Inspiration for Innovation

Stay hungry, stay foolish by Edo van Royen

Recently I stumbled upon an already infamous commencement speech at Stanford (2005) by Steve Jobs. An inspiring insight into the mind of an entrepreneur and maybe even more remarkable; into the common denominators that great men and women share. A unrelenting optimism for the future, an almost biblical love for the job and a hungry kind of stubbornness and foolishness that might be seen as courage.

Jobs intimately shares three stories, surprisingly interesting morals of life and rules of entrepreneurship told through anecdotes of his life:

Connect the dots
Jobs curiously dropped in on a calligraphy class at his university, without having a single hope for any practical application in his life: Ten years later, this knowledge on typography formed one of the foundations for Apple’s success. As the first typographically designed personal computer, the Macintosh was miles ahead of its time. The things you do right now, might not make sense in terms of the future. But one day, you will be able to connect the dots.

“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. Because, believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-warned path”

Do what you love
After building Apple from a garage business into a multi-billion dollar business, Jobs was fired from Apple by his board of directors.

“I was a very public failure and I even thought of running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I Still loved what I did”.

Concurrently, Jobs proceeded to found NEXT, and Pixar. Pixar became a billion dollar animation feature studio, and NEXT, in a remarkable turn of events, was acquired by Apple (Causing Jobs, to win back his place).

“Sometimes life is going to hit 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.”

Stay hungry, stay foolish

In 2004 Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and was told by his doctors that he only had a couple of months left to live. For a day he lived with that diagnosis, until the biopsy showed that he dealt with an incredibly rare, curable form of cancer.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon, is the most important tool I have 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.”

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