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Has anybody here ever had her/his mind changed by a great overpaid speaker? I've seen a lot of speeches in my professional life, and the ones that stuck the mo

Has anybody here ever had her/his mind changed by a great overpaid speaker? I've seen a lot of speeches in my professional life, and the ones that stuck the most were usually from non-famous low-paid speakers. The more famous and accomplished (and American, actually) the speaker is, the more the speech would steer toward a self-eulogy of the person's work achievements. And it's boring. It's a bit sad that most of the time this kind of talks are nothing more than marketing stunts for both the speakers and the conference organizers.

tikhonj 10y ago
I don't know about changing my mind per se, but I definitely got a new perspective on financial regulation after attending a talk by Barney Frank (famous for the Dodd-Frank bill). I don't remember the exact details now, but hearing about how he designed the regulations was very interesting, even if it was a pretty high-level description. It colored my understanding of the regulation in a way that just reading a description on Wikipedia didn't.
- camillomiller 10y ago
  Well, I won't call him a "famous speaker", not outside of a specific field (politics and finance). By famous I mean popular in a broader sense. On the tech side of things that would mean Steve Wozniak famous, so to say (famous for his contribution on a specific field, but broadly recognized as popular).
- RobertoG 10y ago
  Who paid the bill for that talk? I bet it wasn't Goldman & Sachs.
  - tootie 10y ago
    Look at their list of speakers. Russel Simmons, Deepak Chopra, Shaq. They invite all kinds of people. These are usually in the big offices in NY or London so most of the attendees are likely to be liberals.
    - RobertoG 10y ago
      What are you talking about? I'm asking specifically about Barney Frank to the author of the comment above.
      - tootie 10y ago
        I took your comment to mean that could not imagine GS paying for a liberal who championed financial regulation to come speak. I'm countering that they invite a wide array of speakers on a a variety of topcis, many of whom are liberal. I'm not sure if they have ever invites Frank, but it seems like something they definitely would do.
  - tikhonj 10y ago
    It was actually Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm. The talk was even more interesting because of the context, and because I was learning a lot about finance that whole summer.
visakanv 10y ago
> Has anybody here ever had her/his mind changed by a great overpaid speaker? Overpaid speakers aren't there to change your mind, they're there to signal to you the high status of the institution that burnt a pile of cash to pay for them (Is this the sentiment expressed in the original post? About to read it now)
colmvp 10y ago
You just reminded me of when I went to a conference and watched Daniel Libeskind talk about a work in progress. I get that famous individuals enjoy talking about their work but this was the first time I nearly suffocated from such an overbearing ego. Which I guess would've been fine if the specific work he was showing was profoundly influential or of high excellence? Instead it seemed like a certain distinct aesthetic that was persistent in different environments regardless of whether it fit the context. To answer your original question, Helen Marriage (Artichoke) convinced me through her work the power that art can have in bringing together communities and fostering wonderment.
- camillomiller 10y ago
  I've recently seen a talk from the world famous photographer chase jarvis. OMG, that was some huge amount of self promoting bullshit, interspersed with some incredibly dull lifecoaching advice. It was bad, really bad.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Heh, my experience with this guy as a consumer has been when he put out a camera app and started a community site, and after making a good buck, abandoned it all, with no updates, no handover of the app, etc. http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/the-best-camera-iphone-app-book-community/ http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/the-best-camera-iphone-app-b...
hkmurakami 10y ago
A bit different, but I do find many college commencement speeches to be both humorous and enlightening. I'm particularly a fan of DFW's and Ben Bernanke's. Indifferent about Steve Jobs', but plenty of people would purport to have their lives changed by this. Each of them "could" be an overpaid speaker so I figured it's worth mentioning.

tikhonj 10y ago

I don't know about changing my mind per se, but I definitely got a new perspective on financial regulation after attending a talk by Barney Frank (famous for the Dodd-Frank bill). I don't remember the exact details now, but hearing about how he designed the regulations was very interesting, even if it was a pretty high-level description. It colored my understanding of the regulation in a way that just reading a description on Wikipedia didn't.

camillomiller 10y ago
Well, I won't call him a "famous speaker", not outside of a specific field (politics and finance). By famous I mean popular in a broader sense. On the tech side of things that would mean Steve Wozniak famous, so to say (famous for his contribution on a specific field, but broadly recognized as popular).
RobertoG 10y ago
Who paid the bill for that talk? I bet it wasn't Goldman & Sachs.
- tootie 10y ago
  Look at their list of speakers. Russel Simmons, Deepak Chopra, Shaq. They invite all kinds of people. These are usually in the big offices in NY or London so most of the attendees are likely to be liberals.
  - RobertoG 10y ago
    What are you talking about? I'm asking specifically about Barney Frank to the author of the comment above.
    - tootie 10y ago
      I took your comment to mean that could not imagine GS paying for a liberal who championed financial regulation to come speak. I'm countering that they invite a wide array of speakers on a a variety of topcis, many of whom are liberal. I'm not sure if they have ever invites Frank, but it seems like something they definitely would do.
- tikhonj 10y ago
  It was actually Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm. The talk was even more interesting because of the context, and because I was learning a lot about finance that whole summer.

visakanv 10y ago

> Has anybody here ever had her/his mind changed by a great overpaid speaker? Overpaid speakers aren't there to change your mind, they're there to signal to you the high status of the institution that burnt a pile of cash to pay for them (Is this the sentiment expressed in the original post? About to read it now)

colmvp 10y ago

You just reminded me of when I went to a conference and watched Daniel Libeskind talk about a work in progress. I get that famous individuals enjoy talking about their work but this was the first time I nearly suffocated from such an overbearing ego. Which I guess would've been fine if the specific work he was showing was profoundly influential or of high excellence? Instead it seemed like a certain distinct aesthetic that was persistent in different environments regardless of whether it fit the context. To answer your original question, Helen Marriage (Artichoke) convinced me through her work the power that art can have in bringing together communities and fostering wonderment.

camillomiller 10y ago
I've recently seen a talk from the world famous photographer chase jarvis. OMG, that was some huge amount of self promoting bullshit, interspersed with some incredibly dull lifecoaching advice. It was bad, really bad.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Heh, my experience with this guy as a consumer has been when he put out a camera app and started a community site, and after making a good buck, abandoned it all, with no updates, no handover of the app, etc. http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/the-best-camera-iphone-app-book-community/ http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/the-best-camera-iphone-app-b...

hkmurakami 10y ago

A bit different, but I do find many college commencement speeches to be both humorous and enlightening. I'm particularly a fan of DFW's and Ben Bernanke's. Indifferent about Steve Jobs', but plenty of people would purport to have their lives changed by this. Each of them "could" be an overpaid speaker so I figured it's worth mentioning.