Bill Gates Harvard Commencement Transcript

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/06.14/99-gates.html

by keven • 19 years ago

19 22 19 years ago

news.harvard.edu

mattjaynes• 19 years ago

"The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity."

vlad• 19 years ago

I want to touch on apathy.

That's so true. When I ran for Student Body President at 18, people said I couldn't do it. Then, when I did become Student Body President at 19 (it was a big two-year school my parents made me attend), everybody else in Student Government said there would be too much apathy in the student body to have a student-run newspaper. Also, students said a chess club wouldn't happen. Finally, administration said a smoking policy could not happen. Yet, not only did they happen, but all of those things exist 5 years later, each in even bigger form.

The newspaper is now in color and part of a class. The chess club is now run by the math advisor who loves doing it and there have been chess boards in his office and the engineering lab for the past 5 years, last I heard. And, the smoking policy is in the student handbook the exact way I planned it out and wrote it, so students wouldn't have to walk through smoky entrances.

Then, people said I couldn't get a congressional nomination to the Naval Academy because it is very difficult to do so. But I did, twice, and worked my butt off to succeed in the physical aptitude tests, and raised my SAT from 1170 to 1400, and started selling shareware at 20, though I was not appointed by the school itself; but with the cheating and rape scandals at that school over the past few years, I think their student body and alumni must also upset be upset about the disconnect between who they say they want and who they take. So I just continued to create software since then.

Compared to that, one just has to create some kind of a web application that helps people do something. You don't have to attend meetings, get signatures, drive for hours across the state, run for election, or wait for unions to respond in some cases. You could have a working prototype in one day.

Everybody tries to compare themselves to facebook or youtube or google, and they never realize that each of those was very simple in the beginning and had a purpose since day one.

The fact is that "apathy" is actually a good thing for those who create. It means once you do create something, people are going to be reluctant to switch away from it. So, apathy is actually a benefit to those who create things.

The only people who bring up apathy are those who weren't going to create something, anyway.

In other words, the people who pretend they are creators but say "there is no market" even though such a tool or idea would definitely benefit certain people--those people are not creators, they are talkers. The creators realize that apathy actually works with them, not against them, since whoever starts using their tool (if it benefits them in any way) will keep using it.

On a similar note, if somebody says something can't happen or won't happen, then you know they're just lazy and are reflecting their experiences on you, but not considering your own drive and motivation. Most everybody who says you can or can't do something, shares experiences based on their own life, that they can't even remember clearly, and in only a 2 minute conversation.

Apathy towards change is also why you have to read diverse opinions every day on many different subjects, just to find the few people whose stuff makes sense.

Most people write the best stuff before they are famous, and everything since is just garbage. So, apathy works to those people's advantage, but not necessarily to others.

If you started reading Steve Pavlina today, you would think of him as some kind of a nut job who tries to pimp as many affiliate programs to his readers as possible. If you learn about Paul Graham today, you will think of him as some rich dot com millionaire-turned-investor making kids work 60 hour weeks during the summer, as well as telling kids to drop out of school so they try to start businesses with his money. Both of those are true, because at some point, everybody deserves to make money, but if you look back, you can see it's their articles from many years ago that truly defined them, and that's the stuff you want to be reading.

This means that you have to not only find the companies and people who are reputable, but figure out WHY they became reputable. Don't look at facebook or myspace or PG right now; look back at what their options were, and what they did. That's the only thing that matters. Otherwise, you're laughing at Jerry Seinfeld or whoever it is because you're used to their delivery style.

To famous creators -- comedians, web apps, investors--apathy is great and they deserve it. But you have to realize it's a good thing that exists, not a bad thing. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any benefits either, as people would jump from your web app to another, or a comedian would be forgotten if he didn't do standup for one month.

YOU want to be the most agile developer ever, always helping people the fastest way you can, always researching the best ways to help people. But most users will stay with a tool that already helps them--so move on to something else.

So, don't hate apathy, and ignore those who bring it up as an excuse to avoid creating something. YES, apathy exists, but it benefits those who create, not those who think.

So, the next time somebody wants to create a Magazine, people will say, we already have a newspaper. Don't bother trying, because the school will never sponsor both. Let's create a Risk Club. No way, they already sponsor Chess, so let's not bother trying.

That's right, people will whine about the current state of affairs without realizing it's up to them to continue the improvement along, and without making an attempt themselves. That means that apathy carries your current creations way beyond any date you can imagine. The harder it is to start something, the longer it will fly, it seems. So, the more "apathy" there is towards helping people do a certain thing, the more likely whatever you create will fly longer. It will be weird to come back in 20 years and hear that those three things either exist in the same form or are even greater.

Plus, remember--even though you proved those people wrong, you are now in a different place, while the nay-sayers who are afraid to try to make a difference are still there. Therefore, they are slowing down whoever else is now there trying to make a change, therefore increasing the length of time your ideas continue to exist.

Therefore, apathy is NOT a deterrent to success, only YOU are. Because whether people TALK agreement or TALK disagreement, only YOU can make the change and do it. Whether or not somebody likes your idea or not, you're the one who has to create it, so you're the only criteria in whether it happens or not.

brianmckenzie• 19 years ago

That was pretty good, but Steve Pavlina IS a nutjob with a bunch of affiliate programs. Just sayin'

SimJapan2005• 19 years ago

"...people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity."

pg2• 19 years ago

One of the most valuable things he brings to the problem is a certain amount of attitude:

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person's life-- then multiply that by millions. Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on-- ever. So boring even I couldn't bear it.

byrneseyeview• 19 years ago

Heh. I love the idea of Bill Gates going to Harvard to talk about activism -- I mean, how often does Ralph Nader deliver a commencement speech talking up risk arbitrage?

cglee• 19 years ago

I think young entrepreneurial types, such as those who prowl this site, need to read and re-read this article. Money, materialism and MTV all pail in comparison to the world's worst problems.

Tichy• 19 years ago

But money, materialism and MTV might be the cure...

jamiequint• 19 years ago

pale not pail

Alex3917• 19 years ago

"Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesnt guarantee success."

A subtle jab at college graduates?

jaf656s• 19 years ago

I thought he was referring to girls.

apparently I temporarily forgot the definition of subtle.

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gyro_robo• 19 years ago

He's such a thoughtful guy it occurs to me that Microsoft wouldn't be where it is if he had known about this stuff earlier.

Apparently it pays to be narrowminded; once you have a huge fortune, you can do something useful with it. Most activists become aware of "inequities" at a younger age but never have the $$$ to do anything about it.

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zurla2• 19 years ago

was I the only one a bit disappointed by this speech?

Steve Jobs and company set the bar pretty high I suppose, but this speech wasn't that great, and many people have made these same points much better. And I'm not sure that he justified his assumption that inequality is necessarily an evil. this isn't about exactly the same thing, i admit, but doesn't paul graham have an essay about inequality in a society being a good thing, a sign of a healthy economy, or something like that?

oh, and i could picture the audience shifting uncomfortably at his jokes about trying to score chicks at radcliffe.

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budu34• 19 years ago

Inequality, a sign of a good economy? Are you kidding me?

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zurla2• 19 years ago

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shankys• 19 years ago

See http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html

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ced• 19 years ago

Inequality within an economy where everyone has equal opportunity might be optimal, but that's nothing like the state of the world we're in.

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Bill Gates Harvard Commencement Transcript

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