MIT OpenCourseWare: the videos Hacker News recommends
Not the channel's most viewed videos: the ones HN commenters kept linking with real commentary. The top pick, "How to Speak", hN treats it as the canonical, near-universally recommended lecture on giving talks and presentations.
- 17 HN recommenders 16 months 2020–2025lectureHN treats it as the canonical, near-universally recommended lecture on giving talks and presentations.
- 11 HN recommenders 12 months 2011–2020lectureIt is HN's default recommendation for learning linear algebra, praised for Strang's teaching and for building real understanding useful in machine learning.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2019–2026lectureHN people recommend the SICP lectures as a deeper, livelier route into the book and a formative course even for seasoned programmers.
- 11 HN recommenders 9 months 2012–2024lectureSeen as a classic and often the moment programming 'clicks'; commenters praise Abelson's opening that computer science is not about computers.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2017–2025lectureHN recommends Herb Gross as an unusually clear teacher whose explanations make calculus click for people who struggled elsewhere.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2020–2023courseRecommended as a free, first-principles finance course for software engineers wanting to learn business and finance.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2016–2021lectureRecommended as a clear introduction to dynamic programming from a well-regarded instructor.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2010–2012courseHN commenters recommend it as a simple, direct entry point for beginners who want to learn computer science, not just programming.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2022lectureHN recommends it as a clear, high-quality introduction to succinct data structures from a leading authority.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2025lectureHN recommends Sipser's free lectures as the companion to the standard theory of computation textbook and a path to understanding how computers fundamentally work.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2025lectureRecommended as the detailed technical account of exactly what happened at Chernobyl.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2018lectureHN users recommend it as a good discrete math course for programmers, praising Leighton's relatable stories that motivate new concepts.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2022lectureRecommended as a fascinating insider account of how the F-22's software makes it easier to fly than a Cessna.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2022lectureRecommended as a solid, level-headed academic introduction to blockchain, often noted because Gensler later led the SEC.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2020–2023lectureHN holds the SICP lectures up as joyful classics, and this lecture as the moment the evaluator is revealed.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2015–2017lectureHN commenters hold it up as an unmatched introduction to programming and quote Sussman's line that knowing a spirit's name gives you power over it.
- cited 3× 0 months 2013–2019lectureHN commenters cite it as the classic explanation of eval and the meta-circular evaluator.
Questions
Which MIT OpenCourseWare video does Hacker News recommend most?
How to Speak: recommended in 16 different months by 17 HN users between 2020 and 2025.
Is this every MIT OpenCourseWare video?
No. Only videos that at least three different HN users linked, in at least three different months, with at least a sentence of their own commentary. That filter is what makes the list useful.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.