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№ 2007.003 — Harvard University — Commencement address
Bill Gates
Field: business
Bill Gates reflects humorously on his time at Harvard before dropping out to found Microsoft, then turns to the global inequities in health, wealth, and opportunity he only learned about after leaving. He argues that the barrier to addressing such problems is not lack of caring but complexity, and outlines a method—see the problem, find a solution, measure the impact—for cutting through it. He calls on Harvard and its graduates to dedicate their talent and the new tools of technology to reducing the world's deepest inequities.
Key moments
- 01 Joking about being Harvard's most successful dropout and finally getting recognized
- 02 His regret at leaving Harvard unaware of global inequities in health and wealth
- 03 Discovering children dying from preventable diseases like rotavirus and the failure of markets and governments
- 04 Arguing complexity, not lack of caring, blocks action, with a four-step problem-solving framework
- 05 Citing George Marshall's 1947 commencement and the role of technology in connecting minds
- 06 Calling on Harvard and graduates to take on the world's worst inequities, echoing his mother's words
Transcript
The full transcript is hosted by the original publisher. Commencement Archive links to the source rather than republishing copyrighted text.
Read the full transcript at source →Provenance
Imported from NPR commencement archive; cross-referenced with Open Commencement DB
NPR archive last updated in 2015; destination availability has not been exhaustively rechecked | Open Commencement DB transcript; not independently verified against the original recording