Intention

The main intention of Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address at Stanford University is to inform his audience of what he has learned from three key moments in his life, and to offer the graduates advice for their future careers: “Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories”.

Jobs structures his speech around the three life stories he shares and provides some advice for the audience after each story. Moreover, Jobs mentions the topic of each story at the beginning, which helps the audience focus on the main aspect of the story: “the first story is about connecting the dots”, “my second story is about love and loss”, and “my third story is about death”.

The main message of Jobs’ speech revolves around the importa...