0:01 [Music]
0:07 this program is brought to you by
0:08 Stanford University please visit us at
0:11 stanford.edu
0:19 it now gives me great pleasure to
0:22 introduce this year's commencement
0:24 speaker Steve Jobs
0:27 [Applause]
0:32 the chief executive officer and
0:34 co-founder of apple and Pixar Animation
0:39 [Applause]
0:41 Studios Stanford University has been
0:44 characterized since its founding by a
0:46 willingness to be bold and to strike out
0:48 in New Directions and this is a
0:50 characteristic very much shared by
0:53 today's speaker a Pioneer and Visionary
0:56 for almost three decades his name and
1:00 the companies he has founded have been
1:02 synonymous with Innovation and
1:05 creativity as a young boy growing up in
1:07 Los Altos Steve Jobs came of age at the
1:11 same time as Silicon
1:14 Valley while still in school he attended
1:17 lectures informally at Stanford as well
1:20 as at ulip Packard where he spent his
1:22 summer
1:23 working after graduating from high
1:25 school he left California to attend Reed
1:28 College a a trek through India and a
1:31 short stint as a video game designer for
1:34 Atari
1:36 followed soon after his return to the
1:38 valley in
1:40 1974 he became a regular along with
1:43 Steve WN at meetings of The Homebrew
1:47 Computer Club held at the Stanford
1:49 linear accelerator
1:51 Center it was not long before the two of
1:54 them had built the prototype for the
1:57 Apple One the apple one was was very
2:00 fast at the time reading and writing 4
2:04 kilobytes in about 20
2:07 [Applause]
2:09 seconds about 20,000 times slower than
2:12 we do so
2:13 today the Apple 2 was faster still but
2:17 more importantly introduced color
2:19 monitors into the Home
2:21 Market in the mid 1980s the Macintosh
2:25 became the first truly userfriendly
2:27 personal computer you didn't have to be
2:30 an expert to set it up or to load
2:32 software or to transfer information
2:35 between
2:36 applications and the mouse offered point
2:38 and click convenience and opened the
2:41 door to computer Literacy for
2:44 everyone I still remember the amazed
2:48 faces of onlookers as they saw a
2:51 computer that was completely different
2:54 from the personal computers of that
2:57 day Steve also co-founded Pixar
3:00 Animation Studios which has
3:02 revolutionized the film industry in its
3:05 Short history with brilliant use of
3:08 technology and produced two Academy
3:10 award-winning films Toy Story and
3:13 Finding
3:15 [Applause]
3:18 Nemo since his return to Apple eight
3:21 years ago Steve has reinvented the
3:24 company once again extending its Vision
3:27 to music and new digital media
3:30 iPod and
3:32 iTunes have changed the way we listen to
3:37 organize store and purchase our music
3:40 and in my case the way I often read
3:43 books now songs we love are just 99
3:47 Cents and a completely legal click
3:55 away I photo and iMovie revolutionize
3:59 the ability of consumers to organize
4:01 edit and display digital photography and
4:03 video putting capabilities that once
4:06 cost thousands of dollars into the hands
4:09 of every Mac
4:10 User Steve is also widely recognized for
4:13 his ability to create an Innovative
4:15 environment inside apple as well as an
4:18 external company image that is equally
4:21 Innovative just think about Apple's
4:23 marketing campaigns over the past three
4:26 decades a promotional flyer in 1976 six
4:30 showed Isaac Newton sitting under a tree
4:34 just as an apple was falling by with the
4:37 catchy exhortation to bite
4:40 byte into an
4:43 apple there was an iconic Super Bowl
4:48 commercial techy
4:51 humor an iconic Superbowl commercial
4:55 telling us that the Macintosh was on the
4:57 horizon and assuring us that we would
4:59 see why
5:01 1984 wouldn't be like
5:05 1984 and in the late 1990s we saw
5:08 banners and billboards featuring Pablo
5:10 Picasso Albert Einstein Martha Graham
5:14 and mahat m Gandhi all urging us to
5:17 think
5:19 different Steve Jobs understands that
5:21 creativity and Innovation start by
5:24 thinking
5:25 differently he has a deeep rooted belief
5:28 in the power of Education to train
5:29 transform lives coupled with the desire
5:32 to make the world a better
5:34 place from the earliest days of apple he
5:37 worked to develop Partnerships with
5:39 Educators and get computers into
5:43 schools for almost three decades he and
5:46 his companies have provided invaluable
5:49 technology and support to schools and
5:52 communities increasing accessibility to
5:54 information for Learners of all
5:58 ages more than 100 years ago in
6:01 describing his vision for a new
6:03 University Leland Stanford wrote the
6:07 imagination needs to be cultivated and
6:10 developed to assure success in
6:13 life Stanford clearly understood that
6:17 technical knowledge was only the
6:19 starting point for creation and
6:22 Discovery Steve Jobs understands that
6:25 the computer is a very powerful tool in
6:27 a technical sense but that it true power
6:31 lies in the ability to unleash the
6:33 imagination and creativity of the
6:36 user as he explained to the New York
6:39 Times in a 1997 interview the Macintosh
6:43 turned out so well because the people
6:45 working on it were musicians artists
6:49 poets and historians who also happened
6:53 to be excellent computer
6:56 scientists and last fall a business week
6:58 reporter asked how he manages for
7:02 Innovation his answer was deceptively
7:06 simple we hire people who want to make
7:09 the best things in the
7:11 world Steve Jobs personifies the spirit
7:15 and creativity that have characterized
7:17 this University since its founding 114
7:21 years ago and we are pleased to have him
7:24 here today please join me in warmly
7:26 welcoming this year's commencement
7:28 speaker Steve Jobs
7:40 thank
7:44 you I'm uh honored to be with you today
7:47 for your commencement from one of the
7:49 finest universities in the
7:51 [Applause]
7:53 world truth be
7:56 told uh I never graduated from college
8:00 and uh this is the closest I've ever
8:02 gotten to a college
8:05 graduation today I want to tell you
8:08 three stories from my life that's it no
8:10 big deal just three
8:13 stories the first story is about
8:16 connecting the
8:18 dots I dropped out of Reed College after
8:21 the first six months but then stayed
8:23 around as a drop in for another 18
8:25 months or so before I really
8:26 quit so why' I drop out
8:30 it started before I was
8:32 born my biological mother was a young
8:36 unwed graduate student and she decided
8:38 to put me up for
8:39 adoption she felt very strongly that I
8:42 should be adopted by college graduates
8:44 so everything was all set for me to be
8:46 adopted at Birth by a lawyer and his
8:49 wife except that when I popped out they
8:52 decided at the last minute that they
8:54 really wanted a
8:55 girl so my parents who were on a waiting
8:58 list got a call and in the middle of the
9:00 night asking we've got an unexpected
9:03 baby boy do you want him they said of
9:08 course my biological mother found out
9:11 later that my mother had never graduated
9:13 from college and that my father had
9:15 never graduated from high school she
9:17 refused to sign the final adoption
9:20 papers she only relented a few months
9:23 later when my parents promised that I
9:25 would go to college this was the start
9:29 in my
9:31 life and 17 years later I did go to
9:35 college but I naively chose a college
9:37 that was almost as expensive as
9:40 Stanford and all of my workingclass
9:42 parents savings were being spent on my
9:44 college tuition after 6 months I
9:47 couldn't see the value in it I had no
9:49 idea what I wanted to do with my life
9:52 and no idea how College was going to
9:53 help me figure it out and here I was
9:56 spending all the money my parents had
9:57 saved their entire life
10:01 so I decided to drop out and trust that
10:03 it would all work out okay it was pretty
10:06 scary at the time but looking back it
10:08 was one of the best decisions I ever
10:11 made the minute I dropped out I could
10:14 stop taking the required classes that
10:16 didn't interest me and begin dropping in
10:19 on the ones that looked far more
10:22 interesting it wasn't all romantic I
10:25 didn't have a dorm room so I slept on
10:26 the floor in friends rooms I return Coke
10:29 bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy
10:31 food with and I would walk the seven
10:34 miles across town every Sunday night to
10:37 get one good meal a week at the Hari
10:38 Krishna Temple I loved it and much of
10:42 what I stumbled into by following my
10:44 curiosity and intuition turned out to be
10:46 Priceless later on let me give you one
10:50 example Reed College at that time
10:53 offered perhaps the best calligraphy
10:55 instruction in the country throughout
10:57 the campus every poster every label on
11:00 every drawer was beautifully hand
11:02 calligraphed because I had dropped out
11:05 and didn't have to take the normal
11:07 classes I decided to take a calligraphy
11:09 class to learn how to do this I learned
11:12 about serif and Sans serif type faces
11:14 about varying the amount of space
11:16 between different letter combinations
11:18 about what makes great typography
11:20 great it was beautiful historical
11:24 artistically subtle in a way that
11:26 science can't capture and I found it
11:28 fascinating
11:30 none of this had even a hope of any
11:32 practical application in my
11:35 life but 10 years later when we were
11:37 designing the first Macintosh computer
11:40 it all came back to me and we designed
11:42 it all into the Mac it was the first
11:45 computer with beautiful
11:46 typography if I had never dropped in on
11:49 that single course in college the Mac
11:51 would have never had multiple typ faces
11:53 or proportionally spaced fonts and since
11:56 Windows just copied the Mac it's likely
11:58 that no person computer would have
12:07 them if I had never dropped out I would
12:10 have never dropped in on that
12:11 calligraphy class and personal computers
12:13 might not have the wonderful typography
12:15 that they do of course it was impossible
12:18 to connect the dots looking forward when
12:20 I was in college but it was very very
12:22 clear looking backwards 10 years later
12:25 again you can't connect the dots looking
12:27 forward you can only connect them
12:29 looking backwards so you have to trust
12:32 that the dots will somehow connect in
12:34 your future you have to trust in
12:36 something your gut Destiny Life Karma
12:39 whatever because believing that the dots
12:41 will connect down the road will give you
12:44 the confidence to follow your heart even
12:46 when it leads you off the well-worn path
12:49 and that will make all the
12:56 difference my second story is about love
12:59 and
13:01 loss I was lucky I found what I love to
13:04 do early in life was and I started Apple
13:07 in my parents garage when I was 20 we
13:10 worked hard and in 10 years Apple had
13:12 grown from Just the Two of Us in a
13:13 garage into a $2 billion company with
13:16 over 4,000 employees we just released
13:19 our finest creation the Macintosh a year
13:21 earlier and I just turned
13:23 30 and then I got
13:26 fired how can you get fired from a
13:28 company you
13:29 started well as Apple grew we hired
13:33 someone who I thought was very talented
13:35 to run the company with me and for the
13:37 first year or so things went well but
13:39 then our visions of the future began to
13:41 diverge and eventually we had a falling
13:43 out when we did our board of directors
13:45 sided with him and so at 30 I was out
13:49 and very publicly out what had been the
13:52 focus of my entire adult life was gone
13:54 and it was
13:55 devastating I really didn't know what to
13:57 do for a few months I felt that I had
14:00 let the previous generation of
14:01 entrepreneurs down that I had dropped
14:03 the Baton as it was being passed to me I
14:06 met with David Packard and Bob noise and
14:09 tried to apologize for screwing up so
14:11 badly I was a very public failure and I
14:14 even thought about running away from the
14:15 valley but something slowly began to
14:18 dawn on me I still loved what I
14:22 did the turn of events at Apple had not
14:24 changed that one bit I'd been rejected
14:27 but I was still in love
14:30 and so I decided to start
14:32 over I didn't see it then but it turned
14:35 out that getting fired from Apple was
14:36 the best thing that could have ever
14:37 happened to me the heaviness of being
14:40 successful was replaced by the lightness
14:42 of being a beginner again less sure
14:45 about everything it freed me to enter
14:47 one of the most creative periods of my
14:48 life during the next 5 years I started a
14:51 company named next another company named
14:53 Pixar and fell in love with an amazing
14:55 woman who would become my wife Pixar
14:58 went on to create the world's first
14:59 computer animated feature film Toy Story
15:02 and is now the most successful Animation
15:04 Studio in the
15:07 world in a remarkable turn of events
15:10 Apple bought next and I returned to
15:12 Apple and the technology we developed at
15:15 next is at the heart of Apple's current
15:17 Renaissance and Loren and I have a
15:19 wonderful family
15:21 together I'm pretty sure none of this
15:23 would have happened if I hadn't been
15:24 fired from Apple it was awful tasting
15:27 medicine but I guess the patient needed
15:29 it sometime life sometimes life's going
15:32 to hit you in the head with a brick
15:34 don't lose faith I'm convinced that the
15:37 only thing that kept me going was that I
15:39 loved what I did you've got to find what
15:41 you love and that is as true for work as
15:44 it is for your lovers your work is going
15:47 to fill a large part of your life and
15:48 the only way to be truly satisfied is to
15:51 do what you believe is great work and
15:53 the only way to do great work is to love
15:56 what you do if you haven't found it yet
15:59 keep looking and don't settle as with
16:02 all matters of the heart you'll know
16:04 when you find it and like any great
16:06 relationship it just gets better and
16:08 better as the years roll on so keep
16:10 looking don't
16:22 settle my third story is about
16:26 death when I was 17 I read a quote that
16:29 went something like if you live each day
16:32 as if it was your last someday you'll
16:34 most certainly be
16:38 right it made an impression on me and
16:41 since then for the past 33 years I've
16:43 looked in the mirror every morning and
16:45 ask myself if today were the last day of
16:48 my life would I want to do what I am
16:50 about to do today and whenever the
16:53 answer has been no for too many days in
16:55 a row I know I need to change
16:57 something remembering that I'll be dead
17:00 soon is the most important tool I've
17:02 ever encountered to help me make the big
17:04 choices in life because almost
17:07 everything all external expectations all
17:10 Pride all fear of embarrassment or
17:12 failure these things just fall away in
17:14 the face of death leaving only what is
17:17 truly important remembering that you are
17:20 going to die is the best way I know to
17:22 avoid the Trap of thinking you have
17:24 something to lose you are already naked
17:28 there is no reason
17:29 not to follow your
17:31 heart about a year ago I was diagnosed
17:34 with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the
17:37 morning and it clearly showed a tumor on
17:40 my pancreas I didn't even know what a
17:42 pancreas was the doctors told me this
17:46 was almost certainly a type of cancer
17:48 that is incurable and that I should
17:49 expect to live no longer than 3 to 6
17:53 months my doctor advised me to go home
17:56 and get my Affairs in order which is
17:58 doctor's code for prepare to die it
18:02 means to try and tell your kids
18:04 everything you thought you'd have the
18:06 next 10 years to tell them in just a few
18:08 months it means to make sure everything
18:11 is buttoned up so that it will be as
18:13 easy as possible for your family it
18:15 means to say your
18:18 goodbyes I live with that diagnosis all
18:21 day later that evening I had a biopsy
18:24 where they stuck an endoscope down my
18:26 throat through my stomach and into my
18:28 intestines
18:29 put a needle into my pancreas and got a
18:31 few cells from the tumor I was sedated
18:34 but my wife who was there told me that
18:37 when they viewed the cells under a
18:38 microscope the doctor started crying
18:41 because it turned out to be a very rare
18:43 form of pancreatic cancer that is
18:45 curable with surgery I had the surgery
18:48 and thankfully I'm fine now
18:51 [Applause]
18:58 this was the closest I've been to facing
19:00 death and I hope it's the closest I get
19:03 for a few more decades having lived
19:05 through it I can now say this to you
19:07 with a bit more certainty than when
19:09 death was a useful but purely
19:11 intellectual
19:12 concept no one wants to die even people
19:16 who want to go to heaven don't want to
19:18 die to get there and yet death is the
19:22 destination we all share no one has ever
19:25 escaped it and that is as it should be
19:28 because death is very likely the single
19:30 best invention of life it's life's
19:33 change agent it clears out the old to
19:35 make way for the new right now the new
19:39 is you but someday not too long from now
19:42 you will gradually become the old and be
19:44 cleared away sorry to be so dramatic but
19:48 it's quite
19:49 true your time is limited so don't waste
19:53 it living someone else's life don't be
19:56 trapped by Dogma which is living with
19:58 the results of other people's thinking
20:01 don't let the noise of others opinions
20:03 drown out your own inner voice and most
20:05 important have the courage to follow
20:07 your heart and intuition they somehow
20:10 already know what you truly want to
20:12 become everything else is
20:26 secondary when I was young
20:29 there was an amazing publication called
20:31 the whole earth catalog which was one of
20:33 the Bibles of my generation it was
20:36 created by a fellow named Stuart brand
20:38 not far from here in Meno Park and he
20:41 brought it to life with his poetic touch
20:44 this was in the late 60s before personal
20:46 computers and desktop publishing so it
20:48 was all made with typewriters scissors
20:50 and Polaroid cameras it was sort of like
20:53 Google in paperback form 35 years before
20:56 Google came along it was idealist istic
20:59 overflowing with neat tools and great
21:02 Notions Stewart and his team put out
21:04 several issues of the whole earth
21:06 catalog and then when it had run its
21:08 course they put out a final issue it was
21:11 the mid1 1970s and I was your
21:15 age on the back cover of their final
21:18 issue was a photograph of an early
21:20 morning Country Road the kind you might
21:22 find yourself hitchhiking on if you were
21:24 so
21:25 adventurous beneath it were the words
21:28 stay hungry stay foolish it was their
21:32 farewell message as they signed off stay
21:35 hungry stay foolish and I have always
21:38 wished that for
21:40 myself and now as you graduate to begin
21:43 a new I wish that for you stay hungry
21:48 stay foolish thank you all very much
21:56 [Music]
22:02 the proceeding program is copyrighted by
22:04 Stanford University please visit us at
22:07 stanford.edu
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