Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, delivered the commencement address at the University of Hawaii in 2009, during one of the worst economic downturns in modern history. Drawing on Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000-hour rule' from the book Outliers, Yang argued that the difference between a good violinist and a virtuoso comes down not to raw ability but to ambition and the discipline to put in the requisite time. Yang illustrated this principle through his mother's story — a single parent who came to the United States from Taiwan with two young boys and a few suitcases. Yang himself arrived knowing only one English word: 'shoe.' The family's trajectory from those humble beginnings to Jerry co-founding one of the world's most influential technology companies was, in his telling, less about genius than about relentless effort and the support of family.