2024 Stanford Commencement speech by Melinda French Gates

[Music] Stanford University please join me in welcoming Melinda French [Applause] Gates thank you president saler and good morning class of 2024 it is such an honor to be here with you and your families on this truly happy occasion today is the day you graduate from Stanford University and that is an amazing accomplishment Stanford has always held a special place in my family's heart my dad Ray French received a scholarship to study mechanical engineering here in 1960 and while he worked on his master's degree my mother aaine friend supported them with her job at a bottled

water company and on nights and weekends she was my dad's lab assistant there's an old photo I love of my mom pregnant with my sister standing next to the wind tunnel in the engineering lab with a clipboard and a stopwatch today my mom and dad are back on campus for a very special occasion to watch their granddaughter Phoebe graduate from the University that changed my Dad's life and Phoebe is not the only one to follow in his footsteps my older daughter Jen and my son-in-law Niel earned degrees here too so happy Father's Day Dad and

to all the dads here and Mom thanks for making this story possible I know there are many many many other parents grandparents and loved ones who are here and as proud to be here as my family and I are graduates you have given us a lot to celebrate and also a lot to admire you arrived on this campus already accomplished in ambitious young people and during your time here you've also proven how adaptable you are and what powerful Advocates you are for the causes you believe in Stanford is a demanding University and your time here

was made even more challenging by what was happening in the world all around you from a once in a century pandemic that changed the way you lived and learned to multiple Wars that I know this campus is feeling very very deeply there is no question you are graduating into a different world than the one you matriculated into but you are also leaving this campus prepared to be the leaders that we all need and today marks an important milestone in that Journey shortly after I sit down you will be invited to rise if you are able

you will hear that call as as a Stanford student you will answer that call as a Stanford Graduate and with that a major transition in your life will begin I've been thinking a lot lately about transitions the spiritual leader R Doss had a wonderful teaching about two waves traveling through the ocean one big and one small and as the waves get closer to the land the big wave sees what's about to happen they see all the waves ahead of them are just crashing onto the shore and devastated the big wave says to the small wave

he warns them the end is near and the small wave Just Smiles and says don't worry we'll be fine you don't understand the big wave insists we're done for and the smaller wave is just totally calm and says no we're not and I can explain why in just six words you're not a wave you're water I love that story it captures what it's like to experience an enormous transition without losing the core of who you are I turned 60 this year and you don't get to be my age without navigating all kinds of transitions some

you embraced and some you never expected some you hoped for and some you fought as hard as you could for me those included starting my career at Microsoft losing one of my very best friends to cancer Falling in Love having children starting my work on behalf of women and girls and ending a marriage and Partnership of almost 30 years and very recently making a major career shift in each case there was a moment that I felt like that big wave terrified that life as I knew it was about to be over but I always made

it to the next day and so will you and I've learned that the next day is when the real work begins because what we do the next day is what makes us who we are so in addition to honoring all of your accomplishments today I also want to offer you something to think about when you wake up tomorrow three lessons I've learned from my own experience with transitions the first piece of advice is to enter these moments with radical open-heartedness most of the time we walk around through life in the thicket of our everyday routine

but during a transition we step out of our familiar surroundings into a big wide open space where everything is new and there are two ways to encounter these spaces you can keep your head down and focus on the finding the shortest distance possible from one familiar thing to the next or you can find the courage to linger in that lional space and see what it has to tell you that to me is practicing open-heartedness I have to admit as a young person I managed transitions in the first way I had a list of goals I

wanted to accomplish and as soon as I checked one off off the list I raced across the clearing to the next one cuz frankly it was a lot less scary that way but as I've gotten older I've learned the value of embracing uncertainty I'll give you one example of what this has looked like in my life when I entered philanthropy more than 25 years ago it was completely unfamiliar terrain I didn't have any experience in global health or development yet so I had a lot to learn and I knew I'd need to pay attention now

initially we thought the foundation's work was going to focus on vaccine access but when I started traveling around the world to see the work in action the women I met kept changing the subject they'd say what about the shots I used to get they'd ask me and they were talking about contraceptives so I stopped and I listened to what they had to say and soon I was talking about contraceptives on almost all my trips and continuing those conversations back home with my team and those conversations led to others I learned how much Society benefits when

women are able to make their own decisions control their own resources and direct their own Futures and I began to focus my efforts there instead I think back now to those early trips with such gratitude because the women I met took me in a New Direction and they led me to my life's work now you are Stanford students so I imagine most of you are graduating today with big plans for yourselves higher degrees to earn causes to advance companies to start Industries to disrupt those big bold plans are wonderful and the world needs you but

my advice is to leave some room for those plans to change resist the idea that anything you've done here at Stanford has already locked you into one path or any one kind of career be excited about the fact that you will encounter possibilities you haven't even imagined and be willing to let what you learn shift your thinking about what you're here on this Earth to do remember that once the wave learns to call Itself by a different name once it realizes it's not just a wave but it is water it becomes free to take on

new forms and the same is true for you that brings me to my second piece of it advice and it's quite short find your small wave in the story about the waves the smaller wave is the hero because it helps the big wave see things another way in fact the small wave isn't small at all it has the perspective on the big wave that the big wave doesn't have on itself graduates no matter who you are or where you are in life a small wave is an incredibly valuable thing to have different people will play

that role for you at different times in life in the early days of my career that person was a colleague named Charlotte from the moment I got to Microsoft I absolutely loved the work we were doing but as time went on I realized I didn't love the culture it was Brash and aggressive and that wasn't me I was the only woman in my hiring class of NBA days and I felt a lot of pressure to emulate the men around me eventually I reached a point when I thought maybe I would leave the company and like

the big wave I thought things were coming to an end for me but Charlotte helped me see things differently she was a little older and had a little bit more experience and she'd already figured out how to navigate the culture there without losing her own identity having Charlotte in my life made it possible for me to imagine a future at Microsoft also so graduates I promise you that here in this Stadium today there is someone who is going to play that small wave role for you someone who can help you imagine yourself as the person

you want to become and just as important there is someone here who needs you to serve them that role for them in return and that leads me to my final piece of advice today build a web of deserved trust that beautiful phrase comes from the legendary businessman Charlie Munger who changed this campus's landscape with the incredible student housing his generosity made possible Charlie famously said that the highest form which civilization can reach reach is a seamless web of deserved trust totally reliable people correctly trusting each other a web of deserved trust what a thing to

Aspire to as a society we aren't always set up to feel responsibility for the person who's next to us or the person who's on the other side of a divide or a debate especially not right now but we need each other no matter who you are there will be moments in your journey when you need to be carried or when someone else will need you to carry them when my good friend John died at age 37 I was one of a small group of people who tried to carry his wife Emmy to the other side

of her grief 3 years ago when my marriage ended she was one of the people who carried me to the other side of mine that bond between us is incredibly profound but of course what Charlie was talking about was much bigger than that a whole society based on that kind of relationship a bond so strong and reciprocal but multiplied millions and billions of times over during your time here as a student you've borne witness to many painful reminders of how the world is still falling short of that Vision but you have also demonstrated just how

ready you are to be the force for Progress the world needs yes you are graduating into a broken world but it is community community that rebuilds things you've already started building that Community here and together is how you'll make the broken things whole again but first you need to graduate and in a few minutes when you and your classmates are invited to rise I hope you will hear in that invitation a call to action I hope you'll think of everyone who helped you reach this Milestone today and vow to pay forward the Investments they made

in you most of all I hope you will step forward into the future with a radical open-heartedness emboldened by the wisdom and perspective of the smaller wiser waves that travel with you committed to expanding the Seamless Web of deserved Trust you have already begun to weave around you and when you wake up tomorrow no longer the person you are today and not yet the person you will become next I hope you will draw Courage and confidence knowing that you graduates are water the force that shapes the shore what a powerful force you are thank you

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