2016 JI commencement speech by Mr. James Mi

Thank you Dean, honored guests, families and graduating students.
Congratulations to the Class of 2016. It’s an honor to speak at today’s graduation ceremony. My wife studied Electrical Engineering here at Jiao Tong University so I know the value and excellence of this university. Thank you for your kind invitation.
Let me start off by sharing you a small secret: today is the first time that I am wearing a graduation gown. I didn’t attend my undergraduate graduation ceremony because I graduated in 3 years. I didn’t go to my Princeton graduation ceremony either as I dropped out the PhD program.
So thanks to all of you I get to wear a graduation gown for the first time in my life. I need to take some good pictures.
Graduates – you are very fortunate to be part of the Jiao Tong University and University of Michigan Joint Institute program. Your hard work has earned you an excellent education.
The world is increasingly global and China and US are the two biggest economies in the world. In the long run, the cooperation and culture that you learned through this joint program may be the most important part of your future success.
I wish this program existed when I was going to college.
As I prepared my remarks, I realized there were four core beliefs that have shaped my life and career. Those are learning, risk taking, thinking big and gratitude, and I would like to share them with you.

After completing my undergrad studies in physics at Fudan, I went to Princeton to study electrical engineering.
Princeton was an eye-opening experience for me. In my first semester, my advisor Professor Jim Sturm looked at the classes I planned to take. I had loaded my schedule with electrical engineering courses. He recommended that I explore other courses outside the engineering program.
“Take a philosophy or psychology class,” he said. “Try something different than engineering that you might be interested in learning. You have a whole university of different subjects and some of the best teachers anywhere.”
I didn’t take the advice. I was eager to finish my degree program without the distraction of anything other than engineering.
I deeply regret that decision.
Today, I am actually very interested in philosophy, psychology and many other subjects. If I could go back to Princeton again, I would definitely take that advice. Many of world’s biggest challenges need cross-discipline solutions and require multi-discipline learning.
I didn’t sign up for philosophy class when I was at Princeton, but it’s not too late.
The Internet provides tremendous resources. For example, you can effectively view all of MIT classes without ever leaving your home. All of MIT’s undergrad and graduate classes, videos and course materials are all completely online, and better yet, all for free.  You can view TED talks from some of the world’s greatest experts and thinkers. There has never been a better time to learn on demand on any subject imaginable.
Today, I am doing venture capital investment in high tech startups. I benefited from my training in college and graduate school, but the vast majority of the knowledge I use for VC investment is not taught at university. My constant self-learning made it possible for me to be good at VC investments.
Take the online course, read the book, listen to the talk about a subject that might be outside your interest. Challenge yourself to learn new things.

After getting my master’s degree at Princeton, I continued to study for a PhD. I published a number of papers on using new materials for a potential new chip. I was compensated as a research assistant, even getting double pay during the summer.
My life was pretty comfortable. But I was really curious about Silicon Valley.
Princeton is a pretty well-connected school, but at that time its connections were mostly on the east coast, not in California. Without knowing anyone in Silicon Valley, I cold-called Intel and asked to be transferred to their recruiting department. A lady in HR answered the call. I still remember her name, Cindy Romero.
I introduced myself and told her that I am interested in a summer internship at Intel. She arranged a phone interview for me and I got the job.
That telephone call changed my life.
My summer intern job was doing research on flash memory. Traditionally each flash memory cell can only store one bit of information. I helped to co-invent a technology that can store two bits of information in one memory cell, doubling the storage without increasing cost or size.
Intel asked if I could develop the product based on the research. So instead of going back to Princeton to finish my PhD, I happily stayed on. I became a PhD dropout after three years at Princeton.
Most of you have heard of Moore’s Law, named after Intel founder Gordon Moore. Moore’s Law states that it usually takes 18 months for processing power to double. Our breakthrough technology eventually developed into a very successful product and made the front page of the New York Times saying “Moore’s Law is broken.”
My journey at Intel lasted for seven years. I started in engineering, but transitioned into products and business development. These were exciting years in Silicon Valley.
In 1998, when the Internet was just starting, Google was founded in a garage in Menlo Park, California. It happened that the garage was owned by Susan Wojcicki, one of my team members at Intel. She introduced me to the Google co-founders and I was offerred a job to join Google as employee number 20.
I thought that they were smart, interesting guys. Saying yes was tempting. But I really wanted to start my own company. Leaving Intel and either joining Google which was a small company or starting my own company, would be taking a significant risk. Eventually I left Intel and co-founded a startup called iTelco.
I learned tremendously from my startup experience. I also kept in touch with Google’s founders.  In 2003, I joined Google to build another startup inside Google, called Google China. Later on, I left Google and eventually co-founded a venture capital firm, Lightspeed China, to invest in early-stage startups.
I got out of my comfort zone and made that cold-call to Intel. It changed my life. I took the risk and co-founded one tech startup, started Google China from ground zero and co-founded a venture capital firm. If I was just comfortable with what I was doing at Intel and didn’t take any risk, none of these would have happened.
Don’t always take the safe path. The path that looks safe today may not be safe in the future. Get out of your comfort zone and be willing to take risks if necessary.

Being brave is sometimes doing what is not the easy way, but what you know is the right way.
Larry and Sergey invented the Page Rank algorithm while they were PhD students at Stanford. They realized it was an important invention and dropped out of the PhD program to start Google. I had close interaction with them and took them to China back in 2004.
I was particularly impressed by Larry, who’s also a University of Michigan graduate. Larry was young, thoughtful, fearless and always thinking big. He calls it a “healthy disregard for the impossible.”
For example, he championed the development of the Android mobile operating system. Many people inside Google thought it would not work. They argued that to create a mobile phone, you would need many different pieces beyond operating system, including hardware and other software. It’s very difficult to have good user experience just having the operating system.
Larry pushed on with the Android project despite all the doubts.
Today, Android has the biggest market share of mobile OS in the world.
Usually when a company gets big, founders think mostly about protecting the core business from competition. Larry thinks differently. He believes if Google is ten times bigger, it should pursue ten times more challenging goals, and make ten times more impact. He’s always thinking about moon shots, which would have big impact. That’s why Google is developing self-driving cars and anti-aging technology as a fundamental way to improve human health.
That is being brave and thinking big.
In traditional Asian cultures, being young equals inexperience. I look at it differently.
I think being young is a great advantage. You often look at problems from a fresh angle. You don’t have a mindset that “this is how it’s always been done.” Youth can give you the advantage of being brave and thinking big.
Some of the world’s greatest innovations came from young trailblazers who were not willing to do things the same old way. Larry is a University of Michigan graduate who started off just like you.
Be brave and think big, have healthy disregard for the impossible, the future belongs to you.

Be the person who is remembered as saying thank you to the teacher who helped you learn that concept and come back to see those teachers often.

Before joining Google, James co-founded a venture-backed startup, iTelco Communications, a VOIP global communication products and services company. Prior to iTelco, James was with Intel, where he held management positions in engineering, marketing, product management and business development. He also co-invented MLC NOR Flash technology, which developed into Intel’s billion-dollar StrataFlash business.
James holds 14 U.S. patents in flash memory, communications, Internet security and commerce.  He received an MS in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a BS in Physics from Fudan University. In addition, James received executive management training at Stanford University.