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(Music)

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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(Applause)

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So, that's what I've done with my life.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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As a kid, I grew up on a farm in Florida,

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and I did what most little kids do.

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I played a little baseball,
did a few other things like that,

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but I always had the sense
of being an outsider,

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and it wasn't until I saw
pictures in the magazines

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that a couple other guys skate, I thought,

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"Wow, that's for me," you know?

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Because there was no coach
standing directly over you,

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and these guys,
they were just being themselves.

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There was no opponent
directly across from you.

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And I loved that sense,
so I started skating

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when I was about 10 years old, in 1977,

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and when I did,
I picked it up pretty quickly.

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In fact, here's some footage
from about 1984.

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It wasn't until 79
I won my first amateur championship,

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and then, by 81, I was 14,
and I won my first world championship,

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which was amazing to me,

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and in a very real sense,
that was the first real victory I had.

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Oh, watch this.

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This is a Casper slide,
where the board's upside down.

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Mental note on that one.

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(Laughter)

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And this one here?

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An ollie.

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So, as she mentioned,
that is overstated for sure,

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but that's why they called me
the godfather of modern street skating.

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Here's some images of that.

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Now, I was about halfway
through my pro career

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in, I would say, the mid-'80s.

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Freestyle itself... we developed
all these flat ground tricks, as you saw,

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but there was evolving
a new kind of skateboarding,

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where guys were taking it to the streets,
and they were using that ollie,

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like I showed you.

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They were using it to get up
onto stuff like bleachers and handrails

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and over stairwells
and all kinds of cool stuff.

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So it was evolving upwards.

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In fact, when someone tells you
they're a skater today,

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they pretty much mean a street skater,

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because freestyle, it took about
five years for it to die,

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and at that stage, I'd been a "champion"
champion for 11 years, which...

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Phew!

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And suddenly, it was over for me,
that's it... it was gone.

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They took my pro model off the shelf,

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which was essentially
pronouncing you dead, publicly.

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That's how you make your money, you know?

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You have a signature board
and wheels and shoes and clothes.

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I had all that stuff, and it's gone.

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The crazy thing was, there was
a really liberating sense about it,

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because I no longer had to protect
my record as a champion.

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"Champion," again.

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Champion sounds so goofy,
but it's what it was, right?

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What drew me to
skateboarding, the freedom,

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was now restored,
where I could just create things,

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because that's where the joy
was for me, always,

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was creating new stuff.

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The other thing that I had
was a deep well of tricks to draw from

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that were rooted
in these flat ground tricks.

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Stuff the normal guys were doing
was very much different.

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So, as humbling and rotten as it was...

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And believe me, it was rotten.

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I would go to skate spots,
and I was already "famous guy," right?

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And everyone thought I was good,

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but in this new terrain, I was horrible.

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So people would go,
"Oh, what happened to Mullen?"

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(Laughter)

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So, humbling as it was, I began again.

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Here are some tricks that I started
to bring to that new terrain.

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And again, there's this undergirding
layer of influence of freestyle...

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Oh, that one?

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That's, like, the hardest
thing I've ever done.

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OK, look at that, it's a Darkslide.

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See how it's sliding on the backside?

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Those are super fun,
and, actually, not that hard.

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You know, at the very root
of that, see, Caspers,

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see how you throw it?

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Simple as that, right? No biggie.

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And your front foot,
the way it grabs it...

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I'd seen someone slide
on the back of the board like that,

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and I was like, "How can I get it over?"

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Because that had not yet been done.

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And then it dawned on me,
and here's part of what I'm saying.

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I had an infrastructure.
I had this deep layer,

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where it was like, oh my gosh,
it's just your foot.

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It's just the way
you throw your board over.

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Just let the ledge do that, and it's easy,

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and the next thing you know,
there's 20 more tricks

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based out of the variations.

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So that's the kind of thing...
Here, check this out,

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here's another way,
and I won't overdo this.

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A little indulgent, I understand.

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There's something called a Primo slide.

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It is the funnest trick ever to do.

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It's like skimboarding.

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And this one, look how it slides
sideways, every which way?

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OK, so when you're skating,
and you take a fall,

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the board slips that way or that way;
it's kind of predictable.

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This? It goes every which way...
It's like a cartoon, the falls,

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and that's what I love the most about it.

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It's so much fun to do.

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In fact, when I started doing them,
I remember, because I got hurt.

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I had to get a knee surgery, right?

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So there were a couple of weeks
where I couldn't skate at all.

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It would give out on me,
and I would watch the guys,

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I'd go to this warehouse
where a lot of the guys were skating,

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my friends, and I was like,

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"I've got to do something new,
I want to do something new.

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I want to start fresh."

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And so the night before my surgery,
I'd watched, and I was like,

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"How am I going to do this?"

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So I ran up, and I jumped on my board,

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and I Cavemanned, and I flipped it down,

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and I remember thinking,
I landed so light-footed, thinking,

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if my knee gives, they'll just have
more work to do in the morning.

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(Laughter)

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And so, when it was the crazy thing.

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I don't know how many
of you guys have had surgery, but...

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(Laughter)

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you are so helpless, right?

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You're on this gurney
and you're watching the ceiling go by,

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every time, it's always that,

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and right when they're putting
the mask on you before you go to sleep,

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all I was thinking is,
"Man, when I wake up and I get better,

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the first thing I'm going to do
is film that trick."

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And indeed I did, it was the very first
thing I filmed, which was awesome.

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I told you a little bit
about the evolution of the tricks.

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Consider that content, in a sense.

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What we do as street skaters is,
you have these tricks...

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Say I'm working on Darkslides, or a Primo,

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that you guys know this stuff now.

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(Laughter)

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What you do is, you cruise
around the same streets

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that you've seen a hundred times,

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but suddenly, because
you already have something

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in this fixed domain of this target,
it's like, what will match this trick?

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How can I expand, how can the context,

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how can the environment change
the very nature of what I do?

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So you drive and drive and drive,
and, actually I've got to admit,

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just because I was struggling
with this because I'm here,

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but I'll just say it,
is, I cannot tell you,

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not only to be here in front of you,

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but what a privilege it is
to be at US campus,

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because I have been escorted off
of this campus so many times.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So let me give you another example
of how context shapes content.

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This is a place not that far from here,
It's a rotten neighborhood.

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Your first consideration is,
am I going to get beat up?

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You go out and... See this wall?

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It's fairly mellow, and it's beckoning
to do bank tricks, right?

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But there's this other aspect
of it for wheelies,

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so check this out.

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There's a few tricks, again,

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how environment changes
the nature of your tricks.

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Freestyle oriented,
manual down... wheelie down.

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Watch, this one? Oh, I love this,
it's like surfing, this one,

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the way you catch it.

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This one, a little sketchy
going backwards,

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and watch the back foot.

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Oops...

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(Laughter)

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Mental note right there.

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Again, we'll get back to that.

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(Laughter)

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Here, back foot, back foot.

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OK, up there?

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That was called a 360 flip.

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Notice how the board flipped
and spun this way, both axes.

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And another example
of how the context changed,

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and the creative process
for me and for most skaters,

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is, you go, you get out of the car,
you check for security,

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you check for stuff.

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(Laughter)

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It's funny, you get to know
their rhythms, you know,

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the guys that cruise around...

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(Laughter)

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Skateboarding is such
a humbling thing, man.

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No matter how good you are,
you've still got to deal with...

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So you hit this wall, and when I hit it,

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the first thing you do
is you fall forward,

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and I'm like, all right, all right.

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As you adjust...

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you punch it up,
and then when I would do that,

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it was throwing my shoulder this way...

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which as I was doing it, I was like,
"Oh wow, that's begging for a 360 flip,"

194
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because that's how
you load up for a 360 flip.

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And so this is what I want
to emphasize that, as you can imagine,

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all of these tricks are made
of submovements,

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executive motor functions,

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more granular to the degree
to which I can't quite tell you,

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but one thing I do know is,

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every trick is made of combining two
or three or four or five movements.

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And so, as I'm going up,
these things are floating around,

202
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and you have to sort of
let the cognitive mind rest back,

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pull it back a little bit,

204
00:10:49,148 --> 00:10:51,579
and let your intuition go
as you feel these things.

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And these submovements
are kind of floating around,

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and as the wall hits you,
they connect themselves to an extent,

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and that's when the cognitive mind:
"Oh, 360 flip, I'm going to make that."

208
00:11:00,721 --> 00:11:03,226
So that's how that works
to me, the creative process,

209
00:11:03,250 --> 00:11:05,138
the process itself, of street skating.

210
00:11:07,062 --> 00:11:08,437
So, next... Oh, mind you...

211
00:11:08,461 --> 00:11:09,527
(Laughter)

212
00:11:09,551 --> 00:11:10,715
Those are the community.

213
00:11:10,739 --> 00:11:13,388
These are some of the best
skaters in the world.

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00:11:14,112 --> 00:11:17,235
These are my friends...
Oh my gosh, they're such good people.

215
00:11:18,007 --> 00:11:20,515
And the beauty of skateboarding is that,

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no one guy is the best.

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00:11:22,527 --> 00:11:25,899
In fact, I know this is rotten to say,
they're my friends,

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00:11:25,923 --> 00:11:29,399
but a couple of them actually don't look
that comfortable on their board.

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00:11:29,423 --> 00:11:34,439
What makes them great is the degree
to which they use their skateboarding

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to individuate themselves.

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00:11:35,746 --> 00:11:38,069
Every single one of these guys,
you look at them,

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you can see a silhouette
of them, and you realize,

223
00:11:40,531 --> 00:11:42,820
"Oh, that's him,
that's Haslam, that's Koston,

224
00:11:42,844 --> 00:11:45,395
there's these guys, these are the guys."

225
00:11:46,023 --> 00:11:50,077
And skaters, I think
they tend to be outsiders

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00:11:50,101 --> 00:11:53,442
who seek a sense of belonging,

227
00:11:53,466 --> 00:11:55,516
but belonging on their own terms.

228
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And real respect is given
by how much we take what other guys do,

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00:12:01,071 --> 00:12:05,967
these basic tricks, 360 flips,
we take that, we make it our own,

230
00:12:05,991 --> 00:12:08,277
and then we contribute
back to the community

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00:12:08,301 --> 00:12:10,927
the inner way that edifies
the community itself.

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00:12:11,585 --> 00:12:13,795
The greater the contribution,

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00:12:13,819 --> 00:12:16,898
the more we express
and form our individuality,

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00:12:18,072 --> 00:12:21,937
which is so important to a lot of us
who feel like rejects to begin with.

235
00:12:22,399 --> 00:12:24,201
The summation of that

236
00:12:24,981 --> 00:12:28,066
gives us something we could never
achieve as an individual.

237
00:12:28,752 --> 00:12:29,752
Truly.

238
00:12:32,497 --> 00:12:33,497
And that forms...

239
00:12:34,584 --> 00:12:35,751
I should say this.

240
00:12:35,775 --> 00:12:37,649
There's some sort of beautiful symmetry

241
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that the degree to which
we connect to a community

242
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is in proportion to our individuality,

243
00:12:43,149 --> 00:12:45,226
which we are expressing by what we do.

244
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Next,

245
00:12:47,302 --> 00:12:51,700
these guys, very similar community
that's extremely conducive to innovation.

246
00:12:51,724 --> 00:12:52,910
(Laughter)

247
00:12:52,934 --> 00:12:56,087
Notice a couple of these shots
from the police department.

248
00:12:56,507 --> 00:12:59,281
But it is quite similar,
I mean, what is it to hack, right?

249
00:12:59,305 --> 00:13:02,589
It's knowing a technology so well
that you can manipulate it

250
00:13:02,613 --> 00:13:06,972
and steer it to do things
it was never intended to do, right?

251
00:13:06,996 --> 00:13:08,331
And they're not all bad.

252
00:13:08,355 --> 00:13:12,425
You can be a Linux kernel hacker,
make it more stable, right?

253
00:13:12,449 --> 00:13:13,687
More safe, more secure.

254
00:13:13,711 --> 00:13:15,641
You can be an iOS hacker,

255
00:13:15,665 --> 00:13:18,589
make your iPhone do stuff
it wasn't supposed to.

256
00:13:19,159 --> 00:13:21,550
Not authorized, but not illegal.

257
00:13:21,574 --> 00:13:23,919
And then, you've got
some of these guys, right?

258
00:13:23,943 --> 00:13:27,084
What they do is very similar
to our creative process.

259
00:13:27,109 --> 00:13:29,805
They connect disparate information,

260
00:13:30,825 --> 00:13:36,296
and they bring it together in a way
that a security analyst doesn't expect.

261
00:13:36,872 --> 00:13:38,562
It doesn't make them good people,

262
00:13:38,986 --> 00:13:41,278
but it's at the heart of engineering,

263
00:13:41,302 --> 00:13:45,832
at the heart of a creative community,
an innovative community,

264
00:13:45,856 --> 00:13:48,721
and the open source community,
the basic ethos of it

265
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is, take what other people do,
make it better,

266
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give it back so we all rise further.

267
00:13:54,465 --> 00:13:56,854
Very similar communities, very similar.

268
00:13:56,878 --> 00:13:58,869
We have our edgier sides, too.

269
00:13:58,893 --> 00:14:00,098
(Laughter)

270
00:14:00,122 --> 00:14:01,585
It's funny, my dad was right.

271
00:14:01,609 --> 00:14:02,989
These are my peers.

272
00:14:06,808 --> 00:14:09,392
But I respect what they do,
and they respect what I do,

273
00:14:09,416 --> 00:14:12,165
because they can do things,
it's amazing what they can do.

274
00:14:12,189 --> 00:14:13,821
In fact, one of them,

275
00:14:13,845 --> 00:14:18,435
he was Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur
of the Year for San Diego County,

276
00:14:18,468 --> 00:14:21,528
so they're not... you never know
who you're dealing with.

277
00:14:22,552 --> 00:14:25,176
We've all had some degree of fame.

278
00:14:25,213 --> 00:14:30,202
In fact, I've had so much success
that I strangely always feel unworthy of.

279
00:14:30,226 --> 00:14:33,185
I've had a patent, and that was cool,
and we started a company,

280
00:14:33,209 --> 00:14:35,331
and it grew, and it became the biggest,

281
00:14:35,355 --> 00:14:38,240
and then it went down,
and then it became the biggest again,

282
00:14:38,264 --> 00:14:40,935
which is harder than the first time,
and then we sold it,

283
00:14:40,959 --> 00:14:42,480
and then we sold it again.

284
00:14:42,504 --> 00:14:44,464
So I've had some success.

285
00:14:44,590 --> 00:14:47,067
And in the end, when you've had
all of these things,

286
00:14:47,091 --> 00:14:48,955
what is it that continues to drive you?

287
00:14:48,979 --> 00:14:51,264
As I mentioned, the knee stuff
and these things,

288
00:14:51,288 --> 00:14:52,854
what is it that will punch you?

289
00:14:52,878 --> 00:14:54,699
Because it's not just the mind.

290
00:14:54,723 --> 00:14:57,568
What is it that will punch you
and make you do something

291
00:14:57,592 --> 00:15:00,610
and bring it to another level,
and when you've had it all,

292
00:15:00,634 --> 00:15:04,279
sometimes, guys, they die on the vine
with all of that talent,

293
00:15:04,892 --> 00:15:07,560
and one of the things
we've had, all of us, is fame...

294
00:15:07,584 --> 00:15:10,394
I think the best kind of fame,
because you can take it off.

295
00:15:10,418 --> 00:15:12,464
I've been all around the world,

296
00:15:12,488 --> 00:15:15,108
and there will be a thousand kids
crying out your name,

297
00:15:15,132 --> 00:15:17,180
and it's such a weird,
visceral experience.

298
00:15:17,204 --> 00:15:18,811
It's like, it's disorienting.

299
00:15:18,835 --> 00:15:20,913
And you get in a car, and you drive away,

300
00:15:20,937 --> 00:15:23,807
and 10-minute drive, and you get out,

301
00:15:23,831 --> 00:15:25,642
and no one gives a rat's who you are.

302
00:15:25,666 --> 00:15:27,032
(Laughter)

303
00:15:27,056 --> 00:15:30,337
And it gives you that clarity
of perspective of, man, I'm just me,

304
00:15:30,361 --> 00:15:33,071
and popularity, what does that
really mean again?

305
00:15:33,095 --> 00:15:34,516
Not much.

306
00:15:34,540 --> 00:15:36,699
It's peer respect that drives us.

307
00:15:36,723 --> 00:15:39,044
That's the one thing
that makes us do what we do.

308
00:15:39,068 --> 00:15:43,149
I've had over a dozen bones,
this guy, over, eight, 10 concussions,

309
00:15:43,173 --> 00:15:45,693
to the point where it's comedy, right?

310
00:15:45,717 --> 00:15:48,448
It is actually comedy, they mess with him.

311
00:15:48,472 --> 00:15:49,900
(Laughter)

312
00:15:50,050 --> 00:15:51,221
Next,

313
00:15:51,245 --> 00:15:53,817
and this is something deeper.

314
00:15:55,650 --> 00:15:59,162
I think I was on tour when I was reading
one of the Feynman biographies.

315
00:15:59,186 --> 00:16:01,209
It was the red one or the blue one.

316
00:16:01,233 --> 00:16:04,915
And he made this statement
that was so profound to me.

317
00:16:08,501 --> 00:16:12,590
It was that the Nobel Prize
was the tombstone on all great work,

318
00:16:13,486 --> 00:16:17,321
and it resonated because
I had won 35 out of 36 contests

319
00:16:17,345 --> 00:16:20,686
that I'd entered over 11 years,
and it made me bananas.

320
00:16:20,710 --> 00:16:22,956
In fact, winning
isn't the word, I won it once.

321
00:16:22,980 --> 00:16:25,032
The rest of the time,
you're just defending,

322
00:16:25,056 --> 00:16:27,631
and you get into this,
turtle posture, you know?

323
00:16:27,655 --> 00:16:30,765
Where you're not doing...
It usurped the joy of what I loved to do

324
00:16:30,789 --> 00:16:33,941
because I was no longer doing it
to create and have fun,

325
00:16:33,965 --> 00:16:35,676
and when it died out from under me,

326
00:16:35,700 --> 00:16:37,756
that was one of the most
liberating things,

327
00:16:37,780 --> 00:16:39,366
because I could create.

328
00:16:39,390 --> 00:16:44,085
And look, I understand that
I am on the very edge of preachy, here.

329
00:16:44,109 --> 00:16:45,273
I'm not here to do that.

330
00:16:45,297 --> 00:16:48,039
It's just that I'm in front
of a very privileged audience.

331
00:16:48,063 --> 00:16:50,943
If you guys aren't already
leaders in your community,

332
00:16:50,967 --> 00:16:54,035
you probably will be,
and if there's anything I can give you

333
00:16:54,059 --> 00:16:57,239
that will transcend what I've gotten
from skateboarding,

334
00:16:57,263 --> 00:17:00,285
the only things of meaning,
I think, and of permanence,

335
00:17:00,309 --> 00:17:02,367
it's not fame, it's not all these things.

336
00:17:02,391 --> 00:17:06,301
What it is, is that there's
an intrinsic value in creating something

337
00:17:06,326 --> 00:17:08,118
for the sake of creating it,

338
00:17:08,143 --> 00:17:12,314
and better than that,
because I'm 46 years old, or I'll be 46,

339
00:17:12,338 --> 00:17:15,964
and how pathetic is that
I'm still skateboarding, but there is...

340
00:17:15,988 --> 00:17:21,810
There is this beauty in dropping it
into a community of your own making,

341
00:17:22,127 --> 00:17:25,414
and seeing it dispersed,
and seeing younger, more talented,

342
00:17:25,438 --> 00:17:28,679
just different talent, take it to levels
you can never imagine,

343
00:17:28,703 --> 00:17:30,367
because that lives on.

344
00:17:30,391 --> 00:17:32,093
So thank you for your time.

345
00:17:32,117 --> 00:17:39,117
(Applause)

346
00:17:42,016 --> 00:17:44,238
Kristina Holly: I have a question for you.

347
00:17:44,262 --> 00:17:48,010
(Applause)

348
00:17:48,034 --> 00:17:51,931
So you've really reinvented yourself
in the past, from freestyle to street,

349
00:17:51,955 --> 00:17:55,240
and, I think it was about four years ago
you officially retired.

350
00:17:55,264 --> 00:17:57,591
Is that it? What's next?

351
00:17:58,550 --> 00:18:02,279
Rodney Mullen: That's a good question.
KG: Something tells me it's not the end.

352
00:18:02,303 --> 00:18:06,087
RM: Yeah. Every time you think
you've chased something down,

353
00:18:06,111 --> 00:18:09,248
it's funny, no matter how good you are,
and I know guys like this,

354
00:18:09,272 --> 00:18:11,638
it feels like you're polishing
a turd, you know?

355
00:18:11,662 --> 00:18:14,868
(Laughter)

356
00:18:14,981 --> 00:18:17,428
And I thought, the only way
I can extend this

357
00:18:17,452 --> 00:18:19,483
is to change something infrastructural.

358
00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:23,518
And so that's what I proceeded to do,
through a long story,

359
00:18:23,542 --> 00:18:27,803
one of desperation, so if I do it,
rather than talk about it,

360
00:18:27,827 --> 00:18:29,770
if I do it, you'll be the first to know.

361
00:18:29,794 --> 00:18:32,796
KG: All right, we won't ask you any more.
RM: You'll get a text.

362
00:18:32,820 --> 00:18:35,795
KG: Right, thank you, good job.
RM: Thank you. Thank you.

363
00:18:35,819 --> 00:18:40,507
(Applause)