Today we stand at the cusp of technology which is going to affect societal change on a scale beyond the steam engine. My kids incredulously asking "you had to get up to change how many channels?" will be replaced with their kids asking "you had to drive yourself?" and "you owned a car?" in the same tone of disbelief.
Today we have a power grid. Tomorrow we'll be generating individual household power. Today most of us buy all the channels. Tomorrow we'll ALL buy what we want. Today it takes three hours to get to St Louis. Tomorrow it will take under thirty minutes. Flying cars? Probably not - too dangerous & there are much more elegant solutions to solve those issues.
The big question is how is this all going to be delivered? Well, let's start with what doesn't work.
"20th Century Industry" has a reputation for keeping the status quo. Once a company gets to the size of Wal-Mart there's a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. They lean on their vendors & employees and squeeze every drop of profit out of their business line. Then some internet guy comes along and completely disrupts your business. Now what?
Contrast that with 21st Century industry leaders, and I have to start with Steve Jobs & Bill Gates. (Yes, I realize they were 20th century guys, but both were ahead of their time.)
Apple & Microsoft have been around for thirty years now, but Steve Jobs used his vision to build great products that have changed the way consumers compute, communicate, and consume media. Gates did the same with a focus on business. Unfortunately both companies have stagnated since their founders have stepped away.
Rather than continue to really innovate Apple is sitting on fat stacks of cash and releasing product that scores high on my "Meh" scale. Microsoft completely whiffed on mobile & was late to the cloud party to boot. Much like WalMart, Microsoft's bread and butter is a narrow lane (office systems & software) is begging to be disrupted. (G-Suite anyone?)
So how about Jeff Bezos? Now here's a guy who doesn't just want to build a great product or own the office. This is a guy that wants to change the world.
Amazon isn't just a retailer anymore - Bezos sees Amazon as an economic machine. Maybe in the future we'll all be working for him. He'll pay us in "Bezos Bucks" and everything we buy will be dropped off inside the house by a drone within 30 minutes of our one-click order.
Elon Musk built the first all-electric, fairly autonomous production vehicle. He's like Preston Tucker with billions. Think that rattled anyone manufacturing automobiles?
He also happens to sell roof tiles that generate power. I would speculate that within the decade all new homes will have some kind of solar power generation system, and within the next twenty five years most existing homes will be retrofitted. Green is in baby.
While they're at it, Elon and Jeff both are in a space race. Sure, we put a man on the moon but these guys are looking to colonize the moon and beyond. And they're doing it cheaper and faster than any "capable" government entity.
Those of us in the technology business arget a front row seat to everything above and more, much of which we can't even fathom today.
In my past life I loved to climb mountains. You'd start at the trailhead with a map and a goal of getting to the top. Today we stand at the trailhead of the New Industrial Revolution. We are still drawing the map, and we can't see the summit.
We can only dream of the possibilities for generations to come.
