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Steve Jobs Speech Rhetorical Analysis

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On June 12th, 2005, the late Steve Jobs gave a memorable commencement speech at Stanford University. As the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc., NeXT, and primary investor and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, Jobs has been deemed one of the greatest technological and business leaders of all time. Jobs revolutionized the technological industry in a way that not only shaped modern technology, but impacted the daily lives of consumers. Throughout his speech, Jobs appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos to persuade his audience to pursue personal passions and do what they love. Throughout this speech, Jobs tells three stories of his life experiences which motivated him to become the technological leader he is remembered as today. Jobs begins with the story of his upbringing, which he says is about connecting the dots. He evokes pathos from his audience as he discusses his adoption and early childhood. Jobs also uses anaphora and epistrophe by repeating the phrase “connecting the dots” throughout his story. “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards” (Jobs para. 8). In Jobs’ second story he describes his …show more content…

Immediately after his diagnosis, Jobs was informed he only had three to six months to live. Shortly after it was discovered his cancer was easily cured through one surgical procedure. “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades” (Jobs para. 21) Jobs used his story of death to share with his audience the sentiment that life is short. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by Dogma. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most importantly have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary” (Jobs para.

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In 2005 Steve Jobs was asked to give a commencement speech to the graduating students at Stanford university. Steve Jobs, a tech millionaire, got his start as the co-founder of Apple, one of the most influential tech companies around today. Him and his friend, Steve Wozniak, started the company out of their garage, little did they know that it would turn into the multi international company we know today, relied on by millions. Due to all of his experience and success at overcoming hardships, Steve Jobs was the perfect person to ask when Stanford was looking for their speaker in 2005. His speech is full of timeless, relatable stories and experiences that support the life advice he is giving to these students.

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Jobs, Steve. " Steve Jobs's 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.” I agree with this because what Steve is saying is true, death is all of our final destination for everyone and no one has escaped it. So we must all take chances in life and hope for the best and not worry about the “cons” in life and focus more on the

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This reveals that Job still believes his time for death is soon and that he will not be on this earth much longer. This verse is significant throughout the entirety of Job, because it proves that Job has not and will not lose his faith or stop trusting in the Lord. No matter how many times his friends accuse and insult him, he knows that he is good and righteous in the sight of the Lord and that one day, through the power and grace of God, he will be restored to health and prosperity. Although “those (he) love(s) have turned against (him)” (Job 19:19), Job recognizes that the Lord will never leave or forsake him, even if his friends and family will.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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When talking about your life compared to death, Jobs states that we are already “naked”, which serves to show that death is the great equalizer. Using formal diction sprinkled in with personal accounts, Jobs convinces the audience that he is a man that can speak confidently about some very difficult subjects in his

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Providing the example of Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, she says the people who work under Jobs break their backs at factories, yet he never credits the workers’ efforts to his overall success. Tokumitsu points out that the DWYL mantra is narcissistic for those who are overpaid for less labor, while those tricked into believing they love their job are less valued for the overall

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The start of his life includes his biological mother putting him up for adoption and then the supposed adopters did not want him either. Jobs says “he popped out [then] they decided they really wanted a girl”(10). The greek like tragedy continues when Jobs’ biological mother finds out the parents of her child's father “did not graduate high school” (13) while his mother “did not graduate college”(12). He states his emotional up bringing with strong details, ethos, to shape his credibility in a story from his childhood, “ it started when I was born”. This part of Jobs’ speech was overflowing with emotions and gathered all the sentiment from the

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Jobs worked hard for 33 years and 6 valuable months: “I was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer….it showed a tumor on my pancreas... the doctors told me that pancreatic Cancer is incurable” (3). In this quote Steve could not get death off his mind. He had surgery and was fine for a couple more decades. Throughout the remainder of his life this is what he practiced and it lead to great success despite

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Jobs outlines exactly what his speech is about by explaining in the first paragraph that he would be telling three stories that pertain to his life. By choosing to share three different stories about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death, it made him speak in a conversational style, making the audience more comfortable. When an audience is engaged, it is much easier to connect with the speaker. Jobs’ also decided to use humor within his words and phrases to engage the audience. He states “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces...and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”(Jobs)

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Steve Jobs is still the world’s greatest corporate storyteller. The iPhone presentation unleashed a wave of enthusiasm towards Apple that they are still riding today. Here are listed the techniques used. First, constant interrogations helped the audience’s understanding and cached their attention.

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“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, did the work, and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea” (Saint-Exupéry, 1948). This perfectly describes Steve Jobs. He was a leader with passion and clear vision who directed his people and got extraordinary achievements. While many believed him to be a transformational leader, others see him as a toxic leader.

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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.

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