Randy Pausch's Last Lecture (Achieving Your Childhood Dreams): Summary and Key Points

Why people still watch it

Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, gave this 76-minute lecture in September 2007, a month after learning his pancreatic cancer was terminal. He had about 10 tumors in his liver and was told he had three to six months of good health left. The lecture went viral, became the bestselling book The Last Lecture, and is still assigned in schools. Pausch died in July 2008.

Key points

• The real point is a "head fake." The lecture is billed as being about childhood dreams. At the end Pausch reveals the head fake: "It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself." And the second head fake: the talk wasn't for the audience, it was for his three young children.
• Brick walls are there for a reason. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." They stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
• Indirect learning works. Kids play football to learn teamwork, perseverance and sportsmanship, not football. His software Alice teaches programming to kids who think they are making movies.
• Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. Not every dream comes true (he never played in the NFL), but you learn from the attempt.
• Decide whether you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. Never lose the child-like wonder.
• Help others achieve their dreams. His greatest satisfaction came from enabling students, through the Building Virtual Worlds course and the Entertainment Technology Center.

Detailed summary

The elephant in the room

Pausch opens by showing his CT scans and saying he won't talk about cancer or his family. He insists he's not in denial, just in better shape than most of the audience, and invites anyone who wants to pity him to come down and do push-ups first. The talk covers three things: his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned.

Childhood dreams

His list: experience zero gravity, play in the NFL, write an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animals at amusement parks, and be a Disney Imagineer. He achieved most of them. He got into NASA's zero-gravity flights with his students (as a journalist, when faculty weren't allowed). Football didn't happen, but his coach taught him fundamentals, and that a coach who rides you hard is a coach who still cares. He wrote the World Book entry on virtual reality, met William Shatner, and won a lot of stuffed animals (he shows the photos).

Brick walls and Disney

Disney Imagineering rejected him repeatedly after his PhD, which he calls a brick wall. He later got there through virtual reality work and a sabbatical on the Aladdin magic carpet ride. His advice: brick walls show how badly you want something, and when you go somewhere, bring something to the table that makes you more welcome.

Enabling the dreams of others

As a professor he created Building Virtual Worlds, a course where artists and engineers built virtual worlds in two-week projects, with public showcases that filled auditoriums. With Don Marinelli he co-founded the Entertainment Technology Center, a two-year master's program whose students companies such as EA and Activision promised in writing to hire. Alice, the free software from his lab, teaches millions of students programming as a head fake: they think they're making movies and games.

Lessons learned

He packs the last part with advice: have something to bring to the table, show gratitude, don't complain (just work harder), don't bail, get a feedback loop and listen to it, be earnest rather than hip, apologize properly, tell the truth, find the best in everybody (wait long enough and people will surprise you), and be a Tigger rather than an Eeyore. Then come the two head fakes: the talk was about how to lead your life, and it was really for his kids.