This article was taken from the July 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When Steve Jobs took his place behind a lectern at Stanford University on June 12, 2005 to give the commencement address, he offered a confession: "Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation." The dropout from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, then told the graduates sitting in front of him three stories.
The first was about his own university experience. "After six months, I couldn't see the value in it...The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting." Jobs took a course in calligraphy instead and "found it fascinating". "None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them." If he had never dropped out, he said, he would have never dropped in on a calligraphy class, and computers "might not have the wonderful typography that they do". "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference."
Jobs's second story was about being fired from Apple. "The best thing that could ever have happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." In that time Jobs built up NeXT and
Pixar and also met his wife.
The final story was about death. He recounted the story of the
diagnosis of his pancreatic cancer. "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. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
When Jobs was the same age as his Stanford audience, he used to read the Whole Earth Catalog. His final thought was taken from that magazine's final issue. He described the cover photo, of an early-morning road, "the kind you might find yourself hitch-hiking on if you were so adventurous". He said he had always wished the caption for himself, and he wished it now for the graduates: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Thank you all very much."
More from the Steve Jobs MBA [
Unit 101: Future thinking](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-101) [
Unit 102: People pay more if it's worth it](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-102) [
Unit 103: Connect your people](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-103) [
Unit 104: Master the entire business](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-104)
Unit 105: Build from the bottom up
Unit 106: Interpret, don't impersonate
Unit 107: It's all about design [
Unit 108: Dazzle your audience](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-108) [
Unit 109: Steve Jobs: in his own words](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-109)
Unit 110: Challenge the expectations of others [
Unit 111: Be your own competition](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-111)
Unit 112: Reboot, reboot, reboot [
Unit 113: The big reveal is the best advertising](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-113) https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-114
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
