Dell reflected on the early days of his company, when a three-year-old business with just 150 employees opened its first international operation in the UK to great skepticism. The only true believers were the Dell team and their customers. He told the graduates that the unspoken requirement of commencement is that you must now commence — there are countless contributions and achievements that never occurred, all due to a failure to begin. He urged them not to let the search for perfection paralyze them.