
Bill Gates Harvard Commencement Transcript - keven
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/06.14/99-gates.html
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pg
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._

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cglee
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.

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

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

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vlad
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.

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

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gyro_robo
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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Alex3917
"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 doesnt guarantee success."

A subtle jab at college graduates?

~~~
jaf656s
I thought he was referring to girls.

 _apparently I temporarily forgot the definition of subtle.

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zurla
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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budu3
Inequality, a sign of a good economy? Are you kidding me?

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shankys
See <http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html>

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budu3
The link is broken or it's not pointing to the essay.

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pg
I fixed it.

(The period was getting incorporated into the url; if you turn urls into
links, it's not straightforward to say where they end.)

~~~
ralph
How about also supporting the <URL:[http://google.com/>](http://google.com/>)
syntax that the RFCs use? It would let us submit the more tricky ones. It was
invented because of the problem you're having; it's ambiguous whether the
trailing dot is part of the URL or not.

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SimJapan2005
"...people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their
humanity."

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byrneseyeview
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?

