Sunday, September 11, 2005

Stay hungry. Stay Foolish.

It's already a couple of months old, but a friend of mine recently pointed me to Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford's 2005 graduation ceremony. I have read many stories about the early days of Apple Computer in Steve's garage, but I didn't know much about his pre-Apple days. There are a couple of interesting anecdotes in his speech about his brief (and aborted) college life.

The closing theme of Jobs' speech was borrowed from the tag line of The Whole Earth Catalog: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

As I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that almost every entrepreneur I know adheres to that tag line much more so than most people do. I suppose it's quite fitting that those words help to inspire Steve Jobs, one of Silicon Valley's pioneers.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah, what does he means with that?
pedroraggio@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Even though English is not my mother tongue, I would guess that:
1) "Stay hungry" = hungry for knowledge, stay curious
2) "Stay foolish" = much like a child, inocent, naive

Anonymous said...

That's great!
Thanks for clarifying what it means...
I want'd so very much to understand it.

Anonymous said...

No. It mean what is literally said. Stay hungry - is stay hungry and stay foolish -is stay foolish.

In the speach steve job mention how he was eating less during his youth, and how he dropout of college. Hungry and foolish, but that what make him a better person.

When you are hungry you have nothing to be afraid of, when you are foolish you take risk. and etc..

Anonymous said...

it is more about remaining curious and open to the world and enthusiastic.aslso maybe a bit sarcastic or ironic. features in a song wih the addition of "but be happy" stay YOUNG stay foolish but......

Anonymous said...

Stay Hungry: Hungry to achieve, to learn, to grow.

Stay Foolish: Don't be afraid to take risks, be willing to explore new ideas and to deal with the setbacks

Vinod Rajan said...

Hi Guys..
I think what he means by this is

STAY HUNGRY: If you remain Hungry all your life for knowledge
STAY FOOLISH: then you will remain Foolish for all your life

by this he means one should quench his/her hunger for knowledge else he/she would stay foolish for rest of their life..

P.S: Sorry, If i am wrong

Anonymous said...

"planttropical.com" is hilarious. you can't possibly thought that and truly understood the speech.

The Truth said...

If you guys didnt get what he meant , then you are already foolish and maybe hungry by now.

Anonymous said...

that folks is the fucking truth ...

Anonymous said...

Stay hungry- Never get complacent in life.

Stay foolish- Be adventurous and go for your dreams.When you do this other's view you as foolish but you know what you want to accomplish.

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Anonymous said...

dream of new horizon, stay hungry to put them into reality.
follow ur dreams, no matter how foolish u become in that process.

Piyush Nigam said...

"Stay hungry. Stay Foolish." is best understood by not becoming the opposite.

Do not ever get satiated with where you have got so far...there is more to discover and do in life...always...just that you need to be hungry to get there!

Do not ever believe that you know too much. Do not ever worry about failure because someone with your learning should not fail any more. Stay Foolish...keep making mistakes till you get it right...and then go and find something else that you can make mistakes trying, before you get it right...or even if you never get it right!

lissm said...

If you read through his speech in its entirety, you'll get why he closes it with that.

It's not meant to be literal...

stay hungry: hungry for life, for experience, for success, for something better. don't get complacent (ie: too full/satiated). keep up the motivation, the drive, "the hunger."

stay foolish: be daring, take risks. treat every experience as though it is your first -- new, exciting, the unknown.

Steve Jobs talks about how he's made a lot of mistakes and encountered his share of failures, but they were "foolish" experiments that led him to his big successes.

bottom line: don't get too comfortable and complacent - stay hungry for life, and stay open to taking chances (making that "foolish" leap of faith).

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, stay hungry, stay foolish means:

If you don't work hard at something, you will remain foolish forever.

To make it less figurative:
One must strive hard and must keep on pressing on, never stopping at nothing, yearning for success and you will be wise (wise is the opposite of foolish).

As a disclaimer, this is just my opinion as to how I understood the statement.

Anonymous said...

go for knowledge, "stay hungry"

go for virtue, "stay foolish"

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KT said...

This is from the Bible Read Beattitudes

Anonymous said...

dtuthis is from Bible Read Beattitudes

becoming conscious said...

This is from Bible read beattitudes

becoming conscious said...

This is from Bible

Read Beattitudes and romans

nona said...

I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.Thankyou i really love it

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