Rediscovering the nerd in me
Earlier this week, a friend gave my kids a pocket drone as a gift. My gadget-enthusiast self wanted to figure out how to set it up and fly it first before teaching the kids. To my utter shock, however, it took me over 30 minutes to finally be able to get it off the ground, and then I was only able to bump it into walls until it came crashing down only to not fly again.
This was a wake up call. I had taught myself to code when I was eight years old, and used to program everything from games to office software clones. I always prided myself as someone who was on the frontiers of technology. Yet, here I am, 37 years old and struggling to fly an entry-level drone! 🤮
While building a healthcare business in a developing country over the last eight years (and raising two kids at the same time), I was drawn further and further away from the frontiers of technology. While we started at the cutting edge of technology when we launched, we quickly realized that technology was not the bottleneck to the problem we were trying to solve. So we focused more on the people, the incentives, and the regulation. But as I am emerging out of that rabbit hole, I am realizing that the world is a vastly different place than when I went in. It’s a world of NFTs, metaverse, and nanobots.
So the question I am struggling with is: As a tech entrepreneur, how up-to-date and deeply informed must I be on the tech trends of the time? In an era of exponentially accelerating technologies, is it even possible to stay ahead of the curve over a long period of time, or are you destined to fall behind as you age, especially when you are trying to do insane masochistic things like building businesses and raising kids at the same time? If so, which technologies are more important than others for me, and how do I sift between them? And finally, what strategies can I take to efficiently and sustainably do this over the rest of my life?
In short, how to rediscover, embrace and nurture my inner nerd in the face of…you know…life? 🤓
Let’s handle the questions one by one.
First, how deeply should I understand the emerging technologies of any given time in order to remain relevant as a tech entrepreneur?
I think the answer depends on what it is for. For me, there are two reasons I want to stay updated — 1. curiosity as a nerd, and 2. applications of these technologies to solving problems for the underserved in countries like Bangladesh.
For the first, deep understanding is probably overkill. I may be interested in nuclear fusion and robotics, but it doesn’t directly apply to my areas of work and so I may be okay understanding them at a superficial level.
For applying a technology in my career, however, a deeper intuitive and functional understanding is necessary:
1. It’s important to understand the technology at a conceptual level, and be up-to-date on the potential use-cases of the technology currently and in the future so that I may consider and envision the applications in my field.
2. I should be able to distinguish the hype from the real substance, and understand the limitations really well.
3. I should have a functional understanding of how it works, such that I could be product manager for a product that utilizes the particular technology and manage a group of engineers, and it would be hard for any of them to bullshit me.
It may not be possible to reach third-base with all relevant technologies, but at least second-base is probably a must.
How to sift through the technologies to identify which ones are important to focus on?
Going back to the previous criteria, probably the first and most important to focus on are foundational technologies like the internet, AI and now Web3/blockchain. They have such broad-ranging implications, and make so many other things possible, that not having a deep understanding of it may make you irrelevant very quickly.
Then there are specific “verticals” that are more niche and specific to the area I am in. For example, I need to understand the revolutions happening in medical AI or rapid diagnostics (intersections of fields as varied as AI, molecular biology and microfluidics) in a fair amount of detail and rigor.
Third are areas that might have future implications in emerging markets healthcare or other innovation areas I am interested in. This may include DeFi (for its applications on health financing for example), nanorobotics, CRISPR, 3D printing (for prosthetics), etc.
Fourth and final are areas that are interesting purely for play and fun. VR/AR, gaming and NFTs may fall in this category. (tangential question for self: if there’s opportunity to make money in these areas, which there certainly is, does that make it higher priority than any of the ones above? And, what does it say about me that I am implicitly claiming play and fun to be the least important of all?)
What strategies can help do this sustainably over the rest of my life?
First, I need a solid curation of Youtube Channels, podcasts, publications, and Twitter/Linkedin experts. I need to set aside some time each day for browsing and reading up in a targeted way, instead of mindlessly following what the omniscient algorithms curate for me. Essentially turning passive browsing time into active learning time.
Second, I need to carve out some personal time (perhaps on weekends) to get my hands dirty with some technologies. Just playing around with the tools myself to understand what happens under the hood could help build intuition. I could start learning Solidity and playing around with smart contracts, or set up a few NFT projects for fun using the AI-art generation tools (God forbid should I attempt to make digital art myself!). In fact, my 9-year old son is expressing interest in getting into NFTs so that he can earn some money and buy Pokemon cards. Perhaps I could do this as a fun joint project with my kids to learn and teach at the same time. In any case, it could be a lot of fun to try to do this again after such a long time.
Another way to build intuition with technologies may be to read up (or write) on, volunteer with, or consult for organizations that are applying the said technologies in a real-world setting. I could also do targeted catch-ups with friends who are in related spaces and mine them for insights.
Is it possible to stay ahead of the curve long term while maintaining a career and family?
It’s certainly difficult. And most certainly I will fall behind on some technologies some of the time. As long as I am ahead of the curve on some important and relevant technology trends, and open and curious about learning more, that’s all the success I can aim for I guess. Choosing jobs that allow me to get exposed to emerging tech could be one way to make things easier.
P.S. If there’s anything the last 7 years at Jeeon has taught me, technology is often not the key bottleneck to innovation. It is a deep understanding of the problems and its human dimensions. Technologies can only serve as tools once you have gotten over that first hurdle. In other words, I should not wield a hammer in search of nails, but find and understand where the nails are first.
(Thanks to all the friends who helped with pointers and resource suggestions to stay on top of technology trends)
