Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech Analysis

This is a speech analysis over a commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave to a graduated collegiate class.

Steve Jobs

        Over the course of history speeches were recalled because of the way they are connected with their audience. Steve Jobs gave an emotional commencement speech in June of 2005, to a graduating class, within which he depicted stories of his college experience, his young life, his parents, and how it led to his success and departure with apple computers. He used this speech to connect with and provoke curiosity, and unprecedented creativity in thinking amongst the newly graduated students.

        In the beginning of his speech, Steve Jobs captured the collegiate audience with a warm welcome, and spoke of how he would be telling three stories. This is the largest element of his speech that makes it so relatable and connective to the audience; structure. It allows him to make his points and connect its arguments in an organized and systematic. If he were to reverse its points on random times there would be no proper link between them. This structure allows him to talk about various different issues, while connecting them to the global point of finding. Before he began his stories, he started talking about his college experience. He dropped a bomb on this crowd, that he had never graduated college. He used this to define a conflict in his life that many young people have, not knowing where to turn. A well renowned man known for his intelligence wasn't a graduated and technically qualifying individual? This could have also been used to grab the audience’s attention as a whole, and make them ponder over their goals in life.  When we hear someone “dropped out”, it is seen as a failure, or giving up. Rhetorically he asked the audience “So why did I drop out?” and dove into his first story, which he described as being “…about connecting the dots”.

        He used accounts of his working class parents, who adopted him at birth from his young and single mother, to portray how his early life was very difficult and his college expenses were depleting his interest in graduating. The expenses were weighing down on his conscious, and his parents had to continue working to pay his tuition. Jobs made a very difficult decision and technically dropped out of college, but continued to pursue an education, regardless of if it would count toward any sort of degree or certification. This is what made him completely drop any sort of guidance and follow anything that caught his interests or curiosity. He trusted in his heart that everything would work out, and though he dropped out 6 months into his college education, he continued attending classes at Reed University for 18 months.

        Jobs wasn’t required to take any classes, which perhaps is why his imagination and innovative state of mind began to take over. He began taking classes that would have been way out of his major, such as calligraphy. This was one of many skills Jobs took advantages of that made Apple computers so revolutionary. Upon taking the course, he didn’t find that it would be applicable to his life, but when he began designing the Macintosh computer, it was one of many things that helped set it out from the rest. It may even be the sole inspiration behind different fonts and typography used on all modern computers today. Steve Jobs had revolutionary ideas that could have been influenced by him following interests instead of a set of standards and rules found in scholastic guidance. He used these outlooks on unnecessary skill and what most would see as a failure to establish a characteristic within most of us; Perseverance.

This speech wasn’t solely based on happy emotions and inspirational ideals. He also talked of tragic events and accounts that would make one worry or cringe. Jobs brought up the event of his cancer. Though this is a terrifying thing to most people, it connected him with the audience more because most people can relate. Most people know someone who has dealt with cancer, they themselves have had it, or they have read and heard stories. It also brings to mind that time is precious and right in front of you, and one day you will leave this world so you should strive be the best that you can possibly be.

In this speech, Jobs also talks about personal failure, such as early on when he dropped out, progressing down his timeline to his firing at apple computers, where he lost his position as CEO. This connects more to the audience because people can feel for someone who has been through such a great loss. His failures allow his successes to shine brightly, and inspire these young people to not soak up the dirt they lie in on the ground, but to pull themselves back up and strive yet again for more.

           In describing events in his life and trials of hardship, it allowed jobs to create a personalized story with desirable humanistic characteristics. Using these characteristics, Jobs truly touches the minds of these young people and shows that anyone can be successful and that he has not always been in a place someone wants to be. These characteristics break down the wall of marginal thinking that successful people have merely been lucky and have reached the point that they are at in their lives because they have had the easy path or been handed everything. The development of this character allows him to win the audience over because this public audience does not know any longer a famous and successful man standing on this stage, but the humble one deep down who is willing to admit the road was heartbreaking and difficult.

Author's Note

I will take kindly to all criticism ♥