Anybody can toss their hat in the air. But few have dared to make it actually fly.
Mark Rober
MIT Commencement 2023, 2023
Video starts at 17:24 — the moment this quote was spoken
The Story Behind This Quote
Rober's surprise fourth piece of advice: engage in occasional playful anarchy. He pulls out a motorized graduation cap that actually flies, demonstrating everything he just preached — naive optimism that it'll get airborne, reframing the failure if it crashes, and fostering relationships with his defense lawyers if he gets sued. It's his celebration of the MIT spirit: not just accepting the world as it is, but daring to engineer something better, even when it's silly. He uses the moment to show that breaking convention with joy and curiosity is itself a form of excellence.