0:01 A few minutes ago, I conferred the No Boundaries Award on a young entrepreneur and computer scientist, Jabaded Karim. A man whose success at a young age has reshaped the world, bringing people together as never before, enhancing human contact, advancing human understanding. A man who embodies the future, whose vision and creativity will prove essential to solving the intricate problems confronting our global community, applying transformational knowledge. He will doubtless discover and refine and share. Javeed represents the best traits of Illinois alumni. His love of learning led him to the doctoral program at
0:47 Stanford. His role as a leader is assured as he strives to become a professor, then shares his knowledge with the next generation of leaders. There's one word to describe Javit's accomplishments, one word to frame his potential. Cool. Please welcome our commencement speaker, Jav Karim, class of 2004. Now remember, if I screw this up, don't upload it to
1:35 YouTube. President White, Chancellor Herman, members of the faculty, and most importantly graduates. So, most of you probably have a lovehate relationship with YouTube, right? Because on one hand, it has allowed you to spend endless nights watching tons of hilarious videos. On the other hand, that means you have wasted endless nights watching tons of hilarious videos. So, let me take this opportunity to apologize for destroying your GPA. I am truly sorry. If it makes you feel better, I
2:22 have probably wasted more time and watched more videos than anyone on YouTube. So, you might wonder, having watched so many videos, which one is my favorite? My favorite video happens to be one of the first videos that was ever uploaded to YouTube. It's of a guy called Matt Harding. Matt is about 30 years old. He never graduated from college and his job is to travel around the world and dance. It's a little hard to describe. So, let's take a look. [Music]
3:08 Why are you [Music] Oh, [Music] you don't want [Music]
3:58 So, what's so special about this video? Well, I like it because it illustrates what YouTube is all about. namely that anyone who has a good idea can just take that idea and make it happen. Matt, for example, just made the first video for fun. His video was then discovered by a bubble gum company. So now they are paying Matt to travel around the world and dance promoting their bubble gum. Sounds like a good deal to me. You might have noticed that I'm a little younger than your average commencement speaker. That's both good and bad. The bad part is that I can't give you any great insights on the meaning of
4:45 life because I'm still trying to figure that out myself. The good part, however, is that you and I are of the same generation. And that means that the opportunities that I had and the lessons that I learned, they still apply. And they apply as much to you now as they did to me just three years ago. What I'd like to do today is tell you a personal story that you can hopefully relate to. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle Corporation, once said, "I don't know of any place or any time aren't great possibilities. Now, we can all agree that these possibilities exist in
5:30 hindsight, but how do you find them ahead of time? Well, you have to look for them. And you can do that simply by staying informed about your field. That's how I found my first great possibility. And that possibility was coming to the University of Illinois. It was back in Minnesota during high school that I found out that the world's first popular web browser had been developed at the University of Illinois. So, I looked up Illinois on the map and found that it was fairly close to Minnesota. I figured, why would I go anywhere else if the people who invented the first popular web browser are in my
6:17 own backyard? It was a nobrainer. At that moment, I knew I knew I would go to the University of Illinois. I wanted to join the Innovators. So, I mailed in my application and confidently waited for an acceptance letter to arrive. I did get a reply, but it wasn't quite what I expected. I was told I had been rejected from the computer science department. Apparently, the program was full and so I had been assigned to ceramics engineering. Now, I'm not saying there isn't a future in
7:03 pottery, but it's not what I signed up for. So, what could I do? I sent back a letter asking if the decision could be reconsidered. I wrote, "I only request that you make sure that none of the facts of my application have been overlooked. In return, I can promise you that I will be a highly motivated, dedicated, and ambitious student at your fine school." It worked. The admissions people changed their mind and let me begin fall semester in computer science. Being persistent, I learned often pays off and that is my first
7:50 lesson. Fast forward to the beginning of my junior year. I received an offer to work at a startup company called PayPal, which was founded by an impressive team of Illinois engineers. It was at the height of the internet bubble, and PayPal was taking off big time. It seemed like a great opportunity, but I didn't know if I should abort my studies to join a risky startup. I deliberated for two weeks and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I have nothing to lose. So, I decided to drop my classes mid- semester and move to California. Looking back, what I learned
8:35 is the following. Take risks while you can. At PayPal, I felt once again that I was following in the footsteps of the Illinois innovators. It was a great opportunity to see up close how a group of talented people could overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. The experience taught me the importance of being true to yourself and to know exactly why you are doing things. But how do you know what it is that you should be doing? As I've said earlier, the best way to do this is to stay informed and to pay attention to what's going on around you. Most ideas don't come to you in a
9:23 flash, but they stew in your brain for a while. And that's how it was with YouTube. Back in December of 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the west coast of Indonesia. It was the first natural disaster ever captured on cell phone video cameras and the video clips quickly flooded the internet. But there was no good way to find these video clips. They were scattered all over the web. There was also no good way to share them. The clips were too big to email.
