Steve Jobs Dead in 2011: Death in His Own Words

While Steve Jobs' death in 2011 is shocking, it wasn't unexpected. Jobs had battled cancer for years. He had an operation in 2004, a liver transplant in 2009, and took three leaves of absence before he permanatly resigned as the CEO of Apple in August 2011.

Even after he resigned, he still remained an Apple employee and even negotiated with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier, according to the New York Times.

Jobs, it seems, worked until his last weeks, which may not be too surprising.

In a 2005 speech he gave to Stanford graduates, Jobs spoke about death.

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?' he said.

With his health ailing, it seemd Jobs woke up each morning and still wanted to be a part of Apple, even when he could no longer fulfilll his role as the CEO.

Jobs also seemed to have accepted the concept of death.

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, he said.

In life, the concept of death pushed Jobs to follow his heart and take risks. In his 2005 speech, he urged his young audience to do the same.

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 others' 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, he said.