President Faust, Board of Examiners, Intelligence, Alumni, Friends, Proud Parents, Ad Board Members, and the world's highest academic qualifications.
I am honoured to be with you today because, let’s take a look at you, accomplish something I have never known.
If I go through this speech, it will be the first time to finish something at Harvard. The 2017 category, congratulations! I am an impossible speaker, not because I dropped out of school, but because technically we are in the same generation.
We walked this yard apart for less than a decade, learned the same ideas, and slept on the same Ec10 teachings. We may have taken a variety of approaches to get here, especially if you have come a long way from Quad, but today I want to share what I have learned about our generation and the world we are building together.
But first, the last few days brought back many good memories. How many of you remember exactly what you did when you received that email telling you to get into Harvard? I was playing Civilization and I ran down, I found my dad, and for some reason, his reaction was to open a video for me and open an email.
That would be a really sad video. I swear getting into Harvard is still something my parents are very proud of me for. What about your first talk at Harvard? The mine was Computer Science 121 and the amazing Harry Lewis. I arrived late so I tossed the T-shirt and I didn’t realize it until later we were inside and in the back with my tag stuck to the front
. I couldn’t figure out why no one would talk to me — except for one guy, XK Jin, who just walked away with it. We ended up making our problem come together, and now you have a bigger share of Facebook.
And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be fun for people. But my best memory from Harvard was meeting Priscilla. I had just launched this prank website Facemash, and the ad board wanted to "see me".
Everyone thought I was going to be kicked. My parents came to help me pack. My friends have a party for me. Luckily for her, Priscilla was at the party with her friend. We met in the bathroom line of PhohoBell tower, and in what should be one of the romantic moments, I said: “I will be fired in three days, so we need to go to the day as soon as possible.
Anyone of you graduates can use that line. I didn’t just end up being fired — I did that for myself. Priscilla and I fell in love. And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facebook was very important in building Facebook. It wasn't.
But without Facebook, I would never have met Priscilla, and she is the most important person in my life, so don't say it was the most important thing I built during my time here. We have all started lifelong friendships here, and some of us are even families.
That’s why I’m so grateful for this place. Thank you, Harvard. Today I want to talk about purpose. But I did not come to give you a general instruction about finding your purpose. We are a people of thousands of years. We will try to do that naturally.
Instead, I am here to tell you that finding your purpose is not enough. The challenge for our generation is to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose. One of my favourite stories was when John F.
Kennedy visited NASA's space station, he saw a lifeguard holding a broom and walked upstairs to ask what he was doing. The landlord replied: “MMrPresident, help me put someone on the moon.
"The goal is the idea that we are part of something bigger than us, that we are needed, and that there is something better we can work for. The goal is to create real happiness. You graduate at a time when this is most important. But today, technology and automation are taking away a lot of work.
Community membership is declining. Many people feel isolated and depressed, and they are trying to fill the gap. to meet a schoolgirl or elsewhere they can go.
I have met factory workers who know that their old jobs are not coming back and they are trying to find their place. To keep our society moving forward, we have the challenge to do things - not only to create new jobs but also to create a new sense of purpose. I remember the night I silenced Facebook from my little home in Kirkland House.
I went to Noch ’with my friend XK. I remember telling him that I was excited to connect with the Harvard community, but one day someone would connect the whole world. The thing is, it never happened that anyone could be us. We were just college kids. We knew nothing about that. There were all these big tech companies with the resources.
I just thought one of them would do it. But the idea was clear to us - so much so that everyone wanted to communicate. So we kept going, day by day. I know most of you will have your own stories like this. A change in the world that seems so obvious is certain that someone else will make it.
But it will not. You will. But it is not enough to have a purpose for yourself. You have to create a sense of purpose for others. I found that hard. You see, my hope was not to build a company, but to make an impact.
And as all these people started to join, I just thought that was what they were interested in, so I never explained what I was hoping we would build. Within a few years, some of the big companies wanted to buy us.
I didn’t want to sell. I wanted to see if we could connect with more people. We were developing the first News Feed, and I thought that if we simply presented this, it would change the way we read about the world. Almost everyone wanted to sell.
Without a sense of purpose, this original dream came true. It divided our company. After one heated argument, the adviser told me that if I did not agree to sell, I would regret the decision for the rest of my life.
Relationships were so crippled that within a year or so everyone was single
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