Carleton Fiorina
President and CEO, Hewlett-Packard
Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard and an MIT Sloan alumna, frames life as a journey that rarely follows a logical path, drawing on her own experiences quitting law school and working her way from secretary to CEO. She urges graduates to engage their head, heart, and gut in decisions, to love what they do, and to honor those who supported them. She also describes a redefined model of leadership for the Information Age, emphasizing empowering people over controlling them.
“love what you do, or don't do it.”
Key moments
- 01 Crowdsourcing speech topics via email from the graduating class
- 02 Her own winding path from medieval history to law school dropout to HP CEO
- 03 Advice to listen to head, heart, and gut and to 'love what you do, or don't do it'
- 04 Reframing leadership as empowering people, citing HP's 'rules of the garage'
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Carleton Fiorina at MIT, 2000
A commencement address about nonlinear careers, head-heart-gut decisions, loving the work, and leadership built on empowering people.
Speech arc
- 01Email prompts
Opening move
- 02Medieval history
Speech beat
- 03Law school exit
Speech beat
- 04Secretary to CEO
Speech beat
- 05Head heart gut
Speech beat
- 06Love the work
Speech beat
- 07New leadership
Speech beat
- 08Garage rules
Final charge
Path: A useful life rarely follows a straight plan
Fiorina turns her own route from medieval history to law school dropout to Hewlett-Packard CEO into an argument for staying alert to unexpected openings.
Prompt
Questions from graduates let the speech begin as a conversation rather than a polished executive script.
Turn
Leaving law school becomes evidence that quitting the wrong path can be a disciplined decision.
Arc
The secretary-to-CEO story makes ambition feel incremental, built through choices rather than certainty.
Fiorina turns her own route from medieval history to law school dropout to Hewlett-Packard CEO into an argument for staying alert to unexpected openings.
Compass: Decisions need head, heart, and gut
The central advice rejects purely logical career planning and asks graduates to use analysis, values, and instinct together.
Head
Reason matters because difficult choices still need facts, consequences, and disciplined thought.
Heart
Love for the work is treated as fuel, not sentiment; without it, success becomes brittle.
Gut
Instinct is the accumulated signal from experience when the spreadsheet cannot settle the answer.
The central advice rejects purely logical career planning and asks graduates to use analysis, values, and instinct together.
Leadership: The information age changes power
Fiorina contrasts command-and-control leadership with a model that gives people context, trust, and room to contribute.
Shift
Knowledge work rewards leaders who unlock initiative instead of narrowing it.
People
The task is to create conditions where talent can move faster than hierarchy.
HP
The rules of the garage make innovation practical: believe, contribute, invent, and share.
Fiorina contrasts command-and-control leadership with a model that gives people context, trust, and room to contribute.
• Key takeaways •
Plans are provisional
Connects to leadership.
Use the full compass
Connects to self-knowledge.
Love sustains excellence
Connects to career.
Empowerment beats control
Connects to technology.
Gratitude widens success
Connects to empowerment.
Closing charge
The charge to graduates includes honoring the people who made the day possible and measuring success by what it enables for others.
Achievement is never solitary
Thanks
Family, teachers, and peers are part of the accomplishment, not background scenery.
Duty
Influence carries an obligation to widen possibility for the next person.
Standard
The speech closes with agency: choose work you can love and leadership that empowers.
The charge to graduates includes honoring the people who made the day possible and measuring success by what it enables for others.
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Transcript
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Read the full transcript at source →Provenance
Verified from official archive; cross-referenced with 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
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