Billionaires speaking to graduates

Газета

Source.

(Link to original article and gallery on Forbes site. Download PDF files here: Pages 1-3. Page 4 with questions and vocabulary.)

Items for discussion:

1. Summarize the contents of this article in one or two sentences.
2. How is the content organized?
3. What are the roles or purposes of the links and gallery within the article? Are they helpful?
4. Of all the points made in the article, which will you remember the longest?
5. Do all of the commencement speakers agree with each other? Is any of the advice actually wrong?
6. Here in Russia, on similar occasions, would the speakers make similar points? Would they make different points than those made by the speakers in this Forbes article? Which pieces of advice in the article seem most typically American to you? Which seem universally valid to you?
7. The writer includes her e-mail address and Twitter handle in her biography. If you were to write to her, what would you say about this article? (What did she do well, and what could she have done to make her article better?)

Words and expressions:

words of wisdom
host, a host of
heart-wrenching
core, to one’s very core
loss, to overcome a loss
to be defined by
standout (noun)
a whole lot
to impart
to revolve around
to oust, to be ousted
helm
the odds, to overcome the odds
time and time again
albeit
oftentimes
hand in hand, to go hand in hand
to drop out
to pursue
trial and error
to echo (transitive and intransitive)
to head up
to drop (intransitive)
thread
to give back
breathing space
to hazard (a prediction, a guess)
arguably
revelatory
to get crazy
drive (noun)