There's my sign.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, friends and colleagues.
I am humbled.
I am deeply honored to be here today.
Paul, thank you so much.
It is fantastic to share this moment with all of you.
To the brilliant class of 2024, congrats.
Give yourselves a hand.
I know how hard it is.
The odds didn't want you here.
Yet, you find yourselves at this new starting line together.
Parents and grandparents, if you can hear me, this is a special day for all of you, too.
I know how very proud you are.
I have four graduating this spring myself.
You all should be proud.
Your loved one has just achieved the new American dream, earning a UChicago degree.
This week, I was walking around campus.
And a proud grandpa approached me.
And he's a UC alum.
And he told me, quote, "A UChicago degree ain't no joke." Indeed, it's a ticket.
It's a ticket that will open doors that are beyond reproach for most.
Parents and grandparents, you are equal partners in this achievement today.
Thank you.
Give them a hand, everyone.
Now, grads.
I know what you're thinking.
Why did they let this person speak? Did the president lose some sort of bet? The answer is simple.
I come with a surprise.
I am here to conduct the largest field experiment in the history of convocations.
Now, if it wasn't pouring rain, I would have you take out the white or maroon sheet of paper in your bag.
But I'm not going to make you do that because I don't want to ruin that.
But there is a white and maroon sheet of paper.
And it has a QR code in your bag.
The first code that we need to unlock is, I need you to chant as loud as you can, go Maroons on three.
1, 2, 3.
Proctors, was that loud enough to unlock it? AUDIENCE: No.
It wasn't.
Come on, gang.
It's raining.
On the count of three.
Go, Maroons.
1, 2, 3.
You've unlocked the code.
To complete the experiment sometime this weekend, not now, take a few minutes to play the game.
It is for science.
It will be an academic paper.
I even have IRB approval.
But my secret plan is to give all of you graduation gifts.
Everyone who plays will win something to remember today.
Now, let's get down to business, my speech.
I know I can be long winded, but no fears.
I promise to be shorter than a UChicago P set.
I've been an academic for 30 years.
I can honestly say that you have experienced life like no other class I know.
Just a few weeks ago, I was unsure if we would even be here today.
We're here because of your leadership, Mr.
President.
Thank you.
For our graduate students, many of you faced COVID-19 as undergrads.
For our undergrads, when you were seniors in high school, COVID-19 locked down our world.
You ended high school in your bedrooms.
Your graduations also happened on Zoom.
You received your diplomas through rolled-down car windows.
For many of you, our relationship started 1,517 days ago.
But who's counting, right? I delivered recruiting lectures to you on Zoom.
After I helped to convince you not to attend your safety school, Harvard, you joined the UChicago family.
Noah and Piper John, I apologize for that joke.
When you joined us, that was weird too.
We told you to come to campus, but when you arrived, your courses were online for the greater good of society.
I taught many of you that first quarter.
And I am sure no one in that class has forgotten the Zoom bombers.
They broke through security that fateful Wednesday afternoon to let us all know about their statistically significant private parts.
Now, you are graduating.
What will you do with your intellectual bounty? When I asked this question in my classes, or even chatting with you as I walk around this quad with John Nash, that's my dog, not my-- not my mathematician friend, most of you proudly say that you want to change the world.
That's meritorious.
We should always devote our time to goods greater than ourselves.
But don't be duped into thinking that you can only change the world through a job.
Non-job good deeds count on the scoreboard of life, too.
For every new inverse vaccine, there are tens of thousands who need a ride to the clinic.
For every slaughterhouse, five that's written, there are millions of youngsters having trouble reading.
Job and non-job matches go on and on.
For you changemakers, I can't help but channel my inner professor and give one final lecture.
Because as you all know, nothing says celebration like a supply and demand curve at a graduation ceremony.
So what does it take to change the world? When you reach my age, you have met a lot of uber impactful people.
I have learned that such people share three traits.
I will call these the three little secrets to change the world.
First, they are monomaniacal.
To see this trade in action, I want to hearken back to my very first visit to the University of Chicago, back to the fall of 2002.
I still remember the day.
My heart skipped a beat when I received an email invitation.
The invitation was to give a lecture in the econ department here at the University of Chicago.
Of course, I heard about the vaunted Chicago econ department, how vicious their seminars were.
But I had the perfect paper, a field experiment on discrimination that I had presented at dozens of schools before.
I had heard every possible critique.
And I had a polished answer for every one.
On presentation day, I walked in with my 73 transparency slides right over there in the Edward Shils seminar room on the third floor of the SSRB.
That's where the econ department was located back then.
The room was jam packed.
I flipped on the transparency machine, placed my first slide on the projector, and the door opened.
In walked a man wearing a hospital gown with a plugged IV attached to his left wrist.
I was thinking, these Chicago economists sure go to great lengths to throw a presenter off his game.
But no fears.
I've presented this paper dozens of times before.
After my first sentence, hospital gown guy asks a deep and penetrating question that I'd never heard before.
Yikes.
But I handled it OK.
A minute later, hospital gown guy fires another novel question.
Well, it's getting a little harder now, I told myself.
But let's press ahead.
Fast forward 90 minutes.
Hospital gown guy is still asking uncommon and piercing questions when the seminar organizer stands up and says, well, that's it.
I say, wait a moment.
I'm only on slide 13 of 73.
I haven't even gotten to my experimental design yet.
Ignoring me, everyone walks out of the room, including hospital gown guy.
I still didn't know the identity of this fellow who just torched my big chance at impressing the Chicago economists.
Shell shocked, I found a cab to the airport, and flew back to DC.
The next morning, I received an email from Gary Becker.
If you have never heard of Becker, he is perhaps the most influential economist of the 20th century.
He let me know that he loved my lecture.
I responded, Professor Becker, I didn't even know that you were in the room.
He said that he came from the hospital.
He convinced his doctors to check him out so he could be at my lecture.
Gary was not there on a personal vendetta.
He was there to learn and make my scholarship better.
Gary was monomaniacal about using economics to understand and change every aspect of life.
To be monomaniacal, you must love what you are doing.
And usually, that means you specialize in your comparative advantage.
Each of us has a unique skill set.
Changemakers embrace their comparative advantage.
If you're the person who can explain blockchain at a darty, own it.
Did I use darty correctly? The Fiji boys are like, yeah.
I learned that portmanteau last week from my daughters Annika, Greta, and Amelie.
So thank you so much, daughters.
That's one of my favorite portmanteaus now.
If you're the one who can explain Anna Karenina to a three year old, well, that's your niche.
Never forget one economic truism.
Those with brilliant uniqueness will be in constant demand.
This is especially true in today's labor market.
To be clear, being monomaniacal doesn't mean having to check yourself out of a hospital during treatment.
It also doesn't mean misplaced grit or refusing to quit on the task at hand.
My second little secret is about the optimal quitting rule.
Yes, I'm going to argue that we don't quit enough.
I hear a little bit of mumbling in the back through the rain.
At this point, many of your parents and grandparents are angry because they think I am about to undo the hard core stuff that they have taught you from day one.
I'm going to try.
Look, I was raised the same way.
As a bucolic from Wisconsin, I lived in the shadow of Vince Lombardi, where my truck driving father drilled into me.
Johnny, winners never quit.
Quitters never win.
In fact, if you type the words quitting in inspirational quotes into Google, you will find enough posters to fill every museum in the world.
We all know these slogans too well.
Quitting is repugnant.
Society has taught us that.
That's society's problem.
The other reason why we don't quit enough is our own problem.
We have a cognitive bias that causes us to ignore the opportunity cost of time.
Now, I understand that's a lot of economese.
So let me explain with a quick example.
In the past several years, I have conducted surveys of recent job quitters.
I ask one simple question.
Why did you quit? A typical person starts with, I didn't get the pay raise I deserved.
If they're younger, they say, I lost the meaning of work.
Then they say, I didn't get along with co-workers anymore.
Then it goes all the way down to, I just didn't like my cubicle.
Few respondents, if any, ever say, my opportunity set got better.
They don't say it because we tend to ignore our outside options until life gets soiled.
Then we start looking around.
I urge you in good times and bad to sample constantly and explore your opportunity set in life, whether it's an idea, a job, an apartment, or even the city where you live.
Optimal quitting is not about quitting on your overarching life goals.
It is about quitting on methods that will never help you achieve those goals.
Changemakers understand the optimal allocation of time and don't waste it drilling in a dry well.
In the future, when considering a change, embrace the chance to pivot.
This is a must in today's fast-m paced world, when tomorrow, someone else will surely introduce the idea that you would have had today.
I get it.
Quitting adds ambiguity.
Uncertainty is uncomfortable.
As you start your careers, or look for a job today, don't stress it.
At your age, a path rarely makes sense looking forward.
But in the end, your path will make perfect sense looking backwards.
That gets us to our third and final little secret.
This one is the most important gift that UChicago has given you.
You have learned how to think, not what to think.
Every changemaker has impeccable critical thinking skills.
You have now learned the power of moving from abstract thought to identifying empirical building blocks to make your case.
You have learned that as fast thinkers, we need to slow down.
Think about it.
Every push in society is to speed you up.
Polarizers on social media and at large want us to speed up because then we become binary thinkers.
We cater to their needs when we make complex issues binary.
Don't supply what they demand.
Don't be a binary thinker.
Slow down.
Be a UChicago thinker.
Such skills are cherished because they transcend boundaries, encourage innovation, and stimulate problem solving.
Where induction ends, deduction begins.
The magic in how we have given you these tools involves a recipe with two ingredients.
The first ingredient is the core curriculum.
I consider the core the academic equivalent of a Tinder profile that says, I enjoy long walks through the existential void.
The core has deep roots here at UChicago, from our first president to our current president, who has coupled classroom learning with research opportunities, and labs, and centers to enhance critical thinking skills.
These core roots run across campus and have shaped generations of students.
But that is only half the recipe.
What is that second magical ingredient? It's all of you, not merely as individuals, but as a collective.
We have simply helped you discover your inner self by providing a coordination device.
We call it classes.
You all have taken the baton from there.
Throughout your four years, you have been immersed in a culture of extreme curiosity.
Your peers have entrenched in you a habit of constructive skepticism, not only in the points of view of others, but most importantly, in your own beliefs.
In the classroom, you have learned to seek inspiration from one another.
Just to keep up, you've had to be constantly curious.
I urge you to never lose that inner scientist that you have etched on each others' souls.
In this world, we are usually celebrated for what we know.
You have learned to appreciate what you don't know.
That is invaluable.
The power of not knowing makes you constantly curious.
Changemakers are people whose inner scientist is never satiated, an inner scientist who is constantly curious.
Take that inner scientist to the world, not only in your job, but in life.
Some experts argue that liberal arts education is dead.
I disagree full stop.
Yes, this fervent disagreement is coming from the architect of the biz econ major.
All of you represent my best evidence of the great potential of a liberal arts education.
So there you have it.
You're getting poured on.
Monomaniacal, constantly curious, critical thinkers who optimally quit.
That is a UChicago grad.
That is who I want on my team.
But as many of you know, when I teach, I love giving just a little bit of extra credit.
So I'm going to be fast and give you mine.
My extra credit tidbit concerns the power of having that special person in your life, be it a spouse, partner, relative, or dear friend.
Don't push your rock uphill alone.
You will suffer.
Struggle together and the ascent will be meaningful.
That special person will help to focus on what's right, not wrong, what can be done to change the world, not what can not be done.
My special person is Dana Suskind, my research and life partner.
Thanks for helping me push the rock up the hill, Dana.
Enough about her.
Let's talk about you.
In closing, congratulations, University of Chicago Class of 2024.
You have experienced Chicago life like no other class.
You have conquered it.
You are uniquely situated to have deep impact.
May your utility functions remain convex, your endowments diversified, and your memories of this uncommon place forever deep.
For me, few endeavors will be as satisfying as watching all of you change the world in your own brilliant, quirky, and beautiful way.
Thank you so much for sticking this out.
