I think I kind of nailed the seven minutes part. But the topic that I chose was basically pointing your energy towards something that you care about a lot, and that makes it easy to dive in and really make a difference in that thing. Obviously for me it's, you know, these tech videos, but these are graduates of a tech school and a business school and all sorts of stuff, so they have a bright future ahead of them. And also, they were kind enough to give me an honorary doctorate degree while I was there. So the running joke is like, autocorrect and all those autocaptions from years ago would always say weird things instead of MKBHD, and one of them was MKPHD, and now that feels kind of like foreshadowing instead. Kind of prophetic. Impressive. Anyway, figured I'd share this in case it was inspirational to anyone who's young, who is graduating, who is also in the right demographic to enjoy it. So I'll let it take it from here.

So I'm told I have seven minutes to really make an impression on you guys. Most of the videos are heavily edited and way longer than seven minutes, so I'll try to keep it concise here so you can graduate. But first of all, I feel like I stand in front of you a little bit shocked at where we are, because I feel like I was just there not that long ago, like a minute ago, I was sitting here graduating from Stevens, but then I checked and it was nine years ago, so 2015, it's like ancient history to you guys, so they say time flies.

But when President Favardin invited me to come back here and give the commencement speech to you all, the class of 2024, the school that I graduated from, I'm obviously honored and excited and maybe a little bit nervous, there's a lot of people here, but I want to give you guys two things. I prepared two things for you. One is for now, and one is for later.

So I'll start with the thing for now. And I'm going to start with a quote, actually.

So it goes like this. As a large language model, I cannot help with your request to write a commencement speech. Just kidding. I'm kidding. Kidding. I wrote this whole thing myself. I thought you guys would like that. But I'm actually going to start with a quote from an Ultimate Frisbee teammate, so I know that's not the reason I'm here, but a lot of you guys may know I played Ultimate Frisbee when I went here to Stevens. I still play to this day. I remember really, really early in my Ultimate Frisbee career, sort of the beginning of freshman year, there's a tryout process, and then the team was formed. And

I remember we went to our first tournament. We were all in the huddle before our first game as a team. And the captain said, hey, guys, everybody take a beat, just take a deep breath, and just look around this huddle for a second. Like, really appreciate this moment of becoming a team for the first time. Because you're going to blink, and the whole season is going to be over way faster than you think. And he was totally right. You know, there's obviously we played the game, there was lots of long points, and then lots of long weekends of practices and travel, and it's a grind, but we loved every second of it, and we all evolved a lot as teammates and as players, and it was great. But at the end of the season, we could all remember that first huddle. We remembered that moment of just taking a beat. So while I have the chance, I want to encourage you all, sitting here with the gowns and the hats and everything, to just take a beat and look around at your fellow classmates and your friends, people who you just spent a lot of time with, your families here. This is your day to celebrate, and starting the next chapter of your life, but I also promise you that you're going to blink, and it's going to be ten years later. So take a minute to enjoy where you are now. Now for later. I give you that for now, something for later.

Here's the thing. I've always struggled with giving advice, I feel like. I don't know if

President Favarda knew that when he invited me to give a commencement speech, but I feel like I get asked to give advice a lot, and I don't really know what to say. Typically, it's like, here are some things that I learned, and I can pass them along to you, but I've got to be honest. I feel like a lot of my success comes from giving advice, and I feel like a lot of my success, you know, was the state of the world, finding a niche, capitalizing on good luck, like there wasn't really any playbook or set of things that I strictly followed that I can pass along. It kind of felt just like it was something that I really dove into because it was exciting to me. So now I'm in this bizarre position of trying to give advice, but the more I've thought about it, the more I feel like the best advice that I can give you is to find something that gets you excited. That's really what it comes down to. So you're all sitting here today because you've made it to the end of a very challenging process called college, starting the next chapter of your lives, and you're armed with a bunch of tools that you picked up along the way. You're basically at a launching pad. You just need somewhere to point that energy, somewhere to dial it up all the way to 100. And so I really feel like my best advice for you is this is the perfect time to take a minute and ask yourself those big questions like who am I? What do

I really want to do? What do I care about? How do I want to make an impact? How do I want to give back? What makes you feel excited? What makes you feel nervous? You've already been challenged, clearly, and you've made a lot of tough choices. You've had to learn new skills. I went to Stevens, I know. You had to solve problems in innovative ways.

You had to work alone. You had to work in groups. You had to make time for things that are really challenging. So you have all these tools, but purpose is also a tool. And to me, I feel like it's the most powerful one. It won't necessarily be a smooth ride finding what that is for you. Some of you are already sitting here like I know what it is. I know what I want to do. Some of you, it may take trying something. It may be taking a risk.

For some of you, like me, it may be something that literally doesn't exist yet, which is very exciting. But whatever it is you decide to do, making a dent in the universe is much easier when you care deeply about that part of the universe. So for me, it was tech videos on the internet, but for all of you, the sky's the limit, clearly. So I'll end with this. Graduation is an exciting time. It's also a great word. Graduation. It's also a great album. But you actually, you graduate many times as a person, I think. You continue to level up and build and graduate over and over again yourself. I mean, obviously, wow, you obviously already had high school graduation. You're having, for many of you, this is your formal education graduation, but you might also have your first job graduation or your second job graduation or learning a new skill graduation or overcoming a new fear graduation or maybe you talk to someone and you get inspired and absorb some information that unlocks a new part of your brain. That's another graduation right there. So class of 2024, I wish you many more graduations. This certainly will not be the last one. Congrats on getting to this launching pad and from one duck to another, congrats and good luck. Thank you.

Thank you.