Dave Prekup

Ten million people have watched an MIT professor accidentally destroy the executive coaching industry. He filmed the lecture once in January 2018 and died eighteen months later. Executive coaches charge fifteen thousand dollars a session to teach a third of what he covered in one hour for free. His name was Patrick Winston. He ran the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1972 to 1997 and wrote the AI textbook every computer science major in the world read for thirty years. Every January for four decades, he gave a lecture called "How to Speak." His entire framework fits on a napkin. Do not read. Be in the image. Keep images simple. Eliminate clutter. Start with an empathetic connection. End with a punch line the audience can repeat over dinner. Never open with a joke. Never end with "thank you." That last rule alone has probably cost the executive coaching industry a hundred million dollars. "Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas. In that order." That is the actual opening line of the lecture. Winston believed it strongly enough to spend fifty years teaching computer scientists how to talk. Founders spend $80,000 on an MBA and then hire a communications coach to teach them the same material Winston filmed once for free. Engineers write brilliant code and lose promotions to teammates who watched this lecture on the train. The lecture is free on MIT OpenCourseWare. The textbook is free on his page. Winston died in 2019. Almost none of the ten million viewers have actually implemented the four rules on the napkin. The napkin is free. The willingness to actually use it in your next meeting is the entire edge.