Steve Jobs Commencement Speech Reflection

Steve Jobs seems to be the type who can appreciate the finer details in life, such as the benefits (and drawbacks) of eating a fully vegetarian diet, and the workings of the inner drives that keep us motivated throughout life. This quality is fully appreciated in his Commencement Speech given at Stanford University in 2005. Steve Jobs, standing in front of an awe-inspired crowd in a black and red robe that may or may not have once belonged to Anton Lavey, fully takes on the role of Cult Leader when urging the students to appreciate life using heavily-weighted stories of abandonment, success, failure, and death. Watching this address one has no quandaries as to how Jobs motivated those underneath him to produce such fantastic products as the Macintosh and the iPod.

During the address, however, it is clear we are viewing a completely different Jobs than we saw at the premier of the "1984" commercial. The blind confidence and proud ecstasy we see in his eyes in 1984 has vanished twenty-one years later, revealing a version of Jobs that is just as introspective, but much wiser. Having lost and regained the company he created and loved, as well as brushing far too closely with death, Jobs seems content with his life choices. The same smug look stains his face, however, as he takes cheap shots at Microsoft (in the name of good humor), and tells students that dropping out was the best choice of his life. His 'third story' on death ended on a serious note, with Jobs stating that he tries to live every day like it was his last, and by urging the students to do the same. There is no way Jobs could have known that his cancer would come back only 6 years later, but he was surely prepared for it. Steve concludes by leaving the students with the inspirational words from the final issue of the Whole Earth catalogue "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" to a backdrop of slightly displeased looking Stanford College officials. Although the delivery of this speech was more formal than his earlier, more youthful speeches, he is still able to connect with the student body in a unique way, drawing upon the less pure energies that keep people motivated, such as intuition and emotion as opposed to simple reason and logic. In this way, Jobs demonstrates the kind of impressive charisma that can change the world.