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Three Great Commencement Speeches by Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and J.K. Rowling

May 4, 2010 By Nagesh Belludi 9 Comments

The commencement season is upon us. On these momentous occasions, students celebrate their academic achievements and prepare to transit from one pivotal life experience to another.

In graduation speeches, students hear reflections of personal stories and timeless advice from accomplished individuals. While commencement speeches are brimming with plenty of patently obvious advice such as “pursue whatever you do with passion,” speeches such as the ones featured below are truly motivating.

I have coached many students graduating this year and I have recognized that, despite a gloomy job market and other challenges ahead, this year’s graduating classes seem to be more optimistic than previous classes with which I have interacted. My very best to them.

Steve Jobs: “Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life”

Steve Jobs, Commencement Speech at Stanford | June 12, 2005 Steve Jobs cofounded Apple Computer Inc. at age 21 in 1976, got fired in 1985, and returned in 1997 to lead one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in business history. The product and marketing visions he has since executed have elevated him to the status of a business and media superstar. Steve Jobs had a cancerous pancreatic tumor removed in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009.

In his 2005 commencement address (transcript, video) at Stanford University, Steve Jobs urged graduates to pursue their dreams and fulfill the opportunities in life’s setbacks:

  • Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. … Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
  • Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Bill Gates: “Address the world’s deepest inequities”

Bill Gates, Commencement Speech at Harvard | June 7, 2007 Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and Corbis, is currently the world’s most influential philanthropist. His Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated billions of dollars to world health causes, particularly toward the eradication of infectious diseases.

In his 2007 commencement address (transcript, video) at Harvard University, Bill Gates urged graduates to discover and help solve the health and social inequalities that the world faces:

  • I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world—the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair. … Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries—but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity—reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
  • If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. … I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

J.K. Rowling: “The benefits of failure”

J K Rowling, Commencement Speech at Harvard | June 5, 2008 J.K. Rowling, the celebrated author of the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels, is a classic “rags to riches” life success story. At the age of 28, as a depressed, unemployed single mother who lived on welfare, J.K. Rowling started writing the first Harry Potter book at a café. Within five years, thanks to the success of Harry Potter, she rose from obscurity to literary prominence and became a billionaire.

In her 2008 commencement address (transcript, video) at Harvard University, J.K. Rowling urges graduates to persist through failures and despondency:

  • Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. … Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
  • Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
  • The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.

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Filed Under: Great Personalities, Ideas and Insights Tagged With: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Wisdom

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. VISHAL WANGOO says

    October 17, 2010 at 2:57 AM

    PEOPLE HAVE ATTITUDE BUT SOME HAVE THE POSITIVE AND PEOPLE LIKE MITCHEL, GATES, VIVEKANAND, M.K. GANDHI POSSEESS THE LATER AND ARE COUNTED AMONG THE TOP PERSONALITIES.

  2. srinivasa choudary.m says

    February 16, 2011 at 2:12 AM

    thanks to the above article,some other great personlities in the world are India’s RatanlaTata,Azim Premji of wipro and Infosys Narayana murthy and hero honda Brijmohan Munjals ideas and advices too needed to the corporate visionery students

  3. Subhasish says

    July 15, 2011 at 3:27 AM

    Inspiring and good read.

  4. s .Desai says

    March 27, 2012 at 7:06 AM

    The speech of Mr Bill Gates at Harward on June 7 ,2007 and that of mr. Steve JobsatStandford Dt. june12, 2005 are master piece and not only final year college students but all sesible adults should read it to put into practice to the best of there ability.

  5. leah gasmin says

    July 11, 2013 at 12:21 AM

    I really like the message of steves jobs,bill gates and jk rowling,every words are very inspiring….true we should learn from our mistakes…

  6. Drumeel Shah says

    June 1, 2015 at 4:59 AM

    Such an inspiring personalities these are. Apart from these biggies there are many other people who inspire millions with the kind of work they do and all they have achieved in their life.

  7. nagesh says

    July 26, 2015 at 7:28 AM

    THIS SITE IS BEST FOR INSPIRING SPECIALLY MR. JOBS……………..

  8. amrutha says

    April 22, 2016 at 2:31 AM

    motivational,inspiring,and very useful mainly for students to build their career in a right way.thank you for this script.

  9. UJJAL PAL says

    October 31, 2016 at 1:23 AM

    I want to rules of bill gates via mail.

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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