the Arbuckle award you know honors an alumna or
alumnus of the school every year who who has made lifelong contributions to the
community and society and it's an award about leadership and we're often reading
about leaders or organizations that are falling short of what is expected and so
it's when we get to celebrate someone who is an emblematic of what a great
leader can accomplish that's a that's a wonderful thing to do and I think if
great leadership in many ways is is defined by just a very few things it's
defined by the ability to develop a vision and a strategy to execute against
that vision the ability to listen and communicate in a way that motivates and
inspires people around you and then most importantly great leadership is defined
by integrity and principles that set the tone and culture of organizations and so
it's fitting in that regard that we're here tonight to honor Lorien for her
service to the GSB to Stanford to the greater community for her work in
philanthropy and the work of Emerson collective as she gets to join the
illustrious group that we recognized before dinner it has been a great
pleasure for me personally to get to know Lori in both as an alum and through
her work as a trustee she's she just she she pushes us to really aim high for
Stanford she asks laser-sharp questions she brings an incredibly wide aperture
to the discussion she thinks not just about the School of the University she
always is asking you know how does this matter for the country how does this
matter for the world last year we had her come to the school and she she
talked in view from the top what stayed with me after she gave that
talk and I and I'm sure it stayed with the hundreds of students who were in the
audience that day was the way that Laureen had brought together you know on
the one hand just formidable intelligence and an incredibly
and dynamic spirit and then coupled those things with just a deep passion
for wanting to improve lives whether it was through health or education or
freedom freedom of people and ideas and the combination of just an expensive
vision for what you might try to accomplish and an incredibly sharp focus
on how do you get things done sort of exactly what you would hope for in
someone who came out of the GSB and has gone on to be a great leader so it's
just such a pleasure that we get to honor you tonight Laureen but with this
award okay now I have the great pleasure of introducing Reid jobs so we graduated
from Stanford with an honours degree in history and international security and
then a master's degree in history so please join me in giving Reid a warm
welcome it's a really deep privilege for me to be here introducing my incredible
mother Lorraine if anyone knows her but you know that she's she's really a bit
of a polymath it's it's hard to nail her down to just one description she
simultaneously today is a businesswoman a philanthropist a social justice
warrior a mother of three and a very successful beekeeper and producer of
honey and seriously but I've known her really my entire life my very first
moments at Goldwyn she really improved on a lot
of her natural abilities as a businesswoman
and let me give an example she was at Goldman when the Berlin Wall fell and
she really wanted to go she wanted to see history being made and the the East
being opened up now unfortunately she had just come out
of college with the you know and couldn't really finance the trip so to
figure this out she offered her superiors in Goldman a piece of the wall
as long as they invested in her transportation and in her housing and
there was a lot of interest so she syndicated about two to three hundred
percent of her expenses for the whole trip and everyone you know still has
their piece of the wall and they still talk about it quite a lot so I myself
started working in cancer here in Stanford when I was 15 in the cancer lab
and I started because of what it did to my dad and what did to our family and I
still I still think about that a lot but I I actually work on it now also because
I can do with her and it's actually not so scary anymore so I couldn't be more
honored to introduce a really remarkable woman my mom
Laurene Powell Jobs
well what a beautiful moment for me as a mom and I'm so very very moved and thank
you dean levin and the GSP community for this incredible honor I'm feeling truly
humbled I attended the Arbuckle Awards a long time ago as a student and back then
I never imagined that I'd be standing up here one day it wasn't that I lacked
confidence in my future it just didn't seem like the kind of place where women
showed up so part of the reason that I wanted to
be here tonight is to show the young women sitting where I sat all those
years ago that of course there's room up here for you but before I dive in I want
to ground my remarks and a few principles that are at the root of my
perspective principles that we can all agree on first
poverty is immoral second extreme inequality is unsustainable and third
inaction is inexcusable of course there will always be levels of economic
inequality in a society but today there are disparities of wealth so great that
they are an obscenity I understand that in some ways a gathering like this might
be an unexpected setting to raise issues of poverty and inequality after all many
of us are among the fortunate ones our economy works for us our education
system works for us our health care system works for us but we don't have to
travel far from this Hall to find a community where all of these systems the
ones we know how to navigate so brilliantly suddenly become calcified
two miles down the road in East Palo Alto per capita income is $22,000 about
a quarter of what it is in Palo Alto I'm raising this because the story of East
Palo Alto and Palo Alto of the coexistence of prosperity and poverty
and our own community is a parable of the situation in our country since 1980
the income of the top 1% like mine have tripled while the incomes of
the bottom 60% of workers have remained flat with 40 million Americans living in
poverty that includes one in five children now let me repeat that one in
five children live in poverty in America shall we defend our democracy of course
but we must also recognize that the voices of too many people in our country
are missing or suppressed in its deliberations shall we defend capitalism
yes of course but we must also acknowledge
the many Americans who are denied its benefits
we need capitalism with a conscience if scientists and engineers suddenly
discovered some rare and precious material with untold potential does
anyone doubt that the private sector and government would move heaven and earth
to harness it why can we not see that say Tsar and Martha's intellect and
their character are just this very rare and precious material
comes back to say czar and Martha because they're not only gifted students
who need a little help they're also the talent that businesses need to cultivate
they are the consumers businesses need to grow they are the community members
who support companies need to thrive over the long term and if we invest in
them if we focus on preparing them and empowering them to contribute fully not
only to our economy but to our democracy we have a chance at narrowing the gap
between the way things are and the way they might be the way they should be
not only in East Palo Alto but across the country
so here's my parting hope this evening for the student sitting where I sat all
those years ago especially the young women I hope you'll come back here one
day and tell all of us how you did it tell all of us how you not only
rediscovered those lost values that dr. King spoke about and not only address
the changing needs of society but also used every arrow in your quiver to
create the world you want to see to make of it a brotherhood and a sisterhood for
all of us thank you
doing thank you for sharing those thoughts of us and just that Retta bowl
message of passion and commitment and vision and inspiration for the students
in the room just amazing hey thank you maybe another round of applause for me
let me just thank everyone for being here tonight it's always such an
incredible pleasure to have this dinner and to get together all the different
generations from the GSB and to recognize someone as
extraordinary as Lorien and the past winners who are here so thank you all
for being here