When Michael [Sharples] asked me to deliver this year's commencement address, Internet start-ups were the darling of Wall Street, the stock market was at an all-time high, and Bill Gates' biggest challenge was how to give away his fortune.

So I considered changing my talk from starting an Internet company to discussing the perils of the Love Bug virus, but I thought it best to stick with my original subject.

Congratulations, Class of 2000! Class of 2000 — the first graduating class of the new millennium. How cool is that?! And congratulations, parents of the Class of 2000. What do you say, seniors, let's hear it for the parents!

Now, it's been said that there are no good 30-minute commencement addresses, and no bad 15-minute addresses. Well, I've got some good news for you.

To get things going, I'm going to obey the first rule in public speaking: Know thy audience. But before I ask you seniors a few questions, here's what I know about you.

You're called Generation I (as in Internet). GenX and GenY are history. You guys are GenI. You're the most technology-savvy group to walk across Prin's stage; you have access to information and services unlike any generation before you, and you prefer a decaf frappuccino to Ted Drewes frozen custard.

So let me ask you seniors a few questions.

OK, I get the picture.

As most of you know, the Internet has undergone its most explosive growth during the last four years. Funny . . . I bet most of you graduating seniors have undergone your most explosive growth during the past four years. Could there be a parallel? Let's see.

Freshman year

• Principia: Cruising campus . . . finding your way.
• Internet: Surfing the Web, using those complicated search engines.
• Principia: Defining who you are.
• Internet: Yahoo goes public.

Sophomore year

• Principia: First romantic relationship.
• Internet: Hotmail.com (free e-mail).
• Principia: More homework.
• Internet: Explosive growth of Web sites, not enough time.

Junior year

• Principia: First charge account.
• Internet: e-tailing with Amazon.com.
• Principia: Second romantic relationship.
• Internet: Instant messenger.

Senior year

• Principia: Top of the world . . . hitting on all cylinders.
• Internet: High-speed bandwidth.
• Principia: Selling your stuff to underclassman.
• Internet: Selling your stuff on eBay.

OK, enough carrying on. Let's get serious.

You all know about the Internet, right? As I see it, it's simply another way to communicate. It's not necessarily better in all cases, but it can be very efficient, fast, far-reaching, and cost effective. In the end, however, it is still primarily a medium for delivering information or services. As such, it's not just about technology. In fact, several of our company's top employees were English majors in college — they were effective communicators.

Let's talk quickly about our company, iShip.com. Our mission was to create a Web site where anyone could ship anything, anywhere, any way (through any carrier from UPS, FedEx, or the Post Office, to Yellow Freight). Through our service, we give the user (the person with the package) choice, convenience, cost savings, and information to make their best shipping decision every time, all over the Internet.

It turns out that shipping packages is a huge business. Over 25 million packages are shipped each day in the U.S., and the carriers (FedEx, UPS, etc.) want to replace handwritten shipping labels with computer-generated labels. The Internet provides an ideal medium for creating the shipping and tracking transaction — and that's what we do.

So, what's the number one question you get when you're starting an Internet company? No, not how much money are you going to lose, but, What's your sustaining value proposition? Great question. What will sustain you? Where's the value? What's the proposition or model?

Well ours was that everyone ships packages; it's central to our economy, and our service makes shipping packages better, faster, cheaper.

What's your sustaining value proposition? As I see it, you've got the best sustaining value proposition I know. It's called a Principia education and Christian Science.

You all know the first line of Science and Heath with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy: "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." How appropriate. As a matter of fact, today IS big with blessings, isn't it? And it gets a lot bigger as soon as you walk across this stage.

And the second most-asked question to an Internet start-up? No, not how much money are you going to lose, but, What's your competitive advantage? Guess who has the best competitive advantage around? A Principia graduate. First, you're well educated, well rounded, industrious, honest, and after what I saw last night, you're certainly entertaining — which puts you in the top 10 percent of any college class or job situation. But best of all, you have a powerful spiritual insight and understanding of your relationship to God that will sustain and propel you in any situation. How good is that?

OK, so what did we learn from starting and building iShip.com?

With the Internet constantly being redefined, we learned to accept change and adapt quickly. It's been my experience that change always causes us to grow — grow in knowledge, skills, relationships. Never fear change. In fact, embrace it.

When thinking about change, I often used hymn 148. You all know the first line: "In heavenly Love abiding, No change my heart shall fear; And safe is such confiding, For nothing changes here."

We also learned the necessity of moving at light speed and making decisions without always having complete information. We called it "Internet time." And when making intuitive or instinctive decisions quickly, Christian Science was my guide. I learned a lot about listening to angel messages — "God's thoughts passing to man" (Science and Health, p. 580:28 only).

And I also learned a lot about acting boldly. With the explosion of new Internet companies, success usually went to the first mover. Amazon defined this bold first-mover strategy when it claimed that it was the "Earth's Biggest Bookseller," even though it had only a few customers, but access to over 2 million books. Today, with 17 million customers in 160 countries, Amazon's tag line is the "Earth's Biggest Selection." They're still acting boldly, aren't they?

And how about eBay? Are you familiar with them, the online auction site? Talk about bold — today, after two short years, eBay has 15 million buyers and sellers participating in 5 million live auctions every moment of the day, selling virtually anything everywhere. In fact, for the past few weeks I've been searching eBay for auctions of Principia memorabilia, and guess what? I found several items of Principia memorabilia that I bought on eBay.

Acting boldly, of course, usually requires making some difficult decisions. I love the imperative that "the best answer after yes, is no." It's all that indecision in between that bogs things down. So be decisive! Take responsibility for your decisions. If it's the wrong decision, you'll learn from it and make a better one next time. In fact, we loved hiring people who had worked at failed companies. It showed us they were risk-takers and learned valuable lessons from the experience. So don't fear making a tough decision.

And finally, we learned that without passion our ideas and vision went nowhere. With the power of a simple and ambitious idea, we set off to change a key part of our economy's infrastructure — the movement of goods. Our first investor, United Parcel Service (UPS), gave us $600,000 to prove our idea. It's called "proof of concept." Two-and-a-half years later we had 150 employees, incredible technology, and some of the best partners and customers in the Internet, including Microsoft and eBay. We sold the company three months ago for $300 million — before our first dollar of revenue. That's the value of an incredible idea.

Never, ever underestimate the power of a simple idea to change the world, especially with this new medium called the Internet. It can disseminate information or services so quickly that millions of users or customers can be reached in a matter of months, weeks, or even days. In fact, in the Internet world the bigger the vision, the better.

Mary Kimball Morgan, Principia's founder, spoke about thinking big. She said, "In working to demonstrate bigness of thought, let us remember that it was the Master's gentleness that made him great, and that gentleness consisted in his impersonal thought, his freedom from self — his wonderful humility, always seeing his Father as over all, and All" (Education at The Principia, "As a New School Year Begins," p. 69).

So, in conclusion, congratulations again, Class of 2000 — Generation I.

Stand tall as you launch the new millennium and consider applying these lessons from the Internet start-up world to your summer jobs, your college experience, and your personal lives.

Define your sustaining value proposition. Demonstrate your competitive advantage. Relish change. Swing for the fences. And let passion be the springboard for your ideas!