For a man selling a digital book reader that could replace old-fashioned paper tomes, the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland might have been an awkward place to talk about the future. After all, the hall is just down the sidewalk from one of the world's many Carnegie libraries.

But Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of online retailer Amazon.com, was comfortably surrounded by Carnegie Mellon University computer science graduates there yesterday. The man once named Time magazine's person of the year declared himself a geek from way back -- a kid who played the role of computer in re-enacting "Star Trek" episodes and a computer science graduate from Princeton University.

And since being invited to speak at such ceremonies requires offering advice on a new life mission, the risk-taking businessman offered the graduates this: "I urge you to boldly fail where no one has failed before." Captain Kirk might even approve.

Mr. Bezos was officially in town to pick up an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon, but the visit seemed as much about cementing what has been a fruitful relationship between the university and the Seattle company that last year reported sales of almost $15 billion.

A number of Amazon employees hold hard-earned degrees from the Pittsburgh school and Mr. Bezos said another 20 or so from this year's crop of graduates are headed that way. That includes more than just computer science types. On Saturday, the Amazon CEO spoke to business school graduates.

Despite the strong recruiting pipeline, Mr. Bezos said it was his first-ever weekend in Pittsburgh. In addition to getting the grand tour of cool projects and riding in a robotic vehicle that won a competition in California, he was turned onto the wonders of a Primanti's sandwich, complete with french fries inside.

In opening the afternoon ceremony yesterday for School of Computer Science graduates, Dean Randal E. Bryant noted that those now finishing up in the school came in at a bleak moment. Four years ago, the dot.com bubble had burst and applications to study the field fell dramatically.

Mr. Bezos' company survived that period, but he told the students he saw a lot of people chasing the Internet gold rush back then who didn't enjoy anything about computers or the business. Better, he said, to choose something you love and be willing to shrug off the naysayers and the setbacks.

His personal examples included the boss who told him in 1994 that it didn't make sense to leave a good job even if the idea for Amazon had promise. Then the retailer's early posting of customer product reviews didn't go over too well with some. One angry vendor wrote a letter saying: "Perhaps you don't understand your business ..."

Lest anyone think Amazon is becoming a solid, boring corporate citizen, last fall the retailer moved into a new kind of product development with the introduction of a wireless, hand-held device that can download whole books in seconds. Three years in the making, the reviews for Kindle have been mixed. But the company sold out in hours and it took several months to remedy that.

Now the devices are available again.

"I hope we've done it. Our goal is to be in stock," said Mr. Bezos, in a post-ceremony interview.

It remains to be seen where technology such as Kindle ends up playing a role in people's lives, he said. The electronic book idea wasn't new, but most earlier versions weren't easy enough to use, he said. Amazon wanted to develop something that could make it simple to read long documents digitally, unlike the "snack" style reading that is now common on computers.

The entrepreneur advised graduates to think about things in the long term. Something that might not seem possible in five years might be possible in 20, he said. That attitude has sometimes frustrated Wall Street analysts concerned about the next quarterly results for Amazon.

But it has spurred Mr. Bezos to stick with his childhood dream of making space travel accessible. He told the graduates about Blue Origin, a project meant to chip away at the hurdles to that goal.

In the meantime, the man with the booming laugh seemed enchanted that the faculty at Carnegie Mellon didn't take themselves too seriously. The ceremony began with a robot playing bagpipes that brought cheers from the students. Then the formally robed speakers and their guest walked in, each one carrying a glowing toy light saber.