🔍
ENGLISH SPEECH | SUNDAR PICHAI: You Will Prevail (English Subtitles) - YouTube
Channel: English Speeches
[10]
Hello, everyone.
[12]
And congratulations to the Class of 2020,
as well as your parents, your teachers, and
[18]
everyone who helped you get to this day.
[21]
I never imagined I’d be giving a commencement
speech with no live audience … from my backyard.
[28]
But it’s giving me a much deeper understanding
for what our YouTube Creators go through!
[33]
And I certainly never thought I’d be sharing
a virtual stage with a former President ... a
[39]
First Lady, a Lady Gaga, and a Queen Bey … not
to mention BTS.
[46]
I don’t think this is the graduation ceremony
any of you imagined.
[50]
At a time when you should be celebrating all
the knowledge you’ve gained, you may be
[55]
grieving what you’ve lost: the moves you
planned, the jobs you earned, and the experiences
[61]
you were looking forward to.
[63]
In bleak moments like these, it can be difficult
to find hope.
[68]
So let me skip right to the end and tell you
what happens: you will prevail.
[73]
That’s not really the end of the speech,
so don’t get too excited.
[78]
The reason I know you’ll prevail is because
so many others have done it before you.
[82]
One hundred years ago, the class of 1920 graduated
into the end of a deadly pandemic.
[89]
Fifty years ago, the class of 1970 graduated
in the midst of the Vietnam War.
[95]
And nearly 20 years ago, the class of 2001
graduated just months before 9/11.
[103]
There are notable examples like this.
[105]
They had to overcome new challenges, and in
all cases they prevailed.
[111]
The long arc of history tells us we have every
reason to be hopeful.
[116]
So, be hopeful.
[118]
There’s an interesting trend I’ve noticed:
It’s very conventional for every generation
[124]
to underestimate the potential of the following
one.
[127]
It’s because they don’t realize that the
progress of one generation becomes the foundational
[133]
premise for the next.
[135]
And it takes a new set of people to come along
and realize all the possibilities.
[141]
I grew up without much access to technology.
[144]
We didn’t get our first telephone til I
was 10.
[147]
I didn’t have regular access to a computer
until I came to America for graduate school.
[152]
And our television, when we finally got one,
only had one channel.
[158]
So imagine how awestruck I am today to be
speaking to you on a platform that has millions
[164]
of channels.
[165]
By contrast, you grew up with computers of
all shapes and sizes.
[170]
The ability to ask a computer anything, anywhere—the
very thing I’ve spent my last decade working
[177]
on—is not amazing to you.
[179]
That’s OK, it doesn’t make me feel bad,
it makes me hopeful!
[185]
There are probably things about technology
that frustrate you and make you impatient.
[189]
Don’t lose that impatience.
[191]
It will create the next technology revolution
and enable you to build things my generation
[197]
could never dream of.
[199]
You may be just as frustrated by my generation's
approach to climate change, or education.
[205]
Be impatient.
[207]
It will create the progress the world needs.
[210]
You will make the world better in your own
ways.
[213]
Even if you don’t know exactly how.
[216]
The important thing is to be open-minded so
you can find what you love.
[222]
For me, it was technology.
[224]
The more access my family had to technology,
the better our lives got.
[229]
So when I graduated, I knew I wanted to do
something to bring technology to as many others
[235]
as possible.
[236]
At the time, I thought I could achieve this
by helping build better semiconductors.
[242]
I mean, what could be more exciting than that?
[245]
My father spent the equivalent of a year’s
salary on my plane ticket to the U.S. so I
[251]
could attend Stanford.
[252]
It was my first time ever on a plane.
[256]
But when I eventually landed in California,
things weren’t as I had imagined.
[260]
America was expensive.
[262]
A phone call back home was more than $2 a
minute, and a backpack cost the same as my
[267]
dad’s monthly salary in India.
[269]
And for all the talk about the warm California
beaches ... that water was freezing cold!
[276]
On top of all that, I missed my family, my
friends, and my girlfriend—now my wife—back
[280]
in India.
[281]
Sundar as a Stanford graduate student
A bright spot for me during this time was
[286]
computing.
[287]
For the first time in my life, I could use
a computer whenever I wanted to.
[291]
It completely blew my mind.
[294]
And at that same moment, the internet was
literally being built all around me.
[300]
The year I arrived at Stanford was the same
year the browser Mosaic was released, which
[305]
would popularize the world wide web and the
internet.
[308]
The summer I left was the same summer that
a graduate student named Sergey Brin met a
[314]
prospective engineering student named Larry
Page.
[317]
These two moments would profoundly shape the
rest of my life.
[321]
But at the time, I didn’t know it.
[324]
It took me a while to realize that the internet
would be the single best way to make technology
[329]
accessible to more people.
[330]
As soon as I did, I changed course and decided
to pursue my dreams at Google.
[337]
Inspired by the wonder that first browser
created in me, I led the effort to launch
[342]
one—called Chrome—in 2009, and drove the
effort to help Google develop affordable laptops
[350]
and phones so that a student growing up, in
any neighborhood or village, in any part of
[356]
the world, could have the same access to information
as all of you.
[360]
Primary school students in the city of Dolores
Hidalgo in Mexico
[361]
Had I stayed the course in graduate school,
I'd probably have a Ph.D. today—which would
[366]
have made my parents really proud.
[368]
But I might have missed the opportunity to
bring the benefits of technology to so many
[372]
others.
[373]
And I certainly wouldn't be standing here
speaking to you as Google's CEO.
[378]
Believe me when I say I saw none of this coming
when I first touched down in the state of
[383]
California 27 years ago.
[385]
The only thing that got me from here to there—other
than luck—was a deep passion for technology,
[392]
and an open mind.
[394]
So take the time to find the thing that excites
you more than anything else in the world.
[400]
Not the thing your parents want you to do.
[402]
Or the thing that all your friends are doing.
[405]
Or that society expects of you.
[408]
I know you’re getting a lot of advice today.
[411]
So let me leave you with mine:
Be open … be impatient … be hopeful.
[417]
If you can do that, history will remember
the Class of 2020 not for what you lost, but
[423]
for what you changed.
[424]
You have the chance to change everything.
[427]
I am optimistic you will.
[430]
Thank you.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage