Steve Jobs (1955–2011) was an American entrepreneur and cofounder of Apple, known for helping shape the company’s best-known products. The words “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” are reliably associated with his 2005 Stanford University commencement address, where he recalled seeing the phrase on the back cover of the final Whole Earth Catalog in 1974 and used it to close his speech. The longer quotation here, however, joins that familiar ending to a line from Apple’s “Think Different” campaign: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” The wording is widely attributed to Jobs, but it is better understood as a combination of two separate messages, not a single verified quotation he delivered.
Together, the lines urge people to remain curious, resist settling for the expected, and take ambitious ideas seriously—even when others dismiss them as unrealistic. “Hungry” suggests a continuing appetite to learn and create; “foolish” invites the willingness to risk failure rather than let convention decide what is possible. The “crazy enough” line adds a bold claim: change often begins with people who imagine a different future before anyone else can see how to reach it. That mix of humility and daring helps explain why the words still resonate with students, makers, and anyone facing a difficult new beginning.