{"id":3591,"date":"2003-05-01T19:15:23","date_gmt":"2003-05-01T13:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2020-08-16T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T13:50:07","slug":"oracle-ceo-larry-ellison-yale-class-of-2000-speech-supposedly-fake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/oracle-ceo-larry-ellison-yale-class-of-2000-speech-supposedly-fake\/","title":{"rendered":"Oracle CEO Larry Ellison – Yale Class of 2000 speech (Supposedly Fake)"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are old blog posts\/emails I wrote during my IITM and IIMC days and retrieved in 2020 via Waybackmachine<\/a>. I had a backup of them on a couple of DVD which my friends misplaced :\/.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGraduates of Yale University, I apologise if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude. \u201cIn fact, as I look out before me today, I don\u2019t see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don\u2019t see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers. \u201cYou\u2019re upset. That\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

After all, how can I, Lawrence \u201cLarry\u201d Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation\u2019s most prestigious institutions? I\u2019ll tell you why. Because I, Lawrence \u201cLarry\u201d Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not. \u201cBecause Bill Gates, richest man on the planet-for now, anyway \u2013 is a college dropout, and you are not. \u201cBecause Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not. \u201cAnd for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm\u2026 you\u2019re very upset. That\u2019s understandable. So let me stroke your egos for a moment by pointing out, quite sincerely, that your diplomas were not attained in vain. Most of you, I imagine, have spent four to five years here, and in many ways what you\u2019ve learned and endured will serve you well in the years ahead. You\u2019ve established good work habits. You\u2019ve established a network of people that will help you down the road. And you\u2019ve established what will be lifelong relationships with the word \u201ctherapy.\u201d All that of is good. For in truth, you will need that network. You will need those strong work habits. You will need that therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will need them because you didn\u2019t drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to #10 or # 11, like Steve Ballmer. But then, I don\u2019t have to tell you who he really works for, do I? And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, I realise that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you, are wondering, \u201cIs there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, no. It\u2019s too late. You\u2019ve absorbed too much, think you know too much. You\u2019re not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I\u2019m not referring to the mortar boards on your heads. \u201cHmm\u2026 you\u2019re really very upset. That\u2019s understandable. So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of \u201900. You are a write-off, so I\u2019ll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago. \u201cInstead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today.<\/p>\n

I say to you, and I can\u2019t stress this enough: leave. Pack your things and your ideas and don\u2019t come back. Drop out. Start up. \u201cFor I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me dow\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oracle CEO was ushered off stage.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are old blog posts\/emails I wrote during my IITM and IIMC days and retrieved in 2020 via Waybackmachine. I had a backup of them on a couple of DVD which my friends misplaced :\/. \u201cGraduates of Yale University, I apologise if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,114,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-convo-speeches","category-iimc","category-rambling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/photo-1547139559-c89c59d117611.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3592,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions\/3592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}