Have to admit, it's not inspiring to me. I mean, I don't disagree with any of his simple little axioms -- stay hungry and foolish; never settle and always look for what your dream is; etc. -- but I don't find the medium or the delivery much worthwhile at all. In fact, it reminds me of that thread about college education. Jobs has money and inventiveness, but no ability to communicate it to others. There's so much more available to him in our language, for example. Have any of those people who supposedly find it "inspirational" actually been reported to have been inspired to successful creativity? Or do they just like to listen to it cuz it makes 'em feel good?
I, too, found the speech inspiring -- the Connect The Dots idea in particular.
My only quibble about it is his take on the typefont issue. Sure, Jobs had a central role in bringing high quality type technology into personal computers. But had he not been involved it would have happened just the same, and not necessarily much slower either. Jobs forgets the hundreds of years of technological progress the type industry had already taken before him. It's a ludicruous idea to assume that the small step he describes was somehow unique and dependent on a single inventor.
I thought he was claiming to have introduced "desktop" typography to the world (and the personal computer), which had only "bad" typography at its disposal before the Mac unless it went to a specialist. In that sense, he reduced irremediably the quality of design being done throughout the world's majority of printed documents and shouldn't be so quick to take credit.
The "connect the dots" concept is fine in retrospect. If on the other hand you're poor and full of insight and ability and waiting for your personal set of dots to finally fall into connection, it's a tougher sell.
And it's not a new idea at all. It (and most of his other supposed wisdom) is just a rehash, poorly phrased, of a set of lessons from a variety of learners, some Eastern mystics and some Western skeptics and some diametrically opposed to one another. The weakness is that he doesn't connect the dots. And for me, if THAT is enough to inspire you then, either, you're living a profoundly empty life in the first place, or, more likely, your own need for to call vapid touchy-feely repetitions of old saws as "inspirational" outstrips your need to actually change your life.
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But wait. What IS Steve Jobs' "famous Stanford speech"? Never heard of it ...
It's a speech he gave a Stanford U a couple years back. Watch it at the link.
I linked to a text version before. Many have found the speech inspirational.
Have to admit, it's not inspiring to me. I mean, I don't disagree with any of his simple little axioms -- stay hungry and foolish; never settle and always look for what your dream is; etc. -- but I don't find the medium or the delivery much worthwhile at all. In fact, it reminds me of that thread about college education. Jobs has money and inventiveness, but no ability to communicate it to others. There's so much more available to him in our language, for example. Have any of those people who supposedly find it "inspirational" actually been reported to have been inspired to successful creativity? Or do they just like to listen to it cuz it makes 'em feel good?
I found it inspiring.
I liked the Connect The Dots Later part best.
I, too, found the speech inspiring -- the Connect The Dots idea in particular.
My only quibble about it is his take on the typefont issue. Sure, Jobs had a central role in bringing high quality type technology into personal computers. But had he not been involved it would have happened just the same, and not necessarily much slower either. Jobs forgets the hundreds of years of technological progress the type industry had already taken before him. It's a ludicruous idea to assume that the small step he describes was somehow unique and dependent on a single inventor.
I thought he was claiming to have introduced "desktop" typography to the world (and the personal computer), which had only "bad" typography at its disposal before the Mac unless it went to a specialist. In that sense, he reduced irremediably the quality of design being done throughout the world's majority of printed documents and shouldn't be so quick to take credit.
The "connect the dots" concept is fine in retrospect. If on the other hand you're poor and full of insight and ability and waiting for your personal set of dots to finally fall into connection, it's a tougher sell.
And it's not a new idea at all. It (and most of his other supposed wisdom) is just a rehash, poorly phrased, of a set of lessons from a variety of learners, some Eastern mystics and some Western skeptics and some diametrically opposed to one another. The weakness is that he doesn't connect the dots. And for me, if THAT is enough to inspire you then, either, you're living a profoundly empty life in the first place, or, more likely, your own need for to call vapid touchy-feely repetitions of old saws as "inspirational" outstrips your need to actually change your life.
To rephrase. It's jejune.
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