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Stewart Brand finds things and founds things. The things he finds are tools, ideas, books, and people, which he blends and purveys. He created the Whole Earth Catalog, which won the National Book Award and sold over 2.5 million copies. He co-founded The WELL, one of the first online communities. He co-founded The Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock designed to tick for ten thousand years. He co-founded Revive & Restore, which is pioneering de-extinction science. His Pace Layers framework, a model of civilization as a stack of systems moving at different speeds, has become a widely used idea in design and organizational strategy.
His books include How Buildings Learn, The Clock of The Long Now, Whole Earth Discipline, and most recently Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One.
Before all of that, he campaigned for a photograph of the whole Earth from space, helped catalyze both the counterculture and the ecology movement, organized the Trips Festival, hung out with the Merry Pranksters, operated the camera for Doug Engelbart’s “mother of all demos,” advised the governor of California, and wrote one of the most consequential technology articles ever published (“Spacewar” in Rolling Stone, which introduced the term “personal computer” to a wide audience). He lives on the Petaluma River in California.
FAQs
Where does “Stay hungry, stay foolish” come from?
I put it on the back cover of the Whole Earth Epilog in 01974, beneath a photograph of a country road at dawn. Steve Jobs quoted it in his 02005 Stanford commencement speech. As for “stay foolish”: a hitchhiker doesn’t know where the next ride will take him. That’s part of the point. Here’s the Epilog.
Did you originate “Information wants to be free” ?
I did, at the first Hackers Conference in 01984. Here’s the whole story on “Information wants to be free”.
What’s the story behind the whole-Earth button?
It involved LSD and Buckminster Fuller, Spring 01966. Read the full origin story of the whole Earth button.
How’s the Clock coming?
The work on the mountain scale prototype continues. The first prototype was finished in 01999 and was displayed at the Science Museum, London. The second prototype was completed in 02006 and was beautifully reported in Discover magazine and can be seen now at The Interval in San Francisco. Some pix.
Do you really live on a tugboat?
Not any longer, but from 01982 — 02026 my wife Ryan Phelan (that link goes to Revive and Restore, where she is Executive Director) and I lived in Sausalito, California, on a 62-foot 01912 tugboat called Mirene.
What’s your notion about “applied history”?
Read the full sermon on applied history.
Press & Interviews
Designing the Dream House of an 87-Year-Old Tech Visionary
An icon of Silicon Valley’s counterculture, Stewart Brand is confronting his final years in a home that embodies the self-sufficient, DIY ethos of his famous Whole Earth Catalog.
Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (02022)
The authoritative biography. John Markoff, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered Silicon Valley for the New York Times for 28 years, interviewed Brand roughly 70 times and was given access to his journals and papers, which are archived at Stanford. It remains the single most substantial account of Brand’s life and is likely to stay so for some time.
Stewart Brand, Silicon Valley’s Favorite Prophet, on Life’s Most Important Principle
A wide-ranging conversation with Ezra Klein running from dropping acid and the genesis of the Whole Earth Catalog to what Brand thinks artificial intelligence will reveal about humanity, the forty years he has spent living on a tugboat, and why maintenance matters in a culture built around novelty and disposability.
The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog”
Written for the Catalog’s fiftieth anniversary, Anna Wiener’s essay traces how a countercultural publication became foundational to Silicon Valley’s image of itself, and asks what that inheritance actually amounts to.
The Polymath of Polymaths
One of Brand’s most in-depth and personal interviews. Covers the Whole Earth Catalog, psychedelic experiences, Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller, AI vs. intelligence augmentation, and Brand’s approach to depression.
Stewart Brand reflects on a lifetime of staying “hungry and foolish”
A reflective interview covering Brand’s life and legacy — the phrase Steve Jobs borrowed for his Stanford commencement speech originated on the back cover of the Whole Earth Catalog.
We Are As Gods (02021)
A feature documentary following the full arc of Brand’s life, with particular attention to his embrace of de-extinction and the controversy it created among environmentalists. Scored by Brian Eno, with footage shot on location at Pleistocene Park in Siberia.
Timeline
Born December 14, Rockford, Illinois.
Phillips Exeter Academy.
Graduated in biology, Stanford University.
Active duty as a U.S. Army officer. Qualified Airborne and took up skydiving. Taught basic infantry training and worked as a photojournalist out of the Pentagon.
Studied design at San Francisco Art Institute and photography at San Francisco State. Participated in a legal LSD study at the International Foundation for Advanced Study, Menlo Park.
Researched, photographed, designed, and performed the multimedia event “America Needs Indians.” Spent time on Warm Springs, Blackfoot, Navajo, Hopi, Papago, and other Indian reservations.
Researched and wrote for “Astronomia,” an exhibit on the history of astronomy at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, designed by Gordon Ashby for IBM.
Hung out with Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, and the early Acid Tests.
Designed and organized the Trips Festival, a three-day rock-and-light watershed event at Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco.
Conceived and sold buttons reading “Why Haven’t We Seen a Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?” The campaign is credited with accelerating NASA’s release of whole-Earth photographs during the Apollo program. The ecology movement took shape in 01970 partly as a result of those photos.
Married Lois Jennings.
Wrote “The Native American Church Meeting” for Psychedelic Review No. 9.
Designed and organized “World War IV,” public war games at San Francisco State College.
Designed and performed the multimedia piece “WAR/GOD.”
Helped design and participated in Doug Engelbart’s demonstration of “Augmented Human Intellect” at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, widely known as “the mother of all demos.” Brand operated the camera at the remote site in Menlo Park.
Designed and organized Liferaft Earth, a week-long crowded public fast dramatizing overpopulation, filmed by Robert Frank.
Co-organized the Demise Party with Scott Beach, celebrating the end of the Whole Earth Catalog with 1,500 guests at the new Exploratorium. Turned over $20,000 in cash to the audience to do good with. Debate lasted till dawn.
Received the National Book Award for The Last Whole Earth Catalog (Random House). 1.5 million copies sold; over 2.5 million across all editions.
Founded Point Foundation, which gave away $1 million in three years to effective individuals. Point ran all Whole Earth activities through 02003.
Wrote “Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums” for Rolling Stone. One of the most consequential technology articles ever written. Later expanded into the 1974 book II Cybernetic Frontiers, which contained one of the earliest uses of “personal computer” in print.
Divorced amicably from Lois Jennings, and she became Lois Britton.
Designed and organized the New Games Tournament, which resulted in two books, New Games Book and More New Games, by Andrew Fluegelman.
Published II Cybernetic Frontiers (Random House), on Gregory Bateson and cutting-edge computer science. First book to report on computer hackers.
Founded, edited, and published CoEvolution Quarterly. It continued as Whole Earth Magazine through 02003.
Edited Space Colonies and co-edited Soft Tech (with J. Baldwin), both Penguin.
Advisor to California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. In that role, initiated The California Water Atlas.
A son, Noah Brand, born to Alia Johnson. He’s turned into a writer.
Founded Uncommon Courtesy: School of Compassionate Skills, which gave sessions on such subjects as “Creative Philanthropy,” “Business as Service,” and “Street Saint Skills.”
On faculty of School of Management and Strategic Studies, Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, La Jolla, California.
Purchased a 64-foot tugboat, the Mirene in Sausalito California.
Married Ryan Phelan.
Founded and edited the Whole Earth Software Catalog (Doubleday) and the Whole Earth Software Review. The magazine “failed conspicuously.”
Co-founded The WELL (Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link) with Larry Brilliant, one of the earliest and most influential online communities.
Initiated and co-organized the Hackers Conference (with Kevin Kelly and Ryan Phelan). It became a TV special by Fabrice Florin, broadcast nationally. Since 1986 it is an annual event.
Co-editor with Art Kleiner, News That Stayed News, (North Point Press). Anthology of the greatest pieces from CoEvolution.
Consultant to Group Planning, Royal Dutch/Shell, London.
Organizer of private conference series on Learning in Complex Systems sponsored by strategic planners at Royal Dutch/Shell, Volvo, and AT&T.
Co-founded Global Business Network (GBN) with Peter Schwartz, Jay Ogilvy, Napier Collyns, and Lawrence Wilkinson. Ran the GBN Book Club from 01988 to 01999 and 02008 onward. Many of GBN’s scenario techniques may be found in the book The Art of the Long View.
Member, Board of Trustees, Santa Fe Institute. Stewart was involved in design of the campus build-out.
Member of Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that supports civil rights and responsibilities in electronic media.
Became an advisor to Ecotrust, Portland-based preservers of temperate rain forest from Alaska to San Francisco.
Published How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built (Viking Penguin). Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. SPNEA Prize.
Co-founded The Long Now Foundation with Danny Hillis to foster long-term responsibility. Serving as president and board co-chair.
Co-wrote and presented “How Buildings Learn,” a six-part BBC2 television series directed by James Runcie, music by Brian Eno.
Founded Seminars About Long-term Thinking (SALT), a monthly public lecture series at The Long Now Foundation. Co-hosted with Kevin Kelly.
Received Erdman Campbell Award for Creative Contributions to the Contemporary Mythopoetic Imagination from the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
Received the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award from the Urban Communication Foundation.
Published Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (Viking Penguin). Translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.
Co-founded Revive & Restore with Ryan Phelan, part of The Long Now Foundation. Mission: deep ecological enrichment through extinct species revival.
Published “Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning” in the MIT Press Journal of Design and Science. His most influential conceptual essay.
Installation of the 10,000 Year Clock begins inside a mountain in West Texas, funded by Jeff Bezos. The Long Now Foundation’s flagship project, designed by Danny Hillis.
Subject of the feature-length documentary We Are As Gods, directed by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg, with 24 original music tracks by Brian Eno. Premiered at SXSW.
Began serializing Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One on Books in Progress (a Works in Progress / Stripe Press collaboration), open to public comment. Some 73,000 readers followed along.
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