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It is my pleasure to bring before you today an outstanding
individual whose accomplishments and contributions warrant
special recognition from the academic community of Northern
Arizona University. Bill Gates is co-chair of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, founder of Breakthrough Energy
and cofounder of Microsoft through more than 20 years of
leadership.
At the Gates Foundation, he has worked on a broad spectrum of
global health and development issues, and through his private
office, Gates Adventures Ventures, Excuse me, he pursues
his work in Alzheimer’s Research, interdisciplinary
education, and technology. At Breakthrough Energy, he’s
putting his experience as an innovator and problem solver to
work to address climate change by supporting the next
generation of entrepreneurs.
Big thinkers and clean technologies. In 2010, Bill
Gates, along with Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett,
founded the Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage the
wealthliest families and individuals to publicly commit
more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes and
charitable organizations during their lifetime or in their will.
President Cruz Rivera, It is my honor.
To present Bill Gates for the Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
Thank you Provost Pugliesi. It is indeed an honor to have Bill
Gates with us today. Northern Arizona University recognizes
his highest attainment of professional achievement and
philanthropic contributions by bestowing upon him an honorary
doctoral degree Bill Gates in recognition.
Of your distinguished career and the acknowledgement of your
leadership and philanthropic commitments to shaping a better
world where every individual has the opportunity to live a
healthy life and reach their full potential, I hereby confer
upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, including all
the privileges, prerogatives, and responsibilities pertaining
to that degree. Congratulations. Thank you.
Good afternoon. Thank you President Cruz Rivera and the
Arizona Board of Regents for this tremendous honor. I am
thrilled to be here with any use esteemed faculty and staff.
Friends and family, the time has finally come to exhale. Today is
your accomplishment too, and I think that deserves a round of
applause. Graduates, you made it. You finished your capstones
and your internships. You survived junior level writing
class and multiple Tequila Sunrises.
You had your last Dimes Night at Museum Club and you earned your
rubber duck from Collins. You might be happy to know that I’ve
I’ve joined your ranks. I am now the proud recipient of an
honorary doctorate and.
An honorary doc. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to
address you today. I believe more people should know about
the tremendous value of an NAU education. You are graduating
from an institution that creates opportunity, fosters innovation
and builds community, and it is prepared you.
To find solutions to some of the biggest problems facing us
today. Any you is giving you something. I never received a
real college degree. I’m sure a lot of you know that I never
made it to my own graduation. I left college after three
semesters to start Microsoft. So what?
Go to college, dropout, know about graduation? Not much, to
be honest. As I prepared for today, I thought about how you,
as new graduates, can have the biggest impact on the world with
the education you received here. It got me thinking about the
graduation I never had, the commencement speech I never
heard, and the advice.
I wasn’t given on a day like this one, and that is what I
want to share with you this afternoon. The five things I
wish I was told at the graduation I never attended. The
first thing is your life isn’t a one act play. You probably feel a
lot of pressure right now to make the right decisions about
your career.
It might feel like those decisions are permanent. They’re
not. What you do tomorrow, or even for the next 10 years, does
not have to be what you do forever. When I left school, I
thought I would work at Microsoft for the rest of my
life. Today, I still love my part time work on software, but
philanthropy is my full time job.
I get to spend my days working with others to create
innovations to fight climate change and reduce inequalities
around the world, including in health and education. I feel
lucky that the Gates Foundation gets to support support amazing
institutions like NAU, even if it’s not what I imagined I’d be
doing when I was 22.
Not only is it okay to change your mind or have a second
career, it can be a very good thing. The second piece of
advice I wish I’d heard at my graduation is that you’re never
too smart to be confused. I thought I knew everything I
needed to know when I left college. But the first step to
learning something new?
Is embracing what you don’t know instead of focusing on what you
do know. At some point in your career, you’ll find yourself
facing a problem you cannot solve on your own. When that
happens, don’t panic. Take a breath, force yourself to think
things through, and then find smart people to learn from. It
could be a colleague with more experience.
You could be one of your fellow graduates who has perspective
and will push you to think differently. It might be an
expert in the field who’s willing to reply to your
questions over DM. Everything I’ve accomplished included
seeking knowledge from others who knew more people want to
help you. The key is to not be afraid to ask. You may be done
with school
but you can and should see the rest of your life as an
education. My third piece of advice is to gravitate towards
work that solves important problems. The good news is that
you’re graduating at a time when there are many important
problems to solve. New industries and companies are
emerging every day that will allow you to make a good living.
And make a difference. And advances in science and
technology have made it easier than ever to make a big impact.
For example, many of you are becoming foresters. Your
professors. Your professors taught you about cutting edge
tools like drones that use Lidar to produce accurate maps of the
forest.
You could find ways to use that technology to help fight climate
change. Some of you are heading off to start careers as
programmers. Use your talents to make sure all people can benefit
from artificial intelligence and to help eliminate biases in AI.
When you spend your days doing something that solves big
problem, it energizes you.
To do your best work. It forces you to be more creative, and it
gives your life a strong sense of purpose. My fourth piece of
advice is simple. Don’t underestimate the power of
friendship. When I was in school, I became friends with
another student who shared a lot of my interests, like science
fiction novels and computer magazines.
Little did I know how important that friendship would be. My
friend’s name was Paul Allen, and we started Microsoft
together. Remember that the people you’ve sat next to in
lectures, skied, snowballed with, and competed against on
Wingo Night are not just your classmates. They are your
network, your future cofounders and colleagues.
A great future support, source of support, information and
advice. The only thing more valuable than what you walk off
stage with today is who you walk on stage with. My final piece of
advice is the one I could have used the most. It took me a long
time to learn and it is this. You are not a slacker
if you cut yourself some slack. When I was your age, I didn’t
believe in vacations. I didn’t even believe in weekends. I
pushed everyone around me to work very long hours. In the
early days of Microsoft, my office overlooked the parking
lot and I would keep track of who is leaving early and who is
staying late.
But as I got older, and especially once I became a
father, I realized that both in terms of doing your best work
and having a great life, that that intensity was not always
appropriate. Don’t wait as long as I did to learn this lesson.
Take time to nurture your relationships, to celebrate
successes and recover from losses. Take a break when you
need to.
Take it easy on the people around you when they need it
too. And before you begin the next stage of your lives, take a
moment and have some fun. Tonight, this weekend, this
summer, whenever you deserve it. Class of 2023, the future
belongs to you. I believe that you will be the ones to solve
the climate crisis.
And reduce the gap between the rich and poor. You have already
made history by attending college during some truly
unprecedented times. I have no doubt that you will continue to
make history throughout the rest of your lives. I can’t wait to
see how you will drive progress around the world.
Congratulations on reaching this momentous milestone. Go,
Lumberjacks.