I Took the Only Path To See You. Jon Fisher

PREFACE

      UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO COMMENCEMENT SPEECH 2018

      Thank you very much. My father's commencement speaker was the great Martin Luther King.

      My Father was 20 years old and didn't show up for that talk, so thank you for showing up! Thank you, Dean Davis, President Fitzgerald, my friend Dr. Mark Cannice, the rest of the distinguished faculty and invited guests, the families, especially the parents, especially the parents who labored to get here financially, medically … emotionally … and can I get an Amen for the University of San Francisco graduates! I'm honored you graduates would spend such a special moment of your lives with me.

      Of course you didn't really have a choice. I was President Fitzgerald's decision – a decision by a man who has lived, studied, and worked all over the world including Germany, France, Switzerland, Mexico, China, and Kenya and who decided I was the one for you to listen to before getting your diplomas.

      Really? This is a question some of those parents who labored to get here may be asking themselves. I mean c'mon, there are three other Jon Fishers to choose from in the Bay Area alone, and all of them are billionaires!

If it's any consolation, I don't think President Fitzgerald was simply inspired in his choice. Some of you graduates attended my lectures at USF – I haunted this university for the last decade banging my fist on chalkboards and desks – pleading with you guys, as you started your projects, your companies, your careers, to marry the right person. To me, this was the most important decision in my life with the most effect on future happiness.

      The most traditionally successful people I know were very often divorced, and they told me sacrificing their families wasn't worth it. Who you marry determines the children you may have. Hold your children up high as your greatest inventions, because, to me, they are.

      I invented something many of you use every day, and it doesn't compare to any day with a happy, healthy child.

      Don't step on anyone's neck to advance your cause. Be a kind person. Never sue anyone and try not to get sued – you will sleep better at night. I have never been a party to a lawsuit in my technology career and Amen to that!

      My wife and I don't put work before our daughter or each other. The engineers in my company, with similar families, and I have been together for most of our professional lives. We don't waste time commuting to offices to look over shoulders because we trust each other.

      We don't have a holiday party. We don't have each other over for dinner. We get it done, then we see our families.

      We're like a less good-looking, legal, married-with-children version of the Ocean's Eleven team.

      We build good companies that great companies buy and take around the world as our path of least resistance to contributing to the world. Building smaller companies takes a lot less capital and therefore a lot less risk, and therefore less of a personal toll. And this works in other industries – financially, my companies look a lot like Seth Rogen's movies – a strict budget, an acceptably sized audience, although much smaller than a blockbuster. He seems like a pretty happy guy, too.

I accepted President Fitzgerald's invitation because I think you can hear the siren call in your lives without it leading to you crashing against the rocks, and I think that's worth sharing.

      Not everything in Silicon Valley, or any industry or life for that matter, need be portrayed as home runs or strikeouts – success or failure – it's just what you hear about so often because it's what sells newspapers.

      You can have an idea that doesn't yield a better way to do your job or give rise to a new company but changes your life. What's that worth? Everything, in my book.

      I agreed to join my primary school board that changed my life. I learned about parenting and education and philanthropy and what motivates people. I learned more about all kinds of things that made me a better person, husband, and father. You could give some time to charities or church groups or political causes, and feel the growth that comes with pitching in and doing things for others. It will change you in ways that you cannot foresee, but will enrich your life.

      Maybe you'll have an idea about attacking global warming. We sure need them at this time in Earth's history. Maybe you'll have an idea about overcoming racial hatred or poverty, or truth in news reporting, and maybe you'll pursue none of those things, and yet except you'll speak from your heart about them to inspire the person you're going to marry.

      I had the idea to give this speech exactly seven years ago to the day. I sat in this church right there. It was December 14, 2012; that was the day all those children were lost in the Sandy Hook shooting. I wondered what someone standing up here would say to us that day and then I wondered what I would to say to you that day. I thought in an increasingly unrecognizable world – my life trajectory should be recognizable to you.

You can do it. You can do what I've done. That is, you can be happy in your career and family

      And if you want the world to know your name and you're willing to risk it all to get there, I applaud you, really, and I wish you every success – just remember my name as your backup plan.

      I do hope you return to Saint Ignatius once in a while, as I have. Although I was not brought up with religious affiliation, empty churches always give me a sense of peace and motivation to do right in this world. I always walked out of this church on a hill feeling better – even on that Sandy Hook day – feeling at the center of things.

      Salesforce built the greatest skyscraper in the land just two miles from here for a reason. It was in San Francisco where my father taught physics at both San Francisco State and Stanford, and often it was easier to get the great physicists of the century to speak in San Francisco. This place stimulates drive and achievement.

      About 80 percent of you graduating today do not call San Francisco your home city, but more of you will stay. You understand the feeling I am describing in your years here. San Francisco is a unique city in many ways, and you were lucky to have been here. Bring its vibe wherever you go.

      Returning again today, I know the opportunity to speak to you in this place and time may be my apex at age 46 for a variety of reasons, including both sets of parents are still relatively happy and healthy and get to be a part of this. My family is here today. My mother-in-law is here, who believes all of this – career, family, inspiration, all of it, is due to grand design. My mother believes this is all due to chance. I think it's somewhere in the middle.

By the way, this was also the exact opening of my wedding vows. I continued, promising my wife that I would meet her in the middle of our disagreements, whether or not they were about our mothers. And while I think having a loving family creates memorable moments that may result in chemical changes in the brain to make us more creative, I think we should also follow Jack Warner's advice to Einstein, paraphrasing “you have your theory of relatively and I have mine – don't hire a relative.”

      I