alt Hacker NewsThe man is hailed as a brilliant nerd in our circles. I didn't realize he's a great public speaker. He really read the room.
The "McKenzie"-style lady and Schmidt from Google (who really seemed to resent the pushback and chided graduates), can go to hell. I'm happy that someone is telling the young people who are likely to suffer because of this tech that they matter. I can't imagine how much angst much exist after taking on debt to get an education and then this is the job market.
Replies
I saw him give a graduation speech over twenty years ago, and to be honest, he was not a great public speaker then--he rambled and lost the plot. But twenty years is a long time, so he may be amazing now! I love the quote.
I think Woz is awesome!
But... he did have the benefit of two strong examples of what NOT to do along with several days to think about it. It's to his credit that he understood and acted on it.
> I can't imagine how much angst much exist after taking on debt to get an education and then this is the job market.
Right... which they aren't going to be helped by continuing to find external causes or external enemies which are keeping them down instead of focusing on what they can control and what they can do to make money or make careers.
It's nice and it feels good to say these things, but it's not going to get those same students a job or help them build the next startup. Of course those students matter, and they should feel as such, but if they take away the wrong lesson here than Mr. Wozniak is doing them a disservice. Populism is incredibly dangerous.
I've been thinking about the expression "Reading the Room" for the last ten years. I've come to the conclusion finally that it is extremely pernicious.
I also saw video of some school president being booed so badly that he never actually gave the speech, while some other admin had to come hold his hand and yell at the tuition paying students.
Ah, here it is. It was CalArts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vTVWyY47s
The Game Developers Conference report takenn in March reported noted 74% of students felt their careers were at risk. To paraphrase:
> 74% of students who answered feel their future in this industry is at risk. The top fears were no entry level jobs, laid off seniors competing for the same jobs they're going for, and AI displacement.
There is so much anxiety for the future of society and it's a real shame this seems to be going on ignored.
It's probably not so much the AI thing as the latent disgust at the social media landscape and the toxicity driven by Meta and others.
It's not that hard to "read the room" when you're a humanist, and not a sociopathic tech CEO... you just speak your mind, and you realize that your fellow humans are onboard with you
[flagged]
Where's a link to the actual speech? There's no link in the article. Surely you saw the speech to comment how strong of a public speaker he is, and it wasn't based off this one line right?
I'm sorry but that one-liner is reddit level cringe. I want to see the actual speech and more of what he said rather than one line.
A bit off topic, but about commencement speeches...
Marvin Minsky spoke at my graduation. It was around the time when it seemed like genetic therapies might solve all kinds of problems, and there was a big debate, moral objections, etc.
Most of the talk was a rambling rant against religion holding us back from scientific improvements to life. It did not go over in the mostly christian crowd. I loved it.