Home / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / 2009
№ 2009.018 — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — Commencement address
Carl Schramm
Field: business
Carl Schramm urges University of Illinois graduates to consider entrepreneurship as a vocation, telling the story of Ewing Kauffman, who built a pharmaceutical company from nothing and later created a foundation to teach entrepreneurship. He challenges the notion that non-profit and government work is inherently more virtuous than business, arguing that entrepreneurship is itself a form of service that creates wealth, jobs, and innovation. Speaking during the 2009 recession, he places current economic hardship in historical context and calls on graduates to become America's most entrepreneurial generation.
Key moments
- 01 Story of Ewing Kauffman building Marion Laboratories and founding the Kauffman Foundation
- 02 Placing the 2009 recession in historical context against past depressions and wars
- 03 Rejecting the false dichotomy between business and non-profit or government service
- 04 Arguing entrepreneurs and economic growth are essential to solving national problems and alleviating poverty
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