the onda

For a good long while now I've been pondering the differences between the coasts when it comes to the successful commercialization of new technologies. It still astounds me that after the prominence that Route 128 had in minicomputers, it missed not only the PC but two succeeding waves of the development of the Internet while the raging optimism of the west coast gave us Apple, Google, and Facebook, as well as sustaining big companies like HP and Intel.

Just by chance, I happened to run across two pieces of media this weekend that, while not taking the question on directly, do leave one with the impression that commercialization around trends brought about by innovation might be something that is just culturally the purview of the west coast.

The first was a talk given by Stanford president, former entrepreneur, and one of my favorite textbook authors, John Hennessy on innovation in academia and the private sector. Hennessy has seen the process from both startups and academia and it is worth listening to him balance the need for hardcore long term research along with fast-moving product development. This is a guy that gets that you need fundamental advances like the microprocessor or the Internet before you can have a vibrant ecosystem of startups commercializing it— and he's adamant that the Stanford ecosystem still has it going on.

Or to put it another way, as Marc Andreessen said to Charlie Rose: "each new platform enables a new layer of innovation, just like the pervasiveness of PCs with GUIs opened the door for the web browser and the commercialization of the Internet." Marc talks a mile a minute, a trait which I often associate with people trying to sound smarter than they are, but in his case he's got the goods— and his ridiculously opinionated views on just about everything (i.e., "the iPhone has been beamed in from five years in the future," or "Twitter is our new realtime electronic nervous system") make it one of the best Charlie Rose interviews ever.

In the middle of this absolute economic meltdown, what these two valley guys share that I think makes the west coast special in a way that the east coast just is not, is an unbridled sense of optimism that seems to make each almost manic when considering the sense of possibility engendered technology's march forward. I've been to far too many events as of late where people claim that the software industry is now "a mature business," or that the "Web 2.0 party is now officially over—" usually right before they start talking about some crazy shit like buying gold coins or getting a plot in Costa Rica to retire to, so it is particularly good to be reminded by these two of why we're all in this business to begin with.

Maybe it really is just about the weather!