Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (with intro by President John Hennessy)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN people point to it as an inspiring, rewatchable speech, especially for anyone worrying about wasted time or direction.
What it is
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement address, in which he tells three stories from his life about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. He urges graduates to follow their dreams and find opportunity in setbacks.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2011 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec robwwilliams · 2022-06 · on “Stanford’s war on social life”
Your comment reminds me of Steve Jobs amazing commencement address to the Stanford Class of 2005. [this video] I try to watch it once a year, especially with grad students and postdocs. Gets better each time.
Recommends graderjs · 2022-08 · on “Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?”
You're 23. Just think how relatively bad it would be if you were 38 thinking this. You're young. Plenty of time. Keep taking risks. Be grateful you recognize this now, and trust the process. Everything happens at the right time. The dots make sense looking backward, you have to trust that, but may not make sense looking forward, to paraphrase Steve Jobs commencement speech, which I think you should watch right now. It's inspiring to hear someone share this at such a young age, because I think of all the cool things that you'll do now, that you realize the value of time. But the motivation has to come from you, intrinsically, can't come from wanting to emulate or a type of FOMO jealousy of so
Recommends robwwilliams · 2023-09 · on “Stanford Is a Platform”
And listen to Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address of 2005. I know he would have endorsed the critique above: [this video]
Cites 6ren · 2011-04 · on “ISteve: The Steve Jobs authorized biography”
Jobs wouldn't even endorse "iWoz" (probably because of the story of him conning Woz out of a fair share, long ago). "iCon" is the most perfect title I've ever seen - obviously the lowercase 'i' and Jobs' reality distortion field; but also the desktop metaphor featuring icons; and that Jobs is definitely an icon himself. Note we already have a brief Jobs autobiography, in his Stanford commencement address: text [LINK] ; video [this video]
Cites yesbabyyes · 2011-05 · on “Arguing for Immortality”
Death cleans out old ideas. I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative. Especially a civilization where the people with money and power are the ones who are older. "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." [this video]