steve jobs stanford commencement speech rhetorical analysis

Steve Jobs’ Commencement: Rhetorical Analysis

Introduction.

The speech by Steve Jobs titled “Commencement” was a part of Stanford University’s graduation ceremony. A commencement ceremony is a traditional part of graduation, where the students get a chance to listen to advice from others, which should help them make better life choices. In his speech, Jobs described several lessons from his life that helped him become successful and overcome failure. This paper aims to analyze the “Commencement” speech by Jobs and discuss its artistic measures.

At the time of the speech, Jobs was well-known as one of Apple’s founders, and he was also the CEO of Pixar and NeXT. The popularity and revolutionary nature of Apple’s products made Jobs’ speech well-known. The core theme that he discussed is his life journey and the choices he made that led him to become who he was. For instance, he mentions dropping out of college and how this decision allowed him to attend classes he enjoyed, instead of going to compulsory lectures. The fact that Jobs uses personal examples from his life to persuade the audience is essential because this adds personality and trustworthiness to his words.

Notably, the speech has a defined structure, allowing the audience to understand the message better. Jobs begins with a small introduction and outlines the fact that the following parts will include three stories. Jobs begins each story with a simple message that he repeats afterward. For instance, “the first story is about connecting the dots,” and he ends this story by saying, “you cannot connect the dots looking forward” ( You’ve got to find what you love ). He uses a similar strategy for the second and third stories. All the stories share a similar idea – despite the difficulties, the fact that he was fired from Apple and his cancer diagnosis, Jobs continued to move on and do the things he loved.

Finally, he ends his speech by mentioning the “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which seized to exist in the 1970s when a more advanced technology emerged because its final edition ended with the words “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” ( You’ve got to find what you love ). This was the message for the audience that suggested the need to always be in the search for something, and Jobs did not merely state this idea. Instead, he used the words that once inspired him. Therefore, the artistic measures that Jobs used in his speech allowed the structure and the arguments to be more persuasive.

Logos in rhetorics is connected to logic and arguments that use facts, such as dates or historical events. In his speech, Jobs mentioned a lot of important dates from his personal life. For instance, he discusses how he dropped out of college at 17. Moreover, Jobs mentioned the history of Apple, from its initiation to the first Macintosh, which made the company successful. Therefore, Jobs does not refer to any general historical fact, and he only uses his example as an appeal to logic. While one can argue that this approach can be biased because it relies on one person’s opinion, Jobs mentioned well-known facts, such as the revenue of Apple and the number of employees ten years after the establishment, which helped ensure credibility of his words and create a better connection with the audience.

Ethos refers to the author’s persona, in this case, Steve Jobs, and his character as the primary element of persuading the audience. While Jobs’s persona serves as a credibility instrument itself, because he established a world-famous technology company and went on to work in animation, he also mentioned several other facts that allow enhancing the meaning of his words. For instance, in the beginning, he states that he went to Reed College, which suggests that he is aware of the frustrations and challenges that the graduates may face. He goes on to talk about why he had to go to college in the first place, and the difficulties he had after deciding to quit. Regardless, Job points out that he has no regrets as he did what he believed was right.

Pathos is an element that refers to the use of emotions as the main element that allows one to connect with the audience. Arguably, this is one of the most challenging elements to use, out of the three, because unlike ethos and logos, it requires one to use creativity. Jobs, however, applied this element throughout his speech because it is a collection of stories from his life. As was mentioned, he begins by stating that he had never graduated and explained why it was vital for him to go to college. Through these stories, he can convey the difficulties, sorrow, and happiness he experienced throughout his life.

Overall, the 2005 speech by Steve Jobs is remarkable because it captures the attention of the audience. The author uses rhetorical elements to capture the attention of the audience. Through ethos, he refers to his personal experience and his credibility as a technology company CEO. By using logos, Jobs points out several facts from his biography that were the turning points in his life. Finally, Jobs applies pathos throughout his speech when discussing his life, which helps the audience experience an array of emotions.

“You’ve got to find what you love,” Jobs says.” Stanford , 2005.

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Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech: Rhetorical Analysis and Main Points

• by Anastasiya Yakubovska
• 16.08.2022 04.05.2024

The famous commencement speech to Stanford graduates “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” is direct proof that Steve Jobs was a talented public speaker. 

From the article, you will learn what principle this motivational speech is built on and what rhetorical and stylistic devices Steve Jobs used.

Table of Contents

Why did steve jobs give the commencement address at stanford.

• Did you know? 
• Structure of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech 
• The Tone of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech 

What Rhetorical Devices (Figures and Tropes) Did Steve Jobs Use in Stanford Commencement Speech

Steve jobs’ commencement speech: 5 key points.

Steve Jobs, like no other, knew what success is. But he also was well aware of how difficult it is to find yourself, your purpose, and your dream job. 

Over the 56 years of his life, Jobs mastered several professions (without graduating from university), founded not one, but three companies – Apple Computer, NeXT, and Pixar Animation Studios.

Absolutely deservedly and rightly so, Steve Jobs was invited to Stanford University, California. Stanford is ranked among the top universities in the world. Therefore, Steve Jobs faced quite a challenge – with his motivational speech to help students make the right choice and to direct them to the right path.

Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address

Photo: stanford.edu

On June 12, 2005, Steve Jobs gave his famous commencement speech “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish!” to Stanford graduates. 

Did you know?

The text of Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address is hidden in the Apple.txt system file on Mac.

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.”

This is how Steve Jobs begins his famous speech : clearly, honestly, and frankly, thus disposing to himself and focusing everyone’s attention.

Of course, Steve Jobs was a gifted public speaker (remember his successful presentations of Apple products). Therefore, like any professional speaker, Jobs used rhetorical devices, figures, and literary tropes in his speeches.

Read more about rhetorical devices in the post “How to Write a Persuasive Essay and Article: Complete Guide”.

Structure of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech

Steve Jobs’ speech has a classic structure and consists of 3 parts:

• Introduction . 

The introduction includes a greeting and a short preface:

2. The main part.

These are the three stories from Steve Jobs:

“ The first story is about connecting the dots.”

“My second story is about love and loss.” 

“My third story is about death.”

At the end of each story, Steve Jobs draws a conclusion and emphasizes the main idea. For example:

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

3. Conclusion:

“On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.”

The Tone of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech

The tone of the commencement address and the style of presentation are informal (colloquial) with elements of slang:

“I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.” 

Steve Jobs knows and understands his audience very well, talks about simple but important things: family and studies, friends and love, career, ups and downs, life and death.

Steve Jobs’ speech lasted 15 minutes – the perfect time by all the canons of an oratory.

Rhetorical Analysis of the Commencement Speech: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Steve Jobs used three modes of persuasion in his Stanford commencement address – ethos, logos, and pathos.

Used ethos to build trust and gain the favor of the public:

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.” 

“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. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. 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.”

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.”

Logos is a mode of persuasion using logic, common sense, and reason:

“Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.”

“But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.”

Steve Jobs used pathos to emotionally amplify his speech and evoke the necessary response from the public:

“ My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.”

“ I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.”

“I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.” 

“About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.”

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.”

In addition to the basic modes of persuasion, Steve Jobs, a brilliant speaker, used several rhetorical devices in his motivational speech. Let’s consider some of them:

• The rule of three is a rhetorical device that involves the expression of thoughts through three words or phrases. 

Of course, the most striking example of the rule of three is the idea of the commencement speech itself – three stories from Steve Jobs’ life. 

More examples of the rule of three (triad):

• “It was beautiful , historical , artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.” 
• “ It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.” 
• “This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters , scissors and Polaroid cameras .” 
• “Because almost everything — all external expectations , all pride , all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

2. Antithesis is the opposition of words, concepts, and images that are interconnected by common features (contrast):

“If I had never dropped out , I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class…” 

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward ; you can only connect them looking backward .” 

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner.”

“I had been rejected, but I was still in love.”

“because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life… It clears out the old to make way for the new .”

3. A rhetorical question is a question-statement that does not require a direct answer:

• “I really quit. So why did I drop out?” 
• “We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?” 

4. Anaphora is the repetition of the same initial words or sound combinations:

• “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” 
• “ No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”
• “ Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” 
• “And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.” 

5. Lexical repetition is a stylistic figure that consists of the deliberate repetition of the same word or speech construction in a visible section of the text:

• ” Beneath it were the words: “ Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish . And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
• “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories .” 
• “about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great .” 
• “But it was very , very clear looking backward 10 years later.”
• “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out , I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.”
• “And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. 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. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle .”
• ” I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.”
• “Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.”
• “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades.” 

6. Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonants in several words:

• “I was l ucky — I found what I l oved to do ear l y in l ife.”
• “The heaviness of b eing successful was replaced b y the lightness of b eing a b eginner again, less sure about everything.” 
• “all f ear of embarrassment or f ailure — these things just f all away in the f ace of death…” 

7. Comparison :

“I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.” 

8. Metaphor is a hidden comparison, the use of words in a figurative sense based on similarity and analogy with the characteristics of some object or phenomenon (a waterfall of stars, a wall of fire, a pearl of art, a bear of a problem).

Metaphor gives imagery to speech, helps to keep the listener’s attention, and influences their imagination:

• “It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” 
• “the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.” 
• “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.”
• “these things just fall away in the face of death…” 
• “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death…” 
• “There is no reason not to follow your heart”. 

9. Parallelism is the identical or the same construction of various words or sentences of the text:  

• “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.”
• ” 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.”
• “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life… Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
• “It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.” 

In conclusion, I would like to highlight 5 main points that Steve Jobs wanted to convey to graduates of Stanford University:

• Listen to your heart, do not follow someone else’s advice.
• Sometimes you just need to “go with the flow” – to trust God, fate, intuition, or circumstances. And then, looking back – into the past, you will be able to understand why all these events happened in your life.
• Sometimes the worst thing that happened in your life can lead to the best events and changes in the future.
• Do you want to be happy? Love what you are doing.
• The memory of death cleanses a person of all that is unnecessary. Our time is limited. So always “stay hungry, stay foolish”.

Text of Steve Jobs’ commencement speech

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Rhetorical Analysis of Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speech

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On rhetoric and civic life, rhetorical analysis draft: steve jobs’ speech at stanford’s graduation.

Note:  I don’t think that this flows well.  If you could give me advice on how to connect my thoughts more clearly, I would greatly appreciate it.  It think I have the ideas and points down, but I don’t think I developed them as clearly as I could have.  Thanks!

Throughout time, speeches have been remembered because of how they connected with their audiences:  “Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.”  “I have a dream…”  The message that was presented to the listeners of these two famous speeches was presented in a rhetorical manner in which it associated with the people and has lasted through time.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”  That is a quote that has been taken from Steve Jobs’ speech he gave to Stanford’s graduating class of 2005.  What does that mean exactly?  His rhetoric used must have created some link between his message and the intended audience.  Specifically through his ethos, pathos, and structure of his speech, Jobs’ rhetorically backs his arguments.

In most arguments today, facts are given to support claims; however, in Jobs’ case, he presents only his opinion and history as evidence.  Even though this is all he offers, it creates rhetorical backing in ethos.   Through his stories, he creates a persona for himself.  He makes himself out to be a person who carries on even in the darkest of times and who has overcome many obstacles when things didn’t look good.  When trying to teach the audience that failure can sometimes be good, these are important pieces of his persona to establish.  He is known as a successful man and role model already. Developing this persona allows him to connect with his audience even more.

By describing his life events, he creates a person someone would want to become.  If the fact that he was famous didn’t make the audience listen to him, making himself seem more “human” will. He breaks down the wall of the marginal thinking that successful people have just been lucky and have reached the point they are at in their lives because they were handed things on a silver platter. Developing this persona not only creates an argument of ethos, but allows him to win his audience over.  The audience only knows a successful man standing on that stage, not the humble one that is willing to admit the road has been tough.

Sharing his hardships and developing his persona not only creates a rhetorical backing of ethos, but a rhetorical argument of pathos.  He tells the story of how he was fired from Apple.  This is obviously a story about failure.  Any audience, whether it be Stanford’s graduating class of 2005, or a group of random people at Penn State, everybody can relate to failure.  They remember the emotions he must have felt when he lost the company “that [he] spent most of his adult life building.”  This emotional connection only deepens the relationship he has already built with his audience.  Now, they not only want to strive to become him, but have connected with him emotionally.

He also tells the story of his cancer.  He told the audience how he was diagnosed with cancer.  This creates another argument for pathos.  Most people can relate to cancer.  Either they know someone who has cancer, has had cancer themselves, or has read about cancer somewhere.  This again brings emotion back into the picture; he becomes even more connected with his audience.  When trying to prove a point of why time is precious and death can happen at any time, it is essential that he connects his message emotionally with the audience.  People can relate to cancer and they can understand where he is coming from.

The biggest element of his speech that makes it connective and rhetorically sound is the structure of it.  He sets it up topically by including three stories.  The execution of this allows him to make his points and connect his arguments in an organized and systematic manner.  If he were to just spill his points out in random times and in random moments, there would be no connection between them.  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.”

Creating this structure connects three stories with three varying messages.  The first is connecting the dots.  He explains how you can’t connect them forward, but looking back everything connects.  His second was about “love and loss.”  He explains how he lost Apple, but found what he really loves to do.  The last story is about death.  He tells the story of how he had a stroke with death when he dealt with his cancer.  Alone, these stories are sound; but together, they create an overall message.  Piecing the individual stories together in separate sections allows the listener to follow them.  Then, when the end comes, he is able to bring them all together to create an “aha!” moment without interrupting the flow of the speech.

Through establishing his arguments with rhetorical backing, such as ethos and pathos, as well as structuring his essay in a way that is logical, Jobs gets his point across.  His speech is only supported through opinionated and personal examples, but in turn this creates arguments of both ethos and pathos.  Also, by splitting the speech into three sections, or stories if you will, he logically ties the knot between all of his individual points and his overall message.

In time, however, it will be interesting to see if these rhetorical devices create even a stronger rhetorical argument.  Even back in 2005, Jobs was known as a very successful man, and the speech was known to many.  Now that he has passed, his true life’s history and genius is known to everybody.  Looking back at this speech from a current 2013 perspective, after seeing Apple emerge as an industrial powerhouse, we can see where it all began and what this man had to go through, making his stories a more deeper.

One thought on “ Rhetorical Analysis Draft: Steve Jobs’ Speech at Stanford’s Graduation ”

I’m writing this as I read, so I can remember everything I think of to advise. I’m going to try to write a little blurb for each paragraph in chronological order, so you can understand my thoughts! I would recommend combining your first two paragraphs to make one introductory paragraph. After the “stay hungry, stay foolish” quote, I would remove the that and just say foolish” is a quote. I also advise removing the must (to sound confident in your belief) and combining your last two sentences for your thesis: “His rhetoric used created some link between his message and the intended audience; specifically through his ethos, pathos, and structure of his speech, Jobs’ rhetorically backs his arguments.” Just an idea of another way to compose your thesis. Maybe add one more concluding sentence to bring it back to the idea of ethos, before starting your next paragraph. I think you could combine the two paragraphs on pathos, but it flows nicely without them joined together as well. If you join them, I would change the last sentence to include failure, maybe something like: People can relate to cancer, just like they can relate to failure, and they can understand where he is coming from. Something is awkward about this wording, ” connective and rhetorically sound,” I don’t know how to fix it. I would again combine the three paragraphs on structure to improve flow. You might want to consider adding a concluding statement on the structure, before going into your conclusion paragraph. Your ending paragraph is really strong, and I like that you bring to view the 2013 perspective. My only recommendation is to check your wording on the first sentence. I really like your paper and I think you include all of the required content, claims/evidence, organization, and style. The only thing I can think of to improve your paper is to add some more quotes from the speech, so we have a better idea of the style of the speech. Great job, I think your final paper will be really great!

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Steve Jobs’ Stanford Speech Rhetorical Strategies Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Public speaking is never easy. Whenever addressing a certain sort of audience, one must take into considerations the key features of the people who the given speech is aimed at and, therefore, develop an elaborate speech strategy, combining different rhetoric strategies to win the audience’s attention. Analyzing examples of public speeches and specifying the means which are used in the latter to address the audience properly, one will be able to see the way in which different rhetoric strategies can be implemented and what effect these strategies have on people. The topic of the given paper is the analysis of major rhetorical strategies, taking Steve Jobs’ speech at Stanford Commencement as an example.

Speaking of the goals which Steve Jobs pursued when having a public speech in front of the students of the Stanford University, one has to mention that these goals had nothing to do with Jobs’ company, product advertisement or anything of the kind. Quite on the contrary, it seems that Jobs was aiming at telling the students the secrets of how to succeed in their own life, sharing his experience with the youth.

The first strategy to spot in Steve Jobs’ performance is the so-called argument from analogy. Jobs emphasizes from the very start that he is going to speak about three different issues, or, to be more exact, three different experiences in his life; however, as Jobs implies, these experiences are all aimed at conveying a single message to the students. Jobs claims that these are just three stories and nothing more: “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories” (Jobs); however, the fact that he picked three particular stories speaks for itself – it is obvious that these stories are somewhat tied to the fact that the speech is meant for students. Judging by the above-mentioned, one can claim with certainty that Steve’s here stories are supposed to help the students understand that life experiences can be hard, but it does not mean that, when encountering the first obstacle, they have no other choice but to lay down and die. And, to convey this idea, Steve uses all sorts of rhetorical devices, both entertaining the audience and getting his message across in a very successful way. Hence, argument from analogy was the first strategy which Jobs used in his speech.

Another peculiar rhetorical strategy which one can track if following the chain of Steve’s arguments is narration. As it has already been mentioned, Steve tells the stories which occurred in his own life; moreover, he tells about his experiences in a chronological order, which can be defined as a narrative rhetorical strategy. One can argue, however, that Steve does not mention any concrete dates in his speech, which triggers considerable doubts about the chronology of the stories in his speech. However, there are certain issues brought up in the speech, which allow to suggest at what time or how long certain event took place. For instance, in the first story, Steve tells about his experience as a student, the second one mentions him as a member of Apple, and the third relates to the operation which he underwent.

The latter event is obviously the logical continuation of the previous two. It is necessary to mention, though, that the logical thread of Jobs’ narration is interrupted at certain points with flashbacks into the previous experience. For example, when telling about his third experience with the disease, he mentions the quote which he came across in his teen years: “When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’” (Jobs).

One more curious rhetorical strategy which Steve Jobs uses only in the end of his speech and which is not encountered elsewhere in the Stamford performance is repetition. As it has already been mentioned above, when talking about one of the things that inspired him for his further discoveries and the development of a brand-new company with brand-new services, Jobs mentioned The Whole Earth Catalogue, in which the author addressed the readers in the following way: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” (Jobs). He repeats these words in the very end of his speech as well, right before saying goodbye to his audience and thanking them of attention. Hence, the importance of these words, which has already been emphasized by repetition, is tripled. Therefore, in the given example, a case of using two rhetorical strategies at the same time can be spotted; one of them is repetition, and the other one is leaving the key message of the speech at its very end. There is no need to mention that the given technique works perfectly well; out of all the things that Jobs said in his speech, the latter words will be remembered best – moreover, they will be memorized for good.

Finally, it is crucial that Steve Jobs uses in his speech such strategy as analogy. And, which is even more important, Jobs does not simply use it once in his speech – on the contrary, he is constantly driving parallels between various, seemingly unrelated to each other issues. To start with, Jobs compares his company to the Google Corporation: “It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions” (Jobs). The given strategy might seem somewhat risky for the Apple Corporation, since Google is one of its major rivals, and drawing attention to the given company when mentioning Apple can possibly trigger people’s interest in Google rather than Apple. However, the nonchalant manner in which Jobs compares the two also presupposes that Apple is such a great company that it does not fear giving credit to their rivals.

Thus, it can be considered that Steve Jobs’ speech is a graphic example of the use of several most essential rhetorical strategies. With the help of these strategies, Jobs managed to capture the students’ attention in the least obtrusive way. Moreover, with the help of carefully picked strategies Jobs managed to present his speech in such a way that the students would not take it as another lecture; while talking about serious and important things, Steve Jobs told a couple of jokes that made some good laughs; all in all, the given speech is a perfect example of an entertaining learning process, when the necessary information is offered as a string of amusing stories and witty ideas, which is a result of using the aforementioned rhetorical strategies.

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Steve Jobs — Analysis Of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech

Analysis of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech

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Published: Dec 3, 2020

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Works Cited

• Apple Inc. (n.d.). About Apple: The company. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/about/
• Gates, B. (2011). Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Time, 178(16), 42.
• Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. Simon & Schuster.
• Jobs, S. (2005). Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech. Stanford Report. Retrieved from https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/
• Levy, S. (2015). The Apple revolution: Steve Jobs, the counterculture and how the crazy ones took over the world. Back Bay Books.
• Lashinsky, A. (2012). Inside Apple: How America's most admired—and secretive—company really works. Business Plus.
• Markoff, J. (2011). Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, dies at 56. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/business/steve-jobs-of-apple-dies-at-56.html
• Schlender, B., & Tetzeli, R. (2015). Becoming Steve Jobs: The evolution of a reckless upstart into a visionary leader. Crown Business.
• Simon, W. L. (2015). The Steve Jobs way: iLeadership for a new generation. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Wozniak, S., & Smith, G. (2006). iWoz: Computer geek to cult icon: How I invented the personal computer, co-founded Apple, and had fun doing it. W. W. Norton & Company.

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Steve Jobs – Figures of Speech

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Introduction

Steve Jobs uses various different rhetorical measures to create emotional appeals in the audience. Some rhetorical figures and other elements may not be used without direct intention or even by accident. An indirect intentional use would be if a speaker wanted to create a certain effect and choose unconsciously an according action, e.g., a rhetorical figure. In this article we take a closer look on his use of figures of speech in the iPhone Presentation (MacWorld 2007 Keynote).

Jobs uses various rhetorical figures of speech. He applies these figures mostly in parts that appear to be well prepared, an indicator for these parts is is the low frequency of “uh”s and generally the style has a higher level in these areas, e.g., less colloquial language. Steve Jobs used figures of speech in his previous speeches, for an analysis of Steve Jobs Commencement Speech at Stanford University in 2005, take a look at the public speaking blog “Six Minutes” from the coach and public speaker Andrew Dlugan.

Rhetorical figures create certain impressions at the audience, yet these impressions depend on the context. Due to the large number of figures a description of the effects of each figure is omitted. What follows is a brief description of the structure of the applied figures with examples from the keynote in combination with an approximate timestamp. Since many figures are used in combination a note is added in parenthesis, if there is more than one figure present in a word sequence.

Figures of Speech used by Steve Jobs

Here is a list of the used figures with selected examples from the speech; roughly ordered by the frequency of appearances in descending order:

• Interrogatio is a rhetorical question, thus the answer is self-evident from the situation of the speaker.
• “…and I’d love to show it [a new ad] to you now, if you’d like to see it?” ([00:03:39])
• “Isn’t that unbelievable?” ([00:06:26])
• “Isn’t that incredible?” ([00:07:34])
• “Want to see that again?” ([00:41:47])
• “Pretty cool, huh?” ([00:47:30])
• Anaphora is the repetition of a beginning word (sequence) after a comma or colon.
• “As you know, we’ve got the.. the iPod, best music player in the world. We’ve got the iPod nanos, brand new models, colors are back. We’ve got the amazing new iPod Shuffle.” ([0:05:01])
• “We solved it in computers 20 years ago. We solved it with a bit-mapped screen that could display anything we want. Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. Right? We solved this problem.” ([00:32:27])
• Epiphora is the repetition of a concluding word (sequence) before a comma or colon. Most epiphoras are used in combination with anaphoras, thus they become symplokes.
• “Well, these are their these are their home screens. And again, as you recall, this is iPhone’s home screen. uhm this this is what their contacts look like. This is what iPhone’s contacts look like, and again,” ([01:27:23])
• Symploke is the combination of one or several anaphora(s) with one or several epiphora(s).
• “Our new colleagues at Intel really helped us. Thank you very much. Our thir… Our third-party developers rapidly moving their apps to universal versions to run at native speeds on Intel processors. Thank you very much.” ([00:02:02])
• “In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh, it didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry. In 2001, we introduced the first iPod, and… it didn’t just – it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry.” ([00:27:12] with parallelism and geminatio)
• “We’re gonna use the best pointing device in the world. We’re gonna use a pointing device that we’re all born with – we’re born with ten of them. We’re gonna use our fingers. We’re gonna touch this with our fingers.” ([00:33:33])
• “The first rich html e-mail on a phone. The first real Web browser on a phone.” ([01:15:35])
• Geminatio is the repetition of a word or word group within one sentence.
• “That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.” ([00:06:26] with syndeton, parallelism, and climax.)
• “And the problem is that they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use, so if you kinda make a… Business School 101 graph of the smart axis and the easy-to-use axis, phones, regular cell phones are kinda right there, they’re not so smart, and they’re – you know – not so easy to use.” ([00:30:28])
• “And so I’ve got voice mail how I wanna listen to it, when I wanna listen to it, in any order I wanna listen to it with visual voice mail.” ([00:56:49] with asyndeton)
• Subiectio is a mock dialogue (thus a monologue) with question and answer, included in the speech to enhance the line of thought.
• “What does this mean? It means you can take one of the computers in your house, and right from iTunes, just like you would set up an iPod, you could set up your Apple TV.” ([0:15:00], with exemplum)
• “Well, how do you solve this? Hmm. It turns out, we have solved it!” ([00:32:27] with exclamatio)
• “And, what’s wrong with their user interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 there. It’s, it’s this stuff right here.” ([00:31:33], with the message visually underlined on the slides)
• “How many of you do that? I bet more than a few.” ([00:49:19])
• Apostrophe is the turning away from the normal audience to another audience.
• “Phil, what do you got on your MacBook. You got some content we could watch?” [00:23:31]
• Exclamatio is an exclamation that expresses the emotional affection of the speaker.
• “I just take my unit here, and I turn it landscape mode, oh, look what happens! I’m in cover flow.” ([00:43:43])
• “The killer app is making calls!” ([00:49:04])
• “Wah, whoa, what is this?” ([00:52:30])
• “Oh, look, Apple’s up! That’s great!” ([01:11:13])
• Onomatopoeia is the use or invention a word whose sound imitates that which it names, due to the union of phonetics and semantics.
• “Boom.” (several times)
• Hyperbole is an exaggeration of the characteristics of an object or circumstance.
• “We also have the coolest photo management app uh ever, certainly on a mobile device, but I think maybe ever.” ([00:58:42])
• “It’s the coolest one that we’ve ever seen.” ([01:29:12])
• “Best version of Google Maps on the planet, widgets, and all with Edge and wi-fi networking.” ([01:15:56])
• “It’s the ultimate digital device.” ([01:30:53])
• Simile is an explicit comparison between two things, usually using “as” or “like”.
• “It [multitouch] works like magic.” ([00:33:33])
• “Now, software on mobile phones is like is like baby software.” ([00:34:55])
• “Just like you’d set up an iPod or an Apple TV. And you set up what you want synced to your iPhone. And it’s just like an iPod. Charge and sync. So sync with iTunes.” ([00:37:55])
• “Same as a BlackBerry.” ([01:03:51])
• Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound beginnings, especially of consonants, of at least two successive or neighboring words of a syntactical unit.
• “there was an article recently that said iTunes sales had slowed dramatically.” ([00:06:26])
• “Well, we don’t have data for December yet,” ([00:09:23])
• “It doesn’t work because the buttons and the controls can’t change. They can’t change…” ([00:32:22])
• “Now, we’ve also got some stuff you can’t see.” ([00:39:38])
• “I’ve got a camera here so you can see what I’m doing with my finger for a few seconds.” ([00:41:47])
• “And the third app I wanna show you as part of the phone package is photos.” ([00:58:42])
• “Starbucks, so I’m gonna search for Starbucks, and sure enough, there’s all the Starbucks.” ([01:13:02])
• Aporia is a (feigned) statement of doubt by the speaker and a question to the audience, about how he should act.
• “Now, how are we gonna communicate this? We don’t wanna carry around a mouse, right? So what are we gonna do?” ([00:32:54])
• “Well, how do I scroll through my lists of artists? How do I do this?” ([00:42:29])
• “So what should we price it at? Well, what do these things normally cost?” ([01:30:53])
• “What should we charge for iPhone?” ([01:31:46])
• “So how much more than $499 should we price iPhone?” ( [01:32:15])
• Climax is the increase from a weaker to a stronger expression. Thus, a word (sequence) is arranged in ascending order.
• “But smart phones are definitely a little smarter, but they actually are harder to use. They’re really complicated. Just for the basic stuff a hard time figuring out how to use them.” ([00:30:41])
• “First was the mouse. The second was the click wheel. And now, we’re gonna bring multi-touch to the market.” ([00:34:20])
• “And rather than just give you a WAP version of the New York Times, rather than give you this wrapped version all around, we’re showing you the whole New York Times Web site, and there it is.” ([01:08:00]; also includes a geminatio (”rather than”))
• “Wouldn’t it be great – if you didn’t – if you had six voice mails if you didn’t have to listen to five of them first before you wanted to listen to the sixth? Wouldn’t that be great if you had random access voice mail? Well, we’ve got it.” ([0:49:58] with interrogatio and anaphora)
• Asyndeton is a sequence of words or similar expression without the use of conjunctions.
• “We’ve got movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, photos.” ([00:16:06])
• “But it also syncs a ton of data: Your contacts, your calendars and your photos, which you can get on your iPod today, your notes, your..your bookmarks from your Web browser, your e-mail accounts, your whole e-mail set-up.” ([00:37:19])
• “Thinner than the Q, thinner than the BlackJack, thinner than all of them.” ([00:38:31] with anaphora.)
• “A lot of custom silicon. Tremendous power management. OSX inside a mobile device. Featherweight precision enclosures. Three advanced sensors.” ([01:30:00])
• Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of a sentence or sequence that is also the first word of the following sentence or sequence.
• “And they garnered two percent market share. Two percent market share. uh iPod had 62 percent market share, and the rest had 36.” ([00:09:43])
• “And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application. Well, every application wants a slightly different user interface, a slightly optimized set of buttons, just for it.” ([00:32:07])
• “It doesn’t work because the buttons and the controls can’t change. They can’t change for each application, and they can’t change down the road if you think of another great idea you wanna add to this product.” ([00:32:22])
• Personification is the attribution of human properties towards things or animals. In the following examples “it” refers to the iPhone.
• “It already knows how to power manage.” ([00:35:00])
• “And if there’s a new message it will tell me.” ([00:57:27])
• “Now it knows who Phil is cause he is in my address book.” ([01:25:00])
• Polyptoton is the repetition of the same word but in a different form. In the following cases for verbs:
• “Ok, now, you also can’t think about the Internet without thinking about Yahoo.” ([01:19:51])
• “It automatically pairs with iPhone so you don’t have to worry about pairing.” ([01:29:00])
• Antitheton is the opposition of two facts of contrasting content. The opposite may be expressed in speech by means of single words, word groups, or sentences.
• “They all have these keyboards that are there whether you need them or not to be there.” ([00:31:43], also a geminatio “there”)
• “The kind of things you would find on a typical phone, but in a very untypical way now.” ([00:50:00])
• Euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or non-offensive expression for one whose ordinary meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.
• “We wanted the best web browser in the world on our phone, not a baby web browser or a WAP browser, a real Web browser, and we picked the best one in the world, Safari, and we have Safari running on iPhone.” ([01:02:00])
• Confessio is the confession of an error or weak spot. In its original form it was the confession of an error towards the opposition.
• “… so I’ll probably stumble and call this iTV five times today by mistake. I apologize. So Apple TV.” ([00:12:32])
• “And I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” ([01:44:14])
• “It does error prot uh prevention and correction. Not that I won’t make some, I probably will.” ([00:57:45])
• Distributio is the division of the main concept in sub concepts. Due to expended visualization the main concept gains a greater importance.
• “So, three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone … are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.” ([0:28:44] with parallelism)
• “So, Internet communicator, an iPod and a phone.” ([01:23:20])
• Polysyndeton is the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses.
• “It’s got everything from Cocoa and the graphics and it’s got core animation built in and it’s got the audio and video that OSX is famous for.” ([0:35:43] with geminatio)
• Metaphor is a “comparison made by referring to one thing as another.” Steve Jobs seems to prefer the figure simile to metaphor.
• “A huge, heart transplant to Intel microprocessors.” ([00:01:03])
• “What we wanna do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use.” ([00:30:53])
• Allusio is an implicit reference to an opus, text, person, etc.
• “He told me this, he said, you had me at scrolling.” ([00:48:45]; is a reference to the movie Jerry Maguire, with the quote “you had me at hello”.)
• Anastrophe is the reversal of the normal sequence of two words in direct succession.
• “… and they all have these plastic little keyboards on them.” (instead of “little plastic”; [00:30:00])
• “And boy, have we patented it.” (instead of “we have”; [00:33:54])
• “… and up pop my favorites , …” ([00:54:30])
• Ambiguity is the polysemy of a word (sequence).
• “And you can guess who our next Target might be.” ([00:06:59]; “Target” is a chain of discount department stores and was selling more music than Apple.)
• Irony is the expression of something by means of a word or sentence that describes the opposite.
• “Oh, a stylus, right? We’re gonna use a stylus.” ([00:33:00])

Distribution and Usage of Figures of Speech in different Parts of the Presentation

The frequency of figures is not constant throughout the keynote. For the upcoming analysis the keynote was separated in five different parts, which are named Beginning, iPhone Intro, iPhone Demo, Summary, and Fade-out. The following analysis relates the frequency of the figures to that of the “uh”s. Here you can find a complete transcript of the iPhone keynote (MacWorld 2007) .

The size of the transcript was used in relationship to the distribution of figures and “uh”s, since it is difficult to use the time as an indicator, because there are various interruptions in form of advertisements, video clips, guest speakers, and other performances. Therefore, the size of the transcript without timestamps is used.

In the first 26 minutes, before the iPhone is presented, there are only a few figures. Also the number of “uh”s is about 55, which is nearly one third of all “uh”s in the whole keynote. The intro takes up about one quarter (23 %) of the transcripted text.

From [00:26:22] to [00:41:08], where Steve Jobs talks about the iPhone before he shows it to the audience, the use of figures is the highest in the keynote. This part takes a little less than 16 % of the whole transcripted text, but only about 2 % of the number of “uh”s. Thus, there is a strong negative correlation between the number of “uh”s and the usage of figures of speech. Additionally, the complexity of the figures of speech is high.

In the part from [0:41:10] to [1:26:56], where the iPhone is presented in detail during various demos, the use of figures is low to moderate, yet most figures are questioning figures like subiecto (self-answered questions) and the interrogatio (rhetorical questions) or simple effects like hyperboles (exaggerations) and onomatopoeia (”boom”). This part takes a little more than 43 % of the whole transcripted text and nearly 58 % of the number of “uh”s. Due to the many tech demos this is not unsurprisingly. The aforementioned figures fit to this purpose, because they are not too elaborate, yet provide aesthetics and certain degree of variation. Additionally, a lot of these figures are seen as the trademark phrases of Steve Jobs.

From [01:27:00] to [01:45:20] Steve Jobs makes a summary about the iPhone, then he continues with the price and the market. In this section of the keynote, the quantity and complexity of the figures is the second largest in the keynote. The “uh”s account for almost 5 % of all “uh”s in the keynote, whereas this part contains about 14 % of the transcripted text. This part uses mainly rhythm and speed figures, like long anaphoras (repetition of the beginning) and asyndetons (no use of conjunctions). Additionally, Steve Jobs used the aporia extensively, when he asked the audience how much Apple should price the iPhone.

The fadeout of the keynote lasts from about [1:45:21] to the end, where Steve Jobs thanks the families and introduces John Mayer. It contains almost 5 % “uh”s, which is the same number as the previous part. Yet, it amounts for only 2.5 % of text.

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The Enduring Impact of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address

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Who’d Want to Give a Commencement Speech Anymore?

Executive communications experts say the gig is becoming a harder sell for business leaders.

By Sarah Kessler ,  Lauren Hirsch and Michael J. de la Merced

Tim Cook has delivered at least seven commencement addresses since becoming the chief executive of Apple. The superstar Taylor Swift, whose concerts have been credited with lifting local economies, addressed New York University’s graduation ceremony in 2022. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Dimon — they’ve all given graduation speeches more than once.

They’re obviously not doing it for the money (and typically there isn’t any). Instead, speakers have long seen graduation ceremonies as offering something increasingly rare: a stage where a large group of people gather to hear speakers impart wisdom, advice or whatever else they want to talk about.

The appeal of being a commencement speaker, however, seems to be waning.

Just three Fortune 50 chief executives appear to be commencement speakers this year, as colleges have faced campus protests over the war in Gaza, student arrests and wealthy alumni threatening to break ties with their alma maters over antisemitism.

“The idea of C.E.O.s going out aggressively and speaking anywhere near this environment on campuses, it just doesn’t seem like the moment for them to be doing that,” said David Murray, the executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association.

C.E.O.s are tired of talking. At a recent meeting of executive speechwriters, Murray said one takeaway stood out. As one presenter put it, “ Less is more, in ’24.”

Murray highlighted the sentiment in the Professional Speechwriters Association’s May newsletter: “Folks will increasingly keep their leaders out of the spotlight,” he wrote, describing the current moment as one in which “even formerly anodyne messages encouraging employees to vote” sound partisan to some.

That approach marks a drastic evolution from when executives made statements in droves after the death of a Black man, George Floyd, in police custody in 2020. “They didn’t get rewarded for it,” Murray said. “They got called woke. One group said they didn’t go far enough, one group said they went too far, and now they’re definitely in a phase of, ‘We comment on things that absolutely have essential bearing on our company and our business.’”

Campuses reflect an era of division. Before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the war in Gaza and the campus protests that followed, the City University of New York School of Law announced that it would have no commencement speaker . The school had faced a backlash when speakers at previous commencements focused on their support for Palestinians. After protests on campus related to the war, and the ensuing controversy over how school administrations handled them, Columbia University announced that it would cancel its main commencement ceremony altogether . And across the country, as many ceremonies carried on without disruption, several have been interrupted by protests and walkouts , sometimes targeted at the school’s choice of speaker .

Michael Franklin, the executive director of the industry association Speechwriters of Color, said speechwriters are increasingly preparing for disruption. “A new part of the package this year, in addition to the remarks that they would deliver, is also having some alternative transition remarks in the event of a disruption,” he said.

Some executives prefer chats to speeches. The chief executive of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, accepted an honorary Ph.D. at Georgia Tech this year, but did not give a commencement speech. Instead, at a special ceremony in January, he delivered a five-minute speech , left the stage to remove his graduation robes, and returned for a “fireside chat” with the school’s president, Ángel Cabrera.

“They love fireside chats,” Murray said of executives. “They want to sit down, have a chummy conversation, look charming, be charming. Say short things, kind of stick to their key messages.”

Kate Linkous, an executive vice president in Edelman’s corporate reputation practice, said she’s also noticed more conferences replacing their keynote speeches with fireside chats. “The commencement speech is one of our last few brilliant examples of a long-form speech,” she said.

Will the commencement address as we know it survive? One potential outcome is that the address just becomes boring, as speakers focus on avoiding controversy. “Whenever you’re in a position of trying to sand something down, you end up appealing to no one and saying nothing,” said Ben Krauss, a former speechwriter for Joe Biden and other politicians and the chief executive of the speech writing and strategic communications firm Fenway Strategies. His advice?

“People have been protesting commencements for as long as there have been commencements,” he said. “If someone interrupts, someone interrupts. That’s just kind of a natural feature of human communication.” — Sarah Kessler

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The N.C.A.A. signed a potentially historic settlement. The college sports association and several top conferences agreed to a $2.8 billion pact that would pay student athletes for playing. If approved by a federal judge, the plan would be the biggest step yet in erasing the idea that college stars are amateurs — but skeptics worry the plan doesn’t resolve a number of major issues.

Nikki Haley opened the door for her donors to back Donald Trump. The former Republican presidential hopeful said she would vote for her onetime rival in November, seemingly making peace with a man she had castigated during the Republican primary. That could give cover to deep-pocketed benefactors like the hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin to give money to Trump, whose campaign fund-raising has trailed President Biden’s. Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone chief, said this week that he would back Trump .

Scarlett Johansson took on OpenAI. The actress, who played an A.I. assistant in the movie “Her,” accused the tech start-up of using a sound-alike voice for the latest version of its ChatGPT chatbot — after she turned the company down. The dispute reflected eroding trust in OpenAI and its chief, Sam Altman; Hollywood’s conflicted relationship with A.I.; and Silicon Valley’s continued tolerance of start-ups asking for forgiveness instead of permission .

The Justice Department sued Live Nation over its dominance of live entertainment. The antitrust suit accused the Ticketmaster parent of maintaining an illegal monopoly by locking venues and artists into exclusive contracts and threatening retribution to rivals. It’s the latest instance of the Biden administration’s crackdown on what it sees as unfair competition, and comes despite Live Nation’s endorsement of some aspects of the White House’s fight against so-called “junk fees.”

The F.D.I.C.’s chair said he planned to resign. Martin Gruenberg agreed to step down after losing Democratic support over what reports said was a toxic culture at the banking regulator. Republicans said that Gruenberg, who said he’ll leave when a replacement is in place, should go immediately, as Democrats seek to preserve their majority at an agency tasked with drafting tough new banking regulations.

The bankruptcy blame game

Red Lobster made news this week when it blamed its all-you-can-eat shrimp deal for helping tip the company into bankruptcy . The claim was part of what’s known as a first-day declaration, a legal filing that companies in bankruptcy make to explain why they ran into trouble.

These declarations are written carefully and strategically. A company “usually wants to present itself as the honest but unfortunate debtor,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told DealBook. “It’s in bankruptcy for reasons that were not about bad management, but about just things out of its control in the world.”

That’s why so many companies that file for Chapter 11 protection cite macroeconomic trends or quirky exogenous factors, despite other issues being more culpable. In Red Lobster’s case, the company was dealing with expensive leases and the same challenges facing other casual dining companies.

The unlimited shrimp promotion — the brainchild of Red Lobster’s former chief, reportedly in conjunction with Thai Union, the chain’s parent — is unlikely to have been a primary cause for the filing. “The dollar value is not big enough, and it’s a little too indirect,” Vincent Buccola, a bankruptcy professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told DealBook. (His guess: Red Lobster’s current management may be trying to imply the threat of future litigation against Thai Union. Thai Union, for its part, has denied the accusation. )

But it got DealBook thinking: What other unexpected factors have companies blamed for their bankruptcies?

Low-carb diets: The parent company of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, Interstate Bakeries, filed for bankruptcy in 2004, citing low-carb eating as a cause as the Atkins diet became all the rage. That said, the company also carried about $1.3 billion in debt, and had been criticized by analysts for a lack of innovation and high labor costs. The company filed for bankruptcy again in 2012 .

Twinkies ultimately had a happy ending: The investment firm Apollo Global Management and the financier Dean Metropoulos acquired the Hostess brand name and took that business through one of the most successful corporate transformations in recent memory. After going public in 2016, Hostess was sold to J.M. Smucker for $5.6 billion last year.

A helium shortage: Party City filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, blaming in part a global helium shortage driven by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the retailer carried about $1.7 billion in debt and was still reeling from the pandemic, which had disrupted supply chains and put a damper on festive gatherings. (Its founder also blamed the store’s high prices ).

Party City emerged from bankruptcy in October after eliminating about $1 billion in debt and closing less profitable stores.

People fleeing Manhattan: When the luxury home goods retailer ABC Carpet & Home filed for bankruptcy in 2021, among the factors it cited was the “mass exodus of current and prospective customers leaving the city” during the pandemic. But the company had also been fighting with its landlord and fallen behind on its digital presence , which became a problem once the pandemic hit.

The retailer, which still operates its multicolor Manhattan store, later emerged from bankruptcy and was sold to an investment firm .

The numerical case for giving Elon Musk a big payday

Tesla this week pressed its case to investors that they should again approve Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package at the electric auto maker’s annual meeting next month. The company said the compensation plan, which a judge struck down in January, did what it was supposed to do: motivate Musk to lead the company to significant growth. That included Tesla’s total shareholder return, which vastly outstripped those of other tech giants — the so-called Magnificent 7 — from March 2018, when shareholders first approved Musk’s pay deal , to the end of 2023.

“A deal should be a deal: Stockholders approved the plan. Elon hit the targets. We should hold up our end of the deal,” the company wrote in its presentation.

It’s worth noting that Tesla this year is the worst performing Magnificent 7 stock, down roughly 28 percent as of Friday’s market close.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you Tuesday.

We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected] .

Sarah Kessler is an editor for the DealBook newsletter and writes features on business and how workplaces are changing. More about Sarah Kessler

Lauren Hirsch joined The Times from CNBC in 2020, covering deals and the biggest stories on Wall Street. More about Lauren Hirsch

Michael de la Merced joined The Times as a reporter in 2006, covering Wall Street and finance. Among his main coverage areas are mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies and the private equity industry. More about Michael J. de la Merced

The Campus Protests Over the Gaza War

News and Analysis

​Harvard said that it will no longer take positions on matters outside of the university , accepting the recommendations of a faculty committee that urged the school to reduce its messages on issues of the day.

​Weeks after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, the university police have made the first arrest related to the attack .

​​A union for academic workers in the University of California system announced that an ongoing strike challenging the system’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations would extend to two more campuses , U.C.L.A. and U.C. Davis.

The Battle Over College Speech:  ​University demonstrations over the war in Gaza have reignited the debate over campus speech, and have led to a rethinking of who sets the terms for language in academia .

Making Sense of the Protests:  In the weeks leading up to graduation, our reporter spoke with more than a dozen students at Columbia University and Barnard College about how the campus protests had shaped them .

A Complex Summer:  Many university leaders and officials may be confronting federal investigations, disputes over student discipline  — and the prospect that the protests start all over again in the fall.

A New Litmus Test:  Some Jewish students say their views on Zionism — which are sometimes assumed — have affected their social life on campus .

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The Faculty Senate voted Thursday to create an ad hoc committee on university speech following a robust discussion focused on academic freedom.

The Faculty Senate voted to create an ad hoc committee on university speech and heard a presentation on the COLLEGE undergraduate requirement program in Thursday’s meeting. (Image credit: Harry Gregory)

The vote came after some faculty voiced concerns at the last senate meeting about a perceived threat to academic freedom – both at Stanford and nationwide – and a language initiative that garnered heavy media coverage over winter break.

Senators also heard a presentation about the Civil, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE) first-year undergraduate requirement program.

In remarks to the senate, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne noted that faculty have reached out with concerns about the national environment for scholars engaged in international collaborations and in particular about attacks and accusations directed at scholars who are Americans of Chinese descent or Chinese nationals.

A response has been posted to the website of the Global Engagement Review Program, which provides information about issues regarding foreign engagement at Stanford. The letter includes resources available to scholars.

Stanford takes seriously threats from foreign governments to the security and integrity of the research environment, Tessier-Lavigne said.

Yet, inflammatory rhetoric and generalized accusations have caused some researchers in the U.S. to feel targeted and vulnerable due to their relationships with and collaborations in China, he continued. “Stanford pursues its mission drawing on the talents and contributions of a diverse international community of students and scholars,” Tessier-Lavigne said. “Likewise, engagement and collaboration with international partners are essential to our efforts to develop knowledge and innovations for some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

Academic freedom

Senators voted to establish the Ad Hoc Committee on University Speech to assess whether there are constraints on academic freedom and speech, to share findings with the university, and to recommend changes, if necessary, as to how the senate conducts oversight of the issue.

On Jan. 26, the Faculty Senate postponed a motion to establish an ad hoc committee after senators agreed more time was needed to consider the matter.

The ad hoc committee will report to the senate on issues such as how faculty should approach the “ ‘right’ of speech, and associated responsibilities, in an academic environment.” Read the full approved motion here .

While considering the motion to establish the committee, senators voted to make several amendments. Much of the lengthy discussion focused on a proposed amendment to specify support for programs to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the exchange of ideas at Stanford from David Palumbo-Liu , the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and professor of comparative literature. The amendment failed following discussion of how it may affect the committee’s work.

Philip Levis , professor of computer science and of electrical engineering, argued that the idea that primacy of speech could trump all university concerns or responsibilities is not true. “We care about speech, and we care about everyone participating in speech,” Levis said. “And in the end, these efforts of diversity, equity, and inclusion are about helping people who have been historically excluded or inhibited from speech being able to participate.”

Larry Diamond , senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution , and professor, by courtesy, of sociology and of political science, said including language referencing DEI “could be interpreted as applauding generally all programs that are seeking to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, and frankly, I think there are many people that have some concerns about some specific programs, one of which is what triggered this entire conversation.”

The Ad Hoc Committee on University Speech will report its findings and recommendations to the senate in the 2023-24 academic year, and an interim report will be provided to explain the committee’s work process. The committee will include up to seven academic council members as the committee’s voting members, and no more than four non-academic council members and staff can be appointed as ex-officio non-voting members.

“One of the things I hope this committee will do is examine carefully how we need to think of academic freedom and academic responsibility in the light of the wide and weird dissemination and influences, like doxxing, that social media and the internet have,” added David Spiegel , the Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor of Medicine.

Stanford’s COLLEGE program, which began rolling out in academic year 2021-22, is designed to provide a unifying intellectual experience, establish a foundation and capacity for exploration, and develop critical and ethical thinking skills for new undergraduates, said Dan Edelstein , the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and professor, by courtesy, of history and of political science.

Edelstein provided senators with an update on the program, along with Emily Levine , associate professor of education, and by courtesy, of history; Dustin Schroeder, associate professor of geophysics and of electrical engineering, and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment; and Parna Sengupta , associate vice provost and director of Stanford Introductory Studies.

COLLEGE is administered by Stanford Introductory Studies, part of the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education , and overseen by a first-year governing board with close quality control over the classes.

A distinctive feature of the program is that all students in the fall and winter quarters take a version of the same course. Instruction is delivered in a discussion seminar capped at 16 students, which is “essential for meeting our learning goals,” Edelstein said.

COLLEGE courses are taught by a mix of faculty, lecturers, and fellows. The fall and winter courses are designed so that any faculty member, regardless of discipline, can teach the course, alone or with a co-instructor, Edelstein said, while any faculty member can propose a spring quarter course.

In the fall, students reflect on their own education and purpose; in the winter, on how to live in and organize a society with people who are very different from themselves; and in the spring, on what it means to think globally about issues and challenges. COLLEGE aims to spark discussions on these topics that continue outside the classroom.

The program’s Why College syllabus currently incorporates one of the books from the university’s Three Books program, and the author is invited to Stanford during fall quarter. Due to this model’s success, COLLEGE will absorb the entire Three Books program and distribute the texts across three quarters, Sengupta said.

A multi-modal assessment plan has been developed to combine surveys, evaluations, interviews, and direct analysis of student work to ascertain whether the program is working, Levine said.

Feedback thus far has generally been very positive, she said, with a small number of critiques about the amount of reading as well as that the course is required. Also, nearly every COLLEGE instructor who isn’t going on leave has signed up to teach it again, Levine said, citing helpful support like the detailed lesson notes and activities provided.

The citizenship course is running 78 concurrent sections and enrolls more than 1,100 students, nearly four times more than last year, Schroeder said. A study of last year’s citizenship course reveals many encouraging outcomes but also challenges: while 58% of students reported feeling comfortable stating their opinion in class, 30% of students do not for fear of “getting canceled,” Schroeder said.

“That’s one of the issues we’re hoping to improve this year, but it also highlights the importance of having such a class,” he added.

A survey found that pre-quarter, 34% of students “often” or “very often” stay informed about challenges facing citizenship while that number rises to 75% post-quarter, Schroeder said. The number of students who reported they “strived to stay informed as a citizen” increased from less than 1% to 46%.

At the end of the program’s pilot phase in academic year 2025-26, the program’s creators will request a full three-quarter implementation of the requirement. Edelstein asked senators to share what kinds of data and information they may want to review in making a decision about COLLEGE’s future.

Senators widely praised the program. Susan McConnell , the Susan B. Ford Professor and professor of biology, said she was intrigued by the use of contract grading and asked how its use will be assessed.

COLLEGE used contract grading – in which students are told what satisfactory work they need to do for a grade – for the first time in the fall quarter.

“The point is that the grading system is based on completion through participation, rather than evaluation and discernment,” Levine said. “I think the reason for that is because there’s so much emphasis on self reflection. … We want you to think deeply about the intrinsic motivations for learning.”

Judy Goldstein , the Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communications, professor of political science, and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research , recommended that COLLEGE instructors help prepare students for how grading will work in courses that do not use contract grading, and where the quality of their work will be an important factor in determining their final grade. “I’m explicitly clear about what you have to do in order to complete the class … the grades you get [are] based on the quality of what you do, not the completion of the assignment,” she said. That is “a big conceptual jump.”

David Miller , the W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering and professor, by courtesy, of applied physics, said he would like to see more engineering in the syllabus, citing its crucial role in understanding the world. Provost Persis Drell, who co-taught in COLLEGE with historian Caroline Winterer last fall, responded that because COLLEGE is designed to be flexible, engineers can bring engineering into the program. “I really encourage engineering faculty to think very seriously about co-teaching this course with one of your humanities or social sciences colleagues,” Drell said.

Multiple senators added that they would like to hear from students who have participated in COLLEGE once they graduate to best assess the impact of the program on their Stanford experience.

Senators also heard a memorial resolution for W. Bliss Carnochan , the Richard W. Lyman Professor in the Humanities in the School of Humanities and Sciences , Emeritus, and former director of the Stanford Humanities Center. He died Jan. 24, 2022, at age 91.