bill gates' harvard commencement speech (june 7, 2007)

here's the text as prepared for delivery. interesting thoughts and insights into bill gates' ambitions for the future, thru the bill and melinda gates foundation.

gates has presented an interesting problem to ponder upon, not just for graduating harvard students, but for intelligent, privileged and fortunate students all over the world. whether you graduate from wharton, iit or tsinghua, you have the power and potential to make a difference in the lives of people who have never even heard of these universities. to quote from his speech (and this is one of my favorite lines):

"Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?"

extend that thought to any privileged top-ranked institution in the world, and its obvious how the imbalance of opportunity affects us all. how can we claim ourselves successful leaders, when we cannot improve the lives of those who need us the most? to put it simply, leading a bunch of smart, white-collared professionals (which is what you land up doing after graduating from top schools like harvard) isn't a challenge. saving the lives of millions of impoverished kids around the world, by making sure they get vaccines and medicines on time - now that's a challenge!

i know it sounds cliched, but i think bill gates might find the answers to the questions that we have evaded for so long - how do we save sick kids around the world, how do we eradicate killer diseases, how do we bridge the gap between the fortunate and not-so-fortunate? time has a nice article, including a podcast of an interview with bill gates. definitely worth listening.

so does all this have to do with entrepreneurs and VCs? well, in some sense they are a privileged lot too, just like the graduating students of harvard. we (ok, i consider myself an entrepreneur) have access to the kind of technology and talent most people can never even dream of. we need to keep the gates' perspective in mind as we try and solve problems. are the problem we're trying to solve, going to help the people who really need help? or are we simply creating problems for the rich and privileged, and solving them too?