 Thank you Kyrie for your kind introduction and thank you, you and your classmates are an inspiration to me. The reason I remain involved in this great institution is because the world needs more young leaders like all of you. Good morning Chancellor Christ, faculty members and of course our graduates. I want to begin by thanking the parents and friends of today's graduates. This is your moment too. Your encouragement and support over the years is one of the key reasons these students are sitting here today. It's an honor to be with you on your special day. Thank you for inviting me. The last time I spoke at a commencement ceremony was in 1964. That's when I was in the place that you are today graduating from Berkeley. Actually, I participated in two commencement ceremonies that year. One here at Berkeley and the other at a small university to the south of us. It turned out that two of my closest high school friends were graduating from Stanford on the day following my commencement from Berkeley. I wanted to support them on their special day and I thought, why sit in the audience when I could join them in going through the ceremony. I still had my red at Berkeley cap and gown so I drove to Stanford, went to the gym where the graduates were lining up, slipped into the line in the place of an absent graduate and filed into the amphitheater where the ceremony was being held. I sat with the graduates as they listened to all the speakers and then joined them in marching across the stage and picking up their diplomas. Now full disclosure, after the ceremony I took that diploma and returned it to Lost and Found Booth. I learned one important lesson from that experience. You have to work damn hard for four or five years to get your degree at Cal. But at Stanford, all it takes is a half a tank of gasoline. I know that Berkeley hasn't gotten any easier in the decades since my own commencement. And most of you knew that when you decided to come here. This is one of the most rigorous high quality institutions of higher education in the nation and indeed the world. As students, the burden was on you to navigate your way, to manage your time and figure out what to order from a key we bought to get you through a marathon study session. Think about how much of the Berkeley experience wasn't in the brochures and the up emails that you received when you were applying or in the course catalog. They didn't cover half of what a Berkeley education is all about. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to talk about how your life and career will rarely go as you think. The heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali once said, you don't lose if you get knocked down. You lose if you stay down. I'm here today to share some unfortunate news with you. You're going to get knocked down. The question before you today is how are you going to react? How will you get back up and keep on moving forward in the face of the unpredictable challenges and opportunities that life delivers? My experience suggests a simple answer. Staying true to your values and who you are will enable you to achieve a successful and rewarding life. For me it all started at home with the values instilled in me by my parents and grandparents. Then I had the privilege of attending this great university. Being at Berkeley in the early 1960s was a transformational experience. I was going to Berkeley to get a degree and perhaps to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. But what I really received was an education. Here at Cal, I was jostled from the complacency of a comfortable youth. From the moment I stepped on campus, I encountered sharp debates about the issues of the day. I was forced to consider different points of view. I learned to listen closely to people whose circumstances and life experiences were very different from my own. And I learned the value of questioning the way things are. Early in my business career, I came across an image that has stuck with me for decades. It was on a billboard in England promoting a new line of Levi's jeans. It showed a group of white sheep all heading in the same direction. And in the midst of the flock, there was a black sheep going the opposite way. The tagline was black Levi's when the world zigs zag. When the world zigs zag. To me that advertising slogan summed up a Berkeley education. Be open to fresh perspectives. Question established thinking and practices. Stay grounded in your core values. When I think back on my life and career, it's the zags that stand out. Those moments when we make thoughtful and deliberate decisions to go against the grain and upend conventional wisdom. The times when we challenge business and social norms, not because we want to score points or draw attention to ourselves, but because it's the right thing to do. Today I want to reflect on a few of those moments and what they taught me. Earlier I said that I benefited from the values I saw practiced at my home. My father, Walter Haas Jr. led Levi's Strausson Company for many years. He graduated from Berkeley in the class of 1937. In the 1950s, manufacturers like Levi's were locating more and more plants in the southeastern United States. We were attracted by the region's plentiful labor. Offsetting that, however, was the fact that at that time everything in that part of the country was segregated, including manufacturing facilities. Separate entrances, work areas, bathrooms, drinking fountains, everything. All based on whether you were black or white. It was in this environment that Levi's began negotiating with officials in Blackstone, Virginia, about locating a new plant there. My father and his brother Peter, who were partners in running the business, insisted that the plant had to be integrated from the start. Local leaders said, y'all don't understand. We just don't do that here. Levi's didn't budge. So the locals came back later with a proposal to build a brick wall to split the plant in two. Black workers would work on one side, whites on the other. Again, we didn't budge. Fearing that we might locate the new plant in another community, the locals said, so what if we paint a white line down the middle of the factory to separate white and black workers? My father and uncle stood firm. In the end, local officials agreed to our conditions. And contrary to their fears, the integrated plant, one of the first in the south, operated harmoniously from the day it opened. This happened years before federal law required it. What I took away from that story is that values are non-negotiable. In the end, your values and your reputation are all you have to stand on. It may be uncomfortable to challenge the way things are generally done. But when it's the right thing to do, you do it. Because that's what lets you sleep better at night. That's what lets you move on with your life and your career, believing that you did your best not just for yourself and your family, but for society and the world. When I moved into the CEO role at Levi's, I had plenty of my own run-ins with dated business and social norms. One of my earliest decisions was to let employees wear casual clothes to work. In today's world, that may sound easy. But back in the early 1950s, remember that was nearly 40 years ago, most companies required their employees to wear suits and ties or dresses to work. That decision was a no-brainer since we were the leading casual clothing manufacturer in the nation. But others were harder. One that stands out was the decision that we made to move the production of many of our clothing lines overseas in the 1980s. The writing was on the wall. The big barriers were coming down, resulting in easier access to lower-cost foreign factories. As a result, most of our competitors were shedding their U.S. factories. At Levi's, we couldn't ignore the economic realities. To stay competitive and keep our business going, we had to consider more of our clothing lines overseas. But this new situation raised an ethical dilemma. If you're producing things overseas, how can you make sure that your products are not coming from factories that are sweatshops or from factories where there's child labor or from places where basic environmental and worker safety protections are ignored? Our brand's reputation and future appeal were on the line. I appointed a task force to look into these questions. They came back evenly split. Due to the added costs of rigorous standards and inspections, they couldn't agree on how aggressive the company should be in trying to enforce global standards. So it was up to me to make a decision. The risks were substantial. But in my view, the integrity of how we did business was non-negotiable. Levi's ended up adopting a groundbreaking set of standards that covered labor practices, the environment, everything. We defied conventional practice, potentially adding significant costs and affecting our competitive position. We took a risk and we zagged. Fortunately, a number of other companies quickly recognized the reputational risks in not following our lead. They started calling us and asked for copies of our code of conduct so they could use it with their overseas contractors. These new standards impacted hundreds of thousands of people's lives. They changed working conditions. They increased pay and opportunities. They supported new development in emerging economies around the world. The lesson, zagging can have big and unexpected benefits. As you move into your careers, you'll discover that your decisions can have real and wide-ranging impacts on people and communities. For example, in 1982, a group of concerned employees came to me to talk about a deadly, unnamed disease that was primarily affecting gay men. The disease, of course, was AIDS. At that time, people didn't know a lot about the disease. There were a lot of rumors going around and a lot of disinformation. These employees wanted to combat the falsehoods by handing out leaflets to their colleagues with helpful information about prevention and treatment. Now, these were less tolerant times when it comes to gay rights. And as a result, these employees were concerned that by distributing leaflets about a disease that was primarily affecting gay people, that they would be presumed to be gay themselves. This could be harmful to their relations with their co-workers and indeed to their careers. It was a time to zag. I saw the value of passing out information about this mysterious and deadly disease. After all, the well-being of our employees was at stake. To reassure and support these concerned employees, I joined them and several other senior managers in passing out leaflets in the lobby of our headquarters. Getting involved in the fight against AIDS raised our awareness of this emerging public health issue. This prompted us to learn more about the disease and to take action. Levi's made our first grant to an AIDS-serving organization the following year. We were one of the first corporations to do so. We created pace-setting policies to protect and help HIV-positive employees that became models for other enterprises. A decade later, Levi Strauss and B company became one of the first companies in America to offer benefits to the unmarried partners of our employees. We were ahead of the curve on that one too and it happened because we listened to the people affected by the problems and took action based on our values. Some of you will go into business in the coming years and others will join nonprofits or serve in the government. Regardless of where you end up, it's not just through your work that you'll have opportunities to make a positive difference in the world. You can also do so through your involvement in communities and on the issues that you care about. Growing up, I learned about the value of community and public service. My time at Berkeley broadened my understanding of how to make a difference. I was exposed to protesting, picketing, and advocating for the causes that I believed in. These experiences benefited me as I joined with other members of my family on the board of a foundation my parents created. Over the last two decades, this foundation has been involved in two issues that have risen to the top of today's national debates, gay rights and immigration. In 2001, we became the first foundation to embrace marriage equality as a major priority. At the time, no state in the country offered gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry. From the beginning, we knew that this was going to be a long uphill battle. But we saw marriage as a key step to winning broad acceptance and opening the door to full equality for gay and lesbian people. So we started making investments in organizations and leaders working on this issue. Then, in November 2004, voters in 13 states adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. And they did so by overwhelming margins. It was a demoralizing moment. We got knocked down. In the face of adversity, however, we were undeterred. We got up and we zagged. We stayed true to our values and kept our focus on our ultimate goal. We persevered and worked with movement leaders on a wide-ranging effort to turn things around. And things did turn around. In June 2015, the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land. It was a historic decision that ranks as one of the most important milestones in American civil rights history. What I learned from this multi-year effort is that working for lasting social progress takes time. You're going to face all kinds of obstacles. There will be days and months and years when you wonder if it's even worth it. But if you persevere, stay focused on the results you're trying to achieve, and join with partners who share your belief in the need for change, well, anything is possible. In 2012, I'm sorry, I also want to talk to you about immigration. More specifically, I want to talk about the courageous and talented students here at Berkeley and at other universities across the country who are undocumented immigrants. Some are here with us today in this graduating class. My family and I have come to know many of these students very well. And as we got to know their stories and we heard more about the challenges they face, we decided we wanted to do more to help them succeed and have a voice. In 2012, our family's foundation gave this university a gift of $1 million for scholarships for undocumented students. It was the largest gift and the first of its kind at that time. Additionally, a member of my family provided support for critical campus services for undocumented students. Today, Berkeley's undocumented student program is widely recognized as a pioneering initiative in higher education. Other colleges and universities are modeling their own programs on what's happening right here. Needless to say, immigration has become a controversial topic in the United States today. Undocumented Americans are a favored punching bag for the anti-immigrant crowd. I remember the conversations we had when we decided to fund these Berkeley scholarships. We knew we'd take some heat for it, and we surely did. If it hasn't soaked in yet, I'll say it once again. You have to stand for something in life. For each of you graduating today, the issues you'll be dealing with in your chosen career will be different. Maybe you'll choose to work on climate change or artificial intelligence or digital privacy. Many of you will get involved in things that are not even on your radar right now. But in the course of your life and career, you're going to come face-to-face with challenges and opportunities that will require you to make a choice. Do you accept the way things are, or do you try to make them better? I know from experience that your Berkeley education has prepared you for these moments. Not only because of what you've learned in your classes here, but because of the values that you take away from this special place. The value of questioning the way things are, the value of listening to others, the value of learning and gathering the information you need to make smart decisions, the value of pluralism and diversity and justice for all people, the value of zagging. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make my way to Palo Alto for the Stanford commencement. Go forth and zag and go bears.