Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech

In 2005, Apple founder Steve Jobs delivered this memorable commencement address at Stanford University. In the 15-minute speech, Jobs talks about three pivotal moments in his life – when he dropped out of college, when he got fired from the company he founded, and when he was diagnosed with cancer (a year before giving this speech). The speech is full of great lines, but here’s one particular segment that jumped out at me:

“It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards, 10 years later. Again, 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.”

For more Apple nostalgia, check out this video of 30 years of Apple computers in two minutes.

3 More Steve Jobs Things To See:

• Steve Jobs’ secret diary.

• Steve Jobs and Bill Gates reminisce about the past.

• How Steve Jobs made geek culture cool.