[hugh3]

Most graduation speeches are fairly formulaic; regurgitations of the same few bits of inspirational wisdom that we all already know (but can occasionally afford to be reminded of, in the appropriate setting). Even the speeches which acknowledge and play with the formula are still pretty formulaic.

The Steve Jobs version of the speech wasn't really any better than the Jeff Bezos version, and neither of those is any better than the version given by some guy you've never heard of at some fifth-rate school in the middle of nowhere.

[zackattack]

I thought David Foster Wallace's speech was exceptional.

http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallac...

[benatkin]

That was fun to read. Afterward I looked for another commencement speech, and read Bill Gates' speech at Harvard. It's interesting to compare and contrast them.

> There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the morning.

http://humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?...