Thank you, Dean Schlessenger and good morning, Whiting School of Engineering Master’s Class of 2024.
Congratulations, you made it!
I’m honored to be here to celebrate your commencement with you. Johns Hopkins is one of the finest universities in the world and I am extremely proud of my ongoing association with it. Whiting is also my alma mater, which makes it even more exciting for me to celebrate with you.
My time at Hopkins was a formative experience for me. It let me satisfy my intellectual curiosity as an undergraduate and I learned a tremendous amount during my four years on this campus. I knew someday it would all be useful.
I have spent a great deal of time here, on this campus and with Whiting professors and leadership. The school from which you are graduating today is very special and has placed you on a path to success.
The Whiting graduate program is one of the top graduate engineering programs in the world and you should each be extremely proud of yourselves and the hard work you have done to get here today. Arguably, you have gotten through one of the toughest things you will ever do.
I remember my graduate school commencement very clearly and what that day meant to me. It was a true feeling of accomplishment and I’m sure each and every one of you feels the same way.
Your graduating class, the Whiting Master’s class of ’24, comprises 2,226 students from more than 30 countries. Each of you chose Whiting for a different reason, with differing hopes and plans for your future. I will admit this freely – I envy you all – the future is yours.
A new phase now begins for each of you. You have to decide what you’re doing next. Now that you’ve had this extra education, what more can you do than you could do before? How do you make yourself better? How do you contribute to the world? How do you make it better for your family? For your country?
I’d like to share six thoughts that, in one way or another, have shaped my professional career and my private life. [pause]
When I graduated from college, I couldn’t get the job I wanted. I wanted to do venture capital and I sent a letter to literally every firm in the book. All I ended up with was a large box of rejection letters. By the way, they came in very handy when a bar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan gave out free drinks for every rejection letter you shared.
I tried something similar coming out of business school. Again, a complete failure. I’m not sure I even bothered to keep those rejection letters.
Anyway, I needed a job, so I went to work in investment banking. After six years I felt I’d done all of the cool stuff that they had to offer. I then went to a company where I learned how companies really work, and I started Emerald, my own venture capital firm, three years later. Several people told me that I was nuts. They thought I didn’t have enough of a contact base to start my own firm. In hindsight, I would probably say the same thing to others in that position because they were likely right.
But I did it anyway, and it has worked out ok.
I was recently traveling in the middle east and I saw a quote from Abraham Lincoln on the wall of an office I visited. It said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Graduates – that is as true now as it was 180 years ago.
How will you create your future? How will you now use all that you have learned? To build something, to discover something, to improve something.
When I was a kid I played baseball, like so many American kids do. I loved playing the game and being part of the team. I sometimes think about our coach, Frank Scarangella. He was a great coach. He didn’t care if you were the world’s greatest athlete or if you were just out there to have some fun. He just wanted you to play and enjoy the game. To him there was just one major sin, one thing that made him upset, and that was if you got up to bat and struck out without taking a swing.
So, my first piece of advice to you is to create your future. Take chances. Give it your best shot. You might fail, but you might not. And either way you’ll learn something. But if you don’t swing, you can’t possibly get a hit!
I really love my job. How many of us can truly say that? What I do is really fun. I get to learn about the most amazing science and engineering from the smartest people on the face of the earth, who are doing groundbreaking things. What I love about venture capital, and early stage VC in particular, is that we are working so closely with the scientists and engineers who are in the labs, making the discoveries, and building the tech.
They are truly passionate about their ideas, and it is that passion, that love for what they do, that sustains them and me during the hard times.
With them, we get to tackle crazy science and engineering topics that, if we get it right, will make a great deal of money, and if we get it really right, we will change the world. But you have to be passionate about what you do. If you don’t like what you’re doing, you won’t be willing to do all the hard work and won’t be successful at it.
So, second, be sure to do what you love.
I’ve always thought a great deal about the saying, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
I always took on more projects than I probably should have. In school I had the theory that you should take the hardest classes and learn as much as you humanly could. At the time, I didn’t know how much that would help later.
After business school, I did work that no one wanted to take on, the hardest projects: tech private placements, modeling complex transactions that belonged in AMS optimization classes, novel securitizations that tied up the firm’s computer systems and required every experienced quant or CS grad we had, and other projects that seemed too daunting. As an eternal optimist I believed I would keep learning and become better.
My father, a lawyer who never stopped working and who held his last in-person meeting at the age of 89, always said to think about a job as if you’re working for yourself, trying to do the best you can and learning as much as possible. You never know how it’s going to pay off later.
Now, as you receive your graduate degree, this is your time. Take the tough assignments. You might learn something you never imagined would interest you. And you never know where it’s going to take you.
So, my third piece of advice is take on the real challenges.
As I said before, at Emerald we work with exceptional scientific and engineering teams solving real problems. We work on things like decarbonization, cyber risk, innovative blood testing technology, and digital pathology. Yes, we like the complicated stuff.
And because of the nature of the work, sometimes there are really tough issues that need to be addressed, from a technology or scientific standpoint, or from a business standpoint. Sometimes that can be difficult, and we have to work with the founders and CEOs of our portfolio companies to dig deep to find the right solutions.
In venture capital there’s generally a team meeting every Monday to go over deals and other business. The last thing I say at almost every Monday meeting is “Let’s keep pushing.” What I mean when I say that is keep pushing forward, keep pushing against the boundaries, keep pushing for success. Because, really, what’s the alternative? So keep pushing.
When I graduated from Hopkins, one of the first pieces of mail I received from the University as a new alum was a donation request. I suspect you will get one too. At first, I thought it was absurd given that I was broke and in debt. I didn’t really mind, but I wasn’t in a position to give much money at that time. I think I donated $25. But even though I didn’t have a lot of money to give, I knew that I was in a position to give back with my time and so, as soon as they would have me, I volunteered on several committees. I felt good that I was helping the university, and I was also broadening my understanding of how large institutions work, how decisions are made and how to help bring about change. That’s part of how I approach life.
How will you get involved with great institutions and organizations and causes that mean something to you, and figure out where you can be useful to them?
Here’s another good reason to volunteer and give back.
The first two weeks after I started my firm, I went to every event I could. I went to charity events for all sorts of industries and technologies. I was out at these things every night to try to build relationships and to build my business. There was one night on the calendar that had only one event and that was about volunteering to help people. So I went. The event itself was awful except for one thing – the only other person there was a woman named Sherry. We’ve now been married for 28 years.
We’ve also raised a beautiful daughter, herself a Whiting alum, class of ‘21.
You never know who you’ll meet on your path to giving back.
For all of the reasons I just outlined, my fifth piece of advice is, get involved.
We have two portfolio companies that we work with that are doing some incredible work in decarbonization and in clean power generation. Imagine if they’re right and we solve global warming. We have another company that is reimagining a major medical diagnostic experience. If they are successful, they will improve the lives of tens of millions of people each year. I think to myself: Little Emerald, our small venture capital firm, can change the game.
On the Whiting website it says, “Hopkins engineers are addressing today’s universal societal changes to ensure a better tomorrow.” Dear graduates of the Whiting Master’s Class of 2024, that is you. You are now Whiting engineers and the path you take from here can make a real difference both in terms of your own success and in ensuring that the world is a better place.
So I say to you, armed with your Whiting Masters degrees and all of the knowledge you have gained, it’s time to make your own mark. Create your future. Do what you love. Take on the real challenges. Keep pushing. Get involved. And if you get all of that right, you just might change the game.
Thank you for listening and good luck to all of you.
