苏妈某演讲

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. It’s really such an honor for me to be back at MIT and to really participate in today’s hooding ceremony. And I have to say a big, hearty congratulations to all of you who are graduating this week. I know just how hard you’ve worked for this achievement, and it’s an honor to be here to recognize you today. And also, to all of the friends and family who have supported our graduates this week, congratulations to you as well. Everyone here should feel extremely proud of this amazing accomplishment.

Now I heard a very insightful comment once that really stuck with me. And it was really that the two most important things that determines a person’s success in life is really the love of their family and their education. And I certainly believe that. As I think back to my days at MIT, I am incredibly grateful for the experiences that I had here and the things that I learned. And if you will indulge me for a few minutes, let me tell you a little bit about my story. So I was born in Taiwan, and I came to the United States when I was two, and I grew up in New York to immigrant parents. I was very lucky to have parents that supported me as I grew up, and really treating my brother and I as equals and setting extremely high standards for what success meant.

Throughout grade school and middle school, I was an OK student, but I certainly wasn’t anywhere near best in my class. I did realize, though, that competition made me better. So in high school I went to the Bronx High School of Science, and I met some very smart people, and some of them were pretty competitive. And that pushed me harder and shaped my interests in math and science. Then I was lucky enough to get into MIT as an undergrad, and I truly understood what smart was. I think you guys understand that, too. Freshman year at MIT was actually very eye opening. And I would say it was pretty intimidating taking some of those freshmen weed out classes that we know exist at the Institute.

However, it was during my freshman year at MIT that I got my first undergraduate research assignment, and it was in a semiconductor lab. And I had the opportunity for the first time to do something that I thought was amazing. I fell in love with semiconductors because it was the ability to build something really small and really complicated, and I could do it myself. And it was during this time that I realized that I didn’t need to be the smartest person in the classroom, but if I really applied myself to solve practical problems, I could make a big difference. And so as I was graduating from the 6-A program at MIT, my parents encouraged me to get a PhD. I actually really wasn’t sure that this is what I wanted to do, but I was really too young you know at the time to know any better, so I said-- some of you might relate to that-- but I said, OK, you know, I’ll do it. But I was really torn with the prospect of spending another four to five years of my life in school.

Now I can honestly say that the MIT PhD has truly shaped who I am in so many ways, both personally and professionally. And so when people ask me what has MIT meant to me, I usually say a couple of things. I say MIT is pure, and it’s really hard. I do believe that MIT practices the motto what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Hope you guys agree with that. But what I really say, though, is that MIT taught me how to think and solve really tough problems because today, for all of you who are completing your doctoral dissertations, you have created something or discovered something or demonstrated something that nobody else in the world has. And that should give you an incredible amount of confidence about what you’re able to do when you put your mind to it. And through that you’ve really proven that you’re at the top of your field, and so you should feel extremely proud of that accomplishment.

So my path since leaving MIT has had a few twists and turns, and I find myself often coming back to the principles that I learned here. So as each of you sit here today, about to embark on your own journey, I have maybe just a couple of small pieces of advice that I would like to share with you.

The first-- and I’ll say this is, you should really dream big. Believe that you can change the world. I remember when I first left MIT,I was really intimidated about joining a large corporate environment I was 25 years old and I joined IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center, which had an incredible reputation. And I met people who had a lot more experience and knowledge than I had. And I had no idea how could I contribute in that environment and make a difference. However, what I learned is that MIT has really prepared you for that journey. MIT trains the best problem solvers in the world, and the world is starving for new ideas and great leaders who will champion those ideas. So I was able to make a difference even after a few short months, and each of you will make an incredible difference as well. You are the next generation of great leaders with fresh, innovative ideas, and you will solve the world’s toughest problems. You just have to believe in yourself and give yourself the permission to believe that you can change the world.

Second, I would say have the courage to take risks, sometimes big risks. But make sure you also enthusiastically learn from your mistakes. And there will be a few mistakes. I started off as an engineer and then turned to the business and management side of things in my career. And I saw, actually, in many business environments, that MIT PhDs worked for Harvard MBAs. And the truth is, that made absolutely no sense to me.[appLAUSE]I was determined to make sure that I wasn’t working for Harvard MBAs for the rest of my career. But truthfully, I actually thought I could make better business decisions because I understood the technology, whereas sometimes generalists don’t.[appLAUSE]So I took a risk, and I asked my management at IBM to give me a chance to run a business. And they did actually give me a shot, surprisingly. I made a lot of mistakes those first few years, and I learned that the moments that really shaped my career were the times when I really screwed up the most. It’s like in the lab, you know, when that experiment you thought was supposed to work out didn’t quite work out, you know, what do you do? You need to learn and adjust your next steps. It’s certainly like that in your career, as well. And sometimes you even make some very large mistakes. Like for example, the first business ran, I missed my revenue the first year by 50%.My boss wasn’t very happy about that. I spent about 24 hours being extremely disappointed in myself, but the day after, I promised myself I would learn from it. And I adjusted my game plan for the rest of the year. And you can believe I never made that particular mistake again. And so I really do say, don’t be afraid to take risks, even if some of them seem large, and don’t be afraid to make a few mistakes. Mistakes are natural. There’s no straight line to success. But the people who learn best from their mistakes are actually the ones who end up being the best leaders.

And the last thing I want to leave you with is perhaps most important. I encourage each of you to make your own luck. MIT has given you all the tools and training to be the best in the world and make a huge impact on your chosen field. However, in addition to being smart, you also have to be lucky, and you have to be in the right place at the right time solving the right problems. So my favorite advice to graduates is find the toughest problems in the world and volunteer to help solve them because this is really how you make your own luck. This is when people really pay attention. And this is when you’re really doing something that makes a difference. I’ve had the opportunity several times in my career to work on some very hard problems. Sometimes I found it extremely frustrating and stressful. But each time, I found that working on something hard brought out the best in me and also my team. And it also created a new set of opportunities. So five years ago I had the opportunity to join AMD. Now when I joined AMD, there were a few of my mentors who actually questioned my decision because they knew about the challenges of the company. And I actually looked at them really perplexed. I actually felt like I could not possibly have a better opportunity because I had trained my entire career, since my days at MIT through my 20 years in industry, to lead a semiconductor company. And so this was my opportunity to make my own luck.

The world is full of very complex and challenging problems. And I truly believe that what MIT has taught us is that there is no problem that is too hard to solve if you have the right mindset, the right perseverance, and the right creativity. So I advise you to run towards those problems, and you will have great luck throughout your career. So today is a tremendous day for all of you. It really is a celebration of your MIT experience, but it’s also a celebration of the beginning of the next chapter in your career, where you start to leverage all of the tools and training you’ve received here to go off and solve the world’s hardest problems and make the world a better place. So I encourage each of you to dream big and believe you can change the world, have the courage to take risks and enthusiastically learn from those mistakes, and work damn hard every day to solve the world’s toughest problems. And I think if you do that, I’m pretty sure you’re going to make everybody very proud, and you will be incredibly lucky throughout your career. So I do have one last personal request for all of you. You know, I told you at the beginning that I’m slightly competitive, just slightly. So please promise me that you will join me on my journey to make sure that there are lots of Harvard MBAs working for MIT PhDs in the future. Thank you very much and congratulations.