Jeff Skoll Address to the Graduate Commencement Ceremony Santa Clara University, Leavey Event Center Santa Clara, California
By Jeff Skoll, 06.12.09

INTRODUCTION

Thank you, Father Engh, for this wonderful honor. This is one of the things I love most about Silicon Valley.

Where else would an All-American, devoutly Jesuit, fiercely proud university, confer an honorary degree on a not-so-devout, Jewish Canadian who earned a degree from farther up El Camino Real?  If you need more evidence that Santa Clara University instills values that all of us can be proud of—here is your proof.

I am also thankful that nobody mentioned the story about the time the Santa Clara President invited the Stanford dean to speak here.

The two of them were rivals, of course. When the dean arrived, he looked at the President and said, “Well, Mr. President, I suppose you are still trying to convince everyone that a Stanford degree isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.”

The President said, “No, dean. That’s why we invited you here. So they could find out for themselves.”

One of the advantages to having a graduate degree —Cardinal red as it may be—is that I have an idea what it took to get you to this day.

When you were an undergraduate, most of your support likely came from your parents, who sacrificed to help you earn your degree.

But as you earn an advanced degree, you’ve probably had a whole village behind you: not just your parents - but husbands, wives, partners, sons, daughters, co-workers, employers - who sacrificed so you could study between shifts, through feedings, or after bedtime stories.

They are the ones bursting with pride behind you right now. Graduates: before you hear anything more from me—let’s show them how much they mean to you.

In truth, I give all of you credit for coming out today. Given the kinds of things we are hearing about the state of the world, you’d be forgiven if you had the urge to crawl under the covers and go back to bed. 

But you are not alone. Fourteen years ago, I was in your shoes.  There was a similar sense of despair. The economy was weak, job prospects dim.  As editor of my school newspaper, I wrote the following piece of advice to my business school classmates:

My fellow graduates of the class of 1995:

In just four years, we will literally be able to party like it’s 1999. And we should enjoy it, because as you know, at the turn of the year 2000, the Y2K bug will surely cause a global economic meltdown. Unless President Gore can do something to stop it.

We are graduating into a world where the future of technology seems limitless. Today, it takes just 60 seconds to sign onto AOL. A decade from now, it might take half that time. Today, there are at least 5,000 sites on the World Wide Web. By 2005, it might be 50,000. The Sony Walkman is great, but the Discman is the music device of the future.

It goes on to predict that America's first African-American President will come from Illinois and be known by the letter "O." But she'll prefer to be called "President Winfrey."

I say all this to make a simple point - nothing is pre-ordained. The only doom and gloom that exists, exists in our minds. Every generation has the ability to improve the human condition, to alter the course of history.  And each of you has the chance to make a difference.

Along those lines, there are two pieces of practical advice that I would like to offer you today. 

The first piece of advice was given to me by a teacher when I was in high school. It has helped me to find my way in life, time and time again.

The advice is this. Write your epitaph, then work backwards.  Imagine the words that you want written about you on your tombstone. Do they say that you were a good mother, father, son or daughter?  That you were a teacher, an engineer or a counselor?  Do they say that you did something special to make the world a better place? The words are up to you.

But once you know what you want written on that stone, then you will have created the lens from which you can make every decision in your life. If a decision that you are about to make gets you further away from the words on that stone, then maybe it isn’t the best decision!

So my first piece of advice is to write your epitaph, then work backwards!

My second piece of advice is about dreams.  Everyone has a dream.  It is what inspires us and keeps us going.  But it is easy to be thrown off course.

When I was in school, it saddened me to see so many of my classmates clamoring to go to work for the highest paying jobs, regardless of whether these jobs brought them any closer to their life’s fulfillment or not. 

They felt they could put off their dreams in the hopes of pursuing them tomorrow.  Sadly, for many of them, that tomorrow will never come. 

So live your dream, no one can live it but you!

In my case, my dream was to be a writer.  

As a kid, my family used to go camping in upstate New York. There wasn't much to do except fight with my sister or read books.  By the time I was a teenager, I had developed a view that the world of the future might not be a very pleasant place, and I resolved to tell stories that would get people involved in the issues that affect us all. 

Around that time, my father came home one day and announced that he had cancer and that it looked pretty bad.  Then he said something that has stuck with me to this day.  He said that he wasn’t so much afraid that he might die, but that he hadn’t done the things that he wanted to with his life.

Fortunately, my father is still alive today, but for me that was a wakeup call and it set me on a mission.

I didn’t think that writing stories about issues would be the best way to make a living, so I decided to go down an entrepreneurial path so that I could afford to write these stories.

Along the way, I started several companies, including the unfortunately named “Micros on the Move”, a computer rental company that didn’t do too well because people kept stealing the computers.

But I kept my eye firmly on the path that I had set for myself, and when my friend Pierre Omidyar approached me with his idea for eBay, I was very sure of what to do.  With my newly minted Stanford degree in hand, I said “Pierre, what a stupid idea!”  Fortunately, I soon realized that Pierre was onto something and we then left our jobs to pursue eBay as a fulltime company.

Being part of the creation of eBay was a fantastic experience and eBay gave me the resources to live my dream on a scale I had never imagined. But, throughout, I knew that telling stories that made a difference was what I wanted to do.

That dream has now taken form as Participant Media, a company I created five years ago to tell stories that inspire and compel social change.  We have released twenty films to date, including An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Kite Runner and Syriana.  We even have two films in theaters right now – The Soloist, a film about homelessness, and Food Inc, a documentary about the industrialization of food and its effect on society, a film that in fact just opened today.

But it all started because I had a vision of how I wanted my epitaph to read and a dream of how to get there.  And if a middle class kid from Canada can do that, so too can you.

Over the past decade, I have been privileged to meet young men and women, much like you, who are finding new ways to solve the world's oldest problems.

One thing they have taught me is that the collective wisdom that we have been taught for years is no longer true.  For generations, we have been told that there is a formula to apply to our lives, built around three simple words: learn . . . earn . . . return.

The idea was that you learn as much as possible in school; earn a decent living at a good job; and then, as you near the end of your career, you return something to society.

This formula is changing.  Today, one can learn, earn and return all at the same time.

One person who exemplifies this is a young man named Craig Kielburger — who also happens to be Canadian.

In 1995, when he was 12 years old, Craig came across an article about the murder of a 12 year old boy in Pakistan. This boy had been a slave in a rug factory since the age of four. It shocked Craig that this boy of the same age would have such a life. Craig then started an after-school program to speak out on child labor abuses.

Fourteen years later, Free the Children has built more than 500 schools throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, providing education to more than 50,000 children. It has also inspired more than a million young people across North America to take action to help their less privileged peers overseas.

Along the way, Craig earned a bachelor's degree and he is studying today to earn an MBA. He even makes a decent living doing this work.

So here is someone, a fellow Canadian, who also began reading about the world at a young age and who wanted to tell stories. But rather than sticking to the "learn, earn, return" formula like I did, he turned it on its head. Now, at the same age that I began earning my MBA, he is earning his MBA—already having made a difference in the lives of millions of people.

There are a number of different classes graduating here today. Whether you go into business, work as an engineer, or focus your career on improving lives, schools, or communities. – you might ask this question. What would happen if all of you applied the full range of your skills to solving the world’s biggest problems?

YOUR GENERATION’S MOON SHOT

Next month, America will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. The Kennedy Library just opened a new exhibit called “moon shot.” As we think about where to focus our energy today, it is worth asking the question: what is this generation's moon shot?

Maybe it is to reverse climate change and bring the snows back to Kilimanjaro.  

Maybe it is to replace conflict with cooperation in the Middle East.

Maybe it is to create a world free of nuclear weapons.

Maybe it is to cure malaria and AIDS.

Maybe it is to put clean drinking water within reach of every person in the world.

As you leave Santa Clara, remember the lessons you learned here —but also remember the lesson of St. Clare herself. Born into wealth and privilege, she chose instead a life of service, to make things better for others.  

Each of you has the opportunity to follow the example of St. Clare … and to be the leader of your generation’s moon shot.

So tonight, go party like its 1999, you deserve it.  Be proud of what you have accomplished.

And when you wake up tomorrow, begin to live your dreams. 

Thank you.

© 2009, Skoll Foundation.