Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
Key ideas
In three stories from his life, Jobs urges graduates to trust that choices connect later, keep doing work they love after failure, and use mortality to choose.
From a machine transcript of the audio. Quotes link to the moment they are said.
- 1
Dots connect only in hindsight
Jobs says that after dropping out of Reed he sat in on a calligraphy class with no practical use he could see, and ten years later it shaped the Mac's typography. He concludes that you cannot plan these links in advance, so you have to trust in something, which he says gives the confidence to leave the usual path.
- 2
A public failure can free you
Jobs describes being fired at 30 from the company he started, after the board sided with the person he had hired to run it with him. He calls it devastating, says he tried to apologize to older entrepreneurs and thought about leaving the valley, then realized he still loved the work and started over. He says he is pretty sure NeXT, Pixar and his return to Apple would not have happened otherwise.
- 3
Keep looking for work you love
Jobs is convinced that loving what he did is the only thing that kept him going after Apple. He tells graduates that satisfaction comes from doing what they believe is great work, which he ties to loving it, and asks them to keep looking and not settle if they have not found it.
- 4
Use mortality as a decision test
Jobs says that for 33 years he has asked each morning whether he would want to do today's plans if it were his last day, and that too many answers of no in a row means something must change. He argues that expectations, pride and fear of failure drop away in the face of death. He tells of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, first judged incurable and then found curable with surgery, as what made the idea less abstract for him.
- 5
Don't live someone else's life
Jobs warns graduates against dogma, which he defines as living with the results of other people's thinking, and against letting others' opinions drown out their own voice. He closes with the farewell line from the back cover of the final Whole Earth Catalog, 'Stay hungry, stay foolish', which he says he has always wished for himself.
In Steve’s words
“You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.”
Steve Jobs·Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address·Watch at 5:03(opens the original in a new tab)“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.”
Steve Jobs·Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address·Watch at 7:20(opens the original in a new tab)“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
Steve Jobs·Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address·Watch at 9:59(opens the original in a new tab)About this entry
- Published
- Mar 8, 2008
- Channel
- Stanford
- Type
- Video
- Length
- 15:04
- Language
- English
- Added
- Nov 2, 2026
- Source last checked
- Nov 2, 2026
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Draft. Written by us with AI from a machine transcript of the video’s audio (Whisper) and checked against it. Machine transcripts can mishear; each quote links to the moment so you can hear it. Not yet rights-reviewed.
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