HIGHER PURPOSE
He told the graduates how, when Facebook’s investors and executives wanted him to sell the company early on, he resisted. “You see, my hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact,” he said. But as a young CEO, he never explained this to his co-workers, and the subsequent fight “tore our company apart.”
“I wondered if I was just wrong, an impostor, a 22 year-old kid who had no idea how the world worked,” Zuckerberg said. “Now, years later, I understand that is how things work with no sense of higher purpose. It’s up to us to create it so we can all keep moving forward together.”
Later in the speech, Zuckerberg’s voice cracked with emotion as he talked about a high school student he mentors who is living in the U.S. illegally. When Zuckerberg asked him what he wants for his birthday, the student started talking about others he wanted to help, and asked for a book on social justice.
“Here is a young guy who has every reason to be cynical,” Zuckerberg said, his eyes welling with tears. “He wasn’t sure if the country he calls home — the only one he’s known — was going to deny him his dream of going to college. But he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t even thinking of himself.”
