One of the reasons that coming to South By Southwest Interactive continues to be worthwhile despite all its flaws is that it still attracts some of the most intelligent and fascinating people to the same place at the same time. Getting to bump into brilliant people leads to some wonderful conversations, and often gives just the boost you need to go back to ‘regular life’ with a fresh pair of eyes.
Yesterday morning was one of those times for me, as I had the opportunity to have brunch with seven of those types of people — Tumblr’s David Karp, author and comedian Baratunde Thurston, OK Go’s Damian Kulash, Vimeo and Elepath’s Jake Lodwick, roboticist Carla Diana, Makerbot’s Bre Pettis, and GE’s Beth Comstock — for a roundtable discussion organized by General Electric. We had a wide-ranging discussion over the course of the meal, which was all filmed, but it all started out with the group talking about the original sparks of passion that led them to their current vocations.
In the video clip embedded above, you can see both Pettis and Kulash talk about their first brushes with building and making things that actually worked — and the addictive rush that brought that continues today.