9--LarryPage27s谷歌创始人CommencementAddress.docVIP

Larry Pages University of Michigan Commencement Address Full transcript: Class of 2009! First Id like you to get up, wave and cheer your supportive family and friends! Show your love! It is a great honor for me to be here today. Now wait a second. I know: thats such a cliché. Youre thinking: every graduation speaker says that -- Its a great honor. But, in my case, it really is so deeply true -- being here is more special and more personal for me than most of you know. Id like to tell you why. A long time ago, in the cold September of 1962, there was a Stevens co-op at this very university. That co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers every decade or so. Picture a college girl named Gloria, climbing up high on a ladder, struggling to clean that filthy ceiling. Standing on the floor, a young boarder named Carl was admiring the view. And thats how they met. They were my parents, so I suppose you could say Im a direct result of that kitchen chemistry experiment, right here at Michigan. My Mom is here with us today, and we should probably go find the spot and put a plaque up on the ceiling that says: Thanks Mom and Dad! Everyone in my family went to school here at Michigan: me, my brother, my Mom and Dad -- all of us. My Dad actually got the quantity discount: all three and a half of his degrees are from here. His Ph.D. was in Communication Science because they thought Computers were just a passing fad. He earned it 44 years ago. He and Mom made a big sacrifice for that. They argued at times over pennies, while raising my newborn brother. Mom typed my Dads dissertation by hand. This velvet hood Im wearing, this was my Dads. And this diploma, just like the one youre are about to get, that was my Dads. And my underwear, that was... oh never mind. My fathers father worked in the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan. He was an assembly line worker. He drove his two children here to Ann Arbor, and told them: That is where youre going to go to