鲜花( 152) 鸡蛋( 1)
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Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
e- z5 b7 z3 B/ [, r* v' MGiven at Carnegie Mellon University
9 S0 g4 x$ r0 D- |$ a8 i4 aTuesday, September 18, 2007% H: X+ T4 c& @
McConomy Auditorium
: R0 O6 I1 u; `2 F' H. WFor more information, see www.randypausch.com# }% l X4 K; {1 ]+ \& ~4 V
© Copyright Randy Pausch, 20071- f- N4 R1 G- v- d+ q% C
& c2 S" l, h: F/ K( ~4 vIntroduction by Indira Nair, Carnegie Mellon’s Vice Provost for Education:
5 `+ B( L, b- T6 VHi. Welcome. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the first of our new university’s lectures titled/ }! r% h6 D9 ]' `2 a0 Z
Journeys – lectures in which members of our community will share with us reflections and insights; v3 O J0 h! W. ?9 C
on their personal and professional journeys. Today’s Journey’s lecture as you all know is by4 h3 p. U0 N5 E/ Q9 V
Professor Randy Pausch. The next one is on Monday, September 24th by Professor Roberta Klatzky.6 |; y+ e) D2 p" d. H2 g3 B
To introduce Professor Randy Pausch, our first Journeys speaker, I would like to introduce Randy’s
: Q# L. v5 T- g8 c3 b6 ]2 Xfriend and colleague, Steve Seabolt. Steve has been at Electronic Arts for six years and is the Vice7 D. n& V+ Q: K' p
President of Global Brand Development for The Sims label at Electronic Arts. As you all know, The
6 F( r. B3 L) V9 FSims is one of the most, if not the most successful PC games in the world, with sales approaching
( S j0 }1 m4 {* \6 _1 s3 [! Cover $100,000,000. Prior to that, Steve was the Vice President for Strategic Marketing and* t/ W, M% K2 Q" q+ j0 I/ [
Education at EA, bridging academia and Electronic Arts. His goal was to work with academics so
% u1 A; T5 V6 Tthere was an effective educational pathway for kids with building games as their dreams. It was in7 ]& p: H' ^! `) t% R: G
that role that Randy and Steve became colleagues and friends. Before Electronic Arts, Steve was the6 D; C4 E% A" U- a0 V1 {0 X( G1 V
worldwide Ad Director for Time Magazine and CEO of Sunset Publishing, which is a very favorite+ [" X7 F7 x% U8 _- @/ M& L
magazine in the Southwest, and as CEO there, one of the things he started was school tours,
9 ~7 X: h/ M9 @5 |. obecause like Randy he shares a passion for inspiring kids of all ages to share their excitement for& L' ~; B' h a8 M1 M% {
science and technology.7 d( l; s( v: }0 M
So to introduce Randy, his friend Steve Seabolt. Steve?. H- }2 m6 Z! E; M' _5 U4 [# l
[applause]
' ?# D( {# j0 U& _: T# J. ~2 J# OSteve Seabolt, Vice President of Worldwide Publishing and Marketing for Electonic Arts (EA):
& R* j+ M, O3 x( z! ?- H8 ]& pThank you very much. I don’t mean to sound ungracious by correcting you, but given that our PR
7 V2 t- c4 G' n# ypeople are probably watching this on webcast, I’d catch heck if I went home and didn’t say that it2 O$ ]; W0 M3 s, G
was 100 million units for The Sims. [laughter] Not that big numbers matter to Electronic Arts.' S! f( \8 _) e9 v' d9 H
[laughter]+ U+ c2 k' {# b0 H- |# w
I don’t see any empty seats anywhere, which is a good thing, which means I just won a bet from. z/ I4 q D* L" W% e- P9 H2 e5 o
Randy as a matter of fact. Depending upon who’s version of the story you hear, he either owes me; M% ~% n6 O7 U# E; ^
20 dollars or his new Volkswagen. [laughter] So, I’ll take the car.% j& l1 _0 v9 S {# t
It’s a pleasure to be here, thank you very much. I’m going to start by covering Randy’s academic
3 j7 W( r* c7 wcredentials. It’s a little bizarre for me to be standing here at Carnegie Mellon, which is a school I k1 d: s% e5 C- K C' q" Z. a
couldn’t get into no matter how much I contributed to this institution. [laughter] But, no really, I’m
8 {3 P+ {' Q/ @+ Inot kidding! You all think, oh gosh he’s humble. Really, no, I’m not humble at all. Very average SAT
) c4 n& i# H" @" m6 fscores, you know, right in the middle of my high school class of 900. Anyway, Randy. Randy earned2 b1 D3 g+ V) k& l; P H
– it really pisses me off that Randy’s so smart—actually I called him, we decided about, what, four7 J3 O# U* k$ D& v
weeks, ago and we heard the news went from bad to horrific. It was on a Wednesday night and I
& o, ^# b# a, ?. K8 P$ f" O$ Gsaid look – we have two choices. We can play this really straight and very emotional , or we can go6 _7 P& b" s. j0 z& v1 Q/ Q
to dark humor. And for those of you who know Randy well, he was like oh, dark humor! So I called
% W! k3 n6 m# Whim the next day and I was like, dude you can’t die. And he’s like, what do you mean? And I said,
4 \6 P4 H1 l+ M" C y% Ywell, when you die, the average of IQ of Seabolt’s friends is going to like drop 50 points. [laughter] To3 p$ c1 L: E7 M
which he responded, we need to find you some smarter friends. [laughter] So you’re all smart1 g6 \) q# v5 S$ w( M* F, S
because you’re here, so if you want to be my friend, I’ll be over in a corner of the reception room. i; m! k+ v. V. L1 g4 A8 `5 R
Randy earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Brown in 1982. His Ph.D. in CS from
1 [" ^9 H% K- M. C5 ~) Y/ P7 ^Carnegie Mellon in 1988 and taught at the University of Virginia where he was granted tenure a year, s j4 W6 C; H* B( A
early. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 1997 with appointments in the CS, HCI and Design
J0 @; X$ O4 F) e4 n: B$ Ddepartments. He has authored or co-authored five books and over 60 reviewed journal and( ^1 l) q. I( h3 Q' E" m& \
conference proceeding articles, none of which I would understand. With Don Marinelli, he founded' A7 c1 X& B _6 ]
the Entertainment Technology Center, which quickly became the gold standard organization for
( D' `/ L0 ?0 }, e, Dtraining artists and engineers to work together. It is my view and the view of our company,
- I& {, \' O `9 |0 VElectronic Arts, that the ETC is the interactive program by which all others in the world are judged.3 L$ w6 t r9 P6 f) Y( `+ ^+ b
I met Randy in the Spring of 2004, and when I look back it’s sort of hard to imagine it’s only been
% k5 N: v3 E! i5 `! C* l; othree years given the depth of our friendship. The ETC already had a very strong relationship with
0 Y8 A$ }4 |$ mEA and with Randy. And Randy as he always does, for those of you who know him well, wanted to
: L6 E" t: z3 u1 f" ^' J/ ?learn more, with his own eyes, about how the games business works, and how games really got+ t' S3 |3 g$ c- G# r) v$ l4 i
made. So he spent a summer in residence at EA, and I was his primary contact point. We were in
$ t- ~7 m z, ?! l! U9 i3 P" `my view the odd couple. Randy the brilliant, charming, Carnegie educated CS professor. And me) d3 j5 s! f% i
who went to the University of Iowa on a wing and a prayer. We spent a lot of time together that
. U* B: P' ~+ K ysemester and for those of you who know Randy well, that’s a lot of turkey sandwiches on white
0 ]' i5 T9 F0 o- h+ Ebread with mayo. [laughter, clapping] My kids tease me about being “white.” There’s nobody more7 {+ A1 _) c" ]3 c. s
“white” than Randy. [laughter] We spent an enormous amount of time together. We taught each5 k! q' Z, x+ _, t5 s8 ^; U
other about each other’s very interesting, strange cultures to the other. Academic versus the
( {% [3 N6 `+ n5 Y# Bcorporate world. And we developed a deep friendship woven together with stories about our kids,; ^! R# P ~ ^2 u0 ~$ G" o! h
our wives, our parents, as well as deep discussions about the paramount nature of integrity in2 j7 x. M! Y- e4 e; @' x0 v s
everything you do, family first, religion, our shared joy in connecting people and ideas, and
7 z: q% D8 d. }7 H5 s7 qdeploying money and influence to do good. And the importance of having a lot of laughs along the
a! h7 S. k0 y, p: [ ~way.0 [7 T% h: ]' c' a, j# K
Randy’s dedication to making the world a better place is self evident to anyone who has crossed
! J6 y' o. Y, fpaths with him. Whether it’s directly influencing students, creating organizations like the ETC,4 S, O" T$ w: u6 O% M6 X6 l
building tools like Alice or doing what he probably does best, which is bridging cultures. As Ben/ H4 s( ^0 k& X9 o$ i
Gordon, EA’s Chief Creative Officer, says of Randy, even more important than Randy’s academic,4 K5 C" F0 t% D" f0 W
philanthropic, and entrepreneurial accomplishments has been his humanity and the enthusiasm he
, d8 x6 D2 P+ r) {; ?6 _) Cbrings to students and coworkers on a daily basis.+ {* e! Q: p# Q( M! K
For those of you who know Randy, Randy brings a particular zest for life and humor, even while
/ S* `$ g, _' K# z9 bfacing death. To Randy, this is simply another adventure. It is my great honor to introduce Dylan," q+ j4 C. h c6 _+ |, F' d
Logan and Chloe’s dad, Jai’s husband, and my very dear friend, Dr. Randy Pausch. [applause]: F) t& U, Q5 r6 q) k, b+ x
Randy Pausch:: R- x9 C' t. T* n
[responding to a standing ovation] Make me earn it. [laughter]
" F8 k# J8 G+ T XIt’s wonderful to be here. What Indira didn’t tell you is that this lecture series used to be called the6 Z4 {5 W" F @ O6 ?' n! ?+ s
Last Lecture. If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be? I thought, damn,9 u4 q0 |: R" `$ F7 i( ?
I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it. [laughter]- e: e1 x7 |3 I7 ?4 o
So, you know, in case there’s anybody who wandered in and doesn’t know the back story, my dad+ E( u# m ~. X5 E' E6 _
always taught me that when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce them. If you look at my CAT
, K& Y8 S6 E: s) o5 ascans, there are approximately 10 tumors in my liver, and the doctors told me 3-6 months of good" M5 s3 I; u2 g
health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math. I have some of the best doctors in the
, V6 m7 ?$ Q% l4 ?5 ]$ C q% iworld. Microphone’s not working? Then I’ll just have to talk louder. [Adjusts mic] Is that good? All1 c! {! o" Y; a/ S& B
right. So that is what it is. We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to
0 D7 K, j* v6 p8 orespond to that. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t! M/ y5 \4 i! V9 [9 g7 Z0 Q( p
seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you. [laughter] And I assure you I
* u1 \, z6 ?$ x! kam not in denial. It’s not like I’m not aware of what’s going on. My family, my three kids, my wife,# v& M: z/ }& r2 r1 d. \6 x
we just decamped. We bought a lovely house in Virginia, and we’re doing that because that’s a
. I- l. |9 i- c/ r: sbetter place for the family to be, down the road. And the other thing is I am in phenomenally good1 Y" f1 q. W0 f6 k6 @+ G9 F+ ~7 R
health right now. I mean it’s the greatest thing of cognitive dissonance you will ever see is the fact) D/ g0 s' H4 ~" y2 Y
that I am in really good shape. In fact, I am in better shape than most of you. [Randy gets on the0 _$ x/ Z) I4 u- d% {& N
ground and starts doing pushups] [Applause] So anybody who wants to cry or pity me can down and$ _& A3 ^. m1 N2 g1 j
do a few of those, and then you may pity me. [laughter]& W$ C) M, |3 p
All right, so what we’re not talking about today, we are not talking about cancer, because I spent a. P; X9 m g5 `
lot of time talking about that and I’m really not interested. If you have any herbal supplements or
) ^ P, T2 X p! }, ?. Nremedies, please stay away from me. [laughter] And we’re not going to talk about things that are! j) l- c" z& I/ {7 Y0 D# Y
even more important than achieving your childhood dreams. We’re not going to talk about my wife," W( o' b* u3 S
we’re not talking about my kids. Because I’m good, but I’m not good enough to talk about that( |+ ?/ m2 ]' r y! L% J2 e/ {$ _
without tearing up. So, we’re just going to take that off the table. That’s much more important.
" K) G8 U9 t; A, Z8 w* _And we’re not going to talk about spirituality and religion, although I will tell you that I have. C; ~% ^$ C0 P- s6 D! D# k
achieved a deathbed conversion. [dramatic pause] … I just bought a Macintosh. [laughter and
) z' _6 J. ~$ y! \clapping] Now I knew I’d get 9% of the audience with that … All right, so what is today’s talk about$ z8 h. M1 H0 u: J) D+ h$ p# r
then? It’s about my childhood dreams and how I have achieved them. I’ve been very fortunate that t$ O5 Y0 @* B
way. How I believe I’ve been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons! r& i0 }8 G* a) w' V) J2 k/ t/ r
learned. I’m a professor, there should be some lessons learned and how you can use the stuff you
; n; S3 c* S% z8 f* N; qhear today to achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older, you may
3 }$ |" N# a: R' Q0 ?( Y' f# ifind that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.# a+ k: y& k6 I- n2 E" G# z
So what were my childhood dreams? Well, you know, I had a really good childhood. I mean, no
8 n0 S9 t+ g" s3 w8 N$ N7 |kidding around. I was going back through the family archives, and what was really amazing was, I
0 d3 ]3 K# A5 N% s8 c$ Qcouldn’t find any pictures of me as a kid where I wasn’t smiling. And that was just a very gratifying
+ ~% x/ J, K" N& `0 B: e, Athing. There was our dog, right? Aww, thank you. And there I actually have a picture of me1 `+ U5 b$ e0 w) _; V3 w2 U; T
dreaming. I did a lot of that. You know, there’s a lot of wake up’s! I was born in 1960. When you
! l2 o9 @0 s8 Y- o' l' d+ H9 f( vare 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon, anything’s possible.
! w" @* V4 n& I8 \- kAnd that’s something we should not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and the permission to
0 T2 T) _4 Q$ r q6 K7 @5 |. w5 Bdream is huge.; ^! I* t5 I( j5 E% {
So what were my childhood dreams? You may not agree with this list, but I was there. [laughter]
% p, ^" D% x, V/ x9 MBeing in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book
4 H6 P2 q2 L, x/ y fEncyclopedia – I guess you can tell the nerds early. [laughter] Being Captain Kirk, anybody here have3 G9 M. v) b; X) L R& @ I
that childhood dream? Not at CMU, nooooo. I wanted to become one of the guys who won the big/ y5 G6 ^) E/ G, u
stuffed animals in the amusement park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with Disney. These are not
1 T- R0 J% R# psorted in any particular order, although I think they do get harder, except for maybe the first one. k$ s, [) J! @5 e
OK, so being in zero gravity. Now it’s important to have specific dreams. I did not dream of being an" Q% T8 p7 `4 P' P* ]% N9 c
astronaut, because when I was a little kid, I wore glasses and they told me oh, astronauts can’t have
8 z& b! A0 B) ?6 M7 M* H1 Wglasses. And I was like, mmm, I didn’t really want the whole astronaut gig, I just wanted the floating.
4 C' R( s, \! r' l4 KSo, and as a child [laughter], prototype 0.0. [slide shown of Randy as a child lying in floatingformation
- ], P, E$ O& U0 ?on a table top] But that didn’t work so well, and it turns out that NASA has something. z8 d1 n! ~0 `8 R& F, A
called the Vomit Comet that they used to train the astronauts. And this thing does parabolic arcs,( D+ J8 Q. I, T6 @6 z6 \
and at the top of each arc you get about 25 seconds where you’re ballistic and you get about, a5 f. d `: }" R& }: R& K
rough equivalent of weightlessness for about 25 seconds. And there is a program where college; @! O$ M) p* I$ b L
students can submit proposals and if they win the competition, they get to fly. And I thought that. I! O: [1 Z, n- t
was really cool, and we had a team and we put a team together and they won and they got to fly.; j7 r5 y1 a0 U2 F% \. L
And I was all excited because I was going to go with them. And then I hit the first brick wall, because: K% F2 U6 e& k m' ]- [
they made it very clear that under no circumstances were faculty members allowed to fly with the4 `# u F- `2 P$ k r7 @: I
teams. I know, I was heartbroken. I was like, I worked so hard! And so I read the literature very/ K0 }, U; h' j( Y" f! w
carefully and it turns out that NASA, it’s part of their outreach and publicity program, and it turns" X$ s6 w s; U. C. c
out that the students were allowed to bring a local media journalist from their home town.1 ?: L0 W$ ^- S/ y0 k6 E
[laughter] And, [deep voice] Randy Pausch, web journalist. [regular voice] It’s really easy to get a5 X& N. F- y4 {9 [3 X9 `
press pass! [laughter] So I called up the guys at NASA and I said, I need to know where to fax some6 i6 G0 _5 \) Z0 G/ D
documents. And they said, what documents are you going to fax us? And I said my resignation as
7 u2 A3 v6 G Kthe faculty advisor and my application as the journalist. And he said, that’s a little transparent, don’t8 R' x% l0 v: z& ?
you think? And I said, yeah, but our project is virtual reality, and we’re going to bring down a whole$ {5 E+ f, p& h
bunch of VR headsets and all the students from all the teams are going to experience it and all those
& ?! \- h6 c# o8 k, T4 P* |8 R9 o! H2 _other real journalists are going to get to film it. Jim Foley’s [who is nodding in the audience] going
" A7 {# m1 N8 voh you bastard, yes. And the guy said, here’s the fax number. So, indeed, we kept our end of the
' k; |( E1 E) cbargain, and that’s one of the themes that you’ll hear later on in the talk, is have something to bring
3 U! m8 r6 F( {: P; Tto the table, right, because that will make you more welcome. And if you’re curious about what9 z2 e, z5 W W/ u
zero gravity looks like, hopefully the sound will be working here. [slide shows videotape from
& m. i/ s! s" ?1 O- b9 xRandy’s zero gravity experience] There I am. [laughter] You do pay the piper at the bottom. [laugher,% U, ]2 O0 Z$ o/ l" A
as the people in the video crash to the floor of the plane on the video] So, childhood dream number/ b) |/ d! q# B! v0 F/ b' N
one, check.
0 S* p2 S, o+ h/ xOK, let’s talk about football. My dream was to play in the National Football League. And most of
" P% D1 k, L- O7 v) myou don’t know that I actually – no. [laughter] No, I did not make it to the National Football League,
6 ?, U/ O& ~% F7 S/ [" u+ `( r5 Tbut I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones+ Q% H9 W8 l6 f2 ]4 w4 n" x
that I did accomplish. I had a coach, I signed up when I was nine years old. I was the smallest kid in
: d( V% m# H! a& s1 y. t. M1 Bthe league, by far. And I had a coach, Jim Graham, who was six-foot-four, he had played linebacker
. F+ t+ J& e, t! R8 {: [- Dat Penn State. He was just this hulk of a guy and he was old school. And I mean really old school.: i/ o! D/ X) c' R# X, w
Like he thought the forward pass was a trick play. [laughter] And he showed up for practice the first+ o/ A1 H+ s( _4 P& E9 f& E
day, and you know, there’s big hulking guy, we were all scared to death of him. And he hadn’t- l! k- S: E2 A
brought any footballs. How are we going to have practice without any footballs? And one of the8 S- q- t* Y' |; F1 B* {
other kids said, excuse me coach, but there’s no football. And Coach Graham said, right, how many
1 V0 ]( o7 w- dmen are on a football field at a time? Eleven on a team, twenty-two. Coach Graham said, all right,
3 g) t$ a4 a* f7 C4 g6 iand how many people are touching the football at any given time? One of them. And he said, right,
L' u, L% j0 k6 n% L7 P; ~so we’re going to work on what those other twenty-one guys are doing. And that’s a really good
! h8 T9 j+ ?. A6 n3 Vstory because it’s all about fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got
/ |% C5 ]8 k2 Nto get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work. And the other- F1 v7 S( R" w- W7 m
Jim Graham story I have is there was one practice where he just rode me all practice. You’re doing! @6 f+ A+ A0 |
this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing push-ups2 R+ x& u% c+ A8 P, Q/ g; V
after practice. And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said,3 C1 _& y2 K0 z. F- u2 ~
yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he? I said, yeah. He said, that’s a good thing. He* Q U2 c3 _ @. R2 d2 w0 u
said, when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave
& h! ]% l2 ?6 r3 _' |3 ]up. And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Is that when you see yourself doing8 [# l* A1 J% x: d$ P9 k- G1 @
something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your+ Q% F3 p6 V9 [$ k8 r
critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.9 }# F7 \9 z: ^: u5 U1 c$ O
After Coach Graham, I had another coach, Coach Setliff, and he taught me a lot about the power of
7 ~9 c: b1 C! R/ S* \enthusiasm. He did this one thing where only for one play at a time he would put people in at like" |6 _9 n" ~; t$ Z! c- H% c
the most horrifically wrong position for them. Like all the short guys would become receivers, right?
/ z( P( B. |% M# ~+ p& @It was just laughable. But we only went in for one play, right? And boy, the other team just never
- i+ L; Q, w7 M- ]" jknew what hit ‘em them. Because when you’re only doing it for one play and you’re just not where8 s, W4 J; `0 A9 u9 ?3 ]; l
you’re supposed to be, and freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, boy are you going
- ~! Z7 N" K0 J [to clean somebody’s clock for that one play. And that kind of enthusiasm was great. And to this2 S6 l) Y* c% c/ j7 v" X. c# u8 w
day, I am most comfortable on a football field. I mean, it’s just one of those things where, you
3 K( b9 U3 b- t2 t5 ~4 B+ ~know, [pulls out a football] if I’m working a hard problem, people will see me wandering the halls0 `6 t/ L( b k# F2 r$ C
with one of these things, and that’s just because, you know, when you do something young enough
/ w! M& n! ^9 X- j3 J3 g( F3 mand you train for it, it just becomes a part of you. And I’m very glad that football was a part of my9 N; C/ ]/ _+ j; Y. N; C4 ]
life. And if I didn’t get the dream of playing in the NFL, that’s OK. I’ve probably got stuff more
! ?# `+ J4 I2 X6 N- fvaluable. Because looking at what’s going on in the NFL, I’m not sure those guys are doing so great0 S: {+ H2 p. \0 S; ~3 a; B+ E: U
right now.
/ |/ W: Q @' M3 h3 u1 jOK, and so one of the expressions I learned at Electronic Arts, which I love, which pertains to this, is
( B! F* k% l! p8 ]# h) w: xexperience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And I think that’s absolutely
& o2 ]# L6 @" i1 `2 blovely. And the other thing about football is we send our kids out to play football or soccer or7 |( h- Q7 U0 [- \; h7 Y" W
swimming or whatever it is, and it’s the first example of what I’m going to call a head fake, or% I7 B( q% @, h1 E0 }, H( `8 z" k
indirect learning. We actually don’t want our kids to learn football. I mean, yeah, it’s really nice that1 H' _ y" q; A* w7 M1 l
I have a wonderful three-point stance and that I know how to do a chop block and all this kind of
# }1 w3 A+ b) D# pstuff. But we send our kids out to learn much more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship,
/ [) B0 v* O! }: ?* g' m, @1 Nperseverance, etcetera, etcetera. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important.8 T( b3 x0 {/ ^ \( K1 m. V
And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.; E7 a9 x, e( I0 x/ m
All right. A simple one, being an author in the World Book Encyclopedia. When I was a kid, we had
6 _- B7 ^( G; Q% U K& s( hthe World Book Encyclopedia on the shelf. For the freshman, this is paper. … We used to have these
- j. K7 \ F `+ a$ Y) H' _9 W$ Cthings called books. [laughter] And after I had become somewhat of an authority on virtual reality,
8 J1 k, `" S, C- u L7 w" N2 a7 tbut not like a really important one, so I was at the level of people the World Book would badger.
, h% S3 e/ z9 h1 v& `! ^: c% bThey called me up and I wrote an article, and this is Caitlin Kelleher [shows slide of Caitlin wearing
; \) Z) y; ], D4 |: Evirtual reality headset manipulating a 3D world], and there’s an article if you go to your local library
) i! B- u, @9 o8 O& F% Z4 Z; xwhere they still have copies of the World Book. Look under V for Virtual Reality, and there it is. And
% [3 m* g" a" A5 t7 ^ ^1 nall I have to say is that having been selected to be an author in the World Book Encyclopedia, I now f. ]; n, O4 Q9 r
believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your information because I know what the
. P J: [% v+ \' S4 xquality control is for real encyclopedias. They let me in.
5 S6 ^, E% [0 w' q- jAll right, next one. [laughter] [shows slide “Being like Meeting Captain Kirk”] At a certain point you
& ]( @/ p+ \0 z6 E+ Cjust realize there are some things you are not going to do, so maybe you just want to stand close to+ J7 ]0 N' d+ g2 e' p, m" N
the people. And I mean, my god, what a role model for young people. [laughter] [shows slide of# r. W) X$ E, ~/ k8 M; h: W4 V/ M7 t
Captain Kirk sitting at his control station on the Starship Enterprise] I mean, this is everything you5 h0 s: O5 o4 `* G O: @1 |- o
want to be, and what I learned that carried me forward in leadership later is that, you know, he
$ U- P8 H" X" F' O3 s! G, gwasn’t the smartest guy on the ship. I mean, Spock was pretty smart and McCoy was the doctor and7 f* M+ S" }& k. }. b8 n8 N
Scotty was the engineer. And you sort of go, and what skill set did he have to get on this damn thing
6 Z- \0 N; X$ M( N, |* {2 P. Sand run it? And, you know, clearly there is this skill set called leadership, and, you know, whether or
. S, S+ c4 y! Jnot you like the series, there’s no doubt that there was a lot to be learned about how to lead people" t( O9 [+ N9 w
by watching this guy in action. And he just had the coolest damn toys! [laughter] [shows slide of
6 o6 |# B- b% i( q& tStar Trek gadgets] I mean, my god, I just thought it was fascinating as a kid that he had this thing
' T: B3 \% w% }[Takes out Star Trek Communicator] and he could talk to the ship with it. I just thought that was just" q' \ X' `) U3 X
spectacular, and of course now I own one and it’s smaller. [takes out cell phone] So that’s kind of6 p. Y7 J" h; A9 U3 a
cool.
* D4 V p' y" N2 e5 Z6 bSo I got to achieve this dream. James T. Kirk, and his alter ego William Shatner, wrote a book, which
" h0 I( p4 v; F9 ]8 fI think was actually a pretty cool book. It was with Chip Walter who is a Pittsburgh- based author( C" L$ J' W# w$ ~
who is quite good, and they wrote a book on basically the science of Star Trek, you know, what has' ?! p8 h( Q9 A+ r7 Y5 F% v* I
come true. And they went around to the top places around the country and looked at various things4 y" a' A: t8 e3 V; D. f
and they came here to study our virtual reality setup. And so we build a virtual reality for him, it
' A- V1 G( K) R8 Olooks something like that. [shows slide of virtual Star Trek bridge from the 1960’s TV show] We put it
$ w/ J {( u O3 Gin, put it to red alert. He was a very good sport. [sarcastically] It’s not like he saw that one coming. a, c# S+ x8 V
[laughter] And it’s really cool to meet your boyhood idol, but it’s even cooler when he comes to you v4 G6 }2 G; M. V9 ]/ U- d+ i$ b
to see what cool stuff you’re doing in your lab. And that was just a great moment.+ Q% P6 U' C# ^6 C% v
All right, winning stuffed animals. This may seem mundane to you, but when you’re a little kid and$ V- W& h' X' B3 x
you see the big buff guys walking around the amusement park and they’ve got all these big stuffed
+ N* P ~8 h( R8 b- o/ }# panimals, right? And this is my lovely wife, and I have a lot of pictures of stuffed animals I’ve won.
" a0 \3 T# b+ `) l- @[laughter] [shows slides of several large stuffed animals] That’s my dad posing with one that I won.
. Z% V- K8 p, D( d! _( VI’ve won a lot of these animals. There’s my dad, he did win that one, to his credit. And this was just
9 F+ m v/ T+ d# i) Da big part of my life and my family’s life. But you know, I can hear the cynics. In this age of digitally0 R. `9 F* N& P8 `+ g) ?
manipulated images, maybe those bears really aren’t in the pictures with me, or maybe I paid+ W$ b3 L. U7 O0 ^" x' o9 r
somebody five bucks to take a picture in the theme park next to the bear. And I said, how, in this
; T' v* H: }# k: U- Y% m; G5 Yage of cynicism can I convince people? And I said, I know, I can show them the bears! Bring them
# q9 B+ @! R$ v9 ]6 H1 n7 bout. [several large stuffed animals are brought onto the stage] [laughter and clapping] Just put them
: b" N, S, c7 C/ Gback against the wall.
% X# r& x, F1 n8 m' BJai Pausch (Randy’s wife):4 {9 L$ E) L' n/ F9 w2 r5 b- m
It’s hard to hear you. [adjusts Randy’s microphone]
% v' P, A/ e5 }% d8 W [' LRandy Pausch:$ n3 X p8 h" E7 H) m' W
Thanks honey. [laughter] So here are some bears. We didn’t have quite enough room in the moving0 @3 W( f( Y9 u2 J" ^% c) ?1 c7 O0 W
truck, and anybody who would like a little piece of me at the end of this, feel free to come up and- k( @2 ]8 V" r8 c" ]
take a bear, first come, first served.
% W# ~, E* c4 U0 L& k# w; M; T# mAll right, my next one. Being an Imagineer. This was the hard one. Believe me, getting to zero
# `3 z/ v7 N: J. r1 X5 u4 X$ rgravity is easier than becoming an Imagineer. When I was a kid, I was eight years old and our family* W9 P2 l) Z' A6 D: s+ v. s
took a trip cross-country to see Disneyland. And if you’ve ever seen the movie National Lampoon’s& {% d9 f( S0 C+ i& J
Vacation, it was a lot like that! [laughter] It was a quest. [shows slides of family at Disneyland] And- I( {+ F) D& J! c4 Y0 [
these are real vintage photographs, and there I am in front of the castle. And there I am, and for% H- L% r9 s0 z2 l$ C
those of you who are into foreshadowing, this is the Alice ride. [laughter] And I just thought this was
: J$ h/ l2 p) h1 _$ d6 N+ X; Rjust the coolest environment I had ever been in, and instead of saying, gee, I want to experience this,, d2 A7 D) [. e4 `
I said, I want to make stuff like this. And so I bided my time and then I graduated with my Ph.D.( M. R1 z# Y6 l- o% d! C7 m5 w
from Carnegie Mellon, thinking that meant me infinitely qualified to do anything. And I dashed off
( Z" i8 y& m' m V1 G% J$ X4 Mmy letters of applications to Walt Disney Imagineering, and they sent me some of the damned nicest
; t0 `+ ]6 {4 r8 Ggo-to-hell letters I have ever gotten. [laughter] I mean it was just, we have carefully reviewed your
1 ]1 U# B' g$ xapplication and presently we do not have any positions available which require your particular6 i/ n w# C6 R7 n6 y% j' u, s
qualifications. Now think about the fact that you’re getting this from a place that’s famous for guys) Y9 y4 a- Z8 D0 \7 g; j: G
who sweep the street. [laughter] So that was a bit of a setback. But remember, the brick walls are
. _+ ~" E% _" p( v1 Ithere for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us
4 z* [* ^/ d( v, q, j4 \a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the6 |6 e: h2 z$ h- z4 E3 A* i
people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
' f9 g# v/ U& e( _6 ~8 `: uAll right, fast forward to 1991. We did a system back at the University of Virginia called Virtual0 t' Y' T4 V. N- z9 b4 d0 f- x- z: {
Reality on Five Dollars a Day. Just one of those unbelievable spectacular things. I was so scared
+ S( X2 B- q% ?4 Wback in those days as a junior academic. Jim Foley’s here, and I just love to tell this story. He knew5 h, ]% e5 U& r6 j' U S0 s5 Z
my undergraduate advisor, Andy Van Dam, and I’m at my first conference and I’m just scared to+ o v: r, |' w0 C
death. And this icon in the user interface community walks up to me and just out of nowhere just
4 l" H2 }: a7 L) J- D5 s: t3 hgives me this huge bear hug and he says, that was from Andy. And that was when I thought, ok,
, d6 C& n$ r! c2 S* f+ wmaybe I can make it. Maybe I do belong. And a similar story is that this was just this unbelievable
* x0 |0 {0 O4 D2 ]$ c/ g+ Nhit because at the time, everybody needed a half a million [dollars] to do virtual reality. And5 E- ~- H. Q* D7 ~
everybody felt frustrated. And we literally hacked together a system for about five thousand dollars
7 R6 ~5 A) U! ]! ~- {: x. W) n! e" O4 bin parts and made a working VR system. And people were just like, oh my god, you know, the h ~) F2 r i" |9 }
Hewlett Packard garage thing. This is so awesome. And so I’m giving this talk and the room has just i7 m7 }5 ?( d; }! |
gone wild, and during the Q and A, a guy named Tom Furness, who was one of the big names in
* L9 f. c% T1 C( `' e" A7 t, lvirtual reality at the time, he goes up to the microphone and he introduces himself. I didn’t know, I1 @4 D; \, S! a& t* d% F# k" U
what he looked like but I sure as hell knew the name. And he asked a question. And I was like, I’m
O; r( T9 h& z% xsorry did you say you were Tom Furness? And he said yes. I said, then I would love to answer your
5 b; X2 k* [- k1 ]& [( T5 k) Rquestion, but first, will you have lunch with me tomorrow? [laughter] And there’s a lot in that little
# x& S" Q! k: ~4 M% x! O. b/ W. omoment, there’s a lot of humility but also asking a person where he can’t possibly say no. [laughter]
8 M- k$ ^' X W! CAnd so Imagineering a couple of years later was working on a virtual reality project. This was top
5 Y/ B. k1 p& ]6 J1 i: l8 n+ Ksecret. They were denying the existence of a virtual reality attraction after the time that the
+ T. L( W" V# J- N6 V2 R3 opublicity department was running the TV commercials. So Imagineering really had nailed this one+ K7 D8 t% {/ X4 Q
tight. And it was the Aladdin attraction where you would fly a magic carpet, and the head mounted
# V* M+ D4 x0 Edisplay, sometimes known as gator vision. And so I had an in. As soon as the project had just, you
$ B3 S% o: L5 Yknow they start running the TV commercials, and I had been asked to brief the Secretary of Defense* @/ _7 v' {5 b: @" _3 ~! s
on the state of virtual reality. OK, Fred Brooks and I had been asked to brief the Secretary of
5 l0 G9 Z3 E e- ?: r& tDefense, and that gave me an excuse. So I called them. I called Imagineering and I said, look, I’m
! ` q$ k+ X Nbriefing the Secretary of Defense. I’d like some materials on what you have because it’s one of the. k) n$ l7 G+ t' m9 I1 {6 C' l; ~4 Q8 N
best VR systems in the world. And they kind of pushed back. And I said, look, is all this patriotism+ {& F& |$ ]0 N6 d/ z d) [
stuff in the parks a farce? And they’re like, hmm, ok. [laughter] But they said this is so new the PR
# g6 r: b$ T& ^: Ydepartment doesn’t have any footage for you, so I’m going to have to connect you straight through
3 S' e- m# A' Oto the team who did the work. Jackpot! So I find myself on the phone with a guy named Jon Snoddy
7 x: y3 K8 \9 b7 Q5 {who is one of the most impressive guys I have ever met, and he was the guy running this team, and
6 N6 n; b8 E! w$ Lit’s not surprising they had done impressive things. And so he sent me some stuff, we talked briefly- J' _" H. F: ^% L3 u$ y
and he sent me some stuff, and I said, hey, I’m going to be out in the area for a conference shortly,
/ J* M: n1 W C$ P# zwould you like to get together and have lunch? Translation: I’m going to lie to you and say that I
" s4 d: j2 B6 N& m) fhave an excuse to be in the area so I don’t look too anxious, but I would go to Neptune to have
1 ?9 j- Y: b9 W' b" vlunch with you! [laughter] And so Jon said sure, and I spent something like 80 hours talking with all
& C8 Y4 b4 z' x1 j+ m0 Cthe VR experts in the world, saying if you had access to this one unbelievable project, what would
0 S4 R4 H8 d& f- H9 Oyou ask? And then I compiled all of that and I had to memorize it, which anybody that knows me4 `1 a7 \8 |; b3 F9 j8 e, V4 Y- |& x, N
knows that I have no memory at all, because I couldn’t go in looking like a dweeb with, you know, [in
: `6 {' r3 O. t0 Z1 A+ l) idweeby voice] Hi, Question 72. So, I went in, and this was like a two hour lunch, and Jon must have6 D, r' c+ ?9 v* Z/ B. F% @
thought he was talking to some phenomenal person, because all I was doing was channeling Fred
1 v* \7 ~/ U! n. EBrooks and Ivan Sutherland and Andy Van Dam and people like that. And Henry Fuchs. So it’s pretty! G: g% A+ X$ `& u2 l) x. U/ \
easy to be smart when you’re parroting smart people. And at the end of the lunch with Jon, I sort
2 s& r. A$ K" l4 H0 N+ v& pof, as we say in the business, made “the ask.” And I said, you know, I have a sabbatical coming up." t! s7 v2 O* M8 {8 w/ O; E/ f; f
And he said, what’s that? [laughter] The beginnings of the culture clash. And so I talked with him+ ^4 X' i) M0 K9 {
about the possibility of coming there and working with him. And he said, well that’s really good
8 {8 g |( Y& R5 gexcept, you know, you’re in the business of telling people stuff and we’re in the business of keeping
p$ e( r, K9 Xsecrets. And then what made Jon Snoddy Jon Snoddy was he said, but we’ll work it out, which I
5 m% o8 [% w( I( creally loved. The other thing that I learned from Jon Snoddy – I could do easily an hour long talk just
( y" P9 G2 X8 J1 F. n8 fon what have I learned from Jon Snoddy. One of the things he told me was that wait long enough
6 F' I6 o( ]5 s, N* |" K: P0 |and people will surprise and impress you. He said, when you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re4 J9 u" a7 _, Q+ {$ k: i/ N
angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and
" s+ z8 R8 O8 K M: u# L# Cthey’ll almost always impress you. And that really stuck with me. I think he’s absolutely right on
6 F2 T+ z P$ g, n0 K7 j3 xthat one. So to make a long story short, we negotiated a legal contract. It was going to be the first –: j7 \# J; V; d1 v
some people referred to it as the first and last paper ever published by Imagineering. That the deal+ _# l' \6 X/ q. }2 }5 _/ f
was I go, I provide my own funding, I go for six months, I work with a project, we publish a paper.
# X* F& `2 b8 a" w8 b# Y/ EAnd then we meet our villain. [shows slide of a picture of a former dean of Randy’s] I can’t be all, @% A8 J9 `, b- U" u
sweetness and light, because I have no credibility. Somebody’s head’s going to go on a stick. Turns
6 d- I" z- ]( N; d3 K$ S* Hout that the person who gets his head on a stick is a dean back at the University of Virginia. His4 H* M0 G' _& |
name is not important. Let’s call him Dean Wormer. [laughter] And Dean Wormer has a meeting5 B6 i+ l/ |! \3 P+ Z! A! _0 f" B
with me where I say I want to do this sabbatical thing and I’ve actually got the Imagineering guys to
0 B$ I# N) T# P9 b+ ^ e0 P. P) ulet an academic in, which is insane. I mean if Jon hadn’t gone nuts, this would never have been a
: _0 F# o o8 M. spossibility. This is a very secretive organization. And Dean Wormer looks at the paperwork and he
1 h' |0 a+ R: C5 Y# B6 Wsays, well it says they’re going to own your intellectual property. And I said, yeah, we got the7 P/ J' Y$ v( l9 C
agreement to publish the paper. There is no other IP. I don’t do patentable stuff. And says, yeah,4 @0 |3 x1 B0 m
but you might. And so deal’s off. Just go and get them to change that little clause there and then) L6 l( D; V. V
come back to me. I’m like, excuse me? And then I said to him, I want you to understand how" i! u1 A" \, Y4 V0 v' S4 w
important this is. If we can’t work this out, I’m going to take an unpaid leave of absence and I’m just
+ X# Q5 t4 z7 y7 Wgoing to go there and I’m going to do this thing. And he said, hey, I might not even let you do that. I
+ z \& r# t5 R3 O Omean you’ve got the IP in your head already and maybe they’re going to suck it out of you, so that’s
$ c6 t- S& H" _$ A9 Cnot going to fly either. [laughter] It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And8 @. R6 A S* }9 e0 n
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.. P: C+ `1 e _5 v8 r
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,
8 k0 W- p% X. a1 {0 }. g3 P[sarcastically] OK, well we’ve got common ground there. Then I said, well is this really your call?
" K: i) O* H: KIsn’t this the call of the Dean of Sponsored Research if it’s an IP issue? And he said, yeah, that’s true.
3 C8 C+ V6 Z/ WI said, but so if he’s happy you’re happy? [So he says] Yeah, then I’d be fine. Whoosh! Like Wile E.6 I# ?7 ~8 F7 w
Coyote, I’m gone in a big ball of dust. And I find myself in Gene Block’s office, who is the most
. D; G- A M1 S5 O7 ]fantastic man in the world. And I start talking to Gene Block and I say let’s start at the high level,& T! F# Q8 H7 h+ V
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
3 o# G& \5 ~; `+ _good idea? He said, well if you’re asking me if it’s a good idea, I don’t have very much information.3 `& N! H0 V% b; b0 u
All I know is that one of my star faculty members is in my office and he’s really excited, so tell me5 b2 [* a* z6 k) J. b
more. Here’s a lesson for everybody in administration. They both said the same thing. But think4 M/ E5 h; c; i, w# b* j G
about how they said it, right? [In a loud, barking voice] I don’t know! [In a pleasant voice] Well, I
6 l# ]3 N# b4 pdon’t have much information, but one of my start faculty members is here and he’s all excited so I
/ U, f( Q, K. V) V: Dwant to learn more. They’re both ways of saying I don’t know, but boy there’s a good way and a bad) E& _9 Y O; [; p6 n6 U1 h
way. So anyway, we got it all worked out. I went to Imagineering. Sweetness and light. And all’s
# {! r* z: d5 m' N6 Lwell that ends well.
! K. ~ B6 N/ d# pSome brick walls are made of flesh. So I worked on the Aladdin Project. It was absolutely8 }: C1 T/ x+ B8 S( j0 F8 ^: c
spectacular, I mean just unbelievable. Here’s my nephew Christopher. [Shows slide of Christopher4 ^! R- x, W7 X0 A" @) x3 w: {8 o
on Aladdin apparatus] This was the apparatus. You would sit on this sort of motorcycle-type thing.
% I: W7 f. k( u8 T2 f X' @And you would steer your magic carpet and you would put on the head-mounted display. The headmounted
' w7 @! f! W0 q9 fdisplay is very interesting because it had two parts, and it was a very clever design. To get+ B& a3 R/ x6 m) M4 y6 E/ s
throughput up, the only part that touched the guest’s head was this little cap and everything else
- p0 b; |- O% r* ?2 pclicked onto it – all the expensive hardware. So you could replicate the caps because they were7 D/ L3 M8 I1 M, m# @
basically free to manufacture. [Showing slide of Randy cleaning a cap] And this is what I really did is
8 s& @. L) O( Y$ b4 }0 R' |I was a cap cleaner during the sabbatical. [laughter] I loved Imagineering. It was just a spectacular
0 T) A4 p: w3 ]; ]" x1 uplace. Just spectacular. Everything that I had dreamed. I loved the model shop. People crawling, T6 b# n# F6 M
around on things the size of this room that are just big physical models. It was just an incredible
0 X2 r) k6 o1 t) S7 M: J" G. Z' xplace to walk around and be inspired. I’m always reminded of when I went there and people said,0 _$ D( ]4 A L
do you think your expectations are too high? And I said, you ever see the movie Charlie and the3 H1 b0 r: h' ~* x9 v! Q% O4 f; M1 i
Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory? Where Gene Wilder says to the little
( Q5 [& i1 |. c5 Q, Q# t( oboy Charlie, he’s about to give him the chocolate factory. He says “Well Charlie, did anybody ever( ~# c! q7 O: @; K
tell you the story of the little boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?” Charlie’s eyes get+ R8 Q0 w$ k5 [* E$ W$ Q# k' o
like saucers and he says, “No, what happened to him?” Gene Wilder says, “He lived happily ever
$ p; g: ?' [, Q) J& A$ c8 y- I6 Jafter.” [laughter]
3 ]3 r' X% f8 L, VOK, so working on the Aladdin VR, I described it as a once in every five careers opportunity, and I
* V t: E! H. v8 |stand by that assessment. And it forever changed me. It wasn’t just that it was good work and I got
0 I% `/ y+ i; u hto be a part of it. But it got me into the place of working with real people and real HCI user interface
j; Q+ A _3 r/ H) ^- t) M: s1 Vissues. Most HCI people live in this fantasy world of white collar laborers with Ph.D.s and masters
2 f$ H P Z9 S0 c; f2 ddegrees. And you know, until you got ice cream spilled on you, you’re not doing field work. And
0 X0 {. G& I! N/ }( Z+ r( C' t9 @7 m0 @more than anything else, from Jon Snoddy I learned how to put artists and engineers together, and
# ]* ^" G* \; y6 U/ I4 gthat’s been the real legacy.6 M; L0 |% F$ L! D+ O2 L+ k
We published a paper. Just a nice academic cultural scandal. When we wrote the paper, the guys at
5 K* l$ N, A; `4 CImagineering said, well let’s do a nice big picture. Like you would in a magazine. [Showing slide of1 H9 k1 Q8 t3 n! D: C1 n/ i2 Y
first page of the paper, with a photo at the top that spans two columns]. And the SIGGRAPH. [- k4 i7 M0 f8 {5 z( u% E
committee, which accepted the paper, it was like this big scandal. Are they allowed to do that?, H: [, Z; t3 p/ a( z# G
[laughter] There was no rule! So we published the paper and amazingly since then there’s a# X$ h( ^( V8 s9 b4 R
tradition of SIGGRAPH papers having color figures on the first page. So I’ve changed the world in a* c; o7 [: g: V6 q/ v8 h
small way. [laughter] And then at the end of my six months, they came to me and they said, you
) O$ i+ g& }& s0 \9 ^8 hwant to do it for real? You can stay. And I said no. One of the only times in my life I have surprised
$ }# B1 ~4 u4 zmy father. He was like, you’re what? He said, since you were, you know [gesturing to height of a
* _0 B; ?3 Z+ Tchild’s head],this is all you wanted, and now that you got it, and you’re… huh? There was a bottle of$ H/ y# [5 d) _8 T' F: @3 a
Maalox in my desk drawer. Be careful what you wish for. It was a particularly stressful place.
3 L* `0 ]/ n7 a% R0 k- ]7 `. hImagineering in general is actually not so Maalox-laden, but the lab I was in – oh, Jon left in the
7 A8 c8 A' o1 J- z5 E6 vmiddle. And it was a lot like the Soviet Union. It was a little dicey for awhile. But it worked out OK.9 H5 ?" u4 L; D* H% v) h
And if they had said, stay here or never walk in the building again, I would have done it. I would
. j* `2 n+ j/ l# \0 N5 V- B' Khave walked away from tenure, I would have just done it. But they made it easy on me. They said0 j) s& T0 S, J
you can have your cake and eat it too. And I basically became a day-a-week consultant for
1 N. l8 A" O' ^8 CImagineering, and I did that for about ten years. And that’s one of the reasons you should all% I; g# b5 b, v1 K8 q' v
become professors. Because you can have your cake and eat it too.0 F" ?3 J& L$ ~: I' N
I went and consulted on things like DisneyQuest. So there was the Virtual Jungle Cruise. And the
e$ o7 U0 B* l+ S$ F' b1 [best interactive experience I think ever done, and Jesse Schell gets the credit for this, Pirates of the
# C0 O/ r0 U, _- X# @Caribbean. Wonderful at DisneyQuest.
& c: @2 ]6 [* W0 X% VAnd so those are my childhood dreams. And that’s pretty good. I felt good about that. So then the
8 R) u, m* m+ v. hquestion becomes, how can I enable the childhood dreams of others. And again, boy am I glad I
# x' y! @* H$ [5 k! wbecame a professor. What better place to enable childhood dreams? Eh, maybe working at EA, I
% j w- |& }# N5 ndon’t know. That’d probably be a good close second. And this started in a very concrete realization6 C& e( M }8 L" C7 j4 X
that I could do this, because a young man named Tommy Burnett, when I was at the University of
+ b" @; [( v# _, n+ ?6 kVirginia, came to me, was interested in joining my research group. And we talked about it, and he
: n( ?4 M9 z' U1 Xsaid, oh, and I have a childhood dream. It gets pretty easy to recognize them when they tell you.
' _# X; [* H( B* `And I said, yes, Tommy, what is your childhood dream? He said, I want to work on the next Star8 C. M" H& j3 ~3 h* |& y% o
Wars film. Now you got to remember the timing on this. Where is Tommy, Tommy is here today.
4 x; F1 [( {9 F9 @What year would this have been? Your sophomore year.3 z- m# ?; z, F# L
Tommy:
" e& \+ J2 H$ ?, DIt was around ’93.2 `! Z$ O4 ?1 y6 l# t
Randy Pausch:: U& L8 {3 W, b0 J) `
Are you breaking anything back there young man? OK, all right, so in 1993. And I said to Tommy,. j! p- A2 _9 W& a O
you know they’re probably not going to make those next movies. [laughter] And he said, no, THEY
x* Q7 t6 n( t; u# CARE. And Tommy worked with me for a number of years as an undergraduate and then as a staff2 v7 f8 T& j K$ [9 }& Y% \
member, and then I moved to Carnegie Mellon, every single member of my team came from Virginia
/ m8 w0 D# H& F* \* s4 B: n8 Ato Carnegie Mellon except for Tommy because he got a better offer. And he did indeed work on all
3 D; _2 z& g0 K- athree of those films. And then I said, well that’s nice, but you know, one at a time is kind of' r; h: K1 e" {( n
inefficient. And people who know me know that I’m an efficiency freak. So I said, can I do this in: B' ?# d5 O8 p" Y4 h+ H
mass? Can I get people turned in such a way that they can be turned onto their childhood dreams?
& E& f5 ~; z) L5 t' G; ^! HAnd I created a course, I came to Carnegie Mellon and I created a course called Building Virtual& Q; f Q4 U! Q
Worlds. It’s a very simple course. How many people here have ever been to any of the shows?
+ a9 x) L& W' Q' ^/ J8 L1 f N[Some people from audience raise hands] OK, so some of you have an idea. For those of you who! _6 W: l- m: c. ?/ g0 ^( g4 P& n
don’t, the course is very simple. There are 50 students drawn from all the different departments of4 o2 w# J$ k- V# Z
the university. There are randomly chosen teams, four people per team, and they change every: L! g0 c9 m e* ^
project. A project only lasts two weeks, so you do something, you make something, you show) L/ p- R; J$ M
something, then I shuffle the teams, you get three new playmates and you do it again. And it’s
^# V& B8 `, x5 vevery two weeks, and so you get five projects during the semester. The first year we taught this
( v2 \ v6 P! r; X8 g3 tcourse, it is impossible to describe how much of a tiger by the tail we had. I was just running the
% u2 z; Q/ G+ L1 H& Acourse because I wanted to see if we could do it. We had just learned how to do texture mapping( `4 ?' o) X& m8 m
on 3D graphics, and we could make stuff that looked half decent. But you know, we were running
0 G) ~! t) D' P W* n4 ion really weak computers, by current standards. But I said I’ll give it a try. And at my new university4 x7 y# d5 ^/ I- K5 k
[Carnegie Mellon] I made a couple of phone calls, and I said I want to cross-list this course to get all6 R4 l0 Z; f6 A, M" N) [: I
these other people. And within 24 hours it was cross-listed in five departments. I love this1 c# k4 F. ?- N' n3 U8 g
university. I mean it’s the most amazing place. And the kids said, well what content do we make? I3 n' }" s' Y; H, v; @) u5 X* y& [$ t
said, hell, I don’t know. You make whatever you want. Two rules: no shooting violence and no* o0 Y$ `' r# t+ `" _9 ^5 V l
pornography. Not because I’m opposed to those in particular, but you know, that’s been done with. l4 }; r9 u# R4 Z3 B" ]
VR, right? [laughter] And you’d be amazed how many 19-year-old boys are completely out of ideas
6 p) a7 b* I1 L$ x( |! s( k- G; A" L1 `when you take those off the table. [laughter and clapping]3 ~* X4 }1 U# r5 b( i, z8 k
Anyway, so I taught the course. The first assignment, I gave it to them, they came back in two
- @( c3 q- O; U* h" d! Xweeks and they just blew me away. I mean the work was so beyond, literally, my imagination,
7 k" H" a' `2 M' k# j3 C" f! Z0 hbecause I had copied the process from Imagineering’s VR lab, but I had no idea what they could or
6 \0 Z6 } x o+ \couldn’t do with it as undergraduates, and their tools were weaker, and they came back on the first
( v! J& B s/ y* D# y3 ?3 kassignment, and they did something that was so spectacular that I literally didn’t, ten years as a
) c& y9 h6 @' Dprofessor and I had no idea what to do next. So I called up my mentor, and I called up Andy Van
5 w. Z* `/ J8 A, `Dam. And I said, Andy, I just gave a two-week assignment, and they came back and did stuff that if I
& ?' c3 E Q) Phad given them a whole semester I would have given them all As. Sensei, what do I do? [laughter]
# _, q* l$ S1 S# ZAnd Andy thought for a minute and he said, you go back into class tomorrow and you look them in/ p- E" Z4 B( g+ ]( C
the eye and you say, “Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better.” [laughter] And that
/ K) i; o% | h3 d* l6 zwas exactly the right advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don’t know where the bar9 @" v5 i9 {1 E* O4 ?& c0 R
should be, and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere. And boy was that
0 p* W2 u0 J \# F! hgood advice because they just kept going. And during that semester it became this underground
* E* O9 f- g8 F& O! q8 athing. I’d walk into a class with 50 students in it and there were 95 people in the room. Because it
5 S( T* n: G6 E# U U ?7 xwas the day we were showing work. And people’s roommates and friends and parents – I’d never
5 @) A2 A8 I$ i5 X" P: Shad parents come to class before! It was flattering and somewhat scary. And so it snowballed and a. M7 A- i. t! [
we had this bizarre thing of, well we’ve got to share this. If there’s anything I’ve been raised to do,, O) G2 ^# Q. v; C9 ]" c
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
3 ~$ Z1 `4 J4 @. C, O4 I) Tshow. And we booked this room, McConomy. I have a lot of good memories in this room. And we
) P# P2 }) e( S: Qbooked it not because we thought we could fill it, but because it had the only AV setup that would
8 Q8 Y# `5 ~# g5 P( b5 j" Nwork, because this was a zoo. Computers and everything. And then we filled it. And we more than
, x- S! }9 ]6 \1 M9 rfilled it. We had people standing in the aisle. I will never forget the dean at the time, Jim Morris% d9 p! p; S- g- P- P
was sitting on the stage right about there. We had to kind of scoot him out of the way. And the
- x1 n3 w7 k" q( \# Menergy in the room was like nothing I had ever experienced before. And President Cohen, Jerry# y& E& J$ z8 m1 L8 V- J
Cohen was there, and he sensed the same thing. He later described it as like an Ohio State football
1 D$ N$ s$ B0 [: v0 qpep rally. Except for academics. And he came over and he asked exactly the right question. He4 N7 G9 a5 Y, ?( L0 ^' f
said, before you start, he said, where are these people from? He said, the audience, what) u6 b/ ^* L! e
departments are they from? And we polled them and it was all the departments. And I felt very$ g1 q5 Y. ~4 i9 ?( x/ Z: x9 ?
good because I had just come to campus, he had just come to campus, and my new boss had seen in
. p0 p- H; [- }a very corporal way that this is the university that puts everybody together. And that made me feel
. ?% h) ~2 r& r7 X) T& Ljust tremendous.
+ c9 s. V4 j% j6 h8 lSo we did this campus-wide exhibition. People performed down here. They’re in costume, and we
/ f. t) w( p9 D( h4 v6 pproject just like this and you can see what’s going on. You can see what they’re seeing in the head# q( s5 @* ~$ Q2 l* G
mount. There’s a lot of big props, so there’s a guy white water rafting. [shows slides of a BVW show], A. Y8 v( F m O$ x
This is Ben in E.T. And yes, I did tell them if they didn’t do the shot of the kids biking across the1 S* I) P* }. G* w! E j7 q0 `
moon I would fail him. That is a true story. And I thought I’d show you just one world, and if we can' `6 v4 J) l: j6 {( F" Y
get the lights down if that’s at all possible. No, ok, that means no. All right. All right we’ll just do' h. X- Z/ a+ c) s/ Z
our best then. [Shows “Hello.world” world done in the BVW class, audience applauds at the end.] It
: K( T: x2 l7 r7 swas an unusual course. With some of the most brilliant, creative students from all across the
/ n% i" W* S; M* t6 acampus. It just was a joy to be involved. And they took the whole stage performance aspect of this
, |8 `$ \* C$ S2 R1 C: Xway too seriously [shows pictures of very strange costumes students wore]. And it became this
* i% m4 ?( r9 J% P, C0 K. icampus phenomenon every year. People would line up for it. It was very flattering. And it gave kids u$ L' t J- w
a sense of excitement of putting on a show for people who were excited about it. And I think that9 m: V6 X G$ C2 r5 n3 E( z1 S
that’s one of the best things you can give somebody – the chance to show them what it feels like to
! p% ]& `3 o2 P" qmake other people get excited and happy. I mean that’s a tremendous gift. We always try to
/ L1 G- O4 u$ I8 U3 o# binvolve the audience. Whether it was people with glow sticks or batting a beach ball around… or6 m. X9 O n; S5 ^) _4 o
driving [shows photo of audience members leaning in their seats to steer a car]. This is really cool.+ ^& C+ D) }1 }' N) F0 k' a/ F6 v
This technology actually got used at the Spiderman 3 premiere in L.A., so the audience was
7 z" C4 E8 V( X% u8 x0 W3 kcontrolling something on the screen, so that’s kind of nice. And I don’t have a class picture from+ \) r: [$ B, F I& ]7 A
every year, but I dredged all the ones that I do have, and all I can say is that what a privilege and an
% w+ n) x$ x2 \, Z1 x# _3 Chonor it was to teach that course for something like ten years.
( b; N. a$ R2 ^' QAnd all good things come to an end. And I stopped teaching that course about a year ago. People
* G- B7 }) n% z5 d) b/ f# Balways ask me what was my favorite moment. I don’t know if you could have a favorite moment.3 ]& T% j" e1 U/ }/ n. [
But boy there is one I’ll never forget. This was a world with, I believe a roller skating ninja. And one1 {) d" U+ A) B7 `4 r3 R
of the rules was that we perform these things live and they all had to really work. And the moment; Q5 P5 u' A1 M7 J7 k
it stopped working, we went to your backup videotape. And this was very embarrassing. [Shows
* g; H; o7 \9 V# {7 M# ximage of Roller Ninja world presentation] So we have this ninja on stage and he’s doing this roller
8 C' p. b) ^( ?skating thing and the world, it did not crash gently. Whoosh. And I come out, and I believe it was
( c3 K; @# {+ S& oSteve, Audia, wasn’t it? Where is he? OK, where is Steve? Ah, my man. Steve Audia. And talk. j" C$ t. p# x _" }# c
about quick on your feet. I say, Steve, I’m sorry but your world has crashed and we’re going to go to
! j6 N! x% t# l" Y4 l& Ovideotape. And he pulls out his ninja sword and says, I am dishonored! Whaaa! And just drops!) F* }. w0 j0 M0 T# r
[applause and laughter] And so I think it’s very telling that my very favorite moment in ten years of
# [$ x# ^! W% e* E/ l, uthis high technology course was a brilliant ad lib. And then when the videotape is done and the! m. p4 O4 U% V' k8 D, G9 I6 k
lights come up, he’s lying there lifeless and his teammates drag him off! [laughter] It really was a
3 ]0 w' t# q1 S8 w1 pfantastic moment.
9 `/ P- r8 m, @ q8 `And the course was all about bonding. People used to say, you know, what’s going to make for a
D6 U4 `) \, [/ I) Sgood world? I said, I can’t tell you beforehand, but right before they present it I can tell you if the# g& x! C% d% t9 N1 t
world’s good just by the body language. If they’re standing close to each other, the world is good.+ A2 ?4 @6 R7 @" Y/ e, f! W
And BVW was a pioneering course [Randy puts on vest with arrows poking out of the back], and I
7 \2 V6 o, V# _" h. S/ ~won’t bore you with all the details, but it wasn’t easy to do, and I was given this when I stepped
! A0 u) t! ^$ U6 H+ ]down from the ETC and I think it’s emblematic. If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you
L( I# _2 A" E( ?8 S) owill get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it. I mean everything that could
" M' k2 i5 u+ W( n+ }# vgo wrong did go wrong. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people had a whole lot of fun.
0 k; V. T2 t# ` D2 e+ g5 JWhen you’ve had something for ten years that you hold so precious, it’s the toughest thing in the) m0 X/ S' o0 e1 V4 H J o
world to hand it over. And the only advice I can give you is, find somebody better than you to hand
) k$ O6 r8 @' u' Q Kit to. And that’s what I did. There was this kid at the VR studios way back when, and you didn’t have: }7 V: x4 @7 K; [; \3 C
to spend very long in Jesse Schell’s orbit to go, the force is strong in this one. And one of my* h! L& n A: j l* w! q5 d4 p
greatest – my two greatest accomplishments I think for Carnegie Mellon was that I got Jessica/ p0 W' ?/ H3 q
Hodgins and Jesse Schell to come here and join our faculty. And I was thrilled when I could hand this
9 m. f e4 G6 X4 E" _over to Jesse, and to no one’s surprise, he has really taken it up to the next notch. And the course is
; {( o4 W# R/ D: Z4 Cin more than good hands – it’s in better hands. But it was just one course. And then we really took: p1 F p3 _; \& t
it up a notch. And we created what I would call the dream fulfillment factory. Don Marinelli and I
* M- z5 r( a! f, q+ r$ l4 ^got together and with the university’s blessing and encouragement, we made this thing out of whole
7 F: w, q( r" H% o1 }4 acloth that was absolutely insane. Should never have been tried. All the sane universities didn’t go2 Z, A; _( y( v/ l: F
near this kind of stuff. Creating a tremendous opportunistic void. So the Entertainment Technology
: E; N& ?) u5 F( l! XCenter was all about artists and technologists working in small teams to make things. It was a twoyear( z+ `/ e/ x ?% o
professional master’s degree. And Don and I were two kindred spirits. We’re very different –! z; B: L e8 [2 J" ]
anybody who knows us knows that we are very different people. And we liked to do things in a new! S5 ?" h* b- Z
way, and the truth of the matter is that we are both a little uncomfortable in academia. I used to
1 u, [( W/ F; H5 |; Usay that I am uncomfortable as an academic because I come from a long line of people who actually
) e+ r1 ^, d6 Q: b" r: `% yworked for a living, so. [Nervous laughter] I detect nervous laughter! And I want to stress, Carnegie
7 M! F9 h" U0 wMellon is the only place in the world that the ETC could have happened. By far the only place.
4 N b# v8 c/ R! g. w[Shows slide of Don Marinelli in tye-dyed shirt, shades and an electric guitar, sitting on a desk next
$ I! u2 j% ]0 A3 x/ P8 n1 l) tto Randy, wearing nerd glasses, button-up shirt, staring at a laptop. Above their heads were the1 v9 k* o9 |" N' k
labels “Right brain/Left brain”] [laughter] OK, this picture was Don’s idea, OK? And we like to refer( O8 ^. g! A2 A2 m" t8 W
to this picture as Don Marinelli on guitar and Randy Pausch on keyboards. [laughter] But we really
$ T& g: `4 ~# }- l1 vdid play up the left brain, right brain and it worked out really well that way. [Shows slide of Don( s/ ?# N" r9 o
looking intense] Don is an intense guy. And Don and I shared an office, and at first it was a small
; l- ]% c' U0 }; P' s4 ^2 d9 roffice. We shared an office for six years. You know, those of you who know Don know he’s an& j# q% f! S8 s
intense guy. And you know, given my current condition, somebody was asking me … this is a8 o3 X' z/ i' h x9 G" L
terrible joke, but I’m going to use it anyway. Because I know Don will forgive me. Somebody said,5 s/ m4 |( \) f: l3 T6 r/ _, K6 T
given your current condition, have you thought about whether you’re going to go to heaven or hell?7 V% E( b, ~. u/ H2 w( D" E
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.
. v6 S. O( w1 e% cSharing an office with Don was really like sharing an office with a tornado. There was just so much
4 |2 l. S! L9 }- d. fenergy and you never knew which trailer was next, right? But you know something exciting was) w2 l) Y( d& c% C6 p* F
going to happen. And there was so much energy, and I do believe in giving credit where credit is
* }9 h( `. V) cdue. So in my typically visual way, if Don and I were to split the success for the ETC, he clearly gets7 }; N- Q8 r2 W; u( T7 I
the lion’s share of it. [Shows image of a pie chart divided 70/30 (Don/Randy) ] He did the lion’s share
4 [0 x4 a( p; o% s/ L \: Vof the work, ok, he had the lion’s share of the ideas. It was a great teamwork. I think it was a great
! l4 G* J: p0 K" pyin and a yang, but it was more like YIN and yang. And he deserves that credit and I give it to him7 S# y$ ]) r* E9 ?6 s
because the ETC is a wonderful place. And he’s now running it and he’s taking it global. We’ll talk' u/ @3 W H: j. d9 H; A* @
about that in a second.
! E; `- H/ n( ^7 q9 o ~Describing the ETC is really hard, and I finally found a metaphor. Telling people about the ETC is like- i* }0 n& O9 B( o# R1 Z9 J6 j
describing Cirque du Soleil if they’ve never seen it. Sooner or later you’re going to make the5 z% ]. [8 u* a Y% J' U% H
mistake. You’re going to say, well it’s like a circus. And then you’re dragged into this conversation
" ?! c: e# {# {about oh, how many tigers, how many lions, how many trapeze acts? And that misses the whole" C. Y8 k, V( {, n$ U
point. So when we say we’re a master’s degree, we’re really not like any master’s degree you’ve D+ W1 ^! |5 n9 N( D4 r2 V
ever seen. Here’s the curriculum [Shows slide of ETC curriculum, listing “Project Course” as the only8 c1 y, [- ]1 K% V
course each semester; audience laughs] The curriculum ended up looking like this. [shows slightly
/ O1 a. E$ `$ Y1 \9 ~more detailed slide]. All I want to do is visually communicate to you that you do five projects in
7 _% r" j$ ^# q/ j, `7 x7 [$ ^Building Virtual Worlds, then you do three more. All of your time is spent in small teams making- N0 w4 x0 M& l0 e$ D9 {
stuff. None of that book learning thing. Don and I had no patience for the book learning thing. It’s
- e! @$ C G9 |# D1 A. ~a master’s degree. They already spent four years doing book learning. By now they should have
, _9 @4 Y" m9 i9 x9 ^read all the books.
- X: j( P1 b. c. z* z1 r* S. S, ?The keys to success were that Carnegie Mellon gave us the reins. Completely gave us the reins. We
8 G' A7 e4 i' L- d/ n, ohad no deans to report to. We reported directly to the provost, which is great because the provost$ h; G9 H) s2 X5 @8 u! P
is way too busy to watch you carefully. [laughter] We were given explicit license to break the mold.
7 R1 o- q3 N# R5 }It was all project based. It was intense, it was fun, and we took field trips! Every spring semester in
# |( x* \/ ^' ?) N+ M+ CJanuary, we took all 50 students in the first year class and we’d take them out to Pixar, Industrial0 L5 l6 {) q' o
Light and Magic, and of course when you’ve got guys like Tommy there acting as host, right, it’s0 Z4 k! K `3 ^
pretty easy to get entrée to these places. So we did things very, very differently. The kind of: n( J. W# U! o$ o/ D# S
projects students would do, we did a lot of what we’d call edutainment.
- N. `1 i7 T/ i1 hWe developed a bunch of things with the Fire Department of New York, a network simulator for) d& t: F. j E Q" v6 C. L
training firefighters, using video game-ish type technology to teach people useful things. That’s not
& ^3 |: @- k3 T- e- D3 D4 c a7 M) i- Sbad. Companies did this strange thing. They put in writing, we promise to hire your students. I’ve2 U) W7 Z. ~8 q; `
got the EA and Activision ones here. I think there are now, how many, five? Drew knows I bet.2 o5 K. \( X( X7 A: L
[Drew Davison, head of ETC-Pittsburgh, gestures with five fingers]. So there are five written/ q# b: U; L' m T( S8 ^
agreements. I don’t know of any other school that has this kind of written agreement with any
& M0 Z6 v" | acompany. And so that’s a real statement. And these are multiple year things, so they’re agreeing to1 F+ y' ]* @! R* h0 B, n
hire people for summer internships that we have not admitted yet. That’s a pretty strong statement
0 Z( e# L, f- S6 Z( xabout the quality of the program. And Don, as I said, he’s now, he’s crazy. In a wonderful1 o+ H/ }! _. ?5 `( U6 _
complimentary way. He’s doing these things where I’m like, oh my god. He’s not here tonight& {4 S; z, b& ?5 N6 a- a' V" y$ z
because he’s in Singapore because there’s going to be an ETC campus in Singapore. There’s already
7 S$ l/ x v% _# Jon in Australia and there’s going to be on in Korea. So this is becoming a global phenomenon. So I
1 G2 a: V% C( ~$ R8 B$ Y# j$ l$ C' ethink this really speaks volumes about all the other universities. It’s really true that Carnegie Mellon9 V2 Q$ i# Z/ k+ z- Q; b: S
is the only university that can do this. We just have to do it all over the world now.7 E- @1 \: p1 G
One other big success about the ETC is teaching people about feedback [puts up bar chart where
t& X3 G5 A0 ]! }( c4 \8 x& T7 vstudents are (anonymous) listed on a scale labeled “how easy to work with” ] -- oh I hear the
/ C9 T" n6 R/ W d5 |nervous laughter from the students. I had forgotten the delayed shock therapy effect of these bar' q E( c3 q0 L: v# s C; Z6 | `6 D
charts. When you’re taking Building Virtual Worlds, every two weeks we get peer feedback. We put
. ]( o; u- L$ \* P8 gthat all into a big spreadsheet and at the end of the semester, you had three teammates per project,
9 L M. Y. @* U5 J- K/ W8 i; n, Dfive projects, that’s 15 data points, that’s statistically valid. And you get a bar chart telling you on a
/ k( Y9 r" i( U! M1 zranking of how easy you are to work with, where you stacked up against your peers. Boy that’s hard. d1 e: o0 Z" [0 T/ ^& p7 D
feedback to ignore. Some still managed. [laughter] But for the most part, people looked at that and
; }" i3 Y8 D" M* Dwent, wow, I’ve got to take it up a notch. I better start thinking about what I’m saying to people in
1 r* `; b! a# U+ @& q, n' Gthese meetings. And that is the best gift an educator can give is to get somebody to become self; C/ j% l1 ]; ]+ [" T
reflective.
{- ~. k! D. Q1 T5 Z# j. x f: ~9 q" LSo the ETC was wonderful, but even the ETC and even as Don scales it around the globe, it’s still very+ z; C3 V& P, ~7 x" s9 v% \
labor intensive, you know. It’s not Tommy one-at-a-time. It’s not a research group ten at a time.
: H% E/ n" F% m/ I2 nIt’s 50 or 100 at a time per campus times four campuses. But I wanted something infinitely scalable.
# w$ `& B! u& q3 V2 Y& \ ?" bScalable to the point where millions or tens of millions of people could chase their dreams with
5 D" ^4 j r; U) c) osomething. And you know, I guess that kind of a goal really does make me the Mad Hatter. [Puts on/ W: ?7 t1 H. K9 W# [$ e. \$ W0 n
a Mad Hatter’s green top hat]. So Alice is a project that we worked on for a long, long time. It’s a: e$ v3 s4 g# t- g
novel way to teach computer programming. Kids make movies and games. The head fake – again,5 _1 ^) f/ L4 Z4 C# U
we’re back to the head fakes. The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think
9 B$ H* t) D- _, e! t. jthey’re learning something else. I’ve done it my whole career. And the head fake here is that
" `( G- |7 n4 Z! Fthey’re learning to program but they just think they’re making movies and video games. This thing
+ o' ?7 {$ z% K9 t2 S3 H/ fhas already been downloaded well over a million times. There are eight textbooks that have been
" h4 h% Q& A# _! ~9 Jwritten about it. Ten percent of U.S. colleges are using it now. And it’s not the good stuff yet. The
6 q2 T. D- i, A7 ^good stuff is coming in the next version. I, like Moses, get to see the promised land, but I won’t get
) G# r7 W8 q! c$ v o% Eto set foot in it. And that’s OK, because I can see it. And the vision is clear. Millions of kids having6 _0 W( Q6 q+ i5 S! ]3 L D( Z
fun while learning something hard. That’s pretty cool. I can deal with that as a legacy. The next h& Z4 X9 D$ |8 v8 X# w+ o
version’s going to come out in 2008. It’s going to be teaching the Java language if you want them to
# [: ]) F" C+ zknow they’re learning Java. Otherwise they’ll just think that they’re writing movie scripts. And
, S- ~( L8 N+ e2 ~( owe’re getting the characters from the bestselling PC video game in history, The Sims. And this is
) [+ V1 H4 Z* V* X5 Y( f1 k- {already working in the lab, so there’s no real technological risk. I don’t have time to thank and, G( Y0 J. x- _8 J
mention everybody in the Alice team, but I just want to say that Dennis Cosgrove is going to be9 |5 n0 v/ [: n; b1 D6 C
building this, has been building this. He is the designer. This is his baby. And for those of you who( y0 J/ t7 S8 }
are wondering, well, in some number of months who should I be emailing about the Alice project,9 y2 V# B" V2 [4 c4 o& o m
where’s Wanda Dann? Oh, there you are. Stand up, let them all see you. Everybody say, Hi Wanda.6 X2 W/ h( j x
Audience:( w& y& }$ O! p' z$ H
Hi, Wanda.& _2 U. z5 \ s, p
Randy Pausch:
% m* f, S2 H! i; B5 @" G/ E& OSend her the email. And I’ll talk a little bit more about Caitlin Kelleher, but she’s graduated with her
% [& V+ c4 x3 h( u1 fPh.D., and she’s at Washington University, and she’s going to be taking this up a notch and going to* ~/ p5 r2 k* ?2 e' U
middle schools with it. So, grand vision and to the extent that you can live on in something, I will0 n1 v% S& C$ k7 x* B
live on in Alice.7 e( e' m4 W n, _2 o
All right, so now the third part of the talk. Lessons learned. We’ve talked about my dreams. We’ve+ }6 R2 y' ?8 }$ h* q4 e
talked about helping other people enable their dreams. Somewhere along the way there’s got to be
8 z/ j: q& Z& o% y* Jsome aspect of what lets you get to achieve your dreams. First one is the rule of parents, mentors
2 o6 Q# q( i/ n/ O" }& f& `% ^and students. I was blessed to have been born to two incredible people. This is my mother on her% S8 G7 ^1 ~6 L$ {% a D
70th birthday. [Shows slide of Randy’s mom driving a race car on an amusement park race course]
0 G, y, K' i. a, \( \[laughter] I am back here. I have just been lapped. [laughter] This is my dad riding a roller coaster
4 e$ N7 @+ F2 }6 l$ L9 von his 80th birthday. [Shows slide of dad] And he points out that he’s not only brave, he’s talented4 D3 m7 ]$ \2 |4 v
because he did win that big bear the same day. My dad was so full of life, anything with him was an+ K6 V, ~/ U: \& T9 S: r# I
adventure. [Shows picture of his Dad holding a brown paper bag.] I don’t know what’s in that bag,
: i+ d5 l# T+ x5 J4 `' y! Ybut I know it’s cool. My dad dressed up as Santa Claus, but he also did very, very significant things# t1 r6 _8 c6 K5 D7 W. W6 G# Y
to help lots of people. This is a dormitory in Thailand that my mom and dad underwrote. And every
* a, y. L0 J( U; F$ f/ syear about 30 students get to go to school who wouldn’t have otherwise. This is something my wife' i! l. S: Y# V& G( C- d! O
and I have also been involved in heavily. And these are the kind of things that I think everybody
! g: m9 }* ^& o, }! `- p) x) k# ^4 V" @ought to be doing. Helping others.
) z& m4 n f- TBut the best story I have about my dad – unfortunately my dad passed away a little over a year ago
% D7 R) M; F+ Z }' L4 ^– and when we were going through his things, he had fought in World War II in the Battle of the) ~6 R5 V: J/ M3 ^6 ], w8 P: E$ Y+ @
Bulge, and when we were going through his things, we found out he had been awarded the Bronze
+ e8 ]; N# f: d$ E( `, jStar for Valor. My mom didn’t know it. In 50 years of marriage it had just never come up.$ e% x( p! h% V4 g* @
My mom. [Shows picture of Randy as a young child, pulling his Mom’s hair]. Mothers are people7 E: Z7 j0 A' S& X( ]2 x1 P1 d9 `
who love even when you pull their hair. And I have two great mom stories. When I was here
' b& q. x+ R; E; j' L6 p9 U: ]studying to get my Ph.D. and I was taking something called the theory qualifier, which I can; z8 p5 g# }4 n1 Z0 ~
definitively say is the second worst thing in my life after chemotherapy. [laughter] And I was+ S8 T6 W. n5 w& I
complaining to my mother about how hard this test was and how awful it was, and she just leaned
& t" Z- y F* o& W) H lover and she patted me on the arm and she said, we know how you feel honey, and remember when* a2 y/ m7 g. N# B6 g3 k
your father was your age he was fighting the Germans. [laugher] After I got my Ph.D., my mother: P, o4 P/ D* W9 T! E3 j" L
took great relish in introducing me as, this is my son, he’s a doctor but not the kind that helps people.
8 V- P" H1 C( @! C% T E[laughter] These slides are a little bit dark [meaning “hard to see”], but when I was in high school I
( q8 w8 n0 w/ O( `" Y1 `+ H6 xdecided to paint my bedroom. [shows slides of bedroom] I always wanted a submarine and an" G7 C+ B0 _ N {7 ?( M
elevator. And the great thing about this [shows slide of quadratic formula painted on wall]) p& e' `. ~) {$ w) e0 p# L8 {
[interrupted by laughter] – what can I say? And the great thing about this is they let me do it. And0 y9 D! K C) X9 f4 i) ?, V
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# B4 N6 K) J4 F. l
anybody who is out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedroom, as a favor to me
, s+ |5 I2 ?: B( M# c# j+ i8 l; zlet them do it. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry about resale value on the house.+ a# C3 z# i( M2 F
Other people who help us besides our parents: our teachers, our mentors, our friends, our
. X6 D2 f1 p, I* Icolleagues. God, what is there to say about Andy Van Dam? When I was a freshman at Brown, he
6 @% g; z* L) t( K5 A( B( x: Uwas on leave. And all I heard about was this Andy Van Dam. He was like a mythical creature. Like a9 l. a" f- e1 y- [& s
centaur, but like a really pissed off centaur. And everybody was like really sad that he was gone, but
3 i/ h% M% s" k3 ^( `. Jkind of more relaxed? And I found out why. Because I started working for Andy. I was a teaching* I' w" D9 B8 T$ c: L% [% g& i6 B
assistant for him as a sophomore. And I was quite an arrogant young man. And I came in to some- N6 T$ M, O1 p3 h; y
office hours and of course it was nine o’clock at night and Andy was there at office hours, which is
) b: e3 w. B; e' f1 R) Dyour first clue as to what kind of professor he was. And I come bounding in and you know, I’m just
5 E8 A! _% @6 ?" }: XI’m going to save the world. There’re all these kids waiting for help, da da, da da, da da, da da, da
0 Q7 X b# Z r" K; x6 fda. And afterwards, Andy literally Dutch-uncled – he’s Dutch, right? He Dutch-uncled me. And he
! \ \# A7 Y9 q& n3 F# z( Kput his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame- N5 o) y' }* |" Z6 G3 {7 w |
that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to
8 n, t' _( b0 R3 Gaccomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t* o2 d% o- k/ D* o% w4 s3 H% u
say you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going
. F7 u( C4 ~6 t) [+ Kto limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.
7 j" {# `6 ^# }9 K6 l& g# }$ H& LWhen I got to know Andy better, the beatings became more direct, but. [laughter] I could tell you5 D4 I. t% @ k& ^* A
Andy stories for a month, but the one I will tell you is that when it came time to start thinking about
4 m8 z4 n. G+ {$ B. Cwhat to do about graduating from Brown, it had never occurred to me in a million years to go to, i! _- ?: m0 D8 _
graduate school. Just out of my imagination. It wasn’t the kind of thing people from my family did.
$ r ~* B# G* D, R& qWe got, say, what do you call them? …. jobs. And Andy said, no, don’t go do that. Go get a Ph.D.
% r- x0 ~ w* IBecome a professor. And I said, why? And he said, because you’re such a good salesman that any3 F9 {, Z5 n3 P) F
company that gets you is going to use you as a salesman. And you might as well be selling4 Q3 \: g6 j9 I8 @6 j' i) _. }
something worthwhile like education. [long pause, looks directly at Andy van Dam] Thanks.' ^3 @& @' v6 r
Andy was my first boss, so to speak. I was lucky enough to have a lot of bosses. [shows slide of" J1 C; b2 `" H7 t/ t$ y
various bosses] That red circle is way off. Al is over here. [laughter] I don’t know what the hell& s$ y7 B: D' Q
happened there. He’s probably watching this on the webcast going, my god he’s targeting and he# R4 m% P* C2 p: m- \
still can’t aim! [laughter] I don’t want to say much about the great bosses I’ve had except that they6 y% z" b0 W& j6 u% l4 d
were great. And I know a lot of people in the world that have had bad bosses, and I haven’t had to
; ?. k0 t) J, Vendure that experience and I’m very grateful to all the people that I ever had to have worked for.
, p' A1 T8 B" |5 N5 M9 QThey have just been incredible.( K7 y+ H( E" @( `. e4 \6 h
But it’s not just our bosses, we learn from our students. I think the best head fake of all time comes* C9 r4 a, ^) S& m
from Caitlin Kelleher. Excuse me, Doctor Caitlin Kelleher, who just finished up here and is starting at
5 h$ N Y" `* q9 `) |Washington University, and she looked at Alice when it was an easier way to learn to program, and; L! w9 v6 x3 T4 g" d1 t3 w& {
she said, yeah, but why is that fun? I was like, ‘cause uh, I’m a compulsive male…I like to make the
3 T, k. ?* w% c7 r' C2 Rlittle toy soldiers move around by my command, and that’s fun. She’s like, hmm. And she was the& h3 B1 ~ i/ ]8 ]8 k" T) w5 R, R+ Q
one who said, no, we’ll just approach it all as a storytelling activity. And she’s done wonderful work
, N$ {) d7 h" J) L4 `' [' P5 H8 vshowing that, particularly with middle school girls, if you present it as a storytelling activity, they’re
% X3 [9 x$ K; D2 X m! U% ]P a u s c h P a g e | 199 F; o$ s5 ~1 s& j" A9 A0 `3 y. K
perfectly willing to learn how to write computer software. So all-time best head fake award goes to1 I Y3 n! J6 F; O( t
Caitlin Kelleher’s dissertation. Z6 S. }+ h5 @
President Cohen, when I told him I was going to do this talk, he said, please tell them about having$ F; p# D. f, a c
fun, because that’s what I remember you for. And I said, I can do that, but it’s kind of like a fish
( ]4 m& z: Z" V% ^2 \; W4 {talking about the importance of water. I mean I don’t know how to not have fun. I’m dying and I’m' V1 S7 t2 S3 f. O3 U, x) W
having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to
& M' ~+ I a; p7 f% rplay it.
A; C+ q" v) D% ~8 |( aSo my next piece of advice is, you just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or and Eeyore. [shows slide: i0 U, @9 h/ A; [( [
with an image of Tigger and Eeyore with the phrase “Decide if you’re Tigger or Eeyore”] I think I’m
) M) F: R+ Y. n% m5 R8 ~clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. [laughter] Never lose the childlike wonder.
8 G) c% ~4 p8 MIt’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others. Denny Proffitt knows more about helping6 x( H6 t# Q; l4 c. q9 e$ [1 O( o
other people. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. He’s taught me by example how to run a3 ` y- z# l8 t% h1 ~; f5 d8 Z
group, how to care about people. M.K. Haley – I have a theory that people who come from large
+ r; X$ N5 W7 Ofamilies are better people because they’ve just had to learn to get along. M.K. Haley comes from a0 e: ^9 u' m( x! P4 k& i# [
family with 20 kids. [audience collectively “aaahs”] Yeah. Unbelievable. And she always says it’s
% f# q- M+ K& ]+ G* O/ Qkind of fun to do the impossible. When I first got to Imagineering, she was one of the people who
3 F. d. h5 S; ~, d! X+ @dressed me down, and she said, I understand you’ve joined the Aladdin Project. What can you do?
; g! {3 [5 h3 W$ J1 _7 V: N4 j) O6 e; Y. mAnd I said, well I’m a tenured professor of computer science. And she said, well that’s very nice
5 X# z) l0 t4 C2 ~6 q% @Professor Boy, but that’s not what I asked. I said what can you do? [laughter]2 K& }7 N* g# X8 z. a# w
And you know I mentioned sort of my working class roots. We keep what is valuable to us, what we& }1 `0 x T, p# b
cherish. And I’ve kept my [high school] letterman’s jacket all these years. [Puts on letterman’s
1 c% _3 @+ ^/ O7 `% P: f1 wjacket] I used to like wearing it in grad school, and one of my friends, Jessica Hodgins would say, why
% P5 k$ q; X' h; ddo you wear this letterman’s jacket? And I looked around at all the non-athletic guys around me
& n r* q- q% o& Qwho were much smarter than me. And I said, because I can. [laughter] And so she thought that was
; w* _2 F1 _% J! U! Sa real hoot so one year she made for me this little Raggedy Randy doll. [takes out Raggedy Randy]
. z( |, n; g8 O* d[laughter] He’s got a little letterman’s jacket too. That’s my all-time favorite. It’s the perfect gift for
/ T) b+ q, i; S* E# L Dthe egomaniac in your life. So, I’ve met so many wonderful people along the way.
+ l; M2 b7 e7 |, d& C6 r6 |+ ?Loyalty is a two way street. There was a young man named Dennis Cosgrove at the University of
( p8 E& {& W7 a2 ~, { EVirginia, and when he was a young man, let’s just say things happened. And I found myself talking
5 `1 w2 R0 B! _, m& N4 Jto a dean. No, not that dean. And anyway, this dean really had it in for Dennis, and I could never& z$ Z' f, i) @' n
figure out why because Dennis was a fine fellow. But for some reason this Dean really had it in for
. q$ y5 ^2 g* j7 Y9 Y/ @# dhim. And I ended up basically saying, no, I vouch for Dennis. And the guy says, you’re not even& @+ r6 b* A/ {$ T6 }
tenured yet and you’re telling me you’re going to vouch for this sophomore or junior or whatever? I
6 K& O3 i& k% t# J" ythink he was a junior at the time. I said, yeah, I’m going to vouch for him because I believe in him. x, T$ |, X- \8 w" {+ {' i
And the dean said, and I’m going to remember this when your tenure case comes up. And I said,+ g" s! Q! @2 `# s2 T
deal. I went back to talk to Dennis and I said, I would really appreciate you… that would be good.
+ C+ K3 U6 ?' |5 fBut loyalty is a two-way street. That was god knows how many years ago, but that’s the same s! n( I$ H- j* M; k4 j3 N3 |2 W4 a' V
Dennis Cosgrove who’s carrying Alice forward. He’s been with me all these years. And if we only
5 D0 ~/ M8 Y8 r! Q/ g5 d( x0 C7 {had one person to send in a space probe to meet an alien species, I’m picking Dennis. [laughter] You! L3 }1 @, j3 u$ [
can’t give a talk at Carnegie Mellon without acknowledging one very special person. And that would5 G2 o/ J: q5 Z6 x
be Sharon Burks. I joked with her, I said, well look, if you’re retiring, it’s just not worth living; k) a# t/ ^0 Z0 O/ V- v
anymore. Sharon is so wonderful it’s beyond description, and for all of us who have been helped by
' ~7 {" l( _! R" Y+ mher, it’s just indescribable. I love this picture because it puts here together with Syl, and Syl is great9 x& V5 Y4 j8 w; @; w, G# z
because Syl gave the best piece of advice pound-for-pound that I have ever heard. And I think all
" ]4 e9 W, [, r! o9 Byoung ladies should hear this. Syl said, it took me a long time but I’ve finally figured it out. When it% r8 J/ d9 `* I* a/ i. v3 Z- A, H
comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they# R9 X% m8 {3 |; @$ x0 i
say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy. And I thought back to
& }0 i$ s7 c0 {my bachelor days and I said, damn. [laughter]
2 ]$ H. ^# [1 Q. C* r6 MNever give up. I didn’t get into Brown University. I was on the wait list. I called them up and they
$ U' v8 O+ W6 H5 n8 X( P6 o& a' Xeventually decided that it was getting really annoying to have me call everyday so they let me in. At* M0 L7 f$ Y0 l, v( A5 m
Carnegie Mellon I didn’t get into graduate school. Andy had mentored me. He said, go to graduate
. Z# \! }+ d2 Aschool, you’re going to Carnegie Mellon. All my good students go to Carnegie Mellon. Yeah, you/ W! V$ }% d o3 p# @2 I! E! Y
know what’s coming. And so he said, you’re going to go to Carnegie Mellon no problem. What he& R# g* A P1 R+ J) N3 Y; b1 P: x5 _* ?
had kind of forgotten was that the difficulty of getting to the top Ph.D. program in the country had& W W7 M4 h7 _( f4 d
really gone up. And he also didn’t know I was going to tank my GRE’s because he believed in me.+ ?7 i8 v0 h! h' G1 ]3 o
Which, based on my board scores was a really stupid idea. And so I didn’t get into Carnegie Mellon.* B6 L9 x9 E3 S5 _" ^7 E- V
No one knows this. ‘Til today I’m telling the story. I was declined admission to Carnegie Mellon.# K. o6 L# s* V' h$ q5 Z \
And I was a bit of an obnoxious little kid. I went into Andy’s office and I dropped the rejection letter
( y- q. u6 Z6 t# c2 E; Hon his desk. And I said, I just want you to know what your letter of recommendation goes for at
0 q, j/ K5 ^2 {# Q8 ECarnegie Mellon. [laughter] And before the letter had hit his desk, his hand was on the phone and
0 N* o, |' S0 y) `4 u% Uhe 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
& o" x1 a! c( p6 c3 E8 e2 _6 c h$ hway I was raised. [In a sad voice] Maybe some other graduate schools will see fit to admit me.
: L3 d# k* X; w" `& c[laughter] And he said, look, Carnegie Mellon’s where you’re going to be. He said, I’ll tell you what,
4 ?( R, J5 A6 D+ p/ a8 pI’ll make you a deal. Go visit the other schools. Because I did get into all the other schools. He said,. g6 c) E' X+ n& A& ^# ]2 C& t
go visit the other schools and if you really don’t feel comfortable at any of them, then will you let me9 ]8 A0 L* q j8 u- {
call Nico? Nico being Nico Habermann [the head of Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science Dept.] and4 K7 w( W* r+ A! Y7 D) n
I said, OK deal. I went to the other schools. Without naming them by name -- [in a coughing voice]
4 m, {$ `" ]9 j% [( F& s, r5 _Berkeley, Cornell. They managed to be so unwelcoming that I found myself saying to Andy, you3 O+ k% D2 ]. o2 }5 V8 i6 a7 V
know, I’m going to get a job. And he said, no, you’re not. And he picked up the phone and he talked
1 ]0 C3 C/ l: m) q+ J2 y7 B" b: gin Dutch. [laughter] And he hung up the phone and he said, Nico says if you’re serious, be in his7 J: o! s1 I/ M, l
office tomorrow morning at eight a.m. And for those of you who know Nico, this is really scary. So8 f/ r. L- f, A' U' H4 W( d: m2 c6 @
I’m in Nico Habermann’s office the next morning at eight a.m. and he’s talking with me, and frankly I; G8 C& V) a' s% M9 s$ L7 f
don’t think he’s that keen on this meeting. I don’t think he’s that keen at all. And he says, Randy,1 w4 ~( \# ?6 q4 w
why are we here? And I said, because Andy phoned you? Heh-heh. [laughter] And I said, well, since: [; e2 B8 C2 t( D& @4 X6 }% @
you admitted me, I have won a fellowship. The Office of Naval Research is a very prestigious" w" ]5 u2 }% `( w5 U v7 A
fellowship. I’ve won this fellowship and that wasn’t in my file when I applied. And Nico said, a
9 o( W$ v0 w) j- ^$ cfellowship, money, we have plenty of money. That was back then. He said, we have plenty of7 V# w7 E: U! h M+ g/ R
money. Why do you think having a fellowship makes any difference to us? And he looked at me.
: N+ {( W4 u9 I0 @2 ?" a- D8 \There are moments that change your life. And ten years later if you know in retrospect it was one of
1 v% \+ w0 J) \! Rthose moments, you’re blessed. But to know it at the moment …. with Nico staring through your0 v% X5 q0 @ ?9 m" O) r
P a u s c h P a g e | 213 N/ |) _. e5 ?6 Q
soul. [laughter] And I said, I didn’t mean to imply anything about the money. It’s just that it was an
$ O& A- [7 H# fhonor. There were only 15 given nationwide. And I did think it was an honor that would be' r$ K3 X: _6 p& ^# d
something that would be meritorious. And I apologize if that was presumptuous. And he smiled.
7 ^7 q5 I2 M4 s5 q8 SAnd that was good.& ^9 ]! w2 q4 V3 S2 X( l
So. How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I& \: d) M" {' X
do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being
* t$ y5 p2 T1 u: h r8 Mearnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest& [) P) O1 ]7 A5 o
is long term.
: g+ o6 [" j2 P. W- o! O; SApologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. And I thought, how do I) r% T( f0 A. X% A+ F4 r1 l( k
possibly make a concrete example of that? [Speaking to stage hand] Do we have a concrete
, Y' i; G! W$ I- c3 R5 z; {6 Hexample of focusing on somebody else over there? Could we bring it out? [Speaking to audience]0 U8 i3 o6 h* i1 h7 B0 \
See, yesterday was my wife’s birthday. If there was ever a time I might be entitled to have the focus' m; j1 m% k+ j" F# {( H: u
on me, it might be the last lecture. But no, I feel very badly that my wife didn’t really get a proper, l4 ^2 ~; ^0 o) |+ |8 x, P5 _
birthday, and I thought it would be very nice if 500 people— [an oversized birthday cake is wheeled; T Z; g8 w& j, }% D! ]
onto the stage] [applause] Happy—9 R: l* ]1 Z& `: z9 X+ F" U
Everyone:
, T6 J8 }2 T9 L9 x…birthday to you [Randy: her name is Jai], happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Jai, happy
1 N% t- S3 e* Zbirthday to you! [applause]
: S c6 j2 Q0 t- {$ f' S[Jai walks on stage, teary-eyed. She walks with Randy to the cake. Randy: You gotta blow it out. The
! |; y. j- g |# N/ M/ n) yaudience goes quiet. Jai blows out the candle on the cake. Randy: All right. Massive applause.]& K$ }& u! q, p
Randy Pausch:
~1 ^" d& L% A& ?And now you all have an extra reason to come to the reception. [laughter] Remember brick walls let' u2 g( f0 a- W0 ^$ d
us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don’t really want to
2 H% k$ p; z. k0 S) }achieve their childhood dreams. Don’t bail. The best of the gold’s at the bottom of barrels of crap.
r8 d6 @# z7 z: z; L[Shows slide of Steve Seabolt next to a picture of The Sims] [laughter] What Steve didn’t tell you was
r* c- o- g# a. L1 S# m/ a5 j% ]the big sabbatical at EA, I had been there for 48 hours and they loved the ETC, we were the best, we
& [9 m: ^2 E2 R) [were the favorites, and then somebody pulled me aside and said, oh, by the way, we’re about to
6 k) p: ?4 c( H" Z3 E Lgive eight million dollars to USC to build a program just like yours. We’re hoping you can help them
' x/ e3 r6 p$ o" M5 sget it off the ground. [laughter] And then Steve came along and said, they said what? Oh god. And9 [$ t# M5 z) a
to quote a famous man, I will fix this. And he did. Steve has been an incredible partner. And we; l2 U( k2 z4 i, E9 P! |
have a great relationship, personal and professional. And he has certainly been point man on
9 K% r6 q& H' u4 G$ Ggetting a gaming asset to help teach millions of kids and that’s just incredible. But, you know, it
% ^3 N1 f4 C6 gcertainly would have been reasonable for me to leave 48 hours after that sabbatical, but it wouldn’t
3 V ~7 d* P% E0 E/ [have been the right thing to do, and when you do the right thing, good stuff has a way of happening.7 K9 i1 |( r* E3 z, [# h& Z
Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or
- d w k# B: _. K Q4 lit can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.
( Y* K7 f8 C6 @8 `+ I4 |) t2 HP a u s c h P a g e | 22" ?% D- X* C% H
Anybody can get chewed out. It’s the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. As opposed
4 @5 ?0 y* |0 a4 r' a* j+ Z" oto, no wait, the real reason is… We’ve all heard that. When people give you feedback, cherish it and
( h7 ]3 U* h9 k, S( @use it.
9 `- B# I ^5 k: x" `Show gratitude. When I got tenure I took all of my research team down to Disneyworld for a week.& ?9 R( t8 f f7 k# l6 o
And one of the other professors at Virginia said, how can you do that? I said these people just
+ ~5 s/ D3 A# \% f5 u3 v7 X, Tbusted their ass and got me the best job in the world for life. How could I not do that?- O) J! s+ |/ y! w$ X9 l
Don’t complain. Just work harder. [shows slide of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league
. C- z8 \$ n& V( x( y1 b; P) kbaseball player] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even$ m2 E0 k# r, U. q' H3 t& Z
when the fans spit on him.' Y( |# D% t; W, Z, o" ]# \" I
Be good at something, it makes you valuable.
4 j0 s; A' g) f5 ]' U; J! mWork hard. I got tenure a year early as Steve mentioned. Junior faculty members used to say to me,
# P# T. U3 [. F' N7 _9 F3 ~/ Uwow, you got tenure early. What’s your secret? I said, it’s pretty simple. Call my any Friday night in
* u' E$ X, F! ^/ v" U1 E, `my office at ten o’clock and I’ll tell you.
% r. f6 r" ]8 j. [; s6 O0 j8 V3 bFind the best in everybody. One of the things that Jon Snoddy as I said told me, is that you might
8 r5 b, R$ H! s7 shave to wait a long time, sometimes years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep
3 o& ]6 l: o5 k: kwaiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting,
2 d; W! O: i3 S; h+ o; N- G3 Cit will come out.
" G& f4 I3 X& P3 E: z" [5 L, {, YAnd be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity." B, C: T$ O+ r' o
So today’s talk was about my childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and some lessons7 t z7 W2 \# ~5 q3 e2 z/ v0 M
learned. But did you figure out the head fake? [dramatic pause] It’s not about how to achieve your3 ~+ S0 _$ f% x( G
dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care
5 G0 E$ Q& S+ t* mof itself. The dreams will come to you.7 F2 G$ p+ ~; Q1 q5 D
Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids. Thank you all,0 f4 E3 _1 Z. z* c: N0 w, G
good night.
; `( W7 X( \; J. R- z# F2 V# t[applause; standing ovation for 90 seconds; Randy brings Jai onto the stage and they take a bow; they sit
9 u9 J' y. R3 M% z+ u9 Vdown in their seats; standing ovation continues for another minute]* h) s" T; g: b7 e/ i
Randy Bryant:
, V5 G; L* G; ?# jThank you everyone. I’d like to thank all of you for coming. This really means a lot I know to Randy.
" m g7 Z3 ^( ]9 XHe had this theory even up to yesterday that there wouldn’t be anyone in the room.
' Y, K. G# e! g" m0 G/ l3 fRandy Pausch [from seat]:! z0 k6 S+ N' v# ^( h
After CS50…" m N8 ]0 I+ r% b& D# q& z/ P
Randy Bryant:
$ U: f% g5 y' { B# VI know. I’m the other Randy. That’s been my role here for the past 10 years ever since Randy
2 \8 n- h4 h# V: V6 bPausch came here on the faculty. And what I mean by that is, I introduce myself. I’m Randy Bryant
* D# I. K- }; A0 Q4 U3 k6 e: hfrom Computer Science. They go, oh, Randy from CS. You’re the one that does all that cool stuff of7 N9 f8 w' l; t- M4 P
building virtual worlds and teaching children how to program. And I go, no, no, sorry. That’s the
% A* O% u" {5 t% \3 n' y) \8 J: Gother Randy. I’m the wrong one. Sorry, I’m just like a dull nerd. [laughter] So, but I’m very pleased
0 K) M2 D) b2 m1 xtoday to be able to sort of run a brief series of ways in which we want to recognize Randy for his
% G& a% c* z8 h) Q0 dcontributions he’s made to Carnegie Mellon, to computer science and to the world at large. So we
- v6 Y& s) S8 c! \8 Thave a few – it will be a brief program. We have a few people I’ll be bringing up one after the other.
5 d( I8 u4 d2 LI’m sort of the MC here. So first I’d like to introduce who you’ve already met, Steve Seabolt from" C" O) ^2 R' e u4 `7 }/ Y
Electronic Arts. [applause]
T# t9 z- J# MSteve Seabolt:/ u% T( I. c" P. F5 F" F
My family wondered whether or not I would make it through the introduction. [voice starts to crack8 f0 m0 H2 |+ F( T9 x
up] And I did that but I might not do so well now. So bear with me. As Randy mentioned, he and I," j( S7 V/ O; |6 n3 f# Q
Carnegie Mellon and Electronic Arts share a particular passion about nurturing young girls and trying& i z2 x( n3 @3 C
to encourage young girls to stay with math and stay with science. Every geek in the world shouldn’t
+ e8 S- }9 e" L, h& x3 k/ Ebe a guy. You know, it’s such a twist of fate that there’s so many people that are worried about offshoring," E/ E; d7 {" ^2 O. P% Z5 N
and at the same time companies are forced to off-shore, there are fewer and fewer) U' |3 S7 @- U8 ?- J
students entering computer science. And the number of women entering computer science just2 ]9 k0 K7 J, @4 b( T: x: ?
keeps dropping like a rock. There are way too few Caitlins in this world. And Caitlin, we need so2 X2 d$ z2 P) u1 S U
many more of you. And with that in mind, Electronic Arts has endowed a scholarship fund. It’s the3 n. W; B3 o X; G* i# t& [$ I& U9 ?
Randy Pausch endowed scholarship fund, established in 2007 by EA. In honor of Randy’s leadership* ]" D9 c z! G2 e8 q6 n+ A
and contribution to education, computer science, digital entertainment, and his commitment to5 \/ Q, x- i5 C3 l A
women in technology. This scholarship will be awarded annually to a female undergraduate CMU
$ Q: t! ?8 j8 A- ]1 Kstudent who demonstrates excellence in computer science and a passion in the pursuit of a career in* r1 d% Z, O. u: C- Z4 [
video games. Randy, we’re so honored to do this in your name. [applause]7 K# D( H% D! X* z5 C
Randy Bryant:
. f% M9 J, t" K* vNext I’d like to introduce Jim Foley. He’s on the faculty at Georgia Tech and he’s here representing* Y" ~+ t9 B* L
the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction. Jim. [applause], X6 A) `8 {" \* C6 U
Jim Foley:. D/ G, R" e1 i" @. x
[motions to Randy Pausch to come on stage; gives him a hug] That was for Jim. [applause] ACM, the; f* D5 J! M" p* i/ f. B
Association for Computing Machinery is a group of about 100,000 computing professionals. One of
. r1 S& o1 ~; A; {# u3 `$ x. f3 s8 ptheir special areas of interest is computer human interaction. A few weeks ago, someone who’s a
1 E" z: `( Q+ L- z, H! G% x) kvery good friend of Randy’s wrote a citation which was endorsed by a number of people and went to
$ v2 y2 V) y! y& H; |! ~. `! m( v0 athe executive committee of SIGCHI, which on behalf of the SIGCHI membership, has authorized this, j% \' e: V" F6 A( c
special presentation. The citation was written by Ben Schneiderman and worked on then by Jenny/ F8 Z" @! r9 c% ] N! D, ?
Preese and Ben Peterson, and endorsed by a whole bunch of your friends and now from the
% {& a2 b" S1 B( eexecutive committee. So let me read to you the citation. Special award for professional
; N: Z X6 Z5 ` ~% o w, tcontributions. Randy Pausch’s innovative work has spanned several disciplines and has inspired both6 t! S8 C4 F$ d, o$ W c' i
mature researchers and a generation of students. His deep technical competence, choice of
+ z, ]; F8 P- f4 T+ \- ^- Cimaginative projects and visionary thinking are always combined with energy and passion. We’ve( y: W0 [+ N5 k" R5 Q- \- p
seen that. From his early work on the simple user interface toolkit to his current work on 3D Alice5 z& m$ W( w2 R8 h0 ^
programming language, he has shown that innovative tool design enables broad participation in5 C* z) \! ?6 ]
programming, especially by women and minorities. Randy Pausch has vigorous commitment to4 H/ s. g; l8 r( w. q* E
engaging students at every level by compelling and intellectually rigorous projects, and his appealing
/ l6 m% [ a% G) n9 m1 u6 K8 G8 Mlecture style for a role-model for every teacher and lecture. Yes, yes yes. [voice starts to crack up]
$ D% \# J9 Y' ?His work has helped make team project experiences and educational computing research more9 S! m0 U* Z _8 g+ _
common and respected. As a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, a Lilly
9 \5 Z- @3 C0 j; i* eTeaching Foundation Teaching Fellow, co-founder of the CMU ET Center and consultant for Disney
8 T# E3 O: a- ^" P: iImagineering and EA, Randy’s done pioneering work in combining computing interface design and
1 A' c( V& ?' I# O3 P1 Femotionally rich experiences. For these and many other contributions, the ACM SIGCHI executive2 r; q6 q2 G7 E: B" j0 [ | V
council is proud to present to Randy Pausch a special award for professional contributions.6 p2 w6 S R: j! T) B5 C2 C
[applause] [Randy comes back on stage to receive award]7 i4 }- b9 P/ c4 \# J5 h5 H
Randy Bryant:
# l3 m5 _9 R2 d$ ~/ k) CThank you, Jim. Next I’d like to introduce Jerry Cohen, the President of Carnegie Mellon University.
C1 M7 T7 d: p8 n1 d[applause]
5 b( P5 q4 L+ g# QJerry Cohen:
6 q- b. V; n& L! o& bThank you other Randy. [Tries to move Randy Pausch’s bag of props to the side of the podium] You
7 g# P7 n3 q7 W3 z0 S0 gknow you’re traveling heavy, buddy. Many of us have been thinking about and talking about how
, D( \9 A; O/ Y5 v+ |( T( P' Xwe can recognize you on this campus in a way that is lasting and fitting in terms of what you meant
* o6 \5 E! ]1 Q, xto this university. A lot of people are involved in this. You thought the provost wasn’t paying7 M/ Z. l: G1 [; ?
attention all those years. [laughter] Actually, one of the ways we’re going to remember you is this
r ~5 |8 U$ g8 L: e/ P* o) t9 i$50,000 bill for stuffed animals. $47,862.32 for pizza. You’ve made great contributions, Randy, we$ |+ _7 { E) D$ i. @
really appreciate it. [laughter] One thing we could not do, regrettably, is figure out a way to capture
* y+ p4 S6 k8 o$ Othe kind of person that you are. You’re humanity, what you’ve meant to us as a colleague, as a2 D a- U, j( C/ }
teacher. As a student. And as a friend. There’s just no way to capture that. There is our memories,
- g o5 h0 W u0 _) g; [however. And there is a way to remember you every day, as people walk this campus. So we’ve
7 x' t! X) r! H: T. T/ O( d+ w5 Vcome up with an idea. You’ve done great things for this campus and for computer science and for& c' ^' Y2 X. B
the world. Surely Alice will live on. But the one we’re going to focus on right now is what you’ve
7 a4 |9 ^+ E u! Y" M1 Idone to connect computer science with the arts. It was remarkable, it was stunning. It’s had
0 N5 j, y g" P8 C6 C, jenormous impact, and it will last, I daresay forever. So to recognize that, we are going to do the( {) M( c4 A% ?
following. Good job, other Randy. [laughter, as Randy Bryant gets the projector to show the next
9 {' Y" F, s' _slide] In order to effect this, we had to build a building. [Shows slide of mockup of Gates building] A, e: \7 d# r9 b1 H8 [+ ]
hundred million dollar building which will allow us to do the following. You’ll note, by the way, to
) M3 @; a+ B) H+ borient people. So the Purnell Center for the Arts is the home of the School of Drama. That modern
' o1 h* B8 H; O: k, [looking new thing, half of which has a green roof, is the new Gates Center for Computer Science.
1 E9 l0 B/ v, V. mAnd we had long planned to connect these two physically, both to allow people to get down from0 w5 F# `; d- T7 C4 a5 t( A' n
the cut to lower campus, and you have to admit it carries tremendous symbolic importance. Well! J- g, q% n" e
on behalf of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon and on behalf of the entire university, I’m) y9 ~9 A8 ~# w' l; T P8 E
pleased to announce today that the bridge connecting these two will be known as the Randy Pausch* N$ I& t4 e8 \7 l
Memorial Footbridge. [shows slide of mockup of bridge] [applause] Now actually based on your talk
5 z# b3 y( _' L. Rtoday we’re thinking now about putting up a brick wall up at either end, and let students see what
' l6 V2 w t' fthey can do with it. [laughter] Randy, there’ll be a generation of students and faculty to come here
; B5 w9 B: I* ~) t cwho will not know you, but they will cross that bridge, they will see your name, and they’ll ask those! [* l/ S) V9 H, o
of us who did know you. And we will tell them that unfortunately they were not able to experience: W% B. @/ U9 M o* u
the man, but they are surely experiencing the impact of the man. Randy, thank you for all that! ? I. b8 A: b/ B& _- y
you’ve done for Carnegie Mellon. We’re going to miss you. [applause] [Randy walks on stage and! M! @7 W) c9 S- c% |
gives Jerry a hug]$ D0 m& l+ l: a* w \
Randy Bryant:
* k! I1 G2 A/ @So every good show needs a closing act, and so to do that I’ll invite Andy Van Dam. [applause]% u, z/ W! A9 q9 ?7 Y/ F( J, S- l
Andy Van Dam:* o! P$ J# { |1 _- Q, h: W
Oh how I love having the last word. [applause] But to have to go on after that fabulous show, I don’t
5 U% U- P, [+ R3 U: B: |know whether that was good planning. Well I started in Brown in 1965 and it has been my pleasure) G! o8 \8 U }% K: y. d3 H5 V
and great joy not just to teach thousands of undergraduates and some graduates, but also to work
2 c. c' j" @9 Fone-on-one with a couple hundred of them. And over 35 have followed me into teaching I’m proud
/ L) L, f+ ~, z- A) g# m" nto say. Out of those best and brightest it was very clear that Randy would stand out. He showed
% D5 v/ A6 ^# l% N+ m7 Y8 ^5 v8 dgreat promise early on and a passion about our field and about helping others that you’ve seen+ s7 e$ n3 k) U& H& H0 a2 M: |
amply demonstrated today. It was matched by fierce determination and by persistence in the face
5 A2 M* h) @/ `/ ]* u* E0 mof all brick wall odds. And you’ve heard a lot about that and seen that demonstrated as he fights
# p' G4 \' o# `: q! pthis terrible disease. Like the elephant’s child, however, he was filled with satiable curiosity, you- l: T7 g6 X) Y# f& U" w8 o; o
remember that. And what happened to the elephant’s child, he got spanked by all of his relations,% J& [& R3 o- r3 |6 t
and you’ve heard some of that. He was brash, he had an irrepressible, raucous sense of humor,# ` y/ j. _0 P; {9 H' a0 [" B8 ]
which led to the fantastic showmanship that you saw today. He was self-assured, occasionally to# c- A7 H% M7 Z) m/ ]% \: B
the point of outright cockiness. And stubborn as a mule. And I’m a Dutchman and I know from1 N4 o1 B6 T% r( o/ Q
stubbornness. The kind way to say it is he had an exceedingly strong inner compass, and you’ve
8 s' K9 ]! E' L' C7 o$ dseen that demonstrated over and over again. Now, having been accused of many such traits myself,
( A$ I" `& _5 y' O2 a- I- c' DI rather thought of them as features, not bugs. [laughter] Having had to learn English the hard way, I2 Y/ \5 Y) f3 P1 O
was a fanatic about getting students to speak and write correct English from the get-go. And Randy- s( l7 E+ _, x T2 C+ b
the mouth had no problem with that. But he did have one problem. And I’m having a problem with
. O, t& O# d2 }1 ~my machine here, here we go. [gets slide to project on screen]. And that was another part of my" a7 @* E8 X# B5 F& ]( ?
fanaticism which dealt with having American students learn about foreign cultures. And specifically# t( m7 C; E, c
about food cultures, and more specifically yet, about Chinese food culture. So I would take my+ F1 b! g2 Y3 r7 ?5 l7 Y
students to this wonderful Chinese restaurant where they cooked off the menu using a Chinese. n5 l) t! w- i3 e" L; I4 Q5 R
menu. And I tried to get Randy to sample this. But would Mr. White Bread touch that stuff?
* [) B& s1 M% t[laughter] Absolutely not. And worse, he refused to learn to eat with chopsticks. I was chairman at, |( @, q7 J4 b4 }
the time and I said, Randy, you know, I’m not going to let you graduate if you don’t learn to eat with
( o5 N) D/ u, L3 }chopsticks! [laughter] It’s a requirement, didn’t you see that? He of course didn’t believe that. And1 d, Y/ v7 j" h" L! i
so it came time for graduation and I handed him his diploma. And this was the picture one of my
4 a* g! v7 K b! Cfriends took. [Shows slide of Brown University commencement, 1982, Randy dressed in his cap and
8 K+ w6 Z5 c4 y% J% W1 ^' Vgown, opening his diploma, his mouth wide open in surprise] And what you see is Randy opening his
; [3 E9 ?; D) L$ \' vdiploma to show it to his parents, and there was an autographed copy of the menu in Chinese and7 T) b0 P, ^* W7 X
no diploma. [laughter, applause] It was one of the few times I got the better of him, I have to/ i, o$ k; j& s& P( F3 a
confess. Well here we are today, all of us, and hundreds and hundreds of people all over the5 y( g; e- {( S8 |* ^
country, I dare say all over the world, participating in this great event to celebrate you and your life.* x, z/ h2 E# Q; D; A! Y1 p
Randy is the person, the Mensch, as we say in Yiddish. Your manifold accomplishments as a model
5 E& g* X6 C% [academic, especially as a mentor to your students. Your Disneyland expeditions not only were* W$ i1 v' g: u: Y. \3 q
unique but they are legendary. You have more than fulfilled the terms of Brown University Charter,. C, p& f' R0 ^1 @, Y
which are: to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation. Your utter devotion to
% ]1 y' a. |9 \) {4 Ryour family and your career are exemplary, and continue unabated as you cope with the immensity
\: L, R |# Z# _ Jof your situation. You exemplify undaunted courage and grace under pressure. The most terrible; B; Y$ c7 ~& u7 F8 M$ ^: I$ o. i
pressure one can imagine. Randy, you have been and you will continue to be a role model for us.
2 ]2 T" G% F- N' y4 E4 d" ?' C; N. d[Voice starts cracking up] Thank you so much for all you have done for us. And to allow us to tell
$ h1 w) e& Q% f! `you privately and in such a public way how much we admire, honor, and indeed love you. [applause]
9 e/ P' J" ?5 E, `- G* H[standing ovation]
$ o4 G' ~) v2 M' s1 D; U( A/ ]% d. w% ]# w
[ 本帖最后由 billzhao 于 2008-11-16 18:02 编辑 ] |
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