Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speech

 

Personally, I enjoyed the speech given by Steve Jobs because it was formatted to be very conversational. He creates light metaphors by referring to life and its unpredictable courses to a game of connect the dots. Steve Jobs creates humor within his speech by comparing his life, attending a few months of college, to the lives ahead of the students who are currently graduating. The speech overall is made short, entertaining, and detailed to the point.

My opinion of Steve Jobs is that he is an honorable man. I am able to respect the way that he made his living. Although he started out against the odds, he was able to take a simple hobby and transform it into not only a profession, but a revolution of technology. When he referred to his co-workers he had a slight undertone, which leads me to infer he may be somewhat egotistical. Nevertheless, he has a great way of a manipulating words and making comparisons that are relatable, yet contain an easily conceived deeper meaning. From what I know about Steve Jobs he is an admirable man who remains sturdy in his beliefs.

Honestly, I found it somewhat ironic that Stanford University was advocating a speaker at their graduation ceremony, who in fact was a college drop out. However, after having had read the speech I realized where his success derived was insignificant, but the importance was the message he had portrayed within the speech. He talks about three main points in his speech, connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. These the points are merely examples of his overarching topic throughout the speech, which is to maintain your morals high. He concludes his speech by plainly stating "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." This saying is deemed appropriate for the students who are currently graduating because it reminds them that they are still young, they have time to make mistakes, and it's perfectly okay if they do. It encourages the kids to keep their ambitions high, and to avoid getting caught up in the problematic situations which occur naturally in life.