Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrunis an innovator, entrepreneur educator, and computer scientist from Germany. He was CEO and cofounder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google VP and Fellow, and a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. At Google, he founded Google X. He is currently also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and at Georgia Tech...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth14 May 1967
CountryGermany
few key work
Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation.
graduate hard job passionate pick picks rests students work worry
I used to tell my graduate students at Stanford, 'Don't worry about what job you have to pick because your job picks you. Let your job pick you. Find something you are passionate about. Then when you are passionate, be persistent. Just keep doing it for a while because progress is always hard work. It never rests in ideas.'
believe education eventually hard online takes time understand work
I really believe that we have to work hard to make online education better and better, and eventually it's going to be really great. But like most of these things, it takes time to improve, to understand and to make things really good.
consumers matter time until
It is only a matter of time until consumers have self-driving cars.
admiring minutes spend top
I take all day to climb mountains and then spend about 10 minutes at the top admiring the view.
point turning
That was a turning point in the race.
among engage high rational recognized school society wish
We don't look at problems logically, we look at them emotionally. We look at them through the guts. We look at them as if we're doing a high school problem, like what is beautiful, what makes me recognized among my peers. We don't go and think about things. We, as a society, don't wish to engage in rational thought.
almost artificial attempt humanities intelligence nobody
Nobody phrases it this way, but I think that artificial intelligence is almost a humanities discipline. It's really an attempt to understand human intelligence and human cognition.
lessons piano putting rather telling trying
In my son's kindergarten, they're telling us how to get him into Stanford. By their advice, I'm doing everything wrong, because I'm trying to make him happy rather than putting him through as many piano lessons as possible.
ability car distance front good lane stay
If you look at the ability of a self-driving car to stay in the lane and not to speed and keep a good distance to the car in front of you, it actually does better than me.
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Online education that leaves almost everybody behind except for highly motivated students, to me, can't be a viable path to education.
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Access to high-quality education is way too limited. The United States has the world's most admirable higher education system, and yet it is very restrictive. It's so hard to get into. I never got into it as a student.
million people saved
If we could do away with traffic accidents, that'd be wonderful. There'd be more than a million people saved every year on this planet.
business education free future giving good model
Giving education away for free is a really good idea, but it can't be the future of education. There has to be a business model around it that actually works.