Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” those were Steve Jobs parting words to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. They weren’t even his own words (they came from the Whole Earth Catalog), but this parting sentiment is what I will take away from this commencement speech. But let’s start from the beginning. Jobs is an excellent storyteller. His commencement speech was broken down into three stories. In essence these stories cover his life.

     Jobs dropped out of college because he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. College for him was taking required classes that were not interesting to him. Instead he sat in on classes that were interesting to him. Jobs mentions a calligraphy class that ten years later inspired him to incorporate into the first Mac Computer. This was his first story about “connecting the dots”. Jobs wants all of us to trust that the choices we make now will connect the dots to the future.

     Jobs next story was about how he overcame being fired from Apple. He claims that being fired was the best thing that could have happened to him. He was now free to be creative. Jobs started over with two new companies Next and Pixar. The moral of this story was to “love what you do”. Jobs believes this and follows it everyday.

     In the aftermath of his passing this last story about how to live each day as if it was your last is the most touching. Jobs talks about having pancreatic cancer, and having to prepare for his death. Having faced that challenge once he hoped to have a few more decades before he had to do it again. Unfortunately, that was not the case. His point of this story is to follow your dreams, and not to let anyone stop you from obtaining that dream. Life is too short to follow someone else, and deny yourself from doing what you love to do.

     Now back to Jobs parting words, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.” After listening to Jobs explain his background he truly lived by these words. To me they mean never settle for what society is telling you to do or follow. Go against the norm of society, and keep improving on what you love to do. I personally will try to live by his words of wisdom because they make sense, and they worked for him.

Rest in Peace Steve and thank you for you genus innovations.