Ego and Math | Stanford Math Department Commencement Speech 2023

I had the honor and pleasure of being invited to deliver an address for the mathematics graduation ceremony at Stanford. In it, I chose to talk about one of the lesser-addressed and awkward-to-talk-about motivations for getting into math.

[@colin8923]

So glad Grant could find a human to go to deliver his speech for him since it would be hard for a living pi creature such as himself to do it 🙏

[@notdumbrella6399]

Bruh..

[@yashrawat5071]

So pi creatures aren't real ?

[@CrittingOut]

Real

[@colin8923]

​@@yashrawat5071They are. Luckily he found someone to go give the speech for him.

[@Luffy_wastaken]

Glad 3blue1brown made a _rational_ decision

[@sportyeel9188]

As someone from a place with a tiny math department, I’m just amazed that Stanford has enough math majors to hold a separate graduation for them lmao

[@sempersolus5511]

The place I went to for my undergrad didn't even _have_ a math department. You could get a math degree through the physics department or through the computer science department. But a graduate degree was out of the question.

[@veraphine]

My school had 3 graduation ceremonies to get through the entire math faculty!

[@spacesunseen]

How many mathematicians does Stanford hire each year tho?

[@Maou3]

It doesn't tend to matter with regard to private schools. Departmental graduations are pretty popular there.

[@runakovacs4759]

@@Maou3 Same for europe. Hungary we only start degrees if they got their own department to begin with. You wanna study maths? You go to the university that offers a maths degree, and specialize within that. Maths are part of the Natural Sciences Institute. Think we go like Bsc 100 maths students 100 chemistry students 100 physics students 100 geology/geography students 100 biology students MSc 15 Materials Science students 15 Chemistry students 15 physics students 15 Geology students 15 biology students 15 maths students. Each year. (ELTE)

[@milesman1001]

Butterfly effect: 6 years ago I saw Grants video on the Riemann hypothesis, and now I’m going on my fourth year in undergrad devoting my efforts towards the cascades of bifurcations of quadratic iterators. Thanks Grant.

[@GrantSanderson]

That's wonderful!

[@agentdarkboote]

Miles my man, is your work related to the logistic map? What makes it interesting or useful (genuinely curious)?

[@milesman1001]

@@agentdarkboote the logistic map is just one of the iterators I care about. Specifically I care about iterators which are rational polynomials of two variables. I’m interested in the properties of the bifurcation points they generate. For example, is the limit of bifurcation points always transcendental?

[@patrickdevlin8553]

As a math professor, I find that your words here really resonate. It is very true that "interesting research" and "seemingly hard" are so closely (but subconsciously) linked in the research community. And excessively few of us stop to wonder what drives that internalized evaluation function. Well spoken, and thank you. :-)

[@holomurphy22]

I can see that few of the professors evaluate themselves internally, like any other people in society. But it is not bothersome for their work, because it is the norm and deviating from norms can push you through the exit (because of you not liking the environment which is less adapted to you, or because of others don't liking you).

[@GrantSanderson]

I'm not even sure it's necessarily a bad thing. Maybe an infatuation with intrinsic hardness is necessary to develop the pieces of math with unexpected later utility. Or maybe hardness for its own sake is what forces us to keep finding new ideas, analogous to the value of going to the moon. What does seem problematic is to have an evaluation function that works this way without ever having reflected on whether that's desirable.

[@Eta_Carinae__]

​@@GrantSandersonI get the sense that a purely difficult mathematical problem only really has cryptographic applications. I think usually we want to show a kind of 'computational reducibility' in math.

[@elijahfromm7108]

🙂 Hi Pat! I think part of this may be that if a problem is harder, it is likely that more people have attempted it. So interest can be generated by people investing their time. What do you think? Also, I would love to hear what drives your evaluation function.

[@patrickdevlin8553]

(Hi Elijah!) Without a doubt, my "internal" evaluation function was given to me externally. Starting out in math, I liked most things I learned about, and starting graduate school, I had no clue what I wanted to specialize in (let alone what problems were particularly "interesting" or "worthy of study"). At some point, I realized that I enjoy doing quiet puzzles that I think are fun, but I firmly believed (and still do) that those things aren't "sufficiently interesting" to impress the mathematical community at large. After understanding the game of which mathematicians are considered "good", I decided I had to choose between doing things that people perceived as interesting or doing things I really enjoy. I remember talking about this to folks outside of math, and I described it as "I need to play the game and do the stuff they care about until hopefully one day I'm hired in a nice job, and I can finally start doing the things I really enjoy." It's been 15 years since I started thinking like that, and I don't quite know how I feel about it now. Despite the fact that I still haven't been hired for a long term position, I feel somewhat more at peace finding things I genuinely enjoy regardless of whether or not others approve. But the quiet intrusive thoughts that my work is not "good enough" (and by extension, I'm not either) still don't seem to go away.

[@entivreality]

Lovely speech. Reminds me of this quote by GH Hardy. “I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.”

[@lemurpotatoes7988]

I decided to get a B.S. in Math for the opposite reason. I thought masochism was necessary for self-improvement and wanted to force myself to overcome my weaknesses through brute determination. I got the degree with a good GPA but I never reached that phase transition of mathematical maturity I sometimes hear talked about. I like to tell myself that I think about math in a way that's "slow but strong", with a more thorough and less artificial understanding than my peers, but I don't know if it's true.

[@morgengabe1]

Great quote, almost makes you wonder how he got himself to do it before he met littlewood and ramanujan.

[@avatarelemental]

I started a masters in math because I understood that every problem can be modeled and have a better understanding with this approach, at the end i learned much more than i could imagine and now i can think more generally about topics and identify patterns that can be translated from one field to another. Long story short I can read biology books to propose new algorithms for automotive industry

[@martimlopes8833]

I know this is out of context, but this quote from GH Hardy is amazing: "1. To prove the Riemann hypothesis; 2. To make a brilliant play in a crucial cricket match; 3. To prove the nonexistence of God; 4. To be the first man atop Mount Everest; 5. To be proclaimed the first president of the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, and Germany. 6. To murder Mussolini -From a list of New Year's resolutions sent by Hardy to a friend in the 1940s"

[@martimlopes8833]

@@markhall2414 Are you asking because he didn't include america in the countries he'd want to be first president? If so, I think it's possible that this quote was from a time where the USA was not yet involved in WW2, hence why he might have chosen not to include it

[@katexy7179]

I love how he was still respectful about this topic. For me, I literally called myself an egotistical narcissist and almost did a PhD in Math for it. I took me years to realize that being smart was way less important to me than being perceived as smart. Our high school teacher would sometimes present puzzles above our level to us and I would be the one to solve them. I took me years to realize that I liked my classmates' reaction to me solving them more than feeling good about actually solving them. It's nice to hear I'm not the only one... these days I am aware of it and took it slow with my career, trying to build it up for the better reasons but I have to say, this was a mental challenge to go through for sure. Soon to get a masters, and probably stopping there 😊

[@omniyambot9876]

Same rn taking engineering degree. Doing really well but I'm starting to get humbled by rigorous real stuff.

[@jehugz]

This definitely describes me, but I’m also trying to change my mentality for the better. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone.

[@alexchichigin]

I wholly support this Buddhist view that doing something useful _for other sentient beings_ is the only meaningful thing in life, and trying to do it more, but... Keep in mind that caring about how other people perceive you is perfectly normal and even useful. In particular, if you don't want to look like a jerk, don't act like one. If you want to be perceived like honest and compassionate, be honest and show compassion through your words and actions. Totally reasonable thing to do if you ask me.

[@coscinaippogrifo]

I think it's perfectly human and understandable. Admiration is a driver for everyone. You simply don't have the ropes of reality of standard brains like mine to keep you firmly on the ground. Yes, I believe this can also be seen as a deficiency, and it's good that you're trying to fix it. But don't ever refrain from pursuing your passion, a degree of self-complacency is normal, as long as you respect the ones less gifted than you... Arrogance and tendency to humiliate are the plagues of some very smart guys, and the ones to avoid...

[@matthewglenguir7204]

Love this thread, very insightful

[@user-vu7qk3ot7c]

The speech really stroke my chord. I was once a student who did extraordinarily well in math in my junior high school years, I skipped two grades in math, attended classes specialized in science, holds numerous competition medals and got in the talented class of the best senior high school in my city. I was considered an extremely gifted kid in math by all the teachers and peers around me, which builds up my "ego" and become a deeply rooted part of me. But in senior high school, I found that life become more complicated. People can evaluate a person from various different aspects(sports, music, conscientiousness or something like that), and with all these people being outstanding in different area, I suddenly became a flawed person whose only worth-mentioning advantage is being slightly better at math. And as I desperately cling on the only "good at math" title I have, I found that I lost all the interest and passion I had on math and can hardly make any progress on the thing I thought I love. As time went by, I became so frustrated in math that I barely study it, every time I see my classmates solve problems that I can barely get my hands on, I felt terrible. It's as if everything I've studied and every effort I made has been utterly pointless. At this point, I simply don't know hot to face math anymore. Your speech made me realized that the reason I've been so into math is because that I wanted to be perceived as a outstanding person, and that I don't really have to be clinging on the title anymore. I finally got the answers to why I suffer while studying in math and felt relieved after your speech. I want to say thanks. btw, your videos showcased the beauty of math and made me fall in love with mathematics years ago. And now i'm 18 and is going to major in electrical engineering in one of the best colleges in my country(Taiwan). And I want to say thank you so much for helping me find my passion and letting me become who I am. (dramartic but true lol

[@evawithay]

this is so beautifully said!! I’m wishing you all the best in your studies

[@va3802]

I'm also 18, and this has been my experience too. I'm glad someone else gets it.🫶

[@bigspicytyler1775]

"It makes me angry just thinking about it, but perhaps its my anger thats made me blind to the truth for so long. I see it now, i fought to push down others, you only fight to push yourself" -Vegeta

[@sunnyjayaram2289]

I always felt that the level of perfectionism that grant displays in his 3B1B productions involved a little bit of ego.. a constructive ego, but a small need to be exceptional and unmistakable.

[@mntlblok]

I would've thought that he would have to go *far* out of his way to *hide* his exceptionalism.

[@randomjunkohyeah1]

Having *no* ego is a very miserable way to live… a little bit is the perfect amount to have.

[@Hambonillo]

His ergo isn't too bad either.

[@alexpotts6520]

​@@randomjunkohyeah1As someone who's suffered for decades wirh low self-esteem... yeah, the truth hurts.

[@philosandsofost8642]

You are describing a mathematician.

[@JCMexplains]

This kind of self-understanding, humility, and openness is truly admirable. Quite a few people never get to this level of maturity.

[@charlesyang9065]

This is really interesting perspective on how to think about the work we do and our relationship to the people it affects. Reminds me of this quote from C.S. Lewis's Weight of Glory: "The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just in so far as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward"

[@baptistebauer99]

A beautiful speech. I can only imagine how it would be to have Grant Sanderson giving a speech at your graduation.

[@tirthankaradhikari4557]

Forget about math, his voice and delivery flow and speech make me wanna listen to him all day long!

[@pranavbuggana2390]

Was thrown off in the best way possible seeing Grant's face and immediately recognizing his Voice. Thank you Grant for literally teaching me all the foundational courses in my Math degree!

[@dylanparker130]

This was really funny - enjoyed it a lot. My Dad told me he was astonished that I wanted to do maths at University. It was honestly the only subject I ever felt like I was good at. And who doesn't want to do puzzles for the rest of their life? 🙂 I still remember feeling genuinely excited every day at Uni. I know it sounds corny, but I would think "What extraordinary thing will they reveal to us today?"

[@daviddempsey8721]

Ditto. Looking back, my time at uni - 4 years in Elec & E’nic Eng - was the most thought-filled and stimulating of my life. Finding good friends, great teachers (for the most part) and uncovering the “how” of things…Maths wasn’t my strongest subject, but became a familiar friend that described the rest of science, most elegantly.

[@dylanparker130]

@@daviddempsey8721 Awesome! My Dad also said to me "You'll never make it as a mathematician, but you could be a good engineer". Unfortunately, this was long after I'd graduated!

[@nalat1suket4nk0]

@@dylanparker130my dad too, he wants me to be an engineer (as he is an electrical one) but i am more interested in doing a math doctorat

[@apuapustaja2063]

lovely spirit

[@birdbeakbeardneck3617]

​@@apuapustaja2063whenever i see the word lovely i think of gordon ramsey

[@shadmehrabdollahpour102]

The amount of wisdom capsulated in 10 minutes was breathe taking.

[@oscaro.172]

Well spoken! This topic DEFINITELY needs more attention. Same goes for physics.

[@iveharzing]

Yeah I've realized that a lot of Physics phenomena that I found "interesting", were that way *mainly* because they were hard to understand, and I didn't understand them. And as soon as I did understand them, I of course felt accomplished, but also a bit hollow. The physics had "lost" some of its magic in my eyes. (I finished my Bachelor in Physics last year, for context)

[@kukushka314]

​@@iveharzingkeep going with physics and you'll see that magic is still there :)

[@t.t.venkatesh8173]

I graduated with a degree in math in 2004. However, the kind of understanding I get from your approach is far superior to what I got from my (excellent) professors. I envy the students of today who have access to your content.

[@grantsmith3653]

In case this is helpful for anyone... when I first watched this, I felt a little confused because I normally love Grant's thoughts, but this one didn't resonate with me much. I have now come to a better understanding, and I think this could be a nice takeaway for others too: I originally took this as encouragement to make things that other people will want or like, and that rubbed me wrong because when I make things, I tend to make them for myself, and I like that. It's peaceful, and I don't have to worry about likes or popularity. So I chalked this up to being a one-off Grant Sanderson video I wasn't a fan of. But then after chatting with a friend about something unrelated + some further thought, I think the takeaway could be that it's nice to frame things as doing a service.... Not for popularity, not for yourself, but as a service to others. That's where the real value is.

[@GrantSanderson]

100%, that's the intent. I fear an unintended consequence of (some) existing educational trajectories is that students come out focussed more on their own outcome and perception than on being others-focussed, and seeking out who they can help the most with their newly gained knowledge.

[@zenith_journey]

Is that because educational institutions have an incentive to leverage the fundamental human instinct to want to be admired/perceived well… because it’s a simple and (historically the most?) effective/efficient strategy to drive up the output/results of their students? (It’s easier to get Johnny to want to crush his test if being showered in praise is the reward, vs trying to get him to understand deeper meanings of life and human connection in order to instill a motivation grounded in value-adding and fulfilment, right? …Especially for younger people). But this then has the unintended consequence that the kind of carrot they have ingrained in their students to chase produces a mentality that may not lead to them having the most fulfilling life/most use of their skills post-education? Loved this video, Grant.

[@manuelignacioarturoocaranz1185]

I am such a fan of Grant. He can talk about absolutely any topic and make it interesting. He also makes me regret not having studied maths properly. 😢

[@classyjohn1923]

this man alone has much more value than most of the professors at most universities. The impact hes made for learners everywhere is significant. Much better than professors who will only lecture about a topic but not put much consideration into how their students understand the topic (aka NOT meeting them where they are at) and will apply a blanket grade on their performance, as if that grade determined the competence, value, and limit of the student. Grant's dad is the big MVP (most valuable person) because he, from how Grant describes him, did an amazing job as a parent to nurture a sense of curiosity and gamified the learning process to Grant, being supportive every step of the way. Ego aside, I didn't hear really much about the impact of failure in Grant's life but thats probably because Grant wasn't taught that failure is a bad thing. Now, ask yourself if the education system actually fosters learning and curiosity. You'll find very quickly that they don't and if you feel that I'm wrong about this, then good for you, it seems that the system worked out for you. But I'm telling you, based on my experiences as someone who had an abusive childhood where I was taught to fear failure and to fear trying because perfect results were expected out of me every time, thats not the case for everyone. Because of my upbringing, it severely impacted how I treated failure and school, leading to worse grades and ultimately not getting what I wanted out of my college education. You cannot attribute blame to any one person. Both parents AND the education system need to do their part to not fail our kids.

[@penprogrammer6271]

This is why I love Stanford. They invite real achievers to the podium. They know the value of his work.

[@thomasolson7447]

When I listen to this guy outside his normal setting, I still think I'm going to learn some advanced concept.

[@muno]

What a lucky class to have someone as well-spoken as you give a commencement speech!

[@mkali56]

You also expecting Grant to turn his hat into a topological doughnut at the end?

[@ayitinya]

😂😂

[@xavierchoe8074]

Outstanding. Compared to Mark Rober's MIT commencement speech (which got a lot more attention than this), I thought this was much more thoughtful and well spoken.

[@Vim_Tim]

On the spectrum of educational entertainment, Mark Rober is almost completely entertainment while 3B1B leans heavily towards education.

[@xavierchoe8074]

@@Vim_Tim Yeah I know... I feel bad for all those MIT grads whose commencement speech was essentially just a youtube video. Unfortunately, I guess it's unfair to expect everyone to be as amazing as Grant.

[@heyman620]

​@@xavierchoe8074 Why do you feel bad for MIT grads, who cares about it? This speech is great but the whole idea of a ceremony is bullshit.

[@jacob7270]

@@xavierchoe8074 MIT has become so much about marketing in recent years, it was perfect for them.

[@lucasng4712]

@@heyman620 no

[@markkennedy9767]

Brilliant guy. His understanding of mathematics and the psychology behind studying it and liking it is just great

[@marksd5650]

I enjoy Grants videos so much, very eloquent. I went into math head first because my high school counselor in 1974 said I’d better find a college where math wasn’t required because I’d never get it. She said the same about a foreign languages which is why I became fluent in French. I guess I should thank that counselor.

[@bibhutibaibhavbora8770]

I love this guy. I was learning mathematics for ML and this guy saved me explaining some important mathematics concepts used in ML.

[@nestorv7627]

I started liking math when I first took geometry in 10th grade. I remember having an easier time visualizing why the formulas for area and volume of shapes were how they were. It first started as me having fun finding the volumes of the shapes of figures that resembled the toys I played with when I was a child. However, being the one in class that found it the easiest really inflated my ego. Same thing happened with precalculus and calculus. I'm ashamed to admit that I still hold a lot of that ego, but Grant's speech started to help me realize how to let go of it, even if it's little by little. Thanks Grant.

[@user-yw8lj6io6l]

thank you so much for this insightful talk. i imagine it hurt to gather the humility to expose your ego to a crowd! but please know that your kindness in accepting this pain has shone through, not just here, but in every video i’ve seen from you. sometimes i watch your videos when i’m too tired or sick to truly understand them, just to cheer myself up-to remind myself that someone cares to be kind to us viewers in such a costly way

[@kipu44]

Even if your video is not about a unique or hard problem, you still present the topic and the explanation in a unique way that makes them easy for the viewers to understand. Finding this way is in itself a unique and hard problem you manage to solve.

[@2Staccato3]

WHAT?? I was just a building over for the physics commencement for my PhD! Wish I knew you were around :D great speech!

[@Furkan-ll4gy]

2:22 reminded a quote "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really... I was alive.”

[@sadranezam3367]

dude ROFL same

[@rpopova]

I'm still a student, but your speech made me think a lot about why I chose maths as my field and where I want to go with it. Thank you for sharing it!

[@njeeva]

Ego has its best purpose when it is aligned in its utility to others and in turn yourself (Paraphr.). What a great guy.

[@kenschwarz8057]

How nice to “meet” the man behind the videos! I am consistently awed by your work, not just for its beauty or originality, but for what I imagine are the incredible efforts you take to “meet me where I am” and your calmly confident manner as your deftly guide me to understanding. Throughout, there’s a generosity of spirit which seems to expect no reward beyond the shared joy of reaching that understanding. Just like your speech here. Thank you.

[@TensorProd]

First, LET’S GOOOO Jonathan Ko, congrats on graduating!!! Second, this is a fantastic speech for a math graduation, and it very accurately and eloquently summarises my experiences studying math at this place, including many opinions I came to very slowly. Thank you so much, Grant. Hearing this from you has provided me more value than any math video you’ve ever made.

[@diobrando8979]

This hits right home. I just finished my second year of my undergraduate degree in mathematics and I have seriously considered my degree choice in various occasions, not because I'm not in love with the subject, but because the math I find the most beautiful and well rounded is the one I think is the most far away from actual real use, and I have not found a connection between what I think is genuinely important in life (mainly empathy and helping others) and pursuing math. I actually came to the conclusion my main motivation from day to day was drawn by ego and by being seen as "smart" and "good at it", even from my peers in class. You have very well summarized many of my thoughts during these months. I'm currently in a better situation, and I'm studying more than ever, drawn by curiosity and a desire to get better at it. I would like to stay in academia in the future, and I thought any choices I would have to make would come naturally from what seems more interesting to me, but thinking about it now I think I would get drawn to those harder problems just for the sake of being the one to solve them. This was a very helpful reminder for me to keep questioning my motives and a very good path to steer towards. Thank you.

[@desrepeerc206]

I think this too. I also just finished my second year of undergrad in math, and I’m trying to figure out a way to really learn math. Should I read textbooks/watch videos/do hard problems? Or should I try to figure out what math is myself by sitting down with a pencil and paper and thinking? The former is what I’m used to from school, and (like Grant I’m gonna always point out the positives :)) it’s nice being part of a community bonding over this subject. But sometimes I zoom out and wonder if I’m doing this for the beauty of math, or because it makes me feel smart and productive. So what I want to do more is come up with my own ideas of what math is. Maybe it’ll align with what mathematicians and philosophers think, or maybe it’ll be more of my unique perspective. I’ve been doing a little imagining of math (understanding basics of logic and sets and functions and whatnot) and I’m trying to get more consistent in this new type of learning. For the first time in my life, I can understand why math is so hard. It’s not hard because it looks intimidating, it’s hard because the subject sparks so many possibilities that we don’t have enough time for. But I also wanna make sure I have another perspective to view math from. Math isn’t just a difficult and rigorous field, but it’s a way of thinking about things. We ask ourselves questions, no matter how basic, and then we try (and fail) to find answers. I want to make sure I ask the questions not because they’re well-known or they’re in all the math books, but because I thought of them myself. This is all great in theory, but when school starts again I might get overwhelmed and give up on trying to learn math as a hobby. With school comes our egos, and they can get in the way. I’m not sure what the solution is here, but hearing Grant talk about something like this is great. I feel less alone and very grateful.

[@skydivenext]

​@@desrepeerc206​ First rst paragraph good Second paragraph ego Third paragraph good

[@skydivenext]

​@@desrepeerc206go get your ego checked lol

[@Memories_broken_]

@@skydivenext What they mentioned in second para is relevant(if I interpreted it correctly). I think of it this way.... see when you are learning/ mastering a subject, you first learn the theory as a basic understanding of the concept is necessary to dwell into the questions. For an ordinary student ,trying and pushing yourself to do difficult questions which are way beyond your understanding is like diving headfirst into a frozen lake. My dad once told me "You understand something when are able to explain it to yourself in a meaningful and a comprehensible way". But if you are exceptionally good at something, you can ponder new possibilities and question what, why and how.. and thats what generates new ideas and intuitions. And it even goes on to show you how much you know about your particular field of interest.

[@thewitchking2556]

I wish we could all meet and speak to him in person, chat with him for a little while. It’s unfortunately not feasible with a following of this magnitude, but it’d be amazing for him to do more public speeches like this because he’s really good and we’d all appreciate it

[@alexandreolle2340]

As a young math teacher, I know my highest motivation is to enlighten my students as much as possible. Of course, I always highly appreciate words of thanks but even without that, I genuinely feel the most satisfied when I see this famous light appear in their eyes, the moment when they really understand and when their mind display that hunger and pleasure to learn more. So yes, I have some ego but not in a problematic way imo. Ego is not a bad thing when trying to help others I think. As for you dear M. Sanderson, you have been (and still are !) a truly great teacher for me ! Your videos have always enlightened me in a marvelous way (can't deny the visuals are the key hehe). I think that being a teacher means to take up the immense challenge to allow various people to learn despite their respective backgrounds and abilities which may be very different. And I believe you achieved that goal in many of your videos and all the more when changing your focus from being "original" to "meeting people where they are" as you said. But you know what ? By doing so, you certainly produced very creative and thus very original videos ! So many thanks to your ego ;)

[@reid-dye]

As many others have said, it's so nice to hear that I'm not the only one who feels like this - I'm a math-loving controls nerd *now* but in elementary school I was willing to trudge through the (big, bad, scary, evil) math because I wanted my lego robot to follow the line faster and better than my friends'. Thank you!

[@suriyars4487]

I totally resonate with you man ! Although I am good with problem solving in general , I would always beat myself up for not loving it . The situations I have gone through have made me taken up the career , at times I hate myself for not taking it up wholly just based on the love for it . Hearing your thoughts have given me some perspective .

[@AnotherRoof]

Thank you for this, and for your honest reflection on your journey. I can relate -- I chose to study mathematics mostly because I was good at it, and only prepared for exams in order to get higher scores than others in my class. Ego and competitiveness, I'm sad to say, were very much a part of it. Somewhere down the line things did "click" and the pleasure I took from beauty of mathematics overtook the egotistical satisfactions. Interesting thoughts about video topics, too -- I spend a lot of time struggling with the questions: what do people want? / what do people need? / what will people find valuable? / what will people watch? when choosing a topic, and now I'll probably struggle with them even more!

[@macchicken98]

Even though I’m not a Maths major and rather am pursuing entrepreneurship, I can very much relate to the different motivations that may drive you. It’s important to learn about oneself and your true motivations, even if they may be morally tainted (like ego). They can drive you to do great things but they may also drive you to excess and waste if not balanced. So take the time to reflect, adjust, and learn about different philosophies so that you can pursue the life you want for yourself wholeheartedly. Thanks for the reminder, Grant!

[@isalshukla6039]

Great talk, I love that you question passion as something self-driven or made from some kind of higher purpose and altrusitic motive. I think our motives can certainly change with time, what starts off as a passion built on praise from others can turn to a selfless act done solely for the sake of others, given we recognise these intentions as you said. I think all of these motives are valid and can create a wide variety of outcomes that help us grow and learn more. Thank you for the insight :)

[@irrrrational314]

I dont thnk a lot of people noticed this but like the way he talks is so fluent- like there are no "ums" "aa" etc

[@magicianLogician]

he has experience speaking like that from his videos, I guess. I’m sure he also practiced this speech a bit.

[@daviddempsey8721]

What great starting advice! The learning I’ve had as a beginning marketer is to start with solving some real problem for your customer. As an engineer I’ve always had more motivation helping a client solve a wicked problem, than the money or position I was in.

[@yashsaraswat2719]

As someone who is about to enter grad school, I find this talk so relevant to how I choose projects and topics to work on as well! I have always put out the questions Grant asks, in the name of "be spontaneous, you are a student, work on what catches your attention, we will think about the valuation function later". This is one of them Ah-you-voiced-my-heart videos, perfect.

[@Wallyisking]

Thank you for this beautiful speech. It's easy for us to forget why we have a passion for something in the first place when ego takes over. It can happen to everyone, and maybe that's a path life follows on repeat for a lot of us. As an ego who has gone through this painful cycle many times in life, I'm grateful to see you sharing your work with the world and putting your heart behind it - this is passion! Math is beautiful, and sharing it is a gift all its own.

[@razlotan7504]

This is such a bold and important take, think how many of academic papers in math and computer science try to innovate and present extremely complicated new results and how many try to apply given results/understand them deeply.

[@epicmarschmallow5049]

A paper dedicated to understanding mathematics isn't an academic paper, those are just notes. Also about half of maths dedicated to applying results; that's why it's called "applied mathematics"

[@dylanparker130]

PS I loved your idea of an "Evaluation function". I'm sure I'm not the only one here whose function changed hugely over 2020.

[@MrLittelmerciles]

Wow, what an incredibly great speaker to have for your departmental commencement

[@matruiz1918]

wish he were ours lol

[@mlseg5143]

Great video, and definitely made me reevaluate my own motivations. I'm just starting a physics degree and I definitely feel that I enjoy praise and that my comparison to others is exacerbated by every test coming along with a grade distribution to go along with it where you can see where I fall on the curve. While I love maths and enjoy understanding proofs that the lecturer writes and is not subject for any test but I do feel that my self worth is becoming tied to academic valor. I'm not certain I would pursue the field if I was ordinary or less than at it and I don't know how to feel about it.

[@s0fl813]

I'm currently the exact description of past Grant, and I'm very thankful for this video. If I can't enjoy math when I'm alone, I don't enjoy it for what it is. Truly opened my mind!

[@caesarfatalhammer]

The voice, that you recognize instantly.

[@treyebillups8602]

I could listen to this guy all day

[@shitshow_1]

Just graduated from my Bachelor degree, your speech is such a Gem 💎 Thanks for posting this! Love from India.

[@chrisw3327]

I can relate to the ego motivation early in my studies. I'm an academic with 20+ years experience post-Ph.D. and I have experienced re-emergence of the ego motivation and see others around me who seem to have that as their primary motivation. As the Pixies sang, "Hang on to your ego!" In my case, I think I ultimately wanted to make my family proud of my success when I was a kid, because there was a lot of other difficult stuff going on at the time with my older brothers, drugs, health and us being fairly poor. That was a huge motivation for me to want to do well at maths and physics.

[@rampage14x13]

I haven't been able to attend both my undergrad and masters graduations so seeing this feels like it's made up for all that. I also have been asking myself these questions a lot recently, and I am glad you spoke on it and have given me some much needed insight. Thank you so much.

[@briancheong2087]

Jaw dropped at seeing this guy in the flesh and speaking at stanford no less. On the list of people's whose hand i wanna shake 💯

[@qhawejames134]

It's so refreshing listening to Grant.

[@leonardodavinci4259]

I loved it. Very insightful of him to recognize his own thought process for what it is

[@derekndosi]

You are in inspiration to many. I admire your work

[@bluefishactcl1464]

Some wisdom outing Stanford . Unexpected beauty .

[@DoctorQcumber]

This speech wasn't very emotionally engaging the way many others are, but the message is more valuable than in any other commencement speech I've seen. It's really targeting an issue that I think steals a lot of happiness from mathematicians. Props for going for utility over dramatic flare

[@brummi9869]

Can't agree more, my Maths journey started with me seeing the integral sign and thinking how impressed my classmates would be if I knew what it was. Have since fallen in love with the subject just as you describe

[@user-gz1fg4og5j]

Well spoken! This topic DEFINITELY needs more attention. Same goes for physics.. Standford recognized who actually taught their students and invited him to speak..

[@mathemitnullplan]

grant, you are a lighthouse for humbleness!

[@meep9847]

Really appreciate the honesty and broader message here. And really related to the initial motivations for math. I’m not doing maths anymore but I’ll carry this message about finding the right evaluation function away with me.

[@portreemathstutor]

Great Speach. Even primary school children that I have taught love your 3Blue1Brown videos.

[@Steger27]

Grant, you are becoming an artist. Bravo!

[@itswazowski]

What a speech! Very important for me to hear -- so many times I feel my ego taking over me

[@spacefreedom]

I feel honored to see you as my math teacher even just learning from video on Internet, both interesting and insightful. I understand a lot of important math which I failed to learn from school.

[@aungthuhein007]

What a privilege to be able to have Grant as your speaker.

[@StinkyEla]

the way he talked about ego and self satisfaction resonates so hard within me

[@marcovillalobos5177]

Man, thank you for this general point of view

[@quinnahalim7798]

Well spoken and precise in language. Thank you for your work!

[@lugiagaurdien773]

A wonderful speech! Absolutely beautiful!

[@normal-reaction]

One of my goals in life is to learn to talk like Grant, that every person in the room understands

[@vineetjain5082]

Sir you are my inspiration towards maths. Thank you so much.

[@darinhitchings7104]

A very, very, very good teacher. I have an engineering PhD and pride myself on how well I teach... but Grant is one of the best teachers I've ever seen. Phenomenal.

[@-beee-]

I love this. So many brilliant people go and work on such world-harming projects because they're "interesting."

[@akanksha8311]

I cant relate to this speech because all through my school life I was scared of math , I never "understood" it completely idk if it was the teachers or me . I scored okay because I was able to repeat the things I was being taught but it never felt intutive to me . Then in Uni I was planning to take physics as a major but I wasnt able to get it instead I got selected in math so I took it hoping I would change my major by scoring good in physics as elective but I started to like math , well to be particular Abstract Algebra . It didnt come natural to me but I found it so interesting that I wanted to keep studying it. I have always felt "less" because I struggled Analysis and Probability and Stats , but only my love and respect for Algebra has made me comethis far .I am starting my phd next month.

[@alicemystery5332]

That was a nice speech and listen to the topic. I am autistic and slow at math but can visualize shapes in my mind. You videos helped me understand that i knew math far better than I thought was possible. I was working on a 3D mandala with spheres and cubes in my mind when your hardest math problem appeared. I solved it right away once the sphere and grid appeared and had to wait 5 minutes to check my answer was correct. Keep up the brilliant work !!!

[@abdulmoeed4751]

You are truly an inspiration, love your content, love your spirit ❤❤❤

[@MPaxsu]

I love how MIT gets a pseudo engineer celeb mark rober while Stanford gets one of the most intelligent and eloquent mathematics youtubers on the platform to do their commencement speech.

[@balajishanmugam2499]

😂

[@AnonyMous-ij8ri]

Thank you for giving that speech. You verbalized many of the thoughts I've been having for quite a while. When I was a young outcast nerd, my chief source of self-esteem came from feeling more intelligent than others. I realize that I loved math, but the primary drive to push through when the going got tough was not its beauty, but my desire to be perceived as someone who's smart and capable of solving problems which are beyond the reach of most other people. When I grew older and stopped caring as much about what others thought, I found that math is still fascinating, but I was faltering because I no longer had a strong motivator to force me to trudge through when problems became especially challenging. Pure curiosity was not enough. I'm still stuck at that stage and haven't realized what to do yet, honestly.

[@tristanmoller9498]

Love the honesty.

[@nickfosterxx]

Applause. Although, he spoke so quick, I hope some students might re-watch this video after the event. I had to turn on subtitles to keep up. Regardless, worthwhile for every student everywhere.

[@josephhayes113]

Thank you for creating 3Blue1Brown. I grew up having a good mathematical intuition but no one taught me how to use it and I didn’t get to enjoy math until I was near 40 years old after being plopped into and struggling through math at the other great university in the Bay Area. My kid is going to watch your videos as they grow up so they can actually learn math and maybe even enjoy it.

[@squared8290]

I think this is great and I love his videos too! Ego may be a part of it but less about what others thought and more about what I thought of myself. For me, it was more about the love of things that were just plain difficult as well as the love of absolute truth. It's what turned me on to Real Analysis my freshman year. It was the first class I ever took that posed a question I couldn't answer immediately. It was hard! It humbled me greatly. It ticked me off and I loved it for that. I tried Aero/Astro first term sophomore year with a great class that covered every subject simultaneously with tests every Monday morning. Fascinating material but it was all just Differential Equations. So I went back to Math and focused on the Theoretical. Doing problem sets and exams where you have the confidence to end with "Q.E.D." was a great feeling and hence the earlier reference to absolute truth (to be fair, within the bounds of the ZF Axioms as well as the big debate about the axiom of choice...) 🙂. I wonder if this resonates with anyone else, the love of difficult things.

[@distendedmist5840]

When he started talking I began to imagine smooth animations and graphs

[@zicada7661]

I think you're being unusually honest about something very common. Great talk!

[@b4itstarted]

Lovely speech! I definitely derived a lot of joy from math because of ego. I thought I wanted to major in math until I hit my first ever math road block; I struggled through introductory real and complex analysis courses and never took another math class after that...

[@pa.l.2499]

Thank you for your wise words Sir.

[@pritamsarkar4431]

His voice is incredible ❤

[@Ermude10]

This was such a beautiful speech and message! And an important one!

[@sploofmcsterra4786]

Thank you so much for this, this is such an important thing to recognise. It is near impossible to do well in school, have praise heaped upon you, and then not tie some of that to your ego. Especially if you go on to do it in university. But it is so important to notice this in yourself during university, and to recognise that this little ego demon is fuelled by its kin, present in almost everyone in academia. Also that part of noticing you found it a little bit easier is really critical too, since it is important to recognise this in order to understand that if future success is dependent on hard work (it certainly is in tertiary education) that bit of luck of finding it a bit easier than others (or being in a more privileged household with less things to divert your attention) will NOT carry you through. For me, this rings very true. As a physics student, I always felt like I needed to do the "hardest" physics (in my view, theoretical particle physics). Due to various factors, I wasn't able to achieve high enough for that to be possible. But I was lucky, because doing physics that was instead a little bit more related to what others were doing, was so incredibly rewarding and enjoyable. Importantly, I was much more motivated to do it, and that meant I was naturally going to do more of it and be better at it. It also gave me the freedom to focus on areas that I was good at, something that would not have been possible if I was building new particle models. I also realised (after a long time) that the physics I was doing felt much more important than what I would be doing in TPP, and I had simply been placing incredible value on TPP because of that ego, because I wanted to prove that I could do the hardest possible thing, rather than prove I actually had the ability to make a difference with my strengths. And of course, incredibly brave of you but admirable and mature to come out and be so vulnerable about something that often evokes a strong feeling of shame and embarrassment.

[@lukesworld6172]

Hey Grant, this is my first time seeing you on camera haha. I took my first calculus class this last semester. After studying for my final, my KZbin algorithm was filled with calculus. I started to watch it for entertainment, even after my final. The videos that helped make that click for me was your videos. You have truly helped rekindle my love for math, and even made me consider changing my major to math. So thank you so much, never stop makeing videos!!

[@beatricebortoli3264]

oh he is yet came to the next level erlier than many others as usual , applause.