I love this place

thank you all for coming out in the rain the pouring rain

we're going to make this worth it for you

- president Faust, Board of Overseers

faculty, friends, alumni, proud parents,

members of the ad board, and graduates of the greatest university in the world,

I am honored to be here with you today because

let's face it,

you accomplished something I never could.

If I get through this speech today it'll be the first time I actually finished something here at Harvard

class of 2017, congratulations!

Now I'm an unlikely speaker today,

not just because I dropped out, but because

but because we're technically in the same generation.

We walk this yard less than a decade apart,

we studied the same ideas and

slept through the same Ec10 lectures.

We may have taken different paths to get here,

especially if you came all the way from the Quad

but today I want to share what I've learned about our generation

and the world we're building together.

But first, the last couple of days have brought back a lot of good memories.

How many of you remember exactly what you were doing when you got that email telling you that you got into Harvard?

I was playing Civilization and I ran downstairs,

got my dad, and for some reason,

his reaction was to video me opening the email.

That could have been a really sad video.

I swear getting into Harvard is still the thing my parents are most proud of me for.

My mom is nodding.

How many of you remember your first lecture at Harvard?

Mine was Computer Science 121 with the incredible Harry Lewis.

I was running late for class

so I threw on a t-shirt

and didn't realize until afterwards it was inside out

and backwards with my tag sticking out the front.

I couldn't figure out why no one would talk to me -- except one guy, KX Jin, he just went with it.

We ended up doing our problem sets together, and now he runs a big part of Facebook.

And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be nice to people.

But my best memory from Harvard was meeting Priscilla.

I had just launched this prank website Facemash, and the ad board wanted to "see me".

Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out.

My parents came to help me pack.

My friends threw me a going away party.

As luck would have it, Priscilla was at that party with her friend.

We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower,

and in what must be one of the all time romantic lines,

I said: "I'm going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly."

Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.

I didn't end up getting kicked out -- I did that to myself.

Priscilla and I started dating.

And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn't.

But without Facemash I wouldn't have met Priscilla

and she's the most important person in my life,

so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here.

We've all started lifelong friendships here, and some of us even families.

That's why I'm so grateful to this place.

Thanks, Harvard.

Today I want to talk about purpose.

But I'm not here to give you the standard commencement about finding your purpose.

We're Millennials.

We'll try to do that instinctively.

Instead, I'm here to tell you finding your purpose isn't enough.

The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.

One of my favorite stories is when John F Kennedy visited the NASA space center,

he saw a janitor carrying a broom and he walked over and asked what he was doing.

The janitor responded: "Mr. President, I'm helping put a man on the moon".

Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves,

that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for.

Purpose is what creates true happiness.

You're graduating at a time when this is especially important.

When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community.

But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs.

Membership in communities is declining.

Many people feel disconnected and depressed, and are trying to fill a void.

As I've traveled around, I've sat with children in juvenile detention and opioid addicts,

who told me their lives could have turned out differently if they just had something to do,

an after school program or somewhere to go.

I've met factory workers who know their old jobs aren't coming back and are trying to find their place.

To keep our society moving forward, we have a generational challenge:

to not only create new jobs, but create a renewed sense of purpose.

I remember the night I launched Facebook from my little dorm in Kirkland House.

I went to Noch's with my friend KX.

I remember telling him I was excited to connect the Harvard community,

but one day someone would connect the whole world.

The thing is, it never even occurred to me that someone might be us.

We were just college kids.

We didn't know anything about that.

There were all these big technology companies with resources. I just assumed one of them would do it.

But this idea was so clear to us -- that all people want to connect.

So we just kept moving forward, day by day.

I know a lot of you will have your own stories just like this.

A change in the world that seems so clear you're sure someone else will do it.

But they won't. You will. But it's not enough to have purpose yourself.

You have to create a sense of purpose for others.

I found that out the hard way.

You see, my hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact.

And as all these people started joining us, I just assumed that's what they cared about too,

so I never explained what I hoped we'd build.

A couple years in, some big companies wanted to buy us.

I didn't want to sell.

I wanted to see if we could connect more people.

And we were building the first News Feed

at the time and I thought if we could just launch this

it could change how we learn about the World

Nearly everyone else wanted to sell.

Without a sense of higher purpose,

this was the startup dream come true.

And it tore our company apart.

After one particularly tense argument,

one of my close advisor told me if I didn't agree to sell the company right now,

I would regret the decision for the rest of my life.

relationships were so afraid

that a year or so

every single person on the management team was gone.

That was my hardest time leading Facebook.

I believed in what we were doing, but I felt alone.

And worse, it was my fault.

I wondered if I was just wrong,

an imposter,

a 22 year-old kid who had no idea how things actually work.

Now, years later

I understand that is how the things work

with no sense of higher purpose.

so it's up to all of us to create it

so we can all keep moving forward together

and today I want to talk about three ways

that we can create a world

where everyone has a sense of purpose

by taking on big meaningful projects together,

by redefining equality so everyone has

a freedom to pursue their purpose

and by building community

all across the world

So first

let's take on big meaningful projects.

Our generation will have to deal with

tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation

like self-driving cars and trucks

But we have the potential to do so much more than that.

every generation has its defining works

more than three hundred thousand people work

to put that man on the moon including that janitor

Millions of volunteers immunize children around the world against polio

And millions of more people

built the Hoover dam and other great projects.

and and now it's our generations turn

to do great things

now I know maybe you're thinking

I don't know how to build a dam,

or how to get a million people involved in anything.

well let me tell you a secret

no one does when they begin

Ideas don't come out fully formed.

They only become clear as you work on them.

You just have to get started.

If I had to understand everything about

connecting people before I had started

I never would have built Facebook

movies and pop culture just get this all wrong

the idea of a single Eureka moment

is a dangerous lie

It makes us feel inadequate

because we feel that we haven't had ours yet.

And it prevents people with seeds of good ideas

from ever getting started in the first place

oh and you know what else movies get wrong about innovation

no one writes math formulas on glass. Okay!

Alright! that's not a thing. Okay?

t's good to be idealistic.

but be prepared to be misunderstood

anyone working on a big vision is going to get called crazy

even if you end up right

anyone taking on a complex problem

is going to get blamed for not fully understanding it

even though it's impossible to know everything upfront.

anyone taking initiative

will always get criticized for moving too fast,

because there's always someone who wants to slow you down

In our society,

we often don't take on big things

because we're so afraid of making mistakes

that we ignore all the things wrong today if we do nothing.

The reality is

anything we do today

is gonna have some issues in the future

But that can't keep us from getting started.

So what are we waiting for?

It's time for our generation defining great works.

How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet

and getting millions of people involved

manufacturing and installing solar panels?

How about curing all diseases

and getting people involved by asking volunteers to share their health data

track their health data and share their genomes?

you know, today,

our society spend we spend more than 50 times

as much treating people who are sick

as we invest in finding cures so people don’t get sick in the first place.

It makes no sense

We can fix this.

How about modernizing democracy

so everyone can vote online

and how about personalizing education so everyone can learn

these achievements are all within our reach

Let's do them all in the way that give our society a role

let's do big things not just to creat progress

but to create purpose

So taking on big meaningful projects together

is the first thing we can do to create that

a world where everyone has a sense of purpose

the second is redefining our idea of equality

so everyone has the freedom

to pursue their purpose

Now, many of our parents had stable jobs throughout their careers

but in our generation we're all a little entrepreneurial

whether we're starting our own projects

or finding our role in another one

And, you know, that's great

because our culture of entrepreneurship

is how we create so much progress

And entrepreneurial culture thrives

when it is easy to try lots of new ideas

Facebook wasn't the first thing I built

I also built chat systems and games

study tools and music players and I'm not alone.

JK Rowling got rejected 12 times before

she finally wrote and published Harry Potter

Even Beyonce had to make hundreds of songs

to get Halo

The greatest successes come

from having the freedom to fail

Now, today, we have a level of wealth and equality