Essay: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is successful even though he not graduated from college himself. Steve Jobs uses his background to gain the audience’s trust at the Stanford commencement address. While speaking to the new Stanford graduates, Jobs uses love and loss as emotions, which all humans are going through. He tries to convince the grads to use their talents and follow their hearts to become happy, because if you not happy with what you are doing, then your work, no matter what, goes wrong. Jobs uses his Ethos to encourage the Stanford graduates to pursue their passions and dreams.
Steve Jobs uses emotional stories to show his own character and history, which gains the trust of the students. His speech is chronological and starts his life story with how his ‘biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student,’ and she decided to put Steve up for adoption. I find this part of the speech odd, because an inclusion of such an emotional story tells that even the most students with nothing can reach success, which I found strange when he speaks to the graduates of Stanford, where a single year of university costs 64,477$. Steve Jobs tells later about Apple: ‘I was lucky ‘ I found what I loved to do early in life. [‘] and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the of us in a garage into a two billion dollar company with over 4000 employees’. Despite that the students of Stanford are from the better half of the society, this is a nice way to tell them, that no matter what they are doing, they have to ‘love’ it. This remark is basically a promise that if young people do what they love, they will also be successful and happy similar to himself, which is a personal connection. Jobs even gives the students a more intimate view into his life. With his surprisingly simple statement ‘About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer,’ he creates one more connection with his audience. The Apple Co-founder uses pathos many times in this speech to get the attention of the audience’s feelings. Then he uses his ethos to gain audience’s trust and explains that he has faced adversity in form of example sickness. His ethos is, that he is a rich, famous and clever man, and defeating cancer is a proof of his strength too.
Steve Jobs uses easily understood topics and sceneries to structure his speech. He started the animation studio Pixar, then NeXT, and then returned to Apple. His success shows that problems and mistakes make the students and even him better and stronger. Just like the German philosophe Friedrich Nietzsche once said: ‘That which does not kills us, makes us stronger. Jobs’ form and choose of words is really good. He opens his third story when he says, ‘My third story is about death’. Accurately, scary, short. His simple way of speaking builds the logos of his argument, because saying few good words, instead of many ‘wrong’, increases his authority. When speaking on death Jobs bluntly points out that ‘Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it’. He uses humor to show the graduates, that they are going to die so they should decide to live their life and follow their desires and passions. Through his use of these sentences he convince the students that success is within reach. Steve Jobs persuades the graduates to follow their hearts and do what they love.
Steve Jobs uses emotions like love, failure, loss and downs to convince the students to chase their dreams no matter what. Even though the dream brings failures, you have got to chase you dream. John F. Kennedy once said: ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.’ I think Steve Jobs lived by this statement, and he wants the student to do the same. The message Jobs’ speech is that ‘Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know how to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.’ No matter what, you have to try. What Steve Jobs is saying is, that the biggest failure you could do is not to try.
Steve Jobs does not repeat himself in this speech, but his message to the graduates is the same throughout the whole speech. Just told through many stories of his life divided up in three main topics. ‘You’ve got to find what you love’ is beneath every statement Jobs tells the graduates about. With the help of use of ethos, pathos and short precise sentences he makes beyond shadow of a doubt an impression on the students.