Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry

Stanford Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.


I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.


The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, 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?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

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. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

10 Hours Delays?

(as published in Malaysia Today on 19 Sept 2011)
By Lynne_c

On behalf of the passengers of Air Asia X flight D7 2686 from Kuala Lumpur to Incheon, Seoul on September 2, 2011, I would like to share our experience about a delay that cost us more than 10 hours and the shabby treatment that Air Asia extends to its paying customers.

The chronology of the events are as follows:

The flight, D7 2686 was initially supposed to take off at 11.00pm and reach Incheon at 6.00am the next day.

11.00pm - Captain of the flight announced a delay due to a route change which requires the plane to upload 2 tonnes of fuel. The reason given was non-approval from ATP for clearance from Ho Chi Minh to Taipei.

12.00 midnight - Captain announces another plan change, requiring the uplifting of 1 tonnes of fuel from the plane.

1.00am - The plane was waiting by the runway to take off when the Captain announced clearance from Taipei and said that he would decide in 2 or 3 minutes if he would repark the plane.

1.30am - Captain re-parked the plane at the terminal

1.50am - Passengers were told to disembark to T18 by the Captain

2.30am - After more than 3 hours stranded in the plane, the passengers were finally allowed to disembark to T18 where everyone rushed to the rest room or to purchase much needed food and drinks

3.30am - Cold croissant and cold mineral water were distributed to the passengers.

4.00am - Some of the Korean guests requested for blankets for their children. The passengers were told that the plane will take off by 5.00am

5.00am - A new announcement was made that the plane will take off by 7.30am

6.00am - Two of the passengers cancelled their tickets and left

7.00am - One of the Managers assured the passengers that the plane will take off by 7.30am. A second Manager then said that Air Asia could extend our flight to another day. But he could not qualify for food and accommodation.

7.30am - The passengers were asked to re-board the plane.

8.00am - The plane reversed out of the parking bay and was parked in another place in the middle of the airport with 2 ground crew still on board. The new crew sat in the front portion of the plane, behind the red curtain, laughing and joking

8.20am - One of the passengers, a Mr. Chew, got up from his seat to approach the crew to find out what was happening. He was told that there was no pilot and the new crew said that they had just arrived from Delhi and were only told to sit in to board us on the plane. Anoother crew member, a Mr. Narin Singh, openly said that there was no pilot and he was there to bring the plane to where it was currently parked (in the middle of the airport). When pressed for confirmation, he declined to comment. However, it was very clear that Air Asia had moved the airplane without a qualified pilot on board!

9.20am - The plane finally took off for Korea

The delaying tactics employed by Air Asia was obvious. On top of all that, the passengers were subjected to rude treatment and thuggish behaviour from the ground crew and staff of Air Asia. When a disagreement arose between two Korean ladies and the ground crew at approximately 5.30am, passenger Mr. Chew recorded the incident on his handphone, but he was subsequently threatened and browbeatened by the Air Asia security to delete the video or else his mobile phone would be confiscated.

To date, there has been no effort from Air Asia to reach out to its customers and at least make an attempt to compensate everyone for the ordeal they suffered at the hands of Air Asia. We have never received any official answer on the reason for the delay. From what we had found out verbally, someone in Air Asia forgot to ask for clearance through Taipei air space, which sparked off the whole fiasco.

I am writing this to you in the hopes that our experience on board Air Asia X flight D7 2686 will be shared with your readers. Was all these hassle and stress worth the price of a cheap ticket? My answer, and the answer of all my fellow passengers would be, a resounding No.

More than that, seeing how shabbily Air Asia treated its guests that night, how they verbally accosted the Korean passengers who were struggling to speak English, I can honestly say, I felt an emotion I had never felt in my lifetime - I was embarassed to be Malaysian because Air Asia is a Malaysian company.
Tags: Air Asia X, Incheon, LCCT, Taipei Air Space, Ho Chi Minh, ATP

An Unprepared Team A Danger To All

A team by the name of Putera 1Malaysia Club went into Somalia with the idea of conducting humanitarian aid mission in a particular war zone area with the famine crisis being the main concern.

Unfortunately, this team was so unprepared and went in a haste without knowing what they are heading into. Not only that they have risked their own lifes unnecessarily but they had to be protected by the security forces that were already busy with the war. And now, they have to worry for a bunch of innocent / naive people from Malaysia who were trying to claim a name by doing something good.

Things didn't went as planned and maybe the plan wasn't a good plan after all.

I'm so sorry to hear about the demise of our Bernama TV's cameraman, cameraman Noramfaizul Mohd Nor, in Somalia while following this bunch of unprepared team.

You have to read some true facts of what has happened prior to and during the so-called humanitarian aid mission leading to the demise of a Malaysian.

Failure to listen cost a life, an article in Star, depicted that a 7 member reconnaissance team of Malaysians arrived earlier to assess the safety situation for the upcoming humanitarian aid mission. The verdict - "Risky".

Was this "Risky" situation looked into or further planning with proper risk management being factored prior to the arrival of the 48 members of the Putera 1Malaysia Club?

Apparently, out of the 48 members, 40% of them were from the media. 18 of them? An experience army team going into the war zone will not allow so many media members to follow them else it may jeopardise their mission as they have to waste resource to save the media members if caught in a crossfire. It could have been more media members if not for the limited seats in the military aircraft. 74 media members were at the airport but only 18 were allowed to follow eventually. I really wonder what sort of briefing notes that had been provided to the media members in preparing them.

You don't send so many media members to cover a war zone story in a particular group. Moreover, this Putera 1Malaysia Club are not trained soldiers or they were carrying any weapons? Were they?

The 7 member reconnaissance team actually reported to Putrajaya first prior to the departure of the 48 members under the umbrella of Putera 1Malaysia Club. Their recommendations stated the following:-

a) that this team should make full preparations and leave after Hari Raya; and
b) concentrate their work and set up a clinic at one selected camp for the refugees.

Even though "Risky" but the team went ahead without listening to the advise as mentioned in items (a) and (b) as above. Outcome?

An international news agency journalist did mention that they have to go through a 3 days intensive training conducted by former commandos before they jump into the war zone. That too, does not guarantee their survival in a war zone.
 
To quote Putera 1Malaysia Club president Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim who asked everyone not to politicised or “cashed-in for cheap publicity" on the death of a Malaysian - you mean to say that people can't ridicule the club for its unpreparedness which caused a Malaysian to die unnecessarily?

The humanitarian aid mission was cut short immediately following the death of a Malaysian journalist. Why cut short the trip? If this team was so gung-ho about the mission, it should have gone ahead with the agenda that had been planned. A death shouldn't have derailed a humanitarian aid mission where its main objective was to save even more lifes.

This Datuk made the following statements to the press:-
a) We are preparing for a second mission but we have to settle several unresolved matters before we make another attempt.
b) The club would not rush into things and would take all necessary precautions and follow closely all standard operating procedures during the next mission.
c) 45 people, including pressmen, had signed for the next trip so far.

My comments on the above:-
a) You mean to say that the club didn't resolve certain issues for the first mission but still went ahead with it?
b) Admitting that this first mission was a rush job and SOP wasn't followed at all?
c) All the best to this 45 persons.

Immediately right after this tragedy, a cabinet minister said that "standard operating procedure should be created to serve as a guideline for all parties." Isn't this a little too late?

The cabinet minister also mentioned that "There should also be a reconnaissance done in these areas to determine the level of security." I think he hasn't been briefed about the 7 member reconnaissance team hahaha.

Worse still, our PM quoted this - "But if you're not prepared to take the risk, then stay home."

This blogpost is not written with selfish intention or any political agenda. It's in the minds of Malaysians who cannot understand why such humanitarian aid mission cannot be handed over to the professionals such as the Médecins Sans Frontières ("MSF") who have been there for years.

I respect the intention and the main objective of this trip but they should have prepared themselves in view of MSF International President Dr Unni Karunakara's experience in Somalia.

Irrespective of whether our journalist was prepared in mindset or knew what he was volunteering for or for the fact that many organisations have/would be contributing aids to the journalist's family, whoever organised the trip should have been more responsible for it as his death could have been avoided.
Tags: Putera 1Malaysia Club, Somalia Famine, Humanitarian Aid Mission, Somalia War Zone, Bernama TV, Noramfaizul Mohd Nor, Médecins Sans Frontières

The Mousetrap

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. The mouse wondered, "What food might this contain?" He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning: "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is of grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it." You are on your own.

The mouse turned to the goat and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The goat sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose." Just too bad for you.

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . . . . Alone. Abandoned by his friends. No way out.

That very night, a sound was heard throughout the house - the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap.

The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

But his wife's sickness continued. Friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the goat. But, alas, the farmer's wife did not get well... She died.

So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.

And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

The next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, Remember:

As Malaysians we think in terms of racial divides. Do not set artificial boundaries when assistance is required. Go beyond the bastions of racial exclusivity. We are all vulnerable within the realities of a shared destiny. Do not leave your fellow Malaysians lost, abandoned and alone in times of dire need.

When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
Tags: Mousetrap

Football Officials Charged By FIFA

The cats are being let out of the bags now.

FIFA has charged 16 football officials representing Caribbean nations.

They are as follows:-
David Hinds, Mark Bob Forde (Barbados)
Franka Pickering, Aubrey Liburd (British Virgin Islands)
David Frederick (Cayman Islands)
Osiris Guzman, Felix Ledesma (Dominican Republic)
Colin Klass, Noel Adonis (Guyana)
Yves Jean-Bart (Haiti)
Anthony Johnson (St Kitts and Nevis)
Patrick Mathurin (St Lucia)
Joseph Delves, Ian Hypolite (St Vincent and the Grenadines)
Richard Groden (Trinidad and Tobago)
Hillaren Frederick (US Virgin Islands)

I thought bribery happens within government or political enrivonment or in certain white collar crimes. Just for the sake of obtaining certain positions in FIFA, some people will go to the extent of bribing others.

Does this involve the bribing of these officials to manipulate the controversial selection of FIFA World Cup host?

I have already highlighted this in my previous blogposts of Never Before In World Cup Venue Selection and Scandals Involving World Cups 2018 & 2022.

Australia is just waiting to sue FIFA for losing out in the selection of being a World Cup 2022 host. To cover their costs, I supposed, in entertaining the FIFA officials or football officials from other nations plus costs incurred to prepare for the bid. In the end, Australia had spent up to Aust$46 million to FIFA.

I wonder who will be arranging to fix the winner for the coming World Cups.
Tags: FIFA, Caribbean, Caribbean Footballl Officials, World Cup 2018, World Cup 2022

Secret Of Living Up To 80 Years Old

I recently turned 65 and had to choose a new primary care physician for my Medicare program.

After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age.

A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I will live to be 80?

He asked: Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?"

"Oh no," I replied. "I don't do drugs, either."

"Do you have many friends and entertain frequently?"

"I said, "No, I usually stay home and keep to myself".

"Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

I said, "No, my other doctor said that all red meat is unhealthy!"

"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?"

"No, I don't," I said.

"Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"

"No," I said. "I don't do any of those things."

He looked at me and said, "Then why would you want to live to 80?

I Shot Two Burglars

George Phillips, an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window.

George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things. He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"

He said "No," but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.

Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."

George said, "Okay." He hung up the phone and counted to 30. Then he phoned the police again.

Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot and killed them both, the dogs are eating them right now." and he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"
Tags: Burglars, SWAT, Police, Fire Truck, Paramedic, Ambulance,