Why this Innovation Revolution is Different *

Transcription

1 Why this Innovation Revolution is Different * * And lessons learned for success in this new era Bill Gross Founder & CEO, Idealab

2 I ve been starting companies all my life and I ve never seen a time like this Jr. High School High School College At 28 At 32 At 38 Sold candy in Junior High School Made solar devices in High School Made loud speakers in College Made productivity software during the PC revolution Made educational software during the multimedia revolution Started Idealab as the first technology incubator during the beginning of the Internet revolution

3 20 years ago, I started Idealab as a Technology Incubator Idealab is a business designed to create businesses. We house shared resources for company creation.

4 I modeled it after Edison Labs as a technology incubator

5 We look for opportunities that are BIG and broken and then brainstorm technology solutions to fix them.

6 We believe that with the right structure, entrepreneurship unlocks human potential and makes the world a better place. We ve worked to perfect that process over 20 years.

7 First 12 Ideas in 1996

8 Idealab has created more than 150 companies

9 Of those 150 Companies, Idealab has: Helped the companies raise more than $3.5B Out of 150 companies created: 45 successful IPOs and acquisitions 45 current operating companies 60 closed or did not succeed Achieved net 13.5X return on its seed investments Created more than 10,000 jobs

10 What s similar, and what s different now Revolutions: 1. PC Revolution, Internet Revolution, Mobile Revolution, Block Chain, AI Revolution, Similar: Transformative Permission-less Different: Magnitude (2B users) Connected All-encompassing

11 How far we have come 1980 A computer on every desk and in every home Today A supercomputer in every pocket.

12 AI needs data, mobile provides the data goldmine

13 Mobile / Location Data The Engine of Business Plastics Dustin Hoffman, the Graduate 1967 Keywords Bill Gross, Goto / Overture 1997 Movements Mobile industry, 2017 Your mobile movements are an anonymous fingerprint of your passions, hobbies, interests

14 Businesses that use data will have the edge With the explosion of mobile / location data, businesses have access to information they never had before like: Competitive foot traffic Precise trade area information Detailed consumer behavior Businesses that use AI to take advantage of this data will be a big step ahead of their competition

15 The AI Leap is happening now

16 AI replaces brute force to make sense of all this data There are 9 billion possible boards after three moves in chess The number of possible positions on a Go board exceeds the number of atoms in the universe! Computer beats Garry Kasparov in 1997 AI beats champion Lee Sedol in 2016

17 AI / Mobile Revolution is All-Encompassing & Sweeping A supercomputer in every pocket, and an AI in every cloud is the biggest threat to our traditional order and the biggest opportunity ever!

18 The opportunity is so big because the questions for the future are so plentiful* Are we going to have robot teachers? What is one robot car bumps into another robot car and we get hurt? Will people marry robots and have babies with them? Are computers going to become so smart that they can boss us around? If robots do everything, then what are we going to do? * Kindergarteners in Beijing ask the same questions as CEOs in Davos

19 My Journey and Lessons Learned The Top 4 things I have learned that are relevant for this revolution

20 1 Timing - you may be ridiculed for having a great idea ahead of its time All truth passes through 3 stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer 19 th century German philosopher

21 2 Ideas Find the contrarian idea that s true Tell me something that's true, that almost nobody agrees with you on. Peter Thiel The consensus is already priced in so to be a great investor/inventor, you have to bet AGAINST the consensus & be right. Ray Dalio

22 3 It s not a little bit about product-market fit, it s ALL about product-market fit You never get that right out of the gate You need to iterate. I shouldn t have called it Idealab, I should have called it Iterate-Lab! You win or lose on customer delight, and that s what you achieve when you have product-market fit. Sometimes it only takes a very small twist to take something from snoozer to delight, but your job is to find it! Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face

23 4 Persistence The Emotional Journey of creating anything great Credit: John Saddington john.do/emotional-journey-creating/

24 Best time in history for entrepreneurship There s more money available The whole world is reachable 2 billion devices Always-on users Permission-less innovation Almost every business can be disrupted with new technology Application of mobile data, AI, computation power to EVERY aspect of life

25 I look forward to hearing from you Thank