"If we want to move forward, see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace the notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us, that's great … And if we screw up and don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault -- it's our fault … So the era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, and this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry, to get healthy and prosper again."

Jobs then switched to a slide of Apple's logo and Microsoft's logo together, and then got serious about Apple's "Think Differently" marketing campaign, ruminating on how Apple products are for "people who aren't just out to get a job, but for people who want to change the world."

It's a clever and heartening follow-up to a situation that seemed, to many, like the beginning of Apple's eventual downfall … which, of course, never happened.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Merging the themes of life, growth, and death, Jobs' 2005 commencement address to Stanford University was stirring in a way that transcends many cut-and-paste graduation speeches.