Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (with intro by President John Hennessy)

This program is brought to you
by Stanford University.

Please visit us at stanford.edu

It now gives me great pleasure to introduce
this year's commencement speaker

Steve Jobs.

The chief executive officer
and co-founder of Apple

and Pixar animation studios.

Stanford University has
been characterized, since is founding

by willingness to be bold and to
strike out in new directions,

and this is a characteristic very
much shared by today's speaker.

A pioneer and visionary for almost 3 decades.

His name and the companies he has founded

have been synonymous with innovation
and creativity.

As a young boy growing up in Los Altos,

Steve Job came of age at the same time
as Silicon Valley

While still in school,
he attended lectures informally

at Stanford, as well as at Hewlett
Packard, where he spent a summer working.

After graduating from high school he left
California to attend Reed College.

A trek through India and a short stint as a
video-game designer for Atari followed.

Soon after his return to the Valley in 1974,

he became a regular, along with Steve Wozniak,

at meetings of the home-brew
computer club,

held at the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center.

It was not long before the two of
them had built the prototype

to the Apple I.

The Apple I, was very fast at the time,

reading and writing 4KB

in about 20 seconds.

About 20 thousand
times slower than we do so today.

The Apple II was faster still.

But, more importantly,

introduced color monitors into the
home market

In the mid 1980's the Macintosh
became the first truly user-friendly

personal computer.

You didn't have to be an expert
to set it up, or to load software,

or to transfer information
between applications.

And the mouse offered point and click
convenience,

and opened the door to computer literacy
for everyone.

I still remember the amazed faces of onlookers

as they saw a computer
that was completely different

from the personal computers of that day.

Steve also con-founded Pixar
Animation Studios,

which has revolutionized the film industry

in its short history, with brilliant use
of technology.

And produced two Academy Award
winning films: Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

Since his return to Apple 8 years ago,

Steve has re-invented the company
once again

extending its vision to music and new
digital media.

Ipod and Itunes

have changed the way we listen to,

organized, store and purchase our music

and, in my case, the way often read books.

Now, songs we love are
just 99 cents and completely legal click away.

IPhoto and IMovie revolutionized the ability
of consumers to organize, edit and display

digital photography and video, putting
capabilities that once costed thousands of

Dollars into the hands of every Mac user.

Steve is also widely recognized
for his ability to create

an innovative environment inside Apple.
As well as an external company image

that is equally innovative.

Just think about Apple's marketing
campaigns over the past 3 decades.

A promotional flyer in 1976
showed Isaac Newton sitting under a tree

just as an apple was falling by, with the
catchy exhortation

"To byte (b y t e) into an Apple."

There was an iconic Superbowl
commercial

(techy humor)

an iconic Superbowl commercial telling

us that the Macintosh was
on the horizon and assuring us that we

would see why 1984 wouldn't be like 1984.

And in the late 1990's we saw banners and

billboards featuring Pablo Picasso, Albert
Einstein, Martha Graham and Mahatma

Gandhi, all urging us to think different.

Steve Jobs understands that creativity

and innovation start by thinking differently.
He has a deep-rooted believe in the power

of education to transform lives coupled
with the desire to make the world

a better place. From the earliest days
of Apple he worked to develop partnerships with educators

and get computers into school. For almost 3
decades, he and his companies have provided

invaluable technology and supports to schools
and communities increasing accessibility

to information for learners of all ages. More
than 100 years ago, in describing his vision

for a new university, Lelan Stanford wrote:
"the imagination needs to be cultivated and

develop to assure success in life." Stanford
clearly understood that technical knowledge

was only the starting point for creation
and discovery. Steve Jobs understands that

the computer is a very powerful tool in a
technical sense. But that its true power lies

in the ability to unleash the imagination
and creativity of the user.

As he explained to the New York Times
in a 1997 interview the Macintosh turned

out so well because of people working on it
were musicians, artists, poets and historians

who also happened to be excellent computer
scientists. And last fall, a Business Week

reporter, asked how he manages for innovation.
His answer was deceptively simple: We hired

people who want to make the best things
in the world. Steve Jobs personifies the spirit

and creativity that have characterized this
university since its founding, 114 years ago.

And we are pleased to have him here today.
Please join me in warmly welcoming this

year's commencement speaker, Steve Jobs.

Thank you! I am honored to be with you today
for your commencement in one of the

finest universities in the world. Truth be
told, I never graduated from college and

this is the closest I have ever gotten
to a college graduation. Today, I want

to tell you 3 stories from my life. That's it.
No big deal. Just 3 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
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 layer and his wife.

Except that, when I popped out, the decided
at the last minute, that the really wanted

a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting
list, got up a call, in the middle of the night.

asking "we got an unexpected baby boy. Do
you want him?" They said: Of course. My

biological mother found out later that my
mother had never graduate 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 go to college. This was the
start, in my life. And 17 years later I did

I did go to college. But I naively choosed
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 figure

it out. And here I was, spending all the
money my parents have 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 far more

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 cent deposits to buy

food with. And I would walk the 7 miles
across town every Sunday night to get

one good meal a week and 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.
Through out 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 learnt about serif
and sans-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, it's likely that no personal computer

would have them. If I had never dropped out
I would have never dropped in on that

Calligraphy class, and personal computers 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 10 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. Because believing that the dots
will connect down the road would give

you the confidence to follow your heart
even when it leads you off the well-worn

path. And that would make all the difference.