Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech

Steve Jobs' commencement speech, while somewhat arrogant and fairly unoriginal, is revelant to our discussion of value systems. Jobs tells three stories that highlight his utilitarian individualism. First he talks about dropping out of college and forging his own path. According to him, this was the absolute right decision. "The dots will connect," he emphasizes. Second he tells us how he was fired from Apple, but because he loved what he did it turned out alright. These two ideas, forging your own path and finding what you love to do, are pretty familiar, and you'd be hard pressed to find a commencement speech that didn't incorporate them in some form. The reason Steve Jobs is the one telling us is because he is a living example of the success of the individual. He established what was meaningful to him, followed it relentlessly despite what anyone else thought and saw immense personal success because of it. At one point he says, "Don't let other's opinions drown out your own inner voice." When he dropped out of college he wasn't concerned with what society, his community or his parents thought was valuable, he was concerned with he felt was meaningful, and he thinks the Stanford graduates should establish their value systems the same way. In many ways Jobs' speech says as much about the value we as a society place on the individual than Jobs himself.