Stanford Graduate School of Business Diploma Ceremony

Frost Amphitheater

Graduates, Jeffrey Skoll, honored guests, faculty, staff, families and friends, welcome to the 2010 Graduation Ceremony at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. 

On many Tuesday nights during your time at the GSB, in a time-honored tradition, you have declared yourselves to be “friends of Arjay Miller!”  I am so delighted that Arjay is with us today.  Fittingly, Arjay will personally acknowledge the Arjays when we hand out the MBA diplomas.  And how many times have you said “I’ll meet you at Arbuckle,” the name of both our current and future dining hall?  We are so pleased to have Susan Arbuckle, the daughter of former Dean Ernie Arbuckle, with us as well – Susan will present the Arbuckle Award later in the program. 

What does your graduation signify?  At one level, of course, it means simply that you have satisfied the requirements for the degree: you have finished your courses, passed the exams, completed the assignments.  But as you know, studying at the GSB means so much more than mastering the concepts of management; it is as much about personal transformation.  As you sit before us ready – nay, anxious – to receive your diplomas, I encourage you to reflect on how you have changed and grown during your time here.  Your graduation today celebrates all that you have done and become, and your readiness to have a dramatic and positive impact on the organizations you will lead, manage, or found, and through those organizations, the communities they serve.

What you have accomplished in your time at the GSB, you have not accomplished alone.  You have learned and received help, guidance, mentorship and support from many quarters, all of which are represented here today. 

First, you are sitting shoulder to shoulder with your classmates as you have throughout your time here.  Think how much you have learned from one another, in study groups, squads, students clubs, study trips, Talk10, or just in quiet conversation together.  You have forged bonds here that will become lifelong friendships, which will nurture and sustain you in the years ahead.  Take a moment to show your appreciation for one another. 

Tragically, and quite without precedent, three members of this graduating MBA class have perished along the way in not one, but two, separate events.  We remember and miss Viet Nguyen, Mica Springer, and Roanak Desai.  I call your attention to their photographs on the back of your programs, and to the red ribbons that are placed on the chairs they would have occupied were they here today.  I am pleased that we were able to present Roanak’s MBA diploma to his family in a private ceremony earlier today. Let us pause to remember our friends and to honor their lives with a moment of silence.

Sitting behind me on the stage is a group of faculty who represent the more than 150 tenure line faculty and practitioners who have been your teachers, coaches, mentors, study trip companions, career advisors, and so much more.  I would ask the faculty to stand so that your students can express their appreciation.  And at various locations throughout the amphitheater are staff from the MBA, Sloan, and PhD Programs.  Without their tireless efforts on behalf of all of us, none of us would be celebrating here today.  I ask the staff to stand, wherever they are, and be recognized.

I have left the most important for last.  Each of you has been supported by family and friends.  They have provided encouragement, validation, love, and, yes, in many cases financial support too!  While we will hand the diplomas to you, you know that in parentheses after your name belong the names of those who have nurtured you and supported you along the way.  So, graduates, I encourage you to stand and say “thank you” to your friends and family who are celebrating your mutual accomplishment here today.

As you walk across the stage and receive your diploma, you start at that end as a student, and leave this end as an alumnus or alumna.  What does it mean to be a GSB alum?  One of the great privileges that I have as Dean is the opportunity to travel around the world and meet with our alumni.  What I find is that in many ways they are as diverse as your classes are.  But if one can generalize, and I think one can, there are at least three traits I see in common among them.  All three, I believe, are worthy of emulation.

The first is their connectedness: how connected they remain to their classmates, their desire and willingness to connect to GSB alumni from other classes, and how connected they remain to the GSB.  The power of an alumni network is measured not by how many people you can call, but by how many will call you back.  And GSB alumni return calls, return emails, and, yes, even “retweet”.  Many of you know this first-hand because an alum encouraged you to come here in the first place, reached out to you as an admit, or perhaps helped you in your job search.

The second trait is their intellectual curiosity.  I find that GSB alumni remain fascinated not just by their own companies or industries, but by the larger world around them.  They are current and conversant on a wide range of topics, and they never stop learning.  One of the things I hope your GSB education has given you, is not just what you have learned, but the ability, appetite, and drive to continue your education for the rest of your lives.

The third trait, which I believe comes from the second, is caring.  Our alumni care not just about themselves and their families, but about their fellow man and woman.  And because they are GSB alumni they are action-oriented and so they do something about it. 

So, for our sake, and yours I hope you will stay connected to one another and to us, and for all our sakes, I hope that, like those who have preceded you, you continue to learn about the world around you and that where you see inequities, that you will step in and do something about it, perhaps even drawing other GSB alumni into the fray.  In summary, please indulge me, just one last time, when I say I hope you will lead a life of impact and meaning, and that you will “change lives, change organizations, and change the world!” 

An alumnus who has certainly done that, is today’s inaugural graduation speaker, Jeffrey S. Skoll. 

Jeff Skoll was born in Montreal and earned a bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto where he edited the school newspaper and pumped gas.  He founded two companies before coming to the GSB for his MBA.  While at the GSB, Jeff edited the student newspaper, The Reporter, at a time when I was one of Mike Spence’s Associate Deans.  My goal during that period was to avoid doing anything that Jeff might want to write about!  After graduating from the GSB in 1995, Jeff decided to get into this newfangled thing that our smarter students were starting to notice: the Internet. 

Jeff was the first to join Pierre Omidyar at eBay.  In the early days of eBay one complete stranger would send money to another complete stranger who claimed to have something or other of value in her basement, with no ability to verify and virtually no recourse if anything went wrong.  Over lunch the faculty at the GSB quickly concluded that this was a fatally flawed business model, and wondered what Jeff would do next!

Following eBay's extraordinary success, Jeff launched the Skoll Foundation in 1999.  It quickly became the world's largest foundation for social entrepreneurship, driving large-scale change by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world's most pressing problems. 

Later, Jeff formed Participant Media to produce not just movies, but Academy Award winning movies that could make a difference; movies such as An Inconvenient Truth and The Cove, returning to his passion for reporting, story-telling, and writing.  Through Participant, Jeff demonstrated that he is not just a great entrepreneur but a great social entrepreneur as well. 

Not content to rest on his laurels, Jeff formed the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund to focus on the world’s greatest problems: climate change, water scarcity, nuclear proliferation, the middle-east conflict, and pandemics.

Jeff’s honors include Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, Wired Magazine's Rave Award, Business Week’s list of most innovative philanthropists, and the Producers Guild of America’s Visionary Award. 

I had the privilege for many years of holding the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professorship, enjoying the reflected glow of Jeff’s many accomplishments. 

To our graduates let me say this, in case you think we are going to hold all of you to Jeff’s high standards, you can relax.  Any one of his accomplishments will be enough:  Found a truly great for-profit organization like eBay, change the world through social entrepreneurship, or become one of the world’s truly great philanthropists!

Please give a warm GSB welcome to our alumnus, our friend, and our graduation speaker, Jeff Skoll.