Inspiration on a screen - Be open, impatient and hopeful: Pichai to the class of 2020

Chennai

I don’t think this is the graduation ceremony any of you imagined. At a time when you should be celebrating all the knowledge you’ve gained, you may be grieving what you’ve lost: the moves you planned, the jobs you earned, and the experiences you were looking forward to. In bleak moments like these, it can be difficult to find hope.

So, let me tell you what happens: you will prevail. The reason I know you’ll prevail is because so many others have done it before you. One hundred years ago, the class of 1920 graduated into the end of a deadly pandemic. Fifty years ago, the class of 1970 graduated in the midst of the Vietnam War. And nearly 20 years ago, the class of 2001 graduated just months before 9/11. There are notable examples like this. They had to overcome new challenges, and in all cases they prevailed. The long arc of history tells us we have every reason to be hopeful. So, be hopeful.

It’s very conventional for every generation to underestimate the potential of the following one. It’s because they don’t realise that the progress of one generation becomes the foundational premise for the next. And it takes a new set of people to come along and realise all the possibilities. I grew up without much access to technology. We didn’t get our first telephone till I was 10.

I didn’t have regular access to a computer until I came to America for graduate school. And our TV, when we finally got one, only had one channel. You grew up with computers of all shapes and sizes. The ability to ask a computer anything, anywhere—the very thing I’ve spent my last decade working on—is not amazing to you. That’s OK, it doesn’t make me feel bad, it makes me hopeful! There are probably things about technology that frustrate you and make you impatient. Don’t lose that impatience. It will create the next technology revolution and enable you to build things my generation could never dream of. You may be just as frustrated by my generation’s approach to climate change, or education. Be impatient.

It will create the progress the world needs. You will make the world better in your own ways. Even if you don’t know exactly how. The important thing is to be open-minded so you can find what you love. For me, it was technology. The more access my family had to technology, the better our lives got. So, when I graduated, I knew I wanted to do something to bring technology to as many others as possible.

At the time, I thought I could achieve this by helping build better semiconductors. I mean, what could be more exciting than that? My father spent the equivalent of a year’s salary on my plane ticket to the US so I could attend Stanford. Had I stayed the course in graduate school, I’d probably have a PhD today—which would have made my parents really proud. But I might have missed the opportunity to bring the benefits of technology to so many others.

And I certainly wouldn’t be standing here speaking to you as Google’s CEO. Believe me when I say I saw none of this coming when I first touched down in the state of California 27 years ago. The only thing that got me from here to there—other than luck—was a deep passion for technology, and an open mind. Take the time to find the thing that excites you more than anything else in the world. Not the thing your parents want you to do. Or the thing that all your friends are doing. Or that society expects of you. Be open, be impatient, be hopeful. If you can do that, history will remember the Class of 2020 not for what you lost, but for what you changed.

— The CEO of Google was speaking at YouTube’s Dear Class of 2020 e-event