Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt (Google search results here) delivered the 139th Commencement Address at Boston University yesterday, and it can be described in three words: predictable and pedestrian.
Schmidt started out with a stumbling reference to a Saul Bellow quote from Henderson the Rain King.
“I am a true adorer of life, and if I can’t reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.”
(Campaign Outsider Strange Interlude: The hardworking staff happened to be seated at BU’s commencement next to the inimitable Christopher Ricks. Which is something like auditioning for Who’s Not the Stupidest Person Christopher Ricks Has Met Recently? Regardless, we swear we heard Schmidt refer to the Bellow novel as Henderson and the Rain King. So we turned to Ricks and said, “They were a duo?” The jury’s still out on how the audition went.)
From there, Schmidt’s address went strictly downhill, featuring an endless series of bromides that included (mostly verbatim):
“The chance each generation has to make history”
“Write the code for all of us”
“You are teaching us”
“Identity and connection define the human condition”
“The fact we’re all connected is a blesing, not a curse”
“To connect the world is to free the world”
“Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of a new economy”
“Empowerment of each of us empowers all of us”
“Still be unique while being connected”
“Machines don’t have a heart. You have the heart. The future will not beat without you”
“You cannot let tecnology rule you”
“Take one hour a day and turn that thing off”
“It’s not about ‘Friends’ count, but the friends you can count on”
“Find a way to say ‘Yes’ to things”
“Yes is what keeps us all young”
“Do not be afraid to succeed”
“Be an adorer of life”
Better advice: Be an abhorrer of trite.
Campaign Outsider 
It’s a wonder you stayed awake after the first three or four!
This what happens when you write a commencement speech by stringing together the Google results for “commencement speech.”
Dear sir,
It’s a pity that in spite of having awesome people like Christopher Ricks (who really should be giving the commencement speech, he’s way smarter and wittier than all the commencement speakers we get even though he doesn’t like John Ashbery), blandass Eric Schmidt should get the “lion’s share” of attention. (Lion’s share, Henderson, GET IT? Oh god I crack me up.)
And I hope to god he didn’t mean that quote sincerely, because we both know what Bellow’s talking about kissing. I’m sure Ricks got a kick out of that one.
His platitudes mostly sound like one-line manifestos of startups in Allston that’ll maybe get written about in Forbes if they succeed but most probably won’t. And the friend count thingy, of course, is just bitter.
I do hope you got the time to talk to Ricks about the most brilliant student the both of you ever had.
AK
Thanks, Arafat. Unfortunately, my chat with Ricks was too short to get to the really important things. Cheers, JRC