I feel foolish but : Steve Jobs of course ! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&fmt=18)

He's a great storyteller, that's why I guess his keynotes are so successful.

I would have liked someone to tell me the following:

1. Double-major in something marketable + something unusual. It's important to differentiate yourself early on, and an unusual skill, like say, Japanese fluency, can open a lot of doors.

2. Get good grades. Even if you think grades don't mean much, you might want to go to grad school, or apply to some company that actually cares about grades.

3. I can't improve on Larry Page's commencement speech, so just watch that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFb2rvmrahc

Definitely marvin minsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_minsky) . He is pretty much the father of artificial intelligence, and not a bad speaker either.

Peter Norvig... his talk at SS'08 made me wish he taught all my classes.

I think you mean 07?

http://singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007

Was referring to Startup School (in 2008)...

But thanks for the link to a bunch of great videos! Watching them now.

Edit: Not the best quality, but video here: http://www.justin.tv/clip/116fb17d94c

Singularity Summit gets a hug from me for transcribing all the (long) talks.

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=233

Roger Penrose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose

Funny you should say that. He spoke at my graduation (York, 2006), and being a graduation speech it was unfortunately relatively insight-free.

Feynman.

RMS spoke at my college about FSF. If you're already familiar with FSF, etc, then it won't be particularly interesting.

...until your econ major friend starts arguing with him, and he starts hurling personal insults.

I am in college but the people I would want to hear in College probably would be John McCarthy Peter Norvig

I'd probably attend and listen to anything these people would talk about: Alan Kay, Don Knuth, Feynman, Oppenheimer, Teller, Von Braun, Henry Ford, Edison, Telsa, Edwin "Major" Armstrong (FM), Charlie Munger, Kary Mullis, Ray Kurzweil, Alfred Loomis, Turing, the transistor boys (Shockley, Bardeen, Brattain), Jim Williams (Linear Technology), Robert Pease (formerly National Semi), Bob Widlar (National Semi), maybe even Wozniak.

I would not bother to attend a talk by any politician or Steve Jobs.

Ramanujam(indian mathematician with no formal training) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan - for an insight into how his thought process may be. Without all that formal training, how did he treat maths?

Kathy Sierra -In college, there is nothing motivating than talks about "being passionate" and "You can do it!" - talks. Kathy Sierra knows the hacks of the brain (i think).

Someone who talks about HOW they hacked their way rather than someone who presents their entire hardwork in one sentence. [for context, Adam Savage talking about creating a dodo skeleton, http://fora.tv/2008/12/12/MythBusters_Co-Host_Adam_Savage_on...]

Steve Jobs, definitely. He has knowledge and skills that no college professor can teach. To get a glimpse of his business genius would be unfathomably valuable.

Peter Diamendes, founder of the XPrize. Just heard him a few weeks ago... he will blow anybody's mind.

Leonardo Da Vinci.

He was my childhood hero, still remains a big influence in all I do to this day. Growing up I always wanted to be a "universal genius" like Da Vinci, so I tried to pick up on science, music, art and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I think my admiration of his abilities and the realization that he was just a man (like you or I) provided a lot of the drive and ambition I now have. This does have the unfortunate consequence of producing a 'jack of all trades, master of none' type persona, or at least it did for me.

So yes, it would have been amazing to hear him speak. =)

Any professor who had Founders at Work as the textbook for his class.

A class in Nutrition would have been good for me too.

Paul Graham, on how the industry has changed in the past 15 years ago and what to do about it.

Or I could just read his essays, but a talk would be nice too.

There's a few good talks of his scattered around the web.

Startup School 08 http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-startu...

or just http://video.google.com/videosearch?&q=paul+graham+y+com...

I devour everything that guy puts out. Any idea if he's got a twitter account? The one w/ his name doesn't seem to be him.

He does, however, have his own social news site.

Not necessarily Paul, but in any case someone who has something to say about how the industry developed and is likely to develop. The historical / economic context in which you will work.

- David Deutsch, driving force behind the formalization of quantum computing, generally interesting in a wacky way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch

- Stallman was interesting to hear in college.

- Lawrence Lessig would also be really interesting.

Nikola Tesla

I really would like to hear Douglas Hofstadter.

Ben Franklin as motivational speaker. Title: Industry! Frugality!

Brian Cox, the physicist. I missed a chance to see Stephen Hawking. Out of some bigger names I saw Stallman, Mitnick and Desmond Tutu, all interesting people.

Mohammed Yunus, the Dalai Lama .. (& Barack?)

I did hear Dijkstra speak while I was in undergrad, on some graph algorithms. That was a win.

Wendell Berry, as an intelligent counterpoint to all the enthusiasm about technology

Alan Turing, Issac Newton or Jimi Hendrix

David Deutsch on epistemology.

Leonhard Euler or Carl Gauss.

Robert Hooke.