Randy Pausch
Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", at CMU on September 18, 2007. He gave an abridged version of his speech on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in October 2007. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it", someone in the audience shouted back, "You did!"
Jeffrey Zaslow
In September 2007, after he attended the final lecture of Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch, he collaborated with Pausch on writing "The Last Lecture", released in 2008. The book by Pausch and Zaslow, translated into 48 languages, was a #1 "New York Times" best-seller, spending more than 110 weeks on the list. Media coverage included "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and an ABC special hosted by Diane Sawyer. More than five million copies of the book are in print in the U.S.