OK, that’s pretty reductive in covering this guy’s career. Hank Green has a significant history when it comes to technology. Besides his YouTube channels, like SciShow and Crash Course, he co-founded a company named Complexly that focuses on educational media, and he hosts podcasts, writes novels, and promotes STEM learning, also diving into a broad spectrum of scientific questions and sparking curiosity, which he demonstrated from the podium as well. Hank Green is the most recognized YouTuber for high school and middle school STEM students.

Your Skeleton, Folks

Interestingly enough, Green began with some bone facts – skeletons contain approximately 25,000 calories on average (that's a lot of Big Macs), 50% of our bones are located in our hands and feet, and there’s enough oxygen in a human skeleton to last someone for 24 hours, if we somehow ended up breathing our own bones, which is certainly a peculiar situation.

Onward...

Crowdsourcing the Commencement

Apart from the bone talk, much of Green’s speech focused on actual responses he received from a large number of MIT graduates.

It turned out that he had distributed a survey among them asking various questions about the future.

One of these questions was: “what is the most MIT thing you did at MIT?”

Building the Future

Green shared with his audience that the most common term in the responses was “built.”

“You built robots, and bridges, and incubators, and startups, and Geiger counters and a remote-controlled shopping cart and a ukulele and an eight-foot-wide periodic table,” he stated. “You all built… a great deal. And that is something I found comforting. We are going to need to do a lot of building.”

Green discussed how that aligns with his experience in creating numerous projects and always attempting to learn new things.

“I’ve done TikTok dances to Elmo remixes, and I’ve also released two best-selling science fiction novels,” he mentioned, also referring to his experience writing “fart listicles.” “I’ve interviewed presidents. I’ve made multiple videos about giraffe sex, and I’ve sold multiple companies. I helped establish an educational media company that offers videos for free to everyone with an internet connection, and our content is utilized in most American schools.”

The Challenges of Today

Green was also honest about the challenges MIT graduates are currently facing.

Some of these issues, he pointed out, are originating from “within the institution” – he mentioned “attacks on speech, on science, on higher education, on trans rights, on the federal workforce, on the rule of law…”

And then there’s the rapid advancement of AI, which naturally makes humans feel uncertain.

“I would want some guidance,” he said.

With that in mind, he went over four pieces of advice that he had seen listed in the survey:

One was to open a Roth IRA.

Others were more philosophical – such as not accepting any single definition of success, striving for collaboration, and practicing resilience, as in this maxim he derived from his response list:

“Even if it probably won’t work, try anyway.”

And then there’s this one:

“Start with the problem, not the solution.”

Celebrating Humans

Although he reached out to many individuals in preparing his commencement address, Green said he didn’t use Claude.

He noted that where he asked in the survey about what gives graduates hope, they mentioned people- family and friends, and the inherent capabilities of the human mind.

“Do not forget how unique and strange it is to live a human life,” he said, encouraging experimentation and boldness, “regardless of consequences.” “You decide how you direct yourself.”

The Uncertain and Unchanging World

Green also delved further into what we face as humans when we attempt to orient ourselves in the best way. One aspect, he said, consists of “powerful mechanisms,” (he referenced social media) that don’t always align with our own best interests.

And then there’s the strong capitalist drive.

“The capitalist drive is very effective at keeping us aligned toward the problems that can be most easily monetized, which means an overemphasis toward the problems that the most influential and wealthy people are interested in solving,” he said.

I thought that was quite insightful.

Overall, Green urged graduating students to be aware of the “everyday solvable problems of regular people.”

“I desperately hope that you stay curious about our world’s intensely diverse and vast problem space,” he said. “Problems that are not being addressed because our world doesn’t guide us toward them. If you can manage your obsessions, you will not only be unstoppable, you will leave this world a much better place than you found it.”

Another piece of advice he gave was, once again, related to exploration, and not waiting for perfection before embarking on the journey, something I believe our students needed to hear.

“Ideas do not belong in your head,” he said. “They can’t help anyone in there. I sometimes see people become obsessed with their good idea. They love it so much, they can’t bring themselves to expose it to the imperfection of reality. Stop waiting. Get the ideas out. You may fail, but while you fail, you will develop new tools.”

In summary, Green encapsulated many of his encouragements, with a people-focused perspective:

“When I asked you what you did at MIT, you said you built, but when I asked you what was giving you hope, you did not say ‘buildings,’ you said ‘people.’ So, to the graduating Class of 2025, move forward, for yourself, for others, and for this beautiful, strange world.”

This was truly an outstanding address and much needed at this time. I found it incredibly inspiring for our students. Let’s move forward and make this an MIT summer!

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