Mark Warner Wake Forest Commencement Speech 2006

"This is the spirit which makes America unique. Our insatiable desire to push the boundaries of what we know and what we can do is what propels our science, our scholarship and our economy.I know; it can be scary. I'll often remember ... after college, I went to law school and a year or so after law school, I decided I would become an entrepreneur. So, I took my life savings — $5,000 — invested in a little energy start-up company. I went to work for that company and, in six weeks, in six weeks I helped that company go totally broke.

I then went into real estate. It took me six months to fail at that. So, at the ripe old age of 26 — student loans coming due — was living out of my car — sleeping on the couches of my law school classmates. This was back in 1982. A new friend told me about a new industry starting up called cellular telephones. I'll always remember my law school classmates saying to me, "Warner, you're so crazy. Go get a real job. Nobody's ever going to want a car phone!" They're still practicing law. So, I fell into that industry and ended up co-founding Nextel. 

- Mark Warner Wake Forest Commencement Speech 2006"