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Comment by StilesCrisis | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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!

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.

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.

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.

> He was just all over the place

I feel like that is a trait necessary to do what Woz did throughout his life.

Actual Intelligence eg "mitochondria is a Powerhouse of cell". Cached thoughts and facts.

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