Graduation
The Insead graduation took place at Maison de la Chimie in Paris, last Thursday. Everyone arrived in business attire, appropriate for the occasion, many with parents and friends in tow. The weather was fortunately quite cooperative, with blue skies and bright sunshine throughout the day.
The ceremony itself was surprisingly tolerable. A few of the speeches were good, and the others were at least short. Awards were made to the best professors, as voted by the student body, for the best core and elective course taught on each campus. Here, Ron Adner won for best elective (for High Tech Entrepreneurship and Strategy, often subtitled “a study of business failure”) and brought several laughs with his rather laconic acceptance speech. “I think that you might not have understood the point of this course… you might be too optimistic… we know that success is rare… so… I won’t be trite and wish you all the success in the world…”
Two other speeches were of note. The keynote address, given by Sean Maloney, was a general big-picture view of the world as a land of great opportunity, and was especially optimistic about China and wireless technology. Lucky felt like he was transported back in time just a few years, and was reading an early issue of Wired, when Rosetto was still in charge. Later it became known that Maloney is number three or four at Intel and was responsible for the new Centrino, and then it all made sense. The other speech, by the Dean of Insead Gabriel Hawawini, was perhaps the worst speech ever given by a business school chief. As unenlightening as it was long, it felt like watching a car accident in slow motion.
Afterwards, the students were handed their diplomas one by one as the entire auditorium applauded. It took about an hour, but was well worth it. It was, after all, the last time that the students would be able to clap for each other for a long, long time.
Later, everyone went to a cocktail reception for a short while, to relish the moment and take a brief rest before the rest of the day’s activities. Lucky and his friends went back to Fontainebleau for champagne and dinner, and then it was off to Chateau Vaux-le-Penil for the final party of the year. It was a great party, though intensely bittersweet. Saying goodbye is hard enough, without having to do it repeatedly to all of your best friends. It was difficult, but perhaps cathartic in its own way. Lucky left at 0400h, drove home, packed up the rest of his possessions, and was on his way to the airport three hours later, waving goodbye to the mist-covered fields of Seine-et-Marne in the rearview mirror.
4:13:09 AM 
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