By Katherine Silva
The following keynote address was delivered by Jeremy Padawer at the Vanderbilt Business Commencement ceremony on May 9, 2025. A celebrated entrepreneur and entertainment executive, Jeremy shared a dynamic message about embracing curiosity, taking bold risks, and building a future with purpose. His remarks captured the spirit of the Class of 2025—resilient, driven, and ready to lead in a rapidly changing world. If you’d like to watch Jeremy’s speech, click here.
Commencement Address given by Jeremy Padawer (MBA’01), Chief Brand Officer at Jazwares
New alumni of Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, my people. I sat there 24 years ago, and I don’t remember my speaker, but I do remember that my fiancé, now my wife, was there with me, and you won’t remember me, but you will remember the people that you love here, 24 years from now.
You have performed at the highest level to sit in that chair. 13,000 students per year graduate from top 25 business schools, less than 1/3 of 1% of the US population over a lifetime experience this very moment. Your academic box is officially checked, your golden ticket is issued into a sea of possibilities. Well done. While I believe that you want to make a lot of money, and I believe you know a thing or two about ambition on your commencement day, I’m here to offer perspective on a fulfilling, fruitful career with six handy tips. I’ll upgrade that to six foundational guidelines on the balance of ambition and fulfillment.
Jeremy Padawer giving the keynote address at Vanderbilt Business
Celebrate the middle.
Today, you celebrate the end of your academic journey and the beginning of your post-academic, professional pursuit. It’s the end. It’s the beginning. We should celebrate big, rare moments; however, ends and beginnings are finite. You’ll find yourself in the middle 99% of the time. Don’t wait for success, achievement to mark a moment in time. Careers last 35 years, 7,000 working days. 56,000 working hours, 3.3 million working minutes. That’s a long time in the middle. Experience it. Savor it. Live it. If everything we do is about achieving an end, we’re missing out on life. You may not achieve the end you want. You can control the middle. Every day is yours. I’m not saying you can own every moment, but I am saying that the more you do experience it, the more acute your senses, your vision, your authenticity, your humanness, your potential for leading others because they sense you’re legitimately there, empathetic, available, capable for yourself and for them. Experience the pain, the effort, the fight. Experience the hard work, the glory, the success, the failure, the sucky days, the fabulous days, the lawsuit days, the baby days, the almost broke days, the fabulously wealthy days, the used Prius days, the new Lambo days, the days you collect the things you love, and the days you lose those things in a fire. Every single day, I really encourage you to live them all. The middles are almost everything. We are not the accumulation of beginnings and ends. We’re almost entirely made up of middles.
Passion over money.
Like most people who built a company and sold it, I thought my end was a pile of cash, freedom, my wife, and a beach. In business, I believe the end for me was wealth. I grew up middle-class. I paid for college and grad school. I always hustled, and I loved transactional things. I had this vision as to what selling a company and achieving wealth might be. In my vision, I would burst into tears of joy, relief, celebrate a big old check dropped into my bank account. As I danced into a new era of life. Free from financial burdens. Freedom. I was an eagle soaring, protected with few vulnerabilities. The moment arrived, and I did not cry. I did not sprout wings. I still had IBS. I barely reacted at all. This day of extreme change felt like just another day. This mismatch of perception versus reality of emotions was, simply put, weird. I didn’t expect it. It took me time to unpack it. I thought money was the big driver. Why would I risk so much if it wasn’t? So, what was it? What primarily drove me, if it wasn’t money? I wasn’t at 3.3 million minutes yet, but at the time of our first sale, gravity had forced roughly half of my sand into the lower glass bulb. Passion.
Passion turned out to be bigger than money. I was relieved to find out that my passion for what I do. Shaping culture through play, creating brands, embracing the love for fandom through the entirety of life. Normalizing collecting for adults, inspiring creativity and imagination in children through toys. That was bigger than the pursuit of money, but I didn’t know it until it actually happened, 20 years into my career, and thank goodness, because if I had failed financially, I would have still fully experienced the grains of sand that measured the passage of time, enjoying most. Why would I leave Pokémon, WWE, Cabbage Patch Kids, Hello Kitty, and Coco Melon? I loved the brands, and you know what? That love helped me experience the most difficult of moments as we operated through challenging lean years. So, after we sold Wicked Cool Toys to Allegheny Capital and Jazwares, I elected to stay on a CBO and partner of Jazwares. I didn’t sell 100% of my equity or retire. I knew holding onto a good portion of my equity in the large organization was the right thing for me. The end wasn’t there. It was just a progression because I felt so passionate about the subject matter. Still part two. Passion begets insight, begets money. Two months after we sold, I wrote a check to help purchase Squishmallows. This was a brand we identified as a potential runner, and we scooped it up. And yes, writing that check was way easier because I felt extremely passionate about the subject matter. Doubled down, baby, easy come, easy go. Entrepreneurial spirit still intact, turns out to be the best check ever written for me. By 2022, we sold, on average, three Squishmallows per second every second of the entire year. In late 2022 we sold a second time, this time as a top five toy company with CEO Judd Zavorsky, a real genius, we were a unicorn. So with billions of dollars in annual retail sales, we sold to Berkshire Hathaway, once again, I didn’t cry. I was part of a bigger partnership. I was proud of, proud to play my role. CBO. I knew my purpose. I was passionate, and the next chapter would be fascinating.
Jeremy Padawer giving the keynote address at Vanderbilt Business
Focus on what fascinates you.
And I’m going to pull a Warren Buffett Squishmallow out here.—this was the 2024, annual shareholder meeting—because I’m going to quote The Sage. So, Warren Buffett, after 60 years of gaining control of Berkshire Hathaway, retired at this year’s annual shareholders meeting. We didn’t know it until the very moment of his announcement. Greg Abel, the new CEO, was also unaware. We sat through a four-and-a-half-hour Q&A, and Warren waited until the last five minutes and declared the 20,000 shareholders in attendance. “The time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company.” That’s the moment almost everyone will remember, but me. For me, there was another moment that had already hit home in the Q and A Buffet stated. “I could spend 10,000 hours learning to tap dance, and you’d throw up trying to watch me. I could spend 10 hours reading Ben Graham and be pretty damn smart. Focus on what fascinates you.”
Be your authentic self.
Authenticity means a lot in business. I don’t believe you can become the next Warren Buffett without nearly complete authenticity. Authenticity drives relationships. Authenticity drives insight. Authenticity makes you want to spend more time in the moment. Authenticity helps you experience the middles fully. And you cannot be your authentic self at work if you are not fascinated. At this point in the speech, I had a whole thing where I asked you to close your eyes and think about these things and ask you, what would happen if I gave you $50 million and put it in the bank, and whether you’d be willing to give up 35 years in your life? Didn’t feel that authentic to say it off the page. So instead of saying it, I’m just going to say something very directly to you at this point. I’ll go back to the speech in a second, and here it is: Are you really willing to give up 35 years of your life for a big check doing something you don’t love? And part two, because some of you see yourself as a vessel for others, you see yourselves as a way to get and connect to the next generation and fulfill their dreams. And for that, I completely understand, with one caveat, giving up 35 years of your own life means that you give up 35 years of all the lives of all the people that you love. You cannot be there for them if you’re not there for yourself. So please, as I preach authenticity, I will go back to the page so that I don’t hit the red light of speakers and go past my time allotment, but that means I’m going to pass this page and go right to number five.
Harness ambition.
Oh, ambition. Ambition. You captivating, addictive, feral, often all-encompassing pursuit. In its unharnessed form, ambition is a wild horse. It is unbroken, reckless, and boundless. It knows no measure of time. It doesn’t understand feelings. It desires all of you, 100% of you. Ambition, unharnessed, is a black hole. It is a bottomless pit. You are more than ambition. You incredibly impressive individuals. You’ve worked so hard, I respect you. I’m here as your equal. I’m older than you. I’ve seen what raw, unharnessed ambition can do to an individual. Live a layered, complete life. We all know how remarkable that you are. Ambition alone isn’t enough to make it 3.3 million minutes. Unfortunately, you destroy others if that’s your driving force only. And the older you get, the more you will regret that.
Choose your partners wisely.
My business partners along the way made me step it up. They motivated me. They encouraged me in the worst times, in the times that I personally probably was not capable. We complemented one another. We had different skill sets every step along the way. I could have failed alone, at work, at home. Choose your partner in life, in my case, Brynn, and choose your partners at work with the same level of scrutiny. No Vegas weekends. No Vegas weekends should fulfill your personal or your professional pursuit unless, of course, there is a couple of successful ones out there. And for that, I apologize.
So, in summary, celebrate the middle. Passion over money. Focus on what fascinates you. Be your authentic self. Harness ambition. Choose your partners wisely. And you won’t just make money or fully explore ambition. You’ll experience fulfillment. And in the end, the true end, nobody regrets a focus on fulfillment. So, congratulations and well done.
