Larry asks rhetorically: "Was Pearl an accident?" "Was Larry in control?" The answer, he says, is "kinda sorta." Perl was designed to be an evolvable language, a reflection of its creator's Anthropological, Theological, Scientific, Artistic, and Linguistic beliefs.
Larry compares Pearl to an adolescent. It grew out of the free software movement but in its coming of age must learn to apapt to the culture of the commercial world. He closes his "sermon, er, uh, speech" with an appeal for the development of a symbiotic ties between the commericial and free software cultures.