Why you will fail to have a great career: Larry Smith at TEDxUW

Throughout his three-decade career here at the University of Waterloo, Larry Smith has inspired legions of students to take up the mantle of economics with his passionate and homespun tales of economic wizardry. A renowned story-teller, teacher and youth leadership champion, Larry has also coached and mentored countless numbers of students on start-up business management and career development strategies.

Having taught introductory microeconomics, macroeconomics and entrepreneurship classes, he recently celebrated assigning his 29,000th grade earlier this year.

Recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award, Larry has also coached several of his former students to help them position and develop their businesses, the most famous of which is Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the revolutionary BlackBerry wireless mobile smartphone. Larry also sits on the advisory panels of start-ups to provide his guidance on financing and negotiation with investors and venture capitalists.

http://www.tedxuw.com/speakers/larry-...

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In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

• Category

  Science & Technology

[achemhem]

Such an uncomfortable 15 minutes...in a good way?

[Romper Room]

I love TED talks and usually agree with them. However this fellow, although I'm sure well meaning, is an academic and is missing exactly what academics miss: follow your dreams? Sure. But if you intend on having those dreams support you, you damn well better make sure you can GET PAID to doing it. You notice that he speaks of following your dreams from the safety of his teaching job.... Watch what they do, and not just what they say.

[Daniel King]

Agree 100% you should try to find a passion. But disagree "200%" that human relationships cannot be a part of that passion. In fact, for most of us, it is the human relationships that inspire and nurture the passion. How many times have we heard a speaker receiving a prize, or making a retirement speech, or seen an author in their dedication, pay the highest tribute to their wife, their parents, their children, and their friends. There is no 'refuge' from work with loved ones - they enrich it.

[malgaines]

Perhaps, but some statistics show that a great part of successful open source software have full timers. People are working and getting paid for it. The cooperation is in the level of companies that are sharing resources instead of everyone of them reimplementing the square whel.

[malgaines]

No, this is another kind of sucess also.

[malgaines]

Good luck for you. Computer science needs a lot of dedication. But hey, you can combine music with computation. You can graduate of CS and make hardware or software to work with music. Or you can try a job on eletronic arts on the division of sports.

[olle bolle]

great talk, very inspirational and funny!=)

[olle bolle]

not everyone wants to be a rockstar

[cevel levec]

wow ted talks are just not good - none of 'em!!

[Dal Pal]

I thought a lot about this, and I don't like what he's saying. Too complicated to fully explain. My dream is to stay happy, isn't that what everybody really wants? The overall dream? It's obtainable in every job you just need the right mentality and morals. The world doesn't function with 1 billion rock stars.

[MrLeshann]

Twisted view on success if you ask me, focused more on proving your worth to others than necessarily fulfilling one's desire. Very American actually.