Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Commencement Speech | Harvard Commencement 2014

Summary

In Sheryl Sandberg's 2014 Harvard commencement speech, she shared her journey from a young Harvard graduate with a set career path to becoming Facebook's COO. Sandberg encouraged graduates to embrace life's unpredictability, highlighting that careers are not linear but more like jungle gyms. She emphasized the importance of honesty with oneself and others, tackling the harsh truths of gender inequality and the expectations society imposes. Sandberg inspired graduates to seek truth, speak out against injustice, and strive to make the world a more equitable place through community strength and personal integrity.

Highlights

• Sheryl Sandberg shares her unique journey from Harvard graduate to Facebook COO 🎓➡️👩‍💼
• Careers aren't linear paths but rather unpredictable jungle gyms to explore 🤸‍♀️
• Honesty with oneself and others is crucial for personal and professional growth 📢
• Addressing and speaking out against gender inequality remains important today 🌈
• Graduates are urged to contribute to a fairer society using their unique strengths 🌟

Key Takeaways

• Embrace unpredictability in your career and life paths 🚀
• Be honest with yourself and others about strengths and weaknesses 👥
• Gender inequality and societal expectations still need addressing 🔍
• Opportunities and pathways are like jungle gyms, not ladders 🤸
• Seek and speak the truth to drive change and fairness in the world 🌎

Overview

Sheryl Sandberg delivered an inspiring speech at Harvard's 2014 commencement, sharing relatable anecdotes from her own journey through life, love, and career development. She emphasized that life's path is unpredictable and that instead of linear progressions, we should view our careers as jungle gyms—filled with starts, stops, and explorations. Her story about transitioning from ambitions in global poverty work to becoming COO at Facebook highlighted the value of adaptation and openness to new opportunities.

Sandberg delved into the necessity of truthfulness, stressing that honesty with others and oneself is essential. She recounted personal experiences, such as her swiftly ended first marriage, to illustrate the importance of facing harsh truths early on. By promoting the value of candid feedback and self-awareness, Sandberg inspired graduates to embrace criticism and use it to propel personal growth.

Furthermore, Sandberg tackled broader societal issues, such as gender inequality and systemic discrimination. Employing humor and personal insights, she encouraged graduates to actively participate in creating societal change. Her invocation for fairness and truth painted a vivid call to action for graduates to leverage their education and communal strength to not only succeed personally but to strive towards a more equitable world.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Personal Anecdotes The chapter opens with a celebratory note, acknowledging the audience for making it to 'class day,' possibly after a night of partying that resulted in some absentees. The speaker uses a light-hearted tone, mentioning that not everyone could make it due to excessive indulgence the previous night. The mention of weather hints at a specific context or event, perhaps an outdoor ceremony or gathering. This establishes a tone of informal camaraderie, setting the stage for personal anecdotes and a deeper connection with the audience.
• 03:00 - 05:30: Career Path and Opportunities The chapter "Career Path and Opportunities" begins with a congratulatory message to graduates. The speaker emphasizes the pride and accomplishment the graduates should feel, having completed their education. A light-hearted remark is made about the cost of education and the prestige associated with attending a small school near Boston, implying Harvard, without directly mentioning it. The address also acknowledges the effort and financial investment of the parents in their children's education. Furthermore, the speaker expresses gratitude towards the class of 2014 for the invitation to be a part of their graduation celebration. This speech serves to inspire and acknowledge both the graduates and their families at an important milestone.
• 05:30 - 11:30: Honesty and Truthfulness The chapter titled 'Honesty and Truthfulness' reflects on past experiences and the notion of personal growth. The speaker shares a humorous sentiment about not being as funny as Amy Polar but intending to be funnier than Mother Teresa. They speak of a significant moment 25 years ago when a man named Dave, unknown to them at the time but who would become their husband, sat in the audience. Reflecting on 23 years ago, the speaker notes how both they and Dave were once in the position of those currently sitting in the audience. The chapter hints at themes of destiny, personal connection, and the intertwining of past and present life paths.
• 11:30 - 18:30: Gender Equality and Social Issues The chapter reflects on the personal experience of the speaker returning to Harvard with family, highlighting both nostalgia and current social themes such as gender equality. It begins with the speaker celebrating a reunion with their son and daughter, mentioning Harvard's basketball team as an important memory.
• 18:30 - 20:30: Conclusion and Call to Action The concluding chapter shares a personal anecdote about the speaker's early fashion choices and experiences at Harvard. They mention their distinct outfit from Florida, consisting of a jean skirt, white leg warmers, sneakers, and a Florida sweatshirt, an outfit inspired by advice from their parents who believed showcasing their Floridian identity would be well-received. The narrative reflects on the speaker's first experiences in Harvard, including buying a winter coat, punctuated with humor and reflection on the era before social media platforms like Instagram.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Commencement Speech | Harvard Commencement 2014 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 congratulations everyone you made it and I don't mean to the end of college I mean to class day because if memory served some of your classmates had too many scorpion bowls at the Kong last night and aren't with us today given the weather the one thing
• 00:30 - 01:00 Harvard hasn't figured out how to control some of your other classmates are someplace warm with a hot cocoa so you have many reasons to feel proud of yourselves as you sit here today congratulations to your parents you have spent a lot of money so your child can say she went to a small school near Boston and thank you to the class of 2014 for inviting me to be part of your celebration it means a great deal to me
• 01:00 - 01:30 and looking at the list of past speakers was a little daunting I can't be as funny as Amy polar but I'm going to be funnier than Mother Teresa 25 years ago A Man Named Dave I did not know at the time but who would one day become my husband was sitting where you are sitting today 23 years ago I was sitting where you are sitting today Dave and I are
• 01:30 - 02:00 back this weekend with our amazing son and daughter to celebrate his reunion and we both share the same sentiment Harvard has a good basketball [Music] team standing here in the yard brings memories flooding back for me I arrived here from Miami in the fall of 1987 with big hopes and even bigger hair I was assigned to live in one of Harvard's historic monuments to Great architecture
• 02:00 - 02:30 canid my go-to outfit and I'm not making this up was a jean skirt white leg warmers and sneakers and a Florida sweatshirt because my parents who were here with me then as they're here with me now told me everyone would think it was awesome that I was from Florida at least we didn't have Instagram for me Harvard was a series of firsts my first winter coat we didn't
• 02:30 - 03:00 need those in Miami my first 10-page paper they didn't assign those in my high school my first C after which my Proctor told me that she was on the admissions committee and I got I got admitted to Harvard for my personality not my academic potential the first person I ever met from boarding school I thought that was for really troubled Kids the first person I ever met met who
• 03:00 - 03:30 shared a name with a whole building or so I met when the first classmate I met was Sarah Wigglesworth Who Bore no relation at all to the dorm which would have been nice to know at that very intimidating moment but then I went on to meet others Francis Strauss James weld Jessica Science Center B my first love my first heartbreak
• 03:30 - 04:00 the first time I realized I love to learn and the first and very last time I saw anyone read anything in Latin when I sat in your seat all those years ago I knew exactly where I was headed I had it all planned out I was going to the World Bank to work on global poverty then I would go to law school then I would spend my life working in a nonprofit or in the government at Harvard's commencement tomorrow as your Dean described each School is to stand up and graduate
• 04:00 - 04:30 together the college the law school the med school and so on at my graduation my class cheered for the PhD students and then booed the business school business school seemed like such a sellout 18 months later I applied to business school it wasn't that I was wrong about what I would do decades after graduating I had it wrong a year and a half later and even if I could have predicted I would one day work in the the private
• 04:30 - 05:00 sector I never could have predicted Facebook because there was no internet and Mark Zuckerberg was in elementary school already wearing his hoodie not locking into a path too early gave me an opportunity to go into a new and life-changing field and for those of you who think I owe everything to Good Luck after candidate I got qued what up
• 05:00 - 05:30 [Music] Adam there is no straight path from your seat today to where you are going don't try to draw that line you will not just get it wrong you will miss big opportunities and I mean big like the internet careers are not ladders those days are long gone but jungle gyms don't just move up and down don't just look up Look Backwards sideways around corners
• 05:30 - 06:00 your career and your life will have starts and stops and zigs and dags don't stress out about the white space the path you can't draw because therein lies both the surprises and the opportunities as you open yourself up to possibility the most important thing I can tell you today is to open yourself up to honesty to telling the truth to each other to being honest with yourselves and to being honest about the
• 06:00 - 06:30 world we live in if you watch children you will immediately notice how honest they are my friend Betsy was pregnant and her son with her second child son Sam was five he wanted to know where the baby was in her body so he asked Mommy are the baby's arms in your arms and she said no no Sam baby's in my tummy whole baby mom are the baby's legs in your legs no Sam whole babies at my
• 06:30 - 07:00 tummy then Mommy what's growing in your butt as adults we are almost never this honest and that can be a very good thing when I was pregnant with our first child I asked my husband Dave if my butt was getting big at first he didn't answer but I pressed so he said yeah a little for you my sister-in-law said
• 07:00 - 07:30 about him what people will now say about you for the rest of your life when you do something dumb and that guy went to [Music] Harvard hearing the truth at different times along the way would have helped me I would not have admitted it easily when I sat where you sit but when I graduated I was much more worried about my love life than my career I thought I only had a few years very limited time to find one of the good guys before he was too
• 07:30 - 08:00 before they were all taken or I got too old so I moved to DC I met a good guy and I got married at the nearly decrepit age of 24 I married a wonderful man but I had no business making that kind of commitment I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be my marriage fell apart within a year something that was really embarrassing and painful at the time and it did not help that so many friends came up to me and said I never knew that never thought
• 08:00 - 08:30 that was going to work or I knew you two weren't right for each other no one had managed to say anything like that to me before I marched down an aisle when it would have been far more useful and as I lived through those painful months of separation and divorce boy did I wish they had and boy did I wish I had asked them at the same time in my professional life someone did speak up my first boss out of college was lant pritchet an economist who teaches at the Kennedy
• 08:30 - 09:00 School who's here with us today after I deferred law school for the second time Lance sat me down and said I don't think you should go to law school at all I don't think you want to go to law school I think you think you should because you told your parents you would many years ago he noted that he had never once heard me talk about the law with any interest I know how hard it can be to be honest with each other even your closest friends even when they're about to make serious mistakes akes but I bet sitting
• 09:00 - 09:30 here today you know your closest friends strengths weaknesses what Cliff they might drive off and I bet for the most part you've never told them and they've never asked ask them ask them for the truth because it will help you and when they answer honestly know that that's what makes them real friends asking for feedback is a really important Habit to get into as you leave the structure of the school calendar and
• 09:30 - 10:00 exams and grades behind on many jobs if you want to know how you're doing you're going to have to ask and then you're going to have to listen without getting defensive take it from me listening to criticism is never fun but it's the only way we can improve a few years ago Mark Zuckerberg decided he wanted to learn Chinese and in order to practice he started trying to have work meetings with some of our Facebook colleagues who are native speakers now you would think his very limited language skills would keep these
• 10:00 - 10:30 conversations from being useful one day he asked a woman who was there how it was going how did she like Facebook she answered with a long and pretty complicated sentence so he said you know simpler please she spoke again simpler please this went back and forth a couple of times so she just blurted out in frustration my manager is bad that he UND
• 10:30 - 11:00 understood so often the truth is sacrificed to conflict avoidance or by the time we speak the truth we've used so many caveats and preambles that the message totally gets lost so as you ask each other for the truth and other people can you elicit it in simple and clear language and when you speak your truth can you use simple and clear language
• 11:00 - 11:30 as hard as it is to be honest with other people it can be even more difficult to be honest with ourselves for years after I had children I would say pretty often I don't feel guilty working even when no one asked someone might say Cheryl has your day today and I would say great I don't feel guilty working or do I need a sweater yes it's unpredictably freezing and I don't feel guilty working I was kind of like a parrot with
• 11:30 - 12:00 issues then one day on the treadmill I was reading this article in sociology Journal about how people don't start out lying to other people they start out lying to themselves and the things we repeat most frequently are often those lies so as sweat was pouring down my face I started wondering well what do I repeat pretty frequently and I realized I feel guilty working I then did a lot of research and I spent an entire year with my dear friend Nel Scoville writing a book talking about how I was thinking
• 12:00 - 12:30 and feeling and I'm so grateful that so many women around the world connected to it my book of course was called 50 Shades of Gray I can see a lot of you connected to it as well we have even more work to do in being honest about the world we live in we don't always see the hard truths and once we see them we don't always have the to speak out when my classmates and
• 12:30 - 13:00 I were in college we thought the fight for gender equality was one it was over sure most of the leaders in every industry were men but we thought changing that was just a matter of time Lamont library right over there one generation before us didn't let women through its doors but by the time we sat in your seats everything was equal Harvard and Radcliffe was fully integrated we didn't need feminism because we were already equals
• 13:00 - 13:30 we were wrong I was wrong the world was not equal then and it is not equal now I think nowadays we don't just hide ourselves from the hard truths and shut our eyes to the inequities but we suffer from the tyranny of low expectations in the last election cycle in the United States women won 20% of the Senate seats and all the headlines kept screaming out women take over the Senate women take over the Senate I felt like screaming
• 13:30 - 14:00 back wait a minute everyone 50% of the population getting 20% of the seats that's not a takeover that's an embarrassment just a few months ago this year a very well-respected and well-known business executive in Silicon Valley invited me to give a speech to his Club on social media I'd been to this club a few months before when I had been invited for a friend's birthday it was a beautiful building and I was
• 14:00 - 14:30 wandering around looking at it looking for the women's room when a staff member informed me very firmly that the ladies room was over there and I should be sure not to go upstairs because women are never allowed in this building I didn't realize I was in an all mail Club until that minute I spent the rest of the night wondering what I was doing there wondering what everyone else was doing there wondering if any of my friends in San Francisco would invite me to to a party at a club that didn't allow blacks or
• 14:30 - 15:00 Jews or Asians or gays being invited to give a business speech at this club hit me as even more egregious because you couldn't claim that it was only social business wasn't done there my first thought was really really a year after lean in this dude thought it was a good idea to invite me to give a speech to his literal all boys club and he wasn't alone there was an entire Committee of well-respected
• 15:00 - 15:30 businessmen who joined him in issuing this kind invitation to paraphrase Groucho marks and don't worry I won't try to do the voice I don't want to speak at any club that won't have me as a member so I said no and I did it in a way I probably wouldn't have even 5 years before I wrote a long and passionate email arguing that they should change their policies they thanked me for my prompt response and wrote that that perhaps
• 15:30 - 16:00 things will eventually change our expectations are too low eventually needs to become [Music] immediately we need to see the truth and speak the truth we tolerate discrimination and we pretend that opportunity is equal yes we elected an African-American president but racism is
• 16:00 - 16:30 pervasive still yes there are women who run Fortune 500 companies 5% to be precise but our road there is still paved with words like pushy and bossy while our male peers are leaders and results focused African-American women have to prove that they're not angry Latinos risk being branded fiery hoads a group of Asian-American women and men at Facebook wore pins one day that said I
• 16:30 - 17:00 may or may not be good at math yes Harvard has a woman president and in two years the United States may have a woman president but in order to get there Hillary Clinton is going to have to overcome two very real obstacles unknown and often from
• 17:00 - 17:30 Yale you can challenge stereotypes but subtle and obvious at Facebook we have posters around the wall to inspire us done is better than perfect fortune favors the Bold what would you do if you weren't afraid my new favorite nothing at Facebook is someone else's problem I hope you feel that way about the problems you see in the world because they are not someone else's problem gender in equality harms men along with
• 17:30 - 18:00 women racism hurts whites along with minorities and the lack of equal opportunity keeps all of us from from fulfilling our true potential so as you graduate today I want to put some pressure on you I want to put some pressure on you to acknowledge the hard truths not shy away from them and when you see them to address them the first time I spoke out about what it was like to to be a woman in the workforce was less than 5 years
• 18:00 - 18:30 ago that means that for 18 years from where you sit to where I stand my silence implied that everything was okay you can do better than I did and I mean that so sincerely at the same time I want to take some pressure off you sitting here today you don't have to know what career you want or how to get the career you might want leaning in does not mean your
• 18:30 - 19:00 path will be straight or smooth and most people who make great contributions start way later than Mark Zuckerberg find a jungle gym you want to play on and start climbing not only will you figure out what you want to do eventually but once you do you will crush it looking at you all here today I'm filled with hope all of you were admitted to a small school near Boston either for your academic potential your
• 19:00 - 19:30 personality or both you've had your firsts whether it's a winter coat a Love or a sea you've learned more about who you are and who you want to be and most importantly you've experienced the power of community you know that while you are extraordinary on your own we are all stronger and can be louder together I know that you will never forget
• 19:30 - 20:00 Harvard and Harvard will never forget you especially during the next fundraising drive tomorrow you all become part of a lifelong Community which offers truly great opportunity and therefore comes with real obligation you can make the world fairer for everyone expect honesty from yourself and each other demand and create truly equal
• 20:00 - 20:30 opportunity not eventually but now and tomorrow by the way you get something Mark Zuckerberg does not have a Harvard degree congratulations everyone