The Viral Ohio State Commencement Speaker Explains Himself
On Sunday, the Ohio State University class of 2024 was treated to an unorthodox commencement address by inspirational speaker Chris Pan. “I’d like to get started by moving our energy,” Pan said near the beginning of his speech, before jumping into a sing-along of the classic 4 Non Blondes song “What’s Up?” Soon after, he was encouraging the new graduates to consider investing in bitcoin, leading to groans from many students. To get them back on his side, he performed a magic trick with crowd volunteer and OSU president Ted Carter, then brought it home with a second sing-along of “This Little Light of Mine.” Intrigued viewers from home soon found that Pan — a former McKinsey adviser and early Facebook employee — had written about taking ayahuasca as part of his creative process to prepare for the speech. By midweek, the speech had gone viral with the New York Post calling it “cringe-worthy” and an Ohio State–focused blog calling it the “worst Ohio State commencement speech ever.” To get Pan’s perspective on the address and subsequent backlash, I called him on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles.
The video of you getting booed giving the commencement speech to 70,000 people at Ohio State went viral, prompting both a lot of jokes and a lot of interest. What did you think of the reception at Ohio Stadium?
I think some people absolutely loved it. Afterward, some people came up to me and were like, “Thank you.” I also had some DMs from people saying they thought it was childish and that I made them look like a fool. They were concerned about how they were perceived and thought that you shouldn’t sing at a commencement. But I’m like, In what book does it say, ‘Thou not sing at a commencement’? I’m just wondering. We sang “Carmen Ohio” at the end of the entire thing, which is Ohio State’s anthem, right? So I’m like, We sang there. What’s wrong with singing in my speech?
On LinkedIn, you wrote that you used AI — “ayahuasca intelligence” — to help prepare for this speech. I was wondering what that means and how the drug is part of your creative process.
People take that as I was being stupid or reckless or foolish. What they don’t know is I’ve been working with plant medicines for over five years. And if you look at John Lennon, you look at Jimi Hendrix, you look at Steve Jobs — they are all known to have used LSD and other psychedelics to fuel creativity and healing.
I’ve been doing this for five years. It’s not like I just did it just for this one time. It’s just part of my process. It’s no different than if you imagine an athlete that goes to prep for the Olympics; they would do certain routines that maybe the average person wouldn’t do to get themselves ready to really deliver.
I use ayahuasca as a brainstorming session to get a lot of ideas. Once I finished the ceremony and came back, I then took days to really write the speech, rewrite version after version after version. I’ve been working on it from the day that I got the invite. So it’s not like I just winged it or something.
I saw on your Instagram page that you use the 4 Non Blondes song in speeches a lot, which I love. What’s your intention with your musical choices?
That was about movement. There’s a quote in tribal cultures; if somebody was depressed, the shaman would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop sitting in silence? And when did you stop being inspired by stories? Four natural medicines. So that’s why with 4 Non Blondes, it’s like we were waking up the body with stretching.
It was really important to me that we all sang together as a group. I said in my speech, “What we sing about, we bring about.” So that song, “What’s Up?” It’s actually a protest song from the ’90s because it was written in response to what was happening in another war. It was like — I wake up and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, “Guys, what’s going on?” You look at the atrocities happening around the world — why are we not paying more attention to what’s going on? There was a subtle hint with everything that was in this experience that I created for people.
Do you think that there’s any way that college kids might not know “What’s Up?” It came out in 1993.
I think it’s much more about people just feeling like it’s not proper. With anything, there’s a spectrum of people that are more open to new things and the people that prefer tradition. And so I think the traditionalists in the room maybe didn’t love that idea, especially because they felt like they’d be judged by peers at other universities. Like, “Oh, look at you. Your commencement was so goofy.” At least that’s the energy I’ve been getting from the DMs.
What was the university’s input before you got onstage?
I sent them everything. And initially, they thought a traditional speech would go better, but I really advocated that for me to be able to be authentic to who I am, I needed to do things the way I’ve been doing things for my entire career. If you look at my Instagram feed, I’ve got me most recently at the Stanford Mental Healthcare Innovation Summit with 150 doctors, investors, and hospital CEOs in suits, flapping their arms saying, “I’m a butterfly. I used to be a caterpillar, but I’m a butterfly.”
Why did you want to bring up bitcoin in your speech?
To me, it was really important to talk about investing. I am so upset about inflation. I’m just so angry about what we did since the pandemic. I think it’s completely irresponsible putting all of us into debt. The amount of money we just keep printing, I can see the writing on the wall. Our dollar is just going to keep devaluing at a faster and faster pace. And then three months ago, when the ETFs came out, I started paying attention because I saw that BlackRock and Fidelity were behind two of the biggest ETFs. And I was like, Wait a second. If they’re behind this, maybe I should pay attention. And then I started doing my research. I’m a McKinsey guy, so in two weeks I can quickly get up to speed on an industry. In four weeks, I’m usually presenting to the CEO. So within four weeks, I was like, Holy shit, this is a massive opportunity. So I started talking to my brother, my cousins, my dad, my other friends because I wanted to help them.
In a video of the speech, you could hear some students groaning at the bitcoin mentions. What was your response then, and why do you think they did that?
It was hard. Have you been booed by 70,000 people? It’s a lot. It’s horrible. This is how politicians feel or something. I don’t know. It was a lot. But I had to keep going. What was I going to do, start crying? It was probably one of the hardest moments of my life.
Is the magic trick something you use a lot?
That was the first time.
So at some point in the past few months, you had a proper ayahuasca session with the intent of thinking about the speech during it?
I had multiple sessions, not just ayahuasca, but I did multiple — also mushroom journeys, psilocybin journeys. And each time was with the intention to really help people. I think my goal is to really think outside of the box, because let’s face it, we’re pretty in a bad shape right now as a society. We’ve got all sorts of problems. And so I recognized the amazing opportunity that this commencement address was, that I could help the people in the stadium and potentially other people to really awaken and to build a new Earth together.
If you were to grade the entire experience, what grade would you give it?
What is the intention of a grade? Think of it that way. Is the intention of a grade to say how was it received, or did I put in the right effort, or did it hit the mark?
How was it received? I think it was mixed, clearly. I’m going to guess 20 percent loved it because I have those emails and those messages — they thought it was the coolest thing ever. They had never experienced anything like it. Maybe 60 percent thought it was okay, whatever. No big deal. And then maybe 20 percent thought it was terrible. It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, literally. Anytime there’s innovation, I think that is not unexpected, because I really tried to innovate on what a traditional commencement speech could be.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.