Here’s Google CEO Eric Schmidt‘s commencement address at Carnegie Mellon’s 112th commencement ceremony, held yesterday. (Via @CarnegieMellon)
Schmidt’s talk to the audience, which he refers to as the ‘Facebook and Google generation’, is basically about the past, present and future of technology, how quickly and profoundly cultural habits change and how important it is to ‘live in the future’. Surprisingly, Schmidt seems to mention services like Twitter and Facebook more often than Google products.
Update: looks like Schmidt gave the exact same speech when he spoke to the 253rd graduating class at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia today, according to Domain Name Journal.
Key quotes:
“We got our news from newspapers, your generation gets it from blogs and tweets, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s not what you hear in zoos.”
“We thought ‘friend’ is a noun, you think it’s a verb.”
“You cannot plan innovation. You cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be at the right place and be ready.”
“How should you behave? Well, do things in a group. Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.”
“You’ll find today is the best chance you have to start being unreasonable, to demand excellence, to drive change, to make everything happen.”