Steve Jobs, CEO, Who Was Fired From His First Job

Inspiring speech excerpts from the start by Steve Jobs at Stanford University June 12, 2005.

In fact, I never had a college degree, and is closer than ever I graduated from college. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.

Best decision I ever made

The first story is the issue of points. The ped out of Reed College in the first six months of the year. Why? Well, it started before I was born. My biological mother was a young bachelor, and decided to put me up for adoption.

She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, but my biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from university and my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She said only a few months later, when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the beginning of my life. And 17 years later, I went to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all my savings of the working class parents were spent on my college tuition. After six months I could not see the value in it. So I decided that. It was pretty scary at times, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

It was not all romantic. I did not have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in the halls friends. I returned Coke bottles for the five cent deposits to buy food, and I'll walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I liked it. And much of what I found by following my curiosity and intuition has proven invaluable in the future.

Let me give you an example: I decided to take a calligraphy class at Reed College and learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations. None of this had even a hope of practical application in my life. But ten years later, when designing the first Macintosh computer, it all made sense to me. If I ever ped, ped never on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Love and loss

My second story is about love and loss. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown up in a society of two billion dollars with over 4,000 employees. We just released our finest creation of the Macintosh a year ago, and then I got fired.

I really did not know what to do for a few months. I felt I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down. I even thought to leave the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me: I always liked what I did. Turn of events at Apple had not changed a bit and I decided to start over.

Successful pregnancy has been replaced by the lightness of a beginner again, less sure about everything. I am free to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the five years I started a company named NeXT another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would be my wife. A significant turnaround, Apple bought NEXT and I retuned to Apple. I'm sure none of this would have happened if I had not been fired from Apple.

I am convinced that the only thing that forced me to take I liked what I did. Your work will fill a large part of his life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what they do a good job. If you have not found it yet, keep looking until you find. Do not stop.

If today were the last day of life

The third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like this: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll certainly be right." I was impressed, and from that moment, the past 33 years, I looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, I would like to do, what I'm about to do today?" And whenever the answer is "No" too many days in a row I know I need to change something.

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. A year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told me it was incurable and that I should expect to live longer than 3-6 months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, as is the medical code for "prepare to die. "I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy and was told that he turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had surgery, and thankfully I'm fine now.

It was the closest, I was faced with death. Having had the experience, I can now tell you a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Death is probably the best invention of life unique. It erases the old to make way for the new. Currently, the new is you, but someday not too far from now, you will gradually grow old and be cleared. Your time is limited, so do not live the life of someone. Do not let the noise of others' opinions stifle your inner voice.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog created by a fellow named Stewart Brand and brought to life with his poetic touch. In the back of their final issue was a photograph of a road in the early morning, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Underneath were the words: "Stay Hungry. Madness." It was their farewell message.

And I've always wanted for myself. And now, when you go to start over, I hope for you. Stay Hungry. Stay foolish.