MIT Professor Patrick Winston's Free 'How to Speak' Lecture Hits 10M Views, Rattling $15K-a-Session Executive Coaches
WileyEd · x · 2026-09-21
Patrick Winston, who ran MIT's AI Laboratory from 1972 to 1997, is going viral again: his one-hour "How to Speak" lecture, filmed in January 2018 eighteen months before his death, has reportedly reached 10 million views.
The post argues executive coaches charge $15,000 per session to teach a fraction of what he covered for free. His napkin-sized framework:
- Don't read slides; be in the image, keep images simple, eliminate clutter
- Open with an empathetic connection; end with a repeatable punchline
- Never open with a joke; never end with "thank you"
Both a legendary AI-community anecdote and a usable public-speaking framework.
Related event: MIT professor Winston's How to Speak lecture passes 10 million views(2 posts)→
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