Renowned computer scientist David Patterson came to Mountain View to provide advice that, as he puts it, "I wish I had been given at the start of my career."

An entertaining and engaging presenter, Prof. Patterson takes us through a number of tongue-in-cheek examples of how to sink a career in academics and elsewhere. He also provides great tips on how how to steer clear of these mistakes and build a career that is both successful and satisfying.

David Patterson wrote the book Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach with John Hennessy and helped lead UC Berkeley research projects Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC), Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID), and Network of Workstations (NOW). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, both AAAS organizations, and President of ACM.

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David Patterson shares career advice accumulated over 40 years as a Berkeley professor, using reverse psychology to highlight common mistakes. Key themes include: work on important problems others care about, keep solutions simple, seek constant feedback, finish projects to develop taste, communicate effectively through practice, collaborate in teams rather than working alone, and transfer technology through evangelism. He emphasizes quantitative evaluation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the importance of space design for spontaneous interaction. Patterson illustrates principles with examples from RISC, RAID, and other successful projects, stressing that impact matters more than publication count.

How to Have a Bad Career | David Patterson | Talks at Google