HackerTube.dev

xkcd | Randall Munroe | Talks at Google

Talks at Google · 450K views · 2007-12-12 · 58:34

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, gives an Authors@Google talk in 2007 about the webcomic and his background, followed by audience Q&A. Donald Knuth and Guido van Rossum ask questions during the session.

On Hacker News

HN refers to it for the moment where Knuth asks a question and addresses the Steve Jobs anecdote, a favorite geek moment.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2008–2026

Topics

Literature & writing craftInternet culture & memesTech pioneers & interviews
Search by tags
xkcdrandall munroedonald knuthtalks at googlewebcomics

What people said

pjmorris · 2013-08 · Recommendation

To me, one of the all-time great geek moments was when Munroe did a tech talk at Google, and Don Knuth gets up to ask him if he's thought about doing animated cartoons, and what is his favorite log log n sorting algorithm, about 21:30 in to this: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
svat · 2026-01 · Reference

FWIW the XKCD talk at Google is here (wow, 18 years ago! I remember watching this video when it was posted): [VIDEO] (Knuth comes up to ask a question at 21:30) (Can't tell from the video where he was sitting otherwise, though there are definitely at least some people sitting on the floor.)

Read the original HN comment ↗
lIl-IIIl · 2023-02 · Reference

Randall wanted a unique short string associated with all his work. That way he could Google "xkcd" and find everything he ever did online. I believe he had a script that generated all possible 4-letter combinations and filtered out ones with any search results, and settled on "xkcd". But he became a victim of his own success when the comic became so popular and "xkcd" is now synonymous with the comic. Source: talk by Randall, might be this one but I'm not sure: [VIDEO] .

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Talks at Google, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources