Clockwise from top left: Degree candidates march in; absorb words of wisdom from speaker Gordon Moore (with President David Baltimore at right); are lauded by friends and family; and enjoy their moment in the sun; meanwhile, audience members seek shelter from the limelight.

"Stay low, and be confident"

Keynote speaker Gordon Moore, PhD ‘54, spoke those words of advice—equally applicable for snowboarders and for the sun-drenched graduates at Caltech’s June 15 commencement ceremony.

Moore, the chair emeritus of Caltech’s board of trustees and of Intel Corporation, encouraged the newly minted graduates to stay “close to the data” and to be confident and “proactive” as they advance their opinions throughout their careers. He commented that grads would likely experience several career changes. But “the basics of what you’ve learned here,” including learning how to learn, “will carry you a long way.” The veteran Techer and Caltech commencement speaker addressed the crowd comfortably and confidently, mixing nostalgia and prediction and marveling over some of the huge advancements in knowledge that have occurred in his lifetime.

The cofounder of Intel—creators of the computer microprocessor—Moore is the originator of Moore’s Law—a prediction that a chip’s computing power would double every two years. In introducing him to the crowd, fellow alum Ben Rosen ’54, who currently chairs the board of trustees, noted that history counts the microprocessor as “one of the top inventions,” right up there with the light bulb, telephone, and airplane.

Before Moore could take the podium, however, Caltech’s Ecphonema a cappella group piped in with their rendition of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “It’s All About the Pentiums”—a fitting tribute to a man who helped usher in the current computer age.

The data: 484 graduates—204 BS
degrees; 120 MS degrees; 1 Engineer
degree; 159 PhD degrees. Commencement 2001 can be viewed on the Web at http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/01/index.html.
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