At age 50, Steve Jobs gave the 2005 Commencement address to the graduating class of Stanford. Throughout his speech, he references both his real world examples of rhetoric, and allowed the class to question their own path in life. His speech was both on his path towards failure and success, and his story on how he transformed from a college dropout to the CEO of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation. By utilizing all techniques of rhetoric, including logos, pathos, and ethos, he allows the students to be experience to his story and allows them to go down a blank path in life. Steve Jobs is a household name, at least in most parts of America. He was both the head of one of the most influential companies in the emerging computer field, while also pushing for innovation in both Apple, and Pixar. He starts his speech by saying that he has “three stories from my life”, then goes on to tell the story of how he dropped out of college. By utilizing the technique of ethos, he influences the audience to be able to both trust and respect him. …show more content…
“from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company”, which is conveys to the rhetorical appeal of pathos. This is also seen in “our visions of the future began to diverge”, which also utilizes pathos by inspiring the audience, and engaging them in his story. The second story Jobs tells is about “love and loss”, as Jobs put it. This mostly appeals to the pathos side of rhetoric, because it encompasses the audiences emotions by allowing them to relate to the story, while still learning and trusting the
Steve Jobs speech is to inform and entertain the public audience. He’s giving a lesson on life. Steve Jobs uses his life in his speech to give all audiences a word of encouragement. He tells the story of birth, death, and rebirth. The historical background of the commencement speech is based on Jobs actual real life background. Job was set up for adoption way before he was born. He then grew up to go to college but not find the value so he became a drop out. He went through many trials but never gave up on what he loves to do. The primary audience of this speech are the graduating students of Stanford University. He wants them to hear the speech and keep it with them as they commence into the next level in their lives. The secondary audience would be anybody who listen to the speech. Due to the fact that this speech is used to encourage and uplift a lot of people in their lives and career journeys. The structure of job speech is very systematic he told his stories in a three story chronological form. This structure allows him to talk about different and varying points while still connecting them to his overall point of finding “what you love to do.”
Steve Job’s commencement speech in 2005 at Stanford University, which is one of the best university in our country was very memorable and inspiring for Stanford graduates and also for audience listening to speech. In his speech, Jobs inspires students and audience to pursue their dreams and always to follow their heart no matter what even though things don’t always go according to plan and never give up. Steve Job is mainly known for his contributions in the technological world but along with that he is also recognized for his world-renowned presentations. Jobs’ simplicity in delivery and extensive use of rhetoric makes his speech effective and comparable to speeches of famous narrators. In this commencement speech, Jobs uses simplicity in the structure of his speech along with the use of rhetoric such as ethos and pathos besides usage of personal stories to make this speech effective in inspiring his audience and making it memorable.
1. In his speech, Steve Jobs presents several elements of pathos. Write down five of the examples that involve Jobs’ use of pathos and explain why he shares these elements with the audience.
Thesis: Technology would never be the same ever since the arrival of the great Steve Jobs.
The most current speech of the four is Steve Jobs’ “You’ve got to find what you love.” His speech targets college graduates of the 21st century. After I read Steve Jobs’ speech, I understood the power of his words. At the beginning, he stated that he, unlike the graduates, never graduated from college; he dropped out after 6 months. Additionally, he reveals information about himself throughout the speech, such as being adopted, and the fascination for calligraphy. At the age of 20, Steve and a friend created Apple, a computer company in his parent 's garage, later to be fired from his own company. But of course that did not stop Jobs; he ended up creating two more companies called NeXT and Pixar. Presumably, the scariest time in his life started when he was diagnosed with an incurable pancreatic cancer later
One of the reasons Jobs was so persuasive to all audiences was his meticulous use of ethos, pathos, and logos. The driving force of his rhetoric was that he adjusted his use of ethos (appealing to ethics) depending on his audience. This is well explained in an article published by the journal Group & Organization Management that examines Steve Jobs’ rhetorical strategies. “We find that customized rhetorical strategies are influenced by his perceived ethos (credibility) in the respective situations, which in turn influences the extent of logos (appeal to logic) and pathos (appeal to emotions) employed” (Heracleous). The way that Jobs applied ethos while communicating
A Rhetorical Analysis of Steve Jobs Commencement Speech for Stanford University's Graduating Class of 2005: Jobs titled his speech "You've got to find what you love." Steve Jobs is best known as an American entrepreneur, inventor and industrial designer. He was the cofounder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. and founder, CEO and chairman of Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs and cofounder of Apple Inc. Steve Wozniak are wildly recognized as pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
In his speech, Jobs first sets the stage by sharing the story of his adoption; he explains the difficulty of his adoption process and the promise that ultimately led him to college where he eventually decides to drop out six months later. He then goes on to share the story of his ten year process of creating the Apple Company, the challenges he faced when being fired from Apple, and how passion and faith led him to a better path. Jobs lastly shares his battle with cancer and his face to face experience with death which made him realize how valuable and limited life is. These three key events portray failure, loss, hardship, faith, passion, and success.
The audience was predisposed to appreciate Steve Jobs as almost 25% of the audience worked in the technology industry, Most of the students sitting in the audience owned or had used an Apple device, and the excitement was tangible in the stadium as they waited to hear the CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios…the man who had beaten pancreatic cancer.
Steve Jobs, Creator of Apple, NEXT, and Pixar says, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” Steve Jobs gives the Stanford commencement speech on June 12, 2005. In three stories, Jobs tells the graduates to believe in themselves, take harder challenges, and to never doubt themselves. He leaves them with, “Stay Hungry. Stay foolish,” meaning to always look for more opportunities and to never settle on staying with something average, go big and beyond. Throughout this speech, Jobs gives the audience a feeling of empathy. Jobs is able to use tone to emotionally connect with the audience, allowing them to accept the endless possibilities they can achieve.
His first few sentences seemed slightly broken instead of fluent indicating his nerves. However, he then continued by telling a joke about his background and a quote in order to intrigue the audience and set the mood of his speech. Following the introduction, he began by stating what the topic was that he was going to discuss and then explaining a true event that happened in his life. He kept the story brief and continued by explaining how his story related back to the topic. While telling the story Steve Jobs chose his words very meticulously. Each word helped create the tone of his speech which was serious and heart felt. He continued the same format for his next two points. Jobs also ended his speech in a similar way that he introduced the speech by ending with a quote. The quote by Jobs “stay hungry, stay foolish” was explained and then repeated 2 times with increasing volume to conclude the speech. This technique of repeating a certain phrase was used to end the speech on a powerful note and engrave the message into the college graduates brains. This is an effective public speaking technique because in order to be effective you must leave a lasting impression on your audience and that is exactly what Jobs did by continuously repeating the
In Steve Jobs speech he uses the tactic of proving that he is trustworthy by past experience. When writing a speech it is important to make sure your audience can trust you and is comfortable trusting you. Steve Jobs uses his past experiences to show that if you can find what you love early in life, you have a better chance being successful. In How to Live Before You Die Steve said, “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me… So I decided to drop out… Looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made”. He uses his past to tell them that sometimes you just have to take a chance and hope it just works out. He needed to put this earlier in his speech to show the class that he is not just making things up and even a successful person like himself was scared for a period of his life. Later in his speech he talks about how he could take any class he wanted. He gives most of the credit for creating the Macintosh to a calligraphy class. “If I had never dropped in on that calligraphy class, the Mac would
Within Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech, he uses rhetorical appeals to convey different messages to his audience. This speech was given at Stanford University to the graduating class of 2005, their families, and school faculty. Although Jobs was a dropout himself, Stanford University was just ten minutes from where he lived in California, and he had a deep respect for the university and its ties to Silicon Valley. In his speech, Jobs tells three stories presenting his own opinions and experiences as evidence for his arguments.
The most current speech of the four is Steve Jobs’ “You’ve got to find what you love.” His speech targets college graduates of the 21st century. After I read Steve Jobs’ speech, I understood the power of his words. At the beginning, he stated that he, unlike the graduates, never graduated from college; he dropped out after 6 months. Additionally, he reveals information about himself throughout the speech, such as being adopted, and the fascination for calligraphy. At the age of 20, Steve and a friend created Apple, a computer company in his parent 's garage, later to be fired from his own company. But of course that did not stop Jobs; he ended up creating two more companies called NeXT and Pixar. Presumably, the scariest time in his life started when he was diagnosed with an incurable pancreatic cancer
Regarding ethos, I feel that Steve Jobs was able to establish that by first praising the students for graduating, and secondly by admitting that he never graduated college himself. The latter showed humility towards his audience which in turn led to them increasing their receptiveness towards him. Thus, by making himself seem more “human”, the audience will then perceive him as a humble man worked his way to success.