HBCU Storyteller Spotlight | John W. Thompson + Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

HBCU Storyteller Spotlight

Microsoft Chairman John W. Thompson ’71 delivers Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University’s 2014 Commencement Address.

This is a special day, a special day for all of you, and a special day for me to be back here. I happen to have lived for many many years with a simple but important philosophy which is nothing happens in an organization until somebody sells it…I would not have had that view if it were not for the director of placement here and Florida A & M, who saw me as a student working at a stereo store…[H]e convinced be that I should go, regardless of my 800 pound afro…my black and grey shoes…and apply for a job at IBM. And the rest is history.

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