A review of my Google talk

September 26, 2019 by Joshua
in Education

On Monday I spoke on Initiative at Google in Chelsea, Manhattan.

(EDIT: here are video clips from a future talk there)

It was my first time speaking with them (here’s my speaking page, by the way, for those looking to book an amazing speaker who will get them promoted for hiring me). It reminded me that I started using Google in graduate school because they used GNU/Linux before anyone else had heard of them, probably around 1997 or 98. Many of their current employees weren’t born yet.

I kept telling people to use it because it returned better search results but most people preferred portals. A few years later I kept telling people to use Wikipedia, also based on Free Software and its principles, and people kept telling me how a user-written encyclopedia couldn’t work.

Anyway, Tuesday I got several emails from attendees, mostly asking for copies of the slides. One wrote her impressions, unsolicited. I asked her if I could quote her as a testimonial and she said yes.

Reviews like hers motivate me to keep developing my material.

Her testimonial

She wrote:


I absolutely thought it was a sensational, phenomenal  and super awesome, speaking event on Initiative.

I totally loved the entire presentation.

I answered a couple of questions.  I was the girl all the way in the back row, on your left hand side.

I really learned multiple different interesting and intriguing things from you.

I thought it was really cool that you got to see and speak with multimillionaire Mark Cuban from “Shark Tank”.

I was totally fascinated that you are an entrepreneur, that you teach at NYU and Columbia University, and you still have time in your crazy hectic busy work schedule to perform speaking events at Google.

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1 response to “A review of my Google talk

  1. Pingback: TOMORROW: My webinar on Initiative with Columbia Business School » Joshua Spodek

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