A Tribute to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, one of the most interesting, inspirational and revolutionary leaders of our time, has died.

Steve Job's 2005 speech at Stanford University has been called one of the best commencement speeches ever given.

In his speech he talked about a few key things in his life that made him the man he was.

Steve was given up for adoption by his biological mother who was at that time in graduate school.

His biological mother insisted that his adoptive parents were college graduates.

But when he was born, the couple decided they wanted a girl.

The adoption agency called his parents and told them he was available and they were thrilled. However, his biological mother wouldn't sign the final papers because his mother had not gone to college, and his father had not finished high school. It wasn't until they promised that they would send him to any college he wanted when he grew up that she signed the adoption papers.

Steve went to college and dropped out in 6 months.

His parents had saved all of their money to allow him to go to any school he wanted.

After 6 months of attending Rice University, Steve felt that it wasn't worth it. He didn't want to spend all of his parents hard earned money going to classes he wasn't interested in. He dropped out, but continued to go to a few classes that did interest him.

One of those classes was a calligraphy class. Calligraphy? Why would he mention that?

Because in 10 years, he was designing the Macintosh computer, and his knowledge and love of typefaces that he attained from that class inspired him to put that into the operating system of the first Macintosh.

He said that you must trust that everything you do will be connected in the future.

You can't connect the dots looking forward, but you can looking back. If you do what you love, EVEN if it's off the beaten path, it will positively affect you as you go through life.

Steve talked about love and loss.

He was lucky in that he loved what he did from a very early age. He and Woz started Apple in his parent's garage and ten years later (at the ripe old age of 30), they had grown Apple to a 2 billion dollar company with over 4,000 employees.

Apple had just released the Macintosh computer a year earlier and then, he was fired.

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he started.

He thought he had failed.

But after a few months he realized that he still loved technology. 

In the next five years, he started NeXt Computer and Pixar.

NeXt was eventually bought from Apple and became the impetus for the current, successful iMacs. Pixar became the biggest and most successful animation company in the world.

Steve said that being fired was the best thing that could have ever happened to him! It was the most creative time of his life.

Steve talked about death.

When he was 17, he read the quote "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you most certainly will be right."

Every morning from then on he asked himself, "If today was the last day of my life, would I want to be doing what I'm doing today?"

If the answer was "no" too many days in a row, he knew it was time to make a change.

He said, "Death is life's change agent.

We all gradually become old and will be cleared away.

Our time is limited, so don't waste it by living someone else's life. Don't let other people's opinions drown out your own."

His last words of advice to the graduating class of Stanford, 2005:

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish."

How many leaders follow their heart and not just their bottom line?

Thank you Steve Jobs for your example and for your innovations.