Stay Hungry Stay Foolish Essay/ Summary

STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc., and was well known as a very successful and charismatic entrepreneur. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution and co-founder and chief executive of Pixar Animated Studios. In 2005, his commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs offered students insight into how to lead a successful life. He never graduated from college but he wanted to share three stories from his life.

Jobs’ first story was about connecting the dots. He dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before he really quit. His biological mother gave him adoption to uneducated parents on the promise of sending him to college. He joined an expensive college and quit. His life was not all romantic after his quit. He slept on floor of his friend’s room and ate good meal once in a week.

After he joined calligraphy class and found serif (typeface) fantastic. Ten years later, he designed the first Macintosh computer with beautiful typography. Jobs said that one could not connect the dots looking forward; one could only connect them looking backwards. So, one had to trust that the dots would somehow connect in one’s future. Jobs followed his philosophy in life that one had to trust in something of one’s gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Jobs’ approach had never let him down and it had made all the difference in his life.

Jobs’ second story was about love and loss. He and his friend Woz started Apple in his parents’ garage when he was 20. They worked hard and in 10 years Apple had grown from two to $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. Job’s got fired when he was in his 30s with hiring of someone as all the Board of Directors sided with him and with this his adult life was devastated. Though he failed and had been rejected publicly he decided to start a company named NeXT and another company named Pixar. He married an amazing woman.

Pixar, a famous studio, went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought technology of NeXT which was the heart of Apple, Jobs returned to Apple. He advised students not to lose faith and not to settle. The great work of them was going to fill a large part of their life. He stated that the only way to do great work is to love what to do. He exhorted students to work continuously like building great relationship with years roll on and to keep looking until they found it.

Jobs’ third story was about death. “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right,” was an inspired and impressed quote when he was 17. He changed his mind set by questioning himself and continued for the past 33 years. He urged students to remember that they were going to die was the best way to avoid the trap of thinking they have something to lose. Suddenly he was diagnosed with incurable pancreas cancer and was expected to live no longer than three to six months.

Jobs understood doctor’s code and were advised to go home and get affairs in order for his family. Jobs underwent various processes such as biopsy and endoscope all day. Later doctors identified that it was a very rare form of cancer which was curable with surgery. He was fine after a few days and said that death was very likely the single best invention of life and death cleared out the old and to make way for the new like some cultures, life styles, gadgets, beliefs which had died in the past decades or century giving place to new approaches.

Jobs mentioned some don’ts for the students that time is limited, not to waste it, not to be trapped by dogma, not to let the noise of other’s opinions. He motivated them to have the courage to follow the heart and intuition as it was primary. He recollected an amazing publication released in 1960s called Stewart’s The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras, was one of the bibles of his generation. He concluded his speech with the note on the final issue released in mid 1970s of Stewart’s book back cover consisted with a message “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish.” He believed in a quote ‘stay full stay smart’ instead of ‘stay hungry stay foolish’.