the fortune 500 companies in the United
States are the largest most powerful
companies often in the world
they’re the pinnacle of us capitalism in
1964 the average life expectancy of a
fortune 500 company
was 61 years today it’s less than 18
years 88% of the companies on the list
from 1955 are gone only 12% remain the
victims of bankruptcy mergers or they’ve
just fallen off the list
companies like Studebaker Falstaff
brewing Pacific vegetable oil
regal textile they’re all gone the
victims of what’s known as creative
destruction and creative destruction is
good for the US economy it ensures that
only the most innovative vibrant
well-managed companies survive but it’s
really tough on the American worker I
grew up in New York City my dad had one
job his whole career he worked for
Citibank for 46 years for all of you the
odds of you having one job for your
whole career are virtually zero the
Bureau of Labor Statistics
six says that for someone starting work
today by the age of 40 they will have
had ten jobs in the new gig economy you
and very soon you Bellarmine students
sooner than you think
you’ll be out in the workplace how are
you gonna be successful how are you
gonna find meaning in your work not just
financial security but visceral meaning
in your work are we going to compete in
the answer is to be an entrepreneur and
think like an entrepreneur even if you
don’t start your own company and you
work for somebody else employers value
employees who add value to their
business who think about signing up new
customers and opening new markets and
innovating and creating efficiencies
every single day the good news for you
Bellarmine students is that you chose to
get a Jesuit education and the Jesuits
were founded by one of the world’s
greatest entrepreneurs Ignatius Loyola
he was born in the Bosque region region
of Spain in 1491 he started the Jesuits
when he was 49 he died 16 years later
and in those 16 years the Jesuits
established 35 colleges across Europe
more than two a year in the next 200
years they ramped that up to more than
four a year
and had 800 colleges across Europe Asia
he started with nine guys you call them
the Companions nine companions and they
were the definition of entrepreneurs
they went all over the world spreading
the word st. Francis Xavier was one of
them he went to India and Japan and
Borneo and died in China
this is 1542 and he did it with little
to no support little to no capital he
had to learn the local languages and the
local customs and fight all kinds of
hardship at Harvard Business School they
define entrepreneurship as the pursuit
of opportunity but beyond resources
controlled and that’s what the Jesuits
are all about the consummate
entrepreneurs Ignatius Loyola told his
nine companions to go set the world
aflame and he went out and he raised
money you raise money the old-fashioned
way he begged for it as an entrepreneur
I can really relate to them he inspired
people
he kept refining the mission they didn’t
start out to build the greatest
educational system the world had seen to
date before the modern ear of public
education the Jesuit education system
was the largest in the world but he
found that education was a way to
accomplish his mission they just they
just got out there and did it they
adapted to change when Ignatius started
his original idea was to go to Jerusalem
and start a ministry that was focused on
the Holy Land
was the company of Jesus and they were
gonna start in the Holy Land and focus
on where Jesus was born and lived in the
Holy Land well unfortunately at the time
the Turks controlled the Holy Land
so we pivoted and he went to Rome and
started his global ministry there they
took risks as they went all over the
world they learned they built a great
team they overcame all kinds of hardship
torture starvation sickness and in a
world where the lifespan of a fortune
500 company is less than 18 years they
but perhaps his biggest contribution was
the examine the spiritual exercises and
the examine is all about how to live a
full life and how to find God in that
life and it calls for us to be attentive
to pay attention to our daily
experiences and then reflect on those
reflect on the meaning of each of those
experiences and then take action and in
that action be caring toward others and
the interesting thing about the examine
and that process of discernment is that
it’s a hundred percent relevant to an
entrepreneur it’s the same process to be
attentive be reflective and then take
action often people come to me often
young people and they say bill I want to
start a business I don’t want to work
for somebody else I want to have the
satisfaction of working for myself
and building something but I don’t know
what that something is
I haven’t figured that out yet how do I
do that well if you wake up one morning
and decide you’re gonna start a company
but you don’t know what that company’s
gonna do your odds of success are pretty
low so my advice is always go find an
industry where you have some passion and
spend some time understanding that
industry not superficially but really
understanding that industry and then
reflect on that where are the
opportunities what’s working what’s not
what am i customers really need how can
I create value and then take action
develop a business plan think about how
you’re going to inspire people inspire
people to share your vision and how are
you gonna show constituents that you
care your employees your customers your
investors your partners I started cyber
sourcing in 1994 and the original idea
came to me when I was in the software
industry I was working for McAfee the
antivirus company and the unique thing
about McAfee is that we were pioneers in
the electronic distribution of software
back in 1994 if you wanted to buy
software generally what you did is you
went down to a store and there were a
bunch of stores open at the time there
was egghead and software etcetera and
they had these shells and the shells
were filled with shrink-wrap boxes and
so you’d walk up and down the shelves
and you figure out what kind of software
you wanted and by the shrink-wrap box
and you go home and you to open the
shrink-wrap box and install the software
and the whole process was slow and the
selection was limited by the amount of
shelf space that the company had was
inefficient and then one day I saw
the first demo of an internet browser
and the beginning of the world wide web
at McAfee we distributed our software
electronically and we use the Internet
but it was a pre web access to the
Internet at the time was through a green
screen
there was nothing intuitive about
anything you did on that green screen
but when I saw that first browser I knew
the world had changed and I knew the
method for software distribution would
change and so the idea was that I would
go out and I would sell software over
the Internet much faster I have an
unlimited selection much more efficient
and provide instant gratification to the
customer so I launched a website called
software net under the cyber source
umbrella and one of the unique things
about software net was we actually had a
Buy button on the website now that’s
hard to believe today but back in 1994
the common wisdom was that you might
shop on the internet but you wouldn’t
buy things you’d shop you’d do the
research and then you go down to the
store or you do mail order or telephone
order but because the model had software
a.net was instant gratification we built
a Buy button that was connected to a
real-time transaction processing system
so we could accept payment in real time
get the authorization and let the
customer download the software and so I
went out to all the big software
publishers at the time Microsoft
Symantec McAfee Adobe Apple and I got
the rights to distribute their software
and the buy button caught on it didn’t
take long before other companies came to
me and said a bill we see what you’ve
done with software net we want to put a
Buy button on our website can we get
access to that payment processing
technology that you built so we started
a second business unit we called it
Internet commerce services and it was an
outsourced buy button for anyone who
wanted to sell products over the
Internet and so from that idea and 16
years of hard work great work by a great
team of people we sold to 300,000
customers we process two billion
transactions a year worth over 120
billion dollars with over 800 employees
but the point of that is that we never
set out to be in the payment processing
business but we paid attention to our
customers and reflected on the
experiences that we had we listened to
what they told us and we acted and we
went through a similar process that
ignatius loyola went through we adored
the hardship and we took the risks and
we adapted to change and we built a
successful business now when I was in
high school it wasn’t obvious I was
going to be an entrepreneur I went to
Xavier High School in New York City the
the Bellarmine of New York City maybe
I think I think Xavier was first but I
went to Xavier I mean I went to Boston
College and like many of you I was
immersed in the Jesuit experience and it
affected me deeply and really gave me a
framework for thinking about
entrepreneurship even if I didn’t
realize it at the time and afterwards I
went to business school it was the first
time I was in a classroom without a
crucifix on the wall but all of you who
are students at Bellarmine are
incredibly lucky incredibly lucky
because you’re exposed to the framework
that Ignatius Loyola set out almost 500
years ago and it will help you find a
vocation a meaning in life the
theologian Frederick Buechner said
vocation is the place where your deep
gladness and the world’s hunger meet in
the Jesuit tradition we talk about majus
the Latin word more be more do more give
more if you follow the framework that
Ignatius set out you will find that
you will find your vocation go set the world aflame
States are the largest most powerful
companies often in the world
they’re the pinnacle of us capitalism in
1964 the average life expectancy of a
fortune 500 company
was 61 years today it’s less than 18
years 88% of the companies on the list
from 1955 are gone only 12% remain the
victims of bankruptcy mergers or they’ve
just fallen off the list
companies like Studebaker Falstaff
brewing Pacific vegetable oil
regal textile they’re all gone the
victims of what’s known as creative
destruction and creative destruction is
good for the US economy it ensures that
only the most innovative vibrant
well-managed companies survive but it’s
really tough on the American worker I
grew up in New York City my dad had one
job his whole career he worked for
Citibank for 46 years for all of you the
odds of you having one job for your
whole career are virtually zero the
Bureau of Labor Statistics
six says that for someone starting work
today by the age of 40 they will have
had ten jobs in the new gig economy you
and very soon you Bellarmine students
sooner than you think
you’ll be out in the workplace how are
you gonna be successful how are you
gonna find meaning in your work not just
financial security but visceral meaning
in your work are we going to compete in
the answer is to be an entrepreneur and
think like an entrepreneur even if you
don’t start your own company and you
work for somebody else employers value
employees who add value to their
business who think about signing up new
customers and opening new markets and
innovating and creating efficiencies
every single day the good news for you
Bellarmine students is that you chose to
get a Jesuit education and the Jesuits
were founded by one of the world’s
greatest entrepreneurs Ignatius Loyola
he was born in the Bosque region region
of Spain in 1491 he started the Jesuits
when he was 49 he died 16 years later
and in those 16 years the Jesuits
established 35 colleges across Europe
more than two a year in the next 200
years they ramped that up to more than
four a year
and had 800 colleges across Europe Asia
he started with nine guys you call them
the Companions nine companions and they
were the definition of entrepreneurs
they went all over the world spreading
the word st. Francis Xavier was one of
them he went to India and Japan and
Borneo and died in China
this is 1542 and he did it with little
to no support little to no capital he
had to learn the local languages and the
local customs and fight all kinds of
hardship at Harvard Business School they
define entrepreneurship as the pursuit
of opportunity but beyond resources
controlled and that’s what the Jesuits
are all about the consummate
entrepreneurs Ignatius Loyola told his
nine companions to go set the world
aflame and he went out and he raised
money you raise money the old-fashioned
way he begged for it as an entrepreneur
I can really relate to them he inspired
people
he kept refining the mission they didn’t
start out to build the greatest
educational system the world had seen to
date before the modern ear of public
education the Jesuit education system
was the largest in the world but he
found that education was a way to
accomplish his mission they just they
just got out there and did it they
adapted to change when Ignatius started
his original idea was to go to Jerusalem
and start a ministry that was focused on
the Holy Land
was the company of Jesus and they were
gonna start in the Holy Land and focus
on where Jesus was born and lived in the
Holy Land well unfortunately at the time
the Turks controlled the Holy Land
so we pivoted and he went to Rome and
started his global ministry there they
took risks as they went all over the
world they learned they built a great
team they overcame all kinds of hardship
torture starvation sickness and in a
world where the lifespan of a fortune
500 company is less than 18 years they
but perhaps his biggest contribution was
the examine the spiritual exercises and
the examine is all about how to live a
full life and how to find God in that
life and it calls for us to be attentive
to pay attention to our daily
experiences and then reflect on those
reflect on the meaning of each of those
experiences and then take action and in
that action be caring toward others and
the interesting thing about the examine
and that process of discernment is that
it’s a hundred percent relevant to an
entrepreneur it’s the same process to be
attentive be reflective and then take
action often people come to me often
young people and they say bill I want to
start a business I don’t want to work
for somebody else I want to have the
satisfaction of working for myself
and building something but I don’t know
what that something is
I haven’t figured that out yet how do I
do that well if you wake up one morning
and decide you’re gonna start a company
but you don’t know what that company’s
gonna do your odds of success are pretty
low so my advice is always go find an
industry where you have some passion and
spend some time understanding that
industry not superficially but really
understanding that industry and then
reflect on that where are the
opportunities what’s working what’s not
what am i customers really need how can
I create value and then take action
develop a business plan think about how
you’re going to inspire people inspire
people to share your vision and how are
you gonna show constituents that you
care your employees your customers your
investors your partners I started cyber
sourcing in 1994 and the original idea
came to me when I was in the software
industry I was working for McAfee the
antivirus company and the unique thing
about McAfee is that we were pioneers in
the electronic distribution of software
back in 1994 if you wanted to buy
software generally what you did is you
went down to a store and there were a
bunch of stores open at the time there
was egghead and software etcetera and
they had these shells and the shells
were filled with shrink-wrap boxes and
so you’d walk up and down the shelves
and you figure out what kind of software
you wanted and by the shrink-wrap box
and you go home and you to open the
shrink-wrap box and install the software
and the whole process was slow and the
selection was limited by the amount of
shelf space that the company had was
inefficient and then one day I saw
the first demo of an internet browser
and the beginning of the world wide web
at McAfee we distributed our software
electronically and we use the Internet
but it was a pre web access to the
Internet at the time was through a green
screen
there was nothing intuitive about
anything you did on that green screen
but when I saw that first browser I knew
the world had changed and I knew the
method for software distribution would
change and so the idea was that I would
go out and I would sell software over
the Internet much faster I have an
unlimited selection much more efficient
and provide instant gratification to the
customer so I launched a website called
software net under the cyber source
umbrella and one of the unique things
about software net was we actually had a
Buy button on the website now that’s
hard to believe today but back in 1994
the common wisdom was that you might
shop on the internet but you wouldn’t
buy things you’d shop you’d do the
research and then you go down to the
store or you do mail order or telephone
order but because the model had software
a.net was instant gratification we built
a Buy button that was connected to a
real-time transaction processing system
so we could accept payment in real time
get the authorization and let the
customer download the software and so I
went out to all the big software
publishers at the time Microsoft
Symantec McAfee Adobe Apple and I got
the rights to distribute their software
and the buy button caught on it didn’t
take long before other companies came to
me and said a bill we see what you’ve
done with software net we want to put a
Buy button on our website can we get
access to that payment processing
technology that you built so we started
a second business unit we called it
Internet commerce services and it was an
outsourced buy button for anyone who
wanted to sell products over the
Internet and so from that idea and 16
years of hard work great work by a great
team of people we sold to 300,000
customers we process two billion
transactions a year worth over 120
billion dollars with over 800 employees
but the point of that is that we never
set out to be in the payment processing
business but we paid attention to our
customers and reflected on the
experiences that we had we listened to
what they told us and we acted and we
went through a similar process that
ignatius loyola went through we adored
the hardship and we took the risks and
we adapted to change and we built a
successful business now when I was in
high school it wasn’t obvious I was
going to be an entrepreneur I went to
Xavier High School in New York City the
the Bellarmine of New York City maybe
I think I think Xavier was first but I
went to Xavier I mean I went to Boston
College and like many of you I was
immersed in the Jesuit experience and it
affected me deeply and really gave me a
framework for thinking about
entrepreneurship even if I didn’t
realize it at the time and afterwards I
went to business school it was the first
time I was in a classroom without a
crucifix on the wall but all of you who
are students at Bellarmine are
incredibly lucky incredibly lucky
because you’re exposed to the framework
that Ignatius Loyola set out almost 500
years ago and it will help you find a
vocation a meaning in life the
theologian Frederick Buechner said
vocation is the place where your deep
gladness and the world’s hunger meet in
the Jesuit tradition we talk about majus
the Latin word more be more do more give
more if you follow the framework that
Ignatius set out you will find that
you will find your vocation go set the world aflame
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