Tech legend Stewart Brand on Musk, Bezos and his extraordinary life: We don't need to passively accept our fate'

"Stewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale as suggested by the title of his celebrated Whole Earth Catalog and on the longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel to psychedelic drugs to computing."

"In his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised the Whole Earth Catalog and Brand's philosophy, and echoed its farewell mantra: Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old, in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era."

"There was a time when people asked me, What do you do?' I said, I find things and I found things,' says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his houseboat in Sausalito. I'm always searching for good stuff to recommend, and good people."

Stewart Brand, now 87, has spent his life thinking on planetary and millennial scales through projects like the Whole Earth Catalog and the Long Now Foundation, which plans for the next 10,000 years. His career spans multiple roles including writer, editor, publisher, soldier, photojournalist, and government adviser. Brand served as a bridge between San Francisco's 1960s counterculture and modern Silicon Valley, with Steve Jobs crediting him in a 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Working from a library in Petaluma, California, Brand continues seeking and recommending valuable ideas and people. His latest project addresses maintenance, a seemingly mundane but fundamentally important topic for sustaining long-term human civilization and planetary wellbeing.

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