Don't Give Up: A Talk for College Students | Thomas Anglero

Nuskviv, Rattuslatvåmörten, som fokkessi jobben med künstlicher Intelligenz, tärvande. Han är künstliche Intelligenz-Optimist, und umtalvas asall, som en proud hardcore nerd. Han är invasionsdirektor for IBM Norge, og klærer på han är förds heltvåpersen. O hans idag skam fokkessi utfolger, och gåg. Å vossa mulle forderer idivne asmetaknøgge. Tå og godtimutt, Thomas Anglero. All right, how are you guys doing? All right? Norwegians don't talk, that's okay. Just before this conference started, I had a wonderful talk with someone that's very near and dear to me out here, Osama. And, uh, also, everybody clap for Osama! And he told me, you guys are here, you're worried about your future, you're worried about your life. What am I going to do? What decisions am I going to make? How am I going to do it? I'm insecure. What the hell's going on? Yep. Who am I? I got you. You ready? Here we go. Now look, he introduced me as the innovation director for IBM, and that's who I am. You know, IBM's 114 years old, is the most innovative company in the world, and they said to me, they said, "We're creating a position for you. You're the new director of innovation. You're gonna lead us and teach us how to be innovative." Guess what? Here's the story that you gotta know. Who am I? Where am I from? I am from the Lower East Side of New York City, born and raised in the projects, in the ghetto. 80% of my friends that I went to school with in the 8th grade are dead because as a drug dealer you only survive 5 years. When I was 10 years old, they gave us an exam, all the boys in our class. They said, "You guys take the exam, girls take the exam." The end result was Every single one of us, 10 years old, innocent 10-year-old, they told all of us, "The best you could do in life, you're going to be a plumber." And to all the girls, they said, "The best you can do in life is you're going to be a seamstress, and you're going to sew for somebody." That is where I'm from. And that shit does not define me. So many times in life, so many times being here in Norway, I hear people go, "You're from Lyttenby, Ålesund, and Arndal." I started here, and now the world's biggest IT company said, "Thomas, show us the way, show us the future, show us to where things are going." How the hell do you make that journey? I'm gonna show you how. Are you ready? This is all for you, baby. Alright? Because I don't want any of you, any of you thinking, ever doubting yourself. You cannot doubt yourself in life. People tell you, "You're from here, you're that." That's bullshit! You are who you are. Don't you get it? They cannot define who you are. When you guys are home alone and crying, Are they there with you? No. Those are the moments that define you. You get up from that, you stand up, you stand strong. That's who you are. You're not a person from Alderson or Arendelle. You are you. Do you get it? Stand up, do you get it? Fine. Holy crap. I'm serious. Look. You're not just Norwegian, you're you, and you're very powerful. I am paid to go around and I speak to some of the biggest companies in the world. This year I just did 60 keynote presentations, last year I did 100. I travel all over the world talking to everybody, and then I'm paid a hell of a lot of money to go into rooms with companies, to their top leader groups, with a bunch of old people, and they were going, "Thomas, help us. Our company, we used to make so much money, but what the hell is going on? We're just not— when our margins are like this, what the hell is going on?" Do you want me to tell you what I tell them? Do you want to save 100,000 kronor of consulting advice? "Ja, den hai." "Ja, den hai." Cheap bastards. What I tell them is, this is what's going on. You're fantastic, all you old men. They're mostly men, sorry, it's the reality. Even in Norway, a lot of men. You're the masters of the universe. For the last 10, 20, 30 years, you brought your company from a small little company to a multinational conglomerate. You've taken a bad culture, made a great culture. You are amazing. A lot of these companies and all these old men that run these companies for so long, they were the ones that hired your parents to their first job. They're the ones that today are the bosses of your parents who are paying for you to be here right now. These old people of the past, they're pretty, you know, good job. And I say to you, I say to them, good job, fellas, but looking in the future, you're incompetent. Can any of you say that to a bunch of old people? They stand there, they stand there, look at me, and they're like, what the hell, we're paying you $100,000 to call us incompetent? It is the truth. The past, you've done a wonderful job, but going forward, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, quantum computing, they have no idea what the hell it is. And you guys get it. You get it because you've always had the internet. Or any of you, you know how fortunate you are. Whenever you got a question, you go, "Oh, let me go to Google." Or find something on Snap or Instagram. Or some of you people's favorite, swipe left on what program? Uh-huh, uh-huh, right? You've always had the internet. Those old people don't. They have a different bloodline. They come from a different world. This internet is powered by so many things, and one of them is artificial intelligence. You guys know, I'm not going to do a speech on artificial intelligence, but you know what artificial intelligence is. It is— in your lifetime, all you will read 1 million pages of information. And AI, this software, it reads 10 million pages in 1 second. Do you know how powerful it is? When I say read 10 million pages, it reads it, it understands it, and it doesn't forget. It remembers what this sentence means, what that sentence means. It understands how to connect the dots. 1 second later, it reads 10 million more pages. All that power is in the internet and is available to you, and you've had it your whole life. And all these old people have had spreadsheets, and they're looking at the future, and your default mode, what you've been brought up with, what you've just taken for granted, they got no idea. That's your superpower. Your superpower isn't just the tech. Your superpower is that you guys have been born with it, born with it your whole life. That is like that, it's woven into your DNA. All us old people, we all spent the night on somebody's sofa after being drunk. Anybody ever spent the night on somebody's sofa after being drunk, raise your hand. Whoever doesn't hand up is full of— But us old people, when we woke up the next morning, right, we wake up off the sofa, And we would go, "Oh God, look at— what the hell is this shit crawling on me?" Right? What did you guys do a couple years ago? A bunch of 20-year-olds woke up off a sofa, looked at it and said, "That's a billion-dollar company. I'm gonna call Airbnb." Your default mode, your perspective, how you see life, That's your superpower. That combined with the tech. Do not let anybody ever make you feel uncomfortable. You guys have superpowers. Do you get it? Do you need another example of your superpower? This is going to be embarrassing because I hate talking about this family. Anybody know the Kardashians? Oof, ugh. Turns my stomach. So there's Khloe and— What's the other one? Huh? Kim! You watch too much. So a few— no, one year ago, Kim Kardashian, she snapped, sent out a snap, and in just a few words she wrote, "This latest version of Snapchat sucks." 60 seconds later, Snapchat on the market, stock market, its valuation dropped $1.2 billion. Let's go back to this world over here of old people. These people, if we were to say we would spend— we're to give a marketing company excess amount of dollars, millions of dollars, they got 6 months and we want you in 50 characters or less to in 60 seconds drop a company's valuation by a billion dollars? That shit is not possible! 'Cause what we do is issue press releases. Have any of you ever read a press release? You don't even know what a press release is, huh? That's embarrassing. And yet we're still making press releases, we're still issuing press releases, and in your world, a woman like— she's a woman, right? 'Cause the father's not— I'm confused, anyway. I could do Trump jokes too, but that's a whole other thing. But in your world, your opinion, your opinion is worth $1.2 billion. How do you feel about yourself now and your superpowers? You guys have some big choices to make. Going forward, you could use your superpowers, and you, your unique you, who you are, step away from your insecurity because who you are is what, who we want. We want the people who look at something that I've been looking at my whole life, like a sofa, and change the world. Don't you understand? That what makes you, you. The reason why you see this as something else, you describe it as something else, that's your value to the world. That's what we want from you. That's who we want to hire. Don't run from who you are. You're redefining us, and that's what we want. It's just that we're so damn old, and we just don't get it. Because we ask ourselves the question, "What about me?" I'm 5 years from retirement, what am I gonna do? That's what they're thinking when you guys go to a job interview. That's what they're thinking when I go to them and I talk to them. And I tell them the world is about you guys. But I warn you now, a lot of you are listening to me and you're going, "Now that sounds scary. No, I think I wanna do a normal 9 to 5." Let me tell you a 9 to 5 story. I don't want you doing the 9-to-5 route. You do the 9-to-5, it's great, but whose dream are you fulfilling? Your boss's dream. Your boss wants you to do something, you have to do it. Is it your wish? Is that your dream? No, but you have to make him happy. When I first started in Norway, this guy told me, Thomas, you want to have a great career in Norway? Don't stick your head up. Remember Janteloven? Everybody knows Janteloven, right? Don't do anything different, and every 5 years you're guaranteed to get a promotion in Norway. So if you're going to do the 9-to-5 career thing, you'll find somebody to love you, you'll probably have a family, you'll probably buy a house, and if you're lucky, you'll save enough money to buy the hytte. Sick of the Norwegian hytte. I just came from one last night, so it was pretty cool. I spent 3 days in a hytte. It had 24 bedrooms. Welcome to the new Norwegian hytte. No joke. And it had a carport that when you drove your car in, you got out and the table turned the car around because the Norwegians are too lazy to freaking back it up and pfft. That's a Norwegian hytte. I got a lot of jokes. You follow that 9-to-5 path, you will end up with the following outcome, destiny. There was a woman who worked in a hospice for 25 years. And for 25 years— you know, a hospice is where you go when you're about to die and you have a week left? And for 25 years, she held the hand of everyone who died. And in those last moments, they spoke to her. And after 25 years, she wrote a blog, and then she wrote a book, And she said, in those last moments, whether the person was rich or poor, black or white, Jewish or Protestant, in those last moments of life before they died, they always said the same 10 things. A few of them were: "Did I love enough?" Did I tell the people that I love that I love them? Why didn't I go to my kids' soccer game? You worked that 9 to 5 fulfilling someone else's dream and never your own, and finally after 40 years you retire. Did you ever fulfill who you were born to be? Do you want to die in those last moments full of regret? Or do you want to use your superpowers and who you are? Do you know what I'm talking about? For the first time in history, all you are given, tech plus individuality, freedom to define us, redefine us. Do not fall for insecurity. Step up and say, "This is me. I exist." I rule the world. Back at Christmas, there were a bunch of really smart nerds who bought Bitcoin 7 years ago when it was worth a penny. They sold at whatever. They made not millions, they made billions. And hundreds of them all over the world from all different nationalities, they all moved to Puerto Rico, small little Caribbean island. And they bought an entire block in Old San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. And what do you expect these people to do? By the way, they're 26 years old. Anybody 26? What would you do with $1 billion? What would you do with 10 million kroner if you're 26? You would probably go partying, buy a car, get— how many boyfriends do you already have? You're so pretty. Right? What do you think they did? They went to Puerto Rico and they said, "You know what? We're creating the world's first utopia. There'll be no poverty. There'll be no discussions and arguments." They did it, and it's expanding in Puerto Rico. They actually have a perfect world. The World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations are in awe because they said, "We spent billions and trillions of dollars over decades trying to do what these 26-year-olds did," In 2 months, they recreated the world. They were supposed to go down there and party and drink and have drugs, and they redefined the world. You have superpowers, and it's all about who you are. Do you get it? Do not let anybody stop you. I am from here. That is not who I am. It's just where I'm from. I am now traveling all over the world, and everybody's listening to me because it's time for you guys to step up. Let me end it with this, and hold on to this. Here's the last bit of advice: question the question. If anybody asks you a question, before you answer the question— it's a trick, it could be— when you answer a question, you have to go— if you answer a question, you have to agree, say, you have to agree on a bunch of things. Well, if I answer that question, I have to agree on this and this. Maybe that's not your point of view, that's not your ethics, your values. Question the question. Don't sell out your ideas, your dreams, yourself. And my last thing, I think this is where you guys all are, and that is, I'm at that point in my life where I have to make this big decision, what am I gonna do for the rest 20, 30 years? You wanna know how to do it? Here's the short answer: it's too big, that's a ridiculous thought. The way you do it is this: right here, right now, in this moment right now, what am I in love with? What am I passionate about? Do something towards that. And then tomorrow, "OK, what am I into today? What do I really burn for?" Do something, don't think about it, do something. And then the next day, do something. And then 40 years down the road, you're going to look back, you're going to be, "Oh, look what I've done. This is who I am." That is all about you. It's all about you. But you've got to believe in you. Do you guys get it? Do not be insecure. Don't say that, "We are fra li inorgèt." Bullshit! You are the ones that we've been missing. Every time I go into a room of old people, They need you. I hope you guys have the most amazing night, and I hope you wake up tomorrow and the first thing you go do when you get out of bed is— okay, everybody feel it? Cool. I love you. Have a good night.