Autodesk University Closing Keynote

ROB CORDDRY: Hi. I'm Rob Corddry, actor, comedian, dancer, man about town, gadabout. Join me, and Andrew-- what is it? Line?

DIRECTOR: Anagnost.

ROB CORDDRY: Say it again.

DIRECTOR: Anagnost.

ROB CORDDRY: OK. Hi. I'm Rob Corddry, dancer, corporate speaker, tech guru, futurist. Join me and Andrew Agnostic-- what was it?

DIRECTOR: Anagnost.

ROB CORDDRY: Anagnost.

DIRECTOR: Anagnost.

ROB CORDDRY: Easy, Anagnost. Totally OK, watch. Anagnost, right? All right, easy. It's a normal last name. Hi, Rob Corddry. I did a bunch of things. Join me and amalg-- amalgam-- what's his first name now?

DIRECTOR: Andrew.

ROB CORDDRY: Andrew!

DIRECTOR: Andrew

ROB CORDDRY: Andrew. See now, that's the weirder of the two names, I think. Andrew-- say it again.

DIRECTOR: Anagnost.

ROB CORDDRY: Wib wub wib wub wib wub wib. Hi, I'm Rob Corddry, multiple Emmy award winner Rob Corddry. And Dr. of Future-- --ology. Join me and Andrew Ag-- amem-- --non. Forget it just-- I'm not going to do the--

NARRATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Autodesk senior vice president and CMO Andrew Anagnost.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Does feel a little bit like I'm back in elementary school with that bit. Morning, everybody. How was the party last night?

AUDIENCE: Wooo!

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Was it good? That's great. You probably noticed we moved it to the night before the final main stage. So I'll give you a little statistic as we head into the party. We'll talk about the party a little bit more in a minute. Did you know that after 24 hours, you've already forgotten 70% of the new information you've gotten from a presentation? 24 hours. Now if you add a big party in Las Vegas, that percentage drops down to 99%. So you have basically wiped out everything that happened in AU, with regards to the presentations. So it's my job, possibly not an one enviable one, to speak to a roomful of people, with a special guest, that are probably exhausted, dehydrated, and I know it-- I know it, some of you are hung over. And I have to help you remember maybe two or three really important things that you heard at AU, that you'll forget in about 24 hours, and then give you a little bit of homework between now and next AU.

So let's dive into this. Let's start with the review. Everybody ready for the review? All right. Everybody here two days ago? Two long days ago, that's 48 hours. Jeff was on Main stage, and you heard him talking about how our relationship with computers is changing. And the reason it's changing is because of the enormous amount of compute power that we have access to, more than we've ever had before. And programmers are using this compute power to do some amazing things. They're teaching computers to learn. And then they're teaching computers to have intuition, to make leaps, imaginative leaps. And what this means for a lot of you is that how we use computers to design and create things is going to change dramatically.

Now I realize, and I've talked to some of you, for some people that concept is really scary. But it doesn't mean it isn't happening. And you've heard over and over again, we all know what it conjures up. The annoying little robot that gets into your business and tries to tell you what to do. Or maybe it's the big annoying robot that tries to take your job away, and we can't get away from the big scary robot that's going to destroy the world. Everybody's worried about that. I get it. But the truth is probably going to be completely different from any one of these imagined outcomes. And you have to get ready for it. You have to.

And Carl talked about how some of the big innovations out there, that didn't even exist five years ago, are driven by some of these changes. Now he shared one of my personal favorites, SpaceX Now I'm going to admit, I'm one of those stereotypical Silicon Valley executives that just loves Elon Musk, I can't help it, I want to meet him! All right. He doesn't return any of my tweets. I think he's amazing. I think what he's doing is amazing, I'll admit it. But you know why it's amazing? He's turned science fiction, into science fact. Rockets that go up into orbit, then land themselves vertically without a pilot, back on Earth. What does this do to the cost of spaceflight? We haven't begun to understand that yet. What kind of new opportunities is it going to open?

But you know, for sure, that low cost, reusable access to space is going to change our lives. You just don't know how yet. New industries, new jobs, whole new professions, all of that's possible. And for those of you of a certain age, that's Thunderbird 1. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Go Thunderbirds!

Carl came up and gave us a little bit of a more cautionary tale. Talking about how companies are responding to change. Or more importantly, how some of them aren't responding to change. The automotive industry, in particular, is going through some amazing disruptions. And it's all coming from outside the inner circle of the automotive industry. What it means to be a car is changing. The rise of autonomy, the idea that everybody needs to own a car, and electric power change-- trains, are challenging the concept of what a car is. And it's challenging the resources and the resolve of traditional auto manufacturers.

Now there's huge companies out there, that have massive investments in making internal combustion engines well. And they're freaking out. And some of them are actually dismissing the inevitable. And I love it when Carl mentioned that these same companies were the ones who thought that electric cars were a crazy California idea. But you know the companies that are embracing these changes, that are wrestling with them, they're the ones that are going to be leaders in the future. It's that simple. So the big lesson for all of us, as we watch what happens to the automotive industry, is, don't dismiss the crazy California idea. Or Nevada idea, or wherever the idea came from.

Understand it. Ask if it's going to impact what you do. Now at Autodesk, we're wrestling with our own disruptions. And Carl talked about that. The new power train of software is the cloud. The new autonomy of software is machine learning. And the idea that we can assemble permanent software teams to own really complex problems, is being replaced with this idea of collaborative teams that assemble suddenly, solve a problem, and then move on to something else. These realities are forcing us to make our software differently. And when we combine them with the future of making things, is forcing us to make different kinds of software for you. More intuitive software, more collaborative software.

So that you can spend a lot more time identifying the next big idea, or creating a new innovation. No matter who you're working with, where you're working with them, or when you're working with them. The bottom line, is at Autodesk, we're changing our company to lead the technology disruption. We're not going to be victims of it. That way, we can continue to provide you with the great products that we keep doing.

Which brings me to yesterday. Amar was up here-- and I know all you are very excited because people were talking about it a lot-- showing you exactly where we're taking the products. All of the things we're trying to do to enable the future of making things for each and every one of you. And he also shared with you the products that you use every day are going to get better. A lot better. And they're going to get a lot more connected with the cloud. And he talked about products like Fusion, Shotgun, and BIM 360, are empowering you to work in completely new ways. All with the goal of helping you make anything.

So those are the main stages. Hold on to that memory, hold onto those points. We also did something else, because a great way to remember something, is not just to hear it, but to touch it. So we did something different this year. We introduced the Future of Making Things Experience, so that we could bring some of these changes to life for you. To let you experience them, to engage with the methods, tools, and capabilities that are fundamentally changing the way you design and create. So how many people went out there and tried some of these things? Was there-- did people go out there and do this? Yeah? OK.

So you saw robots 3-D printing complex shapes and building things in new ways. And they weren't just building products, they were building buildings, assembling buildings. Completely cool applications of robots doing things, and it's happening right now. You also got to interact with some of the practical applications of general design, and some of the amazing outcomes. All of these designs were fully optimized by a computer, 3D printable, and generated completely by the computer. Completely.

Now hopefully you got to also engage with the virtual experiences as well. The experiences that allowed you to experience a design, a space, or a concept, before it was ever built. All amazing things, all trying to help you bring the future of making things to life. So if you haven't visited it, it's still out there, it'll be out there after this mainstage. Go out there, take a look, and see the new world of making.

Now this conversation about the future of making things isn't new. We've been having it for about three years now. And I know some of you have actually attended symposiums and seminars, where we dig pretty deeply into some of the concepts, and what it means for your businesses. The conversation's been going on for a while. So what's different this year? What's different is, it's not just a conversation anymore. It's not just ideas and technology we are thinking about. These things are happening now. The changes are real, and they're happening across every single industry we serve.

So a good question is, what does it all mean? What does it mean to you, to your company, and to your industry? Well fortunately, we've hired a very special correspondent. And he's going to help all of us, including me, understand exactly what this means. So allow me to introduce our senior correspondent on the future of making things. Now some of you probably know him from movies like, What Happens in Vegas, or Hot Tub Time Machine. Personally, I know him from his long stint with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr Rob Corddry!

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ROB CORDDRY: We're doing it! We're doing it! It's the future! It's the future! We're so hung over! We're gonna be so hung over in the

future! Oh, man! Oh, you have sweaty hands! Ahh! Ahh! Come here! Come here! The future, let's hug in the future! Yeah! Corrdry's here! Yeah! Stand up, stand up. Rob Corddry is my favorite actor! I might be in love with him, he's so handsome! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah, the future!

Thank you, John!

NARRATOR: Andrew.

ROB CORDDRY: That's right, John. When Autodesk asked me to speak at their annual general session, I first asked the most relevant journalistic question. How much are you paying me? When the answer came back, a lot, a whole lot of money, this reporter went straight to work. I spent many hours at Autodesk's San Fransisco headquarters, where very interesting things were being made by very attractive people. They charmed me with their fantastic stories of what this future soon would bring. But was our future as rosy as they made out? To get the real story, I sat down with Autodesk senior VP, Andrew Anagnost.

[CHEERING]

ROB CORDDRY: And I did so, right now. Andrew. Thank you for having me.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Well Well Rob, like you said, we paid you a lot of money to be here.

ROB CORDDRY: Yes, you did. You did.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yeah.

ROB CORDDRY: You paid me a whole lot of money. And you know what?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Better be worth it.

ROB CORDDRY: You know what? The Venetian Hotel Sports Book thanks you, sir. Now, Andrew, during this past week, I've heard you and the rest of your team talk a lot about making things. Frankly, you guys won't shut up about it. But-- but, don't you think there might be a better word to use? Like a buzz word, for making things.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: A buzz word?

ROB CORDDRY: A buzz word! You know, we all know buzz words. You've got your-- you've got pivot, deep dive, scalability, bricks and clicks, step ups, deep web, drill down, make it pop, touch base, let's get eyeballs on that, drink the Kool-Aid, eat your own dog food--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yeah, Rob, I know what a buzzword--

ROB CORDDRY: Circle back, outside the box, push the envelope, unpack, wheel house, win-win, clear goal, the kids table, disintermediation, crowd birthing, Donald Trump--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Hey, Rob, you know,

ROB CORDDRY: Bots.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: You know, if I agree with you, that it's a buzz word, will you stop?

ROB CORDDRY: So, wait. You're saying that making things is the buzzword?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Will you stop?

ROB CORDDRY: No, man, making things, it just sucks, right? It sucks, "making things." I can't even say it with my mouth. Watch. Mm-- macking tongs. See? I can't say it. No one can.

He was clearly stonewalling. I was right. And he was wrong.

All right, A-Dog.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Andrew.

ROB CORDDRY: Andrew. I thought this might happen, so I took the liberty of coming up with a few buzz word ideas for you. You ready for this shit?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: At this point Rob, I've got nothing to lose.

ROB CORDDRY: Yeah, that's the spirit. Everybody out there, check your seats for some seat belts, because you're gonna need them. All right, first buzz word. Thing happening.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: It's great.

ROB CORDDRY: I can tell you're lying. OK, how about this? Made thingie. I could tell by your face, no. All right, I saved this one for last. Check this out. Shiggy did.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: I'm sure that will resonate. This dude

ROB CORDDRY: Was hell bent on being a classic case of, tough nut to crack. So I decided to pivot.

All right, let's talk about something else, Aggie.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Andrew!

ROB CORDDRY: I'll try, OK? I'll try--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: It's not that hard.

ROB CORDDRY: I'll try. During my week here, Andrew, I've heard a lot about this crazy California idea. So just to clarify, that's about weed right?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: No.

ROB CORDDRY: No?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: No. Not at all.

ROB CORDDRY: OK. OK.

ROB CORDDRY: The crazy California idea--

ROB CORDDRY: Would you just hold on, for just one sec. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I just gotta, like, yeah, very, yeah, this-- this is pretty much-- all my questions are about weed.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Rob. Rob, the crazy California idea was about electric cars. Electric cars.

ROB CORDDRY: Electric cars?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yeah. Cars with motors. Electric cars.

ROB CORDDRY: Cars with electric motors.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yeah.

ROB CORDDRY: [LAUGHING] Electric cars! Electric-- oh, listen to this guy. As if, right? No. No, no, no. Seriously, what's going on--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Well, you know, Rob, they've--

ROB CORDDRY: --What's the California question?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: They've been around for years. You ever heard of this guy, Elon Musk? You're on Twitter. They've been around for years. Electric cars, they're mainstream. Tesla.

ROB CORDDRY: Electric cars. What could possibly be next? Cars that drive themselves? 3-D printing? Lasers?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yeah. Yeah, Rob, all those things are real. Actually, lasers have been with us since the 50s.

ROB CORDDRY: Oh, OK. OK, man. OK. You win this round, Agro Anti-ghost.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: An-- Andrew.

ROB CORDDRY: Whatever your name is. If you're so smart, then, you should have no problem passing this quiz that I've prepared for you.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: I'm sure it'll be fascinating.

ROB CORDDRY: Question number 1. What is generative design?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Ah! Finally, something relevant. Generative design is super exciting, Rob. Generative design is this concept of a computer generating multiple design concepts for you, based on the specifications you provided. It's revolutionary. It's changing the way people design things.

ROB CORDDRY: Wrong. No, that's totally wrong. I'm sorry. To be fair, to be fair, I don't know what it is. But-- but what you just said, sounds crazy. Question number two, what is Alpha Go?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Alpha Go. Actually, that's another great question, Rob, thank you. So Alpha Go is a machine learning algorithm that actually taught itself how to play the incredibly complex board game go. And more importantly, it beat the world champion go with the world go's world champion.

ROB CORDDRY: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I got to stop you right there, man, hold on. Hold on. A computer, right?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Yes.

ROB CORDDRY: A computer beat a human person being at go? Go, the ancient Chinese board game that contains more possible moves than the total number of atoms in the visible universe?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: That's correct, Rob.

ROB CORDDRY: Will you excuse me for a second?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Sure.

ROB CORDDRY: Thank you so much, I'm so sorry. Whoo! Come on, Corddry! Come on, man, you are scoring this up! Dumb! Dumb, dumb, dumb! This guy's so smart. This guy is so smart! You should have prepared for this, man. You should have prepared. They're paying you a lot of money. You're choking on that water now. It went down the wrong way. You're on stage!

Thank you. Sorry about that. Could I ask you a personal question?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Oh, go right ahead.

ROB CORDDRY: How do you know all this stuff, man?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: I was paying attention on Tuesday's opening keynote.

ROB CORDDRY: OK. OK. I recognize the insult, I do. But, if--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Why are you touching me? Please stop.

ROB CORDDRY: No, I'm sorry. Sorry, I was just checking to see if you're a robot. You're not! You're not. You're clear.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: That's ridiculous.

ROB CORDDRY: Clear, he's clear! But since you seem to have gone to a better school than I did, I'm going to switch it up for my last question. New question number trois. French. You're chatting with an attractive woman in a bar. She asks you, so, what do you do for a living? What do you say?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: I tell her I work at Autodesk?

ROB CORDDRY: Wrong! Wrong, man. I burned you right then! I burned this dude right there. "I work at Audodesk." No! No, you don't. You tell her you work with your hands, man, or you play center field for the Cubs. At the very least-- at the very least, you say something cool like, (GRAVELLY VOICE) "I'm in the disruption game." And say it in that voice. "I work at Autodesk." Wow. Looks like Corddry's back on top. Anyway, back to the biting incisive interview. You guys talk a lot about how the workforce is inevitably changing, and how that will affect all the hardworking people right out here in our audience today. So my question to you is my job safe? It is safe, right?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: You know, Rob, based on what I'm seeing this morning, a computer could easily replace you.

ROB CORDDRY: Another one of your patent insults. I get it. I get it, fair enough, fair enough. I will add that I am a classically trained actor.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: I couldn't tell.

ROB CORDDRY: My final question. I'm sure some people out there, OK, think that this whole Autodesk University thing is just to hock more software. So tell me, and tell them, why they should think otherwise.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: OK, Rob, well, I think all of you know that we spend most of our time talking about what we think are the important problems you guys need to be aware of, like we did on Tuesday, and we spent a lot of time telling you what kind of tools we're building to try to respond to those problems. It's our view that if you do that well, the software kind of sells itself.

ROB CORDDRY: That's good. That was good. OK. All right. I get it, but don't you guys think you should be hocking software? I mean, come on, man. AutoCAD, right? AutoCAD! AudoCAD, that shit's classic! Even I know what AutoCAD is.

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Amazing!

ROB CORDDRY: Yeah! Screw all this generative design, let's go to Mars, we 3D printed a pizza crap. There are hundreds, if not billions of people, in this audience right now. Sell them some software, bro!

ANDREW ANAGNOST: How much did I pay you for this?

ROB CORDDRY: OK. All right, man, look. I'm gonna be honest with you. You have blown my mind this week. It's been great. You're a good sport. And that is all the questions I have, because I was not kidding. This is like 90% about weed. For real. You could smoke this and get high. So, before I go, do you mind if I go down and talk to some of the people out there?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Oh god. That's fine with me, Rob, but could you do me a favor, while you do that, could you actually talk to them about what disruption means?

ROB CORDDRY: Oh, so you're saying, like, go down there and actually do the thing you paid me to do?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: That would be so helpful.

ROB CORDDRY: Andrew. I definitely, definitely will. But I probably won't. All right! Let's meet the people. Oh man. What's up everybody? You guys look so hung over right now. I'm going to pick the most hung over looking person-- not looking at me, I respect that. I respect that. I respect that. Oh, look at this dude right over here. What your name?

BRANDON: Brandon.

ROB CORDDRY: Brown?

BRANDON: Brandon.

ROB CORDDRY: Brandon! What do you do?

BRANDON: Vim coordinator.

ROB CORDDRY: Yeah. Me too. I'm a vim coordinator, too. What is a vim coordinator?

BRANDON: Look for clashes, and coordinate systems. Oh, wait. I am a vim coordinator then. I'm always looking for clashes everywhere. Did you go to the party last night?

BRANDON: I did.

ROB CORDDRY: Yeah, I bet you did. What did you-- what did you do? How much did you drink, is my question, Brandon?

BRANDON: I'm not going to answer that.

ROB CORDDRY: Fair enough. Brandon, everybody. Give it up for him, Brandon!

[APPLAUSE]

ROB CORDDRY: Who else-- Oohhh! What else do we got here? I'm going to guess your name is-- cover your name tag-- Victor. I looked at the name tag. What do you do, besides sport a fantastic beard?

VICTOR: I am in transmission substation design.

ROB CORDDRY: Next person.

[LAUGHTER]

ROB CORDDRY: Let's go up here. Let's-- who do we got? Ma'am, you look like the smartest person in the audience right now. What's your name?

PAM: Pam.

ROB CORDDRY: Pam. Where are you from, Pam?

PAM: San Francisco.

ROB CORDDRY: San Francisco. The city of lights. Go wildcats!

PAM: Go Giants.

ROB CORDDRY: I won't say that. To each his own. To each his own. What do you do?

PAM: I work for Autodesk.

ROB CORDDRY: That guy works for Autodesk! That is so weird. How many people here work for Autodesk?

[CHEERING]

ROB CORDDRY: Oh my god, Andrew! That's crazy, right?

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Amazing, isn't it.

ROB CORDDRY: What a coincidence. Man, some--

ANDREW ANAGNOST: It's called Autodesk University.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ROB CORDDRY: This guy. Barrel of laughs, man. What up? What do you do for Autodesk?

PAM: I work on the sustainability team.

ROB CORDDRY: This sustainable what?

PAM: Sustainability team.

ROB CORDDRY: Oh, weed! Yeah. I'm all about that. I'm all about that. Let's go over here for a second. What do you got here? Look at you guys. Look at you, fresh as a daisy. What was all this hangover stuff about? You guys look ready to learn. What else, sweet god, who's this fellow right here? What do we got here?

MARTIN: Martin.

ROB CORDDRY: Martin.

MARTIN: Sorry.

ROB CORDDRY: Why are you apologizing?

MARTIN: Because I'm British.

ROB CORDDRY: Sir, we should be the one apologizing to you right now. What do you do?

MARTIN: I'm a journalist.

ROB CORDDRY: Oh! Martin! Martin, you're a journalist like me, right! No, I'm not a-- there's-- as somebody said to me yesterday, there's no such thing as a journalist. I know you, right? You're the-- I've heard of you. You're the you're the grumpy reporter, British reporter guy. Yeah. Well, listen, man, I think I feel like me and you will get along. What do you say we go get a little hair of the dog?

MARTIN: Yep.

ROB CORDDRY: Let's do it! Me and the Brit are leaving. We're out. Thank you everybody! Thank you Andrew!

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Thank you, Rob.

ROB CORDDRY: Take my mike, somebody. Take my mike. Here. We figured it all out! We did it! We're never going to die!

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Ladies and gentlemen, Rob Corddry! Are your minds blowing? Did you need to tape your head? How does somebody go after that? I feel like I should just get off stage. But no, now I have extra work to do. What was I talking about? How can I get back to it? All right. We were talking about change, yeah! Technology, change, disruption. I don't even want to say the word anymore.

We're seeing these changes in every industry, everywhere. So maybe I should revisit the question and ask ourselves, what does this really mean? What does it really mean? So you heard Carl, Jeff, and Amar tell you that these changes are real. The rate of change is accelerating. As a result, some of you might be feeling like this. You're excited! But you're not exactly sure how to take things to the next level. Now, that said, some of you might be feeling a little bit like this. You're overwhelmed.

That's a pretty natural reaction. And more importantly, as you saw after what I went through, it's personal. It's about your jobs. It's about your companies. It's about your whole industries. It's great for me to get up here and talk about disruption and change. It's great for Autodesk to talk about these things. It's another thing to figure out it's impact on you. And what you can do about it. Now fortunately for all of us, and for all you, humanity didn't move from stone tools to 3-D printers in one giant leap. Be really difficult if they did. It was a series of what I like to call irreversible steps.

When people moved from wood to stone tools, they created such an advantage, for themselves, and for other people, that they were never going to go back to stone tools again. The same is true from stone to bronze, from bronze to iron, and from iron to steel. And of course, power tools brought it to a whole new dimension. And then as you move through the evolution a little bit more, people moved to lathes, they moved to computer controlled CNC machines, and then somewhere after all of that, you ended up with 3D printers. Each step creates a situation that is irreversible, because somebody decided to change just one thing, and did it well.

The important thing is that the change itself left no way to go back. Once you experience the future, the past just doesn't look that interesting anymore. So the question for all of you, as long as you're not stuck in the stone tool era, and I don't think any of you are, is this. What big or small irreversible step can you take so that you can get one step closer to the future? Now maybe it's just as simple as learning a new skill or method, because you-- Spock learned how to smile. Captain Kirk learned how to operate the transporter all by himself, no Scotty required. I'm pretty sure it was life changing for both of them.

So what can you learn? Maybe you have an idea for how your company can cannibalize its most profitable service, or its most profitable , product and replace it with a completely different method, or service, or product. Apple did it. Why can't you do it? Sounds simple enough, right? Maybe you are one of these people that want to change an entire industry, and become part of a greater movement. What change can you make that sets you on a new path?

Sometimes the change is small, sometimes it's big. Now I realize, those examples are a little bit overwhelming, kind of out of context of what we're doing. So what I want to do, just towards the end of this presentation, is take a little time to look at the examples of some people that maybe all of us can relate to, that either changed themselves, irreversibly, changed their company, or changed their industry. So let's start with someone that changed themselves.

Now, I'll admit, I picked Claudine for a specific reason. Because I know when everybody's confronted with change, we always have lots of reasons why we can't change. I'm too old. There's not enough time. It's too risky. Tons of reasons why we can't change. But some of those reasons just don't seem so big, when you talk about someone like Claudine, who simply didn't let the obstacles get in her way. So to understand Claudine a little bit, she's an orphan of the Rwandan genocide. She lost both of her parents. And then, not long after that, she lost one of her legs to cancer. So you to talk about obstacles and things that get in the way, she just blew through all of them.

And what she did, is she went and she got a double major in biology and business management. And started to teach herself how to use the design tools and the methods of making new making. And devised inexpensive 3D printed custom prosthetics for those who are most in need. She completely reskilled herself, and set herself on a new path. Her life will never be the same. And she reminds all of us this very simple thing, that sometimes the obstacles we think to learning new skills, aren't really as big as we think they are. So I admit, I use this example to remind us all of that.

So now let's get a little bit closer to maybe where some of all of you are, and talk about someone that changed their company. So Mike Monsen is an architect, runs his own architecture firm. Their firm is dedicated to something called super deco styles, and it's a style where they decorate facades with lots of custom elements, like these walking people here. They have thousands of them on a facade of a building in Sweden. Beautiful works, accented in really interesting ways. But as they started pursuing some of these ideas with their clients, they ran into a interesting little problem. Every time they'd propose one of these ideas with all these custom facade elements, some contractor would tell them how completely expensive it was, and how impossible it was to actually execute these concepts in the budget they were trying to do.

So how do they get their clients engaged in their vision? He simply took his future into his own hands. He went out, bought a 3-D printer, and started printing the molds himself. Carried them all up, took them to the construction site, and had the work crews pour concrete in them, and put them up in the facades of the building. He changed his firm into a new kind of design build firm. New ways of making, and his ideas, were able to create his vision economically for his customers. And I guarantee you, that he's going to continue to do this moving forward.

Once you've moved to the future, it's impossible to go back. Because you've seen something better. So one last example I want to use. Hi, John, I know you're out there. This is someone who's changed their industry. Now I don't know if John set out to change his industry or not. But the truth of the matter is, he has. He's part of what is a growing movement of micro factories. Little factories that are trying to make sure things get made, closer to where they're bought. And he's not only building his own business, he's trying to inspire others to get in the game as well, get out there with him.

And here's an interesting thing about John. John had absolutely no background in machining and fabrication. Nothing. He was a finance guy. He went, he taught himself how to use the programs, he taught himself CNC machining, he embraced the new ways of making, and he started milling and machining in the basement of his apartment in Manhattan. And he founded NYC CNC. Moved to the suburbs, put more equipment in his garage, kept building his business. And from 2006 on, he's had a YouTube channel where he shares his vision of things with other people, and teaches them how to do what he's doing. He's not only sharing his passion with the world, and building himself a bigger business, which he is. He's sharing the ideas, the tools, the knowledge, that catalyze a growing network of micro factories around the world.

And like I said, I'm not sure if John meant to be a change agent, or force for change, but he did it anyway. And I'm pretty sure his life will never be the same. And I'm pretty sure some of the people he's engaged with have the same thing to say about themselves. So there's a few ideas that seem more like the rest of us. And all of these people irreversibly changed themselves, or they changed their company, or they changed their industry. And if you noticed, there was a common thread across all of them. They were all pursuing something that they were really passionate about, something that got them really excited. And all of them were directly related in some way to the new world of making.

So I have one simple question for you, and this is where we start moving into the homework assignment. What is your passion about? What about the new world of making energizes you? What is your crazy California idea? Crazy Minnesota idea? Crazy French idea? Crazy Italian idea? Name it. What is it, for you? And then I ask you, what irreversible change-- and it doesn't have to be big-- what irreversible change can you drive that gets you closer to that passion?

So my challenge is this. As you recover from this AU, between this AU and the next AU, go do one irreversible thing. Just one. Either for yourself, go push it in your company, or maybe if you're really ambitious, go do it for an entire industry. Then what I want you to do, because we need you to, is come back here next year and tell us all about it, so that you can help inspire somebody else. So that you can be part of driving a bigger change and helping people take a step to the future. Just one small step. Take a step to the future and be part of the change. Thank you so much everybody.

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