Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech Analysis One of the greatest stories about hard work and success came from the genius mind of a college dropout. Steve Jobs gave the commencement speech “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” in 2011 at Stanford University.
In his speech in June 12, 2005 Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, told students three stories from his life. The first was about connecting the dots. When he was born, his biological mother understood that she wanted a girl and he was given up for adoption. His biological mother made his parents promise her that Steve would go to college when he grew up.
Co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc, Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech at stanford university, illustrates three distinguishable points of his life. Jobs’ is very successful in his approach to inspire the graduates by speaking on the experience and insight he has gained. Jobs has a simplistic yet elegant tone and diction to convey his hardships to communicate how much life has to give and teach us in an inspirational way. Jobs begins his speech by dethroning himself as the well-known self made billionaire to create a connection to the graduates. He starts by putting the audience on a higher plateau with “I am honored to be with you”(1) and “ this is the closest I have been to a college graduation”(2) and when speaking of himself and his speech, he states it is “No big deal”.
CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs, in his commencement address, You've got to find what you love, detailed his path to success in life, while overcoming many obstacles along the way. Jobs’ purpose was to convey to the graduating class that you don’t have to attend college in order be successful and you must live each day as if it is your last. He used a compelling tone in order to convey his message to the students through three significant life events he experienced. Jobs began his commencement speech by illustrating the importance of “connecting the dots in life” Jobs, 2005, Pg.1). Jobs’ appealed emotionally to the audience by a lone diction addressing his childhood adoption.
Great Storytelling Lu Jia Delivered on a campus in California to an audience of a few thousands, yet it ended up inspiring tens of millions from both U.S. and worldwide; worshiped by Silicon Valley as the ultimate career talk, yet it embodied many aspects of life - chance, love, loss, and ultimately death. Short but smart, targeted yet universal, poignant and timeless – thus is Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford. Some attribute its success to Jobs’ personal influence and charisma – they do add significant weight to the speech, undeniably. But close inspections from the lenses of rhetorical analysis allow us to appreciate this speech from a different perspective – in particular, how the speech was crafted into a fitting response to its rhetorical situation and how Jobs managed to strike a chord with his audience through the masterful use of logos, pathos and ethos, whether planned or not.
Steve Jobs opens his speech through stating his purpose that he was there to talk at the commencement at the University of Stanford. He also makes the audience question why he was chosen with his following statement as he states, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.” This was an effective move because it made the audience really tune in to listen to what he had to say to the graduates and what insights he could give even though he never made it this far in his schooling career. Now even though Steve Jobs never made it through college, he still is a credible man.
The Steve Jobs commencement speech was a speech that was given by the former Apple Inc. CEO to Stanford University during the 114th commencement on 12th June 2005. The speech Steve Jobs gave Stanford University is a very effective speech, because of his use of rhetorical devices. Jobs especially use his background and childhood to play upon his rhetorical approach. In Steve Jobs, he tells several stories about love, detection, death, loss. The main part of the Speech is how Steve Jobs encourages the students to pursue their dreams, and do what makes them happy, even if it all doesn’t go after the plan.
Steve Jobs, the man who created the Apple Company, the man who started a new era of computer design, found the American Dream. He may have had trouble in his life, but in the end he overcame his obstacles. He had ideas that no one had before and always wanted the impossible to become possible. He would look at an idea that people could only imagine in their head. Steve would find the hardest of problems and find a way to solve them.
My whole life I have heard it said that in order to be successful you need to go to college and get a degree. After reading the text ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ a Stanford graduation speech given by Steve Jobs in 2005, I realized that it takes so much more than going to college and getting a degree to live a happy life. Steve was born in San Francisco, California on February 24, 1955 to a young, single college student. Since his mother put him up for adoption, she wanted to ensure his parents were college graduates so he could have a greater chance of going to college. Even though Steve Jobs was a college drop-out, he still managed to accomplish many things throughout his life.
Mark Avendano Mrs. Korey English II Advanced Honors March 17, 2023 Rhetorical Analysis Many people would think they cannot relate to someone as well known and with as much money and success Steve Jobs has however, he is one that can be heavily related to s he had to overcome adversity to become as successful as he was. In his incredibly intelligent and brilliantly written speech given to Stanford University, Graduating Class of 2005, Steve Jobs clearly articulates and emotionally inspires his audience through the use of symbolism, repetition and storytelling to persuade everyone to live their lives to the fullest. Steve Jobs’ emotional and passionate speech establishes himself as an incredible storyteller. He quotes in his speech, “Truth be told I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to graduation.
Rhetorical Analysis of Leader Language In my point of view, I found Bill Gates as the most promising leader throughout the globe. Bill Gates was the youngest, wealthiest CEO of all time, but this success was not only achieved by luck. His inspiring charming personality and effective communication skills made him the real “BILL GATES”. One of his talks on the teacher’s feedback is much of an importance.
He accomplishes this by asking thought-provoking questions that make the audience feel and think about what is truly important, and by convincing them to take any and all opportunities that they may encounter, because they never know when one could lead to success. Steve Jobs starts his speech with a great deal of credibility. His introduction, by Stanford president John Hennessy, emphasizes the success Jobs has had in his companies and other ventures. Jobs’ name is already
Steven Paul Jobs was an electronic genius of his time who invented products with extraordinary capabilities. He started the company, today known as Apple. In his time at Apple, he had the opportunity to create the iPhone, iPad, and one of his most coveted creations, the Macintosh. In his life he was also a member of Walt Disney Company’s board of directors during their acquisition of Pixar, who was a major player in the animation industry. After being ousted from Apple, he became CEO of a failed computer company called NeXT.
Steven Paul Jobs, or better known as Steve Jobs, changed the way that people communicate. He changed the way that people used technology, and took things that were already created to make something that is useful and/or easier to use. Steve thought of ideas that nobody else would and he made them work. Steve Jobs had big dreams and he didn’t give up on them. He made his dreams a reality.
In the speech “Steve Jobs Commencement Address to Stanford University, Class of 2005” , Apple CEO Steve Jobs provides his audience with personal experiences and the rough periods he went through in his early years before founding apple that helped him succeed. With the use of his stories Jobs creates a character that prevails through obstacles and manages to achieve his goals, which inspires his audience to look up to him and show that failure is sometimes necessary to succeed. At the beginning of his speech, Steve Jobs begins describing his life with a series of stories that helped him reach his success, this helps Jobs create ethos because his audience will understand the hardships he went through to be where he is today, instead of just thinking of Jobs as the founder of Apple and not really knowing about the struggles he had to go through.
