Mona Simpson · His sister
Steve Jobs
Simpson did not meet her brother until she was an adult, and her eulogy is built from what she saw up close: how he loved, what he noticed, what he said at the very end. The small details do more work than any résumé could.
- Year
- 2011
- Where
- Stanford Memorial Church, California
- Full text
- Under copyright
“I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him.”
This speech is still under copyright, so we quote a single line and stop there. The notes below are our own.
Why it works
It ignores the obvious subject
Everyone in the room already knew the career. Simpson gives them the part they did not know, the man at home and with the people closest to him. The gap between the public figure and the private one is where the speech lives.
It tells you where it is going
She names three periods near the beginning: his full life, his illness and his dying. The audience knows the shape of the speech before she starts moving through it. Structure makes a long, emotional story easier to follow.
It ends on a detail, not a summary
She closes with his last words rather than trying to explain what his life meant. One final moment can carry more weight than a conclusion.
Use this in your own
End on a moment, not a meaning. Let the last thing the room hears be something only you could tell them.