Steve Jobs

November 13, 2017, Draft Press Release for Onondaga Community College News Writing course

“Stay hungry, stay foolish,” said Steve Jobs, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs encouraged graduates to follow their dreams and recognize there are opportunities in setbacks, including facing death. Jobs delivered a Commencement address on June 12 at Stanford University. He addressed three essential points about his experiences in life to the 2005 graduating class.

Jobs summarized his experiences of life into three stories, connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. Each story holds a lesson that Jobs learned through experiences that shaped him to be the successful man he is today.Jobs did not graduate from college, instead, he followed his passion and started one of the largest companies we know today as Apple.

Jobs informed the students of his past, which portrayed what life was like before he was born. His biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, who decided to put Jobs up for adoption. His adopted mother wanted him to be placed into a supportive family, with both father and mother being college graduates. Later, Jobs would discover that his parents were not college graduates, but they had promised his biological mother he would go to college. Years later, Jobs’ parents provided financial assistance for Jobs to attend college.

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do,” Jobs said. Jobs created the future of the Mac computer, as we know it today, by taking a calligraphy class that interested him.  Calligraphy is an artistic, elegant script that is produced chiefly by brush of high aesthetic value.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward,” Jobs said sharing his first significant lesson. He tells the story of how dropping out of college may have been the best decision he made for himself, even though at the time he did not realized it was.

Jobs’ second lesson was about love and loss, and how he found what he wanted to do early in life.As a 20-year-old, Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, which in 10 years became a $2 billion company. Jobs was later fired from Apple but that did not stop him from doing what he loved. NeXT Software Inc. was the next company that Jobs founded, which was then bought by Apple in 1997, returning him to where he began his career.

A near death experience drew Jobs closer to realizing another lesson. The final key point of his speech was about death. Doctors told Jobs he only had six months to live. A year ago, when he was given the diagnosis of cancer, Jobs thought he had to prepare himself to say goodbye. The cancer he had, turned out to be a rare and treatable kind. He underwent surgery and has fully healed, but the experience will remain with him influencing his life in a profound way.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs said, as he urged the graduates to understand this very valuable lesson he learned. “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”