Thank you Eloic, esteemed faculty, dear guests, and the class of 2025. It's such an honor to be invited to celebrate what you've accomplished and send you off to begin your next chapter. I'm heartbroken that I couldn't be there with you at our beautiful campus today, but excited to be with you virtually. You know, I first dreamed of coming to HC when I was 9 years old and saw a documentary about it on TV. Back then, I had no idea what business meant, but I wanted to be one of those students. They look so confident and ready to take on the world. And I remember telling my mom, I want to go there. And no, I promise it wasn't just because of the footage of the epic parties. Thinking of all of you today, I feel that same sense of potential. You are about to embark on the greatest journey, one of discovery and creation. And talk about timing. You're entering the workforce at a time when the world is being reshaped by new technologies every day. Of course, it would be easy to respond with fear, but worrying about the future only makes it harder to thrive in it. The other approach is to see this moment for what it is, the greatest acceleration to human progress and creativity yet, where your current skill set is a starting point, not a ceiling. Whether you want to craft a story, design a product, launch a business, or bring any other idea burning in your heart to life, AI tools can now turn your imagination into reality in ways no other generation before you could have even imagined. That's why I believe this will be the golden age of creation. We are all born creators. It is at the core of what makes us human. As the poet Maggie Smith writes, "Creativity isn't just about making art. Making your life is the ultimate creative act." You get to decide what you put out into the world, how you design your life and your career, how you navigate your path. Yet, many of us forget this power. We filter our reality through what we believe is possible when in fact we have the ability to shape it through our mindset and our actions. I definitely would not be standing here today if I hadn't looked past some very real barriers and created my own story. So, as you prepare to enter this exciting and unpredictable world, I want to offer you a few practices for turning on your power of creation. These are the same ones that helped me through my most challenging and most rewarding moments. And I believe that no matter what you dream of doing, these can help you build a life and career beyond anything you can imagine. First, focus on your vision, not on the obstacles. Second, be determined on your destination but flexible on the journey to get there. Third, bet on what sets you apart. And finally, fourth, surround yourself with people who see your magic and shine a light on it. Starting with the first principle, focus on what you want to create. The greatest currency isn't time or money. It's attention. And what you put your attention on grows. When you focus on obstacles, they look bigger. When you focus on your vision, it starts to outshine everything in the way. I grew up in a small fishing town in the south of France. No one in my family had graduated from high school, let alone college. So, I didn't fit in right away at HC. I'll never forget my first day when everyone was talking about what their parents did and I said my dad was a fisherman. One student looked at me and said, "No, not as a hobby. What does he do for a job?" There were many moments like that throughout my life where I could have accepted the odds against me. Why a fisherman's daughter wouldn't get into a top business school. Why someone with my defiantly French accent wouldn't succeed in the US. Why a woman who chooses door over hoodies wouldn't make it in tech. Why someone with a serious chronic illness couldn't make it to the top jobs. Or why a new CEO couldn't be the first one to take a company public after one of the longest IPO droughts in history. The list goes on. I can barely keep track of the number of people who seem to find it a great pastime to tell me what I wouldn't be able to achieve. But here is what they didn't understand which made all the difference. I didn't believe them. See, my parents may not have had all the connections or business experience to open doors for me, but they instilled the powerful belief that with hard work and willpower, I could accomplish anything. So, I chose to focus on my goals instead of what was in my way. Over time, I realized not only could I knock down any obstacles, I could turn them into springboards. Ultimately, obstacles are just the world's way of asking, "How much do you want this?" When I first applied to Facebook, all of my experience had been in strategy, and the team rejected me outright. We don't need strategy people, they said. We want builders. For those of you going to BCG, don't freak out. My short sins in strategy has served me right throughout my career. But in that moment, it wasn't what they were looking for, and I wasn't about to let a minor detail like experience get in my way. So, I applied to a marketing job instead. I spent all weekend inventing a new product and creating the marketing materials for it. No one asked me to, but I knew my irrelevant resume wasn't going to be enough. I needed to go the extra mile. And since I was the only candidate who did so, I got the job that changed the course of my career. You'd be surprised how few people put in the extra effort and push past the first no, even when it can change their lives. Don't forget that the greatest limits you'll ever face are the ones you quietly agree to. So if you don't see a seat at the table, bring your own chair. And why not a blueprint for a better table while you're at it? Pour your time, your energy, your life force into solutions, and the obstacles won't stand a chance. Like an alchemist, you'll transform them into opportunities. Now clearly I am someone who is very determined but I'll clarify with my second principle that you need to be determined on your destination but flexible on the journey to get there. You may not get to your destination in a straight line but trust me no one really does even if LinkedIn makes it look that way. Creativity doesn't follow a fixed road map. So let yourself be surprised by where the journey takes you. And when the path isn't clear, build the bridge as you walk it. It may not lead to where you imagine, but if you keep going, you'll often find something even better. One of the most important challenges of my career came when I was put in charge of figuring out how to monetize the mobile version of Facebook. Back then, all the headlines and commentators were saying Facebook would never make any money, which is, you know, a bit of a problem when you've just gone public and slightly stress inducing for the person asked to solve it. Yet, the team and I kept trying until we figured out what worked. A trillion dollars in market cap later. It's kind of hilarious that this was ever up for debate. It was a similar story when I joined Instacart. At the time, it was a poster child for unprofitability and everyone thought grocery delivery would be just a pandemic fad. So, we explored new paths to growth. We tightened our operations. We learned our way into a sustainable, profitable business within two years. In both cases, I could see the outcome I wanted, but I couldn't predict the exact path. I had to stay open and push through the uncertainty. Creativity and innovation demands that we stay in the discomfort zone, the space where others walk away, where people will happily tell you how wrong you are until you are right. Which brings me to the next principle. Bet on what sets you apart. The world will try to convince you that success follows a single path. that there's a set competition with winners and losers. I reject that entirely. Success isn't a race and it certainly isn't zero sum. The most disruptive ideas often begin as whispers that only you can hear. Trust them, especially when no one else does. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness that made basic things like sitting or standing difficult. There's no cure for this disease, which as you can probably imagine by now, I took very calmly and did absolutely nothing about. Just kidding. I felt deeply insulted by this no cure situation. And so, of course, I had to do something. At first, I did what many people do. I donated money to fund research. But the more I learned, the clearer it became. The current system wasn't built to deliver the breakthrough that millions of people like me were waiting for. So I spent nights and weekends talking to scientists, physicians, biotech leaders. And what I saw was untapped potential trapped in silos, researchers disconnected from patients, medical specialties divided by body parts. Data that was fragmented, inaccessible, or not collected at all at a time when AI could make such greater use of it. Now, I'm not a doctor nor a scientist, but I know how to connect people and build organizations that solve hard problems. So, I use my experience as a technologist, as an executive, as a patient to envision a new kind of research institute that would break silos, bring together the right experts, and collect much needed data to accelerate progress. This journey has had a lot of tries and pivots and we're still far from a cure. But we're approaching the problem completely differently from other organizations because old keys won't open new doors. And that's the point. The world needs your unique perspective, not a sea of sameness. The lens you have that no one else does, that's your unfair advantage. Don't trade it for anything. Now, trusting yourself takes courage and the bolder your vision, the more people will question it. Which brings me to the last principle. Surround yourself with people who see your magic and shine a light on it and do the same for others. We are born creators, but we do not create alone. Much of the courage I've been able to summon over the years has been possible because of the people who helped me see my own strength. One of those people is my husband Remy, who I was lucky enough to meet on the first day of high school. Since I was 13, he's been by my side, motivating me to chase my dreams. From leaving my hometown of Set to go to Paris and then California to taking the biggest bets of my career by joining Instacart and now OpenAI. This sort of support can come from anyone. What matters is finding the people who inspire you to be the best truest version of yourself. And just as importantly, avoiding those who try to deem your light. And I'm not talking about the people who challenge you to grow. These people are great, but the ones who make you feel smaller for daring to shine. You don't need those people in your life. Creating is hard enough. Do it on fertile ground. When I joined Facebook, I was certainly not the obvious choice for the many opportunities that I was handed. Yet, people like Mark Zuckerberg saw potential in me, often before I could even see it in myself. That's a large part of why I've been able to have the career that I've had. It also taught me the power of giving people chances to stretch beyond what they thought was possible. One of the greatest disappointments in life is living your creative potential and fulfilled. On the other hand, one of the greatest joys is helping someone else unleash theirs. That's why as you surround yourself with people who see your magic and shine a light on it, you must also do the same for others. Ask yourself every day, how can I help someone step into their full potential? Because when you fuel others, you create a life of true abundance. So, class of 2025, no matter where your journey began or where you're heading next, your graduation today marks an exciting inflection point, your own golden age of creation. Whether you already have a great job lined up or building your own company or still brainstorming with Chad GPT about what to do next, this is your starting point. The world will keep changing faster than ever. But that only makes your creative power more potent and essential. And now imagine if every one of us use that power to the fullest. If we each applied these incredible new tools not just to realize our own potential but to improve the world around us, whether humanity ends up in a better place or a worse one won't be decided by AI. It will be decided by what each of us chooses to create. Remember, every act of creation is a step towards the future you believe in. Each day we have the profound privilege and responsibility to wake up and steer our collective futures in the right direction. So focus your attention on creating opportunities, not dwelling on the obstacles. Stay open to the unexpected because some of the best things in life come from the detours along the way. Be bold enough to stand out, take risk, and go further than expected. The world needs your magic. So share it and help others do the same. Class of 2025, go out there, embrace this golden age, and create your masterpiece. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your speech, Fiji.