Rodney Mullen | Building on a Bedrock of Failure

Rodney was the most dominant world champion in skateboarding’s history. If you Google “Godfather of Modern Skateboarding,” Mullen pops up for creating most of today’s tricks. He also studied chemical engineering, that is, until a friend borrowed money from a loan shark; using it, they built the largest skate company of the era, earning him two patents along the way. After its sale, Rodney found parallels to skate and hacker culture, which sent him on a winding path to become a Director’s Fellow at the Media Lab. He’s also appeared in ten videogames and piles of skate mag’s; more recently, Rod’s featured in Wired, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, and the Wall Street Journal. His very first talk went to TED; he’s also spoken at Apple, Nike, IBM, JPL, Wired and the Smithsonian, where his board is on display.

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This talk was given at a FAIL!@ event using the FAIL! conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.fail-sharing.org