Last week, I was at the Defrag Conference and Phil Weiser, the Dean of the University of Colorado Law School, was one of the speakers. During his talk on legislation and technology, Phil said something that has really stuck with me. He said, “Our generation’s Sputnik moment has gone unnoticed.”
His comment was referring to a national call to action — an entrepreneurial awakening of sorts. But as I thought about the Sputnik moment, I couldn’t help but think how clear and defined that call was in 1957. The American reaction to the Soviet satellite was swift and dramatic. It is largely credited with kicking off the space race, one of the most dramatic periods of innovation in our country’s history. It concluded with the U.S. celebrating our first man on the moon in 1969 — a moment watched by the world.
So what was this generation’s Sputnik moment? I would argue that it was less of a moment, and more of a confluence of events. It was not the result of a single action, but of converging circumstances. Among those circumstances has been the rise of agile development, the acceptance of widespread collaboration, the creation of open source technology and a new world of shared APIs. These, and other things, have all combined to create an unprecedented period of low cost innovation in the U.S., and around the world.
Unlike the era of the space race, however, ours is an environment where technology advances are rarely noticed, let alone celebrated. Instead, they tend to occur daily and blend seamlessly into our lives. For example, in reading the slew of articles about Steve Jobs’ death, I was shocked to see that the first iPhone was released as recently as 2007. Although the dawn of the smart phone was one of the bigger technology landmarks of my lifetime, it is hard to remember the transition. The bottom line is that we have been conditioned to expect and adapt to incremental progress. If there is any doubt, just watch the next generation. My 11 year old daughter had every feature on my new iPhone mastered within an hour. My father, on the other hand, still holds his Blackberry like it dropped from outer space.
So what does this time mean for a technology investor? It is both scary and exciting. There is an abundance of opportunities, and the cost of getting a product or service to market is lower than ever before. In addition, the technology boom has attracted a huge pool of smart, talented and motivated entrepreneurs who, in past generations, would have probably ended up at Fortune 500 companies.
The competition, however, is fierce, and the windows available to achieve success are shrinking. If a company doesn’t get it right the first time, there is little time to reassess, realign or reboot. After all, the next generation solution is probably just around the corner — being hatched in a garage or an incubator just down the road. It is why investing in good people who can adapt, react and problem solve quickly is more important than ever.
So our generation continues to race up the ladder of innovation, spurred not by a fear of the Soviet Union, but a rich and inviting environment for advancement. The irony, of course, is that there is no time to pause and look down, or even celebrate our progress. I have no doubt, however, that when we get to the top of the ladder, we will have reached the moon — it’s just that we will have done it one rung at a time.
