recently i had the honor of delivering the commencement speech to the students graduating from the usc viterbi school of engineering in 2015. this was a momentous day for the students – and the fact that it rained in southern california during their comments only made it that much more novel 🙂

tl;dr

complacency is the enemy of achievement – so get comfortable being uncomfortable

• seek mentors to help you navigate through uncomfortable situations
  • in general, people want to help and pay it forward.
• spend time with and talk with non-engineers. build understanding and empathy of others that are not like you
  • as a ceo of composite software, i built empathy around the challenges of sales and the importance of understanding the difference in a sales culture vs eng culture.
• seek diverse perspectives – unlearn what you have learned
  • building a mobile operating system (webOS) is very different that rebuilding an online service like twitter
• keep building regardless of your age or experience – once a builder – always a builder
  • i always have had a side project that i am building…

your biggest risk is pursuing a journey whereby you are too comfortable

thanks for listening!