Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan at VCF East 2019 

They could make an entire movie out of AT&T trying to hire Ken Thompson, and it would be called _Searching for Ken Thompson._

I am a native Greek speaker. The first line on his T-shirt says: "I finally understood it!"

"Am I wasting too much time." Are you kidding? This is like the sermon on the mount. Take all the time you would like.

These guys are legends. And so humble. Talk about an influencer. This is an influencer!

The faces of people that started time. Unix timestamp that is.

Step one: turn projector off Step two: shut down the notebook Step three: take out paper notes

Ken: One Week; One Week; One Week; and we had Unix.. Brian: I think programmers are not much productive these days.. Such gods speaking before mere mortals. Legendary.

This is the most interesting 1 hour on RU-vid I've had in years. Ken Thomposon is a fantastic storyteller!

"One week, one week, one week and we had Unix." Damn, I need to speed up work on my software project! :D

"i was 3 weeks away from creating a new OS", I have been learning how to open files for a year.

Man, its full of goosebumps ... to get to know about how things were born! I mean, the real things like Unix, C, grep, pipes, etc... Very inspiring to see legends sharing the same stage! Missing Dennis Ritchie though!

"And at some point, I realize without knowing it up until that point that I was three weeks from an operating system with 3 programs : one a week. An editor, I needed an editor to write code. I need an assembler to turn the code into language I could run. And I needed a little kernel kind of overlay call it an operating system. And luckily right at that moment my wife went on a three-week vacation" Ken Thompson

They should've let him talk all day. Amazing guys.

I remember at 19 seeing pipes and thinking it was brilliant. Probably used them almost weekly in the last 30 years, searching and reformatting output.

Future nerds are gonna be sooo jealous we saw him while he was still a living legend! Just a regular Joe that happened to do great things. Thrilled that he still loves to tell the stories. I get the feeling he's still slightly perplexed why we put him on such a pedestal for just doing what he can't help doing 😊 This sit-down is _solid gold_ ✨

I love how they got Brian Kernighan to interview him, everything was a perfect set up for Ken to knock out of the park, great interview!

Thank you so very much for recording this interview in such high quality and for sharing it with us. I love hearing about Unix history and I have desperately been wanting to watch a proper interview with Ken Thompson. And to have this one given by his friend and colleague Brian Kernighan, in a comfortable setting surrounded by fellow geeks, was absolute magic. I could have listened to hours more. The story about Doug McIlroy made my jaw drop. Such fascinating gentlemen and such unparalleled intelligence. Really enjoyed it!

I love how casually Ken Thompson just says he created an editor, an assembler & a kernel in under 3weeks for the UNIX operating system while his wife & child were away on holiday & @ 37:10, he hacked away and created the GREP program overnight, to present it to his boss the next day at work since he needed such a robust SEARCH tool, as if it’s not one of the most well known and most used command line tools even till date in 2021. That amount of humility and candor shown here by him, is astonishing. Meanwhile tiny RU-vidrs that’ve just gotten into Google & Amazon and worked there as SWEs for a few years, will now come on here and be making it seem like they just dropped down from heaven and are above and beyond everyone else in the Tech Space.

"I was a pretty good programmer"

7:55 Getting started 11:00 Bell Labs: In Pursuit of Ken Thompson 17:11 Multics OS 21:13 Invention of Unix 23:40 "Funding Unix", Dennis Ritchie kicks in 29:27 The PDP-11 30:30 Pipes 35:07 Grep command 38:35 Language B 52:53 Moscow Trip Story

I teach operating systems. My students have issues in closing their jaw when I reveal that some marketing person they worship did not know what program is. Yet they don't know who Dennis, Ken and Brian are. As a start , I subministered them this video. A healthy mixture of humbleness, competence and honesty. I hope this spirit will come back someday.

These guys are rock stars of computer science and yet they are so humble. I would love to see more interviews with both of them

This video is a gem. I hope it never gets taken down or made private. It is something every developer should watch just so they know what it means to be a developer

as someone who's made their living with Unix since 1989 and taught Unix at NYU for years .. LOVE THIS!

For being 77, Ken looks and sounds great. =)

Someone should make a movie out of this unix legend.

three gods of Computer Science Dennis,Ken and Brian

These guys are so humble that they completely avoid being in the trap of success paradox.

Hail and respect to our great masters and lords. They contributed over than 50 years of continuous and generous work for humanity: MULTICS, BCPL, UNIX, C, PLAN9, AWK, GO. How UNIX changed humanity can be compared to how Newton's classical mechanics changed the world or to how Alexander's Fleming Penicillin changed the history of biology and medical treatment.

Ken Thompson is by far the ultimate geek.

idk why but i just love these guys... they are so damn chill. especially Ken. its like his brain is pulling so much energy his body and emotions are lagging

Ken seems to be full of stories and I love it. Hoping to hear more of them.

It occurred to me watching this that there Ken seems to be cut from the same cloth as Steve Wozniak. Both men unambitious and seem to have a 'hippy' attitude, but extremely successful because they love what they do!

Mr. Ken Thompson's t-shirt: "ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΤΟ ΚΑΤΑΛΑΒΑ!", meaning, "Finally, I get it!" or "Finally, I understand it!", and with this beard he looks like Archimedes! Usually, the computer geeks are people with no sense of humor, but in this case, this guy has a plenty of it! Anyway, a true genius, humble and funny guy.

23:11 "And luckily right at that moment my wife went on a 3 weeks vacation to take my one year old (roughly) to visit my in-laws who were in California, this period long, 1 week, 1 week, 1 week... and we had Unix"

Ken Thompson is a national treasure

This is gold! I wish they had made the interview when Dennis Ritchie was still alive. Thanks so much for uploading it.

Besides UNIX itself, pipes are probably the greatest general invention that came out of the UNIX development. The whole talk is amazing.

this is what internet is for... what legends you had here.. thanks for sharing

These guy truly a father of modern computer technology, in their own right command respect and perseverence, sadly Denis passed away, seeing these duo very satisfying.

I really wanted Dennis to live longer, so I could watch him somewhere like this. Alas, we rarely get what we want.

This interview is amazing! These guys are absolute legends in the computing world.

Living history. Men behind all our phones, tablets, all our moden Life. A true wizzard of the time. Hats off.

2024 was here to watch these jewels of humanity.

Great interview, thanks for arranging it, recording, and posting.

Thanks for posting!

Thanks for sharing and posting this, loved it

Thank you for putting this out. So good.

This is so good!! Thanks

Thank you for recording this.

Beautiful! Thank you for uploading this video!

It is really inspiring to sit at the feet of these grand elders and be bathed in their experience. Its like being in a dream. Ritchie, Thompson, Kernighan.... are the World's apex of computer programming.

08:20 is when the interview start

Oral history interviews like this one are pure gold. Thanks for preserving history for us!

I could have listened to this interview for hours.

Holy crap a Ken interview, I've been waiting so long

Wow, this is great! I'd never heard of this conference before but I have now!

I loved every minute of it

This is my favorite interview on RU-vid so far.

Amazing! Loved every second.

Thank you very much for the video. I am grateful for being able to listen to these guys.

Great talk! Two of my favorite people.

I can listen to both of them like... forever.

So much love and respect for these men!

Two legends. Thank you VCF for preserving this.

insane achievement. that level of productivity is only attained when you're attuned to the subject at a soul level.

One of the best interview

Truly incredible. Thank you very much for uploading this video.

I could listen to Ken talk for hours

I could listen to these men all week

Very enjoyable video with historical significance. Thanks for sharing.

Always a great storyteller. It's been decades since I've seen him, and Dennis, and Lorne... Great memories!

Amazing to see and hear these legends together again.

Fantastic storyteller and an absolute legend. Thanks. This was a great watch. Best wishes

I was amazing watching legends like them talk about their past. Thank you very much for sharing the video with us.

I like every single moment of this interview - Ken Thompson is so inspiring!

Three years later and it still holds up!

We need more Ken Thompson

Here are legends

I could sit and listen for hours!

Brilliant! Loved it

No word, just good to see these two legends stay healthy

Wow. The memories. Didnt know this was here.

Fantastic interview, those guys at Bell Labs are geniuses.

Thank you for this piece of history of computing. I'm so glad the foundations of what we use today were laid out by these brilliant minds striving for elegance and simplicity.

what an amazing story. dennis, ken and brian are real legends

Wow I could listen to their stories for ever! Such interesting stuff happened that we've never heard about haha.

This was fantastic, and brought back a lot of memories from the 1970s. Thanks so much for posting this.

Thanks for this amazing vid 😀

34:24: "You type one two + and it would say 'four'. [..] I was never good at math" Honestly this is kinda nice to hear, you can be hugely successful and make gigantic contributions to computer science without being that good at math. I've felt for a long time, that logic is much more important in many CS areas.

Thank you for sharing! I really enjoyed it 💕💕

I could've listened for longer, great conversation!

Wonderful people. Hope in my life, I will be able to contribute to the community as they did.

This was a "magical" moment with living legends in the history of computing.

Wow. Thank you.

You are all good designers + Thanks + Go on!

I am once again back here !

Thank you, LW! This is phenomenal! ☺🐯

Amazing...I could listen to Ken's stories all day long!

I could listened to this for days ^^