Watch & Listen
Steve Jobs's Stanford Commencement Address
, subject: Stanford commencement speech, 2005
Steve Jobs's Stanford talk draws lessons about loss, renewal and limited time from his firing at Apple and his question about life's last day.
93
Coverage Score
16
Scored evidence
About this work
Delivered to Stanford graduates on June 12, 2005, the talk uses three stories from Jobs's life to discuss trust, loss, love of work, and the urgency created by remembering that life is finite.
Why explore it
Best if you are recovering from a professional setback, trying to make sense of an indirect career path, or questioning how you spend your time.
Key themes
- Being fired as painful but necessary medicine
- The dots connect only looking back
- The last-day-of-my-life question
Evidence and original sources
Sources: official Founders episodes — #19, #43, #45, #186, #214, #228, #265, #268, #293, #299, #312, #350, #410
This record is supported by 16 public evidence rows linked to original Founders episodes.
- Becoming Steve Jobs — David calls Jobs's Stanford speech perhaps the most viral commencement speech ever and describes its lesson about loss and renewal as possibly the most important thing Jobs ever said.
- Ray Dalio: Principles: Life and Work — David uses the address's awful-tasting-medicine lesson about being fired from Apple to illuminate Ray Dalio's recovery after a painful failure.
- Built From Scratch: How A Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion — David applies the address's account of being fired from Apple as needed medicine to Bernie Marcus rebuilding after dismissal.
- Phil Knight (Nike) — David applies the address's account of being fired from Apple to Phil Knight's loss of a supplier forcing him to go all in on Nike.
- Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography — David introduces the address's mortality passage as some of the best advice Jobs ever gave.
- Michael Bloomberg — David applies the address's firing-and-renewal lesson to Michael Bloomberg losing the only full-time job he had known.