[MUSIC]
I think everyone has an origin story that matters, and that's important.
For me, my origin story began at the age of seven years old.
There's a lady in the hospital fighting septicemia,
which potentially could have been a terminal illness.
I discovered a comic book based on my love for a fictitious character, Batman.
And in that comic book there was a character named Dr. Lucius Fox.
He was a black man, he was an engineer, he was a financier,
the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he made all the gadgets for Batman.
I read as much as I could about Lucius Fox.
He desperately clinging to all the narratives that expose his brilliance
in both engineering and making things, but also strategy and building bridges and
community with the chief of police and the journalists.
And so, he was the prototypical mentor that I needed at that moment to see all of
my gifts and talents in one person.
Now, while he didn't actually exist in real life,
I gave myself a mission to become him.
Growing up on the South side of Chicago, it's quite difficult, I didn't fit in,
I often was laughed at for my dreams and aspirations.
Because it's unheard of to say, hey, I'm a nine year old child,
I want to design gadgets for super heroes.
People really believe that you're just pretending, but
I was serious about my mission and my intent.
As I matriculated through primary school and to secondary school and into college,
what I realized is that it didn't matter what people thought about my dream.
It only matter what I thought about my dreams, so
I stopped seeking validation and acceptance from others.
I stopped seeking a yes and I started to eliminate the way people can tell me no.
Multiply that times my inquisitiveness and my creativity, and
I ended up being Nike's first black design intern in 2001.
I came from a traditional art and design background.
When I left Nike to come to Stanford, I was a senior designer,
I was the youngest person to reach that title at the time when I held it.
So getting to Stanford was just honestly it seems like the natural outcome from
my journey.
But at the time as I was going through looking at schools,
looking at different environments, it definitely was something that I felt was
the highest aspiration for me to strive for as a creative.
Upon arrival at Stanford GSB, I quite honestly was searching for
a community of like minded individuals who saw my talent is not
being something that was integrated vertically into a corporation.
To something that can transform the way we engage with society,
the way we have difficult conversations, the way we design for belonging.
Design is the filter you use to get to the most ubiquitous outcome that helps
the most amount of people.
And so, our job isn't to provide solutions,
and most people think is drawing pictures, producing products.
It's really to ask the boldest questions to move humanity forward.
And so, I don't think we can move forward anymore in this attention-based economy
without taking design seriously, not just letting us have a seat at the table.
But letting us be the head of the table, design the table,
source the table because we have skill sets that are valuable to
really move humanity forward and move each of these antiquated industries forward.
We need to try new styles of leadership, we need to radically shake up what it
means to be a CEO, what it means to be a founder, the look and feel,
what it means to be a board member.
If you're at the GSB, if you're Black, Latino, LGBTQ, woman, atheist, Muslim,
Christian, whatever it is that you identify us.
You are welcome, and you are accepted, and you are needed, and
that is the thing you have to understand.
There's a difference between being wanted for your skill set and
needed to be part of the texture of a community.
We have to radically challenge the status quo, and we have to do that with love,
compassion, and the willingness to sacrifice some of the opportunities for
the betterment of the collective.
That is what it means to be a servant leader and
that is what we were taught at Stanford.
[MUSIC]
So I've often been asked, did I become Lucius Fox?
In my mind, I did, in my mind,
I've dedicated my life to using my gifts and talents to serve others.
I wake up daily and I have a practice of asking myself,
how can I kill my ego today?
I put myself in situations where I serve often, I reach out to people through text
messages and voice message, and ask them, how can I be there for you?
And I think that's the embodiment of the spirit of Lucius Fox,
he didn't have super powers.
He was super compassionate, he was intelligent, and he used that to help
people who were out fighting the world's greatest issues and challenges.
So, simply put, I believe I am becoming Lucius Fox, and
it'll always be in motion because there will always be problems for
me to try to solve and they'll always be challenges that can be met with love.
They'll always be people who feel left out that I can advocate for and speak up for.
So that's the mission of a person like Lucius is to never feel satisfied
with the work,
because the work isn't done until all of us feel loved and feel the same.
[MUSIC] I'm Jason Mayden,
I'm a designer, I'm an entrepreneur from a GSB alum, but
most importantly, I am a father and I am a husband.
[MUSIC]