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Interview with Congressman Jon Runyan; Steve Jobs: 1955-2011; Why Pancreatic Cancer is So Deadly; Sarah Palin Says No to GOP Run; Addressing Arlington's Disgrace

Aired October 06, 2011 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, guys, so much. Good morning.

Well, Steve Jobs died too soon. His innovations changed the way we live, work, play and communicate. Let's face it, life in 1976 when he co-founded Apple in his garage is a far cry from life in 2011. Today the world grieves, pays tribute and gives thanks for the Edison of our time.

Our team coverage includes Dan Simon at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. Business correspondent Christine Romans and Dr. Sanjay Gupta both in New York for us.

Dan Simon, let's go ahead and start with you. It's really a new era there in Cupertino, the post-Steve Jobs era.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a new era. You know they knew this day was coming. Steve Jobs handpicked his successor in CEO Tim Cook. I think there's an acknowledgment that the company is going to be in very good shape for the next few years, you know, with all the various product in the pipeline.

I think the open question is, what is it going to look like in, say, five or 10 years from now? Who's going to fill the shoes and be the product visionary?

You know Steve Jobs, it's often been said, could understand what consumers want before they wanted all these products. Who's going to step in and be able to sort of create the next iPhone or the next iPad? I think that's the open question here. I don't think anybody can answer that -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Yes. And I think a lot of people are asking that question. And I understand there are some special services for employees today?

SIMON: We don't know when they're going to occur, what we know is that when Steve Jobs died CEO Tim Cook put out a statement and said that at some point there will be a celebration of Steve Jobs' life for Apple employees who can attend.

We know that, of course, Steve Jobs was a very private person, despite his public persona. Funeral details have not been released to the public. We're not aware of any planned services for his friends or for his family. I'm sure those details will eventually come out and, also, Kyra, it's believed that really only his true inner circle was aware of his health details. We knew that he was, obviously, sick. But in terms of when this was going to happen, nobody really knew. I think other than his really close friends and family.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Dan Simon there in Cupertino. Dan, thanks.

So, Christine Romans, how is Wall Street taking the news?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know pretty well. And I'll tell you why, I mean, Dan Simon talked about what will be the driver for future innovation of this company and people who work there now and people who used to work there and people who follow the company say that Steve Jobs has his DNA in this company.

That for years he has found talent, he has found good ideas and innovators, and he's brought them into the fold from other tech companies and from young people out of universities and he has really managed to make a culture there at Apple that many people think is going to -- it's going to endure beyond him and you can see that this morning in the stock. The stock actually holding in there in premarket trading. Trading even up a couple of bucks.

If you look at a chart, Kyra, of what this stock has done since he came back to the company he founded in the end of 1996, that red line shows you that Apple stock is up 9,000 percent. I think $10,000 of the stock when he first came back is now worth something like $640,000.

Investors have been rewarded again and again because this company again and again has come up with things that we didn't even know we needed. That was the brilliance of Steve Jobs. He was a true leader in a way that he could tell the world, here's an iPad. You've never seen it before. It's not an improvement of something else. This is something that you don't know you need, but eventually the iPad selling 70 of them a minute. More than 9 million have sold.

You look at where the share was, the share price when he came back to the company, $5.87, now it's up at $374 where it closed yesterday. It's up a couple of bucks in premarket.

So what you can say about this man, he was a computer nerd, Kyra, but he was an artist. He was -- really loved design. He was a salesman. He really was a visionary and we use that word a lot, visionary, but I mean Steve Jobs really was the kind of person who put all of those things together and was able to carry it forward.

We talked earlier to Steve Wozniak who helped him found this company in Steve Jobs' parents basement back in the '70 and we asked him, you know, I mean, here's somebody who really defined modern America. So are there going to be more Steve Jobs? And he said, absolutely, because young people with no money still have hope and good ideas and education and innovation, and that America still has great days ahead of it.

And I think that's what a lot of people this morning are taking from the story of Steve Jobs, even as we mourn his passing -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Christine, thanks.

Sanjay, let's go ahead and bring it home here. Tell us more about the cancer that Jobs fought for so long. I mean we saw that pancreatic cancer -- it's actually been the number one searched term on Google this morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Yes, a lot of people learning about it, no doubt, this morning, Kyra. You know pancreatic cancer is one of these incredibly tough cancers to treat. You know, he was diagnosed back in 2003. At that time, with a mass in his pancreas, they didn't know exactly what it was.

Interestingly as you may know, Kyra, he spent about a year, you know, not getting traditional therapies. He was focusing on lifestyle changes and diet changes. He had traveled around the world prior to his diagnosis and learned about medicine in lots of different places around the world.

But, you know, his type of cancer was sort of a variant, if you will. It's called a neuroendocrine tumor. The name is not that important, but the thing that doctors sort of took away from that was that it was less aggressive than pancreatic cancer, of which 80 percent of people die within the first year.

This type of cancer, you know, they tried all sorts of things. Obviously, surgery initially. As you know he had a liver transplant in 2009 probably to control the spread of this tumor. He had therapies over the years including a trip to Switzerland for another non-traditional therapy. So he and he really fought like crazy, Kyra, to try and beat this. But the survival rates even for this type of tumor are around 40 to 50 percent in five years. It was eight years, as you know, Kyra, since he was diagnosed.

PHILLIPS: And we've got a picture actually before and after. And you and I have talked about this in the past when he would rebound and just the back and forth. But you could definitely see that something was going on when he would make a public appearance.

GUPTA: Yes, and you know, the weight loss I think was just so striking. Obviously, lots of people commenting on it. When he was asked about it, he was -- he initially said it was due to a hormone imbalance, which in some ways is true because this type of tumor in the pancreas often can make hormones.

For example, it can make lots of insulin and that insulin, you know, drive down your blood sugar levels, can make you very thin, but can also make you not feel well. So who knew exactly how he was feeling. He was obviously functioning at a very high level. But also just the cancer itself can cause that weight loss.

But again that distinctive appearance. I remember, Kyra, you may remember as well, that he always wore the black shirt with the blue jeans. He did not wear a belt typically and then I remember one time I saw him wearing a belt as well with his blue jeans, even more reflective of just how much weight he had lost just a couple of years ago -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Sanjay Gupta, we'll talk more next hour. Thanks, Sanjay.

Well, Jobs was famously private, but listen to the speech that he gave to Stanford grads in 2005.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE JOBS, APPLE FOUNDER AND CEO: 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 --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, that speech definitely gave us a rare window into both the mind and the heart of Steve Jobs. And we couldn't stop listening actually. And we think you'll be pretty inspired, too. So we're going to play the whole thing for you later this hour. So stay with us, 9:45 a.m.

OK, let's turn to politics now. Looks like we won't be saying President Christie or President Palin any time soon.

Senior political editor Mark Preston with all the no news, shall we say. Hey, Mark.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Hey, Kyra, good morning.

Yes, Sarah Palin last night making it official, she will not seek the Republican presidential nomination. She went on a conservative talk show host, broke the news and then she went on FOX News Channel where she's a paid contributor and talked about it a little bit more.

What Palin said is that she has concluded that she can be more helpful to electing candidates, not only to Congress, not only to local races but also the White House. In fact, let's hear what she had to say on FOX last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: I concluded that I believe I can be an effective voice and a real decisive role in helping get true public servants elected to office. You don't need a title to make a difference in this country. I think that I am proof of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: And there you have Sarah Palin last night announcing, in effect, she will not seek the Republican presidential nomination. She did also say in these interviews that she would not run as a third party candidate and she would back the eventual Republican presidential nominee.

Of course, Kyra, her biggest hope is to knock President Obama out of the White House. So where does the GOP field stand at this point now that Sarah Palin and Chris Christie have decided not to run? Well, let's take a quick look at the CNN Poll of Polls just released late last night.

It shows that at the top, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Herman Cain who has come out of nowhere just in the past few weeks, a really bunched up at the top. Of course this race can take many more turns before we see the first vote in Iowa which, Kyra, I should say, could happen in December -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Mark, thanks.

We'll have your next political update in just about an hour and a reminder for all the latest political news just go to our Web site, CNNPolitics.com.

Well, the White House announced this morning that President Obama will hold a news conference at 11:00 today. That's just about two hours from now. Likely on his agenda, his jobs plan. So stay with CNN, we'll bring you that news conference live.

Well, coming up those precise rows of headstones just an illusion of order at Arlington National Cemetery. Empty grace, misplaced remains, officials have a lot to answer for. We're going to see where things stand two years -- two years later.

Also ahead, what make Steve Jobs tick? What drove him to come out with the first and best innovations. Well, the man who co-founded Apple, Steve Wozniak, shares his memories right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking stories "Cross Country" now.

In New York thousands of more protesters flocked to Manhattan yesterday as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations gained more momentum. Police say that roughly two dozen people were arrested last night alone.

And the protests are spreading across the country, although it was a far more subdued crowd in Seattle. Police did arrest protesters there who refused to remove their tents from a city park.

And in Raleigh, North Carolina, hundreds of college students walked out of class to join the protest. Rising tuition costs and student loan debts are their main concerns. Another demonstration is set for Sunday afternoon.

Well, two years ago we discovered even in death that our war heroes and their families just can't catch a break. At Arlington National Cemetery, that sacred burial ground, this is what we saw. Headstones unmarked, misidentified, even floating in a creek. Remains in the wrong place, jumbled altogether, even missing.

And just listen to this Vietnam vet, Colonel William Koch, after he found out his wife's grave was empty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COL. WILLIAM KOCH, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): I sent wreaths at Christmas, I even took her mother up there so she could see her daughter's gravesite, and all she saw was a headstone and an empty grave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, the Army installed new management at Arlington last year and those officials are on Capitol Hill today talking about the reforms that they've made.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is covering that hearing.

Barbara, walk us through what has happened to address all these horrendous problems since that scandal was first exposed.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Kyra, I think the Army will tell Congress later today that it really has cracked down management shakeup, new managers in charge at the cemetery and that they are doing a number of things to get a handle on this very difficult problem.

Three hundred thousand graves at Arlington. At one point they thought 6,000 were perhaps mismarked. It came down eventually to about 200 graves but even that professionally unacceptable to the U.S. Army.

What have they done? Besides the management shakeup, soldiers are now going through the Army grave by grave, site by site, photographing every headstone and establishing computerized records, if you will. Taking these pictures with their smartphones, establishing the GPS coordinates, the actual, precise satellite markings for each grave at the cemetery, so they have precision, so they have digital records, so they have a baseline for the first time ever about the situation at Arlington -- where every grave is, where it's supposed to be.

This is going to set the baseline for these problems not to occur again, according to the Army. It's going to take them a while to get through all of this. They're going to tell the Congress that they're making progress, but they're going to have to prove it over the long run -- Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Prove it, indeed.

Barbara, thanks so much.

And, you know, Arlington is a scandal that clearly should have never happened.

Congressman Jon Runyan heads up the House Subcommittee on Veterans' Memorial Affairs, which is holding today's hearing. He joins us now from the Hill.

So, Congressman, since the story broke, you know, the Army took over the challenge of trying to fix all these horrendous problems at Arlington. But a lot of military families are still wanting confirmation that their loved one is still in the right grave or that they're even there.

So, what are you telling them right now?

REP. JON RUNYAN (R-NJ), CHMN., SUBCMTE. ON VETERANS' MEMORIAL AFFAIRS: Well, the biggest thing is the leaders, especially Ms. Condon over at Arlington, is going through that process, and that process of digitizing all these records and cross-referencing everything they have in the process to really help figure it out.

The unfortunate part is, I've been in hearings and oversight hearings, you know, also with the Army and on the armed services side, there are still some questions sometimes where there have been mix ups. We had a colonel that was only 77 percent sure that his wife was buried in the grave where it was marked. So, there's that kind of stuff out there.

And the biggest thing is to put this team in the place to make sure this never happens again as we address the problems of mismanagement of the past.

PHILLIPS: And we really won't know how many discrepancies are there -- are still there until this task force is finished with its work. When will that be?

RUNYAN: Well, these records -- the biggest thing that surprised me when I went over there right after I got elected was that they're still basically on a card catalog system. All these records were paper in an office building that never even had a fire suppression system in it. So, they're behind the eight ball there.

And, you know, as we know with the paper system and we deal with it every day, things get lost. And that kind of stuff is not acceptable.

And what Ms. Condon has done has really stepped in and put together a framework, a guideline, procedures and protocols in place that were not there to really hold people accountable for doing their job on a day-to-day basis.

PHILLIPS: So, finally today at the hearing, what are you going to do? What are you going to demand to hear today?

RUNYAN: Well, I think the biggest thing and the I.G. kind of raises the question, we understand what the problems of the past were and we're moving forward and the I.G. raised the question of, are we prepared? Do we have the procedures and protocols in place, once we get this under control to have them for the long term, as we bring new people in and can hold people accountable? That is my biggest question that I'm going to raise today.

PHILLIPS: Congressman John Runyan, appreciate your time today.

RUNYAN: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

Very special tribute to Steve Jobs at the end of the hour. He rarely spoke publicly about his personal life and how he kept his drive. But in about 30 minutes, we're going to let you listen to the entire commencement speech that he gave at Stanford in 2005 -- the only speech of its kind that he ever gave. You don't want to miss it.

Also ahead, Steve Wozniak, the man who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, takes us back to the early days and tells us what went on in that garage where it all started.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Many celebrities took to Twitter to express their sadness over the death of Steve Jobs.

Actor Ashton Kutcher says that, "We have all surfed on the wake of Steve Jobs ship. Now we must learn to sail, but we will never forget our skipper."

Eva Longoria tweeted, "My heart goes out for the family of Steve Jobs. What an inspiration he was to us all and a creative visionary for the world. You will be missed."

And Jimmy Fallon wrote, "Thank you, Steve Jobs, for all the fun and amazing ways you made our lives better. Sent from my iPhone."

And this last message from the Recording Academy @TheGRAMMY's, "Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Thank you for revolutionizing the way we listen to music. Your vision will not be forgotten."

Well, Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1976 in a Silicon Valley garage, along with his high school buddy Steve Wozniak.

Well, last year or last hour, rather, on "AMERICAN MORNING," he talked about those early days and about Jobs' creative instincts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WOZNIAK, APPLE CO-FOUNDER: You have no money, you have no relatives that have money to loan you, you have no savings account. Where can you work? You got to work on almost very limited budgets which caused us to do some very good things and you do your work at home.

And so, our company was actually -- actually our products were designed outside of the garage. But the garage was our meeting place. And we had a little assembly. We would test the computers, put them in a box, drive them down to a store where they would pay us cash for a computer.

But Steve ran most of the business from his bedroom. He would get on the phone and he'd be calling stores that would sell our products and parts suppliers that would supply the parts. And he'd be calling advertisers, magazines, to get little stories about our products and what we were doing.

So, he was really doing the businessman stuff and the marketing and all that. In those early days, there were a few mostly geeky people that knew how to operate computers when they were not understandable by a normal person -- Steve and I were in that crowd and we did believe that, oh, yes, computers are going to be in every house and they're going to do a lot of good things for people. But we had no real vision as to what things are like today. We had no idea how much it was going to change everything everyone does in life is going to be kind of done through their computer.

So, it went a lot further and it was, you know -- and I'm really glad that Steve stayed there and he stayed in the game that he was meant to be in, and he kept, you know, working to find the newer, better ways and the next product, the next product, the next big achievement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Wozniak went on to say that Apple products were so exceptional because that's how Steve Jobs saw himself.

Well, Jobs' achievements are recognized around the world this morning -- like at this Apple store in Hong Kong where an impromptu vigil was held. CNN takes you around the world for reaction, next.

And listen to this speech that Steve Jobs gave to Stanford grads in 2005.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE JOBS, APPLE CO-FOUNDER AND CEO: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: That was just a couple years after he was diagnosed with cancer. The speech is inspiring and tells us a lot about what drove him to succeed. We're playing the whole speech for you at 9:45 Eastern Time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking top stories now:

Today marks the 20th day of protests at the "Occupy Wall Street" site. Police and protesters scuffled at Wednesday's rally, 28 people were arrested.

Bank of America CEO defending his bank's new $5 fee on debit cards. Brian Moynihan says that customers understand that the bank has a right to make a profit.

And the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray resumes in about two hours. The pathologist who ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide could testify today.

Well, the impact of Steve Jobs and Apple can be felt around the world and we've got reaction from Atika Shubert in London, Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong, and David McKenzie in Nairobi, Kenya.

Let's go ahead and start in Hong Kong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The iVigil is under way here in Hong Kong. And as you can see, the local media, they are here to report on it. And ardent fans, all the day, they've been leaving flowers, notes, messages. In fact, just now, we saw one fan leave, this model of Steve Jobs. He placed him on the altar, he bowed to it and then he walked away.

Steve Jobs, he has a massive following here in Hong Kong. In fact, according to Apple, they said that on the day of its opening, just a few weeks ago, they sold more Macs here than any other store around the world.

And one more thing I want to show you: this sign up here, the Apple logo, it usually glows white. Today, it's been turned off.

Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now back here in the States, in New York City, Jason Carroll where they're holding a vigil at an Apple Store here -- Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is a very popular store. Take a look behind me, Kyra, you can see a crowd of people now that have gathered in front at the Apple Store here on Fifth Avenue. People have been leaving flowers, they've been leaving cards, and, of course, they've been leaving apples here, as well.

We're also seeing things like this showing up in places like Palo Alto, California, also in Washington, D.C. You know, when you hear about Steve Jobs, you hear about the man, the innovator and how he affected so many lives.

Just very quickly, I want to show you how he's affected our lives. You know, when you do a live shot like this -- as you know, Kyra, you need big trucks like this, you need camera, you need a huge crew. But because of Steve Jobs with an application called Streambox on an iPad, we can do a live shot just with this one device here.

Just one small sample of how this man has changed the lives of so many people and the way we do business and with the way that he has been innovative in terms of technology -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And as you can see, how we do our jobs. Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

Let's go ahead and head to London where Atika Shubert is standing by.

Atika, what's the reaction from there?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, just like in all those other places around the world, we have all sorts of people coming here with flowers, with messages and putting apples and there's an apple with a message, "think different" etched in there.

And then there's this message here. "This is from for the crazy ones, the visionaries, the ones who changed the world, you'll always be an inspiration. Love you, Steve."

That just goes to show the way Steve Jobs has touched people here.

But perhaps the biggest thing that I've seen here is showing just how much he's entered the daily lives of people and how many people here today are actually using their iPhones, their iPads, you name it, to actually record this memorial here. And it just goes to show how ubiquitous Apple products have become all across the world, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Atika, pretty amazing.

And the Apple impact, as we know, also reaches Africa.

CNN's David McKenzie is going to show us now how this Internet cafe has made such a difference in Nairobi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What is the impact of Apple and Steve Jobs in Africa? Well, Apple products like this iPad are very expensive on the continent. Most people can't afford it.

But there is an impact because people have a both aspirational and inspirational connection with the product and with the man, Steve Jobs. You know, you come to a place like this where people are using the Internet to connect with people and friends. There's a lot of ways that Apple's innovation have affect cheaper products and competitors try to intimidate the innovation of Apple.

But to really see how Apple and Steve Jobs have impacted on the continent, you have to go outside.

It's really here on the street where you can see the impact of Apple products because it's not so much Apple products themselves and Steve Jobs direct innovation, but it's a way the competitors have imitated and pushed the boundaries of smartphones. They have 3G networks across Kenya and also, there's a broadband access right off your iPhone, or your phone, and people found a way to do business, to connect with each other, to drive markets and get information all off mobile Internet access. That really is the legacy of Apple and Steve Jobs in Kenya.

David McKenzie, CNN, Nairobi, Kenya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: As you can see, Apple became one of the world's most valuable companies under Steve Jobs. How will the company do without its visionary leader? We'll go to Wall Street for a reaction. And also coming up, in just about 10 minutes, you're going to hear Steve Jobs in his own words. We're going to play his entire commencement speech to Stanford grads in 2005. Believe me, you'll want to hear every word.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Alison Kosik at New York Stock Exchange following the reaction on Wall Street to the death of Steve Jobs -- Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And this is, Kyra, the first chance that Wall Street is reacting to Steve Jobs' passing. And you know what? Apple shares are down only a fraction, you know, even though Jobs was clearly the genius behind Apple's success.

It's really not a huge surprise that the stock is really holding steady today because for the most part, this was expected. Apple told its employees -- Steve Jobs told his employees seven years ago that he had cancer. The company has been very transparent about his illness in recent years, and it prepared the investment community for this day, that this day would come.

Now, Jobs had said that he would only step down if absolutely necessary. We saw that happen two months ago when he gave his resignation.

So, the fact is, Kyra, that investors had already priced in the idea of an Apple without Jobs -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And we can't emphasize enough his influence on Apple. The fact that the stock price -- I mean, it skyrocketed when he came back to Apple.

KOSIK: You said it. You know, it's incredible. And you're right, you know, Steve Jobs was Apple. He rolled out the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad. You know, he made computers cool.

He was known for his aggressive leadership style, as well. You know what? Some people found it abrasive, but Wall Street loved it. Look how much they loved it.

The stock, look how it performed under jobs from 1997 to this year, up more than 6,000 percent and even briefly topped Exxon this year to become the world's most valuable company and now Jobs leaves behind one of the richest and most iconic companies in the world -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Alison, thanks.

Next, Steve Jobs like you never heard him. We're playing the commencement speech that he gave to Stanford students back in 2005, a rare personal look at a very private man.

We're back in three minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: I want you to listen now to the speech that Steve Jobs gave Stanford students in 2005, just a couple years after his cancer diagnosis. It's Steve Jobs like you've never heard him and you're actually going to hear what drove this Edison of our time.

So, we're going to play it in its entirety because it's so inspiring.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE JOBS, APPLE CO-FOUNDER AND CEO: Thank you.

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

(CHEERS)

JOBS: Truth be told: I never graduated from college. And 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.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.

So, why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed 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. Except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course."

My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life.

And 17 years later, I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. 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. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

So, I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the 5 cents deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.

It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. 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 copy 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 that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. 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 -- because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard and in ten years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We just released our finest creation, the Macintosh a year earlier and I just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me. And for the first year or so things went well but then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him.

And so at 30, I was out and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone and it was devastating. 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.

I met with David Packard and Bob Nois and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.

But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so, I decided to start over.

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 had 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 and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at Next is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Lorene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

Sometimes life's -- sometimes life is going to hit 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 love what I did. You've got to find what you love and that is as true for 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. And 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, don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like, "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right". It made an impression on me and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself if today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

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 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.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

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.

My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten 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 good-byes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening, I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines and put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife who was there told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying. Because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery, and thankfully I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept.

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. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Right now, the new is you. But some day not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called "The Whole Earth Catalogue", which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park (ph) and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.

This was in the late '60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing. So it was all made with type writers, scissors and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google and paperback form 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalogue". And then, when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid 1970s and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitch hiking 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.

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