

Text of Steve Jobs' Commencement Address at Stanford (June 12, 2005) - abstractwater
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

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dstein
The video is on Youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc>

It is an extraordinarily well-crafted speech.

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napierzaza
Why read the transcript of one of the world's greatest presenters?

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ulf
"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."

Kinda sad, when you think about how many of the people in the audience would
go on to become investment bankers...

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omfut
Its such a wonderful speech. One of the best speech i have ever heard. I have
seen this video so many times and never get bored seeing it again and again.
It just brings the energy in me back.

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vjk2005
Every time I see this video I get conflicting emotions - on the one hand I get
depressed as it keeps reminding me that there's only one Steve Jobs and a
mortal one at that, makes me wish we made more of him. But then on the other
hand I realize a Steve Jobs born in this day and age would have cleaned out
every last smidgen of privacy we enjoy, the business model of today, in
typical Jobsian fashion - careful, calculated, precise and unstoppable. Then
I'm just glad we aren't making more of him.

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jarrold
I was really lucky to be there to hear this in person. Listening to it again
still blows me away. I'm from Singapore and I think one of the problems of my
generation is that too few of us follow our hearts. Some might blame the
education system, some might even blame the government.

I'm just extremely fortunate to experience life in the Valley and it opened up
my mind. When doing a startup, its like a roller coaster ride with many ups
and downs. Success is not overnight and probably might not even get there on
the first attempt. But its speeches like this that kept the fire burning.

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philwelch
Whenever I want to feel good about the world, I look at things from the
perspective of the entire history of the human race.

Thousands of years ago, most of our ancestors were more likely than not
subsistence farming or, if they were doing anything historically interesting
at all, laboring on gigantic walls or pyramids or other largely useless
monuments for various kings and tyrants. There was no choice as to what one
did with one's life, it was dictated by the circumstances of birth.

Even having dreams, much less the ability to follow them, is a rare thing for
humans. We're each blessed to have this ability.

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zatara
What I like the most is: "You can only connect the dots looking backwards". It
is a very good perspective when things don't make much sense in the present,
and also gives an insight about the Jobs-Woz relationship. Woz was definitely
the hacker, and Jobs, after his two years at Reeds College (and the
calligraphy stuff), sedimented his experience as a designer (the "pony-tail
guy").

Looking at the role that design plays in Apple nowadays, I wouldn't be
surprised at all to see Jonathan Ive filling Jobs's shoes in the future, and
that would be an excellent choice IMHO.

Of course, I also wonder how the young Steve Jobs would evaluate some of the
current Apple's policies...

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danielsiders
I was really moved the first time I heard him talk about his and Apple's
commitment to beautiful typography, it was really evident in early projects.
But lately (with the exception of Retina display) Apple has ignored great
typography and made lots of n00b errors that aren't even sen on other mobile
platforms. If Steve isn't keeping an eye on that sort of thing, who will after
he's gone? In a company with such a strong focus on minimalist design,
screwing around with something as essential as text has a very big effect on
the visual bottom line.

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mitjak
Don't bring up marker felt don't bring up marker felt.

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danielsiders
One of these days the Apple.com homepage will be in Comic Sans and the
transformation will be complete.

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hernan7
The "heaviness" speech, an oldie but a goodie.

For some reason it reminds me of that quote from Annie Hall. Woody Allen
trying to cop some hippie jargon... "Did it achieve total heaviosity?"

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_corbett
Jobs at his best.

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sleepingbot
How many times did you post this. It must be a joke at this point. HN
getting... Well...

