Elias Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institutes of Health and an immigrant from Algeria who arrived in America at age 24 with $300 in his pocket, delivered a commencement address at MIT structured around what he called his '50/50 rules' for life and science. This observation came from Zerhouni's counterargument to the common objection that asking questions outside your field makes you look foolish. He acknowledged the objection directly: 'That's very true. I asked a lot of stupid questions in my life, and you will, too.' But the cost of looking foolish is trivial compared to the cost of failing to ask a crucial question when the moment demands it. As the director of the largest biomedical research agency in the world, Zerhouni had seen this play out repeatedly. Breakthroughs come not from having all the answers but from having the courage to ask questions that others are too afraid or too comfortable to ask. The distinction between 'stupid' questions (embarrassing but harmless) and 'unasked' questions (seemingly safe but potentially catastrophic) was a powerful reframing for MIT graduates entering research careers.