I was eating lunch at The Habit today with Matthew Hui, and we started talking about how working in the San Francisco startup scene has in many ways shattered the illusion of the technology sector for us.
Woah! OK, let’s unpack that for a second, because any of my friends reading this will shake their head in disbelief as I’m probably the biggest tech nut they know.
“Technology” is such a broad term that encompasses pretty much everything. So to be clear, the technology sector that I’m specifically referring to is the industry vertical that is first and foremost built and focused on software and hardware (think: Facebook, Twitter, Tesla, Apple, Google). On the other hand, a glass manufacturing company for example uses technology, but would not be considered a technology company in my current scope. Now I do think all companies will inherently be technology companies in the future, but that’s another topic for another day.
The technology companies that I listed earlier are all-in-all great companies that have changed the world around us in largely positive ways. You can argue that Facebook has ruined people’s social lives, but it’s 2016 — get over it. Or that Google is a trojan horse, but again, it’s 2016 and the future will undoubtedly depend on the collection of treasure troves of data.
Here’s where it goes downhill: the tech sector has a nasty tendency to look inward within itself for inspiration and meaning, a justification for existing and innovating. That sucks, because the best technology companies are born from very human roots that are in many ways counter to the principles of code. Steve Jobs has said over and over that Apple’s DNA is the intersection of technology and liberal arts. I’d attribute a large part of Apple’s early success to that foundation, while also attributing what some perceive to be a more recent decline to a possible departure from that humanist principle.
In last Friday’s Shark Tank, one founder started pitching his #besomebody startup and the whole time, I was thinking what the hell is your product? He spent the entire presentation largely hyping up the value of experiences and only mentions once that it’s an iOS app “like Airbnb but for experiences”. This was a classic example of Silicon Valley’s flavor of stale innovation that fails to impress, and the Sharks were quick to pounce on that, rightfully so. He did not get an investment.
Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. What Elon Musk is doing with electric power, space travel, and who knows what else, is extraordinary. As we begin to understand more and more about our genetics, we’ll push human health forward in unprecedented ways, and eventually one day disease will be completely eradicated. These initiatives represent the very best renditions of human-oriented technology today. I’m hugely inspired by the work being done in these fields, and can only hope that others are similarly driven to use technology to accomplish something meaningful for humanity, not build another chatting app.
So, like I said, it’s a zoo out there. And I’m going to write about what matters to me in this crazy but lovable world we’ve got here. Technology is one critical piece of our world, but it’s not the only one.
Stay tuned.
