Steve Jobs shared this simple career lesson with Stanford students that kept him going after he was fired from Apple, the company he founded: Only thing that helped me was …

More than four decades after Apple’s IPO, the company is valued at $4 trillion. But its journey was far from smooth, and cofounder Steve Jobs himself faced near-bankruptcy and was famously ousted from Apple in 1985. However, what kept Jobs going was the love for his work. According to a report by Fortune, Jobs told Stanford students in a 2005 commencement speech, was a simple career lesson: doing the work you love. During the speech, Jobs recalled that after being fired from Apple, the only thing which helped him sustain was the passion for his craft. “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. 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,” he said.

He urged graduates: “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.”

A lesson for the Gen Z from Steve Jobs

The advice given by Jobs resonates today, as many Gen Z professionals face uncertainty in a labour market which is disrupted by AI. His story is also a reminder that sustainable success comes from pursuing careers rooted in passion and not in some short-term gains.

Steve Jobs’ own journey

After leaving Apple, Jobs entered one of the ‘most creative periods” of his life. He founded NeXT and revamped Pixar. Jobs then eventually returned to Apple in 1997, leading the company through its renaissance with products like the iPod, iPhone, and MacBook.

Despite amassing billions, Jobs insisted money was never his motivation. “I never did it for the money,” he told PBS in 1996. His devotion to technology began as a teenager, when he cold-called Hewlett-Packard cofounder Bill Hewlett for spare parts — a bold move that landed him his first job in tech.

What Steve Jobs told Apple employees the day Apple beat Microsoft in market cap

On May 26, 2010, Apple crossed a milestone that would have seemed far-fetched just a decade earlier—its market cap surpassed Microsoft's at the close of trading. Steve Jobs marked the moment with a brief, characteristically unsentimental email to the entire company.

"As most of you already know, at the close of today's stock market, Apple's market cap surpassed Microsoft's market cap," Jobs wrote at 5:59 p.m. He acknowledged it was worth a pause, quoting himself from an older company email: stocks go up and down, things may be different tomorrow, but today deserved a moment of reflection.

Then he moved on almost immediately.

Jobs reached for a Walt Disney line to frame what the milestone actually meant—and what it didn't. Disney reportedly told his team: "We're only as good as our next picture." Jobs adapted it without much embellishment: "We're only as good as our next amazing new product." The email closed with three words: "Back to work."