not doing that for a speaking fee. He's got a plane he can fly to Vermont with. He might not have the time, of course. Write him a letter and ask.
 
Steve dropped out of college, but take a guess to the percentage of college dropouts working or have ever worked for Steve, within technical areas of his companies.
 
Best Choice for Steve

Obviously the point is that dropping out was the best choice for Steve. This comment was just adding to his point of doing what is best for each person. But the media took this comment out of context. I sure bet a Stanford crowd could look at the speech in whole and appreciate what he meant. If Steve didn't appreciate education, he sure wouldn't be making the commencement speech...at Stanford nonetheless.

Hopefully, general idiots won't take his advice and think they are better off dropping out of school. Because the fact is a drop out makes less than a college graduate. Sure, you could show examples of dropouts that made it great (Mike Dell, Bill Gates, etc...). But those are extreme examples, and they would never have succeeded without the assistance of college graduates. Nobody shows examples of college dropouts that just tanked, probably because their so many.

Look on Apple's job postings, college requirements sure are mentioned a lot. Look at the majority of companies, and look at their executive bios. Hmm...sure seems to be many college graduates. I mean don't even think about working for Google unless you have a PhD. lol
 
Steve's a hero, and I pick them sparingly. And I remember the Whole Earth Catalog: anyone blessed w/curiosity read this bible of information during the pre-internet days. It was a FASCINATING book.

The best speeches make you think. It succeeded. Too bad each of us can't have a near-death experience to force one's self-evaluation and reassessment. I think it was Chuang Tzu who said "The goal of action is contemplation..." Dig that!

Maybe he can put the near-death feature in the next OS...

Thanks Steve!




sushi said:
Enjoyed reading his speech.

Steve makes some very good life points.

Connecting the dots... When he came back to Apple, he was hired for $1 per year. That was it. Until the BOD gave him the airplane and then other items. He was following his passion the gravy followed.

Sushi
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if that speech was given by bill gates everyone would be talking about how it was lame and a bunch of bs

edit: iwrote that last thing before reading his speech and id just like to add that, that was a great speech and it really showed another side to jobs
 
Steve Jobs mentioned emphatically The Whole World catalog in this commencement speech, and noted its location: Menlo Park. During the WWDC keynote Jobs noted a package he had been tracking when showing off a tracker widget, and he tracked it on stage through Fed Ex. The tracking number was 697736095801. (You can still track it.) It was a 46 lb package sent to Menlo Park, California, and signed for by a secretary.

Those are some dots: anyone want to connect them?
 
swingerofbirch said:
Steve Jobs mentioned emphatically The Whole World catalog in this commencement speech, and noted its location: Menlo Park. During the WWDC keynote Jobs noted a package he had been tracking when showing off a tracker widget, and he tracked it on stage through Fed Ex. The tracking number was 697736095801. (You can still track it.) It was a 46 lb package sent to Menlo Park, California, and signed for by a secretary.

Those are some dots: anyone want to connect them?
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Cool, I like conspiracy theories... tell me more... ;) :cool:
 
~Shard~ said:
Cool, I like conspiracy theories... tell me more... ;) :cool:
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Lol...I know no more..I probably know too much! Lol...it's pretty pathetic I pay this much attention to Mac news to notice these connections, although I did REALLY like Jobs speech, and one of my passions is following Mac news, so I'm not gonna live someone else's life and do something more normal, like not refreshing macrumors uncountable times throughout the day....ahhh..you can tell it got me thinking!
 
Well, I owned the Whole Earth catalog. It was big and heavy, but it didn't weigh 46 lbs., even soaking wet. But maybe Oliver Stone sees a movie in here somewhere...



~Shard~ said:
Cool, I like conspiracy theories... tell me more... ;) :cool:
Click to expand...
 
swingerofbirch said:
Steve Jobs mentioned emphatically The Whole World catalog in this commencement speech, and noted its location: Menlo Park. During the WWDC keynote Jobs noted a package he had been tracking when showing off a tracker widget, and he tracked it on stage through Fed Ex. The tracking number was 697736095801. (You can still track it.) It was a 46 lb package sent to Menlo Park, California, and signed for by a secretary.

Those are some dots: anyone want to connect them?
Click to expand...

Ah, but the package was delivered April 6th. At 46 pounds it could be a lot of things. I feel like Columbo. :D
 

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i agree.. i know at least apple wasn't doing too well back before and during steve was fired. at least we have his creative juices now..
 
Great speech..
Great stories to remember..
I never knew he was the CEO of Pixar but now i do..
Don't think he could have said it any better...

But it was weird seeing him read.. as he's so fluent on his keynotes... but i guess its different..
Keynotes = Like something in the back of his head
Speech = Very technical and you want to get the facts out..
 
Whoa!

I'm not sure how you could know this site exists and not know Steve was running Pixar.
Not picking on you (by any means), just pleasantly surprised. ;)
Just struck me as "funny" after reading a few posts earlier that some dude noticed a connection between a package Steve tracked at WWDC with a reference he made in the speech.

Good stuff.
 
Macrumors said:


Stanford has posted the text of Steve Jobs' recent commencement speech from Stanford's 2005 graduation speech.

Jobs relates stories about his life, including his work at Apple as well as his public departure:



Jobs, of course, later returned to Apple when Apple purchased NeXT (also founded by Steve Jobs).
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Stanford gets good speakers for their graduation. When my best friend's sister graduated from there, they got Kofi Annan.

When I graduated from undergrad, I had some dude who worked at GE (I think) for twenty years and he promised us a short speech since he claimed that he didn't like long speeches. I think he spoke for an hour and guests were upset that "it was so painfully long." I wish we had someone like John Wooden speak to us, after all, our gym was named after him...
 
Interesting speech, or at least the small segment available.

sad that i can view the Real feed (which looks pretty good), the Windows feed (looks terrible by comparison!) but the quicktime feed won't connect!

Hope there is no irony in that.
 
Very good speech. He was very open about things he rarely talks about..

Surprised no one mentioned that fact, that for a day, Steve thought he had 3-6 months to live.
 
Steve's really mellowed like fine wine over the last ten years.

He's gone from a peppery 2002 merlot to a 1997 Opus One.

Very inspirational speech. :D
 
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