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Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
9 i# B( t. _5 U+ ^! D. oGiven at Carnegie Mellon University# [- z) c5 g& ?$ n3 L
Tuesday, September 18, 20074 A9 m. f, `, {9 R% Y, a9 h# n
McConomy Auditorium) Y: |0 L( Y, i
For more information, see www.randypausch.com6 |8 `+ X* d9 `% r
© Copyright Randy Pausch, 20071- @5 A0 }7 L" b9 A
5 D1 j8 y3 |( R
Introduction by Indira Nair, Carnegie Mellon’s Vice Provost for Education:
" c6 K. I) D" i1 v& zHi. Welcome. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the first of our new university’s lectures titled
) f6 e9 C5 n( d+ c2 t7 y. g9 [- ~. mJourneys – lectures in which members of our community will share with us reflections and insights
9 s9 D; G9 D* A7 `) h& d% d8 Son their personal and professional journeys. Today’s Journey’s lecture as you all know is by
: x6 [! B) U2 ~ q' E: zProfessor Randy Pausch. The next one is on Monday, September 24th by Professor Roberta Klatzky.# S! n/ `1 y/ P' |
To introduce Professor Randy Pausch, our first Journeys speaker, I would like to introduce Randy’s I7 B# r: _, I. @4 D( Q; [6 s$ H
friend and colleague, Steve Seabolt. Steve has been at Electronic Arts for six years and is the Vice
, c3 P" `4 Q" c( M3 ^. F9 `President of Global Brand Development for The Sims label at Electronic Arts. As you all know, The
' s8 M. a" Y) V, j2 I& X5 i) @$ tSims is one of the most, if not the most successful PC games in the world, with sales approaching
3 R+ i6 K1 Y+ q( ?0 uover $100,000,000. Prior to that, Steve was the Vice President for Strategic Marketing and. n# }/ T+ g# |- ]% U% C, L- f+ j& F
Education at EA, bridging academia and Electronic Arts. His goal was to work with academics so! v* ^/ I/ T8 E
there was an effective educational pathway for kids with building games as their dreams. It was in
' N0 F4 l2 N" Xthat role that Randy and Steve became colleagues and friends. Before Electronic Arts, Steve was the
0 w" `8 H# o0 Y+ y @6 Yworldwide Ad Director for Time Magazine and CEO of Sunset Publishing, which is a very favorite
. J5 q1 g' {! imagazine in the Southwest, and as CEO there, one of the things he started was school tours,
- q' P# \) j1 ?0 S bbecause like Randy he shares a passion for inspiring kids of all ages to share their excitement for
$ M. @# v' x' Rscience and technology.
6 H# P1 A q2 {4 I2 r6 KSo to introduce Randy, his friend Steve Seabolt. Steve?+ `# g& _; a+ J9 T% e% f3 V
[applause]
- ?% V- `# e+ U7 q/ u" lSteve Seabolt, Vice President of Worldwide Publishing and Marketing for Electonic Arts (EA):& Q- t# V# ]; w6 U* H1 M& c
Thank you very much. I don’t mean to sound ungracious by correcting you, but given that our PR5 k4 V: D5 u) L4 E- E
people are probably watching this on webcast, I’d catch heck if I went home and didn’t say that it
1 S! i4 q% ]+ s8 C7 J; |4 Wwas 100 million units for The Sims. [laughter] Not that big numbers matter to Electronic Arts.
$ f7 U# h# t( z# E5 k[laughter]8 x! }5 y- k( T5 D
I don’t see any empty seats anywhere, which is a good thing, which means I just won a bet from0 u: R& q# y# S% o
Randy as a matter of fact. Depending upon who’s version of the story you hear, he either owes me% G# d8 B5 U' v6 ]; b
20 dollars or his new Volkswagen. [laughter] So, I’ll take the car.5 Q' W( q5 n) |" w9 k3 F
It’s a pleasure to be here, thank you very much. I’m going to start by covering Randy’s academic' u2 q9 m- O$ ^$ Z0 H
credentials. It’s a little bizarre for me to be standing here at Carnegie Mellon, which is a school I1 D* v- m9 F1 L8 u. F0 @
couldn’t get into no matter how much I contributed to this institution. [laughter] But, no really, I’m
8 K7 o1 J8 |/ G& h, {not kidding! You all think, oh gosh he’s humble. Really, no, I’m not humble at all. Very average SAT
; c5 H5 U1 h8 \' M5 k; Hscores, you know, right in the middle of my high school class of 900. Anyway, Randy. Randy earned
/ \) j, I& \2 O- i– it really pisses me off that Randy’s so smart—actually I called him, we decided about, what, four) F: B8 t# ~. N
weeks, ago and we heard the news went from bad to horrific. It was on a Wednesday night and I: s& Q2 r! }; `8 C, ?+ |" Q
said look – we have two choices. We can play this really straight and very emotional , or we can go
q, n' R \# x: u& ?0 h7 B7 Y( yto dark humor. And for those of you who know Randy well, he was like oh, dark humor! So I called/ h+ z/ w6 ~2 G/ w! [
him the next day and I was like, dude you can’t die. And he’s like, what do you mean? And I said,
/ u" V/ }% ~/ a: dwell, when you die, the average of IQ of Seabolt’s friends is going to like drop 50 points. [laughter] To
0 l2 n' B* k2 G7 |7 Hwhich he responded, we need to find you some smarter friends. [laughter] So you’re all smart1 K% d5 Y) N1 t1 f+ Q N
because you’re here, so if you want to be my friend, I’ll be over in a corner of the reception room.
! w3 C3 a' U5 sRandy earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Brown in 1982. His Ph.D. in CS from
6 U) `! p2 i4 g) Q- v: ?, mCarnegie Mellon in 1988 and taught at the University of Virginia where he was granted tenure a year
: w/ k7 l) o% {8 W$ ^# }# Oearly. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 1997 with appointments in the CS, HCI and Design4 v! O! ~6 P$ H% T0 ]
departments. He has authored or co-authored five books and over 60 reviewed journal and
: ]8 ~. C# B9 x9 V7 _, Uconference proceeding articles, none of which I would understand. With Don Marinelli, he founded
' r* C h5 l- e* mthe Entertainment Technology Center, which quickly became the gold standard organization for' x7 I" X6 ]" x
training artists and engineers to work together. It is my view and the view of our company,
9 a+ p; {' I- y) Z( w+ WElectronic Arts, that the ETC is the interactive program by which all others in the world are judged.
! K/ |7 ?& u$ s/ M9 {1 a% BI met Randy in the Spring of 2004, and when I look back it’s sort of hard to imagine it’s only been2 |/ H# \( X# j+ P& O' b
three years given the depth of our friendship. The ETC already had a very strong relationship with
6 F% A# ~0 P# C2 N0 vEA and with Randy. And Randy as he always does, for those of you who know him well, wanted to2 s& L6 }: C/ _# x+ s
learn more, with his own eyes, about how the games business works, and how games really got4 d' l! |3 h. k# ]0 c
made. So he spent a summer in residence at EA, and I was his primary contact point. We were in
7 W$ d! |; @5 \- V* X2 h+ nmy view the odd couple. Randy the brilliant, charming, Carnegie educated CS professor. And me
( D( ]& Q" P: C: Gwho went to the University of Iowa on a wing and a prayer. We spent a lot of time together that/ [4 E% \) {& y% X
semester and for those of you who know Randy well, that’s a lot of turkey sandwiches on white: w! [8 T/ ` u, Z5 S
bread with mayo. [laughter, clapping] My kids tease me about being “white.” There’s nobody more9 }4 t7 k5 X; p) d4 p
“white” than Randy. [laughter] We spent an enormous amount of time together. We taught each9 k) A/ d% ]# ~: M+ a
other about each other’s very interesting, strange cultures to the other. Academic versus the4 e- e: `. d3 z6 @1 X, \1 X6 j
corporate world. And we developed a deep friendship woven together with stories about our kids,
2 Y# N9 a5 ~! X" c. a' }3 Uour wives, our parents, as well as deep discussions about the paramount nature of integrity in
' o6 U0 g L1 ~1 w" severything you do, family first, religion, our shared joy in connecting people and ideas, and
u: r/ f; G, ^! tdeploying money and influence to do good. And the importance of having a lot of laughs along the
8 E, x9 s& q/ O( ]& v9 t# K$ Z, Nway.
. D" r7 @ a8 i5 j& i6 `8 FRandy’s dedication to making the world a better place is self evident to anyone who has crossed5 T: w0 I" _! ~
paths with him. Whether it’s directly influencing students, creating organizations like the ETC,! f6 G. _+ H+ x9 h- Y
building tools like Alice or doing what he probably does best, which is bridging cultures. As Ben, r6 [2 |1 x6 @
Gordon, EA’s Chief Creative Officer, says of Randy, even more important than Randy’s academic,
9 s! H1 A& r; ~% ]6 qphilanthropic, and entrepreneurial accomplishments has been his humanity and the enthusiasm he0 f2 X" m0 l) ~2 {- v& Q8 S. T
brings to students and coworkers on a daily basis.. s3 i; @+ k( m6 n6 M9 H
For those of you who know Randy, Randy brings a particular zest for life and humor, even while5 o! o2 y4 k+ Q) Z& X
facing death. To Randy, this is simply another adventure. It is my great honor to introduce Dylan,
+ I. s6 D8 B$ j8 KLogan and Chloe’s dad, Jai’s husband, and my very dear friend, Dr. Randy Pausch. [applause]2 b/ g8 n6 q' y. P' l/ W6 a
Randy Pausch:+ v8 x2 P! C! O
[responding to a standing ovation] Make me earn it. [laughter]
6 D+ A J2 S% t! xIt’s wonderful to be here. What Indira didn’t tell you is that this lecture series used to be called the& h- s9 V. t+ a3 }( k& Y1 N0 U! P
Last Lecture. If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be? I thought, damn,
+ ]* u3 Y( A' e; _I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it. [laughter]* f5 N v F$ g& X, n& r
So, you know, in case there’s anybody who wandered in and doesn’t know the back story, my dad* b( U& d: P2 z0 v; z4 W% J: u
always taught me that when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce them. If you look at my CAT& ~! s) S% v e& c7 n- B
scans, there are approximately 10 tumors in my liver, and the doctors told me 3-6 months of good
& B& l1 y- T b9 {' D4 h6 D1 {health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math. I have some of the best doctors in the6 _. v4 k7 [2 i- t
world. Microphone’s not working? Then I’ll just have to talk louder. [Adjusts mic] Is that good? All
# S9 S' X( S: ^. j3 ^right. So that is what it is. We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to
# g1 l: \) t0 Qrespond to that. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t
+ S1 A. P1 P2 [4 zseem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you. [laughter] And I assure you I, m+ N" l* O- \+ {
am not in denial. It’s not like I’m not aware of what’s going on. My family, my three kids, my wife,9 {4 i& d7 q) G: {, `, D
we just decamped. We bought a lovely house in Virginia, and we’re doing that because that’s a
* l" P# g3 f4 Bbetter place for the family to be, down the road. And the other thing is I am in phenomenally good
" R/ q; [! r. d+ W$ R5 ohealth right now. I mean it’s the greatest thing of cognitive dissonance you will ever see is the fact
2 k/ U4 ]: `$ y. {that I am in really good shape. In fact, I am in better shape than most of you. [Randy gets on the% ?2 H& Z9 J3 n7 l- q0 g
ground and starts doing pushups] [Applause] So anybody who wants to cry or pity me can down and
, O7 j. b! p1 ]- qdo a few of those, and then you may pity me. [laughter]
3 N/ ^" r& B4 x1 N, H3 f3 N6 I' b1 zAll right, so what we’re not talking about today, we are not talking about cancer, because I spent a
! F6 |7 B3 q7 v. |lot of time talking about that and I’m really not interested. If you have any herbal supplements or
6 K3 w7 S7 y, r! @1 a! Nremedies, please stay away from me. [laughter] And we’re not going to talk about things that are
) a& w( S: A6 B6 E8 t/ f* zeven more important than achieving your childhood dreams. We’re not going to talk about my wife,
8 T3 e, ]% X3 ] T1 F( awe’re not talking about my kids. Because I’m good, but I’m not good enough to talk about that
; B5 M4 `5 `9 P- Z iwithout tearing up. So, we’re just going to take that off the table. That’s much more important.
7 S r0 K3 ^ B0 }( L* X7 E4 @And we’re not going to talk about spirituality and religion, although I will tell you that I have5 {$ w. \' b& q/ ~0 ?" t
achieved a deathbed conversion. [dramatic pause] … I just bought a Macintosh. [laughter and
2 \& I9 l7 s6 z8 b. K( t& cclapping] Now I knew I’d get 9% of the audience with that … All right, so what is today’s talk about/ W3 R( x9 V* v2 ]9 I) l z; P
then? It’s about my childhood dreams and how I have achieved them. I’ve been very fortunate that
* ^) R( N0 A" y5 g4 mway. How I believe I’ve been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons
4 s# e/ u8 z& d. Zlearned. I’m a professor, there should be some lessons learned and how you can use the stuff you
6 K- O. T) \3 h$ c2 S yhear today to achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older, you may7 f/ `2 L4 I( l
find that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.$ S& m- c7 z9 S6 |( A
So what were my childhood dreams? Well, you know, I had a really good childhood. I mean, no# {+ t6 i8 H: n+ ~
kidding around. I was going back through the family archives, and what was really amazing was, I
3 q" b8 A2 Q6 E6 H8 r# l# {/ k; Rcouldn’t find any pictures of me as a kid where I wasn’t smiling. And that was just a very gratifying
l- l [6 B. A; V* m2 Kthing. There was our dog, right? Aww, thank you. And there I actually have a picture of me
% K& r& O( H- T4 B0 Q6 ldreaming. I did a lot of that. You know, there’s a lot of wake up’s! I was born in 1960. When you
' |, g \4 w* w1 h' `5 Sare 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon, anything’s possible.4 v: _( K6 K& `* Z2 @
And that’s something we should not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and the permission to
& V' S. H# x. U2 Gdream is huge.0 H- a v- l, s9 m; j* d: a3 I
So what were my childhood dreams? You may not agree with this list, but I was there. [laughter]) e" Y2 ?% Y) g* y
Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book
: r4 \8 Q' H0 h1 y& b0 nEncyclopedia – I guess you can tell the nerds early. [laughter] Being Captain Kirk, anybody here have
0 d. {" I& @! zthat childhood dream? Not at CMU, nooooo. I wanted to become one of the guys who won the big9 w4 t! c- K: o a; Z6 t, w
stuffed animals in the amusement park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with Disney. These are not/ }( u9 n1 S8 T# v
sorted in any particular order, although I think they do get harder, except for maybe the first one.
" @0 \5 r- y" G9 F) m5 x7 H8 gOK, so being in zero gravity. Now it’s important to have specific dreams. I did not dream of being an
6 Y! T8 w& W' V4 P, w. l" o) w! `& r+ xastronaut, because when I was a little kid, I wore glasses and they told me oh, astronauts can’t have
1 ^' F s$ @6 L+ s* r+ b# Sglasses. And I was like, mmm, I didn’t really want the whole astronaut gig, I just wanted the floating.
8 U4 }' h8 D' P' H& kSo, and as a child [laughter], prototype 0.0. [slide shown of Randy as a child lying in floatingformation
( J- m: Z$ @7 }) d3 R; B' k* {on a table top] But that didn’t work so well, and it turns out that NASA has something
( K* I" B X6 v9 j- vcalled the Vomit Comet that they used to train the astronauts. And this thing does parabolic arcs,) K' S- Q1 r5 K% x: C1 N) u6 M
and at the top of each arc you get about 25 seconds where you’re ballistic and you get about, a
' @( Y7 } i* Y: C" O: b( q+ _rough equivalent of weightlessness for about 25 seconds. And there is a program where college) W u2 O- S+ L" {+ t
students can submit proposals and if they win the competition, they get to fly. And I thought that
; d1 s1 U& A) Fwas really cool, and we had a team and we put a team together and they won and they got to fly.0 G) O( O! P" W5 |5 m
And I was all excited because I was going to go with them. And then I hit the first brick wall, because
( D+ B/ R1 @& h3 M0 R) m6 u9 f* Gthey made it very clear that under no circumstances were faculty members allowed to fly with the9 p- x P7 F* ]$ {! i! z; U% j
teams. I know, I was heartbroken. I was like, I worked so hard! And so I read the literature very
; [3 p! G* t$ _; A0 @carefully and it turns out that NASA, it’s part of their outreach and publicity program, and it turns7 f5 H* R' O7 n9 D
out that the students were allowed to bring a local media journalist from their home town.
3 t# b4 {7 e' Q. F2 [[laughter] And, [deep voice] Randy Pausch, web journalist. [regular voice] It’s really easy to get a; B: P7 i4 D$ u. @# @, u
press pass! [laughter] So I called up the guys at NASA and I said, I need to know where to fax some
7 v4 ?: @/ d( C ?! m; @2 p- ydocuments. And they said, what documents are you going to fax us? And I said my resignation as& ~6 G4 P* K' Q: u
the faculty advisor and my application as the journalist. And he said, that’s a little transparent, don’t0 C& X( k! ^; ~
you think? And I said, yeah, but our project is virtual reality, and we’re going to bring down a whole
& P$ e* l. I& w0 | n [2 Rbunch of VR headsets and all the students from all the teams are going to experience it and all those* ^6 @8 Y8 \. r9 }# _( ^
other real journalists are going to get to film it. Jim Foley’s [who is nodding in the audience] going) f" }* P9 _" e
oh you bastard, yes. And the guy said, here’s the fax number. So, indeed, we kept our end of the
s1 A! Y" Z# P5 [# sbargain, and that’s one of the themes that you’ll hear later on in the talk, is have something to bring
# ^( _/ L" h3 e4 P# T$ c# }8 D* Hto the table, right, because that will make you more welcome. And if you’re curious about what2 K$ O9 f n* G, u, p
zero gravity looks like, hopefully the sound will be working here. [slide shows videotape from
5 M1 x: m* ~; O" nRandy’s zero gravity experience] There I am. [laughter] You do pay the piper at the bottom. [laugher,: P( Z7 A; X3 \
as the people in the video crash to the floor of the plane on the video] So, childhood dream number
0 y } `( I/ }- sone, check.# N5 E4 E# n4 d" E+ i
OK, let’s talk about football. My dream was to play in the National Football League. And most of. P V) r e2 Y4 h5 f& z
you don’t know that I actually – no. [laughter] No, I did not make it to the National Football League,9 i( S4 u8 i) z9 N# f
but I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones0 \2 U& A, V9 s+ ]2 `& L2 @0 M( Q
that I did accomplish. I had a coach, I signed up when I was nine years old. I was the smallest kid in
' r# e0 @2 D- v: Dthe league, by far. And I had a coach, Jim Graham, who was six-foot-four, he had played linebacker
" m& R ~( D6 D/ Q' q6 uat Penn State. He was just this hulk of a guy and he was old school. And I mean really old school.4 [ d% p" J; I2 u2 a
Like he thought the forward pass was a trick play. [laughter] And he showed up for practice the first
- s' O) f' s1 y k9 X3 Hday, and you know, there’s big hulking guy, we were all scared to death of him. And he hadn’t
* G* p$ Q3 D1 K+ Fbrought any footballs. How are we going to have practice without any footballs? And one of the
$ ?) z) L, {3 Q5 x8 Z! nother kids said, excuse me coach, but there’s no football. And Coach Graham said, right, how many% p& I+ Q" ]$ y# {# p: ^/ o) ?
men are on a football field at a time? Eleven on a team, twenty-two. Coach Graham said, all right,
3 a% N( d" f2 E% o [; Tand how many people are touching the football at any given time? One of them. And he said, right,0 Q: A+ q% j( E# j2 z( @2 q) X
so we’re going to work on what those other twenty-one guys are doing. And that’s a really good
# q& ^" m9 v% d2 u, hstory because it’s all about fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got& w/ V0 h- N) [! G4 X4 H$ E2 }$ D) W
to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work. And the other
0 B$ x# k' \6 U7 qJim Graham story I have is there was one practice where he just rode me all practice. You’re doing4 M' [9 p; C7 ` Y6 W0 D
this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing push-ups
1 T, K* Q1 l" `% o" G# Cafter practice. And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said,: W" f [# S" Z) m$ e) T9 t2 B
yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he? I said, yeah. He said, that’s a good thing. He: L3 j, u5 _% M) P3 G
said, when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave
+ K3 l |$ g# \7 }up. And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Is that when you see yourself doing6 c- B# n' m" D9 I6 l4 F; ]. l
something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your
" g$ n, Z: _; M+ z3 Bcritics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
, x8 u0 d2 @% f! XAfter Coach Graham, I had another coach, Coach Setliff, and he taught me a lot about the power of) f* T. f: l/ U, o/ A, q6 _
enthusiasm. He did this one thing where only for one play at a time he would put people in at like
& _4 F7 p7 |3 ^: X7 v4 pthe most horrifically wrong position for them. Like all the short guys would become receivers, right?
x5 `5 }$ I8 e" \0 z# hIt was just laughable. But we only went in for one play, right? And boy, the other team just never
( k( E+ H( M. n+ Jknew what hit ‘em them. Because when you’re only doing it for one play and you’re just not where+ d4 N1 N! e7 G. g2 ^5 D
you’re supposed to be, and freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, boy are you going
" n8 G3 P& C+ { j) f6 t5 i; A Sto clean somebody’s clock for that one play. And that kind of enthusiasm was great. And to this1 N% I9 T0 d2 [8 x% p4 @
day, I am most comfortable on a football field. I mean, it’s just one of those things where, you# H$ R; K1 I6 j, @
know, [pulls out a football] if I’m working a hard problem, people will see me wandering the halls X" c/ T, Q0 _! O5 j% S
with one of these things, and that’s just because, you know, when you do something young enough
3 T! G& a; s0 B2 r" ^1 X5 p. b$ O& \3 jand you train for it, it just becomes a part of you. And I’m very glad that football was a part of my
0 l5 K* k7 Z/ O. {% x0 b9 x+ Alife. And if I didn’t get the dream of playing in the NFL, that’s OK. I’ve probably got stuff more
; l0 X5 u4 G( c0 M3 d5 F6 pvaluable. Because looking at what’s going on in the NFL, I’m not sure those guys are doing so great( l. C( K9 M4 l G
right now.
% r" ^+ t! L) d- x/ dOK, and so one of the expressions I learned at Electronic Arts, which I love, which pertains to this, is
8 F) n/ [1 B' N8 N6 oexperience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And I think that’s absolutely0 L0 J) D' V- m4 w4 k4 c
lovely. And the other thing about football is we send our kids out to play football or soccer or
/ p) K. q$ O0 Q. P- [+ Aswimming or whatever it is, and it’s the first example of what I’m going to call a head fake, or1 V; W6 d) ?! T, _# x1 Q2 |/ E
indirect learning. We actually don’t want our kids to learn football. I mean, yeah, it’s really nice that
" }0 ?( ?. {& wI have a wonderful three-point stance and that I know how to do a chop block and all this kind of& E$ m& P1 u; O( c/ }
stuff. But we send our kids out to learn much more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship,, d8 f5 Y! ?7 B0 U: g) p4 S( `
perseverance, etcetera, etcetera. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important.9 a) J- C$ J! j7 d
And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.4 x5 @2 D3 f1 M3 M- X; e: l4 ^
All right. A simple one, being an author in the World Book Encyclopedia. When I was a kid, we had
/ b" t$ m' H2 Y- m0 I) r7 xthe World Book Encyclopedia on the shelf. For the freshman, this is paper. … We used to have these* I1 b! l5 r3 G$ U& k
things called books. [laughter] And after I had become somewhat of an authority on virtual reality,0 N, q/ J/ X# u1 x
but not like a really important one, so I was at the level of people the World Book would badger.; K- D1 _4 I( v, J6 k5 F [
They called me up and I wrote an article, and this is Caitlin Kelleher [shows slide of Caitlin wearing
( z& W2 ~, D2 ^6 n# }virtual reality headset manipulating a 3D world], and there’s an article if you go to your local library& m$ n+ u& p, A% Z5 _
where they still have copies of the World Book. Look under V for Virtual Reality, and there it is. And
6 m" { \" s% n! V$ R. D' Vall I have to say is that having been selected to be an author in the World Book Encyclopedia, I now
" O: u$ ~) x7 P. ibelieve that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your information because I know what the
" f% E. Y5 p2 R$ l! Yquality control is for real encyclopedias. They let me in.+ {1 q7 {, P b9 _. L# A
All right, next one. [laughter] [shows slide “Being like Meeting Captain Kirk”] At a certain point you
0 K6 ~7 x; c3 q) k' Zjust realize there are some things you are not going to do, so maybe you just want to stand close to- t t4 ^- f; @% G* U3 ]4 ?5 S! Y3 o
the people. And I mean, my god, what a role model for young people. [laughter] [shows slide of6 Y7 c( }+ F. @6 F3 {
Captain Kirk sitting at his control station on the Starship Enterprise] I mean, this is everything you5 c. e, y4 e; J1 ?8 C& `
want to be, and what I learned that carried me forward in leadership later is that, you know, he
f( a0 E5 F' wwasn’t the smartest guy on the ship. I mean, Spock was pretty smart and McCoy was the doctor and S* M4 E) o; U8 F
Scotty was the engineer. And you sort of go, and what skill set did he have to get on this damn thing& W' r2 F8 Y [3 M( s8 R
and run it? And, you know, clearly there is this skill set called leadership, and, you know, whether or3 S9 j C$ e1 O7 i" F( V- U7 U
not you like the series, there’s no doubt that there was a lot to be learned about how to lead people
6 E9 ^8 q9 D, I/ d' Mby watching this guy in action. And he just had the coolest damn toys! [laughter] [shows slide of+ A6 V1 I0 X/ H1 G
Star Trek gadgets] I mean, my god, I just thought it was fascinating as a kid that he had this thing
7 N# E6 f8 i$ ]; O7 G& ^[Takes out Star Trek Communicator] and he could talk to the ship with it. I just thought that was just/ F! _4 L S% n# @. {
spectacular, and of course now I own one and it’s smaller. [takes out cell phone] So that’s kind of
0 g6 S! @5 D' Rcool.0 B7 e2 a" v( f' o5 @
So I got to achieve this dream. James T. Kirk, and his alter ego William Shatner, wrote a book, which
/ x# y0 b* \/ n; G7 tI think was actually a pretty cool book. It was with Chip Walter who is a Pittsburgh- based author
( \& M; [/ w* J2 ]6 }who is quite good, and they wrote a book on basically the science of Star Trek, you know, what has ~, S X# F; u& _
come true. And they went around to the top places around the country and looked at various things4 i% }# r$ s/ c g+ {1 u8 H
and they came here to study our virtual reality setup. And so we build a virtual reality for him, it
2 e2 w/ M3 p4 o9 [2 c8 `; v- Flooks something like that. [shows slide of virtual Star Trek bridge from the 1960’s TV show] We put it2 z5 Q5 t- U4 D( [' R
in, put it to red alert. He was a very good sport. [sarcastically] It’s not like he saw that one coming.$ k, r- m! Z- r* \( K' p8 Z
[laughter] And it’s really cool to meet your boyhood idol, but it’s even cooler when he comes to you5 `, k# M( ?$ b! f7 J0 V! W
to see what cool stuff you’re doing in your lab. And that was just a great moment.
( @: m4 ^, o4 J+ J. e! L6 VAll right, winning stuffed animals. This may seem mundane to you, but when you’re a little kid and
) J& d2 ? ? i5 r' G i4 \" lyou see the big buff guys walking around the amusement park and they’ve got all these big stuffed
8 u6 M% c0 |* uanimals, right? And this is my lovely wife, and I have a lot of pictures of stuffed animals I’ve won.
* W& h/ j9 i- \* ?7 `0 G/ A[laughter] [shows slides of several large stuffed animals] That’s my dad posing with one that I won.
2 T' E$ \) n+ m0 J5 Y3 V: u- |) fI’ve won a lot of these animals. There’s my dad, he did win that one, to his credit. And this was just9 J Z0 S1 e+ ?1 ^
a big part of my life and my family’s life. But you know, I can hear the cynics. In this age of digitally2 [6 J& ^. U, @& \ L
manipulated images, maybe those bears really aren’t in the pictures with me, or maybe I paid
( `- n& [+ {" u( C4 Dsomebody five bucks to take a picture in the theme park next to the bear. And I said, how, in this
1 v2 Q+ L7 m' n4 Nage of cynicism can I convince people? And I said, I know, I can show them the bears! Bring them
5 ]% g% c; g d- G. \% jout. [several large stuffed animals are brought onto the stage] [laughter and clapping] Just put them
; R$ B& t! E( p+ |back against the wall.
& F4 e4 \7 z1 L" `. V3 G' } @0 L# RJai Pausch (Randy’s wife):$ z; s/ U$ p$ C- u
It’s hard to hear you. [adjusts Randy’s microphone]/ W r: F! m0 M M6 r& V3 j
Randy Pausch:! c* U" o+ C* \# _4 f
Thanks honey. [laughter] So here are some bears. We didn’t have quite enough room in the moving, ^8 V0 O- D1 y
truck, and anybody who would like a little piece of me at the end of this, feel free to come up and% T) Y2 M. r) K* O! }( W
take a bear, first come, first served.
; {* w; q2 g/ B9 j0 [5 v+ D3 _All right, my next one. Being an Imagineer. This was the hard one. Believe me, getting to zero
" Z m6 I4 V% o, zgravity is easier than becoming an Imagineer. When I was a kid, I was eight years old and our family
9 ^' d5 J" e7 etook a trip cross-country to see Disneyland. And if you’ve ever seen the movie National Lampoon’s0 \! `$ H, G4 I
Vacation, it was a lot like that! [laughter] It was a quest. [shows slides of family at Disneyland] And% ?& l, p" e o! U$ t
these are real vintage photographs, and there I am in front of the castle. And there I am, and for* D6 A; T# {$ u! l. J6 F; ]
those of you who are into foreshadowing, this is the Alice ride. [laughter] And I just thought this was6 s7 ^! n' i' Z( s' x; _1 D
just the coolest environment I had ever been in, and instead of saying, gee, I want to experience this,
% F% c! u9 S( X5 X7 x( \* S6 O% U7 {; mI said, I want to make stuff like this. And so I bided my time and then I graduated with my Ph.D.
. l! n% b: B( t; v+ Qfrom Carnegie Mellon, thinking that meant me infinitely qualified to do anything. And I dashed off
+ X/ Y) [( d' Z! e. ]3 y& w- nmy letters of applications to Walt Disney Imagineering, and they sent me some of the damned nicest! g5 n x# E8 _
go-to-hell letters I have ever gotten. [laughter] I mean it was just, we have carefully reviewed your
( J L8 O3 h0 `( T# kapplication and presently we do not have any positions available which require your particular
* `: q( V8 b' C# \9 [: I A: [qualifications. Now think about the fact that you’re getting this from a place that’s famous for guys4 U2 ^$ Q5 ^. d9 h$ V. t8 p
who sweep the street. [laughter] So that was a bit of a setback. But remember, the brick walls are4 e( o' `( Y* w% _
there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us
% A7 g8 L8 }7 Z$ ]1 Z8 W2 O6 Wa chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the
- a- ^; X3 I% R' a% Kpeople who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
+ Y5 ~' V# n# GAll right, fast forward to 1991. We did a system back at the University of Virginia called Virtual
( I1 B1 r" A# _Reality on Five Dollars a Day. Just one of those unbelievable spectacular things. I was so scared
+ [9 T2 [5 E9 P7 L% pback in those days as a junior academic. Jim Foley’s here, and I just love to tell this story. He knew
5 u, d; F1 a$ N! V2 Smy undergraduate advisor, Andy Van Dam, and I’m at my first conference and I’m just scared to
! B9 {5 ^2 E; Y, w& m6 L7 L7 Odeath. And this icon in the user interface community walks up to me and just out of nowhere just. U$ p' t! c9 J; W
gives me this huge bear hug and he says, that was from Andy. And that was when I thought, ok,
8 Z1 a2 ^( }, W& Mmaybe I can make it. Maybe I do belong. And a similar story is that this was just this unbelievable
. n6 O1 ^) i8 i4 q0 q$ P" uhit because at the time, everybody needed a half a million [dollars] to do virtual reality. And% f; [/ y! e1 O+ s/ V7 h. E$ ^
everybody felt frustrated. And we literally hacked together a system for about five thousand dollars
5 ]' O x J" H: cin parts and made a working VR system. And people were just like, oh my god, you know, the" [+ s, D5 Z- g4 h7 Q: V5 e2 `5 z
Hewlett Packard garage thing. This is so awesome. And so I’m giving this talk and the room has just' \& d R1 S: {" F V- f3 J
gone wild, and during the Q and A, a guy named Tom Furness, who was one of the big names in
& Y3 L5 o+ t4 ~& uvirtual reality at the time, he goes up to the microphone and he introduces himself. I didn’t know$ U, G0 J; H4 ^1 p
what he looked like but I sure as hell knew the name. And he asked a question. And I was like, I’m/ I+ o- L9 \# s# O: d
sorry did you say you were Tom Furness? And he said yes. I said, then I would love to answer your
+ V: Q( P K( ]! I# \1 ?question, but first, will you have lunch with me tomorrow? [laughter] And there’s a lot in that little) P8 j/ U! c& k$ N% ]
moment, there’s a lot of humility but also asking a person where he can’t possibly say no. [laughter]
5 c! x5 s8 T6 N4 S1 r- JAnd so Imagineering a couple of years later was working on a virtual reality project. This was top T0 g% l/ Z/ j8 j8 g* h1 N
secret. They were denying the existence of a virtual reality attraction after the time that the
' i' }! E d! C" l+ [+ Rpublicity department was running the TV commercials. So Imagineering really had nailed this one5 r: m: ]9 b1 O% o
tight. And it was the Aladdin attraction where you would fly a magic carpet, and the head mounted4 F* Y) s, a- E2 m# B+ w
display, sometimes known as gator vision. And so I had an in. As soon as the project had just, you* l N/ j/ {; M* c
know they start running the TV commercials, and I had been asked to brief the Secretary of Defense
: ^( d' M* S! L' K; H+ F% |, J, Qon the state of virtual reality. OK, Fred Brooks and I had been asked to brief the Secretary of
6 f# {! q2 w) E+ F: W1 sDefense, and that gave me an excuse. So I called them. I called Imagineering and I said, look, I’m
) e: G7 h/ A1 s: C- A5 i% ^9 y+ Kbriefing the Secretary of Defense. I’d like some materials on what you have because it’s one of the$ D$ o* N! g4 [8 c' C6 U! f
best VR systems in the world. And they kind of pushed back. And I said, look, is all this patriotism
, W' P. j: C2 ostuff in the parks a farce? And they’re like, hmm, ok. [laughter] But they said this is so new the PR7 |) r, O! n& F D: R
department doesn’t have any footage for you, so I’m going to have to connect you straight through7 {$ M- `- P9 [' _
to the team who did the work. Jackpot! So I find myself on the phone with a guy named Jon Snoddy
4 ~" I3 P9 h7 e+ U f T3 awho is one of the most impressive guys I have ever met, and he was the guy running this team, and
$ e0 f( N! I* S1 g1 @it’s not surprising they had done impressive things. And so he sent me some stuff, we talked briefly
1 g& _. \2 f* h$ y2 g8 ~and he sent me some stuff, and I said, hey, I’m going to be out in the area for a conference shortly,
7 B- n; {5 M: g* S* }) Xwould you like to get together and have lunch? Translation: I’m going to lie to you and say that I
% t$ D: n4 {' C) Z0 |3 G5 Whave an excuse to be in the area so I don’t look too anxious, but I would go to Neptune to have
4 w* i1 i. R$ y! tlunch with you! [laughter] And so Jon said sure, and I spent something like 80 hours talking with all
+ j' T& u- [( c6 ^) Tthe VR experts in the world, saying if you had access to this one unbelievable project, what would
( \0 E, O. \! Q# \4 Uyou ask? And then I compiled all of that and I had to memorize it, which anybody that knows me
7 s* S7 {" g; ?; Uknows that I have no memory at all, because I couldn’t go in looking like a dweeb with, you know, [in
2 V# t c. g% {4 M. F2 u6 Udweeby voice] Hi, Question 72. So, I went in, and this was like a two hour lunch, and Jon must have% `/ z2 s. f8 k' x- d2 P
thought he was talking to some phenomenal person, because all I was doing was channeling Fred( q3 F ^8 ]& k n5 h0 }0 P
Brooks and Ivan Sutherland and Andy Van Dam and people like that. And Henry Fuchs. So it’s pretty
: M8 R! Y: _/ M; R t2 q6 Seasy to be smart when you’re parroting smart people. And at the end of the lunch with Jon, I sort, y. T+ Y* A( R4 g* }
of, as we say in the business, made “the ask.” And I said, you know, I have a sabbatical coming up.
/ m' Q/ E+ m* ~! p+ XAnd he said, what’s that? [laughter] The beginnings of the culture clash. And so I talked with him
9 u$ h' S$ ]1 ^$ s* eabout the possibility of coming there and working with him. And he said, well that’s really good
2 j I, \( N o. b; mexcept, you know, you’re in the business of telling people stuff and we’re in the business of keeping3 T8 H7 z. T: T# f$ _1 g
secrets. And then what made Jon Snoddy Jon Snoddy was he said, but we’ll work it out, which I+ @# ]" v" |4 Q
really loved. The other thing that I learned from Jon Snoddy – I could do easily an hour long talk just4 ]* _) X# e0 e9 M4 ^
on what have I learned from Jon Snoddy. One of the things he told me was that wait long enough4 ^5 C A1 {7 [# H8 l/ b
and people will surprise and impress you. He said, when you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re( f7 `# l- _* \) T. `( Q6 b
angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and) w. p1 j! o" I7 g
they’ll almost always impress you. And that really stuck with me. I think he’s absolutely right on- {+ ~1 i6 | t1 D' C
that one. So to make a long story short, we negotiated a legal contract. It was going to be the first –- F5 j7 X2 @/ K) X/ y
some people referred to it as the first and last paper ever published by Imagineering. That the deal
6 k8 p Q$ V) Dwas I go, I provide my own funding, I go for six months, I work with a project, we publish a paper.0 X! I) ?* V- a* ~
And then we meet our villain. [shows slide of a picture of a former dean of Randy’s] I can’t be all
, j- k. w' I' t- e7 N' ~. Vsweetness and light, because I have no credibility. Somebody’s head’s going to go on a stick. Turns; k3 ]: |$ S2 Z! {! P
out that the person who gets his head on a stick is a dean back at the University of Virginia. His
2 V3 c% x+ d+ {5 C' K% ]0 t& ^name is not important. Let’s call him Dean Wormer. [laughter] And Dean Wormer has a meeting
4 A B E ~$ Y) _( c. xwith me where I say I want to do this sabbatical thing and I’ve actually got the Imagineering guys to5 y5 b* {, ^7 \9 r
let an academic in, which is insane. I mean if Jon hadn’t gone nuts, this would never have been a: _0 ]0 u5 A( E* I9 t
possibility. This is a very secretive organization. And Dean Wormer looks at the paperwork and he
T) M/ o) V$ osays, well it says they’re going to own your intellectual property. And I said, yeah, we got the
; `0 H/ t% R8 k2 ~agreement to publish the paper. There is no other IP. I don’t do patentable stuff. And says, yeah,; g7 {* w& e& `) n: m
but you might. And so deal’s off. Just go and get them to change that little clause there and then6 T3 n3 R* e2 }9 d$ W" {
come back to me. I’m like, excuse me? And then I said to him, I want you to understand how
. b) }' [+ A" M8 t. L$ f1 _important this is. If we can’t work this out, I’m going to take an unpaid leave of absence and I’m just
8 x: }8 F2 i! Y$ U! y0 Cgoing to go there and I’m going to do this thing. And he said, hey, I might not even let you do that. I) G0 D; O c! [5 J
mean you’ve got the IP in your head already and maybe they’re going to suck it out of you, so that’s$ A# z! `9 `( }: P
not going to fly either. [laughter] It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And
- w) M1 t, }4 W# r' C8 p9 O4 B3 H% Wit’s very important to get out of it as quickly as possible. So I said to him, well, let’s back off on this.
, l! }8 M7 P& `' dDo we think this is a good idea at all? He said, I have no idea if this is a good idea. I was like," Y( Q, ^/ q$ J
[sarcastically] OK, well we’ve got common ground there. Then I said, well is this really your call?- J0 x }: a5 Y6 Y4 l
Isn’t this the call of the Dean of Sponsored Research if it’s an IP issue? And he said, yeah, that’s true.& S/ J0 ^4 G5 j' T
I said, but so if he’s happy you’re happy? [So he says] Yeah, then I’d be fine. Whoosh! Like Wile E.3 \/ y* M+ ~+ e7 z/ ~7 _$ b
Coyote, I’m gone in a big ball of dust. And I find myself in Gene Block’s office, who is the most, @1 L+ E" f; g. E c' k
fantastic man in the world. And I start talking to Gene Block and I say let’s start at the high level,
" D$ Y5 A" ~* r+ D4 V% tsince I don’t want to have to back out again. So let’s start at the high level. Do you think this is a
9 V! p! d" E& v2 m4 b' _7 C( w4 ngood idea? He said, well if you’re asking me if it’s a good idea, I don’t have very much information.
7 o9 B' k7 e" p# G$ ?All I know is that one of my star faculty members is in my office and he’s really excited, so tell me
5 \4 B$ m! A: i% f7 M/ d2 [- _more. Here’s a lesson for everybody in administration. They both said the same thing. But think2 S8 x# V1 |- m$ z. \) b9 a
about how they said it, right? [In a loud, barking voice] I don’t know! [In a pleasant voice] Well, I5 u2 G- P! p* \
don’t have much information, but one of my start faculty members is here and he’s all excited so I
- ]& R5 O* n+ A7 T2 z& o$ [want to learn more. They’re both ways of saying I don’t know, but boy there’s a good way and a bad
) H v, f8 B- v4 g( tway. So anyway, we got it all worked out. I went to Imagineering. Sweetness and light. And all’s! E3 c/ `* Q' ~$ |2 j6 `4 J5 q9 K
well that ends well.
2 J: S, f' F8 ]0 ~7 f2 jSome brick walls are made of flesh. So I worked on the Aladdin Project. It was absolutely B4 A2 @8 x6 i+ a
spectacular, I mean just unbelievable. Here’s my nephew Christopher. [Shows slide of Christopher" O% D" c( M/ G! [/ K) t* J8 Z
on Aladdin apparatus] This was the apparatus. You would sit on this sort of motorcycle-type thing.
9 J4 S2 D) W3 M8 jAnd you would steer your magic carpet and you would put on the head-mounted display. The headmounted( w7 ^( k0 G7 l6 |& I3 x( c+ ] C$ S
display is very interesting because it had two parts, and it was a very clever design. To get0 F: k- z; K0 u* [: G; l7 L
throughput up, the only part that touched the guest’s head was this little cap and everything else8 q2 O5 _4 N, Z6 U
clicked onto it – all the expensive hardware. So you could replicate the caps because they were6 M4 t3 t2 f" z
basically free to manufacture. [Showing slide of Randy cleaning a cap] And this is what I really did is9 S! m' ]* h/ P* D4 q0 J/ K/ L
I was a cap cleaner during the sabbatical. [laughter] I loved Imagineering. It was just a spectacular' O5 b+ x" B& D
place. Just spectacular. Everything that I had dreamed. I loved the model shop. People crawling( R6 J3 _( \! l+ z0 N
around on things the size of this room that are just big physical models. It was just an incredible
4 u) R0 ^/ K& W1 b" O& X. s6 eplace to walk around and be inspired. I’m always reminded of when I went there and people said,
" F7 _9 G* s6 c! d% @* mdo you think your expectations are too high? And I said, you ever see the movie Charlie and the
, [" N/ s6 q4 j2 _7 iChocolate Factory? Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory? Where Gene Wilder says to the little) h: w1 o5 Y3 O3 m% |( i& _
boy Charlie, he’s about to give him the chocolate factory. He says “Well Charlie, did anybody ever
# d& m3 [$ f% I0 n. K e9 W/ G3 btell you the story of the little boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?” Charlie’s eyes get
. m- C( h* ]. j/ B/ m/ R* V& r* Llike saucers and he says, “No, what happened to him?” Gene Wilder says, “He lived happily ever; r4 N' a6 C8 {5 D" T, Q* V
after.” [laughter]; R" ^5 t6 q7 n( Q/ |
OK, so working on the Aladdin VR, I described it as a once in every five careers opportunity, and I
, y) k4 m; J8 l8 Y2 p6 Ustand by that assessment. And it forever changed me. It wasn’t just that it was good work and I got, b) y3 f0 d4 Y; T& b
to be a part of it. But it got me into the place of working with real people and real HCI user interface3 F7 w6 w; e! I P% M
issues. Most HCI people live in this fantasy world of white collar laborers with Ph.D.s and masters$ J. g4 k0 g6 U ^1 c. `% W* x$ N
degrees. And you know, until you got ice cream spilled on you, you’re not doing field work. And2 W, | ]$ ~$ g2 u% O1 U/ G& O0 _
more than anything else, from Jon Snoddy I learned how to put artists and engineers together, and
) t9 {% U1 R5 othat’s been the real legacy.: ~; {8 f. S- j. I4 I6 u& U6 @
We published a paper. Just a nice academic cultural scandal. When we wrote the paper, the guys at6 c& G0 r' T. b2 i7 l0 k4 J
Imagineering said, well let’s do a nice big picture. Like you would in a magazine. [Showing slide of
) i/ t. Z4 ~6 [* q* x- Ufirst page of the paper, with a photo at the top that spans two columns]. And the SIGGRAPH) P7 s( G3 K4 e Z# k3 d& q$ _8 q: z
committee, which accepted the paper, it was like this big scandal. Are they allowed to do that?
+ u S" {5 ^ [$ ?) u[laughter] There was no rule! So we published the paper and amazingly since then there’s a
9 k: L; R, i1 h; x0 J3 O& Vtradition of SIGGRAPH papers having color figures on the first page. So I’ve changed the world in a
: u8 R. ^) i$ f- S' Z [small way. [laughter] And then at the end of my six months, they came to me and they said, you
0 n" J( {# N fwant to do it for real? You can stay. And I said no. One of the only times in my life I have surprised; X, m+ `( m3 e
my father. He was like, you’re what? He said, since you were, you know [gesturing to height of a
; y9 f$ D) H: Y; w7 k" D4 I+ schild’s head],this is all you wanted, and now that you got it, and you’re… huh? There was a bottle of
1 B4 A8 s# r$ t N4 g* yMaalox in my desk drawer. Be careful what you wish for. It was a particularly stressful place.5 M! ^0 n5 r: h/ D2 o" U
Imagineering in general is actually not so Maalox-laden, but the lab I was in – oh, Jon left in the( {) \4 ~) E* {/ U W) y" V' `: J
middle. And it was a lot like the Soviet Union. It was a little dicey for awhile. But it worked out OK.1 p9 k) z# I Z1 H- `- D ~- b0 B
And if they had said, stay here or never walk in the building again, I would have done it. I would
9 f7 R g* r8 Z# Ohave walked away from tenure, I would have just done it. But they made it easy on me. They said. V' T4 L+ L6 y9 Z4 x7 E5 P
you can have your cake and eat it too. And I basically became a day-a-week consultant for7 M. @& j* @+ [' \$ ?' ?3 f& S% [+ N
Imagineering, and I did that for about ten years. And that’s one of the reasons you should all! `) T; T# [. ^3 d" t I
become professors. Because you can have your cake and eat it too.0 I; Z' W p' C0 E$ M, d
I went and consulted on things like DisneyQuest. So there was the Virtual Jungle Cruise. And the9 g# C! [; }+ X+ l7 O
best interactive experience I think ever done, and Jesse Schell gets the credit for this, Pirates of the
0 f. _8 h7 T8 T' l' K0 Z2 bCaribbean. Wonderful at DisneyQuest.: c% k) x! D, a9 W( V
And so those are my childhood dreams. And that’s pretty good. I felt good about that. So then the
* U5 p4 B; W) Iquestion becomes, how can I enable the childhood dreams of others. And again, boy am I glad I, i. R3 \7 W& W7 R8 L% V+ m
became a professor. What better place to enable childhood dreams? Eh, maybe working at EA, I
8 ^5 U+ [4 S; Idon’t know. That’d probably be a good close second. And this started in a very concrete realization
1 e k( O6 o7 [) G! ?that I could do this, because a young man named Tommy Burnett, when I was at the University of7 o$ Z7 _: O' K, Y, H# [& ?
Virginia, came to me, was interested in joining my research group. And we talked about it, and he, q3 r k9 j7 M# E
said, oh, and I have a childhood dream. It gets pretty easy to recognize them when they tell you.
& y# _" w; z: A4 |* F' ~3 lAnd I said, yes, Tommy, what is your childhood dream? He said, I want to work on the next Star
7 s* U& l; C; W4 ?Wars film. Now you got to remember the timing on this. Where is Tommy, Tommy is here today.
$ p( C; E" b6 B5 l3 NWhat year would this have been? Your sophomore year.: f7 _) B T( _3 O) H
Tommy:# J- v! E. ^6 J: e
It was around ’93.
H+ ?/ }/ ?. b% w) uRandy Pausch:; S" |% N- I, G
Are you breaking anything back there young man? OK, all right, so in 1993. And I said to Tommy,
0 y. I+ A* k# [& tyou know they’re probably not going to make those next movies. [laughter] And he said, no, THEY
% A7 G$ w+ F$ N( RARE. And Tommy worked with me for a number of years as an undergraduate and then as a staff( C* k/ W) h9 Q$ N
member, and then I moved to Carnegie Mellon, every single member of my team came from Virginia- Z1 }% G) E/ X
to Carnegie Mellon except for Tommy because he got a better offer. And he did indeed work on all* R/ `' f4 _5 [2 h
three of those films. And then I said, well that’s nice, but you know, one at a time is kind of
- n. C, H! Z* o0 c: c5 e8 Qinefficient. And people who know me know that I’m an efficiency freak. So I said, can I do this in9 @" S: z0 c# X/ f/ o; e" k+ b7 `
mass? Can I get people turned in such a way that they can be turned onto their childhood dreams?1 B- Q; A) @& ]& X
And I created a course, I came to Carnegie Mellon and I created a course called Building Virtual
# H9 R9 s5 A& r7 X" m' e9 xWorlds. It’s a very simple course. How many people here have ever been to any of the shows?# T$ |% S/ T" P4 d) s& h/ w, C A
[Some people from audience raise hands] OK, so some of you have an idea. For those of you who, h* k6 P# u4 n) b1 h3 _
don’t, the course is very simple. There are 50 students drawn from all the different departments of) W% y5 U& i; P* o6 C3 ]# a& Y9 M
the university. There are randomly chosen teams, four people per team, and they change every
$ ?0 F, \$ v! @6 Iproject. A project only lasts two weeks, so you do something, you make something, you show
# } R3 H Y7 ]5 \3 H4 j N7 isomething, then I shuffle the teams, you get three new playmates and you do it again. And it’s% s" k+ p5 _( f; y
every two weeks, and so you get five projects during the semester. The first year we taught this! S7 W2 j8 A1 G& L5 g7 V( `) P
course, it is impossible to describe how much of a tiger by the tail we had. I was just running the5 N1 H0 ^! T6 ?( H
course because I wanted to see if we could do it. We had just learned how to do texture mapping/ e R8 h6 w. }7 d7 H
on 3D graphics, and we could make stuff that looked half decent. But you know, we were running: [" V' Y/ q# _0 j; x
on really weak computers, by current standards. But I said I’ll give it a try. And at my new university
# x) x' V4 M" m[Carnegie Mellon] I made a couple of phone calls, and I said I want to cross-list this course to get all
: |/ b" z4 b3 ~9 a( {2 Tthese other people. And within 24 hours it was cross-listed in five departments. I love this: J) u+ K6 o( j) e& k a
university. I mean it’s the most amazing place. And the kids said, well what content do we make? I2 @2 r( G& C# h+ M; o
said, hell, I don’t know. You make whatever you want. Two rules: no shooting violence and no
: D" x) w( @, C, U" j& k* Xpornography. Not because I’m opposed to those in particular, but you know, that’s been done with) }. m8 [8 W( [1 S! ], I
VR, right? [laughter] And you’d be amazed how many 19-year-old boys are completely out of ideas1 q, S" d$ Y5 P( D( ?
when you take those off the table. [laughter and clapping]
1 O# o+ B5 y. G5 w& sAnyway, so I taught the course. The first assignment, I gave it to them, they came back in two
! U m, c+ b4 u4 a* q% ^' rweeks and they just blew me away. I mean the work was so beyond, literally, my imagination,; U, ^4 Z7 w; y" i
because I had copied the process from Imagineering’s VR lab, but I had no idea what they could or
' M& f4 S) a1 ?+ ^couldn’t do with it as undergraduates, and their tools were weaker, and they came back on the first" j* f' t9 b( P: M: p9 Y3 I" d8 D
assignment, and they did something that was so spectacular that I literally didn’t, ten years as a
5 c+ u9 E6 u6 T2 H3 Z6 ?. Zprofessor and I had no idea what to do next. So I called up my mentor, and I called up Andy Van
$ `, o9 ]. F: T: m& x P& nDam. And I said, Andy, I just gave a two-week assignment, and they came back and did stuff that if I# N2 J3 }% @2 a# l& g. e6 R9 |4 }4 U* X
had given them a whole semester I would have given them all As. Sensei, what do I do? [laughter]+ h4 b" T. I0 [6 _+ c: j6 @
And Andy thought for a minute and he said, you go back into class tomorrow and you look them in7 i1 o5 P$ F6 A% ~+ r
the eye and you say, “Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better.” [laughter] And that
- W" E, B+ W) @) D2 B% Q: p6 kwas exactly the right advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don’t know where the bar0 G4 ^3 W" @+ A0 U4 x4 K9 s! s
should be, and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere. And boy was that1 l# J* U, ^: {0 J, z% J- s3 `
good advice because they just kept going. And during that semester it became this underground
* i" G' F4 ?& uthing. I’d walk into a class with 50 students in it and there were 95 people in the room. Because it0 ~) l x* ]6 f2 p+ v7 v
was the day we were showing work. And people’s roommates and friends and parents – I’d never) o5 \' |! a: M0 j
had parents come to class before! It was flattering and somewhat scary. And so it snowballed and3 Q9 p4 }$ w( C; D) ^
we had this bizarre thing of, well we’ve got to share this. If there’s anything I’ve been raised to do,- l# B7 i# f% ?8 ^* }' p
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
' J+ B/ @8 c* a3 M& yshow. And we booked this room, McConomy. I have a lot of good memories in this room. And we
( ]% V' _- t' S1 K7 ^" Ebooked it not because we thought we could fill it, but because it had the only AV setup that would
; h5 o( q9 m8 ~! v6 \( w: }8 swork, because this was a zoo. Computers and everything. And then we filled it. And we more than( s) `" L; o+ Y5 b$ B2 |3 l+ Z
filled it. We had people standing in the aisle. I will never forget the dean at the time, Jim Morris5 ?$ S4 X( |( _- A2 G7 v6 M
was sitting on the stage right about there. We had to kind of scoot him out of the way. And the
1 O& e7 x$ M5 F7 l fenergy in the room was like nothing I had ever experienced before. And President Cohen, Jerry
# M* A% B2 s2 x! s' E6 E) G& FCohen was there, and he sensed the same thing. He later described it as like an Ohio State football+ P0 q$ h1 O4 W" n
pep rally. Except for academics. And he came over and he asked exactly the right question. He
r: |# q g! f2 A4 r' Nsaid, before you start, he said, where are these people from? He said, the audience, what
3 G; d; `: L% p8 sdepartments are they from? And we polled them and it was all the departments. And I felt very
?. f' X3 Q* t" y! r; T& X1 ?0 C! t' Fgood because I had just come to campus, he had just come to campus, and my new boss had seen in! H* r5 I- r. L+ C4 @* S7 ^
a very corporal way that this is the university that puts everybody together. And that made me feel
" }/ y: I; Y4 g5 hjust tremendous.
$ Y) w3 J7 _1 Z3 {- _ i4 MSo we did this campus-wide exhibition. People performed down here. They’re in costume, and we
2 J% e5 S- }2 s. H& Q- ^& m5 }* ~" l" Zproject just like this and you can see what’s going on. You can see what they’re seeing in the head
. H& {* k9 u% F& |: }1 Vmount. There’s a lot of big props, so there’s a guy white water rafting. [shows slides of a BVW show]
1 A0 z# m/ c' i- EThis is Ben in E.T. And yes, I did tell them if they didn’t do the shot of the kids biking across the
9 ^5 q# x! [; q) V4 b0 W) ymoon I would fail him. That is a true story. And I thought I’d show you just one world, and if we can" N- P3 z4 D; a
get the lights down if that’s at all possible. No, ok, that means no. All right. All right we’ll just do
+ r& c8 H$ N) y4 m4 pour best then. [Shows “Hello.world” world done in the BVW class, audience applauds at the end.] It" z4 e* t' z8 h3 n, @ y
was an unusual course. With some of the most brilliant, creative students from all across the+ c7 m0 D% }: ~
campus. It just was a joy to be involved. And they took the whole stage performance aspect of this
4 O# t$ m: t7 h# @way too seriously [shows pictures of very strange costumes students wore]. And it became this$ `+ z% h- a4 k$ V" |+ N
campus phenomenon every year. People would line up for it. It was very flattering. And it gave kids
6 d$ O6 Z0 J5 _1 J1 x' Ra sense of excitement of putting on a show for people who were excited about it. And I think that1 V0 l. [7 g3 {5 M8 Q- T
that’s one of the best things you can give somebody – the chance to show them what it feels like to8 d3 A( t* \& w) D9 a7 S
make other people get excited and happy. I mean that’s a tremendous gift. We always try to
6 U. o+ {8 Z+ ^6 E4 oinvolve the audience. Whether it was people with glow sticks or batting a beach ball around… or6 A8 a+ S4 b! h W2 S, g) u
driving [shows photo of audience members leaning in their seats to steer a car]. This is really cool.
( n" w$ ^* o* k* L) mThis technology actually got used at the Spiderman 3 premiere in L.A., so the audience was7 Y C2 j0 K) i4 r# Z
controlling something on the screen, so that’s kind of nice. And I don’t have a class picture from9 C2 I# z) X5 u ~4 }
every year, but I dredged all the ones that I do have, and all I can say is that what a privilege and an9 q1 Q; g3 p9 W- B5 g9 Y6 d! p
honor it was to teach that course for something like ten years.
, b0 G! i$ @$ G4 m+ tAnd all good things come to an end. And I stopped teaching that course about a year ago. People
- C, |* D: y( e6 ~0 z* Y% jalways ask me what was my favorite moment. I don’t know if you could have a favorite moment.
% v: M6 ]) M4 g# bBut boy there is one I’ll never forget. This was a world with, I believe a roller skating ninja. And one2 F$ J I& r. O& E/ c6 K
of the rules was that we perform these things live and they all had to really work. And the moment
% j! h7 ~4 M0 `5 R; [it stopped working, we went to your backup videotape. And this was very embarrassing. [Shows/ P4 b4 v9 p* {$ W% n! z
image of Roller Ninja world presentation] So we have this ninja on stage and he’s doing this roller
9 r3 s/ V* O* N6 x$ [+ A& cskating thing and the world, it did not crash gently. Whoosh. And I come out, and I believe it was
# p8 B$ L7 j1 n" U$ R9 j1 C) _0 V0 [Steve, Audia, wasn’t it? Where is he? OK, where is Steve? Ah, my man. Steve Audia. And talk" B( X' A+ v+ }# R
about quick on your feet. I say, Steve, I’m sorry but your world has crashed and we’re going to go to; u4 i+ b8 j5 { x0 {
videotape. And he pulls out his ninja sword and says, I am dishonored! Whaaa! And just drops!) h% U7 w; W0 r6 C& z9 b7 n e# f+ E, O, Z
[applause and laughter] And so I think it’s very telling that my very favorite moment in ten years of
8 u0 ?) c% {( Othis high technology course was a brilliant ad lib. And then when the videotape is done and the
* X0 I! v/ A. Y9 x" \ Flights come up, he’s lying there lifeless and his teammates drag him off! [laughter] It really was a
4 e' {7 {% S6 _7 E4 Sfantastic moment.
( W# r' x g; U" `* _* OAnd the course was all about bonding. People used to say, you know, what’s going to make for a0 S. D; o4 {0 G* u
good world? I said, I can’t tell you beforehand, but right before they present it I can tell you if the- ]$ f u# |) g" d
world’s good just by the body language. If they’re standing close to each other, the world is good.6 K# s6 _ E8 q6 I" \- I
And BVW was a pioneering course [Randy puts on vest with arrows poking out of the back], and I, K7 p6 A3 K- i' ?' P: H& z& p$ L
won’t bore you with all the details, but it wasn’t easy to do, and I was given this when I stepped* O9 U& N4 i0 M' B! J% I* J, u) E
down from the ETC and I think it’s emblematic. If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you& a8 [4 s2 _$ S6 c) J
will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it. I mean everything that could# t( p5 u" Y5 @: ~, @
go wrong did go wrong. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people had a whole lot of fun.
( J7 h8 T! B; ^6 R7 h9 n* b$ fWhen you’ve had something for ten years that you hold so precious, it’s the toughest thing in the
8 j0 W6 ]8 ?) B- B* bworld to hand it over. And the only advice I can give you is, find somebody better than you to hand
$ N9 T& V& Z7 {1 q. nit to. And that’s what I did. There was this kid at the VR studios way back when, and you didn’t have
- ?$ [2 A# m. v: F) s/ ]to spend very long in Jesse Schell’s orbit to go, the force is strong in this one. And one of my
; C1 k. B1 y# N3 agreatest – my two greatest accomplishments I think for Carnegie Mellon was that I got Jessica
5 q+ c9 o! q; g+ U% I; g5 bHodgins and Jesse Schell to come here and join our faculty. And I was thrilled when I could hand this
v6 Z9 Q7 \2 A d K, A5 Bover to Jesse, and to no one’s surprise, he has really taken it up to the next notch. And the course is
# P" l# k6 l% }# v. ^* iin more than good hands – it’s in better hands. But it was just one course. And then we really took- d1 h% U5 X$ P" |. e- K, U
it up a notch. And we created what I would call the dream fulfillment factory. Don Marinelli and I* E+ g' K4 ~% k$ F' s, I( E3 r) |
got together and with the university’s blessing and encouragement, we made this thing out of whole
9 B8 v( v! E/ L3 \3 N' J0 {2 Xcloth that was absolutely insane. Should never have been tried. All the sane universities didn’t go7 l: r. o$ Y! P! p/ j, x8 t [
near this kind of stuff. Creating a tremendous opportunistic void. So the Entertainment Technology
- L/ {- ?/ m. fCenter was all about artists and technologists working in small teams to make things. It was a twoyear* J4 N( F# ]" N2 D6 A$ N P
professional master’s degree. And Don and I were two kindred spirits. We’re very different –
3 R& q/ p; J3 i+ q; eanybody who knows us knows that we are very different people. And we liked to do things in a new3 S2 A3 ]5 A' u, ^7 u# g% F
way, and the truth of the matter is that we are both a little uncomfortable in academia. I used to" k: @3 v& m3 [2 z4 [
say that I am uncomfortable as an academic because I come from a long line of people who actually
0 f0 j" Y2 P% X" G( t) jworked for a living, so. [Nervous laughter] I detect nervous laughter! And I want to stress, Carnegie3 [3 i/ {1 a4 d; R( L/ j* J
Mellon is the only place in the world that the ETC could have happened. By far the only place.
: ~$ [. r( r( }; {" P/ t[Shows slide of Don Marinelli in tye-dyed shirt, shades and an electric guitar, sitting on a desk next
- y! v6 W! p3 @) _to Randy, wearing nerd glasses, button-up shirt, staring at a laptop. Above their heads were the
, r8 ?2 Y7 x4 G8 `5 z4 wlabels “Right brain/Left brain”] [laughter] OK, this picture was Don’s idea, OK? And we like to refer
9 t4 |0 U1 ^/ o+ B) Lto this picture as Don Marinelli on guitar and Randy Pausch on keyboards. [laughter] But we really
9 S7 ~4 R& ?) y5 f+ ^did play up the left brain, right brain and it worked out really well that way. [Shows slide of Don
. r/ V4 H7 T; M3 plooking intense] Don is an intense guy. And Don and I shared an office, and at first it was a small
- F" E" e5 n eoffice. We shared an office for six years. You know, those of you who know Don know he’s an
/ I4 `* y6 z# m- Lintense guy. And you know, given my current condition, somebody was asking me … this is a
# `1 j2 C9 b1 R) j% Q3 wterrible joke, but I’m going to use it anyway. Because I know Don will forgive me. Somebody said,+ x% ?' J2 D: s
given your current condition, have you thought about whether you’re going to go to heaven or hell?
2 U% P0 K/ g9 D WAnd I said, I don’t know, but if I’m going to hell, I’m due six years for time served! [laughter] I kid.: L# A: p- h& G. P
Sharing an office with Don was really like sharing an office with a tornado. There was just so much
% d0 |; U- o* senergy and you never knew which trailer was next, right? But you know something exciting was
5 h% h @" j! q' Bgoing to happen. And there was so much energy, and I do believe in giving credit where credit is
' u" d& {2 L/ E" h( {' T# {" Q: Hdue. So in my typically visual way, if Don and I were to split the success for the ETC, he clearly gets" `# w' u4 d9 N( {( ]1 U
the lion’s share of it. [Shows image of a pie chart divided 70/30 (Don/Randy) ] He did the lion’s share
- ]+ w2 s2 [ r' w$ T) wof the work, ok, he had the lion’s share of the ideas. It was a great teamwork. I think it was a great9 y* h" ^& k2 n. i: p
yin and a yang, but it was more like YIN and yang. And he deserves that credit and I give it to him0 c# P' [+ Z0 O" C$ y
because the ETC is a wonderful place. And he’s now running it and he’s taking it global. We’ll talk
- {# c+ w& h$ _/ G) ? {( x% sabout that in a second.
@0 h7 ?0 o" [; U$ V3 ADescribing the ETC is really hard, and I finally found a metaphor. Telling people about the ETC is like
; a1 N4 _3 b8 g7 a" U t3 fdescribing Cirque du Soleil if they’ve never seen it. Sooner or later you’re going to make the/ S! d6 L7 g& O4 i/ u0 |5 f
mistake. You’re going to say, well it’s like a circus. And then you’re dragged into this conversation# ~$ P3 u, I( U# p0 t% J' y
about oh, how many tigers, how many lions, how many trapeze acts? And that misses the whole
# G/ q. w1 X, o$ p4 xpoint. So when we say we’re a master’s degree, we’re really not like any master’s degree you’ve
" g) Z! V! W$ wever seen. Here’s the curriculum [Shows slide of ETC curriculum, listing “Project Course” as the only" s" k+ I& P& w# R
course each semester; audience laughs] The curriculum ended up looking like this. [shows slightly3 T" m( s! Y7 P2 d
more detailed slide]. All I want to do is visually communicate to you that you do five projects in4 o: T1 d9 F+ ~
Building Virtual Worlds, then you do three more. All of your time is spent in small teams making
5 d' R1 X9 I) b+ ^9 h$ xstuff. None of that book learning thing. Don and I had no patience for the book learning thing. It’s
6 e4 }2 |+ `( q( E2 x7 N/ Va master’s degree. They already spent four years doing book learning. By now they should have5 o1 T( r4 b# y5 N$ T1 P
read all the books.. F+ B" F4 ~9 k& ^3 f) ?9 s
The keys to success were that Carnegie Mellon gave us the reins. Completely gave us the reins. We
, h6 r! U- `) {" @( Xhad no deans to report to. We reported directly to the provost, which is great because the provost8 b- z1 F. T: `( ~/ y
is way too busy to watch you carefully. [laughter] We were given explicit license to break the mold.
2 q+ C) ]$ o' s2 |6 C _. Q- P# |It was all project based. It was intense, it was fun, and we took field trips! Every spring semester in" w' [& e1 O) F2 K; B) W6 b
January, we took all 50 students in the first year class and we’d take them out to Pixar, Industrial+ x- I, j5 |6 |0 `9 G$ Y
Light and Magic, and of course when you’ve got guys like Tommy there acting as host, right, it’s
- z: A7 \" C% Q/ U: O; npretty easy to get entrée to these places. So we did things very, very differently. The kind of/ S' g$ R: a% j$ M/ g
projects students would do, we did a lot of what we’d call edutainment.
& n; a9 t+ e2 r4 S1 WWe developed a bunch of things with the Fire Department of New York, a network simulator for& ~7 z+ Q0 |' C+ P
training firefighters, using video game-ish type technology to teach people useful things. That’s not6 a3 R, ?/ s% S- C
bad. Companies did this strange thing. They put in writing, we promise to hire your students. I’ve
2 I+ H; K" J) t3 ]1 Ugot the EA and Activision ones here. I think there are now, how many, five? Drew knows I bet.
8 G2 r3 f$ Q) V8 m! Q- M[Drew Davison, head of ETC-Pittsburgh, gestures with five fingers]. So there are five written
9 n( B+ M7 [$ Fagreements. I don’t know of any other school that has this kind of written agreement with any
- H q0 w1 ]8 V8 Pcompany. And so that’s a real statement. And these are multiple year things, so they’re agreeing to
) o5 T9 `1 ~: z* l/ L, P' B7 G0 Ghire people for summer internships that we have not admitted yet. That’s a pretty strong statement
4 L2 B, V: i. [& q) K Tabout the quality of the program. And Don, as I said, he’s now, he’s crazy. In a wonderful
. f% A7 A: Q% K" K+ d$ fcomplimentary way. He’s doing these things where I’m like, oh my god. He’s not here tonight; d/ J `( N& Q8 z1 c
because he’s in Singapore because there’s going to be an ETC campus in Singapore. There’s already( g- g+ o2 g4 j( _- K
on in Australia and there’s going to be on in Korea. So this is becoming a global phenomenon. So I6 D# k! q* }# y: ?* r5 q3 f- F6 s
think this really speaks volumes about all the other universities. It’s really true that Carnegie Mellon( P6 c i) C! L2 e8 q8 x' P' ?
is the only university that can do this. We just have to do it all over the world now.
+ v- R* S1 D; K0 WOne other big success about the ETC is teaching people about feedback [puts up bar chart where8 e0 O9 o' G3 z- U$ p
students are (anonymous) listed on a scale labeled “how easy to work with” ] -- oh I hear the" i+ ~3 k! [$ ?6 t/ u. O
nervous laughter from the students. I had forgotten the delayed shock therapy effect of these bar
. r: V: p. d8 D. u Echarts. When you’re taking Building Virtual Worlds, every two weeks we get peer feedback. We put
( i0 h5 d# Q* E: U1 Xthat all into a big spreadsheet and at the end of the semester, you had three teammates per project,
" |5 G4 o0 t1 [; {# rfive projects, that’s 15 data points, that’s statistically valid. And you get a bar chart telling you on a
8 n. c$ w0 i/ L% d( dranking of how easy you are to work with, where you stacked up against your peers. Boy that’s hard
$ s5 ~; W2 C Q `0 A( Dfeedback to ignore. Some still managed. [laughter] But for the most part, people looked at that and
2 @# Y% {6 \% m: r; I& J% m# z7 q+ owent, wow, I’ve got to take it up a notch. I better start thinking about what I’m saying to people in
8 `! b& K8 f7 Y' M1 m) cthese meetings. And that is the best gift an educator can give is to get somebody to become self
. j; N& E% p9 Y4 Preflective.5 s1 ]- a5 A0 S) F
So the ETC was wonderful, but even the ETC and even as Don scales it around the globe, it’s still very; M9 R# h* q' Z
labor intensive, you know. It’s not Tommy one-at-a-time. It’s not a research group ten at a time.
/ J2 x% y n4 B, b2 {5 cIt’s 50 or 100 at a time per campus times four campuses. But I wanted something infinitely scalable.* _( h: _ u# H% z
Scalable to the point where millions or tens of millions of people could chase their dreams with' _/ {- q! u+ O* U$ C
something. And you know, I guess that kind of a goal really does make me the Mad Hatter. [Puts on4 v8 _7 Q6 J& O' U
a Mad Hatter’s green top hat]. So Alice is a project that we worked on for a long, long time. It’s a" [6 \% X8 c' e2 n& B
novel way to teach computer programming. Kids make movies and games. The head fake – again,$ J/ U# d0 d: J; b8 l) }
we’re back to the head fakes. The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think
: e) B9 ~; n) K2 F. e1 ~1 X2 Q1 J) Gthey’re learning something else. I’ve done it my whole career. And the head fake here is that4 ]+ }4 G1 Z+ E8 L4 S' o! D/ z9 U
they’re learning to program but they just think they’re making movies and video games. This thing5 v. l' ] c1 n2 ?. \1 V$ x" I# f
has already been downloaded well over a million times. There are eight textbooks that have been
7 ~8 w ~! w& d: p# gwritten about it. Ten percent of U.S. colleges are using it now. And it’s not the good stuff yet. The
' n; H, r$ k" C$ ugood stuff is coming in the next version. I, like Moses, get to see the promised land, but I won’t get3 Q# [0 c3 ~2 f; m5 _8 Z
to set foot in it. And that’s OK, because I can see it. And the vision is clear. Millions of kids having
% i) ]; I* n7 H% Vfun while learning something hard. That’s pretty cool. I can deal with that as a legacy. The next
- t7 L2 z5 [; U& i% s2 h* @' Jversion’s going to come out in 2008. It’s going to be teaching the Java language if you want them to) P' T( \3 y5 l0 j
know they’re learning Java. Otherwise they’ll just think that they’re writing movie scripts. And2 y% s/ \. d3 R: z9 c# w
we’re getting the characters from the bestselling PC video game in history, The Sims. And this is
6 L2 O1 K! T% |9 halready working in the lab, so there’s no real technological risk. I don’t have time to thank and" y0 O( }, b; M, R( k0 T
mention everybody in the Alice team, but I just want to say that Dennis Cosgrove is going to be
3 O: n2 G' F6 Ebuilding this, has been building this. He is the designer. This is his baby. And for those of you who
' H8 q+ \9 C0 N9 W: xare wondering, well, in some number of months who should I be emailing about the Alice project,
" K+ A8 x" T3 `7 Owhere’s Wanda Dann? Oh, there you are. Stand up, let them all see you. Everybody say, Hi Wanda.+ }2 @( s- B% h5 O8 c
Audience:" H( A3 V4 @6 @$ _7 u
Hi, Wanda.- |0 _ v8 J+ z; j$ U4 t' e4 C
Randy Pausch:$ M$ D. d n2 V; c; C8 m* D( b
Send her the email. And I’ll talk a little bit more about Caitlin Kelleher, but she’s graduated with her1 `. Y# }! A, p% p/ o; h4 H- `
Ph.D., and she’s at Washington University, and she’s going to be taking this up a notch and going to0 K; M* c1 D7 ~6 z
middle schools with it. So, grand vision and to the extent that you can live on in something, I will9 W4 s# v; e0 h
live on in Alice.) f& s: r7 ?( M0 n, Q+ j
All right, so now the third part of the talk. Lessons learned. We’ve talked about my dreams. We’ve; a. P: a7 }* ~ T
talked about helping other people enable their dreams. Somewhere along the way there’s got to be
8 M0 t2 `# ^) j5 A( q7 p) S* `( Xsome aspect of what lets you get to achieve your dreams. First one is the rule of parents, mentors: }: ~( k! q8 u# B$ o
and students. I was blessed to have been born to two incredible people. This is my mother on her
6 J. t7 _/ ~3 J7 D70th birthday. [Shows slide of Randy’s mom driving a race car on an amusement park race course]' ]* o+ c \) A
[laughter] I am back here. I have just been lapped. [laughter] This is my dad riding a roller coaster
# F0 o7 a( v0 D& Won his 80th birthday. [Shows slide of dad] And he points out that he’s not only brave, he’s talented* i& |1 e" N1 c' T% o
because he did win that big bear the same day. My dad was so full of life, anything with him was an0 G; j" g/ E# i& A, o
adventure. [Shows picture of his Dad holding a brown paper bag.] I don’t know what’s in that bag,/ q0 N5 \/ z3 K! }9 p( m2 y6 }
but I know it’s cool. My dad dressed up as Santa Claus, but he also did very, very significant things X, H( H7 u% X. Q1 x
to help lots of people. This is a dormitory in Thailand that my mom and dad underwrote. And every
' L& c: n- A) n ryear about 30 students get to go to school who wouldn’t have otherwise. This is something my wife' [: a7 }5 m4 O7 k+ K
and I have also been involved in heavily. And these are the kind of things that I think everybody0 s2 w- r9 k. D1 z9 Z6 s* g
ought to be doing. Helping others." W2 M7 s( \" l( u- Z0 G
But the best story I have about my dad – unfortunately my dad passed away a little over a year ago
; t; X$ N6 [% z8 g. W– and when we were going through his things, he had fought in World War II in the Battle of the
, q1 }& Z' {% m7 `4 W# t! ?Bulge, and when we were going through his things, we found out he had been awarded the Bronze
; ?9 @# J0 i \5 c' y/ B: N) iStar for Valor. My mom didn’t know it. In 50 years of marriage it had just never come up.
: R& s# s3 p$ X" K0 S* H7 QMy mom. [Shows picture of Randy as a young child, pulling his Mom’s hair]. Mothers are people5 ?# y. Q/ o# T C
who love even when you pull their hair. And I have two great mom stories. When I was here8 ]! P+ l5 e. J! `7 f
studying to get my Ph.D. and I was taking something called the theory qualifier, which I can
8 r% a3 Z) s% I* n7 A1 cdefinitively say is the second worst thing in my life after chemotherapy. [laughter] And I was
8 B- t' U6 F8 s( A. Qcomplaining to my mother about how hard this test was and how awful it was, and she just leaned( h: `' w" ?8 C5 N" e( U7 O
over and she patted me on the arm and she said, we know how you feel honey, and remember when
: Z3 Y. ^; U; i$ C' V; cyour father was your age he was fighting the Germans. [laugher] After I got my Ph.D., my mother
; w5 e! M# M+ p. z# Q `took great relish in introducing me as, this is my son, he’s a doctor but not the kind that helps people.9 P7 A& `; f! W/ c u/ i" ]; Q) ^
[laughter] These slides are a little bit dark [meaning “hard to see”], but when I was in high school I
' [* D6 M$ A" \decided to paint my bedroom. [shows slides of bedroom] I always wanted a submarine and an$ O0 _- U5 Y0 q# Q V4 E
elevator. And the great thing about this [shows slide of quadratic formula painted on wall]) a- p, m2 \+ y: t( ]
[interrupted by laughter] – what can I say? And the great thing about this is they let me do it. And7 w; z4 |. W! h
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
1 Z; W$ n. A7 H- T$ R. ~anybody who is out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedroom, as a favor to me
4 b7 L2 J8 P, F p# Y6 U' m8 H3 A; zlet them do it. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry about resale value on the house.
, x% g3 F' I# z, A! QOther people who help us besides our parents: our teachers, our mentors, our friends, our
& m* O. w* @& H! p. n2 r' h2 O! Icolleagues. God, what is there to say about Andy Van Dam? When I was a freshman at Brown, he
$ D! S- j! ~' a- b, Iwas on leave. And all I heard about was this Andy Van Dam. He was like a mythical creature. Like a: s% o7 n5 x1 t$ V0 b t
centaur, but like a really pissed off centaur. And everybody was like really sad that he was gone, but
1 C7 O" v, ]3 J2 D& Vkind of more relaxed? And I found out why. Because I started working for Andy. I was a teaching
1 u8 n) i: s& U0 c+ J( massistant for him as a sophomore. And I was quite an arrogant young man. And I came in to some
7 [ B( t+ B- F, F. j( O8 @+ moffice hours and of course it was nine o’clock at night and Andy was there at office hours, which is4 t3 M" N ~% w7 b) s/ c& p! z# f
your first clue as to what kind of professor he was. And I come bounding in and you know, I’m just, c& p! i2 m9 m2 r2 h; e) G
I’m going to save the world. There’re all these kids waiting for help, da da, da da, da da, da da, da
. e1 I: B% Q$ C2 K, cda. And afterwards, Andy literally Dutch-uncled – he’s Dutch, right? He Dutch-uncled me. And he
, x. A. u0 M {* a6 m) G3 ]! Mput his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame( j. u3 Y% j E S
that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to# O; H! y& v O* ]: B8 ]
accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t
) U' r" F# @. n! b1 Asay you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going
+ G2 n0 S6 j/ a, `7 E t7 {9 oto limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.! q( O# m6 b& o, P- t+ R
When I got to know Andy better, the beatings became more direct, but. [laughter] I could tell you8 U. \/ r( d/ e
Andy stories for a month, but the one I will tell you is that when it came time to start thinking about
. z8 @% H' \+ R3 K; P5 gwhat to do about graduating from Brown, it had never occurred to me in a million years to go to8 B5 r; H4 p5 J+ z
graduate school. Just out of my imagination. It wasn’t the kind of thing people from my family did.. x0 G9 F- ?, d J# Z+ S1 ^& k% @
We got, say, what do you call them? …. jobs. And Andy said, no, don’t go do that. Go get a Ph.D.7 j( O, ~) _' T m2 K; ?4 Q
Become a professor. And I said, why? And he said, because you’re such a good salesman that any
4 m9 w5 p4 J- ~# k) r: K' I# Fcompany that gets you is going to use you as a salesman. And you might as well be selling' ~4 B h W! o8 }
something worthwhile like education. [long pause, looks directly at Andy van Dam] Thanks.
/ z- w! \( S5 ]; R5 BAndy was my first boss, so to speak. I was lucky enough to have a lot of bosses. [shows slide of
1 m! o+ M1 Z Z4 I. p- t0 Uvarious bosses] That red circle is way off. Al is over here. [laughter] I don’t know what the hell: u4 X2 `) V* [* v( |2 e6 D: D
happened there. He’s probably watching this on the webcast going, my god he’s targeting and he
: L/ S* m1 [1 t; ^still can’t aim! [laughter] I don’t want to say much about the great bosses I’ve had except that they) `1 s3 n0 f1 t& q2 k7 R0 W6 \3 K
were great. And I know a lot of people in the world that have had bad bosses, and I haven’t had to! ?* i6 }$ A: x! s
endure that experience and I’m very grateful to all the people that I ever had to have worked for.
5 w$ i# a& D& I/ c+ B3 u7 H# yThey have just been incredible.
+ X4 [1 M) h, R! H; TBut it’s not just our bosses, we learn from our students. I think the best head fake of all time comes
5 ~; m) Y" t) n4 k1 `6 Vfrom Caitlin Kelleher. Excuse me, Doctor Caitlin Kelleher, who just finished up here and is starting at
$ V3 J8 I8 L3 h. h* B1 I' Y$ iWashington University, and she looked at Alice when it was an easier way to learn to program, and9 r1 P, w2 c8 ^
she said, yeah, but why is that fun? I was like, ‘cause uh, I’m a compulsive male…I like to make the
: @; I: Y( h1 c, W. llittle toy soldiers move around by my command, and that’s fun. She’s like, hmm. And she was the' z4 W8 P; r& O H% b* c$ r" y
one who said, no, we’ll just approach it all as a storytelling activity. And she’s done wonderful work/ a' `4 {- T, h. L) a3 S9 d8 E/ z2 o
showing that, particularly with middle school girls, if you present it as a storytelling activity, they’re
5 _, Z! I4 @" S0 i& Y; s6 }& qP a u s c h P a g e | 19. s) N* z. ~1 e' e. U9 X$ I
perfectly willing to learn how to write computer software. So all-time best head fake award goes to* d& X. V$ ~0 l
Caitlin Kelleher’s dissertation.
b" _* j0 a, X' C: r1 gPresident Cohen, when I told him I was going to do this talk, he said, please tell them about having2 k: z; E. D) v0 @/ 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
* _! ^$ A' u7 T( k9 c+ ?3 ctalking about the importance of water. I mean I don’t know how to not have fun. I’m dying and I’m
/ K8 A( f, e* r8 z( c' B: \having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to o" @1 h/ p, G" `$ k. k( V% Y
play it.
' z( P1 K. `" G4 s; s4 t1 a* qSo my next piece of advice is, you just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or and Eeyore. [shows slide
0 v0 V- I7 B1 `5 @with an image of Tigger and Eeyore with the phrase “Decide if you’re Tigger or Eeyore”] I think I’m
- V2 X+ ]2 z8 ?1 [$ W/ T5 ~; G, X Jclear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. [laughter] Never lose the childlike wonder.
6 d$ g6 K9 H5 j+ k1 |4 K& oIt’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others. Denny Proffitt knows more about helping
4 w5 Z0 k& h6 Fother people. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. He’s taught me by example how to run a. ?# i5 P A# d) i
group, how to care about people. M.K. Haley – I have a theory that people who come from large2 f5 O# \7 z6 y' i
families are better people because they’ve just had to learn to get along. M.K. Haley comes from a6 K1 P S+ {) U% u9 `
family with 20 kids. [audience collectively “aaahs”] Yeah. Unbelievable. And she always says it’s
/ A: a& d. E, N+ t$ \2 V/ A) pkind of fun to do the impossible. When I first got to Imagineering, she was one of the people who
8 [; Z% c$ ]: h3 |+ u) Y* rdressed me down, and she said, I understand you’ve joined the Aladdin Project. What can you do?2 B4 U' q& E3 F" F
And I said, well I’m a tenured professor of computer science. And she said, well that’s very nice
7 S( w% Q& {8 z) K% E7 E7 a% tProfessor Boy, but that’s not what I asked. I said what can you do? [laughter]
4 e+ m8 }3 J! l2 [1 uAnd you know I mentioned sort of my working class roots. We keep what is valuable to us, what we( e% G2 Z& h7 l2 q
cherish. And I’ve kept my [high school] letterman’s jacket all these years. [Puts on letterman’s- _; ^% m( G4 x( [
jacket] I used to like wearing it in grad school, and one of my friends, Jessica Hodgins would say, why# K$ z( ^ A* o/ `, Y/ c5 ?
do you wear this letterman’s jacket? And I looked around at all the non-athletic guys around me2 p; d4 v6 G7 {1 W9 w4 z) V8 {
who were much smarter than me. And I said, because I can. [laughter] And so she thought that was
& U$ M8 F F; N- q1 h5 a: q& Aa real hoot so one year she made for me this little Raggedy Randy doll. [takes out Raggedy Randy]
2 p% u$ u, W2 D/ t' J[laughter] He’s got a little letterman’s jacket too. That’s my all-time favorite. It’s the perfect gift for) M0 Q. p" t, W; G6 I7 }
the egomaniac in your life. So, I’ve met so many wonderful people along the way., Y! m9 k: ]# J0 i
Loyalty is a two way street. There was a young man named Dennis Cosgrove at the University of! b! C3 z, ^5 w# z6 g2 b( f
Virginia, and when he was a young man, let’s just say things happened. And I found myself talking
- A% [: \* p& Q( X0 m& Cto a dean. No, not that dean. And anyway, this dean really had it in for Dennis, and I could never
( t: {" z6 D" \% {2 k. _3 cfigure out why because Dennis was a fine fellow. But for some reason this Dean really had it in for
i% k9 w9 G6 S6 Z \3 A+ Thim. And I ended up basically saying, no, I vouch for Dennis. And the guy says, you’re not even1 A& i$ L& W/ }$ x K
tenured yet and you’re telling me you’re going to vouch for this sophomore or junior or whatever? I
2 H; f' H: l8 c/ G4 }6 Y( Qthink he was a junior at the time. I said, yeah, I’m going to vouch for him because I believe in him.* C; Y- F+ B: i" i6 i& E' d. \
And the dean said, and I’m going to remember this when your tenure case comes up. And I said,5 A' e& f: l' T4 Z
deal. I went back to talk to Dennis and I said, I would really appreciate you… that would be good.5 s: X) q1 _ v! B
But loyalty is a two-way street. That was god knows how many years ago, but that’s the same
3 a# v$ } @3 E. uDennis Cosgrove who’s carrying Alice forward. He’s been with me all these years. And if we only" k) z4 {1 z) y
had one person to send in a space probe to meet an alien species, I’m picking Dennis. [laughter] You
5 {' \ D9 Q K) y% dcan’t give a talk at Carnegie Mellon without acknowledging one very special person. And that would+ t3 {3 Q* D$ W9 ]* d* Z
be Sharon Burks. I joked with her, I said, well look, if you’re retiring, it’s just not worth living
5 ^ P' {4 s5 f1 S( ganymore. Sharon is so wonderful it’s beyond description, and for all of us who have been helped by
' k# f" V0 L5 q& O5 ?! Iher, it’s just indescribable. I love this picture because it puts here together with Syl, and Syl is great" ?8 @" |! X8 M
because Syl gave the best piece of advice pound-for-pound that I have ever heard. And I think all, t5 s) P f( _! m3 x6 T2 D
young ladies should hear this. Syl said, it took me a long time but I’ve finally figured it out. When it+ N5 j' d. f$ \/ n& \! g1 j
comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they n3 Q$ G* M, S% P8 B1 n2 o
say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy. And I thought back to: s- a& N* ]) G8 ?$ ]! D! g
my bachelor days and I said, damn. [laughter]
. x* R/ }1 V& B0 X- S; fNever give up. I didn’t get into Brown University. I was on the wait list. I called them up and they: z5 @1 ? o( A) a( w2 \) |2 x
eventually decided that it was getting really annoying to have me call everyday so they let me in. At0 T- \$ T' k2 m$ B: {
Carnegie Mellon I didn’t get into graduate school. Andy had mentored me. He said, go to graduate$ m4 }, R) t- e5 w' B9 K
school, you’re going to Carnegie Mellon. All my good students go to Carnegie Mellon. Yeah, you# l& f) D/ A: A
know what’s coming. And so he said, you’re going to go to Carnegie Mellon no problem. What he7 b/ n, o- x: d
had kind of forgotten was that the difficulty of getting to the top Ph.D. program in the country had
3 `* r! d ]& U$ freally gone up. And he also didn’t know I was going to tank my GRE’s because he believed in me.
. g S0 E/ }: r/ I6 ^Which, based on my board scores was a really stupid idea. And so I didn’t get into Carnegie Mellon.. i$ M; _! P# M! `
No one knows this. ‘Til today I’m telling the story. I was declined admission to Carnegie Mellon.$ x- K1 |7 C4 v% Y; ~
And I was a bit of an obnoxious little kid. I went into Andy’s office and I dropped the rejection letter
/ p; D% d. G# j7 K6 o4 i( con his desk. And I said, I just want you to know what your letter of recommendation goes for at
& g( v4 }/ b' }& P$ j$ ]& u fCarnegie Mellon. [laughter] And before the letter had hit his desk, his hand was on the phone and
9 X6 b% o/ @0 ^4 z4 p+ W4 n3 ^+ Khe 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# L4 w9 E/ B+ Y5 q& @# { R
way I was raised. [In a sad voice] Maybe some other graduate schools will see fit to admit me.# ]* f* O2 F% D. v8 X
[laughter] And he said, look, Carnegie Mellon’s where you’re going to be. He said, I’ll tell you what,
3 y' U* A2 }) w2 U* ZI’ll make you a deal. Go visit the other schools. Because I did get into all the other schools. He said,
; M# t' R1 V" ^! ago visit the other schools and if you really don’t feel comfortable at any of them, then will you let me
- w( g5 P& d2 |- P, qcall Nico? Nico being Nico Habermann [the head of Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science Dept.] and
5 ^# g& A/ W2 B( c1 `5 Z- w8 _6 d, dI said, OK deal. I went to the other schools. Without naming them by name -- [in a coughing voice]4 \0 H$ m' Q. Y. V9 q, o
Berkeley, Cornell. They managed to be so unwelcoming that I found myself saying to Andy, you
: V6 \ U& I( K$ V: Rknow, I’m going to get a job. And he said, no, you’re not. And he picked up the phone and he talked
- R6 R* X. y! ^) Z. H" r4 Gin Dutch. [laughter] And he hung up the phone and he said, Nico says if you’re serious, be in his
' G0 o* D8 p qoffice tomorrow morning at eight a.m. And for those of you who know Nico, this is really scary. So' {/ D: ?6 {( \2 M* P
I’m in Nico Habermann’s office the next morning at eight a.m. and he’s talking with me, and frankly I/ U/ G- I; ~( c$ h u2 J3 s! j
don’t think he’s that keen on this meeting. I don’t think he’s that keen at all. And he says, Randy,
, d7 w; o, ?0 q7 x- j' Hwhy are we here? And I said, because Andy phoned you? Heh-heh. [laughter] And I said, well, since/ j* y' P s* K7 n* s- b
you admitted me, I have won a fellowship. The Office of Naval Research is a very prestigious# X1 u; g* f8 R% T( {6 D
fellowship. I’ve won this fellowship and that wasn’t in my file when I applied. And Nico said, a
$ ^4 I* i% F+ m! j% p! I/ \fellowship, money, we have plenty of money. That was back then. He said, we have plenty of
2 p# q& V9 _3 j6 u# Dmoney. Why do you think having a fellowship makes any difference to us? And he looked at me.
8 X0 p$ e* y9 K/ @% t. IThere are moments that change your life. And ten years later if you know in retrospect it was one of
% Y* P. ]$ X: g( X4 j' Sthose moments, you’re blessed. But to know it at the moment …. with Nico staring through your) c1 R! [9 v: J, S1 e0 |+ p
P a u s c h P a g e | 213 t6 v3 m( G/ a7 o
soul. [laughter] And I said, I didn’t mean to imply anything about the money. It’s just that it was an& e7 F2 r$ D7 |/ A- F% ]
honor. There were only 15 given nationwide. And I did think it was an honor that would be# a% r& E2 M7 z- N: E/ c, f9 }
something that would be meritorious. And I apologize if that was presumptuous. And he smiled.+ v0 r" v$ O7 D0 i
And that was good.
& R. x' n I0 F) H. b2 @2 K, ASo. How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I
* l- R) P$ b) ~& P# @* [do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being
/ K( {' U/ C+ bearnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest
! V1 Q, q& U2 C& k$ xis long term.
# j3 s. e2 _2 DApologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. And I thought, how do I
& j1 g; U2 Q( l2 `, \0 ?9 zpossibly make a concrete example of that? [Speaking to stage hand] Do we have a concrete' \3 S" E) R7 u( s0 Y- g) y
example of focusing on somebody else over there? Could we bring it out? [Speaking to audience], e8 ^7 z# x2 W- Y F" q2 j& [6 ^( l
See, yesterday was my wife’s birthday. If there was ever a time I might be entitled to have the focus
# [( h8 H S# _: B+ P* v% [1 hon me, it might be the last lecture. But no, I feel very badly that my wife didn’t really get a proper% q# T, e8 r) r
birthday, and I thought it would be very nice if 500 people— [an oversized birthday cake is wheeled, h; s, y7 D+ T N3 K
onto the stage] [applause] Happy—
8 j2 v. E% I) ?( Y1 `0 W0 j3 P tEveryone:7 _ j' q7 y" Q7 J# E% B
…birthday to you [Randy: her name is Jai], happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Jai, happy5 }9 M! z0 z `, R
birthday to you! [applause]* v* P. R* l7 v5 N2 o! ?
[Jai walks on stage, teary-eyed. She walks with Randy to the cake. Randy: You gotta blow it out. The5 U- T! C6 b' x( H' p
audience goes quiet. Jai blows out the candle on the cake. Randy: All right. Massive applause.]5 ^- Y& V2 X& W. h& p4 j
Randy Pausch:5 E4 ~' s& @5 v; D* D: d' T
And now you all have an extra reason to come to the reception. [laughter] Remember brick walls let
2 S8 X w; f3 c& k o# D0 t2 Dus show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don’t really want to! E' n7 O) E; t, F7 V
achieve their childhood dreams. Don’t bail. The best of the gold’s at the bottom of barrels of crap.$ n$ _4 l- O6 \ R7 m
[Shows slide of Steve Seabolt next to a picture of The Sims] [laughter] What Steve didn’t tell you was
" [, L/ T3 C- O# s; j) Ethe big sabbatical at EA, I had been there for 48 hours and they loved the ETC, we were the best, we
4 ~" s1 G* ^, o, J0 p2 q. bwere the favorites, and then somebody pulled me aside and said, oh, by the way, we’re about to$ A6 B% m0 f- v4 I
give eight million dollars to USC to build a program just like yours. We’re hoping you can help them2 @+ j( Q6 ~ U$ l! s& G' q
get it off the ground. [laughter] And then Steve came along and said, they said what? Oh god. And
% V- {( S' m8 g$ [# L9 ]to quote a famous man, I will fix this. And he did. Steve has been an incredible partner. And we
% F, Q) }2 ^: V0 V! I( hhave a great relationship, personal and professional. And he has certainly been point man on" R, p1 i3 I/ Y% X2 ]1 V
getting a gaming asset to help teach millions of kids and that’s just incredible. But, you know, it
+ X8 b' O0 C V$ g* L) I9 w& x) Ocertainly would have been reasonable for me to leave 48 hours after that sabbatical, but it wouldn’t
. W" _. e/ P6 }+ J: n8 ~/ Ehave been the right thing to do, and when you do the right thing, good stuff has a way of happening.
& r# Z9 `, Z" {Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or1 J) Y- G" e' L8 ~- t8 p! H
it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.2 N& N! ]! a9 ^' M0 \& e
P a u s c h P a g e | 221 z4 M0 j# Q. x* V: {
Anybody can get chewed out. It’s the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. As opposed( U9 I9 V9 R5 \) h# _) L, E* i) _
to, no wait, the real reason is… We’ve all heard that. When people give you feedback, cherish it and) P4 B8 O1 @; m8 M0 d2 B
use it.2 }7 ]1 K; @3 ~; n% d5 s% [ m2 U
Show gratitude. When I got tenure I took all of my research team down to Disneyworld for a week.
+ @, C5 w. [) k) X* PAnd one of the other professors at Virginia said, how can you do that? I said these people just
' F* {* G5 I! m2 ~* u# I8 f) abusted their ass and got me the best job in the world for life. How could I not do that?
* x6 v1 y3 \) e9 pDon’t complain. Just work harder. [shows slide of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league2 p, M8 m+ l- s8 ?
baseball player] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even
- Y0 u2 p6 J) G$ `& Awhen the fans spit on him.1 F) H d! V/ j9 ?- v9 ^; B0 F
Be good at something, it makes you valuable.! w% [. @; C# s6 n
Work hard. I got tenure a year early as Steve mentioned. Junior faculty members used to say to me,
* s% g& P: u/ K2 ?- {- W+ F* K- w# n- Gwow, you got tenure early. What’s your secret? I said, it’s pretty simple. Call my any Friday night in- F' ^, v8 n1 K; b" `% ]( Y* ^
my office at ten o’clock and I’ll tell you.* z2 I* c U* n4 S5 Z
Find the best in everybody. One of the things that Jon Snoddy as I said told me, is that you might' a. I1 ~9 R# _' b3 w% e3 D5 Q7 j
have to wait a long time, sometimes years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep
" J1 D" u7 o! Q' }( j+ b+ d$ P1 _3 Mwaiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting,3 C5 y- k- B( ~
it will come out.8 e% m- @$ q8 P
And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
+ W3 R) Y" _! I4 h, e) N* a2 x! a5 dSo today’s talk was about my childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and some lessons
L$ b) {1 }8 f1 M& e o0 Blearned. But did you figure out the head fake? [dramatic pause] It’s not about how to achieve your3 w8 |6 q7 | E$ s0 f! E
dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care4 w: ^3 T) j9 R7 s
of itself. The dreams will come to you.
j" a0 H. n) [Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids. Thank you all,
" [3 B- C3 s& { c! Rgood night.
7 U, s( f3 M- y A9 _# ]3 t[applause; standing ovation for 90 seconds; Randy brings Jai onto the stage and they take a bow; they sit
9 s! L" b' M+ P W. U% [5 adown in their seats; standing ovation continues for another minute]0 ]: L+ r3 V. G
Randy Bryant:
" ~6 w% v9 D+ w! m* sThank you everyone. I’d like to thank all of you for coming. This really means a lot I know to Randy.
! u! \7 o; {. G! m2 d/ \2 @He had this theory even up to yesterday that there wouldn’t be anyone in the room.
$ Z l" R0 D+ A* S, P9 b; P/ VRandy Pausch [from seat]:
+ N: x* N! g! M& T1 oAfter CS50…
0 I& g _- j5 M- PRandy Bryant:
0 _0 F5 p2 d. m3 n4 U; Z# \ MI know. I’m the other Randy. That’s been my role here for the past 10 years ever since Randy
9 g: q" D7 i. Q- FPausch came here on the faculty. And what I mean by that is, I introduce myself. I’m Randy Bryant
! g' ]9 V, }% N% Sfrom Computer Science. They go, oh, Randy from CS. You’re the one that does all that cool stuff of
4 o8 N, | u# W! \6 W* Fbuilding virtual worlds and teaching children how to program. And I go, no, no, sorry. That’s the5 ^! @7 Y y" ~5 u& i+ U, j; y
other Randy. I’m the wrong one. Sorry, I’m just like a dull nerd. [laughter] So, but I’m very pleased
% }7 Q5 G; p9 k7 f1 O3 vtoday to be able to sort of run a brief series of ways in which we want to recognize Randy for his
: i R3 |8 p: r5 `, hcontributions he’s made to Carnegie Mellon, to computer science and to the world at large. So we- ]* v W( X ~6 T6 c
have a few – it will be a brief program. We have a few people I’ll be bringing up one after the other.
+ E3 v$ f H) S8 `$ I m; ]I’m sort of the MC here. So first I’d like to introduce who you’ve already met, Steve Seabolt from+ @ J9 v3 Q2 A R p1 o
Electronic Arts. [applause]
' T2 e) v' ] W& z7 y1 A/ I8 iSteve Seabolt:
8 l; g" ~- l: M" s5 j2 FMy family wondered whether or not I would make it through the introduction. [voice starts to crack
0 z* m5 O9 X H3 P6 `% K" } fup] And I did that but I might not do so well now. So bear with me. As Randy mentioned, he and I,! O! T( V) |# U$ X. V7 I" F% |' s
Carnegie Mellon and Electronic Arts share a particular passion about nurturing young girls and trying
: Q4 X- Z& O. ?8 fto encourage young girls to stay with math and stay with science. Every geek in the world shouldn’t8 Q* q% z. \+ K" u
be a guy. You know, it’s such a twist of fate that there’s so many people that are worried about offshoring,! `3 L: S0 R7 g8 m8 H
and at the same time companies are forced to off-shore, there are fewer and fewer
t. @9 R. F2 J8 v8 N% a8 Istudents entering computer science. And the number of women entering computer science just
! L% y* |( v" k$ g* Z2 ]keeps dropping like a rock. There are way too few Caitlins in this world. And Caitlin, we need so: C+ L; ]' h- N: c
many more of you. And with that in mind, Electronic Arts has endowed a scholarship fund. It’s the
, ]7 y0 M8 s: h5 g8 DRandy Pausch endowed scholarship fund, established in 2007 by EA. In honor of Randy’s leadership
) q) P1 O' I0 ]: W u/ z# o; }5 \! iand contribution to education, computer science, digital entertainment, and his commitment to/ F+ h& B4 [& w7 D' O
women in technology. This scholarship will be awarded annually to a female undergraduate CMU9 T2 i8 |0 _ f# |! [$ n% O! d/ z
student who demonstrates excellence in computer science and a passion in the pursuit of a career in. J7 B: ?7 T* S
video games. Randy, we’re so honored to do this in your name. [applause]7 G2 F8 d, @. L% U& j; Y7 v
Randy Bryant:& z9 D! j! H; o9 P- r- V9 n
Next I’d like to introduce Jim Foley. He’s on the faculty at Georgia Tech and he’s here representing
' E! O# v% T# `8 m: @8 xthe ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction. Jim. [applause]' s q8 |/ C+ _% F5 U# x6 H
Jim Foley:
# O! V# v8 E$ F9 k/ H- h O[motions to Randy Pausch to come on stage; gives him a hug] That was for Jim. [applause] ACM, the
! |/ m5 h( [* q% n& O: jAssociation for Computing Machinery is a group of about 100,000 computing professionals. One of( c% x; I- O+ B8 x; T
their special areas of interest is computer human interaction. A few weeks ago, someone who’s a0 S" @4 x, N6 O8 C7 x
very good friend of Randy’s wrote a citation which was endorsed by a number of people and went to/ D" f% n$ w' ^* Q1 e2 W
the executive committee of SIGCHI, which on behalf of the SIGCHI membership, has authorized this
4 }2 j$ m; S/ D; ^% aspecial presentation. The citation was written by Ben Schneiderman and worked on then by Jenny
C4 }( B p3 @6 y6 _2 ]Preese and Ben Peterson, and endorsed by a whole bunch of your friends and now from the
! ? p: r; ~2 C$ i9 \executive committee. So let me read to you the citation. Special award for professional
; t+ Z. u# ]$ _7 n/ T4 _contributions. Randy Pausch’s innovative work has spanned several disciplines and has inspired both% M% K" ]4 w; i* R
mature researchers and a generation of students. His deep technical competence, choice of- \8 T2 O9 f4 T6 E8 \: w
imaginative projects and visionary thinking are always combined with energy and passion. We’ve
& k+ F3 X' e) a0 o' J3 hseen that. From his early work on the simple user interface toolkit to his current work on 3D Alice
. g* U! s4 {; Q: T) Z6 cprogramming language, he has shown that innovative tool design enables broad participation in2 c7 H/ K! ^& y2 X9 K$ N' T
programming, especially by women and minorities. Randy Pausch has vigorous commitment to
# X+ L5 B6 v* {) {+ |8 Cengaging students at every level by compelling and intellectually rigorous projects, and his appealing
# U1 R- i* x0 }4 p, p6 Flecture style for a role-model for every teacher and lecture. Yes, yes yes. [voice starts to crack up], T& ?( \0 y. r# p! o' b+ f
His work has helped make team project experiences and educational computing research more" U" r6 @% s k% L" G _
common and respected. As a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, a Lilly6 I9 V+ Z3 p: `+ @
Teaching Foundation Teaching Fellow, co-founder of the CMU ET Center and consultant for Disney
' {/ Y Z7 a$ [4 o3 W. H1 bImagineering and EA, Randy’s done pioneering work in combining computing interface design and4 g1 W/ c$ l+ l3 {
emotionally rich experiences. For these and many other contributions, the ACM SIGCHI executive
. w- |( h3 m) z- I' C9 k. T! g8 P5 Fcouncil is proud to present to Randy Pausch a special award for professional contributions.$ W5 G5 ]6 i L
[applause] [Randy comes back on stage to receive award]
+ G/ T' w$ F+ eRandy Bryant:
9 l- Q4 D/ K8 _: m' RThank you, Jim. Next I’d like to introduce Jerry Cohen, the President of Carnegie Mellon University.; |) p' B3 K" K0 o3 f2 j
[applause]& {4 n+ M6 N! j2 l
Jerry Cohen:
& ^. ~8 w( K0 j o; \Thank you other Randy. [Tries to move Randy Pausch’s bag of props to the side of the podium] You# g/ [; Z( Q- Q" G2 g6 O; R! W
know you’re traveling heavy, buddy. Many of us have been thinking about and talking about how$ N E, t4 H+ D& K! x
we can recognize you on this campus in a way that is lasting and fitting in terms of what you meant
- c% P# d0 g |9 A3 U wto this university. A lot of people are involved in this. You thought the provost wasn’t paying$ }/ c) ]0 p4 h$ W: i, s" H! O/ I
attention all those years. [laughter] Actually, one of the ways we’re going to remember you is this I9 d& @: P \: Y; [# U6 p( [
$50,000 bill for stuffed animals. $47,862.32 for pizza. You’ve made great contributions, Randy, we# g- |! f8 m1 W. H! l
really appreciate it. [laughter] One thing we could not do, regrettably, is figure out a way to capture
- ^2 `, N6 {& U, J9 E/ uthe kind of person that you are. You’re humanity, what you’ve meant to us as a colleague, as a7 `% j3 W5 G# W* `0 [0 b
teacher. As a student. And as a friend. There’s just no way to capture that. There is our memories,
# a$ c: X* m& f2 w0 P% z* f2 ~however. And there is a way to remember you every day, as people walk this campus. So we’ve
3 S2 u, [8 s3 Ncome up with an idea. You’ve done great things for this campus and for computer science and for X: R$ J4 f' i7 R# u5 U4 Q
the world. Surely Alice will live on. But the one we’re going to focus on right now is what you’ve8 m& I' f' x$ t
done to connect computer science with the arts. It was remarkable, it was stunning. It’s had1 N1 s% w6 [, C, O( R0 ~% u8 E% ^; V% V
enormous impact, and it will last, I daresay forever. So to recognize that, we are going to do the
/ f |7 Z& \4 H* a% r" w/ W: Dfollowing. Good job, other Randy. [laughter, as Randy Bryant gets the projector to show the next; N1 K$ [5 E# e9 s
slide] In order to effect this, we had to build a building. [Shows slide of mockup of Gates building] A
2 |2 L* m8 @( A) `; l0 rhundred million dollar building which will allow us to do the following. You’ll note, by the way, to
* G: O) z* q$ r, j' a- j6 n# horient people. So the Purnell Center for the Arts is the home of the School of Drama. That modern1 ^. H; |+ N) h" [* T2 U; \
looking new thing, half of which has a green roof, is the new Gates Center for Computer Science.
" r* Y) U1 t+ q _+ _And we had long planned to connect these two physically, both to allow people to get down from
9 E* U6 {% O1 [3 q! v4 {' @the cut to lower campus, and you have to admit it carries tremendous symbolic importance. Well$ p, k z% K) y& t2 ]" Y
on behalf of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon and on behalf of the entire university, I’m+ Q8 [) ~- a0 x! [/ ?. ?: Z+ Q( p
pleased to announce today that the bridge connecting these two will be known as the Randy Pausch
# G* S8 y( E) \: `Memorial Footbridge. [shows slide of mockup of bridge] [applause] Now actually based on your talk
) T% V# T V% b; l4 Ztoday we’re thinking now about putting up a brick wall up at either end, and let students see what l$ F# i" D8 L n8 i, F. e
they can do with it. [laughter] Randy, there’ll be a generation of students and faculty to come here; n; j( P7 f& B' G
who will not know you, but they will cross that bridge, they will see your name, and they’ll ask those
3 e8 m0 j" V. z4 P( X$ iof us who did know you. And we will tell them that unfortunately they were not able to experience# f: s' h3 t: d' g. |
the man, but they are surely experiencing the impact of the man. Randy, thank you for all that$ A# h: ^! M$ x5 l2 n& C1 q( X
you’ve done for Carnegie Mellon. We’re going to miss you. [applause] [Randy walks on stage and. @9 ^1 ?' _* [6 y; r
gives Jerry a hug]: l5 s3 S [( ^, i+ q: h! A" r
Randy Bryant:
0 v7 o7 T' f5 h2 r) ^7 CSo every good show needs a closing act, and so to do that I’ll invite Andy Van Dam. [applause]
9 J3 l- T) ?9 W$ ^. e. i5 o1 cAndy Van Dam:
: _/ c) x- g2 c) c' {8 r V$ ?* wOh how I love having the last word. [applause] But to have to go on after that fabulous show, I don’t5 ~6 @ U5 m/ `8 H8 P$ [* L
know whether that was good planning. Well I started in Brown in 1965 and it has been my pleasure9 N3 r1 |$ x; _$ C$ g3 `* X J5 ]
and great joy not just to teach thousands of undergraduates and some graduates, but also to work
7 R7 i8 x7 g U" r7 u; ]7 l" c. qone-on-one with a couple hundred of them. And over 35 have followed me into teaching I’m proud9 I+ ^2 T n; v- j5 Q6 }
to say. Out of those best and brightest it was very clear that Randy would stand out. He showed. ~3 }0 _. l/ F( @6 I$ r n. O0 ?) a
great promise early on and a passion about our field and about helping others that you’ve seen8 Y# h: y0 X0 m1 `
amply demonstrated today. It was matched by fierce determination and by persistence in the face' I7 f6 X c1 m$ U0 w1 f3 C
of all brick wall odds. And you’ve heard a lot about that and seen that demonstrated as he fights* D' G; G& ?, v# ^' t
this terrible disease. Like the elephant’s child, however, he was filled with satiable curiosity, you" f4 }% b _, E$ b2 y$ W4 N' ^
remember that. And what happened to the elephant’s child, he got spanked by all of his relations,
% @ X1 O0 L, D$ r+ L# I- @3 Band you’ve heard some of that. He was brash, he had an irrepressible, raucous sense of humor,$ d3 u. Q1 [" m! F1 A
which led to the fantastic showmanship that you saw today. He was self-assured, occasionally to' U. y' U: D" s( g
the point of outright cockiness. And stubborn as a mule. And I’m a Dutchman and I know from
% R1 a( H' w, P7 z( k1 ?: Z2 g) ~stubbornness. The kind way to say it is he had an exceedingly strong inner compass, and you’ve$ q; o& K7 H& C$ p% L% S" @* y
seen that demonstrated over and over again. Now, having been accused of many such traits myself,0 o, {, m v& [+ P( y% X
I rather thought of them as features, not bugs. [laughter] Having had to learn English the hard way, I- ~; S( l$ ?1 y$ k/ k
was a fanatic about getting students to speak and write correct English from the get-go. And Randy; X. m0 N s" K! b. b
the mouth had no problem with that. But he did have one problem. And I’m having a problem with
7 |! V$ Q5 T2 H7 x$ T4 ^: _8 P, o0 Zmy machine here, here we go. [gets slide to project on screen]. And that was another part of my, W& b$ a5 f+ m7 z
fanaticism which dealt with having American students learn about foreign cultures. And specifically
3 r/ Z- k* f/ n/ Cabout food cultures, and more specifically yet, about Chinese food culture. So I would take my1 T. s( ?: V4 i7 Q$ a' i
students to this wonderful Chinese restaurant where they cooked off the menu using a Chinese
# o7 W8 T* W; Z" {7 N- imenu. And I tried to get Randy to sample this. But would Mr. White Bread touch that stuff?% N. p5 C# F) h
[laughter] Absolutely not. And worse, he refused to learn to eat with chopsticks. I was chairman at
@/ L/ e# N! Z8 sthe time and I said, Randy, you know, I’m not going to let you graduate if you don’t learn to eat with
! X9 O+ P* Y5 p; Z2 echopsticks! [laughter] It’s a requirement, didn’t you see that? He of course didn’t believe that. And
1 b3 {# Y; c1 @5 J5 M0 mso it came time for graduation and I handed him his diploma. And this was the picture one of my
1 A- ?+ R/ Z3 i( w2 Afriends took. [Shows slide of Brown University commencement, 1982, Randy dressed in his cap and$ y& ~5 I. d) @; F
gown, opening his diploma, his mouth wide open in surprise] And what you see is Randy opening his
4 s9 J; x5 S/ p( ?( Y7 Q) ?& Wdiploma to show it to his parents, and there was an autographed copy of the menu in Chinese and
* C. L: E7 D$ z3 d( ^4 gno diploma. [laughter, applause] It was one of the few times I got the better of him, I have to
, I# K, M; y( W% I& r$ P4 y/ n+ kconfess. Well here we are today, all of us, and hundreds and hundreds of people all over the
+ q3 K1 t& G5 {. A$ S+ rcountry, I dare say all over the world, participating in this great event to celebrate you and your life.# P* `4 L, D0 T4 ]0 Z# {. [
Randy is the person, the Mensch, as we say in Yiddish. Your manifold accomplishments as a model
# v+ u7 c }+ Macademic, especially as a mentor to your students. Your Disneyland expeditions not only were
' v. O, o9 _' E8 [% Uunique but they are legendary. You have more than fulfilled the terms of Brown University Charter,- T% @! S7 U9 g, T8 D! V) Z# |* a
which are: to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation. Your utter devotion to& ]4 y/ |, m6 }/ f# H4 b: D, S
your family and your career are exemplary, and continue unabated as you cope with the immensity
5 H! `3 |) k! Mof your situation. You exemplify undaunted courage and grace under pressure. The most terrible
( N! X# s) u4 zpressure one can imagine. Randy, you have been and you will continue to be a role model for us.* L, s7 ^% k! Y6 @( q
[Voice starts cracking up] Thank you so much for all you have done for us. And to allow us to tell9 y* S8 f, y0 }9 r9 [/ b) g
you privately and in such a public way how much we admire, honor, and indeed love you. [applause]1 X# ^% T) S" X7 s
[standing ovation]
8 T! }. A' s( S3 m3 y2 h( |1 [/ y. J1 Y
[ 本帖最后由 billzhao 于 2008-11-16 18:02 编辑 ] |
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