Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and chief executive officer for Google Inc., gave the keynote address at Carnegie Mellon's 112th commencement ceremony May 17, 2009. Schmidt underscored both the importance of technological innovation and understanding the value of the family, friends and people around you.
Key quotes:
“We got our news from newspapers, you get yours from blogs and tweets. And for those of you who don’t know, that’s not what you hear in zoos.”
“We thought friend is a noun, right, you think it’s a verb.”
"We didn’t tell anyone about our embarrassing moments, you post yours to Facebook and YouTube every day!" I am so happy that my record of my misachievements is not around for posterity. I’m looking forward to yours being there for many, many years.”
“We wore watches, took pictures with cameras, navigate with maps, and listened to transistor radios. You have a cell phone.”
“In our lifetimes, literally, certainly in yours if not mine, essentially every human being in the planet will have access to every piece of information known on the planet.”
“You cannot plan innovation, you cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be in the right place and be ready.”
“In some sense you’ve been penalized for making mistakes historically, now you have to go out and make them because mistakes allow you to learn and to innovate and try new things…”
“Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.”
“Leadership and personality matter, we saw that from our student speaker. Intelligence, education, and analytical reasoning matter.”
“Trust matters in a network world. Trust is your most important currency…”
“You’ll find out, I hope, what I believe very strongly that people all around us of every race, color, and viewpoint fundamentally want the same things. They want a great and safe world, and they want prosperity and peace among all of us.”
“You’ll find that a mindset in its own ways, set in its ways locked down is a mind and life wasted. Don’t do it.”
“You’ll find today is the best chance you have to start being unreasonable, to demand excellence, to drive change to make everything happen.”
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Click here to read the transcript of his speech (pdf).
The speech is on the Carnegie Mellon You Tube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYwUde3wNo&feature=channel_page
It’s also available for download at Carnegie Mellon on iTunes U:
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/cmu.edu.2071419470
