By 2005, Kronos was a worldwide leader in its field. And its founder and CEO Mark Ain was recognized in business circles as a bona fide visionary and success story. So, it was only natural that the University of Rochester should tap him as the commencement speaker that year at its MBA graduation ceremony. He had, after all, not only achieved success on his own terms—he had also been a member of the school's first-ever MBA graduation class.

His words that day were directed at an audience that was witnessing its own technological revolution. Very few people built their own computers from scratch because they were much easier to purchase, and at a price point where virtually everyone had one. The internet had already redefined almost all aspects of everyday life. And new visions—YouTube, for example, was launching its first video—were being realized at a pace that only a decade earlier would have been considered unimaginable, and even crazy.

Against that backdrop, Mark took the stage and looked out over a crowd of starry-eyed graduates and their proud family members and friends and entertained and challenged them in words that could be applied to graduates in virtually any year.

The following is the text of that speech: