The more the outside world

tries to reinforce an image of

you, the harder it is to continue
to be an artist, which is why a
lot of times, artists have to say,
‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going
crazy and I’m getting out of
here.’ And they go and
hibernate somewhere. Maybe
later they re-emerge a little
differently.
Ronald Johnson
EAD 864

JOBS
“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”
 Ron Johnson
EAD 864, Assignment #5
8/4/17

The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be
an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, ‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and
I’m getting out of here.’ And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a
little differently.

To psychoanalyze Steve Jobs and fully understand his commencement speech of “Stay
Hungry, Stay Foolish” one should digest the above quote from Jobs himself, how it fueled
foolish decision making and inherent desire to manufacture the hunger needed to create dynamic
products at the nexus of art and technology.

Jobs cultivated an anti-establishment philosophy, a disciple of the counterculture idealism

of the 1960’s guided by a mantra of “turn on, tune in and drop out”. He demonstrated this
mentality by dropping out of college, a move conventionally considered to be foolish as data
correlates formal education to higher wages. When discussing the counterculture technology
geeks that emerged from this period, Brand states “success in business made them disinclined to
grow out of their countercultural values”, a statement that certainly rings true for Jobs as his
career developed through an ideology of “it’s better to be a pirate than to be in the navy”. It is
clear this rebellious, maverick mentality is one of immense value to Jobs himself, and inspired
his commencement speech to the young graduates at Stanford.

Chided as imprudent by colleagues over his obsession to irrelevant details, Jobs utilized
foolishness as a vehicle leading to inspiration, and demonstrated this in multiple instances.
Bucking conventional wisdom, he conducted zero market research when creating the innovative
new Macintosh, relying strictly on his intuition that customers don’t know what they want. He
motivated the team by helping them view themselves as artists, stating “Real artists sign their
work” and insisting each contributor sign their names and engraving inside each product. This
unconventional design implementation was viewed as unpractical, but the idea helped Jobs
establish rapport and create a more dynamic product through helping staff identify purpose
through their work.

Jobs’ career further developed through an ability to motivate others towards excellence,
tactically used a reality distortion field described as a “confounding mélange of a charismatic
rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact”. Jobs used this technique to
push the boundaries of what his engineers could produce in an unrealistic timeframe, harvesting
hunger in staff to produce high quality work at an unimaginable rate of efficiency. He routinely
judged employees through a lens where everyone was either a superstar or a complete zero, with
the latter group being expendable. This management style kept everyone hungry to produce
better work to survive a layoff. Staff deemed worthy were inspired by his vision, an approach
Levesque touches on with his concept that the first tension of creativity involves “coming up
with a new idea and doing something with it”. Jobs hunger to innovate and “change the world”,
was marked by, among others, the sleek design of the Apple II and the innovative Macintosh that
incorporated a graphical user interface and functionality that dwarfed the competition. Jobs also
allowed hunger to drive his career through self-marginalization, at one point refusing an offer to
become CEO. He theorized the key to returning the company to prominence was to relegate
himself, rebuilding relationships slowly while deciding whether the company could be saved.
Jobs desired an organic rise to power, intuitively understanding for that to occur he had to regain
trust and immerse himself as a visionary on a smaller scale.

Developing his leadership skills also involved creating and promoting an identity through
strategic tactics. Erikson asserts the concept of a counterplayer as “people who work in some
way to oppose the life goals of an individual, and do so to such a degree that they assume a
symbolic place in his or her life.” Jobs ambitions were aided with Bill Gates in that role, with
Jobs using Microsoft as both an ally and motivational force to drive objectives. The emergence
of Microsoft as the top company in the market allowed Jobs to position Apple as the resistance to
that empire while simultaneously building a multi-million dollar company. And although he was
conflicted in the dichotomy of a Zen philosophy to resist craving and obtaining things with an
inherent desire to capitalize on technology, by perpetually being forced to view Microsoft as the
technological bully in the field he generated personal hunger to further develop in his career as a
creative innovator and operational leader intent on supplanting Microsoft as the industry
frontrunner.