resources to the enormous benefit of our nation and
region. In recognition of Mr. Ballmer's extraordinary
achievements in technology and business, his inspirational
public service, the university today conferring upon him the
honorary degree of Doctor of Science. The honorary citation
will be read by the chairman of the Board of Regents, Mr. Orrin
Smith. Will Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Smith please join me. [ APPLAUSE ]
>> Stephen Anthony Ballmer, you are the founding father of the
information age, one of its foremost architects, and for
over three decades, an unparalleled force at the heart
of its rapid development. Your vision and drive have brought a
new freedom of discovery to virtually every field of human
endeavor and transformed the world in which we live. Your
success began in cool and opened systems that would lead to your
life's purpose' you were a valedictorian of your high
school class and graduated making Noah
Magna cum laude from Harvard University. It was learning that
propelled you forward in the university setting that led you
to opportunity. Stephen, you were also a risk-taker, leaving
Stanford university's graduate school of business in 1980 to
join forces with a former classmate Bill Gates and a
fledgling startup with a very uncertain future. You had the
courage to follow an uncertain path into an unknown future and
the boundless energy to make such a bold venture
succeed. Your leadership was fundamental to the company whose
products, imagination and enterprise, have radically
accelerated the pace of scientific research and ill
illuminated the vast expanse of creativity and possibility. You
guided Microsoft's exponential growth with a style and a
genuine enthusiasm that ever inspired those you led. The
ecosystem of hardware and software you envisioned brought
success not only to Microsoft, but thousands of other companies
as well. In 2000, you became the company's Chief Executive
Officer, a position you held for 14 years. Under your
leadership, annual revenues more than tripled and profits
soared. Yet, you have always been and remain a man of the
people. Compassionate, without pretension, and extraordinarily
giving. Your civic and philanthropic contributions are
as great as your business and tech
technological achievements. Your support in healthcare,
education, the arts, and countless charitable
organizations has uplifted the lives and hopes of people around
the world. For the extraordinary success of the
company you helped build,
for Crafting tools that have made it possible to vastly
extend the frontier of knowledge, and for all you have
given towards the betterment of society, the University of
Washington is proud to confer on you the degree of Doctor of
Science. Congratulations. [ APPLAUSE ]
[ APPLAUSE ]
[ APPLAUSE ] >> Thank
you, gentlemen.
>>> Well, thanks! I'm a little fired up to be here today! This
hat gets in the way! Sorry about that! I -- you never told me in
my wildest dreams that I would be in the end zone at Husky
Stadium, lower bowl, 40,000 people! I would have told you no
way! So I have exactly two thoughts for you. One, touchdown
Washington! And two, go dogs! [ CHEERS & APPLAUSE ]
>> I want to congratulate everybody who is graduating
today. It's been a little low key in here for my taste. I want
actually all the graduates, every one of you to get up and
give yourself a round of applause. Congratulations! [
CHEERS & APPLAUSE ]
>> Actually for me, you may not know this. This is a special
class, the class of folks graduating this year are the age
of my oldest son, and the notion that some of his friends
are in this audience graduating today just gives me a little
extra special umple, Hank, Justin, others, you know who you
are, but congratulations
to all and the surprise of seeing one of my son's mothers
here, Melissa, congratulations! Great job!
[ APPLAUSE ] >> Michael and Chris made, I
think, a wonderful point. Neither one of them knows what
the heck at age 22 or 30 life holds for them. And you know
what? It's okay. It's okay. This class is graduating at perhaps
the best time in history, a time -- and if you don't remember
anything else from this speech, this is it. You have the
greatest opportunities in front of you of any class ever to
graduate from university. You have the opportunities to go out
and change the world in so many ways. I've had an amazingly
fortunate and lucky journey. I was born at the right time and
the right place to be able to participate in the launching of
the information age. And if you only take the perspective
information technology, the impact you all can have on the
world, the world of business, the world of science, the world
of education, the world of healthcare, there has never been
a better time, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, it
awaits you. It's there for you! You have an extra blessing.
You're graduating from one of the best universities bar none
in the entire world. The University of Washington! [
APPLAUSE ]
>> This university is unbelievable. Mike and I were
actually talking up on stage and some of the various
departments, but I certainly know the medical school here and
Dean Ramsey, I've gotten exposure to the school of social
work, certainly the computer science department! Will all the
computer science graduates please stand up! Yeah! [
APPLAUSE ] >> Let's give our countless
wonderful departments at the University of Washington and to
graduate from here means you have opportunity sitting in
front of you for the taking. I want to give you three
principles to think about as you look at the opportunities that
you have to make a difference. And it can be a difference in
one or two people's lives, 100 people's lives, a difference in
the world, a difference in arts or letters or science or
business. I'll give you three things to think about. First,
there's a Latin expression which I think is great. I love it. It
was in a now very old movie called The Dead Poets Society.
But the line in the movie was carpe diem. Seize the day. The
opportunities are there, but you got to reach out and pick them
up. You got to grab at them. Some of you may have already
done that at the U in your classes, in other students that
you met, in your extracurricular activities, but grab them.
Don't be afraid to make a mistake, because you know what
you can do if the grab the wrong one? Drop it and pick up
another one! It's okay. Seize the day. I think back of all of
the luck, but also the times that were in front of me to
seize the day. I don't know what got me to drop out of business
school and come to Microsoft. My parents thought I was a whack
job. Neither one of them graduated college and they
thought this was really a wild idea. I was lucky. I seized
the day. Microsoft, one day some guys fly in from IBM and all of
a sudden we figure out we could actually provide all the
software they need for this thing that became the
personal computer. People had the wisdom to seize the day when
that opportunity presented itself. And yet when you think
of all the opportunities, when I think back of all the
opportunities I've had, had the one that was most important was
an opportunity I got in 1969. Sitting in my junior high school
class, I was in a public junior high, not very simulated at the
time, and over the loud speaker, they said a private
high school in our area that I had never heard of was giving
scholarship tests that weekend. I told my mother I wanted to
take them. She said that's fine, as long as you get a
scholarship because we can't afford to send you there. But
that's really where I got switched on, switched on in
math, switched on personally, energized in a way that never,
never could be turned back. And I am very thankful for that
opportunity. Yes, there's a lot of luck in opportunity, but
there's a lot of seizing the day, and I encourage you all to
reach out and carpe diem, really seize the opportunities that
are in front of you. Number two on opportunity, have a point of
view. Sometimes it will be your point of view that creates
opportunity and sometimes you will pick up an opportunity and
it will give you a chance to build a point of view. If you're
Art Levenson, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, you may have a point
of view on what will happen in the world of genetics and what
can be invented, or the fact that software would be the most
powerful force on the planet and what it can do to change the
world. Points of view do matter. If you're like me, you might
not have a point of view before you get started, but I had the
privilege then to learn, and all of you will from somebody, you
will develop your own point of view on how to develop and shape
and bring those opportunities to the floor. One of the
favorite stories I have to tell kids is the story of the guy who
founded both Twitter and Square, guy named Jack Dorsey. I
barely know the guy, but I am in awe of his story. He's a guy
who was writing software to help taxi cab dispatch in the city
of St. Louis. And he discovered that blowing out small messages
was a really powerful force for taxi cab scheduling and the taxi
cab drivers neededded to be paid. And out of that
experience, he developed the point of view that allowed him
to create both Twitter and Square, now the most popular way
that people get paid. So point of view creates opportunity and
you need to be a person who takes a point of view with the
opportunities that
you're given. Third message, be hard core. Hard core is really
hard to define, but it is my favorite expression. Hard core!
Hard core means tenacious. Hard core means long-term. Hard core
means determined. I don't care what you do. You'll have to be
patient and industrious and really stay after things. When
Microsoft first decided it wanted to sell software into
businesses, people told us we couldn't. This was in the 1980s.
They told us in 1989 we couldn't. They told us in 1995
we couldn't.
2000, 2005. Today, if you look at Microsoft's enormous success,
70 or 80% of it comes from selling the software that really
automates the way businesses and institutions like the
University of Washington automate. Tenacity, sticking
with things. Outside the business realm, Nelson Mandela.
Just think about that case. The constant nonstop long-term fight
against apartheid that finally paid off. Opportunity is about
seizing what's there. It is about what's having, having a
point of view, but it's also about patience and
determination. Things will not necessarily come to you, poof,
immediately and overnight. You're going to have to be
determined and long-term. My wife about seven years ago got
started with some folks here at the University of Washington on
something called partners for our children. It's a center
based here rat the university that works in partnership with
both private sources and the state of Washington on ideas to
reform child welfare. Seven years, some progress. Seven
years, a lot more to go. And whether you're choosing careers
in business or the arts or in areas in which you will do
service, you will need to put in long-term effort and be hard
core in order to seize the opportunities that are in front
of you. Seize the personal opportunities that are in front
of you, too. I really believe that people need to have more
than one thing in their lives. I feel fortunate I have a life
partner, I have kids, I have a family. And you need to seize
those opportunities in addition to the ones that you will find
in front
of you professionally. The two of you guys said you are
respectively 22 and 30 and don't know what you're doing. I am 58
years old, and I too don't know what I'm doing again! [
APPLAUSE ] >> I retired from Microsoft
earlier this year. It's a wonderful opportunity, frankly,
for Microsoft. Fresh blood, fresh ideas, fresh thinking,
fresh leader who is outstanding. But new opportunities for the
company, and I look forward to new opportunities for me. One of
those, I'm afraid to admit I might be pursuing down in Los
Angeles. Please forgive me that. That's a passion for sports.
Yeah, I knew I had to take a little bit of that. But anyway,
I also am looking for what's next. How would I serve going
forward? Government? Other service, not as a politician.
That's certainly not me. You can tell that. But the search for
opportunity doesn't stop. It's there in front of you at all
times. You will face times where you want to renew yourself.
Seize the opportunity. Carpe diem. Develop a point of view
and then stay and really work on things in a very hard core and
determined way. You're all in an amazing spot, at an amazing
time, and able to make an amazing difference. I have a lot
of faith, particularly as a citizen of Seattle who loves
living in the northwest, is committed to being here for the
rest of my life. The fate of Seattle, the fate of Washington,
the fate of the world is in the hands of the class of 2014 of
the University of Washington. Please do a good job with it! We
need you. Thank you all, and congratulations! [ CHEERS &
APPLAUSE ]
>>> Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to present the
various degrees to all candidates. [ CHEERS & APPLAUSE ]