8 ms·

The 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 Schm

The 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.

StilesCrisis 5mo ago
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.
- kevinsync 5mo ago
  Anecdata, but of the clips I've seen going around from Woz's speech, there were quite a few comments from people who claimed to have been there for the whole ceremony, most of which said that he was rambling and all over the place lol. Not bad necessarily, just that they felt like he wasn't really all that engaging, they were bored out of their minds, and some barely even knew who he was. Again, internet comments, so take that for what it is, just tossing my own pointless internet comment into the mix!
  - blanched 5mo ago
    I've only been to the low tens of graduations, but in my experience this is pretty common for a speaker. A couple highlights and otherwise a little boring :) Now of course, there are exemplary speakers who keep you engaged the whole time, but they're rare.
  - StilesCrisis 5mo ago
    In my case, I was not even graduating, I just heard that Woz was speaking and decided to attend. I don't regret attending, as I managed to get a picture with Woz after the ceremony and thank him for his amazing work, but the speech itself was extremely forgettable.
- beej71 5mo ago
  Same, except not at a graduation speech. He was just all over the place, but I loved every second of it. :) As a nerd of the 80s, I'd take that over the sterile CEO BS any day.
  - hirvi74 5mo ago
    > He was just all over the place I feel like that is a trait necessary to do what Woz did throughout his life.
- renticulous 5mo ago
  Actual Intelligence eg "mitochondria is a Powerhouse of cell". Cached thoughts and facts.
joe_mamba 5mo ago
* * *
- baxtr 5mo ago
  How can you be sure Eric Schmidt is telling “the truth” and Wozniak is lying? What’s your rationale and on the basis for such a claim?
  - itsalwaysgood 5mo ago
    The economy
    - lukecarr 5mo ago
      And famously, the economy never changes course. Something, something, stocks always go up.
      - itsalwaysgood 5mo ago
        Do you think AI will go away and suddenly businesses will start hiring people back? Or that a competitive startup won't lean on AI to get ahead? Doesn't matter how much stock prices move up and down...AI is here to stay and no amount of booing changes our desires to compete. The world doesn't hold hands with anyone, there is no global consensus, no policy. I recall all the bemoaning when IT jobs started going overseas... businesses always go with the cheapest labor. The world is dog eat dog, and those that prepare for the future are better equipped to deal.
        watwut 5mo ago
        > Or that a competitive startup won't lean on AI to get ahead? Specifically, with the way both economy and politics is structured, everything will be about big corporations with centralized power. A competitive startup leaning on AI getting ahead will be either destroyed or bought. >The world doesn't hold hands with anyone, there is no global consensus, no policy. It is totally holding hands and helping out - to Schmidts, Trumps, Musks, Epsteins. Just not to poorer people. > Do you think AI will go away and suddenly businesses will start hiring people back? In fact, with well run economy that systematically prevents monopolies, yes it tends to hire people no matter what technological level. Currents state where few super powerful companies are able to push themselves into everything and create monopolies via dumping prices, even as they are not profitable and can count on their friends in administration to bail them out once if all goes pop is the ineffective economy.
bko 5mo ago
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.
oulipo2 5mo ago
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
Waterluvian 5mo ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vTVWyY47s
- dyauspitr 5mo ago
  What did he do to deserve this, there’s no context?
  - HumblyTossed 5mo ago
    the students were: > ... protesting recent staff layoffs, severe program cuts, a mounting structural deficit, and the administration's controversial push for generative AI adoption through corporate tech partnerships
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - dyauspitr 5mo ago
      Poor guy, running a school where AI can do the entirety of what you’re teaching very cheaply and infinitely. I also looked into it and those tech partnerships were set up with the view of placing these folks into jobs once out of college. The youth just have no concept of the real world.
stellamariesays 5mo ago
[flagged]
lokar 5mo ago
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.
- kakacik 5mo ago
  Its not a rambling but sad fact of life, one of the failures of mankind so far. And we don't need to talk about some backwater 3rd world country (actually we do) - US has big issues allowing basic science to be taught to kids, because of some set of stories and anecdotes from various people gathered over centuries together about some potential events around one mason who started yet another sect 2k years ago, and they guard it with fanatical zeal to the last word, regardless how misguided and contradictory some of it is. When society fails to deliver even basic known and proven truths to its most vulnerable, then don't be surprised that same people are later trivially manipulated into believing into many simply untrue things and behave accordingly ie in voting, to their own direct detriment.
  - lokar 5mo ago
    Rambling in the sense of not being well prepared, like he had an idea and some points to hit, but not a script. The content was good, for me.
  - amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
    I just yesterday watched a scathing video about why the US has always had a major strain of anti-intellectualism, starting from the very first colonists: https://youtu.be/j9MubNsh3rs?si=wpG1YLDz_Y9cOECQ https://youtu.be/j9MubNsh3rs?si=wpG1YLDz_Y9cOECQ
    - ethbr1 5mo ago
      I feel like I wasted 25 min watching that (at 2x). If your thesis is "The US was founded on anti-intellectual principles" and your only supporting facts are: - Some of the early colonists were religiously-driven - The inconvenient examples otherwise (e.g. the Enlightenment-influenced founders) can be ignored because some people at the time disliked them - Some presidents since have been populists Then that's a weak argument. ... and also, that could have been a 15 min video without the histrionics.
scandox 5mo ago
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.
- pasquinelli 5mo ago
  i've been waiting for you to share your conclusion for the last ten years. finally, i can sleep again.
- BobaFloutist 5mo ago
  Pray elaborate.
  - scandox 5mo ago
    Because, in practice, it turns telling people what they want to hear into a first-class virtue. >> "We told him about how our land had been stolen and our people were dying. When we finished he shook our hands and said, 'Endeavor to persevere!' ... We thought about it for a long time, 'Endeavor to persevere.' And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union."
    - dopamean 5mo ago
      Depending on what the event is and why you were asked to speak telling the audience what they want to hear may be appropriate. If you're a consultant giving a presentation on how a business needs to change it's operations some hard truths may be necessary. At a graduation where students are going into an uncertain job market while loaded with debt... maybe save the hard truths. A little encouragement may be appropriate in that circumstance.
    - johnfn 5mo ago
      In this case, yes, a bunch of college students probably don't want to hear that AI is taking their job. Probably good to read the room, and it is used with your meaning. But I also think there's an alternate meaning which is "this is not the correct time for this" (with an implicit "there will be a better time"). If your friend is upset they got laid off at their job, it's not the right time to start telling them about your promotion. Read the room, man! You can wait.
AdamN 5mo ago
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.
ericmay 5mo ago
> 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.
- brandon272 5mo ago
  >it's not going to get those same students a job What jobs? The job market is anemic AND these students are literally being told that jobs as we know them are soon to be a thing of the past. At the same time, no one is explaining how they are supposed to pay off debt or put food on the table outside of vague hand waves UBI or AI creating vast prosperity.
  - ericmay 5mo ago
    Patting themselves on the back doesn’t do anything either except convince people they don’t have agency or that whatever troubles they are experiencing are someone else’s fault.
johnnyanmac 5mo ago
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.
mrandish 5mo ago
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.

StilesCrisis 5mo ago

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.

kevinsync 5mo ago
Anecdata, but of the clips I've seen going around from Woz's speech, there were quite a few comments from people who claimed to have been there for the whole ceremony, most of which said that he was rambling and all over the place lol. Not bad necessarily, just that they felt like he wasn't really all that engaging, they were bored out of their minds, and some barely even knew who he was. Again, internet comments, so take that for what it is, just tossing my own pointless internet comment into the mix!
- blanched 5mo ago
  I've only been to the low tens of graduations, but in my experience this is pretty common for a speaker. A couple highlights and otherwise a little boring :) Now of course, there are exemplary speakers who keep you engaged the whole time, but they're rare.
- StilesCrisis 5mo ago
  In my case, I was not even graduating, I just heard that Woz was speaking and decided to attend. I don't regret attending, as I managed to get a picture with Woz after the ceremony and thank him for his amazing work, but the speech itself was extremely forgettable.
beej71 5mo ago
Same, except not at a graduation speech. He was just all over the place, but I loved every second of it. :) As a nerd of the 80s, I'd take that over the sterile CEO BS any day.
- hirvi74 5mo ago
  > He was just all over the place I feel like that is a trait necessary to do what Woz did throughout his life.
renticulous 5mo ago
Actual Intelligence eg "mitochondria is a Powerhouse of cell". Cached thoughts and facts.

joe_mamba 5mo ago

* * *

baxtr 5mo ago
How can you be sure Eric Schmidt is telling “the truth” and Wozniak is lying? What’s your rationale and on the basis for such a claim?
- itsalwaysgood 5mo ago
  The economy
  - lukecarr 5mo ago
    And famously, the economy never changes course. Something, something, stocks always go up.
    - itsalwaysgood 5mo ago
      Do you think AI will go away and suddenly businesses will start hiring people back? Or that a competitive startup won't lean on AI to get ahead? Doesn't matter how much stock prices move up and down...AI is here to stay and no amount of booing changes our desires to compete. The world doesn't hold hands with anyone, there is no global consensus, no policy. I recall all the bemoaning when IT jobs started going overseas... businesses always go with the cheapest labor. The world is dog eat dog, and those that prepare for the future are better equipped to deal.
      - watwut 5mo ago
        > Or that a competitive startup won't lean on AI to get ahead? Specifically, with the way both economy and politics is structured, everything will be about big corporations with centralized power. A competitive startup leaning on AI getting ahead will be either destroyed or bought. >The world doesn't hold hands with anyone, there is no global consensus, no policy. It is totally holding hands and helping out - to Schmidts, Trumps, Musks, Epsteins. Just not to poorer people. > Do you think AI will go away and suddenly businesses will start hiring people back? In fact, with well run economy that systematically prevents monopolies, yes it tends to hire people no matter what technological level. Currents state where few super powerful companies are able to push themselves into everything and create monopolies via dumping prices, even as they are not profitable and can count on their friends in administration to bail them out once if all goes pop is the ineffective economy.

bko 5mo ago

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.

oulipo2 5mo ago

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

Waterluvian 5mo ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vTVWyY47s

dyauspitr 5mo ago
What did he do to deserve this, there’s no context?
- HumblyTossed 5mo ago
  the students were: > ... protesting recent staff layoffs, severe program cuts, a mounting structural deficit, and the administration's controversial push for generative AI adoption through corporate tech partnerships
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - dyauspitr 5mo ago
    Poor guy, running a school where AI can do the entirety of what you’re teaching very cheaply and infinitely. I also looked into it and those tech partnerships were set up with the view of placing these folks into jobs once out of college. The youth just have no concept of the real world.

stellamariesays 5mo ago

[flagged]

lokar 5mo ago

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.

kakacik 5mo ago
Its not a rambling but sad fact of life, one of the failures of mankind so far. And we don't need to talk about some backwater 3rd world country (actually we do) - US has big issues allowing basic science to be taught to kids, because of some set of stories and anecdotes from various people gathered over centuries together about some potential events around one mason who started yet another sect 2k years ago, and they guard it with fanatical zeal to the last word, regardless how misguided and contradictory some of it is. When society fails to deliver even basic known and proven truths to its most vulnerable, then don't be surprised that same people are later trivially manipulated into believing into many simply untrue things and behave accordingly ie in voting, to their own direct detriment.
- lokar 5mo ago
  Rambling in the sense of not being well prepared, like he had an idea and some points to hit, but not a script. The content was good, for me.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
  I just yesterday watched a scathing video about why the US has always had a major strain of anti-intellectualism, starting from the very first colonists: https://youtu.be/j9MubNsh3rs?si=wpG1YLDz_Y9cOECQ https://youtu.be/j9MubNsh3rs?si=wpG1YLDz_Y9cOECQ
  - ethbr1 5mo ago
    I feel like I wasted 25 min watching that (at 2x). If your thesis is "The US was founded on anti-intellectual principles" and your only supporting facts are: - Some of the early colonists were religiously-driven - The inconvenient examples otherwise (e.g. the Enlightenment-influenced founders) can be ignored because some people at the time disliked them - Some presidents since have been populists Then that's a weak argument. ... and also, that could have been a 15 min video without the histrionics.

scandox 5mo ago

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.

pasquinelli 5mo ago
i've been waiting for you to share your conclusion for the last ten years. finally, i can sleep again.
BobaFloutist 5mo ago
Pray elaborate.
- scandox 5mo ago
  Because, in practice, it turns telling people what they want to hear into a first-class virtue. >> "We told him about how our land had been stolen and our people were dying. When we finished he shook our hands and said, 'Endeavor to persevere!' ... We thought about it for a long time, 'Endeavor to persevere.' And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union."
  - dopamean 5mo ago
    Depending on what the event is and why you were asked to speak telling the audience what they want to hear may be appropriate. If you're a consultant giving a presentation on how a business needs to change it's operations some hard truths may be necessary. At a graduation where students are going into an uncertain job market while loaded with debt... maybe save the hard truths. A little encouragement may be appropriate in that circumstance.
  - johnfn 5mo ago
    In this case, yes, a bunch of college students probably don't want to hear that AI is taking their job. Probably good to read the room, and it is used with your meaning. But I also think there's an alternate meaning which is "this is not the correct time for this" (with an implicit "there will be a better time"). If your friend is upset they got laid off at their job, it's not the right time to start telling them about your promotion. Read the room, man! You can wait.

AdamN 5mo ago

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.

ericmay 5mo ago

> 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.

brandon272 5mo ago
>it's not going to get those same students a job What jobs? The job market is anemic AND these students are literally being told that jobs as we know them are soon to be a thing of the past. At the same time, no one is explaining how they are supposed to pay off debt or put food on the table outside of vague hand waves UBI or AI creating vast prosperity.
- ericmay 5mo ago
  Patting themselves on the back doesn’t do anything either except convince people they don’t have agency or that whatever troubles they are experiencing are someone else’s fault.

johnnyanmac 5mo ago

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.

mrandish 5mo ago

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.