Dr. Barbara Hales and Walter O’Brien at Carnegie Hall (New York)

Helicopters swarming overhead, police cars, SWAT teams and the CIA is encircling a small bungalow in a sleepy little town in Ireland.  The door is kicked down and they enter.

So starts a television series called Scorpion that aired from 2014 to 2018 and is loosely based on the life of Walter O’Brien, one of the smartest men on earth today and also known as an information technologist.

When the FBI and our government have a problem, they come to Walter O’Brien for the solutions. He was also the executive producer of Scorpion, a company he founded at the age of 14.

The reason for the episode above, you may ask?  O’Brien has stated that when he was thirteen years old (c. 1988), he hacked into NASA. His parents bought him a computer only one year earlier.

O’Brien told agents he would help show vulnerabilities in NASA’s network in exchange for not getting into trouble.

Walter O’Brien has some great messages for the world.  His mission statement is that there’s a place for everyone who never fit in, every problem has a solution and being smart is cool. These is certainly great inspirational advice for students and the youth of today.

Walter explained in his talk at Carnegie Hall that there are many measurable quotients for people besides IQ or intelligent quota- like EQ or emotional quotient, RQ which is financial. Here he quotes that you and your income become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose friends carefully and slowly, keep long time direction communication, radical honest in inner circle. Inspired and happy people don’t hurt people.

The Near Future

His near future predictions state that our cars are parked 97% of the time because there will be mostly self driving Ubers.   There will be no need for car dealerships, gas stations, valets car washes, tire and brake centers. He feels that drones will replace 3 m solders and pilots.

The future

In the future he cites a quote from university of Oxford: “Over 90% chance that robots will take over jobs like chefs, masons, budget analysts, tax examiners and collectors, butchers and meat cutters, retail salespersons, geological and petroleum technicians, hand sewers, watch repairers, account clears, loan officers, legal secretaries, bank tellers, cashiers, real estate brokers, polishing workers, dental technicians, telephone operators and pesticide sprayers among many others.

His Challenge for the listeners in the audience is to visit ConciergeUp.com and submit any funded need. Concierge Up is powered by Scorpion.  Knowing that he is accessible will always run through my mind when I have technical problems to be resolved!

Takeaways I Got from Walter O’Brien

  • Being smart is cool
  • Life’s journey is one of self-actualization
  • Consider what set of skills you will give your child
  • Be ruthlessly selfish until you can be successful
  • Balance your Q’s- IQ (intellect), EQ (emotional), RQ (relationship quotient).
  • Be the dumbest person in the room!