Commencement Speech by Donna Dubinsky to MBA candidates, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College; Saturday, May 20, 2006 Donna Dubinsky, Founder, CEO, Board Chair, Numenta, Inc.
President Barefoot and Members of Governance, Faculty and Staff, Honored Guests, and, of course, the Graduates of the Class of 2006: I thank you for the great honor of this doctor of laws degree. When President Barefoot wrote and told me that Babson College wanted to confer an honorary degree on me, I truly was thrilled. In fact, I had wondered for quite some time as to why nobody had granted me an honorary degree, or invited me to speak at their commencement. But mainly I was thrilled because my husband has a doctorate, and I don’t, so now we’re even. It is a privilege to stand before you, and to be among the first to welcome the new Babson graduates into the professional world of business. As a serial entrepreneur, I’m particularly pleased to be receiving this degree from Babson, where I know there is tremendous focus in the curriculum on entrepreneurship and high-technology management. Twenty-five years ago, I found myself sitting in your shoes, also in Boston, receiving my MBA degree, and just starting out my business career. Twenty-five years is a really long time. For the sake of the new graduates, let me describe it as the time before PalmPilots, Treo cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, and even Google. When I thought about what to say to you, it seemed nearly impossible to say something significant in ten minutes. I tried, but couldn’t recall, the speaker at my own commencement, which I figured was a bad sign. In fact, I’m told that research shows that nobody remembers their commencement speaker. What a relief! As I thought about this problem, I figured the best chance of making a speech memorable was to make it as simple as possible. So I’ve collapsed my theme today into one word: THINK. I’m going to illustrate this theme by sharing a few of my experiences over these past twenty-five years. One of my passions is the Computer History Museum, where I first learned about THINK. Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the great leader of IBM, used THINK – you must picture this in all capital letters - as a slogan for IBM, starting almost one hundred years ago. At IBM, this slogan THINK was everywhere – on plaques in offices, in meeting rooms, on company publications, posted in the cafeteria. There was a famous cartoon that showed a middle level worker at his desk, adorned by a THINK sign. Behind him is his more successful boss, whose sign says – in all caps – SCHEME.
Well, the first time I saw THINK, I have to admit that I thought it was a dumb slogan. Of course we’re going to think! If you had to remind somebody to think, they must be awfully stupid. Then I got out into the business world. Much to my surprise, I found that often people did not actually think all that hard! I started to realize that it wasn’t that people were dumb, it’s just that they weren’t really thinking carefully. Of course, they think they’re thinking … but they’re thinking about the wrong things, or asking the wrong questions, or thinking about a problem exactly the same way everybody else is thinking about it, rather than looking beyond the obvious. I started to understand what TJ Watson was trying to tell us. I saw this over and over again when I was CEO of Palm. Our first product, the Casio Zoomer, was a failure. It was a palmtop computer that tried to be the same as a big computer, just smaller. All the competitors were doing the same thing … tiny computers. It’s obvious – but not very smart. The breakthrough of the PalmPilot was to decide that the handheld should be an accessory to a desktop computer, rather than a little computer. It should synchronize with the desktop, and let the desktop do the “heavy lifting”, such as printing, leaving the handheld part smaller, faster, cheaper. In one sense, the handheld – although a powerful computer itself – was really a mobile window into the desktop computer. This simple notion created a multi-billion dollar industry. We shipped the first few generations of PalmPilots before any serious competition emerged. But we knew this luxury wouldn’t last forever. Indeed, the mighty Microsoft targeted us. I mean this quite literally …. we happened to get copies of their internal presentations where there was one of those bulls-eye target charts, with the Palm logo dead center! Microsoft’s strategy was clear: embark on a feature war. We knew this was a battle we couldn’t win. So instead of going down this path, we decided to THINK. We realized that these devices were a bit like watches in that people developed strong personal feelings about them. If a watch was just a timepiece, then we would all have the same watch. But whether you wear a simple digital watch versus a diamond-studded Rolex says a lot about your personality (and perhaps your wallet, too). Instead of engaging in the feature war, we shipped the Palm V. There were no new features in the Palm V … but it was beautiful. Customers loved it … everybody wanted to be carrying a sleek, gorgeous product. The Palm V became a huge hit. It took Microsoft and other competitors years to figure out that style was important. What’s funny about these big decisions is that they always seem obvious in hindsight. But at the time, they weren’t so obvious. In fact, we specifically avoided doing what was most obvious... by thinking differently.
Now I imagine you are familiar with Apple’s brilliant advertising campaign that took this IBM slogan to the next level …. from THINK to THINK DIFFERENT. With this slogan, Apple taught us that even when it comes to grammar, we can THINK DIFFERENT – LY! Now let me tell you about a time where I didn’t THINK hard enough. My greatest business mistake – ever – was when I was CEO of Handspring, and I signed a lease to rent two magnificent buildings under construction. At the time, we were the fastest growth company in American business history, and these buildings would support our growth for many years to come. Just as the ink was drying on the lease, the bubble burst. Ultimately, this debt nearly killed our company. Thankfully, we survived and, through our merger back with Palm, the resulting company is prospering, but it sure was a close call. I learned then – don’t just think about the upside .... THINK about the worst that can happen as well, and make sure you have plans to mitigate that risk. Lately I’ve been thinking so much about thinking that, ironically enough, I’ve found myself in the brain business. Our new company, Numenta, is working on creating computers that can THINK by using algorithms modeled after the human neocortex. There are lots of smart people who have worked on this problem for many years without much progress. Our plan is to take a new approach, one that we hope will jump start the next generation of computing … intelligent computing. I like this idea of THINK so much, that I’ve realized that I can apply it to our personal lives as well. I came to love a bit late in life myself. I adopted my daughter when she was 3 as a 39 year old single mother. I married my husband just six years ago, when I was 44. I like to say that first I got my crystal and china, then I got my kid, and then I got my husband. It’s a bit different an order than the norm, but you end up in the same place. Since I formed this little family a bit later than many others, I already had learned the THINK lesson. I am quite determined to invest in these precious relationships, thinking constantly about what I need to do to nurture them. I find the same is true of my good friends, many of whom date back to my college and graduate school days. I work hard to keep up with them, to make time for them, to have them as a part of my life. It is not easy to do this, it’s easy to just stop thinking … to be too busy ... and to let years go by. So what does THINK mean? THINK about whether you’re repeating the thoughts of others, and whether these thoughts truly stand up to scrutiny. THINK about how you can look at a problem differently, and whether you’re asking the right questions. THINK about long term consequences
THINK about the downside risk, not just the upside. THINK about how to invest your time and how to nurture your relationships When I got my MBA, I never could have imagined my future. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in four computing revolutions: desktop computing, handheld computing, smartphones, and now intelligent computing. And what a time it’s been, full of both triumphs and disappointments, but always fascinating, challenging, and rewarding. I wish the same for you, as you embark on your professional business career. You will have tremendous opportunities to have a huge impact on your community and on our world, with many choices, both professional and personal, that will take you in all sorts of unexpected directions. Choose well. Be resilient. Enjoy the journey. And don’t forget to THINK. Thank you.