Steve Jobs on dropping out

I’m an art-school dropout. That’s pretty low, considering what a walk in the park art school is. In fact, the reason why I dropped out was that I wasn’t being challenged, it wasn’t interesting, and I realised I could get all this education for free by hanging out with my friends, going to galleries, and just kind of creating stuff by myself. No need to pay all that money. So I stopped.

A few days ago, Steve Jobs made a speech to the graduating class at Stanford, in which he praised the value of following your gut. In his case, his gut said to drop out. It’s an unusually personal talk from Steve, who is notoriously private about his life. More than any other corporate CEO type, he has a celebrity sheen about him that keep people interested in the soap opera that is his life. He’s aloof, and has managed to stay “cool”, in spite of it all.

Anyway, check out the transcript of the speech posted by some kind soul at Slashdot.