0:00:02.094,0:00:04.339
It is hard to imagine life

0:00:04.339,0:00:06.331
without Amazon.com.

0:00:06.331,0:00:09.850
[Laughs]

0:00:09.850,0:00:13.550
Even for someone of my advanced age.

0:00:13.550,0:00:15.829
After all,

0:00:15.829,0:00:19.067
where else can a few clicks of a mouse take you

0:00:19.067,0:00:22.136
from the latest novel by Toni Morrison

0:00:22.136,0:00:25.518
to an 18th century edition of the works

0:00:25.518,0:00:28.135
of John Locke,

0:00:28.135,0:00:33.196
having stopped in powered tools and women shoes along the way?

0:00:33.196,0:00:36.793
Yet the founder and Chief Executive Officer

0:00:36.793,0:00:39.984
of the world's largest e-tailer,

0:00:39.984,0:00:46.210
whose net sales surpassed 24.5 billion dollars in 2009,

0:00:46.210,0:00:49.157
is only 46 year old,

0:00:49.157,0:00:52.631
and Amazon.com has only existed

0:00:52.631,0:00:56.911
since 1995, making it even younger

0:00:56.911,0:01:00.571
than the class of 2010.

0:01:00.571,0:01:03.006
The moral of this story

0:01:03.006,0:01:05.044
is that the right idea

0:01:05.044,0:01:08.112
in the right hands, at the right time,

0:01:08.112,0:01:11.553
can change the way we lead our lives.

0:01:11.553,0:01:14.187
The idea, in this case,

0:01:14.187,0:01:17.422
was harnessing the power of the nascent Internet

0:01:17.422,0:01:22.184
to create a virtual bookstore of limitless proportions.

0:01:22.184,0:01:26.755
The hands were those of our speaker, Jeff Bezos,

0:01:26.755,0:01:29.654
a self-described nerdy

0:01:29.654,0:01:33.840
computer science and electrical engineering major

0:01:33.840,0:01:37.317
who graduated from Princeton with highest honors

0:01:37.317,0:01:41.029
in 1986.

0:01:41.029,0:01:44.066
And the time was 1994,

0:01:44.066,0:01:47.809
when he and his wife Mackenzie Tuttle Bezos,

0:01:47.809,0:01:50.899
of the class of 1992,

0:01:50.899,0:01:53.788
exchanged the security of Wall Street,

0:01:53.788,0:01:57.091
where they worked at D.E. Shaw & Co.,

0:01:57.091,0:02:01.974
for the uncertain prospects of a dot com start-up.

0:02:01.974,0:02:04.391
But then, as Jeff points out,

0:02:04.391,0:02:06.723
"failure is an essential component"

0:02:06.723,0:02:09.439
"of innovation and invention."

0:02:09.439,0:02:11.640
"If you know it's going to work,"

0:02:11.640,0:02:14.338
"it's not an experiment."

0:02:14.338,0:02:19.536
And Amazon.com was nothing if not a grand experiment.

0:02:19.536,0:02:23.812
Working on improvised tables in the garage of his Seattle home,

0:02:23.812,0:02:27.592
and using his parents' savings as start-up capital,

0:02:27.592,0:02:33.056
Jeff defied the forces that cause most young companies to fail.

0:02:33.056,0:02:36.830
Partly, he admits, through sheer good fortune,

0:02:36.830,0:02:40.591
but also because of his unwavering determination

0:02:40.591,0:02:46.328
to create the world's most customers-centric company.

0:02:46.328,0:02:50.621
And as he notes in his company's latest annual report,

0:02:50.621,0:02:56.895
of the 452 goals that Amazon.com has set for itself this year,

0:02:56.895,0:03:02.958
360 of them will directly affect the customer experience,

0:03:02.958,0:03:08.468
while the word "revenue" is used on only 8 occasions.

0:03:08.468,0:03:11.014
I do not advise you

0:03:11.014,0:03:14.774
to start off with 452 goals this year,

0:03:14.774,0:03:17.349
by the way.

0:03:17.349,0:03:21.390
But this is just one of the keys to Jeff's success.

0:03:21.390,0:03:24.226
Another lies in his exceptional ability

0:03:24.226,0:03:27.763
to marry commerce and technology in creative ways,

0:03:27.763,0:03:31.492
in his sheer inventiveness and willingness

0:03:31.492,0:03:34.764
to take the risks inherent in this process.

0:03:34.764,0:03:38.294
Indeed, the history of Amazon.com

0:03:38.294,0:03:40.882
is one of daring leaps.

0:03:40.882,0:03:43.779
One such leap involved creating the capacity

0:03:43.779,0:03:47.204
to search inside the books sold by his company,

0:03:47.204,0:03:50.971
not by designing a modest pilot project,

0:03:50.971,0:03:54.521
but by committing the resources to make it possible

0:03:54.521,0:03:59.231
to scour the text of more 120,000 volumes,

0:03:59.231,0:04:03.399
when this feature debuted in 2003.

0:04:03.399,0:04:06.215
Other innovations have included

0:04:06.215,0:04:10.335
one-click shopping, online product reviews by customers,

0:04:10.335,0:04:13.996
and of course, the Kindle reading device,

0:04:13.996,0:04:17.880
which we test-drove in 3 courses this fall.

0:04:17.880,0:04:21.512
Mirroring the rapid growth of Amazon itself,

0:04:21.512,0:04:24.881
the number of books available through the US Kindle store

0:04:24.881,0:04:29.060
topped 460,000 in 2009,

0:04:29.060,0:04:32.763
just 2 years after its launch.

0:04:32.763,0:04:35.714
And there is no turning back.

0:04:35.714,0:04:38.138
"Our vision is every book,"

0:04:38.138,0:04:41.520
"every print ed, in any language,"

0:04:41.520,0:04:44.473
"all available in less than 60 seconds,"

0:04:44.473,0:04:48.187
Jeff has stated. An audacious proposition

0:04:48.187,0:04:52.249
to be sure, but as Albert Einstein once observed,

0:04:52.249,0:04:55.263
"If at first the idea is not absurd,"

0:04:55.263,0:04:57.951
"then there is no hope for it."

0:04:57.951,0:05:01.332
Perhaps the American Academy of Achievements

0:05:01.332,0:05:04.169
summarized our speaker's impact best

0:05:04.169,0:05:07.273
when it noted: "Having already"

0:05:07.273,0:05:10.860
"revolutionized the way the world buys books,"

0:05:10.860,0:05:13.725
"Jeff Bezos is now transforming the way"

0:05:13.725,0:05:16.389
"we read them as well."

0:05:16.389,0:05:18.489
I like to think that Princeton helped

0:05:18.489,0:05:21.610
to lay the groundwork for this revolution.

0:05:21.610,0:05:23.982
Dreamer and doer.

0:05:23.982,0:05:27.134
Entrepreneur and engineer.

0:05:27.134,0:05:29.675
Refreshingly unassuming,

0:05:29.675,0:05:32.790
even in the face of unimaginable success,

0:05:32.790,0:05:36.075
Jeff has done his alma mater proud.

0:05:36.075,0:05:38.829
It is a true honour and pleasure

0:05:38.829,0:05:42.569
to welcoming him back to Old Nassau today.

0:05:42.569,0:05:46.167
[Applause]

0:05:46.167,0:06:26.415


0:06:26.415,0:06:30.744
As a kid,

0:06:30.744,0:06:33.873
I spent my summers with my grandparents

0:06:33.873,0:06:36.800
on their ranch in Texas.

0:06:36.800,0:06:39.014
I helped fix windmills,

0:06:39.014,0:06:41.238
vaccinate cattle,

0:06:41.238,0:06:43.998
and do other chores.

0:06:43.998,0:06:47.116
We also watched soap operas every afternoon,

0:06:47.116,0:06:50.309
especially Days of Our Lives.

0:06:50.309,0:06:55.398
My grandparents belonged to a caravan club,

0:06:55.398,0:06:59.154
a group of Airstream trailer owners

0:06:59.154,0:07:03.511
who travelled together around the US and Canada.

0:07:03.511,0:07:05.706
And every few summers,

0:07:05.706,0:07:08.573
we'd join the caravan.

0:07:08.573,0:07:10.946
We'd hitch up the Airstream

0:07:10.946,0:07:13.525
to my grandfather's car

0:07:13.525,0:07:16.653
and off we'd go.

0:07:16.653,0:07:19.116
In line with 300 other

0:07:19.116,0:07:21.970
Airstream adventurers.

0:07:21.970,0:07:25.931
I loved and worshipped my grandparents.

0:07:25.931,0:07:30.840
And I really looked forward to these trips.

0:07:30.840,0:07:33.311
On one particular trip -

0:07:33.311,0:07:35.800
I was about 10 years old -,

0:07:35.800,0:07:38.053
I was rolling around

0:07:38.053,0:07:40.779
in the big bench-seat

0:07:40.779,0:07:43.567
in the back of the car,

0:07:43.567,0:07:46.144
my grandfather was driving

0:07:46.144,0:07:50.360
and my grandmother had the passenger's seat.

0:07:50.360,0:07:54.414
She smoked throughout these trips.

0:07:54.414,0:07:58.632
And I hated the smell.

0:07:58.632,0:08:02.850


0:08:02.850,0:08:07.068
At that age, I'd take any excuse

0:08:07.068,0:08:10.578
to make estimates and do minor arithmetic.

0:08:10.578,0:08:13.351
I'd calculate our gas mileage,

0:08:13.351,0:08:18.128
figure out useless statistics on things like groceries spending.

0:08:18.128,0:08:22.578
I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking.

0:08:22.578,0:08:26.850
I can't remember the details but basically, the ads said:

0:08:26.850,0:08:29.353
"Every puff of a cigarette"

0:08:29.353,0:08:31.791
"takes some number of minutes off of your life."

0:08:31.791,0:08:35.150
I think it might have been 2 minutes per puff.

0:08:35.150,0:08:37.763
At any rate, I decided

0:08:37.763,0:08:40.610
to do the math for my grandmother.

0:08:40.610,0:08:43.518
I estimated the number of cigarettes per day,

0:08:43.518,0:08:46.981
estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on.

0:08:46.981,0:08:49.459
When I was satisfied that I had come up

0:08:49.459,0:08:51.768
with a reasonable number,

0:08:51.768,0:08:54.260
I poked my head into the front of the car,

0:08:54.260,0:08:57.500
tapped my grandmother on the shoulder,

0:08:57.500,0:08:59.499
and proudly proclaimed:

0:08:59.499,0:09:02.062
"At 2 minutes per puff,"

0:09:02.062,0:09:05.334
"you've taken 9 years off of your life!"

0:09:05.334,0:09:08.513


0:09:08.513,0:09:13.094
I have a very vivid memory of what happened next.

0:09:13.094,0:09:15.704
And it was not what I had expected.

0:09:15.704,0:09:17.883


0:09:17.883,0:09:20.925
I expected to be applauded for my cleverness

0:09:20.925,0:09:23.587
and my arithmetic skills.

0:09:23.587,0:09:25.895


0:09:25.895,0:09:29.557
"Jeff, you're so smart!"

0:09:29.557,0:09:32.879
"You had to have made some tricky estimates,"

0:09:32.879,0:09:35.818
"figure out the number of minutes in a year,"

0:09:35.818,0:09:39.304
"and do some division..."

0:09:39.304,0:09:42.412
That's not what happened.

0:09:42.412,0:09:44.412
Instead,

0:09:44.412,0:09:47.184
my grandmother burst into tears.

0:09:47.184,0:09:50.986


0:09:50.986,0:09:53.698
I sat in the back seat,

0:09:53.698,0:09:57.589
and didn't know what to do while my grandmother was crying.

0:09:57.589,0:10:00.512
My grandfather, who'd been driving in silence,

0:10:00.512,0:10:03.883
pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway.

0:10:03.883,0:10:06.079
He got out of the car

0:10:06.079,0:10:08.513
and came around and opened my door,

0:10:08.513,0:10:12.292
and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble?

0:10:12.292,0:10:14.807
My grandfather was a highly intelligent,

0:10:14.807,0:10:16.688
quiet man.

0:10:16.688,0:10:19.005
He had never said a harsh word to me,

0:10:19.005,0:10:21.702
and maybe this was to be the first time.

0:10:21.702,0:10:24.893
Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car

0:10:24.893,0:10:27.778
and apologize to my grandmother.

0:10:27.778,0:10:30.341
I had no experience in this realm

0:10:30.341,0:10:32.660
with my grandparents,

0:10:32.660,0:10:36.062
and no way to gauge what the consequences might be.

0:10:36.062,0:10:39.210
We stopped beside the trailer.

0:10:39.210,0:10:42.138
My grandfather looked at me,

0:10:42.138,0:10:44.973
and after a bit of silence,

0:10:44.973,0:10:48.523
he gently and calmly said:

0:10:48.523,0:10:51.929
"Jeff, one day,"

0:10:51.929,0:10:54.680
"you'll understand"

0:10:54.680,0:10:57.260
"that it's harder to be kind"

0:10:57.260,0:10:59.921
"than clever."

0:10:59.921,0:11:02.582


0:11:02.582,0:11:05.245
What I want to talk to you about today

0:11:05.245,0:11:07.391
is the difference between

0:11:07.391,0:11:10.295
gifts and choices.

0:11:10.295,0:11:12.647
Cleverness is a gift.

0:11:12.647,0:11:15.261
Kindness is a choice.

0:11:15.261,0:11:18.504
Gifts are easy - they're given, after all.

0:11:18.504,0:11:21.364
Choices can be hard.

0:11:21.364,0:11:23.981
You can seduce yourself with your gifts

0:11:23.981,0:11:26.065
if you're not careful.

0:11:26.065,0:11:28.303
And if you do, it will probably be

0:11:28.303,0:11:31.166
to the detriment of your choices.

0:11:31.166,0:11:33.772
This is a group with many gifts.

0:11:33.772,0:11:36.013
I am sure one of your gifts

0:11:36.013,0:11:39.014
is the gift of a smart and capable brain.

0:11:39.014,0:11:41.357
I am confident that's the case, because

0:11:41.357,0:11:44.056
admission is competitive, and if there weren't

0:11:44.056,0:11:46.478
some signs that you're clever,

0:11:46.478,0:11:48.901
the Dean of admissions wouldn't have let you in.

0:11:48.901,0:11:51.324


0:11:51.324,0:11:53.747
Your smarts will come in handy

0:11:53.747,0:11:56.726
because you will travel in a land of marvels.

0:11:56.726,0:11:59.254
We humans, plodding as we are,

0:11:59.254,0:12:02.005
will astonish ourselves,

0:12:02.005,0:12:04.687
we'll invent ways to generate clean energy -

0:12:04.687,0:12:07.620
and a lot of it -, atom by atom,

0:12:07.620,0:12:11.242
we'll assemble small machines that can enter cell walls

0:12:11.242,0:12:13.807
and make repairs...

0:12:13.807,0:12:17.661
This month comes the extraordinary but inevitable news

0:12:17.661,0:12:20.267
that we've synthesized life.

0:12:20.267,0:12:23.062
And in the coming years we'll not only synthesize it,

0:12:23.062,0:12:26.389
but engineer it to specifications.

0:12:26.389,0:12:30.713
I believe you'll even see us understand the human brain.

0:12:30.713,0:12:33.274
Jules Verne, Mark Twain,

0:12:33.274,0:12:35.647
Galileo, Newton,

0:12:35.647,0:12:38.459
all the curious from the ages

0:12:38.459,0:12:40.813
would have wanted to be alive

0:12:40.813,0:12:43.733
most of all right now.

0:12:43.733,0:12:47.058
As a civilization, we will have so many gifts.

0:12:47.058,0:12:49.579
Just as you, as individuals,

0:12:49.579,0:12:53.225
have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

0:12:53.225,0:12:55.753
How will you use these gifts?

0:12:55.753,0:12:58.265
And will you take pride in your gifts

0:12:58.265,0:13:00.755
or pride in your choices?

0:13:00.755,0:13:04.759
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago.

0:13:04.759,0:13:07.795
I came across the fact that Web usage

0:13:07.795,0:13:11.095
was growing at 2,300 percent per year.

0:13:11.095,0:13:13.546
I had never seen or heard

0:13:13.546,0:13:16.585
of anything that grew that fast.

0:13:16.585,0:13:19.264
The idea of building an online bookstore

0:13:19.264,0:13:21.615
with millions of titles,

0:13:21.615,0:13:24.286
something that simply couldn't exist in the physical world,

0:13:24.286,0:13:27.024
was very exciting to me.

0:13:27.024,0:13:29.515
I'd just turned 30 years old

0:13:29.515,0:13:31.947
and I had been married for a year.

0:13:31.947,0:13:35.003
I told my wife Mackenzie that I wanted to quit my job

0:13:35.003,0:13:37.359
and go do this crazy thing

0:13:37.359,0:13:39.603
that probably wouldn't work,

0:13:39.603,0:13:41.980
since most start-ups don't,

0:13:41.980,0:13:44.983
and I wasn't sure what would happen after that.

0:13:44.983,0:13:47.899
Mackenzie, also a Princeton grad and sitting

0:13:47.899,0:13:50.326
here in the second row,

0:13:50.326,0:13:53.070
told me I should go for it.

0:13:53.070,0:13:56.355
As a young boy, I had been

0:13:56.355,0:13:59.039
a garage inventor;

0:13:59.039,0:14:01.459
I had invented an automatic gate-closer

0:14:01.459,0:14:03.785
out of cement-filled tires,

0:14:03.785,0:14:06.165
a solar cooker that didn't work very well

0:14:06.165,0:14:08.891
out of an umbrella and aluminum foil,

0:14:08.891,0:14:12.349
baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings.

0:14:12.349,0:14:14.828
I'd always wanted to be an inventor

0:14:14.828,0:14:17.488
and she wanted me to follow my passion.

0:14:17.488,0:14:20.148


0:14:20.148,0:14:22.810
I was working at a financial firm in NYC

0:14:22.810,0:14:25.536
with a bunch of very smart people

0:14:25.536,0:14:28.904
and I had a brilliant boss I much admired.

0:14:28.904,0:14:31.268
I went to my boss

0:14:31.268,0:14:33.742
and told him I was going to start a company

0:14:33.742,0:14:36.404
selling books on the Internet.

0:14:36.404,0:14:40.162
He took me on a long walk in Central Park,

0:14:40.162,0:14:42.617
listened carefully to me,

0:14:42.617,0:14:44.902
and finally said:

0:14:44.902,0:14:47.511
"That sounds like a really good idea."

0:14:47.511,0:14:49.979
"But it would be an even better idea"

0:14:49.979,0:14:52.750
"for someone who didn't already have a good job."

0:14:52.750,0:14:56.276
[Laughs]

0:14:56.276,0:14:58.924
That logic made some sense to me

0:14:58.924,0:15:02.086
and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours

0:15:02.086,0:15:05.095
before making a final decision.

0:15:05.095,0:15:08.104


0:15:08.104,0:15:11.113
Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice.

0:15:11.113,0:15:13.699
But ultimately, I decided

0:15:13.699,0:15:16.161
I had to give it a shot.

0:15:16.161,0:15:18.751
I didn't think I'd regret

0:15:18.751,0:15:21.155
trying and failing.

0:15:21.155,0:15:23.641
And I suspected I would always be haunted

0:15:23.641,0:15:26.570
by a decision to not try at all.

0:15:26.570,0:15:28.453


0:15:28.453,0:15:30.860
After much consideration,

0:15:30.860,0:15:33.339
I took the last safe path

0:15:33.339,0:15:36.078
to follow my passion.

0:15:36.078,0:15:38.940
And I'm proud of that choice.

0:15:38.940,0:15:40.756


0:15:40.756,0:15:43.096
Tomorrow,

0:15:43.096,0:15:45.861
in a very real sense, your life,

0:15:45.861,0:15:48.679
the life you author from scratch,

0:15:48.679,0:15:51.843
on your own, begins.

0:15:51.843,0:15:54.435
How will you use your gifts?

0:15:54.435,0:15:56.918
What choices will you make?

0:15:56.918,0:16:00.174
Will inertia be your guide

0:16:00.174,0:16:03.852
or will you follow your passions?

0:16:03.852,0:16:07.057
Will you follow dogma

0:16:07.057,0:16:10.131
or will you be original?

0:16:10.131,0:16:13.143
Will you choose a life of ease

0:16:13.143,0:16:17.413
or a life of service and adventure?

0:16:17.413,0:16:22.030
Will you wilt under criticism

0:16:22.030,0:16:25.418
or will you follow your convictions?

0:16:25.418,0:16:28.339
Will you bluff it out when you're wrong

0:16:28.339,0:16:31.594
or will you apologize?

0:16:31.594,0:16:34.309
Will you guard your heart

0:16:34.309,0:16:37.389
against rejection

0:16:37.389,0:16:40.893
or will you act when you fall in love?

0:16:40.893,0:16:43.849
Will you play it safe

0:16:43.849,0:16:47.508
or will you be a little swashbuckling?

0:16:47.508,0:16:52.007
When it's tough, will you give up

0:16:52.007,0:16:54.783
or will you be relentless?

0:16:54.783,0:16:57.559


0:16:57.559,0:17:00.335
Will you be a cynic

0:17:00.335,0:17:03.052
or will you be a builder?

0:17:03.052,0:17:05.769


0:17:05.769,0:17:08.486
Will you be clever

0:17:08.486,0:17:12.503
at the expense of others

0:17:12.519,0:17:15.851
or will you be kind?

0:17:15.851,0:17:19.183


0:17:19.183,0:17:22.517
I will hazard a prediction.

0:17:22.517,0:17:25.396
When you are 80 years old

0:17:25.396,0:17:28.079
and, in a quiet moment

0:17:28.079,0:17:30.762
of reflection,

0:17:30.762,0:17:33.447
narrating for only yourself

0:17:33.447,0:17:36.211
the most personal version

0:17:36.211,0:17:39.924
of your life's story,

0:17:39.924,0:17:43.609
the telling that will be most compact

0:17:43.609,0:17:46.132
and meaningful

0:17:46.132,0:17:49.729
will be the series of choices you have made.

0:17:49.729,0:17:51.795
In the end,

0:17:51.795,0:17:54.146
we are our choices.

0:17:54.146,0:17:57.682
Build yourself a great story.

0:17:57.682,0:18:00.168
Thank you and good luck.

0:18:00.168,0:18:04.168
[Applause]