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Thank you. I'm delighted to be back at Penn State today,
I wanna thank Dean Wormley for inviting me to be part of the commencement ceremonies at Penn State.
It is truly my privilege. 25 years ago, I came to Penn State with my wife Richa and our 11 month old son,
to persue graduate studies in Computer Science. Richa, who's accompanying me today,
still ranks our years at Penn State among our very best, and I concur.
Let me start by congratulating today's graduates. You all are very fortunate to have completed
rigorous studies from such a reputed university, and now begin a new chapter in your lives.
Enduring is not for the timid.
You can rightly be proud to be here today. We are all here to celebrate your accomplishments,
and to wish you every success in the future.
I learned a lot from Penn State, not only about Computer Science, but also about football.
Penn State introduced me to football. There are important lessons in football: A game of risks and rewards in every play.
And yes, these lessons are very applicable in the industry.
Successfully achieving a goal ought never to be a foregone conclusion. If a goal is easily achieved,
then perhaps you aimed too low. Of course, aiming higher entails risk.
Today, I'm going to encourage you to aim high, to take risks, and to never stop challenging yourselves
to achieve greater and greater accomplishments.
To illustrate that, I'd like to briefly share two professional experiences that highlight the risks
that I have taken, how they turned out badly, and why I don't regret any of them.
Well, it all started at Penn State. I came to Penn State to get a PhD degree in Computer Science.
I took all the courses, passed the PhD qualifying exam, and the future looked risk free.
Then, however, a risky opportunity came up.
I could get into the ground floor of an exciting development project at Texas Instruments.
They were building a specialized computer called a Lisp machine. It was a pretty cool machine.
You could compile directly from an emacs editor by doing control shift c, and it really worked. Very awesome.
To take the job meant that I would never complete my PhD. And it meant that I am taking a chance
in a corporate world that I knew very little about. But maybe it was blind optimism, maybe it was arrogance of youth,
but I decided to do it anyway. The prospect of revolutionizing Computer Science was just too compelling.
So what happened? I learned new technologies, worked long hours, on an exciting project that ultimately failed.
Lisp machines never had any commercial impact because specialized processors were not necessary to run Lisp.
Taking the risk, however, was a fantastic learning experience for me. I learned that I loved
creating an exciting product. That corporate life was nothing to fear. I saw first hand how litte
game changing, cutting edge technologies can be. After the Lisp machine failure, I accepted a position at
Digital Equipments’ Western Research Labs, working with my former Penn State adviser, Dr. David Wahl.
Not many years after joining WRL, another opportunity presented itself.
Digital was interested in spinning off a start up based on my research project.
Despite my obvious excitement, there were risks galore. I had never shipped a product before,
I had never managed a team before, and start ups fail ninety percent of the time.
Naturally, I decided to do it. We built a team, we worked like crazy, and we produced a technicaly great product
that won the PC Magazine Editor Choice Award. That sounds like it should be a path to success,
beyond our wildest dreams, right? I wish I could tell you that we then sold millions of the product,
had a huge IPO, and we all retired rich and satisfied, but that was not to be. Alas, we failed miserably in the market.
It felt like returning empty handed, without scoring, after marching handsomely down the field.
For all our technical brilliance, we were equally bad at marketing and selling a product.
Needless to say, the company lasted only a few years. The importance of a balanced team was etched in my mind.
Better technology, and a superior product, with a misaligned sales team, lose in the marketplace.
Balanced teams win national championships.
I learned about teamwork, judging people, motivating people, understanding customers,
articulating vision, and delivering a product. There was no doubt I grew as a person.
Those stories are more than a decade old now. I will not bore you with all my failed experiences in my life,
but I will say this: The successes that I have enojyed, I do have successes, I'm not sure I would have been invited
if I did not have any. The successes that I've enjoyed owe much to what I have learned from taking those earlier risks.
In particular, the impact that I have been able to make at Microsoft is largely based on those past experiences.
To tackle the security and the reliability challenges, to large scale manual software development,
we decided to automate the development process using advanced software development tools.
Betting on cutting edge technologies helps you gain competitive advantage.
Building an aligned and a focused organization was key. Everyone does not need to be a star.
Stars have pointy edges. Sometimes thay are a pain.
You need the right people in the right positions.
Of course, we had to articulate a clear and a compelling vision. Without that, you cannot recruit superstars.
In the end, it's all about execution. And I'll repeat that.
In the end, it's all about execution.
Seizing opportunities always, almost always creates risk, and poses challenges.
But they are often worth it in the long run. Not all the risks that I've taken have turned out the way that I hoped,
but all have taught me something. I am not done yet, I'm already well along on an even more risky project.
Given the opportunity, I guess you could say that I'm likely to go for it on fourth and goal.
With your great education, you may feel burdened by the desire to succeed.
But never let the fear of failure hold you back. Don't underestimate yourself. Aim high. Take risks.
Sometimes you'll succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Other times you'll fail so miserably, you'll curse your own stupidity.
But I can confidently tell you that with every mistake you will grow wiser, and I'll admit, maybe slightly resentful,
and it's that wisdom that will help realize your true potential.
I could offer you some advice from great engineers and technological minds of our times,
like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or ... But I think Matt Damon in the movie Rounders as a card player, said it best.
"You can't lose what you don't put in the middle. But you can't win much either."
So my fellow graduates, I hope that life presents you with many opportunities,
that you have the wisdom to balance the risks and the rewards,
and that you have the courage to persue great challenges.
In short, may your future be rich in successes and failures, experience and learning. Thank you.