Transcript

00:00 - Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. I believe 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 homeruns or strikeouts, success or failure, it's so ridiculous that it's portrayed that way, but it's what sells newspapers, so it's what you read about. You can have an idea that doesn't yield a better way to do your job or your career, but it changes your life. The most successful people I know are divorced, and they tell me it wasn't worth it. Don't do it, don't sacrifice your families.

00:48 Hold your children up high as your greatest inventions, because they are. I invented something that many of you use every day, you don't know it, it's buried in the enterprise, but I know it, and I know how it feels, and I'll tell you. It doesn't compare to every day, holding that one's happy and healthy little hand. And by the way, don't step on anyone's neck to advance your cause. Don't sue anyone and try not to get sued, you'll sleep better at night.

01:19 My wife and I don't put work before our daughter or each other. Engineers in my company with similar families and I have been together most of our careers. We don't waste time commuting to offices, we don't have each other over. For dinner, we don't have holiday parties, we get it done, and then we see our families. We're like a less good-looking, legal "Married... with Children" version of the "Ocean's Eleven" team.

01:47 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 a lot less of a personal toll. And this also works in other industries. My companies look a lot like Seth Rogen's movies. A strict budget, an acceptably-sized audience, although much smaller than a blockbuster.

02:15 You know what, he seems like a pretty happy guy too.

02:18 I agreed to join a nonprofit board, my primary school board, and it changed my life. I learned about parenting, and education, and philanthropy, and what motivates people. Maybe you'll have an idea about attacking global warming, or maybe you'll have an idea about attacking poverty, or maybe you'll have an idea about attacking truth in news reporting, and maybe you'll do none of those things, but maybe you'll speak from your heart, authentically, in front of the person that you're gonna marry, and maybe you'll be inspiring.

02:56 I took the only path to see you along Tiburon Boulevard today, where even our most resourceful, most well-meaning people, can't seem to get their acts together regarding changing their daily driving habits to effect traffic.

03:10 And so it goes in our little town, and so it goes in most towns. How do we sacrifice a lot to save the planet, if we can't even sacrifice a little? The Union of Concerned Scientists just forecasted that nearly 4,400 homes in Marine County alone are gonna be completely underwater in less than 30 years due to sea level rise, so my generation, your generation, we're gonna have to do something. We're gonna have to do something. For now, I keep searching for ideas, like taking our daughter to school on an electric tandem bicycle. We count the idling cars as we pass in traffic, we wave to them, they used to wave to us, but we're getting a little annoying now, so they kinda just, eh, but it's something, it's something that we can do. In an increasingly unrecognizable world, my career trajectory should be recognizable to you. This means you can do what I've done, you can have this life, you can be happy in your career and your family. And if you want the world to know your name, well then I applaud you, I really do, the world needs you, and I'll wish you every success, if you're willing to sacrifice it all, bet it all, blow out the curve, just remember my name as your backup plan. We named our daughter after Emerson who wrote, "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.".