Here is the video clip of Randy Pausch's entire
Last
Lecture.
The clip has English subtitles. Scroll
down for the transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, delivered at
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -
September 18, 2007.
It's wonderful to
be here.
What Indira didn't
tell you is that this lecture series used to be
called the Last Lecture. If you had one last
lecture to give before you died, what would it
be? I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue
and they renamed it. [laughter]
So, you know, in
case there's anybody who wandered in and doesn't
know the back story, my dad always taught me
that when there's an elephant in the room,
introduce them. If you look at my CAT scans,
there are approximately 10 tumors in my liver,
and the doctors told me 3-6 months of good
health left. That was a month ago, so you can do
the math. I have some of the best doctors in the
world. Microphone's not working? Then I'll just
have to talk louder. [Adjusts mic] Is that good?
All right. So that is what it is. We can't
change it, and we just have to decide how we're
going to respond to that. We cannot change the
cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I
should be, sorry to disappoint you. [laughter]
And I assure you I am not in denial. It's not
like I'm not aware of what's going on. My
family, my three kids, my wife, we just
decamped. We bought a lovely house in Virginia,
and we're doing that because that's a better
place for the family to be, down the road. And
the other thing is I am in phenomenally good
health right now. I mean it's the greatest thing
of cognitive dissonance you will ever see is the
fact that I am in really good shape. In fact, I
am in better shape than most of you. [Randy gets
on the ground and starts doing pushups]
[Applause] So anybody who wants to cry or pity
me can down and do a few of those, and then you
may pity me. [laughter]
All right, so what
we're not talking about today, we are not
talking about cancer, because I spent a lot of
time talking about that and I'm really not
interested. If you have any herbal supplements
or remedies, please stay away from me.
[laughter] And we're not going to talk about
things that are even more important than
achieving your childhood dreams. We're not going
to talk about my wife, we're not talking about
my kids. Because I'm good, but I'm not good
enough to talk about that without tearing up.
So, we're just going to take that off the table.
That's much more important. And we're not going
to talk about spirituality and religion,
although I will tell you that I have achieved a
deathbed conversion. [dramatic pause] ... I just
bought a Macintosh. [laughter and clapping] Now
I knew I'd get 9% of the audience with that ...
All right, so what is today's talk about then?
It's about my childhood dreams and how I have
achieved them. I've been very fortunate that
way. How I believe I've been able to enable the
dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons
learned. I'm a professor, there should be some
lessons learned and how you can use the stuff
you hear today to achieve your dreams or enable
the dreams of others. And as you get older, you
may find that "enabling the dreams of others"
thing is even more fun.
So what were my
childhood dreams? Well, you know, I had a really
good childhood. I mean, no kidding around. I was
going back through the family archives, and what
was really amazing was, I couldn't find any
pictures of me as a kid where I wasn't smiling.
And that was just a very gratifying thing. There
was our dog, right? Aww, thank you. And there I
actually have a picture of me dreaming. I did a
lot of that. You know, there's a lot of wake
up's! I was born in 1960. When you are 8 or 9
years old and you look at the TV set, men are
landing on the moon, anything's possible. And
that's something we should not lose sight of, is
that the inspiration and the permission to dream
is huge.
So what were my
childhood dreams? You may not agree with this
list, but I was there. [laughter] Being in zero
gravity, playing in the National Football
League, authoring an article in the World Book
Encyclopedia I guess you can tell the nerds
early. [laughter] Being Captain Kirk, anybody
here have that childhood dream? Not at CMU,
nooooo. I wanted to become one of the guys who
won the big stuffed animals in the amusement
park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with
Disney. These are not sorted in any particular
order, although I think they do get harder,
except for maybe the first one.
OK, so being in
zero gravity. Now it's important to have
specific dreams. I did not dream of being an
astronaut, because when I was a little kid, I
wore glasses and they told me oh, astronauts
can't have glasses. And I was like, mmm, I
didn't really want the whole astronaut gig, I
just wanted the floating. So, and as a child
[laughter], prototype 0.0. [slide shown of Randy
as a child lying in floating formation on a
table top] But that didn't work so well, and it
turns out that NASA has something called the
Vomit Comet that they used to train the
astronauts. And this thing does parabolic arcs,
and at the top of each arc you get about 25
seconds where you're ballistic and you get
about, a rough equivalent of weightlessness for
about 25 seconds. And there is a program where
college students can submit proposals and if
they win the competition, they get to fly. And I
thought that was really cool, and we had a team
and we put a team together and they won and they
got to fly. And I was all excited because I was
going to go with them. And then I hit the first
brick wall, because they made it very clear that
under no circumstances were faculty members
allowed to fly with the teams. I know, I was
heartbroken. I was like, I worked so hard! And
so I read the literature very carefully and it
turns out that NASA, it's part of their outreach
and publicity program, and it turns out that the
students were allowed to bring a local media
journalist from their home town. [laughter] And,
[deep voice] Randy Pausch, web journalist.
[regular voice] It's really easy to get a press
pass! [laughter] So I called up the guys at NASA
and I said, I need to know where to fax some
documents. And they said, what documents are you
going to fax us? And I said my resignation as
the faculty advisor and my application as the
journalist. And he said, that's a little
transparent, don't you think? And I said, yeah,
but our project is virtual reality, and we're
going to bring down a whole bunch of VR headsets
and all the students from all the teams are
going to experience it and all those other real
journalists are going to get to film it. Jim
Foley's [who is nodding in the audience] going
oh you bastard, yes. And the guy said, here's
the fax number. So, indeed, we kept our end of
the bargain, and that's one of the themes that
you'll hear later on in the talk, is have
something to bring to the table, right, because
that will make you more welcome. And if you're
curious about what zero gravity looks like,
hopefully the sound will be working here. [slide
shows videotape from Randy's zero gravity
experience] There I am. [laughter] You do pay
the piper at the bottom. [laugher, as the people
in the video crash to the floor of the plane on
the video] So, childhood dream number one,
check.
OK, let's talk
about football. My dream was to play in the
National Football League. And most of you don't
know that I actually no. [laughter] No, I did
not make it to the National Football League, but
I probably got more from that dream and not
accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones
that I did accomplish. I had a coach, I signed
up when I was nine years old. I was the smallest
kid in the league, by far. And I had a coach,
Jim Graham, who was six-foot-four, he had played
linebacker at Penn State. He was just this hulk
of a guy and he was old school. And I mean
really old school. Like he thought the forward
pass was a trick play. [laughter] And he showed
up for practice the first day, and you know,
there's this big hulking guy, we were all scared
to death of him. And he hadn't brought any
footballs. How are we going to have practice
without any footballs? And one of the other kids
said, excuse me coach, but there's no football.
And Coach Graham said, right, how many men are
on a football field at a time? Eleven on a team,
twenty-two. Coach Graham said, all right, and
how many people are touching the football at any
given time? One of them. And he said, right, so
we're going to work on what those other
twenty-one guys are doing. And that's a really
good story because it's all about fundamentals.
Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You've
got to get the fundamentals down because
otherwise the fancy stuff isn't going to work.
And the other Jim Graham story I have is there
was one practice where he just rode me all
practice. You're doing this wrong, you're doing
this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me,
you're doing push-ups after practice. And when
it was all over, one of the other assistant
coaches came over and said, yeah, Coach Graham
rode you pretty hard, didn't he? I said, yeah.
He said, that's a good thing. He said, when
you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything
to you anymore, that means they gave up. And
that's a lesson that stuck with me my whole
life. Is that when you see yourself doing
something badly and nobody's bothering to tell
you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your
critics are your ones telling you they still
love you and care.
After Coach
Graham, I had another coach, Coach Setliff, and
he taught me a lot about the power of
enthusiasm. He did this one thing where only for
one play at a time he would put people in at
like the most horrifically wrong position for
them. Like all the short guys would become
receivers, right? It was just laughable. But we
only went in for one play, right? And boy, the
other team just never knew what hit 'em them.
Because when you're only doing it for one play
and you're just not where you're supposed to be,
and freedom's just another word for nothing left
to lose, boy are you going to clean somebody's
clock for that one play. And that kind of
enthusiasm was great. And to this day, I am most
comfortable on a football field. I mean, it's
just one of those things where, you know, [pulls
out a football] if I'm working a hard problem,
people will see me wandering the halls with one
of these things, and that's just because, you
know, when you do something young enough and you
train for it, it just becomes a part of you. And
I'm very glad that football was a part of my
life. And if I didn't get the dream of playing
in the NFL, that's OK. I've probably got stuff
more valuable. Because looking at what's going
on in the NFL, I'm not sure those guys are doing
so great right now.
OK, and so one of
the expressions I learned at Electronic Arts,
which I love, which pertains to this, is
experience is what you get when you didn't get
what you wanted. And I think that's absolutely
lovely. And the other thing about football is we
send our kids out to play football or soccer or
swimming or whatever it is, and it's the first
example of what I'm going to call a head fake,
or indirect learning. We actually don't want our
kids to learn football. I mean, yeah, it's
really nice that I have a wonderful three-point
stance and that I know how to do a chop block
and all this kind of stuff. But we send our kids
out to learn much more important things.
Teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance, et
cetera, et cetera. And these kinds of head fake
learning are absolutely important. And you
should keep your eye out for them because
they're everywhere.
All right. A
simple one, being an author in the World Book
Encyclopedia. When I was a kid, we had the World
Book Encyclopedia on the shelf. For the
freshman, this is paper. We used to have these
things called books. [laughter] And after I had
become somewhat of an authority on virtual
reality, but not like a really important one, so
I was at the level of people the World Book
would badger. They called me up and I wrote an
article, and this is Caitlin Kelleher [shows
slide of Caitlin wearing virtual reality headset
manipulating a 3D world], and there's an article
if you go to your local library where they still
have copies of the World Book. Look under V for
Virtual Reality, and there it is. And all I have
to say is that having been selected to be an
author in the World Book Encyclopedia, I now
believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine
source for your information because I know what
the quality control is for real encyclopedias.
They let me in.
All right, next
one. [laughter] [shows slide "Being like
Meeting Captain Kirk"] At a certain point you
just realize there are some things you are not
going to do, so maybe you just want to stand
close to the people. And I mean, my god, what a
role model for young people. [laughter] [shows
slide of Captain Kirk sitting at his control
station on the Starship Enterprise] I mean, this
is everything you want to be, and what I learned
that carried me forward in leadership later is
that, you know, he wasn't the smartest guy on
the ship. I mean, Spock was pretty smart and
McCoy was the doctor and Scotty was the
engineer. And you sort of go, and what skill set
did he have to get on this damn thing and run
it? And, you know, clearly there is this skill
set called leadership, and, you know, whether or
not you like the series, there's no doubt that
there was a lot to be learned about how to lead
people by watching this guy in action. And he
just had the coolest damn toys! [laughter]
[shows slide of Star Trek gadgets] I mean, my
god, I just thought it was fascinating as a kid
that he had this thing [Takes out Star Trek
Communicator] and he could talk to the ship with
it. I just thought that was just spectacular,
and of course now I own one and it's smaller.
[takes out cell phone] So that's kind of cool.
So I got to
achieve this dream. James T. Kirk, and his alter
ego William Shatner, wrote a book, which I think
was actually a pretty cool book. It was with
Chip Walter who is a Pittsburgh-based author who
is quite good, and they wrote a book on
basically the science of Star Trek, you know,
what has come true. And they went around to the
top places around the country and looked at
various things and they came here to study our
virtual reality setup. And so we build a virtual
reality for him, it looks something like that.
[shows slide of virtual Star Trek bridge from
the 1960's TV show] We put it in, put it to red
alert. He was a very good sport. [sarcastically]
It's not like he saw that one coming. [laughter]
And it's really cool to meet your boyhood idol,
but it's even cooler when he comes to you to see
what cool stuff you're doing in your lab. And
that was just a great moment.
All right, winning
stuffed animals. This may seem mundane to you,
but when you're a little kid and you see the big
buff guys walking around the amusement park and
they've got all these big stuffed animals,
right? And this is my lovely wife, and I have a
lot of pictures of stuffed animals I've won.
[laughter] [shows slides of several large
stuffed animals] That's my dad posing with one
that I won. I've won a lot of these animals.
There's my dad, he did win that one, to his
credit. And this was just a big part of my life
and my family's life. But you know, I can hear
the cynics. In this age of digitally manipulated
images, maybe those bears really aren't in the
pictures with me, or maybe I paid somebody five
bucks to take a picture in the theme park next
to the bear. And I said, how, in this age of
cynicism can I convince people? And I said, I
know, I can show them the bears! Bring them out.
[several large stuffed animals are brought onto
the stage] [laughter and clapping] Just put them
back against the wall.
Jai Pausch
(Randy's wife): It's hard to hear you. [adjusts
Randy's microphone]
Randy Pausch:
Thanks honey. [laughter] So here are some bears.
We didn't have quite enough room in the moving
truck, and anybody who would like a little piece
of me at the end of this, feel free to come up
and take a bear, first come, first served.
All right, my next
one. Being an Imagineer. This was the hard one.
Believe me, getting to zero gravity is easier
than becoming an Imagineer. When I was a kid, I
was eight years old and our family took a trip
cross-country to see Disneyland. And if you've
ever seen the movie National Lampoon's Vacation,
it was a lot like that! [laughter] It was a
quest. [shows slides of family at Disneyland]
And these are real vintage photographs, and
there I am in front of the castle. And there I
am, and for those of you who are into
foreshadowing, this is the Alice ride.
[laughter] And I just thought this was just the
coolest environment I had ever been in, and
instead of saying, gee, I want to experience
this, I said, I want to make stuff like this.
And so I bided my time and then I graduated with
my Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, thinking that
meant me infinitely qualified to do anything.
And I dashed off my letters of applications to
Walt Disney Imagineering, and they sent me some
of the damned nicest go-to-hell letters I have
ever gotten. [laughter] I mean it was just, we
have carefully reviewed your application and
presently we do not have any positions available
which require your particular qualifications.
Now think about the fact that you're getting
this from a place that's famous for guys who
sweep the street. [laughter] So that was a bit
of a setback. But remember, the brick walls are
there for a reason. The brick walls are not
there to keep us out. The brick walls are there
to give us a chance to show how badly we want
something. Because the brick walls are there to
stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
They're there to stop the other people.
All right, fast
forward to 1991. We did a system back at the
University of Virginia called Virtual Reality on
Five Dollars a Day. Just one of those
unbelievable spectacular things. I was so scared
back in those days as a junior academic. Jim
Foley's here, and I just love to tell this
story. He knew my undergraduate advisor, Andy
Van Dam, and I'm at my first conference and I'm
just scared to death. And this icon in the user
interface community walks up to me and just out
of nowhere gives me this huge bear hug and he
says, that was from Andy. And that was when I
thought, ok, maybe I can make it. Maybe I do
belong. And a similar story is that this was
just this unbelievable hit because at the time,
everybody needed a half a million [dollars] to
do virtual reality. And everybody felt
frustrated. And we literally hacked together a
system for about five thousand dollars in parts
and made a working VR system. And people were
just like, oh my god, you know, the Hewlett
Packard garage thing. This is so awesome. And so
I'm giving this talk and the room has just gone
wild, and during the Q and A, a guy named Tom
Furness, who was one of the big names in virtual
reality at the time, he goes up to the
microphone and he introduces himself. I didn't
know what he looked like but I sure as hell knew
the name. And he asked a question. And I was
like, I'm sorry did you say you were Tom
Furness? And he said yes. I said, then I would
love to answer your question, but first, will
you have lunch with me tomorrow? [laughter] And
there's a lot in that little moment, there's a
lot of humility but also asking a person where
he can't possibly say no. [laughter]
And so
Imagineering a couple of years later was working
on a virtual reality project. This was top
secret. They were denying the existence of a
virtual reality attraction after the time that
the publicity department was running the TV
commercials. So Imagineering really had nailed
this one tight. And it was the Aladdin
attraction where you would fly a magic carpet,
and the head mounted display, sometimes known as
gator vision. And so I had an in. As soon as the
project had just, you know they start running
the TV commercials, and I had been asked to
brief the Secretary of Defense on the state of
virtual reality. OK, Fred Brooks and I had been
asked to brief the Secretary of Defense, and
that gave me an excuse. So I called them. I
called Imagineering and I said, look, I'm
briefing the Secretary of Defense. I'd like some
materials on what you have because it's one of
the best VR systems in the world. And they kind
of pushed back. And I said, look, is all this
patriotism stuff in the parks a farce? And
they're like, hmm, ok. [laughter] But they said
this is so new the PR department doesn't have
any footage for you, so I'm going to have to
connect you straight through to the team who did
the work. Jackpot!
So I find myself
on the phone with a guy named Jon Snoddy who is
one of the most impressive guys I have ever met,
and he was the guy running this team, and it's
not surprising they had done impressive things.
And so he sent me some stuff, we talked briefly
and he sent me some stuff, and I said, hey, I'm
going to be out in the area for a conference
shortly, would you like to get together and have
lunch? Translation: I'm going to lie to you and
say that I have an excuse to be in the area so I
don't look too anxious, but I would go to
Neptune to have lunch with you! [laughter] And
so Jon said sure, and I spent something like 80
hours talking with all the VR experts in the
world, saying if you had access to this one
unbelievable project, what would you ask? And
then I compiled all of that and I had to
memorize it, which anybody that knows me knows
that I have no memory at all, because I couldn't
go in looking like a dweeb with, you know, [in
dweeby voice] Hi, Question 72. So, I went in,
and this was like a two hour lunch, and Jon must
have thought he was talking to some phenomenal
person, because all I was doing was channeling
Fred Brooks and Ivan Sutherland and Andy Van Dam
and people like that. And Henry Fuchs. So it's
pretty easy to be smart when you're parroting
smart people. And at the end of the lunch with
Jon, I sort of, as we say in the business, made
"the ask." And I said, you know, I have a
sabbatical coming up. And he said, what's that?
[laughter] The beginnings of the culture clash.
And so I talked with him about the possibility
of coming there and working with him. And he
said, well that's really good except, you know,
you're in the business of telling people stuff
and we're in the business of keeping secrets.
And then what made Jon Snoddy Jon Snoddy was he
said, but we'll work it out, which I really
loved.
The other thing
that I learned from Jon Snoddy I could do
easily an hour long talk just on what have I
learned from Jon Snoddy. One of the things he
told me was that wait long enough and people
will surprise and impress you. He said, when
you're pissed off at somebody and you're angry
at them, you just haven't given them enough
time. Just give them a little more time and
they'll almost always impress you. And that
really stuck with me. I think he's absolutely
right on that one.
So to make a long
story short, we negotiated a legal contract. It
was going to be the first some people referred
to it as the first and last paper ever published
by Imagineering. That the deal was I go, I
provide my own funding, I go for six months, I
work with a project, we publish a paper. And
then we meet our villain. [shows slide of a
picture of a former dean of Randy's] I can't be
all sweetness and light, because I have no
credibility. Somebody's head's going to go on a
stick. Turns out that the person who gets his
head on a stick is a dean back at the University
of Virginia. His name is not important. Let's
call him Dean Wormer. [laughter] And Dean Wormer
has a meeting with me where I say I want to do
this sabbatical thing and I've actually got the
Imagineering guys to let an academic in, which
is insane. I mean if Jon hadn't gone nuts, this
would never have been a possibility. This is a
very secretive organization. And Dean Wormer
looks at the paperwork and he says, well it says
they're going to own your intellectual property.
And I said, yeah, we got the agreement to
publish the paper. There is no other IP. I don't
do patentable stuff. And he says, yeah, but you
might. And so deal's off. Just go and get them
to change that little clause there and then come
back to me. I'm like, excuse me? And then I said
to him, I want you to understand how important
this is. If we can't work this out, I'm going to
take an unpaid leave of absence and I'm just
going to go there and I'm going to do this
thing. And he said, hey, I might not even let
you do that. I mean you've got the IP in your
head already and maybe they're going to suck it
out of you, so that's not going to fly either.
[laughter] It's very important to know when
you're in a pissing match. And it's very
important to get out of it as quickly as
possible. So I said to him, well, let's back off
on this. Do we think this is a good idea at all?
He said, I have no idea if this is a good idea.
I was like, [sarcastically] OK, well we've got
common ground there. Then I said, well is this
really your call? Isn't this the call of the
Dean of Sponsored Research if it's an IP issue?
And he said, yeah, that's true. I said, but so
if he's happy you're happy? [So he says] Yeah,
then I'd be fine. Whoosh! Like Wile E. Coyote,
I'm gone in a big ball of dust. And I find
myself in Gene Block's office, who is the most
fantastic man in the world. And I start talking
to Gene Block and I say let's start at the high
level, since I don't want to have to back out
again. So let's start at the high level. Do you
think this is a good idea? He said, well if
you're asking me if it's a good idea, I don't
have very much information. All I know is that
one of my star faculty members is in my office
and he's really excited, so tell me more. Here's
a lesson for everybody in administration. They
both said the same thing. But think about how
they said it, right? [In a loud, barking voice]
I don't know! [In a pleasant voice] Well, I
don't have much information, but one of my star
faculty members is here and he's all excited so
I want to learn more. They're both ways of
saying I don't know, but boy there's a good way
and a bad way. So anyway, we got it all worked
out. I went to Imagineering. Sweetness and
light. And all's well that ends well.
Some brick walls are made of flesh. So I worked
on the Aladdin Project. It was absolutely
spectacular, I mean just unbelievable. Here's my
nephew Christopher. [Shows slide of Christopher
on Aladdin apparatus] This was the apparatus.
You would sit on this sort of motorcycle-type
thing. And you would steer your magic carpet and
you would put on the head-mounted display. The
head-mounted display is very interesting because
it had two parts, and it was a very clever
design. To get through put up, the only part
that touched the guest's head was this little
cap and everything else clicked onto it all
the expensive hardware. So you could replicate
the caps because they were basically free to
manufacture. [Showing slide of Randy cleaning a
cap] And this is what I really did is I was a
cap cleaner during the sabbatical. [laughter] I
loved Imagineering. It was just a spectacular
place. Just spectacular. Everything that I had
dreamed. I loved the model shop. People crawling
around on things the size of this room that are
just big physical models. It was just an
incredible place to walk around and be inspired.
I'm always reminded of when I went there and
people said, do you think your expectations are
too high? And I said, you ever see the movie
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka
and The Chocolate Factory? Where Gene Wilder
says to the little boy Charlie, he's about to
give him the chocolate factory. He says "Well
Charlie, did anybody ever tell you the story of
the little boy who suddenly got everything he
ever wanted?" Charlie's eyes get like saucers
and he says, "No, what happened to him?" Gene
Wilder says, "He lived happily ever after."
[laughter]
OK, so working on
the Aladdin VR, I described it as a once in
every five careers opportunity, and I stand by
that assessment. And it forever changed me. It
wasn't just that it was good work and I got to
be a part of it. But it got me into the place of
working with real people and real HCI user
interface issues. Most HCI people live in this
fantasy world of white collar laborers with
Ph.D.s and masters degrees. And you know, until
you got ice cream spilled on you, you're not
doing field work. And more than anything else,
from Jon Snoddy I learned how to put artists and
engineers together, and that's been the real
legacy.
We published a
paper. Just a nice academic cultural scandal.
When we wrote the paper, the guys at
Imagineering said, well let's do a nice big
picture. Like you would in a magazine. [Showing
slide of first page of the paper, with a photo
at the top that spans two columns]. And the
SIGGRAPH committee, which accepted the paper, it
was like this big scandal. Are they allowed to
do that? [laughter] There was no rule! So we
published the paper and amazingly since then
there's a tradition of SIGGRAPH papers having
color figures on the first page. So I've changed
the world in a small way. [laughter] And then at
the end of my six months, they came to me and
they said, you want to do it for real? You can
stay. And I said no. One of the only times in my
life I have surprised my father. He was like,
you're what? He said, since you were, you know
[gesturing to height of a child's head] this is
all you wanted, and now that you got it, and
you're huh? There was a bottle of Maalox in my
desk drawer. Be careful what you wish for. It
was a particularly stressful place. Imagineering
in general is actually not so Maalox-laden, but
the lab I was in oh, Jon left in the middle.
And it was a lot like the Soviet Union. It was a
little dicey for awhile. But it worked out OK.
And if they had said, stay here or never walk in
the building again, I would have done it. I
would have walked away from tenure, I would have
just done it. But they made it easy on me. They
said you can have your cake and eat it too. And
I basically became a day-a-week consultant for
Imagineering, and I did that for about ten
years. And that's one of the reasons you should
all become professors. Because you can have your
cake and eat it too.
I went and
consulted on things like DisneyQuest. So there
was the Virtual Jungle Cruise. And the best
interactive experience I think ever done, and
Jesse Schell gets the credit for this, Pirates
of the Caribbean. Wonderful at DisneyQuest.
And so those are
my childhood dreams. And that's pretty good. I
felt good about that. So then the question
becomes, how can I enable the childhood dreams
of others. And again, boy am I glad I became a
professor. What better place to enable childhood
dreams? Eh, maybe working at EA, I don't know.
That'd probably be a good close second. And this
started in a very concrete realization that I
could do this, because a young man named Tommy
Burnett, when I was at the University of
Virginia, came to me, was interested in joining
my research group. And we talked about it, and
he said, oh, and I have a childhood dream. It
gets pretty easy to recognize them when they
tell you. And I said, yes, Tommy, what is your
childhood dream? He said, I want to work on the
next Star Wars film. Now you got to remember the
timing on this. Where is Tommy, Tommy is here
today. What year would this have been? Your
sophomore year.
Tommy: It was
around '93.
Randy Pausch: Are
you breaking anything back there young man? OK,
all right, so in 1993. And I said to Tommy, you
know they're probably not going to make those
next movies. [laughter] And he said, no, THEY
ARE. And Tommy worked with me for a number of
years as an undergraduate and then as a staff
member, and then I moved to Carnegie Mellon,
every single member of my team came from
Virginia to Carnegie Mellon except for Tommy
because he got a better offer. And he did indeed
work on all three of those films. And then I
said, well that's nice, but you know, one at a
time is kind of inefficient. And people who know
me know that I'm an efficiency freak. So I said,
can I do this in mass? Can I get people turned
in such a way that they can be turned onto their
childhood dreams? And I created a course, I came
to Carnegie Mellon and I created a course called
Building Virtual Worlds. It's a very simple
course. How many people here have ever been to
any of the shows? [Some people from audience
raise hands] OK, so some of you have an idea.
For those of you who don't, the course is very
simple. There are 50 students drawn from all the
different departments of the university. There
are randomly chosen teams, four people per team,
and they change every project. A project only
lasts two weeks, so you do something, you make
something, you show something, then I shuffle
the teams, you get three new playmates and you
do it again. And it's every two weeks, and so
you get five projects during the semester. The
first year we taught this course, it is
impossible to describe how much of a tiger by
the tail we had. I was just running the course
because I wanted to see if we could do it. We
had just learned how to do texture mapping on 3D
graphics, and we could make stuff that looked
half decent. But you know, we were running on
really weak computers, by current standards. But
I said I'll give it a try. And at my new
university [Carnegie Mellon] I made a couple of
phone calls, and I said I want to cross-list
this course to get all these other people. And
within 24 hours it was cross-listed in five
departments. I love this university. I mean it's
the most amazing place. And the kids said, well
what content do we make? I said, hell, I don't
know. You make whatever you want. Two rules: no
shooting violence and no pornography. Not
because I'm opposed to those in particular, but
you know, that's been done with VR, right?
[laughter] And you'd be amazed how many
19-year-old boys are completely out of ideas
when you take those off the table. [laughter and
clapping]
Anyway, so I
taught the course. The first assignment, I gave
it to them, they came back in two weeks and they
just blew me away. I mean the work was so
beyond, literally, my imagination, because I had
copied the process from Imagineering's VR lab,
but I had no idea what they could or couldn't do
with it as undergraduates, and their tools were
weaker, and they came back on the first
assignment, and they did something that was so
spectacular that I literally didn't, ten years
as a professor and I had no idea what to do
next. So I called up my mentor, and I called up
Andy Van Dam. And I said, Andy, I just gave a
two-week assignment, and they came back and did
stuff that if I had given them a whole semester
I would have given them all As. Sensei, what do
I do? [laughter] And Andy thought for a minute
and he said, you go back into class tomorrow and
you look them in the eye and you say, "Guys,
that was pretty good, but I know you can do
better." [laughter] And that was exactly the
right advice. Because what he said was, you
obviously don't know where the bar should be,
and you're only going to do them a disservice by
putting it anywhere. And boy was that good
advice because they just kept going. And during
that semester it became this underground thing.
I'd walk into a class with 50 students in it and
there were 95 people in the room. Because it was
the day we were showing work. And people's
roommates and friends and parents I'd never
had parents come to class before! It was
flattering and somewhat scary. And so it
snowballed and we had this bizarre thing of,
well we've got to share this. If there's
anything I've been raised to do, it's to share,
and I said, we've got to show this at the end of
the semester. We've got to have a big show. And
we booked this room, McConomy. I have a lot of
good memories in this room. And we booked it not
because we thought we could fill it, but because
it had the only AV setup that would work,
because this was a zoo. Computers and
everything. And then we filled it. And we more
than filled it. We had people standing in the
aisle. I will never forget the dean at the time,
Jim Morris was sitting on the stage right about
there. We had to kind of scoot him out of the
way. And the energy in the room was like nothing
I had ever experienced before. And President
Cohen, Jerry Cohen was there, and he sensed the
same thing. He later described it as like an
Ohio State football pep rally, except for
academics. And he came over and he asked exactly
the right question. He said, before you start,
he said, where are these people from? He said,
the audience, what departments are they from?
And we polled them and it was all the
departments. And I felt very good because I had
just come to campus, he had just come to campus,
and my new boss had seen in a very corporal way
that this is the university that puts everybody
together. And that made me feel just tremendous.
So we did this
campus-wide exhibition. People performed down
here. They're in costume, and we project just
like this and you can see what's going on. You
can see what they're seeing in the head mount.
There's a lot of big props, so there's a guy
white water rafting. [shows slides of a BVW
show] This is Ben in E.T. And yes, I did tell
them if they didn't do the shot of the kids
biking across the moon I would fail him. That is
a true story. And I thought I'd show you just
one world, and if we can get the lights down if
that's at all possible. No, ok, that means no.
All right. All right we'll just do our best
then. [Shows "Hello.world" world done in the BVW
class, audience applauds at the end.] It was an
unusual course. With some of the most brilliant,
creative students from all across the campus. It
just was a joy to be involved. And they took the
whole stage performance aspect of this way too
seriously [shows pictures of very strange
costumes students wore]. And it became this
campus phenomenon every year. People would line
up for it. It was very flattering. And it gave
kids a sense of excitement of putting on a show
for people who were excited about it. And I
think that that's one of the best things you can
give somebody the chance to show them what it
feels like to make other people get excited and
happy. I mean that's a tremendous gift. We
always try to involve the audience. Whether it
was people with glow sticks or batting a beach
ball around, or driving [shows photo of audience
members leaning in their seats to steer a car].
This is really cool. This technology actually
got used at the Spiderman 3 premiere in L.A., so
the audience was controlling something on the
screen, so that's kind of nice. And I don't have
a class picture from every year, but I dredged
all the ones that I do have, and all I can say
is that what a privilege and an honor it was to
teach that course for something like ten years.
And all good
things come to an end. And I stopped teaching
that course about a year ago. People always ask
me what was my favorite moment. I don't know if
you could have a favorite moment. But boy there
is one I'll never forget. This was a world with,
I believe a roller skating ninja. And one of the
rules was that we perform these things live and
they all had to really work. And the moment it
stopped working, we went to your backup
videotape. And this was very embarrassing.
[Shows image of Roller Ninja world presentation]
So we have this ninja on stage and he's doing
this roller skating thing and the world, it did
not crash gently. Whoosh. And I come out, and I
believe it was Steve Audia, wasn't it? Where is
he? OK, where is Steve? Ah, my man. Steve Audia.
And talk about quick on your feet. I say, Steve,
I'm sorry but your world has crashed and we're
going to go to videotape. And he pulls out his
ninja sword and says, I am dishonored! Whaaa!
And just drops! [applause and laughter] And so I
think it's very telling that my very favorite
moment in ten years of this high technology
course was a brilliant ad lib. And then when the
videotape is done and the lights come up, he's
lying there lifeless and his teammates drag him
off! [laughter] It really was a fantastic
moment.
And the course was
all about bonding. People used to say, you know,
what's going to make for a good world? I said, I
can't tell you beforehand, but right before they
present it I can tell you if the world's good
just by the body language. If they're standing
close to each other, the world is good.
And BVW was a
pioneering course [Randy puts on vest with
arrows poking out of the back], and I won't bore
you with all the details, but it wasn't easy to
do, and I was given this when I stepped down
from the ETC and I think it's emblematic. If
you're going to do anything that pioneering you
will get those arrows in the back, and you just
have to put up with it. I mean everything that
could go wrong did go wrong. But at the end of
the day, a whole lot of people had a whole lot
of fun. When you've had something for ten years
that you hold so precious, it's the toughest
thing in the world to hand it over. And the only
advice I can give you is, find somebody better
than you to hand it to. And that's what I did.
There was this kid at the VR studios way back
when, and you didn't have to spend very long in
Jesse Schell's orbit to go, the force is strong
in this one. And one of my greatest my two
greatest accomplishments I think for Carnegie
Mellon was that I got Jessica Hodgins and Jesse
Schell to come here and join our faculty. And I
was thrilled when I could hand this over to
Jesse, and to no one's surprise, he has really
taken it up to the next notch. And the course is
in more than good hands it's in better hands.
But it was just one course. And then we really
took it up a notch. And we created what I would
call the dream fulfillment factory. Don
Marinelli and I got together and with the
university's blessing and encouragement, we made
this thing out of whole cloth that was
absolutely insane. Should never have been tried.
All the sane universities didn't go near this
kind of stuff. Creating a tremendous
opportunistic void. So the Entertainment
Technology Center was all about artists and
technologists working in small teams to make
things. It was a two year professional master's
degree. And Don and I were two kindred spirits.
We're very different anybody who knows us
knows that we are very different people. And we
liked to do things in a new way, and the truth
of the matter is that we are both a little
uncomfortable in academia. I used to say that I
am uncomfortable as an academic because I come
from a long line of people who actually worked
for a living, so. [Nervous laughter] I detect
nervous laughter! And I want to stress, Carnegie
Mellon is the only place in the world that the
ETC could have happened. By far the only place.
[Shows slide of Don Marinelli in tye-dyed shirt,
shades and an electric guitar, sitting on a desk
next to Randy, wearing nerd glasses, button-up
shirt, staring at a laptop. Above their heads
were the labels "Right brain/Left brain"]
[laughter] OK, this picture was Don's idea, OK?
And we like to refer to this picture as Don
Marinelli on guitar and Randy Pausch on
keyboards. [laughter] But we really did play up
the left brain, right brain and it worked out
really well that way. [Shows slide of Don
looking intense] Don is an intense guy. And Don
and I shared an office, and at first it was a
small office. We shared an office for six years.
You know, those of you who know Don know he's an
intense guy. And you know, given my current
condition, somebody was asking me this is a
terrible joke, but I'm going to use it anyway.
Because I know Don will forgive me. Somebody
said, given your current condition, have you
thought about whether you're going to go to
heaven or hell? And I said, I don't know, but if
I'm going to hell, I'm due six years for time
served! [laughter] I kid. Sharing an office with
Don was really like sharing an office with a
tornado. There was just so much energy and you
never knew which trailer was next, right? But
you know something exciting was going to happen.
And there was so much energy, and I do believe
in giving credit where credit is due. So in my
typically visual way, if Don and I were to split
the success for the ETC, he clearly gets the
lion's share of it. [Shows image of a pie chart
divided 70/30 (Don/Randy) ] He did the lion's
share of the work, ok, he had the lion's share
of the ideas. It was a great teamwork. I think
it was a great yin and a yang, but it was more
like YIN and yang. And he deserves that credit
and I give it to him because the ETC is a
wonderful place. And he's now running it and
he's taking it global. We'll talk about that in
a second.
Describing the ETC
is really hard, and I finally found a metaphor.
Telling people about the ETC is like describing
Cirque du Soleil if they've never seen it.
Sooner or later you're going to make the
mistake. You're going to say, well it's like a
circus. And then you're dragged into this
conversation about oh, how many tigers, how many
lions, how many trapeze acts? And that misses
the whole point. So when we say we're a master's
degree, we're really not like any master's
degree you've ever seen. Here's the curriculum
[Shows slide of ETC curriculum, listing "Project
Course" as the only course each semester;
audience laughs] The curriculum ended up looking
like this. [shows slightly more detailed slide].
All I want to do is visually communicate to you
that you do five projects in Building Virtual
Worlds, then you do three more. All of your time
is spent in small teams making stuff. None of
that book learning thing. Don and I had no
patience for the book learning thing. It's a
master's degree. They already spent four years
doing book learning. By now they should have
read all the books.
The keys to
success were that Carnegie Mellon gave us the
reins. Completely gave us the reins. We had no
deans to report to. We reported directly to the
provost, which is great because the provost is
way too busy to watch you carefully. [laughter]
We were given explicit license to break the
mold. It was all project based. It was intense,
it was fun, and we took field trips! Every
spring semester in January, we took all 50
students in the first year class and we'd take
them out to Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic,
and of course when you've got guys like Tommy
there acting as host, right, it's pretty easy to
get entrιe to these places. So we did things
very, very differently. The kind of projects
students would do, we did a lot of what we'd
call edutainment.
We developed a
bunch of things with the Fire Department of New
York, a network simulator for training
firefighters, using video game-ish type
technology to teach people useful things. That's
not bad. Companies did this strange thing. They
put in writing, we promise to hire your
students. I've got the EA and Activision ones
here. I think there are now, how many, five?
Drew knows I bet. [Drew Davison, head of
ETC-Pittsburgh, gestures with five fingers]. So
there are five written agreements. I don't know
of any other school that has this kind of
written agreement with any company. And so
that's a real statement. And these are multiple
year things, so they're agreeing to hire people
for summer internships that we have not admitted
yet. That's a pretty strong statement about the
quality of the program. And Don, as I said, he's
now, he's crazy. In a wonderful complimentary
way. He's doing these things where I'm like, oh
my god. He's not here tonight because he's in
Singapore because there's going to be an ETC
campus in Singapore. There's already on in
Australia and there's going to be on in Korea.
So this is becoming a global phenomenon. So I
think this really speaks volumes about all the
other universities. It's really true that
Carnegie Mellon is the only university that can
do this. We just have to do it all over the
world now.
One other big
success about the ETC is teaching people about
feedback [puts up bar chart where students are
(anonymous) listed on a scale labeled "how easy
to work with" ] -- oh I hear the nervous
laughter from the students. I had forgotten the
delayed shock therapy effect of these bar
charts. When you're taking Building Virtual
Worlds, every two weeks we get peer feedback. We
put that all into a big spreadsheet and at the
end of the semester, you had three teammates per
project, five projects, that's 15 data points,
that's statistically valid. And you get a bar
chart telling you on a ranking of how easy you
are to work with, where you stacked up against
your peers. Boy that's hard feedback to ignore.
Some still managed. [laughter] But for the most
part, people looked at that and went, wow, I've
got to take it up a notch. I better start
thinking about what I'm saying to people in
these meetings. And that is the best gift an
educator can give is to get somebody to become
self reflective.
So the ETC was
wonderful, but even the ETC and even as Don
scales it around the globe, it's still very
labor intensive, you know. It's not Tommy
one-at-a-time. It's not a research group ten at
a time. It's 50 or 100 at a time per campus
times four campuses. But I wanted something
infinitely scalable. Scalable to the point where
millions or tens of millions of people could
chase their dreams with something. And you know,
I guess that kind of a goal really does make me
the Mad Hatter. [Puts on a Mad Hatter's green
top hat]. So Alice is a project that we worked
on for a long, long time. It's a novel way to
teach computer programming. Kids make movies and
games. The head fake again, we're back to the
head fakes. The best way to teach somebody
something is to have them think they're learning
something else. I've done it my whole career.
And the head fake here is that they're learning
to program but they just think they're making
movies and video games. This thing has already
been downloaded well over a million times. There
are eight textbooks that have been written about
it. Ten percent of U.S. colleges are using it
now. And it's not the good stuff yet. The good
stuff is coming in the next version. I, like
Moses, get to see the promised land, but I won't
get to set foot in it. And that's OK, because I
can see it. And the vision is clear. Millions of
kids having fun while learning something hard.
That's pretty cool. I can deal with that as a
legacy. The next version's going to come out in
2008. It's going to be teaching the Java
language if you want them to know they're
learning Java. Otherwise they'll just think that
they're writing movie scripts. And we're getting
the characters from the bestselling PC video
game in history, The Sims. And this is already
working in the lab, so there's no real
technological risk. I don't have time to thank
and mention everybody in the Alice team, but I
just want to say that Dennis Cosgrove is going
to be building this, has been building this. He
is the designer. This is his baby. And for those
of you who are wondering, well, in some number
of months who should I be emailing about the
Alice project, where's Wanda Dann? Oh, there you
are. Stand up, let them all see you. Everybody
say, Hi Wanda.
Audience: Hi,
Wanda.
Randy Pausch: Send
her the email. And I'll talk a little bit more
about Caitlin Kelleher, but she's graduated with
her Ph.D., and she's at Washington University,
and she's going to be taking this up a notch and
going to middle schools with it. So, grand
vision and to the extent that you can live on in
something, I will live on in Alice.
All right, so now
the third part of the talk. Lessons learned.
We've talked about my dreams. We've talked about
helping other people enable their dreams.
Somewhere along the way there's got to be some
aspect of what lets you get to achieve your
dreams. First one is the rule of parents,
mentors and students. I was blessed to have been
born to two incredible people. This is my mother
on her 70th birthday. [Shows slide of Randy's
mom driving a race car on an amusement park race
course] [laughter] I am back here. I have just
been lapped. [laughter] This is my dad riding a
roller coaster on his 80th birthday. [Shows
slide of dad] And he points out that he's not
only brave, he's talented because he did win
that big bear the same day. My dad was so full
of life, anything with him was an adventure.
[Shows picture of his Dad holding a brown paper
bag.] I don't know what's in that bag, but I
know it's cool. My dad dressed up as Santa
Claus, but he also did very, very significant
things to help lots of people. This is a
dormitory in Thailand that my mom and dad
underwrote. And every year about 30 students get
to go to school who wouldn't have otherwise.
This is something my wife and I have also been
involved in heavily. And these are the kind of
things that I think everybody ought to be doing.
Helping others.
But the best story
I have about my dad unfortunately my dad
passed away a little over a year ago and when
we were going through his things, he had fought
in World War II in the
Battle of the Bulge,
and when we were going through his things, we
found out he had been awarded the Bronze Star
for Valor. My mom didn't know it. In 50 years of
marriage it had just never come up.
My mom. [Shows
picture of Randy as a young child, pulling his
Mom's hair]. Mothers are people who love even
when you pull their hair. And I have two great
mom stories. When I was here studying to get my
Ph.D. and I was taking something called the
theory qualifier, which I can definitively say
is the second worst thing in my life after
chemotherapy. [laughter] And I was complaining
to my mother about how hard this test was and
how awful it was, and she just leaned over and
she patted me on the arm and she said, we know
how you feel honey, and remember when your
father was your age he was fighting the Germans.
[laugher] After I got my Ph.D., my mother took
great relish in introducing me as, this is my
son, he's a doctor but not the kind that helps
people. [laughter] These slides are a little bit
dark [meaning "hard to see"], but when I was in
high school I decided to paint my bedroom.
[shows slides of bedroom] I always wanted a
submarine and an elevator. And the great thing
about this [shows slide of quadratic formula
painted on wall] [interrupted by laughter]
what can I say? And the great thing about this
is they let me do it. And they didn't get upset
about it. And it's still there. If you go to my
parent's house it's still there. And anybody who
is out there who is a parent, if your kids want
to paint their bedroom, as a favor to me let
them do it. It'll be OK. Don't worry about
resale value on the house.
Other people who
help us besides our parents: our teachers, our
mentors, our friends, our colleagues. God, what
is there to say about Andy Van Dam? When I was a
freshman at Brown, he was on leave. And all I
heard about was this Andy Van Dam. He was like a
mythical creature. Like a centaur, but like a
really pissed off centaur. And everybody was
like really sad that he was gone, but kind of
more relaxed? And I found out why. Because I
started working for Andy. I was a teaching
assistant for him as a sophomore. And I was
quite an arrogant young man. And I came in to
some office hours and of course it was nine
o'clock at night and Andy was there at office
hours, which is your first clue as to what kind
of professor he was. And I come bounding in and
you know, I'm just I'm going to save the world.
There're all these kids waiting for help, da da,
da da, da da, da da, da da. And afterwards, Andy
literally Dutch-uncled he's Dutch, right? He
Dutch-uncled me. And he put his arm around my
shoulders and we went for a little walk and he
said, Randy, it's such a shame that people
perceive you as so arrogant. Because it's going
to limit what you're going to be able to
accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word
"you're being a jerk." [laughter] Right? He
doesn't say you're a jerk. He says people are
perceiving you this way and he says the downside
is it's going to limit what you're going to be
able to accomplish.
When I got to know
Andy better, the beatings became more direct,
but [laughter] I could tell you Andy stories for
a month, but the one I will tell you is that
when it came time to start thinking about what
to do about graduating from Brown, it had never
occurred to me in a million years to go to
graduate school. Just out of my imagination. It
wasn't the kind of thing people from my family
did. We got, say, what do you call them, jobs.
And Andy said, no, don't go do that. Go get a
Ph.D. Become a professor. And I said, why? And
he said, because you're such a good salesman
that any company that gets you is going to use
you as a salesman. And you might as well be
selling something worthwhile like education.
[long pause, looks directly at Andy van Dam]
Thanks.
Andy was my first
boss, so to speak. I was lucky enough to have a
lot of bosses. [shows slide of various bosses]
That red circle is way off. Al is over here.
[laughter] I don't know what the hell happened
there. He's probably watching this on the
webcast going, my god he's targeting and he
still can't aim! [laughter] I don't want to say
much about the great bosses I've had except that
they were great. And I know a lot of people in
the world that have had bad bosses, and I
haven't had to endure that experience and I'm
very grateful to all the people that I ever had
to have worked for. They have just been
incredible.
But it's not just
our bosses, we learn from our students. I think
the best head fake of all time comes from
Caitlin Kelleher. Excuse me, Doctor Caitlin
Kelleher, who just finished up here and is
starting at Washington University, and she
looked at Alice when it was an easier way to
learn to program, and she said, yeah, but why is
that fun? I was like, 'cause uh, I'm a
compulsive male, I like to make the little toy
soldiers move around by my command, and that's
fun. She's like, hmm. And she was the one who
said, no, we'll just approach it all as a
storytelling activity. And she's done wonderful
work showing that, particularly with middle
school girls, if you present it as a
storytelling activity, they're perfectly willing
to learn how to write computer software. So
all-time best head fake award goes to Caitlin
Kelleher's dissertation.
President Cohen,
when I told him I was going to do this talk, he
said, please tell them about having fun, because
that's what I remember you for. And I said, I
can do that, but it's kind of like a fish
talking about the importance of water. I mean I
don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying and
I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun
every day I have left. Because there's no other
way to play it.
So my next piece
of advice is, you just have to decide if you're
a Tigger or and Eeyore. [shows slide with an
image of Tigger and Eeyore with the phrase
"Decide if you're Tigger or Eeyore"] I think I'm
clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore
debate. [laughter] Never lose the childlike
wonder. It's just too important. It's what
drives us. Help others. Denny Proffitt knows
more about helping other people. He's forgotten
more than I'll ever know. He's taught me by
example how to run a group, how to care about
people. M.K. Haley I have a theory that people
who come from large families are better people
because they've just had to learn to get along.
M.K. Haley comes from a family with 20 kids.
[audience collectively "aaahs"] Yeah.
Unbelievable. And she always says it's kind of
fun to do the impossible. When I first got to
Imagineering, she was one of the people who
dressed me down, and she said, I understand
you've joined the Aladdin Project. What can you
do? And I said, well I'm a tenured professor of
computer science. And she said, well that's very
nice Professor Boy, but that's not what I asked.
I said what can you do? [laughter]
And you know I
mentioned sort of my working class roots. We
keep what is valuable to us, what we cherish.
And I've kept my [high school] letterman's
jacket all these years. [Puts on letterman's
jacket] I used to like wearing it in grad
school, and one of my friends, Jessica Hodgins
would say, why do you wear this letterman's
jacket? And I looked around at all the
non-athletic guys around me who were much
smarter than me. And I said, because I can.
[laughter] And so she thought that was a real
hoot so one year she made for me this little
Raggedy Randy doll. [takes out Raggedy Randy]
[laughter] He's got a little letterman's jacket
too. That's my all-time favorite. It's the
perfect gift for the egomaniac in your life. So,
I've met so many wonderful people along the way.
Loyalty is a two
way street. There was a young man named Dennis
Cosgrove at the University of Virginia, and when
he was a young man, let's just say things
happened. And I found myself talking to a dean.
No, not that dean. And anyway, this dean really
had it in for Dennis, and I could never figure
out why because Dennis was a fine fellow. But
for some reason this Dean really had it in for
him. And I ended up basically saying, no, I
vouch for Dennis. And the guy says, you're not
even tenured yet and you're telling me you're
going to vouch for this sophomore or junior or
whatever? I think he was a junior at the time. I
said, yeah, I'm going to vouch for him because I
believe in him. And the dean said, and I'm going
to remember this when your tenure case comes up.
And I said, deal. I went back to talk to Dennis
and I said, I would really appreciate you that
would be good. But loyalty is a two-way street.
That was god knows how many years ago, but
that's the same Dennis Cosgrove who's carrying
Alice forward. He's been with me all these
years. And if we only had one person to send in
a space probe to meet an alien species, I'm
picking Dennis. [laughter]
You can't give a
talk at Carnegie Mellon without acknowledging
one very special person. And that would be
Sharon Burks. I joked with her, I said, well
look, if you're retiring, it's just not worth
living anymore. Sharon is so wonderful it's
beyond description, and for all of us who have
been helped by her, it's just indescribable. I
love this picture because it puts here together
with Syl, and Syl is great because Syl gave the
best piece of advice pound-for-pound that I have
ever heard. And I think all young ladies should
hear this. Syl said, it took me a long time but
I've finally figured it out. When it comes to
men that are romantically interested in you,
it's really simple. Just ignore everything they
say and only pay attention to what they do. It's
that simple. It's that easy. And I thought back
to my bachelor days and I said, damn. [laughter]
Never give up. I
didn't get into Brown University. I was on the
wait list. I called them up and they eventually
decided that it was getting really annoying to
have me call everyday so they let me in. At
Carnegie Mellon I didn't get into graduate
school. Andy had mentored me. He said, go to
graduate school, you're going to Carnegie
Mellon. All my good students go to Carnegie
Mellon. Yeah, you know what's coming. And so he
said, you're going to go to Carnegie Mellon no
problem. What he had kind of forgotten was that
the difficulty of getting to the top Ph.D.
program in the country had really gone up. And
he also didn't know I was going to tank my GRE's
because he believed in me. Which, based on my
board scores was a really stupid idea. And so I
didn't get into Carnegie Mellon. No one knows
this. 'Til today I'm telling the story. I was
declined admission to Carnegie Mellon. And I was
a bit of an obnoxious little kid. I went into
Andy's office and I dropped the rejection letter
on his desk. And I said, I just want you to know
what your letter of recommendation goes for at
Carnegie Mellon. [laughter] And before the
letter had hit his desk, his hand was on the
phone and he said, I will fix this. [laughter]
And I said, no no no, I don't want to do it that
way. That's not the way I was raised. [In a sad
voice] Maybe some other graduate schools will
see fit to admit me. [laughter] And he said,
look, Carnegie Mellon's where you're going to
be. He said, I'll tell you what, I'll make you a
deal. Go visit the other schools. Because I did
get into all the other schools. He said, go
visit the other schools and if you really don't
feel comfortable at any of them, then will you
let me call Nico? Nico being Nico Habermann [the
head of Carnegie Mellon's Computer Science
Dept.] and I said, OK deal. I went to the other
schools. Without naming them by name -- [in a
coughing voice] Berkeley, Cornell. They managed
to be so unwelcoming that I found myself saying
to Andy, you know, I'm going to get a job. And
he said, no, you're not. And he picked up the
phone and he talked in Dutch. [laughter] And he
hung up the phone and he said, Nico says if
you're serious, be in his office tomorrow
morning at eight a.m. And for those of you who
know Nico, this is really scary. So I'm in Nico
Habermann's office the next morning at eight
a.m. and he's talking with me, and frankly I
don't think he's that keen on this meeting. I
don't think he's that keen at all. And he says,
Randy, why are we here? And I said, because Andy
phoned you? Heh-heh. [laughter] And I said,
well, since you admitted me, I have won a
fellowship. The Office of Naval Research is a
very prestigious fellowship. I've won this
fellowship and that wasn't in my file when I
applied. And Nico said, a fellowship, money, we
have plenty of money. That was back then. He
said, we have plenty of money. Why do you think
having a fellowship makes any difference to us?
And he looked at me. There are moments that
change your life. And ten years later if you
know in retrospect it was one of those moments,
you're blessed. But to know it at the moment .
with Nico staring through your soul. [laughter]
And I said, I didn't mean to imply anything
about the money. It's just that it was an honor.
There were only 15 given nationwide. And I did
think it was an honor that would be something
that would be meritorious. And I apologize if
that was presumptuous. And he smiled. And that
was good.
So. How do you get
people to help you? You can't get there alone.
People have to help you and I do believe in
karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to
help you by telling the truth. Being earnest.
I'll take an earnest person over a hip person
every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is
long term.
Apologize when you
screw up and focus on other people, not on
yourself. And I thought, how do I possibly make
a concrete example of that? [Speaking to stage
hand] Do we have a concrete example of focusing
on somebody else over there? Could we bring it
out? [Speaking to audience] See, yesterday was
my wife's birthday. If there was ever a time I
might be entitled to have the focus on me, it
might be the last lecture. But no, I feel very
badly that my wife didn't really get a proper
birthday, and I thought it would be very nice if
500 people [an oversized birthday cake is
wheeled onto the stage] [applause] Happy
Everyone:
birthday to you [Randy: her name is Jai], happy
birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Jai, happy
birthday to you! [applause]
[Jai walks on
stage, teary-eyed. She walks with Randy to the
cake.
Randy: You gotta
blow it out. [The audience goes quiet. Jai blows
out the candle on the cake.]
Randy: All right.
[Massive applause.] And now you all have an
extra reason to come to the reception.
[laughter] Remember brick walls let us show our
dedication. They are there to separate us from
the people who don't really want to achieve
their childhood dreams. Don't bail. The best of
the gold's at the bottom of barrels of crap.
[Shows slide of Steve Seabolt next to a picture
of The Sims] [laughter] What Steve didn't tell
you was the big sabbatical at EA, I had been
there for 48 hours and they loved the ETC, we
were the best, we were the favorites, and then
somebody pulled me aside and said, oh, by the
way, we're about to give eight million dollars
to USC to build a program just like yours. We're
hoping you can help them get it off the ground.
[laughter] And then Steve came along and said,
they said what? Oh god. And to quote a famous
man, I will fix this. And he did. Steve has been
an incredible partner. And we have a great
relationship, personal and professional. And he
has certainly been point man on getting a gaming
asset to help teach millions of kids and that's
just incredible. But, you know, it certainly
would have been reasonable for me to leave 48
hours after that sabbatical, but it wouldn't
have been the right thing to do, and when you do
the right thing, good stuff has a way of
happening.
Get a feedback
loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be
this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can
just be one great man who tells you what you
need to hear. The hard part is the listening to
it. Anybody can get chewed out. It's the rare
person who says, oh my god, you were right. As
opposed to, no wait, the real reason is We've
all heard that. When people give you feedback,
cherish it and use it.
Show gratitude.
When I got tenure I took all of my research team
down to Disneyworld for a week. And one of the
other professors at Virginia said, how can you
do that? I said these people just busted their
ass and got me the best job in the world for
life. How could I not do that?
Don't complain.
Just work harder. [shows slide of Jackie
Robinson, the first black major league baseball
player] That's a picture of Jackie Robinson. It
was in his contract not to complain, even when
the fans spit on him.
Be good at
something, it makes you valuable.
Work hard. I got
tenure a year early as Steve mentioned. Junior
faculty members used to say to me, wow, you got
tenure early. What's your secret? I said, it's
pretty simple. Call me any Friday night in my
office at ten o'clock and I'll tell you.
Find the best in
everybody. One of the things that Jon Snoddy as
I said told me, is that you might have to wait a
long time, sometimes years, but people will show
you their good side. Just keep waiting no matter
how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody
has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come
out.
And be prepared.
Luck is truly where preparation meets
opportunity.
So today's talk
was about my childhood dreams, enabling the
dreams of others, and some lessons learned. But
did you figure out the head fake? [dramatic
pause] It's not about how to achieve your
dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you
lead your life the right way, the karma will
take care of itself. The dreams will come to
you.
Have you figured
out the second head fake? The talk's not for
you, it's for my kids. Thank you all, good
night.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
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