« Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish »: Steve Jobs’ speech is 20 years ago. The new HD version, the secrets on how it was written

Twenty years ago, Steve Jobs pronounced a speech destined to become a modern classic. Most remind him for the ending of that intervention, which has become almost proverbial over the years: «Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish». It was June 12, 2005 when Jobs climbed on the stage of the University of Stanford to speak to the recent graduates. Twenty years later, that speech remains among the most listened to and mentioned in the world, with over 120 million views online. Today The Steve Jobs Archivethe foundation that preserves the memory and knowledge of the figure of the Apple co-founder, republished Stanford’s speech in the restored and high definition version, adding unpublished details on how Jobs came to write that intervention and on what preceded it.

In about fifteen minutes, Jobs told three stories taken from his personal life («The three lives of Steve Jobs»It is, not surprisingly, the title of a Corriere Podcast in collaboration with Storytel: You can find it here). He slipped naturally between intimate reflections and existential truths. A powerful man and already then idolized (his surprising relaunch of Apple was in full swing) he went naked. And he did it because he had lived extraordinary successes but also striking defeats, such as the expelled from the company he had founded, and fragility as the disease that had struck him, pancreas cancer (which would kill him in 2011).
The speech affected above all for its authenticity and for the surprising simplicity with which Jobs faced universal themes such as death, love and fear of failing. The absence of technological references, unusual for a man symbol of the digital revolution, but not so unusual if we think that Jobs’ path had led him to place himself, and his company, as to a crossroads between technique and humanism, is almost total.
Immediately after the intervention, in truth, not everyone perceived the scope of his words. It was a torrid day in California and many students were distracted by the celebration, the search for family members in the audience or the heat itself. Only after, when the speech began to circulate online and in the media, they understood its real power. The University of Stanford, 20 years later, He still has a page with the full transcription of Jobs’ wordsupdated in graphics and preserved as a sort of precious relic of the first Internet era.

The unpublished background of that speech

The Steve Jobs Archive, in addition to republishing the video in HD, revealed several background on that day. For example, Jobs had not been the first choice of students at all: they would have preferred the humorist Jon Stewart. Arnold SchwarzeneggerThen the governor of California was the third choice. Jobs was invited by Stanford’s president, John Hennessy, about six months before the ceremony.
In the following months, Jobs crossed a phase of great anxiety and uncertainty. Being an extremely reserved man, the idea of ​​exposing himself so openly in front of thousands of graduates did not share it deeply. To prepare, he began to send emails to himself with ideas, notes, drafts. He often ignored the suggestions of Apple’s communication staff. He asked for opinions to the students representing, who sent ideas to which Jobs, however, never replied directly. In the end, a strictly personal job came outespecially developed with the support of his wife Laurene, who contributed decisively to the final drafting.
Jobs climbed Stanford’s stage with the style, simple and direct, which has always adopted: jeans, black shirt, no closed shoes but feet sandals. Despite his apparent composure, those who knew him well perceived the tension in his reading of the speech, slow and methodical.

How to translate it

Today, twenty years later, Jobs’ words continue to be remembered, discussed, analyzed. « Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish » has gone from being an invitation to graduates from an Elite University of the United States to a global warning in remaining open to change and challenges.
So much so that the most common literal translation in Italy, « be crazy, be hungry»He continues to remain widely unsuitable in summarizing the concepts of the original (which Jobs took weight from Whole Earth Catalog of Stewart Brand, the cult magazine of the American counterculture to which the founder of Apple will be abandoned). « Never knowing, never reasonable » or « do not stop looking, don’t stop dreaming » are possible translations proposed by those who dealt with the topicmuch less literal but more similar to the spirit of the original.
But perhaps there is no longer even needing to look for a translation, because twenty years later, « Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish » has become a perfectly understandable slogan in every part of the world.