Cook urges graduates to match their ambition with a humility of purpose — not being tamer or smaller, but serving something greater. He quotes Madeleine L'Engle: "Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else." The best founders spend their time building piece by piece, mindful that their work will span generations. He then tells the story of the Stonewall riots — people who felt something strengthen in them, a conviction that they deserved better than the shadows, and if it wasn't going to be given, they were going to have to build it themselves. Cook, who is openly gay, adds: "I will never stop being grateful for what they had the courage to build."