2005 Stanford Commencement Speech featuring Steve Jobs

Resource Type: Personal
Who this Book is Good For: Emerging Leaders, Entrepreneurs

Whether you like or dislike Apple products, anyone interested in product development has to consider Steve Jobs as a rare phenomenon. Following a difficult childhood and the trauma of being put up for adoption by his birth mother, Steve Jobs became someone who created the future rather than forecasted it.  One of my favorite quotes from Jobs is: “We can’t do market research because people don’t know what they want until we tell them.”

An overly driven perfectionist with a vicious temper, Steve Jobs tells the graduates three stories that laid the foundation for creating the man that would change the world with his products.  Follow your intuition, love what you do, and stay hungry are at the core of his commencement speech.

If you have any part in developing products or organizations, I highly recommend that you also read his autobiography which delves deep into his life, his successes and failures, and his everlasting accomplishments. Steve Jobs sets the bar where most of us will not reach, but where we all should be aiming.

Be Inspired,
Neil