2012

Babes-Bolyai University

Duta Ovidiu Ionel

THE ANALYSIS OF STEVE

JOBS’S SPEECH

I shall try to analize the speech that Steve Jobs gave in front of the students of the Stanford

University in 2005.

„I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest

universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've

ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's

it. No big deal. Just three stories.”

This is the first paragraph and it underlines the general direction of the speech given

by Steve Jobs. The use of „I” will show that this speech will be given from personal

experience and will contain stories that have a direct link with Steve Jobs. The verbs used

make use of the story telling techniques: told, tell, tell. This is the first step in the analysis,

seeing how this speech is constructed. Very personal and with an emphasis on the stories

rather than on advices given in a general manner. And Tropes says that there are 7 episodes

and the speech involves the narrator by using throught the text the pronoun „I” in an abundant

manner this being a characteristic of a speech given when a life changing event has occured in

the life of the person giving the speech. The case of Steve Jobs was its diagnosis with cancer

being the most recent event and its succes at Apple from 1976 and the stories and legends

surrounded by this company. The technical analysis underlies stative verbs close to 50% of

the total ammount and only 25% of reflexive verbs. This is a characteristic of story telling

using verbs that relate to a description and focus on creating a general image for the audience.

Although the main character is Steve, the main subject is how from his actions others

could learn and benefit. That’s way verbs like: do, make, know, look in corelation with nouns

like life, coolege, work create a visual experience for the students present on that day. In

terms of adjectives, Steve Jobs uses objective adjectives and we all know his great experience

in telling a story and presenting a product to the audience and making it look extraordinary,

either if it’s the case or not. The same thing can be applied to his speech, a lot of adjectives

are used to create the sensation of greatness: finest, first, all of, entire, every, priceless. In

relation to the nouns like: university, money, job, career, moment, life, minute make his

speech be uplifting for the students in pursuing ideas that others would think crazy and create

the sense of respect for their learning environment as well the respect of their life and their

purpose on earth.

The pronouns department says that out of all of the pronouns used, „I” is the most

used in over 50% of the time and after that „you” showing that the speech has the personal

aspect as well as the exemplary aspect being used to show to others the cause and effect of

someones actions. For you, the students, from I, Steve Jobs, that sums is up very well.

The speech begins with his statement of dropping out of college in front of students

graduating one of the most prestigious universities in America. The irony makes that the

speech has a bigger impact for students although some would doubt if education mattered if

Steve Jobs dropped out and became so succesfull. But in the following lines he explains how

and when education is the most important aspect of someone’s life. So this irony is only just

as a starter to understand the final message of being educated, either in a university or

learning on your own. After explaining the basis for his life story, Steve uses dialogues in his

speech to give a sense of simplicity and real life situation to the students because the lack of

dialogue would have made the speech too exemplary and without substance taken from real

life discussions like: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of

course."

These dialogues create a more open discussion between Steve and the students in from

of him making the entire speech feel a bit more easy to understand and sympathise. Along the

speech, in almost every phrase you could see the „I”, giving the sense of belonging and

personal. That and the fact that English grammar isn’t as permissive as the Romanian one and

the use of pronouns is mandatory in a phrase to understand who’s talking about who. Still, his

speech is very personal because he could have used from a point on, we or you to give an

example for the students. But the presence of the „I” makes for a more egocentric speech

focused on personal experiences and afterwards being supported by „you” to underline that a

certain example can be applied to the students. For a better part of the speech, the verbs are at

past tense, this making sense because most of his speech is about his past and actions that

have ended and have an echo in his present state. „I had”, „I wanted”, „I was”, „I dropped”, „I

slept”.

Just a few examples of verbs used to put focus on his life before he founded Apple and

his actions that led to the foundation of the company. Some verbs are used at the negative

aspect, a critical aspect so that the entire story wouldn’t seem invented and that some actions

weren’t with a positive aspect. Still Steve Jobs said he did dropped out of college and this

actions has consequences both positive and negative. „It wasn’t all romantic.” The best

example of using a negative verb with a twist. The lack of romantism is compensated by the

actions made to forget that he had a difficult life and he needed to change the outcome. And

examples are given in a large amount starting from the caligraphy lessons to his firing from

Apple, the company he founded, ending with the question: How can you get fired from a

company you started?

After this short analysis, I must refer to Tropes in some fields of discussion covered by

Steve Jobs to see how vast his speech was in terms of topics: time, life, education, health,

family, communication, death, feelings, devices, technology, business, money, religion,

world, parents, disease, company, work and the computer. A large ammount of subjects

covered in 5 pages of transcript or 14:34 minutes of speech. But for a man life Steve Jobs and

his accomplishments the subject just seem to describe him. After his death in 2011, many

people gave this speech as an example and it’s easy to see way. The vastness of the speech

makes for a life changing experience just by reading it and knowing a part of the man Steve

Jobs was. His stories have a logical output in picturing the general frame of Steve Jobs: the

first one is connecting the dots and this shows how small things he made or learned led to the

creation and succes of Apple Products. The second story is about love and loss. This shows

that creating something doesn’t make you impervious to the outside world and him being

fired from Apple is life’s biggest ironies seen in the tech world. But his only made him

realized what mattered in life and he got married, had a wonderful family and after all things

settled, the company he founded afterthat NeXT was bought by Apple and his adventure at

Apple began again. The last story is about death and this is the last story we found out about

Steve, his death in 2011. But his story is about his cancer disease and his perception about life

when this occured. „Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever

encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” This fact helped Steve in creating one of

the most succesful devices at Apple, the iPod, the Iphone or the iPad. This personal example

made students understand how life should be lived, either if you know you will die soon or

not. That day will come and it’s better that you live it if it was your last.

„No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.”

Having such a philosofical approach yet a simplistic deffinition of death made him

recreate his personal status on that period, being diagnosed with cancer and seeing his life

change in a single minute. That meant the needed to make the best of his time and so should

the students present there.

„Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma

— which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others'

opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

Out of the 7 episodes, the last one is the most important because it creates the link

between his disease and the purpose of life. He gave arguments and examples so that students

would understand that being ill isn’t and effect, it’s just the cause in starting to live your life

until it comes to a halt. The most important words found in this episode are cancer, death and

life. Being opposed one to another death and life are the best examples to finnish a speech and

to give a sense of respect for life and all it stands for.

In the end, my personal thoughts of this speech and the man that gave this speech.

First of all, I’ve found out about this speech in 2011, 6 years after it has been given. I’ve been

a fan of Apple for 3 or 4 years and in this time I’ve just discovered the products and never the

man or the idea behing Apple. After this speech, after reading the book, I can understand why

Apple is Apple and why they are the most valuable company in the world since 2011. The

entire philosophy behing each product was to make the user have a near perfect experience

with the device and to make the device just a gateway to an experience and cherrish the

experience and not the device itself. That’s way Apple and Steve were the pioneers of the

graphical user interface and afterthat the design that made the experience easier and more

natural for the user. This philosophy has roots in Steve’s history like his caligraphy course or

his obsession towards user experience. He knew that a product is just as good as the

experience and ecosystem around it. That’s why now, Apple has an entire ecosystem that

others would like to recreate. Because the user is in the center of the Apple Universe and the

products are just the ships he needs to reach a specific star.

About Steve Jobs and this speech. He was a different man from the get go, he had a

different education in college or he chosed to accept that he needed something else so that his

purpose in life would be greater and he would please his parents in the end. Having a simple

outfit everytime he presented an Apple product from 2001 since his death made it a brand and

a statement. That it’s not how you look that’s important but it’s what you say and do that

counts. This is in contradiction with his first commercial where he appeared in a costume

looking hist best to sell the philosophy of Apple. After his diagnosis, his principles changed

and he was focused on creating a better product for the users. And he made it in 2001 with the

iPod, in 2007 with the iPhone and in 2010 with the iPad. And the entire world is thankful for

this, especially the hundreds of millions of users of Apple products around the world and the

other millions waiting in line every october, march or june to discover the Apple Universe.

The speech was the best story of a life summed up in 15 minutes.

„Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”